Thursday, October 13, 2011

Weather is a changin'

It's been almost a month since my last post. So I apologize. Nothing much has been happening.  I have been making more items for my Etsy site to sell, need to post them as a matter of fact. I wish more people would buy. I had a ton of views today, but still nothing sold. I am hoping that with the holidays coming people will start buying.

I started my part-time job and have found that I am really enjoying it. I am glad. I was so scared I wouldn't or would totally be screwed up and get let go or something. But that is just my crazy mind playing games.

I am so glad that we are coming into fall. As much as I dislike the colors, the make me sick, I LOVE the temperature change. Nice and cool. Had a great walk home this evening.

Nothing else going on for now.

Ta'ta!

Saturday, September 17, 2011

The Time Draws Near

In less than a week I will be starting my new part-time job in an official capacity. The most important training will be today. Hopefully it will be sufficient. Though I doubt they will throw us newbies to the sharks...hopefully. With previous experience in this field I hope I am not too overwhelmed. We shall see.

I applied somewhere else the other day for another part-time job to fill the day time. I hope they give me a call back soon. I don't know what else to do. My husband has yet to get a call back. He has applied in many places but we still wait. It has become very nerve wracking. But we haven't lost our patience and we still have faith in God that the right job will surface. Just wish it would present itself sooner rather than later. But of course, how would that test our faith. Ah God, he is a wiley one. :)

As I attempt to type, my cat is trying to shower me with affection and gain some for himself. He is such a sweet kitty. I'm glad I picked him at the shelter as he hid all shy beneath the registration table.  But that is a story for another time.

I continue to list items to my Etsy shop, but still just have the two sales. I hope that with the constant promoting I am doing by posting the links everywhere I can ( http://craftasticgoodness.etsy.com/ :) ) that people will find something they like and buy it. I have gotten lots of "FAVORITES" from people, but no bites.

I have faith thought...

Thursday, September 8, 2011

So much for that plan...

So things haven't gone exactly as planned. But of course "The best laid plans of mice and men..." The wonderous Port Authority in their infinite stupidity didn't resume the hoped bus route so I could take this job. I would have to either walk a half mile one way down hill to get there and back up hill (a pretty steep one to boot) and that isn't happening, let alone in the winter when the sides of the street have snow plowed up on them. The owner is convinced it will all work out if I just take that bus and they will pick me up and take me back every day. I don't like that one bit. I would feel beholden to them and their schedule. I have to remain self sufficent.

Is that really so hard to understand. I understand she needs help and is trying to help me. But I feel like if it goes awry I will end up losing the other job I have. And I have put in far too much time into doing the training for that job. It would feel like a complete waste of time and energy on both my and the employers part. Plus it would look ridiculous on a job application.

In the end I feel like I need to be looking out for myself first. Not anyone else, but no one seems to understand that. There are too many variables of the unknown that I don't like. Other than that, I don't know what else to do. Perhaps I am doing the wrong thing. But right now I feel like it is the right thing for me.

My mind keeps going over it again and again giving me the most wonderous headaches. So I have tried to immerse myself in doing other things. Like my projects for Etsy. I still have only made 2 sales, but I hope that someone will buy something soon. I have gotten likes on things, but no bites yet. I hope maybe people buy for Christmas or Hannukah maybe. I have found a new craft to do too. Tatting lace. Different from crocheted lace in that it's individual knots. I am enjoying making it as I feel like my hands are idle too much lately.

Here is a sample of my latest item to make and posted on Etsy:



Have a good night...

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Things may be looking up...maybe

So I think I have a new job. Not the one I spoke of last. That one well.....lets just say if someone is calling you about it and you don't have the time to listen to them and then you make assumptions about their intentions that are WRONG, you just wind up looking like a douche and making the applicant sad and mad and frustrated.

Ok, enough of that. So the new job...I don't know about it. It isn't what I want, but it will have to do. I have to go this week and work out the terms. If the owner doesn't agree then I will have to decline them. I hate to do that, but is what will work best for me. Otherwise I will most likely end up loosing my other current part-time job, and I don't want that to happen.

Life has certainly thrown us some major curve balls lately. I keep waiting for something else bad or even catastrophic to happen. Makes me nauseous and keeps me from sleeping at night. I just don't know what else to do. Who does really. This is the only place that I have actually spent any time actually venting my frustrations because I don't feel like I should burden anyone else with them. Besides, I really don't have anyone else to talk to that doesn't have their own set of problems who is really willing to even listen to me. Well such is life.

I wish we could just go back to the beginning of the year and try and fix this all. I know it is a naive comment, but sometimes it's nice just to feel that way. I know I shouldn't dwell on it. But right now I am home alone with no one to talk to or distract me and all the bad things that could happen just start to build up in my mind. It has made me very sad and negligent even in certain areas. No don't worry, my animals are well cared for as are we.  I don't know what else to do.

Family drama has even left us more isolated from those we know. In a way, I don't mind but it affects everyone and in the end me. I just don't have the patience to deal with it sometimes...most of the time. So much ego and pettiness. I told my mother the other day I have the patience of Jesus Christ himself for how long I have lasted without going crazy and telling everyone where to stick their forced ideas and opinions.

Deep breath.

I just try to do my own thing and keep out of other peoples radar. But sometimes, that can be a lonely place. And if I try and help people, I usually get shit on in the end, so I have pulled back in helping people so much anymore.

I just don't know what to do.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Hopeing and Praying

It's been a while and lots of stuff has happened. My husband's grandmother passed away this last week and that was a dramatic ordeal. But she is no longer in any medical distress and at peace. It was nice to see at that her age she still had so many people visiting to pay their respects.

I have been offered a job by two different businesses. One of them is a last resort and the other is the one I want. Each time I go to talk to the owner about the one I want, she is busy or gone for the day. I hope the note I left for her today gets to her and the offer is still open.

I'm scared about my part time job that I am still doing training for. I'm afraid that with the full time job I hope I get will ruin it for me or that the part time one will ruin the full time. I don't know what to do at this point. at this point all I can do is put my faith in God that this all works out for the best.

Say a prayer for me.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

This and That

So I got a new job. A part time one at night for event retail. It's a good job, good pay. Bad part...it's Unionized...and it grates on me to have had to join it. I mean really, really grates. To the point I almost said "fuck this, I'm not doing it." But alas, I need the money soooo that was that.

I am making more items from my Etsy shop. Hand embroidered pieces. They are cute. At least I think so, and so does the hubby. Hopefully other people like them and they sell.

It's been a long week and am really tired. Well the giant lunch didn't help either, but sometimes you just need a huge lunch on a Saturday afternoon.

I think I need a nap.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Etsy Shop!

So I did it. With help from my wonderful husband, I created an Etsy shop to sell my mice. We'll call them mice. So many people give rat a bad connotation. On the left side of this page there is a little widget thing that has the items that are available for purchase and you can click there to go to the shop itself. It's really small right now, I just have to crank out more items to sell. Hopefully I can get things going. Say a little prayer for me.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Time on my hands

So last friday I had an interview. I have yet to hear from them. Obviously this doesn't make me happy, but what am I going to do. Apply at more places.

But of course, during the day I have sooooo much time on my hands. I have picked up my knitting. I am finishing a blanket I started a while ago and have started making knit rats. Yup rats. Cat toys actually. I make a little pouch filled with catnip and put that inside.

My cats are going bonkers for them.

In a passing conversation with my cousin, he suggested I sell them on Etsy. I have to think about it. See if there is a market and see how much it will cost. I mean, its not like I am doing anything while I sit here trying to find a job.

Searching for a job is so nerve wracking. I hate it. Despite being qualified for jobs, they just don't hire. But enough of that.

Maybe this little venture might work. Maybe it won't.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Late Night Thoughts

It's 4:01AM and I can't sleep. So many things run through my mind at this hour. Especially now when we are both out of work. We have worked it out that with both our unemployment benefits we can continue to pay our bills. But I do not want it to come to that.

I hate this, I really do. So much so right now I am nauseous. Takes a lot to get me rattled. Perhaps I just keep it all bottled up. I don't like to vent to other people because it's not their problem, it's mine. They have their own, and most of the time don't have the time to listen anyway.

So many doubts run through my mind. In myself, in my choices, in everything I do and have done. I have lived in Pittsburgh going on 10 years now and I still feel like a stranger despite being quite knowledgeable about the city. I feel like an outsider, a visitor. Maybe it's the Hispanic conservative Southerner in me. Who knows, but I feel it nonetheless.

Pittsburgh is all about ethnic identity and neighborhood camaraderie. Unfortunately for me, my ethnicity is a super minority here.

I grew up a few miles from the Mexican border to a large, conservative, Hispanic family. My maternal grandfather was born in the interior of Mexico but emigrated (the legal way) with his family when he was 5 years old. The rest of my grandparents were US born. Though I am part Mexican, Spanish, Scots-Irish and Cherokee through my descendants, my family never raised me to pick a nation from which I descended to be my ethnicity. I'm an American of Hispanic descent. I'm not Mexican American, not Irish or Spanish or Native American. Just American. My paternal great-grandparents were born 20 years before the Civil War in Texas. And she died in 1950 at the age of 104 having lived through the Civil War, Spanish American War, WW I & WW II and the start of the Korean War. So my sense of patriotic pride only naturally lies with the country that for over 200 years has kept my family so safe and secure. It seems silly to me to throw my lot in with the rest and call myself Mexican or Polish or Italian or Ukrainian.

Am I so wrong? Are my ideas too...American? I don't begrudge anyone the right to recognize their heritage because I do recognize that my fair skin is from my Irish and Spanish side and my hair is from my Mexican side. But was born and raised an American and that is what I will be.

Perhaps I am too strong willed. Lord knows it has gotten me into arguments at times. Just exercising my God given and Constitutional right to be opinionated and freewilled.

Weird tangents I have run off on.

I lay here listening to the sounds in my house. The dog changing positions to sleep. The cats skulking about. Settling noises, air conditioner running. And I think of how far we have come and how far we could slip. It's terrifying you know. But I have faith in God, that things will get better, for the better despite any hardships we have to go through. How else would we discover the wonders of life if without something to compare them to.

All I really know is life cannot be wasted with waiting and worry. We must make things happen now because life is far to precious to let it go by without cherishing the time we do have and losing it in hurrying without enjoyment.

Love one another like it's last time.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Dirty Dog, Clean Dog

We have a very sweet shepherd chow mix named Malcolm, Malcolm Reynolds. (Yes, we are Firefly fans) He is all black, poofy and very loving. Lately he has been scratching more than usual so we finally decided to give him a bath. He had been due for one but he is terrified of taking baths so we try to do them as little as possible. With being an indoor dog, he really doesn't get dirty much. But like I said, it was time.

Bath time is a couple hour event. First comes brushing him out to get as much shedded hair out of his coat as possible. Sounds way easier than it really is. Mal (as we call him) does not like to be brushed out because he is sensitive (please note the sarcasm). Sooo it takes two of us, a treat and his favorite triceratops squeaky toy. If you part his fur you can easily find his skin below the coat, but DAMN this dog has so much excess fur.

After removing enough fur to create a separate Mal, we fill the tub with warm water and have to use ANOTHER treat to coax him into the bathroom and close the door. Thus ensues the crying and whining. You would think we were leading him to slaughter the way he cries. I sit on the edge of the tub with my feet in the water and hubby dearest picks up the crying, quivering 35 pounds of black fur and gently sets him in. I swear this dog had a horrible problem with water before he was picked up as a stray in Georgia. His heart starts to pounds and his breathing becomes labored.  So before we can even begin to bathe him, we have to calm him down and keep him bolting across.

Cleaning soon starts and as I do the dirty work, hubby croons and whispers lies to Mal telling him "Just one more minute and you will be done." Yeah, sure. After washing him and rinsing him all out we have to wait for the tub to empty so we can partially dry him in the tub. Learned from the last couple baths that letting him out of the tub to try is a very, very wet proposition. The first time we did that, he shook the water out and it was on the walls, ruined a whole roll of toilet paper and actually ponding on the floor. Never again.

Once we let him out to shake off the last of the water and opened the door, he bolted out like he was being released from 20 years of hard time. Those poor cats had no idea he was going to be running free.

I am so glad the bath is done and I dread the next one. But for now...he is clean.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

For want of a job.

I have recently become unemployed. My former employ was one I enjoyed greatly. Such is life though. As much as I mourn my loss of a job, I more so feel the loss for my former employer who made the gut wrenching, heart tearing choice of closing down after 94 years of continuous business. Business just isn't what it used to be. Customers were shocked and dismayed at our closing, but it takes money to make money, and they weren't spending it, so we weren't making it.

I learned many great things there. From how to care for a customer to how to make someone happy with the simplest of gifts. At times the work would be very strenuous, but despite my seemingly lazy demenor, I enjoyed the challenge that came with the work and all that it entailed.

I wish in finding a new job, I could stay in the same field. But due to the time of the year, it is the slowest time for work and so now I sit and wait and search in other fields to find something to keep us going.

And of course, life has thrown us yet another curve ball. My most wonderful husband has been let got as well. So here we both are in search of new employment. The cabin fever is starting to set in and yet with no income to really speak of, we are slowly but surely going to go crazy sitting at home trying to find jobs not able to go and enjoy what is out there for lack of funds.

So here I sit, hoping to get my thoughts out so they don't get all bogged in my mind as I try to find something to do.