Busy, we have been

Since Russ is not going to make much of an appearance in this post, I would like to start it by saying that he told me I'm handsome the other day. I don't think he quite understands the concepts of masculine and feminine adjectives, so I was rather flattered, especially since it was at about 7am.
But yes, his parents have been busy this week. I think I only sat down to Minesweeper once this week. I played 3 games rather than 50. Yay! G has been happy with tools lately. He says he is learning to enjoy making things. I am so happy. His grandfather was a carpenter and I say it's about time he took a real interest in such handiwork. I decided a while ago that the best solution to the bookcase problem we were having--not being able to find the anchors to keep the bookcases from crushing my child(ren) and the fact that we couldn't store anything on the bottom halves of any of the 4 3'x6' bookcases we had in our house--was to build shelves all the way around the living room. G did not agree, and indeed our friend Mr B agreed with him which gave him more reason not to disagree with me. Well, the need was finally strong enough that we compromised and went to Homes Depot and spend a lot money and built some red oak shelves around our space. We are all impressed.


Excuse the mess and limited view, but this is what I have now. Maybe I will update it later, once we get everything arranged better. He has enjoyed it so much he wanted to build the toy drawers/shelves I had in mind for Russ' books and toys. I said something about needing space out here for my sewing stuff as well and he was like "I CAN MAKE IT!" I like this side of my husband, though all the new tools he is "needing" might make it a little tight in our checkbook this month. But I am okay with it. Tools are nice to have around.

As far as my busyness, oh joy! I have been having fun with yarns and using fabric scraps as yarn and big crochet hooks and paint and pictures... Oh my! First of all, I've been trying to hard to get that room cleaned out but you know how I am: so many treasures I can't go for long before needing to stop to make/finish/tediously destroy something. I started with the closet and am getting rid of a bunch of old clothes but there were some sweaters in there that I thought would make some nice yarn so I Googled how to harvest yarn and did. Thus far I have done 2 sweaters and it was quite different than what I expected. They were both chenille yarn so when I was finished with them I put their fibred together and made a mesh market bag. Thus far. There was so much in just the pink one... I think I am going to double strand it and make a net to hang in the corner of Alice's room for stuffed animals. We had one of those in our room when we were little, but it wasn't pink and shiny and chenille and homemade. Ooh, I am so excited!


I also found my pile of projects I have started that are not quite finished yet. I have been meaning to get around to them for a while now but there are reasons why I haven't finished them yet. Like the one I DID finish last night: it was a rug I was making from sewing fabric scraps into long strips, braiding, and sewing in rounds. The hand sewing in rounds part sucked! So while G and B were playing killing each other one the XBox, I ripped it all apart, made the strips into one long string (instead of 3) and began a crochet rug instead. I learned many things from this experience. 1: I don't like to crochet with denim strips. But altogether, it went much faster than sewing it did, it's not quite as lumpy, and it's finished! I can finally take it off the list! WOOHOO! I had to make more strips from--this time from a few pair of jama pants--but it is still not very big. I edged it in purple and I think I am going to use it in Alice's room. What do you think? Do I rock or what?

My next yarn experiment is to be "plarn." Aren't you excited to hear about that?

Oh, and I have finally just about finished my Mother-In-Law's birthday present, who's birthday was in June I might add. It is a pink table with pictures of her family all over it. Like, pictures of her mom and grandma and her when she was 7 and stuff. This was a fun project. I even printed/cut out yellow roses and put them all over it, since she loves roses and Bill loves yellow and it is for both of them, kind of. It is pretty nifty. I might have to photograph it for my personal "look what I made" catalog. All we have left to do is pour the epoxy on it and call it haul it over there. G is excited too because it is getting this table out of the garage and it has been taking up LOTS of space. But it's almost done! Hurrah!

Don't be mad, please?

I couldn't help myself; I had to do it. Yes, his curls were the cutest ever, and we got compliments wherever we went, but they were just too unruly for me.

Silly, coming from a girl like me. Growing up I never let anyone touch my hair. I still don't typically brush it: why brush it's just going to be in a ponytail all day? But none of that matters. His was unruly and I am his mom so I cut it off! It will grow back before too long. Can you believe this is only his 3rd haircut? He will be three in less than 4 months! I'm pretty sure his first was last September, followed by one in November...

And I don't like how this blogger thing uploads my pictures...It's a pain in my butt.

Paper Embroidery

So while I had my niece Amber here, she was supposed to go tot he library for the "Tweens" activity and learn Paper Embroidery but she ended up leaving that day instead of Sunday and was really disappointed that she was going to miss it. So I decided (since I'm such a great aunt and all) to research it online and teach her myself! Not only did I come across as super cool (which I can fake sometimes) but I also learned a new skill! Wee! Happy! I meant to post about this before but I didn't because I thought I would have already told my family about this blog, oops, and I didn't want to spoil the surprise since I sent my creation to Kim for her b-day two weeks late. What do you think? Wanna do it yourself? stitchingcards.com has few free patterns. Yeah, they want you to try it and then buy some of their other patterns but the prices are all in Euros so I don't think I'm making said purchases, though they do have some really cool ones. I used their free designs for Kim's card. The butterfly with the beads was even not that bad, though I think I let Amber down by not helping her finish hers.

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And in other crafting news: I am using my first sock yarns, purchased from knit.etsy.com, where they dye yarns and rovings and I'm pretty sure they hand spin some yarn, though I don't think the two I bought are handspun. I am attempting to crochet my first pair of socks. So far I have made the leg of one sock and I realized it will be too small for me. I have never had reason to check my gauge before but I guess if I want to start making wearable garments then I should, eh? It is a new experience, and I am so down for it. Something else I want to learn to do is spin yarn, and I will someday. I hope I can get some the roving from Knit It Up. SO pretty!

MONEY

The WT party at Emily's house was mostly a success. Other than the screaming children and the more-people-than-I-comfortable-addressing-at-once-ness of it all, we had a lot of sales. I think there were 10 tickets I entered into the system, Emily got her free 1/2 gallon of GSO for having a party over $500, and I made a little cash. I'm happy. We did not, however, get the ALS fundraiser thing going, because Emily wanted to do it after the WT thing, even though I told her it wasn't a good idea... But I will be hosting a tasting here in a couple weeks so I will do it then. No worries, all is not lost, we will raise money for the ALSA and WT at the same time...

As far as other money matters go, we paid off our first loan last week. It was one of my student loans, and it was the one with (come to find out) the LOWER interest rate. If I had known that last year when I started budgeting... But whatever. I used to put extra principle on all of our loans (car, house, school...) and then I got this spreadsheet that helps with budgetting and I realized it I put all the extra principle I was paying towards 1 loan at a time, I would not only get to knock some of them off the list, but I would get them all paid sooner. So that's what I did. I AM SO HAPPY! I hate debt.

Right after I sent the final check off for that loan, however, I read my pen-pals blog and discovered that not everyone is having great times financially. I knew this already anyway, but it really put it into perspective for me. Yeah, my family growing up was never really high class, and indeed some of my siblings are not where they should be with their finances, but this girls husband lost his job due to the company having to layoff people and while they did have some savings, it doesn't look likethey will have enough to pull through this recession we're going through. I wonder what will happen. You hear about this kind of stuff all the time, but when it happens to someone you know, however distantly, it really hits home. They have had to start cutting hours a little at G's office, as in since they are so slow right now noone has to work on Saturdays, but fortunately G is on salary so it doesn't affect us other than I get my husband home all day for about 2 more days every month. That is GOOD for me! Who knew a recession coul dhave it's benefits?

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Yesterday was good. I spent most of the afternoon with a friend of mine and discovered some interesting things, and Russ spent time with her son discovering new things. (No discoveries were "in that way," I might feel the need to add.)
As for Russell's discoveries, he and Porter dressed up as cowboys and were going to explore a haunted house. Oh, dear! All with the creative influence of porter's 10 year old sister, I might add. They were so cute! Do you see? Russ was being the lookout!
As for my discoveries, we will start with the fact that the kick off for the ALSA walk was last Friday, which also happens to have been Kim's birthday (she even got a special birthday wish from the local news team!). So while I was with Em, we were talking some about WildTree and some about ALS and she not only decided to host a tasting, but she wants to have it part tasting/part ALSA fundraiser. As in we would be selling "Kimbo's cookies recipes" along with the WildTree stuffs. Which is great because that is what I was planning on doing at my next WT party! Woah! Come to find out, she decided a few months ago that she needed to start praying for service opportunities. Odd, I decided that a few months ago as well. Woah! Granted, Ihaven't been as diligent about it (been forgetting to pray, EEK!), but still...
So, not only do I have a WT party set up for Saturday, I also have a sort of ALSA fundraiser set up. I am excited. Like I said, yesterday was a good day.