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!

How Long?

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

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

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

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

Last evening we went to Des' house.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spin-Out, First Friday, and More B's Eye View

We ended up packing it in Friday from the Smoky Valley Rally. Saturday and Sunday ended up nice, but the rain didn't stop or the sky didn't clear up on Friday. When we were on our way home from Clinton at 11 PM the highway near us was wet. We would have lost all our soaps to the damp. Oh well! Next year!

There is a little street fair each First Friday night of the months in summer, from 6-9PM in Clinton. They have a little antiques district that they rope off so people can wander the street. The shops set out tables, and it is free for anyone to set up a table to sell stuff. There are snow cones and horse-cart rides. This month was slow... there was a local HS graduation and 2 other large, local softball games. But it was a relaxed atmosphere, quite fun.

So we set up a table and dress dummy with our felted stuff and yarns and handbags, and hung out for 3 hours. Friday alsohappened to be Spin Out day, so I threw together an emergency spindle out of a shaft that was down in the supply box, some masking tape as a grommet, and a purple stone whorl I bought online that "accidentally" came to Des' house. We opened one of the batts that Diantha had wrapped up to sell and took turns spinning. Incidentally, I also "dropped" the spindle about 5 times, making not actual chips but chip marks in the side of the lovely stone whorl. Dangit.

I kept asking people who walked by, "See what I am doing? I am turning this sheep wool into yarn!" Then they would stop and feel it, look at it, look at our handspuns, and ask questions. Some of the older people said, "I remember my grandma doing this on a spinning wheel? Is that almost the same thing?" Yes, it is *almost* the same. Drop spindling is not as fast, but useful nonetheless.

The bags you see hanging around behind Des and I in these pics are available in her Etsy Shop.

We got new carded batts and new handspuns listed in Diantha's shop today. Working on my shop tomorrow!

Des, my oldest darling daughter and camera sniper extraordinaire, got this pic of the back of my free Coal Creek Armory shirt. I told her I loved how it fit, because one could hardly see the gun in the small of my back... and momentarily she checked out my reflection in the nearest window, just to see if I were kidding or not. My dh keeps checking my back too... wonder what he thought the term LEGALLY ARMED meant? (At the moment, NOT, but ya never know, LOL)

Beverly (my 2yod) has been at it again with the camera. Well first, here is a pic of her in my newest pair of my trademark purple round glasses. I called this one, "Am I Cool Yet?" You might notice in most of these pictures, that B doesn't wear much clothes. Sometimes it is hot in our house, because we run our air as little as possible. But mostly, she is two, and that is an age where kids take their clothes off.

She took this picture of her daddy, the aging Hippy, who sat down at the edge of her bed to help her, once again, put her clothes back on. Wonder where she gets the not-wearing a shirt thing. hmmm.

Also she had the great idea for this picture. I have to put Richard's contacts in every morning,
and take them out every night, because he has a (hereditary) tremor. Somehow the lid to the eyedrops ended up here. Strange things happen at my house.

I got this pic of her, reading a really good Patricia Cornwell novel. She is either a prodigy, or just doing what she sees Mommy do (a LOT). Can't decide which.


In more wonderful good news, the '82 GS450T Suzuki I own, which has been laid up for 18 months since my *oldest* son flipped it, rides again. Yes, folks, my dearest darling Son in Law (who is too old to be one of my kids), has fixed it. Rewired and all. Somehow my front headlight is missing, so that is a must-do. And I need to renew the plate and change out the oil and filter. Minor inconveniences, at that. I was so thrilled to hear it run and see him take off for a test drive, I nearly cried.

Mama rides again. And is this a fine ride, or what? Yee-haw!