Hey, Blogger... Look at THIS!

Well, well, well. Lookie what I did. Check THIS out!

I don't know if it will last, but you can't say you weren't warned. This was what I was looking for. I can customize my layout. I can post pictures without another "hosting" service. It isn't a pain in the butt to work with!

I'll let you know if it works out...

What is up with Picasa/Hello???

Jeez, I am so frustrated. I want to add my pics to the blog entries they relate to, but Hello wants to post them as new posts. Gggggggggggg. I'm going to try it another way - upload to my Webshots and then insert the pics in HTML in the post where I want them. Hope it works. (I just tried this and the code shows in the "Edit HTML" view - so maybe, just maybe, I can post pictures without Picasa/Hello)

I also was futzing around with my blogger template today. I didn't really like all the dead space in the one I was using, so I applied several others. I don't really like any of the templates that blogger offers, but I don't understand how to get other ones. I hate when the darn computer makes me feel stupid. Anyway, I lost all my sidebar links but I know how I did those, so I can re-do those. Now I just need to figure out how to subscribe to bloglines or blogroll or whatever it is to get notifications of new posts on my favorite blogs.

(If anyone who might read this can offer me a couple of clues, I would really appreciate it.)

No real progress on projects today. I have been moving e-mails, setting up favorites files (or maybe they call it bookmarks, whatever), and taking a few pictures that may or may not be usable. I'll knit tonight when I watch TV, but that will only be an hour or two. Still, it won't take all that long to finish the scarf - two or three hours I'd guess - except for fringing.

In less than 3 weeks, I'll be going back to work! I am not excited - I'm panicked to think of all the things I was going to do (that didn't get done) during sick leave. I still haven't finished my sewing room, nor all the quilt tops I wanted to finish, nor start exercising. Jeez.

Here's something that has never happened to me before... I bought yarn from 2 different sellers on ebay in early November, and I didn't get either shipment. I mean, they never sent it. I sent follow-up e-mails to both of them and had some discussions about whether they were mailed or not. Last week I got the curly madras yarn (brown, tan, and indigo) from one seller, and today I had an e-mail from the other stating she had found the package of fuschia tartelette and was sending it today. In all the years I've bought and sold on ebay, my purchases have always been shipped in a timely manner and arrived in good condition. I hope that was just a weird thing that happened due to Thanksgiving, and not an indicator of how yarn-sellers operate. (I know, that isn't realistic. Crap happens, right?) It isn't really an issue since I don't have any idea what I'm going to do with this yarn anyway!

Okay, I think that's two crappy entries in a row, so maybe I'll just stop writing for now. Its time to walk the dogs and then go knit awhile.

Update, Schmupdate

I just installed the DSL modem and switched over to SBC/Yahoo DSL service. Oh, boy, I'm already missing some stuff I had with MSN. Or at least I haven't figured out how to add it back yet. The DSL service seems to be fast though. I bet it takes me at least a week to get my newsgroup subscriptions and my bookmarks all switched over to this service.

The weather got really cold this evening. I was freezing when I walked the dogs after their supper. We'll have to go out at least two more times before bed. And my knee sure does hurt. I knew it was from walking Goofy. He pulls too hard!

I've been knitting on my fleece scarf. Its so easy! I think its cute, too. Seems like I already have about 16" or so of length on it.

That's about it for today. I hope to start putting pictures in the blog in the next few days. I think I've figured out some of the HTML coding to add links, too. :-)

Home Again, Home Again

Goofy and Gracie came home Sunday evening! I am SO happy! I've missed these guys terribly, and its wonderful to have their big black furry butts laying underfoot again. I know my mom and dad are missing them since they stayed at their house for 3.5 months. This has been a great day; we have taken several walks, napped together, and played in the back yard. Everything is new again and must be examined thoroughly by them, including the rooms in the house and the resident cat (who sees little humor in the return of the hounds).

Finally, justice is served. I am so proud of the jury in the Scott Petersen trial for finding him guilty and delivering the death penalty punishment. I have grieved for Laci's family since her disappearance and my only regret is the number of years that will pass as Scott files appeals before his punishment is completed.

My DSL modem arrived today. I will probably hook it up tomorrow, since some furniture moving will be required and I have no desire to get into that tonight. The phone line won't be activated until the 15th, so there is no great rush. I'm really looking forward to having faster internet.

The Christmas party and sewing day on Saturday was great! Everyone got their snowman wallhangings together, and Emily got hers quilted and bound. They all looked different, even though we used the same pattern. That is the magic of fabric! We had a cookie swap - yum! And the gift-giving was so nice... the girls loved the hanky-panky quilts I made. The other gifts were quilted batik travel iron totes, personalized armchair sewing caddies, snowmen figures made from white tube socks, embroidered towels, boxes decorated with ornate ribbon trims and wired-ribbon flowers and leaves, and old-fashioned pincushions on stands. Everyone did beautiful work. It was wonderful to have such a nice assortment of hand-made gifts from our best friends! We passed out the last blocks in our color series block swap, and discussed setting them in a quilt top. I want so badly to make more blocks and enlarge the quilt.... the other girls would not be surprised if that happened. It seems I always cut too many pieces or end up making extra blocks for our group projects! There are 24 blocks (12" square) which could be set 4 x 6 (48" x 72") for a lap/throw size quilt without borders. If I added 1 block, I could do a 5 x 5 setting (60" square). This size would even make a nice queen/king bed topper. I don't know yet how I want to add borders to this project, but I would like to start on it right away so I can show it next month at our meeting.

I started knitting the fleece scarf on Saturday. While at our sew day, Judi showed me how to cut the fleece and stretch the strips to make them fuzzy. Then she cast-on and did the first two rows of the scarf for me. Its going to be really cute! Yes, I will take some pictures and post them here!

Its time for another walk - I wonder how my knee will feel tomorrow?

Not Half Bad....

Today was great! That training I attended at work today only lasted 4 hours!! Woohoo! And they fed us lunch. Can't complain about that. I did get pulled out of class several times by my former boss to answer questions about how I did things.... gee, maybe they shouldn't have eliminated my job.... one guy asked me to stay and put some pipe specs into the system. Uh, sorry, I'm on sick leave. I'm not really here. And I don't work for this group anymore. Get it?

I finished the Hanky Panky quilt tops! Now all that's left is putting the backing and batt on, and turning right side out. (I'm birthing these - like a pillow - no binding) They are really pretty. I used different colors for borders on each of them, 2 pink and 4 blue. The pattern shows lace appliqued on the borders, so I'll go to the store early in the morning to see what's available before I line them. I'm also thinking of using diaper flannel instead of batting, I just don't know if I have a really thin batt on hand to use in these. Anyway, they will be totally finished by noon tomorrow. I am so glad to have that task completed.

Tomorrow I need to make my color trade blocks for our stitch group meeting. I pulled a great blue-violet (this month's focus color) Moda Marble Mate from my stash, and a pale lavender tone on tone polka dot Moda for the accent color. Making those blocks will take about 15 minutes. I also need to make a quilt back for my Snail's Trail quilt. I had misplaced that top for over a year, and found it just a couple weeks ago while cleaning up my sewing room. I had several chunks of yardage that were appropriate for backing and I got them measured and cut, but I need to sew those 2 long seams. I want to take that top to my machine quilter tomorrow night when my mom and I go to the Christmas party at the quilt shop, so I better get that done too. I still need to prepare the fusible pieces for the snowman wallhanging I'm making on Saturday, but that will only take an hour at the most. And, last but not least, I want to fix those 4 rows on my row-robin, so that I can take it to show the other girls on Saturday. I still haven't made a final decision about the borders for that quilt - I think I'll add a strip of 2.5" assorted bright squares on the two sides and then add another strip of the first border fabric. This quilt top is LONG, so I don't want any more borders on the top and bottom. But before I get to that point, I've got to do some fiddly piecing to extend the top 4 rows about 2" and try to make them "match" the patchwork in those rows. My mom thought that was a better solution than taking off the 4 bottom rows and trying to cut them down symmetrically and re-assemble them. We'll see how big a mess I can make out of this.

I'm so tired tonight - this getting up early and staying up late is starting to take its toll on me. Never mind that in a month that will be my work routine again, and I'll just have to deal with it. I haven't had a nap in a few days either. My hands and my knee hurt by the time I go to bed; I hope as time passes that will lessen a great deal.

Today was a gorgeous day - 70° in December!!! Its unreal. The next couple of days are going to be just as nice. Joe was able to do a LOT of walking today, and felt pretty good this evening. I like it when the day turns out that way.

Mostly Cranky (with stress in the forecast)

Today has been a less-than-perfect day. I am not done yet with the Hanky Panky Quilts. I had a physical therapy appointment this morning that took way too long, then had lunch with Joe at the Coffee Ranch, followed by a nail appointment. The nails took too long; everyone was in a chatty mood (including me). Unfortunately, this put me even further behind schedule. I got home at 3:30 and had the perfect opportunity to do the tacking on a HP quilt, but did I? Ha. A day full of sloth-like behavior has ruined my attitude today. I wasted an hour surfing the 'net instead. I'm mad at myself for this - for one thing, when I sew by hand I always scratch my nails with the tip of the needle. I really don't need to ruin a perfectly good manicure; I also need to get this project finished. Where's the motivation I had last night?

Tomorrow will be a wasted day as well. I don't know what I was thinking, but I agreed to go out to the plant for a training session that is offered only once a year. I will need this training for the new job I'm starting when I return to work in January, so even though I am not "released" for work, I am being nice and doing the training anyway. I didn't even think of asking how I'm getting paid for this day; I probably would just do it to be nice, but Joe asked why I was giving them a day for free.... um, because I'm nice? He rolled his eyes and called me a pushover. Maybe my boss will comp me a day next month; I'm not going to worry about it anymore. I don't think it will even take all day - seems like its a 6 hour class - its about air freight regulations, and I'm going to be billing bulk freight - so it doesn't even apply to me. *sigh*

From the local news, some stupid things that people do.... I fail to understand why a 38 year old woman who has children of her own would have a sexual relationship with a 16 year old boy. A teacher in a neighboring town has been asked to resign (and jailed on felony charges) after the details of her affair with this kid came to light. It offends me as a grown woman that someone would jeopardize their career and their family to do something so stupid, not to mention how it will affect this boy's future relationships with women. It wasn't rooted in threat or force by either party - I guess they just liked screwing each other. We also have a male coach/teacher in our town that is being held on charges of having a relationship with a 16 year old female student. This is his 2nd time to get caught doing this - our school system actually hired this guy after he'd been fired at another school in the area for doing the same thing. At least this time he will be going down for several years; evidently probation doesn't work that well for him. duh..... Don't be thinking its about sex; that would be way off-base. I just can't believe how short-sighted these people are to think they won't get caught doing anything this stupid with teenagers. Someone always talks. Always.

I'm in fine form; I don't usually rant but it seems everything has gotten under my skin today. Today at lunch, we saw a woman we went to high school with. She introduced the guy she was with as her "racquetball partner". I watched them during lunch and the body language told another story. I mentioned this to Joe, who was dense as a brick ("I don't see anything") and he said maybe the guy was auditioning to be her next husband. Whatever.... when guys and girls are just friends, they don't touch each other constantly and kiss bye-bye on the lips. Why don't they just call it like it is?

One thing that went right today - I signed up for DSL service. I absolutely hate doing things like this over the phone... give me an internet form to fill in and I'm all over it (is that anti-social or something?). This time the internet form failed to do the trick, and I got an e-mail response to call in and verify the customer authentication information. I got a terrific customer service rep who was extremely helpful and had some suggestions that made better sense than what I had planned. The DSL modem will come in a few days and our computer line will be switched to DSL by the 15th. I'm going to change to SBC/Yahoo internet service as part of the package, so I need to change my e-mail address on everything. There's some software included that will re-route my e-mail and notify senders of the change for 30 days, but I don't think that will work with all the lists I subscribe to. Hmmm, it might be a good way to re-evaluate some of the stuff that hits my inbox.

Okee dokee, I've got four quilts tacked, two to go. (I'm going to make it after all....) Joe just left to take his sister to their great-nephew's 4th birthday party (which I didn't even know about since we weren't invited, maybe they don't think I'm a good gift prospect). I think I'll run to the grocery store for some soda and assorted junk we've nearly run out of this week - mozzarella cheese sticks, apples, pretzels, ice cream..... no, strike the ice cream. I don't need it, I just want it! :-)

I still have a lot of things I want to write about.... perhaps I can get to them in the next few days. Oh yeah, I don't have any spare time, but when has that stopped me?

Stolen Moments

Ha ha! You thought it was gonna be something else, didn't ya. Big revelation: I shouldn't be doing this. I am up to my armpits in Christmas quilt gifts, and have 3 days left to complete them. And I'm sitting here blogging... whining voice ... but look how long its been since I wrote anything... finally my wrists are healed well enough to sew by hand and even more important, to type!! Life is good.

The bad thing about not being able to type is that I have so many thoughts that I wish I'd gotten written down. For instance, Thanksgiving was a trip. Picture this: a childless couple in their 40's who are both overworked, and own a dog that is a terrorist disguised as a beagle. (they are our hosts, and she is my sister) Since they are so busy with their new Serv Pro franchise, they are only providing the place to eat and the table settings. My Joe is doing the turkeys and my mom is doing the pies and veggies. (one turkey was deep fried with herb butter marinade, the other a hickory smoked turkey from south Texas) Upon arriving at my sister's house, we find she is sick with a cold and is in high bitchiness mode. Even Joe noticed that she was ripping my mom a new one every time she turned around. And the house - my god - that dog has torn the upholstery skirts off of every piece of her living room furniture, and chewed the corners of the seat cushions and is gradually removing the stuffing... in addition to pulling the carpet up from the thresholds. I think it is even trying to figure out how to eat the brick hearth on the fireplace. Now, these are the childless ones who have a beautiful magazine house and a landscaped yard. It makes me sick to see how this dog has destroyed their home. I swear, this dog has even pulled covers off the bed and ripped open the mattress. Fer petes sake, give it up already. This dog has issues that aren't going away. I don't say this lightly; I adore pets and am often irrational about them myself, but I couldn't live with this situation. But I'm not her (for which I am thankful on a daily basis). And I've digressed from the Thanksgiving celebration, which was a lovely display of pies, stuffing and gravy fresh off the Schwann's frozen food truck; accompanied by the green bean casserole. Oh, come on, you know which one! Actually I do like the GBC. And the turkey was awesome. The best part of the day was watching the Philadelphia dog show on TV - I was so glad the guys didn't know how to work the remote for the dish network and couldn't find a football game. My son left for his girlfriend's house as soon as the meal was over, and my mom blathered about her health issues. My sister eventually pulled out the Scrabble board, and proceeded to whip me three games in a row, only because I finally gave in and let her use foreign words... It was just like every year, only worse. And I needed to get that out of my system.

The quilts I should be working on are for my stitch group exchange on Saturday. I am really proud of these - I'm making small (18" square) "Hanky Panky" quilts from vintage ladies' hankies and a bit of ribbon, lace and embroidery. I've collected hankies for just this kind of project for a long time, but these are special. I have used monogrammed hankies in the center of each little quilt - so Barbara gets a "B", Judi gets a "J", Emily gets an "E" and so on... They are so pretty, and go together really fast. I cut my muslin foundations and then layed out and pinned each of the six quilts, and am now hand-tacking the hankie edges to the foundation. It is taking about an hour apiece to tack them; I'm probably doing too much but I want them to stay together! I'll finish tacking tomorrow, then can add borders with lace trim and back them. I'm using the birthing method (turning inside out) so I don't have to do a separate binding, so I will likely be done tomorrow night or sometime Thursday. We're having an all day combination sew-day and party on Saturday, which I am all excited about! We will be making fused-applique snowman wallhangings (from the Christmas Projects special issue of "The Quilter" magazine). I have my fabrics pulled for that project, and will make the fusible pattern pieces and put them on the fabrics before Saturday. We're all going to fuse and machine applique while we talk and eat and party all day. Sounds like fun, huh? :) Hey, that's what happens when a bunch of 40-50 year old women get together....

Joe has been wanting a spare digital camera for a long time now, so today I bought him one. I think its the first thing I ever bought on Ebay that he knew about before I got it. :) He uses a Nikon Coolpix 995 for his underwater photography (as well as anything else we take pics of), and that model is several years old. I ran a search on Ebay and saw that they have been selling for between $200 -$300. He said he would gladly pay that for a working camera with the normal accessories, so I put several auctions on my watch list and have been checking them daily. There was one that was ending early this morning, which I figured would be a pretty good opportunity to snap it up at a low price. I wasn't disappointed! It was well worth getting up early for - I got it for $207 - and the seller had the PayPal merchandise guarantee. The hardest part of the whole experience was explaining Ebay to Joe and getting him to look at the auctions to judge for himself - I had to walk a fine line between "knowledgable" and "knows way too much" about how Ebay works. I have to say one thing, the people selling cameras surprised me - they all had the original boxes, manual, cables, accessories, etc. just like new. I'm sure ours are scattered throughout the house, probably in places we'd never look for them!

And what would my blog entry be without a weather report? We had heavy frost this morning, but warmed up to the 60's today. It was a beautiful day, and we're supposed to have more of the same all week. It is so unusual to have had flowers in the yard past Thanksgiving. We only had a hard freeze last week - too strange. But hey, I'm not going to complain when I can have doors and windows open during the day in December!

I got a thrill this evening.... while surfing through other blogs I read, I saw my blog on someone's favorite list!!! Aaaack!!! It was a funny feeling to realize that I'm writing more than just a diary - someone besides me actually reads it! I knew it would happen, but I didn't know I'd be so excited about it!

OK, that's enough for tonight. The Carlton Sheets real estate infomercial is on TV, and that means its time for bed. Right after I finish tacking this one hanky quilt.....