Bad day!!!!!

Hello everyone, had a real bad day yesterday. My old car broke down and with the help of my friend Mary and my parents we were able to get home and borrow their car. I think Jeff has fixed it and believe me I prayed about this. Now my computer is messed up. When it rains it pours. I am borrowing this computer, the same friend who saved me with my car. Mary. Thanks Mar. I don't know when I will be posting, going on etsy or checking e-mail again and it's very frustrating. So wish us luck that we can find someone who can help fix it. Till whenever..........................................

Peace, love, and crochet...

Debbie

This time last year..................................oh to dream!!!

This was our Christmas picture last year. I got these great tie-dyed t-shirts from a wonderful women on Etsy. I ordered them to late to get them at my house but she was able to send them directly to our hotel. I was obsessed about getting a shot for our Christmas card. I just wish my eyes were open more! I loved these shirts and got so many comments and compliments when we were at Disney, plus they wash like a dream. I ended up getting tie-dyed peace sign t-shirts and socks from her......

This time last year (it was the last week in August) we were in Florida... yes Disney Land. We had so much fun. It was the 1st real family vacation we went on in many years. It was so hot, not like this summer. The girls and Jeff really dug all the fast rides, they will tell you about my experience on Tower of Terror, it was not good! I made them all go on It's a Small World with me and we had alot of fun. We made alot of really great memories and can't wait to go back again sometime.....

I started this post a few weeks ago and then my computer went crazy. I am going to finish it today.

Peace, love♥, and crochet...

Debbie

Another yard sale ~ this time at my parents house

This past weekend we had another yard sale ~ at my parents house this time. We hauled a few pieces of furniture and other stuff over on Thursday and set up so we would be ready for Friday morning. The girls slept over and were up early with my parents to greet customers. My sister and her family also came, however the adults did most of the work while the kids were inside "hanging out". We closed at 3pm on Friday just in the nick of time. We had tarped everything up nice and secure for Saturday and prayed there would be no rain. It rained just minutes after everything was tarped and we woke to rain most of Saturday. My parents still had the sale as most of their stuff was inside the garage. We did not untarp and participate on Saturday. We did make about $165.00 and the weekend before she had a pop-up sale for 1 day unadvertised and we only made $35. Not to bad for the whole 3 times we made about $1,000. But it was an incredible amount of work.

Sorting, packing, unpacking, hauling, selling. Be sure we are not going to this again to soon.
Here she is in her driveway my mom the yard sale "Queen"!!!!

AS you can see my dad is feeling better, he could only stay outside for a bit but he loves talking to people and enjoying Allie his youngest grandchild.

My parents have yard sales 3-4 times a year. They have alot of fun and are really good at it. Their garage is set up like a store. People come looking for stuff all year long. They are known far and wide for their great "stuff".

This is some of the stuff we were selling, we decided to get rid of our dining room buffet and china cabinet. We already donated the table to lupus. We want to make the dining room into a office/study/reading room. And we are on the way to making that happen. My mom's neighbor gave us a really nice computer desk he did not want anymore. And with some of the money we made from the sale I went to Target on Saturday and bought 2 bookshelves. I will show you pictures when we are done with the room. Don't hold your breath though. I want to rip up the carpet and pull down the wall paper. Maybe Jeff will do this when I start work on September 1st. BOO HOO for me.

Some more of our stuff................................................... it never seems to end.............................................

Jeff ignoring me pretending he is working and my brother-in-law Paul smiling nice for me......

My sister Donna sorting clothes she is selling.

A view of the driveway. Alot of stuff ~ 3 family's worth and more stuff was in the garage and under the deck. Do we know how to throw a yard sale or what~~~~~

We just went over today and packed it all up...UGH is all I have to say about that. We decided that we are going to donate most of it to Lupus again. We left 4 pieces of furniture and 7 tubs at my parents for their next sale in late October. Who knows we will see. If not there is always Lupus. I think they love us!!!!

It's nice and cool here tonight, I actually sat on the deck a bit before, had a cup of coffee and read. It was sooooooooooooo nice.

TTFN~

Peace, love♥, and crochet...

Debbie

Three new fingerless gloves...........

Here they are one of each... which is your favorite? It's hard for me to decide. I like them all..

These are actually knit... Which ones do you like best? Let me know.....

Are these knit or crochet? You tell me.... They look like knit but they are actually crochet....

This is the pair she wants. I think she looks great in them all......

Allie is the model, the problem with her is, she wants one everything.... LOL She is a great model and has fun doing it. She likes the purple ones the best.. i may surprise her and make her a pair.......Shhhhhh

These are knit and then embellished with crocheted circles.....

Here they are in all their beauty!!!! I love♥ them all. Hard to choose, lucky for me I cam make one of each for myself. These will be going in the Etsy shop soon, look for them, then you can own your own...

As promised here are the 3 new fingerless gloves. 2 are knit i is crocheted. Can you figure out which ones are which?

I guess you know now!

Peace, love♥ and crochet...

Debbie

I found another really cool giveaway!!!!

P.S. I forgot to add it was only open to US residents....


Hello and good day to everyone. It's another hot day here in NJ. The girls are swimming at a friends house and will be occupied and cool there all day.

I found a really cool giveaway, perfect for back to school and it's all recycled. So you know I am in love with it.

Go to http://www.greenearthjourney.blogspot.com to learn more. She is giving away some really cool stuff from a Trenton NJ based company called Terracycle. You can check out their website to. They even do fundraisers for schools by collected used juice pouches from you. Maybe something to look into everyone drinks them and at 2 cents a pop over a period of time you could make some decent money, but most of all you are RECYCLING!!!!!


They recycle juice pouches, candy wrappers, cookie boxes into really cool usable stuff that all the kids in your life and even some adults, such as myself would love!

About the giveaway: it runs from today 8/19 till 9/1 midnight and if you win you will get........... a really awesome and different Clif bar back pack, capri sun juice pouch. We have this and the girls love it we got them at Target last year and they still look brand new! They would also be good for holding crochet hooks and accessories. As you can tell I would LOVE to won one myself... you will also get some other small items.

You also have an amazing 7 times to enter.. So Go Now, Don't Delay... hurry get your entrie's in. I have 6 I was able to complete. Wish me luck I would love to win and actually go to Trenton to see the company. I went to school at The College of NJ formerly TrentonState College ~ it's only an hour away. I should check and see if they do tours or something could be really cool to witness recycling at that level.

Good luck ~ I will be back later with some pictures of my 3 new fingerless mitts I have come up with 2 knit, 1 crochet. Allie has to model them for me... TTFN ~

Peace, love♥, and crochet...

Debbie

Lupus donation

Update, our neighbor across the road came and took the little blue desk with 4 drawers for her room... YEAH! Thanks Karen.

Today we donated alot of our stuff to a good cause ~ Lupus. I called the 800# and they came and got it all. Below are pictures of what happened. They were very quick and polite. They do this everyday all day I was told. Can you even imagine? Wow, there are alot of generous people in NJ.

As most of you may know, my husband lost his job in March. We were forced to look at how we live. I had actually had started to do that already. I feel we have to much , our house was cluttered with stuff and I wanted to live a more simple but fuller life. We had our yard sale and got rid of alot. Now Lupus came and we got rid of quite a bit. We are still working to get rid of things. One more sale at my moms this weekend and what is not sold will be held until Sept 27th when Lupus will be back.

This summer had been really hard on me, trying to have some fun with the kids and being able to eat, and pay our bills. It was a challenge. It's almost over I am sad to say. School starts Sept 1st for me the 2nd for the kids. It will be nice to have steady paycheck again. Now all we need is for Jeff to find a fabulous job.



Ariel view from upstairs of all the stuff we donated. Furniture, clothes, toys, stuffed animals, computers, sheets, Christmas trees. You name it we donated it.


The number to call for pick-up. Please call if you have stuff you no longer want or need. It will make you feel great!!

The truck in the driveway, getting loaded with all our stuff.

The stuff they did not take, not to much. They took almost everything. We still have 5 tubs of books, that needed to be in boxes. Next time. they will be back in the area in Sept. I am almost 100% sure we will have more stuff to give them.

The last of it being loaded, a clean driveway once more...........................

Our stuff inside the truck. When they first came in the morning there was not enough room in the truck they had. They had to dump the contents and come back for all our stuff. We made Lupus very happy.

Half full Lupus truck leaving our driveway............

It feels good to be rid of stuff no longer needed and recycled to help others. If you have alot of stuff or even a little you don't want anymore call Lupus. They will come and pick it up and leave you a form for your taxes. The drivers were courteous and it's for a great cause!!!!

Peace, love♥, and crochet...

Debbie

Hot, hot, hot!!!

Today as yesterday it was so hot here, as well it should be in August in NJ. This has been such a weird summer that I guess we got use to slightly cooler weather. It was great not having the air-conditioners on. I hate to be hot but we were trying to save on our PSE&G bill also. Yesterday and today we did have some air on. It was like 95 degrees and the humidity was unbearable. Actually broke down and got a small french vanilla coffee coolada from Dunkin Donuts. They are so good and addicting. A nice treat once in awhile.

We were at my mom's yesterday at a last minute yard sale ~ did not make to much enough for some gas and a bit more. Next week she is having her real sale that will be advertised and alot more people will come. We are getting rid of a bunch of stuff tomorrow, donating it to Lupus. It actually ended up being quite a bit. I will upload some pictures tomorrow. They come and pick it up. We will try to sell the rest of our stuff at my mom's if not we will call Lupus again and in Sept. and they will come out and get the rest. That will make us all feel good. We want to help others with stuff we may not want or need anymore. Plus it's good for the girls to see and it recycles unwanted stuff and helps the Earth. It's also wonderful to downsize, get rid of stuff and not buy things unnecessarily. You save money and live free and uncluttered. It's a good thing...............

Have been making more crocheted wristwarmers and will have pictures up soon. My mom was kind enough to get us a chicken from Costco for dinner tonight and it smells great!!! Have a nice rest of the weekend....

Peace, love♥, and crochet...

Debbie

Our Kick Ass Yard Sale............

Jeff after the first day, we packed up everything because it had rained every night. The night of set up on Thursday, and Friday at the end of the day. Then we had to unpack in the morning. This is the last yard sale we will have for awhile. We had one 13 yrs ago when Victoria was just a baby. I like going to them more than having them.

My hard working family, Victoria, Mom and Jeff........

Victoria and Gloria, our friend and crossing guard. Boy was she a huge help in cleaning up after the sale. I was so hot and tired. She just threw out what she thought could not be donated or sold at my moms yard sale. And I gotta say thank goodness I was so overwhelmed at that point. The only thing she took from us was a lamp she has on her porch right now, what a gem and a funny lady to.

My dad and Jeff taking a break for a minute. This was our dining room table, it did not get sold so we are going to donate it. We decided not to have a dining room anymore. We are going to make that room our office/library. It's a work in progress as is our whole house.

Allie and some of her friends ~ they were a great help packing and getting customers to come to our sale.

This is the view from Allie's bedroom, and that is not even all the stuff. We had a deck and a driveway full of furniture, dishes and all kinds of stuff. Boy it felt good to purge. I am not into alot of stuff I once was. Antiques, Victorian, old china and doilies are just dragging me down,

Victoria having fun and working the yard sale ~ she did a fantastic job selling our crap!!!!!

We had a kick ass yard sale on July 17th. It was fun, at least the girls and all their friends thought so. It was alot of work that day and leading up to it. It was really hot, my parents came to help. My mom is the queen of yard sales, having them and attending them so her help was really appreciated. However she got sick and could not come back on Saturday. The heat really got to her.

We made out ok, got rid of stuff and got a bit of money to help us through the summer.

~TTFN

Peace, love♥, and crochet...

Debbie

Just stuff.....

These are the best pot holders ever, I got them from Etsy. I just love how you can make it your own with any color combination.

This is the front and the back, or you could make two backs, whatever you want. I made a colorful one as that is what I am into right now. I think they would make a great gift along with some washcloths.

This is my linen closet. I organized it one day, yes I know I have way to many washcloths. See the white basket on the shelf? It has my crocheted washcloths in it. I know not to many for us especially since I have an obsession with cotton.. LOL

These are my Gypsy washcloths. They are made from all the leftover scraps of cotton yarn I have. Part of my waste not want not life ~ I have to say I am totally digging them they are very funky and colorful and a total surprise and different everytime I make one. Vic brought 3 to camp this summer and all the girls loved them.

Some of you may know this and some may not. In January Jeff came home from work to tell me that he had to take a pay cut or loose his job. Needless to say I was pretty scared. We have never really lived high on the hog and everything we have we had to scrape and save for for the most part. That's ok we were doing alright and I was determined we would do better than before. Then om March 22, A day I will remember forever he got laid off. We are really struggling this summer as he is getting unempleyment and I am not working until Sept. when school starts again. So every penny and I mean penny counts. But we have faith in God and he is getting us through along with family and friends.

I started to look up info on how to live a more simpler greener life. I found a wealth of info and acted on all of it that I could. Hey why should we throw what hard earned money we have out the window. Plus it made me more aware of recycling and helping out our planet. Cool, Victoria was in the recycling club at school and she got me started. I am now making cool jewelry ~ bracelets out of soda tabs. All the kids want one, seems recycling is in.

We also are turing off lights etc when we leave the room and unplugging stuff, especially if it has a little red standby light. Sucks up to much energy. Trying to not drive as much and do any errands we have all at once or ones that are in the same area. It takes a bit of planning but it's fun almost like a game to see what you can do.

I am also using a clothes line rather than the dryer to dry clothes. I did a load of wash today and it's hanging up in the picture below. It's been a bit hard this summer because of all the rain, but well worth the effort. I think we are off to a great start. I also read a really great blog from Austraila http://www.down---to---earth.blogspot.com/ ~ Rhonda is great and has the best advice. She is even writing a book. I feel it's better to have less and live simpler. We have to much crap that we have gathered over the years. Little by little we are going through our house room by room and getting rid of stuff. We had a kick~ass yard sale on the 17th of July and made a nice little sum of money and got rid of alot of stuff. My mom is having a yard sale on the 21 of August which we will participate in and then whatever does not sell goes to charity. We have already given away stuff to benefit others. It's a win win situation, you get rid of stuff that's helping you get to the life you really want to lead and also helping others. The girls feel good about themselves too.

10 fushia scrubby dots ready to go ~

Yes here they all are in their glory. I just love all the bright colors!!! I got this pattern from a blog site, they are called scrubby dots.

So this is my new obsession.... Round textured face scrubbies I have made 10 of each color, yes that's 70 scrubbies.. told you I am obsessed. They work really well to................

I love the color brown... don't you?

I have also figured out, color, font and size ~ lookout am loving it...
TTFN~

Peace, love, and crochet...

Debbie

Crochet hat ~

I just love♥ this hat. Maybe in green next. Read on to see more pictures and how you can buy your very own pattern, Thanks Bell, it's great...............................

Front of hat

This is the side of the hat, as you can see it is beautiful from every angle and looks totally fab on... WOO HOO!!! Can't wait to make more in different colors.

And look at the back of the hat, just beautiful. Bella designs the best patterns. I have all of them and they are so easy to follow and always turn out great.

Is this the best hat ever!!! I tell you people, I LOVE it. My friend http://www.bellamcbride.etsy.com/ designed it. I literally made it in about 1 1/2 hours. It uses 2 strands of Vanna yarn. I love Vanna yarn, nice colors and I feel the yarn is softer than some worsted weight acrylic yarn and it goes along way.

I love the color purple, this is actually called eggplant. I added the gauzy lavender ribbon which I think really makes the hat!
I originally made it for Allie, my youngest daughter. (She looks great in hats) but ended up giving it as a gift to Victoria's (my other daughter) friend. Not so sure if I am digging this color, no, I'm not! Anyway Olivia also looks great in hats and she loved it. Still waiting for a picture of her in it... soon I hope.

TTFN ~

Peace, love, and crochet...

Debbie

My mistake ~

Hello good people, my mistake. Lu's etsy shop is www.piccoladonna2006.etsy.com
I did not have a chance to upload the pictures from VBS today. After Church we went to visit my parents. My dad was in the hospital last week and got out on Thursday.

The girls and I went over for a visit. He is doing better but is still not himself. Today was also my parents 40th wedding anniversary. Seems like yesterday they got married.

Tomorrow is another day~

TTFN~
Peace, love, and crochet...

Debbie

Thanks Lu!

I just got on the computer 10 min ago. I have been folding clothes and organizing all day. I really got alot done and as my reward I thought I would have a peek at the blogs I usually read ~ much to my surprise and delight I was featured again on www.sweetirie.blogspot.com by Lu from www.crochetlittlethings.etsy.com. She had some pictures of my work from my Etsy shop www.yarnfreak.etsy.com

Thanks Lu I appreciate your kindness. I am trying to update my blog and also my etsy shop. So everyone look for new items in the shop and new blog posts with pictures real soon.


Thanks for your continuing support in both endeavors......

~TTFN...............
Peace, love, and crochet...

Debbie

Tired today ~

This week the girls and I are doing a local VBS. Vic and I are helping and Allie is actually attending. It's fun but really hot! We also did the same VBS at our church in Metuchen 2 weeks ago. Crocodile Dock ~ I came home today and was totally exhausted, and actually slept for a few hours. Tomorrow is the last day with a finale program and dinner at 6pm. I will be adding pictures of this and the other VBS over the weekend. I think we really enjoyed doing them this year. It's alot of work but very rewarding.

Tonight we are anxiously awaiting the new Ace of Cakes. It's on in 20 min. Victoria is glued to the food network channel and Jeff to the Yankee game with comments about the game being yelled out every so often. Just and another ordinary night at the Procek's.

~ TTFN ~

Peace, love♥, and crochet...

Debbie

I just added this!!! How good am I!

I just added this. This is actually what I wanted it to look like, not the one on my sidebar. But I can not figure out how to correct it. Anyway I was just happy I figured out how to add this... Little by little I am learning.

What to do???

Well here I am again today trying to write on my blog. I want to add so many pictures and stories but it seems to take me so long. Then I get frustrated! Facebook seems so much easier to add pictures. 1,2,3 and they are added, but blogging is so much more personal. It seems I am always in a hurry or the girls are hogging the computer. I could go on with the list of excuses, which is really what they are let's just face the facts. The girls are both going to youth group later and Jeff is working.... that is the perfect opportunity to blog about our summer. Look for more later. As you can see Michele from http://www.sweetirie.etdy.com/ has been helping me update my blog. I get so far and then I don't know what to do. She had been a huge help. I also have added a few things on my own. We will see it's shaping up but needs more work. ~ TTFN ~ more later!!!!

Peace, love♥ and crochet...

Debbie

Jury Duty

Just a real quick post. I know I have been saying I am going to update my blog, but somehow life is getting in the way. Anyway today I had to go to Jury Duty in New Brunswick, NJ not Canada, Bella!!! I had to be there at 8am. I originally was called for Grand Jury Duty which consists of 18 weeks 1x a week. I was thankfully excused because of a great letter our school secretary Carol wrote. Thanks again Carol!!! It would have been disruptive to the class. Today was the longest 8hrs of my life. You have to watch a movie then wait. Then they called my number I was juror number 13 in the jury box right from the begining. The judge did his speech and we got to tell him why we could not serve. My excuse was not good enough and he said you either serve now or in 3mos. I choose to stay and in the end the lawyers dismisses me. I did not like the judge he was very loud and sarcastic with everyone's excuses. Went back downstairs, had lunch , waited some more. At 3pm they started calling numbers again. I did say a prayer, please don't call me and as luck would have it my number was not called. Shortly after we were told we could leave and in 10-15 days we will receive a $5.00 check in the mail for our services.


I am glad I was ecxcused, it would have been 2 weeks or more of going into New Brunswick 4 days a week. A thought I did not want to have. So I am free for 3yrs at least....

Have a great day ~ more later....................



Peace, love, and crochet...

Debbie♥