Random Monday

Today's post is full of all kinds of randomness. Busy days, busy nights, just crazy busy. Guess that's the holidays for ya.

I knit the scarf below for my friend/neighbor-she's headed up to Maryland for the holidays and it's a little cold up there. The scarf is your basic garter stitch. I cast on 15 or so stitches on my size 13 needles and used three balls of Lionbrand Landscapes wool in the Country Sunset colorway. It needed a bit of blocking on the one end, I didn't realize it was so wonky.



Recently I've spent some time attempting to clear the clutter out of the house and it's been brought to my attention that the majority of the clutter is mine and from the overflowing top of the Sterlite container below you can see that I have a definite problem. I'm addicted to kitchen cotton, Peaches and Creme, Sugar & Cream, Lionbrand Kitchen Cotton, you name it, if there's a sale I'm going to be picking up a ball or two. This bucket was about half full when I initially dumped the kitchen cotton stash into it.

As I have been opening drawers, closets, cabinets, finding Walmart, JoAnn's, and Hobby Lobby bags all over the place, some with receipts from two years ago, I have found quite a few balls of the cotton. I had no idea I had this much. My Walmart recently cleared out their inventory of Peaches & Creme and I was able to buy a ball for like 75¢ so of course I would buy a ball or two whenever I went to the store. I mean what's an extra $1.50 here and there? From the looks of this bucket I should never be bored and I'll never run short of warsh rags.



While cleaning out the garage I found two crazy quilt squares that I purchased 20 years ago at a Flea Market in Ohio. I think I'm going to turn them into pillows for the couch.

I also ran across these old McGuffey Readers and Spelling books that I purchased at the same flea market for 25¢ each. The odd book on the bottom is interesting.

It's the Temperance and Prohibition Song Book. It cracks me up, especially since according to my family stories I had many family members in West to Middle Tennessee running from the Revenuers. Yes, my ancestors were moonshiners. This book was also bought at a flea market in Ohio.

Also last week I won Kwilty Kim's giveaway! The original post is here:

Threadheads, Unite!: Back Among The Living, Feathering The Nest and My First B

I love those Nest charm squares. Thanks Kim!

This morning I made a batch of Peppermint Bark Recipe. It didn't take very long and tastes pretty darn good!

Since it seems to be the season of I want, I want, I want(I hear it from the kids constantly) here's a bit of that "I want" from me, consider it my way to stimulate the economy:

I want a: Kindle: Amazon's Wireless Reading Device: Kindle Store really bad, seriously.

I want a:

Lendrum Spinning Wheel, double treadle lendrum spinning wheel, single treadle

I want an: Ashford Traditional Spinning Wheel, $390.00 because seriously you can't have just one spinning wheel.

I want: Sew Essentials Cutting Table and Sullivans Home Hobby Table

Or this:

Homespun Deluxe 4701 Dual Sewing Center Clean White

Also I don't think I mentioned that a week or so ago I went to a house auction. The house was way too small for us, but it's an odd kind of house, more of an A frame kind of cabin. The opening bid was $1,000. Because I am a dork I just knew that if I showed up I would be able to buy this house for $1,000. Yes, really. It's that odd of an house, kind of angular and funky looking, not like anything else in the neighborhood. It's been vacant forever, even before the housing bubble burst. I had a plan. I knew how I was going to landscape it, I was going to add a woodstove to one corner of the living room. Once the two older kids are gone in a year or two, this house would have been perfect for the spousal unit and me and the youngest son.

I was outbid by $45,000. I was bummed, I just knew that through some divine intervention I was going to get this house. The spousal unit told me afterward that had he had any idea that house would sell for so little he'd have went through the steps to get preapproved for a loan. I never expected it to go for very much but everyone kept telling me it would go for at least $80,000 and realistically it was just too small and needed too much work to pay that much for the house.

Yes, I should have been more prepared but I went to the auction with a lot of hope and some faith. Guess that's not enough when it comes to buying a house. Funny thing, the guy that won the auction, he showed up late, they held the auction for him-he was at the wrong address. Had he not shown up the house would have sold for about $36,000.

So that's the news from here.