Crochet Me Crazy

We had such a nice day today! We were invited to see the baby lambs and kids today at the stables. After the kids finished their school work, we called Jeff to come pick us up. They were soooooooo cute! These lambs are only two days old. Their animals are so tame we were able to pick up and love on the babies.
Here's mama and her young 'ens


Here are the kids with the baby kids....and this is a rare thing to get Michael in a picture at all...much less smiling!



Just for fun....

The lady with the stables has a name...her name is Beverly. I found out that she crochets! She's mainly done ripple afghans so I brought my baby blanket and booties over to show her. I'm going to show her how to make some some other stuff from patterns.

Michael made himself some good money hauling rocks today and he did a great job so he should be happy! He also helped his dad out on the porch. Here's the porch he's working on.



It's so fun over there! Alison ran around looking for eggs because the chicken lay them all over the place! It's like an easter egg hunt every day! We only found 3 though because it was so late in the day before we started looking. The dogs eat them as "scooby snacks" all day! lol

Just when I finished that blanket and am down to one skein of pink yarn and what's left of the white from the blanket, a little angel knocked on my RV door today. A nice lady we've chatted with here and there said she was praying for us last night and she felt like God told her I needed some yarn. She said that she took $20.00 from a little stash she keeps for extra things for herself but she wouldn't take "No" for an answer. Her only condition was that I spend it on yarn. I am also so thankful for the wonderful christian people that we have in our lives that I know are praying for us! God is good ALL the time!

I have been dragging all day today. I hate days that I feel like this. I even laid down for a little while to try to take a nap and THAT never happens! Michael was even saying he didn't have much energy today. I guess he spent it all showing off his rope jumping skills this weekend at the park! lol

I've got dinner cooking right now....I'm trying a new recipe my sister sent to me. We'll see if it gets voted as a "keeper" or not. Sure was easy though!

Souper Skillet Pasta Recipe

1 envelope Lipton Onion Soup Mix
1 lb ground beef
1 teaspoon oregano
1 (28 ounce) can tomatoes, undrained (I use the diced ones)
2 cups water
1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
mozzarella cheese

I am making a few changes. It didn't seem "tomato-ey" enough for me so I added a Tablespoon of Knorr Tomato Bullion (I love this stuff and use it all the time) and I am omitting the parmesan cheese. Parmesan Cheese it too expensive for us right now.

Jeff is going to come back and pick Michael up tomorrow after he's finished with his school work to go with him to the job. They have a job for Michael to do.

I finished one of the pockets for my plastic bag shower bag. I may have a strange logic for how I'm putting it together but I'm making both pockets for the shampoo and condition first. I have used a LOT of bags for such a small little pouch! I had a whole lot of them because I use them as padding in a drawer for my glass casserole dishes when we're traveling. I'm going to have to go grocery shopping soon!



Added Later Note: The family said the supper was s "keeper" so I'll add it to the recipe box. The only bad thing was it didn't make enough for my family. I would need to double-it.

Your beautiful!!

Alison and I carry our stuff over to the showers every night in plastic grocery bags. Well, I get tired of the bags ripping so I decided I'm going to crochet us shower bags with plastic bags. They'll be much more sturdy and it won't matter if they get wet! I've started on one and I'm going to try to make little pouches to fit our shampoo bottles so they stay upright. My husband laughed when he saw me using the bags...he asked if I was so desperate for yarn that I've resorted to plastic bags? Well, its one way to save money!

After a beautiful day of sunshines, last night another hail storm blew in! This the second time since we've been here that we've experienced hail. It wasn't quite as much this time and it went over fast. Jeff managed to get his truck under two big Oak trees just in time! This morning we woke up and it is once again sunny and beautiful.

I took this picture when I laid back in the sun yesterday while the kids were swimming. When I get stressed, and try to complain, I look at something like this above my head...



It was a wonderful surprise when our friend invited us to go horseback riding today! These are the people that Jeff is doing the work for and they have horse stables. The ride was beautiful. Maybe we'll learn a few things about horses and riding as time goes along. We appreciate it and enjoyed it very much! They have been very nice to us and are precious people.






We're back home now. Daddy took Alison to the river to swim and I'm mixing up potato salad to have with our hamburgers tonight for dinner.

Jeff is drove to the "big town" today to buy the supplies to do three of his jobs. I hope the rain doesn't interfere with his plan for today. His plan was to get 2 of the smaller jobs done today...replace a water heater and wire and install a ceiling fan on an outdoor porch. Hoping to get those two out of the way this week so we can see a little bit of extra money. Te guy with the water heater job said he'll have more work if he likes Jeff's work. There's no doubt in my mind, that he will so hopefully it will start to snowball. Every one of the jobs he's gotten so far have just turned up without really any effort on our part at all to seek them out. All he did was walk into the local equipment rental company and the lady said she was hoping he would come in because she needs some stairs fixed. A guy overheard her and came and asked him what he does....then immediately took him over to the house where they need the water heater replaced and handed him a check for $325 to buy the water heater with!

I've really been trying to figure out the priorities when we get a few extra bucks. Curriculum for the kids, shoes and shorts for Alison...I'm pretty sure I will be trying to get my husband to go to the dentist and get a cavity filled first. The good news is that I have heard the dentist here is very reasonably prices and takes payment plans. I can see why he would have to do that to stay in business here. There are no large employers so there really aren't many people with dental insurance.

We have met the nicest people here. We went with my husband to the house he will be working at next week and there is an eldery woman there who has just about adopted us. She is amazing lady who's still running around painting, carrying ladders, getting on her hands and knees varnishing floors and she's 83 years old!! I'm figuring out that when she's determined to do something, you just better be quiet and let her do it. Michael spent the evening learning to tie a "monkey fist" knot from a book of knots she had bought Michael. Then she lugs a tile saw she had bought for Jeff and he has been resisting letting her get for him. He will need it to do the work at their house, but she wants to give him the saw for future jobs. She has high hopes for Jeff and flatters him about his abilities. She tells him to quit telling people he's not a "professional". She says Jeff is a "craftsman and she knows because her and her husband did work like this for years together" before he got sick. It's hard to argue with an 83 year old woman like her.
They want to hire Michael to mow the ranch in the summer and Alison and I can work the gift shop at their stables if we want to. It might work out but we'll just wait and see how everything works out with everything else.

Now, I have to figure out what in the world to crochet next. I brought a blanket I had been working on for Alison a long time ago. She has been asking me when I'm going to finish it. I think I'll try to finish that for now.

I finished the blanket! My best friend that I have known since 2nd grade is having her first baby and I made this for her. I hope she likes it.

It appears that my comments are working now. Thanks to momof3 for letting me know!

I believe there is a problem with people being able to post comments to my posts. I tried to do a little research and see what the problem could be since my settings appear to be correct. I made a change that was suggested on a message board. I will wait and see if anyone comments to let me know if it worked or not!

I actually finished the blanket last night! Yay! Adding the ribbon ended up being a very quick process. I plan to take it over to the community building this evening where I will have room to spread it out so I can take pictures of it.

Jeff went into the local town today to price some materials for the little job he's doing and came home with two more jobs and a check for the supplies for one job in hand. What we keep hearing over and over again is the same story. All the good handy-men are too busy working for the rich vacation people in the area and the rest will take your money and never do the work or else they don't do good work. He has to drive into the big town tomorrow to get supplies and hopefully he can knock out a couple of those jobs so we can actually see a little bit of extra money. We don't really expect to ever get paid for the 4 days he worked for the guy he had to quit working for. We do okay on buying necessities except Alison needs shoes and shorts. She outgrew all of her clothes from last summer and now she's wearing my old sneakers. She can now wear my shoes! Too bad we're so far away from a thrift store! I may be forced to shop at Wal-Mart when the time comes! UGH!

I called the State Park about my job today. They haven't heard back yet from the state on whether they can get special permission for us to park host and me work as a paid employee in the park. If the state says no, which won't surprise me, then we'll have to opt for the park host position since it does me no good to have a job if we have no where to park the RV for the summer.

I just can't seem to work on this blanket to get it finished! We just seem to be too busy doing other things and I really don't have a comfortable place to snuggle up and crochet in the RV. I bought the pretty pink ribbon while we were in town this weekend.

Since I don't have much to say I'll share a few pictures of a few of our new friends.




Jeff had to quit working for the guy he was working for on Friday. It's really a long story but it had to be done. I'm feeling a little discouraged right now. I'm sure I'll gain my faith back and get focus back very soon like I've had to do so many times through all of this. These months and even years have been some of the some of the most difficult for me emotionally but at the same time they have certainly have been the best years of my life spiritually. I have never had so little but I've never been so thankful to God before either. It's really strange. "Through our weekness, He is made strong" is really coming to life for me right now.

This 1948 cartoon is so prophetic, I had to share it:

Jeff went off to work again today to finish the screened porch job. He did well yesterday and the guy was thrilled with his work. I went to try out a day sitting with the elderly gentleman and the boy. The boy and man are delightful and the kids had a great day. Needless to say though, I won't be accepting the job. I think I have enough information to say that I'll save ourselves a lot of heart ache and getting attached to the son and boy if I just say "No thank you" now. I told the lady yesterday that it wasn't going to work out. I'm going to the job interview with the state park today. We'll see how it all works out.

I only have one more pineapple to do on the baby blanket to do and then I have to sew it together, add the ribbon, and I'm done. Wow! This blanket has been the longest a project has drug out for me in a very long time. Just so much other stuff going on that it's been hard. I'm going to try to finish it up tonight. I'm hoping I get this finished before the baby gets here!

We had no choice but to drive to town today for groceries. Then we were invited to dinner at a family's house we met. The kids played with their son and had a good time. They played games, sang, played the piano and they have a very fun house with lots of things for the kids to do. They have an eating place in town that they want to set up a stage and her young son is going to sing and they want Alison to sing too. They are even offering to pay Alison to do that! Hmmm....we'll see if Alison has the courage to do it! Another opportunity has presented itself to me. I have been offered a job to sit with their elderly father who has Parkinson's Disease and also their child and I can bring my kids along so it's an attractive possibility. Apparently, the man doesn't need a whole lot of care except he can't be left alone at this point and I would have to give him his meds or make him a sandwich. Also, I got a call today from the state park to set up an interview to work in park office. I'll go in for that next week. I have a lot to consider.
Jeff went and talked to the park manager a day or so ago and we're pretty sure we're going to be able to get a park hosting spot if we want it so that will take care of the problem of having a place to park the RV for free. We'll be required to put in 24 hours per week of volunteer work between the two of us to stay free.
The other good news is that Jeff is going to do a job for a guy on Monday to screen-in a porch for someone. There's also a person at the RV park that needs some work done in her kitchen that he's going to do as an odd job. He and Michael are going to look at it this weekend. So it's a little bit that's going to help us. Any work is good work right now!

We got up early and went to a sunrise service at a local church. The service was held at a ranch under what is said to be the biggest Cypress tree in Texas.