It was a good year at work...after 3 years, they finally accept me as part of their team!
It was a bad year at work...still not getting paid a competitive wage.
It was a good year around the house...new windows...all employed (even if its "under" employed)!
It was a bad year...well, no, not really - but the utility bills (gas/elec) keep going up dammit!
It appears that the greedy oil speculators are driving up the cost of oil again which means the cost of transportation will be going up. Gasoline prices are hovering around $3 a gallon again. Wish I could ride the bus to work. I could...if I wanted to spend 3 hours a day commuting 18 miles. Maybe someone down this way would be interested in ride-share? Burnsville-Eagan to St. Paul Midway area?
The cats are all doing well.
Piawacket will be 15 in May and she's just a crazy ol' gal. Love her bunches!
Dori will be 7 in June and is still a little sweetheart (merrrrrup)!
In September it was finally time to let Xena go, or help her on her way out of pain and the infirmities of old age. She was 13 and 4 months when we said goodbye at the Vet's. Again I say, "Bye-bye baby girl." (sniff)
Axel is a punk! And the squirrels continue to blow raspberries at him from the deck. He's back to his puppy ways of jumping up on the trees in the backyard in hopes of catching one...whether they're in the tree or not. He's tearing the bark off of the one just off the deck, the little jerk!
He'll be 7 in June, also. He was diagnosed in the spring with elbo dysplasia and has been helped by a very pricey anti-inflammatory in addition to having been put on a weight-loss diet. He's lost 25 lbs and is a svelt 93 lbs now. He also, tore his dew claw off this year chasing Ace around the house. That was costly and earned him the cone of shame for a bit...
In the world of knitting, I finished an entrelac beret and mittens, a spiral multi-color striped beret, the Flutter Scarf, the shrug that's been on the needles since 2008 or 2009 since spring.
I have lots of stuff planned for 2011.
- Everything in Amigurumi Knits and they're all worsted weight on US #5 needles.
- Cheryl Oberle's Chinese Red Vest (Ravelry link) using the red Alpaca in my stash.
- Icarus Shawl using Briar Rose 4th of July and US #6 needles. I asked her for a custom color at Shepherd's Harvest and it arrived 2 weeks later! It's been calling me ever since but there's just been so much to do.....Soon, very soon now.
- Have to finish Buttercup (Ravelry) by spring so I can wear it! Started it last summer. I'm using Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy in the 020 (red) colorway
- Explore some more Lace knitting, starting with a few more scarves
- Knit up some felted clogs (use up some stash)
- Knit some socks (again, use up some stash)
- And last but not least...another February Lady Sweater (for Tegs) - no idea what color yet.
Oh, one other thing...after 40+ years of hiding the truth I've decided this year to come out! Yep, that's right, I'm an atheist Having been "raised" and schooled in the Catholic tradition, the indoctrination was tried...but it never, ever stuck. I can remember the exact moment that I walked away from catholicism...I was 14 and it was a Saturday evening mass at Holy Ghost Church in Dubuque, Iowa. It was like a lightbulb clicked on.
All these years I've pretty much said that JC was an ok dude but that's about it. I said I was agnostic for the past couple of decades. Turns out, if you start applying logic and reason to historical analysis, JC probably didn't exist.
Now, I'm a huge Bill Maher fan, I feel a sort of kinship with him actually, and so of course I've seen (own) Religulous. So funny! So Brilliant! I guess that's what started me on my self-discovery path this year really. And after lots of research and reading, and especially after having read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, I just have to shake my head. The wars and destruction wrought in the name of religious faith are devastating. People turning their minds away from science in the name of god? Ridiculous! History is a very interesting subject and so is biology. And facts are facts.
And so all this right wing christian stuff has really turned me off these past couple of years.
The people who voted against their own best interests because the plutocracy has convinced them it's the christian thing to do to throw in with them make me sad...and at times I feel like my head will explode!
I hope that we can get this country back on the track that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine had set forth! Otherwise, I think perhaps the U.S. is going to find itself a wasted nation. Better regulation of our food industry, the oil companies and other big corporations needs to be put into practice.
Manufacturing needs to happen here!!! Wages need to go up so people have money to buy things so that manufacturers will make more products and get this economy moving. It's really NOT rocket science. But it would mean that CEO's and CIO's and speculators will have to give up something...
Note that the US highway system didn't pay for itself...and big corporations didn't pay for it either. Your parents and grandparents taxes did. The infrastructure crumbles while Republicans hold the unemployed and lower income families hostage so that they could secure a 3% tax cut for the uber-rich! Complete insanity!!
So here's to better economic times in 2011, and a hope that those low-information people in this country stop listening to Fox News and start doing some fact checking of their own!
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