Yesterday, the pool was *finally* serviced... I was so shocked, I walked outside to see the clean pool.... and managed to slip and break a toe. *sigh*

There's really nothing that can be done for a broken toe (which I learned back in 1980-something, when I broke my big toe and the emergency room X-rayed it, sprayed it with some kind of numbing stuff and taped it to another toe to keep it straight. Thank you, $300 please!). So, I've been taping it to another toe to keep it kinda straght, but it still hurts. Ugh. Leave it to me to break the weird things.

My broken toe....

...let me shows you it.

We're still waiting on the freaking lawn guys to come and get the lawn under control---it was bad when we signed the lease. And then we turned the water on and it became a jungle. One of the neighbors commented that the only reason the owners didn't lose the orange trees is because of the heavy rains the area has had this winter.

I've mentioned our old house. I've mentioned that it's vacant. Now, let me mention the MLS # for said beautiful house: 2885387. It's down to $241,500...but needs at least $10k worth of work, depending on how picky the new owners are about lights and appliances. We originally installed almost $5k worth of lights. I forget what we spent on the range and dishwasher (we kept the fridge).

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in buying it again. We wired that house from one end to the other with ethernet. You can sit in the master garden tub and have a computer jacked into the internet. You can be working in the garage and check something online without having to go into the house. I think we even put network jacks in the pantry! Plus, we (well, Randy mostly) installed beautiful laminate floors everywhere there wasn't linoleum or stone tiles. Yeah, I miss that house. I just don't know if it's big enough for us, with our massive IKEA desks now. How funny is that?

Randy's enjoying the "walk to the bus stop, ride the bus to work" convenience of where we live now. And I do like that it means he's leaving me with the car most days. Perhaps I could get a part-time job, doing something fun/interesting (and pay off my credit card!).

We're ticked at American Express now. We contacted them, to let them know we'd be moving---and that charges would start showing up in new places. We charged the move, we traveled across the country (hotels ain't cheap!) and once we signed the lease, we bought a washer and dryer. They security flagged it and it took 20+ minutes to get that resolved. Fine. I'm glad they watch that stuff. But the following week, Randy was at the store to get cat food and litter---a whopping $21, mind you---and the card came back declined. What??? So, he gets home and they've cut him off. Now, this isn't a card with a set limit on it. You spend it, you pay it once a month. Turns out, they're "concerned" about the amount of money he's spent on the card in recent weeks.

Uh, duh? We told you guys this was coming. So, he makes a payment to them to make them happy---no payment is yet required on the account, mind you. But, now he's a little iffy about using it. Then, the night we had to euthanize Maya, they put a security hold on the card. *sigh* "Unusual charges", they said. Uh, yeah. The day holding a pet while the vet administers heart-stopping drugs is "usual", just kill me. Okay? Randy read them the riot act and they finally approved the transaction. But he hasn't calmed down about this yet. He's removed his American Express card from his wallet and we're rather tight while we wait for the paychecks to start flowing in again.

He's so fed up with them, he decided (with my agreement) to cash in all his points for Barnes and Noble gift cards. As soon as he's paid the account off, he's closing it. I'm debating doing the same with my card. My newest LYS doesn't take American Express and that's the card I put my allowance on right now. So. I'm debating getting a new card, rolling my AmEx amount into it and closing my AmEx account as well. I wonder how many points I have? More Barnes and Noble shopping, perhaps?

When I spoke to an American Express representative about this whole thing, she said they've been busy, "With the downturn in the economy". Ah, so pissing off the customers who've been behaving is how you handle that? Bad move, American Express. I'm sure your mega-company won't miss the paltry amount of money we bring in, but you do this to enough people and you'll find that people *will* leave home without it!

I'm still working on this stole design. I don't know how the designers out there do it... I'm stumped. Randy's working on a program that will take an XPM and convert it to row-by-row instructions. But, I have to have some concept of how to scale the image first. One image I was playing with started at 615x600 pixels. If I do a stitch/pixel, that's a lot of stitches. But at laceweight, is that a lot of stole? I have no clue. Really, I don't.

I'm down to a size 1US (?) needle (one of my sock needles) and I'm not sure I'm going to get enough definition still. Maybe I should go up to fingering weight? Will that be too heavy? *sigh* This makes my head hurt. And I really want to see this come together. I can do this!

So, to that end, I should step away from the computer and do more actual knit-testing, eh?