The Craft Cupboard That Devoured My House

Pregnancy hormones have kicked in and turned me from a relatively normal, rational person (OK, that's a bit of a stretch, I'll admit) into a Crazy Person Who Must Organize. Please note the capital letters. Why having a baby means I have to clean out and organize the entire house, I can't quite tell you, except that my friend Kat pointed out that afterward, I won't have time to clean or organize anything again for at least a couple of years. So I decided yesterday evening to clean out the Craft Cupboard. Again, note the capital letters.

After Chris and I got together, he was annoyed at the fact that I had weird, deep shelves in the end of my hall. They were far too deep for bookshelves (although that's what I using them for at the time) and we have a linen closet in the bathroom, so their original purpose remains a mystery. But since they annoyed him, he built cabinet doors for them, and the Craft Cupboard was born. For seven-odd years since, random items that have no other home have gradually accumulated there. My Scrapbook Habit lives there, as do my patterns, buttons, beads, glue, ribbon, glitter, fun foam and any other bit of leftover or clearanced something-or-other that I thought might be useful. Here I should note that my fabric lives with my mother. That is not, as you might think, so that Chris doesn't find out about it and die of the shock of my combined accumulated yarn and fabric stashes. I'm sure I have other reasons. I'll get back to you on that.

Anyway, the Craft Cupboard somehow managed to avoid detection during the Great Clean-out prior to Timothy's birth, so why I thought I could clean it out in one evening is a great mystery. Even greater than why my fabric lives with my mom. I spent six hours in there last night. That is how long it took for me to get one shelf cleared and organized, and to be able to find my bed again. Because when I opened those handy cabinet doors, the Craft Cupboard devoured my house. My entire house. No room was safe. We're still hoping the missing cats turn up before it digests them.

All this leaves me wondering...is there a 12-step program for multi-crafters? Should I seek professional help? If I should disappear, you'll all have this blog to witness what will have happened to me. My craft habit will have eaten me alive!

One of these things is not like the others?

What does this very random grouping of photos have in common, you might ask. Believe it or not, they DO have something in common. All of these photos are ones I've promised various people I'd post. All but one. This first one. I just thought it was cute.

So, for Emmms, here's the advent calendar my mom made us. I couldn't get a closer one to come out clearly, but you get the idea! You could make one, I'm sure of it!

Next, here's a four leaf clover I found right before Christmas, while I was out cleaning the bunny cages. Luck of the Irish and all that.

Mom, here's the picture of the boys in their Christmas jammie pants. They're already asking if I'm making teeny pants for the baby next Christmas to match all theirs!

Here are the icicles from the snow storm(s). Pretty ironic when you can't take down your icicle lights due to icicles!

Have I mentioned that I LOVE my new camera? Timothy's class forced bulbs at school, and when I started to take a picture, my camera automatically went to flower setting. SO COOL!

Heather, here's a picture of how the Librarian is getting along with the rest of his furry family. Clearly, Miss Mouse has accepted him.

Last but not least, here's a bump picture for everyone who has asked that I post one. It was taken today, at 16 weeks. I know it's not much of a bump. Believe me, it feels a lot bigger than it looks!

If my cats don't hate me yet...

It's probably a miracle.

I truly don't know what possesses me sometimes. Poor Meanie.

Good mail!

Since I've been on Ravelry, my very wonderful friends on the VLT (Very Longest Thread) have sent me all sorts of lovely surprises. I thought I'd show some recent ones.

First, Emmms in London sent me some lovely packages, and one of them contained these beautiful fingerless mitts. They're so wonderfully warm and soft, and I love them! Of course, since it's me, I have to have a ridiculous story to go along with the pictures.

In this case, the story begins with me outside trying to get a good picture. I got this good one of my left hand, but my right hand looked better at the time (I know how silly this is!) so I was trying to get a picture of the right hand. The problem is that the camera is right-handed and so am I. After several failed attempts, it suddenly occurred to me that if I turned the camera around the other way, I could reach the button with my left hand. You see where this is going, right? Yep, I snapped a picture of my own face, with a perfectly lovely look of intense concentration on it. Unfortunately, I deleted it before I thought of blogging about it. Next time I do something really dumb, I'll try to think of you, my readers, first!

Here are some goodies from Heather in Ohio. She makes the very best cookies you've ever eaten, and her cupcakes...well, there are no words! She's on a mission to put meat on the bones of the world. And possibly to make the world laugh with silly flamingo frames. I am happy to report that I didn't manage to photograph my face while taking this picture.

Just in case you don't think I'm strange yet...

There's a slug in my shower. Not a giant, disgusting one, just a teeny one. Normally, this only happens in the summer. And normally, when it does happen, I just let it crawl onto a sheet of paper and take it outside. Not this time. I would very much like the slug NOT to live in my shower, but it's winter, and if I take the poor slug outside, it will freeze.

I've named him. His name is Friar Ted. Yes, I know this is beyond bizarre, even for me. My love of all creatures great and small doesn't usually go quite this far down the food chain. I do relocate non-venomous spiders, because they are useful and eat bugs for us. And the crickets really can't help it that we built buildings in the middle of their prairie land, so I take them outside, too. And yes, I admit that I named the praying mantis on the front porch. And two spiders. Hey, Sergio and Guido were there for so long, I had to name them. A tree frog did once hibernate in my house. But that was an accident. But a slug...it's just so wrong!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation...

So many of my favorite images from the last month cannot be categorized in any logical fashion. I decided that I needed a truly random blog post to put them all together. Try to think of it as that dumb essay that every teacher assigned the first week of school.

First, it should be understood that a lot of my time is spent rescuing my children and pets from carnivorous furniture. In this case, Moses was being devoured by the sofa. He was horribly ungrateful when I rescued him. Perhaps he was offended that I risked his life by taking pictures first. Yes, his head is actually falling into a large hole in the couch.

Here is Timothy, in much the same predicament. For two solid days, I got called every five minutes or so to get him out of the bins. I finally refused to rescue him again, and after ten hours or so, he managed to free himself.

I also enjoyed working on my swap package. It was a pirate themed swap. I made this for my lovely swap partner. There isn't much more I can say about this.

Then one day I came home from the grocery store and found this. Chris had lots of points at work, and the points system has all sorts of goodies available for the busy bees at his company. Chris decided we need a kayak. It's actually really cool, I was just a little shocked to come home and find it in my living room.

Somehow, this is the only picture of Gabe I could find for this post. I'm fairly sure Gabe did live here this summer, so this is perplexing.

Timothy took a summer job as a Chippendale dancer. The hours were awful, but the tips were great. Ladies can't resist a man in pull-ups.

His portfolio was really impressive. I like this shot. Pensive, yet rugged.

Miney spent a lot of time watching Star Wars. Can you guess his favorite character?

So that sums up the last month. It probably also leaves you with lots of serious questions about my grip on reality. Luckily, people have been questioning it for so long, I no longer notice.