Sunday Potato Chips

I don't eat potato chips very often, too much fat in them, but I had some today at lunch. When I do eat them, they are generally the baked kind which are ok but just not the same! Today, I had the Real Thing - Lays! But not too many. And certainly not nearly as much as I wanted!

Anyway. This is what I've been up to lately:

A close-up of the stitches. It's chunky weight yarn, which means that it's slightly larger than "regular" yarn.

Otter was holding it in her lap for me to take the picture. It's folded several times.





That's my hair you see on the top of the picture.

And here's a more complete shot. I finally finished my wrap/shawl! It's pretty long, but it's the right size for what I wanted. This is some of the more expensive yarn I bought a few weeks back. The yarn for this was actually in the clearance bin and I was afraid that I might not have enough, since the pattern I followed was for a different (smaller) size than I made and I didn't know exactly how much I would need. I did have enough, but not much to spare. I made this with the intention of taking it to Church, since it's cold in the sanctuary no matter the time of the year. I usually take a jacket with me - and so do a lot of other people, mostly women. I could have used it this morning, but even though I finished the crochet part of it yesterday I still had a few finishing touches. So when we got home, I got busy and got all the little "tails" (loose ends) woven into it and now it's ready. So, next Sunday I'm taking it to church with me! I made it long so that I can also cover my legs with it if I need to. At least it will cover my legs a little. It's 30 rows wide. The yarn is very soft and I think I'm going to like it. It was a fun project to make and I really enjoyed it. It took me a while to make it, but that was because I didn't work on it as often as I would have liked to. But, it's done and now I can go on to some other projects. I have a couple of them already, one is started and one is not quite but will be soon.

And, by the way, I figured out how much yarn I used for the shawl. Nearly a mile. Not kidding, it's really nearly a mile's worth of yarn!

In the above picture, I'm standing in front of Otter's desk. That's her Pirates calender on the wall and behind me you can just see the corner of a Pachinko machine. That's the machine Bill gave me, it's attached to the wall in front of the closet. The closet doesn't show up in the picture, but there are shelves on each side and one half is my side - and it's nearly all crafting/sewing/crochet supplies!

Along with finishing up my shawl, I've also cleaned the fireplace and put my decorative touches back in front of it. My churns & crocks. Which is just about a 100% guarantee that we'll get 2' of snow next week! According to the forecasts, winter weather is pretty much over. We'll see. (I'll still need my shawl at Church, however!) And I'm also doing laundry. Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike doing laundry? (Yeah, many times I know). Also, I just saw an ice-cream truck in the neighborhood so I think that I'm probably not the only one who thinks winter is over!

I've also got a crock pot full of soup going in the kitchen, I started it before we left for Church this morning. And the bread machine is happily doing it's thing. Homemade soup & bread for dinner tonight! The kitchen smells so good, it's going to be hard to wait until dinner time. We had lunch already, but just the smell of the bread and the soup is making me hungry.

I have a rather large & furry dog parked on the floor next to my chair as I type this. He has been keeping me company quite often when I sit down at my desk. Sometimes. he has company in the form of a fat beagle. But today it's just Frasier. I think Maggie Moo is probably up in the middle of Otter's bed, that's where she generally is when I don't know where she's gotten to.

Movie review: Zombieland. Don't bother. Just don't bother. We rented it for Otter (it was her turn yesterday) knowing that it was rated R and would have some violence/gore. We try to be careful regarding which R rated movies she/we see. This one was supposed to be a "funny" zombie movie and the gore was supposed to be unrealistic - however, after less than 3 minutes into the movie we turned it off. It was a situation of where all three of us said almost at the same time that this was not what we thought. We usually don't even go out after sunset on Sabbath, but this time we did. To return the dvd. It was that bad. Since it was Otter's turn to pick the movie and her first choice didn't work out, she decided on the first Pirates of the Carribean movie. So she got her Johnny Depp fix, and it was sort of about zombies - anybody that's seen it will understand what I mean by that.

Yes, we realize that Otter will be 18 in just a few weeks. And she'll be able to see a lot of movies that we have not allowed her to see. But we have a guideline for our Saturday movie and it has to be somewhat family friendly. No excessive violence, a limited amount of gore is ok depending on the story although fantasy gore is usually not realistic and usually is ok although sometimes it can be too much, language needs to be low on the amount of profanity and nudity is only allowed if it's extremely small and not sexual - as in the scene in the first Terminator movie when the Terminator is walking around and there is a brief shot of his behind would be allowed but not much more than that.

I don't think I'm ready to have an 18 year old! I know that Bill isn't. But then, I don't know if any parent ever is. Particularly fathers when it's their daughters. I know that up to the day my Dad died, he considered me and Froggy to be his little girls. And that was fine, that's the way it's supposed to be. But it's not easy on the Dads when their girls grow up. Probably not easy on them when it's their sons, or easy on the mom, but I only have the frame of reference of one child and daughter at that. But Otter is pretty well grounded. She has the best support base we could give her, now it's up to her to find her wings and fly. And we think she will fly high. I'm sure she'll have a few learning experiences along the way, that's part of it after all. But we all have to have those times and learn from them. Otherwise, we don't grow and that's not good. We're very proud of the young woman Otter has become.

But in my mind, she's still the two-year-0ld in a blue dress standing in the kitchen & smiling for the camera!