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GraceByDesign
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Name: C~
Gender: Female
Interests: Organic food and gardening, cooking, FLYing
Expertise: Jack (or Jill) of all trades, master of none!!
Occupation: Homeschooling Mom of DD11
Message: message me
Member Since:
5/31/2006
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| This is a sad one... For the first time in our marriage, we do not have any free-roaming pets in our home. We have gone for a while without a dog, but there were always cats. Usually 2, up to seven, and sometimes just one. Sometimes the cats lived outside, but they were still there...
So anyway, this week we have had to do two very sad tasks...
Peach the cat had used up his nine lives, plus a couple, I think! He was inadvertently left outside during Katrina, had many other cats and dogs invade 'his' territory over the years, moved up to the frozen north and tossed outside, and most recently I think he got caught up in that cat food scandal last winter. We had pity on him and brought him in after he showed up really sick, we thought to die, but he pulled through. We did not know about the tainted cat food at that time. Now he seems to have developed what is best described as kitty-cat Alzheimer's. He was acting crazy, and wetting on my bed (!) and I had put him outside, but then the weather turned and so we brought him in and put him in the bathroom. He was more and more withdrawn and just not right. We could not even leave a towel off the rack, or a bath mat on the floor. He even wet on his bed a few times.
So today I took him to be put down. We have known this day was coming for about 3 months now, and putting off the inevitable just seemed cruel. He was only about 8, and one of my favorites of all the cats we have had over the years, and there have been almost 2 dozen, including several kittens and 4 house guests.
We also had to make a hard decision about our dog Dot. We adopted her just about a year ago, and she was the softest tri-color little puppy with the saddest eyes!! For several reasons, the main one being she needed a fenced yard because she requires WAY more exercise than we could provide with several leashed walks a day, we decided she would be better off going back to the rescue, where they could find a more appropriate situation for her. So DH took her yesterday morning. We were really attached and loved her very much. The rescue lady was very kind and understanding, and glad that we were able to have Dot's best interests at heart.
It is VERY calm and quiet around here this evening. I think Dot left her "hair-twin" here, as I have been vacuuming for two days, and there is still a ton of hair. blech. 
So there are still 2 gerbils, and one fish, and we will probably work on getting the 90 gallon fish tank set up in the near future... it has been in the basement since we moved. But DH has said NO!!! to any more pets, at least for a good long time. My thoughts are, when we get a fence (and that is not even ON the to-do list) we may consider a tiny dog, non-shedding. Until then, I need to concentrate on taking care of myself and my family.
The good news is that in all my sadness this week, I have not had much of an appetite, and have lost about 3.5 pounds since Saturday! 
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I went back and read all my entries here at Xanga. That did not
take long at all, since there are only about 15 of them!
The one I would like to comment on is the third entry ever
posted here, dated June 6,
2006, regarding my weight ticker at the bottom of the page.
I need to comment on that because a couple things have happened since
developing the ticker and writing that entry. First of all, I have revised the
ticker, so the goal weight referenced in that blog entry is no longer 9# over
my Wedding Day weight. It is much higher. I weighed 134 when we were married in
1993. The second thing that happened is that in October of 2007 I joined Weight
Watchers, and have had much success.
So the numbers on my ticker now represent the following:
Starting Weight: this is my highest-ever recorded weight, which
occurred around the time that we moved here in the fall of 2005. Not sure if it
was before or after, though, as that time period is somewhat of a blur to me!!
Goal Weight: this is my second 10% goal as per Weight Watchers.
When I joined, I weighed 219. If you have a lot to lose, your first goal is to
lose 10% of your current weight. So my first 10% goal was -21, or 198, which I
reached about 4 weeks ago. That still left me with a lot to lose, so my leader
suggested a smaller goal of another 10%. That value was calculated when the
scale said 196.6, so my goal is -19 or 177.6 (They don’t calculate 10ths when
figuring the 10%.)
So since joining WW, I have lost 28.8#. From my highest weight,
I have lost 43.8!!! My weight no longer starts with a 2, and neither do my clothing
sizes!!
Do I still wish the ticker was moving faster? Sure! Who wouldn’t?
But at least now I don’t feel like I am just destined to be fat forever!
BTW, DH has shed over 35#, and can now fit into a tuxedo he had
from before Charley was born, and in fact wore said tux when he accompanied
Charley to a Princess Gala for American Heritage Girls last weekend! They both
looked quite spiffy!
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| This has got to be the most boring selection of fonts known to man!
Just a quick note to say that since I made a place to write down all the 'funny things' that my friends encouraged me to write down, I never can think of anything even remotely clever!!
I got a new laptop last week, mostly because I am now working part-time from home and am tired of being stuck in the bedroom all the time. I was going to be very selective about what I moved over from our desktop, as I did not want the needless clutter on my, say it with me, MY new machine. Well, it seems I am my own worst enemy where computers are concerned, and after only 5 days of owning this thing, I am ready to wipe the hard drive and start again! Which is really where I want to be, anyway. The nifty software I got to move the programs and stuff over, while it SAID I could select what I wanted to move, was a bit unclear about some details, and I ended up moving a lot of junk I did not want or even need. Much of which I don't think I need on the desktop, either, but in any case, I sure did not want it on, let's hear it again, MY new computer. Argh.
Please do not suggest System Restore, as that is no longer working for me.
If anyone has a really SIMPLE way to move Mozilla info, specifically my Firefox bookmarks and passwords, and Thunderbird emails, folders, and address books, PLEASE let me know! The MozillaZine stuff is apparently either a little too far over my head or not written in a manner which I can understand, and MozBackup did not work.
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| ok, just because...
Here is a short entry to appease the masses! :)
The Creation Museum opened last week, and it is fabulous! There have already been over 20,000 visitors (10,000 the week before it opened... charter members, local clergy, employees and their extended families, local officials, and another 10,000 last week!) There is still much work to be done, and they are feeling some things out, such as number of employees the REALLY need, why the fancy cash-handling system won't count the new bills (T is having great fun with THAT one  ) But it is really neat!
Again, if somebody I know IRL can vouch for you, you are invited to stay at our home, and I can even get some of you into the museum free, as we have recently become charter members.
We are trying to get school finished before the end of the month, but that may not happen... the weather is just too gorgeous to be stuck inside doing school! But we keep plugging away, and will finish, eventually!
We are able to take a trip to Philadelphia at the end of the month... Tom is going to work at a booth at the NEA convention, and his lodging is paid, so we are tagging along! Charley is very excited to see the historic stuff... the movie National Treasure sparked that interest, and I'm gonna run with it, even changing my plan and jumping ahead to American History next year.
Well, best get school back on track!
If you have a pool, click here!
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| As I begin
yet another soon-to-be-left-unfinished knitting project, I hear Pamela's voice in my
head...
You're
holding your needles upside down!! How can you knit like that??? Look, like
this...
NO! Don't
push the tip of the needle through, just slip it off. See? No, quit pushing
it!!
argh.
I got this
offer for an online/email page-a-day calendar, and I chose the Stitch 'N Bitch
version. Yes I know, bad name. But I thought a neat collection of knitting
patterns and tips would be nice. There was a great fuzzy little child's sweater
with a hood. I will not even attempt anything that needs to be a certain size,
or, heaven forbid, symmetrical!! And then there were the buttonholes... though
now that I have read how to do those, they don't sound so scary! However, for
the time being, I think I will stick with afghans and scarves, and be happy when
they turn out vaguely rectangular!
One day,
there was a link to www.knitting-and.com where they had
really old patterns, like late 19th c., in new language, and some interesting
stitches. I am trying a spider stitch. It is very lacy. You knit, you purl, you
sl, YO, K2tog, and psso... how hard can it be? (she asks with a knowing smirk.)
Of course, the yarn I am using is a 2 ply (not twisted) mohair
metallic synthetic stuff that makes knitting even more of a challenge for the
amateur! I am on row 2. I had to get out a book and look at 3 websites to
remember how to cast on!! Off to a roaring start, I am... You knit 6 rows, and
then the pattern is 8 rows. I will let you know how long it takes me to abandon
this one. I have an afghan (crocheted) that is about 16" long, which I ran out
of yarn for. I have a scarf (also crocheted) that I have ripped out more times
than I have started it! I have some projects that I started in LA and cannot
even find! I did finish a crocheted hat for charley last winter.  yay! It was too
big.  drat. Actually it was not elastic enough to snap back into shape after she
put it on. What the heck does than mean I did wrong?? Anyway, this lacy scarf will match it.
But don't
hold your breath... we cannot seem to locate the hat anyway!
*********************************
Well,
after several false starts, I am now on row 3, for about the 6th time. 
I still
contend that I don't 'push' the tip of the needle through, but rather just have
my finger there so I don't drop the stitch (read: garment) off the
needles!!!
I have
also discovered, in trying to Knit Correctly - The Pamela Way, I can
either hold the needles flat OR not 'push'. I cannot do both. And, when holding
the needles flat, it is like a giant anti-gravity force comes over me, and the
tips of the needles just float up until they are pointing at the sky!!
Maybe I
should stick to what I do well... ummm, hm. What DO I do well??
<sigh>
Oh, and I never did get the flannel jumper finished. 
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