trying to make some room...

about a month ago I decided that if I'm going to be working on a blanket or two for Christmas and my store I had better make some room for the 30 or so skeins of yarn that I will have to buy.


i currently have so much yarn that I hardly know what to do with all of it so I got to thinking 'it's almost cliche for crocheters to have a great big zig zag afghan. and more than that I think there must be some kind of law."

so I got to work

I have dubbed it "The Ugly"

the last 8 rows turned out not quite so ugly.



I don't know that I'm completely done with it, but I am for now. the beauty of this beast is that I can add to it later if i need to.
the really ridiculous part of this is the size :)
it is 5.5' x 7.5'
Tim says I should make it 7.5 x 10 I don't know about that. I'll probably just start another blanket

life's lessons

for the last few days we have been searching for children's motrin chewable tablets. I love how it takes charge and wipes out my kids' fevers in mere moments. another plus about the tablets is that I don't have a sticky measuring cup to deal with... I just hand over the correct dose, they chew it up and it's just that easy.

now, Connor has a terrible cough. we sent him to school but I instantly wondered if I should have just kept him home.

during our search for the elusive motrin, we (Tim, Ronan, and myself) decided to try the new CVS pharmacy in town. we didn't find what we went there for, but while we were there I picked up some medicine for Connor.
we got done at the check out and were on our way out the door. as I was walking along, I was looking at the receipt and it just wasn't making any sense. I kept looking at it, turning it over to see the back and thinking that I must be looking at it wrong. so I showed it to Tim. we had bought three bottles of juice and the cold medicine. the receipt only had two of the juices. that was it!

we went back in even though Ronan had been tired of our shopping trip and really wanted to go home. we showed the cashier who served us - who was also the shift supervisor - the error. I saw her scan the items, I know she didn't miss it. She was just as perplexed, but she kept thanking us for being so honest and coming back in to fix the error. ran us through again and we were on our way home.
as we were driving home I told Tim I wasn't sure why I was feeling this way, but when she thanked us for our honesty, I couldn't help but feel embarrassed and I really couldn't figure out why I should feel that way for doing the right thing. and even if Ronan has no clue, now, why we went back into the store, he will learn from our example... and more than that, it is what good people do!

during the conversation about my feelings of embarrassment, the fact was brought up that not a lot of people would have turned around and rectified that. we came to the conclusion that that is likely the reason I was feeling that way - I feel embarrassed of the people who don't turn around when they are aware of the problem, therefore creating such amazement when someone does choose the right (CTR). or maybe I'm just ashamed of the times in my past when I didn't turn around.

a sick kid

it has been a while since I've had a kid with a fever. I think it's been since last winter. So it has been a long time since I've had to buy children's medicine to manage fever and aches. My favorite is Motrin. I really don't know why they make Tylenol for anyone older than 1 year; it doesn't work.
the last two nights Ronan has had a fever. just a mild one, but it's there. I don't know what is making him sick. he doesn't complain of any problems with any part of his body and if I hadn't touched him and noticed an increase in temperature, I would have never suspected there was a problem.
but I have one bottle of Motrin that has currently has 3 left. Last night before Tim came home he called and asked if there was anything we needed and I mentioned the Motrin. He searched high and low I think he said that he had gone to 4 different stores looking and they are all out or don't carry it! what! how can they not carry it, it's worth more than gold! it is magic in a tiny chewable tablet!
yesterday afternoon he took a nap for about 4 hours. then he got up and ran around the house like nothing was ever wrong with him.
about 3 this morning I woke up and there is Ronan and he told me "my fever came back". the poor little guy was right. it was back and higher than yesterday.
so now we are left with 3 motrin and a hope that I can find something adequate at the store today. and if he isn't feeling better by tomorrow I'll be taking him in to the clinic for a strep test, since that's been going around.

redecorating update

okay, I'm a loser and I still haven't finished. I have hardware to install and edges to touch up and a couple more frames to hang...
but there has been a major improvement


you may remember this monstrosity...



it is now less monstrous but still requires a lot of work



how about this horrifying scene?
now I'm not so scared when I look at it. (I still have to drill new holes in the doors for the handles that didn't fit in the existing and we want to get new hinges and I have to finish up some touch ups...
and this frightening little space...

Much better

off to the dentist again

to figure out what happened to my poor kid.


he had a filling done yesterday and about an hour after getting home he had this enormous fat lip. I thought he had bit his novocained lip and that's why it got all swollen, but after checking on him in the middle of the night and seeing that his lip was still just as large, I was persuaded to think of some other options.
a couple of weeks ago he had been to the dentist and had a filling and novocaine then. his lip woke up in the allotted time, but it remained a bit paralyzed through the following day.
I didn't think much of it at the time....
also this last spring he'd had a reaction of hives to something unknown and our best guess then was that he had eaten cherries and he had never had real cherries before. it is my understanding that if you are allergic to cherries you are likely to be allergic to latex. we thought he might have been allergic to cherries, but then a few months later he ate some cherries again before I could warn my sister that we suspected that, however he had no reaction then. So I figured I was wrong.
maybe I wasn't completely wrong.

but now we are on our way to figure this thing out.

poor kid :(


addition:
the dentist says he just bit his lip and that it could possibly take up to 4 days before the swelling goes down! that's so sad!
I have him home from school today allowing him to eat cold popsicles in an attempt to reduce the swelling.
and I just realized that I'm out of children's motrin. Time to call the husband

posting as incentive

incentive to get this project done. it has been just over a week and a half since I started this task and for various reasons it has taken me much longer than it should have.
I like painting... I like that instant gratification of having a change right before my eyes. but my back has been a terrible enemy of mine. and I have had to put everything on hold here and there while waiting for spackle to dry and then to sand it down ~ and waiting for my back to calm down.

but the thought process is as follows...
if you all know how horrible my bathroom was and is, then I will be pressed to save myself from embarrassment and finish this thing!

this picture was from a week ago. there is a difference from this point... it hasn't been sitting there looking so awful the entire time because couldn't stand it anymore and I painted a couple of walls already. and this cabinet has certainly seen better days. I won't be able to replace the whole thing like I would love to do, so we will have to make due and I'm hoping that the darker color paint will be helpful in hiding this monstrosity.

after sanding, and sanding, and sanding....
please ignore the cobwebs. I swear I'd had them cleared away!

anyway, by sharing the pictures of this train wreck, I will have no other choice but to finish every last lick of painting that needs doing. Hopefully by tomorrow I will be able to share a much more improved bathroom.

redecorating

we've lived in this house for over 11 years. (some of us, anyway) all that time I have really not liked my bathroom. it was blue wall paper with a faux rag roll and I'm sure that it has been hanging on the wall for about 20 years.
it is horrible.

over the last two years I have noticed little bits here and there - but mostly by the toilet - of the wall paper being pulled away.

I really don't like wall papering. so the plan has always been to paint it, but the plan was put into action the other day when I looked around at the peeling paper and scribbles on the cabinet doors and I couldn't help myself. I began ripping it all down.
it was so cathartic I really had a difficult time stopping myself.
I pulled and peeled and sanded and counted layers - at least 5 - going back at least 60 years and the last layer is on so good and tight that I suspected for a while that it might have come from the manufacturer as pre-papered wall sections.

now I hope that the colors I chose will not be way too dark for the small space. if it is, i'll just get some lighter paint for accent points in the room.

but as a result of two days of pulling down, sanding off, spackling and washing off wall paper paste, my back is just about shot. I can still walk, so that's a plus, but it's all slow going.

I don't have any before pictures, I might take a during picture and after pictures.