Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday .  I got over to the rehab center today and asked if I could use the salon set up they have to at least wash my moms hair.  They said yes, so off we went to do what would normally take 20 minutes and spent about an hour getting her into the chair and then washing her hair.  Poor thing, it is still going to take her some time before she can really move her leg and put weight on it.  She really didn’t want to wash her hair today but I told her its been at least 8 days and wished she would so she went with it and I was so proud of her.  She put up with the pain and got to move about some with the walker.  She still can’t put any weight on it yet.  After the shampooing she was about worn out.  They wanted her to at least to try and stay out of bed in her wheel chair till 1 today but she stayed out and about till 3.  We even went to the computer that they have to do some online bill paying and for her to check her e-mails, too.  Then I wheeled her down the hall as we wished the other residents Merry Christmas and made our way to the gift shop where she wanted to get some cards and some stamps.  Then back to the room where I combed out her hair and braided it so it wouldn’t turn into the tumble weed she had when she got there that took 45 minutes to comb out  the other day.  When we have time and shes up to it I’ll cut and style it for her then.  Tommorrow we will have Christmas dinner together and that will be fun.  The place is all decorated and festive and its neat since we don’t do much decorating and its nice to see it all.  All the staff had on their santa hats and I’m gonna wear mine tommorrow.  Its supposed to be cold and rainy tomorrow but we will be nice and cozy at the rehab place since they keep it so warm in there. I’ll try and remember to take some pics tomorrow.  MERRY CHRISTMAS everybody  

Well, I’m feeling the Christmas spirit but have been hit head on by a frieght train of events that has me wondering what the HECK JUST HAPPENED .  The dust is just now clearing and we (my mom and I) are beginning to see the light.  This critter, MITZY, wrapped her leash around my moms legs and cause her to loose her balance and fall and she broke her femer bone completely through.  I had gone out to run some errands and we were going to go shopping and see if we could get our pictures with santa and the pooch at the local Care A Lot.  I called home to see if she was getting ready and that I would take the dog out.  Well she decided to do that and the accident happened.  She didn’t answer the phone and something told me to beat feet home.  I got there and she was on the floor crying.  I realized it was serious and called 911.  It all just kept going after that and several days later.  An unpleasant stay in the hospital, surgery, I got a bad cold during it all, and its like what the heck just happened.  You never plan for these things and when they happen you end up learning alot about, insurance, hospitals, rehab centers etc.  Finally she is settled in a rehab center near the house and I’m getting ready to go see her.  She looks so much better and like the place and the people are so nice.  The hospital was a nitemare.  She was getting rashes on her legs and bottom that they just were not treating.  I had to change her bedpan several times and could see that the rashes were getting worse.  So I just wanted her out of there.  It’s amazing to me what some people are like that are doctors and nurses.  Some were great but there were some that were like, WHY DID YOU GO INTO NURSING, WHY!  It will take a while for her to get back in the swing of things but I can see her improving already just from the second day of being there.  I just feel so bad about having brought the dog into the house but friends have told me she could have fallen for some other reason.  We did find out through all of this that she has a vitamin D deficiency and osteoporosis so that will need attending too.  I think I’ll get the pooches shots and get her fixed and find a nice home for her since I don’t want a repeat. 

So that is why I haven’t been on here in awhile.  Hope you all are having a nice holiday season.  We had a little bit of snow the other day and it was nice to see.  HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Here’s the CRYING BABY!, LOL, also known as Mitzi that I rescued.  She had fleas and is on her last day of treatment for worms.  Okay, puppies = crying babies, what the heck was I thinking.  It’s actually like having a baby in the house, LOL, up all nite, she squeels if I leave her in her cage and yelps and carries on if your not carrying her.  I never thought I’d be sleeping with a dog but if I don’t I’m up all nite with her whimpering and who can stand that.  She is so sweet and cuddles up under her towel and sleeps with me at nite.  Hmmmm, am I starting a bad habit.  Well, I decided to rescue this critter since I had been looking for a small dog and this is the one that came along that seemed to fit the bill.  She’s a miniature pincher crossed with what they think is a toy terrieor.  Just not 100% shure.  I gave her two baths and her hair shined up all nice and she was so good about it all and didn’t even seem to mind the warm hair dryer.  So she needed a sweater and since I can’t knit that fast and I didn’t like what I saw in the stores I decided to cut the sleeve off an old felted sweater.  Then you just cut two little slits where her legs go and ya got a sweater and she loves it .  She doesn’t even weigh 4 lbs. yet .  Next on the aggenda is her trip to the vet.   

Ha, It has been so busy at work and full of callenging situations that all I’ve done lately is get up, go to work, come home, go to bed and start all over again the next day.  Of course I do the whole bath and eat thing too, LOL.  It’s great to be busy and I feel like a squirrel that is stocking up for the winter.  This busy holiday season will be nice to help get thru Jan, feb and march.  I’m just dissapointed about my work environment.  I’m reminded why I wanted to try it out in my own place in the first place, LOL.  At first I was all excited and felt like we would all support each other and help each other out yadda yadda.  Well, it ain’t all like that.  It’s amazing how much attitude and drama, and gossip that can go around.  Of course your gonna see that anywhere you go but GEESH!  So its kinda like screw you just give me your booth rental and fend for yourself.  So ya just let it roll off your back and go in do your job and go home.  The nail tech in the place is the most professional person in there and you can actually have fun with her but the drama that goes on with some of the others is pretty interesting.  Actually, I’m going to attribute it all to the full moon that we’ve had since everyone was just acting wackhy including me, LOL. 

I LOVE THIS!!!  Hip chick meets vintage pincurls.  This is the nailteck at our salon and it was her birthday.  She’s been wanting to try a pincurl set for awhile so I did it for her birthday do.  She’s got the perfect texture of hair for a pincurl set and it came out great.  I love the picture of the back with the tatoo .  Reminds me of the episode of Split-Ends that featured the motorheads salon. 

Here’s she is with it finger combed.  She was going to wait till she went out that nite to brush it out.  I hope she got a pic of herself with make up and her outfit.  It’s a great time of the year to be doing all these fun do’s for the holidays.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.  TTFN 

Woo Hoo, I was cleaning off the back patio of all the leaves and branches and twigs after this nor-easter and look what I found.  This little bugger survived and is blooming.  After the slugs ate all the others this last one was around and I was hoping to see it bloom and it did  Me so Happy .  It’s got two more buds on it so hopefully they will get to bloom too.  I put a little bamboo trellis behind it to support it and keep it safe from any more windy days.  What a treat to see that after the storm was gone.  I got to hang out two weeks of laundry too, Woo Hoo!  I got up at the butt crack of dawn on sun and saw it was dry and the sun was coming out so hurried up and chucked in 4 loads of laundry and got it on the line.  While, the laundry hung out I got to raking and picking up all the branches and twigs that fell outta the trees.  6 bags of leaves, a bag of twigs and a pile of branches (I’ll get to those later) and it was all looking spiffy.  So today I think I’ll put a few of the pansies in.  While I was over in NC I bought some yellow pansies that had an awsome fragrance at the Wal-Mart there.  So those will be going next to the front door

In knitting news I’m still working on a pair of purple socks outta Peace Fleece yarn for R and hope to get those done in time for the holidays.  I sure like the green ones I made that were too small for him.  They keep my feet nice and warm at nite .  Also got several unfinished projects to get done so not trying to start too many new things right now. 

Went and bought some apples, golden delicious and fuji, to make some baked apples.  I’ve been craving those and want to bake some up so that we can just take one out of the fridge and heat it up.  Hmmmmm, maybe I’ll make up some coleslaw today, YUM!  Well, got the laundry done, did the banking, went to the post and got up early and finished some paper work so lets see what else I can get done today before my work week begins.  TTFN

Ola,  Catrina here, giving you all a shout out!  The Day of the Dead celebration was a wonderful time filled with food, friends, shared stories of loved ones who have passed on before us and fun times.  Here are a few pictures to show the decorations.  Cool huh

Here are some pics of the ofrenda and a close up of the new scull that R bought while we were in Mexico earlier this year.  If you look closely you can probably see the butterflies (Mariposa) that are on the top of the skull.  It’s beautiful and made out of paper mache.  The food was awsome and (T and D) brought a chocolate mouse that was to die for. 

As of now we are experiencing the Nor-easter at this moment and all my customers have cancelled and I’m going to call it an early day since the city is flooding and I want to get home before it gets too nasty.  The winds are something else. 

Well, if your out in this mess here’s wishing you dry and warm moments throughout this all.  TTFN

Here’s a pic of my new favorite marigold .  I love marigolds.  This is a variety that was recently discovered in Mexico.  The little flowers are dancing around on the fern like foilage.  They had the seeds at Lowes and I bought 2 packs and planted them this summer.  Well the high number of slugs ate every last one of them except for one lone stuggling sprout that survived.  We also don’t really get enough sun here with all the trees.  But since I’ve had the tree guy come out and cut way back everything its all airy and open now and we get more light so I hope that next year I can get some of these going.  I wonder if this one lone one will do much of anything since its getting cold now.  I’m going to move it to the sunny side and see what happens.  Those slugs were awful and they were everywhere.  Never seen so many and I’m guessing it was because we had so much rain this year.  It wasn’t till they had reaked so much damage on the back yard patio that I had discovered their hiding place which was under all the flower pots.  That’s where they hang out when they arn’t eating up everything.  Didn’t want to use any of that sluggo stuff after reading its warnings.  So a good sweeping up in the dust pan did great.  There was even a red tomatoe on the vine yesterday and there are 6 more smaller ones but not sure if they will ripen with it getting colder now.  There are even 4 green peppers out there .

Ha, here’s my hangin out the laundry photo.  Can you see the basket in the left hand corner where all the clothes pins are.  The tomatoe and pepper plants are in pots surrounded by the laundry.  I use one of those retractable clothes lines that ya just let it all go back into the little wheely thing when your done.  Its so cool.  And I got a back up on in case the onther one craps out.  But this one has lasted for like 10 or so years .  Last week I did my laundry at work.  I had to go over there to finish up some paper work and the weather was rainy and yuk so did it in the shops washer and dryer.  I’m a hang your laundry out nut and really enjoy it when I’m out in the country at R’s cause we hang it out on the big ole line and its so nice.  My friend P has this umbrella type of clothes line that she ordered from Austrailia.  We dug a hole in her back yard and put cement and a pvc pipe in there so you can just put the umbrella clothes line up and take it down if you want. 

Have a good Thursday  TTFN

My computer has been on the fritz and the free-bee anti virus I had on the computer has expired.  So tommorrow I’m going out to get some new virus protection.  I think they have one at Costco.  A friend recomended Webroot so I’ll give that a look-sy.  I could get it put up on here thru the net but I just don’t like using my credit card on the internet, LOL.  Anywho, until then I’m getting at ya-all thru me mums box. 

Work has been slim pickins.  It’s like I’ve been coming in earlier to get those that can’t come in at other times just to get the business.  Then I’ll have one or two in the afternoon and then a couple late at nite since they can’t come in until after work.  It makes for a long day when ya gotta rush in early to do the early birds and then stay all day to catch the nite owls.  I’m not complaining but its a little frustrating to have a really long day with not much to show for it.  In times like this a hairdresser needs to get creative.  I’ve brought my knitting in but I don’t feel like I’m channeling my energy in the right direction.  So in slack times I’ve taken to calling in customers that I would like to try something out on and offer it free so that I can practice.  That way they get a frequent flyer mile perk and I get to be busy doing something and honing my skills.  So far its been fun to see how some people are like are you sure you just want to do my hair for free.  I tell em its just a one time thing and that I want to practice and so far its actually been good because then the husband will call or they will bring in their kid or one of the relatives will call for an appt.  For men who come in I’ve been offering a neck and around the ear mid way as I call it.  Come in and get your neck and around your ears done for free to help get you thru two more weeks and then come and get a full priced hair cut.  Now I’m gonna try and put a jar or something for things like that and just put it for donations to my favorite FORKIDS ORG. and ask if you want you can put what ya like in the jar and it will all go to charity.  

I got a mother and daughter (customers) that want to learn to knit so I’ve pulled out the yarns and needles and we are going to try for tue.s nites.  So I’ve been knitting small samples to show them what different stitches look like.  I’m still doing a lot of sideways knitting.  It’s like I’m addicted to it or something.  I’d like to try and start a knitting group where we could knit stuff for charity.  Just not sure how to go about it.  Okay, mums got to get on the box now.  TTFN to ya all……..   

October is my favorite month of the year.  Yesterday I had some tree people over and they got all the branches trimmed back away from the house and I trimmed the brambly rose way back and got the yard looking all spiffy.  It’s amazing how open the yard is now and how we can get more sunlight.  It looks all so nice and tidy .  Now I want to go and get some pansy plants to poke in about here and there for fall/winter colour.  Also, got some blue ice plants that are a low growing clumping creeper that have this little blue flower on them that is really nice to put in today.  Did you know that some pansy’s have a fragrance?  It’s usually the orange toned ones.  Just give em a sniff when you go out to round some up.  I like to put those by the door so when I get home after a long day its like a dose of aromatherapy when you get a whiff of them before going into the house.  It’s AWSOME!

In spinning as of late, I’m still working away on the Chinny wool challenge wool that was washed, dyed and blended.  Here’s a pic of that.  The spindle is getting full of wool  I want to see just how much I can get on it. Well, the pic ended up at the top of the page.  I hate it when it goes where I don’t want it to go, LOL.

Also, carded up the brown wool dyed from the black walnut hulls on the hand cards and have to card up the yellow mushroom dyed wool.  Think I’m planning to use those together in a project just not sure yet.  Possibly in something woven.  Hmmmmmmmm……………. Okay, happy OCTOBER to you all………TTFN