randomly chaotic and frequently mundane

By Gregory Maguire.  I just finished it yesterday.  I think that means I’ve read all of Maguire’s books centered around classic fairy tales/stories.  I loved Wicked, although I expected to hate it.  Confessions of an Ugly StepSister was almost as good as Wicked, but not quite, and Lost was interesting if not phenomenal.  Mirror Mirror didn’t seem worth reading, to be honest.

But Son of a Witch… this was almost as good as Wicked.  It picks up where Wicked left off, and tells the story of Liir (Elphaba’s son) and his growing up and making a statement of his own.  There were some parts that seemed a little formulaic, but for the most part it was an interesting yarn and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now I’m onto a novel by Joe Hill… who happens to be one of Stephen King’s sons.  No, I’m not expecting literary genious just because of who his parents are… but I thought it would be interesting to see his style.

I think Gage is feeling better. He hasn’t thrown up yet today, which is a good thing. He did wet the bed last night, which he hardly ever does. He took his pants and underwear off and then came in my room and got in bed with me. I can’t blame him — I wouldn’t want to sleep in a puddle either. He threw up 3 times yesterday, but wasn’t lethargic or anything. A little warm, but he’s not warm today. I’m so glad he’s learned to throw up in the toilet… mostly.

So last night the computer got quite warm and then switched off. I can’t get it to start up again. That can’t be good. At least I have this older computer to work with, but I have an interview with Alpine Access this week, and this computer isn’t going to cut it. Isn’t that typical? I’ve been trying to find a job, now I’ve got an interview for something that would be ideal and don’t have a computer I can use to do it. If I could afford it I’d take it up the road to the Geek Squad (I’m sorry, just the name makes me giggle… I imagine walking in and seeing half of the cast of Beauty and the Geek).

At one point Woody and I talked about setting up an e-Shop selling sterling silver jewelry and a few hand made jewelry items (customizable). We browsed a few sites to set up the shop on, to get an idea of how much we’d need to make each month to cover expenses and such. But the thing that always gave me pause was the setting up of the shopping cart. At the time there wasn’t any shopping cart software that I could find. So I would have had to set it up myself. I’m good, but I’m not that good. Now that there’s software available maybe I can work on setting up an e-Shop in the near future. I used to be pretty good at making various wedding items, photo albums and brooms especially.  It would be nice to eventually be able to set up an e-Shop selling custom/personalized wedding items to brides to be.  The perfect wedding album or broom or shower favors to the maid of honor.  With the help of AshopCommerce.com to set things up, of course.

My little baby angel is sick.  His tummy is not happy apparently.  He threw up a couple of times today.  He’s a little pale and a touch warm, too.  I gave him one of his pepto tablets, and I’m trying to get him to wind down and go to sleep.  It’s not working.  The cats keep coming by and stirring him up again.  I’m about to put them in Tigers crate if they don’t knock it off.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been letting Gage fall asleep on the couch and transferring him to bed.  He falls asleep between 9 and 9:30, and when I move him to his bed he wraps his arms around my neck and cuddles into me real close.  It’s so sweet it just melts my heart.  The other night he curled up against me on the couch and covered us both with a blanket and then fell asleep like that.  It was so comfy I almost just passed out right there on the couch with him.  I might have if he didn’t have school in the morning.

I’ve been to a few interesting seminars relating to employment and finances. I wouldn’t mind at some point attending a good Wealth Expo. They’re chock full of information that can come in handy if you’re really determined to apply it. There’s an expo scheduled in New York, sponsored by MyWallSt.net: Your Financial Social Network, October 19th thru October 21st. I was looking over the various seminars available, and I think the one that would interest me the most is “Top Five Things to Consider Before You Buy A Franchise.” I believe that people often consider the merits of owning a franchise in an already established company, and that more people think about doing it than actually do it. I know that there’ve been a couple I’ve thought about myself, but I’ve yet to take that particular plunge. I think a seminar of that nature would not only be highly informative, it follows along with something I’ve some interest in.  There are also seminars on various other investments of course, but the franchise seminar is the one that interests me the most.

If you’re in the area and interested in attending, the schedule is: Friday, 10/19: 1 p.m.-6:30 p.m. EDT w/ a cocktail hour to follow, Saturday, 10/20: 9 a.m.-6:30 p.m. EDT w/ a cocktail hour to follow, Sunday, 10/21: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. EDT (no cocktail hour).

Gage is addicted to A New Hope.  To the point that the tape is wearing out.  Of course, these aren’t new tapes.  We got them at a pawn shop 5 or 6 years ago, and it’s the box set of the original theatrical release (digitally remastered) that was released 10 or so years ago.  So definitely not new.

Anytime I’ve tried to put Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi in the VCR he’s ejected the tape and given me A New Hope to put in.  So today I mixed them up, put the wrong movie in each case to see if I could get him to watch Empire or Jedi.  He got home, pulled out A New Hope, looked at it, and then pulled the other two movies out of the cases and put them back in the correct cases.

Now I just need to figure out if he’s actually reading the title on the tapes, or of he’s just memorized the shape of the letters.  Probably the latter, but the former wouldn’t surprise me.  I did manage to get Empire in the VCR while he wasn’t looking.  When the George Lucas interview started he gave me this look like “Do you really think you fooled me?”

I talked to someone from a local college/trade school last week about possibly registering and all of that. The only issue I have is the financial issue. If I’m going to school, there’s no time to work, which means I’d need to get some kind of financial aid that helps with living expenses. The guy I talked to suggested that I look into a Pell Grant at fafsa online. Apparently they consider fafsa online to be the best site for information and applying for financial aid. The site was mentioned to me by a couple of schools over the past several months, actually. I would need to discuss class schedules more in-depth before going ahead with something like this, though. After all, I couldn’t attend class on Fridays unless they provide day care. I’d also have to see if I could figure out the bus system well enough to get there in time and get home before Gage. It’s certainly worth looking into. I just need bus fare and the guts to just get on the bus and see if I make it where I’m going.  Well, that and deciding what it is I want to study.  After all of that is accomplished, I can go to fafsa online and apply for financial aid to help get me through it.

Browsed the classifieds today.  Marked all the possibles and looked up the locations.  All too far.  I wish they put addresses in the classifieds.  That would make things easier.  I tried to make sense of the bus system here, and I’m confuzzled.  I know “it’s just a bus system,” but it really makes no sense to me.

In other news, I just need to make the wings for Gage’s Halloween costume.  I’ll probably start gluing later today.  Gonna glue layers of newspaper together to make the wings out of, with some wire to support.  Then I have some black crepe fabric that I can stitch over that to make em black.  I wanna get some of those glowing neckaces to glue to the wings for the bones, or some glow in the dark paint to just paint the lines.

Tiger almost jumped over the fence the other day.  Him and the neighbors dog (a GORGEOUS German Shepherd) keep trying to get at each other.  On one hand it’s kind of amusing.  On the other hand, it’s a little frustrating.

He put the hood to his costume on a little while ago and was walking around with it on.  Very cute, I must say.  It fits pretty good, although it looks a little odd with his Avalanche jersey, lol.  Once I get the bottom hem on the shirt done, he can start wearing the shirt and pants to school and stuff, too.  Which will be nice.

Had a groovy chat with Rob today.  It was nice having a friend to talk to, that’s for sure.  I miss having that regularly, but I’ll take occasionally over never.

I’ve been reading this book by Jack Higgins, Dark Justice.  It’s pretty slow so far.  I’m giving it another 50 pages to grab my attention then I’m moving on.  My “They made that into a movie” bookbox arrived home about a week ago, so I’ve got some interesting stuff in there to read.  Some I’ve already read, so I’ll find places to release those.  Some I haven’t read but would really like to, like Chocolat and Little Women.

Nobody like tooth pain. As a matter of fact, I’m of the mind that tooth and foot pain are the worst kinds there are. Especially bad is tooth pain from a broken tooth, lost filling or broken crown. Can you imagine? I can, I’ve had it happen. True story, I was eating a pack of now & laters candy. Why? Because my mom kept telling me not to. “You’ll rip your filling out” were her exact words, I kid you not. Most kids I knew just put them in their mouths and sucked on them. Not me, I had to chew. I couldn’t resist the impulse, actually. Sure enough, mom was right. I ripped out one of my fillings. YOWZA! That was pain like I have never imagined in my life. Teeth are living things and don’t like to be hurt any more than fingers, let me tell you. I got a hearty “I told you so” from mom when I showed her the filling in the candy, and then I had to wait 2 weeks (in pain, no less) before the dentist could see me and replace the filling. Having a product like Dentemp OS around back then would have been helpful. It’s a dental repair compound that can be used to replace lost fillings and temporarily cement loose crowns. The tooth that I ripped the filling out of eventually had to receive a root canal. I wonder if it could have been prevented if I’d had some kind of temporary dental repair when the filling came out. After all, we’re talking about 2 weeks with a gaping hole in my tooth and no decline in the amount of sugar I consumed. Even 2 good brushings a day couldn’t prevent all the sugar damage that the tooth probably received.

I got some cross stitch books from someone on paperbackswap.  One of them has these “Rose-Petal Place” characters in it.  They looked familiar, and when I read the inside cover of the book I realized why.  Perhaps others from the 80’s will remember this:

Long ago on a
Day in May
A young girl
Had to go away
And leave her
Lovely garden fair
With no one to tend it
No one to care
So the child cried
And her teardrops fell
It was as though
They cast a spell
For they touched the petals
Of a rose
And magically
So the story goes
The rose and others
Came alive
Now it’s here they live
And here they thrive
In Rose-Petal Place…
There’s a garden of
Love to share.

It was a series of dolls, as I recall, that lead to a short lived cartoon.  Each of the dolls (dressed up as a flower) had a little crystal teardrop on their petals.  I never had one, but I think my sister did.  Anyway, this book has patterns to do the flower/dolls in cross stitch, and they’re really pretty.  I was contemplating whether it would be worth it to do some of these and sell them on Etsy.com.  They’d make very pretty decoration for a girls bedroom, as long as it’s a girly theme.  Not sure if it’d be worth it though.  I’m contemplating.  Cross stitch supplies are relatively cheap, so it’s really about the time that it would take to make them.  But they’d be more likely to sell at Etsy than eBay, since Etsy is specifically for crafts and hand made items.

Apparently As The World Turns showed the first gay kiss in daytime television recently. I find it very interesting, not that they did it, but that no one’s done it before now. Daytime television has tackled a lot of relevant issues in the world, besides the normal kidnapping, adultery and murder. Shows have covered AIDS, demonic possession and just about everything else under the sun. Good for As The World Turns, it’s bridge that needed to be crossed. I wish I’d been able to see it.

I never realized how effective a resume on Monster.com could be.  I’ve gotten 3 calls today, along with 2 yesterday with job information.  Unfortunately, all of them require having a vehicle to do the job.  One of them was working for a mobile phone company going to various Best Buy stores in the Denver Metro area educating employees on the features of new phones and making sure that the in store displays are set up properly.  Oh how I wish I had a car.  I could do that, I think.

Mom asked me to send her some of my Noah’s Ark Animal Workshop catalogues so she can give them to co-workers and have Tammy give them to some co-workers.  Apparently they’ve been talking about the animals on the website and stuff and people are interested.  So I’m gonna get those out today and hopefully some of those people will order from me.

Most people enjoy gambling to some degree, whether they dig the occasional trip to the local casinos or they’re online casino fanatics. There are even people out there who make their living by way of gambling, in person or online, and they do pretty well. I knew someone years ago who paid a $500 credit card bill with 1 good hand of online poker. For those who aren’t very familiar with online casinos and which ones are the best for what they want to do, there’s onlinecasinobluebook.com. Not sure what that is? Online Casino Bluebook is a site that gives you information on the best online casinos out there. You can even email them for more info if you’re not sure which casino is best for you. Now that’s what I call service. They have reviews of the casinos to help you along the way, and let you know which ones don’t require downloads, how much they offer in sign up bonus money and even lets you know what devices you can play on (PC, MAC, PDA, mobile, etc). If you’re interesting in online gambling, you would do well to check them out before you get started.

to a less than stellar day.

The Avs played their season opener tonight and it ended in a 4-3 victory.  It was apparently the first win in a season opener for Q, which made me smile.  The victory was nice, giving up a 4-1 lead wasn’t.  I liked some of the new additions to the lineup, they stood out.  Smythe and Hannon were expected, this Hlinka guy, who has entered the league this year at close to my age was great.  Apparently it was Milan Hejduk who gave someone the scouting report on this guy.  Good job Milan.

Now I’m watching the Top Chef Finale — the replay.  The hockey game was more important, he he.   I’ll be off to bed in a little while.

Oh yes, and I started working on Gage’s Halloween costume today.  For fabric, I used my witch costume.  I’ve made pants and a shirt, which he can wear every day as well.  I also made a hood with little pointy black ears.  I just need to make the wings, but I’ve got time for that.  He’s going to be a bat.  For the record… the pants, shirt and hood were all made without a pattern whatsoever.  I’m so proud of myself.