Mmm...Waffles

I dragged out the waffle iron yesterday and made waffles for breakfast.

Eli was very interested and I explained it all as he listened intently.

Perfect!  Yum.

Another Granny for Sue

And finallly...

I made two loaves of rye bread yesterday.  I was very disappointed that they didn't rise much on the final rise and they came out kind of flat.

I'm pretty sure I screwed it up by making the dough in my breadmaker instead of following the instructions.  Doing it that way changed up the process quite a bit.

But the bread still tastes really good.  We just won't be making sandwiches with it.

**********************************

We're meeting family for lunch at a restaurant today.

It's my daddy's birthday Tuesday.

I hope you're all having a nice weekend.

Bye for now.

I finally found out how to get my comments link moved back to the bottom.  Just wish I knew how it got changed in the first place.  I found the answer in the Blogger discussion page.  Someone had the same problem recently and the answer was already posted.  Yipee!  I've been trying to fix it off and on all day.

Squares, Continued...

Here is where you can find the four squares I've posted pictures of:

From 200 Crochet Blocks, Jan Eaton:

#96 Light & Shade, solid light blue

#113 Wisteria, multi blues

#161 Daisy Chain, light blue & dark blue

#145 Chocolate Box, oranges & yellow

From 101 Crochet Squares, Jean Leinhauser:

#81, red, black, aqua, buff


Let me know if you don't have the books and want any of these and I'll see what I can do.  ;)

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Do any of you participate in Sarah London's Hip to Hook each month?  This month was the first time for me and I'm having trouble comprehending the instructions for the Squiggle Crochet.  I swear, I stared at that graph with the arrows on it that she included with the instructions for a good 30 minutes and I COULD NOT figure out where to put my stitches.  Does anybody have any clearer instructions or tips for doing this kind of crochet?  I'm too much of a doofus to figure it out.

Thanks.

New Post Editor

Hey, y'all... Go to this link and read about the new post editor in Blogger and how to turn it on.  It will eliminate the spacing and line break issues I've been having, and there are also different ways to handle your pictures and I don't know what all yet:  http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?answer=156829

I switched over to it and it's working great so far.

I still don't know why my comments are showing up at the top of my posts though.

Coolest Square EVER!

Lookie what I found when looking for square patterns to make for Sue:

Click it for a larger view.

I made this today because I thought it was just pure genius on the part of whoever made it up.  My brain doesn't do that.  But isn't it great?

Some wanted to see my Kool-Aid dyed yarn once I rolled it.

Here it is!

And...

Here it is used in one round of this granny square.

Now that's a knock-your-eyeballs-out bright square!

Look at the beautiful scarf Keri made for me!

(Click on the picture for a good look.)

This picture just doesn't do it justice.  It's really gorgeous.

Thank you, Keri!

I have no idea why my comments are suddently showing up at the TOP of my posts instead of the bottom.  I looked through the section where you format your posts, but nothing has changed.  I'm also getting an error message every time I try to approve a comment.  The comments are showing up eventually, so it's obviously working.  Blogger is probably just torturing me for bitching about their formatting problems all the time.

And now the toolbar at the top of this box where I type in my posts looks different too!  What's going on?  It's freakin me out!  I'm in the blogger twilight zone!

Happy Friday.  Back later.

I survived the storm. The worst of it went south of us. It was mostly just rain. Now we wait to see if we get a freeze overnight.

I got one more square done. Will post another day.

Squares

*Edited to add picture:

I was in a hurry. I need to shut down on the computers because we have a storm moving through with lots of thunder, lightening, and high winds. Run for your lives!

Poor Keri is getting coated in a thick sheet of ice there in Oklahoma City. Are you alive, Keri?

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Earlier today:

I'm going to dedicate my crocheting time today to making a few squares for Sue over at Mrs. Twins. You can read about her cause on her blog. Go look at all the pretty squares she's already received and then make some of your own to send her if you feel so moved. I'm going to give it a few weeks before mailing mine and see how big my pile gets just making a couple at a time.

Of course, I'm not stopping on crocheting the Wooleater. I'll work on him some tonight. It is a he, by the way. It's looking very manly. I only got two rounds of another color on yesterday. I crocheted off and on during the State of the Union last night and American Idol.

I'll edit and add the pictures of my squares to this post later today.

Bye.

Two Recipes

I'm making Easy & Delicious Chicken for dinner tonight. The chicken was delicious just like it was when it was finished cooking in the Italian dressing. I only used 1/2 of the cream cheese in the sauce to try and be a little healthier. I'm going to serve it over mashed potatoes. Mmm, comfort food!

I'll have to keep it warm because when I woke up from my nap, I looked at the phone to see what time it was and it said 4:30. I didn't realize until I had dinner nearly ready that it was really only 3:30. I guess the house phones are still on daylight savings time. Doh! I didn't think I had slept that long.

I'm saving the White Chicken Enchilada Slow-Cooker Casserole for another day, but it really sounds good too. I just don't have any tortillas in the house.


I must be hungry today because all of the recipes I looked at sounded good to me this morning.

Y'all have a good evening. Talk at ya tomorrow.

Yesterday's Progress

Wasting Time

The Stash Peppermint Tea really is good! Add about 1/2 a packet of Truvia (no-calorie sweetner) and a splash of milk, and yum! I thoroughly enjoyed my first hot cup this afternoon. I got mine at Kroger (grocery store for those of you who don't have them), but you can order it online HERE too.

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I had a disturbing dream last night...a nightmare really. I discovered that Dennis Rader lived across the street from me. For some reason he wasn't in prison for his crimes. That same day, I realized that I couldn't lock any of my doors, and they were all just flimsy screen doors anyway. The dream went on and on, but I won't bore you with it. Suffice it to say it was disturbing.

I wonder what made me dream such a thing? Of all people, why would my brain drudge him up? I'd say that I'm feeling threatened by something or someone, but I always feel that way. Ha-ha. Paranoid much? Why, yes. Yes, I am.

****************************

I had to remove my nail polish and put on at least a clear coat of new this afternoon, so I had to put my Wooleater aside. It's killing me that I can't do it and finish this round of color. I hate that. Between all the little things I do every day for the dogs -- feeding, refilling water, letting in, letting out, helping Phoebe up and down from the couch, etc. -- I really don't get that much time to sit and do a good chunk of crocheting, even when I don't have any work to do. I don't know how anybody that works outside the home gets any done at all. That's probably the reason I never really got into it until I started working from home.

I love it that some of you are getting inspired to make a Wooleater (I just accidentally typed Woodeater -- hee-hee). I can't wait to see what color combos you guys come up with. Maybe we can all inspire each other to keep going on them until they're done. I don't plan on picking up anything else until this one is finished. I'm putting my crochet blinders on.

I need another good chicken breast recipe. I'm trying to make more chicken and fish dishes instead of beef. It's hard to really please Barnaby with chicken. He's a beef & potatoes man.

I'm trying to ramble on and waste time until my nails are dry so I can crochet. It's hard to type with wet nails. Sammi is trying to persuade me to go take a nap. She's my nappin' buddy. They all are really, but she REALLY loves to nap with her momma and is always up for it. She's the one that always let's me know when it's time for bed at night too. If I'm in the living room much past 8:00, she starts pacing around me and staring at me. "Time to go read magazines!"

Okay, that's it for me today.

And just to show my protest to Blogger about their spacing issues, I'm not going to go back and edit this for proper spacing. GAH!

Wooleater Links

Wooleater Pattern with pictures HERE

Wooleaters on Flickr HERE

Wooleaters on Ravelry HERE

Have fun looking. There are so many beautiful color combinations!

More of the Wooleater

But not much more...

A crochet action shot! Ha-ha.

This is one of the stitches you'll be doing over and over if you try this pattern. It's not one I can do very fast.

This is all I got done yesterday. I only worked on it maybe an hour. It's hard to see the details with these dark colors. I'll try my next picture at a different angle and try to get more of the texture for you.

More later.

The Mundane

I saw something on TV the other day about bloggers. I was only half-way paying attention, but they were talking about how some bloggers find it necessary to tell you every detail of what they're doing every day and about every morsel of food going in their mouths. I thought it sounded an awful lot like me sometimes and started to start worrying that I was "one of those people" who are annoying everyone with their mundane life.

But then you know what? I very quickly realized if I was annoying anyone or boring anyone, they can just not come here. So there.

With that said, let me show you what I got at the store today. Ha-ha-ha! WHAT?

I love this oatmeal. It was on sale today for $1.89, which is at least $1.00 off. Score! More money for yarn! And this Java Monster Lo Ball is hard to find. "Lo Ball," because it's half the calories of the regular one.

I got this Stash Peppermint Tea because someone mentioned it on my sister's blog the other day saying how great it is. I got the Constant Comment because it use to be my sister's favorite tea. I don't know if it still is, but it sounded good to me today. I'm drinking more hot tea these days.

I found some blue Kool-Aid today too! I've heard the blue is hard to find anymore, so I bought the whole box. I got some yellow ones so I could make green. Not for drinking but for the yarn dyeing, don't ya know.

Here's the Wooeater I started over. I've decided to add two colors of green to the brown and linen instead of more browns. I still don't know that I love it, but I need to do a few more rounds of colors before I know for sure.

I'm enjoying this pattern. It's certainly different from anything else I've ever done. It's going to be really heavy. Everyone says it lives up to its name, "Wooleater," but I haven't gotten far enough to know myself yet.

If you're ever going to make one, my advice is to use a small hook, like an F or smaller.

This is the best dog food. Spoil your dog a little and give him/her some. You can tell by looking at it that they're going to love it. It looks like people food with peas and carrots and chunks of meat. Eli gets an extra small meal at night to prevent his blood sugar from dipping too low, and this is what he gets. He gets about 1/3 of one of these tubs so a tub lasts for three days. They cost around $1.39 at Walmart, but I paid $1.99 at Kroger today. What a rip-off, Kroger!

But, you see, I HAD to go to Kroger today because we needed this Cafe Du Monde coffee for our Vietnamese coffee, and Kroger is the only place around here that sells it.

And this concludes my exciting entry for today.

Oh, except to say that I've gone to all of your blogs many times and tried to leave a comment, but I'm almost always on my laptop these days and it still won't let me comment. It's pissing me off.

So I'm not ignoring you. Warning: Award-Winning Run-on Sentence Ahead. I read your blogs obsessively, but I just can't comment unless I'm sitting in my office, and who wants to be in their office unless they're working, and if I'm working, I shouldn't be clicking around on blogs and commenting and screwing around, so it only seems like I'm ignoring you, but I'm actually not, I'm working or on my laptop.

Okay?

And Blogger still sucks with the spacing, and I'm sick of going back and having to edit every single entry so that all my paragraphs aren't one giant paragraph, thereby making me look like an idiot who doesn't know how to write properly. So if there are any spacing issues in my entries, it's not because I'm an idiot. It's because Blogger can't get their act together and fix it. Stupid Blogger. If I didn't have my whole life for the past five years wrapped up in this thing, I'd be outta here!

Rant over.

Sunday Stuff

Here is Molly's give-away package (large) and a box of the hexagons from my WIPs ready to be mailed tomorrow morning...

A Pile-O-Dogs


The Wooleater I started last night.

I had a few more rounds and two more colors on it by midnight last night, but I frogged it this morning and started over. I just didn't like the way it was looking. So I started over this morning with a two-sizes smaller hook (F) and an adjustment to the placement of some stitches.

It looks much better now, but I'm still unhappy that I didn't buy the Caron Simply Soft last night for this. I wanted to make it in shades of all brown, but all they had in the Caron SS was a dark brown and a bone color. I wish now I had just gone with those two colors and then picked a third color like a rust or maybe a peach to go with them. I think this pattern looks so much better when crocheted with a thinner yarn, like the Caron or a sport-weight. If Hobby Lobby was open today, I'd go up there and exchange all the browns I bought in ILTY and start over. I still may do that tomorrow since I'm going out to the post office anyway. I've wanted to make this blanket for so long that I hate using something I'm not 100% happy with.

I haven't touched the magic balls yet. Those are going in a box in the closet. I'm just not feeling them right now.

And here's the sausage, beans, and rice I made for lunch today. It was so good and really hit the spot with a piece of bread & butter.

I'm about to go relax in a big 'ol bubble bath and drink my Vietnamese Coffee that Barnaby just made. Yum.

Re-Doing & Yo-Yoing & Math

I took apart an older afghan that was coming apart at the seams last night. These are all of the blocks it was made from. I didn't measure them, but my guess is they're at least 8-inch squares. It had a big border made from mostly sc stitches which I just cut off and threw away. I'm going to put a border around each of these, sew or crochet them together again, and crochet a new border.

And this is what I was playing with this morning. I made all of these yo-yos and when I started sewing them together to make a hotpad, I quickly decided this wasn't for me. It was a huge pain in the ass. I'm glad I didn't make 100s of those yo-yos before I decided to start sewing them together.

Lots of patience and lots of sewing = not the project for me.

I'm having a very strong urge to crochet a Wooleater Blanket. I just love Sarah London's stuff. I made a potholder once using the Wooleater pattern, but I've never done anything bigger. I really want to make one. And, yes, I know I already have many things I could work on that are already started, but I just want to make a Wooleater.

I wonder if I could figure out how to make it rectangular instead of square? I don't like square blankets. So if somebody could work on that for me, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

Every time I start messing with patterns it makes my head swim and I get all confused. It's like math or something. Math is hard. Hee.

I just ate about 10 Oreos for lunch. Way to go, Tubby! That's the way to keep your weight and cholesterol down! Ugh. Not eating sugar is hard too.

It's a dark and dreary day -- just the way I like 'em. I think a nap is in order very soon. It's the perfect time for it because Barnaby is watching some dumb movie. I really don't like watching movies and rarely do.

Okay, I'm finished here. Goodbye.

Tequila Sunrise, Anyone?

I received my prize from The Garden Bell yesterday! I was so excited to get my hands on it. Barnaby and I had fun reading through all of the songs on each CD. What a great collection! Thank you, Kate.

And here is a photo I took minutes before the big drawing, which Barnaby totally ruined for me by barging in and grabbing a ticket out of the bowl and proudly declaring a winner! Hmphf. That was the funnest part and he stole it out from under me!

My Kool-Aid dyed yarn is all dry and ready to wind into a ball. You can see the three places where I had the rubberbands. It looks really neat. I want to crochet something that shows the colors really well, and since there's only 220 yards, I think I'm going to just crochet myself a dish mat. That's something I'll use and look at nearly every day whether it's winter or summer or whatever.

The colors look a lot like a Tequila Sunrise, don't they? So that's it. I'm naming my dish mat Tequila Sunrise. Does that make you happy, Kate? I'm naming a dish mat!

TGIF everybody! Bye.

And the Winner is...

Molly of Crocheting My Best With My Worsted!

Congratulations Molly!

And a big thank you to all of you who participated in the GIVE-AWAY. I hope you all enjoy coming here and will continue to read and comment, and of course, crochet.

The winner of the give-away will be announced late this evening! I'm up to my eyeballs in work today.

Good luck to everyone who entered!

My Kool-Aid Dyed Yarn

First of all, I want to tell y'all to go over to Bev's blog and get the recipe for Chicken Bruscetta Foil Dinners. I made it last night, and everyone loved it. It's a keeper I'll be making again and again. Thanks, Bev!

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I tried my hand at dyeing some yarn with Kool-Aid this morning...

I unwrapped two skeins of the yarn I had ordered from Knit Picks online:

I wrapped three rubberbands around each skein about 5-6 inches apart. Then I placed both skeins in a dishpan filled with water and smooshed it around a little bit to get the yarn thoroughly soaked. I left it in the water while I mixed my Kool-Aid colors.

I never did get the color(s) I was going for. I wanted a few shades of peach, but the Kool-Aid wasn't cooperating. I went with these colors and decided to dye only one skein of yarn with it. These are varying mixtures of Orange, Lemonade, and Strawberry flavors of Kool-Aid.

I'm sorry that I did not get pictures of the next couple of stages which were pouring the dyes onto the yarn and microwaving the skein for two rounds of two minutes each time.

Then I rinsed the yarn well in fresh water from the tap. Even though everything I read said that there would be no color in the water after the heating process, I was still surprised when that was actually true. There was color in the water that was in the glass dish I used, but when I rinsed the yarn, no color was in the water that came out of it.

I gently squeezed the water out of the rinsed skein and hung it in the bathroom to dry.

I wonder how it turned out, don't you?

Do you want to see it?

Do ya?

TA-DA!

Like I said, it's not what I was going for, but it does look kinda cool, huh?

Many thanks to Kate for the inspiration!

And here are a couple of links to Websites where I read all about dyeing yarn:

Snowangels

Kathryn Ivy

Hair Braids & Stuff

I hate trying to think of titles for my blog entries.

Dutch Braid

I watched several YouTube videos on different types of hair braids. This is a Dutch Braid. It's just a reverse of the French Braid -- you braid under instead of over. This was my first attempt, and I think it turned out pretty well. I like how the braid sits on top of your head like a rope.

I love braids. And I'm so glad my hair is long enough now to put up out of my face. I'll be even happier when it gets to be 100 degrees in the shade this summer.

I had lots of fun looking through the make-up and hair videos on YouTube. I've never done that before. I accidentally saw the ones on braids when I was looking for videos on Flat Braid Joining for crochet.

These were really easy to put together and tasted great. I made these during the football game on Sunday. Next time I'll bake them longer though. They were still pretty soft after 18 minutes.

If I don't get anymore work in today, I think I'll make some cup cozies. I'm going to put some in my sister's Etsy shop and see how well they sell. She's seen at least one person on Etsy that makes knitted ones and has sold 3,000 of them at a minimum of $10 a pop. I think that's a wee bit expensive so I don't know yet what I'll charge.

I'm off to find my hook!

Boo Cowboys!

Could they have sucked any more? I think not.

GO-GO-GO!!

I'll be watching today and screaming and jumping up and down. I have a little bet with Keri on the game today. The winner has to buy the loser the crochet book of their choice from Amazon.com!

I can't wait to receive my new book!

Brett Favre is washed-up!

The Vikings shall suck today!

Everybody knows The Dallas Cowboys are

America's Team!

Crocheted Granny Hangers

*Edited to add: I just found out that the ones in the link are knitted not crocheted. Dang it!

Does anyone have a pattern for cocheted Granny Hangers like THESE?

I've found several patterns on the Internet, but none of them are the granny ones.

I'd appreciate a link to the pattern or someone pointing me in the direction where I can buy the pattern.

Thanks for any help!

A Give-Away & Magic Balls

Look at all the great Magic Balls I made with the yarn I got from frogging some of the WIPs!

 Nineteen Magic Balls

I’m not even going to make a joke about “magic balls.”  It’s too easy!

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~THE GIVE-AWAY~

The Loot

I decided to go ahead with the give-away for my 1000th post even though it passed a couple of days ago.

I’m giving away 36 Crochet Magazines and a 2000 Afghan Calendar containing hundreds of crochet patterns and a few knit patterns.  I got these off of eBay about a year ago.  All are in good condition.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE OLD-TIME CROCHET MAGAZINES ARE THREAD CROCHET PATTERNS.

How to Enter:  You must be a Follower of this blog and leave a comment between now and next Wednesday, January 20, 2010, stating that you wish to enter the drawing.  I must have a way to notify you if you win.  Either you have to have a blog that I can get to by clicking your name in the comments, or you can leave an email address in your comment.  If you don’t respond to my notification that you’ve won with your mailing address within 3 days of my sending it, you are disqualified and another name will be drawn.  (I know…I’m a hard-ass.)

Here’s what I have:

Old-Time Crochet Magazine (24 Issues from 1990-2002 containing THREAD patterns)

Quick & Easy Crochet (Small, 5 x 7 Magazines)

1997 (3 Issues)

1998 (1 Issue)

1999 (1 Issue)

Homestead Classics Afghan Special

Premier Issue (27 Patterns)

Afghan Special (30 Patterns)

Favorite Afghans (Special Issue)

19 Crochet & Knit Patterns

Crochet Fantasy

1993's Outstanding Afghans (25 Patterns)

1994's Best Afghans (23 Patterns)

McCall's Afghans

Volume 5 (Knit & Crochet)

Woman's Day (Special Issue)

Granny Squares (From 1979 I think)

The Needlecraft Shop Calendar

2000 Afghan Calendar

And the clock starts NOW!!

P.S.  We did not win at Winstar yesterday, but we were up and down enough to stay as long as we wanted to.  We still had a great time together and had a nice lunch at an Italian restaurant inside the casino.

Road Trip

I won't be around much tomorrow (Friday) so I probably won't be posting. I guess it's technically already Friday since it's after midnight. We took off work tomorrow and have a little road trip planned. We're going to Winstar Casino up in Oklahoma. It takes us about an hour and twenty minutes to get there.

Keep your fingers and toes crossed for us that we come back winners!

Y'all have a great weekend.

Does anybody know why I can't leave comments for anybody when I'm on my laptop?? I can see the comment box, but I can't get my cursor in there to type anything. Too weird. Somebody fix it!

I wanted to pop back in and tell you that I found two more WIPs when I started putting everything up that I dragged out to photograph. One I just started a couple of days ago (this hooded scarf), and one that is slightly older that I promptly frogged and rewound the yarn.

I'm going to be frogging a bunch of those projects and rewinding the yarn over the next day or two instead of crocheting on new ones. No, really! I just have to get them out of here one way or another. The bigger ones I'll keep and hopefully finish. The others are outta here! You'd better speak up if you think you want any of them because I've already started the process.

That's one good thing about this challenge, Keri...I'm cleaning up a bunch of stuff that should have been cleaned up a long time ago!

I also wanted to give a little linky to my friend, The Garden Bell. She is having a giveaway for her 100th post, so go check her out, won't you?

Post #1000!

What is crazy?
You are about to find out at least one form of it.

Keri over at Greyt Balls of Yarn has challenged us to post an entry showing all of our unfinished crochet projects or works-in-progress, also known as WIPs. I think she may even be offering a prize, but I haven't checked back there since she mentioned it so I'm not sure.

People, I've already won. I already know it. And I think I'll win based on just my yarn crochet projects alone. This is NOT including my thread crochet projects, of which there are many also.

Please hold your applause (or straitjacket) until the end.

Here is an example of what Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Bipolar Disorder, all combined into one, can do to a person.

I had to make the pictures small because there are so many of them. You should be able to click on them if you want to see them better.

Are you ready?

Here we go for a ride on the Crazy Train...

1. Waikiki Scarf (in yellow)

2. Pressed Flowers Afghan (Green & Dark Teal)

3. Blue Jeans Shawl (Aqua)

4. Crochet-Along Squares (Brown)

5. (Flower Squares for another pillow)

All of the above accept the Waikiki Scarf were started within the past week.

6. Half-Moon Shawl

This looks really weird in this photo. It looks nothing like this is person.
7. All DC Blanket

8. Summertime Stripes Blanket

9. Diagonal Box Stitch Blanket

10. Double-Os Blanket

11. Shells Blanket

This is my oldest WIP

12. Hexagons Blanket

13. Small Granny Squares Blanket

I have two more bags of these, 230 squares

14. Ripple Blanket

(2 Up 2 Down or 4 Up 4 Down, can't remember)

15. Random Stitch Purples Blanket

16. Filigree Shawl

Are you still with me, people? I told you!

Choo-Choo!

It's still a ways before we get to the caboose...

17. Seraphina Shawl

18. Round Ripple

19. Large Basketweave Blanket

20. Granny Diagonal Blanket

21. Can't-Remember-the-Name Blanket (top)

22. Ditto (red with brown trim)

23. Granny Ripple Blanket

24. 12" Squares Gradient Colors Blanket.

I have two more of these squares done.

25. Braided Mile-a-Minute Afghan (aqua & brown)

26. Scrap Round Rug

27. Wool-Eater Blanket (blue & yellow)

28. Caron Pattern Shawl (rose)

29. Black & White Round Ripple

30. Teddy Bears on Parade Child's Blanket

Sorry, crappy picture

31. Pink & White Granny's Heart Blanket

32. Giant Granny Square

33. Multi-Color Granny's Heart Blanket

34. Don't-Remember-the-Name Shawl

HELLO???

Have you all deleted me from your blog lists and run away yet?

And by the way, if anybody wants any of these patterns, I'll share them or point you to where you can get them if I can remember where they are. Just email me or ask in the Comments leaving your email address. I won't publish your email address in the comments or anywhere else. Heck, I might even just send you what I've done so far and YOU can finish it!