Broken Pegasus

Hey everyone. My year is not starting off too well. We're still dealing with legal issues over the incident involving one of my daughters from last April. It looks like it could be months before that is resolved and it is just horribly difficult for all of us. She is being remarkably strong, but even so, sometimes it feels like she's barely hanging on.

We've also been having some issues with our youngest daughter. She's in therapy now and we're going to have her evaluated by a psychiatrist to see if we can figure out exactly what's going on with her, because she isn't talking still. Four months of therapy and we finally had a mini-break through, but not fast enough to keep the school board from coming down on us. We have to go to court for her on 30 Jan.

With everything going on, it's been really hard for me to create. I'm doing okay with anything where I don't have to use my brain a lot, but if I have to make decisions, I'm totally up a creek.

So just to put the cherry on top, I was sitting on the sofa, talking to my older two girls, when I happened to glance in the direction of my Pegasus spinning wheel. I noticed there was a piece of wood on the floor. Let me say that again. There was a piece of MY PEGASUS!! on THE FLOOR!!! I don't know how it happened and nobody is fessing up.
This is what the end of it looks like now. You can see the rest of the piece on the inside there. I've since pulled it out and packaged it up to send to Myles Jakubowski, who now makes Wyatt Wheels. Bill Wyatt trusted Myles. Bill once told me that Myles made a better, more precise wheel than he, himself did. I'd say that's pretty high praise. So I'm trusting Myles to fix my Pegasus that Bill built for me.

It's been nearly three years since Bill Wyatt passed away. He's gone, but his wheels live on. This does help bring me peace.

Thank you, Myles, for keeping Bill's dream alive, and for helping to restore my faith in the world. I'll post another photo once my baby is back up and running.

Be well, everyone.

Little Candle

I made a quick candle this evening. The coloured area was done with Creative Inspirations Paints. The tutorial for the technique is here on Splitcoaststampers.Because the stamp was so wide, it took me two shots to show the entire thing. I set it in a nest of crinkle ribbon that I dyed. The stamp is from Unity.

Blocking AJ's Scarf

I couldn't come up with anything to blog about today. Between chauffeuring the kids all over creation and all the doctor's appointments we have had lately, I haven't had a chance to do any papercrafting. I was talking to my friend, Shelly, about it and she suggested I talk about my favourite drop spindle. That just made me laugh. If you could only see the drop spindle..um..collection...you'd see why. Someday I will blog about them, but that will take multiple pictures and some excavation, since I still haven't located them all.

So I got to thinking. I have everything done on AJ's scarf (the neckwarmer pattern from several blog posts ago) except blocking it and weaving in the ends. Why not block it and show the blocking process. I'm sure there are people who have no idea what I mean by that.

So, here it is. What I've done is take some blocking wires and thread them through the edge stitches most of the way down. The wires are then held in place by straight pins. Normally I'd use T-pins, but heck if I know where those are. They're probably in a box I haven't gotten to yet.
This second photo is of the whole scarf laid out and pinned. It really shows off the lace pattern this way.
AJ, if you happen to read this post, I need to make sure I have your correct address so I can get this in the mail to you before the weather gets too cold.

Thanks for still reading and commenting even though I haven't been the best blogger.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving was a pretty big deal for us this year. Very often we don't really do anything at all. I have super picky kids, we've never really had room to cook or to eat together - at least not in recent memory - and it just always ends up with me getting angry and my feelings hurt because I'll have spent so much time and energy only to have half of them turn their noses up.

This year, however, Hannah's boyfriend was coming over. Originally he was to be here all day. He's allergic to cats, and we have three of them, so that meant some fairly deep cleaning. Hannah took charge. We all pitched in and the front rooms have never looked better.

Now, keep in mind that the front two rooms have never been fully unpacked. I've been working on them a little at a time since we moved in. I'm putting up a couple "before" pics just so you can get the full impact of what was done.

The first photo was taken in June, right after I put the shelves up and started going through boxes so I could put the books onto the shelves.
This next picture was taken on the 4th of July, about 10 days after the first photo. I can only work about a day or two without taking a lot of time to rest, thanks to fibromyalgia. It really takes a toll if I overdo it. But, I'd made some serious headway. After that, I didn't take any pictures, since it really didn't look much different when I would finish a box or two, plus I started swapping out boxes from other rooms.Enter my MIL coming...we started doing more. Then Dylan, Hannah's boyfriend. Boxes from the flargle (Taylor started calling the room off the kitchen "the flargle" after nobody could figure out what to call it and it stuck) were moved into the front room to make room for our extra table. We brought down the tv from my bedroom and brought the Wii upstairs so the kids and Dylan could play while he was there. It turns out that it's a great place for the Wii, so it may end up living there.

And the front room?? It now looks like this.

I am so thrilled! Yes, it still needs a lot of work, but we actually have room to put up the Christmas tree.

So Dylan could only stay about 2 hours. Hannah went with him and stayed to help to decorate his house. She came back pretty late in the afternoon and we (mostly me, Cody and Meagan) finished fixing dinner. We were able to sit down to a real Thanksgiving Dinner together. Honestly, it was the best meal. No, not everybody ate, or even tried, everything, but we were talking and laughing and having a really good time as a family, and that is truly the most important thing of all.

Cody made the fruit salad, the noodle casserole, and the deviled eggs.

Headache

Having one of those painful days. Back tomorrow.

Recipe - Quinoa Corn Salad

This is a recipe we made in my Food Science and Nutrition class. Another team did the actual prep on this one, but I managed to get a picture of it around the time it was half gone. It was so good that people were fighting to take home the leftovers. I got away with a very tiny bit in a ziplock baggie. It's really low-fat, but seriously high on flavour.

Quinoa Corn Salad

1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt & pepper, to tast

2 3/4 cups water
1 1/2 cups quinoa
2 ears corn, roasted, kernels cut from cob
1 red bell pepper, diced
3 scallions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped
1 avocado, ripe, firm, diced
1/4 cup toasted sunflower seeds

Whisk together lime juice, cumin, chili powder, garlic, oil, and salt
& pepper to make dressing.
Boil water, add quinoa, return to boil. Cover & simmer until all
liquid is absorbed - about 15 minutes. Turn off heat, fluff with fork.
Add corn kernels, red pepper, scallions & cilantro. Add dressing & any
additional salt and pepper, as needed.
Stir in avocado, sprinkle with sunflower seeds.

Serves 4 (or several culinary students for tasting)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you and yours a most Happy Thanksgiving.