Her belly is a TENNIS BALL. Again, so cute I really just can hardly stand it.

The free patern is on Ravelry or can be found HERE.

I doubt I have a reader in the world, other than mom, and Babs, ok, and my husband.

That is something that I have been made acutely aware that I never posted!  I done got married on October 3rd.

It was a great day and this would be my favorite picture:

Ok, seriously, maybe this is my favorite picture:

Here is the link to our photo album.

I am constantly asked, almost every day the same question: “SOOOOOOO, How is married life?”

Now what am I supposed to say about that?

After four months, all I can think of  is “WELLLLLLL, it is a lot like shackin’.”

Blank stare, “Pardon???”

“I said, we like the Colonel’s Chicken”.

No, I didn’t actually say this.

Ok, yes, of course I did.

Shakes head vigorously from side to side.

Nods in affirmation knowingly.

I think I may need a nap.

What else?  Well, there are babies falling out of the sky in my world, not me, but there are people having little ones left and right. And I love it, I love it so much. Not much time for knitting, though, my world is busy. I tell the husbeast that the house is almost three times bigger than the apartment and cleaning it is SUCH a chore. I don’t think it is possible for all rooms to be clean at one time, it is just inconceivable!

That is all for now.

Almost.

You see, I have a beef with this guy:

Apparently I can sleep through just about anything. Trains, cars, sirens, horns honking. I am a sound sleeper.  But the wayward chickens that our neighbor just allows to roam about wake me at 4:30 or 5:00 every day now. EVERY STINKIN DAY.

No one told them about daylight savings time either. It is slowly driving me insane because, folks, I like to sleep. Can sleeping be a hobby? I love that delicious little 10 minutes every morning after I hit “snooze.” Sometimes I like it so much, I do it 3 times.

I’ve never killed anything before, but this guy has it coming. I rolled over the other day and asked Jeff where the gun was. Not that I could actually hit anything I shot at, not that shooting something is even an option for me, but I have rooster murder on the brain lately.

I hear grilled rooster is tasty.

I’m the worst “country girl” ever.

Now, I had requested a full refund, $75 boot removal and the $20 parking fee as I felt I was wrongly accused and held hostage for an hour. He wouldn’t refund the full $95 but will be sending me a check for the boot removal. I’m satisfied, I suppose. Although I spent an additional $15 for certified mail, and numerous days spent fuming over the matter, but it was the principle after all, not the money. Hopefully the check will come and clear and we’ll be done with it. But I wonder, is not taking them to court allowing the company to proceed in this manner? Do they count on the fact that most people, unlike myself, normally just get on with their lives. But no, I had to have my justice.

The moral of this story, children, is don’t park in a parking lot- use a deck whenever possible. Push button. Get ticket. Pay to leave, it is that simple.

Jeff and I visited a convention in Atlanta on Sunday, September 5^th. We parked in the Harris Street Lot run by EPS (Empire Parking Services) on the corner of Harris Street and Peachtree Center. We paid $20 fee at approximately 2:00 PM for the privilege of parking adjacent to the convention. That pass was not to expire until 3:00 AM on September 6th. When we left the convention at midnight, we found TWO boots on our car. We called the technician, he said we were booted somewhere around 7:30 or 8:00 PM that evening.  When we asked why, as our time had obviously not expired, the technician claimed we moved our car, yet could not provide any evidence of any kind other than the statement that the “hood felt hot.”

We came to Atlanta for the sole purpose of visiting the convention. We can create a time line of all of our activities through receipts and bills of sale. We were within three blocks of the lot the entire day. Further, with nearly 40,000 people in attendance on this date and people circling for parking spaces, it would have been statistically impossible to move the vehicle and return it to stall number 64 within the time period he described. We challenged him and he told us to call the police but he was not going to remove the boot. Once the officer arrived, the technician changed his story and said the wheels were hot, indicating the car had been driven off the lot. This is probably the stupidest thing ever uttered by a human being ever. It was a hot day, I’m guessing that just about anything sitting in the sun would have felt “hot”.

The officer corroborated our claim, it was glaringly obvious that we had not moved the vehicle all day long.  The most compelling evidence is utterly disgusting, but it was the accumulation of bird droppings on all of the cars parked along the edge of the lot. If we had moved the car, the windshield would have needed to be cleaned to even see out of it safely. But no, it reflected the same amount of filth as all the surrounding cars that had been there for the past 10-12 hours.

The next representative of the parking company that arrived on the scene said that it was a private lot, he would not remove the boot, proof or no proof, and we were free to sue them. What an a$$hole! We filed a police report and I paid the additional $75 fee under extreme duress. So far I have not been able to dispute the charge with my credit card company as I willingly gave the card and paid for the service of boot removal, which is exactly what I got. What a scam, right?

What is truly irritating is that in my research I have found that this sort of predatory and unlawful booting is not only very common with EPS but the police can’t do anything about it! Also, here is the clincher, someone has to actually hire this company to provide lot services, and that is normally an adjacent business.  So who employs them? Is it the Hotels? The mall?

You can read more of the same sort of complaint here,and here and here.  There is even one where this company booted people of color and let all the “Americans” go free. So on top of being liars and con artists, they are bigots too.  Isn’t that just lovely?

It really isn’t the money so much as the time that I was being illegally held against my will that gets to me. Booting should be illegal, plain and simple. A private company should not be allowed to act as judge and jury without any monitoring, the customer has zero rights here.  (See more on the topic and how it is a violation of 4th Amendment rights on www.fighttheboot.com)

I will only park in a deck from now on. You can’t be accused of cheating a deck. Push button, get ticket, arm goes up, pay for your car on exit. Repeat as necessary.

Oh, and while you are in Atlanta, be on the look out for this scumbag:

“Michael” or “Brian”- pudgy, bald, lying SOB.

I had them made into our guestbook. It is bitchin’.

I think I’m coming down with something icky in my throat.   Feh.

Why not.

There is never a shortage of cats, apparently.

This is a rescue kitty that went to live with my mother earlier this year. Someone just threw her out at the Walgreen’s in town. (Sometimes I really don’t understand human behavior.) Her name is Miss Emma Jean, and she apparently rules the house.

I love it, she’s all “What’s up? Yeah, that’s right, I’m on the table. You gonna do something about it? Give it your best shot”

That’s okay, I think she approves.

Oh, in other news… I found my knitting bag. Behind the dollhouse under the mountain of unopened boxes.

I miss my toaster.  I want waffles.

Okay. So because that is all I have to say about that, I will continue broadcasting with some very interesting information that you may not have known about my cat.

This is Daisy Fuentes.

She is our cat and she only speaks Spanish, which can be difficult sometimes when things get lost in translation. Like “Daisy, per favor, please don’t sleep on the counter.”  She misunderstands.  She was a barn kitty. Jeff found her- she had to be fed with a little eyedropper and she used to look like this:

Let me be clear, we were NOT SUPPOSED TO KEEP HER. But somewhere along the way, I lost control of the situation- as I am sometimes prone to do- and she stayed. Now she is sorta funny lookin’ now so we have to keep her. Good thing we have a bigger house.  She also likes to do stuff like this:

Weird cat. She doesn’t like to be held or for you to pet her. She pets herself. Simply leave your hand or foot still and she does things the way she likes to when it is totally her idea, she doesn’t like to be told what to do.  Sound familiar? I don’t know anyone like that at all.

So that is the story of Daisy Fuentes. How she came into our lives, stuck around, caused some trouble and inspired us to brush up on our espanol.

… Our house it has a crowd, There’s always something happening and it’s usually quite loud. Our mum she’s so house-proud, Nothing ever slows her down and a mess is not allowed.

Our house, in the middle of our street- Our House, in the middle of our…

Currently we’re painting, shifting around sister’s things (oh joy) and waiting for the permits to start the renovation maybe this week???

More to follow.