lolajl: April 2006 Archives

I'm recovering from the weekend, that is. I'm not a night person, and I didn't take a nap Saturday as I usually do for this Feast of Feasts. In between egg dyeing, making Heart-Attack Macaroni & Cheese (chock full of extra sharp cheddar, eggs, buttermilk, and butter), I was trying to finish the vest. Alas, I ran out of time and so didn't get to wear it. However, It will be finished in time for next year. I may even start another vest, waaaay in advance this time for next year.

I spent most of Sunday in bed, only getting up to fix some pork sausage made by the Amish and to finish off that pan of M&C that I reserved for us, and going to bed way earlier than usual. I did get out yesterday to go over over to the One Stop Job Center to get help with my resume. (Not much help, as it turns out. Resume help means, to me, having someone actually sit down with me and rewriting it, line by line. Anyone know someone in DC Metro area who doesn't charge an exorbitant amount of $$$ for this service???)

I then popped over to the bookstore to check out the latest knitting book, and ended up buying Yarn Harlot and Wendy's new books. I'm reading both of these now, and will be posting reviews in due time.

I've now cut the steeks, sewed in the millions of ends on the front tips, and knitted up the i-cord around one armhole and getting ready to do the other armhole. I'm sure glad that I don't have to do 2-color ribbing - I would never get finished with the time constraints I have. As it is, it's going to be down the wire. I simply have to get the other armhole finished, and around the edges as well. I'd like to get this finished today so that I can wash and block it tomorrow in order to get it dried before we rendezvous with G tomorrow night.

On top of that, I still have to make Greek Bread, and run over to the grocery store to get the fixings for macaroni & cheese that will be served for the potluck breakfast after the services (remember, we Orthodox Christians have fasted from meat and dairy products during Lent). Oh, and go to church for Vespers and then the tonight again where we're supposed to be taking the Shroud out of the church, circle it, and go back and watch the priests take the Shroud into the altar.

Yesterday Bruce talked with the local gossiper, and later on we went to the homeowner's association meeting. As I'd suspected, it was a drug bust. Guy (I'll call him "J") up the street went to work late because he was watching the whole thing go down, so he had quite a bit of interesting info to share with us. Local, state and fed were involved, and they had the house surrounded in front and back, and used a battering ram to get into the front door. While we were comparing notes, it turned out that the man living in the building was exhibiting pretty odd behavior, and that house had been sold in October, in a manner that seemed odd to "J". And I remember one time when I went to pick up the mail from our community mailbox, I saw this drug dealer sitting in his car talking on the phone, which I thought was really weird but thought nothing of it at the time.

It seems that a new tactic of drug dealers these days is to buy houses in a fairly nice neighborhood, like ours, and live there so as not to raise suspicions. And they'll do their drug deals in their vehicles so that it will be more difficult for cops to be traced.

Whooo . . . there's been some excitement this morning. Hubby gets up to start his morning routine, starting by begging me to let him stay home so he can sleep (I always tell him nope). After getting dressed, eating breakfast, and packing his bags for the day, he gets ready to leave the house, picking up the newspaper and throwing it up the stairs for me to collect. But this morning he walks in with the newspaper, and says that there's a bunch of cops up the street.

So I get out of my comfy bed and take a look out, and sure enough, there's this house with the front door open and garage door open as well with lights on all over the place, two marked police cars, and a lot of unmarked vehicle (remember, this is a townhouse community with parking space at a premium).

Obviously something's gone down. The question is . . . what? Drug raid? Money laundering? Murder? Or what?

As I type this, they're still firmly ensconced at the home. I'll have to check in with the local gossipers, and hubby is obviously going to be checking in with his fellow homeowner association board members (one of them lives further up the street, closer to the scene).

It's been slow going, because of the job interview last week, and getting ready for Holy Week that we Orthodox Christians are going through now. Right now I have just about one more inches to go. Reading the instructions, it calls for you to short row to give it some shaping before binding off. However, I'm not sure that I want to fiddle around with this because I really got to get this finished before end of week. Fortunately, I have enough yarn to make another vest, and for this one I'm thinking about a curved bottom and with this version I'll definitely try the short rowing.

About the job interview . . . I think it went about as well as could be expected. They're interviewing other people, so it's not a given that I would definitely be in the running. I also have a few reservations, based on what I learned during the interview. We'll see . . .

Just hours to go before my interview . . . I've said a few prayers to calm myself down and trust in God that I will find the right things to say.

It seems that Zimbabwe, thanks to Mugabe, is in dire straits:

Last week Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate, measured through the consumer price index (CPI), jumped to 913.6 percent for the year to March from 782 percent in February.

Experts expect the rate to soar way over 1,000 percent by mid-year and Zimbabwe also faces shortages of fuel, food and foreign currency and breaking sewerage systems, power and water cuts, uncollected domestic garbage and deteriorating roads.

Yes, there may be poverty here in the United States, but we're so much better off than the poor folks in Zimbabwe. The sooner Mugabe goes, the better. It's truly amazing how the country has gone from being the breadbasket of Africa before this murderous thug started this decline by kicking out the white farmers and giving land to his supporters, who knew nothing about farming.

It's even more sad that folks such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton aren't speaking out about this. Not that I would consider them stellar spokesmen for their community (no, I don't hold them up as good examples - I listen more to people like Bill Cosby).

I have made a bit of a progress on the vest, and am almost finished with the decreases. So that puts me halfway to the top - I want the armhole length to be about 9 or 9 1/2 inches. That would leave me with at least 4 inches where there are no decreases to give it shape. I'm worried about whether it will look odd. What do you think?

And it seems that I've gotten myself a face-to-face interview with a well-known local company that creates websites. This is a dream company, and it has a reputation for being one of the best local companies. As part of the interview progress, I have to take a test, meet with 2 developers, and 2 project managers. Am I nervous? Yes . . . very. I'll be needing warm, fuzzy thoughts and prayers beamed at me starting 2:30pm tomorrow.

I haven't knit much since i got notice of the appointment. I suppose I should go back to my knitting so as to calm my nerves.

Okay, guys . . . I've had a chance to take a picture of the vest in progress. It's coming along really well. Knocking on wood, I will be getting ready to bind off at the end of the weekend.

I just realized that there's only 2 more weeks left before Pascha (April 23 for us Orthodox Christians) so it's back to Flyaway Vest. I've now started the armhole and center shaping, so from this point on process should be quite rapid. I did make an adjustment to the pattern - i put the armhole stitches on hold instead of binding off. i started off binding off a few stitches, but i didn't like the way it looked since i tend to bind off a little tightly. Pictures later on tonite.

Anne wants to know what does one use the business card resume for. It's handy for networking opportunities. Say you strike up a conversation while waiting in line, and the person you're chatting with mentions that they're looking to hire for such and such position in the company but haven't started advertising on Monster.com and so forth. Bingo - you whip your business card out of the wallet and present it to the person to pass along to the hiring managers (which may not always be the HR folks, but rather the leader of the particular division).

I've already had a chance to give my card out to someone at church who works for a government agency (anyone out there who knows how to navigate the government hiring maze, especially with KSAs?) and given a stack to my DORS employment specialist.

There's been a little bit of progress in my job search again. Had a phone interview with the technical recruiter (unfortunately I'm not quite a fit for the position advertised, but there are others that they're hiring for) and trying to get in touch with someone who read my resume which I'd sent in response to an ad. Now, if I could just get that face-to-face job interview and really knock their socks off . . .

Helen of Bay Colony Farm has now relocated, hopefully for good. Her blog at Tripod.com bit the dust for the second time. "Third time's the charm" in this case worked out great with the move to a more reliable hosting server. So if you've still got your link set to the old location, please update to the new one!