I have been doing more crafty stuff lately and finally made my first sale from my Etsy shop today, yay!

If you have never checked out the Alchemy section of Etsy, it is very interesting to peruse. On the site they describe the Alchemy section like this:

In an historical sense, Alchemy is the pursuit of transforming common metals into valuable gold. In an Etsy sense, Alchemy is the pursuit of transforming your creative ideas and designs into tangible items.

Alchemy is a space on Etsy where buyers can post requests for custom items. Sellers then bid on the opportunity to make the item and win the sale. It's your opportunity to collaborate with a crafter or artisan to get exactly what you're seeking. Buyers can even make private requests to a specific seller within a shop.

In my own words I would describe it as a place to list a description of what you want and then take bids from those who can create it. There are some very mundane things listed, and then there are some really strange ones such as the one I found last night for a resin poo pendant. Yes, that is right, a pendant made of real poo encased in resin. Click onthe screen shot below to enlarge so you can read the listing for yourself.

So what do you think of that? Craziness, huh? Here are my latest creations:

Today we volunteered at the Kennedy Space Center All-American Picnic as we have for the past two years. We represent the poodle rescue there by hanging out with some dogs and talking to people about adopting. Ramona and Annabel came with us to be spokespoodles for the event. We had the usual group of volunteers, me and Andy and the other couple that does this event with us each year, plus there was a new volunteer who brought two of her foster dogs with her.

One of the foster dogs had a really bad day. It started out fine, but after a couple of hours of overstimulation from the crowds and all of the happenings around him, he got grumpy and snarly. You can see in the picture above that my purse was hanging on the back of the chair I was sitting in. Well, the grumpy dog was being walked behind me and came up and peed right on my purse. Shortly thereafter his foster mom took him home, which was probably a good thing. I didn't mind much about the purse- I washed it in the sink in Woolite after we got home, so there was no harm done. He's a dog, they don't know any better.

The necklaces went over well with my cousin's little girls. They all had big smiles on their faces when I gave them to them. Oh and they are just precious, beautiful little girls.

Pam and her husband and the girls spent the day yesterday touring the space center, and it was exceptionally crowded due to spring break and the fact that Endeavour was landing last night. They kept the visitor's center open later than usual and they didn't get out of there till almost 8 o'clock last night. Still, we really wanted to see them and they were leaving on a cruise in the morning so we met them and hung out for a couple of hours in the restaurant at the hotel. Shortly after they got there we heard the double sonic boom from the orbiter returning home. The little girls were impressed, I think.

I was really glad we went to meet them, even though it was late. They were lots of fun and the girls were so sweet and funny. The middle one kept begging to go in the pool, but it was dark outside and coldish. It was so good to see Pam and Alfred and meet the girls. We stayed out past ten o'clock and didn't get too much sleep last night, but we didn't mind. I would love for them all to come back and visit, especially if we have another family day at work so the girls could see the space center up close. I think they would really have a ball.

Tomorrow evening we are meeting my cousin Pam and her husband and three little girls for dinner. They will be in town briefly before they sail off on a cruise and it will be very nice to see them. I haven't seen Pam in ages, and she is a ton of fun.

I made three identical little necklaces for her girls (you know how little girls are, you have to give them all the same thing or risk squabbles). The photos are sucky because I can't get any decent light to take pictures by now that it is dark, but you can pretty much get the idea. If you were a little girl would you like a necklace like one of these? They are all made of glass with sterling silver clasps. I thought it would be nice to give them a little gift to remember their visit by.

This week is going to be a busy but fun one. Tonight Andy and I are got dressed up fancy for the company's annual big awards event at the Radisson in Cape Canaveral. We get to go every year due to my position on the awards board. They put on a good show and I was happy to see that several of the nominations I wrote or rewrote extensively were chosen as winners. It is a big challenge for me to be able to write the top award winning nominations. I guess that I figure if I can't be the one to win the awards, at least I can make sure they go to deserving people.

A friend of mine from work who has been out on medical has been sending me some email about a horrendous local dog cruelty case, because she knows what a dog lover I am. The emails gave a brief synopsis of the story, where a local woman starved her dog to death. The email said the dog was a German Shepherd named Ella. I remembered a white German Shepherd named Ella from Ramona's puppy training classes, but it couldn't be the same one. Still something nagged at me about it.

It was the same one. I looked up the story on the internet, and there in the photos was the girl I remembered from class, and Ella, the poor dog that had been Ramona's classmate. Although the news reports stated that Ella was two years old, she was actually only about Ramona's age, even a little younger, about a year old or so. The pictures from the girl's MySpace page attest to that also, showing Ella at three weeks old and the date on the photo as 2/18/2007. Here is the news story; click on story to read from original site:

I can't believe it. It seems so strange that someone that bothered to take their puppy to training classes would turn around only months later and willfully starve it to death. But she did. Another article on the story found here, talks about how she had no remorse and has a screenshot of her MySpace page, (which has since been taken down) with photos of her and Ella. One of the comments I read online from someone that used to work with her is especially disturbing:

"Frankly this lady makes me sick to my stomach. She use to work at the same business as I do. She lived very close to work and even walked Ella over to meet us one day on her lunch break. I don't know if anyone knows what else she had done to this poor, sweet dog. Back in the fall, she was let go by our employer. Thinking she was a nice girl, I tried to keep in touch with her by MySpace. Although we never talked after she left I did occasionally check her blogs. I read on her MySpace page that she tied the dog to her front door by its leash because it was barking. Due to this STUPID action, the leash got wrapped around Ella's leg and caused a lot of damage. The dog had to have it's leg removed because of it. I regret not turning her into authorities then and am wondering what story she gave the vet for the accident. I would think if the vet knew of these actions they would have notified someone as well."

I wrote a letter to the Assistant State Attorney responsible for filing charges for this case, asking for her to file felony charges. Anyone that is interested in writing to her can do so at the following address:

Jennifer Gill
Assistant State Attorney
2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Bldg. D

Viera, Florida 32940
 


Reference: State of Florida vs. Christine Dawn Abrams, Case No. 05-2008-CF-020434

The next hearing was scheduled for April 24th, but was canceled and has not yet been rescheduled. When I find the name of the judge that will be hearing this case I will write to him as well. I hope she will get the maximum penalty of five years and a $5,000 fine. Actually, that seems a bit kind for what she did.

Doesn't it make you ill to know that there are people out there like this, and that you may even know them?

My long time blog buddy Mike tagged me with the following:

Post 10 random things about yourself- Choose five people to tag and a reason you chose them and make sure to tell them- Don't tag the person who tagged you

After so many years of blogging these things get more and more difficult to do, because I feel like I have already told you guys everything. Let me think. I am going to have to go back quite a way to come up with these.

1. When I was little and we had a TV with no remote control, my dad would tell me to turn the TV up "a hair's breadth." For years and years I thought he was saying "a hare's breath" and I wondered why a rabbit's breathing had anything to do with it.

2. For some reason, I thought that there was a trolley on the back of a penny for quite a long time. It turns out it is the Lincoln Memorial (duh). I have no idea why I thought it was a trolley. Stoopid.

3. The directions that I would take as far as my career were all foreshadowed by poster contests from grade school. When I was in sixth grade, I won a patriotic poster contest. The theme that year was "freedom" and my entry was called "The Wings of Freedom." My poster featured drawings I made of the Wright Flyer, a U.S. Airmail plane, a WWII plane, and the Space Shuttle Challenger, which we had just lost earlier that year. Strangely my career followed the progression on that poster: I started out as an aircraft mechanic and then moved to the space program. The really odd thing is that I won another poster contest in first grade. It was a poster contest for pedestrian safety week, and I drew a little girl whose ball had rolled out in the street. She had stopped and asked an adult to go and get her ball. And such my career has followed this early cue as well: I am in school getting a degree in Occupational Safety and Health. Hmmm.

4. I have had a dirty mouth since I was very little. One day while driving around town with me in my carseat in the back, my dad honked the car's horn at someone. From the back of the car, little three year old me piped up, "Asshole!" My vocabulary has only gotten worse since then.

5. When I was about four, I used to sleep with every one of my toys and books in my bed so none would get jealous.

6. Middle school was the worst time of my life. I still think middle school girls are evil little bitches.

7. My sister and I used to fight a lot, but we did share some good times playing with toads and roly-polys. We were two little weirdos. The toads that were misfortunate enough to wander into our yard would be subjected to much torture in the form of us dressing them up in Barbie shoes and hats and such nonsense. We tried to be gentle, but I don't think they appreciated our fashion sense.

8. When I was four and in kindergarten, I broke my left wrist roller skating. I thought casts were so cool back then and the only thing cooler was crutches. I used to draw little girls with broken arms and legs and casts and crutches all the time.

9. When I was little, my dad used to call me Finnager. It took me way too many years to figure out that it was actually Finnejer, which was Jennifer rearranged.

10. My life may seem boring a lot of times, but I currently can't remember what it feels like to be bored. I know I have been bored in the past, but it has been so long that I just can't recall the sensation. All I know now is that there aren't enough hours in the day or days in the week to do everything I want to do. I still hear people around me, adults even, say they are bored and I find it strange that they have time to be.

Phew. That took a lot out of me. I can't even think of who I should tag to do this meme next. I'll have to get back to you on that.

Good night!

The desire to be creative has taken over me again. Check it out, you might like the Emma the tortoise inspired necklace.

We got the test results today that Louie had no crystals in his pee, so he is cleared to continue eating the same food he has been. We have started to control his portions, though, in an effort to reduce his massive girth. He is one fat little dog.

This afternoon I took my final exam for my college class. I got a 92 and I am happy with that. I could have done better by agonizing over it longer, but there was no point because I still ended up with a 95 point something in the class. Yay! Time to sign up for the next one.

We took Cody and Lou to the new veterinarian's office this afternoon, and I am happy to say it went very well. They liked Dr. Dave and he had a great "bedside manner" with them. He said that Cody looked really good for all of the issues he has (diabetes, cataract, missing eye, few teeth). Louie needs to be put on a diet, but we knew that already.

Louie had bladder stone surgery last May, and afterward our old vet, who is now retired, sent the stones for analysis. We were supposed to get a recommendation on his diet when the analysis came back. The results were delayed quite a bit (lost in the mail, or something), and then the doctor retired. In the confusion of transitioning his practice to the vet that purchased it, Lou's results got delayed even further because they must have gotten lost in the shuffle. In the meantime, I had switched him to a much higher quality diet, different from what he had been eating before he got the stones.

Finally, several months after the fact, I got a phone call from the vet saying that Louie needed to be put on a certain prescription diet. She was not open to any other options. At that point, I felt like if it was so crucial for him to be on a special diet that it was too late anyway, as months had gone by while we waited for results.

The new vet palpated Lou's abdomen and said he felt no signs of stones. He suggested we take a urine sample and check it for crystals, and then an X-ray to look for stones. He said if he passes both of those, he should be fine to continue with the food he has been eating, as it has been almost a year now. I think that sounds reasonable.

Cody had a glucose check to see how he is doing with his diabetes, and to his relief, he didn't end up getting any vaccinations. The new vet does not believe in over vaccinating, and I am all for that. Cody has enough antibodies built up that he only needs the rabies shot, and that is good for three years, so he wasn't due.

It was so nice to see friendly faces at the vet's office again, and feel comfortable with our dogs there. It may not seem like a very important thing, but having a good vet is essential for us. That is just one less thing I have to worry about now. My babies' health is in good hands again.

One little funny: When we were leaving, they had given us a little plastic tray to try to collect some urine from Lou. We decided to try to get him to go there, right out front to save us the trip of bringing the pee back to them. Lou wouldn't go with me chasing him around with the little tray; he is super suspicious. I got in the truck with Cody and told Andy to give it a try without me. In just a few moments, Lou started peeing and Andy had the tray under him. When I saw Lou going, I realized I was going to have to help Andy or he would spill the pee tray with Lou pulling him along by his leash. Of course Lou knocked the tray with his foot when he was done peeing anyway, but there was enough there to test, so I took it from Andy and ran it back in to the front desk. The things we do for our furry babies.

I have been studying for my final exam for the class I am taking and doing unfun things like chores all weekend and haven't had time to blog. Many of the chores I did had to do with dog maintenance: washing and flea treating them, using a Dremel tool to sand down their nails, trimming around their eyes so they can see where they are going, and so on.

You might remember when I wrote about being in between veterinarians for the kids when our vet suddenly retired last year. I had one prospect, but then our good friend from the poodle rescue told me she had used that vet and described some strange behaviors of the vet and staff that made me uneasy, so I never went.

Fortunately, the front desk girl from our old vet, who we really loved, and one of our favorite vet techs have now teamed up with a doctor that had been practicing a sort of "house call" type operation. He has now opened up an office and the girls give their stamp of approval. I completely trust them. The one that works the front desk- I could call her up at anytime if one of the dogs was sick and she would ask, "when can you be here?" She totally understood how urgent it was to get them in sometimes, and it still didn't cause delays with appointments. With the vet that took over for my retired one, I could call up on Monday and they might be able to fit us in on Thursday, way too late in most cases. Since the dogs never tell me when they plan to be sick, that just didn't work for us. I understand that they want everything to fall into a neat little schedule, but when you are dealing with living creatures they never do and you have to adapt. At least a good vet does, and therefore will get our business with our six fuzzy babies. Cody and Louie have their first appointment tomorrow afternoon. I am excited to have found them a new vet that should be a perfect fit.

Sheet. Our kitchen sink drain just fell apart and water went all over the place in the cabinet underneath. Andy is trying to piece it back together now. It is a compression fitting and for some reason it just failed.

The funny part was that when he found the problem and had the drainpipe apart, the curved piece in his hand was still full of left over water and it was spilling out. He took the piece of pipe and reached up and dumped it in the sink, and of course it ran straight out the open drain at the bottom. He had a complete brain fart, I guess.

Job future uncertainty does funny things to some people. Ugly things. With the looming retirement of the shuttle program and transition into the next space program, fewer people are expected to be needed and it this knowledge is having a distinct effect on the workforce.

Personally, I have no worries about my future employment. I am confident in my skills, abilities, and talents and am absolutely at peace with the whole transition. But there are quite a few workers that do worry about their futures and some let it consume them.

The other person that inhabits the same shop as me is one of the consumed. He doesn't really talk about it, but there has been some gradual changes in his behavior for the worse. He has always been difficult, but for some reason electrical technicians (at least the male ones) are almost always very strange or eccentric and difficult to get along with. Lately, it is like he has a fire lit under his butt to get things done, but he rushes around with such urgency that it causes him to make mistakes and then he has to go back and fix them. It also causes him to drive me completely nuts.

He currently has absolutely nothing in his workload to be stressed about, yet he finds a way to get himself all wound up about nothing. When he's all wound up about things he becomes a control freak. He's always cold, so he keeps turning up the thermostat in our shop. The thermostat only adjusts from about 72 degrees to about 78. I am usually running hot, and I can't stand it when I walk in from the hallway and it feels warmer. If he would just leave it so that the room was the same as the rest of the building, I would be happy, but several times a day he walks over and pushes it up.

I am willing to compromise, but he can put on a sweatshirt, and I can't do anything about the heat. Yesterday after luch I took a government vehicle and left to go to a meeting. I left my computer up and running on my desk, my desk light was on, and all of my stuff was still there. When I got back, he had left for the day already and had turned off the lights to the room and locked the door. I have a key, so it was no big deal, but it was just so juvenile of him to do that when he knew I was coming back.

I hope he gets over this phase, because it is starting to wear on me. I even signed up for a one day class at work that will be held later this year called "Working with you is killing me" in an effort to learn strategies for dealing with difficult types. I just love the name of the class- hopefully I will gain some insight through it.

We are more than halfway through the week and the whole "spring forward" thing is still kicking my ass. It probably wouldn't be so bad except that we had that shuttle launch Tuesday at two something in the morning. Due to the schedule leading up to the launch and the work that had to be done after it, Andy had to be at work on 5 am on Monday and 4 am on Tuesday. When he gets up early, it pretty much wakes me up, so yesterday I was up around 2:30 in the morning and didn't go back to sleep. Then, like a dummy I stayed up until 11 last night and am paying the price now. It is rough getting old.

I am too tired to keep typing, so I'll be back tomorrow with some decent blogging. Sorry.

Actually, it should be a really early morning launch of Endeavour at 2:28am or some God-awful time like that. I am off to bed but I have my alarm set to get up and watch the launch. Fingers crossed.

I am still working some angles on the house thing, so hopefully I will stumble upon a winner. Don't worry too much, I am not a quitter even when I probably should be sometimes.

It turns out that I can't cash out my 401K unless I quit my job. I can take a loan from it- if I decide I want to be raped for 7% interest on my own damn money that must be paid back in a maximum of 120 months starting from the day I borrow it. The payments are too high for us to afford with everything else and start immediately, and the interest is not even tax deductible. That sounds like an extremely crappy deal to me.

I would have to document the source of any money we bring to the table to close the loan, and I can't find anyone that is willing to buy one of my kidneys and sign for it, so that is probably out as well. I think that this whole thing is just about over.

I have one more last ditch effort to try and I won't even tell you what is , because it is akin to winning the lottery in terms of the chances of it panning out. Consider our dream house as over, done with, never going to happen. Look at the bright side- we've only wasted over two years of our lives and nearly a hundred thousand dollars on it. That and our perfect credit that will be completely ruined when we can no longer afford to keep paying on our worthless property will be all we have lost. Maybe that isn't so fucking bright after all. I think God must hate me.

The house. Whenever someone asks me if we've started building it yet it is like opening a wound. I am so sick of dealing with the insurmountable issues. I don't think we are ever going to start building it, really. At least not anymore. After over 25 months of waiting, we finally got the permit, but now we can't seem to get the money to build it, due to the economy taking a dump.

We have excellent credit, but it doesn't matter. The issue is in the loan to value, and there is no way for us to improve the ratio because houses are not selling. The house would not be worth what we would be paying for it when completed, and there is nothing we can do about it. If we cut costs any more than we already have, it will affect the final value of the house, and change the loan to value ratio and we will still not get anywhere. There is no way to get a lender to lend enough to cover the costs to build a house right now, unless you have considerable equity. We have $75,000 worth of equity in our land and it still comes up short.

The only possibility is for us to make up the difference in cash. Cash that we do not have because the county and other agencies that abused us basically robbed us of it. The only option I can think of is to cash out my 401K, take a huge hit on penalties and taxes and hope that what is left is enough to cover what we would have to bring to the table in order to finally get this damn project started. I would sell a kidney, but I think that would be more difficult to arrange with taking time off work for recovery and all of that.

Whatever drastic measures we have to take, someone else may have to pay in the end- I am starting to think that suing the county to recover our losses would be a good idea. Our losses were incurred as a direct result of their incompetence, so it is only fair, right? It just isn't right for this kind of thing to happen to anyone.

I was waiting to give out the Etsy link because I only have two little items in there and they aren't anything fancy, but I'll go ahead and give it to you. You just have to promise to go back and look again in a week or two when I have some more stuff up. I am waiting for my supplies to be delivered so that I can create something more impressive. All I had to work with was tiny glass seed beads.

I know, I know, I have been a major blog slacker lately, but I am back. I don't even have a good excuse for it really. Things are okay, nothing spectacular has been going on, just life.

I have been feeling lately like I wanted to do something creative, and I am tired of waiting for the new house to be built in order to do so. I want to paint, but have no place to do so in this house because there is so much stuff everywhere stacked up for the new house. So, I thought I would like to get back into making some bead jewelry like I used to many years ago. I opened an Etsy shop and made some simple flowered necklaces with some glass seed beads I had laying around, but there are more much better things to come.

I have ordered all kinds of supplies from eBay, and have many ideas in my head for beautiful creations. At least I can do beadwork still, because it doesn't make much of a mess or take up much space. I am especially interested in working with millefiori beads, glass beads with many flowered designs in them. I also have discovered a new art form that I want to try, though it will have to wait a little bit.

Lampworking is very intriguing to me and I would love to give it a try. It is the process of forming glass beads over a torch and there are some amazing things that can be done with it. When we get to the new house, I want to get some equipment and give it a try. Ambitious? Maybe, but I have never let that keep me from that type of challenge before.