Sad, or Mad?

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!

Progress is Good, or, Saving One's Marriage

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

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!

We Came, We Saw, We Tackled

Today being Tackle-it Tuesday, I had plans. Big plans. But my oldest son, being the thoughtful kinda guy he is, decided the night before that he was WAY too tired to do the dishes. This is what I woke up to this morning.

Yes folks, that is ONE day's worth of dishes in the Ross household. Not even a day's worth, since the dishwasher from 1974 is 2/3 full. I might add that I also have deep-bowl sinks.

So the first thing I got to tackle this morning, was the kitchen. Forty-five minutes later, I had done all the big dishes by hand and put them away, all but the one cast-iron skillet. Filled the rest of the dishwasher and run it. Cleaned both sinks and the countertop. Filled a sink with soapy water to soak small bits that could wait for the next dishwasher load. Cleaned the burner supports and stove top. It looked like this.

(By the way, yes, my cabinet doors are missing, because I am whitewashing the oak. Ditto the lower cabinets, where I tested only one drawerfront. And the ugly B/W tile countertops are little by little being replaced by stylish travertine tile. Stay tuned.)

Beverly and I made homemade Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins (recipe at end of post). While I was putting the muffins in the oven, she picked up the stirring spatula, licked it, and said, "Mmmm! Dish-us!" Cute.

The next Tackle-it that greeted me was the sight of the rest of the unfolded laundry from yesterday. I might say, most of the laundry from yesterday, since I got a late start on my Monday Laundry Madness. After this pic I actually added 2 more loads to fold, which were out by the dryer.

At some point, I had to stop folding and run after car and motorcycle parts that were ordered last week and finally came in. We also went to a big-box warehouse for olive oil for Richard's soaps and ate a pizza while there. When we got home, Artemas spread a slice of Meat Lover's pizza with marshmallow and Raisinettes, for a snack. Disgusting! What a teenage boy won't eat is a short list, I'll tell ya.

So after dinner and a nice ride in the car, I finished folding the clothes. Once again, relief. Here is Beverly, "helping." Some lot of help too. I do have a load of stored baby clothes to wash for the big yard sale Des and I are going to have the Fri. and Sat. after July 4th weekend. But other than that, no more laundry for the week. Yee-haw!

I have a pic to show. I did a couple new yarns in the last couple days, for my My7kids Recycled Yarns. One of them sold in less than 24 hours, and I have recreated it and relisted it. Here is a B's Eye View of the other one, being reskeined to mix the colors.


One last Tackle-it! I am in a Mini Quilt Swap that is due in a couple weeks. The lady I am assigned to likes wild animal prints and Africana, also traditional quilt patterns and Kaleidoscope. The Kaleidoscope block is rather challenging because of the many pieces that meet in the center. I have cut the pattern down to a 4" finished block. On the left here are my fabric selections this morning.

On the right, are the fabrics tonight, cut into 300 little bitty pieces, which will make a 20" square "field" for the quilt top. The wavy-lined piece will be a little border around the quilt. I haven't decided yet what piece the backing will be, though I have two in the running.

Alright, muffins! These are SO good! And blueberries are in season in most of the USA right now, so take advantage of them!

Recipe makes 12 decent sized standard muffins, or 6-8 Jumbo muffins, or about 18 mini muffins. They freeze well, too, so if you are single or your family is small, make a batch anyway. Freeze them, get one out in the morning for a morning-commute breakfast that will make your fellow mass-transit travelers absolutely jealous! MUCH better than any overpriced thing out of the case at Starbucks... and a great way to economize, too!

Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease muffin pans or use paper cups. Make sure rack is in the top 1/3 of the oven.

Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins

1 Cup Sour Cream (we use Lowfat) (Yogurt would do too)
2 large chicken eggs or 1 duck egg
1/3 cup (5.6 T) butter
1 cup sugar
~~~~
2 Cups unbleached flour, divided (1 Cup + 1 Cup)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
~~~~
1 Pint fresh or frozen blueberries or 1/2 cup dried blueberries

Mix all the sloppy moist ingredients and sugar in a large bowl until they are homogenous and pale yellow. Add 1 Cup of the flour, the baking powder and soda, and salt and stir in. Toss the other 1 Cup of flour with the blueberries, add to the batter, and gently stir until barely mixed in. Spoon into prepared muffin cups (2/3 full) and bake 16 minutes for Jumbo, 12 minutes for standard, or 10 minutes for mini muffins. So easy and tasty! Enjoy!

More Than a Day Behind

I am more than a day behind, so let me see if I can sum up.

Monday was More Chicks day. When my kids got their 4-H chicks on the 26th of May, we ended up losing 4 of them. They were so disappointed. And I had been disappointed to begin with, that we couldn't get 2 of my favorite breeds: Americaunas, which actually lay eggs in the olive-green to blue-mint-green color range, (eggs and range of color of the hens both pictured here), and Barred Rocks, which are striped-looking, full-bodied, docile chickens that lay beautiful brown eggs.

So off I went Monday to take a walk and pick up chicken feed. Lo and behold, the man at the feed store had BOTH Americaunas AND Barred Rocks. So I bought 2 Barred Rocks, and a "Wheaten" and a White Ameraucana. I put them in with all the others we have, and though smaller, one of the Barred Rocks immediately let it be known that she was going to be a Peck-ER, and not a Peck-EE.

Yes, city dwellers, the term "Pecking Order" comes from chickens and is absolutely true... the "top chicken" pecks everyone below her, the next one pecks everyone except the top one, the next one down pecks everyone except the top two, and so on. How they decide who is who, is completely up to them, but it really does work for them.

Sometimes I think that one of my problems is that I am a Peck-ER in a world that wants me to be a Peck-EE instead. LOL.

Ok yesterday was Tackle-it Tuesday. I am trying to pass a very bad kidney stone, so I didn't tackle just about anything. Though in the evening I did go in the girls' room and sit on their bed in a lot of pain and supervise the cleaning that was going on. Diantha had decided that their Tackle-it Tuesday should be their bedroom. I, being the bad Mom that I am, am posting the "before pictures" on the internet. LOL. This was Veronica's side of the room, between the bed and the wall. The Left picture is BEFORE, and the Right picture is AFTER. I think she did well. There is still one leeeetle pile of about 10 items of clothing to go, and the vacuuming.

On to the end of the room by the dresser and closet. Diantha says that Veronica dragged most of this stuff out of the closet, which is just as well, since it gave them a chance to actually HANG things UP (gasp!) instead of just THROW them IN. Again, Before on the left, and After (before vacuuming) on the Right.


Lastly, the first walkway into the room, on Diantha's side of the bed. In all this cleaning, we boxed up a huge box of seasonal clothes for next winter and got rid of about a trash bag of other clothes that were outgrown. Off to the local thrift store. And, bagged up a kitchen-size bag of trash. This was a HUGE Tackle-it for Diantha and Veronica to take on, particularly without any real help from Mom.

Good job, girls!

Just a couple more. Had to share this one! It is the Ball n Chain Scarf for the Groom (or anyone you know who has the balls to wear it, LoL!). I knitted it out of a handspun art yarn sent to me from Japan. The approx. 60" long, 10 chain scarf has merino, sari silk, cotton, and glitz in it, in black, steel blue, rusty brown, and pale gray. The 4" balls are knitted from 100% recycled cotton/acrylic blend and stuffed with polyester fiberfill. Available in my Heart Felt Fun Accessory Boutique as part of the "I Do 2009" Etsy Knitters Street Team Challenge.

Also Diantha listed a beautiful red/black/white/sparkle handspun in her Fluff 4 Ewe shop. Stop by and see other new and wonderful items too!

Done is Better Than Perfect

I got Veronica's sock done. I missed her birthday by 3 hours, finishing the cast-off bleary-eyed but triumphant, at 3 AM. And Veronica, who NEVER stays up past about 10 PM, was awake. She put the sock on, and...
She didn't like it.

The cuff was looser than the other one. So today I picked out the cast-off, pulled out about 5 rows of knitting, put the sock stitches back on the little bitty size 1 needles, and did it over. I counted stitches on the first sock, and apparently I had decreased more times after the heel, to make the ankle more snug. So the 2nd sock had 5 more stitches. Not much you say? About 1/2-3/4" difference! I decreased the 5 stitches, ribbed my way to the finish line, cast it off, and behold, she likes it. Hey Mikey!

Above, the pics. The socks aren't really wonky, they were laying across my legs. There is lace on the top of the foot. The picture is a little more pink than I like but hey. And here is a nice detail of the heel, showing where I decreased off the little mini-gusset I make before the heel, so the short-row heel isn't TOO short at the back of the foot. Pretty, huh? Sometime I am going to put up a little tutorial on making toe-up socks. Sometime is not tonight.

It is thundering again. And it must be lightning with it (well duh, yo!) because the street light just went out.

Here is a bit of weirdness. I uploaded a background to my Twitter last night. It was a pic of the target I qualified with for my CCW. And an avatar that was the center cluster. Today, that background disappeared. Ok, I thought, they think that is potentially violent (they don't live in the South, LoL). I stand Politically Correct-ed. SO I put up another background. This one an innocuous quilt with Australian kiwis on it (to the left), and an avatar of a quilt block I made. Tonight that background also disappeared. What is up with that?

I spent most of the day putting shipping back on our etsy listings, and putting tags in for Diantha's and my shops, because we got accepted to EtsyFAST (Fiber Artists' Street Team). I got so sick of doing it, I had to take a break to wind yarn and make tea. Then we went to Des' house for a little bit while the teens were at church, and now I am back at it. We listed this yummy handspun in Diantha's Fluff4ewe shop today. I spun a little of it on Monday, and she did the rest. It is her May SHEteam challenge of flowers (Daffodil Garden). Stop by and buy it, LOL!

In a few minutes, it will be the National Day of Prayer. So PRAY! Our country sure needs it! And I don't know about you, but I sure need it too. Even if you don't think you know how to pray, try it anyway. Just talk. I can reassure you, Someone is Listening.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, 'Here I am.' Isaiah 58:9

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.

Soap and Second Sock Syndrome

Beverly likes poptart-type toaster pastries. See? Mostly she wants me to break off all the crust with no jelly in it. Then she likes to eat half the body of the pastry and then get little blobs of indeterminate flavors of jelly on the floor. On her hands. On the soles of her feet, and on the side of the refrigerator. Oh and on her face. See?



I FINALLY got a new listing up. "Misty," one of the Floozy Girls. Misty's parents named her for the morning mist rolling in off the ocean at Cape May, where Misty liked to play under the boardwalk when she was little (and a little bigger too!). She is aptly named, because that is about what she has inside her head. She makes up for it by the size of her bust, which she stuffs into fluffy, pastel color sweaters that are 2 sizes too small.

Yesterday we made Lavender Baby soap. Mmmm! This morning I cut it into bars, and took a picture, because it was pretty. Smells pretty, too. Baby fragrance with just a little Lavender EO. This is my daughter's favorite to use on her kids. Available in Richard's Rossoaps shop in a week or two, when it's cured. I love it when we make soap, because my house is a good-smell-o-rama.

Ok just a little more stuff about soap. Richard decided we should do a plain Lard and Lye soap, just for the tourists and ignorant people. Not that it is ignorant to make soap out of lard. On the contrary, lard actually makes a very hard, white bar of soap with a creamy lather that is soft to the skin, and, unlike beef tallow (which is in ALL commercial soaps... the label will say, "sodium tallowate"), does not contribute to eczema or acne. What I mean is for the tourists who come here to Eastern TN and expect all of us to be barefooted, wearing our hair in a bun with a long dress and apron (or bib overalls), and chickens running around in the yard. Hey, just because I have chickens doesn't mean...

But I digress. We will go to craft shows and people will pick up our wonderful, beautiful soaps, and the conversation will go like this:

THEM: "Don'tcha have any of that there LAAA soap?"
US: "All soaps have lye in them. It is what turns the oils into soap, and isn't active in the final product. All our soaps are just soap, with no remaining lye in them."
THEM: "No, I mean, you know, LAAAA soap, like Mee-maw usta make, with lard 'n' such."
US: "No, all our soaps are made with vegetable oils and goat's milk, which has amino acids like human skin, and so they are very good for your skin."
THEM: "Waaaaall, I don't know about all that stuff. I jest remember ma Mee-maw makin' Laaa soap, and I shore would like to get hold of some of THAT stuff."

So we made lard and lye soap. We were going to call it Granny's whatever whatever, but the grandkid that can talk calls Richard "Grumpy," so we called it Grumpy's Back Porch Lard 'n' Lye Soap. Actually he mixes the lye on the FRONT porch, where this picture was taken. But who wants to split hairs? This is the label I came up with. My daughter says he looks demented, which should suit the local crowd just fine.

On my last note of the night: I am knitting a sock again. Last Spring I knitted a pair of socks for Diantha, which she loves. Then I started on a sock for Veronica, and knitted it in June and July. I might note that I would knit on my daily walk but no other time because I just don't have much sitting-around time. Anyway I finished the first and started the second, and had to lay it aside to do Christmas presents in order to get them done in time. Which I didn't, for all of them. ~~ sigh ~~ Anyway, in all my delay in getting back to knitting the ssssssssSSSecond sock (do I actually have Second Sock Syndrome? I think I do! Horrors!), some little person around here took my needles out. Size ONE needles. In Tofutsies yarn, which is the splittiest little yarn you ever don't want to knit on. So I have understandably put off messing with it.

The other day Veronica, my good-naturedest child in the WORLD, walked thru the kitchen and somehow her completed sock was laying on the corner of the island. She picked it up and looked at it, then wistfully said, "Mommy, I LOVE my sock. And I will love the other one when you are finished, even if you don't finish it in time for my birthday."

Her birthday is May 5th. I am knitting quickly.

Tales Left Untold

So last week was really busy, and there were things I didn't write about. I know you all really missed out. And since today has been a slow news day, I thought I would write about them now.

One day last week, we went to a guy's farm, who has been a 4-H Volunteer Leader for like 40 years, since his kids were in it, and now his grandkids. He told me he had some sheep fleeces in a barrel in his shed, and if I thought I could use them, to come get them. So R and the kids and I bundled off early in the morning and went down to his farm. What he had, were 3 full Corriedale fleeces: One white/brown mottled, one black, one gray. 33# of smelly, lovely, soft wool. We wrapped it in a bedsheet and rode around in the car, smelling like sheep.



I processed out the gray fleece already. See it? --->




Wow, beautiful long wool, very soft.

I dried it on a rack over my clawfoot-tub garden. --->



And carded some of it, to send to a friend of mine. And listed some uncarded in Diantha's shop, Fluff4ewe.

Ok! On to something else!

In a little town called Loudon, just up the road, there is a former school for sale. it is built on a hill with 3 acres of ground. On the ground floor on the front of the building, facing downhill, it has 3 large classroms, each with 2 doors into them. Very easy to divide into 6 LARGE rooms. I take it on the back side of that floor are the bathrooms, kitchen, and boiler room, since that part of the story is underground. The top floor is like the bottom, except on the back of the building there are 2 classrooms with bathrooms between. Then there is a T which is a foyer with long hall upstairs, and an office or room with a half-bath downstairs. Because we are more curious than is good for us, we stopped and let the girls look in windows. They want us to buy it. "OH! It would be SO cool! We could have rooms for all our crafts!!"

ROFLOL. We have a history of buying bad houses and fixing them, though it takes years. YEARS. My dh is not into construction, and he is reluctant to undertake any project, or finish undertaken projects. That doesn't phase him in the least. He said, "It would take a fortune to run the place, and what would you do with half the building? It is 9000 sq. feet!"

I said, you get a grant and make it a "Center for the Arts." You teach spinning and weaving and knitting and quilting and painting. You charge $100 for 6 weeks of lessons and a "gallery showing" at the end, limiting class size to 10 or 12 people for each course, and do it again in 6 more weeks. See? No problem!

On the way through town, we saw a little old wooden house, abandoned. Attached to it was a brick 3-front little "strip mall." He said, "Now there is what you do that in... have the 3 fronts as classrooms and the 2-room house as Gallery/giftshop." Again, curiosity winning over discretion, we stopped and snooped in windows. The middle shop was FULL of bags of wool! Well you know City Hall was on the back side of the block... might find out who owns the place and see if they want to part with some wool.

Turns out the guy who owns it works at City Hall. One of the ladies in there says, you might try to call his house... his wife is probably home. Ok, so that turns out like this... she has been wanting to do just that, with the little buildings downtown. Said she has dreamed of doing an Art Center type of thing, just didn't know anyone to partner with, who could teach the stuff. So we are invited to her Alpaca farm this week to talk about it, and see her animals! What fun!

Alright, totally unrelated. I got a Treasury for Easter, called Empty Cross, Empty Tomb... Resurrection Power! I don't talk a lot about my faith. I try to live it and pass it on to my kids. But I am so totally unworthy, and humbly grateful, for what Christ did for us, and I hope this helps show it.

We had a GREAT Easter. Des and Tony and the kids came down, as well as a guy that Des and Tony and I used to work with at Sonic, and his girlfriend. We had ham and other yummy stuff, then hid 75 stuffed plastic eggs in the yard and let the kids hunt them. Because my own extended family was not here, no one complained about the food or ranted half an hour if there was food they didn't like. And no one yelled at the kids for acting like kids in the grass. A good time. In the pic, the middle kid is the girl next door. The grandbabies are to the right. I have 3 older kids, not pictured. And Beverly wanted to wear her Chucks with her dress. LoL!

In the evening, I got a T West called, That's Some Great Grass (Gotcha!) it has all grassy items, including a wonderful soap we have listed in Richard's Rossoaps shop. We also added a new soap today, called Leather Up! It actually smells like leather. Mmmm!