This and That

It’s been a few days since I posted anything, I’ve been crazy busy.  There has been good news, I’ve got the flooring to finish the kitchen, and then there has been routine living. I thought I’d catch you up on what’s been happening. This post will be all over the place in subject matter so grab a cup of tea and I’ll get started.

The flooring.  Over the last month not only had I been calling the stores close to home regularly but had my name and number at every location in the Pittsburgh and surrounding area hoping I’d hear from one of them.

 

Saturday I received a call from one of the stores quite a distance from both my son and me.  I had minutes to decide how to get the flooring. This store was able to purchase one additional pallet of this flooring over what the contractors had holds on. One pallet is 55 boxes and I only needed 4.

My options were to trust the flooring would be there when I was able to arrange a pick up, not happening. I figured as soon as one of the contractors learned a store had extra inventory it would be gone.  I could pay over the phone and have it shipped to my house for an additional $79, which my son informed me wouldn’t happen 🙂 Or I could pay them over the phone and they would hold it up to three days while I arranged pickup, which is what I did.

My son agreed to drive out there to pick up the four boxes but asked me what would happen if he didn’t pick it up within three days.  I think he just wanted to get a rise out of me.

Another birthday.  My granddaughter’s fifth birthday is this weekend. I’ve been rushing to finish a sweater I am crocheting for her to replace the hand-me-down jacket I made girl-y for her a couple of years ago. She’s more than outgrown that one.  I began with this pattern from Cute Crochet for Kids by Diane England.

 

I knew I wanted to make a few changes to the pattern. First I wanted it longer than just below the waist because kids grow so fast and I wanted her to get more than one year’s use out of the sweater.  The pattern also called for a heavy weight yarn I wanted to use a lighter weight yarn so it would be more functional in spring and early autumn.  I’ll still cuff the sleeves, again so it lasts more than one season and I’m toying with adding a fabric collar instead as well.  The party is this Saturday so I really need to get this finished.

 

Speaking of the birthday party.  My daughter-in-law always has a theme for the kids’ birthdays. She finds working with a theme helps her to be organized. Anyway, my granddaughter chose My Little Pony and I offered to help get things ready.

My daughter-in-law makes most of the things used at her parties, including the items she fills the gift bags for the children to take home.  This year she is making things the children can use for playing dress up to fill the gift bags.  Being that I have a sewing machine I offered to do any sewing but told her I’d help in any way I could.  This is the item I’ll be sitting down to work on when I finish this post.  You can find the directions here if you want to make your own.

 

On the social side. Life is never all about working. Saturday turned into a day I got nothing done.  My daughter-in-law brought the children out early that morning.  I revert to a little kid when I’m around the children.  The baby is now 18 months old and a sponge for learning.  I knew early on I would have my hands full with this one. When he was only six months old he figured out how to turn on my wheel chair and make it go. I’ve had to keep my hand over the joystick ever since when he’s near.  Now he has a new fascination, cell phones. He realized I keep mine in the pocket of my chair and will sneak to take it out and run away with it.  Not only can he turn it on and work the phone but now can take it apart within seconds.

 

Any day he is  here he has to show off all the new things he knows.  It’s a routine he goes through as soon as he arrives.  Once he’s gone through his new knowledge I add to it. This day I decided to teach him new body parts.  Turns out not everyone is happy with everything I taught him. I named and pointed out knee, elbow and neck. Well now he runs up to people and grabs their necks. 🙂

Once the children left my phone rang. It was my oldest son.  We don’t get much time to talk now that I’ve moved. Either he’s busy with his children or I’m busy so our conversations tend to be short. I don’t like being on the phone and see a phone as more of a thing I carry around in case of an emergency but not seeing my son I look forward to hearing from him.

This day he was alone and so was I. We talked for five hours, thank goodness for unlimited long distance. We had our phones on speaker and went about preparing meals and such while we talked. What can two people talk about for five hours you ask? Out of my two boys this is the son who I have always enjoyed having intellectual conversations with. Turns out he misses our conversations since my move too. We each miss having that other person to bounce ideas off of since my move. We covered politics, religion, current social issues and then some.

 

Spring is coming. This winter I hired the neighbor boys to shovel snow for me. We had a mild winter resulting in needing them only four times, but the boys have spring fever just as much as I do.  With the days starting to warm I’ve had frequent knocks at the door, multiple times a day, asking if I have any work for them. They don’t understand why we can’t start planting yet. 🙂

Giving myself a treat.  There was  a time early in my life that I was nicknamed the junk food queen. I was busy working up to three jobs a day and would grab whatever was easy.  A peanut butter sandwich or chips and soda were easy. This was before children so luckily I didn’t set a bad example for my boys.  Since those days I rarely eat snacks. I’ve reverted to the way I was raised where you could eat all you wanted at mealtime but snacks were not permitted.

 

 

Yesterday I craved a snack. I had it in my head I wanted oatmeal cookies and went searching for a healthy recipe.  I found this one and gave it a try. It’s different in that it uses no refined sugar and has very little fat in it but it hit the spot. I had all the ingredients on hand which is rare for me when it comes to baking.  The only change I would make next time would be to eliminate the coconut oil as I don’t think it added to the taste or was necessary.

I hear the headbands calling, guess it’s time to get back to work.

Has life been keeping you busy?