Pottery, Perfect Sunshine, and Personal Issues

I have been putting up a little more pottery on Etsy this week, after spending a little bit of my spending money on pretty blue dyed merino roving. It was dirt cheap, though...and I can't get a deep blue with my own dyes.

A small sample of the stuff I have up now. 

The money I make in my Etsy store is all I can spend on myself. Our budget is so tight that I can't even take the twenty out of every paycheck for "me" money, but since my Etsy money goes into a special PayPal account, we can't really use it for grocery shopping or paying hospital bills. That's the money I use to keep my sanity at least marginally intact, buying aromatherapy candles, audiobooks to knit to, wool and ect online. Just knowing I have my own little money stash helps so much. 

I'm supposed to be saving up for a spinning wheel, and I am. In fact, to encourage people, I am having a Spring Special. If you spend more than $30 in my Etsy store, (link is on my sidebar) I will knit you a free kerchief from my hand-dyed yarn. Here's one I made from my own handspun.  

If you have time, please take a look at the shop. 

Blech

I'm sorry that I haven't posted a lot. I always mean to, but usually the times I think of good posts are the times I am out of reach of my computer. I really, really need an Ipad.

I've been ill for the last few weeks, and it got really bad over the weekend, infected kidneys, most likely. Anyone who asks me how I am is regretting it. : D

Anyway, I have been carding wool into roving and dying it merrily. Yesterday, since it was raining and I wanted to cheer myself up,  I took a break from the wool (and my homework) and dyed up eight skeins if the Fisherman's Wool that can be found in Fred Meyers. Since the yarn store in town is closing, that's the only local source of yarn I'm going to have, so I had better learn to cope. I got some really pretty colors.

As you can see, the dandelions are welcoming the wonderful sunshine that we have been enjoying today. Coraline has been enjoying it too. 

She's curled up on my favorite wool sweater. Luckily it's the same color that she is. 

My peat pots full of sprouts are really going to town. I planted the spring peas and the beans outside, and so far they are doing alright, but I don't trust the squash and ect for another week. The peppers aren't big enough to transplant, and I have had to replant tomato seeds because the cats pulled up all the starts and ate them. I may just buy starts at the Farmer's Market that starts in two weeks. 

My happy little carrots. 

Watermelons. 

Most cheering, though, is this bunch of volunteer tulips that popped up by the corner of the house. Surprise flowers are such a lovely bonus! 

SHEEP SHEEP akjdfsiuhfjcvnsdfk

Hurgh. So much to do. So little desire to do anything.
I'm slowly but surely climbing out of the depression hole that last quarter dug. It's helped a lot that Little Hawk is feeling much better, spring is finally here, I now have a Fairy Godmother, and Coraline is finally cuddly.

Little Hawk's worst Post Concussive Disorder symptoms are finally gone. His nausea, fainting, and memory issues are better, and although the headaches are still around, they are now manageable. His spasms have responded to this sudden surge of wellness, however, and returned with crippling force. Luckily, so far, his medications have kept them managed, and by managed, I mean merely painful, not stroke-inducing.

The sunshine is finally here, and although it is still freezing at night, I have started plants indoors, getting ready for this weekend when my awesome mom will bring me some raised beds she built me and fill dirt for them. Unfortunately, it seems that my cats like veggies.... they ate all of my bean starts right down to the roots, and I have to start all over again now. Still, the spring peas are all ok, and the onions look awesome. I just need to plant some wheatgrass, so that cats will eat their own munchies and leave mine alone. I was ready to murder Coraline, who was the ringleader. She's just too adept in using her powers of cuteness. In fact, the little fuzzball has figured out that if she wants to snuggle in the middle of the night, she'll end up locked out of the bedroom. So instead, she sits next to my pillow, and wits for my alarm clock to ring, then turns into a purring pile of snuggle. I woke up a few minutes early and saw her waiting impatiently.

Classes have started again, and a wonderful lady in my Ceramics class is a fellow knitter and spinner, with a sheep farm of her very own. Upon hearing that I wanted to spin, she kindly helped me pick out my first spindle, then gave me some wool roving to practice with. Today, she surprised me with an ENTIRE FLEECE all of my own. It is HUGE. Following her directions, I spread it out on a blanket on the lawn to clean, and it was as large as a queen sized blanket. Holy Crap! I picked off most of the hay and straw, along with the edges that were too felted and matted to spin. They seemed perfectly good for stuffing, though, so I saved them in a bag for a rainy day. Little Hawk, who was puttering about in the house, had no idea what was going on. I carefully split the fleece in half, then rolled up one half and carried it inside to soak in the washing machine. Little Hawk looked up as I came in.
"Check out my present from my Fairy Godmother! A whole fleece all of my own!" I chirped in delight. He took a deep breath, clearly about to congratulate me on my windfall, and stopped, wheezing as the wave of SHEEP hit him.
I'd forgotten to warn the poor man that Sheep has a very....distinctive...odor. I think it smells great, although not as good as a happy, clean cow. To someone who isn't used to animal odors, though......
The poor man is so sweet. He's not complaining...yet...

Triumphant Return

Sorry, folks, about the unannounced hiatus. I decided to take Spring Break off from everything, so I could focus on resting up and getting my house back in shape. A week spent visiting family on the West side and three days of deep-cleaning later, I feel rested and renewed. Spring is here for reals, and I have bean and sugar peas sprouting. My mom is building me some raised beds to go in the side yard, and some tomato frames for the front- I'm leaving the back for the neighbor's ADORABLE wiener dogs. (and their less adorable poo)
I'm deep in the garden planning stage. Since it still freezes at night, I keep the starts inside at night, and take them outside on sunny days. My dear, sweet mother gave me some pansies and some kind of poppy-like flowers that get the same treatment. The cats are fascinated by the plants and won't leave them alone. Yesterday one of them chowed down on a pansy and then threw it up in the living room. Luckily for whoever it was, pansies are edible-even used as salad greens- they just didn't agree with him.

In other, even less interesting news, something odd is going on with Coraline. Firstly, let it be known that our two boy cats are reputed to be fixed- Robbie came with a note from the shelter declaring the loss of his manhood, while we took Mew in ourselves. Also, NONE of the cats are allowed to go outside. EVER. We live perilously close to the dorm and frat-house district, and the crazy driving we see daily is too much to risk. So you can understand why we have been a little lax about getting Coraline spayed. It's expensive and there's no way she can get knocked up.
She went into heat for the first time in late January, just before Little Hawk fell and hit his head. It was annoying and we had to crate her because she kept scent-marking the furniture. We decided to save our pennies and spay her whenever she came into heat again. She hasn't. She has also gained a lot of weight.
So, my question is, am I just paranoid, or did the vet screw up on the boys?!?

Snuggles

Spring Break is finally here, and none too soon- I'm sick. Just the creeping crud, nothing serious, but I'm grouchy and have no energy. My sweet, sweet husband has been trying to pamper me as best he can, eating yogurt and hot dogs so I don't have to cook, trying to do some laundry for me, and, sweetest of all, every time I try to get up and do something he threatens to sit on me. So, here I am, exiled to recovery and knitting up a pair of socks for myself.

The weather is finally starting to improve, which is nice because the birds are back. They woke me up at six this morning, which would have annoyed me on any other day, but listening to them sing and seeing the first traces of sunlight peek through the curtains was so soothing. Plus, it's hard to wake up in a bad mood when you are snuggled up against your warm husband, with your face buried in the back of his neck, listening to him breathing. As a bonus, the kitten had burrowed under the covers and was curled up in the small of my back, purring.

Life is good. I have to keep remembering that.

Kitteh

Cardigan Crazy

I never used to like cardigans. I didn't like how they were short-waisted so that every time I bent over my lower back got cold. I didn't like how they emphasized my flat chest and were never quite the right color or texture.
Now that I'm a hard core knitter, I LOVE cardigans. I love how even the simplest pattern can be made crazy with a random color change and a few rows of garter stitch. I love finding masses of weird and unique buttons to make the fronts fun. And, of course, I love that I can choose exactly what yarn I want and can buy an extra skein to make them extra long to avoid Cold Butt Syndrome.*
I am in the middle of negotiating FIVE skeins of hand-dyed purple and maroon Peruvian Wool that is destined to become a cardigan for myself. YAAAY!





*Cold Butt Syndrome is what happens when the regrettable course of fashion makes it almost impossible to find  waist high jeans in a low-riding world.