Heads up

Crapp... where'd October go?

It's coming up on that time of the year where my orders for knit and crocheted stuff skyrocket.

You folks know you can buy handmade gifts year round right?  And that it really helps out the person making them?   Anyways...

After the gear article series is done on Blue Collar Prepping, I won't be doing weekly articles until January 15th, 2015.  There a few reasons this, one that I just spoke of in the upper paragraphs.

1) I have several orders for Christmas already, and the last day that I'm accepting custom work in order to get it out by December 16th is November 15th.  After that the custom options are getting shut off until January 15th.

2) I'm about on dry in terms writing material that I can crack out.  A large number of the articles I had done for BCP was due to the fact that I didn't feel like a large number of these prepping blogs where actually addressing things that were important... they were all doom and gloom. (Hey, one of the things you're going to have to keep an eye is depression and you stupid fucks writing all doom and gloom aren't helping, ya jackasses.)

Yes I've had some coffee this morning but not a full cup yet.  How can you tell?

So when I am back full in January, I will have more articles on skills that are a good idea to be known and understood if you want to be comfortable during hard times.  First series once back I'm planning on doing a break down of gardening and bits and pieces of information you may not know.

3) We are trying to get moved from California to Arizona.  This is proving to be a major stress factor for me because we have soooooooo many things that we need to straighten out first before we can move.

Hence why I'm focusing on the crochet orders as much as possible so that they are as good as I can make them, and keep setting up that reputation as a good crafter for myself.  This is because the Zibbet and Etsy store are my main sources of income, outside of the tiny bit that comes in from Amazon links.

This blog here will be maintained, but it'll mostly be just showing orders that I've managed to get done and probably cute video of puppies, kittens and other various animals doing adorable shit.  But it's going to be a tiny bit erratic.

Now it's entirely possible that I will get all my orders done by the 16th of December.  What am I going to do between then and my return date of January 16th?

Simple.

Chill.

I have books to read, to work on and a large amount of research to do for the next year's articles.  If I do this right, I'll end up with several months worth of material again.

And probably several more adventures along the way.

In the meantime...

BABY BURRO!

Seen near Lake Havasu.

London Bridge is...

... is in Lake Havasu City, Arizona?

I kid you not!

This past weekend the Fiance was sent there on work.  I got to go with, and left the crocheting, the knitting and the work at home.  It was an actual honest to the Gods vacation.  ....though I spent most of Friday zonked out in the bed.

A little history for you first on Lake Havasu (the city's namesake):

Located behind Parker Dam on the Colorado river, a portion of the border of California and Arizona runs through this lake.  Created between 1934 and 1938, the area was previously home to the Mohave and there is evidence of Spanish mining operations on parts of the river here in this area.

Then there's this:

This, is the London Bridge of Lake Havasu Arizona.  This is the real deal.  This bridge formerly spanned the Thames River in London England from 1831 to 1967.  One hundred and thirty six!

 The actual bridge itself, is a normal reinforced concrete, it's the original masonry from the bridge that you see here in the pictures.

A man named Robert P. McCulloch bought the masonry from the City of London.  The blocks were transported to the United States to finish off the bridge in Lake Havasu City, completed in 1971.  The bridge links an Island .... it was a peninsula first actually and they dredged the canal that you can see in the pictures in order to make it an honest bridge.

 I'm not honestly sure if these are the original lamps.  The bridge had several of these and being the uber relaxed dummy that I was this past weekend.... I forgot to check to see the lamps still work.

*facepalm*

The bridge was the last project of engineer, John Rennie and completed by his son.  By 1962, the bridge was unable to keep up with the demands of modern traffic and sold to the city of London.

 Sadly many of the stones lost anywhere from 5.9 inches to 7.9 inches of their original size.

Many of these stones were still much larger than I or my fiance had been expecting.  It took a little over three years to reconstruct the bridge.

Even though the bridge was reduced in mass, the size of it is still impressive.

It was downright awesome being able to walk up to something like this, which is coming on it's 200th birthday in 2031.   Yes, we even sat underneath it and enjoyed a plain snow cone.

The entire trip was frikkin awesome.

Plus there was this little guy:

On the California Side of the Havasu and Colorado river, there are wild burros.

Ain't he cute?!