Our Outside Blanket

We've reached the point in the year where the weather is beautiful when it's not raining. It leaves the ground too wet to just play in the grass and Max seems to have a contact allergy to grass like his Mama. So I went in search of an Outside Blanket. Qualifications for this blanket were many and I thought I might have to try my hand at quilting just to get what I want, but I found the perfect blanket and it's been a recycled joy to me the past few days.

The quilt is the perfect size (twin) and the perfect weight (thick enough to keep us from getting soggy). It's beautiful (who doesn't love purple and white together and has a special meaning. The quilt was given to me as a high school graduation present. It was made by Peggy, she was my boss at the coffee shop where I worked, my mentor, my friend, and like a mom to me. It was on my bed throughout most of college and has since been packed away. I found it while organizing the other day and wondered what I would do with it. This is the perfect solution.

Home Remodeling Part 16- Kitchen Pictures

Well I went yesterday to paint the wallpaper and it was not sticking to the wall in spots. So what to do but rip it all down and call it a wash. We don't know what we'll do in there with the "problem wall" and we're kinda just backing off of it for a while to see what comes to mind.... my thought is that we'll use the same texture on the wall that we used in the bathroom. Just throwing it out there, we'll see where it lands.

The old digital camera has been found. Here are the kitchen pictures, see Update #15 for the before pictures....

The three doorways in a row, complete with one partially blocked by a fridge. In order, bathroom, attic/playroom, dining room. Not much flow planning in these older houses...

This picture shows the movement from the kitchen to the dining room, to the living room. I love all the colors together.
This one shows the built in on the left and the back door. Oh yeah, and my pink tile back splash.

This morning I was in the bathroom getting ready for the day when I heard a slight thud. Pretty common around here, really. But I went to peek on Max in the living room and I found this sight.
He had pulled the laundry basket off the couch and on top of himself and was ok until he realized he couldn't get it off of himself. Hilarious baby cage!

Home Remodeling Part 15- General Update

I need to blog now about all that's been done in the past week because hopefully it will be overshadowed this weekend by more amazing transformations.... Transformations I will not be able to capture on film (well memory card) because this afternoon while taking pictures of the house the camera just died.... dead, nothing, zilch. I took a picture, walked across the house, and went to take another picture and it wouldn't turn on. The battery is fully charged and everything. Nothing. Maybe I'll be able to find our old camera somewhere while we figure this one out...

Dining Room
This week Adam laid wood laminate in the dining room with the help of John. It took them quite a bit of time and though it promised to just snap together it didn't really (do things ever work like they say they will?) and took them quite a bit of time. But I'm so glad they were diligent, it's really beautiful and we are waiting on the trim boards to come in.
You can see the floor here, in this picture with Max "painting" he loved to play with the roller, it entertained him for like 20 minutes.

Kitchen
I felt bad for our kitchen. It's the one room we decided to not "completely redo" in the house. We just can't make it fit into the budget right now. But of course it needed painted and all that regardless. I also felt bad for it because it has been the dumping ground for months. It's central to the house, it has the back door access, an entrance to the bathroom, it's off the dining room, and it has lots of counters and a sink. I finally called my mom a couple weeks ago and asked her to come help me with it. I knew there was no way I could do it alone and there'd be no better person to help me out with it, she can get anything clean and she doesn't mind painting.

Before
Remember this lovely wallpaper? I've saved a bit of it for an art project.

I don't have very many pictures of the kitchen, but you can see the green a little by the radiator. The wallpaper is above the counter on the left. And the built in is right next to the door on the left too.

We started early in the morning cleaning out the kitchen, pulling down wallpaper (yes, we still have wallpaper in our house), priming the trim, etc. By10:30 that night we had the kitchen painted. All the walls, trim, etc. You see, in our kitchen, there are three doors and doorways, another doorway, and a built in cabinet. That's a lot of trim. Previously the kitchen had been painted green, walls and trim, so it all blended together. When we started, it didn't seem like a lot of trim, but man it took forever. Tuesday among other things (below) we touched up, replaced the trim around the ceiling, and cleaned. Three Magic Erasers later, I still have more work to do, but we put contact paper in the cabinets, scrubbed and sealed the vinyl, and it actually smells clean and I'm not afraid to put food in there now.

I wish there were after pictures to show, but when I walked into the kitchen is when the camera kaputed.

Max's Room
We'd done the majority of the painting last time Adam's parents were in town, but we still had a subfloor and that was it. I wanted to do FLOR tiles, but it was going to cost $600 to do it (ugh!) and I didn't really want carpet anyway. I was then hoping laying the laminate would be really easy, but since it wasn't I was out of luck with that too. So, I was back to linoleum. Adam thought black and white checkered would kinda go with the retro feel of the house and especially Max's bedding. Since it cost a total of $70 I couldn't not try it and I love it! It makes the room feel so much larger than it is. But of course it was time consuming. We worked on it while we were waiting for other stuff to dry and things like that on Tuesday and Mom is a whiz with the knife, so she was in charge of the trim pieces. Now there's a couple safe places for Max to play on and I feel so much better!

Max's Retro Room. The floor and can you see up along the top where the accent color is bordering the ceiling? I really like this.

Living Room
We also hung wallpaper in the living room on the last wall. It will be painted the same color as the rest of the walls and hopefully will just be a point of interest and something a little different. We learned a lesson today, read all directions, even if you think you know what you are doing. Mom and I hung the first piece and realized it wasn't sticking to the wall very well and we were both frustrated, so I dug the directions out of the trash and soon after that we were on our way. I am waiting for it to dry over night tonight before I finish triming around the archway and paint it.

The texture on the wallpaper. Also, last picture taken with my beloved camera.

So all that's left on the first floor is our bedroom, the staircase, and the carpeting. Ahhhh, that's a good feeling. I need a big nap and some advil, but like the results I'm seeing. Hopefully Friday I'll get around to a crafty and food type update and have an almost finished spring sweater for Max to show off along with an AWESOME soup recipe that I'm in love with. Oh, and if you haven't noticed I've put Musical Monday and Thankful Thursday on hold until after this wave of company is through. I promise I haven't just forgotten about them I'm just too busy to even really check email right now!

Update

We're getting better around here. If only the Max not sleeping well thing would fix itself we'd be back to normal. I don't do well without my sleep. His appetite seems to be returning today, and that was my big worry he's lost a pound over the last week or so. But we did get out to go to Walmart and the yarn shop today. I'm more than half done with a spring sweater for Max and because he's so long in the torso I need to alter the pattern to make it fit well on him, and that meant more yarn. I'm using a cotton/nylon mix and I think it will be perfect for this sweater and still be durable and washable for this little guy.

I'm working on a TO DO list for the new house as we'll have lots of visitors over the next two weeks to knock out projects. Gosh that list is long. I'm going to print it and post it at the house, so I don't have to remember every little thing that needs done because I never know how long I'm there with the little guy. I'll probably have to walk through the house though to make sure everything's on the list that needs to be, and then I'm guaranteed to miss something too.

Adam and our good friend John started laying the wood laminate flooring in the dining room on Monday! I can't wait for that, once that is up the wainscoting can go up and then the light fixture needs changed and that room is DONE! I can make that little check sound as I mark off another room. Yeah!

In the next week (or so) I'll be goin through the box room and all the boxes and boxes of stuff that we've had packed for 9 months and some more that we've had packed for years to figure out what to do with it. I think I might be surprised at what I find in there... Oh wait, I know what it mostly is... my guess is 2 out of 3 boxes are books.

I'm almost finished reading the Twilight series, I have about a quarter of the fourth book left. Twenty minutes of me reading turns into two hours every time...

Sorry no pictures this time around, but my camera is almost full so I need to go through that. Next time, I promise.

6 - Musical Monday

So this month we've been to the doctor three times. One ear infection, one round of shots, and now, one mysterious flu like intestinal virus thingy, which I think means, they aren't sure whats wrong with Max.

After almost a week of being stuck in the house, I needed something upbeat for my Musical Monday and was thinking about recent events in our house. Currently Jack Johnson's Curious George soundtrack is in our changer, and just in the past week or two we finally saw the Curious George movie. Again like so many others, we like this cd because it's specifically kid friendly and we've loved Jack Johnson's mellow tunes for years

So here's your Musical Monday- Talk of the Town by Jack Johnson.


It makes me feel like I am on the beach with my toes in the sand, instead of doing loads of yucky laundry. I think I need more than just Jack Johnson to get through this week. :)

Randoms

Adam is working at the house this morning and I'll be working there this afternoon. Max is feeling better but not 100% so we are splitting baby duties for the day. I'm kind of excited to get out of the house (even though just to the other house). Adam is removing the elusive wallpaper on the ceiling of the staircase and a side wall up the staircase and I will be painting the last of Max's room (except some decorative painting I have yet to decide on) and hopefully putting it back together (doors back on the cabinets and things)

House design
I'm loving this quiz found from howaboutorange. The quiz shows your design style based on how you rate rooms. I'm 37% Modern Elegance, 37% Nantucket Style and 26% Arts and Crafts. Hmmm interesting combination, but you know what? It's totally right.


Cooking
Further adventures in cooking and using our ever present bread machine, lead me to making homemade pizza dough last night. I figured I couldn't go wrong. I Googled "pizza dough bread machine" and after some filtering came across this recipe and thought, "Best ever pizza crust! Perfect!" And let's be honest, in my book, anything with garlic in it is a go.

I was sneaky and substituted half natural whole wheat flour with the white all purpose. I knew it would change the texture, but figured I'd go ahead.

It was the most delicious homemade pizza we've ever made.

Adam mentioned trying making one of the pizzas in a skillet instead of just on a cookie sheet, I indulged him and it was good too!

I had mushroom, spinach, and salami on mine and Adam went for just plain ol' pepperoni and cheese.


Max liked the pizza too.


Max
Max finally woke up this morning without a fever! He had only a slight one later this morning. And he slept consistently from 12 midnight to 6:45 this morning, without once waking up! I told Adam last night that I think Max waking up when he is sick is especially difficult because I'm not used to it, if he was more constant about waking up, I don't know that it would be as hard. Hopefully we're over the worst of it, and hopefully if it was a virus, Adam and I don't catch it.

This morning we woke up to a few inches of snow and Max wanted to just stand on the couch and watch it all blow around in the wind. He did that for almost a half hour.

Food Round Up and "a Boy and His Dinosaur"

Food
I've been meal planning for a month at a time. It doesn't seem to be helping in the $ category but it's been keeping me a little more sane, and we have had something to eat for dinner every night, without frantic trips to the market. It's been nice.

A few weeks ago our Sunday school class had a Souper Bowl and had a great time trying different soups and having some wonderful bread. I won the best overall soup with a slightly altered version of Amber's recipe for Green Chili Chicken soup. It's one of our favorites around here.

Green Chili Chicken Soup
2 cooked chicken breasts shredded or chopped (I used leftover crockpot chicken and loved it)
1 can diced green chilies (I use more sometimes)
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom (or celery)
1-2 cups milk
Mix all together and bring to simmer, allow to simmer stirring frequently for 15-45 minutes
16oz block of Velveeta
Cut up and melt in soup before serving over Fritos

It's a taste that reminds me of Texas :)

Along with the meal planning I realized how lame our eating schedule is. I mean how many nights in a month can you have frozen pizza anyway? Tonight I tried a recipe from an old church recipe book called Brush Pile Pork Chops. It was a feeble try because Adam has an aversion to pork chops. It didn't win him over but at least he ate most of it anyway. The rice was really good.

Brush Pile Pork Chops

4 pork chops
1 cup quick cook rice
1 packet onion soup mix
Brown chops in a bit of oil and remove from pan. Stir rice in with drippings and mix in soup mix. replace chops on top of rice and add enough water to just cover chops. Simmer until tender and water is mostly evaporated (about 15 minutes or so maybe a little longer).

For youth group yesterday I was in charge of the "snack." We usually have a meal type thing (pizza, chili, sloppy joe, etc.) but I decided we would have what every kid dreams of for a meal. Brownies, chips, and soda. The regular brownies were a hit and the S'mores Brownies had a mixed review. They were one the side of the box. It was worth a try, but I threw away almost half a pan of them today. Luckily there's not marshmellow on my couch.



Lastly I made these for a Valentine's Day treat. I actually made two batches and both times proceeded to eat them until they were gone. They are dangerous delicious things.

Pretzel Turtles

mini pretzels
rolos
pecan halves
place the pretzels on a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper on it. place the rolos on top and put in oven for 4 minutes at 250 degrees. Press pecan down on top to squish it all together a little. Put in fridge or freezer to solidify chocolate again. Try not to eat them all in one sitting.... That's why there's only one left on the plate.

Max
Today Max had his 9 month check up. He weighed in at 22 lbs 13 oz (82%) and 28.5 inches (59%). The doctor was impressed with his motor skills, he's standing for 5 seconds at a time on his own and cruising along all the furniture, and loved how social he was.

He was so excited to see the nurse that came in to give his shots, but when she turned on him, he gave her the most betrayed look, that we both laughed really hard. He doesn't get mad about the shots themselves, he gets really mad that you are pinning him down. Poor kiddo he's had a low fever all the rest of the day and has been really sleepy, but luckily cuddly, so sweet.

This afternoon he was in love with his pet dinosaur, he was even wearing his dino shirt today.

Today is Max's 9 month birthday. I can hardly believe how fast and slow this time has gone. Now it seems like every weeks seems like a day, it's flying by so quickly.

I expect Max to be walking soon, he already pulls himself up and lets go. He thinks he's bigger than he is, he's growing much too fast for my tastes. But such a wonderful happy kid he is. Always smiling and exploring and making so much noise. What a rough and tumble boy he is.
Here's a little month by month break down (with a couple extras) of some of my favorite pictures of him. Enjoy!

Home Remodeling Part 14- Max's Room

Adam and his dad did make it through to Max's room also- it's looking good but needs some more paint.

Max's room, we should technically call it the nursery because someday it will house more Kipps, will be what used to be an office. We chose this room because it is on the first floor (as is the master bedroom). It is off the dining room across the house from the master bedroom though. It's in an interesting spot, but will be very functional for a nursery and will make the absolute best craft room when it's done with the nursery phase. It has two closets, a built in desk and cabinets above it for storage. It's awesome.

We decided we loved the living room color so much that we would paint the nursery that color too, but at 50% the hue. It looks almost the same, but a tad lighter and we really like it.

We also decided that we would leave the doors off one of the closets and that the changing table/dresser would be perfect in this spot (thanks for the inspiration Amber, as I was thinking of your cute closet for Ben the whole time). So it's being painted in the trim color to make it brighter in the small space.

We've already got most the stuff for Max's room waiting in boxes to be unpacked. It is of course rockets/robots/retro space as it always was, but I love the blue we decided on because it can also be feminine if you just add pink or purple to it and it coordinates with the bedding we already have for a boy.

The guys ripped up so much carpeting we can't fit all of it into the dumpster, but in Max's room there was half linoleum and half carpeting that they pulled up. We'll be using FLOR tiles in that room since it will be occupied by little ones and crafts. They are awesome modular tiles that can be replaced easily, perfect for the use of that space.

Here are some pictures of that space-

Before
Paneling of course!


Dark picture of the two closets (we're leaving the doors off the left one which can been seen from the doorway)


Wonderful storage and desk


During
Painting - you can see the color and the cabinets where the doors need to go back up


Adam putting a coat in the closet (pun intended)


The strong boys pulling up carpet (it had been glued down)

Wow is it Wednesday?

I'm still here folks, but this week has been a little crazy!

We took Max to the doctor on Monday. He has another ear infection :( poor little one. He has in the past taken these completely in stride, but this time he has been a bit of a bear when I want him to sleep. He's been up multiple times for the past few nights and I'm exhausted! This morning I even fell asleep on the couch while I definitely should have been paying attention to him. Luckily this afternoon he's been asleep for over two hours for his nap. It's been nice. And quiet. And productive for me. By productive, I mean I've kinda done some laundry, some pilates, kinda made half a list, and sort of read some blogs. I'm apparently too tired to finish any task that I begin.

I haven't completed any crafty things but I have a few that are almost done or part done or kinda done. Apparently I have finishing issues lately. Here are those projects in all their unfinished (but hopefully finished soon) glory.

Here is one completed fingerless mitt. These are super easy. I've altered the pattern from crochet me's basic fingerless mittens. The most difficult part was getting started, I think that's why I'm stalling starting the second one...


Next we have some bibs I've stitched up for Max. Considering he's gotten 5 teeth in one month we've been a bit overwhelmed with all the drool. They are from Amy Karol's Bend the Rules Sewing. I just love that book and for everything I've made from there, I have never been disappointed.


Lastly here's a sneak peak at the newest baby afghan I've got going. It's green (the color is off in the picture, I can't wait for some good natural light) and I decided to just go with a basic ripple pattern, classic, but interesting.


I've still been doing 30 Day Shred, yesterday, I was amazed at my endurance and strength! I did completely take Monday off and today I did pilates again because my knee hurt a little (I think it bruised it yesterday in a "running around the house playing with Max" incident). But I have noticed that I feel much more energized after I do exercise instead of exhausted and am able to focus much more for the tasks I do afterward. It's helped me deal with the no sleeping at night thing.

The no sleep thing has also not been helped by the fact that I've been reading the Twilight Saga. I finished New Moon last night and Adam has banned me from starting Eclipse tonight because I need to sleep and have lots to do tomorrow. I don't know that I'd say they are the best written books I've ever read but they sure do make for a great and addictive story.

Super Day!

Max and I stayed home from church today, he's been teething again and it's resulted in a super runny nose. As much as I wanted to drop him off for two hours in the nursery to get away from his whining, I thought I'd do the responsible thing and stay home with him. We still went to lunch with a couple families from church and it was great. There's normally three families that eat together and today we had five. It was great fellowship for me since I'd missed out on the fellowship I depend on during the morning.

So during church I Shredded while Max napped. It was nice to do today. I'm actually enjoying it. Really enjoying it. Still can't do all of it, but enjoying it.

We had a Super Bowl party tonight for the youth group. One of the kids asked if I Shredded. I said yeah and that I was totally addicted to it. And then I figured out that he meant something to do with the guitar. Ummm yeah, I'm that sad. I'm also old, Bruce Springsteen was cool in my lifetime, that makes me old. Apparently Glory Days is an oldie song.

This morning I endured a good 15 minutes of this

Pulls ups and swimming

Max has been an exciting little thing in the past week or so. He started pulling up on Monday and has decided all the bumps and bruises are worth it.

On the kiddie gate


On his toy box


On his exersaucer


On the laundry baskets


On his Lego bucket


On the couch


And instead of sleeping


Daddy and Max also spent yesterday afternoon swimming in the pool. The indoor pool at 5 Points has a zero entry and Max loved crawling around in the water and couldn't understand the cause and effect relationship between splashing and getting water in his face.






Oh what's that? Pulling up in the pool too?

He's such a fun, happy little kid. I just love him to pieces!

Snow Fun!

We've had Ryan, Laura, and Ella visiting on their cross country route from Florida to Spokane, WA. We haven't been snowed in, but it's been a lot of fun playing and watching all the snow fall. Laura and Ella are visiting for a few more days while Ryan completes their journey so maybe by then Ella will warm up to scary Uncle Adam.

We went to Old Chicago for dinner tonight (YUMMO!) and we've been watching the recap of Lost tonight in anticipation for next week's episode.

Pictures
Ella really liked playing in the snow until Uncle Adam got too close, maybe tomorrow we'll go out and play some more if the windchill is above 0.


Future CinderELLA in the making, she decided to clean my floor with the dish towel.


Ella likes to wear hats- in the pictures above she's wearing a hat I had made myself, in the picture below she's wearing Max's hat. I'm making her a hat tonight for her to take with her to WA where she'll need it.


Max liked watching Ella in the snow from the safety of the garage. It sure is windy here.


Max has been learning to clap recently. Here's a demonstration of a half hearted attempt. He will hold one hand still and clap on it with the other hand. Too cute!


I've been trying for such a long time to get Max laughing on video, but he normally only laughs when I'm tickling him and therefor I cannot hold the camera too. But today he thought Daddy was HILARIOUS.

I haven't been wanting to post because I like pulling up my blog and seeing the word "PEACE" stand right there at the top. But write, I must, because there's been some things going on and I want to share them with you.

Max
I found a t-shirt I would have dressed him in everyday this week....

This adorable shirt is from -here- I would probably buy one of everything from this etsy shop if I could.

He's such a happy little guy all the time that when he's not (like now that he's been teething this week) it just makes us all miserable. We've been a whiny snappy bunch. It's not been pretty.
But his two front teeth have broken the skin so that's a plus, I wondered if he would ever get teeth.

I've been after him with the camera all week trying to get a picture of them, but he's a quick one. Or he tries to eat the camera, or yesterday he was smart enough to just blow on it to fog up the lens. That one was great. But I captured a picture of those elusive teeth...


Since it's been a bit whiny around here we've been walking around like this


It's hard to be a baby though, dontcha know?


Organizing
I'm a paper hogger. So is Adam. This leads to disasters in our house. Piles of paper everywhere. Forgotten correspondence, bills almost late, things I mean to send to people and don't, outdated receipts and forms. My recent (and most challenging) project has been trying to get rid of the paper clutter- I've broken it down into simple tasks and it's already been helping.

Mail- When it comes in the house, it gets separated (this is hard because now we get mail at TWO houses) into categories - important needs dealt with today, needs filed, needs dealt with but not immediately, fun stuff (includes magazines, catalogs, letters, cards) and junk (which goes immediately into the trash). Then I deal with it accordingly.

Magazines and catalogs- This is one of the specifics out of the Mail category, but is a huge issue for me. I get at least one catalog a day (check out the new PBK if you haven't, it's fabulous) and subscribe to a couple magazines (probably half a dozen) and so that alone causes a build up of piles. I love looking through magazines for ideas for decorating (especially now that I have decisions to make!) and crafts and recipes and inspiration and so I hate throwing any of them right into the trash. Now each afternoon during nap time I flip through as many as I can while Max is asleep - rip out pages if anything is necessary to keep and then throw it out. So far this week I've thrown out each day's hoard, plus additional ones so I'm whittling down what I have.

Binders- What do I do with the ripped out pages? I have a series of binders. (I used to kinda do this but it's so great I'm expanding my collection this year) My most used binder is my recipe one. I used it almost everyday. I have plastic page protectors in there that I slip recipes into and I have it separated by category: Appetizers, Side Dishes, Main Dishes, Breakfast, Desserts, etc. It's perfect to use because I can just wipe down the pages if they get something on them (which they often do) and I can just throw away stuff I don't end up using and replace it with a new one.
I also have a binder for Home Ideas (would be super helpful right now if I could find where I packed it), Crochet Patterns, and General Crafts. This year the new binder I'm adding is a Home Notebook. I read about it on the Gidget Goes Home blog where she talks about her binders and have been putting one together this week. I've been taking the other binders and organizing them, paring down what I don't and won't use.

Craft supplies- I have a lot of paper craft supplies. Wallpaper samples, scrapbooking paper, scraps of cardstock, card making supplies, etc. Hanging around. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll be going on a card making binge that will free up some of this stuff. I'm also planning on finishing the Disney scrapbook from our trip in 2007 (yes, that's two Disney visits ago) because I've been wanting to start Max's scrapbook but will not allow myself to have two going on at the same time. I'm hoping that will allow some of that stash to disappear.

This has nothing to do with paper, but it falls under the organizing category

Max's stuff- Babies have a lot of stuff. I got out Max's next set of clothes (he's in 12month stuff) and in the process opened a whole Pandora's box in his closet. So out it all came and back in it all went in a much better appearance. It was also time to pack up some of the toys and things he's too big to use now, so that was one box, and I've been putting up some of his Christmas toys to get down in March when we are bored of what he has now to play with.

Cooking
We've been adventurous cooks around here lately. Well not too crazy, but you know outside out box. Adam got a bread machine for Christmas so we've been playing around with that, we haven't gotten our favorite yet, but it's been fun to try new things.

I decided the other day to make a whole chicken in the crock pot. I've made turkeys loads of times in the oven, but for some reason a chicken has always been intimidating. Except for the grossness that comes with getting the skin off, it was great. And there was a lot of meat (we're still eating it in different things three meals later) and so I feel like it was totally worth it.

Along with the chicken I made fresh green beans. While I was snapping off the ends (yeah, in my living room, Max had a rough day and would scream when I left the room) Max thought it was awesome to sample them. He also liked them once I cooked them. Adam however did not.



Crafting
It's been slow this past week in the crafting department. I wish I was motivated to do something long term (and well enough to actually sell) but I just get into slumps where I could care less about things. But then I realized, Valentine's Day is just around the corner. I found some awesome tutorials and ideas for decorations (I don't have any) so I'll be working on those. This constituted a trip to Joann Fabrics today to take advantage of their yarn sale. Horray for new yarn!

I'm still working on a few lingering projects from the pre-holidays (luckily nothing that was supposed to be in the mail for them) and so I'll just keep plugging away at those.

I've also been having a bit of numbness and pain in my hands and fingers which is becoming bothersome. I'm assuming it's a bit of carpal tunnel since all I've been doing is painting and crocheting and typing for hours and hours a day. So that's been slowing me down a bit too.