Happy Halloween

Feeling sick and been busy with Halloween and the bathroom remodel, so haven't been posting much.

I did, however, run across this which made me laugh. Really hard. I think I might have to put this on something. No idea what, but something.

added later:

The kids and I carved pumpkins yesterday. Well, Gillian drew the designs and I cleaned and carved them. Ryan did a little squiggle on his and Gillian did the rest.

Last night we went to HallowZOOeen, which was quite fun. Crowded, but fun. Wallgreens had a little area set up where they were taking pictures, then you could order them, but due to technical difficulties they didn't get saved. It would've been cute but oh well. I thought it was neat that they were doing that. Maybe next year!

We decided not to go door to door this year, and the kids have already been trick or treating twice so it's not a big deal. It's now 7:00 and we have had ZERO trick or treaters. Not one! I'm a little surprised, but there aren't a lot of families with kids in our area of the neighborhood.

Here's a picture (or two) of the kids earlier tonight when we lit the candles in the jack-o-lanterns:

Happy Halloween!

Shower is gone!

One of the things my Dad worked on while he was here was tearing out the old shower.

It totally deserved it.

DO NOT PAINT TILE. Ever. Unless you're a professional and you do it the right way.
Case in two points:

Yes, those are drips. Lots of them.

And that weird blue-ish area would be where perhaps the paint wasn't quite dry, but they kept painting anyway and wiped off the previous coat, allowing the underlying tile color to show through.

They did not etch the tile, just painted over it. BAD BAD BAD on them!!!

Last year at about this time I began attempting to strip off the paint. I probably put 80+ hours into it, maybe more like 120. Didn't get more than 2/3 of it finished and discovered cracked tiles, running all the way across the back wall. That's probably why they painted. I got way overwhelmed by the project (Greg already was) and with the kids wanting to "help" it made it very difficult to do anything at all. So it sat like that for almost a year, until my Dad starting chipping off tile Tuesday afternoon.

Last night I got an automated phone call from Lowe's (and it's a darn good thing the guy said "Lowe's" in the first few words--I've been being harassed big time by Countrywide trying to convince me I need to refinance and give them MORE money in the process--not going to happen!!). Anyway, they were calling to let me know that the shower was in, although we weren't expecting it until next week.

So today Greg decided to get serious about it. Really, really serious.


Here's the shower enclosure that's going in, only in white and with the controls on the left side:

Now we need to get a new shower control and move the drain so it's in the center. I'm so excited!

Back to your regularly scheduled whatever....

Back to the knitting! :-)

I can't show two of my current projects because their recipients read this blog (sometimes, anyway) so after Christmas I'll be able to show them.

I finally got a picture of my felted Vintage Bubble Bag. I didn't make it quite as tall as called for in the pattern because I was worried about running out of the black yarn. I ended up with about 5 yards left after the I-cord handles, so that was a good call.

Here it is again pre-felting:

and post-felting:

The shiny things on the bottom are the feet I put on there. I'm not totally thrilled with the shape of the bottom so I may try to hand-felt out more of the "nipples" on the bottom where the three-needle bind-off ended. They're not really noticeable in this picture, but in real life I'm not happy with them. Of course it's smaller than any of the bags I use, so it might be a non-issue. I also made the I-cord longer and tied it in knots rather than sewing them to the bag's top edge. I love the look of felted I-cord tied in knots.

One of the things we did while my parents were here was to have a little birthday party for DH, my Dad, and me since we've all got October birthdays. I put one picture in a previous post, but here's another with me opening my birthday gift. With help, of course:

Can you tell that the kids were picking up on my excitement?

And here I've decorated the spine of my needle binder since I'm one of a number of local knitters who have the same set:



And of course, the inside:


I wrote my name (in large letters) on the front interior cover, and I labeled each pocket with the needle tip size or cable length. My Mom also got me some extra cables, the size tags, and the View Sizer. It's an absolutely fabulous set and I've got 4 sets in use at the moment. I love them!!
The momentous event yesterday was the procurement of costumes. For the last few years I've made the kids' costumes, but I finally clued in to the fact that purchased costumes are MUCH less expensive, not to mention easier for me. I remember when I was in elementary school we wore our costumes to school and had a costume parade, so we got a fair bit of use from them. Not to mention the dress-up times afterward. They don't allow costumes at school here, so I don't feel the need to spend the time and money on costumes that won't be worn as much. Not to mention that it would take me forever to make a costume like Ryan's this year, and there's no way I have the technical know-how to put the neat fiber optics in Gillian's costume.

Here they are:

I couldn't capture it on camera, but Gillian's dress' skirt has fiber-optic threads that light up when you push a button. It's way cool!!! She's a ballerina princess. Ryan is a dinosaur, and he's been so cute! When his hood is up he's a dinosaur who tickles you, and when he pulls his hood down he says "Here's Ryan!"

This picture shows the back of Ryan's costume, which I find pretty amazing. If I'd made a costume like this the materials alone would've been more than $30, and the time involved would have been tremendous. They've had such a good time in their costumes. It's been a real riot watching them play.

To finish off this post, here's a picture of the beauteous yarns that I won through the Sivia Harding KAL group. These luscious balls of Kid Silk Haze came via Gill (short for Gillian, the same as my DD) at the WoollyWorkshop in England. I'm SO thrilled!!!! There was a drawing for prizes if you entered your project info in the group database, and I won one of the prizes.

I've decided that there's no comparison between Feza's Kid Mohair and this wonderful Kid Silk Haze. I kept seeing garments made from KSH and wondered how in the world people could stand to have it next to their skin. The scarf I made from Feza's Kid Mohair is unwearable next to the skin for more than five minutes, but I can see (after quite a bit of fondling and holding it next to my neck) that KSH is a completely different story. I'm a believer.

Slap me if I go to Sonic again

Warning: rant follows.

Today I waited 40 minutes for my food order at Sonic. Why did I wait so long? Well, after the first 20 minutes (at 12:45, actually, which was 24 minutes, and Gillian was whining about wanting her food) I pushed the little red button and asked how much longer as it had already been 20 minutes and the children in the back seat were HUNGRY. They said "it'll be right out!"

Yeah.

At 1:01 (40 minutes for those of you who are following along) I pushed the little red button again and said "I placed my order more than 40 minutes ago and my food is not here yet. Just cancel the order. We can't wait any more." The person at the other end said "all right!" in a somewhat snotty voice. I promptly put the car in reverse and backed out. The car-hop met us with our food as we finished backing out and I said "it's been 40 minutes!!! We COULD NOT wait any more!!!" And she apologized.

Fine.

But I'm never going there again, and I fully expect anyone in whose hearing I say "wanna go to Sonic?" to slap me. In 40 minutes I could have gone to at least two other drive-through fast food establishments, including the time spent driving to get there. I could have gone to a sit-down restaurant and been served and eaten my meal. And I wouldn't have had to listed to my children whine about how hungry they were when the "fast" food hadn't arrived in a reasonable amount of time.

Just in case you were wondering, this particular Sonic is at the intersection of Elm and 101st Street in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Oh yeah, and they've screwed up my last THREE drink orders before this debacle, which makes one wonder why in the world I went there again in the first place. It won't happen again even if they do serve large drinks for 99 cents before 11:00. NEVER AGAIN. Even if it's free.

Chickens have been counted!

The results are in, and the chickens have hatched! All ribbons did belong on my items, so that makes me happy.

I've been bad about posting lately, and I'm blaming my parents. (Hi, Mom and Dad!) They were here visiting and we had a great time, but I didn't want to spend the time on the computer to post. I know I'm going to miss something I meant to blog about, so this might be a multiple-part posting. :-)

First in the catching up, here's Rori and her hat she's making for her SIL:

Before felting above, and after:

It's really cute! The pattern is from Fiber Trends and she used Patons Classic Merino Wool. I MUST make one of these for me!

While my parents were here we went to eat lunch with Gillian at her school. I can't show a bunch of the pictures because they have other kids in them, but here's a good one:

Gillian was mad because GrandDad made her put down the popsicle for the picture. LOL!!

And my Mom commented that the picture of Fred in a previous post looked a little "Halloweeny" because he wouldn't close his mouth--he's got a lot of personality, my Fred-cat.

Speaking of my Mom, it's moments like these that I treasure:

Hopefully Gillian will, too.

We also had a little birthday party to celebrate DH's (the 5th), my Dad's (the 13th), and mine, which is toward the end of the month.

Here's Gillian opening her present, which was two more wonderful Yellowstone t-shirts. Those are big hits with the kids! Gillian has tried to wear one or the other of them every day since.

And here's Ryan pointing to one of his new Yellowstone t-shirts, which he wanted to put on immediately:


And if you were wondering if I'd actually let Ryan wear his sweater, the answer is "yes."

Whew! That's enough for now--more tomorrow night, hopefully.

Fair pics

Today I dragged Rori and Ryan to the fair. :-) We spent about 2½ hours there, and I got some pictures of my items.

Gillian's drawing got a "participant" ribbon that she'll be very pleased with--it's got lots of pretty colors. :-)

My picture of Ryan didn't get anything, although I'm not surprised. The weird thing was that I didn't see any ribbons at all for the "amateur, enhanced" category. None. And I looked.


My felted Christmas vessel got a 2nd place:

Gillian's doll got a 2nd place:


My scrapbook pages each got 2nd places:

My tablecloth got a 1st place (although I didn't find the Sweepstakes one in that category):

Ryan's sweater got a 1st place:

And, the cherry on top, is that my lace shawl got a 1st AND Sweepstakes!!

I'm not getting too excited though until I pick up my check on Monday--those of you who've been reading my blog know what happened last year, so I'm not counting my chickens until they're hatched.

Alice in Chains concert

On Saturday Greg, Joel (Greg's boss), Heather (Joel's wife), and I went to see Alice in Chains at the Cain's Ballroom. What an amazing show!! Hurt opened up for them, and they were pretty good. The drums were WAAAAAAYYY to loud in the balance and you could barely hear the vocals, but I could recognize a few of their songs from the very limited amount of radio I've listened to lately.

Alice in Chains, however, totally rocked. Excellent sound, perfect playlist, awesome performance. Jerry Cantrell's dad even took the mic for a little while, not that I could understand a word he said. Apparently he lives somewhere near Tulsa (I suspect if I was a bigger fan I'd actually know where in Oklahoma) so this was kind of a one-time deal. William DuVall also totally rocked! Not only does he look good on stage, he totally carried off the vocals.

Of knitting content, I'm still working on that Old Shale Variation scarf, and trying to talk myself into pulling out the Christmas stockings that MUST be done before Christmas this year. Ideally I should get them finished before Halloween, but I'm not holding my breath.