Holiday Happenings

Ok, so I haven't blogged in a while again, but it's not like there wasn't other places to play while I wasn't entertaining you.
Since my last post, I very prayerfully considered some options, talked to friends to get their feedback, and then talked to Devildog. I decided to become an independent Thirty-One Gifts consultant. I approached it with a completely different manner than I did my last venture that ended badly. I made choices along the way that contributed to that end, and it was my fault for not cutting my losses sooner. I simply hooked up with bad leadership. I knew the other side of the problem, but hadn't owned up to my share of it. I know this now, after having read Dave Ramsey's book, EntreLeadership. I checked it out from the library, but one of my purchases will be a copy to keep around the house. At the time of this post, it's on his website for $10 as part of a Christmas sale. WELL WORTH that price and then some. I'm moving down my list of books faster than I can knit anything. And I can't read & knit or watch tv & knit, so knitting is hosed at the moment.

Thanksgiving was its usual, but smaller scale. Then Black Friday, I did no shopping, except to drive to the Publix a mile from the house, and buy a 10 pack of Ivory soap and a 3 pack of store brand soap. The latter for the Devildog, the former was for a project to keep the kids busy if they wanted to do the project. Prior to Thanksgiving, I'd stopped at my local yarn shop and bought some roving (too much roving to be honest). Roving is unspun-into-yarn wool.

So, what can one possibly do with soap and roving?

One would make felted soap.

Why would anyone do that?

It occupies kids inexpensively, and makes neat little gifts. And the felted soap is kind of like a washcloth/soap combo. This was a take-home project we did one night at the yarn shop a couple years ago, and I've always thought it was kinda cool.

Assembled are the roving, knee-high stockings, bar soap (your choice of brand), and random animal fiber yarns.

 I cut the bars of soap in half to accommodate the little hands that would be doing this project. It's not required to do this.

 Dunk the soap in warm water so the roving fibers stick to it.

Pull small bits of the roving off the pile and lay it over and around the soap till you get it covered.

Then, cut varying lengths of the other yarns to add to it. 

I untwisted the plies of yarn and laid the segments around the roving. You can leave the yarn strands intact if you decide to do that.

This is what you'll have at this point. It looks like you dropped a half-eaten piece of candy on the floor of a shearing station.

Here's a tricky spot. Bunch up the knee-high stocking like you're going to stick your toes into the closed end of it. You'll need to make sure any seams are on he outside, and that you gather the roving-covered soap into the finished end of the sock, otherwise the roving will felt to the seam.

 Ask me how I know this last fact.

Then you dunk it into the very warm water (as warm as you can tolerate) and start scrubbing, just like you would when you're washing your hands.

 This takes a few minutes, and I don't mean 2. It could be as fast as 3-5 or as long as 10. A lot depends on the fiber, some depends on the amount of agitation you put into it, some of it depends on the temperature of the water. A shift in temperature from hot to cold, or cold to hot can aid your felting, and of course any amount of agitation will too. I used a combination of all three. I alternated between one bowl of hot water, one bowl of cold water, and lots of agitation.

After your several minutes of scrubbing and dunking in hot/cold water, it'll start looking like this:

When you take it out of the stocking, set it somewhere to dry unless you really just want to throw the kids in the tub with it to get them out of your unsunny place. You can put it in front of a fan, in the sun, or even in front of the fridge exhaust (I do that with wet shoes) to dry the felt. Drying time depends on the environment it's in, and how thick the felted fiber is.

The day I did this with the 2 youngest, my kitchen floor was soaked at the sink so I kept a floor-worthy towel there to catch the drips my 3 year old caused. I then used that wet towel to quick mop my floor. By two days later, you couldn't tell it was "cleaned", but I also lack photographic evidence to prove that it ever was something less than grungy.

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"Oh wow she really must be sick"

This is what my MIL said to Beast on the phone Christmas morning. I was not well enough to go to church Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. She called and the phone got passed around and when Beast had the phone, MIL asked to talk to me, and he told her I couldn't talk and had no voice. I heard her ask if I went to Midnight Mass (always went when we visited her for Christmas, but my parish has 10:30 Mass the latest), and he told her no, nor did we go this morning. I woke up when we should have been at the church already. She then said "Oh wow! She really must be sick then if she didn't go to church"

Yes I am. Augmentin = horse pills. Constant coughing due to lung spasms for lack of sufficient oxygen = raw throat. Devildog hates the "psst" I have to use to get someone's attention, despite the fact that's how I call my kids when we're in public. The number of "psst" is the number child I'm calling, and it's more fun to see what kind of looks I get from people than a game of Marco Polo. Everyone's becoming more proficient at figuring out the mix of charades and handful of sign language signs that I remember. And when all else fails I get pen and paper or use my cellphone text screen to get the message across.

Merry Christmas family, you got a wife & mother that can't nag you because she can't talk. Now I just have to figure out which one of these yayhoos put in that request to Santa. Next year they're getting a huge pile of coal.

All appendages and relatives intact

We survived Christmas with family. It was safer because some relatives no-showed at Dad's and we made an exit for the middle of nowhere to visit my husband's former stepmother and her sons. She's my Father-In-Law's former 2nd wife. At the time I sprung forth the first spawn from my high school loins they were married. Then I moved in with Devildog's family the last few months of school. And little did they know, but I had the second spawn on board. My dad hated that his brother's grandchild didn't use Grandpa, but something involving the last name. My parents had to be Grandma and Grandpa. Since we lived with FIL and stepMIL, and my oldest was gaining a talking momentum, I needed a grandparental designation that was simple for him. So, they were dubbed Nana & Papa. The kids still call her Nana, even though FIL and Nana parted ways many years ago. Nana was a large part of Devildog's life as a child and young man. Her sons have always been brothers to Devildog and his sister (but it's hard to say where anyone stands with his sister without absolute clarification from the source herself). FIL and Nana (who also has a few nicknames - OY the confusion!) were together well over 10 years, and at this point Nana's been part of Devildog's life for about 20 years. You don't just walk away from that, without good reason.

Anyway, she wanted to see the kids, and her son has a daughter a few months younger than Beast. Plus they live next to a state forest so there's lots of country life kind of fun to be had. There is a huge pond stocked with fish, and some boats. The kids stayed on the dock and fished for over an hour. Nana's ex-husband (#3 I think), who lives around the corner (at least he isn't NEXT DOOR) cooked enough food for 2 armies (yankee from Maine doesn't do so badly either). We came home with ample leftovers, and yes, I'll shamelessly admit to taking advantage of the hospitality. It was nice to hang out with them, and the boys have mellowed considerably in their 40s. They've got very colorful histories. I felt guilty about jumping ship on my Dad, the brother & his spawn, and the oldest sister. But I also can only tolerate my family in small doses. Devildog's tolerance is even smaller. Which is how we all ended the day with apendages and relatives intact. We didn't overdose on them.

Now if you're still confused, don't worry. It has been 16 years and sometimes I still shake my head vigorously in hopes of something getting a synapse to fire in just the right way to allow me to comprehend some of this stuff. Then again, MY family has its own synaptic challenges too. I still haven't come to any conclusion on why family is so complicated. I'm just happy to understand my dosage limits and adhere to them.

Feliz Navidad

The song was rolling around in my head after the choir sang it at the end of Mass tonight. So there ya go. We trolled a neighborhood that was all lit up, except a few houses. Strangely enough, everyone climbed a ladder and fastened the lights to a limb and dropped it to the ground where it was plugged into an extension cord connected to other strands dropped from trees. Then we went to church, and *gasp* Devildog accompanied us. He pretty much never goes to Mass with us. He's not Catholic, so it assaults his sensibilities. He got irritated with me for saying hi to as many people as I did. He should thank me, because I saved him the need to contend with traffic exiting the parking lot. So I went around to my friends to wish them a Merry Christmas while the choir sang that song..."Feliz Navidad, feliz navidad, feliz navidad, prospero ano nuevo felicidad" It's roughly translated to Merry Christmas, prosperity and a Peaceful New Year. There's a mumbled version of Merry Christmas that is a standing family joke that stems from my sister's work history. She worked in a dry cleaners and one guy NEVER enunciated anything, and mumbled EVERY thing. Which I will be mumbling in the morning because the spawn will be up before the sun, and I'm going to bed just before said bright orb in the sky arrives to announce the day. I'm yawning more than breathing, and I have general symptoms of over-exhaustion. I can't find where I hid a present I bought for myself...and was going to have the Clone wrap it as her contribution. Maybe I'll find it in time for my birthday next month. I'll surely unearth it in an unceremonious fashion. It's too late to keep looking and I can't think lopsided, because straight was gone hours ago. At least the coffee pot is set up, the cinnamon buns are rising and some cookies have been baked. And I won't have to cook after all. We're going to someone else's house and one person there just loves to cook too much food. So we're going to help consume it. Wanna join the redneck fest Persnickety? I promise it will be NOTHING like going to your usual holiday haunts.