I'VE BEEN CAUGHT!

I have been caught. I'm sitting in the back of my Aviator (aaaalllll the way in the back) with the windows down and enjoying the fact that I've caught a hotspot in the air for my laptop. Ah, some peace and quiet and time on the computer. It's been awhile since I've been on a real keyboard and not my phone's qwerty slideout with those teeny tiny buttons. I'm thankful for that phone keyboard, don't get me wrong! But there is so much more freedom and quickness in typing on a REAL keyboard!

So I'm sitting here in the back of my car, and my neighbor comes out to her car, but she's able to see straight into the passenger window to me sitting here in the back. And she laughs! "What are you doing?!" she asks between laughs. "Are you hiding out?" A tad embarrassed, but knowing she really knows why I'm back here, I tell her "Yeah! I found a hotspot for my computer!" She stands by the open window telling me that she saw a program on TV where a mother would go out into her van just for a "time-out" from the children. I'm sure I was blushing profusely as I could feel the warmth in my cheeks. "Yeah, I'm getting some time alone." She was still laughing as she walked away to her car.

Now she has come back and peeks in to see I'm still here and asks "You mean they let you stay in there that long? Or have they just not found you yet?!" "I don't think they've found me yet!" I replied. Rather, I hear them playing and shouting in the back yard. I don't even know if they've noticed I'm gone, and by now it's been an hour that I've been soaking up this precious ALONE time! So I'll just keep typing away until I'm discovered...

Today I sent an amigurumi to a swap partner. My children were sad to see it go. I crocheted all the parts (head, body, arms, legs, tail, ears) but in pieces they didn't look like much. But in a night I assembled all the pieces together and here he is.







I call him Tod. You know, from the movie "The Fox and the Hound". But of course his new owner can name him what she'd like. It might even be a "her" to her! For this swap I also had to include a "Profile Card", which I've never heard of doing or have done, but I think I did ok by naming a few of his favorite things and even a Pet Peeve (Hunters!)

I hope Sarah, his new owner, loves him. She likes foxes according to her profile. Or is that "fox"?

SWAP-BOT'S "TAKE ME FOR WHO I AM" SWAP

My partner in the "Take Me For Who I Am" swap over at Swap-bot will be glad to finally get a card from me. I don't know what it was about this swap. I was so excited at the idea of it when I first noticed it, but then when it came to sitting down and DOING the card, something within me just froze! I couldn't start! I'd never had this happen and I didn't understand it or know what it was. It's passed now. I did get the card done, but am certainly LATE! I hope that she likes it. I also hope she doesn't see it on my blog before she sees it in her mailbox! ha ha!

I actually had fun making this card once I started. I love beads and buttons and scrapbooking and stickers, so this was all me. I love hearts, so I sewed heart beads in the corners of the card. I love butterflies, dragonflies, ladybugs, flowers, the color purple, the color pink, balloons and kites and LOVE. The Holly Hobby stickers remind me of the Holly Hobby doll I had as a little girl. The ladybugs represent me and my 3 children (who also love ladybugs). And the airplane skywriting my name represents the many plane rides I seemed to take as a youngster traveling back and forth between my divorced parents. I think there were only 3 plane rides...scarey! Plus the little airplane button just makes me think of my son TJ! And the royal blue glitter...one of my most favorite colors!

Then on the reverse, I used vellum to make a tag with the swap's name on it, vellum to journal about the front of the card and what everything meant, and then cut out and pasted a picture of my 3 children underneath it all. I actually like this card and wish I could keep it! I thought about my mom...I bet she'd love to get something like this in the mail.

So what do you think?

TWO WONDERFUL PICK-ME-UPS TODAY!

Today's mail brought two swaps which really brightened my day. The ladies were really generous in their swap packages.

This first swap was for the "Little handmade bag o'stuff". Basically use any craft you want to make a "little bag, pouch, tote, purse, or whatever you want to call it, and then put something in it just for fun". My partner, Renee, made a very adorable bag from a pattern she found at craftsters.com. I loved it! The colors are so warm and cozy. I will enjoy using this bag. The "clasp" is a brooch! Isn't it pretty?





Then, if you can believe it, ALL THIS was INSIDE the bag! Wow!





There was a ball of fuschia colored yarn - no label, but it feels like it might be a wool? I bet it'll felt!; chocolate covered blueberries - yummy! and almost gone!; an oval bar of lavender soap which has "inner self" inscribed on the surface of the soap - love lavender and soap!; a spool of "close to my heart" brand ribbon for the holiday crafting; a little "Heart in Hand needleart" pouch bearing a small pillow craft with a cross-stitch pattern and enough thread to complete it; a package of DMC Stitch Bow Floss Holders; scrapbooking supplies - stickers, die cuts, journaling boxes and photo mats; and then a journal on which she spelled out my name with letter stickers! How cool! At first, I thought she had found a journal with my actual name on it and I wondered WHERE! I can NEVER find any personalized gift with my name on it. If I do, it's always spelled with a "C" instead of a "K". But no, she just made it look like my name had been there all the time. Great job! I'm going to love using this.

Thank you, Ranee! I loved everything! Even the cute American Greetings card/note you printed out! Beautiful, bright and happy colors! And Happy Belated Birthday to you, too - a 40th birthday the day after my birthday! Wow! Oh, wait, sorry...you didn't WANT me to advertise your AGE on my blog? Oops!


From the "Swap Detective" swap, Michelle did an excellent job learning about me and sending perfectly "me" items!






Look at all the yummy yarn in the perfect colors, muted jewel tones, rosey and purples, and pink! The Fun Fur is the perfect shade of pink so that I can make a scarf for my Red Hat Society gatherings since I have to wear pink and lavender (a "lady-in-waiting", you know). All three balls of yarn are perfectly "me"! Then she sent a cute Ladybug plush - my son TJ kept this for a long time today after I opened the package. I was worried I would forget about retrieving it for "picture and blogging time". I remembered it, though! She also sent some great knitting notecards (I can never have enough of these cards - I'm always running out!); some adorable Clover Needle Holders in the shape of little sweaters (I bought a set of these for myself a couple of years ago and loved them. Wasn't able to get more, so I am SO HAPPY to have been given these!); some beautiful green butterfly stitch markers in a little drawstring pouch (love stitch markers and I adore butterflies!); and a baggy of extra butterfly and misc. beads! Wow! Oh, I did forget the three packages of chocolate eggs she sent! I had them in my fridge stiffening back up...they had gotten cracked and melted a bit in their bags (it's actually gotten hot here with temps in the high 80's this week! Yay!) I told my 5 year old daughter to just go stick them in the fridge and the chocolate would not be so messy for her...she's my little "Miss Priss".

Thank you so much, Michelle! You did a beautiful job of sleuthing! You had me pegged! Even down to putting REAL stamps on the packaging and not that boring metered sticker the post offices like to use. 'Cause I love stamps!

SWAP-BOT SWAPS

The power just went off here and deleted everything I had typed in my newest post...you see why I haven't been posting much lately...there's always something to deter me! But I am back to try again 'cause I know you all have missed lil ole me.

As I was saying before my post was zapped, I received a package for the "Dollar Store Swap" over at Swap-bot today, and I was really pleased by it. Marcia in Pennsylvania seemed to really know me as everything she picked out was something I would have picked out, and in two instances, actually were!





Marcia wrapped everything and made it so fun. Even my 5 year old daughter had to join in on the unwrapping. The first thing I unwrapped made me laugh out loud. I couldn't believe what Marcia had sent to me. It was a pretty fuschia drawstring bag which held a stationery set (paper, journal, pen and magnet). I laughed because this was the EXACT colored bag I had seen in our dollar store and which I would have picked out if I had bought one for myself. As it turned out at that time, my daughter wanted her own, a purple one, and I bought a gold bagged set for a friend's package. So I decided to come back at another time and try to get one for myself in the fuschia color. However, now I don't have to! I still can't believe Marcia picked this out...

She also picked out a cute little scrapbooking kit booklet which is the exact one I have bought for myself before. But no worries about having another one! I LOVE these mini-scrapbooks and always try to get one when I see them. But again, Marcia picked out the same one I have picked out.

The other things were new to me, but SO ME! She sent butterfly stickers, ladybug stickers, two pens - a purple one which I let my littlest girl have since she loves purple, and a too cute, frazzle-haired girly pen which I am keeping for myself as I love it! - and two packages of 12x12 scrapbooking paper with inspirational and biblical quotes on them. I had not seen these before but I love them and would have picked them out myself if my store carried them.

Thank you again, Marcia, for a great package. You really impressed me with how well you chose Dollar Store items according to my likes.

This swap was also a nice pick-me-up today. I was given my first 3 rating over at Swap-bot but with no explanation as to why. (Ratings are 1 for Not Sent, which probably should be changed to Not Received, 3 for Received but not within the requirements of the swap, and 5 for Received and within the requirements of the swap. There's also a "Heart" you can give if you rate your partner a 5 when you feel they've gone above and beyond the requirements of the swap.) The girl I was to send to has never responded to any of my posts or emails and I'm left confused as to why I received a 3 for the "Mini Wishlist" swap. I sent her things from her list, which I found short and vague, so it wasn't easy for me to figure out what she wanted. I sent her more than what was required AND spent $10 to ship it across the country to Oregon. However, I've had bad vibes about the girl from the beginning so maybe I detected something without quite knowing what it was. Even before I sent it, I wondered if I should send her something so nice as I was doing, and even had the thought she might give me a poor rating. Guess those sensory perceptions were correct. It's not that big of a deal, but I hate that I spent so much time and money trying to satisfy her hard-to-satisfy list and then get a poor rating like that. Makes me want to tell her to send it all back! ha ha ha! But really, I would've rather have gotten a rating of 1 for not sending than to not get any appreciation at all for what I did do. She hasn't even emailed me to say "Thank you for the package." Or "The package arrived." Oh well, there are good swappers at Swap-bot and then poor ones. Then there are poor recipients with no knowledge of etiquette... goodness, post a 'Thank you' somewhere already.

Ok, I'll go away and calm down now.... ;-)

LOVE IS IN THE AIR!

How can you not think about Love when you see mail like this!


Joye S. sent these LOVEly goodies for the "Gotta Have Heart Stitchmarker Exchange" over at the Yahoo Group "StuffKnittersWantandGottaHave_Exchange". It is a Valentine's Day swap requiring a set of stitchmarkers and a dishcloth. Joye included all these items in her package:

• strawberry shower gel and pouf;
• crocheted chapstick holder keychain with a tube of Avon chapstick enclosed;
• a small book of knitted patterns;
• a bookmark with beads like the ones with which she made the stitchmarkers;
• a ball of pink cotton;
• a pink heart-shaped knit dishcloth;
• a Valentine's Day card;
• a sheet of stationery depicting a long-stemmed red rose on which she typed the patterns to the chapstick holder and the heart-shaped dishcloth;
• a gorgeous red box which held two Peppermint Patties, glass Ladybug beads, and a set of stitchmarkers beaded with red hearts made from clay; and Hershey's Kisses with Almonds scattered throughout the package!

Here are the bookmarker and the stitchmarkers in more of a "close-up" photo...they're just so lovely, I had to show you!

My children loved the package as much as I did, especially the Hershey's Kisses! I will take a bag of Hershey's Kisses anytime! The ones with Almonds are my FAVORITE with the plain ones running second. Thank you, Joye, for such a fun package. I'm definitely in the Valentine's Day spirit with all these themed goodies!

For this exchange which I received from Joye, several of us are doing a KAL from the Dishcloth Hangups for 2007 Calendar (and some of us [read: ME!] are TRYING to follow along having never knit a cable before!) but any knit dishcloth is fine for the exchange. Of course, we want to think red, pink, purple, hearts, anything Valentine-themed. I'm trying to knit-along on the February cloth, "Hearts Desire" designed by Maile Mauch, but have had to tink several times because I just haven't been able to get the hang of the cabling. I'm about to put it aside to try my hand at the cloth Joye sent to me since she included the pattern. I do have a deadline to have my packages to my two partners by February 14th and at the rate I'm going, that's not going to happen if I don't catch on soon or knit a different cloth! I can practice the "Heart's Desire" after I've at least made a dishcloth in a different EASIER pattern for each of my partners.

Oh and if you want to get yourself a calendar full of "Kitchen and Bath Items", I understand by the above link that the absolute deadline to order is February 20th. I received one as a gift and I really like it. You can read more about it here.

Also for some free dishcloth patterns, Maile has a whole bunch of beautiful knit dishcloth patterns on her blog. Check it out!

Over at Swap-bot, I received my first of three postcards for the "Love Postcard" swap. I was pleasantly surprised to see an envelope in the mail from my good friend, Juli. Swap-bot being a world-wide swapping venue, it's just a wonderful surprise to be randomly partnered with a friend! Juli sent bookmarks, stickers, a Valentine's little card, a letter, and a USPS "LOVE" postcard! I LOVEd everything but ESPECIALLY the postcard of the USPS "Love" Stamp! I collect the Love stamps that the USA has put out since the 70's I believe and to see this postcard in my mailbox brought me such joy! Juli didn't know it, but this particular issue of the LOVE stamp is one of my favorites of all that our postal service has issued over the past 30 years. And look how she decorated the reverse of the postcard!

I immediately called Juli on the phone after receiving her postcard today and asked her if she would mind picking me up a few of these postcards at her post office. My post office doesn't carry anything like this! If any of you have a post office that sells postcards, especially LOVE themed, I'd love to hear from you, too! Do other countries have LOVE stamps? Here in the USA it has become an annual issue, a Love-themed stamp around February 14th. This year the stamp issue is a "Hershey's Kiss" stamp! You just KNOW I'm going to have to buy some of those when I can. Love AND Hershey's? Oh yeah!