I'm Chatty Cathy Today!
I've hit you with a couple of substantive posts recently -- and I've got another one saved as draft which discusses capitalism, and the witch hunts for socialism and communism. I want to work on that "essay" a bit before I share it so that I can strain out some of the frothing rant that is no doubt included at the moment. Now I thought I'd return you to my usual drab slice of (no) life type post.
Job Search
Had a second interview yesterday for the great financial services company with whom I had the purported Last Interview in Austin recently. The interview went great, which is the good news. It went a full hour, and was probably just 75% meandering chitchat leading excitedly and easily from one topic to another. Unfortunately, only one of the two boss men who was supposed to interview me was able to attend. The other just moved to Austin, and the closing on his house ran unexpectedly long. This means that there will probably be a third interview to meet the other person -- and that's cool. I hope I'm still in the running, and I'm actually sort of happy to take our time with this.
Meanwhile, I remind you (same link as above) that this same company has a job in its Legal Department which I consider to be a fallback position if necessary.
There is now a new iron in the fire, in fact, one post-apocalyptic interview in the city with no more interviews, I guess. It's a phone screen on Monday morning for a Legal Assistant position in the downtown office of a large corporation known to me by name -- Yum! They contacted me within 24 hours of my application, and I always consider that a good thing.
Year of the Bonfire
I've recently finished... can you guess? Why, more effing pirate hats, of course! Friends, Year of the Bonfire has been poorly named, and indeed it should have been Year of the Good Ship Pirate Hat. I think that's six? eight? for the year? Maybe only six, I think. Anyway, these are for my friend Truax (russet and cream) and his wife Beth (sage green and cream), and I'm about to start a third for their son Conor. I had it on my list to go to Hobby Lobby today to get one more skein of yarn for that one. Fortunately I had the wisdom to check my stash first, and I discovered an untouched skein of black wool yarn just as I needed. Yay! In my attempts toward homey frugality lately, it makes me happy whenever I can save a few bucks here and there and make due (do?) without buying something new.
Conservation
Speaking of doing without buying something new, my eyes are opening to our wastrel habits in this household as far as the environment goes. We bust our humps to utilize curbside recycling to the fullest, I'm a child of the 70s Conservation movement and am therefore a compulsive lightswitch turner-offer when I leave a room, and we've made conscious efforts to utilize reusable things like cloth napkins instead of paper, cloth dish rags instead of paper towels, reusable plastic containers instead of Zip Lock bags, and things like that. I thought we were doing pretty well.
Those of you who follow my one-liner exploits on Facebook may be aware that I recently had cause to question where all our electricity goes every month. I wanted to cut our $300/month habit in half now that we're consciously tightening the belt financially. We didn't quite get there in September at $225 or so, but we did shave off nearly $100 of the August bill. We have Energy Star rated fridge and washing machine, we observe the habits above, we turn off our computers at night, I don't run the a/c most days now that it's cooler -- where does it all go?
I'll tell you.
I'm taking an online Biology class and lab this semester. Whatever the title is, it translates to Environmental Biology for Hippies. One of my lab assignments is to consciously track the usage of various appliances for one week. I've stuck index cards next to the on switches for each of these items, and I've asked for Ian's help in tracking when we turn these things on and off. Even in just two days, I'm surprised by some of the numbers I see in these logs. I would've said that we use each of these appliances considerably less each day.
I also had to count all the lightbulbs in the house and yard -- get this: 49 incandescent lightbulbs, only 7 fluorescent*! True, I'm a compulsive light turner-offer when I leave a room, but still -- that's a lot of lightbulbs in the first place, and that ratio between the two types makes me sad and ashamed. Bad hippie. Bad hobbit!,mkl (That last was the contribution of Holmes, the kitten, as he just danced across the keyboard for bath time with his brother to my left.)
So next time I get a giant electric bill, remind me to be considerably less surprised by what I read there. I think also that this class is definitely working as intended to get me to consider how we're using power even in seemingly "small" ways, and how and where we can conserve.
* I'd also like to note that my Biology teacher publishes documents to the class without spellchecking them. She consistently misuses flourescent instead of fluorescent. It bugs the crap out of me.
"And 2 other..."
Watching more television lately as the fall lineup has started. Enjoying some new shoes like "Flash Forward" and the redux of "Melrose Place." (I know, guilty pleasure.) Richly enjoying "The Biggest Loser" so far (DIE PURPLE WOMAN DIE).
Ian and I haven't been too social lately as we've been absorbed in playing Champions Online together, and having a good time with that. I just managed to reunite Ian last night with one of his City of Heroes buddies from 2004-2006 whom we haven't seen since then. He used his CoH character name as his handle on Champions Online, and I found him that way. That was an exciting development!
We may get together with local chums this weekend to go see, "Zombieland," or we may just go it alone at our leisure.
Ian's mom sent my mother and me a big care package of her old knitting needles and 12 skeins of acrylic yarn. My mother and I have decided to knit hats for the homeless out that stash for this winter. We're both really looking forward to that project, actually. As I think I've mentioned to you before, Austin just has an amazingly bad homelessness problem, worse than I've seen in other cities. At every single major intersection here, there is at least one person out there with a sign for work or money or food, and often there is one at every corner of that intersection. I take lunch or extra groceries or things to the locals sometimes. They tend to stay in one place for at least a few weeks, and I know some of them by name now. They seem like normal people, just down on their luck -- it's so sad. It could so easily be me, be you, be any number of people I know. Least my mom and I can do is knit a few hats this winter. Austin's not exactly a bad climate in wintertime, but chilly enough that if you were outside all day, you'd want a hat -- even if it's made from acrylic yarn. At least it'll be easy to clean that way!
And that's the hobbit report, folks,
T$
Job Search
Had a second interview yesterday for the great financial services company with whom I had the purported Last Interview in Austin recently. The interview went great, which is the good news. It went a full hour, and was probably just 75% meandering chitchat leading excitedly and easily from one topic to another. Unfortunately, only one of the two boss men who was supposed to interview me was able to attend. The other just moved to Austin, and the closing on his house ran unexpectedly long. This means that there will probably be a third interview to meet the other person -- and that's cool. I hope I'm still in the running, and I'm actually sort of happy to take our time with this.
Meanwhile, I remind you (same link as above) that this same company has a job in its Legal Department which I consider to be a fallback position if necessary.
There is now a new iron in the fire, in fact, one post-apocalyptic interview in the city with no more interviews, I guess. It's a phone screen on Monday morning for a Legal Assistant position in the downtown office of a large corporation known to me by name -- Yum! They contacted me within 24 hours of my application, and I always consider that a good thing.
Year of the Bonfire
I've recently finished... can you guess? Why, more effing pirate hats, of course! Friends, Year of the Bonfire has been poorly named, and indeed it should have been Year of the Good Ship Pirate Hat. I think that's six? eight? for the year? Maybe only six, I think. Anyway, these are for my friend Truax (russet and cream) and his wife Beth (sage green and cream), and I'm about to start a third for their son Conor. I had it on my list to go to Hobby Lobby today to get one more skein of yarn for that one. Fortunately I had the wisdom to check my stash first, and I discovered an untouched skein of black wool yarn just as I needed. Yay! In my attempts toward homey frugality lately, it makes me happy whenever I can save a few bucks here and there and make due (do?) without buying something new.
Conservation
Speaking of doing without buying something new, my eyes are opening to our wastrel habits in this household as far as the environment goes. We bust our humps to utilize curbside recycling to the fullest, I'm a child of the 70s Conservation movement and am therefore a compulsive lightswitch turner-offer when I leave a room, and we've made conscious efforts to utilize reusable things like cloth napkins instead of paper, cloth dish rags instead of paper towels, reusable plastic containers instead of Zip Lock bags, and things like that. I thought we were doing pretty well.
Those of you who follow my one-liner exploits on Facebook may be aware that I recently had cause to question where all our electricity goes every month. I wanted to cut our $300/month habit in half now that we're consciously tightening the belt financially. We didn't quite get there in September at $225 or so, but we did shave off nearly $100 of the August bill. We have Energy Star rated fridge and washing machine, we observe the habits above, we turn off our computers at night, I don't run the a/c most days now that it's cooler -- where does it all go?
I'll tell you.
I'm taking an online Biology class and lab this semester. Whatever the title is, it translates to Environmental Biology for Hippies. One of my lab assignments is to consciously track the usage of various appliances for one week. I've stuck index cards next to the on switches for each of these items, and I've asked for Ian's help in tracking when we turn these things on and off. Even in just two days, I'm surprised by some of the numbers I see in these logs. I would've said that we use each of these appliances considerably less each day.
I also had to count all the lightbulbs in the house and yard -- get this: 49 incandescent lightbulbs, only 7 fluorescent*! True, I'm a compulsive light turner-offer when I leave a room, but still -- that's a lot of lightbulbs in the first place, and that ratio between the two types makes me sad and ashamed. Bad hippie. Bad hobbit!,mkl (That last was the contribution of Holmes, the kitten, as he just danced across the keyboard for bath time with his brother to my left.)
So next time I get a giant electric bill, remind me to be considerably less surprised by what I read there. I think also that this class is definitely working as intended to get me to consider how we're using power even in seemingly "small" ways, and how and where we can conserve.
* I'd also like to note that my Biology teacher publishes documents to the class without spellchecking them. She consistently misuses flourescent instead of fluorescent. It bugs the crap out of me.
"And 2 other..."
Watching more television lately as the fall lineup has started. Enjoying some new shoes like "Flash Forward" and the redux of "Melrose Place." (I know, guilty pleasure.) Richly enjoying "The Biggest Loser" so far (DIE PURPLE WOMAN DIE).
Ian and I haven't been too social lately as we've been absorbed in playing Champions Online together, and having a good time with that. I just managed to reunite Ian last night with one of his City of Heroes buddies from 2004-2006 whom we haven't seen since then. He used his CoH character name as his handle on Champions Online, and I found him that way. That was an exciting development!
We may get together with local chums this weekend to go see, "Zombieland," or we may just go it alone at our leisure.
Ian's mom sent my mother and me a big care package of her old knitting needles and 12 skeins of acrylic yarn. My mother and I have decided to knit hats for the homeless out that stash for this winter. We're both really looking forward to that project, actually. As I think I've mentioned to you before, Austin just has an amazingly bad homelessness problem, worse than I've seen in other cities. At every single major intersection here, there is at least one person out there with a sign for work or money or food, and often there is one at every corner of that intersection. I take lunch or extra groceries or things to the locals sometimes. They tend to stay in one place for at least a few weeks, and I know some of them by name now. They seem like normal people, just down on their luck -- it's so sad. It could so easily be me, be you, be any number of people I know. Least my mom and I can do is knit a few hats this winter. Austin's not exactly a bad climate in wintertime, but chilly enough that if you were outside all day, you'd want a hat -- even if it's made from acrylic yarn. At least it'll be easy to clean that way!
And that's the hobbit report, folks,
T$