Posts Tagged ‘project’
I finished this knitting project last night for my mom. She asked if I would make her a bunch of kitchen dishcloths, which made me really excited. (Maybe she’s just humoring me, LOL!) They’re incredibly fast and easy. Sometime I’d like to try a tip that my friend Marilyn recently told me about. Wal-Mart’s craft department sells this threadlike stuff ~ it’s intended for a ballerina tutu or a wedding gown, to make the material somewhat pouffy. (I’d never heard of it before, but Marilyn bought some that’s green and said that there are different colors.) She holds this thread along with her yarn when she’s knitting a dishcloth, and it makes the dishcloth very scrubby. I felt one of her dishcloths, and it was like an exfoliant! Perfect for scrubbing dried grime off dishes (and probably lots of other household uses). I’m going to find some of that stuff the next time I’m there. One of my next knitting projects will be an Indiana dishcloth, and I’m very excited about that!
I’m so excited about making snowflake-shaped sugar cookies today. I have navy blue and royal blue coloring, and I’m going to tint the cookies a pale blue. I also have clear, sparkly, edible glitter and some crystal sugar. I’ll probably leave some of the frosting white, too. The dough is chilling in the refrigerator. There’s a cookie exchange on Tuesday during my moms’ group meeting (where everyone comes home with three dozen different kinds of cookies, depending on how many participate!), and I’ll probably freeze some for our train station’s holiday party on the 13th. Now I just have to discipline myself not to eat too many cookies and gain a zillion pounds! These cookies have two cups of sugar and one cup of shortening ~ talk about fat and calorie overload!
By the way, we received our very first Christmas card: from our friends Vicky and Natalie. They hand-delivered it to us when they came over for Thanksgiving. :) Our first Christmas card in the mail was from fellow blogger Connie. Thank you very much! I love picking up our mail this time of year! So where’s the farthest away that you’re sending a Christmas card? I guess that ours would be relatives in California.
The only thing I have going on today is a meeting about this calendar that I’m designing, and hopefully I’ll be finished with it very soon. I feel like I can’t start on Christmas projects until it’s done. We’re almost there, though. I did address some Christmas cards last night, though, and I also stayed up late knitting. :) I’m working on a new project … Grandmother’s Favorite Dishcloth. It’s really easy so far ~ I haven’t managed to screw it up yet, but there’s still time! :)
P.S. If you’re looking for a foot-related Christmas gift for someone special (yeah, I’m not kidding!), here’s a website that has pretty much everything you can possibly imagine that relates to the feet (including special splints to help with Plantar Fasciitis). Actually, they have some socks that look super comfy ~ and look at this gadget that lets you take a walk while you’re sitting down! I need one of those for when I’m tied to the computer doing freelance work!
I forgot to tell you ~ yesterday morning, I dressed Meredith in a purple babydoll shirt with matching purple jeans (received for her birthday). When she stood up, she examined her outfit, turned around to me, and said, “I’m so cute!” I could have died laughing. It was adorable.
Right now, I’m watching a tree being cut down right in front of our house. It’s not on our property, but they pushed it over into our yard so that they can cut it into logs. Isn’t there something sad about a tree being cut down? (Or is it just me?) I’m not a “tree hugger,” per se, but I do care very much about our environment. I just hope that the tree will be used for some good purpose, like firewood for a family who might really need it this winter. It was a huge tree, too.
Last night, I stayed up until around 11 p.m. knitting. :) I was almost done with the waffle-stitch washcloth that I’d been working on, but problems developed. Somehow I screwed up a few stitches and had a big hole in the middle ~ and then there was some yarn hanging at the very end of the washcloth. Crap. No clue what I did, but I was *kind of* able to fix it with the darning needle (or whatever you call those things). I also had some trouble casting off because of the screwed-up stitches. The washcloth isn’t as big as it should be, but it’s still pretty. What I’m excited about now is beginning a new project ~ I just have to make sure that I know how to do yarn overs! Hmm … should I try my hand at knitting some discount lingerie? LOL! :)
It’s Friday, and I miss our CSA shares. :( It would be pretty chilly going over to the farm to pick them up now, though! I just miss all of that fresh produce. I can’t wait to do our CSA again next year. June seems *so* far away!
When I walked into Wal-Mart this morning with Lucas and Meredith, an older lady looked at us and frowned. “That little boy needs a coat!” she said, in quite a nasty tone. Then, she sighed in disbelief and shook her head at me. It was one of those, “Geez, some parents just don’t know what they’re doing” kind of looks. Well … you know what, lady? I just dealt with a five minute-long screaming tantrum in the parking lot because our toddler didn’t want to put on his coat. So finally, I just stuck his raincoat into our shopping cart and said, “OK, Lucas … it’s your choice. But when you feel how chilly and rainy it is outside, you’ll understand why it’s necessary to wear a coat on a day like today.” It was 60 degrees and rainy this morning. I wanted him to experience it firsthand. You know, I *really* wish that some people would refrain from making comments such as those when they have *no* idea what the situation is. I’d like to see her deal with a screaming toddler sometime! Maybe her kids are grown now and she has just forgotten what it can be like at times.
Sorry … I have PMS and don’t feel like taking any crap from anyone. Maybe I need one of those magnetic bracelet thingies that will help relieve my stress, LOL! :) The bright side of today is that I enjoyed a yummy pumpkin-spice latte from Starbucks and got quite a few things done so far: grocery shopping, getting gas, putting in a few loads of laundry, and preparing things for Lucas’s preschool field trip tomorrow. The rest of today will be spent working on my current freelance project.
Perhaps I should have purchased some Midol at the grocery store! LOL! :)
I am *so* excited about an upcoming project! Our town just contacted me to design a calendar celebrating its quadricentennial next year! (400 years ago in 1609, Henry Hudson arrived here.) I get to turn *very* old photos into digital images (editing them a bit, of course) and then make a calendar that will be a keepsake (and fundraiser) for our town. (Promotional pens to hand out at town events would also be a neat idea for the future.) I had a meeting about the calendar this morning. It’s such a blessing to be able to help our community and to continue my career interests (journalism, graphic design, etc.). I have a *lot* of work ahead of me!
So … I’m sure glad that we now have an *excellent* way to goof off! :) We’re just *loving* our new Wii. It arrived on Thursday. (Have I gotten any work done between now and then? Nope! Not a bit!) And let me say up front that I *rock* at bowling. :) Today, Jeff designed a “Mii” for each of us. We went to bed *really* late on Thursday because we were playing! I had a “Wii hangover” the next day, LOL! :)
Friday, we picked up our weekly CSA share. Included were: two delicata squash, one pumpkin, one bunch of broccoli raab, four eggplant, mizuna mix, two tomatoes, five peppers, one bunch of carrots, pick-your-own flowers, and pick-your-own tomatoes. I brought a huge, heavy shopping bag with us and picked as many tomatoes as I could carry. We’ll save the tiny ones for the kids to eat, but the larger ones … I’m going to try some fried green tomatoes soon and then possibly make my own marinara sauce to freeze. (You can ripen the green ones in a brown paper bag, right?) I’m also going to try cooking the pumpkin to make a puree for pumpkin bread ~ or maybe for pumpkin-walnut muffins. Those sound good! Our CSA continues through November 21st. I am just *loving* it.
