Can one person make a difference?

Before you watch this, scroll down the right hand column of this page a bit and turn off the music. Amy's original YouTube posting here:

Swapalicious update

I don't join a lot of swaps because (cough) I have a hard time making sewing commitments and honestly hate to let anyone down. But when the stars and moon line up to motivate me, and a swap calls my name and the timing is right... I do a swap now and then. You can always find a swap at Swap-Bot. When you're new at the web site, you have to find swaps that will allow "newbies" to swap (those who have no ratings), and I found two that interested me. The first was a vintage button swap. You would not believe how many vintage buttons I have... I once said to my auction-addict husband, "If you see any vintage sewing items, keep me in mind" and a week later he came home with a 3-foot high x 2 foot across moving box full of vintage buttons. Gulp. That was 10 years ago and I've probably used 2 dozen buttons of the thousands he brought home. (OK, honey - enough buttons now. Thanks!) So when I saw the vintage button swap open to newbies, I joined. The swap requirement - 10 vintage buttons sent in an envelope. Way to simple for me, of course. My swap partner liked cats, bright colors and cutesy stuff, so with the buttons, I sent a little hanging pouch to keep them in: The little "penny pocket" comes a free pattern from The Happy Zombie. Love that web site! I thought the recipient could use the pocket to hold her embroidery scissors. The second swap I joined on Swap-Botz was for a recyclable grocery bag/tote. The recipient loved vintage fabrics and natural colors, so I came up with this: It's a large tote - about 16 x 20. And oh look! I managed to use some more vintage buttons! The fabric for the tote body is a very heavy duty woven home-dec fabric, and the bottom is reinforced with the cotton overlay. The buttons are on straight, I promise!

Wordless Wednesday

Joining Dixie's Wordless Wednesday. The word for today is "Winter". Since we have almost no snow this year (as evidenced in photo 1), I borrowed from winters past. This year - Joey the killer cat is probably out stalking anything that's not yet frozen. Our street - last year Brayden's first venture at shovelling, 2008 - Train 'em young! Stay warm!

My Inauguration Review

Just so everyone doesn't think I'm anti-Obama (I'm not, honestly -- I'm PRO USA and therefore believe our President deserves utmost respect and support), I wanted to add to this post that I did, indeed, watch the entire Inauguration ceremony. Here's my review of same:

• Great speech (watched it twice) -- not the best I've heard, but it was good (I was around for the Kennedy speech).
• Loved the gentleman that did the closing prayer ("Amen!").
• Got chills watching Mr. and Mrs. Obama walking down the streets of Washington.
• When did Bill Clinton go bald?
• Former President Bush looked like he couldn't wait to get out of there and I thought his having to sit through the speech was a bit humiliating (don't start - I'm not a Bush supporter either, but he is/was President and deserves our respect).
• I hated the fact that the media is already saying Obama can't possibly live up to what the country expects of him -- that he's reached the pinnacle already.
• Joe Biden had this look on his face the entire time like he thought something was "cute".
• Poor Ted Kennedy. I think we're about to lose another icon.
• Al Roker rocks, with or without his hat.
• The scene looking over the mall and park in front of the swearing-in ceremony was the most patriotic thing I've seen in a very long time.... all those people! Amazing.

I do wish President and Mrs. Obama well. There's no doubt in my mind we need change, and I hope he has the strength of character to motivate and guide this country in a better direction. Time will tell.

Happy Inauguration Day

Is this a new beginning -- or just more of the same?? I didn't vote for Obama and I'm truly and seriously hoping NOT to have a "Don't blame me I voted for McCain" bumper sticker on my car in two years... I am trying to keep an open mind, and I am most definitely hoping the new President is successful in all he has promised... Our country needs a good role model and strong leader right now, and many, many people believe Mr. Obama is the man for the job. I will be delighted to find out I voted wrong. However, things are not off to a good start. Let's keep in mind the phrase, "Actions speak louder than words" here. From the New York Times today: "New York: Despite country facing worst economic downturn since great depression, Barack Obama’s inauguration will come with a hefty price tag estimating at more than $170 million, a media report said on Tuesday." Now, in case you want to tell me that this isn't coming out of the taxpayer's pocket? This is from the same New York Times article: "The biggest group of donors were none other than the recently bailed-out Wall Street executives and employees, Ritsch said. “The finance sector is well represented, despite its recent troubles. Those who worked in finance still managed to pull together nearly $7 million for the inauguration.” "Among the expenses: a Bruce Springsteen concert, the parade, large-screen TV rentals for all-free viewing on the national Mall, $700,000 to the Smithsonian Institution to stay open and, of course, the balls, including three that are being pitched as free or low cost for the public." Sigh... And from the "Ironic" department, comes this paragraph: "The New York Daily News reported that Obama will use his inaugural address to preach that tough times call for government responsibility, Wall Street accountability and individual sacrifice." And oh, by the way, President Bush's Inauguration cost $42.3 million.

Who me? Waste time?

OK, silly fun game I found on the Barrel of Monkeys blog to totally waste at least 30 minutes of my day. (I chose to waste the 30 minutes I would normally use to clean the bathrooms, rather than a perfectly good 30 minutes in front of the television... You may choose whatever 30 minutes you want to waste, but stay organized and choose wisely!) 1. Google "[your name] needs": "Joan needs her Spider Monkey"....(I didn't dare click on this to see what it was about... some things are better left un-read.) 2. Google "[your name] looks like": "Joan looks like someone who could lead people into battle." (Wonder what gave me away -- the helmet? the body armor? the emails to Levi Strauss?) 3. Google "[your name] likes": "Joan likes money and shes good at winning it" (True and not true -- though I sure am good at winning giveaways) 4. Google "[your name] says": "Joan says if you've got it, flaunt it." (I don't have it, but sometimes I flaunt it anyway.) 5. Google "[your name] wants": "Joan wants to go to a concert with Adam and stay overnight in his father's camper." -- (Don't tell my husband!) 6. Google "[your name] does": "Joan does what she wants to do, which she does extraordinarily well." (Love it, terrible grammar and all.) 7. Google "[your name] hates": "Joan hates rickshas, German potato salad, corduroy pillows (too firm), and outdated cordless phones." (Not sure I've ever met a ricksha I didn't like.) 8. Google "[your name] can": "Joan can help you with book development, book marketing and with creating..." (In my previous lives I was a newspaper editor and a ph.d. research assistant -- does that count?) 9. Google "[your name] goes": "Joan goes out on a window ledge." (Eeps! Get me down!) 10. Google "[your name] is": "Joan is quite a musical force to be reckoned with." (Change "force" to "farce".) 11. Google "[your name] loves": "Joan loves to tell stories. When no one else will listen she tells them to her dogs or to her horse “Raj”... (My theory - it's easier to start a blog than to tell stories to a horse named Raj.) Now, wasn't that more fun than me writing my To Do List for today?

Beautiful Etsy Yarn

I’ve only recently returned to knitting after four or five years away from it. My knitting passion has always been and still is – socks. I’ve knit sweaters and afghans and scarves and mittens, but my passion is socks, socks and more socks. Socks knit with fine wool yarn, the smaller the needles the better. Just something about that detailed fine knitting soothes me. And with cold weather here and more TV watching than in the warmer months, knitting socks is always a good project for sitting in front of the television at night.

I can quite literally spend hours and hours looking at fabric and yarn on Etsy. Because I have at least 20 boxes of yarn stashed away in my basement (cleaned out of my quilt room when I moved from knitting to quilting), I don’t buy yarn. Just like my fabric stash, my yarn stash will hold me for many, many projects to come.

But, just like fabric, there are times when a yarn “speaks to me” and must be bought! And so it is with two skeins of yarn I recently purchased from My7Kids’ etsy store

The first thing that attracted me to this yarn was the subtle and unusual colors. Then, as I read the description, I found that the fiber content is perfect for sock knitting -- 70% lambswool, 20% angora rabbit, 10% nylon. That little bit of nylon adds just the right amount of elasticity to the socks, and of course the lambswool and angora are both soft and warm. Perfect for winter socks!

The second yarn I purchased from My7Kids is this gorgeous 70% wool, 30% acrylic blend. The masculine colors appealed to me for socks for my grandson, and the 30% acrylic content appealed to me because they will wear longer than a 100% wool.

Both of these skeins of yarn are “recycled” from sweaters and then hand-dyed in these gorgeous colors. When I originally read that in the description, I was worried I would receive yarn with a lot of loops and kinks in it, but not so. I’ve started working with the lambswool yarn and it is a dream to knit. No fiber kinks or nubs at all, and if I didn’t know it was recycled, I wouldn’t realize it as I knit.

The price is about 1/3rd what I’d expect to pay for yarn of this quality – and, as Martha says, “That’s a VERY good thing!”

A little Brayden update

Oooooeeeee...my little grandson is now almost 3 years old (March 1st!). This little guy changes almost daily -- whether in his vocabulary, his counting, his desire to learn, or his wicked (can you tell I'm from New Hampshire?) sense of humor, every day is an adventure with this child. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I'm flattered. This is what Brayden was "working on" today: Yes, I've been knitting socks again. Brayden loves to watch me knit and sometimes sits in my lap and I put some yarn on needles for him to play with. Today he gathered up his yarn and needles, sat on the couch by himself, and "knit" away. I asked him what he was working on... "Socks for Umpa." Awwww... Then Umpa walked into the room, and Brayden promptly pipes up, "Umpa, don't pull my stitches off!" LOL I've mentioned before that Brayden has shown great interest in learning his letters and numbers, so yesterday was our first official 30 minutes of preschool type activities. We read his favorite monkey book, "Ten Little Monkeys" and talked about the numbers, then we did this activity that I found on a great blog called Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. I printed off the five snowman print-outs found here, then put one "button" and the number 1 on the first, two "buttons" and the number two on the second, etc. Then I made little hats with the same numbers, 1 thru 5. I had Brayden count the number of buttons on the snowman, showed him the number on the page, and had him match the hat with that number. It went very well! He understood what I was talking about and easily counted the buttons, and made the match ups with little help. I'll be adding numbers 5 through 10 as soon as he's confident with these and can point out the same numbers in other situations. Mr. Fussy Eater helped me make crockpot beef noodle soup yesterday, but wasn't here at dinner time to taste what he'd cooked. Today I did a bit of extra babysitting so my daughter could work some extra hours, so Brayden had beef noodle soup for lunch. My gosh, he actually TASTED it (which is a huge hurdle with him) and LIKED it and ATE it! There's hope for the child yet! Brayden's Crockpot Beef Noodle Soup 1 beef shank 1/2 stew beef (I cubed up a portion of a chuck steak) 1 cup carrot slices 1 cup diced celery 1 cup diced onions 3 tablespoons beef bouillon powder (or 3 cubes) 1 tsp black pepper 1/2 tsp salt 1 can diced tomatoes in sauce 2 dashes Worcestershire Sauce 8 cups water 2 servings dry spaghetti, broken into thirds Place all ingredients except spaghetti noodles into crockpot, cook on low for 7 hours. Remove shank bone and cut up shank meat and return to soup. Add in uncooked spaghetti and turn on HI for 30 minutes. Serves 4 to 6.