Read 2 Me By Susan: The Emperor's New Clothes

Read 2 Me By Susan: The Emperor's New Clothes

Podcasts for Children

My very own Podcast where I read stories for children :)

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Carlsbad Caverns

I needed a break from everything as I've been dealing with alot of stress and next week it's just one doc after another, including the cardiologist and I'm really worrying about that appointment.  So I grabbed mom and took off to Carlsbad Caverns for the weekend.  We got here, got our hotel room and headed for the caves for a very short tour around the Big Room which ended up not being so short.  My memory card went on the fritz too and I lost 255 photos but was able to still capture 119 good shots.  There will be more tomorrow though :o)  here's a few of the photos I took today:

 

Mad Hatter.....

My daughter's boss throws a big Halloween Party every year so she asked if I could please make her a Mad Hatter Costume.  I have the hat done finally.  I didn't take any pictures of the process though and by the time I thought of taking pictures I was close to being done and was working on the brim of the hat. 

Honestly, I amazed myself, as I've never done anything like this before.  It's truly amazing what you can do with some cardboard, fabric, lace curtain, beads, wire, spray paint, and a lot of time LOLOL  What you see is a mirror image as I took photos of me wearing it in the mirror.  So everything you see is actually on the other side of the hat in reality so it's on the same side as Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter Hat in Alice in Wonderland.  I'll take more pictures as I get work done on the rest of the costume :o)

I'm thinking of making more hats next year to sell in my Etsy store, including another Mad Hatter Hat or two ;o)

I really suck at blogging

I don't know how I could get better at this blogging thing.  I imagine if I had more hours in my day it would be quite simple to come here, figure out what to write, and then just have at it.  But as it is, there's only 24 hours, I'm not that energetic to write every day and quite frankly, I just forget to do so ROTFL.

I did however venture into double knitting 2 days ago as I saw some charts of some really beautiful designs done by Tina13 over on Ravelry I had to learn and it didn't take me too long.  So here's a couple of quick shots of that and I'm back to my knitting :o)  I don't particularly like how the one edge looks and I've tried every stitch combination and I just can't get it to look clean..........I must be missing something somewhere LOL

Holy Cannoly..................

I just realized it's been awhile since I posted.......  do I have an excuse?  Not very likely besides constantly letting myself get side tracked.  I almost have Heather's room set up the way I want.  I actually thought I did until I realized that the main items I wanted in there............the sewing machine and embroidery machine.................well, I totally forgot to put them in there.  I was too involved with creating my own "fake rock" background wall for my Gecko tank.  A few progress shots and the finished product.  I think they're quite happy with it as they're having fun crawling through all the little crevices and ledges.  During the day they hang out in the cave on the left.

Then once that was all done and over with, my loom arrived.  I really lucked out on getting it.  Two of my online knitting friends (Wilma and Mona) have acquired some very nice looms and have been creating some wonderful scarves and bags.  So the curiosity was intriguing since I did learn how to weave way back when in like 3rd grade or something but haven't done anything after that.  So went on Ebay and searched for some looms.  By chance I oopsed and made a typo which later was to my advantage because I found a 1957 Spear's Weaving Loom which I won for under $30.  I was just tickled pink (strange saying, isn't it? LOL)  So it arrived and I had to play with it too.............naturally.  So here's a few shots of it.............just warped about 2/3rd of it to play around and try it out.  It was quick and it's wonky but I don't care LOL..............

 

I did sit tonight for just a little bit and worked some more on it.  It's not real great for the back :(

And for those of you who like seeing pictures of Buddy................he's growing nicely and being spoiled as can be...............

 

Ok, til my next post..................behave, have a great time............enjoy life!!!

Moving here......................

I'm moving everything from Livejournal over here, as Blogger just has more possibilities with links and side bars and all that good stuff................or I'm just too lazy or too stupid to figure out how to get it all over there LOL.............either way, I'm moving it here so I'm posting my latest posts here so anyone else who may want to read anything in the future can follow :o)

Jan. 6th, 2010

First off..............Happy New Year

2010..............twenty ten.................doesn't that sound like something out of a sci-fi movie?  Well, at least it does if you're my age or older ROTFL  Wonder what kind of crazy things will happen this year.

Sorry for not posting til now but with the Bearded Dragon I got for Christmas and having to get him all set up right with housing and lighting and temps and all that good stuff.  Then treating the spinning wheel and then getting sick and not feeling too great for a few days, well..................blogging just kinda sat on the back burner you know.  I have to finish a pair of Glittens that I'm making for my son and then I'll be getting the spinning wheel out again and will probably give you some minor amusement with lots of pictures ;o)  Stay tuned!!!!!

Dec. 27th, 2009

Introducing my Dragon

mood: productive

I still need to go to Lowes to pick up some wood oil or something to treat my wheel, still haven't done that yet.  I know what you're thinking "get off your butt already as we want to see some fiber spun up!!!"  I'm getting there, I promise, don't get your panties in a twist LOLOL

Anyway, Heather (who is my 17 year old daughter, if anyone is wondering) brought home my Christmas present last night.  Isn't he cute?


He/She, have not sexed him yet, needs a name really bad so if you have any ideas, let me know.  Don't be afraid to comment ok?

Here's a couple more pics..........



Ok, better get my butt in gear so I can get my wheel treated :o)

Dec. 26th, 2009

No spinning today

mood: sad

I've had a rough day today and didn't get to go to Lowe's to buy any wood oil to protect my wheel so no spinning today.  I would prefer if my new wheel lasted a long time so better do things right you know?

So anyway, don't want to leave anyone who is actually reading this too disappointed with not seeing any pictures so for your viewing enjoyment you can take a peek at a few of my monsters that I've been knitting :)  I call them ZueBu (pronounced Zoo-Boo) Enjoy and I'll be back soon for more spinning adventures :)

Dec. 25th, 2009

First 'something'

location: United States, New Mexico, Rio Rancho

mood: productive

I promised pictures of my first success or shall I say my first mess..............so here we go.  I didn't spin up a whole lot, just wanted to give it a go and see what I could come up with so there's not much.



are you impressed by my tiny bunch of 'Novelty' yarn???  Well, don't get too impressed yet, lets see a close up shall we?................



Notice the over-twist there in the little square?  Ok, you say "yeah, I see, that's not too bad"  But OH WAIT, look at this shot................



I don't think I need to put a square around a "certain" section here, the whole thing is a twisted up mess LMAO.  Are you laughing with me?  It's ok, you can laugh at me too.  Regardless, I'm laughing.  So my first mess that can't even be deemed novelty yarn..............TaDa  ROTFL

Not sure if I'll spin any today yet but you just never know.  Stay tuned for what I'm sure will be more disasters to come soon...............

The first try

location: my craft room

mood: amused

So I embark on the adventure on learning how to spin since my son bought me an Ashford Kiwi for Christmas. My adventure actually started 3 days ago when the box arrived.......delivered by a cute young guy in a beat up blue minivan......"how odd" was my first thought when I looked out the window, but then realized this was a guy from UPS. You're probably wondering why on earth am I looking out the window. Well, I'm a very nosy person........hahaha........ok, that too, but I had to check to see why this crazy little dog was barking like mad out the living room window. I opened the door when I saw him approach so I could step outside to grab the box and avoid any further barking fiasco. I couldn't help myself when I smiled and asked.... "do you guys have so many packages that you have to use your own vehicles now?" He just smiled and said "no, I'm just hired seasonal work".......and that was about the end of the conversation as I smiled and said "thank you"

So I bring in the box and contemplating if I want to open it now or wait til later. Jim is still at work, Heather at a friend's house and I'm a bit intimidated so figure I better finish with the dishes first, so I can give it my full attention.

I finally brave opening the box and almost fainted when I saw that NOTHING has been put together..........what was I thinking??? I thought for sure that SOMETHING had to be pre-assembled you know, something, anything at all......all I had to do was put this here and that there and maybe hook this up here and that up there and that would be it. Oh no, I was soooooooo mistaken. So I get all the parts out of the box and lay them on the floor and this is what I got.........



yes, you see right, a bunch of wrapped pieces of wood, a nosy cat (Minnie) and a nosy Chihuahua (Bella) LOL So this is where I had to take a deep breath. I thought, I can do this, no problem, I've put lots of things together. Then I opened the instruction papers and thought "WHAT THE ****" Lots and lots of pictures, that's what it had, just lots and lots of pictures. No written instructions, heck, not even anything numbered or lettered. NO, just some fricking pictures on paper and you figure out if you have the right part LMAO. Jim came home when I was about 5 minutes into it. I showed him the instructions and he just laughed, turned the other way, and walked out of my craft room...............uh, thanks for helping.....yeah, nothing new there LOL

So I took my time and a few hours later, we had this............




Cute isn't it? Impressed that I could put it together right? Yeah? Me too LMAO


Ok so it sat for a few hours until I finally got enough courage to sit and just treadle a bit and put a leader on and fiddle with it. Now it took me another 30 minutes to figure out that I had the bands in the wrong places............minor thing that was easy to fix. Couldn't sit long though as my back was killing me from sitting on the floor so long when I put it together.

Are you still reading? Hope I haven't bored you half to death yet, I'm almost done but do have to catch up to today LOL Ok, so I've just been rather staring at it, watching it just sit there, not sure if I want to seize the moment and just give it a go. Finally today I decided to watch a few videos on spinning basics. If you haven't watched this one on YouTube, you have go to take a peek, this gal had me cracking up. Go ahead, just watch the first few minutes, then you can come back here, I promise, I'm almost done for today's story. I'll wait...........

Now wasn't that funny???  I did learn something though so that's very cool.  So I played around a bit and ended up with this totally overspun mess as I had to experiment with the bobbin break or whatever it's called (I don't have all the terms down yet so bare with me if you're experienced in this stuff, I'll get there eventually LOL)  I spun up just a little bit of some pink roving and a little bit of some merino and then plied the two together.  It got really late though so will have to take a picture later on and post but it's not enough to really knit anything with.  I didn't want to waste a bunch of roving but it was enough to try it out and I can tell you, I NEED LOTS and LOTS of practice yet.

I may have to wait until I can get to Lowe's on Saturday to get some wood oil or wood wax or whatever I need to protect the wheel before I really go at it.  But stay tuned for further updates on my spinning adventures and mishaps