The Rebel Strikes Again

Sometimes people try to communicate things but do not word those ideas in ways that can be read without violent reactions. This causes a problem. The "fight" starts. Then that fight goes on and on with little to no moderation on the parts of the people in charge. I am going to be the rebel and address this right now.

There is a fight going on over, of all things, spelling and grammar. I say of all things because that is what some others say. Why of all things should spelling or grammar matter, but I am sorry to say it does matter.

Recently, well a few months ago, I did some translating of stitches from one language to another. I do not speak, read, or write the language I was translating from. I did use an online translator and wow do you get a suprise when you do so. Try going to one and typing in what you want to say, translate it to the other language then copy and paste that translation back to your original language that you typed in. Very often the re-translated block of text does not say what you started with. In some cases it translates to a totally different meaning. So you try again and again, till the translation does resemble what you want to say. Not an easy task, and very time consuming. Ask me, I know.

Now imagine a group with many people on it from different countries trying to communicate in languages not their own. Those people may be trying to use online translators to understand what is being said. A direct translation in good grammar with proper spelling is hard, but what about one that has improper spelling and the grammar is not good. Well, now you have an almost impossible task in doing the translation.

Ok now take that same wording with bad spelling and grammar but you both speak, write, and read the same language but a country across from each other. Well, your language is the same so it shouldn't matter, or should it? The answer to that is simple, it does matter if you are planning to use things that are local to your own personal area, or abbreviations that are not common. I can say taters at home but someone from an area that has no idea what a tater is will be lost. Maybe spuds would be better, but then maybe just plain old potato would be the perfect word to use.

How many times do you hear, I don't want to sound stupid but what does LOL, mean, or MIL, BIL, SIL, DS, DD, or very commonly, Frog or Frogging in the context of crafting with yarn. We do see the questions about these things asked. It is because these maybe wonderful to use in instant messaging but on groups or forums where there are a lot of people these meanings get lost because of lack of knowledge of them. Many people struggle along till someone else asks the question, What does this mean, then others come along to say, I was wondering....

It is hard enough trying to communicate to others from different backgrounds, different areas of the country or world without throwing in a mixture of local language, and those ever confusing abbreviations. Yes, I know that I am guilty of this also. It is hard, but we do try. It is when we don't that starts the larger problems, miscomminication. Did you know that in some postings the final outcome can be a direct insulting remark made to the person you are trying to help or just converse with, been there done that, in English to English. That was quite a shocker, insulting a friend and not ever knowing how or why because she was to shocked and upset to tell me. It must have been bad, but I never figured that one out. In that kind of case you just have to pass on that you never meant to insult, and continue with life hoping that it never happens again, but it could, since you don't know the cause.

Now let's take a look at a different area of translation. I started, like many, to get into the abbreviations, the shortcuts in language that keep many of us from typing the day away. Then I learned something. I have members on at least one group, and I have seen some of them on other groups, who are blind. Yep, you read that right. They are blind and they loom knit, some also crochet and needle knit. These people use a reader program for messages to groups. The problem is that those readers are only as good as the person typing the messages. They can only translate what they know. So a message with bad grammar and bad spelling will not translate so a blind person can understand. In this they miss a lot that might otherwise be beneficial to them.

As for me, call me guilty. Guilty of abbreviations, of bad grammar, of not spelling right, and of not checking over the messages properly to make sure that even if a word is spelled right but also that is it the right word to be using. Yep, I am guilty but I am trying to be better. Not for me but for those to whom it may matter. They are my online friends and that counts for more then my need to be fast in typing and getting on to the next thing.

So you say the groups posting do not have spell checkers. Yes this is so but there are other methods by which you can do the proper thing. In the beginning, I would use a word processor to check my spelling. Then I discovered a little thing that my son downloaded and added to my browser functions. It is a little program called ieSpell: http://www.iespell.com/ Now I use this all the time.

Why he downloaded and installed it I have never asked. Certainly it wasn't for himself, this young man is the best speller I have ever met. His first and favorite book when he was just a little tiny guy was the dictionary. I had to purchase him a large one to satisfy his needs. Gee that book was almost as big as him. He didn't just learn the little words but learned some so big that I cannot even pronounce them. So I have a spell checker available wherever on the web that I travel at the click of a button, and I am learning to use it more and more where checkers are not available.

So think about it. Are you being understood by the majority of people, or are they passing your messages up because they are not understandable because of grammar and spelling? I certainly hope that the majority of people who read my postings do so with the understanding that I want them to have. It is something interesting to consider.

As for grammar many of the word processors will help you in that area. They will give you options for changing what you have written and give you some reasons why. Oh I am a bad speller, or so I was, the Internet is doing what my teachers never could do, teach me the right way to spell words. I am not as bad in proper grammar but I am not excellent either. I have my own problems but I try to fix those as I go.

My whole point to this is let you know that it does matter if you cannot be understood. That most wonderful thing you are trying to pass along can be lost in the fact that someone looks at what you wrote and cannot understand it at all. Then that wonderful thing is lost to those with out understanding till someone comes along to explain it all over again.

Ok so now you are upset with me because I tell you that it matters. Well, that is a part of being the rebel. I have to tell you the truth, it is the truth that matters more then my being that totally likable person that spreads nothing but joy in the wake of total misunderstanding.

Ebay and shipping

I was a little bored this morning so did some simple browsing through things on the Internet. I decided to search out some large tatsy shuttles (for tatting). That search lead me to eBay. From there I got lead to some different auctions for all types of shuttles. I have shuttles for weaving, use some of the large shuttles for huge macrame projects, so these are always of an interest to me.

I started noticing that there was some very large auctions for bobbin lace pins and decided to check them out. They are lots of older shuttles that look pretty neat, or would after a bit of cleanup.

Then I noticed the shipping and started to laugh. I know the eBay rules. There is not suppose to be any large amounts of increases in shipping/handling costs as this is kind of a way to cheat the buyer. I don't know how many of you look at eBay but the most recent trend is to up the shipping costs a lot.

OK there is handling, packing materials, and then the actual shipping costs. Well, recently I shipped off two dresses back to the place they were bought. Packing actually cost me nothing as they went back in the box from the company. Still I sent them priority mail (the fastest one), added in $200 for insurance (dress $100 each), then added delivery confirmations to the mix. All in all these cost me $11 total shipping.

So why in the world would it cost from $8 to $11 to ship a little amount of bobbins, regular mail, no shipping, no insurance. Boy that must be some packing material. I also recently shipped a large box of yarn to a friend and that was not the lightest box, not like these little bobbins would be, but it didn't cost me anywhere near the cost of those bobbins to be shipped.

At this point in time I have pretty much stopped buying on eBay. That is not to say I won't if there is something I really want at a good price, but it has, eBay, become the biggest scam of the day if you are not careful. The sellers raise those shipping cost way too high, they want a starting bid of way too much and very often a simple search of the Internet will find you the exact same thing at a lower cost, and less shipping. For example the tatsy shuttles I first started my search for, I could name several great dealers who's costs are less and the shipping is definitely a lot less then the eBay sellers wanted.

OK that is my gripe for the practice I see getting worse and worse. So if you do eBay, do be sure to watch for that over inflated shipping costs (not all sellers run that practice, but it can catch you unawares if you are not careful) and when you see that oh so wanted something, do a simple search to see if it is available someplace else first. You just might get a surprise and be money in the bank because you took the time for that little search. ROFLOL

Oh one last thing, be sure to check the "antique" listings, they are not always as "antique" as the seller wants you to think they are.

My Html Class

I was getting really excited about another class at the college due to start in just another week. I signed up for the html class and had been studying a small online class to start me on the road to learning this.

I am so disappointed. There was a call from the college on Friday afternoon while I was gone. The class had only two people sign up. I was one of those two, so they canceled the class. Bummer, can you say SAD, can you say BUMMER, I sure can.

So looks like I am going to be taking the time to do more of this learning all on my own. I have several html books and I have a basic start. So starting over the next few days I will sequester myself, in an area where no one can get to me, with my little laptop and start from the beginning of the book. I figure if I have questions about something the Internet is the best learning tool beyond having a teacher there to explain stuff. Besides, there isn't very often the teacher is around, the Internet is always there (well with the exception of power outages, downed ISP's, and those occasional DOS attacks {denial of services attacks}). So I can live with that. I just prefer to be in a classroom where you have the benefit of the learning of an instructor.

Oh well, I have to look on the bright side. This just saved me $362.

Blog switching

So I am set up with the "new" blog that is google sign in and I gave their new customize blog a try. Yuck. It said it would deleted some things and yes it did but it didn't tell me I would have to fight like the dickens to try to get it back. I can say I was not "impressed" with the new "custom" setting with the drag and drop. In fact I disliked it so back I switched right back to the old way. I will edit my own on my own and leave it at that. Everything is very much ok the way it is anyways. So who needs the rest. ROFLOL


Now I do think there were some neat things, but you don't always want to worry about keeping the neat things as the bad can override those neat. So here I am almost back to the beginning.

Update on Yahoo mail

I can sometimes get into yahoo mail but then when I try to open up a message I go straight back to the page cannot be displayed. So I am shut out for now. I will let you know latter what is up.

Added to shopping trip

I forgot one thing that I did pick up that was a just for myself thing. We went to Barnes and Noble and I got a Andre Norton book that I didn't have (it is one of those actually written with another author, but be that as it may it is still in her witch world series). That will be a relax time mode book. I haven't cracked the book open yet as I know me, I won't be able to put it down. I also got another sign langauge book that they had on clearance. My son and I have been talking about taking a sign class together, but he has some other classes to finish up first.

Then I got a knitting book. It shows somethings in it like giving an example on how to do metered squares, and some other neat projects. Maybe some I will be able to do on the loom but for now it will go to the shelf as I am still working on designing some more baby hats. I am liking how some are turning out. So cute.

I once did a pattern from off the net that was a purled ridged hat and thought that was pretty neat so I am working some variations of that and some other stitches.

My car is running pretty good. We do think the idle is a bit high so we might have to take it back to get that adjusted but other then that it now has power again, no more dying when I come to a stop. My gas usage for the trip to Medford was cut in half, and that's always a good thing.

Shopping Trip

Well, I still didn't get that little flower loom, but no big deal. I only want it because it would be helpful to help others. We got all of our shopping done, and it feels good to have the shelves at home, plus frezzer and fridge full without having spent a fortune.

I went to Michaels and found nothing that I wanted. So I went to JoAnn's again nothing I wanted. Craftware house again was a big nothing. One last stop for my crafting needs took me to Hancocks Fabric. At last something I wanted.

Guess what, I got a medium and a large butterfly loom. Neat, another toy to play with. I also picked up some more stitch markers. I keep loosing some and needed more to mark my loom pegs.

Well, that's about it. Tired need to grab loom project and rest a bit.

Knitting Machines and other stuff

I purchased an additional knitting machine and just received it last week. It is a Brother chunky machine and it looks really nice.

So I figure it is about time that I started learning how to use this machines that I have. I have several DVD's that I got from a seller in the UK and I have reviewed them slightly. Only I need my machine in front of me to follow what they are doing. Well not follow, I do understand from playing around with the machines, but to do at the same time as they are doing.

So I started on re-arranging that "room" again. I really need to get the hubby busy on putting in the shelving that he got me for my yarns. Then get things arranged so he can put up my pegboard. I will use the peg board for hanging my knitting looms and make the shelves they are on now available for other yarns. It will be so much easier to just go to the board and take off a loom then to have to search though the shelves looking for the right one.

So I took hours and hours yesterday trying to figure out how to "rearrange" that room. There is just so much stuff that it was almost impossible. I then decided that many of the tubs of yarn were going to have to leave. They went to stay outdoors for now. Now I have room to move some things so the hubby can get the shelving put in. Then I can bring the tubs back in one at a time to place their contents on the shelves.

I have decided that I will no longer be doing any cross stitch. I haven't done any in years and years. So I will be putting all those books and magazine I purchased up for sale soon. I am setting up a seller account on eBay and will give someone else the chance to use them. It is a waste just to have all of them just sitting there as there are some really beautiful things in those books, booklets, and magazine. I think a lot of my plastic canvas ones will go also. Just too much stuff and with the addition of loom knitting and now pulling out the knitting machines something has to go. I have many of those books for cross stitch and plastic canvas. We had a store go out of business and I bought a lot of the books so I wouldn't have to go looking for another source. Now they just sit there waiting for someone to love them.

Today is now a shopping day. Wow, with the car back I can actually go shopping. I am not excited about it. It will be a long day and I will be way tired at the end of it, but I do plan to get to a few "play" stores while I am at it. That makes the tired a little better. I am still looking to get that little knifty knitter flower loom. Why? Just because I don't have it. Terrible huh.

I am working on some tiny baby hats. So I will take that loom with me to work on. I am using that 26 peg knifty knitter oval loom and those hats are coming out so cute.

PS: Should have added that no I am not using a pattern for those baby hats but making them up as I go. I don't want to mess with copyrights on someone elses designs. So if I design my own then I can do whatever I want with them. The first one I did is so cute.

Camcorders

I got a camcorders to take videos of the holidays, the grands, and whatever else I want to have for later viewing, this was back just before Christmas. The problem was that I only had one battery for it and it only lasts for about an hour to an hour and a half. Not a long time.

Oh it does have a plug so I can hook it to the electricity but you cannot get around very well like that and children don't stand in one spot.

So I went looking for extra batteries only to find that no one carries them here. I got told to call the company. Sure that would be a nice thing if they didn't want a small fortune for each one, well $30 + shipping costs per each one ordered.

I had my son do some searches while I was at work a couple of weeks ago and he found several nice places. One of them had the batteries I needed (actually an upgrade from the one I have) for only $9.99 each with shipping. So I ordered three batteries for the price of one.

It did take two weeks for them to get here, but then they came from Hong Kong, and two weeks is not all that bad for the distance, and the shipping cost wasn't all that much either. It was a US order, but shipped from their warehouse.

At least now I don't have to save the battery I have. I can tape for several hours and if at home or near the car the extras can be charging while I am using another. I like it. Grandkids here I come. Oh do they like to show off.

My car

Alright, my car is running. After finally getting the carburetor from this stupid company I ordered from after a three month battle with them, my car is running. Well, it still had a problem. The day I took it to have the "first" carburetor installed, the one that they say was the wrong one, but the mechanic says was the right bottom wrong top, I started having trouble with the alternator light coming on.

On January 5 I sent the carburetor back to the company, plus my old carburetor for them to check out. They said send priority mail, we will reimburse, yea still waiting for that to happen, so I did. According to them it took two weeks for them to receive the package, sure it did. On Jan 18 I called only to get an I have to call you back in a few minutes. That was in the late morning on Thursday. Friday morning I had to call back because no one called me.

My carburetor, this one they were going to rush fix and fast ship, was still sitting in the box somewhere and they couldn't find it. Oh great, they wanted to "call" me back. I had some choice snorts over that one. Loudly and with tons of sarcasm for the man on the phone. A call back wouldn't happen, I had been that route.

So they did get it done finally, and I only had to wait another 11 days for that fast shipped expedited package to get to me. They must think I am stupid and that I will never tell anyone about my experience. I heard all kinds of excuses and I know an excuse when I hear one. This cost me plenty by being so stupid as to think I could save money with a company that others said was good to deal with. Oh that cost added up to much more then what a brand new carburetor would have cost. The price of the carburetor, the price to ship it back, the lost wages from no way to get to the job, and the cost of shopping here in this tiny town. Prices are almost double for what I can pay if I go to the next town over. I did a quick estimate and figure around $800 to $900 extra in shopping here. Wow, the new carburetor was only $750, the rebuilt I could have gotten here was $351, so figure it out. If I would have purchased here, I would have saved a bundle. Silly old me for thinking I could do better.

So the car came back to me on the 31, but the alternator light is still coming on. I checked about purchasing an alternator as the hubby can install that. They tell me to first check to make sure it isn't the battery. Nope not that, so back to get the carburetor yesterday, which the hubby installed last night. No more alternator light. That dumb company put the voltage regulator inside of the carburetor. Voltage regulators go out more often and quicker then a alternator, but when built in you have to replace the whole darn thing. This makes number six or seven in just about as many years. The first couple were simple get another no charge, as they were lifetime guarantee but then the company purged files on the computer and that no longer existed. The receipts you get don't last long in readable fashion, so take pictures, or scan them or something. This one is over $70 but I do have a core charge coming back.

At least the car is running and sounds great, for now, it is an old car. It's a 1976 Buick. I like old cars. I don't like the new plastic ones. I have seen first hand what happens when they get "bumped" and what happens when someone runs into my steel car. ROFLOL

This weekend we go shopping. Yes, shopping. I never thought I would be happy to say I was going to go shopping. I am just not a shopper. I hate it, but this weekend I go to JoAnn's, Michaels, CraftwareHouse, and who knows where else. I am suffering from I want to browse the yarn isles, at least something besides Walmart.

 Busy, Busy

I have been working on trying needle stitches on the looms.  I have a couple figured out, but boy are they hard to do with some.  All the moving and moving of stitches to fill in gaps, or to make gaps is such a lot of work.  Still this is an excerise in learning and it is kind of fun.

I plan to come back in a few days to update my blog since I haven't done that for a while, but other things have to come first over the next few days.  First there is stuff for work, I have a couple of projects to work on, and I need some extra rest.  I have put in so many hours lately between groups, work, crafting, and general home stuff  (you know that cleaning thing we sometimes have to do), that I am going to need a huge break.

I will update when I have the time.

My tree is no more

Remember the photo I posted of a bunch of trees where I said the one in a corner was the blue spruce at the corner of the house. Well, here is a cut version of that tree.



Now here are a couple of pictures of that tree after the very high winds we had today. Bummer, she decided to lay down.



Here you can see that she barely missed the trash can, and that black thing at the top of the phot is our composter, missed that also. My hose is wrapped in roots, and that upside down container is my hubbies mix his dirt for his bonsi's thingy. He does all this sift and sift and sift some more till the mix is so fine and just right for his plants. That thing off to the side is an old piece of large sewer piping. It has been cut for placement around my rose bush to protect it from the wild lawn mower. Wow, I think it needs to be painted again.
Look the roots are all broken and ripped from the ground. What a sad affair. These trees are so slow growing and this one has been around for a while. I will miss it.

We really did luck out though. If she had gone down in the other direction she might have taken out the power lines and the cable lines. When she was planted there was no way she could have done that. Then the stupid power company came along and moved the lines right next to her. Well, that's one less thing to worry about.

More camera play

My hubby and his mittens kicking it in his chair in front of the tv.













Mittens for Bart, my co-worker.



















Koi and goldfish.














More koi and goldfish.

That big boy just wouldn't hold still for me.












Last flower of the season for this minuture rose plant. I was really shocked to see it still looking pretty good after a couple of frozen nights.

Simply camera play

I got my new camera and it has been fun playing with it. I have taken all kinds of pictures in just play to see how it would do. It's not bad for a cheap little camera.

See this tree. Well, I am holding the camera at ground level. I have to tilt a lot to get even close to the top of the tree. Oh yes it is a big tree but it is still a baby. It is only 22 but has reached about 60-70 feet at this time. I will never get to see it's full growth, if it manages to make it to full growth. This little guy can grow to be 300+ feet, but that will take more years then I will be around. She is a beauty though. Her sister (which is right on her other side so you cannot see her), is just slightly shorter but had a girth around that is a bit fuller then this one.

Oh you should see these in the wind. Oh what a lovely dance the branches do. So soft and graceful they move up and down. I love watching her move.

Here is another picture of the same tree. You can see her sister standing beside her. I had to go to the back yard and take this picture over the top of the house. Yes that is the roof of the house at the bottomof the picture. LOL, you can see a couple of my antennas attached to the house. These are CB and scanner (police/fire/medical/business scanner is what I have).

Anyway, see how one sister is taller then the other. They were planted at the same time and were the same in height, but that has changed over the years.



These guys are on one side of the yard. To the left side of the picture you can see the Blue Spruce that is at the edge of the driveway/carport area.









I caught this one morning and had to have a picture for my desktop. It is a really neat moon showing in the morning covered with fog and mist.

The trees in this picture you cannot see so well but they are at the back corner of the property. No not the same as any of the trees in the other pictures.

I really need to get some more pictures of other trees in the yard. I cannot remember just how many we have now. We have lost a few and planted a few, but it was somewhere around 100.

Camera

Well, I got a new camera, a Canon A530, but I am just now trying to learn it. It has many more functions then my old one and I need to run through the onboard software to learn just what is available and how do I make it work. Not the best or most expensive camera but for my craft work and the kids it will do. The price was good, $148.94. I actually bought two of them.

I have found that this camera unlike my old one will take some little amount of continuous pictures. Of course this all depends on the flash recharing and what function you are in, it is not available in some funtions. Still this is an option that I might choose to use a time or two.

Even without the flash on the camera takes ok pictures inside the house. Oh and it has a couple of night time functions, one for just night pictures, and another that it meant to take a picture of a person against a nighttime background. I haven't tried this out. No one available when I have the time and the camera out. Everyone sleeping at that time. Oh well maybe sometime soon I can see just how well it might work.

I did find out one thing though. This camera came with non-rechargable batteries. Now my other camera went through those like crazy. So I use rechargables as that is much less expensive. I have been playing with this camera for a couple of days now and have not had to change batteries. When they do go I am going to have to take a good look at what these are as I will usually pick up some back up non-rechargables for emergency use when my rechargbles are dead. These ones are lasting very nicely and I think that they might be what I purchase for backups in the future.

So far learning portions of the software has not been too difficult. The booklet the company enclosed with the camera is also not bad. Oh I have seen books that come with software that are like greek to wade through and you get almost nothing from that book (quickbook pro, oh what an awful book that came with that). So this one at least is a good guide for the user, me to follow. I haven't had any trouble with it so far. This company didn't expect me to have a phd in photography when they put this one together. ROFLOL That's great as I am not very good at taking pictures and don't need the extra bother of a higher learning curve for the camera.

I do have some pictures to take of fingerless mittens. Then I can work on updating the blog entry without a picture of these. I also have a couple of other things to take pictures of that I haven't gotten around to taking. Today though is a work one. Clean, sweep and mop, then to the laptop for my "work" work. LOL So it is later for picture taking.

Oh this one is a 5 mega pixel with a 4x optical, 4x digital. Not too bad compared to the 2 mega pixel I had. Oh and I should say I am not giving up on the old camera. It just could be a software problem as nothing can be found to be wrong with the lens. So will continue to try to puzzle that one out. It would be nice if I could get it working again. That might not be as good as the one I have, but I did pay for it and I would like it to work.

Today

Last night I began to feel not so well. I had a pain in my jaw (had it damaged when I was a teen and it reacts to everything). That gave me a headache which always leads to my stomach hurting. Darn that head/stomach thing is a bother. Then my nose became stuffy. So I went to bed early. I told the hubby I though I was getting a touch of something. I was right.

This morning I feel terrible. Oh no not the flu, but I think that's what it is. A few times in the last week I have been around a few people who were experiencing the same types of things as I am now. I think they passed along the whatever they have. Wonderful.

I didn't finish this post but saved it as a draft this morning. I just got to feeling pretty rotten. So I went and laid down and got some much needed healing time. I still feel rotten but I have a couple of sets of mittens to finish off today. So time is passing and I must try to catch up with it.

My new long knifty knitter looms came today. Boy the pegs are much smaller, but the gap between pegs looks the same. I will get around to measuring them later.

Ages

Oh my gosh. I got an email from my cousin Darla today with a birthday wish. Birthday, it's not my birthday. Well, not today but tomorrow it is. Oh I almost missed my birthday again. I guess it is just not that important a day as it use to be. ROFLOL

Well, this one should be important. Well important enough that I really would want to miss it. I will be 55 tomorrow. In many areas, stores and such, around here, that makes me a senior. Oh no, I am getting old. Well duh, everyone is getting old, I am just getting there faster then some others now.

My grandson Payton asks do you know how to tell someone is a hundred years old? They have white hair. His dad says, like grandma, Payton says yes. ROFLOL I have a silver white hair. Have had it for years and years. So I guess that 55 is not bad because according to Payton I have been a hundred years old for years and years and years.

Humm, not doing to bad for being way over a hundred. I can still get around pretty good. ROFLMBO

Just an update on things

Isn't this just beautiful. My hubby took this picture on a fishing trip last weekend with out oldest boy. I have this as my desktop picture now. I have taken to sitting here working on a loom or needle swatch, with this as my window. It looks so inviting on my 17" screen. This is Four Mile Lake in Oregon, way up in the mountains. This use to be a very nice quiet place to go but it has been discovered. It is no longer peaceful. Too bad. He and the son left early due to all the loud blasting competing music. He said with so many people it wasn't a nice place to fish anymore.

First since it has been so long since I updated this blog, I want to let you know how the hip problem is going. I finally switched off of any of those stupid meds the doc wanted me taking. They just were not helping and the possible side effect of them scared me. I would like my heart to stay as it is and not impacted by some nasty thing they wanted me taking. I sure am tired of quacks acting like they know everything and hiding the truth from us. There is more to natural then the medical industry (and yes is it an industry, a huge expensive to us one), wants you to know. A little research and I am now taking all natural stuff to help. I think I mentioned the Valerian Root and the Curcuminods, plus MSM, but I have now added a catalyst water to the mixture. I am currently only using it as a local spray for the leg and hip but believe it or not it works. I developed a rash that just was not going away with any store bought salve. Now a couple of sprays a day with just water and less then two days it is almost gone. Amazing to me that's for sure. We also bought a colloidal silver machine. Did you know that before the days of antibiotics that silver was given for infections? Interesting reading on what silver can do for you. We thought why not give it a try.

So what's on my loom and needles. I haven't had lots of time for sitting and working on projects. I am working a bit more on a loomed afghan for my grandson. That's the scraps of red that I am doing it in. It is getting close to being done, I think I am about 3/4's done with it. I need to get it done soon.

Beyond that I am playing with a small project. I just finished a swatch on a size 11 needles that is called the Palladian stitch. The needle version turned out really nice. Now I am working on the loomed version. Even though I have done several conversions for people in needle to loom stitches, those have only been a line or two here and there. This is a complete pattern converted over to the loom. I have written it out for myself and have now finished one set of rows and am into a second set. It just isn't big enough yet to tell how close it comes to the needle knitted look. I hope to get more time for working on it today.

I am finding that it is a bit harder to do the loomed version. On the needle it is easy to see if you have done a purl or a knit stitch. Not so with the stitches I am using on the loom. So I wind up having to frog rows because I let myself become lulled in keeping an eye on what I am doing. You know, people talking to you, that show on TV, the phone ringing. LOL

The stitches I am using on the loomed version are the purl and the knit stitch. I thought about using the e-wrap but that would not make the swatch stitches be the same as the needle stitches. I have found that using the method that has been posted to yahoo groups for doing the knit stitch, where you pull the yarn down through the existing stitch to create a loop (as for the purl but from the top not bottom), then lifting the stitch off to the back of the peg, and placing the loop back on the peg, to be working quite well. Doing the knit stitch in this fashion has prevented that possible tightening of the stitch so that on further rows it becomes impossible to knit off the stitches.

There is as I have found another advantage to doing the knit stitch as I just mentioned. That other advantage is in frogging a stitch. It is not the easiest thing to frog the knit stitches on the loom, that is till now. Now since I am frogging so much more I discovered a plus to making the knits and purl stitches the way I am doing them. If I grab the stitch on the peg and pull it off, and as I am removing it giving a little tug forward brings the old stitch popping up so that it can just be pulled right back on the peg. My current swatch is 29 pegs and I can frog the entire row in under a minute. Yea that fast.

The bummer is that I cannot remember the first person who mentioned this method or if that person was even the one to discover this way to do the knit stitch (often called the flat knit stitch). I wish I knew who did discovered it to say a proper thanks. So I have to just give a general thanks to you if you get a chance to read this. You have opened up a whole new door for me to explore from your little way to do this stitch (and to those who would be interested, at first it seems slow but you soon pick up speed and you can knit quite fast with it). For those of you who want to check this method of doing the knit stitch out, Isela, from decoraccentsinc.com, also learned how to do the stitch from those who told us, and she made one of her little videos to show others how to do this. Isela is great with her little videos. It just isn't her fault that by the time the videos have come around I have already had to learn from the written word. Still that's good, if I can continue to figure things out that way, then I won't be handicapped by having to have a visual to do things. Ah those little things that make things easy can also be a downfall if you learn to rely on them too much.

Today is the party for my grandson Mason's birthday. He turned one last Tuesday. I can hardly believe that he is already that old. Time sure has flown. His mom has planned a pool party for the kids. Oh just a little blow up pool at the park (she got prior permission), so the kids can play in a wading pool. It might be a good thing today as we are again expecting high temps, not into the triple numbers (at least I hope not), but very close. As the heat is still bothering me a lot I probably won't stay for the whole afternoon. I hate this, I have always been a lover of the hot summer months. Now I find myself wishing for the cold winter days.

My other new baby is now almost two months old. Noah is being a very stubborn baby. He has been a nursing baby but mom went back to work so part of the day he has to have a bottle. He really doesn't mind taking the bottle as long as mom is the one giving it to him. With others he pushes the nipple out of his mouth and just cries. This is a very difficult time of life for him. He is growing at a very fast rate. Even the nurse at his doctors office still cannot believe how fast he put the weight on. He is almost 12lbs now, that's over the 6lbs 3oz he left the hospital at. We just hope that he soon gives into the taking of the bottle from others. I hate hearing his cry. It is the sound of a baby in such distress. He has now also taken to whimpering and that is even worse then the full screaming crying he does.

Been Awhile

It has been quite a while since I posted anything. I have had so much trouble sitting and standing for hours on end doesn't make you want to stand more to do one of these updates, but today I am going to work on one.

I have done very little looming. I just find it hard to stand and loom and as I said sitting is still one of the hardest things in life to do. I just hate feeling like I am handicapped but at this point I am. Picking up stuff that I drop is like trying to swim in quicksand, just about impossible. Oh I manage but just.

So someone posted a link to a pattern (on a yahoo group), that I took and interest in. Not because I want to do the pattern, it is needle knitted not loomed, but because the idea of translating the increases of M1 and Kfb of stitch. I have never been able to figure out that M1, but Isela passed on how I might accomplish this one. I have started playing with it and shall soon see how that one works.

As for the Kfb (thats knit in front and back of stitch for those who do not know), I think I may have found the way to do that one also. I still need to play with it a little bit but if it works out ok then this is one more plus for doing needle patterns on a loom. I just don't have enough will right now to stay the miles for playing with these.

Well, it didn't work out as planned. I was suppose to baby sit today but it had to be here at my home. My youngest son doesn't have a car and I must take him to school. Babysitting was to start at 9am and school starts at 11am. Things got messed up.

The DIL got up and went to work. They only have one car so no way to bring the kids here and the carseats were in the car so no way for me to get them and bring them here. So I did a work day at home instead. Yea, lots of fun that.

This past Saturday I received a package from a friend. She had been given some things in in them was a tatting needle, size 5, and three tatting books. One of the books is the DMC Festive Tatting. I didn't have that one. The other two books are by Barbara Foster for needle tatting. There are two books named "Needle Tatting Book 1" and "Needle Tatting Book 2". I cannot be for sure yet as I haven't pulled out my Learn to Needle Tat Step By Step, but I think these two books are that same book combined. They are much older then the book I have so it is quite possible that Ms Foster combined the two into one. The pictures are all black and white except for the front cover ones.

I am working motif #3 out of the DMC book but boy what a mess that one is. I had to use the picture to translate as the entire thing seems to read wrong. Twice I have had to do the second inner motif over. Too bad, I do hope that some of the others are not as badly written. At least you get a general idea of ring sizes and the picture can help from there.

Ok back to work. I have bunches more to do tonight.