Happy Hooking

Lately I've had a little flurry of orders with my Etsy shop. That's been keeping me busy, but it's a fun, relaxing kind of busy-ness as it mostly involves sitting around crocheting. It's the slow season for my "real" job with Sonlight, so it's nice to have a little extra income.

One of my friends asked me recently, "What is an Etsy?" For others of you who may not know, Etsy is an online community of "shops" specializing in hand-made or vintage items. It's a wonderful place to find unique gifts... thus the little flurry right now before Christmas.

My shop is primarily stocked with small gift items that I've crocheted. I'm what you might call an obsessive crocheter. I do crochet every day... and yes, I carry it around with me. I enjoy working with a variety of fibers (though cotton is my favorite) and love trying out new patterns.

Here are a few of the items I currently have posted:

Mini stockings...

Regency-style reticules...

Wash-cloths...

Mug cozies...

It seems like quite a few people have decided that these would make great stocking stuffers... so I'm staying busy fulfilling orders.

And that, my friends, is the primary reason I haven't been blogging this week.

Just in case you missed me, and wondered.

I'll be back soon. I promise.

P.S. If you're still shopping, it's not too late to get your order placed in time for Christmas!

November Fragments

And yet another week has gone by without a blog post. (Well, that's not entirely true. I did blog on Tuesday on the Sonlight Blog. That counts!) However, I shall try to atone for my non-blogginess this week by sharing some more fragments today.

Do you know how gray and dark and depressing it's been around here lately?

Not only have we had gray, rainy days... we're a little short on daylight just now. I came out of Costco yesterday to discover it was pitch dark at 4:20 in the afternoon! I mean, pitch dark, not just starting to get dark. Just three more weeks until the daylight hours start getting longer again.

* * *

On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I had the privilege of going to the junkyard Pull-and-Save again with my favorite gear-head. He was needing some spare parts to fix up Laura's "new" car. It's just like this one, only not, um, smashed. Thank God!

I felt so sorry for whoever wrecked this car. It had apparently been a young lady's car based on the cluttery stuff that was still in it-- hair ties, a stray shoe, etc. I hope she survived. I think it would be a miracle if she did. I pray every day that God keeps our girly safe when she's driving.

* * *

We had no guests and no invitations for Thanksgiving...

...but we had a lovely feast anyway, just the four of us. The table wasn't particularly fancy, but the food and the fellowship was good. We have our family, our health, our home, our jobs... which is more than many people have... so we consider ourselves blessed!

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On the Saturday after Thanksgiving one of us turned 47. You may recall that we celebrated the other one of us turning 48 back in the summer. I'll let you use your detective skills to figure out which is whose birthday, because I'm sure it's important to you!

We celebrated by spending the day just hanging out. We had a lunch date, and then walked around downtown Spokane for awhile. We were home by dark for an at-home pizza and movie night... but then decided on the spur-of-the-moment to take in a late night movie as well. Happy birthday to me!

* * *

Laura and her bestie were invited to a "smug" party... which, from all that I could gather, meant that they were supposed to dress formally and act snobby.

So here they are, preparing to put on airs. Aren't they cute?

* * *

And thus concludes another week's worth of fragments.

Gratefulness

November is such a gray, dreary month. For example, today we get exactly 8 hours and 2 minutes of daylight. And it will only get shorter for the next month. I think that's what makes November so hard-- even worse than February, my second least-favorite month. At least in February the days are getting longer instead of shorter, and spring is right around the corner. With November you get increasingly shorter days with winter just around the corner.

And it's been raining and raining and raining all week. Not a "Super Storm Sandy" kind of rain, of course. But a typical slow drizzly, chilly, Northwest-in-the-fall kind of rain. Perfect weather for curling up in front of a fire with a cup of coffee and a good book. Not that I have time to do that, you understand, but the weather is perfect for it anyway.

Today I'm grateful that the problems I have, and the worries on my mind, are really pretty trivial in the broad scheme of things. Mostly what you would call First World Problems. I don't have to worry about a roof over my head, or where my next meal is coming from. I have good health and a happy family.

I am blessed.

And I am grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Goldtown Adventures - review

Fellow homeschool-mom Susan K. Marlow's new book series for kids, Goldtown Adventures, has launched!

Badge of Honor  is an exciting historical novel for kids. It takes place in the waning days of the California gold rush, as seen through the eyes of 12-year-old Jem. There is still gold to be found (small amounts, anyway) if one is willing to work hard at getting to it. Jem and his little sister, Ellie, are willing. Too bad their pa thinks they ought to be in school. What's even worse is that Pa got elected sheriff, so now that means they have to be on their best behavior. And to top things off, "city" relatives arrive from back east to live with them. In spite of all that, Jem and Ellie, and their city-slicker cousin manage to find plenty of adventure... if not plenty of gold.

 Targeted for children ages 10-14, my 17-year-old daughter and I both thoroughly enjoyed the story. My favorite character is Strike-It-Rich Sam and his obstinate burro, Canary. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series which is due out later this winter.

Susan offers free study guides for all of her books. She also offers lap books that coordinate with the novels. These are great for turning a fun story into an educational unit study.

Friday Fragments

Sparse blogging just seems to call for Fragments on Friday, don't you think? I wasn't even sure if I could scrape up any fragments to share... but then I read of Keetha's desperate dash around the house to gather up fragments to share, and if they aren't kicking her out of the Frag party for that, I guess I can do the same thing, right? Besides, several of you assured me that it was okay to blog even if I didn't have to have anything important to blog about, so you can only blame yourselves!

* * *

Yesterday, when I posted about making yogurt a certain commenter asked, "Is there ANY domestic skill in which you are NOT proficient?"

I laughed.

Ha.

If she could only see my house. Those of you who have been here know that my housekeeping can best (and by best, I mean, most kindly) described as "comfortable." In fact, Denise described me that way last week, "You are such a comfortable person and I am proud to call you friend ~ for over 30 years now!" She has never actually been to my house (though she has been to my parents' house long ago before either of us were married), but I guess she knows me well enough to know that "comfortable" is a good word for it. I took it as a compliment.

Anyway, as an example of a domestic skill which I do not possess, here is a picture of some gorgeous... and utterly delicious... pumpkin-cupcakes-with-cream-cheese-frosting-and-dark-chocolate-leaves that my friend Janelle made a couple weeks ago. And yes, she made the leaves!! (If Janelle had a blog, I would link to it.)

* * *

Our first snow of the season was earlier this week. Our neighborhood looked like this for a couple of days.

Actually, we ended up with several inches... okay, maybe two! But the ground wasn't very cold yet so it didn't stick around long. That's fine with me. I would just as soon it not snow until winter officially starts. And that's not for another 5 weeks, thankyouverymuch!

The mums survived the snow, though they are almost through blooming, I think. The marigold (the stalky plant leaning over in front) did not. The white pumpkin did not. He's squishy and ready to be carted off. The orange pumpkin, on the other hand, gave his life for the benefit of culinary delights.

Laura tried her hand at making a pumpkin roll to start with. It also turned out utterly delicious. I've never attempted a pumpkin roll before, so there, you see? Another domestic skill I don't possess!

* * *

In Etsy news, my coffee cozies have been selling... well, not quite like I imagine hot cakes sell... but pretty well, at least for my little shop. I have lots of colors listed, but these are the most popular colors.

The top two sellers, by far, are the natural and sage. Interestingly enough, those are the most popular colors for my washcloths, too. Sadly, I'm almost out of the sage cotton yarn. I haven't been able to find more locally recently. I hope they haven't discontinued that color.

* * *

I went to a NaNoWriMo write-in last week. It was at a local coffee shop that I hadn't been to before. That was fun.

I hadn't been to a NaNo write-in before, either, so I wasn't sure what to expect. What I did not expect was that most of the other "writers" would sit there chit-chatting most of the time. I don't know how they got any writing done. Maybe they're more talented than I am. I can't write and talk (or even listen to other people talking) at the same time. I managed to get around 1,000 words written in the two hours I was there... and the chit-chat finally died down about 30 minutes before I had to leave. I was parked in a two-hour zone, so rather than move my car, I just left. Next time I'll know to take ear buds.

There's no way I'm going to make it to 50,000 words by the end of the month, but that's okay. I am getting some developmental work done as well as writing.

* * *

In the evenings I've been hanging out a certain print shop. I can't say that I add a whole lot to the productivity, though I do try to help out wherever I can.

Mostly, I'm just there because a certain man seems to have taken up residence there, instead of here at home. I'm hopeful that next week, at least, may be a little slower for him, with the holiday. These 70-hour work-weeks are not doing either one of us a whole lot of good. I'm trying to coax him away for a day trip tomorrow, but it will just depend on how much work comes in today. He usually runs out of time during the week and ends up having to work on Saturday, too, to get it all done.

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Thank you for tuning it to this week's episode of Friday Fragments here at Ramblin' Roads! Please come again!