You know what sucks and has absolutely nothing to do with sewing?

Having friends who have cancer. I am too young for this shit. Or that's what I thought. Maybe I'm getting old. (sigh)

My friend Rick has cancer. I know, I know. A lot of people have cancer. But he lives in Buenos Aires and is on their national health care. And is getting his radiation treatments on some kind of pre-Nixon era machine. Which I imagine as looking like something out of a B-grade horror film. Actually, I don't know if he's actually started treatment or not. But he did say that the doctor told him he should sell everything so that he could afford the private treatments on the more-betterer-gooderer machine. :/

So this all makes me go into some kind of whacked-out Mom mode where I want to make him soup and knit him things and junk. I don't know if soup would be edible by the time it got to Buenos Aires. Crap. Am I spelling that right? I thought I was. But spell check don't think so.

Did I mention that Rick is one of my oldest friends? Yeah. I've known him since I was 20 or 21. I forget.

Oh jeez. I left out the point. The point of all of this random muttering is that he has extra expenses now. For medical things. Like colostomy bags. He makes enough to live on, but has no savings, and is pretty much paycheck to paycheck. So what with starting two Etsy shops lately, one for vintage goodies, one for things I've sewn, I am going to attempt to send maybe 10% to him via paypal. We'll see if I can swing that. Cause we be kinda broke right now. But I feel that this is much more spot on than tithing to any church.

Wow.

Sweet Mother of Maude I am so full of blogging fail of late. I last posted something in November? That's just sad. Well, seeing as to how my dad is the only one who read this, I suppose it's not really such a big deal.

What's been going on.... all kinds of stuff really.

I am down another cat. Stinkiecat died a week or so ago. Which wasn't too surprising. He had done nothing but lose weight since Alex died last August. Alex died during Halsted Market Days weekend. Which pretty much makes me want to pretend that Halsted Street Market Days doesn't even exist. It just makes me think of the cat.

But Mark's cats seem to really be warming up to me. Flash has finally figured out that he can come and beg me for love when I go to bed and then come back and get more love when Mark comes to bed. He's cute as hell, but dumber than a box of rocks.

It's odd how often I talk about the cats on this, the Needle for Hire blog.

So yeah. I have been going through the piles of fabric with stuff to sell on etsy in mind. I have so many little project bags cut out and partially put together. I got the first round done and had to order more zippers. I ordered over 100 hundred zippers. That's a whole lot of project bags. And that's just the start of it. I haven't even begun to explore the stacks of fabric that are big enough to make aprons, dresses, whatever... out of.

I'll have to post some pictures when I get some taken.

Spam Sucks

Dang it. I got an email this morning saying there was a comment here on the ol' blog. It was spam. Bastards. There is a special place in hell for people who spam comments on other people's blogs. I am so totally gonna sic my computer programmer geek boyfriend on your ass. So there. Yes. I am so totally 12.

Hmph.

I was just looking at old blog posts. On October 15th, I was quite excited about ComEd having some program that involved them coming and fetching old appliances and hauling them away to recycle. I was very excited about this. I just thought that I should provide an update on that. Manfriend hung around ALLLLLLLL day that day, ( I had to work) and they never never, ever showed up. I even called them. They said the dudes were running late. Hmmph. Whatever. We took off the lid and parked it out by the trash cans. It was gone by midday the next day. But I think ComEd should still give me my $25 rebate. Bastards. They didn't even bother to send some kind of apologetic email. I wish there was another electricity option.

Dad, if you are reading this, you better leave me comments dammit! :P

So yesterday I sent my family an email, saying, "Yo. Can you all use my gmail for email instead of the crappy sbc?" And I got an email back from my dad. Apparently he was bored, and had read every. Single. Blogpost. But left no comments. Which is weird. Because the man will talk your ear off. I want comments golldangit!! Even if it does just end up being a conversation via blog with Dad.

And mom emailed me back through the old email address, with a long, chatty email, saying that all these different emails confused her and she would use the new one. But she didn't. headdesk

Manfriend is all moved in now. The enclosed back porch room is a whole new world! I keep wanting to hang out back there. Who would have thought that it could look so nice? And he still wants to put up bunches of shelves.


What am I doing.... hmmmm.

Well, we have a whole slew of cute little cashmere hats in the works. Those will be listed on Etsy. Cute, knit, cashmere, reversible, what more does one need in a chapeau? I might have to get my butt in gear and actually post some pictures of them when they are done. You know, so Dad can see what they look like.

I have several pairs of pants in the works for Manfriend as well. I got two pair made already. These aren't super-fancy or anything, just jamma pants for hanging around the house. I have also promised him a pair of linen jeans. Have I mentioned how cute he is? Heh. :P Oh hell, what was I talking about?

Meh.

So there are now boxes of crap all over the apartment. I will spare you pictures, no one needs to see that. It's not. pretty. I seem to mainly be getting rid of books. There are a lot of cookbooks going away. It's funny how few of them I use. I mostly use the same ones that I have been using for years. Just to summarize...

I have 2 boxes of books to get rid of. This is not including the cookbooks. I think I can find homes for all of them.

I have 1 rather largeish box of clothing to get rid of. I was merciless. If I hadn't worn it in the last year, it was gone.

A whole crapton of pots for plants. I have no clue what I am going to do with these. Maybe the little neighborhood thrift store?

I have about 15 packages of varying shapes and sizes to get to the post office. I am RAK-ing a bunch of stuff. I love it when I have something that someone else really, really wants. And several small boxes of books that are going to various people.

I have another shelf of books to go through. Then I think I am mostly done with books.

I need to get this all out of my way so that I can get some sewing done. I have a whole slew of knitting project bags to sew and put up on etsy. I also have the recycled cashmere hats to get sewn and listed. If only I didn't have to go to work.


I can tell it's getting colder. Teh Stinkiecat won't get off of me. Ever. He stayed with me through all of last night. Little booger. He was curled up on the pillow nex to me with my cheek lying on his wittle fuddy butt. He is full of awesome.

Lame? Oh Hell's yeah I am!

I don't seem to be blogging about much of anything lately. And now, I am blogging because I am sick of re-potting plants and trying to figure out where to put all the dishes I thought that I needed 10 years ago. Does anyone want a bunch of Harlequin dishes? I have, a lot. They are really super pretty!!! I could try to sell them on ebay, but damn, that's a lot of work. I did pass a shop on Dempster up in Evanston that had a bit of Harlequin in the window. Maybe they would be interested. I wish I could remember the name of that place.

I have so much stuff scattered all over, it's driving me nuts. But. I found someone to take the deep freeze. ComEd had an ad on craigslist. They come and fetch it, take it away and recycle it. And give you a $25 rebate! Woot!

Now if I could only find a home for the industrial sewing machine.