Last night I came home to no power. I had worried about this all day long at work.  So I called the power company, the person who took my order had made the work order for today, TUESDAY but she also charged me the next day service fee. Tell me how that makes sense to anyone?

So I probably got the most obnoxious cs rep on the phone. The whole time he pulled the manly routine.  He “Put in a work order’ for yesterday but failed to mention that the service techs went home at 5PM. I called at 5:15PM.  So he was going to lead me on and let me believe that someone was going to come out and turn my power back on when in reality no one would come. I only found this out when I kept insisting for a guaranty that someone was coming. He must have repeated “I can’t guaranty anything, I put in the work order” 50 times. By the end he wasn’t even listening to me and I was either on the verge of full out screaming at him or breaking down into tears for the sheer assholery of it all.   I finally gave up, asked for a supervisor and said that I was going to rip the lock off my box myself and turn the power back on.

What was his response to that? “You can’t do that!” Why not? I paid my bills all on time you guys are the ones that screwed up & turned off my power for no reason and now are giving me shit about turning it back on. I asked him “How are you going to stop me?” His response? “I can send someone out there immediately to make sure you don’t!!!” So…follow the line of dumbassery with me here people…they WON’T send out someone that night to turn my power back on, the power that I had paid for & have an account for…but they WOULD send someone out to STOP ME from turning it on myself?

Take a few moments and process that.  It’s ok, I’ll wait.

Ready? Yeah, it made no sense to me either.

So I finally get on the line with his manager. A woman. (Maybe that’s his problem? He has an inferiority complex?) And tell her (now realize that this is the 4th time I’ve called the power company) the whole ordeal.  She starts to say that she can’t approve a work order and I just lost it. Completely lost it, just weeping on the phone trying to speak, trying to say “My husband is coming home in 15 minutes, and I can’t even cook dinner” (electric stove) and she must have hit the parking brake because all of the sudden her whole tone changed & she walked me through how to get the lock off & turning back on my own power.

As soon as I could turn on a light I was probably the happiest person on the face of the earth. I thanked her for a full 5 minutes while we made sure I wouldn’t get charged for ripping off their lock.  I put away the weeks worth of groceries that I bought (to replace the rancid food I lost in the power outage) and finally was able to get back to normal again.

Also, the Mr figured out where the ants were coming from (under the sink) we can’t figure out why the concentration was centered there as there is nothing under the sink, but we cleaned it with lysol which instantly killed all the ants, rubbed it down with citrus extract & I’m buying talc today to draw a boarder around it so hopefully this is the beginning of the end for the ant problem.

KNITTING: I have knitting & pictures for you all tomorrow I promise! No more whining! Also I’m being informed that assholery isn’t a word. It totally should be, it’s so descriptive.

I had a lovely (though be it HOT) weekend in Mesa visiting my SIL & niece. I will get more into that when I have the pictures downloaded. I all planned to get home, turn on my computer, and upload my pictures while I went to bed (as I ended up taking about 400).  Unfortunately life had other plans.

When I got home, unlocked my front door & flipped on the light switch…nothing happened. Suspicious, I walked (in the dark, mind you it’s 11pm) to the kitchen and flipped on those light switches.  Nothing. I can’t explain to you the rage that ran through my soul at that moment. Just know that I don’t think I have instantly been so completely filled with pure rage as I was in that moment. It was so bad that when the Mr tried to talk to me to get me to come back out of the red I just growled (and yes I did actually growl the words at him instead of yelling, because, it was 11pm, and I didn’t want to wake the neighbors) “Mr, I love you more than anything in the world, but if you talk to me right now I’m going to take this out on you, and then I will cry for bring a jerk to you, and it will make things worse. I love you, but right now I need to burn this fire out.”

Being ever the smart and wonderful and absolutely fantastic man he is, he left to go find out kerosene camping lamps & flash lights.  Knowing me like he does I thank god that he’s so incredibly wonderful & intelligent to know that when you stir a fire in a Scandinavian women we head strait for berserker mode and that our brains are at that moment not at all hooked up to our bodies.

So after 35 minutes on hold with California Edison I hung up. Because remember I have no power, the only way my cell phone is remotely charged is because I sat in the car with it running in my driveway for the 35 mintues I was on hold. Trying one last time I call back & get through right away.

Finding myself in the grips of probably the most nasty woman on the face of the earth I agree to the 24$ same day service charge (remember, I have paid my bill, and my deposit already and now they are charging me again!!!) and am told that the following things are my fault.

1. I did not ever have service at the residence where I live. By choosing a alternate billing address when we first moved, I had service THERE, not where I live. So that means that they were double charging for my inlaws house? WTF????
2. That even though I called THURSDAY July 3rd and made sure my billing address now matched the service address because I can now receive mail there, it didn’t mean I had service there and that my power would have stayed on.
3. The ruined groceries in the fridge & freezer were my own problem

So since I NEEDED power (hello hot water anyone?!) I let it all pass which angered the Mr beyond all means (not at me but at them for pulling this bs).  I calmed the Mr down by reminding him of our wonderful weekend, we got to see his sister and our niece. We had some fabulous family time with his parents, we laughed with the parents SO HARD as we passed the “Adult Factory Outlet” (that’s where all the “seconds” and “malformed” go LOL!) we got to see Taliesin West where Frank Lloyd Wright had his first architect school, we had good German food, and I got to go to a new knitting store, we found the new pump needed for our camping stove and saw the best fireworks I’ve seen since the re-opening of the visitor center at Mount Rushmore (and they were spectacular!)  from the HWY (traffic was actually STOPPED so we got to watch them from the AC) and all in all had a fabulous weekend.  This is a hiccup and though irritating beyond belief it’s really no big deal. It’s ok to get mad, but you really have to get over it. Life’s to short.

And though I didn’t sleep more than 2 hours last night (because I’m a worry wart and kept thinking that my cell phone would die and I would have no alarm to wake me up in the morning so I kept waking up to check it) and with out our bedroom fan we heard house noises we’ve never heard before, which caused us to get up several times to investigate creepy noises, we are ok.

I called the power company back this morning, was blessed with the most wonderful customer service rep EVER and am filing a claim for the ruined groceries in the fridge & freezer and they are waiving the same day activation fee (she that that was absurd to begin with) and now I am quite pleased. As long as my power is on when I get home I will be a happy camper.

Some days you have to remember that shit happens to everyone. We all deal with it and it’s not doled out more to one person or another. It’s our choices in how we deal with the hand we are given that really defines how happy we are and what kind of people we become. I’d like to think that we did the best we could with the circumstances.

Also, um, does anyone know any organic or non-toxic way to get rid of grease ants? 8 ant traps, 12 ant steaks in the yard, & 1 gallon of out door poison blocker sprayed along the perimeter of the house and I was invaded again sometime last night. This time they have found the cat food. I’m going to need to do something INSIDE I think. Also, did you know that Lysol 4 in 1 cleaner kills them instantly? Kills more than germs!

Happy Monday!!!

While it is also Canada Day, I’m American which means to me that it’s my birthday today. 

Miss Mi enjoying her first cake. Hopefully I will eat my own with some better skills

Well it was quite a busy weekend, the Mr and I did a bit of gardening on Saturday, cleaning out the flower beds of weeds & waging war on a GIANT Bird Of Paradise in the front yard. Mowing & watering was also done. It was a lot of work for such a small patch but the result is like night & day.  I think that every time I looked up from tilling the garden I saw a new neighbor standing in their yard/driveway watching us.  To say that nothing has been done to this house in 10 years would be an understatement. It was a little embarrassing to live in the ugliest house on the block. Thankfully the front yard was subject to the community guidelines and wasn’t as bad as the back yard is. The back yard will probably take us 2 months worth of weekends just to clear out. But it will all be worth it in the end when we can oh, I don’t know, actually USE it!

This weekend I must have had a bug up my butt or something because I have three FO’s to show you. I thought about spacing them out, but decided not to. First up the oldest.

Pattern: Lace Ribbon Scarf
          Yarn: Henry’s Attic Prime Alpaca
Needles: US 3 circs
Verdict: LOVE. It took me forever to finish this and forever again to finally just block it! But I know that this will be a favorite as soon as fall comes around, the yarn is deliciously soft and perfectly fuzzy & worth every last penny.  I still have roughly 200 yards left which might become a cowl later on.

Someone please tell me a better way to show off a scarf. I wouldn’t wear it this way but was having problems showing off the lace the way I would wear it.
NEXT!

Yarn: Zitron Trekking (XXL)
Needles: US 1 DPN’s
Pattern: Gentleman’s Sock in Railway Stitch by Nancy Bush from Vintage Socks
Verdict. Love the bursts of orange on the grey blue background. These were not very interesting to knit, but they are very functional. For some reason they languished for a month because I didn’t think I had enough yarn to finish the 2 rows of the second toe. This weekend I realized that 2 yards was more than enough to finish it up & I did.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST!

Pattern: CPH
Yarn: Lambs Pride Worsted in Kiwi 6.25 skeins
Needles: US 8 & 7.
Mods: I had quite a few actually. I made the body 17 inches from the arm holes to the hem. I mean to do 16 inches but obviously I can’t count. And honestly, the length is perfect for a nice California style coat. I knit the arm holes longer for the 52″ bust not the 48 inch which the rest of the sweater was knit at, and I CO the arms for the 48″ bust but increased them to the amount of stitches for the 52″ bust so they would fit. Honestly, this was the BEST mod I made. I have big guns and always forget that the arms for my size never fit me the way I like. These fit me perfectly. Not snug, but not baggy either. I also added about 2 inches onto the sleeve length. As this is a huge requirement for me. I don’t have long arms but I like my cuff to come down to my knuckles with out being stretched. This really helps with keeping my hands warm when I’m out shooting at the beach.  A lot of what I wear revolves around if it’s camera friendly.  Also as you can see, I opted for no hood. I wouldn’t wear it and I like the crew collar better.

From the back. God I need a hair cut! I still need to put on buttons but we are good to go & I’m wearing it at work right now as it was chilly in Ventura this morning. This is definitely going to be a favorite sweater. I may have to do another!

In other knitting news I am making good progress on my February Lady Sweater. I’m past the arm holes and am working on the lace of the body. I noticed that a lot of other people have choosen a less rustic yarn for their sweaters. I’m a little worried that the Beaverslide won’t show off the lace pattern very well, but I couldn’t resist the garter stitch with the beaverslide.  It won’t be delicate in any way shape or form. Which I guess works well for me, as I’m the least delicate woman you could probably find.

So I had a dental appointment today for a root canal and a crown put in. I’m a high anxiety patient, seriously fearful from past experiences. BUT I can get myself in there and as long as they KEEP me calm I’m good to go. Today my MIL picked me up to drive me there (as they were sedating me almost fully and I would need someone to drive me home) get up to the office actually excited about getting this all fixed (as this is my last capped tooth we need to address, to find out that my dentist is no longer working in that office.

I had just seen him 3 weeks prior and no one called me to tell me that he was gone to teach full time. No one. Now they wanted me to schedule an appointment with his former partner for a different day.  “WHY?!” I asked “When your office can’t even call me to tell me my dentist is gone would I want to schedule an appointment with this office that has shown such unprofessional behavior?! WHY would I ever want to come back here to a place that has further fed my distrust in this industry?!” So I left with my amazing MIL.  On the way out she called my FIL and the incredible Salyer Network began buzzing. 1/2 home my AMAZING husband called me to tell me he had at least 2 different dental referrals from the girls in the office and is calling them FOR ME to check them out.

I can’t say enough how much I love this family and how much it means to me that they will go out of their way to help each other, and that they never consider it going out of their way.  This family unconditionally loves each other in a way you only find in Disney films. It’s a little weird, but fantastic. 

SO! Hopefully I will have another dental appointment in the near future to get myself all fixed up. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t a front tooth with a big stupid ugly patch on it that embarrasses me, but sometimes you just have to live through it & deal with the bs and move on. It’s ok. In the long run this isn’t even a big deal. Today it may seem like it, but this is not even a blip in life. Just a minor irritation.

IN OTHER NEWS!!

I received yesterday a package from my dad for my birthday! THANKS DAD! You totally spoiled me! I got so much stuff! Here are a few. I received a new camera bag, one that I can take hiking & camping & what not. It’s perfect! Everything fits in there & it’s really going to be easy for me to take everything along! This is a huge thing for me as I take my camera almost everywhere but not all my lens’s because it’s hard to travel with them & the bag I currently have.  It’s just so awesome!

Please ignore my messy bathroom & stupid expression. We just moved!

Then I received Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Daywhich is AWESOME! Of course I turned right to a page on how to make Limpa!  Figures! I think I have an extra sense for searching out Finnish recipies & anything that uses Cardamon. LOVE! Can’t wait to bake!

No I don’t know why I smooshed my nose. I was so excited. Yay for random pictures with NO makeup. Bleh.I also received a baking stone! I am so excited about this in particular. Unfortunately it arrived cracked in 1/2, so I will return it for a better packaged one Monday. But it’s going to be so freaking AWESOME!  I can’t even way to make Pulla on this thing! They are going to be perfect! No more cookie sheets for me!

 

To bad you are broken Soon I will have a replacement.

I ALSO, (God enough already right, but my Dad is the awesome!) received 3 knitting books. Latvian Mittens, Traditional Fair Isle Knitting, & Patterns For Guernseys, Jerseys & Arans. I am so thankful for all these!

And now I leave you all with a craptastic picture of one of my many hummingbirds. I always thought they were territorial creatures, but I have at least 10 my yard every day. They don’t even fight! So who knows, maybe they are poly hummers? ;D

 EDIT: So I made an appointment & went to another dentist today. One that the ladies at the Mr’s office really like. What a complete ass he was. Freaked me out even more, so now I’m back at square one.  Also, the really neat vintage starwars lamp I bought the Mr for his upcoming birthday arrived today.

Broken. It must be National Bummer Day & I didn’t know about it. I think I can fix the lamp, thankfully it’s in back AND at the bace. I’m just really bummed about it.

The hot weekend we had here in Ventura was proceeded by a much cooler week. A week in which it was down right chilly at night. God I love THIS kind of weather. It helped me finish knitting my CPH and I will be seaming it up probably tomorrow & over the weekend. I have also picked up Matt’s sweater again and am plugging away on the decreases for the yoke. SOON! Soon it will be done. Since I have finished the CPH I obviously needed to put another sweater on the needles. I swatched last night and am going to start the February Lady Sweater by the beautiful & talented Pamela Wayne. How beautiful is this sweater? I’m going to do it in this yarn.

Isnt’ it lovely? BTW I really hate wordpress’s new picture uploader. Why is it so completely assine? Why must it always post the picture at the top of the post so that I have to copy & paste where I want it? That’s just ridiculous. Completely.

In other news the Mr and I have been cooking.  Cooking is something everyone does every day, but the MR and I have been experimenting with a little more variety.

Can we all say “NUMMMMM” It was delish, though a little heavy on the garlic for me as I sliced them thinly instead of mincing them. The Mr loved it, but we both needed a swig of mouth wash afterwards.Last night I came home to this. The Mr had out-done himself with a easy, refreshing, Delicious meal. I never thought I would like gazpacho until he made it for me and now it’s a summer MUST.  It’s so easy too that you can make it the night before or like the Mr & just throw it all in the freezer for a while.

On Sunday my MIL called me and said “Preita, the artichoke fields are blooming get out here!” To which my repsonce was “There are artichoke fields around here?” Sure enough there are, and they were blooming.

I had never thought much about artichokes, I mean, they are damn tastey, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you how they grow a week ago. Now I know. And I know that they bloom. I knew they were just big thistles but never made the connection I guess.They are quite tall!

Closeup!

And because I am becoming the crazy cat lady a picture of Sue, doing his best not to look at me.

God I love this family. We don’t just circle the waggons hoping to weather the storm, we march with righteous indignation and tell the storm to fuck off.  The Devil himself would reconsider tangling with an angry Salyer I think.

I have to say, I’m really disappointed at the mass transit in California.  Or at least I should say, I’m really disappointed at the mass transit in Ventura County.  Not only do I have no bus stops or train stops with in walking distance to my work (people I work at the Camarillo airport, how is this possible?) but also there is no route that leads from my house to the Mr’s work either. What the hell? We are talking for me 20 minutes and for him 35 minutes. This is ridiculous.  People say the midwest is screwed up, but when I worked construction I could take the bus from my parents house all the way to right in front of my job site with no transfer. I’m even willing to transfer California! But no. Minnesotans can travel across at least 7 different cities with out a problem, while Californians can’t even travel across 2. How does that make sense to you?

The Mr will be car pooling with his dad to & from work as the both work at the same place. That means the Mr will have to go back to the 8-5 schedule he doesn’t care for, but at 400$ a month on gas just for him it’s needed.

Please don’t tell me to buy a hybrid either. The truck has no car payment, we own it.  If we BUY a car to save on gas wouldn’t we be paying EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT MONTHLY? I hate this argument. We are thinking maybe about getting the Mr a motorcycle though. He’s always wanted one and if we get a cruiser that I can ride on too & it gets at least 50 mpg then it might be worth the investment. We will have to see.

Also we have decided not to go to the Grand Canyon this year for our 5th anniversary.  Calculating it out the vacation would cost us about 3K where as if we never were swayed by the FIL we could have flown & stayed in Sanibel for $1500. Live & learn. We are staying in state. But not at home. Any Californians have any ideas of what would be fab? We are thinking maybe Paso Robles (we’ve been there plenty but never for over a week), maybe Moro Bay, or Big Sur, or Monterrey? still out in the open.

Another busy weekend has just come to a close. Thankfully we seem to have gotten more done than the past few weekends and our house is finally starting to feel like a home. We are now the proud owners of a new fridge & stove/oven. So that means that cooking has finally resumed. What, you may ask was our first meal on the new range? Mac & Cheese, in the blue box. Oh yes, our tastes are finely developed.

There has been much knitting going on lately.  I’ve abandoned all hopes in knitting cute summer cotton tops (because, it’s just not me) and started the Central Park Hoodie in some lambs pride worsted. I’m really amazed at how fast this is knitting up. I have completed both front pieces and am 1/2 way through the back.  Then it’s just the sleeves & seaming up this beast. I’ve already picked up the button bands because I’m not doing the hood on this sweater. I don’t wear hoods and I don’t like the hunch back look of them.  

As you can see there is major waist shaping happening. Yeah, thats actually how my body is built anything else looks boxy, even the gradual waist decreasing. I have always needed something more dramatic. I also added about 3 inches more to the length for my bust size. I like for my sweaters to hit the top of my back pockets. I’ve also increased the arm holes to 9″ instead of 7″ because I have bigger arms and didn’t want to be constricted there or else I would never wear this sweater.

Some days call for massive amounts of rum.  Mojitos sure helped cool us down as it was ridiculously hot all weekend! Thankfully we do not live in the valley where people are all sorts of crazy & might as well be living on the surface of the sun.

We also started hanging some art this weekend. I’m really not crazy about the bare white walls, but for now this bit of color really helps.  Hopefully the more we unpack the more pieces we will be able to put on the fireplace there. Most of the Mr’s ceramics are really thin procelin and we don’t trust them right on brick.

On saturday was Nancie’s Summer Solstice patry. It was great fun, but she does live in Filmore, and well, it’s crazy hot. As I drove from Ventura I watched my car’s thermometer gradually rise the further I got from the coast. It was hot, but as soon as the sun went down it was quite nice. It was quite nice to see everyone and there were many a flowy skirt to be had.

ALSO on saturday was the Anacapa Fine Yarns anniversary sale. So like many of the other thursday night knitters I was there at opening to paw through the discounted yarn bins. I got quite a nice haul. Enough Elesbeth Lavold angora to make 1 sweater, 1 vest & 1 scarf & enough frog tree alpaca (apparently) to make two sweaters (because I must have had a math breakdown when I was picking up bags.). So With all the new yarns put away it’s time to really get crackin in the knitting & get stuff cranked out for the upcoming christmas. Yes, I said it. You all hate me now, it’s ok. We will, as always, survive.

Thank you for all the comments yesterday and all the individual emails I received. I’m normally a very happy person and we all have our days. Anything that relates to my own fertility though usually brings me to the point where it might ruin my day. Usually I don’t let it and force it back, but yesterday was already a trying day and it just burst forth.

One thing I will never understand is why random people think it’s acceptable to ask you about if you & your SO want or have or why are you waiting to have children?  Honestly, if you don’t know the person well enough to already know the answer, it’s none of your business.

Thankfully the girls at knit night were fabulous as always and my dour mood soon lifted.  I’m a normally very happy person and don’t dwell so it’s hard for me not to be in control of this one emotion of mine.

This weekend is Nanci’s Summer Solstice party and I’m very excited. I’m trying to decide if I should make Sangria for it? :D  Also tomorrow the new stove/oven comes so finally we will be able to cook again. Slowly the house is pulling it self together. Mostly by the sheer will of the Mr. He’s really probably the most excellent man I have ever met and am blessed to have him as my husband.