Stephieface

Ah ha! I have returned! This week has begun on a triymphant beginning. Organization like mad for one thing and the best thing of all…..

The new working fridge!!

I cannot express my overwhelming delight of finally having a new working fridge that I won’t have to live out of the freezer for. Don’t get me wrong, old Avacado Green Machine did its duty for as long as it could until it ultimately couldn’t hold to the demands a Conley family requires. I hope that the Don’s Appliance place can fix it up and sell it to another family that it will serve as well as it did us. As well, Don and his assistant (who’s name I cannot recall) were the absoloute nicest of people I have met carrying something huge and bulky into my home, and not just because they were carrying something huge and bulky into my home. Now, I just have to buy food to go into it.

In other news, the Stephieface clan has returned home from a weekend abroad. We traveled to my home state of Virginia to attend the wedding of my cousin Peggy. Initially I went into this whole thing believing it would be just another down home affair as I have seen in the past from my family. For example my sister was married in a church (pretty bland there) but drove from church to reception in a Confederate Flag donning Monster Truck that required her to climb a ladder to board. The reception found us in the backyard of her new husband’s parents’ home where we were served a higher class of buffet than the family is used to, all the while sernaded endlessly by an assortment of country music CDs blaring in the stereo.
However, this weas not to be the case of my cousin Peggy. First we were able to force most of the men folk into tuxes. I have to say that even my mullet sporting cousin Ricky looked particularly suave in the thing, not to mention my Uncle Jimmy. To interject some knitting stuff which is why I started this blog to begin with… I worked on a small Prayer Shawl pattern scarf in the van while waiting.
Anywho, the wedding was held at a Greek Orthodox Church in DC, which was an instant change from the small churches of Warrington and Reston that we usually do these things in (one cousin did hers in a hunting lodge). The church was huge (it had an elevator- how classy) and was beautiful and all Old Worldy in the temple. The ceremony was long, which since TJ was being fussy I had to standin the back of the church the whole way through. You could definately tell who belonged to which side of the bridal party, half the church looked down home US while the other half looked exoticly European. Now, this would be my first Greek Orthodox wedding that I’ve seen and it was interesting to say the least. Pretty much everything was sung in a holy manner and there was a portion where the priest chased the bridal party around the altar (or vice versa I wasn’t quite sure) swinging the incensor- which caused some glee with my children.
Afterwards, we drove to a place in Fairfax called The Waterford (I believe) which is now a classy catering place that used to be a movie theatre when I was younger. That was weird, knowing that I’ve watched several bad movies in the very place where my cousin’s wedding reception was now being held. The place was beautiful and the open bar was nothing to scoff at either. I loved the food, but hubby wasn’t to keen on the meditteranean theme they had. The kippers on the lemon chicken threw him, but he did like the salad minus the olives, mushrooms, and artichoke hearts(which basically was just lettuce with some carrots at that point).
The cake was divine. It had several different layers with several different flavors. I watched as one table had some Berry creme white cake pieces, while another had chocolate. I was at the spiced cake table- it was good.
Then there was dancing. Lots and lots of greek dancing. There was even a live greek band singing live greek band songs. It was cool. Hubby thought the music was awesome, but was a bit amazed by the whole dancing without ever touching your partner thing. I wanted to dance so bad, where else could my huge ass and hips actually look good while dancing? I wanted to shake my moneymaker with people built like me for once, even though I’d be the palest person on the dance floor. Sam wanted to dance too, and cried when it was time to go screaming “Dance dance” while longing mournfully for the dance floor… and I know just how he felt.
Coming home I put away the scarf and began knitting armwarmers for my mom since she works at Home Depot and cashiers near the big doors sometimes. I matched them nicely with the horns I knitted her previously so she can have a Devil Cashier ensemble for Halloween. I still have to finish the other glove, I had thought the drive home from VA would allow for a whole set but I was wrong. So I have to hurry and make the other and mail it off before Monday gets here.

Sam’s 3rd birthday is on Saturday and awesomely Stu will be in town to attend his namesake’s minor bash. Now I have to make a non chocolate cake for the boy. Woohoo! With eggs and milk from my new fridge! Yay!

Lately round here in the Stephieface household we’ve been experiencing what I liked to call a bad luck streak extreme- you know cause when you add the word extreme it makes it cooler but more edgier and nervier.
So we’ll start at the beginning, Hubby used to work at this bakery place called Guy’s Place Bakery working as a night shift delivery driver which as most married couples with families will tell you sucks. So one night he shows up at work like always only to arrive there to see that the door is locked and the lights are off. For the next two days Hubby keeps going back in order to work, earn money, and therefor pay our bills for housing and whatnot. It is not until the third day that anyone from the Bakery calls to tell Hubby that the company has gone bankrupt and is closed and not to expect to see money for sometime. Fuckers. So Hubby then spends the remainder of the week looking for a new job so that we may be able to live, eat, and be housed. After a bunch of no answer submissions at places like Home Depot, Walmart, and Giant Eagle- he was ultimately tipped off by our friend Russ who’s dad owns a delivery company that his dad was hiring. Eureka! Finally a spot of good in an otherwise poopy streak right?
Wrong
So Hubby gets hired (yay) but is getting payed even less than he was at Guy’s (boo) and will not even see a paycheck for at least 3 weeks (wha?). Add to this that we receive notification from the state that Hubby’s child support for eldest boy has not been paid at all, even though it was being taken out of his paycheck. So Guy’s once again has robbed us. Not only have we had to deal with paychecks that bounce and an unexpected loss of work, but now we discover that they’ve been taking Child Support from Hubby’s pay and STEALING it. So now Hubby has to go to court to account why his Child support hasn’t been paid- but at least they’ve summoned the owner of Guy’s as well. Thank goodness we’ve kept Hubby’s paystubs to prove he paid. How can a company be run so ill managedly? His Paychecks bounced all the time- BOUNCED! I mean come on! The last paycheck he actually received from them we waited a week to cash, and after we banked it bounced to which we then we got hit with $300 in bank fees. GAH!

To pass the time I’ve been deciding on new ‘colors’ for my baronial team in ARGO. My tabards were very lame to see the least at the start. Chris though came upon a stroke of genius and looked up the Irish Heraldry for my maiden name -Meade.
So we’re thinking of changing the white to gold and getting rid of the ermine dot thingies in the chevron, then just placing the little shield in the middle of a blue tabard. I think it will look awesome and simple. So the initial plan is to embroider the shield in a medium size and attach that to the tabard.

At the very least its cooler than what I had before most definately.

After a few failed tries (mainly due to the kiddos and their questing to unravel fingers) I’ve got most of the chart knitted… here’s my progress so far (again, crappy scan of actual project… I’m so lame). On Dead Disco’s chart the koi have eyes of a different color… I couldn’t decide what to make them so I made them black for the moment. I’m still debating if I’ll color them or at all.
It didn’t measure that big actually, it was severely dwarfed by my scannerbed.

In other news, hubby went off to NERO this weekend, I hope he had alot of fun. You know, not like I wanted to go or anything….. (insert appropriate guilt trip here)

I started playing this thing called Second Life this weekend. Its an online MMORPG (yeegads, I mispeak them in one post and play in another… I’m such a hypocrit) but it differs from WoW in that as far as I can tell so far there is no PvP and is mainly roleplay. You have a totally customizable character as far as looks go, and the options are insane. You can be pretty much anyone or any thing you want- today I participated in a treasure hunt with what appeared to be a spider alien thingy. So if you want to check it out and sign up, let em know I referred you: Kellendia Duport. Mainly I go for the shopping, since spending fake cash is easier on the real life wallet. Don’t worry about the CC# request at sign up… your first account is free, they just need the CC# to insure that you are real, and growed up- they just make it easier to upgrade from the generic free account. Thanks to Heathyr Hoffman for referring me there. Check it out, I’m usually hiding in Elven Glen.

Still lining up the things I have to make for the Christmas season… I can’t forget the most important person on my list- ME! More like than not I’ll be making myself a pack of playing cards cozy or something equally as small… its all a part of my tennet of making things generally smaller than my head.
As I was surfing around Craftster as I am want to do, I found my inspiration in the form of a drop dead gorgeous Hipster Bag from Knitty knitted by Dead Disco (aka Sara). What truly amazed me was the koi chart she created for it which with a little tweaking (tweaking here is meant as turning the fish chart upside down to make two koi going in opposite directions) I was able to create a Piscies chart. Koi Piscies… the thought just sounds cool. So naturally, everything else is being put on hold until I finish the project for me… ah selfishness at its finest. Here is what I’ll be working with:
I hope that Dead Disco does not mind the fact that I did not picture her ready made koi chart. My printer is currently without ink so to achieve the effect I wanted without having to wait for printer ink (Hubby is even more procrastinatastic than I am) I just transferred the chart to graph paper and played with squares until I got the look I wanted with the koi spacing.
Thank you Dead Disco, I’m starting work on this now (now here meaning after I take a shower, go to the store and bring home donuts for me and hubby’s breakfast, then I’ll start).

Koi Piscies is just so classy.