Well that week FLEW by! Always the worst part of taking a week off - the CATCHING UP you have to do when you get back to real life.  

SOMEONE had a 17th birthday the other day. (Hint: it wasn't me.)

Thanks so much for the kind comments about my poor boo-boo kitty. He perked up a bit mid-week and seems mostly back to normal now, or at least his 'normal'. As his brain started healing though the 'must eat everything sight' switch got turned off again and I'm now back to trying to coax him into eating all day. He really, really, really hates the kidney diet prescription food. Like, really hates it. What's the point of food to extend his life a little if he's going to starve to death in the meantime? I keep trying to stick with it (and have for over a year) but at this point I think we have to concede that we are both terrible at sticking to a diet. I can't blame him for being happy with bits of ham or cheese. Aren't we all?

Anyhoo, I'm trying to catch up on photos, photos, photos. I keep taking photos of things but then never posting them. Grrr. I actually did manage to finish a few things on break, that I was very glad to get finished and off to the great Finish Bin in the sky, I mean my closet.

 God I really don't like these socks. I started them in January and JUST finished them, so that right there tells you how disinterested I was in them. I took a skein of yarn I really didn't care for (too thin and splitty) and paired it with a slip stitch pattern that I also didn't care for (because it's a TERRIBLE CHOICE FOR A SPLITTY YARN) and GUESS WHAT? They were a miserable knit from start to finish and I will forever be shocked AND awed that I finished them. (In my defense though I picked that pattern because it helped alleviate the thinness of the yarn. It creates an almost woven fabric that adds bulk.)

 Also finished: the bonus charts from the L*K mystery sampler that I started last summer. Very much not miserable to finish and I'm glad I finally got to it because these are cute and I love Halloween stitchies. :)

 And a bunch of totally unphotogenic Scrap Yarn Blanket of Doom squares. I needed something mindless and quick to start/finish to clear my head of the oogie-boogies from the stupid socks. Blanket square I can finish in 90 minutes? YES PLEASE. I think I'm up to 8 new squares now to add to this never ending, not even CLOSE TO BEING FINISHED project because I'm still having fun doing up new ones. Once I get a bunch, like a dozen, I'll wash and block them so they look pretty and totally not like wadded up Kleenex. :)

To 'reward' myself for finishing a stitchy wip I did up a brand-spanky new-to-me small one. I randomly picked colors for this Val's Stuff freebie and think it came out pretty good. (Though I curse you Belfast green linen for always being IMPOSSIBLE to photograph nicely. What is it with this color??? So pretty in person SO HORRIBLE ON THE INTERNETS.) Could use some more contrast in the nose but I can live with it. Original pattern doesn't chart a flower or bunny tail but it's pretty easy to put them in. (Can't have a bunny without a TAIL?!?)

Now that that is done I reached into the nether regions of my wip stack (also known as my storage ottoman in the living room where things go to die a lonely death) and pulled out another wip to tackle. Oh, how optimistic I was when I happily stitched in the year 2012 on this!!! Twice. *face palm* Oh well. 2012, 2013. Isn't time just an illusion anyway? How can be sure that ANY sampler with a date stitched in is correct, right? So I'm keeping the 2012. And don't be thinking I'm almost done with this because there is whole other section of frames that go on the bottom of this. I originally abandoned this because - SURPRISE SURPRISE - I made a little boo-boo with the border and one of those borders is off a little. And ripping out black floss is miserable so I put it in time out. I think I'm mostly over it now though. Aside from talking about my failure on the internets, of course. lol

Whew. Now I'm all caught up I think, aside from adding these to my project pages. Yay!! :)

Happy May Day!

 In my usual scan of various news sites and blogs this morning,  I've already come across that May is the National Burger Month, National Mental Health Awareness Month and National Masturbation Month. Sooo..........yeah. Busy month, it seems! (One of those came from Bobby Flay's twitter feed............I'll leave it to you to guess which one it was. lol)

Things have been busy busy the last week! Not much time for projects and that sort of thing I'm afraid. I did manage to grab The Most Awesomest Sneakers in the world though. I'll show them to you but, first, put on a pair of sunglasses.............ready?..................

Oh yeah, baby! 

The color isn't *quite* right there though...........

Yep. That's more like it. 

If you think I don't plan on wearing these with my equally-eye-searing neon orange capri jogging pants..........YOU WOULD BE WRONG. (That's me - standing up for the unloved colors with PRIDE.) They are light as a feather - literally. Just 7.6 ounces! I've already put about 12-15 miles on them and it's two thumbs up all the way. Sorry to be so EXCITED but I literally can't remember the last time I had a pair of 'regular' sneakers. Ages and ages and AGES. I usually go more for the hiking/trail type shoe or sandal. Plan on wearing them out with the walking. Zoom, zoom, zoom!

Got those when I was SUPPOSED to be shopping for wedding clothes. My bad. Easily distracted shopper here. *waves arms* Did manage to get an outfit though and be properly dressed in the end. 

The wedding was in Boston, which was a treat as I haven't been to that city in yearsssssssss. Easily over a decade! The ceremony was at the Public Gardens by the Swan Boats which was pretty but, New England being New England, the weather wasn't ENTIRELY cooperative. (It was about 50 degrees and SUPER windy. Brrrr!) Strangely enough, I have *ANOTHER* thing to go to this week in Boston as well. Funny how that works! Haven't been there in ages and now I'm going twice in one week! 

 I managed to score three tickets for a Red Sox game this week so we have that on Friday. FUN! I've been to a ton of 'farm team' games (grew up within a stone's throw of McCoy stadium) but I've never been to FENWAY. I don't actually watch baseball or, uhhhhh, know any players names or anything but I always LOVE going to see something live regardless. I'm weird like that. There's something about the 'realness' of it that I find  immensely entertaining, while on tv it just bores me to death. lol 

HUGE THANKS to Carol and Lori for the gifties that I received from them in the last week!!!!

 I won this adorable little bunny chart from Carol..........

And the yarn was a wonderful surprise from Lori. (Which I immediately caked up and started working on, as you can see.)

THANK YOU BOTH and *MWAH*

My bad.

I think I forgot there for a couple weeks that I have, like, a blog and stuff. And I should, I dunno, like.........USE it or something. lol

I have been keeping myself busy OFFline though! :)

There have been a few new beads posted:

I am making good headway on the long, long, long list of WIP stitching projects I have started or kitted up around the hosue:

An Ewe & Friends Roly-Poly Snowman. 

I had this kitted up for so long that I probably had 75% less wrinkles and gray hair when I first put it together. *cough* Finished it up in FOUR nights. (What the heck was wrong with me that I let it go so long??) I think I want to finish this up as cube. Hmm......

Some Midnight Stitching cutie-pie snowman hearts started last winter. 

I actually finished up a pinker version of the right one last winter but I ended up HATING the fabric it was on (too holey) so I restitched it on a better fabric and did it with a different red too, because I love deep reds. 

A trio of Bent Creek minis. 

(The third one, a wee little house, was downstairs when I was picture taking and if you think I was going to  haul off and go down two flights of stairs to get it in the interests of doing a blog post, well then, you don't know me very well. My sedentary nature knows NO BOUNDS.)

I'm loving my new most-favoritest nail polish (all new polish automatically becomes my most-favoritest, you know that, right?)

He gifted me the OPI from his visit to the hair salon last week and it's the perfect shade of green for this lime-loving gal. (Matches my pocketbook, my iPhone cover, AND my Fire cover! lol) Paired with an iridescent top coat? Totally springalicious! Like a perfect, glittery easter egg. I may be stuck on this combo for a while. (The top coat is clear with an iridescent micro-glitter - not white like it looks like here.)

Trying to get back into reading every day again. Currently on tap:

This one just came out TODAY (or the Kindle version was just released, not sure about hard cover) but I had it pre-ordered and actually started it this morning. I have a friend who has been living in India for a couple years now (husband's job was moved there) so I'm not entirely ignorant of how things work there but I still fully expect to be horrified, frustrated, angry, depressed, interested, saddened and moved by this book.

Enh. Not loving this one. I'm giving it a few more chapters before I give it up entirely. (It's probably not the book - I'm just hit or miss on nonfiction.)

You're either a foodie or you're not and non-foodies can ignore this one. Personally, I love these collections because I love food blogs in general. And I like how most of the essays are short enough that you can pick one off here and there when you only have a little time to read.

Watching a whole of this:

I never got around to watching it when it was on air but it's on Netflix streaming so I'm picking it off, little by little while I'm working, etc. I can't say I LOVE IT but it's entertaining enough.

I just finished up season three last night and it doesn't seem possible that it had enough juice to get through three MORE seasons? Hmph. I'm not sure I'll make it all the way to the end, to be honest. /shrug

Whew! I think I'm all caught up on the goings on of late now. Nothing terribly exciting going on, to be honest. lol It may not be very snowy/stormy out this winter but it's still winter and it's still COLD and, therefore, still a little dreary and blah. Here's to spring and more interesting goings-on! :)

Toss Up Tuesday.

Got a little bit of this and that today: new beads, new stitchy, my new career (not really) and new floors.

New floors:

From sea to shining seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeea..

How much do I love this floor? It's pretty. It's shiny. And, most importantly, it's not carpet so it's clean, clean, clean! (Have I mentioned it's clean?) After a long winter of sick cats getting sick on the rugs and that whole 'blood sprayed on everything' mess, I never want to have another piece of carpet in my house. EVER. lol

(Don't spoil things by pointing out that the area rug is now a bulls eye target for everything tragic the cats can throw at me. DON'T. EVEN. GO. THERE.)

So the living room and long hall is done..................now we have to tackle the bedrooms. I'm a bit nauseous at the thought of having to pack up everything in this room (the office) to get it done though. There are 6778lbs. of stuff in/on this desk (a HUGE L-shape with a 5ft tall cabinet on the end), even more poundage of books on the 6ft. tall, double wide oak bookcase, etc. It's like moving in here all over again! lol And the desk/pc stuff will all have to be moved quickly and efficiently because I will need a lot of it back in place in record time so I can continue to do my bead work. (I'm good on the book thing at least because I just found a local church who will take book donations for their annual book sale in August. I see MUCH purging in the near future now that I found a 'new home' them.) Oh well. It will look fabulous when it's done so it will be worth all the work in the end. :)

New stitchy:

 

The last of the 3 framed pieces I did recently. Can you believe this frame was off the shelf? I can't! It was like it was made specifically for this piece. Now I just have to get these 3 pieces hung on the wall. I usually don't do more than a few framed pieces a year but Carol posted this AMAZING link  for affordable framing supplies and now I might have to go digging in my finishes to see about doing a couple more.

New career:

Not that this has to do with anything really, but I came across these cupcakes today and I swear when I see something like this I want to give up everything ASAP and make cupcakes for a living. I mean LOOK AT THEM. Who wouldn't want to decorate cupcakes all day? (My favorite Muppet has always been Beaker.)

New beads:

Soon to be posted: kitties. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The husband's car needs a new transmission part to the not so FA LA LA LA LA tune of $1600...and his car is not really worth fixing for that much. (It's basically just a workhorse for commuting a long distance. There's no point in having a really nice second car............it would be a huge waste of money.)

Ok, so uhhhhhhhh............worst month ever for this to happen? (Especially because on top of Xmas, this month also brings the renewal of our house/car insurance.)

Oh well. I'm still thankful because 1) $200 might be enough to cobble it together for a couple more months (*crosses fingers*) so we can shop carefully for the best used car deal in the meantime vs. having to buy the first thing we come across  and 2) he can always take my car to work for the time being if needed (to say I rarely use it myself is an understatement! heee heee hooo hoo! me? driving???).

He's been stressing over it these past two days and I had to remind him that we went through a period oh-so-long-ago when we first lived together where we had exactly ZERO money to our name and I drove a 15 year old $300 P.O.S. big ugly snot green car with NO FREAKING REVERSE and a plastic, taped in back window............FOR TWO YEARS!

(Did I mention it had NO REVERSE? That was..............interesting. :))

(And I needed a big fluffy pillow to help me see over the steering wheel because I'm teeny tiny.)

(And someone stole the equally P.O.S analog radio out of it...........right before they left an empty bottle of liquor under the front tire.........and a big pile of sick-up. *sigh* That was such a great neighborhood! Pfffft.)

Now that's car troubles. I think what we have now is closer to 'car annoyances'. lol

Ahhhh, my poor neglected lil blog. *pets*

Time does get away from you sometimes, doesn't it? I don't know where the days go lately. We did manage to make our annual trek this weekend to the Country Folk Art show in Sturbridge, MA, though, in the end, it was a tiny bit depressing.  :(

 We've (meaning *I* want to go and he gets dragged along, albeit in a very good natured way) been going to that show (or it's twin show in November) for at least 12-13 years in a row now and and the large majority of artisans are the same, year after year. This year, with the economy being the way it is, half (!!!!!!) the people were gone and the show was much smaller. It was a little painful to see. I don't buy a TON of stuff from the show but I always find something I really like or something I needed. (Depending, of course, on  your definition of *need*. lol) The year I wanted to get a hutch, I found a perfect one there. Made by ACTUAL PEOPLE. That you could talk to, person to person. Ditto for a three shelf vegetable bin and lots of other little decorative things. None of those people showed up this year. It was very disheartening. It wasn't all bad though. My beloved Sydney & Co. (no link) was there, so that was nice. They are a married couple who do nice primitive woodwork items, with very reasonable prices, that I've been buying here and there since forever. The company is named after a cat they used to own and each piece is marked with the stamp of a paw print somewhere on the back or bottom of the item. :)

I just happened to break my paper towel holder last week and I found a perfect one from them to replace it. And then I saw some clocks waaaaay up high (remember: I'm only 5 ft tall so EVERYTHING is 'way up high') and I got one of those too. I've been meaning to replace my mantel clock for a looooong time, to something a little nicer and something that matches a little better. This one fits just perfectly with everything up there and I love it. (The paper towel holder, a standing one, is very similiar, except the tree on that is more of a weeping willow.) I also got some new place mats for my dining room table from another long-time vendor and then a few wee Blossom Bucket figurines that I love dearly. I'M DOING MY PART, PEOPLES, TO PROP UP THE ECONOMY. Y'ALL GOTTA HELP OUT WITH IT. lol We don't always go to both shows every year but I've marked the November one off as a 'do' and hopefully things will be a wee bit better then? It's nice to think it will be so anyway. :)

I also have 'encouraged' the husband to work through his grief by shopping..........specifically for things for me. (This is all tongue in cheek, of course.) It's only natural and organic to want to buy things for others in such circumstances, right? ;^) To that end, he bought me a new purse when we went to the mall last week to see a movie. I saw these the last time I was there (and we're not mall people, really, so we're talking 3-4 times a year tops) and should have grabbed it then. I know not everyone loves stripes. In bold colors even.

 But is it any wonder I fell in love with this considering the many, many, MANY striped socks I have knit? Kinda a given, right? Hahaha. It's like a stripey sock.......FOR MY SHOULDER. ;)

(I do believe the "D&G" on the front is supposed to be a faux rendering of a Dolce & Gabbana? Any one??? I fail as a 'girl' on all sorts of levels, so my only exposure to 'fashionable' purses is from what's on the shelf at the local Target. lolol It was only $40 and it looks good and holds all mah crap so I'm happy.)

Holllllly heck I don't know where this week has gone. :(

Just POOF! and it's suddenly Friday? I need to make a to-do list for next week, methinks, so I don't get off track again and lose another week to the nothings. lol

Notable things for the week:

OMG NEW HP TRAILER.

What? You didn't watch this obsessively ten times in a row? Oh, maybe it was just me. lolol I even watched it a couple times on my tv to get the full 42-inch HD effect (because all hail the TiVo wireless service that streams all sorts of internets). I don't even know why I get so excited about these trailers because the movie is never ever even close as good as the books. I KNOW THIS and yet I still get excited. There is FiendFyre! And Shell Cottage! Walk in the Forest! Snake in a Old Lady! UGH. Is it November yet? lol

Hey, if someone's cell phone accidentally pants-dials you what do you do? Ignore it? Think the person in question has been kidnapped and get the state police and rescue services involved?

.......................Wait.....what? Yeah, welcome to my world. We went out to eat out-of-state the other night and the hubby's cell phone accidentally crank called his mother a few times while it was in his pocket. She took this to mean we had been abducted, like for REAL, and had 911 emergency services rushing out to our house like woahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Now you have to understand - this is a very quiet neighborhood. Very. Quiet. There is NO thru traffic on this street and I've only seen a police car once in my 7 years here and that was when One Eye John took ill. (His actual nickname - I swear I'm not making fun.) So when we got out of the restaurant there was a blizzard of voice mails from his mother, the Connecticut State Police and neighbors to deal with. CRAZY STUFF, man. And, per usual, we forgot to lock our sliding glass doors so I'm not even sure the police didn't come in the house on their own when no one answered the front door. Grrrrr. (Actually, we're lucky the front door was locked. I forget that one too sometimes. *sigh*) I'm glad to know that if something happened, people would notice but I'm not sure I needed firsthand knowledge of this. Hmph.

Sooooo, that's my crazy story for the week. Bet you can't top it. Here's hoping the holiday weekend is boring and drama free! lol

Have a great weekend, guys. :)

God, here's something I haven't thought about in FOREVERRRRRR.

Loop loom potholders!

I loved making these sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much when I was a kid. Totally forgot about them until I saw the latest post by The Felt Mouse which had a picture of some of them. I probably made well over a hundred of these suckers during the course of my childhood. lol (The nylon loops were 10 times better than the cotton ones too. Those cotton ones could be tricky at the end to bind off!)



I need another hobby like I need ANOTHER HOLE IN MY HEAD or I totally would get into weaving. On a 'real' loom. POTHOLDERS FOR GROWNUPS, ONLY IN THE SIZE OF SCARVES AND TABLE RUNNERS, OMG WANT WANT WANT. Gah!

In other news, no one is going to wrestle my World's Klutziest Woman crown from me anytime soon as I managed to pull a muscle in my back this morning by doing the incredibly difficult act of..................walking through my kitchen to get from one side of the room to the other.  WTF? Why do I always get hurt doing NOTHING? lol Something seized up like OW and now I have a ball of evil in the middle of my back, taunting me and poking me. Stoopid back!

I'm all random today. Sorry.

 **My brisket came out FABULOUS, if I must say so. (And who else around here is going to say it for me, right? lol) I ended up just making my own recipe out of a hodge podge of recipes that some of my favorite bloggers had posted/stuff I readily had on hand. It basically boiled down to: 1 cup ketchup, 1/2 bottle of chili sauce, 5-6 cloves of peeled/crushed garlic, TB of dry mustard, packet of onion soup mix, 1/4 cup of so of brown sugar, and 2 chipotle chilis (and a little of the adobe sauce they come in). Mix it up, marinade if you want, stick in the crock-pot on low for 8-10 hours. Skim off the fat when it's done and then reduce the sauce on it's own in a pan. Throw sauce over meat and eat. YUM! Only thing I would do differently? Add more chipotle peppers. Those things are killer hot (to me) but two didn't seem to give it any heat at all. At least not for a 5 1/2 lb. brisket. So MORE HOT PEPPERS next time. :)

**I would be a liar if I said I WASN'T desperately jealous at seeing this project that Mary Kathryn posted about the other day. This is so up my alley it makes me want to weep. It's incredibly detailed, endless, and epic in scale - what's not to love? I was halfway to figuring out how big a piece of linen I would need to do it myself before it dawned on me I needed a project like that like I needed a fork in the eye. WANT, BUT DO NOT NEED.Bye bye hundreds of colorful houses. *sniff*

(picture is from her flickr feed)

**I HAVE been trying to do some new beads for an update (which is long long long overdue). The problem? I'm so not into it, it's scary. I'm totally fine with doing custom orders because that seems to say 'do your job' to my head and I get to it but just doing stuff randomly on it's own? NOT FEELING IT THIS MONTH. But I'm doing a thing here and there so it will get done soon. Promise. :)

**I should do a bigger post on the nightmare about us trying to buy a new (HD) tv. The short story is: fell in love with tv, tv is too big for entertainment center, went shopping for new entertainment center, which cemented the decision that the rugs in the living room/hallway have to go and be replaced with a wood floor (continues what is already in the kitchen/dining), which led to discussions on expensive area rug to also buy. Is this normal? You start a debate about which tv to buy and you end up in a $4,000 hole? Or a theoretical hole as no money has actually been spent right now. We went through this last year when shopping for new couches and what did we end up with? NO COUCHES (STILL need those) but all new paint colors in 3/4's of the house to 'theoretically' match with the couches we liked. I feel like this time we're going to end up with new flooring (which actually *IS* needed) but no new tv. Which is no biggie because our current tv still works but we've had an HD TiVo for about 3 years now - with no HD tv. EPIC.FAIL.AT.SHOPPING.