Gusty Sunday

It's windy.  Very windy.  Like I needed an anchor when I was outside earlier!  I have to get out again in a couple of hours, I'm Otter's transportation home from work today since Bill needs the car tomorrow.  Otter had the car most of last week and drove it to work today, then I dropped Bill off there when I was running an errand and he got the car.  But since it sounds "howly" outside the window, I don't think the wind has died down at all.

 

Froggy, I started on KN#3's blanket earlier today.  I texted you (and her) a picture of the first row.  I have a couple more rows on it now.  I have several projects going, which is how I like to be.  Bill has a pachinko machine on the way to get restoration work and pin polishing is part of the work it needs.  I'm the "official pin polisher" so I'm trying to get as much crochet done as I can while I still can - pin polishing kills my arm muscles for crochet for a few days.

 

I'm really enjoying having a craft space.  I am working on a recipe box for Otter, she knows about it - she picked out the box.  But she doesn't know exactly how it's going to be "decorated" and won't know until I get it finished.  I'm also going to have two other craft projects soon.  One is the clock I think I've mentioned before - I'm going to make a clock with a wooden tray; I'm going to attach a crocheted doily to the inside front of the tray and the clock parts will be put on it.  I'm also going to be making a shadow box, which I might have mentioned before as well.  I had a small shadow box that Mom made, it had specific items belonging to AJ but the frame fell out of it and I decided it was a little too small so I didn't repair it.  I have some items that were Mom's and I'm going to put all the stuff together in a larger box.  I bought some fabric that will be the backing.  I bought a clear plastic box-style picture frame but it wasn't big enough either so I took it back to Michaels and found a bigger one.  What I bought isn't actually a shadow box, it's a box with a plexiglass lid but it will work fine.  I priced actual shadow box frames and they are outrageous - like $90+ for the size I wanted.  The box I bought was somewhere in the $10.00 range and it will actually work better.  The lid looks like a picture frame, but it doesn't latch shut.  Bill looked at it and he thinks he can attach a magnetic closure like he uses on some of the pachinko machine wall-mounted cabinets he makes.

 

We are possibly going to change internet providers.  We had a bad time with Cox a few years ago and finally switched to the phone company we use - it's not Bell/AT&T or whatever they are called.  The only one available where we live is a smaller carrier and it was fine at first.  But there are so many houses out here now and only so much bandwith available.  The internet literally spends more time down than it does up.  After the fiasco with someone cutting the lines a few months back, it's gotten worse.  The wires being cut was not the companies' fault, the problem was their reaction to it and the lies they kept telling me about how it was fixed when they hadn't even sent out a repair crew.  We may well be going back to Cox.  A lot of the problem we had with them was similar - the lines were being cut on a regular basis by construction crews and they were not sympathetic to their customers.  But the houses are pretty much all built now.  Their service was good, that was never the problem.  The current service is becoming a serious problem.  Bill's going to talk to Cox and see what it would take to get service with them again - mostly the monthly fee.  Otter's internet service is through them and she told me what she pays, it should probably be similar.  We'll let everyone know when we make the switch, as the email addresses will be changed.

 

And at the same time, we are probably going to do away with the satellite service.  We both realized at about the same time that we hardly ever watch it.  We have a boatload of local stations and we generally watch them.  When Otter was younger, she watched more of the satellite than we did.  If Cox's service is higher than what we pay now for internet, and it might be because we may have a bundled package discount, we will still be seeing a cheaper cost because the satellite is a big chunk of what we pay each month.  We are not going to change the phone service, at least not yet.  We have a lot of issues with it, like every time it rains!  Although that is better, because we've been able to address each leaky spot in the buried lines when we have rain issues.  They are still there, just less problems.  Also, we want a landline.  There have been a few times when we've had weather related issues where the power might be out for a few days and that includes cell towers!  We have pretty good cell service, but the towers only have a certain amount of battery power and eventually they run out.

 

Tomorrow is our 30th Anniversary.  We're celebrating big:  I'm picking up pizza from Little Ceasar's on the way home!