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I finished the school bus scarf tonight. The kit and pattern appealed to me for a few different reasons. Very nice quality merino wool, well-written directions with a very interesting technique to make the window openings. It needs to be blocked to achieve the 60'' length but I was in the mood to show it off.
One of my junky T.V. habits is to watch those home makeover shows where a crew shows up and cleans and/or organizes someone's house o' squalor. How I dream of a visit from them! But.. reality has won, so I am starting to go around my little house and tidy up areas which are crying out for order. Here is my first before and after:
Time invested - less than a half an hour. And that is where I found the "You on a Diet" book. A little surprizing because I have no memory of purchasing it. I'm delemma-ed as to whether or not I should mercy-kill the poinsettia. Plaants I spend a ton of money on wither and die in a week. A cheap-o grocery store poinsettia live a hundred years. Go figure.
The new diet goes well. It takes a ton of prep time to make all the healthy food. Tonight's dinner was a Tunisian Vegetable Stew over cous cous. Cabbage, onions, tomatoes, chickpeas, raisins with turmeric and cinnamon. It was a hit.
What I'm happiest about is the fact that I've managed to hit the treadmill at the gym for two nights in a row. My big reward when I'm done is to hang out in the sauna. After that, I'm good fer nuthin'.
The past week I've been off and had a little time to think. I'm tired of a few things in my life, and I think I'm ready for a change. A list of what I'm tired of:
Looking around a room and always being one of the heaviest people in the room
Wearing clothes which are frumpy because there really are no pretty clothes in my size
Being tired all the time
Having elevated blood pressure
So... tomorrow I start the Doctor Oz diet. I went grocery shopping tonight. I took "You on a Diet" with me and bought all the recommended foods for the two-week start given in the book. Healthy food costs a lot! Anyhoo... to make things interesting, my husband and I are doing it together. The winner after this two-week adventure gets $50.00 bucks from the other person. I read an article that having money riding on it really increases the chances of sticking to it. I'm hoping the two-week detox will break my never-ending craving for sweets. I'll keep you all posted.
Check out craftzine's blog (it's a new addition to my blogroll). This site gleans some really great projects from all the craft blogs. The item I'm in love with right this moment is the Sullivan Street Bolero. Follow the links and you will be rewarded with a fabulous pattern paired with step-by-step illustrations. 
I went to three different estate sales this weekend. As per usual, the loot I like the very best came from the sale in the most run-down area of town. The lady who was acting as cashier at that sale was taking her good ol' time cashing out the lady in front of me, (exchanging life stories, etc) which serendipitously gave me time for a second perusal of the tables. Then I saw the cache of unused greeting card from (I'm guessing here) the early 1950's. The pics don't really capture how charming they are - many of them are embossed, glittered or on a textured paper. I so love the graphics. The sentiments inside are lovely, too. The "picturesque Niagara" book is a souvenier photo book dated 1901. Here's the story. My daughter sold a car on Ebay. My son delivered it to the lady in Ohio who bought it. She was so thrilled with a clean, well-running car, she sent the book along with a thank-you note. The date 1901 makes me guess that it was originally purchased during the Pan-American Exhibition held in Buffalo, New York. That, history buffs will remember, is where President McKinley was felled by an assasin's bullet resulting in Theodore Roosevelt's being sworn in as president. ( I love telling stories like that to my students. They generally assume that I was an eyewitness to historical events like that.)
These images are from some correspondence note personalized for someone named June. As it happens, I know two girls named June, so I'm going to divvy them up. There were quite a few of each design, so there's nough to share and some left over. When I showed my ehemera to friend Becky, she asked "What will you use them for?" That gave me pause. My response was a stammered, "I dunno". What does one do with such treasures?
Last item, that Picturesque Niagara book:
I like dollar stores. It's 99% unsightly junk, and I feel like I'm contributing to the trade imbalance with China, but I can't help myself. When I have an opportunity, I wander through the aisles and look for treasures. Here's what I picked up recently.
The dishtowels (pics 1 and 2) are nice heavy cotton. The fish print is especially nice. A quick search of the internet revealed that "sill" is "herring" in Danish. Pretty funny for an item made in India. The third picture is hard to figure out, but what it is is a set of truly pretty sticky notes. The last picture is a receiving blanket with a wild west motif. 
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It seems like overnight, my grandson went from only being interested in things to look at to needing things to actually play with. I have a modest collection of felted sweaters from thrift stores, so I decided to make a squishy wool ball. I cut six wedges of the felted fabric and sewed them together. I had an itty-bitty epiphany just as I was about to pitch the scraps and decided to chop them up to add to the stuffing material. I sewed the wedges together leaving a side seam open to stuff. I wanted to use wool fleece for stuffing because it warms up so nicely in your hands when you hold it. I rolled the fleece into a soft sphere, tucking the wool scraps in as I went. My concern here was to have a smooth surface. I cut out two cardboard circles and cut the fabric a little larger and covered it in the manner of a quilter's yoyo and appliqued the circles over the openings at each end. The finished ball is about six inches tall.
I've found a dandy source of free craft patterns while cruisin' the internet. Canadian Living Magazines website has quite a few craft patterns free for the taking. For instance, if you are in the mood to knit an Audrey Hepburn doll this is pretty cute. Her friend Marilyn Monroe is available, too. I hate to be Johnny-One-Note, but being on winter break is the best. I tossed together some Chicken Cacciatore and revved up the crockpot. To me, that's just as nice as going out for dinner. 
Here's a picture of me enjoying my time off.
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