And the Answer Is...

We went to the doctors today and it is an ear infection. This is why Eric has been so sick and miserable the last 3 days. I was 100% wrong. I thought clammy kid with a fever, who was throwing up had a tummy bug. So we have changed course and started the antibiotics. He should be feeling better in a day or 2.

In the mean time I hope to have Eric sleeping through the night again in a couple of days. I promise not to give any sensible answer until I have had at least 1 full nights sleep. I will continue to try to knit until I can't see straight any more and after that all my knitting would result in is a lot of frogging...rippit...rippit....rippit...

I am not happy with myself for only hitting the 4 mile of walking mark today. With only 20 minutes of house work. With these pathetic numbers you would think some one around here was sick or something. But with it being almost bed time with me wanting to sleep tonight I will not partake in any more exercise for the day. I am also to tired to knit so I think I will find something mellow to do for the rest of the night.

Eric is Sick Again

This is night 3 that I am in Eric's room.  The first night was Friday, Eric was sick I managed to get 4 hours of sleep. Not enough by anyone's standards, but still doable. This was followed by a full day and a retirement party on Saturday. I was certainly not ready for another almost all nighter. 

Eric's plans were a lot different than mine. I got to sleep at 6 am on Sunday morning.  I cancelled all outside activities.  I also managed to keep up with most of the sick kid laundry.  It is now the wee hours of Monday morning. I am hopeful that I will be able to get some sleep soon. 

Even if Eric is still home on Monday I will need to get out and get a little shopping done. We are down to 1 bottle of pedialyte and out of children's tylenol. The fruit drawer looks a little on the empty side too.  

Guess what. Eric has fallen asleep. So I will end the blog here so I can get 6.5 hours of sleep.  At least that is close to normal. 

The Purse

How do you know that you have come upon a purse of a knitter?  There are a few major clues.  First it is usually easier to find a pair of knitting needles then the head phone buds of the MP3 player that resides in the purse. 

The second clue would be the small knitting project in progress. If that project is almost done you will also find the next project or skein of yarn for the latest 1 skein wonder. 

Then there is the small zippered pouch that has at least the following items in it. A small pair of scissors, a few extra stitch markers, darning needles, at least 1 crochet hook and a tape measure. Depending on the current work in progress you might also find cable holders, small bobbins for bits of yarn, dental floss for lace knitting and stitch holders.  

Then we can't forget about the nail file so we don't snag our work. Lotion and nail creams to keep our hands soft so we don't snag things like silk.  

I often wonder if our male counter parts keep their knitting in small backpacks. Do you have a knitters purse?

Wheelchairs, Yarn Crawls and Dog Pillows

Well I did over do it on Monday. Tuesday I paid the piper. Absolutely nothing got done on Tuesday. I had to try to recoup some energy for Wednesdays Yarn Crawl. Nancy, Carolyn and I started out early about 8 am for the Phoenix leg of the crawl. We had a great time, but it was a lot of driving for me, I did not get back home until 10 pm. Next time I am going to bring a friend to do some of the driving. We went to a lot of yarn stores, some were fabulous and I would go to them again if I had reason to be in Phoenix. Others not so much, some look like they had seen better days and were in desperate need of a little sprucing up. There was one were the staff was down right rude and condescending, they seemed all about needlepoint, but had yarn in the store for some unknown reason. There were a few mix ups on the times when stores were open. Did you know that in downtown Carefree Arizona the streets roll up by 4 pm with the exception of a few places to eat and the grocery store? I would also like to thank the Gilbert Honda Dealer for taking care of a check tire light for me and suggesting the most wonderful locally owned place for dinner. I will do a review later this week.

Today we picked up Eric's new wheelchair with the custom molded back. Most everyone including Eric loved it. It weighs half the amount as the last chair and it is easier to move. We did get it in wheelchair green (that's an Eric colorway, we could not get anyone one else to name this shade of green with the same name). You will notice that the laterals are gone. The seat back was molded to fit Eric. We just have to remind him to lean back until he gets used to the laterals being gone. We have only had 1 aide complain so far about the new chair and the lack of lateral supports. Oh well you can't please everyone. I would like everyone to notice how clean this new wheelchair is because this is the very last time you will see this chair so clean. My conclusion is that even though it took 18 months to get through the process we landed up with a great chair for Eric in the end.

I also started to make some more dog pillows for the aides with dogs at Eric's day program. I think I will need a volunteer stuffer. Eric has also graciously agreed to hand them out 1 or 2 at a time until we either run out of stuffing or aides with dogs.

Rocking It Today

Despite have a little arthritis pain in my knee last night and today I rocked my to do list. I did spend a little time in the craft room and a few things got done in there too.  I also got the kitchen floor mopped.  To relax after dinner I finished knitting one more scarf. Frogged a wash cloth re cast on and knit at least 2 inches.  

My plans for Tuesday are a bit more modest. A little knitting, sewing and shopping.  If my knee feels better a little spinning on the Ashford other wise it will be the Louet.   

Just in case you missed my to do list for today here is a picture of it.  John did the a/c filter.  Eric's wheelchair hopefully will be ready Thursday.  

Recharging

It was a very quiet weekend around here. We all took the time to recharge. All that got accomplished was a bit of cleaning, laundry, knitting and spinning. I almost forgot, we wondered over to the Apple store to look at the colors for the new 5s. I am still not sure what color I will get, but the gold color is still not shipping and is not the greatest shade of gold around. I may just go with the black and get a very colorful case. Something that won't get lost in my purse. Apple that may be your next goal, a phone that won't get lost in purses.

I have time to do a quick to do list for tomorrow before I call it a night.

My Diet Secrets

As a lot of you know a dear friend, Kay from Texas convinced me to give up anything with aspartame, high fructose corn syrup and any other artificial sweeteners. She sent me a few reports on the subject. I did more research on my own. I started this about 1 1/2 years ago. If you need a better time frame you can check past blogs.

It started out with giving up diet soda. I did drink about 6 cans a day because they were calorie free.  I did have a lot of headaches with that one. I found it took more tea than diet soda to get my caffeine quota for the day. After a few months I also gave up my multi time daily soy chai tea, a very high calorie drink. At about the same time I purged the house and my body of anything with high fructose corn syrup. It took about 3 months for all the junk to leave my system. .

After about 3 months I started getting more energy. I started walking. At first I was lucky to do a walk up and down the street. The more I walked the easier it got, yes it took about 9 or 10 months to get easier. Around this time I dropped my 1st dress size and 5 whole pounds. As I started getting more energy I got rid of the housekeeper. At first I did doubt my sanity on this, but at this point I find housework provides most of the exercise I need. I also try to walk 10,000 steps or more a day. Sometimes it is less and sometimes it is more.

I find a little really deep cleaning a week helps a lot. To me this means pulling out a drawer or a shelf and emptying it completely. Take the linen cabinet for example. After every thing is removed for 1 shelf at a time. I wipe down the shelf. Go through all the linens on that shelf. I divide it into to 4 piles charity, rags, trash, then wash and fold everything that I put back. This might not seem like much exercise but being as out of shape as I was everything and all movement helps. Not to mention that with each project finished I felt better and was less likely to snack at random. I am sure that Teri and John like this too, since they tend to be more organized than I am.  I did start out with 10 minute projects and built up to longer periods of cleaning. After you tear apart and reorganize a whole linen cabinet let me know if you think it is enough exercise to skip the gym. I can now do up to 8 hours of deep cleaning at a time if Eric is having a good period.

About 18 months later I am down 3 dress sizes and 15 pounds. I seem to be building muscle because my body fat went from 50% down to 43% during the same time. I don't have a weight goal in mind. My goal is just to feel much better and have the most energy possible.

I still read all the labels. I think that you will find as I did, that so much of the very processed food that we eat are laden with this stuff. I started making more food from scratch and eating more fruits, vegetables, breads and nuts for snacks. You also need to know that I have not given up chocolate and have a little bit each week. I have not gotten rid of my chocolate shelf in the fridge. I still have a sweet tooth, but am less likely to eat a whole box of cookies in a few days. I am more likely to have some then forget about them and toss them out because they became stale. When I want a soda I go out of my way to find soda that is made with real sugar.

So to recap I eliminated aspartame, high fructose corn syrup and any other artificial sweeteners. I added walking with a goal of 10,000 steps per day. I also added a lot of house cleaning. I know that this is not the fastest way to lose weight but its better than a lot of diets I have tried. This is not so much of a diet but a life style change.

Free Fall

Last night was a very bad night. Eric started out the night with nightmares at 11:30pm. It took over an hour to calm him down. Followed 2 hours later by suctioning. Followed 2 hours later for more suctioning and positioning. By 6 am I was ready for pancakes.

I then tried to recover my day by getting all 5 loads of laundry washed, folded or hung to dry on the line.(don't worry Eric already has 1/2 a laundry basket filled for me.) Along with a little picking up. Some how that was not enough to turn my day around. By 10 am I felt like I was in total free fall and it went down hill from there.

Just the usual stuff like a call from his case manager, that she just got a promotion and her last day with Eric would be Friday. This is like a new one every 6 months. I swear I did not break this one she really did get a promotion. Eric's day program might not have their fall fund raiser that I have been working on for 6 months. I have tons of earrings and hand knit stuff so I might have to do a craft sale on my own. If anyone knows of a local church or non profit that is having a holiday boutique that has space, please let me know. I can do a table fee plus a percentage of the sales as a donation. It just seemed that today hit that rare day when things just hit the wrong way.

The best decision I made today was to take a nap at 4:30pm instead of hitting the kitchen and baking up a storm. It helped, but I am still out of sync. Please be patient with me tomorrow as it might take a day or 2 to get back into sync.

Hump Day

The most important part of the day is that Eric got out of the house and went to his day program. He had a great time. John did double duty today, he did both car pool runs and all the cooking. I am at the tale end of the cold Eric shared with me. I rested a lot and took a long nap.

I did manage to finish one hat and cast on 2 more projects. The good news is that with this intense effort to finish things, the UFO / yarn pile is noticeably smaller. You can actually see some of the wood on the table that I piled things on.  I am also only working on projects that I like and want to finish. I want to do a little fancy knitting, the kind not suitable for most charity projects.

Now on to the odd thing that went missing this time. John went out to fix the solar lights on the walkway this afternoon after lunch. He made a list of what needed to be fixed. He went to the box of spare parts and extra solar lights that we keep in the garage. The box was cleaned out of parts except for the rock that he uses to pound in the stakes and put back into place.  It is my hope that the right kind of Karma follow the people who take things.

This leads me to one simple request to the solar lighting industry. Instead of saying our lights are 2 or 3 times brighter. Not mentioning what they are brighter than please, please, please just list the amount of Luminous intensity you lights produce. It would be so much easier for all of us. Best of all they do have sensors that can give you that information. With that request I will end the blog post for tonight.

We Made it Through the Cold

It has been a crazy couple of days around here with Eric sick, yet again. I almost kept up with the laundry. The most wonderful news of the day is that Eric is  back on formula as of 6:30 tonight.

I did manage to finish one knitting UFO project per day for the last few days. So my pile of UFOs is getting just a touch smaller. No big dent made here. Not a lot of spinning got done either because Eric needed so much of my time. I am totally exhausted so this is a really short post tonight.

Sunday

Today was a slow day around here compared to yesterday. Only 2 loads of laundry got done verses 6 yesterday. All that really got done today was an hour of spinning. A little housework. The Flu shots for the guys. A haircut for Eric, and a lot of knitting.

I did figure out the problem I had with a beginner knitting pattern 6 years ago. The picture was right the pattern was wrong. Since the pattern was written incorrectly I wonder if I am allowed to show you a picture of my current knitting and give you the correct pattern as I have it worked out? Will one of my readers send a note on that? The pattern is easy peasy but I don't want to trample on someones toes if I don't have to.

Right before bed the wild eyrping started so I think that it is a wonderful thing that my plans already had me staying home on Monday just doing the usual stuff. Knitting, sewing, laundry, spinning and cleaning.

Looking Up

Things have turned around and I have more energy. I just finished the Marina Hunger Walk. I did miss walking with Lisa and Matthew this year. I am at 7,961 steps out of the minimum 10,000 I need for the World  UCP Challenge. Did I mention that it is only 9:40am. I am also almost 2 inches in to the wash cloth that I started this morning. 

When I get home my to do list includes washing 2 batches of yarn.  More laundry. Sewing at least 1 dog pillow and what ever else I can get done in the sewing room. Maybe even getting the guys out today, but I would not count on Eric. As a typical young adult he likes to spend his weekends relaxing and watching tv.  So I might just add more cleaning, sewing, knitting and spinning. 

It's time to get a cuppa of tea for the road and get this day moving again. 

Change of Plans

After a busy day yesterday my body decided it was time for some time off. I really had a list of things to do, but I find it hard to get out of nap mode when my body says it's time to nap. So there was a change of plans and I took it easy this afternoon. My hands are also still a little raw from the 2 times I handled a polyester based craft project with in a few days of each other. I will either have to stop playing with polyester ( the wisest move ) or get some cotton gloves for when I handle the stuff.

I have learned something new about my Ashford spinning wheel. Although I can spin 3 ounces of single ply on to the standard bobbin, I can only ply 2 ounces on to the same sizes bobbin. After that the bobbin becomes messy and tangled.  It was too late to take pictures of the freshly plied yarn, so I will try to remember to take pictures tomorrow. I have decided that I will make a shawl out of this yarn.  I have also learned that until I know a spinner with more experience than me a little better, I should take their advice with a grain of salt. After all they are not all as good as Kathy Withers is.  Also I should not let them egg me on to spin more on my bobbin that I feel comfortable with. After all it is my project which will become messy, not theirs.

I am almost finished with a creative piece on the drop spindle too. Just 3 little bits to spin on before I ply the yarn. I will take pictures of that too. I am calling this one shades of Halloween. I have not decided whether I will keep it or not.

I am also walking this Saturday for the Marana Community Food Bank, the walk starts at 7 am. My usual walking group for this event has another commitment. So If you want to walk with me let me know. Here is the link to my donation page if you would like to make a donation instead of walking with me. Marana Hunger Walk 2013.  At this time I am at 27% of my fundraising goal. The local food bank is able to turn every donated dollar in to $9.00 of food. Most of the food in Pima county goes to seniors and children.

I have a busy day lined up for tomorrow so it is time to call it a night.

A Poll

The World CP Challenge has given my body a kick start that it needed. I am finding that not only do I have to walk 10,000 steps a day but I need to add other exercise too, in order for the scale to go down and the inches away. In this challenge I am trying to keep up with a friends 8 year old son who does Martial Arts 3 days a week. As you might have guessed he is ahead of me. As of this blog post hes has 313,532 steps and I have 293,198 steps. So I am not that far behind him. Only 20,334 steps. We are at the end of week 3 and have one more week to go.

Since I have been really bad at fund raising for this challenge, I would like to run an informal poll. yes i know Polls are BORING. If you think my friends son will continue to out pace me and leave me in the dust, so to speak use the World CP Challenge button on the right side of this blog and donate $2.00 to Matthew's Team at UCP of Southern Arizona. If you think that I have an ice cubes chance of not melting on a typical summers day here in Tucson donate $2 to Team Eric.

As of this writing Matthew's Team has a fund raising balance of $0.00 dollars and Team Eric has a fund raising balance of $110.00. I will use these numbers as the virtual zero dollar starting point. We would like to raise at least $500 per team.  All money raised will go to help people with Cerebral Palsy and other disabilities here in Southern Arizona. So with 1 week to go do you think that I can not only catch up to my friends son, but also manage to inch ahead by a few step or do you think he will continue to leave me in the dust.

The voting is now open.

A very Busy Day

Don't tell Eric but I am caught up on laundry. Yes, I know that I will have at least 2 loads to do tomorrow. I have also found the perfect time to get my house work done. Yes, there is a great time of day to do house work. It has only taken me 9 months to figure this out. Right after the guys leave in the morning. I still have energy, plus I can get a lot of things done in that hour or so before John gets back from his work out. I know that I am not going to the gym but house work is a better overall exercise plan for me right now and has the advantage of a cleaner house.

I am also ready to to ply my second spin on the Ashford spinning wheel. With a little help from some of the spinners at Grandma's Spinning Wheel here in Tucson I have a better relationship with the wheel. I managed to get 3 ounces of fiber on both bobbins before plying. I will post pictures after it is plied. This should be one of the thinnest yarns that I have ever spun on a spinning wheel. Usually to get the yarn this thin I have to use a drop spindle.

I think it is time to call it a day so that I don't wake up with the headache from he double toothpicks again.

A Long Night and A Busy Day

I find it a toss up when Eric has a bad night whether to stay up all night or pop up and down all night getting badly interrupted sleep. Last night was one of those nights and I decided to pop up and down. The longest stretch of sleep I got was 2 hours and sometimes I would just close my eyes and be right back up.

Despite the hectic night I managed to get in a very good work out by doing the house work and laundry this morning. I was way too tired. I also knew that the house work would wait for me and pile up on Mondays chores. Which would cascade further into the week.

After lunch I did make it to Michael's Craft store with a friend for the Lion Brand yarn 135 year anniversary celebration. I came home with a nice bracelet. When I got home I was exhausted so I made 2 cups a vanilla chai tea. I find 4 pm a little late for that much caffeine but today I know I would have fallen asleep on my dinner plate if I had not.

I also got some spinning done while Eric was doing his breathing treatment this afternoon. I am hoping that I can finishing spinning this yarn tomorrow so that I can ply it. John also brought home dinner tonight and was nice enough to clean up too. I almost finished the cowl on my knitting needles tonight. That too should be finished by tomorrow.

I am going to try to call it a very early night tonight. I hope that Eric agrees too.

Too Many Projects Advice Needed

It has been brought to my attention just today that I have a few too many projects going at once. At least 20 is my estimate. Followed by more pending projects ready to be started. Well over 50ish to be polite about it. This does not even include the un-designated yarn, which is yarn/fiber/material that I love with no particular project in mind.  My mind just races faster ahead of me than my hands can go. Throw in a few bad days and this is where the dilemma lies.

I find my self enjoying but rushing through projects on the knitting needles so I can cast on and start the next project, the yarn is calling my name saying use me next.  Often times ignoring the getting smaller pile of UFOs. I try to fill a bag with finishing work so that I can weave in my ends and do the labeling all at once at least a once a month. I just can't wrap my mind around doing one project from buying the yarn, casting on and finishing the project before the next one is started.

I have also been asked why I continue to spin new yarn when I have so much in my stash already. The truth is that I find it very relaxing on  stressful days. Does this ring a bell with anyone?

My question is does anyone else have this problem? If so how do you handle it? Should I just list everything to do style and cross them off before I go to the next. Keeping in mind that I take 1 small project every where I go. Yes I add a few rows here and there. I also have 2 projects currently by the couch, both should be finished before Friday. I also have 1 project in Eric's room with a spare skein of yarn.

For those of you with small or smaller stashes how do you keep things in check? I would like to start a dialog on this. So please feel free to send in your comments. If you don't want them published just let me know. Thanks.

Feeling Inscure

I am feeling a bit insecure today about my weight. I know that I am down 3 dress sizes, since I gave up high fructose corn syrup, aspartame and the maid.  I know that I am wearing clothes that I have not worn since Teri was a Junior at the UofA, six years ago.  Has it really been that long? I know that with the exception of 1 spot that I am toned. I am also sure that will continue to slim down too.

Then why do I let myself be upset by one jerk who points out to his entire group at the supermarket the "fat lady over there". I know it would make no difference to a jerk like that to tell him he was rude, lacked basic manners and that I was down 3 dress sizes. He should have said something when I was really fat and out of shape.  I am now a member of the tucked in shirt gang for some of my outfits, including the one I wore today.

I worked really hard to get to this point. I know that I still am not perfect and never will be. I am just trying to be the best me that I can be. I should not be defined by my weight. That is so shallow. Or my inability to stay on a diet when I have found out life style changes are more important. I am a good wife and mother. I run a chaotic house with very few hiccups. I am a pretty good cook, but not perfect. I can spin a decent skein of yarn. I am a skilled knitter. I can write a basic knitting pattern. Give me a piece of fabric and I can come up with something original. I have a lot of good qualities so why do I let jerks still get to me?

My goal for tomorrow is to brush the crumbs off and go onward and upward.  And just to be on the safe side add a little knitting,spinning and cleaning.

Falling Tuna Cans and Other Harzards

I spent the morning cleaning and filling up the recycle bin, Finishing up the laundry from yesterday and making phone calls. Followed by some errands. I picked up Eric early from his program to get his afo's fixed and trimmed for his tennis shoes for winter. The best part was they were able to fit Eric's feet and the old tennis shoes so I have 1 less errand for this weekend. No shoe shopping. Happy dance time.

Today was going surprising well until about 4 pm. Then there were a slew of phone calls. I was trying to make dinner. We were out of meatballs for the spaghetti. When I went to look for the spaghetti a stack of tuna cans fell on me, they hit me smack in the glasses. If I look at you funny tomorrow it will not be because it Pirates Day according to Jo-Ann's Fabrics, it is because I am tiring to line up the old tri-focals. Did I mention that all the spaghetti in the house had expired too. I was ready for a melt down but held it all together.

So I made a stew out of the chicken, spaghetti sauce, mushrooms and olives. I served it with Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and mixed vegetables which turned out to be mostly carrots. It was pretty good, but I do think I will get some pasta for the last of the sauce tomorrow.

I should cut it short tonight, as I have a busy day tomorrow. If anyone knows where I can find a time turner like Hermonies please let me know, I will need to borrow it for tomorrow.

The Quandary

I am in a quandary. I love to get out of the house and knit with my friends. I consider that a wonderful treat to say the least. We have fun. We check out each others progress. Trade yarn back and forth. Some times we knit in silence and sometimes chatty. We teach each other things we have picked up along the way. We like to consider ourselves a happy fun group.

The problem is that we have picked up a new member. She assumes that since most of us stay home alone working on chores or projects that are necessary or near and dear to our hearts that we need constant chatter. This has gone beyond the boundaries of normal social chatting. Today it got to the point of droning and not letting anyone get a word in edge wise. Today I had to skip lunch with friends because her constant drone and constant questions ( to read if I don't get the answer I want, I will keep asking the same question over and over again until you relent ) gave me a migraine that is now just going away. I am talking about the sun glasses stayed on for hours today, 2 bottles of cola and 2 doses of Excedrin.

I really don't want to be rude to her because 2 wrongs don't make a right. I know that everyone has a need for other people in their lives. Who am I to judge her? I really, really, really want to give her a book by Emily Post but fear it might be to rude or worse just go over her head.

I am open to Very Gentle suggestions. She is a few years younger than I am, so she must have gotten some of this in school and church. What would you do?

The last Monday of Summer

Today was a very mixed day for me. I got off to an early start a 6am with a lot of energy. I got 3 loads of laundry washed. Then packaged and addressed 2 parcels. Wrote a slew of checks and got them addressed. By the way in case you missed the last postal rate increase like I did the current 1st class letter rate is 47 cents, not 46 as I had thought. It must be a common problem because they had an envelope of penny stamps at the post office for that very reason. I also did some house cleaning on top of all the other activities.

By 10 am it was nap time which lasted until lunch time. Followed by a little more cleaning and a trip to the post office. I still had an hour before I needed to pick up Eric so I walked around the Brandy Fenton Park. I spent a little time in the butterfly garden. There were a few butterfly's. Then a lap around the rest of the park. I have decided that the water play area is nice and I need to borrow a friends son so I can go play in it. She suggested that we find a way to cover Eric's chair because we do not have a stroller for Eric to get wet and that he might like it too. I just hate to see what a stroller would cost that would fit Eric.

Eric and I watched the new episode of Sesame Street today. I think that they may have up graded their cameras over their break. I also did some finishing work and row counting so that I could update my counter for the 1 million row challenge. I added 970 rows to give me a total of 16,931 rows.  Here is a picture of one of the blankets that I did. Don't look for the pattern because it is a one off and I did not write the pattern down as I went. This one is a favorite and will go to a local hospital for a preemie.  After dinner it was more knitting and watching TV with John. For those keeping track of the World Challenge walk, I did manage to get in my 10,000. steps today. Well it is getting late, everyone else is asleep so I should be too.

Progress is Good

I have been very busy with cleaning around here. The master bathroom is 99.9% done. It is just a few very small things that I have to figure out where they go. I have made enough progress in the craft room to set up the sewing machine. I got 1 repair  and a blanket modification done for some one, that makes 2 things out the door of the craft room today.

For some unknown reason I had a very productive day around here. The bills were paid before anyone one else was awake. I brought at least 2 baskets of recycling out to the bin today and got it hauled to the street tonight. By the way I managed to fill it 3/4's of the way full, not bad. I also started working on my Mondays to do list. I know, what was I thinking? I will never get ahead of the curve ball on this one, but at least I have a plan for tomorrow. The laundry is 3/5 done for today, but then again I know there will be more than 2 loads tomorrow...

John and I stole an hour together and went out for dinner. While we were eating a a cricket ( I think, I am not an bug expert ) hopped on the hood of our car. It must have found a sweet spot on the hood because it made it from the restaurant all the way home with out flying off the hood. I did have to shoo it off the hood before we drove in to the garage.

I also had time for a lot of knitting and a little spinning. I would like to write more but I think I will call it a night.

Busy is Good

It has been a very busy day around here. I am almost caught up on sleep. The master bath reorganization is 99.8% finished, with only a few things left to be put away. 4 loads of laundry done. 

My goal was 5 minutes of cleaning in the sewing room, I landed spending 30 minutes. I find that when I limit my time on a tiresome chore I work a lot faster and manage to not notice the clock.  I almost have things ready to set up the sewing machine.  That act in itself will clear a lot of things out of the sewing baskets. Yes, you heard it right. I have almost got to the bottom of the sewing table.  

In the course of 3 hours, I managed to do 2 full hours of spinning on the Ashford Traveler.  I have also decided that the Ashford Spinning chair is going to be on my holiday list.  I have also found that I can spin pretty slim yarn on the Ashford. 

I got a lot of knitting done today.  I should be able to finish another prime blanket 

I am having trouble keeping my peeper open.  

I Need Shorter Work Days

Eric had a rough night last night. So I was up with him for about 2 hours. This left me totaly out of sync for today. I even managed to sew a poncho the wrong way, but was way to tired to rip it out.  Well there is always tomorrow. 

My biggest accomplishment today was taking all Eric's old cloth diapers and turning them into rags with the help of my serger.   I think that I will use them as packing material for Teri's next box.  I am quite sure she won't mind.  Here is the pile before John cut them apart. I did a daisy chain to save on thread, and John had volunteered to cut them apart before he knew that I was going to use the serger.  So the cutting was not as bad as he thought.  

Eric is having another rough night so I think I will get some charity knitting done while I count my blessings.  

Cartwheel by Target

I very rarely write about apps. This is one that is fairly new and the wonderful folks at Target got this app right. You start off with space for 10 special coupons. All areas of the store have coupons.  You can  earn more coupon slots by getting your friends to join and earning badges. I currently have earned the following badges: Shopping Buddy because a friend started using Cartwheel. Star Collector, I added an offer to the card. Super Scanner, I used my Cartwheel for the first time. Smart Saver, I have saved over $10.00  (actually $14.73 of of this writing) using the Cartwheel app. I can now use 15 special coupons at a time.

It is very easy to down load to your wifi enabled iPod, iPad or iPhone. The Target stores near me have free wifi so I can use this app on my iPod to add more offers while in the store. You can get extra savings from 5 to 30% for things you already buy. You can combine one manufacturer coupon, one Target coupon and one Cartwheel offer can be combined on 1 item. You will not get cash back if the total of the coupons exceed the sale price, but an occasional free item is a good thing in my book. This app does not work in Canada as of this writing.

I have used this app for savings on housewares and grocery's so far, but I still have all the other departments to explore. Maybe clothes shopping is next.

This is the app description from the app store:
  

Welcome to the early release of Cartwheel by Target – a whole new spin on saving! It’s the first of its kind, and it’s super-simple. Just sign-up using your Facebook profile and instantly save on things you already buy in Target stores by adding offers to your Cartwheel. Select from hundreds of exclusive discounts (starting at 5% and up to 30%), all available on your iOS device. Best part? These aren’t one-and-done discounts. Use them as many times as you want before they expire. You can even use Cartwheel on top of the 5% you save everyday with Target REDcard.

The app keeps your discounts neatly organized, all ready for your next Target run. Your discounts are all attached to one barcode that you can pull up on your iPhone or iPad, or print from cartwheel.com on your desktop. Just scan your barcode at any U.S. Target store and see your savings add up! Here’s another cool part – invite friends to join, or share deals with them, and you save even more.

• First-of-its-kind savings app
• Discounts from 5%-30% on hundreds of products
• Save on top of other coupons and offers, like Target REDcard
• Share discounts with your friends on Facebook for inspiration
• Fully-customizable privacy settings, including Facebook posting
• Personalized offers, tailored to help save more on what you buy most
• Average discounts are valid for 60 days – longer than our Weekly Ad
• Check out cartwheelsupport.target.com for feedback or questions
• For Facebook app users, requires Facebook version 6.0 and above

What's New in Version 1.2

- Updated tutorial
- Improved experience for adding an offer when your Cartwheel is full
- Added the Cartwheel barcode number to offline barcode screen for easier redemption with no connectivity
- Allowed for deep-linking from Facebook for smoother navigation between the apps
- Added the menu icon for easier access to the nav menu in iPad portrait
- Fixed bugs for "offer list full" and miscellaneous crash issues

Just to be perfectly clear. I found out about this app on facebook ( which you must have to use this app) The app can be downloaded for free. Here is the link to the Cartwheel by Target App. Target has not paid for this review and ALL the views are my own. I did not make any purchases that I was not going to make in the first place, the app savings were just the icing on the cake.

Maybe Busy, Maybe Not

Friday

I am not sure I should be this tired and achy tonight.  Yes I was active today.  I walked 6 miles, pushed Eric around the mall for 1 hour and 20 minutes, cleaned for 2 hours and went to knitting. John procured dinner tonight.  So it can't be the cooking.  I will have to think about this.  

Eric had a really good day until bed time. We hung out together today. He was full of smiles for everyone except for the one knitter who forgot to engage her brain before talking. So my request for the coming year is that we all think before we talk.  Please don't just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.  What comes to mind here is an old proverb that my dad liked.  "Speak softly, for you never know which words you will have to eat tomorrow."

I am going to try sleep now and hope that Eric sleeps through the night.  I hope that the eyrps have stopped for the night.

Saturday

Well I got an hours sleep before I was up with Eric for the rest of the night. I woke John up at 6 am so I could take a nap. I then went to Target to get a few more organizers for my latest deep cleaning project. I also took time to walk around the mall to get the kinks out.  Those new organizers got filled relativity fast. I landed up buying one Target out and having John drive to another Target to buy more boxes.

 

Sunday

 

I spent 4 hours cleaning house, doing laundry and deep cleaning before my body said enough for today. I did manage to organize another shelf and empty a laundry basket of things that needed to be put away that were hiding in a closet.

 

 

Getting dressed was another challenge today. The 1st pair of pants fit, but felt a bit snug. The next 3 were way too big and will go to Goodwill. Pair 5 was my lucky number today. They have been in my closet so long that I can not remember when I bought them. I have a lot of clothes in my new size so maybe I can shop my closet for most everything I will need in my new smaller size.

 

I have been losing the weight by eliminating aspartame and high fructose corn syrup. This in itself eliminates a lot of junk food. I have been deep cleaning the house and walking instead of going to the gym. This has been a multi year effort so there are no quick fixes that I can offer. Yes I have gotten discouraged at times, but every time I go down a size I am amazed. I have no set amount of weight I want to lose, I only want to feel better.

 

Well it is time to call it a night.







Happy New Year

The day started off with a very early morning headache from he double tooth picks for me. My head was still throbbing when Eric needed suctioning at 5:40 am. That went on and off for most of the day. There was no way I was going to get out of the house for services today. However; I feel that since I was under the weather along with Eric, that taking care of the sick was one step higher on the list of to do's than communal prayer. For everyone I wish a La Shana Tova - A good year with the best of health.

I wonder if the migraine that I started off the day with and John got later in the day is one of those quirky viruses that go around sometimes.

The UCP World Challenge has started. I am on Team Eric. I have put a link to the donation site on the right hand side of my blog. Any donation over $2.00 will get a tax receipt. Our team goal to to climb every virtual mountain and to raise $500. We have made a good start on the mountain and have raised $110.00 so far. As you might have guessed UCP is the non profit that helps Eric stay home with us. With out their help I would not be able to keep Eric home where he belongs. Please help if you can. Thanks from all of us on Team Eric.

A Little Catch Up

Teri and I also made it to the beach in Carlsbad. A 4 mile walk on the beach in the wet sand left our feet very smooth, maybe even a little better than a pedicure.

I of course was in long pants as not to get burned which resulted in very soggy and sandy pants legs. Teri on the other hand got to romp around in the water. This is when I also happened to notice that my pants had gotten way to big. Yes, another size bit the dust as they went up my rib cage. So it is official I am down another size. To celebrate I bought 2 pairs of pants in the smaller size. I am still losing more inches than weight, but anyway I look at it skinnier is always better.

Monday was a rather laid back days as we were exhausted and slept in. Of course we did more shopping and eating out. With what seemed the whole of the city off for the holiday we found the stores very crowded. We spent the evening packing for Monday. Teri for work and me for the drive home.

I had one last breakfast out with Teri before I headed home. The drive was very uneventful until just east of Casa Grande. There was a pick-up truck in front of me who lost part of his load, which included a piece of sheet metal. Going at freeway speed there was no way to miss it. The metal tore to shreds both tires on the drivers side. If you look at the front tire closely you can see where the sheet metal tore into the front tire.

I did manage to pull into the center divider. I would like to state that I am 100% OK. I managed to control the car and even with 2 instant flat tires the Honda handled very well. Thank goodness for cell phones. I was able to call John and tell him I had been delayed and that I thought I had 4 flat tires. It turned out only to be 2.  I also called AAA. That in itself was a tale that should not have to be told. I was with in 200 yards of a Freeway exit and closer to Casa Grande than Pacho Peak. You, I and the very nice Arizona Department of Public Safety Officer would think that given that they knew the exit and I was reading off the names of the gas stations and the tire store that they would get one of those tow trucks to tow my car. But no they had to pull a tow truck from another city further away from Casa Grande and the tow trucks just a few hundred yards from me. I would also like to thank the Arizona DPS officer for staying with me until the tow truck came.

 

This gave John time to find the closest Jack Furriers Tire Center and order the tires that I needed for the car. Did I mention that this was just about the time that he had to pick up Eric from his day program? He handled everything so well. He even researched the best tires available.

 

After waiting for what seemed like an hour the tow truck finally came.  With the car on the flat bed the tow truck driver then went a few miles down the road and attached a second car to his tow truck further delaying my getting home at a decent hour. I am not even sure if it is OK to tow 2 cars at once.

 

The tires arrived at the Jack Furrier Tire center in Marana a few minutes after I did. I would like to thank the crew at Jack Furriers for staying past closing to get the new tires on and the car aligned so that I did not have to figure out a ride home and how to retrieve the car the next day.

 

I stopped on the way home to pick up take out. Only after I had ordered dinner and I was sipping my green tea did it dawn on me how bad it could have been. Then I really just needed hugs which John and Eric were happy to help with.

 

Today was spent cleaning and doing laundry. Well that should catch everyone up on the basics.

Mother Daughter Time

I recovered enough from that awful cold that Eric shared to make it to my mother daughter weekend with Teri.  The guys are still dealing with the tail end of the cold at home.  

It was a nice drive on from Tucson.  Along the way I spotted  1 Road Runner, and a lot of Butterfly's migrating.  There was very little traffic along the way. I had a book on tape and a free radio promo.  

After Teri finished work we went shopping and out to dinner at Project Pie.  We choose our own toppings and the pizza was great. Then it was a night of girl talk. 

Today we had breakfast at Starbucks with more girl talk.  Then it was off to explore the local park. Teri was spot on when she picked an art festival to go to.  We meet some very lovely artists today. We did quite a bit of walking today with over 13,000 steps walked about 6.5 miles.

Dinner was at a local dinning spot. The food was great. A little shopping for breakfast.  Followed by an evening of girl talk.  

I keep coming back to the same conclusion about Teri. First that I am so lucky to be her mom.  Second that she takes me to pretty amazing places. I think that you my reader will have to add the rest of the platitudes to Teri, as at this moment I  starting to fall asleep.  

Almost Better

The cold Eric brought home from his day program has worked it way around the house.  I was the last to catch it. My sincere hope is that none of you get it because it is just that nasty.  John and I took turns suctioning Eric.  By the end of the cold Eric no longer hated the suction machine.  In fact he started to ask for it in his own way.  

Even though I was the last person to get the cold, I am the path to being done with this thing.  

I spent my time keeping Eric company, I also worked on some ufo's. I got 1 premie blanket finished, added 3 inches to the premie blanket I am working on.  I hope to make a dent in the rest of the ufo's. This  will go on for a couple of months.  

We it is time to call it a night. I am so tired tit is hard to think in cohesive sentences. 

M

Oh No

I am going to leave the guys on their own for a few days. I am a little nervous about this. Eric had a cold this weekend and John just caught it. Everyone is saying go, but I am a little nervous about this trip. So today in the midst of taking care of Eric, I started gathering my knitting and spinning. I pulled as many UFOs that I could put together that were small and not fussy. So I have 2 bags of knitting, 1 bag of spinning and a small bag of snacks. What, you did not really expect me to pull and pack my clothes first did you?

I also manage to get over 1,000 rows of knitting added to the 1 million row challenge on Raverly. I wonder if I can finish that many rows while I am gone next week. I also figured out that the stash down does not go as fast if I keep spinning more yarn to relax. Oh well you can't have everything.

Things got a little wonkier as the day went on. So as I was going to record my exercise for the day I could not get my ipod touch to start. The apple store connection on my computer does not even recognize this ipod right now. I tried everything that the page suggested. So it is off to the Apple store tomorrow to see if they can fix it. I am really hoping that I did something really dumb and they wave their magic wand and presto it is fixed. So is this an omen that I should not ignore? Anyway you put it I have a lot of things stored in this little piece of magic. You can not believe how much of my life is stored on those 32 gigs of memory.

So tomorrow it is gathering clothes to pack. Possibly doing all the car pooling to give John time to recoup, pack, go to the apple store and hope for the best. I am a little bit tired so the blog is a little bit choppy, sorry about that.

This Weeks Word is Busy

It has been a very busy week around here.  There was a lot of cleaning in the craft room. About a dozen projects got tinked to remake into other things, most were my failures that I just put aside. Out of the "ashes" will come a lot of new energy and a slew of premie blankets.  I am also 1/3 of the way through a poncho. I finished 4 very small projects on Friday. Tomorrow I hope to take some photos of my finished work, then add to my one million rows challenge counter.  

I have also found a younger artist to take some of the items that I have no more use for and am hoping to see some great art from this young woman. This in it self is very freeing to me. It also keeps things out of the landfill.  I also don't feel as if I am throwing things with perfectly good uses away.  I also gave a full carrier bag of yarn to 2 knitters that I know.  This all came from going through each bag of yarn in the craft room. 

I was sick earlier in the week. I am feeling better now.  I think I caught the ear infection before I needed antibiotics.  I was also up with Eric most of last night.  He has caught an awful cold.  I spent a lot of time suctioning him along with just the usual mommy cuddles.  We are all hoping for a quite night tonight.  

I was also very effecent last night.  I had all 4 loads of laundry finished by 7 am his morning.  It seems that Eric is asleep so I will call it a night. V 

Bone Tired

I now know what bone tired actually feels like. After a busy week of cleaning and a full day of play yesterday I was very tired today. I had decided to attack the last bastion of clutter in the house any way. The craft room. My plan was to work for 10 minutes and quit for the day. 2 hours later I called it quits.

This was after I filled 2 1/2 boxes of tabs for the Ronald McDonald House Charity project that Eric is working on. They will be delivered in October and I felt that they did not have to hang out in the craft room when there were shelf's free in the garage. I also pulled out 2 blanket designs that were going no where very slowly. So John and I tinked them. Both bags of yarn will be used for preemie blankets for a local hospital. I have the 1st preemie blanket that I started today about 25% finished. They do go really fast. Every bag and box is being gone through. Projects that I want to finish will go into 1 pile. Finishing work will go into another pile. I will also continue to tink projects that I really don't went to knit any more. I will also fill a bag with yarn, patterns and books that I don't want anymore and share it with my fellow knitters. I think a month of at least 10 minutes a day should get this done by the end of September.

This brings me back to what bone tired feels like. After lunch I went to sit with Eric and do a little knitting. Very gradually my legs just started to hurt, which gradually built up to the bones in my lower legs hurting. I told Eric that mommy was to tired to sit and watch T.V. with him and went to lay down. I think I would have slept until morning if I had not been called to help in the house. 3 hours of sleep seemed to make my legs feel a lot better.

Then what am I doing up after 10pm, when my body is so tired. Well even though I did 5 loads of laundry this morning and being caught up on laundry. We had a formula spill tonight. Which means that Eric's bed needed to be changed for the 2nd time tonight. So I have 2 more loads to at least start before bed time. I am sure you are not aware that formula smells really rank if left to sit over night on the sheets. Plus it is also harder to get out and stains. Once the second load is in the machine I can call it a night. The second load is now in the washer so it is time to call it a night.

Shoe Follow-up

It has been at least a few weeks since I changed shoe styles. I changed to shoes with more support on the sole and straps across my heels and in some cases feet.  I was very skeptical at first. Even though I did my research on the web.  

The first few weeks all I noticed was a little less pain. Something remarkable has happened in the last week.  All of a sudden my step count went from the 4,000 step per day range to the 10,000 step per day range with a peak of 19,000 steps in one day earlier this week. 

I am not actively trying to add work out time it is just happening on it own. So my very unscientific results suggest that for at least me it is good to have a very supportive and secure shoe. 

Yes I know that most of the shoes are not very stylish. Some look down right clunky.  Most do not look good with skirts or dresses, but I for one am going to go for comfort i.e. my knee not hurting or throbbing.  

My disclaimer is as follows.  No one paid me to do this research.  I paid for the shoes out of my monthly budget. No company is paying for this blog. All opinions are my own.  For specific medical advice please contact your own doctors.  

A Stark Contrast

Yesterday at this time I was as sick as Eric has been in the last couple of weeks. The cold came out of no where in the middle of the night. I spent yesterday drinking all the fluids I could stand and sleeping for most of the day.  

This morning at around 2:30am I woke feeling wonderful and refreshed. This was just 25 hours after the cold had hit. I felt as if I had not eaten in days so I had a light snack and went back to sleep.  

If my body was a motor I would have to say that I started off in over drive this morning.  I got an hours worth of cleaning done before I took Eric to program today. I also got to hear what our Congressman Ron Barber had to say about his first trip to Israel.  We are very lucky in our district that Congressman Barber puts the needs of the people of our district before his own personal agenda. 

I came home and did more cleaning. Instead of just dumping all my loose knitting patterns in a box to deal with later, I went through them all and decided to give half of them to my friends to see if anyone wants them.  The rest I will file in an organized manner. I got Eric's bathroom floor  scrubbed   and John put everything back together.  I hope it stays clean until the party. 

On my way to pick up Eric, ok I went a few miles out of my way I ordered the gluten free apple pie and corn bread muffins for this weekends party. I even paid for them so I could send someone else if I was busy.

John was wonderful and made dinner tonight. So I helped clean up.  

Today I also walked 19,000 steps which is just shy of 10 miles for me.  I have not walked that much in a single day since Italy. I hope this is a sign of things to come.  

Well it will be another busy day tomorrow so it is time to call it a night. 

A Catch up Day

Eric went to program today.  So I took a couple of hours off this morning. I spent the rest of the day doing laundry ( not folded yet ) paying bills, painting ( finished for now) cleaning, driving afternoon carpool. I also took Eric grocery shopping at Trader Joes.  I had Eric carry the basket do I could not buy out the store. The clerk was very nice and took us in the 15 items or less even though we had at least twice that.  They also loaded the car while I got Eric in.  All the snack jars are now filled.   I also made turkey chilli  with homemade corn bread tonight for dinner.  The first home cooked meal in a few days. 

John and I found time to relax and I got some spinning do too.  

The 3rd baby lizard in 2 weeks has been relocated.  This one almost got squashed  because being half asleep I thought it looked like a baby scorpion.  

Eric is asleep now so I will call it an early night. 

Catch Up

My body played catch up today.  I am in total flare up, with all the soreness that goes along with it.  I did manage to grab a 4 hour nap this afternoon.  It was wonderful. I woke up feeling so much better.

This evening was spent between my drop spindle and knitting.  My second demo piece for guild is done. 

Well it sounds like Eric is just about asleep. So it's time to call it a night. 

Painting and More

Today we started out by painting the areas that I had re plastered earlier in the week. We found a few more spots to plaster, and I will do that tomorrow.  After we got the necessary spots done we just went a little crazy with the paint. We hit scrapes along the walls. John did a few spots on the ceiling, including food spots that would not wash off, just think burping a 60ml syringe and the food going a little further than intended. Of course John did this while standing on the floor.  

I on the other hand learned that I am not the agile teenager anymore. I was able to climb up, but thought it better not to jump down and got stuck.  John to the rescue again.  Did I mention how clumsy flare ups make me feel. 

After  lunch and a short rest it was time to do a little cleaning.  I did not get too far but I have until Friday to make the house company ready.  

Eric is still having a rough time of it.  I am hoping he will feel better soon   Eric is asleep now so it is time for me to call it a night.  That was at 10:30 pm. Now it is 2:20am and I am in too much pain to sleep. So what else is there to do but laundry and some very quiet cleaning. .

The Knife Ran Away with the Fork and Other Odds and Ends

It never ceases to amaze me what things just tend to sprout legs and walk away. This month it seems to be my steak knifes and dinner forks. Really!!! I bought most of these while in high school with Betty Crocker points. For those of you not old enough to remember the Betty Crocker Catalog you missed a wonderful way to furnish your houses through a brand loyalty program.  Almost all Betty Crocker items had little point coupons that were saved and later exchanged for things like silverware (My Oneida Patrick Henry pattern) or dishes (the white Correlle Plates that I still use) and a few higher end things like some of my Le Creuset Pans, almost all of my cookie sheets and cupcake pans, furniture like the bar stool in Eric's room. You could even get toys for the kids. Some were free with enough points, some had big discounts with points. Well you get the idea that I just loved this program. Over the past month or so 8 dinner forks and steak knifes walked away. I am pretty sure that the dish washer did not eat them. Since the Patrick Henry pattern was exclusive to the Betty Crocker catalog (yes it was a big enough program to have exclusive items) I doubt that I will be able to find the pattern on line. So I will hunt local thrift stores and see if I can replace what walked away. If I can't find anymore pieces and more walk away I will be forced to replace the silverware that I have had all my adult life.

Yes I know this is one of the cost of having help for Eric in the house. Odd things have disappeared over time such as a make up set of Teri's, a prayer shawl of John's, a one of a kind scarf with some of my first hand spun yarn and even a kitchen knife (I found this one kinda of scarry). Some providers have even said in the past that most of our stuff is so old it is not worth stealing.  So my question is why would anyone one want to steal 40 year old silverware? John did notice that they seemed to go away in pairs of a steak knife and dinner fork so some one would have a set. They have gone away one at a time until I noticed that instead of having 18 forks and steak knifes I have 10.  Really, if you go to a place like Goodwill or garage sales you can pick up silverware really cheaply. Also at Goodwill you will be helping people with your purchase.

I guess if enough disappears I will box up the rest and give it to Teri since we have the same pattern. Then I will have to go through the process of picking out the right silverware that fits just right in my hand. If I am really lucky I will find some made in the USA. As I said before this was bought in the 1970's so I don't know if it is still made here.

As for  the odds and ends, we went to have the new back to Eric's new wheelchair molded today. since Eric got his first wheelchair at age 3, I thought the insurance companies question of weather our house was wheelchair accessible was a bit odd. They did not ask that question 20 years ago.

This is the mold they used, which is filled with bean bags.

This is the chair after it was molded to Eric, with all the air sucked out.

This is the final mold covered with plaster that will be sent to the company to make the back of Eric's new wheelchair.

 

What boggles my mind is the estimated cost of the back alone is $1,800.  All I can say is wow.

Eric is still home sick although I am not doing a much suctioning as in the past week, I am still getting up a lot. I have personally hit the point of tired and exhausted. I will try my very best not to be as cranky as I feel.

 

Well I hear some knitting calling my name so I will go and listen to my knitting. 

A Mixed Day

Today was a very bad body day for me.  I lost sleep to arthritis pain. I tried to make the time productive by doing some light cleaning while I was waiting for the meds to kick in.  As luck would have it it was the first night since last Thursday that Eric slept.

I spent the day with Eric and with the suction machine close by. I lost count of the times that John cleaned it out today.  The good thing about this is by the end of the day there was less coughing and junk coming up from Eric's lungs.  By bed time his color looked great and he was looking and sounding much better.  

Today was one of those what was I thinking days.  I wore solid black. On my agenda today was spackleing the wheelchair dents in the walls plus any spots we noticed.  Here is a picture of one of the bigger areas. I did a pretty good job blending and texturing.  Tomorrow is sanding and painting.  

Tonight I worked on a free form kitting project with the yarn from the yarn tasting yarn from Grandma's Spinning Wheel and some small samples of other yarn that I have spun and gotten from other people.  I will post a picture tomorrow.  

I think it's time to take some Tylenol to help me sleep.

Life on Hold

It is very early on Sunday morning, Eric has been sick since Thursday. It started off as a cold and morphed into hell if I know.  I just opened the last bottle of pedialyte, I almost ordered it on Amazon earlier but it would not get here before Tuesday.  So I guess I will be making a run later this morning. 

Eric has been hanging on to the baby Elmo that Candy knit up for him a few years ago. Out of the more than 90 quarts of Elmo's Eric, has this is the go to one when he is not feeling well. It's the little things in life that make the difference.  

I am tired enough to say the heck with laundry, except for the eyrpy stuff. I know it will come back to bite me later but I really don't care at this point. 

Breakfast consists of Belvita breakfast cookies and Raspberry Riot tea from Tevana.  This tea is suppose to have more caffeine than coffee. I know I got 5 1/2 hours of sleep last night, but I am still tired after be being up the better part of the 2 previous nights. John took Eric for most of last night.  I am really tired so I am having trouble being upbeat right now.  So to try to be more positive I will say that I have completed 3 rectangles for the knitting guild presidents challenge.  It takes 2 rectangles to make a poncho so I should have the second poncho done later today.  Right now my goal is to make as many rectangles as possible and use as much yarn up as possible in doing this.  I am wishful thinking that I can make a dent in my yarn stash by making lots of ponchos.  

Well I think it is time to start burning through some yarn now.  I wish everyone a very happy and productive day.  Please take time to enjoy your families this week. 

The Day Flew By

It was a very busy day. I taught a class in weaving and beading to a group of campers. I only have 4 left to finish weaving before Friday so that they can go home with the campers. Not bad for 2 - 2 hour classes with 12 campers. Lesson learned here is to use bulky weight yarn, not worsted weight. All the campers who used only bulky weight yarn finished. The ones I need to finish are all worsted weight yarns.

I went to my first yarn tasting at Grandma's Spinning Wheel tonight and had a great time. I am creating a one of a kind piece with all the samples. I will show it to you when I am finish. I also won a door prize, which was a skein of yarn with shawlette written all over it.

It is time to call it an early night. I am so tired all the words seem to be getting jumbled.

A Non Stop Day

Today was a busy day. I finally got to meet up with the girls for knitting. I only have 6 inches to go on the second half of the never ending poncho. I did not finish the laundry, but will throw a load on before bed. I listed 1 more skein of yarn in my etsy shop. Last but not least, I got the last spot for a yarn tasting tomorrow night at Grandma's Spinning Wheel. I have never been to one before.

The things I learned today is that unlike my Louet spinning wheel, the Ashford Traveler must be oiled before each use or it wont work. It wont spin worth a dam and makes wonky yarn.  It took me an hour to figure this out. Also when taking pictures there is a very sweet spot of natural light in the dining room in the late afternoon that lasts about 15 to 20 minutes. Pictures taken during this time frame come out perfect. I also found out that the word scrumming has many meanings and as it pertains to knitting is also called free form knitting. It is also some kind of computer platform, but that is way above my pay grade.

My advice for today is that if there is a question you really don't want to or should not answer, just return with a question along the same lines and the person usually answers back and then it dawns on them that they just answered their own question. Try it some time and let me know how it works for you.

Well its time to start some more laundry. Then call it a day.

An Uphill Climb

Today started out less than perfect for me. I did not sleep well. I also found a baby tarantula ( about the size of a silver dollar) in the bathroom at around 2am. I did manage to get him outside without waking the house. Although I think he was more happy in the house than outside. The question that still remains is how the heck did that little guy get all the way to the middle of the house? After that I found it hard to get back to sleep. So I woke up with a pre-migraine. I took my Tylenol and caffeine with breakfast. Around lunch time things started clicking for me.

After lunch I got the grocery shopping done. I also noticed something at the check out line today. When I save money with coupons the cashier usually says you saved x amount of money today. Today was different, I approached the $100 mark in savings with coupons. I did not even get to the 40% off mark. There were a lot of buy one get one free along with a few high value coupons. The cashier just looked at it and handed it to me. Then there was just enough time to put the frozen food away and pick up Eric from his program.

I added another 1 1/2 inches to the never ending poncho, I did make it to the second half of the second piece so that went well.  I also listed a few audio books on e-bay. Then went on to start stocking my Etsy shop Handmade~by~Sheri . John has mentioned that I have a little to much hand spun yarn hanging around and a lot of finished items. So it is time to zen the house a little. To that end I listed 13 items today with more to come in the next few days. To help things move I have added a coupon code for 50% off all items in the shop. Just use the code: "Husband" at check out. It will apply to your entire purchase through August 25, 2013. Please feel free to share the sale with all your friends. There is no limit on the amount of coupons that can be used. One coupon applies to the whole transaction.  The more that leaves the house the happier my guys will be, yes even Eric.

I almost forgot to mention that I have a new Face book page just for Handmade~by~Sheri where I will put all the shop updates. Just type in Handmade~by~Sheri in the search field. I would like to get to 50 followers of the shop by the end of the month, can you help me make that goal?

Well I think that it is time to call it a night.

A Busy Sunday

Today was a very busy day with laundry and cleaning.  I got tired of laundry after 2 loads so I get to start Monday with 3 loads.  The dishwasher was emptied before breakfast so we would not mix dirty dishes in with the clean one.  

I spent 45 minutes playing with the new to me Ashford Traveler. In that time I managed to spin 3 single ply bobbins. Work up a decent sweat, the double treadle is so much different than the single treadle in terms of a workout.  I also found with the Ashford the I must get my peddling up to speed before I tap the bobbins to start the spinning.  The bobbins ate so darn small that they fill up after just 15 minutes.  I wish that I had the 4th bobbin for this wheel, because I can spin a little longer  

I think the yarn spun from today will be woven into a purse that I will line and embellish.

I also discovered a new combo of alpaca and silk for a wonderful spin. The fiber is just so calming.  Since it is jet black I will need full sunlight to spin it. 

A great Day

All in all things went pretty well today.  Eric is feeling better. The laundry is caught up, but please don't tell Eric. It did not take long to do a quick pick up.  I even got out to do so shopping this afternoon.  

The best part of shopping was having a coupon for just about everything in my basket.  The guy behind was grumbling about the coupons, but his jaw dropped when the cashier said that I saved $11.00 in coupons.  That did not include the extra 5% off for using the stores credit card.  My Ganga of the shopping trip was 5 bottles of Tide on sale for $4.47 ( the regular price is $6.99) with coupons of $4.00 off the 5 bottles.  For a savings of over $16.00. It might seem like buying that much laundry  detergent is hoarding, but I do an avarage of 21 loads a week, more when Eric is sick, so each bottle lasts about a week and a half.   The savings did not end there. I needed to go to Joann's for some supplies for a class next week. I had a 40% off 1 item coupon and a very gracious lady ahead of me in line shared a 15% off the total purchase coupon.  So that brought my total cost to &20.00.  That brings the cost per student to a little more tha a $1.00 per student with some supplies left over.  

I thought I screw up dinner. I bought salami instead of pepperoni for the pizza. You really do have to try salami on pizza, it was great.  Well I have a few more things to do before bed tonight.  

Eric is Home Sick

Eric got sick just before bed time last night with he wild eyrps. So it was a long night and day today.  I did take time for myself to go on a short walk before John went about his day.  

I also made considerable progress on a poncho today, I managed to knit almost a full skein of yarn on to the 2 inches I already had.  I tried the old spinning wheel but I was just to tired to work on lace weight yarn. I also finished spinning and piling the 1st of 4 skeins I started a few days ago on the drop spindle.  Pictures to follow when I am awake. 

I would also like to thank the Library of Congress for the talking book program.  The books and magazines broke up the day nicely.       

As for now I will try some sleep as I am beyond tired. 

BBD

Today was a typical bbd for me so I took a mommies version of a day off. I slept in until 7:15am. I had a late breakfast and took time to read the paper.  I conquered  my some of my short to do list and did 6 loads of laundry.  I also managed to get a nap in.  

John figured out that I gave him the wrong manual for the Ashton Traveler Spinning wheel that I got at a thrift store.  Once he had the right manual it took less than 30 minutes to get it running.  This wheel has scotch tension on it.  I find the tension thing a little tricky after learning on a Louet wheel. I will play with it a while before I make up my mind on its fate.  

Just before bed Eric got a little eyrpy so I will be on Eric duty tomorrow.  Don't worry I have plenty of yarn, fluff and Caffeine.  Well here is hoping for a quiet night.  

Busy but Good

I had a busy day today that included teaching my 1 st weaving class to special needs high school students.  I would like to say that they did a great too.  Some responded to explaining that every stitch was either up or down and the next row was just the opposite.  A few got into a one two rhythm. Where the high stitch is always number one and goes down.  The low stitch is always number 2 and always  gets priced up.  I also descovered that thicked chunky yarn is the best for those hands.  They will Finish them next week. 

I also attempted to find cranberry sauce with no HFCs in the middle of July. No luck there, but I did manage to find frozen cranberry's in the freezer section and made my own.  I was so tired that I forgot to reduce the homemade simple syrup before I added the cranberries so we landed up with cranberry jam.  It still tasted good. 

To end the blog I will post today's spinning.  The roving is from cloud lover fiber. 

 

A new Chair

The exciting news of the day is that we took Eric in for the 1st of 2 wheelchair fittings. We have the chair and color pick out along with most of the components. We just have 1 more visit before they can get insurance approval and order the chair. Lets hope that this goes very fast.

I will show off some spinning tomorrow. It sounds like my boss has gone to sleep.