The Star-Spangled Banner

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
’Tis the star-spangled banner – O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And all that – from the hand of a physician – who waited with baited breath to see if our flag was still standing while our men fought to keep it there.

A new added feature is they want to run an optimization scan of my computer. “It will only take a few minutes…”

So this morning, after, 2 days, 5 hours, 23 minutes, 29 seconds I decide to take my marbles and go home and hit “Optimize with next scan” after clicking their nice big “STOP” button…… 2 days, 5 hours, 31 minutes, 15 seconds now I’m hitting ctrl-alt-del…

This morning’s search reveals many others frustrated with the hijacking of computers by AVG 9.0 and instructions on reverting back to the previous version.

Maybe AVG’s programmers will think twice before shooting out a new release without more thorough testing. It’s all about trust guys!

I know it’s easier on my eyes – just like he is …. now how cute is that, it even does emoticons!

Not to mention it’s my favorite shade of blue in the title bar! He’s so awesome! {{{{SLO}}}}

What do ya’ll think – Do you like the new design?

I’ve recategorized and tried to clean things up a bit so ya’ll can find what your looking for. If something’s missing – let me know.

Until I moved to this borrowed laptop, I had NO idea that this site was such a garish orange! My old monitor showed it as a pretty yellow. I apologize for anyone that I’ve blinded. Slobo is going to put together a new site design for me. He said he’d upload it tommorrow….. and I can’t wait! Isn’t he a sweetheart?

The doctor was stunned!!! Uncle Brian, cried and told him he had golden hands! The Doctor just shook his head, held out his hands – and humbly said “NO – These are flesh and bones. What I saw was miraculous. If I hadn’t been the one to open her up and see that cancer the first time – I never would have believed it had even ever been there!” Aunt Charl even cried when she woke up and heard the news! And that is after two doctors from John Hopkin’s told Uncle Brian – Fill her morphine prescriptions and do your best to control her pain, but she should just go home, because there’s nothing else we can do! Thank God, her daughter and Brian researched and found Sloan Kettering! She has been undergoing chemo for 5 weeks at Sloan Kettering – other than hair loss – she has been up the entire time and has said all along – it isn’t as bad as she was expecting it to be!

Mom said – Vinnie THANK YOU FOR THE VOTIVE!!!

It’s not odd. It’s God… (okay – I know – cheesy – but what can you say????) I Believe In Miracles! There’s a whole clan that will go to bed tonight – Thanking God. AND on top of that, My Step-Dad got word that his sister’s own (stage 4) breast cancer was completely removed and she won’t even radiation or chemo!

I don’t know why some people are healed – and others aren’t – but you must keep the faith – if not the will. Often the miracles are happening all throughout the battle – even if the end result means dying. It is truly the journey of life that is the gift. Maybe it’s the one’s who survive who are the ones that still need to finish wrapping their presents before going to God.

Thank you for the rosebuds, St. Therese.

Aunt Charl is up to 135 lbs. (from 97) and the doctor called her last week and said she is good to go for surgery now, so tommorrow morning they will try the first operation since her diagnosis in May of this year of serous cancer. She has finished her first 5 weeks of chemo and they removed the tubes from her kidneys last month. They will be removing her ovaries and uterus and scraping out as much of the cancer as they can. Mom talked to her tonight and she said she was scared, but that she has been ‘up’ through all of this. When we first talked to her in May, they were about to lose their home, Charl had just found out about her cancer after putting off doing anything about a tumor on her ovary they had found the year before. She wasn’t sure how they’d pay for it – so she let it go. I don’t tell that because of being judgemental – I tell that to let everyone know – You must fight cancer or the possibility of it one step at a time. It’s a long battle and early detection is truly the biggest factor! Aunt Charl was most concerned because she had not talked to her youngest son in several years over a falling out they had had. Since then, they’re managing to hang on financially, friends and family have rallied the support they can, and she has had the reconciliation with her son that they both so desperately needed. It’s not all 100% – but you know – it doesn’t really need to be! It’s the individual contacts with people, it’s a look, or a kind word, or an offer of help (no matter how small) – the baby steps that motivate us to keep on trying – just as when a toddler takes his first steps and sees the outreached arms that he can fall into if he doesn’t quite succeed. That is what Life is all about. Living to Love and what makes us all Love Living, and when the time comes that we can’t take another step – our Father will be there to hold us in his warm embrace.

When I’ve had time to stop and take things in, once again avoiding a trap of sorrow or pity, I realize – if the devil is trying so hard to take something – it must be something really special!!! God, our Father, reassures and consoles with small acts of kindness and love that truly make one’s life meaningful. We glimpse an ounce of that feeling when we become parents, or siblings, godparents or friends.

Something that I wonder about alot is when Pope John Paul was dying, he said that there was joy in suffering. It gave him the gift of glimpsing God. St. Francis also said the same thing. I’m not sure I always understand it, but if it’s the coming closer to our Father through the acts of kindness of others, I can say with confidence – I’ve seen and tasted that – and it truly is real!!

Slobo may lose his job this week, family, friends, and others I’ve hardly known, have offered us so much help this week that it overwhelms the spirit. Kindness can overcome fear and replace it with strong reassurance that everything is going to not only work out – but it’s going to work out for the better as long as we value those friendships and acts of kindness, do our share to try hard, and pay it forward.

“Yes, life is a treasure. Each moment is…an eternity seeing God face to face, being one with him.”

“I will let fall a shower of roses.
I will spend my heaven, doing good on earth.”
St. Therese, The Little Flower

Please – I ask for your prayers for Aunt Charl. I’m sure our Father is listening, and don’t forget to talk with Mother Mary – I’m sure she is there with a comforting touch.

His list included things like overalls, voice recorder, watch, cookbook, a gift certificate for the friends of the library, a cuddle pillow, a lizard, cowboy shirt, wolf scout uniform, digital camera and any books! It is funny what they ask for. He got almost everything on his list except a lizard! Having just had the frog die, I wasn’t ready to feed a lizard! The cuddle pillow I made him is a ladybug with pipe cleaner antenna’s inserted into a cotton cording then sewn down. She came out cute. I made her wings so they were satin lined and sewn down at the top and bottom to create two pockets. He likes to stick his hands in the pocket when he hugs her.

Here are some pictures. Unfortunately, alot of the pictures he either wasn’t looking at the camera or had red-eye. These are pretty good tho!

Here he poses in his new cowboy shirt and overalls. Everytime we hear overalls, Slo and I laugh about a lady online he used to tease about living in Georgia. She responded in a thick southern drawl in IRC with a voice recording, “I-D-O-N-O-T-W-E-A-R-O-V-E-R-A-L-L-S!” Well now, SugaBaby, you don’t have to be ashamed to admit it now! We are wearin’ them now.

He wanted a blue cake again this year. Last year, if you remember, I mistakenly mixed blue food coloring with buttercream frosting and got Tiffany blue! This year, we was smert and ‘membered to get white icing! lol. It came cute. Chocolate cake, and X’s and O’s for decorations.

He loves to cook and totally worships Bobbie Flay. Last year he wanted a chef’s jacket like Bobby’s, and got it. Since he already bought himself most of his cookbooks, this time, we gave him the Joy of Cooking. It’s a great cookbook and this one is their 75th anniversary edition.

The baby of the family loves to give presents. The morning of Doc’s birthday, he went around his room and gathered everything he thought J2 would like and wrapped it up in pillowcases, blankets, whatever he had that was colorful. It was really sweet! and J2 loved every one of them!

As for canning – I’m down to one bushel of apples left and a 50lb. box of new potatoes to can… Then I’ll give the full report.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy fall!

J3 grew like a weed this summer. After cleaning out his dresser, I realized he was down to 3 pairs of PJ’s that actually fit him. So I made him some more (with room to grow through the winter). The flannel and fleece fabrics are from Walmart. The tops took 1 1/2 yd, fleece bottoms 1 yd. for size 10. The dk blue cotton knit is Carter’s 12″ tubular knit I bought from Fabric Club a couple of years ago. I still have 20 yards of the stuff and it doesn’t seem I’ll ever find the end of the roll. Sometimes it’s probably not a good idea to go overboard even if the fabric is really a great price! The other knits are cotton knits picked up when I can find them. For some odd reason, it’s really hard to find a cotton knit in Georgia. Remember when cotton was king? sorry . j/k.

Simplicity 9499 I use this one for the raglan t-shirts for the boys. The neck does tend to be a bit large. When I forget to cut it smaller, I use a wider knit neckband with lycra in it for memory retention. (The fabric – not me. lol)

There is another set of these with a lt. blue cotton knit top and cotton woven sleeping pants with a cowboy print. One thing to note is my boys are really rough on knit pj bottoms. When I do the flannels and Woven bottoms, if I add an extra layer of fabric to the inside at the knees. If I don’t, within 6 months the fabric will be worn and ripping there. I think if I add some fusi-knit to the knees of the knits, it might help wearability, but haven’t tried it yet.

McCalls M9206 – basic sleep / play pants and t-shirts pattern.

Puppy dogs and paw prints

Monkeys and cuddle pants

I’ve used this pattern since the boys were toddlers. I just change up pockets depending on what I’m making. Great basic pattern. The pockets on the fleece bottoms are lined with the matching flannel from the tops. I find they like lots of pockets, so I put two on the front of the tops and two on the legs – one on each side.

I often recycle knit neckbands and cuffs from old clothes. If you turn them inside out – as long as they have retained their shape, it works well – especially when you need just that perfect color – like pale yellow. It can be difficult to find pastel rib knits especially. I also save zippers, fun fasteners and appliques in freezer ziploc bags. Those items can really run up the price of making a garment and I don’t see any reason to not keep them if they are in good shape. All – in – all, J3′s PJ’s cost about 23.00 to make (5 pairs). He gets new warm PJ’s from fabric he picked and as he puts it – love sewn in the stitches! Anyway, I hope you found this useful in a sharing sort of way.

Now to tackle Doc’s birthday! He’s going to be 9 in 10 days Didn’t we just do this???

• Use a container that you can put holes into the bottom of for drainage. Set this on top of something to collect the Yummy juices for your garden and plants.

  Don’t Feed them onions. They don’t like them. And you don’t want to give them dairy items such as eggshells. *See below for what I do with egg shells.
  

  If you put the containers in your yard (as she has several), you may want to put a mote around them. Ants will be drawn to them. She lost her first worms this way. The ants won’t cross the water.

  Small worms are best. If the weather is severe, you can bury the container so as to give it a constant temperature.

I bring this up because fast-forward a couple of weeks cruising the net, I run into a knitster’s blog who is talking about building a brick oven in her backyard. As a bread baker, I dream of having a brick oven from which to pull gorgeous artisan loaves from to take to market! The plans she was using came from another wonderful blogger, Rado in Australia. He designs and builds outdoor ovens and gives marvelous detail on how to go about building yourself one! He also was talking about worm farming! Isn’t it strange how things go circular sometimes?

Rado’s site is chock full of great information! I’m sure you’ll find several hours of interesting reading and daydreaming there!

* As for the eggs. I use them powdered to add calcium to Stitches’s dog food. His food we make from scratch is made of Rice, meat (usually chicken), a green vegetable (we had lots of okra and green beans) and a yellow veggie (squash or carrotts will work). When I have a dozen or so eggshells and a bit of time, I boil the shells in a saucepan for about 3-5 minutes. After they have cooled, gently cave the shell in and begin pulling it off away from the membrane. Crush the shells using a mortar and pestle until it’s a powder (the finer the better – but mostly crushed for a pup will do). This is pure calcium powder! You can use it for several things like houseplants. I sprinkle about a tablespoon on each cup of Stitches’s food. I store it in an old jar and just add to it whenever I get more eggshells. It’s a shame to throw away such a great source of calcium!

And here is my favorite picture – especially at week’s end when I’m exhausted. That contentment was all worth it!!!

Before I took down our home school bulletin boards from last year, I thought I’d ‘pay it forward’ by sharing what we’ve done in the past.

Word Wall – Everyday, I gave them a handful of leaves and apples to write their vocabulary words on. They enjoyed standing on the desk to stick them up each morning. First I used zots, then tape. With the humidity in Georgia and a classroom with no heat and air, zots just don’t stay stuck! Leaves fell by spring. (Rather confusing for a 1st grader! j/k) The wall represents three grade levels: 1st, 3rd and 4th. 3 and 4 had to lookup definitions in the dictionary and the thesarus a few times. Within a few months, the tree was full. I had found the kids, wandering into the classroom on off days and reading the wall to eachother. They liked it alot. If I were to do it again, I’d have them use only large markers and bigger handwriting. It can be hard to see some of the words.

Detail:

This year, I’ve moved the tree to the other side of the room and it will be used for our Explorer / North American History themes. I’m debating actually hanging a swing in the doorway adjacent to the ‘tree’ wall for a “Swing Into History” theme. 3 boys tho – that might be dangerous, lol. Still – it would make a really fun place to read, don’t you think? In any case, I’m glad I spent the money last year for the tree. It’s proving to be pretty versatile and holds up really well. The pre-made leaves were a few dollars tho. When we ran out of those, we just used post-it notes shaped like leaves and apples. I was suprised that they stayed on the tree.

Giants:

Since alot of our study last year included BIG things (dinosaurs, David and Goliath, etc.), we went with a Giant theme above the chalkboards. I had a poster above it – not shown – of Jack and the Beanstalk with the words “This could be the start of something big…” It also helped to spawn discussion about the classifications of things.

The kids traced their hands and feet at the beginning of the year. This week, when I took them down, they re-traced their hands and feet on top of their previous ones. We were really shocked to discover how much more they had grown! It was fun and we’ve decided to do it each year until they are grown – if for nothing else – but Mommy’s baby books. In addition to hands and feet, we keep a marked wall with heights each year and weights.

Math Bath

This one was the first board I tried making a couple of years ago. We liked it so we have kept it. It is made mostly of scrapbooking papers. There are some borders missing because I was in the middle of taking it down to move when Slobo took a pic.

I found the idea online several years ago on a teacher’s website. The elephant is supposed to be stacked on blocks and acting as the shower for the kids in the tub.

The drawings are of the boys from a few years ago. I asked them if I should use them this year and they said they wanted to keep them. They liked the reminder of when they took baths together! The kid drawings are positioned within slits of the tub. I catch my 6 yr. old moving them around and making them talk to one another. lol. This board is now where the tree used to be. There is also a number line that goes above it with a rubber duck that slides along on a bar of soap. They don’t need the number lines anymore, but I thought the duck was too cute to pass up again this year. There are “bubbles”, made of blue laminated paper, velcroed on one side. The number line has a strip of the rougher velcro loops along it and the bubbles were used as manipulatives to position points along the line. The velcro idea might have worked on a stronger wall, but the dots would pull the number line off the wall because the velcro held on so tight. lol. My basement is just 2×4 framing, to which I stapled drapery lining. So I can only ‘attach’ things at studs. You might come up with a better idea for that.

Carlos Santana (1947)
Santana is a Mexican-American Grammy Award-winning guitarist known for his searing, emotional playing. He became famous in the late 1960s with his eponymous band that created a highly successful blend of salsa, rock, blues, and jazz. He has sold tens of millions of albums worldwide, was inaugurated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and has influenced countless musicians. What instrument did Santana play as a boy before switching to guitar? Answer Here

Ahhh, I can hear his guitar in my head now…. Gotta go find my cd! Happy Birthday Santana! I LOVE YOU!!!!

In season are Blueberries and Apples. The bowl below has 1 1/2 gallons of blueberries, just picked Friday….. I wish you could smell them – they are heavenly! As for the apples, they are dropping off of trees everywhere!

Crab-apples, Crab-apples, out in the wood,
Little and bitter, yet little and good!
The apples in orchards, so rosy and fine,
Are children of wild little apples like mine.
The branches are laden, and droop to the
ground;
The fairy-fruit falls in a circle around;
Now all you good children, come gather them up;
They’ll make you sweet jelly to spread when
you sup.
One little apple I’ll catch for myself;
I’ll stew it, and strain it, to store on a shelf
In four or five acorn-cups, locked with a key
In a cupboard of mine at the root of the tree.

—Cicely Mary Barker, THE CRAB-APPLE FAIRY

* from Wild Man Steve Brill’s Website

Today, we make more jelly! Yummmm.

It now has larger text (which I personally appreciate), a cleaner interface and a couple new gizmos. He’s also removed Twitter support for now.

If you have it or want to get it, just go to www.getstuffr.com

I’ve been playing around with pattern drafting again. Unlike the disastrous sleeves two years ago, I’ve now got pants and a bodice – With Sleeves No Less – that fits! WooHoo….. This time, I drafted the pants from Threads magazine – wanting to see how accurate they were – and a foundation top from Moore’s book on pattern making. I had to make several changes for them to fit me, sloping shoulders – sway back – longer stride etc. I also found that my left side is almost a whole 2″‘s bigger than my right side! One would think using my right hand on the mouse and calculators these past few years would have hiked my right side up a bit more than that! I’ll just have to walk around like Igor a bit longer, I suppose.

The muslin was cut from a nice stable cotton with a grid print (looks a lot like graph paper. I used wash-able markers to make changes that were needed, changed my block patterns and then sewed it up into a really comfortable pair of pj’s. I had left 1″ S.A.’s all around, so I could add ease for pj’s, used up some pretty trims I had, added a peplum (the short bodice to my short waistline just wasn’t modest enough!) Shameless to say, I just took them off to wash them after 3 days….. I know, but they were so comfortable, I wanted to live in them!!!

Anyway, I’ve been using Open Office’s drawing program to get some of my ‘garment components’ like pockets, collars and misc. facings drafted. I started using Open Office with a pretty Manila folder color printed when my tag board ran out. I’ll add the following under manuals but ’til then, here’s some new schtuff:

1. Page 1 and Page 2 of Table of Aliquot Parts – the handy chart to figure out what 1/4 of 38″ is?

(The vintagesewing.info site has one, as does my Moore’s pattern making book but I needed higher and sometimes lower numbers, so Slobo helped me get an openoffice formula running to formulate it automatically.)

Here is the .ods or Open Office spreadsheet file and the
.xls or Excel spreadsheet file in case ya’ll wanna change things around.

2. Inch to Decimal Equivalent Chart.

The chart comes from seoconsultants.com website. I made it a jpg just for ease of printing. For some reason, the latest version of Firefox doesn’t seem to understand how to print a web page anymore. Until I can get it fixed, and in case others have the same problem, I offer the jpg.

This conversion table is handy when I’m at the Fashion Incubator. When Kathleen gives the measurements for some of her kewl gizmo jigs, welt and paper jig tutorial., I can punch in the measurements (which she so generously provides) and print out a nifty neat little gizmo jig too. One that is much more accurate than I can hand draft especially when she includes those very important measurements like bend allowances.

That’s really all the playing for now. Hopefully in the next few days, I’ll see ya’ll again with some newer – clean – threads on!

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When I told him I was going to post it on my website and call it “How to politely tell someone to go to h*ll”. He giggled emphatically, skipping away from me, proud of his accomplishments. (Thinks he cleverly disguised a way to say the word in no less than 3 ways while showing me his proud attempts at cursive handwriting and that he remembered his Bible Lesson).

See? The book Yardsticks IS helpful! I got a laugh that will stay with me all day – rather than more worry and bewilderment! His next lesson? How to use a dictionary (After all, how many of us learned to use it at the age when we loved to look up all the “bad” words). Second Lesson: Pride and where it’s helpful and where it hurts! LOL

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I ran into this book, Yardsticks: Children in the Classroom Ages 4-14 : A Resource for Parents and Teachers (Paperback), by Chip Wood sitting by itself on a clearance table. After perusing the 8 yr. old section, I figured it was cheap enough that it couldn’t hurt to buy it. Now, I would have paid twice the retail price! This book was NONE TOO SOON, I tell ya! Slobo and I have been at our wits end to figure out where these burgeoning personalities were headed off to this month! I’ve heard daily, for a month, Slobo’s frustrating “I Don’t Know What Else To DO!” plea!

How often do you hear: “Nobody wants to play with me” “I’m Bored” “He keeps teasing me!!!” Then suddenly “Come-on so-and-so, let’s go such-and-such.” Two seconds later, you hear giggling and plotting – Take a deep sigh – knowing that a second or two later, #3 with come out in tears. They found something to ease their boredom! Child 3 then gets deeply hurt, because the brother that loved him uncoditionally this morning now seems like his worst enemy! How do you explain that to him? Or reprimand the other two in a way that you get more than a quick “Okay – Sowwy”.

I used to think when children behaved this way, it was because they needed more attention from their parents or caregivers. After going under this theory for several months – I can easily state – It has nothing to do with it!!! When you hear, “It’s just their age” beleive it! That doesn’t mean you have to sit back and let nature take it’s course. But this book gave me several ideas for what path they came from and which one they are headed for. It helps you to lead them literally ‘out of temptation’! Just this week, I’ve been able to head all three off for the first time all year! If Chip Wood were here, I’d send him a lifetime supply of blackberry jam!

This book, tho small and concise, is bigger than the “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” series. Picking up where alot of that left off! I highly recommend this book!!!

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After which a beautiful summertime sunset followed:

The trees, grass, buildings, everything – glows around the dark pines. The already dark green evergreens turn to almost black, the green grass turns to a soft brown and the sky casts a warm pink-orange glow against everything. Sometimes, the beautiful turquoise sky shines in between. I LOVE SUMMERTIME IN GEORGIA!

The day after the rain storm:

– Wild Blackberries were ready to be picked!

Today – I MAKE JAM! YUMMM

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Since Friday, I’ve been messing around with different settings to try and get the machine to sew nice, pretty stitches. It’s been a harrowing ordeal, complete with tears, kicking, screaming, yelling, and a dinner out – compliments of Slobo – who was probably ready to divorce me. Alas, tho, Beauty is now sewing. Probably the best thing I ever did was make my sewing room downstairs, away from little ears! I also believe one of the reasons these machines are so heavy is to prevent them from being easily thrown through a window!

I finally realized the two big problems:

#1 – The bobbin case was up too high. I did not notice it with the smaller thread when I sewed her off on the first test. After lowering – raising again – then lowering it yet again, the bobbin nests finally stopped. The thicker topstitching thread was getting caught between the foot and case – around the little nodule that juts out.

#2 – The thread breakage was caused by the thread controller being set improperly. After tweaking for hours yesterday, I finally found the right combination that would hold the thread in the proper position. I thought at first, the new needles, 135×17 sz. 18′s were ‘cutting’ the thread, but switching out to the original ball point needle in the machine did not alleviate the trouble.

In addition, I discovered she wouldn’t tilt back because of the front lip on the new table cutout. So, I took coping saw in hand and had to cut out where the lip was touching the front legs – making them flush. Now, when I get my oil pan, I can install the peg behind the machine and tilt her back when I need to. Slobo has ordered me the oil pan from ebay and it should be here soon.

Much to my delight, last night, she sewed 8 pairs of pants, thread color changes and all, just fine! It’s amazing how much that thread controller actually controls how that machine will sew! But, Now Ya Know and So Do I!

More sewing will have to be put off for now, tho, because little Stetson Man became ill again list night. The usual culprit: sinus infection with 101 fever and vomiting. Slobo found pup’s prescription for stomach cramping, etc last night and it’s only been 2 1/2 months since the last bout with this mess! Once again, I suspect our outing on Wednesday to Walmart was the culprit. It’s unbelievable how often these guys get this stuff! I’m ready to sew up some hoodies with permanent respirators attached!

Slobo will get to spend his Sunday once again, trying to convince Walmart police to sell him more than two bottles of decongestant. Everytime he tries to buy enough so we don’t have to restock again in 2 days, the clerk calls over the police. He has to show them his ID, swear that it’s for sick little boys, miles away at home, and – IF the cop feels generous – Slobo gets to buy the 3 small bottles of Tylenol cold or Tussin. Apparently, druggies make meth or something out of decongestants and the state now frowns on parent’s purchasing more than two bottles at a time. If the officer is not feeling generous – which happened once – he will have to spend another 20$ in gas to go buy some more in 2 days. And we thought we lived in a free country – huh?

That’s a whole-nuther-post, I tell ya! Especially since hearing that the elementary schools are now going to try and require digital tags on the children to keep track of their movements. Must go tend sick children – I hope you have a glorious Sunday! And remember, kicking the machine hurts you more than the machine!

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And here she is being sewn off for the first time after 3 months of work!

Still hard to believe it only cost 140.00 for table, machine, repairs and everything! That ole’ keeper up there sure is good to me!

This payday, I’ll order her some needles and some thread and start workin’ on our poor, tired couch! I am one thrilled beast! Yipppeeeeeeee!

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