Post of Random

This is going to be a fully random post, so fasten your seatbelts and I hope you don't get confused!

I am sitting here with The Small One eating Nerds. Well, I am eating Nerds and she is pouring her Nerds between two boxes and eating the occasional few. And handing the occasional few to me with a reminder to not eat them all or she will spank my butt. Then she apologized and said she wouldn't really spank me, but make sure I don't eat them all!

From Drop Box

Too many Nerds will make your teeth hurt. In case you wondered.

My dear SIL, Kaytee, got me hooked on Overstock.com. Bad Kaytee! I found these shoes that I want for Valentine's or whatever holiday for which I can justify having them.
Here they are: Shoes of Fabulousness

From Drop Box

Ooh, pretty! Don't you think?

The Olympics are coming up very soon. I love the Olympics. Of course, they aren't quite as much fun as they were when they were here, but still fun. And, for fibre geeks like myself, it is time for the Ravelympics! Woot!

What are the Ravelympics, you ask? Simple. It is a contest in which all fibre geeks, like myself, who are members of the great and wonderful fibre community, Ravelry.com, pick a project that is challenging and try to finish in the same amount of time as the Olympics. Last Olympics, I made my first sweater. It was very simple. This year I am up for something a little more technical. Like this!

From Drop Box

I love this sweater. I have not decided whether or not to knit it in brown or cream. But yummy! It is from Vadis Designs, which is one of my FAVE knit designers.

I bought a new camera. A little Sanyo 1200. Sadly, my awesome Canon broke and I haven't gotten it fixed yet. And it will likely cost a lot to fix. And I needed a tiny camera I could stick in my purse, anyhow. I have been borrowing my Mom's camera and that of The Man of the House when they are around, but I really needed my own, for work. And for The Small One.

Speaking of The Small One, here are some more pics for your viewing entertainment.
Just because, you know?

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

And just for kicks and giggles, here is one The Small One took of me the other night.

From Drop Box

Oh, and I have thought of a new nickname for The Small One. I think I shall call her Miss Adventure. Because, you know, she is rather adventuresome, and said adventures often end...not goodly. ;)

Housecleaning is a sin

Okay, maybe not. But if you know me, and odds are fairly good that if you are reading this blog, you know me, or maybe not, I don't know. Anyway, lost my train of thought there for a mo'. If you know me, you will know that I HATE cleaning. I think I may have mentioned this recently. Or was I talking about laundry? I can't remember. But, I do. I hate it. It ruins my day. Most of the time. Here's the thing. Clutter? It makes me twitchy. Cleaning? Makes me even more twitchy. (On a side note, my husband generally hates clutter, was a neatfreak when I married him, as a matter of fact. Fear not, I have since corrupted him.)

Here is another interesting aspect of my enormously complex personality. I hate dirtiness worse than I hate cleaning. Does this make sense? I do not like clutter, but am a seriously disorganized person. I hate cleaning up, which results in largish amounts of clutter (I am also a bit of a packrat, but that is another post entirely). But I do clean up, sometimes. I really, really hate dirtiness. Nastiness. So, while I don't subscribe to submitted wifery (haha, inside joke) I do clean my baseboards. And my fridge handle. And the fact that the paint is wearing off of my cabinets and so they look like they are very dirty. It bugs me. Scunge bugs me, it is gross. So, my entire point is this; my house may be very cluttered (and it is) but it is not dirty.

That brings me to my second point. Have you seen my house? No? Here, let me show you some pictures.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

It is adorable, is it not? My delightful abode is composed of three different parts, which occurred at three different periods in time.
The first part of the house, that consisting of the front room, dining area and what is now my studio were built around 1880. They have lovely thick walls and deep window wells. The exterior walls are adobe, faced with brick. The interior walls are lathe and plaster. What does this mean, you ask? Dust. Lots and lots of dust. The adobe breaks down, the plaster cracks, 100 and some odd years of dust leaks out of every crevice. The second problem. We have a wood burning stove in our fireplace. Heats the house deliciously, makes things oh, so cozy...BUT...oh, the ash that flies hither and yon when one opens said stove. Everything around the fireplace gets pretty heavily coated and it flies lightly about the entire area.

I hate dust. It makes me sneeze and it makes things look...you guessed it, dirty! Ewwwwww. Dirt. Yuck.

Problem number next. The second phase of the house, that consisting of the kitchen and bathrooms, was built around 1900. Back in the day, not having cars, there was no need for a garage, so the garage we have was an afterthought and therefore, not connected to the house. So, the entrance to the kitchen is straight out of the yard. Also? No mud room. This means that every bit of dirt on anybody's shoes gets tracked straight onto my floor, which foolish me for choosing it, is white. What was I thinking? Because, guess what?

DIRT! MORE DIRT! DIRT EVERYWHERE! I HATE DIRT!!!!!

Dirty floors, yuck. Dirt on the baseboards. Nasty. Dirt on the door from a certain Small One's grubby little fingers (not to mention the dirty fingers of the hardworking Man of the House). Ewww.

Are you getting the vision? The whole, entire point of this whole entire post is this. If you come to my house and see lots of clutter and think that I am a terrible housekeeper, you are right and wrong. It is messy, but baby, it is clean.

Teh Interwebz

Hi, my name is Tara and I am an internetaholic.

It is true. I am addicted. I would suffer terrible pangs of withdrawal if someone took my internet away. Goodness knows, I would get more done without it. Oh, that is a lie. I wouldn't. Before I became addicted to the internet, I could easily while away an entire day reading a good book. Now I while away entire nights reading said books, because during the day I am on the web.

I have one major addiction (and a number of smaller ones). The Big One? Ravelry.com. A website for knitting/crocheting/spinning freaks. Of which I am one. I knit, I crochet and I spin. And I am kind of a freak. See how that all fits together so nicely? It is like Ravelry was made for me! I know, I know, it doesn't sound that interesting. It probably isn't, unless you are a freak of the aforementioned variety. However, it isn't just about the arts that celebrate fibery goodness, it is an online community. Fibre is simply the tie that binds, as it were. I belong to, oh, I don't know, like a kajillion groups on Ravelry, but only two in which I am an active participant. One is a purely social group, and the other is a religious discussion group. Now, I find the second one purely fascinating because I am one of only two Mormons on said group, and let's be honest, our theology is rather different from the rest of Christendom. I begin to understand why a lot of the rest of Christendom do not consider us (Mormons) to be Christian. I think they are wrong, but I understand the thought process.

It is utterly fascinating to listen in, if you will, on a conversation between members of several different denominations and religions and see where they are similar to my own and where they are different. And, I gotta say, the more I learn about other religions, the more I am convinced I chose the correct one. The LDS version of the Gospel makes so much more sense to me than any other version I have encountered. No doubt there are many who would disagree with me, and indeed there are many who do, but I feel fine about that. I still know I picked the right one! Would you like to know more about it? My religion, I mean? Go here, mormon.org. It's pretty awesome.

Whaaaa?????

January 20 what? Seriously, I am like the world's worst blogger EVAR!
Are you wondering if we had Christmas? We did. It was lovely. I will post some pics.
Are you wondering if we are still around? We are. But, honestly, I think we are maybe just too boring for blogging? But then, I have to think, who do I blog for? Do I blog for myself or do I blog for my readers. Since I only have, like, 2 readers, I will have to conclude that I blog for myself. Not to denigrate my 2 readers, as I love them, but you know...
More people should read my blog, in my humble opinion, because, let's face it, I am pretty darn funny sometimes. Okay, maybe more snarky than funny, but still.
Here are some funny stories, no thanks to me, but more to my very amusing daughter.

There we were, standing in the bathroom, getting ready for the day. Likely it was Sunday, since I am very lazy and don't often actually do my hair or makeup (or that of The Small One) during the week. I was happily combing my hair or doing my makeup or possibly putting piggies into The Small Ones hair when she cranes her skinny little neck over the edge of my tub to give it a critical look. She gazes upon the white porcelain, then looks up at me. "Mamma, your tubby is a zaster." Uh, what? "Your tubby is a zaster! You need a clean it." I glance over at the tub. Not that dirty. Besides, as I told her, SHE was the last person in it, maybe she needs to clean it! She disagreed and gave me stinkeye. Hmmm.

Okay, that was just one story. I have been uber lame lately, and have not written down the amusing things The Small One says.

Oh, but wait. Just now, as I was writing this, the naken bummed child came in and sat upon my head and thereupon informed me that my head stinks. I asked why and she said because her naken bum was on it. Nice. For the record, I do not teach her these things. I suspect The Man of the House, but this cannot currently be proven.

Do you like to cook? I like to cook, and The Man of the House (generally) likes to eat that which I cook. However, I hate to clean. Hate. Like with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns hate. So, The Man of the House does the cleanup. Most of the time. Occasionally, I take pity and try to clean up myself, but let's be honest, that does not happen very often.
Don't misunderstand me, this is not to say that I leave a ginormous mess for him to clean up, I mean, I do put (some) things away as I go.
I have discovered, though, that what I consider easy, other people do not. I like to cook from scratch, and am kind of opposed to pre packaged food. I do use it, when necessary, but I don't like how it tastes.
I make up recipes all the time, but then I forget what I made, so, although I could have a nice repertoire of recipes, I don't. Kind of lame, don't you think? I would consider starting a food blog, but I can't even post on this one more than once a month, so a food blog seems rather like an impossibility, no?

Eating at home is good for a number of reasons. It keeps our spending down, it allows me to control what goes into it, and, sigh, it enables me to keep my calories down. Do you know how hard it is, though, to try and keep my calories down, whilst living in a house with two people whose calorie counts need to be high? Aargh! It is dreadful.
The Man of the House works so hard that he has a hard time keeping weight on, and if you have read my blog at all, you know that The Small One has eating issues, so high calories for them, low calories for me. That means healthy-ish meals and they get dessert.
I started exercising about 2.5 weeks ago. I am not an exerciser by nature. I don't like to sweat. Yeah, yeah, I could go swimming, but there isn't a pool at our Rec center and I don't have a gym membership, or the time to change into a bathing suit, go over to a pool, shower, swim, shower, dry hair, change, drive back home. And what to do with The Small One while I am gone?
I have a treadmill, which I have been using. I have been exercising about 1 hour every day, burning a good number of calories according to Sparkpeople. I have been watching my calorie intake and guess what? NOT A POUND HAVE I LOST. How lame is that? Seriously lame, that is how. I am not happy about it.
Yesterday, I treadmilled for over an hour and then forgot to stretch afterward, boy am I paying for that! The back of my knee is NOT thrilled with me.
I shall persevere, however. I suppose, even if I don't get thinner, at least I will get more fit, right? I will confess, though, that my motivation wasn't to get more fit, it is purely vanity. I want to be skinny again. The getting fit is just a bonus. Probably, I should be thinking the other way round. Oh well.

And Now, For Your Viewing Enjoyment....

Here are a few videos of The Small One.
Of course, these were taken in September. So, it was a little while ago. Oops.

BUSY!

Hello all.
Once again, I have let a rather largish amount of time go by since last blogging. It isn't that I haven't anything to say, it is simply that I haven't the time to say. It has been a busy bit of time these past couple of months.
Why, you ask?
Well, I have had the good fortune to team up with a lovely lady in Park City who sells floor sample wedding gowns. She sells these at a serious discount out of her house, so there is no alterationist on the premises. I met her randomly through a friend and she promptly asked if I would be interested in doing alterations for her customers. I said yes, although I don't really like doing alterations. I figured it would be good money. And it is. Much better than I ever made at the Bridal Shop at which I was employed. So, you see, the increased compensation more than makes up for the fact that I don't enjoy alterations. Also, most of these dresses are not LDS Temple worthy, and the majority of my clients are LDS. So, that means much more extensive alts on a lot of them, which means much more excited brides who see their dress transformed.
Some weeks are very busy, and it is easy to see which those are. My house turns into a disaster, because I don't have time to clean. We eat out a lot because I don't have time to cook. And The Small One? Poor baby, she suffers. She doesn't like it when my attention is focused elsewhere. If I go into my studio and she has had enough of it, she runs ahead of me and blocks the sewing machine and tells me "No more sewing! You cannot sit here! You are all done!" At that point, I usually concede that I have perhaps worked a little too much and play with The Small One instead. Then I work during her nap.

Sabbath

Church today was...inspiring. Sometimes when I go, I think the lessons are nice, but not particularly attention grabbing. Today was attention grabbing. Maybe I was in the right frame of mind, maybe it was something I particularly needed to hear, I don't know.
The lesson in the first meeting (Relief Society for my Mormon readers) was on remembering Christ, how knowing Christ can change your outlook. The teacher quoted my favorite prophet, President Hinckley, a lot during the lesson. The primary thing I took from it, and one of the big reasons he is my fave prophet is because of his constant reminder to us to not despair. Things might be hard, the world might be ugly, war does exist, BUT...things that are hard can teach us. The world IS beautiful and we can work toward peace. And above all, and this is my most favorite scripture-BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. Regardless of the ugly and the evil, the Lord is still in charge. Despite the sorrow that can come from the blessing of agency by making wrong choices or by those who choose evil, good WILL prevail.

Then, in our main meeting, one of the members of our congregation spoke about example and the love of God. She was talking about her son and the joy he gave her and how sometimes that joy is intensified by the knowledge that he is hers. And the realization that that feeling of love and joy is just a tiny part of how the Lord must feel about us.

We also had an amazing musical number with 6 women and 5 men in our ward. I can't describe it, but it made me very happy to be a Mormon.

Happy Christmas Season everyone!