Wah

I want a beer SO bad

but can't because of the medicine.

I can't take the medicine
until I'm done driving for the day.

So, I put on my cashmere sweater
the same one I slept in at least the last two nights

not because it will take me to my happy place
but because it will keep me out of my homicidal place.

I'm hoping.

Back from the auction

So, I'm back from the auction. All of my stuff sold, which is a relief. Minor bidding wars always make me happy. And, various people fawning all over the stuff I made doesn't hurt either. I listed the 10 vintage map tags at $5 and that's what they sold for.

These generated a fair amount of interest of Facebook, so we'll see if the interested parties still want me to make more sets next week.

The bidding war was on my set of 8 greeting cards. The cards were funny, because when I went to pick out 8 tonight, I didn't pick any that I'd actually made *this* week. After all of the dragging out of the paper and the putting away of and the dragging back out of, I went with cards I already had on hand. . At least they were a big hit. :-) I think the bidding ended at $17.

I think 1 of the t-shirt bags went for $10 and the other two went for $6 each, so that's good. At least with Unitarians, I didn't have to explain what a cloth bag was or why one might want to use one.

I finally got to see my friend (who got fired because she missed a few days in order to have a miscarriage.) She wants to come down to the cottage with me to do a project, she asked in e-mail and then again tonight in person, so I need to set that up on the sly Monday morning. If I go through the many layers of org chart, it'll be weeks, and she needs something to work on now, so I'll fix it so we can just show up and plant whatever I can bring. Working in the dirt is good. And giggling.

Also, the girl who go the kidney and liver transplant is back, so we talked for quite a while tonight. That's a long road to recovery, but she is doing well. She wound up having to go to NYC for the transplants because the Texas hospital fucked her over . TX wouldn't give her a liver and NY said "If you don't get a liver in the next few weeks, you will die." So, she and her Mom packed up and moved to Manhattan to wait. She got the transplants in early December. From a 17 year old kid in Brooklyn. He was from the Dominican Republic. He got shot in the head. He wasn't the intended target, but was in the crowd, and his family made the decision to take him off of life support after a week or so, and she got the transplants. Too much to wrap my head around at once. We talked for a long time. Her metal allergy is so bad, she can only eat with plastic utensils.

We also giggled. One of the auction items tonight was a "Bag of plagues." Yes, a bag with miniature plagues in it. We thought that was hilarious. She took a picture of it with her phone and e-mailed me (Luddite with the no data plan), but it hasn't shown up, or else I'd post it for you.

As I was leaving, another friend (who bought the green bag) laughed and pointed at me. I was carrying a plate of whoopie pies. She finally contained herself enough to ask what the hell I was doing buying baked goods, since I am Queen Baker. She thought that was hilarious. I told her I was aware of the silliness of the situation, but it was chocolate. I think I bid on everything that contained chocolate tonight. ::shrugs:: I'm not from New England, so I've never had Whoopied Pies, let alone made any. Also, did I mention they were chocolate? ;-)

Oh, and the filmmaker was so bummed I wasn't hosting another cocktail party, he consoled himself by buying a Russian glass sword filled with Cognac. Did I mention we get some interesting things at our auctions?!

You Had Me at Dust -OR- I May Have Missed Your Point, but Found Mine

Oh, Twitter, how you make me giggle inappropriately at times.
I just saw this in my feed: "Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return." Trying to use Lent to remain grateful for this short life.


And I immediately think of the icky mass of gray dust I just wiped off a section of the tile in the 1/2 bathroom downstairs. And that was only one section. And there are three more full bathrooms in the house. And 10 more rooms, not counting walk-in closets. And the entire house is dusty. Or worse. And I start giggling thinking "And you shall wallow in dust all the filthy days of your life. You wrteched, wretched person." And if we're all dust eventually, then holy shit! How many fomer people are drifting through my house, being reborn as dust bunnies?! Next stop after the catcombs...Eileen's house! (It isn't usually this bad. The last month has just been a crazy blur...of many, many things. But somehow manic cleaning has not been one of them.)

So, as usual, there was a point, but my mind has warped it and I am now giggling. Seize the dusty day. Or something like that. :-)

Upcycled SnowBear! or the VoicesOnTwitter Made Me Do It

It's snowing in Texas! Giant snowflakes have been falling for much longer than I've been awake today. It's a snow day, so both monkeys were home to frolic in the white stuff. After general snow shenanigans, building a snowman was first on the little taskmasters' to-do list. Since Mommy's mantra is "No things in moderation", it quickly became apparent that a crane was going to be needed to lift the upper snowman parts into place. Um, yeah, the neighborhood was fresh out of cranes today, so half of the middle section actually made it up and onto the snowman.

While I was rolling the bottom section, I realized that quite a bit of dead grass was attaching itself to the snowball. And then I giggled because I was inadvertently making a hirsute snowman. And then I really laughed when I thought about telling @JonasFiel and @leewaters that I was blaming them for the SnowBear. And then I remembered that was only 50% as funny as I'd thought it was. *sigh*

The adornment is where the upcycling comes in. His sideburns are seedpods from what I'm pretty sure is a locust tree behind our backyard. His spiffy green hair is courtesy of the remaining green leaf lettuce in our fridge. (It had been well on its way South, so I'm glad it had a little ArtStopover on its way to the compost pile.) Luckily I did finally go grocerying yesterday, so we actually had a  traditional carrot for the nose. The moustache is also a seed pod.

For those of you familiar with my Chester Street scarf project, the scarf is made out of two shades of brown lining that I ripped out of wool skirts or jackets before I felted them. Yes, I keep all of the linings for future last minute projects. A few of you may recall that an offwhite skirt lining made excellent sleeves for LittleMonkey's Pirate Costume. The one I sewed in less than 45 minutes before we left for the Halloween Party. Because she was all set to be a princess, but once she saw her brother dressed as a pirate, she *had* to be one too. I'm happy to report that I did pull the costume off, because I'm crazy like that.

Ah yes, back to upcycling for the SnowBear. When you felt wool, you get lovely colored giant masses of fluffy wool in the dryer's lint screen. And since I'm a crafty packrat, I have a little collection of the nicest of the large masses of it, because you know, it's bound to come in handy. I figured I would use it to stuff the mushrooms I still haven't finished making, but today I realized it was destined to be my SnowBear's beard! (Stuff the felted wool mushrooms I'm making. Hee Hee, not the kind of stuffed mushrooms that you eat!)

Oh, I also snipped some of the skirt lining and used it for his eyes. I had tried using dried sunflower centers that were on the long dead sunflower bush in the garden, but they didn't work so well.

We also built a couple of partial snow forts, Little Monkey made snow angels, and we generally had a blast playing in the snow. Note to parents: You really need to enjoy the snow when your monkeys are little. And by 'enjoy' I mean pelt said monkeys with snowballs and by 'little', I mean while they're too little to actually damage you. Mwahahaha. :-) Oh, I was nice. Mostly. I'm just planning on staying inside once they finally get the 'pack snow into a ball' and 'actually hit what you're throwing at' thing down. :-)

Christmas Party

Tonight was good.

Usually a client talks to me at some point during a project. We make smalltalk on the porch or in the hall until one of us gets called away. Projects usually wind up being spaced so that I don't see that person again. I always wonder about them, hoping they got well enough to go home.

I've been down there three times in the last month or so, so the current faces are familiar. :-)  Tonight was the Christmas party and the clients got presents from a Santa that reminded me more of Ira Glass than Santa, despite the suit, but it was fun. There was a lot of food, particularly desserts. I was talking to a lady who wouldn't let her husband wear his 'corny' reindeer tie, yet she had on a aqua vest with a giant white fuzzy collar and the whole thing was covered with several large snowmen with button eyes. hee hee

Anyway, she complimented my pumpkin bundt cake. I said, "Oh, was it good?" She looked confused and asked, "You didn't eat your own cake?" I said, "No, I ate it. It seemed good, but I wasn't sure how good." She looked more confused. I then explained about the driving from Indy to NYC for cheesecake trip. I didn't even get to the nighttrain to Prague for a particular cup of coffee story. Yes, the cake seemed good, but I didn't know that I would drive out of state for a piece of it. My concept of what a good dessert is...is, well, perhaps slightly skewed from everyone else's. hee hee Maybe you can see why my husband tells me not to be difficult when people want a simple answer like "Thank you. I'm glad you like it."

In addition to clients, staff, and volunteers, a few former clients came to the party tonight. I remembered one and after a little while he remembered talking to me. It was last April. I was taking a break from helping hang the gutter and we chatted for quite a while on the porch. He's doing a lot better. It's taking time, but he's getting back on his feet. I really appreciated being able to hear that. It was good to see him. To know good news for sure about at least one person. I needed that. Tonight was a good night.

Thanksgiving

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Because we are eight years old
We are hitting each other
on the road to Fort Stockton
- an hour into the all day drive.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I open the map
it rips, loudly
and he gasps, loudly
like his mother.

I am cackling, but
he doesn't like to be hilarious.
He reaches out to tickle me, but
it is more of a clawing rib separator.

It hurts, and so
I punch him in the arm.
He punches back, hard.
I punch him twice.

There is a loud protesting truce.
"You hit me!" I say.
"You hit me twice!"he says.
I explain my math.

I hit you twice because you
hit much harder than I do.
He tells me "You hit a lot
harder than you think."

Later, I'll offer to strangle him
with my peace necklace.

My Finished and Almost Finished Scarves

I buy my sweaters at a local charity shop and then wash them on hot a couple of times. This felts the wool. Read: shrinks it all to hell. Seriously, some won't even fit a toddler afterward! :-/ Then the wool can be cut without unraveling.

This is the first one I made. It features Eileen's ClassicWonkyHandstitching throughout. Some of that was done at the Women's Retreat, so those parts are EXTRA wonky. :-)

In case you missed the twitpic, this scarf starred in....

"Hi-yah! Beware the elusive yet dangerously hilarious and smartassical ScarfNinja! :-D"

I had to cut the first three scarves with the ill-suited black handled scissors in the photo. I pretty much eye-balled it, so these scarves are extra "charming". :-) After some whining on Facebook, my friend from church graciously loaned me her rotary cutter and mat. :-) I also managed to get my recalcitrant sewing machine to work, so that made the sewing go MUCH faster! Yay! Now there's only a little handstitching on each one.

By the way, I used two skirts to make these twins.

I made this scarf for my church's fall auction. There was a bidding war. Yay! :-)

Almost done with a little final handstitching on this one.

Cut out and ready to sew. Unless I change my mind again. Again.

And oh, by the way, I'm not a formatting idiot, it's Blogspot. No, really! ;-) Anyway, I tried. :-)