Another Home Project

This weekend the DH had another project and because I am still trying to figure out the whole Photbucket blogging thing my pics are backwards. The top picture is of two freshly painted doors of a locker unit that was being thrown out. I told DH to grab them, and he couldn't understand what they could be good for and I told him storage in the garage and maybe the other unit we picked up can go in DS#2's room for storage. These are great lockers and I can put a padlock on the doors to store soapmaking supplies when I finally get around to trying my hand at that. You may notice the same colors on the doors that we used on our chairs. We had so much paint left over that instead of painting both locker units boring gray DH painted the back and sides gray and is doing the doors in the same bright colors we did our kitchen chairs in.

Below is the before pic of these lockers. I think they look fabulous now. You can see a bit of the fresh gray paint inbetween the locker doors in this picture. Dh asked me where I came up with the idea of using old metal lockers as storage or even in one the kids rooms and I had to be honest and say I found the idea in an old issue of Southern Living magazine. These particular units are three on top, three on bottom. Since they are half lockers it gives us lots of storage options.

Do I keep the DH busy or what?

Unfortunately I have no interesting stitching or crochet news. Wish I had some fabulous progress to show of BOAF's Peace but it's mostly black blocks and some grass. I'm still hung up on round 7 of my flower crochet block. I'm think I'm just going to go on and crochet it the way I think it should be and see how wonky I manage to make it in the process. I think I'm making it lot more difficult than it is, then again maybe it's a sign that this afghan is going to be hideous when finished.

Weekend

Not much got accomplished this weekend but I do have some new pics of recently framed cross stitch projects. This is Good Huswif's Two Pinkeeps. It's one of my favorite designs. It's stitched on 36ct BOAF Morning Glory fabric and I used DMC floss.

This is Carriage House Samplings Americana. It's stitched on BOAF Barn Owl linen, 36ct and I once again used all DMC floss.

This weekend I'm working on Birds of a Feather's Peace Sampler. I hope to make a lot of progress today but I'm an amazingly slow stitcher so I try not to get too discouraged when I've stitched for 8 straight hours and don't have too much to show for it.

We spent most of yesterday running all over town getting the boys' haircuts, taking them to lunch, going to the mall. I didn't think we'd ever get home.

We also started planning a family vacation for either the spring or early summer. My brother is currently stationed in Maryland so we plan to head up that way with my mother. She hates flying so it should be an interesting experience. With any luck I can plan it so that it's not so traumatic for everyone. My mother can be difficult to travel with at times. I'm excited because I want to take the boys to DC and to Colonial Williamsburg while we are up that way. I think they'll enjoy both a lot more than they think they will.

Dumbass

What is the definition of dumbass? Hmm how a person who forgets to pay the gas bill, forgets to call the gas company and let them they'll be in to pay the bill on Thursday, and those two actions cause the gas to be shut off! DUMBASS! MOI!

I can't believe this happened. In the three years we've lived here and had gas heat, gas stove and gas water heater we've managed to always pay that particular bill on time because we knew that it would be a pain to get it turned back on. But this month, I wasn't paying attention, DH had the date of the 20th in his head so I come home from work and what do I find, no hot water, a chilly house and the stove won't light. Deduction? Gas service has been disconnected. Sometimes I can't believe how absolutely stupid and irresponsible the DH and I can be. Hard to believe we are both 40 isn't it? Now I guess I'm going to have to set up some appt to get someone out here to relight all the pilots. What a mess.

Somedays it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

On a positive note since I'll more than likely spend my day off waiting on the gas person to come light everything, maybe I'll get some new pics up on the blog. Who knows maybe I'll figure out what the heck I'm doing wrong on round 7 of my flower block. Maybe if I'm lucky I can find someone else to work on Friday and just sit around and spend another day waiting on the gas person.

Speaking of work, in today's classifieds I ran across an ad for a BBQ business for sale. Guess I'm not going to have a job too much longer. I called DH and told him we need to start budgeting again, this is before I discovered the gas had been shut off. Funny thing just last week the owner told me they weren't selling the business. Guess they didn't want all of us to quit and find other jobs. Unless I don't have a choice I'm planning to once again become a stay at home mom. We survived for 8 yrs on one salary, we're eating out way too much, time to get a little bit of my life back. Maybe I'll be able to remember to pay the gas.

In Search Of

With apologies to Leonard Nimoy, the remote. Hmmm, what would possess any woman to go on a frantic search for the elusive remote control? How about the fact that the aforementioned woman can't watch a flippin' DVD without the tv remote as the tv has to be on the video channel to be able to view the DVD and one can't put the tv on the video channel without the remote. Who new that a $28 DVD player holds all the power? Or is it as the DH has always said, "The remote holds all the power."

Hoping for some crochet pics tomorrow, but I'm stuck on one of the rounds of the flower block. I've frogged about a gazillion times and can't seem to get the thing right. There's some step I'm missing, or the error is in the round before, but it appears to be correct. Quite the conundrum.

What DVD was I so anxious to watch? The Village. DH said it was lame, I thought it was great, even though I had sorta kinda figured out the premise before I ever watched it. It was the only thing that made sense to me just from reading a few reviews. Tomorrow night we are going to watch Anchorman. Got to love that Will Ferrell.

Hissy Fit

Apologies for the hissy fit in the previous post. I'm over it, have moved on and understand I behaved badly.

Crochet Stuff

A while back I started a Peyote Granny that I ended up renaming Girlpower Granny and giving it to my great niece. Yesterday while laying on the couch and watching A Passage to India I decided to not make my own Girl Power Granny. So then I pondered what to do with all these super bright Red Heart yarn colors. I pulled out several crochet books and decided on Granny's Flowers from Vanna's Afghans All Through the House. By the time I made that decision I had to jump in the truck to go meet the DH and pay bills. So I thought with all the rain coming down it couldn't hurt to bring a project with me so I stuffed a couple of balls of my yarn(I wound them using the very low tech method of a toilet paper roll with a slit in the top), my book(didn't have time to make a copy of the chart), a pair of scissors(I remembered to bring a pair of scissors, go me!). I get to the meeting place, DH calls and lets me know he's going to be late, so I pull out my book, my yarn and my, my, uh, where's the flippin' crochet hook? I remember scissors, I remember the yarn, I remember the pattern and I forget the crochet hook. Let's see, there's a JoAnn's just over the bridge, do I really want to get out in this storm and buy a new crochet hook-size J, do I need to tell you how many J crochet hooks I already have in the stash? OK, I decide, who knows how long the DH is going to be, so I pull out of the parking lot head to JoAnn's get soaking wet but leave with my J hook(after freaking out when I saw every size but J, then I saw it behind the K hooks.) Get back in the truck, head back to the bank, and start the first flower block of the aghan using Red Heart Kids Pink. I managed to get one petal finished before DH showed up. I plan to crochet the flowers using bright pink, bright orange, lavendar, bright blue(or maybe it's a dark blue, haven't looked in that bag in a while, basically all the colors I used in the previous project, along with orchid and purple). The granny squares will all be in yellow and I may use Red Heart's Pinata, an ombre, for the lacy border around the finished afghan. Yes, I know that ombres take away from the pattern but right now that's what I'm going with, I may change my mind(I'm thinking Pinata for the granny squares and bright yellow for the border too). My first flower block is almost finished. Hopefully I'll have a pic or two tomorrow. Believe me I do have a clue how ugly this afghan could be. Then again it may all come together in the end and work(this coming from someone with absolutely no color sense at all). Some of the crochet projects of the 60s and 70s were successes despite popular belief. They weren't all orange, brown and avocado green ripple afghans. Surely there's hope for this bright, happy afghan. At least that's how it looks in my head.

What inspired me to pull out the hook? I was tired of working on Fairy Grandmother. It's tedious and slow and I've been working on it every day before work and yesterday was my day off so I decided to take a break from FG and work on something else.

No Crafty News

Just a whine. Do you ever a plan? You see it, you just know it's meant to work out in your favor? It appears that it was meant to be? Then one night you get that slap in the face and realize that you've just been living in a dream world? That was me last night. Slapped so hard with reality that I almost uttered the "F" word in front of a bunch of kids. I stopped at "Fu". You see, I'm a renter. Only on one other occaision have I ever wanted to buy a house. It's a huge step, it's a lot of money and it's a major commitment, it means you're settling down, you're growing up, you aren't going to wander any more. A house on our street was going up for sale. I had talked to the nutcase owner many times about letting us know when she decided to sell. I was told over and over again, "You'll be the first one to know." It was all BS. She had told several other neighbors the same thing, they wanted to buy it as an investment, screw them. They have homes, I don't care they were mislead. It was nothing to them. I had the rest of my life planned around this. Yeah, I should know better. It was stupid I know. But I never dream about buying houses. It's just not me. This wasn't my dream house, but my middle son doesn't adjust to change very well, this would have just moved him a few houses up, he could stay on his bus, at his school and with his friends. I had so many plans, there was no doubt in my mind she'd let us know when she was ready to sell. We'd have given her just about anything she wanted for the house. The biggest heartbreak came when I found out the amount she took for the house. She just wanted to get rid of it. Wanted it sold. The man she sold it to told the neighbors he only paid $134,000. This house could have sold in 5 mins for $180,000. The financing for the $134,000 would have been so easy for us, especially since property values in our area are skyrocketing so much so that 99% of the homes are now out of our price range. I know it's wrong, I shouldn't have planned so much around this house. I knew who and what I was dealing with but.....

Anyway, I spent the night crying into my pillow, I'd skip work today if wouldn't cause complete and utter chaos, I know life goes on, it's a stupid house, we're happy where we are, we don't mind renting, it wasn't even my dream house. I just wish I could let it go. I'm just hoping I'll be over it in a little bit. I can't stop crying.

I never realized how much emotion I had invested in this goal.

To top it off, I pull into work Monday morning and I see a sign "restaurant for sale". I ask, "What did I miss over the weekend?" Come to find out, the land is for sale, the restaurant will be relocated. Not a problem as it's a BBQ trailer on the side of the highway. As much as I've complained about working more than I ever intended, I was sick to my stomach thinking I might not have this place to go to every day, where I truly like the people and we all get along 95% of the time. Did I envision myself selling BBQ when I was 40? No, of course not. But it fits in with my family, our schedules. While it's not mentally stimulating, it's enriched my life. I know sounds silly even to me, but it's true. It's around the corner from my house so I spend very little in gas, I work when the kids are in school, I'm home just a few minutes after they get home, it's pretty comfortable.

Maybe finding my comfort zone is the problem. I should never get comfortable or content with anything.

Sunday's Project

Here's what we started with:





After some sanding and some painting we reached this point:



Then after letting the paint dry, running to JoAnn's to purchase a staple gun and staples this is where we found ourselves at dusk:



DH did a great job didn't he? We acquired these chairs for free. They don't match our oak dining table at all, so we decided to get creative. I saw in a magazine at one time a table with mix and match chairs, all different colors and styles. I figured we could make that work to our advantage. DH wasn't very supportive at first until he started to see everything come together. The fabric was $3.50 a yard at JoAnn's. He didn't like the fabric at first either. He said and I quote, "We're just not that hip." It was then I determined I had been "served" so this vision was going to happen. We matched paint chips to fabric, then paint chips to cheaper paint chips, bought a staple gun, and DH spent Sunday bringing it all together. There are three more chairs, a yellow, an orange, and bluer shade of tourquoise than you see in this picture. They were wet and drying in the messy, messy garage so I took a pass on taking their picture.

If I can ever get the laundry off the dining table, find a new table cloth and make a runner out of left over fabric, I might just a take a pic of the 100% completed project.

Pet Peeve of the Weekend

Going to the bookstore, wanting to purchase a book, the book is the only one in stock, the cover has been bent and mangled in various places, and the bookstore won't take a dime off the price of the book. Do they think it's ok to sell a damaged book? Am I a freak? I just think that if you're going to spend X amount of dollars on a cookbook, any damage to the book should occur after you get it home. Don't know why I even wanted to buy a cookbook, we can't figure out how to relight the pilot in the gas oven. I hate to pay someone to come out and light it, it seems like it should be simple thing. So we are going to figure this out over the next week, or rather we'll pay someone to come light the stove after we've stared at it for the next few days, tried to light it with telekinesis, gotten close to lighting it but then the whole fear of blowing the house up takes over so we don't really attempt to light the pilot, just go through the motions. I mean we aren't really going to put actual fire anywhere near that stove. We just have to feel like we've attempted it on our own then we can justify calling someone out to the house, paying them however much it's going to cost, because we made the effort.