Just Knitting Along

Good Bye, sweet Katie

2012-01-25T15:56:00.002-05:00

January 23 my darling St. Bernard Katie left me. She was 12 years, 7 months, and 17 days old. That is a long life for a St. Bernard.
Katie had a good life with lots of love and attention. She was an almost constant companion of mine. When we went to look at the puppies SHE chose me and we were best buds from then on. We traveled together whenever we could. She went to North Carolina with us when we went to visit Dean. She went to Virginia with us when Dale was working there. She went to town with me tons of times. She was well known in several stores around town. When we opened the pet bakery she went to work with me until she started having mobility issues.
For the past several months her mobility was progressively getting worse. By the end her hindquarters did not work at all. I had made a sling to lift her so we could go outside to potty. It was hard to lift her sometimes but I continued to do it, with Dale's help sometimes.
She was a very special pet. I have a vertigo problem and when Kate still came upstairs to sleep I woke more than once to find her laying across me so I couldn't get up. When I would wake I would be very dizzy. Katie knew. She would also keep me from standing when she sinced a vertigo bout coming on.
Pets are much smarter than a lot of people give them credit for.
Monday when I got home from the nursing home Kate was whimpering. She was laying flat on her side in the family room. She had phlegm all aroud her head and front legs. I called my son to come in. I cleaned her up as much as I could and talkec to her. I called Dale at work and he headed right home. I noticed that Katie was bloated and called the vet. The vet said she thought Katie had a twisted stomach. Surgery was the only way to fix it. I could not put Kate through that at her age since the vet said she only had about a 25% chance. It nearly killed me but I had to let her go.
She is gone but will not be forgotten. She will always be my baby.
Thank you for 12 1/2 wonderful years, my sweet Kate. Mommy loves you.

SnowDrop,,,the final chapter

2011-10-14T14:58:00.001-04:00

SnowDrop is finally done. I just need to block it and it will be ready to wear. I hope to get it blocked sometime tomorrow. Soon as I do I'll get pics and post them.

SnowDrop and other things.....

2011-10-01T10:12:00.004-04:00

I am still plugging along on the Snowdrop Shawl. I have made it past the halfway mark for the border. I was thinking that I would have it done so I could wear it to Grand Commandery this coming weekend. Not sure it that will happen or not, but I am going to give it a good try. If I finish knitting it I will probably not have time to block it. Keeping fingers crossed that I get it all finished.

We had to put my Mom in rehab in a nursing home yesterday. That was a very hard thing to do. She can't walk and can't even support her weight on her feet now. There was just no way Dad and I could continue to take care of her at home. We are hoping that the rehab will get her back up on her feet so we can bring her back home. Prayers please.

I plied my first ever sock yarn and made a rookie mistake. I had spun the singles clockwise as I always do and then when I started to ply them I also plied them clockwise, instead of counter clockwise. I started plying them late at night when I was dog tired and didn't even realize what I had done. The yarn is really tightly spun so I am not sure if I can use it or not to make socks. I have it on the niddy-noddy right now and will leave it on there for a while and then check it out. If it is ruined I have more that I can try again.

I really need to get back to my sweater that I started last winter from my own hand spun. I have had to spin more yarn 3 times now. Hope I have enough now to finish the sweater. If not I still have some of the fiber so I can spin some more. Just as soon as I finish SnowDrop I am going to get the sweater out (Celtic Cardy) and finish it up. I should be a really warm sweater and I think this winter is going to be really cold so I will probably be wearing it a lot. I love my hand knit sweaters for winter. They are so much warmer that store bought ones.

Bye for now.

Monday

2011-09-12T16:19:00.003-04:00

The SnowDrop is going slowly. I have pretty much laid it aside because I don't really like working on the border. I will get it done, just not right now.
I have a sweater that I started last year that I really need to finish up. It is languishing because it is made from my own spun yarn and I have had to spin more twice now and it looks as though I may still have to spin some more. I need to finish it so I can wear it this winter.
I finished my nephew's socks. Well, I still need to sew the round together at the top and then tuck in the ends and they will be done. So for all purposes, they are done.
I started on the Primrose socks from summer Knitty but I was having a heck of a time with the left twist. I just could not get the PTBL trying to do it on the second stitch. I know how to do it, I just could not get the yarn and needles to cooperate with me. So I frogged them for now. Maybe another yarn will work. Others have done it so I can too,

From August 10 until September 2 I worked ft/pt at a plastic injection molding plant down the road a ways from us that friends own. They needed some extra help so I pitched in. I really was harder work that I could do on a long term basis so I was glad to see Sept 2 come. I do thank them for the chance to do the work though. The 3 ladies that I worked with were all super nice.

Now I am going to be helping to take care of my Mom. They were going to have to hire someone to come in and help Dad with her so I offered and Dad jumped on it. So I am back to work again for a time.

Have almost spun all of my Lapiz merino. I have about 8 more very small balls to spin and then I can start plying it. I am hoping to be able to make some 3 ply sock yarn. I love the color and the feel of the yarn. We will see.

I don't know why it is, but I cannot publish a post on here from my laptop. I can write it and save it but not publish it. I have to come out here to the office to publish it. That is such an irritant. Oh, well. I don't post very often anyway.

I'll try to get some pictures taken and post them here sometime in the next few months. LOL

Later.

SnowDrop update....

2011-08-30T16:09:00.004-04:00

I have finished the body of the SnowDrop and have (barely) started on the edging. It has been put aside for a bit as I need to finish up a pair of socks for my nevvie and I also need to make a couple of pair of socks for me before winter.

Not much going on here. I'll try to get a new pic of the shawl sometime soon, but no promises.

Katie is doing pretty well. She is 12 years, almost 3 months. She is an OLD lady now but she is still my beautiful St. Bernard and a wonderful girl.
The other day when I had her out on the patio to get some cool fresh air she somehow managed to scoot and wriggle her way off of the patio across the narrow back yard and into the high weeds on the hill side. Luckily D has not had time to bushhog this summer so the weeds are really high and thick so they stopped her from going on down the hill.
She did manage to get both of her back feet into dog poop. That was fun trying to get it off of her feet. I finally took a quart size baggy and put water in it and slipped her foot in, held the top closed and massaged the water around her foot. They came clean, thank goodness.
Now I make sure to close the gateway with the bench whenever she is out on the patio. I never dreamed she would work her way off of it since she can't get up by herself anymore. I really thought she was safe. What I know!!
I had gone out on the deck to throw some dog hair out (if I had put it in the trash can it would just have floated back out where I have a ceiling fan on for her along with the AC. When I went out I could hear her woofing but I could not find her. I started to panic and began calling to her. Then I noticed the weeds moving each time she would woof. I hurried back into the house to get my boots on (they have a good grip sole on them which I need outside on the hillside to get Katie up without sliding down the hill myself) and go out and rescue her.
I got her up without any trouble and we made it up to the patio even though I did not have her sling/blanket with me. She was worn out so she lay down on the patio and I pulled the bench across the gateway opening.

SnowDrop update

2011-06-26T10:23:00.004-04:00

I have gotten back to row 61 so I am only 4 rows from where I was when I frogged it last evening. It really seems to be going faster now that I went down two needles sizes. I also am much more pleased with the look of it.

These are really crap pictures. It is raining outside so I had to attempt this inside. Maybe it will be pretty tomorrow or later today and I can get a pic outside.

The Tracy Shawl....

2011-06-25T19:11:00.001-04:00

Well that was really smart. I posted this post with just a title. Guess it saves on the typing.

Went to Columbus today with DH for a meeting. Afterwards he took me to Knitters Mercantile so I could get some yarn for the Tracy Shawl. I got Jojoland Melody Superwash in colorway MS20. Evidently they do not put word colors on their yarn. It is 100% wool and feels very nice. The colors are a mix of burgundies and blues. I am hoping it turns out ok. I really like the colors so it should be fine to me.

I'll take some pics when I start the shawl which won't be for a while yet as I am working on the SnowDrop Shawl. I am on row 63 and I think I am going to have to frog it and start again. I am using lace weight yarn and Stephanie said to use a size 4mm needle which I am doing, but it is just turning out to open looking. So I think I will frog and go down a couple of sizes. I know it sounds like a lot of work is going to be torn out but you start with just one stitch so it isn't as bad as all that. Besides, I will probably never be happy with it as it is so if I am going to put all that work in I had better be sure I like the look.

I had my Omelet Shawl with me and the ladies in the store really loved it. One was very impressed and asked if it was hard to knit. Really it isn't, it is just that the pattern is so involved that you can't really memorize it. Or at least I couldn't.

Katie and I are sitting outside. It is cool enough that she can stand it, probably in the high to mid 60's. She gets to stay outside so little now that summer is here. Whenever it is cool enough I like to bring her out. She does love the outdoors....when it is cool. LOL I would love it more if the bugs would quit eating my ankles.

Trying again.....

2011-06-23T08:53:00.005-04:00

This one is of course before it was blocked. Doesn't look like much of anything, does it? It is really rather ugly looking. But wait....

Now look at it. Blocking lace is such an eye opener. Makes all the difference in the world.

I was not able to upload these from flickr, I had to just do them from my computer. I will keep trying though.

The Shawl from H*ll

2011-06-22T09:58:00.007-04:00

I joined a KAL in Socknitters Forum to knit the Omelet Shawl from Summer Knitty. It is a beautiful pattern and pretty straightforward to knit. Not too difficult if you just watch what you are doing and put in frequent lifelines. I did pretty good on the lifelines for a time, then got to thinking that I knew what I was doing and didn't need to put them in as frequently. WRONG!!! I had to rip back about 19 rows to fix a major mistake. I had dropped a stitch when tinking back a double centered decrease. There is just no way that I can pick up dropped stitches in lace. Maybe when I have knit lace for a few hundred years I can do it, but right now I cannot. So frogging took place.

After I frogged I could not find where I was in the pattern. I had written down that I had lifelined in row 9 of Chart B, but that just did not work with my stitch count. Instead of simply reading my stitches I kept counting them and trying to make them come out. After about 2 days of frustration I decided to read the stitches and found that I had actually lifelined on row 19 not row 9. So I finally got back to it.

Ok, that was fixed and I was off and running again, putting in lifelines like a good little girl. Again I got cocky and would do about 15 rows before a lifeline. Again tinking back I lost a stitch but this time I only had to tink back about 2 rows instead of ripping.

At this point lifelines were going in about every 5 rows and sometimes even sooner. It seemed I was spending almost as much time doing lifelines as I was knitting. That was ok because I did not want any more major reversals.

Finally got the thing all knit and bound off and was ready to block it. I hate blocking so I waited a day or so but finally decided that it was time to just go for it. So I soaked it for a bit in some Eucalan and then wrapped it to press out excess water and blocked it.

The shawl is supposed to have all these little points around the bottom. Guess what? I had bound off so tightly that mine did not. Ok, no prob. I like it just as well with a straight botton. After blocking it out and being happy with the way it looked I left it alone to dry. I went back to check it and found that I had broken the thread in one place on the bind off. Dang!! I waited until it was totally dry and unpinned it and tried to fix it without taking the BO stitches out. Didn't work. So I had to go back to the last stitch bound off and undo it. Luckily the thread broke about 16 inches from the last stitch so it was not the large of a deal to undo it. I got to where I need to add the yarn in and start my bind off again and found that I was knitting the bind off even tighter this time so I had to tink it back again and came up with a modified crotchet binding off stitch that seems to have worked just fine. I also was able (hopefully) to find all the little lost stitches that popped when the thread broke and fix them so that it looks fine. You can see where the fix was made but it is not a big "in your face" fix so I will take it.

Here it is unblocked http://flic.kr/p/9VLBdZ and here it is blocked http://flic.kr/p/9VPsCo
This will have to do for now.

Soon as I can get pictures to load I will put them on here. Not sure if my connection is too slow or what but it says they are uploading but then nothing shows.

Another weekend came and went

2011-06-20T12:12:00.003-04:00

Friday was D's birthday and then of course Sunday was Father's Day. The kids took us out to dinner for his bday and then we had a cookout here at the house for Father's Day.

When everyone started coming in Katie wanted up in the main part of the house with us. I wasn't sure she could climb up her ramp now but decided to give it a try. She came up fine with a little help from me. When she got into the kitchen she came on into the dining room and lay down between D's and my chairs just like she used to when she could come up the steps by herself. She was happy as a clam when she got in there.

I got D a cover for his Holland grill for father's day. Or at least I thought I had gotten him a cover. When he opened the bag up it was actually a bag to carry like a small portable grill in. I guess I will have to try again Thursday when the bakery opens. I tried, honest I did. There was no one at the bakery who could tell me anything about the covers and they were all in bags so how was I to know? No problem, I'll just exchange it.

Katie went for her weekly laser today. It really does seem to help her. She almost always needs my help to get up on her feet but once she does she can walk on her own. I have to help her when she goes to potty because her legs just won't hold her up long enough to do the job. I will help her as long as needed. That is what we do.

Until later.

The Birthday Girl

2011-06-08T07:44:00.006-04:00

Monday was Katie's 12th birthday. I am so blessed to still have her. In human years for a large breed dog she is now 90 years old. That is quite an accomplishment. Way to go, Katie.

Her health is still good. Her biggest problem is mobility. She has quite a bit of trouble getting to her feet. I have to almost always help her up, but once she is up on her feet and gets her balance she is still able to walk unaided.

I had ordered special doggie cake mix and a bone shaped pan to make her a birthday cake. I ordered it a week and a half before her birthday but it did not come in time. It actually shipped out Monday. Anyway, I made her a brownie cake in a bone shaped tin that I have. The brownie recipe is a doggie brownie. It uses carob instead of chocolate and the sweetener is only 3 T of honey. It REALLY tastes good!!! I had been wanting some chocolate so I ate a bite when I was serving it to the girls. It was good. LOL

The storm that we had pass through yesterday really upset Kate. She would not settle down. She just kept chirping (she has a paralyzed larynix and she very seldom barks anymore, it just comes out sounding like a loud bird chirp) and wanting up then not knowing where to go so she would lay down again. I was going nuts not being able to make her feel better.
The storms are over and she is doing ok today.

Supposed to be another scorcher here today, in the upper 90's. Guess Kate and I will stay in the house today. She has already been out the morning to go potty and we won't be going back out again until it cools down this evening. Luckily she has always been able to hold her potty for long periods of time. There is no way she could go out when it is so hot.

SummerTime and random thoughts.....

2011-06-03T07:34:00.000-04:00

Well, it is summertime by the temperature. It has been hot as can be here the last few days. I am not going to complain, though. It beats all the rain and cold that we had been having.

Yesterday it was up in the 90's, which may not sound too bad to some of you but that is way over what we should be having now. Today it is only going to be in the 80's. Since it is supposed to be so "cool" today I think I will try to get the lawn mown. D has decided to let me mow grass again. When I start having headaches and trouble breathing I am sure he will make me stop again. I really enjoy mowing. It was always my "quiet time" when the kids were young and at home. I would get on my mower with earplugs, a hat, sunglasses, and a mouth mask and just mow to my hearts content. The kids would leave me alone while I was mowing. :)

Kate is still hanging in there. I always have to help her when she goes to potty and I have to help her up more often, but we are doing ok. She will be 12 next Monday which is 90 in large breed doggie years.

I am knitting on the Omelet Shawl in a KAL and also doing WendyKnits Mystery Shawlette KAL. I have one more part for Wendy's shawlette and it will be done. The pattern will come out around 4:30ish today. The Omelet is coming along faster than I thought it would. I have made it all the way to Chart D and am about half way through that. I have the rest of it and Chart E to do and I will be done with it Chart E has 34 rows and about a gazillion stitches. The Omelet started small and ends big and the Mystery Shawlette starts big and ends small. I am not really sure which approach I prefer. It is nice to have each row grow less as you go along but then it is also nice to start small and get a feel for the pattern before you have a gazillion stitches.

We got the pool opened over the weekend. We still have not put the steps in. Maybe we will do that tonight. I wanted to get it all vacuumed before we put the steps in. The auto vacuum doesn't work too well after the steps are in. It always wants to hang up on them, silly thing.

The Retreat

2011-05-02T09:55:00.002-04:00

I went to a really nice Fiber Retreat over the weekend. It was sponsored by my LYS so I knew quite a few of the ladies who were there. There were a few new faces which are now friends.

It was a fun filled, information filled busy 3 days. We are all ready to do it again. Even though K gave me a dirty look when I asked if we could do it again next weekend. LOL

We did spinning, felting, knitting, quilting, weaving, crocheting, EATING some of the most delicious food, watched a couple of movies, cried some, took a walk, some went in to Guhl's, and just generally had a great time.

The one down point for me came when Dale texted me to say that Katie was down and he wasn't home and Grace could not get her up. I fell apart so 4 of my friends took me home to take care of her. She is ok, but I worry so much about my baby. She will be 12 June 6 if we make it. Keep us in your prayers please.

I have a very few pictures. I was too busy to be bothered with a camera. I had it in my pocket all weekend and it mostly stayed there. Oh, well *sigh* I'll have to download the pics to the puter and see if any are worthy of being posted on here. I am sure I can find a couple to post. I am not sure if anyone else took many pics or not. Maybe I can do some pic trading to get a different viewpoint. I'll do some emailing.

Until next time. Judy

And so it ends.....

2011-04-22T12:09:00.003-04:00

Since the store is closing next Thursday we have begun the daunting task of sorting through all the "stuff" that we have carried in here over the last 17 months. Not an easy task. I didn't want to wait until the last day to do it though. This way it makes it a little easier. We can sort through things and throw away the junk instead of just quickly boxing it up and dragging it home.
Now to find a place at home to put everything.

Closing

2011-04-20T13:08:00.002-04:00

The pet bakery will be closing its doors for the last time next Thursday (April 28). We gave it a good try but the customer base just was not there to support it.

I realy enjoyed having it and meeting my customers but now it is time to close this chapter and move on to the next one.

To all who bought their doggie treats from us I thank you. I will still be doing some baking at home for my pets.

I was a fun 17 months.

Checkin in.....

2011-03-16T16:26:00.002-04:00

I finished the first 21 days of the anti-diet and came away 7 pounds thinner. Yay me. Now on to the next 7 pounds, and the next and the next and the next and the next and the next and the next and the next and the next. Whoa there girl, you don't have THAT many 7 pounders to lose.

Whatever, I am trying to lose them.

A New Way to Eat?

2011-02-24T13:17:00.002-05:00

Hubs and I have started on the Food Lovers Fat Loss System . We had watched info-mercials on it several times and then just decided to give it a try.

We started this past Monday morning (Feb 21) and so far I am pleased with the system. I have lost about 2.5 pounds and not sure how much D has lost but he has lost.

The thing I really like about it is the fact that no foods are off limits. I HAVE to have my sweets and I know I am not going to give them up for the rest of my life to be slim. Just not going to happen.

For those who have never heard of this system you basically eat a protein, a slow carb, and a fast carb at your 3 main meals and have a 100 to 200 (100 to 300 for men) calorie snack between meals. The snacks can be anything you want you just need to keep watch on what the calories are. Most snacks now a days are prepackaged so that you can easily know what calorie count they are. Working for me.

It seems strange that by eating every 2 to 3 hours you can lose weight. That goes against everything that we have ever heard about losing weight. Of course, it does matter what and how much you eat, although you are not counting calories.

In addition to the program I am dong my Wii Fit Plus every morning (or nearly every morning, I have trouble with the weekends). I try to do about 23 to 27 minutes. This morning I ended up doing 54 minutes as I was doing the Island Cycling Advanced and I got totally lost, LOL. How can one get lost in a game? I could see where I was to go for the finish line, I just could not get there. I "cycled" for 7.283 miles. Bad day for points but good day for calorie burn.
I'll try to keep track on here of how I do.

wrong date

2011-02-17T13:27:00.002-05:00

the post just below this one was actually "posted" today. I started working on it Feb 7.
Just my need to explain.

Here comes the snow again......

2011-02-07T17:15:00.001-05:00

I have a lovely little video of the snow falling here at home. Only problem is I cannot get it to load on here. I have been trying for 2 weeks now. I surrender.....unless anyone has a tip to give me as to how to do it.

Good grief......

2011-01-30T08:17:00.003-05:00

Where did January get to? Can it be almost February already. I thought we just started this new year.

I finished up a pair of socks made from that new yarn from KnitPicks called Chroma. It is really beautiful yarn and nice feeling. The skein I had didn't have much twist to it so I really am not sure how it will wear. I made the socks with a short row heel which I had never made before so the socks ended up just a tad too long. It seems that if I make any heel except the Widdershins Heel I end up making my socks too long. Don't understand but there it is. So these socks may go into the gift basket.
I have another skein of it, but am thinking to maybe make a scarf out of it. It would feel really yummy around the neck and I wouldn't have to worry about wear issues with that.

I finished the back on my CelticCardigan . I have started on the fronts now. This is made out of my own homespun. Just hoping I have enough to finish it this time. I have already had to spin some more yarn. Maybe I should go back and get some more roving just in case. I doubt that K will sell the rest of it, but to make sure......

It is not snowing right now but they are predicting another snow or ice storm later this week. If I get to decide, give me snow. It is much easier to deal with.

I am so proud of myself. I actually did the link thing correctly to show the pattern for my sweater. Yay, me. :)

Well, I guess it is winter......

2011-01-19T12:13:00.002-05:00

The snow has all melted away (except for the large plowed piles) and now they are saying we are to get more this weekend. I have heard anywhere from 1 to 3 right up to 5 to 8. I am hoping for the 1 to 3.
I love snow, but enough is enough. I don't like to drive in it so I have to have D take me everywhere I want to go.
Update about what we get after we get it :)

Snow, snow, snow. when will you end?

2011-01-13T17:24:00.005-05:00

I will take some pics of the snow tomorrow and post them. I haven't really had the inclination to take pics of it. We have so much (for us that is) that I just don't want to look at it. I measured it on our deck table this morning and we had about 7 or 8 inches. It has been snowing just a bit all day but I don't think it has snowed enough for any more accumulation.

These aren't the greatest pictures as I took them from inside the house by just putting my hand outside and clicking. I was still in my jammies and didn't want to go out into the snow. These at least give you an idea.

Here are some really nice pics of my cat, Coley. He is so hard to get a pic of that doesn't have his eyes glowing like demon orbs. My new camera takes great pics of him. I really love the side of his face pic.

He is a beautiful long haired cat that someone "threw away" and he found me. I took him in and have loved him ever since. He really thinks that I belong to him, rather than him belonging to me. Oh, well. He weighed about 2 pounds when he came to me and now he weighs 14.5 pounds. He has grown a little bit, LOL. I don't know what type cat he is but someone who used to raise Norwegian Forest cats told me that that was what he is. I don't know, and don't really care. He is just my little guy. He is a nice bed warmer as he sleeps either beside or on top of me at night.

Here are a couple of update pictures of Zeus, the store cat. He lives here 24/7 now. He is not happy away from the store. So we just make sure we come in and "visit" him on the days the store is closed.

The brass bed he is sleeping in is one I got at Big Lots several years ago for my cats at home. They don't really like it so I brought it in here for a window decoration during the Apple Festival and since Zeus would sleep in it I just left it in here.
The little brown thing by his chin is a small St. Bernard that has an air bag and batteries so that it looks like it breathes. It is so funny to see people stop outside of the store and begin discussing/arguing with each other whether the dog is real or not. They usually end up coming in to find out for sure.

Ring out the old, ring in the new

2010-12-31T14:20:00.002-05:00

Another year has come and (almost) gone. It has been a hard year, hopefully the next will be better.

I didn't blog too often this past year. Just never seemed to have (find) the time. Maybe next year will be better or maybe it will be worse for my blog. Only time will tell.

The pet bakery took up a lot of my time this year. Business seems to be picking up a bit as we go along. This weekend I am going to work on getting a new website up and running for us.

D's business struggled this year. With the economy down there just was not a lot of work. We made it through and things seem to be picking up for it also.

My kids were all here for Christmas. That was nice. I guess I am very fortunate. My kids are 28 and 33 and I have never had a Christmas morning without them. They have their home Christmas on Christmas Eve and then come up here Christmas morning to open gifts. We then go to my darling MIL's for Christmas breakfast then back up here for lunch. I am blessed.

All the Christmas decorations are down and put away. I leave my candles in the window until sometime in January. I love the look of them shining after dark when I come home. It seems so welcoming. I sometimes think I should leave them out all year, but that takes away from the specialness of them.

Hoping everyone has a wonderful and safe New Year. Where ever your party takes you, be safe.

Until next year.

Judy

The ramp....continued

2010-12-11T12:19:00.001-05:00

D got the ramp extension all finished and in place. Now I have to be very careful when I go out into the garage as the extension is permanently attached to the step just out of the door. I know I am going to fall off of it sooner or later. I told D that I need to make a signe and tape it to the window of the door (just at my eye level) to remind me to be careful of the step.
Kate is doing fine for an 11 1/2 year old St Bernard. We need to get her up into the main part of the house so we can have our annual Christmas picture taken. Maybe this weekend we can do that.

Sliding....

2010-12-08T11:31:00.003-05:00

My Katie and I had a thrill last Saturday.
It has been snowing all day long and we had about 2.5 inches, which is really a lot for us this early in the season.
I had been gone off and on most of the day so when I finally came home for good for the night around 10 pm I let Katie out to pottie, went into the kitchen to put my purse and knitting down and told D that I was going out to make sure Katie had no slid over the hill. Our back yard has no yard now due to the pool, the hot tub and my deck but it does have a rather large hill. I was just a tad late going out to check on her.
She had evidently squatted to do her business and had slid about 1/3 of the way down the hill. I still had on my dress shoes which are rather slick on the bottom so when I tried to carefully get down the hill to Kate I slipped and fell and slid to her. She seemed to be ok, was not struggling, just laying there waiting for Mom to come rescue her as I have done countless times in the past. I got myself up on my feet and went around to the rear of her and tried to get her up. I kept slipping so I could not get her up. Finally I just v'ed my feet around her hiny and began to yell for D. Every once in a while Katie would help me yell by going "Woof". Every time she would woof we would slide about an inch down the hill. I kept telling her to be quiet and not bark that Daddy would be there to get us soon.
Our house is rather well insulated. If you pull up in the drive and blow the horn we cannot hear it in the family room. I knew there was no way Dale would hear me but I yelled and screamed anyway. I figured that my MIL or my daughter would probably hear me and call to find out what was wrong. They didn't.
Dale had gone on upstairs to change his clothes. The dressing room is in the front of the house, naturally. When he finished changing and came back into the bedroom he noticed his dog sitting up on our bed looking out the window. She never does that so he went over to see what she was looking at and saw me standing part way down the hill.
When he came out he was in Christmas shorts, a sleeveless tee and his house slippers. He asked what I needed. I told him to get some shoes on that were not slick so we could get Kate back up the hill. He asked what I needed to get her up and I told him to bring her harness. (She has a car seat harness that we use when she goes in the van, and I thought that would be the best thing to use.) He went in and got it and changed and came out to help me.
I somehow managed to get her harness under her and before I could actually fasten it D took hold of her and she got up. With me pushing from behind and him gently tugging we got her back up the hill to the patio and she walked on in to the house on her own.
I was really worried that she might have hurt herself since she is old now (11 1/2 years old, which is very old for a Saint Bernard) and is having some mobility issues. She has hip displasia.
I gave her an extra pain pill before bed and the next morning she seemed to be just fine.
Monday she went for her weekly laser treatment on her hips and knees and there does not seem to be any damage done.
We decided that we needed to make her a ramp so that she could go out in the front yard from now on. So Monday evening Dale was working on a ramp extension from my embroidery shop door out into the garage. I have a ramp I use to get her in and out of my van and I suggested that he just build a sort of cheater ramp that we could attach the car ramp to and make it dual purpose. He had just about finished it. He was out in the woodshop hand sawing something on it when the saw jumped and cut his knuckle. He came to the house and asked for some steri strips to fix it up.
When he showed me the cut I told him that it was going to have to have stitches. This was about 8:10 in the evening and the urgent care at our clinic closes at 8, bummer. We called our son to drive us to Chillicothe to the emergency room there (I don't like to drive after dark out of my comfort zone). On the way there we decided to try the other urgent care clinic in town first. We got there at 8:45 and they didn't close until 9 so we got lucky. They stitched him up (4 stitches) wrapped it up and sent us on home.
I think that this is the end of the Saturday night saga but then he hasn't finished the ramp thingy yet.
I take Kate out to pottie and don't let her get near the edge of the little bit of level we have out back.

I must have lost my mind......

2010-11-23T14:33:00.002-05:00

I have this really pretty sweater that I knit a few years ago and I managed to felt it. (Time out to cry about it again.) So I reknit it. I love the sweater, just not the yarn. It is a cotton/wool mix and is just not warm enough for me.
My mother-in-law asks me every time I wear it if I made it. When I tell her yes, I did she always tells me how pretty it is. Sooooo, I decided to knit one for her for Christmas. I went and got my yarn Saturday afternoon and I am almost done with the back already. I have about 4 more inches to do at the top and it will be on to the fronts. I think I just may finish it up in time.
While getting the yarn for her sweater I found a yarn that was almost like the original sweater yarn. I may have to go back and get it to make yet another one for me.
At least having knit this one twice already I know how it goes.
Pics when done.

My New Toy

2010-11-18T13:08:00.003-05:00

Last night we went to Office Max to return some paper I bought and then did not need and I found the bestest little camera. It is a Canon PowerShot SD780 IS. It was marked down as it was the last one they had. It had been $230.00 and was now only $106.47!!! Can you believe that?
D told me to get it. Since I had been looking for a new smaller camera for me to carry I took him up on the offer. I love it.
I had to charge the battery last night so I didn't get to do anything with it until this morning. The first picture I took was of little Coley. He always ends up with weird glowing orbs instead of eyes. This camera made him have eyes!!! That alone makes me love it. (I forgot the cable at home so I can't post that pic yet.)
It is 12.1 megapixels which I think is pretty high (but what do I know about such things) and has zoom and all that sort of thing. A great little point and shoot camera which is what I want. I have gone the route of the big ole 35mm SLR camera that you can set everything or go auto and I was ready for a small bit of camera.
Here is a link to it: http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/camera/dcc/data/2009-2010/2009_ixyd_210_is.html?lang=us&categ=srs&page=ixy In case anyone wants to have a look see at it. MIne is black, don't know why they do not show that color. hmmmm....
Maybe I will take and post more pics now. Time will tell. I do at least have to post a pic of Coley with EYES. LOL

Why me?

2010-10-24T11:01:00.002-04:00

I am going into a third week of bronchitis and laryngitis. I dutifully went to the doctor as soon as I got sick.
My regular doctor left on a cruise the same day I called to see him. So I had to see a NP instead. I told her the cocktail of meds that my reg doc gives me. We have worked on this same ailment for years and this is the concoction that he has found will make me better is the quickest time. The NP would only give me 2 of the the 3 meds I need so guess what? I am not better. My reg doc won't be back until the first of Nov and I just can't wait that long. Guess I will go back to another doc and see what they will do. Problem is that most doctors don't like to hear what your reg doc gives you. THEY know best. I guess I can't win.

MunchMan

2010-10-20T13:58:00.002-04:00

My sweet little Munchkins went to be with his twin brother yesterday evening.
Munch got hit by a car last Saturday sometime between breakfast and 4 pm. He made his way back home but was pretty beat up.
His jaw was broken way back by the hinge and he had a fractured skull. The skull fracture caused swelling and trauma to his eye so that it was blind. His whole nature changed. When I went to see him he did not even seem to know me. He did not respond to my voice. Our vet was worried that the head trauma would change his personality and he would no longer be my loving little lap kittie. She was also concerned that he might not even make it through the surgery. Also, where the jaw was broken it would have to be pinned and would more than likely develop arthritis which would cause him pain later on.
Because of the blindness in the eye he would have to be an inside cat the rest of his life (he was 7 years old so not too old of a cat) and he dearly loved being outside.
All things considered we opted to let him slip away. It was a hard decision but one that I am sure was correct. I will miss him.

Where did the summer go?

2010-08-11T12:39:00.002-04:00

I have such good intentions of posting more often and then they just go by the wayside. Well, here is a new post and I make no claims as to when I will decide to post again.

Zeus is doing really well here at the store. He seems to be totally content to just stay here. He has the complete run of the store of a night and has the large front windows to look out and keep up with what is going on.

He loves meeting all the people who come in to the store. He is such a social cat.

We are beginning to gear up for the Apple Festival and fall and Christmas here. The Apple Festival will be going on right in front of the store on the street. The Apple Festival has been going on for somewhere around 55 or so years, maybe a bit more. I can't remember which year this will be. It is a big thing here in town. We have people come in from all around to visit it and see the parades and the booths. A big money maker for our local Jaycees. It ofttimes is a pain in the a** for the businesses down town but it only last a week so we get by.

I need to take some pictures of some knitting I have been doing and some pics of my animals and post them. Maybe in a few days(months?).

Zeus update.....

2010-05-28T13:38:00.005-04:00

Zeus has come home for the last time as far as I am concerned. He is not a happy cat when he is not here at the store so I don't plan to try to adopt him out again. This is his home and this is where he is happiest so here he stays. To me it is just too much like rejection to have someone take him and then bring him back. He may not think so but I do and I don't want to upset him. :)

He won't even be going home with me on weekends anymore. I'll just come in a time or two each day and spend some time with him. He is usually such a loving cat and always wants to be on my lap or near to me. When I had him at home in my embroidery shop he would not sit on my lap when I would go out to spend time with him. He would jump up on my lap, meow loudly, and then jump down and get in his carrier and look at me as if to say, "Are we going back to the store/my home now?"

He is doing ok being left out to have free roam of the store. He doesn't tear things up or potty in the floor, things he did before he was neutered. I try to keep a few toys that I only give to him of an evening when we are closing. That way they are new and interesting to him.

I have been making bandanas to sell in the store and yesterday I decided to put one on Zeus. It is a red/white/blue fabric and it looks so cute on him. He doesn't seem to mind it either.

I had to take him to the vet yesterday. He had really crusty yucky ears. I never gave a thought to ear mites as I had had a white cat years ago that had the same looking ears and the vet checked her for ear mites and it was only dirt. When Zeus began shaking his head and digging at his ears I decided it was time to take him and have them checked out. He did have ear mites, they put meds in and he is ok now.

They all thought he looked so cute with his little bandana on. What do you think?

Can you say tired?

2010-05-18T15:35:00.002-04:00

My girls, bless their hearts, have gotten me into Zumba.
It is a lot of fun and I am having a ball doing it, BUT it is a real workout. For a solid hour you are moving, jumping, dancing, spinning, and sweating.
We have been going for 2 weeks now (4 days total) and I am beginning to learn the moves. Some of them I just can't do, but I give it my best. I know I am a sight to behold while trying to do some of it, but then, I am not alone in that.
There are all ages who come. We have little girls who look to be about 6 or so and some older ladies who I will not try to guess their ages, but I know they are older than I am. :)
I need to find me a belly dance hip scarf and some really comfortable and light weight dance shoes. Maybe I can find them before next Monday. We go on Mondays and Wednesdays. I know I can't find them before tomorrow night.
Well, the hip scarves can be bought online, but shoes I HAVE to try on first. Most of the dance shoes I have looked at online say to buy 1 to 2 sizes bigger than you wear. Not even going to try that online.

Zeus

2010-03-23T13:45:00.002-04:00

Zeus has come home. He did not get along well with the other cat and dog in their household. B asked me if she could bring him back. I said yes, because I had told her from the get-go if it did not work out she could bring him back.
So now he is traveling back and forth to work with me. This situation is also not working out as he and my cats are not getting along. Maybe I should just put them together and let them fight it out, but I am not going to. I am trying to get them used to each other by being in seperate rooms and being able to smell each other. Not working. I have tried taking one of my cats in at a time to meet him. Not working.
I am looking for an older person who loves cats but has no other cat at this time who would love to have him. I have several people looking for a good home for him. Hoping to find someone soon.

Socks, socks, and more socks......

2010-03-05T16:23:00.008-05:00

Actually I think there are only 3 pair of socks, but that is ok. Yep, I just looked and there are 3 pair.

The first pair was made back in December. I wasn't thrilled with the yarn color so my DIL was the lucky recipient. When I was knitting on them here at the store she kept telling me that she really liked the colors, so I made them bigger and gifted them to her. The second picture of the brown socks shows Zeus. He used to be the store mascot until he started peeing in the floor because he was mad at us for not being here 24/7. He now has a nice home when he has people around him more often.

This next pair is a real joy to wear. I forget what the yarn is, I'll look and try to post it this weekend. They are really soft and warm. The pattern was from Wendy Johnson's first toe up book. Can't remember the name of that either. The brain has left the body. (edited-- I just remembered it was Cherry Tree Hill yarn, don't remember the colorway, just that it was a limited edition one)

This last pair is made from KnitPicks, and I think it is Pallette. The pattern is a mix of January and February Sockamania socks. I knew that there was no way I would finish them in Jan so I did the heel in Jan pattern and the leg in Feb pattern. Smart of me, wasn't it?

This is me and 2 of my knitting helpers. The black one really is not happy. He does not want Munch on Mom's lap. I "belong" to Cole. I am surprised that he allowed Munch to stay there as long as he did. That is why I had Dale take the pic. Cole usually does not allow any of the other cats to sit on my lap long enough for a picture.

I also have my lace stole to take a pic of . I will have to have some help with that one. It is all blocked, ends woven in and ready to wear. Maybe I will get someone to take a pic of it on me. We will see.

Hello

2010-03-03T16:40:00.002-05:00

I try to do better, honest I do. I post on here and have great intentions to post again soon. Time just somehow seems to get away from me.

I have some knitting that I need to take pics of and post. Maybe this weekend. Hubby keeps taking the camera. I need to get one of my own. *sigh*

Maybe more this weekend. Just wanted to post a shortie.

Y'all take care.

Crit

2010-01-22T14:34:00.004-05:00

My son just told me this morning that Crit died sometime during the night. He was around 2 and that is pretty good for a hamster. He also told me that the past week he has been acting crazy. Poor little thing.

I had planned to bring him to the store with me but with Zeus I was afraid to.

I enjoyed having him but don't plan on replacing him.

Coley was always fascinated by him.

The Zeus Man

2010-01-15T11:14:00.003-05:00

Zeus says, " Come to the store and see me. I love people."
This cat is really a people cat. He loves to see people come into the shop. He is afraid of no one and seems to have never met a stranger, just a friend that he has not met yet. LOL

Just For Paws Part 2

2010-01-14T16:25:00.007-05:00

I have some added (may I say unneeded) help on my chair. Zeus, the deaf store cat, is sitting on the back of the chair as I perch on the front of it. He is "helping" Mom. Well, in a way he is, as long as he is there I know he is not off committing mischief, which he is well known for, bless his sweet little heart. LOL

Most of these pictures are back in the kitchen area. It is small but adequate at the present time. If we need to in the future we can knock out a wall and expand the kitchen without too much trouble. But that is later. We are all sick and tired of renovations right now. We are struggling just to finish up the projects that were not finished before we opened.

This is our fantastic oven (that we bought secondhand and got a fabulous deal on) and our brand new microwave oven that also grills.

This is our work area where the magic begins. This L shaped table is really great as M and I can stand on either side and cut out the treats. Makes things go faster.

Back to the front now. This is the front counter which I think was also in the last post. The wall hanging was made by a friend of ours for my DIL. You can't tell it in the picture but some of the prints have dog paws on them. It is really adorable.

A look out the front window. I wish I had thought to take pictures while we were still decorated for Christmas but alas, I did not. Maybe next year.

When we took all the Christmas decorations down it looked so bare in the store. We want to find some kind of lights to hang around the windows. They are so big and look so plain. The outside is ok since we have an OPEN banner and the American flag on either side of the door.

This is the computer area, which is my domain totally. Well, I share it with Zeus. He is the white blob on top of the printer. Before y'all tell me, I know that that is hard on a printer. Now if only you would tell Zeus.

The web page is still a work in progress. I hope he gets it done quickly. We really need to get it up and running. I'll keep you apprized of it.

That is all for now.

Have a good one.......

Just For Paws

2010-01-07T12:56:00.003-05:00

Finally here are pictures of our store. I am pretty pleased with how it looks. We worked hard to get it to this point and the hard work really shows.

Soon we hope to have our website up and running so that y'all can order online from us. We do make some awsome treats.
I was trying to arrange the pictures and put some explanation with them, but alas my skills today are null and void. So here are the pictures. They are pretty much self explanatory so enjoy them. Any questions, just ask.

We are supposed to be having a major winter storm (for our area) but so far it has not happened. It is snowing, but not hard and not fast. We will see.

I want it to come so I can go home early, LOL. I have a lot of work I can be doing at home and with the snow, no one is out shopping for pet treats. I imagine they are all at Wal-Mart stocking up on bread and milk.

I'll try to post a few more pics in the near future. I have a couple of sweaters that I need to post on here and a couple of pair of socks.

Stay warm and I hope to be back soon.

Time sure flies when you are busy......

2009-10-22T10:38:00.002-04:00

Whatever happened to my weekly updates? They went the way of my spare time, there is none.

We had planned to open the store on Oct 31 as a pre-opening and officially open on Nov 3. Well that plan fell through. Now we ARE opening Nov 14 as a pre-opening and the official is Nov 17.

Things are coming along, although slowly. We spent 2 months just on the floor, but it is all done and looks cool, I think. It is rustic looking since it is 118 years old and has not had an easy life. When we were sanding it, it smelled like it was cedar. We have no idea what it is, we just know it was a real pain in the behind to finish.
We have the front room painted. We now need to get the trim cleaned up and painted. The kitchen area and the hall still need some TLC.

D and I have been working on the hot tub patio here at the house. This morning we finally got all the pavers laid. So we are almost ready for the hot tub. Good thing, since we have to have it delivered by Oct 31.
These long days spent working at the store we could really have used it to relax in and soothe sore muscles. Soon.....

Well, back to work.
I will download pictures and post them later.

Byeeee......

About Fred Carr......

2009-09-12T12:21:00.002-04:00

We tried googling him and didn't really find anything that would help us. As Marit found out, there are several of them. Since we have no idea where he was from or if he worked on the building or was family to someone who did we can't find a definitive answer as to who he was.
Maybe someone will come in the store who will remember having a great-great-great grandad, uncle, whatever and can tell us about him. IF I ever find out, I will let y'all know.

Weekly update....

2009-09-11T08:52:00.003-04:00

The work is coming along nicely. We have almost all of the old flooring covering the original flooring torn up. We were not going to tear up the flooring in the kitchen but when we took the old carpet up the sub flooring under that had all gotten wet at some point in time and had just disintegrated. So we had to pull some more flooring up. We have a piece about 3 feet wide and 7 or 8 feet long to tear up and then we will start counter setting nails and then be ready to sand and finish with poly. We hope to get that done this week so we can let the floor cure for a few days and then start painting the walls.
When we finally start painting the work load should lessen quite a bit. We have about a month and a half to get it all done. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. :)
I have some pictures but I need to download them. Maybe I will post some more later this weekend.

Tomorrow we are going to be working here at the house on the hot tub patio. We really need to get that done as the hot tub has to be delivered by Oct 31. D's brother is bringing over his excavator tomorrow to help us dig out the area we need to lower. Should be a nice dirty day of work.

Later......

Poor Fred Carr.....

2009-09-04T09:18:00.002-04:00

Poor Fred Carr. We decided to take all the plaster off of the wall (it was very loose we discovered) and use the brick behind it.
I tried ever so carefully to cut around him so we could take it down in one piece and frame it for display. I was doing so well when it all just crumbled. There was a large square nail right in the center of it and that is what caused it to crumble. I have the pieces and am going to try to piece them back but I don't have much hope that it will work. I did get a better closer picture before I started taking it down though. So a picture may have to do. :(

I don't have time to upload any pictures right now, but hopefully later this evening I will have the time to.

Things are going really well workwise in at the store. Since we decided to take the plaster down that means we don't have to try to patch the wall and then paint it. Now we just have to clean it up a bit and slap a couple coats of poly on there so it will be easier to clean when we need to do that.
We may be ready to paint the other wall by next week. I hope so. I am so anxious to get rid of the dirty blue that is on the walls now. We are thinking of going for a light green, in mint green or soft sage green. The trim will all be white as it is to intricate to try to clean off the many layers of color on it and just varnish it (which is what I would do if I had unlimited time to do it).

We are going to Cincy today to pick up a bakery case and an L-shaped stainless steel table. That will give up pretty much all the large equipment needed since we already have our oven, sink, and fridge. We still need to decide if we want a range or a burner. We think a range, but the cost will be the deciding factor.

Time to be off. More later.

BIG NEWS!!!!!!!

2009-08-28T08:42:00.004-04:00

I know it has been a bit since I last posted. Been too busy living life. LOL

But do I have big news now.... My DIL and I are opening a pet bakery! Yep, we are going to be baking the treats ourselves and selling them from a storefront in town.

We will be in the bottom of our Masonic Temple in town. The building was built back in 1891 so it is very old and has a lot of character that has been covered over in years past. We are in the process of uncovering that character and bringing it back to its original glory. We have already taken some rough cut cedar down off of one wall and revealed the original plaster and lath that seems to be in pretty good shape. We will just have to skim coat it with plaster and then paint it.

We also found the coolest writing on the plaster.....

We have no idea who Fred Carr is but he was in the building June 3, 1901. I want to sort of frame around it and not cover it, but I am being overruled. We will see who wins.

We have been hard at work taking the floor back to it's original hardwood. We finally just last night got all the extra floors that were on top of it off. Now we have to clean it up, sand it a bit and then refinish it.

It will not look brand new but then it isn't. It is over 100 years old and has lots of character. I love it.

So far we have bought an oven, a stainless steel 3 bowl sink and a large mixer. Since we are not opening until November we are not buying too much of the equipment until we have the kitchen in the building ready. We don't want to have to move them too many time. :)

More to come......

Back again?? WOW

2009-05-22T11:20:00.002-04:00

Still no pictues, but today is a beautiful day and I am not working so maybe I will get the camera out and have D help me get a pic or two of my sweaters.

Boy do I have the spinning bug badly. LOL It is such fun to do and really not as hard as I thought it was going to be. The basics are really pretty basic, it is just practice, practice, practice. D has said that he can see a big improvement in my spinning. He watches it go on the bobbin as I spin. TV must really be boring him. Hehehe
My merino/silk is truly a treat to spin. Once I started spinning over the fold it is so easy to make it consistent. I love it. Good thing since I have a pound of pink blend and a pound of purple/grey blend. I have spun just over 4 oz of the pink. I really want to start on the purple but am going to MAKE myself finish the pink first so I can get it plyed and then knit it up.

That's all for now.

??????

2009-05-21T09:19:00.003-04:00

I don't have a great story to tell or any great pics to post. My life is sooooo boring. Oh, well.

I have gotten a spinning wheel since I last posted (2 months and a day ago). It is an Ashford Traveler and it is sooooo purty! I love it. I have spun a bit of Coopworth wool, some llama from my daughter's own llama, and some merino/silk blend. The coopworth was the first that I spun and it is going to be knit into a scarf. It will be a funky scarf but it will be mine.

The llama I am not sure what to make out of it. The first bobbin I spun I just did it the same way as I did the coopworth and it is so silky that I made a right mess of it. It is totally thick and thin and then some very thin. The second bobbin I "spun over the fold" (thanks to TracyKnits telling me about that method) and it is much more even. I will have to ply the bad with the good but that is ok. It is still new spinning so I don't expect it to be great.

But I am learning. The merino/silk I am doing over the fold and it is coming out quite good. I have a pound of a pink blend and a pound of a purple/grey blend. If I spin it fine enough I should have enough of both of them to actually make something. Maybe a shawl or a capelet. We will see.

I really need to get the camera out and take some pictures. I have 2 sweaters, about 4 pair of socks, a baby sweater, and my spinning to post. Maybe this weekend.

Spring is Here, or is it?

2009-03-20T09:46:00.002-04:00

The calendar says that it is spring but my thermometer says maybe not. It is 33F today. That is not quite spring like.

I should have pics to post but I just have not taken the time to take the pics. I have a couple three pair of socks and a sweater that I really need to post a picture of . It is my alpaca "Sweater to Love" and I do love it. I would wear it everyday if my family wouldn't look at me strangely.
I have another sweater almost finished. It is "Tailored with a Twist". I made this sweater a while ago and really loved it. I then washed it and felted it. This time I am making it out of Cotton Fleece from Brown Sheep. Hopefully it will fair better. The other was out of a merion, silk, alpaca mix and was just glorious.

Not much else to say until I take some pics.

Everyone enjoy the weekend and hope that spring weather comes soon to match the calendar.

No electricity, oh my...

2009-02-01T17:24:00.007-05:00

We live out in the country and along with the joys of living out here goes the risk that the electric company comes out here last to fix it.

Wednesday morning around 3:20 a.m. our power went out. D was watching tv at the time and he said that when the power went it was like hundreds of blue flashes around the countryside. We just snuggled down under the covers and waited for morning to come and with it probably power. Well, morning came but the power did not.

Since it was exceedingly cold (down in the teens) we called our kids and D's mom to tell them to come up here. We have a fireplace that we had just put gas logs into so we had heat. By 10 a.m. they were all up here along with their dogs.

We had 2 miniature dachshunds, an English Bulldog, hubby's shepherd/Saint Bernard mix, my St. Bernard, and my 4 cats. Amazingly they all got along really well. For the most part my cats all stayed upstairs away from the strange dogs.

Friday G remembered Crit. I went out to the office to bring him in. He was fine but he had evidently been so cold he had not run on his wheel. He made up for lost time as soon as he got a little warmed up. I finally had to put him in the living room to give us all a break from his wheel. Poor fella.

The outdoors was really beautiful but a lot of damage was done to our trees. I have a Maple in my front yard that I planted when my son was a baby. I have babied that tree, splintted it back together, argued with D that he could not cut it down. Well, I think he has now won the argument. The top and a large limb off of the side came down from the ice.

The voice in the video is me, the background one is my SIL. The video was taken from my front porch. It was really snowing hard and trees were falling in the woods like crazy. It was really kind or surreal.

Luckily with all the extras here it is a good thing that we have a large house. But now that they are all gone the house seems so empty. I am feeling kind of let down. I will get over it but for the evening I am going to be down and dumpy.

Silly Little Crit

2009-01-04T13:37:00.006-05:00

I forgot to tell about Crit going missing. Crit is my RoboHamster.
The week of Christmas while we were in VA my daughter called me and asked if Crit had died. I told her not that I was aware of. I had just cleaned his cage on Sat and he was fine then. She said that he was not in his cage now. Since he had not died and I had not disposed of him she and her brother started a systematic search of the offices. (I had to take Crit out to the office since D's dog had decided that Crit belonged to her and would snap at the cats when they would get near his cage.)
I talked to G later in the day and they had not found him yet. I told her to put his cage down on the floor and open the door and maybe he would just find his way back by himself. She did as I asked.
The next day when we talked she said that he had been to the cage as the food that they had put out for him was gone. I laughed and said well that isn't working. They left the cage that way for a few days and each morning the food was gone and so was Crit.
Finally, G decided to take the top off of the cage and make a ramp up to it. Sure enough the next morning Crit was back safe and sound in his cage.
We figure that what happened was when I cleaned the cage and put his wheel back on I got it crowded over to the side and the bars were spread apart enough for him to slip through. He is just a little squirt and he could, and probably did, get out that way. I am glad that he is back. I enjoy watching him when I am in my office. Also, now that it is cold he will let me stroke his belly. I still cannot pick him up, but we are making progress.

About two weeks ago when it was freezing cold outside I saw my cat Velcro at the slider and I thought immediately that "Oh, no, it has started to rain again." Then I looked closer and realized that he was not wet from the rain but he had apparently fallen into the pool ( we had closed the pool as far as taking the pump, etc off but we had not gotten around to putting the winter cover on). I got him inside, got a towel and rubbed him down vigorously. I went out to the office to tell Dale what had happened and that we had to get the pool covered. I came back over to the house and began to rub Belly (Velcro's nickname) down with another towel. He was shivering so I wrapped him in a fleece blanket and sat down to hold him. He was shaking so hard he was making me shake. I was about to call the vet when the shivering started to subside. I continued to hold him for a while longer. He is fine now and did not even get a cold of the sniffles from his escapade. The pool is now covered so I don't have to worry about any more of my babies falling in. Bell was so lucky because he fell in near the skimmer so he had something to get a hold of to pull himself out and also because I was at home and in the family room when he came to the slider. If either of those had not been so I am sure he would have frozen to death. I figure he used up 3 or 4 of his 9 lives on that one.

I have no pics to show. I have been really slow knitting here lately. I am working on a sweater that is really taking some time to do. It will be months before it is done, I am afraid. I will try to take some in progress pics this week and post them.
The pattern is called "Cardigan to Love" #LW1660-WM0312 designed by Lynda Cyr and can be found free at http://www.coatsandclark.com/.
I am knitting it in a sport weight alpaca so it is going to be a lot lacier and looser knit than the picture. So I am making it in a larger size to make it fit. I did a swatch this time (OH! MY!) and got the gauge I needed. I hope I did not mess up in my thinking. So far it looks as if it will be fine.
I made the sleeves wrist length as I just can't handle 3/4 length sleeves for winter and being made out of alpaca it is going to be a winter sweater. I have both sleeves knit and about 4 inches of the body. I am really loving it.

More later.

Belated Merry Christmas and Early Happy New Year.

2008-12-29T08:31:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone had a very nice Christmas. I did. I was at home and had my kids and family around me.
I love Christmas, the reason for it, the family gathering, all the wonderful food, the decorating, the songs and movies, just all of it.
I used to start playing Christmas carols in Aug and start my holiday cookie baking in Sept. I would bake dozens of cookies of all kinds. Then the kids grew up, D developed hypoglycemia, and I just don't need the calories so I have all but stopped baking for Christmas. This year I baked a couple of "packages" of store cookies. I really cheated. Oh, well.

D and I are back here in VA. We will be here all week so the kids are on duty at home taking care of things.
My son called this morning to see if my cell phone was working because theirs were not working back in Ohio. Then my daughter called to see if Crit the RoboHamster had died. He is not in his cage. Nope, he had not died as of yesterday. Guess they are now tearing the office apart trying to find him. I hope they do. Crit is a little cutie and so soft to pet.

It is almost time to go on my daily "food forage" to get dinner tonight. I think I will fix pork chops for dinner tonight. I also think I will try Shake-N-Bake on them. Hope it turns out ok. D's Grandma always used to use Shake-N-Bake. Grandma also always would unthaw things for dinner. I'll fix a baked potato. a veggie, and a biscuit for us. I'll see what "package" cookies they have to bake. Hey, I don't have a mixer down here to make my own (that is my excuse and I am sticking to it LOL).

D and I will be here for New Years so I have to come up with something special for Wed evening. Some easy to prepare snacks. I told D to ask the project manager if he wanted to eat with us Wed evening since he will be away from his wife and he and Dale have become good friends. This is the 3rd job that they have worked together on.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and a great 2009. God Bless.

Going home...

2008-12-22T20:49:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we made the trip back down here to VA thinking that we would be here until Christmas Eve, then have to turn around and come back down here Christmas night. Well, they didn't get some kind of dig permit so we get to go home in the morning and don't have to be back for him to work Friday. Hooray!!!
Now I should be packing up everything to leave in the morning but I am not. I will get it done. I am the one who does all of the packing and usually I even pack it into the van. I seem to be able to pack in more than D can. I have the knack I guess.

Now I will be home for Christmas Eve and can get things ready to take to my MIL's and have time to get everything done at home. Thinking that I might not be home until late Christmas Eve I did make sure that all packages were wrapped and the cleaners will be there tomorrow or Wed so I am pretty much set.

Back in the spring or summer (not sure exactly when) I had a crown put on. I don't know what is wrong but boy is it hurting now. I can not bite down on anything with that side of my mouth and have to be very careful biting down on the other side also. I called my dentist but he cannot see me until Jan 5. I don't know if I can stand it that long. I am on the cancellation list though. I will have to call again tomorrow and let them know that I will be home this week but not next week.

Well, I best be getting busy starting to pack things up to go home in the morning. Woohoo!!

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Home, Sweet Home

2008-11-25T10:51:00.002-05:00

I have been home since November 14 and I am loving it. We will have to go back to VA at least once more but I get all of last week, this week, and probably all of next week at home. I love it.
I have been busy the last two days cleaning the house and getting ready for our company Christmas party Sat night. The cleaning people are coming today, but there is so much that has just piled up since I have been gone that I have to do. I have just about got it conquered. I also have most of the decorating done. There are just a few minor things to do. I need to put the lights up around the deck, but am waiting to see if D gets an outlet put in for me or if I have to run extension cord. Where I start the lights will depend on where I can plug them in. If D gets the new outlet put in I can start at the end of the house and I will be able to turn them on and off with a wall switch in the family room. I am hoping for the new outlet, but then it was "supposed" to be in last Christmas so I am not holding out much hope. (I went and bought a timer for an extension cord.)
Just as soon as I finish my cleaning I need to go start embroidering the long-sleeve tees for the guys. These I just bought a couple of weeks ago so I am not wayyyyy behind on getting them done like I was the short-sleeve tees (I had had them for over 2 years.)
This past Sunday we had Thanksgiving at D's Moms. She started doing that when all of her boys were older and D and I were married That way the boys could be with their sweeties on Thanksgiving but she and G would also have a Thanksgiving with the kids. It works out fine.
Thursday we go to our son's house for dinner. His wife asked me several years ago if it would be OK for her to do the meal and I told her to go for it. I will fix several dishes to take down but I don't have the full meal to do or all of the cleaning, although this year it will be done anyway. But I won't have the cleanup.
Back to work.
Ta...Judy

Can you believe it?

2008-11-07T15:13:00.008-05:00

I never thought to see gas this low again. Just over a month ago, Sept 28, we filled my van up and gas was $3.83, that is almost a $2 drop. It is nice to see the price go down but it is also scary. Time will tell.

I am still down here in VA but I have both of my dogs with me. Betsie, the smaller dog, now sleeps in Katie's old cage. Yesterday when my little friend A and her Mom and brother came to visit me A decided that she wanted to play that Betsie's bed was her house....

At one point Betsie was in there with her but I must have missed that picture. It was cute and Betsie was very careful to not hurt A.

Katie says, "Just let me lay here and keep watch."

Later in the evening Betsie got into her little hidey hole and took a nap.

That is the fireplace in my room. It is a gas one so it is just a flip of a switch and I have a nice fire. Only bad thing is that it has been too hot this week to use it. Well, D did turn it on Monday morning but it was so hot in here I could barely breathe so I had to shut it down. Looks like we will be in this room pretty much the rest of the year so I should get to use it.

Back in Virginia

2008-11-05T09:04:00.003-05:00

We got back to VA Sunday evening. This time I have both of the dogs with me. It is so good to have Katie along. I really missed her when she was at home and I was here. She is a good dog and a good traveler. Her one big problem is that she is mouthy. She has to bark at anyone new she sees until I tell her to hush. Betsie hardly ever barks.

I got a new "toy"/work item. Here it is. Is'nt she pretty? It may not embroider as fast or as large as my commercial machine but she is portable. This way I can get all those shirts for D done that I just do not have the time to do when we are at home. Monday it took me about half of the day to figure out how to run her, how to set up the design, and which presser foot to put on so I only got 4 shirts done. Yesterday when I started I had all of that figured out so I managed to get 12 shirts done. One thing about her sewing slower is that I have time to knit a row or two between having to change shirts. (So I am getting some knitting done this week.) I have 4 more XL's to do, 17 L's, a pullover sweatshirt, a zip sweatshirt, and 11 fleece beanies. I hope to get all of that done before we go home this weekend. Then next time we come down I hope to have some longsleeve tees to do up. It makes the day go so much faster with something to do.

It is a little after 9 so it is time to go "shopping" for the day. I have to get a few things for dinner tonight and I need to find some silicon spray for my embroidery. Also, I go out at this time so Wilma can come in and clean without having to work around Katie. (Katie is too big to fit in the dog cage.)

Audrey and Marit, I mailed out your PIF packages last week. Aud, yours may be there now or in a day or so, Marit, I don't know how long it will take for you to get yours. Hope you girls like what I sent. :)

Maybe more later.....

It's a St. Nard!

2008-10-25T11:17:00.002-04:00

I was watching an old "I Love Lucy" show and Richard Widmark had a St. Bernard. It was nowhere as pretty as my Katie, but it was a St. Nard.
Gee, I miss my baby. It looks like it is going to be Tuesday before we get to go home.

My cold decided not to get better. My throat is not as sore and I can talk a bit better but now I have a hard cough and a runny nose. I got a box of Puff's with lotion and Vicks yesterday and will probably have to go back and get another box today.

The rain has stopped but it is still chilly out, not as chilly, thank goodness.

The pizza Thursday evening was delish. I will probably fix that meal again when we are back down here.
We were supposed to go out with another couple so I didn't go get anything for dinner so we had to eat out. D didn't see the other man to make plans so we will go out with them another time. The man is going to be having hip replacement and wants to talk with D about it. D has had both of his hips replaced. The first was in Nov 99 and the second in Jan 01. It was the best thing he could have done. I am not sure he would even be able to walk now if he hadn't had it done.

If my head clears and stops hurting I am planning on going out to the craft stores that I can find today. I will take my camera.

Pizza tonight.

2008-10-23T16:51:00.002-04:00

The pork chops and baked potato last night were delicious. The gravy was more of just a thin sauce that we put over the chops, but it was good.
Tonight I am fixing pizza. It is a recipe that I got off of E-diets. All you do is use pizza crust and top it with fresh tomatoes and mushrooms. You can add shreadded cheese if you wish. It is really delish. It sounds very plain and flavorless but it really isn't. If I were at home I would also put some Italian seasoning on it, but since I am not it will just have some fresh ground pepper and maybe a little sea salt. I am cheating a bit on this one as I have bought already prepared pizza crust instead of making it up myself. You have to make concessions sometimes.

What little knitting I have done today has been on my fingerless mitts. I am coughing so much I just don't feel like doing anything. But the coughing means the cold is beginning to break up so I should start feeling better soon.

Nothing

2008-10-22T17:24:00.003-04:00

Nothing special to tell today, my cold has still got me down so I haven't made it out to the craft stores. Maybe tomorrow.

After finishing my socks I started working on a sweater but I am not sure the yarn is going to work with the pattern. It may be to soft and drapey. So I took some leftover sock yarn and decided to make a pair of fingerless mitts. They are an easy knit and I do like to wear them this time of year.

Tonight for dinner D and I are having porkchops in gravy and a baked potato. I bought green beans for dinner last night but we didn't have them. I need a can opener to get them out of the can and I don't have one here and I did not want to go buy one. So I will take them home and fix them there.

Last evening I baked a pack of chocolate chip cookies for D to take to the plant site with him. He likes to take in sweets occassionally so when I was out shopping yesterday I decided to get a package of them and bake them. If I place them just right I can get 8 on a tray at one time. Since there was only 20 in the pack it didn't take too long to do them.

Doesn't Betsie look sad? That is her normal look. She has the Saint Bernard sad face. She is in her bed here in the hotel room. She spends quite a bit of her day in there since we have been down here. I guess it is her safe and familiar place. The only time we shut the door on it is when we leave the room to go eat or something. The rest of the time she has freedom to stay in there or out in the room, her choice.

Me again

2008-10-21T17:33:00.003-04:00

D liked the chicken in mushroom soup so well that he said to fix it again tonight. He also said that if I did not feel like cooking he would take me out for dinner. I told him that I felt so bad I would rather cook here than have to go out to eat.
I am such a baby when I have one of these colds. I just hope it does not turn into bronchitis like it usually does. If I am going to be that sick I need to be at home where I can go to my doctor and get the special prescription of meds that works for me.

I see so many use strike through in their blogs but I can't seem to find it. Anyone out there have a clue of how to do this on blogger? On some things I have used it has a strike through icon but none here. Hmmmm.

I leave you with a picture of my Coley. I do miss him, I'll see him this weekend though and I don't think we have to come back to VA until the following weekend.

more socks

2008-10-21T12:34:00.004-04:00

I got pictures of my October Sockamania socks this morning. As usual I can't seem to get a picture with good detail of the design. One of these days I may figure out the secret to doing good pictures but I am not going to hold my breath waiting. I tried putting them on and that did not help either. So there they are. The yarn is called Alpaca Sox. It is 60% alpaca, 20% merino wool, and 20% nylon. I did my usual toe up, ML, two at once on my KP Options size 1's.

When I had them on my feet they felt really soft and luxurious. I think they are going to be a cold weather sock, so I will have to wait a bit to wear them. Even my cold feet are not ready for them yet.

Here is a picture of my "kitchen". It does a really nice job here. I would go crazy if this were all I had at home to try to cook on. Last evening I fixed chicken in mushroom soup w/ biscuits on the side. The chicken was so moist, tender, and delicious. I was going to have mashed potatoes with it but the potatoes in the deli really looked dried out and icky. I was going to get a can of some veggie and forgot to. Now what to fix for this evening?

My cold is really bad now. I can barely whisper and my thoat is so sore I can barely swallow. I guess I am going to have to go get me something for the sore throat. I need to get some Nyquil to make me sleep, but that is a problem since I get up at 5:30 to fix D's bucket while he takes Betsie out for her morning walk. I'll just suffer through.

Maybe today....

2008-10-20T11:36:00.003-04:00

I didn't make it out to the craft stores on Sat. I had lost the list and did not think to just look in the phone book and make a new list. (Bad headache was keeping me from thinking straight.) I will try to get to them either today or tomorrow. I will also try to remember to take in my camera so I can take pictures for Silfert. I don't always think to take the camera and take pictures, I seem to think about it after the fact. Which is really strange since I am the one who usually takes the pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I need to take some of my Oct. Sockamania socks. I finished them up yesterday morning. They won't be blocked as I don't have a means of blocking them here in the motel room. I'll do my best.
The camera is now here with me. Now I only have to take the pictures. Maybe later, I am going to go take a nap since I was up several times in the night and am very sleepy now.

Later....

Oops! my mistake

2008-10-18T08:38:00.002-04:00

The cell phone is not broken. I had it plugged into the wrong charger. When D came in Thursday evening I was telling him about it when all of a sudden I noticed that I had used his charger instead of mine. Changed chargers and voila! I have cellphone again. I felt like such a ditz.

It is Saturday morning and in a bit I need to go out and get some "groceries". The cupboard, or in this case the drawer, is bare. We are out of most of the essentials like frozen waffles, chips, fruit, water, & peanut butter. D has to have his peanut butter to put on his frozen waffles that he has for breakfast. Got to keep him happy.

I am almost done with my October Sockamania socks. I have about 1 1/2 repeats to do on the leg and they will be done. Then I am going to start on my alpaca sweater.

Today I think I am going out in search of a yarn/craft store. There are 1 or 2 around here close and with the GPS I feel safe in saying that I can probably find them.

The trees down here in VA are really getting pretty. The temp is changing and getting colder so they will probably hit their peak soon and begin to fade. I'll try to get some pictures of them. I love seeing the fall trees.

Technology - it will get you

2008-10-16T17:39:00.003-04:00

Of all the times for my cell phone to break this is about the worst. I am down here in VA and the only way D can reach me is by cell phone and the danged thing decided to quit. It gave me no advance warning at all. It had been just fine. I was talking to my daughter and the battery was getting low. While we were talking it just quit. Natch I just thought that the battery was dead and needed recharged so I plugged it in to charge. That was around 3 and it still will not turn back on. It is a pink Razr that I have had about 2 years so I guess it is about time. I hate getting a new phone. I suppose D and I will have to go out tonight to try to find me a phone.
I KNOW he is going to come in this evening and accuse me of not charging the phone or charging it and not turning it back on. I am famous for that. :)

I like my new counter. I was about to just give this thing up since I got very few comments and thought that that was all that was reading. With the counter I have found that there are a few more reading, they just don't leave comments. So I will hang in here for a while longer.

For anyone out there who can answer, I have a question. I know how to make a link and have it be the nick and not the URL. My question is how do you find the URL without going out of this part and going into layout to find the URL. Is there an easier way? Anyone who reads this and has the answer, please tell me. Thanks, in advance.

PIF Recap

2008-10-15T16:03:00.004-04:00

Why do I always hit enter after typing the title? I have posted just a title so many times and then had to go back and edit it. Geez, you would think that I would learn.

On Oct 1 I posted a PIF post. I finally got 2 firm wishes to do PIF. The winners (?) are Silfert and Marit. Congratulations. Your *surprises* will be in the mail as soon as I can find the post office. The ladies at the hotel desk told me where it is but they didn't have a street address for me to plug into my GPS so I am not sure I will find it, but I think I can.

Last night D wanted to go out to eat so I am going to fix the pork roast this evening. I should have gone out today and got a vegetable but I just didn't feel like it. So no veggies this evening. Besides, I don't think I have room in the *oven*, it is sooooo big. lol

NeoCounter

2008-10-14T12:19:00.003-04:00

I put that NeoCounter on my blog to see just how many were coming by but not leaving comments. I think it is screwy. It say 22 people from Thailand have come, 1 from the US, and 1 from Singapore. What is up with that?
I'll leave it there for a day or so, but I might just ditch it. How would someone in Thailand or Singapore find me? Don't know.

I just got back from my daily "food pilgrimage". We are having pork roast w/mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, and biscuits for supper. Dang, I should have gotten some green beans (not sure I have enough room to do all of that though). Not a bad meal considering that I have to fix it all in one little toaster oven.
Last night we had porkchops in salsa and a side salad. The night before it was skinless, boneless chicken breast in salsa and a baked potato (D had the leftover chicken in his bucket). I wanted to fix meatballs in spaghetti sauce last night but the smallest bag of meatballs had 64 of them. No way the two of us could have eaten that and the fridge is just a small one with an even smaller freezer, so I had to ditch that idea.
Tomorrow night I am thinking of black beans and shrimp.
It is fun coming up with meals that I can fix in the toaster oven. I could just get frozen dinners but where is the fun and adventure in that? Besides, there is way too many calories, salt, fat, etc in them.
This is fun. Hey, I need something to fill my days while I am here at the hotel.
Speaking of which, it is time to take Betsie out for her afternoon walk and then we will come in and have lunch.

edited to add:The NeoCounter has been replaced by a BlogPatrol counter suggested to me by Silfert. thanks.

Back again.

2008-10-12T13:45:00.003-04:00

Can you believe it? We just got home from VA around 5:30 Friday evening, got a call around 6 that we had to be back in VA the next day as D has to work today. Soooo, we slept in our own bed one night and back on the road.

Thankfully they just put all new mattresses in the hotel last Monday and they are nice mattresses. This Super8 is 8 years old but to look at it you would think that it is only a couple of years old. They really keep the place clean. I am very impressed with the place. This little town only has 3 motels in it and this is the best of them. We have been here so much here lately that the ladies at the front desk made a special reservation for D and I and put us in the biggest regular king room. It is probably about 6 foot longer than the normal room, which may not sound like much, but when you only have one room to live in for two weeks it means a lot. I makes for more room for me and Betsie to move around in during the day.

The staff here are all very friendly and super nice. They are love Betsie and make a point to pet her whenever we are out walking. I take her walkies 2 to 3 times a day for 30 minutes.

Friday when we were going home we had to stop and get gas and can you believe these prices:

We thought we would never see gas below $3 again. This was down here in VA, at home in OH it is $3.13 a gallon. I didn't have my camera with me when I saw the prices in Ohio.

When I was packing clothes to come back down here I took a break to go out to lunch with D and our kids. I hadn't seen them in a week and I won't get to see them again for 2 weeks, so it was a break that I was very glad to take. When I got home I found this:

I had left my lingerie drawer open and Coley climbed in it. He even stayed there while I went down and got the camera and came back to take a picture. He is a very intellegent cat, he is sleeping on my hand knit socks. LOL. Love the little baby.

I'll leave you with a picture I took of Katie, my very special baby.

??????

2008-10-08T10:12:00.003-04:00

I am back down here in VA. Have been here since Sunday and hopefully we will be going home tomorrow. Then we turn around and come back down again Sunday to spend another week. This job is supposed to be all tied up by the end of the year, but we all know that construction jobs never end on time. Since we are doing the surveying we probably won't be here until the work is all done. Maybe we will get all the layout done by then though, if they quit making changes and we can just do the layout work once instead of over and over.

I am missing my Katie and my cats, especially Coley who I *belong* to. I'll spend as much time with them this weekend as I can. I would bring Katie with me but she is old now and I am not sure she would take the change in her schedule very well. She is a good traveler but not to be gone for a whole week.

There is always room for improvement....

2008-10-02T07:58:00.003-04:00

I got this from Tama's blog.

You Are 60% Interesting

You are a fairly interesting person. Many people find you to be intriguing.
You have a dynamic, adventurous life... a life that others envy.

You are genuinely interested in and open to the world.
You love making new friends, and you're always up for an unusual experience.

Like everyone else, you can get a bit boring from time to time. That's normal.
But unlike everyone else, you can pull yourself out of a rut. You don't stay boring for long.

Are You Boring or Interesting?

Sometimes we think we are the be all, end all and the center of the universe. I never thought that so this was a surprise to me. I am 60% interesting. I would have thought only about 5 or 10%. Nice surprise.

Last night Dale and I took the employees down here in VA and the wife and kids out to dinner. This is a small town so there is not really that many options. We went to a nice little pizza place. Anna had a child's pizza of which she ate all but the small sliver that hit the floor, well done Anna (she is my little playmate friend). Mitchell who will be 1 the end of Nov had already eaten so he just chewed on a dill pickle. He was so cute. The first pickle he chewed on must not have been too dill but when he dropped it and I gave him another pickle it must have really been sour, he made the cutest sour face. I laughed until I cried. I had thought to take my camera with us but went out the door without it, oh well.

I had a real brainstorm yesterday while sitting here in the room trying to decide what I was going to do. In 1995 I purchased a Melco industrial embroidery machine. For the next 10 years I had an embroidery business that I ran from my home. Three years ago Dale needed me to come do the books for the business and run the office so I quit the embroidery business and started full time for him. I am not sorry that I made that change, my business was really beginning to slow down and with this economy I doubt that I would still have it anyway. I did keep all my equipment since it was paid off and not really worth what I felt it was, it was worth more to me to keep it than to sell it. I still use it for gifts and to make shirts, jackets, hats, etc for the business. Sooooo, I got to thinking that if I was going to be stuck down here in a hotel room if I had a small machine I could embroider the shirts that I have been trying to get done for better than a year. I went online last evening and was looking at Bernina and Pfaff machines.

When we go home this weekend we will be going through Charleston, WV and there is a shop there that has Bernina. We will stop in and see what they have if it is a decent time when we go through Charleston.

Time to go take BetsieBoo for the first walk of the day. I will probably be back again later.

Pay It Forward

2008-10-01T10:39:00.003-04:00

Almost a year ago I answered a Pay It Forward comment on Anni's blog. I kept meaning to post it here but I was very sketchy about posting then. Well, I am doing it now. The first 3 people (I am really optimistic here, LOL) will get a handmade gift from me. I am not sure just what it will be but it will be handmade. So if you want a nice surprise in the mail, leave a comment. (Edited to add: Since I am so long in doing this anyone who answers is not going to have to pay it on. If you wish, it stops here.)

Yesterday afternoon my little playmate came over and we played on the Nintendo and had a really nice afternoon. She told me stories again, had a snack and cried when she had to go back to her room. That made me feel good that she wanted to stay with me but bad because I made her cry by taking her back. I really had to since I needed to take BetsieBoo for her afternoon walk.
Right after she got here she made me cover my boo-boo with a band aid as she didn't want to see it.
Today I am leaving the band aid off as much as possible since the sticky stuff has made a sore spot on my hand. I really don't need any other trauma on it. :)

Having Betsie here with me is good for my weight loss efforts. We go out 3 times a day and walk for 30 minutes. I am sure it is 30 minutes each time since I check my watch. Sometimes after only 5 minutes it seems like it should be time to come in but I hang in there for the full 30 minutes.

I am knitting on my Tailored With a Twist sweater. The pattern was in March 200 Creative Knitting magazine. This is the sweater that I made out of wool/alpaca/silk yarn, wore it for about a year, washed it and it smelled like wet sheep, washed it again and forgot to set the washer on delicate and felted the danged thing. I loved that sweater so much I decided to redo it in the yarn it called for. I am not loving it as much. I just hope to finish it. The yarn called for is Cotton Fleece from Brown Sheep. That yarn is 80% cotton and 20% merino wool. It is nice yarn, just not what I had before.
As soon as I get home I am going to my LYS and get my baby alpaca wound in large balls and I will start that sweater. I am really wanting to do that one. I found a pattern, but it is at home and I can't remember what it is or where I got it. I'll post that later.

It is time for a nap as I didn't sleep well last night, had a tummy ache and a bathroom problem. Oh, well.

Everyone have a good one.

Back in Virginia again.

2008-09-30T10:40:00.005-04:00

We are back in Virginia again and this time Betsie is with us. She is not too happy as "Daddy" is gone from her all day and "Mom" just doesn't cut it since she is "Daddy's" dog. She really perks up when he comes in.

I have a new hand boo-boo to show. This one is a doozy. I was being a dummy and was trying to cut a zip tie off with a large kitchen knife and I cut my thumb. Aren't my stitches cute? I need my head examined for doing such a stupid thing. I just hope that this is the last hand boo-boo I show you guys.

I do have a better pic to show. I finished my sockamania socks this morning. They are out of Tofutsies, done ML toe up. Love that ML. When I finish one sock the other is also done.

One of our employees that is also down here in VA has his wife and two kids with him. Their little girl is a real sweetheart and for some reason really likes me, of course I adore her also. She came over to my room and spent the afternoon with me yesterday. I thought that if she were over here then maybe Mom could get their little boy down for a nap. We had a grand time. We watched cartoons, drew with colored pencils, I made her a bracelet out of some beads I had and she told me lots of stories (she is 3). She is coming back later this afternoon so that she can play a game on my Nintendo DS. I bought a childs game at Kohl's one day so we will play that one. She helps my day to pass more quickly and also it helps her mom with the little one. They have been down here about a week and a half now and will be here until Sat or Sun. I really am not sure how she does it with two little ones in just a hotel room. I would have been nuts long before now. LOL

It is chilly out there, folks!

2008-09-17T11:52:00.003-04:00

I thought it would still be hot/warm down here in Virginia, but it is amazingly cool. I had to break out the long pants this morning. I hate having to start wearing long pants, I love my capris even though I am a shorty.

Sitting here in my hotel room I made a few pretties this morning. I had to go to the Wally-M to get some wire last night. I had brought the beads with me but the wire I brought was too heavy and it also was necklace memory wire so I could not do them yesterday.

One of these days I will learn how to take good photos. I just keep trying but somehow I just do not have the knack just yet. I will keep on keeping on.

My hand is also healing nicely. The bruisin is beginning to fade away. (Isn't the hotel room decor lovely behind my hand? LOL)

I have now bruised both of my hands so I can quit with the bruising. Don't you agree?

Boy oh boy, I need to cut those claws. When I knit my pinky finger on my right hand digs into my palm. I have to keep adjusting the way I hold my needles so that I don't make myself have a real boo-boo. It will have to wait until I get home, no nail file with me, just clippers.

Since my foot is not healing as quickly as the doctor would like it to be he put me on mega calcium tablets and I think that they are making my nails grow even faster than they usually do.

I have some finished socks to show you all.

This pair (below) is my favorite. They are made out of Tofutsies, my all time favorite sock yarn. I do so love that yarn. I checked in my stash and I have 9 balls of it, which is a lot since my entire sock stash is only about 20 pairs worth.

I have a skein of possum yarn that I need to wind and knit up. It maybe my new fave but I will only have one pair of it as it cost pretty dearly (over $35). It was a impulse buy. I just could not imagine possum so I had to get it. LOL. It does feel really soft though. I will probably make my next pair of socks out of it. Unfortunately I have no picture of it.

That is about all for now. 'Everyone have a nice day.

Me again

2008-09-15T14:27:00.004-04:00

A few evening ago I was sitting on the sofa knitting. Cole was laying beside me and as is my usual habit I reached over to stroke him. Well, he must have been in coma Lala Land as he jumped like I had shot him and jumped up on the back of the sofa. When he jumped he pushed off from my hand. WOW, it hurt like the dickens and began to bleed a bit. Then within about 10 SECONDS my hand had swollen a bump about an inch high! It really shocked me. I immediately put an icepack on it and kept one one (off and on) for the rest of the night and the following day. Now a few days later here is my hand. All I can say is that I bruise easily. It will go away soon.
At least I am still able to knit. The first day it hurt to try to knit, but I persevered and managed to do it.

It is good that I can knit as I am stuck in the hotle room again. Even if Dale left me the truck I couldn't go anywhere as I am not allowed to drive just yet. Soon, I hope, we will just have to wait and see.

I brought OTN: a pair of socks, a sweater,and a pair of Norwegian mittens. I also brought yarn to make preemie baby caps, an adult cap, and a pair of fingerless gloves. I am well and truly prepared. I also brought some beads to make some stitch markers. And still I am bored. I just don't want to do any of those things. I also don't want to read the books I brought or play with the little pink thing (this is what I call my Nintendo DNS), or balance the 3 checkbooks that I brought along to do. I don't know what I want to do I just know whatever it is I don't have it.

Maybe I will take a nap.

Katie is thirsty

2008-09-15T12:14:00.002-04:00

Katie loves to drink from a faucet. Until the last year or so she always got her drink from the sink in the powder room. She loves the running water.

Is it September (almost) already?

2008-08-31T15:11:00.006-04:00

I am a baaaadddd blogger. I have great intentions but I just don't seem to come in here and post like I intend to. It has been about a month and a half since I last updated. So here goes.

The Foot:

It is coming along nicely. I am off of the crutches, thank goodness and am back into my surgical shoe and limping around nicely.

I managed to fall off of my crutches 3 times, fall over in the laundry room once while balancing on one foot and turned the walked over once. I was really on a roll, or should I say a fall? Luckily I did not break anything else when I fell.

My animals:

I have a new critter. Two weeks ago I purchased a Booda Cat Litter Box at a pet store in Chillicothe. They had had to order it for me as they no longer carry them in the store on a regular basis. We had been in Columbus all day and it was late when we got home so we did not unpack the van. As a matter of fact, we did not do so until Sunday when we were getting ready to go to a family reunion.

When D got the litter box out of the van he dropped it and it fell apart. That is when he realized that there was a small critter in the box. (I found out about a week later that it is a Robo Hamster.) When I saw it I told D that we would take it back to the pet store when we went to Chillicothe the next time. Wellll, in the meantime we put him down in a cat litter bucket with a cup of water and a bit of cat food, I had nothing else to feed him. Since there was not critter litter in there, he soon became a really stinky mess and I decided that there was no way I could take him back so I decided to just keep him. D put some hay in the bucket along with a flat rock and wedged the water cup down into the hay. This really helped him out a lot and after a day or so he didn't look so bad. When I finally got back to Chillicothe to get a cage and other stuff for him he didn't look half bad. I told the clerk there what had happened and she said that probably some kid had put him in the litter box. I said that I was going to bring him back and she said no, never mind. I asked her what they cost and she told me $25.95!!! Can you believe that for a little hamster?!

Anyway, D's dog has taken a liking to Crit and will sit for long periods of time and just watch him. She also takes great exception to any of my cats trying to come and look at him. I may have to take him out to my office to keep the cats safe from Betsie. The cats cannot get to him but Betsie just does not care. She does not want them near.

A few pics of Crit, Betsie, and Cole.

Katie has an infection/fungus/? on her foot and I have to put a glove on it if she goes out to potty when the grass is wet. We went to Wal-M Friday evening trying to find some child's shoes that we could use for her foot. We found a pair of knock off Croc type shoes but her foot would not fit into them. D tried a rubber glove that he uses for washing the vehicles but it would not stay on. Finally I tried a latex cleaning glove and it worked. When I put it on her she pouts and acts all mistreated. She is so funny. She is 9 years old now and that is old for a St Bernard. I have talked with people who have had St's live for 12 to 14 years. I can only hope. When I took her to the vet because she was limping I ended up with a $253+ vet bill. She is worth every penny of it. Even D did not complain. I guess St's aren't that popular because they are a high maintenance dog. They don't eat alot but they do have health issues and when they need meds it is mega doses. I love her, what more do I need to say.

The owls:

The owls I told about in the last post seemed to have moved on. Then the other night D and I saw one of them. Again, it was dusky and we could not get a picture of it. I still have hopes of getting a picture. I am fascinated with them.

Guess that is it for now. I have pictures of some finished socks, maybe I will be back tomorrow to post pictures of those.

Happy Labor Day to everyone who celebrates it

Foot Update

2008-07-17T13:02:00.003-04:00

My foot is VERY sore and they can't seem to find a pain pill to help me. Hubs is on his way to the pharmacy to get me some new "drugs" to see if they will help.
All went really well with the surgery and I went back to the doctor this morning and he is pleased with the foot. I am very unstable on the crutches and have fallen onto it a few times but I have done no damage. He wants me to use a walker some as I am not doing well with the crutches.
Last evening I had gone out on the front porch to watch "our" owls. (We haved two or three owls out in our trees and they fly down into our front yard. It is a novelty to us even though we are out in the country. I want pictures of them.) I went on down to the sidewalk so I could see, which I couldn't, it was to dusky. When I was coming back up the steps to come back inside I somehow just went down, fast and hard. I went face first so I managed to keep my injured foot up and out of the way and I kept telling hubs and my MIL that I had not hit my foot. I just tore all the skin off of my left knee and skinned and scraped my right arm and hand, but I will survive.
My doctor sent me back to therapy for new crutches as he said the ones that I had were too long/high for me. They tried to get me some others but I am just a weird height and it was not possible. I am 5'1" and if they set the crutches to 5'1" they are too short and 5'2" they are too high. I guess I will just have to deal with it, or use the walker.
Enough whining. I am going back to my couch to lie down again. Remember me in your prayers.

My Foot

2008-07-14T23:06:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 I have my bunion taken care of. Before I went to the doctor about it I thought that a bunion was just a calcium bump on your big toe bones. I know better now. It is actually a malformation of the bone and is hereditary. My Granny and my Mom both had/have bunions and I got "lucky" enough to inherit them.

These are my Celtic Cable Heel socks from Sockamania. You can't really see the cables in this photo. (I really need to work on my picture taking ability, or lack thereof)

These are made of YarnSmith's Silk Soc. They are 70% nylon and 3% silk. They feel just heavenly. They were knit ML toe up.

It is after 11 pm and my "babies" meatloaf breakfast just finished baking so I had better toddle off to bed and get a bit of sleep before I have to rise and shine in the morning.

I'll check back in in a day or two.

Everyone have a good one.

Knitters Connection

2008-07-02T10:05:00.012-04:00

I am finally going to post pictures of the yarn stash adder-toer that I got at Knitters Connection and a FO or two.
The Knitters Connection (KC)was a few weeks ago but I just have not taken the time to post about it. I went on Friday to the Market. I was unable to go to any classes, but next year I am going to do the "Whole Kit & Caboodle".

This was the yarn that I bought at the market. Of course I had to get some more Tofutsies. I just love that yarn. Yes, it is splitty to knit with but it feels so good going through my fingers and it is just wonderful on my feet. It also seems to be holding up just great.The burgundyie yarn in front is a handpainted called Yummy (I have not details with me as I am in a hotel room in VA and the yarn is back at home. All I have is the pictures. )

The browns in the back left corner is Austerman, the one with Aloe in it. I have never knit with this but I am looking forward to using it.

The one in the middle is Saucony. It is a cotton/nylon blend. It feels greats but again I have never used to so I am looking forward it using it.

The burgundy/black/white/gray in the other corner I can't remember what it is but it is a sock yarn and is wool.

I'll give details on all of these when I knit them up and have FOs.

This is my wonderful find. It is 100% Baby Alpaca. I plan to make a sumptuious cardigan out of it. Just as soon as I find the pattern that yells at me, "I am the one!!"

I bought 24 ounces of this and really hope that that is enough to make a cadigan. It is not a worsted but is heavier than a sport so there is going to be a lot of swatching going on. It is just so gloriously soft and it will be so warm this winter. I want to make a cardigan because I can wear that more than a pullover. I am always so cold in the winter that I wear a lot of cardigans. Anyone have an absolutely fabulous pattern that I could try?

Now to the yarn I got in my KC membership bags. Well, one bag was mine and the other I got for my hubby so that he could give it to me. He goes to KC with me so I decided to get him a membership also since there is way more yarn in the bags than the $10 it costs. This year, one of the skeins in the bag was $15.95!! I know because I bought one at the Market.

This bag was deemed to be "hubby's" bag as it had more manly colors in it. LOL

Notice that there is a skein of Saucon in this bag? Yay!

The brown variagated skein in the middle is Claudia Hand Painted Yarn. It is a nice yarn to make socks out of. You will see a pinks in my bag that has already been used to make socks. Picture later.

At this point I am not sure what I will use all of them for, but I will find something. They are too nice to let languish in the yarn stash. It may take me a year or more, but they are all nice yarns so I will find them a knitted home.

This is MY bag. It was really great. There were 2 skeins of sock yarn!! That is a treat because with sock yarn if you have 100 grams you are there. The others you have to look for a small pattern to use them.

There is another skein of Saucon in the green and the black and brown is Lang Jawoll.

The small pink skein is Claudia Hand Painted Yarns. I took it and a VERY SMALL skein that I got last year at KC and made a pair of short socks.

The offwhite is an alpaca blend but I just forgot the brand. I think it may be Berrocco, not sure. I should have done this post at home where I could have looked at the yarns and had all the info I needed. Oh, well.

These are the socks made out of the Claudia from this year and last year. The toe/heel was made from a mini skein that I got last year that is called BabyGirl and the foot/leg is called Strawberry Latte. When I finished them I had about 18" of Strawberry Latte and 4 yds of Baby Girl left. THAT is why they are so short, but that is ok. I like them for wearing with my tennis shoes for walking or bike riding.

They are Sockamania Rainforest pattern designed by Anni. It was a fun and fast knit. I started knitting these on June 19 and finished them on June 24. I cannot believe that I made a pair of socks in that short of a time. I usually do good to finish up a pair in a month, let alone 5 DAYS!!!! I still can hardly believe it.

I actually managed to finish 2 compete pair of socks and reknit the leg on another pair last month. Maybe I am finally beginning to pick up some speed knitting Continental. I have only been knitting Con. for about a year now, so I knew it would slow me down.

These socks are out of the Tofutsies that I bought at KC. I did them in Tidal Wave pattern. It took me about a week to do these. I just don't know what has gotten into me. I am just a whiz at the needles all of a sudden. Think any of it could be because hubby has been traveling for work and I go with him and because he has the truck with him and we are out in the back of beyond I spend the day in the hotel room. (As a matter of fact the room that we were in last week is a whole post in itself. I'll try to do that one later today.)

I'll finish this rather long (for me) and picturey post with a mug shot of my special kitty, Cole.

He is so much MY cat and I am HIS mommy. He is so jealous of the other cats getting near me and even somewhat jealous of Katie . He is a rotten little sweetheart and a beauty to boot.

Llamas

2008-06-30T15:08:00.005-04:00

When I downloaded pics to the computer I discovered that I had taken one picture of the Llama day. It is my two girls with the llamas.

The one on the right is my daughter and the one on the left is my daughter-in-law (but she calls me Mother and my hubs Daddio because both of her parents are dead so she is our daughter also :) )

Mama Cat

2008-06-25T11:42:00.005-04:00

Does this pose look familiar? This is Erica, Munch's Mama. Guess I know where he gets that stretch from.
It seems that all of my cats and hubby's dog, also, like Kate's bed. She seldom can get on it of an evening because another is on it. Kate is a gentle giant so she doesn't mind.

Where are the pictures?

2008-06-24T11:09:00.004-04:00

I went to Knitters Connection 2 weeks ago. I took pictures of the yarn that I had bought and also the yarn I got in my members bag. So where are the pictures? They are still on the camera. I just need to go get the cable out of the laptop bag and download them. I'll try to do that this evening.

My hubby and I joined Weight Watchers about a month ago. He has lost 20.2 pounds and I have lost 8.2 pounds. Not bad. At least we are doing this together which makes it way easier for me. I don't have to prepare 2 meals and since he also wanted to do this, he has to help me cook!! :)

(Hmmm, where did my smileys go? I'll have to look into that.)

Tomorrow hubby and I are taking a working trip down to VA to look at a job he took there. I enjoy these little trips. It gets him away from the office and I get to go too. YAY!!! I try to do some work while gone, but mostly I knit.

Back to work for now. Maybe more later this evening.

I'll leave you with a picture of Munch doing his favorite thing -- stretching out sleeping on Katie's bed.
He is my little sweety. He always wants lovings from Mom. I have had him since he was born and still have 1 of his brothers and their Mama.

I have been tagged...

2008-06-19T18:21:00.008-04:00

The other day Marit tagged me for an alphabet game. Here goes:
A - alpaca yarn
B - bamboo yarn
C - cashmere yarn
D - delicious yarn
E - eyelets
F - front
G - gauge
H- heel
I - inset
J - jump ring
K - Katie
L - lace yarn
M - merino yarn
N - newbie
O - Opal yarn
P - purl stitch
Q - quaint
R - right side
S - slip stitch
T - Tofutsie yarn
U - undercoat
V - Volkswagon
W - wrong side
X - x-ray
Y - yarn over
Z - zigzag

There is my list. Hope I did as I was meant to. I kept going back from Marit's blog trying to find some instructions. Everyone did it in Norwegian!!! and I do not speak Norwegian. LOL

I tag Anni, Jane, and Silfert IF you ladies want to play along.

Llamas, llamas everywhere

2008-06-05T16:15:00.004-04:00

I went to a Llama show with my kids last weekend because my girls were supposed to show some of them. Neither one of them had ever done this before or had even been around llamas that much so I thought that this was going to be a hoot.
When we got there the girls went to find the owner of the llamas that they are planning to purchase. The man took us out to the hauler and got 3 llamas out. He handed the leads to 2 of them to the girls and I ended up with the third. Hmmm, now how did this happen? It really was not much different that walking my 165 pound Saint Bernard, just the llama was a whole lot taller, like taller than me. Also, she kept trying to eat my hat. I had on a lace covered straw hat to keep the sun off of my head and it looked good enough to eat to her. When I would turn and tell her no, she would be looking of into the distance like she didn't even know I was there, let alone that she was trying to eat my hat.
It was interesting to watch the young kids show their llamas. They did some obstacle course things and some pack llama things. It was fun to watch but the barn was getting really hot and stuffy as it had come a downpour 2 or 3 times since we had gotten there and then the sun came out and it was steamy.
Around 11:30 my son told me that they were going to go get something to eat. I wasn't hungry so I told them I would just wait on them and please bring me back a bottle of water. They had just announced that the food booth was open so I just assumed that that was where my kids were going. I waited about 30 minutes and they had not come back so I decided to walk on over to the food booth just to move around and get off of the metal bleachers. Well, I could not find my kids. So I walked on over to where the llamas were and no kids. I wasn't too concerned until I went outside and the truck was gone. That really threw me for a loop! I got my trusty cell phone out and called my son. When he said hello I almosted yelled at him, "Where are you?!" He calmly said we told you we were going to get something to eat to which I replied, "I thought you were going to eat here." He just laughed at me. That was a really panicky feeling that here I was about 80 miles from home and no one was there to take me home. I knew absolutely NO ONE else there at the show! Well, they came back but just like kids there was no bottle of water for Mom.
When my hubby showed up around 1:30 I was more than ready to go home as it was hot and muggy and I had no comfy chair to sit on. Even if I had not wanted to go home hubby would have made me do so as I don't do heat very well and since I am still somewhat recovering he was not going to let me stay there in the heat. He had come straight from obedience training with his new dog so he could not stay either. It was too hot to leave Betsy in the truck and her lead was a web leash so if we had even wanted to just tie her to the truck we could not have as she would have chewed it in two to go find D. So home we went without getting to see the girls show.
Even though I left early I did not miss anything. They had so many more entries this year than last that the girls did not show. They were supposed to show around noon and by 3:30 they still had not and no one was sure when they would. They apologized to the owner but explained that they could not stay any longer. She understood and thanked them for trying.
It was a long day.

A couple of pair of socks.

2008-05-28T18:56:00.003-04:00

Well, I did it again. I managed to post just the title of the post and not put anything there. I am not sure how I do it but I do. LOL, at least I can fix it.

I have finished two pair of socks but have not posted them.

The first is April Sockamania. I am really not a fan of Intarsia as I just cannot get my tension right so the socks end up being tight over the heel. At least this time I can get the socks on so I didn't have to give them away. These were made out of KP Palette. I don't recall the colors used or the size needle used. I did them top down using ML.

The next pair is May Sockamania. They were done in Patrons Kroy Sock yarn, using KP Harmony size 1 (foot) & 2 ( leg because I knit cables tight). I did them toe up and used a sewn cast off.

I finally managed to finish a pair of socks in the month that they were supposed to be.

My hubby and I joined Weight Watchers a week ago Monday. So far we are really enjoying it. There are so many things that are good to eat and we can still eat them. We have also been having fun in the kitchen coming up with new recipes.

One evening last week we were fixing pasta, shrimp, and black beans. Since the pasta was without sauce my hubby said to just put his beans on top of the pasta. I kind of cringed at the idea at first but then thought that there was not sauce so why not try it. It was delicious! We sauteed the shrimp with a bit of butter and some Caribbean Jerk seasoning. We liked it so well that we had it again this evening.

Also we were told at meeting to make brownies with black beans instead of the milk, egg, and oil. Believe it or not, they tasted just like regular brownies! Even my finicky daughter did not know that they were different.

As we come up with new dishes I will share them.

Have a nice evening.

Funny, but no pictures.

2008-05-16T13:23:00.003-04:00

Last evening my girls and my son were regaling me with stories of what I did in the hospital when I got to my room after surgery. I really think that they were exaggerating. LOL

The kids told me that as soon as I got to my room I had to have them put MY socks on me and put MY pillowcase on my pillow. (I sleep on a satin pillow case and I took one to the hospital with me.)

My DIL said that I kept shushing her. I do remember telling her to shush once or twice, but I don't remember as many times as she said. She said that at one point I even shushed nurses out in the hall. I guess I wanted quiet!

At one point in the afternoon my hubby went to get something to eat. (I don't remember a thing of this.) I had been holding his hand and when I woke and no one was holding my hand I panicked, so I made my son and daughter hold my hands. I was told that I looked at my DIL and told her that she was one of mine now but I was sorry I had no more hands to hold so she could hold my toe. (I told her that she really should feel honored as NO ONE touches my feet. LOL)

I also kept telling my daughter to sit down. For some reason I did not want her standing up. If I thought I saw her standing I would immediately tell her to sit down! She said that the nurses had to work around her as I had to either be holding her hand or she had to be sitting on the foot of my bed.

Everyone had told me that I would not be allowed to go home until I passed gas. I guess that was praying on my mind as I am really not a gassy person but my husband makes up for me. :) I told my DIL that if she stayed around long enough that day she would here me f***. Then I said oh wait maybe you can here me now and I did a raspberry with my tongue. They were cracking up. (My son and DIL have been married for 9 years and she is still waiting to here me. Unusual girl that one is. LOL)

I have talked about my dog Katie on here lots of times. I had taken a little stuffed Boyd's stuffed St. Bernard to the hospital with me. I lost it at one point and had my son looking for "Katie". When he finally realized what I wanted he found it.

They were so glad for their Dad to get back. My son told his Dad that he could hold my hand now as his arm was breaking from the way that I was holding onto him.

I guess I am a cheap drunk when it comes to anesthesia. It doesn't take much to put me out and keep me out. I had my surgery around 8 am on Monday and didn't really wake up until Thursday evening.

My DIL told my son that if she ever needed to have surgery she was not allowing ANY of the family in her room until she woke up completely. LOL. I really made an impression on her! I told her last night that she might not be like I was. It all depends on how she takes to anesthesia.

One thing is for sure I kept the family well entertained while they were there with me.

The day after my surgery when hubby came to see me I was still mostly asleep. He would have to wake me between bites of my lunch. I was still so groggy that I would take a bite and before I could get it chewed up and swallowed I would fall asleep. I don't think I managed to finish a meal while it was hot for several days.
The day we went home I remember leaving the hospital parking lot and then pulling into our drive and it is about a 40 to 45 minute drive home.

So are some of the highlights of my hospital stay.

Everyone have a good day.

The weekend is here.

2008-05-09T22:06:00.002-04:00

It is now Friday evening so I guess the weekend has begun. Our weekend is supposed to be rainy and cool. Drat!

Sometime this weekend (maybe) my computer guru is coming out to help us set up an external hard drive over here at the house so we can back up the office files off site. Also he is going to help us set up passwords on our computers out at the office. It seems that someone has been doing some unauthorized using of mine and hubby's puters. I got a virus on mine that totally shut me down. Guru was able to fix things and I didn't lose anything, but it could have been much worse. Someone had gone onto MySpace on my computer. I know it was not me as I have never been on that site, even on my laptop over here at the house. NO ONE should have been on my computer! Especially without asking me first. I have way too much important info and employee info on it for it to be used by just anyone. So we set up passwords to avoid this happening again and being worse.

I just started Anni's lace shawl KAL. I am making it out of a really pretty pale pink silk yarn that I got on ebay last year. I don't know what brand it is or really much about it other than it is silk and feels sooooo nice.

I am worn out so it is off to bed with me. I will try to post a pic of a FO tomorrow, no promises though. :)

No pictures tonight

2008-05-07T19:17:00.003-04:00

I was going to take a picture of my April Sockamania socks and post it but when I was all ready I found that the camera is out in the office and I did not want to walk out there to get it. It is also getting dusky so tomorrow I will do it.
Although I enjoyed knitting the socks I don't think I will do anymore colorwork socks. I just can't get the tension down right. My socks always end up being too tight. The first pair was so tight that I gave them away to someone with a smaller foot than mine, and believe me that was not easy to find.

Several months ago I posted pictures of a sweater that I had knit. It was a combination of silk, wool, and alpaca yarn. It was really beautiful and I loved to wear it. A few months ago I got BBQ sauce on the sleeve and had to wash it. It came out and the sweater was fine. The only problem was that is smelled like wet animal. So I decided to wash it again the other day as the odor would not just air out of it. Sooooo I washed it and it felted!!!! I was so upset! I guess I will have to remake the sweater. It really was my fave and I will miss it so I will just have to redo it.
Evidently when I washed it the first time I washed it on hand wash and this last time I did not. I even put it in a lingerie bag for all the good that did. I will probably put it away in my hopechest as a reminder to not do that again. Now I have to hunt out the pattern and figure how much yarn again and get started so I will have it by fall. DANG!!!

Those "dratted socks" - Done

2008-04-18T17:02:00.005-04:00

Finally finished my March Sockamania socks. I don't really like doing cables on socks and add to that the fact that I started these right before I went into the hospital for surgery and did not feel like doing the cables when I came home but would not start a new pair until these were finished I felt as though I would never finish these. They are finished and on my feet as I write this.

They are made out of Trekking XXL, color 66, done on KP Harmony size 1 (2.5 MM), done toe up. I did 2 full repeats and ended with the first 6 rows of the pattern since I had done them upside down.

I will probably cast on the April sockamania socks and maybe get them done by the end of the month since I am only working part time now. I also want to get some special mittens done.

Wednesday evening

2008-04-16T20:09:00.011-04:00

Let me look through my pictures and see if I have anything else to post. I should be able to find something.

This is a good one. We refer to it in the family as "Mom's Redneck Mailbox."

Sometime New Years Eve night someone took out my mother-in-laws mail box. In the time while she was waiting for a new post to be built she cam up with the solution. It may have looked really strange but it worked. The mailman never missed a day of leaving her mail.

The above beauty is my personal nursemaid. He has let up now, but for the first 4 or 5 days he very seldom left me. He still stays very close to Mom but he will leave me to go outside for a while. He was just a stray that showed up here about 3 years ago andjust claimed me as his own.

We occassionally get a bird in our fireplace. When one gets in there it drives my cats nuts. They try their best to get to it.

Hooray!! They are back!!

2008-04-14T19:28:00.007-04:00

Hooray!! My editing toolbar is back. Now I can add pictures. I don't know where they went but I finally did a temp history and cookie delete and here they are. Yipee!

Now I can finally add some pictures. The first one I want to add is rather colorful and also rather painful. Evidently an IV or 2 was put in my hand after I was knocked out as I do not remember them being there and I really think that I would have.

Isn't it lovely?

I have 3 pair of last May Sockamania socks to show you. My girls both wanted a pair and since I can get 3 socks from a skein of Tofutsies I just purchaced a second skein and made us all matching socks. The pic is not that great as I needed them for Easter this year and I finished the last sock around 4:30 on Sat evening. So they were still wet when I took the pic.

I have lots more that I want to post but am just too tired right now. I went to the doctor this morning and had my stitches out, then had to go out to the office to write checks to pay our income taxes. That in itself is depressing and tiring. LOL So it is nap time now and I will try to post some pictures later this afternoon.

A glorious Sunday afternoon

2008-04-13T12:55:00.002-04:00

It is a glorious Sunday afternoon and I am not sure what happened. I put in the title and must have hit the wrong key because it published instead of going into the body.

I have off loaded pictures to this laptop to put on this post, but guess what? The little icon to add pictures is not here. Is it me? Has it been so long since I have posted that I have forgotten where to find the icon or is blogger being mean today? At this point I am not sure. When I can figure out where the icon is I will add some pictures to this post of just start a new one and put them there.

A little over a month ago we had a lovely dog show up here at the house. I fell in love with her when I saw her and told my hubby that she HAD to be a mix of Saint Bernard and German Shepherd. When D took her to the vet she agreed with him that that was probably what she is. So she is a Saint German now. LOL She is such a noodlehead and such a good nurse to me. Since I have come home from the hospital she has been amazingly gentle with me and will even lend her support if I get shaky on my feet and this pup is not a year old yet!! She is even more atuned to D so I would hate to think how protective she would be if he was hurting. D named her Betsie.
My little black cat has appointed himself as my personal and ONLY nurse. He will not let the other cats come near Mom and doesn't even want my Saint Bernard to come too close. He barely left my side from the time I came home Wed afternoon until last evening. I had been sleeping down here as D had not gotten my stool to get into bed made and Cole was my constant companion. He was here if he was not eating or outside for a few minutes. I guess since I was able to go upstairs to sleep last night he is not as close on duty today. He has not been here with me for about an hour now. I miss the little guy.

Home again

2008-04-11T13:19:00.000-04:00

I am home from the hospital and I guess I am getting better. I am sore as can be and do not want to do anything. I will post some pictures of knitting later. I am just glad to be home in my own surroundings again.

Friday evening

2008-04-04T21:45:00.000-04:00

Good Golly, Miss Molly. I have blogged twice in a week.

No pictures yet. I just have not had time to download them from the camera. Maybe tomorrow or Sunday. If not it will be late next week. I will get them.

Have a nice evening.

Hello

2008-04-03T20:29:00.000-04:00

I finally have internet at the house again, so maybe I can do a little better at keeping up my blog.
I have pictures on the camera but need to download them and it is late and I don't want to fool with them this evening. Maybe I will do it this weekend or later next week.
There is FO's, a new dog, a new van, and as soon as I take a picture an ancient lovely oak fallen over.

That is it for tonight. Hopefully I will be back sooner this time than the last.

Everyone have a good evening, night, or day, or whatever.

Just a second.....

2008-01-31T10:21:00.001-05:00

Good golly, I haven't been here since early Nov! It has been a busy time for me.
I wanted to post my latest socks and a pair of gloves I made.
The socks are HPKY in LaBoheme. Done ML, toe up, sewn cast off. I did 2 socks at once using both ends of the ball. I have approximately 1/3 of the ball left.
These are the January sockamania socks and were a fun knit. Even though it was hard to make myself drop the stitches when told to do so.
Just ignore the large bruise on my shin. I fell at my son's when I went down to feed his dogs on Jan 12. His porch was frosted and when I stepped up one foot went forward and the other backward and OOPS I am sitting there crying. Of course he was not home or I would not have been there to feed his dogs, and D was not home and where he was he has no cell service. So I had no choice but to walk home. They live just down over the hill from D and me so I never drive there, just walk. Did you notice that I said "down over the hill"? Yep, I had to gimp back up the hill to get home. I made it, nothing is broken just bruised and sore as heck.

These are my alpaca gloves that I made. They were to be for my daughter but I just knew that one of her dogs would eat them so I decided to keep them. They are really gorgeous and soft and warm. I will have to get D to take a picture of them on my hands. This pic really does not do them justice.
See part of my Saint Bernard collection behind the gloves? I love Saints. My Saint is 8 1/2 years old and the love of my life. I have about 30 or so stuffed Saints. Some sing, some dance, and one even breathes. LOL. My fave is the two that sing "I've Got You Babe." They are really a hoot. (All the guys here in the office think I am crazy but since I write the payroll they put up with me.)

Better get back to work.

Rockin' Girl Blogger

2007-11-09T10:56:00.001-05:00

Way, way, way back in July Marit nominated me for the Rocking Girl Blogger. I was really thrilled but did not know how to put the button on my blog. I have finally found out how to do it so a little late but I am going to name 3 more.

Tracy of Heritage Crafts, Kelly of Pretty Purls, and Jane of the Yarn Grove. You are all lovely ladies to chat with on here (Jane I have spoke on the phone with). So have a good day and remember that you are all lovely and cared about ladies. Since this has been going on for awhile, nominate or not as you wish.

It's me again....

2007-10-30T09:32:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to post pic of my latest pair of finished socks.

This was my first time doing Intarsia and also my first time doing magic loop. Both were fun to do. I think I now prefer magic loop for socks. DPN are still fun to use out in public for the WOW factor, but for ease of putting them down magic loop is best. I also tried two circ but when you use a 16" circ the actual needle part is so short that it sometimes is hard to work with. I guess I could use two longer circs but then I am afraid I would have too much cable and that would be a bother. At least I have options.

The Truck

2007-10-15T17:05:00.001-04:00

I didn't get pictures of the FO's yesterday so I will have to try to get them this evening before I take the things to Knitting and give them to N.

But here are pictures of the smashed truck.

Believe it or not, that pile of wreckage at the almost end of the boom was our truck. When I first downloaded the pictures I did not even realize that the pile of mangled metal was the truck. One of our employees was sitting on the tailgate. Now tell me just how lucky he was!

This picture shows that it really was our truck.

So much has happened

2007-10-13T19:03:00.000-04:00

It has been nearly a month since I last posted. I did try to post but I could not get the video to load that I wanted to share. It was really cute. It was 3 and 4 year olds playing soccer. They are a hoot to watch. My daughter in law and her sister in law were coaching.

I have a few FO's to show but I have to wait until tomorrow when it is daylight again to take pictures of them. Our knitting group at the Markay is doing a Christmas sell to make money for the Art Theater here in town and we have almost sold everything so we are all knitting our fingers to the bone to make more stuff. I have a baby shrug and cap, a baby sweater and 1 or 2 pair of fingerless gloves and a helix cap that I need to do I cord on and finish off. That will be the end of my contributions as I have already give a baby bunting and 4 scarves. I need to get busy on my own knitting for Christmas now.

Last Thursday (Oct 4) we had a truck get smashed. It was one of our work vehicles and it is a total loss or as our son said, "It is destroyed, Dad" when D asked if we could drive it home that evening. I'll post a picture of it tomorrow. It is just impossible to describe it. I could not believe that it was as bad as J said until I saw the pictures. We had an employee sitting on the tailgate of the truck and luckily God was watching out for him as he only sustained some bruising and a few little puncture wounds. If he had been sitting only 4 or 5 inches to his right he would have been killed. God is good.

A couple of weeks ago D, J, M, MIL and I all went down to a family winery in Gallipolis. We did a wine tasting and when we had finished I had a buzz on (I seldom drink) and I did not even try all of the wines. I did have D get me a bottle of Pink Catawba. I finally opened the bottle just a bit ago and I am having a glass of wine and eating pizza rolls with it. Quite a combination!

Well back to the knitting, I want to finish the cap.

I'll try to post more often.

Good Sunday morning.

2007-09-16T09:15:00.000-04:00

We are back from Cincy and glad to be home. I always like taking a trip, whether long or short, but I am always glad to get home. I miss my babies. All were fine and were glad to see Mommy back home so they would get their treats and loving.
I got a Comfort Zone with Feliway for my kitty babies while we were away. One of them has scratching and marking issues. I had read a lot of good comments about this so I decided to try it. Hope it works. I'll try to remember to post progress.
I should have mentioned on the last post that that is not our Harley. It belongs to one of our employees. I am not a motorcycle person. I rode on one with hubby once and it scared the crap out of me When we would go around a corner I could not lean. I just knew that if I did we were going to fall over. Needless to say it made it very hard for hubby. Thank goodness he is not into street cycles either. He did go through an enduro phase shortly after we were married but it did not last that long. He rode when most of the riders did not have the big fancy boots, pads, and such. Old clothes and a helmet was pretty much the norm. Of course I am talking about 30+ years ago.
I found a store to go in and get a size 12 steel crotchet hook on Friday evening so I did start my MS3 but I only got about 10 rows done. I need to find or make some system of keeping track of the rows other than just using a row counter. I'll work on that this week. What little I did was fun but no pictures so far.
Have almost finished the first Sept Sockamania sock. I seem to have almost lost my knitting mojo. A short time ago every chance I got to sit down I would grab my knitting and go to it. Now I just sit and think that I should be knitting. Maybe I have made it a MUST so I don't want to do it. Hope it comes back again.
That is all for now.

Motorcycle Mama---Cat that is

2007-09-14T08:07:00.000-04:00

Some of my favorite pet pictures.

2007-09-05T16:00:00.001-04:00

This is the baby that started the current round of pets at our house. She is MY baby. When we went to look at the puppies she came over and sat down at my feet. When I picked her up she wrapped her paws around my arm and would not let go. She hasn't let go of me yet. Katie is 8 years old now and has mild hip displasyia. She is a beauty and well behaved. I take her to town with me quite often. She walks at heel beautifully. In December when I have to purchase her new dog tags she goes to the court house with me to get them. I didn't take her one year because there was a lot of snow which meant a lot of salt on the walks and salt is very hard on their pads. I really got into trouble for not bringing her in. LOL.

This was the next baby. Our cat of nearly 20 years gave up the good life and was replaced (that is not the correct term since a pet cannot be replaced) by Erica. We went down to our mail man's house on Memorial Day several years ago to get a "kitten" from him. The cats were over a year old. Oh, well. The first two cats would not come close as I had Katie with me. They had to get along or no cat. Erica looked at Katie and then just settled down in my lap. This was the one. Erica was with kitten when we got her but we did not know that. I have a few pictures of her kitten but it did not live long. Sooo, we let Erica have another litter. These are the twins. The one on top of the box is Munch and I still have him. The other is Podie and he lost a fight with a car on the highway.
They have another litter mate that I still have but Belly is not as outgoing as his brothers. I will have to look on my other computer to see if I can find a picture of him. He is another beauty. He is black with stripes.

Then along came this little holy terror. He was a drop off stray that actually came to my son's house but followed me home one evening when we went down there for dinner. When we got back to the house and I let Katie out, Coley stood up on his back paws and began to swat at Katie's nose. Katie just looked at him. It was so funny. Coley weighed about 2 or 3 pounds at the time and Katie weighs 165 or so. Coley is long haired cat but fortunately he loves to be combed. I keep "his" comb on my bedside stand and as soon as I pick it up he is there to be combed.

At Christmas time in 2005 Coley discovered the Nativity set and decided to lay in the creche. He did this when the figurines were still in it. As soon as I took them out after Christmas to put away he immediately crawled into the creche and lay down. It was so cute. After seeing him do it the other cats all had to have their chance at it. Never a dull moment around here. This is Munch in his usual position catching a few zzzz's.

All of my pets have been spayed or neutered. I am a responsible pet owner. Since we do not have a farm and barn I don't want to eternally be trying to give away kittens and puppies. These babies are enough.
I will have to get pictures of Belly and Susie from one of the other computers and put them on here. That will be all of the babies then.