What grade are you in this year?
Oh no! She’s singing that song!! Quick, cover your ears!
Is she done yet?
OK, pretend you like your brother and put your arm around him.
Have a good day, pals! I know you are going to ROCK Fourth Grade!
Love you,
Mom
The boys are ready to go to school tomorrow.
And I have the makings of blisters on my right hand.
Because, yes, they needed 36 sharpened pencils each. And my piece-of-crap electric sharpener (which has never worked properly) finally gave up the ghost tonight. Mark has an old-style hand crank out in the garage, but it doesn’t “finish” them cleanly, so…each pencil got started on the hand crank and the finished to a nice point on a hand sharpener.
The annoying thing: they will likely never use most of these, because once school starts, they’ll wind up in the school store buying mechanical pencils (which are nicer to use anyway) and most of these will come back completely unused. At least we’ll be able to send them again next year.
I love school/office supplies. it’s hard not to buy myself a brand-new box of everything, too. We cheated a little this year, and the boys did not get fresh boxes of crayons. We had one almost completely fresh box of 64 — just 2 of the crayons showed use, so Joe is taking those. Will is taking a combination of several boxes, resulting in 64 almost nearly-new looking crayons. He didn’t seem bereft by this situation (as I would be, I want a FRESH box…).
We have a number of miscellaneous boxes of crayons (16 count construction paper crayons, anyone?) that I think I’m going to take to school and just donate to whichever teacher thinks they’d be useful. They aren’t getting any use here. I think I have a couple of boxes skin tone crayons, too. Oh, excuse me, they are “Multicultural Crayons” — Sepia, Peach, Black, Tan, Burnt Sienna, Apricot, Mahogany, and White. I was thinking about donating those, too, but I think I’ll save them for when the boys use up their blacks and whites…
TTFN-
Suzanne
Well, done knitting. I don’t want to felt blind (in my front-loading washer) so I’ll probably wait until this weekend to do the felting over at Mom’s house.
Laying out flat like this, it measures a whopping 25 inches across and if you stretch out the curled over rows at the top, it’s 16 inches tall.
Mark said “Is it really supposed to be that huge?”
Yes, dear. Just wait…
And becasue I had gotten used to knitting during the Olympics, I had to start a new project yesterday:
Much smaller needles this time (size 7 as opposed to the 13s I used on the bag). It’s going to be a Sampler Baby Blanket, each stripe will be a different stitch pattern. One guess as to what my alternate color is going to be. I’m using Cascade 220 Superwash, which is 100% wool, but…washable…I wonder why they call it superwash? I’m almost done with the first stripe, which is a Double Seed Stitch Pattern. I’ve only missed one or two stitches (knitted when I was supposed to purl,that sort of thing, and luckily with this pattern you can’t tell. Future rows aren’t quite as forgiving.
Today is the last day of the boys’ freedom. Stay tuned tomorrow for the Annual Back to School Pictures.
Later -
Suzanne
I’m not even sure why I bothered to post about my pleasure with the USPS shippin website, but I do apologize for boring all of you with it. LOL
Here’s something more interesting: a quilt I finished for a customer. In theory, you’ll be able to click on these to view them larger, allowing you to see the detail a bit better.
The pattern is Buggy Barn’s Coneflower Crazies. Isn’t it cute? She still has buttons to attach to the center of each flower. I had a lot of fun this one, using the wonkiness of it as inspiration for the wonky quilting. I used Warm Bond batting (The Warm Company’s new 80/20 cotton/poly blend batting) which seemed to quilt nicely. Signature cotton thread on top, Superior’s Bottom Line in the bobbin. I love prewound bobbins now. I used to think they were overly expensive and not worth it, but I’ve changed my tune.
Another quilt is calling my name, so I’d better answer, since it’s the quilting that’s keeping the lights on right now. Did you know that opening a shop take a LOT of money??? Yikes.
Suzanne
It doesn’t take much to make me happy.
Today, for instance: I discovered that the USPS online label printing process has actually improved.
When I print shipping labels through PayPal, all I get is the shipping label itself. It’s a half sheet of paper, and I bought adhesive shipping labels that are just the right size — two on a page. (I just flip the sheet around to print a 2nd label).
I have to print some labels from the USPS website, though, and the way they print from that site has always annoyed me. They print the label on one half of the page and a receipt and shipping instructions on the other half. Considering how expensive the self-adhesive labels are, it really was a huge waste of sticker and money, because the receipt portion just got stuck in a drawer and will never ever be referred to again — as all of that information is online at their website.
Today, though! There was a brand-new checkbox that said “Print WITHOUT Receipt or shipping instructions”
Just the label, and none of the extras, just like I like it.
Hallelujah!!!!
Although, I am still annoyed at them for moving a different checkbox on the shipping information screen. The box for “Shipping from same Zip Code as above” used to be at the bottom of the screen, but they’ve moved it, and I can never remember to click on it — it’s somewhat “buried” and not as obvious as it should be. Of course, you get an error message when you don’t click on it, and have to go back and fix it. It’s minor, but it’s one of those minor annoyances that build up over time. I don’t know why they made it LESS usable than before, but maybe it’s just me.
Based on the change to the label printing, perhaps they actually do listen to feedback? Because that must have been a request from users. Maybe I will complain about that zip code box and see what happens.
One person CAN change the word, right?
Suzanne
