ErinLindsey's Pile Of Yarn

Bathroom Remodels

2010-11-21T03:39:00.001-06:00

Posting this for my aunt, she wants to see what we've done. I hope she likes the pictures.

I thought I had taken some still pictures of what my bathroom looked like before the remodel. If I did, I cant find them. The video is kind of shaky, and I went pretty quickly with it, but it gives you an idea of what I had before.

Here's the After pictures!

The glass in the shower door is called "glue chip". Looks nicer than some of the shower doors you can buy off the shelf at Lowes. It was supposed to be 1/4in glass, but they apparently couldnt find that glass in 1/4in. So the door ended up taking about 3 1/2 weeks to order, and they did it in 3/4in glass. (didnt charge us extra for the 3/4in glass, according to the installer)

The glue chip up close looks kind of like a car window that's gotten iced over by an ice storm. I really like the look of it. It's smooth on the inside of the door, so we had to buy squeegees to wipe the water off the door when we're done showering. Big reason we didnt go for clear glass.

The shower stool in the shower is made out of teak wood. (old sailing ships used to use teak. It's apparently a good wood to use around water) I decided I didnt want to use that shower stool because it wobbles on the sloped shower floor. So, I gave it to my mother to use in her bathroom as a seat to sit on when she's drying off from a shower, or trying to put her shoes on or something.

Her shower is a bit bigger than mine, so she could probably use it in there without the stool wobbling as much as it did in my shower. I think she likes it better as a place to sit when drying off tho. I did try it out in my shower a couple of times and just didnt like it.

Liked being able to sit down under the spray tho, so I might go out and buy a shower chair that has adjustable legs on it...might be able to fix those so it wouldnt wobble on the sloped floor.

The shower wand is left over from my old shower. It's still in good condition so I didnt change that. I am still waiting on a longer pipe for the shower wand to attach to. They lowered the floor, but not the shower pipe. The floor was lowered by several inches, and I'm only five foot four. So, it's kind of a stretch to reach it. When my mom was using my shower for a couple of weeks during the construction of her shower, she couldnt reach the wand. She broke her shoulder back in February, and while that's healed, she has a hard time raising her arm up like that, so I had to leave the shower head sitting on one of the grab bars I had put in the shower.

About the grab bars. Reason I had them put in, is because I sometimes have problems with vertigo. Kind of makes it hard to wash your hair and close your eyes and lean your head back to rinse shampoo out of your hair, when closing your eyes and leaning your head back will make you lose all sense of where you are and make you fall down. (that was a long sentence. I hope I got the commas in all the right places)

The grab bars were helpful for my mom when she was using my shower, and my dad really liked the idea of having them, so he asked for grab bars in their shower too. Think that was his only big request on his part. (They actually had grab bars in their old shower, but the guy who built their old shower was an effing idiot. He used the wrong kind of screws in their shower. When the contractor took their old shower apart, the screws on their grab bars were rusted thru and were not far from failing completely.)

I also had grab bars put on the wall outside of my shower. My shower has 2 horizontal bars and one vertical bar. (vertical is above the horizontal bar and is centered in the middle of the back wall of the shower). There's another vertical bar right outside of my shower and a horizontal one. The horizontal bar makes a great towel bar too.

The grab bars are pretty much the entire reason we did the shower remodels. My fiberglass shower insert didnt have studs behind it. (I have pictures to prove it) There's a local pharmacy that installs grab bars, and they said they have special things they use that's supposed to brace grab bars in fiberglass showers. I just didnt trust that they would hold. So my dad had me call a decorator that my aunt (not the same aunt I'm posting these pictures for) knows and she helped us pick out the tile and got us a really good contractor. (first remodel we've ever done where the contractor actually knew what he was doing, had the right skills to do what he was doing well, and didnt take a year plus infinity to do the work)

The decorator also helped us pick out new paint colors and new carpeting. My dog TinyMonsters (died in 2006) did a number (#1 and #2 specifically) on our old carpet, and after four years of no dog, our house looked like we still had a dog. (I'll do another post later to show off the new carpet if my aunt wants to see it too)

The shelves in the shower are made out of Corian. They're set into the tile. I like how they look. Got the extra shelf so that I'd have an extra storage spot for dry washcloths. The top one is high enough that I can keep the washcloths dry so I can dry my face off if I get soap in my eyes.

We also had the floor of my bathroom tiled with the same tile they used in my shower. It turned out really nice.

I also got a new toilet for my bathroom. Kind of wish I hadnt. The new one is more environmentally "friendly" and is seriously low flushing. We'll just say that it cant be all that "friendly" to the environment when you have to flush the damn thing 3 times just to get anything to go down. Plus, I'm not used to toilets that burp the water up and then suck it down. Toilets are supposed to swirl the water. I'm a big fan of the Coriolis effect. (now watch, I'll get comments from the greenies who will accuse me of destroying the planet with a swirling flush toilet)

I'll do another blog post tomorrow with pictures of my mom's bathroom, since she had more stuff done to hers.

Holy crap! I wrote a pattern!

2010-09-22T22:13:00.000-05:00

Back in April I made my b-in-law some fingerless mitts because his hands were cold. I actually bothered to write down how I did it. I made him two pairs and did the second pair differently than the first pair. So, I'm posting how I did it.

I'm not the greatest pattern writer. I had to have help with the rectangle granny square to make it readable and understandable. So, if these patterns are a bit confusing, I'm sorry. I didnt ask anyone to help me with writing these out. I pretty much wrote them out as I was making them, and saved them in Word until I decided tonight to post this.

(this is the first pattern, wrote it out kind of basic)

Fingerless mitt

Chain 25

Hdc in each sts for 9 rows

Row 10: chain 2, hdc for 5 sts, ch 2, sk 2 sts, hdc in each sts to end of row

Rows 11 to 18, hdc in each sts till you have 18 rows

Fold lengthwise and sew or crochet up the side to finish off.

(this is the second version. Basically the same as the first one, except that I changed the chain-up part from a chain-2 to a chain-1.)

Fingerless Mitts
(Make two)

Foundation Row: Chain 25

Row 1: half double crochet in 2nd chain from hook, half double crochet in each st to end of row.

Row 2: Chain 1 loosely. (you don’t really need height on this one, and just doing a loose ch-1 gives you enough height, and you dont end up with that loopy look on the ends that a ch-2 gives you sometimes) Half double crochet in each st till end of row.

Work in pattern to Row 10.

Row 10: (thumbhole row) ch 1, hdc in next 5 sts, ch 2, skip next 2 sts, hdc in next st. Hdc in each st to end of row.

Rows 11 to 18: hdc in each sts to Row 18.

Fold lengthwise and sew or slip stitch up the side to make a tube.

(Optional) You can crochet around the edge of the openings to give it a more finished look. I did that for one pair of fingerless mitts I made for my brother-in-law. I didnt care for the edging on the ends of the mitts tho)

I took pictures, but then over the summer I was a bit sick, and now dont remember which of the mitt pictures I took was which. I used the same color yarn for both pairs, and I guess now it doesnt really matter which one was made first. At least you can get a basic idea of what they looked like when I was finished.

I watch too much HGTV

2010-09-17T00:48:00.000-05:00

(wow...3 new posts from me in one night...)

Ok, I did a remodeling project in my bedroom last winter. (had a fancypants desk built custom for me) and then this summer, my parents and I decided we needed to remodel the bathrooms. (their bathroom really needed it. The guy who remodeled their bathroom in 2005 was a complete moron. Bathroom building is apparently a skill...at least according to Mike Holmes on "Holmes on Homes").

So, my bathroom was the first one to get re-done. No pictures yet, I'm waiting for the shower doors to arrive and for the shower head to get put back on, plus we have to repaint (the entire house) and re-carpet (the entire house). The house has needed some new paint and carpet for quite awhile. (my dog, TinyMonsters, has been dead since 2006 and it still looks like we have a live dog living here) Plus, after having my desk built in my bedroom, my bedroom still needs new paint, and my carpet was ripped up a bit by the desk installer. So, my room still needs to be finished too.

We cut out the cheesy fiberglass shower insert that the bathroom came with when it was built. ("we" meaning the contractor got out his sawz-all and surgically removed it in small pieces). I picked out some new tile, and some tile installers came and built a new shower floor (properly waterproofed!) and tiled the walls from floor to ceiling. Oh, and I got a new tile floor in the bathroom to match. About the only thing I didnt change in the bathroom is the sink and cabinet. (bye bye old toilet, getting a new one soon!)

I picked out my shower door today. (changed my mind on the doors my mom had picked out for us the other day. I found out how much mine was going to cost and had a serious attack of "whaaat? How much?!?". So, I went back to the glass store this afternoon and got one that was priced a little more realistically. My mom still gets her INSANELY PRICED shower door for their master bath, since I was able to pick out a nice door for half the price of the one mom had picked out for me, and my dad will stop crying uncontrollably about how much that door was going to cost. I swear, he looked so happy this morning when I told him I was going to cancel the freakishly expensive door and get a cheaper one.

It's amazing how guilty I felt over the cost of that door. My dad had told them go ahead and get it, and I just had this worrying guilt over how much it cost in the bottom of my stomach. I just couldnt do it. The contractor seemed a bit annoyed with me when I called him this morning to tell him I was changing it.

The doors that my mom had picked out for both bathrooms was 3/4 inch clear glass. (they had 1/4 inch glass for a little less, which was what we'd decided to put into my bathroom until I panicked about the price). When I got to the glass store, I picked out an opaque glass called "Glue Chip" (yeah, I dont know what that means either) that kind of reminds me either of ice crystals forming on a car windshield, or of fossils of leaves in rocks.

My mom will still get her clear glass shower doors, which I think is ok, since she's got the master bathroom and it would probably look really cool with clear glass doors...and I'll have glass doors that I wont have to squeegee after every shower to keep them clean.

I'll probably post a few pictures of the before and after pictures of my bathroom once I get the doors installed and the shower head put back up. I love the tile. I cant wait to wash my hair in the new shower. I hate my parents current shower. It was poorly made, and "probably" not properly waterproofed. (eeeeek!! I'm afraid to see what happens when they rip up the old tile in there) The walls are made of marlite (kind of a fake marble looking stuff) and when the contractor was looking at that shower, he reached up and wiggled the top of the marlite walls and freaked when the wall wiggled. The moron who installed those walls five years ago apparently didnt use any adhesive (and probably no Durock, concrete board) behind the marlite...we're pretty sure the only thing holding up the marlite is my mom's grab bars.

and since this is a crocheting blog, I'll mention that I havent gotten much done crochet or knit-wise this summer. I made a couple of shawls, and am mostly finished with a giant granny square afghan. I started another new shawl with some sparkly yarn the other day and that's half finished. Bought more of the sparkly yarn (Hobby Lobby's "I Love This Yarn" Royalty Blue with sparkle) and am considering an afghan with that.

Also got some "I Love This Cotton" from HL and crocheted and finished a pineapple doily with that earlier this summer. My aunt starched it for me and it actually looks pretty cool, even if it is made in crochet cotton and not crochet thread.

I discovered Knitpicks earlier this year. (well, I knew about them for a few years, but then I actually bought some stuff and fell in love with their needles). I started a practice sock from the toe up on 40in circs. I have a toe and part of a foot, but havent gotten much past that. I may have a sock in a few years. I bought so many knitting needles I needed storage for that, so I went to WalMart and bought myself a toolbox to keep them in. Then I kind of hurt my right hand and didnt do much in the way of crocheting or knitting over the past few months. Hand is getting better, so hopefully I'll be cranking out some stuff soon...probably not that sock, but maybe a few more crocheted shawls.

Ok, I think I fixed it.

2010-09-16T23:55:00.002-05:00

I checked the settings, and I dont know what happened to my blog. I dont know if Blogspot changed something in the past few months and I didnt notice it, or what. Somehow my blog had the archives hidden, so every post I'd written for the past five years was not showing up.

After I got done panicking, thinking I'd lost every thing, I dug into the dashboard of the blog a little bit, and I think I fixed the archive stuff, and whatever was translating my blog titles into Hindi was some setting for transliteration. (WTF?)

I think I got that fixed too, since the title for this blog post seems to be in English (for me at least)

It's been a long annoying summer (annoying health problem bugging me that made me ignore my blog for quite awhile. I'm fine, btw)

I didnt realize there was a problem until someone emailed me to ask if I'd closed my blog.

No, my blog is not closed. I dont know what happened to the settings, and hopefully that doesnt happen again. Can someone comment on my blog and tell me if things look ok?

Thanks!

ओके, थिस इस वेइर्द.

2010-09-16T23:44:00.003-05:00

I was starting to type up this post, and when I typed in the title, the English letters turned into what looks like Chinese. Totally weird. Hope my blog isnt having a problem.

Can someone post a comment to me telling me if my blog is readable (in English) and tell me how far back my posts go, because I got an email from someone earlier today saying that a bunch of my posts are missing.

edited to add:

I googled the weird text in the title of my post, and had it translated. It translates out to what I actually typed. (should say "ok, this is weird", and it's apparently in Hindi.

I'm not Hindu. I've never been to India, (American and damned proud of it too!) and I dont know why my blog would suddenly have it's titles being translated into Hindi. This is just freaking weird!

if I have to, I'll start a new blog somewhere, but I'm going to see what the hell is going on with this one.

9.11.2001, Nine years later.

2010-09-11T01:39:00.000-05:00

Apparently we've forgotten about it. It's still a big hole in the ground. When I say "we", I mean "they"...whoever's in charge of rebuilding the WTC and building the memorial. Because there's probably going to be a mosque built there long before the towers or the memorial are built.

I havent forgotten.

As requested, a picture!

2010-02-13T01:03:00.000-06:00

My aunt has just requested that I post a picture of my brand new desk with the tv actually on the wall.

Ok... Here you go!

(There are actually more books in my bookcase now than there were when I took this picture.)

It was a bigger pain in the ass to get that damn tv on the wall than it was to have the desk built!

I had bought the mount for the tv from a popular electronic store that sends Geeky people out to do installs and to set up computers and stuff. Buying the mount was easy, the installation was a major f-up.

The guy came out and drilled four holes in my wall. He screwed the mount to the wall, and then he couldnt get the tv to go on the wall. The outlet with the power cord for the tv was in the way. The cord stuck out too far when it was plugged into the wall.

So, the kid told me that the electricians had put the outlet in the wrong spot, and that I was to have them come back out and move it. (and rip the wall to pieces)

I was pissed. I called the electricians and they came out a couple of days later. They looked at the wall, and looked at the tv. They measured the wall, and where the studs were, and measured the tv.

The moronic little Geek measured the damn tv wrong! He measured the tv from the bottom of the stand (that it would no longer be using) to the top of the tv. He SHOULD have measured from the bottom of the tv to the top of the tv. Moron!

The electricians looked at my wall, where the kid had drilled into it, and said that he hadnt drilled into the studs. I remember him saying that he couldnt find the studs. He even had a fancy electronic stud finder and he couldnt find them! The electricians found the studs in a microsecond by tapping on the wall with a knuckle.

All that moron had to do was look under the shelf that runs below my tv...there are two screws that are 16 inches apart...that's where the studs are. Geek was a dumbass.

So, I had the electricians hang my tv. Paid more, but that tv is NOT coming off that wall. If the Geek had managed to get it hung on the wall, it would have fallen. Because the kid had not drilled thru the studs, and was going to hang it with these plastic things that look like really cheap zip ties and a few bolts, there's no way in hell that my 30+ pound 32in LCD tv was going to be supported. It would have ripped right thru the drywall.

I sit right below where the tv hangs when I'm sitting at my desk. It potentially could have killed me if I'd allowed the moron to hang it.

So, the electricians started to get ready to hang the tv. They hit a big wrinkle pretty quickly. The Geek had stolen the big bolts that were supposed to screw into the studs. facepalm!

They went up to Home Depot and bought some big huge silvery colored bolts and nuts and washers...later, when they realized the holes the kid had drilled would show they went up to Lowes to buy some pre-painted wood boards to cover the holes and also make the tv stick out a little farther because the audio/video plugs were going to stick out too far on the back of the tv (kind of the same problem the kid had with the power cord sticking out too far earlier)

They bolted the boards on the wall, and then bolted the mount onto those boards (everything into the studs). That tv is not coming down. If I ever move, that tv becomes negotiable. (technically I can take it down, that mount isnt moving tho) But, the space in the wall was designed around the size of the tv.

Now that the tv is up, and not in danger of dropping on my head, I love it. I can sit in bed and watch tv. It looks GREAT! I had my dad's sister-in-law here last night to see the desk after I had some paint touched up where the colors didnt match, and she thought my room looked so much bigger than it did before. I have a better use of space, I have room for my crochet and knitting books and my computers... It's really comfortable to sit at. I've actually finished a couple of crochet projects and am almost done with a knitting project now that I have a great place to sit and do computer stuff while I'm crocheting or knitting...and it looks REALLY GOOD!

I just need to get my walls painted, fix a few spots on the wall on the other side of the room that TinyMonsters scratched up when he'd sleep with his feet against the wall, and where there was some drywall damage from the house settling or something. I have no idea what color to paint the room, and I really need new carpeting. (5yrs of big, oily black dog that had a vomiting problem did a number on the floor) My cousin gave me the phone number of a girl who painted her house. I'm calling the painter on monday. Probably wont paint till spring tho. I'm going shopping for carpeting as soon as I figure out what paint color I want to do.

I cant wait to get the paint and the carpet. I just dont want to have to move my bed to get the carpet or the paint. (it was a pain just to get the bed in the room) That's going to be another logistical nightmare. Even with the scuffed up walls and the dingy carpeting on the floor, I really love my room now. Real living space and storage. YAY!

I should mention, after all the problems with the Geek and the tv install, I did call at bitch at his managers. I didnt care for their response. I wont ever use that blue and yellow signed company that hires geeks to ever do anything like hang a tv ever again. I already wont let them touch my computers because they screwed up a few of my older computers. If I ever have to hang another tv, I'll just hire an electrician or a carpenter or a handyman to do it for me. Someone who knows more than the 19yr old kid who was probably more interested in how he was going to illegally obtain some alcohol that night than hanging my tv safely.

There goes a favorite Omaha restaurant.

2010-01-08T01:20:00.000-06:00

Tonight (thursday) the best bagel store in Nebraska, The Bagel Bin, is gone.

It caught fire around 10pm. Last I heard, it was a 3 alarm fire, and the roof had collapsed. The fire started in the Bagel Bin, and spread to a few other businesses that were in the small strip mall that it was in.

No word if anyone was inside (they cook the bagels at night). I hope no one was inside.

My mom knows the owner. We love the bagels that we got at that place. Actually made a special trip there on Christmas eve to get a dozen so that we'd have stuff for munchies over Christmas.

I hope no one was hurt, and that all the firefighters dont have any major problems fighting the fire. (they've got a big problem, the cold...dangerous windchills tonight, and high winds)

I'm going to miss the Bagel Bin if they dont rebuild. I hope she does tho...It would be sad if the only bagels available in town were from Panera. Panera's bagels are NOT bagels...that's just fancy bread. Bagel Bin made true bagels!

(picture intensive) A remodeling project...with before and after pictures.

2010-01-06T22:03:00.000-06:00

Earlier this fall, I started to wish I had a new desk for my computers. You'll probably understand why when I show you this.

Scary isnt it?

You wouldnt believe all the dust that was...dusting those cabinets and pretty much everything in the room. No wonder I couldnt breathe...and interestingly enough, the dust was the SAME color as my dog's hair. (the dog has been dead since March of 2006.) I must have gotten "dog hair lung" or something. I can breathe much better, and sleep much better since we got the dust and the dog hair out of the room. (I could have built myself a brand new dog out of what I found on the floor and in the desks. I still havent cracked open my Gateway computer to clean that out. (I'm afraid to look)

So, I asked my dad if I could get a built-in desk for Christmas. Surprised the hell out of me when he said "yes.". (maybe I should have asked for a fancy new car???). So, I went to a company here in Omaha called Consolidated Kitchens & Fireplaces. There I got to pick out what kind of wood I wanted, and the desktop. A designer drew up a design for my desk that would give me a lot of nice storage, a place to hang my tv on the wall, and a nice bookcase. It was really a cool experience. It's the same company that built all the cabinets in our house when my dad bought this place in the early 2000's. They'd built a cabinet/fireplace wall for my aunt across the street last year, and I was impressed with what they did for her. Since they'd done all of our cabinetry, I figured they'd be able to match our existing woodwork too. My desk doesnt quite match the other cabinets. I purposefully wanted it to look different, but we also had a couple of linen cabinets put in that I had them match to the bathroom cabinets. The linen cabinet was supposed to be a big double sided cabinet, but it turned out that it wasnt going to fit in the space. The installer suggested that he put one half in for my linen cabinet, and he'd install the other half upstairs wherever we wanted it. (it came in two pieces, so just using half didnt make it look weird in the space. It's perfect for me)

For the desk, I wanted something that would work well in the space that I had. At the time I hadnt yet cleaned up the craptastic mess and didnt know that I actually had a lot of space under that pile of dust and crap. I knew I wanted it to fit in the corner, that way I could get the most use out of the space.

So, I had to get a friend (and a friend of his) to move one of the desks for me, they got one of the desks out of the room. The other desk just kind of sat in the room, holding me back. I went to Walgreens and bought some little plastic disks that I put under the corners of the desk and used them to slide it out of the room. Best $6 I've ever spent. The plastic sliders worked GREAT!

I'm pretty proud of the fact that I was able to move it myself. (and while I was injured too. Hurt a disc in my neck a month before) The sliders made it so easy to move the desk. (and the cabinet in the hall outside my bedroom that was going to be replaced with the built-in linen cabinet.)

The old linen cabinet is still sitting out in the middle of the family room where I dragged it. That old desk is sitting next to it, waiting (forever) for the person I gave it to to be able to come pick it up. (we have 3 feet of snow outside, so there's no moving it out thru the back door right now)

So after I got everything out, this is what it looked like

Not such a scary spot now, is it?

About two weeks before Christmas, the installer showed up and started to put things together.

Here it is, laying on the floor, waiting for assembly.

Then things magically appeared on the wall.

...and on the floor

Then the really cool part. My desktop is made out of a manufactured stone. So they had to do very precise measurements to make it. They used a special digital camera and little stickers with black dots on them. The measuring guy put the dot stickers all over the desk, and took pictures of the desk.

Then he took the pictures back to his office, and loaded the pictures into a special computer program that maps out the dots and calculates the measurements for the desktop.

...and more dots.

We now pause for Christmas...

and a blizzard... (We got TWO feet of snow in that storm!) The blizzard and Christmas both happened at the same time. It snowed from Christmas eve, until the Sunday after that. Four days of heavy snow. I really hate winter...argh!

Yesterday, my desktop arrived. It was a cold morning, and you could see the condensation on the desktop when they placed it on the desk.

Another view...

Along with the base of the bookcase.

Not finished, but I couldnt resist sitting at it last night.

Today, the installer came and finished the desk. He brought the bookcase with him, and some crown molding.

SHELVES!!

And here is the "after" picture.

It's a big improvement from the "before" picture isnt it???

Tomorrow, weather permitting (it's snowing again, damnit!) they'll be coming to drill some grommet holes in the desk so that I can run power cords and keyboard cords around. Next week, my tv will be mounted on the wall in the big square shaped open space above the desk. I'm so excited with this desk. I've finally got tons of storage space in my room. I've got a grown up room now!

I'm pretty sure that I've got room for my iMac and my Gateway computer that were under all that crap on the desks in the "before" picture, along with space for me to be able to use my sewing machine without having to juggle things about for space to work. I have file cabinets to keep printouts of crochet and knitting patterns. One of the cabinets is going to be where I keep my crochet hooks and knitting needles and other yarn-ish accessories. The cabinet below the bookcase is probably going to be where I store my sewing machine when I'm not using it. Other than that, I dont know what I'm going to put in the cabinets.

My crochet and knitting books will finally have their own home on the bookcase, rather than floating around the basement.

Our house has needed to be painted since it was built (builders used paint that's more like liquid chalk, it scrapes off so easily if you look at it wrong), and after TinyMonsters left his mark (among other things) on the carpeting, we need new carpet. My dad said that I could get my room painted and some new carpeting.

I think I can get away with buying a remnant for the carpeting if I can find a good deal on something nice. Tiny had pretty much lived in my room after we moved here, and so my floor got a heck of a beating from him. So did the walls.

I want to paint my room a different color, but I'm not sure what color to use. I'm going to try to stay in the same color family as the Beige-land that we've got going on in the house, but I might try a slightly darker shade. I just need to find a painter who knows what they're doing, and decide on a carpet color other than the white that our carpet was before TinyMonsters "autographed" it. (repeatedly)

I think I'm going to wait for spring/summer to do the carpet and painting. I've had enough of construction for the time being. I think I'll have fun with picking out colors for the carpet and the paint. Plus, with all the nasty weather, I just dont feel like driving down to the carpet store or the paint store in all the snow.

This new desk is probably the nicest Christmas present my dad has ever gotten me. (I didnt get much else for Christmas because of the desk) It's also the nicest piece of furniture that I've ever had. (not sure if you can call it "furniture" if it's a permanent fixture attached to the wall) This desk is light years better than the desk he built for me when I was little. That desk was an old door he got from the hospital he worked at. He cut the door in half, sanded the wood down and stained and then attached to the wall so that I could raise and lower that desk whenever I wanted to. That was great for me at the time. :)

I think I'm going to have a blast with my new desk. I love this thing. It's making me want to go back to school so that I can do homework at it.

The installer for the desk did excellent work...didnt leave much of a mess for me to clean up. A little sawdust...

I was bummed having to wait about 3 weeks between getting the cabinetry built and getting the desktop...last week I was having second thoughts on the color of the wood...Once the desktop was installed yesterday, I felt a lot better about my color choices. It looks great. I just cant wait to get my tv off the floor and into it's new home so I wont be afraid of smashing it...plus it's just in the way where it is. Once it's off the floor I'll be able to use my Tivo again, and watch movies using my iMac and an HDMI cable on the tv.

I had a blast picking everything out for my desk. I watch a lot of those home improvement shows on HGTV with my mom, and love seeing this kind of stuff being done. So, it was cool to get to do a remodel myself. Before this, my biggest remodel that was for me was new carpeting in my room at our old house, and taking the doors off my closet and putting my tv in the closet there to give me the illusion my claustrophobic bedroom there was larger. (the illusion didnt help me much) While it was fun, it was a bit disruptive to have things torn apart for a few weeks. Especially over Christmas. It's part of the reason I didnt put up my patriotic Christmas tree. We bought a topiary tree from Sam's Club instead and I put $6 worth of plastic ornaments from Target on it with a ribbon bow on top.

I'm glad everything is done, except for my grommet holes and the hanging tv. (and the carpet and painting) I think I'm going to go to sleep now. (sorry this blog post is so huge and image intensive. I just didnt want to break it up into two posts)

A little poem about our lawmakers and healthcare.

2009-11-24T01:04:00.000-06:00

I found this on the internet somewhere...

‘Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the Senate
Some morons passed health care
But couldn’t defend it.

Conservatives were weary,
And leftists were tired
From voting on garbage
That would get them all fired.

On Boxer! On Arlen! On Bennet, and Reid!
Go spend all our money on crap we don’t need!

On Landrieu! On Casey, Akaka, and Bayh!
When Obamacare passes we’re all gonna die!

When 2010 comes and this stupid bill passes,
Don’t let the door hit you on your sad liberal asses.

Another video from PJTV that I enjoyed.

2009-10-01T23:27:00.000-05:00

http://www.pjtv.com/v/2515

September 11th

2009-09-11T09:06:00.000-05:00

If you ever start to feel sorry for a terrorist who's been waterboarded. Remember the people, like Jonathan Briley, on September 11th who chose to jump from the World Trade Center rather than burn to death after terrorists crashed airplanes into the WTC.

Remember Kevin Cosgrove, who was on the telephone with 911 at the time the South Tower collapsed on him. (link to audio. May be disturbing. I only listened to it once, which is why I'm warning you and not embedding the YouTube video on my blog)

The next time someone says that it was 8 years ago, you should forget about September 11th. Tell them to f...well...ignore them. But don't forget September 11th.

Link to an Andrew Klavan video on PJTV titled September 11th 2009 Just because I thought it was a good video.

Remember FireFighter George DiPasquale, FDNY Ladder Company 2. FF DiPasquale and Ladder Company 2 died September 11th, 2001.

A few months after 9-11-2001, I bought a bracelet with FF DiPasquale's name on it. (the bracelet was randomly chosen and sent to me. I never knew him) I wear it every September 11th to remember him and all the firefighters who died that day. It's believed that he was in Tower 2 when it collapsed. His daughter was only a toddler when he was killed.

I hate being the bad guy.

2009-06-27T00:04:00.000-05:00

Last week my parents and I adopted a puppy.

The day after adopting the puppy, I had a bad allergy attack to the dog (he'd slept in my room, in his crate, that night)

Because of the allergy, I wanted to try to take the puppy back before my mom got too attached to the dog. I was convinced tho, to give it a little while and see if the allergy would get better.

Today, after a week of being miserable with the allergy, I had a talk with my dad. He agreed (finally!) that we should probably find the puppy a new human. Our next door neighbor has a friend who just recently lost her dog, and wants a new one. So, the puppy's new human will be coming tomorrow to pick him up.

I really hate being the bad guy on this. My mom really liked this dog, and I liked him too, but I just hate the way I feel while being allergic to him. It's also ticking me off that people say I cant be allergic to him, since he's a poodle and that poodles are "hypoallergenic". That's a bunch of dog poop. There is no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog. There are dogs, that are less likely to trigger an allergy, but all dogs can cause an allergy.

Here's a picture or two of him, to show how cute he was.

The pictures are crappy cellphone pictures. I took a few pictures of him with my other camera, and might post pictures the next time I post a blog entry.

ok, this is cool.

2009-05-26T18:22:00.000-05:00

I just moderated a comment on my blog with my cellphone, AND I'm writing this post with my cellphone. I love technology!

yes, I'm still alive...just neglecting my blog

2009-05-14T02:54:00.000-05:00

It's probably a good thing I dont have a new dog yet, I'd probably be neglecting it as much as I've neglected my blog this winter.

Not a whole lot new and exciting here. I finished an afghan that I'd started last fall.

We installed a new fireplace in our basement after last fall/winter's exciting little episode with the old fireplace.

and my dad finished a few afghans he was knitting.

and I think that's pretty much it.

The afghan I made is crocheted, and it was the Log Cabin Quilt pattern on the Lion Brand web site. (too lazy to look for the link right now) I used Bernat Berella "4" to make it.

The knitted afghans that my dad made were done with Lion Brand Thick & Quick (wool blend I think?) The one on my bed with my Kindle reading sock monkey was done in strips. My dad just did garter stitch back and forth and just changed colors when he felt like it. No planning to it at all. I dont think any of the colors repeat in that afghan, and he just basically stuck his hand into his yarn stash and pulled up a color.

The other afghan was also done in strips, and it's some sort of a feather & fan pattern. He learned how to knit when he was stationed in Alaska in the 1960s. He ran out of comic books to read so one of the nurses taught him how to knit. She showed him that pattern and he memorized it. I'm amazed he can remember it so many years later.

The F&F afghan was sort of a scrap afghan. It started out that way, and then he ran out of scraps from the first afghan, so we had to go to the store to buy yarn. He would knit 10 repeats (or was it rows?) of the pattern until he had the length he wanted. Then he just sewed the strips together. He put a lot more planning into this afghan than the first one, because he wanted the F&F afghan to look good. I think it turned out great. I almost claimed it, but decided that it would be nice to send to my sibling, so my dad shipped it to my sibling's family.

I crocheted the edgings onto both of his knitted afghans. He wanted them to look a bit more finished, and I dont think he remembers how to crochet. (I think he knew how to single crochet at one point, because one of my first crochet hooks was his! I still have it. But, he might have used the crochet hook to fringe some afghans) I'm trying to teach him how to crochet, but he's better at knitting with two sticks than crocheting with one hook.

I need to get him to teach me how to do the feather and fan pattern. So far all I really do with knitting is knit and purl. But nothing fancy.

Finished a few things.

2008-11-30T00:10:00.000-06:00

Here's some pictures.

Seraphina shawl. Made in Bernat Berella "4"

The waffle stitch afghan is finished.

I'm tired, so that's it for this blog post.

Check your smoke detectors

2008-11-21T14:45:00.000-06:00

First off, to any relatives reading this. We're OK!!!

Last night, around 2am, our smoke detectors went off. Apparently the ventless gas fireplace in our basement was malfunctioning some how. Not sure exactly what was wrong, but when I ran out of my bedroom to see what was going on, there was a rather impressively scary-big flame in the fireplace.

We were thinking it was the CO detectors at first, but apparently it was the actual smoke detectors. (good thing we changed those batteries a few weeks ago!)

Since we had thought it was the CO detectors, my dad came downstairs and turned off the gas feed to that fireplace and then we'd called 911 (just in case) and sat outside in the cold (19 degrees! and this is an important detail later)

After I'd called 911, I called my aunt that lives across the street, because I didnt want her to worry when a fleet of fire engines showed up in the street. Good thing I called her. She has a brand new furnace, and apparently it was having a problem last night (she had more smoke in her house than we did!)

Her smoke detectors never went off, and she was feeling sick. So, it's probably a good thing we were having a problem too and that our alarms were blowing out our eardrums.

She told me about the problem, and the FD wasnt here yet, so I didnt even bother to call them back about her house. As soon as they got here, I asked one of the firefighters to go to my aunts house with me to check it out too. (not sure what they did find, but she's getting her furnace checked today)

The Omaha Fire Department was so cool. I had felt silly about calling them because other than the large flame in the gas fireplace that went away after we turned off the gas feed to it, we didnt see a problem. But I'm glad that I called now, since my aunt was feeling so sick. (I was dizzy in my basement for about an hour before our alarms went off)

But, we're all ok now, so I'm basically just doing this blog post to remind everyone to check their smoke detectors, and if you dont have carbon monoxide detectors, get to a store and get a couple.

and if they ever go off, dont just knock them off the wall and go back to sleep (I think my dad was considering this option. I insisted on calling 911 because I was scared to sleep in the basement after that)

Now, if I could just get the neighbors to quit parking at the t-intersection down the street (on a curve!) to actually park in their empty driveways so that when the fire engines arrive, they can actually get onto our street without having to resort to using the fire engine to push the parked cars off the roads....that didnt happen last night, but I've seen it happen in our old neighborhood once)

We're shopping for a new (vented) fireplace, or maybe another option for keeping my basement warm...and at least one of my parents will probably be getting fire extinguishers for Christmas. (no real clue what to get people this year)

At least we know the smoke detectors work! (and that there's no way in hell to sleep while one of those is rupturing your eardrums)

Oh, and one of our theories about what happened. We (parents, and my aunt across the street) all have heat pumps. In the winter, the heat pump keeps the house warm until the temperature drops below 20 degrees (remember, I mentioned a few paragraphs ago how cold it was last night?) When the temperature gets below 20 degrees the heat pump shuts off, and the gas furnace will kick on. Last night was the first time that my aunt's furnace had been on since it was installed. She and her heating company that she hired to do the install, think that her furnace was burning off some residual chemicals or dust from the manufacture of her furnace, and that's what caused the smoke in her house and was making her sick.

The gas company guy that the OFD called to our house last night thought that the fireplace was malfunctioning and that when the gas furnace in the store room came on, that it was sucking up more of the oxygen in the room, and that caused the fireplace to not burn off all the gas or something (again, I'm not sure of the physics behind all this) and the flame in the fireplace was huge because it was trying to suck up a ton of air or something and was competing with the furnace or something.

So, we're probably going to get a vented fireplace now, or a nice snazzy electric one that wont try to kill us.

EDITED TO ADD:

Ok, I checked the gas fireplace earlier, because we couldnt figure out a logical reason for what happened last night, and I think we figured out what happened.

We almost could have had a very serious fire. Apparently, a couple of weeks ago when the heating/air conditioning company came to check the furnace, we had the guy turn on the pilot to that fireplace. I told him to set the fireplace to lowest setting. (it has a knob that says "Low" and "High". He was supposed to set it to low.

I checked it earlier, and it's set to nearly the highest setting. Which I dont understand quite why that is. There's a tick-mark on the thing to show which way to turn the knob for high or low.

So, we very nearly got flash fried last night. And it's really a good thing that my dad turned off that gas before the fire department got here. I found scorch marks on the outside of the fireplace.

The fireplace is at the bottom of the stairs and the heat had gone up the stairs, and the upstairs was so hot last night, that I'd be willing to bet that it was probably in the high 80s or low 90s upstairs.

We're definitely going to be replacing this fireplace with something that's got a better set-up for a thermostat or at least an easier to get to emergency shut off of some sort.

Either that, or we'll get a nice decorative ELECTRIC fireplace in the basement. Something pretty with no real flames inside of it.

I'm going to go freak out a little bit about how scary this has gotten after the fact now...and I think I'll start pricing fire extinguishers and see if I can get enough to have one in every room of the house...

CHECK YOUR SMOKE DETECTORS!!

I like this guy!

2008-11-06T10:25:00.000-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/machosauceproduction

John McCain is a Class Act!

2008-11-05T02:28:00.000-06:00

I'm extremely impressed with John McCain. Sad that he lost the election, but impressed with him.

He didnt descend into a whiny hissy fit like the last two losers of a Presidential election. John McCain showed a lot of class, and was very dignified in how he conceded the election to Obama.

I'm not looking forward to the next four years, but at least John McCain showed us that he's a true gentleman.

I cant wait till 2012. I'm voting for Mitt Romney like I wanted to this year. (hope Mitt runs!)

I found it!

2008-10-31T00:10:00.000-06:00

I found my missing crochet book last night.

Now I can relax and stop looking for the damn thing. I'm probably missing something else now that needs finding.

What a snob!

2008-10-16T22:54:00.000-05:00

Isnt this a bit presumptuous?

2008-09-24T14:36:00.000-05:00

Obama Coins Have Been Minted

The election hasnt even been held yet, and this guy is already assuming that he's going to win? Wow...he's got a huge ego!

I thought the Obama "presidential seal" was egotistical, but minting coins with his picture on it? (at least it's not legal tender here)

Ok, this is weird, and it's making me a bit obsessive.

2008-09-13T00:31:00.000-05:00

I seem to have lost my copy of The Harmony Guide to Crocheting: Techniques and Stitches by Debra Mountford (pretty sure my copy was from 1992 or 1993)

It's driving me completely batty. Last time that I can remember seeing this book it was either with all my other crochet/knitting books in our family room, or it was in my bedroom on the shelf below my desktop computer. For awhile, I couldnt find my other books (several books that I got as presents this year) I found those books (thankgoodness!) but my Harmony Guide wasnt with them...and they were in a weird place. (in the cabinet of my dad's big screen tv, shoved in the cabinet...not a place I would have put them)

So, I'm obsessively looking around the house for my book. It's my favorite crochet book of all time. I never loan it out, and I usually keep it in my magazine totes. (already looked there) The reason it was out with my other books, was because I was trying to decide on a new project, and I was going thru my crochet and knitting books looking for inspiration. I'd left those books in our family room, but someone moved them inside that cabinet.

I just cant figure out where the book went.

The only thing I can think of is that either my dad, or the cleaning lady put the book somewhere while decluttering a room. I suspect my dad put it somewhere. Hopefully not in a pile of newspapers or magazines. He throws newspapers and magazines out without looking thru the stacks to see if there's anything he should not be throwing away.

I looked into getting a new copy of the book, but it's expensive to replace. Most copies that I found thru Google were over $100. The book is out-of-print. I hope I find my copy before I get too desperate and decide to take out a loan to get a new copy. If anyone knows of a cheaper copy, send me a message.

September 11th

2008-09-11T02:46:00.000-05:00

Never Forget!

Ever wonder why Sioux Falls is called "Sioux Falls"?

2008-09-02T12:06:00.000-05:00

I just got back last night from a weekend trip to Sioux Falls, SD.

I have to say it was one of my better vacations. A friend of mine and I decided to go visit it a few weeks back, mostly because we'd driven past it on our way to Rapid City last year, and decided to come back someday to check things out.

This is why Sioux Falls is called "Sioux Falls".

Yesterday, on our way home (well, not really on the way home, since we had to go the opposite direction to get there) we drove into Minnesota and went to a place called "Pipestone". It's a small town, not too far from the South Dakota/Minnesota state lines. We went there to see the Pipestone National Monument. Which is where a type of stone called "pipestone" is quarried.

Pipestone is a stone that American Indians all over North America have carved their ceremonial pipes out of. The American Indians have quarried it for several hundred years. It's a beautiful red color stone, it's a soft stone. I watched one of the craftsmen carving on one of the pipes he was making. (I didnt take pictures of that...didnt want to disturb or annoy the guy)

He was making some really beautiful stuff with it. He had one pipe that a really intricate carving of a bear on it.

The gift shop at the monument had a good number of pipes for sale, and I think the least expensive one I saw was about $60 or $75, and it was just a plain design, but still very pretty. Some of the other pipes were over $2000! It was all amazing work too.

We walked thru the quarry/park grounds on the trail. The trail was about 3/4 of a mile long, and it was hot and extremely windy. We saw the old quarries that they no longer use (or dont use very often) and all sorts of flowers, prairie grasses, a couple of deer, and a big patch of *achoo!!* Ragweed. *achoo!!!*.

I dont have those pictures uploaded yet, so I'll do another blog post later, and add those pictures.

A word of warning...

2008-08-25T04:15:00.000-05:00

Whatever you do, dont eat the Turkey Meatloaf with Cranberry Glaze from WalMart. (in the meat section, in the case with the hamburgers of questionable origin) I'll just say that you'll feel like the character in the Alien (Aliens?) movie(s) just before the Alien crawls out of his stomach the hard way...

I feel like crap...and it's 4am and I havent slept yet and I'm just waiting for my dad to get up to go to work so he can take the trash out for me. (backup trashcan standing by)

Ewww...I think I'll be "sleeping" in the bathroom the rest of the day. I better post this before my computer gets decorated with something yucky...

Pictures of a crochet afghan that I'm working on.

2008-08-02T15:16:00.000-05:00

I'm working on a new afghan pattern that I found on the internet. It's called "Shadow Box Throw" It's actually a very easy pattern, but looks difficult.

I'm using a different yarn than the one suggested in the pattern. I'm using Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn! in the Grapevine Ombre color.

I'm probably about half finished with it now. (the pictures were taken last week when it was still wasnt very big) Since it was the first time I've ever done this pattern, I chose the baby blanket size. So, I'm probably going to stop crocheting on it when I get close to the suggested dimensions. It's using up a lot of yarn. I thought I'd bought enough, but I'm probably going to have to go get a few more skeins.

I do like how heavy and warm it feels. It uses back post double crochet (BPDC) stitches and front post double crochet (FPDC) stitches. It almost looks knitted from a distance. The FPDC's on the right side (as apposed to the wrong side) of the afghan look almost like knitted cables to me. I really like this pattern. I might use the stitch pattern to crochet a poncho for myself later this fall. The afghan is going to be for my recliner chair that's in the family room. My dad gets cold in our basement (because it's freezing down here), so he'll probably be the one who uses the afghan the most when we're watching Stargate Atlantis on the big tv.

Here's a knitting project I'm doing now. It's yet another scarf, because I'm not yet ambitious enough to much more than scarves with the knitting.

The scarf is pretty much the same pattern I've used for previous scarves. Cast on 40. Slip the first stitch knitwise, purl 1, knit 1 to the end, the last stitch should be a purl stitch. I'm also using the I Love This Yarn for this scarf, it's a patriotic ombre, but I cant find the skein band right now, so I cant remember the color name.

It's easy, and feel really good and actually feels warm. This is probably the third scarf I've done with this pattern. I'm sure other people have done this pattern before, but I came up with it on my own while teaching myself how to purl. It's now my favorite stitch pattern for knitting because I love how it looks and feels. One day, when I get more ambitous with the knitting, I want to knit a sweater vest with the knit 1, purl 1 stitches. (I looked into a knitting class earlier this week, so I might be getting ambitious fairly soon)

I dont have pictures of the other scarf I'm making yet, mostly because I just started the next one last night. I'm doing it the same as the patriotic scarf, but I'm using a thicker weight yarn, and I changed the pattern. The cast on is still 40 stitches, but I knitted the first row instead of the k1, p1. The first stitch is also slipped knitwise. I really like how the way the first row looks. I'll have to add some pictures later.

Gotta go...just had a couple of lightbulbs blow on me in my room and I need to change the bulbs, it's kind of dark in here now.

Interesting...

2008-07-01T00:22:00.000-05:00

It's only been July 1st for about 20 minutes...and there have already been 35 (thirty-five) visitors on my blog for today.

I guess someone just posted the link to the rectangle granny square somewhere new.

Mother Nature is a b!tch!

2008-06-28T08:44:00.000-05:00

Here's a few still pictures of the damage to our front yard. Still dont know if the house or roof had any bad damage. I was able to tell that some of the paint on our house got sandblasted off by the hail.

There is another flower pot with mini yellow roses under the tree a few feet away from the flower pot that's pictured.

The wind was blowing south. The tree is pointed at my neighbor's driveway just to the south of us. It's not blocking their driveway, so that's one good thing. They can still get out.

This flag was right in front of the tree. It's a little one you can get at a grocery store for about $2. It's fabric. The tree blew down, but that little flag stayed there, got ripped up a bit tho.

The wind just blasted the tree down. I think the wind twisted the tree. Because the side that's facing up, used to face the house. One of the reasons that it makes me think that we might have had a small tornado mixed in with the straight line winds.

The roots are still underground, and we're going to have to rip out our landscaping to get down to the root bed to get the roots out before we can replace the tree. (hope we can replace it)

My dad just called me to inform me that the power came back on. It flickered right after that, but it was still on when he called me, so YAY for OPPD! (OPPD = Omaha Public Power District)

Would someone tell Mother Nature to stop hitting us with tornadoes!?!?

2008-06-28T00:00:00.001-05:00

Ok. First off, we're ok. I took my mom to a hotel so that she wont have to sit in an un-air conditioned house with no cable or internet.

My neighborhood, on the other hand, is a bit messy right now. (I have pictures)

We had a bit of a tornado/straight-line-100mph+-winds at around 5pm tonight. (friday). The last time I was this scared, or THIS CLOSE to a storm was in May of 1975 when we had a huge tornado hit town. The jury is still out on whether this was a tornado, but I saw the trees behind my backyard swirling and spinning. Plus, just the way some of the trees look, there could have been a bit of a twister in there.

I am so pissed off that Mother Nature killed my tree in the front yard! Why couldnt the stupid storm take the big ugly one in the backyard, and leave my nice shade tree alone?!? Stupid storm! We just got that tree all grown up to where we liked it. Now we'll have to start over. Wonder if the house insurance would cover putting a tree the same size back in there. Probably not.

My aunt that lives across the street doesnt look like she had much damage. All her lawn furniture that was in the back ended up in the front yard and her neighbor's yard.

My other aunt that lives downtown had a LOT of damage to the windows of her house and she lost a lot of the siding she had on the house. Stupid storm. That house looked good when my aunt got it sided a few years back. Now she'll have to start over. I dont know for sure, but she thought that it was just the windows that broken. There's a lot of glass in her house she said. At least her kittens, Fritz and Herman were ok.

I just tried to upload some of the video, but couldnt get it to upload, so I'll try again tomorrow if I can.

I'm going to go watch Stargate SG-1 on the hotel tv now, and maybe sleep.

Edited to add pictures.

Damnit! The world doesnt seem so funny any more.

2008-06-23T01:41:00.000-05:00

George Carlin died today of heart failure. I think I'm really going to miss him.

I saw him in the mid-90's in Omaha at the Orpheum Theatre. First and only comedy concert that I've ever been to.

I nearly died of hypoxia (lack of oxygen) from laughing so hard. He was so funny.

Here's the video...hopefully...been having technical difficulties

2008-06-12T01:45:00.000-05:00

Here are a few videos I took before the storm got really nasty and wet. I thought the clouds looked really ominous, but I am not sure if these were wall or funnel clouds, or if they're just a harmless shelf cloud. I thought they made for good video anyways.

This last video has the tornado sirens sounding. The noise is annoying, so you might want to turn your speakers down a little bit.

I think this storm, if those were actually wall/funnel clouds, might have been the storm that hit Bennington, NE. (Bennington is a town just north of Omaha...we're about 6 miles south of there)

I'm not seeing the video working, even tho I have the video boxes in there. Could someone post a comment saying whether or not the video works??

Tornadoes. Part II

2008-06-11T23:40:00.000-05:00

Well, we had more tornadoes tonight. Multiple tornadoes.

This time it was more than just a mile or so of town that got hit. It was extremely widespread. I still dont know if Omaha had much damage, but a Boy Scout camp that's about an hour north from Omaha, just across the river into Iowa was hit. There were about 100 people there. The news is reporting that 40 or 50 people were injured, and that four people (pretty sure they were children) were killed.

Some of the injuries were minor, and a few were really bad. The news is saying that there were serious spinal injuries and head injuries for several people.

I cant remember any tornadoes in the past decade or two near the Omaha area actually causing deaths. This is probably the first tornado event that I can remember since 1975 where anyone was killed in one of the storms. On May 6th, 1975, Omaha had a bad tornado that ripped up the city and killed 3 people...that's the last storm that I can remember where there were any deaths in the immediate vicinity of Omaha.

I'm really getting tired of all these storms. It's been going on for the last two weeks. Almost every day or every other day we've been having thunderstorms. Now we've had two damaging tornadoes in the space of four days. (ok, the storm sunday was actually two tornadoes, todays storm was so widespread that they're probably going to report that it was multiple tornadoes tomorrow)

Lincoln, the capitol city of Nebraska actually had a tornado tonight. Some friends of mine that live there tell me that Lincoln hardly ever gets bad weather like that.

There's a lot of flooding going on in Omaha and other parts of Nebraska. Iowa is pretty much a large lake right now.

I did get a few video shots tonight of what I think (but am not sure) might have been a wall cloud. I'm recharging my camera battery right now, so I probably wont upload the video until later tonight or tomorrow.

I cant wait till these storms end. Normally I really enjoy this kind of weather, but not every day for a couple of weeks. Hopefully we'll have a quieter (and cooler) summer.

We're fine, in case anyone is wondering...

2008-06-08T13:03:00.000-05:00

We had a tornado last night about 230am. I'm pretty sure the biggest damage was south of me, in a part of town called Millard (Millard is actually Omaha. Millard was a town of it's own until the Omaha-Borg assimilated it, I think when I was a small child....-Resistance is Futile!-)

The news is saying about 100 houses in the Millard area were damaged, a few of them beyond repair. Saw an interesting picture of some beams that were imbedded in people's front yards, and one picture of what looks like a 12 foot+ long beam that's impaled in the side of a house.

The Omaha police have closed down access into Millard to keep the sightseers (ghouls, looters, YouTube video wannabees) from wandering into the neighborhoods and hurting themselves.

The tornado touched down, ripped up Millard and then went back up and probably dropped down into other parts of Omaha (central and north) to make a mess before it wandered over into Iowa. There's apparently a lot of tree damage in various parts of town.

Other than the damage in Millard, the bigger worry now is flash flooding. They're saying we got 2 or 3 inches or more of rain last night, and we're expecting some more thunderstorms later today. So, a few people may be swimming out of their neighborhoods later tonight.

I need to rent this movie.

2008-06-07T02:20:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of William Shatner, and also a big fan of William Shakespeare.

Here's the scarf I'm working on now.

2008-05-21T02:35:00.000-05:00

Basically this is the same pattern as the one I just finished, but I didnt cast on quite as many stitches. The finished one had 40 stitches, this one has 38. (just experimenting with the widths of the scarves)

For some reason, this scarf isnt taking me as long as the other one. Five months for the first one to even be finished. It's been 10 days since I started the new one, and it's more than half finished. I am thinking of making it a little longer than the last one, so manybe it's not quite half finished if it ends up being longer.

I think the reason it's going so fast this time is because I'm using circs. The other one I used 14 inch long bamboo straights. Circs just seem to be a bit more comfy to me sometimes, but I do like to knit with the straights.

I've been working on this one a lot, when I talk to my friend Don on the internet at night, when I'm sitting in the front yard with my parents (since I no longer have to supervise a large, furry dog, I need something to do when sitting outside) and sometimes I'll knit while watching tv.

I need to find a interesting crochet pattern to do one of these days, I havent crocheted for a few weeks. I'll have to go pattern searching soon, since the scarf is going to probably be finished soon.

And here are two somewhat less crappy pictures of the other scarf. I need to work a bit on the picture taking skills. Sometimes I get something that looks good, and other times I get some really crappy pictures.

Pictures! Some knitting, and maybe a little video

2008-05-20T00:25:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of my scarf that took me five months to make. Sorry the picture kind of sucks. I dont have good light in my room.

This is some video of a yellow finch, (or maybe a goldfinch) that was attempting to break into my parents bedroom thru the window. He wasnt successful. I think he gave up after a bit when he deveoped a bit of a headache. (I have more video of this, it was kind of fun to watch)

Will someone tell me if the video is working??...it looks like Photobucket and Blogger dont like each other when it comes to video.

These are a few pictures of the magnolias that bloomed on my mother's magnolia bush that we had thought was dead for the past two years. Amazing that they came back!

If that video doesnt work, I'll see if Flickr has a video thingie on their site...either that or I'll go to YouTube....

Never again. Ever!

2008-05-11T20:19:00.000-05:00

I'm never ever going to enter an Eyemasters' store to buy new glasses or lenses again!

First off, the customer service is non-existent. Sure, they might have a few nice frames, but I'm pretty sure that untrained monkeys could do a better freaking job!

Last sunday, I went up there to buy new glasses. (That was the first mistake. I usually go to Lenscrafters, but was trying to not spend a ton on new glasses)

So, I walked around in Eyemasters and found some frames that I kind of liked. The girl took all the little measurements they have to do so that the glasses will actually help you see better. It was late, so I didnt insist on them making the glasses in an hour. Said I would come back the next day.

Went back the next day when they told me to be there. (5pm) and...the glasses were not ready!

So, I went back the next day. The glasses were ready. It took them a half an hour to find the freaking glasses. (they were in the safe, because I had an outstanding balance on them for the transition lenses that I forgot to ask for) They finally found them, so I put them on, and immediately took them off because the right eye did not like the lens. The girl helping me said she'd adjust things and that would probably help. So, she adjusted them, and it didnt really help.

She told me sometimes it takes a few hours or a day to get used to them. So, dumbass me, said I'd wear them a bit to see if I get used to them and left. I paid the outstanding balance and left... Staggering out the door practically.

I get home and I'm still not used to them. Sat outside with my parents, and didnt get used to them. I was looking at my parents and noticed that the double vision I naturally have in my right eye that I've learned to ignore was really bad.

So, I called my opthalmologist's office and they told me to bring my new glasses in and they'd check to make sure that they were made right. Of course, they werent made correctly. My center of vision was off by a centimeter or two, and the optician there said that there was some sort of flaw in the lens too that I hadnt noticed.

He told me to go back to Eyemasters and tell them to remake them. So, I went back and asked them to remake them. They told me it would be 48 hours to two weeks because they had to wait for new lenses to come in, since they'd apparently used the last of that particular type of lens on my new (badly made) glasses. That was thursday.

So, I hadnt gotten a call yet, and decided to check and see if they were ready today. Called and checked, and they were ready. So my dad drove me over there to pick them up.

I should have known that it was a bad sign when they couldnt find the damn glasses again. Waited about a half hour before they found them. The girl looking for them said that it was possible they werent ready, and that the other girl who told me they were ready never went and checked to make totally sure they were ready.

Finally, they got their manager to find them. He came out with them, and said that all I had to do was pay the outstanding balance. What outstanding balance? Dumbass who I paid last week didnt put the freaking receipt on the paperwork saying they were paid. I whipped out my receipt to prove I'd paid, and he checked his computer (interesting lack of trust even tho I had a receipt)

The computer said I had paid. So, he finally hands me the glasses. I put them on, and damnit if they werent almost as badly made as they were the other day!! He said he'd go see if they had the lenses for them and that he would remake them.

I just looked at my dad for a second, and then told the guy to just give me my money back. My dad told me and the guy that he thought I should get my money back because my eyes are too important and that he didnt think they'd get these lenses made any better for me. (Dad was annoyed that they seemed to be so unorganized)

The manager didnt even argue with us...he started to give us our money back. My dad had used his card the day we ordered the glasses to pay, and I had paid the outstanding balance with my card when I asked them for transition lenses. So, he had to do a refund on both cards. Poor guy was so confused. Took him 10 minutes to figure out how to do a refund on my dad's card, and then another 25 minutes to do the refund on my card. He actually had to call someone at another store to figure out how to do the refund for my card. (ummm...wouldnt you just do it the same way he did the refund for my dad?)

My dad and I both made the observation that the people running this place were complete morons...untrained Howler Monkeys could do better.

I worked in a McDonald's once, where the store was falling down all around us, and the assistant managers were embezzling money, and it was much better organized and run much better than this particular Eyemasters was.

I'm going to my opthalmologist's office tomorrow and will buy my new frames and lenses from the optician there. They might be more expensive and not have as big a selection, but at least they'll know what they're doing. (and I can get my Rx double checked for free by my opthalmologist or one of his partners)

If I ever go to buy glasses from a store at the mall ever again, I'm sticking with Lenscrafters or Pearle Vision. EyeMasters totally sucked. That was such a waste of time. They were total morons.

This is funny. You're gonna laugh.

2008-04-26T23:06:00.000-05:00

Ok, so we needed a bathtub (we took the old one out to build a bigger shower for my mother)

So, we got this one installed.

Sorry, I dont have a more current picture of it totally finished yet. This picture was taken back in October right after it was installed. We didnt get the tile finished till about 2 weeks ago.

Today, my dad decided to use the tub for the first time since we had all the nice tilework done.

Because I've already warned you that this would be funny and you'd laugh, you're probably guessing that his bath did not end well.

You're right.

That door has to be completely closed to keep the water from leaking out. Well, my dad *giggle* didnt have the door shut at all. He was wondering why it was taking so long to fill up. Looks over the side...water all over the floor.

He said something to my mom about the water, probably something like "Quick! Get some towels!".

I heard some yelling, and wandered out of my room to investigate. When I realized that the tub was leaking, curiousity made me walk into the unfinished basement just to check and see if there was water in there.

It was raining in the room.

On top of my dad's tools...it was running off the pipes, because apparently the water upstairs on the floor spread out before it started dripping downstairs. I noticed some of it was heading for the electric light in the middle of the room, and some other water was seriously close to the circuit breaker. (and dad was upstairs, still in the tub)

I warned him to get out just in case.

So, anyways, dad came downstairs, moved a couple of boxes over, and then promptly went and took a shower in the other bathroom and took my mom to go shoe shopping. *grumble*

Leaving ME to dry the store room out.

Luckily, nothing important seems to have been too soggy...except for some of my dad's power tools that he never uses anymore. Our electric fan is a big industrial type fan, so the particle board shelves seem to be dry, the floor is still drying, and it seems like a lot of the water actually went down the basement drain and the opening into the sump pump. I do have the fan directed at the ceiling, since it was pretty soggy up there.

I'm really hoping that we dont get any mold or mildew from this. I made an interesting discovery too. Rubbermaid Totes. They are really nice to have when you dont want stuff to get wet. I found my Rubbermaid tote that had all my Beanie Babies in it that I had packed when we moved here about 5yrs ago. It was in the direct line of fire (err...water) When I checked, they were all perfectly safe and dry. Now they're sleeping on my bed's headboard. I'm very happy about that my Beanie Babies survived.

So, I can tell you that if you have a lot of nice yarn that you want to keep dry (unless you're into felting) then get some Rubbermaid Totes and keep them sealed up tight.

So, did anyone laugh?? Was I right about the laughing?? I'm tired now...for some reason I had to dry out a wet basement while my parents went shoe shopping.

Finally upgrade to IE7, and I'm not happy.

2008-04-22T18:07:00.000-05:00

I upgraded from IE6 last night to IE7 because IE6 kept locking up my computer...if I went to any pages that had Flash running on them, the page would close and I'd have to send Microsoft an "Error Report".

I got tired of it when sites that I never had a problem with before started to lock up, so I upgraded...and IE7 sucks just about as much.

I just checked my blog, and my pictures are on top of the links on the right side of the page. Not sure how to fix that.

I dont like this tabbed browsing crap. I read somewhere that you could put IE7 into "Classic view" (would look like IE6) but, that function is either a myth, or they took it out.

The tabs are annoying. If I click on some links in My Favorites, with the mouse cursor too far to the right, it opens every freaking link in the folder. The Refresh button is in the wrong spot, and why do I have two spots for Google? Plus, the Command Bar has some commands on them that I really dont want to have there. I've removed them multiple times, but whenever I open a new browser window, they're back. They wont stay gone.

argh!

At least I was consoled from my computer woes by going with my aunt to look at Pug puppies. (I want one!!!) She didnt get one yet, but I can bet that I'll be heading up to the pet store today or tomorrow to buy some chew toys for whatever puppy she may potentially bring home.

I made a round ripple!

2008-04-06T01:20:00.000-06:00

Here's a couple of pictures of my first round ripple. I didnt make it very big because I decided to give it to my cousin's 4yr old, and didnt want it to be too big and unwieldy for her. I used Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn to make it.

It probably only contains about a skein's worth of yarn...it's really not very big at all. Technically it's a practice afghan for making round ripples. I didnt really like the pattern all that much, and just couldnt bring myself to frog it, so it's going to a kid that I know will enjoy it. Here's the pictures.

I literally just finished this afghan a few minutes before taking the pictures and posting them to my blog. It's probably only been finished for about 20 minutes now.

Knitting...in progress....

2008-03-29T21:52:00.000-06:00

Here's what my knitted scarf is starting to look like. It's a bit longer now than it is in the pictures, so I'd say it's about half finished, maybe a bit more than that. I'm using Hobby Lobby's "I Love This Yarn" to make it.

I got presents today! (thanks sibling!)

2008-03-29T00:53:00.001-06:00

I got something cool in the mail today! Crochet patterns! (best type of snail mail, presents that are crochet related)

here are a few pictures of what I got.

This last one is one that I used to have and had been meaning to replace, just hadnt found a copy of it yet. (kinda cool that my sibling sent it to me, now I dont have to search for it!) I lost it and about maybe 30 other pattern leaflets when my dad accidentally threw them out. (I hope it was an accident!)

The leaflet that's titled "Quick Tricks" was seen by my aunt tonight, and she wants me to crochet her the apron that's on the cover. I dont think she'd ever use it, but she'd probably use it as a decoration in her kitchen. She's got a ton of granny squares that I made hung up in a few places to accent other decorations she has in the kitchen. (along with a worsted weight yarn doily that I made for her to use as an afghan, which she's using as a tablecloth on an accent table)

I have more pictures to show (sorry to anyone on dial up!) I was at my dad's little sister's house on Easter, and she'd found some paintings that my grandmother had made (possibly in the early 1990s) and I took pictures of the paintings.

If I get a chance to some day, I'll scan Grandma's paintings, but right now the digital pictures are the best that I can do at the moment.

The paintings are still-lifes. First one is a tree (hopefully it's showing correctly, when I previewed this blog post, it was sideways, even tho the image in my photobucket page was correct) The other two are a bowl of fruit, and some flowers. I think my grandmother was a really good artist. She crocheted really beautiful afghans, and she was excellent at painting ceramic pottery and apparently better than me at painting still-lifes. (I'm not that good)

I'll stop here so that people on dial-up wont want to shoot me for being picture-heavy today.

Today sucked

2008-03-14T21:34:00.000-06:00

Two years ago today, my dog TinyMonsters died.

Today, Tiny's best friend in the world died. His buddy Pudge, my aunt's Pug.

They did everything together, and now they're together again. Strangely enough, my previous dog, a Poodle named CheeChako (Chako for short) also died on March 14th (1997)

So, today was full of suckage...so I'm leaving you with some pictures of Tiny and his buddy...Pudge was a good girl, and gave me a really good impression about Pugs. It's been a bad couple of years for dogs (and a cat) in my family. One of my cousin's lost her dog just after Tiny died (a Dachshund) and then her sister's dog, Oscar (also a black Pug) died last summer. One of my aunt's lost her ancient one eared cat right after Christmas, and now Pudge has left. I loved Pudge just as much as I did Tiny, so it's been a crappy day. My aunt is totally heartbroken.

Here's the pictures of Tiny and Pudge...

My two favorite pictures of Pudge

A cool picture of Tiny catching a snowball when he was about 4yrs old

A close up of Tiny that I did from another picture

Tiny, about to pounce on the noisy cement truck coming down the street

Tiny's baby picture

Tiny, giving Pudge some love

Tiny and me...seconds after that picture was taken, Tiny jumped me and demanded dinner!)

This was tasty!

2008-02-03T19:11:00.000-06:00

My dad is starting to cook at home a lot more (we've pretty much burned out on going out to eat) and I've been wanting to learn how to use a crockpot.

This is my dad's latest effort. I didnt participate in making this one because I was asleep when he put tonights dinner together this morning. I did, however, make the biscuits (I took them out of the bag and put them in the oven, and made sure I didnt burn them.)

This is what we had for dinner tonight.

Pictured is a turkey breast, carrots and potatoes and the beginnings of gravy, swimming in the crockpot, about 10 minutes before we had everything dumped on our plates.

Here's a picture of the crockpot, sans turkey breast. You can see the carrots and potatoes basking in the drippy stuff.

And, here is dinner, just before it disappeared.

I'm really starting to enjoy the crockpot. It's nice to put a bunch of uncooked food in a crockpot, turn it on, and walk away for 6 to 10 hours and come back to a pot full of tasty food for dinner.

If the restaurant that we ate Thanksgiving dinner at last November doesnt do another special thanksgiving dinner again this year, this is how we'll be making our turkey dinner. (in a bigger crockpot, with drumsticks and turkey breast...)

Stairs are dangerous...at least apparently for me.

2008-01-24T22:52:00.000-06:00

So, earlier I was talking to my dad. I was standing halfway up the stairs (maybe 4 or 5 steps up) and my cellphone rang. I turned to go get my phone, and somewhere between the fifth and the third step I somehow got tossed off the stairs by an invisible force.

I'm pretty sure I missed the last two steps completely, and landed unceremoniously on first) the side of my right foot. second) felt a bad pain in the bone below the knee and the one right above the knee. third) landed on the side of my ass (the right side, which really is the wrong side to land on)

My dad RAN down the stairs (eek!) to see if I was ok. (ummm...no) I couldnt get up for about 10 minutes, and we had to decide if I should go to the hospital...which we did. Got some nice x-rays, a nifty little icepack and then they came in and said, nothing was broken, but I had a strain/sprain in my knee.

So, I got another souvenier to go with my ice pack. Crutches!

Holy Cow Excrement! Does my knee hurt! I didnt think it would be that painful, but after 2 1/2 hours of sitting on a gurney and they never bothered to bring me an icepack, boy did it get swollen.

I didnt even think I hurt it that bad until I tried to stand up on it when they were letting me go. Now my ankle hurts, the knee hurts, and my back and hip/butt are hurting. This weekend is going to suck.

At least, thanks to my mother having her knees replaced, we have a handy dandy stairlifty elevator type of a thing, so I will not be totally cut off from access to my Toaster Strudels and 7-Up.

I can barely walk right now, so I'm pretty sure I wont be moving around much at all in the morning. Hope the Physician's Assistant was right and that this will be a lot better by this time next week.

Merry Xmas!

2007-12-25T19:09:00.000-06:00

I'm just sitting here waiting for the Webkinz website to quiet down enough so I can get in and name my new puppy.

After we opened the presents, this is what I made (with instruction from my dad) for dinner. It's mostacholli. (I affectionately call it "Monstercholli's") It was really good, and my dad says that we ended up making enough for about 10 or 15 people.

and I bought some frozen French bread baguettes that you cook in the oven, that was a good side to the mostacholli.

My sibling bought me a knitting book for Xmas, so I'll be getting the scrap yarn out later tonight to play with some knitting needles. (thanks sibling and sibling-in-law)

and here's my Christmas tree, before we opened up all the presents.

My computer(s) hate me.

2007-12-20T23:40:00.000-06:00

My desktop computer is driving me nuts. First I had to get rid of the stupid Norton 360 antivirus that I had on my computer (it was causing more problems than it was worth, and it wasnt finding a few viruses that I discovered after installing a new antivirus program)

So, now that I've got that taken care of, the stupid computer doesnt ever want to shut down unless I do it the hard way. (press the power button...if that does nothing and it usually does nothing, I have to turn off the battery backup and wait a minute before turning things back on)

Things just dont want to work on that 'puter anymore. It's only 2 1/2yrs old. It should last longer. (well, it is a Gateway, and even tho it's been a fairly good computer, it's got some Gateway weirdness to it)

And not to be outdone, my Toshiba laptop is also having some weirdness....like not shutting down (have to take the battery out), the browser's (both IE and Firefox) like to lock up on me all the time. The monitor is dim (that could be me instead of a dim monitor) and just doesnt seem like it likes me (I buy it good disks to burn, and I keep it dusted off and I dont abuse it any. I dont even go to any weird creepy sites with it (as if I go to those kinds of sites anyways)

I just want to know why my computers hate me! My ancient Compaq laptop that's had two hard drive crashes, a burned out monitor and a few other major problems is now a little champ. It's a lot chunkier than my Toshiba, but the Compaq has been rebuilt at least once and doesnt crap out on me (anymore) like the Toshiba does now. (guess which computer will be going to school with me this spring?)

Anyone know a computer wizard that can wave a magic wand over my computer and cast a patronus charm on it to make the 'puter dementors go away??

Wow! I cant believe I made this.

2007-12-17T00:32:00.000-06:00

I finally figured out the pattern for the Seraphina Shawl Here's a picture or two of how it turned out. It's a gift for someone.

The pattern was really really confusing. It's taken me a couple of years of attempts to get the pattern figured out. I really do think it's one of the most poorly written patterns out there on the internet

But, I do think that now that I've figured it out, that I can probably crochet anything from now on. I think it's now probably one of my favorite shawl patterns. This one is technically my third Seraphina shawl. I'd tried about a year or two ago to make this, and didnt have the pattern quite figured out and it came out a lot wonky. My aunt Jan liked it tho, so I gave it to her. Not sure if it was the yarn color (a variegaited pink/red color) that she liked, or if she actually liked the shape of the wonky one.

The second attempt (a white shawl) had a few errors (mostly forgetting the increases) in it, which I think I fixed, but I was so tired of having to frog the damn thing that I started over on this shawl a few days ago and managed to get this one made without having to frog back too often. The colorway in this shawl is a Country Rose color. I used an entire skein of Caron Pounder (16 oz skein) and probably another 4 or 5 yards of a second skein. The hook I used is a Susan Bates "J" hook.

I'm really excited that this shawl is finished. I started it on (I think) last tuesday, and finished it about 3am last night (saturday).

When I finish the white shawl, I'll post pictures of that one. The white one will be for me, because I think I need to be rewarded with a new shawl for finally figuring out the damn pattern. I'm also about to start another Seraphina in a chunky yarn to see what it looks like in a larger weight of yarn.

And because my aunt asked, I've got a picture of snow, not a good picture, but it has snow in it!

This picture was taken tonight around 5 or 6pm, so it was starting to get dark out.

Omaha

2007-12-07T23:09:00.000-06:00

Warning. There is a very good possibility that there will be a few examples of (ok, a lot of) profanity in this blog post. If your kids can read, you might want to make sure they're not hanging over your shoulder.

I've been wanting to write a blog post about the shootings at Westroads here in Omaha for the past few days. I just couldnt come up with any thing good to say, and I'm pretty sure this post will have a lot of suckage and you may see a few of my strong opinions about that son of bitch.

I really do hope that Hawkins is in the bathroom of the sub-sub-basement of Hell right now. Cleaning up milleniums of shit off the floors from the forever-overflowing toilets of the sub-sub-basement of Hell for all of eternity.

(oh, if anyone is offended by an occasional use of the word "nutjob" as a descriptor for Hawkins, I really cant apologize much for that. Because that's about the tamest word I can come up with to describe him.)

Why couldnt he have taken a nice non-violent dive off the Missouri River bridge, or slit his wrists, or just take that damn AK-47 out into a cornfield to blow his brains out? And just what the fuck was his stepfather doing with an AK-47??

And why didnt the people he was staying with think that maybe the fact that he had such a huge piece of firepower in his possesion, that he could have been a serious danger to them and the rest of Omaha (and Bellevue)? He wasnt a "little lost pound puppy", he was a depressed, suicidal, supposedly "adult" man with a BIG FUCKING GUN!

The woman who was allowing him to live in her house with her family is a nurse. A lot of nurses are trained to recognize depression...she must have been either clueless or just indifferent to whatever pain Hawkins felt as long as he paid his rent to live there.

I bet that when Hawkins "just snapped" that woman probably had an "oh shit, I should have paid more attention to him..." feeling when the victims started to arrive at the hospital she worked at. (news reports say that she'd had to talk him out of suicide at least once before) She can say now that he was so nice and polite, but I'd be willing to bet he was broadcasting his intentions in some way the past few weeks or months. Showing her the gun should have been a big warning sign.

I want to know why Hawkins had to go and make Omaha another fucking statistic in the ever growing list of spree shooters, going postal for the various poor excuses that these nutjobs like him seem to always give in their suicide notes (if they leave one).

I never really thought something like that would ever happen here, but it happened in Colorado, and Virginia, and Pennsylvania and so many other states, that I guess I should have known that it really could happen here. It was just a matter of time before another nutjob reached his saturation point and decided to go and "rape" a city with such a senseless violent act.

I might have the smallest amount of empathy for that SOB, only because I've been the school "geek" and harrassed relentlessly for about 12 years or so. Apparently I must have had a good support system (and no underlying mental problems) because it never occured to me at the time to "borrow" my dad's shotgun and go take care of the brats who were harrassing me.

But, being teased and harrassed doesnt excuse his actions. If he was having problems dealing with the stress of the harrassment, he could have talked to someone. Not that talking to someone will help. The whole "just ignore them, they'll leave you alone..." advice doesnt work.

I do think the...intensity...of harrassment that children nowadays get is probably exponentially worse than what I experienced when I was a kid. There seems to be so many more ways for bullies to go after their victims now. Hopefully my sibling's kids dont get treated like that by their schoolmates. It's not fun to be the target.

I read a story in the Omaha World Herald that was written by an Omaha cop. This particular cop was one of the first responders to the shootings.

He made the comments that "Omaha shed it's innocence", and that this is "our own 9-11".

I would really like to say that Omaha still has it's innocence...but when I went shopping tonight with my parents, I could tell that most of the Omahans I saw tonight are no longer "innocent". Just about everyone I saw had this look on their faces...even if they looked like they were happy, smiling even, there was this sad look in a lot of the peoples eyes.

We were in a store, a place that is usually packed and people are usually not very polite when it comes to grabbing the last of whatever popular fad product is the "big thing" off the shelves. The store was so quiet. Except for some Christmas music playing on the model unit of a stereo. People were polite. Kind of a surreal experience for the being in that particular store.

I saw on the news tonight that (I guess) the Omaha city officals want people to wear O! pins in support of the victims and the city, and that the Westroads mall (where Von Maur is located) wants Omahans to make paper snowflakes and bring them (send them) to the Westroads. The snowflakes will be used to decorate a Christmas tree in the mall. (I cant confirm the snowflake project, WOWT is where I heard about that, but there's nothing on their website about it right now)

I'm half tempted to try to crochet a few snowflakes for the tree, but my fingers dont like the skinny crochet hooks and the really thin threads. Maybe I'll make some yarn or crochet cotton snowflakes, maybe I can stiffen them with an Elmers/water mixture I read about the other day.

I want to say that I hope there will never been another mall or school shooting, but I know that's a pipe dream. It WILL happen again...and it's actually happened once before here in Omaha...About 30 years ago in a nightclub called "Club 89". There was only one person killed in that shooting, and several (maybe 5?) people injured. There was no 24 hour cable news coverage then. No Sheperd Smith's (of Foxnews) to sit there and speculate about the mindsets of the killer. I barely remember the Club 89 shooting. I guess that was the Omaha generation before mine's loss of innocence, but then, maybe back then, because of the lack of constant news coverage, it was just another story "below the fold" of the newspaper the next day. Oh, and dont forget Charlie Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate back in 1959...until the other day, Starkweather was who Nebraskans thought about when someone would mention "spree killer". Hopefully they wont make a movie about Hawkins and turn the killings into a cheap piece of entertainment starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the angst ridden teenager.

Not what I wanted to see today.

2007-11-21T14:40:00.000-06:00

This morning I woke up, to this.

And this...

I guess it's going to be a soggy and slushy Thanksgiving.

I bought yarn. Mmmm!! Yarn!!! :)

2007-11-14T16:23:00.000-06:00

Went to my favorite LYS (Local Yarn Store) yesterday after dropping my mom off somewhere. I went to A String of Purls and got myself some yarn. I was looking for a chunky yarn that I had gotten there a few months ago. A really nice 50/50 merino/acrylic blend...I was really sad when they didnt have any, and the girls in the store couldnt remember ever having that brand. So, to console myself, I wandered around for a few minutes (hours), looking at the knitting needles (liked the Lantern Moon needles) and gently petting the yarn on the shelves. Looking for some yarn that I could hopefully afford. (sniffle...I really wanted some Noro, but not for the prices they were charging! I would never be able to make anything bigger than a swatch with it, since I'll never have the money to buy enough to make a sweater)

I finally settled on some Cotanani Mirasol yarn.

It's 60% pima cotton and 40% Merino wool. Started a small scarf last night with it. I really like how this yarn feels. Not so thrilled about the cost tho. I bought 3 hanks, and spent about what I'd spend for 9 skeins of Red Heart Super Saver. But, this yarn is soft and feels pretty and my knitting needles like it, so I think it was worth it.

Here's what I got.

It just amazes me how little you get for $6.95/skein. Oh well, it's yarn and it's soft and pretty and I love how it feels to knit with it.

Happy Birthday Uncle!

2007-11-11T00:01:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday Donny!

And Happy Veteran's Day (have you thanked a Veteran today???)

So I started drawing again...

2007-11-06T00:27:00.000-06:00

I used to be able to draw whatever I looked at. I pretty much lost that talent sometime in high school. Because no matter what I did in my twenties, I could not draw anything as good as I used to be able to.

So, anyways, I decided to attempt drawing again the other day. I was bored, didnt want to knit, couldnt decide on something to crochet, so I got out the typing paper and a crappy pencil. Drew a picture of my (now deceased) dog, TinyMonsters, from some photographs. The drawing turned out ok, but not as good as I liked...so I did it again, little better, did it again and it seemed pretty good.

I went to Office Depot and bought a cheap sketch book, some slightly less crappy pencils, and a pencil sharpener. On saturday night I got out the pictures of Tiny, and drew this:

And then last night, I drew this one:

I think the second drawing turned out to be the best one so far. I drew them both from photographs. I really like using TinyMonsters as a subject. He's easy to draw, and with the fur over his eyes in most of his pictures, I dont have to worry too much about drawing facial features like eyes (I suck at drawing eyes)

I'm going thru my stash of pictures of him to find more to draw. I think now I'll have to go out and buy some decent drawing pencils, and maybe some charcoal.

I'd love to do a scratchboard sketch of TinyMonsters, that would look so cool. (scratchboard definition is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratchboard )

If I get the original pictures I drew these two sketches from, I'll post them later so you can see what the original pictures looked like.

Edited to add picture

Here's the original picture of Tiny from the first sketch that I did.

I feel like showing off a little...

2007-10-24T00:23:00.000-05:00

Here's some pictures of an afghan that I made earlier this year, and a shawl I made about a year ago. (yeah...my 8th grade math teacher used to call me a procrastinator)

The afghan is a giant granny square. I made it with whatever leftover red, white, and blue yarn I had from a couple of other patriotic afghans that I'd made last year.

And here is a pineapple shawl that I made about a year ago from a doily pattern (I'll find the link to it later...it's on Celtwich's site)

I moved some furniture around my house earlier this year, and discovered by accident that the shawl looks great on the back of my foam couch (folds out into a bed) So, it's actually being used as a chair back doily now.

And here's another view with a little more couch showing...

I'm currently working on another one of these pineapple shawls. I'm using Caron Pounder yarn in Iris (purple)

I got some Sugar & Cream yarn on sale at a LYS last week, so I'm having fun knitting dishcloths with it. I'm almost done with one...I may post a picture of that later this week.

Another evolutionary knitting discovery!

2007-09-23T00:43:00.000-05:00

YAY!!!!!

I was just sitting here, playing with my double points, and attempted the Figure 8 for something like the 20th time. All of a sudden I had knitting on my dpns!

Holy cow excrement! I cannot believe I just figured it out and I wasnt even looking at any directions for the Figure 8. I was just trying to remember what I saw on an episode of Knitty Gritty that I recorded onto my TiVo awhile back.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to do the increases and there could possibly be knitted socks in my future.

I'm going to go wander around the internet and look at sock yarn. I figured out the cast on while playing with the 10.5 dpns and worsted weight Red Heart...maybe I'll keep playing with the Red Heart yarn and ginormous dpns and make an Xmas stocking (the yarn is green)

I feel like total crap...

2007-09-17T20:54:00.001-05:00

which means that I feel sooo much better than I did yesterday.

Apparently I came down with a stomach flu (probably a Norovirus...like people who go on cruises seem to do a lot of lately...and no, I havent been on a cruise)

I think I must have come down with it sometime on thursday or friday, altho the bad stuff didnt "come up" until sunday morning. All I know is that I slept all afternoon and evening on friday...all day saturday, most of the day sunday, and part of today.

My dad, who will usually be down a week when this stuff happens, seems to have only been sick last night and this morning. (lucky dad) He actually ate some of my Mrs. Grass Chicken Noodle soup tonight.

I was supposed to have Jury duty today. Thankfully I got that postponed until november. (not sure if that's a good or bad thing)

I think I'm feeling better. Pretty sure my fever is gone...I just feel like I've been hit by a truck...repeatedly. I guess that's what happens when you're flat on your back in bed for about 3 or 4 days.

I wish I wasnt feeling so dang sore right now...I want to crochet or knit something, but my back is killing me. Maybe if I do something simple that wont be too painful. Either that, or I'll take another nap.

Look what I made!!! :)

2007-09-14T14:56:00.000-05:00

I finally figured out how to whipstitch!

I made this little afghan for practice before I move onto making a larger one (which I've already started)

I'm giving the little afghan to my aunt's dog. Pudge (a pug) needed a new blanket that goes with my aunt's furniture. I also didnt have a lot of the two colors I used, so I couldnt really make it much bigger than it is.

I'm giving Pudge her new blankie tonight or tomorrow.

I'm so excited about figuring out the whipstitch. I'd tried it before, but it never quite looked like what the pictures in the instructions always look like. For some reason last week, I was playing with some squares that I had crocheted on my last attempt to sew squares together, and suddenly I was able to whipstitch and not have things fall apart on me or get all tangled up because I couldnt get the yarn needle in the correct spots on the squares.

I'm starting another granny afghan. This one is being made in red, white, and blue, and I'm making what I think are 9 Patch blocks (9 squares of 3 colors sewn together into one big square), and I think I'll make 9 of these 9 Patches to be sewn together into an afghan. (finally, I can make something resembling a quilt...)

I might also attempt this in knitting also. I was thinking about making squares on my straight knitting needles and sewing them together into an afghan. Which I think would look cool if I ever try learning how to knit cables. I think I'll have to take lessons on making cables. (tried it, looked good for a few rows till I made a mistake that I couldnt fix)

I'll be taking pictures tonight of my attempt at a patriotic granny afghan. I have my first block finished, and it doesnt look too bad. I need to go buy some new yarn to finish that one, but I'm kind of excited about this now. I love patriotic afghans, and making one out of a bunch of squares sounds like fun. Plus, if it goes as fast as my first block did yesterday, I should be finished fairly quickly. (I join the squares as I go...seems to go faster than making all the squares before joining)

Some interesting fauna and flora...

2007-08-19T00:20:00.000-05:00

So, tonight I was sitting outside with my parents, looking our new landscaping, when something started to fly around some of the flowers. It was moving pretty quickly, and my mom thought it was a hummingbird.

I had my camera with me, so I tried to take some pictures...the damn thing was FAST! I think I only managed to get one picture of it, and even tho I was zoomed in, I couldnt exactly tell if it was a hummingbird. (if you cant see it, look at the top of the purple flowers)

So, when I got inside, I put the pictures on my computer and then zoomed in on the little thing. I was surprised to see antennae and and buggy legs on this thing. So, off to Google I went, and found out that the speedy little insectish-like thingie was actually a hummingbird moth.

I dont like bugs, but this was interesting to see, since I'd never seen one before. Now I'll have to be watching for more to appear in our flowers.
And for you to see more of my amazing (?) photography skills, here are some more pictures of some plantlife in my yard. The next couple of pictures are of a Henry Fonda rose in various stages of blooming. (and they're probably not in order of bloomage)

The third rose picture has a little bug sitting inside the flower, it's NOT a ladybug. Apparently the ladybugs are being overtaken in my area by some bug from China that looks a lot like a ladybug, but it's a horrible pest (another bad import from China) My next door neighbor had a swarm of these things inside her glass enclosed patio room a few years ago. They're just nasty, and very difficult to get rid of when you get a swarm swarming your house. So far, my house hasnt been bothered by them, but my neighbor seems to have problems with them every fall when it gets cold.

Eventually, I'll get some crochet/and or knit projects finished and will post them here soon. Just thought some people might like to see my roses and that moth.

So, it's been an interesting few days.

2007-07-21T15:26:00.000-05:00

I've learned how to do a couple of knit-ish type things (k1, p1 ribbing, loom knitting) and I finally got to replace my poor yarn winder with a new one. Bought some wool yarn that I'm either going to make a hat or a purse out of.

I went to the doctor last week because I was having some bizzare vertigo. The doctor put me on a steroid taper to try to lower some apparent inflammation in my middle ear, because he thinks I have otoliths (little microscopic rocks) in my ears. When these otoliths roll around in my ear canal, it causes vertigo. Which. is. not. fun. at. all. So...I've been on this steroid for a couple of days, and I see why people like and dont like to be on steroids. I'm all up and feel (I'm assuming, since I've never been) a wee bit high. I'm crocheting/knitting all sorts of things, I'll have all sorts of projects started that need to be finished when I'm done with the steroids. The steroids are interesting. I can now tell that there was some sort of funky inflammation and goo going on in my ears. I can hear...I can breathe better too.

Apparently my entire head must have had some inflammation in it. I didnt realize how long I havent been able to breathe. It's kind of neat to be able to breathe thru my nose without encountering a "roadblock" or two in there. The steroids are helping with one or two of my other problems that I've been having. The doctor told me when he gave me the Rx that I might see improvement in other problems I might have been experimenting. My back doesnt hurt anymore! yay! So hopefully whatever this steroid has done, it'll last awhile for my back.

Ok, back to the knitish type stuff I've been doing. I learned how to do ribbing this week and this is totally cool, it's become my favorite knit stitch. I'm trying to make a scarf with it now. Then, yesterday I went to Hobby Lobby and wandered around looking at all the cool clearance stuff they had. I didnt want to spend a lot of money, so I looked at a spool thingie to make knitted cord...decided I didnt want to spend 3 dollars on it when it originally only costs about $4.50. So, I walked around a bit more until I found a bag that the HL employees just threw a bunch of knitting/crocheting stuff into a slapped a price tag on it. Bought that! It had 2 crochet hooks, 2 pairs of knitting needles, a knitting gauge thingie, stitch markers, and a knitting loom. I've already got yarn on the two pairs of needles, and I'm playing around with the loom thing. It didnt come with the little tool that you use to manipulate the yarn, but luckily I have a bazillion crochet hooks and found that one of my grandma's old steel crochet hooks works perfectly for pulling the yarn over the pegs. I sat up till 3am last night learning how to loom knit. Havent finished anything, but it's an interesting technique.

I'm planning on knitting some Harry Potter scarves. I want to do them in k1, p1 ribbing. I just love the feel of that stitch. I just need to find the right shades of yarn for a Gryffindor scarf. My dad likes the Harry Potter stories (we listen to them on cd) and he said he wouldnt mind a Gryffindor scarf. I might try to make him a hat with the knitting loom once I get it figured out.

I missed the HP book premiere last night. I had gotten to the bookstore too late yesterday to get a wristband, so my dad said we could buy it off of Amazon. We ended up getting the entire series of books. (Dad's claiming them as his) and I'm just waiting impatiently for them to be delivered. Hopefully they get here soon, I'm having problems keeping from getting the ending of the series spoiled by the news and morons on the internet who have never heard of "spoiler warnings"!!!

I am SO MAD!!!

2007-07-01T23:58:00.000-05:00

I just accidentally broke my yarn winder. ARGH!!!!

I have to go look and see if I can buy a new one somewhere...cheap.

Now I'm depressed...

2007-06-22T23:14:00.001-05:00

I just watched the final episode of Stargate SG-1. (No, I'm not going to spoil it for anyone who hasnt seen it yet)

This has been one of my favorite shows for ten years (except for a season or two when Michael Shanks {Daniel Jackson} was off the show) The only other show that I really enjoyed as much as Stargate was MacGyver (and gosh, how happy am I that Richard Dean Anderson was in both shows!)

At least they're going to have two direct-to-video movies coming out probably within the year. And at least I still have Stargate: Atlantis to watch, and at least one person from the original Stargate will be jumping over to Atlantis (Amanda Tapping)

Hopefully Santa Claus will bring me the entire series of Stargate in a box set for Christmas. I still have to catch up on those seasons I missed when Michael Shanks left the show.

I did something I never thought I'd manage to do. I somehow managed to use up about 3/4 of my yarn stash (it was mostly scrap yarn) I recently got a new bed, with storage underneath. So today I was finally getting things put away, and in a rare burst of energy, I decided to straighten out my yarn cabinet. So I opened it up and pulled out all the little yarn cakes and was surprised that there was not as much yarn in that cabinet when I filled it up last year (or was it the year before?)

I managed to get almost all of that yarn into the really nifty craft tote I bought on clearance at Joann's Crafts the other day, and also into a blanket bag (the kind when you buy new bedding that have zippers and are made of clear plastic) The blanket bag isnt even that big. So, now that I have a newly emptied out cabinet space, I decided to get my old laptop out of it's exile to my dad's office and it's now happily purring away in my yarn cabinet (which used to be a computer cabinet before it became a yarn storage device. Now it's a computer cabinet again.) When I start back to school this fall, I'm probably going to use that computer for schoolwork and that desk just for doing homework. If I manage to get my certificate for medical transcription soon, I'm going to probably also use that desk as a work area if I can get a transcription job working from home.

I'm now thinking of cleaning my closet tomorrow. I probably wont, but I am thinking about it.

I want to go buy new yarn since I got rid of a ton of scrap yarn, but I think I'll see how much more yarn I can get rid of before I start to stash it again.

Havent blogged for awhile...

2007-06-09T00:25:00.001-05:00

So, I've neglected my poor little blog for a bit.

In my defense, I'll say I've been busy. I went on vacation (at the beginning of May) to the Black Hills. LOVED IT! (I have pictures, but am too tired to mess around with posting them right now)

I saw Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial (which I was surprised to learn was commissioned by the Lakota), went to Wall and shopped at Wall Drug, saw the Badlands (my favorite place in SD), went to Rushmore Cave, which is a big cave full of stalactites and stalagmites. Amazingly enough, I, a sworn claustrophobe and acrophobe actually went on the tour. I managed to make it thru the cave without curling up into a fetal ball, screaming, and rocking back and forth with my hands over my head. Outwardly I was very calm, but inside I was screaming in terror. I was almost to the end of the tour when my mind started to think about earthquakes (in South Dakota??!) and cave-ins, so I was a bit anxious to get out of the cave, but at least I didnt panic.

Also went to Deadwood and Sturgis. In Deadwood I went to the Midnight Star, which is the casino that's owned by Kevin Costner. I was thrilled that Costner's slot machines were generous enough to give me a $100 jackpot to go along with the $30 that I was able to accumulate before the jackpot hit. :)

On the way home we went thru Custer State Park, nearly got t-boned by a HUGE American Bison (buffalo) that wandered (ran) down the hillside towards the road we were on. Ironically, after we dodged the bison we drove a little further down the road and encountered a sign that said "Caution. Large Animals on Road"... The day after that we also saw Scotts Bluff and Chimney Rock in Nebraska...dodged some tornados on the way back to Omaha and then came home in time for the vision problem that I've had since last August to finally start to resolve itself to a point where I'm almost happy with my vision now. (knock on wood it stays that way...or gets even better)

I got a late b-day present! (my b-day was May 24th). My dad bought me a new bed. Not that I didnt have a bed before, but it was just a bedframe, and a mattress and box spring. My dad took us to Nebraska Furniture Mart last week, and I picked out my new bed (not a new mattress, I kept the one I had) It's really nice. It's a Captain's Bed...which just means that it's got a wooden pedestal base that has drawers (four) under it, and a nice headboard/bookcase.

Finally! I have storage! (not for yarn) I could have gotten even more storage if I got the pier that goes with the headboard, but alas...when we bought this house, I had the misfortune to get a bedroom with a funky shaped wall on one end where the bed goes. The pier (two TALL cabinets with a bridge and mirror thing that goes over the headboard) wouldnt fit in my room because of the funky shape of that wall. :(

My room feels much bigger now because I had to do some serious re-arranging of my junk....err...valuable things.

When I moved a piece of furniture this morning to vaccuum in preparation to the bed getting delivered, I discovered the last evidence that I ever had a dog. Under the bed, I found a towel that had been half chewed, a huge pile of dog hair, and a lone ancient dingleberry. (Ummm...how to explain dingleberries?? Hmmm...probably too much information, but my dog had hair that would collect things in it, and when he'd go potty, the hair would catch things, and they'd stick around a bit until they dropped off...again, probably too much information)

Strangely enough, the sight of the dingleberry, the chewed up towel and all that black hair I found under the bed made me wish TinyMonsters was still around. *sigh*

It's going to shock my friend that got mad at me when he visited last week because there was no where to sit in my room but on a footstool that day. He'll freak when he sees how clean my room is and the fact that I'm bringing my late-uncle's chair downstairs to keep in my room. So there'll be someplace to sit now (as long as I'm not storing dirty laundry on the chair)

In my little world of crochet and all things yarn-ish, I've finished a couple of projects. I did a couple more of those pineapple shawls, a giant granny square afghan, and I've done some more practice on the knitting that I've been teaching myself. I went out and bought myself an Addi Turbo circular needle. (got my sibling one too while I was at it...my dad forgot to get the sibling a present for a holiday) I REALLY like the Addi Turbo! It feels really neat to my fingers, and almost makes it feel like it's easier to knit. I'm going to have to eventually get myself a whole set of those needles in all sorts of sizes. I havent made anything with the turbo yet, just playing around with scrap yarn for now.

Well, I'm off to try out the new bed, and see if it's any more comfortable than it used to be (I had the delivery guys haul off the box springs, so now I've got a firmer mattress) I sat around on it earlier, and it didnt feel too bad. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep more comfortably now.

So my dad had a bunch of pictures professionally scanned...

2007-04-12T23:58:00.000-05:00

My dad just got back a CD full of pictures that he had professionally scanned. I'm not very impressed. The pictures look VERY low quality to me. (but then, I'm half blind, so maybe they're not?) But, at least I have some more of our old film pictures of TinyMonsters. Here's some pictures of TinyMonsters and his little brother Corky. (we puppysat Corky for a week. No wonder we never got a second Bouvier when Tiny was alive) In the first picture, Corky is the one standing next to my mom...and in the second picture, he's laying down in the grass. He's cute, but I still think Tiny was better looking than his baby brother.

I think the scans are of poor quality, and that my dad probably wasted his money on this. At least we got all our originals back.

Today, it looks like Friday The Thirteenth was not a good day for computer equipment in our house. My mom's eMachine (wanna-be Gateway) crashed the other day. My dad and I took the computer out to Best Buy where we bought it last June, and the Geek there checked it and claimed that there was nothing wrong with it. So, we brought it home, hooked it back up, and it worked for about...two or three hours, and then started wacking out again.

So, today my dad and loaded up the piece of crap computer, and went back to BB...talked to the same guy. He kept claiming that there was nothing wrong with it. Until he tried to reboot it. :) It crapped out for him too! I had been told by the Geek Squad's online chat AND their telephone reps that they thought it was a bad sector, or some corrupted code or something. (those problems would be something we'd have to pay to have fixed) So, my dad and I were shocked when the kid at the store said that he thought it was the motherboard. (something BB's warranty would pay for! yay!)

Bad news...the computer is going to be gone for a month...and my mom is so not happy about that. I'm loaning her my laptop till she gets her computer back tho.

I've learned something. Dont buy an eMachine. I do have a Gateway, which probably isnt much better, but I've so far only had a few problems with mine...and I've probably just jinxed it.

A strange thing happened last week. I was listening to the first Harry Potter book on CD in my car. (borrowed it from the library) My parents were in the car, and my dad apparently has become hooked on HP. (mom was able to resist...) So now, I guess we're on the waiting list at the library for the CD version of the second HP book. I may attempt to crochet (or maybe knit?) my dad a Gryffindor scarf or afghan (if I make an afghan, it'll be crocheted) It's amazing how easily my dad got hooked on the story. We actually sat in the driveway the other night, with the back door of my car open, and my car stereo playing the HP disk.

Too bad mom doesnt like HP.

Colds suck..

2007-03-14T22:38:00.000-06:00

So, I was going to post a nice memorial today to my dog TinyMonsters... Apparently my brain had other plans. (it's 11:40pm now...so I'm just going to do a short blog post and not bore you all with my dead-now-for-a-year dog.)

I've been fighting a serious cold (gee, thanks a lot Dad...is this revenge for me not getting you a birthday present?) and have not slept for the past two days. And then today, I've been in a fog of cough syrup and Claritin.

I'm hoping to go yarn shopping tomorrow. I've been wanting to try Brown Sheep wool (a Nebraska-made yarn) and so I'm going to a REAL yarn store tomorrow (not WM or Hobby Lobby) and see if I can score a couple of skeins of Brown Sheep to do an attempt at felting. (I say "attempt" because I'm pretty sure I'm going to screw it up) I may also see if I can find some nice new knitting needles (circulars) to add to my growing collection...and after that, I'll probably stop off at Joann's Crafts (I have some 50% off coupons)

I've started a giant granny square afghan (square, not rectangular) and It's not quite half finished. It's mostly red, with some white and blue yarn thrown in to add dimension.

I did recently finish a green shawl for a former neighbor as a St. Patty's day present. I took pictures of it, but I used my dad's camera, so I have to have him pull them off since his computers have the program for removing them.

And just so I have a little something on here in reference to TinyMonsters, here's a picture.

March Blizzard...Part 2

2007-03-02T14:19:00.000-06:00

Why am I hungry for cake?

I dont think we'll be grilling steaks tonight...do you?

The association snowplows finally showed up last night around 11pm. My dad got his car unstuck from the end of the driveway then (yay!) and he was silly this morning and went to work. (wrong move...it's snowing again now!)

I spent last night pug sitting my aunt's dog Pudge. It was like a slumber party. The dog slept in my bed and kept getting all grumpy because I kept making her move over. (she's a little furnace! and a bed hog!) My aunt spent the entire night at the hospital working because a bunch of nurses were not able to get to work to replace the ones that did. She finally got home this morning and Pudge was so excited to see her human. I was too. I didnt really mind watching Pudge, except for having to take her out to go potty in the cold snow. That's the ONLY thing that I DO NOT miss about my dog TinyMonsters...taking him out in the middle of a blizzard to do his business. At least Pudge was perfectly willing to go back into the house. TinyMonsters would go outside and see the snow, and think it was the neatest thing in the world and would refuse to come back inside. (always had to remember to take a cellphone out with me, to call for reinforcements)

Hopefully the snow melts this weekend. I want to go out to the movies sunday and my friend that's going with me has to drive from Lincoln to get here. Hopefully the slippery white stuff is gone by then (or at least plowed up decently)

This better melt soon!

2007-03-01T17:45:00.000-06:00

Here's a few pictures of the white crap that fell today. It's nasty stuff.

This is a picture of my neighbor's front yard...If you look closely, you can see the snowdrift is leading up to the front door of the house.

and here's a picture of the storm from my basement back door. There are actually two magnolia bushes back there. One is much smaller than the other and it's almost covered by the snow. (the little one is to the left of the larger bush...you can barely see it in the snow)

The snow in the backyard has drifted a lot higher since that picture was taken. It's just unreal how much snow fell today. (there's a bad rumour that we got 15 inches! We were originally supposed to get 6 - 9 inches)

I have a few more pictures, but they're on my dad's camera, and I dont know where he put the cable to pull them off.

ohmygosh.

2007-03-01T12:30:00.000-06:00

I just went and got my aunt's pug Pudge. That was an experience. A scary experience.

The snow went up to my knees...and my aunt has a snowdrift that I couldnt see from my house. It's in her driveway and is about 4 feet tall. Her front door has an even bigger drift!

So, rescuing Pudge from her dog crate in Jan's laundry room was not fun. Pudge wanted to run around the house like a wild dog...so I had to let her do that for a bit, then try to wrangle her into her collar. Grabbed some food, and then tried to go back out thru the garage door. The garage door wouldnt go down from the keypad. So, we had to go back into the house. Close the garage door from there and go out the front door.

Then, I had to climb over the ginormous drift that's in her front door (carrying Pudge) and get the the relatively clear spot in her front yard so that Pudge could "take care of things", before heading over to my house. I think I twisted my ankle and my knee, walking back in the FOUR FOOT DRIFTS of WHITE CRAP! We made it back to my house fairly quickly. Got my garage door open, and came inside. I had to change sweatpants because mine had snow stuck all over them up to an area above my knees (eeeek! cold!)

Once we got inside, Pudge did exactly what Tiny did the first time he came into our house to stay. She poo-ed on the floor. ohyayforthat...at least it was solid.

She's run around my house several times over...I'm hoping she'll calm down long enough to lay down and leave me alone for a bit. I've developed an allergy to dogs and this is the first time in nearly a year I've had a dog in my house. I'm hoping I wont need to break out the Benadryl. I'm also wishing that Jan had taken Pudge to obedience school...none of the commands that worked on Tiny seem to work on Pudge.

This storm is seriously dangerous. I was scared walking across the street to Jan's house. It's THAT bad.

Holy Snowballs!!!

2007-03-01T11:29:00.000-06:00

We're in the middle of a blizzard (and not a nice tasty one from Dairy Queen). This is a real blizzard.

My neighbor across the street has a FIVE FOOT DRIFT in her driveway that goes all the way up to her front door!

They've closed all the highways and interstate between Omaha and Lincoln, and Omaha is pretty much shut down. (Lincoln got 6 inches of snow and their storm is already over...the lucky bastards)

Omaha had thundersnow this morning. If you've never seen thundersnow, it's just amazing. The snow will come down quick, very heavy and intense. And then you get dangerous cloud to ground lightning. Cool to watch, but scary to experience!

I've taken a couple of pictures of the white crap, but havent pulled them off of my digital camera yet, but I might post some pictures later.

The local news said last night we might get 6 to 9 inches. Now they've revised that prediction. We'll probably end up with something closer to FIFTEEN INCHES by tonight.

I think I'm going to go make a cake, or cookies or something and then go crochet something later. Hopefully my dad will be able to make it home. (he's got a 4wheel drive car) but he works in a hospital, so he at least has access to food and a place to sleep if he gets stuck at work. My aunt lives across the street from me (next door to the neighbor with the five foot drift) and I'm really worried she wont make it home. If she doesnt, I'll be pug sitting tonight. (Jan's got a cute pug named Pudge)

There's no way I'm going to try to go out in this...even the snowplows are getting stuck in the snow.

Good thing we stocked up on chocolate last night...this qualifies as a Chocolate Emergency! I think I'll go rustle up some junk food for my mother. (she HATES snow with a serious passion, chocolate might calm the beast)

Half Granny square shawl

2007-02-21T17:19:00.000-06:00

After finishing the red retro sweater, I decided to finish the scrap shawl that I started several weeks ago. It's nothing exciting. I just made half of a granny square. The first round is done just like a basic granny, but after that you only crochet halfway around the square and then turn, and do that to each row. (I know, I'm not explaining it well)

Here's a picture

I just used scrap yarn, and changed colors when I felt like it. I randomly used yarn out of my stash and sometimes didnt care if I was putting a clashing color against a clashing color. I also didnt repeat any colors. The shawl is huge, and probably doesnt represent very much of my scrap yarn stash.

For the edging, I did one row of half double crochet, and then for the next row, I single crocheted in the first 9 stitches, did 3dc, ch-1, 3 dc in the next st, and then skipped 2 sts... all the way to the center point, where I did 1 hdc in each of the next 9 sts, and then started over with the scallops until I got to the last 9 sts and then sc in each of the last 9 sts. (have I confused you yet?)

Both my parents seem to like it a lot. I think my dad wants me to give it to him, but I think this shawl is for me. (I dont keep what I make very often) My parents can use it if they're cold tho..

I'm not exactly sure what to crochet next. I want to do a green sweater vest like the red one I did one blog post back. I'm also thinking of doing a scrap afghan. (I have a LOT of scrap yarn)

So, is it groovy??

2007-02-16T17:40:00.000-06:00

I just finished this sweater yesterday

I got the pattern from the old (now defunct) Groovy Crochet website. (which is archived on the Internet Archive thank goodness) It's the Easy Crochet Vest. It's a pattern from the mid-60's.

I've done this pattern before, but the last time I did it, I followed the directions exactly, and the sweater was a teensy bit too small for me. (gave it to a friend)

This time I modified the pattern a little...I made it a little wider, and a little longer, and then just "winged" it to do the shoulder and sleeve shaping. I was shocked to hell when I got the shoulders sewn up and it actually fit.

I wore it out into public for the first time today (went to the grocery store) I dont think it looks too bad. I'm just hoping that the yarn doesnt stretch too much from wearing it. (I used Red Heart SS Cherry Red and a K hook)

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Just found these....

2007-02-10T20:12:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine helped me remove an old hard drive from a computer that is no more and put it into a case so that I can use it as an external hard drive. (for some reason I can only use 50gb of the 160gb...go figure. My friend is going to diddle with it later this week to see if he can find the other 110gb)

I did manage to find some old pictures of stuff on this hard drive.

Along with a couple of pictures of TinyMonsters, I found some crochet pictures. Here's a few pictures of an afghan that I made in early summer of 2004.

I used scrap yarn for it, with a purple color in between each color change. This was the afghan that convinced me that scrap afghans look really cool when you throw in a couple rounds of a variegaited or ombre yarn to make the other colors pop.

I've still got this afghan, it's in my stash of finished afghans that I use for gifts occasionally. I think I might take this one out of the stash and use it on my bed.

I'm pretty sure that I used an "I" hook for this one, since that's my favorite hook size when I'm making the rectangle granny afghans.

And then I found this

It's a crappy picture of me that I took with a webcamera. Ignore me, and look over my shoulder. That's one of the several dozen American flag afghans that I've crocheted. You cant tell from the crappy picture, but I used half double crochet for the body of the afghan, and Red Heart yarn (RH SS Blue, {edit: it's actually RH SS Navy Blue} Cherry Red, and White...I edged it in Gold in half double crochet) That picture is probably from early 2002. I made a lot of American flag afghans during fall and winter of 2001 and spring of 2002. My aunt Jan has that afghan.

I really like American flag afghans. I never use a written out pattern for them. I usually just eyeball the dimensions. Sometimes I'll take a real American flag, and use it as a template to figure out how long to make the starting chain, and how many rows to do each stripe and where to place the Field of Blue. I've never managed to put stars in my flag afghans.

Sometimes I dont bother using a template, and just hope that I get the dimensions right. I usually dont get the dimensions right when I do that, but who cares...they're just fun to do...and it means that each American flag afghan is different.

Wow...that took forever!!

2007-02-09T23:30:00.000-06:00

I finally finished my very first KNITTED project. (I've been cheating on my crochet hooks with some knitting needles)

It's a scarf... (what a surprise!)

It's done in knit stitch, and has a single crochet edging around the entire scarf.

Here are some pictures.

I started the scarf way back at the end of August. I was having a minor (ok, major!) vision problem at the time. (ginormous blind spots obscuring 2/3rds of my vision in my left eye) and I guess I felt that I needed a challenge. So, I taught myself to knit. I dont know why it took till I was half blind to be able to figure out how to knit.

I've gotten pretty darned good at the knit stitch, but purling is still fairly difficult for me...mostly the logistics of maneuvering the yarn. I have to use my right hand to wrap the yarn around the needle for the purl stitch, and after 30something years of crocheting and never having to use my right hand to do anything other than move my crochet hook around, it's still kind of difficult for me to grasp that concept.

I have a couple of other knitted scarves going on some needles...It'll probably take me another 6 months to finish each of them at the rate that I knit.

I like the feel of knitted fabric, but I prefer crocheting, probably because I can crochet an entire afghan in a week if I have to...it took me 6 months to knit that scarf!!!!

It's been awhile...

2007-01-30T22:09:00.000-06:00

Usually I post more often, but it's been a crummy month and I didnt feel like posting...and no, I'm not going to go into why it's been such a crappy month.

I'm starting to get better at the knitting...my crochet hooks are jealous. I've bought maybe 3 or 4 pairs of circular knitting needles (I hate the straight needles) in the past 2 or 3 weeks...and yes, all of them but one are occupied. I'm still not really knitting many actual projects. Mostly I'm practicing different techniques and trying to figure out an easier way to do the purl stitch. I do have one scarf that's 3/4 of the way done, and the start of a poncho. The poncho will probably take me a couple of years to do. (why is knitting so slow?!)

I finally got a new PDA...an HP iPAQ. I'm still waiting for Office Depot to honor their warranty. My dad and I got tired of waiting and my dad got me the new PDA for Xmas. I get the feeling that Office Depot is hoping I'll forget so they wont have to replace my old one. (meaning they'd give me a gift card for the broken one)

The new PDA is GREAT and is better than my old one. It's come in handy for a lot of stuff lately. Plus, it's fun to play with.

The weatherguy on the news just way too cheerfully announced that it's supposed to snow tomorrow. There has to be a law or something that weatherguys cant be chuckling, giggling or snickering while doing a weather forcast in the wintertime. Good thing this is the weatherguy who usually gets the forecasts WRONG. :)

Damn store warranties.

2006-12-29T10:57:00.000-06:00

I am never buying another piece of computer equipment from Office Depot ever again. Never. Never Never.

Last year my dad got me a PDA from Office Depot for Christmas. It was a floor model, so a lot of people had been poking at it before we got it. So, we bought the extended warranty because we figured I would need it.

About two weeks ago, it died on me. (touchscreen quit working) So, I called OD and tried to tell them it was dead and I wanted their warranty dept to either fix it or replace it like they said they would.

OD tells me that it's still under manufacturers warranty and wouldnt deal with me. So, I called the manufacturer (HP...love HP products) and they told me "sorry, manufacturers warranty expired on the 8th". So, I called OD back and told them what HP said. Emailed OD my receipt as proof.

OD claims that it's still under manufacturers warranty because I didnt register the PDA till December 26th. (ummm...it was a Xmas present) HP said that because it was bought December 8th that the 1yr warranty has expired. Office Depot is giving me the royal runaround and I get the feeling they dont want to honor their warranty contract.

I just spent a half hour listening to the crappiest hold music to find out that the warranty dept hasnt even bothered looking at my claim yet.

The guy on the phone said that if I know the PDA is unrepairable that I should go ahead and purchase a new PDA while they get things sorted out. Ummm...just how am I supposed to do that? They havent sent me the giftcard they give you when your warrantied item cant be repaired. Plus the fact that they dont even offer HP pda's in their store anymore, so I'm going to have to buy my next pda straight from HP (and I'm pretty sure they wont take an OD giftcard)

I explained that to Emilio, the barely intelligible warranty guy. (I know the warranty dept is in Florida, and there are lots of Spanish speaking people there, but can they at least hire someone who can enunciate clearly? I dont care if English was their 5th language, I just want to be able to understand what the hell the guy is saying to me without making him repeat himself because he cant pronounce the simplest words!!) Emilio told me that sometimes instead of a giftcard they can send a check, but that a check takes FOUR WEEKS to be processed. (what the f...?) It's nearly 3 weeks since my pda died...something that I'm not very happy about. (I used my pda for more than just reading fanfiction and playing solitaire) Now I've got to wait another four weeks??!?

Next time we get anything electronic or computer related, I'm going to Best Buy. They have repair people in the store...and their warranties are much much better...and next time I'll tell my dad not to buy the floor model.

I think I'll go write Office Depot a strongly worded letter about the crappy hold music they had on their phones. I dont think I'm ever getting that stupid song out of my head. I'm probably going to have to go listen to the song that I hate most in this world to get their hold music out of my head. (not telling what song I hate most in this world...one clue tho...it's by Toni Basil)

10 years ago today...

2006-12-26T02:11:00.000-06:00

Ten years ago tonight (probably right about now...2am) TinyMonsters was born. Seems like he was just a puppy...

Too bad I cant clone him. (I have some of his hair...maybe someday?)

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T00:05:00.000-06:00

Ohmygosh! We (my mom and I) got all our presents wrapped tonight. I actually ran out of my fabric bags (that's never happened before!) and had to resort to wrapping paper for about 4 presents.

While my mom and I were wrapping those, we both commented that my fabric gift bags are so much easier. We were both having problems holding the paper down while trying to wrangle with the tape dispenser.

The tree looks weird without the dog fence around it. (I miss TinyMonsters...his birthday is tomorrow, the 26th. He'd be 10 if he hadnt died in March)

I took some pictures of the tree tonight, but I'm too tired to load the pictures onto my computer to post them here now.

This is the last year for our current tree. It's going to a new home (friend of my dad's is taking it) We bought a new skinnier (not pre-lit) tree on sale at Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks ago. ('bout $45 for a 7.5 footer) My pre-lit tree was slowly becoming un-lit. The woman taking our old tree doesnt mind that not all the branches will light up. It's a good decent tree. I'll miss it a little bit, but I wanted a skinnier tree...It'll fit better in the place we're going to be putting it up in every year, and plus the new tree wont take up as much room in our Xmas closet.

I didnt get as excited about christmas this year as I have in other years. Think it was a combination of the weather, my eye being weird and colors not looking normal and maybe my dog dying last March. Just wasnt fun without Tiny trying to steal glass balls off the tree or trying to steal the fabric bags from under the tree. (he'd stick his head over the fence and try to get a mouthful of fabric to steal)

Yesterday and today was about the first time I got excited at all about shopping. Took my mom to Target to get stuff for my dad, went to WM with both my parents to shop for something that dad wanted to get for all of us (WM was out of the item) and then went to Kmart with my dad so that he could get my mom a few more presents because she seemed to have bought more for him than he did for her. I guess he wanted to even things out under the tree and this is probably why we ran out of bags this year. (I even made 5 or 6 new ones too!)

For dinner my dad cooked out on our grill (in 40 degree weather!) We didnt realize it till we started cooking, but we need to add another light to our patio. Dad had to grill by flashlight light. The steaks turned out perfect (dad's was a bit well done) and we had asparagus, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes with it. I was going to make biscuits but got sidetracked and forgot about them till we were bringing the steaks in.

My dad got himself an early present a few weeks ago. A digital videocamera. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the video onto my computer...not that I'll upload much video to the internet...dont have my dog to do cute and interesting things...he's about the only thing I'd have been interested in uploading to my blog.

I'm sleepy and worn out tonight...been taking an antibiotic for an infection this weekend and I think that's done a number on me too.

I think I hear the reindeer...better go to bed.

Yikes! Xmas is getting closer!

2006-12-22T22:50:00.000-06:00

Good thing I wasnt crocheting anything as a gift...I've been neglecting my crochet projects and cheating on them with the knitting needles. (not knitting anything for anyone...just trying to make something for myself)

I may be a little closer in figuring out why my right leg has had numbness in it since April. (it may have something to do with a couple of back injuries I had a few months apart in '99, and a hip injury I got tripping ONTO and OFF of the train at the local zoo the day my hip went numb.)

I went to the doctor on thursday because the numbness changed in intensity and MOVED to another spot on my leg. I was disturbed enough by that and another symptom or two to go to a doctor. So, I had an ever so delightful (not) experience in an MRI machine again today. (MRIs and claustrophobia do not mix very well) Got a nice MRI of my lower back and spine...with a nice little injection of contrast medium (gadolinium). I better not go to the airport for awhile. I might set off their radiation detectors. I look like a junkie because I apparently have small veins. The MRI tech had to poke me repeatedly to find a good vein to put the contrast into.

I hate MRI's, but at least they dont put you all the way in for a lower back MRI, (they do for a brain MRI and they strap you down with all sorts of kinky stuff so you dont move. Eeek! and when they say "open machine"...that's a lie...I dont consider it "open" if I have a giant magnet about 2 inches from the end of my nose) Having to lay completely still (you can move your arms a teeny bit for a spinal MRI) for about 40 minutes is not fun at all. (an hour and a half to two hours for a brain MRI...not fun when you're strapped down!) My back is pissed at me now.

I spent some of the time listening to country music on headphones and thinking up what I want to crochet/and or knit next. Part of the time was taken up with wishing I could scratch the itchy spot on my right knee.

I've been working on some stuff for Christmas. About 5 or 6yrs ago I got my first sewing machine. It was a WalMart special (pretty much a piece of junk) I had it for about 4 or 5 months when my dad bought me a Husquvarna Viking machine. I cheerfully gave up my WM Special (gave it to my cousin) and have totally embraced the Viking. I still cant do much more than straight lines down the fabric, but I do have fun making simple gift bags to use at Christmas.

My dad LOVES the gift bags. He's wrapping paper challenged. Growing up I could always tell which parent wrapped the presents. My mom's were obsessive-compulsively taped down on the ends, paper folded almost perfect and she was fairly thrifty with the amounts of paper she used. And she would put a tag on the present that said who it was for and if it was from the parents or Santa.

My dad on the other hand was just happy that the presents were wrapped so that we couldnt see what was inside. And he would write mine and my sister's first initials on the paper instead of using a tag. Sometimes you couldnt tell where he wrote our initials. He'd have to take a moment or two to search all over the present for the letters "E" and "S". Sometimes he wouldnt be able to find it so he'd guess (wrong).

So my dad was totally thrilled the first time I made a fabric gift bag. So now, every year I pull out the sewing machine and crank out a couple of bags for him to use. We're pretty much almost exclusively using fabric bags for gift wrap now.

I've also got several oversized pieces of fabric that I hemmed the cut edges. We either just drape that fabric over any oversized gifts, or I've even wrapped a present or two with the fabric like you would with paper, using cloth ribbon to tie it closed. It's kind of fun. I reuse the ribbons every year, and last year my mom and I decided to not toss out the gift tags. I'd been using the kind that have a hole punched in the corner and string looped thru the tag. You just slip the tag onto the ribbon before you tie the bag closed and everything's all set. My dad just totally loves this. I think he's going to let me get some fabric (when it goes on clearance after Xmas) to make more bags. He wants me to have more of the larger bags. The largest bags that I've made are about pillow case size. 1yd of fabric, I pin the selvages together, and one end of the bag. And I hem the opening. Very easy to make. Made a few the other day. Took me about 20 or 30 minutes to make 3 bags. (used half yard pieces of fabric.)

I'll take a few pictures of my tree tomorrow with some of the presents under the tree.

Yep...I was right....

2006-12-05T22:37:00.000-06:00

The fickleness of my optic nerve is starting to get on my nerves. (yes...wasnt that punny?)

I had some improvement over the weekend, and then monday morning I get up and my left optic nerve is screaming (in pain) "Just kidding!!"

And then I went to get my new glasses Rx filled yesterday. That's just made the optic nerve even more angry at me. The new lenses are making dizzy, and my left eye is not liking the change at all...Altho, I am pleased with my vision out of my good eye. Wow...nice, crisp and clear. Very happy with that.

The left eye, with the new glasses, has a bit sharper vision, but the damned fogginess and decreased color perception still sucks. And just so every one knows, new glasses wont improve the fogginess and decreased color perception. That's a nerve problem and the best corrective lenses in the world do nothing for improving that. I have to wait for it to heal, if it does. Which can take up to a year. If it doesnt improve within 2yrs, it's probably going to be permanent.

It's not so much the fuzzy vision that bugs me. I can deal with that. It's the wonky color vision that bothers me. I never realized how much I love color until this happened. Yarn shopping isnt as exciting as it once was. I went clothes shopping and found a nice red skirt (and a black one too) that I liked. Bought them, brought them home, hoping that the red would match a red shirt I have. Put the shirt and skirt together and wasnt sure about the color until I showed them to my parents. (didnt match, but gives me an excuse to go shopping for a matching shirt now)

At least I know my eye is capable of improving...it's teasing me enough with the glimpses of good vision. Just wish it would hurry up and make up it's mind.

**********

We got the Xmas tree out of the store room the other day...and it sat on the floor in the family room for several more days. Tonight we took the tree upstairs, put it in the spot where it's going to sit for the next month or so. I went as far as plugging in the lights on the tree (it's pre-lit) to make sure they work. We're buying a new tree this year. Either after Xmas, or before if we find one we like at a good price. I dont think I'll be getting another pre-lit tree. They're nice, but once the lights start to go fubar.

Not that I dont add extra lights to the tree. Since 9-11, I've done a patriotic themed tree. My tree already has clear lights on it, so I just add a string of red and a string of blue...put my patriotic ornaments on it. This year, I'll have to either cover up the dead light spots with the red or blue lights, or pile on the garland.

At least I dont have to put the dog fence up. I miss Tiny, and would gladly corral my tree again to have Tiny back, but it is kind of nice to see the tree without a 3 foot tall metal fence surrounding it. As soon as I get the tree decorated, I'll post some pictures of it.

Whoohoo! real improvement!

2006-12-02T02:03:00.000-06:00

I was crocheting tonight (gosh, what a surprise? Me? Crocheting...) and I noticed something. My left eye didnt feel like it was pulling towards my nose like it has been...and the lamps in my room werent making me feel like I wanted to rip them out of the wall and toss them into the backyard. And it feels like my eyeballs are finally starting to cooperate with each other again.

So now I think I had some improvement in my visual acuity tonight. Colors still look wonky and slightly washed out, but the fuzzies and blurries are nowhere near as bad as they were yesterday or even this morning. Reds still look weird (kind of an orange-ness quality to them) and greens are a little funky looking. Light doesnt look as dim either.

all I can say is IT'S ABOUT DAMNNED TIME!!!!!!!!!!!

and I'm fully expecting things to look crappy again tomorrow. I've had bits and pieces of improvement for several weeks now, but it hasnt always stuck around...it'll get better and then a little bit later my eye goes "just kidding" and gets wonky again. It's less wonky each time, but this is the best bit of improvement that I've noticed in a long time.

It's also been exactly 15 weeks since my left optic nerve decided to go on it's little vacation. Yep. 15 weeks ago at this very moment, I was curled up on my bed, crying because my head hurt so bad. Worst migraine of my life. Ever. (The second worst migraine was about 3 weeks ago, after walking around in WalMart...those fluorescent lights are just evil)

And may I re-iterate that if you ever have a headache that you would call THE WORST HEADACHE YOU'VE EVER HAD...Go. To. The. Doctor. Immediately!

From what I gathered from the 3 doctors I saw for this problem this was caused by either a virus or a bacterial infection (actually I saw 5 doctors, but one was an ER doc and the other was my regular doctor and they referred me to 3 that helped figure out what was wrong) I had strep throat for about a week before my eye went fubar, and apparently it decided to set up shop in my optic nerve.

Hopefully my vision will stay normal from now on...especially tomorrow. We're taking my mom to see A Christmas Carol for her birthday. Movies havent been a problem for my vision, but I'm not sure about a live play.

**********
As for what I was crocheting tonight...I pulled a couple of projects that I havent worked on for the past 3 months out and did some work on them. Finished a chenille scarf for my aunt Jan. Worked on a star shaped afghan that's half finished, worked on yet another pineapple shawl, I knitted a little bit (learned how to increase AND decrease in knitting! yay!), worked on a shawl I'm making with Joann's Rainbow Boucle', and in a non-yarn moment, I arranged the fabric that I'm going to make gift bags out of later this weekend with my sewing machine (as long as my vision doesnt go out of order again.)

I was quite productive tonight. :)

I even cleaned my closet out last night.

and I picked up my Rx sunglasses from Sam's Club this afternoon. (where were these whenever my eyeball exploded when out in the sun, or near any source of light?!? Now I get them...argh) Now I just need to go to Lenscrafters and get new lenses for my regular glasses. (got a new Rx) At least my Lenscrafters lenses can be made in an hour.

At least now I can see...for the moment.

screaming in frustration!!!

2006-11-28T19:12:00.000-06:00

I switched to Blogger Beta a few weeks back (basically because this stupid thing made me) and I just spent 10 minutes trying to log in to do a blog post. It just kept giving me the royal run-around, not allowing me to log in. So, now I dont even remember what I was going to post!!!

ARGH!!!!!! *grumble*

I think I even made the comment in a post back when I did the switch that I hoped I wasnt making a big mistake. How prophetic.

**********

I saw an afghan pattern in a knitting magazine a few days ago that I've just fallen in love with (need to go back and buy the magazine), but I dont know enough about knitting to either follow the pattern, or even do the stitches. I think the afghan uses yarn overs and some sort of knitted lace stitches. Same deal with a shawl pattern that I found for free on the internet somewhere. Knitted lace just looks neat. Hopefully I'll figure that out soon.

**********

I've noticed on several forums that a lot of people are using my rectangle granny square pattern. Seen the comment that people are worried about the long sides of the afghan narrowing while the corners on the short ends stick out. This is perfectly normal. Once your afghan starts getting bigger the weight of the afghan will make things even out. You dont need to do anything special to fix it. (I'll post this information on the blog post that has the pattern too)

Finished another pineapple shawl

2006-11-27T20:38:00.000-06:00

I think I'm a bit obsessed with this pattern...I really like making these...

I'm probably going to give this one to my great-aunt Vi. (my paternal grandma's sister) My dad is thinking of visiting her within the next week or two, so I might take this shawl and another one that I'm almost finished with to give to her.

I've also got another shawl in the works. It's being made with Rainbow Boucle' yarn...it's just a basic half granny square shawl. Nothing too difficult and no fancy stitches, since they would get lost in the fuzzy goodness of the boucle' yarn. I have 3 skeins of that particular color (and it takes about a half skein to make the shawl) so I'm trying to figure out what else to make with it. If I ever get any good with knitting, maybe I'll knit an afghan from it.

I hate phish!

2006-11-23T00:15:00.000-06:00

A few minutes ago, I was sitting at my desk...reading a fan fic story and crocheting a new shawl. I happened to look up and saw that a high school friend who now lives in FL had just logged onto Yahoo Messenger...within a second or two, I got an instant message from him. It said he had a new website and gave a link (the words "sexual content" in the link should have been my first clue this wasnt a good thing) and me...being stupid, clicked on it.

It looked like a Yahoo page and even tho I was currently logged into Yahoo it wanted me to enter my name and password...Just as I was hitting the "sign in" button, I happened to look at the address bar on my browser.

I dont think I've typed that fast in a long time. I already had a browser window open to my email account, so I quickly leaped into my account information page and changed my password....and then changed it again after a few minutes. (to something totally different from my old password. with gibberish words and numbers)

Hopefully I did that fast enough. Then I emailed my friend who had "instant messaged" me...telling him what happened. (if he's been hacked, he probably wont read it...if he calls me tomorrow I'll tell him about it then)

I really hate spammers and phishers...they are the cockroaches of the internet!

I hope I didnt just totally screw things up...

2006-11-16T22:17:00.000-06:00

I just switched my blog over to the new blogger beta whatever-ya call it thru Google.

Immediately I've had a problem...but, here I am posting. Hopefully I'm not just talking to myself.

Ever break a garage door? We broke ours tonight. Actually, I think there's been a problem with it for a long time, actually since we bought the house. (the house was brand new 4yrs ago when my parents bought it, so it's not like the door was beat up by the previous owners)

My parents had to go grocery shopping, so I took them. We got back. I pressed the button to make the door go up. It went up about 5 inches and then went back down. Tried again. Several more times. No go. So my dad went in the front door (locking it behind himself...why?) and he tried to open it from the inside...by pressing the button repeatedly.

I got out of the car and asked my dad to disconnect the door so we could lift it up. He did, and we still couldnt lift it. We gave up, took the milk, Southern Comfort, hamburger buns and Krispy Kremes in. (we only bought the essentials) I called Norm at the garage door place to come fix it. Of course they cant get here till 9am tomorrow (it was 430pm when I called. all his techs were at the bars...errr...went home to their wives for dinner)

So my poor car is exiled to the driveway for the night (thank goodness I have a car alarm!) and my dad's car, which he needs to drive to work tomorrow at the butt-crack of dawn is trapped inside. (guess who's car he's taking to work...where the parking garage has a requirement that you get hit at least once a week by another car)

While I was on the phone with Norm, I looked at the spring that helps the opener lift the door. I asked Norm, the expert in these matters, if it's a bad thing if one of the springs is in two pieces.

He told me that's a bad bad thing. Very serious. (apparently it's like when you have a ball-point pen with the clicky thing...if the spring inside the pen breaks, you cant get the pen to do the clicky thing anymore) The door weighs about 150pounds or more, and is impossible to move without the spring.

Hopefully it's not too expensive of a repair.

This isnt the first garage door we've broken. At our last house, the ancient garage door there had these springs that went the length of the garage door (they had the wheel and pully system, the one we have now is the screw system) One day we had just gotten home from somewhere, got out of the car, closed the garage door and went into the house. Right after we all got into the house there was a big BANG! and the sound of a spring going *sproing!*. The spring on that one snapped, and the tension in the wheel and pully let loose and shot the spring into the wall next to the door. (left a big hole in the wall. We were surprised to see the garage had good insulation in the walls) My dad's pretty sure that if we'd been in that garage when the spring when it broke, someone would have been hurting, or they'd have a nice write-up in the morning obits, with a story about the importance of maintaining your garage door in working order.

I'm just hoping my car will be safe outside (and in the parking garage at my dad's job). There are neighbor kids down the street who are NOT closely watched by their parents. The other night these kids were running around in the field behind my house with BB guns (I hope they were BB guns!) shooting at critters/and or themselves. Havent been able to catch them doing anything truly horrible yet, but I'm sure eventually they'll do something that will give the neighbors something to gossip about.

Wow, I can do it now...finally!

2006-11-07T16:59:00.000-06:00

It took me about 3 months, but I finally figured out how to do the purl stitch AND how to knit in the round on double pointed needles.

So, now I've finally been able to do the stockinette stitch. I love the look of that stitch, I just dont like how slowly I go to do that stitch. I knit continental, but I apparently purl English style. So, I just whip thru the knit stitch, and trudge slowly thru the purl stitches.

I really am enjoying knitting on double pointed needles. It took me about a day to get used to doing it, but I think I like that type of knitting the best. (cause I get stockinette without having to actually purl!)

So, I really only have two knitting projects going right now (to go along with the 5 crochet projects I'm doing and the work-in-mind project I have for my sewing machine)

I'm doing a scarf in knit stitch. (I started this the week my left eye went wonky. Amazing that I knitted this "one-eyed" and havent dropped a stitch...that I know of)

And then I have this. I dont know what it is...I'm just knitting in the round on double pointeds just to see what I can do. I might work on this for another 5 or 6 inches and then try to learn how to decrease and somehow turn this into a purse. (it's too narrow for a hat, and too wide for a sock I think)

I might try changing colors on it too...not sure yet on what I want to do with this.

**********

Went to my opthamologist on friday, and I went to a neuro-opthamologist yesterday afternoon. (I wanted the neuro-op to check and make sure I didnt have anything else going on) and both doctors told me that they believe my vision problem this fall (optic neuritis) was probably viral/bacterial in origin (I had strep throat the week my eye went loopy) and that it will probably continue to improve. There's a chance I might be stuck with wonky color vision in that eye, and some residual fuzzy vision, but my eye should be ok. It might take a year for things to get back to what they were in that eye, but I should probably have normal vision eventually.

Maybe I'll be able to get my sewing machine out in a few weeks to attempt a vest (which will be my first attempt at sewing clothing) My aunt and one of my cousins found a sewing machine store that has sewing classes. So, I might go up there and see if they can teach me how to do more with my sewing machine than sew in straight lines.

Fun with photoshop

2006-11-03T12:09:00.000-06:00

Edit: I twiddled with the picture some more and took out a lot of the extraneous bits of picture...hopefully made it a bit smaller so people on dial-up arent cursing my name while they wait for the picture to load.

My absolute favorite picture of TinyMonsters!!

2006-11-03T11:46:00.000-06:00

This is one of the few baby (puppy) pictures I have of TinyMonsters.

He'd just had his ears cropped and they had the headgear on his head to hold the ears in place and to keep them clean. I would almost swear he's looking at the camera and saying "What the hell did those damn humans just do to me?" and his next thought was probably "first chance I get, I'm gonna go pee all over their new carpet!".

Tiny was probably about 3 or 4 months old when this picture was taken. I'm guessing it's late March or early April of 1997. (he was born 12.26.1996). I wish I had more pictures of him when he was a little guy...he was so cute.

well, I'm (mostly) healed...

2006-11-03T00:05:00.000-06:00

Went to the opthamologist today. He said my eye looks normal. I still have a lot of fuzziness in my vision. He said that's normal. It may or may not go away. I've apparently got a lot of healing to do, but I guess the optic nerve is no longer swollen...just a bunch of residual nerve damage that may or may not go away.

Let this be a lesson to everyone. Do NOT IGNORE a headache that you would consider the **WORST** you've ever had. Especially if your eye hurts when you move it, or you have big blind spots obscuring your vision!!!!! (ok, I ignored the headache and eye pain, but when those blind spots popped up, I started listening)

He told me that he didnt see any evidence of any of that scary stuff that could sometimes cause the Optic Neuritis, so that's made me feel a lot better. (there's like a dozen illnesses and conditions that can cause Optic Neuritis, he thinks mine might have been viral)

The eye doctor did suggest that I go and see an neuro-opthamologist just to make sure there wasnt anything he missed. He thought it would be a good idea just in case the neuro-eye doc thinks that there could be something to be done for the fuzzy vision and the dyschromatopsia (wonky color vision) Said it wouldnt hurt to do that now, especially since I've already met my deductible for the year. The year runs out soon and he thought I should try to get to the neuro-optho before the end of the year just so I dont have to shell out a gazillion dollars for the deductible again.

He wrote me out a new glasses Rx, but didnt give it to me yet just in case the neuro-eye doctor thinks I need a different one.

Hopefully my insurance wont hit me with too much of a bill. (they only pay 80%!) It'll be a bit bothersome around christmas, but it's probably more important that I have good eyesight rather than an iPod.

**********

Ohmygosh! I found my most favorite picture of TinyMonsters the other night in a picture frame that my dad had stolen from me to put a picture of one of my nieces in several years back. As soon as I install a driver for my dad's scanner onto my computer, I'll post the picture. It's sooooo cute! It's from when he was a puppy...probably only 2 or 3 months old. He'd just had his ears cropped and was wearing this "headgear" to hold his ears up (please, no kvetching about it being cruel to crop a dog's ears...) In the picture, Tiny's looking up at the camera with this look that says "what the hell did you just do to me?!?...and why is everyone laughing??". He's just so adorable in this picture. I'll scan it tomorrow morning and post it.

Would you believe....?

2006-10-28T15:02:00.000-05:00

Would you believe that in my thirty something years of crocheting (learned when I was 6) that I've never done a ripple afghan?

I finally made one. Found the pattern on the internet several years ago and printed it out. This was before I started to save the links to patterns in the footer of my printouts, so I'm not sure where I got this one. As soon as I find the original website that I got it from I'll properly credit the designer for it.

Here are some pictures

It only took me about a week or so to make this afghan. I started a week ago thursday, finished the crocheting on friday morning, and did the tail weaving last night/this morning. (darn insomnia! was up till 3am)

I thought the pattern was pretty nice, I followed the pattern exactly how the designer wrote it out (I probably did more rows than she suggested). My only problem is that I think it's too narrow. Once I figure out how many extra chains to do to make it bigger, I'll probably do another one with this pattern. It was pretty fun to do.

**********

I've probably mentioned once or twice how impressed I was with the Rainbow Bridge when TinyMonsters died in March. The box that they put his cremains in is really very pretty. Morbid as it may seem, I thought I'd show you why I'm so impressed with the Rainbow Bridge that's here in Omaha. (sorry if anyone thinks it's morbid)

I resized the picture so it's not as huge as it was, so you might not be able to read Tiny's name on the nameplate, but you can at least see the detail in the wood. It looks so much better than I thought it was going to. I had an image in my head that it was going to be pine wood and shaped like a cigar box or something. Never expected it to look this good.

Edited to add: For some reason, Photobucket doesnt always show the resized pictures after I've resized them...not sure if my browser's cache is wonky or if the resize didnt take or something. Sorry if any of the pictures are massive, I swear I resized them!

I cant believe I figured it out...sorta...

2006-10-17T23:59:00.000-05:00

I was just playing around with my desktop computer that I've had a couple of years. It has some features on it that I've never used before. Well, tonight, I got curious to see how they worked. Specifically the video capture program.

I have an ancient video camera. I've had it about 10 or 11yrs. It uses those little mini video tapes.

I had some video of TinyMonsters, my dog that passed away in March, so I decided to see if I could transfer it from the videotape onto my computer.

Would you believe that I did it without even using any written directions? I not only got it copied to my computer, I also burned it to DVD!

My mom was thrilled. She misses Tiny and thought it was cool to be able to see him again. Hopefully I have more tape of him!

I just sat for an hour watching a videotape that my late Uncle Donny had recorded when he took my aunt and my cousins on a vacation to Pennsylvania. I was watching it because I was transferring it to the computer.

For some reason the picture I transferred is all black. (huh?!?) I've got audio, but no video. Weird thing is, the Preview screen I had up while transferring the tape had picture. I dont get it. I guess I have to fiddle with it for a bit.

If I manage to get it successfully transferred, I'm going to put it on a dvd and give it to my aunt. Not sure she'll want to watch it, it's got both of her parents on it (they've both passed away) and it has my uncle's voice on it. If she doesnt watch it right away, at least I've preserved the video. My uncle would have thought this was so cool. He passed away just before DVD technology became popular. He would have loved this stuff...I think he was more into gadgets and technology than me or my dad are.

If this doesnt work with my computer, I might attempt to record the video onto my Tivo and transfer it to DVD with the Tivo's built in dvd burner. (again, my uncle would have loved this stuff)

Yoric needs modeling lessons...

2006-10-15T23:12:00.000-05:00

I made another hat...the picture kind of sucks, but you can at least get an idea of what it looks like. It's the same pattern that I used for the other hat. I didnt put any embellishments on it. I started to, but it looked stupid, so I just decided to leave the hat plain.

This hat is also going to my cousin's daughter.

Alas...poor Yoric doesnt make a good model, does he?

2006-10-13T00:25:00.000-05:00

After about two and a half months of just sitting around, crocheting and then frogging everything I make, I've actually managed to finish something. I've been in such a crochet slump, and my eye being all wonky hasnt helped me much. At last I've finished something.

You'll have to forgive my model, Yoric, he wasnt really thrilled at having to do a photoshoot tonight.

I got the pattern for the hat at this site http://webpages.charter.net/basheera/rosehat.html

I didnt like the flower on the original pattern, so I came up with my own. I also changed the size of the hook. (I used an H) because my wonky eye didnt like the smaller hook.

Maybe now that I've actually finished something, I'll be able to decide on an afghan pattern now. It's been a while since I made an afghan.

I'll be giving the red hat to my cousin's daughter. My aunt Jan asked me to make some hats for her grandaughter (she likes to play dress up and LOVES hats) I'll probably make up a couple more for her.

edited to add: I tried to resize the pictures in Photobucket...they're showing up resized there, but in my blog, they're ginormous. Either my browser's cache is not refreshing, or the Blogger Gremlins are screwing around with things...

Now I've done it...

2006-10-04T16:30:00.000-05:00

I guess I can consider myself a crocheter AND a knitter now.

Since I hurt my eye in late august (right after I learned to knit) I hadnt really wanted to pick up any crochet hooks or knitting needles. About a week or two ago, my eye had finally improved (or I got used to it) to the point where I could crochet comfortably. I bought some red yarn to make a new afghan, and then couldnt decide what to crochet. I guess even after having a near two month vacation from crocheting, I was still in a crochet slump. So over the weekend, bored as heck, I picked up the knitting needles and one of my larger skeins of scrap yarn. I dont like doing a regular cast on, so I chained 40 stitches on my afghan hook, did the Tunisian crochet cast-on, and then transferred that to my knitting needles and started to knit from there.

So far I've been knitting for 5 days straight. I even knitted in public yesterday when I took my dad to the eye doctor! (first time I've ever knitted in public)

It's kind of weird. I've been carrying around my first real knitting project everywhere I go. It's a scarf, being done in a green yarn (Red Heart, Medium Thyme...I think). I'm a little less then half finished with it. (started saturday evening)

I apparently knit just a teeny bit slower than I crochet (which is fairly quickly!)

So far I really am only doing one stitch (as far as I know) and I'm not doing anything terribly exciting. It is kind of neat to be able to do another yarn craft.

I have been crocheting some too. I started a rectangle granny afghan...with the red yarn I bought last week. It's probably going to end up being a xmas afghan. I have some nice green yarn that looks good with it.

Some moron with a can of spray paint has tagged a trailer that is in the field behind my house. The field is owned by the construction company that built our house. They're not planning on builing on it anytime soon, but they've been keeping that trailer back there. I cant see the trailer from my house, but when you leave our neighborhood, it's very obvious. This is the second time time the trailer has been tagged. It's ugly, and I cant quite tell what it says. Hopefully it wont sit there for 5 months before they paint over it like the last time.

This is just a test...

2006-09-28T22:29:00.000-05:00

Having some serious problems with posting tonight...just testing to see if I can get blogger to post something.

edited to add:
What the hell?? This message posted, but the one that wouldnt post earlier has now posted itself 3 times...

ARGH!!!

Anyone have any suggestions for good bloghosting sites?

Just to prove I can do it...

2006-09-28T20:51:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I might have mentioned a couple of times that I'd finally figured out how to knit...so here's the proof.

I'm still having problems casting on...Red Heart yarn has a nasty habit of untwisting itself as I'm casting on, and I really hate that. My solution to the casting on problem is to take an afghan hook and to do a Tunisian crochet cast on. Then transfer the yarn from the afghan hook to the knitting needles. I like the edge that cast on gives. Maybe some day I'll actually be able to knit something more than swatches.

I'm not really making anything with this. It's basically just a swatch. I know I have a few issues with gauge, my fingers hurt when I knit and the yarn gets really tight around the needles. So I'm just using up some of my scrap yarn practicing.

My dad (the resident knitter here) looked at my swatch and he said it looks pretty good, except for it's pulling in a bit the further I knit. We're both pretty sure that's being caused by my gauge. I know I'm pulling a little too tightly on the yarn. I dont have this problem when I crochet. I guess I'll just have to keep practicing.

I remember when I was learning to crochet (a long time ago in a galaxy far far away) I crocheted very tightly. I dont know what I did to fix that other than getting more confidence in the way I held my hook, and practice.

It is kind of fun to learn something new...and it gives me more excuses to go to the yarn store.

we have improvement!!!! (yay!!!)

2006-09-26T22:34:00.000-05:00

I am so excited right now!

My wonky left eye has been steadily getting better since friday night. Friday morning and afternoon, my good eye (the right eye) was hurting and the eyelid kept twitching.

So, naturally I panicked. I was worried that whatever fubar-ed my left eye was making it's move on the right eye. Called the eye doctor. He was out (naturally), but luckily one of the other opthamologists was in the office and could take me that afternoon. So, I went in and he checked both eyes. Said that nothing was wrong with the right eye other than maybe a little eyestrain and said the pain was probably from that or may have had some leftover pain from a migraine I had the day before. He didnt even put drops in my eyes. I guess he was checking my pupil responses. My bad eye had an "afferent pupillary defect", which means that it wasnt responding normally to light.

So, he said to just rest my eyes and sent me home. That night and saturday morning and afternoon, my eye started flip flopping back and forth between crappy vision and really really really crappy vision.

Sunday I went to the Lincoln airshow with some friends to see the Blue Angels. Got to the airshow and started thinking it was a big mistake to go to an airshow on a sunny day with optic neuritis. My glasses have tint in them, but it was not up to the job. So I bought some of the overpriced clip-on sunglasses they had there. That helped so much. I was able to enjoy (and see) the Blue Angels.

Woke up monday, vision was less fuzzy.

Got up this morning to take my dad to his eye surgery (we've been the House Of The Half-Blind this past month) and my vision was a lot clearer. It's not normal yet, and some colors (green and red) still look weird, but I can see pretty good now with that eye. I even crocheted and knitted some tonight. I think I forgot how to knit...mostly I couldnt remember how to cast on in a way that my yarn doesnt split apart, but at least I can see what I'm doing now.

Now I can finish the pineapple shawl I crocheted with one eye closed when this all started. I finished crocheting it, but I couldnt see well enough to weave the yarn ends in. Gonna go finish that now. whoohoo! I was having serious yarn/crochet withdrawal.

Hmmm...I wonder if we're out of the drought now?

2006-09-16T23:07:00.000-05:00

It's been an interesting evening meteorlogically. We had a tornado warning around 830 or 9pm. (that was fun) With all the required lightning, thunder and hailstones. (the tornado stayed a little south of my house. It was actually right over the area of my OLD house. I havent seen any news reports of damage, but there was apparently a LOT of rain. The weatherguy said that some manhole covers were blown off by the rainwater in some areas.

After that storm, my dad and I went out to pick up some photographs he had printed at Walgreens...on the way home, the next storm decided to hit.

Ever seen Titanic? The scene where Jack and Rose are running thru the corridor towards the little kid and his grandfather and the water is chasing them down the corridor...that's about what the streets looked like tonight, but with a lot more water.

I thought we were going to need pontoons on the side of my dad's Rav4. Halfway home, the hail started. It wasnt bad...wasnt big, and stopped about 10 seconds after it started...and then the rain got worse.

We were getting close to our house, came around the curve where the nimrod neighbors have to always park their cars and some asshat was coming towards us, VERY FAST, and didnt even wait for us to get past the cars that were on the side of the street. I'm sure that in the morning, if I go and look there will be tire tracks from that guy's car on the neighbors front lawns. Who drives 60mph IN A MONSOON on a street that curves like the letter "S"?????

After that we just had to float to the front of our house, drive out of the river that our street had become (gotta love fulltime 4wheel drive!) and made it into the garage. Just before the next batch of hail hit.

**********

I may have mentioned before that I've had a problem with my vision. Well. I went to the eye doctor the other day for him to check the progress of the problem. He confirmed that it's optic neuritis. (inflammation of the optic nerve) and he agreed with the ancient neurologist I saw earlier this month that it was migraine induced optic neuritis. This time he told me the optic nerve was swollen (it wasnt when he looked the first time last month) but said that was normal.

Told me that he could give me steroids to make it heal quicker, but that the steroids come with all sorts of icky side effects and that it's probably best to just wait for it to heal. As much as I'd love to have this heal quicker, I agreed with him that I didnt want the steroids. So, now I may have wonky vision for the next 2 to 3 months. (why do the estimates for recovery keep getting longer???)

Yay...I might get my vision back for Christmas.

It's not the fuzzy, dim vision in my left eye that's bugging me so much as the mild loss of some of my color vision. As you can tell from the title of my blog, I love yarn, and from most of the content of my blog, I love to crochet. It's pretty freaking boring to crochet when one of your eyes cant see some colors very well. Sure I could close that eye and just use the one good one, but things look weird. I never understood what it meant to lose your depth perception or color vision until this happened. Believe me, I'd rather lose my hearing than my vision. I am so hoping that when my eye heals (in 2 or 3 months...argh!) that my color vision in my left eye comes back with it.

I have a cabinet full of all sorts of different colored yarns, and none of them look appealing to me right now. It's really messing up my love of crochet. I really want to make something, but I lose interest after the first few rows.

I cant wait for my eye to heal.

**********

At least I can still read, and when I need to rest my eyes but I still want to read, I discovered a way to still read. My dad bought me a computer program called Text Aloud. It comes with realistic sounding computer-generated voices. I got it yesterday, and I just love it. It reads text on the computer to me. I can copy fan fiction stories to the program for it to read, or I can go to Project Guttenberg and download a book to the program. It'll read whatever text I put into it. It's probably one of the coolest programs I've ever had loaded into a computer.

The thing I like about the program is that I can turn the text into an audio Mp3 and then transfer that into an iPod or some other mp3 device. I can even burn it into a CD if I want to, altho the size of the file kind of limits you to what you can put onto a cd. I could end up using lots of disks if I do that.

I dont have an Mp3 player (yet) and saving the stories to a CD to play on a car stereo is ok, but all I've done so far is save some stories to Mp3 format so that I can just play them off of my computer. If I get an iPod for Christmas (hint, hint) this program will come in handy.

2006-09-11T10:38:00.000-05:00

Five Years.

2006-09-10T20:45:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of September 11th. Hard to believe it's been 5yrs already.

Not too long after 9-11 I bought a bracelet...a cheap little silver metal bracelet that had the name of a firefighter who died on 9-11 engraved on it.

That firefighter's name was George DiPasquale (Manhattan Ladder Co 2)

I cant find my bracelet, so I cant wear it tomorrow like I wanted to, but I can tell people who read my blog to think about FF DiPasquale and his co-workers and everyone else who died that day.

I didnt know him, only know who he was because his name was the one that was engraved on the bracelet I bought. What I know about him is what I've Googled. He was 33, married, had a daughter named Rose and was called "Holy Man" because of his committment to religion, and he died in the Word Trade Center collapse along with seven other members from his ladder company.

So, everyone, think of Firefighter DiPasquale at least once tomorrow.

I wish I could find that bracelet.

Picture below is the patch firefighters in Manhattan Ladder Co 2 wear.

Happy Labor Day

2006-09-03T23:02:00.000-05:00

It's been a looooong two weeks. My eye has pretty much been fubar for about two weeks, and I've had a headache for nearly 3 weeks. My dad got me some Excedrine Migraine last night that I took this afternoon that seemed to actually help. It's a mixture of Tyelenol, Excedrin (aspirin) and caffeine. Two Excedrine Migraine pills have about as much caffeine in them as a cup of coffee.

I ended up only taking one of them, since I havent really had any caffeine for the past two weeks. (been trying to rule out caffeine as a migraine trigger) It seemed to work...I think.

I think my eye might be starting to heal. I dont have the massive blind spot that was obscuring the lower half of my vision when this first started out. My vision is now kind of fuzzy looking...like trying to look thru a fogged over muddy window. I actually drove my car today. First time in two weeks. I only drove me and my parents to a restaurant that's just down the street, so it wasnt very far, and I didnt really have to go out into busy traffic to get there. I think tomorrow afternoon I'm going to Windex my car windows just so I have a nice clean window to look thru...anything to help me see better to drive if I have to.

I have an eye appointment on wednesday to go to that I'll probably end up having my dad drive me to...eye doctor is a bit further away than I really want to go to drive...plus they'll be putting all manner of drops into my eyes and I dont think I'll want to drive home after that...so it's best that I have a ride there. Hope he tells me my eye is getting better.

I've actually gotten a wee bit of crocheting done. I've been working on another of the pineapple chair back shawls. This one in white. Since I've done about a dozen of these shawls, I've pretty much got the pattern memorized...which helps, since I dont have to keep stopping to read the pattern that much.

I finished a shawl awhile back with some Joann's Rainbow Boucle'. It's basically just a giant half granny square. My parents and my aunt Janice seem to really like it. My dad said he'd take a picture of it for me tomorrow. It's actually been cool enough to wear it the past two nights. (finally!) I have enough boucle to make another shawl, so once my eye returns to normal I'll probably start on another one. (my finished shawl is blue, the new one will be green) I'll probably give the new one to my aunt Jan.

I think it's time to go rest my eye...it's driving me nuts right now.