The cool hippie bus

Our day started with a nice brunch at a cute little restaurant in town.  I'll never eat there again.  The service is acceptable, but not outstanding, and the food is great, although lacking in my personal tastes.  But what really got me was paying for the food.  This guy comes out of the kitchen, dressed in smocks with a cap/bandana thingy surgeons wear, and a name badge that said "Surgeon Director".  Ok-so...you double as a cook?  Anyway, he was missing two fingers.  These weren't two fingers on one hand folks.  One at one joint on one hand, and the other hand at a different joint in the finger.  This I found disturbing.  He either cut them off in surgery, or while chopping my chicken.  In my mind at least.  Can't go back, sorry...too disturbing.

So anyway, we went to my place of work...you know..."There-that-must-not-be-named", and filled our gas and groceries.  In the parking lot was this really cool painted bus.  When we left, we got gas, and I had to take pictures.  They're with my phone, so forgive the quality please.

 Amazing detail with 3D effects.

 A woman, a man, and a disabled man share this awesome bus home!

Their furniture, appliances, and quilts, etc, were beyond gorgeous!  Just look at the quilting on that!

 They plan to attach the wheelchair to the outside in the future (it's behind the bike)

 And replace this with a composting toilet.

Their plates said Vermont, and they were traveling north.  They are in the process of converting to biodiesel.  Very impressive work guys!  Good luck wherever you may be now!

My day

It's getting harder and harder to retain the real me, the person I want to be, the person I'm meant to be.  But today, I was able to.  I went out to get a really cool picture of a guinea.  Naturally, he got up and ran away as soon as he saw me come back out of the house with a camera.  (How do animals know?)  That's when it happened.  The real me came back, and I started to just take pictures.

 Catching up on the laundry-thankful for the sun!

 Niles and Daphne...and a guinea.

 I spy 2 ducks, a guinea, and 2 hens...

 Henrietta's good side

 Flox-I love flox

 Chillin on the back porch

 Our pathetic leftovers of a strawberry patch

 Knight

 Boy

 Gizmo.  This is Marcus's puppy.  He was given to us.  He is Rat Terrier, Shiatsu, Pomeranian.  He looks like a horrible mistake, but you couldn't ask for a better dog for a boy!  He is at the vet tonight getting neutered.  I think he's about to sneeze out a dandelion in this picture.  You can click on pics to make them bigger.

 Fargo-because he's my puppy.  He got a lot of lovin today, with a good scratching!

 Arlis picking grass out of the run for Fargo.  The chickens won't eat it this big.

 Marcus's 4-H chicks.

 You know I had to video!  My videos are now available in HD!  Watch for Knight to pop up in front of a tree on the left around 0:20

The Great Wasp Hunt

        It started one normal day with a wasp in the living room.  We always get a dozen or so each year...spread out over several months.  You know, one here, one there.  But this day, there was a second wasp.  Two days later, there were two more.  That day I sprayed poison in the house, on the walls, and outside.  I had to wash all the blankets because of the poison.  I also had to deal with a 9 year old yelling, "There's a nest in my bathroom!" over and over.  There was, obviously, no nest in the bathroom.

      So today, when a wasp went banging against the ceiling, I refused to use the poison again.   I look up what to do, and see window cleaner and hair spray.  I grab my hair spray and a shoe and go on the hunt.  I'm being quite brave, if I do say so myself, and creep up to the flying wasp to spray it.  "Pfssssst!" Drat!  Not close enough..closer...closer..."Phsss..."  "Yeow!"  There was one on the floor.  I had stepped on it.  I'm assuming it was poisoned some because it wasn't as bad as I remember them being.  I drop my weapons and limp outside.  I call Arlis and tell him to come spit on my foot.  His wad of tobacco immediately stopped the pain. 

      While I'm sitting there leeching poison, he goes around the side of the house and sprays poison, which blows in his eyes.  So then I have to guide a blinded blind man, while limping, to the faucet to flush his eyes.  He's fine now. 

        I rinse the tobacco off my foot and go inside.  Dad comes and decides to vacuum the wasps.  "See them going round and round?  That kills them."  Does he actually believe this?  We argue over it until he concedes to let me put the vacuum outside with the "dead" wasps so that all the live ones can crawl out.  I had to vacuum the house, so I emptied it, showing Arlis all the "dead" wasps that are now dusty white in color crawl away on the dirt.  I take it in, do some house work, and leave the vacuum in my father's room with the door shut.  I knew it was empty of critters, did he?

        We were supposed to pick up a rooster today.  I was supposed to do a lot of things.  But we wound up killing nine wasps that day, all in my living room.  For over a day we would go in and look around before sitting down.  Everyone would use the white couch because you could easily spot a dark bug on a white couch.  We found them all over the place, under things, behind things.  They've calmed down for now.  I hope we're through with them.

My First Quilt

      Over a year ago, like 2 years ago, I bought a Mennonite home ec book to learn to sew.  Sewing machines were giant evil monsters with giant evil fangs to me.  This was mainly due to never really having a good and proper lesson, and having a broken machine.  (pun intended) Sew, when dad bought me a used machine b/c the older one wouldn't work, I decided to try and learn again, as it wasn't broken that I could tell.  I read and followed the first book to make my first project, a small and simple quilt.

 Here is the square

       It's a log cabin design.  Each fabric is sewn to the previous and cut in a mathematical sequence allowing for quick and easy assembly without having to check oneself every stitch.  It was so easy, I got to where I enjoyed it a great deal and would spend hours at a time in the craft room with TV playing on my Kindle just sewing away.
     
 I placed all the squares out, asking Arlis for his advice.

It's good I did ask for his advice.  I rotated each piece one rotation and went to the next.  This turned out to be...

 See it?  Look closer-it's a swastika.

 Arlis, "So, this book is Mennonite?  And therefore German?  And you're blonde?  Bwa ha ha haaaaa!!!"  All jokes aside, I took his design advice, and did the following.  I also sewed four more squares.

 And then four more.  Some of the squares were different sizes, and there are tucks and creases where I lined up the strips.

 I wasn't about to pay for batting, and my wool needed carding.  A carder wasn't in the budget just yet.  But a huge amount of really thick felt like material went on sale for $1.50 a yard.  I bought a BUNCH!

And then sewed it to the back of the quilt.  It was very difficult to do this as the material was stretchy.  It turned out uneven.  But only if you look for it.  I made this to be used, not framed.

 I used mom's quilt hoop to comfort knot the quilt.

 I used matching colored threads for the knots, which I just happened to have.  That was cool.  It also turned out to be geometrically perfect, even cooler.  You can see how you just make loops or sew from each place to the next making sure two strings in each area are about a half inch apart or so.  Each knot area needs to be about 3 inches apart or so.

 You then cut through each loop or straight stitch.  (Don't forget the other side)

 And then tie a square knot on BOTH sides.  Here you can see how it all matched up.

 Here is the back side.  See how it's all geometrically cool and stuff?

 DONE!

 I had plenty of fabric left over, so I wanted to make pillow cases.  After much debate, we decided to go with accent pillows instead of cases.  I changed the square pattern to make it look better as a single.  The pillow was a project in the second book.  It's a cover over a basic stuffed pillow.  Arlis, "It even has snaps and everything."  I was real proud of myself.

 And here it is all together.  I'll make a second pillow once the chickroom becomes my craftroom again.  Dad used the quilt and said it was fine, but he did need an extra blanket.

     I went through a bunch of thread, bought a bunch of new things, and had to take my new/old machine in to get repaired.  But I now feel pretty good with a machine.  I've learned to basic sew, roll cut, comfort knot, and when to give up and take the machine in.  I have a self-healing mat with a roller and a new pair of shears.  It's a real shame that I bought all the good stuff after I cut all the quilting strips out and wound up with crooked stitches and different sized squares, but the point of this exercise was to learn after all.

Here's Your Sign-take 2

I already have the next post planned, just not finished. So I thought I would post another-humorous-list of events from work.

Questions and events that ACTUALLY HAPPENED at work.  (If you don't know where I work, you might not find it humorous.  Suffice it to say, we are open 24/7/365 and I work electronics mainly)

(Call in) "Will you be there tomorrow?"
              "Me specifically, or someone in general?"
              "Yeah.  Are you open tomorrow?"
               "Yes...Yes we are."

"Would you hold these while I go do some more shopping?"

An individual that is...let's put this delicately...hyper "I need to get all this now.  I'm going to rehab in 12 days.  They won't let me in the army otherwise.  I mean, I'm not a druggie or an addict or anything, I got hit by a grenade and so I have to go to rehab.  I'm annoying you now aren't I?  I'll go."  Leaves and comes back.  "Can you watch this for me?  I have to go do some more shopping?"  This person left merchandise on my counter, visited several departments and made several different purchases.  He refused to use just one register.  I personally checked him out more than once and carried his merchandise to a separate register so that he could buy it all at once where I was told that he needed to buy it at my register because it had to be separate.  He bought 2 phones, had a new one in his pocket, and I really don't know the rest.  I think I've blocked the memory.

Upon seeing a Clearance balloon floating on the ceiling over the wheelchair stall in the bathroom, I went to look.  I cannot describe what I found.  One colleague described it as "Someone missed."  Another as "It looks like one of your cows has been in there."  It was a bit grainy in appearance and HUGE.  Oh, and not where it should be.  This became the sight-seeing tour of the work place.  Men were venturing into the ladies' room to see the sight of amazement.  I laughed at one coworker's reaction so long and hard I cried for half an hour.  The cleanup man started to vomit, and to prevent further mess, a different man had to clean it up.  I've heard there are now pictures of this event.  If I find them, I'll let you know.

"Will my kid's friend like this?"

 "Do you have that thing on TV?"  This question is asked VERY often.
"What thing in general?"
"You know, it's on the TV."

"Do yuns have that yarn that yuns make scarves from?"  (one of my personal favorites)
"You're going to have to be a little more specific."
"Well, you were out the other day.  Do you have it in now?"
"Um...we have several different types.  Could you describe it a little maybe?"
"The one you were out of.  If you go out there and there's an empty spot, then that's it."

"If I bring back my TV, can I get it at the sale price?  Because it wasn't that cheap when I bought it."

Here's your sign.

My drive to work

My drive to work one cold morning.  Normally, it's much better than this, and I have often wanted to leave really early and pull over to take pictures but never have.  So bare in mind this is while driving....rather fast I might add...

Click on a photo to get the full size if needed.

 How many hay bales does that bus eat each year?!

 Now there's a fun driveway-yeesh!  (On the left)

 This is one of the really pretty spots.  Naturally, there are no icicles to speak of today.  You can still see a pitiful few though.  On pretty days, you see waterfalls and HUGE amounts of icicles.

 Some weird growth I've often wanted to explore in someone's pasture.

 Cattle trail to the water.

 That brick house is a little out of place here if you ask me.

 These last two are part of the quilt trail.