Weekly Updates

The weather:  It's still unbelievably cold here?  13 degrees right now.  This is not normal for Texas.  I talked to a vendor in Wisconsin Friday and she said they are hearing more about the Texas weather up there than they are hearing about their own.  I asked why and she said "we're just having normal stuff, like a foot and a half of snow on the ground.  But you guys are colder than us with the wind chill."  I could believe that... our wind chill temp Friday morning was 1degree.  ONE! UNO! and I was out on the curb with a couple of the TAs doing car duty....  I now know that pins and needles feeling that you get when frost bite starts.  I'm over this... Christmas break is over, now I want to see a definite warm up.

Jolea:  We talked to her for about 20 minutes Wednesday night.  She was in Norfolk, on the boat and freezing.  But she was supposed to go pick up some Foul Weather gear and a few more articles of clothing at the 'REAL' mall after dinner that night.  She seemed excited that there was a REAL mall.  I guess she hasn't seen a REAL mall in over a year.  She said the boat was great and hoped to have pictures up on her blog really soon.  There is no internet on the boat but they make frequent trips to the library.  I'm hoping she'll have time to do that before they set sail some time this next week.  They may leave as early as Wednesday instead of the 15th like previously planned.  I should probably go check the GPS to see if they are still there. 

She called with a quick question Thursday morning,
Jolea: "Mom am I still on your Sam's card?"
Me: "No Jolea, Jeffrey bumped you off to buy beer last summer."
Jolea: "Can I bump him off? We're a non-profit organization here and we're on a really tight budget and we need to provision the boat.  We really need a Sam's card."
Me: "If you can wait until tomorrow to provision, I can go to Sam's tonight and get you reinstated."
Just like Jolea.... got a problem?  Let me take care of that for you, I have resources.  I haven't heard how their Sam's trip went but I have a feeling Jolea is now helping the cook and will be sleeping in the salon and not in the Forecastle with the rest of the deck hands before this trip is over. But then again, maybe not... she was so over the whole chef part of cruising when the last charter ended.

Jody:  The 15th will be his last day at the current company.  He's taken a job with a larger company (hint: it's an instrumentation company that is named for our state) that is more like the company he had been working for when he was laid off from his job of 8 years back this time last year.  A person would think it would be easy to put in your two weeks notice when you are offered a dream job with all the bells and whistles.  But not for Jody.  He put in his notice with G.T. and before we could have dinner that night he received a call from the Human Resources person at the New Company saying that GT was not going to let him leave.  (NC is a MAJOR company that provides computer components to companies all over the world) Yeah, GT were trying to hold him hostage.  They said they would not provide NC with the product that GT provides NC if Jody were to leave GT to go to work at NC.  GT would cut NC off and they would loose production.  All because of a guy who has only worked for them for 3 months and doesn't even have his own set of keys to the building.  So the leave date for Jody was put on hold!  He had to stay!  He had to push his leave date from GT back by 2 weeks and then he had to help them find his replacement!  I have yet to find anyone who has not said "WHAT?" when I tell them about this.

It's crazy I know, but he will walk out of there this Friday and hand them his non-existent keys and be done with them.  It's not like they were a horrible company to work for, it's just that a better deal with better benefits came along and he felt he needed to go for it.  But does GT ever think he'll return to work for them again?  Hmmmm, I'm sure he'll think long and hard about that.

Jeff:  I mentioned to him last weekend as I was making out my weekly menu that we didn't have anything listed on the menu that he really liked to eat this week, but if he'd let me know I'd rustle him up a taco ring or something.  We never heard from him again after Sunday....  Thursday I asked Jody if Jeff had checked in and he said he hadn't heard from him.  I guess I'll have to work one of his favorite meals into the week so we can see him more than once a week.  But then we got a call Friday night that he was still working in Houston.  Hopefully he had time to run by Nita's for a favorite meal.

Me:  The last pair of Christmas socks flopped.  It's a good thing the recipient hasn't come around to receive them yet.  Unless he wears a size 6 1/2 shoe he won't be able to wear these felted beauties.  I'll still give them to him, but I'm in the process of making him another pair.  He can do what ever he wants with the felted pair.  The second pair will be regular socks.  I'm going back to felting bags and leaving socks to later when I have more experience, and I can find a tried and true pattern to use.

I'll leave you with a few pictures from 'the pickin' last night.  We went to Chris' house instead of them coming to Allen.  For the past few weeks, Mark has been forcing Dawn and I to take up learning to play something.  You remember how he forced me into 'chopping' on the mandolin?  Well I guess he thinks I'm a pro at that and it's time to move on to the bass.  Dawn somehow got out of it last night, I'm still trying to figure out how she did that. She didn't take any pictures of me on the bass, but dug through my purse and used my camera to take these pictures. 

I was 'chopping' on Chris' Ukele, notice my knitting in my lap.... I don't leave home without it. They forced me to play the bass earlier, and I forced them to have a Uke in their Bluegrass as payback.  They even said it sounded good in the end...  they are really nice guys, and I think they are kind of scared of me.

Mark giving Jody some pointers on the mandolin and Chris on the guitar.  (Jody's mandolin playing was amazing last night!)  

Then Mark had the great idea that one of us girls get on the snare drum....  "come on! It's real easy... a chimp can do it!"  In other words, get over here and make a monkey out of yourself and TRY to play the drums.  Well you know I'm going to jump on that challenge..... 

.... just like all musical instruments, it's not as easy as it looks.  Can you tell I was cracking up, I always crack up laughing when I feel like a fool.  Mark is trying to give me pointers on how to do it.... lol. 

Jody is going out today to shop for monkeys, if he doesn't find one it will be Dawn's turn on the snare next week, I've got my eye on that African drum there behind me in the picture.  They'll wish they hadn't suggested I put my knitting down.  

Have a great week!