A Wordy Apology to My Readers

I lost a set of twins on Oct. 29; 8 days later was our biggest craft show of the year, in the busiest mall in Knoxville. Needless to say less than 4 days of recovery time, and then had to get ready for the show. And then, oh, we’re 3 weeks from Black Friday with 5 shops in the family to prepare.

Meanwhile one of my kids has a birthday. Parents came from Ohio do to Thanksgiving a week early (2xtra people in a 1450 sq. ft. house that already has 8 ppl living in it, LOL), then we did Thanksgiving again with my dd#1’s inlaws. Then get ready for Christmas with 7 kids, a SIL and 2 grandkids.

The 14th of Dec. they thought my dh’s 93-year-old mother was dying in NJ (a 12-hour drive) so he needed to go there… 5 kids in the car, drive 12 hours up, see mother, stay one day, drive back. Good part was we got to walk around Philly, take some pics and have a cheesesteak, LOL!

Day after Christmas my parents came from Ohio again on their way to FL for the winter, and I went with DS#1 to sign a lease on an apartment for him.

The 28th of Dec. my dh was in surgery for a double hernia when I got the call his mom had died. So we did Christmas with my parents the next day and on the 30th hit the road for NJ again, drove 12 hours and got there in time for the viewing. Funeral next day, drive home on New Years Day. We were home only 48 hours (during which said 21yos complained that I couldn’t help him move because it was SO much more important to get ready for Di’s modeling convention) before my DD#2 Diantha and I had to leave and drive almost 12 hours to FL for a modeling convention for her, and got back the 12th.

In the 12 days since I've been back, we've made 2 trips down to Dalton, GA... once to find carpet, the other to pick it up. On the first trip our car broke down. Blew a pvc valve to the heater hoses and lost all the cooling fluid out of the system. A half-mile walk to the repair place with 4 of the 5 kids (B and her daddy rode in the tow truck), 3 hours wait which included walking to a sandwich place in the rain and back, and we were back on the road.

Oh also in those 12 days, in moving furniture to help my son get the rest of his things moved out, we found mold in one of the walls of the girls' bedroom from a roof leak. We've had to quickie-paint and move both big girls into the formerly oldest son's bedroom, the size of a postage stamp, along with their queen-size bed, so that we can repair the other bedroom. Which is going to entail tearing an outside wall off the house to replace molded sheathing inside the wall, and replacing some of the wood supporting the roof.

Our Etsy shops are barely staying above water, but who has had the time or opportunity to produce new listings?

I truly feel like I’m being swept along by a spring-thaw torrent and that my feet can’t touch the bottom, haven’t touched the bottom for 3 months. I think only having my knitting to do once in a while, calms me and is keeping me sane. So I am sorry I am so behind on the blogging, and will try to keep up (now that we're HOME, LOL)!

Back... How Do I Fit It All In?

Finally back to blogging. I's been an interesting couple weeks. We have spent most days going to dd#1's apartment, a 45 min. drive away. We packed, cleaned out, scrubbed, and filled a storage unit. Then they had nearly a week wait while their mortgage agent got the closing date wrong.

A week ago today they finally closed. We started going up to their house again, coming home at 11PM or midnight. We peeled old wallpaper and painted (most main-floor rooms needed 2 coats; the bath and kitchen needed 3 coats).

We painted trim in the kids' rooms and a mural in Jeremiah's room. He said it had to have a road, a car, and four buildings, one of which must be a gas station! I made 2 of the buildings be an actual pic of the house & storage building... and one is a train station! He was THRILLED!

Here is a preview. Apparently I didn't take a pic of the finished product!

When they took the living room carpet up on Sunday, there were about 20 years worth of pet pee, grime, mold spots, and a burned area that looked suspiciously like a cat under a Christmas tree. So I spent part of Sunday (after finishing the mural) and part of Monday this week scrubbing the hardwoods on my hands and knees. Hard work, plus I hairline-fractured my right wrist in my one and only motorcycle mishap 5 years ago, so that has been quite a strain. Anyway the floors are passable until they can light-sand and buff them.

Monday Tony and Artemas painted the ceiling twice (someone had painted it Charcoal, for some reason) and moved in the biggest pieces of furniture. Des and I arranged them, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned about half the other boxes out of the storage unit, put up curtains and art. The house is starting to look like home.

You can only imagine what effect all this has had on me own home life. Whew. Hard to keep up, really.

But! I did manage to finish a mini-quilt for a swap I was in. Being as I am a couple days late mailing it, I made a pillow cover that will fit a 14" pillowform to match. I hope the recipient will like it. Kaleidoscope is visually one of my favorite patterns, though difficult to execute accurately. These blocks are 4" finished, so the quilt top is 22" high by 26" wide. I called it Afrikaleidoscope.


And, Diantha and I managed to wash some wonderful raw Corriedale wool that we can add to batts to put in her shop. Here is a picture of the crimp on this fiber before washing. Note how fine it is and that the staple is 5" long! After washing, the wool is so white and fluffy, it is like a cloud. Simply gorgeous.

So Friday I bought a new weapon. I didn't go intending to purchase one, but my dh had seen a couple the day before at Coal Creek Armory, where we took our CCW class and where we go to use the firing range. So, being game, I went to look. I have had a Bersa Thunder UC9 on order since early Feb. which hasn't come yet. Apparently our non-2nd-amendment-controlling government is not allowing them in the country from where they are manufactured in Argentina. As you can see, it is a fine firearm.

But what they had at the armory was a Sccy (formerly Skyy) CPX-1 9mm. The weapon plus an extra, 10-round magazine was less than $200 so we bought it. And I absolutely love it! I took it into the range just for a minute to shoot one clip and I just LOVE the way it feels in the hands. It has an ambidextrous operation, slide locks open when the magazine is empty, manual safety plus a double-action trigger pull of 9 pounds, which is heavier than my dh's Keltec (at 8#), which is the entire safety on that firearm.

So today we went to the range to blow off some steam and some ammo. (All shots shown were from 21ft except those I shot from 45 feet.) Richard did well. On the left, the grayed-out shots are from his Kel-tec, the white from my Sccy, first time he ever fired it. He said, "There is something wrong with this weapon... it is too accurate!" LoL!

This target of mine (on the right) has an interesting story. The brown shots were from 45ft., farther away than one should ever have to shoot for self-defense unless being fired upon. Most courts would say that if one is that far away, the threat of death isn't imminent and one should find another way out. Still nice to know, that any of these "brown" shots would land within the body, even at that distance. And note one of the shots went clean through the hole in the target that was used to hang it on the peg in the store! LOL! Total accident.

Oh here is another story about that target. See the ONE white shot way down at the bottom? I was shooting the small cluster in the upper right (1 oclock) in the 9 ring when a piece of brass ejected and, even though my tank top didn't have a very low neck, went RIGHT in my cleavage and burnt me! I clutched at my shirt to isolate the hot cartridge so it wouldn't burn me more, and completely forgot to lay down the weapon. For a second there I was jumping around with a loaded gun in my hand, trying to retrieve that shell! Thank GOD I didn't have my finger in the trigger guard, but I think I scared a couple people there for a minute. LOL. Anyway after that I musta been good and mad at it, cause that's when I got all the center-cluster shots.

One more. I don't like Richard's Kel-tec. The vertical grip grooves dig my thumb web and the gun, weighing nothing, kicks too much to suit me. But just to be a good sport, I shot a 6-round clip from it, the brown circles on this target. Where is the 6th shot, you say? It went through the tape holding the target to the backstop. Then just to be a brat and show I could do better, I did 2 mags worth of ammo (loading only 9 rounds each) from my Sccy.

I hope I never do have to use my weapon in self-defense. But if I do, watch out world.