April Favorites 2019 ~ Extra Yarn, School Breaks, & A Mechanical Husband

I can’t believe my last favorites post was in February! Time has just been flying by here lately & I’m so ready for a slow down. I’ll share a little bit about that in my April Favorites 2019!

These posts are just about the things I’m loving right now & things that make my day a little better. It’s always good to look around for the positives in life, so we don’t get caught up in the negatives.

Extra Yarn

Since my {self imposed} craft buying ban was lifted at the beginning of spring I’ve been taking advantage of spring sales. In all that online ordering I found that I was having many of my packages getting lost! Now, I know that doesn’t sound like a good thing, but it really turned out for the best & in my favor. : D

Michaels

The first package to get lost was from Michaels. I ordered {2} Red Heart Croquette Pom & Tassel Maker Yarn in River Rocks & Revenge….

And {2} Lion Brand Summer Nights Bonus Bundle Yarn in Stargazing because it was on sale. Every time I would check the shipping status it kept saying it was still in pre-shipment through UPS. I finally used their chat service to inquire about it. I was told it must have gotten lost at UPS & they would reship. Well the reship email only showed two of the four items I ordered! I decided to wait & see what showed up.

Well, sure enough the reship showed up with only the two Lion Brand yarns. Before I could call them about it I received another package from Michaels. It was the original lost package! I wound up with {4} of the Lion Brand yarns & the {2} Red Heart yarns. I called them to see what I needed to do & was told to keep the extra because it was an error on their end. Yay for extra yarn! : D

Herschnerrs

The next bag of extra yarn didn’t even involve a lost package, just a computer glitch! I order some Candy Shop yarn in 8 colors from Herschnerrs because they had it on sale for $2.99 a cake. First I got a phone message saying they had received the order, but not the colors I wanted. When I called them back they had straightened it out & I received my bag of yarn as expected.

The day after it was delivered, I got an email from them saying my yarn had just shipped. I thought it was just an email mix up & didn’t think anything else of it. That was until I received another bag of yarn! I called about it because I certainly wasn’t charged for a second bag & didn’t want to be charged. They said it was a computer glitch & I could keep the yarn at no extra charge. That means I got double of what you see in the picture above! I’ll be giving away some of my extra yarn on my YouTube channel, so go subscribe if you’re not already. : )

I also ordered a crochet book from Amazon that got lost in the mail. Maybe I’ll get the lost one eventually too!

School Breaks

Today is the last day of spring semester for me & I’m very happy to see the end! The last 3 weeks or so have been so busy trying to wrap things up for the end of the semester. I’ll be off from teaching until the 23rd of May, when summer semester starts at the college. I’m really looking forward to having all that time for making! : D

My students at the college & the high school decided to make a catapult for their semester project. There was a little competition going on between the two groups to see which one would shoot the farthest. Here’s my college class’s catapult:

And here’s my high school class’s catapult…

I think both groups did an excellent job on their projects. The college class won with their catapult shooting a distance of 75′-9″! My high school students got a distance of 52′-3″, which was still pretty impressive. These are just table top sized catapults!

They all enjoyed the project regardless & it was a great way to end the semester. : )

A Mechanical Husband

I’m about to go into some car talk, but that doesn’t mean I know that much about motor parts! It’s just because I’ve been ordering parts for the past few weeks – ugh!

Another thing I’ve been dealing with the past three weeks is vehicle trouble. I drive a 2003 GMC Envoy which has about 270,000 miles on it. As you can imagine, it needs some work from time to time! Last weekend my husband had to put in a new radiator because mine had a crack in it.

The weekend before this, I forgot to put the reservoir cap back on {top left arrow} before leaving to go to our my in-laws. That caused me some big issues & meant I had to find a new one! The auto parts stores kept trying to sell me a radiator cap {bottom middle arrow}, which is not what I needed. Anyway I found a new one & limped on until my new radiator parts came in.

More Problems

This Monday I noticed my serpentine belt was squealing the entire time on my drive to school. After some research I realized it was probably because my husband spilled anti-freeze on it when installing the new radiator. That meant I would have to replace it. When my husband looked at it that afternoon he realized my water pump was also leaking. Sigh. Oh yeah, I also had to order new ball joints as well. Sigh again.

Currently I’ve been having to make sure my radiator is topped off before driving anywhere & after driving there until my new parts come in. To add to the craziness, my air compressor is going out, which means no A/C. Not fun since we’ve been having near 90 degree days here!

Now all that may sound like something that doesn’t belong in a favorites post, but here’s why it does. I’m very thankful that my husband is mechanically inclined & can work on my vehicle. He’s done everything from install a new transmission, to repairing brake assemblies, to replacing a heater coil. This has saved us a ton of money! That’s what makes him my mechanical husband, haha! : D

This & That

I just ordered these two prints from The Art of Greenskye over on Etsy. She’s been a pen pal of mine for a while now & I love seeing her creative endeavors on Instagram & Facebook. I was so happy to see she finally opened an Etsy shop!

Another thing I’m super enjoying is my yarn club subscription from Southern Skeins. Yes I’ve talked about her before, but it’s such awesome yarn & such an awesome club I have to mention it again! This is what was in the April club box…

And finally here’s a little GIF of a busy, buzzy bee in the already blooming honey suckle…

I hope y’all have a great weekend! : )