Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me

Believe it or not, I have the above song going through my mind right now.  I’ve broke the second computer in this house in the same month!  This time I broke the kids computer.  Although, according to the computer place, I technically didn’t break the first computer.  The tech there said there was actually a problem with it from the very beginning (hence the problem with the wireless routing and interfacing it with our main computer, problems with files, and it being slower then it should)  However, I am feeling like the hounds from hell do not want me to get ahead this month.  I was loading some school work onto the kids computer and I hit the CD Rom tray and broke it.  I am sure if my wonderfully sweet and smart hubby where here, he’d have it fixed in no time.  Me….well….I have no clue.  I mean I broke the tray.  The side snapped off.  So…what to do?  I don’t know.  Guess I will ask around at church on Sunday if anyone knows how to fix it….or it’s off to the computer shop….*sigh* again for this.

Must get some new music in my head…so here’s a song that speaks volumes to me when I am feeling down.

I AM NOT SKILLED TO UNDERSTAND

Aaron Shust

I am not skilled to understand
What God hath willed, what God hath planned;
I only know at His right hand
  Stands One who is my Savior.I take Him at His word indeed:
“Christ died for sinners”–this I read;
For in my heart I find a need
  Of Him to be my Savior!

Yes, living, dying, let me bring
My strength, my solace from this spring-
That He who lives to be my King
  Once died to be my Savior!
My prayer for you today: If your day started out gloomy and gray, that bright skies appear and your find joy and peace among the turmoils in your life.

Yesterday was our home school co-op get together.  We went to a ceramic shop.  I was in awe as I watched all the kids (meaning mine) paying attention and really listening to what the shop owner was teaching them.

I had in my mind a project for the kids to do, which would have included tiles that I could have framed and put on the wall.  That idea was shot down pretty quick, so they got to choose from a smaller selection of items to paint.

Many more pictures were taken but I won’t post them all here.  We get to pick up the fired/finished pieces on Saturday so I am sure we will show them off then.

After running a few quick errands (post office, picking up milk, etc) we came home for a snack and play time.  Have you ever noticed that when your kids behave (as mine did at co-op) they are “my” kids but when they mis-behave or act like complete weirdos they are “his” (or “your”) kids?  Well, my two younger kids were most certainly “his” kids when they went out to play.  Where they got this idea I will never know and where they got the nerve to go outside like this and play is totally beyond me.

Just plain weird.  But, they had fun, they actually got along, so I’ll take it as I can get it.

And, on our post office run, I picked up many packages from Socks For Soldiers for socks and beanie caps to dye.  But there was one package that was quite heavy and made a rattling sound.  I had no clue who it was from but had an idea it wasn’t for SFS.  After opening it, I was right.  It was from my No More Humdrum Mitten Partner, Christine (I don’t know her blog info…sorry).  It was an AMAZING pick me up, let me tell you.  The mittens are so pretty in all the colors that I love (purples and pinks), she sent a new weaving book that has been discussed on my weaving list but I knew not to even look at the book because I would totally want to buy it.  She also sent the remaining yarn from the mittens, a skein of weaving yarn that I can’t WAIT to try, oragmi paper for the kids (we did oragmi at our last co-op get together…woo hoo), M&M’s for the kids and sugar-free chocolate covered peanuts for me.  I was sooooo good though and didn’t break out the chocolate right away, instead I made a cup of coffee, pretended the above weird children weren’t outside dressed as they were, sat down and started thumbing my way through the The Handweaver’s Pattern Directory.  A very, very cool book.  I have so many ideas in my head now.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Christine, for making my good day yeterday even better.  You blessed me more then you will ever know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today, after a mere 2 hours of sleep (and not good sleep at that), I woke to not wanting to have today happen.  I seriously considered serving left over birthday cake for breakfast (somewhere in my mind Bill Cosby was whispering it was ok because there was milk, wheat, eggs, and good stuff in there) but I realized that with that much sugar before school, we’d have a repeat of yesterday’s above craziness, so we settled for a healthy breakfast instead.  I did receive the news that 27-Feb is National No Brainer Day.  I plan to celebrate this day to the best of my ability.

May your day be blessed beyond measure today.

Remember this handspun I showed lastweek?

It turned into this:

It’s so incredibly soft and drapes beautifully.  The pictures on my screen just don’t do it justice.  Using this old computer I can’t tell if the colors are correct or not. (wah).  This scarf is also for sale here (more items coming as soon as I have a chance to load them).

The warp is hand painted pink bamboo and the weft is hand spun rainbow merino.  I want to make another but using a black warp.  We’ll see how it turns out.

Today we are headed out to a ceramic place for our home school co-op.  Would that be like a bull in a china shop with my kids?  I have no clue, stay tuned and see what we come up with.

Today is our oldest daughter’s birthday.  She turned 14.  She didn’t seem to excited about her birthday and asked if that was a sign of maturing.  I told her possibly.  Just depends on why she wasn’t excited.  However, after we made her cake and she saw that she indeed have presents to open, she got more excited.

Since Jim’s been gone, we are doing our birthday celebrations after lunch so we can share pictures with him.  So, after our lunch, the birthday cake was brought out:

After happy birthday was sung, wishes made, candles blown out, cake was devoured.  This year, she chose a triple chocolate cake, with triple chocolate icing, and triple chocolate ice cream.  (please believe me when I tell you that small pieces of cake were doled out along with just a small scoop of the ice cream)

Then the present opening began.

Among the presents were a hand woven scarf (by mom), a new watch, a hair dryer and girlie hair stuff, some clothes from grandpa (which were a hit), some cash from Aunt Sally, some trinkets (from her sister) and an older digital camera (which belonged to her older brother and he passed it down to her).

All in all, she seems pleased with her presents.  She sends a special thank you to her daddy for his e-card which we printed out and she made the cover for her school notebook.

Tonight we dine on her birthday dinner of choice hot dogs, mac/cheese, and beans (oh joy). And the bright side…three kids birthdays down and only 2 more to go until daddy gets home.

Even though we are apart, you are the delight of my heart.  I love you and miss you.

God has blessed us in so many ways.  Thanks for sticking with me through good times and bad.  I pray that God blesses us with many many more years to come.

Note: Picture taken Feb 2004 when this incredible man surprised me with an anniversary trip to a bed and breakfast inn/alpaca farm.

So I finished dyeing like 50 pairs of socks and 30 something beanies for Socks For Soldiers last night.  Then I started playing with rovings.  I can’t wait to spin the hot pink and purple one and Chris asked for a camo roving. 

D is for DYEING:

Who needs curtains…just hang your dyed items at the kitchen window for drying and well…you can change the colors whenever you want.

D is for Doggie:

As in the most spoiled doggie on the planet.

Yes, that is Snoppy playing piano for Caleb the wonder dog.  The little toy came from B-King in a kids meal and plays the Peanuts theme.  We put it on the carpet and Caleb sat listening to Snoopy play for quite a while.

Leave it to Chris to be innovative for me yet again.  I showed him a picture of a home made PVC lightbox the other day and he sat down with some PVC pipes we already had and made me this:

I need some stronger lights I think, but all in all I believe it will work well. 

And here’s a shot (taken in the light box) of merino I spun over the weekend and dyed bamboo warp.  Hope to get this on the loom today or tomorrow bit it’s looking like tomorrow as I am dyeing up a storm for Socks For Soldiers (link on left side bar)

See, there are still some shadows, so stronger lights would work better.  Next time we hit town I will look around.

As you all know, Aunt Sally and her son left yesterday.  They made it home safely and are now back at work and school.  We miss them, they miss us, but we had a great time together.

There was lots of boy play time with wrestling, ball playing, running around, building model cars and all manner of “guy” things.

Mr T fit right in between Josh and Chris.  Age wise and every other wise

Jac tried really hard to fit in with them, but the three older boys (whom I have termed the “Three Muskrats”) were a force onto their own.

And all the kids just love Aunt Sally.

Lots of picture taking went on before they left.  At one point there were two cameras going and we weren’t sure which one to look into.  But I like this shot of Aunt Kimmy, Mr T, and Aunt Sally.

And of course, knitting occured too.  Aunt Sally brought the kids yarn and some of them made her book markers.  She and I started our Project Along going on over at Christian Artisans.  We are doing the Bar Harbor Shell Bag.  It’s an interesting pattern that takes a bit to get into, but once you get going, it’s easy.

Aunt Sally’s is the two toned purple one and mine is the one that looks like little watermelon slices (according to Chris).  Stay tuned and watch how we make progress.

Computer update:

Not looking so good.  Mother board failed, hard drive failing.  Praying they can retrieve my data.  I have learned a very hard lesson in this. BACK UP your files often.  Take my word for it.

….and we are all so sad.

We had fun knitting and visiting and the kids had great fun playing and horsing around.  They are greatly missed already.  Perhaps this summer we can arrange another visit?

Hope to have some pictures for you tomorrow.  (still working on the old computer as I don’t have my laptop back yet)

It was bad enough that the computer went out yesterday, but then I went to go grill some ribs and chicken and the grill caught on fire.  Thankfully I was able to get the food off the grill and get it turned off and the fire out before it really got bad…but there were a few scary moments.

This morning I went to make applesauce donuts, dropped the measuring cup of flour into the mixer and had a mess to clean up, realized I was using the wrong size scooper and had to refigure the amounts to put in (thanks Kelly tee hee) then burned the first batch.

I will not ask what next because I know it could be way worse.  But it’s been a Calgon take me away kind of long weekend.

There has been a bright spot though… Aunt Sally came with her son to visit for the long weekend.  We’ve been doing some knitting, will be doing some other crafting later today and just having a blast visiting.  The kids are loving playing with another and I think he’s enjoying playing with so many.  We will be sad putting them on the plane tomorrow evening.

Let’s hope the rest of the week turns out to be bright and sunny with lots of blessings.