Holidays for the Homeless

This year for Christmas, I am donating handmade, crochet hats to the homeless in my area.

This project was inspired by seeing a set of statues in town that had donated hats and scarves on them during the winter.

I have taken the project and held it close to my heart. I started making hats 3 days ago and have 10 made so far. This is out of my own personal stockpile of yarn and I can't do many more out of the yarn that I do have here at home.

This compelled me to ask for yarn donations and the response has been overwhelming. I've had about 7 people say they will donate yarn to my cause and this is amazing.

Each and every person that has donated yarn is making people a little warmer during the winter months with hats that they wouldn't have been able to purchase on their own.

Each person that has made a donation of at least one skein of yarn has made 2 or more people warmer.

If you see this post and would like to donate yarn to The Chronicles of Yarnia (www.facebook.com/ChronicleOfYarnia) feel free to contact me on the facebook page and I'll get your information and you'll be able to donate yarn to this cause.

Bear in mind that I am the only person making the hats and it may take me a few days to get started with your yarn if you do make a donation, but be assured that your yarn donations WILL go to the homeless.

Blah, blah, blah

I've never been good at making friends so the ones I do have, I hold very dear to me. There are also some people in my past that I still hold dear that I thought the friendship was totally over because of somethings both of us said and did.

Then there are friendships that I have that are entirely superficial. It usually takes me a while to realize these friendships and I always end up being the one hurt by them.

There have been several people that I'm no longer friends with because the friendship wasn't really real to begin with. Then there are ones that I thought I was done with that have come back into my life and I feel like I want that friendship to be back where it was before it was ended.

I now find myself in a predicament where I am coming in contact with an old friend that I had a falling out with, there is nothing I'd like more than to repair this friendship and she seems to be on the same page as me. I am also losing a friend that I thought was a true friend but it turns out, she's nothing but a fake.

The friend and I that had the falling out were totally mean to each other, hurtful mean. Devastatingly mean. We said a lot of things to each other that we probably meant at the time but after we said it and let it all sink in, we realized how stupid and selfish we were. I miss our friendship. I'm worried that we won't be able to be as close as we were before, but I'm okay with having a nice, normal friendship with her, at least being friendly together.

On the other hand, I don't want to be friends with this other one any longer. She's made some very rude and mean comments to me that are unforgivable, questioning me as a person and a parent. This has pissed me off. I want to end the friendship, but I'm horrible with confrontation.

No Shampoo/Conditioner Part 2!

4 days! You're reading this right, 4 days I went without having to wash my hair! And it still looked semi decent!

I washed my hair again with the baking soda mix and I'm even more hooked than I was the first time!

One tablespoon of baking soda, one cup of water, lather, rinse, repeat!

I'm overly excited about this. I don't remember if I posted the picture in the last blog, so I'm going to post it in this one to show you the difference in my hair shampoo washing vs baking soda.

And my hair this morning after washing with Baking Soda:

Can you see the difference?!

This is the most amazing thing I've done for myself in a really long time.

No Shampoo/Conditioner

No shampoo, I'm crazy right? Ha! No!

I thought that going without shampoo and conditioner was going to be absolutely disgusting. I was like well, okay, so, no shampoo, my hair is going to be horrid. I was dead wrong!

I washed my hair with baking soda for the very first time tonight and I have to tell you that my hair is freakin' awesome. It's light, it has volume (if you know me, you know my hair never has volume no matter how much I try), it doesn't feel heavy or weighed down. It's a Godsend.

I thought about it over and over when the girls in my Facebook group were talking about it and I ended up reading about fifteen blogs to see what it was all about and in every single blog I read, it was all nothing but praise for this method of washing your hair.

Take a table spoon of baking soda and mix it with a cup of water. Use like you would shampoo, rinse. Ta-da! It's spiffy! I'm telling you, that I'm seriously hooked. You do the same with the vinegar.

If the mix becomes too much for your hair or it doesn't work as well as you want, you can use less or more of each of the baking soda and vinegar. Like, if it's too oily, use a half a teaspoon of vinegar instead of the full teaspoon.

I am a convert. Do it. Seriously. At least try it out once and if you don't like it, you can go back to your chemical ridden shampoo and conditioner.

Kiddo's

As many of you know, Will has a set of 7 year old twins, Jarrod and Shalynn (Shay-lynn). They were put into foster care almost a year ago because the home they were in wasn't safe for a child and they were being neglected (Not our home, their mothers).

Over the course of their lives, Will was kept from seeing them as often as he should have, in the time that I had been here, we seen them twice outside of foster care. Since entering foster care we see them every other week.

I'm not going into a ton of details with it, if you want to know, you can ask or email me fdlicous@yahoo.com

Today is our final visit before the review to find out where the kids will be going. Whether it be home with us, with their mother or staying in foster care. I'm very nervous because some part of me thinks this may be the last time we ever get to see our babies.

I am also excited because there is always the possibility that they will be coming home with us and that makes me the happiest girl in the world.

I want nothing more than to have Will, Rascal, Jarrod and my baby girl, Shalynn home with me. I would sleep a lot better knowing that we were all together as a family.

We are also looking to take their half sister Danica. If she were with us, that would be an added bonus.

I can't wait to find out what's going on even though I know that if they don't come home with us, I'm going to be devastated.

Simple Double Headband Crochet Pattern

When I say simple, I'm not kidding! This is the easiest pattern to follow.

All you do is make a chain that fits around your head twice!

I chained 200 and then slip stitched it closed, weaved the ends in and tada! A simple headband.

I have 2 that I've made so far, one in purple and one in a rainbow colored yarn.

You can shorten or lengthen the amount of stitches you use to wrap once, twice or even 3 times or more. Shortening the amount of chains you use can easily make it a headband for a child or infant!

Happy crocheting!

Coffee and Why I Don't Sleep

Ah, coffee, the reason so many people actually function throughout the day. For me, it's just another regular beverage. I love drinking it, but it does nothing for my sleep or lack there of. I don't even get why people say they can't function until they get coffee in them. Coffee to me means more memories than anything though. My mother is a big coffee drinker and while drinking my coffee, I always think of her.

"Do you ever sleep?" A question people often so ask me. The answer is yes, I do sleep, just not when normal people do. I don't even keep night shift hours most of the time. It's sometimes mind boggling to me as to why I sleep like I do. I've kept these hours for years, it makes life a little more difficult for me sometimes. It's hard to live a normal life when you don't go to bed most days until after 6 am. I despise it. I want a normal sleep schedule. I have tried numerous times to change the schedule, but I always end right back where I started.

Right now, it's almost 2 in the morning, I'm blogging, wide awake and drinking coffee.