2010 Texas State Fair

Yep, I won! 3 First Place and 3 4th Place ribbons this year. I am very excited about the multiple Blue ribbons!

My hat, scarf and cardigan all got the firsts.

I will post pics when I get them back after the fair. Yeah!

10 Things

10 things about me...

1. When I was little I used to spend a lot of time outside chasing and catching anything I could get my hands on (lizards, bunnies, turtles, etc.). There was a creek next to my house and I would go get a bunch of jars of tadpoles and keep them in the garage until they turned into frogs and escaped.

2. I was stung by a hornet while riding a motorcycle with a boyfriend in high school. I still remember how much that hurt!

3. During high school I worked at the only costume shop/formalwear shop in my home town. I did a few costume deliveries of balloons and once did a delivery to a boat factory in fishnets and tuxtails.

4. People called me Smiley in high school - a lot. One of the guys I work with walked in today and called me that - weird.

5. Raw meat really disgusts me and I can barely stand to touch it.

6. I never want kids. I love having pets, but I don't really have any maternal instinct.

7. My mom used to take my sister and I shopping on Saturdays when we were little. If we were good we got to stop and get an Icee. They used to have lots of flavors. I usually got the blue bubble gum flavor one.

8. I love making things, but I hate having to make things. When I see things I like I automatically think of ways to make my own because I usually can't afford the things I really like. It would be so great to be able to buy things that I love without feeling guilty about the money or having to make something similar or close just because of my lack of budget.

9. I like gardening and planting. I don't know much about it, but if I can get plants in a pot or in the ground, 90% of the time they grow and flourish.

10. Outdated interior color schemes and decorating drive me nuts. I hate puffy leather sofas.

Rylee

J and I decided we needed a 4th canine family member, so we went through a rescue organization and got...

This is Rylee. He is a super cute papillon/maltese/poodle? mix. He is 8 years old and is very much the growly and grumbley old man type. He just tolerates the other dogs. He is a major snuggler and I can't get any peace when I get home from work until I pick him up and cuddle him with his paws over my shoulder. His hair is kinda wavy and he doesn't really shed at all, so that's why we think there's some poodle in the mix somewhere.

Truly Dreadful Customer Service

As the title to this post implies, I have run into a lot of this lately.

You would think retailers would not want to lose customers since the economy is so bad right now. This doesn't seem to be the case.

I am considering starting a new blog about super crappy customer service.

Anyone else had any bad service lately?

Holidays

I have been neglecting this blog in a big way. I don't really like making posts until I have pictures to post and haven't gotten around to editing any photos lately.

I did a lot of holiday knitting this year and it's mostly finished. I need to sew a couple more gifts and finish up a few small things, but for the most part I'm done. I will post all the pictures soon.

I have been really excited this holiday season, but I'm starting to wind down.

The economy is so bad right now it's just depressing. Our house needs so many repairs and the money we thought we would have to use for that isn't coming. It is really getting me down. Our master bathroom has a leak in the wall by the shower and that means to fix we will basically need to tear the shower out and have all the tile and drywall fixed and that will be messy, expensive and time consuming. Plus the outlets in the bathroom don't work. Our kitchen and concrete outside need to be fixed as well. We need new windows in the living room because they leak air and it's costing a fortune to heat and cool our place. I thought having a house would be great, and parts of it are, but at the moment it's hard to be happy when there's so much fixing to do.

Sorry, enough griping.

Yeah, Holidays - Woo Hoo...

Funny

I just had to share this.

I spent a lot of time last week making awards for our costume contest at work and knitting as well. Friday night after J got home I was telling him my hands were tired and my wrists really hurt.

Well, J does this thing when he thinks he's being really smart and original. He smirks this little self-satisfied smirk and then pops off with some totally snarky or funny comment. It cracks me up.

Anyway, after talking about the sore wrists I looked over at him and he was smirking and he looks at me and says:

You've got "Crafty Tunnel".

I cracked up. He smirked more.

A little spot of green

When J and I moved into our tiny half duplex - our first house - there was one special feature that we really liked. I always go for quirky and unusual things, so this was really cool.

Our house has an atrium inside. It's the first thing you see when you walk in the front door. The front is all glass and both sides have large windows that face our dining area on one side and the master bathroom shower on the other (the huge window in the shower is interesting - you can sit at our dining table and look through the atrium and watch someone showering - this doesn't happen often and we make sure no guests are there for sure).

When we moved in the atrium was all rocks, a really ugly fountain and some dead potted plants. It was just sad. I could definitely see the potential for an indoor oasis.

This is the sad before picture:

When I wasn't working I spent the largest part of a week turning the soil (this was a huge pain since it was all clay) and mulching and planting in the atrium. We put an ad on Craigslist for free landscaping rocks, so someone came and dug all of those out earlier, so at least I didn't have to do that part.

It was really hard work and at one point I did think it was going to kill me before I got it done.

I have given the plants a little while to fill in and these are the photos I took earlier today. It's a huge improvement on rocks and dead plants!

The bushes on the trellis are evergreen wisteria (not real wisteria, but they are a lot less invasive and have blooms similar to wisteria but they are dark red violet and smell kinda like grape soda). We wanted evergreens so it would be pretty all year. There are also hydrangeas, foxtail ferns and sedum in there.

The wisterias have really taken off and when all of the plants fill in and mature they will be really great. I still want a tiny bench of some sort to put out there.

This is a closer view of the wisterias:

The atrium is by far my favorite part of the house now. It provides so much light and it's so nice to look out and see healthy green plants in a little protected area just for us, kind of like a secret garden.