A Very Long Night

Last night was a very long night with Eric. Usually I can manage to get him to sleep by midnight, which is fine. I can knit, play word games, surf, do laundry find someone to chat with on Twitter. After 1 am those options seem to run out. I become too tired to do things that require a lot of thought. So I have come up with a list of quiet chores to do after 1 am. When everyone else is sleeping and I have to be wide awake to deal with the things that come up.


First there are thing that never should be done after 11 pm. These include paying bills, running any noisy appliances such as the vacuum. Watching anything on TV or TiVo that I want to comprehend. Knitting after midnight seems to leave my hands too tired to do anything the next day or two so that ends at about 11 pm. Sorting through paper work is also a no go unless I want to do the work twice.

So my list of quiet chores includes some of the following folding laundry, no critical thinking involved. Doing laundry, but unfortunately last night I was actually caught up on laundry. I also pick up around the house.So at around 2 am I came up the absolutely brilliant idea to mop the hallway and entryway. The plus side is that it needed to be done and the floor would be guaranteed to stay clean until at least 6 am when the day starts. With the hall floor mopped I moved on to the laundry room and did the worst spots in the kitchen. I admit it I am a wimp it was 3 am and I was beyond tired. So I did a little dusting and Eric was finally asleep at 3:30 am. Well I did manage to get to sleep till 6 am, wow a whole 2 and 1/2 hours. When Eric’s aide arrived at 6 am I managed to get a little more sleep until 8 am. For a total of 4 and 1/2 hours.

Good I had enough sleep to get me through the day, but not a lot would get accomplished. Around 9 am I struck the parents ideal, Eric who had been up most of the night sick for what I still cannot figure out finally took a nap. I got 4 more hours of blissful sleep. Then things started to get done again. Eric seems a lot more comfortable tonight. I am really hoping for a real night’s sleep, The kind where I get 6 to 8 hours in one stretch, only time will tell.

Well enjoy your families and have a goodnight.

It is Contest Time Again

I took advantage of my virtual day off today by organizing the yarn I dip into on a daily basis. The good news for me is that I have a better Idea of what yarn I have. There is also no yarn in the front hall closet. I thought a big announcement was the right thing for this mile stone of the de-stash process. By the way I also did find a stash of beads with the yarn so more stitch markers and earrings will be added to my shop.


It is contest time again at Handmade~by~Sheri. The good news for you is that I have a full basket of “What was I thinking when I bought this yarn”. The winner will get a full basket of yarn without the basket (I like the basket that I used and it will be less expensive to ship without the basket). There are cottons, wools, blends that include some nylon.  There is no padding under the yarn it is all yarn. Some are in the original skeins and some are wound. It could be all yours if your number is drawn.

It is going to be a little different than last time. So here go the rules of this contest.

1: You must go to http://www.tinyurl.com/handmadebysheri and comment on something you like in my shop. I have made some changes to my shop and I would like to see what is working and what is not. This will count for 1 entry per day. I will be updating my shop with new items as often as I can during the contest.

2: Follow my blog. This will count for 1 entry.

3: Follow me on Twitter for 1 entry. http://www.twitter.com/skaro964

4: Tweet about this contest. This is good for 2 entries per day. This is good for 1 entry per tweet.

5: Blog about this contest or include a link to my blog. This will count as 2 entries.

6: Facebook about this contest. This will count as 1 entry. Just leave a link.

7: Each entry must be logged separately. I will be going to RandomNumber.org to select the contest winner this time.

The contest will end May 18th at midnight Mountain Standard Time. The winner will be notified as soon as possible after that. Good luck and have fun.

Knittng and Winding Yarn

I have found that if I wind the balls and hanks of yarn into cakes, they tend to get knit faster. So earlier in the week I took a nice piece of pottery put a vase in the middle for knitting needles and started winding. I only put the needles in the vase for the weight yarn I had wound.


The progress was great, 4 scarfs were finished this week and the pot started to look empty. I think that it helped that Eric was home sick from school on Friday; because I knit 2 scarf’s on Friday. So today I went into my yarn stash and pulled out 8 more balls of yarn and wound them. I also wound 8 more skeins for Teri’s blanket which John has dubbed my enormous project of the year; I have passed the 34 skein mark and will knit a little more each night. You can see the work in progress. The blanket is 17 modular squares across.

I really know that I have made progress in my stash reduction process. The 2 closets that I had full of yarn no longer have the yarn in them. Yes I know that this involved filling another 95 quart box with yarn; but I am being more honest with the amount I have and am working hard to stash down. In case you were wondering it was the box of yarn that I knit through earlier when I went through 95 quarts in 3 months. So no new boxes were purchased.

Well it is time for Eric’s breathing treatment and time to make dinner. Yes multi tasking is essential. Have a great evening and enjoy your families.

Driving Safely

I have to admit that I don’t get out of the house as much as I would like to. Having said that I would like to comment on the awful driving I have witnessed in the last few days here in Tucson. I would like to give these anonymous drivers the following awards.


The I Am King of the Road no matter what award goes to the driver who refused to pull over for the ambulance with full lights and sirens going. I only takes but a moment to pull over and let the emergency vehicle pass. The life you save might just be someone you know; after all it’s a very small world.

To the multiple drivers who are on the phone. The I am just in too self centered to pull over and finish the call award goes to the many drivers who slow down to a crawl and chat away on their cell phones. Call me old fashioned but I learned to drive before cell phones and frankly we just don’t need any other distractions while driving. My humble suggestion is to just pull over take your call and then get back on the road. So you arrive a few minutes late but you do arrive alive and don’t annoy all the other drivers on the road.

The Red Light Runner Award goes to the too many people who did not even slow down for the red light but just speed through the intersection. You might be in a terrible hurry but it will take a lot longer to get there if you land up in an accident.

Just remember that when you get behind the wheel of your car you are not in a little cocoon shielded from the outside world. But instead a tiny cog in the community that you live in responsible for the lives and safety of All of those around you. Even the few and the brave who walk or ride their bikes to where they are going.

So drive safely so you can enjoy your families for a very long time.

Asthma & Allergy Health Fair

This is an event for those in the D.C. area next week.

Asthma & Allergy Health Fair

Wednesday, May 5, 2010


11:00 am-1:30 pm,

Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill

Rayburn Foyer (2nd floor)

50 Independence Ave. SW

Washington, DC 20515


Just one block from the Capitol South Metro station, on the blue and orange lines.



FREE

Asthma screenings for all ages

Lung-function tests

Products and demos

Exhaled nitric oxide testing

Consultations with allergist

Children's books

Sign up for The Great American Asthma Challenge!

See you at AANMA's Asthma & Allergy Health Fair and Free Asthma Screenings!



Share the goood news -- forward this e-mail to friends and family, or paste this link into a Twitter or Facebook status update:

www.aanma.org/advocacy/aadch
...founder of The Chris Draft Family Foundation and The Asthma Team -- special Health Fair guest!

For more information, call 800.878.4403 or visit www.aanma.org. Follow AANMA on Twitter and Facebook and on the Take A Weekly Breather blog.

Special thanks: ExxonMobil, Teva Respiratory, Novartis, American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI), Aerocrine, Phadia, Pharmaxis.

Tuna Pasta Salad

Here is a perennial family favorite recipe. This is my version of a tuna pasta salad.


1 pound of pasta in a fun shape

12 ounces canned tuna drained

1 pound frozen mixed vegetables

1 can black olives drained and chopped (optional )

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 Tablespoon dehydrated onion flakes

Mayonnaise or Italian salad dressing to lightly coat



This is a fast dish to put together. Cook pasta and vegetables as per package directions. While they are cooking flake the Tuna in a very large bowl. Add the pepper and onion flakes mix well. Add the chopped olives. Mix well. Drain the cooked vegetables and mix in with the tuna. Drain the pasta and toss with the other ingredients in the bowl.

At this point the salad is done and is ready for customization. My family likes this done differently so sometimes we add mayonnaise and sometime salad dressing. If I am very tired I just present the salad as is and let everyone put on their own toppings. If you are going to add the mayonnaise or salad dressing start with ¼ cup for the whole bowl and toss very well. We like to keep the dressing on the light side. You can add more dressing to your own preferences.

Serve with hot corn bread or fresh bread and butter.

This recipe serves a crowd. As a main course this serves 6 to 8 people.

Please enjoy this recipe and your families.

A Day Without Cable

24 hours without internet is really bad for me unless we are on vacation with a lot to do. So yesterday when the gas company contractor cut my cable line while checking on the gas line I was not a happy camper. Knowing that the problem lay between the house and the cable box I went through the must go through check list with Comcast customer service.

After that there was nothing to do but house work. While cleaning I did find the manuals for our first home computer. They have now been dutifuly recycled. So I guess a day without cable is kinda of liveable. Don't get me wrong I love my internet.


I will have to give a 2 thumbs up to Comcast for getting 2 techs here this morning to do the repair. Last time this happened we were almost a week without cable/ internet. So this time I have to admit I did play the sick kid card (bad Sheri, very bad mommy) and took them to Eric’s room first to show them the cable was out. Then I showed that the rest of the TV’s we out as well as the light on the little box by the computer, you have to ask John the name of it because I really don’t know what it is called but it is made by Motorola.

They agreed to put a temporary line between the street and our cable box and have the construction crew come out at a later time to dig the ditch to bury the line. It is my sincere hope that it is put at least 2 feet away from the gas line so this does not happen again. While they were here they found damaged cable line that had water in them and repair them without being asked to do so. Hint, hint management they did a very good job.

While all this was going on I had the service tech from Sears out to do a yearly maintenance check on the washer and dryer. There was also a service call to repair or replace the icemaker. He also did a very good job, hint, hint management.

I did get a few more squares done on Teri’s blanket and will catch up with correspondence tomorrow or this week end. I will also catch up with not doing laundry for 2 days. Eric alone made over 3 loads all by himself.

So now it is time to cook a fast dinner for John and catch up on life as I like to know it.

Have a Great evening and enjoy your families.

*This blog has been edited at the request of Eric, most mentions of his room have been deleated.