I have been such a slacker

I have seriously been slacking in my housework and crochet projects. I told the husband that I will probably take some time off in order to get some things done at some point in the coming weeks. However, today I was actually practicing the three C's: cleaning, creativity, and coffee. Those are the three things that I deem vital in order to practice being a good little housewife, even though I am not one quite yet. I loaded the picture of the things I finished while I was being so slacky on the projects. I only finished one project a week last week. I finished this hat in support of our local college team this week.

 I rather enjoyed the reactions that I got from posting this to my facebook when I finished about three of them.

Then, I made my Stitch 'N Bitch Challenge that they make something for their favorite animal in their life. Since my dogchildren would chew the little sweater off in less than two minutes, I made a little sweater/vest for the nurse I work with that has a yorkie. The pattern is from Red Hearts free pattern section and I had to modify it since I kind of messed it up in the beginning :/

 It fits her furry baby just great, but I don't have any pictures of her baby in it right now to post at the moment.

Then, I decided to try something new and once again I used this wonderful lady to get my inspiration to do something wonderful. I followed the theme that I made a family of owls, so I made an owl stuffed animal.

I will be letting this little one follow me around the house and get things done. It is so cute even my husband was excited to see it, and he usually doesn't get all the excited about me showing him something I make. He laughed and held it while holding it out to our children to sniff. I am pretty sure that I am going to be making more of them since everyone on facebook wants it.

I wish I had pictures of my sewing room when it was finished, but I have things strewn all over it right now from going through my yarn and getting things organized so I can start really getting into expanding my etsy shop beyond hats. I am hoping to bake a lot tonight as well. Here is to being a good little domestic for my husband and others!

Why I Observe Lent

I am not a Christian. I don't pretend to be one and I don't think I can try to ever be one. There are various reasons in my life that I will not discuss why I cannot walk into a church to this day without breaking out in hives. However, there are many people on my life who are, and some of them are Catholic or Orthodox Christian. I use to watch them torture themselves this time of year when they gave up something that they truly thought they could not live without, and I thought to myself, "Hey, how hard could this be?"

One year, they really wanted me to stop smoking completely. I wanted to as well, even though I could not see myself doing so without absolutely having to. I was not addicted to smoking as much as I just loved the taste of my clove cigarettes. So, they asked me if for lent that I would honor their request and give them up for lent. I was like "Sure why not? 40 days? I can go forty days without them!" and made the promise that I would not smoke them. I handed over the last of the pack I had on me and began the downward spiral known as "withdrawl".

The first couple of days were fine. I wanted one, but thought "Eh, it has only been three or four days, I am good." Then, I hit that wall. Those of you who gave up something for lent know what wall I am talking about. About two weeks in, I had a really stressful day at work and wanted nothing more than to light up and inhale that sweet sweet nicotine. I cried, swore, and begged one of the girls I worked with to just give me a cigarette, any cigarette. I just wanted the feeling of calm. She refused. I eventually got over the feeling that night, and I drove home still upset at myself I threw such a fit and was a baby about it.

On the fortieth day, my friends told me they wanted me to write an essay about my experience. I wish I had it saved somewhere because it was actually in one of their church pamphlets, the title being something like "My Experience of Lent as a non-Christian" or something. It was in more depth about my personal journey and rediscovering myself a bit on the way. My blankets were done then, learning new patterns and such. I wrote a bit more. I took myself to the doctor when I realized that the smoking was helping with more underlying issues in my life and that my stomach just hurt all the time, not just from stress and smoking. My teeth are still yellow but I can fix that now if I just stopped with the coffee for a while. I actually got less winded too when I stopped the occasional smoking I use to do. I also find some sort of peace with myself when I realized that I have the power to control things that I did not think I could.

The next year, I stopped energy drinks. I was spending three hundred dollars a month on those and it was not healthy for my body or my wallet. The year after that, I tried to give up caffeine, but the girls at work put the no on that because my happy butt became a grumpy pants and they bought the caffeine for me to drink. This year, I am giving up fast food and soda. I am saying fast food meaning like Taco Bell and Burger King, I will still be eating out at other places that have healthier options. What started as a request by some friends to gain a better understanding of one of their religious observances and to gain more respect for what they do became a yearly tradition that I have been doing for about four years now. Pretty soon I will run out of things to give up entirely for Lent that I can go without all year round, but maybe the people who started Lent understood what they were doing when they created this fast. Maybe they created it because they knew that if someone gave up something that they had all year round for forty days that they could learn to go completely without it or make it so the person could learn to have what they went without in moderation once Lent was over. Perhaps they did not know people would use it to beat addictions or use it to try and kick unhealthy habits as a sole purpose, but I know that eventually there are things people do give up that are without a doubt something you cannot live without like dairy products or drinks other than water.

However, I can honestly say, without a shred of doubt, that Lent will always have a special place in this dirt-worshipping tree-hugging hippie pagan heart and no one will ever take that away from me, not because it helps me get healthy. I love it for what is stands for and says to me personally through this entire experience, and that is why I do Lent.

5 Valentine's Gift Ideas for The Crafty Person in Your Life

With the holiday coming up, my mother-in-law told me that she is going to get me gift cards for craft stores, and honestly that is a well appreciated gift since I eat through yarn and have a sewing machine I need to break in that I have yet to open and set out in my sewing room. However, sometimes I get a little tired of people just giving gift certificates. I know it is hard since we can make our own scarves and socks among other things. I can ever make my own jewelry and what I cannot make for myself, I usually barter the things I do make for things other crafty people do. I decided to make myself a list of things that I saw around the net and walking around town.

Old Clothing and Household Items
I know this idea sounds crazy, but hear me out on this okay? When I was younger, I walked into a friend of mine's room to find an organizer made out of back pockets of jeans. Yes, you read that correctly. She had markers, pens, crayons, notes, and other sundries of the teenage variety in it. I actually though it was adorable and she loved the fact that she could load it down without the pockets ripping like most of the other organizers out there. You can make memory quilts, get creative with fabric you have around the house hanging around, and use old college sports t-shirts that I know come out year after year to make a nice theme quilt if you cut the designs off the front of the shirt just right.  There are people who buy thrift store sweaters, unravel them, and reuse the yarn to make things because they like the yarn so much. Old silverware can be painted and turned into wind chimes. Old glasses lenses can be painted and wire wrapped for ornaments or also, wind chimes. The list goes on and one. Go through your closets and start handing things out.

Quirky and Twisted Humorous Things

A friend of mine pinned the bag from this particular shop on my Facebook wall. I had a great laugh about it. My husband told me that if I can make enough money off my craft things I am more than welcome to buy the shirt and the tote. It is cute, tongue in cheek, and absolutely something I would wear around town. I will probably get this to work out in even.

If you cannot find something, you could always design something, stick it in a picture file of some sort, buy the t-shirt iron on things at Wal-Mart or the local craft store, and make your own for the lovely person you know. I am sure some of you that read my blog have the same twisted sense of humor that I do and would love something like this!

A New Habtit...I mean Hobby
I can attest to the fact that you can get burnt out doing the same thing over and over again. I usually stop crocheting when I hit about the third straight week of doing something. It gets old after a while and it is not all that fun when you have the same thing to work on over and over again.

So, walk around your local craft store. Get creative with yourself and see what you can come up with on your own. If you have to, get one of the pre-made kits that are littering the store somewhere that you see and know the person hasn't done yet. Or, pay for the class of something that you heard them talk about wanting to take, and let them know when the class is. Just double check with them on when your person has time off to take the class.

Hardware Stores are Your Friend
Crafty people do not stick just to Joann's and Michael's to get their supplies. I have been known to walk around the local hardware store and go "Hey, if I do this, get some of these, and figure out exactly how to build it correctly, I could make a killer coffee table!" when the mood strikes my fancy.

For this idea, I would take your crafty person with you unless you know what you need to buy for them. Yea, I am pretty sure that if your crafty person does not have power tools, giving them a starter set would be AWESOME as a gift idea since I know several crafty people who would like to get into the more heavy duty crafts. However, it might be a safe bet to assume that you need to have them go with you just to be on the safe side.

Offer Your Help 
I recently redid one of the rooms in my house to become my "craft" room. We re-purposed the old entertainment center to hold my yarn and to use the place where we put the television to hold my sewing machine that will hopefully make it up there probably sometime today. I could not have done this without my mother-in-law coming over and helping us get thing settled.

Money is a little tight for most people at the moment, so if you happen upon your crafty person and notice that they are having issues or need some help to...organize their yarn or something, offer help. Yes, you will probably get yelled at a lot while doing this, and yes, you will more than likely want to pull your hair out when you are through because you don't know why they want things they way they do and the person is making no sense, but trust me. A little help to your crafty person is worth it's weight in gold to someone who has something like yarn tangled in a mess in a box in their closet. I am guilty of that one myself. If they are stuck trying to come up with an idea, let them use you as a sounding board. Even better, work on a craft with them! You could release your inner crafty person that is bottled up and do something fun with them. They will still love you if you happen to do something wrong I promise! They will even fix it if you ask nicely!

Now that I have given you just a few ideas, go out and see what you can get or do yourself into! I would love to see what you got them or did with your crafty person, within reason of course.

Education Standards

So, as I am watching House of Cards, they keep bringing up Education and performance standards.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear before I start this, I know there are children out there who cannot do the same work as everyone else. I know there are kids who have learning disabilities. My brother, who I do not speak to anymore, cannot read. He will not read unless it is needed for something like school or work. This is not about children like that. I actually wish there were programs in schools that were for children like that.

Now, that being said, I think performance standards are SHIT. I know that you have to have some sort of standard for the teachers to follow so that you do not have someone just handing out papers and over half the class failing. However, I believe that if the students are not performing up to standards, it may not be the teacher's fault.

Take more example a shy student who does not understand the work. This shy student will not ask the teacher for help when the teacher asks if any of the students do not understand the work or the problem in say a math class. This student is also afraid to approach the teacher during down time in the classroom because they do not want to be seen as a teacher's pet by their peers. The student rides the bus, and goes home to the babysitter or parent, and then gets help there. The babysitter or parent may not have time due to housework or the other children that need more attention. The student falls behind and cannot catch up because that lesson is needed to complete the future work in the classroom. That student then effects the performance standard.

Now, take the kid who is super smart. This is the student who gets the problem on the first try and goofs off in class, doesn't do the homework, and makes decent grades on exams. They rarely do anything but goof off and distract other children who Because all of the grades across the board are not A's because they have zero's in spots for homework, that also effects performance standards. Hell, I was one of those kids in some of my classes. Not math, but most of them. I hated sitting in classrooms doing the same work I had been doing since I was ten years old. I remember slamming down the grammar packet on my English teacher in the first fifteen minutes of class on the first day of my Freshman class, completely finished mind you, and told her that if that was what the honors class was about I was going to fail because I refuse to do that work. She looked at the packet, looked back up at me, and sighed "Let me figure out something for you, because we cannot test you out of this class." She had at least two more of me in her classes. It was amusing to see her try to come up with something that was challenging for us while trying to do things for the rest of the class.

Then, there are the kids who do not give a shit. They are the kids that show up because they are forced to be there. I wish there was a way to factor them out somehow. I had a teacher who would make us write out a reason we did not do homework on the form, and sign it. She would then turn those papers in a file to the Dean of Students and when someone would ask why her performance standards were "low", out the file would come and it explained everything. Those kids are ALL OVER the classrooms in every school.

Those figures may be a small fraction of the standards, but think about it. It could be the small fraction that keeps a good teacher in a school instead of out. I am all for taking some of my time out of my day to volunteer after school for students who do not have the parents or someone else to help them at home, but that takes more manpower than most think. There are solutions to these performance standards problem, and let me tell you, it is not all on the teachers my friends.