the bat hat!

So last night at the bar, Henry says that he wants me to make him a hat, a Bat Hat, to be precise. I asked him if that meant he wanted the Batman logo on it, or bat ears on it, and he wanted a black hat with bat ears on it, like Batman's hat.

Here is a picture of the drawing Henry sent me today.

I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to do the eye holes for the "ski mask" part of the hat Henry wanted...as you can see, he wanted to be able to wear it flipped up, and "normal" looking, and then be able to flip the brim down for eye holes. I managed to figure out how to do the eye holes, and it worked out quite well.

After an hour or so, I finished the main part of the hat, but then the tough part came; the ears. I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to construct the ears. I thought about stuffing the ears, but Aaron pointed out that the stuffing I had was white and would show through the black fabric. Then he mentioned something about wires, but all we had was a wire clothes hanger, and we didn't want it to poke Henry in the head and give him an infection. Finally, Aaron and I managed to figure out something with crocheted triangles and clothes pins that had been taken apart and colored black with a Sharpie marker. I sewed the clothes pin parts to one side of the ear on the inside, and then sewed ear halves together. The final step was sewing them to the hat itself.

Henry came over halfway through the process; I was still making the ears and putting them together, but the main part of the hat was finished, so he tried it on, and much to all of our amusement, he looked like Mushmouth from Fat Albert. We figured with the ears on, it would look better. You be the judge.

i wasn't even on vacation. okay, maybe a little one.

Sorry about the extremely long hiatus of blogging that I have been on. All kinds of things just happened at home that kinda kept me away from the doldrums of weekly blogging about my life, but they were actually things that could be blogged about and of interest to others!

First of all, on July 27th, I headed back to Gillette to see my good friend Lacey. We've been friends since high school, but she has since moved to Montana, and now to Oregon, and she hasn't been to Gillette in about four years, and I haven't seen her in about two years, so that was really great. The reason she was back was because of a couple of weddings that were happening that weekend - friends of hers (and kind of mine) were getting married, and she wanted to be there for them. We spent time hanging out at the bars, catching up, talking about this and that, and it was a really good time. Our friends Scott and Brett were also able to join us in Gillette, and the four of us had a great time.

Pictures to be posted on Photo Journal.

Then after that, work got a little hectic, I filled in for someone in the middle of the week, and then on a Sunday, Aaron and I had driven to Rapid City to see one of his good friends who is in the Air Force and will soon be stationed in Korea, so we wanted to get some hanging out time in before she left. The next week was the week before the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, and things were starting to get hectic. Aaron quit his job the Tuesday before the Rally, which left them hurting for cooks, but he had been putting up with promises that were not being fulfilled for months and months, and was just sick of it, so he left.

After that, he and I went to Rapid City again to find me some more clothes for student teaching, as most of what I owned was long-sleeved and more winter/spring related clothing. We found me a ton of great things, and had a good time.

Then came Rally. I worked the first four days of Rally, and then had Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off, and I decided that Aaron and I needed to have one last (first) hurrah! for the summer and that we needed to go camping in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. We chose the Big Horns over the local Black Hills because of the motorcycle traffic and just the need to get out of the area for a while.

This was mostly a "shakedown" camping trip, as we spent most of our time in preparation for the trip at Wal*Mart or the grocery store. However, after raiding Aaron's parent's house for camping supplies that they hadn't already taken with them on their current trip, we didn't need to buy much more else for ourselves.

We spent both nights in the Big Horns, but on the second day, we drove out to Cody, Wyoming to hang out there a little bit. During the first night, neither of us slept very well because the ground was hard like a concrete block, so we were up with the Sun and out of the mountains by 9am. We headed to Cody, and as we were almost there, the both of us were quite tired. We stopped at the Cody city park and parked the car in the shade of some trees, put the windshield blockers up, and took a nap for about an hour and a half in the car. Then we ate a sandwich lunch in the park, stopped by the Sierra Trading Post store to pick up some shorts for me and tried to find a pair of sandals for Aaron, but were unsuccessful in that area...

And we headed back to the mountains! This time, we had a hard time finding a camping spot that wasn't reserved or taken, but in time, we did find one, along with a moose, some sheep, and a softer place to sleep.

Although the ground was softer, that didn't mean I slept much better for the first part of the evening; I was having spider dreams. Dreams that they were on the tent wall, on the floor, and in my sleeping bag. Aaron said he could hear me moving around and brushing the "spiders" off of myself, and when he asked me where the headlamp was so he could go outside, I pointed and said, "Over there, by the spiders." He was a little confused. Fortunately, the spiders were all a figment of my imagniation.

We went back through Shell Canyon and saw the Shell Falls, which were very pretty, and headed back home on Friday morning so that I could get some laundry done, as now everything we had with us reeked of campfire smoke, which was quite strong.

Aaron just went in for an interview today as a service technician for customers with an internet service provider in Rapid City. It went well, and he's going back in tomorrow to fill out some paperwork, and starts training at 8am Monday morning. I'm really excited that he's finally going to be employed again.

On the way back from Rapid City today, we stopped at the local yarn shop here in Spearfish, and I talked to the owner, who got me set up with some sock yarn, knitting needles for the socks, and a pattern to go by so I can start knitting my first pair of socks. I'm really excited!! She said if I need any help at all, to come in the shop and she will help me with it. Which is great, because I learn better by watching someone else than by reading instructions on a sheet of paper.

And that's what's been going on!

back aches

Yesterday while driving to Rapid City, I noticed that my lower back was starting to get sore - but it always seems to do that when I'm sitting in a car for longer than half an hour, so I didn't really think much of it. However, when I got back home from Rapid City, it was still sore, and quite tender, with some sharp pains if I moved my leg the wrong way.

For some backstory, about 5 years ago I lost control of my car on an icy neighborhood road and smashed into a parked car. Aside from some whiplash and seatbelt burn on my neck, I was fine. Until a few months later, when I started having pain in my lower back, to the right of my spine, just around the hip bone. I went to see my dad's doctor upon his suggestion because when Dad hurt his back, the doctor was able to help him find ways to make it better. The doctor told me all I had was some muscle pain, and that it was not a pinched nerve, as I thought it was. If it was a pinched nerve, I would have pain in my cyatic nerve, something I hadn't yet experienced until a few years after the accident.

I had gone for a couple of years with no back pain until yesterday. Now, I am in a considerable amount of pain, and not sure what to do about it. I don't have health insurance, although even if I did, I'd have to meet a $2,000 deductible before they would even start paying anything, so insurance or not, I'd pay for the doctor's visit. I've had people suggest that I go to a chiropractor or an acupuncturist, which probably aren't covered under health insurance, anyway, so I think I might do that this week after my work week is done.

I mean, if I'm still having "muscle" pain from an accident five years ago, I highly doubt it is muscle pain. And if five years after the accident I'm still having pains, I think it's time to do something about it. There are seven chiropractic/acupuncture clinics in Rapid City, so Monday I'm going to call them and get rates and whatnot.

Wish me luck!

unibeavers and tiger heads

Wednesday afternoon Aaron and I went to a place called Roma's for lunch. They serve Italian food that is quite tasty. They also provide each table with a butcher paper tablecloth and crayons to keep you occupied while you are waiting for your food. Every time Aaron and I go there, we create some kind of masterpiece on our tablecloth, but Wednesday's was particularly rediculous.

After drawing pretty waves and coral and fishies and whatnot, Aaron decides we need a Viking ship to adorn the tops of the waves. And since he couldn't draw a mermaid to adorn the front of the ship, he came up with the next best thing; a unibeaver. What is a unibeaver, you ask?


THIS is a unibeaver. The mythical creature is part beaver, part unicorn, hence the large horn protruding from its forehead. Drawn by Aaron, who, after labeling the poor creature, was so busy laughing at it he was almost crying. It was rather rediculous. He'd originally drawn the beaver without a nose, so I told him he needed to put one on. After placing it in between his eyes and being laughed at for this, he decided to make it a horn, and thus, the mighty unibeaver was born.

And now you might be asking about the tiger head. That is another bit of Aaron rediculousness that occured today during our quick trip to Rapid City to find me some clothes to wear next semester when I do my student teaching.

At the cash registers were some stuffed safari-like animals, $5 each, and 100% of the proceeds go towards a children's organization. And how could I pass up the opportunity to help children AND give Ben a friend?! I couldn't, so I bought myself a little stuffed tiger. I told Aaron he had to name the tiger. What wonderful name does he come up with? Tiger-Head. Yes. That poor little tiger has been dubbed Tiger-Head. Why? Because he is a tiger and has a head. A little redundant, yes...but apparently that's how you go about naming things these days.

He then told me I needed to come up with another name for it before Tiger-Head sticks. Any thoughts?


Ben and Tiger-Head

new cashier.

So we have a new cashier working with us in the casino. She's never worked in gaming before, but supposedly had worked at a bank about 10 years ago. It sure doesn't show. I guess a few of the other cashiers aren't getting along well with her, although she seems oblivious to this fact, and they don't want to work with her.

I work with her for two out of my four days at work, in the mornings. At first, I didn't really notice anything, and was just happy to have some help in the cage near the end of the shift so I could get things taken care of and someone could watch the window for me. Usually we get really busy around 2pm, an hour before shift change, and it doesn't give me a lot of time to count everything down like I need to. But with help now, it's much easier.

However, she seems to mess things up a lot. She doesn't listen to what you tell her, she butts heads with supervisors. One of our supervisors won't even go into the cage when she is working there. We work with that supervisor this coming Saturday and Sunday. I'm interested to see what those two will do/say. He can't ignore the cage the whole day; he has to get keys out for other employees and do overrides on large jackpots and handpays.

I have had a few run ins/head buttings with her last weekend; she will have an idea in her head that she believes is correct, and she won't listen to you. Which is amazing, as she has only been working with us for two or three weeks now, and only works three days a week. We obviously have more experience/knowledge than she does, and she knows it, she's even said that to me, and yet you have to tell her something two or three times before she will even think of listening to what you're suggesting. That just doesn't seem right to me.

Also, we're not very busy during the weekend mornings, and having her come in at 10am to help me is a little bit early, as we both just end up sitting around and twiddling our thumbs. I'd rather have help just during the last hour of the shift, so I can get things counted down and entered into the computer (correctly) than have her there not doing things right and asking my customers if they are winning, losing, if they hit something big. Those just seem like too personal of questions to be asking people she doesn't know very well. I simply ask people how they are doing when they approach the window. If they want to divulge information about their winnings or losings, that's fine, but I'm not asking them if they've won or lost anything. I don't think customers would like that.

Well, that's my little rant about our new cashier. Stubborn, thick headed, and a loud mouth. I hope she simmers down a bit, because I don't really care to work with her, and I hate splitting my already meager tips with her. It's really bringing down my weekly average. I was supposed to be earning more money this summer, not the same amount of money as I did in February when everyone was cooped up inside. *Sigh*

Anniversary

For my parents' 24th wedding anniversary, I decided to get them each a video iPod, since they'd been using out-dated technology for a couple of years, and I wanted to get them something really nice for all the really great things I've gotten from them or they've helped me with. Their anniversary isn't until the end of August, but I'd ordered the things at the end of June, 'cause I had the money at the time.

Then last week, I get an email from dad, saying he can't figure out the shuffle feature on his current mp3 player, and that he could buy the manual online, along with some more discs for the thing. I told him that I had the stuff he needed in my car, and to not bother with it. Truthfully, I just didn't want him spending any money on anything like that when I already had something for him.

Then I get a message from my sister; "Dad just ordered a new mp3 player!" Crap. I tell her to tell him to cancel it, cancel it! She didn't know how to get him to do that without letting on to what was going on, so she just flat out said, "Cancel your mp3 player, Andrea's getting you an iPod."

And because of that, Mom thought I was only getting one iPod, for the two of them to share (aww, that'd be sad), and probably wasn't TOO thrilled when she got home that evening and saw Dad and I with stuff sprawled all over the kitchen table, getting his iPod registered. Amidst the boxes and wrapping was HER iPod box, which she was then thrilled to see.

I stayed and help them set everything up and figure out how to transfer music from the computer to iTunes and then from iTunes to the iPod. Good thing I was there to help them; I thought the things were pretty darn self-explanatory, but I guess when you're not used to a product, they aren't quite that easy.

All in all, a good experience, despite the fact that I had to deliver the gifts a month and a half early to prevent the purchasing of any other mp3 stuff.


Also, I found out that the loud, stompy neighbors who live above us are having another kid. Isn't one running-all-over-the-place toddler enough for you guys? It appears they won't have the child 'til November/December, so by the time IT starts running around the apartment, Aaron and I will have moved to a different place. Hard to say, though. I just don't want to be around for TWO of them. Ugh.

Before...

...After

grrr.

I will admit that I am guilty of doing this on a rare occasion...but very rare, mind you...talking on a cell phone and driving.

I was stuck behind a truck on the entrance ramp to the interstate doing about 45 mph the whole way down...you are supposed to excellerate on the ramp, not just dawdle along. Then the truck, upon nearing the interstate itself, brakes, and pulls towards the shoulder, for no apparent reason. Probably not paying attention. I pass the truck as I get on the road and head home. I get off the interstate and head down Jackson Blvd.

The truck I passed is now riding alongside me. He's pretty close to the dotted line, but I have plenty of room, so nothing to worry about. Go through the stop light, and approach the bridge. I notice the truck is looming awful close to me. Then I realize the truck is trying to merge into my line. Or more appropriately, into ME! I hit the brakes and slam on the horn, which wakes the phone-stupid driver out of his zone and puts him back in his own lane. Do I get an apology wave? Anything? No. As I pass the truck and consider flipping the driver off, I notice the passenger doesn't even look over to see if I'm okay or give me an "I'm sorry" look. Nope, nothing. Jackass.

Pull your head out of your ass, hang up your phone, and DRIVE.

happy 4th

It's little late, but oh well. I had to work last night, so I didn't get to see any of the fireworks coming out of the "open cut" in Lead. Nor did I get to see the parade, because it started at 3pm, which was the time I needed to be in the cage. So I had to show up half an hour early to miss the parade, and find a parking spot (that I had to pay for because tourists took up all the free parking). *grumble*

I had to work last Independence Day, as well, at night, so I couldn't see any fireworks then, either. Maybe next year...

I love seeing the rediculous things that people wear to celebrate the 4th of July; red, white and blue is fine, yes. But getting your nails painted patriotically with stars and stripes is a little silly. As is a muscle tank with stars and stripes on a 60 year old man. So are the red, white, and blue Mardi Gras beads that old women are wearing. And hats with red, white, and blue flowers or explodey things on them. And giant bangle bracelets sporting our nation's colors. Ahh, yes, yesterday was a feast of fashion don'ts.

That was about the most "fun" I had all day yesterday...except for the eight dollars in silver 50 cent pieces that I found at work near the end of my shift. Score.