July 30, 2024

Blog Post Previous:
Post #107 of 779 total is from July 19, 2012 in my original blog:
What a busy day yesterday! Besides picking Kyle up in Princeton, there was a grass fire, a head-on collision, & a medical call. Even with all that, I STILL managed to FINALLY work on my knitting machine again, only for the 2nd time since setting it up in my office. A sweater is 4 major pieces. The back, the front, & then each sleeve. Well, I had completed the back the day I set up the machine (almost, I didn't get the ribbing done at the bottom). Yesterday I managed to complete the ribbing on the back, do the front, complete the ribbing on the front, graft 1 shoulder seam, do the ribbing on the neck, & graft the other shoulder seam. WOOHOO! It looks GREAT! All I have now is the 2 sleeves & I'm done! Got to cook hamburgers & watch Dallas after Pete got home. Yesterday was a great day. I hope it was for you too. Kyle started debate camp this morning & he couldn't wait. Why am I not surprised that he excels in arguing? Andrew's birthday is Tuesday! I wish I could be with him, but Myrtle Beach is a lot of gallons of fuel away & my truck only gets 15 mpg. This is one of those times that I wish I had a motorcycle or a Prius. Zip out to the coast, zip back. Eve's going to be moving out there soon too, which means 2/3 of my children & my in-laws will all be out in Myrtle Beach. I wish there was work out there for Pete, we'd move too.

Blog Today:
Great day yesterday, I got everything done & then some!

Craft:
I did some resin pouring for the 1st time in 2 years. I made a beautiful set of 1 bowl, 4 square coasters, & 4 round coasters. Burnt Sienna with Antique Gold powder mixed in. The coasters are holographic & came out wonderful. The square coasters didn't come out as good, they are slightly buckled, just enough that I wouldn't want to sit a glass on them. I think I'll market those to be used with the holographic side down since the "bottom" is flat. I'll just make the bottom the top. The holographic side features the hologram more than the antique gold powder, but the powder floated to the top, meaning the "bottom" has all the gold. So even if I flip the square ones, they're still beautiful because more gold shows on that side. Before marketing I should put little rubber feet on them or cork so people don't accidentally use the wrong side & have a glass tip over. It's not "that" bad, but I don't want any accidents ... just in case. Today I'm going to work on a friendship bracelet.

DeviantArt of the Day from https://www.deviantart.com/lizc864:

Dinner:
Cheese Dogs

Friendship Bracelet Pattern of the Day:

Game of the Day:
I didn't feel like gaming yesterday. I was too busy being productive & making things. I'm really torn today, I want to work on that friendship bracelet for a long time, but I also want to play Forza 5!

Home:
I want to work on the hall closet, but there isn't really much I can do in there. It's mostly storage. Nothing to neaten, nothing to get rid of, nothing to use at the moment. I'll check it anyway just to make sure.

Image of the Day:

Pattern of the Day:

July 29, 2024

Blog Post Previous:
Post #6 of 778 total is from June 22, 2013 in my original blog:
Good morning! I just love our backyard in the summer, blooming & beautiful (1st pic)! Even Browser, Joselyn, & Xoco enjoyed the backyard yesterday (2nd pic). I caught up on a couple projects yesterday, such as my Dark Country Blue Interlocking (3rd pic) & the Tardis (9th pic). Harley is doing great & loves to hang out on the sofa with my while I craft (4th pic). Yesterday I cleaned the house, got the mail & received my vintage Lite Brite (another piece of my childhood recovered), surfed eBay, checked facebook & took my game turns, read the next day of the Fireproof Love Dare, spent some time checking out the IMDb app on my iPad Mini, created the Knit Wit (5th pic) page on my personal Website, took the dogs out, worked on my plastic canvas, crocheted, the FD got toned out to a water leak, I made mozzarella sticks & fried chicken, for dinner w/ pretzels on the side, & sat down & watched TV until Pete got home & then we went straight to bed because neither of us got much sleep for 2 nights in a row. Yesterday's Sims game was the Inventor career & my Sim Lewis went to the university on a distinguished technology award & has been going to classes. This morning the FD got toned out to a med call, I took the dogs out, did my banking for the week, & the FD got toned out to a 2nd med call. Today's Sims game is Tahoe Pines (6th - 8th pics) & my Sim Michael is a teen who is working on various skills since he has no skill or career specific traits. Otherwise not a good day so far.

Blog Today:
Pete's home! He was on vacation for 5 days visiting family to lay his mother to rest next to his father. He got home late yesterday afternoon, fell asleep, then went to work early this morning. By tonight it'll be almost a week since I got to spend any time with him & he won't have any more vacation time coming for a while. His family has had a lot going on, so he's been away a lot. I just hope someday one of his vacations can be spent with me again. I wasn't able to go with him the last 3 trips because I have 4 dogs & a hamster. No, I can't afford to hire a full-time 24/7 pet sitter for a week (my dogs can easily get into a fight if they're alone because they're all brothers) & the last time I loaded all the dogs into the car because I didn't have a choice it was horrible & that was a 2 hour round trip. Halfway across the U.S. isn't going to happen with these dogs & a hamster.

Craft:
I did a lot of research over the weekend on crafts. I tried hot glue gun crafting into the molds I have for resin. It came out beautiful for it's too soft. I can dent it with my thumbnail which means I can't sell any of this stuff. People would wear it once & notice scratches. Also, it took 1 entire glue stick to make a 1" across x ¼" deep pendant. Just ONE pendant! Do you have any idea how many glue sticks it would take to make anything else I have molds for? A coaster for example? Yikes. Ok, so the hot glue gun was fun, but it's out. Then I researched UV resin because it doesn't require all the mixing of "A" & "B". Same price in the end, toxic, & not as strong. So I'm back to the original resin that I use. Turns out I was doing it right from the start. I miss making things with resin. It's been a really long time. I stopped because I was going through resin at a rate of $100/mo. That's expensive for a craft. I'm going to make something today but I haven't decided on what just yet. Most likely coasters & dog pendants since I have brand new holographic molds that I haven't ever used yet. I'm excited, I missed resin crafting. I didn't miss the gloves & the mess though. I'm excited about new coasters & I have SOOO many paints, powders, & addons that I can mix in ... I can't wait to decide on all that later, too!

DeviantArt of the Day from https://www.deviantart.com/lizc864:

Dinner:
Biscuits

Friendship Bracelet Pattern of the Day:

Game of the Day:
I looked at a new game yesterday that I've had in my Steam inventory for a long time. It looks great but it also looks hard. It's called Age of History II. I loaded the game but never got to learn or play it because Pete was home. Maybe someday. Today I'd like to look at another random game from my Steam library.

Home:
I'm going to check my Amazon Wishlist for home items & also the deals of the day. I probably won't buy anything though. I need more resin. lol

Image of the Day:

Pattern of the Day:

July 26, 2024

Blog Post Previous:
Post #6 of 777 total is from March 31, 2012 in my original blog:
Good afternoon! Had a good day yesterday & thoroughly enjoyed mac & cheese for lunch with Kyle. Had a great time at our LCFD Easter Egg Hunt today, thank you to our members who came & helped out (Judy, Kathy, Lawson, Scott), thank you to the family & friends of members who came & helped out, my daughter Eve for face painting & being the Easter Bunny for a little while, my son Kyle who helped clean & also was the Easter bunny for a little bit, & thank you to all citizens who came to the event! :) City Council meeting & LCFD BBQ & Maintenance night on Tuesday.

Blog Today:
There's a photo of Kyle in the blog post above. God I miss him!

Craft:
I got some crafting done while watching a video class yesterday. Double productivity! I ended up pausing the class when there was an incident in Anna that had dispatch close the channel & there was a very long foot chase & search for a subject. They even had the K9 unit involved. They finally caught him in the end.

DeviantArt of the Day from https://www.deviantart.com/lizc864:

Dinner:
Tootie Fruities

Friendship Bracelet Pattern of the Day:

Game of the Day:
I worked on Aurora in Minecraft. Man I love that world! The town looks so beautiful. Canasta tonight. I love that game.

Home:
I'd like to work on "build mode" today, but I'm not sure doing what. Build mode is tough because it's something major & that usually indicates major money & effort also. For that reason it rarely happens, but it's nice to plan & dream.

Image of the Day:

Pattern of the Day:

July 25, 2024

Blog Post Previous:
Post #27 of 776 total is from May 31, 2012 in my original blog:
Tried to sit down, watch 'The Final Countdown', hand knit a sweater, & relax ... but ended up going on a med call instead. I did manage to watch a very interrupted movie & after that figured I'd see what that show '24' is all about. I watched most of the 1st episode & then Pete came home. Mitt Romney will be in Dallas on Tuesday.

Blog Today:
Uneventful day yesterday, just like I prefer it. Peaceful. I watched 3 episodes of Tracker last night before bed. I was going to sign up for the monthly plan to take courses, but their $20/mo which already made me pause for a couple days is only $20/mo if you pay for a year in advance (so much for cancel any time). If you subscribe & pay monthly, it's $35. That's a huge jump. Most places say if you pay for a year in advance you get 1 month free, but damn that's too big of a jump. I think I'll pass on any classes at that price.

Craft:
I didn't craft yesterday because I really wanted to spend time in a game instead.

DeviantArt of the Day from https://www.deviantart.com/lizc864:

Dinner:
Bologna on a roll

Friendship Bracelet Pattern of the Day:

Game of the Day:
I worked on Aurora in Minecraft. Man I love that world! The town looks so beautiful. I also spent a couple hours remapping the town on graph paper & getting all the streets (rail line tour) mapped out & working better. I had to fence a lot of the streets because cows would wander onto the track & stop the cart during the overnight tour. Today I'll look at random new (to me) games.

Home:
I'd like to work on the driveway today, but it's going to be almost too hot (maybe not). It depends on which forecast is correct, they're a few degrees off from each other & the average puts it RIGHT on the line of whether to go outside or not.

Image of the Day:

Pattern of the Day:

July 24, 2024

Blog Post Previous:
Post #27 of 775 total is from April 23, 2012 in my original blog:
Thank you Harold for the sticker. :) I had a nice weekend & even managed to spend some time playing Pyramid Solitaire on myYearbook last night. It took me a while, but I finally cleared the board & won a game. This morning in 2nd Life I went to a French speaking area in the game & although I couldn't chat with anyone I did manage to get myself some cool new clothes. Now if only I could get away with dressing like this still in real life. Well, that was several pounds ago ... about 30. Speaking our pounds & my refusal to diet because I enjoy food way too much, I've decided to share a recipe with you today. No, there's nothing "diet" about it, so if you're watching your weight, don't even read it. It'll make you drool all over your keyboard. Daniel Jason Grady, we lost you 1 year ago today & we still think of you & miss you every day.

Blog Today:
There's a site I visit to look at & occasionally buy courses to learn new things. Every time I visit the site, there's a promotion that says "Today ONLY all classes $19.99", or sometimes it's $13.99 like it was 2 days ago. I ignore that huge banner because it's been there literally every single day for years. It's not a special 1 day only price when it's been there for years. Anyway, there was a class I really wanted to take & it was of course, $13.99. I didn't buy the course but yesterday I decided I wanted to take the course so I logged in ready to purchase it. Well, for the 1st time ever, that sale banner was gone & the course was $159.99. WHAT?! Aw crap, are you serious? Needless to say I didn't purchase it at that price. It may very well be worth it, but I don't have that kind of money for a class that may or may not be worth it & may or may not have information that will help me make more money. I am so pissed. Damnit. Anyway, they have a subscription where you get 7 days free & then it's $20/mo after that. Well worth it if you like taking courses because it gives you access to 11k courses out of the 210k on the site. Hmmm ... I wonder if I'd be interested in any of the others? Anyway, I can get the free trial, take the course I want for free since it's one of the courses included in the subscription plan, & then cancel if I don't see anything else I like. I have 8 saved courses in my favorites, but what if none of the other 7 are included in the subscription? The other downside to the subscription is I would have to take very good notes, because unlike purchasing a course & owning it forever, on a subscription you only have access to it for as long as you're subscribing. The second I cancel, I lose access ... so I need to take really good notes. Still worth it!

Craft:
I didn't craft yesterday because I really wanted to spend time in a game instead.

DeviantArt of the Day from https://www.deviantart.com/lizc864:

Speaking of Aurora, this is the very beginning of Aurora! The 1st 2 houses to be built in the world! Charmed Manor was the 1st on the top right. You should see the DynMap view now. It's such a large town!

Dinner:
Peanut butter on Ritz

Friendship Bracelet Pattern of the Day:

Game of the Day:
The randomly selected games were ... ick. Nothing I was interested in playing but I wanted to stream my Minecraft town Aurora overnight last night so I spent time working on that. I love how that town looks, it's so beautiful! From a distant aerial shot it looks like Sims 3 or maybe even Cities Skylines. It just get larger & more beautiful by the day when I work on it. Today's game is what I was talking about yesterday ... a randomly owned game on my son's account which is now mine. He has sooo many games! This will be interesting.

Home:
I didn't work on the house yesterday because I was looking at home items on Etsy but I never see anything I like or can afford on there. I did manage to find a bunch of crochet patterns I like though. I didn't buy any, but I did add them to my favorites.

Image of the Day:

Pattern of the Day:

July 23, 2024

Blog Post Previous:
Post #443 of 774 total is from September 3, 2013 in my current blog:
Good morning! I hope everyone had a fun & safe Labor Day weekend. My Labor Day was mostly all talking & programming. I had a 2½ hour talk w/ someone, then spent 3½ hours rewriting my entire schedule which not only required moving everything around, but putting all of the code behind it for my Website. Then another 1½ hour talk, then I set up the treadmill & that was it. It doesn't sound like much & in writing, it wasn't ... but being there live took a lot longer than writing it down here. My schedule will change again, but not until the end of November. Then it'll change again in June. The only other change I can see happening before then is if the booth doesn't work out & we decide to discontinue it. Then all of that comes out. It's up to someone else though as to how long they'd like to continue the booth. Yesterday's Sims game was Chestnut Hill & my Sim Lewis is in the university on an apprentice science award. He's been going to classes. The FD got toned out early this morning to a med call, I took the dogs out & loaded up Sims. Today's game is California Mansion by Curtis Paradis (2nd pic). My Sim is Ferris. An angler & natural cook who is nurturing, hates the outdoors, & his hydrophobic. His lifetime wish is to be a celebrated 5-star chef & he likes grilled cheese, custom music, & the color spiceberry. He's a Gemini. His furry companion is a Havana Brown cat named Orlando who is destructive, a genius, & friendly. Ferris is going to build up his fishing & cooking skills before enrolling in the university so he gets a scholarship & doesn't have to do a full 3 full-time Sim weeks in the university. Today is day 1 of my 2 days off this week. YAY! City council meeting tonight @ 7:p. It's been a few decades, but I just almost started a fire in the kitchen. I put an egg on to boil & still had the heat on full. I completely forgot about it & didn't remember until just now when I heard a pop. I had no idea what that pop was, so I sat here for a moment ... listened, didn't hear anything more, & then went on w/ my business. About a minute later I heard whistling, but I thought it was a squeak. The cat caught a mouse & brought it in? Nope, both cats are sleeping soundly. When I glanced over at the kitchen, I saw the stove light on & the pot on the burner ... then I remembered. CRAP! I ran over there & of course there wasn't ANY water left in the pot & the egg popped open. That was the sound I heard. I took it off the burner & turned the heat off. I'll wait until it cools before I go take a closer look at it just in case it isn't done popping. That's all I need ... to have to call the LCFD because I have eggshell shrapnel embedded in my face. Now THAT would be embarrassing! How would I explain that to dispatch? Egg grenade??

Blog Today:
Egg grenade ... HAHAHA! I just saw a job Kyle would have loved & I wish he was still here so I could tell him about it. Airplane Repo. The pay is pretty damn good, too! I spent a lot of time yesterday looking at courses I want to take vs courses I should take. Half are for personal interest which doesn't make money, the other half is what could actually make money. Of course I can't justify dumping big money into courses that won't make that money back & then some, so I shifted my focus to the courses that are useful. $1k for an Information Technology course. At the end you get a certificate. I don't need the certificate, I just need the knowledge so I went over to a different site where I can learn all the same stuff but at $15 / course instead of $1k. I'd have to take every course separately (all the different things they taught in the $1k class, but even then it's a LOT cheaper. While I was there I looked at tons of other courses because for an average of $15 each, I can afford to take classes I don't "need". In the end I saved a lot of courses to my wishlist & every single one of them are useful. Yay! Today I'm going to probably study swing trading strategies since I'm a swing trader & any & all knowledge in that field would be very useful.

Craft:
I got some crocheting done yesterday & it would have been a lot more if I didn't spend literally hours looking at courses.

DeviantArt of the Day from https://www.deviantart.com/lizc864:

Dinner:
Liverwurst on Rye

Friendship Bracelet Pattern of the Day:

Game of the Day:
Randomly owned game from my Steam account (I have over 100). Kyle has so much more than that & I own his account too now, so when I land on a random game from his account it'll be really interesting because they're games I'm not familiar with at all.

Home:
I didn't work on the house yesterday because I was looking at half walls. A nice idea if you have a huge house with an open floor plan, but this house is a little too small for the half wall thing. Today I'm going to look at stuff on Etsy for the home.

Image of the Day:

Pattern of the Day:

July 22, 2014

Blog Post Previous:
Post #267 of 773 total is from Valentine's Day 2013 in my original blog:
Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you all had a wonderful day. It doesn't matter if you're single, dating, going steady, engaged, or married ... it's a happy day. Hug someone you love: friend, significant other, or furry pet & tell them you love them. Kiss your goldfish's bowl. Hug a Teddy bear. SMILE! Yesterday I went through the mail, had egg salad for breakfast, & then sat down to watch a movie & cross stitch. Since Josh didn't write his hours on my white board, I completely forgot about him until he called me to ask where I was. Ummm ... watching a movie & cross stitching. There was nothing on the board so I forgot. I was 45 minutes late. Do you think he'll remember next time? If you need a ride, the least you can do is do as the driver asks & write your hours on the board. I came back, finished the movie that I had paused, cross stitched until the movie ended & then went up into town to get Kyle from the library. When I got back I went to work on eBay, then put my Avon order away that came while I was working, checked facebook, talked to our daughter Eve on the phone for a while (who, I might add, is TOP OF HER CLASS in nursing school with a 97% average & is currently tied for top grade with another girl who also has a 97% average). Kyle made macaroni & cheese & shared with me, which was great because I was starving. After lunch I sat down to hand knit for a while & Pete joined me & watched a couple shows he likes. I checked Pinterest & by then it was so late that we just settled into our nighttime routine & that was it. Today was crazy busy. I woke up & started my timer to do some beading. Had to pause the timer about 100 times & when all was said & done, 2 hours of beading ended up taking me NINE AND A HALF HOURS. In that 9½ hours, besides the 2 hours of working on my bead banner, I also took Kyle to the Social Security office, we went out to grab something to eat (my breakfast), picked Josh up from work, took Kyle to an appointment, came home, wrote a 2 page letter, talked to my sister-in-law, talked to Pete, the FD got toned out to a small tree on fire under a power line in a cemetery, & it's dark out now. I woke up with the intention of beading for 2 hours to start my day, just finished, & it's DARK OUTSIDE. 20:00 ... 8:p. EVENING. Welcome to my crazy life where 2 hours of beading takes 9½ hours to complete & will probably be the ONLY thing I accomplish today. I'm still behind on my other craft projects ... twice behind on my latch hooking, once behind on my needlepoint, & wanted to go to Culver's for lunch yesterday but by the time I GOT to lunch, Culver's was closed. it was after 10:p by the time I got to LUNCH. As far as pre-planned scheduling ... I technically (on my schedule), haven't gotten to BREAKFAST yet today. The breakfast I had late this afternoon was as a passenger in a sea of errands. I ask this question every day. HOW did I get this busy? I'm not a celebrity. I'm not a CEO working 80 hours a week. I'm a housewife, yet today will end with me not getting to BREAKFAST on my pre-planned schedule. How is that possible? No cleaning the house. No going to work at my home-based business. Nothing. How?! As I said in an earlier post ... I haven't played Sims in over a month now. The 1 & only thing I do that is NOT productive. My only "complete goof off relaxation" hasn't happened in over 30 days. Why? Because it's the LAST thing I do at the end of the day. I make SURE that all the necessities are done 1st, then the hobbies that actually PRODUCE something useful, I make sure I've eaten 3 meals, make sure I've showered ... all the basics, necessities, & productive hobbies are FIRST. THEN & ONLY then, do I load up a game & do absolutely nothing productive or useful. Something that produces nothing but enjoyment. In over 30 days I haven't had ONE DAY that I've gotten to that point. Not ONE. I don't get it. I really don't. As a housewife I should have all the time in the world. Right? I should have time to clean, cook, bathe, then have hours upon hours to just goof off. Work at my home business ... craft ... play games ... eat bon-bons in front of the TV if I felt like it. Right? I'm at a complete loss for an explanation as to WHY it's 8:p & I've done nothing scheduled except beading which was supposed to be just a Thursday morning craft that I do FIRST simply because it's Thursday. It's been a long week. It's almost over, but not quite ... so I craft FIRST for a little while on Thursday mornings & then get to work. IN THEORY. Pete & I have both been so busy today that Valentine's Day hasn't happened for us. I don't know if it will or not. Too busy for Valentine's Day? Now that's just SAD. We'll see.

Blog Today:
I'm not as busy as I used to be back in 2013, but some days I still don't understand how I got so backed up. It's just me & Pete now, so it's a lot better time-wise than it used to be.

Craft:
I got a lot of crocheting done over the weekend & finished the cardigan. I decided to start my 5th version of a crocheted afghan I like to make & realized yesterday while I was setting up to start it that the previous 4 all sold online. ALL OF THEM! How could I never have realized that every single one of them sells? So now I have high hopes of selling this one, too. It's got a 100% sell rate! Wooo! It works fairly fast for an afghan.

DeviantArt of the Day from https://www.deviantart.com/lizc864:

Dinner:
Boiled potato

Friendship Bracelet Pattern of the Day:

Game of the Day:
House Flipper

Home:
I didn't work on the house Saturday because I wanted to do stuff outdoors but it was 94°. I used to love the heat & used to walk a huge dog when it was in the triple digits while 8 months pregnant. I was indestructible (or at least in great shape), but now I can't handle heat over 90° without almost passing out. I don't mind aging, but I do mind the restrictions that didn't used to be there. I feel like such a wuss now. Yesterday I would have liked to clean & / or change out the bedroom curtains but I can't even reach the window because we have all of our stuff plus Kyle's stuff in there & in the spare room. Today I'd like to work on build mode stuff. The last time I had build mode, I looked at wall coverings on Amazon. I found one that was nice & the price was off. Way off. It was too low, by a lot. I clicked the big yellow buy button & the price was still the same. Then I made it all the way through checkout & the price was still the same. I kept expecting them to cancel the order once they figured it out but it never happened. Now I have the largest roll they sell at a small fraction of the actual price. Now I'm just waiting to hear back from them because I'll return it if they want me too. I'm not a thief.

Image of the Day:

Pattern of the Day: