Halloween Crafts

Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday, but I got so depressed on Saturday. I was digging through the meager Halloween decorations and had to throw some of them out. Too much wear and tear on the homemade stuff. So, I grabbed my purse and headed out to replenish the decorations. I got a ton of stuff at Joann's (40% everything Halloween) and at the Dollar Tree (surprisingly good stuff.)

But the best part of Saturday afternoon and evening was spent making Halloween Clay Pot people! These are so freakin' easy and fun to make. More time consuming than anything. You can google for directions on how to make them. There is a ton of how-tos on the internet for making clay pot people for all seasons.

Here's how I did it:

I used 1.5" clay pots for the bodies and 1 1/4" wooden beads for the heads. Before painting, wipe your pots down with a damp cloth to remove any dust that will keep the paint from sticking. Next, choose what characters you will be making so that you can get your colors ready. I chose Dracula, a cat, a spider, a ghost, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.

Before Painting

Paint your pots and beads the appropriate colors. I used acrylic paint, but any craft paint will do. Use what you have.

After Painting.

Next, glue the beads to the pots. I used a hot glue gun, but something like E6000 would work fine.

Heads attached

Now, I painted on the faces. Using a sharpie marker on the faces is also allowed. I used mine to sharpen up the edges around the eyes and for making dracula's teeth. Basically, anywhere where you need fine detail. I don't have a paint brush that is fine enough for this, therefore, the sharpie. Next, seal your paint with an acrylic sealer.

Every one of these guys has either fun foam or chenille pipe cleaners hot glued on for accessories.

Frankie's Bride - had some hair issues, but I got through those after making a prototype. I used 4 black pipe cleaners and one white. I coiled the black ones and hot glued them together and then made a zigzag out of the white and then glued it in place with the end going into the top of the black coils. She also has pipe cleaner arms. I also added a purse, because every styling bride needs a fashionable purse.

The spider - I took four pipe cleaners and cut them in half then glued four legs onto both sides.

Frankie - pipe cleaner arms glued on. The color is a bit off in the photos of him, his body is a dark purple, not blue.

Dracula - fun foam bat wings hot glued onto both sides. Again, color is a bit off, his face is a pale purple.

Ghost - fun foam arms in white glued onto both sides.

Cat - Fun foam black ears (the pink was painted on) and part of a black pipe cleaner glued to the inside and brought up and curved slightly for the tail.

The Halloween Gang

The Bride's closeup.

All set up for Halloween!

Roving!

20 more rows of Clementine have been completed. I think I noticed a mistake though about 4 rows back. And, since I have become newly emboldened with ripping lace, not to mention that the mistake is quite noticeable, those 4 rows will have to go. Ah well.

Next week, Thursday to be exact, I take my first spinning class! I am very excited. It's a drop spindle class, not wheel though. Drop spindles are much cheaper. I want to see if I like it first before I invest in a wheel.

A while back I had ordered a drop spindle kit. It came with a small amount of roving, but it was Blue Suffolk. I wanted something a little bit softer. I ordered some white roving from The Sheep Shed Studio. They've got really good prices and boy was the customer service great. They sent my order (in two days), and with it was some Yellow and Brown superwash roving as a thank you. How cool is that? I can't remember the last time I ordered something, received it that fast and got a freebie with it. Now, I can't guarantee they'll do that every time an order is placed with them, but they definitely earned a return customer today. And to top it off, the roving is sooooooo soft!

mmmmm, soft!

knitting video

I don't have a lot to show for my knitting today. I've been tending a kid with a tummy virus for the past two days while keeping the other one from tearing the house down around my ears.

But!

Have you ever seen Stephanie McPhee knit? Have you seen how fast this woman is with the needles? Here's a link to a video that a lady took while at the Bluegrass Festival of Books in Lexington, KY, April 21, 2007. She makes it look like I knit in slow motion.

Young Preying Mantis

Hanging by a thread

I found this little guy hanging around in the side windows around our front door tonight. I know the neighbors are now convinced that I am batshiat crazy for trying over and over and over with and without flash to get these shots. Thought I'd share the ones I liked with you. Click on them to enlarge them.

Preying Mantis Helps Decorate for Upcoming Holiday

Before you ask, Yes, I have a lot of spider webs in these windows (on the outside, trust me.) I try not to look at it like I'm lazy with cleaning or anything. I prefer to look at it like I'm decorating for Halloween early.

Shot with my hand reflected in background. He looks like he's glowing.

From Inside

From Outside

Tasers and Knitting

Well. He did it again. More gray hair for me. Only This time though, he wasn't using a knife.

This afternoon the Eldest came home from school with a sinus migraine (and threw up in the car on too as a bonus and had a bloody nose) and needed Mom's full attention. I thought Dad was paying attention to the Youngest. Dad thought I was watching him. Meanwhile, Youngest was being extra quiet. Always a bad sign.

Anyway, I got the Eldest settled and went back downstairs to find the little twerp standing in my office chair (which spins by the way and is on rollers), leaning on my desk, and this time he was playing around with and trying to chew on one of my knitting needles. Now what if he had fallen with that needle in his mouth?

I'm tellin' ya, this child may be the death of me.

My Mom came up with a suggestion. Wouldn't it be great if we could come up with a child taser? You know, one that wouldn't do permanent damage, but would only feel like it does when you bump your funnybone?

I would like to add to that thought. That idea is fine and all, but maybe while it's doing it's thing with the funnybone feeling, it would dose me with one shot of valium in one arm and one shot of margarita on the rocks with salt in the other arm. We could make millions by marketing this to all the Moms out there with hellions like mine.

Knitting Progress Report:

I have been knitting some. Not a lot, but I am making progress. I put in a lifeline (since I got a little tired of frogging) and finished about 40 rows of the Clementine Shawlette.

Pic taken in Shea's Big Comfy Leather Rocker that she won't share with the hubby.

Sideways Crazy Action Shot - Just to get you excited about the knit.

Happy Birthday Jennifer!

It's a Happy Birthday Shout Out! To Jennifer! She's now officially 25 days older (ahem, that would be the big Three-Eight.) than me! Yeah!

It just makes me feel good to point that little statistic out.

Since I don't have a recent pic of her, here's a pic of her dog (also not recent, but whatever.)

Knitting and Gray Hair

The classic stereotype of knitters is that we are all grannies and that we must have gray hair in order to knit. Well, it's partially true. I am not a granny yet, but I am getting a huge amount of gray hair. Not caused by knitting, no. But by this Lil' Guy, the Youngest:

Can you see what he's doing? Right, reaching for stuff on the counter.
Now, picture a different day, different outfit on this deceptively adorable child. Got it in your mind? I cut up some peaches for him the other morning. The peeling and the knife were on a paper towel right where I left them, safe way up on the counter. Or, rather, where I thought they were safe.

So, I put him in front of Blues Clues (can you tell he likes Blues Clues? Properly pronouced "Bwues Cwues") and went to sit in my desk chair and proceeded to check out my favorite morning sites. I hear him behind me. I look over. And just about KEEL OVER. He had the steak knife (with a serrated edged no less). He wasn't just holding it, OHHHH no. The pointy end was in his mouth, serrated edge up and he was CHEWING on it!!!

You know how when you get so scared you can't move and your stomach drops down to somewhere below your knees? Yeah, that's what I felt. I couldn't yell or scream for fear of him cutting himself. I froze for a second before leaping out of the chair to grab the knife.

He's fine, not one little knick or cut. I, on the other hand, now have 50% more gray hair than I did.

Trust me, this pic is much cuter than the real thing. It's not running, climbing, yelling "no", trying to hit people, chewing knives or giving his mother gray hair.

I found time this morning to knit a small swatch of the yarn that I will be using to make my Dad some Hunting/Boot Socks. This will be part of his Christmas Present. It's a beautiful worsted Deep Olive Tweed from Patons Classic Wool Merino. It has some lovely bits of orange, yellow, pumpkin and bright orange in it.

When I make myself socks, I don't usually swatch since I do them toe up and try on as I go. But my Dad's feet are not here and I don't have exact measurements. So, I have to go on a formula and that means I need to swatch and measure. I've swatched, washed and blocked, but it's not dry enough for measuring yet.


I loved the way this looked on the yarn swift. Look at all those little bits of color!

Oh! my Colrain Yarn came in late yesterday. Yeah! I actually made my bed so that I would have a place to take a pic of it for you. Of course, I didn't make it the way my Mom or Hubby would. They spend way too much time making it perfect. In my opinion, the proper way to make a bed is to leave the sheets all wadded up, then take a thick comforter and cover the mess up. This won't really work with a thin comforter, you can see the lumps beneath it. Big, thick and fluffy is the way to go. Pull it up and Presto! Bed is made.

P.S. - Don't tell Mom! She really did try her best to teach me the "right" way to make a bed, bless her little heart.

A very stressful couple of days

I find that I must continue with my theme that there are some days that it just doesn't pay to pick up the knitting. I put down my current project, The Clementine Shawlette from IK Spring 2007, after I had to frog approx. 15 rows, for a few days. I was hoping that the break would be a good thing.

Well, I found the opportune time today to knit during the youngest's naptime. No go. I ended up frogging everything that I had done and then a few more rows. This has been exceedingly frustrating. Especially since I know this is an easy knit lace project.

What this has turned into though, is a great lesson on how to frog lace (not fun) and not drop any stitches (not easy) and still be able to find your place in your pattern project (very tricksy.) Notice the yarn barf all over my knitting bag and floor:

The current state of the project:

I have received several great compliments on my Hot Wheels Wreath from a couple of different forums and just wanted to say thank you to those who have been so nice!


Yesterday was a very stressful day.

1. We had a parent/teacher conference at school to discuss the Eldest's progress.
   
2. We then proceeded to the Boy Scout store to get the Eldest's brand spankin' new Cub Scout uniform. During the outing, trying to hold the Youngest was like trying to hold a hybrid Octopus/Wild Monkey. He decided to have a temper tantrum there as well. The people that worked there, instead of looking for little old ladies to help across the street, looked very ready to assist us out of the store due to the little hellion that I spawned.
3. Had to rush to grocery store for bare basics.
4. Had to more than rush to get dinner on the table.
5. Had a fight with the hubby (which led to getting zero knitting done since I don't knit well when angry).
6. Had to rush Eldest into his uniform and off to scouts.
7. I then, threw youngest in his bed, and proceeded to have a nice alcoholic beverage and felt very much better.
   

Here's the very proud product of the stressful day:

Hot Wheels Wreath

Last night was not my night to knit or try to change the contents of my Ipod Nano. Neither project went according to plan.

As I was working on the shawl, I looked down and realized that I had made a mistake. Just a small mistake. 15 ROWS BACK! So I frogged it and put the project down. Knitting while frustrated and ticked is not a Martha Stewart "Good Thing" moment.

So I wanted to add some podcasts to the Nano. Found out for some strange reason that I had run out of disk space. Gee, it could be that there were about 30 songs on there twice! Took forever to fix it too. Itunes is not the most intuitive program. Wish they'd at least emulate Windows Explorer or something for moving stuff around on the damn thing.

But today things turned around. Not with the above projects though.

When I became a room mom (read this as "got volunteered and still don't know how to say no to teachers") for my son's first grade class, who knew that my mad crafty skillz would be needed so often? There is a Fall Festival on Thursday and there is a themed wreath competition between all the classes. Guess who got to decorate and come up with a theme on just a couple of days notice?

So, this afternoon I got busy. I figured that this is after all a fundraiser and that parents try and win these things by buying more raffle tickets. I also kept in mind the pressure that little boys can exert on unsuspecting parents. I decided on a Hot Wheels theme cause every boy I ever met - young and old, goes crazy for cars.

I had one grapevine wreath to work with that the school provided. I bought 10 cars, 1 bandana with flames (for the background), 1 bag of stickers, 1 small monster truck, 1 hot wheels candy dispenser, 2 rolls of yellow satin ribbon, and two rolls of this shiny garland stuff with stars in red and blue. Oh, and one $10.00 gift card to Toys R' Us.

Here is the result of a couple of hours of labor on it (done during youngest's nap time of course and only burning myself once with the hot glue gun.): Click on photos to enlarge.

Here with too much light from flash that makes the cards too shiny to read.

Here with not enough flash so that it's a touch blurry.

I defy anyone to say that if they were a little boy they wouldn't be squealing for this! Personally, I know this to be true since Eldest already got himself into mucho trouble over this project. Whining about how he can't have even one car and kicking the carpet on the floor over it is not the way to win and influence mommies. Just sayin'.

Close up of the ribbon on the wreath.

Close up of the center of the wreath.

You can't see it, but there is the coolest bandana as the background in the center.

Close up of the baby who not 10 minutes ago was in full on temper tantrum "I'm damn mad cause I was told no and want the world to know it" mode and wasn't nearly so happy after he took a swat at Mommy and she swatted him back. I'm glad to say that while he wasn't smiling, Mommy was smiling just fine.

2 Product Recommendations

2 product recommendations for you:

First, let me say that I am in no way affiliated with the companies that develop and market these products. I am strictly a happy consumer.

1. Shark Steam Blaster

I have tile floors in my kitchen. I love my tile floors. What I don't love is the Georgia Red Clay that sinks into your grout and never comes out. You can't get this out by mopping. It's just not going to happen. If you live in a place where you don't have red clay, let me know, I'll come live with you. Just count your blessings, trust me.

So I borrowed this steam blaster from my folks on the off chance that it might work.

I'm absolutely amazed at the difference. This are the same tiles in both the before and after shots.

Here's a couple of before shots:
Ick! The grout looks nasty

This just grossed me out. I wiped away the excess water caused by the steamer and look what happened to the towels. The one on the left was ivory. Blecch! What scares me is that I have mopped within the last couple of weeks. The thought of the baby playing in this filth just makes me sick. But! Look at the after pics.

Now here's what it looked like after just one pass over the grout and tile:

Wow, what a difference!

It needs to be done again as you can still see a little clay in the grout, but not today. My back is killing me now. I have a huge freakin' kitchen with breakfast nook and the tile is in there and then goes into the hallway and laundry room. It took me forever to go over all the grout in these rooms.

Gee, I guess I'll just have to go sit in my favorite chair and knit. Poor me.




2. Holloway House Quick Shine


This stuff is so fantastic. I thought that my hardwood floors had seen better days and were going to have to be completely sanded and redone. Nope. This stuff makes your hardwood and tile floors shine like crazy.

I used this after I finished up the kitchen. It looks so awesome now.


Now that I feel like I've done something productive, I think I'll go get that knitting done. Have a great weekend!

WIPs and FOs

I got some Finished Objects for you today!

First off, I finally blocked the Annie Modesitt Silk Corsett Top. This may be one of the nicest pieces of clothing that I own. Fits like a dream too. As long as I hold in my stomach. Note to self: Eat less, Exercise more.

I got a great deal on the buttons. Buttons are not cheap. There are twenty of them on this piece. I found some simple pearly buttons that were 6 for 90 cents at Joann's. The hubby thought this was outrageous until I told him the usual price for buttons, some of the cheaper being 3 or 4 to a pack that costs $3 or $4. He has absolutely no clue the cost of anything. Obviously he is not the one that does the shopping in the house, huh?

Here's the stats:

Pattern: Annie Modesitt Silk Corsett Top
Yarn: Bamboo by the Bag from DBNY (Discontinued Brand Name Yarn) in Cobalt
Needles: Sz 7
# of times frogged before success: 5
# yarn balls used: 1.5
Total Cost: Around $10.00 - Not bad, don't ya think?

Ubiquitous Bathroom Mirror Pic

Second up: Laburnum Socks from Sensational Knitted Socks w/ a picot edge. Probably won't do the picot edge again. I don't think I really like it. I do absolutely love the colors in this yarn though.



And here is the new WIP: The Clementine Shawlette from Interweave Knits Fall 2007. I'm using Lion Brand Micro Spun in White for this one. I take back what I said about acrylic yarns. They are not all bad and this one proves it. It glides on the needles like buttah and is so incredibly soft. I'm going to have to pick up some more of this and make a simple sweater out of it. Just for me, natch.

I'm a little further along than this now, but this was the pic I had.

No, it's not a tie, it really is going to be a shawl.

I'm new to chart reading. All the instructions that I am comfortable with are written out for me or are at least combined with charts. This is the first pattern that I have done that was chart only.

I had a really confusing moment on this that stalled all progress. For those who may have a similar problem:

There is a point where the pattern kind of stair-steps in for a decrease. I was stumped on what I needed to do. What I needed to do was nothing. This is called a "no-stitch" part of the pattern. I just needed to start the whole thing with the next stitch which was a knit. The decrease came in the middle of the row. I was used to seeing the decrease on the same row as the yarn overs. This row just leaves out the yo's and voila! the row takes care of itself. Thank you to the folks on Knitty who helped me out with this!

Need new WIPs

Can you believe it? I currently have absolutely nothing on the needles. For some unknown reason, both of my WIPs managed to get finished at the same time. I'm getting edgy already. My fingers need something to do.

So what did I do? I made the mistake of looking at the yarn sale board over at the Knitty Coffeeshop. I now have some yummy Colrain yarn coming my way to make the Minimalist Cardigan from Fall 2007 IK. The subtle color of the Grey/Olive yarn will be perfect for this cardi.

Here's the Grey/Olive yarn:

Minimalist Cardigan

AND I need a shawl for this one summer dress that I have. I bought the yarn for that on Monday.

So, now I need to get to work. I need to cast on and make my Dad some socks as well.

Duct tape can fix anything

Well, our luck (my hubby says there's no such thing as luck, but I think he' full of crap) turned for the better on the weekend. Eldest had a wonderful birthday weekend. There were presents, family, a moonwalk and fireworks galore and no major disasters (barring one incident with a face scratching cat, of course - Eldest was safe, youngest, not so much.)

I'm afraid the moonwalk was not all that we hoped for and once blown up was not like the picture that I posted previously. There were a gazillion small holes in it. The previous owner did not take good care of it. I need to buy a lot of official patch kits for it. But! There's a reason that my Dad says that duct tape can fix everything (he also says the same about kerosene, but that's another post.) I now present to you, The Official Redneck Moonwalk!

Check out that duct tape!

Eldest loved it anyway and had a wonderful time.

My dad took this wonderfully unflattering pic of me eating a celery stick.

My knitting totally sucked this weekend. I made the mistake of picking up an old ball of acrylic yarn to take and knit with while I was at my folks house. It made my hands ache so bad I pitched the whole thing. Note to self - ditch all synthetic yarn! Not only does it squeak when you knit with it, it doesn't glide on the needles. That's reason enough for me to become a yarn snob. Even if it does cost a few pennies more!

Free Breast Augmentations!

That's it. I'm moving to Australia and joining the military!
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22424066-2,00.html

Little black rainclouds

I'm starting to think there's a little black rain cloud following me around. It's not like we're not already having financial troubles or anything and stressing over that.

Well, I got a phone call yesterday around 2pm from the eldest's school. It seems some older, bigger kid came running around a corner and mowed the eldest down. When he fell, his wire rimmed glasses tore a nice gash on his forehead. I got him, practically threw the youngest out the car door at his grandmother's and headed for the doctor.

I wanted to go straight to Scottish Rite hospital but the hubby said to call the doctor first and see if they could take care of it. I called the doc on the phone and they said "We can't do stitches, you'll have to take him to Urgent Care" and they gave me the phone number. I then drove to the Urgent Care place. Once there I heard "I'm sorry, but we don't take your insurance." So, I called the insurance people as I got back in the car and was told to go to the next location. Got there finally, and was told "We can't do this, you'll have to head to Scottish Rite hospital."

By this time, I was absolutely fuming. All I wanted was to at least get the Eldest some kind of pain meds and then stitches. Of course it was 4:30ish. I had to go and fight afternoon Atlanta traffic (rush hour starts at 3:30) to go to the hospital. I should have done what I wanted to do all along and head straight there.

We finally got someone to look at him. It turns out the gash on the forehead was almost down to the bone. Poor baby. He was a real trooper the whole time. He got 10 stitches in his forehead. He was absolutely starving during all this and they wouldn't let him eat or drink the whole time we were there (which was a while). He hadn't eaten since 11:30 that morning. We didn't get home until after 8:30pm and he was losing it emotionally thanks to low blood sugar, exhaustion and the trauma of it all. And to top it off, I forgot to grab my knitting out the door. Although, I did get to watch the doctor do some stitching on the kid and that was so cool!


Here's the eldest in all his stitchly glory:



That was yesterday. But wait! It gets better.

Today around 5pm I walked into the garage and it was flooded. Turns out, the hot water heater busted and water was everywhere. We flew into action and started throwing towels and blankets down and moving boxes around. Our garage is packed with boxes and junk. not good. You know things are bad when the emergency plumber comes over and says "Holy Moly!"

I am trying to contain the kids inside now and stay out of hubby's way. He's not the happiest nicest person right now. Stress pretty much brings out his evil side.

Do we have cash to pay for the past two days? No. But we do have a credit card! yeah for credit cards!

On the bright side, we get a nice shiny new hot water heater! Maybe, just maybe, I will be able in the future to take a shower and not get scalded or have my body painfully soaked with cold water when someone flushes the toilet. Got to love the bright side!

Annie Modesitt Silk Corset Top

Well, I had a choice yesterday. I could blog or I could knit. Knitting won. But only because I was so freakin' close to finishing the Annie Modesitt Silk Corset Top. Except mine is done in bamboo, not silk and was worked size 7 needles, not size 6 as called for in the pattern. I have to do the single crochet around the neckline today and I still need buttons, which I plan on getting this afternoon. I also plan on getting some grosgrain ribbon to sew in behind the button band to stabilize the opening and keep it from gaping. I may end up sewing the two sides together if the grosgrain plan doesn't work and just put it on by sliding over my head. We'll see. This thing is so beautiful. I'm very proud of myself. I didn't think I'd ever get this project this far.

Word of warning to the beginning knitter about this pattern:

1. Annie is a damn genius when it comes to yarn and sticks, but this pattern is not written for beginners. I consider myself somewhere in the beginning Intermediate range of knitting skills and it took frogging it 5 times for me to finally get the pattern. She assumes that you already know how to knit.

2. Some of the directions were not self explanatory. The mini-cables come to mind. Simple once you figure out which stitches to cable, but she doesn't exactly point this out. She also is not very clear on repeats of each section and how many times to do each.

3. When you do attempt this pattern, use lifelines and lots of stitch markers! I could have saved myself a world of trouble if I had bothered to do this after and or during each section of the pattern.

4. Also, it is critical that you look very closely at the long written out instructions about each section as you go along. This makes you have to constantly flip between the beginning of the pattern and the charts/knittese (my own made up word for knitting language).

5. This pattern requires concentration. This is not a pattern to do in the company of others while chatting. Also not good to do on the side of a basketball court when the basketball players are all 6 and 7 years of age and have no control over the ball. just sayin'.

6. One more note about the pattern. This comes in a .pdf. It prints out really wonky too. I know she mentions how to put it together, but this never worked for me. I just cut out each page, put it in the right order and made a booklet out of it with staples.

Those things being said and warned about, I loved this pattern. It's beautiful all knitted up and you don't get bored during the knitting process. (Possibly frustrated, but not bored.) I learned a ton of stuff during this project, mostly about reading my own knitting.

Here's some pics of the corset so far. Please remember this has not been completely finished and has not been blocked.

Overall view. pre-blocked

View of the lace-worked ruffled bottom edge./pre-blocked

View of the Neckline - pre-crocheted. pre-blocked

Knittingfool

This post is mainly a note to myself, but feel free to look this up yourselves!

Thanks to the Knitty forum, I found a fantastic site for knitting stitches. As described in the forum, it's kinda like the online version of the Barbara Walker treasuries. You can see it here at the Knitting Fool.

Pavarotti and Sting

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a Sting fanatic. I absolutely adore his music, with or without The Police. What they probably don't know is that I also really loved to listen to Pavarotti. The man had the voice of an angel. Nobody did it better. I was so sad to learn of Pavarotti's death a few days ago.

Today I found a video on YouTube of them both together. I really love this. They blend very well together. It's surprising considering the vastly different music genres that they represented. This was done in 1992 and I could watch it over and over.

big score!

Today was such a fun day. Today was the day that the committee of the Lil' Lambs Closet consignment sale got to shop for goodies. We get the first pick and usually the best stuff that comes through the doors on both toys and clothing. Of course we work our proverbial behinds off to get that privilege though.

I got a major score. A Moonwalk/Slide Combo! It was $95. Around these parts, you can't even begin to rent one of these for a day for that price. I'll be able to use this for both boys' birthday parties for years. I was thrilled at this buy. Yes, it was a much bigger purchase on one item than I would normally buy, but when you stretch the price by several years, wow. And, my brother can borrow it for his kids too. My kids don't know about it yet. We're taking it to the lake for Eldest's birthday on the 15th to surprise him with it. Well, it'll be a surprise if we can keep it hidden. It's rather huge.

It looks similar to this when blown up:

It's not a castle though. I'll post pics when we've got it up and running. Cool!

Wake me when it's over

I'm tired of the second sock. Second Sock Syndrome has arrived. I just want this sock to be over and done with. I've only got about two inches or so left on the leg and then it'll finally be over. It's not that I don't like these socks or that I'm tired of the color of the yarn or anything. I think I'm just tired in general.

Wake me when it's over please.

*****

I finally finished organizing my consignment sale stuff and got it turned in and now I'm concentrating on my actual committee job of dealing with the phones. When a sale begins, we have a registration and the people who want to sell their kid stuff get a seller number. Once we are out of numbers, well, we're out. However, these people I deal with over the phone, just don't get the concept. I can't give a seller number out if I don't have one can I? I even say that plainly on the voicemail that they listen to. Still, they beg, they plead, they demand, they get mean or they try reasoning to get one of the numbers. I crack up at the reasons they use to try and coerce me into giving them a number. An couple of examples of a voicemail like this would be:

"Hi. I'm XXXX XXXXXXX, and I'm a church member so I should be given a number. Mrs. VVVVVVV said it would be ok."

or,

"Hi, I'm BBBBB BBBBB, and my neighbor's uncle's cousin's children go to the preschool there. So, can I have a number?"

*****

Let me tell ya, Widget was a huge help in the organizing of the clothes I had to sell!

Everything looks fine from under here!

Happy Birthday Post

Happy Birthday to my Computer Geek Baby Brother! He's 32 today!