I figured out what Hell looked like when i made the mini Doctor Who scarf for the tree this year. Talk about a lot of ends to weave in. :scared:

I agree, I thought magic loop would be too hard, but my daughter who's now 13 saw me struggling with DPNs (she commented that it looked like I was wrestling with a porcupine) and now that I've learned magic loop I will never go back. I've even knit a sweater for a beanie baby with magic loop. I love having only the one needle. I don't have any projects going on now. My dh gave me this for Solstice, so I'm trying to decide what I want to do with it all.

My youngest Aunt was not quite 4 when I was born (I was born July 3 and her birthday is the end of Aug) I still always called her Aunt.

This has been a thing my Dh and I are dealing with. We don't have adult nieces or nephews, but in my family I always called them Aunt or Uncle and their first name, it was a form of respect. My dh's family never uses the titles Aunt or Uncle right from the start and it just doesn't sit well with me. When it's his cousins doing it with his dad and other uncles/aunts I just bite my tongue and deal but if they tell my kids to take something to Jeff or Christy or any of their other Aunts of Uncles I correct it and say, "Please take this to or Please ask, UNCLE Jeff" and put the emphasis on it. My kids are old enough now to know that's what I expect of them, and my dh is ok with this stance I've taken and will do the same thing.

Amazon CS is awesome. My son's kindle went wonky because an update wasn't installed, totally my fault and it was past the extended warranty by almost a year, I called just to find out what happened when it froze and told me to contact Amazon. They said, no problem this is what happened (and explained that the lack of updates basically caused it to crash etc) and sent out a new one overnight. I just had to put the old one in the box and ship it back with the prepaid label they were putting in the box with the new one. I ordered a book for my son with prime shipping that was supposed to be in stock, two weeks later it still wasn't here, I did a chat and they said they'd send out a new one ASAP because they were considering the other one lost in the mail, well that new one still didn't show up after another week. I sent in a chat again and that CS guy said, "We can't mark it as lot until tomorrow, so I'm making myself a note to check and see if it shows as delivered when I come on shift tomorrow at 7pm, if it's not showing as delivered, I'll overnight you a new one" I thought Sure right, I'll have to call back tomorrow night. 7:01 pm the next night I got an email , "Ms. P this is CS guy from Amazon, I saw the book still didn't arrive and have escalated your claim and set up and overnight shipment of a new copy, let me know if there is anything else I can do" the next afternoon I had the book in my hand.

I never backed the trailer up. I just made sure I parked in a way that would mean I could just drive off when I need to leave. We had most of our class 3 hitches added at U-haul as well. As for what you think things will weigh, don't forget you have to take into account the weight of the trailer itself too. Also stuff tends weigh A LOT more than you think. My husband and I were shocked at how much our last trailer weighed.

I've done this more times that I care to remember (military moving a lot) and just did it again this past Aug. This time was the easiest as I have an Expedition with a class 3 hitch, but I also had a husband (who never gets to drive if I'm in the car) 2 dogs a cat and a bearded dragon. All past moves were done with a mini van. We had no issues towing it as long as we made sure to have a class 3 hitch put on the van if it didn't come with one when we bought it. The hitch on the bumper doesn't work for long, heavy, haul trailers. I've been the mom with 3 kids, 2 dogs, a cat and a trailer whipping along on the interstate. I don't know that I have any tips other than we had to have the ball on the van hitch put on the opposite of mosts so the hitch sloped up instead of down so that things stayed level. Then make sure you load the trailer with the heavier stuff toward the front of it.

My daughter prefer's Jerry's to Blick, but I think it's because they actually had a B&M store where we used to live. She uses Prismacolors for school, but prefers Koh i Nohr woodless pencils for her artwork. A lot of times preference is really going to vary by kid, so if your sister or nephew won't give up the info, I'd go with a gift card.

Yesterday we got a UPS delivery, which is pretty normal for us. We usually get 2-3 things a week via UPS. I went out to get the box and it was about 8"x8"x48" and I was all :confused1: "what the heck did I order" then I noticed it was actually for my 15 year old son and realized what it was, which led to the the thing I never thought I'd say.... "Everett, your new sword is here"

I agree with Tbog, my daughter is hoping to go to art school and most of the stuff she wants if pretty specific and she'll only purchase them from the local art supply store or online through Jerry's Artarama.

Awesome!!! I'll try that thanks.

i'd sell it. I love my rainbow cabinet. We each have a different favorite color so everyone uses "their" color. Husband is Plum, I'm Sunflower, Eldest boy is Shamrock, daughter is peacock, youngest son is scarlett, and then we have turquoise, black, white, and tangerine for when we have guests. I can't stand pink so flamingo was definitely out. I'm not crazy about how my sunflower color shows cutlery marks now, but oh well.

Tess, we moved in late aug too, weren't you in VA? We moved from VA to TN and didn't get to start school until mid Sept. We've had some illness and wisdom teeth removal, I'm just glad we've gotten 12 weeks worth of school in at all. That was with a lot of long days and a lot of weekends in there too.

I'm at the end of my rope with writing. My older two have been using IEW, and their writing just isn't getting any better despite specific instruction to focus on the content and not on making sure the dress ups are in there. They focus on the darn dress ups and put them in where they just don't work. I also am not loving the snails pace Fix-It Grammar has us going at and how it ties in so much to IEW writing. So those are out. I'm going to be using WWS and AG for them, I may have to drag them through it holding hands and making them work as a team to do the work, but we're at the cliff now and we have to buckle down on those subjects. I have to figure out a better way to do literature with my oldest too. History has been a bust so we're going back to ancients and will do them a la mom with random things pulled from all over. Math, foreign language, and Science are fine so those will stay what they are.

ours is a 6ft artificial that I put the light on. Prelit trees never had enough lights for me and I'm allergic to artificial. This year we went with our first ever theme and did a Doctor Who Theme.

If they like the Ember series, I would skip book 3. It's supposed to be a Prequel and it's just BAD, BAD, BAD. I read half of it and thought, why am I still reading this. It's so boring compared to the other books.

I use a 32-40" circ for magic loop. I prefer hiya hiya cords. My interchangeable size 2-8 cords are swivel which is beyond awesome.

I thought I would like DPNs better than magic loop and then my 13 year old daughter said to me, "Mom why do you use those, this way is so easy. When ever you use all those needles it looks like your wrestling with a porcupine" LOL I tried magic loop and it was much easier.

I have finished my Christmas gift knitting. The last project came of the needles today. It's a pair of basic stockinette socks for my husband. It's the first pair I've made for him so I hope they fit and that he likes them.

When I knit socks I use anything from a size 0 to a size 2 needles all of my needles are Hiya Hiyas. I have an interchangeable set for size 2-8 and fixed circulars for size 0-1.5 I buy them from Amazon. I do all my knitting on circular needles and prefer to do socks two at a time with the magic loop method. I never have 2nd sock syndrome because they are both done at the same time.

We're huge Think geek fans. We have the Weeping Angel Tree topper, on our Whovian themed holiday tree. Last year my kids got lots of various t-shirts from there, This year my oldest got a Doctor Who shirt, pants and slippers. I got my husband and Firefly ship schematic t-shirt, bought my daughter a t-shirt and two pairs of earrings, my youngest is getting a stress ball. Nothing but good things to say about them.

Another military family so we've been through many deployments, but we've also had two times where he went ahead to the next duty station well before the deployment and we stayed behind. We did this because at the end of the deployment he would not be returning to where he left from. The ships were doing around the world deployments with homeport shifts. The first he was in WA while I was in WI and that was 18 months without him, other than 3 weeks of leave he got before the deployment. The second time we were in VA and he was going to a ship in WA only to return back to VA again. That was about 14 months without him. The first one my oldest was the only one in school and it was PS K, so it really wasn't a big deal and I lived 7 minutes from my parents. The second one we continued to homeschool and kept going with all the activities we normally did. I was busy as all heck because I was coaching little league, homeschooling, taking the kids to art and gymnastics, but it was our normal routine since even when DH was not deployed his schedule was so crazy I couldn't count on him to be home in time to cover any of it. In the end it was crazy hard, but was the best thing for us at the time, especially with the 2nd one, by staying put he eventually came back to VA after the deployment and the kids got to stay in their activities and have their friends around. I didn't have any family within 1000 miles, but had other moms from activities I could count on to lend a hand if needed.

My cat who we got at age 6 from the humane society is now 10 and he doesn't just lick plastic he chews on/eats it and then hoarks it up We have to keep all plastic bags out of his reach. I have a bearded dragon that my daughter wanted desperately, who is now mine, she did a half brumation and when she came out of it wouldn't eat veggies anymore. She's been to the vet multiple times and nothing has been found, just won't eat veggies, it seems her metabolism never recovered she's about 18 months old and I have to feed her baby food from a syringe now or she won't eat enough.

I would feel safer using a Sil-pat than anything with a non-stick coating. I have used Pampered chef Stoneware in the past and they are nice, but honestly for the amount of cookies I bake at a time, they just aren't going to work.

I love my KAF pans. I have the two half sheet pans and want more now that I have double convection ovens. I also have 2 8" square cake pans, 2 8" round cake pans and a 9x13" cake pan. They are all beyond awesome.