Farewell Dead Weight!

So now that the crafting frenzie of Halloween feels over, I can cruise into the Hallow and sail into that wonderful time of year to which I'm not a huge fan of.  Relatives come and go - though usually the same old suspects (no pun intended!) It has gotten to the point that I do the bare minimum of cleaning before they arrive - that is to say make it look neat, but don't go out of my kind of thing.  But now I have this urge to FALL clean - ya know I have to be different!  Most people Spring Clean, right.... but no, no, dear old me has FALL clean!  Maybe its a birth time of year thing or something.  Since I was born in the fall my time of renew is fall... (well that's my story! LOL!)

So, those of you that know me know that I have knit since I was 6, those of you that don't know me so well, know that I've knit as long as you've known me! LOL!  Without giving away my age, that's more than 30 yrs now.  A girl can collect a whole lotta yarn in that amount of time and a whole lotta ends of projects too!  A girl born of an 'affectionately named' packrat, could store a whole lotta leftover projects in (and out of!) various bins around the house and still never have enough yarn to knit with (we won't go into the fabric stash and toy collections, just yet, but their time is comin!!)  

Well I'm proud to say that I freecycled 3 boxes of only acrylic yarns just this morning!  YAY!  I'm so proud of me!  (<-favourite line from my favourite potty training book!)  Sadly though, it isn't enough the drawer that I'm deputizing to be my yarn stash (yes a SINGLE DRAWER!) is still not as threadbare as I'd like to see it! LOL!  Gads, did I really just say that?  I have at least 1/2 a drawer more of stuff that needs to go but I must first get over the fear of letting it go, that I won't miss it, the project it was intended for won't miss it either because it has been lost in the abyss of my mind! LOL!  It must depart my mortal hands and occupy someone elses!!

The key here is lightening the bulge around the house!  And one tiny project at a time is being accomplished!

Halloween and Crafting

It definitely has been a busy couple of days.

We started out with a planned walk that fell through on Saturday.  Bright, beautiful, cool autumn day, we started heading to the mountains 2 hours away, and ended up changing to one only about an hour away in the opposite direction.  Arrived in the town in time for lunch, only to find all the places packed... so we drove back 10 minutes and ended up at a Ruby Tuesdays.  Well, let me tell ya.  The wait staff was pleasant, but seriously it took more than 40 minutes to get our food.  A burger and fries - seriously it usually doesn't take that long.  Then it took another 30 to ring up the bill.  Apparently the computer went down and well, ya they never took credit cards before the internet was widely used!  *sigh*  So all in all an hour and a half to get food, which then put us at 3:30.  We turned around and came home.

The girls had energy to burn so they stayed out playing.  I wanted to sew, but the 2 yr old needs to be supervised.  So I hung out outside with them.  1 hour turned into 2, as I decided to decapitate prune my arch-nemesis - the Holly Bushes which decorate our entry.  Have I asked recently what the hell the builder was thinking when the put them in? and why after 3 owners - and us here 10 yrs this week - why they are still here?  Well if they don't die of some over pruning disease, they will remain for the next owners.  I only managed to seriously prune back 1 bush - the other would wait another day.

At 6 we headed in, the sun was going down, it was getting chilly and my tiny children were getting chilly.  I sewed for 4 hours.  I managed to mostly finish 1 blue angry bird costume - which was modified from a costume my oldest wore years ago!  I have yet to get the face right!

Roll on to today.  We walked.  We lunched.  He mowed, I decapitated pruned the 2nd bush.  I sewed and completed an Abird Piggy for a very thrilled 2 yr old! :)

 

Yes, the bird needs a face make-over... but they both turned out kinda cute.  I'm pleased! :)

Are there Bad Days on the Beach?

When the family takes a trip to the beach you don't imagine bad days. And I'm not talking rainy thunderstormy days, or days when the kids take to screaming and fighting instead of remembering they have to face each later in the day when they share a room, unsupervised!

I mean days that look beautiful from the shelter of the room, beautiful blue sky, blazing sun unhampered by clouds, beautiful foamy whitecapped waves.

The brain has neglected to recognize that the foamy white waves are crashing viciously on the shore, not a soul is in the water and the obnoxious red flag that is attempting to escape it's tilting flag pole! Perhaps the flag is the only wise one unhappily launched from it's quite storage 2 days ago!

So everyone happily don's their bathing suits and scrubs in the sunscreen. 30 minutes on the beach receiving a sandblasting spa treatment from mother nature, and it's time to call it a day and find something else to do!

Looking down from the balcony now you see a totally different scene. The beautiful white capped waves are really an angry sea, churning, crashing and destroying all it touches. The blue sky is hazy, from sea spray and sand flowing freely. Now you note the lack of footprints in the sand leading to the occupied deck chairs and umbrellas which have not been unfurled or maybe they have, and quickly bundled again in fear of a beach chase, or worse impaling an innocent victim!

The water which is usually grey-blue is now brown as far as the eye can see, from the churned up sand.

It is our last full day near the beach this trip! The winds at 1pm are near 21 mph (33.8 kph.). They are expected to get worse as a trough just southeast of us brings in a variety of weather! Today I am happy we are leaving tomorrow and grateful for the last 28 days here with only two rainy days!

Long Time No See!

Like so many other facebookers at the moment, I'm disgruntled by the recent changes to the UI at FB, and figure I should be having way more fun typing here on my blog! My status updates have gone from multiple times a day to only a couple times a day and as such they are more worthy of blogging than fb'ing.

So here I am rounding on the end of our surprise one month vacation at the beach! It has been a great time. Mostly just the girls and I, but dh has joined us a couple times during the month!

We have seen 28/30 days of sunshine, complete with awesome sunrises and sunsets! We had 2 days of cool thunderstorms.

The girls got a month worth of school work done in 3 weeks! And both of them relearned to knit! I managed to finish 3 projects and am working on my 4th!

We spent a small fortune at the bookstore and discovered my oldest doesn't read books, she devours them! We are currently listening to "Throne of Fire" (the Kane chronicles) by Rick Riordan. We like the narrators!

My middlest is getting hooked on reading! We have just finished her 100 easy lessons and started our first book!

So in a nut shell that is what we've been up to!

Bednight rnd 2 Socks for S

Years ago, in a frenzie of knitting, I made M a pair of socks she never wore. A few years later along came S, who loved the colours and started wearing those socks to bed (they were bulk and not good for regular use! LOL!)

A few weeks ago, chilly feet (yes in the dead of summer) S climbed into bed, and tried to put her socks on but they didn't fit. Too snug in the ankles and too short in the feet. Broke her sweet little heart. A few days later we hit the store for her choice of yarn. (we picked Lily Cotton, yes the cotton that you make dishcloths out of!) I just knew they'd be bold (or maybe dark!)
A couple hours knitting (all told over 3 days) and

VOILA! The Socks

Bold like her personality! :)

With extra yarn left over, I'll have to make a couple more. They are super easy for the person who doesn't knit socks! :)

Here is the link.

Revamping the Menu - Smoke Alarm Dinners!

So I woke up in the middle of the night again a few nights ago and a thought struck me. Our diet has been pretty pathetic of late, consisting of last minute planning, not enough food in the house to cater to whatever we need spur of the moment, and a lot of food going to waste. We've been eating out more than we should and my girth is showing it. The kids, dh and I deserve better. We're only on this planet for a short time, so we might as well make the best of it, and keep our bodies in good shape. Its time to start feeding them better! So I started Friday morning with a menu & shopping list.

We did some fun stuff this morning - namely lunch, and then meeting some puppies (all dogs are puppies to me! LOL!) Because we're hoping to get one in the near future. After that we came home, dh did his thing and the Littlest and I went shopping - well I went shopping and she snoozed face down in my sweater in the cart! (she was really cute - I wished I could join her!!) Got most of the things on my list, kinda missed a couple but that's okay because I can put those on the OS list - we'll call it the After Shopping list (for politeness!) and dh can pick them up on his way home during the week!

Its been some 10 yrs since I cooked! Well, I should say, I've cooked sporadically during those 10 yrs and dh was always around to keep me on the straight and narrow! So its okay that I sort of singed the garlic bread and set off the smoke detector!! The food made it to the table warm and tasty tonight! Little (if any) added salt, all healthy and nutritious including some whole wheat pasta (I mixed a box of regular stuff with some whole wheat stuff no one noticed!!) And definitely A for effort of getting more veggies into the kidlets! :)

The goal for now is just to get up on the menus and keep the shopping list going for more than a week. Once we start eating in and eating healthy regularly (dinner & Lunch), then I'm going to start shifting to better foods - both nutrition-wise and organic. One step at a time. So if you have suggestions, I'm all ears!

I personally am shifting away from meat (again), for my health (no other reason), but the kids and hubby will continue on their meat-eating endeavours! :) I totally need to stay on top of the B12 though.

Snow Fall (take 2)

Its a new year and a crazy one at that. In the city where we are likely to get 1 snowfall year and usually around Valentine's day we're working on our 2nd decent snow fall in just over 2 weeks (one Christmas Day and then one this past Sunday!) All totalled we got 6 inches over night and most of that fell within an hour! The picture below - shows a mist - which is actually snow it was coming down pretty heavy! The city has been shut down for 2 days now. Between the "wintry mix" (snow, rain and freezing rain) there is a decent cover of ice on the snow, making it un-snowman-able!

I finally broke down and bought a sled/toboggan for the girls to play with the next snow fall! Thus guaranteeing it won't snow ever again! LOL! This happened the year my parents bought me some cross country skis. I got little use out of them as it just seemed to stop snowing! LOL!

At the moment, the government offices are slowly starting to re-open. Our road is starting to thaw.

Happy New Year's Eve!

Wow, budda bing budda bam, and yet another year just flew past.

Things have been crazy and the days escape me before I remember them beginning. I guess that's the standard refrain of parent with multiple kids. I have only 3, but sometimes they feel like 20! LOL!

All is quiet here. It was a busy year for us, plenty of things done and seen, plenty of new experiences, plenty of tears and plenty of laughter. But all is good. FB seems to have taken over my blogging time, and I'm hoping to make some changes on that front this year. Hoping to get more time with the kids as always and hoping to generally make progress on some of my goals as almost everyone is planning their New Years Resolutions!

We had a nice quiet holiday at home this year, our first alone as a family of 5. The littlest seemed to enjoy the festivities with a look of puzzlement. A good time was had by all!

Moody Monday

Just random work from the weekend. It's an old art form, but makes neat new things, and inspires creativity!


It's a chilly cold morning here in the ??Sunny?? South - with actual snow on the ground. But the focal point of my photo is the rainbow of colours.

Before working hurriedly away on Christmas gifts that suddenly and mysteriously came due (not like I had the whole year to get 'em movin!) .... I had started working on sweater for the littlest. A webfriend posted pics of an adorable little sweater she had made, and well I just had to try it. Well, here is the finished project!

We added cute little crayon buttons from my stash - and she insists on running around with it on. Gotta love a little ego boosting! LOL!

Anyway here is a link to the pattern just in case you're inspired! I adjusted it and worked tighter stitches than the pattern called for so I'd have a dense warm sweater for the cold weather!
http://www.coatsandclark.com/Crafts/Crochet/Projects/BabyChild/LM0266+Crochet+Baby+Hoodie.htm

Finding the Joy (Dec 3)

This week:
The holidays are fast approaching and I find myself rather unprepared. I've had a tough time focusing on the holidays this year (well for many years) though I'm not sure why its just not my thing I guess... so I've found peace this year and will celebrate my way! :)

* Finding peace with the holiday season and feeling free to celebrate it my way!

* My cute little friend above - is the start of my new holiday decor! :)

* A week of happy caroling by happy children.

* A week of productive crafting, and more ideas than I have time to make! LOL!

* Two of my girls have decided to try out one of my hobbies! :)

So what made you smile this week?

Finding the Joy Friday (Nov)

Inspired by AmyD ( at Ignore Me Its Easier).

This week:

* Cute little potted Viola's that tickled the girls fancies (even the littlest!)

* A decent running start on Christmas gifts - that I'd make again for me! :)

* A successful week of getting school work done.

* Fixing plumbing problems without assistance

Home Repair

So I started up cloth diapering again this week. Not because diapers are too expensive, but because I have this stash from when M was a baby, it grew when S was a baby and now that ET is here - its been plaguing my conscience, that they are sitting here unused while I fill that landfill with more diapers than I need to! Part of the reason I never got my jive on cloth diapering with ET was because the rinsing system I used with M and S - was no longer working right. The white garden hose nozzle was so badly corroded that it was filling a bucket 2 gallon bucket of water in under an hour (that's a lot of water!) And I didn't feel like turning the toilet off after every flush!

Finally I dragged my sorry butt over to the HD where the girls picked out my new flashy orange garden nozzle. I tried to find a new male connector to fit, but apparently mine is a 3/4 inch and the ones they have an abundance of are 5/8. I was pretty sure the existing connector was well corroded in there too! But a little sunshine, and pair of vice grips and a little elbow grease and I got it out. My first couple of attempts to get it all together and not leaking failed... I ended up needing another washer (which I pilfered from the old head.)

In the end it cost me $18.99 to fix my old sprayer! a garden hose and nozzle connected to the toilet in-flow!!

HA! yup $19. My 9 yr old and 4.5 yr old convinced me I needed a Salad Bowl, and 3 different Viola plants for the garden too! The sprayer part only cost $4. The rest was on the plants!

Happy Thursday! :)

Crocheting on-Demand

I don't generally crochet on demand for people, just because it is my hobby and I don't want to change that, but for my kids - its a whole'nother story! LOL!

So a friend on one of the boards posted a link to Inner Hooker's Owl Earflap hat on Etsy. And while I was checking out the photo of the hat she made, ET came up to me and started cackling (laughing) and pointing and getting excited. For a 1 yr old - that's major excitment! LOL! I had been trying for months to get her to wear a hat on her head as winter is coming, and while the winters here in GA aren't like the winters, in the North - they can still get pretty cold - especially if you start out with thin southern blood to begin with!! LOL!

So when she got all excited about this hat I figured I'd have to try it. And guess what she actuallykeeps it on her head and when you ask about her hat... she points to it and cackles! :)

Mission accomplished! :) 1 kooky hat, for 1 kooky kid who hates hat!

Crafting and Swapping

Its funny how time seems to slip by so quickly!
I've been busy this month. I started the month with a swap on one of the boards, where I made a scarf and a crochet hook case - sent it to my swappee - she was supposed to take a pic and post the board but didn't, and wouldn't you know I totally forgot to take a pic of it. That's okay I have to make another one, so when that is done I'll post it! I got an email from my swappee saying thank you and that she loved the hook case.

I received a darling scarf in return from a different person! Its simply beautiful. Its autumn colours and so simply done! I love it needless to say - so I'm showing my ugly mug just to show off my scarf! :)

The scarf swap was quickly followed by a mad frenzy of halloween costume making. M decided what she wanted, and we had picked up the fabric, but neither of us was inspired to get moving on it until a few days ago. So a mad frenzied sewing fest occurred as I realized she had a party Friday - so we finished with a day or two to spare.

I then proceeded to put a 1/2 dozen new projects on my to do list - and one of those was the completion of a square swap blanket which - I needed to stitch together and then put a "binding(?)" on ... so that was the order of business today!

Treating I'm Bored with Respect

Wow, talk about a new perspective.

So one of the boards that I hang out at was having a discussion about deschooling - the process of giving your child a break from the 'busy-ness' of school and getting them to switch gears back into the process of learning. Some kids need this more than others I gather... but since mine never went to school I don't really know! Anyway, one of the mom's posted a link about it for further information, and me being me, I clicked... I followed, I wandered... and meandered around and found myself looking at an article called "Bored No More."

How many times have my kids said to me "I'm bored!" and I blew them off or suggested they clean their rooms. I love the perspective this article puts on it. If a baby is whiny/fussy or seeming uncomfortable we tend to their needs until the whining/fussing stops. The same can be done for kids.

I think next time I'll try out a technique or two from that article and see what happens!

DNA - it's Your Fault

As the parent of 4 beautiful children, 1 with a birth defect and 1 with a genetic anomaly does it really matter how either came about? In our quest to gather information to help future generations prevent the diseases, defects and anomalies that our children face, I understand the whole reason for testing. But when a grandparent comes to you and says "OMG we should all be tested to find out why this happened," isn't that person looking to wash their mortal soul clean of the guilt that possibly their DNA may have caused this? I mean mom and dad have enough DNA to answer the question of where this came from - don't they??

I care that my child has spina bifida, and a bunch of bizarre manifestations that leave her doctors scratching their heads wondering why. I care that my child has galactosemia - but not severe enough to warrant any special services from the medical community. As the mother of these children, I have spent years blaming myself not really knowing if the blame is appropriately placed. I have blamed myself not knowing if their birth issues were a matter of a freak accident during a certain stage of their development - that happened when I carried them. But over the years, that blame hasn't helped me but hindered my ability to deal with the fact that the issue is there. Blame isn't going to make it better, knowing who is at fault isn't going to take it away. Knowing where the faulty genetic material came from isn't going to change how I love them - because they are who they are inspite of things. My job as a mum to these kids (all of them) is to move on and make them into the people they will be for their lives - to help them live with the abilities, disabilities and capabilities they have and if possible not let them hold themselves back because of them.

I care, to know if my children - should watch out for certain gotchas and I want to help my children at least know what they are up against should they decide to have children in the future, but isn't it enough that we research the mother, father and siblings... do we really have to involve the grandparents?? Only 1/4th of their genetic material is likely to be present in their grandchildren. What will testing 4 grandparents, 3 aunts and uncles, 10 cousins, 2 parents and 3 siblings really provide for the picture and maybe we should throw in the family dog too (if we had one!) Will it make you feel better to point the finger straight at the person who has the faulty DNA and say "IT's ALL YOUR FAULT!" But wait - what if the issue is a mix of both sides. Can we then turn around say to the Doctor "OMG its all your fault you should have know that this would happen!"

Pardon my french - but screw the blame, it is what it is, and knowing what your DNA looks like isn't going to help - let's look from this point forward and help our children know what their future could be. Let them make their decisions based on knowledge of themselves going forward.

And OMG for pities sake, keep your pity to yourself, it isn't welcome over my door or near my children. We don't need pity - we need someone to hold us up and make us strong, and move us forward ...

So let the merry sunshine in and show me what you can do kids!

Politics

What? OMG, I'm posting about politics... the plague must be coming! LOL! Nah, this is just here to serve as a mental note for local friends to look into this candidate...

John Monds - article in the AJC
http://www.ajc.com/news/libertarian-john-monds-vying-640229.html

I am doing some research on his views... and since he appears new to the race - I thought I'd put him out there in case you share some of his opinions! LOL! Nothing more nothing less. I'm not telling you how to vote! :)

Another mental note for local folks
Georgia's My Voter Page.
http://www.sos.ga.gov/mvp/

Finding the Joy Sunday! (Oct)

Totally stealing from AmyD ( at Ignore Me Its Easier).
Also totally posting this like 3 days late (yes it is Sunday!)

This week:

* Hours on progress being made on my easy peasy - but pretty swap scarf

* Hours or progress made on our school work.

* Finding 2nd hand bookstores with awesome books in awesome shape, and finding the book I was looking for.

* Big box bookstores, that have what I'm looking for on the shelf that allows me to use my gift card from a couple months ago. (and nice tellers that remind me since I'm buying homeschool books I should bring in my Letter of Intent and get discount cards - and maybe the manager will be nice tomorrow and credit me the discount even though I don't have the card yet! LOL!)

* Finally turning in our Dollies for Haiti to our Girl Scout Council - and M finally finishing hers so we could turn them in!

* M loving her homemade dolly for Haiti and wanting to make some more! :)

* Soccer in the Rain, and a dry car to sit in at the edge of the field! LOL!

* Family walks in the rain, and the need for new raincoats.

* Planning Christmas Vacation having just arrived back from Fall Vacation - a real Christmas vacation - like over Christmas! LOL!

* Hours of decluttering - and finally seeing a difference! :)

Where are you finding JOY this week?

Finding Joy Friday

Totally stealing from AmyD ( at Ignore Me Its Easier).

This week:

* Missing shows on TV only to find that I can catch them on streaming video on my computer with way better definition and way less commercials.

* Watching the girls spend a couple hours pretending to be the Stars on Dancing with the Stars... and feeling the earth move under my seat while they twirl, spin, prance and have fun!

* Listening to my big girls laughing and having fun using their imaginations creating different scenarios all week.

* Birthday dinners spoiled but that meant that I ate a healthier dinner at home.

* Finding a plan of attack for getting M to master her timestables.

* Seeing S make progress with her reading skills.

* Lunch with a friend.

* A birthday cake made by a friend for me to celebrate with tomorrow.

* Made it to the Tag Office before they closed today.

Where are you finding JOY this week?