YOP WEEK 48

Hi! 🙋  It's Sunday and time to give you a bit of a run down of my week.  Since I post almost daily, some of this will be a repeat of what I posted during the week.  There is a little bit of new stuff here too.  Let's get going.

I received treasures this week.  Getting items in the mail is so exciting.  Even though I know what is coming, it is still a bit of a thrill to see the item in person.  

I purchased straight knitting needles.  Circulars and DPN's have been the only needles I have used since I got serious about knitting.  I wanted some straights for making dishcloths.  I ordered sizes 6,7 and 8.  (All US sizes)  These are all 10" long.  Perfect for dishcloths.

My next treasure was a new Portuguese knitting pin.

This has the strongest magnet ever!  I thought is was so nice to see the back was almost as pretty as the front of the pin.  The place I got it from even included a business card in case I wanted to order more items.

It looks like she only sells through Amazon.

Those are the only knitting related items I got this past week.  Everything else was novels.

I don't feel like I got a lot of knitting done this week.  Yet, after pulling everything out I worked on, it turns out I did do more than I thought.

First up, dishcloths....................

Your eyes are not deceiving you.  They are all different sizes.  Here is why.  Starting on the left.  That was knit on a size US6 circular.  The middle one is knit on a size US6 straight.  The one on the right is knit on a US7 straight.  So, my gauge on circular is looser than on a straight needle.  They were all knit (actually purled) using Portuguese style.  They also, are all knit from the same skein of yarn.  I should be able to get at least 2 more cloths from said skein.  I will continue with the size 7 straights as I like the feel of the fabric better.  

I did a little work on my shawl.

Another 2.5 inches added to it this past week.  It is just so hard to work on this with the heat we are having.  Even with the A/C, it is still too darn hot to have this laying across my lap.

I started a new project.  Surely this does not surprise you guys.  

Another pair of Rose City Roller socks.  Hubby came out the other day with a bit of a pout on his face.  He said he was running low on his homemade short socks.  I told him I was working on his long socks at the moment.  His response, "I guess I will just have to order some more of those expensive short socks then."  NO WAY!  I pulled out the yarn, my knitters pride DPN's and got to work.  

Since I am doing the socks consecutively, I needed a way to know how many rows I was doing each time I worked on one of them.  I have used my phone in the past but........it is hard to do when you have people texting and calling while you are working on a project.  (Yes, I am sooooo popular LOL)  Here is what I came up with.

I made this little sliding rosary years ago.  I used it when going on retreats to keep track of praying.  It is perfect to keep track of rows too.  It has 10 beads on it and once I finish pushing all ten beads to the top I pick up the other sock and do 10 rows on it.  Works perfectly.  It does not make any noise and does not rely on WIFI to work.  

The other item I worked on was my sequin Nativity picture.

All the white sequins on the bottom have been sewn on.  The white sequins on the top are half way completed.  I should finish those up in the next couple of days and then move on to blue.  I am saving the purple sequins for last.  

Hubby and I got early this morning to go to Mass at 7am.  Mercy, that is so early in the morning.  I will be happy when they start having Mass again on Saturday night.  We went by our favorite Mexican drive through for breakfast.  Their food is so filling we won't need to eat again until dinner tonight.  

I have a loaf of bread going in the bread machine.  Seems like we are going through a loaf every two to three days.  I did a little TLC on the bread machine and it sounds much better.  Hopefully, today's loaf will rise a bit better than the one I made on Friday.

Last night we got a hellacious dust storm followed by a down pouring of rain.  I need to go out in the backyard and pick up all the stuff that got blown around.  I also need to grab the cushions off the rockers on the front porch.  Seems our 'windy' season is coming early this year.  Hopefully this is not the start of the monsoons.  If so, it is going to be a very long, hot, miserable, summer.

Small boy dog is terrified of wind and rain.  He figured my hubby would be the best protector last night.  Probably because I kept going to look out the windows to watch the storm.  I should have been a meteorologist.  I just love anything related to weather.

Tomorrow is my birthday.  I have a Doctor's appointment first thing in the morning.  After that.........I have no clue what I will be doing.  No one has even mentioned anything about my birthday so it will be interesting to see who remembers.  I have a very forgetful family.

I better get my bum in gear and get the yards picked up in case of another surprise storm today.

Until Next Time....................Happy Crafting & Stay Well!!!!!!!!

Hasta la Vista

It's Friday, which means this will be the last post for this week.  Sunday will be my next post and will be a wrap-up for this past week plus anything else I might do in the next 36 hours.  

Got up at my perfect time again today (6am).  I got the bread machine loaded up and going first thing this morning.  The machine takes over 3 hours to make a loaf.  I am a little concerned with today's loaf.  It is not as 'high' as most of the other loaves I have made.  Not to mention, the machine is starting to make some unpleasant noises when mixing ingredients.  Hopefully it just needs a little TLC and it will be all better.

While the bread was being made I grabbed my orchids and put them under the faucet and cleaned the leaves and gave them a good soaking.  The leaves are all nice and shiny now.  The other plants in the house got watered too.  Since I was by the sink, I decided it was the perfect time to empty the dishwasher and put the few breakfast items in it.

Next on the list was to grab all the air fresheners in the house and checked their batteries and see if they needed new containers of good smelling stuff.  This is the type of freshener I have throughout my house.

As long as I was doing battery checks, I checked out the ones in my mantle clock.  It needed only one battery replaced.  While I was thinking of clocks, I then wound my antique clock that is in my craft room.

By this time, the bread was completed and on the wire rack to cool.  Now, what to do?  Hey, how about taking some time to do some water aerobics?  The pool is up to 86 degrees, or so the thermometer says.  And, no, I do not always trust the thermometer.  I spent about 45 minutes in the pool doing mostly my lower body workout.  Tomorrow I will do  an upper body workout.  The water felt wonderful.  I am sure I will feel a few new muscles tomorrow.  It has been a while since I have worked out that long or hard.  

Now I am in a dilemma.  Hubby came to me today and informed me he needs more short socks made.  I told him I was working on 'long' socks for him at the moment.  He looked so sad.  I am thinking of taking the 'long' socks and putting them on some other DPN's and then casting on some more Rose City Roller socks for him.  I love working socks on my Signature DPN's even though I have plenty of other brands of DPN's.  So, do I do this so he can have more short socks?  Or do I continue working on the long socks until they are completed?  No need to answer that question.  I already know what I am going to do.

Lunch is over and it is time for me take a look at my 'to do' list.  I see there are a few things on it that still need to be done today.  I am off to my craftroom, for a little while, to finish up my list.

Until next time.................happy crafting & stay well!

Thursday

Finally, I am getting time to kick back for a little while.  As usual, my goal is to get my 'to do' list completed before lunch.  I did not quite make that goal today.  Here is my day so far.

Wake up came around 6 this morning.  That is actually my preferred time to get going.  It is still kind of cool outside which means my house is very comfy.  After breakfast, I headed off to Kroger's to finish up our weekly shopping.  I could not believe how easy it was to get around in there.  There was a fire engine company in there getting their supplies for their meals today.  Other than them, there were not very many people in the store.  It sure made fir a  nice shopping trip. 

As soon as I got home, I got all the groceries put away.  It was then time to make a loaf of banana chocolate chip bread.  I love playing with my banana bread recipe.  Adding different spices and ingredients to it is so much fun.  This time I added cinnamon and vanilla to it along with chocolate chips.  I also use 1/2 bread flour and 1/2 wheat flour.  The recipe calls for all wheat flour but it is so darn heavy and kind of dry.  With the 1/2 and 1/2 it makes it quite a bit lighter with a more moisture.

While that was baking I took the time to set up my daily journal for the month of June.  That journal is the best thing.  We actually call it my 'brains'.  Each day, as I think of things I need to do, I write it done in the journal.  It helps keep me on tract each day.  My biggest joy is checking off the items I complete each day.  If it doesn't get done on the day assigned, it gets moved to the next day.  

After lunch, I made deliveries.  First, I stopped at my Grand Daughter's BFFs house to drop off the masks for her and her family.  They were so happy to get them.  Then, I was off to my son's home to deliver the banana bread.  He was tickled to get another loaf.  It had been a couple of weeks since I had made any.  I also got to see how they were doing since the loss of their cat.  They seem to be pretty good but it still hurts to think of him.  (I get it)

I am back home now and getting ready to do some type of crafting.  Not sure what all will get worked on today.  So many projects and so little time.

There was a question this week I wanted to answer:

Becki, yes my knitting pin is for Portuguese knitting.  It is the easiest way to do purl stitches I have ever found.  There are some wonderful YouTube videos teaching you how to do it.

Tonight, we are having a ham steak with sweet potatoes.  It is an easy meal to make and is all done in the microwave.  No heating up of my kitchen.  Especially with the temperature being 108F today.  Thank goodness for A/C!

Until next time..................happy crafting & stay well.

Kitchen Duty

It feels like I have spent most of my day in the kitchen.  I don't mind kitchen duty.  The process of creating yummy food for hubby and I is something I enjoy doing.  Does anyone else enjoy cooking/baking?

Last night I made out our menus for the next 10 days.   Once the menus were made, the grocery list got completed. Wednesday is our normal grocery shopping day.  This week grocery shopping will be Wednesday and Thursday.  Hubby went to Costco, Winco, and Safeway for us and I went to Sprouts.  Tomorrow I will go to Kroger for the last 2 items.  That takes care of our weekly shopping.  Our stores do not have a lot of people shopping in them during the day.  So many people are back to work, it frees up the congestion quite a bit now.  

After I got home, I got busy in the kitchen.  First thing I did was throw a loaf of bread in the bread machine.

I just pulled it out of the pan 5 minutes ago.  The house smells so wonderful.

While that was busy being made, overnight oats got prepared.

This is my favorite breakfast.  I eat them cold in the summer.  Not having made them in the winter, I do not know if I will heat them up then or not.  My oats are made with skim milk, pure maple syrup, cinnamon, non-fat greek yogurt, blueberries and old fashioned oats.  Very yummy.

I also made a half dozen hard boiled eggs.  Some of them will be going into our cobb salad tonight for dinner.  The cobb salad will help use up the leftover bacon I cooked last week.  It will also help use up some lettuce that needs to be used as well as grape tomatoes.  I did splurge and bought a small container of blue cheese today for the salad.  I know, lots of people can not stand blue cheese.  Hubby and I love it.

After all of that, I cleaned out the fridge and got it arranged (again) to the way I like it.  I don't understand how it gets so unorganized.  There are only two of us living here and I thought we took things out and put them back in the place they were before.  Hmmmm.....maybe we have gremlins that mess in the fridge when we are sleeping.

After all that excitement, I sliced up some cheddar cheese and pepper jack cheese for our lunch.  Today, we had cheese, crackers and little beef bites.

I also replaced the elastic cords on hubby's face masks.  The ones I used for his did not have very much give to them.  I replaced them with the ones I used for my masks.  He tried them on and was very pleased with the fit.  I need to make some more masks too.  My Grand Daughter's BFF asked if I would make her a mask as well as one for her mom and Great Grandma.  How could I say no....................she is like a grand daughter to me.  So, three more masks to be made.  Hopefully by the end of this week, I will have them done.

I got some more treasures in the mail yesterday.

Three sets of straight needles arrived.  The sizes are US 6, US 7, and US 8.  I got them to make dishcloths with.  Circulars are what I was using but the cable was driving me nuts.  These are much easier to work with for the cloths.  

Isn't this pretty?  My new knitting pin.  The magnet on this one is super duper strong!  I like the hook on this one too.  It will be great for any weight of yarn.  The yarn in there is DK.  Butterflies remind me of my mom and the color purple is my all time favorite color.  

Even the back of the pin is pretty.

I have one more treasure I am waiting for...........................a 3.5 inch embroidery hoop.  That should end my treasures for a while.  Maybe, LOL.

Tomorrow, I will be making some banana bread and taking it to my son's house.  Hopefully it will cheer them up a little bit.  There will be chocolate chips in it again.  I heard that was a big hit with them.

Time to head into my craft room and cut out some face masks.

Until next time.................happy crafting & stay well!

Just Stuff

Hi everybody.  How is your Tuesday going?  Mine is having it's ups and downs.  Let's talk about the ups first.  Okay?

Y'all know I have been receiving treasures in the mail, lately.  What I have forgotten to show you are the books I am receiving.

I am reading this book at the moment.  My goal is to read all of Kristin Hannah's books.  I do like her style of writing.  So far I have read 14 of them.  I have 2 that have been started but I could not get into them.  I will try them again at a later date.

This will be the next one I will read.  It kind of goes along with the one I am reading now.

This is one of her earlier works and I just got it today.  

My daughter has this book.  She said I can read it as soon as she is done with it.  There are four other books this author has written I do not have.  Unfortunately, one of them will not be in my library as it is now a collectors item and runs anywhere from $55.69 - $180.90 for a copy of it.  Another one of the books is also a bit out of my price range of $38-$40.  Neither of them are available on Kindle or Audio books.  Oh Well.

This morning I have completed 2 loads of laundry, emptied the dishwasher, gotten dinner in the crockpot and did a little work on some knitting.  Lunch is over and I have a Hallmark movie on.  As soon as I post this, I will work on my sequin project for a while.    

Talked to my Mother in Law and she LOVES her lapghan I sent her.  She received it the end of last week and says it is perfect for when she lays down to take a little rest.  It covers her all the way to her shoulders.  Have I told you my MIL is not even 5 feet tall?  So, yes, a lapghan is like an afghan for her.  I am so happy she likes it.  

Now for the downs of today.  My son's family had to say goodbye to a  fur baby.

This is Howie.  He was 17 years old but had some health conditions that were not going to allow him to see 18.  They adopted him 6 months after they got married.  He was not the friendliest cat but once he liked you, you could not get him to leave you alone.  It took almost 2 years before he would love on me.  I was sorry to hear he went to the rainbow bridge today but he was in terrible pain.  (lung cancer and arthritis in his hips)  My heart goes out to the family.  The hardest thing we humans ever have to do is say goodbye to our pets.

Time to pull out my sequin project and enjoy some crafting time.

Until next time.......................happy crafting & stay well!