The woolie weekend

What a great weekend! Weather, people, yarn, and the experience were all perfect. I had a great time volunteering and Kristi and I signed up already for next year. :) We had fun and I got to see Julie and Roni and meet lots of new people too. Somehow, I even got caught up in the Michigan game too. Saturday night Julie made awesome fried chicken and we hung out at Roni's with kids and grandkids...even some cousins came and went. Grand central!

A tidbit of bad news though, my digital camera died. More like fried. The LCD screen just shows psychedelic colors. So there may not be any photos to grace my words for awhile. Sorry. I did take lots of photos with the Rebel I borrowed for the festival, so you will get to see a few from the weekend....when I find them again.

We learned how to make mug rugs (coasters), the basics for making a Shepard's Rug. It is braided wool roving.

there were lots of temptations, but I was able to resist most. However, I did buy enough roving to make a rug. That saved me a lot of money considering I was waffling between a 24" rigid heddle loom and a spinning wheel! I have plenty to keep me busy for awhile, even if we have another 7 month winter.

I was exhausted by Saturday! I was in bed at 8:30 Saturday and Sunday and still dragging on Monday. I made it to my knitting group with my purchases. I taught one member how to spin with the spindle and another is interested. I think it is because they saw my personality change when I picked up my spinning last week. But I don't want to go there. I will say that no one was hurt and no yarn was harmed.

I still have some sleep to catch up on. A class to prepare for on Friday, a bunch of books to read, roving to braid, and yarn to knit. Argh!

10/1 - Photos from our Shepard's Rug class. Kristi was imitating Princess Leah too, but I didn't get that on film. :)

Pre NML&W Festival weekend

Another quick post. Work was busy as usual. The weather has been warm all week and I am getting plenty of hammock time (like Hammer time).

I have been insanely looking forward to this weekend for a long time and finally it is here! It is finally the last weekend in September and it is time for the Northern Michigan Lamb & Wool Festival! I had so much fun last year.

This morning, I am sipping my coffee in my new, organized studio and checking my Ravelry email. One of my favorite vendors sent me a message saying she has reserved some free yarn for me! It matches the yarn she gave me last year that I made the wonderful tunic style sweater from, the golds/browns. This is a nice way to start my morning, you rock Rita!

This afternoon, after my chiro appt, I will be heading to the fairgrounds in West Branch for pre-game photos of the vendors setting up their booths. I will be pretty scarce this weekend as I have volunteered for pre and all during the 2 day festival. I don't have much money to spend, so I thought volunteering might be the way to go.

I will obviously be taking lots of photos, so you may feel like you were there too. I will post some here, and maybe even have a couple taken of me! Someone mentioned they wanted to see Cari's artwork (my new do).

more later...

Quickie:

Tonight is knit night, so this has to be a quick update to my blog.

I spent yesterday doing laundry and visiting with relatives. Julie and Ron made it to town without incident and M&L invited me to dinner at the Beaver Club. It was a beautiful day and the colors are very evident out there. No bear, but we kept a lookout.

Sadie chased chipmunks and I was a bad mom and left her outside and ignored her.

We played the mexican train game and ate Texas longhorn steaks - yummm! Margaret said she had never seen me eat so much. Fried potatoes and green beans from the garden topped me off.

Here are a couple photos for those of my readers that don't actually read the blog, they just look at the pretty pictures.

I was contacted by the volunteer committee again today - they had a request from a teacher for help. It was my spinning teacher from last year! If you look back to my very first blog post, it has a picture of me with my very first wheel spun yarn. I had contacted her shortly after that class for private lessons, but something always came up - mostly the money thing. I have kept in touch with her and told her way back to ask for me if she needed help. It will be fun! And a refresher course. Although, I am very happy spinning with the drop spindle for now. I have to build my savings up again! Spinning wheel $600 = drop spindle $10. Easy math!

Lazy day

Another beautiful day up north. It was warmer than yesterday, but rain threatened all day. It thundered, became overcast and sprinkled, but nothing more.

I spent some time spinning on the deck this morning while drinking my coffee. Then it was warm enough to climb in the hammock for a couple hours. Another relaxing day.

Traci called while I was camped in the hammock. They still did not have power. They have water as of Thursday night. (Something about a mud plain. I will have to find out what a mud plain has to do with whether you have water or not without power.) Power is scheduled to be on by Monday, but they are about 4 days behind other estimates. I went to the Houston Chronicle website again today and their neighborhood and zip code are powering up slowly, and even up and down again.

Good news is that they are still going to celebrate Ali's birthday in the limo tonight. They had to change plans at the last minute but you will hear all about that in her blog. All the schools are still closed and their office is still a intact echo chamber (no one there) running on generators. She mentioned she has LOTS of photos and will be posting them to her blog when power returns. They do not have internet without power and their cell phone service is sporatic - both text and voicemail are delayed or lost. It was good to hear her voice on the phone today after days of not hearing from them.

It started to thunder while we spoke so I had to high tail it to get all the cushions put away and move back into the house. And of course, no rain materialized after all. I did start spinning again but guilt overcame me and I picked up my knitting after dinner to work on Christmas presents. Any requests? Make them small! I am a slow knitter!

I made it into town on Friday to visit with Mom and Dad. Dad and I ate popcorn and chatted. He is getting around better and that is good to see. Mom made some chicken soup and I made off with some of it and had it for dinner tonight. Yummy!

I stayed away from town today, it is Firemens' Memorial weekend and I was stuck in traffic last year during the noisy parade. I must be getting old. I used to love Firemens Memorial weekend! I never liked the parade though. Oh, I did hear that Fred's opened to serve food for the weekend. The bowling ally has been open, but the restraunt and bar had been delayed. I will ask around to confirm.

Pitfalls to cleaning, purging, and organizing

Yeah, I found a pitfall to all this recent activity.

Last night, I locked myself out of the house.

Usually, this is not a big deal. I have an extra key hidden and just go grab it. However, I cleaned and reorganized the carport. Oh crap where is the key now? I don't know, maybe I can find an extra in my car or did I hide it in a new place?

I had been on my way to the neighbor's house to spend some quality time with their dog. As soon as I stepped outside I could hear him barking. They are 2 houses down. I had grabbed a flashlight to make the walk over to their back door in the dark. It was 8:30 - yeah, it's getting dark early again. :(

Armed with just a flashlight, a dim flashlight, I began tearing the carport, car and surrounding area apart looking for the key. I remembered that my neighbor has a key, and decided to ask her for the key before it got too late - I knocked twice, but even though I could hear her TV, there was no answer. I had my cell phone and I contemplated calling my parents to come out with a spare, but I pictured my mom sleeping on the couch and dad snoozing in his chair and ruled that idea out. Back to tearing the carport apart. The whole time I was thinking, where had I hidden the key and where did I put the hiding place? Garbage? Ooo, didn't want to think about that! DId I put it in the window boxes in front? Under a brick? Digging in leaves and dirt revealed nothing. No to both. Did it fall behind the metal rack when I was cleaning the shelves? I grab a piece of wood and start pulling debris out of the back of the racks. Yikes, big bugs and lots of leaves. It was dark and hard to see so I was listening for the sound of a key on the cement. Nothing.

I am thinking I will need to pull out the rack in order to get a good look. I shut off the flashlight in order to save batteries and begin pulling paint cans off the racks in order to lighten the rack for moving. Then I start pulling my containers full of my newly organized carport clutter down off the racks too. That's when I remembered! I had stored it in a empty planter! Now where was the empty planter? Logic tells me it would be in with my gardening clutter. Wah-Lah! I found it at the bottom of the rubbermaid container! What a relief. I was making so much noise searching I was beginning to think the neighbors would call the cops. This whole time, the dog, Duke, was still barking up a storm - I am thinking he could hear me and was sounding off.

Well, now I am too flustered to be able to sit, relax and watch TV with the neighbor's dog, but Sadie and I go over there anyway. We didn't stay long. Just long enough to stop his barking and let him out for awhile. Then I headed back home, curled up on my couch and did some knitting. When I let Sadie out later, I could hear Duke barking again. Well, that answered that question, he wasn't barking at me!

You would think I would learn from this, but no, I cleaned and organized the guestroom last night too. I have company coming next weekend and it needed to be done. Next weekend is the Northern Michigan Lamb and Wool Festival. Kristi and I have volunteered to work there, signed up for a class, and plan on attending.

Today is supposed to be warm and sunny. It is noon, and I am sitting on the deck, drinking my coffee and enjoying the outdoors. It is cool still, no sign of the 77 degrees it is supposed to get up to today. Sadie and Mister are terrorizing the chipmunks and all is peaceful here.

Update on cats: I finally gave up and put the litter box in my room. Ever since, things have been fine. I do not like having the box in my room, in fact, I hate it. But it is better than cleaning up messes twice a day right now.

I was mistaken on Julie and Ron's arrival date, it is tomorrow (Saturday) night. And the plan is still for them to come from Houston. Hopefully, I can visit with them on Sunday and find out how they did with Ike.

All for now, the hammock may be this afternoons destination, rather than the book signing in Houghton Lake. A full pot of coffee has not improved my ambition for today. :)

Lack of attention span

I have attention deficite today. I can not concentrate.

I sat down this evening to play with my new weaving kit. Okay, it's for kids ages 8 and up, but hey, it uses yarn and comes with everything you need....except a project or pattern! I did the warp and then 3 passes with the weft and poof

Someone knocks on the door. Its my neighbor with some sliced tomatoes and some last minute thoughts on taking care of her dog this weekend. I am tag teaming the care with her daughter and we have a calendar with phone numbers and days assigned to take care of the dog. This is a cool idea and I like it. I usually don't know what day it is so this will help me know when I need to go let him out. They use an invisible fence, so taking care of their dog is a piece of cake.

I decide I needed to count my money from my money jar. I get my bank and my jar and add it to the mess on my project bench. I slide my weaving stuff to the side and dump some change out of the jar, fish out the dollar bills and the change sleeves. I count for awhile...2 quarter sleeves, 2 penny sleeves, a nickle and a dime sleeve and poof

I decide I need to go to my bank website and catch up my check book from grocery shopping yesterday, so I grab the laptop and poof

I decide I need to update my blog first...poof

After some chocolate...poof

Okay, I'm back. :) I called my parents today to get a Houston update. I still don't know if Julie and Ron are coming tomorrow or not. Traci & family still do not have power. She has a gas stove though and cooked a spaghetti dinner for 14 last night. They had to wait in line for gas for the generator. I went to the Houston Chronical website and they have blogs and maps indicating who has power and who doesn't, where there is gasoline, where to find what you need. Some of the freeway webcams are back up if you want to go check out the live feeds. Some are still messed up though. :)

I better go knit...poof

Monday

Sunday was lazy also. More rain.

Hey, good news, the carport did not flood!

I did not have any trouble entertaining myself. I did some more spinning, painted a little project, and didn't go to have Chinese dinner. We played phone tag and by the time we did talk, it was too late. Hopefully soon.

The little project is a toolbox I salvaged from Cari's house. It had sticky icky stuff all over it, but I cleaned and sanded it, inside and out, and finally got around to painting it on Sunday. I am going to use it for a picture hanging tool box. It will contain my special picture hanging tools and supplies. Small hammer, nails, picture wire and hangers and that kind of thing. I used my "studio" for this project. I like the word studio instead of "craft room". :)

I can not help but wonder if Julie and Ron are going to be able to fly in from Houston this week...?

My last text message from Houston indicated that there were already power trucks in the vicinity, but still no power. That was about 7pm last night.

Mister is back "on" the litter box...now it is Lucky I am having trouble with. *sigh*

On the spinning. I do not have a spinning wheel, I have a drop spindle. I took a class for it at the Michigan Fiber Fest, as you may recall. The spindle is a wood stick, and has a whorl, like a wheel, at the top with a hook. You spin the spindle, then draft, or feed, the roving (prepared wool) onto the spindle.
The pictures show the roving as the round ball of cream, blues, greens, and yellow. The spun fiber is on the spindle. In this case the fiber I have spun, called a single because it is a single strand, is cream and blue/green so far. I have not reached the yellow/greens in the roving yet. It is fun finding out what is going to look like as you go.

You can click on the photos for the larger pictures for more detail. The dangles from the roving (picture at left) are 2 plied (twisted together) singles that the seller did and attached to the roving to show what it might look like when spun and plied.

Today went by quickly at work. I am going to knit group tonight. It is not a regularly scheduled night, but we are hard core! :) I'm all for all the knitting time I can get before Christmas. Money is short and yarn is long! Geez, that was bad, wasn't it? LOL

Later Saturday

After the Ike updates it turned out to be a rather relaxing rainy day. I did some knitting, even some spinning! I lost power a few times, took a little nap and did some laundry. My back and arms are a bit sore from the spinning. I need to make some modifications to my posture and chair. I finally put my feet up and stuck a pillow behind my back and that helped.

Even the cats behaved today....well, after a small morning incident anyway. And after I locked them out of every room in the house except where I could see them.

LC Guy and I broke up Friday via email. You can't see me, but I am rolling my eyes. Geez, via email? It was amicable and painless, but I can't help but feel sad. Then I cruised the personals and got plain old depressed about it. I don't feel like having to jump into the shallow online dating pool again. No regrets, but shouldn't this be easier? :)

Oh well, maybe I am still tired from staying up late and getting up early. I will revisit the dating thing again tomorrow. I can't think about it now, I'll think about it tomorrow *in my best Scarlet O'Hara voice*.

I have made tentative plans to go out for Chinese food with my friend Erin tomorrow. Considering the way I have been eating lately, it is probably a very good idea. I had week old chicken salad on a dry hard pita for dinner. She had a bag of sun chips. Yeah, a good idea for sure. Plus, there are always the leftovers...yumm

Ike

I spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening watching Ike head for my loved ones in Houston, so I was relieved to call my parents this morning to hear that Traci had called and everyone was safe. No power, but they have a generator and lots of supplies.

Traci called mid-morning with another update. They had been checking the neighborhood for damage and there are lots of trees down - across the roads and on houses and cars. They have very little damage, but the pool is full of who knows what. She was pulling branches out of the pool. Steve fired up the generator and got the fridges and finally a TV so they could see what was going on "out there".

More later...

I'm bugged and they're bugging out in Hou, TX

I am beside myself with Mister and now the other cat is following suit.

I took Mister to the vet yesterday and he is sick with a bladder infection. Okay, so MAYBE he has a reason, but it bugs me that I am spending all my time wiping up messes and washing towels.

I worked at the bookstore yesterday and had fun, as always. The job that pays the bills is a bit frustrating - mainly because I have the same workload, plus more and one less day to do it in.

Today, I go my haircut my Cari. Nice job!

I am not feeling super chatty. I feel unbalanced as to work and personal life. I am working on it. An added benefit is that I am cleaning to relieve the anxiety. Bad news is I don't think you can tell!

I am listing some things on ebay. It is mainly things I have collected over the years and don't remember why. I have a piece of china listed internationally and my first bidder is from France.

Anyone heard from John and Sheila? I hope they are having good weather over the pond. Unlike Houston. Hunker down down there.

You can watch the "bug out" (remember M*A*S*H*) on the Houston freeway web cams. 45 north might be the one to watch. Today traffic was heavy on 45N at 1488. Tonight it is a solid line of lights, bumper to bumper on the webcams near the end of the list. I don't know if they are in any kind of order, but I am thinking the top of the list starts closer to downtown and then goes farther north as you go down the list.

http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/cctv/transtar/

Don't mess with a woman & her shop vac!

Traditionally, Sunday is my day to get the garbage ready for Monday pickup. I went a bit overboard today. I had amassed lots of garbage all week from going through all the boxes. I was up early and had 2 responses that wanted the box of movies - they had emailed me at 7:30am. Thank goodness I did not give out my number! :)

By 11:30am the box was gone and I through in an old camera and photo printer that I could not get to work. I had 3 huge bags of garbage, 2 chairs and was starting to empty the shed. I am out of control and it feels good! *maniacal laughter*

Okay, the overboard part....I finally had it with the carport. I grabbed a shovel and started digging a trench in front of the carport. I dug down until I hit a plastic pipe....where does this start? Where does this dang thing end? Well, I am not going to worry about it today, I am on a roll. That trench should prevent the worst of the flooding when it rains now. Then, I went to the shed and grabbed the shop vac. The broom wasn't working fast enough for me. I was tired of tracking in dirt and mud from the carport and I was finally going to do something about it. *More evil laughter* No, I am not crazy enough to vacuumn my carport, I put my hose on the exhaust side and TA DAH, instant dirt blower! Warning, be sure to close windows and doors before attempting this on your own. I recommend safety glasses and mask too. Make sure you work with the wind too! Yes, I did all of those things and the dust cloud could be seen by everyone in the neighborhood. The result? A beautiful spotless carport. Now I can start painting again...kitchen cupboard doors. But not until I have the house put back together first.

I got a call today from the Fiber Festival Volunteer Chairperson, I volunteered for the fiber fest the end of this month. They have officially drafted me as a photographer. I volunteered to avoid spending money. I plan to take Friday off and get photos of the vendor booths before the crowds (as suggested) and maybe even take some photos of the sheep shearing classes. Okay, I really just want an excuse to watch the sheep shearing! I was encouraging LC Guy to sign up for the classes and he seems interested.

In between rain showers, Sadie and I went up to work for a walk. I made some copies until it stopped raining and then we went for a quick walk (she ran). I took her home and ran to WalMart for a few groceries and gas. I found the cheapest gas at WalMart. $3.71 and it only took $52 to fill the car. Not too bad for "up north".

I'm off to do some knitting. I just took my usual garbage can out to the road too. Which is not reflected in the photo. :)

Oh, as of 6pm, I had received about 10 emails from people interested in the box of movies. That is pretty darn good! I may put up some more stuff for free soon. I have lots of extra furniture....

Lazy Saturday? Well, afternoon anyway.

More work on the craft room today. I am not going to keep calling it the craft room. I don't do a lot of crafts, just fiber and fabric related. Any suggestions? I guess whatever rolls off the tongue best will work. But there doesn't need to be an end to the work. Of course, I have no one to blame but myself for collecting all this crap!

I counted the empty boxes in my dining room tonight. There are 12 ! Empty! That means the contents have been examined and tossed or found a new and more organized home. That is 12 boxes I had stored somewhere in this house. I don't have a basement or an attic so where did I have all these boxes? Some were under the bed - I have 3 more of those to go through. And some others contained fabric and were stored in the green guest room closet - all gone!

I joined a freecycle group and I have posted on there - big box of VHS tapes is all right now (yes, Kristi, your old ones and mine too!). If you are not familiar with freecycle, please consider it. Everything offered has to be free. This local group includes the whole county. I will let you know how my transaction goes.

I have a large bag of blankets, tablecloths, and towels to go to the local animal shelter. Mister may go with it when we go. He is starting to act up in the house again. If I can get over the guilt, he will be packed up to go to a home without any other cats and with people that are used to indoor/outdoor cats. All the clutter in the house may be contributing as well, but even I have a limit to my patience.

I slept in again today and it was cold all day. So I never got out of my PJs! I knocked off working in my room early and turned on the heat, snuggled up on the couch with my winter duvet, and did some knitting. Lucky came out of hiding after I vacuumned and curled up anywhere I would let her. I gave the cats some cat nip and I had some sugar free dark chocolate (russel stovers) and all of us were happy campers.

Last night I had a long chat with Cuz Julie in Texas. She tells me they (hubby too) will be here in a couple weeks and we made plans to try and get together during their very short trip. They arrive on Saturday evening and leave Tuesday evening. She works in travel and managed this as a free trip.

Thursday/Friday

I lost power about 9:30pm last night. I don't even know why I was still awake at that point. I am exhausted. I have been busting my butt trying to get my house back together every day and it finally caught up with me yesterday. I slept 12 hours!

But I was back at it when I got up. Cup of coffee and folding clothes. Then I went through all the boxes I had stored in my "hallway", under the daybed, and in the closet. I am getting frustrated because there doesn't seem to be an end to it. I went through some old boxes marked "glass" and found some things I could not imagine why I was saving. I may put them on eBay, but today, it seems like too much trouble. I will sleep on it.

Finally, about 2:30, I took mercy on poor Sadie and we went to Marl Lake for a brisk walk. Brisk is the right word for it. Sure, I was walking fast, but it was windy and 64 degrees. Brrrr. When the sun came out it felt wonderful and we enjoyed the fresh air.

Then back to work. The drawers are filling fast and so are the trash bags! I have a few more things to do and then I am getting in the shower and then settling down on the couch to relax for the rest of the evening.

Care to visit the lake?

more craft room

Things are moving along in the craft room. Slowly though. I put the drawers in tonight. I am making myself wait to fill the drawers. I will need to purge a lot of boxes before I can straighten out the living room enough to walk through without stubbing a toe. However, I am typing this at the new desk. :) Sadie is sacked out behind me and I am watching Ice Road Truckers.

Here's 2 of the sets of the drawers. There are 2 drawers that will not close because the bottom of the frame is warped. I may do some finagling to get those closed. You can see here it is the bottom drawer. Any suggestions?

It was 90 when I got off work, so Sadie and I dropped pickles off at Margaret & Lowell's and went to the gazebo. It was pretty darn quiet compared to Sunday!

Work was crazy busy. The tech tweaked the sonic wall filter for the internet and it is blocking tons of our everyday sites. Guess who is getting the flack? Gotta laugh.

Show and Tell

A four day weekend and I used it to work around the house on various projects in various stages of completion. I did take a break finally on Sunday and went to the gazebo. I took a video and I will post it later this week.

Not much else happened this weekend. LC Guy is busy putting in a barn floor and we are having a mini break down in communication. I tore the house apart trying to occupy my mind. Literally, as you can see from the pictures!

Last night I had to call the old boyfriend that y'all didn't like. When I was reading the newspaper, I saw his dad's obituary and wanted to call and express my condolences. I liked his dad and we talked about him for a little bit. When I asked, he didn't know what he was going to do now that he was gone. I wished him well and said goodbye.

I did go to Gaylord on Friday and got my knitting mojo back. I was even knitting at the beach!

The following are before and after pictures from this weekend. I didn't include the yard photos, even though I spent a lot of time working in the carport, shed and yard.

I replaced these old chairs with the newly painted bright white wicker chairs for the living room. Aaaah, much better!


I spent several days painting the drawers I bought at the estate sale earlier in the summer. I plan to use them to store fabric and linens.

I haven't figured out exactly where they will go, but probably in the new *drum roll* .....Craft ROOM.

Sorry nieces, I had to sacrafice one of the guest rooms for a craft room. I need some kind of sanctuary if this is going to be another 7 month winter. Unfortunately for Kristi, the other guest room is tore up too. Don't worry, it will be liveable by the end of September! I don't have a picture of the guest room, but here are the before and after for the craft room and the during for my living room.


Before

and

After

I have the sewing machine, all my yarn and spinning things, a TV, and soon, I will be moving in all my fabric.

This is what my living room looked like at about 5pm tonight. Then I showered, ate and ran off to knit night. :)
Yeah, its pretty bad, ain't it? But temporary! The chair and chest have already found new homes.


I am going through it all and purging. I have to thank LC Guy for showing me simple is better. I think if I have less stuff, I will have less to worry about! You all know I have had enough to worry about for the past year to last me awhile. This winter is not going to be easy. Maybe I will sell my worries on eBay...hmm. Has a nice ring to it.

I'm off to bed, tomorrow it is back to work. Thankfully! I need a rest. :)