Weekend Work

Hi, how ya doin?
I'll be transplanting some bromeliads in pots to sell at my shop because you can't buy them locally and they are sooooo cool when they are blooming and then I'll be continuing to work on the house.  The kitchen cabinets are done, YEAH!!!!!  The next cabinets are a smaller set, thank goodness and will be the blue bathroom upstairs.  I'll also be moving my clothes and other paraphernalia from my closet to the other room's closet getting ready for the painters to paint my room.  If there's time, I'll start on the little curtain I planned to make for the area above the kitchen sink.  This post has a pic of the Rooster fabric that I'm going to use.

This one bloomed last month but usually they bloom in the fall it also had a smaller bloom than normal.

I've started my new crochet project so I'll post some pics next week.  I know that as it gets closer to moving I will have less time to work on it.  I finished Danny's scarf but it still wants to be wavy so I'm gonna use an iron on it and see if that helps.  I'll post pics next week of that, too.

The local Children's Hospital (near where I live) is having a fundraiser 5k walk in my neighborhood later today.  Great for them, MASSIVE traffic situation for me as they are going to block off intersections.  I have to leave on time from the shop or else I won't be able to get home.  My neighborhood has streets that are thoroughfares from one side of LA to Hollywood and it's crazy any time there is some event going on like today.  This is one thing about where I live I WON'T MISS AT ALL!! 

So far, it's a perfect weather day but just in case I'm gonna have plenty of this on hand

Hope you're gonna have a productive weekend wherever you are!

Renaissance Faire Pics

Here's the pics!  It was very warm by the time Tracy and I got there in the afternoon and the first thing we did was get a tall lemonade.  I drank the whole thing, ice and all.  We looked around at everything and of course there were many items I would've loved to get but hey, I'm moving soon and when I look at all the boxes of stuff I already packed up I know I don't really need anything more.  They had this guy that blows glass but he was taking a break when we went to his booth otherwise I'd have taken a pic of him.  He had the most gorgeous glass Hummingbird feeders; I wanted one sooooo bad.  No, I didn't take any pictures of them, sorry.  Maybe next year I'll get one if I have a garden to put one in!  If I purchased one, it would have stayed packed up for awhile (like so much of my other stuff has been) so I decided against it.  I didn't buy a thing!
 

Knitting!

 Potter!

 Blacksmith!

Fashionable!

 Head Wreaths!

 Woodcarver!

 Singing Wenches!

Huge Swings!

Men in Kilts!

We ended up eating ice cream and then later having a huge pickle and then we laughed at ourselves as neither of us could be preggie!  There was allot of food to choose from but we lacked an appetite since it was so hot.  It was a fun day indeed!

Happy Easter and Happy Passover!

 

AND HAPPY SPRING!

 

I was out tending my garden this morning and now it's raining, darn!

It really needs some TLC esp. the potted ones.  

I hope you get some good eats, some good drinks and some good company today.  I also hope whatever you were planning works out better than mine! 

Edited to add that it rained for just a short time so I did some other stuff indoors and then lo and behold it stopped and I almost got everything done that I wanted to do outside, yay.  All in all it was a productive weekend but my back was hoping it would rain all day.  I hope I can manage to roll out of bed tomorrow!

Tracy's Crochet Gift

Hi! Tracy's present was a prayer shawl I made from a Bernat pattern that I started working on last fall.  I finally finished it last week.  The yarn is called Dante and is made by Berroco. This yarn is thicker (nubby) and then gets thin in some places and I followed the pattern in which you work from the longest part to the end (bottom) of the triangle.  When I got done with it, when it came to the end point, it was really too small.  Changing the yarn is what did it, I'm sure.  Me and my darn yarn changes.  Since I have very little time to actually crochet and then along with the fact I had to come up with a plan to make it larger, is why it took me so long.  I added 5 rows of dc down each side and some sc and pique stitch around the longest side and then added an edging on each side to match the bobbles/clusters and chains from the main pattern.  I like how it turned out and so did Tracy!  With each stitch I prayed she would remain cancer free!

These pictures are before I washed and blocked it.  I liked how after it was washed, it had more drape, was softer and opened up the spaces and it actually became larger, yeah!  I wished I'd have taken good "after" shots.

Can you tell I'm super happy I finished it?

 

Enough pictures yet?

THE BIRTHDAY GIRL!

I love you!

Taken just before we headed out to the Faire!  More on that later.

I'll be back soon.

Happy Birthday Tracy!

Hi, thanks for stopping by....

Tracy's gift!  I'll reveal what's inside next week!!

The cutest chocolate lollipop, Tracy will like it!

We're headed to the local Renaissance Faire to celebrate her birthday today and have a much needed girl's day out.  It's supposed to be hot and it's outdoors at a huge regional park and I'm armed with my hat and sunscreen.  I'm even closing and hour early today just to have more "fun" time.  Hey, a girl's gotta have a life outside of working the shop and on that darn house! 

Hope you're having a fantastic weekend!

(Edited to add that Tracy and I have been friends since the 5th grade).

Laundry Room Pix and Spring Flowers

Hello!  Here are the after pictures of the laundry room.  Scroll down the page a little bit to see the before photos in an earlier post.  Amazing what paint can do.  The sink still looks crappy but the walls are so much better! ******************************

Here's some pretties for you.  This is the first spring rose.  It opened really fast when our weather got so warm. 

The Amaryllis are gonna bloom and maybe by Easter.

That's all for now, Have a great weekend!

Cell Phones

Good Evening,
I hadn't slept well last night and kept waking up; dreaming weird things and then got to thinking about the recovery efforts of the Japanese and then rolled out of bed earlier than usual. Yesterday, I viewed a picture of a flood victim in TIME magazine. I think that image stayed with me all night long. Then on my commute I learned they had another earthquake/aftershock with a tsunami warning. OMG, please!! Enough already.

Yesterday, I decided that I'd had it with rude people on their cell phones coming in and taking calls in the middle of my servicing them.  I've put up with it for far too long.  I didn't get a thumbprint in the notary journal for a fellow because he was on his darn cell phone and paying more attention to that than to me.  I will now demand that they don't take any calls or make calls in my store unless it has to do with needing a shipping address or phone number or having to do with a document that is in question that needs to be notarized.  I have now posted a sign on the front door that looks like this:

 

 I put a smaller sign at the counter, too.  Hopefully this will reduce this problem and create smoother transactions with customers.  I could go on with all the dangers of cell phone use but I will just say this:  They give off harmful radiation and cause cell damage and that is really bad for children whose bodies are having rapid cell reproduction.  There are also studies that show the use of all our electronic devices are having negative effects on our wonderful BEES that we need to pollinate our foods.  HELLO PEOPLE!  Ya like to eat don't cha?  If ya can't live without your devices at least cut back on their use as it will be healthier for every living thing that shares our planet!  

Here's my other problem with their use.  Humans can do one thing at a time really well esp. if they've had practice at it and now enter talking on the phone and doing other things.  Whatever they are doing is now getting divided up and so can't do either one as well.  People on their devices are not in communication with their immediate surroundings and other people in their vicinity.  It is rude not to acknowledge the existence of others as well as making them listen to your conversations:

Or maybe we all need one of these:

Go here to read about it.

I like this one:

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer these:

Go here to buy the table.

Remember those?  We never had a phone table at our house when I was growing up but some of my friends did and I thought they were cool.  There was always a pen and paper plus the yellow pages fit neatly on the shelf or in the drawer.  My family had strict rules about using the phone.  How about your family?  

We can't stop change and who would want to?  Change isn't always better but WE have to be the one's to decide that.  One thing about the youth today, when they see others making out, kissing, etc. on let's say...a park bench, they yell, "GET A ROOM".  Now there is truth in that!

Bye!

3/31 It was 90 Degrees, What's Up?

OK, Mr. Heat you can pack your bags and head south for another 2 months please!  The record heat for the day was 101 so at least it didn't get that hot!

The house is all done!  April Fools!  OH, don't I wish it were so.  Since we decided to have the painters do ALL the rooms, our house has been a bustling place full of dreaded dust and flies coming and going as they please in and out of open doors and windows.  Seems like an Extreme Makeover Home Edition!  But...my oh my, it is looking so fresh and bright with all the newly painted rooms! 

My job today in between customers is to find replacement window coverings to replace the massive vertical blinds in the family room / home office area.  Of course that means letting my fingers do the walking not in the yellow pages but using the internet.  There are two 8 foot sliding doors and one 5 foot sliding door on the south wall and a large window on the east wall.  The vertical blinds were there when we moved in and they don't work very well and are really dirty besides being ugly.  Anybody have any suggestions?  Originally, we weren't going to paint this room and just leave the blinds and clean 'em really good but since it's getting painted, the paint is going to look so nice and will really make the blinds look especially bad.  My idea was white sheers to keep it clean looking. 

What's been happening as we paint or fix up this or that thingy what's right next to it just looks really bad and so it seems a never ending cycle of what to fix and when to draw the line on fixing things.  Like when the living room was painted I told the DH, now the guest bathroom (which is right next to it) looks really bad.  It is such a small room that I felt they could paint it in a jiffy.  He agreed that it would look better and then we noticed that the landing where the stairs come up from the basement would look so much better so then they painted that and then on and on they've been painting.

The biggest mess of all was the laundry room that was in such poor shape.  It has lath and plaster walls and in some places the plaster was coming off and it was all sandy and ugly (see around sink area).  It is located in the basement but it's an enclosed room.  There is even an old fashioned laundry chute that starts at the top floor in one of the closets and then on the main floor in the guest bathroom.  I've used it for mainly for towels; way more handy than walking them down the stairs!  The owners before us had a furnace or water heater catch on fire years ago and the walls were all dark at the top from the smoke.  It was a smelly and scary place to do laundry but after 10 years you just get used to it.  You ask, why didn't we fix if before now?  Well, the biggest reason was lack of funds!  AND A WHOLE LONG STORY THAT I WILL WRITE ABOUT SOMEDAY!  Here are some pics of the laundry room after some sanding and you can see some 1950's turquoise paint here and there. 

See the laundry chute?

Notice the newly painted door on the left

See some 1950's turquoise paint?

Original sink from 1948

See the smoke damage at the ceiling?

Plain cement floor with a floor drain in case of flooding

Now that you are ready to barf at the ugliness of it all, I promise to show you some after pics next week!

Stay tuned!




I spoke with the head painter about planting in the front garden and if it was possible for them to be careful while painting the front come Mid-April and work around the plantings and he said it should be fine.  So if weather permits, I'll be preparing the flower beds on Sunday as well as continuing on the kitchen cabinets.  What are you up to?