No jobs? How can that be?

I didn't get any jobs at Labor Ready this week, so I haven't made the money for the camera, of course. I also just managed to break my boyfriends rear view mirror so I was thinking I will buy him a new one, unless he manages to somehow duct tape/super glue it back on and not mind the giant crack... Honestly, most of the rear view mirrors I've found were $10-20, unless I got him one with a compass or digital crap or stuff like that. Some of them "auto dim" and the one he has right now doesn't do any of that, so I think he'd be okay with me getting him one of the cheaper ones...

This weekend I'm planning on making more clay figures, and possibly some sewing... We'll see. It looks to me that I do most of my crafting on weekends, so I think (if I ever get the time to write a blog while at my BFs house, he seems to steal the laptop whenever possible) I will just start posting inspiration posts, posts about maybe charity stuff I'm interested in, and recipes. I made some delicious stuffed mushrooms yesterday, I forgot to add seasonings but they were still pretty good. The mushrooms were super juicy, and I got bigger ones so you couldn't just pop the whole thing into your mouth, and we had to eat them while leaning over the sink. The only other stuffed mushrooms I've had were tiny. I think that might be a better way to go.

You can see the mushrooms juices on the middle of the plate

Stuffed with cream cheese, asparagus, olives, the stems of the mushrooms, and sausage. We ate the all in like 10 minutes flat, even though we had most of the sausage and asparagus in tortilla wraps for breakfast 20 minutes before these were done. It wasn't really a filling breakfast, but whatever. 

The recipe I sort of followed (not really) said to use 8 oz of cream cheese, but everyone said that was too much and I used only half the package. I only used one stalk of asparagus, and you couldn't even find it in there. I just chopped everything up real fine, then microwaved the cream cheese for a few seconds so it'd be easier to mix it all in. Delicious! 

Find us on our Facebook!

New Camera Coming Up!

I apologize for not posting very often lately. I really wanted to keep up with this blog, but it's about crafting, and I haven't really had time for that lately. The temporary work I had kicked my ass, and I'm still feeling tired no matter how little or how long I sleep. So imagine the pain I must feel thinking about going BACK...

I've found a camera I want. Mother's day is coming up, so it's on sale for $350. It's usually $480. That's over $100 off. Also because of mother's day, anything over $50 has free 2 day shipping.

I need to get this camera, NOW!

So, I'm going to go back and see if I can get temporary work for a few days at Labor Ready. I'll be splitting the price for the camera with my boyfriend, as well, so I don't need to make all $350. If they actually send me out to do work, I'll definitely make the money. I just don't know if they will want to send me out. I've had experience HELPING my dad work on things like building a shed, and putting down wood flooring. I know how to swing a hammer, work a cordless drill, but we'll see. Hopefully, they'll think I'll be a fast learner.

So, the reason I'm getting the camera is so I can take pictures of things I want to sell on Etsy and/or Artfire. The other reason is because when I make things, I can't always get a good picture of them on my phone, and then I don't want to post those pictures, and then I don't write on my blog because I don't have pictures to show. That's all going to change, now!

If I get work at Labor Ready, I'm going to continue going there for work. Eventually, I'll get enough experience to get a real job. I'm also going to try to get an Ipod Touch so I can use my square, but my boyfriend is going to wait until he can get a free smartphone from his company instead. I don't want to deal with a smartphone, I also don't want to be using my square on something of his, because I've been in situations where someone saw something I had and wanted it like at the grocery store, and he's not always there when I will need it.

But I have the damn square already, I just need something I can use it with!

On another note, I'm almost done with my $5 in paris sweater. I've debated on long sleeves, short sleeves, then just posted it on facebook and everyone says short sleeves. Honestly, the sweater doesn't keep me warm when I put it on anyways, so I was about to decide on short sleeves anyways. Here's a nasty myspace mirror picture of it:

Nasty Myspace Mirror Picture

All I can say is, SQUEE! It's almost done! Plus, it fits! Perfectly! I have never knitted something this large before, or anything wearable at all, actually, so, I feel awesome about this. It actually didn't take that long at all, either, once I got over my knitting break and continued on with it. I could make tons of these! In fact, I just might! Or, I could move on to something a bit more challenging. Or I could stop knitting myself things and work on jewelry to sell.

I DID make a byzantine bracelet, against my better judgement... The rings are a little too big, so it doesn't look as fancy. Here's another really blurry crappy picture: 

Byzantine Weave in too big rings

I want to make myself a nice Byzantine chain necklace, because for some reason I feel like it'd be completely awesome and everyone will want one. I want to make it with much smaller rings, though. These are 5/32, I believe. I think I may order 1/8 rings next. At the same time, I think I should probably order rings with some color on them, instead of just plain ones. We'll see how expensive this gets...

Find us on our Facebook! 

Socks, Work, and Life in General

Whenever I get the song "Shots" stuck in my head, I sing "Socks! Socks, socks, socks socks socks! EVERYBODY!"

Anyways, a friend of mine has an unusual problem. She has too many socks. I personally find that I never have enough socks. My boyfriend has even less socks than I do, but that's because I get cute ones at Hot Topic and Spencers and he prefers just plain old Hanes.

So, what to do? Well, I suddenly thought earlier today, "Why don't I just look up a list of things to do with socks?" So I did. I found a perfect one, so here it is; I'm not going to sit here and repost half of what is already on this one page.

Work was.... Boring. A nice guy named Ceaser drove me to and from work, as he was working there as well and probably lived somewhat near by. I finally found out where the damn place was: In a completely different town than where I live. It was a 20-30 minute drive there. So, I found myself waking up at 4:30 in the morning, to get to this place before 6:00. When we scanned in with these little cards, that was when they started paying us. When we scanned out, they stopped. So, everyone was either trying to leave on time or they were trying to stay as late as possible. There was one guy who would get there at 5 and leave at 7. 14 hour days! I couldn't possibly do that. 12 hours was more than enough, although I got a few more hours than that the few days I worked.

It was only a temporary job, and technically I'm still on call until Wednesday, but I consider myself to be done because they try NOT to call people in...

Basically, I watched some guys throw some equipment in some holes at each other, then some other guys welding. I had to sit around with a fire extinguisher for the remote possibility of a fire starting. Why was it remote? Fires rarely start around this place. Yes, it's a paper mill, yes, there's wood chips, sawdust, and wood lying around, but everything is kept wet. So that fires don't start.

If you're caught smoking anywhere near the premises, you're fired on the spot.

Now that that's done, I have a possible job opportunity working as a vet assistant! Only 3 days a week, but that's okay with me, it's not only a job, it's a job doing something I would like to do! Maybe... MAYBE with donating blood plasma (which can net me about $240 a month) and doing jobs at Labor Ready, (I have no idea how much that will get me) we can move out. We can GTFO. I want to live in my own place, taking care of it, decorating it, coming home and having to clean and cook and only maybe having time for crafting... At least I will be busy. (Just joking... of course I will have time for crafting!)

Anyways. I've had a couple of days to get rid of this constantly tired all day from the long hours, and I plan on crafting again soon. I only have my chainmaille here, but we brought a bookcase over from my dads and there's space in the room for my jewelry making stuff which will be good to have because my BFs mother has some things she'd like me to fix. Plus it's nice to change what I'm working on because I have that ability too. I could finish off my sweater, I'm almost halfway done with it! However it's starting to get hot and it's kind of stupid to make myself a sweater now... However I won't let myself knit anything else until it's done, and that means either finishing it now or not knitting until it gets cold again!

Now that I'm used to sleeping during the night, I'm super sleepy at 9:41 PM. This is not how I work! Oh well.

Find us on our Facebook!

Yay, my first job!

So I start work tomorrow. I'm scheduled for the next four days, and then the last four days of the outtage I'll be on call. If I go and sit in the parking lot, I'll most likely be called in to work each one of those days. I hope that I can do that, more experience, and more money!

I don't have a car, so I have to go wait at Labor Ready until some guy shows up. I forgot to ask for his phone number, and I didn't say when I was going to be there, so guess who'll be sitting around outside at 5 in the morning? This gal.. Hopefully he'll get there at around 5 instead of 5:30, because I think we're supposed to be there at 5:30, but we're scheduled to START working at 6:00. It's a half hour drive. There's already been some trouble with the way they say to get there at 6 for a class that is listed on our ticket to start at 8, so we all sit around for a while before leaving and when we get there at 7:40 we're yelled at for being late... Whatever... It's not our fault, it's Labor Readys!

I'm not going to post while I'm doing this job. It'll be way to difficult and plus, what am I going to even post about? How I stood around watching some guy weld for 12 hours? Maybe if I end up putting out a fire and saving the whole building. I hear that a lot of fire watch people end up being a semi-celebrity around the building if they put out a fire. Sounds fun, I guess. I'm pretty shy IRL, so... Whatever! I'll just deal with it.

I'm worried that I'm going to end up starving. If I start getting hungry, I get woozy, vomit up bile, and get to the point of passing out. I've never passed out in my life, but I get REALLY freaking close. My boyfriend will go to work for 8 hours and only eat 1 dinky little cup of noodles. I can't just starve myself like that. Plus I can't take cup of noodles because I have to just have stuff I can eat where I'm standing. I can't just be like hey I'm going to take a half hour off! I'm watching people do their jobs in case they don't notice a spark starts a fire. Or if they suddenly fall down a silo and I need to call for the rescue team. I can't just leave, and there's only one me watching them. So, sandwiches and crackers it is, then. Lots of them. Buckets full. Truck loads.

I'm not happy that my first job ever isn't starting with 4 hour shifts...

Find us on our Facebook!

Oh training. Of course.

So my training was, of course, during the first day of the yard sale. Seriously. Every other day of my entire LIFE I'm not doing anything, and training had to be scheduled on one of these two days.

I have this issue sleeping when I know I have to wake up early. So of course, I don't sleep. I get up at 5:20, get ready, walk to Labor Ready, where I find out that even though we were supposed to get there at 6:00, the training class is supposedly starting at 8:00! So we all kinda stand around for a while, before we all decide to leave anyways. Then one guy stops at his house to grab some trail mix because it's a 5 hour class and when he comes in, we're all there and the instructor says "Well, thanks for being on time!"

We're all like, ".......uh. The thing says... This starts in another half hour..."

Well we tried too, but the instructor just started talking to himself about how there's supposed to be 12 of us, but the ticket we brought only said there was 9 of us, but 10 of us came....

Well the class was enlightening. I learned a lot. Like what I'm actually going to be doing... Sitting outside of a confined space, watching people inside of it working... Calling about emergencies. Etc.

The yard sale was a flop, for me at least. I made $10 the first day, but I gave that to my friend to pay her back for something she kept forgetting about, then I figured more people would come today but no... I made 25 cents. I had planned on using this money for some goddamn work clothes, and this is what happens? I made more money when I wasn't there! I saw a lot of people looking at my clothes, but they put them all down. I didn't have any prices on them, and a lot of people felt awkward when we told them to make an offer on things that weren't priced, so I put masking tape on them and wrote something in. Still no takers...

I, however, obtained a nice comfy recliner for $10! It's pink, which I'm not fond of, but it's fine. I can throw a blanket over it. Or just not care. I didn't even pay, I asked my dad to get it for me. I know I shouldn't try to collect things for moving out yet, but this was a deal! There was also a couch, but honestly it was fugly and I didn't think it was that comfortable... But it ROCKED! Like a rocking chair! Which was awesome. Some one bought that because couches always go.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the things that didn't sell. I don't need all those books anymore, I have a Nook Color. The clothes I just don't wear and don't know what to make out of them, especially the silky-ish dress. I tried getting rid of my dice bags, which I literally knit a bunch of them FOR the sale... No one bought my jewelry, but I expected that because it was all full price, not yard sale price. I bet it all would have gone if it was $1 each though. In fact, I should have done that for some of it, and laid it all out instead of having it all nice on the jewelry hangers. Oh well. I can sell it for full price somewhere else!

Anyways. That was my weekend. Maybe I can work on more stuff that isn't going to sell now.

Find us on our Facebook!

Yard Sale Stickers

I'm not going to do the 52 weeks of happiness thing anymore. I just have too much of a problem remembering what was this week and what was last week. Even going back and reading my own posts here on blogger and on facebook. I don't really write down what I do doing the day. If I continue doing it it will be on paper, writing things down as they happen. So I can look through it to give myself a bit of happiness when I'm down, which is a lot, lately. I stopped taking my anti-depressants because they're expensive and recently I have finally started noticing all my negativity coming back. Which is not a plus, but oh well. It was to be expected. I will just have to live with it.

You know what makes me happy? The super clean feeling after a shower. You know what doesn't make me  happy? MY FIRE ALARM. It's beeping at me all day today. This usually means the battery is dead, which is ridiculous because they die 2 times a year but we never have had, you know, A FIRE. What really ticks me off is that it's 11:30 at night, it's beeping like it has been all day, but! There isn't even a battery in it. It's connected to all of the other ones in the house (There is one in every single room except our tiny bathrooms) so it still goes off when all the others do. They're really sensitive and they go off often when we are cooking.

I can hear all of them going off, so it wouldn't be a problem that mine doesn't have a battery because of that, however, the most ridiculous thing is that mine is in my doorway. There is one in the hall about 3 feet away. So, even if mine didn't go off, I can hear the one right outside my door.

I'm sure they do save lives, but when they go off 5 times a week you get really annoyed with these things!

I plan to spend tomorrow morning sewing up some T Shirt purses, and maybe some more wallet gloves to sell at the yardsale this weekend. I really want to make about $50 simply to have a goal, but I think that if I do good I can make more. The thing is, this is a yard sale, where people are expecting really low prices, however some of my jewelry are expensive. I have some necklaces that are $25-30, and I'm not willing to lower the prices for a yard sale because... Well, I made this stuff, and the materials were expensive. I need to make a profit.

I have a bunch of books to price tomorrow that will fit yard sale "standard pricing" as well as some clothes, though, and maybe some other stuff if I look around. I'll probably sell the purses for like $5, since they will all be made out of shirts that were given to me. It's a good idea to get rid of some stuff because I hope to move soon. I've been hoping to move soon for a long time though, however now that I have this job (that will certainly lead to other jobs) I hope to actually move soon. I really would like too. I want my cat allowed to live inside again. She wouldn't let me touch her earlier, and I'm worried that she's already getting to the point of hating me. She'll hate me when I bring her to a new place and never let her outside again, though, so I'm prepared for that. She's just going through "teenage years". She's 5 now!

Find us on our Facebook! 

When is my training!?!?!?

I've been waiting for a call from Labor Ready asking me to come in for my next session of training, but they didn't know when it was and apparently still don't. I don't want to make plans, say, going to volunteer at the Humane Society for a few hours, because they could call anytime and I don't know if they're going to ask me to show up in ten minutes or in the next couple of days.

The actual job doesn't start until the 15th, so I've got a while yet before I'm going to be exhausted all day. They said they couldn't promise us whichever shift we asked for, but I put down night because I'm sure that most people there would like to work during the day. I'm sure that I'll end up with night shifts, so I'm going to end up sleeping until 4 in the afternoon and then it'll be too late to volunteer. I think we are only allowed to volunteer from 8 to 5...

I know that if I call in ahead of time, they still won't know, because that's exactly what they do all the time. Finally find out, immediately call the people involved.

I'm super excited about finally doing something instead of sitting around thinking about cleaning. But not cleaning because I don't like doing stuff when other people are here for some reason.

Today I made a couple more dice bags out of camouflage yarn, and another pair of earrings. I think I'll post a group photo of them all soon, because I need to start thinking about how to display my stuff with a very limited amount of displaying things and no guarantee of a table. I have earrings to figure out, as well as the dice bags, but I have a ton of bracelets and necklaces as well. I'm thinking about piling books into a box and just labeling them all under one price. I want to put the earrings into small ziplock bags attached to cardboard with the price written on the cardboard. The tags I have for other jewelry would work best hanging, but then you would have to take some jewelry off to get to the stuff behind it. Maybe just lay out the bracelets and necklaces, to take up some room on the table. Then I have some Wallet Gloves/Wrist Purses. I might make up some more of those this week, because they're pretty cool and people like them. I'll have to wear mine so people understand what they are. I think I'll treat this as an introduction to doing vendor type stuff! I like the idea of putting like items into a bowl to dig around in, people expect to do some digging at a yard sale anyways. So, we'll see what I come up with this week!

Find us on our Facebook!

Busy week!

I apologize for not posting a lot recently, however, I have some very good reasons!

We have started spring cleaning, and suddenly now that's it's warmer it seems a lot easier to be doing house chores. Especially if they're actually yard work! Everyday there's something to be cleaned because even though the dogs both are short haired (they literally have no hair on their bellies) they definitely still shed A LOT. We could probably vacuum every freaking day! Plus, with the three of us here there's always dishes to be done and laundry. The garage is FILLED with tons of my BFs stuff so he has been told to at least organize it. We bought space bags and so far, I am not impressed with the zippers. The plastic part you grab and pull along the top slides straight off!

I had a job fair to go to on Monday at Work Source, where I had a great interview with Starbucks, however I haven't heard back from them and I never found out which Starbucks they even were, Tuesday I had a volunteer orientation at the Humane Society with a friend, then Wednesday I had an "interview" (that's what I thought it was going to be, at least) at Labor Ready. I didn't know what Labor Ready was, but basically you go there, sign a bunch of paper work, list skills that you have and they call you up when companies call for contract workers. You come in and end up working for a day on someones house or something. I'm basically going to be a "Fire Watch", I'll be walking around a building that shuts down for 2 weeks every year making sure no fires are starting. I'm going to be doing training with fire extinguishers soon, and I've already done some other training.

The job is only for 2 weeks, however I'm getting training and experience so I'm hoping this will lead to more jobs! Or at least 1 more permanent one. SO EXCITING.

Then Thursday I had an appointment. Plus hanging out with friends. Then Friday we drove around doing chores... I have to get steel toe boots for the job. I found some awesome ones that we'll probably go back and get, they're actually womens boots too and crazy comfortable.

I have a yard sale I'm going to participate in next weekend and I hope to sell my huge amount of homemade jewelry. I'm also working on knitting some dice bags to use up some yarn. Here are a couple of those:

Small and Big Dice Bags

The smaller one I just made, it was all the yarn I had left in that color. Obviously knit on straight needles, it holds about 15 dice if you kind of cram it. The bigger one I knit on DPNs, and can easily hold 30+ dice. I think I like knitting them on straight needles better... It goes faster. However, I actually knit the gray one on circs and just treated them like straight needles because I only have 2 pairs of straight: size 6 US and size 13 US. 

.... Yeah. Big difference... I like the size 9 and 8 circs and DPNs better. 

So I'm hoping to make a few more of those and sell them. I feel like they might sell better than my jewelry so I will try to make a bunch! I might sell a bunch of books as well. I'll have to look through my room... There's probably a dress or two I could sell as well... I'll have to get stickers for some of this stuff. 

MONEY COMING IN! WEATHER HEATING UP! GOOD TIMES!!!! 

Find us at our Facebook!