YOP LIST 2023-2024

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

A Quick Note

I know I said I would not be updating my blog for a few weeks but I had to tell all of you about the most incredible book I just finished reading. It is "The Shack" by Wm Paul Young. I picked it up at Costco on a friends advice and read the whole thing in 2 days.

It was the most incredible book I have read in years. I gained so much from reading it and it has truly changed my out look on many things and makes me really think before I speak or act.

It made me cry, laugh and contemplate. I would highly recommend reading this book and please remember it is fiction but, oh my! It can cause you to re-evaluate many things in life. I don't want to tell you much about the book because it is much better if you just pick it up and find out for yourself. I will tell you that you must read the prologue or you will be lost for a while in the beginning of the book.

Ok, that is all from me. Still getting things taken care of here so I can go and join my husband this Friday with the family to say some much needed "goodbyes". But as my Daughter told me, she did not tell Grandpa goodbye the last time she spoke to him as she knows she will be seeing him again someday. What a happy thought, huh? Sometimes she is so insightful!

Have a great day and will post when I get back and get some time.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Another chapter begins

I am not one to soft coat much of anything and this post will be no different!

My Father in Law passed away yesterday early morning. We are assuming it was around midnight Sunday morning. My DH was home for the weekend to celebrate our 33rd anniversary and had just told me on Saturday that he would be driving back to his parents early Sunday morning. We received a call during our dinner informing us that Dad's breathing was shallow and labored. My husband told his brother he would catch the next plane out and be there ASAP.

To your surprise all flights from Phoenix to Las Vegas stop at 9pm and we got that call at 8:30pm. So he booked the first flight for Sunday morning which was 7:30am. Unfortunately his father passed from this life about 7 and 1/2 hours earlier than that.

We have been expecting this chapter of our lifes to come to a close and the new chapter to begin but it is never easy to lose a loved one. The one comfort we do have is that he died peacefully in his sleep. He was breathing and just stopped. No "death rattle" as so many people report, no struggling for breath just stopped breathing and went home to his eternal rest.

This post may not be posted on for a couple of weeks as I am trying to tie things up here on the homefront so I can get to Las Vegas to be with the family. I will be there for a few days and then be home..........but...........My mother had a total shoulder replacement done last Wednesday and I have been helping her out with meals, dressing, cleaning, laundry etc. She gets her sutures removed this Thursday so that should help her out a bit. I also have a friend that will be coming in to help her out while I am gone so she will not be totally on her own. We also have in home health that comes in Monday thru Friday for 2 weeks.

I want to thank all of you for your prayers over the past few months. Your support has meant a lot to us.

Just a bit on the crafting front............

I finished my Daughter's prayer shawl and will be mailing that to her this week. I took pictures of it and will post those once she receives the shawl. I am also trying to crochet slippers for some family members for Christmas. I am not able to find a decent pattern for them. I use to make them when the kids were little but I can not find a pattern like the one I use to make. It is unisexed and is kind of like a ballet slipper without the strap across the top. DOes anyone know what I am talking about? They don't take long to make and you can make then any size to fit any foot. HELP!!!!!! This would be a great item to take with me on my way to Vegas on that lovely 5-6 hour drive. If you know what I am talking about please leave me a comment on here as to where I can get the pattern as all comments go to my e-mail and I can pick that up anywhere I am at.

Thanks again and God Bless all of you.

Monday, October 6, 2008









Ok, I felt guilty about not having any pictures for you all. So here are the ones I took today. As you can see on the socks they look kind of deformed to me but once you put them on they seem to fall into shape nicely. I am going to have to work on the bind off as I used a crochet bind off that was "guaranteed" to make them stretch enough to go over the heel. NOT! I had to rip it out twice and then I did my own crochet bind off with an extra chain between the bind off. The hardest part of this was.........I knit right handed and crochet left handed! I had to do the bind off with the crochet hook in my right hand. Talk about awkward.

You may not think my craftroom looks really "clean" but trust me it is. I have 3 different areas in the room. I have the sewing/serging area, beading/ribbon/knitting machine area and the looming area. The other area I have is for my tread mill. Please notice that there are no clothes on the tread mill. When I got it I heard horror stories about them becoming a clothes hanger. I vowed never to let that happen and it never has! As you can see from the closet shots..........I am pretty full in there. Lucky for me it is a walk in closet or I would be in some big trouble there.

Ok, I feel better now that I have pictures up for y'all. Now I can go and loom on the prayer shawl in peace.

Update

My mother and I have spent the last 2 weekends cleaning out my craft room. The first weekend we got the main part of the room cleaned and this weekend we attacked the closet. Now I know most of you think............so what? Well I'll tell you what! I have a yarn stash that makes most LYS look naked. After cleaning out the closet and reorganizing it I now have 7 twelve gallon tubs and 2 fourty gallon tubs full of yarn. Then there are two 12 gallon tubs of ribbon, one 12 gallon tub of soap making supplies and popourri dolls supplies. I have 2 seven drawer rolling carts full of cloth ribbon, dried/silk flowers, "fancy" sissors and material/patterns. And to add to that I have a 3 drawer wide cart full of my glass/egg etching supplies. So what do I decide to do once we get started on cleaning all of this up so I have some sort of organization? I start a new hobby! I am now into beading. I guess it really is not all that new since I have been making rosaries for the past 10 years and that does require beads. But this time I am making jewelry from the beading and am loving it. Most projects do not take much time to complete but finding just the "right" stuff for a person can be difficult.

I do need to let all of you know that I finally completed my first pair of socks. I am mailing them to my Daughter in Law in Chicago. I am not totally happy with the way they turned out but they will be a nice sock for her to wear around the house this winter. They do not have any wool in them (she is highly allergic) and the yarn was so nice and soft to work with. I have several more skeins of this sock yarn but will need to wait on that. I have promised my Daughter in New Mexico a prayer shawl for almost a year now. I am over half way done with it and am working on it as much as possible right now so I can finish it. She has seen the beginning of it but has no idea of the "surprise" that will be on it when she receives it. And since she reads this blog frequently I am not going to tell the rest of you what it is until it is done and in the mail to her. Then I will post a picture of it on here. (sorry Jenn, you will have to wait)

I don't have any new pictures to post (I haven't taken any!). I keep forgetting to take pictures of projects when they are finished. Do you think it would help if I had my camera by my crafting chair? Or maybe I should just keep it around my neck all the time so I can shoot off some pics as needed. LOL

My husband is leaving tomorrow for Las Vegas again. We have no idea for how long this time. He father is getting really weak now and requires a lot of help just to get out of a chair to walk to another one. He is still eating good though. Please keep us in your prayers as we really don't expect to have Dad around for much longer. We cherish everyday that we have with him and bless God for giving us the chance to love this very special man for all the years we have had.

Have a blessed day and keep on craftin'