Gratuitous cuteness

Why are you making me stay home alone all day?

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You’d think I was torturing him

The horror

Seriously.  You have to click on this one to view it bigger so you can really see the horror in Will’s face.

He looks like he’s really upset, doesn’t he?  Like someone had just punched him in the gut or something.

Yeah, well.

This is the pose he struck when I tried to take his picture.

Turkey.

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One of those weeks

You know the kind, the ones that make you wish you hadn’t even bothered getting out of bed.  I’ve thought about whining here on the blog, but in the end, have decided that it’s pretty pointless.  Yes, you’d all be kind and try to cheer me up, but you know what?  When I start to list out my problems and the things that have gone wrong?  It all sounds pretty darned petty and stupid.

Especially when I contemplate the road trip my husband is on.  He and his sister and their parents are on their way to a funeral.  (And yes, it is very weird that the 4 of them are stuck in a car together for 6 plus hours today and then again on Thursday for the trip home…I wish I could be a fly on the wall…)

The funeral is for a young man, who was only 34 when he passed away this past Saturday.  He was diagnosed with brain cancer 2.5 years ago, and I think it is actually something of a miracle that he had this long.  Henrik was a cousin of some sort to my husband (Henrik’s paternal grandmother would have been Mark’s maternal Great-Aunt.  I think.)  I had only met Henrik several times over the years, he is someone I would have liked to have gotten to know better.  He was a very bright young man, he had just earned a master’s degree when he had gotten the diagnoses, and had been planning on pursuing a PHD.  I can’t even imagine what the last 2.5  years have really been like for him and his family. He was not married, but he leaves behind parents and a sister and numerous other relations and friends that will miss him a great deal.

Parents aren’t supposed to outlive their children, and I surely hope I don’t outlive mine.  I don’t think I could bear it.

So, I’m going to quit worrying about the petty crap that I’ve been whining about and get to work on doing the things that I want to do with my life.

Go hug someone you love and then do the same, OK?

Suzanne

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Weekend in Review

Mamma Mia — twice (awesome!)

Swing Vote — once (pretty good)

Pool — twice (last gasp of summer, no lifeguards, the boys and their cousins basically had the pool to themselves)

Benadryl — once (resulting in a sleepy fog Saturday…I couldn’t concentrate on anything, thus the trip to the pool.  Why I didn’t try to find the Claritin or the Zyrtec, I do not know)

Now back to the daily grind.  GOod thing I like my daily grind.

I’d just better avoid the Benadryl if I’m going to stay awake.

More later –

Suzanne

p.s.  Yes, I really did go to a movie theater 3 different times this weekend.  That, my friends, is one of the joys of living rural Iowa — Dollar Movie Theaters.

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Two days down, 178 to go

Actually, the boys have come home from school, excited about the prospects of 4th grade.  Joe’s teacher is funny — cracks lots of jokes (which he, as a budding humorist, appreciates), plus both boys seem kind of excited about the daily assignment notebooks that they were given, it seems very “official” I think.  That’ll probably last about a week.

I have a new knitting student — I gave Mark his first lesson.  He cast on 16 stitches and knit about 3 rows.  After showing him what to do, I walked away.  The look of intense concentration was pretty impressive.  I’m not sure if he’s enjoying it or not.  Maybe once his engineer’s brain figures out exactly what it is he is doing.

Speaking of knitting:

I’m sure you aren’t suprirsed to see that my alternate color is white.  Our school colors are Red and White, so this seemed like a natural choice.  I nearly had to rip it all apart a little bit ago, though.  I dropped a stitch and got interrupted and when I went back to try to pick up the stitch I couldn’t figure it out.

The getting interrupted was the problem, because I had placed one of thel oose loops back on a needle and forgotten that I’d done so.  Here I was with the correct number of a stitches on the needles, but I clearly had a dropped stitch.  Plus I was trying to put it back on going in the wrong direction.  Once I got myself straightened out I was OK.  I think.

I get to go see the movie Mamma Mia tonight — I’ve had the Abba tunes tuck in my head for days (weeks…) now, and I’m looking forward to seeing the movie.

TTFN-

Suzanne

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It’s the Most Wonderful Time

What grade are you in this year?

Oh no!  She’s singing that song!!  Quick, cover your ears!

Is she done yet?

OK, pretend you like your brother and put your arm around him.

Have a good day, pals!  I know you are going to ROCK Fourth Grade!

Love you,

Mom

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72 pencils later…

The boys are ready to go to school tomorrow.

And I have the makings of blisters on my right hand.

Because, yes, they needed 36 sharpened pencils each.  And my piece-of-crap electric sharpener (which has never worked properly) finally gave up the ghost tonight.  Mark has an old-style hand crank out in the garage, but it doesn’t “finish” them cleanly, so…each pencil got started on the hand crank and the finished to a nice point on a hand sharpener.

The annoying thing:  they will likely never use most of these, because once school starts, they’ll wind up in the school store buying mechanical pencils (which are nicer to use anyway) and most of these will come back completely unused.  At least we’ll be able to send them again next year.

I love school/office supplies.  it’s hard not to buy myself a brand-new box of everything, too.  We cheated a little this year, and the boys did not get fresh boxes of crayons.  We had one almost completely fresh box of 64 — just 2 of the crayons showed use, so Joe is taking those.  Will is taking a combination of several boxes, resulting in 64 almost nearly-new looking crayons.  He didn’t seem bereft by this situation (as I would be, I want a FRESH box…).

We have a number of miscellaneous boxes of crayons (16 count construction paper crayons, anyone?) that I think I’m going to take to school and just donate to whichever teacher thinks they’d be useful.  They aren’t getting any use here.  I think I have a couple of boxes skin tone crayons, too.  Oh, excuse me, they are “Multicultural Crayons” — Sepia, Peach, Black, Tan, Burnt Sienna, Apricot, Mahogany, and White.   I was thinking about donating those, too, but I think I’ll save them for when the boys use up their blacks and whites…

TTFN-

Suzanne

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Done.

Well, done knitting.  I don’t want to felt blind (in my front-loading washer) so I’ll probably wait until this weekend to do the felting over at Mom’s house.

Laying out flat like this, it measures a whopping 25 inches across and if you stretch out the curled over rows at the top, it’s 16 inches tall.

Mark said “Is it really supposed to be that huge?”

Yes, dear.  Just wait…

And becasue I had gotten used to knitting during the Olympics, I had to start a new project yesterday:

Much smaller needles this time (size 7 as opposed to the 13s I used on the bag).  It’s going to be a Sampler Baby Blanket, each stripe will be a different stitch pattern.  One guess as to what my alternate color is going to be.  I’m using Cascade 220 Superwash, which is 100% wool, but…washable…I wonder why they call it superwash?  I’m almost done with the first stripe, which is a Double Seed Stitch Pattern.  I’ve only missed one or two stitches (knitted when I was supposed to purl,that sort of thing, and luckily with this pattern you can’t tell.  Future rows aren’t quite as forgiving.

Today is the last day of the boys’ freedom.  Stay tuned tomorrow for the Annual Back to School Pictures.

Later –

Suzanne

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Well, that was a boring post

I’m not even sure why I bothered to post about my pleasure with the USPS shippin website, but I do apologize for boring all of you with it.  LOL
Here’s something more interesting:  a quilt I finished for a customer.  In theory, you’ll be able to click on these to view them larger, allowing you to see the detail a bit better.

The pattern is Buggy Barn’s Coneflower Crazies.  Isn’t it cute?  She still has buttons to attach to the center of each flower.  I had a lot of fun this one, using the wonkiness of it as inspiration for the wonky quilting.  I used Warm Bond batting (The Warm Company’s new 80/20 cotton/poly blend batting) which seemed to quilt nicely.  Signature cotton thread on top, Superior’s Bottom Line in the bobbin.  I love prewound bobbins now.  I used to think they were overly expensive and not worth it, but I’ve changed my tune.

Another quilt is calling my name, so I’d better answer, since it’s the quilting that’s keeping the lights on right now.  Did you know that opening a shop take a LOT of money???  Yikes.

Suzanne

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Simple pleasures

It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

Today, for instance:  I discovered that the USPS online label printing process has actually improved.

When I print shipping labels through PayPal, all I get is the shipping label itself.  It’s a half sheet of paper, and I bought adhesive shipping labels that are just the right size — two on a page.  (I just flip the sheet around to print a 2nd label).

I have to print some labels from the USPS website, though, and the way they print from that site has always annoyed me.  They print the label on one half of the page and a receipt and shipping instructions on the other half.  Considering how expensive the self-adhesive labels are, it really was a huge waste of sticker and money, because the receipt portion just got stuck in a drawer and will never ever be referred to again — as all of that information is online at their website.

Today, though!  There was a brand-new checkbox that said “Print WITHOUT Receipt or shipping instructions”

Just the label,  and none of the extras, just like I like it.

Hallelujah!!!!

Although, I am still annoyed at them for moving a different checkbox on the shipping information screen.  The box for “Shipping from same Zip Code as above” used to be at the bottom of the screen, but they’ve moved it, and I can never remember to click on it — it’s somewhat “buried” and not as obvious as it should be.  Of course, you get an error message when you don’t click on it, and have to go back and fix it.  It’s minor, but it’s one of those minor annoyances that build up over time.  I don’t know why they made it LESS usable than before, but maybe it’s just me.

Based on the change to the label printing, perhaps they actually do listen to feedback?  Because that must have been a request from users.  Maybe I will complain about that zip code box and see what happens.

One person CAN change the word, right?

Suzanne

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