Finished a crochet project at last!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May Recap

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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.