Drinking from a firehose

We're two weeks into the new year already, but here are my year end stats for 2010:

Scrapped birthday cards:	87
Pages scrapped just for fun:	76
High resolution (3600x3600) scrapbook pages:	6
Photographs:	Enough to fill 6 CDs
Days of work missed due to illness:	0
Jayne Hats:	I lost count (Wah!) but at least 52
Non-Jayne Hats:	8
Scarves:	9
Beret and Scarf Sets:	2
Fingerless Mittens (pairs):	12
Fairytale Princess Hats:	3
Crochet Afghans:	1
Animal Shelter Blankets:	37

I saw three rainbows on the way home from work last night. The first one was big and bright; quite possibly the biggest I've ever seen.

Today we went to Greenfield Village for the Ragtime Street Fair. There were talented piano players and I had a most enjoyable walk around the village. In addition to interesting buildings, I saw a muskrat swimming, a huge snapping turtle, a smaller box turtle, and a blue heron.

When we finally got back to the house we watched Dr. G's How Not to Die and I finished the scrapbook page I started this morning and made a companion page to go with it. ( You can see them here )

There's a well written post concerning the CPSIA on Craft:.

The activist site National Bankruptcy Day has been set up to organize opponents of the law.

There's a well written post concerning the CPSIA on Craft:.

The activist site National Bankruptcy Day has been set up to organize opponents of the law.

My crafty brothers and sisters are up in arms about the the new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. I'd read a bit about it and thought they were over-reacting. Today I read a bit more and now I'm aggravated too. Forbes has a trio of articles concerning the act and the ill effect it's going to have on resellers of used clothing and articles for children, various charities, and libraries (among others).

Once again I'm thinking there are just too many laws. Pretty soon it's going to be impossible to be a good citizen without violating some law or another.

(And yes, I've already written to my representatives. And I tried to phone them, but my @#$@! VOiP system refused to connect the call.)

Yep, you guessed it. I was up until 1 a.m. again last night.

First I finished sewing a needle roll for my circular knitting needles. ( Click here )

Then, after dinner, I finished knitting the third scarf and added tassels to all three. ( Click here )

Who knows how long I'll be up tonight. On the one hand, I won't be home (I'll be at ConFusion). On the other, I'm bringing a bucket of yarn with me.

Yep, you guessed it. I was up until 1 a.m. again last night.

First I finished sewing a needle roll for my circular knitting needles. ( Click here )

Then, after dinner, I finished knitting the third scarf and added tassels to all three. ( Click here )

Who knows how long I'll be up tonight. On the one hand, I won't be home (I'll be at ConFusion). On the other, I'm bringing a bucket of yarn with me.

Smart people do not stay up until one in the morning finishing a project that has no due-date. Particularly when they have to get up on time to go to work the next day. They also do not hand stitch through multiple layers of demin for four hours straight. I not only have a blister on my right thumb, the whole pad is swollen. Ow.

( Click here )

My sewing skills leave a lot to be desired, but I'm pretty happy with how my needle rolls turned out. ( Click here if you want to see one of them. )

My sewing skills leave a lot to be desired, but I'm pretty happy with how my needle rolls turned out. ( Click here if you want to see one of them. )

It's been a busy past few days. Work's been keeping me busy, wrapping up accounting for 2008 and getting everything in place for 2009. We ended up working a little late on Friday, then it was off to dinner (at my current favorite family restaurant), then home long enough to bring in the mail and retrieve our theater tickets. The Baldwin's current production is La Cage aux Folles. The theater was nearly at capacity, which was nice to see after the previous show. I'm sure the low attendance for that opening night was because it was Halloween, but still. The staff and actors work so hard to put on a good show; it hurts to see all that effort go unappreciated.

I enjoyed the show and I was jazzed up when we got home. So even though it was 11 p.m., I came out here and caught up on LJ and moved some files around.

Saturday morning I woke up surprisingly early by my standards, and came back out to the living room. One of the stations was showing Snapped, so I watched that for an hour or so while I worked on my afghan, thought about what I wanted to take with me when we went in to the office, and waited for jebra to wake up.

By the time we were showered and dressed and had stuff piled up the by door, it looked like we were going away for a long weekend. In addition to my sewing machine, I had three big piles of fabric, my knitting needles and crochet hooks, a self-healing cutting mat and circular blades, plus a small collection of thread, bobbins from our old sewing machine, and our lunch.

The reason we were going to work was because jebra was migrating a bunch of stuff from one computer to another and didn't want to do that during working hours (when the systems would therefore be unavailable to clients). I went in because I had a couple of work-related things I wanted to do and because work has a lot more table space than we do at the house and I'd be able to to spread out my material and work more efficiently.

I finished up the needle roll I started at Joe & Lisa's last weekend and made a second for my crochet hooks, cut quilt pieces from a pair of old jeans, and ironed the bag of quilting material I'd brought with me. I also made such a mess of the lunch room it took nearly an hour to put away my crafting stuff, clean the tables, and vacuum the carpet. It was 10:00 p.m. before we left work and midnight before we got home. We would have reached the house sooner if we hadn't detoured to the post office to mail a few letters and check our PO box. Downtown was interesting though - I've never seen snow medians before but that's what I saw in the middle of the street. At the post office I had to cross one and discovered they're a little taller than knee high and western saddle wide. I thought for sure I was going to lose my footing and end up sitting on the darn thing but I amazed myself and crossed without incident.

Then, we finally got home, we had to shovel the eight inches or so of snow that had fallen during the previous 18 hours. Digging through that much snow wasn't fun, but at least it was a relatively balmy 24 degrees when we did. Compared to the below zero temperatures we've been having, 24 degrees honestly felt warm.

Once again I stayed up to catch up on LJ, watch more crime on tv, and knit for a little bit. It isn't often that I get to sew, knit and crochet all in the same day. At 1:30, I called it a night and went to bed.

This morning I was up around 10:00 (again, early by my standards for a weekend). I had my breakfast, fed the cats, and started laundry. While the washing machine did its thing I washed dishes, repaired a hole in one of jebra's sweaters, and hand-sewed three pieces of denim together for something I'm making to hold the wrenches jebra uses when he's repairing equipment in the band room.

Just in case anyone's wondering, I'm away for a crafting weekend. I've finished two projects (knit and crochet) and if I'm really lucky, after breakfast will cut some fabric and get out my sewing machine. Home later tonight, where hopefully I won't have to dig out the driveway from excessive amounts of snow.

Just in case anyone's wondering, I'm away for a crafting weekend. I've finished two projects (knit and crochet) and if I'm really lucky, after breakfast will cut some fabric and get out my sewing machine. Home later tonight, where hopefully I won't have to dig out the driveway from excessive amounts of snow.

I mentioned assembling a Gingerbread House and Gingerbread Christmas Tree with my godson, Ian. This marked my first experience with using a pastry bag. I'm not good at it as you can tell from the pictures. Ian's great at making little scallops, but he bores quickly and lost interest in the project before his tree was completely decorated.

( Scrapbook page under the cut )

We were supposed to travel to Indiana to see my brother-in-law and assorted other family members on December 31st, however the trip was postponed due to the terminal illness of my brother-in-law's mother-in-law. She, I'm sorry to say, passed away on January 1st. Rather than have an open funeral, the family will host a celebration of her life sometime later this year.

Not traveling to Indiana meant we were able to attend a New Year's Eve party hosted by two of our friends in Troy. We rarely get to see them, so the party made the perfect excuse. It also lead to my first RL exposure to Wii Fit. Not that I played, mind you. But it was interesting to watch as a handful of kids and adults played an assortment of games.

New Year's Day I spent watching tv, knitting, and struggling to fully wake up. When I finally felt awake enough, I ran billing. Happily, I can do that part of my job from home. It went reasonably well and I returned to my knitting and crime show addiction afterwards. I also finished knitting my first scarf of 2009.

Friday was another laid back sort of day. More daytime tv, starting with six hours of tv court shows (Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown, Judge Alex, etc., etc.) -- so many that I started to grow weary of watching contentious people argue. In the evening we went grocery shopping, then it was home to knit a fish and felt some wool. I stuffed a fish with catmint for ladyinfidel's cat and went to bed.

Saturday was SEMGS -- and Pot Pie Lab was *AWESOME*. dizzi_d and texaspenguin made pastry dough and lined a whole bunch of small aluminum pie pans (the foil, disposable/recyclable kind) with the dough and then had selections of meats and veggies so that folks could assemble their own. My favorite was the chicken curry, although I still think I would have liked it even better if the curry had been a hotter. The beef stew in a pot pie was also very good. There was a ham and potatoes and dried cherry pie that surprised me with its yumminess. bwittig made a cinnamon and apple turnover-like thing with biscuit dough and that was also among my favorites. As for (real) pies -- oh my. texaspenguin made a buttermilk cream pie (this was my first exposure to buttermilk pie and *yum*) and dizzi_d made one with Egg Nog (and, omg, that was like the best eggnog custard in pie form *ever*).

All in all, it was an awesome SEMGS lab. Even jebra's green bean casserole pot pie turned out (although the puff pastry got a bit mushy after it cooled). Nevertheless, it still made excellent left-overs.

Also in attendance at SEMGS were two dog! dizzi_d and backrubbear have Noodle, their very quick and hyper Husky, and texaspenguin has Kodi, a black lab/Chow mix. I was a very happy camper being around two nice-sized dogs for the day.

Sunday we went over to a non-LJ couple's house for dinner. On the way we stopped at Trader Joe's to pick up salad ingredients. While there, I spotted a gingerbread house kit on sale for just $3.99. I've never made one before and thought that making one with me would be something our friend's son Ian might enjoy. As it turned out, his parents had bought one of those cookie Christmas tree gingerbread kits for him. So we whipped up three batches of frosting (my kit used confectioner's sugar mixed with an egg white and a few drops of lemon juice; Ian's kit had two frosting mixes, one white and one green). We somehow got the frosting into pastry bags (I sucked at this part and mine squirted frosting from both ends. Perhaps needless to say, I've never handled a pastry bag before and found it to be quite a challenge. Nevertheless, with Ian's help I got my house assembled and decorated. I'd show you a photo, only I haven't done anything with Sunday's photos yet.

Oh, and that reminds me! Before dinner, jebra and I went to the Henry Ford Museum to see Out of This World: Extraordinary Costumes from Film and Television. The exhibit was interesting and I particularly enjoyed the information on costume design and getting to see the Ghost Busters' former ambulance. (Which probably had as much to do with that catchy Ghost Busters' Theme music as it did the vehicle itself.)

Monday was a return to work and then a repair job. A week or so ago, I washed my summer purse (which I knit last summer and managed to get dirty by tossing into my backpack). When it came out of the dryer, I noticed the cotton yarn had frayed and was on the verge of breaking. I considered various methods of repair, but I believe I'm out of that particular variegated yarn and I didn't want to mess around with weaving yarn through the knit fabric anyway. So I thought about crocheting something from my amazing stash crochet thread. I thought about trees and flowers, eventually deciding it'd be fun to crochet a sun and then use patch to mend the bag. ( This is the result )

We were supposed to travel to Indiana to see my brother-in-law and assorted other family members on December 31st, however the trip was postponed due to the terminal illness of my brother-in-law's mother-in-law. She, I'm sorry to say, passed away on January 1st. Rather than have an open funeral, the family will host a celebration of her life sometime later this year.

Not traveling to Indiana meant we were able to attend a New Year's Eve party hosted by two of our friends in Troy. We rarely get to see them, so the party made the perfect excuse. It also lead to my first RL exposure to Wii Fit. Not that I played, mind you. But it was interesting to watch as a handful of kids and adults played an assortment of games.

New Year's Day I spent watching tv, knitting, and struggling to fully wake up. When I finally felt awake enough, I ran billing. Happily, I can do that part of my job from home. It went reasonably well and I returned to my knitting and crime show addiction afterwards. I also finished knitting my first scarf of 2009.

Friday was another laid back sort of day. More daytime tv, starting with six hours of tv court shows (Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown, Judge Alex, etc., etc.) -- so many that I started to grow weary of watching contentious people argue. In the evening we went grocery shopping, then it was home to knit a fish and felt some wool. I stuffed a fish with catmint for ladyinfidel's cat and went to bed.

Saturday was SEMGS -- and Pot Pie Lab was *AWESOME*. dizzi_d and texaspenguin made pastry dough and lined a whole bunch of small aluminum pie pans (the foil, disposable/recyclable kind) with the dough and then had selections of meats and veggies so that folks could assemble their own. My favorite was the chicken curry, although I still think I would have liked it even better if the curry had been a hotter. The beef stew in a pot pie was also very good. There was a ham and potatoes and dried cherry pie that surprised me with its yumminess. bwittig made a cinnamon and apple turnover-like thing with biscuit dough and that was also among my favorites. As for (real) pies -- oh my. texaspenguin made a buttermilk cream pie (this was my first exposure to buttermilk pie and *yum*) and dizzi_d made one with Egg Nog (and, omg, that was like the best eggnog custard in pie form *ever*).

All in all, it was an awesome SEMGS lab. Even jebra's green bean casserole pot pie turned out (although the puff pastry got a bit mushy after it cooled). Nevertheless, it still made excellent left-overs.

Also in attendance at SEMGS were two dog! dizzi_d and backrubbear have Noodle, their very quick and hyper Husky, and texaspenguin has Kodi, a black lab/Chow mix. I was a very happy camper being around two nice-sized dogs for the day.

Sunday we went over to a non-LJ couple's house for dinner. On the way we stopped at Trader Joe's to pick up salad ingredients. While there, I spotted a gingerbread house kit on sale for just $3.99. I've never made one before and thought that making one with me would be something our friend's son Ian might enjoy. As it turned out, his parents had bought one of those cookie Christmas tree gingerbread kits for him. So we whipped up three batches of frosting (my kit used confectioner's sugar mixed with an egg white and a few drops of lemon juice; Ian's kit had two frosting mixes, one white and one green). We somehow got the frosting into pastry bags (I sucked at this part and mine squirted frosting from both ends. Perhaps needless to say, I've never handled a pastry bag before and found it to be quite a challenge. Nevertheless, with Ian's help I got my house assembled and decorated. I'd show you a photo, only I haven't done anything with Sunday's photos yet.

Oh, and that reminds me! Before dinner, jebra and I went to the Henry Ford Museum to see Out of This World: Extraordinary Costumes from Film and Television. The exhibit was interesting and I particularly enjoyed the information on costume design and getting to see the Ghost Busters' former ambulance. (Which probably had as much to do with that catchy Ghost Busters' Theme music as it did the vehicle itself.)

Monday was a return to work and then a repair job. A week or so ago, I washed my summer purse (which I knit last summer and managed to get dirty by tossing into my backpack). When it came out of the dryer, I noticed the cotton yarn had frayed and was on the verge of breaking. I considered various methods of repair, but I believe I'm out of that particular variegated yarn and I didn't want to mess around with weaving yarn through the knit fabric anyway. So I thought about crocheting something from my amazing stash crochet thread. I thought about trees and flowers, eventually deciding it'd be fun to crochet a sun and then use patch to mend the bag. ( This is the result )

2008 has been a pretty good year. Starting allergy shots has given my overall health a boost and increased my energy level. I managed to do some gardening this summer and spent a fair amount of time working on my various crafting projects. This morning I wondered how many projects I completed this year and started a list. In no particular order:

• 42 birthday cards
• 21 Jayne Hats for the California Browncoats
• Jayne Hats for myself a select few others
• 3 cat beds
• Felted wool catmint-stuffed cat toys (fish, lobster claws, and mice)
• Summer purse and checkbook cover
• Santa hats (for jebra and myself)
• One hemp market bag
• Two small hemp bags for storing my cellphone accessories
• Five hats
• Eight scarves
• Two boxes for craft storage and transport ( shown here, under the cut )

I had a migraine either last Thursday or the Thursday before. I knew I should have written down the time and date in my PDA as soon as I got to work, but I didn't and now I can't recall when I had it. This was the first full blown migraine I can recall having in the past ten years, so I wonder what triggered it. I'm lucky in that all of my migraines have been strictly optical. (No pain. Just visual phenomenon.)

Yesterday jebra and I spent the entire afternoon working in the yard. He trimmed the shrubs in front of the house and pruned our beech. I raked leaves and chipped yard waste. Fifteen bags worth.

After working the yard and getting cleaned up, I came inside and relaxed on the couch. I did some knitting and watched an episode of Columbo with jebra and mbumby. While she was here, I asked her to model the hat I'd made the other week. It's child-sized and wouldn't fit on my head. She found it a tight fit, but managed to get it on her head. I also finished the market bag I made for myself. Pictures under the cut.

Today we celebrated an early Thanksgiving with friends. In a shocking turn of events, I was put to work in the kitchen. I peeled apples, then later the sweet potatoes. When I wasn't working with the peeler, I was either knitting or crocheting. I'm working on two more scarves. I'd hoped to finish the crochet one today, but I ran out of yarn.

( Click here )

On Labor Day I harvested the cat mint growing in my yard. Earlier this week I made a variety of wool fish-like objects. I crocheted a shark, knit two fish, and cut up an old sweater that I had previously felted and made a large school of felt fish. Last night I put all of them through the washer and dryer. After work tonight I stripped the cat mint leaves and flowers from the stems, stuffed it into the felt fish, and sewed them shut.

This task was made more difficult by Hector and Hamish, who would not leave me alone. Not that I can blame them, the aromatics from the cat mint were undoubtedly very strong. I gave them the shark as soon as I was done with it and they played with it for a surprisingly long time. They'd probably still be playing with it, but they managed to fling it underneath my office door and they can't reach it.

( Click here to see the scrapbook page )

On Labor Day I harvested the cat mint growing in my yard. Earlier this week I made a variety of wool fish-like objects. I crocheted a shark, knit two fish, and cut up an old sweater that I had previously felted and made a large school of felt fish. Last night I put all of them through the washer and dryer. After work tonight I stripped the cat mint leaves and flowers from the stems, stuffed it into the felt fish, and sewed them shut.

This task was made more difficult by Hector and Hamish, who would not leave me alone. Not that I can blame them, the aromatics from the cat mint were undoubtedly very strong. I gave them the shark as soon as I was done with it and they played with it for a surprisingly long time. They'd probably still be playing with it, but they managed to fling it underneath my office door and they can't reach it.

( Click here to see the scrapbook page )

I finally finished a few items to donate to homespunhelpers:



(Click on the thumbnail for the big version of the scrapbook page.)