Tackle-it! Dangit! Wheeee!! Hot!

Alright, I am all behind on the blog thing. A quick Synopsis:



We Yarn-tagged the cart corral at the local Big Box Home Improvement store with a nice, feminine, ruffled yarnbomb. Here is the pic, on the left. Helping Metrosexual Men Everywhere get in touch with their feminine sides. LOL.




The boys were coerced by their mom to do a Tackle-it Tuesday on their room. Artemas said he didn't sign up for this excursion... but my house isn't a democracy. Think it needed a little work? Nah!! On the left and right, "Before" pictures.

These are the "After" pics. Good job, boys!












So, let's see what MY Tackle-it Tuesday was! I have decided to go back to something I used to do when I lived in FL. I did ALL the laundry in the house, for all 8 of us, including linens and diapers, in ONE day. Every Monday I started at breakfast time and finished what was usually 12 loads of laundry, around midnight. Washed, dried (much of it hanging out on the fence), folded. What didn't get done on Monday got finished up and put away on Tuesday. Then, NO LAUNDRY for a whole week! No bits of socks and undies lying around the room, anywhere. No unfolded sheets or towels piled up. Nothing but peace as far as the eye could see.

After we moved up here, I had to go to work for a while (4 years) and we kind of got away from one-day laundry, because with all the kids, working, homeschooling, and all, I just had to fit it in whenever I could, and rely on the kids to help. So for more than 4 years, we have had clean laundry somewhere, all the time. I am fed up.


So this week I implemented Monday Laundry Madness. When I got up Tuesday morning, the pic above greeted me as what I had left to fold and distribute to put away.


By evening, the living room looked like this. I am happy to report that the stacks disappeared to respective bedrooms, and right now I am enjoying laundry-free living space. Ahhh!

Alright yesterday we went to Des' house for an evening of fun, dyeing yarn, some good food, and left a kid to help her pack to move. On the way home, my alternator went out on the van. I might add a this point, my Chevy Venture is down, waiting on a bolt that we lost in a repair, to come in on order, which was suppose to be Wed. and now they are saying Monday next. Also, both motorcycles are down and out, though the 450 should be road-worthy as soon as the headlight comes in, possibly tomorrow (more on that later). The Ramvan and the Tow'n'Country were the only vehicles left, and the latter needs a new ignition switch. So, Dangit!!

Anyway an officer stopped me to let me know I was losing all my lights (which I knew), and gave me an escort out of that county. I made it through west Knoxville by turning off my headlights any time I had to use my brakes. Got to HD to pick Richard up from work, got a mile toward home, had to stop for a light, and the car died. All the way. Triple-A to the rescue, another police acompanist til they got there, and a tow-truck ride to our house. On top of the tow truck, IN the van! It was like a slow-motion roller coaster! Wheeeeeee! My kids thought that was the greatest adventure EVER! and at midnight, too! Wow!

Today the girls and I went to run a couple errands and get groceries. When we got in the car at 3:30 PM, it was 101 degrees F (38 C). By about 5 PM when we were done letting the car cool down from overheating in the Taco Bell drive-thru, it was a mere 95 (35 C). Wonderful cool front.

Richard and Allen bought the belts today for the Ramvan but had to wait until after 8 PM to try to put them on, because it was that late before the temp fell below 95 in the shade. With the help of some lights (lost natural daylight), they got the belts on, the battery charged, and HERE is a rare pic of oldest DS Allen with his car-grease "Farmer's tan." LoL! Apparently the alternator wasn't dead, just sleeping from not being driven properly by the old belts, because the van starts and runs. Yee-haw!

One last pic - we had a delicious Shrimp Spinach Quiche, and made the homemade pastry with bacon drippings instead of shortening. It was YUM-MAY! Sorry you didn't get any, but at least I shared the beauty. LoL.

Wow, I can go to bed tonight, NOT having had the worst day ever. Thank you, Jesus!

WWKIP Day, Lotsa Pics

We had a WWKIP day in Clinton TN. I tried to do it the right way... got permission from the city for a gathering, put up fliers around town... and nobody showed up, except me, my oldest daughter and some of our respective kids. However we talked to a couple people, shared the gazebo with old men, and got a couple hours relaxing knitting in.


I have no idea what order to put these up in, so I will just go alphabetically with how I named them, give you the labels, and try to keep the chat to a minimum. :D

On the Left (so totally appropriate, since she is a lefty, mirror knitter, LoL), is my oldest gorgeous daughter Desiree, and the fluffy blonde head of her baby Hannah. Des is working on her very first odious Crochet Cast-on for a sock.

On the Right is my 14yod Diantha, knitting on her scarf, though she spent most of the time actually knitting one of our yarn bombs or yarnbombs, however you prefer. Diantha has a shop selling handspun yarns and fiber batts at Fluff 4 Ewe at Etsy.

The beautiful, lush lips on the Left belong to Diantha also. She is "wearing" one of the yarnbombs around her neck. This one is in hot red, pink, orange, and yellow acrylic with a vertical red stripe and a very decorative purple crocheted flower.


On the Right, you see Hannah. She didn't knit. She hung around and was a very good girl though, which is always a joy.




On the Left AND Right, you can see two views of one of the trees we eventually beautified with our knit tags. Des said it looked lonely, like it needed some cheering up. We now call it the Happy Purple Tree. LOL. These beautiful trees are Purple Maples and grow profusely in our area. People plant them in their yards because of the gorgeous color.


Again on the Left and the Right you see pictures of my little 8 yo man, Josiah.

He started a knitted cotton cloth in brightly colored and white yarn. In the pic on the left, he is graced with chocolate from some Banana Chocolate Chip mini muffins I made. In the pic on the right, he showed Des that he made a "Knitting Pirate Yarn and Crossbones."


I am knitting on the left. I have my long hair put back, because if I don't, not only is it a blanket, it gets in everything I knit and spin.

I brought 2 knitting projects of my own, but ended up casting on for Josiah, teaching Des the crochet cast-on,helping Diantha straighten out a little knitting snafu she had going on, and working on two tags.

See the leg muscles? They're what let me do up to 7 hours a night on skates, at Sonic, until I was in my mid-40s and found out I was pregnant with B. Not so long ago, really. :D

On the Right is Veronica, my 11 yod, knitting a scarf. She has been diligently working on this project, and is about 20 rows from completion. I am proud of her!

This last picture is terrible quality, taken by Artemas who wanted to snap the pic and flee before any witnesses arrived. It is our last knitting graffiti tag, a striped purple/yellow/red/blue/green and more purple acrylic. Hopefully if these don't get taken down in a while, they will hold up to the weather.

Tomorrow I am going to call the shops that we left flyers at, and ask them to keep them up another week and change the dates on them to next Saturday. Then we will see if anyone joins us. If now, we can be the Market Street Park knitters. Maybe we will be famous! LOL!!!