Give A Lamp A New Life

Everyone makes bad decisions on decorating once in a while.  One of my worst was made almost 14 years ago.  I purchased some basic brass lamps for our bedroom and over the years have come to loathe them.  My first instinct was to throw them in the trash and go out and buy new ones.  Then I came to my senses.  The lamps are in perfect working order, so what could I do to make them look better?  The answer?  PAINT!

Start with one ugly lamp that has potential and tape off the bits that you don't want painted (please ignore the kiddie basketball goal in the background):

Next, Get out some spray primer and turn it gray:

Once it dries, get out the paint that you want and paint it!  I used Rustoleum's Universal Metallic Oil Rubbed Bronze.  

So how does it look now?

Look at the before and after:

And because the above photos don't do the paint color justice, look at it in the sunlight:

Isn't it amazing the difference that a little bit of paint can make?  I still have to get some lampshades to compliment the "new" lamps.  The old ones are hideous and have been very abused.  Once I get the new shades the lamps are going to be gorgeous!

Etsy Treasury

Has today been a good day for you?  It has for me.  Some of my Cashmere fiber was listed in an Etsy Treasury!  It's always a good day when your products are listed in a Treasury. 

Have a Safe and Happy Weekend!

Dollar Store Fun

 I've seen the very cool William Sonoma Hurricane Knockoffs all over the blogs that I read and thought that I would give them a try.  So off I went to the Dollar Tree to gather my supplies.  I've become an addict of The Dollar Tree.   There are so many great things to be had at this store.

This is what I ended up with for four bucks:

This was such an easy project.  Glue the candlestick to the hurricane vase (using a glue that dries clear of course) and you're done!  I'm going to cut two round felt circles to place in the bottom to protect the glass, but I have not had time to do that yet.  I have yet to fill them or find a permanent home for them, but didn't they turn out great?  Four Dollars.  Wow.

What Not To Bring To A Consignment Sale

While at the Children's consignment sale yesterday, I was working at a table checking items in to be sold.  There are two piles that these get sorted into: accepted and rejected.  Most of the items that go into the rejected pile have the usual stains or tears.  No big deal, everyone of us that have children has some of their clothing that has these.  We don't take these to be resold and we don't think anything about them really when they come in with the rest of the stuff.  It's so easy to miss a stain.  I did it too.  I had no idea a stain was on that shirt.  We just took it out of my pile and didn't think about it again.

What does get talked about though are some of the oddball things.  Someone tried to sell a half used bottle of baby powder. Another person tried to sell a "vintage" crib toy that was yellowed and OLD.  I know, I had a crib toy just like it when I was a baby.  Not to say I'm old, of course, just "vintage".  In another ten years I'll be an antique and so will that crib toy.  It was similar to this one, but older and very yellowed with age:

There's no new mother that I know that would buy the one that was brought in, not one.


How much does it say about the economy these days that someone would bring in to sell a half empty bottle of baby powder and an ancient crib toy? 

Of course, those are nothing compared to the used and uncleaned potty chair that I saw brought in to a sale one year.  ICK!

The Magic of Blocking

Want to see an example of the Magic of Blocking?

Here's a before pic while Summerflies (Ravelry link) was on the needles:

Now check it out after it's been blocked:

Now do you believe in the Magic of Blocking?  Yep, thought so.


This was such a lovely little knit.  It's quick, never boring and turned out just right.  Just think, some dude decided that he didn't really like the dark green sweater that his Aunty gave him and donated it to Goodwill as soon as her back was turned.  A few months later and it now looks like this:

I love recycling!  And you know what?  This lovely shawl cost me about $1.00 total, maybe.  I still have a mountain of this yarn left over.   How cool is that?

The only modification that I made was due to the size of the yarn.  I went up to a size 10 in order to get gauge.  That's it, no other mods to see here folks, move along.

By the way, I will not be home much this week due to working the children's consignment sale so there may not be a lot of posts.  Please be patient with me, I'm trying to help a lot of needy children get set up for the winter!

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!  :)

Happy Friday the 13th

Happy Friday the 13th!

You guys wanna win something cool?  Angie over at Home Grown is turning Friday the 13th into a good luck day and is giving away a really nice food dehydrator.  You can enter to win here: http://bigredcouch.com/journal/?p=3595

Contest ends November 13th and every comment left on her blog until then becomes an entry to win. 

Good luck!

First Day of School!

Today was the first day of 4th Grade for The Eldest:

This is his Bus Stop Buddy, Cammie the Camouflage Cat:

The Youngest got left behind.  His school doesn't start for another couple of weeks, so I took him shopping.  Guess what he spent his allowance money on? 

He's such a Daisy Duck freak.   It totally cracks me up.

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)

---

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!