Still here, ha-ha!

No, I didn't fall off the mountain...in case you were wondering. :) I had painfully little sleep last week, and have been recovering and busy with other stuff this week!

Camp was really, really awesome! I can't even remember all the activities, but there were a lot of them. This was my last year, so I'm really glad I enjoyed it so much! Thinking about it, I don't know that I'd want to do another year of camp activities anyway, even if I could, but mostly I'm going to miss all the people...since most of them I'll probably never see again. :( And that makes me sad...
Oh well, I guess that's just what happens. Anyway...

I've been mostly working on school this week...I've got one more week before summer vacation. And I'm going to work on some stuff during the summer also.

It was really weird when I got back from camp...we went out to eat Friday night, and I was afraid I was going to do something stupid. Something that would be perfectly normal at camp, yell across the room to someone, or almost fall asleep at the table because you're so tired...little things like that. It was funny really, like culture-shock or something!

Quickly...

Ah...this is going to be a quick post... I really have other things I should probably be doing!

I got my red afghan finished, so I can take it to camp with me. It's very soft and cozy...it's not as big as I planned in the beginning, because I didn't realize how much yarn and time it was going to take. What I had planned on being the width is the length instead. I already had to buy two balls of yarn to add to what I already had, but it's throw-sized, and plenty big enough to cover me.
The two extra balls are a slightly different color...so I added one to each side, so there would be two stripes.







Also I had time this afternoon to take a picture of my finished bathroom... I think I finally managed to get the wall color to look right in the photo:

So, I think that's all for now...I'll be busy tomorrow morning with packing and last-minute things to do (chores). I'll post a really short post tomorrow morning though... In reality, I'll write it tonight and post it tomorrow! And the time stamp will probably be wrong then, but oh well.

And looking at the picture of the bathroom...I don't think I ever did post finished pictures of my bedroom, from when I redid it...uh, last year, I guess. Well, I'll get to that sometime!

Oh dear...

Oh dear, because I can't ever seem to find time to blog! I got my bathroom all done and painted ages ago, but I haven't posted, or even taken pictures of it!

Part of the problem is that I was hit by allergies all of the sudden last week. Serves me right... when the rest of my family had allergies in April, I went blithely around saying that I was fine because I don't get allergies until May. May 1st. I go to bed with a sore throat...very funny.
I'm feeling better now. I've been taking allergy medicine every day, so the symptoms are reduced to a runny nose and slight coughing...a major improvement over coughing my head off and feeling horribly weak. I'm hoping I'll be over all this before I go to camp next week, but if I'm not, I can manage if I take the medicine with me.

I do have a picture of the ceiling after I finished painting it:

The other thing I've been frantically working on is a baby blanket for my new cousin. My aunt and uncle have a new little baby! Little Evan was born 4 weeks early, luckily quite big enough at 6 lb. 3 oz., so he's home now, not having to stay in the NICU. Which we know from experience is a great blessing! Both I and my little brother were born 7 weeks early, at 4 lb. 4 oz. and 3 lb. 14 oz. respectively. I can't remember quite how long either of us had to be in the hospital, but it was around a month for one of us, I think.
Anyway, since May 2nd I've been working on getting his blanket done...my grandparents went down to Texas to visit them, taking the gifts with them, so I think it's probably safe to post a picture of the blanket now!

That elephant I got at Target is the most adorable thing ever...he's so cute, and green, and soft! I saw him sometime last year. I was looking at all the really cute baby stuff and wishing I had someone to buy it for!




And here's the elephant, ready to leave:

This week I'm trying to get a bunch of schoolwork done before camp, and I'm also working on my red afghan I was crocheting...I don't have any pictures of it though!








Five days till camp! I'm excited; this will be my last year, so I'm going to really enjoy it!
If anyone wants to write me a letter here's the address and letters should probably be mailed between Saturday and Wednesday.

Mountain Top Youth Camp
1460 Mackay Lane
Pinnacle, NC 27043

I'll try to post some pictures of the finished bathroom this week if I have time!

Mmmm...yummy!

I made ginger cookies yesterday...they are so good! They remind me of Old Salem...they taste like thicker Moravian spice cookies. I got the recipe off of here, but for some reason you can't print off of that page, so I'll type up the recipe here.

Cure All Ginger Snaps

1 3/4 c. flour
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. ground ginger
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. cloves
1/2 c. butter @ room temperature
2/3 c. brown sugar, packed
1 egg
2 T. molasses
sugar to roll the cookies in

Mix first six ingredients. Beat brown sugar and butter until fluffy. Beat in molasses & egg. Beat in dry ingredients. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 325'. Form dough into small balls, roll balls in sugar, and flatten with glass dipped in sugar. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

This recipe makes about 3 dozen...next time I make it I'll probably make a double batch. They are best the first day though, so it might be best to keep the dough in the fridge or freezer and bake however many you want when you want them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In other news, I got my ceiling spackled around the edge and sanded. I took today off from painting, I woke up this morning all stiff. So I cooked dinner tonight instead of tomorrow which is my usual day.

So the plan is that I get up on time tomorrow, get two coats of primer painted, and hopefully get a coat of paint on the ceiling as well. Then I guess I'll put another coat up on Friday, then it has to sit for a while before I can put tape on it. And I'll have to tape before I do the walls, so I guess I won't get to the walls till, hmmm...Monday - Wednesday. Oh well, I never have time on the weekends for much extra anyway...at least not for painting!

Question:

Would a normal, sane person who had two schoolbooks halfway done, was trying to get them done before June, was planning on painting her bathroom, had plenty of other things to do, and a long list today in particular, decide to scrape the popcorn ceiling while she was at it? No, probably not, but I did. :) Plus the fact that I woke up with a sinus headache this morning!
What did you say? Yes, I am crazy. But if you're going to scrape a ceiling it only makes sense to do it before you get the walls all nicely painted.

All of the ceilings in our house have a textured finish, usually called "popcorn", though it's really more like cottage cheese...you know, the stuff that comes showering down if you bump the ceiling, or gets in your hair if it was your head that bumped the ceiling?...yeah, that's right, that stuff.
Well, it's removable...with one garden sprayer, one putty knife (or similar flat-bladed object), and a trashcan. And it would be a really good idea to cover all the surfaces with some sort of paper or plastic that you can just roll up and throw away...even, even, if it's a bathroom and you figure it will all come off the tile fine, so why bother when you can just scrape it all up with the help of a dustpan when you're done...wrong. It comes off, yes, but it's not so easy as you'd think. There were many points during the process that I wished we had a shop-vac. Thinking about it now though, it would probably work, but then it would all dry inside, leaving you with basically a drywalled shop-vac.
So if I ever do a ceiling again, I will put down something, even it's over tile. And of course I would cover carpet.

That's what it looked like during the scraping process, a layer about that thick or thicker over the whole bathroom. -->

And what it looked like after:












What you do is: you fill the sprayer with water, spray the ceiling, and start scraping...simple enough really...just a bit time-consuming when you start wiping up all the stuff.
It came off pretty well, best over the shower where it had gotten steamed plenty already, and worst over the light fixture where it had been baked.

So that's done. I'll need to do some spackling around the edge where the drywall tape's trying to come off. You can also see all these little spots where the drywall must have been gouged while putting it up... because it's filled in to make the ceiling smooth...hmph, incompetent drywallers... they did the seam neatly though, and I'm really happy about that. I can fix around the edges, but if there was going to be a big messy seam I'm not sure if we could fix it or not.
Now I just have to wait for it to dry all the way, prime and paint it, then I can get going on painting the walls...finally! I'm glad I did the ceiling though...it always collects dust and looks dirty, and I don't like that.

Surprisingly, I'm not tired after doing all that today! Maybe my arm will start hurting tomorrow, but it hasn't hurt so far, so maybe I'll be fine.

Not so happy birthday Gracie

Today is Gracie's birthday...approximately of course, but she's two. Unfortunately she's not had a very happy birthday so far.

Even a normally calm cat will be jumpy occasionally. Gracie is not calm (I don't think she can be calm, being a Tortie) and therefore when startled nearly hits the ceiling.

I was doing my schoolwork in my bedroom and Gracie was quite peacefully snoozing on my bed. All of the sudden she was awake and obviously alarmed by some sound. Not having the hearing capabilities of a cat, it is a little while before I realize what's alarming her so. What impressed its sound on my ears was a street-cleaning, vacuum truck...what Gracie heard, I don't know. Perhaps a tornado, or a giant cat-sucking machine. At any rate she leaped off the bed, fur prickling, whiskers quivering, and made for the bedroom door...which was closed.
Seeing there was no route of escape that way, she spun around and leaped back on the bed, craning her neck to stare with horror out the window.

In the meantime, the truck had been slowly making its way down the street to our house. At about the time it was passing our house, Gracie bravely bounded over to the window to see the horrid monster that was going to eat her. When she saw the truck she seemed to be less alarmed though still tense. As it went down the street, then started back up the other side her fear returned. She dove from her place at the window, cast one longing glance at the still-closed bedroom door, and vanished into my closet that I'd left partially open. She reappeared almost instantly though, as if she'd realized she'd only be trapped in there.

Her next move was to hide beneath the shelf that was under my window. Seeing me watching her though, she quickly scooted back out, embarrassed. Finally, with one last despairing look at the window, she huddled on the floor to await her doom.




But by then the truck was heading out of sight and hearing, not having stopped to eat her.

She's lying on my bed now, acting as if nothing ever happened... I guess she didn't catch me taking pictures...evidence.


If you think I'm making this up...I have two things to say: no, I'm not, and you must not have cats. :) And yes, my bedroom floor's messy....so make that three things to say!

Now that I'm looking at that picture of Gracie on the bed....I think I need to feed her little less...

Why I haven't posted for a while

School! Lots of it...I've been really busy trying to get some books finished before summer. We're finishing up the end of May... I'll finish my literature book next week, and I would like to finish the history and biology, but I don't know if I can.
I'm going to camp May 14-18, so there's a week there that I don't do any school.

I have been doing other stuff too, but I've mostly been so busy that I either haven't had time to post, or I wasn't able to get my thoughts into any cohesive form!

So I have a lot of stuff to blog about, but I'll have to do it later! Maybe some time this week, or next...hopefully...

Supper

+Plus+








And mustard, ham, cheese, and pickles...



Equals:

Or: last night's supper...Cuban sandwichs...mmmmm.....those were good!
I'm really glad they turned out well... it took a little time, but for as good as they were it wasn't much time at all. And we have enough for lunch on Sunday! Yum! :)

Ripples in fluff

This is what I've been working on most recently:

It's a crocheted ripple afghan made from the yarn leftover from the sweater I made for Christmas.

It looks rather like a scarf in this picture, but that's the width, and the skinnier part is just all that I've gotten done on it yet. It's not the best yarn for showing the ripple pattern, but I mainly wanted to use up the yarn, and it will look nice and be fuzzy, even if you can't see the pattern!

It's certainly not as impressive as the one here, or the ones that everyone else * is doing, but I don't have a stash of yarn with enough colors of the same weight to be able to use them all in a striped afghan...even if it does look really neat! (It wouldn't really go with my bedroom either...) But ripple afghans are really "in" right now...in all colors...and so are granny square afghans, even the awful ones with un-coordinating shades of horrible acrylic... those are the ones you can find on ebay: vintage...ugh, vintage is cool and all that, but you can keep your acrylic '60s, '70s monstrosities if that's okay...

Oh, and the title I put on this reminded me of a word I came up with yesterday... "fluffing": the fluffy stuffing inside a stuffed animal... there was some of it in with the laundry and I was trying to say what it was, and my tongue decided to combine "fluff" and "stuffing"...I liked the result though.

Oh don't roll your eyes, what do you expect: it was a Monday... Mondays are full of fluffing... :)

*I can't guarantee the language used on that blog...it's lots of different people posting about their ripple afghans