Finally I've finished something! After a test one during which I ran out of that yarn, I made this heavy duty washcloth. I might be making mine slightly off of the pattern, I am still not sure lol. I didn't make it as long as the pattern calls for either, very happy with the results.

I've just finished

One-hit Wonder by Lisa Jewell. I am now a tremendous fan of Lisa Jewell, so much so that immediately upon finishing the book I had to find her online. Happily I see she has other books and I absolutely cannot wait to read them.

This book is one of those that burrowed into my soul. An emotional, normal, touching, incredible, human sort of book. Words can't describe how much I enjoyed reading it.

I highly suggest that all of my four readers go out and buy at least one of her books. Or more. Definitely more. I can't wait for more.

No running away for me

it is WAAAAAAY too hot to go anywhere in our non-air conditioned car.

Fibromyalgia is a bitch

Yeah, I said it. Yesterday I did an extensive bathroom cleaning. With 6 of us living here, 4 of them being amateur bathroom users, the bathroom tends to need those good scrubdowns. I went in there and went to work. I wish it had been as easy as that sentence makes it sound. By the end I was drenched in sweat, my muscles were shaky and tired and I was wiped out. So wiped out that today has been one of those fairly non-productive days, all because I wore myself out cleaning the bathroom. Sad, isn't it? I am getting awfully close to age 30, but I didn't realize that I'd end up with a slightly numb left side, weird shakey episodes, memory problems, AND fibromyalgia by the time I get there. The OCD has always been a part of me, before I ever knew what it was. Somehow though, the rest of this just really gets me down at times. I used to be a long distance runner. Really. Now I am winded vacuuming the living room.

I've spent much of today having picking up boot camp for the little people. What fun! They are smart, they are tricky, and they have more excuses than I ever had for not picking up. (Okay, probably not, but they're awfully close.) Time-outs, counting, talks, and yes, the dreaded mom hollering have been done as well as grounding. I even bribed with sprinkler time. They've bested me today, but we'll see how tomorrow goes and yet another day of not going outside passes. HAHA! I will outlast them, I will.

Tonight I am planning to sneak out-well more like run out the door once Mr. Blue is home-to pick up some more Sugar 'n Cream and maybe hit up a nice quiet place for some coffee or something. Really, anything. I just need to get out of here for awhile.

Here is the beginning of the alpaca silk scarf I am making. The color in the picture is off, it's actually more of a sage green. I had started off doing a regular garter stitch (I think) and decided to do a border around the edge. I may frog and restart making the bottom edge a bit smaller and making sure my edge is straighter, coming off kind of loopy at the moment. 

Another star blanket! This one in boy colors, I've decided to use up the rest of my Chunky USA doing these. Not bad for $.99 a skein. 

The beginnings of a dishtowel. I'm using Sugar 'n Cream and must get more of this color.

I've finished

the Half-Blood Prince, aaaah. I am still digesting and need to reread it to catch anything I may have missed in my hurry to devour it. It's hard to go slow after such a long wait!

Tremendous thunderstorms here tonight, as the sun set it was actually orange outside, the kids were all into that. Mr. Blue described as salmon colored. Well la di da! I started a scarf using my Debbie Bliss alpaca silk, on 13's. I have been dying to work with this yarn, keep checking patterns, wanted to do a scarf, then a shawl, then something fancier, but I only have 3 skeins. I went back to doing a simple scarf, the yarn is a dream to work with, VERY soft.

I am woefully behind on updating the links to the side, I'll have to catch up there soon, especially with books read and the projects I am working on. The blog follows real life, I am such a procrastinator.

Hooray for Harry!

I am now halfway through the brand new Harry Potter book, wheeee! Once again I am able to fall into a new adventure in the life of Harry Potter. I took my girls and my cousin's daughter to the Harry Potter party at Barnes & Noble last night. The girls had a blast and held out all the way through midnight, making wands, getting pictures taken, and just loving being up late and in the middle of things. We had some fun sitting in the cafe having drinks and pretzels and cheesecakes, I was pronounced "cool" by Grace-which made Abbie & Arenne look at me a little differently-and we hit the bargain tables where the girls found dream journals that we bought-along with a few more books for me-and kept them busy through midnight.

I was number 140 on the waiting list, but we were headed home by 12:20, very efficient and well done by B&N. I was really feeling for my friend who works there, not only did they start preparing and that at 6, but they would all have to stay and clean up AFTER the sales were finished. That had to be a late night.

All in all a great time, it was too fun being with the girls, even if it did make me feel a little old. I couldn't wait to get home and devour the book, but first I had to get three excited little girls laid down and then I read the book aloud to them until they fell asleep. Too sweet. We also brought home some of the souveniers for the boys, who really had wanted to go, but I knew wouldn't stay awake even for the car ride there.

Now, off to read some more!

The heat is on!

High 90's expected today, thank goodness the air conditioner is working again. I've been really unmotivated as far as knitting and crocheting. All this yarn and no desire to work with it, how sad is that?? I've worked on the i-cord a bit today, it shouldn't be taking this long to finish, in spite of being busy. Hopefully my yarn obsession will rev up again soon.

The star rug is done, at least so far. I am officially out of these colors in the Chunky and like how it is now. The colors are slightly off as I had to lighten the picture. 

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I'm
a Ravenclaw!

The air conditioner lives!

Mr. Blue spent Sunday powerwashing our ginormous window air conditioner and cool air once again flows through the front of the house. Aaaaaaah. In fact, it's on low right now and it feels COLD in here.

My mother-in-law is on her way over to help out with the kids and take them while I go to therapy. Thank goodness she's a mental health nurse and understands, I'd hate to be the daughter-in-law of someone who has no understanding of crazy people type things. I should be picking up the living room, cleaning the bathroom, and showering but here I sit, typing away and working on the star blanket rug. I am *almost* out of yarn, pray for me there is enough left to finish this last row as it looks like a good place to stop and I'd have to go buy more of this brown yarn. I also want to be done with this thing. I am still working on the i-cord for the ipod case. Usually I am an i-cord fool and could keep knitting away at it until I have enough to wrap around the house twice, but for some reason I just can't get into this one. I really want to get this thing put together and felted and see if it works.

I still need to order the yarn for the big purse extravaganza and I need more cotton for the dishtowel in progress. I am also thinking of making my cousin some dishtowels and dishcloths to throw in with her wedding present-apparently she too has an affinity for them-but the deadline is end of July and I'm more of the procrastinate type. We'll see I guess!

The excavation is nearly finished and I had to stop to make this handy dandy bin ottoman! 

This was your average $3 plastic storage bin. I glued some batting to the top and hot glue gunned the fabric to the underside of the lid, voila! an ottoman! I am now madly thinking of all the places I could put these and everything that I could store in them.

Desk Excavation...

once again. This time I am bravely tackeling the forbidden corner that I have avoided for months because I had seen a big ass spider back there. As I have a pretty serious phobia of them and lots of experience in long term avoidance. Today was the day to overcome that and attempt to get my desk area cleaned and organized. As an OCD hoarder sort of packrat this job is bigger than you may have imagined.

Thankfully I have made a ton of progress on it today. Maybe I really could have a nicy crafty corner of my very own!

Champagne won out over home type things needing done. Champagne is a bad mutha yo.

Ahhhh home

We are back, we had a fabulous time, and we have suntans. Sigh. What a great vacation, it was VERY NICE to get away, relax, swim, eat good food, and laugh. It was also nice to only have a small amount of clothing with us, meaning I would at most need to do a load or two every two days. Sigh. The 12 hour drive each way wasn't as enjoyable, but we made it and the kids were fairly good, all things considered. Drew is in love with Arkansas and the resort we go to, he hates leaving and is already talking about going back.

I took my handy dandy yarn tote along, worked on the star blanket and on the icord for my ipod case, but really I didn't even do as much of that as I had planned.

Now I have lots of catching up to do in blog land. Not to mention all the stuff that needs doing here at home.

Of course I couldn't spend an entire day packing and cleaning without some sort of stress relief, and usually drinking while home alone with kids isn't a good idea, so here it is, my Ipod Mini Case. At the moment it is in pieces, some unfinished (the top flap and the i-cord handle) and it looks GINORMOUS. Pray for me that it felts down. Now the problem is do I felt it before leaving, or while on vacation? Decisions, decisions. 

The Blue Family

is off on vacation tomorrow, for an entire week! I am currently in a mad state of packing and cleaning, buzzing around in a cloud of OCD anxiety. Yeehaw! We leave very early in the morning, I must have everything packed by this evening, as we are going to my parents to see my grandparents once more before they head out and we head out. We are also squeezing in a trip to Target for some more old man pants for me, as I've grown out of everything I own. My dad warned me this would happen around 30, and he sure was right.

Of course along with clothes packing, yarn and project and book packing is as essential-if not more, heck we have a washer and dryer where we are heading. What to pick to bring along? Something portable, something that I can really settle in with. Thank goodness for my fabulous yarn tote!

Hopefully after the madness of packing, cleaning, and enduring a looooong car trip with four kids and assorted in-laws the rest of the week will be fun and relaxing.