Hats Made While Waiting for Word From the Surgical Team

I made these hats while at the hospital with Dad. He is home and doing well.



These thirteen baby hats will be donated to Online Angels. There was another of the pink with little yellow accent tags but I gave that to my sister-in-law to give to her daughter who just found out she is expecting a baby girl.



The two multi colored adult hats will also go to Online Angels. The brown ones are for my bald spouse who works in a cold environment and finds that nothing keeps a bald head warm like alpaca and alpaca/wool blends. There was a third brown hat but it was put into use before I got the chance to take this photo.

The pink & multi-colored yarns were from OA auctions. The rainbow is a little ball I had left of a favorite yarn of mine. The brown alpaca was purchased for this specific purpose as baby it is cold outside. ;) The black chenille is more salvage yarn from the hat I made for Mom that had a thread snap and I could not repair it. The red sparkly is a little ball I had left from making myself Valentine's Day leg and wrist warmers in 2007. The little yellow tags on a thin string was bought out of the Target dollar bins on impulse and has sat around for years because I had no clue what to do with it. Glad I finally found a use and it is not sitting here mocking me any more.

Please Pray for my Dad.

He's having triple bypass today. Please pray for the doctors in whose hands he will be and that he has a successful outcome and recovery.

Waste Not Want Not Wednesday: Grocery Bags

These were my Christmas gifts. I started with a goal of forty. Twenty were to go to our family holiday gathering and twenty to the folks in my daughter's office who have graciously cared for our animals during various emergencies this year. Then I got a little more ambitious and decided sixty would be better so folks might have more than one each. I went at it like a beast, cutting up clothing, sheets, curtains and remnants from my stash, assembling them in various stages without counting. The third photo shows an old guinea pig cage cover I'd sewn for our pets. We'd used it for a couple of years before switching to a different cage. I'd always wanted another project for this very pretty fabric to go to - this was definitely the one!

I wanted each to have a tag tied to it that identified what it came from - remnant, pajamas, curtain, etc. and since my daughter is the scrapbooker that was her contribution to the project. Well, that and tying and cutting all the threads which was one heck of a job! Her poor fingers.

When I finally finished sewing she had tagged and counted over 80!

I'm told they were enjoyed at her office for which I am glad. I wish I'd had more of an opportunity to sit down with folks who were going through them at our family Christmas. When one pink bag was described as being curtains from one of my parents' old places in Hollywood my brother, a big guy you wouldn't imagine wanting a pink bag, immediately spoke up for it. That was exactly what I had hoped for - to bring a little bit of fond memory to someone's day as they drop a loaf of bread into their bag...and to do some recycling and destashing.

Good Financial Decisions

I'm very big on living within, or hopefully below, one's means. My mind can't grasp the concept of buying a huge McMansion, fancy car or material goods to 'impress' others. My joy comes from the simple things in life - a gorgeous organic yellow beet from our CSA share, the kids sharing a story about a pleasant happening in their day, the feel of nice wool socks on a cold morning. I always strive to make the best possible financial decisions. In order to be able to sleep at night I have to know we are able to pay our bills.

We're at a point now where the kids are taking care of their own expenses. We're both working. We have a comfortable home, functional vehicles, good medical coverage. And yes, I confess, I am a Disney junkie.

While I will always be a New Yorker through and through, I would love to own a little place near WDW to escape to now and then. We have the Vacation Club, but what I'd really like is to have a little place of my own, as Carlin said, 'for my stuff'. I'd love to travel without a suitcase, stay in the same place every time...and maybe even catch the fireworks from my balcony while working on a sewing project or touching up some trim with a little can of paint.

Real Estate is, without a doubt, bottoming out in that area. I looked at some places a couple of weeks ago. We thought for sure with prices so low it was time to do it. We checked on financing, discussed how much to put down, even fell in love with a sweet little condo with lots to do in walking distance. And then my spouse brought up a question that I hadn't previously considered.

Would we prefer to have this little getaway or pay off our kids' college loans?

We chose the latter.

Waste Not Want Not Wednesday: Torn Loom Knitted Hat

I made this hat from some yarn I despise working with because my Mom asked me to. It was a battle to loom and Mom only got a few wears out of it before my lack of coordination with the yarn while constructing it caught up with her, snapping a stitch which obviously caused a big tear in the hat. I love Mom but there's no way I can battle this yarn sufficiently to make it a hat again.
As you can see I've frogged the hat, wound the bits into balls and have some left over that will go in my 'stuffing bag' which itself is a post for another day.

I plan to use the recycled yarn for the brim of a new hat for Mom, the bulk of which will be made with much friendlier to work with wool, as opposed to this synthetic chenille.

Happy Birthday Dad

My Dad is one of those people who has everything. Because I understand that he's not being facetious when he answers 'Just your company,' to the question 'What would you like for (insert occasion here)?' I try to respect how he feels. Especially since I understand that too many possessions just weighs us down rather than enhancing our lives.

Before you ask, why not get him a gift card, let me explain that he doesn't really enjoy using them. So something that is used up is the best gift, IMO. This brings me to the gift I planned for his birthday - delicious organic food from our CSA. Being Italian, he appreciates good vegetables, so I selected some nice squash, onions, peppers, eggplant and one fruit, a melon, that I hoped would all keep from when I picked them up on Saturday until we saw him the next day. Turns out we didn't see him Sunday...and I had to work early Monday. Which meant I either had to see him on my way home empty handed and start from scratch for a gift, or I had to do something to keep this food fresh for the day while I was at work. Leaving it in the car was obviously not an option.

What I came up with is small sherpa bags I custom made for each item to keep them padded in the communal fridge at work, and a grocery sack to put them all in. The sack is made from fabric left over from a home decorating project Mom did, so I hope they'll get a kick out of that when I bring it by.

My son is a chef and he'll be there when I go by so it should be a gift Dad enjoys and that won't be sitting around gathering dust for years to come.