Where in the World?

I haven't posted much here lately, but I have posted here. Please check it out if you haven't yet. I am currently working on the Cathedral Rose Window Afghan. Pictured here is our color plan. This afghan will be auctioned off to help fund Taylor's trip with People to People, which you can read more about on my other blog....dedicated to the topic itself.

If you are on Ravelry you can keep up with it here. So far I am loving the pattern!

Since the Ice Storms.

Christmas was nice. No running around this year, nice and quite. Money was tight, but not so horrible that the kids didn't have a nice Christmas. In fact I think they really enjoyed the day. I got an awesome coffee maker. I didn't even know I needed a new one until I started using the new one. I had a Krups that I bought off of eBay at least 4 years ago now. It was the carafe type. I hate burnt coffee. My MIL broke it last year while she was staying with us, but I found a new one at the Outlets on clearance for $10. She didn't like my coffee maker. I think she broke the original carafe on purpose....but then again she thinks I broke her coffee maker on purpose too. Oh well. Anyway, the new one is a Cusineart. It has the bur grinder built right in. All have to do is put the water in. I can smell the coffee grinding while I am downstairs in bed before the water even starts to cycle through. Mike is so good at knowing what I want, even when I don't! He got a car (truck) starter, and even though this present was really only there because of his brother it was nice to see him have something to open too.

New Years has come and gone too. My two resolutions are to a) be motivated, more motivated than I have been. b) get into some kind of exercise routine. Even if it is just walking. I've gained weight since I quit smoking last March. No regrets, but I do need to start doing someing about it. Plus it's just time to, 36 and all. Not that 36 is old at all, just time to make sure my ass doesn't spread into some kind of uncontrolable wad of goo. And I do not want to sport "mom-butt" in any form what so ever. I'm still a camel toe kinda gal and want to stay that way as long as I can help it. I think I should also be more systematic about the household finances, it wouldn't hurt.

Next week is suppose to be record cold. Again, this is New England and that's what happens. Jan. is always super cold. But it's also already almost half over! Feb. is short, and my anniversary. March is long, long and cold. I hate March, except it's Mike's birthday and this year I will be celebrating my first year smoke free. Yay me! Nothing can top that one actually. Then it'll be April and Spring will be here once again.

My company is being bought out by Dow. I'm still not sure if this is a good thing or not. But it should be complete by today, if not next week. Not that there will be any immediate changes I guess. I just hope there are no lay offs. Times are so hard everywhere. We had our group meeting this morning and it seems like I am involved in a lot of projects, helping out. Being a tech is a good thing, diverse and all. Hopefully that'll count when they are lining up the ax.

Crochet wise I am dababling in a few projects at once, as usual. I am working on an afghan for Taylor. Not the orginal plan, but orginal colors. She'll be happy with whatever I make her anyway. I am also working on a small brown wool rug for in front of the hearth. The one I have there now kinda got beat on over the power outage days. I also have made one mitten with the same wool. Now I have to make another. Thank God I actually followed the pattern for a change. When my BIL (lol, Brother-In-Law = BIL, his name is Bill) goes back to SC this Spring I am going to partally use the back room as a craft room. I want to organize my yarn, take pics for my notebook stash on Ravelry and display it in a way that looks nice and shows off the yarn before it's worked up into its final form. Yarn is an art in itself. Maybe someday I will have enough money to buy snob yarn. In the meantime I am really liking the Vanna's Choice colors. I should go crochet after I am done here as a matter of fact. I finished my ripple pictured above somtime around the holiday. I love the colors, done in Vanna's Choice too.

I am very sad about the trees Worcester is loosing to the ALBs (asian longhorned beetles). Utterly amazing watching the landscape change by the second. So sad. Wish I could do more to stop it. Wish I had known it was going on when there was still a way to slow it down. And I hope so much that my 4 maples in the back will make it. So far they are okayed by the feds, so far.

I've joined twitter, as happyhooking. Kinda cool to have updates on what people are up to. I mostly joined in case Ravelry is down, just so I know why, lol.

That's about it. Not to exciting, not that it's a bad thing!

Worcester Ice Storm 2008

Holy shit, that sucked. All I want for Christmas is my power to stay on! The picture to the left made it to the WBZ picture gallery.

Here is a link to the family photo album. It was cold. Our power was off from Thursday, midnight until Monday morning about 7am. I was so happy when it came back on, and I am so sad for those who are still out. A lot of people in the smaller towns are out because their electric comes from a municipal source. If I had a generator I would "rent" it out. We heated the house with the fireplace, if you want to call 50F in the living room and 40F elsewhere heated. But it got down to 15F outside Saturday night. I can not imagine how the pioneers made it, or how the homeless survive. We are all so lucky. Amazing how an act like this makes you stop and think.

Here are a few pics if your not up to looking at the 90+ in the link above. I still have a few aftermath pics to post. Like the Caddy that was on the front of the T&G over the weekend with a huge branch over it. I took one after they got the branch off.

This is the view to the left out my front window. We had a microburst in October of 2007 and it took out a lot of trees in this area. We lost maybe 15 trees in that storm. So it could have been twice as bad this time. We live on a privite street, so the city does not come down here to clean up at all. This is when I think I should be getting some kind of tax credit for cleaning it up myself. It took us two days to clean up, and it's still not right.


We took a walk up Clark Street the morning after and I got a couple cool pics after the sun came out.


The kids are out of school all week. They are going to be going to school until July! Poor things, they actually want to go. They are being pretty good. I am lucky they're a bit older, I would hate to go through this with real little ones. Kenzie was able to take her blue belt test tonight, and she passed :) She was scheduled to take it last Saturday. Today the Dojo opened back up. Master Alty (in Leominster) is still without power and they say it could be 5-6 days longer. I really hope everyone has power by Christmas!!

Ravelry Invite?

I have a handful of Ravelry invites. If you don't want to wait the few days it takes to get one let me know and I'll email you one.

If you don't know what Ravelry is, and you crochet and/or knit you really should go check it out....best thing invented since yarn!

www.ravelry.com

The History of Crochet

From the Crochet Guild, newsletter 10/1997:

You and I call it crochet, as do the French, Belgians, Italians and Spanish-speaking people. It is known as haken in Holland, haekling in Denmark, hekling in Norway, virkning in Sweden.

Other forms of handwork ­ knitting, embroidery and weaving ­ can be dated far back in time, thanks to archeological finds, written sources and pictorial representations of various kinds. But no one is quite sure when and where crochet got its start. The word comes from croc, or croche, the Middle French word for hook, and the Old Norse word for hook is krokr.

According to American crochet expert and world traveler Annie Potter, "The modern art of true crochet as we know it today was developed during the 16th century. It became known as 'crochet lace' in France and 'chain lace' in England." And, she tells us, in 1916 Walter Edmund Roth visited descendants of the Guiana Indians and found examples of true crochet.

Another writer/researcher, Lis Paludan of Denmark, who limited her search for the origins of crochet to Europe, puts forth three interesting theories. One: Crochet originated in Arabia, spread eastward to Tibe t and westward to Spain, from where it followed the Arab trade routes to other Mediterranean countries. Two: Earliest evidence of crochet came from South America, where a primitive tribe was said to have used crochet adornments in rites of puberty. Three: In China, early examples were known of three-dimensional dolls worked in crochet.

But, says Paludan, the bottom line is that there is "no convincing evidence as to how old the art of crochet might be or where it came from. It was impossible to find evidence of crochet in Europe before 1800. A great many sources state that crochet has been known as far back as the 1500s in Italy under the name of 'nun's work' or 'nun's lace,' where it was worked by nuns for church textiles," she says. Her research turned up examples of lace-making and a kind of lace tape, many of which have been preserved, but "all indications are that crochet was not known in Italy as far back as the 16th century" ­ under any name.

$$$

I need to make more money. We had to refinance over the summer and went with an fha loan. This is suppose to be a good thing. Well we had to roll our taxes and insurance into our payment. It went up $400. I thought we could do it. We can't. I've got back a lot, and yes there are still plenty of things to get rid of but seriously, wtf? Everyone is being very aware of shutting things off and not wasting. I quit smoking 9 months ago, this should be $100 back into the house a month. No more wine, no new clothes, yarn only when I have a coupons and I buy one at a time (one coupon per visit per "day").
Here is the list of things left to cut:

• internet $60/m
  
• house phone $30/m
• motorcycle $300/m
• karate $90/m

Internet and house phone I am so ready to let go of. Most of the time the laptop is picking up the connection next door because it is actually stronger than ours (I do not know why). The house phone, who calls? Bill collectors and telemarketers, anyone else can call on the cell phones. The motorcycle, thats hard, because we probably could not sell it for what we owe. It's Mike's thing and I really do not want to see him loose it. If we give it back it will kill our credit, or whats left of it. Of course we aren't buying anything and don't really need credit anyway. And karate, it's not really an option. Its only on the list because it is extra. But Kenzie loves it and really I think she needs it. It is beyond worth the $90 a month.

I don't want to live in the lap of luxary. I just want to pay the bills and have enough to take care of food, clothes and some basic extras. It's not going to get any better. Mike is looking at another hand surgery. I am going to really look into the First Pinnicle stuff from our camp friends. Not that the program is going to get me out of this mess, but I look at them and they see the light at the end of the tunnel and have a grip on thier finanices.

Since writting this the phone has rang twice, both credit cards looking for money. I had to put my tires on my credit card. Now I need to have them mounted, I can't afford it. We're going to call the Vocational school and see if they will mount and balance them for less if not free.

If anything the mortgage will get paid today, the 21st.....it's due again in a week.
Okay I am going to post this then come back and make another post about crochet. I want to get this out, but I don't want to look at it, lol. Sounds like the mail!

Manic Monday

My head hurts. My to do list at work and home is ridiculous. I tried to crochet for a bit, and honestly I am just not interested. My life is far from sucking, but I feel a bit whiny today. They say money does not buy happiness....I call bullshit. So today that is my "expensive desire". And here is why it would buy me "happiness".

• Bills would be paid, no mortgage, no car payment, no electric bill, no heat bill, no grocery bill, no tuition, no tv bills, no phone bills....and so on.
• I would not have to go to work.
• I could stay home and take care of my family......thanks for the woman's lib crap btw!
• Stress? What stress? Bills are paid, belly is full and all is well.

K....back to reality....and whatever about the woman's lib comment. Despite sometimes I really feel like I would be a bigger asset to my family by staying home and taking care of it all, I know that's hypocritical cuz there is no way I could stay home and do what the man says. So on that note.....get out there and VOTE tomorrow. No vote, no bitching! Gotta vote to gripe. Here is my take on what I will be voting on tomorrow:
Question #1, lets get rid of the income tax......sounds great! I don't want to pay taxes, shit I don't even want to get up and go to work. Can we vote to get rid of work too? Sounds just as logical. I'd love to take thier excess money away from them, but it does not add up. They will take it from somewhere, like my kids school or up my property taxes....and the eldery's property taxes....where are they gonna get it from? So I will have to vote no. I wish there was a way to make these bastards more accountable for the way they waste our money. That's what we need.
Question #2, give a fine for an ounce of weed or less....yup. I will admit to several years of my youth in a fog of smoke, but that's not why I am voting yes.....I wasn't stupid enough to get caught, so no skin off my teeth. I am voting yes because harmless pot heads are using up some of that wasted money in question number one. They do not need to be using up time, space and money in our jails or systems. We have way bigger issues that need to be jailed, like rapist, murders and such. Plus why should someone who took a hit or two not get a job because they were stupid enough to get caught while they were enjoying thier youth. They want to repeat stupidity or move on to the big time, then put them in jail.
Question #3, no more dog races? I hate this one. I love animals, a lot. And I am not to sure about the truth behind how bad they are treated. What about our failing economy and the jobs that will be lost. I am having a real hard time voting on something that will take someone's job right out from under them. Plus it won't ban it in NH or RI, CT? More MA money going over the border like to NH tax free purchaces or to CT Casinos or the complete nude (no panties!) strippers in RI? God I hope they are not abusing the dogs like the oposers say. Ugh.
And yes, I am voting for Obama. McCain almost had me until he picked Sarah....there's the real womans lib joke, ha, ha. What a joke. Obama is younger, more in touch and more likely to envoke the change we truely do need. McCain is more of the same stereo typical old white man. So borish at this point in the game really. Either way Bush is finally gone. I am still in utter awe that man got a second term anyhow. So I will not be suprised however the vote turns out.

That is all.....battery is just about dead and it is time to wake up hubby and put the kiddies to bed.