On the 4th Day of Christmas........

Basketball season started today for the kids. Razorbacks and Badgers (and yes, we've seen the honey badger video on YouTube). Back to hardcore studying once Christmas has passed. The eldest will be starting in on book reports and having to read things that she doesn't want to read. The youngest will be upgrading to bigger numbers and carrying the 1. These are the only things that I'm concerned we may shed tears over. I think I've gotten a good start on the business. I'm ironing out what I'm going to be making and selling as well as starting to compile cost lists and so forth. May have an Etsy store up and running by the start of the New Year. My next goal is a table at the Flea Market on weekends. There are some higher class people who would swear to me that that is not the place that I want to sell my items because that's not the kind of crowd you want to be selling to. 'Cuse me? You never know when there might be a business man in the crowd looking to market someone. That and the lower class is just as entitled to having something handmade and wonderful as the upper and middle class are (..... if not more so in most cases). I just have to keep telling myself that I can do this. I'm so good at starting things....... not so good at finishing. I would like to finish this and see it through to the beginning of a lucrative living. I would be happy if it just brought in a little extra money until I can get that creative career as an animator for a hit tv kids show. Sorry...... went off on that dream again. There's the other one where we all tour the country going from craft show to craft show in a gypsy caravan (or Tumbleweed House) and my kids find themselves a niche in the craft and art world. I'm rambling now. This is what happens when I don't get enough sleep. The Christmas tree looks nice though. Love the lights, every year.

It's Beginning to Look A lot Like.......

I try to save the insanity of Christmas for December only and not allow it to seep out into the rest of the year. Yeah right. I'm a knitter which means that my insanity level hits critical mass in September and stays there until the last gift is unwrapped. Then it begins again at the beginning of the New Year. See September is crunch time. Time when I have to figure out do I really have time to knit 14 more pairs of socks before Santa squeezes his fat arse down the chimney. Time when I wonder if I'm going to hell for that thought and time when I see if I can squeeze in more knitting without making my head explode. It never works out. Why? Because I am procrastinator and what I should have done in September I am now doing in December (good thing the list is short this year) along with trying out ideas for a little business I may be starting up soon (if I ever gear up the necessary confidence.... this is scary). Enjoy your Christmas and I'll enjoy the Nog.

Sour Apples

I have a Mac, but right now I can't use it so I'm stuck blogging to you from my hubs computer which...... I don't like. Not quite sure if or how I can load pictures to this thing and the track pad can be tempermental sometimes. Like when all it wants to do is enlarge or reduce the screen when what I WANT it to do is move the arrow to my point of interest. Son of a...... Then I have to turn it off and hope that it resets itself. Of course the hubs doesn't have this problem. I have a theory that computers can sense your feelings and will mess with you if they think they can get a few chuckles out of it. My Mac is currently a paperweight because the charger is not working. This is the third cord that I've gone through and I can't figure out why these things stop working. There are no discernable bite marks (I have a cat that likes to chew on cords) and all I can think is that it gets overloaded because I keep it plugged in even when I'm not using it. Anyone else having this problem with Apple chargers? And it doesn't help that you can't buy a generic one from Wal-Mart and they cost $100 to replace. This is the third one this year!!!! I don't have that kind of money. I happened to have the first two from previous Apple purchases and they did the same thing even though I had them for a long time before hand. One day they just stopped working. I'm getting a warranty on the next one if I can. It's gotta be the cat doing it and maybe she's just learned how to chew the cords without leaving damage. Don't know how. Or maybe the gnomes have stepped up their game and are coming after my cords now. I know they loved having my camera and were probably miffed when I took it back. Time to knit them another set of socks to distract them from messing with my electronics, lol. Christmas time is here and that means handmade gifts for everyone. I'm starting to like that better than buying. I think those that recieve the gifts like it better too because it's a one of a kind item and I took the time to make them something which I think makes them feel special. I really love it when kids ask me to make them something. It seems more special that way for me anyways. I had a request from a young cousin and I'm aiming to make sure that I have it for her by Christmas. After my last blog I went out of town for a few weeks and had no internet access. I loved every minute of it, but can't say that I didn't miss it. There are times when you just want to look something up or watch something and you think "No internet..... darn." My grandparents still have dial-up and it refused to connect the whole time I was there, but we still had Plants vs Zombies to play and lots of land to roam around. The kids loved it and I wish that we had a place with plenty of land for them to play on daily. I think they wouldn't miss tv and video games because that seemed to be the case while we were visiting and it brought back memories of good times when I was a kid. Coming home was like stuffing myself into a cave, but it's just not possible to let them play outside whenever where we live right now. Dear Santa, I would love a tranq gun for Christmas. I'm going to use it on my neighbors during times like right now. If I wanted to listen to your music I would have it blasting in my house as well. You notice that I don't. Thwip! Tranq them and turn it off and not have to worry about it for a few hours. Fighting in the hall? Thwip! Tranq dart to the rescue, no need for the police to solve a domestic disturbance. Yes, Santa, I want a tranq gun. I will be sure to get my darts back and no one need ever know that they've been tranqed. They can blame it on aliens. A non violent solution to all of life's little problems. I love it. I want it.

To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn.......

My aunt asked if I blog and I had to admit that I had fallen off the wagon and have gotten to the point where I hardly ever blog. Some of that has to do with the fact that I love to have a lot of pictures in my blog and the last several seem to be pictureless. I think it made me lose my excitement for my blog. I'm going to try and do better, but I can't promise that I will succeed. I have this habit of trying something just to learn how to do it or to say that I did it (my mini bucket lists) and then stopping once I've got it. I'm into the learning process. BUT, being out of school has meant that I've had a lot of time to try new things and I've got several new crafts that I've taken up and successfully completed that I would like to share. That brings me to the second reason why I really don't blog anymore, who reads this thing? Hardly anyone ever comments. Does anyone out there really care about what I'm putting on this little slice of WWW? Sigh. I guess that not blogging is a surefire way of never getting anyone interested in my blog, but I just don't think that anything I have to say or any of my talents are impressive to anyone. Regardless, I think that I'm going to keep plugging away at this thing and see what happens. Actual craft posts are returning and there will be pictures (provided I don't lose my camera like I always seem to do right when I want to load my pics to the blog). I'm going to do it this time and not procrastinate and once I stop laughing at myself for even posting this sentence I'll be back with another post....... real soon (that's a shout out to Mark Crilley, lol).

Son of a Biscuit Eater!!!!!

Resolutions. Rereading I've realized that I am not going to get any of those resolutions done before the year is out...... and I. DON'T. CARE. Hubs got a job in his field of study so that when he finishes school in the Spring he can just keep working.... with a slight promotion. The kids are taking swimming lessons again this year and are learning more. I think their fears are starting to leave them and allowing them to actually learn. Doesn't hurt that we spent a week with the family and they were in the pool almost the whole time (hey, that was how we learned how to swim). I won't be finishing up my degree this year, but have had to go on hiatus until the hubs gets done. He's going to be working and going to school full time so there won't be any time left for me to try to puzzle in a class schedule. I can get into a pottery studio when he's not working though so I'm hoping to do that and keep going with my throwing. I was getting really good at making mugs and bowls. I would like to expand my abilities though. Not much knitting was getting done while I was in school, but I'm getting back into it as I've had the summer semester off. I went really ambitious and am knitting a big cotton blanket for the hubs. He loves them but all the ones that I find in the stores snag too easily and I thought it would be a great item for him to have. I'm starting to wonder if it's going to be big enough though. I'm nowhere close to finished and it may take me several more months before I'm even halfway there. In other areas, I've taken up an interest in some other crafts. A few of which are making paper beads (now I just need some Judikins Diamond finish), viking knitting and making art journals. The art journals are a long term project, but I'm thinking about prepping books for other people and selling them or making some. I don't know if it would be legal for me to use an altered hardback book if I'm going to be selling them. I took two books that I got from a thrift store. Both are the children classic hardbacks, one is Anne of Green Gables and the other is Huck Finn. They are rewritten for a child, but I read the originals as a child and have no problem altering these books that don't have the whole of my beloved classics. I've started by ripping out pages here and there, gluing them together to make them two pages thick, and gessoing the pages to cover up the words and pictures with a white wash effect. I will be posting pictures. I know I'm going to be up all night working on these again. I almost have the Anne one done and the Huck halfway. I took the hubs old sociology book that he couldn't sell back and started altering it for myself (the other two are for my kids). I really like that it has a fold out in the front cover and can't wait to decorate it with all my favorite things. I've also been thinking about the Renaissance festival coming up and would love to get a sewing machine and take a crack at making my own (simple) costume. Then maybe I could go further and make a Molly Weasley outfit for Halloween this year and complete a small dream that I've had for the past three or four Halloweens.

Resolutions

Some of the things that I hope to get done this year:

1. Finish up my degree in fine arts
2. lose about 30 lbs. This should be doable in a year's time right....?.......Right?
3. Be more active and healthy (this includes what I eat and both of these should help me with #2).
4. Blog more. I've been neglectful.
5. take up photography again. I was always good at it, might as well add it back to my list of things that I do well.
6. stay more organized....... I realize this may be a pipe dream
7. Knit a little everyday


That's it. Any more and my head might explode.

School started for me on Tuesday and I'm looking forward to this semester. It may all get cut short if the hubs gets that job in Boone and that would be okay too. A job is key in these times. Things don't look like they're getting any better any time soon and we're running out of resources.
Tuesday I found out that I most likely made it into the Raleigh art show. They pick four pieces from each school to showcase in their gallery. I'll know more next week. I would have known more today, but an infection has me crawling to the doctor. Same skin infection that I had a few weeks ago has come back and it hurts like a motha'! I'm hoping it's just a general staph infection and not MRSA. I'm on this medicine that lowers my immune system and I'm starting to seriously think about coming off of it. Problem is that all the meds that control my disease lower the immune system so it might not be an option, but I don't want to get something that could kill me either. So far it's been limited to my skin which is fairly harmless and hopefully it'll just be another round of antibiotics and I won't hear from this stupid thing again (cause it REALLY hurts).

Rough Times, but there's ALWAYS a light to be seen

With a new year comes hope that this year may be better than the last. Hubby's job in Mississippi got recended. I didn't even know that they could do something like that. At least they told us before we packed up and moved everything out or we would have been really in a bind. So we finished out the year in the same place. Not so bad except now the unemployment has run out and it doesn't look as if the job market is getting any better. I've been looking, he's been looking and nothing. I've been looking locally for the past 6 months and he's been looking everywhere for the past 3 years. Nada. This is crap. How are people supposed to make it? I have a dream about a plot of land, a cob house, chickens and a garden so that we could be more self sufficient and not so needful of the crappy green paper with dead men on it. It seems so absurd that we put so much value on colored paper, but we do and for most necessities you have to, that's the saddest thing of all. There was a time when people didn't need it at all and they got along on their ability to grow crops, raise animals and trading with their community. I'm hoping that my family can get back to a more basic living, but I need to have everyone onboard cause I can't run a homestead on my own. Regardless we need jobs before we can even begin to think in that direction anyways. I hope everyone that can would start trying their hand at growing their own crops a little at a time. There is satisfaction in doing for yourself.
My health seems to also be on a downswing. My resolution is to drop some weight to help with my arthritis. There's not much that I can do to stop the psoriasis that is slowly taking over my skin again especially when my doctors keep telling me everything is okay. I'm pretty sure the resurgence of my arthritis (more painful than it was before) and my skin breaking out is signaling that my medicine is no longer effective, but I can't get my doctor to see it. Maybe I need to be more forceful. I saw a rheumatologist who told me that I don't have arthritis and possibly that I didn't have psoriasis (until he saw my scalp). The first time I broke out I was told that it was a fungal infection or a reaction to something until it wouldn't go away so this is nothing new to me. Sometimes doctor's take some convincing. The rheumatologist couldn't explain what it was that I have that's causing my joints to hurt, but he was sure it wasn't arthritis. I have to disagree because the pain is the same that I had before I was put on the Humira and once I started taking it I stopped having the joint pain. It's been slowly coming back along with the breakouts and here lately it's becoming difficult to do things with my hands. He said that because I didn't have pitting in my nails and swollen fingers that it couldn't be psoratic arthritis. I have searched all over the internet and I can find no where that says that you have to have the pitting of the nails (which seems to actually be more of a symptom of the psoriasis, but only if you break out on your hands) and my fingers may not have been swollen right then, but that doesn't mean that they never are. There is a list of symptoms that all the sites give and it says that you have to have at least two of them to be considered for psoratic arthritis. I have five. I have another appointment in February and if I get the same from him then I'll get a second opinion. Hopefully we'll just move and I can see a new rheumatologist.
I'm keeping my swollen fingers together (can't cross them cause they hurt) that my hubby will get this job in the mountains. This is the third time he's gone there for an interview and they like him. There are only two other people in the running for it this time so it's looking like the odds are in our favor, but we're not really getting up hope until we find out for sure. We'll know before the end of the month so that's good. In the meantime I'm going back to school for another semester and I'm one more step towards getting my degree. I only have one more semester after this and I'll have it. I'm feeling a great sense of accomplishment as I get closer and closer.
All this school has left little time for knitting, but I tried to make up for it over the break. I finished a pair of socks for my Grandma (an urgent project cause I never know how much time is left in life). I don't have a picture of them, but I'm working on a red pair now for myself (that I'm very happy with and can't wait to have on my feet) for your viewing pleasure.

They're the Dead Simple Lace Socks from Wendy D. Johnson's Socks from the Toe Up
I love this book and I'm hoping to do a pair from each pattern in it. My Grandma's socks were the On Hold Socks and I'm hoping to start another pair in the Lacy Ribs Socks pattern out of some variegated Malabrigo that I have.
One really good thing that happened for me this year was this........

and this.......

Know what those are????? My art pieces in a GALLERY!!!!!!!!!! It was a student show, but I was still excited to have my work shown. My kids were mighty proud too and my daughter kept telling everyone that came in that her momma made those. I think she was more excited to tell people than I was.