Financial Woes

3 weeks, no work... what does that give you? Financial woes of course

I normally temp and the agency has had nothing come in all this time. I applied for employment insurance and that won't kick in until end of April.

So what to do in the meantime.
Tighten our belts.
Cancel things like cable, cell phone.
Comb the want ads and job sites for any local job in your field and apply.

Our biggest sticking point was food for our baby, Gambit.
Since the bank account is empty after paying rent, we had no money to buy cat food.

I belong to an online community called Ravelry. Within this community is a wonderful group called RAK (Random Acts of Kindness) where you post a wish list and if someone can help you, they do. This is purely volunteer of course. I posted about not having enough food for Gambit and 2 wonderful ladies responded and gave me a gift card each to buy food for our baby. Words alone cannot express my heartfelt thanks for this selfless act of kindness. I do know that I will pay this forward to someone else in the future since that is what RAKking is all about :)

Catch your dreams before they slip away

Work went great as long as I ignored the over extended supervisor going in 20 different directions at the same time barking at us for nothing.

I had a job interview this afternoon that I'm not sure on. Talk about poker faces. I should know by the end of the week if they're even considering me for the position. I'll consider then if I really want to work for them. Temp work has it's advantages, if you don't like a placement, you complain to your agent and someone else gets the spot. Not that I'm going to complain since I've figured out the supervisor. I just let her rant on and do my job :)

But the best part of today was..... *drum roll please* My darling daughter came with me to visit! You might say, so what? To me this is a gift to be treasured. My daughter doesn't live in the same town, neither one of us owns a vehicle so visiting means a long trip on a train/bus and then walking walking walking to wherever we want to go. After my interview was over, we headed over to the Vietnamese market to pick up a few things and some chicken wings. My daughter's special supper request was my pineapple curried chicken wings with rice.

After getting everything set, and were waiting for the wings to be done, I sat my daughter down in front of the computer and introduced her to my folder of knitting patterns earmarked for her. When I see a pattern I think she would like, I drop it in that folder so she can take a look whenever she's visiting. Apparently my tastes in what she likes is pretty smack on since she only took a few out of the list :) She also added a bunch more from my regular pattern folders. Then I introduced her to Ravelry, she may not knit or crochet, but she has a flair for clothes. Ravelry is one of those awesome places for anyone who has a flair for knowing what looks good and what works and doesn't work in clothing and accessories. She really enjoyed the site and will likely join so she can check out new patterns and let me know which ones she'd like to have knit up for her.

I put in her backpack a couple of facecloths I knitted up as well as a Kinder Surprise egg. One of her favorite treats. I totally forgot to take pictures of the facecloths but these were experimental designs of my own anyway. I can always knit them up again. She will let me know how they perform under heavy usage so I know what alterations to make if need be. I wish we lived closer by each other.

Cold, colder, coldest! No hot potatoes here! My fingers were numb within minutes of walking out the door this morning. Despite being bundled up to the eyeballs, my fingers were cold even after I stuffed them mitts and all into my pockets. Walking with your hands in your pockets doesn't work so well when the sidwalk is snow and ice covered. You never know when you're going to need to use your arms to pinwheel yourself upright again when your feet skid on ice. Learned that one this morning! The rest of my walk to work was done pigeon toed to keep my center of balance over my feet. An old friend who lived up north with the Inuit taught me that walk and It works.

Still working on fingerless mitts and another facecloth. Doing this new facecloth on a plain sideways rib. Once I've figured it out I'm going to try and incorporate some designs into the sideways rib for visual relief.

Presents II

After fighting with Canada Post and losing. I took the 3 hour round trip to go collect my envelope from the sub post office far away from where I live. What killed me was the fact that there is a sub post office 3 blocks from where I live! This is the second time Canada Post has done this to me. I don't get it.

Anyway, I got home and opened the envelope, poured out the contents and turned into a kid on Christmas morning. As you can see in the picture below; I was RAKed by Rikki on Ravelry who sent me 2 sets of bamboo knitting needles, 2 balls of lovely organic cotton from Bernat and a wee package tied with some pretty black ribbon.

I figured while I had to go so far to pick up my package, I might as well drop by the Fortino's next door to the post office. I picked up croissants that were on sale for my husband since he adores eating them with peanut butter and nutella.

The beribboned package held 4 very pretty stitch markers. Three of the markers have stones with a pearlized heart attached. I really love the stones that were used. They have a warmth about them. The fourth marker has an angel attached. That will be my special marker and it fits my name as well. Thank you so much Rikki, I love your presents!

Presents

I know, several days have gone by since my last post. Blame it on the dead router.

But in the meantime, I have been RAK'ed with some very pretty items from my Ravelry friends..

In the mail yesterday I received a letter with some suspicious bulges. After further investigation, this is what I received!

A huge thank you goes to Angele for these really cute stitchmarkers. I adore them and will put them to very good use.

Then today, I get home from work and there's a package waiting for me. This is better than Christmas! It's so awesome to receive something you're not expecting.
I open it, and there in all it's splendor are several balls of superwash!

Thank you to Karen for these wonderfully soft balls of superwash merino. I love the colors. I'm closer to getting the Marie Grace Smith Darling jacket for my niece done. I'd never felt yarn so soft before today. Never thought wool could feel like silk.