Go ask Alice...

"Sometimes I believe in as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast." Alice in Wonderland 

1. I will actually get this pattern written.  Impossible!

2. I will actually get my craft room.  Impossible!

3. I will get organized.  Impossible!

4. I will complete the rug I am working on.  Impossible!

5. I will complete all the designs for the book.  Impossible!

6. I will slay the Jabberwachy.  Impossible!

But I believe the impossible can happen!

I Get a New Craft Room, I mean The Girl-Child is moving out. (sniff. sniff. WINK!)

      Over the last week the Girl-Child told us she found an apartment and is moving in with “The Boy”. She and the boy, (that’s what we call him) have been together for a while now and he seems to be a pretty good influence on her. We have called him "the boy" since they first started dating.  At first she was a little upset by it but I told her it was better then if I called him by her ex's name.  She agreed. I also pointed out that after 20+ years of marriage my father-in-law still calls me Michael's bride.  (Probably for the same reason.)  She now refers to him as "the boy." Now it has become a habit, the poor kid will be turning 50 and I will still be calling him "the boy".
     They are moving the middle of next month to a small apartment that is walking distance to work, just a little ways from a Dairy Queen and within stumbling distance of the local pub. He became of age in December and she becomes of age in May. I have not seen it yet but it sounds like a pretty good location.  They looked at it once and decided to take it. It sounds as if they found a landlord who is willing to help a young couple just starting out. Where would we all be if we had not had just such a person along the way? I asked her how many windows there were and if they need curtains? She couldn’t remember. I asked if there were lights in the room or if they needed lamps? She didn’t remember. I asked if the needed a shower curtain? She didn’t remember. But it’s a cute place. I asked her to call the landlord and find out when we can go look at it and I can get all my questions answered. I have been looking around here, figuring out what we have to give her, and get rid of. This might be my chance to get new stuff. I mightneed to do some shopping.
     I have been planning how my new craft room will look. The rest of my family is quite excited about getting the use of the den, dining room, front hallway, and various other my many stashes have taken over. I have been teasing the Girl-Child for the last couple of years that I want her room for crafts.  In reality her room is the smallest and ours is the largest, so once she is gone; we move into her room and I take over the big room, with the big closet and the big windows.  My friends have warned me to be careful not to move too quickly because they often come back. That is fine; I think she will be quite comfortable sleeping on the floor under my cutting table. She shouldn’t worry about the scraps that end up on the floor; they will give her more padding. I suppose I should also warn her that I tend to go in there all hours of the day and night and work when the mood strikes me. She is currently cleaning out her room and “going thru stuff”. After about 4 hours and 10 garbage bags she came out and said “I really have A LOT of clothes”. This I already knew. I will keep you posted on the happenings of the big move.

Today the boy-child turns 18.

     Today the boy-child turns 18. Wow where did the last 18 years go?  Did I really get that much older???? As I think back 18 years ago the room around me shimmers and the lights go dark, maybe that is the memory of the drugs. That day I was 1 week over due, thank you very much, shopping at Wal-Mart, getting ready for my graduation ceremony from DBU. I was shopping with Michael, Cassondra, and my parents. It was about 4:30 on a Friday night. We were supposed to leave Wal-Mart, go home to get dressed and be at Lakeview Castle by 6:00 for dinner. I started to feel “funny” and went to the front of the store to sit down and wait for everyone else to get done shopping. My feeling funny got a whole lot worse and I had my mom paged. I asked a kid in a blue shirt if he could page someone for me and he said “umm yeah it will be just a couple of minutes. Is everything ok?” I answered, “Yeah, I’m just in labor.” The color drained from his face and he almost did a back flip getting to the intercom. He stuttered and stumbled but he finally got her name out and everyone gathered at the front of the store.
     We left for the hospital quite quickly. When we got there, they had me go directly to the floor and we called my brother to come to the hospital so Cassondra, age 3, would not be present for the birth of her brother. Not exactly how we planned it. I got into my room and all set up by 5:15, Michael and my parents were with me. A beautiful 8.1 lb baby boy was born at 5:35. Now those of you thinking “Gee what an easy labor, not fair!” You should know I was sick for 8 ½ months, lost 35 pounds, was hospitalized 3 times, and went into pre-labor 4 times. I feel this all counts!! At 5:45, my darling husband looked at the clock and said “Hey, everything is done here, we could still make it to the Castle for happy hour and dinner, and it is already paid for!” I was not so impressed with this statement. I still to this day, do not know how serious he was but one look at my face and he decided it was not such a good idea.
      The next week my mother was shopping in the same Wal-Mart and heard a story from the cashier about a woman who had given birth there last week. Dang!! Only another ½ hour and maybe I could have owned part of Wal-Mart. Yeah, but I really wanted the drugs. The lights are coming back; I must be coming back to reality. As I think about all the trials and tribulations of raising my baby boy to adulthood I think about life in general. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a book we were handed at 18 that explained it all? Well I guess we all have to figure it out as we go and make the best choices we can. At least he knows he has the love and support of his family backing him up. Ok, so I got a little deep with this post, sorry! Maybe I need some more of those drugs they gave me when I was in labor! All though if it means I have to go through pregnancy, labor, and delivery again, Ahhhhhhhhh just the thought of that sends me screaming. I am in my happy place, I am in my happy place, I am in my happy place. OK, deep breath, all better.

Crochet Addict???

Addictions have a reputation for being bad. Well I guess it would depend on what exactly it is you were addicted to. Hobby, obsession, addiction, call it what you will it seems to be lurking in most crafters. To determine if you are a crochet addict, actually you could insert the hobby of your choice for most of them. Knitter, Scrap booker, Stamper, Beader, Weaver, Spinner, Quilter, Rug Hooker, etc. You get the idea.

Symptoms of a Crochet Addict

• You're proud to be called a "hooker".
  
• You have a room for your yarn, not a shelf or a drawer, you have an entire room.
  
• When someone greets you they start off by saying, "What are you working on now?"
  
• You have more crochet hooks and patterns than you can count or will ever use.
  
• You walk through a yarn store and look at the colors and feel the skeins and you have to own that yarn, with no project in mind.
  
• You have a designated crochet bag that you carry projects in, and the bag isn't small. (You probably don't have just one.)
  
• You always keep a crochet project in your car or at work, just in case you have some down time.
  
• Your hands get fidgety when you go a day without crocheting (as if you would ever do that).
  
• You have a list of TV shows on TiVo you don't really have to pay close attention to while crocheting. (CSI, Law and Order, NCIS)
  
• You memorized when the major yarn stores have discounts and coupons.
  
• Your family makes fun of you because you can't sit still without working on something, not at a hockey game, movie, church. It doesn't matter where you are.
  
• Your most recent searches on your Garmin are for yarn shops in areas surrounding you.
  
• You crochet with things other than yarn, such as plastic bags, cassette tape, duck tape, rags, etc.
  
• You've learned to die yarn with Kool-aid and spin yarn out of your pet's hair.
  
• You wear one of those necklace medallions that cut your yarn for you.
  
• Your number of WIPs (works in progress) and UFOs (unfinished objects) keeps multiplying, and you blame it on your cat/dog/spouse.
  
• You occasionally stumble upon started projects that you have no memory of ever starting and have no idea what it was going to be.
  
• You are crocheting while reading this post.
  

After writing this list, I became a little afraid of my addiction. Does anyone know where I can find a crocheter anonymous meeting??? I think I have a problem and need to admit it to others. Well I think maybe they are having one at Yarn Harbor on Sunday. I think I will attend, I am sure they can help me.

Ugggg Homework!!

      Today I spent about 5 hours doing a 12th grade project for economics. Most of the time I kept thinking “I am reasonably sure I already passed economics”. I started to wonder where the line between “helping” and just doing the work so he will get it done and pass the class and hopefully graduate, really lies. I can remember my mother helping me with reports in school but back then we had to actually write everything out on paper and look up definitions in a dictionary. We did not have a set of encyclopedias at our house but my grandmother did. I had to go to her house to look up stuff for my work. I had to take a bus to get there, write down with pencil and paper the information I needed and make sure I had all the reference material to list at the end of my report. When I got home I would have to type everything out and hope I did not make a mistake because I did not have correction tape in my typewriter. White out??? Yeah right, I think that came out about the time I got my first computer. (I was well out of school by then.) I was a senior in high school when I took my first intro to computer class, on the Apple 2E.

      What did I start ranting about? …… …….. ………. Oh yeah The Boy-Child’s homework. So we; like that “we” had to do the Abc’s of economics. Write an ABC book using terms found in his economic s book. It amazed me how I was able to set it all up and input photos from the internet while sitting on my couch watching a CSI marathon. Tell me again how these kids have it so much harder than we did?? I experienced the law of diminishing returns. Remember what that is?? (I relearned it today.) The more of something you have the less you want it. Yeah well 26 letters is a lot! We had to get a little creative in the end. I did Google economics terms and found a list of them in alphabetical order. Now there is something I never would have found in Grandma’s encyclopedias. I was just corrected by Microsoft Word, Google needs to be capitalized. Again not found at grandmas.  Ok so we got all 27 pages done, oh yeah did I forget to tell you about the title page.  Went to print and we are out of ink the first 3 pages came out green.  Guess I will be making a run to walmart this weekend.
      I believe I had a point at the beginning of this, homework - I really am not sure where that line falls. Where do we as parents help them just get it done and where do we let them fail to learn a lesson? I guess with graduation looming only a few months away I am less inclined to go with the let him fail route. Am I setting a bad precedent by bailing him out? Maybe, but I really want to get to graduation and not have to do another economics project next year. I also know that there are 580 words to this point in today’s entry. Something else I would not have had on my typewriter. Cool huh?? Oh well enough ranting today, I need to go look over the Algebra homework that is also due on Monday. Dad will have to check that over cuz that one is beyond mom! Ohh ohh up to 598!

One of these things is not like the others....

      One of these things is not like the others. When I started doing some research for my blog, one of the things I did was go to several others with the same sort of intentions as me. I read one after another, and found one thing they all had in common. Everyone had a cat. I however do not. Now I am reasonably sure that no one has a cat that knits or crochets or even writes for that matter, so I don’t think this affects their blogs but I feel I may not fit in.
      We had cats while I was growing up but now I am a dog owner. The cat we had, we named JFK (Junk Food Kitty). It loved to eat, and it ate anything. Most cats will come running to the sound of a can opener, well JFK only came running to the crackling of a chip bag. Doritos were his favorite. He sort of adopted us. He came into the house one day and stayed for a couple of years and then decided to move on and find a new home. My father really, really, did not like cats but he must have been able to sniff that out because JFK would go sit on his lap and purr nonstop. After a while even my dad decided maybe he wasn’t so bad and he could stay.
      I wouldn’t say I love cats but we get along alright. It is not that I am completely opposed, my son had very bad asthma as a child and we could never have one, so we just never have had one. I have to admit that I also truly believe that someday cats will own the world. I know that if I were to die during my sleep that a cat would eat me and I am not totally convinced it would wait till I was all the way dead to start.

What am I working on now??

     What am I working on now? I am currently working on a Crochet felted monk satchel that I wrote the pattern for. I have taught this class at Yarn Harbor for the last year and it has been very popular. It is a 3 week class, we learn how to make the pieces, put them together and felt it. This is the last night of class and the girls are working on the final single crochet seams. They can then go home and felt their new bag. The one I am working on will be a bag for my new laptop. I did not have my “homework” done for class one night and the boy-child thought it was great. He said “Mom, don’t you think you should have gotten your homework done for class right away and not put it off till the last minute?” Don’t you love, as a parent, when your own words come back to haunt you? I answered him “I am the teacher and I am there to help others with problems, not work on my own pieces.”  Ok so technically I should have had it done but I was not going to let him know that.  I teach several crochet classes at Yarn Harbor. Check out the website to see what other classes they offer. www.yarnharborduluth.com they also have a great blog: yarnharbor.wordpress.com

This is Julie, she is just finishing her crochet felted monk's satchel. 

This is the bag I am working on right now.  I have made it oversized, I want to use it for my new laptop bag.

This is the first bag I made.  I then wrote the pattern from this one.