challenging weekend

Kiddo made this weekend... difficult. It was hard to be too grumpy about it because it all stems from her bout with the flu. Still, would like to just leave this experience out of the precious memories file.

The weekend wasn't a total write-off. I found my stash of knitting needles and more yarn among the boxes that came home last weekend so I made a list of the needles I own. I also found four little balls of wool that have been lingering in my stash for ages...

I spent a couple of hours searching through patterns at Ravelry but still don't have any good ideas for how to best use the wool... any input would be welcome! While I was poking around on the site, I realized I hadn't logged in for well over a year and there was a message from a moderator wanting to feature my Ma Cobb Hat photo on the feature page from January... oops. Anyway, while I was there, I also stumbled across the notice for this year's Victoria Fibrefest -- something that has been on the periphery of my radar for a couple of years. I may try to get to some of the events this year... who knows?

The sun was out today and Hubby took advantage of the weather to build another raised bed -- now we need dirt! While he was finishing that off and working on converting a pallet to a new base for Kiddo's tree fort, I worked on turning some of the ground inside the raised beds and pulling out some of the grass and weeds.

Oh, but the most exciting news (and subsequently some of the most frustrating): we made two sales from ThoseDeWolfes' etsy store (yay!) but I suck at estimating postage and Canada Post sucks at making shipping affordable so we lost some of the profit from each sale to shipping costs. Sigh.

Words

I've been playing word games again (Lexulous on Facebook) and thinking about language and words again. I recently put in my first order from Threadless and will soon be the owner of this tshirt:


I've always been drawn to word art, especially when people use words in an unexpected way, like these dream tickets (that just sold out!!) from MoonFaces on Etsy:

(She has other tickets available... I really like the idea.)

Of course, you can also get my words on a t-shirt, mug, messenger bag or in a frame; buy my zombie haiku stuff at Cafe Press:



And, just to be silly, my del.icio.us tags in word-art form using Wordle....

Shameless promotion and future projects

I am home sick (First cold of the season. Hooray.) so I thought I would blow my own horn in between rounds of blowing my nose:

1. My recycled crayon tutorial has been shortlisted over at The Sunday Best for favourite tutorial; you can vote for me there, though the prize is a bowtie and I am not sure what I would do with one.

2. The other day, I discovered that much of the stuff posted on ThoseDeWolfes was being hidden from anyone not logged in (DOH!) we've fixed that now, so tutorials and everything else should be visible.

3. I've been trying to update FrugalVictoria more regularly -- if anyone out there is interested in contributing please drop me a note.

4. I have also been trying to regularly add listings to my Etsy stores -- Creative Miscellany and ThoseDeWolfes.

4. Stuff I am working on: a redesign of my Unofficial Guide to Victoria (yes, it seems like I have been working on this for ages, but I am close enough to just post the new site and fix it rather than tinker endlessly in development mode); an e-book to accompany virtualstager.com (I'm close to finishing this, too); helping Hubby edit his novel (which you could download now in its "beta" version).

5. Stuff I am considering: a crafting book; a photo-book of My Views of Victoria; getting back into writing movie reviews (I've been offered a regular gig -- same deal as before: swag and free movies in lieu of pay).

OK, I'll take off the barker's hat now; thanks for reading.

Elder God For Sale!

After fifteen months, Hubby's one-of-a-kind sculpture is complete and is now for sale. We'll be listing it on eBay, but offers will be taken any time.

The highest point is the bow of the boat which is is 5' 6" off the ground. The widest span (wingtip to fingertip) is just over 5'; I'm guessing it weighs close to 200 lbs. Here are some detail photos:

More info at thosedewolfes.com and Flickr.

Sigh.

Today we had a visit from a home stager -- part of the package our Realtor provides -- and it went about as well as expected. (By that I mean "poorly"; I really don't understand the need to live out of a suitcase and make our home look like a hotel suite for the length of time it is on the market.)

At one point, I actually left the room when the stager was telling us to sort things "dispassionately" and when I expressed concern over potential stains on a new carpet she told us to "control [our] pet" -- really? You try telling a cat not to hack up a hairball on pristine carpet.

After she left, Hubby and I had a discussion in which some compromises were made. Yes, we'll paint. Yes, we will get rid of all the shelving (this is a major compromise on my part -- I don't understand the point of a living room without a single bookshelf or media shelf.) But we aren't going to do quite as much work on the kitchen as she thought was needed and we are not going to "make the [storage room] door disappear" by painting it white. The carpet is still up for debate.

Of course this means it will be at least a month before the "For Sale" sign goes up -- I think I was hoping for half that time. Sigh.

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In other news: I posted a review for X Saves the World over on the Medianook and for those who are interested, we are posting details of what we're selling/giving away over at ThoseDeWolfes.