Phone Pictures and House Sitting

My husband showed me how to upload my pictures from my phone to the computer; and I have been meaning to try and catch up a little on this blog... So, here are some pictures from around here that I have taken since we've moved here.  Mount Hood.  

Fall colors..

A creek somewhere in the mountains..  

We were just out driving around I wasn't planning on a photo shoot. :P    Eon and I went bottle cap hunting after this picture. We were just walking around by the creek, and Eon said "A bottlecap."  We are strange, but...  My Aunt in Michigan makes things with bottle caps.  So I said "Let's see if there's more."  We found about ten good ones. Then my husband wanted to leave..

The bridge over the creek.

I kept trying to take Eons' picture but this is what he did every time.. Grrr. :P

A good one of the back of his head.   In the creek.

He finally let me take one, but still wouldn't look at the camera. 

My husband on the bridge..

We went to an Orchard/Petting Farm that day, too.  Eon loved the half-tailed kitty. It was friendly. We got some apples that day, and petted some goats. It was a good day.    

An Oregon sunset.  It was much better in Real Life..

Our older son house sat for my Brother and Sister-In-Law, last year.  This is their kitty, whose name is Kitty.  :P  It was a stray who adopted them.  :)

Eon LOVES this cat. Every time we go over, he would try and pet it then try to chase it to pick it up. Then he would just finally pick it up and hold it on his lap and pet it..  And keep it prisoner.  :P   The cat purrs the whole time, and gets away when it wants to. (It still has all it's claws..)  

Eli hard at work house sitting.  :P  That's their dog, Sweetie. It's an old dog and my brother in law put her on a diet.  She has bad hips and other problems.  But she's a pretty good girl. 

A hot pad my Sister-In-Law has. She doesn't crochet, but her sister did (she just recently passed away, though).  I keep meaning to ask her where she got this, but I do mean to copy it.  It looks very similar to my rooster hot pad, I found at an antique store in Nevada..  Except striped. :)  I was thinking about making her one similar/matching, for a Christmas present..

New House

I haven't blogged much since we've moved to Oregon....  Mostly because I have hated it here from day one.  95% of it was living in that apartment. (I won't go into that, but.. I could write a book. No one would probably want to read it, though.)  The other 80% was, it rains here. ALL the time.  I am a person who usually likes the rain, too.  Not any more...    Anyway, long story short...   We moved into a house.  It was not easy to even find a house here. There are literally NO houses for rent here. If one did come online, people were fighting over it (we showed up to showings where we had to wait to be shown the house, I have never seen such a circus show..)  One house I found through a realtor (it wasn't even online), I called to see if we could look at it. The day we were looking at it, it was online. For $600 more a month than what she quoted me.  We told them we wanted the house, she acted like it was ours, but she just had to show it to another couple, to be fair.  NEVER heard from her again...      (One example of how it has been trying to get a house here..)  I called her? It wasn't even online...    So when this house wasn't being rented within one day of it being online, I thought for sure something must be wrong with it.  (Well, I will tell you what was wrong with it, and you will see..)  For one thing, there were paint cans/buckets piled up outside, and all kinds of stuff in the garage. The yard was overgrown. The outside of the house did not look good. (And they wanted WAY too much money for this house!)  Plus, it is not exactly clean...    But...    After being in that (hellhole) apartment and wanting out SO bad, and; after talking the owners down $150 a month on the rent (even still it is too expensive, but compared to other houses here, not..)  we filled out the application for the lease. And were accepted.   So, this is the kitchen. The cupboards look okay on the outside, but when you open them up, it smells like my cousins old horse barn.  They had an apartment in the barn they rented out to a family, and when it wasn't being rented, we used to have sleepovers out there. It smelled musty..   That's what the cupboards smell like.   (The house had a funny smell too... I don't know if it's because it was sitting empty or what..)  The outside smells like cat pee.  We think it might be because of this bush in the front of the house, which my husband is talking about getting rid of..

The fridge (it did not have one when we looked at the house..)  Fortunately they put one in before we moved in (the day we signed the lease).     

This is my view from my kitchen sink window. I like it. :)

And my husband bought me rooster curtains for the window. :)  

The front of the house.  (This was after they cleaned up the yard-- They also cleaned up the paint cans/buckets and everything in the garage.)  

The property also has a horse barn/stall.   I don't know what we'll do with that. I guess the previous renter/tenant had a donkey.  There are a lot of horses/cows around here.   There is a shed right in this building, but it must have had gas stored in it, it smells really strong. I would be afraid to put anything valuable or furniture in there...   

The dogs love their new (fenced in) backyard.  No more going down (and back up) three flights of stairs to go to the disgusting pet area (no one cleaned up after their dogs) in the apartment, barking at other dogs...    That was a nightmare, just to take the dogs out, there.
We need to work on the yard, my husband got a weed wacker (the grass was about two feet tall)...     This is not the whole backyard, there is a second fence behind this one that goes to the back trees in the picture.  

The dogs, the first night we got here.  Despite all the smells (I do not like smelly or dirty things... Lol), and the work we will have to do; this house did have all the other things I wanted: A fenced in yard for the dogs (huge bonus), NO neighbors (we are backed up to a farm/field, the only neighbors are across the street), three bedrooms, NOT 2 bathrooms, but 1 1/2 bathrooms (the "half" bath is JUST a toilet?..)  And another huge bonus (well; for Eon), it's in the same school district as we were in the apartment. Even though it is the next town over. It is so small it isn't even a town, it's called a "hamlet".  I personally would not care if he had to switch schools, because I hate his school  (another reason I hate it here).  But I know he wouldn't want to change schools again. It is more of a drive, but...     We are out in the "country" (even though there is a lot of traffic on this road).  I think the reason there's so much  traffic is because 1. The elementary school (the only school here) is at the end of this road. 2. A golf club is down the road, and 3. No one wants to turn down the other way to come in (there are two roads you could take) because it is right on a curve and a death trap. So everyone comes down the other way, and past our house...  A little about the house/history: It was a Parish house for a Baptist Priest (what do they call them when they're Baptist, not priests.. Parishioner?) and his family.  It was built in 1960.  (We looked on Zillow.)  I guess the title of my post should be "New Old House." :P  It's not the greatest, but it's Home..  Once we get the yard cleaned up and do a few things around here it will start looking better.

Some baking I have been doing. This was actually in the apartment still.  (I hated that stove, the new one is so much better..)  Some raisin scones with lemon curd.

Last night I made homemade macaroni and cheese. I just made a white sauce and added cheese until it melted. Boiled the macaroni, drained it. Added it to the cheese sauce.  Put in a greased baking bowl. And I added some bread crumb topping. I just melt butter, and tear a piece of bread into the melted butter add spices then stir and put it on top. Baked it for about 25 minutes at 350.

A homemade Chicken pot pie with biscuits on top. Did a veloute sauce with chicken pieces and leftover corn, cooked carrots and onions...  MAde some biscuits and put them on top. Baked until the biscuits were done. Everyone liked it.

Yesterday I also made Chocolate Peanut Butter squares.  I've never made these before, they were yummy.  There's still a half pan I keep waiting for everyone else to eat so I won't. :P  I didn't use the cookies in the recipe (shhh) - it cost over $5 for a box. I got some (generic) chocolate teddy grahams. I would have gotten chocolate graham crackers, but they didn't have any.  

I don't remember the last updated picture of my mitered squares blanket I posted? Hopefully it wasn't this one..   I don't think it was, since my last post was last year.  I have worked on a lot of other things besides this, but haven't taken pictures... Mostly things for the OB Unit.  

I can add "shoe repair" to my resume of Mom things I have done to save money. :P  Eon's tongue came right out of his shoe when I picked him up from school the other day.  (Well he told me about it when I picked him up.)  We almost bought him a new pair (but who can afford it, having just moved again..... These are Van's- we just bought him these at the beginning of the school year or maybe even after.. and they are not cheap!)  I said "Let me look at it, maybe I can fix it... "  I got my sewing needle out, and worked on it after dinner...  I had to use my thimble to push through the leather and it took me almost an hour, but..  Saved about $70.  I don't know how a kid can rip the whole tongue out of his shoe...  

One of the slots on the spreadsheet that was low at the end of this month was sleep sacks. So, I started working on some (like crazy, over the weekend/Christmas).  I got three done. But, then someone else sent some and that slot got filled. I was going to send them out anyway. But I am going to wait until next month now..  I might make some hats/booties/mittens to go with some of these..   I was just trying to use up what I have..

Here is a picture Paula, does this help?  I don't know what size blade it is, the package didn't say; and there's no numbers on the cutter, or the blade. But my skip stitch blade interchanges with this. I will try to find it later and see what size blade that is..  
ETA: The skip stitch blade says "For use with 45mm Rotary Cutters".  Is that more help, Paula?
I woke up way too early this morning so I could say goodbye to my husband before he left for work.   I might have to take a nap later..

I picked up a pair of jeans that used to be tight on me; to hold in front of me, now.   Since February I have been trying to lose weight. I lost over 30 lbs and went from a size 8/10 to a 6.  I was only trying to lose 25 to get to my goal weight, but that last five was due to major stress, since I wasn't even trying...

Last night Steve brought home Christmas presents from his brother and our sister-in-law/Aunt and Uncle to the boys..  She got all of us (except Steve) stockings, and presents.  She spoiled us way too much!!  I feel so bad. All I got her was a Christmas candle. Christmas was super tight this year..     :(
My husband showed me how to upload my phone pictures to the computer, I should do that soon then maybe I can figure out how to post more pictures here..  

I took this picture a few days ago. Our front door...  I put the rug out there, and then remembered our snowman wreath.  We had a hook on our door in TN, but nothing to hang it with here. We finally went to the hardware store, and got the last one.   Long story, but I had gone there earlier in the day and got a different hook- because I only  had $10 and this hook was $12.99. There were a bunch of them. Well the other hook (which I didn't really like, it had an extra hanging loop and was big and plastic) didn't even go over the width of the door.  Eon liked it for his room to hang his hoodie on.  My husband took me back the same night and got the other hook for me.  Guess what? it was 50% off, so I did have enough money.  Ugh...  (I didn't see any 50% off signs by them..)   ~~Anyway~~   I would like to get a different wreath next year. This one was left by some previous tenants at our house in TN.  So we kept it...  (I would also like to get a different rug, too- one that says Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays..)   

I finally took a picture of my mitered squares blanket progress.  I felt like I had come so far. But it looks so little, still..  It is fun and relaxing to knit, though.

Eon put Jetta's Santa dress on Duke. :P  I think he likes it. He wore it all day..  He's so funny.Eon also put a Jingle Bell on his collar. I bought some bells for a project, and he keeps using them for things. i wish he would do some Arts & Crafts with me..

Since it is officially Christmas Break, I wanted to go do something... (I don't know what, since all I know is how to get around this town and to Fred Meyer's).  If I can drag Eon to come with me..  I wanted to go get a couple things to put in my husbands' stocking.  O'keefe's Working Hands was one thing...  And some more candy to make him a Candy Cane Sleigh.  I finished the two for the boys.  I took a picture, but its on my phone..  Here are some I have done in the past.  I also saw some Peppermint Candy Spoons I really want to do.  I would have to go find the mold for the spoons. I think the boys would like those for stocking stuffers..

Merry Grinchmas

I don't know if I ever posted a picture of the four strips, all edged..

I sewed them together (backwards, I see) and edged all around the blanket.  It is probably ugly as sin, but I kind of love it. :)  And it is soft and warm, and will keep one more baby warm on Pine Ridge Reservation.  I used Sings4Joy's Scrap Strip "pattern".  :)    

We almost weren't going to buy a tree this year...  In this apartment.  I don't want to start complaining.. but...   We didn't think it would even be worth it.  But...  We ended up buying a small one anyway.  (We sold ours at our Moving Sale, in Tennessee).  We mostly did it for the kids.  (The dogs like it too.)  I don't have anywhere to put the stockings; so they are hanging on that door knob.    I don't want to put any holes in the walls..

We looked at one house for rent (we had seen it available a couple months ago, then it was not online again).  Well I called on it this time and we went and looked at it and told them we were interested. They said they were showing it to "one more person, just to be fair"..  ?  Long story, but I got her number for a realtor and called her when it wasn't even online. Then I made an appointment on Sunday, to go look at it. Sunday morning I got up and was looking to see if there are any other houses available-which I do every day, and there never is any- and this house was on one of the sites. For $2,000.  She quoted me $1,600. $1,750 if we went through a realtor. (Which we weren't...)   Grrrr.   And when we looked at the house, the guy (her nephew-another long story, she lives in Connecticut but her nephew lives here) said it was $1750 a month.    After seeing she posted it for $2000 I felt like $1750 was better (even though that wasn't what she quoted me on the phone and makes me so mad!).  We said we wanted it (we need to get the hell out of these nightmare apartments!!). He said to call his Aunt, as soon as we leave. So I did. She acted like it was a done deal, but she was showing it to these other people, just to be fair.   She said she would email me the application and if I didn't get it by tomorrow morning, to call her.     Well, I didn't get any emails....  waited. waited...   Texted her my email, said I hadn't received an email from her yet.  "I woke up sick, blah blah blah... Do not fear I have not forgotten you."   WTF?????   Days went by, no email, no text, no call...   Are there no honest, decent people in this whole state?  Our current landlords sure the hell aren't. I don't want to move in to a house with the same situation. But we are so desperate to leave these apartments.   (I guess I am complaining now..)   They are SO Loud, no one has any respect for anyone else living in this building. I have been complaining since the first week we moved in. Nothing has been done.  "That's apartment living." "It states right in our lease we are entitled to a 'quiet enjoyment of our home', you are not providing that."  (We have had other problems, too- with the people right below us. Even the police will do NOTHING.)  I tried calling lawyers, to get a free legal consultation over the phone. No one gives a free legal consultation over the phone here. You have to pay to even ask a question.  "But I can give you the number of a renter's rights line" "Okay"...  I call them (between 1 and 5, only) finally.  "Our hotline is available to all but if you are a member you will get priority."  WTF?  So I can't get any help from anyone, unless I pay a fee, or become a "member"..       Oregon is so backwards, and stupid.  Everything is so PC, but also SO behind in everything. And everyone is so rude here. The only nice people I have seen are older people. Or people who work in stores. Because it's their job. But even then they're not always nice..

  I wish we never moved here.  Finding a house to rent is impossible- there never is one. We were so hopeful when we went to look at this house, now we are even more disappointed.     They say there is a silver lining in ever dark cloud. The ONLY good thing that came out of all our problems with the people below us, is our apartment manager said they would let us out of our lease with no penalties or fees.  (I guess it is easier to just let us-the good renters- out of our lease, than to evict the bullies/assholes below us????)   If only we could find somewhere else to go...      We might have to move to another town.  I didn't want to. Because I didn't want to make Eon switch schools again.  He seems to be doing better, finally. Although he said he doesn't have very many friends. But he doesn't want to ruin what he has..   I, on the other hand, HATE his school.   That, is too long of a story.  But is another (BIG, huge) reason I wish we never moved here.  I would love to have him switch schools, so he can go to a better school. (If there are any, here..) But I also don't want to disrupt his life again. :(

I am trying (really hard), to be in the "Christmas Spirit"...    (I'm doing it, but I'm not feeling it..)   I thought I would try to make some Christmas cookies the other day.  I wanted to make some Candy Cane cookies. But there were a couple things I didn't have to make those, red (or any other color) food coloring, and almond extract.  So I kept looking...  I found a Peppermint :Cookies recipe in one of my cookbooks. So I made that.  The first batch turned out looking terrible. (Of course, what would ever go right..)   I tried rolling the scoops into little balls after that, and rolling them in colored sugar, and some in the leftover crushed candy canes.  They still didn't come out super great.  Then I remembered a trick I just saw on Facebook: to use a cheese grater to scrape off the burned bottoms of your cookies, to save them.   So I did that on the sides of mine.   They came out looking a little (a lot) better.  

I had also planned on sewing the boys' pillowcases, for an extra Christmas present each (Christmas is super tight this year..)  I made them some a few Christmases ago: Eli's , and the Spongebob one for Eon  .  I got the fabric all cut out, ironed (that was a job, since I don't have my ironing board anymore, either..) rolled and pinned.   Then yesterday I got my sewing machine out and finally started sewing one..   The thread kept bunching up in the back.  (UGH, this is why I hate sewing!!!!)  I went online to see why it would bunch up. (So irritated..)  Tried adjusting the tension.  Then, it totally jams up, needle in the fabric. I can't move the needle up or down. GRRRRRRR!!!!!   I guess they aren't getting pillowcases.   I don't even know of a place to take my sewing machine to get it fixed. And we don't have the money to do it, anyway.  Maybe my husband can fix it one day, if he isn't too tired..    Meanwhile, maybe I will crochet myself a Grinch hat.  :(

Paula left me a comment asking about my rotary blade cutter. This is it.   I wish I could find my other one, I liked it better. But this one I can use my skip stitch blade on, too. So, it works..  

"What are you doing, Mama?..."

Sick Day and More Baby Stuff..

I am still trying to get "caught up" on my blog..  I guess technically all my project pictures are but I was going to share pictures of our new state/home. Sigh... The problem is, I take them all with my phone. Then I have to somehow get them from my phone to my computer. And it's a big pain.   Which is also why I haven't sent any pictures to my family.   ~~Anyway~~  Here is a Santa Sleep Sack set, and some Christmas sleepers/onesie with a big I got on sale after last Christmas. (I'm glad I got these, or else I wouldn't have been able to send any outfits this month to the OB Unit. We don't have any real Walmarts here, or any stores with clothes in this town. There are a couple WalMarts, but they are in bad areas. The only other WalMarts are "Grocery Centers".   So weird.    Anyway, I added a whole other round (?) of the required stitches in between the white band on bottom and belt, and the top section, to make this sleep sack the required length. The person who wrote this pattern must not have a real baby to try it on. Because the finished sleep sack- going by the pattern, is 16 inches long.  Either she didn't have any babies or her babies were tiny. Lol  

I also finished two Christmas fleece blankets for the OB Unit.  I somehow misplaced my rotary blade cutter. But my husband let me buy a new one. So I was able to finish these in time.. :)

And, progress on my scrap strips...  I edged them in "Soft Navy".  I am on the third strip. I think four strips will be good for a blanket to the OB Unit.  They measure 9 1/2 inches wide. Then by the time I add the edging and sew them together and add a border to the whole blanket.....    

I woke up at 4:08 this morning. :(  Got in the shower about twenty minutes earlier than usual. Then went to wake Eon up at 6:15. Just as I was waking him up, I remembered, "Friday is late start."  Ugh...  (Nothing like waking up over an hour early, on the one day you can sleep in..)  I said "Oh... I forgot today is Friday and late start. Go back to sleep. Sorry."  Then he said he is sick anyway. :(    (Steve was sick last week, and I have been sick the last two days..)  He has a sore throat and "Can't hear out of his one ear." Oh, great...  probably going to get another ear infection.   :((((((    Our oldest son would get them all the time..  They are miserable. Thankfully, we have lots of allergy stuff; so I can give him some Benadryl to help drain his ear tubes...

Scrap Blankets

I went and got more "Coffee" yesterday ;P so I could finish this blanket. I only had to buy two more skeins of yarn (warm brown and coffee) to finish this "scrap blanket".  I had enough of all the other colors.They are all the same colors, don't know why that warm brown looks darker towards the top. It's the same..    It's a warm blanket. I was hoping to send it in November (that column is still low for the group on Ravelry). But...   I already sent one box this month and we just don't have the extra money to send another one. (We really didn't have the money to send any, but..  it's something I want to do..)     I haven't taken a picture of it, but I got some Rudolph the red nose reindeer fleece; on sale at JoAnns a couple weeks ago.  I am going to make a blanket with that, too.  Oh, I also got farther on my scrap strip. I will take a picture and add it..

I got a lot farther. :)    I found my (tangled mess) bag of scrap yarns right after I got done with my blog post yesterday.

 I haven't worked on my mitered square blanket in a while. Or any sweaters..  I only feel like working on things that make me happy, right now. For some reason, scrap blankets make me happy.   :P  I want to start a log cabin one, too.   

Scrap Blankets and a Sweater...

I don't know if I ever posted a picture of this sweater in progress. I know I did on Ravelry. I almost cut it up and threw it away. It's from the Surprise Crochet Sweaters book by Darla Sims/Leisure Arts. I wanted to make it a newborn size for the OB Unit. And the smallest size pattern is six months. So I tried chaining less, etc..  It looked all crooked and like it wouldn't even lay right.  And didn't seem like it would even meet in the middle to button up..  (That's why I wanted to throw it away.)  I put it away for a while. But then I noticed the sweater column was still low on the spreadsheet. So...   I got it out to try and work on again.   I ripped out the buttonhole row, and added a few rows THEN did a buttonhole row. I also added more rows on the other side, so it would meet up in the middle.  Then added to the sleeves (I did the picot edge sweater sleeves up to row 4.)    I didn't have much of the coral color at all left. So I just did one more row on the sleeves...      I guess I'm glad I didn't cut it up and throw it away.  I also soaked it in a vinegar wash I read about online to soften crappy acrylic yarn projects...   (I just fill the sink up and put some vinegar in..)  I had some brown buttons so that's what I used.    I was making this to go with the Turkey hat/sleep sack set.  But... obviously it didn't get sent with it.   And, I don't think it will be sent this month at all either.  Even though that's why I got it out to try and finish. We just don't have the money..

I also started this a couple days ago to send too. (The blanket column is also low..)  But will not be able to send. I just need more of the dark brown, to finish the last section of color. Then I was going to do the border in navy blue since I have a lot left of that..  In the picture the first warm brown colored section looks lighter than the section on the top. But they are the same color.  My camera...

I also started another scrap blanket, this morning. Sings4Joy on Ravelry posted one she had been making, and how she did/is doing the strips. So I started one, too.    I have a plastic bag full of scraps somewhere. I just need to find it..  I think it is in my closet.     You can see exactly how much of the coral color I had left, here. Exactly enough for one row.  :P    I don't know why but I love scrap projects. Probably because you can make something useful out of "nothing".. something that would just have been thrown away.

Jetta likes to get all covered up.  :P  I took this picture about a half an hour ago, and she is still there. Silly girl..  

Duke likes attention...  And lots of petting, and scrap foods...  Any scrap foods you can spare..  :P