I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I have a couple of projects in progress, plenty of projects in my stash, and I bought another one. I blame my husband. I was bored during my lunch hour and my husband didn’t answer my calls so I went to the knitting store. And I bought a new sock project. In the whole scheme of things, I could have done more damage. It was a crisp fall day and I felt like starting a pair of socks. I picked out a cool pattern by Mountain Colors - Jonesy’s Toe-Up Socks. They have cool twisty cables. I’m knitting them in this beautiful autumn-ey color by Colinette named Copperbeach (part of the Jitterbug line). I spent some time relaxing, watching The Unit and working on my socks. A very nice way to end the day!

Tags: knitting, socks

On the weekends, I prefer a bag/purse that I can wear across my body. It’s easier for running errands and shopping. I have a couple from Vera Bradley that I like, but if you’re wearing a patterned shirt, wearing a busy patterned bag can sometimes be too much. Plus, I like a generously sized bag so I can put a lot in it and keep my hands free.

With so many requirements, it’s nice to be able to make my own bag. This bag was made with all those criteria in mind. I took it for a test run at the Sugarloaf Craft Festival. It worked great! It’s got a magnetic snap closure. It’s pretty deep too so I think it would be hard for someone to try and lift my wallet without my noticing. I tend to buy lots of little things at craft fairs and I could put those things in my bag, no problem. Big things I give to Bill to carry. I like the neutral color, and I’m not against fun patterns, so I put a nice one on the inside. I dressed it up a little with a pretty pin. But this way, my bag doesn’t take away from my Bears t-shirt, and my Bears t-shirt doesn’t clash with my bag. Oh, the things I worry about. If only I spent the same amount of time addressing global warming.

Tags: projects, bags

Harrison is quite the love bug. He knows when I’m 15 minutes from getting out of bed and will plop down next to me and snuggle in the mornings. That’s after he’s nibbled on my fingers and licked my elbows or forearms (whatever’s not under blankets or pillows). Anyway, after I get up he usually lounges on the bed, content to have it all to himself. One morning he was just begging me to take his picture. So I did. He’s a cutie (when he’s not nibbling on my fingers or licking my elbows).

I am almost fully recovered from my cold. I did not, however, wake up on Saturday as I had hoped. I felt crapsy and spent the entire weekend in bed or on the couch. Which actually wasn’t all bad. It was nice to have a reason to relax and not worry about work, sewing, making jewelry, running errands or cleaning. I did knit for pleasure and watched lots of tv, napped and cuddled with my husband (and the babies). Life is too short to not do those things more often.

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Because I am home on a Friday night cleaning out my email. Don’t I live a wild and crazy life? Actually, I’m home in bed in my jammies playing on the internet because my husband was kind enough to pass along his cold. I’ve been taking Zicam so I fully expect (or am really really really hoping) to wake up tomorrow and not have this cold anymore. Ha ha, I think my cold has made me delusional too.

Any hoo, prior to getting sick, I’ve been doing a lot of sewing. I like to have the tv on and I’ve been watching tv shows on DVD. I have eclectic tastes so I’ve been switching between Nip/Tuck Season 1, The Unit Season 1, and Brothers & Sisters Season 1. I am loving Brothers & Sisters and The Unit. Nip/Tuck is good, but a little edgy so I can’t watch it compulsively like I can the other shows. I’m ready for The Unit Season 2 and almost through Brothers & Sisters. B&S is so good I find myself forgetting to sew. Other shows I want to check out are Friday Night Lights and Smallville. Any shows you might recommend I add to my queue?

My husband has brought up some water, cookies and nyquil. What a combination…

Tags: life

This is so cool! I asked Ellia to do an illustration for me. We swapped earrings for artwork. And my artwork arrived today! I’ve been seeing pictures of it on Ellia’s blog and have been incredibly excited! It is AMAZING! She is the best! I ran out to Michael’s to pick out a frame. Washed the glass, grabbed the hammer and it is on the wall!!!

To be honest, I don’t know what I’m most excited about. First, I have a custom illustration. It is based on one of my favorite pictures of me and Bill. (I hung that picture above the illustration.) And I’m excited that the illustration is us! It captures us, how we look (thankfully, she made me thinner than in real life!), how happy we were at that moment, how much fun we were having. And then it captures something we both love (the Cubs). And I love that I have something handmade by someone I really like and admire.

The detail in the illustration is unbelievable. The Cubs logo on my shirt is about dime sized. Same with the baseball. And Bill’s teeth! The teeth are cut! Bill really likes the background. I know Ellia was struggling with it, but she nailed it!

Have I mentioned that this is unbelievable? Ellia’s pictures are much better than mine. You can see them here, here and here.

She also included some other goodies in the package, which I need to photograph. Ellia is such a cool person! She is incredibly talented. Good things are going to happen to her. I can’t wait to say “I knew her when…” I’m lucky to have her as a friend!!! Thanks, Ellia.

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I got to play with fire this past Saturday. I took a glass beadmaking class at the Delaplaine in Frederick, MD. It’s a beautiful facility and I’m going to check out some of their other classes.

Anyway, the beadmaking was fun and challenging. It’s a little scary, working with the flame/fire. There’s some definite safety concerns. But it’s cool to see the glass melt and then to put it on your mandrel and manipulate it into shape. Beadmaking also requires a lot of coordination. You’re holding and twisting the mandrel (where your bead is being formed) with your left hand and then you’re twisting your glass rod (which is melting and forming your bead) and holding it at a different angle with your right hand.

I’m not very good. I’m going to take another beadmaking class and see how it goes. I’m a little hesitant to pick up another hobby. (I already have about 17 hobbies, and quite the stash for each of them.) Would you believe my left shoulder and bicep was sore on Sunday? I’m not used to sitting and keeping my arm up while twisting a little mandrel. And I did this for about 5 hours. I do have a couple of cool beads. Nothing fabulous, but it was my first time.

Tags: beadmaking

Another busy weekend flew by. We were busy, busy, busy this weekend. Some fun (bead shopping, necklace making), some not as fun (scrubbing litter boxes, picking up the house). I have been working on a purse since Tuesday. I finished it on Thursday and carried it to work on Friday. It’s my own design, and my prototype. Gotta take it for a test drive to see how it holds up. I like it. What I like most is that it looks like how I wanted it to look. How many things have looked great in my head and then horrible when I tried to create them?! Anyhoo, I put the sewing machine away for the weekend and focused on jewelry. I made some necklaces, several different styles, though I have one favorite style. I have to photograph them and put them up on my etsy store. That’s my project for the week, so hopefully they will be up by Friday. Here’s a preview of the purse and one of the necklaces.

For those of you who aren’t interested in my Cubs posts, you can stop reading here. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Sighh… Another Cubs season has ended in heartbreak. I have to say that the Diamondback played well. They deserved to win. I wonder how much expectations play into it. I feel like the Diamondbacks could play loose and have fun because nobody expected anything of them. They were a young team and they had the best record in the NL, but they surprised everyone. Whereas the Cubs spent big bucks in the offseason and have big names on the team, and everyone expected this team to make it to the World Series. I feel like that kind of pressure has to take its toll. The Cubs team that took the field in the playoffs was not the team I had seen play when they were on their hot streak. They looked tight and nervous. Like they had 99 years of history sitting on their shoulders. I don’t think they played badly. I am not upset about the homeruns they gave up. I’m disappointed that they could bring the runners in scoring position around to score. They had chances and couldn’t convert them into runs. But I’m a Cubs fan, and I’m excited about what I saw this season. I know there is more to come. I believe.

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Today, I planned to take a few minutes at work to post a couple of pictures of my kids. Photos I had taken with my iPhone. But when I went to look at them, they were no longer on the iPhone.

Last night, I updated iTunes, and had a new version of the software for my iPhone. The only reason I wanted to sync was to put some new episode of Criminal Minds on my phone. Should have been simple, but of course it wasn’t. I update the software, and in the course of doing so, it crashes my phone. Now I have to restore my phone. Takes forever and then everything has to re-sync. Fine. It’s not like I have to sit there and watch it. I make sure my new Bruce Springsteen pre-order downloads and make sure it finds its way to my iPod. A few hours later, my phone is safely back in my purse and ready for today. Or so I thought. I go to watch Criminal Minds and there’s no Criminal Minds. All this hullaballoo, and the one thing I wanted on my phone is not on my phone. That stupid update…

I haven’t blogged about my phone before. It was a surprise from my husband. I love it. First of all, it saves me space and weight. I used to carry two separate devices, both larger than the iPhone. One for music and video, one as a phone. Now I have one device. The iPhone has considerably less space than my iPod, but I am adjusting. I have also lost a little bit of functionality with my phone, but the iPhone has some cool features too. I love the bigger tv viewing screen. I love the map feature. I was able to dial my local pizza place directly from the map. I like the text messaging. I’m getting used to the keyboard. The web browser is nice. All in all, 1.5 thumbs up. It needs a To Do list that works with the To Dos in iCal. Sometimes moving between screens isn’t intuitive. And I’m getting used to managing my music, tv and videos. Lastly, it is a luxury item. You can be surprised with these things when you don’t have to worry about sending the cats and dog to college.

And speaking of the kids, they crack me up. Sabrina’s favorite room is the bathroom. She always hangs out in there. One Saturday morning, she was airing it out. Happy as a clam, all by herself. I had to take a picture.

CJ came back from TN and had a lupus flair-up. Her joints ache and she gets itchy and licks. So she had to be a cone head. As happy as she looks, she really does not like a cone head. It’s really funny to watch her try and walk through doorways.

And finally, is the little seat thief. We had been hanging out, and he had actually been sitting up on the top of the couch, hanging out by my head, enjoying the breeze from the window. I got up to throw something out and by the time I got to the door, about 4 second and 3 steps, I looked back and I had lost my seat. Chel was so proud of himself…

Harrison was camera shy…

Tags: iphone, kids

I love my fluffy coffee drinks. I have a Starbucks that’s halfway to work and if I’m making good time, I take the 3 to 5 minutes and stop for a coffee. It is a little scary because the barista knows my order now (grande (or possibly a venti depending on how I’m feeling) iced skim sugar-free vanilla latte, in case you are curious). Sometimes, if I’m running late, Bill will stop at Starbucks and deliver it to me at my office on his way to work. (I am very spoiled!) I think if I looked at how much I spend on Starbucks, it would be embarrassing. Figure $4 x roughly 4 days a week x 52 weeks = OUCH! And that’s just MY Starbuckies expenditures.

We have an espresso machine and over the summer, we bought the mocha powder and sugar-free rasberry syrup and on the weekends, Bill would make yummy mochas, which we started to refer to as BillBucks. It’s time consuming and a little messy so it was just a weekend thing. Well, this week, Bill’s refined his process and has been making me iced mochas to go. I had a meeting at 8:30am on Monday and everyone was jealous of my yummy coffee beverage.

It’s really nice having my own personal barista (and a little extra pocket money)!

Tags: coffee

Another weekend flew by. Does everybody say that on Mondays? The weather was gorgeous. Not that I spent much time outside, but it was wonderful having the windows open. I was running Sweathshop de Margaret this weekend, pumping out some pouches which I posted in my Etsy store. My husband was helping me by ironing for me. We stayed up late on Saturday and then I picked it up early on Sunday. I accomplished a lot, and it was fun. Between sewing and normal home stuff (picking up, laundry, etc.) I blinked and the weekend was over.

My husband and dog are back from vacation. They went to Nashville to visit Bill’s grandmother. It took the dog a few days to get over the excitement. She loves going to TN. Gran lives off a lake and CJ loves to swim. Bill would take her out first thing in the morning to “take care of business” and then CJ went right into the lake for a morning swim. The cats and I enjoyed having the house to ourselves, but I was happy to have Bill and CJ back. The cats are not as happy (with Bill or the dog).

I finally got around to updating my bloglist. There’s some good ones in that list, if you have some free time. I learn so much from these other people. I love the internet.

Happy October, all!

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