I started a really pretty doily, well I'm not used to using bedspread thread/yarn & so hard to get used to crocheting so small & have rarely used treble/triple crochet I prefer double crochet so I'm not getting much done. I'm seriously thinking about beading around some spoons for plant pokes. 1 reason is quicker & more cheerful & then I can keep the pink, red ,salmon & white flowering plants straight. I get moody about this time every year as I have more headaches from humidity & rain so that dampens creative juices but as weather improves & fog & rain go away I get back into doing crafts & GJ. I'm repainting a cast iron duck that needs touching up mostly but back was starting to get little rust so worked on it today. Have couple of lovebirds on a plaque that the wooden stake on back broke off, have to drill a couple of holes in new stake & attach it to back of it & give it couple of coats of clear sealer to keep it looking good. Went out to plant 4 -6 pks of plants today & it is just too wet, they will just croak so have to wait few days as another storm coming in. Used to have a name for these slumps- drolldrums I think??? This to shall pass(I hope)Glad you are healing nicely from your hip surgery. I sure did a stupid thing Mar12, knocked my 14 oz cup of tea into my hip, managed to grab it with other hand but 1/4 cup (about) burned my hip really good, drenched a thick washcloth with cold water & crushed 8 ice cubes in ziploc bag to put behind that as I could feel the washcloth really getting hot. Looked, after it stopping hurting so much an hour later & all the skin came off on the washcloth. Well, ER's out here are a mess so grabbed a tube of 99cent Dr. Sheffield's Diaper cream zinc oxide based made in USA(use on my dad's feet) & put all over it,once covered all of it pain stopped- I had tried triple antibiotic cream ,it wouldn't stay on. So fast forward to today & I can get clothes on & the thing is healed & just red,once swelling went down healed fast with the zinc. None of 3 brands of non-stick large pads worked, when you took them off any healing that had been going on ended up on pad. So air & zinc work! Not what books say that's for sure. Did I craft,not much, I read to get my mind off of it & I've cleaned out quite a few old Reader's Digests & other magazines I was "always going to get to" so at least something is getting done! Last year at this time I cleaned all upper cabinets in kitchen(air in house warmer by the ceiling so I got lovely cleaned cabinets then. Can you clean out 1 drawer at a time. My 89 yr old mom is sitting on a chair & pulling out drawers from her dresser & cleaning 1 a day. I thought that was good idea as she is missing hip joint altogether(woman texting as she was driving out of grocery parking lot slammed into mom's driver's side as she was going in) so can't take the drawer all the way out & set it on bed like she used to. So if your bedroom, kitchen drawers or craft room drawers need help might be good time to do it. 1 drawer takes 30 minutes to over 1 hr to clean out & replace all the items(takes longer if you find letters or memories etc) Just do little things, they add up & soon you will get spring fever & get back to doing again. How is your weather, it may be getting to you too!Jan

Bumble, you might be my DD's biological mom LOL. Her (self imposed) goal this summer is to cook more "real meals." She already bakes a lot, with some supervision, and makes pancakes independently. Her real obsession these days is duct tape. She has made a variety of wallets, purses, etc. She usually makes at least one a day. She has probably 25 rolls of various colors and patterns at the moment. I honestly don't think I could make one of those wallets myself, and I'm fairly crafty...or used to be! She has her own glue gun. Tish, like you say, she's not a great speller or much of a reader but she can read complicated directions or a recipe and figure it out no problem, so she's all set!

Vala55: I donâÂÂt think interesting lives are the point. To me, this is all about your personal experiences, ordinary though they might be. How others influenced you . . . how you influenced others . . . the world around you and your place in it . . . what you thought . . . what you felt. That sort of thing. Of course, such a project is highly individual, and some might approach it differently. Travel journals would be great! Not for me, though, because IâÂÂve hardly been anywhere. :-) Joyfulguy: Excellent idea about finding the book at the library--thanks! What you write would undoubtedly be interesting and useful to some of those people who come after you, even if theyâÂÂre not related to you. Sherrmann: A fear of mine is that I will have written so much in my lifetime that my children will never want to read it. ItâÂÂs a valid fear! IâÂÂve kept journals for years and written lots of personal essays and letters to my children. IâÂÂm motivated by two things. One is an inborn desire to communicate, to tell. As for the other, when I was seven years old my mother started a diary with the intention of giving me the gift of knowing her as a woman, not just my mother (her own mother had died young, and she never had this experience herself), and also to show me that I had a happy childhood. Like most diaries, the entries were sparse. Two years later, she died. This left me with a compulsion to give my own children what she tried to give me. I think IâÂÂve more than succeeded already, but IâÂÂm not done. :-) That is quite a remarkable quote from your great-great uncleâÂÂs letter. So hard for us to imagine living like that today. Beeohio: Yes, the writing forum was wonderful. ItâÂÂs been years, but I still miss it. Lois DanielâÂÂs book is based on a course she taught. In that class, she assigned a topic, and the following week her students shared what theyâÂÂd written. The book is full of examples from her students. On the KT, I would say sharing is not required. (Actually, nothing is âÂÂrequired.âÂÂ) IâÂÂll probably share parts of what IâÂÂm writing if I think an example would be useful, but IâÂÂm talking short passages, not lengthy chapters. I figure IâÂÂll post an assignment thread every week, and members can post responses (questions and/or excerpts from their own writings) in the thread. WeâÂÂll see if once a week works for most people as a good time frame. IâÂÂll post in a separate thread today.

I am having a similar situation with my contractor where he went out of town suddenly right after he demoed my kitchen and then I had to be home and schedule the rest of the work/trades. What should be expected when a contractor included a overhead/profit in their estimate/invoice, but the homeowner was the one who had to stay home and talk to the trades (including scheduling, staying home while people did demo, install, labor, etc.)? I am genuinely curious what this overhead/profit is supposed to cover when the other items on the invoice already included things like labor and materials separately. I know overhead is usually 1.5 of the contractor's cost, but that usually includes things like project management and design. In my case, a lot of the PM and design was on me and I had to miss a lot of work to be home for different people who came over. I also am tempted to bill my contractor for my time -- but, of course, I won't. I would probably just try to talk with him about what I was unhappy with and see if he gives a discount.