Summer update, part 1

Hi Alene! Here's some of what I've been up to this summer. No, I'm not playing poker; those & the jar are for a Hogwarts-style points system for the kids. That's a raspberry dessert (yum!). I'll get together my spinning for a photo op as soon as a few skeins are dry. Hope your Tour is going well. May the Fleece be with you until my next posting, Cindy

p.s. I LOVE your Team's Oz-themed ravatar.

Of Ravelry, moola, and spring

Sorry for my pictureless state, Alene; it's been one of those (several) weeks. Lots new here. Around the house: furnace, cooktop, home equity loan. Teaching: knitting classes, volcano talk at 1st grade (it was fun, challenging, not sure I didn't bore them, and quite sure I left several trains of thought derailed . . .), RE at the meeting house (there I'm one of 4 teachers for DS's class).

Crafting is going well since there's no way to do gardening prep outside. I can't believe there's still going to be snow on the ground for spring break! It's next week. I love Ravelry. I've been flitting in and out of groups because there are SO many great ones. I've settled for now on not-too-high traffic ones I can keep up with and will actually read. I'm still doing the responsible stash thing. I sold one of my knitting machines after long contemplation. It is a great machine but I have barely used it since I started spinning. It used thinner yarns and I usually make medium to thick yarns, so I opted to stick with my Bond. I'm using the money to buy a small, slightly used rigid heddle loom and a bunch of books!

I hope to see you in April and would be thrilled if we could go to the Yarn Harlot's event together. If you want to stay over, we have a guest bed. I'll warn you it's near my wool . . . don't want all those "wool fumes" to make you want stash unbecoming to a desert-dweller. ;) Cindy

Farewell, zippy car

Dear Alene, we are a one-car family now. DH's 1991 Mazda Protege is broken to the tune of $1500 or more; at its age, that's more than we are willing to put in it. Luckily DH's work is close to our home and we didn't need a 2nd car that often. I'm sure we'll miss the convenience. On the flip side, we'll be glad for the financial and environmental benefits of keeping only one car. The car is still in the driveway while we sort out where it goes next. For now, that's all from the land of flurries and stuffed noses, Cindy

P.S.. I loved your silk colors! And I don't know about MD2, soon I hope!

Cat Sweater and another FO

Hi Cindy,

Well, looks like we won't go anywhere this week. We've spent the last two days working on house stuff and there's plenty more that could keep us busy for weeks. Today we tackled the front yard a little and then tried to replace the shut-off valve on the master bath toilet. We ended up calling a plumber for that and he still had problems with it. The nut was seized so tight it ended up breaking off on him. The same guy showed up that fixed our slab leak back in February. He's really knowledgeable and helpful. He showed DH exactly what was wrong and how to fix it on the others.

As you may have figured out from the last brief post I finished the sweater over the weekend. We set up the photo shoot on the bed and got her all ready. It wasn't too hard to get it on, the head was big enough it just went over. It took her about 2 seconds to strip it off. She dropped and rolled. While rolling she brought a back foot up and just peeled off the sweater. It was hilarious to watch. We want to do it again but try to film it this time.

After she had it removed she had to express her opinion of the sweater by attacking it. You can tell by the demon-y eyes that she's possessed. Actually it was just a little bit of kitty frustration. It is amazing how when we mess with any of them they have to show the object that we put on them just who is boss.

I have another quick FO to show off. I knit it over the weekend and wanted to get it felted in time to take to work on Monday but no such luck. I felted it yesterday and it will have to go in with me when I go back on Monday. It is a business card holder. It is mostly the ramboulette that I spun up in class this summer. I started following a pattern for a small knit back but then added the increases along the edge to give it the scalloped effect. The last half round and the bind-off were in a little bit of Noro Silk Garden. There was enough wool in it (55%) to felt just fine. I'm thinking I might try a pencil holder next.

Guess I should close this up and get off to bed. We've got plenty more work to do tomorrow. My old boss is coming by to pick up an old stereo that DH's uncle bought in Viet Nam 35+ years ago.

Happy Knitting! A

Labor Day

Hi Cindy!

Is your DS excited and nervous about starting First Grade? Good luck to him, I'm sure he'll do fine ;)

I was reminded yesterday of exactly how thankful I am that I no longer work at the Mine Inspector's Office. If I were still there, or if DH had gone back, one or both of us would have been on the road to Kingman yesterday.

On Saturday two girls were off-roading with their father in the mountains north of there and east of Chloride. The hills are filled with very dangerous abandoned mines. We inventoried that area between 1995 and 1997. In the dozen or so sections that we traversed we assessed well over 500 abandoned mines. Some were fairly shallow but several that were scary deep. Unfortunately these two girls drove into one of them and fell 125 feet. The older girl was killed but the younger girl was found Sunday morning in the bottom of the shaft. She was airlifted to Las Vegas where she's in critical shape.

As far as I know, and according to MSHA, this is the first abandoned mine fatality in Arizona this year. It is not the first one nationally though. There have been at least 24 other people die this year. Most are drownings in old quarries but there have been numerous falls into shafts. In the last 8 years more people have actually died in your fair state than have died here in abandoned mines. The worst state though is probably Pennsylvania. They have two or three deaths every year.

With the long weekend we did get some of the house pulled back together. Here is a start on the front room. We got the books back on the book shelf after this picture (you can see the edge of it in the mirror, right next to the lamp. As you can see the carpet goes pretty well with the new paint. It is starting to look like a real room. Just got to find a new home for the piano.

I'll finish this off with a silly picture of Margaret. We went to Ikea this morning and got a set of small table lamps. We then tossed the set of cat balls into it and she had a blast playing with them and trying to crawl into the box. She barely fit. Teddy also had to check out the box but he didn't fit at all.

We finally stayed below 110 today, it was 109. Hopefully that's the end of it.

More soon, Take care, A

Busy Beaver

Hi Cindy!

We had our turn to be wet yesterday morning. I got up early to take DH to his zen retreat because he didn't want to leave the truck there. A woman from the group had her car broken into during the week. We left the house shortly after 5 am. There was lightening nearby and it was quite windy. We had a few drops on the way there and more on my way home. Within a few minutes of getting home the sky opened up. We had quite a bit of lightening and a lot of rain. It's hard to see in the picture but our street flooded out a few feet. I left around 6:30 to volunteer for the co-op and it was still pouring and it was pretty hard to see on the freeway. I wore my rain coat but ended up taking it off because I was getting wetter from sweating than from the rain even though it was still coming down in buckets. Fortunately the storm pushed its way through in just a couple of hours and by 9 am it was pretty much done. It was cloudy and humid for the rest of the day but no more rain.

The plan for the rest of the day was to paint one wall in the front room. We haven't done much interior painting since being in the house and it is definitely time. And they're going to come in the next few weeks to put in the new carpeting so it'd be nice to have it done before then. When the last owners painted the front room they must have run out of paint because the only did 3 walls in an almond color. It looks okay but you can see in places where they didn't finish touch up all the way to the ceiling. The fourth wall they left a dingy white.

Here is the wall before painting. You can kind of see the two different colors between the white wall (left) and the almond wall (right). The front door is a dingy white with the insets painted another off-white color. The closet door is the same dingy white as the wall and the baseboards.

Here is a picture of the first wall complete. It took two coats to cover the wall completely. I liked the color so much that I decided to extend it along the other wall too. Unfortunately it is all door and window so I couldn't use the paint stick with the regular size roller. I had to use a small roller and a brush. The hardest part was going back and forth between the step stool and the ground. In the end I really liked how it looked but was a little worried that DH wouldn't like the color. I'd picked it out without him.

Here is a picture of the finished wall with the pictures hung back up. It really looks good and Teddy matches perfectly. DH really liked the color too. (yay!) I still need to paint the base boards and the trim around the doors so not every thing has been moved back. I also have a few spots on the popcorn ceiling that got caught with the edge of the roller so I have to touch those up too. It has inspired me to move on to the hallway and laundry room next. And all the doors need painting too. Here is the color card that I chose from. The one on the walls is called "Rich Caramel", the third from the bottom. I think we may use one of the lighter colors for the other areas we need to paint.

The other thing that I painted that isn't showing up here is the vent cover over the AC outlet. I took it down to paint and found the inside covered with mold. Really gross! I soaked it in bleach water and scrubbed it good before hitting it with white spray paint. It (as well as all the others in the house) was an icky dull gray metal. Now this one is bright white and looks good. When I pointed it out to DH he thought I'd bought a new one.

Today I spent about 2 hours attacking the palm tree while DH changed the oil on my car. All the rain yesterday soaked into all the areas where we'd cut the old palm fronds last year. I was able to pull down the old date fronds and then use a hoe to pull the other little pieces down. The pieces ended up filling 4 garbage bags and the fronds took 5 trips to the alley. We still don't have all the dirt moved from the fence so it was "fun" off-roading the wheel barrow through the dirt. I was really stiff in the arms and hips from yesterday. I bet tomorrow it will be more so in the arms and shoulders from attacking a tree with a hoe.

Time to finish and start HP#3. More knitting content next time, A