Stacey's Crafty Blog

Weekly Winners - new year

2010-01-02T22:07:00.001-05:00

The snow is starting to melt here

Macro by the tree

We had a bonfire for New Year’s Eve

The smoke turned green in the air

And we had fireworks. My tripod is a desktop model so I had to hold the camera for these

Space the final frontier

My first photo of Project 365 2010

For more Weekly Winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom.

Thanks for stopping by

Scrapbook Saturday

2009-12-26T09:59:00.001-05:00

Some more Journal Your Christmas pages

I have the 24th done except for editing the photos, so I am as caught up as I have been all month.

Scrapbook Saturday

2009-12-12T19:36:00.000-05:00

I’m giving my scanner a rest today to share some of my Journal Your Christmas pages. I only have 6 done so far and sort of at random but I am hoping to get caught up through the 10th at least this weekend

If you are doing a Christmas project, how are you doing?

All About Me topic suggestions

2009-11-25T19:43:00.000-05:00

This is the list I came up with after all my searching this weekend. I tried to limit the overlap but there still is some there. I’m not doing pages on all of them but I think it is a good start point of ideas. I may end up using it more as a list of things for my 365 Project rather than do them all as scrapbook pages, then put together a photo book that is a mix of both.

Opening Pages

Title

Vital Statistics

Your Name

Your Birth Sign

Family Members

Mom

Dad

Siblings (could be several pages)

Grandparents (could be several pages)

Extended family (could be several pages)

Family Tree

Ancestors (could be several pages)

Childhood Memories

Birth

Infancy

Childhood (could be several pages)

Birthdays (could be several pages)

Vacations/Holidays (could be several pages)

Teen Years (could be several pages)

Education (could be several pages)

Childhood Friends (could be several pages)

Childhood Home

Hometown

First Car

First Job

Fashions

Hairstyles

Favorite Music

Pets (could be several pages)

Major News Events (could be several pages)

Crushes You Had (could be several pages)

Current Life

Your Significant Other

Your current or recent Jobs

Home Now

Hometown Now

Places You Have Lived (could be several pages)

Your Family Now (could be several pages)

Thoughts on Motherhood

Faith & Spirituality

Hopes & Dreams

Fears & Worries

Health

Your Body & How You Feel About it

Hair & Clothing

Pets Now

Pieces of Me

Current Car or other Cars (could be several pages)

Daily Routine

What You Do to Relax

Travel

Describe Yourself Today - Right Now

Current Friends (could be several pages)

Hobbies (could be several pages)

Interests (could be several pages)

Obsessions (could be several pages)

Things You Collect (could be several pages)

Habits Good & Bad (could be several pages)

A Letter to Your Past Self

Groups & Organizations

Politics

What is in the News (could be several pages)

Sports You Play

Gadgets You Love

Thoughts on Housework

What Has Changed about You in 10 Years

What is in My Purse

What is on My Dresser

What is on My Bookshelf

Your Week in a Glance

Letter to the Future You

Lists of Things (choose a number of items to list)

# of Random Thoughts (your age is good for this)

# of Your Top Achievements or Triumphs

# of Confessions

# of Things You Love about You

# of Things You would Change about You

# of Favorite Things

books

movies

tv shows

foods

games

places

# of Things You Always have with You

# of Things You are Grateful For

# of Things You Still Want to Do

# of Things You Have Done

# of Ask & Answer Questions (get someone to make you a list of questions)

The holiday album dilemma

2009-11-11T19:40:00.000-05:00

There is just too much choice out there and I need to decide now, if not very very soon just what sort of holiday album I am going to do this year.

I’ve done shimelle’s Journal Your Christmas for the past 2 years and even though I didn’t complete last year’s album I did get plenty of pages done. But the not completing it bugged me. I think I need to scale back my expectations this year. And possibly my design style. I’m thinking very clean, almost graphic only style with either white or black backgrounds. I’d like to do just graphic only but I know I’ll end up wanting to use a bunch of embellishments on some layouts and that would be jarring in appearance I think sitting amid a bunch of smooth, unshadowed graphic designs.

But I really want more of a photo book look than a scrapbook look I think.

Then there is the thought that occurred to me that ‘the holidays’ actually started last Friday with the Halloween party at school. Possibly they could start on Thanksgiving, which would give me a bit more time to get my plans sorted. Though since I take a photo a day anyway doing a ‘2009 Holiday Season’ photo book can pretty much start whenever I feel like it. I never take just one photo so I can even make sure there is no photo overlap between it and my 365 project.

I could even get Havoc & Mayhem to take the photos for it. Now there is an idea! Start the day we leave to visit my parents in a couple weeks and run through the end of their xmas break & use their photos! Havoc loves to use my D40, Mayhem prefers seeing things on the screen on the old Olympus, so there would be no fighting over the camera. This could work!

But still, if I want to do scrapbook pages (which I just know I will end up making in December) I need to get my act together pretty much this weekend or so and pick my templates, design style & a start date

I’m thinking of getting these templates

and adapting them as I go, but they want more photos than I usually manage.

I like these as well

and I have some by Janet Phillips, that are no longer available that I’m sorting through. Then I have to work out what kits to use. My favorite designers haven’t put any out yet.

You know, I never do a holiday newsletter. They are too complicated & time consuming.

All About Me – the book!

2009-10-27T10:38:00.001-04:00

Because having a blog isn’t narcissistic enough.

I am a digital scrapbooker. I’ve been doing it for 4 years now and have over those years been active on a number of boards and done a great many challenges. Mostly I scrap my kids but sometimes the challenges are to scrap something about you. Recently we had a discussion on one of the forms about Scrapbook Fantasies Book of Me blog. She gives you prompts all year & you end up with I think around 35-40 prompts and 60 pages.

I’ve been thinking about doing some sort of album of me for a month or so now. Maybe a collection of scrapbook pages about me or maybe an All About Me Project 365 next year.

Me me me me me me ME!!!!

Sorry, just had to get that out. Now back to…um..me.

I am self-centered enough to want an entire book about me but I am realistic enough to know that if I went with a photo project probably by mid February I will have run out off interesting ideas and be taking pictures of my toothbrush and sock drawer. Which I could assemble in a photo book with little post ironic snarky zeitgeist comments, or not because I am not entirely certain what I just said actually means. I can certainly see the humor in myself & am not above self mockery but I don’t think I can manage 365 photos of it.

I spent a few days going through old challenge notes and visiting forums and blogs and have assembled about 75 prompts for a Book About Me. Not that I will use all of them but it’s nice to have a list to work from.

Then I went though all my layouts (643 to be exact) and found about 60 that were about me. There is a lot of overlap on topics. For instance I have 4 layouts about my home and 5 about my childhood and 3 about crochet and an embarrassing number about my electronics. About half of the layouts are bad from a design standpoint. The scale of the elements is off, the shadows are either huge or non-existent, bad recolorization, bad photo adjustment, hideous color choices etc. But I saved the layered .psd (or .psp) files so I can fix them or at least have a base to rework them. I’ll weed through them & remove the duplications (I have 3 that feature my mp3 player) and then sort out what prompts I still want to do and that will be my project for next year.

I’m also going to do another 365 Photo project in 2010 but I need a topic. I did the boys play in 2008 and that came together nicely. This year has been topic free, more random & I find it harder to do. It’s not looking as cohesive. I think I work better with guidelines. I’m looking for ideas now. Any theme suggestions?

I’m leaning toward monthly photos of the same things, with some other general topic mixed in. I’m thinking of every month having an individual photo of everyone, a photo of some outdoor feature to be determined (like the maple), a photo of some indoor feature (like the sink full of dishes or a pile of laundry) and a photo of my book stack. That is 7 out of approx 30 photos a month. What other things can you think of that change yet stay the same over a period of time? I’d like about 10 things that regularly appear and the other 20 or so will be on a general topic.

Go Mountaineers!

2009-09-17T07:27:00.001-04:00

I went to college at WVU. We have a history of being able to play 3 excellent quarters of football and one not so good one.

And of winning nearly the whole season and being trounced in bowl games.

So far we’re 2-0 this year.

quick and quirky questions:

2009-09-09T10:00:00.001-04:00

1. Do you wash your own car or do you go to a car wash?

Car wash

2. Are you wearing socks right now?

3. Where were you 3 hours ago?

paking lunch for the boys

4. Do you have laundry waiting to be done?

haven’t checked yet but probably

5. Can you pick objects up with your toes?

yes I can

Exercise

2009-08-30T09:05:00.001-04:00

I bought myself 10 personal trainer sessions for my birthday. At the end of them I had lost 6lbs and an inch at my waist. I had gained inches elsewhere which are muscle. I have toned & firmed up a good deal. I plan on continuing to visit the gym 3 days a week and do the 30 Day Shred at home at least 1-2 days as well.

My big need is to lose weight and exercise is not going to do that at this point. I need to eat less. So my focus for this month is on my diet, cutting back portions and swapping fatty snacks for fruits & veggies.

Music to craft by

2009-08-20T14:51:00.001-04:00

I listen to my Zen when I crochet or digi scrap. What I listen to depends on what I am doing.

Digi scrapping requires music, generally 80’s pop with random punk thrown in. Occasionally I go for a Celtic theme, listening to Clannad, U2, Celtic Women and Flogging Molly

Crochet needs an audiobook to keep me mentally occupied. I prefer historic mysteries by Anne Perry, Kerry Greenwood, Ellis Peters and Roberta Gellis

Aunt Becky doesn't quite visit

2009-08-08T17:10:00.001-04:00

Aunt Becky, my BFF, who I would totally love to hang with in person, was unable to come visit in person but she sent her cards instead. Which if you love Aunt Becky like I do, is almost good enough. After all - Aunty Becky herself actually *touched* these cards!

Look Aunty Becky’s card has arrived!

These guys are thrilled to get their picture taken with her

They immediately rush off to entertain her. Many muffins were eaten

And much wine was drunk

They thought about going swimming but Aunt Becky’s card thought the water was a little too Jurassic green

The kittens gave Aunt Becky’s card a much more mixed reception

Some were interested. “Will it give me lovins?”

Some were aloof. “I’m not even going to look at it.”

Some were downright hostile. “Cards! bah! I eats cards!”

Smoke though, was very welcoming. “Come lay down with me Aunt Becky’s card

We can read a book together

Everyone else was so happy to see Aunt Becky’s card that they held a parade

And that was Aunt Becky’s cards lively visit.

Favorite zoo animal

2009-06-18T10:24:00.001-04:00

My favorite zoon animals are the elephants and giraffes. They are so huge!

My favorite animal

2009-06-09T09:19:00.001-04:00

Favorite living animals would be kittens. We have 5. 2 indoor, 2 indoor/outdoor and one outdoor. I like them because they are low maintenance & independent. They come when they feel like it, leave when they feel like it & don’t expect much but occasional petting & food. An a warm place to lay.

No longer living would be dinosaurs. I am up to my knees in plastic dinos. I like them because they general stay where they are put & don’t bother me much.

Happy Birthday George Lucas

2009-05-14T08:38:00.001-04:00

Thank you for your intergalactic epic and thank you for introducing me to this guy

The object of my affection since 1977. 32 years later I still get that giggly little girl feeling when I see him.

It’s a bit more of a grown up feeling when I see Indiana Jones.

Thank you for him too

My boys love the Star Wars & Indiana Jones sagas. They love the Lego Star Wars game. Mayhem is so obsessed with it, we had to enforce a game play time limit because he was getting up at 5am to play it.

He is currently watching Return of the Jedi as I type this.

George, you have brought a lot of happiness & imagination to my life. Thank you and Happy Birthday!

I did the blogthings Star Wars name & title & this is my result

Your Star Wars Name Is Stacr Hiwhe

Your Star Wars Title Is Drocho of Mehyam

What Is Your Star Wars Name and Title?

FOBTY

2009-05-12T10:12:00.001-04:00

You Are Blooming Flowers

You are an optimistic person by nature. In even the darkest times, you are hopeful about the future.
You feel truly blessed in life and can sometimes be overwhelmed with emotions.

You have an artist's eye. You are always looking for beauty in the mundane.
You have a good sense of aesthetics, especially when it comes to shapes and color.

What Part of Spring Are You?

Just can’t let go

2009-04-23T08:14:00.001-04:00

I like going out to eat. We’ve had to cut back on it of course but we still manage to go out a couple times a month. Though instead of the Japanese steak house we go to Buffalo Wild Wild on ‘kids eat for 99 cents’ night

easter candy

2009-04-15T20:52:00.001-04:00

You Are a Cadbury Creme Egg

You're the type that stole little brother's easter basket so that you could have MORE CANDY!

What Easter Candy Are You?

TV shows I have loved

2009-04-02T10:51:00.001-04:00

The question this time on the Sweet Shoppe blog is to list 5 shows you have seen every episode of.

I am spoiled for choice if I reach back into the mists of my childhood

1. M*A*S*H

2. Little House on the Prairie

3. Star Trek

then coming into the 90s

4. Babylon 5

5. The Next Generation

6. Voyager

then more recently

7. Star Trek Enterprise

8. Firefly

9. Eureka

10. Rome

Ok, so that is 10. There are more but I’ll stop here

what’s the word

2009-02-15T09:42:00.001-05:00

Your Word is "Fearless"

You see life as your one chance to experience everything, and you just go for it!
You believe the biggest risk is being afraid and missing out on something amazing.

Sometimes your fearlessness means you're daring. You enjoy risky activities.
And sometimes your fearlessness means you're courageous. You're brave enough to do the right thing, even when it's scary.

What's Your Word?

no. not one bit is this my word.

Sweet Birthdays

2009-02-10T10:04:00.001-05:00

SSD is having a birthday party & they want us to tell them how we celebrate ours.

In may family now, a birthday is YOUR day. You get to call the shots, within reason. Obviously you have to go to school & do your homework, should the birthday fall on a weekday and I’m not driving you 3 hours to the Air & Space museum on your last minute whim (though you can choose to plan that ahead of time). You get to pick the meals & the activites you want to do. The TV is yours to control. If you want a party we’ll have a party. If you want to go out to eat, we’ll do that. If you want to spend the day playing Wii Lego Star Wars & eating chips, fine. It’s all about you today.

This is a reaction to my own birthday celebrations as a kid. My birthday was in summer, during baseball season and baseball was a religion in my house. NOTHING was more important than freaking little league. So if my brother had a game on my birthday, the birthday celebration was moved to another day and I resented the hell out of it. I have one birthday a year. He has a couple dozen games. Seriously would missing one matter that much?

So I make it all about my kids on their birthday and DH makes it about me on mine. DH’s birthday is Dec 31st, making it all about him in the face of New Year’s Eve is a bit of a challenge but we try.

resolutions

2009-01-29T14:42:00.000-05:00

You Will Keep Your New Year's Resolution

You planning on making a resolution that's smart, attainable, and perfect for where your life is.

Will You Keep Your New Year's Resolution?

cupcakes

2009-01-22T09:03:00.001-05:00

Right now I like the crochet kind of cupcakes best. They are easy to make and have zero calories, plus you can keep them forever & they don't go bad.

I have to make about 30 of the normal kind Sunday. Monday is DS2's birthday and I have to take 20 to his class for a party, then another 10 or so for when we have friends over that night for a pizza party. They will be chocolate with white icing and rainbow sprinkles

shopping test

2009-01-15T10:50:00.001-05:00

You Are a Reluctant Shopper

You really don't enjoy shopping. For you, it's just another chore.
You approach shopping systematically. You research what you're going to buy and come prepared with a list.

Of all the types, you are the most likely to not buy things you don't need.
You try to de-emphasize stuff in your life. You find shopping and buying things to be a rather empty experience.

What Kind of Shopper Are You?

I don't know how it came up that way. I enjoy shopping, though perhaps it is that I enjoy browsing more than buying.

A quick glance in my closet will show that I buy plenty of things I don't need

my snow test

2009-01-10T16:17:00.000-05:00

Your Snow Test Says You're Independent

You feel like something good will happen to you in the next few months.

You don't really like to work, unless work feels like play. You only are successful when you are doing what you love.

You are an independent, individualistic person. You thrive when you're doing your own thing.

Your biggest worry in life is your family. You stay up at night thinking about them.

When it comes time to relax, you really indulge. You are all about your favorite comforts.

The Snow Test

time to start again

2009-01-02T12:32:00.001-05:00

I'm not good with new year's resolutions because I tend to view every Monday as a day to begin again. Most of my resolutions fall under the broad category of "BETTER". I will be better at keeping up with the house cleaning. I will be better at sticking to my meal plan. I will be better about clipping & using coupons. I will be better at not snapping at the kids.

My resolution for this year, if you can call it that, is to not just say I'll do better, but say HOW I will do better. I will make a cleaning schedule, I'll put the coupons with my groery list, I'll count to 10. Whatever I need to make it happen.

New Layouts

2008-12-06T15:03:00.001-05:00

I've done days 1-3 for Journal Your Christmas so far

Procrastination

2008-12-03T13:34:00.001-05:00

These are the Christmas cards I haven't mailed.

I'm sure most of you are thinking "So what? It's the 3rd of December, just go to the post office tomorrow & it'll be fine" Those of you who know me in real life might be wondering about the fact that it is only December 3rd and I yet I have cards in envelopes..... you are probably thinking to yourselves "Wait a minute! I'll bet those are LAST YEAR's cards that you never got in the mail!"

Well, you would be wrong.

They are cards from 2005.

Yes, that is right. I am now entering my 4th year of card mailing procrastination.

These are the cards I bought in 2006 but never got around to putting in envelopes.

These are the cards I bought in 2007 but never even opened the box.

This year I'm not even going to bother buying the cards in the first place.

The problem is one of stamps.

I never have any, or if I do they are 4 cents less than current stamps, so I'd have to put a bunch of 1 cent stamps on the envelopes because I am not about to waste $5 worth of stamps just because they are underfunded. But given that I never got the stamps on the envelopes when I only had one stamp at time to deal with, the odds of my getting 5 stamps on an envelope are quite low indeed.

Then there is the problem of getting them in the mail. Because remembering to put them in my mailbox is asking way too much of me.

I'm rather surprised I don't have stamped, yet still unmailed cards lying around from 2004. But I think I did manage to get those sent out in early January 2005.

More pages for the calendar

2008-12-02T13:34:00.001-05:00

I finished the calendar today, uploaded it and ordered it from Cafe Press. I like their design better.

It's day 2 of Journal Your Christmas. It was a weather related prompt so I was out bright & early taking photos of the frost. I also spend about an hour taking pictures of the ornaments that don't fit on our tree, the paper, boxes and bags I use to wrap gifts and a stack of the gifts that I wrapped today. I guessing they will be a topic down the road & I will be out of town for 10 days at the end of the month so I'm taking tons of photos of things now in anticipation. If there is not wrapping related prompt I'll just add an additional page.

Now that I have started the project again this year I can see where I may end up with a few extra pages because of including the travel, the Solstice and photos I have taken of things that didn't end up as a prompt.

Here are the last calendar pages

I made these pages with Kim Hill's Storyboard set and her Companion Phrases sets, both available at Scrapbook-Elements. I also used a few kits by Eve Kipler, Zoe Pearn, Melissa Bennett & Kristin Cronin Barrow at Sweet Shoppe Designs

Pages for my mom's calendar

2008-11-30T10:49:00.001-05:00

I've been busy getting this calendar together. I'm getting it professionally printed this year at Artscow, rather than do it myself, so I must be on the ball about this.

I made these pages with Kim Hill's Storyboard set and her Companion Phrases sets, both available at Scrapbook-Elements. Some of the pages also use kits by Lauren Grier, Misty Cato & Eve Kipler at Sweet Shoppe Designs

Dodecahedron

2008-10-26T12:19:00.001-04:00

This is my amigurumi dodecahedron.

I adapted the pattern from Berroco, found here, to make it amigurumi. I ended up with 2 different patterns, one makes the points more rounded & the other more pointy. I used the more pointy version I used a ball of some worsted weight cotton that I have had for years and a 3.50 sized hook. My dodecahedron ended up about 7 inches in height and width.

Rounded point pattern

Ch 3, 4 sc in 2nd chain

Row 1 - 2 sc in each sc around - 8 sc

Row 2 - sc, (2sc in each sc around) 7 times - 15 sc

Row 3 - sc around - 15 sc

Row 4 - (sc, 2sc, sc) 5 times around - 20 sc

Row 5 - sc around - 20 sc

Row 6 - (sc, sc, 2sc, sc) 5 times around - 25 sc

Row 7 - sc around - 25 sc

Row 8 - (sc, sc, 2sc, sc, sc) 5 times around - 30 sc

Row 9 - sc around - 30 sc

Row 10 - (sc, sc, 2sc, sc, sc, sc) 5 times around - 35 sc

Row 11 & 12 - sc around - 35 sc

Leave long tail for stitching - 4"-6"

Pointy point pattern

Ch 3, 4 sc in 2nd chain

Row 1 - 2 sc in each sc around - 8 sc

Row 2 - sc, (2sc in each sc around) 7 times - 15 sc

Rows 3 to 5- sc around - 15 sc each

Row 6 - (sc, 2sc, 2sc) 5 times - 25 sc

Row 7 to 9 - sc around - 25 sc each

Row 10 - (2sc, sc, sc, 2sc, sc) 5 times - 35 sc

Row 11 & 12 - sc around - 35 sc each

Leave long tail for stitching - 4"-6"

Now for assembly,which I find challenging to explain,even though it is really simple once you see the pattern, so I have photos to help

Crochet 12 points, using whichever method pattern you prefer

Mark one as point one. Stitch another point to it, joining 7 scs together, using one of the point's long tail.

Take a 3rd point and attach it, using it's tail to 1 and 2, with 7 scs on each point, for a total of 14scs joined

Attach 4th point to points 1 and 3 as before.

Attach 5th point to points 1 and 4 as before.

Attach 6th point to points 1, 2, and 5, for a total of 21 scs joined, completing the bottom circle.

At this point you can probably see how the rest of it will be assembled. Take point 7 and attach it to points 2 and 3 (or any 2 points really), for a total of 14 scs joined. Attach point 8 to points 7, 3, and 4 for a total of 21 scs joined.

Continue attaching points 9, 10, and 11 this way (11 being attached on 4 sides for 28 scs)

Stuff the dodecahedron as firmly or as loosely as you prefer. Leave all the loose ends of tails inside. If you used the more pointy shaped version of the points, be sure to get the tips of the points well & firmly stuffed or they will squish flat quickly. Once you have it stuffed, attach 28 scs of the 12th point, stuff the 12th point and stitch the final 7scs closed. Weave in the end of this tail.

Scrapbook Saturday

2008-10-04T20:55:00.001-04:00

Visit MammaDawg for more Scrapbook Saturday

Home again

2008-10-01T09:02:00.000-04:00

Had a blast at Great Wolf Lodge for the most part. Mayhem had some seriously whiny & sulky moments that were a bit much. He didn't want to do anything, go anywhere, just sit in the room. Then he'd ask how long we were staying & pitch a fit that we were leaving the next day because he wanted to stay longer. Sorry, kid but you can sulk around a bedroom at home for free. Other than those moments though, we had a lot of fun. I have 208 photos taken at a good distance, with low lighting, to prove it! Havoc completed 3 MagiQuest adventures and went several times on the boggie board. Mayhem collected the final runes he needed to start doing MagiQuest adventures and spent a lot of time running around the tree fort. I went up a great many stairs, a great many times, lugging a single or double innertube each time. My friend Mel and I were on an exercise mission - THIGHS OF STEEL! DH did a lot of boogie boarding and chasing Mayhem around the treehouse

So now I am home, with 3 loads of laundry to do and a kitchen that is mysteriously full of crumbs when it had been wiped down & swept before we left. Despite bringing my computer with me and logging on Sunday night & yesterday afternoon, I have about 200 emails, I am behind about 150 Entrecard drops, need to read about 1000 posts in the SkinnyJeans forum, about 75 threads on SSDs forum, a huge number on Raverly, god only knows how many posts in my blog reader and I haven't even looked at the mom blog boards I visit. I'm seriously considering marking everything read and starting clean. Maybe reading stuff from today and marking the rest read.... I'll probably end up skimming everything... I did read my Twitter DMs, responses and about 40 of the most recent Tweets, so do I feel I am caught up somewhere at least.

Weekly Winners will contain many heavily altered photos of Great Wolf Lodge and *gasp* probably no dinosaurs. They did not come with us.

hhmmmm...

I think I know where the crumbs in the kitchen may have come from.

Scrapbook Saturday

2008-09-27T08:35:00.001-04:00

This is my dad when he was about 6-8 months old. Today is his 70th birthday.

Bragging on my fab crochet creativity

2008-09-22T11:29:00.001-04:00

That'd be sarcasm, BTW

I finished the amigurumi octopus for Havoc. He chose the rainbow colored yard for it

I've been experimenting with how to create different shape effects with amigurumi and I created a bunch of mushrooms while doing it.

Then I decided to focus on making something for a friend to keep the bad energy away and I made this traffic cone

Then I got my hands on some googly eyes and the mushrooms gained some personality.

The traffic cone became an angry traffic cone

I think he is just the cutest thing ever.

The traffic cone came about as a result of 2 things. First I was going to make a witches hat for a little crochet person I had made recently (There is no photo of said person because it seems to have vanished & I am pretty annoyed about that because I never wrote the pattern down & now have to start over) The problem is I really didn't want to do all those close stitches in black (3sc in a circle, then 4sc, then 5 sc, etc - pain in the butt in black yarn & I am over black yarn from the penguin). The other thing was a friend of mine was joking that she calls traffic cones buried safety witches. (witchy humor). Last night those 2 thoughts met in my mind and decided to make a traffic cone & try & square off the rounded hat brim corners. Then I glued on the googly eyes. Cute but it needed something. This traffic cone is a gift for a friend who is dealing with some negative stuff in her life & I figured what better to keep unwanted things away than an angry traffic cone. So I was sitting here thinking I was pretty clever typing this up when it occurred to me I had seen crochet traffic cones before. I googled it and sure enough - Alicia did it first. Hers don't appear to be angry & have different eyes, but it is the same idea. Hers are stuffed & mine isn't but I think the next one I make will use her idea of sewing it to a crocheted square. I wish I had remembered this before I started experimenting with creating a cone on my own. Would have saved me a bunch of time. But I was googling crochet witches hat and not traffic cone.

I'm thinking of selling the mushrooms & the traffic cones on Etsy, along with the little bags that I make.

I'm saving up to buy a D40 camera & every little bit helps, plus I have a huge stock of yarn already so the set up costs were covered long ago. I just need a name. I like The Magical Mushroom or something to that effect but I haven't had time to go out & see what is already & use. Any suggestions would be appreciated

Caught Unprepared

2008-09-21T18:46:00.001-04:00

Mayhem comes home with a package from school. In it is a blank construction paper banner and some instructions. How cute! Preschool homework! The note says "Your child should draw or cut from magazines pictures of their favorite things. Please let them use the scissors themselves." "This should be a lot of fun" I say to Mayhem and set about finding scissors and glue. Then I look around and I realize something - there is nothing for Mayhem to cut out. We get 2 magazines in our house. The first is Cook's Illustrated, which is illustrated only with black & white photos of food and cooking implements. Mayhem is the anti-foodie, so CI won't work. The other is NRA Magazine.

Yeah.

I look around hoping to find an old issue of Real Simple or Rachel Ray Magazine. I pick them up randomly at the store. But no, apparently I have been decluttering effectively lately. The only thing I find is a year old copy of a sci fi mag with Dr Who on the cover and the kid's not getting near that with his scissors.

We had a few days for this project so I looked around the magazine section when I went to the store the next day. Vogue. Mademoiselle, other magazines with articles about how to improve your sex life & look better in bed. Not really appropriate. Guns & Ammo. Hunting & Fishing. Got that covered already, thanks. 28 magazines aimed at teen girls, all featuring the Jonas Brothers on the cover. Also not really appropriate. 9 different football magazines. Not really useful as Mayhem doesn't care about sports yet. Numerous quilting, crocheting, knitting and scrapbooking magazines. Well, they interest *me* but I'm not seeing anything that would interest Mayhem. Racing magazines! Car magazines! Monster truck magazines! Hey, these might work! Oh...wait...there is a scantily clad woman draped over every single vehicle in every one of these magazines. Maybe when he is 14.

Where are the toy catalogs when you need them?!?! It's September. Shouldn't I be receiving Christmas toy catalogs by now?!?! Oh wait, maybe I have and tossed them in the trash. Damn me and my decluttering anyway.

I ended up showing him the photos I have taken so far for my 365 Project,, letting him choose what he wants, printing them out in small size and letting him cut them out.

I'm not much into these sorts of crafts. I'm not that sort of craft person and I really suck with scissors.

Seriously, I can't cut a straight line. Even a short one.

I haven't let Mayhem touch scissors since the curtain incident 8 months ago, except PlayDoh ones, so he really has no clue how to use them. He was two handed snipping at the paper, creating lots of fringe but not cutting out any thing. It was driving me nuts to see this. But the teacher stressed letting them do all of it and just guiding them, so I sat on my hands and watched. I eventually justified taking the scissors off of him and repositioning them in his hand. This helped him cut better, but of course he's cutting at weird angles, chopping of photo parts and getting upset about it. I'm upset about it too. I wanted to shout STOP GOOFING OFF AND PAY ATTENTION!!! But I had to stifle that and tell him it was ok, it was a collage & he'd be gluing lots of things on top of others and then sit back and watch him DO IT AGAIN!

When it came time to color it I gave him crayons because I knew my nerves weren't up to seeing him MIX THE PAINT COLORS together.

I basically spend the entire time sitting there watching him thinking

MUST. NOT. INTERVENE

I have no idea where this impulse comes from. I am not an interventionist parent in any other realm, but paint & scissors bring it out intently & it's always been a struggle for me to sit back and let them make all the paint brown.

This was Mayhem's first school project.He glued pictures on top of the coloring he did, "So they are a surprise."

Could you be a vampire?

2008-09-21T18:35:00.002-04:00

You Could Be a Vampire... If You Had To

Like most people, the thought of being a vampire has crossed your mind. But you're not sure if you'd do it, even if you could.

Living forever doesn't sound half bad, if you could live forever with the people you love the most.

But do vampires even love? And would the vampire version of you even be you?

It's all too much to contemplate. Luckily, the chances of you ever becoming a vampire are astronomically low.

What you would like best about being a vampire: Living forever

What you would like least about being a vampire: Blood stained teeth

Could You Be a Vampire?

Scrapbook Saturday

2008-09-20T18:45:00.000-04:00

My layouts this week

created with Tell Me a Story by Traci Reed & Heather Roselli at Sweet Shoppe Designs

one of my Learn Something New layouts, created with Scary Moon Cat by Lauren Grier at SSD

another Learn Something New layout,created with Winter Chic by Shabby Princess at ShabbyPrincess.com

Scrapbook Saturday

2008-09-13T18:47:00.000-04:00

Some layouts I did this week

This was done with Heart of Fall by Traci Reed & Kay Miller at Sweet Shoppe Designs

This was made with Mischief & Mayhem by Heather Roselli, also at SSD. This was for the Learn Something New class I am taking

This was done with Bestest of Friends- Boys by Eva Kipler at SSD

how real am I?

2008-09-13T18:35:00.000-04:00

You Are 70% Real

You know who you are, and you're pretty darn comfortable with yourself.

Like everyone, you struggle with the parts of yourself that aren't so great...

But you're good at accepting who you are and not dwelling on your faults.

As a result, you're confident, optimistic, and very real.

How Real Are You?

Crayon quiz

2008-09-07T18:40:00.000-04:00

You can find it here
http://www.crayola.com/promos/64boxBirthday/colorQuizzer.cfm

I missed 12 colors

Spelling quiz

2008-09-02T18:40:00.001-04:00

Your Common Spelling Mistake Score: 60% Correct

Your spelling is decent, but you do make quite a few mistakes.

Let's just say you won't be winning a spelling bee anytime soon!

Do You Make Common Spelling Mistakes?

This layout makes me happy

2008-08-30T09:17:00.001-04:00

My son the middle manager

2008-08-27T19:41:00.001-04:00

Mayhem is just full of ideas - ideas of things for other people to do. Most of Havoc & Mayhem's play is Mayhem directed, in theory. Havoc may come up with the idea - "Lets build a tent with blankets" but Mayhem quickly takes over with suggestions about which blankets, where to put them in the living room, how to arrange them and what toys to take into the tent. Havoc, like any good cubical worker, looks like he is listening and then goes and does what he was intending to do anyway & then explains away any discrepancies in the final project by persuading Mayhem they were actually his idea. So it works out.

Mayhem thinks I should be more of a traditional mom. I assume this from the projects he comes up with for me to do. He is full of ideas of what I should be baking. "You should make these muffins today Mama. Then these tomorrow and then these. Then maybe you can make these for when we go camping." Mayhem's favorite book is

500 Best Muffin Recipes

He pages through this thing every day and brings it to me with ideas. "These muffins look good, why you not make them? When we have these muffins for dinner?" He sounds just like my old boss bringing me articles from trade publications and asking me why we aren't using this software (um, because the company is too cheap to pay for it and the training necessary or better yet, it has NOTHING to do with my job). I wouldn't mind so much, but like managers who ask for reports and then never look at them, Mayhem rarely eats the muffins he asks me to make.

When he isn't ~~bossing me around~~ making helpful suggestions in the kitchen, he gets out his other favorite book

Amigurumi World: Seriously Cute Crochet

and suggests things I ought to be crocheting. He does play with the toys at least. I just finished this penguin at his request.

I'm working on an octopus for Havoc right now, then Mayhem thinks I should make the owl, then the dog, then maybe the monkey, then another dinosaur.

I'm not letting this kid know about my quilting books.

Who was I in High School?

2008-08-23T09:14:00.000-04:00

SSD quiz for FOBTY

You Were the Arty Kid

Whether you were a drama freak or an emo poet, you definitely were expressive and unique.

You're probably a little less weird these days - but even more talented!

Who Were You In High School?

But I really wasnt'. I'm not even sure what an emo poet is.

My American Accent

2008-08-21T09:11:00.000-04:00

for SSD FOBTY challenge

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Northeast
North Central
The South
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

A letter to my son

2008-08-20T15:30:00.001-04:00

Sweetheart,

Today is your first day of kindergarten. You've been looking forward to it. We met your teacher and saw your classroom 2 days ago. You told me she seemed nice and you couldn't wait to play with all the things in your class room. You were very excited about getting to ride on the bus this morning and when it finally came you climbed on with a quick goodbye and hardly a backward glance. My little man! So grown up already.

I'm glad you are so eager & so positive about this experience. I want this to be a happy time,something you look back on with fondness, but being Mom, I worry. I'll always worry about you. That's my job.

Starting today you will now spend more time with others than you do with me and I worry. Will they be kind to you? Will they understand you? Will they patient? Will you make friends? Will they be good friends? What sort of friend will you be? Which of the myriad of influences you will be exposed to, will you pick up? Have I taught you the interpersonal skills you need to make friends and to cope in strange & new situations? Have I provided the best example of kindness, tolerance & understanding?

I want to be there to hold your hand as you walk to your classroom. I want to be a friendly & familiar face in new and unfamiliar environment. I want to help & encourage you when you meet your new classmates. I want to assist you to interpret & filter the things being said & done around you. I want to hold you and never let you go. You are leaving me & going out into the world, which is what you are supposed to do & what I want you to do. But it is so hard letting go.

You are a sensitive soul. You want to help. You are good with smaller kids & assisting people who need it. But you are fragile sometimes. You can be hurt so easily by a mean word. You are strong and you are sure of yourself too, so the pain doesn't usually last long. You have it in you to be a leader & encourage others. You are smart & pick things up quickly. You are good & kind person. I am proud of you

I hope your teacher can help you learn to focus your energy on your classes. I hope she has better luck that I did. I hope you make good and lasting friends this year. I hope you become an even better person than you already are. I hope this year fulfills the expectations you have for it today.

I love you with all my heart

Mom

I've decided normal life begins again Monday

2008-08-16T21:47:00.001-04:00

I had done fairly well at sticking to a routine through June & most of July. I went to the gym 3 days a week. I had meals planned for 2 weeks at a time. I kept on top of grocery needs, sales and coupons. We went to the library once a week, had a reading plan and kept track of our books. The boys had a nice routine of running around, imaginative play, swimming, Wii, and TV/DVD watching. We had playdates. We even had a weekly craft thing going.

It all went to hell in mid-July. The humidity here was outrageous, keeping the kids inside & pushing off swimming until after 4pm. Or it rained all day. Having them underfoot all the time is distracting & left me with no time to keep up on the grocery lists & coupons. It was too hot to want to cook anything so the meal planning went out the window. My car a/c crapped out, and we don't have a garage, or anyplace continually shady to park a car. It was an oven. I didn't drive it anywhere I didn't have to go. Two weeks ago the library informed me I had 22 books checked out and I could have sworn it was only 9. The weather finally broke & it was comfortable. The kids could go outside again. Two days later Mayhem had his tonsils out and we have been housebound ever since.

Last night though Mayhem slept through the night, without once waking, screaming in pain. I'm going to optimistically take that to mean the worst of the healing process is over and perhaps we can now get back to some of our regular activities. Havoc starts school Wednesday and routine will be forced on us. I have decided that Sunday I will go through the freezer & the pantry & organize what I have. I will make lists of what I need. I will plan out meals - including Havoc's lunches. Monday morning the boys and I will go to the gym and I will attend my much neglected Body Pump class. Assuming I can still move after it, we will go grocery shopping. I will make lunch. I will make dinner. I will go back to getting off the computer at 7pm every day.

Normal life - it starts Monday. So I should probably get the odd stuff out of the way this weekend.

Grease Quiz

2008-08-12T09:06:00.000-04:00

For From our Blog 2 yours at SSD

You know the movie
You have correctly answered 9 of 15 questions.

Considering I haven't seen it in almost 20 years that isn't too bad

Mayhem has no tonsils

2008-08-09T14:51:00.001-04:00

or adenoids either, though I would have been hard pressed to point out his adenoids in any circumstances. I know what tonsils are. Adenoids? Those are those things they usually take out with your tonsils, leading me to believe they are related somehow. I do know they are the part mostly likely responsible for his speech problem, but where exactly they are located I can't say.

It went really well & despite my fears I had no time to be afraid. We got there the requiste 2 hours early, so we could have an hour and 40 minutes to sit around and wait. I can only assume the 2 hour early rule is so the hospital can make sure you really don't eat anything for at least those 2 hours before surgery. They can tell you "no food for 8 hours and no liquids for 4" but I'm willing to bet people don't follow that & that can cause trouble. If they make you be there 2 hours early they can ensure that small food & drinkless window.

Mayhem'd spent the trip to the hospital whining that he didn't want his tonsils out but the moment we arrived there, he led the way. He marched right up to the nurses station, chatted with them about his tonsils, asked them about their machines, and read the numbers on his blood pressure. He had apparently decided to have an outgoing day. They assigned us to a room we shared with another child who was just coming back from surgery when we arrived. He wasn't happy so we went to the play area.

They have a nice little play area in the pediatrics department & Mayhem was the only child in there the whole time we waited. We went in almost immediately after a little girl went for her surgery and a little boy came in right after we left, so I commend the hospital for their scheduling. Mayhem played with the trains and the big wheel and the bead tower and watched some fuzzy tv and was very well behaved.

He willing walked with me to the pre-op room, answered the nurses questions and asked some of his own. He only baulked when the OR door opened. "I not going in there!" he announced. They tried to interest him in the machines but he knew better. This was the serious room & he was not happy about it. He really didn't like the gas they gave him. He sat on my lap, spitting into the gas mask and saying "I not breathing! No big breaths!" He dropped off with a really annoyed look on his face. It was only as I put him on the table that the fear actually hit me. However the nurses, no doubt from long practice, immediately distracted me by telling me how to get to the waiting room and how to get to the cafeteria and there were so many lefts and rights and floor numbers to remember they completely overwhelmed the fear and it never came back.

The surgery went so fast DH & I barely had time to find the cafeteria, buy a couple hot dogs, find our way to the pediatric waiting room and eat the hot dogs before a nurse came in to tell us Mayhem was in recovery. It took less than 25 minutes & everything went fine. Apparently his tonsils were really huge.

He was cranky & groggy for about 30 minutes, after that you would never have known the kid had just had surgery. Granted he wasn't running around his hospital room & I had to lay in bed with him. But he talked as much as he usually does, he drank 3 glasses of icy juice and ate 3 popsicles and he played with the bedside tv. It was on this adjustable arm, bolted to the wall & he loved moving the tv around & up and down for optimum viewing pleasure.

When the nurses said we could leave, he immediately asked "We go to far away Target now and get my toy?" (The 'far away' Target is on the way to the hospital, the 'close by' Target is in the opposite direction from our house.) We had asked the nurse to call the prescriptions in to the far away Target anyway, since it was on the way home & we aren't familiar enough with the area around the hospital to find any nearby drug store. So we went to the far away Target and Mayhem thoroughly explored the toy aisles before deciding on, (sigh) more plastic dinosaurs. We bought him a milkshake from the ice shop and got ourselves some Quiznos subs. He fell asleep on the way home & woke up briefly for storytime & another dose of meds.

Today has been a cranky, low energy day for him. Most of spent laying on the sofa. He's had some ice cream, a couple spoons of pudding, a piece of American cheese, maybe half a glass of juice and a couple glasses of vanilla Carnation Instant Breakfast. He says he wants mac & cheese for dinner. We'll see how that goes. Havoc is going nuts because Mayhem won't play with him. I'm hoping when DH get home he'll take havoc outside & run some that energy off. It's driving me bonkers.

Finished a crochet project at last!

2008-07-29T10:03:00.001-04:00

I've been working on these amigurumi dinosaurs since June. I'm fast enough crocheting the wider parts but I'm not so good when the circle is only 8 stitches around.

This is the brachiosaur and the stegosaurus I made.

The stegosaurus is my own pattern creation. I got the brachiosaur pattern from Claudia Vodermaier. My dino does not include the back ridges because I was informed by my 4 year old "Brachiosaurs don't have plates Mama!"

I'm going to remake both of them, with some adjustments, in pink and yellow for my nieces. The brachiosaur's neck will be a couple stitches wider & slightly shorter & his body a maybe a couple of stitches narrower, plus I'll include the ridges. The stegasaur will be bigger all over.

But first I have to make a triceratops

My favorite birthday year

2008-07-20T16:31:00.001-04:00

Today is my birthday! I am 41. 41 is a rather dull birthday year, coming right after the big 4-0 and before the Ultimate Answer (42). There really isn't much to say about it except - nope, no perimenopause yet.

However, exactly 20 years ago was my favorite birthday year, the year I turned 21. There is more background story to why my 21st birthday was my favorite than just the alcohol I was now allowed to consume. There is the drama of offers made and reneged on repeatedly in the years prior to my birthday. While drinking is the focus of the story, it was never really about the drinking. It was about the sheer irritation and annoyance of constantly having the metaphoric rug pulled out from under you.

The drinking age in West Virginia as of January 1985 was 18. Yes, that is right, 18. The nationwide push to raise the drinking age back up to 21 was gaining steam but my home state had been holding out. They made a token gesture though around April or so. The state government announced that as of July 1st you had to be 19 to buy alcohol, and they very kindly added a grandfather clause, if you were 18 by June 30, you could still drink. So anyone born before July 1, 1967 was legally allowed to purchase beer and liquor. I was born on July 20th. Missed it by *that* much. I, and everyone else born in the second half of 1967 were pissed. What made people born in June more responsible than us? That's just mean!

Not that the majority of us had any trouble getting alcohol when we wanted it. Unless you looked really young, you rarely got carded. I looked really young. It isn't that I wanted to drink specifically. Had I wanted a beer, there were some in the fridge at home I could have with my parents full permission. It was that something I regarded as a right was being taken from me.

So ok, fine, I'll wait a year. I'm a freshman at WVU, which then the #1 party school in the nation, obtaining alcholic beverages is not a problem. We had keggers and grape & grain parties in the dorm rooms and I was a pledge at AOTT, the number one party sorority on campus. Not drinking was a bigger problem actually.

Then word came down from above (the national government) to the state "You will raise your drinking age to 21 or we cut off your highway money." WV is a mountainous state. We need our federal highway money to keep the roads driveable. So the state legislature caved in and said on August 1st 1986, you will have to be 21 to buy alcohol. And they didn't grandfather it!!! There was no fine print reading "must be born on or before July 31, 1967" this time. You must be 21. Period.

What this meant for me was that I was legally allowed to drink for 11 days and then at midnight on the 12th day it was all over. I know people who stockpiled beer and wine coolers in those last couple of weeks of July because it would be 2 more years before they could get any. The new drinking age also brought more rigorous ID checking. So everyone who's fake ID said they were 19 now had to go get a new, better, more realistic ID that said they were 21. I got one. Not especially because I wanted to drink but social life was in bars and at frat parties & they now had to check your ID.

Honestly, I've never much cared for beer. I was more of a wine cooler girl. But bars never offered 25 cent wine cooler nights.

I was again irritated and annoyed by this change in the drinking age because one again I was being denied a right. Not only that, I was losing one I ALREADY HAD! It could have been the driving age, the voting age - it wouldn't have mattered. I would have been pissed at the way I was being yanked around for any of them.

Early in 1988 I began to be nervous. Were they going to do it again? Would they find some reason to raise the drinking age to 22 or 25 this time? Once again the carrot was being dangled in front of me. Would I at last be able to grab and keep it?

They left it alone. Finally! To celebrate my long awaited, lost and regained legality I had a tequila party. It might not sound like a big deal but for a bunch of people who's budgets usually ran to 25 cent draft night, buying bottles of Jose Cuervo was highly significant. We had shots, margaritas, tequila sunrises and something called a prickly pear that involved pineapple juice. We ate nachos, burritos, enchiladas, chimichangas, and quesidillas. It was a great party and my favorite birthday year ever.

So far.

Summer jobs

2008-07-19T10:13:00.001-04:00

I had a summer job all through my teen years. It was the same job, except for one memorable year.

When I was 13 I started working in the concession stand at the lake of a local park. We sold pop, pizza, hot dogs, popcorn, ice cream and crackers. We also rented out peddleboats and clubs for mini golf. During festivals and large gatherings I would spend hours making cotton candy. I was paid a whole $1.20 an hour that first year. I was earning a whopping $3.35 my last year there, when I was 19. There was a core group of us who were there every year and we had a lot of fun those summers.

When I was 18 I got a job at Walt Disney World for the summer. I sold ice cream at Epcot Center. It was the first time I had ever been really far away from home by myself. It was very exciting but I missed my friends back at the lake. They wrote me group letters and I sent them postcards (this was back before email & the internet).

The following year I was back at the lake for one last summer. We had a lot of parties that year.

After that my jobs lost their seasonality. The pizza restaurants, bars and retail shops I worked at in college are open year round & I had summer school, so I couldn't come home to work anymore.

No vacation this year

2008-07-11T10:36:00.001-04:00

My favorite place to go in the summer is to my hometown, Wheeling, WV. We usually stay for 4-6 days. I get to eat my favorite Di Carlos' Pizza, stuff myself with pepperoni rolls, take my kids to my favorite local park, play mini golf and go paddle boating. We go the Cabela's and look at the fish and other animals & do some shopping. We get to visit my parents and my brother & his family. My kids get to play with their cousins for several days and we usually all go to the Good Zoo. The last couple of years my folks have rented a cabin at Oglebay Park for all of us & before that we crowded into their small house, that used to belong to my grandparents.

This year though, we don't get to go. My parents now spend 11 months a year in Florida instead of 8-9. So they sold the house to my uncle and rent an efficiency apartment for a month while they are in town. My dad organizes a couple baseball tournaments in July and he has to be there or they probably would just stay in Florida apart from occasional week long visits here & there. 4 additional people will not fit into an efficiency apartment (especially one that shares a kitchen with another apartment). There are no cabins available at Oglebay due to a golf tournament and no hotel rooms in a 50 mile radius due to those baseball tournaments and Jamboree in the Hills. July is a busy month for the tourist industry in Wheeling and like it or not I am now officially a tourist. I have no 'home' there any longer. I have to start making reservations in January for our July visit.

My parents are coming here in August, on their way to Florida, and will stay a few days, so at least we will get to see them. We'll see my brother's family at Xmas. But this means I will have to go 2 WHOLE YEARS with no Di Carlos pizza. I'm seriously bummed about the pizza. I love that pizza.

The Music in Me

2008-07-08T20:01:00.001-04:00

I don't listen to music very often. I'd like to while I am on the computer, but it is in the family room and the kids make too much noise playing, or have a Wii game on, or someone is watching TV and I feel guilty wearing headphones to shut my kids out even more than I already am by being on the computer in the first place. Unless I am alone in the house, I don't listen to music very often at home. I listen to audiobooks at the gym, which mostly leaves me with the car for music.

I have a Zen Vision M mp3 player now. It has 40GB, holds a couple dozen audio books, my entire music collection, a ton of photos plus I don't know how many videos (I don't use the video function much). I mostly use it to listen to audio books at the gym, waiting for appointments or when I am in the car. Problem is lately I'm listening to not family friendly books. Assorted curse words are heard, sexual situations, violence, etc. It was one thing when I was listening to A Bone of Contention and my son wanted to know what a whore was. It is an historic mystery set in the late 1100's. The sleuth was a whoremistress. The word was being appropriately used in it's proper context. (He also asked what a bishop & destrier were) But I wouldn't like to explain the use of whore in a modern pejorative context. So audio books are out in the car for now, leaving me with just music.

Before the Zen I had an iPod mini. A nice little 4GB player. I traded up to get more space and the video option. I gave the iPod to DH, who has never used it. I found it the other day and decided to load it up with all my music and just leave it in the car or at least in my purse. That way I'd always have music ready to go & wouldn't have to go through bookmarking the audio book, checking to make sure the bookmark took (I never trust it, but it has always bookmarked things), backing all the way out to the main menu, going back into the music playlists, etc and then having to reverse it all to get back to the book 20 minutes later when we get to they gym. Plus I don't mind if the kids play with the mini. I'm terrified they will accidentally lose my place in an 8 hour audio book & it will take me 45 minutes to find it again.

Here is my problem - I don't know how to categorize music. When I say 'load all my music' I am talking about 350 tracks, 100 of which are Celtic and another 50 are kiddie songs. I have about 200 songs that, in my mind, fall into 2 categories - 80's and not 80's. 40 or so songs are 'not 80's', leaving me 160 songs to subdivide into manageable playlists. I eventually came up with 80's alternative, 80's pop and 80's metal/hair band. Most of the music in 'not 80's' is from the 70's, except for some Nickleback & the Bare Naked Ladies.

When was the last time I encountered new music? ummmmm....

fireworks

2008-07-04T11:51:00.001-04:00

What Your These Fireworks Say About You

You are focused, single minded, and intense.

You don't let others see your intensity often, and when they do, they are quite surprised.

You burn brightly, but you also burn steadily.

You have the endurance to get the one thing you desire most.

The Fireworks Test

June accomplishments

2008-07-01T15:45:00.001-04:00

I read 22 new books. I also reread 17 of them and 3 others. On April 1 I started keeping track of my reading as part of the 50 Book Challenge on Library Thing (the challenge being to read 50 books in a year). I was 100% certain I'd meet the 50 book goal well before the 12 month mark. I was not expecting it so early. As of June 30th I had read 56 new books and reread 20 more books in 3 months. Granted, 40 of those new books would probably be called 'fluff' but still, I read them.

I scrapped 14 layouts and earned a 40% discount at SSD.

I cooked dinner 5 nights a week every week.
I went to the gym at least 2x a week every week

I patched 5 cat clawed holes in the pool ring, one of those holes I patched 4x before the patch actually held.

I was accepted as a Hawt Freelancer on Traci Reed's CT.

I was given a guest spot for August on Eva Kipler's CT

The boys and I read 19 books, most with a dinosaur theme.

DH bought a motorcycle

I finished 3/4 of a crochet dinosaur and am a third of the way through another one I am designing as I go

my fridge contents

2008-06-21T10:32:00.001-04:00

It got 3 out of 5 right.

What Your Fridge Says About You

You like to be surrounded by things you love. You aren't exactly greedy, but you can be materialistic at times.

You tend to be a fairly thrifty person. You splurge occasionally, but you're mostly a saver.

You are a very adventurous person. You love to try new things, and you get bored very easily.

You try to be responsible, but you don't always succeed. Your heart is in the right place though.

You are likely to be married - and very busy.

What Do the Contents of Your Refrigerator Say About You?

Rural living downer #1

2008-06-20T20:50:00.001-04:00

Nobody delivers to here. Nobody has ever delivered to here and if they weren't delivering when gas was under $2 a gallon there is no way anyone is suddenly going to decide to deliver out here.

OK I take that back. The General Store did, briefly deliver out here & they did deliver everything in the store from pizza to milk to cat food to beer, but their mark up is outrageous and then they tack not only a $5 delivery fee but a mileage fee onto the order. We live 7.4 miles away, the deliver within 9 miles and charge by the mile. Even Brad's truck gets better mileage than we would be paying the delivery guy. And the milk was $4.25 a gallon when it was $3.50 everywhere else. A large pizza & a gallon of milk ended up costing almost $30, for which we could drive into town, get Papa John's to go and get milk from the Food Lion in the same plaza for less. Then they stopped doing it because of gas prices.

I'd like chinese food delivered, or pizza or subs or any damn thing really. I don't care that it won't be hot - nothing is ever hot when DH brings it home anyway. I just want to eat at a reasonable hour & if I could call someone they could have it here before DH gets home and we could eat before 6:45, which is the earliest he gets home if he has to stop & pick up food I've called in.

Mostly though I'd like groceries delivered. I find the whole idea of going online and ordering groceries & having them brought to my door fascinating. The same way I find most sci fi fascinating. It's another world. It's THE FUTURE and not one I'm ever going to be a part of. People bring groceries to your house! Bags of chicken, milk, yogurt & cheese. Who picks out the produce? What if you think it is overripe? Can you return it? How do you cash in the coupons? It gets complicated when I start to think about it. Groceries are a hands on affair to me, especially since I am trying to get away from using too many packaged foods. I find the idea appealing, but as with so many appealing ideas, I don't know how I would deal with the reality.

Absorbed in books

2008-06-20T20:01:00.002-04:00

I just blew through 13 of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books. I read 3,4,5 and 7 over the weekend and 8-13, plus the 2 novellas, between 11am Monday morning and 10pm Thursday evening - totally ignoring my children for 3 solid afternoons. I have no idea what they were doing from 1pm to 6pm Mon, Wed & Thurs. Sometimes they came in the room with dinosaurs, occasionally I heard them in the playroom. I did get them snacks, but apart from that I was in Stephanie's life, not my own.

Obviously they are light reads, 3 hard back books in one day is a bit much even for me. But it has been ages since I was so fully taken into a series, especially one that made me laugh so hard I wasn't able to see the words through the tears. I think Jasper Fford's Thursday Next series was the last time I neglected my children in favor of books in any serious, solid reading time, way. I read all the time, but most of the time it is for 30 minute segments and I am aware of what the boys are doing &prepared to put my book down & interact. This week I really have no idea what went on in my house. everyone is alive, healthy and nothing has been damaged or broken, so I assume they did as usual - played with dinosaurs, pretended to be Indiana Jones, raced in Mario Kart, watched some Land Before Time & Thomas DVDs and given the mess in the playroom, spent a good deal of time with the Imaginext pirate ships.

I'm glad it went well because it will happen again. I love to read & sometimes I get lucky & find something that absorbs me so completely I am totally unaware of my own surroundings while I am reading it. Granted, a 15 book series was a bit much, even for me but I really needed that. I feel so much better now.

I have book 14 and the other novella on order from Amazon. They should be here Wednesday. I bought all the other books in a set on eBay today. There are books I don't mind checking out of the library and there are books I must own. For the sheer laugh out loud escapism of them, I must own the Stephanie Plum series.

48 hours to myself

2008-06-13T20:49:00.001-04:00

I've been alone in the house for 48 hours. The males went camping Wednesday morning & came back around dinner time today.

What did I do with all this time alone?

First I scrubbed the kitchen cabinets, counters & appliances thoroughly. The way things can only be cleaned if you are guaranteed not to be interrupted during the process.

Second I completed the last pages of my hybrid album & began to print them out.

Third I completed a layout for my new CT position. :)

Fourth I read all of Face Down Below the Banqueting House. Eh.. I've read nearly all the books in this series and while I liked the first 3-4, I'm not loving the more recent ones. Some of the recurring characters are getting a bit annoying.

Fifth I scrubbed, mopped and wiped down the kitchen floor. I have deep sympathy for 19th century scullery maids. My floor is natural slate with all the natural unevenness that comes with it. So while mopping is a useful stopgap, at least 2x a year I have to get down on my hands & knees with a bucket of soapy water (repeatedly dumped & replaced), a washcloth and a scrub brush and SCRUB the bejeezus out of the floor, taking care to wipe up the excess water with the washcloth or it will settle in the crevices & leave stains. Then once the scrubbing is done it has to have a rinse with a mop and then back down on the floor with a rag to wipe up the water. My knees and arms are killing me.

Sixth I went out for sushi with a friend.

Seventh I read Hot Six. I'm really getting into this series, so much so that I broke my own rule of reading series in order and skipped from book 2 to book 6 because 3,4, and 5 are currently checked out.

Eighth I assembled this:

my first hybrid album. I only had to reprint 2 pieces of it. And there is a smear on the A where it wasn't completely dry & some Mod Podge got on it. But other than that it went smoothly.

Hybrid

2008-06-10T08:49:00.001-04:00

I've posted before about how I like the different Maya Road albums and others that Sweet Shoppe sells. And how I don't get along with scissors so I can't use them. Well, I've collected quite a number of premade album pages lately with Sweet Shoppe's FWP offers and I sort of feel I should at least try one. The Bree did a set of templates for the layer book my last week guesting for her. So I decided to bite the bullet and try it. I ordered a star album and a layer book.

Meanwhile, for practice I decided to do a couple of Sweet Shoppe's hybrid card album challenges. It is a set called 52 Pickup, new card every week. I figured it's 4 straight line cuts, how hard can it be? oh my....

This is the first one I did

I had to print it out 3 times before I cut it properly. Scissors...

This is the second one.

This time I used a penknife and a ruler on a cutting mat. Slightly better results. A bit a skew to the left where the ruler slid a bit, but not too bad. I had DH pick me up a razor knife when he was out yesterday. We'll see how I do with it on the next one.

I've got the layer album mostly created. I found some Mod Podge at Wal Mart finally, so now it's a matter of ink. Will there be enough? I'm hoping to get it assembled by Friday. We'll see

Nerd Score

2008-06-05T10:36:00.002-04:00

May Recap

2008-06-01T10:32:00.001-04:00

This month I read 14 new books and re read 2 other books. 6 were non-fiction and 10 were fiction.

I created 13 layouts, participated in 20 challenges and earned 28 points at Sweet Shoppe - giving me a 40% discount in June.

I was a guest CT member for Bree Clarkson and was turned down for 2 other CTs.

I paid $2200 to get my car repaired.

We went to Day Out with Thomas and to Great Wolf Lodge.

I crocheted over half a dinosaur.

I set up the swimming pool.

The boys finished K4 and K3.

We watched all of Firefly through Netflix.

Summer Reading

2008-05-27T10:24:00.001-04:00

I bought the boys some workbooks for the summer, to keep them up on what they learned this past year. It is so easy to forget things over 3 months & then have to relearn them. I don't have it in me to home school full time but I've always planned to supplemental school & I'm starting this summer.

Both books had summer reading lists and since I am dealing with K4 and kindergarten, many of the books are identical. I also found a reading list at the Daniel Boone Regional Library (my library didn't have one online) that is divided by age & grade. Again, some overlap, but not a lot. I now have a fairly decent sized list of books to work with when the kids don't seem interested in choosing their own.

I've got The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease and The Well Trained Mind by Bauer & Wise on hold at the library. They are both due back June 3rd. I often find educational books for the kids on hold and I always wonder who has them. Is it the same person? Am I following along behind someone, finding the books or developing the interest just a week later than they do? Is it many people? Are they people I would like to meet & talk to? Why are they reading the books? What did they take away from them? How could I get in touch with them? I haven't searched the online database for the kiddy books, there are a lot of them & I know from experience that their presence or lack thereof in the database only partially reflects the reality of their presence in the library. The toddler, preschool & early reader books are not well logged.

I found The Wind in the Willows. Many Moons and a couple Captain Underpants on Bookmooch yesterday and requested those. I discovered a number of books on the reading lists were part of Amazon's buy 3 get the 4th free deal. The books in that rotate so I am keeping an eye on them. I ended up getting Harold & the Purple Crayon (50th Anniversary Edition), The Toll Bridge Troll, A Pizza the Size of the Sun (not in the deal), How My Parents Learned to Eat and Sheep in a Jeep.

DH & I have decided to work our way through many of the books in The Well Educated Mind. We're starting with Don Quixote, which the library does not seem to have..... but is interlibrary loaning for us. Shouldn't a library have Don Quixote in it?

Book Review - On a Hoof and a Prayer

2008-05-16T20:47:00.001-04:00

On a Hoof and a Prayer is the fourth book by Polly Evans. This time she travels to Argentina to learn to ride a horse and to experience the country. I love her books. I find her stories compelling and fascinating. She is very descriptive about the places she visits and the things she experiences. Each of her previous books feature her exploring a country using different methods. It's Not About the Tapas, her first book, is the story of her travels around Spain by bike. She was a novice bike rider at the beginning and you could feel your muscles aching in sympathy with hers in the early part of her journey. She toured China by train and bus in Fried Eggs with Chopsticks and with her weeks old motorcycle license, rented a motorcycle and cycled all over New Zealand in Kiwis Might Fly. This time around, despite the title, her mode of transportation was more often than not, something other than a horse. There were horses early in the book and occasionally in the middle of the book but they were overshadowed by more mundane airline reservation issues. I don't think she intended to ride all over Argentina on a horse, but given her other books, I assumed there would be more riding than there actually was. It was a very good book, as well written and engrossing as her others, but I was expecting more riding. Her bike was as much a character in It's Not About the Tapas as she was, so was her motorcycle in Kiwi's Might Fly. Much of what I love about her books is reading about her struggles with transportation, the pain of biking up mountains, the crowded buses in China, the fear of opening the throttle in New Zealand. I had hoped there would be more about horseback riding, so I was a bit disappointed in this book. Her next one is about sled dogs in Canada & I'm hoping she spends more time with them than she did with the horses in Argentina. But both countries are very large and you can no more tour Canada by dogsled than you can Argentina by horse.

Childhood crushes

2008-05-09T16:09:00.001-04:00

My biggest crush, started when I was 10, was on Han Solo.

Seriously. How can you not be in love with Han Solo? He's funny, he's dashing, he's rebellious, he's sexy, he's just disdainful enough, he's good with a blaster & is an incredible pilot. He made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs! How can you not love a guy like that?

In the years between Star Wars movies I had a passing crush on most of the guys in Duran Duran at one time or another

They wore make up than I did but that never mattered.

Then the Indiana Jones movies came out.

Indiana Freakin' Jones!!! I was 14 when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out & let me tell you it sparked my imagination in all sorts of ways that Han Solo had not been able to when I was 10.

I've had a 30 year crush on Harrison Ford. I just love that man!

I've been scrapping!

2008-05-06T19:43:00.001-04:00

I am a guest CT member for Bree Clarkson at the Sweet Shoppe this month! I've already done 3 layouts so far and am in the middle of a fourth. I love Bree's templates! I did this with one from her Popsicle Paradise set

i did this with one from her Inspired by Karen set

and I used the Popsicle Paradise kit for this one

You can see complete credits in my gallery at Sweet Shoppe, link at the right.

I'm currently working on an amigurumi dinosaur. I don't have a pattern & am trying to figure it out as I go. I'm working on a stegasaurus & I've unraveled twice so I have no photo. The boys have been really into dinosaurs lately.

In book news I read 21 books last month, which accounts for what did instead of scrapping or crocheting. 5 books were rereads, 16 were new. 5 were non fiction and 16 were fiction. 3 were actually audiobooks. So far this month I have read 5 books, 3 of which were light paperback mysteries & each took me about 4 hours from start to finish. Which is why I no longer buy light paperback mysteries. The cost to enjoyment ratio is just too low.

my latte

2008-05-04T11:23:00.002-04:00

What Your Latte Says About You

You are easygoing and pretty simple to please. You don't put up a fuss... ever.

You can be quite silly at times, but you know when to buckle down and be serious.

You have a good deal of energy, but you pace yourself. You never burn out too fast.

You're totally addicted to caffeine... but you like to pretend like you aren't!

You are responsible, mature, and truly an adult. You're occasionally playful, but you find it hard to be carefree.

You are deep and thoughtful, but you are never withdrawn.

What Does Your Latte Say About You?

Looky what I got!

2008-04-30T09:25:00.001-04:00

An Epic washer & dryer. Front loading. 4.0 and 7.0 cubic feet capacity! I can at long last wash my comforters in my own home!! I can also dry a normal load of laundry in less than an hour & a half!

That is the first layout I have done in over 3 weeks. I haven't had much scrapping mojo lately but I'm feeling like if I can get through this week, I'll be in a better mental place to scrap. Plus we're going to Day out with Thomas Saturday so I'll have some fun new photos to scrap as well. That means I'll miss the NSD excitement & sales. I seem to miss it every year though so I am used to it.

I've been reading a lot instead of scrapping or crocheting. I'm about to finish my 20th book this month this afternoon. giving me 15 new reads and 5 rereads.

I've also been working on a Gandalf figure but I'm not having much luck. My stitch counter keeps falling out of the yarn & I'm not tracking what row I am on very well. We have a long drive Saturday to the Thomas thing, so I'm going to see if I can do any better on the way there.

2042 books!

2008-04-18T15:36:00.002-04:00

My Library Thing library is now completely up to date. 2042 books. I like that the 42 ended up in there without my realizing it. I actually have something about 1100 of those books in my possession currently.
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Stacey42

Now that this is done perhaps I can get back to crochet & digi scrapping. I haven't done a single layout or picked up a hook this month.

Why hasn't anyone been murdered yet?

2008-04-15T14:03:00.001-04:00

My parents were in town this weekend. The boys spent most of their time trying to get Grandma & Pa to put their books down & play with them, which they were perfectly willing to do. This meant that I could read a book in relative peace.

I read Excellent Women by Barbara Pym in one day. It was glorious. Then, later in the evening I discussed the book with my family. It was a good read. Lots of detail, well drawn characters, with that cozy British village feel. But nobody died & I found that very disconcerting. I have been reading a lot of mysteries lately & forgot this was just fiction. I read the first couple chapters with an eye toward guessing who the victim would be and speculating on possible motives by various other characters for doing away with this person or that person. But nobody was murdered. I was 6 chapters into the book wondering when the hell a body would turn up before I remembered this was not a cozy village mystery but a straight story. It left me feeling the book was a bit off. There was plenty of scope in the story for a murder, possibly even 2 or 3 (to ensure the murder's safety), lots of motives and some people who certainly could be believably driven to it. The main character was one of those 'excellent women' of village fiction, a spinster who just seems to get involved in people's live. Still, everyone persisted in remaining alive throughout the whole book. I liked the book, I was just slightly perturbed by it, but I think that was entirely my fault. I'm going to have to read it again when I am not on a cozy mystery spree.

After I had this discussion it occurred to me what I had said. "I have been reading a lot of cozy mysteries lately." In other words - I HAVE HAD TIME TO READ LATELY!!!! and I didn't even realized it. I am an avid reader. I am the child of avid readers. When we get together with my parents, once the kids are in bed there is a 90% chance we will all sit around reading. Or talking about what we are reading.

I had time to read when Havoc was a baby. I could read when he was sleeping or nursing or playing happily in his bouncer or the floor. Then he started crawling and had to be watched, then he was cruising, then walking, then Mayhem was born and it started all over, only without the 'time to read while he was a baby' part because I also had a toddler. I still had some time here & there, but there were other things I wanted to do with that time & working out how to spend it was tricky. There was little money to buy books, having lost my income & gained two dependants. My sanity was not up to taking a couple of toddlers to the library very often. (I find regulating my children's public behavior to be the most stressful part of parenting toddlers & preschoolers). I reread my existing books & occasionally bought a new one. But where once I would sit down & devour my new purchases in a few days, now a week could pass before I opened one book.

Some time in past 6 months or so something changed. The demons grew. They needed less supervision & were capable of longish periods of play that didn't involve me. Mayhem started school 3 days a week and I could go into a bookstore or a library and actually BROWSE childfree. Their behavior, individually, has improved to where I am not on constant high alert. (together they are still demons). I have new books in the house and I have time to read them. Every day almost I have at least an hour after dinner to myself. Most days I can grab a few 15-30 minute stretches to read. I have to do it standing up at the kitchen counter in order to not be immediately climbed all over, but that is a small price to pay. My to be read pile on my nightstand has 9 books in it, there are 5 waiting to be taken back to the library that I have finished. I have regularly been checking out and actually READING several books a week.

Which explains the lack of new layouts or crochet projects.....

I'm a know it all

2008-04-11T10:07:00.001-04:00

take the quiz here

www.guessthespot.com

and see how well you do.

Photo of the Day - Week 14

2008-04-09T12:08:00.000-04:00

March 31 - the Island of Sodor today

April 1 - I'm not sure who is hauling who

April 2 - beautiful day to play with the hose

April 3 - setting up the castle for defense

April 4 - what trains do when there is no track

April 5 - Curious George comes for a visit & helps make banana muffins

April 6 - Curious George learns to play cow racing.

Yarn woes

2008-04-07T17:18:00.001-04:00

I've been out on etsy looking at the lovely hand dyed yarns. They are all so pretty my hands just itch to reach through the screen and touch them. Problem is, odds are my hands really would itch if I touched the yarn but I have no way of knowing for sure without actually touching. Sniff... all that lovely yarn and I can't have any!

I just bought some Vinca superwash sock weight wool in a beautiful blue off of etsy. That's supposed to be the really soft stuff and it is soft ish on my hands, but a little scratchy on my legs and I'm afraid to make it into socks for fear I'd never wear them.

I have a wool sensitivity & it extends to cover mohair, angora, llama, and alpaca. I'm allergic to dog & cat hair too, so I'm assuming its just an animal sensitivity. Some wools, etc, are just a bit uncomfortable. I could wear them as a cardigan or shawl, assuming it didn't constantly touch bare skin. Most wools make me itchy and give me hives. Some make my eyes swell shut. Its not the lanolin, which most wool lovers immediately point to as the culprit, I can use lanolin lotion with no problem. Its the actual animal hair itself. How it is processed can make it easier on me. I have no idea how any of the wool yarn I encounter is processed, I just know I find things itchy when others marvel at it's softness. Making it impossible to buy yarn without touching it.

I want some nice, lovely, quality yarn to crochet with. I've been working on my afghan which is Red Heart acrylic, and I'm ready for a change. I'd love some silk or bamboo yarn but I'e only seen blends with wool that I can afford. Maybe it would be fine but I can't drop $11-15 on a maybe. I wish there was a yarn store around me so I could go and and get all touchy with they different yarns & then have some idea of brands & blends to look for. I'm making the drive to the big city tomorrow for Mayhem's hearing screening (he failed the doc's office test, but he can hear & possibly was not paying attention so the full screen is called for). There is a yarn store near the screening place. If Mayhem is in a good mood and not too grubby I may be able to check it out.

I want some nice yarn to play with.

How I know I am old

2008-04-01T17:28:00.001-04:00

There is this tv commercial running lately. It's for a cell phones or maybe for cell phone service. I'm not sure because the commercial content itself distracts me so much I pay no attention to the logo. It shows 2 people, one sitting outside on a park bench & the other sitting in a home, on a sofa. They are both holding cell phones and texting one another what are assumed to be romantic messages, given the doodles shown over their heads. Here is why I don't know what exactly is being sold & why I do know I am old. Every time I see that commercial I cannot help but say "Why don't they just CALL each other? They are holding PHONES in their hands." Obviously they have nothing going on to prevent them from actually speaking to one another. They are alone. They are not doing anything else. Why would you text someone in that circumstance? I can see texting if you are someplace where you cannot talk easily - someplace really noisy or someplace really quiet. I can see texting specific information that doesn't require extraneous conversation - a phone number, the amount the parking fine turned out to be. I can see texting useful or important info if you know the recipient is not in a position to take a call - in a meeting or at the dentist. But why, why why why, would you carry on a random text based conversation with someone when you are both sitting alone, doing nothing and HAVE PHONES IN YOUR HANDS?? I can see the usefulness of texting, I can even see the fun in randomly texting your significant other affectionate messages, I can even sort of understand texting 'what up?" to your friends but I don't understand the need to fully converse with it. I don't understand why the recipient of 'what up" would text back lots of info that would then be replied to with more info. Why wouldn't the recipient just call back?

So, obviously, I am old.

photo of the day - week 13

2008-03-31T11:58:00.000-04:00

March 24 - the Pirates of Radiator Springs

March 25 - Mayhem loves to vacuum

March 26 - Car racing outside

March 27 - the Island of Sodor today

March 28 - my laptop is under attack!

March 29 - The trains get in a little light reading

March 30 - Bubble fun

Library Thing

2008-03-27T14:02:00.000-04:00

I've been busy at The Library Thing this past week. I've been adding books to my library & checking out groups. I have about 400 of my 2000+ books added so far. I no longer own that many books, but that is how many are in my booklist, which covers the books I owned in 1990 and that I have read or owned from then until 2003. Then there are the books I have owned or read since 2003, when the demands of small children made it difficult to buy books and impossible to keep track of them. My husband bought me a CueCat bar code scanner for the books I own. I've been scanning them in like crazy & have completed the shelves in our bedroom & the living room. I still have the ones in the office, which are the bulk of the books and the ones in the bathrooms to scan. Then I have to go through the booklist & see what is missing and add them, plus try & figure out what I have borrowed from the library in the past couple years.

I love the CueCat. It's my new favorite toy. I did a layout about it for a challenge at Sweet Shoppe a couple weeks ago.

If you look over on that sidebar -----} you'll see some random books from my library. If you are on the Library Thing too, I go by the same ID I use in the crochet & digi scrapping forums. Please add me to your friends.

Photo of the Day - week 12

2008-03-24T10:07:00.001-04:00

March 17 - Construction in the gravel pit

March 18 - Percy busy shunting trucks

March 19 - The trains have taken to piracy

March 20 - Building a big big tower

March 21 - Gathering black walnuts from the yard

March 22 - Clearing small trees

March 23 - Pruning branches

Why I am not Hybrid

2008-03-23T10:09:00.001-04:00

In the scrapping sense, someday I will own a hybrid vehicle. There are 2 main reasons why I won't be making any hybrid projects anytime in the near future.

1. You have to cut things out. My issues with scissors go back to preschool. If it is a straight line, even with the help of a cutting tool & guide, there is only a 75% chance I will get it right. I'm better with fabric than I am with paper, it seems to slip less. If it is not a straight line there is a 75% chance that I will screw it up. If there is some sort of die cutting machine involved the odds go to 50%. That is why I am a digi scrapper. I can undo my mistakes without a waste of paper, ink & money

2. No one in my family would have any idea what to do with my little gift projects. We aren't 'photo gift' people. The gift would be honestly appreciated at the time & looked at then. But then it would be set on a shelf or in a drawer & become the worst type of dust collector. The worst type because it is a hand made item, made by a family member, giving a personalized gift to you. You can't just toss it when you realize 10 months down the road that you have never looked at the thing again & would like to declutter a bit. By & large they are not useful items, they are decorative & decorative just doesn't work well with my family.

I love the key plate & scallop albums Sweet Shoppe is selling. They havea birthday calendar premade set to go with the key plate & I can sort of see a use for it. But even if I had some reason for making them (all my just for the heck of it creativity is directed toward amigurumi at the moment) I would never be able to cut out the paper to fit on the album. The shape would defeat me & I'd waste a lot of paper trying to get it right. I have to reprint, at least once, the rectangular bookmarks that I make for my dad every Xmas. They are selling a Maya Road Calendar, that stands up. That is a possible. It's a rectangle and it's useful. But so far they have no albums to go with it, though I am sure some will be coming. It's a 5x7 so possibly some of the brag book sets would work with it.

The third, less influential reason I don't hybrid is I'd have to go buy stuff - things called Modge Podge & Kryron that are some sort of adhesives and a craft knife & probably some other stuff and knowing me I'd buy the wrong stuff. It just seems a bit complicated...

unbreakable eggs

2008-03-20T15:53:00.001-04:00

I've been making these the last few days

The white one looks like an egg, but the others...I'm not so sure. I think without context, like a bowl or basket, people will probably wonder what the hell they are.

I have 6 of them completed, but the boys like to kick them around & 2 have gone missing. I found the pattern in my "The World of Amigurumi" book. It also has half eggs, with chicks, but the boys preferred just decorated whole eggs. I'm hoping to have a dozen to put in the basket by Sunday. Then I am going to work on mushrooms

new look for spring

2008-03-19T14:43:00.003-04:00

Ok, technically the equinox isn't until tomorrow but I thought it might be nice to be ahead of the game for the first time in weeks. Now i just need to go around & change my avatars & I will be done.

I did up my myspace page to match. Embarrassing story there. I haven't been there since maybe November & several people contacted me around Xmas and I am just now getting their messages. One of them is my cousin, who I have not seen since our Nan died. I am so embarrassed that months have gone by without me replying. When I rearranged my bookmarks & my links I lost the myspace link & got involved in other things & didn't even think about it until last night at bunco when a couple people were talking about their pages. I was like "Oh, yeah! I have a page there!" but then couldn't tell anyone what my user name was because I didn't remember. I think I am too old for myspace. I never know what to do on there. But I am exploring it again & have it tabbed so I check it regularly.

In other news, the boys finally dropped a Wiimote often enough to break it. It is still fine for pointing & clicking, but not for anything that requires swinging your arm around - bowling, baseball, tennis, etc... I have a repair ticket with Nintendo & they are sending me a mailing label to send it to them. DH complained when I asked him to register the Wii "Why do we need to do that?" "Because we will lose the receipt." and sure enough.....

In honor of St Patrick's Day

2008-03-17T16:51:00.001-04:00

I am making one of my Irish grandfather's favorite meals.

Muller's spaghetti with Ragu sauce.

Yeah, my family has never been much into 'cultural identity'. Pap, born in 1912, was the child of Irish immigrants & his job was to assimilate, which he did & never looked back. He married the granddaughter of German immigrants & together they went through the Depression & alone she went through WWII rationing & together they went into the canned & frozen food nirvana of the 50's. Nan's opinion was that she'd made enough food from scratch in her life, meals in boxes were a wonder to be enjoyed!

Oh cabbage appeared (though not corned beef) and shephard's pie, with mutton & turnips, and of course lots and lots of potatoes, but Pap's favorite meals were packaged versions of Italian food & if I am supposed to be honoring my Irishness, well.... Ragu & spaghetti it is!

I admit I am delighted to have the excuse to avoid that disgusting bane of my existence - cabbage. I cannot stand cabbage in any form. The smell of cabbage cooking send me fleeing from the building, hopefully before I start gagging. I have a strong, immediate, reflexive reaction to the smell of cooked cabbage.. When I was pregnant I have to leave work for the day whenever the cafeteria was serving it. One quarter German, one quarter Irish and I despise cabbage. Don't like onions either. I do love Italian food though. I blame my ancestors personally.

Photo of the Day - week 11

2008-03-16T16:49:00.001-04:00

March 10 - Some kids only have a sandbox. Ours have a 14'x14' gravel pit

March 11 - Diggers at work

March 12 - Off roading with your 4x4

March 13 - This backhoe has a lot of work ahead of it

March 14 - Train parade

March 15 - The Island of Sodor today (you didn't think we'd manage a whole week without it did you?)

March 16 - We colored eggs for Ostara. These are the ones that didn't crack too much.

Not what I had in mind

2008-03-15T16:23:00.000-04:00

I crocheted a market bag, from a Lion Brand pattern (must be logged into Lion Brand to see pattern). Somewhere along the line I screwed up. Somewhere between round 9 & 14 I duplicated a round & then early on in round 15-28 I added a couple more stitches. This ended up a full 18 stitches per round wider at the widest part. Which explains why I had insufficient yarn to finish it. I didn't discover I was off by 18 stitches until I was on round 29 & decreasing and I wasn't going to unravel back 20 rows to figure it out. Not when there were only 4 rounds left.

So this is my market bag. Not the most attractive thing I have ever done. I also changed the straps. I need 2 short straps for groceries, over the shoulder doesn't work for me.

On the plus side this thing can hold 4 gallons of milk at once!

I'm making it again. This time in ecru & I'm checking the stitch count more often.

Photo of the Day - week 10

2008-03-10T15:53:00.001-04:00

March 3 - "Big Paints!"

March 4 - sickness keeps everyone home and getting lots of rest while watching movies

March 5 - even the loader isn't feeling up to working

March 6 - a day spend reading books - over and over again

March 7 - Sodor is back in business

March 8 - reading a new Thomas book

March 9 - gale force winds cause trouble on Sodor

I'm really enjoying the amigurumi

2008-03-06T10:15:00.000-05:00

I made this guy this week

He is from a Lion Brand pattern & all told took me about 3 hours to make. Those 3 hours were spread out over 4 days because the kids have been sick & I haven't had much time to just sit & crochet.

In scrapping news I did manage to get a layout done. It was for the Sweet Shoppe inspiration challenge; the theme being to redo an old layout.

This is one of my earliest layouts, donei n my first month of digi scrapping. Everything was my own creation

This is the redone layout. Credit can be found in my DST gallery, link in the sidebar.

Photo of the Day - week 9

2008-03-03T11:21:00.001-05:00

Feb 25 - Henry delivers yogurt raisins for snacktime

Feb 26 - The trains are having an off track adventure

Feb 27 - Monster truck racing track

Feb 28 - Havoc playing the punching game

Feb 29 - The Island of Sodor today

Mar 1 - Soft block tower building

Mar 2 - New homes on Sodor

when you are sick

2008-03-01T09:05:00.001-05:00

We've been passing a cold around the house for 4-5 weeks now so this little set of questions is timely

1. How often do you get sick with a cold? The flu? Something else?

In general I get 3-4 colds a year, rarely the flu. I usually end up with some sort of stomach bug a couple times a year as well

2. Are you the sort of person who goes to work or school no matter how sick you are or are you willing to stay at home when it gets bad?

There is a point where I will stay home. Just a cough or sneezing I'll go to work. But fever, aches & chills will keep me home. So will most stomach bugs but only because I have to remain near the bathroom

3. How do you like to treat a cold? What remedies do you like and why? Do you go to the doctor willingly?

Rest, fluids and the occasional dose of Tylenol cold or Robitussin. At a certain point of non-recovery I will willing go to the doctor. I had chronic bronchitis & recurring sinus infections for 9 months in 2004. I am now very familiar with when I need professional care

4. What do you do to keep from getting sick in the winter?

Eat healthy, exercise, use hand sanitizer, drink a lot of water

5. What is your favorite thing to do when you stay home from work or school?

Lay in bed & read

what I have been working on

2008-02-27T16:00:00.001-05:00

I found this pattern on someone's blog on Ravelry. It's in German but a friend who crochets & speaks German helped me figure it out.

Photo of the Day - week 8

2008-02-24T14:14:00.001-05:00

Feb 18 - The Island of Sodor today, a more rural part

Feb 19 - Bowling in the house

Feb 20 - Someone is hiding in the 'fort'

Feb 21 - Teaching brother to play tennis

Feb 22 - Terrance the 'bullzidder"

Feb 23 - We had friends over for a picnic

Feb 24 - Teddy bear sleep over

I have a new project

2008-02-23T14:04:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine is expecting her 3rd child in a couple of months. I decided I'd make some little crocheted animals & put loops on them so they can be hung to baby carriers and things. I found a cool looking shark pattern but it's in German. My friend Bettina helped me with some translating and I went back & rewrote it into English. So now I am working on that. Then I am going to to make a turtle & then an octopus. I haven't worked from an established pattern in ages. We'll see how it goes. So far the shark is going along. I'm used to crocheting a bit more loosely than you need to for these stuffed things, and sometimes I feel like I am going to snap my hook in two from exerting so much pressure to pull it back out of the loops when I single crochet.

There is a treasure hunt going on in the digi scrap world. It looks like a lot of fun, almost 50 designers are involved. I started out on it, but a lot of the prizes require store registration to download & I am already registered in dozens of stores I'll never go back to. I think I stopped about 7 or 8 clues in, after the 3rd store where I had to register. I understand that with all the piracy going on that is the best way to make sure mostly only people on the hunt get the prizes, I'm just not up for al the registering & since you have to download the prize to get the next clue, that ends the hunt for me. I may pick it back up again this evening & register more places but my internet connection ain't all that at the moment so it's just easier not to right now.

got my Ravelry invite today!

2008-02-21T15:46:00.001-05:00

I'm Stacey42, because I am soooooo creative with my user names.

I've spent the day so far uploading photos of my projects, finding groups to join, searching out people, listing my hooks (OMG! I had no idea I had so many crochet hooks) and looking for things to add to my queue.

Ravelry is a dangerous place, not just from the possible crochet project ideas, the new people to talk to, and the cool yarn. But because Ravelry gave me a link to The Library Thing, an online personal booklist. You can slurp up you amazon purchases & add them all at one go to your Library. If you have a bar code scanner you can scan your books & upload that file. (DH is getting me a bar code scanner. He's getting it to test for something at his job & if it works for what he has in mind for them he'll buy another one for them & give me this one. How geeky is it that not only does he think I might want a bar code scanner to catalog my books, but that I am actually excited to get it?) You can tag the books & rate them & link up with others who have the same books & see what else they might have. The downside of the Library Thing is you can only have 200 books for free. It's $10 a year or $25 for lifetime, right now. They are still in beta. I'm not sure how much I'll do with it so I"m not paying yet. But I have over 1500 books on my personal booklist, that I stopped updating around the time Mayhem was born, so if I use it I will certainly have to pay.

what to watch?

2008-02-20T10:30:00.003-05:00

I like to crochet while I watch TV. We have a Netflix membership, but we don't rent many movies with them. We get TV shows. The last movie we rented with them was Ocean's Thirteen. I loved all 3 Ocean's movies, plus Beyond the Sunset with Pierce Brosnan & Woody Harrelson, which is the same sort of plot. When I am alone during the morning I have been re-watching classic Mel Brooks movies that I own - Blazing Saddles, History of the World Part 1, Young Frankenstein.

Mostly though I am watching the Netflix TV shows that we either didn't see all of, or haven't seen in ages. Right now we are watching season 1 of Eureka (we've caught season 2 on Sci Fi), then I have The Tudors from HBO (which we don't get) coming, followed by Firefly (only saw 3 episodes of it on tv) and then Babylon 5, my all time favorite sci fi series, which hasn't been on TV since Havoc was an infant. I watched reruns on SciFi while nursing at 2am. :)

Needless to say all this viewing is adding a nice pile of crocheted rounds to my afghan.

Photo of the Day week 7

2008-02-18T11:07:00.001-05:00

Feb 11 - Sodor today

Feb 12 -Gordon delivery goldfish crackers for snacktime

Feb 13 - a two story car house

Feb 14 - Sodor today

Feb 15 - a rescue mission

Feb 16 - new playground equipment at the park

Feb 17 - a beautiful day for bike riding

My craft bag

2008-02-14T17:21:00.001-05:00

I'd been keeping all my yarn in this big bin

and the crocheted rounds in zip lock bags, but it was a pain in the butt to drag out every time I wanted to crochet. Taking out a skein or two made me lose rounds & left the skeins vulnerable to small boys. Plus the more rounds I created, the more space they took up, so I had bags all over the place.

I went to Michael's & JoAnn Fabrics looking for a craft bag of some sort, maybe with wheels, that could hold everything compactly. They had some nice scrapbooking storage bags & some nice cross stitch & embroidery storage bags and some nice yarn storage bags for knitting & crochet projects. But my goodness, the price! Even without wheels.

Then I went to Wal Mart to see what I could find. This is what I came up with. The bag itself was $8 and the little bins were 97 cents each. I've got 3 of them. I can keep a variety of yarn in the bag, which makes it easier to get the 'random' look in the squares. I don't lose track of the rounds & it zips shut so the boys can't see the yarn & aren't tempted to play with it. I just don't zip it completely shut and feed the yarn through the space.

My wrist is feeling much better. I did a little crocheting today & it didn't hurt but I'm not doing much yet. I haven't found any of those bracing gloves, but I'm headed to the big city Saturday to do some shopping with my GFs & will check a few places there. I'm thinking I might need to change my crochet style. I use the overhand (knife) method, maybe the underhand (pencil) method would give me less stress on those muscles.

Pat, I'm signed up to get on Ravelry. I signed up back in November but apparently I left an 'n' out of my email addy so it went to someone else or bounced. I only realized that a week or so ago when I saw a blog post about it. So I had to go back & sign up again. I think I should get my invite in the next couple days.

Repetitive Stress Injury

2008-02-11T19:23:00.000-05:00

Also known as 'Hookers Wrist" :) (I can only imagine the hits I'll be getting from that phrase)

All the crocheting I have been doing lately has caused my wrist & forearm to be really sore. It actually hurt to drive today. I had to keep changing how I hold the steering wheel. I used to have one of those braces that held your hand & wrist in the proper position & helped prevent the problem. But I can't find it. So I am taking a break for a few days. I do have about 8 three round sets done & have gone through two more colors of yarn, which added 8 single round sets and 6 doubles, but I haven't sat & counted them out in a few days.

I did make myself my own craft bag for this project. I bought a $8 duffel bag at WalMart and 3 plastic snap top bins for 97 cents each. The bins hold the sets sorted in their various stages of completion. The bag interior holds the 3 bins plus 6 full skeins of yarn (and many more half used ones), one deep outside pocket can hold the completed squares if I am not at home when I finish them and a small exterior pocket on the front holds my scissors, hooks and the pattern instructions. A customized craft bag for $11!

Photo of the Day week 6

2008-02-10T19:46:00.001-05:00

Feb 4 - the Island of Sodor, today

Feb 5 - Rain & melted snow left lots of puddles in the yard

Feb 6 - Apparently the Island of Sodor was recently invaded by some pirates & a small dragon

Feb 7 - We got a Wii! Target happened to have them in stock while I was there today

Feb 8 - Business as usual on Sodor

Feb 9 - Early morning train pile up outside of Tidmouth Sheds. Dangerous place, Sodor.

Feb 10 - We rented Cars for the Wii. Havoc has been very busy racing

Photos & more

2008-02-08T15:52:00.001-05:00

Today I received the 2004 photos I ordered and the 8x8 prints of my layouts that I ordered. Why can't Wal Mart print photos in order? My prints were divided into 3 envelopes & appear to be loosely alphabetical, ignoring those numbers I put in the front of the titles. So 03mar004 comes after 07jul008 and then at random I'll find a photo from December in the middle of the ones from June. So I will have to go through all 223 of them and sort them out by month before I can start putting them in the album.

We bought a Wii a couple days ago. I happened to be in Target when they had 5 in stock so I grabbed one. Havoc has been very into it. We rented a couple Cars games from the video store & he's been playing them. He doesn't fully understand the story games, where you have to find things & solve puzzles, but he loves racing in the arcade. I found the cheat codes online to activate the whole arcade. He's never going to complete the main game to unlock all the races & the races are all he is interested in right now. Mayhem is interested in the Wii but not so much. He can't use the controller fully, anything involving the B button is confusing to him so he gets frustrated fairly quickly with some games. He likes some of the games on WiiPlay, but he can't stay focused on them. All his interest is concentrated on his Thomas trains. It has been since before Xmas. Mayhem is all Thomas, all the time.

I've been playing Wii Sports myself. So I have not been crocheting. Tuesday night I did a status check. I had 39 single rounds, 17 double rounds , 2 triple rounds and 8 completed squares. We have a couple Torchwood episodes on DVR to catch up on and Ocean's Thirteen from Netflix as well. I'm hoping to get some crocheting done while watching them this weekend.

Photo of the day week 5

2008-02-03T16:44:00.001-05:00

Jan 28 - and these are not all the Lightening McQueens we own

Jan 29 - Disney must have heard we were giving all our money to HiT Entertainment, so they have come up with these much smaller Cars we now must own

Jan 30 - we gave the boys a Playstation for Xmas. The original Playstation-from 1998

Jan 31 - we found the steering wheel control for Grand Tourismo.

Feb 1 - Nearly every toy we own is in this photo. Apparently it was a birthday party for all the trains. The other toys were the food and gifts. The blankets were for the sleep over they were having after the party

Feb 2 - the Island of Sodor - today

Feb 3 - the Island of Sodor - today. I spend a lot of time coming up with track configurations

What do I do all day?

2008-02-02T09:23:00.000-05:00

Libby at the Sweet Shoppe blog wants to know how we spend our days. I am a SAHM currently and my days have a similar routine. I get up at 7, put a load of laundry in the wash, get the kids ready for school and drive them there. Then I go to the gym and/or run any errands that need done. If I am home early enough I rotate the wash, check my email & do a little scrapping. I pick the kids up at noon. We have lunch and then they play. Depending on what they are doing I play with them or get on the computer or do some housework, usually all of them. I clean one room per day. The boys usually help me. Around 3 we have snack time & quiet time. We generally watch TV then. Then more play and computer time, and there is generally some reading in there. About 5:30 I start dinner. We eat shortly after 6. From dinner until bedtime is Daddy time & I go read in the bedroom after folding laundry. Sometimes I work on a layout. Then bath time, story time & bedtime for the kids. DH & I watch TV, I crochet or read & he surfs the web & we talk. I'm in bed by 11.