My Thoughts on Life, Yarn, Kids, and Other Stuff

Video of me tattooing myself in front of a mirror

2011-09-29T23:04:00.005-04:00

Warning! There are small glimpses of breast areola in this video. I didn't film it and don't know how to edit it. If you aren't a grownup or if you are and are offended at this, move along, there's nothing to see here. Also excuse the little paunch, I'm bloated right now thanks to Mother Nature. Bleh.

This was filmed 9/29/11 at Integrity Tattoo, Maryville TN, where I'm apprentice under Miss Autumne Shields. I've been in skin approximately 4 months. Today's tattoo is the 3rd this week (2nd I've done on myself) and the 2nd piece of a 7-item upper stomach/chest piece of my own design.

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

2011-03-30T10:05:00.001-04:00

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Free genealogy - Vintage photographs

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

2011-03-30T09:57:00.001-04:00

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Ancestors - Family origins

Christmas so far...

2010-12-25T14:33:00.019-05:00

I started the day by putting my feet up a little. Note the wonderful handknit socks (a gift from my daughter Desiree last birthday)

Allen, our Marine, RAN the 1.5 miles up to our house from his apartment, in the snow.
I tried to get Diantha's picture but she hid.
Artemas looked bored...
Until we gave him a handknit hat & handspun, handknit balaclava (cowl). Then he became an awesome chef-wannabe Ninja...

And it scared Diantha so badly she hid...

Betsy actually was thrilled with her devil Sock Monkey, even if she doesn't look like it...
Josiah looks so cute in the hat that Veronica knitted for him.

Diantha made me some handknit socks... and then hid behind a pair of jeans...

We made French Toast Casserole. Beverly helped me tear up the bread. While I beat the eggs, she tore up almost a whole loaf of bread. We could have fed the neighbors breakfast this morning.

And Diantha hid behind a book

Diantha handspun the yarn & handknitted a hat for Veronica...

Diantha and Artemas were gonna watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail on the TV in my room...

Allen has cleaned all my guns for me. Last night I was gonna bake a cake but got too busy talking to somebody somebody on Skype. Maybe we'll do that now.

Allen's Graduating from the Marines

2010-11-03T13:36:00.001-04:00

On the 12th of November. He did well in Basic & made Sharpshooter. If anyone would like to send him a letter, card, or postcard of congratulations, please do so! Also he said if any girls want to send him a pic of themselves, he'd be more than grateful. He doesn't have a girlfriend. LOL.

Mail to:

Rct Ross, Allen J
Golf Comp 2d RTBN PLT2082
PO Box 16245
Parris Island, SC 29905

Thank you so much!

Comfort Food to Start and End the Day

2010-10-19T21:25:00.010-04:00

Two recipes tonight. Start your day with delicious scratch-made Lemon Poppyseed Muffins and end the evening with savory, comforting Chicken Noodle Soup!

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Lemon Poppyseed Muffins
You can use margarine in these muffins but I never do. Butter will moisten baked goods as they age, margarine will dry them. Plus why make delicious homemade food and put artificial bad-for-you stuff in it? Bleh. [steps off soapbox]

Preheat oven to 425F. Grease muffin pans or line with paper liners & set aside. Recipe will make about 12 regular muffins, 6 jumbo muffins or 18 mini muffins.

1 Cup lowfat sour cream or vanilla or lemon yogurt
zest and juice of 1 lemon
(if using poppyseeds, soak 1 Tablespoon of them in the juice for a few minutes)

2 large eggs

1/3 Cup melted butter (no substitute)

3/4 C sugar
Whisk briskly. Then add:

1 C flour (I use unbleached) (you will need another cup in a minute)

1 Tablespoon Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 teaspoon salt
Stir until blended.

Then add 1 more cup flour.

Stir until BARELY mixed in. Fill cups 2/3 full and bake 10 min. for mini, 12-14 for regular, about 20 for jumbo muffins. Loosen gently around edges from greased pans & turn out to cool. After cooling if you wish to glaze them, use juice and zest of another 1/2 lemon mixed with enough powdered sugar to make a thin glaze.

~:o]~~:0]~~:0]~~:0]~
Savory Chicken Noodle Soup
If you have a leftover carcass from having baked or roast chicken, save it and the drippings for this soup. Otherwise one large chicken breast or a couple small dark meat pieces and a box of chicken broth will do! Ingredients given to suit family of 4, (larger in parentheses). This soup freezes well too!

Chicken carcass or pieces

saved drippings or 32-oz. carton of chicken broth

10-oz box of frozen mixed vegetables (16oz bag for larger family)

1/2 onion, chopped (whole onion)

1 rib celery, sliced small (2 ribs)

1 clove garlic, minced (2 cloves)

1 bay leaf

1 Tablespoon salt or to taste

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon sage or finely crushed rosemary

1 cup small pasta or tiny egg noodles (2 cups)

Put chicken carcass & saved drippings (gel) and enough water to cover, (or chicken pieces and a 32-oz. box carton of chicken stock) in a stock pot or dutch oven & simmer (slow, tiny-bubble boil) a while.

While chicken is simmering, chop onion, celery and mince or press garlic. Saute these in a small amount of butter, bacon or chicken drippings until soft.

Remove chicken pieces from pot, place on plate or cutting board and shred meat off bones with 2 forks. Return meat to the pot. Add all the rest of the ingredients to the pot except the pasta. Bring back to a simmer. Once water is bubbling slightly, add the pasta. Let soup cook about 8 more minutes until pasta is tender.

If you wish to thicken the soup, you can make a roux & add to the pot or mix 2Tablespoons cornstarch with 2tablespoons water & stir into pot.

This is delicious served with toasted Italian bread or home-baked whole-grain bread & a mixed-green salad.

Seems Incredible

2010-09-12T23:05:00.005-04:00

Seems incredible to me that I haven't posted since July 27. To those who like to read my blog, I'm sorry I've fallen down on the job.

A lot has happened since July 27. Boyd and I are no longer at Ink Dimensions shop. He was undergoing medical treatments on his stomach that made it almost impossible to work. His treatments are done & right now we're working on getting into a new shop, closer for both of us than Ink Dimensions was. Meanwhile I also took my Bloodborne Pathogens class and passed it with a perfect score, for getting my apprentice license. Since there is no piercing apprentice license, I can apprentice for that at the same time & get both full licenses the end of May next year.

My son Allen went in the Marines. We've received one letter from him and he seems to be coping with the boot camp alright. Our thoughts and prayers are with him as he goes through this ordeal.

Richard and I are definitely getting a divorce. He's taken over Allen's apartment. No sense it sitting there with Allen owing rent on it for potentially 6 months. We had the forms printed for the marriage dissolution and came to agreeable terms on who gets what and how much and how long for and what to do with the kids. We signed them and had them notarized on Friday. I'm filing them this coming Wednesday.

For now, while I'm still not earning any money from my apprenticeship, it's going to be tight. The kids and I will have what we need but there probably won't be any extra, so I have to pray the car tires hold up and nobody has any cavities and wonder what in the world I'm going to do about Christmas. I can make gifts for a lot of us but not sure I have enough time in the world. There have been many Christmases past when it looked like there wouldn't be any money for presents but we made it through, so I'm sure this year will be no different.

To tell you the truth, I hate to sound mean but I'm so emotionally done with our marriage, and he's been dragging his feet leaving. I understand, because he's older, and hasn't done anything much for himself for almost 3 decades. Probably scary to think of having to pay bills (me too) and make food and be alone (me too). I know he doesn't really want to leave. But taking a long time to do so is only prolonging the inevitable, and really inducing a lot of anxiety in me.

He's been off for several days, and has been puttering around here, busily fixing things that he should have been working on for the last 4 years. Suddenly he wants to make sure everything works right for us since he'll be gone. But it's overwhelming to me, the number of things that need to be done (how many months will he be coming back with a toolbox) and the fact that now I'm gonna be a single mom, working so I won't be here even to work on things and with no resources to hire them done. And his trying to fill in that gap suddenly is overwhelming to me too. Today I started crying about it, though I know that tears don't help anything. Just bear with me, alright?

He moved his dresser out yesterday, and his toiletries, and Veronica slept in my room because he wanted to go to bed earlier than I did. Today I rearranged the bedroom furniture to reflect where I like things and wondered if he'd ever leave. Again I'm not trying to be mean. Just wanting to move on with things, find my space in my house & start my life from here.

Tonight he left. He told the kids that he'd be back tomorrow (2 more days off) to see them & work on some stuff. He hugged me goodbye and was gone. I am alone. Seems incredible.

And I'm okay, really. I'm a little sad but I'll work through it in a minute. Just bear with me, alright?

Mountains and Motorcycles

2010-07-27T22:16:00.014-04:00

I love to ride my motorcycle. Good thing, as lately I spend a lot of time on it. And by a lot of time, I mean a 90-minute commute one way, 4 days a week. Twelve hours a week on a bike in what is right now, unpleasant heat. I have olive skin but still use a 45spf sunscreen every day. Even with sunscreen, I'm getting very dark. You'd think my skin would feel like leather, but fortunately, so far it doesn't.

One good thing about the commute is that every day I get to view some of the most awesome scenery in our entire country. I get to travel at relatively high speeds on beautifully paved, curvy and shady roads, looking at trees, kudzu vines, quaint barns, and mountains.

Here are some pictures I've taken from the bike. Yes, I did. Once in high gear, my left hand is free and it takes about a second to call up my camera phone & snap a pic. The drawback being that some of these pix aren't as detailed as I like, and a couple come nowhere NEAR capturing the beauty that is apparent to the human eye, but they'll have to do. Each picture has a caption if necessary. Enjoy!

In Sevierville, you can go to an entire store dedicated to Beef Jerky. Not kidding.

These barns have dotted the countryside in the South for as long as I can remember.

Very hard to see, sorry. But every day I ride past this, and it makes me smile. These people have put up their own street sign at their driveway, crooked of course, and it says "More R Less."

Once I get to Sevierville, I take Veterans Parkway, which goes by the back parking lots of Dollywood but also bypasses all the traffic through Sevierville & Pigeon Forge. Along the way there are places where one can see up to 5 layers of mountains. The next 3 pictures were taken on that route.

Because the forests here respire so much moisture, we have a lot of mist (humidity, LOL), which is what earned them the name "The Great Smoky Mountains." In the morning and evening, it looks like the picture above. During the day, if there is cloud cover, it looks like the pic below.

There is one hill that I top every morning, when suddenly it's no longer just foothills covered with trees, but the full scope of the Smokies, looming large in purple-gray-blue, 4x as high as the highest foothill, and surrounding me by about 120 degrees. It never fails to give me goosebumps. The two last pictures are miserable failures at capturing the breathtaking beauty but they're the best I could do...

2nd of Many

2010-07-11T19:48:00.013-04:00

I don't know if I've mentioned it here. In fact I don't think I have. But in soul-searching for some mid-to-late life career I could do that would be interesting, challenging, & something that would use my talents, I lit on becoming a tattoo artist.

Last month I began a 2-yr odyssey of apprenticeship under Boyd Reid. Right now we're working out of a little shop in Pigeon Forge, TN.

Up until now, I've had only the one, little ice-cream cone tattoo. As one moves through apprenticeship, normally one acquires more tattoos. My husband very sensitively stated, "You're gonna become just another inked-up freak." Well the freak label fits but... I really didn't want to end up with an odd conglomeration of relatively unrelated tattoos here, there and everywhere. And, I find that as I talk to people & tell them what I'm doing, their first response is to look me over & notice that I don't have any visible tattoos... and then not believe me!

What to do? I've designed a 1/2-sleeve tattoo of birth flowers of all 7 of my living kids, and 5 lost babies. An even dozen of colorful flowers, each with a little banner with the child's name. Each flower can be inked by a different artist, yet when finished, the piece will be one comprehensive work of art.

I want to have a modification done around my ice cream cone... a little white, lavender & light-blue cloud of marshmallow fluff. And then a flaming heart on the left breast in about the same size. But meanwhile, Boyd said, "Lets get some ink on you out where people can see it."

The pictures on the blog today are the progression of the first flower and centerpiece of the sleeve, a Stargazer Lily. This tattoo took longer to apply than the amount of time I've spent in my longest labor out 7 live births & 1, 19.5-week loss (3hrs was the longest). And, it's every bit as permanent. The bottom petal is purposely left undone so we can add the "Veronica" banner when the next flower down is inked, so the upper petals of that flower can overlap the banner.

Pics are clickable for full-size versions. Beginning at the top we have:

1. The picture of the lily, modified to be mirrored and tilted to the angle I needed it on my arm

2. Boyd's hand-drawn stencil of the lily, on my arm

3. Beginning the work. Me and my tattoo "master."

4. The lily, about 1/3 completed

5. Manic Boyd, madly tattooing

6. The lily, completed, not dressed & not done bleeding

7. Composite view (front and side)

8. Finished, dressed, & in sunlight (which highlights the colors)

He did this very large, original art tattoo in about 4 hours with very little lasting skin trauma. If you're ever in Pigeon Forge, you can stop in Ink Dimensions at Traffic Light 7 (Old Mill Avenue) and have Boyd Reid apply excellent, permanent art to you!

Unabashed Promotion, LOL

2010-07-05T22:32:00.010-04:00

I follow @kiboomu on twitter, and they have designed a wonderful piano iPhone app of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for preschool children! They're going to give away 20 copies of this to 20 lucky winners!

~*~!~*~!~*~!~*~
Aspiring toddler & preschool pianists now have a new way to take piano lessons!

Introducing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Piano iPhone App by KIBOOMU.

~*~!~*~!~*~!~*~
"Spark your child's love of learning and musical creativity with this sing and play along piano." Eric Wiseman, PhD, Harvard University

"Both charming and colorful! Creates teachable moments whilst entertaining! Making animal sounds on a piano translates into big loud fun."
App Craver review: 8 stars out of 10

"Is an excellent children's learning app that I highly recommend!"
Crazy Mike's App review: 5 stars out of 5

"The fantastic touch keyboard just begs to be played with its light-up keys to guide your fingers to the correct notes."
App Discover review

"We love the app. A lot of fun and a great learning experience for kids!"
The Daily App Show review

"We love the colorful graphics and my daughter loves playing the piano!"
Heather Quinn-Shillin http://faithfamilyandfun.com

"The kids are having fun with it. It's our new favorite app!"
Chelle Cazella http://www.dappersnappers.com

~*~!~*~!~*~!~*~
Created by a preschool teacher and pianist, this interactive app encourages children to take a more active role in learning!

It's also a really fun way to introduce children to playing piano!

With this play-a-song iPhone app, children can do the following:

follow the lighted keys or match the colorful music notes to the piano keys

watch the piano keys light up one by one with the song

press the start button and sing along

add animal sounds to the song

hear the song played on a banjo, xylophone, harp, flute, bells and more!

record your child singing and playing the piano!

sing and read karaoke style lyrics in English, French & Spanish

Playing the piano is not just fun, it's educational too!

~*~!~*~!~*~!~*~
Research has shown that piano lessons:

1.Help Children in School

2.Raise Self Esteem.

3.Increase Coordination

4.Help Children to Concentrate

5.Help Children to be Well-Rounded!

~*~!~*~!~*~!~*~
To enter, to win a copy of the iPhone app for your preschooler, leave a comment! PLEASE remember to leave some type of contact information (twitter ID or youremailaddress @ server.com in broken format).

20 winners will be chosen from the comments! Be sure to follow @kiboomu on twitter for app announcements and updates!
~*~!~*~!~*~!~*~

Things My Dad Said

2010-06-20T21:15:00.009-04:00

In honor of Father's Day, I've been posting #thingsmydadsaid on Twitter. I've compiled the list, which is below. Thanks dad, for your sage advice & funny words over the years!

"I bought you a motorcycle."

"Don't touch the pipes. They're hot."

"What do you need art supplies for?"

"I can pull that tooth for you. Go get my water-pump pliers. They're the ones with the bent pincers."

"If everybody jumped off a bridge, would you?"

"You can ride the motorcycle on the road after you ride up and down this gravel-road hill 300 times in 1st gear."

"Go cook something. Your mom's tired."

"You wanna go WHERE?"

"There could be something living under that bed of yours & you'd never know it"

"Come out here & help me bleed these brakes..."

"What am I, a bank?"

"Nikki, your problem is you just don't care"

"Where did you put my tools?"

"Marry them for their money, bc the rest, the all have." (Did I freekin' LISTEN? Noooo)

"Nobody buys a cow if they get milk for free."

"Plug in a nightlight. The dark could be deadly." (I like my house as dark as a CAVE at night, LOL)

"Shut your drapes. It pays to advertise."

"You can't live on peanut-butter & jelly and spaghettios."

"I have to run over to Booty Black's house & pick up some parts."

"You can pick your friends. And you can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose."

"Does Jacki live here now? or did I miss something?"

"Never go barefoot. I stepped on a bee when I was six." (I only wear shoes when I have to)

"You shouldn't get a tattoo. Though tattoos are some really beautiful art."

"Never call me from jail. You'll sit there because I'm not gonna post your bond."

"He needs 2 hats like that stupid one. One to crap in, and the other to cover it up with."

"Your mom doesn't like the way you're behaving. Now *I* have to start going to church."

"Don't put anything in writing if you wouldn't want to read it in the newspaper."

"Don't wear name labels. They should pay YOU for advertising for them instead of you paying extra to wear their name"

"Get up and DO something. Even if it's wrong."

"You need a new overhead cam in the truck. This is the LAST money I'm gonna spend on it."

"Do you realize what ADIDAS means?" (yeah, if you're eleven...)

"Take your mom's hand-me-downs. If they don't fit, they will." (over my dead body, LOL)

"If you don't have the receipt, you can't return it."

"You have so much art in you! You could have made a lot of money! But you've wasted your life wiping butts & noses instead"

"Is that tattoo a stick-on?"

"So, have you wrecked the bike yet?"

Suburban Snapshots: Why Having a Toddler is Like Being at a Frat Party*

2010-06-17T22:21:00.000-04:00

This is ROFL hilarious, and the comments are just as good as the post!!
Suburban Snapshots: Why Having a Toddler is Like Being at a Frat Party*

Wordless Wednesday - Kinda Ghoulish

2010-06-16T22:25:00.006-04:00

You Don't Know Who I Am

2010-06-01T20:44:00.005-04:00

I am on twitter, and I tweet a lot. I have over 2000 followers & I'm following almost an equal amount. I try to engage those I see in my timeline, because I know from experience that people want to feel important and like somebody notices them and cares about them. At varying times on twitter I've had people tell me I'm smart, funny, hot, a good mom, sexy, caring.

Today I mentioned I didn't get to call my dr. because I didn't have alone-time, and a new follower but apparent twitter expert said of course that's hard to do if you're tweeting all the time.

Today I spent 5 hrs in the car, taking one in for repairs and doing errands. I had one kid with me, then all 5 still at home with me. When I wasn't in the car, I was at home, with all the kids. I didn't even get my usual walk today, which at least affords me a short motorcycle ride & 40 freeking minutes alone. There are things you don't talk to your woman-doctor about while surrounded by your kids.

The comment struck a sore nerve, because this person doesn't know me at all. He doesn't know that I tweet, then kiss my 3yo's stubbed toe, or wipe her butt, or help her brush her teeth. Or maybe I tweet, and make 5 sandwiches for lunch, put in a load of laundry, sort mail, & tweet.

He doesn't know that I'm smart, yes, I even have a genius IQ, but my husband talks to me like I am so stupid I can't think to look for a kid's shoes until he comes home so I can ask him. Or that he's talked to me like that, with words that cut me to the core, for more than 20 years.

He doesn't know that I'm funny because people appreciate humor and because nobody wants to hear me whining about all the weird crap that happens at my house, or how bad my marriage is, or about trying to keep our heads above water on 30K a year with no aid and 13K in medical bills and about $15 a day grocery budget to feed 7 ppl (12 if all the kids/grands are here).

Maybe he doesn't realize that I'm "hot" literally because we only turn our air on for 4 hours a day in our 90-degree climate so that we can afford the bill. And he doesn't see that in the heat, I'm trying to maintain a clean and organized VERY small home with 7 people's stuff in it but no place to put anything, even bins of stored out-of-season clothing, blankets, etc. because my hoarder husband has every available storage space stuffed to the gills.

He doesn't know that I'm a good mom, homeschooling my kids and teaching the distracted 9yo to read again EVERY DAMN DAY, helping one kid with algebra at the same time as helping one kid with division (in between tweets, of course, since that's really all I do).

One of my kids graduated a year early, with honors... another just swore in with the Marines and the one currently graduating is going to Culinary Institute of America in January in NY, if we can get a Pell grant. I have four more kids yet to go through school. But Mr. Twitter Critic doesn't know that, doesn't see that. He doesn't know how much sacrifice it has been to raise 7 kids on one very small salary so that I could have intelligent, witty, sensible, hard-working kids.

He doesn't know that I'm sexy because I have worked damn hard to keep myself in good shape, to hold myself together physically to as high a standard as I can. And I have done that because the ONLY time in my life that I feel validated, wanted, worthy, sexy or loved is in bed, because that is the ONLY time my husband doesn't talk down to me like a non-person.

He doesn't know that I am a caring person because I crave someone to care about me, for me, and not because I am so-and-so's mom or Richard's wife or the lady who brought them fresh muffins or just the lady with too many kids.

The truth is, so many people like me and don't even know me. If you're on social media, please think twice before you comment something that you think is funny but is actually cutting and unkind. You may not know who that person really is.

Bike Pics & An Unfair Hill

2010-04-28T22:51:00.014-04:00

Today I went out and spent a little "Me" time riding into Knoxville to a spa & yarn shop. I took the long way home to avoid a lot of Interstate riding & rush-hour traffic.

Shhh! Don't tell anyone, but also because I LOVE those curvy East-Tennessee back roads.

My first stop was to drop off my son's sneakers at Kroger. I parked in the same place as this bike (it's not mine), which had, of all things, a bag of chicken feed strapped on the back. Funniest thing is, I've hauled home chicken feed on my bike too!

Once a bike is moving and in the gear you need for a while (no approaching stops, etc), you really only need the throttle hand, so I got my phone out of my pocket & snapped some sexy action pics. Yes I really did.

In a couple pics you can see the gear (5th, which is the top gear) and speed (the one pic that shows speed, I was going 40MPH). Enjoy!!

This last one doesn't look that bad maybe, but it's about a 30degree downhill grade involving 3 curves and is less than 2 lanes wide. Very fun & kinda scary to ride!

These next two pics I took on our local greenway. I start at about the 1.6 mile marker and walk the trail down to .3 miles and back. At the 1.4 mile marker there is a hill. From my end approaching it, it's a small rise, about 10degrees and maybe 30 feet. But this is the view from the top...

And what's particularly unfair about this hill, is that on the way BACK, after powerwalking over 2 miles, and *almost* when the end is in sight, you're confronted with the UP side of the hill. It's what keeps me from skating the trail. I could see getting 1/2way up and rolling backward at a high rate of speed, missing the curve at the bottom and ending up in the river 20 feet away. Not a happy thought. LOL

One last pic! The honeysuckle is blooming now! I stuck this sprig of it in my (sloppy from riding) braid & took the pic with my phone!

WAY Far Behind

2010-04-28T00:07:00.019-04:00

We've been up to a LOT and I haven't been chronicling it here like I probably should. So today's post is a lot of pics, each with a caption or a little blurb per group. Hopefully if I'm caught up, I won't feel overwhelmed at the thought of writing in my blog. LOL

We'll start with some B's Eye View photography. Betsy LOVES to take pics of our aquarium, for some reason. And even though there are like 15 fish in it, she always snaps a pic of this Kissing Gourami. Also in the mornings when it's asleep down behind something, she worries if it's dead.

We've had some really nice weather, in the 80s during the day and 60s at night. So of course nice weather and Friday night equal "Can we put up a tent & sleep in it?" I told the kids yeah, sure... so Diantha, Veronica, and Amy from next door took like an hour setting this up, played in it about another half an hour, and then the winds kicked up and there were storm warnings issued.

[Here on the Right are Diantha, 3 yo Beverly ("Betsy") and my beautiful and handsome 9yo son, Josiah.] Down came the tent & in came the kids. Who knew?

Below, I also caught a good front & back shot of Princess Beverly (with leaves caught in the back of her skirt, LOL).

We took the tank off the 650 and painted it metallic gunmetal gray. Here is the tank. Also the bike, reassembled.

I am going to paint green-into-silver-into-purple ghost flames on it & clear coat it yet.

We also painted my son's Icon helmet, which we were blessed to find pawned for 1/3 the retail price. It was flat black but now it's AWESOME. It actually took me a minute or two to figure out how he got the helmet to look bigger than a bathtub. See if you get it. LOL

So Diantha, Des and I were in the TwitKAL (Twitter Knit-a-long).

A bunch of Twitter knitters voted on 5 different categories of patterns (shawl, shrug, hat, gloves, sweater) and then voted again on the top winner from each category.

The winner was the Traveling Woman shawl from Ravelry. I blogged my finished shawl already, here.

This is Diantha's, which was knitted in Jojoland Melody superwash merino wool sock yarn on size 7 needles. Beautiful!

My Kids Are Sicker Than Your Kids

2010-04-13T22:43:00.011-04:00

Today Des came down to help me clean out/organize our bedroom and put stuff from it into summer storage, etc. Pretty soon we have to take B's crib down so I wanted to get a little more organized.

We came across a box of styrofoam wig heads we used last season for craft shows, to display knitted hats & the like. They looked a little worse for wear, especially since B got to them with a green sharpie. So we were going to throw them out, but the kids decided to have a little "fun" first...

The pics are fairly self-explanatory so they only have a caption/title below...

Des proudly displaying the dug-out styrofoam "eyeball"...

This gives "blank-eyed stare" a whole new meaning...

Diantha said, "We have to color the eye sockets! I have a brown marker!"
Artemas said, "But ocular fluid is BLACK!" LoL, homeschool...

So I guess the next logical step was bloody sockets & the head on a pike...

Drunk driving kills...

Apparently we're growing our own supply of Soylent Green...

Ok, so now you know... my kids are SICK, dude! This should serve as a warning to everybody... except...

the cat, who was totally unconcerned.

The End.

Almost Wordless Wednesday - Faery Hangouts and One Good Reason

2010-03-31T16:59:00.011-04:00

I walk our greenway every day now that it's nice. I don't believe in Faeries or fairies but if I did, most of these pics would be a good place for them to hang out.

One plant is a baby Lamb's Ear. I remember as a kid, going around the fields checking on livestock with my grandmother, and if we had to use the bathroom we looked for a mature Lamb's Ear plant to use as emergency toilet paper! LOL!

And I know that nobody who knows me would believe it, but Shy Violets are my favorite flower. Ever.

One last thing, and that is One Good Reason to get out for a walk. It's a little eye candy that happens every afternoon along the trail. Makes the walk worthwhile...

Local Color

2010-03-26T23:00:00.021-04:00

Here are pics I've taken while out and about in our little town and parts of Knoxville. Our trees are not leafed-out yet but will be in a couple weeks, and then they will be Audacious Green... you know, the color that only God and little children color trees. LOL.

Each pic has a caption below, telling what it is. Enjoy our beautiful E. Tennessee!

A patch of Wild Chives in my daughter Des' yard. They're delicious in just about any savory dish!

Tiny blue wildflowers in the grass. I don't know what they're called, but they are ubiquitous.

This is looking down a side-street in Knoxville. Our car was on a main artery called Kingston Pike (US route 11).

This is from Kingston Pike, an exit going on to I-140 in Knoxville. When the tree is leafed out, you can imagine how pretty this is!!

This picture and the one below it are of daffodils growing along the major highways. This is the intersection at Clinton Highway, going North out of Knoxville. The picture below is a hillside along Pellissippi Parkway (I-140/TN 162), another major roadway.

This picture was taken at the entrance of our "Greenway" here in Lenoir City. It roughly follows Town Creek, and goes for 1.7 miles (2.735KM) in one direction. Walking it down & back is a 3.4 mile (5.47KM) walk. I usually start at a small park at the 1/2mile point and walk down and back. Because it is up & down hill, it's quite a workout! Several pics below were taken along this Greenway.

Yes, this really is a car, embedded in the bank of Town Creek on the opposite side from the greenway walk. LOL!

Some moss growing on the North side of the path

These beautiful, blooming bushes are called Forsythia. They are very common here, and will bloom all summer.

This is either a Redbud Tree or a Red Oak. Either way, the leaf buds & new leaves are a deep maroon color. Beautiful!

Our Bradford ornamental pear tree is budding, in a week these clusters will all be little white, highly-fragranced flowers. Gorgeous Sinus Hell. LOL

This planting bed is in the Walmart parking lot. The tall bush is Holly, short one is Firebush, and flowers are Hyacinths.

Last pic... this is a pink Flowering Dogwood in the parking lot of the Loudon County Clerk's office. These grow wild here too, among the mountains!

Almost Wordless Wednesday - Building a Tomb

2010-03-23T20:37:00.011-04:00

This weekend our church is having a big drama production. For the little kids, they're having a "Mystery Weekend." The kids will go to different stations in our Satellite sanctuary and get "clues" to what happened on Easter.

Today Des, Diantha and I went up to the church and spent the afternoon building a tomb.

Here are some pre-blocking pics of my TwitKal (Twitter Knit-a-Long) shawl. It's knitted of Merino/Bamboo handspun & has 48 hanging jewels. It will be about 6 ft. wide when blocked.

Oh and I got a new motorcycle today, a GS650 Suzuki. Which I very kindly let 18yos Artemas pose on for the pic. :D

Chocolate "Crazy" Cake

2010-03-19T22:12:00.007-04:00

This recipe is for a dark chocolate from-scratch cake that goes together FAST and is the best cake we've ever made. We use it for everything from birthdays to weddings to sending a friend some cheer in the mail. Borrowed with my own variations, from the Doubleday Cookbook

NO SUBSTITUTIONS!! This cake will age incredibly well, even becoming moister as it ages, but only if you use REAL butter! (This also works on box cakes!) you can make "sour" milk by putting a tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice in a cup of milk for a few minutes. Or use up old milk that has turned (the cake doesn't care).

Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare one 9x13 or 2, 8" or 9" round or square pans by greasing and flouring the bottom or line bottom with greased wax paper (crumbs will stick to the paper)!

Put the ingredients in the bowl in the order listed, without mixing until as directed. Then beat only 2 minutes.

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup sour milk or buttermilk

3/4 C unsifted cocoa

1 cup butter, partially melted

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups + 2 Tablespoons unbleached flour
(or 3 cups cake flour)

Mix until *just* blended, batter will be very thick! Then while mixing slowly, add

1 cup hot coffee
(If you don't like coffee, don't let this make you nervous. I LOATHE coffee, but you will never taste it in the finished cake. It does NOT taste like Mocha.)

Blend for 2 minutes, pour into pans, bake 30 minutes or until cakes shrink slightly from sides of pan and test done with a skewer stuck in the middle (crumbs ok, batter = not done). Cool 15 minutes in pans, turn out and frost as desired

Sour Cream Pecan Pancakes

2010-03-16T23:32:00.003-04:00

We made these for lunch today, & I had a request for the recipe. Once again, I'm putting up the small version, for a family of 4 or less. To feed more people, just use the quantities in parentheses to double the recipe.

We used lowfat sour cream, and substituted 1/3 of the flour with buckwheat flour, to add fiber. Also I tossed in a tiny handful (1 Tablespoon or less) of crushed pecans while each pancake cooked.

Calorie count for a 5" pancake without syrup: 80 plain, 120 with pecans. Add 33cal. per teaspoon for butter, syrup calorie count as listed on bottle.

1 cup lowfat sour cream (2 cups)

1 large egg (2)

1 Tablespoon sugar (2 T)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (1 T)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda (1 t)

1/4 t salt (1/2 t)

1/4 t cinnamon (1/2 t)

1/8 t nutmeg (1/4 t)

3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (1 1/2 cups)

Beat everything in order with a wire whisk. If necessary, thin batter with lowfat milk, skim milk, or even water. Heat non-stick or cast-iron griddle to medium-hot, until a drop of water sizzles on the griddle. Pour 1/3 cup mix, spread it around a little with a spatula, and if you like sprinkle with pecans (or chocolate chips). Cook until pancake bubbles and looks a little dry around the edges. Flip quickly, let cook about a minute more. Serve with butter and syrup or top with fruit compote!

Baby Shawl, B & Busted Pipeline

2010-03-15T22:33:00.014-04:00

Today in cleaning out a closet in the girls' room, we found a baby shawl/blanket that I knitted for Desiree while I was on bedrest for 3 months before she was born. The last and only time I had knit anything before that, was a purse my grandmother tried to have me make when I was 10, in seed stitch, and I HATED IT.

But 3 months bedrest is BORING, so dh took me out in a wheelchair to the local craft store, where I bought 2 or 3 sets of needles, some yarn, and a "Learn to Knit" pamphlet. Nobody told me lace was supposed to be hard. So for practice, I knitted a pair of slippers for dh & then cast fearlessly on and produced this blanket.

Twenty-four years later, it has a couple picks in it but still looks pretty good!

We finally got the girls' room that had the mold in it, fixed. I have some accent painting to do & a curtain to make, but Veronica is moved into the room & Betsy is slowly assimilating herself into that room too, as goes the plan. Well in *this* pic anyway, she looks quite content...

And one more, she wanted me to take her pic the other night during an late-night computer & putting B to sleep session!

Ok so for the past week or so, our driveway has been wet. That's no surprise if it's raining, but it hasn't been. Ground next to the driveway has been very wet & soggy. Today Richie called the Utility board to report it. Suddenly about 6:30 tonight he says, "What's that noise?" and heads out the front door.

Seems they found a 4", freekin-old galvanized water main had a hole in it. Instead of replacing it with pipe, they ended up putting a rubber boot & clamps around it. After making an incredible mess of our driveway.

Special Request Pot Pie Recipe

2010-03-11T20:25:00.007-05:00

Ok, I actually make food for an army, so I'm gonna try to simplify this down to what a couple or your average family of 4 might eat, instead of the mamma-jamma version I make to feed what is anywhere from 7 to 12 ppl at my house for dinner on a regular basis.

A few notes: I had leftover roast pork and a few roast-in-jacket potatoes. You could use a handful of any chopped meat you have on hand. You could microwave-bake a decent size potato, let it cool and chop it up. I usually make my own gravy, because I am good like that. But a can of gravy from the store will do too.

Unlike baking, which is a formula based on acids and bases and leavening and should be followed fairly closely, good cooking is mostly being flexible. Because the recipe is flexible, calorie count is approximate. We figured around 298 calories per serving (1 1/4 cups)

Pot Pie
about 8 oz. pre-cooked and chunked up meat of some kind
2 small cans or one jar of gravy, any flavor
1 nuked good-sized potato, chopped into 1/2" cubes
1 10-oz. box of frozen mixed vegetables

Chuck all of this into a square or round 9" cake pan or pie pan. Salt & pepper surface to taste. Dampen edge of pan with water so crust will stick.

Crust
Don't panic over crust. It's easy and you won't ever want to buy one of those tasteless cardboard store-bought frozen crusts again. Or maybe you will, in a pinch, but don't we all do that?
(No, I don't. LOL)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cold shortening or lard or even butter, but NOT low-cal margarine-type spread, which will make your crust soggy & gross
1 teaspoon salt

then 1/4 Cup ice cold water

Using a pastry blender, which is an essential kitchen tool with u-shaped wires attached at either end to a wooden handle (or two table knives held together if you lack a pastry blender), cut cold shortening into the flour using a press-down-and-flick-wrist-sideways motion (with blender, or up-and-down motion with knives), repeatedly until the mixture looks like coarse-ground meal or like small aquarium gravel.

Pour ice water into the center and mix it in with a fork until *just* blended. Don't over mix! Very lightly dust countertop and rolling pin with flour, lay crust on counter, dust it lightly with flour too, and roll out, rolling from center outward in every direction. Fold lightly into quarters and place on top of pot pie. Unfold and seal down edges, folding extra in and pinching with fingers. Cut steam vents in top with a knife.

If you don't have a rolling pin, you can use a large vegetable can, a relatively straight-sided soda bottle, or even a roll of frozen breakfast sausage!

Bake the pot pie at 400 degrees F for about 25 minutes. Serve with green salad or sliced tomatoes!

Wordless Wednesday - A Day in The Sun, And Girls He Cooks Too

2010-03-10T21:52:00.010-05:00

B is Three!

2010-03-09T23:46:00.011-05:00

Today was my baby B's third birthday! Her name is Beverly Jeane, but we call her Betsy. Last night we had her "birthday party" which actually consisted of really good food & family (Des and her kids came down too), plus some pirate decorations and red-frosted cupcakes. She was very happy.

Following are some pics of B throughout this past year, and at her party last night. Couldn't put them all up because she's in her underwear (always it seems) (don't want the childp-rn ppl to steal her pics). Notice she ALWAYS has something on her face! LOL!

A Tale of Two Tattoos

2010-02-26T23:36:00.014-05:00

I have wanted a tattoo for YEARS. Well, two. No, three. Um, four, but that's pushing it. I've always, always wanted the Rolling Stones Tongue tattooed on my arse. Never was a huge fan of the Rolling Stones, but when I was in High School I had a patch of that sewn to the butt of a pair of my jeans, which drew more than a few suggestions. I don't think that one will ever happen, but it's funny.

I also want a band like my son-in-law Tony's, which has very medieval-looking tendrils and a sun in the center. But his has a broken rock in the center of the sun, & I want a smiley face with round purple glasses like I wear. That's another maybe.

Wanted Richard's name in fancy tiny script like Emma got on her arse in The Importance of Being Ernest, only on my upper thigh near the pantie line, but I don't think I'm going to do that anytime soon.

A few years ago my dh suggested I should have an ice cream cone just above my breast, for reasons all his own. But then he said, it doesn't matter, because he doesn't want me to have a tattoo at all. Ever.

Then on Valentine's day he changed his mind. Might have had a little to do with the fact that a while back I told him that when he dies, I'm gonna step over his corpse, go get a tattoo, and *then* call 911. So on Monday the 15th I went, took my art to the tattoo parlor, & on Tuesday the 16th I got inked.

The place I went is Alter Ego Tattoos in Knoxville, on Kingston Pike. Cleanest place I have EVER seen! Jon is the owner there, and has done tattoos for my daughter Des & her dh Tony. They said my artist would be Boyd. Here is my outline...

And hereon the left Boyd is, mopping up some extra ink. He has very WARM hands, by the way! Don't look at my face, didn't get a chance to put any makeup on! Arrggh!

Over there on the right, Brand new!

and here on the left, two days old. Healing nicely. Never did even get pink around the edges.

Alright, on to the next one! My ds#2 Artemas recently turned 18. When he was about 10 years old, he said, "Mom, you know that lizard like on the Sobe bottle? When I'm old enough, I'm gonna have a tattoo of that!"

I was like, "Sure you will." Everybody knows that between 10 years old and majority, little boys change their minds a bazillion times.

But he never did, and after I got my tattoo, he was like, when can I get one? He earned money this past year on Etsy, so I told him to get a pic he liked, we'd draw something up, & he could get it done.

So we took his drawing, along with my interpretation of it and a few notations, on over to Alter Ego and would you know, Boyd had an opening on Monday Feb. 22!

Artemas just about worked himself up into a state over whether it was going to hurt or not, so that by the time Boyd got started, he was beside himself. About 5 minutes in, he got to feeling light-headed. Didn't help that he only had a Mtn. Dew that morning.
Boyd gave him a glass of water & some skittles, took a short breather & got started again. Artemas handled it fine after that.

Here (above, right) he is getting the work done. There's also a video on Youtube called The Awesomest Lizard Tattoo, in which I am talking in the background. Maybe I was kidding, heh heh.

Here it is in the first hour, covered (& bleeding a little).

And here it is about an hour old, washed & dressed with chapstick. Great job! I love it, and Artemas does too!

Ponderings on Normalcy, Whatever That Is

2010-02-17T23:46:00.004-05:00

Tonight in the shower I was pondering some things, and thought I would share with the great big family called the Internet.

I am a woman. For a woman, it is "normal" to have periods every month. Unless you are pregnant, which I have been 11 times. Out of those 11 times, I have birthed 7 live children, and had 5 go on before me, before birth (one set of twins), spending 63 months (5 1/4 YEARS) of my life, pregnant. From what I read, this is not "normal."

Most of my children have weighed between 7 & 8 pounds... this is "normal," until you consider that the ones that weighed that were anywhere from 3 to 5 weeks early. Then that's not "normal." The ones that went to term were 9.5# and 10#. Since I was NOT gestationally diabetic, again, this is not "normal."

I have spent 17 years breastfeeding 7 babies, which in my lifetime has relieved me of over 12 years of periods, and has spared my breasts 150 cycles of hormonal changes. Again, this is nowhere near "normal."

I have a period every month, like clockwork. I do NOT have PMS or PMDD or any other dang mood disorder over this fact. Apparently this is not "normal," (though my husband and kids are thankful).

Having a cycle every month is "normal," except for the fact that I am 48 years old. No symptoms of menopause. No hot flashes. No night sweats. No "Falling Hand Syndrome." You've heard it... Doc...

My hair is falling out

My head aches all the time

My eyes aren't what they used to be

My teeth hurt

My shoulders stoop

My breasts are sagging

My back aches

I can't hold my stomach in

and on down the body, a whole litany of complaints.

I don't have any of those (well except for those red +1 readers). So apparently I am not "normal."

Sometimes I long for the normal. I'd like to be like the other women, who know for sure when they're done forming a family. Who know that they'll never have to buy tampons again. Who can have sex whenever they want.

But then, doesn't menopause bring its own ailments? Bones that are more brittle, skin not as elastic, dryness in unmentionable areas, etc?

Perhaps, for now, I'll stick with NOT "normal." After all, it's what I'm used to.

Girls' Night In and Blue Pancakes

2010-02-15T00:56:00.000-05:00

There is an old lady living next door. She has a granddaughter, about the same age as my 3rd daughter Veronica. During the week, the granddaughter lives with her mom. On the weekends, her dad has custody of her. He works nights, and even though he has a live-in girlfriend who would be at the house at night with his daughter, he brings her to the grandmother's house to stay.

Only he's gotten in the habit of just dropping her at my house instead, on Friday evening, and picking her up here on Sunday evening... thereby not spending ONE single minute with his kid. And also giving me an extra kid and mouth to feed for the weekend. I must have not read the custody agreement properly.

Anyway at least my girls have someone to play with. Amy hangs out with them and wears their clothes and goes to church with us, where she helps out in a toddler class along with my own girls. She leaves odd bits of laundry, which I find while folding clothes after I've washed it for her, because I don't have enough people in my house to do laundry for.

Here are some pics of the three of them having a lot of fun, one rainy Friday night. Don't ask what's happening here, I don't know.

On Saturday morning, I got up before everyone and went out for my walk. When I got home, I found mysterious things cooking. Someone (no names here, mind you) is OBSESSED with putting food coloring in any food they make, including pancakes.

Sometimes my life is so weird.

Wordless Wednesday - Not Fiber-Obsessed? Me?

2010-02-10T10:48:00.005-05:00

Not that I'm fiber-obsessed or anything. Noooo. But I thought I'd share some of my Etsy favorites at the moment.

Hinky The Heartless Monkey Does the AMTC Convention, part 1

2010-02-03T15:18:00.025-05:00

Guest post by my 14yod, Diantha!

Recently I went to a modeling convention held by AMTC, at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando, FL.

We have this Huge stuffed gorilla named Red Floyd at home, and after we got to the hotel we would be staying at for the Convention we saw that they had a jungle setting, and decided he would be perfect for the plan we cooked up, which was to put Floyd in situations all over the place to make it look like he was having fun!

But there was a problem. We didn't bring him. So we just had to go to the local Big-Box store and get Hinky the Heartless Monkey. (He had a red heart, but we cut it off to give to Betsy.) Here's a pic of Hinky in a huge Aloe plant!! I love Aloe plants!!

Hinky went lots of places that week, and had a lot of Adventures.

First he wanted to have his picture taken by the waterfalls. In the atrium of the hotel, there is a big, false Spanish Conquistador castle, with ponds and waterfalls.

You can hear them from all over the hotel.

Next he wanted to walk down to Key West and get his picture taken. It's a REALLY long walk from Orlando, but we made it.

And then, he said he needed a break when we found a little moss covered table and chair set outside one of the restaurants. After a little set-a-spell, he said he felt much better.

We decided to go back to the room. Because Hinky is a curious and slightly naught monkey, he got left a little behind. We went back and found him using the (working!) antique phone in the hotel lobby. We still don't know who he called.

We duly scolded him and headed back to the room. We got out some snacks. When we turned around to check on Hinky, we found him eating very-bad-for-you food!

When we confronted him about his terrible choices, he pretended to be asleep.

On the way to one of the seminars, Hinky tried to hide from us again. But we found him, because we're so clever.

It wasn't all work and no play at the convention! In fact, one of Hinky's favorite places we visited was the arcade!

He got to ride in a yellow helicopter.

During one of the breaks at the convention, mom and I found a local shooting range and went shooting. Hinky didn't get to go, because he's still young and careless.

But in the arcade, he got to practice shooting an automatic weapon at bad guys.

And, he got to ride in a real-life pretend spaceship. I was a little jealous!

Because the hotel atrium is HUGE (4.5 acres), it took him a while to get around to exploring the end farthest from our room. That end was designed like the swamps of the Everglades. We found him hiding from us in the plants and mist.

And then we found him relaxing on the porch of a little fishing shack. The shack was interesting, as it had aquariums of little Everglades creatures, like snakes.

Hinky didn't seem to be afraid of them at all.

Upstairs in the convention center again, he climbed up on a decorative armoire to look in a pot. We had to get him down.

On Saturday night, there was a Christian Rock band that played. They were good, but the music was very loud. Hinky hid under a chair.

Then we found him being a VERY BAD LITTLE MONKEY! No, no, Hinky! That's not a potty! That's a donation pot for the rock group's mission trip!

After all the apologies, and the excitement died down, we went to the Haagen-Daz place in the lobby for ice cream before bed.

It seems that even bad little monkeys love ice cream!

Wordless Wednesday - Snow Beauty and A Little Beast

2010-02-03T11:43:00.009-05:00

A Cake, Two Cakes, and a Shrug

2010-01-24T20:50:00.013-05:00

Ok, so that title is actually a little out of order, but it's funnier that way.

For my birthday on Saturday (1/23), Richard and I drove down to Dalton GA to pick up a carpet. While we were down there we stopped at a Thrift store that was run by a mission. In the lobby they had a table of what R calls "used" baked goods. There was a sign on the wall, "Only ONE Cake Per Family." Well, we're a family, right? Sure enough, there were little birthday cakes. I got a free birthday cake on my birthday! I picked one with red roses.

Ok, now rewind [makes vinyl-record-rewinding sounds] to Monday last. It wasn't anybody in our family's birthday, but Tony had MLK day off work, so we decided to celebrate Artemas' 18th birthday a little early. I made this amazing, Amazing Fudge Tunnel Cake. Des was going to bring down a turkey to bake. Well Des and Tony ended up getting here at 7:30 PM with no turkey (it never did thaw) but with bags full of heat-n-eat hot wings, chicken tenders, french fries and stuff. So we pigged out on all that, and ate cake, which was good. We didn't get a pic of the cake, because in transferring it to a platter, Artemas dropped it. It looked like a truck ran over it. Still tasted great, though! Although I decided the recipe could use some tweaking...

Wednesday on Artemas' actual birthday we went to Dalton to order the original carpet mentioned above. The car broke down, it rained, we ended up being late to get the kids back to youth group, with $50 worth of pizzas he didn't get to share with his group. And no cake, because we weren't home since 8AM for mom to make one.

So, Thursday I made another Amazing Fudge Tunnel Cake, a la nikki, which was delicious. So here is the recipe! Enjoy!

Moist ingredients:
1+1/2 cups butter, softened
1+3/4 cups sugar
6 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
(or 1/2 tsp flavored extract like almond)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Dump all the moist ingredients in a bowl and mix on medium-high speed for 3 minutes. Mixture will look like a fluffy pudding or mousse. While this is beating, in a separate bowl put the

Dry ingredients:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 cups flour
2 cups finely ground pecans or almonds
3/4 cup cocoa powder

Dump all this about 1/3 at a time into the moist ingredients and mix thoroughly. Batter will look very thick and almost oily (that's ok!). Spoon batter into a greased & floured Bundt or Angelfood cake pan. Bake for 1 hour at 350 F. Let cool in pan at least 15 minutes, loosen cake gently around the edges with a table knife, put cake plate on top of pan and invert pan to turn cake out.

For the glaze you will need about 1/2 a jar or recipe of chocolate frosting, softened in the microwave for a minute or two or set in a bowl of warm water to thin. Pour loosely over top of cake.

A Shrug
So you know at Christmas time I was working on a wonderful, lace-back shrug in deep grape purple Australian wool. Michele in Maine sent me more of the beautiful yarn and I took the project on the road with me to FL when we went for the AMTC convention. The night before my birthday, I finished it. You can see the project with complete notes, including the lace I 'invented,' at this Ravelry link.

Even though I made the described compensation in the pattern for "large bust,"the shrug did not even meet in front by a good 12inches. I guess the girls are bigger than I thought! It fit Veronica beautifully, I could shawl-pin it in front and it looked cute on her, but she didn't like it. (Pictures were taken before ribbing was blocked.)

Then some beautiful, encouraging knitters on Twitter edified me by reminding me that a 'shrug' is back and shoulders only! I should block set the ribbing and just wear it! So I did and I like it very well!

A Wordy Apology to My Readers

2010-01-23T23:50:00.006-05:00

I lost a set of twins on Oct. 29; 8 days later was our biggest craft show of the year, in the busiest mall in Knoxville. Needless to say less than 4 days of recovery time, and then had to get ready for the show. And then, oh, we’re 3 weeks from Black Friday with 5 shops in the family to prepare.

Meanwhile one of my kids has a birthday. Parents came from Ohio do to Thanksgiving a week early (2xtra people in a 1450 sq. ft. house that already has 8 ppl living in it, LOL), then we did Thanksgiving again with my dd#1’s inlaws. Then get ready for Christmas with 7 kids, a SIL and 2 grandkids.

The 14th of Dec. they thought my dh’s 93-year-old mother was dying in NJ (a 12-hour drive) so he needed to go there… 5 kids in the car, drive 12 hours up, see mother, stay one day, drive back. Good part was we got to walk around Philly, take some pics and have a cheesesteak, LOL!

Day after Christmas my parents came from Ohio again on their way to FL for the winter, and I went with DS#1 to sign a lease on an apartment for him.

The 28th of Dec. my dh was in surgery for a double hernia when I got the call his mom had died. So we did Christmas with my parents the next day and on the 30th hit the road for NJ again, drove 12 hours and got there in time for the viewing. Funeral next day, drive home on New Years Day. We were home only 48 hours (during which said 21yos complained that I couldn’t help him move because it was SO much more important to get ready for Di’s modeling convention) before my DD#2 Diantha and I had to leave and drive almost 12 hours to FL for a modeling convention for her, and got back the 12th.

In the 12 days since I've been back, we've made 2 trips down to Dalton, GA... once to find carpet, the other to pick it up. On the first trip our car broke down. Blew a pvc valve to the heater hoses and lost all the cooling fluid out of the system. A half-mile walk to the repair place with 4 of the 5 kids (B and her daddy rode in the tow truck), 3 hours wait which included walking to a sandwich place in the rain and back, and we were back on the road.

Oh also in those 12 days, in moving furniture to help my son get the rest of his things moved out, we found mold in one of the walls of the girls' bedroom from a roof leak. We've had to quickie-paint and move both big girls into the formerly oldest son's bedroom, the size of a postage stamp, along with their queen-size bed, so that we can repair the other bedroom. Which is going to entail tearing an outside wall off the house to replace molded sheathing inside the wall, and replacing some of the wood supporting the roof.

Our Etsy shops are barely staying above water, but who has had the time or opportunity to produce new listings?

I truly feel like I’m being swept along by a spring-thaw torrent and that my feet can’t touch the bottom, haven’t touched the bottom for 3 months. I think only having my knitting to do once in a while, calms me and is keeping me sane. So I am sorry I am so behind on the blogging, and will try to keep up (now that we're HOME, LOL)!

A Mini Bike, Mini Story

2009-12-26T13:33:00.010-05:00

Being a motorcycle enthusiast (which is quite an understatement), and having had a beautiful little Honda70 when I was growing up, I have thought for a while that it might be a good idea to get a minibike and let the kids rip-roar around the yard on it. Get used to how the brakes work, how to balance on a 2-wheel motor-driven vehicle, you know.

So after some negotiation (Richard wanted a 4-wheeler, which would be safer but out of the budget by about 2 grand), we lit on a little 100cc minibike at the local Tractor Supply Company.

Just in case anyone out there thinks it wouldn't be possible to "redneck-up" a minibike even MORE than its inherency, here is a pictorial:

First one should figure out how to wrap it.

Cardboard is good.

Duct tape is always really good.

Thank you Artemas for this bit of male creativity.

Yep, that oughta do it...

Now to wrap it.

Nobody is EVER gonna guess what this is!

Hiding it 'til tomorrow...

We really DON'T have to go anywhere, where we have to take the kids with us, do we?

The kids LOVED the surprise. Veronica actually went loping around the yard in the freezing cold wind, waving her arms and yelling. Because I have such decorum, I didn't take a pic.

Chocolate Nutrition for the Holidays

2009-12-19T14:52:00.007-05:00

You always knew this anyway, but just to make you all feel better in the run up to New Year's......

Start your day the RIGHT WAY!

Chocolate is a Vegetable:
Chocolate is derived from cocoa beans. Bean = vegetable.
Sugar is derived from either sugar CANE or sugar BEETS. Both are plants, which places them in the vegetable category. Thus, sweetened chocolate is also a vegetable.

To go one step further, chocolate candy bars also contain milk, which is dairy. So candy bars are a health food.

Chocolate-covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want. If you've got melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.

The problem: How to get 2 pounds of chocolate home from the store in a car with the heat on.
The solution: Eat it in the parking lot.

Diet tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It'll take the edge off your appetite, and you'll eat less.

If I eat equal amounts of dark chocolate and white chocolate, is that a balanced diet? Don't they actually counteract each other?

Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger.

Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done.

A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Now, isn't that handy?

If not for chocolate, there would be no need for control top pantyhose. An entire garment industry would be devastated. You can't let that happen, can you?

REMEMBER: "Stressed" spelled backward is "desserts"

Send this link to four women and you will lose two pounds.
Send this to all the women you know (or ever knew), and you will lose 10 pounds.
If you ignore this post, you will gain 10 pounds immediately.
That's why I had to pass this on - I didn't want to risk it.

Crunch Time

2009-12-08T20:19:00.012-05:00

I added a new hastag today to some of my posts on twitter (feel free to follow me, LOL): #imaystayupallnighttilChristmas. Yes, folks, for us knitters, quilters, crochet-ers, and crafters of paper, scissors, glue, ribbon, and button types, it is Crunch Time.

This is the time of the year we realize that we have more hours of crafting left than there are hours left in the year, let alone 6 days short of the year.

Today we had to make a little road trip to Sweetwater to deliver one of our roosters to a lady there for her mini-farm. Did I forget to take one of my diverse knitting-for-Christmas projects? You bet, I sure did. I took the passive riding-in-the-car time to pull out half a sock Diantha has knitted that was too big around, cast it back on, and knit the toe cup. But still, not what I needed to work on.

And of course, some of the gifts have to be mailed, which means finish them this week, or die of embarrassment. So I thought I would go public with my need-to-do list, sharing my potential humiliation with the world at large and provoking sympathic head-shakes from everyone out there who is in the same boat.

One of the projects I can't post, because 1) it isn't even started, 2) it's for one of my kids who is nosy and reads my blog (WHY did I teach them to read anyway??) 3) I have to get rid of said kid for a night or two or weekend sometime between now and Christmas to do it, and 4) it's really supposed to be a surprise, though keeping a secret in this family is nothing short of a miracle.

Here are the rest:
Nice warm slippers for my niece. My sister's family is in Ohio this winter, after having lived nearly 20 yrs. in FL and 2 years in TN. It's COLD in Ohio, so I am making slippers, mittens, and a matching beanie for the little niece. So far, pictured here on the left, a slipper...

The Show Me The Money Scarf. No tellin' who this one is for (on the right). It is a batt of hand dyed Merino wool I bought from Jazzturtle, that has shredded money carded into it. I spun it up into a chunky yarn and I'm doing this scarf with a braided cable and garter stitch borders. Might post the pattern later.

The needles shown are like the So Big They're Obscene needles available in Artemas' GotWood4You Shop at Etsy, but these are made from Eastern Hemlock Spruce. I am actually not knitting the entire scarf on them, just testing them for a few rows to make sure the burrs are all out of them so I can send them as a gift to a knitter friend of mine.

Flamin' Phoenix Betsy Bootees are a quickie that I've had to throw in the mix, because my 2yo informed me a couple days ago that her feet were cold, because her slippers are now too tight. So I should knit her some new ones. This is just acrylic Red Fart but it's toddler-loud. I did an eye-of-partridge heel just for fun. As of right now I am doing the Kitchener Stitch toe on the first one.

The same yarn is going into a hat like this (on the right) for Des' best friend Bethany's daughter Lily, who needs a beanie with a HUGE pom-pom. So that is also on the list, even though I haven't cast it on yet. Fortunately toddler beanies are fast, even if the toddler has a big head.

Last on the Christmas Knitting list is this sorry start on a fur-bordered, cabled beanie for Bethany's other daughter Summer. She is 9 so naturally she likes purple and pink. I hope she will like her nice warm beanie too.

~:0) ~:0) ~:0) ~:0)

In the midst of all this I am working on a selfish project. I got two beautiful skeins of Aussi Wool worsted yarn through a swap from Mystery Swappers Group at Ravelry. I saw this Circular Shrug and wanted to make one. Last week I found the greatest, real suede, purple Ho boots ever, and knew I needed to wear them to dh's company Christmas party. (Go on, tell me how wonderful they are!)

So 2 days before the party, I started the Circular Shrug. Yes, 2 days. Only I decided that instead of knitting ribbing, body, ribbing, and seaming the ribbing, I would take another knitter's modification advice and do a provisional cast-on, knit the body, joint the working stitches and the live provisional stitches, and knit the 5" of ribbing for the shawl collar, in the round. And THEN I decided to knit the body in a lace, of my own devising.

Sad to say I only got about 2/3 of the back done. About half-way through the back, the morning of the party, I had to join the 2nd ball of yarn on and realized I wouldn't have enough yarn to do the ribbing at all. And sadly, the company website doesn't list this yarn anymore. So what I did really was lose 2 days of intense knitting on my must-do-s for 2 days of ribbing on an I-can't-do. The partner I had in the Mystery swap says that yarn is still available where she lives and she will kindly rescue me and send me another skein. So I will have a beautiful purple shrug, just not now.

Now back to my regularly-scheduled knitfest. #imaystayupallnighttilChristmas

Misc. Stuff From Being Behind in Blogging

2009-12-07T19:49:00.011-05:00

Last year I spun up some misc. wool in red and green, plied it with red fun fur, spun in some plastic candies, and laid it aside wondering what to do with it.

This year, Des wanted us to card some green and red merino for her with some white angelina nylon sparkle. She spun it up into a self-striping yarn and hated it.

She gave it to me, Diantha and I knitted it up into this wild and funny scarf, listed it in my HeartFeltFun Boutique, and it sold in 3 days.

Funny how life works sometimes.

Des knitted these Eliza Doolittle type gloves out of the same sock yarn she had hand dyed and knit my piebald (now blue and purple) socks. Then she overdyed them and came up with this lovely maroon shade. Very pretty.

We've been pretty busy, trying to fill orders for Christmas. Artemas got featured on Springtree Road's blog with his knitting needles and sold 6 sets of them last week. You should go to her Etsy shop and check out her handspun yarns. Gorgeous!

Richard's soaps are selling almost as fast as we can make replacement batches. His shop has some nice, small gift sets in it, so stop by and see him sometime! Handmade soaps make great tips for teachers, hairdressers, or anyone who has served you exceptionally during the year. Great stocking stuffers too!
We did Thanksgiving early, because my parents were down from Ohio the weekend before. So I cooked a meal fit for a king, including the best from-scratch gravy you ever tasted, and homemade pies. No, folks, I do not buy pie crusts. My kids say store-bought crusts are an abomination. Are these beautiful or what?

For actual Thanksgiving day, we went up to Greeneville, TN to be with our SIL Tony's dad's family. We all had a great time, ate, did some shooting out in the field (very cold & windy though), and had a safe trip up and back. They are terrific folks to be "related" to.

A couple days later, we went up to Des' house. The ham she baked for Thanksgiving had disappeared up in Greeneville like Houdini, so she made a turkey, just to have leftovers.

We helped her wreck it in true large-family style.

And I cut my hand doing the dishes. No alcohol was involved in this incident, despite the Pure White Trash shirt that looks like a Pabst Blue Ribbon label.

Wordless Wednesday - An Autumn Day in the Yard

2009-11-25T11:20:00.019-05:00

Catching Up Post #1 - KCHST Show'n'Sale

2009-11-23T22:01:00.011-05:00

I've been out a while, recovering and nursing some feelings, so I have a lot of catching up to do!

On Nov. 7, we had a Show'n'Sale with the Knoxville Creative Hands Street Team from Etsy, in the West Town Mall. Set up started bright and early at 8 AM and cleanup was at 9:30 PM. It was a taxing day. Physically I was just about strong enough... I have the stamina of a draft horse anyway. Emotionally, I wasn't as prepared as I thought for being out in the public. Lots of pregnant women and new babies walking the mall, and it affected me more than I thought it would, only a week on the heels of our own loss. I am not a "mall" person on the best of days so that part was a little trying too.

But! Des and Artemas and I had a lot of fun too! We made up people's thought bubbles as they went by, had some nice customers (and one really fun, nutty lady), made a little money, and got to eat Mall food. Not a bad day, after all.

Below are some pics of our display table, then closeups of our yarns from Diantha's Fluff4ewe shop, my My7Kids recycled yarn shop, and my Heartfeltfun hand knits/recycled felted accessories shop. Also Artemas' GotWood4You woodworking shop and Richard's Rossoaps handmade soap shop... last but not least Des' Hamncheezr Boutique where she sells handmade, quilted batik bags. Also I threw in a couple of us in the booth: Des with her bags, Artemas with his Zombie shirt, my Knitting Chickens vendor apron, and mohawk. Nothin' weird about this bunch, no sir!

Sad Day, guest post from my Daughter

2009-10-30T16:35:00.002-04:00

Yesterday morning Mom went to the Dr for an ultrasound because she'd been having some light spotting the day before. They did an ultrasound and found no heartbeat in the baby. Mom was 9.5 weeks pregnant, and had had an ultrasound at 7.5 weeks (the baby had a very strong heartbeat then). On the ultrasound yesterday the baby measured only 8.5 weeks.

Mom's Drs office prescribed her the medicine to induce labor, which it did, last evening. When everything passed instead of there being one bean of a baby, there were two--one measuring out a couple weeks smaller than the one we knew about. Sad, sad.

The medicine also induced a hemorrhage-like bleed. She called her Drs office again and they called in a prescription for more, it was supposed to stop the bleeding. An hour later she was still hemorrhaging and her Drs office said to go to a specific ER because they were on call there, and that they would call and say she was on her way.

Mom & Dad went to the ER, I took Jeremiah to my MIL's to watch and went and met them (in case Mom needed blood, we are the same type) and 5.5 hours later when I left (3am) she was still just laying in a triage bed. They had not even admitted her yet. They HAD done a pelvic exam and had just when I left finished doing the ultrasound. They wouldn't give her a blood coagulant (sp?) until after the ultrasound.

By the time I'd left they'd only given her one bag of saline/iv fluids and an hour after I left her blood pressure dropped to about 60/40 and she passed out. That's when they gave her 4 more bags of IV fluids and the blood coagulant 4AM and moved her to a room about 6:30am. Mom called me at 10:30 and said the bleeding had almost stopped and they were discharging her.

She's on her way home now to try to sleep a little. I'm going to take the kids out there this afternoon, try to keep her kids quiet and help make dinner.

The younger kids, Veronica (11), Josiah (almost 9) and Betsy (2.5) don't know she was pregnant so they're probably upset and confused about Mommy being in the hospital. My brother Artemas called us at 3am because he couldn't sleep cause he was worried.

Thank you for all the prayers; continued prayers are appreciated. And pray Mom lays around for a couple days--she has trouble doing that but she could use it!

Wordless Wednesday - Autumn Color

2009-10-28T15:17:00.010-04:00

Fun Times, Happy Birthday Richie too

2009-10-13T00:08:00.023-04:00

So it's been a while, not that there is never stuff going on at my house, but rather there is usually so much going on, it tires me out. Like particularly right now, I could sleep until about, hmmm, mid-November.

Ok, first off, some knitting and handmade, crafty knitting accessories. Here is the Pretty Diamond baby hat that I had such trouble knitting last month. I like the diamond pattern, but don't like that it didn't show up very well in the pale color and weird texture of the acrylic. I LOVE the pompom. I was trimming it round and when it got to the crazy tufts out of the top, I knew it was time to quit.

I had an Alchemy request on Etsy to make a pair of straight (?) knitting needles, 20-30" long from some of our recycled pear wood.

I came up with these... they are 26" long, completely smooth and have branch knots for stops. The lady who requested them is very pleased!

Des and Tony were down at my house yesterday. We came into a kind of windfall and one of the mature, grown-up, responsible things we did was to buy a new dishwasher. Ours in this house must have been made in 1963. We practically had to wash the dishes to dishwasher the dishes. So Tony and the rest of the Army Corps of Engineers put the new dishwasher in.

While they did that, Des made a pair of straight knitting needles from the pearwood. They are about 12" long and about a size 11. Very cool indeed, and available in Artemas' GotWood4You Etsy shop.

B has been taking some pics again. She caught Artemas in what is fast becoming his Favorite chair, that he better not get used to, because it is getting recovered and going to live at Des' house.

She also took a pic of Diantha reclining on the couch like she has no chores to do, and brother Josiah (who will be 9 next month), looking like he is up to no good.

Oh and the ubiquitous cat, D.O.G., who is asleep everywhere in the house all the time.

Today while walking around in a parking lot in the rain, I felt water seep through the soles of my shoes and into my socks. Before breakfast and when I was about to be out for the day, mind you. I discovered that there was a crack in the sole of each shoe. So in our birthday-day travels, just Richie and I on a date, we got me a new pair of shoes.

I usually have to wear only leather shoes, I am allergic to acrylic. But winter is coming, so most of the time I will wear my leather biker boots. When I need to wear sneaks, I will have these, and be BEAST. I'm sure you understand. B took the pic for me. My jeans are really NOT too short, I held them up so the shoe would show better. (sure)

For Richard's birthday, we ate at the Chinese Buffet. A big mistake on my part, that was. The kids and I also made him a delicious cake from scratch, his favorite. Worman Chocolate Cake. (above)

Ok, the big news. I really wasn't going for World's Oldest Naturally-Occurring Pregnancy (that woman was 56 years old, by the way), but surprise, surprise. If all goes as planned, we are going to introduce another new little Ross to the world sometime in late Spring. Deviating from my norm (I've had the last 5 kids at home), I actually went to a [gasp!] doctor today to start prenatal care. I really like this woman, who attended me when I went in after Beverly was born, and attended Des when Hannah was born, and is herself a mom of 4 boys. So after a hefty down payment, we got a picture of Pepé Le Bean. Enjoy.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-09-30T23:04:00.003-04:00

Beverly didn't feel well today.

Hot Chicks and a Trip to the Park

2009-09-29T22:28:00.009-04:00

Wow, our chickens from last Spring are HUGE. They are kind of crowded in the coop we have, and I think there is at least ONE rooster. Oldest DS says so, because his room is near the coop and he says there is some crowing going on out there.

In 2 weeks, the kids will each take 3 of their nicest hens to the 4-H Fall Show and Sale. They have to donate the chickens to the auction, but they get $20 each for entering it.

I went to the feed store Saturday for feed for them. I am a sucker for little peeping things. The chicks shown here are Blue-Laced Red Wyandottes. They are a rare breed, which comes in two colorways, both of which are called Red (a mystery to me). The little chick that looks a like a chipmunk will be the darker color, the pale chick will be the lighter color.

Next to and below are some pics of adults and the plumage. You can plainly see that the edge of each feather is outlined in a cool blue color. The body of the feather is either dark red or a cream color.

Monday (oh was it only yesterday?) Richard and I had a date in the morning. We went out a couple places and had breakfast. When we got home, the older kids and I went walking and to take a jack to Allen, who got a flat tire. Richard and the younger kids stayed home and built about a 10 ft. square chicken run on the side of the coop. We can't let the chickens totally free-range because our lot isn't fenced. But the girls seem to like their new "freedom," and it will relieve their crowding a little, until we thin them out.

Des called and asked if we would like a trip to a local park. She and another friend and Des' two kids and Tara's three (a son, Riley, Jeremiah's age [4], a daughter Micah the same age as Hannah [18m], and a 5 month old baby Savannah) were there playing when we got there. This is Hannah, who managed to face-dive off the slide, and Micah, who has wonderful Queen Elizabeth the First hair.

Diantha is holding Savannah, whom they call Banana, and who looks JUST like her daddy. Des says Banana is so cute it could "almost" convince her to have another kid. But not yet.

Veronica peered out at the world through the eyes of a Knight...

And Josiah did too... with the company of Fair Damsel Beverly of Ross.

Beverly, who has been a bouncer since we watched both her little feet kick out repeatedly at the same time, in her 12-week Ultrasound, took an opportunity to bounce in the sand, in the shade.

After the park, we left off the kids at Des with about a TON of fish sticks and fries in the oven, and went to visit with our small group from church. After that and driving back 15 miles to get the kids, and driving home 30 miles from Des' house, we were tired. But it was a nice end to a nice day.

Today I have been a total stupid head. I didn't get my primary objective accomplished for the day. In fact there was a project I wanted to tackle that I didn't even start. Beverly was feverish with a runny nose, and I am feeling about the same, so that didn't help.

But I got a recycled yarn done, called Sonoma Harvest, which is available in my My7kids etsy shop, here. And I dyed some fiber for Diantha to use in her shop, the wrong color, and immediately misplaced the rest of that ONE color of dye we needed. [sigh] Maybe tomorrow. Helped Artemas with some new items for his Got Wood 4 You shop, did 4 loads of laundry, and made a good Lentil Stew for supper (recipe in previous post, here). Diantha doesn't look mad about the fiber. Isn't she gorgeous?

Over the weekend I cast on a little baby beanie for a friend of mine's new grandbaby girl. I was gonna do a K2P2 rib and then a diamond pattern in K and P stitches. Cast on 68 st, no problem. Knitted my first round, didn't have enough stitches. Picked out 1st round, cast on 2 more st, knitted a round, had one stitch too many. ARRggh! I figured, just knit it together with something, won't even show on the 1st round. Knitted 2nd round, found out that I had done a K1P2 at one point early in the 1st round, that's why I had one extra stitch. Picked out round 2 and most of round 1, stopping occasionally to mutter under my breath.

When I got to the pattern, I became a total knitting nah-nah. AND, I broke one of my vintage nylon knitting needles in the process. I have picked out as much of this hat as I have knitted. I am finally down to the bind-off, and so glad. Here is a pic of the Pretty Diamond Baby Hat from hell.

One last pic to leave you with. Des took this when she was down on Sunday. Josiah and B were playing in the fallen tree that serves as Artemas' source of wood for his shop. Beverly doesn't seem too bee too concerned by what appears to be (just off-camera) a swinging metal something in her brother's hand. But she's young yet. And nobody ended up bleeding... so probably it was a good day.

More B's Eye View Photography

2009-09-23T20:34:00.014-04:00

Beverly's been at it again with the camera.

Apparently her Banana Chocolate Chip muffin for breakfast impressed her enough to need to snap a pic of it.

Our weird guard-dog cat, D.O.G., was keeping the last 2 Mountain Dew cans safe for us, and she thought that picture-worthy also.

She snapped a nice shot of her big brother Josiah. Isn't he cute? When he isn't tormenting her, he is darling.

Like when he is sleeping.

And we must have one of Mommy, walking through the house. The lampshade perspective is especially artistic.

In our living room, we have an old Army trunk that I got for $5 once at a yard sale. We used to keep videos in it, but now it's just empty. I do have a really nice, glass-topped, metal-sculpture-bottomed coffee table.

But since my older sons have managed to break like 3 other heavy-glass-topped coffee tables, I like the old trunk. You can put your feet on it, fold laundry on it, and spill your can of soda on it, and not worry about damaging it. Perfect.

B must think so too, as she was inspired to snap a photograph. Notice the extraneous coaster.

One more, a Cheesy self-portrait. Thank you, B, for cheering up our lives with your smiling face. And thank you for allowing us a glimpse into your little world, through your pictures!

Now, a couple pics of me own...

My parents were over to visit for the day on Saturday. This is my mom, Judith, holding Beverly for her nap.

My parents HATE our having kids, and every time since my 2nd, that I have told them I am having another baby, my mom has said, "Oh NO!!," like I told her I had cancer or something. When I am pregnant, my dad takes every opportunity to tell me that I need another kid like I need a hole in my head.

I don't really understand this, because we don't ask them to help us support the kids, and we don't get welfare of any kind. And, once the kids are here, they seem to like them ok.

Here is Beverly explaining football to my dad, Jim. Or maybe I should say James, since he gets ticked off if we shorten Beverly's name to the affectionate Betsy. So maybe NOBODY should be allowed to have a nickname? It's a thought.

The Dr. Pepper-Hoodie big-box store anomaly was gone today, but we found a little-girls' doll fail.

This is one of the reasons my girls don't play with Barbie types, yo!

Hearty Country Muffins and Gatlinburg

2009-09-22T22:49:00.011-04:00

We had these for breakfast this morning. They are not only delicious, they are really very healthy for you! This recipe will make about 16 muffins, but they freeze really well!

Hearty Country Muffins
1 can(14-16 oz) pie apples
or fat-free fried apples, chopped up
1/3 cup butter, softened or melted
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
Beat these together thoroughly.

2 small or 1 large carrot, grated fine
1/2 cup raisins
2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Stir these in. Then take another 1/2 cup of flour, toss 1/2 cup chopped pecans or sliced almonds in it, and GENTLY stir it in the mix until barely blended.

Grease muffin cups or use paper liners or Baker's Joy. Spoon cups 2/3 full of mix. Bake in preheated 400 degree F oven for 14 minutes.

~^*^~ ~^*^~ ~^*^~

Yesterday we went to Gatlinburg. We visited with my parents in a time-share condo they have there, then went downtown to walk around.

It has rained here for 8 days and the forecast was for rain the rest of the week too, but it stopped about 3 in the afternoon. Everything was still damp but at least we didn't get wet!

We walked the Mountain Mall, where Artemas and Diantha posed in this nostalgic picture-op.

The street corner at River Road and Parkway had this nicely-decorated Outhouse. the kids wanted their pictures taken in it. Don't ask what's with Diantha's attitude. With her are Beverly and Josiah.

Artemas looks like he has had enough and passed out. Veronica was feeling kinda puny yesterday for some reason, so she stayed back at the condo for a little nap.

We didn't go walking today. Instead I went to the range, where I shot as well with just my left hand as I did with my right hand only or both hands in rapid fire. Then I shot a couple mags with the 22 long rifle, with which I apparently can't hit the broad side of a barn. It doesn't help for me to need to hold it on my right side to shoot, but I am cross-eye dominant. I can't sight it with my left eye. Oops..

Artemas wanted me to share a pic of him, loving a Mountain Dew slushie, with the internet. Would you run out and buy a Mtn. Dew slushie on the basis of this picture?
Maybe I should see if Pepsico would hire him...

Since we didn't walk today, I didn't get a pic of the Dr. Pepper Hoodie anomaly.
However, I do have a pic of a cakewreck to share, which I am going to also submit to Cakewrecks blog. For want of anything else to call it, the kids and I have dubbed it The Leprosy Cake. YUM.

Stuff That Has Happened Recently

2009-09-21T23:53:00.012-04:00

Another Big Box store anomaly. Our local big box store/indoor walk-for-your-health club is remodeling. I mean big time, confuse-the-customers, move-the-whole-store-twice remodling. They finally have the new pharmacy in, and the BP machine in a little nook. The machine is separated from the pick-up window by a half-wall topped with glass, which they have obliterated with ad signs in English and of course Spanish. Someone set their Dr. Pepper and hoodie up on the little ledge, probably while they took their blood pressure. For reasons of my own, I am taking my BP each day while we walk. The first day, we didn't think a thing of it.

On Day 2, we took a picture. Today was Day 3, and we took another pic. Shall we take a pic every day until some diligent employee notices the Lone Hoodie and removes it? Hmmm?

B has been at it again with the camera. Her favorite subject matters seem to be Mommy and Daddy, probably because what she looks at and whom she deals with mostly are, um, Mommy and Daddy. So firts thing in the morning Saturday, she snapped pics of the two of us. Thanks, B.

I have a tattle-tale pic of myself to share with the world. The other day as I went around the house doing this, that, something else, I kept having to put on reading glasses. I only wear a +1.00 but still, need them sometimes. I kept getting aggravated, because every time I needed a pair, I couldn't find them and had to go hunt up another pair. I sat down at the table to put on some glasses to look at something, and Diantha said, "Um, Mom... Why are you putting your blue glasses on your face when you have two other pairs on your head?" What is the answer to that? As Grandpa said to the kid in The Princess Bride, "You're very smart... now shut up!"

Artemas has been playing with more pearwood in the front yard. I have a really good stainless-steel hone to sharpen our really good chef-quality knives, but several years ago the oak handle and stop cracked. So Artemas took a piece of pear branch for a handle and a round of a larger branch for a stop, sanded them fine, water-base urethaned them, and mounted them on the hone. I love it. The odd shape fits the palm of the hand perfectly. Bravo, Artemas!

I finished the BumbleBee-nie I was knitting for a toddler boy. I really like the way it turned out. I had what I thought was a really good pic of the crown, but these dress-dummy heads are so WEIRD. Instead of being kind of round like a head, they are narrow from side to side and then really LONG from forehead to crown. The shape of them really distorts anything one puts on them. So the pic of the crown of the hat looked all misshapen, and when I tried to correct it in my photoshop program, it just got worse. So, one view is all you get.

We went to Gatlinburg for part of today, to visit with my parents who are in a time-share there. We really only live about 50 miles from there, so don't ask me why it always takes so DANG long to get there. By now, I am exhausted. So I will try to write some more tomorrow, about the Left slipper-sock to go with the BumbleBee-nie and about our day trip!

Sad, or Mad?

2009-09-14T21:13:00.014-04:00

Some things make me just sad. Well they also make me mad, but being mad about something usually doesn't solve the problem, and just saps your energy, and people don't want to hear it. Which leaves me with sad. Sometimes I feel like, in my lifetime, I have never stopped grieving, and like I will never stop having something to grieve over. Thankfully the Bible tells me that the Lord is "near to the brokenhearted." [Psalm 34:18] Otherwise I would never be able to find Him in this world.

Some things that grieve me, I can't share with the Internet. I can share them with my dh and the Lord, and that will have to do. Some things I have grieved and gotten "over," (not really), but they have become Manasseh (which in Hebrew means, "to take the sting out of a memory")... like the babies I have lost.

And some things make me sad just for a little while. Eventually they either work themselves out or go away. So tonight's post is about those.

My 2yo daughter Beverly (whom we affectionately sometimes call "Betsy," and the artist behind the B's Eye View pics I post), the other night discovered scissors on the kitchen table. Now there is nothing unusual about that. We are a family of crafters, and my kids have grown up from infancy with scissors and straight pins and buttons and pointy sticks lying around. They are a fact of life, and not usually even much of a curiosity. But there they lay.

So, while people were milling about dishing up plates of their dinner, she decided to cut her hair.

Snip Snip.

Then perhaps figuring that she would get discovered at her prominent place at the table, she took said scissors into the back hall, sat on the floor, and trimmed some more off the sides. Richard discovered her, disarmed her, and scolded her. She now says, "Cut hair!" and points to her head, and then says, "No!" Too late. Oh, and by the way, try getting an active 2yo to stand still for a pic of her butchered hair.

Beautiful little baby curls, missing.

One of my motorcycles, the one I love best, is the 1983 Suzuki GS450T that I have posted pics of before. Earlier this summer, my SIL Tony got it running for me. But we didn't have the headlight or plates, so there it sat. Today we were working on it again.

The gasoline from 2 months ago has varnished in the heat, so the tank and carbs have to be drained and cleaned. The pipes have surface-rusted from nearly 2 years of sitting in the shed, since it was flipped by my oldest son on a condensation-slick railroad track at a curve on a 42 degree morning. So they will have to be brushed and primered and painted with engine paint.

But here's the worst blow of the day (or rather, 2 blows): now that we have it mechanically together (I mean, ya can ride with ugly PIPES), we tried to switch the petcock from "Reserve" to fuel. It was stuck. In getting UNstuck, it fractured a razor-thin little metal disc in the carb feed, so I will have to go to a cycle shop in the morning and order one. Oh and the plates I renewed in July? The sticker is missing. Could my day get any better? Here is a picture, so that you can share my suffering.

One more little sadness, then I'll go on with my life and find something more fun to talk about. Betsy has come down with hand, foot, and mouth virus. Des' kids picked it up from somewhere, and B picked it up from them. I'm not sad about that. Other kids of mine have had it, it is a relatively mild childhood affliction, and it goes away. She has a particularly mild case, with no fever so far. But it has made her throat sore, so she can't nurse.

I was totally ready for her to wean, as she is past 2 years old and TALL, making it hard for her to lay across my lap. Plus, totally not her fault, but I now have almost 18 years of breastfeeding under my belt out of the 23 years I have been a parent, and I am ready to be done. But I wanted it to be our decision, her decision. The milk burns her throat, so she has tried to nurse and cries. I can't imagine how it must feel for her, for her beloved "nursie" to be betraying her like that. So I realize some of you can't relate, but that makes me sad too.

Ok, on a little UP note... see that pile behind the bike that looks like just some yard debris? My 17 yos is slowly, or really not so slowly, turning that pile into usable and useful items, like buttons, gift tags, spindles, coasters, etc. The new CSPIA rules exempt handknitted items for children from lead testing, unless you add zippers, buttons, etc. But wood buttons are also exempt! Hurrah!

Here are some items from his Etsy shop GotWood4You that each sold in only hours from listing them. Congrats Artemas! More to come!

Range, Redneck, Spindles, Knitting

2009-09-08T19:47:00.023-04:00

So I went to the range today w my 21yo DS#1. One of the mags from my weapon is seriously misloading. I do have arrangements already made to send it in for servicing, so I am kind of glad the problem showed up before I shipped it off, so I can let them know.

I noticed that on the X-1 targets I was using, the 8 ring is the same size of the 9 ring on the 12" Dirty Bird targets. Hmmm, if I use the Dirty Bird, my score is even better.

I shot 26 rounds right-handed and 10 rounds left-handed. Pics speak for themselves.

Pic of the dirty bird target up top is from a couple weeks ago but you can see what I mean by the ring size.

Artemas has started making wooden items for his Got Wood 4 You shop at Etsy. Last night he was working, and working, and working on a spindle that we could NOT get to balance. He hit on the idea of putting the shaft of it in the drill and making his own "spinning wheel".

You can see from the pics that he and Diantha had a big time of it. Gotta give them points for creativity.

In the one picture, Betsy had just taken a bite of Cola-slow-roasted pork and looks like she is either in ecstasy, or she can't believe the redneck ridiculousness of her brother. LOL.

Seems like every time Des and Tony are over, the kids get into something like this. Nice that they are getting older and actually get along!

Also it seems like every time they are over, B takes camera in hand and has a heyday running around between all the tall people, taking pictures. so I have included here, for your viewing enjoyment, some B's Eye View pics of the family.

Left, 17 yo big brother Artemas

Right, big sister Desiree with sleeping Hannah

Left, 14yo big sister Diantha, who is a peacock.

Right, Hannah.

Or rather, Hannah's legs, which is all B could reach with the camera.

Left, big brother (in law) Tony. She always makes him look like a giant.

and, God forbid I should get left out, this time she also nabbed a pic of Mom.

Artemas finally did get one spindle done to put up, this one a top-whorl. It has a 2" pearwood slice with the bark still on, screwed-in silver color hook, and 9" oak shaft.

I tried it out and it spins well.

I have been knitting, but not enough. So here for all the world to see, are my latest knitting fails (geez I use Twitter so much, I almost used hashtags. #knitting #fails. LoL)

The right cotton slipper sock, finished. But I did not cast on the left, because I wanted something to knit while I was walking this week, and I can't do the provisional, toe-up crochet cast on while I walk. Call me uncoordinated or something.

The beanie hat to go with the slipper socks, partway done. It keeps slipping off my needles, and true to Ross household form, I can't find any of the 36 needle tips I have lying around here in limbo. So despite my really good idea, I can't knit this while walking either, because I keep having to pick up lost stitches.

I cast on a Mossy Jacket (pattern here) for Hannah for Christmas, though I am going to knit it in a v-neck raglan with centered button placket. Like I need ONE more thing to do, but Hannah LOVED a hand-dyed recycled yarn I made, that coordinates with this one. And, I am a sucker for my grandbabies.

And the best #knitting #fail of the week... I lost the socks I was working on for Josiah. [Hangs head in shame]. But! I haven't looked under my bed yet. There is a very special place under the head of my bed next to my nightstand, where knitting projects left on my nightstand go if ignored for more than about an hour. So there is hope...

Random Doings

2009-09-02T23:34:00.010-04:00

Naturally I posted that stuff about someone's lunch in the beer case and the next day it was GONE. Our local big-box indoor walk-for-your-health club is undergoing a MAJOR (pain in the tokus) renovation so just about every bigwig in the country is in and out of there. Someone probably got their pants chewed for sure.

And, while we were walking, we encountered some unexpected art. Well to some people I am sure it just looks like random spray paint on a shelf, but to me it looked like art.

Huh, the guy on the commercial that was just on TV said "thrust." Maybe I am just hormonal.

Speaking of commercials, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the pothole commercial. The voice and mannerisms of the person who speaks for the pothole are so much like my DD#1s lifelong best friend, I almost wonder if they paid her to do the voiceover. Knocks me out every time I see it. ROFLOL

Well since I wrote the other day, I have finished the toddler sweater I was knitting for Kyrie. Here it is, being blocked. Which took 2 days because it has been raining. The air has been so damp, the cotton took forever to dry. The buttons don't show well, but they are paua shell buttons, bright chartreuse green iridescent.

I started a pair of slippers for Kyrie's brother. He is a month (maybe 2?) younger than my B, but he is bigger. A moose. Anyway I took some of the lime green and hand-dyed it to a nice, earthy, boyish brown with greeny shades in it. So I am going to knit him slippers and a hat, the slippers mostly brown (so they don't get dirty) with a green cuff, and the hat mostly green, with brown stripes.

And then since I have nothing else to do, no challenges to speak of, I decided that the toes of the slippers should have R on one and L on the other in intarsia knitting. Doing them toe-up gives me a chance to short-row the toes. This is what I have so far.

And speaking of challenges one doesn't speak of, today I have been passing a kidney stone. Not enough that I have had food poisoning that has lasted me several days, no, today I have to add a pokey stone. So tonight I passed it.

Them.

All 3 of them.

Alright, on to something better! Today I dyed another skein of recycled yarn. Well first I dyed it randomly red and blue on an off-white base of Shetland wool. Then I plunked the entire thing in a pot of purple dye. I love the results! It is available in my Etsy shop!

If nobody buys it, I might have to knit this one up myself.

Went to the firing range yesterday, and shot very well indeed. I also took the guys there, some Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins (recipe here). Whaddya know, they are starting to remember me by name.

I think I might be getting to the point of not needing to go practice so much. WHAT did I say? Forget I said that. By the way, our mall is NOT posted Firearms Prohibited. ~happy face~

How Long?

2009-08-29T23:47:00.013-04:00

One or two of the kids and I walk our local big-box emporium almost every day. If one walks all the aisles, it is about 2.5 miles, so it is decent exercise if we walk briskly and don't gawk, and it is indoors in a relatively safe environment and best of all, climate-controlled.

On Sunday morning last, we noticed something strange as we walked the beer aisle. Apparently someone (employee on break?) had put their beverage and potential lunch down for a minute (dare we to assume to go help a customer? Certainly not!) and left it.

Monday it was still there. Tuesday, someone had wanted to buy whatever beer it was in front of, so they moved it. Wednesday, there. Thursday, someone STOCKED the beer case and moved it (didn't REmove it). Friday, still there. Today, not only still there, but now it has been joined by someone else's beverage too.

We decided to keep an eye on how long the items stay in the beer case. Taking bets, anyone?

Last evening we went to Des' house.

When we got there, Des had just gotten home from grocery shopping. Before she left, Hannah had been entertaining herself by playing in the plastics cupboard. In true intelligent-child form, she figured out she could avoid having to stand, crouch, or sit on the floor, if she would only drag her portable high chair seat over by the cupboard. So she did. What a delightful child!

While I was making supper there (Baked French Toast casserole and sausage patties), grandbaby Hannah held off her hunger by eating blue M&Ms. Apparently she only likes the blue ones.

Ok, on to some other kinda weird stuff. We took some pics of Redneck Cars today at the same big-box store. Please tell me these guys don't think their cars are hot. The orange one is for sale ($3800 and I can get you the phone # if you want it). Green wheels, whew.

I had hoped to be at the bottom of the sleeves tonight on the toddler sweater I am knitting, but no dice. It's only been a week, and I really haven't spent that much time on it. So, tomorrow is another day.

I spent most of the day today looking for a skein of yarn I had unraveled from a sweater. Made up the dye I wanted to use and couldn't find it anywhere. Des informs me that I brought it to her house and left it. What? Oh well that's better than the last thing I left at her house (don't ask).

One last pic of the night. It has nothing to do with anything, other than this bike is STILL not on the road (dead battery, and the headlight is being persnickety, can't get the clips in), and I miss it terribly. I love this bike. Looking at it, you can see why... it is one beautiful piece of machinery. Soon, I hope! Before the weather turns (though I have been known to ride at 30 degrees, LOL).

Great Mail Day and Stuff

2009-08-27T22:52:00.017-04:00

First, some Stuff. I have to put up another pic of the weirdo cat, D.O.G. Note his leg is wrapped in computer peripherals. He doesn't care.

Another non-mail item.

Diantha carded up a batt of hand dyed, soft as a feather Corriedale that we processed from raw fleece, a tiny bit of nylon, and brown mill-end wool, and spun it together.

She called the resulting yarn of 110 grams/146 yards, Bella Swan, and we are going to list it in the morning in her Etsy shop.

I have made pretty good progress on the Mossy Jacket I am knitting for DD#1's friend's baby Kyrie. Here you see, I have the jacket body done, the bottom seed-stitch border and the button placket done, and I am casting on the neck/left side border.

Today is day 6 of the project, with not a lot of time spent on it (mostly riding places in the car). WHY in the world I stuck to pattern in knitting seed st in the border I will never know. It looks good, but I hate seed stitch. Story about why, sometime else.

Bleh.

Kyrie has a brother a year older, about the age of my baby Beverly. He never really got a "baby" gift from me either. So I want to knit him some slippers and a beanie, but nothing too warm because they live in FL. So I hand-dyed about 1/3 of another skein of this green Cottontots, to a warm woodsy brown. I am going to use the green for the cuffs of slippers and the brown for stripes in a beanie.

Quite manly really.

Tonight we made mini-hamburgers, because I got a good deal on a whole bag of little whole-wheat rolls. We had fresh-sliced tomatoes from the garden (and other veggies) with them. I also made an antipasto with garden tomatoes, sweet red pepper, and basil (also black olives, onion, aged grated cheese, garlic, and olive oil). It was delicious!

Now for the Good Mail Day. I just LOVE to get interesting things in the mail!

Beverly came down with a fever last night. She was quite wakeful all night, which didn't help my killer headache at all. Today she alternately slept and wanted to be held. She got 2 new books in the mail, which she LOVED and then fell asleep.

I got a simply GORGEOUS hand-dyed sock yarn from SimplyTwisted on Etsy. If you have never seen her shop, and you knit or crochet, you should go there and buy something!

Now, I wonder what obligatory Christmas-knitting project I can neglect so that I can make my selfish-self a pair of socks out of this? LOL

Last mail call, something also for me, just lil' ol' me. I got a holster for my gun! I really wanted an inner-waistband (IWB), left-hand draw (LH) but they were out of them. This one was actually $5 cheaper anyway, and it is good, high-quality heavy leather. The weapon pictured in it is our Lorcin .380, since I am temporarily without my Sccy CPX-1 (no, I actually don't sleep with it).

Pistol-packin' Mama, Lay That Pistol Down. (For those of you too young, this was a song that was popular about the time my own mom was little, ROFLOL) Or, put it on the back of your pants. Anyway, on a scale of 1 being disgusted to 10 being orgasmic, I am at about 8 (very, very pleased) with it.

Last pic. We were walking our local big-box store this morning when we came across this Falling-prices fail. Out of curiosity, I bought a yellow onion to see what it would ring at (plus I needed an onion, LOL) and sure enough, it was the higher price. We thank them for being so dang helpful!

Creating Again

2009-08-24T22:26:00.015-04:00

Earlier today we were supposed to take Artemas for his driver's test in Clinton, where DD#1 lives, over 30 miles away. Traffic was terrible and we almost ran out of gas. We were late, and they wouldn't let him take the test. If he waits, renews his permit in Oct., and takes the test in January when he turns 18, he can get a non-restricted full license. So, whatever.

We went on to Des house for some fun in the sun. She colored Diantha's stripes to incredibly bright neon pink. Artemas had to have some stripes too.

The little kids ran around picking up sticks and walnuts in the yard, and laid on a quilt on the grass. I knitted & lay in the sun a while... Veronica made me some foil "sun shades."

So here are lotsa pics of the fun. Enjoy!

This is the walnut harvest. About a 1/2 bushel. Husking them will have to wait for another day! I have a hard time eating walnuts, because they burn my tongue. I like pecans better. But I would like to make some natural dye from the hulls!

Here we have some more hair-do Rocket Science going on

Jeremiah and his little Aunt B couldn't squeeze their eyes shut tight enough to keep today's sun out, though it wasn't scroching hot for a change...

Des got haircolor in her mouth, and it was Blek.

But a Lunch of Champions of soda and a homemade muffin, that was much better.

Artemas ended up with stripes. Fortunately, guys' hair is short, so in a month he can shave it off.

Or, not.

I've been going through a slow slump, in my shops, in my creativity, and just in my energy in general. Accordingly, my sales have suffered over the summer, which they always do when I get down to about 30 or less items (though I hear from just about everyone, that sales have been bad all over this summer).

So today I finally got some new items listed in my shop. I used my Hall of Horrors banner from last year, because it is still so cool... and the avatar of me dressed as Alice Cooper last year at Halloween. I just LOVE Alice, both as a performer and as a fellow Christian.

The first one is Frankenstein's Suit, a handcut, hand dyed yarn from a recycled 100% cotton T shirt. Wow, I just love this one.

There is also Halloween-er, a self-striping, hand dyed 80% wool bulky yarn in orange and black. Too cool!

I relisted and renamed a couple existing yarns.

And I put up a new listing for my So Big They're Obscene handmade double-pointed knitting needles from recycled pear wood.

Feels good to be creating again.

Don't Leave Home For Long or Random Weirdness Happens

2009-08-23T23:08:00.015-04:00

A lotta pics tonight, of random weirdness that has happened to me lately when I wasn't looking.

Our cat D.O.G (pronounced Dee-OH'-ghee) finds some strange places to sleep. The other morning I opened the cereal cupboard to put away a container oldest DS had left out when he left for work 2 hours earlier. -->

Sat. night I went with DS#2 to pick a friend of his up from work. Said friend needed to go by his house to get clothes, so he could more comfortably spend the night on our sofa playing x-box. He asked if I minded if he would do a load of laundry at my house. I got home to find the girl next door spending the night too. Apparently I am running a Youth Hostel.

During the hour I was gone, aliens, or oldest daughter Desiree, got hold of Diantha's hair. ( <-- )

And Tony's. ( --> ) And shortly after we got back, Artemas' too (no pic available, thank God).

Tony's hair is very soft, and ended up looking like a fuzzy yellow baby duck.

Diantha is striped. Seems like the plan is that when we go to Des' house tomorrow, she is going to put hot pink color on Diantha's stripes.

Hannah is shocked at the whole proceedings.

~'^*^'~~'^*^'~~'^*^'~

While we were out walking the other day, I came across some pic-worthy fails.

The first one was in the bakery case. These chocolate-dipped pastries look like a pair of... well, of... oh bollocks, never mind.

Then there was this spectacular product-name fail. The package is clearly printed in English, and was available in a major chain American grocery store. Exactly WHAT does this soup taste like? (Let me guess... chicken!)

Ok, this isn't exactly a fail, more like just something really weird.

This is a municipally-owned vehicle in our town. It's not a cab. I never saw a chartreuse, something, before.

Here is a yarn bomb, yarnbomb, knit tag, among other names, that we did back in June. It fit at the time. Looks like the people who work in this place have tried, and tried, and tried, to yank it off. No one thought to use a pair of scissors or a box cutter.

The sun has faded it somewhat over the summer, but the fact that it is hanging in there is a testament to the staying power of acrylic. If nobody cuts this thing off, it will probably still be there when Jesus comes back.

Speaking of knitting, I took a notion the other day to actually knit a long-overdue baby gift. The "baby" is 14 months old, so the time is just about ripe. Anyway I cast on the Mossy Jacket that can be found at F.Pea on Friday and I really am almost done with the jacket body.

I am doing it in Bernat Cottontots yarn with Filatura Di Crosa Mama in pale lime for the trim, because the baby lives in FL. I am not crazy about cotton yarn, and the Cottontots shrank a little lengthwise in the washing of the swatch, so I will have to knit an extra inch or so. But the cloth is pretty, and the mom can throw it in the washing machine. Always a plus!

Progress is Good, or, Saving One's Marriage

2009-08-15T22:11:00.008-04:00

My dh (take that d to mean whatever you want, LOL) had two days off together this week, Mon. & Tues. For nearly a year now, I have had a new faucet to put on the deep-dish stainless steel kitchen sink: one of those tall ones with the high neck so you can put BIG pots of water under it to fill them. At the time we bought it, we had just also bought travertine tiles to do the kitchen countertops. So I said, "Let's just wait until we have to have the sink out to do the countertop, and put the new faucet in then."

Not that I am big on waiting for something like this, but I KNOW my husband, and I know that if he takes the faucet off, he will tear up the washers or squeeze a water line too hard with the pliers, and next thing you know, the sink will be down 3 days. So I figured a disabled kitchen ONCE is bettter than TWICE.

In the ensuing months, Artemas (DS#2) and I have tiled the kitchen island and the countertop to the left of the stove. We still don't have the edging tiles put around them, but progress is progress. Anyway with two days in a row off, I said to dh Monday morning, "Let's tile that last countertop!" So I got to got to work first thing with a breaker-bar and hammer, taking tiles off the backsplash. Yee-haw! When I was done, he un-set the sink and took it outside. Which took him until early afternoon.

I started laying out tiles, marking them to be cut. Artemas took tiles out to the porch, set up the tile saw, filled the bottom with water, and prepared to cut. Keep in mind that he and I have already done TWO other countertops in this kitchen. But NOW the Army Corps of Engineers is here to rescue us and has suggestions of his own about WHERE the tile saw should be set up (on a barrel over under our last remaining tree). So, I get to be the mediator in a worthless argument.

Tiles cut, marked as to where they go, dh decides he and Artemas will set them. It is dinner time, with no sink. Off I go to Taco Bell with the debit card while they discuss the best way to float tile mastic.

By bedtime we have made a little progress. Tile mastic is supposed to dry 24 hours.

Tuesday evening we can grout! The grout needs to harden about 2 hours before it can be repeated. Because the tiles are nearly zero-grout-line, the grout has to be forced WAY down in the cracks and done several times. So the tiles get ONE coat of grout.

Wednesday we can grout again. Twice. The grout should dry 24 hours before it can be sealed. We are gone in the evening to visit DD#1 so we all make dinner at her house.

Thursday we can seal the grout and travertine! Yay!! By early afternoon (when dh gets home from work), the sealant is done (all 3 coats) and dry and the sink can be set. DD#1 is still needing help at her house, so I say, can I take the 2 oldest kids (one to help and one to watch the babies) and go there? Dh says sure! He and the younger 3 kids at home that evening go to Burger King. I get home at 10PM to find the sink NOT SET. Turns out the counter is now too thick for the clips that held the sink in. In fact it is now too thick for ANY sink clip out there. AND there is ONE little place where the stone tile is sticking out about a micron too far for the lip under the sink to fit down in the hole.

Friday dh doesn't have to be at work until 2 pm. When he got up at 9, I said, "Is there anything you need to set the sink, that you need to run up to the home store to get?" and he said, "No." He hangs out all morning. He starts getting ready for work. I said, "You don't have the sink hooked up." He says, "Well I need a grinding wheel for the dremel to use on either the stone or the stainless lip under the sink. I will look for one when I get to work." WHAT?! You are leaving me with a house full of kids, 4 days of dirty cups (we had been using paper plates because of course if the water is unhooked from the sink, it is unhooked from the dishwasher), no way to make dinner for the 5th night in a row, and NO SINK?!? Until 11 PM?!?

I went and got the grinding wheel and asked the plumbing dept. head how to hook down the sink (glue down w/silicone). Artemas shaved a piece off the sink and set it in place and glued it down.

This morning Richard had to be at work at 10 AM but by golly he was up at the crack of dawn, hooking up the plumbing to the sink. It probably saved his marriage. Yes folks, the Rosses, who started dating 28 years ago this month (only feels like 30 sometimes), are still together. And we STILL have to do the mosaic-tile edgings, but it looks pretty good so far.

In other news, we put a BUNCH of new handspun yarns and some carded batts up in Diantha's Fluff4ewe shop... stop by and see! Also added a couple new soaps to dh's Rossoaps shop at Etsy too!

A couple weeks ago, I purchased 2 skeins of lovely handspun Merino wool in a colorway called Cellar Door, from OnTheRound at Etsy, and I have knitted a mobius shoulder wrap. Diantha helped with some of the knitting, and we bound it off today. Here it is! It hasn't been blocked yet, so it will look better. It is wonderfully soft!

Baby Behind the Lens

2009-08-08T23:57:00.009-04:00

My 2yo baby Beverly (whom we affectionately call "Betsy") (seen here upside down) LOVES to take pictures. She fancies herself some kind of photographer, though most of the time she has one of her little bitty fingers in front of the camera lens.

Sometimes, though, she manages to get her grip correct, and takes pictures, which I call "B's Eye View" pics.

Tonight I am going to share some of her latest.

Today we were carding some fiber batts for Diantha's Fluff4ewe shop at Etsy. When we were done, I saw B up in a chair with the camera and wondered what she was doing. She said, "Carder!," and by golly she was right.

She took an interesting picture of her own delightful face. Pretty eyes, Betsy!

My DD#1's husband's friend Mark has a birthday tomorrow (Happy Birthday, Mark! [waving]), and we are all supposed to converge on DD#1's house for some more new-home-improvement and chili lunch. Mark is supposed to be there.

I didn't know what to get Mark, but I do know he has been known to enjoy a nice, refreshing beverage. So I got the idea today to make him a felted beverage cozy out of the sleeve of a recycled sweater. I needed a bottle for trimming the cozy to make sure it would fit.

One doesn't need to look long for a model bottle, even along the side of the road if necessary. So I am not completely sure whose bottle this was, but it wasn't MINE. Really.

A quick wash and it makes a perfect form for drying a hand dyed cozy. Some dye, drying time, and a few buttons later, and we have a man-cozy suitable for the most discriminating guy. (I took this one. Sorry B, no credit here!)

Last thing B did before playing in the toilet just before going to bed tonight, was to take a pic of Mom crouching down to help someone get her finger (once again) off the lens.

Good night, B!

And sweet dreams of taking wonderful pictures!

Back... How Do I Fit It All In?

2009-08-04T23:52:00.016-04:00

Finally back to blogging. I's been an interesting couple weeks. We have spent most days going to dd#1's apartment, a 45 min. drive away. We packed, cleaned out, scrubbed, and filled a storage unit. Then they had nearly a week wait while their mortgage agent got the closing date wrong.

A week ago today they finally closed. We started going up to their house again, coming home at 11PM or midnight. We peeled old wallpaper and painted (most main-floor rooms needed 2 coats; the bath and kitchen needed 3 coats).

We painted trim in the kids' rooms and a mural in Jeremiah's room. He said it had to have a road, a car, and four buildings, one of which must be a gas station! I made 2 of the buildings be an actual pic of the house & storage building... and one is a train station! He was THRILLED!

Here is a preview. Apparently I didn't take a pic of the finished product!

When they took the living room carpet up on Sunday, there were about 20 years worth of pet pee, grime, mold spots, and a burned area that looked suspiciously like a cat under a Christmas tree. So I spent part of Sunday (after finishing the mural) and part of Monday this week scrubbing the hardwoods on my hands and knees. Hard work, plus I hairline-fractured my right wrist in my one and only motorcycle mishap 5 years ago, so that has been quite a strain. Anyway the floors are passable until they can light-sand and buff them.

Monday Tony and Artemas painted the ceiling twice (someone had painted it Charcoal, for some reason) and moved in the biggest pieces of furniture. Des and I arranged them, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned about half the other boxes out of the storage unit, put up curtains and art. The house is starting to look like home.

You can only imagine what effect all this has had on me own home life. Whew. Hard to keep up, really.

But! I did manage to finish a mini-quilt for a swap I was in. Being as I am a couple days late mailing it, I made a pillow cover that will fit a 14" pillowform to match. I hope the recipient will like it. Kaleidoscope is visually one of my favorite patterns, though difficult to execute accurately. These blocks are 4" finished, so the quilt top is 22" high by 26" wide. I called it Afrikaleidoscope.

And, Diantha and I managed to wash some wonderful raw Corriedale wool that we can add to batts to put in her shop. Here is a picture of the crimp on this fiber before washing. Note how fine it is and that the staple is 5" long! After washing, the wool is so white and fluffy, it is like a cloud. Simply gorgeous.

So Friday I bought a new weapon. I didn't go intending to purchase one, but my dh had seen a couple the day before at Coal Creek Armory, where we took our CCW class and where we go to use the firing range. So, being game, I went to look. I have had a Bersa Thunder UC9 on order since early Feb. which hasn't come yet. Apparently our non-2nd-amendment-controlling government is not allowing them in the country from where they are manufactured in Argentina. As you can see, it is a fine firearm.

But what they had at the armory was a Sccy (formerly Skyy) CPX-1 9mm. The weapon plus an extra, 10-round magazine was less than $200 so we bought it. And I absolutely love it! I took it into the range just for a minute to shoot one clip and I just LOVE the way it feels in the hands. It has an ambidextrous operation, slide locks open when the magazine is empty, manual safety plus a double-action trigger pull of 9 pounds, which is heavier than my dh's Keltec (at 8#), which is the entire safety on that firearm.

So today we went to the range to blow off some steam and some ammo. (All shots shown were from 21ft except those I shot from 45 feet.) Richard did well. On the left, the grayed-out shots are from his Kel-tec, the white from my Sccy, first time he ever fired it. He said, "There is something wrong with this weapon... it is too accurate!" LoL!

This target of mine (on the right) has an interesting story. The brown shots were from 45ft., farther away than one should ever have to shoot for self-defense unless being fired upon. Most courts would say that if one is that far away, the threat of death isn't imminent and one should find another way out. Still nice to know, that any of these "brown" shots would land within the body, even at that distance. And note one of the shots went clean through the hole in the target that was used to hang it on the peg in the store! LOL! Total accident.

Oh here is another story about that target. See the ONE white shot way down at the bottom? I was shooting the small cluster in the upper right (1 oclock) in the 9 ring when a piece of brass ejected and, even though my tank top didn't have a very low neck, went RIGHT in my cleavage and burnt me! I clutched at my shirt to isolate the hot cartridge so it wouldn't burn me more, and completely forgot to lay down the weapon. For a second there I was jumping around with a loaded gun in my hand, trying to retrieve that shell! Thank GOD I didn't have my finger in the trigger guard, but I think I scared a couple people there for a minute. LOL. Anyway after that I musta been good and mad at it, cause that's when I got all the center-cluster shots.

One more. I don't like Richard's Kel-tec. The vertical grip grooves dig my thumb web and the gun, weighing nothing, kicks too much to suit me. But just to be a good sport, I shot a 6-round clip from it, the brown circles on this target. Where is the 6th shot, you say? It went through the tape holding the target to the backstop. Then just to be a brat and show I could do better, I did 2 mags worth of ammo (loading only 9 rounds each) from my Sccy.

I hope I never do have to use my weapon in self-defense. But if I do, watch out world.

Just Totally Beat

2009-07-29T00:01:00.003-04:00

Today we helped Des and Tony get started on making their new house, their own. I am just totally beat tonight.

Five years ago I hairline-fractured my right wrist in a motorcycle mishap, so wielding a paint roller is really a lot of stress on that wrist. But I can cut in around trim very accurately, with no taping, and quickly, because when dh and I were first married, we had a painting business for several years. I like to paint. Almost anything can be improved by a nice new coat of paint. And I'm good at it, so it was a pleasure to help.

Because Des is out of internet connection right now, I guest-wrote her blog tonight. So please drop over to 3AM Feedings for the day's happenings and LOTS of pictures, which will get nice and bigger if you click on them.

We put up a BUNCH of new items in Diantha's shop and in mine. So maybe tomorrow night, if I'm not in a stupor, I will write about them. Thanks for dropping by, and good night!

Something I Did Right

2009-07-25T22:06:00.010-04:00

A couple mornings ago I was ironing shirts for my husband (yes, [gasp!] there are still people who iron shirts), when it occurred to me that I have known how to iron shirts since I was 5. (I think that is over 40 years, but I'm not really sayin'.) Then I thought I would give you a glance into his closet.

Early years we were married, we had hardly any money. I got a whole box of vintage bone and shell buttons at the flea market for $1. For a little while, I worked in a discount fabric shop, where I could sometimes get fabric for as little as 50c a yard. Having more fabric than clothes-shopping money, I learned to make his shirts.

My dh has a penchant for bright fabrics.

I can make a man's short sleeved, collar-band shirt with a breast pocket, that the pattern matches up across the button band and at the pocket, in 2.5 hours start to finish.

Note the extra, matching button sewn inside at the bottom of the button placket, just like store bought. It's there so I don't have to replace all the buttons. Not that I am in that habit, but just sayin'.

For several years, the branch of big-box Home Improvement store he worked at had Wild Shirt Thursday. Every few months they would offer a prize: a store gift card, passes to movies, lunch out, etc. Until they realized that Richard always won the prize.

In recent years, now that I have (still) 6 kids underfoot and a little mo money (I worked for 4 years, until last year), I have bought his shirts in the store if I can find a good deal. One of his shirts (a JCPenney brand) was a good deal. After about 10 washings, the top of the pocket has frays all hanging out of it, and the fabric is as limp as overcooked pasta. Only overcooked pasta tastes better.

In the last couple years, I have taught my oldest daughter to make shirts too. She made this one for her dad for Christmas last year. Note the nice, finished edge inside the button placket.

So, I have passed the torch, or is it thimble, to a new generation.

Can I turn the iron off and sit down now?

Not Much To Report, But Why Not

2009-07-18T23:20:00.010-04:00

Diantha got a convo today from someone who bought this lovely, gray corriedale fiber from Fluff4Ewe.etsy.com. The lady spun it up fine and plied it with a grayish black mohair, to get this gorgeous yarn. She said she is going to knit a hat for her daughter for winter!

In among Diantha's renewal listings, she also has listed this gorgeous superwash merino batt, hand-dyed and carded here at the house (shown left) ...

and on the right, this beautiful, even, handspun superwash merino sock weight in pale honeydew...

We went to Des' house on Wed. and Friday to help her finish packing. Got just about everything packed up too. Knowing she would need to use a little bit of food yet for meals, and a few utensils/pans/etc, what I did is pack them, but leave them in open boxes set on her kitchen countertops so she could get to stuff if she needed it. Then the mortgage company did NOT call them with a confirmation of the closing date this Tuesday. So there they are, all packed, and waiting... eating out of cardboard boxes. Sigh. So much for being a help. LOL!

I have been working for a couple days now on some new yarns for my My7kids Recycled Yarn Shop. I have several now dyed and just about ready to list, and another 16 (?) planned for the series. Just have to see if I can get some decent pics tomorrow in the daylight.

I finished a project I have been knitting, with this yarn that was sent in the box of yarns last spring from Japan. So a portion of the profits equal to the amount the yarn would have brought on its own, will got to the youth center when I list the item. Hopefully the pics of the finished item will happen tomorrow too. For now, here is a sneak peek...

One last. A few years ago, I was sitting out in the sun one afternoon, when my then-4-yos Josiah came out and very busily started lining up on a railroad tie, a bunch of springs from an old mattress my dh tore up to take to the dump. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, "You can look at this, and not be afraid." So I took a picture of his art, and thought I would share it.

Tackled by Tuesday, Shoot, a Package, and a Product Review

2009-07-14T23:45:00.015-04:00

Today we did a Tackle-it Tuesday with the end of our family room that holds videos, video equipment, etc. We must own several hundred videos, and today we sorted them, cleaned out that end of the room, put Xbox controllers all in a basket and the games all in a file cabinet, and generally made the area around the TV look peaceful again.

My original plan for the day was to pin out a quilt top that I have ready, and piece together 2 others. Sounds like too much for one day, but one is a mini and one is all laid out in order to sew. Alas, my plans aren't always, or even usually, what actually happens.

Instead I got up today and took 5 LARGE boxes of good, clean baby clothes to our local Project Hope. Then Artemas and I went to the range to shoot a little. I got these awesome pictures. The one of Artemas shooting, I actually and accidentally captured the cloud of cordite and the bullet, making its way to the target. Too cool.

These two targets are mine. The one on the left was shot with the .22 Ruger longbarrel. You can see the cluster is in an area 1.5" x 2". The other target, while not centered, still shows the shots clustered in a 2" x 3" area. To give me some credit, the target was only 6" across and was shot from about 20 feet away. I shot it with our Lorcin .380, which is the one I carry, until my Bersa Thunder comes in. I like the .22 better, but being a longbarrel, it looks funny down the back of my pants. LOL.

Ok, on to other things! When we got home, I tackled the laundry once again. DH was off work yesterday, and we ended up spending the entire day in Knoxville. Seriously we didn't get home until like 9 PM. That is kind of late to start Monday Laundry Madness. So I did all 7 loads today and folded them. As incentive to get them done and put away, I folded them all over our bed. Can't go to sleep until it is done! (And it *is* done.)

Here is one that tackled ME. We got a new computer, a smoking-hot Dell, a few months ago. Since then, I have put off and put off having to sift through files on the old computer, suck them onto a flash drive or something portable, and put them in the new computer. Today I discovered I needed an MSWorks type application and guess what? Our laptop AND the new computer do not either one have it. The old one did. So I had to sit down and transfer files. Note on the screen, this ONE folder it is transferring says it has 114 minutes remaining in the transfer! (Also note how many folders I had done already!) When I hooked the drive up to our new computer, it transferred ALL the files in 3 minutes 14 seconds. Quite a difference. I am so spoiled.

Ok yesterday I put out a teaser about a spindle sent to me by my beautiful friend Marion in Indiana. She has a shop, Mommbaear7, but she is in well-deserved vacation mode right now.

She sent me 5.6 oz of this gorgeous superwash in pacific blue with flecks of pink and gold... also 170 yards of incredibly soft 2-ply handspun in gray and white (thinking a little top-down raglan sweater for Betsy on huge needles), and the spindle.

The top of the spindle is bone, carved with two elephants. On the underside of the bone, she has pressed and baked thin layers of this very Aborigine-design polymer clay cane in black and white turtles. I LOVE it. And you can see, I have already given it a whirl, so to speak, to test it out.

While I am mentioning whirling things, go on over to Feeling Sheepish for a wonderful giveaway of 2 oz. of handpainted milk-protein fiber!

I am going to close tonight with a product review. The other day I went in a grocery I usually don't patronize, and there were these chips made by Herr's. They had several interesting-sounding flavors, like Heinz Ketchup, Pizza, and Cheddar and Horseradish. In the interest of pleasing nearly everyone, I bought Pizza and Cheddar & Horseradish.

The pizza chips really *almost* taste like pizza. I have a comprehension problem with a product that tastes pizza-ish but is room temperature and crunches. Though I guess in my past, there were times I probably ate crunchy, 2-day-old room-temp pizza. Can't remember though (LOL!). Anyway, one with a really sensitive sense of taste can taste various flavors of tomato, garlic, oregano, and some stinky cheese, perhaps Provolone or Parmesano-Reggiano. Not bad for pizza that crunches.

The Cheddar & Horseradish chips are WOW, HORSERADISH! The cheddar flavor is a base note, but the horseradish (which I find to be slightly bitter) is strong enough to clear the sinuses after about 15 chips. Which is supposed to be the good-sense limit anyway.

Just Totally... Oh, Look! A Chicken!

2009-07-13T23:21:00.015-04:00

I get the Bad Blogger of the Year award, because it has been 8 days since I posted. I have been totally uninspired. Or perhaps rather, completely overwhelmed and exhausted. Yes, folks, even Wonder Woman needs rest sometime.

Ok, I guess first on the list. In 23 years of homeschooling, we have never had lice. I don't know how people whose kids go to school cope, but the little public-school girl next door unknowingly gifted us with lice, and despite treatments every 4 days, cleaning bedding, etc., meticulous combing and picking, I am still finding *a* nymph or two every time we treat, after 6 weeks. The kids have been good natured and patient about it. The boys shaved their heads. The rest of us, with hair ranging from 6" (Beverly) to 2 feet long (me), are just about sick of lice treatments. Maybe next time will be the last.

Did I say something about a chicken? Can't remember if I posted this or not. But our 7 week old chickens are now in their coop, and they are very happy. Don't they look happy? And I am happy that they are no longer in a large box on my front porch, in the 95-degree F heat. Whew.

So we had a yard sale. Des and Tony hauled all their stuff from moving, down here over 30 miles from their house, and I cleaned out stuff, and stuff, and stuff. We cleaned and ticketed and sorted. Put out signs, put up a tent, sat in the 95-degree heat Friday (I was out from 7:30AM to 5 PM). Saturday did it all again. I made about what my dh makes in one day at work, in the air conditioning, $100. Told my dh I could have made that on my back in 2 hours. He said "Yeah, but it might be hard to find 20 willing guys. Har, Har. (or should I say, "Ho,Ho"?) Des and I were both struck with heat prostration (mine hit on the way to church to keep the nursery, and I had to come home). If I never have another yard sale again, it would be fine.

Diantha went to auditions for a Christian modeling agency Friday evening. Saturday she got her callback. So from now until January she will have a coach, and in January she will make a trip to Orlando FL for a scouting convention from major agencies like Ford, Nickelodeon, Mattel, etc. The trip will cost $3600 so from now until then, all our Etsy profits that aren't going to the Youth Center, will go to fund-raise for her trip.

I bought some beautiful stone whorls to make some spindles out of. There are 3 or 4 more that aren't shown here but I love these. Clockwise from left:

Blue Dumortierite 50 mm

Purple Mookaite 40 mm

Dalmation Jasper 50mm

Black Onyx 40mm (very light)

Pink Rhodonite 50mm

Pink Onyx 50 mm

Center: Orange Mosaic Flower Turquoise 50mm (very heavy for it's size!)

I also got a gorgeous spindle in the mail. I will try to get pics of my surprise package tomorrow and post them. Wonderful stuff!

So, as if two days in a row weren't enough in the heat. Sunday my little grandson Jeremiah turned 4. Big boy!! Looks *just* like his daddy too! So we all trooped to Clinton to a really nice little park which happens to be just past a rock drainage ditch across from the back yard of the house Des and Tony are buying. Hung out for a couple hours having pizza and pasta salad and cake, then retired to Des' house for the afternoon/evening where eventually I pried myself out of a really good book and made pancakes 'n' cheesy eggs for dinner and helped Des pack up a few more boxes of stuff. A week to go to Moving Day.

Beverly held up alright in the park, but looks sleepy and sweaty here. Precious though!

I made some Ugly yarn. I hand dyed this formerly pink to a cantaloupe color. Nice cotton-blend summer sock weight, but not quite enough for a whole pair of even short socks, unless a toe and heel are added. So I was going to put this skein of green/blue recycled sock weight that I actually BOUGHT at one time with it, like cantaloupe and rind(?), add the pattern for these socks that I did for Diantha, and sell it as a package. (Pic of the socks has been paled out for color comparison to the yarns. The real sock is hurt-your-eyes orange-red and deep turquoise, LOL) But I think I am too chicken to put it up and never see it sell. So whaddya t'ink? Should I list it? Or should I hold a giveaway on the blog and give it to someone creative? Make it conditional that they have a month to send back pics of something interesting made of it? Comments, Please!!