Since Haiti is a poor country, Medecins Sans Frontieres (aka Doctors Without Borders) was already there working on other projects when the earthquake hit. They are already helping the survivors in spite of damage to their hospital and deaths among their personnel. If you're looking for a way to reach out after a tragedy like this, supporting this ( Read more... )

After having decided to pass on doing Maker Faire this year, I woke up yesterday with an exciting idea. I love to spin yarn. I need to get more regular exercise. Combine the two into a bicycle powered spinning wheel. I've got ideas of several ways it can be done, depending on what parts are easiest to come by ( Read more... )

Although they've got their own charms, neither LJ nor FB are really meeting my blogging needs, so I'm going to be using my xanga account (ranch101) again. I don't know how much will wind up in each bin, so if you're suddenly feeling cut out of the loop, give me a heads-up, please.

I'm doing reasonably well for the most part, but some days everything just catches up to me.  Tomorrow is supposed to be the day that escrow closes, but as far as I know it's in limbo if not actually cancelled.  The people wanting to buy the ranch have been waiting since they put in their original offer in January.  We keep going around in circles ( Read more... )

Today's our family's official start of the Holiday season.  It's a cousin's birthday which means we have to get cracking to get ready for Halloween, which means it's practically Nadya's birthday then an Aunt's, which means it's practically Thanksgiving which means we have a *slight* breather before it's Katrina's birthday and the next week is ( Read more... )

I've decided not to drive over to LambTown today.  The idea of a 2 hour drive (each way) just isn't appealing, especially since I know that I really shouldn't spend money or acquire more fleeces right now.  So instead, I'm going to do fibery things at home.

A long time ago (months?), I washed up the mohair and hair sheep fleece that I was given by ( Read more... )

Rowena's body decided to celebrate the autumnal equinox by starting up with the asthma again.  Whee.  I can't really even tell a difference in the weather to account for it.  Perhaps she has more triggers than just the viruses ( Read more... )

Other than the mortgage fiasco, life's not too bad.  The girls and I are back into a school year schedule.  There has only been one tardy so far.  Nadya and Katrina both have great teachers and are enjoying school.  I'm organizing the Scholastic Book Club orders for both classrooms and it's more of a project than I'd imagined.  But fun.  And a ( Read more... )

Some of you know we've just entered escrow to sell the ranch (finally!).  The two banks owning our mortgages finally got their act together to agree that the people who put in an offer in January could buy the ranch for less than we owe on it (a "short sale").  They worked out the numbers and the first mortgage would be paid off entirely and the ( Read more... )

Still playing games with the short sale.  Both banks have agreed to let the sale go through.  Bank#1 is getting paid in full.  Bank#2 has come up with 2 figures - one amount is the minimum they need to get to let the short sale go through.  That one is met by both offers.  The second is the amount that they want to get out of the transaction so ( Read more... )