Friday DIY

I really need to stop watching home improvement style shows.  It makes me itchy for paint brushes and paint rollers.  I found that I needed to scratch that itch this afternoon and ended up with primer on walls, trim and my hands.

The room that is much in need of restoration is my laundry room and it attaches directly to my kitchen.  It's been clashing with the updated kitchen (well, almost updated - I still need to do one more countertop) and it's been driving me nuts to look at it.  With the freezer dying crisis of last week and our subsequent purchase of one a little smaller, I found myself able to see much more of the wall and the pressure to paint began to build up.  It came to a head while I was at the folks' house this past weekend and was watching diy channels.  I was doomed from that point on. 

This, of course, will naturally send the spouse's blood pressure skyrocketing as it always does whenever I get near paint or power tools.  He'll get over it.  I'm following the rule of thumb that says "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission."  I never told him I was going to start painting.  He'll find out when he gets home tonight.  :)

Here's the before pic (check out the hideous wallpaper):

After Priming part of the walls:

And another shot above the door that goes into the kitchen:

You can see the color of my kitchen walls in the last pic.  It really doesn't go well with dark blue and hideous wallpaper does it?  The primer may be spotty right now, but I already love it better than what was in there.

This is the point where I stopped for the day.  I'm going to have to rearrange the laundry room to get to the rest of the walls and that will require some help to move the appliances.  Everything will need at least two coats of primer and then two coats of the paint.  I'm priming the trim as I go along now to save some time later.  There's a lot of prep work to be done to the walls before the paint can be applied.  The primer has really highlighted a lot of stuff that I missed before. 

The idiots that lived here before us left some real problems for me to deal with.  One of those being the wallpaper.  They didn't prime the walls before applying it.   So, in order to save an incredible amount of trouble, I'm painting over it and hoping for the best.  They also bolted some stuff into the walls and then tore them off when they left, leaving the anchors in the walls.  So I get to patch those holes as well.  Sometimes I really wish I had those people in rock throwing distance, I really do.

Have a great weekend!

Thunderstorms and Outages

Thunderstorms and power outages are not very conducive to blogging are they?  Yesterday a series of storms swept through our area.  Lightening, thunder and rain appeared off and on all day.  In the late afternoon/evening though we got a doozy that took out our power for quite a while.   Just as I was about to sit down at the pc and start writing, everything went down.  But I'm here today and writing quickly before the afternoon storms are scheduled to blow through again.

In my baking excitement on Tuesday, I forgot to mention the prayer shawl progress.  I did not get it finished over the holiday, but it wasn't for lack of trying.  I knit on that sucker until my elbow started hurting and had to quit.  My wrists had already been aching from it, but the elbow pain was the deal breaker.  I have about four more inches to knit and the fringe to add.  It should go fairly quick once I start on it again.  I have a new deadline and that's Monday.  My Mom will be coming to town then and can pick it up for me so I don't have to deal with mailing it.

I tried to get some new pictures of it, but I'm having a heck of a time photographing this shawl in a way that shows it off.  I'll keep playing around with it until I get something acceptable to put up here and on Ravelry.  This was the best of the last lot of pics and it's not much to write home about:

I need some photography for knitters classes.  Do they even have those?

Baking Day!

Today was baking day at the House O' Shea!

Here's the totals of everything made: 20 tortillas, 24 Chocolate-Chocolate Chip muffins, Pizza Dough for two pizzas,  6 "Cheesy-illas" (that's 4 year old speak for quesadillas), 1lb. Venison sausage cooked up, and one large Vidalia onion.   The onion and sausage were cooked up at the same time; some to go on pizza and some to go in the freezer for a later date. 

PHEW!

This was the first time that I had made tortillas.  I always thought that this would be difficult, but it was so easy.  Here's the recipe that I used:

Flour Tortillas:

3 cups all purpose flour
1/3 shortening
Pinch of Salt
1 cup warm water

Combine all ingredients, kneading until dough forms.  Divided it all into 20 golf ball size balls.  Gave a light coating to all of them and then let them rest for about 20 minutes covered.  Then, roll out dough on a floured surface.  I was really surprised how thin these could roll out.  The dough was really easy to work with.  Stack all with wax paper between each until ready to cook.  Preheat a large griddle or frying pan.  Cook each until it begins to puff up like this:

Then flip and press firmly on the tortilla to remove the bubbles. Cook another minute and remove from pan. Here's the finished results:

I stacked these (again) as they finished cooking with the same waxed paper between each. 

Oh, and I should mention some pancakes that got made a few days ago.  You haven't lived until you've eaten tye-dyed pancakes!

The kids loved them.

Tye Dyed Pancakes:

2 cups self rising flour
2 eggs
2 to 2.5 cups buttermilk (you don't want the batter too thick so add more if necessary)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla (optional)
Various Wilton food coloring pastes

Combine first 5 ingredients in bowl.  Then, if you are going to have several different colored pancakes, separate the batter into a few other bowls.  *Take a toothpick and dip it into the first color.  It takes only a drop!  Swirl the color into the batter and then discard the toothpick.*  Repeat that step for as many colors as you choose to have.  My boys chose three colors each, your mileage may vary.  Make sure that you don't blend the batter so much that you no longer have swirls.  You are better off swirling less than more.  Next, carefully ladle the batter into a very hot griddle sprayed lightly with cooking spray.  I use an electric griddle that I dearly love that was set to 400 degrees.  Cooking the pancakes until you see big holes form, then flip with spatula and cook until done.    These turned out so pretty it was almost a shame to cut them up!

Not Quite Halfway

When last we spoke about my Aunt's Prayer Shawl, I was knitting it up with some Patons SWS.  However I got about this far:

and decided that I wasn't going to have near enough yarn to continue on.  So, I ditched it and headed to Michael's.  There was a time when I went to Joann's or Michael's and every other skein was a ribbon yarn.  Remember that?  It wasn't that long ago.  That's what I was looking for to replace the SWS.  I finally find a project that would be perfect for it and there's not one skein to be found!  None.  It was time for plan B.

I searched a bit more and found something very pretty.  Acrylic, but really pretty even so.  It was a ball of Vanna's Glamour in black.  There are gorgeous black shiny threads running throughout the yarn.  This shawl is going to be very elegant with that yarn.  I'm actually surprised at this yarn.  It's pretty, doesn't feel squeaky on the needles and it's easy to work with. 

Here's a closeup of the project so that you can see the sparkle:

I'm not quite halfway finished with the shawl, but I'm almost there.  Say, about 45% complete.  It's turning out lovely, I think.  I just hope my Aunt thinks so.  My arm and wrist are already starting to ache, but I've several more hours of knitting to do tonight and tomorrow before it gets close to being done.  Just think how much further along I would be if I hadn't wasted my time with the first version of this shawl.  Time!  I need more time!

Here's how it looks full length:

Murphy Loves Me

Today's post was supposed to be about progress on my Aunt's Prayer Shawl.  However, Murphy has reared his ugly head and interrupted all my well laid plans.

I went to my giant chest freezer to put some loaves of bread into it and water came gushing out.  Yikes!  It's quickly defrosting and it's 5:45 pm.  Any repairman that does make it here tonight is going to charge megabucks.  But that's nothing compared to the hundreds of dollars that is now defrosting.  I may be cooking deer meat and other vittles all night just to try and salvage what I can.

Had I told you that we had finally paid off our credit cards?  We may be adding a new freezer back onto those cards.  noooooooooo!

Anyway, I gotta go and so some fast salvage work.  I'll update you on this and the shawl tomorrow.

Knitting a Prayer Shawl

My Aunt Sherry (an Aunt by marriage) lost her Eldest sister today.   Her sister was 80 and had a long list of ailments that combined with Pneumonia, was just too much for her.  It was expected and long in the coming, but hard nevertheless.

So, in honor of her sister's memory, I decided to make my Aunt a prayer shawl.  Since I have to have this finished my this coming Saturday (yes, I'm nuts to think it can be finished by then) I decided  to use some honkin' big needles and this pattern:  Purl Shawl by Allison Blevins from Tangle.  It's a free pattern and it's super easy.  Although, if you hate doing purls, you probably won't enjoy it.  There are no knit stitches in this pattern!

It's supposed to be knit with ribbon yarn.  I don't happen to have any ribbon yarn in the stash, so I've decided to make do with two skeins of leftover Patons SWS in Natural Earth.  I'm hoping that the two skeins will be enough, we'll see.  After I get a few more inches on the needles I'll be able to tell a little better.  If the Patons doesn't turn out to be a good match, I'll get some sock yarn out and start over.   With the huge needles, it will go quickly either way.  I hope.

For those that don't know, a Prayer Shawl is for comfort in loss, dealing with sickness or for those in just general need and is begun with prayers for the recipient and the prayers continue with each and every stitch that is knit.  It's not necessarily a certain type of shawl. Any pattern can be used with any needles and the knitter's choice of yarn.  It let's the recipient know that the shawl was knit with love and with them specifically in mind.  As they wrap themselves in the Prayer Shawl, they also are wrapping themselves in the prayers said for them.  Everyone needs a Prayer Shawl at some point in their life, don't they?  

I'll have a progress report for you tomorrow.  I'm going to go knit my little fingers off!

The Mary Poppins Closet

I'd love to be able to say that I was incredibly crafty today, but it's just not going to happen.  You see, I got a wild hair today to empty my walk in closet.  It's been a disaster area for quite a long time.  If I didn't know what to do with something, that's where it got piled. 

This has taken almost all day to complete.  I completely emptied it and trashed by bedroom with it's contents.  It look like a hurricane had hit.  I wish I had taken before and after pics of everything, but I probably would have been too embarrassed to show you.



There were two pieces of furniture in the closet; a small chest of drawers that holds sweaters and a standing jewelry box.  If you tried to open one, the other was in the way.   I tried six ways to Sunday to get the chest of drawers to go up under the hanging shelves.  I wasn't smart enough to use a tape measure to find out if it would fit into several spots.  I'm blond, obviously.  Eventually, I got lucky and found just the right spot.  I took the jewelry box out of the closet completely.  I'll worry about what to do with it later.

Shoes.  Who knew I had so many that I didn't wear?  One bag of shoes went into the donate pile.  I filled three garbage bags full of clothes that was added to the donate pile as well.

Four, I repeat, four boxes of books (the kind of box that holds copy paper) full of books left my closet and headed to the attic.  Egads, that sounds like a lot of books.  But in reality, it doesn't hold a candle to the number of boxes that I could fill with all the books that I own. 

One large box was filled with books that is going to be donated to the library.  Did you know that, unlike clothing, when books are donated they keep most of their value?  If you donate a lot of books to your local library, that adds up quickly to be a fantastic write-off on your taxes!

The attic is going to be filled to the rafters.  Besides the boxes of books, I added a large storage bin of purses/bags to go up into it.  Also, some baskets and one box of knick knacks. 

My closet reminded me of Mary Poppins' carpet bag.  I kept taking stuff out and then more stuff and then even more.  I'm amazed that I ever got all that crap in there in the first place.   It's embarrassing. 


In between all the closet cleaning I had to make lunch, referee a fight between the boys, give the Eldest a piano lesson, referee another fight, make dinner, referee another fight, you get the drift.  I think back on when I had no children and how much time I had on my hands.  I reflect, quite often, on how I could complete a task without having to stop a hundred times in the middle of it.

My older self really started to envy my younger self when I came down stairs, trash bags in tow, and saw that a hurricane had plowed a huge path through the downstairs of my house.  That would be "Hurricane the Youngest", officially named after this little rascal:

I'm sure that as soon as I get the lower half of the house straightened up again, "Hurricane the Youngest" will go up and demolish my nice, clean and semi-organized closet.  :sigh:

Knitting Books!

The Mail man and I have become really tight.  Actually, he probably just thinks I'm a stalking nut that has cute kids that like to meet him at his truck to collect the mail (he brings them candy, he's really a nice guy and the children adore him.)

I have, despite being a mailman stalking nut raising mailman stalking children, at least kept him busy lately:

Sweater design has been very much on my mind lately.  I have several designs that I want to implement, but have run into some problems.  I can easily make a sweater to fit me, but I want to get into the design side that makes patterns for others and I've run into a few brick walls lately.  Therefore, the two design books in the lower part of the photo. 

There are numerous books and how-to's for designing your own sweater, but there is nothing for the aspiring designer.  Here's an issue that I'm having:  Grading a pattern.  That's where you have a pattern written out and you want it to be expanded to fit multiple sizes.   Some magazines cough: Vogue :cough tend to want to just add two inches to every number in the pattern.  But, just because someone is six sizes larger than me, doesn't necessarily mean that their arm length is 12 inches longer than mine!

So where do I find out how to properly grade a pattern?  When I queried designer Melissa Leapman on how to learn to do this, her answer was to read tons of patterns and reverse engineer them to find out how the professionals do it.  I'm currently doing that, but wouldn't it be cool if someone wrote a book on how to do this?  There's a large void in that part of the market.  Someone could make a mint writing a book like that.  Bonus points for them if they put in some info about the business side of creating knitting designs. 

Any designers out there listening?  anyone?

Fabric Baskets

I took a stab at making some fabric baskets today.  I used Jesse's pattern from over at her JezzePrints blog. 

Here's how my first one turned out:

This is a really nice pattern.  It didn't make near as much sense while I was reading through it as it did once I started making it.  My next few will hopefully look a lot better with neater, straighter edges.  This was my first time making one of the baskets, but I plan on making  a lot more. 

I used basic card stock inside the folded edges and it was plenty stiff enough to hold the edges straight.  As a matter of fact, if you look very closely, you can see it trying to pop out of the bottom just a bit. 

As usual, this took me way longer that it should have due to dumb sewing mistakes.  Sewing is not my forte.  However, if sewing is not my forte, then seam ripping must be.  I'm getting really good at that.  I'm hoping that one day when I'm all grown up that I'll be able to follow directions.   The fabric used was leftover from one of these skirts that I made last summer.

Here it is in action in a cubby above my desk:

It just fits which was totally not planned.  What you can't see in the pic is all the crap that I took out of the cubbies to make it look like I"m a minimalist neat freak.  In fact, I'm the exact opposite, less minimalist, more   Clutter 'R Us.

I'm off to make more baskets now.  I've got a lot more cubbies to fill if I"m ever going to hide all my sins.

Mantilla Blanket Progress

The Mantilla Blanket is coming along.  Slowly, but it's coming along.  I've slowed down a bit on all of my crafting over the past couple of weeks.  I think the kids have infected me with their school burn out. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)  Nobody around here wants to do much of anything.  I think everyone's brain has gone into melt down.  I'm hoping to get fired up again once summer officially starts on Monday.

Here's how the Mantilla Doily Blanket looks now:

I'm really hoping it will stretch out a bunch more when it's blocked.  I'm still thinking that I'm going to have to add a bunch of rows to get it to the size that I want.  I'm on row 21ish and there are only 29 rows to the whole pattern.  I just have to decide where I want the repeat(s) to go.

On a completely different topic:
For those of you who are or were skeptical about the whole Swagbucks thing.  Here's how much I've earned and already posted to my Amazon account since starting Swagbucks in January:

Screen shot of my Amazon account:

Yep, 100 big ones.  That new Wii game system will definitely be making it's grand appearance on Christmas morning!  I've been earning the bucks and then using them to purchase $5 dollar Amazon gift cards.  Free money!  Now are you interested?  If so, you can join Swagbucks here and searching and earning. 

And no, I do not work for them or have anything else to do with them.  I just enjoy earning free cash.  :)

Edited To Add:  Here's a link to an Atlanta TV station (11 alive) that did a small piece on Swagbucks.

Seen Any Good Movies Lately?

Have you guys seen any good movies lately?  I took the Eldest to see Iron Man 2 yesterday.  It was such a fun movie.  I've seen reviews all over the internet saying that it wasn't as good as the first movie.  Wrong.  These people are so over-analyzing this flick.  It's exactly what I and many others were hoping for; a fun, exciting, blow things to kingdom come popcorn flick. And how could you ever go wrong with Robert Downey Jr?

Such great eye candy!


So what flick should I go see next?  Any suggestions?

Garage Sales, How Do I Love Thee?

It's officially Garage Sale Season!  Just to let you know, garage sale season occurs sometime between the end of Spring and the beginning of Fall, at least in my neck of the woods.

I've been scouring Craigslist looking for a trampoline for the boys and for an exercise bike for me.  I've become a blob and need to work it off.  I don't have the cash for a gym membership (which in all honesty I probably wouldn't use anyway) and I hate walking the neighborhood.  The cheapest that I have seen any bike going for is $40, so that was the price that I was going to pay.  Until today.  I got an air resistance bike for $5 bucks.  The only way you could beat that price would be if it was for free.  Sweet.

A side bonus of today's garage sale-ing was a big box of sheet music and lesson books for another $5 bucks.

All in all, it was a great day for garage sales.

Oh and to show that I have been creative over the past couple of days, check out what I've been doing with the boys:

A new Star Wars Cantina and Starship:

And a very cool castle:

Last September, as part of the Eldest's birthday gift, I bought 11 pounds of Legos off of Ebay.  It was a huge misc. assortment.  We had no idea what we would be getting.   I built everything in the above two pics with what we got in the box.  Not bad for a bunch of misc. pieces, huh?  The mini-figures were from some of the Eldest's other Star Wars sets.  But they worked perfect with my futuristic cantina.  As far as the boys are concerned, I'm the coolest Mom in Town.  Oh yeah.


Who said only Dads can build with legos?

Candlestick Refurbishment

Remember the candlesticks that were purchased at a thrift store to be used as a prop for a paper that the Eldest gave at school?  No?  Here they are as they were:

And now?  After a few coats of Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint and they've been given a new lease on life. 

I am seriously beginning to love this spray paint.  I've been walking around the house looking for things to paint.  The Eldest has been laughing his behind off following me around while I scout for things that need a little bit of paint love. 

Blob or Fish?

We went to the GA Aquarium (also known as the world's largest fish tank), but this time it was to attend Aquatech.  The Eldest's school, in conjunction with Lockheed Martin and a local college, had a show to exhibit some of the work that the students in the magnet program had done.  The Eldest had one computer project and one art project on display.  It was really cool (both projects and the show as a whole.)

It was held in the ball room.  One wall of the room was a giant window that looked into the Beluga whale tank and on another wall was a giant window that looked into the tank that held the whale sharks.  What a cool place to have this exhibition at.

The Youngest enjoyed it immensely:

Check out the bubble window that he was in.  It looks like he's in there with the sharks.

There was also a giant orange blob that I suppose was supposed to be a fish.  You decide.  Blob or Fish?

Mantilla Blanket Project Has Begun

I've been wanting to do a crochet project, but I've been kind of put off by the patterns that I've found out there.  One of the things that drove me to knitting was the practicality of it.  I could make and use more of my knitting projects than I could my crochet projects.   


Now I'm not saying that I don't like or enjoy crochet.  I crochet much faster than I knit.  I've been crocheting for um, way to many years to mention.  Let's just say since I was 8, okay?  Obviously I enjoy it or I would have given it up years ago (got loads of other crafts that just didn't make the cut like crochet and knitting.)   I don't like sweaters made of it, it doesn't stretch or  drape well.  I don't need toys, got enough toys around here already, thanks.  Doilies.  Nope, just dust catchers in my opinion.  Or are they?

Remember the Hemlock Ring Blanket that Jared Flood got everybody hooked on a few years ago?  Here was my take on it:

While it was knit, it was still a doily.  But a pretty doily. 

By the way, do you realize how odd the word doily looks after you've typed it several times?  Doily, doily, doily.  Yup.  Looks really weird.  I had to get my spell check up and running to make sure I wasn't losing my mind while typing it.

Anyway, this weekend, I decided to crochet me a doily.  On a size H hook.  With some gorgeous, gray, two ply alpaca from Lima, Peru.  I'm up to round 14 and there are 29 rounds in the pattern.  I will probably have to go back and repeat some rounds to get it the size that I want. 

It's approximately 12 inches in diameter at this point, but it will stretch like crazy once it's blocked. You'll be able to see more details then.  Right now it's just a furry blob.

The yarn is indecently soft.  Makes you want to get all neckid and roll in it.  I swear it does.  Sorry, you don't get pics of that.  :)

This is the Mantilla Doily by Coats and Clark.  Not terribly difficult, although I did have trouble with interpreting a few rounds.  It's been a while since I've looked at a crochet pattern.  It all looks like Greek if you haven't looked at it in a few years.  It's looking good so far and it promises to be a luxurious blanket that the whole family will be arguing over. 

Mother's Day Gifts

 We've been busy creating gifts for the Grandmothers around here.  The boys were very busy all week playing mad scientist with Melt & Pour glycerin soaps (with various teas, cocoa butter and vitamin E oil added in) and with Epsom Salt Bath Bars.  They loved every second. 

I, however, have not loved every second, but only because I started stressing out that we hadn't done enough for the Grandmothers.  So this afternoon I knit the face cloths to go with the bath stuff.  My hands are aching now, but it was worth it.

Face Cloths - I began with the Double Bump Dishcloth, but I modified it.  I cast on 23 and then followed the directions as written.


Have a great Mother's Day!

Crafty Links

Anybody who knows me well knows that I'm a research-aholic.  I will research a topic to absolute death to learn about it.  For the past week I've been researching two topics: Mother's Day Gift Ideas and Online Free Piano Lessons.  Money is a huge issue for both of these.  I have little to none, so everything has to be thrifty-fied.  Like that word?  Just made it up, but you can research it if you want too.

I thought I'd share some of the stuff I found out there in the Interwebs with you:  (most of these are from Instructables.com)

For Mother's Day:

Crochet Beaded Bracelets
Bath Salt Bars
Multi Strand Finger Loop Braiding
Wood Pendant Necklace 
Faux Tea Bags with Tea-Scented Soap 

I'm not telling what the kids are making for their Grandmothers (not that they probably can't figure it out from the pic), but here they are playing mad scientist:

General Crafting:
How to make lipstick with crayons (I am so going to order some molds for this.  I mean, do you know how many crayon pieces I have lying around this house?)

Cooking:
Fire-Breathing Dragon Cake!!
Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup from Scratch
Cough Drops - Viewing Comments 1-50

Free Piano Lessons:
Learn How to Play Piano, Free Online Piano Lesson, A Friendly Place to learn piano.   This is so cool.  A young guy who was fed up with all the fake play by ear stuff and wanted to have real lessons for people who didn't have money to go take their own lessons (that would be me at this time.)  He could do with a real camera guy, but otherwise, I'm really impressed.  His hair's kind of wild too, I guess it ups the fun factor a little.

I'm currently looking into piano curriculum for the boys.  I can teach them both up to a point, then I'll have to get someone else for them.  Anybody have any suggestions for what books I should get?  The boys are ages 9 and 4 respectively.

Stitches South 2010

Let's talk Stitches South 2010 shall we?

There was yarn galore at the Cobb Galleria last weekend, but I carefully avoided it.  I'm trying to be good and not blow the yarn diet.  Plus the prices there still felt too high.  But then, I tend to look for the "workhorse" yarns that give you more bang for the buck yardage wise (sweaterly speaking.)  I did drool over some amazing lace weight yarns though. 

I didn't quite avoid making a couple of other purchases though.  My one impulse buy was these silk caps that I walked by and made the mistake of touching.  Heavenly soft!  And such glorious color! 

The person running the booth gave a demonstration in how to knit directly from the caps which was really cool, but I will probably spin these up instead.

My next purchase was not on impulse.  I took a class while I was there with Melissa Leapman.  The class was basic pattern drafting 101.  The first half of the class concerned stuff that I was already familiar with, but the second half was really good.   She  had us learn how to design a drop shoulder sweater, which I had never done.  But she really blew me away when she put algebra into the mix.  I knew how to do the math the hard way, but had not even considered using algebra to get the same answer in half the time.  doh!

I want basic pattern drafting 102 now.  Like yesterday.  It was so much fun and I hope that I can retain at least a quarter of the info. that she threw at us.

But back to the non-impulse buy.  It was Melissa's book:  Cables Untangled: An Exploration of Cable
 Knitting:















Her cables are just gorgeous and I can't wait to use them.

There was more fiber on the whole than there was last year, which I was really glad to see.  That was my one big complaint from last year's Stitches South.  There were also more vendors here this year.  Oh, if I had just had some more pocket change!  I could have done some real damage to the wallet there.

Afternoon Fun

In lieu of having my pc, I've been knitting, reading and spending time with the Youngest.  Today he told me he wanted to build a robot.  I asked him what we were going to make it out of and he said, "metal.  Oh and we'll need oil..."  I did manage to convince him that he could make a robot that didn't need oil and this is what he/we came up with:

It's not very fancy, I'll grant you that, but you should have seen his face light up.  He hasn't put it down since.  Pringles can, aluminum foil, pipe cleaners, pompoms, tape, glue and sharpie markers.  All you need for an afternoon of fun.

Wanna see how happy he was?

Have a great weekend!

Yet More Computer Issues

Once again I seem to have technology working against me.  Besides the trials and tribulations of the blog kind that happened last week and is still not completely resolved, yesterday afternoon my computer decided to up and die on me.  This pc is about 6 months old!   It's hardware related, that's all I know at this point.  I'm blaming Dell.

I'm currently using my husband's dinosaur of a laptop to reach the outside world with.  So if you don't hear from me, I'm trapped behind ancient technology!  Of course, I'm lucky to have that.

I'll have a Stitches South report for you in a couple of days.  For now, I'm going to go harass the Tech Guy.