De-Tree-ing and Photo Ops

So Sunday, I got up and made 30 Banana Chocolate Chip muffins from scratch. My house was a smell-o-rama, but I didn't eat any of them. Des and Tony took me and Tony's mother (my friend and ex-boss Cheryl) out to brunch at Wild Wings. Nothing like starting your gastronomical day with HOT. LoL.

Des made me a GORGEOUS handbag, with "loose" pockets inside, large enough to hold a couple diapers stood on end (or a paperback book), and a bottle of water (or Mtn Dew), and a zipper pocket big enough to hold my reading glasses, a lipstick, and my DL/Debit card. Wonderful!

Then they came to my house and hung out. Tony got hold of the chain saw and started making short work of our deceased tree.


Understatement of the Weekend: He grinned and said, "I like chainsaws."

We have thought of lots of things to make of the tree, now just have to get them done before the wood gets too dry or hard to work it.

The little girls spent time dancing in the living room, and bouncing on the "damp-een," as Beverly calls it. Des put pics of that one on her blog.

Beverly took camera in hand and snapped some pictures for us...
Des! And Tony! She was very excited to "help" in this manner. I love seeing the world from her 2 yo eye-view. Everyone seems very, very... tall. LOL!

IN OTHER NEWS...
Today (ooops, yesterday, sometimes being a night-owl can be SO confusing) two of the girls had 4-H sub-regional presentations in Crossville, TN, about an hour's drive away. Made me glad to live in our beautiful little town, close to beautiful Knoxville.

Diantha did a tabletop exhibit on Fiber Processing and Spinning. She won 1st place in the Clothing and Textiles category for Jr. High. Veronica did an oral demonstration/explanation of Spinning and Knitting, also. She took a high-score 1st place in Clothing and Textiles for 5th grade. I am proud of the girls and their efforts! They will go on to the Regionals. Don't know the date or place yet. Here they are with their blue ribbons!

By the time we were done there, drove back, drove 40 minutes the OTHER way to drop Diantha off at Des' to help her (since she is still feeling lousy), and got home tonight, we had been gone more than 12 hours. I have some new yarns done, but too tired to list them. Tomorrow is another day!

Who Would Have Thought?

Ok, I helped judge baked goods at last night's county finals for 4-H. Since my girls were in the Biscuits and Muffins categories, I co-judged Cupcakes and Cookies. Who would think you could mess those up? There was one set of muffins that tasted like, instead of butter or oil, the kid used bacon grease in them. Bleh!

In the Cookie division, one set of cookies looked delicious (large chocolate chips) but tasted... odd. There were thumbprint cookies that tasted salty with the texture of sand. And there were pale, white sugar cookies that also tasted like they were made with bacon grease. And who would have thought that somewhere among the 7 pieces of cupcake I had to eat and the 7 pieces of cookie (well really 8 since I had to have another piece of something to clear out the bacon sugar cookie), something would give me food poisoning.

So, I got 3 hours sleep last night! Up at 5 AM for the craft show. We took lots of pics of our booth. This was a small, very old, community center with NO atmosphere, in a little residential area surrounded by dairy cattle fields. But it was a good "practice run" before our show in the Cato building next month in Knoxville. Before the next show, I want to get some sort of tiered rack (or cookie plate, etc), to put some of the HeartFeltFun Boutique items on, so they aren't boringly sitting on the table. Also since the next show booth will be configured a little differently (though the same size), we are going to have something to hang more of Desiree's bags on, so the dummies don't look so crowded. (Above, panorama of the booth. Left, Dress Dummy 1. Right, Dress Dummy 2. Below left, Tower 1, Below Right, Tower 2.)

The left tower had Diantha's handspun yarns in it, a couple small bags in the bottom shelf, and a quilt on top. The right tower had recycled yarns, a recycled angora/wool sweater pillow in the bottom, and a quilt.

One last picture from the booth: the table.

At one end we had handknitted items and pillowcases, and recycled felted stuff. In the middle we had a couple handbags, and at the far end, baskets with Richard's soaps and some samples. We didn't sell any handmade bags or recycled handcraft items or yarn or handspun yarns. We did sell about $40 worth of soap.

And I had 4 people ask if that was "some of that LYE soap." Who would have thought? LOL!

I came home to find this Urchin child in my yard. I am not quite sure Whose child she is. Certainly not one of MY perfect, well-dressed, clean, well-combed children. ROFLOL. Despite appearances, she was very happy in her wild-child state, bouncing around among the guys trying to fix motorcycles, running in the grass, and playing in the shade.

Makes me happy too.

What We're Gonna Do - UPDATE

So, that was a mighty ambitious list this morning? How'd we do?

finish wrapping soaps - DONE!

make muffins for tonight's 4-H regionals - DONE!

Write recipe for muffins and print for judges - DONE!

make biscuits for tonight's 4-H regionals - DONE!

Write & print recipe for biscuits for judges - DONE!

go get copies of one more soap label (which ecded up being 5 more soap labels ans 2 sample label sheets)- DONE!

take some samples to the PO - DONE!

buy a change bank from the bank - DONE!

call the lady about the craft show tomorrow - DONE!

find the stand to the other dress dummy - DONE!

find clothes for the dress dummies - DONE!

be at the 4-H regionals by 5:30 - DONE!

Judge biscuits, muffins, cookies, and cakes for the regionals - DONE!

come home and load the car with table, shelves, dummies, totes of merchandise for the craft show tomorrow - DONE!

Leaving only...

finish 3 items for the craft show

card wool and alpaca fiber

Not done. And, I have to add one more to the list:

Put shops in Vacation mode for the day tomorrow

And. since my day isn't over yet, Getting probably 2 of those 3 items done is a good possibility.

Turns out it wasn't the 4-H regionals, it was the County finals. Both girls took 2nd place in their bake-offs. And both took first place in their respective exhibitions (Diantha with fiber processing and Veronica with spindling and knitting), so they go on to the sub-regionals in May in Crossville, TN. Somewhere in this post are pics of Veronica looking thrilled ans Diantha looking, well, like Diantha.

Off to finish something else...

What We Did and What We're Gonna Do

Yesterday I made homemade salsa at 1AM. Then even Wonder Juggs Woman has to sleep sometime. Up at 8 and fried Cinnamon Crispas to take the the last 4-H meeting of the year. I made enough to fill a 5-quart plastic ice cream bucket. They were light and crispy and good, not greasy at all.

On to the meeting, where we had a Mexican food brunch and drilled the kiddies on questions from the Clover Bowl (which I am still not quite sure what that is, something like a spelling bee I think). Number one son calls me and says, are you heading past where I work? Cause I broke my belt buckle...

Home again, to get said belt buckle. Oh and he left his money on the desk. Oh and his gray cards on the floor... can you bring them? Make everyone use the bathroom while we are home. BACK in the car... up to WM where thank God, Diantha is now old enough to send in the store with a list and money, while I go across the parking lot to the UPS store for soap label coopies. Pick her up and hit the road...

Stop in Farragut at the Super-Duper Grocery to drop off son's stuff. Stop at the Goodwill for baskets. Go into Knoxville to Sam's for bags for the craft shows (I was SO disappointed, they no longer carry white paper bags) and gravy for tonight's hurry-up supper. Oh and school books while they had them. And, Mrs. Ross, your membership is expired...

BACK to Dollar Tree next to WM for tissue paper and stickers. Then HOME! We got home just in time for Des to pull in behind us, and my dh who was now off work for the day to pull in behind her.

Cleaned off the table, where Des laid out and pinned 2 lap quilts. Then she and Diantha bagged up and tagged about 150 soap samples for the show. I spray-painted baskets and made a new soap label and untangled 117 yards of the most tangled handspun yarn (not ours) you ever saw, and cleaned off kitchen counters. Then we made dinner (enchiladas).

After dinner we tagged all my HeartFeltFun shop items for the craft show. Richie sat at the table and wrapped soaps. After that I was too tired to do anything else, and it was after 11 PM anyway, so we called it a night.

Today we have to:

finish wrapping soaps

make muffins for tonight's 4-H regionals

Write recipe for muffins and print for judges

make biscuits for tonight's 4-H regionals

Write & print recipe for biscuits for judges

finish 3 items for the craft show

card wool and alpaca fiber

go get copies of one more soap label

take some samples to the PO

buy a change bank from the bank

call the lady about the craft show tomorrow

find the stand to the other dress dummyfind clothes for the dress dummies

be at the 4-H regionals by 5:30

Judge biscuits, muffins, cookies, and cakes for the regionals

come home and load the car with table, shelves, dummies, totes of merchandise for the craft show tomorrow.

I need some caffeine.

Picturesque Busy-ness

We had a good time at the 4-H fair yesterday. They gave me all the wool from the sheep shearing... some of it is a lamb's first shearing. I don't know what breed, but it is simply lovely. One of the ladies was talking to me and asked if I would like to have the wool from their shearings this year... New Hampshires and Dorset. I know Dorset isn't next-to-skin soft, but it would still be good for felting or selling to felters. I said, well, if you don't need it... and she said, "Oh, no, we never knew anyone who could use it for anything so we have just always thrown it away!"

What, WHAT, WHAT?!?

Here are two pics of our setup there: the left pic is our display table from the front, the right one is with labels.

Like a Bad Mom, I forgot the sunscreen. I remembered just as we got there and meant to ask hubby to run home for some, or across the street (to the big-box store), but got busy setting up. Then he took off and was gone an hour and a half... came back and took off again. By the time I remembered, we were all pink-cheeked. Not bad, no one seems blistered. But I felt sad about it anyway.

WoolAndWood at Etsy bought some yarn from me a while back, and has made this incredible, felted Irish Summer handbag out of it. Stop by her shop for other gorgeous, creative items!!

I nabbed a main Treasury tonight, called SHEteam is Simply Blue. Here is a screen shot. SHE team is Schooling at Home Etsians, so God bless us, every one. We need all the help we can get, LoL. Despite our busy-ness with teaching at home, the team members manage to create WONDERFUL art. I am proud to be a part of it!

One of the advantages to having more than one shop (and more than one computer) is that sometimes one can do the impossible... and have a second T. Cheating, I guess. But I let my 10yo daughter Veronica pick out all the items, and Diantha helped her with the headlines and comments. So on the left is a screen shot of her T, called Pink and Purple Pills. If you get a chance, go visit these lovely collections and click on the items... it gives the artists exposure, and boosts the Treasury in the Hot lists, helping it have a chance to be an Etsy Front Page.

One more: EmptyNestEgg at Etsy has generously included my dh Richard's Fish Away Odor Removing Soap (which really works by the way) in her Treasury, called She Said Go Fish. Here is the last screen shot. What a nice Treasury! Thanks!

Where Was I?

Night before last, by the time I got pics loaded in and new listings up in my Etsy shops, and my blog written, and Betsy put to sleep not once but twice, it was after 2 AM. Betsy woke again at 3 AM. I put her to sleep and since I was up, checked on some stuff I had a eye on, online. Got back to bed at 4, had an alarm set at 5 to check again, my dh turned it off and woke me, but too late. Back to bed for a few minutes, as I had to be up with him at 6 to put his contacts in for work. Back to bed another few minutes, to be up at 7 for the kids' 4-H meeting.

We took the stuff along to do their demonstrations, and found out that not only is it NEXT month, it's only hands-on for Veronica. The older kids have to do story-board exhibition-style presentations. Bah.

On to my brother in law's house, to have Artemas and Russ work on my brakes. I was supposed to take him my palm-grip sander. Halfway to his house (and 12 miles from my house) I remembered the sander. Had to turn around and come get it. Basically my whole day was like that. And if I had had an IV of Mtn. Dew, I don't think it would have helped. We got back home at 4 oclock and I took a 3 hour nap.

While making dinner, Taco Salad, Beverly decided to come down with the same puking flu that Veronica had 3 days earlier. The difference being that B is not even 2 and doesn't have an extra ounce of weight on her body. But this is the first time she has ever been sick and vomiting so I guess that isn't too bad.

During the evening I started processing some of the handspun yarns a lady sent me from Japan. She said she is at an APO and they frown on people using them to ship for business. She had all these handspuns that she would love to sell and contribute to the Youth Center that I give a percentage of my sales to. So if she sent them to me, would I sell them and give the money on her behalf? I agreed to do so for 100% profit donation. Here is the box as I received it. Fabulous. LoL.

And THIS is what was inside. Well, all but the baby, the bed, the pillows, and the quilts. There were:

20 skeins of handspun art yarn

7 skeins of a 50/50 wool/nylon ribbon yarn

2 large skeins of a bulky black chenille yarn

2 little floral picks with ornaments on top

a hand knitted poncho with handspun, glitz, and stripes of eyelash yarn in bright turquoise, and

some scrolls of antique concept paintings of kimono fabrics.
An incredible treasure trove really. There is a picture of me holding up and hiding behind the poncho, below.

The skeins were wound really small, making it difficult to twist them up to get standard pictures for my esty shop, so I started last night reskeining them. Then while I was at it, I took pics, soaked them all just to be sure the twist was set, and went to bed last night with multicolored damp sheep hanging here and there all over my house. Well I say "went to bed"...

But Beverly is still being sick. What a good natured baby, of course she doesn't understand what is wrong with her, but she figured out to use the bowl if she had to be sick and would actually sit up in her sleep and reach for it. But, it was another sleepless night.

Today I have gotten a few more skeins prepared for sale, but it is slow going since she wants to be held the whole time. The bigger kids help but of course none of
them are mommy either. And Artemas found out the hard way, don't let a sick baby eat grapes. LOL.

So! I haven't gotten any more quilt blocks done, but I do have a couple more pics to share. Do you remember the yarn I had a lady special order from me, that ended up taking like 3 days of my life to make? 100% silk in hand-dyed red over tan. Well she sent me a pic of this most excellent and luxurious scarf that she made from it. It is so gorgeous, it almost made all that trouble worth it. I hope she can enjoy wearing it for many long years to come.

And, one more pic... long ages ago, last summer, I sold a skein of yarn that I had hand-dyed and called Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein. I was looking at feedbacks today and noticed that the lady who bought it, had posted an appreciation picture of the hat she knitted out of it. Here is it, a work of art in itself. Very nice indeed!

Since I have hardly known where I am for 2 days, tonight, I am hoping for sleep...

Back to Normal? Whatever That Is

About yesterday... yeah, some of you are right. Yelling at hubby doesn't help. And don't get me wrong. I don't do it very much. For the most part, we dwell in abnormal and almost sickening harmony. In fact we get along SO well, our older kids say we think we are still dating. I tell him it is my goal to wear him out to the point that even looking at another woman is WAY too much trouble... which could be why he doesn't get more done around the house. (Disclaimer: You can believe this or not. Hard to tell on the internet, what is true and what is not... and probably over half of what you read falls in the "not" category. But some things are bizarrely, against "normal" odds, true. You can decide. LOL) But sometimes I just get fed up past the point of patience. Fortunately for us all, it isn't very often.

A little about our "new" house. It is 1450 sq. ft. It has one large bedroom and bath, which we now share with Beverly. Then it has 2, smaller bedrooms (maybe 10x12each, one shared by 2 of my boys and one shared by 2 of my girls) inside the house proper, and another small bathroom near them. Then out on the end of the huge screened back porch, someone before us made another, small bedroom, that Allen uses. It is perhaps 8x10. Other than the porch (which is about to become something else), we have NO garage, no attic, no basement. We have EIGHT people living here, and 4 working cars (and one that needs to be sold for $300) in the driveway. So you can see, we have NO room to spare for the junk.

Ok, on to something else. Yesterday my Beverly (whom we affectionately call Betsy) put a "chair" behind the couch, sat down with a notepad and wrote me a picture or a letter, depending on her 22-month-old interpretation. I thought she was cute, so I took her picture. And yes, she is *really* tall for her age.

Today we all got up not as bright and quite a bit earlier than usual. I took hubby to work, bought donuts, got all the kids up, and forced them like the MEAN mom I am, to go to the next town over and give a speech at the homeschool group 4-H meeting. Veronica took first place in her grade level. Artemas, who was SURE he was going to do this ONE time ONLY, also took first place in the High School level... so next week he and Veronica are expected to go give their speeches in the Regionals. ROFLOL! Artemas said, "You said I only had to do it ONCE!" I said, "That was before I knew you would WIN." I told him it is the same as in the Back to the Future movies, where they go back and change something, and that changes so many other things in the future. Winning first prize changed getting out of ever giving a speech again. Oh I am the MOST terrible mother in the WORLD!

I also finally picked up the 4 Corriedale fleeces that I donated to the group for. Each trash bag must have 10# of fleece in it, easily. It is unprocessed, so there is a lot of lanolin in it. But wow. I now have 40# of Corriedale wool and 10# of llama fur to process and turn into... something. I am trying to find a reasonably-priced drum carder, so I don't have to buy hand cards and do 50 pounds of fiber by hand.

After a brief hiatus at home, we picked up Richie and treated him (and us, LoL) to Burger King for supper. I had the new Angry Whopper, which isn't as hot as the Jalapeno SuperSonic they used to serve at Sonic when I skated there. But, not bad. Made my eyes water. The kids think I am funny, because whenever something makes my eyes water, I pretend to think of sad things and cry. Well, they think I am pretending anyway. But I make a big show of it, wailing "That's so SAD!" and they all go, mom, you are so funny.

We went grocery shopping. Always a joy. I buy Peanut butter by the vat and hamburger by the cow and a henhouse full of eggs (5 dozen flat) at a time... and the cashier always wants to know HOW many kids do I have? LoL. Grocery day only comes every 2 weeks at my house so it is always somewhat of a celebration. For the next 3 days we will have LOTS of stuff for them to get into and then for 10 more days after that, we will have "real" food. And for one day, we will scrounge. LOL.

I got my block for today done too. The calendar says it is the Lovely Lola block, but since I am a fan of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, and her sidekick is Lula, I am calling it Lovely Lula. She loves Chicken too. So there. Mine doesn't look like the picture but I like it better anyway.

Tonight has been TV night... first Bones on Fox, then CSI on CBS, then Burn Notice on USA. I am not a big TV person so it makes me happy that they have put almost all the shows I like (I really only watch CSI New York other than the 3 above) on one night so I can only have a sitting-down guilt attack once and get it over with.

I do have ONE skein of recycled, cobweb weight 100% cashmere drying in our bedroom and a mega-skein of Pittsburgh Steelers yarn soaking in dye, so I guess I don't have to guilt myself too much. It has been a productive day.

A Turn in the Weather

ok, so we're back. We got back late Wed. evening, and haven't had a spare minute to write until now! I didn't even get caught up on my emails until this morning.

Had to be up Thurs. at the crack of dawn to help the girls with their 4-H baking units. Diantha's age group had to make biscuits, Veronica's had to make muffins. Other ages had to make yeast bread, cupcakes, and cookies. The meeting was in the next town over at 8:30 AM. Diantha won 1st place with her made-from-scratch biscuits, using butter instead of shortening. Veronica won 1st place with her Oatmeal White Chocolate muffins, also made from scratch. In the Spring, they go on to a competition in the county. If they win there, they go on to the state.

Came home, unloaded the bike, and my mom, dad, BIL, and niece Dana came over. Dad and I took off to take lunch to eldest DS and get the title transferred on the bike. It is old, and smaller than our 450, but not by much. The top of the tank needs painting. But it started on the first kick (real bikers kick, LoL) and sounded mighty fine to my bike-deprived ears. Shoulda gone for a ride in the balmy 50 degree weather!

In the afternoon, I took the 4 youngest kids plus my niece to the Children's Museum in Oak Ridge. Met my oldest dd and her two kids there, plus a friend of ours and her two kids the same age as my daughter's. Twelve of us in all. What a good time. It was Josiah's 8th birthday, so he was thrilled to get to go have so much fun for his birthday.

Took Dana home and took in food for everyone at sis's house... stayed around to visit a little while, but I was exhausted. So far this week I have averaged 5 hours sleep a night, plus the round-trip to Ohio.

Today dawned too dang cold to ride. Call me a piker, but I like to see at least a "4" in the 10s column of that weather number before I ride, no matter HOW well those fringed chaps block the cold.

I caught up emails, ran to the PO, went to bake Josiah's cake to have everyone over this evening and didn't have a speck of flour. He wanted a "Hot Wheels" party, and I was going to make him a big, 3-dimensional racecar with dark-chocolate wheels for a cake. Off to buy some flour. The store had a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, complete with a road and billboards on it, on the day-old rack. I really don't like store-bought cake, but when 16 people are going to dig into this thing, they aren't going to let it get a minute older! Divine Providence, that's what it was. Though my BIL did comment on my not serving a scratchmade cake ("What is the world coming to?!")

We baked a bunch of pizzas; Josiah got some nice presents. A Car Holder that hangs on the back of the bedroom door, some new Hot Wheels, a Hot Wheels "laptop" to do some of his school on, some new jeans. A Disc Shooter, to ensure that the floors of my house continually have little foam discs on them until Christmas.

My dh is feeling lousy, but I gave him a hard time about it today. When I am sick, do I get to just go lie down and die like I feel like doing? Especially when I am going to have a houseful of company? So he sat on the couch with the kids and made them get rid of all the laundry in the living room. That is some help at least.

Tomorrow I will put up some new yarns, I hope bright and early. Tonight I am going to go lay on the bed, knit, and read to hubby. Goodnight!