Eric is on Spring Vacation

It hardly seems possible that Eric is on spring vacation from school. I really don't think he has earned it this year since he has spent most of 2010/2011 school year home sick. This is life as we know it so I am trying to keep him active with field trips to the likes of Target yesterday and Costco today. If the weather is nice I do plan on an outing to the U of A to get Eric Sweet 16 gear to wear to school and camp. He has got to support the home town team and family Alma Mater after all.

We have such broken up shifts for aides this week that things like a trip to the movies are out. The weather is finally decent this week in the 80 to 90's range. So a lot of knitting has gotten done and some spinning has also gotten done. I want to thank Chris for his help with plying and how to judge if my spinning is to tight. I really did not know that you could spin too tight only to loosely..

As you can tell I am finally getting back on my feet with the energy to blog. So Hopefully I will get a few more out this week. By the way how did the change hunt challenge go for everyone?

Well it is time to go make salmon salads with fresh avocado and papaya for dinner.

A New Saving Challenge

Well the year has finally caught up to me. I have hit total exhaustion and caught the crud that is going around. So Not much has been getting done this week. I feel that I have lost ground on the house. My big accomplishment of the week was getting the change jar to the bank to deposit all the loose change hanging around the house.

This is where the challenge comes in. Most people do not realize how much spare change is laying around the house with a penny here, a nickle there and a few dollars of change in the couch. So here is the goal for everyone this week. gather up all the change you can find just laying around the house. Next bring it to your bank or credit union and deposit all the money you found in your savings account. Now leave this money in the bank or credit union and don't spend it. After all you were just letting it do nothing anyway.  Do this every few months and in a few decades all your found money will give you a nice treat. This is a great plan for getting rich very slowly. Maybe a little faster if the interest rates ever pick up again.

The only prize you will get is knowing that you house is a little less cluttered  and a small boost to your savings account. If you do not have a savings account check with your local credit union. They usually have lower minimum deposits and pay slightly more than most banks.

Well I have run out of energy so it is time to go be a couch potato for the rest of the weekend so I can have the energy to keep up with Eric next week while he is on spring break. Have a great weekend and enjoy your families.

And the Year Moves On

Well Eric is home sick again with some kind of stomach virus. Which means 4 loads of eyrpy laundry in less than 24 hours. But I used my time with Eric wisely today. I did all the finishing working the finishing basket. Finished 1 UFO and worked on a few more. I had a very short attention span due to lack of sleep last night. But knitting did get done, not a complete project all at once though.  We will not talk about the house work that did not get done or the errands.

My Priority List

1. Family
2. Laundry
3. Crafts
4. House Work
5. Errands

You guessed it I am not a domestic diva but things to get done in due course. Food does land on the table for dinner. Take to night, one of my best semi home made dinners, chili. Simple brown the meat open the cans and freezer bags of vegetables and add the spices. Stir up the corn bread 45 minutes before dinner and I have a happy family. One pot meals are great for days like today.

I wonder if John would consider it fibre encroachment if I put finished objects in the hall closet in giant Ziploc bags. Well I guess we will see when he does open the hall closet. I have to put the charity work some where before it can be dispatched.

Well it is time to pretend that some work got done today. So have a great evening and enjoy your families.

Well at Least I am up to Something

It has been a while since I last blogged. After Eric being sick and at home for over 6 weeks this time I am a little tired. But the good news is that since giving up diet soda and hfcs my body is not stuck in bed. So my un-scientific real live test subject research shows that the combo of hfcs and diet soda is not good for me.

I have spent the week doing errands and running around getting out of the house. It seems to be a good plan in hindsight because they sent Eric home with a fever of over 100 today, but they sent him home alone on the bus, even so I did not have to finish emptying the car in a hurry to run to school and pick him up.

There has not been much cleaning this week. Hey I can either run errands or clean there are just not enough hours in a 24 hour day and I really don't think I want a long day anyway. I also broke the second tape gun this week. They just don't seem to last as long as I would like, we got them in the late 70's and early 80's. I thought they would last forever. What is this with the poor workmanship.  So I made John an apple pie to ease the news to him. It's in the oven now. Well it is time to go make turkey and avocado sandwiches for dinner.

I will write more tomorrow about my adventures in spinning. I think I am getting fairly good but I will let Kathy Withers be the judge of that.

Well since I did not finish yesterdays blog I will add that today I made up for the rest of the week in getting some cleaning done. I have gotten 5 baskets and 2 full loads of shredded paper out to the what was the nearly empty recycle bin in the back yard. I am hoping that I have enough room for the rest of the week. 

Eric's temperature went back to normal a few hours after he got home, but I had to keep him home anyway because they sent him home with a fever. He was very content to kick back most of the day, after all what young adult would pass up a day to kick back and watch TV?

Well I have decided to make pizza for dinner so it is time to go make the dough and get things going for home made pizza and salad for dinner. I am seriously thinking a wedge cut salad for dinner tonight not that I am tired after a full day of Eric care and cleaning.

Have a Great evening and enjoy your families.

Contest Winner Announced and Other Things

First of all I would like to say that Ashley is the winner of the Cooking Disasters contest. Ashley Please let me know if you want cotton or wool for knitting or felting or a mixture of everything.

Well I finally got Eric back to school yesterday. It was a long one this time but I am happy to say that he has his smile back. So I went all over Tucson yesterday doing long put off errands and charity runs. I have also been cleaning like mad and almost have a totally clean front room to show for it.

My spinning is progressing nicely I have gotten some of my single ply down to 18 wpi (wraps per inch) which gives me a dk ( double knit) weight yarn. Plying is still giving me a devil of a time, but later this month John will make me a plying box that others on Raverly say work well with hand spindles for plying.

I also have a question for any spinners out there. I have one small sample  silver that I messed up while trying to ply. Can this be re carded or should I just wash it and put it in my pin weaving as an artist accent?

Yes I did take a virtual mommy day off today. So far only 2 loads of trash out, 2 loads of laundry done, run the dishwasher and took a nap. Well its time to go do my hair. We have a sitter for Eric tonight. So enjoy your families and have a great evening. Later all.

Busy as a Bee

It's been a while since I last blogged. Eric has been sick and I have been busy getting rid of junk and clutter. I did manage to get John too join in the effort yesterday. It was such a good week that we could not get all the recycling in the bin and had to hold over a little bit to add once the bin was emptied today. Yes the bin was so full we could not pack it down any further and John had to drag it to the street.

My spinning is progressing nicely and I found a way to keep the yarn from sliding around the spindle and I now have smoother yarn which is also thinner. My plying is getting better although I still have trouble when I get to the end, but with practice I am sure it Will get better.

A lot of knitting is also getting done. It is also a good thing that I have plenty of yarn and some fibre for spinning as Eric will be home another week. I think is is entirely possible to get cabin fever in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. Yes I reached that point last week and still have a week to go, but at least we are home and not at the hospital like everyone was thinking this morning. So at least there is something positive about today.

I did a very foolish thing today too. I scheduled 2 IEP meetings for Eric for today 1 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon with a doctors appointment sandwiched in between. Definitely too much for one day when I am so tired.  Just one more week will be my mantra for the week. So yes I will be off the grid for another week. Enjoy your families and have a good week.

Kitchen Disasters A New Contest

We have all had kitchen disasters and some of them are very funny. Take the time when I was about 9 and attempting to cook dinner on my own, so I could get a Girl Scout Cooking badge. Well lets just say I was just awful at fractions at the time and when the recipe called for 3/4 cup of cooking sherry, I thought it meant 3 or 4 cups of sherry. Well you can all see where that one went. Sometimes we just burn the food other times we just use the wrong ingredients as a substitute and disaster strikes.

What this contest is about is your most outrageous cooking disasters of all time. Please keep it clean as this is a family blog. The prize will be either a $25.00 gift certificate to my store or a Medium Flat rate box filled to the brim with yarn, your choice. You have until midnight MST on February 28th to submit your kitchen disasters. Please feel free to post a link to this contest in your blog, The more stories the better.

We will have the usual panel of judges. Good luck and lets hear those stories.