I have no title...

Oh I'm tired! I just got up from a short nap, but I still don't feel up to staying up till midnight! I think I need to have some caffeine.

Okay, we're in Springfield now, we got in yesterday afternoon around 3:30 and went out to eat with my grandma and other relatives. We stayed in the Drury Inn last night, but after eating the dismal breakfast this morning (plus the place is rather old and depressing) we checked online and found that the Hilton Garden Inn just down the street had the exact same rates, and for the holidays they have a deal where you can get free breakfast for up to four people in their restaurant sort of thing! And the only reason we picked the Drury over the other, was that we didn't think the Hilton Garden had breakfast.

So we ended up moving over here, and it is so much nicer. It's bright and cheerful in here, the place is much newer, and smells a lot cleaner.

Let's see, where have we been...well, across a lot of states in between North Carolina and Illinois! We stayed in a hotel in Louisville, Kentucky Saturday night. I slept really well that night, because that hotel had two separate rooms, so Mom and Dad got one bed in the bedroom and Colin got the other, and I slept out on the fold-out couch in the living room. Last night at the Drury Inn wasn't so great, Colin and I shared a bed a very springy bed too...every time he moved, the whole bed bounced and disturbed me. I think the beds we have here are fairly firm, so it shouldn't be too bad. It can't be any worse than Friday morning at home where the only way I got to sleep was to close his door, and mine, and pull the blankets up over my ears to block the coughing sounds. I slept then, but I had some really weird dreams, so I'm not sure how well I really slept.

Colin is doing better as long as he doesn't run or breathe in any of the cold air going between buildings. We figured out that if he holds his coat over his mouth as he walks in, in makes a lot of difference. He probably needs a scarf really, but he'd probably feel claustrophobic or get tangled up in it! :)

We're going over to my grandma's tonight, and then tomorrow we're going to get together with my mom's side of the family in the afternoon, so I'll get to see my second cousins! Yay! And they are second cousins, I've been calling them my second cousins, but I wasn't sure if that was right or not...but of course Wikipedia has the answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin#Chart

Well, I'd better go get a shower before we head over to Grandma's, I'm certainly not going to want to shower later. I'll have to blog more tomorrow.

The wind is whistling outside the hotel...it's snowing too...or it was earlier! Snow!!

Leaving tomorrow

Okay, we're definitely leaving tomorrow sometime. Colin's doing a lot better tonight, I think he had some allergy medicine, and that seems to have stopped the coughing some.

So...in other news, I got this for Christmas:
The Complete Jeeves and Wooster!!!

I've read a lot of P. G. Wodehouse books, so we'll see if these DVDs are as good as the books. It seems like this might be the one thing where it doesn't matter if they're different! I've seen bits of these on YouTube, and they seemed pretty good. Hugh Laurie (House M.D.) plays Bertie Wooster...should be interesting.

I'm taking two of these on our trip, so if we have time we can watch them...although we'll have cable TV, so there might be enough to watch anyway.

I'll try to blog while we're gone. We are taking a laptop with us after all, so I can at least check my email and post comments that people leave! *hint, hint* :D If I have time, I'll blog...not that we'll be doing anything exciting.

I feel too ready to go...I don't have much in the way of last-minute packing to do. I just need to throw a few things in: hairbrush, toothpaste, stuff like that! Ah well, I'm sure there'll be something to do at the last minute.

We'll probably be back on the 2nd or 3rd, I'm not sure yet! Actually, I'm not sure what time we're leaving tomorrow...I'd better find out!

Still here!

We're not going to leave till tomorrow. Colin is doing a bit better this morning, but he's still coughing quite a bit. So I think we're going to leave tomorrow and take the trip in two days, stopping Louisville, KY Saturday night. I was hoping we'd be in Springfield on Sunday to go to church...hopefully I'll have time to see my cousins some other time during the week!

I'm not sure now how long we'll be gone...maybe we'll be coming home on Thursday instead.

If I have time I'll get another post written today, right now I think Mom and I are going to go to the grocery store.

I guess I'll be ready to go whenever, I've already got all my stuff packed, except for a book and my iPod!* I worked very hard at packing light, since I didn't do that so well when I went to Oregon. It helps that I know what it going to be like in Illinois: cold! And we won't be doing much other than sitting around Grandma's house probably.

*The spell-check doesn't like that...it thinks it should say Izod. Yeah, I need to pack a book and a polo shirt...whatever...

Even I'm awake

Well, since I'm up, I might as well post something! It's 4:30 AM!

Colin is coughing, and coughing, and coughing. He's got a little bit of a cold, and all that's left at this point is a cough. And none of the stuff we've given him is working! Right now he's sitting on the couch watching a Kipper DVD, my idea being that maybe if he stops focusing on the cough he can stop for a while and it might get better. Maybe. Dad's working on making him some honey-lemon tea...and we'll see if that helps any. I think we'll have to get him a prescription for some cough syrup in the morning.

I don't know if we're still going to try to leave today or not. We'd already decided to skip going to St. Louis and walking around the zoo in the cold air. We decided to take two days to get to Illinois instead...I don't know what we're doing now!

Oh boy...well, we'll see how things go.

You say you want a revolution

I got my hair cut this morning...and it's cut right!!! I decided to try out this place that's just down the road from us. "The Salon"...descriptive name, right? Anyway, it's a nice place, and the lady cut my hair properly. I'll definitely be going back there! My hair's back to the way it was after I got it cut in Oregon, instead of the overly-texturized effect I got last time!

I got a new hairdryer for Christmas too! This one. I must say I was rather sceptical about the ionic drying thing, it's supposed to make your hair smooth and shiny. It actually seems to do that though. Perhaps if I understood the science behind it I wouldn't be surprised that something so crazy-sounding actually worked... Anyway, ions aside, it couldn't have helped but be better than what I have been using, my mom's old hair-dryer which is older than me. A hair dryer which has managed to accumulate so much dust (plus just being old) that it couldn't be run on heat for very long at all before it would shut off...ah, much better! And it dries faster.

So I got my hair done, and when I got home we started getting the tree taken down. I took most of the ornaments off the tree, then Dad and Colin finished it while I ate a sandwich and then headed over to my friend's house.

With all my knitting before Christmas, I was getting very stressed, and my friend Zoe was one of the people who I was knitting fingerless gloves for. Well, I finished all the other pairs and just couldn't face making another pair before Sunday. I decided she would much rather get them after Christmas from a sane friend, than right on time, and mailed from a mental institution! Makes sense, right? :) Well, I ended up starting the gloves Sunday afternoon while we waited at the emergency vet. And I got quite a bit done then! :( That's how long we were there! So I managed to finish them yesterday evening. If I'd known how fast they were going to go, I might have tried to get them done the week before! It was a bulky yarn and they were shorter than most of my other ones, so I think that's why they went so fast. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them, or of the ones I gave my cousins...I only got one picture: of the pair I made for my friend Melody:
Amazingly that picture which I took with my camera timer set and the camera held under my chin, didn't turn out fuzzy! The other pairs I made had thumbs on them like the ones I made for myself.

So I got Zoe's gloves done and took them over to her. Then I came back home and worked on my packing list, then Mom and I went to Walgreen's. I don't like Walgreen's. I much prefer CVS or someplace else to Walgreen's. Nothing was arranged well, most things weren't clearly marked, the one thing I was looking for because I had a coupon was more expensive than anyplace else, and the employees were rather incompetent. We were walking through the store when we heard this tremendous crash in the other aisle where one of the employees had dropped something. "I knew that was gong to happen!" she says. "We need to clean up aisle three!" I never made it over there to see what she'd dropped, but she didn't even seem to care! And the guy at the cash register managed to get everything rung up right, but he sure wasn't cheerful about it.

So...we got that over with, and on the way home I almost (not really) ran over my friend (the one that was asking all the questions at the Christmas dinner) who was standing beside the road with his skateboard. I honked and waved at him...he didn't seem particularly pleased.

We got home to find Dad BEING EFFICIENT and GETTING STUFF DONE. You'd think we were leaving tomorrow!

I did mention that we were leaving, didn't I? Maybe I didn't... We're leaving Friday to go to Saint Louis, MO. We'll be there through Saturday, and then Saturday night we'll head up to Springfield, IL to see relatives. And we'll be there until we leave on the 2nd. I probably won't be blogging in that time, because we're not planning on bringing a computer with us, and my grandma has a computer but with a dial-up connection so it would be very, very slow!

So that's what I did today. And the title has nothing to do with the post, I just seem to be following my cousin Rebecca's lead, and using quotes for titles...and I've had that song in my head since I heard on the radio earlier today. Well, I could be referring to getting a revolutionary new hairdryer. Or almost running over innocent skateboarders...I imagine that could start a revolution!

Oh, I've got some stuff that I think I'll have to post about tomorrow...I really need to take a Tylenol and get to bed; my head's hurting. Goodnight!...and good luck... oh, I'm tired.

Hypochondricat

After taking Petunia to the emergency vet yesterday, because of course cats have to get sick on a holiday weekend, we find out there is nothing wrong with her!

Friday night I was petting her and she didn't want me to pet her back. Then when I felt around on her back and finally down at the base of her spine, she hissed and growled at me, something she never does. So by Saturday night, she was still sore and her tail looked swollen, so we decided she must have an abscess. Gracie bites her a lot when they are play/fighting, so we figured she must have gotten bitten, and then it got infected. Well, that's pretty serious, so we wanted to get it taken care of before Wednesday, especially since we'd be leaving Friday.

So we stuffed her into the cage, took her to the vet (meowing all the way) and waited for ever at the vet's office. And guess what? They couldn't find anything wrong with her! No abscess, nothing broken, nothing swollen, and no fever. They said she might have gotten bruised trying to jump onto something and sliding off...so they gave us some pain medicine to give to her.
*sigh* She probably is bruised because she has arthritis, but she insists on jumping up on things and she can't always get herself pulled and so she slides back down. And I would think that if I had a tail and landed on it funny, it would probably be sore! But how that cat managed to make it look like it was all swollen around her tail and spine, I have no idea!

And she acted perfectly fine Sunday evening when we got home! Perfectly fine with a little pain medicine, that we could have given to her and not had to pay for the expensive emergency vet! Bother that cat...
She doesn't look very sorry does she? Little hypochondriac.
The vet's office was mainly full of dogs, the mayor was even in there with a little mop-like dog! There was only one other cat, a little kitten with a rash...a rash? I didn't realize cats could get rashes!

But of course...

You Are Apple Pie

You're the perfect combo of comforting and traditional. You prefer things the way you've always known them. You'll admit that you're old fashioned, and you don't see anything wrong with that. Your tastes and preferences are classic. And classic never goes out of style. Those who like you crave security. People can rely on you to be true to yourself - and true to them. You're loyal, trustworthy, and comfortable in your own skin. And because of these qualities, you've definitely earned a lot of respect.

What Kind of Pie Are You?

And on that note, I think I'll go to bed.

Finally!

A show where the right person people won! (As opposed to American Idol.) I'm talking about The Next Great American Band...and I'm glad the Clark Brothers won. All of the top three were very nice bands, but I liked them the best. Plus I think they were the most original.

NGAB-Results


And a few of their songs that I particularly liked.

Their finale song (an original):
You Are Still The Same


And another good one:
You're In My Heart -by Rod Stewart

That wonderful Christmas Confederate spirit

This is the Confederate flag display that I mentioned, I haven't been by there at night since the last time I saw it, so I've only got a picture of it during the day. It's still fairly impressive, and you can see how they made it.
Lovely.

They really do listen!

Blogger that is...they put back the place where you can put your url in when you comment! Okay, they get points for listening and actually doing something about it...they probably figured they had to! A lot of people were complaining and threatening to move to Wordpress, or various other blogging sites.

Thank you Blogger!

It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight

Your Christmas is Most Like: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

You can't really get into the Christmas spirit... But it usually gets to you by the end of the holiday.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

My cousin Rebecca posted this Blogthing on her blog, so I thought I'd do it too! (How's that for trying to get traffic to your blog Rebecca? :p )

I want this

This knitting pattern:

Because I like this hat and it would actually look good on me, as opposed to most hats that either don't fit or look awful; except for the hat I got in Oregon.

But this pattern is $5.95 and I don't want to pay that much just for a knitting pattern...but I can't seem to find a free pattern that looks the same! And this pattern looks like it would just about fit me, even with my head that doesn't fit most hats.

I guess it's a really good thing that we don't still go to a church that requires headcoverings, because there is no way I could find a fancy hat that fit me, and I certainly can't get a pinned doily to stay on my head! When we went to a church that required headcoverings, I was fairly young and was able to find a straw hat for the summer and some sort of beret for winter (and I have no idea how I kept that on my head). And woe unto you if your hat blew off of your head outside, for you were not to run on the Sabbath, even for the sake of chasing your proper headcovering! :) For me that meant more often that I couldn't run if someone else's strictly sabbatarian parents were nearby, because I don't think my mom and dad had any problem with my running!

Anyway, at least I don't have to worry about having to wear a hat, but I would like to have a few cute ones that fit!

Now what?

I just noticed the picture in my header is messed up...it's not supposed to be over to one side like that! Why, why, why? Why must Blogger annoy me so?! Well, I'd better see what I can do to fix it.

Edit: I got it fixed...it used to center the image, but now it pushes it all the way over to the left. So I had to look at the code and find out how wide the header was and adjust the picture. I just remembered that I intended to change to a winter picture sometime too.

Now what?

I just noticed the picture in my header is messed up...it's not suppose dto be over to one isde like that!

Squeak, squeak

Colin is running his finger over his comb making the awful sound that makes, and Dad is comparing it to pushing a hedgehog through a pipe like a pipe-cleaner! A pipe like a drain-pipe, not a pipe you smoke I assume, seeing as you couldn't fit a hedgehog into one...

Anyway, just thought I'd share! :D

It was better than the party youth group full of people I don't really know

So our church had a Christmas dinner this past Sunday night, along with the Fair Oaks* people. And it was really fun! A lot more fun than it would be even if we had a youth group! :) And considering the fact that if the youth group consisted of all the kids 13-19, there would be only five of us...there's really no point. And I'm glad we don't have one anyway, because I don't like youth groups real well.

Anyway, a lot of the kids (of all ages) sat at one table, and I was right at the end of where the girls were sitting because no one else wanted to sit next to the boys. All four of them. :D I'm the oldest of all the kids, so I have no problem with sitting next to the boys who are all younger than me anyway, except for one guy from Fair Oaks, and he reminds me of my cousin John.

After everyone ate there was a program which consisted of the kids reading scripture passages and everyone singing hymns. I wasn't aware until Sunday morning that I was reading something...I didn't know there was going to be a program at all, let alone that people were just going to be assigned to read! I managed to get through it all right, better because everyone had to read, and we just had to stand up where we were, not get up in front of everybody. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but I'm really, really shy about speaking in front of people...I've gotten over the rest of my shyness, but I still can't do that!

So while we waited for our table's turn to go get food, and then while we were eating, the discussion was random and varied!

On seeing my knitting that I was trying to get done that night while we were waiting, the guy across from me asked if I was "Actually knitting?" and biting back laughter and the impulse to say that I was virtually knitting, I told him that yes, I was. To which he responded that he'd never actually seen someone knitting, he'd only seen people knit in movies. "Ah," I said.

After that the discussion turned to how does knitting work, and I tried to explain, unsuccessfully, at which point my friend next to me changed the subject and asked how a shirt like the one he was wearing would be made. I explained that it was woven not knitted.
"But where's the fabric made?"
"In a big factory somewhere!"
"And how do they get the different colors?" So I explained how on the plaid shirt he was wearing, the threads are different colors, and then they're woven in a pattern, but some fabrics are plain and then the pattern is printed on one side.
"How do you make a shirt? Do you start at the bottom, or the top, or what?" I started to try to explain, but they obviously weren't getting it, so I gave up.
"If you were making a sweater, would you start that at the top or bottom?" I told them that you can start at either end for a sweater, it just depends on the pattern, and that totally confused them! :p
"So you could basically knit a t-shirt?" my friend asks. Basically, although it would be a lot thicker than a standard t-shirt, I say. "So someone had to actually sew this shirt together?" *makes vague sewing motions*
"Yes, somewhere in China probably, someone sewed your shirt together!"

Then later there was a discussion about school, and the evils that are Geometry and Algebra 2, and someone says, "Then they combine the two for chemistry!" And I said something about not having to do Chemistry.
"Where are you planning on going to college?!" my friend asks.
"Nowhere."
"Oh. I was going to say you couldn't get into college without Chemistry! What are you planning on doing?" he asks, just as I put a huge bite of dessert in my mouth. I motion to him that he's going to have to wait till I've finished chewing.
"She's going to be one of those people who gets paid to taste things, some sort of taste-tester!" says the guy across from me. I glare at him as I try to not laugh with my mouth full, and then answer the question.
"I'm thinking of some sort of home-business, but I'm not sure what yet."
"Hmm."
"What are you planning on doing?" I ask rather defensively.
"I have no idea!!" he replies. Hmm indeed!

There were various other subjects we discussed I think, but I can't remember them all now! Oh, and I had to explain to my friend and his older brother what the lines from "Winter wonderland" meant:

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown.

He'll say: Are you married?
We'll say: No man,
But you can do the job
When you're in town.

Which I thought was fairly self-explanatory, and why I stared at them blankly before realizing that they were serious and I'd have to try to explain it! Maybe it's more obvious to girls?? Does anyone else not know what it's talking about? Although there seems to be a whole Wikipedia article about the song: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Wonderland

Anyway, that was our Christmas dinner. Mom told me later, "We had some interesting discussions at our table, what about you?" I told her I'd had a lot of fun!!! :D

*I may have explained this before, but for anyone who doesn't know, our tiny little church doesn't have a building, so we meet in a hotel meeting room in the morning and in a little church near us that has so few members that they don't have an evening service.

So sorry

Hi there...just a quick post to say that I'll be back as soon as possible, but I'm very busy right now with Christmas baking and knitting, and struggling with some eyestrain probably caused in part by too much time on the computer. Two of the cures I will try for that is less computer time and more sleep...the more sleep taking away from my evening computer time...plus I need to get outside more. Especially since it's warm here right now, I have no excuse to not go outside...well, except that I'm very busy! :)

Anyway, I will try to post soon with some more about the home-management binder, and maybe some Christmas ornament/decorating ideas!

An while we're on the subject...

Edited to add: Here's a better link to the original cover:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W79ymycplrs&feature=related

...of the Eagles, here's the video for their new song...which is a cover which they may have done in '72???

I can't complain but sometimes I still do...

Life's Been Good


With Joe Walsh cracking up his buddies by changing some of the words...he's insane, I mean seriously! And is he wearing pajama pants???

Miscellaneous muddle

Hmm...I have a few other things I should be doing, but Grandma's over here talking to Mom, and most of the stuff I need to do involves noise that would be annoying...so, I'll blog right now.
Hopefully this will make sense, I have an eyestrain headache right now. I just took a Tylenol so I should be feeling better soon, but I might be a little muddled until then! I haven't been drinking enough water recently is the problem...my skin is all dry too since the air is really dry this time of year.

Anyway, let's see... I stayed home from church last night because I was feeling "icky" and I managed to get some stuff done. So I felt a little more prepared for today then I usually do, which is good since I've had this headache today. I got a load of laundry done, and picked up around my room, and then I also got some pages printed out to put in my binder. I'm planning on making what is usually referred to as a "Home Management Binder". I've been reading about these on various blogs (I can't think which ones at the moment, or I would link them) and I've decided to set one up. It will take awhile, mainly because I don't have a whole lot of time right now to be messing with one...it's not efficient to waste time on planning to be efficient! :) I will try to put this all together slowly. Last night I printed out pages for my daily to-do list which is usually written on a notebook, and schedule pages for the stuff I need to get done for Christmas. I've got all my Christmas presents that I'm working on written down and the dates I need to get them done by. I also looked up the holiday mailing deadlines on the post office's website, and got the dates written down that I need to get things shipped by.

Basically, I'm going to have to get my knitting done by the 19th(?), I think (I don't have my binder with me at the moment), and then I can finish the stuff for people locally. Except for my friend Jess, I need to wrap her present and get it to her by next Sunday, because she's leaving on the 20th...but that's already done, it just needs to be wrapped.
I'm almost done with two things...and then I've got one more to go before I ship them!

I was looking through my math book today after I finished my lesson, and figured out that I have 99 lessons to go until I'm done. Ugh... that means I'm not going to be done with it until...the middle of May, unless I double it up and do two lessons a day. So, I guess I should probably do that, since the only other thing I'm working on right now is History. That will get me done by about March 3rd....hmm...that's a bit better, especially since I'm going to do Geometry after this. But I'm not going to think about that right now. I'd really like to get done so that I have more time though!

Ah, my head's feeling a bit better! That's nice...

I'll write some more later about the binder I'm putting together. I'll try to find the blogs I've seen it mentioned on, and some more details.

It's almost hot here today...somewhere in the 70s...weird. Of course I'm still cold as usual, so it's not affecting me too much...

Sunday hymn

We sang this in church this morning.

Take My Life and Let It Be

Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days;
Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my hands, and let them move
At the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be
Swift and beautiful for thee.

Take my voice, and let me sing,
Always, only, for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be
Filled with messages from thee.

Take my silver and my gold;
Not a mite would I withhold
Take my intellect, and use
Ev'ry pow'r as thou shalt choose.

Take my will, and make it thine;
It shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is thine own;
It shall be thy royal throne.

Take my love; my Lord, I pour
At thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be
Ever, only, all for thee.

It's Saturday....and I have no title...

Mom and I went to a cross-stitch get-together today in Greensboro. It was sort of a Christmas party too, so everyone exchanges gift bags, and it was lots of fun!

I made this crab salad stuff to take, it basically has imitation crab, cream cheese, mayo, and green onion in it, and it's really, really good! It kind of tastes like crab rangoon that you get at the Chinese restaurant, and I love those. This stuff is good on Ritz chips. And there's some leftover, so I get to eat more of it...yum.

On the way back home, we stopped at Hobby Lobby (we really need one of those in Winston) and I found some fabric on clearance. Hobby Lobby is so nice, they have yarn, fabric, and just about anything else you could want in the way of crafts or decor! Anyway, their fabric is really nice, it very good quality stuff, much better than the majority of the fabric at say, Hancock Fabrics. I got this fabric:




It was only two dollars a yard, and I think I'll make a dress out of it for summer....sometime next year! I still have a winter skirt to make before I start making summer stuff. Plus I have to find a pattern...I'm thinking some sort of sun-dress and making some sort of shrug to go over it, or if I can find a pattern that has cap sleeves or something I might do that. But I don't have time to think about that right now! I got some knitting done today (I knit instead of stitching) when I wasn't playing with the cat, or holding a baby. Or eating lunch...someone brought cream-filled Krispie-Kremes....my favorite! Although I haven't had something that sugary for a while, so it didn't taste as good as I remember...I have that problem with some other things too...they just don't taste as good as you remember them tasting! Too fake, or sugary, or something.

For some reason Gracie decided to squish herself into Colin's train box last night...maybe she was upset about the results on "Next Great American Band"? I don't know...

Smells like a pine tree

Well, as I thought I would, I fell asleep very fast last night and actually got a good night's sleep. I have problems getting to sleep at night, and I can never get up...I can't get up very well even if I do sleep, but it's better if I get some sleep.

I've been cleaning things up today; getting all the groceries we bought yesterday put away, putting away the piles of clean laundry in my room, wiping down the bathroom, and getting stuff picked up everywhere. I'm taking a break at the moment, but I still need to dust and vacuum the floors.

Since we have smooth floors now instead of carpet, it takes a lot of work to keep the floors clean. In one way I'm glad we can see all the dust and stuff that's on the floor, instead of it just sinking into the carpet and never really coming out! On the other hand, since it's all on the surface, it has to be gotten off or it 1. looks bad, 2. sticks to our socks, making all our socks gray/brown on the bottom, and 3. is just plain nasty! We have two cats, so I'm sure a large amount of the dust and hair is from them, but a large amount of crud just gets tracked in every day, every time someone goes outside, or drops crumbs from lunch, etc.
So it's a bit of a pain to clean, but you do know that when you've cleaned it, it's actually clean!

We have a Swiffer mop/broom thing (what do they call them?...a Swiffer!) but that doesn't pick up all the crumbs...so my preferred method is to vacuum and then swiff the floors. However we got this new, nifty vacuum attachment that works pretty well. It makes a very high-pitched squealing noise while it is running because the opening is very small for the amount of suction, so that's rather annoying, but it works! It probably wouldn't make the squealing sound on a regular vacuum cleaner, but right about the time we were redoing the floors our vacuum cleaner broke, so we just stuck with the Shop-vac that we got during the carpet removal. And the Shop-vac has much stronger suction than a regular vacuum. This is the vacuum attachment we got.

As I was putting away the shampoo I bought yesterday, I realized I had bought some festive shampoo..not that it smells festive, but if I just leave it up on my bathroom shelf it will look festive! :) Speaking of smelling festive, there's a V05 shampoo that is "Balsam" and it's supposed to get your hair really clean or something...I got that one time and believe me, it smelled like balsam. I couldn't use it because the pine smell gave me an awful headache! So if you happen to want a festive smelling shampoo for the holidays, and don't have problems with smelling like a pine tree, try the balsam scented shampoo! It's even green...

Now I'd better go get back to work.

I'm tired...

I feel like I've been on the go all day, and I don't like to do that. On the plus side, I should be able to get to sleep tonight.

I took Dad to work today so that we could have the car...we only have one car, so to use it during the week someone has to get up and take Dad to work, and then we do a lot of stuff since we have the car to use. So I got up at 6:30 this morning, and haven't stopped since then. Well, I did sit down to do my math...I did manage to find some time to do math!

So, I ran one errand in the morning, and then got math and some chores done, then we ate lunch, then I got supper ready and put it in the crockpot, then we ran a bunch more errands, went up to work to shoot photos for our Christmas cards, and then came home and ate. I'm exhausted! Which reminds me, I need to mention to Dad that the muffler was sounding loud...

We went to the grocery store and bought a whole bunch of stuff...took that home, unloaded the car while trying to keep our cat in and Lucy the neighbor cat out... I thought I'd solved the problem when I closed Gracie in my room...we could leave the door open and bring stuff in real fast...then I tripped over Lucy who was trotting into the house. Throw the cat out, finish carrying groceries, get the cold stuff put away, get ready to go, make sure the cat isn't in the garage, close garage door, leave again. :)

Then I went to the library and picked up the soap from the soapmaking class.

Then we headed to the craft store and up to work. I needed some yarn for one of my Christmas knitting projects, I knew exactly what I was going to get and what color, and it was on sale. I thought it was going to be the shortest craft store trip ever, go in, pick up the yarn, pay, leave... But no, of course they don't have the the yarn I was going to get! I did find something else, or rather, the same yarn in a different color, but it took longer.

After that we went up to work to the studio up there, and took family pictures to put in our Christmas cards...and that went fairly smoothly! And I think there may be some photos where we don't look too weird...

I'm so glad I had supper in the crockpot. I still had to boil some noodles, and they seemed to take forever, but it wasn't too bad.

And now I think I'd better go shower before I crash...shower, crash, knit...sleep.

Sadly true

I found this article through Mirth and Musings, it's very good, though they seem to have started arguing about Calvinism in the comments...

The Flaws of a Fad-Driven Church

Neat!

I want some of these! http://www.trashties.com/trash.html

Unfortunately I'd need a package of the short ones and at least one long one. And they're $12.95 each! Although she does have a 15% off coupon on her blog... They come in so many pretty colors, I 'd have a hard time deciding which ones...other than the basic black ones...of course I'd get those! Plus they come with a 16-page (woo-hoo) style guide. Seriously, that is cool, but they mention it everywhere! :)

It seems like a really clever idea, though I'm wondering how well they would last. It does say in the product info to unfold them, don't pull them straight out, to avoid kinks in them; which is what I would worry about happening!
Let's see, the 15% percent off of two packages would be...$22.02 plus however much shipping is...hmm... Christmas present? :)

That's better

They fixed the picture problem:http://knownissues.blogspot.com/2007/11/
I'm very happy! Now if they'd just put the comments page back the way it was...but I'm afraid that's permanent.

So, I've got 6 sewing or knitting projects to get done before Christmas...aaahhhhh! But I have two done, or very nearly done, I just have some finishing to do. SO I have four left, and...20? days to finish, actually, fewer days for some of the items because I'll have to ship them. Lovely. In other words I really should be knitting or something right now, not blogging! Plus I have plenty of other things to do before Christmas. I think we're putting up our tree tonight, sometime we need to get a family picture taken for our Christmas cards, and we need to get some cookies baked to send to my grandma. Oh yeah, that reminds me...we're going up to Illinois after Christmas. Since it's after Christmas it shouldn't be too stressful to get ready for....I won't have anything else I need to do!

I suppose I should post a picture just to make sure they've got it working now...

I made gingerbread cookies on Saturday...they were okay, but a little bit dry. It was a new recipe, and I don't think I'll make it again. I think I will try making my other ginger cookie recipe, but add a whole lot more spices to it...because it's pretty good, but a smidge bland.



Oh, I finished my Biology book today! No more science! And I got 100% on the last test, so that was a nice way to finish up a book.

Spinnish

Okay, I was going to post about this on Friday, I think? Anyway...

I cooked supper on Thursday, which I usually do, that's my night to cook. Unfortunately, on Thursday I was all confused and kept thinking it was Saturday, so I forgot to go out and pick the swiss chard to go with supper until it was dark out. I managed to finally get everything else in the oven early enough that it would get done. Then I went to pick the swiss chard....by the light of...my cell phone. And it worked, so stop laughing! :) I could hold in the palm of my left hand and it would shine down, which a flashlight wouldn't do. Rebecca knows I like to use my cellphone as a light (fifth paragraph)....but it actually worked this time!

So I got the chard picked:







And got it cut up and put in a pan:









And cooked it:

There wasn't very much of it to begin with, and then since it's like spinach, it cooked down a whole lot!

And Dad actually liked it...he didn't think he would. He said "This isn't too bad...it's basically like spinach."
Colin: "It's better than spinnish..." which cracked me up!

I went to babysit last night and on my way there saw this huge light display of a confederate flag! It was probably about 5-6 feet wide. It was made out of mainly rope lighting I think...I'm not sure what they made the stars out of, but it was pretty um...well, it was well done... Well, I'll just say it was odd! :) And visible... I tried to get a picture of it on the way back, but it's hard to take a picture of lights.

I'm going to try to keep up with posting every day, or at least almost every day. It wasn't too hard through November...if you're planning on blogging you remember things to blog about! But NaBloPoMo is done for this year...they give out a few prizes randomly, I wonder if I'll get anything? Probably not!