Happiness Project - Crochet Part 2

I was warned...

AFTER I learned to crochet that crocheting is addicting.  I really thought I'd stop after a scarf and hat until I found a link with Spring and Summer scarf patterns.  I've always hated Youtube.  I can rewind and rewind again, over and over when something doesn't make sense but the video doesn't change.  I can't ask questions to make sure I'm doing it right.  Somehow, I ended up with this love/hate relationship with Youtube and all of a sudden I have saved videos of crochet projects I want to do.  After all the frustrating hours of learning the basics of crocheting, it finally clicked for me.

I get it!

Now I can't stop crocheting!

So, here are my next two projects:

My hat turned out really big.  So big, I can't wear it.  Michael's craft store has become my second home.  I'm addicted to the yarn aisle.  So I went back, got more yarn and I'm planning on doing this hat again.  At least not until I figure out how to make this hat a lot smaller... and with different colors.  It looks like a mushroom on my head.  No foolin'!  (and no, you won't see a picture!)

Next, my new scarf:

This is a great project to use up scrap yarn.  Even though I don't really have much scrap yarn yet, I went and bought "scrap" yarn.  Now I have tons of it!  But this scarf turned out perfect!  I love it and it's so fun.  It's way too long, but I won't complain when I'm turning into a Popsicle at the bus stop and I can wrap it around my head 'one more time'.  I learned that my scarves are more successful when I work on them horizontally instead of vertically.

I told my husband I have to go get more yarn.  His reply:  "Really? Ok..."  That really shocked me, especially when my big bag of yarn spilling over the top was sitting right next to him.

Yes, I need more yarn!

Happiness Project - Sewing

I was the Karate Kid only with sewing.

Wax on, wax off...

Actually, it was sew line, turn... sew line, turn...  a million times.

Then blind stitch in... out, blind stitch in... out.... a million times.

I made hand warmers as my little "giveaway" gifts for Christmas.  I didn't intend for that to happen.  I was "helping" a good friend of mine make mermaid tails for my daughters for Christmas from their grandparents.  When Laurie came over, she fixed my sewing machine and viola!  It became a sewing machine again.

I really wanted to make something so I stopped at Joann's to get a couple remnants and make my own hand warmers.  Simple enough, right?  I ended up with a lot more fabric than I thought so I kept making more.  Actually, I kept making more because each one would turn out a little better than the last.  Then I realized these would make great gifts.

Sew line, turn... sew line, turn...

This process didn't make my sewing machine like me any more, really.  I think it still hates me, but I ended up with usable hand warmers.  I filled the little buggers with rice and lavender and they work great.

I added a little poem and a piece of yarn...

Here's the poem if you're interested.  Feel free to use the poem if you want, but please give me some credit.

Want to see the mermaid tails?  These babies will blow my sad little hand warmers out of the water!  My friend Laurie was such a trooper through the whole thing.  I owe her a really great dinner out very soon!!!

I also learned that I really want to like sewing but no matter how hard I try, sewing doesn't like me back.  I've never been known to quit and I'll keep at something until I get good at it.  I've had material for over a year now to make sundresses for my granddaughters and their doll babies.  Yes, I shall conquer my sewing machine!!!

Happiness Project - Crochet

It seems the older I get, the harder it is for me to learn something new.  I'm not saying I'm old by any means.  I've always said and I always will,

"I won't be old until I'm 92, and then I won't have to be old because I'll still walk to Bingo everyday."

Part of my Happiness Project was to learn how to crochet.  I wanted to make my own scarf and hat for this winter.  I'm a little behind on my schedule but at least I got something accomplished.  I asked a good friend of mine to come over and teach me how to crochet.  I ran off to the store to buy all the yarn I needed, crochet hooks and a threading needle expecting to whip out at least a hat in one afternoon.  Much to my dismay, I didn't get very far.  It took all afternoon just to get a basic stitch down.  My fingers didn't want to cooperate with me and I swore the yarn didn't like me either.

I wanted to give up.  I almost did.  But I don't give up.  It's not in my nature.  Besides quitting the track team in 7th grade because not only was I horrible at track,I hated it and I haven't given up on anything since.  Ever.

I had a battle in my mind:

"Give it up!  You'll never get it..."

"Don't you give up.  You'll get it.  Keep trying..."

"Forget it.  I don't have time for this stupid crap. I should just pay someone to make a scarf for me...."

"This scarf will be great and you'll love it..."

"Don't let the girls see you give up on something..."

I was almost in tears a few times.  I took huge chunks of my scarf out to re-do it several times.  I knew it wasn't going to be perfect but I wanted it to be something I'd be proud to wear.  I was about 3/4 of the way done when it finally clicked for me.  You can see it in the photo:

 But lo and behold!  A scarf was born!

The scarf wears me but I don't care.  It's warm and it hasn't fallen apart yet.  Next step:  a hat.

So I started looking up patterns to make a hat and all those frustrated feelings came back.  I even tried Youtube, (which I hate) but since I've got a basic stitch down, I thought I could follow a simple youtube video on how to make a hat.

I can do this!  I can!

What Did You Say?

I've been saying that a lot lately.  "Huh?  What did you say?"  Since we got back from our Old Man's Cave trip, I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off, and then it spins around like a top and it hasn't stopped since.

I've trained my eyes to focus on what I'm concentrating on and allowing my other eye to look at someone else who's trying to have a conversation with me while words to someone else is coming out of my mouth.  All along I'm trying to complete the task at hand.  Looking at two different things does nothing.  The brain is only trained to focus on one thing at a time, but my brain won't accept that.

A good friend told me one day, "Hun, you can't multitask anymore because you're already multitasking a million other things right now and you can't add anything else."  Oh, how I love her!  You know who you are!

So for two weeks, I've been nonstop.  So overwhelmed, I completely forgot about my Happiness Project.  We somehow slipped into the exciting world of gymnastics, which has now been added to the schedule of Girl Scouts, violin lessons, Safety Patrol, and study groups.  I'm now down to one free night a week, and that's if I'm lucky.

That's when it hit me, out of the blue and I thought to myself, "Hey!  You were going to sign yourself up for tap lessons!"  Just when I was trying to keep the schedule as simple as possible, we added one more thing and blew my little Happiness Project goal out of the water.  Honestly, it's okay.  Once school is over, we'll be down to two activities per week and maybe I can squeeze a tap lesson or two in there for me.

As if a crazy, busy schedule wasn't enough, I get to add the role of Referee to my list of duties.  I can honestly tackle this schedule with success if I didn't have a child who cries over everything, one that complains about the child crying over everything, arguments every two minutes by fighting siblings and kids who can't do a one-minute task in one minute.  It's that time of year where everyone is trying to squeeze everything in at once before school lets out and if I think too much about what's on my schedule, I will simply breakdown and cry.  So I take it one day at a time, one minute at a time and try to avoid those conversations that start out with, "Hey Jill!  You know what would be fun....?"  "Hey Jill!  You know what we should do...?"  "Hey Jill!  Let's sign our kids up together for...."  "Hey Jill....."

Hang in there with me.  I might need a rope to pull me out of this sinking schedule hole, but as I check To-Do's off my list, I'll find more time to write.

Little Holiday Big Deal #2

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!  You know, I've never cared about Saint Patrick's Day.  I never knew about the tradition of pinching someone if they didn't wear green until we moved to Ohio.  I thought it was the stupidest  tradition, especially when I would get pinched all day long at school.  I don't know if I ever owned anything green other than a pin or a pair of socks.  I'm not Irish and I don't believe in luck, so celebrating Saint Patrick's Day is really a wash for me.

Until I learned.....

In 400 A.D., Patrick was born in Britain and was kidnapped at 16 years old by Irish raiders and was made a slave. After six years of slavery, he escaped and fled back to Britain and became a priest.  He later chose to return to Ireland as a missionary and helped spread the teachings of Christianity to pagans. According to Irish folklore, he used the shamrock to teach the pagans about the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  He established monasteries, churches and schools, baptized newly converted Christians and continued his work for 30 years in Ireland until he died on March 17, the day we celebrate The Feast of Saint Patrick.

While many Catholics still observe Saint Patrick's Day by going to mass, the holiday has slowly evolved to become a celebration of Irish heritage. Through the years, shamrocks, ethnic cuisines and wearing green has adapted to other countries' traditions such as Japan, New Zealand, Argentina, and Canada, along with many cities across the United States.

So there you have it.  Saint Patrick wasn't even Irish but because he spread Christianity throughout Ireland for so many years, he became a legend that many parts of the world celebrate his success today.

And with that history, we made a little holiday, a big deal... well, at least as big of a deal as I could on a holiday I never cared about before.

Adventure #1

 

I love Groupon.  I got an offer from Young Chefs Academy for a cooking class for kids.  So the girls went to learn how to cook and my hubby and I went out on a date!  Honestly, the girls had so much fun, I wish I had bought more Groupons for this. 

While the kids were learning to make Pierogies and Rugelach, Jeff and I went to a new restaurant for dinner.  For those of you who know my husband, this is a SHOCKER!  Jeff doesn't like to try new restaurants and I was surprised when he recommended this place.  We went to a Latin restaurant called Arepazo in Gahanna.  In fact, it turned out to be a great gluten-free restaurant.  We had fried plantains, which was not coated in flour before frying.

And we had some sort of fried plantain salad something or other.  I can't remember the name but boy was it good!  I've seen plantains in the grocery store and I know you have to cook them before you eat them, but I've never had a desire to try them.  Now, i'll be checking them out during my next grocery trip. 

It turned out that this little restaurant inspired my motivation to want to go to culinary school, or perhaps take cooking classes.  If I would ever become a chef, I would want to own a restaurant just like Arepazo.  It was very cozy, small and amazingly popular.

 

Meanwhile, back at the Young Chefs' kitchen, this is how we found the girls when we went to go back to get them: 

 

I was surprised to see Ellen having such a good time.  She's been my little shadow lately and haven't left my side except going to school.

Marcella liked the cooking class so much, she's been helping me in the kitchen.  She learned to chop tomatoes and green peppers.  Only homemade salsa in this house!!!

The next day we went to check out the Home and Garden Show.  We go every year.  It's a great way to get Spring Fever in high gear with landscaping ideas and oh!  the smell of fresh spring flowers everywhere!  I saw these flowers that I've never seen before.  They're called cyclamen.  I didn't care for the scent very much but they were beautiful.  They looked like paper petals floating over leaves.



 

 

Stringing tiny lights throughout your garden is the "in" thing this year.  I thought these were really neat.  Unfortunately, the girls pooped out on us quickly and we didn't get to see everything.  The show was much better this year than last year. 





Little Holidays Equals Big Deal

I hope you all had a nice Valentines Day.  Part of my happiness Project is to make a bigger deal out of the small holidays.  I've never really been big on decorating my house for holidays, except Christmas, and even Christmas isn't decorated on a large scale.  So this Valentines Day, I did a little more than help the girls sign their Valentine Day cards.  I decorated!

I love paint chip cards.  You can do almost anything with them.  I wrote a couple articles for Yahoo! on different crafts you can do with them.  You can check one of them out here:  Creative Crafts with Paint Chip Cards.

So, I cut out a million hearts out of all the different shades of red and pink and made them into a garland for our mantel.  The girls made Valentine Guys out of plastic cups.

My girls have been ruthless to each other lately.  I'm sure it's cabin fever and lack of fresh air, so I found this craft in Family Fun magazine.  I thought it would be a great way for the girls to write nice notes and valentines to each other.

I made a felt envelope for everyone on the back of our kitchen chairs:  Mom, Dad, Marcella and Ellen.  Even Adyson and Camden (our grandchildren) got one too because they are here everyday.  Ellen enjoyed helping Adyson scribble on papers and "deliver" them to the appropriate envelope.  It was a nice change of pace with giving someone something for a holiday and it not having to come from a store.

Since the girls didn't have school on Friday which was Valentines Day, and Jeff had to work, we celebrated on Thursday.  The kids had no idea when they woke up and found this:

 And pink heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast!

Of course, my girls are "Frozen" stricken like everyone else and about a month or so ago, I found Elsa dolls in her ice princess dress and nabbed two right away.  I knew they would be hard to find if I had waited.  Sure enough, I have yet to find hardly anything Elsa in the stores.  So the girls got their Elsa dolls, too.

It was the highlight of their day... Then they had to go get ready for school.  Ha!

It felt like a big holiday on what has always been "just another day", replaced with happy chattering, "thank yous", eating and excitement.  The envelopes were a big hit.

Even Camden got Valentines!

Now I'm looking forward to St. Patrick's Day.  I'll be back at Home Depot nabbing up all the green paint chip cards to make a shamrock garland and scheming up a pretty breakfast table with green pancakes, of course!

Oh, and in case you're wondering what happened to our colored ice balls, we found them just before it snowed some more.  What an interesting discovery we found....




















The food coloring had leaked out of the ice balls and onto the snow around the balls.  Even though the balls are still there, we now have some very pretty colorful snow in our backyard!














And one last thing, my newest picture won an award on Pixoto (in only 2 days!).  When I took the girls sledding the other day, I didn't realize we were in the wrong section and we were walking on the golf course.  It was the most beautiful sight, with smooth snow and no footprints.  I took a very quick picture with my phone and this is what I got:

Here are a couple others I got:

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Snow Fun With Girls

Marcella and I got to spend some time together the other day (happy goal accomplished!).  I took her to Target and we had hot chocolate (and a decaf latte) at Starbucks.  Marcella loves one-on-one attention.  She gets really chatty.  This was her first time in a coffee house, which made her feel grown up.  Not that Starbucks at Target is much of a coffee house experience, but she didn't know the difference. 

Marcella has been overly involved in these Rainbow Loom rubber bands.  She likes to look up Youtube how-to videos.  Her latest creation was a snake out of rubber bands.  I wish I had a picture to show you but I can't find it and she's in bed.  It's rather impressive.  She's made an ice cream treat bracelet and Minecraft charms, and numerous types of bracelets, all out of rubber bands. 

So as we're sitting in Starbucks, I thought I'd seize the moment and see if I can get any girl talk out of her.  She's been having issues with a couple of friends at school and thought it would be a perfect time to see how it's going.

Me:  So!  What's new?
Marcella:  You know....
Me:  Know what?
Marcella:  As she slyly pulls out her new Rainbow Loom snake out of her pocket and sets it on the counter, she eyeballs it then looks at me.
Me:  Huh?
Marcella:  That's what's new.

Well, I guess girl talk can wait.

More snow fun!

This time, we waited longer until the balloons froze completely.  This would be a great science experiment for kids.  When we put the balloons in the snow, they never froze.  Snow acts like an insulator.  If you bury a gallon of ice cream in the snow, it would actually start to melt.  So once we put the balloons up on a bench where the cold air could get all around the balloons, they froze in no time at all.

 These ice balls are buried in the snow now.  I don't want to dig them out because my hands were blue and purple for days. 

I took the kids snow sledding today (happy goal accomplished!).  As we were walking through the snow, I noticed there were no foot prints in the snow.  The snow was so smooth, it was breathtaking.  Then I realized we were walking on a golf course and took the hint that we shouldn't be walking in that area.  We moved to another area where we had the best time sledding!  There was not one other person in sight.  We had the whole ice-covered hill all to ourselves.  Got a few videos then my phone died.  Go figure.