Strawberry Yogurt Soup

Hello!  I've been busy with house stuff and retaining my sanity.  Much of my time has been spent trying to resolve our current health insurance mess.  We were approved to have OHP, but they still had it on record that we had private insurance, which we lost when my husband got laid off, so I've been having to untangle it.  I wont go into more detail as it is confusing and borning.  I think I'm finally near the end of it!  I'm still fixing doctor appointments though.  My doctor that I just got doesn't take my new insurance so I'm having to switch again, as well as other family appointments.

Good news!  My husband started a new job last week!  It's through a temp agency, but both the agency and the workplace have made my husband feel appreciated and productive.  He's also on day shift!  Hallaluja!  He gets up at 5 a.m. now, instead of 10 a.m.  I'm adjusting my schedule a little bit (I used to get up at 6:30) so I'll be getting up with him.  It's *so nice* to be able to cuddle with him instead of sleeping alone.

I've been doing art on the computer these last few weeks.  I've had several graphic design orders - a few repeat customers came back.  I love hand dyers!  They make such lovely yarn and they like to dress them up with pre-printed labels, which I am happy to make for them.  :D  It's so satisfying to work with other artists! :)

Ooh, I don't think I told you all that we got a fish!  Anna's been wanting fish for quite some time but I didn't have any time or money to invest into an aquarium.  I told her it would have to wait until after Pandora, our ferret, was gone.  She passed a few months ago now and my daughter was having a hard time with it, so I was thinking it would be a really good idea to try to get fish sooner rather than later.  So I started looking at fish books with her and we decided on a betta and a mystery snail.

Then a friend had a betta they were thinking about getting rid of; apparently he killed any tank mates and she didn't like that.  I told her that was funny as we were thinking about getting a betta and a snail.  So we talked about it a bit more and they brought over the whole 5.5 gallon tank a couple days later!  Anna was thrilled!  While I started working on getting everything set back up Anna decided to name him "Soup."  😂  The previous owner told me she'd named him "Strawberry Yogurt" because of his red/white coloring.  So his full name is "Strawberry Yogurt Soup."  Hehe.

I've been working on getting him happy as there were a few things making him upset.  He didn't like the stronger current of the filter so I changed it.  Then he got sick (probably from stress from the move) and there were a lot of nitrates in the water.  I've been doing daily water changes to fix that.  He seems much happier and relaxed than he was when we first got him.  He's settling in nicely.

Note: His fins have healed more since this picture was taken.  I'll post more later. :)

Spring is here!

While Oregon teases us and lets us see the sun every once in a while, I know that more sun is coming.  It is already much warmer and after such a harsh winter we are ready to get outside! 

I’ve been working a lot in the garden this week, cleaning, setting up, and repotting the plants that the kids started over two weeks ago.  I live in an apartment so I don’t have and ground to dig in, but I do have a good space for a potted garden.  

Really I have a brown thumb.  I have killed so many plants it isn’t funny.  I have been trying to learn over the years what works for me and what doesn’t.  For the longest time I couldn’t have indoor plants and my ferret would dig them up, or my kids would knock them over.  My kids will ever be a danger, lol, but I’ve learned better placement when I have plants indoors.  TV trays in the corner by the sliding glass door work pretty well.

On the porch I’ve had realize that I have FULL SUN all day long and certain plants don’t do so well, or don’t do well if I don’t keep them *really well watered.*. (Cough) Sorry tomatoes! (cough). So I’ve skipped the more delicate plants until I improve with my diligence of caring for the plants.

Last year I had a *gorgeous* succulent that I unfortunately lost to an insect invasion in the fall.  It spread to a few other plants I had, too, which was really sad.  I’ll have to get another one of those.  Besides desert plants, I have a spider plant that my sister gave me from her Mother Ship.  I’ve named it Satellite (hehe) and it has done extremely well both on my porch and inside the sliding glass door.  She’s produced many of her own satellites over the last year and a half that I’ve had her. 

Marigolds always do well on my porch, but this is the first year in several that I don’t have any.  This year a friend gave me a bunch of wildflower seeds so I’m trying those out.  I also got Teddy Bear sunflowers as my kids really really really wanted sunflowers.  These were the smallest I could find, and they’ve planted so many seeds that they’re going to take over my garden later this summer.  lol. 

Besides flowers, I really like to have an edible garden.  Peas are excellent; they’re pretty, provide some privacy screening, and are a yummy snack. 😃. Thomas loves to grow carrots and eat them fresh out of the garden, so I always have some smaller varieties of those.  I have spinach, basil, and rosemary too!

I have a little shelf connected to my house where it gets some shade during the day.  I’ve decided I want chives (they did extremely well before) and cilantro there.  I’ve not gotten those in yet, probably get to it this weekend.

A few weeks ago my daughter decided that she’s in love with worms.  She kept begging me to go on a walk so she could say “Hi,” to all the cute pink worms.  Haha!  Some friends encouraged me to build a worm bin and let her have pet worms.  I reluctantly have agreed but I am *not* going to be the one taking care of them. lol

I repurposed a rubbermaid bin that I had in the other room.  I drilled some air holes in the sides and drainage holes in the bottom.  The kids shredded newspaper, soaked and squeezed it out, and I fluffed it up as they put it in.  Then they threw in some old fruits and veggies we had, as well as some coffee grounds.  Then we had to wait for it to rain again.  The instructions we followed to build a worm bin are here: http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/garden-yard/make-worm-bin-ze0z11zhir?pageid=1#PageContent1

My daughter was so cute with her shovel and pail.  We walked the older kids to school and she was saving worms in the parking lot.  She talked to them and tried to encourage them to get on her shovel!  Haha.  I think she saved about 15-20 worms that day.  We’ll have to gather some more again soon.  I don’t see much activity in the bin yet, but maybe we’ll see some castings soon.  They’ll be really good for our garden when they’re ready.

Today I bought some bricks to boost up the garden pots off of the concrete, and while I was at it, I bought some big bricks for the worm shelter, too.  They’re going to live on the porch so I’ll have to block the sun from roasting them.  I’ll get you a picture of that when it is complete.  As you can see, my daughter is NOT shy about playing her pets. lol

 

My.HomeRoutines

Yay, I’m getting this blog posted on time!

I know it sounds funny but this is a big deal to me.  By nature, my life has to be flexible to do all the things I need to do.  I have three kids, two with special needs and one still very young.  They need my attention 24 hours a day.  I know a lot of people in need of Tender Loving Care that God regularly brings to me to care for -  He made me a heart-healer to help these people, and I go where he calls me to.  This often calls for cancelling or rearranging my plans to meet their need which sometimes makes getting my own things done difficult.  I have happily done this for many years but lately it has grown too difficult as my life has increased demands.

So I’m cutting back on my flexibility and increasing my schedule.  I have two home businesses and I cannot manage them without set hours.  My daycare hours are already set, but Rachel’s Cozy Knits & Designs kept getting neglected, as did my house cleaning.  So I pulled out a tool that I’ve not used in a while. 

Think of a Happy Thought, Any Happy Little Thought

Where did the week go?  I've been concentrating hard on my project list that I've barely noticed the individual days go by.  All in all, it has been a pretty good week. :)

Yes, I researched, prayed, cried, and voted.  I have been avoiding the nasty social media war.  

Please, lets not talk about it here.  Happy thoughts only!

Last Saturday I put the finishing touches on the hats my aunt commissioned me to make for Christmas gifts.  I would recommend both these patterns and the yarn I used.  

Trying to Catch My Breath

I'm trying to catch my breath over here for a moment so I can tell you all what I've been up to!  The time crunch last week was so severe that I didn't have time to stop and write my weekly blog, so now I have a lot of catching up to do here.

Thomas' birthday was in September, but as it was such a difficult month I couldn't do his birthday party yet.  Then my husband got a big electronics order from the company he works for; he worked on it evenings and weekends.  So that meant that I couldn't host a party here, so then I started thinking about putting the money up for renting the community room that our apartments has for events. The more I thought of it, the more I liked the idea.

We don't have a tiny apartment, but it isn't huge either so we can only host small parties here.  Having it at the community center would open it up to being able to invite anyone / everyone he wanted.  Since he really wanted to have a table top game (board games, dice games, card games) party, this would be a great time to do the big party thing!

Pandora Out of the Box

I know I've said in the past that I've had a hard week.  I have a lot of those.  I have a lot of mental, emotional and physical demands in my life.  Some weeks take it to another level.  This was one of them.

This is my furbaby, Pandora.  In her youth I would call my baby a feisty princess.  She had an attitude and wanted things her way.  I reorganized her cage?  Well it wasn't how she liked it so she's going to re-reorganize!  lol 

 I've had this girl since she was little and I've comforted her through pain, sickness, and loss.  There's

Carpet & Tinking

This last week I have been very busy doing non-crafting things.  I am now watching one of Thomas' classmates, and his sister, before and after school.  I had to do a bunch of setup to start our routine off right!  First I bought a carpet cleaner and started cleaning the carpets!  They still need a second (and maybe a third) round of cleaning, but at least it no longer looks like I'm running a zoo!  (No more monkeys spilling milk, etc, all over the floor, please!  Ick!)  I'm monitoring closer than ever to make sure Thomas and Anna behave with their food, however still somehow a banana peel made its way under the couch.  Grrr.

After I started the carpets I went and bought a small cabinet, too.  I assembled it and put in puzzles, activity books, Playmobile people, games, etc, in it.  The kiddos are supposed to ask before they dive in so I can make sure all the pieces get put back away.   So far so good.   I'm thinking about getting a second cabinet.

I picked up my nephew's hat this week again.  I started it in June when I was on vacation visiting family but didn't finish before I left.  He wanted a slouchy hat but I underestimated the length and finished it too early.  I decided to pick it up again and rip back to the decreases.  Lots of tiny black stitches on size 3 needles.

Then on Monday it was knit night at West Slope Community Library.  I trouble shoot and teach basic knitting.  We had three new people this time!  Two were new knitters and one was teaching the other (the best way to learn is to teach!)  I backed them up as they had questions.  Another woman had put down knitting for about 3 years as she dealt with various life stuff and wanted help figuring out where she was on the pattern of a gorgeous scarf she was working on.  I helped her figure out which row she was at by "tink" ing (that is "knit"ing backwards) the last couple of rows.  She was having trouble getting back into the groove so I suggested that she get some plain yarn (the  scarf was textured) and practice the pattern on that for a couple of repeats.  Then when she found her groove again she could jump back into the scarf. :)

I've been taking the hat as my travel knitting this week.  I took it when I went to lunch with a friend and now I've finally re-knit all the yarn that was attached, which is about 2" past where I ripped out to, and need to connect more yarn, .  I think I might go another half-inch or so before I start decreasing again.  (The altoids are because I ate a lot of onions and didn't want to make my friend pass out! lol)

Other than that, I've been busy with kids, cleaning, and reading!  Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series is fun!  I'm reading the second book, Lost in a Good Book, with my sister for our Friday Night knit club.

By the way, I *did* start writing this on Thursday, and I've been pretty good about doing so.  I just don't always finish editing and publishing on Thursday, so perhaps its better to say that I'll publish weekly by Friday, though I'll still be aiming for Thursdays. :)

My back is very fatigued from the week's work so I hope to get back into knitting more and rest a bit this weekend.

TTFN.  Ta ta for now! ;)

In The Bag

It's time for my weekly breakdown of crafting and crazy!  This week has another busy one with several things done in "in the bag"!

30 September, Friday
Last Friday I finished sewing the two bags that I was working on.  I must say that I really like how they turned out.  I had picked up this weird pink and clear button and I was wondering what it would eventually end up with.  It turns out that it was *perfect* for the smaller of the two bags.  The more I look at it, the more I love it. :)  So here they are!  They are both for sale; click the links if you are interested.

 

Cleansing the Confused (Beetle)

I apologize for not writing on Thursday this week. I've been fighting a bout if depression and was having a rough day.  More on that later.

Last Thursday night I sewed together Thomas' birthday gift - a blizzard fleece blanket. He had picked out the fabrics he wanted but didn't know I'd bought them.

First I looked up the size of a twin bed blanket.  It is suggested to be 66" x 90".  Two and a half yards is 90".  The blizzard fleece is only 60" wide, but it is close enough for the way that Thomas sleeps.  If it is a problem I'll add some sort of boarder later.   So with coupons in hand I went to the store (at two different times) and picked up the fabric.

Are you blind yet?  Yes, Thomas' favorite color is highlighter pink.  For my own personal safety I

Is September Over Yet?

You know it's been a busy week when you have to look back at your own Instagram feed to remember what you've done for the last seven days! lol  Not every week is this overwhelmingly full, but for now you get to enjoy all the juicy details!

15th Thursday

After I finished writing my blog last week I started working on my mending basket.  My husband needed one of his belt loops reattached.  I did this by cutting a small scrap of denim from the stash and pinning it to the inside of the jeans.  I then used matching blue thread and sewed over the hole, using a denim needle in my machine, in multiple directions to create a new bit of secure fabric.  I then trimmed the excess of the patch, then VERY slowly sewed the belt loop down.  About half the time I was manually walking the foot to make sure it wouldn't break.

After that I fixed my daughter's leggings.  She wore a hold in the knee of one pair and experimented with scissors on another pair.  I happened to keep the bottom part of another pair of leggings that I cut off at the knee.  I cut out cute shapes and attached them with fabric spray adhesive before sewing them on.  The patches on the knees I had to sew by hand as they were too tiny of tubes to fit around my machine.

I also started cutting the drapes for Blur's bed.  I planned on just making a tube at 1 end and running