Since February

Lots of things have happened since February. Most notably, my brother finished chemo for lymphoma and seems to be doing well. Even if you are not the person going through chemo, it takes a lot out of you. Sometimes I felt like I was going through something akin to sympathy pains. If he got a shot, then my arm would hurt. 

I sat with him through most of the 6 hour chemotherapy sessions and I can truthfully say they are exhausting. Mostly I worked on some crochet blankets during chemo. That is what I have accomplished in the past few months. 

I thought I would post a few photos of the crocheted afghans. 

This one was for a little girl named Lauren. She had neuroblastoma.
She named it her "kaleidoscope blanket" at age 3!

I made another one very similar to that for one of my friend's sister. The in 2009 I started one for a friend's grandchild. It took TWO years before I finished that one. 

Ada's grandchild's blanket. Ada says she has to put it up when 

she leaves the house to keep everyone else from using it. 

Then I made a quick one color blanket for my friend Erin's baby boy. This photo shows Cindy modeling it. I made that baby blanket in one week. It is SO MUCH easier when you don't have to change colors every round of stitches.

Cindy is natural ham. She makes the blanket look good. 

Then I made a lap afghan for Kathy as a housewarming gift in celebration of moving into the Lenore house. Yes, the Lenore house is habitable. Not really fixed up all the way, but livable.

Kathy's housewarming gift. It is a variation on the traditional granny square,
basically only 2 rows of stitches rather than 3 or more.

I've got a different one I am working on now but it will likely take a while because I want it big enough to put on a bed. Also I've got 3-4 friends who are having baby girls in October that I'd like to make blankets for. I really like the idea of making gifts rather than buying stuff, but you have to make sure you are giving something that people will appreciate. It's a little tricky. That's why I don't crochet clothing items. You just can't tell what people will like. A blanket is generic enough that everyone can appreciate it. 

House stuff in the next post. 

Take care everybody.

Bling for the Kitchen

I am not good at home maintenance. Most of the time I just tolerate a problem until I am forced to fix. Sometimes I will even have a party to make me solve a problem - such as a deep cleaning of the house. My old faucet probably 20-30+ years old had a stripped out cold water handle. It would spin around but not turn on the cold water. Now most normal people would by a new handle, a new faucet or something to solve that problem. What did I do? Put a small plastic cup over the handle so people would know that that handle didn't work. As the plumber today said "Cold water is overrated anyway." He was joking, of course. How long did I tolerate the no cold water in the kitchen? 5-6 months or more. Really ridiculous, I know.

What made me finally deal with the problem? The downstairs toilet sprung a serious leak so that absolutely had to be fixed especially with my brother and his friends using the downstairs shop to make cabinets for me. In other words, the plumber had to come out so I might as well fix the kitchen faucet as well.

I actually had this replacement Moen faucet for quite a while, but I wasn't confident enough to put it in. And I figured why replace it when you're going to tear out the kitchen anyway? Just for a little overrated cold water.

After the plumber installed the faucet, he said, "It's a little bling for your kitchen." You would not believe how much better it looks. And cold water - it is NOT overrated. It is nice.

The toilet from downstairs was from 1956 - a serious water guzzler. I didn't replace it sooner for exactly the same reason I didn't replace the faucet - that bathroom is going to be gutted. But it is nice to have a new functional low-flow toilet. I searched all over the internet for efficient, reliable toilets and Toto seems to win. This one is a Toto EcoUltramax II ADA with sanagloss, 1.28 gallon per flush. Very exciting. Also not overrated.

Still working on things at the Lenore house, just not with gusto. I am getting re-motivated though.

I actually bought 2 toilets last week, one is for the Lenore house that Kathy and I are working on. The only problem - it has a 10" rough-in vs. a 12" rough-in. I've bought a total of 4 Toto toilets without paying any attention to measurements so I figured my luck would hold. Nope. Just a little too cocky this last time. The plumber taught me how to measure rough-in in case I have to buy any more toilets - (measure from the wall to the middle of the bolt on the floor). Now you know.

-7 in Montana

Every year my siblings and I take one vacation all together. This is only possible because Kathy is able to take care of the 17 pets (yes, SEVENTEEN) between the 3 of us in Greenville. Before that we had to split up and go on trips 2 at a time. We usually go skiing at Big Sky in Montana. Today the low was -7. That actually means that we are not going outside until the afternoon in hopes that we won't freeze body parts.

My friend Lynn from Missoula is visiting for a few days here. Her husband was supposed to come along, but you can't really leave your dogs outside when the temperature is -20 as it was in Missoula last night. So Mike is dog-sitting while we're in Big Sky.

Last night we took a sleigh ride to a cabin on the mountain. Our draft horses were Pepsi and Rum. They are loaned out from a working ranch in Montana where they do all the heavy work with horses rather than tractors and stuff. I believe they are Belgian, Percheron mixes. Beautiful horses.

We also had incredible food. The Lone Mountain cook says "we don't consider vegetables food. We consider vegetables what food eats." So if you don't eat meat you have to make a special order for a vegetarian meal AND you have to specify that fish is not your idea of a vegetarian meal. Even though this was an alien concept to the cook, the meal was wonderful - a spinach linguine with vegetables (what food eats). The prime rib eaters were jealous of Lynn and me. All the food is cooked on this giant old wood burning stove. The rolls are to die for - whole wheat oatmeal. I was very happy that Lynn was tickled about the evening. She loves horses.

Great evening, everybody. Look at the happy horse girls.

Mistake #247

I did it again. Kathy did a beautiful job restaining Adam's floor. No blotches whatsoever, BUT there were some significant swirl marks in one place from the sander which I thought I could fix by just a little touch-up sanding and restaining. Doesn't work that way.

Here are some before pictures of Kathy's floor and then Adam's floor.

Kathy's room 

Adam's room. You can't see the swirl marks.
They are along the far wall.

Below you will see where I sanded the floor and re-stained and re-stained and re-stained. That area just would not take up the stain like the rest of the floor did.

Now what? Re-sand? I'm afraid I might have to. This floor is driving me crazy. 

I finally got a decent camera. I've been using my iPhone which really takes pretty good photos, but I'm thinking I might need something a little more versatile so I got a Canon Powershot G12. It's really quite impressive. Since my family is going skiing next week, I think the camera will come in handy.