Little Men

Just thought I'd put up a picture of the little men I made for the boys for Christmas this year. I used the Eddie pattern from Wee Wonderfuls: 24 Dolls to Sew and Love by Hillary Lang. I used some old onesies from when the boys were younger to make the little shirts, and the pants are made from some cord fabric I've had around for a while now. They were tickled with them, as was I.

Pin Cushion

I made this dress form pin cushion for my mother for Christmas, using a pattern from the DIY Dish. If you haven't tried out their patterns and ideas, you really need to check them out. I also used another of their ideas for the kids, but I still haven't taken pics of them... Have to do that this afternoon, I guess. :)

Done and Done

Okay, so a while back, I posted a work in progress. Well, I finally finished it a while back, so I wanted to get it up on the blog so you could see it. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. If I make another, I will tighten up the bodice just a hair (it's a tad loose), and I will make the straps a bit thinner...I think they are a tad too thick. But all in all, not bad for a first sweater. :) And, though it's been done for a few months now, I just got the boots this past weekend so I could actually wear it. :)



P.S. Ignore the laundry waiting to be folded on the couch. Oops. :)

Old Fashioned Skills...

Okay, so a friend of mine has this post on her blog, about having skills that some people consider to be "old fahioned." And, of course, it made me want to list my own set of skills, to see what all I have accomplished through the years...

Let's see. I can:
*crochet (mostly self-taught, though my two friends Amy and Anya got me started. THANKS!)
*Knit (self taught, though this is a new skill and I still need some practice...)
*hand quilt (also self-taught)
*crosstitch (also self-taught)
*embroidery (Thanks Maw-maw!)
*sew (with and without a machine...taught me by my mother)
*bake from scratch (thanks Mom!)
*Make my own butter...Note: My brother got me a German butter mold for Christmas. I soooo can't wait to put it to use!!! I could do the whole yogurt, cream cheese stuff, but frankly, not a big fan of either. Oh well. I do make homemade ice cream, though. And just recently homemade slushes/Icees.)
*garden (Thanks Dad and Mom!)
*Can fruits and jams (usually pressure can, but I can water bath can, as well.)
*Make homeade jams and jellies.
*Make homemade from scratch candy...esp. marshmallows. I LOVE homemade marshmallowes!
*grow my own herbs (though the horrible drought this year kind of killed a bunch of mine. Sigh. I do not dry them, though. Tried once, and the potent smell of drying basil just about kicked my husband out of the house with headaches. Oh, well.)
*Camp - and by that, I mean the stuff that goes with it, like setting up a tent, or finding an appropriate stick for roasting marshmallows, sharpening said sick wih pocket knife, making a proper campfire...etc.)
*And though I have not ever made it on my own, I have helped make homemade sausage with my dad.
*Have not raised them on my own, but have a general understanding of raising hogs and goats from my childhood.
*I can put down tile. :) I'm good with grout.
*Write - I know this isn't necessarily an OLD FASHIONED skill, except that I believe it is quickly becoming so as people turn to texts and emails (guilty here) so often that we forget HOW to write, be it a letter, a poem, a story, whatever...

Skills I am looking to learn:
*making soap and other sorts of cosmetics. I want to make lip balm SOOOO bad. Is that weird? :)

Wow, Amy! You're right. Makes you feel right pleased with what you can do when you write it all out, doesn't it? :) Also realized how in sync we seem to be, Amy! Okay, girl, let's start that soap, huh? :)

Fall Pics...a good deal late...

So, life happens, and I apologize for the fact that I can't keep up with my posts of late. I will try and do better in the future. Consider that a new year's resolution of mine, I guess. :) But anyway, here are pics from our Fall Festival at church (we were supposed to dress up old fashioned, so I made Little Bit and me a patchwork skirt and head scarf from a pattern in Sandi Henderson's Sewing Bits and Pieces.)




The other pics are from Halloween. I didn't make Little Bit's cotume. Rather it was my witch costume my mother made me when I was a little girl. I did get her the cool striped tights and a new hat, as my old hat had long since succombed to moth food. And I painted her face with Ben Nye's Lumiere Palette ...left over from my stash of stage makeup from way back when. (And it is, by far, the most AWESOME stuff to paint faces for Halloween. Once you've tried real stage makeup, the stuff they carry at the costume stores just won't do it for you any more...) I also have the plain color one, too. Not that I love Halloween or anything... :)





I did, however, make the boys' costumes. I painted glow in the dark spider webs on black sweats, and crocheted little spider web/spider hats, and little spider amigurumi to go on their clothes. They, too, had to have their faces painted. Of course.






All in all, it was a very lovely, fun Halloween! I will try and not wait until January to post next year's pics!

I'm Not Stupid...

Really, I'm not. I took several computer classes in college, and I passed with flying colors...in fact, was that student who finishes before everyone else and winds up having to help everyone else get finished.

So...

What's the deal with my new phone?

:)

Okay, so I got this new phone. Let's call him Al. (Do not try and follow my brain's process to try and figure out how I know that my phone is a boy, or why his name is Al. It will probably only give you a headache...) But while Al is a smartphone, just like his predessessor, runs on the same workings...software...programs...whatever, I just can't figure him out. So, what's the problem? Why can't I figure him out? Why do I get so frustrated trying to do or find what I need?

And there are a couple reasons for that.

First of all, I HATE change. I liked my old phone. Unfortunately, I dropped it, as I'm kind of like a human wrecking ball for mechanical things. I once got someone's tv stuck in French just trying to use the reomote... But I digress.

Really, I should have gotten another one just like it, (or at least the upgraded one like it...they don't make my old one any more) but the salesperson (and my husband, though he completely denies that he swayed my opinion in any way) convinced me this one was better since it was 4G (Yeah, we don't even have 4G here, yet...hopefully by March, though), and it had a lot more storage for music and stuff (okay, that was the deciding factor. I can use my phone like an ipod. Coolness!) And so I thought...well, it looks pretty similar, and it seems to work pretty much the same.

Wrong.

You cannot tell anything about how a phone works in the three minutes you have of pushing buttons to try it out. Because you aren't surfing the net. You aren't texting anyone. You aren't calling anyone. You're just playing with buttons.

And so I get it home...and it doesn't have SWYPE. WHAT?! This is a big problem for me, who types like the dickens. Really, I type fast, and having to slow down to push the tiny little screen buttons one at a time drives me insane. SWYPE does, at least, hurry that along somewhat. I have since found out I can download this, but again, another process, as you can't just go to the app store and get it. It's complicated, for some reason I don't understand.

(Also pretty annoyed that all the programs are different, the apps mostly different, everything in a different place...did I mention I don't like change???)

But the whole SWYPE annoyance brings me to another point.

I'm kinda' lazy in the whole technology scene, and my husband is partly to blame for that. Because he's like an electronical whiz, both in installing and in using it. Really, I think the man can do anything (though he would tell me he couldn't. He's a little modest, which is a good thing, I suppose. LOL). And so, it's just SOOOO much easier to go "Hey, Hun, will you put my music on my phone? I don't know how." Because then someone does it for me, and I can go back to my sewing, or baking, or chasing four year olds around the house. Whatever. Anything but electronical stuff.

Because that is point three.

It doesn't interset me. Sure, I know I'm CAPABLE of learning stuff on the computer. After all, hubby has shown me a thing or two I actually remember (and a heck of a lot of stuff that went in one ear and out the other...). But I don't really WANT to. I'd rather just hand it to him and go ho hum about my way.

And so I stare at Al and wonder if we will ever get along, my phone and I. I've figured out a few things, like how to put instant dial icons on my homepage...which is NOT done like my old phone at all! I also can take pictures and video, and I have sorta' figured out facebook...except why I am not getting alerts as to when I have a facebook message, though I liked the way my old phone did facebook better and have no idea how to get back to that, or if that's even possible. (And my husband doesn't really know how to help me with that one, as he doesn't use facebook, so he doesn't really remember how it was set up.) The voice recognition isn't very good with my accent, but this phone seems to be a hair better than my old one. But just a hair. It still corrects a lot of stuff the wrong way. (See, even my voice is not set to work with technology...) And it is faster. I'll give it that. And I will really like having my music on there...when I get it on there. :)

And of course, there is the case. It's called an Otter Box. And it's supposed to protect my phone from such catastrophies as caused by human wrecking balls such as myself. :) Of course, it makes the phone quite large and look like something Taylor and his men would use in Terra Nova. (Very military looking.)

Shrug. Oh, well. When it's all said and done, it IS just a phone, right? And I'll eventually get it figured out...hopefully before it's time for a new phone...

Christmas Cards

Okay, so it's that time of year again, and I have to admit it. I get pretty cranky about this card thing...and it's not the sending them. I love to send cards. It's the getting... Sigh. Now, I know you do not send cards to get them or give gifts to get them or the like, and I don't. BUT...it's quite disheartening when you send out, say...50 cards and get back, say...12. I've had years like that. Really, what is wrong with people that they don't send cards any more? I just don't get it. It's so Christmasy, neighborly, friendly, and just well, a tradition.

Now, I don't expect cards back from EVERYONE. Obviously someone old or sick or going through some hard times, I would never in a million years think to expect one back...only, oddly enough, those are usually the people that send them back. It's the ones who have no real excuse other than they just don't want to that really irritate me.

And it's not just the not getting it back. It's the not appreciating them. For instance, I have a friend who I've sent Christmas cards to since...well, I'd say since I've been married, but quite honestly, I did give cards and gifts even in high school to this person. And to this day, I don't think I have EVER received a card back. AND, (here's the deal breaker for me...) no acknowledgement of "thanks for the card" or even better, "I loved the pics of the kids!" Groan. It's just annoying. Don't people have manners any more? I mean, I don't expect a fanfare or a big reward, or even a card, really. A "thank you" or a "I really appreciated the thought" would be nice, though. Something to let me know that my effort even mattered.

Otherwise, why do I bother? Why send out a bunch of personalized cards with my kids' pictures on them and pay out a whole bunch of shipping just to make myself happy?

I guess I sound like a Scrooge, and I'm not, really. Every year I swear I'm not going to send out to who didn't send me one last year, but usually I give in, feeling guilty and send them one anyway. But this year, I may have to just cut a few off. I don't really have the extra money to spend on someone who will likely just throw my thought into the trash can, anyway. I'd rather worry about all my aunts and uncles and cousins who live so far away and who go on and and on to my mother about how glad they were to get the pics of the kids, as they don't get to see them much. For them, I will fork out the money for the cards and the postage with a happy smile, regardless of the card I do or do not get in return. Because I made them smile, and that's what it's supposed to be about, isn't it?

But now presents and what THAT has turned into...oh, that's a whole 'nother post. :)