I wanted to replace all hyphens in all filenames starting with 2003- and ending with .php. Here's how I did it using sed (no guarantees, no warranties, use at your own risk!):

1. Backup the files!
2. Change to the directory you want to make the changes in.
3. Then, to make sure the right filenames will be changed, list the filenames using the following sed command (modify "2003-*.php" and the sed search and replace strings for your situation):
   
   for filename in 2003-*.php; do echo $filename | sed \e 's/\-/\_/g'; done
   
   
4. When you're sure the above sed command is listing the right filenames, change it as follows (modify "2003-*.php" and the sed search and replace strings for your situation):
   
   for filename in 2003-*.php; do newname=`echo $filename | sed \e 's/\-/\_/g'`; mv $filename $newname; done

Note the use of the backtick character (`) (also known as backquote) which, on my keyboard, is located to the left of the "1" key. The backtick character is used in addition to the single quote character (').

[Update January 4, 2009] I totally forgot that I could have used the "rename" command instead of sed! There is control over which underscore in a filename is changed. More about renaming files using "rename".

Believe it or not, it has taken most of the time between 9:00am and 3:30pm to upgrade from Movable Type 4.1 to Movable Type 4.23. The process would have been smoother if I hadn't had to create a bunch of redirects in .htaccess when I upgraded to MT 4.1 (because I changed from using _ to - in filenames and directory names). I've now removed all those redirects (if old links on other websites aren't corrected by now, oh well!).

A few things to note about the upgrade to MT 4.23:

• The /mt-static/images/tab-bg-yah.gif file is missing from the downloaded zip file - search Google for tab-bg-yah.gif to find it.
• The path used by the HTML files that display popup images changed from the directory designated during an image upload to the /assets_c/YYYY/MM/ directory. For example, it changed from: http://www.domain.com/images2008/20080803filename.html to http://www.domain.com/assets_c/2008/08/20080803filename.html
• The thumbnail image created by MT during an image upload used to be stored in the directory designated during the image upload (such as /images2008/). It is now stored in the /assets_c/YYYY/MM/ directory where YYYY/MM is the month and year the image was uploaded.
• The large image is still stored in the directory designated during the image upload (such as /images2008/)
• Upgrading the MySQL database (mt-upgrade.cgi) didn't work properly using Firefox 2.x (kept hanging - not continuing - so I switched to IE 7.x to finish the process.

[Update January 4, 2009] Well, as it turns out, the assets_c directory can be renamed by adding a single line to the config file (via Assets Directory of MovableType). As I had been doing prior to the upgrade to MT 4.23, he uses .htaccess to change underscore characters to a hyphen (dash). To change the name of the assets directory: add this line to the mt.config.cgi file:

AssetCacheDir /assets-c

Movable Type 4.01 came with these plugins pre-installed:

• Feeds.App Lite
• MultiBlog 2.0
• StyleCatcher 2.0
• Template Backup and Refresh 1.2
• Textile 2.04
• WXR Importer 1.0
• Weblog Cloner 2.0
• Widget Manager 1.0
• Markdown 1.0.1 and SmartyPants 1.5.1 (plugin set)
• SpamLookup - Lookups 2.11, SpamLookup - Link 2.11, SpamLookup - Keyword Filter 2.1 (plugin set)

I have installed these plugins:

• * ClonedBlogCleaner 1.0
• * DirifyPlus
• * My Blogs 1.0
• Snip It 1.0b1
• * Template Shelf 1.0
• * TinyTuring 1.02
• Trusted Commenters 1.2

* These plugins have proven very helpful! So far, I haven't used the others.

And, I tried these plugins but removed them due to Internal Server Error messages (500 Server Error) or 3-minute publish times for 1 entry or a comment. These plugins displayed errors in the MT 4 Activity Log.

• Bookmarks 1.0b2
• MT-Quicktags
• reCaptcha - just could not get it to work (this is the version included in the MT 4 "mt/extras/examples/plugins/reCaptcha" folder)

[Update July 3, 2008] Additional plugins I've installed for MT version 4.1 (some a while back, some today):

• AssHAT 1.0
• Blog Janitor 1.1
• Entry to Page Converter 1.0
• * Navigation Breadcrumbs 1.0
• Notify Replyee 1.0
• Plugin Network 1.1
• * PreviousNextInCategory
• GUI: HTML Link 1.0
• GUI: HTML List 1.01
• GUI: Upload Path 1.01
• GUI: Core 1.0 (goes with the other GUI plugins above)

* These plugins have proven very helpful!

Trusted Commenters 1.2 doesn't work consistently. But, TinyTuring has proven very helpful by ending spam comments on this blog.

Note: It seems that the pre-installed-with-MT-4.01 Weblog Cloner 2.0 was renamed Blog Cloner 2.0 with MT 4.1.

Last night, I created all single-page template modules and widgets as Index Templates and set them to output to files so I could then use PHP includes to put that content in other templates. In this way, I can add an item to those content modules, such anything in the sidebar, without publishing the entire site. I set to automatically publish only the index templates that need to be published with each new or modified entry.

Publishing 1 entry still takes 35-45 seconds. Adding a very short test comment the other day took 35 seconds. Publishing the entire blog takes 45-60 minutes - yes, 1 hour. There are no errors in the Activity Log and no errors in the web server log file, so none of the plugins seem to be the cause.

The slowness of Movable Type 4.01 is going to drive people away from using it.

If I can get past the frustration level that is WordPress templates, I may just move this blog (yes, another move) to WordPress.

I {heart} UNIX! In addition to the 'find' commend, I just found another very useful command that is now my second favorite!

rename

The rename command renames files according to a pattern, such as:

I needed to rename almost 800 files from a format like "2007_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.php" to use a hyphen (dash) instead of the underscore after the year - such as "2007-XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.php". I did this with the following for each year (there's probably a way to rename all years at once, but I didn't have a backup and didn't want to screw it up):

rename 2007_ 2007- 2007*.php

which means "change the string 2007_ to 2007- in all filenames resulting from 2007*.php".

Worked like a charm!!!

I am not responsible for any problems you may encounter. Backup all files first.

The Calendar that comes with Movable Type 4.01 links to the last Entry made on a day, instead of to a Daily Archive page for that day - probably because MT 4 doesn't ship with Daily Archives turned on. And, it doesn't highlight the current day.

So, I added MTCalendarIfToday in the Calendar code, created a "today" class in my custom stylesheet template, added a Daily Archive template and set its filename to /yyyy/mm/dd/index.php, and changed the day links in the Calendar code. Works great! The Calendar code changes are:

<div class="widget-calendar widget">
<h3 class="widget-header"><$MTDate format="%B %Y"$></h3>
<div class="widget-content">
<table summary="Monthly calendar with links to each day's posts">

<tr>
<th abbr="Sunday">Sun</th>
<th abbr="Monday">Mon</th>
<th abbr="Tuesday">Tue</th>
<th abbr="Wednesday">Wed</th>
<th abbr="Thursday">Thu</th>
<th abbr="Friday">Fri</th>
<th abbr="Saturday">Sat</th>
</tr>
<MTCalendar>
<MTCalendarWeekHeader><tr></MTCalendarWeekHeader>
<td <MTCalendarIfToday>class="today"</MTCalendarIfToday>>
<MTCalendarIfEntries>
<MTEntries lastn="1">
<a href="<$MTEntryLink archive_type="Daily"$>"><$MTCalendarDay$></a>
</MTEntries>
</MTCalendarIfEntries>
<MTCalendarIfNoEntries>
<$MTCalendarDay$>
</MTCalendarIfNoEntries>
<MTCalendarIfBlank> </MTCalendarIfBlank></td>
<MTCalendarWeekFooter></tr></MTCalendarWeekFooter>
</MTCalendar>
</table>
</div>
</div>

Without additional CSS markup, the default style of the Calendar widget in Movable Type 4.01 is squished, so I'm using these styles for the small monthly calendar in the sidebar:

.widget-calendar {
line-height: 120%;
padding: 0px;
text-align: center;
}
.widget-calendar th {
font-weight: bold;
line-height: 140%;
padding: 2px;
}
.widget-calendar td.today {
background-color: #E1E1E1;
color: #000000;
}

Test reCaptcha plugin with Movable Type 4.01. test test2 test3 test4 test5 test6 test7 test8 test9 test10

[Update 7:30pm October 24, 2007] Two nights ago, I worked on getting Captcha (built into Movable Type 4 as an option under Blog Settings) or reCaptcha to work correctly so commenters would need to enter the letters displayed on an image in order to submit a comment.

At one point, the Captcha image displayed, but I was having trouble with TypeKey so comments weren't being posted. When I authenticate to TypeKey, the TypeKey token does display in Registration under Blog Settings. But, when I try to leave a comment, a message displays something like "the owner of the blog hasn't setup TypeKey authentication".

So, then I decided to go with reCaptcha. I signed up (free) at the reCaptcha website and got my public and private keys. I made the recommended modifications in the README file. Google searches revealed that MT 4 has a bug in reCaptcha plugin settings that won't store those keys, so as recommended, I hard-coded them into the recaptcha.pl file. No luck.

So, I decided to use the TinyTuring plugin instead - and it worked right away! With TinyTuring, the commenter is required to type a single letter in order to post a comment. The letter will vary randomly with each entry.

Ah, success!

Of course, as noted on the TinyTuring web page, it doesn't prevent actual humans from going to your weblog and manually posting spam. But is is one more strike against comment spam!

I've seen a Movable Type (version 3.3 at this time) blog with reCaptcha working so I might give it another try sooner or later.

I wanted to change "/artscrafts/" to "/blog/" in all popup image files (these are not stored in the MT database so search-and-replace inside the Movable Type 4.01 administrative interface doesn't work for those files). The file for each popup image is stored in the same directory as the popup image.

The following worked for me, but there is no guarantee that it will work for you. I am not responsible for any problems you may encounter. Backup all files first.

To change a string of characters to a different string of characters in multiple files:

1. At a Unix prompt, cd to directory where the files to be modified are located
2. Type on one line: for f in *php; do sed 's/string1/string2/g' $f > $f.new && mv $f.new $f; done

Line 2 means: For every file ending with php, replace string1 with string2 and save the result into a new file, then move the new file over the original file.

For each slash in the string, I needed to use \ in front of it, as follows:

for f in *php; do sed 's/\/artscrafts\//\/blog\//g' $f > $f.new && mv $f.new $f; done

Multiple lines can also be used at a Unix prompt as follows:

for f in *php
do
sed 's/string1/string2/g' $f > $f.new &&
mv $f.new $f
done

Based on information in a thread at dBforums. Note: That code uses the Unix find command to locate files which could be in subdirectories. Back up all files and learn about the find command before using.

for fname in $(find . -name "*" -print)
do
sed '/word/s/word/new_word/g' ${fname} > ${fname}.new &&
mv ${fname}.new ${fname}
done

After all the re-publishing and researching I did yesterday, I realized that the filenames on my old blog site used underscores - not dashes - and, because of that, some links were broken on this new blog! Ack! (I knew I wanted to use dashes so I thought I had already been using dashes on the old blog!) I was by then too tired to try to fix it.

Today, however, I was ready to tackle this new problem! A Google search for "htaccess underscores dashes" revealed just what I needed! Using .htaccess Voodoo For Underscore and Dash Woes provides the solution with the exact lines to copy and paste into the .htaccess file. Changes I made:

• There were 2 extra spaces that caused 500 errors until I removed them from the last and next-to-last lines just before \.html$
• Changed "RewriteBase /" to the subdirectory for this blog, i.e., "RewriteBase /blog/"
• Since I use .php extensions, I changed .html to .php
• Added lines for $7, $8, $9 ,$10, and $11 because full titles use more than 6 words in some cases

Works like a charm!

[Update October 28, 2007] It seems that the wildcards go to only $9. So I added this line (it's one line, not three!) above the $9 line - it catches the first nine wildcard variables then the lines below this one catch the rest.

RewriteRule ^([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_([^_]*)
_([^_]*)_([^_]*)_(.*)\.php$
http://www.tamemymind.com/$1-$2-$3-$4-$5-$6-$7-$8-$9.php

Whew. I spent another bunch of hours here and there throughout the day fooling around with this blog. I researched and then tried Movable Type 4.01's dynamic publishing. Errors - "/blog/ not found" - but with the correct header and footer template modules. I researched more and still couldn't get it to work - kept getting "quot;/blog/ not found"quot; errors. So, I reverted back to static publishing.

Then I discovered pages on the site were broken - well, not broken, but gone! MT had renamed all files with a .static extension (example: index.php.static). So, I removed all the *.static files, re-published all (and waited at least 45 minutes...).

Then I discovered MT had reverted to 30-character basenames instead of using full entry titles for filenames. So, I removed all entry files, re-set the Entry template's filename format, re-published all again (and waited at least 45 minutes...).

Then I discovered that all templates were set to "Enable dynamic publishing for this template" so I unchecked that box for each template and re-published all again (and waited at least 45 minutes...).

Then I discovered that filenames were using underscores when I remember them being dashes (hyphens) yesterday. So, I researched that - and find it amazing that MT doesn't just offer users two more filename choices: full titles with dashes and full titles with underscores. Ack! I found the DirifyPlus plugin, installed it, configured the template filename format, and then...yes...re-published all yet again (and waited at least 45 minutes).

Now that I've unsuccessfully tried MT's dynamic publishing, I have two options to make updating the sidebar and making changes to styles, templates and template modules:

1. Reconfigure the widgets and template modules to output to a file and then use PHP includes (which is how I did things before MT 4 - but I hoped to use more of MT's features, such as widgets and MTIncludes).
2. Try to figure out WordPress - again.

I spent most of today from about 9:15am to about 6:30pm installing and configuring Movable Type 4.01, and moving the Tame My Mind - Cheryl's Arts 'n' Crafts blog to a new directory. Please change your links to http://www.tamemymind.com/blog/. This new URL allows me to re-title this blog - which is right now just Tame My Mind - at will without the URL being inconsistent. Redirects have been placed in an .htaccess file at the old URL, but that is only a temporary fix to help prevent most broken links.

After a few hours, moving around the MT 4 administrative interface was second nature. It's slow, but the layout is good. Display of the blog itself is still quick.

I like being able to create Pages that aren't date-based entries in the blog. I like that MT 4's Search and Replace works in the Keywords field too - I put thumbnail images in the Keywords field and place that field at the top of entries before the Body. I like the auto-save feature. But, why does the Rich Text format use <b> instead of <strong>?

I miss being able to save and rebuild a template or template module after modifying it - having to rebuild, err, publish the index templates to check a change I've made to a template, template module, sidebar, or widget and publish all to have those changes show up on each entry is a pain. The MT 4 documentation on dynamic publishing doesn't explain clearly enough how it works, but I may give it a try.

Subcategories are imported as top-level categories, so subcategories with the same name were imported into the same top-level category! Ack! For example, entries assigned the subcategory of Crochet > General or Knit > General were combined into General - not what I wanted. That issue required removing all entries from the new blog, changing all categories in the old blog to top-level categories with unique names (example: Crochet General, Knit General), re-exporting, re-importing into the new blog, and re-publishing. The import procedure on the new blog then created all of those uniquely-named top-level categories. The redirects in the .htaccess file take the category/subcategory changes into account.

Then I discovered the default basename (filename) for MT 4 is 30 characters and since the assigned basename for entries is not exported, all entries imported into the new blog had truncated filenames with a maximum of 30 characters. This wouldn't have been a problem if the old blog didn't use the full entry title (longer than 30 characters in many cases) as the filename. So, I modified the archive path for the Entry archive template, removed all date-based folders, category folders, and pages folder from the server, and published all again.

There were other hiccups which caused me to have to remove folders and re-publish multiple times.

By the way, there are only 649 entries and only 388 comments as of this moment. To publish all takes about 45 minutes. Ridiculous. Oh, and to publish 1 entry takes almost 35 seconds. Also ridiculous.

In the past, I've looked into WordPress, but just haven't been able to dig into the spaghetti (and thorough) documentation and Template Tags enough to really understand WP. Movable Type makes more sense to me. However, 45 minutes to publish all entries when the header, footer, sidebar, a template module or a widget is modified makes it worth looking into again. (Besides, understanding WordPress will come in handy at work too - WP is free and free is good for colleges.)

I'm upgrading to Movable Type 4.01 and am moving this blog to:

http://www.tamemymind.com/blog/.

I'm still fine-tuning a bit and want to eventually add an image header and implement a server redirect to point this old website to the new one.

This is the afghan I made for William - see this post for more info.

I decided to do something different - way different - this time! These are men I find very attractive...

• Michael Scofield on Prison Break (played by Wentworth Miller)
• Jack Bauer on 24 (played by Kiefer Sutherland)
• Tony Stewart, NASCAR Cup Champion 2005, 2002
• Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights (played by Taylor Kitsch)
• Taylor Hicks, Classic Soul, Blues, and R&B singer and 2006 American Idol winner
• Tony Almeida (now deceased) on 24 (played by Carlos Bernard)
• President David Palmer (now deceased) on 24 (played by Dennis Haysbert) - and he has a lovely deep voice!
• Trace Adkins, Country/Western singer - another lovely deep voice!

I couldn't resist turning the close-up photo of Cleo's profile into a banner heading! After all, she's The Favorite!

I've been aware of a new version of Movable Type for a while now, but haven't felt the need to upgrade. However, this morning I read an announcement released September 26 about a "mandatory upgrade" for security purposes to Movable Type 3.33 and decided to take the plunge. Since I use few plug-ins, this upgrade wasn't a big deal for me. I even renamed my database during the process!

Because of spam comments and being generally uninspired, I've been avoiding reviewing, approving, and responding to comments on this blog. I've just caught up and see that my father and his wife have both made a comment or two! Cool!

...

I think part of the reason I've been uninspired and avoiding crocheting lately (since around the end of June!) is frustration with my eye glasses. While I don't need reading glasses (yet!), I do need glasses to see far away (I'm nearsighted).

I wear glasses while crocheting because I'm also watching TV. But close-up objects (crochet hook and yarn, fingernails, refill number on a prescription bottle, etc.) aren't as easy to see as they once were. It's much more comfortable (less blurry) to just take off my glasses when I need to read a prescription bottle or file my nails. I remember several times in June removing my glasses in frustration while working on the Easy Breezy Vest (finished) and Easy Breezy Cardigan (abandoned).

Well, the solution arrived Saturday afternoon! A new pair of eye glasses for far away and close-up seeing! Now I can more comfortable crochet and watch TV at the same time! And, It surprised me the new glasses were so easy to get used to!

...

I started a new crochet project Saturday night. It is the Cream Cotton Shrug pattern on Diane Langan's free pattern page. Instead of using cotton yarn, I'm using the purple Microspun I was going to use for the Easy Breezy Cardigan I gave up on in June. I'm also making it larger than the pattern describes by using a K hook and 11 squares around the bottom.

...

I gave the Julianna cardigan to Elizabeth last week - it fit her nicely and she loved it!

...

We started watching Season 1 of The Shield on DVD. Wow! It's taken us by surprise quite a bit. A tough guy cop with a soft side... and a crooked side.

The Tommy Turtle design header has been on this blog since October 2004. I thought I'd change it! My son took this photo of me and Cleo as I was crocheting when he visited us in December last year. The Favorite, err, Cleo is my constant companion. She even tries to help me with yarn on occasion!

After playing with WordPress 2.0 and not being satisfied (yet) with getting it to do what I want it to do, I've upgraded this blog from Movable Type 2.661 to 3.2. I've also switched from using the Berkeley DB to using a MySQL database.

In addition to creating a custom header and making stylesheet adjustments, I'll be working on fixing most of the things that are now broken and adding features that are missing (such as my list of Craft Reads).

Comments are again open on new posts. Trackbacks are also activated on new posts.

More to come later...

[8:00pm] I'm done for the night. More adjustments are needed.

Links to archived pages are broken - please use Search in the sidebar to locate what interests you...

[January 7-11 and on as time allows, 2006] Things to do:

• Done - Add Category Heading to each category page
• Done - Fix format of Master Category Index page to use Parent: Subcategory
• Done - Add parent category to category list for each entry
• Done - Get header to display properly; adjust stylesheet
• Done - Get multiple categories to display for each entry
• Done - Fix popup images
• Done - Adjust entry date to display as: Day of Week, Month Day, Year
• Done - Switch to using PHP includes on templates
• Done - Fix layout of extra pages
• Done - Set redirect in .htaccess to fix most of the broken links because there's no "archives" directory - Done - doesn't fix broken links for basenames more than 30 characters or broken links because category paths are now different for many posts
• Done - Figure out why Google has removed this site from its index - Oops! 2 errors by me
• Done - Test comments
• Look into this category page navigation scheme: Prev_Cat | Main | Next_Cat
• Done - Turn on pings
• Look at dynamic publishing
• Look at included comment spam protections; look at comment plug-ins
• Done - Look into configuring the search template if search results from multiple blogs are displayed - they weren't
• Done - Remove old blog files from server

[To be read with a sense of humor!]

I had an epiphany on the way to work this morning: I am a collector of crochet pattern books and yarn - in the same way a stamp collector collects stamps and a coin collector collects coins. Unlike collected stamps and coins, however, the yarn and some of the patterns will actually (someday) be used!

So, in light of this realization, I've changed the Acquisitions category to Collections.

I wasn't feeling well - fever was verified at the campus Health Center - and came home early. And...I left my digital camera at work. Figures. So, until next week:

No photos of the pillow covers.
No photos of the swatches for the blanket pattern.
No photos of more squares I've finished for the 63 Squares Crochet Along.

Harrumph.

I did, however, pickup 3 movie DVDs at Blockbuster for entertainment while I crochet the weekend away!

Isn't Tommy Turtle just too cute! I couldn't resist making him this site's new header.

Google doesn't seem to want to index anything but the first page of this site. Why?

I recently read an article about how make your site more search-engine friendly and made some changes (using links on titles, using more descriptive titles, etc.). Then I resubmitted the site URL to Google. I'm still not listed, although I see the home page was visited again on October 4 (it's in their cache).

I get hits from Yahoo and MSN.

What's up? Has this site been banned for some reason?

[Update early November 2004] All better now. I'm not sure what worked but I made a few changes a few weeks ago:

• Removed .htaccess commands preventing indexing of the images directory on this domain
• Removed robots.txt commands preventing Google from indexing images on this domain
• Used suggestions in Optimizing your Movable Type blog for Google
• and maybe a few other changes I don't remember now...

I plan to do a bit of mostly behind-the-scenes reorganizing of this site. I've just added a new category called Acquisitions (for entries about the patterns and yarn I've been buying) and have moved many entries from Crochet: General into it.

I joined my first webring over the weekend: Crochet Blogs! Cool.

A screen shot of today's new header design. It is my favorite granny square blanket pattern. I made it for my new double bed in August 1981.

A screen shot of today's new header design (mini roses and impatiens) and color scheme. These flowers reside in pots on the black shelf unit on our front porch.

...

I used a default Movable Type stylesheet for a while on this site. In February 2004, I customized the design to feature a very colorful photograph of quilting fabric. Since I neglected to get a screen shot of that design before starting today's new design, I cannot show a full-size screen shot of that design. However, I did find an older version of the stylesheet that design used. The side navigation colors were adjusted after this version of the stylesheet so I've taken a screen shot of only the header portion for this official record of the quilting fabric header design:

What will you find here? Photographs of crocheted lap-size and other blankets I've made, as well as cross-stitch designs, paintings, and digital images I've created. Maybe other art projects as time goes on. I have not included my photography in this website, but I do have photography websites at:

• Snapshot Gallery (http://www.snapshotgallery.com/)
• [updated to new location] Tame My Mind - Imagery (http://www.tamemymind.com/photos/)
• Cheryl Lambert Photography (http://www.cheryllambert.com/photography/) (very image intensive)

I began creating digital art in late 1998 when I transferred to California State University Hayward and changed majors from Computer Science to a Multimedia option in Art. I soon added both the Digital Graphics and Photography options. My natural style leans heavily toward realistic scenes, such as those provided by photography without fancy filters and toning.

Painting is new for me. My first painting (other than paint-by-number kits when I was a kid) was made in January 2003. I took a Bob Ross "Joy of Painting" class at a local Michaels Craft Store. It was fun! I learned how to use a few different brushes and mix oil paints.

On April 19, 2003, I took a creative painting class, called "Painting from the Wild Heart" given by a woman painter in Oakland. We used tempura paints (which are water-based) on thick sheets of paper. The object of the class was to let go and and listen to your creative self, not to your inner critic. This is part of my attempt to break free from my realism box.

I've been crocheting since I was a little girl. I learned from my left-handed mother - I'm right-handed so I did what she did backwards. I've made quite a few blankets throughout my life, but have photographs of only a few of those I made years ago. I've been taking digital photos of my recent crocheted creations.

I also did embroidery as a kid, but grew to like counted cross-stitch more and more. I created my own cross-stitch 16" x 20" design of a man riding a stand-up Kawasaki jet ski for my then boyfriend (now my husband) for a Christmas gift in 1987. I have photos of only a few of my cross-stitch projects.

In March 1992, I was diagnosed with repetitive stress (tendonitis) in both wrists and required physical therapy twice a week for 6 months while I continued to work full time. At that time, it was prudent to choose to stop working on my crafts to give my wrists time to rest. So, I put all my crochet and cross-stitch projects away in 2 large plastic containers and placed the containers in the hallway coat closet where I wouldn't be constantly reminded about them.

In 2001 or early 2002 before my grandfather died, my mother made a very colorful crocheted lap blanket for him to keep his legs warm while he was out and about in his wheelchair. It was a big hit at the convalescent home: The colors were eye-catching, the hand-made blanket was a homey touch, and the smaller size (about 35" x 45") of a lap blanket is less likely to get caught in the wheelchair when it moves.

In late September 2002, I dragged out the 2 plastic containers and started crocheting again. I began making lap-size blankets (aka lap robes or lapghans) with the intent of donating them to the convalescent home that had cared for my grandfather. My mother joined me in this effort and together we shipped 11 lap blankets to the convalescent home in Wisconsin. The blankets were distributed during the December 2002 holidays by the managers of the home to residents who did not have much family contact.

I continue to make lap blankets and intend to donate them to a local convalescent home or other care facility in the Fall. I have completed 6 lap blankets and 1 full-size so far this year, each with a different design and different color scheme (since using the same pattern and same colors would be boring!).

I've worn wrist splints on both arms at night since early 1992. I've learned to compensate and work around my wrist problems, as well as a lower back problem that began in August 1996 as the result of a rough small boat ride with my son on Lake Tahoe.

As long as I don't overdue it and pay attention to how my wrists and lower back feel, I've been able to continue crocheting and cross-stitching. They touch something inside me that's been missing for 10 years.

I hope you enjoy viewing these projects as much as I enjoyed creating them. Many are projects I did a long time ago and gave to family members. Others I created when I was completing my undergraduate degree between June 1998 and December 2000. I'm also including my recent projects, including the lap blankets and my attempts at painting.