Sunday, June 30, 2013

Design modifications

I'm working on a sweater using the jimmy beans royal baby sweater pattern.  It's a lovely free Topdown pattern.  Ideally I would be knitting it using some of the gorgeous yarn jimmy bean had dyed for the kal. But sadly in our down sizing mode I really really need to knit from stash.  I finished the body.  Something seemed a little off.   Turns out in reading the pattern I missed a rather important line of directions.  Now instead of a standard center closure it is more of a kimono style.   A design modification come to life.  
As far as the baby and mom know that is how it was ment to be.   Ays my story and I'm sticking to it.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Another done


A little less stuff

We are downsizing.  I don't do garage sales....have participated in a couple, just not for me. So I regularly purge and donate.  So it is surprising just how much stuff one still accumulates.   This is the second wave to charity this month.
More will follow.  Surprisingly my house really didn't look like an episode of hoarders.  While at least not until it was full of the bags and boxes that are currently sitting waiting for pick up.  We are truly a living example of the premise that stuff will expand to fill the available space.   We have had plenty of closet and cupboard space in this house...and clearly we did a fine job of filling the space.  

I have a simple system as I go thru things.  White bags and cardboard boxes are donated someplace. Black bags are trash. Clear plastic bins are to be kept and space found somewhere.  In theory it means things need only be handled once.   


Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Progress on all fronts


It's very exciting!  We now have a beautiful hardwood dining room floor.

Another charity pick up is scheduled.   MANY bags of unneeded things will be waiting on the front porch.  I'm looking forward to feeling less like I'm living in an episode of hoarders.


I finished two more wacky baby hats for Bundles of Love. This pattern always makes me smile.


I made a patriotic ruffle scarf for my aunt.  She marches in parades with her small town legion. So thought she might enjoy a little red,white, and blue neck ware.

I have two baby sweaters on the needles for Bundles.  Both are Hannah Fettig's Yoked Cardigan.  

I broke down and bought a set of the knitpicks sunburst interchangeable needles.   I have kp in FL and I found I hard using the needles I bought when I first started knitting.  It needed to be fun. So took advantage of the sale.  Started donating the older ones to knitting friends. 

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Full circle

When I was a little girl the people behind us moved out.   They left several boxes of amazing treasures next to the trash.  My friend and I, with permission, hauled them home.  We split the loot.  I don't recall what she kept.  But I had a lovely white china coffee pot with matching cups and saucers, a child's coco set,  tiny espresso cups and saucers, a white flower vase with matching candle holder and flat flower vase, and a china box with a gilt rose.  How can I remember each piece? Because I have been wrapping and moving them ever since.   They moved from Wisconsin to North Dakota.  From North Dakota to three different apartments and two houses.  And now most of the will move from my house to Goodwill.  I will keep a couple of things...the vases and coco set. Just to remember how excited we were at the find.   But now so many years later I understand why those special prices were left in a box by the trash.   I hope that someone shopping at Goodwill spots my treasures and wonders how anyone could ever let them. go...  That is what I'm going to believe....

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

The lost is found

Apple was unable to restore my lost lists.  They tried.  Somehow they "recovered" 62 day old grocery shopping lists but not my important account info.  But last night when I as trying with the help of a technician I noticed for a brief moment the appearance of the headings of the lists before they were magically recovered into the old shopping lists.  So after I hung up and everyone went to bed I tried a different strategy.  Using my phone, but not touching my ipad, I restored to the oldest date possible from the phone backup.  When the notes were loaded, but before they "restored to the cloud " I opened the line item I was looking for and emailed the contents to myself.  It worked!   But then the lists were restored and the notes again disappeared.   

So I erased and restored my phone again and again each time grabbing another list, starting with most important.   It took over a couple hours each time, but I think I recovered what I wanted.   Which is good, because the last time I tried my little bit of magic didn't work and the notes appeared right away as the "recovered" file.

What I learned from this...1.apple tech support tried very hard to help.  They were pleasant and spent hours with me.  2. I got lucky, stumbling on a recovery option.  3.  I learned from the tech guy that if you have an important note email it to yourself as a extra backup.   Because even with automatic cloud backups things can run amuck.  4. Sometimes you just have to be brave and try drastic measures...I.e. erase and restore .

In the end I lost a little data, a couple of pictures, and  levels of the gameI was playing.   But i found my missing notes and didn't seem to lose any contact information.   So not to bad of an outcome.

Thank heavens I took the chance with erase and restore.  
I treated myself to new shoes.   They are wacky patterned Algeria brand clogs.  Super comfortable.   I stumbled across a pair for 75% off when I walked into a shoe store with a friend.  She was looking for birks and I was killing time.  We both left with shoes.