my camera, my poor camera.. *sob*

I love it, I talked Hubster into it for Mother’s day last year, It takes the most wonderful pictures.  And then Hubster insisted that he needed to take it to Germany with him. He promised to be careful, blah blah blah… while he is in Germany he asks me when the LCD screen started cutting in and out.. my response WHEN YOU TOOK IT.  He swears he didn’t break it.. but it worked great for me, no troubles, he takes it and it breaks… do the math. Anyway, it only had a 1 year warranty,  so I look up what a repair is going to cost… they want $149 to fix it at the Canon shop. I only paid $314 for the camera to begin with.. it has probably gone down since… so I look it up, on Amazon, were I got it.. NOPE they now want $950 for the exact same model camera.

Needless to say I shipped it off to be repaired. It is now at the Cannon shop, they say they have a less than 10 day turn around, hopefully I will have it back before Thanksgiving, I miss my camera… it is my precious.

Mind your own business.

This is what my husband told me this afternoon. I wasn’t being particularly nosey, at least I didn’t think so. I asked a simple question, with a reason behind asking. And in response I was given a “Mind your own business.” in a hateful tone. I wanted to kick him, I wanted to scream, I did neither. instead I hid until the initial hurt passed, and then I proceeded to ignore him.

If he wants me to mind my own business, I will. I will no longer do the little things I do for him just to make him happy. I no longer make the coffee I don’t drink, I no longer wash or fold or put away his laundry those things are his business, not mine and I have been told to mind my own.

I fully expect him to tell me I am blowing it out of proportion and to grow up, it won’t work. I am on strike, or in other words, very carefully minding my own, and the childrens’ business until he gets his head out of his ass.

I have realized

that I will not be able to publish my book here.. unless I want the blog to be labeled for adult material, as the book I am in the middle of almost done writing is an erotic romance. But… what I CAN do is open another blog and mark it as containing adult content, and then link to it from here.

As of right now I have less than 3000 words to go!!

Is anyone actually interested in reading it? Should I go to the hassle of opening another blog?

Been Busy…

I am preparing for a trip this weekend, my uncle is graduating from collage, the first in that side of my family to do so, so he is excited, and we are all going up to support him.  In our planning for this trip, (he lives 3 hrs away from us) we discovered that we can take our travel trailer, and stay two nights for less than one night in a motel would cost us. Plus, we would have our own sheets and the ability to cook if it suited us (not that we plan on it, but I have a severe dislike for restaurant breakfasts, so it is a big help there.) So we made a deal with my mother, who will also be there. She offered to pay for the lot for both nights (still, cheaper than a room for her for one night) and we would just have to pay the extra gas to tow the trailer up there. Works for me.

So I have spent the last several days making sure the trailer is ready to go… clean bedding, towels, etc. stocked with food stuffs, and essentials, toothbrushes, tooth paste, hair stuff, etc. Plus, this weekend is one of the kids birthday, so we can do something special for her while we are out of town. Go somewhere special, etc.

On a totally different note, I received an email last week from a blogging group I joined several months ago. I didn’t think a whole lot about it… read it, dismissed it and dropped it into the trash. But the more time went by, the more the idea in it grew on me. The email was a challenge. A challenge to write a 50,000 word book during the month of November.

Now.. I have toyed with the idea of writing for years. And, I admit, even attempted it a few times, but never got further than 3 pages before I gave up and moved on to something else. So this time around, I started thinking about it, and the idea just wouldn’t go lay still… So I started working on a plot outline, and basic character details for my story, intending to get all the basics worked out over the next couple of weeks and  start on Nov 1st writing my book. Hahahahaha… I should have known better. Once the idea really took seed in my mind I couldn’t stop myself from starting. 

I started writing out my story on Saturday (Oct 17th for those keeping track). Hubster was gone for the weekend, but the kids were home from school, so I was limited to first thing in the morning and after the kids were in bed, and any other quite moments I could con the kids out of (mind you, we had a particularly hot weekend, temps tipping into the 100’s again, so the kids didn’t want to go outside…) Hubster came home Sunday evening, and has called in sick both days since (yes, he really is sick, but a whiney sick that makes me want to shoot him, just to put him out of my misery) and I have discovered that if he is home, and in the same room with me, I can’t concentrate on the story… (This may be partly do to not having told him what I am up to yet, or general annoyance at him, I am not sure.)

Anyway… As of this morning (wed, Oct 21st) I have approx. 11,000 words, and some where near 30 pages, that is full letter size pages, not book size pages. I think I am making good progress… but it means I am staying busy… When I get to a point that I am not certain what comes next, I plug in my headphones to my mp3 player, and I go work on housework… My house is looking the best i has in weeks, and I am making real progress in the story.

I am not really looking to have said book published.. I am not certain what I will do with it. If I am pleased with the results, I may MAY, decide to publish it here, a chapter at a time. We shall see how things go.

I think my mixer

is dying *sob* It has started making strange sounds, kind of a grinding/bogging down/cyclical noise… I think the motor is about to bite the dust. I have considered having it worked on, but having a Kitchenaid mixer repaired is not cheap, and if the motor needs replacing, I might as well just buy a new one to begin with.

My mixer is 12 yrs old. It was a wedding present. My grandmother-in-law asked me, when we first got married, what I needed for my kitchen. Since my great-grandmother, who had passed away when I was 16, had had two of everything in her kitchen (Yes, two sets of dishes, two sets of cookware, etc.)  and my sister and I were the only members of her descendants who had not yet set up our own households, we each ended up with a fully stocked kitchen. I thought about it a little bit and, being the basically honest soul I am, I told my grandmother-in-law that the only thing I could think of that I needed for my kitchen was a mixer. She handed me her JCPenney catalog and told me to pick one out.

I flipped through the catalog, and I searched and the only mixer in the catalog was a Kitchenaid, I really didn’t want to pick a Kitchenaid, not because I didn’t want one, I did, I had been wanting a  Kitchenaid mixer since I was about 14. (yes, I was that oh so rare teenager lusting after premium kitchen appliances.) But because I knew how expensive they were (reference previously mentioned lust) and I knew that my in-laws were on a fixed income I really didn’t want to choose something expensive. I asked if she had any other catalogs, because I really didn’t need anything that expensive, and she told me to order it anyway, gave me her credit card to make the call (even then her eyesight was failing and she had a hard time reading things like credit cards and catalogs.) So I ordered it.. I have loved that mixer for the last 12 years. It has not seen light use. I use it at least once a week, but more often daily. Made Breads, pie crusts, pies, cakes, muffins, potatoes, frostings, all kinds of things. There is no way I could do all the cooking I do without a mixer.

I have started doing research into replacing it. I am well aware that it won’t be cheap, Kitchenaid never is. But I am considering the options. I can get a 4.5 qt mixer, similar to the one I have, but with a slightly less powerful motor, for around $200. Or I can spend just a little bit more, and get a 5 qt professional model, with a much larger motor, for around $270.  We are still debating which exactly to get, but we have a little bit, I hope, as we won’t actually replace this one until it actually dies. Hopefully by then I can prepare myself to let this one go.

fall means real food…

You can always tell when the weather has cooled off to a livable level around here.. I actually start cooking real food again, and not just the “what can I make fast so I can get out of the hot kitchen” fare we have during the summer… I enjoy cooking, I like finding meals that my family likes, or loves, and I really don’t mind elaborate meals. In fact, cooking Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are some of my favorite parts of the winter.

Pumpkins are being cooked and frozen for the winter meals, bread baked, pies and cookies have started making appearances… as well as longer cooking meals in the oven… Lasagna, enchiladas, etc. Things that just don’t turn out as well in the Crockpot.

I think I may have to pull out one of my turkeys soon, that sounds about perfect…

check it out…

I know you could do it before but I never bothered with the coding to get it done.. but now, with the new image widget, you can click on the Ravelry logo to the right —> and get to my ravelry profile, and it took me all of 37 seconds to set up.

Stove Drama….

*sigh* I have a Frigidaire glass surface stove. Said stove is all of 3 months old, we bought it when we bought the house, as we didn’t have one, and the house didn’t either.  Fast forward to 2 1/2 weeks ago… I was steaming pumpkin, and had a covered pan on the burner, with a quart of water in it, and a lid on, I set the burner on 3.  Less than hour later, the pot had boiled dry, and the pan had melted into the burner.

I looked up Frigidaire stoves online, and found that there was a recall on certain models, for exactly this problem.  I called the recall number, gave them the model number and the serial number of the stove, the told me it was one of the recalled stoves, and they would ship me the recalled part, when that arrived I needed to call them back and schedule the tech to come out and do the replacement. That tech would have to look at the glass top and determine if it had to be replaced. In the mean time, don’t use the stove.

Three days later I got a call from the same people, calling to schedule a tech to come out and do the replacement, they scheduled for today, and told me that if the part wasn’t here yet, to call them back and reschedule.

So last night, when the part hadn’t arrived yet, I called the recall number, to reschedule today’s appointment. The person I spoke to there tells me that there has been a mistake, my stove is not one of the recalled stoves and I will need to call a different number and speak with Frigidaire. Frigidaire’s offices were already closed for the day.

I called Frigidaire today. I explained the entire thing, the burned pan incident, the calling the recall number, the part not arriving and calling back, and being told my stove is not recalled, the entire story.  He took all my information, he looked up the stove, yes it is recalled, yes, because the pan, which should never have melted into the burner on 3, did melt into the glass, the glass has to be replaced. He ordered both parts to be shipped to me, and because the normal recall technician does not install the glass tops, he found me another local tech. Gave me the company, contact and phone number for them, once the parts are here, I call them and they will come repair the stove. In the mean time, I can use the oven, but not the cook top.

Two hours later, the recall center, calls me, the same center that called and scheduled the install in the first place. They tell me that my part will be here on friday, they can schedule a tech to come install it after that… I politely explained the whole thing, that I had been told it wasn’t a recalled item, by them, but Frigidaire themselves were handling it and they were doing a far better job than the recall center (meaning that they were replacing the glass top without a fight.)

I guess the moral of this story is always call the manufacture if you have an issue after a recall, not the recall help line.

I just want my stove back, my family is getting sick of crockpot and grilled food.

ugh, my hands

Not sure what is causing it, but my hands have really been bothering me the last few days, really achy, difficult to move. I finally had to dig out the ointment. The only solution I can see is to keep them moving… I guess this means even more knitting… What was on the Christmas list again?

Note to self:

Unless you are in the mood to hear outbursts of yelling, and random obscene words shouted at inanimate objects, don’t let the adult male in the house assemble things.  Whether setting up a computer, or assembling a computer chair or a bookshelf, it is easier just to do it yourself than listen to the outbursts. Ask me how I know….