A Mini Bike, Mini Story

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.

Crunch Time

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

Stuff We Gave

Well we had a good Christmas. Not materially huge, but we had a nice time and managed not to have any family shouting matches at my sister's house, which is a rare gift in itself. We really did try to keep to the theme of "Buy Handmade" or "Give Handmade." I thought I would post some pics of stuff we gave for Christmas.

I had made a quilt top for a Weird and Ugly fabric Challenge that I called "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Points" because my tree points were TERRIBLE and my star points were PERFECT. LoL.
My mom admired it so I had a notion to finish it for her for Christmas. Des says, hey mom, instead of backing it plain, why don't I throw together a simple quilt of squares and put the kids' handprints in them? Mom's favorite color is red, so this gave us a chance to throw in something just for her. We put the handprints of all the grandbabies (and Tony, LoL) and the 2 great-grandbabies, and left space for more to come. Beautiful!

Next up, I made my BIL two earwarmers... one from a Shenandoah batt that I handspun and knitted (pic to the right is inside and outside), and one from some handspun, hand dyed Falkland wool from FeltStudiosUK at Etsy. He likes to keep a window open in his office. It keeps the computers there from overheating. But in cold weather, it can get a little chilly in there!

I knitted some fingerless gloves for Jade, which are in another post. Some friends of ours have a little boy, Riley, and a baby girl, Michah. We got Riley a Firehouse Dog stuffed animal with a fireman outfit. For Micah, my daughter Desiree knitted a pointy stocking cap with a BIG pompom, and I knitted two little Jester bootees with bows on the toes and ties around the ankle to keep them from kicking off! Too cute!

While we were at it, we gave Tara (the mama) a Water Bottle Coozy made out of the same felted sweater as these fingerless mitts (sold on Etsy, sorry!) and Brandon this knitted ear warmer. He works outside, so he was happy to have something warm but not restricting to wear. It is knitted out of the same Falkland wool as the one I made for my BIL, but I overdyed my BIL's with denim blue.

A while back, I posted some handspun yarn I had made from a Happy Begonia Batt that I bought off Etsy. I used some of that yarn, some lime green Cascade 220, some lime and pink fun fur, and fabric "yarn" that I cut from a cotton batik fabric, to make "The 'Oh Look, Key Lime Pie!' ADD Scarf" for our music pastor at church. They are always teasing her about being ADD, and her favorite color is lime. This scarf was very freeing to make, because if I got bored, I just changed stitches or yarns.

Oh and we gave my BIL some "man art", a framed collage of robots and dollar signs. I bought the robots from Jessica Pierce off Etsy too. And some pin-back buttons, a card case, some T shirts from Juror2.

I also made my quilting Secret Pal and her dh matching quilted stockings, and a stocking for my baby Beverly. It has a cuff that is little gold swirlies on cream. She loves RED so it had to have red batik prairie points and a bow on it, and there are little curly-haired sheepies on the stocking that she says go "bah."

And lastly (well really not lastly, but the last of the handmade stuff), I made this scarf for my 13yod Diantha. She is a Fashion Plate... always has been! So this trendy, narrow, long scarf is just right for her! It is about 3" wide (spreads out to about 5") and 10 feet long! I made it from a bamboo batt I bought from KittyGrrlz at Etsy
Not bad for a bunch of amateurs! LOL!

Some Time Off

Well I didn't get EVERYTHING done in time for Christmas. I think I have to start knitting in January, with the size brood I have, to do that. I didn't get Veronica's second sock done but it is half done! The boys didn't get their knuck mitts yet but it isn't that cold so they aren't suffering. My Etsy shops are both suffering, but there is time to rebuild the stock. I am not worried.

Tuesday I took most of the day off and went to the Armory to shoot. We were there about 3 hours and I did a good job. My final target had one clip from the Lorcin .380, of which I got all 6 shots in the 9 ring or closer (the kill zone). The .22 Ruger longbarrel, I got 4 shots in the kill zone and 2 in ring 8. Not bad shooting for someone who has only used a weapon one other time in the last 20 years. And it seemed to work out a lot of holiday stress that I hadn't even realized I had. My dh and I bought each other reservations in the Carry and Conceal class on Valentine's day... a dual-purpose gift!

Tuesday morning before shooting I made Tony an Applesauce Junk Cake for his birthday. Tony and Des came Tues. evening to do presents with us, and I made Fattening Potato Soup. Allen brought one of his friends over and there went an entire gallon of soup! Yum! When I get home I will post the recipes.

Yesterday we did some last-minute errands (mailing, etc.). It was 60 degrees out, windy and kind of damp but not raining.
So I finally got a chance to take the 73 Suzuki out. Got all leathered up and went for a ride... first time on that bike in over 20 years. It has a couple little bugs to work out but nothing major, actually great for having been in my dad's basement for 20 years. In case you didn't see the blog post last month when we brought her home, here she is. Gotta admit she is a thing of beauty!

Last night I had some presents to work on so I walked Artemas through making a carrot cake, a white cake, and Baklava. His hands, my brain. They are delicious too! Then this morning we baked a ham, made sweet soft rolls from scratch and came to my sisters to have Christmas dinner and presents with her family and my parents. God help me, I will make it through.

I still have the cough I have had for a month, and today I am tired and cranky. But we have had a nice Christmas so far, and for that I am thankful. And being tired will make me all the more grateful to go to bed tonight, in my comfortable bed with the bullet in it, in my warm house. I know there are many who have neither of those priveleges, so I truly am thankful.

More tonight maybe...

A Christmas Memory

Hi, it's been a while. I didn't even get my email for several days. This time of year, I do the things I need to do with my family and to serve those who can't serve themselves, and let everything else go. So if I am silent, it is not because I am still.

A dozen years ago, we bought The Money Pit. It was an 1800 sq. ft. nearly-condemned house (no really, we had to escrow money to put in a heating system right away, that was the only way the bank could sell it to us, because in FL it is illegal to sell a house with no heating system) with no carpets or appliances, peeling wallpaper, a brown tile bathroom with no shower (yet!), a black swamp for a pool, a separate little cottage built in the 60s and not improved since then, and fenced acre of overgrowth. Hey, we got a good price.

The end of the property was privacy-fenced against some Senior condos and had a couple 300-year old oaks and more wild grapevine than I had just about ever seen. I pulled down grapevine and wove it into wreaths until my hands were so sore I could barely move them. I made a 4-foot wide wreath for the front wall of the house and spray-painted yards and yards of the grapevine gold, coiled it up and stored it for use on my Christmas tree.

Because I always seem to be ahead of the decorating trend, I painted our living room with lattice and grapevines (you can see it here), and installed dark purple carpet. I made a tree-topper out of an oval of woven grapevine to which I affixed a 3D quilted dove that I made out of white jacquard and gold lame. I made purple and baby's breath nosegays, ornaments of grape clusters and large purple and gold tassels, and spray-painted gold pinecones. I painted frosted white and purple and gold balls with grape leaves in the opposite colors. Every year we would put a Fraser Fir in the living room, decked out in purple and gold and garlanded around and around in my golden grapevine.

Along about then is the first time they came out with purple Christmas lights too. You could only buy them at Target. So I bought 2, 100-light sets and one, 100-light set of white and sat down and painstakingly pulled out every third bulb from the purple strands and replaced it with white... then put the purple bulbs in the empty sockets of the white strand, so I had 3 strands of lights that were purple, purple, white... etc. I used these same lights every year on my glorious purple and gold and white Christmas tree.

One year my eccentric husband decided that instead of dragging the tree out through the front door, leaving needles in his wake, and having then to dispose of an entire tree, he had a better idea. He brought in a trash can and while I was out grocery shopping, proceeded to dismember the tree branch by branch with manual hedge trimmers and put the branches in the trash can. He then cut the trunk in half, jammed it down in the can, and put it outside. Tada! How neat! He also very kindly wound my purple, purple, white lights around cardboards and put them away. How thoughtful!

When I got home from shopping, I saw the can sitting near the porch with the tree branches in it, and many, many bits and pieces of gold grapevine. He had cut up all my grapevine garland!! OOOOooooh I was so mad, I could have bitten a 10-penny nail in half!

Nearly a year later, I got to get mad about it all over again when I got the lights out to put on a new tree, and found out that he had also cut my purple, purple, white light strands in several places. I remember sitting on the top step of the porch with the door open and a roll of electrical tape and a pair of wire strippers, wiring those lights back together.

I tell him I have only kept him all these years to keep someone else from having to put up with him.

And he thinks I am kidding.

Love is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs... Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love never quits. 1 Corinthians 13:5b,7,8a NLT

Kid-Friendly Gingerbread Houses!

Today we will make Kid-Friendly Gingerbread Houses!

You will need:

16-oz. (pint) milk, cream, half'n'half, juice or other cardboard carton, rinsed out and dried

square of sturdy cardboard, roughly 8"

aluminum foil

masking or packing tape

plastic baggies

assorted colorful candies, cereals, pretzels, crackers

plain graham crackers (not cinnamon-coated, the frosting won't stick very well on those)

Additionally for the frosting you will need:

Powdered sugar

water, cream, or milk

vanilla, if you want it

meringue powder or an egg white
(Note: the egg white or meringue powder gives the frosting a glossier look and makes it dry stiff to the touch)
(Note 2: most people no longer consider it safe to eat raw egg white. If small children or other people who will lick their fingers a lot are going to do this project, you may want to buy meringue powder. Or also if you intend to eat these after they are made.)

Preparation

Prepare the frosting: put powdered sugar and 2 teaspoons meringue powder in a mixer. If you like vanilla, add about 1/2 teaspoon. I like it, but your frosting will not be as glowing white with it. I also add a pinch of salt. While mixer is on low speed, add enough liquid of choice (water, milk, or cream) to make a relatively thick frosting.

For ease of application, put about 1/3 cup frosting into a plastic baggie. This will be easier if you tuck a corner of the plastic baggie into a jar. Twist-tie firmly shut just above the frosting. When it is time to use the frosting, snip a small tip off the baggie and away you go!

Cover the squares of cardboard with foil, taping it down on the back. Tape the cardboard carton to the top of the foil-covered square.

If working with very small children, you will want to cut the crackers. Older children can probably do it. They cut easily if you use a serrated-edge table knife (doesn't have to be sharp) to score them, then break along the score line.

You will want to have the following pieces:

4 whole crackers with about 1" cut off of them

2, half-cracker squares

1, half-cracker square cut diagonally into 2 right triangles (for house gables).

To Assemble House:

Using frosting as "glue," stick a whole, trimmed cracker to each side of the carton. You will have a little margin down each side that the cracker doesn't cover. Don't worry about it! You can fill the gap in with frosting and candies or whatever, later on.

Put frosting in a line at the top and bottom of one side of one of the squares, and stick them on the sloping sides of the carton at the top for the roof. They may overlap a little at the top.

Stick each triangle at each end of the carton roof "peak" as the gable.

Decorate with candies!

Pretzels make great doors and windows.

Square checkered cereals make great roof tiles or paving stones for a sidewalk! Or stand them on end for flower-bed edging.

Graham-cracker bears make good "people"

Sugar Cone ice cream cones covered with green frosting and red rope licorice make great Christmas Trees!

Go wild!

When your houses are dry, take a picture (put the picture in an ornament frame with the date, to hang on the tree!). Then eat them! You can make a whole village if you want... or get together with friends and let all the kids do houses at once!

Below is a picture of our houses. From left to right: Betsy's house made my mommy (me), niece Dana's (5) house, grandson Jeremiah's (3) house, Josiah's (8) house, and Veronica's (10) house. Yum!

CHOCOLATE DECADENCE

Credit
This recipe is from the ultimate dessert cookbook, Cocolat, by the owner of the restaurant of the same name, Alice Medrich. It is out of print. I looked for a copy for nearly 10 years, and the one I finally got cost over $80. If you are serious about baking gourmet-style desserts, it is worth the search. And the money.

This cake will cost (depending on where you live) about $12 to make, plus the raspberry or orange sauce. It is WORTH EVERY PENNY. If the people you serve it to don't swoon in ecstasy, RUN AWAY from those people! Next time serve them the instant pudding topped with oreo crumbs and cool whip, that they deserve.

Ingredients
for cake:

1 POUND of dark (semisweet or bittersweet) chocolate, chopped up small

5 oz (1 stick plus 2T) unsalted BUTTER (NO substitute)

5 large eggs, separated

1 Tablespoon flour

1 Tablespoon sugar

pinch of Cream of Tartar, or 1 teaspoon vinegar
a word about the chocolate: Use the best chocolate you can afford. Ghirardelli or even [gasp!] Nestle chocolate chips or chunks are okay... generic imitation chocolate-flavored chips are not. Your dessert will only be as good as what you put in it.

for topping:

3 to 4 cups whipping cream (NO substitute)

3 Tablespoons sugar
for sauce :

one small jar of Seedless Raspberry Jam or Orange Marmalade

1 ounce (+/-) water

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F

Trace your baking pan onto waxed paper or baking parchment. Cut the shape out. Grease baking pan (or spray with baking spray), line with cutout paper, grease or spray the paper too. Set aside.

Separate egg whites into large grease-free bowl. In order for whites to whip properly, the bowl must have NO trace of oils in it, not even fingerprints!

Place yolks into a small cup.

In a large, microwave-safe measuring cup or bowl, melt chocolate with butter. 2 minutes should do it. Stir until the chocolate mixture is smooth. Alternatively if you don't own a microwave, you can melt the butter and chocolate in a bowl set over barely simmering water in a pan on the stove. Be sure not to get a *single* drop of water in the chocolate if you do it this way! It will ruin the chocolate!

Add the flour and egg yolks (yolks ONLY!) to the chocolate. Stir until blended in, and set aside. (Note, I am using 6 eggs because they are medium size)

Add a pinch of Cream of Tartar or a teaspoon of vinegar to your egg whites. Beat whites with a mixer (or whisk by hand if you are brave!) until soft peaks form. As the whites are beating, sprinkle in the Tablespoon of sugar. Continue beating until stiff peaks form and whites look smooth and glossy... and not a second more!
Caption: Yes, I am a "po" woman with a "cadillac" mixer. A person who uses tools on a daily basis should own high-quality tools. I cook a lot for a lot of people!

fold about 1/4 of the beaten eggs into the chocolate mixture to lighten it.

Add chocolate mixture back to egg whites and fold in gently and continually until mixed.

Pour into prepared pan.

Bake exactly 15 minutes. Cake will rise almost like a souffle and will seem unset in the middle. This is correct!

Cool cake in pan. Cake will sink in the center and seem cracked around the edges. This is also correct!

When cake is cool, run a knife around the edge. Invert cake onto your flattened hand, peel paper off the bottom, and place cake on a large serving plate or platter.

Topping the cake
I see your wheels turning! You are thinking, "I could just SKIP this step and go straight to Cool Whip!" DO NOT even THINK about desecrating the sanctity of this cake with Cool Whip! I will hunt you down like the dog that you are, and cover you with that fake sweet fatness and tie you naked and "whipped" to an ant mound! I swear!

When whipping cream, have the cream as cold as possible. It also helps to chill the bowl and whisk or beaters!

Pour whipping cream into the bowl and whisk or beat on low ro medium speed until soft peaks form. (If you use a higher speed, you can turn the cream into butter! No REALLY! What do you think butter is?)

Gradually sprinkle in 3 Tablespoons of sugar, as you are beating the cream.

STOP beating AS SOON as stiff peaks form. The whipped cream will stiffen further as you spread it on the cake. If you overbeat cream, it will curdle and get watery. Blek!

Spread about 3/4 of the whipped cream on the cake and over sides.

Put the rest of the cream into a pastry bag with large star tip and pipe on top of the cake. Or plop the rest of the cream around on the cake with a spoon and use the back of the spoon to make peaks.

Raspberry or Orange Syrup

Scoop contents of the jar of jelly into a large, microwave-safe measuring cup. Add 1 oz. of water and nuke a minute or two. Stir briskly to thin the sauce. Serve drizzled over the slices of cake.

I cut this cake into 24 slices (1/4, then each 1/4th into 6 very thin slices). When you have a piece, you will see why. It is incredibly rich. Oh and you can inform your low-carb friends that this cake has only ONE tablespoon of sugar and ONE tablespoon of flour in it.

Too, too busy ~and~ LOTSA pics!

Marion wrote about me on Saturday!
Knittingspinningsewingcrocheting: Fun Stuff!!!

Ok, I have gotten not much of anything done for 5 days. My baby Betsy has had intermittent fever and has kept me up all night. Saturday and Sunday my oldest daughter Desiree and her dh Tony were here all day each, because Tony was helping my dh re-route water pipes under the house. What fun! 10 to 12 of us in the house at a time and most of the day Sunday, no water! It was like Little House on the Prairie with all the kids running around.

I spun some green bits out of my Batt Crazies, along with some bits and nepps that I collected out of the dryer when I felted some sweaters, and dyed various shades of red (talk about recycling! to make the weirdest lumpy yarn. I only got 19 yards. sigh! But then I plied it with some Red eyelash and attached little frosty plastic mini Christmas ornaments that look like candies. I am calling it Trip To Candyland, and I think I will knit it as an accent band in an otherwise green or deep red hat.


I have been trying to catch up with some quilt swaps I have been in. And Des and I spent part of Saturday and a lot of Sunday spinning. She dove feet first into my Batt Crazies and helped me spin the rest of them. I just love this yarn! The pic is left to right: The one Des spun on her own, the one we spun together, and the first one, that I spun alone. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Soft as a feather too.
I am going to knit a Moebius wrap with them, probably after Christmas if I can muster up enough Self-Control to keep to my gift list and keep my hands off this yarn. LoL.

Then she got a black merino/blue bamboo batt of 3 oz and spun that whole thing up. You can see she did a great job. Boy she took right to this spindling thing.

Today I got two GORGEOUS spindles in the mail from Marion (link to her Saturday blog above). One is pictured with Des' black and blue yarn. On the other, you can see that I already started spinning something. I had in mind to ply this red, green, and yellow yarn with a gold thread and call it Holly's Jollies, but I think I am spinning it too fine. If I can get a little thicker I might. Unless I change my mind and call it Cinco De Decembre!

Alas, I only got ONE yarn done today to list on etsy. I am so sorry to people who are waiting for something new to appear in my shop! I had hoped to get 2 or 3 done. But we are retiling a countertop in my kitchen, so that is a mess. And my elderly MIL and my oldest BIL will be here tomorrow from NJ for a visit. Since I am already "fat" in their book, (OMG when we were there to visit in June she must have told me 6 times how much I have LET MYSELF GO since Betsy was born last year!) I didn't want to be a "fat SLOB" too... so we have been cleaning.

The ONE skein I did do, when I went to reskein it to mix the colors, the last 100 yards or so got tangled and I spent an hour and a half untangling it. OY! Took up the time I could have used to do 2 more skeins anyway!

So this yarn is the Dolly for Sue from the Island of Misfit Toys from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. According to any info I could find on the 'net, Dolly isn't there because she is truly a misfit, mostly King Moonracer the Lion brought her there just because nobody loves her anymore. Boo-hoo! Well I hope someone will LOVE her yarn! LOL!

More Fun with Yarn

So I have disappeared for a couple days. I haven't been idle. Been enjoying some sales on Etsy and unwinding some sweaters... and got some quilt blocks done for a swap, rearranged our bedroom so the baby's crib wasn't by the cold windows, had a party at my oldest daughter's house (where I dressed like a REALLY good facsimile of Alice Cooper, and didn't scare my grandbaby), and came down with something.

All the while searching for my digital camera. Last time I saw it was Wed. night. My #2 son was going over to my sister's for the night and taking the laptop with him. I remembered getting my CF card out of the side of the computer before I handed it to him... and that was it. I have been nearly panicking, thinking, I have got to get these yarns up, I have GOT to get these yarns up. But how?

We looked all over the house, in the car, etc. Finally I broke down tonight and went to the local WM (only place to shop in our town) and bought a really cheap digicam that takes the world's worst pictures. I am sitting at the computer pulling my hair out over it when dh says, "Were you wearing a jacket Wed. night?" He goes and gets my jeans jacket and there in the pocket is my camera. DUH. and Thank God, I can put my listings up before my shop sells down to empty, er, cyberspace.

Meanwhile also I have come down with a cold or something. My head feels like someone stuffed a dishtowel up my nose, while it is running too, my throat is sore, I hurt all over. Bleh.

So I have some really GREAT yarns up though! Actually there are only 2 more I want to do in the Muppet Christmas Carol series, unless I change my mind and with fickle alacrity go on to the next series. LoL. Let me introduce some characters:

I have Gonzo, he is our narrator. I just love him because he is so weird. Of course, one can hardly help that when one is a... well, whatever. I NAILED the colors on this one, if you look at his picture. Bravo!

Marley and Marley... leave it to the Muppets to think that one Marley wasn't enough. The hecklers, Statler and Waldorf, appear this time around as ethereal, grumpy ghosts wearing chains of doom. Interestingly enough, this is the most unusual yarn I have come across, as it is a long, fine, crocheted CHAIN. I just love serendipity. So we have ghostly gray and shades of blue as cold as the grave. Brrr!!

Rizzo the Scrawny Rat, is just enough of self-striping (and self-serving, LOL) fun to make a pair of short socks out of. Tan and blue and brown will go around and around some lucky person's socks or mittens. I like Rizzo too, he has a great appetite and comes from a large family. Sounds just about like everybody at my house!

Bob Cratchit... what can we say? Marvelously played by Kermit, my Bob Cratchit yarn matches his lime green froggy skin, maroon and deep green coat. It will self-stripe. I just love his upbeat attitude and gentle spirit! It is a cuddly yarn, one for a big fat scarf or hat and mitts.

I have more, of course. But you will just have to stop by and see them yourself! And while you are at it, bring me a hot toddy. Thanks!