Randomosity

My across-the-street neighbors had a party yesterday; either there was a car dress code or they randomly happen to have a large number of friends with silver SUVs.

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I really need to weed my front yard. It’s getting embarrassing again, and the friends who helped me reclaim it a couple years ago may start giving me the hairy eyeball if I don’t get it under control. It’s not nearly as bad as it was then, but it’s heading towards it if I don’t carve out a few hours of air potato roundup time.

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We might have enough money to be able to go to Tim’s parent’s for Thanksgiving this year. We haven’t been able to get up there for our used-to-be-annual vacation time since … (goes to look through photos) … 2008. We haven’t been able to afford to go home for five years. I’ve sent him, I think twice (once was also for a family funeral, though) but it’s just such a burden to rent a car, pay for hotels for overnight driving, and then the big expense of putting the dogs in Puppy Jail…. Then of course Bridgett was so sick for so long I was afraid to leave her. This year we have the Rav, which can make the trip, and we have a little dosh set aside to put the dogs in jail. Except that we’ve spent so many years now not being able to go, I still have lingering “WE CAN’T GO” feelings. Of course, this is dependent on even being able to get the dogs in a kennel — I’m going to call around today. If everyone is already full for Thanksgiving, well… Tim can take the Rav and go on without me, and I’ll stay home with the pups. It’s not like I can eat the turkey anyway.

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It’s time for HaldeCraft yearly review. I know most businesses review at the end of the year, but since it can typically take six weeks or more for me to implement/bring in something new, I can’t wait until the end of December to start planning January. It’s time for me to look at new things I’ve brought in and how well they’ve done (and if they’re worth keeping), what I’ve let go of, what I still need to let go of, what I want to bring in next year, and production schedules and times. Yup. Imma jump right on that.

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I still need to finish blogging the West Virginia trip (or wait, do I? Sunday was just sitting around, meeting Sharon’s friends, and then we left on Monday…. I think it was Monday….). And I want to start blogging all this genealogy I’ve been working on! I’m still stuck on a couple of things, though. So much so that I’m considering paying for the Ancestry.com pro version just so I can have a better shot and finding the missing things, or getting copies of documents other people have already found.

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Tavi knocked my camera off onto the tile floor a couple weeks ago – HaldeCult members already know this from Facebook and Ravelry – and I marked down the rest of my hand lotion and lip balm (15% off, use the coupon code “badcat” at checkout, there’s not much left) so that I could quickly come up with the cash to get a new camera. When you sell online, and photos and written descriptions are what sells your products….? It’s bad to have a camera that won’t focus any more. Yeah. It still *worked*… technically… although it no longer focused. It was like one of those TV shows that shoots the scenes that the aging actress is in, in soft focus, to make her look younger… and you keep trying to wipe your glasses off because why can’t your eyes make the lines focus?!?! Blargh. Anyway, the internets really came through for me in my hour of need, and I was able to get not only a new camera – well, a refurbished one – but a slightly better one than I was expecting to be able to get. I set a $300 limit, and for $350 found a refurbished camera that usually goes for close to $700. THANK YOU INTERWEBS! Now I need to study up on aperture and fstop and all that fancy stuff. Sure, it has auto settings, but if I *can* learn to use the bells and whistles…..?

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There are not enough hours in the day. I don’t understand people who say they are bored.