More On The Shopping Spree

So Teapot and I headed into FSJ to do some errands and Teapot had an appointment. I was getting groceries and buying somethings at Wal Mart for Pops and Daughter#1, and Teapot had a dental appointment and was to take our truck for an alignment. We have been having issues with our truck since back in the summer when there developed a nasty sound in the front passenger side front end.  We thought that it might be the tires since the tire on that side was wearing really badly and unevenly. The morning was spent doing what had to be done and then Teapot had an appointment at 1 to get the truck dealt with. He left me a Wal Mart and headed off to his appointment. I ticked away buying a variety of things and then my cell rang and Teapot was on his way to pick me up... That was quick I thought.

It turned out that the mechanics wouldn't bother with a wheel alignment on our vehicle since the tie rods were needing replacing, the ball joints were shot, the brake looked like crap after 212,000 klicks and we were facing a $3000.00 bill. Ouch! So we had a choice... drop a bunch of money into the old truck and we still had a timing chain that needed replacing, or go look at new ones.  We decided to go and have a look at what the dealerships were offering since we hadn't seriously looked at vehicles for ages (except last year at one point I thought we might be able to get me a little car) and had no idea what they were asking for new trucks.  We headed for the Dodge dealership first since that is what we have now.  However, we quickly found out that they don't even make the truck that we currently have which is a Dodge Dakota. (I personally think they are shooting themselves in the foot since the Dodge Dakota would appeal to a clientele that want a truck but don't really need a big one. But that's just me.) There obviously wasn't a whole lot of interest in us from the salespeople so we moved on to the Ford dealership.  On the way there Teapot told me this story...

"I went into (insert business name here) to get the alignment and while I was waiting I was sitting in their waiting area... they had a really comfy leather couch.... and along came this old geezer with a walking cane with four prongs on the bottom. He had to be about 80 yrs old.  He sits down and gets all comfortable and the mechanic came along and says, "Sir there's someone in your vehicle and they have to move because our insurance won't cover people while we are working on your vehicle."


The old guy says, "Oh that's my wife. Just tell her to come on in and wait in here with me."


So a few minutes later this old lady in a chintz dress (Teapot only just yesterday found out what chintz is....) comes in and is impressed with the comfortable waiting area. She sits down next to the old guy, and I go back to watching TV and reading a magazine sporadically. After a few minutes I start to hear snoring and I look over at the man and his wife and the two of them are out cold. I guess they were used to have an afternoon nap!"

I looked at Teapot and I said, "I hope that we are like that when we are in our eighties. : )"

Anyway, by the time Teapot finished his story and we had a little laugh, we were at the Ford dealership. We got out and started looking around. Oh my God! The prices on trucks are through the roof and we had to figure out what we were going to do! But this very nice salesman helped. We told him what we could afford in a monthly payment and he wouldn't let us go until he had a truck for us. It is second hand but only has 55,000 kilometres on it, lightly used with one owner and in really good shape.

We loved it right away.  And let me tell you... they must have needed to make their quota of sales because we got a really good deal. $6000.00 less than their marked price. I can't complain about that.

By the time we had the deal worked out, Teapot and I still had to go get groceries and it was already 6:30 p.m.  We walked out of the dealership... and started to argue over who was going to drive the new truck and who was going to drive the old truck. Teapot won. Believe it or not we were both fighting to drive the old one. The Old Momma looked so forlorn in the parking lot and we felt so bad for it. Our Old Momma has been a good truck and over the years we have had very little expense with repairs etc.... Neither of us can say anything bad about our good old truck. Now we have to sell her for parts and we are trying to decide what to do about the two new (two weeks old) tires that are on the front... should we take them off and put old tires on and sell the new tires separately.

It's all a bit wham-bam-thank-you-mam if you ask me.  Yesterday morning I was going to town to buy socks, earphones, a lamp, and a lamp shade, and some groceries. I came home with a truck!

OMG how did that happen?!!! (I'm still getting used to the idea that I am not going to get a car for myself now...  : \

Oh well, Teapot did promise me I could buy a floor loom. And I know just the one I want.....

Heh, heh, heh.... he didn't see that coming!

Shopping Spree

OMG :-0

We bought a new truck.

Now I just have to figure out how I can afford it!

Pet Breath... Always A Surprise

If you have a weak stomach do not read further.

I love my pets and I have plenty of them but every now and again I feel like sending them all to the moon.

This morning I let the rabble out as per usual... later I let them all back in for their morning meal, cat food in the cat dishes... dog food in the dog food dishes. Of course it was all nutty as the dogs ate the cat food right away and the cats ate nothing as they turned up their noses at the dog food.  So I let the dogs back out and put new cat food down for the cats so that they could eat in peace.  It was while the dogs were out and I was busy getting breakfast for Teapot and the Daughters that I heard Teapot bang on the window and tell the dogs to stop digging. (They have been digging in the garden of late.)

I finished getting breakfast and let the dogs back in, since by now, the cats were finished with their food. I sat down in my chair to enjoy a peaceful cup of tea and while I was sitting there Narmin came over and wanted to get up on my lap.  I was fine with that and picked the little guy up since having a dog on my lap while drinking tea is always a pleasure. (Not!) That's when he breathed in my face and I got the distinct whiff of cat poo.... : (

The buggers had been out have a good old time digging up cat nuggets... and eating them!!!

As one of my spinning and weaving buddies has been known to say, " Oh yeah. My dogs eat cat nuggets all the time... they are like a little protein package for them..."

Disgusting....

I have days when I believe I could totally do without pets....

Setting Up A Loom Bites (Notice I Used The Correct Spelling)

Yesterday was a fiasco once I got started beaming the warp.  I ended up with the hugest tangle. It was a complete mess. It took me three hours to untangle the mess and I never got weaving until 3:30 p.m. As a result I was weaving well into the evening. And I'm still not finished. It is a good thing that I put on such a long warp because I AM NOT A WEAVER and I now have a scarf that is five inches on the beginning end and three inches on the  end I am working on.... so I am going to keep weaving at three inches (I hope) and eventually I will have enough for a muffler type of scarf... at least that is my new plan.

As a Weaver I suck violently!

With The Gallery Show Looming.... No Pun Intended...

With my guild's gallery show looming in the next week, I'm once again down to the wire trying to get stuff done.  (After the show is up and running it is back to the level 5 homework!  That will be on the 7th of October.... yeah!)  I have been weaving on pin looms left right and centre.

This is the beginning of a tri-loom shawl... in pink.... I am trying to use up as much pink as I can just to get rid of it.... I'm starting to feel the need to barf with all this pink on the go.

Yesterday I started putting one project together. I am making a scarf with silk warp and a silk/merino weft that I spun a few years ago.

All the ends need to be darned in yet... I'll show this when I get it finished.

So far it is looking really nice but I still have four more squares to attach and then I have to crochet an edge. Yesterday I was crocheting so much that my poor hands had to be soaked in hot water this morning to get them working.  So today I decided to put that scarf aside for a day and work on a mixed warp scarf or two on my loom.  I just finished stringing the warp and I think I have enough warp for two scarves.  It is a combination of weird and wonderful fibres that I found in my stash.

I tried to get the best picture I could but the light sucks this morning...

...so here is a picture of the fibre I am using... except I don't have the ribbon that I also used in the warp. It's glitzy and looks awesome... only I ran out and didn't have any to put in this picture.

This is a picture of my rigid heddle loom and the warp going on. The living room was quite busy this morning.

I'm about to have some lunch and finish beaming the warp on to the loom and then I will be weaving all afternoon.  I also have another mixed warp scarf that I want to weave and that will be tomorrow's job.

The blue is a merino yarn that I spun two years ago. The pink is the same stuff that's going into the shawl in the previous picture. The pink stuff is alpaca. And the shaggy weird stuff is something I picked up at a garage sale... nylon and other weird stuff... (I have some god-awful orange stuff like it too... not sure if I can figure out how to use that stuff.)  Then I have a green shawl on another pin loom too. But there's a lot of work left on that one so I'm not sure I'll get that one done.  That is next week's project.  I have to have it ready for Wednesday or Thursday next week... we'll see.

Time is a wasting... thought I'd just give a little update... see you soon..... I'm off to eat some lunch and weave.

Previous Post... Corrected

Hopeless... sometimes I read through what I have written and I think.... I should just go back to school. Sometimes I write and even though I reread what I have written before posting, if I am not fully awake or if I am on meds or if I am my normal stupid self, it is full of mistakes. Generally I try to fix mistakes if I catch them but I don't always catch them. Then, a few hours later, I reread what I wrote and I think, "this is sh--"!  That just happened... my previous post read like a bulldozer in quarry... rough... so I fixed it up some... hope it makes better sense....

Raining Cats And Dogs And Sheep and LLamas And Alpacas..... Any Other Animals Here... Oh Yeah Soon Two New Rabbits!

Actually it's not raining at all... it's quite sunny and lovely. But in the house the place has gone to the cats and dogs.  We have three dogs and three cats for those of you who don't know. They often drive me bananas.

We have an old old cat that has reached his age of majority now being 12 years of age. He was so cute when we first got him... the blackest cat I've ever seen.  But as time went by he started getting all the signs of aging. The grey hairs were the first signs that he was aging. After that he started ever so slowly to slow down each year, and then finally he started to gain weight.  He is now huge. Like fat. Like Garfield looks svelt compared to him. We thought we should put him on diet but this has not worked because he is the best mouser in the whole world. I keep expecting him to keel over with a heart attack. However, last night when I went outside for my evening walk, there was Midnite in all friskiness, playing with the kitten. He was jumping up and catching moths and trying to do little flips. I think he even tried to climb a tree at one point however, his ass was so big that he just couldn't get it up over 3 or 4 inches. He is the fattest thing in the world.  Yesterday I was sitting in the living room on the couch and we have a little cushion set up under the end table for the cats to snooze on.  Midnite has been spending the summer outside snoozing on an old fleece on the deck under the work table, but recently he has begun to come into the house for his daytime snoozes as the temperatures begin to dip.  He was lying in there all day, next to the couch.  At one point Daughter #1 came into the living room to chat and I guess we disturbed his sleep, so he came out to see what was going on. After four steps off the pillow he just couldn't go any further. He had to lie down again since the poor bugger was exhausted from all that exertion. As he lay down his fat oozed out over the floor away from his body. It was disgusting. Then he looked up at me and yawned. That was it. The extent of his exercise. And back he went under the table.  Four steps out and four steps back to his pillow and there he stayed until it was time to go out last night. And we had to turf him then.  When a yawn is good exercise then you know that you have the laziest cat on the face of the earth.

Meanwhile as I sit here writing this morning the wee pooch has decided that chewing on the end of my poncho is awesome. And I'm wearing it!

I love animals. They certainly have their very own little personalities.

Recently the whore went missing. She has been missing since last week. We had an appointment for her to be spayed on Thursday the 21st... but Friday the 16th, she scooted out between Teapot's legs as he opened the door and disappeared into the dark.  We went looking for her but she disappeared in no time flat. She hasn't been seen since.  I hope she doesn't come back... (I know that's mean but the coyotes need to eat too... but with my luck, she'll come back pregnant no doubt. Argh!  I hate female cats.

The two big dogs are not happy with us these days either.  We have decided that we cannot allow them to go out of the house unless they are on a leash anymore, because they have taken to wandering away from our property.  They started to run around just up and down the in front of our house and soon it was down to the neighbour's driveway, and then it was to the end of the road, and then they were gone for several hours, and I would spend my time out on the deck calling and calling and calling.... further and further afield they would go. We have decided that they need a dog run, and the only place to make a fenced dog run is where the sheep paddock was. It is about twenty feet from the house, and will have to be seeded with grass seed after all the sheep poo has been scraped out, and the fence will have to be moved on one end slightly... thus they won't be able to run around the neighbourhood any more... it's all a bit of a headache really. While we are waiting for the sheep to go so we can move the fence, the two dogs have to be tied on on leashes.  I hate having to go out first thing in the morning with my nighty on and put them on leashes and Bailey has the obedience of a crocodile and she runs when I call her to put on the leash.  I'm thinking that the air space around our property has been looking a little blue lately.... I definitely need to stop the trucker language first thing in the morning.

Along with all that the sheep are finally going.  I may have mentioned that the sheep have been sold.  But the fellow who bought them didn't have his fencing in place and couldn't take them right away... so Teapot called him yesterday to see how the fencing was going and  he's finished all except for a paddock for the ram. So the sheep and llama are going hopefully this weekend, we just have to get the trailer. Honeydew the llama is too tall for our sheep trailer.  So we have to borrow a horse trailer from friends. We are going to have to keep the ram for now, until the fencing is done... I can't wait till we are only having to care for just alpacas.

Last but not least... on the 1st of October.... there will be two rabbits coming to live here.  They are Angora crosses. Lovely long spinnable fibre.  Silver grey and charcoal grey... I'm looking forward to trying angora.  I'm not sure what will be involved in maintaining them I have to do some research on this but since they are crosses I'm hoping they won't be as difficult as true angoras. We'll see about that though.

So that's my animal news for now.  Meanwhile I'm working on a whole bunch of things... two woven shawls and a scarf and hopefully two more scarves as I go on. That's what I'm doing today. Weaving.

I'll try to post some pics here tomorrow.... hope to see you then.

I'm off to listen to CBC, weave, and sit in that beautiful sunshine and I might even get some exercise from time to time... like the cat, all I have to do is yawn....  I can do that... : )