Queen of the Household

I hereby dub myself Queen of the Household for successfully replacing the fan on our vacuum. LOL!

Here's the fan that was broken (and incredibly loud!!!):

It was cracked in multiple places and made an incredible noise when I turned on the vacuum. It's also filthy but I guess that proves the vacuum was doing its job.

The new fan went in really easily and the vacuum is quieter than it's been for a while. It's an industrial Sanitaire vacuum that my grandfather bought for us as a wedding present, going on 14 years ago (gasp!!!). It's a fabulous vacuum and I'm very proud of myself for diagnosing the problem and fixing it myself.


On the knitting front, I started a new pair of socks. I'm trying these toe up, with a heel flap, and hopefully they'll fit.


I have a hard time getting the color balance right, but you can get the idea.


I also got a skin for my Sony Touch e-reader. I'm not thrilled with the quality of the picture (someone used the unsharp mask in Photoshop a few too many times) but I love the way it feels on the device. Next time I'll order one from DecalGirl instead, though.



I love my e-reader, although it's going to take me a while to duplicate my paperback collection in digital files. I have to remind myself that it's taken me years to build up my paperback collection, and I don't need to have all of them NOW. LOL! On the other hand, it's really nice to be getting rid of things and I need to move that to other areas of my life. I was good and got rid of a stack of knitting books that I'll never use, and I need to go through my quilt books next. I think my yarn collection might be getting purged next. We'll see.

I just might live

Last week I got hit with a really, really nasty sinus infection. I spent most of the last week sleeping 12 - 14 hours a day, which is not my norm. But, at last, I'm managing to say awake all day!

So now I have a bunch of stuff to get caught up on, but I did manage to finish Teresa's quilt. It's gorgeous and I'm thrilled that I got to participate in this project.





Gorgeous, isn't it?



This weekend Greg and the kids did a lot of work out in the garden, and got two beds ready to go.

Here's the bed from last year, all ready to go, with some onions left over form last year:


Here are some seed packets and tomatoes started:


The new big raised bed, plus a tilled-up area next to it:

Last year the kids talked Greg into building flower boxes, and on Saturday he put them up on the side of the shed and they put seeds in them. Hopefully they'll grow!


The fish tank is up and filled with water, now all we need are fish!

Ravelympics

It's been a busy week or so since my last post. (Why do I wait so long between posts?)

First up, Carmine is no longer with us. It turned out that he was older than a year old, and was FliV (I think that's right -- feline leukemia) positive. Very, very positive. I know we made the right decision but it was tough. On the other hand, we've seen a lot more of Lenny and Squiggy since they basically disappeared while Carmine was around.

Greg has been very busy with his new tools!

He sprayed some coats of polyurethane on the aquarium table:


And here's the finished table:

Isn't it gorgeous? It'll sit for a few more days to let the finish really harden, and then we'll get it set up in the living room with the fish tank.


Thursday night Greg and I went to see the opera Rigoletto at the Tulsa Opera. It was great! It was the final dress rehearsal, so our seats were really good. It's wonderful knowing people behind the scenes who got us tickets (thanks Lena and Somer!).


Friday was the school carnival at the kids' school, which was torture for the adults but the kids loved it.

They entered the Twinkie decorating contest, and here are their entries:


Those are Gillian's penguins, and Ryan did a car ("it's NOT a train, it's a CAR!"):

They both won ribbons so they were thrilled.

We won one of the class baskets! It was filled with all kinds of gardening stuff:


Now we're eager for the weather to warm up so we can get started on the garden.


During the Olympics, there's an event called the Ravelympics during which knitters (and other fiber crafters) attempt to finish certain projects. I managed to finish a pair of socks for the WIPs Dancing (Work In Progress) category, and I ripped out an almost-finished pair of socks for the Aerial Unwind category (no pic at the moment since they're just two balls of yarn again).

Here's the finished pair:


I really like the heel on this sock, and I'll probably use it from now on. There's no picking up of stitches!


I also got a quilt done for Calista, again using glow in the dark thread. Cute, huh?


That's it for the moment! Thankfully I don't have a lot going this week so I can concentrate on getting another two quilts finished. (I hope I haven't just doomed myself. LOL!)

New Furry Family Member

Last night Greg got adopted by a kitten. :-)

He went out to his truck after work and heard meowing, and finally coaxed a kitten out from under the bed of his truck. He was cold, dirty, and *very* hungry. (The kitten, not Greg. LOL!) I think he's around three months old, and he's really friendly.

As soon as we brought him into the garage he headed right for the food bowl and chowed down for about five minutes.

Gillian came out and said "What happened to Lenny???? How'd he get SMALL?!?!"

So now we have three orange tabby cats.





He's very, very friendly. He really wants to be picked up and held, which is great because Lenny and Squiggy aren't into that so much and Gillian would be perfectly happy carrying around a cat all the time.

This kitten has managed to chase off both Lenny and Squiggy, who outweigh him by quite a lot. So far there hasn't been anything more than hissing on the new kitty's part so we'll see how things shake out. Lenny and Squiggy don't seem too put out, thank goodness. We put out a second set of food and water bowls so that all the kitties can eat without too much fuss hopefully.


On to other things. I realized that I never posted about my eReader! Greg bought me a Sony Touch Reader a few weeks ago, and not a day has gone by that I haven't used it. It's fabulous!

I even keep knitting patterns on there:

I love that I can make notes and write on the pattern just like on paper:


I love it!


Now I need to go be productive while I have time today, since tomorrow is my huge day (volunteering in the lunch room at school, then bowling for me, bowling for Gillian after school, then Panera for knitting that evening).

I hope you're all having a great week!

We've been busy around here

As usual, it's been longer than I intended since my last blog post but we've been doing all kinds of things around here.

First up, I got two skeins of yarn spun from the roving that my Mom, Karen, and I dyed up while they were here at Christmas.

I'm very happy with it! It's exactly the weight I was trying for. I have five more braids to spin up, then I'll start the knitting. One skein has 172 yards and the second has 168 yards.


Over the weekend I updated my business website with three galleries of customers' quilts. Check them out here!

Speaking of quilts, I just finished the quilting on my friend Calista's quilt. Here's a detail shot of the rocket:

The thread glows in the dark, which you can see in this picture:

Isn't that the coolest thing ever?!?!



Greg has been really busy this weekend, too. He got a new (used, but new to him) table saw, and a new jointer. He's been working on a gorgeous fish tank stand, and he'll put the finish on next weekend.

Here's the table saw:


And the jointer:

I'm so glad he's having such a great time using them. I've given him a list of pieces of furniture I'd love to have him build. LOL!