Done, and in time too!

Picture courtesy of 6 year old kidster #1. Enough said.

Details here.

Project update

I've been plugging away on my latest project, the Easy Top Down Raglan that I am knitting as part of a KAL in the Spud & Chloe Ravelry Group. It's from Wendy Bernard's Book, Custom Knits. It has been going much quicker than I expected, which is good, because it is in this very fall like color and it would be a shame if I didn't finish it until April!Whew, enough links for you?

Crafty or Thrifty?

Either way, I'm going to tell you how I saved myself $105 in about two hours.

Last night I was working on my latest knitting project and I hit a wall. Not a knitting wall, but a tolerance-for-my-cheap-plastic-ring-markers kind of wall. I had just sent one of them flying, again. This time right down through the cushions and all the way to the floor. While I was rummaging around for another I decided right then and there I was going to get myself some of those fancy beaded blingy type markers that have a little weight to them. I went on Etsy and looked around. Saw quite a few that I almost bought, too. Instead, when I was out getting some essentials, I got myself the materials to make my own. So here are my new $3.00 stitch markers that took me all of 30 minutes to make, and I couldn't be happier with them. (And there are tons more beads, so if I make more then they would become even cheaper!) Money saved? I'm figuring about $10.00.

Yesterday I was at the thrift store. I'd been keeping an eye open for winter boots for Kidster #1 since the summer. Because you know, it's October up here in New England, which means the snow is imminent. This trip I found a pair of L.L. Bean kids boots that look like they have never been worn. Normal retail $49.50, I paid $5. Add another $44.50 to the tally.

During the same trip my eye was drawn to this green handbag. I was not in the hunting for a new bag, but you know when you see something you like...? Ya, you do. As you may remember I am a fan of green. And I like the idea of a green handbag that can go with tan, brown, black, or just about any other color of shoe! See, I have this problem that I inherited from my mother. It is the black shoes must have a black purse, brown shoes must have a brown purse, and heaven forbid, never ever wear white shoes after Labor Day syndrome!

But I digress...my "new" bag $6. Estimated savings? Hard to tell, but I'll say $34 only because I wouldn't spend more than $40 on a purse. Which I don't because I can get them for $6. Ha!

While I love this new purse, it does have one problem that needed addressing. The interior is one large compartment with only a tiny zipper on the side for keys. I had to figure out how to adjust from my current bag that has a nice big zipper divider in the middle that makes a nice compartment on either side. I remembered seeing those purse inserts online and dug a little deeper. Found a great tutorial here on how to make your own. I made mine a little smaller, at 20" instead of 26" because I only want to fold mine in half instead of rolling it all up. I also added a loop to attach my keys. Start to finish, including waiting for the iron to heat up it took an hour. Cost $3.50, online (Etsy) it would cost about $20. Savings of $16.50.

Isn't she so cute?

There it is. I managed to save myself $105 in less than two hours. If only that money would appear in my wallet like magic.

Oh well. The kidsters are finally quiet and I'm headed downstairs to fill my new organizer! Yeah, with a beer. Happy Saturday!

A math riddle

In honor of back to school I present you with a math riddle!

I bet you are thinking the riddle goes like this:
1 Hubster back to work + 1 kidster in 1st grade + 1 kidster in Preschool = mother with more time. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get that math to work out right. But I'm working on it...

No, here's our riddle for today:

2 boys + 1 old metal stool + new bathroom = n

So what does n equal?

A nervous (and somewhat poorer) knitter who knows how to make a cozy! Details on Ravelry, in case you haven't seen it already!

I do nothing but eat bon-bons all day.

And if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you. Yeah, nice and cheap!

I realize I've been a little quiet this summer, but that's how it goes. I thought it best to let the blog get a little rest rather than slipping away to write posts and let world war 3 erupt in my living room. Besides, I only really had two projects for the whole summer. Snoopy, which you saw last post. And my bathroom. No, I didn't knit a bathroom (although that gives me an idea...). But I did manage to rip our old one apart and put in a new one!

I took advantage of some of the days the kidsters were at Grandma & Papa's and proceeded to bang, smash, rip, and tear the old ugly beige tile off the walls.

Next I ripped out the nasty floor followed by a little more demolition of the built-when-the-house-was-built vanity and medicine cabinet. Then I put in a new floor. A nice fresh new-fangled fiberglass backed sheet of vinyl. My bathroom is only about six feet by 12 feet, so it couldn't be that hard, right? And I've ceramic tiled my 20' x 10' kitchen, which wasn't too bad.

Yeah right.

I have to say it was the hardest thing I have ever done IN MY LIFE. It took me 8 straight hours of hard sweaty labor (the kind without an epidural). And with all that bending, squatting, and kneeling I could barely move the next day and was sore for a week! Now I know why floor installers get $350.00 to put one in.
Come on, scroll back up and compare the before and after again, will ya?

There was a little more work putting the other new stuff back in, but that was a piece of cake (other than the not being able to move part). There is one more thing left to do-a new shower door. But I will save that one for a rainy day when the kids are in school. Soon. Can't be too hard, right?
So when someone asks me what I did all summer with a raised eyebrow (expecting me to say "oh, just swam in the pool with the kids") they better watch out that they don't get a smack. :)

A cozy, of the most lovable kind

As the only girl around here, I try to temper the sports, truck crashes, sword fights, and wrestling matches with the softer, kinder, and gentler things whenever I can. One of the things my boys like is having their "friends" close by. Kidster #1 's friends all stay on his bed, and he will choose one to sleep with depending on the day.

Kidster #2 has a few friends on his bed too, but Baby Bear is his love and will sometimes come along with him for the first hour of the day, or make an appearance before bed during our book time.

And then there's Snoopy.

As the youngest of seven children, Hubster was very attached to his Snoopy and treated him very much like how Baby Bear is treated today. He has been through his fair share of tug of wars and even had his arm torn off. Once we had kids, Snoopy reappeared from Grandma's basement and has been enjoying a (slightly) less stressful life here with the boys. However, being 40 years old he is not without some medical conditions.Every time I would try to patch a hole to keep the stuffing from falling out, a new hole would be created. The fabric just wasn't holding anymore. Faced with the possibility of putting Snoops out of reach on a shelf, Hubster asked me to save him. And since Hubster never asks for anything, I knew I had to at least try.

For details on how I did it, see Snoopy's Ravelry page!

It's quiet, mostly

I am sitting here reading blogs. The kids are in bed. Hubster popped over to his brother's house for a few minutes. Through the monitor I can hear Kidster #2 softly snoring. Then I realized that he's probably peeling paint in there since I have the monitor turned most of the way down! Ahh, the great thing about having a pool in your backyard on a hot summer day is that you never have to worry about your kids having trouble getting to sleep!