Stitching and Living

Back Again

It feels strange to finally be writing here again. The past couple of months have been a bit hard at times. Life is improving. All is well in my household.

In the past few weeks I have started to knit and crochet again.It has felt good to do so. It seems like I have been trying to make up for lost time.I decided to take pictures of some projects yesterday with the result that there are fresh pictures under Finished Items on the right side bar. 

October!!

In the midst of busy weeks, September slipped away. It was a bittersweet month. Jim White, of KMOX fame died. A chronic physical condition worsened and is now requiring  attention. I started a new job. 

When I woke up yesterday, one of my first thoughts was: "It is finally October!!" This is my favorite month.  Leaves start to change color and  drop from the trees as the temperatures begin to drop.The colors range from bright oranges to assorted shades of brown. There are chilly,windy days that give way to cool evenings and nights. The sun rises later in the morning and sets earlier in the evening. There is always a sense of newness and change in this month. I begin another of my life and am excited at the prospect of another year. There is something invigorating about this. This is also the time of year that lends itself to  curling up with a hot beverage and doing a fiber related project.  

For these reasons and more, I  joyfully welcome October!

Good Bye Mr.White

The local St. Louis paper announced the death of Jim White, a radio personality who retired from KMOX radio about ten years ago on Wednesday,  September 2. This was sad news for me. I spent many an hour listening to him as a young adult. He kept me awake  as I drove home from pulling evening shifts at a local hospital. He kept me company once I arrived home. Many nights I fell asleep listening to his voice and those of his guests. Many times he challenged my thinking. He talked about the importance of having more than one  hobby; of family and loving life. He was involved in the community and taught the importance of giving back to it by example.

His self given nickname was "The Big Bimper". He said this was related to his size and the shift he worked. It was a reference to "things that go bump in the night. "

In my opinion he ranks right up there with other KMOX greats: Bob Hyland, John McCormick, Jack Buck, Bob Hardy and Jack Carney.

When he retired, I felt sad,because that time slot on KMOX would never be the same. It wasn't.
At the same time, I was happy for him. He was taking time to enjoy his hobbies and the rest of his life. He was going to have more time to enjoy his family. He was embarking on a new adventure.

I still think of him  when  "things go bump in the night."

Wednesday he left this world for the next.

Good Bye, Mr. White. Thank you for all of the lessons you taught. Thank you for all of the memories.

May you enjoy eternity. :)

Computer Time

My original plan for today was to spend every free minute possible knitting or crocheting. After all, there are at least three projects that need to be done in the next 2-3 weeks. They are all large and two of them have a few parts to them. Instead I took a lot of computer time.

If you don't know me personally, you might not know that I am an organization freak. Everything must have a place and be in its place. The exceptions to this are the spare bedroom which serves as a homeschool and craft room and Munch's room. I can tolerate a bit of clutter in them.

My computer on the other hand has been what I consider a complete mess. Links have been misfiled or double filed; the toolbar has had far too many things on it;  and bookmarks had not been backed up in ages. the list could go on for a bit longer. You get the picture.

I have been gradually cleaning this mess up in the last week. Despite my best efforts progress was slow. This morning I got up early and hit right into it. It is now almost 8pm and it is finally done. The tool bars on my browser have been put in order; many bookmark files have been checked and cleaned out; a lot of dead links have been removed; and the bookmarks file has been backed up. There have even been a few changes made to this blog. 

Somewhere during the course of cleaning out files, I even found a link to one of my all time favorite Firefox Add-ons: Get Mail which informed me that it is now compatible with the current version of Firefox. That was good!

This has been a productive and relaxing day.

Computer Time

My original plan for today was to spend every free minute possible knitting or crocheting. After all, there are at least three projects that need to be done in the next 2-3 weeks. They are all large and two of them have a few parts to them. Instead I took a lot of computer time.

If you don't know me personally, you might not know that I am an organization freak. Everything must have a place and be in its place. The exceptions to this are the spare bedroom which serves as a homeschool and craft room and Munch's room. I can tolerate a bit of clutter in them.

My computer on the other hand has been what I consider a complete mess. Links have been misfiled or double filed; the toolbar has had far too many things on it;  and bookmarks had not been backed up in ages. the list could go on for a bit longer. You get the picture.

I have been gradually cleaning this mess up in the last week. Despite my best efforts progress was slow. This morning I got up early and hit right into it. It is now almost 8pm and it is finally done. The tool bars on my browser have been put in order; many bookmark files have been checked and cleaned out; a lot of dead links have been removed; and the bookmarks file has been backed up. There have even been a few changes made to this blog. 

Somewhere during the course of cleaning out files, I even found a link to one of my all time favorite Firefox Add-ons: Get Mail which informed me that it is now compatible with the current version of Firefox. That was good!

This has been a productive and relaxing day.

Good Bye Senator Kennedy

He was the voice for many who could not speak for themselves. He was the voice for those whose voices got lost in the shuffle of politics and poverty.  He was courageous and controversial. He was the last living son of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. He was a Senator from Massachusetts. He served many roles in his life.

I may not have always agreed with his political views or his actions. I am grateful for his efforts and his presence in a world that saw many changes in his lifetime. Thank You.

I do know he will be missed by many, great and small.

Good Bye and Rest in Peace, Sir.

Changes

The past few months have been full of changes. Many of these are fiber related. Most of my stash of acrylic  yarns have been given away to a local charity. My stash of cotton  yarns has been gone through, inventoried  and rearranged. I have printed out and filed numerous  patterns.

I have made a few changes here this evening. Links on the page Places I Visit have been up dated. there were several dead links that needed to be handled. I did the same thing with links on the side bars. It is nothing exciting. They were very important changes to me. 

Just Busy

I have been feeling guilty for not posting anything here in ages. Life has just been busy with every day activities. We have been taking time almost  every weekend I have off to work on cleaning out our basement. We have managed to get rid of books we don't want or need. We have recycled an assortment of thing that have lost their usefulness to us such as outgrown clothes, and that sort of thing. I have been gradually getting rid of my stash of acrylic yarn. The basement is looking a lot less cluttered.

In my spare time I have been trying to work on decreasing my stash of cotton yarn. This has been a dangerous thing to do. The last time I wrote I mentioned crocheting food and dishes. Since then I have had the pleasure of making an assortment of amigurumi projects. They range from  food to aliens and all sorts of things in between. Patterns, both free and for sale, can be found here on the internet, on Ravelry, on Etsy, on Ebay and in several books. A quick search using the term amigurumi on a search engine will lead to several resources.

My choice of yarn is 100% cotton for a few reasons. The main reason is that it is not flammable. This is a safety  issue to me because i don't want to take the risk of someone being harmed by an acrylic item in case of fire. Because of this my stash has an abundance of it in all sorts of colors.

Clogged Drain

I normally don't write about my personal life, but this is an exception.

One day last weekend I woke up with an overwhelming urge clean up the yarn storage area of the basement. This sounded like a bit of a task, but I was up for it. I picked a tote full of acrylic and started looking through it. My plan was to have three groups of yarn: one to keep; one to give to a friend and one that would go to a local charity. Many yarn bins, and several hours later I was finished. The bags destined were loaded into my vehicle for delivery to the charity at a later date. The bags for my friend are arranged neatly in the basement. There are now seven empty yarn bins stacked in the basement. The computer upstairs is much neater because some of my cotton yarn stash has been placed in the basement.

At some time in the day, the dishwasher was run. Much to my dismay, the drain was clogged. Oh bother!! DH emptied the trap beneath the sink and did not find a problem. Due to the hour, he promised to use the snake on it Monday evening. That was fine. He kept his word the next day, but had no success. Tuesday he did more of the same....By Wednesday, the drain remained clogged and the pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen was growing. My frustration was increasing. One of the things I do not like at all is a messy kitchen that is not being cleaned. Taking the situation in my own hands, I called and arranged for a plumber to come out that evening. Making a long story very short, we were stood up by this company. They did send a person out at 1am on Thursday morning after DH called and complained to them. This person could not promise not to ruin our pipes to to the material out of which they are made and the size of the pipe. OH well!!

By the time I woke up Thursday morning, I was not happy. I decided to try using a mixture of baking soda and water followed by vinegar in the drain. Three applications of this still did not clean out the drain. My kitchen was dirty. We were running out of dishes. I was bouncing!!

DH and I made the decision that we would rent a drill with a snake on it from our local hardware store on Friday. He spent a lot of time working on the drain that evening with no success. By now we were getting desperate. It was time to consult the experts at the hardware store. After hearing part of our tale of woe, they suggested a drain cleaner for us to use. We brought it home and DH promptly used it after taking the necessary safety  precautions. Within an hour the drain was working much better. He did one more application of this chemical. By 11pm, the drain was back to normal. He ran the dishwasher without the drain clogging. It is now several hours and two more loads of the dishwasher later. The kitchen table is much cleaner than it has been in a week and  there are clean glasses and silverware. The kitchen is still not completely clean, but it is getting there.

I am much more relaxed.

What a difference a well flowing kitchen drain and clean dishes make.

Summer On It's Way

All of a sudden it is the first week of June. The question that is looms on my mind is : Where did Spring go? The answer to that for me is a bit long. It was spent finding and settling in to a new job. That took an enormous amount of energy.

Some of the time was spent learning a new spin on an old hobby. I have learned to crochet food and dishes, ranging from bacon and eggs to a complete turkey dinner, with lots of trimmings. I have tried my hand at crocheting a variety of fruits and vegetables; glasses and cups of beverages. In the middle of this,my sewing skills have improved.

In order to do all of these things,some internet searches have been necessary. New techniques have been studied. Patterns new to me have been found, some free and some not free. Places like ArtFire and Etsy have been discovered. I have learned to use tags with my bookmarks on my browser. I have learned to use a size E or F hook with worsted wt. yarn. 

My Dish and Wash Cloth Mania blog has taken considerable amount of time. Most of the pages have been checked and dead links removed. Many new links have been added. It is a wonderful labor of love. My amazement at the number and marvelous quality of designers. Working on this blog is always an adventure.

It is no wonder i have gone to sleep and waken with thoughts of fibers on my mind.