Reaching in to a washer full of HOT agitating water to try to find your little zipper-bag of purses you are trying to felt is not fun.

Pictures to come, hopefully in a few minutes.

Yes, here they are. I had waited to felt until I finished the second bag, the one for my sister-in-law. The darker one is the AAUW present; the lighter one is for her.

Before felting:



After felting, with the flaps closed. (They look darker here because they're still wet):



They warned not to "over felt" - I suppose it gets too small that way. But you need to felt them enough that stuff won't fall out between the stitches. (I have them bouncing around in a warm dryer right now to see what that does)

Here's a close up. The stitches tightened up but you can still see them.



I think she'll like it but I still think for me it would have been cuter in a medium to dark brown with either a red or cream colored stripe.

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I got the H1N1 vaccine Friday. (It's very funny, very spotty how the distribution of this was. This was the injectable form - which is what I was supposed to have - and the campus nurse assured me that the really sensitive populations had already been given their shots, so I didn't feel like I was taking it from someone more in need of it than I).

I will say if you decide to get this vaccine? Try to do it on a day when the next couple of days aren't unusually challenging. They do warn you there are a few minor side effects: sore arm, possibly nausea (I didn't get that), muscle aches and headache (yes), slight fever (yes), and fainting (in adolescents, and I don't think they meant as an emo response to the shot).

I had a sore arm Friday evening (it was better after taking tylenol and putting ice on it) and I had muscle aches yesterday and today, and a headache today, though I don't know that that can necessarily be blamed on the shot; I get headaches a lot from pollen or mold or whatever. And I had a fever of 99.1 this afternoon.

And I felt kind of "meh," like you do when you're fighting off some low-level bug. I know you can't actually GET the flu from this shot (it's "killed" virus, which is not literally what it is - I think it's actually just proteins from the viral coat, which is what your immune system would recognize anyway - you can't really "kill" a virus, most biologists believe viruses are not technically "alive." The virus is just deactivated in some way that it can't invade your cells and use them. (The spray mist IS "live" but weakened virus - which is why people with asthma and other respiratory stuff aren't supposed to get the spray kind)

Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow but I think as a precaution I'm not going to try to get up early to work out, unless I happen to bounce out of bed at 5 am feeling good.