Knitting and Dogs

There are two things that I habitually photograph that never show up well on camera, my dog and my knitting.   I really do want a photography for knitters class to show up on my doorstep.  It would have interesting and fun poses for the knitting project (cause the projects quite often are bored with just being laid out on my back deck) as well as a camera 101 session for the knitter.  But alas, until that time I'm going to have to settle for this:

My back deck gets much better lighting than any place inside my house and at least the wood is a nice contrast against the green and browns in this yarn.  Here's a closeup so that you can see the yarn a little better:

The color of my Chinese Crested Powderpuff is a mixture of brown and black and my camera has a difficult time focusing on her (maybe I need to put her out on the back deck as well), but I finally got a fun shot of her for you:

I called in The Eldest to show him the pic of Roxie and the only thing he said was:  "She's picking her nose!"  :sigh: 

I've been giving her a "puppy cut" lately.  She looks so beautiful when her hair is long and her face is shaved the way it would be if we were showing her at a dog show, but this is one high maintenance dog so I'm going to have to settle for just cute. 

Her hair is very fine and is very much like a human's.  It has to be washed at a minimum of once a week and has to be brushed daily or it mats all up and she gets terrible dreadlocks.  I don't have the time or patience for that and I don't have the money to get her professionally groomed ($55 a pop where I live) so I went out and bought some shears and learned how to give her a haircut.  I now do three haircuts around here: 2 boys and 1 dog on a regular basis.  Now if I could only start charging them for it...

Adventures On Craigslist

I'm a big Craigslist junkie.  I'm always trying to barter stuff.  I don't always get a lot of takers, especially since most of what I have to offer is girl stuff, but it's still fun.  A couple of weeks ago I sold a full bed at a yard sale.  The person didn't want the box springs, so I finally got around to putting it up for free on craigslist last night.  My husband swore up and down that nobody would be interested and he'd be stuck having to take it to the landfill.  Well, I do so love to say "I told you so" and today I got the opportunity.  I had over ten people begging for it!  Yay!  It's out of my garage! 

Being well motivated after that, I got back on Craigslist and I have to share this one article that I found cause it totally cracked me up.  Even the website that it points to is amusing:

Wanted: Six Missing Velociraptors in the North Hall area - $5150 (Gainesville)

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Date: 2010-08-09, 1:54PM EDT
Reply to:

---

Here is the deal: I run an unlicensed dinosaur cloning operation in an abandoned chicken house off Price Road. Yesterday, several of my Velociraptors broke out of their cage and are now running loose in the North Hall area. As I was tracking them last night, I found pieces of a cow near Short Rd. I assume this is their most recent location.

I need help recapturing these raptors before they lay eggs and infest our fair city.

If you can kick butt with the bo staff and nunchucks, have an assault shotgun and an awesome hat and do not fear death, please e-mail me immediately. I will pay $5,150 for each raptor safely returned to my laboratory/chicken house.

If you make contact with any of these fearsome creatures, DONT PANIC. This resource will give you better chances of living another day:
http://www.velociraptors.info/

This should all be over soon.

-Jonas Rapier

In Hindsight

So there I was, knitting happily away on my new shawl, Summer Flies (Ravelry link) by Donna Griffin, without a care in the world.  I had finished Section 5 already, the shawl was really flying off the needles and guess what?  I looked down at my creation and thought, "It's looking kinda small."  Uh-Oh.

Guess what jumped up and bit me on the behind again?  GAUGE.  Darnit.

Most of the time when I'm making a lace project, I don't do a gauge swatch and didn't do it this time either.  But this time, I really screwed up by not making that swatch.  Here's why:

1.  I'm not using standard yarn for this project.  I'm using recycled yarn from a Lands End, Men's XXL sweater that I unraveled a while back.  Therefore, my gauge will probably (and is) way off.  But it's pretty isn't it?  A dark heathered green.

2.  This is supposed to fit around my shoulders.  It's a shawlette, pretty small one too.  So it should have been treated more as a sweater.  Yeah. Should.

Hindsight is 20/20 isn't it?  I have to go unravel this yarn a second time now.  I'm getting good at that.

Sloppy, Sloppy, Sloppy

My stairs have now been completely uncovered and the wood is beautiful.  But, check out what the original painters left for me to clean up:

Look Mom,  I've got a demonic cat and  "Go Faster Stripes" on my stairs!  What a pain this will be to fix up.  Not so much on the risers (the vertical part of the stairs), but on the actual steps themselves.  The risers will be primed and then painted white since I'm tired of trying to kill myself at night when walking up the steps in the dark, so the stripes are no big deal there.

Here's the view from above complete with matching cat:

Can you see the stripes now?  Also, do you see the one stair that doesn't match any of the others?  We had to replace that one.  It had split into two complete pieces and the builders had just rammed in a bunch of extra nails to keep in place.  It was going to be covered in carpet, so who cared right?    Combined with the careless painting, that's just plain sloppy all the way around in my book.  If you're going to do a job, why don't you just do it right the first time?  Except in knitting of course, you're allowed to fudge mistakes there, aren't ya?

The mess on the bottom step is where I'm using paint stripper to get the paint off.  This is going to be another slow, PITA process I'm afraid and one that will be better and quicker done once school starts back.


Once that's done however, I have a decision to make.  We plan on changing the floor color eventually (a good ways down the road.)  I hate the color that the wood has been stained.  I really dislike light oak colors and prefer dark cherry.  Do I go ahead and stain the stairs the color that I want the floor to be or do I try and match the current color of the floor?  What does the "Internet Collective" think?

Bubbles!

So how do you know when you've used a drop too much bubble bath in the kid's tub?    I think I might have found out:

3/4 Skein Stole

The One Skein, A Stole! (Ravelry link) is finally finished and blocked! 

This is a super easy project and works up pretty quick thanks to all the dropped stitches (mostly intentional) in the piece.  Isn't it pretty?  Not only is it perfect for Spring/Summer as a stole, but you can make it into a really thin scarf for Fall/Winter too. 

This was made using three quarters of a skein of Noro sock yarn.  Yep, not even a whole skein was used.

Here's another view of it:

I've already started another lace project, but I'll have to show you that a little later.  I've been ordered to go play with the Youngest who's feeling needy at the moment.  Have a great day!

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday!

So far it's been a good Friday for me. 

I went fishing this morning at Lake Wedowee, AL where my folks live.  Wanna know what I caught? 

1.  One Pontoon Boat - Line got snagged on it.

2.  One Stick

3.  One rope that my lure got hooked on

4.  One fish, a Brim, about the size of my hand.

Overall, not great luck fishing, but it was quiet, cool and there were no kids arguing constantly in the background - I left them at home.

I did however, win 47 Swagbucks today on my first search of the day.  Today truly is Mega Swagbuck Friday!   I'm about a quarter of the way towards getting my Ipod Touch that I'll be buying with my Amazon gift cards that I'm earning through Swagbucks.  Yay!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Flea Market

We got up really early this morning to go to a nearby flea market.  The locals all get there at around 5:30 am (rural Alabama time) and carry flashlights until it's light enough to see.  We didn't make it there that early though.  Sleep was more fun at that hour.

My city boys were very excited about the whole thing.  They got to pet lots of puppies that were for sale and they got to pet some chickens!  The old guy selling the chickens took out a young teenager type chicken and showed the boys how to put one to sleep.  It was very funny.  He held it and rubbed its head and it was like magic watching the chicken go to sleep.  We used to put baby rabbits to sleep when I was little at my Grandparents house (they raised them for food.)  My brother and I would get a baby rabbit each, flip them on their backs and pet them and out they'd go.  So cute. 

Next up on our outing, the boys got some snow cones.  Oh boy!  They both agreed the trip was definitely worth getting up early for.   It's funny.  What I grew up around and find commonplace, they find fascinating.  Definitely city kids. 

Uncovering The Stairs

On Friday afternoon I started pulling up the carpet on my stairs.  The first four stairs are done, nine more to go.  My husband complained about how slow I was in uncovering the stairs.  "Why don't you just rip them all out at once?" he asked.

Well, it's because of all the little feet in this house that use those stairs.  The boys need to get to their bedroom and playroom and there are cats that travel those stairs as well.  Of course, it'd only be justice served if the cats stepped on something sharp since it's their fault that I'm have to do the stair renovation anyway.

When I ripped up the carpet on each stair, I found a bazillion staples besides the strip of carpet tacks.  The strip came up easily, the staples?  Not so much.  I had to pull those bad boys out one by one.  Once every thing was off the step I lightly sanded down any rough spots, vacuumed the mess up and started on the next stair.  I'd say that it took about an hours worth of work to get one stair completely uncovered and cleaned.

I now have a big blister on the juicy part of my right hand.  Thank God I was wearing work gloves or there's no telling where else I'd have blisters. 

But it's all been so worth it.  Just look at the wood underneath the carpet:

From what I've been able to see, it looks like the whole staircase looks like this.  With such beautiful wood there, why would anyone want to cover it all up?  Now it's on to the next one!

By the way, posting may be spotty to non existent this week.  The boys and I are headed off to the lake again.  School starts in about two weeks here and we're trying to fit in as much swimming time as possible.  See ya!

Friday DIY

I'm thinking that my husband should just probably start avoiding coming home on Fridays.  It seems to be the day that I tend to get the diy bug the most often.  It certainly is the day he is becoming to dread the most.

Picture this:
Me: (calling his work)  Um, where do you keep your (insert tool of your choice here)?
Him: What are you doing and why do you need (the tool inserted above)?

This is the point where you can hear the uneasiness in his voice begin.

Me: Oh, no reason.
Him: No, really, what are you doing now and what are you doing it too?


This is what's been bugging me lately:

This is a prime example of why some people stuff cats and rocks in burlap bags and toss them into the nearest body of water.  I love my cats dearly, but look what they've done to my stairs!  Two cats in cahoots tore humongous holes into the carpet on the stairs.  It was a slow process and it took five years, but by golly, they finally did it.

I did some investigation and there's some good news.  The first four steps where the damage is, look like the pic above and are all hard wood and are quite beautiful.

So here's the plan.  I'm going to rip off all the carpet on the bottom four steps and toss it.  Then I'm going to carefully pull up the next step and see how the steps look there.  If they look like the pic above, it's going to be rip city.  If not, I'll carefully tack it down and ignore it for a while and just refinish the bottom four steps.

So here's where I stand right now:



I have a buddy helping me.  I'm dog sitting my folks' dog while they're out of town.  Boy, let me tell ya, she sure is a lot of help.  I can't tell you how many times I tripped over her while doing my investigations.

Have a great weekend!

I Can See The Finish Line

It's getting so close now.  I can see the finish line.  10 more rows of the center section need to be completed and then the end section to be done.   I can't tell you how glad I will be to finally finish this project.  If it wasn't for all the gorgeous Noro color, I would have abandoned this stole long ago.

But I think my photographs of it are getting better! 

Particle Man Vs. Triangle Man

Know how to keep an imaginative four year old occupied for several hours?  Make Popsicle stick puppets!

If you're a They Might Be Giants fan, you'll probably be able to pick out the Particle Man and Triangle Man (yes, I'm showing my age again) puppets below:

An orange alien with three heads and wearing overalls also made an appearance:

We were subjected to many, many puppet shows in various venues over the weekend.  There were six puppets in all, but his favorites were the ones shown.

If you've never made one, it's a piece of cake to make.  Draw a silly face and cut it out then tape a popsicle stick to the back.  Easy peasy and the kids will love it!

Which Gadget Should I Get?

I've been considering getting an e-reader lately.  I'm a self-confessed book-aholic.  Having kids, I'm frequently waiting around in car pool lines or waiting for various lessons to be over and it would be really nice to have this kind of toy.  I'm saving up all my $5 Amazon gift cards that I'm getting from Swagbucks until I have enough to finally get the reading gadget that I want. 

Here's the three things that I'm looking at, all of which can be purchased new or used (for cheaper than what the links below reflect) from Amazon:

Kindle - from Amazon.Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G, 6" Display, White, 3G Works Globally - Latest Generation  I'm not real thrilled about not being able to recharge the battery or the fact that it doesn't have expandable memory.  The next version is coming out in the fall though and hopefully they will have fixed both of these issues.  You must go through Amazon to buy books.  That is not a plus for me.

Nook - from Barnes & Noble - Barnes & Noble NOOK ebook reader (WiFi + 3G) has a rechargeable battery and memory card slots.  Also has two games.  Also has a new version coming out soon.  Can read books for free from their stores.  Also, you can share books.  Another plus for me is that you can buy books from other sources as long as they are in the epub format.  Now if they would just let me respond to emails I would be all over it.

Ipod Touch - from Apple - Apple iPod touch 32 GB (3rd Generation) NEWEST MODEL you can get an app for book reading, but you can also browse the net, play games, check email, etc.  I'm not sure that I really need all that, but if I get more bang for my buck, that's the way I'll go. 

I'm not sure which of the three I should choose.  Of the two readers, I'm leaning towards the Nook.  The battery and memory cards slots alone would make it worthwhile in comparison to the Kindle I think.  I'm looking forward to the next generation of both the Kindle and the Nook to see what other goodies they'll be adding.

I'm afraid it's going to take a lot more research to decide which way I should leap.  Does anyone have any of the above and can you tell me the pros/cons of them?

Knittin' At The Yard Sale

Saturday, my Sis-In-Law and I had a combined yard sale over at her place.  This may have been the most comfortable yard sale that I've ever been involved in.  If they were all like that, I'd have them way more often.

First off, we set up a big tailgating tent.  A tailgating tent is open on all sides, just a roof over your head basically.  Then, I brought in some fabric drop cloths to be our floor.  Grass is too itchy to have your feet in on a hot summer day and there are too many crawly things that would like to take a bite out of me.  The floor helped.  We also set up a great big box fan and a smaller camping fan.  We clipped the camping fan to the tent.  We also had one really long table to put some of our wares on.  Oh, and we also had two camp chairs to sit and relax in.

With all that and the overcast morning, we were cool, comfy and sunburn free!

I made about $85 dollars in the sale.  Which was pretty good considering I only sold five things.  But, even more importantly, I made progress!  On this:

I'm right at the halfway point on this stole.

Knitting Disasters That Happen To Us All

Let's talk today about what really gets under our skin as knitters.  The knitting disasters whether small or large.  Really, size doesn't matter, each of the common mistakes all equally get to me.  Is there a reason for this discussion?  Why yes, there is and I'll show you it in a moment.

1.  Dropped stitches.   There's a fun one for you.  When you first start knitting, every dropped stitch causes a tear or two.  As you progress, you get the hang of fixing them and you feel like a pro.  Until that is, you start a complicated lace project that has multiple yarn overs, lots of ktogs and maybe a few twists.  The same can be applied to complicated cables as well.  Once the stitch has been dropped in these situations, well, it reduces the pro to a sniveling, boohooing baby.  I actually frogged a pretty lace piece due to this very thing happening.  Did it happen this weekend?  Nope.

2.  Gauge issues.  How many times have you assumed that your gauge was correct just because your swatch said it was?  You knit and wash the swatch.  It's perfect!  The gauge is spot on, now I can start my new sweater!  Yippee!  So you knit and you knit and you knit some more with an occasional purl thrown in for good measure until it's complete.  You try it on.  Ummm.  You take it off, wash it and try to block it to the correct size.  Does it work?  Nope.  Looks like a potato sack.  All because you didn't check your gauge (both row and stitch) as you knit along.  Were you so relaxed that your stitch gauge was way too small due to larger stitches?  Were you so stressed out by your kids that your hands tightened up into knots and you got at least three extra stitches in your stitch gauge?  And, no.  This didn't happen this weekend either.  Doesn't matter, it still ticks me off.

3.  Pattern problems.  You found the perfect pattern.  A sweater that will look so amazing on you that the folks in Hollywood will be begging you to stand on the red carpet for no reason whatsoever other than to just look gorgeous next to George Clooney.  Yeah, that sweater.  You know the one?  So again,  you knit and you knit and you knit some more with an occasional purl thrown in for good measure until it's almost complete.  Wait, is that a mistake?   Is there a section missing?  How the heck are you supposed to finish this thing if the directions are wrong and incomplete?  So you toss it onto the wip pile and then it eventually makes it's way on to the frog pile.  Your dreams of standing there with your hand on Clooney's arm are frogged as well.  Sad.  Isn't it?  This also didn't happen this weekend.

4.  Wrong Yarn Yardage.  We've all been through this one at some point or another.  You wade through the local yarn shop, petting each adorable skein of so incredibly soft yarn and you buy a whole bag full to make the (again) perfect sweater.  You go home, after having them wind all those skeins into balls for you, and begin knitting.  You knit the front, the back, the collar, the first sleeve and then, the sec-   oops.  Yep, ran out of yarn and guess what?  The lys has no more yarn in that dye lot.  That totally sucks.  But wow, doesn't that new sweater vest look nice!  No, I had plenty of yarn this week.

There are plenty more things that get under my skin,  losing stitch markers or needles, "rowing out" due to stupidly mixing up your needle sizes where one needle is a 7 and the other a 7.5, your dog eating your project, your cat eating your project, your toddler... etc.  There are so many issues that will slap you upside the head when you least expect it in the hobby of knitting.  But, for time's sake, let's skip ahead to number 10.  You know, just for fun.

10.  The mobius.  How often do you pick up a pattern and it says, and I quote, "Be sure to make sure that none of your stitches are twisted" as you cast on?  So how much of an idiot does that make me, the one who is WRITING the d@mned pattern?  Would you believe that I checked to make sure the stitches were not turned the wrong way at least four or five times?  Oh, and I also re-cast on the 200 or so stitches for this very same reason.  Would you believe that it didn't freakin' matter cause I missed one anyway?

Four inches into this sweater.  Four.  I carefully moved the stitches to a scrap piece of string to place it on the dress makers dummy to double check the fit and whammo!  It's a Mobius sweater!  Twisting around and in on itself and making me feel physically sick to my stomach.

Wanna see it?

Did you miss it?  Look closer, I've outlined the twist for you:

There ya go.  Can I go punch somebody now or at least throw up on them?  This really, really burnt my muffins.  I'm Not.  Happy.  A.  Bit.

So go ahead and admit that some of these have happened to you too.

I'm waiting.

Don't leave me out here in the cold alone.

Please?

Mom's Way Cooler Than Dad

Totally uncool, unhip father (In very sarcastic tone) to 9 year old Harry Potter fanatic who had been ordered to bed last night while Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was on tv:

"Awwww, now you're going to miss the best part, the Cribbage scene!"

9 year old Harry Potter fanatic and I just raised our eyebrows, looked at each other and rolled our eyes.  At least his Mom knows the difference between Quidditch and Cribbage.  His Dad is so not invited to go with us to the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal when we eventually go.

Oh yes,  Mom's way cooler than Dad. 

Razor Burns and Other News

Wow!  This is my 704th post.  Who knew I would be able to stick around so long?  And to show you what entertaining things I have on my blog (I really have a whole lot of nothing today), check this out.


I'm in pain today.  This is why you should change your razor more often than you think:

Ouch.  Isn't razor burn on a pasty white leg sexy?


In knitting news:

Yes, I'm still knitting.  I started a project that I've wanted to work on for a while.  I'm writing the pattern as I go.  If it works, I'll try and get it published.  We'll see.  Please ignore the yellow, it's just the provisional cast on and will disappear later.

In family news:

Today's the DH's birthday! So I'm going to go scramble and wrap his gifts before he gets home from work!  Nothing like waiting to the last minute...

Warning: Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

I felt like crawling under a rock this weekend.    The Eldest and his Dad went camping, so The Youngest and I took off to the lake to visit family. 

For background, The Youngest is a skinny little four year old boy.  His grandfather likes to kid around with him, talking about how "heavy" and "fat" he is.  I think my Dad forgets that children are very literal creatures and they, at that young of an age, also do not understand what the word facetious means or the definition of tact. 

Back to the weekend.  We met up with some of my first cousins and their children.  One of those kids and her Mom are a bit heavy set.  The girl has just turned fifteen and still has some of the baby fat on her that will disappear in a couple of years.  She is going to be gorgeous too.  Her Mom has diabetes and several other health problems.  Neither one are what I would call obese by any means. 

Can ya guess what happened?  The Youngest, trying to be funny, looked at the girl and said, "You don't have to be so fat."  He had absolutely no clue what he was saying.  I, on the other hand, did.  So did the girl and her Mom.  I could have crawled under a very tiny rock at that point and been content to live there for the rest of my natural born days.  I could also have knocked my Dad into next week.

A warning for those who have babies or at some point expect to have a baby:

A child may be cute as a button, but beware, the child's mouth is a loaded gun that can and will go off at the most inconvenient of times.  You, the parent, just think you're in control.  There is no controlling a young child's mouth.  You never, ever, know what will come out of it. 

Anyone else have something like this happen to them?

So, How Did It Turn Out Already?

Having been out of town for a few days and letting the resin cure, now that I am back I can let you see how the large counter top renovation turned out:

This is such a shocking change for me, even having done the other counter tops in the kitchen over the past year.  Yes, it's taken me a year to get all of them done.  Sue me.  Anything is better than the godawful blue counters that I've been staring at for over seven years.

However, it's not all a bed of roses.  We decided to put in a new kitchen sink, replacing the nasty old white one that would never get fully clean.  When we did, we found that the new sink wouldn't quite fit in the old one's place.   The resin had been curing for four days at the time.  It gets hard cured after about seven days.  We cut the hole wider and then found that a very small section had released from the counter top.  It looks like this:

See the white spot?  It's about half an inch thick and four inches long.  This is the first time that something like this has happened.  We think that when we cut the counter, the heat from the saw caused it.  It's now sealed from beneath the sink, so no water can seep into it.  Since the whole counter needs another coating of the resin, I'm going to go over this spot again with craft paints to disguise the imperfection, then do the coating of the resin.  It won't be this week, but it will happen soon.


Just thought I'd share this with you guys.  No project ever turns out perfectly for me and those doing diy/crafty type projects like are probably already familiar with some of the stuff that can go wrong.  But, I'm not going to let this get in the way of my new pretty kitchen counters!  Oh, no.  I'll just fix it (or at least disguise it) and move along.  Perfection is for the weak of heart.  I'm more into building character.  :)

Day 2 of the Kitchen Counter Renovation

When renovating your kitchen counters that are hideously colored blue (with craft paint and resin of course), you should do the following:

Step One:  Invite lots of help for your diy endeavors.  Oh, and lots of sponges and craft paint:

Step Two:  Make Sure there are lots of menfolk in the invitees to remove the sink.  Dude with the dark blue shirt and white beard is my Dad.  Shhh!  Don't tell, but he just had his 66th birthday two days ago!

Step Three:  After shooing away all the menfolk,  I rolled on the same paint that I used on my cabinets and wall trim:

Step Four:  This is how it looked when we first started sponging on the craft paints.  Pretty yucky huh?

Step Five:  But look what happens when you add a bit more:

Step Six:  After several (like a hundred more) trips to the table back and forth to where the craft paint is, step back and admire how pretty it looks so far!

Next step, Resin!

Counter #3 DIY

And so we begin again.  This is the third and last installment of the counter top renovation.  Yay!  It feels like I've been dragging this project out forever, but it's almost done.  Here's how it currently looks:

This is the largest area that I will have renovated.  Normally my microwave is in the far right hand corner and also missing is the crap that seems to accumulate on all flat surfaces in my home.  Also not shown: how my other counters are now covered up with the stuff that came off of this counter.

Today I started removing caulk from around the sink in preparation to pulling said sink out.  This part totally sucks and I'm not enjoying it.  Some of the caulk is almost 30 years old and really doesn't want to give up the ghost.  I've resorted to this arsenal to help in its removal:

If that doesn't work I might try some C4 or TNT.  Anybody got some to spare? 

IF, and that's a BIG IF by the way, I can get the caulk removed sometime today, I'm going to go ahead and put a base coat of paint on the surface.  I'll stay about 2 or 3 inches from the sink though since we will be removing the sink tomorrow morning. 

The full plan for tomorrow involves sink removal, paint, lots more craft paint, and pouring of resin.  Then I get to devise a way to keep two very nosy cats away from the kitchen so that I don't find little cat prints destroying all my hard work later.  I will then be deserting the house for a few days while the resin cures.   Yes, there will be someone checking on my two deserted kitties so don't send PETA after me, ok?  That's a lot to get done in one little day.  Wish me luck.  Off to do more scraping!

Freezer Treats

I keep most of my images up in my Flickr account.  I recently had someone complain (don't know who they were) that I don't title my images.  Well, if they don't like it, that's just too bad.  While many and varied, my hobbies do not include photography.  There are so many folks over at flickr that show off their fantastic picture taking skills.  I am not one of them nor do I have those picture taking skills.  I use flickr for the blog and that's it.  Oh, and as a backup of my digital pics.  I just don't understand someone going after me to complain because I don't title my image.  Don't they have anything better to do? 

Like making Freezer Treats?

Freezer Treats have become a staple at our house.  The kids beg for them and I try my best to hide them from everyone else so that I can snack on them late at night.  :)  They are low caloried, sweet and chewy.  They satisfy the snack monster in me without packing a wallop to the hips.  Yay!

My Mom got this idea from some folks over at Weight Watchers many years ago and I thought that I'd pass it along to you.  I promise, after a couple of these, your family will start fighting over them too.

Freezer Treats:

Chocolate Graham Crackers
Fat Free Cool Whip

Break the cracker into halves, apply 1 to 2 Tbsp cool whip to the cracker, put the other half on top.  That's it!



It's so simple.  The trick though, to these becoming really good, is to make them, then pop them into your freezer and walk away for several hours or even a full day.  The crackers absorb the moisture from the cool whip and become really soft and chewy, tasting a lot like an ice cream sandwich.  Two of these babies will run about 150 calories total! 

Enjoy!

Proof for the Cynics

I've spoken about Swagbucks before, but for all you cynics out there, here's my proof that it's free, it works, it's legit.

Look what came in the mail yesterday:

Yep, a brand new Wii console with Wii Sports included!  I paid not one penny for it.  I'm so excited, this will be the big Christmas present at our house this year.  There's no way I'm letting Santa take credit for this one, oh no.  It'll be wrapped up and under the tree just waiting.  The hubby is excited about it too and wanting to give it to them now, but I'm not letting him ruin the Christmas surprise.  I've been planning this one for way too long.

So, how does the whole "Swagbucks thing" work?

Here's what works for me:  The prize I shoot for on the site is the $5 Amazon gift cards (you can buy just about anything on Amazon.)  They are worth 450 swagbucks each (If you are in Canada, make sure you get the Amazon.ca gift certificates.)  Twice a month they will give out the gift card codes that you ordered and you enter the card into your Amazon account.  Easy!  You can order 5 of these cards a month.  I'm getting $25 in Amazon gift cards a month.

1.  Search and win - use their search engine.  You can't just keep entering stuff in to win though, you have to search "naturally", basically using it like you would any search engine.   Just make sure you don't over search. You will be awarded Swagbucks randomly and it can range from 5 swagbucks at a time to sixty some odd swagbucks.

2.  Daily Freebies - If you install their toolbar, you get one point a day for this.  Then go to the Daily polls section on their site and take the simple poll (takes maybe 2 seconds), that gets you one more.  Next, the Special offers page - Click on the little box in the upper right hand corner that says view our no special obligation offers.  Scroll down and click skip.  Do this several times and you get another point.  Last is the trusted surveys section.  Just click on the page and you automatically get another one.  Doing these adds up!  You get 120 points total for the month just doing this.

3,  Swagcodes - The Swag Guy (TSG) hides or gives out random codes.  If you download the swidget and check it regularly, it will tell you when and where the codes can be found.  Alternately, and this is what I do, is to go to the Swagbucks Facebook page (accessed from the main swagbucks page) and if you see lots of Thanks TSG!'s on there, you know there is a code out.  Yes, there are some idiots that crop up from time to time on the facebook page, just disregard those and don't click on any links that you see come up on the page.  Be sure and to read the blog there a couple of times a day as well.  TSG posts a lot of clues there on where to find the Swagcodes.

4.  Trusted Surveys - You can take surveys to earn extra bucks as well.  Make sure that you go to your profile section on the trusted survey page and fill out each of the surveys there.  You'll make a gracious amount of bucks that way.  You better hurry though, they've already stated that they will be lowering the amount of bucks awarded for those real soon.

5.  Tasks - On the Special offers section, scroll down until you see Wall (or tab) one and click it.  Next click on the tasks tab.  You can do some of these tasks to earn extra bucks as well.

6.  Spread the word - If you get people to sign up under you, and you can do that here by the way,  you can earn up to 1,000 bucks per person.  As they win from doing searches, so do you!  (Thanks to my readers who have already done this!)

I do all of these in my free time and try not to get obsessed by how much fun this can be earning free money.  It's free because Swagbucks get paid from their advertisers.  They just pass along the goodies to you.

Are other people doing this?   Yes, check out the number of fans that the facebook page alone has.


I forgot to mention that I am in no way associated with Swagbucks.  I don't work for them, I just play on their site to earn my petty cash.  :)

Blog Back Ups

I've been looking for a while for a decent way to back up my blog, which is housed at Blogger.  I've finally found two that I'm completely happy with.  One of them backs up your blog online and the other creates a pdf of it. 

BlogBackupr - An online service that grabs your feeds and pulls your blog data for you.  Everything is handled online automatically and lets you restore it via RSS, Text or Html.

BlogBooker - I'm really impressed with this one.  This one backs up your blog to a pdf for you.  I tried several of these programs that supposedly do this, but they only backed up a few pages.  I've got over four years worth to be backed up!  I needed something that could really do the job and BlogBooker is it.  I'd like to eventually print out my blog into a book form and this cool little service is just the ticket to being able to do that.  It used my exported blog xml file from Blogger so it was able to grab all of my blog, not just the last few days.

Hopefully my research will help someone else looking to do the same thing.  BTW, both of these services also support Wordpress blogs.  Good Luck!

Working Through Knitter's Guilt

Do you ever get to the point where the projects that you have sitting around suddenly do nothing for you?  Sorta like a relationship that's gone sour, the project no longer sings to you, no more loving coos are exchanged and you stare at the project and think "What the hell did I ever see in you anyway?" 

I think that's the state I"m in now.  The Noro stole is still okay, not exciting to the point where I have to work on it every minute of the day though.  I've lost total interest in the Mantilla blanket and may frog it soon.  The pink wool socks that I've had lying around? That's soon to be gone as well.  Several other wips are generating the same sentiments in me too.

So what's a knitter to do?  Go on and keep the relationship going even though it's a drain on the psyche?  Or frog them and find something else?  Why do we let ourselves get in these predicaments anyway? 

And another question, why the heck am I feeling guilty about letting them go?  Don't I have a right to be happy?  I've always been a strong proponent of the adage "If it's not fun, then quit doing it and find something else you love to do."  Yet when applied to knitting, which, when the day is done, is just playing with two sticks and a bit of string after all, I get sweaty hands and butterflies in the stomach at the thought of just "giving up".   It's not like the knitting police are going to show up at my doorstep and cart me off to jail because I set a project free to live a better life out in the wild. 

Maybe, I need to tell the knitter's guilt to take a hike and free myself from the feeling of imminent doom.  Am I going to paint myself a failure just because of giving up on a project?   I think not.  I've already proven myself as a successful knitter.  These projects in themselves may be not be what I envisioned at first, but that's okay.   There's plenty of other projects where those came from and I'll be more than successful at those.  Right? 

I"m still keeping the Noro stole though, darnit, even if it does feel like I'm just plodding along.   So, Knitter's Guilt - banished.  Knitter's Stubbornness - quite happy, thanks.

Procrastinator Extraordinaire

I have decided that both of my offspring are freaks of nature.  I bought a wonderful seedless watermelon today for us all to eat.   One refused to try it, swearing the whole time, "I don't like that" and the other took a bite and then made faces like he was going to throw up.  Who doesn't like watermelon?  It's the perfect hot weather fruit!  I just don't get it.


I finally made it through all of the sewing that I began working on Friday.    Like these six fabric baskets:

The green ones are for my bff's birthday and the other three are for my Mom's bday which is tomorrow.  She got them this weekend since I won't be seeing her on her actual birthday.  I fell in love with all of these fabrics, but especially the fabric that looks like 50's paper dolls.  It's so cute!

I also made a swath through some shirts and shorts that my cousin had given me.  She purchased them at a Russell brand's sample sale.  The each had a small slit cut into them.  They are made in another country and each one that is brought over the border to be samples has to have the cut in them.  I'm not sure why, but that's okay.  I sewed up the slits and now have some great shirts and shorts to sleep in.  Yay!

Last, but not least in the sewing pile were some pillow covers that I had promised to make my Sister In Law.   Unfortunately, I promised to sew these for her about 2 or 3 YEARS ago.  Can we say "Procrastinator Extraordinaire?  Hmm? 

The one on the right was made from a quilted panel that I had made her about five years ago when I was hot and heavy into quilting.  The batik that you see is real batik fabric that she made in high school and has kept for the past twenty odd years.  I added the dark blue edging to the batik one since it wasn't quite large enough for the pillow.  I still feel guilty for waiting so long to do what amounted to about a one hour project. 

Here's a closer view of my quilting:

So, I'm so thankful to have all those sewing projects out of the way!  It freed up so much space where all those projects had piled up.  Let's hear it for decluttering (at least a small section of the house anyway)!

Father's Day Gifts

I have to get real crafty in June.  There are three Father's Day gifts to do, two family birthdays and one best friend birthday, so June can get kind of pricey.  Therefore, the boys and I started working on their Father's Day Gifts yesterday. 

This is such an easy (if the kids feel like cooperating - which mine didn't quite do) project.  All three of the Dads in question spend tons of time wearing what we around here refer to as lounge(y) pants.  None of them spend tons of time wearing t-shirts.  So purchased three pairs of plain gray pants ($8 a piece from Wallyworld) and some fabric paints.

We laid them flat on a giant drop cloth.  Then I had the boys dip their feet in fabric paint and place them on the pants.  I used some stencils and fabric markers to spell out "My kids walk all over me" for their Dad and "My grandkids walk all over me" for the granddads. 

What's funny is that when you live with the kids, their growth always takes you by surprise.  When I envisioned this project, for some reason my mind expected their feet to be much smaller.  Hah!  The Eldest's foot size is the same as mine!  I really knew this, but I didn't "Know This" in a crafty sense.  The Youngest took me by surprise in this as well. 

I ended up with huge gaping holes to fill in between their foot prints.  So off to JoAnn to look at little foot stamps to fill in the blanks.  I don't stamp that often and had some major sticker shock when I saw the prices.  Nope, I wasn't going to pay that.  I decided to look in the stencils section.  No deal, they didn't have a stencil for that.

What I ended up doing (it was my Mom's idea) was to ball up my fist.  Then I dipped the side of my fist (pinky side) into the fabric print and place that on the cloth.  I then dipped my index finger and made finger print toes over the little foot imprint that I made with the side of my fist.  It worked perfectly!

Here's how they turned out:

Cute huh?  I didn't do the back of the pants, I started way too late to even think about those.   And honestly?  I came close to sending my kids to Siberia over this project.  I don't think I want to tackle another side.  Their listening skills are sub-par and there was one pair of little jean shorts ruined in the making of these.  I should have had them strip all nekkid for this project.  As it was, it was probably quite amusing for the neighbors to see us walking all around our house to get to the outside hose.  We had rainbow feet, hands and legs before it was all over.

Have a Great Father's Day Weekend!

I Saved A Sweater

I'm tackling about twenty projects today and getting very little done.  My multi-tasking-fu is just not keeping up with everything that needs to get done.  I'm sewing more fabric baskets for birthday gifts, pillow covers for my sister-in-law, cleaning the house for company that's coming over this weekend and working with the kids on their Father's Day gifts to Dad and Grandfathers.  Whew!

One project that I did manage to complete today was an alteration to a sleeveless sweater.  This is one of my favorite summer tops.  It's made of silk, nylon and viscose.  It's also very thin and so incredibly soft.

Why does it need altering?  Well, let me show you:

A hole!

If you look in the first pic, that hole is in the right hand side of the sweater piece that hangs down and drapes from the shoulder.  I was so upset and disgusted when I found the hole that I threw the whole sweater under my bed in disgust and left it there.  I figured that sooner or later I could make it into something new or throw it in the trash. 


So, about eight months and lots of cat hair later, I got it out again.  I intended to get the seam ripper out and just remove the whole drape-y piece and just have a simple tank top.  But when I looked at the hole again, I had an epiphany.  There was enough fabric that I could fold it over carefully and hand stitch it down to cover the hole.  Guess what?  It worked:

 Look Mom!  No hole! Yay me, I save it from the landfill!  I'm feeling so green and recycley!  (You like my new made up word?)  Now to get all that cat hair off of this sweater.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Theater

While the Eldest is in Cub Scout Day Camp this week, the Youngest and I decided to head out to the Regal Cinemas Free Movies this morning.  While driving, we began playing the "I love you more than" game.  It's simple and keeps a four year old very entertained while stuck in the car seat.  It began years ago with the Eldest and the tradition has carried onto his younger sibling. 

Here's how you play:

1.  You begin every sentence with "I love you more than..." and then fill in the blank.  You can start out all sweet and sappy if you want with something like "I love you more than strawberries."  That's always a good one. Then you wait and let the child say one of his own sentences. 
2.  You continue number one for a while, swapping back and forth, and then change your fill in the blank answer into something a little weird such as "I love you more than chocolate covered corn on the cob."  (We typically stick with food items, you'll see why in a sec.) By this time the kid's getting the giggles.
3.  Continue number two for a while and then the fun starts.  Now you get to get all four year old yourself and come up with some really disgusting stuff.  Here's a few examples of what was said today:

"I love you more than worm pie." 
"I love you more than dirty sock soup."
"I love you more than snail souffle." 

You get the idea.  I really thought I was winning this one today and coming up with some great gross stuff until the Youngest ended the whole thing with:

"I love you more than poop waffles."   At that point it became time to change both the game and the subject. He won that round, but you just wait until next time!



Oh, and the stole?  It's still growing:

Aren't the colors pretty?