A Little New

I'm dyeing sock yarn... it's commercial but I wanted to add a little more colour so it's in the pot as I'm writing.

I also added projects that I'm working on down and to the right.

Check it out.

A Little Silk Please ..... And Halloween

Halloween is coming up and today there is a dance at the school. Daughter #2 is going because, and I quote, "Dee and I are going so we can look at all the people and who's trying to go out with who!" Dee is her best friend. Daughter #2 is not the most coordinated person on the face of the earth and so dancing is like falling into sh-- well, you get my drift. At 13, she's very awkward and self conscious. But just the fact that she is going is good enough for me. At least she is making an effort. Daughter #1, on the other hand is not going. When asked why, she told me that the best thing about the dances at the school is the wealth of food that gets laid out. "Nobody ever asks you to dance", she said. How I have raised two such jaded girls is beyond me. At 13 and 14 (almost 15) the two Daughters should be having the time of their lives. This really bothers me. Ok, so they are not the most popular girls at the school... I get that.... I also know that having their dad work at the school that they attend is also a deterrent... and actually I'm glad that they are not the most popular kids in school since usually that indicates that they are up to something they shouldn't be. But this jaded attitude in them so young is not good either. Perhaps embracing mediocrity is something they get from me.... oh sh--, what am I thinking?!.... like they are going to look to me as a roll model?! I'm just their mother for God's sake!

Meanwhile I was doing some research yesterday on silk embroidery and came across a website that was deadly.  I ended up wasting a whole lot of time there as it really had no relevance to the research I was doing but ooohhhh it was lovely and I just couldn't tear myself away..... Have a look....

This is my favorite...

Even the men have gorgeous silk to wear.....

This guy's shirt is too die for... I would wear that... forget him.

This clothes.... is gorgeous... and even though it comes from a different culture than my own... gosh I can't get enough of looking at it. I have to say that it makes me want to wear it too... besides it would cover a wealth of bulges.... : \

Anyway it's just a thought.

Well the ongoing saga of Halloween continues to amuse..... Daughter #2 is calling Dee in an effort to get her to wear black.... costumes are being figured out....

The dance is this evening and even though Daughter #1 doesn't want to go she is wearing a costume to school tomorrow...

Daughter #1 is going as the wicked witch of the west with stolen red shoes...
Daughter #2 is going as a spider queen....
Dee who is coming here to get dressed is going as a escaped convict.....
Me?!... I'm just glad I don't teach... maybe I should dress up as a teacher.... what the heck am I thinking... nobody ever comes here for Halloween!

Christmas Preparations.... 2 Months Away Now

Pops was here yesterday.... he came for a wee visit as he does most days. He always comes for a cup of tea and a bun or cookie if there is one around. It was while he was here that he mentioned that we were two months away from boxing day.... !!!!! 00
Ack!                                                   ~

Now it only feels like yesterday that I was blogging about Christmas being three months away. This sent jitters of panic through my blood stream. But I put it out of my head and carried on with our visit. I have noticed lately that Christmas is rearing its ugly head in my mind. I am beginning to have nesting instincts..... that is where I begin to look around my disaster house and feel the need to improve. The Contractor's Helper or TCH  (that's the fellow who helped our contractor for the house reno and if rights be known did most of the construction itself) is supposed to come by this week or next to have a look at getting some of the unfinished construction work done. We are seriously looking at finishing the downstairs, which will be very nice since for a year and a half I've lived in a minor construction zone. There have been wires sproinging from the walls,

They're dead wires so don't worry that we are going to get electrocuted!

there have been walls that are covered in nothing more than tuck tape and plastic,

Tuck tape and plastic in office

The downstairs bathroom didn't even get that feature.... this is an interior wall by the way.

there are floors that sport nothing more than sub-flooring

Living room floor meets kitchen floor

Bathroom floor where the plugged hole for the toilet is still visible. I'm waiting for the walls to be finished before I lay the flooring.

and there are light fixtures that dangle at very bad angles....

We won't even mention the upstairs and the stairwell. So TCH has said he would come and give me a price to finish the work that Teapot and I were supposed to finish. I should have seen the writing on the wall last summer (that's not this summer past, but the one before) and realized that Teapot is just not a builder and that I can't do it on my own. So we are looking at getting our house in order before Christmas. This will mean a few days of inconvenience. It will mean being offline for a few days as once again my office will be emptied of all officey things and the construction begins again.

In the meantime, Teapot's and my bedroom has been irking me. We have privacy.... well, some. The Daughters rooms for all intents and purposes are finished.  They just need trim boards in the corners and around the ceilings and Daughter #2 needs a shelf on a ledge cut, but otherwise they're good. But our room has been in a sad state of affairs ever since the first day of school last year. We have a finished ceiling which is great but we live in a log house and we have a cathedral type ceiling on the second floor (which I love). This is a difficult thing to deal with because Teapot is scared to make any kind of cut that is not at a 90 degree angle. So we have walls that are eight feet high and no higher.

That's weird... you can't see that difference in the colour of the paneling in the room, just in this picture.

Still I have entered our bedroom for a year and a half with trepidation and disgust. It is not a pretty sight. Last week my nesting urges came to the fore. I happened to be in a hardware store and got the brilliant idea that all the old paneling (which was supposed to be replaced with the new paneling) could stay, saving Teapot and I tons of work, if it was just painted. I purchased a gallon of paint on the spot. Monday, it began. Out came the paint brush and open came the lid. The result is quite nice actually and now I am having grandiose ideas of finishing the room on my own.... well sort of. I'm not sure I can cut those boards to fit up in the cathedral part of the ceiling but I certainly can build doors for our closet which at the moment look like this...

Doesn't this look hideous?! And there's another one just like it on the other side of the bathroom door.

I also want a bed..... at the time of the renovation we passed our double bed on to Daughter #1 and purchased a queen sized mattress and box spring for ourselves. We have two lovely pine chests of drawers so we are ok there. But it is high time that I get the two giant boxes full of WOOL out of our room.

Also pictured here are the plastic containers that I've been living out of for the last year. No they are not always this messy just since I started to paint. See that's the other hideous closet behind the mess of boxes and plastic containers.

Problem: one of the Pine Chests of drawers has been in the front porch holding all hats and mittens and gloves and scarves for many a long year. But as of today that will end. I have been living out of plastic containers long enough. I have purchased a chest of drawers at a garage sale last week and while it was bright blue and covered in fishy stickers, it was solid and in good enough shape to hold hats and mittens, and best of all the price was right..... $5. Last evening, I started to remove the stickers from the drawers. I then rummaged through my cans of paint in the shed and found a nice glossy chocolate brown. I proceeded to paint the chest of drawers and now it is sitting in the living room drying nicely and waiting for the second coat of paint. Once that is finished I shall remove the mits, hats and gloves from the nice pine chest of drawers, like the one already in our bedroom...

Excuse the dangling cords since I haven't plugged things back in since I painted.

and put them in the garage sale one. Then I will take the lovely pine chest of drawers up to the bedroom and there I will put my clothes leaving the plastic containers to be filled with the wool in the boxes and brought down to the sunroom/studio where all my other goodies are stored.

Ok so back to what  I started to say. Our bedroom is looking much better all the time. The paint is on the wall....

Actually this looks more grey than it really is.

and I have been perusing catalogues and furniture (I keep forgetting that Americans don't spell catalogues with ue on the end... check out this spelling comparison chart for different countries and how they spell different words... it always freaks me out when I spell a word like grey and then have to wonder why the spelling check says I'm wrong.... am I that bad a speller?! I think I'll put the spelling comparison chart in my list of favorites... oh right back to the topic at hand....) flyers to see if I can find a bed that grabs me and will look ok with our pine chests. We are pretty much down to these three...

I'm liking all three so not sure which one to choose. Please feel free to leave comments.... we could use some help. We are going with a garden theme since I chose a restive shade of green... I also want a bit of a romantic feel.... (who cares about Teapot.. all he cares about is if there is a blanket to keep him warm and a bedside table on which to keep his book).

Basically I'm tired of my bedroom being a craphole. I'm tired of my whole house being a craphole. So by Christmas.... my goal is to have a bedroom I want to walk into, a living room that says welcome to my guests,  a bathroom that is clean and neat, and an office that isn't buried alive.... well that last one may never happen!

But you get my drift..... the house is now my priority...

Stay tuned....

Now That The Shock Has Worn Off

Ok..... so let's get this over. Level 3: Regarding the burning incident the other day.... yes, I passed. No, the marked sucked. Yes, the pictures were for real.... there's very little left of it. Reason: I'm a dumbass! I can't believe how stupid I am. A full section of questions not answered... had I done that section.... well, a very reasonable mark indeed. Still, I passed.... but this really pi--es me off since I want to be the best that I can be and clearly leaving out a bunch of questions, is one step away from senility. So... Options: not sure... carry on with level 4 for now. Discuss my grade with my instructor and see what I can do... (like the course over again)... and I really want this grade wiped out.... but we'll see. Yes this sets me back a whole year but that's not the end of the world.... you know... I did say that I'm an advocate of life long learning..... I just wasn't expecting it to be this way. : \

Another Planet Defacer

Last year we purchased the movie Avatar for the Daughters... well, ok, yes we watched it too. I thought how very cool the concepts behind the movie were.  Even though I knew that the movie wasn't real there was a horrible idea of what the future holds for this planet  if "progress" continues unchecked.

As usual this week I did my normal every few days check of all my favorite blogs.  When I hit APOD I found this picture...

This is a bucket wheel excavator.... yup, it's real. It is used in open pit mining and is the largest mobile machine on the face of the planet. Did you know that some open pit mines can be seen from space....

When are we ever going to learn that we're killing our world around us?

I really want to die (when the time comes) knowing that my children and their children will have something lovely and somewhat pristine for their lives....

Somehow, seeing this picture, makes me think that it's not going to happen.

There's such a juxtaposition between looking at something like that and looking at the birds on the feeder or the deer outside my window.

What would you rather look at.... the above..... or this....

I leave you to ponder the awefulness that is becoming our planet...

A Change Of Venue

For the next little while I will be working here or here with occasional returns to Ye Olde Batt to post pics of my projects as I finish them...

Marked

Level 3

We'll say no more about it......