My Guide Said...

Being sick is not fun, nor is it something a well balanced person should look forward to. However, there are aspects of being sick that you might apply to your more healthy moments that could be of benefit to both yourself and those you love.

Face it, when you are sick you take time out to be sick. Even if you continue to slog through your work day you recognize the fact that you are sick and at your first opportunity promise yourself that you will crawl into bed for some much needed rest. You are very aware of your condition and you ply yourself with potables in the form of traditional home remedies such as chicken soup, gargling with salted water, and honey and lemon to soothe your scratchy sore throat.

Additionally, there are many over the counter medicines that you can take to give you comfort and to mask your symptoms so that you can continue to work or go to school. Ideally, you would stay home to be sick, but many people just cannot or choose not to do that. It’s, more than likely, already too late in the sense that you have already spread your cold amongst your co-workers and students, so what’s the use? Stay at work. Just remember to wash your hands often. But, cautionary germ spreading techniques aside, the point is that your attention is brought back to your poor, aching, sick body moment after moment. You sneeze. Argh. You crap. Ohhh. You ache. Owweee. Your head hurts. Uhhhh. Your skin is crawling with chills. Eeeee. You just cannot concentrate on anything else. Your attention comes back to your condition time and time again.

That’s how you need to meditate. Your attention will wander. Bring it back to the point of the meditation. You think about what you’re going to be doing today. Bring your attention away from these plans to the focus, to the light of your meditation. Why do you think nuns spend so much time in prayer? Do you think they move to that wondrous place right quick? No, they know how to move in and be with Source. But they do it a lot and they do it often. We would caution you about over-meditating. But, you can certainly do it for 20 minutes at a stretch. Any more time spent on it than that and you should have a meditation coach to confer with, but 20 minutes out of your day is not going to kill you.

With practice, with long practice, the accumulated benefits of a practice of meditation will begin to show. You, certainly, will notice it first. Basically, you’re going to feel a whole lot better, both emotionally and physically. Because you feel better you’re going to interact with your world in a more soothing way. Hey, you could probably run for office and win on the meditation ticket. All joking aside, it’s the old law of change yourself and change the world you live in.

The Guardian Angel's Mistake

A middle aged woman has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital. While on the operating table she has a near-death experience. During that experience she sees her guardian angel and asks if this is her time. The angel says no and explains that she has another 30-40 years to live.Upon her recovery she decides to just stay in the hospital for a few more days and have a facelift, liposuction and a tummy tuck. She even has someone come in and change her hair color. She figures since she's got another 30 or 40 years she might as well make the most of it. She walks out the hospital after the last operation and is killed by an ambulance speeding up to the hospital.She arrives in heaven again, sees her guardian angel and says, "I thought you said I had another 30-40 years!!"The angel replies, "Sorry. I didn't recognize you."

I subscribe to Belief Net's Joke of the Day. That's where this came from.

Polenta Adventures

I made polenta yesterday. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. One of those adventures in cooking I wanted to take. But, I wasn’t sure, both if we were going to like it and if I was going to be able to make it right. I did some checking around and found that Polenta can be sort of like mashed potatoes. Soft, just mounded up as a side dish and a gravy or spaghetti sauce put over it. Or, as a side with a stew. Or, you could put it into a bowl and then dump it out when it sets up and slice it.

So, here I am with 2 cups almost of coarse cut organic cornmeal/polenta from the trip I took the other day to The Food Mill. I looked in one of my recipe books and they called for 2½ cups of polenta to 6½ cups of water. I found some fine cornmeal up in my cupboard and added that to what I’d gotten to fill it out to the required 2½ cups. I also sauted up half an onion, threw in some salt and got the water to boiling.

Once it was boiling merrily away I slowly poured in a thin stream of the polenta whisking all the while. It didn’t take long and it began to thicken up. I switched to a spoon and continued stirring. And, stirring. And, stirring. I thought my arm was going to fall off. The recipe said 25 minutes. I didn’t read farther. I set the timer and took little breaks away from the job. Once I looked at the recipe again and saw it actually said 25-50 minutes for the stirring. Yikes.

I threw in a little bit of herbs de provence that I have. And, I kept adding water. I think, in total I might have added in a good 2 more cups of water. It just kept getting so very, very thick I was worried things weren’t going right. At one point I added in a little milk just for the hell of it. And, kept stirring. I remembered watching one of the cooking shows Giada De Laurentiis did. Her sister was there on the show stirring the polenta and said you always must stir it the one way (which way I couldn’t remember) or you would invite bad luck. I was stirring this any way I could. And, the recipe said for best results don’t stop stirring. I still wasn’t certain I was doing the right thing with this stuff and thinking to myself, “If it is horrible I will just throw it out”. I spot tasted what was going on and it was palatable. Not exciting, but it wasn’t breaking my teeth.

A channeling funny? I’m talking to the guides as I’m doing this. They are offering up all sorts of helpful suggestions. Some I act upon, others I don’t. It’s how we work. Companionable cooks and company in the kitchen while I work. Anyway, I was flagging on the stirring part. I mean, I was thinking my shoulder might be hurting the next day. I just don’t physically exert myself all that much and this was a job. So, somebody in Spirit (it was probably Seth) says, “Here, like this” and I started to stir the crap out of the polenta. It was amazing. Here I am exhausted and this guide takes over and I’ve got this sudden burst of energy…or, rather, my arm is moving like nobody’s business. Well, you would have to have been there. I said, “Okay, okay….that’s enough! Thank you very much.” And, we went back to the labored stirring I was doing. I should have let him continue for awhile. That was the worst pot to clean I’ve had to do in years.

Toward the end of the 25 minutes (no way was I going past that!) I started stirring in bits of scissored up parsley and grated cheese. It wasn’t much of either. I couldn’t taste the cheese in it so much as I noticed the texture change to a much creamier sort. The parsley sparkled it up with the bright green speckles.

I dumped it into two bread loaf pans and set it at the back of the stove. Some time later, not long, maybe an hour, I transferred both into plastic bags. It was amazing, they came right out of the pans as firm little loaves of polenta.

Towards dinner time Dennis had come back with pork cutlets for us to have as Weiner Schnitzel. But, we decided that hammering the cutlets out was going to be too long a job for Saturday’s dinner and we’d save that for Sunday. I hesitantly said, “We have polenta if you’d like to try that.” Dennis cocked an eyebrow at me and said, “What if we don’t like it?” He has memories of dinners past where I had launched into adventures in cooking. I said, “How about if we have grilled cheese sandwiches.” He brightened right up and said, “And, tomato soup.” I said, “Okay.” And, if the polenta is horrible we can just throw it out and still have something to eat for dinner.

I sliced it up and fried it. I used a knife on the first few slices and then rooted around in my sewing stuff and got a length of thread to use on the other slices. I liked that technique better. A nice slice and different to do with the thread.

Dennis had the first two slices out of the pan. He said, “Hey, I like this.” I gave him some pepper and onion relish from Harry and David to have with it. It was also good just with salt and pepper. Then, he had another couple of slices. By then he said, “This can be our dinner.” I agreed. This stuff was really very good! We also thought it would be good with fried eggs in the morning.

So, it was worth it. I’m glad it all worked out. Something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time, not sure I was doing the right thing and it actually ended up tasting very good.

Saturday Cookies

I was actually looking for this recipe:

COOKIES FROM CAKE MIX – From Cooks.com

1 box cake mix (any flavor)1 or 2 eggs2 tbsp. shorteningWaterFruit, nuts, coconut, chocolate bits, etc. (optional)
Use 2 tablespoons water for crisp cookie or 1/4 cup for soft cookie.
Drop by spoonfuls. Or roll into balls and flatten. Or form into roll, chill and cut into slices. Use your imagination. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

When I came across this recipe

Knock You Nakeds at Recipe Goldmine:

1 (18 1/2 ounce) package German chocolate cake mix
1 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup plus 1/2 cup evaporated milk, divided
3/4 cup butter, melted
60 vanilla caramels, unwrapped (one 14 ounce package)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

In a large mixing bowl, combine dry cake mix, pecans, the 1/3 cup evaporated milk and melted butter. Press half of the batter into the bottom of a greased 13 x 9-inch glass baking dish. Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 8 minutes.

In the top of a double boiler over simmering water, melt caramels with remaining 1/2 cup evaporated milk. When caramel mixture is well mixed, pour over baked layer. Cover with chocolate chips. Pour remaining batter on top of morsels. Return to preheated 350 degree F oven and bake for 18 minutes. Let cool before cutting into squares. Makes 16 to 20 bars.

Happiness

This article ties in with the recommended book of the month, "The Art of Happiness at Work." It occurred to me that I was able to talk about something I knew about first hand. Of course, everybody can talk about being happy. But, in my case I went from a place where I was not happy to a place where I was happy and my surroundings did not change at all. My fascination with this topic is the feeling, which I also embraced for most of my life, that happiness was something that happened to me rather than something that sprang from within. I look at all the people who come and go in the company I work for, I look at so many relationships that fail, I look at folks who cannot open their mouths except to complain and, I remember how I used to think, "If only something was a certain way I would be happy". Baloney.

Some years ago I quit my job. I spent a year and a half at home writing and reading and doing a lot of inner child work. It was during that period of time that the wheels were set into motion for me to learn how to channel. One of the first things I did was to read most of, "The Course in Miracles"...just the lesson part. Then, I began reading all sorts of material that had come from channeled sources, from, "Messages From Michael," to Emmanuel, to Seth. In addition I did a lot of journal writing. I wrote one and a quarter million words just to see if I could do it. All of these things provoked movement for me.

After a year and a half of all these activities the folks at my old job called me back. I was only supposed to go back to work for a month to train somebody new because my replacement had quit, but I ended up staying and I've been there 13 years the second time around. What was really interesting for me was that I was miserable when I quit that job. I was not a happy camper. Everybody bothered me, everything they did, everything they wanted, anybody who called. If I had been able to cast spells they would all have been toadstools.

The really curious thing about it when I returned after a year and a half hiatus was that nothing about that job had changed. The same people were there, the same problems, the same issues. Nothing had changed. But, I was happy. Go figure. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what happened. Still, to this day, 13 years later I am basically happy. I have my up's and down's the same as anybody else, but for the most part there is an underlying cushion that was not there before. I believe it is happiness.

Now, what is really interesting to me is that I really did not change much. It did not take all that much to change my entire outlook on life. It took a very minor tweaking. It was hard to do in the sense that I really did not know what I was doing, but the degree of change was enough that it affected how I view life. And, it all began with the desire to effect change. How the changes occurred, the order they happened, the new things I was exposed to and the psychic awakening that took place all snowballed. In retrospect, taken all together, it might look like a lot of things happened, but, I just get the feeling that it was the way I look out at life. Instead of being the victim in all of this I gradually saw that I was actually the orchestrator of my life; that I had a whole lot more to say about what was going to happen than I thought I did.

So, the secret to happiness? I think it is an important aspect to know that you can be happy. Know that it might take awhile, but happiness does not depend on financial riches. It does not depend on a good job. It does not depend on how good you look. Happiness does not depend on the clothes you wear, or the school you go to or the degree you earn. Happiness is something far and away simpler, and small and precious. I truly believe that everybody, no matter what their circumstances are can be happy.

Hard Work

I wonder sometimes at the worth of things The harder it was to accomplish the greater the sense of accomplishment.  Why does doing something the hard way make it any better than having done it the easy way?  Where did that come from?  Some sort of ethic of hard work?

And, yet I don’t think that everything should be handed to me on a silver platter.  I understand that I need to go to work to pay our bills.  I understand and accept that.  I’d prefer to be home writing or fiddeling with my websites, but that doesn’t bring in a regular paycheck and bills being what they are I need my job.

I think of people I have known who had a sense of entitlement and who thought things should come easy to them.  What seemed to come easy was the art of whining.  And, I listened to them.  And, eventually I wondered how I could extricate myself from the web they wove.  There I was trapped listening to them whining.  Occasionally, I would make suggestions as to how they might achieve some measure of happiness, but for the most part whatever I said would be met with hostility and derision.  And, the person would return immediately to their whining.  I don’t feel that I was able to help them in any way, but I also felt compelled to continue to offer support.

Now, knock wood, I don’t seem to be caught in situations like that.  I hope I can see them coming.  I offer a little bit and leave.  I don’t linger any longer. Part of that is my being a hermit.  But, part of that, too, is not wanting to tie up so much of my energy in somebody else’s drama.  

Ah...The Weekend

It’s amazing how something like a pain in the butt deflects all attempts to creativity. I speak of hemorrhoids. The hardest word in the English language for me to spell, but it looks like I got it right today. Any pain actually would serve to bring a person’s attention away from the things they would rather it be on to the pain.

Like yesterday at work. My foot hurts me. And, when I’m sitting for longer periods of time I’ll get these shooting pains in it. I’ve had it for over a month. I won’t be doing anything and suddenly I’m hollering, “Ow…ow…owwwie.” I’ve made an appointment with my doctor, but that isn’t for another month. He was all booked. If it were such that I couldn’t stand it I could go in and see somebody else, but I figure I can wait. I think it’s like that plantars fasciitis that I had years ago in both feet. That took a year to heal up. Ice and ibuprophen.

So, what can you do with Preparation H when you’re not using it for its intended purpose? I’ve heard it will get rid of wrinkles around the eyes. Also, you can use WD-40 for your joints when they hurt. I haven’t tried that one since I don’t believe we have any WD-40 in the house.

Here are some things the guides have run by me in the last couple of days. They said I could think like a minister when I write. Not that I would ever say I was one because I’m not. But, I could think that way and see what would come out of my mouth. Probably more high toned stuff than the things I’ve been talking about lately.

The other thing they’ve been urging me to do is to draw more. It’s actually not a bad idea. Learning to draw was one of the steps I took in learning how to channel. One of the things they also suggested was that I illustrate my book…or their book…our book of channeled psychic readings. A little something at the end of each of the chapters. Just to give it some interest. I was stymied. Even though I took a drawing course (Betty Edwards) so many years ago I have not pursued my drawing. So, once again, if you were to ask me to draw a house…here’s what it looks like. I also did the first thing I ever learned to draw which was my hand. I’m just not in the proper mind set because I could draw better than that if I put my mind to it.

So, it’s going to take some work. They suggested that I begin by copying the portrait that Tara Dolphin did for me so long ago. I’ve lost track of her. But, she did a soul essence drawing for me that absolutely blew my mind. If you look closely you can see the guide whispering in my ear. She didn't know I was a channel when she did the drawing. The guides said because I admire what she did it would help to get me in the mood and, at least, help to get me off the starting mark. They said that though what I did would not be the same as what she did it might be possible to do something better than that house. Well, they didn’t say that, but they did say that I might be surprised at what I ended up with. I made a few stabs at it this week and they weren’t all that hot. So, I’ll keep trying.

Something else I want to do this weekend is to finish reading, “The Art of Happiness at Work” by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler. I’d like to use it as my Book of the Month Recommendation in the March Newsletter, which I’d also like to finish up this weekend.

I’ve noticed a tremendous increase (knock wood that it continues) of traffic coming to see my website, Talking to Spirit. Folks are staying longer. They’re spending more time in the archives…which ought to be a motivating force for me to get that book published. I realize that there are other websites out there that generate huge (to me) amounts of traffic, but I’ve watched mine go from 2 people a day, if that, to the present 90 or so. It’s modest, but it’s an improvement. And, it’s gratifying because I hate looking for links. For every 10 links I ask about and put the reciprocal link on my pages in good faith I get one valid link back. Now, that’s a thankless task…until you see your traffic take a nice upswing. I also saw my Google page rank improve. Prior to this month I had a page rank 4 on my main page. The rest of the older pages were 3’s and nothing on much on the rest of it. Now, I’ve got a bunch of 4’s and 3’s and some 2’s. I haven’t checked it all, but spot checking showed an improvement there too. What I would like is a page rank of 5 or 6. That would be nice.

Okay…enough dithering…I’ve got a book to read.

Grounding

When I was new to psychic awakening the sensations I felt at times were quite extraordinary.  Now, 13 years later, I’m normal again.  Still psychic and can still tune into those “other” vibrations, but I’m not hit with them as often and as unexpectedly like I was in the beginning.  It was like I had no control over it at all.  And, I didn’t.  I had to grow accustomed to it all.  

In any case, I remember sometimes feeling real flighty, as if I were walking on the ground but also “out” there at the same time.  Like a sudden case of the jitters.  Something simple to do to ground yourself if this happens to you?  Put your hand on top of your head for a little bit.  It’s not really going to draw any attention to yourself.  You’re not doing something really odd like jumping up and down three times and turning clockwise while whispering something.  No, you’re just putting your hand on top of your head for a few seconds. Take a deep breath and you’ll probably feel better.

I want a Drink

I’ve been in an odd mood this morning.  I think it started last night.  Maybe I just want a drink.  What I want is that altered state of mind I used to get when I drank.  I’m sure you’ve all seen them…those really obnoxious drunks?  Who won’t stop talking?  Well, from your point of view we look disgusting.  From our point of view we are uninhibited.  We are witty.  We are wise beyond our years.  In short, we vibrate with a scintillating energy that we normally don’t show to the world.  We come out from beneath our shells.  

Okay, so I don’t drink anymore.  And, I never was very witty.  Nor will I ever be.  But, somehow, I’m seeking an altered state.  I need it.  I can smell it.  It’s a place where I can go to be myself.  It’s a place I can go to where people won’t laugh at me.  It’s a place I can go where I am understood.  I need to get to this place without the use of pills or of booze.  Crap, I don’t even smoke anymore and that was good for something.

Actually, when I drank I spoke German quite well and could type like the wind.  My boss was always impressed when I said I’d return to the office to type up a storm.  At least, he laughed.  I wonder what it is…what buttons get pushed…what neurons get resized.  On the quote of the day yesterday George Carlin said electricity was just organized lightening.  That’s the place I want to go to.  I realize it’s probably just as lonely a place as the place I’m in now.  Not that I want for company.  I’m a hermit.  Just my husband and my cats and some long distance friends and family and I’m happy.  So, it’s not that I need to be invited to a party in order to be complete.  Besides, I’ve got all those Folks in Spirit to talk to.  So, I’m not lonely that way.  It’s just that when a person is being creative they don’t do it with other people around.  At least, that’s how I do it.  I realize that I’ve probably just branded myself as NOT A TEAM PLAYER.  Fine.  I’m not.  I do not fit into the corporate world.  I work on the fringes for a company that’s been around for 50 years and my work and what I do in my off time are totally separate.  

I’m a Virgo.  I’ll work my heart out.  And, I do.  But, something is off kilter this morning.  Shit.  I hope we’re not going to be having an earth quake.  Oh, I just did my biorhythms.  Intellectually, I’m in the toilet this morning….I should have had a drink.

Saturday

I made a list of things to do this weekend and spent the last 2 hours doing something totally different. As I was scooting around on the internet this morning some info about new collapsing ad units with Google Ads caught my eye. It involves using an alternate url and I’d actually already set a few of them up to do something else when the ads weren’t available, but what I had wasn’t appropriate for all pages and it sort of verged on looking tacky.

But, when the ads are not available it just looks stupid to have a big gapping hole with nothing in it. So, that solved a really long standing, nagging thing for me. I busied myself replacing all of my ads on my links pages.

Then I started reading some of the blogs on my blogroll. I noticed one person had her Google ads at the bottom of each entry. Only the most recent 3 show up because that’s all you are allowed to show at any one point in time. But, it looked good. I really admired it. Many times I notice as I read blogs I’m either reading content or I might start reading sidebars, but generally, I’m not reading both. And, face it, you go blogging because you want to read what the folks have to say. That’s where your eyes are going. So…I’m going to try this out for a little bit to see what happens.

Actually, this is a little trickier than I thought it was going to be.

Yikes...it worked. Took me awhile...it's 9:30 now...and, I started 3 hours ago working on this. Well, it's worth it. Now, the ads are going to run at the end of the first 3 posts. I've freed up the side for the other things that are there and also put a link to my other site at the end of each post too...Also, for glitz a nice line. For somebody who doesn't know what she's doing I'm feeling pretty proud of myself.

Truth or Dare

There are all sorts of degrees of interaction with Folks in Spirit.  Many times, though, I see people (and I’m probably guilty of this myself) demanding that Spirit act how they want them to act.  Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t.  

For example, your expectations of something generally dictate the outcome to some degree or another.  You expect to succeed and much of the time you do.  You expect to fail and many times you do.

We have a sort of unspoken rule.  God won’t lie to us.  It just doesn’t happen.  He’s the boss.  By extension many people think by talking to Folk in Spirit they also won’t lie to us.  Hmmmm.  I don’t know where this rule came from, but many people believe it.  

On the one hand, people think any contact from other invisible realms is from the spirits of departed humans, ghosts mostly.  And, the expectation is sometimes that these ghosts are mischievous and will sometimes do wicked things.  Or, that they are yearning to tell us something if only we could understand.  On the other hand are the Guides, who (in my book anyway) are also Folk in Spirit.  They may or may not have been incarnated…some lots…some not so much…some a long time ago.  It’s all sort of different.  The prevailing thought is that these Guides in Spirit don’t lie to us, have our “best” interests at heart, and things along those lines.  I put “best” interests in quotes because many times best equals good and fortunate to us.  Not always the case.  Sometimes difficult and heartbreaking is the best possible outcome and best way to learn your lessons.

I think the best rule of all to follow is the one you’ve been living with forever and have the most experience with.  It’s the one where you either consciously or unconsciously create your own reality.  

All I’m saying is that people who are disappointed in how their interactions with Spirit are going should look to themselves for the answer rather than trying to figure out what’s wrong with Spirit.  Spirit will, many times, echo our own thoughts and feelings, holding to our own cultural mores.  Think of how Spirit is going to act with a kid.  Spirit isn’t going to start talking about really technical and complicated theories.  Spirit is going to swing with the kid on the playground.  

So, if you’re into the Great White Brotherhood…so are your Buds in Spirit.  If you’re into scary ghosts…so are your Buds in Spirit.  If you’ve got a Christian background your Guides will echo those thoughts.  If you’re into self denial your Guides aren’t necessarily going to call you on it.

Their teaching methods are interesting, actually.  I bought into the whole nine yards in my early years of contact with Spirit.  Thought I could save the world.  Thought I could be important.  Gradually, they sort of burst my bubble.  It was embarrassing at the time.  I’m not embarrassed by it now and hope by telling my story to save others their own embarrassing moments.  Though, maybe that isn’t necessary either.  

I guess what I’m saying is don’t get all bent out of shape by the messages you receive from Spirit.  If Spirit says the world is going to end in the next 3 months, please, please, don’t sell your house.  If anything, get some more insurance, but don’t make any major moves.  Listen to what is said and make your own decisions.  Maybe, if the message was that the world was going to end you could ask yourself why you thought this was a really important message for you to know about.  Maybe you’ve got some issues and in your heart you’re frightened about something.  You could look into that.

Who me?

You can tell what a rube I am…..I just read a blog and they talked about wifi.  I thought they were referring to their wife….as in wifey and just hadn’t spelled it like I expected it to be spelled.

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentine’s Day to everybody.  Dennis, in honor of the day, vacuumed the house for us yesterday.  It was terrific, because it really did need it.  I’d walk through with my new slippers on (see previous blog) and at the end of my stroll through the house have picked up all sorts of crud.  Actually, how’s that for the newest household cleaning gizmo?  We could market it on www.as-seen-on-tv.com. Slippers that you squoosh through the house with.  At the end of the day you throw them in the laundry hamper…having already cleaned the floor in your wake.  Anyway, the house is beautiful!  And, he brought me flowers and chocolate tonight and we went out to dinner last night.  Just a terrific day.

One of the websites I get tickled with is Millie’s My Mom’s Blog.  She’s in her 80’s and is a hoot.  She recently discovered video blogging and there’s a cute one on there now where she couldn’t get a perfume bottle open.  Anyway, I stop by occasionally to see what she’s up to next.  

Traffic Exchange Sites

I have two traffic exchanges that I belong to. The very first two that I ever investigated and upon a short reflection, signed up for. With both I have been 100% pleased. Blog Clicker and Blog Explosion. Both have been terrific. For the most part, I see quality sites displayed on both of them. Every once in awhile somebody throws me a curve, but I can handle it. You just move on.

I figured to see if there were any other traffic exchange sites out there. I’ve just spent the last hour slogging through 2 of them. Had to sign up. No free peeks. And, endure. I mean endure, one advertising site after another advertising site like you wouldn’t believe. It was absolute crap. I deleted the accounts quickly.

I see now that I and the other members of Blog Explosion and Blog Clicker are really fortunate. We get to visit nice sites and we get nice folks to come see our sites.

Slippers I Made

I just finished making myself some slippers. I've been needing some and rather than go buy a new pair I made some. Started yesterday and finished them up this morning, so it's a quick one to make.

I used a pattern called Soft & Comfy Slippers I pulled off of the internet that came from a website called Crochet Pattern Central.

I, without fail, never make a test swatch. I'm too impatient for that. Anyway, I thought about it this time and then decided not to. I was making them with the largest hook for the larger size. Just as I was finishing off the first sole I realized these would only fit somebody with a size 6 foot. In my spiritually advanced old age my feet have grown longer and wider. At least, that's what some people say. Anyway, they aren't the normal size 7 anymore. They're 8 wides. And, this dainty little slipper wasn't going to make it. So, I repeated the 2nd row two extra times as I got to going around the sides. That did the trick. They fit perfectly. So, if anybody is going to make these either do the test swatch first before you start or adjust it to fit as you're nearing the end.