Guess I'll skip the Mardi Gras this year...

I've been watching the news today about Hurricane Katrina. I didnt quite believe it this morning when I saw the news and someone in Mississippi (think it was the mayor of Gulfport) said that "this is our tsunami". I didnt think it could be that bad

As the day went on, and I watched more and more of Fox News, and heard that the water was rising in New Orleans, and that 55 people died in one county in Mississippi...I'm starting to believe that it's worse than bad.

I live in Nebraska, so I'm pretty removed from it all, but it's starting to slowly sink in...

I feel almost as bad as I did on September 11th when I woke up to find that the world had changed. At least this time it was a storm, an act of nature, and not 19 insane people willing to kill for their religion.

I just dont quite understand why the governments of the states that were hit by the hurricane didnt hire Greyhound buses before the storm hit to take anyone who wanted to leave, but couldnt afford it financially, out of the storm area.

Finally finished!

Here's some pictures of my American flag afghan. Took me about a month and a half to actually crochet, and then another two months to weave in all the yarn ends.

and here are the yarn ends. There were 193 of them, and weaving them in was too much like handsewing which is why it took me longer to weave them in than it did to actually crochet the afghan.

Glad I dont live in the South

Watching the news about Hurricane Katrina... Makes me really glad that I dont live anywhere near the South. (I'm in Nebraska) I'd rather take my chances with a tornado and the occasional flash flood.

Should have watched that step

I'm on the wounded list now...went to the movies and a step jumped out and tripped me.

Actually, I was sitting on the end seat, and decided to get up and go buy a pop...the step kind of juts out about 3 inches (or the seat is set 3 inches back from the front of the step). My left foot caught on the step, and I fell down on my left side, right smack onto my left hand. Didnt break anything (been there done that, this doesnt feel like anything broke) I felt my pinkie, ring, and middle fingers on my left hand bend back at the same time that my wrist bent back. These are apparently important fingers for me when crocheting. Hopefully it heals quick, at least I dont have any projects on a deadline right now tho.

Copyright theft...

Was checking the Chinese website that's been a hotbed of copyright theft, and was pretty tickled to see that people there are deleting their postings of all the copyrighted patterns. There's a few people still posting them, but I noticed that there are more and more blank messages there.

Apparently they're a bit scared that they're going to get sued... Gosh, I wonder why that is? I thought they were fostering goodwill to the people of the world with all those free scans of other people's hard work. Surely a few hundred thousand dollars is a small price to pay for each instance of their "fostering goodwill".

I guess a few people there do understand that what they're doing is wrong, and they're now trying to cover their tracks so that the "copyright police" (aka Lawyers specializing in Intellectual Property Bearing Cease & Desist Orders) wont track back to them.

Assorted pics of some of my stuff...

This is my Grandma O'Neil. She's the one responsible for my crochet and yarn addiction. She passed away May 22, 2004. I crocheted the giant rectangle granny that's on her lap.

My first rectangle granny square. Crocheted in Red Heart Jeweltones yarn. It's also the first afghan I ever sold. Wish I'd kept it...

This is me! In a poncho that I crocheted last winter. Wore that thing most of last winter, it's pretty warm. Of course, I wore a sweatshirt and two t-shirts underneath it...otherwise I'd have frozen.

It's too hot to crochet...

It's been one of those days. Got up (at 8am, after going to bed at 3am)...took the dog outside...brought dog inside...dog gets sick inside...took dog outside again...

I think my wireless internet connection problems may be fixed.. My dad and I went to Best Buy this morning and bought new cordless phones. Instead of getting the standard 2.4 megahertz phones, which can interfere with my wireless connection, which ironically is ALSO 2.4 megahertz. We got a set of 5.8 megahertz phones. Made by motorola. Cant use them yet. They have to charge for 16hrs, but I did disconnect the old phones and take their batteries out. I'm not getting as many dropouts as I was. Hope this works.

Hoping to finish a couple of projects tonight so that I get some pictures of them. One is a poncho that I'm making for my aunt Janice's sister...the other is an American flag afghan that I've been done with for about a month now, but I still have to weave in the endless tails that are in it. I was planning on putting crocheted stars onto it, but after weaving all those tails in, I just cant bring myself to do any sewing of star appliques. So this will probably be my 17th or 18th American flag afghan that I've made, and I've yet to put stars in any of them. I'm thinking of keeping this afghan for myself. I'll post pictures of my projects later.

My other crochet project that I'm just starting is a sweater vest. I made one earlier this spring that turned out ok, but I screwed up a little on the front. That earlier vest, and this new one, are just products of my imagination...I have no real pattern for them. What I've done, is take a store bought fabric vest and I've just tried to follow the shape of the vest with what I'm crocheting. Works pretty good with some other stuff I've done, and that first vest turned out almost ok.

here's a picture of that first vest.

I need some sleep!

I'm so tired.. It's three in the freaking morning, and I'm still awake...granted, I havent attempted to go to bed yet, but I'm starting to think I should not have had that can of Vanilla Coke earlier... Maybe I should crochet till I feel sleepy?

Or, I could just sit here and ramble on about nothing... but, then, that would bore people. Who wants to sit and read some rambling nonsensical paragraph that some insomniac has written?

I want a Linksys wireless system!! The piece of junk I have now (an SMC Wireless router) keeps dropping out every two minutes.

think I'll attempt sleeping now...never know. It could work.

here's one of my more recent finished projects. It's the Bows & Arrows Poncho from Dot's blog (I'll post a link later)

My aunt Jan is the poncho model in this picture.

Testing...testing...is this thing working?

Just started my blog...I'll have to add stuff here later...right now I have to go crochet.