First post of 2013!

Yeah I know - I'm a little behind on things. That's because I did a whole lot of N.O.T.H.I.N.G. on my time off. Nothing piled on top of nothing. Glorious! (A bit of exercise excepted. I had to make up for slacking off earlier in the month so I stuck to THAT at least.) So it's been a bit of a slog since Wednesday catching up on things: Def Con 5 house cleaning, errand running, end of year business stuff (ENDLESS), etc. Every time I think I am getting close to being done, I find another 3-4 things to add to my to-do list. Grrr.

I'm starting to see some real progress now on my 'list' though and everything is back up for sale in the Bead Shoppe and Etsy, so yay for that! Tweaks are still needed to some things but that will come in time. All the Christmas stuff is now packed away too, which makes me feel better. I added some super cute things to my decorations this year, like this Williraye nativity set and a super-cute Stovepipe hat snowman. 

Do I need any more snowman for my collection? No, but I couldn't resist him! (Also got a big WOOD hanging that looks just like him for hanging outside. *love* At least I keep the snowman out (or most of them) until spring so I get a decent amount of usage out of them. :)

I did keep myself busy during my off time though - and not just with eating shortbread cookies. (Of which I did. A lot. Like......A LOT, A LOT. *sigh*) There was a flurry of book reading (6-7 finished!) and gift knitting and even a little knitting for myself. I finished a pair of socks for my mother but the quick pic I took of them is terrible so I'm not going to post it. She loved them so that is all that matters. These FoxHall gloves for the hubby were a big hit too:

The pattern includes an option to make a 'pop top' finger for texting (as seen in the bottom pic) and, I tell you what, I get major geeky points for putting that in. MAJOR. :)

I also made myself a hat too but, ugh, just don't like it all. (Thank you Monkee for being my model.) It was a kit (pattern + yarn) for a Habitat hat from Brooklyn Tweed and the pattern is quite lovely but I've got a serious case of the 'dislikes' over the yarn. Looks great, very warm but.......it's sooooooooo stiff. Almost as if it were already felted? I think knitting up jute twine would be about as joyful as this was....FOR ME. I like more bounce, more elasticity, more drape, more SOMETHING. All I know is it is not for me as far as FEEL. (There is no doubting it LOOKS fantastic.) When I take 5 days to whip up a simple hat with CABLES - which I LOVE to do - then you know something is wrong.

The pom-pom was my attempt to make me feel better about it. (Didn't work.) Also, I just wanted an excuse to buy some fancy-pants (but not at all expensive) pom-pom makers. Nothing happier-making than a good pom-pom session. :)

Sooooooooooo, I bought some cheap-o, plain jane, Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool (a classic!) and started another  hat. (Pattern is called Wurm. Heh.) It feels like it SHOULD so I am happy. (Alas, this hat also doesn't fit Monkee. Poor hatless Monkee!)

Oh well. That should do for now. I thoroughly enjoyed everyone's posts over the holidays - seeing all the wonderful decorating, projects and family pictures! Can't get enough of it. I even got to spend some time browsing Pinterest - which I hadn't done in ages. I really can't get enough of seeing all the inspiring things people come up with! Here's to an even bigger and better year this year!! :)

New new new.

Firstly, I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. :)

I'm not a mother but I didn't want to feel left out so I made myself a nice home-cooked 'mother's day breakfast'. lol (It was YUMMY too!) And then I was busy for the rest of the afternoon doing lots and lots of housework and food shopping. Hmph. (That part wasn't as fun.) The weather was just PERFECT perfect perfect though and I did manage to enjoy a bit of it out on the deck, doing my nails and chillaxing with a book.

I also finished a new stitchy!

This was the Shepherd's Bush kit that came out a couple months ago. Quick stitch and even quicker to finish. I went digging in my fabric stash and, shockingly, found something that closely matched the chenille trim that came with the kit. (Shocking because I don't have too many fabrics in the purple-mauve-plum tones in my stash.)

Not too cool? The chenille trim didn't fit the piece. 

!@#$!@#!@#$!@#!@#!@#

Disappointing because the kit instructions call for cutting the square to 8 inches and I actually cut it to 6 - so by my reasoning I should have had EXTRA trim, not fallen an inch short of it. Grrrr.

The gap is on the bottom so it's not really noticeable but it's going to bother me knowing...it's...there...mocking....me. I'm going to email them and see if they can send me out another piece. If they don't have any extras, I'll hit up the lovely Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe for some other chenille trim. I'll get 'er done one way or the other. :)

Also new, some new beads are up on the shoppe pages and Etsy:

(Plus others.)

I also spent a little time redoing the front page of my web site. Always good to spruce things up once and again. I get bored with it so I have to think OTHER people get bored with it too. lol

There's more work to be done to it, I think, but I'm done with it for the moment while I think on it. I'm no pro when it comes to html and style sheets and blah blah blah geekspeak so I have to move carefully and slowly and to get where I want to go and my brain is melted after this first go round.

Oh happy happy weekend!

And it's nice and SUPER sunny too, which is ALWAYS a mood booster this time of year. :)

 Hard at work this week on adding little goodies on the site/Etsy for Valentine's and spring. Ahhhh, spring! It won't hit here until May but one gets tired of working on nothing but snowmen after awhile. (Still no snow here though. Haven't had a single flake since Halloween, which is totally crazy! I really don't remember if we've ever had a winter with NO snow before?!?)

Also: finished my 'Christmas' hat this week. Yay!!! Another WIP killed, only one left to tackle now. Nothing like being two three weeks late and stuff with the christmas knits, eh? But it's just for the hubs so he can deal.*snort* 

(He *did* get a pair of mittens and socks that made into his stocking for Xmas so I wasn't TOTALLY off the ball here.)

The pattern is called Snowbird (check Ravelry for links) that I purchased from the Stitches East show in 2010. It's pretty funny looking when you are wearing it, to be honest, but this is the same man who goes around the yard in a humongous rabbit fur hat - complete with ear flaps - when shoveling, etc. so at least nothing DIED for this one. :(

Of course, I find ALL winter hats slightly ridiculous in a vague, make-me-chuckle type of way, so it might just be me.

He wanted to have something he could wear to work so I did it in the color palate of his uniforms/work clothing - though he still can't actually be caught wearing it on work grounds, they're so so so so picky about such things. *sigh*  He'll have to save it for when he is working away from work - if that makes sense - but that comprises 98% of his work day so it's all good. The double layer of wool will be nice and toasty for working outdoors all day. :)

The only change I made was to make the inside brim in the same wool (Cascade Superwash) as the rest of the hat instead of doing it in cotton like the pattern suggested. Hates knitting with cotton. Hates it. *shudder*

I'm getting a little tired of doing nothing but colorwork project after project after project but I still have a pair of colorwork mittens that needs some thumbs so once more into the breach....................After that is done though I'm digging into some serious STITCHING. I WILL FINISH SOME ORNAMENTS THIS YEAR. WILL. I WILL. I WILL.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend!!!!!!!!!

Boo Hoo Hoo. I haz a sad.

A moment of silence, please, for my dearly departed kiln:

8/2002 - 8/2011

Oh, I'm sure he will rise from the dead at some point when I can track down a couple new parts for him but for now he's DOA, having quit on me (of course) when I was smack-dab in the middle of a huge stack of orders. *sigh*

So I am kiln-less at the moment and awaiting a whole new one to find it's way to me hopefully within a week. It took some honest-to-god pitiful begging on my part to find someone who could build me another one *this* weekend because no one but no one has these babies sitting on a shelf ready to go, it seems. It's kind of nauseating to see '2-4 weeks to ship' over and over and over again when you need one like, OMG YESTERDAY. So I have week off from bead making while things are in motion and I think I need it to help alleviate my stress levels.

Anyhoo. I have grand plans for my upcoming 'unemployment' aka forced unpaid vacation like:

• catching up on six months/eight inch high stacks of paperwork. *ahem*
• work on the site/Etsy in regards to Halloween/Xmas stuff so it's ready to go when the new kiln is here
• no-excuses-anymore regular exercise.
• no-excuses-anymore down and dirty housecleaning
• track down some parts for the broken kiln so I will have a back-up in the future
• oh, and all the usual not-at-all productive type things in the larger sense like knitting, finally finishing the Dance with Dragons book, etc.

 First up in the non-productive type thing is to finish this pair of mittens I started this week:

I think I had planned for these to be a Xmas gift for the hubby last year but he ended up with just the skeins of yarn in his stocking. Heh. On the bright side, I am now on schedule to make a grand debut of them for *this* year's Xmas stocking. :)

And my personal 2011 Sock challenge socks for July are fini so it's time to cast on for a pair for August. (I'm thinking a pair of candy-corn-ish striped pair of Jaywalkers. Mmm.) The yarn - Lornes Laces - and pattern - Boysenberry Yo - are exclusive to the Cookie A Sock Club and were a fun knit.Vaguely reminiscent of a feather-and-fan pattern.

I can't tell you HOW MUCH I am enjoying this sock club this year. I've joined a bunch of sock clubs over the years and this is the first one where I have not only used the yarn/patterns as they came in but I've used them TOGETHER. Usually you like the yarn but not the pattern or you don't like how they look together, but this one has been just perfect with each shipment. I think we just have one more shipment to go, in November, and then it's done. *sad*

New beads and a new GIVEAWAY.

First things first, I posted a few new things up today including a couple 'new baby' sets. 

Is a 6 toed footprint bead weird? I think it is but I couldn't squeeze 10 toes on a 15mm lentil very neatly. Or consistently. (AND I have to do it on both sides of the bead!) So I took a little creative license and went with the more aesthetically-pleasing-and-easier-to-make-but-clearly-alien-baby route of 6 toes. Alien babies for the win.

Now on to the giveaway part.......

I have a bigger and bigger pile of 'extra' beads growing on my work desk here and it's getting ridiculous (or has been ridiculous for a long time and is now becoming RE-DONK-U-LOUS) so I pulled together a big bag of them to giveaway to whoever wants them.

It seems so unassuming in bag form, doesn't it?

Oh, but when it spills out.....................hello beady glassy shiny goodness! These are extras, a couple are plain ole wonky but most are what I would call 'pretty good'. (There are 4-5 Fairies in here too! AND a sterling silver cored Pandora bead!!)

Don't feel you have to have a PURPOSE for them to enter the giveaway either. Out-and-out bead hoarders just for the sake of hoarding are always welcome. :)

The deets:

1. To enter the giveaway all you have to do is email me. ( I will ship it anywhere in the world so everyone is welcome to enter.)

2. If you are a follower of this blog, let me know and I will enter your name in twice. I do so appreciate my followers and the comments I get here so of course you guys get extra special attention. :)
(If you are not a follower but want to be, just click the 'follow' link on the right side bar. Everybody has a Google account at this point................right?)

3. I will draw the winner next MONDAY because it's summer and it will give more people a chance to enter. (I know we're not all on the computer 24/7 once the sun is shining.)

And that's it. Easy-peasy, right? :)
GOOD LUCK!

Lots of housekeeping going on this week.

Sadly, not the kind of housekeeping that involves my actual house. *sigh*

I mean housekeeping of the web site. All of the snow peoples and Santas and penguins are put away for the season. (A few are still up on Etsy for the time being because they are still selling on there but I suspect those will be gone by the end of the month too.)

   

In it's place I redid all the bunnies and hearts and carrot offerings so those are all ready for primetime again. 

I am, however, also working on some new things in between working on orders. I've just been stringing them up as I go but I need to start making sense of it soon and seeing what can be put into sets,etc. Hopefully I figure some of it out this weekend! :)

New item up in the Bead Shoppe today.

Or rather - an old item that I haven't offered for a long time but it's getting some new attention because there is currently an article featuring Lori Anderson of Lori Anderson Designs in the current Bead Style magazine and one of the pictures in her article has these lil guys in it. It's been fun doing them up again! I never stopped doing them because I didn't like them - I just felt I had a lot of holiday beads that were redundant so I cut my catalog down a bit the last couple of years. (You know I'm always happy making things with little beady eyes.) Be sure to check out her site even if it's just to bask in the glow of the eye candy. :)

In other news, my computer is now fixed..................maybe. The third thing I tried to fix it, a check disk thingy, actually repaired the stupid ntuser file causing all the problems, though it took forrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrever to do it. (Probably a good sign I need to clean my hard drive off a bit. I guess I don't need to save EVERY SINGLE picture I ever take ever ever ever.) So that was good but, ummmm, I've been too a'skeered to shut my computer off since then so I'm not sure what will happen when I do. lololol It may just be a temporary fix, you know? I know I'll have to shut it off at SOME point and see what happens, because there might be something still 'off' that will just REcorrupt that file but for the MOMENT I'm quite content to live in DenialLand. I've had a ton of orders lately which is a ton of emails, a ton of printing of receipts and shipping labels, etc. I can't be fooling with a 2hr repair job every day!  So for now I'm just putting it to 'sleep' at night. I might need a 12-step to get me to shut it off completely because it's turning into a bit of a phobia. OH NOES, COMPUTER TROUBLES IMMINENT, SAVE ME SAVE ME.

Gah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Emails, etc. may be delayed as my computer is totally totally FUBARed today.
(I'm currently on my husband's netbook, which is not set up for my email or printing - which is ok for internet browsing, not so great for doing my bead biz stuff. *sigh*)

My pc user profile was corrupted and I'm finding out now that having only one user account on your pc is a bad idea. Because if you corrupt your administrator account, well, you are in deep do-do. OH HAI THERE, YOU COULDN'T HAVE FOUND A WAY TO GET THIS INTO MY HEAD SOMEHOW LIKE YEARSSSSSSSSSSS AGO??????????
I thought having only one user account meant that my marriage was 'open' and very trusting because we had no need to hide anything from one another so OF COURSE we only needed one computer 'user'. My passwords are his passwords and la la la aren't we all modern and Share-y McShare-atons and shit? WHOOPS. BAD ME. Now I get to try and recreate everything from scratch from the last 2 years from when we bought this computer. *le sigh* (Because seemingly easy copy/paste/restore/backup functions don't seem to be working. Nothing ever goes as it should when it comes to computer problems though, right? That's par for the course. lol)

Oh well, I'm off to browse pretty stitchy/yarny pr0n blogs while waiting for a seemingly endless check disk thingy to finish in an attempt to sooth my soul before I have to start trying to repair stuff again. Wish me luck! :)

Halloweenies are up!

Finally!!!!!!  I had to make things difficult for myself and totally redid the Bead Shoppe, separating things into categories and making new graphics and redoing a lot of the pictures to make them all matchy-matchy. My arms are about ready to fall off from all hours I put into it. (Now if I were a SMRT girl, I would get started on the Xmas/winter stuff NOW a little a time so it will be ready to go in a month or so without a big rush to get it all done at once, right? RIGHT?) I think I like it..........so far. It's so hard separating things into categories and figuring out what goes where. You have to draw the line somewhere so you don't end up with 999 categories but then you have to stop yourself from listing the same thing here and there and here, making it completely redundant and pointless. So hopefully I didn't overdo it. I tried to hold back so it wouldn't turn into a big confusing mess. :)

So anyway. Lots and lots of new beads up. Halloween/fall is my favorite season so I always go overboard with it. Never get enough of working with the oranges, greens, blacks, purples, etc. :)

I should have some new beads up tomorrow.

Or maybe on Monday. *snort* But definitely one of those days because I have a bunch done up and they are just sitting here waiting to be 'released' into the wild. :) I need to get back to regular postings of things. Or at least try, right?

I started/finished up my first shawl this week. I didn't plan for this yarn (Noro Sock) to be a shawl but I bought it online and was pretty hateful towards it when it came in. It's way, way, waaaaaay too scratchy for socks. There is just no way anyone would want this anywhere near their feet. Ever. It's horrible as sock yarn. HORRIBLE. But, as always with Noro, the colors blends are just beautiful. So I did a little digging on Ravelry for other projects people had used it for and came up with this simple Feather and Fan shawl:

It's kind of on the 'mini' side as far as shawls go but that's fine because I don't know that my wardrobe of non-stop jeans/t-shirts really screams "NEEDS A SHAWL". I'm more of a scarf person. So I'm thinking of this more as an 'ample' scarf. A scarf with a little junk in the trunk, if you will. Course it's still horrible feeling so I'm not sure I even want it near my neck either..............but that's neither here nor there, I guess. lol Thank god I'm a process knitter so I don't get TOO hung up on finished results that aren't 'perfect'. You can't expect something too big out of one skein of sock yarn, you know? I was lucky in that I timed my repeats *jussssssssst* right because this how much yarn I had left over:

Pretty nifty, yes?

LOST was too spoiler-y too even mention anything about it so I'll just say I felt like this at the end of this week's episode and leave it at that:

Have a great weekend, y'all!! :)

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.

This will primarily be a LOST post...

But first I should note that the web site is currently down while the host does a server update. It should be back up shortly. *fingers crossed*

So onward to LOST.............


This week's episode was just so much !@#$!@#$!@#$@ for me. I just *heart* Desmond the most of everyone on the show. His pathos is so uncomplicated in a lot of ways in comparison to the Oceanic peeps. His destiny is to be with Penny and that's pretty much it. No complicated daddy issues, or criminal issues, or does he love her or her or HER issues (a la Jack/Kate/Sawyer). He's not a douche (*cough* Jack). He doesn't make me angry with his constant *I'm oh so constipated* face (*ahem* looking at you Kate). His story is very simple at it's core and I love him, my bruthaaaaaaaa, for it.

I may have screamed just a little during the "not Penny's boat" scene. Just a little OMFG MY MIND IS GOING TO EXPLODE scream. Can't wait for the beta-verse to keep bleeding into the alpha-verse. It's just crazy fun. Go Desmond, go.

!@#$!@#

OMG THE RAIN WON'T FREAKING STOP AND I'M READY TO JUST QUIT THIS SHIT, MAN

 There, I feel a little better ONLY NOT REALLY.
The water is just bubbling up now downstairs in between the tiles all over the place and the rug half of the room (where I do my torching) is soaked soaked soaked. A soggy squishy drippy mess. It's disgusting. I keep running the rug machine over it to suck it up but it makes no difference. You can literally do it for an hour, get a couple gallons out of it, and the water doesn't ever stop coming. I'm waiting for him to come home from work so we can wrestle the 234234234 lb. solid oak entertainment center onto wood blocks or something because that's in the process of sucking up water too. *YOU* CAN SUCK IT  MOTHER NATURE.

And to add insult to injury, after I started having my current freak out about the state of things downstairs, Nitwit came along and puked twice right in the middle of things. (I refrained from kicking her but will admit to screaming I HATE YOU I HATE YOU HATE YOU HATE YOU like a banshee at her. What? Don't look at me like that - it's not like she UNDERSTANDS ENGLISH. If that's not working for her I can harness her to top of the rug machine and she can SHARE THE WORKLOAD with me instead.)

I have orders to do too and I'll be damned if I'm going to be cowed by no freaking water so I have to suck it up (HARDY HAR HARRRRRR) and work in the midst of it. If I don't post again after this it's because I electrocuted myself. ACCIDENTALLY OR ON PURPOSE - YOU BE THE JUDGE.

New Year, new beads!

Go me for starting the year off with at least a stab at productivity after taking a few weeks off. (I figure this kind of thing can only last about a month before I lose steam though. I mean new beads, new Etsy *and* a giveaway all in one fell swoop? Mark the date because it may never happen again. lol)

I've got a few new things up in the Bead Shoppe (though, admittedly, not as many as I hoped but there is always next week):

 

I also had a good time sorting through my bead box to come up with some sets to offer up at huge discounts. (And I do mean HUGE.) I put them all up on Etsy because these are all 'one offs' i.e. no redos on these. (And, as always, I will combine the shipping if you have more than one order. One shipping charge covers everything!)

Etsy Buy Handmade moonrakerbeads

And something new for this month - a GIVEAWAY. Because we all like free stuff. Spend $35 or more over the course of the entire month and you will be entered into a free giveaway for this little set:

No need to keep track of anything or send me an email on it, etc. I'll tally everything up on the 1st of February and contact you by your Paypal email to let you know you won. (International customers are also included!)

New for 2010

(Ignoring the fact that I'm a wee bit early here.....)

I've added an RSS feed for my bloggy bits. I've been loathe to do this for ages, for many different reasons, the primary being that it draws people away from your site, which is not really desirable when you are trying to sell products on that site, yes? To that end, I'll either have to change my blogging style to incorporate more links to my site (I know - waaaaaahhhhhhh! OH-SO-DIFFICULT-IT-IS) or I might end up posting a subject line only to the RSS feed as a teaser with a link back to the site to get the full entry. (A lot of food bloggers do this and I have mixed feelings on it. I find myself not reading them as much after they've done that but, from what I can gather, they also do it to drive more people to their actual site vs. just having a bunch of anonymous people skimming their stuff on Google reader. Pros and cons to it, I guess.)

I've tried to figure out how to embed a blog w/a feed on the main page of my site but, invariably, about 3 minutes into my research on it my eyes start to glaze over and I feel a coma start to come on from the icky-picky technicality of it all. (I'm not sure I have enough qualification on such matters to say that it's a difficult thing to do but I think the fact that I've yet to see a single Pappashop-hosted site with an rss-feed blog embedded on a page speaks for itself. Such sites probably do exist but I have to think it's pretty rare. It goes beyond your average click-and-drag html skill set, that's for sure.)

But I'm sure I'm not the only one who adores their RSS feeds so I guess I should get with the program and get one myself. I love love love love my Google reader. It's stuffed full of food bloggers, knit bloggers, political bloggers, everyday bloggers, tv industry stuffs, on and on and on. It's not unusual for me to open it up in the morning and have 100+ posts to dig through. Do I read it all? Hardly. I skim like a mofo. lol I treat it like a magazine. My own personally designed, totally 100% free,  magazine labeled ME. I read the parts that look interesting and skim through the rest. It's a good thing. :)