This is cool...

If you have Yahoo Messenger, they have this cool (mostly) free service on it...It's Yahoo Music. You can choose from a bunch of different stations that play streaming music. It's pretty cool...right now my favorite station is the Big Band station. Not sure what it is about music that was playing on radios when my parents were toddlers, but I really enjoy it. I really like The Andrew Sisters, and Nat King Cole...and Ella Fitzgerald...and especially Louie Armstrong...My favorite song has to be "What a Wonderful World". Love that song for some reason. Back when 9-11 happened, when I was still working for WalMart (boo! hiss!!) I was sitting in the front of the store, crocheting little patriotic ribbons to sell for donations to the Red Cross.

So, I'm sitting there, crocheting my little fingers off...terribly sad about the terrorists attacks a few days before, when some guy comes into the store, starts to walk past the table I was at...then he walked back, stuffed two $100 bills into the jar in front of me and refused to take any ribbons for it. The song "What a Wonderful World" was playing right about then...I'd always loved that song before, but I guess seeing some guy just stop, pull out that money and stuff it into the jar made me feel good, and so now when "What a Wonderful World" plays, it just makes me feel better.

Too bad WalMart fired me about 2 weeks later. They panicked because people were not shopping for a couple of months after 9-11...so WM just started to thin their herds of blue vested cattle...guess they needed to do that so they could pay the people in the sweat shops their few pennies a day.

Hope I dont sound too bitter about having worked for WalMart...I still shop there, (they're squeezing out all the other stores in my area) I just wish that the WalMart that just landed in a cornfield near my house had a better craft department...it really sucks...that craft department is only a bit nicer than the one that the Kmart down the street from it used to have (Kmart got rid of their craft departments in the early 90's)

Note to self...

Dont leave valuable crochet patterns printed out on the printer (which is below my desk) because when the dog gets a tummy ache, he gets a serious craving for paper, and a huge urge to turn that paper into homemade confetti.

TinyMonsters (my dog) is feeling better now (hopefully!). We took him to his favorite vet, Dr. Ramm, and he got poked and prodded (Tiny just LOVES Dr. Ramm and will do whatever he wants him to do...things that I cant even get him to do).

It's seriously hilarious to watch a vet tech try to get a urine sample from a dog...at least Tiny's been trained to go on command...all I had to do was tell Tiny to "hurry up", and the vet tech had to scramble to hold a Tupperware container underneath the dog. Wish I'd had a camera.

I'm really impressed with Tiny's vet, which is why I'll drive 6 miles out of my way with a drooling, yapping 95 pound behemoth sitting in the seat behind me. I'll switch to a closer vet when I get a new dog...maybe...not. I'll just get a smaller dog next time. (something I can pick up when it doesnt want to do something)

Got no crocheting done this weekend. Went out with a friend last night in Lincoln...went to Mammoth Hall at UNL (big anthropological museum) and the planetarium. Watched a movie, and then stopped at the Flying J Truck Stop on the way home for french toast. Didnt find out till around midnight (at the truck stop) that my dad had been trying to reach me all night because my dog was ripping up carpet, eating the plant life in the front yard, and puking up said plant life all over the house. Tiny apparently was more than a little ticked off that his favorite human (that would be me) was not home to comfort him during his gastric distress he gets occasionally. Oh well...Dad never believes me when I tell him how crazy the dog gets when he becomes pre-bloat...now maybe he'll understand me the next time I make an executive decision to take Tiny to the Doggy ER ($250 just to walk in the door) to get Tiny checked out.

Trying to save Grandma's crochet pattern stash

I've started to go thru the stash of crochet patterns that my Grandma O'Neil gave me several years before she died. (ok...more than several years...she gave them to me before she was too deep into the Alzheimer's)

Most of the magazines are WorkBasket Magazines. Some of them go back to the 1950s. Some of the retro patterns are probably back in style now. There are also a few Crochet Fantasy magazines (earliest one is from 1984) and my aunt brought me over a few copies of Magic Crochet and Crochet World, along with a few WorkBaskets that she found around the house.

Some of the older magazines are starting to crumble, and a few of the magazines were obviously well used. (I recognized a few patterns as things that Grandma had made for me, my sister, and my cousins)

Since some of the magazines are crumbling into dust, I'm bypassing my usual reluctance to commit copyright violations, and I'm typing some of the patterns into Word and saving them to CD so that I'll have them if the magazines totally crumble. Most of them are printed on cheap acidic paper...it's pretty much a given that they'll disappear in a few years. I'm sure I'll pick one of them up someday, only to have them fall apart like 3,000 year old paper scrolls.

I'm going to buy plastic comic book bags and will be putting each magazine in a separate bag. It wont stop them from crumbling, but it might slow it down a bit.

Some of the patterns that I've already typed up, I've printed off (actually planning on using those patterns fairly soon) and I've put them into some binders. (finally, all those classes in Desktop Publishing are paying off) I've reformatted some things, like bolding some print, and using italics

In the Header and Footer spaces, I've put what magazines I've copied the pattern from...year, issue numbers...

I know it's technically a copyright violation by making copies, but they're only for my own use and I'm not posting them to the internet. I think Grandma would like it that I'm getting some use out of her patterns...it's great to have a nice big stash of patterns to drool over....errr...ummm...browse through.

Bad week.

A few nights ago (monday, I think...) my aunt's dog was attacked INSIDE my aunt's house by a neighbor's dog. My aunt's dog is not doing very well tonight, and might possibly have to be put to sleep this weekend...

The vet is giving the dog a few days and some various medicines to see if she might get better. Judging from what my aunt said tonight, I'm not sure this will have a happy ending.

This is really ticking me off, that my aunt's dog has to suffer because of the carelessness of a neighbor who cant keep their dog under control.

I'm not usually one who would want to hurt a dog, but I really do want to see the neighbor's dog put down if my aunt's dog has to be put to sleep.

As for my crocheting...I havent gotten much done this week, but I did start a new afghan...this one is being done in all white.

Went to the new WalMart SuperCenter that just opened up the street. Their craft department really really really sucks... Hardly any yarn, small amount of fabric. It just didnt impress me at all.

Migraines really suck...

Owwwww...I need some Ibuprofen...my poor widdle head hurts...this is what I get for trying to go to bed early last night...(1230am) I ended up not falling asleep till sometime after 2am, and then had to be up at 745am to take my dad somewhere. I hate migraines...this one is making my entire head and my neck hurt.

On a happier note, I got a new pattern book today... I've now got the instructions on how to crochet Care Bears... Hope I can figure this one out...I know a couple of little girls who seriously love Care Bears.

I'm still working on my patternless sock monkey doll... So far I've got two legs made...I need to find a decent picture of a real sock monkey so I can see what shape the body is supposed to have. At least the legs, arms and tail all have the same basic shape. I know my big problem will be making the mouth and the eyes. I've never been good at embroidery.

Crochet stuffed animals...

I'm still trying to figure out how to do some amigurumi.... I've done some basic stuffed animals before, so I understand the concept of how to make the parts and put them together....I just cant decide what I want to make, or when I do decide what I want to try to make, I just cant get my crochet hook and yarn to cooperate with me.

I wonder if Michaelangelo had the same problem when he was carving David or the Pieta?

I read somewhere once that Michaelangelo wasnt creating the statues, he claimed they were already there in the marble, and he was only releasing them.

I guess it's kind of the same thing when I crochet something...I already know what I want to make, I've got the yarn to make it, I just have to arrange the yarn in a way that it becomes whatever my brain is imagining.

so, anyways, my latest attempt at making an amigurumi is (hopefully) going to look something like a sock monkey (gosh, I really hope so!)

I've already got a leg crocheted (in Red Heart Super Saver Lt. Grey) I dont know if I have enough of the grey yarn to make the entire monkey in the same color, since I'm using up scrap yarn...so it could end up looking kind of strange... My big worry is making the face. I cant embroider, so he might end up a faceless, slightly colorful, strange looking sock monkey. Maybe I'll make him in a Halloween theme...then he can be a FrankenMonkey...

More thoughts about the aftermath of Katrina

I'm sure that everyone is watching what is going on in New Orleans, and will be evaluating just exactly how we (Americans) react to a MAJOR disaster like a Cat4 or Cat5 hurricane hitting a city and wiping it out. You can bet there are people (terrorists) watching what is going on, and they're probably figuring if they can just do enough damage to knock out the infrastructure of a city, that the looters will finish the rest of the job by raping and pillaging the place. I really do hope that every state government is taking note right now of what NOT to do in the case of a disaster...they need to make sure that something like this does not happen anywhere else the next time there's a major disaster like this.

I'm not saying for America to get out of Iraq...I actually support the war, but I do think that we need to keep our National Guard troops on American soil so that we're able to respond a Hell of a lot faster than what's been going on in Louisiana. That's why we have a National Guard, they're here to back up the civillian police force when there are instances of massive civil unrest, and to help mobilize assistance in getting food, water and medical assistance to the people who need it.

They need to place National Guard troops around the places that really need to be protected...like the hospitals (protect them from the looters looking for drugs), the evacuation staging areas (to keep people from rioting when there isnt any room left on the buses), and around the food and water supplies so that it is evenly distributed to the people who need it and not hoarded by the looters and rapists with weapons.

They probably could also start setting up MASH units in easily protected areas to help supplement hospitals in the areas they're taking the sick and injured people to. The sick and injured are going to be a major drain (not their fault) on the cities that they're being evacuated to, if we have MASH units in place, they can help keep the hospitals from being totally overwhelmed.

My dad told me tonight that the author Louis L'Amour said once that three out of five people you pass on the street are savages, they just dont know they're savages yet...it takes a major disaster or an act of civil unrest to bring it out in them. I think that's been proved this week. (I have no way to confirm that L'Amour actually said that...I tried to look it up, but cant find out where it was quoted at)

Now I'm getting really worried.

Spent another day watching FoxNews, and just keep feeling worse and worse about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Watched Shepherd Smith talking to people coming out of the sludge...I'm wondering why someone didnt make up a sign or something, or at least taken a can of spray paint and painted arrows on the pavement to at least show people where to go, rather than let them sit on the waters edge on the interstate, wondering where the Hell their rescuers are.

This really scares me...if New Orleans, a city that's got to be used to at least occasionally having a hurricane pass by it, can be so overwhelmed and so completely unprepared for what has happened (I'm not passing blame) then what will happen if some disaster of biblical proportions happens somewhere else? (like where I live)

It shows me that we can never be prepared for something this horrible to happen.

Also saw on the news that people in muslim countries are gleefully dancing in the streets, happy as clams that Katrina did such damaged and killed a bunch of Americans. Hopefully these people will NEVER have any huge catastrophe happen where they'll need America's help.

It seems like the rest of the world hates America, but who do they run to when a tsunami slams into their shores, or when a 8.7 Richter scale earthquake knocks down their mud brick houses...or when a dictator invades their countries and decides to turn it into it's 19th Province. They ask America to pull their asses out the fire/water. And no matter what the political tensions might be, we gladly give them our money and our assistance and help them. We're one of the most powerful countries in the world...we're generous to a fault when people need our help, but when we need help, the silence is so deafening that you can hear the pin drop from 6,000 miles away.