"Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated"

Wow...I couldn't believe it's been almost a month since I posted anything! Just goes to show you how busy I've been!

Ok..updates on kids...Nothing new with Vickie, other than she's working her butt off to be able to graduate this year. I'm really proud of her. Oh - and she's got a job at Spencer's! She was supposed to start today but her working papers say something about needing a physical. I'm gonna have to ask her about that - maybe I just need to get a signature from the doctor saying she's in good enough health to work.

Jake-if there's anything new with him, I don't know it. I talk to him less now that he's home. Grrr. I do know he's gotten new tattoos. He had his sisters names put on his collar bone & a devil with wings put on his forearm. Yes, you heard me right - "sisters". He's got another sister by his Dad in CT. Her name is Heather & she's the same age as Vickie. Anywho... Jake did come over this week & clean out my gutters for me. He said he felt bad b/c he couldn't sweep off the roof over the back porch - he was alone & couldn't get the broom up there by himself. I keep telling him to quit apologizing for that, I'm just happy the gutters are clean! And for those of you who worry about him going off to war again, skip the next few sentences... He re-enlisted this year, I think for 4 more years. He just really likes the benefits he gets from the Army. Such as the $15,000 he got for re-enlising. With that money he was able to get a new truck. Brand-spanking new, not just new to him. A Chevy, Colorado I think? It has everything on it he wanted. He pretty much had to get a new vehicle b/c he totalled his Kia. Now, before everyone sighs & rolls their eyes - this one wasn't his fault. He was going down a hill not too far from here, and a lady stopped in front of him to make a left-hand turn. He went to step on his brakes & discovered he had none. So instead of hitting the car in front of him & maybe hurting someone he had the presence of mind to veer off & take out a telephone pole instead. Thankfully, no one was hurt, not even Jake. It could have been a lot worse! Instead of the pole falling on him, it fell to the left, across the road, and started a small grass fire. I tell ya, that boy's got more luck than Carter's got pills. Afterward I told him he should have his brakes examined. I mean, I had just gotten his car all fixed up for him before he came home and that included brakes. We needed to know if there was a problem. But he argued with me, saying that would cost him money he didn't have & when I told him I would give him the money he got his German on & got all stubborn about it. Soooo...I called the insurance agent, told him what had happened & asked him to talk some sense into Jake. Final outcome was Jake had a mechanic visually inspect the brakes (it would have cost him $100 to get the car towed ACROSS the street & put on a rack). The mechanic said the cover (lid? cap?) was missing from the master cylinder. The insurance agent said that was good enough for him & his company. So like I said, it could have been a lot worse.

All right, enough about the kids! Like I said, I've been really busy. After my 3 day stint at Halloween Express, I decided it wasn't worth it. Strike one: it wasn't fun; Strike two: it hurt - my legs were frigging killing me; Strike three: it didn't pay enough to make up for the hurting. I was going to apply to the call center that had just opened up on the second floor of the building where I work, but literally an hour before I was going to go up, my boss came to me & asked if I'd like to work OT to help with the busy season. Would I like to work OT??? What, you're kidding me, right??? Hell, one hour of OT is worth 3 hours at Halloween Express. So needless to say I've been putting in as much as I can. Plus...one of the ladies I work with has asked me to make her Halloween costume, so I've been working on that. Add to that spending time w/Ed when we can get together & that makes for a pretty full life!

As part of making the Halloween costume for my friend at work, I decided to do a test run of the bustier out of some extra fabric I had laying around. In order to get a feel for how it would fit my friend, I brought in the unlined, unfinished piece for her to try on. One of the other ladies in the office asked about it & when I told her it was a test run, she said she'd buy it from me when it was done. ‹eyebrows go up› I told her I was going to wear it out once when it was finished & she said that was fine. And, boy, am I ever glad I wore it once! I decided I'm NOT going to put boning on the side & back of the costume. My back is bruised from that frigging boning! And I'm going to take out the boning from the first one I made. When I told Karen about it, she said that was the sign of a good corset & that women who used to wear them never sat down. Well, I for one am glad they're not in style any more!!!

Ok, I've hit a wall & can't think of anything else to write at the moment. So before I start sounding like a blithering idiot I'm going to end this for the moment. I'll try to get some pictures taken of the bustier I made. Hugs to everyone!!