See? See- that’s just the fun just waiting to happen. Yes that is my bra. It doesn’t fit either. But it is the best I can do with only a few hours notice. My Mamama would say I needed a “pin.”

The Christmas decorations in the background are courtesy of my mother who said “no, you can’t skip decorating this year just because you don’t feel like it.” Well way to piss on my bah-humbug party. So now I have two trees. Both dinky. One new one considerably larger than the last. (Thanks Momma.)

So she did the decorating thing on Thursday while I sat by (and waved) from the couch.  I’ll have you know I didn’t just sit on my ass, no, I also took care of that wine surplus problem that our country is currently having, seriously people, I can’t drink it all by my lonesome.

I went to the Knitterz Christmas party today too. They are such fun gals (and one awesome dude). Best part is that I got to keep the handspun yarn Shari made for the gift exchange– not from any strategy of course but because after years and years, I’ve finally perfected my pout. (I do think I might have cried if it had gotten stolen during the white elephant swap.) In fact, I’m possibly the worst strategerizer ever (oh, other than George Bush…) And I ate some sweets today! Lord have mercy, I was bouncing off the freakin’ walls as I tried to find a last minute date tonight. I had enough raw sugar to induce a diabetic coma-ginger snaps, fudge, ricotta cake, a little debbie gingerbread man, half a petits fours and two chocolate truffles. To say I am a bit wired would be an understatement.

On that note, have a fun night. Will report on the hob-nobbery and elbow rubbing, if indeed there is anything to report at all!

“Thank you for your email.  I apologize that you have received a damaged issue.  I will have a replacement sent out to you.  It should arrive within 7-10 days.”

…and then the generic (from RCA):

“Thank you for your inquiry concerning the design and quality of your product.     Consumer satisfaction is very important to us and we continually strive to provide the best consumer electronics products available. We regret you are not pleased with your product. We invest substantial resources in market research to develop products that meet consumer needs and expectations.     We are continually finding ways to improve reliability, designs, product quality, and professional service.     Your comments are appreciated, and we thank you for taking your valuable time to contact us.”

Well, at least customer satisfaction is important to them and my comments are appreciated.

I’ll sleep well tonight knowing that. And I’m sure Mamama will rest assured that her money was well spent a year ago on that crappy t.v. because they’ve invested substantial resources to meet her consumer needs.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

I believe it isn’t fair being mad at someone and not telling them why and I believe this to be equally true when dealing with giant corporate monsters too. You don’t get to have a beef if you aren’t willing on giving someone some opportunity to do the right thing, and honestly, if I were a business owner I would like to know if there were a complaint. I like to take care of the little guy. This time the little guy is my grandmother. I’ll let this nastygram speak for itself.

Dear Customer Service Representative,

This is a general complaint regarding a television purchased by my grandmother in May of 2007 (receipt attached.) This summer (around July of 2008) the television started turning itself on in the middle of the night. She could no longer control the volume even when attempting to do so manually on the set. Shortly thereafter the television up and died, and at a time that was just past the expiration of its warranty.

This was a moderately priced unit at around one hundred and seventy-five ($175.00) dollars from, presumably, a reputable manufacturer. It was not by far the least expensive item available at this particular retailer and it should have certainly lasted her longer than one year. Unfortunately in the world we live in today it would cost more to repair this television set rather than to replace it so we will probably recycle the defective machine and my grandmother has since purchased a new set which is, obviously, not an RCA product.

I believed it to be the right thing to do to report this issue in some way. I will not be buying and/or recommending the purchase of your RCA products in the future to any friends or family.

Thank you for your time.

Ok. Now for the nasty gram to the publisher of my favorite crafting magazine (sent via email) also on this date. (I’m a little bit more proud of this one, probably because it was my experience but whatever.)

Dear Craft Magazine Staff,

Yesterday I was ecstatic to pluck the newest issue of craft from my mailbox. To my horror I found when I flipped it over, underneath the pristine plastic outer casing there was a mangled copy inside.

The bottom corners from about page 137 and onward are smeared and ripped and a chunk is missing. It is as if some large metal beast took a bite out of my beloved Craft. This is probably something that occurred during the printing and production at the time that the pages were bound or collated, but still, it is mangled. I worry for other Craft subscribers that may be dealing with a certain level of disappointment that mirrors mine.

I am saddened. I so look forward to each quarterly issue and if I wanted my copies mangled, I’d let my friend with a two-year-old and a proclivity for reading while in a bubble bath borrow my magazine. But I don’t. She has no such privilege as I keep every immaculate copy on my book case with all my other books on crafting. I frowned as I quickly peeked at the damage to determine whether I could live without the directions for those final projects or if I could simply “figure it out” but no, of course I would be most interested in the holiday card ornament on page… ??? Um. Mangled.

I am a sad, sad crafter now. At $35 for an annual quarterly subscription this is an expensive magazine, a little luxury I am afforded due to the fact that this is a gifted subscription from my mother. I would really appreciate an undamaged copy.

Please advise as to how I should proceed and thank you for your time.

I’ll let you all know if I receive any responses. Super Spazz! Fighting for the consumer, the little guy and little old ladies every where!

I’m just beat. Work has been extra worky lately and I may have pushed my body to its limit last night with the worky stuff and my new work out regime, and my body just said no. No more. Not. gonna. do. it. We’re tired.

I’m just glad I didn’t take anyone out on my way down. I believe I was flailing when said downward stumble happened. I know my feet became entwined somehow, and I was surprised to see my shoelaces weren’t untied. Can’t even blame the shoes, it was the damn feet! While I was down there, for a brief moment, I thought of just staying there. Y’all just run around me today, kay? I’ll just hold down this patch of carpet so it doesn’t get away. Groovy.

Nah, I got up, made jazz hands and kept on going.

I’m mostly teasing. Jen rocked. Because she is a culinary rock star you know. Not many in the world so yes, I’m proud.

Of course I do like cake. Making them, not eating them. And reading about making them. Oh, and watching shows about making them.  Ace of Cakes is still my guilty pleasure show on the food network, mostly because I like to watch them flip their shit out over deadlines and cakes falling apart and then the stoner/cake designer/fix-it-man “Geoff” swoops in with his monotone voice and his bag of tricks and manages to always save the day just barely before the bride/client/celebrity/birthday boy walks in. Or it could be edited to heighten t.v. drama, I dunno.

Now it is getting truly exiting. Brace yourselves, we have a burgeoning head of lettuce (about three bites worth) happily growing alongside some cilantro, which is also flourishing, I’ll have you know.

Now for my personal favorite… drumroll please… our “vegetable.” Somewhere along the way this plant lost its tag, but from the bar code we have deciphered that, at maturity, we will have a crop of “vegetable.”

Good to know. The center green thing that is positively thriving is a lonely refugee patio tomato, of THAT I can be certain (it had a tag.) However, the two spindly things on the outside, well, that can be anyone’s guess, but by the way that they are creeping, I’m going to hypothesize that maybe… possibly… they could be a bean of some sort? An Okra plant? Won’t this be fun? I’ll be sure to take a photographic essay of our journey together –so stay tuned.

Now for your daily dose of eye candy. I merged two birthday gifts today in a most delightfully brilliant way (um thank you, thank you very much). First, some really cute glittery rock star decals with my equally rocking, slicker-than-snot sewing machine- wanna know how I know it is rockin? Take a gander:

What, what?

Now from the side:

Boo-ya! NOW I’m ready to roll!

Fwiends. We went to Ichiban on Friday night, sushi and martinis followed by Sex and the City, it doesn’t get much better than that. I loves my girls (aren’t they pretty?) we don’t get to do this very often so it made for an even more special evening.

I haven’t knat a stitch in over a week. Or had any wine, which I hear has medicinal purposes so now would be the time to indulge. I DID have a beer or two last night when I went to the BON JOVI concert in Atlanta (but that was because I couldn’t figure out how to open the wine that was in the suite.)

Yes, you heard me correctly, we were seated in the CLUB LEVEL BOX suite thingies. My glorious mother scored some tickets from a business associate for box seats at the Phillips Arena so she, my BFF Rachel and I all went for some girly fun. Let me tall you, the BOX was the way to go. I’m so glad we got there first so we could geek out and be totally and completely uncool about how pimped out our digs were. There was nummy, nummy food and a refrigerator full of beer and wine and water and all sorts of stuff. But the concert, the concert was beyond amazing. The band puts on one heck of a show and Jon Bon- well, he flirted shamelessly with 20,000 people last night. Every time he smiled I became moist in- places. So my ubercold was put on hold- which might be the reason for my backsliding today- but it was totally worth it. Can I again tell you how much I love Mr. Bon Jovi?

I mean, I know I’m in a serious committed relationship (blah, blah) and he has been married to his high school sweetheart for, like, ever (blah, blah, blah) but for really really, I have some real and passionate LOVE for this man.

He is pretty, no?

Nomnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom. (Much love to Nicole, I love this new noise and am using it as my new yummy-nummy-nummy expression, thank Anna-Banana for allowing me to borrow the term from her.)

Ok, so, what was I writing about? Oh yeah, I’m still sick (and it was totally worth it) and I’m not knitting a damn thing (which sucks) so, what else… Oh YES!- one of my favorite bloggers at Shut Up, I’m Counting is having a contest (part of which is to give advice to her lovely offspring about to turn 17) so go and check her out.

Life is overall very, very, good right now. I’ve been very busy, but that hard working exhaustion is a good thing. Been cooking a bunch, crafting a bunch, hanging with lots of new (and old) friends a bunch, pretty darn happy.

Speaking of friends, I went to a wedding for a friend last summer, he just sent me this:

Now if that isn’t a Kodak-chocolate-covered-happy moment with sprinkles on top, then I just don’t know what is! I’m going to meditate for a moment. Ahhhhh. I loves my man.

Have a lovely day folks!

On Friday we went to Chow Baby, an awesome restaurant in Atlanta, for Olaf‘s birthday. It is a stir fry bar- you go through and get all your stuff- veggies, noodles, sauces and meat and they stir fry it for you. The trick is to try a little at a time so you can go through more than once (it is all you can eat for $11.99) I followed a recipe the first time then went through “free style” the second time. It was awesome and so worth the trip to celebrate our super fly friend turning 31.

On Saturday, after some feverish knitting with my ladies, I went over to Rachel and Caleb’s for some much needed, drama-free camaraderie.  It was a Mexican potluck- and so awesome. We may start doing this once a month it was such a good time- I got to see some very old friends and make some new ones too(maybe next time we will actually get to playing some games!) We played with all the babies present- it seems everyone is squeezing out offspring right now- it sure makes for some fun discussions to walk in on!

And today- I did my taxes (all by myself thank you very much) and have cast on two successfully swatched projects! Oh, and I didn’t mention the very best part, here is the aforementioned EYE CANDY:

Yes, that would be some Kool-Aid dyed, self-striping (God willing) sock yarn. I followed this tutorial. Jeff has already had to help me through some tangling issues and I promised him I would not attempt to put this into a ball without his help no matter how confident I am that I won’t tangle it, because naturally, I’m a very skilled yarn tangler. (He takes such good care of me.)

So, I’m ready to face the week, and good thing too, we have a BIG event at work that I need to be on the ball for. Heck, I don’t think I’ll even need a Benadryl to help me sleep tonight!