The Christmas Story

Luke 2:1-14:
1And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

2And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.

3And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

4And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; because he was of the house and lineage of David:

5To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

6And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

7And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

8And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

9And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

10And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

12And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

14Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

King of kings

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

The kingdom of this world
Is become the kingdom of our Lord,
And of His Christ, and of His Christ;
And He shall reign for ever and ever,
For ever and ever, forever and ever,

King of kings, and Lord of lords,
King of kings, and Lord of lords,
And Lord of lords,
And He shall reign,
And He shall reign forever and ever,
King of kings, forever and ever,
And Lord of lords,
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

And He shall reign forever and ever,
King of kings! and Lord of lords!
And He shall reign forever and ever,
King of kings! and Lord of lords!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Those of course are the words to Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, taken from Revelation 11:15- "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever."

Our family went to a church Christmas program this year (not our church) that seemed to have very little emphasis on the whole meaning of Christmas, other than that we should be focusing on Jesus, not just on getting presents. And while that's true, they failed to put any emphasis on the power, mercy, or grace of God in sending His Son as a man to die for us. Nor that He now reigns...reigns forever, and the "kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ".

However, we went last week to a Christmas concert sponsored by the Salvation Army, a local news station, and various other sponsors; a concert that makes no particular claim to being Christian, and is for all intents merely secular. Every year though, near the end of the concert they have a sing-along, and along with secular Christmas songs like "Jingle Bells" and "Deck the Halls", at the very end is the Hallelujah Chorus. So you can stand there surrounded by people who may or may not be Christians, and sing of the truth that our Lord reigns forever. It's wonderful!


John 1:14- And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Merry Christmas!

Finished!

And with time to spare! I finished up the sweater yesterday evening, and didn't even have to knit after supper. It fits too, which is good... it's not quite the way I would like it, but for as fast as I got it done it's pretty good. And it's very, very soft; Colin keeps coming up to me and petting it, and saying "Ooh, soft sweater, soft sweater!" So maybe I'll have to make him a sweater out of the rest of the yarn! :)

And the Google kangaroos got done with their sweater also!

It's gotten bigger...

My sweater is, well, I won't say almost done! I still need to do two, long sleeves, weave in the ends of yarn, wash, and dry it. But the main part is done and I'm hoping it fits properly. I tried it on after I finished that part, but the sleeve holes aren't open (all the stitches are on narrow holders) so I couldn't put my arms anywhere! In other words, not real accurate! :) I've stitched about 2-3 inches of sleeve since I took that picture... one sleeve that is.

Petunia has decided that it's a blanket for her, not a sweater for me! I had to promise her I'd make her a blanket with the leftover yarn. Actually, I was planning on making a whole big throw for my bed.

I will have a bunch of yarn leftover, because I got two big bags of "mill ends" of what I think is Bernat brand "Soft Boucle", except that this stuff feels even softer, and the only problem I've found so far is that one of the skeins of yarn seems to have melted plastic stuck to it. But each bag is a pound, and has about 4-5 lumps of yarn in it, and I got two bags for $10 at A.C. Moore. I got two because I had no idea how much I needed, so I'll have plenty for a blanket for me, that the cat can use as well.

Now I need to get back to knitting, and all my other work that I have to do... because there is other work, and in the long run, a clean bathroom is more important than having a sweater by Sunday... I guess... :)
That is... I'll knit if I can ever get the cats off of it.

Gracie can't wait for Christmas! And she's getting a pretty new black collar with rhinestones on it... grocery store find for a dollar something... inexpensive Christmas bling for the cat. I'll try to get her to model it.

What I have been up to lately

Not blogging obviously! I don't really make New Year's resolutions, but I should start blogging more regularly.

1. I'm trying to finish a math book
2. We mailed cookies and candy stuff to our relatives
3. I've been sick
4. I've been knitting
5. We've been doing other various things related and not, to Christmas.
6. Oh, I finished the tree skirt!
7. And working on Christmas gifts for my friends.

Our church Christmas program was last Sunday night, and I was supposed to be singing in an ensemble, but I woke up Saturday morning with a sore throat. There's a cold going around, at least in North Carolina, and lots of people have gotten it.
You can hear the recording of the service here. Mom and I were both sick, but we felt well enough to go Sunday night and sit in the back. As it turns out we were probably about a quarter of the audience practically. We don't have a very big church, and most of the people were in the program!

Here's the picture of the finished tree skirt:

It's not as perfect as my perfectionism would like, you just can't sew that big of a piece of fabric perfectly unless you have a lot of space and a big sewing machine. But it certainly looks fine overall, it just the little details that bug me!
The present under the tree are ones from relatives. We haven't gotten around to wrapping present yet!

Here's the sweater I'm working on:
That's just the shoulder part mostly. It's this pattern except I'm making it longer, and I'm not going to use any of the fluffy stuff that's on the sleeves. I started this on Sunday, and I'm hoping maybe I'll be able to get it done for Christmas, or actually the 24th, and I'll wear it to church.

Mom and I went to a cross-stitch get-together Saturday before last. It was in Asheboro, which is about and hour away, and I got to drive there and back...fun! The get-together was fun too... :)

And I've been eating these:
They came in a Christmas package from my Aunt and Uncle, and I really want to see if there's some way to make them, because they're delicious! They taste like they have chocolate in them, and they're so creamy! I think they remind me of those Andes little mint chocolate bars, so maybe that's why I think they should have chocolate in them?

December 19th already...

and I still haven't posted about Thanksgiving... um, sorry? And beta blogger won't keep me signed in...argh. It's about enough to make me change to Wordpress. Now let's see if Blogger dumps my blog for saying that! :)

Anyway, Thanksgiving. My cousins came, we had a really, really good time, we took lots of funny pictures, we ate lots of turkey, and there were lots of weird conversations.
And I present: "Things overheard, to make you laugh!" *cheesy grin*

During one conversation, I don't know how this even came up, but my grandpa says, "You know that movie, with... McQuilken... no child left behind?" Someone said "Is that like President Bush's new movie, or something?" It turned out he meant "Home Alone" and the kid's name was Macauly something or other, but that had us laughing, especially my cousin Jim, through Friday.
And after some mention of Monty Python, my grandpa quite seriously says "Well, I think he's dead isn't he?" He's... he's? um...uh... okay....
And overheard by my cousin Jim as they were leaving their hotel Saturday: "That guy's been sittin' up there on that balcony all morning. You 'spose he's watchin' us?" Ah yes, we live in North Carolina!
Anyway, all in all it was a really fun, hilarious visit, we played Apples to Apples, Rebecca and I played guitar, and it was altogether pretty awesome!

So, yeah, that sounds pretty boring all written out, but believe me, you get my relative together, and boring is not what you'll get! :)

Trying to get caught up

Last Saturday our computer harddrive (one word or two?) died...and that means we lost everything since Nov. 17th, the last time Dad ran a backup. So all the pictures I'd downloaded were gone, thankfully I hadn't deleted them from my camera! Any sites I'd bookmarked (that's the Mac equivalent of saving to favorites, for those of you with Windows) were gone, and ones I'd deleted were back, since I'd just decided that I needed to go through my folder and delete a bunch of stuff I didn't need any more! And all the email I received or sent in that time (two weeks) was gone! Luckily I don't think we lost anything too terribly important...at least not that I've discovered yet!
So anyway, most of the time I've had this past week has been spent recovering stuff, re-deleting, etc. And getting fully caught up on school and stuff like that too!

Oh, and I switched to beta-blogger, since it kept popping up ads on the main page pestering me to switch. It's pretty much the same, but it's got some new features and you can move things around in your template, which should be cool! And you can put little labels in (as you can see below) which I may or may not use, I don't like the way they just sit at the end of the post.

Short post for now

I don't have time for a very long post at all right now, but I have a ton of things I've been wanting to blog about, and hopefully I'll get time before I forget all of them!

Here's a couple pictures of the cake I made last night:










Chocolate cake with "Tastes like whipped cream frosting". It doesn't taste like true whipped cream, but it tastes like twinkie, or cream doughnut filling, and that's close enough! I made it with a little less sugar than I did last time, so it didn't taste quite so sickenly sweet. It was really good though.

And I'm working on a tree skirt. We've had both of these fabrics for a while and used them just draped artistically around the bottom of the tree. But keeping fabric draped artistically around a tree when you have two cats (three last year) is very difficult. I think they look on it as a very fun game: "Play tag around the tree, mess up the tree skirt! Oh look! Natalie fixes it!" So I thought I'd just make the fabric into a proper tree skirt. And no, I'm not mixing the two fabrics, don't worry! :) I'm going to make it reversible, with one color on one side, other one on the other side, and some sort of gold trim around the edge. They both have a little bit of gold in them so I think that will work. So, I need to get to work on sewing it, although... I don't have my trim yet...hmm. Well, we're setting up the tree this weekend, and it may or may not have a tree skirt by next week!

One thing about Thanksgiving...

...that I found very cheering on a dull, tired, gloomy Monday morning: making breakfast, moving a bunch of bananas out of the way, and finding that my banana had a sticker with "Bobby Banana" in a pilgrim hat:
It adds some humor to a Monday morning, something generally lacking. And it even cheered me up a bit now, typing this, even though it's very cold out, it was raining a few minutes ago, it started getting dark about four o'clock because it was cloudy, and I have a headache. I took some tylenol, the headache's going away, and my cousins are coming tomorrow, but I still have a bunch of cleaning to do, most of which has to be done tomorrow, and I still haven't gotten my science test done, nor will I until my head feels better.... oh well, doesn't Bobby Banana look cheerful? Which is more than I would be if I was a banana, and likely to be eaten or rot in 4-5 days if I wasn't...

Miscellaneous

I have a terrible time thinking of titles for my blog posts...but if you don't title them, they don't show up in the RSS feed. Bother!

Anyway, yesterday wasn't too bad, I didn't get any schoolwork done, but we did get a lot of other things done!
We went to the church about 11:15, and got started on arranging things. The men had arranged the tables when they were there Wednesday night, but we found out we needed two more tables, so I carried two more tables out, and rounded up some more chairs. My arms are a little bit sore today! Then we had to get them all in place, which wasn't easy, because we really had the minimum of space for all the tables, two rows of three tables, and then another row of two, and the two food tables. Luckily I'm used to arranging things in my bedroom and figuring out just how much space can be used for something, and that was helpful! Leaving enough room for people to walk and for chairs to be scooted out took a little measuring. We finally got the tables in place and tableclothes on them, then the Beasleys(the pastor's family) got there with the decorations, and the girls and I got them all arranged.

Then we got home, had a late lunch, got grocery lists ready, and left for the grocery stores.
Mom and I went to two grocery stores to get groceries for the dinner this Sunday, and also for Thanksgiving. Then we hurried home, got all the groceries unloaded as quickly as possible, then we were off to pick up Dad from work. I felt like I was going non-stop all day! Then after we picked Dad up from work we did various other errands and stuff. I got to drive a lot, but goodness people were driving badly! I don't know why, but it was crazy! And when we were going to pick Dad up, I saw so many people without their headlights on. And around here it gets dark right about 5, so at 5:15 it's certainly dark enough that you should have your headlights on. Well, we survived even with all the crazy driving!

I got a hashbrown casserole mixed up and in the fridge for tomorrow. I'm also making green bean casserole, and I would have mixed it up too, but Dad said there wasn't room in the fridge. So I'll mix it up tomorrow afternoon while the hashbrowns cook.

If I have time tomorrow, I'll caulk around my sink, because it will have time to cure while we're gone, but I don't know if I'll have time. Hopefully I will, because I don't know when else I will have that much time without it getting wet and I need to get it done before Wednesday, plus I have some touch-up painting to do after I caulk. I've already done my shower and toilet, but the sink's almost always wet! If I can't get this done before our company comes, I just won't. But I'd like to get it looking nicer, and I'm going to be busy Monday and Tuesday cleaning!

They've been busy too...

This is a tower that my dad and brother built, at least, Dad built it, and Colin handed him blocks! :)
It's built with Kapla blocks, that are made to balance well. Their website explains how they're made.

So far the tower is still standing, but if Colin keeps admiring it, (very closely) it'll be going down soon! :)

And this would be why Colin loves Saturdays: Daddy's home!

Busy day today!

Today's going to be pretty busy, but I thought I'd post a quick post before I'm too busy!

Our church Thanksgiving dinner is this Sunday night, so Mom and I are going to meet the pastor's wife over at the church and get the decorations set up. That's this morning, and since we'll have the car, we have a bunch of other errands to do as well! Probably not much schoolwork getting done today...bother. But I'll get to drive!

I got a lot of stuff done yesterday though! It was my night to cook supper, and I got started about lunch time. We had a whole cut-up chicken, and I didn't want to waste it, so first I browned the chicken and made chicken soup. The chicken cooked the rest of the way in the broth, and when it was done, I took it out, shredded it up (ow! hot!) and put half of it back in the soup, and the other half I saved for what I was really fixing for supper, chicken pot pie with biscuits on top! So we had pot pie with really flavourful chicken, and we have soup to eat for lunch today. And it will be nice to have something ready for lunch, because we'll be getting back from the church about lunchtime.
I also made brownies topped with mini chocolate chips, coconut, and caramel sauce...mmmmmmmmm....it was a new brownie recipe, and it was SO GOOD!!!! Yum!

In other news :) I can't figure out how I would set up a photo album for my finished craft projects, so what I think I'll do is set up another blog that shows a picture of each thing, and I'll link it in the sidebar of this blog. I'd like to have something where there was a picture of my latest project, said "Finished Projects" underneath, and would open an album when you clicked on it, but I can't figure that out, so I guess I'll go with what I've got!

Part 2: Stitching, knitting, and hiking

My knitting:
I haven't been doing a whole lot of knitting since the fair, but I was wanting to make this:
With that yarn <--.
But I don't have enough of that yarn, which is a shame because it's a really neat, coppery-colored, chenille yarn, and I think it would look nice in that vest. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to figure out something else to make with it.


I'm planning on making this, with the yarn I got a few months ago. I had started on another pattern using that yarn, but it was a sleeveless top, which I was going to wear as a vest, and it was made of dozens of tiny knitted squares. I got about 14 squares done and realized I couldn't stand to do a hundred-some more! So I'm going to make this other pattern instead.

I also want to do a pattern from the latest Interweave Knits magazine I got the other day. It's called "A Cardigan for Arwen"...I don't quite get the LOTR reference except that the hood is sort of pointy, elf-like? I really like the celtic-knot looking cabled border:
It calls for a hideously expensive merino/cashmere yarn, and 14 balls of it, so I think I'll be finding something just a bit cheaper. I'm not paying over a hundred dollars for a sweater, especially if I still have to knit it!
I got a good deal on 19 balls of yarn on eBay last night, it's Jaeger Siena and usually goes for about 6 dollars a ball, and with shipping I got it for about $2 a ball. I have a Jaeger pattern book already, and now I can make two sweaters from it.

Hmm...what else have I been up to? Let's see... I found a pair of reasonably comfortable dress shoes on sale last weekend. I say reasonably comfortable, because: 1. very few dress shoes are totally comfortable, 2. I have very picky feet, and 3. I don't like to pay a lot. Which all adds up to it being hard for me to find shoes, but I actually found some at Kohls, and I had giftcard from my birthday, so I was able to spend it, plus get two nice fall kitchen towels that they had on sale...yay! ....all for about 26 dollars. Successful shopping.

I also realized the other day that I'm ready for Christmas already. It's not even Thanksgiving (which I'm looking forward to also), and I'm all ready to start decorating for Christmas, and making Christmas food... Maybe I should do some Thanksgiving decorating...

I made a triple batch of pie crust last night, and put together an apple pie today to freeze for Thanksgiving. So now we have a pie ready to pop in the oven, and four pie dough rounds to make pumpkin pies from. Not that we'll have four pumpkin pies, but if I can find a mince pie recipe, I'll probably make one, and that will take two crusts. I don't like mince pie myself, but my grandpa does, and I thought he might like a homemade one, as opposed to a frozen one. And who knows, I might like a homemade one too! Now I just have to find a recipe, because I don't want a real mincemeat pie with meat in it. I think the frozen ones usually have apple, raisin, and maybe something else...I'm not really sure what all they have in them!

I had a chance to play my guitar some last week, and I actually played something that sounded roughly like it was supposed to! Yay for small achievements! ...then I had to sleep with a soft sock over my hand because my fingertips were killing me...you don't notice the pain until you stop playing and the blood starts really flowing through your fingers again...ow. I need to play some more before the calouses wear off again...since the almost blisters turned into light calluses... (calouses, or calluses? Neither looks right, and the spellcheck doesn't like either)

If I ever get my room cleaned up, I'll post pictures of the finished decor. Right now I'm in the middle of switching out winter clothes for summer ones, and I have boxes, clothes, schoolwork, and the ever-present miscellaneous craft stuff spread all over my room...oh well, I'll get to it someday...hopefully before we have company for Thanksgiving. I'm also thinking about starting a few more hobbies, so I have library books on various subjects in big piles on my floor as well!

Well that's all for now, and I'll try to update more often than I have been!
Here's a picture of the falls we hiked to. Lower Cascades at Hanging Rock State Park:Psalm 19:1- The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handywork.

Part 1: Stitching, knitting, and hiking...

...not all at the same time though!
I know I haven't posted for a while, sorry about that. I thought I'd have time last week since Dad had taken the week off and I had it off too, but when Dad's home we've got lots of projects, so I didn't have time after all. It was nice to have a week off though, we all went up to the mountains on Tuesday I think it was, to see the fall color and hike some. The trees were all very pretty...We hiked to a waterfall that was really pretty, the trail wasn't all that difficult until you got near the end, then it was all steps down to the falls. Probably about 50 steps (at least) probably more. Whew! I haven't jogged for a while and I could feel it going back up all those steps! But that was fun, and I got to drive on the way back, and that was even more fun! Seriously, those signs that show the little squiggly road, well when you're in the mountains, they sure aren't kidding! There were two ways to get back home from the state park, and we were going to go back the way we came, until we got behind a school bus.... which was then behind a tractor... I turned around... and then later got behind some people going about 30 in a 45 mph zone. And I don't like driving slow...

On Wednesday, Dad and Colin and I went and played miniature golf in the cold...this isn't exactly the best weather for golf! Dad won of course, but only by two, and Colin had about 30 more than either of us, despite his amazingly lucky hole-in-one! How a five year-old got a hole-in-one, I don't know! And his face was hilarious at the last hole where the ball just goes down a tube into an underground box. He was shocked, worried, frantic, and got down on his hands and knees to look down the hole...and still looked devastated when we tried to explain it to him! Ah...five year-olds...
Then Dad and I played a game of air-hockey (which is the best game ever) and nearly got deafened, because it was an all-metal table, so the puck went 'Pinging' off the sides of the table with deafening pitch. Almost enough to make me not want to play air-hockey... almost.

I've been working on my cross-stitching more since the fair, and I got a chance to get some done while watching ballgames, until my shoulder started hurting anyway. Speaking of ballgames, I guess you could tell that the Cardinals made it to the world series, and beat the Tigers in games: 1,3,4, and 5. And thus won the world series (I'm still not sure whether that should maybe be capitalized?). Anyway, back to the stitching, I've been working on Celtic Banner. The letters are supposed to be done in four different greeny-gray colors, but I decided to do them in an orange variegated instead. There's orange in the piece further down, so I thought it would balance it better anyway, plus not look so blah.

Well, I didn't get to my knitting, or various other things, but this is pretty long and I need to get to bed, so I'll finish this tomorrow.

Cardinals in 5...

...which is what I predicted!
The Cardinals are world series champions! 4-2, if that even matters! They haven't won the World Series since 1982, 24 years: Yay Cardinals!

And now we can get some sleep, no more staying up till midnight, or later...and we get an extra hour of sleep on Sunday!

Cards-3, Mets-1...on to the world series!

The Saint Louis Cardinals beat the New York Mets last night, 3-1, in game seven!

The game was tied 1 and 1 after the third inning, until the catcher Molina hit a two run home run in the ninth inning. Mets player Endy Chavez made an amazing catch right at the top of the wall, keeping the game 1-1 in the 6th inning, but then the bottom of the ninth, Cards pitcher Wainwright struck out Carlos Beltran with the bases loaded!
No game tonight (so we can actually go to bed at a decent time instead of midnight) but they're starting the world series tomorrow in Detroit.

I have to say this for the Mets, they have a pitcher with the most fascinating pitch. Chad Bradford pitches a baseball like he's bowling...not how you usually pitch: Bradford's delivery

The Mets fans, who normally look jaded, just looked dazed at 11:30-ish last night when the Cards won...they couldn't seem to believe it!

Well, that's all for now, I apologize for not writing anything lately. I'll try to post sometime this weekend, or early next week. I keep thinking of things to write about, so it might be a long post. :-)

Like I really have time...

Okay, I should be doing about six other things than blogging, but I haven't blogged since Friday, so I really need to. Besides I have to do something while I'm waiting for a batch of lemon bars to get done baking...and I couldn't concentrate on school with sugary smell in the air....it would do something to my brain. I'm serious, it would!
Okay, I'm not serious, but I don't feel like tackling Algebra right now. And it had been going so well! I got a new book and it was actually making sense, and I've been trying to figure out whether it was explained better (though surely this was how they explained it in all the other books...) or if my brain was coming back online after going all fuzzy and undependable from becoming a teenager? And it's about time too, I was getting tired of it after 3-4 years! On the plus side, in that time I actually started to sort of like English/Writing instead of totally hating it... I know I was talking to my cousin Lauren and she said she had felt the same way...I wonder if it's just girls, or if guys have that problem too? Real nice that your brain decides it's too busy just when you need it most...anyway, things are making sense finally, or at least I thought they were until I was working on my lesson today: graphing equations. Luckily, this place has some sort of site where you can do problems online and get explanations and stuff, so I'm hoping that will work.

On another note, the chocolate cake contest at the fair on Saturday was a bit of a disappointment. Neither Mom nor I won anything, and the things that did win looked more fancy than good, although I'm sure they did taste good. They had one of the chefs from a local restaurant and I think he always looks for things that look good, like restaurant food does. Special, I mean, not just a plain chocolate cake. What won was some sort of mocha layer cake, I can't remember what 2nd was, and third was a raspberry white chocolate cake I think. Here's the cakes Mom and I entered:
~Mom's cake








~and mine










Mom's was a mocha hazelnut torte, and mine was just chocolate with chocolate sour cream frosting. Oh well, most of the things there looked really good, but they obviously wanted something that was really special and unique!

One note: don't ever leave your belt on the floor with the (little, um, I don't know the technical term, but the post that goes into the holes on your belt) sticking up, because you just might step on it when you're trying to get up in the morning, and then you might be limping the rest of the day because it feels like you just punctured your foot, and the only way you can walk on it is to stuff a bunch of cotton balls in your shoe, and you still limp, and there's an indentation in the bottom of your foot, and it will probably be bruised tomorrow. NOT that I would have done that... And did I mention, it hurts?

I was trying to get a picture of the cat earlier, I was using her in my science experiment, which called for rubbing a balloon on your hair, and I didn't feel like messing up my hair, so I used the cat. Anyway, if you rub the balloon on her back, then hold it above her nose, her whiskers go straight up and I was cracking up...she got fed up and got away before I could get a good picture though. She should know by now not to be around when I'm doing science, and when I start the Biology book that I got the other day, she really better stay out of my way, or I'll get her to help. I was looking at the book, and it seems to be more the sort of stuff I've covered briefly before. I never did a whole lot of science before high school, but this is the sort of stuff I did...photosynthesis, carnivores, that sort of stuff.

Okay, I really should get to work, the lemon bars are out of the oven, I have no excuses, s o I'll leave you with a picture of my other cat, Petunia. She doesn't photograph very well, that's why I've never posted a picture of her, but I got a pretty cute picture of her sleeping on Dad's backpack this afternoon... she looked so devoted.

"Daddy's not home, but I'll wait here on his backpack till he gets home from work."~~

No way!

I so did not expect that...at all! First AND judge's choice! I think that was my best and biggest surprise of my prizes.

I got three judge's choice ribbons in all, that, my Lord's Prayer cross-stitch (which I didn't expect, I wouldn't have picked it!), and my lemon bars in the adult section.

The rest of the results:

1st:
Spice pound cake-youth
Biscuits-y
Rolls-y
Ribbon yarn scarf-y
Cross-stitch-y
Woven ribbon pillow-y
B&W photo-y
Lemon bars-adult

2nd:
Chocolate cookies-y
White bread-y
Strawberry jam-y (I also won the prize from Ball canning company, because it looked nice, and I used their jars)
Cape-y
Crocheted dishcloth-y
Beaver cross-stitch-a
Crocheted shrug-a
Rolls-a

3rd:
Muffins-y
Knitted sweater-y
Pillow sham-y
Knitted article-a
White bread-a
Muffins-a

So I'm pretty happy!

Mom did well on her things too, especially cross-stitch and layer cakes. She also got a first on a depression glass pitcher that she entered, my depression glass bowl didn't get anything!

Dad got first on his b&w photo, and third on his color photo...which was really cool, and he should have gotten higher...

Poor little Colin didn't get anything on either his drawing or lego construction. His lego really should have gotten something, the thing that won third wasn't anywhere near as good as his! But luckily he's not old enough yet to really care about whether he won anything or not, so he was just happy to see his things displayed at the fair!

Next year though, I need to work on more craft things throughout the year, you get more on those because they take more time, and very few people take the time to do anything like that anymore. Next year's my last year to compete in the youth section, where I'm competing with the half-dozen other teenagers in W-S that still do "un-cool" things like baking and crafts! :-) (Including one guy who keeps beating me in the baking...I mean, what does he think he's doing?) In the adult category I'll be competing with the older ladies who have tons of time on their hands! And I'm actually not feeling too faired-out this year, so it shouldn't be too hard to get back to working on stuff. Usually I'm sick of crafts and baking for six months or so, and busy the other five, and don't get anything much done early. I do need to work on school, I would like to finish sometime!

There's a special chocolate cake contest tomorrow that Mom and I are entering, so we'll be working on that tomorrow. The special contests are sponsored by various companies, and this one's sponsored by local attorneys, and the prizes are $300, $125, $75...so I'm not sure how many people might be entering! And we're might have trouble finding a place to park, Wake Forest University's homecoming game is tomorrow and the stadium's right across from the fairgrounds...so that might be a bit of a headache. And speaking of headaches, I'll have one tomorrow if I don't get to bed...and I've already got a nice sunburn on my face from being outside today...

I'm excited!

Although I don't know why, I didn't have high expectations of any of the stuff I entered in the fair this year! We're going to the fair in about...an hour.

Wednesday was busy, Dad took one load of things with him when he left for work and then dropped them off on his way home. Meanwhile Mom and I were baking frantically! Dad took Mom's cross-stitch and his photos, and he was supposed to take my craft stuff too, but I hadn't gotten it rounded up and sorted out properly, and I wasn't done with some of it, so that just had to wait until our second trip when Dad got back.

My plexiglass never got here, they were supposed to get it here by Wednesday, at the latest, but it hasn't gotten here yet! I bet they didn't ever even get it shipped. The order probably didn't make it back to shipping, or glass cutting, or whoever would be in charge of that. Dad got a piece of glass from work though, and we used that instead, and ended up putting the flawed plexi on the back of the piece, to fill in the frame. Our usual method is, plexi (with little plastic spacers around the edge, to hold the c-stitch off the surface), piece (wrapped around foamcore), and matboard on the back, held in by either turnbuttons (little metal tabs you screw to the frame) or offsets, depending on whether the piece is flush with, or over the frame. Well, even with the matboard it wasn't thick enough to be flush with the frame, so we stuck the plexi, then the matboard on the back. So it's extremely heavy, 9x30 anyway, with heavy glass, then an extra weight from the plexi...I hope they found a sturdy enough way to hang it at the fair!

Then yesterday I cleaned the house. We hadn't had time to do much cleaning, so it needed it! And I got my room clean, so it no longer looks like a craft store and Goodwill exploded in it! And it really did...now you can actually see the floor. Craft store, because I had all my knitting/crocheting/sewing stuff everywhere, and Goodwill, because I hadn't time, or hadn't taken the time to put my laundry away! Anyway, it's clean now, and it looks so nice!

Here's the two photos I entered in the fair. I don't expect them to get anything, even when Dad picks them out for me, I think the judges have different taste in photos than he does. And the guitar one wasn't a big enough exposure, so when it was printed at 8x10 it turned out a little bit fuzzy...hopefully they'll think it was supposed to be that way!
And on the guitar one, I realized after Dad had printed it for me, that I must not have actually been playing the guitar when I took the picture, because my fingernails are too long! And I know that every guitar player who sees that will notice... it was bugging me too! I can just hope that none of the photography judges play guitar...

Three days!

Three days to finish fair stuff...well, 2 1/2. We have to drop stuff off on Wednesday. Then the judging is on Thursday (while we sit at home wondering how our things did) and we're going to the fair on Friday, which is the first day.

It feels weird to be blogging in the morning, I don't think I have before... we're getting going kind of slow today. But that's okay, because I'm going to be busy the rest of the day probably! I need to put the tags on my finished things, and on the cardboard and plates for the baked goods. I need to sew a zipper into my sweater, and if the plexiglass for my cross-stitch gets here, I need to put it together. I got the beaver framed Saturday night. Dad found a frame for it at the dollar store, and it was a real dollar store, so the frame was only a dollar!!!! There is something to be said for stitching things that fit in standard-size frames! I haven't taken a picture of it yet, or I would post it. If get a chance between now and Wednesday, I'll take a picture and post it.

I went to a birthday sleepover at my friend Laura's house on Friday night. It was really fun...there were thirteen girls, but three of them didn't spend the night. We stayed up until probably one or two playing games and giggling. Her two brothers who were there played too, but they weren't giggling! :-) Then all the girls went downstairs and made even more noise and we didn't get to sleep until six in the morning! We slept till ten, so I only got four hours of sleep... needless to say, I took a nap! Five hours of sleep is about the least I can by on, any less than that, and I crash at some point. One year at camp, I only got three hours of sleep the last night, and I was walking around the rest of the day, struggling to keep my eyes open! I'm an extremely sleep-dependent person! Anyway, the sleepover was awesome and I really had fun!

Last night after church, we were looking through...okay, this isn't going to make sense unless I give some explanation! The church building we meet at in the evening is a church that has very few members, mostly older people, and they don't have a service in the evening, so they let us use it (we don't have our own building yet). Anyway, they had been planning on having a yard sale and they never got around to it, so there is a bunch of stuff spread all over the rooms in the back. They finally decided that they would just send it all to Goodwill, and that we could look through and see if there was anything we wanted. There, I hope that made sense! (and that's really only for the few people who read this that don't go to our church!) Anyway, I found a skirt that turned out to be about 5 inches too big, but I should be able to do something with it, and a really cool green scarf (light, silky kind, not winter...and actually it's nylon) that's exactly my green color! The only problem being that I don't have any clothes that color! It looks like it needs to go with some sort of retro, white, tennis dress! It's cute anyway! :-)

I got my last freezable baked thing done yesterday. Everything else will have to be made either Tuesday or Wednesday...mostly Wednesday! And this isn't done, but it's all ready to go, and I'll bake it Wednesday morning, along with all the other things! And now I really need to get going, because I have other work as well as all this fair stuff!

Oh, one note, for some reason the spellchecker is catching plexiglass, and saying it's supposed to be plexiglas....one 's'... I suppose maybe it is, I don't think I've ever seen it spelled before, and that the sort of thing they would do, since it's not really glass (with two s's)!

It's done!

I got the beaver done! Not last night... he took more time than I thought, but I finished him this afternoon. Here's how he looked last night:





And here's how he looks now:

Last night when I was filling in the brown on the body, he looked like a guinea pig, then a woodchuck, but I guess stitching the tail fixed that. I love how the fur on his back is sticking out, like he's having a bad hair day, or he's some sort of punk beaver with spiky hair!

Dad is stopping by a local framing shop on the way home, and he's going to pick out a frame for this. So I have another thing to enter in the fair! If Dad can find a frame, they can have it ready to be picked up by Monday, and if I get the piece all ready to go over the weekend (yeah, right) I can just put it all together Monday night or Tuesday...hopefully Monday. We have to drop stuff off at the fair on Wednesday, so I'm going to be busy Tuesday on as many things as I can get done ahead of time.

I'm going to be so busy too, I'm going to a sleepover tonight, and it lasts till noon tomorrow, so there goes half my Saturday...the other half will be usual Saturday work (plus sleeping, because we won't really do that much sleeping at the sleepover). And I need to remember to bring Apples to Apples... and don't mind me, I'm think I'm talking to myself now... And I still need to throw some stuff in a bag for tonight, and get my list of chores done! Adios!...till...Sunday maybe...

Am I crazy?!!

Probably! :-) I finished my knitting project today, it just needs to be washed...and I decided to start another cross-stitch piece! I was thinking about crocheting a baby afghan, because I signed up for that as well, but it's only crochet, I don't have enough yarn to crochet, and I can't crochet a blanket with no holes. I can knit a blanket without holes, and with the amount of yarn I have. It can't have holes in it, because I was going to give it to a charity for newborns, and they say no afghans with holes so that the babies don't get their fingers stuck... so, so much for the crocheting. I'll knit an afghan when I'm done with the fair. So I started a cross-stitch beaver instead...this one:

I just started him this afternoon, and if I hurry up and get done here, I might be able to finish him tonight.


When I posted yesterday, the dividing lines I put in messed up my page. I went back and fixed them, but when I type, it shows more space in the window than I actually have. I've had that happen with pictures before, putting them side by side, then when I post, finding them stacked instead. But for some reason the lines didn't wrap properly, so they just stuck out into the sidebar and looked uneven! And that's technical terms, you know? :-)

Speaking of technical terms, I looked up what RSS stands for... I knew I'd seen it somewhere, but I couldn't remember what it was, or where I saw it. Fortunately, Wikipedia has everything:
RSS . It can stand for several things, but I like "Real Simple Syndication" best, it's ...simple.

It's starting to get too cold for me. It's not even officially fall yet, and the temperature is only in the 50's (about) at the lowest (like at night), but I'm freezing! Of course, I wore jeans, not shorts most of the summer, and froze last winter (which was mild), so I'm not sure what I expected. I've decided I better stock up on thermal and turtleneck shirts... it's going to be a long winter... :-)

And now I need to get back to stitching!!!

Random Wednesday

I've got nine of my fair things done, and 4-5 more to do...that's just the sewing stuff. I still have several baked goods to do, but only two more that I can do ahead of time. Dad made me make a schedule for when I'm going to get everything done....I'm not fond of wasting time on making a schedule, but I think it will be helpful.
I'm baking cookies right now...some will go in the freezer for the fair, some I will take to church tonight, and the rest we will eat...actually, with all the sugar around here, I'll freeze all but the ones I'm taking tonight!
Last year after the fair, we had all been eating so much sugar, from all the testing and baking of sweets, that we were all tired, and I got a cold and cough that lasted forever... I did some research on it, and found that if your immune system wasn't very good, you would end up with your cough lasting forever, and that you should be taking vitamins and eating well. Well duh! No wonder I was coughing and couldn't shake the cold... probably about half my diet had been sugar the past month! So I'm not doing that again...all extras are going in the freezer, to be eaten at decent intervals!
________________________________________________
I was planning on framing my cross-stitch piece today... I finished it and washed, ironed, and stretched it on Monday, and the frame came on Tuesday, but when I was getting the plexi-glass ready to go in the frame, I found that it had marks and smudges on the inside of it! Lovely! It's not the frame shop's fault, they just cut it, and it's wrapped in paper so they wouldn't be able to see it anyway....but it should have been made better by the manufacturer. It was a different brand than what we usually get. Mom ordered frames and glass too, and hers was the other kind and they were all fine. Dad called the frame company, and they said they'd get another piece shipped out...hopefully it will be okay!
________________________________________________
I've almost got my knitting finished, and now I'm trying to decide if I should start a crochet project now. I had one going, but I decided I couldn't get it done, and I didn't think it would do very well at the fair. So I'm not sure if I should start another project that I might be able to get done in time, or if I should just forget about it for right now and work on the things I've got going...
________________________________________________
Our pastor posted this on his blog: The Armoury. The video is really weird...and somewhat scary... I did find the one girl's statement rather interesting "It's like they're training us to be warriors, but in a funner way"...nice... that's real nice that they get the idea...and it's fun! That group obviously has lots of underlying problems, one of them being the woman pastor, but the Jesus camp thing is just weird... especially the worshiping the cardboard cut-out of George Bush...
________________________________________________
A conversation yesterday between my mom and little brother Colin:
Colin comes out pushing stuffed animals (rabbits, I think) in the back of a dump truck:

C. "These bunnies are looking for a church to go to."

M. "Why don't you tell them to go to Pilgrim Bible Church?" (our church)

C. "Well, they just can't go to that church."

M. "Why not?"

C. "Well, they just can't go to that kind of church... they're Baptist bunnies!"

Yes, conversations with Colin can be interesting!

Like just now... I just looked up to see that I hadn't set a timer on the tray of cookies in the oven. "Oh," I said, "well, I don't know when those will be done, I didn't set the timer!"
Colin: (sarcastically) "Oh that's okay, I like burnt cookies."

I really don't know where he comes up with these things!

Well, that's pretty close...

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

...except that I don't drink coffee all the time...otherwise it's pretty accurate! I never even had an espresso though... I like frappacinos! And the picture for the frappacino is a Starbucks cup... *sniffle* I want Starbucks! :-)

Fair related, right?

This came up last week when my science module involved centripetal force...now, when I first read it, I thought I had just been mishearing people and thinking they were saying "centrifugal". Then as I read further, the author proceeded to say that centrifugal force doesn't exist, and all that you're feeling is Newton's First Law of Motion in action... ok, I thought, so I have been hearing centrifugal force, but like the book said, people are getting it mixed up.
So, when my mom graded my science study guide, she was surprised to read that. Apparently, when she was in school they taught all about centrifugal force, so I guess this idea is somewhat new. Then she asked what I was wondering about as well, "how do the rides at the fair work, the ones that supposedly work with centrifugal force?" Since I was having trouble understanding my science book anyway, I decided to do some online research, and see if I could find something that made more sense. I found quite a few things, and apparently it's quite a debated subject! I found several boards with people arguing that "how can you tell someone that centrifugal force doesn't exist, when they can feel themselves being flattened against the wall?" I'm still not altogether sure what exactly is true, but I found one website here that finally made some sense (if they're right). According to them, centrifugal force is the absence of centripetal force, and the object or person being forced against the wall is feeling 'centrifugal' force, but what's pushing them into the wall is 'centripetal' force. Now, if they're right, that makes sense to me. Here's their explanation of centripetal force.
And here's an article that explains how all this works in relation to the amusement park/fair ride, this is a report on a ride that malfunctioned, but it doesn't sound like even then there were too many injuries, and it's dated '95, and in eleven years I'm sure safety inspections have improved.
In the end, I'm not sure if it's just that they renamed the force, because to be exactly accurate centripetal means "center-seeking", while centrifugal means "center fleeing". It may be the exact same thing that my mom learned about in school, but since then they've discovered they were calling it the wrong thing? So I'm still not really sure what's true! That's one thing I'm finding in my science book, I find Physics (and this is only simple Physics) very hard to understand, but fascinating! If anyone know what really is true about centripetal v. centrifugal, please let me know!

And now, for something completely different: I just opened a new tube of toothpaste, and it's slippery toothpaste. And I really don't like slippery toothpaste, the toothpaste with baking soda in it is best, because it had a bit of grit to it(without feeling like sand), plus it tastes more minty. Whereas, you might as well be brushing your teeth with pudding, the way smooth toothpaste feels! Ok, just my personal dislike! :-)

That was cool

Well, my birthday was cool! I got some neat presents, gift cards and checks too. That's nice, because then I can buy something I specifically want or need.

Unfortunately the cake didn't turn out real well. Mom was disappointed because it was a very complicated recipe, and it definitely wasn't worth all the work. It involved mixing four different mixtures of ingredients, and the frosting was supposed to be a certain temperature, then whipped. Mom figured out thermometer must be off and it wasn't the right temperature, because the frosting kind of went wrong. I don't know if you can tell in the picture or not, but it was sort of deflating while she spread it...well, we won't use that recipe again! It didn't taste too bad, except that the icing had an odd texture and flavor. I think it was supposed to have a bit of a caramel flavor with chocolate...which maybe it did, but we didn't much care for that flavor!





I started school today, and it went pretty well. This month at least (because of working on fair stuff), I'm just doing math, science, and history. I'm doing consumer math, and an algebra book, and I only got two problems wrong in each of those today, so that's nice. And I got a bunch of science done as well. So that's not too bad for the first day, and it should go even better tomorrow. For one thing, this morning my sinuses seemed to have decided to empty, and I was blowing my nose non-stop. Mom asked me how I got my schoolwork done, and I told her that my nose had stopped long enough for me to do my math, and that I could read my science and blow my nose at the same time!

It's my birthday!

I'm excited! My mom's in the middle of baking the cake...she has the cake baked, but she hasn't made the icing yet. It looks and smells really good! Chocolate, of course. :-)

My grandparents are coming over this evening, and we're going to order pizza, and then I get to open presents.

It's really cloudy here today, which isn't real nice for my birthday, but oh well. We're not doing anything outside anyway.

And my nose is still running *sniffle, sniff*, but my birthday's going to be cool anyway!

It's Friday!

Hurray, hurrah! This week seemed like it went by pretty fast, but I'm glad it's Friday. Tomorrow's the beginning of a three-day weekend, and my birthday's on Monday. The only thing that could be better is that my nose could be not running. I feel like I'm blowing my nose every ten seconds, and it hurts! I don't like being sick... :(
I tried to take a nap this afternoon, but I didn't get to sleep until I came out and slept on the couch. And even then I didn't sleep for more than maybe ten minutes. I'm not feeling too tired right now though, which is good because I'm baby-sitting Colin tonight. In fact, right now there's a frozen pizza in the oven, and Colin's getting dressed after his bath, so it's about time to eat. It's a "Grilled Chicken Caesar" pizza, and it smells so good! I mean really good! I didn't think I was hungry, but my stomach's growling...well the timer's about to go off, and I need to get out some napkins and stuff. I'll try to post something this weekend, and I'll definitely post on my birthday.

Ugh...

...and also, ooh, ow... I'm sick and my head hurts...*sniff* My throat started hurting Tuesday, but it was mostly scratchy, so I thought it was just allergies. It didn't get any worse, and it was still scratchy Wednesday morning, but by lunchtime I was feeling pretty bad. I definitely have a cold! My throat's not too bad today, but my nose is dripping, and I'm coughing some. I always get a terrible cough when I get a cold...it's so annoying. Also, my tongue's burnt from hot soup and tea yesterday, so that's not real pleasant. I just got up from about a two hour nap, but at some point during that nap my cold and sinus medicine wore off, so I have a painful sinus headache...and I can't hardly move my head without it hurting... ow... I think I'll go take some more medicine... *groan*

One week!!! Hurray!

My birthday is in one week!!!
Next Monday, the 4th... I'm excited. It's almost more exciting when you're older and it just creeps up on you, and you suddenly realize that your birthday is a few weeks, or whatever, away.
Yay! Okay, I'm excited now... I wonder at what point you don't get excited anymore?
Oh well, I'll be excited for now anyway! And I haven't a clue what to do for my birthday...nothing, probably!


Edited to add:
Oh yeah, and that post sounds so mature doesn't it? Okay, I'm not 7 or something, (really!) but I'm excited. :-) *big grin*

Why?

That's my only question, why? I was working on the pillow I'm making with ribbon and I had it all arranged and I was pinning it as I went. This is what it looked like before:














And this is what it looked like after:
















After what I didn't know... I walked into my bedroom after lunch and found it like that! I wasn't too happy about it for sure, it didn't ruin anything, but it shouldn't have been messed with. I didn't think Colin had been in my room, but he must have, because how else could all, ALL, the pins have gotten pulled out? I asked him firmly whether he had touched it, to which he said "no", in a tone that sounded like he didn't have any idea what had happened. Which he didn't, I knew, as I thought of the one other ridiculous option- the cat. And it wasn't so ridiculous... She was asleep on my bed, so I picked her up, stuck a few pins back in the piece, and set her on the desk, tapping the pins to get her attention. At which point she proceeded to grasp all three pins in her teeth, pull them out, then shake/spit them out of her mouth back onto the table. *groan*
It was crazy... I never would have thought of her doing something like that. I was so surprised she was that smart, that I didn't even get mad at her. I still can hardly believe it, but I saw her doing it, so she definitely can!
And here she is: looking so innocent!

She's been really bored lately, so I don't know if that's why she did it, or if she was mad at me about something, or what. After that, she was running all over the house, and jumping out at me and chasing me when I came near. She's a little brat!

I'm definitely not leaving pins out though, now that I know she will get at them. She wasn't eating them,but I don't want her to eat one accidentally...oh well... it was interesting anyway!

Yarn!!!

I got some really cool yarn last week! It's a burgundy, ribbon yarn, and I have a pattern I'm going to make with it. The pattern (I wish I could find a picture of it, but I can't) is a sort of sleeveless hoodie made with ribbon yarn and some fuzzy yarn as well. But not tacky, fuzzy yarn! Just a bit ( I think) not really hairy!
I've got too many projects going for the fair right now, but I'll probably start on this after I get the other stuff done. I'd like to be able to wear it this winter, probably over a black turtleneck or something. The yarn's sparkly... neat...shiny... Okay, get back to the cross-stitch piece that needs to be finished and framed before the fair! I tried to take a picture of it, but it's mostly pastel colors and doesn't photograph real well. This is the "Lord's Prayer" piece that I'm talking about. I'm also working on a knitting project and a crochet project, but they're going to be gifts, so I can't say anything about them on here! Suffice to say that I'm trying to get them done before the fair, and they're both about 1/4 done! And I only have a month...exactly a month, and I'm starting school on the 5th of September.
I'm also working on a pillow for the fair, I was trying to weave some ribbon together to make the front of the pillow, but I'm having trouble getting it straight, ugh! I took it apart, and I guess I'll just have to try again!

Crazy video!

This is great... I don't know how they coordinated all of it!

It smells so good!

Our house that is. Mom is baking rolls for lunch tomorrow, and it smells so good!

It smelled like cake yesterday...I made a cake to take to prayer meeting. It was a new recipe, so I was a little nervous about taking it somewhere when I hadn't even tasted it, but it turned out very good! It was called "White Spice Pound Cake". The recipe said it was extremely moist and rich, but I don't know that I'd say it was that moist.
The recipe only called for cloves and cinnamon, so I added some nutmeg, ginger, and allspice... I think it would have been pretty bland if I hadn't. Several people said it was good, although one of my friends said it "wasn't what they expected"...whatever that meant?
I'll definitely be making it again, and I think I'll enter it in the fair.

Picture intensive

Okay, I've finally got time to post! And a lot of it's going to be pictures.

Hmm...where to start? Well, the cake-decorating class was a lot better this week than it was last. And we learned how to make roses... well, we tried anyway. The rose I did is the white one... Here's my cake from this week, and my cake from last week.Last week, my friend Zoe and I were getting fed up with the class, so the cake's sort of sarcastic, and refers to the class! :-) And here's Zoe's cake from this week, I don't have a picture of last week's:

So that was nice, and the people who taught the class, said that they would send us each a little cake decorating kit, with all the icing tips, and various accessories, so that's cool.

My room's getting done slowly... here's my bed with the pillow shams on it:
And here's my dresser with the pulls, I think it looks a lot nicer, and more finished:
I still haven't gotten around to getting the pencil marks off the side though!
I'm planning on making some smaller decorative pillows for the bed as well, but I'm not sure when exactly I'll get around to that.

I've been working on my "Lord's Prayer" cross-stitch piece, and just last night, I finished all of the words. I still have a bunch of flowers and other stuff to stitch, but getting the letters done was encouraging. I've been working on that thing for 2+ years, I really need to get it done!

I worked on it last night while we watched a movie about Martin Luther... it was a pretty good movie...well done, anyway. But I don't think they covered the history, or really emphasized what they should have, very well, but it was pretty good anyway. Except that the actor who played Martin Luther looked like he was about 19 or something! Okay, yeah, I understand it might be hard to sell a movie when the star's middle-aged and getting older, but really! Find some middle ground!

One of the actors in the movie, Jonathan Firth, is the brother of Colin Firth, who plays Mr. Darcy in A&E's version of "Pride and Prejudice", and they could have been twins... they're so much alike. It also makes you wonder if they can play anything other than guys that stomp around looking mad, because that's what JF's character did in "Luther" ! And that's how Mr. Darcy acts in the movie... it's kind of weird...they're good actors though, and in this movie the stomping and anger fitted the character!

I tried to start a knitting project the other day, but the yarn isn't working for the pattern, so I'm going to have to find another pattern, which is a bit annoying. Especially since I really liked the pattern! Ugh...

And finally, the present my friend Zoe got for me while she was at the beach the week before last:

It's so cheesy that it's cool, and I like it.... as long as it's not a statement about my driving and parking skills...

So sorry

I don't have time for a full post right now, I have a bazillion things to do, and it's 5:00 already!
I will try to post tomorrow, or at least sometime next week, with more details.

For right now, I've finished one pillow sham today, need to finish the other. I have a ton of chores to do, and I really could take a nap, even this late in the afternoon!

I went to a cake decorating class on Thursday, I will post a picture of my cake when I get a chance (next post, I promise!)

Oh pictures, I also need to fix the problem with the pictures in the last post. If you click on them, you get a huge picture. That's from using up my space on Blogger and having to load the pictures to another website... I will fix it when I have time.

I've got sewing to do!!

Birthdays and cakes...

...well, one cake. One, nicely decorated, birthday cake:
Monday was my little brother's 5th birthday, and I baked and decorated his cake. This was my first time using a pastry bag, and I must say it turned out better than I thought it might. The only thing I had trouble with was the writing... I can't write with icing! At least not cursive writing, which is what I was doing. It's supposed to say "Happy Birthday Colin!!!", but I was having trouble making o's, so it kind of looks like "Calin"...oh well, it's not like we didn't know what it was supposed to say, and he can't read anyway!

Dad's off work this week, so we're sort of on vacation. We're not going anywhere, but we are relaxing! It's too hot to go anywhere anyway. I think we're going to go play miniature golf some night this week, and hopefully it will be cooler at night! It's been in the 90's and humid, ugh... it hasn't really been bothering me a whole lot, I was freezing all through our mild winter, so it feels kind of good... but there are days that it's just too hot! Today would be one of those. I went outside to water the garden and just about melted. I think some of it depends on whether I want to be hot or not...and this time I didn't. I wasn't planning on changing my clothes, and I didn't want to get them wet, so I wasn't too happy to be hot!

Let's see, I've finished school until September. So I get about a month off, and I need to be working on stuff for the fair. The fair's in October, so I have about two months. I'll be starting school after my birthday, which is September 4th.

This is what happens when you have an aluminum pie pan left over from a science experiment, a cat nearby, and too much time on your hands:


I had a pie pan that had a quarter of it cut away, and I was just messing with it, and twisted it into a sort of pointy hat...and then the cat was right there... Of course, she wasn't very happy or cooperative:




I haven't got a whole lot more done on my room, but I got some drawer pulls installed on the dresser. It looks really nice, and I'll post pictures when I've taken some.

Blogger's picture thing doesn't seem to be working right, I can't get any pics to load. I'll try later, and until then it's going to have to be pictureless, bother!

I guess it's true...

...we bloggers are bit demanding perhaps... :-)

Random pictures & comments

I don't have much time for a long post today, or really a whole lot to say, so just some pictures and stuff.

First: I finished my memo board on Sunday. And I got it, and some other stuff hung up today. Close-up and further away:















This is how I found the cat yesterday. She's not supposed to get on the counter, but that doesn't mean she doesn't get up there. She claimed she was chasing a bug...









And after she saw me with the camera:


"I just try to save you from giant, human-eating bugs, and do you thank me? No!"


And the flip-flops I got on... Wednesday I think... and my nicely painted toenails! They're not quite that bright in real life...my nails that is...my extremely un-tanned legs are that bright! :-) That pic's for you, Zoe :-) ... and no, you can't have my flip-flops!





Well, I've got a sleep-over to go to, so I'll probably be really tired tomorrow, and probably won't post anything. Then I've got another sleep-over on Thursday...

By the way, when I get done with my room I will take pictures of all of it to show you.

Faith, thanks for commenting, and thanks for your suggetion! I found some velvety, black fabric, so that's taken care of. I haven't gotten it yet, but it should be here soon. I did look at Kohls.com, and didn't find anything, but I know they have almost completely different stuff in the store! However, the only store in Winston is on the other end of town from us, so we don't get out there very often except on Sundays, but there's not much time then!

Well, I better go!