About time!

I have been meaning to do this for awhile and something always comes up. Either I am too tired, tired of the computer, or would rather be doing something else....lately, that means spinning.

I worked over 11 hours today. I am trying to cram in all my hours (42.5) before 2:30 on Friday. I did not expect to work that many hours today, but that's how it worked out - and it is a good thing. Now I can work regular hours the rest of the week - and only have one hour to make up. I will do that tomorrow evening.

Tomorrow I need to take Sadie to Brandi's house for the weekend. Their schedule is so crazy, it just works out better to drop her off earlier in the week. Sadie will love it, but I don't know how I will do! I could take that time to replace the hook for the zip line she straightened yesterday. Hm.

Sadie has been the center of attention lately. I took her to dog scout's fall outing 2 weeks ago. She had a great time...so did I. I couldn't get her to pull a cart, nor did I expect her to do that first time out. We played Tic-Tack-Toe with the dogs. The board was 9 mats laid out on the floor with plenty of room for owner and dog. One at a time the captain would direct their team to a place on the board. Sitting was a "X" and laying down was an "O". That was chaos! As each dog was added and given the command you had to hold your dog's attention on you and keep them in the proper stance. If you didn't and the dog assumed the position of the other team, it became the other teams x or o. One couple played on opposite teams and the dogs were used to taking commands from both of them. Whoever was "played" before the other was in trouble when the other one came on the board. The first dog would listen to the 2nd owner's command and fall out of their teams stance and become the other team's mark on the board. It was rainy and wet out, but I still managed to take Sadie out on the trails. We wandered down to the horses. I want to get Sadie familiar with them before we go riding - hopefully sometime this fall.

My free time is spent developing my online content for my 8th graders or knitting presents. Of course, because I don't have time to, all I want to do is spin. I am still playing with the long draw method I learned at NML&WF. I did find time to ply everything I accomplished so far. It was far more than I realized. It took several hours to complete the 3 ply skein. I had another skein of 2 ply after that. Then I took the rest off the bobbin and moved it to a toilet paper roll to store it until I can spin some more brown - all the rest is natural white.

I wanted all my bobbins empty for this weekend. This weekend is #3 of 3 fiber fairs the three of us planned for this year. It is the Fiber Expo (http://www.fiberexpo.com/) in Ann Arbor. We all signed up for classes. I have 2 on Saturday and an all day class on Sunday. No time to spend money again! Probably a good thing.

LC Guy bought two more black sheep last week. He sheared one on Saturday and reported the fleece is clean, long and curly...and mine! He said he took his time and kept the fleece together. I can't wait to see it. There is still one to shear and I offered to help if he could do it on Monday. Yeah, I finally got smart and took the day after the festival off. I am figuring I will not be home Sunday until 9:30. Too late to get Sadie, so I will need to go pick her up on Monday also.

Sadie...I don't know what to do with her. My fault entirely. I taught her "find it" and encouraged her to look high and low in order to find it and claim the prize. It is a constant battle to keep the cat food out of her reach. If I leave it out, she knocks it off the raised platform and eats it off the floor. So I put it in the closet and closed the door. The cat opens the door and I find my clothes on the floor in the closet when I get home.

I have been putting it on the open top shelf of the bookcase between the kitchen and living room. About 1 foot from the ceiling. I came home the other day and noticed a candle on the floor in the kitchen...I walk around the corner and papers and books are scattered all over the floor. In the middle of them is the cat food dish...yep, empty. I still can not figure out how she did it. But there are paw prints on my kitchen counter next to the fridge. Damn dog is too smart for her britches.

It was a beautiful weekend and after work on Saturday, I got my hair cut and ran errands. Went shopping, took in my recycling, and stopped at the lake. Took some photos, talked to the neighbor and went home and cleaned the yard. Put the hammock away for the winter and the deck chairs. Good bye sweet summer! :(

Sunday, I put it off as long as I could, but I had to go in the crawl space and close the vents. But I reorganized all my knitting patterns and the stash. I pulled out the sewing machine and set it up in the dining room too. Finally, I couldn't put it off anymore and changed into my crawl clothes. It was worse than I imagined. The second layer of insulation had swelled and fallen down in several places. I headed back up to get a staple gun and returned to stuff the vents and start on the insulation. It took me a couple tries until I developed a system...and got over the fact that I was literally rolling in things that smelled and itched. And laying on my back while fiberglass insulation and dirt from my gloves, fell in my eyes, nose and mouth. Ah, the glamorous part of single woman's life of home ownership!

I was almost done when disaster struck. I was tired, dirty, and didn't want to be there in the first place. I had repositioned this one piece three times and it kept slipping. It was made more awkward because I was working around several wires. I became impatient and frustrated with it and angrily muscled it into place and quickly stapled it. Sparks flew and a puff of smoke appeared. I thought I heard the furnace stop running abruptly. I used some words that my mother never taught me and prepared for the worst. Hm, what's the worst? I scrambled as fast as I could for the exit. Thinking, its Sunday and late afternoon. It will cost an arm and 2 legs to have a electrician come out if my furnace is out because of my little DIY project. I ran around flipping switches and cranked up the furnace. Everything was working. *whew*

Okay, now what? This fiercely independent, grown up woman called mommy and daddy for answers. Following Mom's advice, I crawled back down in the hole with electrical tape to cover the vampire-like holes in the wire left by my heavy duty stapler. I double wrapped it and got the hell out of there.

I was a dirty mess and feeling much better mentally so I hit the shower. I didn't do anything drastic for the rest of the evening...not even cook! I called the corner store and ordered a pizza, cleaned up my mess, finished hanging my freshly cleaned, but still wet mini blinds and went to pick up my pizza.

I knew I had physically over done it this weekend, but stuff needs to get done. I was stiff and sore on Monday...and Tuesday, but no flare.

But with my 11 hour day and all this typing my fingers and hands are really sore. I need to stop. It is time for bed and I didn't get any spinning done and only a couple rows of knitting during lunch. I am relieved of all my angst and torment for not blogging in such a long time. I hope to do some short entries with the itouch this weekend. I am going to try to blog via Flickr. If not, I will catch you up next week...I promise! Dang, I still have to add photos!