Crochet Me Crazy

Green Stash Flash 

I've gotten ALL of my GREEN yarn rewound with my yarn winder! I highly recommend this if space is a problem for your yarn. This is a great tool to have!

I don't usually post too many things that are political in nature but this article was just too good not to share.....

School Teacher Arrested:

NEW YORK - A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a problem for us," Ashcroft said. "They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns,' but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle.' "

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us o have better Weapons of Math Instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes." White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the president.

Navy & White Sailor Doll Dress 

Just finished up this little doll dress tonight. This doll was my doll when I was a little girl. My daughter never has any clothes for her to wear because she is so small.

I made this pattern up. I think it turne out really cute but there's one problem....My daughter wore it one day and was complaining that it was itchy. I used Red Heart baby yarn to make it. I guess I'm going to need to add some kind of lining to it or she's not going to wear it.


Mint Green Halter Front 


Mint Green Halter Back 

On another note, my 9 year old daughter occassionally gets a whim to write a story/book. The one she is working on now is called "Crocheting me Crazy" -- LOL!!
It'll be interesting to read the finished product!!

OMG! We are being eaten alive by mosquitos here! I think they have grown since we got back to town. Take a look at these monsters!


OMG! Texas Sized Mosquitos!!! 

I've checked the yard for standing water. I only found a potted plant that didn't have proper drainage. I'm going to have hubby check the gutters. It probably didn't help that we had let our grass get too high in the back yard with us being so busy. Hopefully these guys will let up a bit soon!!

I got a new toy!! I LOVE my new yarn winder I ordered with a 50% off coupon from JoAnn's.


Yarn wound with yarn winder 

The ball on the right is what the yarn looked like before I wound it with my yarn winder. Look how much smaller and compact it is! It is super easy to use and makes a nice little center pull skein. I LOVE it, love it, LOVE it!!

Now, between my winder and my storage idea solution I'm imagining I think I've finally come up with the right yarn storage solution for me.
That brings me to my next plea...
I am collecting 1/2 gallon milk or juice cartons. If you will save these for me, I will pay postage for you to mail them to me. I know it sounds strange but I am going to use these to make my own yarn storage system. I need for my yarn to be visible and not packed away in storage containers. I will fashion a sort of shelving out of many horizontally placed cartons that I'll figure out how to decorate later....maybe wrapping with contact paper. I don't know yet, that's the easy part. With my yarn re-wound with my yarn winder, I will be able to stack several skeins of the same color in one carton. Without the yarn winder, I would have only been able to fit one skein. My BIGGEST problem is coming up with enough cartons! We go through alot of milk and I've started several half gallons instead of a gallon jug at a time for this reason. It's still going to take me a while though so I need all the help I can get! If anyone is willing to help me out, please email me!

Jeff had business in Dallas last Thursday and Friday so we went with him on Thursday with him with the RV to make a weekend of it. We drove into the what we thought was our hotel parking lot at about 12:00 am or so. Plenty of room for the RV so we unhooked and decided to get a bite to eat at the Denny's next door before we checked into the hotel. So it was at least 1:00 am by the time Jeff went to check into the hotel. Surprise! Surprise! This was NOT THE RIGHT HOTEL! Apparently, the girl in "travel" at Jeff's work didn't book the hotel Jeff asked for. He always stays in LaQuinta Inn & Suites but she had booked him at a LaQuinta Inn a few miles up the road. By this time, we were really tired but they didn't have any rooms so we couldn't stay...we had to go hook the RV back up and head up the road. The LaQuinta Inns are much smaller and there was NO WHERE to put the RV. We drove around trying to figure out where we were going to park our behemoth. There was a Home Depot right behind the hotel but we were afraid to leave it there without permission. After awhile, Jeff decided to just check me and the kids into the room and drive across the freeway to a huge church with a big empty parking lot. He slept in the truck until Home Depot opened and they gave him permission to park the RV in there parking lot for one night. We didn't end up getting to bed until well after 3:00 am. The next day, the kids and I walked to a shopping center across the street and hung out at the motel until Jeff got done with work. For dinner, we met Jeff's brother and his wife for dinner because they happened to be vacationing in Dallas. The next day, we pulled out to head for our weekend camping trip to Fort Parker State Park. We got to the camp site before dark. Set up was a breeze...and we went into town for groceries. Saturday, we had a great time. We conoed a 3 mile trip from the nearby Confederate Reunion Grounds to Fort Parker on the Navasota River. There is absolutely no current to fight on the river so it was easy rowing.


4 in a canoe 

sites from our canoe 

rowing along 

tree reflections on the still river 

under the trees 

The park ranger had told us we'd probably have to get out early because he didn't think we would be able to get through all the lily pads in the lake. So of course, we had to play Lewis and Clark and try! The lake was full of of lily pads but we navigated our way through and made it. We "ca-noe" we could do it!! LOL!

Lily pads on the lake 

Pelicans 

There are a lot more pictures HERE if you want to take a peek. We had a really good time!

Frog Pouch 

black purse 


silver & white shimmery purse 

Note: I wrote this post in my word processing at an ealier time because I didn’t have an internet connection but I had some free time

We took off to McKinney Falls State Park on Friday for our first trip in our brand new RV. This trip was going to to be short and more of a learning experience. We ended up bringing our two neighbors kids, Hannah and Christopher, with us even though we really wanted this to be a family only trip. They needed a baby sitter for an important meeting they needed to go to on Friday night. We had promised the kids we would bring them with us so we decided we’d go ahead and bring them since our summer schedule is looking really busy and we didn’t know if there would be another opportunity for them to come with us before they start back to school.

We had a few kinks to work out over the weekend…..Backing up the RV into the site wasn’t bad at all. It was such an incredible breeze setting up compared to the pop-up! We weren’t leveled right the first night and Jeff bought a few more blocks the next day to get us a little more level. Our first irritation was that the breakers on the RV kept blowing. Every time the kids would turn on the living room TV, it would shut off. The breaker on the air conditioner kept blowing….a huge concern. Jeff was really starting to get in a bad mood. Keep in mind, Jeff doesn’t handle the stress of children near as well as I do. Then, the next surprise came when Hannah & Christopher & Alison all decided they wanted to take a shower the first night. No problem, except I didn’t realize our tanks would fill up that quick so the next morning when Jeff and I needed to take our showers, we couldn’t be the tanks were full. Our grey AND black tanks were full. So the choices were for Jeff to either hook the RV back up and haul it back down to the dump station or go buy one of those little tanks you drag behind your truck. I ended up forgetting about my shower and Jeff dropped the kids and I down at the swimming hole while he went into town to buy the tank and them make the trips to the dump station to empty the tanks. We told the kids, no more showers in the RV and boys need to pee in the woods. We were not going to empty those tanks until we left on Sunday. It took forever it seemed like for Jeff to finish and we were well ready for him to pick us up when he got done. When he came back to get us, we went back and let the kids roast hot dogs because we needed a quick meal since everyone was complaining of being hungry. Then, we set off to find the place to repel…it wasn’t long before we realized that this wasn’t the park that had the cliffs to repel off of. We racked our brained and remembere that it was Mineral Wells State Park that had the cliffs that people were repelling off of when we camped there last. We sat around another little swimming hole for a while. The water was pretty low and yucky this trip…they really need a good rain there in the Hill Country. Then, we decided to go to find this huge hollow tree that the kids had played in and we had used rocks and stuff to pile up around it to make a little fort on a past trip to McKinney Falls. When we got to it, we found that it had since fallen over but you could still see the remnants of our little fort we had made last year. Michael busied himself with climing every tree he could climb and amazed us all. We went back to the campsite and it was just about getting dark. The kids made a fire in the fire pit and played around with cooking cactus. We spent the rest of the night in the RV screaming at kids to calm down. Sunday, when it was time to pack up it was going to be interesting to see how much easier this would all be compared to the pop-up. It was wonderful! It’ll get better the more we get everything set up the way we want it. I need to get my cabinets set up so I don’t have to unpack them for travel. We emptied our tanks, and headed down the road. We made it as far as Brenham, Texas before something went wrong with the truck. All of a sudden Jeff wasn’t getting any power even though he was flooring it….the truck wouldn’t go faster than 35-40 mph. We pulled over….no warning lights were on and the engine seemed to be running fine. We drove the rest of the way into Brenham very slowly. We pulled into a Wal-Mart and unhooked the 5th wheel and went searching for an auto parts store. Jeff was going to try changing the oil filter, pump, or sensors to see if that fixed the problem. Since it was Sunday evening, nothing was open so we decided we were going to have to find a place to spend the night and get it fixed the next day. Jeff decided to call Hannah & Christopher’s parents to get them to come and get them. We didn’t have enough meals, nor did we need the added stress under the circumstances. Jeff was already maxed out at this point. We piddled around Wal-Mart waiting for their parents to get there. After they left, we up the road to Artesian RV Park on 290. They had sewer hook ups there so we wouldn’t have to worry about our tanks getting full here. Well, here it is Tuesday that I am writing this and we are still here at Artesian RV park. Yesterday, Jeff drove the truck to a mechanic and they hooked it up to the computer and finally came up with a diagnosis that it was the blower to the tune of $1100! Jeff called our mechanic we normally used in Houston and they told Jeff that was a good price…it would cost a little more through them. They advised Jeff to get it fixed here and not try to drive back. Anyway, we met a nice older gentlemen the first night we pulled in to this park. He drove Jeff down this morning to drop off the truck and they are working on fixing it now. We’ll head home this evening after they get finished with the truck.

By the way, after the first night that we kept blowing breakers in the RV….it stopped doing it. We haven’t had a breaker blow since and we are running everything. Nothing different…Jeff thought maybe it was just because it was brand new and the breakers were “breaking in” We thought we were going to have to add a 2nd air conditioner because our room was hot. I think they try to make it so you end up having to buy a 2nd air conditioner. The kids room in the back is smaller but it has 2 vents. The fantastic fan (sucks hot air out of the RV) is in the living room. Our room is bigger than the kids and has 1 vent…and it conveniently already prepped to add a 2nd air conditioner. Well, Jeff and his smart self has figured out a way around that. He cut Styrofoam plates, to cut off or restrict the flow of air enough to force the air where we need it.

We’ve enjoyed our unexpected last two nights here at this park. We met the man across the pavement from us. He and his wife full time RV. We’ve gotten some ideas and pointers from him and of course, traded tours of our “rigs”. He and his wife have been full timing for 2 years and LOVE it. There is a small playground, a pavillion with a pool table, a vollyball net, and a they have one duck here that swims in a kids baby pool…lol! Micheal likes the pool table. They have a lot of really old, beautiful trees here. The only bad thing is there is no place to swim and its hot. There used to be a swimming pool years ago that was spring fed….don’t know what happened to that. You can see where the pool used to be but has been filled with dirt and it now where the vollyball net is. Jeff is over at the pavillion on some business calls right now and I am about to go hop in the shower. I wanted to use this free time to document this trip. My neice and nephew from Arkansas are coming to our house tomorrow to stay with us for the rest of the week.

I've been so busy this week finishing up Alison's dance year that I haven't had time to get on the computer, crochet, or get anything done around my house! We had all day dress rehearsals this week. She was in two performances on Saturday and I was working back stage on one of them. She enjoys it so much but I'm glad it's over for the year. We haven't been able to go on any of Jeff's business trips with him for the past several months because Alison needed to be here for all of her dance classes while she was getting ready for her ballet exams and then after those, they were getting ready for the show. Whew! Now back to life as usual!

Here is a collage of several pictures of my little princess....she's not only beautiful but she's sweet too! Excuse me while I have a proud mama moment....


Alison's 2006 Ballet Performance