Kiddo...

...got an A for their first semester class. Not bad at all, yay for kiddo!!!

Hokay...here are some aprons (not all of them, but some)

The first one obviously isn't done but I thought it was kind of fun...yes, that's part of a little tablecloth I cut up and used. The next is a loud hot limey green with multicolored rick rack. The next is a pair of aprons, a big chef and little chef apron. I'll post more later...

The menu for tonight

Roast turkey breast, baked potatoes, spinach salad...my attempt at keeping some normalcy going.

Moving ahead, albeit at a crawl

I've been making aprons. They are pretty therapeutic, I guess. I'll post some pics.

Gut punches

Hubs and I have been dealing with serious issues that have devastated us, save for the grace of God. I don't want to get into it here but we received two severe blows in the last 36 hours or so. This was not what was needed and I swear we have PTSD. We're trying to do some things to get help with this. The pain, anger and seemingly powerlessness is overwhelming.

Somehow with God we will get through it. I have no idea how. I can hardly process anything to be honest; I'm barely functioning.

Metro at it again...

The kiddo's teacher said "oh, I thought I had to go through the entire book for this four week semester, but it turns out I only have to go through half the book this three week semester and the other half the next three week semester."

It took the teacher two weeks into a three week class to figure this out. Supa-sweet. Is the administration even paying attention enough to tell the faculty what they have to cover in a class? Apparently not.

So they had rushed through almost all they had to cover in two weeks and now will be slowing down. I'm glad the teacher finally figured it out but you can imagine the stress of doing almost a half year's work in a couple of weeks. Insane.

I had to buy the kid a textbook for the class as I had mentioned before. Between that and copying pages from a "reference only, can't be removed from the library" copy of the book I have surely spent almost sixty bucks on the the book situation. Stinks.

Oh, yeah, this is ANOTHER reason I'm glad we've been out of Metro Schools for the past several years. Didn't really need any reminders, but hey--they graciously provided some.

Texting my patience... ;-)

Kiddo has a cell phone we got him because there is no phone at his house and he would have no way to contact anyone if his mom is gone. He has been very well behaved with it--followed the rules and hasn't gone crazy with minutes.

After his workout today he sat on the couch to rest and regroup. He had his cell phone in his hand and I said "what game are you playing?" just to be friendly and show interest. Turns out he was texting. This was quite a shock. Yeah, he's fifteen, but WAY behind socially/emotionally. Very bright but pretty much hates everyone his own age. Hangs out with adults and young kids. Except maybe for that girl he met at school??? (I wonder if she realizes just how much younger he is than her--probably three years younger by the sounds of things). It's easy to think a 6'2" kid is a senior, when he is most assuredly NOT and not even close.

The reason it was a shock that he was texting was that he has a written language learning disability and generally avoids writing like the plague (unless it is on his laptop, where he writes quite creatively, albeit not always with great spelling or grammar).

I said "you have always done a great job following the rules with the phone and I don't want to be a hard butt, but we don't have a text messaging package with our phone plan. So every message you send is an additional charge. I'm not saying you CAN'T text message, but I would expect you to pay for a text messaging plan. And you need to realize that I will be able to see all the people you contact on our itemized bill." This was all done in a friendly, non-accusatory way.

He angrily blurted out "well, then there's no text messaging!" and snapped his phone shut. Of course, with him EVERYTHING is angrily blurted as he assuredly has an impulsive rage disorder of some kind. As angrily as he dealt with that phone I am kind of surprised it still works.

I kind of felt like a good "fake mom" at that point. Hey, if he doesn't like me all the time, so be it. I'm not here to be his friend...I'm here to be a (as loving and kind as I can be) parental figure and influence in his life. I figure if a teenager doesn't like you all the time, you just might be doing something right. At least I hope so. ;-)

Aran-esque afghan

This is an afghan that I busted my butt on. It was easily the most advanced I have done to date. It was crocheted in strips to resemble an aran type pattern. There's only so much I'll put up with though, as it was done with double stranded worsted yarn. Things are slow enough with big yarn, I'm surely not going to use small yarn for an afghan... *L*

After I went through all this work, I was sorry that I had just used Red Heart Super Saver for it, but it is hard to afford better yarn for something this big anyway...at least in the last decade or so. *L*

DH's aunt got married recently and I parted with it for a gift for her. Not expensive in terms of yarn, but still a big commitment and she and her new hubs appreciated it a lot. One thing about super saver, they can actually use the thing and not worry about it, and wash it easily in the washing machine (I'd at least use the delicate setting myself, but maybe that's because I know how much work this was.

I'm a speed demon crocheter but this still took a while. Learned a lot of new stuff including front post/back post, a nifty cable, and something that a different book called the shrimp stitch which is worked in the opposite direction of most crochet stitches...

If you are looking for speedier afghans, try "afghans on the double", a nifty book in this genre, where all the patterns are with double strands of worsted weight. This afghan came from that book, and is not the only one I've made from that book. It helps if you have color imagination and can see beyond the somewhat basic cheesy color combos in the book. It's not a new book, but is a very practical way to kick out some decent to nice looking afghans in less time...

Oh, yeah, that's the diva cat, princess Amanda...otherwise known as Mandy. She was very miffed when this thing was packed up and mailed away...

various bulletin boards

I made these after seeing a similar idea on the show "Creative Juice", which sometimes has a few tasty nuggets floating around in a very strange brew.

Quillow we made for hub's goddaughter

DH's cousin's daughter is going to the University of Colorado (Boulder) this fall. We're a little short on big-bucks gifts for her, DH's goddaughter. But we came up with something that we hope is cool. It is a fleece quillow I made for her with hub's help. For those of you who don't know, a quillow is a quilt or blanket that has a pocket on one end, so you can fold up the quilt into its own pocket (often a decorative pocket), making it into a pillow.

This one is made in school colors of course. The quillow blanket part and pillow pocket parts are both blanket stitched with pearl cotton (an embroidery type thread but thicker) and the logo was copied out by my dear hubs. I tracing-papered it to iron on interfacing which I had set up so the glossy side would iron on to the fleece wrong side, to correctly show the logo on the right side of the fleece. The interfacing gave me just enough oomph to blanket stitch the logo onto the pillow pocket.

My hub had suggested putting a larger contrast logo on the blanket part. After all the blanket stitch I have done on the thing already, I said heck no. Here's your quillow, mail it to your goddaughter and find a card, will ya? ;-) We'll get her something else too, but we're hoping she likes this custom gift.

out of the blue

The kiddo all of a sudden said "can I invite a friend bowling tomorrow?" Kiddo wants to invite someone once in a blue moon at best...usually bowls alone. Met a girl at school. Sounds like she's older and he might have fallen fairly hard for her, at least for him. Yikes....stress! He's more than a little immature and is majorly impulsive and rage filled. So this is a nice layer of stress to add to the mix. Ah, well, ya gotta expect it at his age...

...later, he called me back and said "it'll just be me bowling tomorrow." Sounds like the dude got his heart broken or at least trampled pretty soundly...ah yes...poor thing!

happy anniversary to us...

Took a couple days off and they were nice. Went to http://www.ellendales.com/ as a special treat for 24 years of marriage. We always used to say "one year of hell and twenty something of bliss, in that order" but I think we might see it differently now...probably the last few years hellish as well. But he's a fab dude and I love him to pieces. Came back to the stress and it hit me like a ton of bricks when we returned. We need a real vacation...something fearsome.

Hoarding...not just a pile of Reader's Digests...

Hubs and I are a couple of the facilitators of a group for children of hoarders. We're not talking a nice pile of Reader's Digests. We're talking overwhelming, unbelieveable, house-swallowing squalor. We've been through many cleanouts with my MIL...a couple yrs ago we cleaned out 150 lawn and leaf garbage bags and it didn't even complete the task by a long shot. We live aroudn 700 miles away from my MIL so we couldn't finish it...we ran out of time.

MIL would always tell us that her house was now under control and that she was regularly seeing a psychiatrist...let's just say that she's an adept liar who will no longer pull the wool over our eyes.

About a year ago my MIL was reported to adult protective services, presumably when a home health care worker came by the home after one of her frequent hospital stays. She richly deserved to be reported. Three construction dumpsters and twenty plus garbage bags of used adult diapers later (the latter were strewn hither and yon) we finished the most recent, highly traumatic cleanout. We wore full organic fumes respirator masks, goggles, heavy duty gloves, and threw away a lot of the clothing we wore into that hell hole. All along my MIL kept complaining bitterly that she had been reported, insisting that she had a plan to clean things up if they had just stayed out of her business. Being that she has had her home cleaned out probably eight to ten times by others (she never helped, of course), doesn't look like she has a clear grip on reality, eh?

After the cleanout, which cost us thousands and used up all our vacation time (what a thing to go in debt for!), we probably had/have post traumatic stress or something. Hellish. Truly hellish.
After the cleanout, my MIL spent six weeks in the hospital, threatening suicide, nearly dying, always asking where her stuff was, never showing thanks or appreciation for what we did.

She is in a senior apartment now with housekeeping each week. She has many problems that we are trying to sort through. Let's just say that the squalor was only the tip of the iceberg. It is unbelieveable.

Seems like since we met the community of people from around the world that just about everyone knows someone like this to varying degrees. A number of resources show photos which is probably the most helpful thing to realize this is way beyond just a little clutter or mess...it's a major psychological issue that they thing probably two or three million people in America are dealing with alone.

If you know someone who is dealing with this you might want to refer them to the following:

Reader's Digest article about hoarding: http://www.rd.com/content/the-hoarding-syndrome--when-clutter-goes-out-of-control/

Our org's web site: http://www.childrenofhoarders.com

Try this yummy salad

This isn't going to read like a regular recipe because I started out with a base recipe and now I just kind of put it together with whatever I have available. It's helping me meet my goal of eating a lot more vegetables this year. One cup dry orzo--prepare according to package. I like the whole wheat but it's not necessary. Drain and let cool...then put into a large tupperware type container. Add several glugs of citrus juices. Orange and lime are nice together. I have also used thawed limeade in a pinch. Mix with some vinegar (I usually use cider vinegar) and a splash of olive oil. Some salt, pepper, and cilantro would be nice about now. Maybe a splash of cumin or other seasoning if you like. I add a couple cut up avocados at this point and mix well. The citrus juice will keep the avocados from darkening. Then add some chopped up veggies. Make it really colorful if you can. I like red and green peppers, celery, carrots, maybe some asparagus, whatever suits your mood. Crunchy veggies are nice in the mix. Let the flavors blend in the fridge for a few hours and then enjoy. This is nice and easy since it doesn't matter that much what veggies you use...I do recommend the avocado each time, and asparagus if you happen to have any.

Insanity of schools

A young friend of ours told us about their experience in the first day of Metro summer school. According to the student, the day consisted of the following:

***first half hour--orientation and finding classrooms

***next three hours--sitting around talking about nothing in particular because the teacher didn't have the textbooks (and of course, we certainly can't start teaching a math class because gosh, something might have changed from the last time we taught it)

***last hour--here's your textbook, but leave it here in the building at the end of class...you can't take your textbook home.

This is a class that lasts around 18-20 days, so essentially a week's worth of material each day is on tap. So the teachers/school administrators wasted about a week's worth of class time already. Sad.

This class is largely filled with kids who presumably failed the class before. So now they can't even take the textbook home to study after class and hopefully pass the class this time?

My fellow Davidson County taxpayers and I paid for those textbooks with our tax money. Now this kid is asking me (we're family friends) if we can buy them a textbook so they can actually study for the class outside of class.

Madness.

Nifty shoulder bag tutorial

http://tinyhappy.typepad.com/tiny_happy/2006/06/shoulder_bag_tu.html

I've made several of these, of course making a number of alterations and changes along the way to make them my own. I changed them so I could make them into market bags for sale at my farmer's market booth and maybe make some buckage. I'll post pics if I can figure out how to do so.

Stress relief, avoidant behavior, rest for my soul

Lately I have been sewing a lot. It has been stress relief for me, although not nearly enough stress relief. Bulletin boards, eye pillows, shoulder bags, etc. Sometimes it's a productive thing and sometimes it's probably an avoidant thing...although avoiding some of the massive stress producers hubs and I have going on in our lives is quite possibly useful as well. I have a minor pile of fabric now and a too-large stash of yarn. I dive into it at times like these.

Isn't it interesting how animals know when you're stressed and do a particularly good job of trying to comfort and cuddle. Our three feline beasties have been especially close lately.

Hubs and I have been likening our situation to being burn patients. People try to brush up against us in a loving way sometimes and the sensation is almost too much to bear. We do appreciate our loving friends, though...

Really, my biggest need is probably rest. If I got some true rest, somehow distanced from the stress, it would probably help. We find it hard to truly get away from the situations, though. We went camping (a cheap break) a while ago and all the stress came there with us. We just need to find some way to truly get away from it for a while...easier said than done, I guess.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2027&version=31

Wow, I have FINALLLY entered the blog world. About darned time. Always behind. Oh, well, that's how it's been this last decade or so. ;-)