Nothing to do with Knitting

Christmas is less than a week away & it seems it's the hardest time of the year to deal with Government. Well, except for Fridays & Mondays all summer. I think Government employees take their holidays in long weekends all summer & no one's in on Fridays & Mondays. Not a bad idea if you don't like to leave your work to a 'temp' & have to spend two weeks fixing it all when you get back. Anyway, since I do paperwork to support my Fibre Habit & sometimes even have to do some work, today was one of those times. It seems to be my week to deal with the Government .  .  .  .

My job today was to file overdue PST forms for a business that normally files 'NIL' returns. The PST people have 'assessed' an "amount owing" & froze the business bank account. The outstanding returns are both 'NIL' returns as usual. I spent most of the morning on line trying to file these returns on the net which is the fast & easy way to deal with this problem. No dice. Seems I need a GST return with an amount not zero that has been filed before August 2013 to prove who I am. I don't have one. Technical Support is overloaded & can't take my call. Customer Service can't help me & can only transfer me to Technical Support or Collections. Collections won't take my call. I can leave a message for an appointment & they will call me or I can use the On-Line registration form to do it myself . . . .

After banging my head on my desk, I assessed the business for ONE CENT on both forms & headed to the bank to stand in line & get the damned forms taken care of. Did I tell you the Bank won't take 'nil' forms???? I told the Commercial Teller my sad story & she made out special receipts for me for ONE CENT for each of them. She attached one to the copies going to the government too. Now to get the bank account released .  .  .  .    It's a good thing my favorite cafe had REAL turkey today to soothe my rumpled nerves!

Back in the Knitting World. Not a stitch was completed by me today! Oh, I wound skeins into balls, frogged a couple of samples from the past & did the math for a Wonderful Wallaby for myself. My basement office is cold this time of year & I want something easy & warm to throw on for work other than my purple Ginny which I've worn to ribbons.  Ginny was made up of two sweaters I'd made for myself years & years ago. I salvaged the yarn & knit it up again a couple of times. The yarn was an expensive wool from Germany - Scheepsjawool was the brand & I bought it out of the SALE bin before 1982 when I moved back to Surrey!! Poor Ginny's full of pulls where the old cat snagged her or I caught her on something. She needs another good soak in some wool wash but I need another sweater to wear so I can take her out of circulation for a few days!! I thought about making a Wallaby - I

made a lot of smaller ones in the last few years for kids & women in Afghanistan. And I made one for a Carpenter that got snagged by his visiting mom. So, I think it's about time I knit one for myself. I have enough 'Grape Heather' wool - not quite dark enough to be Eggplant but a lighter shade with red glints in it. I also think I have enough Briggs & Little Anniversary - a light blue twisted with a dark blue - to make one too. The nice thing about the Wallaby is that most of it's mindless knitting that can be done in front of the tube with no sewing up when you're done except for two spots under the arms. My kind of sweater.