The Joker Wears Pink Hairbows

The craziness that happens twice a year has begun again.  I'm getting ready for the children's consignment sale.  There is crap everywhere downstairs.  My office/dining room has been taken over by clothes, toys, games, puzzles, etc.  There's a very narrow pathway that takes you from doorway A to doorway B, it's just ridiculous.  The foyer has big bins of stuff in it too.  I've gotten three quarters of it logged in, now I just have to add tags to everything. 

I've been fighting a never ending battle with the Youngest over what is going to be sold.  He keeps pulling things out and telling me in a very stern voice, "Mom, we're NOT selling this."  Oh yes we are!  I keep repeating that Christmas is coming and that if he wants Santa to bring new toys, we have to make some room.  It's not working.  The little pest is like a squirrel that you've chased away from the birdseed.  As soon as your back is turned, he grabs something and runs.

The funny thing is, he hasn't played with any of the toys that are going out in over a year and doesn't really care about them. I'm not sure where the sudden possessiveness has come from.  He's really worried that I'll go into the playroom and get rid of all the stuff he really loves.  I've been getting lectures about that too.  It's very amusing to be lectured by a four year old!  I've reassured him over and over, but it's done no good.  I mean, why in the world would I get rid of the stuff he really loves?  Have I ever done it before?  No.

In a completely unrelated way today, I did find the perfect way to tick him off though.  We were riding in the car and I was hearing (ad nausea) about The Joker (one of his favorite villains.)  Just for fun I told him that

"The Joker wears pink hairbows and skips through the fields and picks flowers and has picnics and pretends to be a girl."

Boy, was he steamed!  He screamed, in the car remember, "HE'S NOT A GIRL!"  Then he quit talking to me.

Oh the deliciousness of silence!  :)

Spinning Camel Down

It's been a while since I've done any spinning and I started getting the bug the other night.  So I put on a dvd and got out my spindle.  The spindle work that I've done in the past has been with longer stapled fibers, but this time I opted for something out of my comfort zone: Camel down!

This stuff is OMG soft!  It's so lovely to touch, you just want to run your hands through it and pet it for hours.

As I said, it's a very short stapled fiber and it's difficult to get the hang of spinning it.  It wants to be spun quick and fairly tight so that the fibers will stay together and not send your spindle flying across the floor.  Go ahead, ask me how I know.  :)  I sent that sucker to the floor quite a few times before I got it under control. 

I've thrown a penny in the pic to give a reference to how fine I've managed to get the singles to be.  I don't normally spin my singles this thin and I'm quite proud of it. 

I'm always amazed when I go from using a wheel to a spindle at how much more I learn about the fibers that I'm working with.  A spindle is more intimate, you work slower and you can stretch thin or bulk the fiber up and generally just "play" with it more.  I think that when working with a new fiber, like I am with the Camel down, it's important to start with a spindle to really learn how that fiber wants to be handled. 

Did I mention that using a spindle, at least for me, is a much slower process?  Everything that you see on the spindle above?  Yeah, that's two hours worth of work.  At this rate it will take the next twelve years of my life to finish it. 



In reference to yesterday's post:  No tenant excitement for me today, another family member was there to witness the eviction.  Ultimately nothing happened.  They're out, house is still standing, end of story.  :)

Today's Excitement

So much excitement happening today!  My brother has some tenants renting his old house here.  Turns out that these are not the kind of tenants a landlord is hoping for.  They were due to be evicted on Wednesday thanks to nonpayment of rent, but we got a call that the eviction had been moved up to today instead. 

So I headed over there to see what was happening since my brother is in another state and couldn't make it.  I was really nervous about being there.  For one thing, I had my four year old with me and for another, I'm kinda small, so if anything really dangerous was going to happen I was prepared to floor it on out of there. 

When I pulled up, there were no cops there.  I drove on by and pulled over and made a call to the husband who was coordinating this whole shindig from his office.  It was kinda creepy.  There was nothing happening in the neighborhood, it was way too quiet, but there was this really nice mustang in my brother's driveway.    No sign of anyone so I went down the street, turned around and parked a few houses away.  Pretty soon a woman came out of the house and stood there in the yard talking on her cell.  Obviously nobody had moved out of the house yet like they were supposed to. 

So I made another call to see if anyone had spoken with the Sheriff's office.  The next thing I heard was:  "Get out of there now! The mustang is a stolen car and the cops are on the way to arrest someone."  I felt like I was in the middle of a movie!

Did you hear a sonic boom?  If so, it was because I was hotfooting it out of there as quick as my mini van would go!  If I hadn't had The Youngest with me, I might have made my way down to the cul-de-sac to watch the excitement, but to make matters worse, my phone battery was dying and was beeping loudly too.  My family knew where I was, but didn't know what was happening and I didn't have a phone charger for the car.  First thing I did was head to Walmart to get a charger for my phone so I could keep someone from calling in the Cavalry to come find me.


The whole thing has been rescheduled for tomorrow now.  I do plan on going back over there, but there's going to be other family members with me this time.    I'll let you know how it all turns out.  Pretty juicy stuff today though!  :)