Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Material Girl

Living in a material world,
And I am a material girl.
You know that we are living in a material world.
And I am a material girl.

Can she make it on time if she pushes snooze again? She doesn’t know but she’s willing to risk it. Already? There’s the radio again. This time she has to get up. As she stumbles out of bed she knows she shouldn’t have pushed snooze. Now she has to hurry.

She rushes to the closet wondering why she didn’t take the time last night to get organized and figure out what she was going to wear. Surely there is a clean pair of black pants in there. She thinks she can never have too many pairs of black pants so she buys them whenever she finds them on sale. Those don’t look too bad. A little wrinkled, but she thinks she can smooth them with a wet rag and the blow dryer. It’s quicker than ironing.

There’s a black tank top. That will work. Black is supposed to make you look slimmer, right? There is no way she’d ever wear something sleeveless at the office. It’s too cold. Besides that those arms are pitiful. Where is that jacket, the blue one, with the black buttons? There. That’s a lot better. She always tries to hide her many imperfections.

Finally, with a to-go cup of coffee, she’s out the door. Where are the keys? She doesn’t need the confusion this morning. Thankfully it’s not too far to work. She sings loud as she drives. And she’s there. And she realizes she should be thankful because she has a job.

What happened to do what you love? That’s what they said in school. But doing what you love is complicated. There are bills to pay. There are shoes to buy. There are things she wants, things she needs, things that take money. She has a life to live and if it has to be done it can at least be done with style. So it’s to work, every day. Or has she settled? Does she just go because she has to exist?

And she dreams. She dreams in color. And she dreams in texture, smooth, bumpy, squishy, soft and fuzzy. And she dreams of warmth. The picture, rows of colored yarn, any color you could ask for. And she thinks if she was doing what she loved, she’d be there, in a comfortable chair, a favorite movie, needles and yarn in hand, creating, designing and knitting.

But she’s a material girl.
Living in a material world.

I’d still rather be knitting than much else. I’m sure it will pass. Maybe I’m just tired. The weekend helped. I didn’t have to do anything. Alan was working so I was by myself. I could do what I wanted. And I did. The Anthroplogie scarf may have hit a snag. I had more than enough yarn according to the pattern, cast on 100 less stitches, and had the same measurements going. But it looks like I won’t have enough to finish it like I wanted. Decisions. Day 283, January 8 is Saturday. Nothing going on at all. I’m excited! Coffee, movie, knitting, movie, maybe getting dressed, maybe not! Just so many choices! I took it easy. I used a turquoise/green wool that I really like. It may go into the Anthropologie scarf if I need it to. Day 284 is Sunday. It’s January 9 and another relaxed day. I’m getting the yarn cabinets ready for yarn. I’ve actually started with the red. It’s all the red and pink I’ve found so far but I have a feeling there’s more. I’ll go into orange and yellow next, which I doubt I have too much of, then on to green, blues and purples. I’ll leave the browns and blacks til last and might put all the ribbon type together. I might keep the dishrag cotton together in one place too. It’s sure going to be interesting seeing what all I have! I choose red, to remember this is where I’ve started. Day 285, January 10, I feel a little like a government agent or something! I’m the eraser, archiving illegal users on a software package we have at work. It’s kind of fun in a convoluted sort of way! I’m not choosing randomly. I have a list. And I also have asked to have the entire campus turned off. I’m waiting for the phone calls to begin! I chose a blue and white wool blend. I just used it for a cowl or infinity scarf. It reminds me of the sky and clouds. January 11, day 286, and I am on overloaded! We have a guest speaker letting us know the changes for the next school year in the dreaded tests the students are forced to take to graduate. It seems as soon as they master something it has to become harder. The presenter used an example of the math he took as a senior in an advanced class being the same his nephew is taking now in 4th grade. So how come there’s so many dumb people out there? Ah, well. I chose purple eyelash yarn. Purple is supposed to mean royalty. That seems to be what the people who decide to rule these kids lives think they are. I won’t start. On a bright note, the lady who created the knitayear project contacted me about possibly using my strips in an exhibit. It would be overseas. It’s an interesting idea. I might participate. Wonder how much it would cost? ;)


Living in a material world.
And I am a material girl,
You know that we are living in a material world.
And I am a material girl…

Thursday, December 9, 2010

On the First Day of Christmas…

My true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree…

Have you ever wondered just how much it would cost if your true love decided to send you the gifts mentioned in “The 12 Days of Christmas?” Maybe not. But I wonder about strange things like that.

First off, you’d be getting a total of 364 gifts. Well, that’s not counting the eggs the six geese laid, the cows the maids were milking, the pipes the pipers were piping or the drums the drummers were drumming. We’ll just consider that it’s a package deal and count those type presents as a unit.
 

It might be a good thing to consider where you live. If you don’t have a place you’d better find somewhere with a barn or an aviary or even a bird sanctuary. You are going to get about 224 animals! Most of them are birds. There will be 12 partridges, 22 turtle doves, 30 French hens, 36 calling birds, 42 geese, 42 swans and 8 cows. If you have a true love who is an environmentalist you might get 40 pheasants (golden ring neck) instead of real golden rings. That will up your total to 264 stinking animals!

It would be a good idea to have a couple of spare bedrooms as well. You’ll be having a lot of company. The milk maids, there will be 40, the 36 dancing ladies, the 30 leaping lords and the musicians, the 22 pipers and the 12 drummers will be needing a place to stay. You’ll probably need an extra pantry as well to hold all the food needed to feed the group.

Now, back to my business ponderings…how much is this fiasco going to cost? According to http://content.pncmc.com/live/pnc/microsite/CPI/2010/index.html#/book, the total price in 2010 will be $23,439.38. The chief economist at PNC decided to figure out how much it would cost to buy each of the gifts in the song. He didn’t know it but he’s started an economic tradition. It’s now called “The Christmas Price Index” and it’s in the twenty-seventh year. The price of each of the 78 gifts in the song is added together to get the total cost of Christmas. Wait, each of the 78 gifts? That’s only the total of the gifts given each day. But in reality the gifts are multiplied because you’re going to get the same thing over and over. Oh my! Who put math in Christmas!!? After all the multiplication and adding, the true cost of Christmas this year is $96,824.29. It’s the most expensive year in the 27 year history of the index and is up 9.2% from last year.
www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com

If your true love were to give you all of this for Christmas, you would certainly feel special. And most likely you’d make the headlines of the local, if not national papers. Then you might make headlines again as you went stark raving mad trying to take care of or get rid of all that mess! As for me, I think I’ll just take the 40 gold rings, keep one or two and trade the others in for something I really want.

On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me,
Five golden rings,

Knitayear is going on…for the 250th day! December 6 was a somewhat boring day. I hosted a workshop and it was good but when I was trying to follow my computer hung up. It was fast paced so I never caught up. I stayed in there but just had to kind of sit and play like I was interested. I picked a fuzzy blue yarn. Kind of a good, steady color! Day 251, Dec ember 7, was a day spent trying to renew the debit card, take care of canceling the other card and getting a new driver’s license. It’s a frustrating experience. But I did make it! I chose purple eyelash yarn. Purple makes me feel like I accomplished something and in reality, I did. Day 252, December 8, I was feeling a bit rebellious. I went to eat with a friend and we had a good time. Then I got the chance to leave work early so I took it! The highlight of my day was my Secret Santa package from my LSSK group. It’s an online knitting group where I’ve made many friends, silly as that might sound. Anyway, I got a great package! There were two skeins of Mini Mochi in a beautiful green and purple colorway, one skein of Rittratto in a vibrant hot pink with different color sparkles, note cards with my initial, purple stitch markers, a tin that says Merry Christmas full of chocolate goodies and the cutest tissues ever! She even included pattern suggestions for the yarn she gave me! It was the best package ever and I sure needed it today. I picked the hot pink Rittratto to add in. It’s pretty and it sure brightened up my day!
December 9, day 253 I was assiduous (how do you like that word!) and got a lot of things crossed off the to-do list. That always feels good. I chose a Homespun in an off white with multicolor throughout. The countdown to the holiday is on and I’m running out of time and starting to panic. Deep breaths…it will all come about, like it always does. I hope!

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree!