Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Color Moods

Is it just me?

I seem to go through these periods of time where I just love one certain color or color combo and nothing else.  When I was really little I remember I decided I liked sky blue.  I remember getting made fun of in kindergarten because all the other girls like pink and purple and they said blue was a boy color.  I still remember talking to my mom because I was so upset.  I liked blue and only blue for a very long time.  When I was a teenager I started to like Royal blue and I remember I had this big royal blue velvet curtain that I had tacked up across the room to separate my room from the boy part of the room.  It became my little cave/sanctuary.  It wasn't until I was already into my 40's before I started to like different colors.  I went through a phase where I loved fuchsia.  I still do but my obsession petered out and I feel in love with lavender.  Then it became lavender and sage green.... and then this past year I added sky blue and cream to those colors. Slowly but surely, everything in my bedroom started to change to those colors.  My bedding is purple/lavender  and the other stuff in the room is a combo of lavender, blue, green and cream.  I even made a crochet throw in those colors.  I'm so glad I finally made something for myself.

Well, the last few months I've noticed I've been crazy about gray.  Mainly a light or medium toned gray.  I made a friend a baby blanket in gray and pink and I just loved it.  I bought some more of the gray yarn and some in sky blue and I'm going to alter the pattern to make a shawl for myself.  I have some pretty snowflakes someone made for me that I'm going to add to the two front corners.  The gray has a pretty pearl type thread in it and with the pale blue for the edging the snowflakes will be a perfect addition.  It will be like my "Frozen" shawl.  I do have to say that I've always liked snowflake themed things way before "Frozen".

Just last month I made a skull scarf for my sister in law in
gray and it turned out very cool also.  I just love that yarn I used for this.  It is Caron Simply Soft in Gray Heather and I had quite a stack of it.

It is happening already though...  I can feel it like I saw a full moon and can feel hair sprouting out of my face and hands.

I feel a green and white phase happening.  I am sitting here with a large tub full of all of my white/off white yarns and another full of all my greens.  Every time I see someone post something that is green/white I just fall in love with it.

I have a design I sketched out in my design journal where I was trying to remember a quilt I saw.  I loved the design but wasn't so thrilled with the colors they used.  It was all just small squares so I used graph paper to draw it out as close as I could remember.  Now I think I might use all this green and white/cream yarn and make a bazillion squares for it.  Hopefully it will come together looking just as amazing as it does in my imagination.


Sunday, December 28, 2014

Stuck in motion

Once again I find myself stuck on the couch when I want to be up and doing things.  The fibromyalgia pain (or whatever else it may be) is too much when standing up right now.  I really want to use my new kitchenaid mixer to make chocolate chip cookies!  I made some of these Toll House cookies before and they were so freakin good.  There were 3 dozen because I made them bigger but they were gone in only one day!

Anyway, I've been jamming out and playing around online.  I decided to start making some digital trading cards for facebook.  I just made two for now but I'll add more later.  Feel free to share them!






Saturday, December 13, 2014

Merry Christmas

I'm having a hard time as usual with all the aches and pains from the cold but there is also that additional pain from missing my mom at Christmas.  My mom died Feb 16, 2008 and I still miss her every single day.  It is just always more difficult when my birthday comes around and I know she would have called me.  My birthday was on thanksgiving this year.  Then just a little bit later is her birthday on December 8th and of course Christmas Day is hard too.  Well, all I can do is think of her and make some new wonderful memories with my family that are here.

Here is some nice Christmas music from the first, third, and sixth seasons of Bones to get the spirit of Christmas flowing strong.










Season 5, Episode 10






Friday, December 5, 2014

Long time no post

It's been awhile so I thought I should get on here and post something.  I had a great birthday which was Thanksgiving Day this year.  My husband surprised me by getting me 2 things I'd been wanting for a long time.  I had added them to my amazon wishlist and was planning on saving up for them. So far every time I'd saved up some money something would come up and I'd end up spending it on one of my boys.  Of course I could have asked my husband to give them some money but sometimes (and especially some things) I want to come from me.  The look on their face when I give them the money when they thought I didn't have any is priceless.  They know I don't have much money so it means more to them and they are always more than willing to help

me with things around the house to make up for it.  My oldest son had a job for a while and he was always buying me gifts.  He even bought me a Keurig for Christmas and I know that cost a lot.  So that shows that it comes back around and it isn't about the gift but the love.

Anyway, speaking of love, my husband told me there was this big box by the door and I should go check it out.  This was a few days early.  I was shocked that the box was so big.  It was HUGE.  I had been feeling really bad the past few weeks.  My hands hurt and I've very weak all over so both my boys helped me open the box.  They both had this grin on their faces and I could tell they already knew what it was.  They got me a Kitchenaid mixer in the prettiest shade of pistachio green.  I have been wanting one of those since forever.  There was also this small gift and it turned out to be Rocksmith 2014 for the xbox 360. It comes with a cable that has a usb plug on one end and a standard guitar hookup on the other end.  I've wanting to play the guitar for a long time and I have a very nice electric guitar that was another gift from my husband.  It is an Eddie Van Haylen Wolfgang special which they stopped making around 97 I think.

I've been wanting to learn how to play my guitar for so long but something always got in my way. My health was my biggest obstacle and by the time I got the guitar out, hooked up and tuned up I would be exhausted. Rocksmith basically simplifies everything so I can start playing quicker and that helps a lot. I just plug the guitar in to the xbox and it acts like the amp.  You tune the guitar with the program which is very quick.  I'm usually tuned up in less than a minute.  The electric tuner I got is not just for guitar so it could be used for my son's violin as well.  My problem was that I would be trying to tune to the wrong octave (when I first started out) and I'd break strings.  Rocksmith's tuner has this line that moves up and down and you line it up with the string to get it in tune.  It also has numbers that are positive or negative so you can be sure you are turning the peg the right direction. After a week of using it I've already gotten to where I can hear when it is off and can tune it myself.  Mainly the big E string is what I start with and I tune it to what sounds good to me and then I check myself to be sure.  Then I've been tuning the other strings off of that one.  The first few times I checked it with the rocksmith tuner after that and it was in tune.  Now when I feel bad and have no energy I can just sit back on the couch and play without it plugged in.

I am still learning about the Rocksmith program and there are still things to learn but it was bothering me that most of the time it doesn't show the name of the notes or the strings (like the strings played open are E A D G B E in order).  They use a graphic of the neck of a guitar that lies horizontally across the bottom of the screen.  The strings are color coded and they indicate which note to play by color.  I was getting frustrated because I didn't want to learn red string, green string, yellow string.  I wanted to learn by the notes.  I used to play piano in high school and learned to read music so it is weird to not know which note I'm hearing.  I have some books and I've been looking online for more information.

My favorite website so far is www.justinguitar.com.  I have been going through his free beginner lessons and I have been learning a lot.  My fingers are very sore now but I can feel the tips starting to toughen up already.  I've learned two cords now and I really want to play a song!  Maybe I could learn a simple Christmas song before Christmas.