Keurig Woes

I got a keurig machine a couple months ago as a hand me down from my mom's work and it worked fine for a little while, but then it started pouring out only half cups of really terrible, bitter coffee so for the majority of the time I've owned it it's been a nice piece of art decorating the (limited) counter space in our kitchen.

Today I finally got around to cleaning it to try and make it better.  NOTHING. WORKED.  I tried descaling it with ultra powered urn cleaner from work, rinsed through two jugs of water and still... Really shitty coffee.  So I googled it and came across this ingenious solution.  Just turn it over and smack it really hard, aptly named the "Slap and Burp".

Really?  Just hit it?  Well I am sitting here drinking a (full) cup of (delicious) coffee, so yes, really.

embroiderKNITTING

I was scrolling down my Facebook news feed a bit listlessly this evening when I stumbled upon something truly wonderful -- a tutorial for embroidery that looks like knitting!  Taking two beloved fibre arts and combining them together?  What will they think of next?

This sweet little tutorial comes from Goodknits, a great knitting/crocheting blog and shop that I've been a fan of for a long time now.  (The doily blankets are just amazing!)  Be sure to head over there to learn how to knit without actually learning how to knit, but still make something awesome that make it look like you know how to knit... or something.

A Weekend of Data Analysis

Last weekend my sister Katie and I went out to a friend's house in White Rock while she was away on vacation, set up our computers in front of a beautiful view of the bay (even though it was a pretty ugly and grey day) and did about 8 hours straight of data analysis for our business Pip & Pin.  

We started this company about three years ago and are kind of at a turning point.  We have to decide how to take ourselves further without working ourselves silly.  As of right now, it is solely focused on knitting and selling those finished projects which is ridiculously time consuming and not very sustainable in the long run.  We wanted to figure out just how much of our time was going where and ultimately how much we were getting "paid" per hour to work.  

I know working for yourself is always going to be more a commitment than working for someone else, and that's half the fun of it, but the conclusions we came up with were pretty dismal.  

I wrote an abbreviated post about it on our Pip & Pin blog, with another even more in-depth post to come in the future, so check out what it really takes to own your own business over there. 

I know earlier I had stated that I was going to be stepping away from blogging at Pip & Pin (if you can even call what I do there blogging, I think I counted only 6 or 7 posts in the past year) but I have now decided to just keep things a little bit separate.  I am going to be posting most everything here, but any time a really business-y post comes up, I'm going to put all the content over there, with a little blurb and link about it here.  It'll be like I'm guest posting on another blog... except they both just happen to be owned and operated by me.  I hope you don't mind, but that's the way it's going to be because it just makes the most sense. 

What To Knit When You're Expecting

I am about 25 weeks pregnant now and I'm also a knitter which means I have been planning all of the cute little outfits I am going to stitch up in the next couple of months.

There was one hitch in my plan though... we decided not to find out what we are having.  Which isn't really so bad, there are a TON of great unisex patterns out there.  (Once my Colorwul yarn arrives in the mail, I plan on making a couple of these simple cardigans.)  But there are also sweet little dresses and manly bomber jackets and lots of stuff that, no matter what colour you decide to make it, is clearly for one or the other.

I started making the Maile Sweater from What to Knit When You're Expecting the other day in a nice mint green, thinking it could go either way, but now that I am half way through it is leaning heavily towards the "It's a Girl!" camp.  Maybe it's the lace?

But I realized something -- I can make whatever I well please!  Unisex, boy, girl, it really doesn't matter!  I don't know if it's my age or if there was something in the water 5 or so months ago but I know three other couples having kids, all within a month or two of each other.  Two of us are waiting for the surprise, one is a girl, and one is TBD.  So out of the four of us, there's a good chance there will  be at least one of each.

Now not only do I get to knit cute things for my little jellybean, I can knit up some baby shower gifts in the process!

And Another One

So I've started another one...  This may or may not be my third or forth attempt at a blog so far.

I think my issues before included a couple things:

1. I am, admittedly, fairly sporadic at posting.  My goal is going to be to post twice a week.  I think that's pretty reasonable, even for me.
2. I could never bring myself to post sub-par photographs and I would never post something without one.  So while I would write great posts, sometimes they wouldn't get posted because I could never find the extra time to edit my shoddy photography or could never find something suitable to go with it.  It would then sit collect dust in my drafts forever and ever.
   Now though, I have an amazing camera lens that it is nearly impossible to take bad pictures with, and I am also "giving myself permission" to post something without being accompanied by a 10 shot photo essay.  So there. 
3. I'm a bit perfectionist which means 140 words about a neat leaf I saw would end up taking 2 hours.  I've decided to try to not do that as well so if you see a spelling mistake or something just doesn't quite make sense, just pipe down! 
4. The biggest reason I think none of my previous blogs worked out is because I kind of lost sight of why I was doing it and giving myself restrictions on what I could and couldn't post about.  I started with a  personal blog, which morphed into my personal/business blog and then became my personal/business blog that was hosted on my business' website, Pip & Pin.

It started out fine but as I merged personal closer to business I began to worry about content.  Not that I would ever post anything overtly offensive (not on purpose anyway) but you can never tell what will turn off a potential customer.  I would never really voice my opinions on things and would mostly limit my posts to things my sister and I do (we own Pip & Pin together), cute DIYs (which I will continue to do!) and promotions and stuff.  That gets really boring, pretty fast.  So I haven't posted there in.... who knows, a long time.

I think that's the main reason.  To separate myself from Pip & Pin again and just write about whatever I feel like.

So basically what you're in for is a sporadic, spelling error and bad grammar littered blog with bad (or no!) pictures about whatever the heck I feel like writing about.

Enjoy!