Sewicked

I made it to the craft store last night. I spent too much time & a little too much money (yeah, I know, you're shocked). At least, I spent most of it on either 'need it to finish my entry' or stuff that was on sale or only $1. I was too tired to cook & didn't have enough time for a restaurant (& wasn't really in the mood either, not even take out), so I stopped by the grocery store & bought a frozen dinner. They were on sale so I bought 3 of them & I'm having one for lunch today; using my new lunch bag I got from the charity fair on Monday (kick off of the SECC campaign).

It's a fairly big deal; the State government decided a few years ago to consolidate the charity giving of its employees & to reduce/stop solicitations at work. So employees can make payroll deduction contributions to any of about 550 charities. Anybody can contribute, but only state employees can do payroll deduction. The charities range from local, city-based to international, from children, to disabled, to seniors, to health-based, to environmental & everything in-between. About 86 cents of every dollar goes to the charities, with no further overhead. The charities have to guarantee that no more than 25% of their income goes to overhead. If they go over that, after being approved, they go on probation for a year. If they continue, they go off the approved list. Since the money is payroll deducted, the state collects the money in interest-bearing accounts and distributes it on a quarterly basis. The interest also goes to the charities, based on % of the money sent (so if 10% of contributions go to the United Way, then 10% of the interest does, too). Since the money is guaranteed, per quarter, the charities can budget based on that income.

site of the day: find out about the eco-labels on your food, how accurate & truthful are they? Is that milk really organic?

Morning Commute Soundtrack: The Cry of the Wild Goose, Walk Away, Hazy Shade of Winter (Bangles), Losing Grip, In the Jailhouse Now (Gene Autry), Where Do We Go From Here, Rest in Peace, You're A Star, Vacation, & finally, I heard most of Bat Out of Hell before I got into my office.

While the washing machine & dryer did their work, I watched Bones, Cold Case, & Reaper and worked on a mini-memory book and my necklace. I did about 3 pages of the memory book & really hated the 3rd page that I did. So I stopped. I turned to my tatting.

tatting: I found some large beads that might do as the center of the bauble as well as a bag of glass globs & small marbles. The bag included some small black marbles which what I decided to use ($1 for bag versus $2 & $4 for the large bead packages, *sigh*). I loaded the thread with copper & black seed beads (1 copper, 4 black & 3 copper) and did the 1st ring for the bauble. And it's too small. The size 12 perle is quite a bit smaller than the Olympic that I used before. So I started loading the thread again (using my brand new big eye beading needle - boy is it easy to use), without taking the old one apart. I'll wait to do that until I'm completely done.

For my second try, I'm using 2 copper, 5 black & 4 copper beads and 10 ds instead of 6. We'll see if that works. I started loading the beads this morning but I had to get ready for work & did not finish.

letter: I've finished writing to my Mom's sisters now. I've started Aunt Lillian's letter but have not finished it yet. I'm going to try to mail my aunts' letters today. I still have Aunt Evelyn's, my niece's & my namesake's letters to write. I want to have them all done before I leave town.

books: I'm still reading Witch Hunter and I've sent them some errata. I haven't bothered with the typo's or anywhere in which the intent is obvious. I've only included things like the example contradicts the rule or the rule needs some expansion. In one case, I sent in a question that specifically relates to the shared world campaign, Dark Providence. I've also dipped into 1633 though and I brought a Nora Roberts anthology to work with me.

clothes: Since I'll be packing tonight, I'm keeping all my jeans for the trip. I've set out the slacks to wear to work. Today though, I'm wearing a dress. It's the blue one (like I have more than one) with the cream flowers that I wear under the navy, batiste kimono blouse. I rather think that the navy loafers detract but 'oh well.' I was going to wear my 'new' (mom gave them to me, they belonged to her but she never wears them) navy enameled earrings but they just didn't suit. Instead, it's the textured navy metal with the textured, brass cut-out over it earrings, flower fairy pendant, lapis lazuli flower ring, flower band, hematite band & my hair up in a ponytail/bun held by 2 cream curvy hairsticks. No clip watch today, I don't have anything to clip it to.