DIY Earring Experiment!

 For ages I have wanted to make some earrings.  I made some in the past but the ear wires were very hard on my ears.  Plus I did not wear earrings that often so that was a problem.

Well, that has changed!

Our daughter makes beautiful earrings.  She made some stainless steel ear wires for me and sent them to me ages ago. I finally made the time (during one of my nighttime crafting sessions...!) to make a pair.

These are the earrings I made.  

After making one pair I have a good mind to make some more!  I just hope not to spend much money on earring findings.  In keeping with that, if someone would like the same beads I used, I would be happy to exchange beads with you.  I wanted some red earrings.  Now I have them.  Now I am thinking about blue earrings...!  And other colors.

Leaf Job!

 Today Dear One put our new leaf rake to work.  Of course, there had been a lot of rain overnight so the leaves were heavy and sludgy but still, he did manage to rake up thirteen piles.  

This afternoon it turned out that he needed a couple of extra hands to hold the bags to put the leaves in the garbage bag.  Since we cannot have a compost pile, we could not use the leaves.  Unless I went down to the garden. and dug them in.  This is something I considered since we are hoping to put in blueberries in the next season, BUT the day was pretty much done by then and I did not want to walk that close to the HOA bad line...NO COMPOST PILES in our neighborhood....

The lawn really does look better.  Interestingly enough, the live oak trees that dropped all the leaves are not on our property!  

Another thing, not interesting, but something I learned today: I might have learned why they call these trees "live oaks".  I have wondered about that since the very first book I ever read many years ago that referenced "live oaks".  I thought that was the dumbest thing ever since of course the trees must have been alive.  Well, it turns out that they do not drop all their leaves.  We do have some sort of native tree on our own lawn which shades us beautifully in the summer, but which does lose its leaves.

It is a great day when you learn new stuff!

Royally Miffed...

 Do you ever get up in the morning and, after your morning rituals, find yourself really miffed?  And realize that, yet again, you have only yourself to blame for the predicament you are in?!  Well, that happened to me today.  I am not happy.  Not at all.  And there is no way to point fingers at anyone but myself.

This being the case, I have proclaimed today the first day of the new year and am changing my ways.  At least, that is what happened early this morning.  Now nearing the end of the day I find my resolution was not wholly carried out, but still, today was better than yesterday.  That is a plus.

Of course, as usual, Dear One gets the brunt of my dissatisfaction.  I have also made a proclamation about eating upstairs in the evening.  WE WILL NOT HAVE IT PE RIOD.  Anyone who wants to eat must go downstairs to eat in the kitchen or dining room.  It is just too easy to eat a cup of Chex mix in the evening,  Or even more. Especially when one's hands are not busy knitting or doing some other handwork.  The lap is empty and the hands are idle so what to do but pick up the canister of salty buttery nutty treats.  VERY BAD IDEA.  At least as far as health is concerned.

Do you have a plan for better health for the new year?  Please share!

One of my plans is to continue on with hand work when I am upstairs in the evening.  Tonight I will work on the initialed hem of my Jacqueline Fee Sweater Workshop sampler. I am getting ready to share that book in a class starting the first week in January.  We shall see how it goes.  I needed to get a sampler made in advance to catch any problems I might have forgotten since the last time I made that sampler.  It really is a useful workshop.

While the book is not available currently on ThriftBooks, it does appear to be available in several other places. Maybe even in the local library.  It is worth getting.  Another book worth getting is Knitting Workshop (or any other book by Elizabeth Zimmermann)!  ThriftBooks does not have Elizabeth Zimmermann, either, but I am confident her books are available at Schoolhouse Press.   

One final book I want to mention that helps me keep my hands, and my mind, busy instead of eating bad stuff is Sweater 101 by Cheryl Brunette.    I have owned at least three copies of Sweater 101 though I only have one now.  I had the great fun of following her directions and made a size two sweater for a child.  I finished that sweater just in time to go to a knitting guild meeting in Vancouver, Washington when Cheryl was there to speak to us and encourage us in our knitting,  I loved learning at her feet and was so pleased that she admired the work of my hands that night. Another dear sister from our mission also attended and brought her sweater which also was perfect.  That sister has knit a sweater for herself following Cheryl's instructions and it fit her perfectly!!!

So--new year, and this time I plan to keep promises I made to myself. I hope you do, too.

The Cookie House

 Despite its appearance, this Oreo cookie house seems to be consumed a little more every thing I enter the dining room.  This does make me happy.  Especially since I am not the one eating it...!  Though I have had a few nibbles...

We hope you all had a wonderful sacred Christmas with family and friends.

Christmas Packages 2021

 This year the build up to Christmas has been very very full.  It did not include handmade gifts for our family members. I don't know if that has ever happened before.  It will be different next year because I already have a plan!!  It makes me smile. I hope it will make our family smile...next Christmas!

Anyway, it is not as if we did not plan to send gifts.  We did.  And as of this writing the packages are in the mail.  They promised me at the P O that they would arrive by Christmas Eve.  I hope so...though everyone in the family does know that timing does not always work well for me...!

Here are the packages ready to go to the Post Office. If you like a guessing game, tell me what you think they are!  You probably will get it, though not specifically!

Another Finished Project

 This time the project was a crochet project.  It was shark slippers for a friend's family members.  I needed to up my game with crochet as the designer was Dutch and translated the pattern to English.  She put it on Ravelry.com.  I learned that when a designer says "join 2 stitches", she actually means to decrease 1 stitch.  I finally got it and was able to complete the slippers.

These are the slippers.  The photo does not do them justice.  They really are cute.  The particulars are on my project page on Ravelry in case you are interested in them.

Big Surprise Today!!

 Recently I have become impatient and dissatisfied with my homemaking prowess.  A few days, maybe weeks ago, I began mildly carping about my need for a bureau.  At present all my clothing is stored in the closet.  Don't get me wrong, it is a great closet with a lot of hanging space and a shelf over all.  I have my underwear and socks stored on the shelf along with many other things.  The shelf is just a bit too high for me so I have to throw my undies up there.  That does not make for a nice neat stack, thus the carping.

Well, today, when I was about at the end of my rope for many many reason, Dear One told me UPS had arrived. I knew he was expecting a package but no idea what it was.  I asked him if he wanted me to come see the box. He said, "No. I want you to come help."  When I got to the entry way there was a big box from Vietnam!  I thought he had broken down and gotten me a bookcase for the side of the bed which I ALSO have been carping about for about two years...!  We have already ordered and put together a beautiful bookcase, a table, and two chairs all from rubber wood from Vietnam so I was pleased.

It was NOT a bookcase!

There he is with the packing box mostly emptied, well, half emptied as you can see other things in the big box, but he was organizing the refuse so it would be easy to take care of.

We decided to put it together upstairs since it was going to be very heavy and we have had incidents as we have taken things upstairs in a put-together situation which were very heavy.

Here is the bureau together except for the drawers!

Now the complete bureau sitting next to my mother's slipper chair. I could not be happier.  And, yes, my underwear and socks are happily ensconced in the new bureau and I am a happy camper.  

How I love my kind, generous, considerate, thoughtful, hard-working, loving husband.  I am most fortunate among women.

When it was complete, he smiled at me and said, "Merry Christmas!" So nice.