Does It Have To Be Everyday?

So last evening, after I had already written in my blog for the evening, Richard goes in to put the handles on our shower faucets. You know the shower he has been working on putting in, for 8 months. This week he finally cut the hole big enough to patch the drywall, and last night he had just cut the piece of drywall, so I can get to tiling the bathroom. I am supposed to return the borrowed tile saw on Saturday. Sure.

He goes in there, and I hear him yell, Help! Help! and he says, "Tell Artemas to go out to the street and turn the water off to the house!"

OY.

I go in there and he is standing in the tub, drenched from head to foot. And there is a DELUGE of water pouring out of the HOT water pipe where the handle should be, and he is trying to stop it up with a towel, which is soaked and pouring water down into the wall.

I took over for him, so he could go out and see if Artemas was turning it off right. mind, it was 28 degrees outside. I figured the towel was just complicating things, so I threw it in the tub and deflected the water down into the tub with the palm of my hand until it stopped running. He was only out for a minute, but he was chilled already when he came in. and I was soaked too, because when I first went in the bathroom and the water was spraying and he was trying to stop it up with the towel, it was spraying EVERYWHERE.

Only place he didn't get was on the far side of the door where I have a primitive ladder for towels (same wall as the pipes only about 10 feet away) and the back wall behind the toilet, which is 12 feet away.

The handle had just BLOWN apart. So he spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out the schematic for putting it back together, and we spent the night with the water turned off to the house. Which made a grocery-shopping expedition this morning look welcome, even if I did have to take 3 of the kids with me.

We put a heater/blower in there this morning and it is dry, so he can drywall it. I am so glad, because I am totally allergic to mold since I lost one of the babies (the loss damaged my immune system so badly) and I told him, no way can we seal that wall up if there is any moisture in it.

Before sealing the wall up, he gets the big idea to fill all the wall-holes he has made with Great Stuff to help insulate the walls, because that is one COLD bathroom. I mean with the holes in the walls and the outside temps lately, I am really reluctant to sit down in there. So he starts to use the stuff, and the end blows right off one of the cans (and down into the wall, of course). He tries another can. It is supposed to come out looking like a fat maggoty worm, then swell up greatly. No. It came out and stayed, just like that. Fat maggoty worms of Great Stuff in the wall.

What the heck? I mean, can't some of these things happen to somebody else? Does it have to be something EVERY day? My life is so WEIRD.

Ok, on a maybe just slightly
less weird note, Marvel Comics is going to feature Mr. Obama in a Spiderman episode. News story here: Spiderman Meets Obama. So in honor of just such a momentous occasion, I am making a handspun yarn by that same name. I am so proud of myself, I have only been spinning about 3 months, and this is SOCK weight yarn, and very even, about 15 WPI. I am going to make it available in my Etsy shop for purchase.

And, there really wasn't a block for today on our quilting calendars. But the quilt pictured is only over the next two days. It is a 2-block quilt that is a Snowball and 9-patch. So I made a couple random 9-patches. Never hurts to have some of them lying around anyway. And, here is a picture of one. It is UGLY. Today must have been Make Ugly Quilt Pieces Day, because my oldest daughter made an Ugly quilt top too.

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!

Biserable

I hab a code. But dot really, I do'd thig, because dobody else id by fabily is gettig sick. By daughter says it is just by body shuttig dowd agaid, requirig be to rest, because I hab beed doig too buch.

Darlig Richie is off today. So I thig I will lie aroud on da bed ad play wid yard ad poidty sticks a little and sleeb. By house still stigs.

Oh by da way... I hab da page up for da Weird and Ugly Fabric Challenge 14 quilts. Go see them and bote (vote!) Polls are oped until Oct. 15. Copy and paste:
http://www.rossoaps.com/n2quilting/weird

Why Don't I Go Lie Down?

Well to quote Dustin Hoffman as Hook, "I never lie... the truth is FAR too much fun."

No, I don't think what I mean and what he means are the same thing, even though I love that quote.

I am sick. I am coughing, my head is stuffed up, my throat is sore, I feel like I have a wad of stuff in the back of my throat and like I have a low-grade fever.

So today I unwound and hand-dyed a HUGE skein of wool/angora, another of wool/nylon, a third, smaller (20 gram) of 100% cashmere and overdyed it, a fourth, 33gr of another 100% cashmere, and a fifth, 60-some grams of 100% lambswool in black. I am going to ply the cashmeres with the black (tomorrow!!) for selling.

Also worked on pages and pages of webcode for the Weird and Ugly Fabric Challenge 14, wound 2 skeins into balls to fill an order (and wrapped them, and made the freebies to go with them). And cooked dinner... which also ended up including my sister, her dh and their 5yod. They "borrowed" my 16yos Artemas today and were returning him. While they were here, I made Strawberry Yogurt muffins from scratch. When they left, Darling Richie asked me, "Why don't you go to bed?"

Well, I have to take meds again at midnight and I am too dang miserable to go to sleep for hours without them. So I will nurse the baby, check my Etsy, write my blog, sneak a little Black Raspberry Chocolate Chunk ice cream, and THEN go to bed... having had a full day, and feeling like I should curl up and die. (Though that ice cream made life a little more worthwhile, LoL.)