As some of you knew our heater/AC needed repairing and we had gotten the little space heaters last year since it was the end of the season and we were tight on funds.  Well summer came before we could get it fixed and we just used a few window AC units and enjoyed power bills of roughly $200 a month all summer running our 3 window units (and 2 box fans for good air flow) continuously mind you. Well it’s winter again and we were using the little heaters at first because it wasn’t that cold and the bill stayed what our new normal was but then Shanty needed them more than us so we decided to just turn the regular heater on at night…ONLY at night mind you… my bill jumped and <span>EXTRA </span>$139.90!

WTF CHUCK?

You want me to pay $339? For electric? For a heater I only used at night? Who makes these stupid home units? Are they effing morons? For $60 I can go and get another 3 of those Sunbeam Ceramic Heaters from Walmart and drop my bill back down to $200 a month so guess what I’m getting (if they have it) or ordering  for store delivery (free shipping) on payday?

Of course it could just be that JEA once again raised the rates, it was the holidays after all and everyone knows that people use electric no matter what for lights and extra guests and whatnot. And don’t even get me started on the frickin $5 credit card process fee they charge when you pay your bill, I’ve had a CC processor before it doesn’t cost $5 per transaction, think about it.  I wonder if the “processor” is under their “umbrella” whoever they are they make like $5 off of like lets say half of the population that would be around 400,000 people…that’s $2,000,000 a month just for processing “fees” :::cough cough::: wish I had got in on that as a business model!

Why do people think that they should be given things for free if they don’t earn or pay for them? I’m pretty sure that I and everyone else I know wouldn’t have a home if I didn’t pay rent or mortgage, a car if I didn’t make the monthly payments, groceries if I wasn’t budgeted to the penny, or friends if I didn’t take the time to contact them occasionally (or even find ones that seemed lost, lol) even though of all these things friendship is the one thing that is freely given. Just pondering, have a good day folks!

That’s right Gretchen won Project Runway, now don’t get me wrong I’m sure she’s a very nice person compared to how she was portrayed in the show but seriously? Did they LOOK at what she sent down?

I say we start our own web show called What Real People Want To Wear, skip the advertisements for name brand stuff that most of us will never bother with because lets face it we’re all broke from the recession and just do our own thing.

I am ever so thankful for my days. I don’t think that enough people stop to appreciate that they have another day, and there might not be another.
So what can I do today to show that I am thankful, grateful, glad that I have another moment to…
smile at a stranger
open a door for a child
pet the dog
hug my kids
share a laugh
tell my best friend I love him
listen to a bird sing
be content for even just a moment

Yes, I know that I had a slew of projects that I wanted to get up here to share but I’ve got to be honest summer was one long hot yuck for me.  I’ve been working on knitting, sewing, crocheting and writing.  It seems all for naught now though as my computer that held everything crashed and I was silly enough not to have used the sugar sync account I have on those files too :::sigh:::

I did discover something cool though a couple weeks ago, it’s called Art Fire and let me tell you I love their site!  One flat rate for pros or get a free account, tons of tools, and sleek design.  Now I just need to retype all the info stuck on the defunct computer and I’ll be in business, lol.

I wish that I had an actual way to manage my time that worked in more than theory.  Oh don’t get me wrong I can plan my day out to the minute but when you have 3 kids, a dog, and 2 ferrets a well laid plan can easily be tossed out the window, or more likely it runs screaming from my home, lol.

Maybe it would be easier if all my kids were near the same age instead of two teens and 3 year old, but then I get to thinking it might be hard to have two daughters as teens at the same time rather than the son and daughter mix I have.  I admit my home is fairly quiet until my Dee gets home in the afternoon as she’s quite a talker, but the schedule is still already tossed because of the little ones.

Did you know that it’s not true that a ferret can fit into anything he gets his head in?  I discovered that when Achilies my male ferret got himself stuck in little Bellas Pooh Bear Airplane toy with the shape holes on the side, I had to saw him out of it.  You canna expect a round critter to manage to get through a square hole after all!

Then there’s Gus (the dog) and Bella (the wee one) a bigger pair of trouble makers I’ve never seen, he gives her the puppy eyes for crackers, she tries to pass off crayon markings on the walls as if poor Gus did it.

I suppose there really is no reason for this post other than just my pondering.  I will say though that if my home isn’t filled with laughter and mischief (hey sometimes we manage alone time thanks to other family, lol) I still don’t keep on my schedule because stillness in a home so filled with love and laughter is rather disconcerting.

I realize that not everyone is plus size, I also realize that not everyone is a standard size either, some of us are in between.

One of the things that I am committed to whenever I’m getting ready to do an event or list a slew of items (as I’m getting ready to do so keep your eyes peeled this week!) is to make sure that at least 20% of what I have ready to go is suitable for wear by US Size 18 and Up.

If you’re a hand made artist selling some kind of garment I encourage you to also have some plus sizes available too; it’s hard for me to shop for my mum who is though average looking in size actually wears an 18 because she’s tall and has wide shoulders (and hips thanks to 2 kids, lol)

Let us not forget about the people that don’t perfectly fit into a magazine mold, wonderful people who love our hand made items as much as the next person who might love to buy that shawl if it would look like a shawl rather than a scarf on someone with a 50″ chest, or a scarf that is long and wide enough to look like a scarf rather than a tie.

I know there have been items I would have been interested in purchasing on impulse if the sizing wasn’t so tiny, I have had 3 kids and nature wasn’t kind enough to give me good genes when my hips grew they’ve never gone away, lol.  Sure I wear either a 14 or 16 depending on the brand but when I’m looking at handmade items if I want something my size it’s generally made to order…stops my impulse buying mind you but also looses the persons work that I liked a sale.

I’m just sayin, ya know?

Normally I wouldn’t put something like this on here as it doesn’t really really pertain to crafting or my life in general beyond the fact that I have a wireless router but my daughter inherited an ipod touch from my sister and was asking if there was a way to boost her range to enable her to be online.  Hmm.  Of course she can leach off other peoples wireless internet if they don’t have password protection but what about just boosting the signal around here hmm?

So I did the google and came up with something called How to Boost a Router Signal it had the appropriate name so I reckoned I’d give it a gander.  After I got to the last way I was snickering and decided to share, so check out how a crafter can boost a signal by going to the page here and reading example #8, lol.

So I’m floating about looking for a blasted power cord for my epson scanner and decided I was hungry and wanted tortilla chips, which of course we don’t have because I’m broke so I had the wonderful idea to make my own which would be why I stumbled over to Allrecipes.com only to read the recipe I wanted and know that darn it I don’t have any shortening :::sigh::: Do you ever have days like that? So alas my chips are not to be but my eyes spied something interesting that I thought I would share!

They say necessity is the mother of invention and though that is not true in the case of my would be tortilla chips today it is the case in “When It All Turns Pear Shaped, Make Quiche… or More from the Hilltop Winter Kitchen ”

Yummy to the max! Enjoy!