Well, I'm still here believe it or not! Sorry for the long haitus

I have been gone due to surgery on my neck and the fibromyalgia symptoms that have been worsened by the surgery. I will post more projects and fun stuff soon, so stay tuned!

Solicitors and New Windows

We just got finished with a nearly week long new window installation. We 'accidentally' purchased windows from a door to door salesman. We are usually anti-solicitor at our door. We like to seek out the items we purchase, we don't like them to come to us unasked for. However, as I was about to turn this couple of salesmen away, 'Solarban 60' popped out of his mouth. Being in a field related to construction, I knew this was a great window. Being the current owner of this 47 year old, leaky as hell, might as well open the windows for all the good they do, home, this looked like a great solution to a good portion of our energy costs. This site has a good explanation of Solarban 60's benefits. So, exhorbitant costs and all, we go ahead and order them. Six weeks later, we are the proud owners of brand new, beautiful and energy efficient windows. Now, our pellet stove heats the whole house and uses much fewer pellets in the process. Pics of pellet stove and beautiful handmade hearth to come when I get my husband to find the camera!

Leslie's Been Found!!!!

Leslie has been found and thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers.

Leaky house syndrome

We seem to be suffering from leaky house syndrome. This syndrome (otherwise known as OMG it's friggin FUHREEEZING in here!!!) can be quite serious, requiring extensive amounts of money in the attempt to keep it's occupants warm, or at least, slightly above hypothermia stage.

When we bought this fabulous 'wouldn't it be fun to remodel a house and actually have some yard' house, we knew we would have to replace things, repair things, and spend money on them. Yah, we did NOT realize quantities in our thought process. There should be mandatory labeling of all houses older than 20 years that warn against the dangers (financial and otherwise) of purchasing an old shack!

Now where do I sign up to get off this damn roller coaster....

New Thread Rack

Leslie is still missing. See right side of page for details.

I was so excited to get my new thread rack made. My dad did 98% of the work and let me glue the dowels in and do a teeny bit of sanding so I could feel like I contributed. Here's a pic:


It holds 100 spools of thread of any size except cones. Tomorrow he will make me another one because I underestimated my thread stash! The thread rack is fairly simple, consisting of 1/4" dowels, some 1/4" plywood for the sides, and some other wood dad had laying about that he cut and sanded and drilled before I even saw it. The dowels are spaced approximately 1-3/4" apart and glued in. The bases are then glued and nailed to the sides. This is meant to be purely functional because I didn't want to wait for the revved up perfectly beautiful version dad would've made on his own. Yay for dads and their ginormous woodshops! Thanks Dad! Dad is also making the new hearth for our pellet stove which he, CaveGurlsDad, and a friend will be installing on Saturday.

A Tale of Rice Bags, Pellet Stoves, and a Finished Birthday Present

To start off...LESLIE IS STILL MISSING....if you know anything at all please call 1-800-the-lost. Thank you.

I started seeing an acupuncturist a couple of weeks ago. He is experienced in both acupuncture and massage therapy which is exactly what I needed. Fortunately for me, he has a patient near me that he sees in her home, so he is willing to come to my home if I book my appointments right after hers ( for all you acupuncture/massage therapists - this is a great idea). Yesterday he came over and when I told him of my hand problems he suggested I use a rice bag on them as moist heat is what I need, and the heating pad is a dry heat. So I started thinking, why put a rice bag on your hand when you could put your hand IN a rice bag? Good idea eh? So I spent most of yesterday working this idea out between naps and such, and I am just about finished. I will post a pic when I have finished the masterpiece.

Before acupuncture, I finally finished brother's pillow cases. Yeah! Something off my plate of must dos. So now there is a pair of them and I am happy I finished with many days to spare...almost feel like I need to make something else so I can be frantic at the last minute as usual, but that was the old me. Now, I am the go slow, don't over do it (ha, Jan just keep your mouth closed and the fabric won't be harmed...) ok, most of the time don't over do it! I am the new 'take care of myself first' me, the relax and try to be as pain-free as possible me.

So the non-family members out there are probably wondering what the heck am I talking about? Well, I am setting up a new blog (my new blog) to chronicle it, but to give you all a brief overview of my fabulous self...I have fibromyalgia, I have a herniated-touching-the-nerve-disk at C5/6 which is at the base of your neck for the non-initiated lucky ones. I also am suffering from some sort of neuropathy which is a major pain (haha) tingly, burning, lighting bolt type of pain. My finger tips are all numb except for right index and most of right thumb. Makes typing correctly an adventure. So, check out my new blog for more on my fabulous self.

Back to the actual title and reason for this post. We're getting a pellet stove. For those not in the know, it is like a wood stove except it burns pellets which are "Pellet fuel is a renewable, clean-burning and cost stable home heating alternative currently used throughout North America. It is a biomass product made of renewable substances – generally recycled wood waste." from pelletheat.org. Very excited about it as our 47 year old (yes, you read it right 47!!) furnace is not even 50% efficient and is heating us out of house and home! The three pallets of pellets arrived today, but the stove will be installed next week. Dad is building a hearth for it and we picked out fabulous travertine tiles for it at Home Depot. I'll post a pic when it's all done.

My Latest Projects

I've always had a hard time making things for my brother. He only likes red and black and is very picky. So when I saw this asian dragon fabric, I just knew I had to get it and make something for him. I decided a robe would be out of the question since he just wears sweats, so I decided to make pillow cases. Here is the first one...
Unfortunately the pattern repeat was about 24 inches or so and I wanted a 31 inch long pillow case. I also was limited with the amount of black fabric I had purchased, not realizing how much I would need (I'm a great planner!) So I added as much red as I could to enable the black to wrap around to the inside and cover up all the seams. After I had this finished, I realized I probably didn't need to do that since I made this entire pillowcase with french seams. Just goes to show, I am not a pillowcase maker! Hopefully the second one won't be such a problem and will go faster. I am just wanting to work on my new jacket (I paid too much money for the fabric but it will be worth it!) I had this denim like jacket pattern I had purchased earlier and when I was at fabric depot last week, I saw the same pattern made up with a variety of gorgeous woven cottons, so I bought what they had and guessed at the yardage (pretty good guesses too), I only had about a half yard too much in total. Maybe I'll make a matching bag! Here is the pattern and a picture of the cut out jacket pieces (half of it anyway)...

So, I am thinking that the pocket fabric is too light, not enough contrast with the two bottom front fabrics. I do have enough of the darker fabric to make pockets so I may do that. Maybe change the cuffs too...I may have to go back to fabric depot and buy a different fabric altogether. We'll see how it all works out.

I just posted a couple of items on Etsy. I have been making things for a couple of months and will be posting them as I can fit it into my busy (ha) schedule.

Ciao for now!

Leslie is still missing!

It has been 2 weeks and 2 days since Leslie went missing. She was last seen by her family on Friday, September 21st, 2007 in Garden Grove, California. She is only 15 years old! The police are NOT looking for her, they have classified her as a runaway, which her family does not believe she would do. She was not in trouble. She was doing well in school. She took NOTHING from home, not her clothes, not her makeup, nothing. Her father's birthday was yesterday and I know if she had left voluntarily, she would have come home or at least called home, for that.

If you have ANY information, please call 1-800-THE LOST (843-5678).

Thank you!

A Crafter's Guide to the Laws of Physics

I am fortunate to have an entire room to use in my creative pursuits, and one that is a fairly decent size. It is roughly 11 feet by 12 feet. I am also fortunate to have enough stuff to fill it. I have scrapbooking stuff. Paper, scissors, paper punches, paper, stamps, paper, stickers, paper, did I mention I have paper? I also have yarn, fuzzy yarn, soft yarn, wool yarn, nylon and acrylic yarn, fancy and utilitarian yarn. I love to crochet and knit, although at present my hands are not allowing me to pursue those hobbies, I still have the stuff, you know, the hooks, needles, yarn, and of course, more yarn. I have a dresser full of yarn. And then there is the sewing. The sewing machines, yes, I said machines with an S. I inherited a fancy schmancy embroidery machine and a serger to keep my little ol' Pfaff company. I am very grateful for those machines, but boy do they need space of their own. See, they don't play well together when they don't get their own space. Each machine wants it's own little piece of table top to call it's own. Quite understandable, as I sure wouldn't want to share my personal space with another person 24 hours a day. Since I have such a fine assortment of sewing machines, I have to have fabric to use in them. Mmmm fabric....nothing beats a great sale on fabric! Fabric Depot has all their fabric 40% off today and tomorrow and I had a good time there! I think my craft room has reached a critical point at which I need to reorganize to accomodate the fabric...two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time! Container Store here I come! :}

More Sewing projects...

Here are some wallets and an apron I made in the last couple of weeks. Finally got around to taking pictures of them. I'm thinking of selling them on Etsy, not sure if I want to sell the apron though, I really like it.
Here are some of the wallets. They are fairly easy, take only a half hour or so to make, and can be made with less than a fat quarter, in fact, you could probably get 2 out of one fat quarter. so they can be very economical to make too (unless you are like me and just HAVE to buy a half yard of fabric at a time!)
This is not an original pattern, I got the pattern from this post at craftster. Gotta love craftster! The most creative bunch around!


Here is a non-plastic shopping bag made. The pattern for this bag was made by cutting open a plastic shopping bag. The idea came from this post at ...you guessed it...craftster..


Here is a picture of it full, and a picture of it with the contents


Off to bed now, don't want a repeat of last night! Ciao!

How not to unclog a toilet in 3 easy steps

*******ATTENTION******NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART OR STOMACH******THIS IS GROSS******

OMG, so last night in the wee hours of 2 am I decide I finally am ready to go to bed. See it isn't so easy to fall asleep and stay asleep these days so I make sure I am darn good and tired first (plus I was having too much fun trying to get my brain to remember what time my chiropractor appointment was for today!) So anyway, I decide to go to bed, first must use the toilet, then take meds, brush teeth, check doors.....ya know the routine. But wait. Toilet is clogged...Ok, lets try flushing. Oops, wrong decision! Now toilet is up to the brim. Fantastic! Just what I was looking for, a night of adventure, and something different. (wait, wasn't that supposed to be a DATE, not a toilet un-clogging?) So I start looking for the plunger, you know, the little wooden handle thing with the rubber suctiony thingy at the end that EVERYONE ON THE PLANET has? Yah, after nearly an hour of searching, I find the snake, but no plunger, because we are the only family on the earth that has 5 TVs and NO PLUNGER!!!!!! Oh goody, this should be fun...never tried one of these before! So I try the snake. Now how do these work? You turn the crank and ... nothing? Ok, so I will pull it out by hand. ok, so maybe this is when I am supposed to turn the crank...HOLY CRAP!!! (picture innocent unsuspecting, medicated, ready to go to bed (read overly tired) woman with a 3 foot length of half inch round coil flinging about as crank is being turned) Yah, THAT was not a good idea! So glad it was not in the toilet when I tried that little experiment!!!!!! So off we go to unclogging the toilet, cram that little bugger down the toilet, try to loosen whatever nastiness is keeping it stopped up without getting anything on yourself. Riiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhht. This is not a fairy tale. This is real. Do not try this at home. So, now I spend an hour or more cramming snake thingy down the toilet and all I have done is make the water lower an inch or so. Time to wake spouse. 4am! Spouse clearly ecstatic to be awakened at this hour for such a pleasurable experience. We start the never ending plunger search once again. Rechecking already checked places, looking in new far too small to be hiding a plunger spaces in hopes that it IS in there so we don't have to try the evil snake again...NO luck...back to the snake...or NOT.
See, there was a third option that I hadn't even considered. The go to sleep and deal with it in the morning by calling my dad who definitely has a plunger option. So off to bed we go. Dad had it unclogged in the morning in less than a minute with his plunger.

Moral of this story ... Buy a plunger!

now back to your regularly scheduled insanity already in progress.

Misadventures of a New Old House

So, we bought a new house. Or should I say old house? It's 47 years old. That's older than me so it qualifies as an old house as far as I am concerned. See, since we've been married we've only bought new houses. We've been lucky, or the price of old house + renovations to make it livable = price of new house. So you may ask..'why did you buy an old house then?' Well, for some stupid, insane reason we thought we wanted to try a fixer-upper. You know, like on DIY network, and HGTV, where a couple, some tools and a knowledgeable person tackle a home improvement project in 30 minutes (20ish if you subtract commercial time). So, if they can do it, we can do it. Riiiiiiiggghhht.

No one told us it takes longer than 30 minutes and 2 people to turn 2 closets into one. or that taking down a wall in a house with hardwood floors would leave a mark. A mark in the floor that is, where there is no hardwood. Who'd of thunk that way back when, they didn't put the nice floor under the wall. Apparently they don't even do that now either. Did you know that when you remove a wall and build a new one you have to put mud up? Sheetrock mudding is an artform apparently. And we didn't major in that in college. Yep, mud, let dry, sand, mud, let dry, sand repeat...

So now I've been living without a closet for 2 months. Well, not exactly without a closet, but when you go from a 8x17 closet to a 2x4 closet, you are living with NO closet. Still waiting for my new 2x9 closet to be finished so I can have some semblance of normalcy in this house. 2 months. Think about it, 2 months of living out of laundry baskets, cardboard boxes, and piles. My piles even have piles. The hard part of laundry basket living is wash day. Yep, that's the day you have to make piles out of your clean clothes to make room for the new clean clothes that will be coming out of the dryer in the basement. Somehow clothes seem to multiply on wash day. Ever notice that? I think it's odd that I never have anything to wear, yet I have far too much laundry to do...Now don't even get me going on socks and their mysterious alien abductions....

The first few weeks we lived here were a nonstop funfest. One house, one unsuspecting family of three and 2 straight weeks of bad luck. Day one, moving day. We think we're smart to pay two guys to move us. Save our backs and all, getting old you know. $75 an hour. 11 hours and 2 huge truck loads later, and we aren't even done. Nope, still have stuff at old house. A family of three shouldn't have so much crap. But we do. Yep, we have enough for 3 families. Why you say? Cause we are savers. Not the good kind of savers that put money in the bank and retire early. Nope, we are the JUNK savers! We save everything. Do you need scrapbook paper? I have enough for your entire neighborhood. Don't want to run out on an icy day you know. That would cramp my creativity. Need yarn? I have half of a store just crying to become your next sweater. Fabric? Don't even go there. Did anyone even look in the garage? See the pretty car? Notice the engine compartment that has no engine? Yep we have one of those too...the infamous 'car project'. We'll get to that when we retire.

But, back to the story. Moving day, family is here trying to help unpack, organize, etc. People keep saying they smell gas. Not the flatulence kind, or the fuel for your car kind, but the blow-up-your-house-if-you-light-a-match kind. Yep, we have a gas leak. Thank you old home owners! Turns out the 47 year old furnace has a leak. Luckily we have a 1 year, 'new' home insurance policy that covers most of it. It only takes 3 weeks, several phone calls and 3 visits from various people to get it fixed, but it's done. Damn thing actually works.

Next thing we know CaveGurl is calling me at work saying the window exploded. Yah, we have 47 year old windows which are the crank out kind and this one's crank thingy was stripped. Enter windy day. Window flies open as far as it will go and bang...no more glass. Good thing it is summer. Or bad thing since now we have a hole in the wall and it's 90+ degrees out.

Another day, another call from favorite daughter. 'Uh, mom, uh the uh garbage disposal thing was shooting the stuff out the other side of the sink so I uh covered it and uh, well, uh when I went down stairs it stunk so I uh looked and uh there was gross stuff all over the floor next to the drain pipe for the kitchen' Yah, we have plumbing problems. I keep thinking that when you buy a house, you hire an inspector and he finds all the bad things that you need to know about and then you decide if you still want the house. Well our inspector never said anything about nasty pipe emissions while operating the garbage disposal. Lesson of the day: Do not cover adjacent sink hole while utilizing garbage disposal feature.

New homes are an adventure, the kind where you're always on the lookout for the next disaster. You move in and you open up all the windows to get the stink of a shut up for too long house out and wham...you have a broken screen. Not just any broken screen, but a broken sliding hideaway kind of screen with no manufacturers name on it for easy identification that everyone uses to go out to the deck. Screen still broken. Someday it will be replaced.

The refrigerator freezer section didn't work which we found out the hard way. New fridge here we come...

We have decided we aren't moving again. Ever.

What is a Cave Gurl and why does her mom ramble?

To start with, on a more serious side, my niece has been missing for a week and a half now. Here is a link to the poster. If you have any information PLEASE contact the authorities.


I don't know what has come over me. I am not a writer, I am an analyzer, a calculator, a maker, but now I have the urge to write. There must be something strange in the air since I have successfully avoided all writing classes at any cost and do anything I can to minimize my writing whenever the occasion calls for me to actual compose something. But here I am.

What, you might ask, is a Cave Gurl, and why does her mom ramble? Well, Jean Auel can explain a cave gIrl better than anyone I have read, however my daughter is a cave gUrl. Ayla is her name, and unique with a capital U she is. Her mother, me, rambles, because that's how my goofy mind thinks, in random sequences. You know, like when you go to the store with a list, and buy everything but what was on the list? That's me. Because I forgot the list. Or I forgot to look at the list. Or I decided I didn't like the items on the list. Why do I make lists? Because that's what you're supposed to do to be organized! And organized is what engineers are supposed to be.

Organization is something I am constantly trying to implement but have never achieved. Anyone have any tips? My sewing room is a mess, but how can you come up with a cool new project when you don't have all of your fabrics in full view? Since all organization methods I have tried actually hide my fabric, I am constantly in search of new ones. That is also my lame excuse for buying even more fabric...you know, because I can't find any in my stash that will work. So please, organization gurus, lend me your mojo so I can have one area of organization and function!

Sewing is what makes me happy. Right now, that is. Sometimes it's quilting, or crocheting, or knitting, or reading or talking or organizing (ironic, eh). Here are some of my current projects

The first pic is a mini wall hanging I made for my mom for helping me out, the pattern is from an old quilting magazine that I can't find at the moment and can't remember the name of.
The second pic is a mini wallet and gift bag for my niece's birthday. I got the idea a for the mini wallet from a tutorial on www.craftster.com.
The last one is a purse I just finished making for my daughter who is away at OSU (go Beavs!!) The pattern I used is Butterick 4041.

More excitement to come....