Tomorrow I’m going to be working for my dads friend selling hot chocolate and helping with Christmas trees at their christmas tree farm for $8 an hour under the table. Not bad. Gives me a little holiday money.

My grandfather also gave me $100 in cash yesterday for making him a website, but I spent that all on taking My Son to the vet to get his yearly shots.

Lately that’s how my dad and I have been making our money, doing odd jobs for people and being paid under the table. Honestly if I could live like that consistently, I’d be happy.

It sorta reminds me of that Utopia society that Ex #4 and I used to talk about a lot. Where the shirt maker, makes shirts, because people need shirts. And the repairman, repairs things for people, because they need repairing. There is no money involved. If the repairman needs a shirt, he just picks one up. I guess some trade for speciality items would be handy, but for everyday items, there just wouldn’t be any. If you provide, then you receive.

But that would never work in our society anyway, people are too greedy. Someone would take all the shirts.

Okay maybe I’m confusing people and talking out my ass there. Bite me.

I think next year, I’m going to work on some homemade projects as holiday gifts. I used to be fairly efficient at natural shampoos and things, perhaps I can get back into it. My father is just baking cookies for everyone this year, he has no money for gifts. Though I’ll probably give him $150 or so.

For his gifts so far I’ve gotten:
Two large Native American sculptures (Estimated value $70 a piece, I got them both for $40)
4 John Wayne movies for $20 (for all of them)
This Andy Griffith Christmas special that comes with an old fashioned storybook and CD
A John Wayne and Native American belt buckle
I’m trying really hard to win him an old fashioned cuckoo clock off the internet, but everyone keeps outbidding me.

I might go like, pick him up an Elvis calendar or something too. And I should clean his room, lol.

While I was at the Vet yesterday, I was talking to some of the doctors I was good friends with when I worked there, (part of the reason I wouldn’t mind getting that job back), and Dr. Jill told me that last week, her purse was stolen there. Someone emptied her bank account, charged $2k on her credit card and everything. I haven’t worked there since March, and shit is still being stolen left and right, and the office still wants to keep their heads up their asses about me.

Lovely. At least it’s something to bring up should I actually try to get my job back.

Today has been quite the day for catching up with old friends, some of which I haven’t seen or heard from in years! It feels so good to talk to some of my old friends again. I called a bunch of them to get updated addresses for holiday cards, and low and behold I have like, 10,000 new things to do this month.

Ordered my sisters gifts for Christmas this year. I’m getting her a microscope (a nice one, so kinda expensive), an electronic diary/journal thing, and a mcflurry maker. I should really get her an art set too, because she’s really been getting into drawing lately. I’ll do anything to support her.

My grandfather came over today, he wants me to build a website for his company. Small, simple thing. Not worth buying a host package over, so I’m hosting it for him.

I really can’t stand my grandfather. He’s a cruel man, a crook, a cheat, and a liar. I seriously doubt he’ll ever pay me for the website, but I can just as easily take it down if he doesn’t. He’s cheated so many family members out of money, he’s lied, he’s corrupted. He’s just a bad bad man. No surprise he’s supported my mother from day one in all this drama.

The entire time he was over he kept asking if I had bothered to call my mother, and that all the stuff that I did has her really upset. I mean come on, I didn’t do jack shit to her. She dug her own grave, and as coldhearted as it may sound, she can lie in it.

So I wasn’t happy, and was very anxious for him to leave. I’m sick of that part of the family trying to make me feel guilty for testifying in court against my mother for all the horrible things she did.

I had two job interviews yesterday. One I didn’t go to because Sati told me it was just a sales pitch where I would have to spend $200 to be trained as a financial advisor, and then work on commission. No. don’t think so.

The other was for a law secretary. When I got there, I already felt intimidated by the big fancy office, but when the lawyer sat me down for the interview, I felt 10 times worse. He did nothing but make me feel inferior, and like I wasn’t good enough to work at his precious law firm.

I tried to keep my cool, but I could tell I was nervous. At the end of the interview, they asked me to take a spelling and math test. Now, I can understand taking a brief test possibly, for an editorial position. But to ask me what 621+47 was, or how to spell miscellaneous, was just ridiculous. So instead of finishing the test, I wrote something like this at the bottom:

“I am sorry that this interview didn’t work out. I don’t have time to sit here and calculate math problems when you’re interviewing me for a computer job where 90% of the computers have a word processing program and built-in calculator. Have a nice holiday :)”

And then I walked out. Probably not the smartest thing, but I really didn’t have the time to sit there and do that. I had already been there an hour, because he was late.

Sending out holiday cards tomorrow. So if you’re trading with me, keep an eye on the mail

I found my old guitar case. Torn and disfigured from years of traveling and playing. I haven’t used a guitar case in quite some time because the last bits of duct tape from this one had come loose. I guess it’s something I should put on my Christmas list.

While routing through this ratty old case, I found several wrinkled up bits of thoughts and sentences that I wrote while in highschool. I chuckle at them now, because they weren’t very good, but they bring back memories. One torn sheet had lyrics about my mother and the way she would treat me back then. Another wrinkled paper ball had some ideas jotted down about a song dedicated to my loyal friends.

Quite a valuable find. I’ve carefully placed them all in a folder in my desk so I can take them out and play with them at some point.

Oh yes, another valuable find. The complete renditions of Creedance Clearwater Revival.

Oh yes.

You know, for being unemployed, I sure have a lot of work to do. Mostly web projects and maintaining them. I don’t mind though, it helps prevent boredom.

It snowed quite a bit last night in addition to yesterday morning. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had this much snow this early. I think my friend Ruby mentioned that the precipitation for this month, in Maryland, is the most it’s ever been since they’ve started keeping track of weather information. Which was like in the 1800’s.

I’m glad it snowed, I love waking up to my bedroom window with nothing but white on the trees. It makes me feel very down home and cozy with the woodstove. I guess the fact that my father is listening to Christmas Carols helps a bit too. I think the bluegrass and classic country ones are my particular favorite. Oh and Elvis, no one can deny Elvis.

So despite my many misfortunes lately, I’m in a rather cheerful mood. Money is still tight, as always. But my bad luck can’t keep going on forever. And when I finally do get a job, there goes about 80% of my problems.

I hope this snow doesn’t prevent me from going down to the Grove tomorrow. I think I need a little spiritual pick-me-up.

I’m really happy with the amount of work getting done on my MUD lately too. The coders have been working their ass off, especially Ex #4. Much kudos to them
The chipmunk has taken up the habit of squeaking a song every morning in order to wake me up, I think. I’m not too happy with it, but it at least shows he’s doing better.

Gonna try to put up my new yule layout soon. I don’t think it will stay up long though, cause I’m not a big fan of it. I just need a change from this one.

Okay, well the foot of snow on the ground has rescheduled my interview (among with others apparently).

But! It’s the first snow! It’s soooooo gorgeous. I’m sooooooo glad I have 4-wheel drive.

That law office I applied for a few days ago just called again, and I have an interview set up for Friday. Nervous, of course. And it’s only part-time, but maybe it will develop into full-time, who knows.

*EDIT* - Anyone want to suggest some good ‘professional’ questions to ask during the interview? I want to start going over them now, cause I usually get really nervous during the interview itself.

No energy to write lately.

Thanksgiving was alright, though it hasn’t been the same for years. I completely stuffed myself, that I still don’t think I’ve recovered. Every since my mom starting pointing the family against each other, hardly anyone celebrates any holidays together anymore. And of course peopel grow up, get married, start their own families or they want to celebrate with their spouses family. And the holidays become more empty.

It’s actually worse on my fathers side of the family than my mothers. Some of them haven’t spoken to each other in years, and I remember when we would -all- sit down for thanksgiving dinner. I remember when hunting season started, all of the men would be up before dawn, and my grandmother would cook them a quick breakfast before they headed out into the woods. All day long they’d trickle back in one by one, some with a new kill, some without.

Or in November when we would kill our own turkeys for the holidays. I miss bundling up for the cold weather and standing around while watching the men chop off the heads (I know this sounds grotesque, but it was a family tradition), then place them in this huge black boiling cauldron of water so that the feathers were easier to pluck. I got to help with the plucking mostly, but I was also allowed to peel the gizzards for stew. But I never wanted to gut them, that was just too much for me at the tender age of 9.

It was always a big family event, and I loved living on a farm. I loved being around all of my family. I loved picking strawberries with my grandmother and all of my little cousins, and eating more than we picked. Or playing tag in a field of corn and getting cut up from the leaves. Or taking the 4-wheeler out and tying a sled behind it to run it through a potato field (which are extremely bumpy). Or even sleding down one of the cow pastures and hitting frozen cow patties on the way down (they actually made nice jumps).

I guess there’s something special about large ‘hillbilly’ families. I sat here watching “The Horse Whisperer” the other night, and that beautiful Montana ranch just made me miss my childhood memories even more. What I wouldn’t give to meet the man of my dreams (Crocodile Dundee meets Robert Redford from “The Horse Whisperer”) and own a ranch like that and have a large family.

I feel like I’m slowly losing all of my farm girl roots. Sure we still plant our own vegetables and we raise rabbits, sell fresh farm eggs, and have a plethora of other critters we take care of. But it’s not the same. We don’t own this land, and what we have now doesn’t compare to the size we had before. We have no money, and no hopes of having any anytime soon.

Speaking of critters, somehow a chipmunk found it’s way into the house the other day, and even though it was being bombarded by both dog and cat, I was able to catch it. It apparently found its way into the bathtub drain, which had to be freezing, not only from the water but from the porcelin tub itself. So when I went looking for it later on, I saw it laying in the middle of the tub, soaked, freezing, and exhausted. I just grabbed it up, put it in my squirrel cage from before, and set it by the woodstove.

It appears to be doing fine now, it has a nice big log with lots of holes to crawl through, some sunflower seeds and peanuts, and a little thing of water. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep it, I’m thinking not very long. I don’t want it to get used to being pampered if it has to survive the winter outside.

In other news, I had to reformat my hard drive Sunday night. Talk about your typical pain in the ass. I ran into a few troubles along the way and started to panic that I was never going to get it up and running again. And I have absolutely no money to get a new one.

Still have some holiday shopping to do, I think I’m really only going to spend money on my dad and my sister this year. Maybe Jeff too, but he’s not that easy to shop for.

If anyone wants to exchange holiday cards, let me know.

I need to contact my Aunt sometime this week. She has a lot of my grandmothers old recipes, and I want to get a few of them for my own recipe book.

I just learned that Jonathan Brandis committed suicide. If there was one actor I had a crush on when I was 13 or so, it was him. This is very devastating Same birthday as me and everything.