Lazy Day

Its been a lazy day today.  I didn't sleep well last night. Not sure why. I think I seen every hour tick by until it was nearly time to get up.  It was hot and I wasn't getting much of a breeze from outside or the fan. Hopefully tonight I sleep better.

I can't tell yet if the ceiling tile insulation in the window helped. I still haven't done the other 2 windows and I've not been putting it in the one we open. The temperatures have been cooler the past week. Thank goodness!  I do believe it did make a difference though the few days I used it.

So here's my clever trick for today.

I have been wanting to be able to prop the bathroom door open without using a chair or the mop bucket. I looked and looked and couldn't find anything that was working so I grabbed this. It's a (quite stiff) toilet paper cardboard roll. I folded one side and stepped on it to flatten it a bit and pushed it under the door. Perfect!  It held the door nicely while I cleaned, making it much easier to mop the floor. It also allowed the floor to dry after mopping without having to leave the exhaust fan on for a few hours.  Mission Accomplished!  I tucked it safely away in the utility closet. I probably better write "DO NOT THROW AWAY" on it until I know I have a backup.


Ok the twiddle muff.......I've frogged it again. This time I'm liking it much better.   Here's some of what I hooked up tonight. Still Tunisian Crochet although it does look knit. It is the Tunisian Knit Stitch. 👍

Alright.....the last of my customers are leaving.  I'm looking forward to a good night sleep. There is a nice cool breeze and I've put a fan in the window hoping to pull in the cool air. 

 I may not be back until Sunday.  It depends on how busy the next two nights are.

VACATION DAY!!!!!!!

I know, right?  So what do we do on a vacation day?  We go find flea markets and visit we've been to before that aren't close by.

Here are a couple neat things we found.....

This gave me a chuckle. Can't say I've ever seen one of these before and I for sure haven't used one. They were popular before my time. I've seen ads and commercials for them though.

Beautiful hat boxes and most had ladies hats in them. Reasonably priced too. Too bad I'm not a hat person.

Oh my these V-Dubs!!!!!!!   They must have been in the same path as us. We seen them at 4 of the 7 flea markets we stopped at. I'm so jealous. I'd love to have a bus. Makes me want to fix up my beetle even more. 

So what did we buy?  This cotton yarn for $3.75

This totally awesome ice cream scoop for $1.50

And this vintage Pepsi case with 6 bottles for $3

I say it was a good day, don't you?   I'm outta here. It's time to get the castle cleaned up for the weekend. 

Please pray the electric company hurries up. I want to serve food!

Tunisian Crochet --- Oh How I Love Thee

Oh how I like Tunisian Crochet!  Finally I have the twiddle muff in progress with something I'm happy with.

Tell Me It's Not True

Oh but I'm sad to say it is. I really want to start uploading more YouTube videos but #1 I'm having a hard time being comfortable with putting my face out there for the whole world. #2 editing videos takes time and that I don't have a lot of extra of.  #3 Why? Well I have an already popular video that I put on like 6 years ago and every time I check my insights I see another cent or two added to my earnings. Might as well make videos right?  But what gets me is ad monetization information makes it sound like it will work with blogger, but it don't. It's just for YouTube.   *Sigh* and I've been doing so well with blogging hoping it would add cents to my earnings. Guess I'm going to have to get braver if I want to see if it will work to help earn a little bit more money. I have to admit I watch a LOT of YouTube myself.  If I do make videos I will always leave a link here. 

Now on to other things.......

Woke up to this this morning. It was raining when I looked out. (yes that's my view)

I knew there had to be a rainbow.  I was completely soaked by the time I walked half a block to the shop. This was about 8:45am.

This was looking out the front door of the shop about 9:00 when I unlocked it. Lots and lots or rain.  Water in the street and alley was over my shoes. Glad I wore my sandals😉.

This was a second rainbow about 9:00 am. The first one went away because the sun was hidden by clouds.  Pretty spectacular seeing 2 rainbows, in the western sky, this morning. 🌈🌈

I found and printed off a crochet pattern for a twiddle muff.  Searched more and found some really cool pictures of a Tunisian crochet twiddle muff.  Guess what I'm making?  Yep the Tunisian style one. I love Tunisian crochet. I wish there were more patterns in English.

Wasn't much of an exciting day. This evening however I had to play Beat the Clock. I fixed supper then I had to go to the grocery store before they close at 8:00.  I left the house about 6:30.  I also had to make it to the laundromat before last wash started at 8:00. I got to the laundromat at 7:55. Thankfully it was empty. Guess what I forgot though? My quarters. Thankfully I had my purse with me since I had just been to the grocery store. There was just enough quarters to do laundry. After I washed dried and folded the laundry I went to the other grocery store that closes at 10 to get cereal.

Well it's been a day. I'm going to post this and get ready to hit the hay. 

Hello 😊

It's been an interesting weekend. Friday and Saturday were both busy days.  In-between customers I have been looking at twiddle muff ideas.  I have started a few times and frogged. Still not sure what I want to do. I may have to follow some sort of pattern. I'm not always good at winging it.

We went out of town today. Oldest son went too. We introduced him to our favorite burger place. Mmmmm they have good food. He liked them as well and thanked us for inviting him.

Hubby and I stopped at a flea market while we were out.  I found a jar of buttons for a good price. I was needing buttons to finish a bag I made several months back.

The jar had several visible buttons about the size I thought I wanted to use. Once I started sorting them I changed my mind on what I wanted. I chose these red bead like buttons. Now I just need to find my sewing kit and sew them on. 

Since it was supposed to rain tonight we decided not to do any painting outside. 

Instead hubby started working out the new sign for The Castle.  

I didn't go to the laundromat today. I'll do that tomorrow night.

Thanks for stopping by 🌈

Twiddle Muff Challenge

So I had to practice my back and skills today. Needless to say I'm pretty terrible at it. However I promise you I did not hit anything. When I went to get lunch there was a delivery truck sitting in the alley so I had to back almost three-quarters of the way down the alley in order to get out.

Have you ever heard of a twiddle muff? One of the ladies in the crochet group that I host once a week had mentioned making one for one of the older ladies at church that suffers from Alzheimer's. Today I challenge the crochet group to make at least one twiddle muff between now and October. If they do not have an elderly person in mind then I suggested that they donate their twiddle muff to a nursing home. As soon as I finish my current project I plan to start working on a twiddle muff. Here is my current project it should be done either tonight or tomorrow.

Had a wild and crazy storm tonight. It rained duper hard and it was swirling around. The wind was blowing like crazy. No damage for us but the truck stop had the awning over the diesel pumps blow over.  

I did finish the bag I started. Actually I just need to weave in the final end. What do you think ?  It's the Cosmetic Bag from the Crochet Crowd webpage. I learned a new stitch as well as a better way to make the bottom and side separation. 

Well that's all for today. Thanks for stopping by. 🌈

Too Tired.....

Between the summer heat and more painting I was super tired yesterday.  Hope you didn't miss me too much.  Yesterday I had an "oops" moment.  I realized I didn't pay the water bills.  Cost me an about an extra $30, but I got them paid.  I think this is the second time in 21 years I have done this.  Guess I have a pretty good track record. ;-)

I also had [what I think is] a brilliant idea.  Most nomads use reflectix as window covering to help keep the sun and heat out.  I don't have the money right now to buy any, I don't want blind the people across the street, and it's getting really hot upstairs.  SO, we stopped by the old house (that we are trying to clean out to sell) and got some of the [drop] ceiling tiles.  I figured since it's insulation on one side and white, well a dirty white, on the other it should work pretty good.  I got 2 windows covered.  and today it was hot but still between 2 and 4 degrees cooler than outside.  I have 3 more windows I would like to cover with them.  These three and one of the ones already done we don't open.  I almost wonder if we could get it really cooled down up there is the window coverings would make more of a difference.  Time will tell.

Today was a busy day at the lock shop.  PTL!  Wish every day could be like today.  It was hot and we did turn the AC on a few times to help take the burn off the air.  No way am I leaving it going.  It ran non stop for 2 hours and didn't get down to temperature.

At the castle I did a little more painting, but mostly tonight it was pick things up and clean up since we are open tomorrow, Friday and Saturday.

We went to the grocery store to pick up some bottled water and bottled tea.  While we were there we noticed they had a sale on eggs,  2/$1.  We picked up a couple dozen and I hard boiled one dozen.  Guess that's lunch tomorrow.  For supper I'm putting some canned beef stew in to crockpot to heat.
the crockpot doesn't heat up the Castle too much and I can also use it and have the AC running as well.

Painting and More "In The Round"

Since we are now waiting on the electric company, (all stuff to expand the electric is sitting in the back room) we are finishing up painting inside and painting outside.

I also found a new Tunisian"in the round".  I like it!!! It looks difficult but it's super easy to do.

Went to a city commission meeting tonight. It was rather interesting. There is a lot of unhappy citizens about a new issue that has recently been put into place. This issue was a heated topic of discussion.  That wasn't the reason we went through. Ok maybe a little bit but mostly we went to hang out in the air conditioning for a while. We haven't turned ours on yet except for the 3 weekend evenings we are open at The Castle and even then it is turned up.  Trying to save money. 😉

Funny Story for Father's Day

First before we get started I want to tell you all that I'm thankful for my Heavenly Father, my Grandfather (who raised me) and my amazing husband who is Father to our boys. All 3 of them make my world go round. I don't know what I would do without all 3 of them.

Ok now on to the story.......

Our oldest son asked if we would like to go to the next town over to eat and help him pick up something he ordered from home depot.  After church went and had a nice lunch together. He decided he probably could fit his purchase in his car so we left. Hubby and I were headed home and  stopped at a new flea market that recently opened. As we were walking in my phone rang. "Mom, you're going to have to come back, this won't fit in my car.".   Lol nope a 4x8 sheet of plywood won't fit in a Chevy Cobalt.  Good thing Mom and Dad drive a van, huh?  We loaded it in the back of the van and decided to go ahead and get the exterior paint for the Castle.

When we got back to town we delivered the plywood and helped him put up a new porch light.

Love my family. 💜

A Little Tunisian in the Round

Here is my Saturday Night project.  In between interruptions, multiple interruptions at that, this took me about 3-4 hours to make.

Making this one a little different than the ones I've made in the past. Not just using the Tunisian Simple Stitch but also using the Tunisian Knit Stitch as well.

Here's the finished project, so far.  I don't know if I'm going to add more to it or not.  The TSS TKS combination gave it an interesting texture.  

.....and if you're wondering, this was a random ball I grabbed out of my box.  It was the variegated on the outside, changed to light blue, and there is a bit more blue before it turns back into the variegated left in the ball.  Whoever wound it must have been putting leftovers together ;-)

What Have You Been Up To This Week?

Me? I've been painting and knitting and trying to stay cool.

Almost have all the purple painted over!

This is the farthest I've made it on a knitting project like this. Getting pretty excited actually. I've tried this pattern several times and not been successful. 

Trying to stay cool can be a challenge with temperatures like !

VLOG posted to YouTube today