So Behind!

Crazy Aunt Purl has posted TWELVE TIMES since my last reading! I am SOOOO behind on my blogreads that I have no idea what's happening in the world. I've heard rumors of something called Ravelry, and caught the notice about CAP's book, but other than that--I'm far, far behind.

How behind, you ask?

Try 948 posts unread.

If I read 10 posts per day, I'll be done by September. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!

OK, so I can probably get by with skimming a few of them (apologies in advance if I gloss over your FO posts to get to the meaty stuff).

Not much going on over here. Well--on second thought, a lot is going on, much of it related to my mare and her lameness issues and the reaction from people at the barn who just don't get it in regard to natural hoof care, time, patience, and so on. But that's for the horse blog, not the knitting blog.

I've moved all my yarn into my fibers room (old bedroom). My goodness, to see it all lined up in the bins in the closet is scary. Happy to report that the ancient Singer works--it stitched up the ripped seam on my underwire just fine the other day. How old is my Singer? Well, it's been in the box since its last repair session. The receipt from that said "1997". I realized it had traveled to Los Angeles with me--and it was a few years old then. That was 1989. So it's, uh, 25 or so. But it works! Yay. I fired up the new serger I bought last month and it seems to work but there will be a slight learning curve despite the fact that 10 years ago I used one daily during my stint at an alterations shop.

What else? Um... lots of cleaning and straightening. It's still a mound of chaos, but it's becoming organized chaos. The storm windows come down tomorrow, and Ver*zon will be by in the morning to fix the wire. I found the main wire from house to street dangling from my dogwood tree. Apparently it broke at the street end. Dead phone. Not good. Thank God for call forwarding to my cell.

I just started reading one of the two books I picked up yesterday--stayed up until 4 AM with it. "The Attractor Factor" by Joe Vitale teaches the five steps to attracting anything you want into your life. It's amazing. I've experienced this phenomena before, but it was random. I thought I understood the power of positive thinking. What I'm finding out is that I had the concept, but I needed to learn HOW to think positively. I was on the right track:

Bad: "I don't want all these bills anymore"
Better but not Good yet: "I want to avoid all these bills"

Why isn't it Good? Because I'm still focusing on the BILLS (the unwanted thing). Instead, I need to learn to change the focus to the opposite of the thing. For example:

Good: "I have more than enough money to afford all that I desire"

is much better because it focuses on what I really WANT rather than what I don't want. This is just one of the concepts I've learned.

The other book I peeked at but have yet to delve into fully is "Quantum Success" by Sandra Anne Taylor. It's also in the Fix-Your-Life genre. I still want Michael Losier's "Law of Attraction" but the bookstore didn't have it. What I like about these books is that they acknowledge the spiritual side of attracting positive energy into your life. I'm going back to my New Age roots and rediscovering Feng Shui, Creative Visualization, and related topics. Today I unpacked most of my books and was amazed at what I'd forgotten I'd had. Lots of summer reading for me.

Actually, I think it started to work right before I found the two books. A couple of weeks ago I got another Estate Bill IRS shock. The IRS tried to claim that my parents' 2005 return was late enough to warrant my paying another $3,600 to them (most of it in penalties, the other $850 in interest). I looked at it and, rather than throwing a hairy conniption, I just said, "this is NOT my responsibility. I have paid them enough. I'll give it to the accountant and she'll fix it. And whatever I have to pay, I'll get returned to me from the IRS in refunds later in triplicate."

The tax accountant said the claim was ridiculous, and wrote a letter of Reasonable Cause to explain the situation. She said usually they'll wave the penalties but I'd likely have to pay the interest. I said that was fine and wrote a check for the $850. Still waiting to hear, but my guess is, they'll dismiss it, and the $850 will fold into the 2006 refund.

So. Knitting. Yeah. I'm working on some socks. That's about it for now!

posted by Jeanne @ 8:48 PM