Come See My New Blog

I have a new blog now, got bored with this one and have also decided not to do my Etsy shop anymore and since this blog featured the shop quite a bit, might as well start fresh.
Here it is:
http://milliethedogandthosestupidcats.blogspot.com/

Mimi In The Box

I had this box that a yarn order had come in sitting on the kitchen table. I hadn't quite emptied out all of the yarn but that did not stop Mimi from getting in the box and making herself quite comfortable.

And here is something I made with some of that yarn that came in the box. This is made with the craft cotton yarn from Herrchner's, a set of mandala placemats that were a lot of fun to make. These will be making an appearance in my Etsy shop as soon as I can figure out the price.

I also have some sets of dishcloth/washcloths that are quick and easy to whip up.

The first set is made with the same yarn as the placemats, the second with some Premiere Home cotton yarn from Herrchner's, a little rougher utility type cotton that is only $1.50 a skein and also crochets up much easier and with less frustration than the Sugar and Cream yarns, a yarn I will never buy again no matter how tempting the colors are, I just don't like working with it.

And some more coasters with the cotton/poly blend lighter weight yarn.

One year closer to the grave, ha ha

So I just had my 61st birthday this week. I still do not understand how I got so old and it may have been a psychological thing but the day after my 61st I woke up extra tired and extra achy and was that way all day, being a year older and all.

It was also our 13th anniversary and we did go out to eat that day, twice actually. We went to Applebee's for lunch and were not real impressed with the food. We both ordered one of their 'healthier' lower calorie options (so that we could have DESSERT!) and his was okay, a shrimp stir fry, but mine was kind of blah, some grilled chicken with apple relish on it. Basically cut up Granny Smith apples in some kind of sauce. The apples helped with the flavor of the chicken, it being just basically a plain chicken breast. It was supposed to have a side of quinoa with cranberries and pecans in it but it was white rice with cranberries and pecans so I don't quite know what happened there. Anyway, Applebee's had been off of our list of places to eat for quite a while because we had been disappointed the last time we were there but thought we would give them another try. I don't think we will bother going back again anytime soon. They took our favorite thing off the menu, chips with queso cheese dip and now charge you $4.00 for chips with salsa instead. Blah.

Joe had come over on his way home from work later in the afternoon to visit a bit so we all went over to IHOP and had breakfast for our dinner, which was better tasting and way cheaper than the Applebee's lunch.

I got some yarn from Herrschners and really liked it, a cotton craft yarn on the order of Sugar and Cream but way softer and nicer and much easier to work with. The Sugar and Cream is so stiff sometimes and splits easily and I was very frustrated trying to work with it. The yarn from Herrschners is  Village Yarn craft cotton, it comes in lots of colors and right now it's only $1.79 a skein. It must be on sale right now because I paid $2.49 for my skeins which is still a bargain price for the quality.

I'm really happy with how it performs, they also have a lighter weight cotton poly blend yarn that I really like the quality of. This also comes in lots of colors and is currently priced at $1.99 a skein. They are not big huge skeins like acrylic yarns but you still get quite a bit of yarn in them.

My most recent order of yarn came yesterday so it was like a day after birthday present for me!

I also got some crackers in the mail yesterday, I had read about these Simple Mills almond flour cheese crackers in a magazine so found the Simple Mills website and ordered some. I tried some today and they are almost (but not quite!) like eating Cheez-Its which I totally love and miss a great deal since I'm not supposed to eat crackers. The Simple Mills still have carbs in them but they come from almonds I guess. They are paleo-friendly, grain free and soy free. They have 4 flavors of the crackers and also have almond flour baking mixes. I got some pancake mix and chocolate muffin/cake mix, neither of which I have tried yet but I'm hoping they are as good as the crackers.

They are not cheap at $4.99 a box but they were quickly shipped and the website updated me with tracking info and also a notice on delivery day to be on the lookout for them.

I do love shopping online, so much easier than running around town in the heat, finding parking, standing in lines, getting all sweaty because it's hot outside, etc. etc. etc. The shipping charges are well worth the convenience I think.

Cheap Decorating With Walmart and Yikes! It's Been a Long Time Since I Posted on Here!

Keith went to Walmart on his way home from work the other night. Or morning depending on how you look at it. He had made some steaks for us a few weeks ago and they were very good and very tender but very hard to cut with our old cheap steak knives, so it struck him in the middle of the night that he should go buy some new knives. He also found this placemat that was 89c. They only had one of them and it's one of those incredibly thin, incredibly cheaply made placemats but hey, it looks kind of cute hanging up on door that goes into the garage! I used that putty stuff to hang it with, totally removable if you get bored with what's hanging there and no damage to the paint on the wall or door or wherever.

Buddy went to the vet last week, I had noticed that he was walking around with one eye shut and the eye was all red around the edges of it, so Keith called the vet and took him over there. It took us three tries to get Buddy in the cat carrier and he cried all the way there but he got there. I told Keith it was his turn to wrangle an animal, vet visits and cleaning up after animals always seems to fall on me. It was a good thing that his eye was all red because it turned out that he had an ear infection too, which we would have never known if not for the eye thing. He got a lot of meds which I can't give him by myself, it is a two person job to deal with Buddy, so he's missed some of his doses but does seem to be feeling better, back to his usual a little bit cranky self. He's been a little extra cranky this past week because food is now limited, no grazing whenever he (or any of the other cats) wants a little snack or is bored. He weighs an astonishing 25 pounds! He is a big big boy.

I was trying to get a picture of him out in the yard and of course Miss Nosy Mimi had to come see what was going on.

Yesterday morning Millie and I went out front for our usual early morning sit in the yard and watch what's going on in the neighborhood (and bark at anyone walking by) thing and the air felt like the summer might be ending soon. That cool crisp breeze thing was happening and boy, did it feel good! Today I've actually got the front window and door open to let some of those breezes in the house. Of course our air is not all that clean but still, cooler albeit dirty air feels pretty refreshing.

I finally did a chore that has been on my list for months, washing down the bathroom walls and ceiling. Walls are something that gets dirty but you don't really think about cleaning all that often and also it's a lot of work but the bathroom does look a bit better. All of the walls in the house need fresh coats of paint but I don't think that will happen anytime soon. To get me in the mood to clean I turned on IHeartRadio and set it to the Texas Tornadoes channel. If you need some extra energy listening to songs such as 'Are You Going to San Antone' certainly does help.

Now on to cleaning the sinks and mirrors along with vacuuming up cat hair, a chore I do every single day.

Cheap Thrills More Crochet and More Digestive Issues

Digestive issues. Just part of getting old I guess. As mysteriously as my...whisper...diarrhea issues started up last year they have just as mysteriously gone and now I am back to the daily challenge of trying to get enough fiber and water in the hopes of everything that goes in comes back out again. I had just gotten used to not straying too far from a bathroom and actually liking the part about losing weight because the fats in my foods were not getting digested when okay, enough of that, now you are not going to be able to go at all! So...metamucil is once again my friend and how many times a day can you drink that stuff anyway? I keep a bottle of magnesium citrate saline solution on hand for emergencies but be careful with that stuff and definitely don't drink too much of it! It's cheap though and doesn't taste too bad nor does it give you cramps like some laxative pills can.

I try to get fiber in my foods but my appetite is just so bad these days, food does not sound good but I still get very hungry and have to eat something, anything! Unfortunately my taste for sweet stuff looks like it will never go away, but my taste for anything healthy like chicken or a salad is just non existent. And lets not even get into cooking anything, it's too hot to cook and I just plain old don't like doing it, especially when I just can't face eating the end result because it just doesn't look or sound good. I do mix up and drink a lot of Trutein protein shakes (which come in wonderful flavors like peanut butter marshmallow!) but as far as real food goes, ugh.

We did go out to lunch with Joe last week and went to a cafe down the road that we hadn't been to in years. They had expanded both the cafe and the menu since we were last there. I seem to remember it only being open for breakfast and lunch but it's now open for dinner too and they also have a full bar, not that either one of us can drink any liquor anymore. I opted for the hamburger patty diet plate and it was really good, the hamburger was really tasty and tender and the sliced tomatoes and fruit that came with it did whet my appetite and tasted really good. Keith had pork chops and eggs and Joe had bacon and eggs which came with home fried potatoes and a biscuit and gravy (yum!). The service was really good and the heavily tattooed waitress very cafe/truck stop friendly so I'm pretty sure that we will go back next time we are looking for a good meal. However I don't think I'll be trying the tongue sandwich that is on their menu any time soon.

We went to the movies last week to see Jason Bourne which was good, but I have an incredibly hard time sitting through a movie in a movie theatre these days. I get very uncomfortable and always have to go to the bathroom halfway through and am looking around for the remote control so that I can put the movie on pause. It's also really expensive to go to the movies, $10.00 each to get in and then Keith spent another $14.00 or so on a small popcorn, coke and a bottle of water.

Yesterday Keith created his 'poor man's water park' in the back yard by propping up the hose so that it would shower down on him. Millie does not like water spraying on her so she watched from the sidelines looking quite confused as to what Papa was doing.

He sat out there for about 30 minutes under the water and said it was very relaxing. Plus it cooled him off after we had worked in the front yard getting things cleaned up that morning.

More crochet. I've gotten a lot of patterns off of Etsy and am really enjoying trying them all out. I did this mandala coaster pattern yesterday.

I have so many different colors of the 'I Love This Cotton Yarn' brand from Hobby Lobby that I could probably make hundreds of these in all different color combinations. I went a little overboard last time I was at Hobby Lobby and now have boxes full of yarn!