Daisy Square for Charity

Doesn't this look like the old "Flower Power" designs that were ubiquitous in the 70's? This design is courtesy of a talented crocheter from Crochetville.






The one on the upper left still lacks one round.

The square pattern is available free.. with one caveat. The designer requests that upon receipt of the pattern that a square is made and sent to her. She is assembling these into an afghan to be donated to various charities. There's lots more information on the designers blog.

These I'm making will eventually go to Project Linus disguised as a blanket. I'm doing them in Red/White/Blue for the PL drive for the Good Grief Camp/Camp LeJeune during Memorial Day weekend put on by the TAPS Organization (Taps stands for Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors). They will give red, white and blue blankets to the children at the camp to help comfort them.

I 'm using HobbyLobby's "I Love This Yarn" to do the r/w/b.. but I'm going to start doing the centers in various colors (yellow, pink, black, brown, etc.) This will help to break up the colors without ruining the theme.. I hope. If my PL coordinator deems it inappropriate for the taps drive.. well, it can go to a local hospital or shelter.

I rediscovered the audio portion of the wayback machine (or internet archive) while looking for old timey bluegrass for my DS technical theatre class (they're getting ready for UIL competition.. UIL is like district and/or state competitions in other places. Texas does University Interscholastic League.. have to be different .. lol). Anyhow, while searching for Open Source music.. I ran across the audio books on the internet archive. Whoa Nellie!!!

I've downloaded the first 8 or 9 chapters of "Pride and Prejudice" and am listening to them while I type this. I will eventually burn this to CD so I can torture my son during our morning drives to school (he's been dekeyed due to numerous progress reports.. grrrr). I'll have to go and see if there is an audio book version of "The Importance of Being Ernest" which is one of his future assignments in English. (picture me with a wicked grin).

Spring break starts tomorrow too ... good for listening on our day trips too. heheheheheeeee

Found the old song "Wish I were a single girl again" while digging through the open source applachian music last night. This song was also in the movie "Song Catcher" , and it makes me want to see the movie again (great movie for the applachian music, the rest requires a little too much "willing suspension of disbelief"....).

Anyhow, the movie has an old granny midwife singing this song, very effective. The lyrics go:

When I was single, went dressed so fine;
Now I am married, go ragged all the time.

Chorus:
I wish I was a single girl again,
O Lord, don't I wish I was a single girl again!

When I was single, my shoes did screak;
Now I am married, my shoes they do leak.

Three little babies crying for bread,
With none to give them, I'd rather be dead.

Wash them and strip them and put them to bed,
Before your husband curses you and wishes them dead.

Wash their little feet and send them to school,
Along comes a drunkard and calls them a fool.

When I was single, I eat biscuit and pie;
Now I am married it's eat corn-bread or die.

When he comes in, it's a curse and a row,
Knocking down the children and pulling out my hair.

Dishes to wash and spring to go to;
When you are married, you've all to do.

Suppers to get, the cows to milk,
Them blame little children is all crying yet.


Sure makes one think twice, huh?

Randomization

Found this in the tagline of someone's email today:

If you want happiness for an hour—take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day—go fishing.
If you want happiness for a month—get married.
If you want happiness for a year—inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime—help others. -Chinese proverb

I like that.

Flying is getting to be hazardous to a mother's peace of mind. Put DD on the plane today.. we were lucky and got to the terminal early and she got an early flight into Atlanta. But the flight out of Atlanta.. oh dear. She wasn't able to get an earlier flight to her final destination, and her scheduled flight had problems. :( The engine had an oil leak and the pilot didn't want to fly it. So they moved her to another concourse and she's gonna be about an hour later getting in.

I think she's begining to realize why Mom had her fly a day before she absolutely had to be back.

One of the members on crochetville husband was found unresponsive beside his car/truck yesterday. The paramedics were unable to revive him. She's a sahm and has two young daughters. I feel for her.. having lost my dad when I was young.

DS is trying to fail senior english AGAIN. I don't know what to do with the boy. I'm not gonna pay for college for him to screw up like this. He'll have to go out and get a job and support himself if he fails college. Of course, if he doesn't graduate, the university he's interested in isn't going to want him.

Went to the HL after dropping dd at the airport.. nice to shop in a place where they actually have large stores for a change. Found some "I Love This Yarn" yarn... reminds me a lot of Caron Simply Soft. The skeins are 7oz and cost 1.99! The color selection was limited (burgundy, red, navy, royal and white) but I bought 2 red, 2 royal and 3 white.. thinking of doing something for the Taps Project.

We have a new driveway.. it's pretty. no more bumps and holes. we can drive on it.. but can't park on it for another day or so.

Update to Frazzled Friday

Well, here it is Tuesday and I finally feel recovered enough from the weekend to post about it.

But first I want to show some flowers from my yard. My husband and I select for hardiness... if a flower can't survive severe neglect.. it won't fare well with us.















Now, to tell about Delta airlines and my weekend.

My van was finally finished at 5pm friday, and it was only that they had tried to put a non-toyota timing belt on it. Once they got the correct belt on, it was fine. So DH and DS left for their weekend and I stayed home alone (sigh.. lovely to have time alone now and then). DD was scheduled to fly in at 3:44pm on Saturday.. so I got up the next morning and headed for the airport early.

My thinking was that if my van truly acted up again, I'd have time to get it towed somewhere and then get a taxi or rental car to pick her up. And if it didn't give me trouble, I could do some shopping in a larger city (this is a good thing.. right?)

The van worked perfectly. I got to do some shopping (pics of the Joanns shopping haul later) and then went to wait at the airport. Cell phone rings... It's Delta letting me know that the flight has been delayed and it won't be in till 4:07. Oh well, that's not too bad.

It's delayed again, now coming in at 4:25. :( Then there's an announcement.. it's been cancelled! DD and I have been on the cell phone with each other off and on.. and she doesn't know why they're cancelling the flight.. all she knows is that they moved her from one concourse to another.

Finally, she calls and said she's been put on a 8:48 flight.. she should be in about 10:00pm. And Delta did give her a meal voucher so she can eat on their dollar. They tried to put her on an earlier flight, but it got filled up before they got to her.

I went down to the delta ticket desk and asked what was going on. The very nice man behind the counter told me that a flight before hers had a crew not show up (Probably due to bad weather elsewhere) and then her flight had a mechanical problem. So Delta was faced with trying to fit passengers from two earlier flights onto later flights.

This was about 4pm that we finally found out she would be coming in at 10. I left the airport, went and had a awful supper at Cracker Barrel.. bleah.. the potatoes were cold and tasteless...I complained to the waitress and she didn't care. so phooey on her... she lost the tip I would've normally left.

Then I went and got a hotel room, I don't like to drive after dark unless I have to, and with the van having been persnickety and with husband out of town, decided it was better to sleep there than to drive home. I took a 2 hour nap and then went and picked up DD.

The rest of the night was uneventful. We had a good breakfast the next morning and then came on home.

When I got home and checked my email.. I had 7 notices from Delta about the flight changes/glitches!! Amazing.

DS and DH had a great time at the senior weekend. Nothing very exciting happened to them that I know of.

Frazzled Friday

Letter to my sister (names and places have been concealed for an attempt at privacy)

Thanks so much Sis (and DBIL and DN) for being willing to do this for us.

Last time I checked (no time to check this morning) they weren't assigning seats on the first flight, infact, the flight looked overbooked. So DD will need to be there more than an hour ahead of time to make sure that she gets a seat. And please make sure that she has her Travelers Checks.

I'm running a bit frazzled this morning. Had my van in the shop earlier this week, just to get it serviced..routine maintenance. Picked it up yesterday and about the time I got in the driveway the check engine light came on.

So I have to take the van back in again this morning. Now, here's where the stress comes in. DH and DS have a trip planned this weekend for Senior Weekend & so DH/Dad can visit the campus and so that DS can attempt to test out of some freshman classes.

If the van can't be ready enough to make a trip to the airport (about 90 miles one way).. I might have to go with the boys tonight and then drive up Saturday afternoon to pick up DD. I'm frantically doing laundry while this is being typed and checking the hotel to see if they will take small animals... in case our vet can't keep Madchen on short notice. This realization came to me at 2:30 am.. and I've been doing laundry since as once I take the van to the shop, I may be stuck there for several hours with no ride home.

It will all work out.. The two towns are only about an hour apart...but I tend to worry when things don't go according to plan. It's all in Gods hands I know.. but it does help to prepare!!

Thanks again for being such a helpful sister.

Progress Report

Got some more octagons completed and sewn together.. thought I'd show how it's growing.







I also discovered that the Charleston Garden pattern is almost the same as this one. It makes squares instead of Octagons.. so as my Partner in Crime over at CALPALS said.. this solves the problem of how to make a square pillow out of an Octagon.