For Shame!

I know, right?!? 

Two stinkin' months of no posts.  Sorry, y'all...I needed a break.

My plan is to be back on a (atLEAST) once weekly blogging schedule by the beginning of March.  It seems that I have no concept of time management lately and I'm not sure what is going to need to be done to remedy that.  The train VERY APPARENTLY derailed, but I'm not schooled in putting trains back on tracks or whatever, so I'm still doing research on how to do that.

I wanted to do a quick check in to let all of you regulars know that I am indeed alive and well and that I'll make sure you don't miss out on all of the junk that was my holiday season and the things that have come after that.  My life needs rearranging and you all will be a huge part of that also.

Some things that need work:

• I am quitting with crochet until further notice.  I just can't juggle crochet hooks right now.
• I haven't done any form of scrapbooking since sometime in 2010.  That is stupid crazy.  I LOVE that hobby and I am super freakin' sad that I've neglected it for that long.  To deal with this, I've started a system called Project Life.  If you have any interest in preserving memories, but aren't really a scrapbooker, I HIGHLY recommend this system.  All you have to do is buy the parts to the kit, take pictures and get them printed out and stick them in the page protectors.  The page protectors are sectioned off and are designed for 4x6 photos...one a day.  BUT YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO TAKE ONE A DAY.  It is also designed to be done weekly.  You also can buy little cards where you can write small snippets of your week on and then add them to your pages.  I also have added a tag from clothing, a card, an invitation, etc.  Super easy and efficient.  When you are a parent with a job and have lots of other obligations, efficiency is the name of the game.
• I am doing P365+1.  I take (atleast) one photo a day, ordinary or special, with my iPhone and I put it into my Photo 365 app.  This helps me with Project Life.  I certainly need help with my memory and this is the perfect app for that. 
• I installed the Blogger app on my iPhone.  I'll just admit it now:  I DO MORE THINGS ASSOCIATED WITH PICTURES/INTERNET/SOCIAL NETWORKING WITH MY IPHONE THAN I DO WITH A CAMERA AND A COMPUTER COMBINED.  I haven't taken one single picture with my actual camera all year.  I haven't needed to.  My iPhone is right there.  Handy.  Easy.  No fuss.  And I can upload or save my photos to 10 different places via my iPhone.  No uploading photos to a computer, etc.  I LOVE IT.
• If my iPhone dies, I probably will too.  Just a note to myself. :)
• The fact that I do so many things from my phone has inhibited ONE aspect of my life:  Blogging.  I miss blogging, but it's so dang many steps to turn on my home computer, go to my blogger account, type a post, find all my photos and figure out how to get them to the computer I'm working on and then publish and then link to Facebook.  Now that I've figured things out, I can do all this from my phone.  This will result in more but shorter blog posts.  Y'all can live with that, right?
• My good friend MZQ and I are planning to start (very soon, I hope) a weekly topic and linkup situation where we blog about a topic and...get this...LINK up to one another.  If I'm reaching any other bloggers out there, please let me know if you'd like to be a part of this.  We don't have any topics yet, but I'm assuming they'll be across the board topics that range from funny to serious to opinion to stories.  I hope she's thinking the same here. :)

So that's how I'm rollin' this year.  I used to use my blog to preserve my memories.  I am now doing that more privately, but I still want to include you all in that process.  Stay tuned for some ACTUAL blogging. 

Loves to you all. :)

Five for Friday: LOL

You probably think that LOL stands for "laugh out loud."

Well, you're wrong.  Way wrong.

According to my almost-9-year-old nephew, it means "little old lady."  And that's what I'm writing about.  Little old ladies.

My favorite LOL...Sophia Petrillo.

I like little old ladies.  Except when they're driving.  Or walking in front of me at a rate of 1 mile per 5 years.  Or counting out pennies to pay for 37 bucks worth of Depends and BenGay.  Other than that, I just love them.

I'm beginning to find that I am more like a LOL than I care to admit.  Except for RIGHTNOW...seeing as how I'm admitting it to the WHOLE INTERNET and stuff.  I'm finding that I am quickly losing touch with my age group and relating more and more to the 70-year-old crowd.  Yikes.

And here it is - Five for Friday: How I Channel My Inner (or Outer) LOL:

1. I have a pill box.  There are no actual medications in there though.  Only vitamins...and only one of those is prescribed.  I have been put on a very strict vitamin regimen by my doctor because of a lack of vitamin D...which can be a big problem if I don't get it under control.  I have to take 5 pills a day at varying times.  And you have to be some sort of superhero to remember all that.  So...pillbox it is.
2. I crochet like nobody's business.  And to add fuel to the fire, guess what I've most recently learned how to crochet?  Granny squares.  Seriously.  I love to crochet as it A.  is easy. B.  makes things that are useful like hats and scarves and mustaches on sticks. C.  is cheap. D.  keeps me from snacking and/or biting my nails.  I've had many requests for crocheted things, so it can't be that bad, right? 
3. I hate teenagers.  They are my NEMESIS.  If I'd have acted like teenagers do today when I was a teenager, I wouldn't be alive today.  My mother would've killed me and buried me in the flower bed.  End of story.  Rude.  Sense of entitlement.  Bad manners.  Bad grammar.  Wear the dumbest clothes.  Can't drive.  I could go on and on and on.  And on.  And.  On.
4. I have stopped moving out of the way for people in public places.  I used to be so aware that my cart or myself were in the way and I'd promptly move.  Do you think most other people promptly move when THEY are in MY way?  Nope.  Never.  So I don't care anymore.  Those people can wait just like I have to.  Jerks.
5. I could go to bed at 7pm almost everyday.  But Chris says no.  He says I'm way too young for that business.  I'm lucky to stay awake on the couch until 9pm...unless I'm crocheting.

So...disregarding chronology, how old are you?  Are you way younger, way older or about the same?  I'm curious.

Five for Friday: Cheap Crafts

I am a crafty person.  I like to paint and scrapbook and crochet and arrange flowers (but not well) and refinish furniture, etc.  There isn't one craft-type thing I haven't tried.  I am super excited to be getting back into some crafty things after a busy holiday season and such.  Problem is...I spent all that money at Christmas!!  I am now challenging myself to use what I have instead of buy all new stuff for each craft project.  Here's what I'm doing now:

1. Jayna wants to give her female schoolmates "bows" (hair barrettes) for Valentine's Day.  I told her that was a GREAT idea!  Except all the ones she's tried to pick out are about 3 bucks each.  Um...NO.  There are 8 girls and 8 boys at her school.  That's too much.  So I'm crocheting little flowers from leftover pink yarn to sew onto some cheap dollar store plain barrettes.  Total cost for all 10 that I'm making:  FIVE BUCKS.  Score. 
2. Jayna also wants to make by hand all the Valentine's Day cards so she can "decorate them with stickers and glitter or something" (her words, not mine).  So I visited my new favorite kid's crafty website Family Fun and we're making owls for the girls and fish for the boys.  And I already have 90% of the supplies in the mess of a craftroom at home.  Score again.
3. A friend of a friend is getting married later this year and she asked me to help her come up with cheap-in-price but classy-in-looks centerpieces for the tables.  I happily accepted the challenge and hope that she asks me for more help.  I have the most awesome idea for favors!!!  This doesn't fit in to me not spending money, but I do have a budget to work in, so we'll see how that goes.
4. Since the weather is supposed to be warmer over the weekend and next week, I'm hoping to get the garage cleaned out so I can finish some painting projects out there.  All materials were bought last year, but it's just too cold to refinish furniture in an unheated garage right now.  The warmer temps will be welcomed with open arms!!
5. I am working on finishing a photo collage of Morgan.  All I need is a frame!!  I'm thinking of making one...it can't be THAT hard, right?  I surely can come up with something.  (Yes, I can and don't call me Shirley.)

Thawed out Thursday: Stories of a Hermit

 I am officially out of my house today for more than just running an errand or two.  I have been a shut in for 2.5 days.  I can't tell you how happy this makes me.  I seriously need to move now because I'm just plain tired of looking at my house.  Here are the details of my time at home:

1. Around noon on Sunday, I began to get really itchy eyes.  They promptly turned red and I then got nervous.  I began the "don't touch your eyes and wash your hands every 30 seconds."  I awoke on Monday morning with an eye so swollen that after I uncrusted it it would still barely open.  I went to the doctor at 10am and was diagnosed with conjunctivitis but not pink eye.  I'm not sure how that works.  And by Tuesday I had it in both eyes.  I'm finally able to see clearly and my eyes don't itch or burn or look like I went to Fight Club last night.  Like 56 more days of antibiotic eye drops and I'll be okay.  I'm sort of glad that this ice storm that shut down my entire city happened at the same time as the eye infection.  If I have to stay away from work and actually be sick, let it be when driving is treacherous and the mall is closed. (Yes, I said the mall was closed.  Apparently 1+ inch of ice all over everything makes the mall close.)
2. As much as Jayna and I got sick of each other due to the fact that we were stuck in the house together for 2 days, I think we would've both preferred to stay home this morning.  Right before we left for school today, she looked up at me and said, "No school mommy.  Let's play dollhouse."  She almost won.  I was soooo ready to get out of that house and get away from Spongebob that it transfered over to me wanting to be away from her.  And now as I sit here I wish I were home with her playing dollhouse and watching Squidward call Spongebob names which Jayna then tells me are "not nice."
3. Yesterday I successfully upgraded 2 cell phones online and got both our state and federal taxes done online without paying a dime.  Suck it, Turbo Tax.  It was really nice to get something accomplished other than cleaning up dishes and dress up clothes and doing endless loads of laundry. 
4. I finished a crochet project...one that was a CHRISTMAS present.  But since I got my finger caught in the electric mixer making crochet impossible for a week or so, I didn't get it finished until yesterday.  And  mom loves her new fingerless gloves that have very affectionately been dubbed "boxing gloves" by Roger.
5. Snow days are NOT the same when A. you're an adult and B. you have a 2-year-old.  I didn't get to sleep in.  I didn't get to eat junk food all day.  (Okay, maybe that's sort of a lie, but I'm sticking with it.)  I didn't play ONE board game.  And I didn't get to watch anything I wanted to watch on television.  A good snow day when you're an adult is getting something done that you'd otherwise have to do on the weekend.  But it still beats getting up and going to work.
6. I haven't been to the gym in.......*gulp*......5 days.  I'm in for it tomorrow.  In related news, the last time I did go to the gym, I ran 2 miles.  Yay me.
7. In all that time home, I didn't get the blog caught up.  SMH. :)

Make It Mine Monday: New Hobby Edition

I recently began crocheting.  Crocheting was something that I was totally NOT into...I actually tried to take a knitting class around this time last year with my good buddy Michelle, but it didn't pan out.  Our classes got cancelled and then she went and had a baby.  I suppose little Mia had to come out of there sometime. :)

I had seen some things that I liked in stores that were seemingly knitted, but since I'm a cheapskate I wouldn't pay the cash money for them.  Michelle and I discovered that we're both pretty crafty and decided that with just a few classes we could become pros in no time!  Ha.  Notsomuch.

For Christmas last year my mom bought me a "Learn to Knit" book.  It came with a few patterns and some directions, as well as a few knitting needles, markers and blunt needles.  I had EVERYTHING I needed to learn knitting, except yarn.  Oh...and coordination.

You apparently have to have around 7 hands, give or take, to knit.  And you have to have lots of hand-eye coordination.  I mean, I DO have hand-eye coordination, just not that of a...someone who has to have lots of it.  I'm not sure what that would even be.  But I digress...

So I bought a skein of cheap yarn at my local Wally World and prepared myself to...knit.  I promptly cast on 10 stitches and then...had NO IDEA what to do next.  At the time I knew no one who knew how to knit and I was sooooo intimidated that I didn't want to take a class.  Especially by myself!

So I quit. 

I'm not proud.  But that's the fact of the matter.

Since Michelle was busy with a newborn baby and didn't have to time NOR the ENERGY to take a class with me, my mom convinced me that crocheting was WAY less intimidating and you only had to have 4 hands to do it.  Oh...and there is only one hook instead of two needles.

I was confident that I could handle that.

We signed up for two classes at our local JoAnn's...Crochet 101 which is just the basics and Crochet 201 which was how to make felted flowers.  We were very excited!!

Well, class day was almost here and I got a sinus infection from hell.  I was pretty sure that death was RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER.  And the day before the class we got HUGE snowstorm.  The class was cancelled.

By this time I was positive that I wasn't meant to do anything involving yarn.

But we had already paid for the classes.

So we waited.  We waited out fate and rescheduled our first class for the beginning of October.  And I can now successfully crochet in the single, double, triple, and half double.  I'm still learning, but I've already made a scarf for Jayna and I'm now making myself a pair of wrist warmers. 

And we are now to the Make It Mine part of the post...

Susan Bates Crystalites Crochet Hook Case with 9 Hooks

I know...I've aged about 40 years since I began crocheting. :)

I've decided that I really don't care for steel hooks.  They have a weird sound/feel to me when in contact with yarn.  Plastic also seems to have a different feel when it comes to the tension of the yarn.  I am probably the only crocheter that prefers plastic hooks, but that's me.  Strange bird.

I'll keep y'all posted on my projects.  I plan on making lots of awesome stuff!