Okay, I thought for the last couple months that I just couldn't find it, so this morning I asked Debbie to help me out. We have now scoured the website. And confirmed that, yes...

WE CANNOT PAY OUR INTERNET/PHONE BILL ONLINE.

At the website of our internet provider, which was first and foremost an ISP before they went into the whole "providing phone service" as well.

This just... really stuns me. They're an ISP. And I can't pay for their service online. I'm sure there is a reason, and one that probably makes sense. It just... seems so strange to me.

*

Another $100 fair. :)

Two more paintings, and more painting-cards. :D

More yarn! :D

No beads this time. :(

Looking toward next Saturday... two down, two to go, including The Big One.

***

Home from work... again... with my back.

This is seriously seriously SERIOUSLY bad timing. :(

It makes me inordinately happy to hear that Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright are writing slash for HOT FUZZ. That movie desperately needed someone to take up the call.

*

Big doings here in VT. I've had a fair amount of news stacking up but have not gotten around to posting. Busy.

In the realm of NEWS!, Brandon and Katy are going to have a baby! Katy is due next June. Great-uncledom the second. :-D A new leaf must be added to my tree. :)

Also in the realm of NEWS!, Debbie and I are MOVING. Early in the new year, we're going to move into a new place here in town, at the property my sister owns. We're very excited, and planning for a February 1 move. I will have a CRAFT SPACE. And a washer/dryer! LUXURY, here we come.

(Shhh... and... the possibility of a kitten!) (Although, also the possibility of no kitten, because kitties are expensive. Sigh.)

In the realm of more news, I forgot to post that Debbie won the costume contest at the bank on Halloween this year. :-D Because we are the Costume QUEENS! Whoohoo! She was a Branch Manager from Hell. It was awesome. I need to post a pic, along with a pic of my tattoo that I never posted.

In the realm of non-news, have I mentioned in the last five minutes how much I ADORE David Attenborough? Yes? Okay then.

***

When addressing a letter to someone who has been knighted, do you address it:

Dear Sir David,

*or*

Dear Sir Attenborough,

?

We had a DAY!

I am in wicked pain, but...

I sold a painting. A BIG one.

Reesa sold an expensive skein.

Bethlyn sold a beadball.

EVERYONE received compliments galore.

YAY! \o/

We had an over-$100-day. :-D Which for a cold, POURING RAIN day with no other craft fairs going on? Seriously awesome.

We rock!

*

[the pengie mood icon is much more flexible than I am at the moment]

I did something to my back. Something big, that I haven't done before.

This is Not Good.

Really not good.

I've spent the afternoon out of work, flat, trying to relax and think happy thoughts.

WHY, the day before my first fair???? *!@#$!*

:(

opening YARN!!!

ETA: YOW! GORGEOUS!!!!

THE YARN GOT HERE!

And now of course I'm racing out the door, find the box, and am running late so I can't OPEN IT YET.

**

Given the amount of chatter I've been making about craft fairs, it may be obvious that I am madly crafting.

Or not.

But this is the official announcement that I am once again making and selling holiday cards. I take special orders for specific designs. And I have a lot to play with as far as designs.

This year, I have penguins.

I also have cats, dogs and horses, which are new. Birds too. And just... a slew of new design options.

If you might be interested, zap me an email at alexanderbpotter -at- gmail.com

I wish I could work and eat at the same time.

Sometimes stopping to eat just feels like such a waste of time.

***

Veteran's Day is one of those holidays where the collective world can't make up its mind which way to celebrate it. Ever since the advent of "celebrate holidays as a three day weekend," that is. At least in Vermont.

Some schools were off Monday. Some are off today. Some were not off at all. Some things were closed Monday. Some weren't. Some are closed today.

As a rule, most things hold to taking Veteran's Day on THE DAY, whenever it falls, as a show of respect, I presume. So the all the feds are closed today. Which means the banks, because they take the fed holidays.

The AIDS Project takes the day VD actually hits. Except, not, because the AIDS Project has moved from having official holidays and vacation time to having one large pool of Paid Time Off.

So where the office used to actually assume closure on some holidays (although we were always allowed to work a holiday and swap the time for another day... we had one Jewish employee who always worked Christmas Day, and as a rule I try very hard to actually work on Columbus Day), we don't anymore. No one has "holidays"... we all have "paid time off" and we can schedule it and use it however we want. And it's not assumed that you're taking a holiday off, so we actually have to say "I'm going to be off Thursday, November 26" and schedule it with the Executive Director. No assumptions. My coworker Howie often works almost all the holidays and takes all of his paid time off in a big lump and goes out of country for a month.

My PTO got all screwed up this year due to some unexpected family travel in October, and of course the fact that we also needed to take two weeks of UNPAID time off this year. So I've bounced back and forth between actually being short 3.5 hours of PTO, to having 3 extra days of PTO. Back... and forth... and back... and forth.

The ping pong ball finally landed and I have three days of PTO to take. And the penny finally dropped that... duh... my wife works for a bank. So she has today off. (In my defense, she didn't realize it either until Sunday, when we were visiting my folks and my mom of all people pointed it out to us, and we had to call my sister who also works for the bank and find out if the banks were taking Monday or Wednesday.) I had still planned to work today, but Debbie and I grab every chance we get to spend an entire day together, so I decided at the last minute to take today, checked with my sister Karen (who is also my office manager) and the ED, and no worries. So I'm off!

Which is great, because craft fair season officially starts Saturday. (Well, officially Thursday, but that's another story.) So Debbie and I get to spend the day together madly finishing last minute things. Eeee! Fun, though.

In all the craziness of the fairs starting and Howie being off work so I'm covering everything, I've managed to miss some important birthdays. :( I'm sorry.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDY!!!

***

The other story: At the last minute, we've learned that the bank has an "employee craft fair" on Friday, where all the employees who craft can bring their stuff in on Thursday night, set it up, and leave it out all day Friday for people to walk around and see and buy. It's an honor system, because they don't want people spending their entire work day sitting at their craft table, but hey... bank. All the employees are criminal checked and half of them are bonded. So, not too worried on that front.

Except for, you know, Spenser. He's one to keep a sharp eye on. And I'm sure he's really interested in lots of hand made holiday cards.

Turns out a LOT of the bank employees craft. Who knew?

Debbie's department has some serious crafters... her big boss Shelby, my sister Karen, and a few others. So there will already be some tables in IP and she's going to have one too!

Which is great. It just means setting out the cards two days before we anticipated! Whee! [descends into a mad flurry of work]

*

Spenser, I assume you will have some serious crafts out on Friday as well? Hmmmmm? You're such a crafty sort.

*

(And yes, you read that right. My sister Karen is both my office manager at the AIDS Project, and works in Debbie's department at night. Because she's CRRRRRRRRAZY! And was a general in a past life. But that's another story, too.)

*

Now Gmail isn't delivering my email. WHY? WHYYYYYY?

This makes me so paranoid... I never know if an important email is being lost in the shuffle somewhere.

And there are IMPORTANT EMAILS ZINGING AROUND RIGHT NOW.

Argh.

#

Life has been interesting lately, for certain values of the word interesting. Mostly, it's been crazybusy, but crazybusy can be interesting. In the realm of things that have been going on for a while, Debbie is almost completely well again (yay!) with just a lingering cough, and Howie's surgery went fine (also yay!).

Today was a NICE day. For my birthday, my sister Karen gave me and Debbie admission to a craft day at the local Holiday Inn Express. (B&S: There were no demons. I checked. Or angels, for that matter.) The local scrapbooking store has "crop days" the first Saturday of every month, that run from 8am - 8pm. You bring projects and work on them, and have access to snacks, drinks, supplies from the store, equipment from the store, and get a discount on anything you buy at the store during the day.

It was GREAT. We had intended to get there around 9am and probably leave around 5pm, but we ended up getting there at 8:15am and staying until 7:45pm. WE GOT SO MUCH DONE. It rocked and we got to spend the day together, and Karen came too and it was just fun and productive. I finished four journals and I'm very happy with them. Debbie matted a slew of my painting-prints onto cards. She's very good at color-coordination and choosing backgrounds that really make the paintings pop. It was a fantastic day and we both had a blast. We went to Newfane Cafe and Creamery for lunch, which was also a treat. That place is amazing.

Then we came home, and downloaded and watched this week's Supernatural. I loved this episode. I'm rather into the idea of Heaven = Dysfunctional Family. I like it.

*

Okay, so the laptop - the old laptop - has not been holding a charge. We know this is battery related, so we were just running it on the power cord.

Then it stopped "recognizing" the power cord. It just kept showing that it was on battery power, even when plugged in.

We finally gave in and bought a new power cord.

It came today. Just plugged it in and... computer still not recognizing it.

???

Any thoughts?

Very frustrated, because getting this laptop back up and running was my birthday present to Debbie and it's not working out. :(

***

Bethlyn, I am SO sorry. Gah. My brain is simply not working well. I WILL be home tomorrow night. Really. Honest. [headdesk]

*

I have a very hard time remembering to even look at FaceBook.

Halloween is harder to celebrate nowadays, what with the stupid work-dance happening either the day before or the day of or whatever.

Debbie is feeling Mostly Better.

Howie goes in for knee surgery tomorrow. Between covering work alone until Dec 1 and being a craft fair vendor, almost EVERY SINGLE weekend and weeknight is booked in November. Wow. I can breathe again on December 5!

It's almost time to turn in my kitty-leaves-icon. Sigh.

*

My mask is now sitting behind me drying its top coat and decoration. I'm going to try to photograph it, because I like it, but I'm not sure how well it will take. So a photo may or may not be forthcoming.

Far too awake for 11pm. Likely has something to do with all the COOKIES.

Finally starting to feel *actually* caught up.

APSV work is FINALLY in good shape and, for the most part, my other jobs are feeling at a stable place, too. Still need to do my page proofs for Girls Guide, but I can get to that tomorrow or this weekend.

My Halloween mask is sitting behind me drying its first coat of base paint, so that's going well.

Tomorrow night is my quasi-birthday-party-for-myself combined with a Scentsy party. (Speaking of which, if anyone wants to take a look at all things Scentsy, give me a holler. Some of the scents are awesome.)

All my party foodstuffs are in hand, now just need to make the pumpkins, the pumpkin roll, and the cookies. Taking tomorrow OFF from APSV because I was at about 44 hours last week. (My schedule calls for 35.) Sigh. So I can spend all day tomorrow on that.

Now I'm starting to feel like I can turn my attention to ramping up production and getting ready for the craft fairs, which start on November 14.

***

In sad news, for those of you who know my coworker Howie, his stepmother passed away on Friday last. The funeral was Monday. He was very close to her, and is taking this hard. It was not unexpected, but is never easy.

*

Was there no supernatural this week?