NaBloPoMo Day Twelve: Running Out Of Steam

This month, I am participating in the CEO Of Me Shop From Your Seat Showcase. You can take a look at the other vendors, and find an exclusive coupon code for my Etsy shop Here. There are a lot of cool small businesses represented, check it out! You can also enter to win $400 worth of prizes Here. It's an awesome event, and I am so happy to be taking part.
I slept in today. I could have been up earlier than 11:00, which is when I finally rolled out of bed, but I didn't have anything pressing to do. Some days I feel guilty sleeping in, but today wasn't one of those days. Rick had an appointment to go to, so he kissed me goodbye, and I snuggled under the blankets for another half hour or so. I finally woke up and had some nachos with dip for breakfast. Sounds unhealthy, but there were lots of veggies on the dip, so I'm counting it as a win.

I continued knitting a bracelet while reading some of my blogs. My new goal is 20 finished bracelets. I have thirteen almost done so far. They're all off the needles, they just need to have the ends wrapped, and tied. I graft the two ends together as seamlessly as possible, but I like to wrap the yarn and make them look a little more polished. I'm going to search through my stash for more fine yarn to make some different colours. I have a pretty good variety so far, which makes me super happy.
Most of my craft show stuff is ready for the Made in Windsor shows this weekend. Everything is priced, and the ends are all tied in, except for the bracelets. The only thing I have left to do is assemble a few more pairs of earrings, as well as package and price them. I might wait to do this, as I already have quite a few pairs made. We'll have to see how much free time I have this week. I don't work Wednesdays, so I might do all the rest of my prep then.

I worked a five hour shift tonight. It was incredibly quiet. It is nice at times to not have to do much work, but after a while, it really starts to drag. I played a couple games of Plague Inc to pass the time. I wish I'd brought knitting with me, but I somehow forgot it. I am happy that there weren't any problems tonight. I was a bit grumpy at the start of my shift, and I knew I wouldn't put up with the drama that happens there at times.

Rick and I watched Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter this morning. I'd seen the trailer, and a few people have mentioned it, but it wasn't really on my list of "must see" movies. I really enjoyed it. The vampires were really awesome, following what most folklore tells you about them, none of that sparkly bullshit.
We are watching The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as I write this. I wasn't too into it when Rick told me the title, but I figured I would give it a chance. I'm actually liking it. Normally, I don't really care for movies with too many story lines running concurrently, but this one works well. There are no jumps in time, which helps me keep track of what is actually going on. Multiple stories with multiple time frames makes for a confused Nicole. In the end, everyone found their happily ever after. Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end.

Onto some fun facts.
40. If I am unable to open my own business, I want to work for an independent brewery. I love the culture that surrounds micro brews, and I would love to be a major part of that. There are so many awesome things that happen at all these breweries. I have no idea if I would ever be able to actually do this, but it would be awesome.
41. I am a terrible procrastinator. I always put things off until the deadline is breathing down my neck. Most craft shows, I am still adding price tags, and making earrings until midnight. I always tell myself I will do better next time, and not put it off, but it always happens.
Another great example of procrastination on my part is this post. It's 11:45 pm as I write this, and I am still several hundred words away from my goal. I am over a day behind in words, and I worry that I will never catch up. I can try and put the blame on things around me. Like having to work today, or the internet being unreliable, but really, it's my fault. I didn't do any planning yesterday, so I didn't have anything to write about. I spent more time checking my word count than actually contributing to it.
42. This one ties in with the last one. I am incredibly easily distracted. Not enough to warrant a title that starts with a capital A, but enough to be annoyed. I often start fiddling around with unimportant things, and I lose focus of the end goal. When I was in school, this was a terrible curse. Procrastination and a short attention span meant most of my projects were dragged together in the two days before the due date. I did well most of the time, so that didn't encourage me to change my ways. I know that if I go back to school, I will have to learn to change my ways.

Today's 365 photo is similar to one from a few days ago. In fact, many of my pictures have been similar so far. I will be doing more interesting things in the future, I promise. My life isn't all work and knitting. Wait... It actually kind of is, currently. Oh well! Anyway, more bracelets! I really like the way this one turned out. The colours are pretty accurate, and it shows just how many I have on the go. I'm almost to my goal! After I finish 20, I think I will make a few more that have beads throughout. I've seen some really pretty textile bracelets with beads and charms, and they are really pretty. I hope I can recreate something as good as them.

Overall, life is still pretty awesome. I talked with Christine, the organizer of the Made in Windsor show, today. We both have very high hopes for the show this weekend. That is what I am looking forward to most right now. I can't wait for the weekend!

I'm having a hell of a time finishing this post! Our internet is shaky, and I can't get to the site I usually use to count my words.

This post has 1149 words.

I am at 17 792 total words for this month.

NaBloPoMo Day Eleven

When I woke up this morning, I had absolutely no desire to continue with this posting series. I had no desire to do much of anything, to be honest. I didn't even want to knit. I tried to watch TV but the satellite wasn't working. I tried playing with the dog, and he didn't feel like it. So, I woke Rick up and made him take me to Arby's. We come here pretty regularly, at least we used to, because the internet is much MUCH faster than at home, and we can actually download our TV shows in a reasonable amount of time. I had a back log of Duck Dynasty shows to get, as well as an episode of 2 Broke Girls.
Coming to Arby's is always an adventure. Today started out with us unable to get our usual table. Not the end of the world or anything, just a minor annoyance. So we sat at our second choice, and started to set up. There were people near us, which is never really a desirable situation, as questionable content sometimes pops up in our RSS feeds. That table left and it was quiet for a while. A short time after that, a screaming child came in for a bit. Then a little girl trying to get her Oma's attention by repeatedly saying OMA OMA OMA rather loudly, while said Oma was having a conversation with someone else at the table. I really try to ignore these things, but it's not always possible. Does this make me a bad person?
Anyway, today's 365 photo is of our sandwiches. More often than not, we each get the 4 for $6 deal. Two sandwiches, curly fries and a drink. It's enough food, for a good price. And, we can take our time eating it. I don't really like to sit around there for too long without having food or drinks on the table, because I feel like I'm getting in the way. That actually never happens, but I can't help but feeling like it's the truth.

I decided to wear my matryoshka ring from SOMETHINGMONUMENTAL today. I got a couple rings from Mandy a little while back, and I haven't worn them at all. It's hard to wear rings to work, because I'm terrified they're going to get caught on something and either break, or, even worse, break my finger. It's on my pinky, and I keep catching little glances of it dangling while I type, and it's making me smile. I love little matryoshki!

I spent a couple hours trying to get ad space up on my I Love Etsy blog. I have Passionfruit Ads on the YarnYarnYarnYarn blog, and that didn't give me any issues when I added the code for it. For some reason, it's just not cooperating with this one. Rick helped me with it, and I thought it was figured out, and it just pretended to be. I'll probably have to come back to it later and try again. If you have any tips for adding Passionfruit Ads to a tumblr blog, please let me know!

Like I mentioned earlier, I didn't even want to knit this morning. I have a few projects on the needles, but nothing was appealing to me at all. I don't know if I'm burned out, or uninspired or something like that. I just have to fall back in love with knitting, that's for sure. I spent some time looking at patterns on Ravelry. There are a few different items I want to add to my craft show arsenal, but I need to find some photos to get an idea of proportions and stitch patterns. I don't want to do anything too simple, nor too complicated.

Here is today's edition of fun facts about Nicole.
37. My brain is a sponge for useless information. The only time any of these random facts come in handy is when I'm watching Jeopardy. I wish I could remember names as well as I remember that Louis XIV was called the Sun King. Or to reply to important emails on time like I can remember phone numbers I haven't dialled in ten years or more. My random fact bank also includes things about random celebrities, strange song lyrics, a few scientific facts and other things that don't usually make for interesting dinner conversation. I seek out information pretty readily, usually by reading various articles online.
38. I hate being hot. When I lived in my first apartment, it was horribly laid out and my one little window air conditioner couldn't cool the entire place. I put a blanket up in the doorway of my living room, and lived exclusively in that room for the duration of the hot weather. It wasn't very fun. The really strange thing about this, is that I love super hot showers. I like being warm in the shower, and cold everywhere else. I've said before that I'm a strange person.
39. I play games obsessively. I get addicted to different games every few months. Whichever one is hot at the moment, I will play for hours at a time. Sometimes, it's a Facebook based game, but usually, it's on my iPhone. But I will play so often, that my phone battery will die several times a day. I'm currently on the lookout for a new one. I wanted to play RollerCoaster Tycoon, but I can't find a download for Mac. I also thought about getting Sims again, but that one is WAY too addictive. I just started Plague Inc. for iPhone, and it seems pretty interesting.
Okay, so I got distracted with Plague Inc. I played it for a while, and nearly killed my phone battery. This should make for a new game addiction.

I got a little more bracelet knitting done this evening while watching The Walking Dead. Finished a white, four wrap bracelet, and started on a white three wrap. I'm still going for some variety. I'm going to try making them with embroidery floss after I'm done with this one. It seems to be the right weight, and I have tons of the stuff. I've also been toying with the idea of adding beads into them randomly. Oh oh oh! And stripes and colour blocks. I have a lot of ideas, I just want to make sure they will sell before I make too many of them. I hardly sold any of the simple ones last craft show season, and I don't want a crap ton of them sitting around. Once I get the Made in Windsor show done, I will get some of them photographed and listed in the shop. I have a few other plans for them, as well, but I don't want to reveal too much just yet.

I put off most of the writing until late at night. Now, it's getting close to midnight and I am several hundred words away from my goal. The last couple days, I've been under my word count, so I am trying to play catch up. It seems like this one will be under, as well. I have to get some more ideas together so I can get a couple word heavy posts made and get back on target. My real goal is actually just 15 days or more, and at least 25 000 words. If I can make it halfway, I will count it as a personal victory. There is always next year, right? (Plus, if I do it next year, I can do more planning, rather than just "Hey, this sounds like a good idea")

This post has 1259 words.

I am at 16 643 total words for this month.

One Third of the Way There! Day Ten of NaBloPoMo

Honestly, I am pretty surprised I've made it this far. I've made attempts at 101 in 1001 lists two separate times, and never gotten very far into them. Maybe because this isn't as long, and doesn't involve as many goals? I don't know, but I'm really happy that I'm still sticking with this. I'm just about a day behind in word count, but I'm sure I can make that up in the next few days.

I woke up around 9:30 today, and hopped on the computer pretty much immediately. My queues for my I Love Etsy! blog and my personal tumblr were getting dangerously low, so I had to stock them up again. I try to have at least three or four days of posts ready to go at any time. Both of them had reached one day or less. I added a whole bunch of posts to the YarnYarnYarnYarn queue as well. I really enjoy sharing the cool things I find on these tumblrs. I really enjoy the tumblr blogging platform as a whole. The social aspect of it is really cool.

Yesterday, I posted the photo of all the bracelets I'd made. Since then, I've finished a couple more. These bracelets whip up so quickly, it's great. I'm sure I'll reach, if not surpass, my new goal of 16 bracelets. The only ones I have left to do are the shorter, three wrap ones, so they go even faster. I'm thinking about making one up that is either or more wraps, just to show people what it looks like, so they can possibly order one in the colour of their choice at a long length like that. What colour bracelets would you like to see? I'm trying to get as much variety as possible.

In addition to the Made in Windsor show I have coming up next Friday and Saturday, I've signed up for a show on the Sunday. It will be at Sprucewood Shores Estate Winery. They're doing a show every Sunday between November 18 and December 30, from 12:00-5:00 each day. I'm going to do the first one, and see how it goes. If I do well, I will sign up for as many as I possibly can. It will be nice to have something weekly (or close to it) to look forward to. Plus, since I don't work most Sundays anyway, I'll hopefully be making some money, too!

The other night, I was on Tophatter, in the Supplies auction room, which is always trouble for me. I've purchased a lot of my earring supplies through there, and I may have... accidentally... yeah, let's go with accidentally, bought a whole bunch more. One of my favourite suppliers had a few auctions in the Standby area, with a pretty low starting bid. I decided to place that bid on a few of her lots, and I hoped to win one of them at that price. The first one came to auction, and the price went more than double the starting bid. Fine, okay, I still have bids on a couple more. I expected the same to happen with all of them, so I just left the auction, and continued writing my blog post for the night. When you bid on an item in Standby, that bid is automatically applied, whether you're present at the auction or not. I checked my email a couple hours later, almost having forgotten about the auction, and to my surprise, I won three of the six auctions I bid on! I was ecstatic! I really wanted to get more earring supplies so that I could bring more finished pairs to stores that are selling my stuff, but I just didn't feel like I had enough made to do so. I now have enough for probably 350 pairs! I have plenty of posts and backs that I ordered a while back, so once I get these, I will likely spend a few days assembling them, another couple packaging, and then we're off to the races! I love making earrings, and they sell well, so it's a win-win for me!


I worked six hours this evening. It wasn't super busy, but busy enough that the time still passed at a reasonable speed. There were a few issues with our tills suddenly deciding to stop working, which caused some problems. Then, they started working, and our debit machines went down. We couldn't win! This happens far too often. We're supposed to be getting a whole new computer and POS system (NOT piece of shit, it's point of sale) in the new year, and that can't come soon enough. At least the guys I was working with were having fun. It really drags on if people are miserable. Any time I go into work in a grumpy mood, I try to get out of my funk, before I bum out anyone else. I really hate going into work in a good mood, and then some turd ball spoiling it for me. And I don't want to be that kind of turd ball.

Here are today's fun facts.

32. I'm incredibly clumsy. The most recent example of this is that this past Wednesday, when Rick and I stopped at the antiques store, I left, and was looking around, rather than where I was going, and I fell off the raised sidewalk, and twisted my ankle. It still hurts today. I've also stubbed my toes multiple times, and broken them a few times. A couple weeks ago, I fell UP the stairs, and I think I broke my toe. It still hurts now, nearly a month later. Tripped over a door once, and broke my arm. Yes, tripped over a door. It's unbelievable, until you meet me.

33. I'm very lazy. This one is kind of hard to admit, but it's very true. I don't like to clean, I don't like to work out, I don't like to do much of anything but knit, read blogs, and hang out with Rick and Winston. I'm trying to get into better habits of cleaning up after myself, and working out regularly, but it's fricken tough to start new habits. Apparently, it takes 30 days, or something like that, for a new habit to stick. I get lazy halfway through and lose all the ground I gained. I need to fix this. As soon as I am done writing this, I'm going to work out. I don't care if it's only for 15 minutes, I have to do something!

34. I moved out of my parents house when I was 20. I blogged about this when it was happening, but I'm not sure if my age was apparent. A lot of people told me that was too young to move out, but it was time. I had a good apartment, for a great price, fall into my lap, and I had a hard time saying no. I met Rick shortly after, and this relationship wouldn't have happened if I still lived with my parents, I'm sure of it. Since then, I've moved twice, which is completely bizarre, because I'd lived in the same house since I was a baby.

35. I often have the sense of humour of an eleven year old boy. Seriously... Lowbrow humour and I get along really well. In fact, I just had a conversation with two friends about farting, and laughed my ass off. I'm also a fan of the whole "That's what she said" line. I've almost ALMOST said it to customers at work, and had to bite my tongue. I don't think middle aged Mennonite men (the majority of our customers) would appreciate such humour.

36. I want to get braces. When I was younger, I went to an orthodontist at the insistence of my dentist. Orthodontist said I didn't NEED braces or anything of the sort, but if we (being my parents, who would foot the bill) wanted them, he would do them. We decided against it, because my parents would have had to pay a large percentage of it, as my mom's insurance wouldn't cover the majority. Now that I am older, I wish my teeth were straighter. They're not very crooked or crowded, but enough that I notice it. Maybe when we win the lottery, I'll get them. Hint: We very VERY rarely gamble, so that's not going to happen any time soon. I would also like to whiten my teeth. This is something I will probably be doing soon. I have whitening strips, I just have to read the directions, and get to doing it!

When I got done work tonight, I went to Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up some Red Bull for Rick and I. I drank a giant can of it while writing this post, and it made me feel like a hardcore partier. I'm kind of hyped up, and I have the energy to go work out. I spent some time chatting with some friends on Facebook, which is always nice. I don't get to see my friends that often because we live so far from the city, so it's nice to have a way to keep in touch.

This post has 1518 words.

I am at 15 384 total words for this month.

Day Number Nine of NaBloPoMo

It's Friday! That doesn't mean much for me, because I work today and tomorrow. I do have Sunday off work, though. I wasn't really feeling writing this post when I first started it this morning. My idea well is starting to run dry, and I don't want these posts to be contrived, as I mentioned before. I haven't really had a whole lot of knitting time, so there isn't much to update about in that department. And with work, I don't have time to gallivant around and do fun stuff everyday.

Onto today's fun facts!
28. I very rarely get sick. When I was young (like under 4 years old) I used to be sick all.the.time. I obviously don't remember this, but my mom does. Since then, I don't get sick all that often. I can't even remember the last time I had so much as a cold. I don't have any secrets to how I don't catch things that are going around. It's not like I wash my hands obsessively, seclude myself from people who are sick, or anything like that. I'm just lucky, I guess.
29. I've been on a plane exactly three times. When I was about 12, I went to the local hobby airplane hangar with my Pathfinder group for an open house they were having. (Pathfinders are an older group of Girl Guides: the Canadian version of Girl Scouts) With this event, all of the attendees could go up in a plane with one of the pilots. When my turn came up, I was matched with a really nice guy and his yellow, two seater Cessna. It was small. So small that he had to take his shoes off to be able to reach the foot controls. We flew around the county, and were up in the air for about 30 minutes, maybe a little longer. In that time, I flew the plane for about 5 minutes, and it was amazing!
The second and third times I was on a plane was going to and from Iceland. These flights were mostly uneventful. On the way there, we flew overnight, so most people slept. The way back, we flew over Greenland, which was pretty awesome.
30. The farthest I've ever been from home is Iceland. I've never been farther south than the middle of Ohio. So that means unlike a lot of people, I've never been to Florida, Mexico or elsewhere around the Gulf of Mexico. And honestly? I really don't think I'm missing out on much. I don't care what your opinion on that area is, it's not for me. I don't do well with heat, I don't like having sand all over me, and I don't like being surrounded by a million tourists.
31. I used to go camping all the time with my family. We'd pack up our truck and trailer, and head out on the open road. We've been all around Ontario, through Quebec, and across the maritimes (except for Newfoundland, unfortunately) And those camping trips were some of the greatest trips I'd ever had. I'm much happier to have seen that much of Canada, than any other country where I have to stay on the resort or risk being attacked.

Work wasn't too bad tonight. I had an eight hour, which hasn't happened in a little while. I wasn't working on empties, which was a nice change. Being that I'm the lowest in seniority, I'm nearly always doing returns. Nothing too eventful happened tonight. There were a lot of young people coming in, so I had to ID a whole bunch of them. Only one girl gave me a problem. All I could say was "Take it as a compliment, and give me your ID, or get out of my store." She had only turned 19 a couple months ago. Sorry, but you don't magically look old enough as soon as your birthday passes. We ID anyone that looks under 25, and most people, females especially, take it as a compliment. I'm working six hours tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. Nearly the whole crew is in, so it should be a good time.

I am so happy with today's 365 photo. I told myself I wanted to have at least 10 bracelets made for the Made in Windsor show, and I am almost there, with nearly a week to go! My new quota is going to be two of each colour: one of each size. The filter on this photo makes the colours look a lot more saturated than they are really, but it's pretty close. The top row all wrap four times, and are $12. The bottom row wrap thrice, and are $10. My pricing is basically going to be $6 for the first wrap, and $2 for every wrap after that. So if there is a colour you want, in a specific number of wraps, let me know, and I can get making that for you!

It's now almost midnight, and I'm eating a bowl of sausage soup, that has no sausage in it. Dinner was at around 4, so I was a bit on the hungry side. This isn't really hitting the spot.

Short post tonight, but I didn't have much to say. I'll be back tomorrow!

This post has 866 words.

I am at 13 866 total words for this month.

NaBloPoMo Day Eight: Awesome Thursday: November 8, 2012

For the first time in this NaNo series, I have writers block. I'm having a rough time focusing on this post, because I would rather be knitting. I have a whole pile of projects around me in various states of being finished that keep grabbing my attention. If it's not those, I start reading blogs in my RSS reader. Or I start browsing Etsy or TopHatter. I can't concentrate! Too many distractions! Oooh shiny things!

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that I was ready to cast off the teal shawl. Well, I did that not too long after finishing the blog post, and I really like how it turned out! It's a bit smaller than the other shawls, but still a great size for wrapping around your neck. You can't really see the yarn overs on the edge, but you can kind of see the open bits on the centre spine. I did the increases for this one a little differently than I usually do, which made them a little more visible. It made the knitting a little easier, and quicker, but I don't really like the way it looks. I will probably go back to the way I usually do the increases. I think I still have a couple skeins of this yarn left, and I will likely make another neck warmer out of it. I made two, and you can see one here. The other is nearly identical, and I brought it into Trinkets and Treasures yesterday.


Today is Thursday, so that means an Awesome Thursday is in order! Like I mentioned last week, there have also been studies done that have concluded that people showing gratitude can lead healthier lives with less depression and anxiety, sounder sleep and a better attitude towards others. I'm not one to argue with science, so on with the gratitude!

• I started this fun NaBlo project! I'm a week in, and doing very well, I think. I still have a few ideas of fun things to write about, so hopefully the posts won't get boring.
• On Friday, we went to the casino for the buffet. I posted about that whole day on Day 2 of NaBloPoMo, here. I had a lot of fun there, even without gambling.
• I worked like crazy on YarnYarnYarnYarn, and got nearly ONE THOUSAND posts ready to go. That number absolutely boggles my mind. I'm going to be adding a whole bunch more this upcoming weekend, when I have a day off.
• I knit a whole pile of bracelets. They come off the needles so quickly, I love them! Tomorrow, I'll post a picture of all the ones I have made so far. They look pretty awesome!
• Obama won! I followed the results online, and it was pretty nerve wracking. I am quite happy with this, as well as some of the propositions passed, and voted down, in various states.
• Rick and I went to Amherstburg to drop off stock to Trinkets and Treasures. The new store is nice, as I mentioned before.
• I got paid from Trinkets! Not a whole lot of money, but considering I didn't have a whole heck of a lot in the store, I'm pretty darn happy.
• Work today was pretty nice. We had some awesome customers come in early on, which made the slow day go by a little quicker.
• When I got home from work, dinner was almost ready. Cindy made sausage soup again, and it was fantastic! I think I'm going to bring a bowl of it to work tomorrow.

Here are today's fun facts! I'm starting to have a really hard time figuring out what to put here. I would appreciate any suggestions/questions you have for me!

25. I have a hard time choosing my favourite anything, especially anything music related. For a couple years now, I've used a service called Last.fm to track my music metrics. This has given me a pretty good idea of the bands I listen to the most often. With that, I give you my top 10 favourite bands:

1. Fall Out Boy
2. Taking Back Sunday
3. Blink 182
4. Rise Against
5. Tegan and Sara
6. Nirvana
7. The Used
8. Metric
9. Say Anything
10. Paramore

This is pretty accurate. I listen to all these bands quite often, and have multiple albums by each of them. Also, I'm not ashamed that I like these bands as much as I do. I don't believe in having "guilty pleasure" music. If you like something, own it.

26.I don't drink coffee! Until a year ago, I absolutely abhorred coffee, and anything coffee flavoured. I made it a goal of my 101 in 1001 list to learn to like coffee. I forced myself to drink it with a lot of milk and sugar a few times. I didn't mind it, but I definitely didn't like it either. Rick and I would share a French press of coffee a few times a week, in hopes of me learning to like it. It never worked. I don't hate it anymore, but I never actually buy it or anything like that. The only time I do consume it is from Starbucks, when I get a frappucino. But I don't think that even counts because of all the other stuff in with it. And, my favourite beverage at Tim Horton's is a white hot chocolate.
27. This ties in with the last one. If the idea of a certain type of food appeals to me, I will do everything in my power to learn to like it. I used to hate avocados and guacamole, for example. But I liked the idea of everything that is in guacamole, and the health benefits of eating avocados, so I kept eating it over and over again, to force myself to like it. I did the same with raw fish. And beer, actually. One of the other foods that I want to teach myself to like is hummus. I love the idea of it, and I just want to learn to enjoy it. People don't believe me when I say it's possible to learn to enjoy certain foods. It worked for me!

Two of my knitted items were featured in treasuries today! Being included in a treasury is always a nice treat, and two in one day is absolutely fantastic! The pictures are obviously very very small, so you can click them and see the treasury on Etsy, in all its glory. If you're feeling nice, you can Heart them!

Today's 365 photo is the Steam Whistle truck doing its delivery at work today. I wanted to get closer to get a better shot, but I was the only one on the tills at the time, and I didn't want to make people wait. I spent most of the day at work, so I figured something work related was in order. There will probably be a lot of work related 365 photos, so I will try to mix it up as much as possible.

The internet has been acting really goofy for me all afternoon today. Things aren't loading quickly, if at all, or the router suddenly decides I need to log into it, all sorts of shenanigans. I'm hoping this post goes through without issues. It's a little on the short side, but like I said before, the short attention span was kicking in.

This post has 1215 words.

I am at 13 000 total words for this month.

Day Seven of NaBloPoMo

This morning started earlier than normal. I was up around 9. I think my theory of "late to bed, early to rise" is correct. I'll probably be going to bed later more often. I didn't have to be up this early, but it meant I had plenty of time to putter around before Rick and I had to leave. I made egg, mushroom and cheese wraps for breakfast, which were pretty tasty. I also had plenty of time to get my knitting together for the car ride we had on the agenda.


Earlier this week, we planned to drive the 40 minutes or so to Amherstburg today, where Trinkets and Treasures is now located. They've been open there about a week, and are doing fairly well. I had new stock to drop off, as well as take care of all the paper work that needed to be done. The new shop is beautiful. It's quite a bit larger than the last two locations, combined! The way Mel has the shop laid out is pretty nice, too. There are two pretty big windows at the front of the store. One of them showcases children's items, and the other has all sorts of things for adults. There is also a section of all kinds of beautiful jewelry, another with stationary and other paper goods, and other small sections so you can easily find what you would like to purchase. These cowls are a few of the items I brought in today. I also brought in a bunch of earrings, and a couple scarves. I wanted to bring more, but I want to make sure I have enough stock for the next two craft shows. Maybe I'll bring more in there after those are done. We'll see!

There is a "Christmas tree" in the centre of the store, that is made of old wooden ladders. Mel has this covered with a whole bunch of handmade ornaments. It's super awesome. She wrapped "presents" to put under it to add to that tree effect. I still have a few of my tiny winter hats on there. There are also hand painted bulbs, sewn ornaments, and quite a few others.
Overall, I really like the new store. I have a feeling it will do really well here. Amherstburg gets quite a few tourists, and I'm sure a lot of them would love to buy handmade goods. Not to mention, the people that live there really seem to like to support independent businesses.

On the drive there, I finished another knitted bracelet. This one was the bright blue one. I started a black cotton one right after. I only have an inch or two left to do on that one, and I will can it finished as well. I'm loving how these are turning out. Hopefully I can get more than 10 made before my next show in a week and a half!

On the way back, we stopped at an antiques store in Harrow. There was an amazing spinning wheel in the front window that grabbed my attention. It was in really good condition, from what I could tell, and was HUGE! Seriously, the actual wheel part was probably 3 feet or more across. The whole store was pretty big. And chock full of interesting things. We're planning on heading back there one day when we don't have Winston in the car so we can spend a long time in there looking at everything. I can't wait!

Onto some fun facts about me! I hope you aren't getting bored with this feature. Really, I hope I'm not boring you with this whole NaBloPoMo series!

20. Everyone close to me knows this one. I am very untidy and very unorganized. It doesn't matter what I do, I'm like Pigpen, with a dust cloud following behind me. I can tidy up the areas I use regularly, like the coffee and end tables, and the computer desk, but within as little as two hours it can be right back to square one. I am definitely much better than I used to be, but still not great. This is a big goal of mine: to be perpetually tidy. I don't mind a little bit of mess now and then, but I just want to be able to know exactly where everything is when I need it.

21. I work in retail, at The Beer Store, as I've mentioned before. I love my job, but there are certain things some people do that drives me right up the wall, and back down again. The biggest one, and it really shouldn't be, considering some of the crap I have to deal with there, is when people throw their money down on the counter, rather than putting it in my hand. After I give them their total, I extend my hand if they have the money out, and wait for them to put it in my hand. I don't do it before they have the money out, because it seems rude to me, almost as if I'm waiting impatiently. When my hand is out, and then they throw the money down on the (dirty/wet/beer and dirt covered) counter, and then I have to pick it up, it makes me want to throw it right back in their face. First of all, the counter is fricken FILTHY 90% of the time, no matter how much I clean it. In Ontario, our alcohol bottles are returned to The Beer Store, and you receive your deposit there. There aren't any bottle return machines at grocery stores or anything like that. Everything has to be processed by hand. People put bags of cans up on the counter, and inevitably, scummy, smelly beer spills out. I clean it as often as I can, but it still is pretty dirty. I digress. I don't want to stick my hand in that filth! So when people throw it down, I stare at it for a second, and then reluctantly pick it up and put it in my cash drawer. If the customer was exceptionally jerk-ish about it, I sometimes put their change back in the beer puddle. Rude? Maybe. But what goes around, comes around. This is just a faster circuit.
Does this make me a bad person? I hope not...

22. I am fluent in French. I grew up going to a French school from the age of 4 to 18. It was all French, all the time, except starting in grade 4, we had 40 minutes of English everyday. In high school, I took an English class every year, as well. I consider French to be my first language, as I learned all the grammar rules, spelling and what not in French before English. Now that I no longer use it regularly, I am losing my fluency slowly. We have a couple customers who come into work that speak French much more easily than they do English, so I try to have a short conversation with them if time permits. I'm trying to find some French blogs and podcasts to subscribe to so that I can use it more often.
My parents, my Mom mostly, made a sacrifice putting us in a French school. Dad grew up speaking exclusively French until he was about 10, and since then has lost most of his ability to speak it since then. Mom barely understands a word of it. They both missed out on a lot of our childhood school activities, because they were run in French. I don't want that to be for naught if I never use my French in a way to improve my life.

23. I have a bit of an obsession with pretty numbers. I don't like the way certain numbers look, and if it can be avoided, I avoid them. When I do deposits at work, and I have a lot of 20s, I try to deposit an amount that will be an even hundred. If I have 50s, I like the number to end with 250, 500, 750 or 000. When I count out my till at the end of the night, I am really satisfied when I have coins that are multiples of 5, or their total value comes out to an even dollar amount. I don't know how to explain it, but some numbers just... I don't know if "bother me" is quite right, but let's go with that. I guess I just find some numbers more aesthetically pleasing.

24. This one kind of goes hand in hand with the last one, so I am adding it today. There are certain numbers and dates that come up often in my life. Some of the numbers are 157, 23 and 13. The dates are my dad and brother's birthdays. I don't know what it is, but I see them often. A lot of times when I see commercials advertising something that has an end date, it falls on one of their birthdays. It's really strange. The numbers 157 and 23 are "okay" numbers, even though they don't fit any of the normal criteria for numbers I "like". I'm a strange person, I know.

I knit the last few rows on the teal shawl I posted about a few days ago just before sitting down to write the bulk of this post. I added a row of yarn over, knit two together just before the end, to add a little variety. And, the increases up the centre spine had a little openness that I wanted to mirror. I will be binding it off once I am done writing, and I will post about it tomorrow, or possibly the following day.

Today's 365 photo is of one of the huge windmills we passed on the way to and from Amherstburg. He have a TON of these turbines in the county. They are a pretty common sight, standing tall above the flat horizon here. There's a lot of controversy about them around here. People saying they cause health issues, and kill animals, and that sort of thing. I don't know what to believe about all that, but I love taking photos of them. I have one Instagram photo I took in the early spring that I'm thinking of getting blown up and printed on canvas.

I'm currently looking for some new podcasts to follow. I would really like some yarn or knitting related video podcasts. I already follow Yarngasm, and The Dyer's Notebook. If you have any suggestions for others, I would greatly appreciate it! I follow a lot of blogs, and usually I read those while knitting, but lately, my knitting has required me to look at it more often than usual. Not so often that videos will be lost, but often enough to make reading difficult. Please leave some suggestions in the comments!

This post has 1785 words.

I am at 11 785 total words for this month.

NaBloPoMo Day Six

I woke up this morning with a healthy feeling of anxiety. And by healthy feeling, I mean a terrible, horrible feeling. I wanted to just curl up and go back to bed, but I knew I had to get up so I could get stuff done before going in to work this afternoon, the main thing being this blog post. These posts do take quite a lot of time, which isn't surprising. I often start jotting down ideas in a draft post the night before, which I didn't do for today.

Rick and I watched Turn Me On, Goddammit! last night. A little while back, he watched a whole boat load of movie trailers online in a couple days, and downloaded all the movies he could find that seemed interesting. This was one of them. It's based in a small town in Norway, and revolves around a teenaged girl named Alma. There's a lot of sexual frustration on her part, which leads to some situations that turn her into an outcast amongst her classmates. If you don't mind subtitles, and are okay with some nudity, you should definitely give it a watch. I enjoyed it.

Not long after waking up, I watched the most recent YarnGasm podcast, by Voolenvine, aka Kristin. (I hope she spells it Kristin, I'm not 100% sure, sorry!) Her podcast is one of my favourites. It's actually the one that got me back into watching/listening to them after a long hiatus without any new ones. I really like how she does videos now, because it captivates my attention a little more. Sometimes when I'm listening to a podcast, I get distracted and start reading something, and then nothing gets absorbed. I have to go back and re-listen and re-read. Anyway, in addition to all the wonderful knitting content, she mentioned that when you get married, you often become "that couple" that wears the same thing, referring to her Pomme de Pin cardigan, and her husband's soon to be Cambridge cardigan, both in grey. Rick and I aren't married, and we often end up wearing the exact same outfit. A common one was Toms shoes or moccasins, dark jeans from the gap, a plain tee shirt in grey or black, and the same American Apparel cardigan in different colours. It has happened way too many times, and one of us always has to get changed.

I finished knitting another wrap bracelet. The blue one I mentioned yesterday is done, minus having the ends tied in. I also made a red one out of some red worsted weight acrylic, the same as the shawls I made last week. I'm starting on a bright blue one now, and I will hopefully get it done today, as well. I want to have 10 made for the Made inWindsor show. Anything over that number will just be gravy. And I like gravy. I'm trying to figure out the pricing for them currently. The cost of materials is next to nil, because I'm using a lot of yarns that are remnants from other projects that are too small for anything else. I have them for $12 each right now, but that might change. So if you happen to want one, let me know before I increase the price.

Now, onto some cool strange things about me! I'm only doing four today, because I got a little verbose in one of them, and I don't want to bore you too much.

16. I used to be vegetarian, but now I eat meat on occasion. I stopped eating meat altogether in 2004, just after the end of my grade 9 year. I stopped because of animal rights, primarily, followed by the environmental impact and because I really just didn't like meat, and it didn't like me.
First: animal rights. I still believe that factory farms, growth hormones, and the cruel way that most animals are killed are all bad things, there is no arguing that. Secondly, the amount of waste and pollution from this industry is huge. Overall, the energy needed for raising animals for meat is much, much larger than what growing food crops that would use. Third, I didn't care for eating meat. I had terrible allergies growing up, and red meat was one of my trigger foods. I couldn't eat beef without feeling incredibly sick after doing so. I stopped eating that first, followed by pork and poultry, and then I cut out fish and every other animal. I also made an effort to eat vegan options when possible.

Last summer, when working at the restaurant, my boss cooked a lot of meat from locally, and sustainably raised animals. This was something I could get behind. It wasn't organic, because that meant that if an animal got sick, they couldn't be treated, which could mean more suffering for said animal. But, they weren't pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics, squeezed shoulder to shoulder on feedlots, or killed in a cruel way that caused a lot of suffering. I caved after a while, and had half a meatball from Rick's meatball sandwich I brought home for him one day. Unlike what I remembered meatballs to be (dry, and bland) this one was god. Juicy, well seasoned, and the sauce on it was wonderful. I started adding a little meat here and there into my diet; I didn't want to shock my system and end up sick. After a while, I was eating meat a few times a week, and then we went to Iceland. While there, I gorged myself on meat. It was raised locally, out in the open. The lamb we ate grew up gallivanting around the countryside, munching on green plants, and generally being free. I felt great eating this meat. Then I came home, and continued the trend of gorging. I felt like complete garbage. My system couldn't take the huge amounts of meat, and I felt sick. Now, over a year later, I still can't eat a lot of meat. I avoid meat from fast food restaurants, and any ground meats. I still eat a lot of vegetarian meals, because I prefer them, but there is definitely meat in my diet.

17. I want to open my own brick and mortar store selling handmade goods from around the world, along with well designed furniture from a few companies I already have picked out. I've wanted to open a consignment store for a while. Rick and I have actually looked into a few store fronts, to get an idea for the costs we would incur. We've talked a bit about names, what we'd both like to have in the store, and a bunch of other, more important things. Nothing is concrete yet, but it is definitely one of the biggest of my life goals.

18. I drink water. A lot of water. Since I was about 10, I've drank nearly exclusively water when eating meals. When I go out to restaurants, I sometimes ask for two glasses of water, or a pitcher left on the table. Some servers have ignored the request, and then scoff when I ask for glass after glass. I know I drink a lot of water, don't hate! Part of the reason I drink so much is another odd quirk about the way I eat (which is the next fun fact about me). Even at home, when I'm not eating, I drink a lot of water. I used to drink about 12-16 rather big glasses of water a day, now I know it's not quite that much.

19. This one is super weird. It kind of relates to number 5 from a couple days ago. I'm very particular about the way I eat. My food and drinks absolutely cannot be too hot, and they cannot be too cold. I have sensitive teeth, and this causes problems. Also, I'm way more about the texture of food than the taste. Stuff that is completely homogenous weirds me out. My mashed potatoes need to have lumps, I can't stomach so much as the idea of cream of wheat, and milkshakes are kind of gross. The only exception to this is soups, and only sometimes. Rick likes to blend the soups he makes, and this is completely okay with me if it's all root vegetables. Add anything else, and I need texture! I absolutely love Campbell's tomato soup, as long as I put a crap load of crackers, and some shredded cheese in it. As for the water, this is another strange thing. I need to take a drink of water pretty much every time I switch between foods. I take a bite of vegetables, drink, mashed potatoes, drink, meat, drink. I don't know what it is, but I've almost always done this. It doesn't usually cause a problem, unless I'm at a buffet. Then I know I'm filling up with water, but I can't help it!

My night at work was pretty uneventful. It's been pretty quiet the last couple days, so we knew some busy time was coming. Tonight was the start of it. It wasn't overly busy, but quite steady. The only remarkable situation was onion breath man. I always greet customers as they come in, asking them how they are and that sort of thing. One guy came up to my till, and after asking how he was, exhaled the BIGGEST breath possible, and it stunk like fresh onions. His breath seriously smelled like he'd eaten a ten pound bag of white onions, raw. It was disgusting, my eyes started watering, and I almost gagged in front of him. I couldn't believe it. Gross!

I spent a good chunk of the evening following the US election results, using a combination of a couple websites, Twitter, text messages, and chatting online. As of this writing, Obama is projected to win. I really hope this is the case. I'm keeping my fingers crossed until the official announcement is made.

Tomorrow, Rick and I are taking a nice drive to Trinkets & Treasures to drop off new stock and take care of some boring business matters. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to sort through my earrings and choose a few more pairs to bring, as well as some knitwear. I've sold a few things in the past months, so I need to get some new stuff in, and possibly remove the old stale items.

This post has 1725 words.

I am at 10 000 total words for this month.

Day Four of NaBloPoMo

Yesterday after posting, I decided to work out for a little while. Nothing too crazy, just jumping jacks, sit ups, lunges and planks. I ate about three quarters of a pizza to myself just before, as well as over ate at the casino buffet the day prior, and I didn't want my pants getting any tighter. I used to work out everyday, and then I started working at The Beer Store, and I just don't do it anymore. I need to get back into that habit. I think I have enough daily "challenges" going on this month to add working out to the list. I will try to do at least a little something everyday so that I can ease myself back into it come December.

I decided one of the "features" (if you want to call it that) for NaBloPoMo will be 100 things about me. I won't do it all in one day, because that would just be overwhelming, so I am going to split it into 10 things a day for the next 10 days. I might decide to do less things per dar, if I end up with a lot of words. Part of the reason for this is to boost my word count, haha. I'm probably going to fly by the seat of my pants for this, and not over plan. I'm also going to try to choose things that not a lot of people know about me, or things that aren't obvious. It's going to have things I like, things I do, and possibly a few things I dislike. Here goes!

1. I love my little family. Rick and I have been together for a little over three years. We've had our ups and downs (lots of them, to be quite honest) but we always seem to make it through. I've never been in a relationship that's as wonderful as this one. We have a lot of plans and hopes and dreams together. I've never been in a relationship this strong before, so it scared me a little at first, but now, talking about "our future" is a common thing, and not so intimidating.
We've had Winston for almost two and a half years, and I don't think I could ever love another dog as much as I love him. We talk pretty regularly about adding another dog to our family, but I'm not sure if/when that will happen. Winston is a strange little man, and I think that another dog might upset him more than benefit him.

2. I love my job. I work at The Beer Store not far from home, and it's one of the best jobs I've ever had. There are 10 of us that work at my store, and I get along fairly well with everyone, which doesn't always happen in groups of that size. I was working around 40 hours a week, every week, during the summer, and I was incredibly happy. I'm not working as much now, but I still love my job!

3. I like living in the county (most of the time). Rick and I moved here back in March, and I really wasn't a fan of it for a while. I missed being a twenty minute walk from nearly everything I needed. I missed my friends. I missed our apartment, which, despite its flaws, I'd grown to really like. I missed the privacy living on our own gave us. I was still working on the whole "being self employed" thing when we moved here (which was one of the reasons we moved) so I rarely, if ever, left the house. Now that I get out and work and what not, I don't mind it nearly as much. We don't go into Windsor that often, but when we do, we try to do as much as we can.

4. I love reading blogs. I follow several hundred blogs that I read while knitting. I spend large chunks of most days on the computer reading the newest updates from my favourites. This and knitting are my two hobbies that I could never ever give up. In addition to reading blogs, I also love writing my own. I have this blog, as well as three Tumblrs that I update regularly, plus another couple Tumblrs that I only update every now and then.

5. I really like eating food. This sounds gluttonous, but it's true. I love going to restaurants with Rick and trying new things. I also love the food he makes for us. I'm not much of a cook, but he's pretty darn good, and we end up with some pretty delicious stuff. He has also introduced me to a lot of new foods and restaurants, with my favourite being Vietnamese. Together, we also annihilate all you can eat sushi, gobble down delicious authentic Mexican food at the local taqueria, and occasionally treat ourselves to Arby's.

6. I really, really like beer. I started drinking beer only a couple years ago, but I've grown to really appreciate it. Before then, I would never even think of trying it, because the few kinds I had tried were terrible. I have 14 different types of beer in my fridge currently, and that number might go up over the next couple months, considering the holidays are coming. My preferred types are traditional pilsners, and Belgian wheat, with the former being what I usually drink in social settings, and the latter something I often enjoy at home. The entire vegetable crisper is our fridge is completely full of my beer. And yes, it is MY beer; Rick doesn't like beer at all. I do buy variety packs of beer on occasion, so that is part of the reason I have so many. Most of what I get is from smaller breweries.

7. Another hobby of mine, if you want to call it that, is listening to music. When we lived in Windsor, I would head to my favourite bar, Phog, and check out indie bands from across the country on tour several times a month. I've made some great friends through independent bands that came through our city. I've expanded my music library greatly with these bands, and discovered many styles of music that I otherwise would not have really thought about. The last show I went to was an all day festival in the middle of September. I saw a couple bands that I really love, and found some new ones to appreciate, too.

8. I love the changing of the seasons. Going from summer to fall and then fall to winter is something I look forward to every year. I'm not a fan of hot weather, so coming into the cooler days and nights is something I really enjoy. My favourite outfit involves jeans and a sweater of some sort, and wearing that in the summer just isn't that comfortable. Also, when September rolls around, that means craft show season is coming, and I am always excited for that!

9. I am a huge supporter of local businesses. I try to do as much of my shopping at independent stores as I possibly can. It obviously isn't always an option, but I do my best. There are so many hidden gems in every city and neighbourhood, that you can find nearly everything you need and never have to set foot in a chain store. I think part of this is that I am a small (very small) business owner, and I appreciate when people support me. I also want to eventually open my own brick and mortar store and I will need people to support me.

10. I suffer from depression and anxiety. I don't think I've ever said this on a public forum, so I am saying it now. I've been on anti-depressants since May 2011, and anti-anxiety medication since almost exactly a year ago. The latter is what causes me to sleep so much. I mentioned yesterday that most days I am in bed until 10:30, and this is the reason. They have helped me tremendously, despite the side effects, and I am incredibly thankful for that. I should have started on them quite a few years ago, but it took a lot of courage admitting that I was having problems. I definitely don't want to have to be on these forever, but for now, they're doing what they need to be doing. There are only two things I would change: I wish I didn't sleep as much, and I wish they didn't make me hungry CONSTANTLY. Seriously, I can power back a lot of food. I think I've gained 30 lbs in the past year.

Hopefully these ten things have helped you get to know me a little better! If you have anything you want to learn about me, please let me know!

In knitting news, I'm still working away on the two shawls I shared over the last couple days. There hasn't been a whole ton of progress, but they are definitely moving forward. I'm thinking of starting to work on some dish cloths, because my stock for my craft shows is pretty low. I don't have a whole lot of dish cloth cotton left, but there is probably still enough to make at least 20 more cloths. We'll see if I get motivated enough to do those. They're a little monotonous, and the cotton ends up hurting my hands after I knit a couple of them, but they sell! I'm trying to figure out what yarns to use to make some more shawls, also. I love making them, and I think they will sell quite well. I only have a few made so far, but they have been getting a lot of views in my shop, and people seem to like them at my shows, too. I want to try and do different things than everyone else knits. Most knitters are craft shows have scarves and hats. I want to keep doing those, but also have my cowls, neck warmers and shawls be the bulk of what I do.

Today's 365 photo is what I've been eating a lot of today. I figured that I've over eaten the last two days, and my body could use some healthy fruit in it. I love melons and pineapple. The only reason I don't eat them as much as I could or should is because I am lazy and I hate cutting them up, and I am also cheap (or frugal if you really want to be polite) and I can't imagine paying for a pre-made fruit tray. These yummy bite sized pieces were from a wedding Rick's parents went to last night. They also brought home grapes and strawberries, both of which I am really particular about eating. I don't like my fruit really cold, or tart. They have to be near room temperature, and pretty sweet. I find most strawberries too bland for my liking, and I will only eat red grapes. I swear I'm not a picky eater! Just particular about fruit.

Don't forget, if you've been eyeing something in my Etsy shop, now is the time to buy! You can get 25% off your entire purchase with the code Blog25. I'll be keeping this sale up for at least a couple weeks, and let you all know a few days before I am going to end it so you can make any last minute purchases.

This post has 1892 words.

I am at 6578 total words for this month.

NaBloPoMo Day 3

Writing 1667 words a day is pretty tough. I only managed to surpass that number yesterday, and just by about 70 words, and the day before I was over 400 words shy of the daily goal. Like I said before, I don't want these posts to be all fluff and filler, I want them to actually be worth reading. I want at least part of each post to be about knitting. That desire is making it harder to write enough words to hit the quota. I check my word count obsessively. After every few sentences, I copy and paste the entire post into an online word count tool, and cross my fingers that I have made a significant dent. I try to keep myself from doing it so often, but I am just impatient, I guess. I think I might also feel like the words will somehow reproduce between the two pages, and add to my total. I don't know, I could just be crazy.

I woke up fairly early, for me anyway, this morning. Most days I'm in bed until 10:30, and today I was up just after 9:00. It's strange, how I sleep. It seems the later I stay up (I was up till about 2:00 when I'm usually in bed by 12:30) the earlier I can wake up. I don't understand at all. I'm going to try going to bed late again tonight to see if I can wake up at a reasonable hour. If that works, I'll be staying up late every night! I started my day off right with some scrambled eggs with mushrooms and shredded cheese on small tortillas. A nice filling breakfast that got me going. I don't often make a real breakfast, especially the past few weeks. I usually just settle for cereal and almond/soy/rice/hemp milk, if anything at all. I used to be so good at eating breakfast every day. I would make oatmeal or quinoa or toast with peanut butter, and honey or bananas.

I've been plugging away at the YarnYarnYarnYarn blog for a while today. It's easy work, just repetitive. Because I use Tumblr as a blogging platform, I can add tons of items to a queue, and have them post as frequently as I choose. I have it set so there are 11 new posts a day, which I think is a good amount. Lots of new stuff, but not so many that followers miss out on some of them. I have about two weeks worth of posts ready to go, and another month and a half worth that are saved as drafts to be posted at much later dates. It's going really well overall, I just want to find more yarn related Etsy shops to share, as well as cool patterns on Ravelry. Those seem to be the most popular posts so far. That's most of what I have been posting, but I have shared photos from Instagram, blogs, and Facebook pages. I went through some tumblrs that follow Y4, and reblogged a few photos from some of them. I also have some ad space through PassionFruit Ads available. It would be awesome if I could fill some of those, but I'm not holding my breath for it. I need to build up the audience before the sponsors come, that I already know. Once I've been posting for a month or more, I will be able to improve the ad description with the number of visitors and followers and what not.

I spent most of the time working on the Y4 blog knitting as well. I continued the teal shawl I posted yesterday, and got almost to the end of the first skein. I kind of got tired of the plain worsted weight, so I switched it up. I put in quite a few rows on a purple and white vertically striped shawl. Both yarns are from the huge stash I purchased from the older lady last winter. They're a sport weight 70/15/15 blend of acrylic, wool and mohair. Super soft, and slightly fuzzy. I really like the way this one is turning out. It's a looser knit than the other shawls I've done like this, but I'm sure it will still be cozy and warm due to the wool/mohair content.

If you've been eyeing something in my Etsy shop, now is the time to buy! You can get 25% off your entire purchase with the code Blog25. I want to get some older stock cleared out this season, so that in the spring and summer, I can really go at it, and knit lots of new things. Some of my stock has been floating around for a couple years, and that's what I really want to sell. Of course, selling anything would be great, but the older stuff is definitely higher on the priority list.
I'm going to be honest, and say that I haven't had any sales in a while. I don't want to complain on here, but it's getting discouraging that I can't seem to sell anything. I promote quite a bit, I have a mailing list, I do giveaways, I have a Facebook page, I comment on other blogs with a link to my shop, I have lots of "hearts" on Etsy, I just can't seem to get people to put stuff in their shopping cart! Do you have any suggestions for what else to do? I'll do just about anything!

Yesterday, I mentioned the Made In Windsor Show. It's coming up in just two short weeks, and I wish it could come sooner! There are going to be over 30 amazing vendors, some of whom have dome a MiW event before, and some that have not. It is a show that is 100% handmade, there is not ONE vendor who is a "consultant" or whatever for a big national company. I love this about these shows. It's a true craft show, and not a vendor market, which is often, in my experience anyway, synonymous with yard sale. If Facebook is any indication on how good this show will be, it's going to be great. There are already about 250 confirmed as going, and another 100 saying maybe. I know this won't necessarily be accurate, but it will hopefully be close. There will certainly be other people who haven't confirmed on Facebook who are out and about for the Walkerville Holiday Walk. This is an annual event where most of the businesses in the Walkerville BIA team together and have fun things going on for all the customers/visitors to the area. The craft show itself is going to be in Walkerville Brewery, and I can't wait to check out that place. It's going to be awesome! I've had a sample of one of their beers recently, and I liked it. I have a feeling I'll be spending some of my profit there! You can see a quick recap of last years show Here. I'll try to get more, and better, pictures this year.

My 365 photo for the day is just a simple close up of a Ferrero Rocher chocolate. These have always been one of my favourite types of chocolate, or really any sweet in general. I got quite a few a little while back, so I've been stashing them away and having one every now and again. I had a couple this afternoon when I was writing this post.

I haven't done much of anything today, other than knit, read blogs, chat on Facebook, and work on this. I'm worried that on the days I have to work eight hours, I'll come up short for words. I'll just have to get into a rhythm for writing, and then  hopefully the words will come more easily. I was also thinking about trying some of the word/theme prompts every few days, and write some sort of anecdote relating to it. Maybe I'll take suggestions for themes or answer questions you guys have. There are lots of options for stuff to write about, just nothing that can help me in the present moment.

I didn't really think this NaBloPoMo thing through very well. Normally, I try to at least plan out a little bit in advance. I'm not the most organized person, but I don't usually jump without a safety net. I am absolutely determined to make it to at least 25k words by the 15th. I will count that as a personal victory if I do. If I can actually make the full month, and 50k words I'll probably faint. I can yammer on about just about anything, but to have it be all coherent and organized is a whole other matter. Hopefully, I can make it!

I have a few ideas for the next couple days, but I doubt any of them will translate to 1667 words or more, no matter how overly flowery I get with my adjectives and adverbs. Some of the ideas are: 100 things I like, which would be split into groupings of 10 things posted every day for 10 days, 50 things I dislike (I don't want to do 100, because I don't want to get too negative and complain-y!) 100 facts about me, which would also be split up into groupings of 10 or 20, why I started eating meat again after 8 years of being vegetarian, simple knitting pseudo patterns I have in my head, and of course, more about the knitting projects I currently have on the go.

Now, this is where you folks come in! I want questions, word prompts or topic suggestions, or anything else you would really like to see. Want me to do a tutorial? Post pictures of specific things? Talk about Winston? Knit using a particular colour? Pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time, while whistling twinkle twinkle little star? Okay, I've run out of crazy suggestions. I hope you get the idea. I want YOU to tell ME what you want to see! Just leave a comment on here, send me a message on Facebook, or send me an email with anything you would like to see. If you want to be anonymous, you can send me a message on Tumblr here.

I hope you found something of interest in this post! Please come back tomorrow to see what else I have to say in an overly verbose fashion.

This post has 1716 words.

I am at 4686 total words for this month.

Day Two of NaBloPoMo

Well, here we are on the second day of this NoBloPoMo challenge. I finished yesterday's post pretty late, so not much has happened since then, as of this writing at 11am. I am going to try a pseudo live blogging format today, to see how I like it. I won't actually post this until the end of the day, though. So not really live, I guess just an hour by hour post? I don't know, I'm still sleepy.

11:00 am: I've been up for a couple hours. I had an important phone call just after 9 that I had to deal with. She's going to be calling me back later today to give me all the information. Sorry to be vague about this, but it's concerning some legal matters that I'm just not comfortable sharing here right now. I'm not in trouble or anything, so there's no need to worry about that.

I've knit quite a bit on the one shawl I have on the needles. This is another arrowhead shaped shawl. I had to undo a few rows because I'd dropped a stitch, but I've made it past that point. I'm trying to decide if I want to add yarn overs every few rows to give it some lacy detail, or just live it solid garter stitch. The yarn is slightly thicker than worsted weight, and sort of fuzzy, so I'm not sure if it will look strange being lacy.

12:00 pm: I decided to go without the lace. The other shawls similar to this one don't have the lace, and I want to be able to keep things consistent as far as pattern and price. I'm trying to have a few standard items so I can have prices that make sense. I want to get away from the completely one of a kind items. Those make pricing difficult.

2:00 pm: I got all dressed up, and had somewhere to go! I seriously woke up in the middle of the night last night with my outfit planned in my head. There was only one change, which Rick suggested, and the outfit was pretty much perfect. I loved the way this outfit turned out, and I asked Rick to take a quick picture so I could share it here, and this is the only one where I don't look like a complete ding dong.
Head to toe:
Glasses: Emporio Armani (from a couple years old)
Lips: essence stay with me in 04 trendsetter
Short Sleeved Sweater: Hand knit in Iceland, purchased at Handknitting Association of Iceland (also seen here)
Long Sleeved Shirt: Mark's Work Warehouse (glamorous, I know!) I initially bought this to wear under my fleece vest at work, which I do regularly, but it was perfect for under the sweater. This is the one change made. I was going to wear a grey striped long sleeved shirt. Rick said there was too much going on in the outfit, so I changed to a plain shirt, and this is what came of it!
Shorts: Gap I bought these when we went to the mall the other day, and paid about $15 for two pairs. Love them!
Tights: Zellers, I think. For like $1. I picked up a few pairs when I saw them. I got this same pattern in grey, and a solid grey. I thought I'd grabbed a pair of this pretty eggplant colour in the solid tights, but I guess not. I was a little bummed out when I looked through my drawers and couldn't find them.
Shoes and Purse: Payless. The shoes are sparkly silver, and I LOVE them.
I'm not sure if I will make outfit posts a regular occurrence here. I felt awkward as hell taking the photo in the mall. Maybe we'll just have to find somewhere less public to take photos. And maybe use a real camera, instead of a phone.
We went to H&M so Rick could exchange his coat that he got when we were at the mall on Wednesday. It was a smidgen on the small side, so he got one size larger, and it fits him perfectly. I'll have to get pictures of us in our winter gear, or at least of him, so you can see how handsome he is.
We made a quick pit stop at Mrs Fields/The Pretzelmaker for a yummy pretzel each. We were both super super hungry, and needed something to hold us over until dinner time. I never liked pretzels of any kind growing up, and now I really appreciate soft ones.

5:00 pm: We met up with Rick's parents, two brothers and the one brothers girlfriend to go to the buffet. We have a Caesar's casino in Windsor, and their Market Buffet is pretty stellar. The food, for the most part, was really good. I had breaded shrimp, macaroni carbonara, mac and cheese, Brussels sprouts, mashed sweet and regular potatoes, smoked trout and a bunch of other stuff. I was only disappointed by a couple things. The dessert was great. By that time, I was stuffed, but I needed to get something sweet in me. I had a mini cheese cake, topped with bananas, a tiny vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting, and a vanilla eclair, which I only finished half of. I was really looking forward to getting a dessert crepe, but I was so full, I just couldn't do it. I hit that uncomfortably full spot that is never fun. As soon as the meal was finished, I was so sleepy.

7:00 pm: We finished dinner and sat for a little while. Afterwards, we went up to the gaming floor where a couple members of our party tried their luck on the slots. I'm not much of a gambler, and money is tight right now, so I just watched. Rick's one brother has awesome luck at the casino, so he pulled the lever and pushed the buttons quite a few times. His parents both played for a little while as well. We ended up leaving around 8:00, so I'm not sure if anyone won anything worth writing home about. I made Rick take a picture with me in the mirror in the elevator. He made his grumpy face, I was looking at the screen on my phone, it's grainy, and we're not even centred, so it's a pretty terrible picture. But, we have very very few together, so I appreciate what I can get. He's also wearing one of his Icelandic sweaters. I love all three of the ones he got, but I think this one is my favourite.

8:00: We made a quick stop on the way home to drop off some coupons for the goody bags that are going to be given out at the craft show I am doing at the beginning of December.  I'm getting really excited for the two shows I have coming up. The Made In Windsor show is in just a couple weeks, and I can't wait for it. I did incredibly well at it last year, and I'm hoping to do just as good, or even better, this year!

9:30: Home sweet home! The drive home was uneventful. When we got back, it was pyjama time. Those cute shorts I wore weren't very comfortable with all the food I had packed inside my belly, so I needed an elastic waistband as quickly as possible. After that, I watched Rick and Winston play for a while. The poor little pup had been cooped up in "his bedroom" (which is the office on the main floor of the house) since we left for Windsor. He had lots of pent up energy that needed to be released before he would be able to settle down for the night. The two of them playing together is hilarious. Rick can get Winston all wound up pretty easily. I'll have to post a video of them playing at some point.

11:30: I've been working on this post off and on since we got home. Writing 1667 words a day is going to be tough. I'm hoping that I can make it through this month and reach my goal. There are definitely going to be posts that are a lot of filler, and for that, I'm going to apologize now. I'm going to really try to have quality posts for as many days out of the month as possible. And by quality, I mean with knitting content, in addition to the day to day stuff that I will also be posting about. This is a knitting blog, after all.

My 365 photo for today is of some of the carpet at the Casino. We had to wait a little while for the rest of our group to join us, so Rick and I sat and people watched for a while. There were some interesting characters coming and going. Most of the crowd was in the over 50 age category, but there were some younger people as well. It was neat to see how some people got all dressed up to go out, others were still in their work uniforms, and others just treated it like any old day. I also watched one of the cleaning ladies dust all the ledges around where we were sitting. She came over by us, and cleaned the window ledge, and told us we should move over, because that part was clean now. She seemed to love her job, and really appeared to be genuinely happy to be there. I said to Rick that I love when people who aren't necessarily working directly with the customers are still so customer service oriented. She was smiling while dusting, and greeting every person that came near her. Now, I'm not sure if this is a job requirement or something, but she was super nice regardless. Every person we encountered while there seemed happy. The servers at the buffet were all really upbeat, and chatted with us while they changed our table arrangement around when we showed up with a much smaller group than what we reserved. Overall, the night was a really great experience, and that's why I chose this photo for the 365 project.

Once again, I really hope you've stuck around this long! If you have any criticism, constructive or not, I would love to hear it! Any and all comments on this or other posts are greatly appreciated. If there is something you would like me to post about, feel free to share!

This post has 1736 words.

I am at 2970 total words for this month.

Awesome Thursday: November 1, 2012, And Some Lofty Goals

It's November! I hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween. Didn't do much of anything here to celebrate, we just relaxed at home, and ate some candy.
Every Thursday, I post about the awesome things that have been happening in my life. It's nice to look back when I'm having a bad day and see that life isn't always so rough. There have also been studies done that have concluded that people showing gratitude can lead healthier lives with less depression and anxiety, sounder sleep and a better attitude towards others. I'm not one to argue with science, so on with the gratitude! Here is just a few of the awesome things that have gone on in the past week.

• I knit a really nice red and grey shawl, which I blogged about earlier this week. I'm going to make many more of these shawls. They're super simple, and really pretty.
• I started my new blog YarnYarnYarnYarn. I've been getting pretty decent traffic, which is super great. I am also slowly gaining followers. I have loads of pictures ready to be posted. It's pretty crazy how excited I am about this project. I think I might like it more than my I Love Etsy tumblr.
• I got a head start on my holiday shopping. I picked up a couple gifts for family members, and they're stashed away in my closet right now. I don't have to buy too many gifts this year, which is nice. I know the recipients of these ones will really like what I've gotten them so far.
• I started playing the newest, most addictive iPhone game I have ever played. Letterpress is friggen awesome. If you haven't played it, you really need to download it and give it a try. It's kind of like Boggle, meets Risk and they both run into Scrabble. It's way too much fun.
• My boss brought mini Tootsie Pops into work. They're supposed to be for all the kids that come in, but my coworkers and I have been eating them like crazy. It's so nice having a boss that makes work as much fun as he does. I truly love my job.
• I tidied up our fridge and realized I have quite the beer collection. I was up to 15 different types of beer. I'm currently drinking a Mill Street Lemon Tea beer, so I'm down to just 14, but I'm sure I could fix that with a quick run to the LCBO. It's nice having all these options when I want to crack open a cold one.
• I learned that "snafu" was originally a military term. It made me feel smarter, haha. In case you were wondering, it stands for "situation normal, all effed up".
• I went to work the night that Sandy hit our area. It was super quiet, as expected, so I danced with the mop as I cleaned the floors. Like I said before, I love my job.
• Rick and I went to Windsor yesterday and got stuff done! We went for all you can eat sushi for lunch, which was great. We definitely ate all we could.
• Also in Windsor, I picked up some jeans and some shorts. I've been looking for shorts for a while, and I finally found them at the Gap for stupidly cheap. I ended up with two pairs. I was so excited.
• I brought stock into a store in Windsor. This one is called Poppy Paperie and Gifts, and is located in Walkerville. I have some triangle shawls, and some flower earrings available there. It's a super cute store, and if you're in the Windsor area, you should definitely check it out.
• I worked during the day today, which was a nice switch. I usually work afternoons. Anyway, it was super super quiet most of the day, that allowed us to kick back and relax after we got all our work done.
• I got my hair cut after work. It was the same girl that did it last time. I wasn't planning on doing this, but I'm glad I did. Choppy layers and a bang trim are just what I needed. I'm planning on growing my hair long again, and this will be a good cut to let grow for a while without too much up keep.

Overall, life is pretty grand. I have this whole weekend off, with nothing planned, and then a pretty solid work schedule next week. Our hours are going to diminish this month, and then pick back up in December, so I am loving the extra hours I'm getting right now.

In other news, I'm going to make a half-assed attempt at NaBloPoMo/NaBloWriMo/whatever you want to call it. This is the first post of what will hopefully (but probably not) be 30 days of posts that are an average of 1667 words. It's a spin off of NaNoWriMo, which I've always admired. In case you're out of the loop, it's National Novel Writing Month, where loads of people attempt to write a 50 000 word novel in the span of 30 days. It's absolutely incredible, and I applaud anyone making the attempt to write that much. I have a couple friends who are going for it this year, and I am pretty confident that at least one will make it to the minimum number of words required. We'll see how far I get with this. I'm having a rough time just writing out this post, never mind doing it every day for the next month. I'm going to have to plan out some post ideas. At least with the novel writing, you have a story line to follow. With the blog posts, it's like a new story happening everyday. At the end of every post this month, I will include a word count. There will be one with the total of words in that days post, and then the accumulated total.

In other, other news, I'm making yet another attempt at doing something daily. This one is for a year, though, which is a bit intimidating. I'm going to do an Instagram 365 project. I've wanted to do something like this for a while, and I'm just now getting around to it. This project is pretty cool. You basically take one photo a day to document a year of your life. Some people do self portraits, some do pictures of their kids or pets, and some just do a random photo to sum up the day. I'm going for the last one. I was going to wait until the new year, but I was all stoked about it today, so I bumped it up a couple months. (Hard to believe this year will end in just two short months!) You can find my flickr set here. I will likely post any relevant photos on the blog here. I'm new to flickr, do you have any tips for me?

Hopefully, I can make it through these two projects. The days I'm not working will definitely be easier. I might have to do some really wordy posts on those days to fill in for work days. These posts will be in addition to all the knitting I will be doing. Hopefully I'll make some progress there so I have something on topic to share.

I really hope you have stuck around this long! I would love any feedback on this and future overly verbose posts.

This post has 1234 words.

I am at 1234 total words for this month.