Sunday Marshmallows

I'm back to food titles today!

Marshmallows are fun.  Especially on winter evenings, when we turn them into 'smores.  Which starts with roasting them in the fireplace.  Sometimes, they are just roasted marshmallows and not 'smores.  They are good either way!

It's been a busy day.  Bill's car, the 2002 Impala, developed a problem Friday.  The fan went out.  He was able to fix it himself.  When we got home from church today, he went up to the auto parts store and bought the part.  That was the easy part.  The hard part was taking the old one out.  He had to take apart quite a bit to get to it, and then he had to put it all back together again.  It was quite a learning experience for me, I had no idea where the fan would be at or that it would be such a large part.  But it is fixed now, so it should be good to go for a long time.  The car does still need some other work done to it, but it's things that can wait a little while.  The fan is something that has to be done when it goes out, or you run the risk of overheating and burning up the engine.  Which would not be a good thing at all.

Froggy, I finished up one project for you yesterday and am nearly finished with another one.  I have to wait for glue to dry, how's that for a mysterious clue?  I have another one that I'm about to start, sometime this week.  It doesn't involve glue, but it does involve yarn and a crochet hook.  Three different yarn colors, in fact.  But that's all I'm going to tell you now.

One of the things that Mom made with crochet was covered clothes hangers.  She would crochet the cover, it was basically a long strip about 1 - 2 inches wide and then she would sew it up one side, around a metal clothes hanger.  I have the last one she worked on, I think she got tired of making them and just quit before she ever finished the one I have and I also have the fabric piece she used as her size guide, which I intend to keep forever just as it is.  I also have her hand written directions & measurements.  I've made several of them, the crochet part is the fun & easy part.  Sewing them on the hangers is boring.  So I tend to have several at a time that need to be sewn on.  I got into my unfinished projects yesterday and discovered a bunch of them.  The last time I made any, I started making them with a different stitch and completely different from the way Mom and I always made them.  The new way worked much better.  Most of the ones I found yesterday were the original stitch, and I decided I'd rather just keep making them the new way.  So I frogged all the old ones, and the yarn is slowly being added to Bill's blanket.  Some of them are yarn that I can't find anymore, and it's not necessarily all that old.  They are not extremely long pieces, so Bill's blanket will have a few rows with multiple yarn changes per row.  And now, when I have the urge (ok, unavoidable & irresistible compulsion) to crochet and don't have a project going, I'll work on hanger covers the new way and I will enjoy it.  I really do need to make some more of them, we have a bunch of them but not enough for all the hangers we have.  They go fast, but I still don't particularly enjoy sewing the covers on the hangers!  But I have an idea I want to try, which is basically crocheting a single stitch to hold it together as I attach it to the hanger.  The stitch I like to use now is a single stitch and it should work.  Many things that are two pieces attached together are stitched with single stitch.  So it might work, I'll try it and see.  If it doesn't work, then it's back to my yarn needle!

At one point, I did consider making them to sell but changed my mind.  I don't want crochet to become a business, I want it to be something I enjoy.  And I enjoy making things to give away.  Froggy, do you still have the covered hangers?  Do you need any more?  Well, you just might get some soon.  (That is not the project I am working on for you).

Otter's report card for 11th grade came in the mail yesterday.  She passed all her classes and now just has one more year ahead of her.  It will be mostly elective classes, but she will have one math class to take.  She would have originally taken it this year, but she was having problems with a math class in 9th grade (I think it was 9th) and she switched herself back to a more basic math class voluntarily.  It was a smart move on her part, and we were just glad that she was able to say she needed help with it and then do what she had to do to get that help.  The basic class does count towards the final number of credits, but there are 3 specific math classes required by the state so instead of taking them in 9th through 11th grades, she took the first two in 10th & 11th and will take the final one as a senior.  Math isn't my strong suit, either.

I'm reading a book about hurricanes at the moment.  It's very interesting.  I'm familiar with hurricanes, it comes from growing up in South TEXAS.  Although they didn't get as far as San Antonio all that often.  But when they did, they were still major storms and sometimes had those twisty things that Dad would never admit actually happened there!  I'm not sure what year it was or what hurricane, but I do remember when I was in elementary school one came in on the Gulf and we had to go to Port Aransas to help Dad's war veteran's group clean up and repair their clubhouse.  Hurricanes can do a lot of damage, and this one was no exception.  One thing that I do remember about it was that the clubhouse garage had a bathroom in it.  The garage was destroyed.  Except for the bathroom!  Froggy, you were probably with us.  Do you remember what storm and what year?  I'm guessing that I was in elementary age, but I really don't know for sure.

OK, enough for now.  I'm going to play on the internet for a little while.  Then I think I'll go crochet.  Imagine that!  :)