It's a good thing it isn't October

If I was really trying for NaBloWriMo I would have failed twice already.  So it's a good thing I'm just sticking with the spirit of the idea.
I also seem to have gone to knitting last night very semi-prepared.  I was going to say that I was not prepared, but I was a little.  I had my latest swatch bunny with me.  I am trying something different with it.  Since you gather the whole back for the body, it doesn't make sense to have those extra corners.  If you are making these to make use of all those swatches then the shape can not be helped, but if you are knitting just for the sake of making bunnies then I think another shape might work.  I worked the first half straight and then started decreasing.  I did a k2tog at the end of each row for two rows, and then I worked two plain rows.

This is the shape I came up with.  I didn't want the decreasing to happen too quickly so that the bunny wouldn't have much of a body, but we shall see what happens.  If it turns out that I decreased too much I could always have four plain rows between the decrease rows.


So a funny thing happened to me earlier today.  I went to go pay my credit card bill and saw there were more pending charges on my card than I was expecting.  I had tried to pay my library fees online, but every time I hit to submit after I put my info in I got a "This Service is Temporarily Unavailable" error message.  This happened a few times over a few days.  I then got myself into an actual library and paid my fees.  When I finished paying off my bill I saw that there were four pending charges on my card to the library website.  I got a little freaked out and called them.  She told me that she was pretty sure that they would just drop off since the website wasn't able to give me a confirmation number or anything.  She told me to check again on Thursday because it is a holiday today.  I was so confused for a second.  I was like "but it's a Tuesday....what holiday is it?"  It took me a second to remember that today is Veteran's Day.  Silly me.  At least I didn't take too long to figure it out and make myself look silly.

I also thought of an odd way to remember 'then' vs 'than' the other night when I was trying to pretend I was tried and go to sleep.  With 'then' the more it happens the closer you get to 'the end.'  Like, if you spread the word apart and add a letter.  Then(d).  Does that make any sense?  I don't remember what I came up with for 'than' other than somehow the T became an I and it all made sense.  I really need to write these down when I think of them.

I went and souped-up the other small pumpkin.  As you can see from the picture, I couldn't even wait to take the picture before I started eating it.  I used 'boiling' onions this time, since I don't know when I will be using more and they were nice and small.  No left over onion is a good thing.  One thing I did that was not so good was I added the Parmesan cheese when it came right out of the oven.  Instead of mixing in and adding that bit of salty flavor that makes it so good, it melted into small chewy clumps.  I suggest letting the soup cool for at least ten minutes before adding the cheese.  Fifteen might be better, but I was not able to wait long enough to find out.
Here are some things I learned from my expenses.  You definitely do not need to get all of the stringy bits out of the middle of the pumpkin when you scoop the seeds out.  They are quite tasty once cooked up.  If you consider your pumpkin to be one serving, or you are just eating right out of the skin there are a few things to remember. The meat is what is holding it up, so eat from the top down. When you cooked it, the bottom becomes really really soft so some liquid might already be escaping when you pull it out of the oven, but you need to be careful when scooping from the bottom that you don't break a hole in it and let all of the broth out.


Just a thought on some of the writing and what I've read about before on the NaNoWriMo forums.  Like I mentioned before, some people wonder if they can include their homework.  This goes along the lines of the idea of 'write 50,000 words in one month," more than writing a novel in one month.  I know the name of the event has novel in it and all, but I know there was someone working on a cookbook one year.  Someone else mentioned that you should not delete sections because you don't like them.  You wrote the words, even if you didn't like them.  It's not like everything is going to be kept just as it is at the end of the month.  If you go back to edit it at all there will be whole sections taken out, new things added.  Just because something made perfect sense when you put it in there before doesn't mean you are going to remember that plot twist you decided to add when you get to the point where you would spring it on everyone.  That person said that you should just leave them in and count them, but make some sort of note to yourself that says you don't really want them there after the 30th.  It is about getting 50,000 words out, not about figuring out 50,000 words that you love.
I was just thinking about how crazy that would be on here.  Most people don't have all of their words go straight out to the public.  Their files are sitting on their computer, away from the eyes of everyone passing by.  I might give it a try, but I'm not totally sure.

Describe one physical change you would make to yourself if you could and how this would change your life.
The interesting thing I find about this one is that most things you would want to change about your appearance can be done as long as you either have enough time to devote to it or enough money.  There are some things that can't be fixed so easily, like if you are missing something, that is a little bit harder to get back.
For me, I could slim my tummy area.  So many of my hobbies are best done when sitting still, so it has been harder than I hoped to work on it.  It also isn't just that I have a bit more weight than I would like to around my middle, lots of people have that.  What I don't really like about it is that almost all of the extra weight sits in the front.  From the back it looks like I have a slim waist, but from the side or front tells another story.  I think it makes me look a little bit pregnant if I wear tighter shirts, though it jiggles plenty.
I am dealing with it fine for now, but I would love if I could wave a magic wand and make it better.  I don't even need the magic wand to shrink my butt, I'm okay with it being a bit big.  I won't be complaining when it goes down once my tummy starts to go down, but I'm getting off track.
There are a ton of cosplay costumes I want to make and wear.  A bunch of them are either tight fitting or have bare mid-drifts.  I know there are a lot of things I could make that cover me all up, but I don't want to have to limit myself to what I want to make.  Will having more options make me a better cosplayer?  Who knows, but I know I would love to find this out though.
It would also make it easier to make regular cloths for myself.  I would need less materials and I wouldn't have to alter patterns as much.  Less yarn and less fabric would help me to save money and the hems at the bottom would even be smaller.
I would like to think that without a bit of extra weight I would be more sporty.  I know magically not having as much extra weight would not mean that I would also magically be in shape, but it would be less difficult for me to get into it.  Though maybe I should change my wish to being more in shape as my physical change.  Just because it is physical doesn't mean it has to be visible.  Maybe it does... well, being fit would change how I look on the outside, so I think it counts.


Describe the most recent moment when you couldn't think of anything to say.  Were you having a hard time making conversation, or were you simply dumbfounded?
I can't believe I forgot one of the best ones for this!  So here is a bit of back story before this happened.  The head manager where I work was getting blamed for a lot of stuff.  If he got the store to look tidier, then he used too many hours; or if he stayed under hours the store looked messy.  Well, he got another job at a similar type of store.  I was on my break and the district manager was in the office talking kind of loudly on his phone.  The walls are pretty thin, so it is easy to hear what is being said in the other room.  The district manager and the lead manager were also connected on Facebook, so he would know that the lead manager and I are friends on Facebook as well.  He also saw me sitting there when he walked back to the office.  Here is the one side of the conversation I overheard:

Yeah, there is still an opening at *this location*.  ... Yeah, the guy went to *other company of similar type*.  ... Yeah, we get some of theirs and they get some of ours.  We got two of their best and they got our worst.

He kept talking from there but at that point I could not believe he said that.  Our store has gone through four head managers and about seven regular managers in the four years I have been there.  The location where we are now hasn't been opened five years yet.  I believe that points the problem away from the people at the store level and moves it elsewhere.  I'm not sure where from there, but definitely elsewhere.  I didn't know if I should let on that I heard that or if he was trying to cause some drama so I stayed quiet.  Well, I did until I told the guy about what the district manager is saying about him.  They never really got along, so it was no surprise.


Whoo, just made it in time too!  Getting home from work late is tough.

Today's count: 1,904
Monthly count: 16,787
Prompts used: 13
Pictures posted: 2 (counting only finished objects)