Merry Christmas!

Christmas is a Craft, Part 2

Some more hints from the Crews Family Christmas Workshop ...

Santa Dogs

click the pic for larger version


The dogs all got baths tonight and decided to pose for some pictures for me. ;) This is what happens when one drinks too much coffee to go to bed at a normal time. Six o'clock is going to come mighty early!

Knitting Update

Since my knitting time has been devoted to gifts lately I haven't been able to blog about any of it. Here's a sneak peak. I've enjoyed working on these but I'm really itching to cast on a pair of socks for myself. Must wait though ...

Snow Day

Houston's school had a "snow day" on Monday complete with cardboard sleds and a hay ride. It was 70+ degrees out but the kids still had a blast.

Baking Cookies

Say It Ain't So ....

I swear I know how to take good care of my teeth. I really do. And I brush the boys teeth twice a day and we use a fluoride rinse. Apparently that is not enough. Apparently letting them snack during the day is making their teeth look "like swiss cheese". Apparently any time anything but slobber touches their teeth we have to brush them. Also not having fluoride in our water because we are on well water is also part of the problem. Brett and I just have to wonder .... Was everyone running around with rotten teeth before city fluorinated water??? We just don't get it. Brett grew up on well water and his teeth were not "swiss cheese". The pediatric dentist keeps saying it is soda and sugary juices and bad diet. It took me three appointments to get through to him that we do not keep soda in the house and that they don't drink crappy sugar-filled juice all the time. Once I finally got through to him on the third visit and was able to deepen the discussion he asked if they snack a lot. Of course they do! They are growing boys and they eat all the time. So now he says that is the problem, especially if they snack on grapes and bananas. "Three square meals a day and no snacks" he said. Yeah right! Thankfully his assistant and my endodontist were more willing to talk to me about other ways around this since they are both mothers. They said brush after each snack and follow everything with water. Houston is done with his dental work and now Brody needs $1700 worth of work. This includes a $750 sedation fee because he is not down with letting the dentist work in his mouth. And on top of that ... I went back to the endodontist today and one of my three root canals from earlier this year (remember the ones with no cavaties but dyeing roots) has not healed at all. Now I have to have a $1450 surgery to remove the problem. I feel like running through the yard with my arms in the air yelling "FRUSTRATION"!!!!! Anyone care to join me?

Brody's Haircut

It is just so darn cute I can hardly stand the cuteness! :)

Houston's First Trip to the ER

Well yesterday turned out to be quite a day. Houston had his first of four dental appointments to fix up his teeth. I told him if he was really good that I would take him to the store to buy a toy. Well the appointment went really well and they gave him a behavior rating that is the highest you can get. They rate the behavior so they know how soon you can come back for the next appointment. He was great so we are heading back tomorrow for the second appointment. Anyway, I made an appointment at the pediatrician for the afternoon to have his ears checked since he was out of school anyway. He's had a really hard time hearing this past week so I thought we'd go have it checked out. So we leave the dentist and stop by wally world, he picks out a truck and then we head to McD's for lunch before leaving to G'ville. (and I remember why we never eat there ... my stomach hasn't been the same since) I thought it would be a good idea for them to be able to run around the play area and get out some energy before the drive to G'ville. Turned out not to be such a great decision ... we are about two minutes from packing up and leaving to G'ville when this girl starts playing with the boys by acting like a dog that is chasing them. So here they go running and Houston trips and falls flat on his face ... hard! By the sound of his scream I could tell it wasn't just a little bump of a fall. So he picks his head up and the blood is just streaming out of his mouth. Having just spent $800 at the dentist I was about to be really upset if he busted his front teeth. Luckily the teeth were fine but his lip ... not so much. So here I am along with three other moms that ran to help me trying to catch all the blood. It was everywhere. We ended up with a bit of an assembly line of napkins and wet wipes trying to catch all the blood while also getting it off of my hands and arms and Houstons hands and arms all while also cleaning up the floor and trying to stop the bleeding. He was screaming bloody murder of course and someone went to get ice. When we took the napkin off his lip to put the ice on and got a look there was a unanimous vote to head directly to the ER. The ladies were all really great and helped clean up our food and get me packed up and to the car. So I called Brett to let him know what was up and he met us at the ER. Lucky for us the ER was about a block away so I didn't have to drive too far with the screaming. Brett met up with us and I called the ped and told them we weren't going to make it because we were at the ER. Brett took Brody home and Houston and I spent the next four hours at the ER. We were second in line when we got there but they had several pretty bad emergencies come in just after we got there. It went from only two people in the waiting room to it being pretty full of crying relatives. By the time we were seen his lip has stopped bleeding and the swelling was even going down. I actually called the ped back to see if they would see us but they said it had to be evaluated by an ER doctor because of where on his lip the wound was and that he may have to go to a specialist depending on how deep the cut was. Luckily the doc said that although it was close, he didn't need any stitches and she was very pleased with how well his body was already starting to heal in the four hours since it happened. I was pretty exhausted with the events of the day and the boys and I all crawled in to bed together at 8:30 last night.



Here's a pic I took when we got home last night. You can see his fancy silver molars on the left and of course his nice busted lip as well. Lovely. The big y-shaped cut is on the inside so you can't see it from this picture but you can definintely see the swelling. You can also see the red spot on the outside of the lip where the tooth almost went all the way through his lip.

This whole bad teeth thing really has me .... I don't know .... worried/concerned/feeling bad? We don't keep soda or sugary juices in the house. I only buy no sugar added 100% fruit juice. They drink water and soy millk. They have had quite a bit of candy since Halloween but I always make sure we brush teeth afterwards and we tend to eat fairly healthy. The only time we have dessert around is if other people bring it over or I make something for a birthday or holiday. We brush twice a day and use a flouride rinse. All this and Houston's mouth is a mess. Apparently Patsy had really soft/bad teeth so I think it is hereditary. I don't have the best teeth either by any means. Poor boys ... I don't think they had a chance. I had a fairly long talk with the dentist about all this and we are just going to have to be really strict about the amount of sugar they get and when they get it. They are now only allowed to drink water between meals. They can have juice and milk with meals but not between. Soda is completely out so no more sprite on rare occasions that we find ourselves out to eat except maybe for a birthday or something. We also have a flouride treatment gel we brush on before bed. Brody is going to be seen tomorrow along with Houston's second appointment so we'll see how that goes. Being self-employed definitely has it's perks but dental insurance is not one of them. This could end up being a pretty big situation for us if both the boys got Patsy's soft teeth. Guess we'll just have to wait and see. Not that we have any options. I've done a ton of research on dental insurance that you can buy for yourself and for us it just wouldn't be worth it because you pay so much for them only to cover a small portion and they have yearly coverage limits that we would have already met in one month!

Thanksgiving Day Pics

Comments

So apparently there has been an issue with leaving comments on my blog. I've heard from five different family members over the past week that they tried leaving comments on my blog but were not able to. This is a serious bummer because I love getting comments. It lets me know that people are actually bothering to check here once in a while and makes me want to keep posting more often. So I changed some of my comment settings so there is no moderation and you don't have to log in or anything. I'll try this for a while and see if I start getting spam comments again. So if you've tried leaving me a comment and haven't been able to or you think you did but it never showed up ... please give it a try again and let me know if it doesn't go through. You should get a confirmation that your comment posted and now that I have removed comment moderation you should be able to check the post right after leaving the comment and see it there.

ETA: thanks to this blog post for helping me figure out how to expand the width of posts in my blog. now if i can just figure out how to center my header i'll be a happy blogger. :)

Whew!

What a past week it has been. It's flown by too. We had a great turkey day and day-before-turkey-day party. A little subdued from last year but nice all the same. Pictures to come when I get a chance. Seems I've been chasing myself around ever since trying to get a bunch of stuff done but somehow don't feel like I've finished anything ... decorations up, fiber dyed, other crafty things made and listed to etsy, working on the rocket yarn blog so I can put more pics of the kids and less of yarn on here (thereby getting fewer complaints from certain family members), yada yada yada. Prepping for the yardsale on saturday, Houston's dentist appointment today in which we were informed he needs about $2400 worth of work on his mouth. Merry Christmas to us! sense the sarcasm Poor kid had no chance with how bad mine and Brett's baby teeth were and mine still are. We brush his teeth twice a day and use a flouride rinse but his molars are all caving in. Fun, huh? Yep ... so he's going to have silver caps on his molars for the next ten years until they fall out. And I almost had the Care Credit bill paid off from all of my dental work earlier this year. Ugh! Oh well ... In other news ... we got our first chicken egg today!!!! Yipppeee! So hopefully no more buying eggs at the store. We now have our very own super healthy home grown eggs. :)

Daily Fiber

Some green seawool ...



Something fun coming soon to Rocket Yarn ...

Linkydoos ....

Mochimochi Shop - some really cute knit toy patterns.

Crafty Alien - really fun knit and felted animals and such

Rocket Yarn Update

Seawool pencil roving ... PLASMA DIP - PURPLE



More pictures on the new Rocket Yarn blog.

Crafty Events to Share

Holiday Art Market
at the Satellite Magazine Building 111 SW 3rd Street, Gainesville
Friday, December 5, 7 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Saturday, December 6, 1-6 p.m.
If you have cool stuff of any sort (paintings, drawings, prints, photography, woodworking, mixed media, crafts, clothing, jewelry, baked goods, music…) that you want to sell, please get in touch with Laura Predny . A $3-5 contribution is requested.

Handmade Holiday Bazaar
Parking lot of Loop de Loop, 205 NE 16th Avenue, Gainesville
Sunday, December 7, 12-5 p.m.
If you’re an artist or crafter, please consider signing up for a spot. Registration is $15 and proceeds benefit Peaceful Paths. It’s a B.Y.O.T.T.C.H. event (bring your own table, tent, chairs, and handmade goods). Vendor Registration: http://www.loopdeloopshop.com/registration.htm. Questions? Call Cat 352-284-4672 or Kim 352-871-0574.

Uncle Tommy Came to Town

My brother stopped by in his "big truck" last night. The boys were determined to stay up to see him and were literally bouncing off the walls by the time he got here. We all had a good visit ... the boys took him out back with flashlight in hand to see the chickens. We ate some muffins I made and sent some off with Tommy as well. The boys were up so late that it was really hard to get Houston up for school but they loved seeing their uncle so it was worth it. Houston was so tired today that he fell asleep around 5:30 pm this evening and I think he is out for the night. Brody was the lucky one and got to sleep in until almost 10 am this morning.

Fall Fiber Festival

Click the flyer to make it readable. See the list of vendors? :)

Sock Yarn Update

Here's the yarn headed to Hanks today. The five on the left are 100% superwash merino and the five on the right are a 75/25 blend of merino and nylon.



I listed a bunch of yarn in my Etsy shop yesterday and here are three more that I reskeined last night and will be adding to Etsy later today. I just can't say enough about how much I love this new base yarn. It's so soft, squishy and generally yummy! :)

Rocket Roving

Superfine merino top I listed on Etsy today.

Sneak Peak

A sneak peak at some of the sock yarn coming to Rocket Yarn & Hanks this week.

On a Fiber High ...

I've been surrounded by yarn and fiber, by spinners and knitters ... both in person and online. And ya know what? I have this constant smile on my face that follows me everywhere I go. I made a big decision recently to try and really make a go of this Rocket Yarn thing. And as soon as I did all sorts of fibery things starting falling in my lap. My sales really picked up on Etsy, I got to go give a spinning demonstration at a knitting class here in Lake City last night, I've met some other fibery people in the area and I'm going to have a table set up at a Fiber Fest in Trenton next weekend. Seriously ... I'm in heaven. :) I'm really looking forward to meeting everyone there. The woman in charge, Elle, is in a string band and they will be playing there that day. She keeps nudging me to bring my viola but I don't think I'm ready for that quite yet. Either way, even if I don't sell a thing I know i'm going to really enjoy it.

And remember that crafty group I started here in Lake City in hopes of finding some other fiber lovers in the area? Well last weekend a few of us brought our wheels and we were quite a hit at Starbucks. We had people stop in their tracks when they walked in the door. It was so funny. Several people came and sat and watched and asked a bunch of questions. It was great. And we had a new knitter join us as well. She saw my post on the Lake City Reporters online calendar. How exciting is that? There ARE other knitters here and I am finding them! The ladies at the knitting class I went to last night were really nice too and it sounds like they are going to join us as well. Yipppeeeee! :)

As far as my happiness and sense of accomplishment, this ranks right up there with my first day of work as an aerospace engineer. Driving up to Kennedy Space Center that day and going into the high bay to help run some tests on several elements of the International Space Station ... I was on cloud 9 that day. And again when I ran my first test in the cockpit of Space Shuttle Endeavor. And yet again the same with my first day after transferring to Johnson Space Center and walking into Mission Control. That sense of having done something great ... that I did all on my own. The acceptance and love of my hand dyed yarn and fiber makes me just as happy. Happy in a different way but has the same effect (affect? i can never remember which of those to use) on my mood. I honestly haven't felt this sense of accomplishment since we moved here to Lake City. I have always had an artistic side but I haven't had the perfect way to let it out until I started dyeing yarn and fiber. The engineering accomplishments say "i'm smart" or "i'm motivated" ...but the artsy stuff ... the side i've had to supress in the name of doing something "smart" that makes more money ... I just can't express how happy and fullfilled that makes me. Art comes from the inside and to have people accept it and love it and pay good money for it ... well that just makes me giddy.

What's this you ask? That would be 17 pounds of undyed yarn and fiber. And I have about 20 pounds more on its way to me.


And this funky looking pvc thing? This is a skeinwinder that my awesome husband built for me.


And I will leave you with some crafty pics ...

Amendment 2

I try to avoid politics on the blog other than a little button of support or so but there is something I feel I really need to say ...

They call it the "marriage protection" amendment. Really??? Sounds like the "make discrimination legal" amendment to me. Gay marriage is already illegal in Florida. Why in the world did we need to add it to our state constitution as well??? How in the world have we come to a place where we can elect the first bi-racial president (and he is just that, not black ... he is both black and white ... somehow people seem to have lost that) yet we also vote to make discrimination legal and put it in our constitution? I'm so confused here. What does it matter to you if a gay couple wants to share in the same rights we straight couples share? Does this really affect your life at all? Do you think this is going to stop people from being gay? Who are we to tell them that the person they love and share their life with can't be listed as immediate family to be able to see them in the hospital should something bad happen? And the amendment couldn't stop at defining marriage as being between one man and one woman ... no it had to go and say something to the effect of no other legal union being given the same rights as a marriage. I'm honestly more upset about this than I am about McCain losing the election.

And that's all I'm going to say about that ...

Well maybe one other little thing ...

PALIN 2012!!! :)

Handspun Merino/Nylon Pencil Roving

I spun up some roving from my shop this weekend. Can't wait to start knitting with it. I went for a fairly thick sock yarn to make some quick socks for the boys for Christmas. Dave Ramsey says "Christmas is a craft" while you are dumping debt and this will definitely be true for us this year. :)

Here's half of the dyed roving.


Here's the other half already spun on my Julia.


And after plying the two singles together ...


WALLA ... we have yarn! :)