How I spent my summer vacation - just one more addiction.

Monday morning I drove across the lake, a little past Farmersville to Fancy Fibers Farm for a weaving lesson.

As you know, we acquired a good sized huge to me floor loom last fall.  Well I haven't been able to use it because I had no earthly clue as how to set it up.  I don't even know if it has all the working parts.  I needed to learn more about this loom and in order to do that, I needed to learn to weave on a smaller loom, such as a Cricket fixed heddle loom. 

I had asked Cindy over at Jacob's Reward Farm if she knew of anyone who may have Cricket looms for sale and she suggested that I contact Mary at Fancy Fibers.  She had looms for sale and also gave lessons!

So Monday I drove out to the country and had my first lesson on not only how to weave but also how to put a Cricket Loom together.

There were only two of us in the class that morning and it was great getting one on one instruction.  Mary had a nice selection of skeins of yarn for us to pick from and we started our projects.  She normally teaches everyone with the first project being a 6 inch scarf.  But I'm not much of a scarf person when you walk 10 feet out of your house to get in your car and drive 2 blocks to work and then walk 25 feet into the building, there's not much need for a scarf.   I wanted to make a table runner!  So I set my loom up with more warp threads than what were needed for a scarf.

Just about the time we were getting comfortable with our looms, it was time for lunch which we brought with us out under the carport.   Mary said that she has 100 animals, these huge angora rabbits were in the weaving room with us they have to be kept in with the A/C running or the Texas heat will kill them.  She has alpacas, sheep, goats, cats and dogs to guard everything.   She hopes to have a shop in the old downtown area of Farmersville soon where she will have a store selling the yarn made from the fibers from her farm and also hold various 'craft' lessons.

After lunch we continued working on our projects until it was time to leave and we loaded up our looms and took them home.  Even though the Cricket (15 inch) is advertised as being portable, and is really light weight, it wouldn't fit in the trunk of my car!  I just set it in the seat beside me.  I guess Miata MX-5's are for knitters.

This is my table runner... pretty huh?  I haven't blocked it yet so the edges are still a little curly.  I think my next project may be a bag for my yoga mat.

Oh well!.......

I had this whole rant going, but it got too negative so I shelved it.

I'll post some picture instead, ommmmm

 I finished the hat I was knitting for my sister-in-law Di.

 It's got a lacy band on it, kinda a Rasta shape to it.

 We met Michael and Di for dinner last  Sunday night.  Di was having her third chemo the next day.  Michael was starting tests, he has been diagnosed with Prostate cancer. 

 I finished the shawl on the big Tri-loom.  I found only one boo-boo after it was off.

 Here's what it looks like on, whoops!  I sent this picture to Jolea. Remember when she had one like this?  The difference is the 'arresting' cop is a good friend of hers. It took her a second look to notice.

 And the back.

The front. 

That's it for now.  Have a good week!

It's Wednesday, again.

I'm sure you're bored with this... I know I am.

I have got so many projects going right now.

 The Tri-loom weaving. I was about to rip it out, this yarn was driving me crazy.

 But it's so pretty I decided to stick with it and worked on it over the weekend, at lunch today and again after work.  Maybe I'll finish this weekend.

 I've been making some cup koozies for Jolea.  She has a whole set of these retro aluminum cups, but for any of us who remember using our mom's set of these, you will freeze your hands off if you try to drink anything icy cold in them.  I'll send her a care package with some goodies for her new apartment in a week or two.

And then there's the watermelon/tropical punch sweater.  It still looks like two rectangles.  I measured the front this morning and I have about 6 more inches to do, then stitch the shoulders together and start on the arms.

Work is busy for all of us, but really stressful for Jody. They had a co-worker killed on the job last week in a freak accident.  Horrible.  Jody's still kinda shaken by it.  Now he's been put in that guy's job, DI Water, which is Jody's specialty.

It went from summer (90F over the weekend and Monday) to deep Fall in a matter of hours.  This is Texas!  In true Texas form the front came through in a classic sand storm.  What do they call those now days? A Hoodah? Hooha?  Sand Storm!  Now it's in the mid to upper 60's.  We're all freezing, but the days have been so pretty and bright.

Stay tuned I finished a project and I'll show you on Friday.  Oh! it's almost time for Modern Family, gotta go!

WIP What's inthe phone?

Besides the Work In Progress I thought I'd show you some random pictures in my phone.  What else have I got to do before starting dinner?

 Aww, baby bunnies that Dawn keeps under her desk at school.  She found them abandoned on the playground.  She bottle feeds them through out the day.

 Hey look it's the President!  He just flew over our school one day and Dawn snapped a picture of him.

Last Saturday I was driving down Park Ave. in Plano and took this picture of one of the 'Homesteads' original farms from the 1800's.  Look how dead the grass is!  I'll take another picture next week, we've had 3 really good rains this week.

Goofy cat, there was a fly on the chair so she sat on the little shelf that we set our coffee cup on.

 Now she's going to try to catch it.

 She's so graceful.  And elegant.

 The big loom.

And the even bigger loom!  When Jody gets a wild hair it's usually pretty big.  I think we may start weaving his wild hairs into a blanket.


Gotta go whip up some Chicken Fried Steak.

Ahhh, just when I was needing a holiday.

It's Labor Day weekend as you all know.  I can't believe that I've already been back at work for a month.  Sometimes I think it would be much easier on me to work a normal work schedule like the rest of the world.  You know what I'm talking about, no 6 week break during the summer.  Just work straight through with one or two week vacations spread out over the year.

I think I've mentioned that I get bored during that 6 weeks of lazing around the house in the Summer, I run out of projects and 'To-do' things.  But then once I get back to work and it all hits me squarely between the eyes and I'm putting in 10-12 hour days up there, I get to thinking... what the Hell?  Being a bum at home is so nice. 

The adjustment from overly calm to jump from the water tower stress levels can't be good for a person, mentally or physically.  For two years now I have been classified as the Office Manager.  I'm thinking that's kind of tongue in cheek, if I'm supposed to be giving people direction on their duties and make sure they do that duty, why are they able to go whine (or pawn their work off on someone else) to someone higher up the chain and then not have to do what that Upper Chain person had me tell them to do?  Do you see what I'm saying?  What exactly do they want me to do, inventory office supplies? Check, check, done!  I guess my idea of Office Manager is not at all what I thought it was.  Maybe it's my idea of work ethic, you do what is asked of you and don't whine to anyone unless you have a blog and can whine to people you don't know.

I was told they answer to me.  But yet....   Maybe I need to go to a Dale Carnegie 'How to Win Friends and Influence Others' course.  I tried learning Spanish, I even write better in Spanish than I speak, so when I give the janitor a diagram of how I would like for him to set up a meeting room, he should be able to understand it.  Right?  Verdad?

Maybe I should start treating him as if he's a Kindergartner, I have 3 years of KG experience under my belt.  I thought I was giving him the KG directives when I labeled every table on the diagram - mesa, and every chair - silla.  Every door, every stationary land mark in the room... labeled in Spanish.  Explained "No es el salon de Communidad! Es el salon de Multipurpose!!!  El salon GRANDE!  No en el salon con cocina, no salon de Communidad, otro salon. Comprende?" (I even had a translator standing by to assist and answer questions.) To which he said "yeah, I got dees!" and patted me on the shoulder. DON'T touch me.....  you're creeping me out!

I generously gave him two days to complete the re-arrangement of tables and chairs in this room, two whole days.  He couldn't do it!   He handed it off to the night girl, ella no hable Espanol!  Besides, she has ALL her night duties to take care of, no time for your day duty.

I never give out difficult tasks, they aren't anything like brain surgery or re-building a computer.  They are easy jobs, I think chimps could do them hey... I think the circus comes this month, so I just don't get it when these jobs don't get done, especially when "you got dees!"   

I write the room number on boxes of where I would like them delivered, yet I track the boxes down to other classrooms and the teacher tells me "they were in the hall for two days and we were told to take what we wanted out of the hall before the janitor took it to the trash..."   Glad some people follow directions she taught Kindergarten for 7 years.  Makes me wonder about those lost shipments from last year.

And then there's the inability to see that something needs to be cleaned urine in the boy's restroom floor, or picked up broken glass and trash in the parking lot, or locked a room full of cleaning supplies, we'll let the health department explain that to him, heaven knows I have already tried.

It's tiring, so I'm enjoying this 3 day weekend.  I've gotten that off my chest, ommmm.  Hope I didn't give you any negative vibes with my rant.  Like we tell those little kids at school with anger issues... "just write it out, use a pencil instead of your fists."  Not that I would use my fists, I do have to knit you know.

Speaking of.... check out the almost finished project.  I would have finished it Thursday night but I was too stressed and stopped after sewing it all together.

I'll block it today and get it in the mail to my Mother-in-law just in time for her birthday and hopefully some cooler weather.  We're only supposed to be in the low 90's today!!!  It's time to put the top down on the Miata and not have to worry about my hair bursting into flames.

Have a great week, hope it's a short one where you are.  Starting week after next,  I may start making every other week a short one.  It's 'use 'em or loose 'em time!

What a week!!!!

School started for the kids last Monday, the kids were great!  The teachers were just clicking along like they do, we even had several comments from the returning PK program staff like "you guys are so sweet to us, we're really glad we came back." and "It's so relaxed in this school, so organized, so welcoming." and the best comment "This is what happy feels like."  We're glad they are back too.  We'll just be glad when they get all their parents trained.

Besides that, we just have so much to do in the office that I have been going in at 6:30 instead of 7:30 and dragging home around 5 everyday! 

The beginning of the school year brings a new set of parents into the picture.  Parents who have never been here or any school and have to learn the way a school operates, from traffic to how to communicate with us and to follow procedure.  We also have parents who have never been at our school, either because they are coming from another school in our district (no more transfer request... gotta go to the school closest to your residence), or from another town or another state what's with New York having 4yr olds in Kindergarten?  Major learning curves on some of these folks.  Nine times out of ten, they are angry about something that happened outside the school but bring their anger to us.  FUN TIMES!!!!  I start reminding myself 'quitting time is 3:30!

Along with my week, we had a friend in need so we offered a roof over her head for a few days.  Remember Judy, road trip Judy, who went with me to Nita's last May?  Judy had a job offer that she couldn't refuse.  She works as a End of Life Care Giver.  It's really her passion.

Last Saturday Judy had a job interview with the family of an elderly lady who has a brain tumor.  They loved her and hired her on the spot.  She will be personal assistant for both the lady and her husband.  She started work on Wednesday.  The problem was, she lives in Tyler and would have to get up at the crack of midnight to get to NW Dallas every morning.  So we offered a room until the family has her room set up at their new home.  So we had a guest for a few days.  A few of her days were very long and tiring for her.

Then to top that off Jody had a shut down at work Thursday, he went in at 4AM and got home around 9:30PM.  We are totally off our sleep right about now.

 Here's hoping that this coming week is VERY laid back.  The heat is also still over 100 so that's sapping our energy too.

But I wasn't too sapped to go to a weaving class at Jacob's Reward Farm on Saturday.  Go to Cindy's blog to check it out. I've been having elbow problems so I'm hoping this will take a little stress off the knitting.

The Little Red Barn was set up with looms and easels on tables when I got there.

  After the class, I immediately went to Hobby Lobby and purchased 4 skeins of yarn in the colorway that Jill was using in the class.  The way the variegated yarn self patterned into a plaid was beautiful.  I had to have some of that.  Then I went home and got busy cranking out triangles.

It's a 30 inch tri-loom!  So easy to use.

This was triangle number 2!

Close-up view.

I should could have a project finished by tonight!