YOP WEEK 35

 

Hi there.  It's that time again.  Time for me to do a little show and tell from the past week.

There are finishes again this week.

Another 'To the Point' shawl is completed and waiting to go to the church.  This is such an easy shawl pattern to make.  The thing I like most about it is when you put this around your shoulders, you do not need to hang on to it.  It drapes so nicely and stays put.

Once the shawl was done, it was time to decide what would be next up.  Not being able to make up my mind as to what I wanted to do next, I did what I always do and made these.

Yup, three more dishcloths.  This finished up the skein of Sugar Colorwheel Cotton I had started on a few weeks ago.  Please excuse the cruddy photos.  I took them late at night with very low light.

Once all of these was done, I decided it was time to get the puzzle completed so I could have the dining room table back again.

This was such a fun one to do.  Took me back to my teenage years.  

I still did not feel like casting on anything new.  So, a decision was made to do this.

Yup, a cross stitch project.  This one has been hanging around for a few months and I just thought it would be so much fun to make.  I am a bit further along than this photo shows but not much.  Last night, I discovered I was able to watch TV and work on this at the same time!  It was more like glance at TV, concentrate on stitches while listening to TV.

Today is 'make Luna's dog food' day.  I have the chicken cooked and am getting ready to shred it.  Then I will be off to the store to get the veggies for her (and us).  I still have brown rice to cook for her (thank goodness for an instant pot) and then mix it all together and freeze it in meal size bags.  It isn't hard to do, just time consuming.  Yes, I love my old lady dog that much.

As for the remodel....................The counter guy came out this past week and measured.  Looks like installation will be either Thursday or Friday this coming week.  You can not even imagine how excited I am to get this done and everything put away so I can have my bedroom and craft room back. 

We have pool people coming today to set up a pump to drain the pool.  Then on Tuesday more pool people come to clean all the tile and do some minor cosmetic repairs.  Once that is completed, we will be filling the pool again and then another pool guy will be coming to remove our salt system and we will go back to chlorine.  I loved the salt water but replacing the salt cell ever year or two was getting a bit too expensive not to mention the care and cleaning of it was very labor intensive.  Our pool company told us we could still get that salt water feeling just by adding a bag of pool salt to our water!  Who knew?

So, by this time next week, everything that is scheduled so far, should be completed.  All we have left is to hire a house painter and a person to lay the last of our flooring that we have purchased.  Then it will be up to us to finish the painting inside the house.  Phew!  I sure will be glad when this is over.

Ash Wednesday is this week.  I already have been searching for my tried and true meatless meals.  Yes, we can do fish or shrimp, but I really like having a totally meatless meal once a week and this is the only time of year I can get the hubby to agree to it.

What's new with you this past week?

Until Next Time......................Happy Crafting and Pray for World Peace!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Midweek

 

This is one of my favorite days of the week.  Not sure why that is, but it seems to be the day when 99% of my 'got to do this week' things are done.  Well, in theory that is.  With the two main bathrooms still torn up, there is only so much that can get done in the house.

Yesterday, the countertop guy came and measured.  Sounds like we will have installation by next week Friday!  All we need to have done then, is the flooring laid.  We have someone that will be doing that for us too.  (we got people!)  Hubby got the master bath painted this week.  We will paint the guest bath the day before the countertops will be installed.  We would paint it now, but we need the temporary sink and the mirror removed before we paint.

It is cold and rainy today.  When I woke up we had already hit our high temp for the day.  It got chilly enough in the house, I turned the heat back on.  It has been off for almost a month.  Darn!  By this time next week we will be flirting with the 90's!  Unbelievable, right?

I have been doing a bit of knitting this week.  Not very much, though.  I have so much yarn and so many things I planned on making and now I am kind of 'meh' with all of it.  Reading has been more of my happy place.  I finished all the JoAnne Fluke "Hannah Swenson" books.  I just started on Sally Goldenbaum's Seaside Knitter Mysteries.  There are 11 books in that series.  That should keep me happy for a while.  One of my fellow bloggers suggested her books to me.  I can not remember which one, but I want to thank them for the recommend.

How has your week been going?  

Until next time.............................................

YOP WEEK 34

 Well, that was scary.  The keyboard on my laptop would not work when I started this YOP update.  Note to self: When your computer says it has an update, do not ignore it for several weeks!  It is all better now so here is my update for my crafting this week.

KNITTING

I finished hubby's RCR socks.

This yarn was wonderful to work with. (West Yorkshire Spinners)  Hubby said they feel a little looser than his other RCR socks.  It might be because there is not the amount of stretch in this yarn as there is in the yarn I normally use for his socks.  I used the same needles and stitch count as normal.  He said not to worry though, as he will wear them.  

CROCHET

Once the socks were off the needles, I was in a dilemma as to what to work on next.  The Granny Square Blanket did not grab me and I really didn't want to start another long term project.  So, I decided it was time to work on some prayer shawls for our church's ministry.

I finished this one in a couple of days.  Normally I can knock one out in a day but with all the remodeling going on, I could only work on this in the evenings.  I use Caron Simply Soft for the prayer shawls since it is washable and very soft on the skin.  JoAnn's had a big sale on this yarn last year and I stocked up.  In fact, I had forgotten I had done that until I went stash diving this week looking for inspiration.

I started another shawl yesterday and should have it completed today.  Well, maybe.  Hubby is wanting to do some painting to prepare for the next step in our remodeling.  

I would like to take today off and actually relax for a one day.  We have 10 days before the counter tops will be installed.  That should give us plenty of time to paint two tiny vanity areas of bathrooms.  Right?  To see how the remodeling is going, I posted about it here and here.

Anyway, once the second shawl is done, I have no plans for any other projects.  I could make another shawl.  Heaven knows I have plenty of yarn for them.  Or, I could cast on more socks, as there is no shortage of sock yarn in my stash.  Or, maybe it is time to pick up and work on a cross stitch project.  I have several waiting to be started and one very large one already on the go.  Stay tuned............I am sure something will inspire me soon.  

Until Next Time.................................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!

Remodel Part II

 

OK, I just had to come on here and let you know how interesting these past 4 days have been.  You saw how the guest bath looked after deconstruction of all the old cabinets and most of the linoleum being gone.  Here it is with the new cabinets put in and all linoleum gone.

Please excuse the mess on top of the temporary counter and sink.  We were just thrilled we have a bathroom with a sink at this point.  The orange things are so we can open the drawers and doors.  We have knobs on order and they should be here today.  They will be installed after the countertops get installed.

Speaking of counter tops.  Our guy doing all this work asked us if we were set on the counter tops we had picked out.  We told him we would be opened to something else if he knew of someone.  He gave us a name and number to call.  When I called and talked to the owner of the business, he informed me he could be out next week to measure and then 5 days later to install!  This is a blessing as the company we originally were going with said it would be 2 weeks before a measure and then 4-6 weeks before installation.  So, I took a little trip to the other side of our metroplex (100 miles round trip), picked out some gorgeous quartz, paid for it and was thrilled that it was even a bit cheaper overall than the original company.  I also went to the original place and got a refund for what we had paid for countertops there.  So, this means our bathrooms will be ready for flooring by the end of this month.  I am so happy.

Then, there is the Master Bath.

The cabinets are all installed and the carpet has been ripped back and waiting for the new flooring.  BTW, we have the flooring for both bathrooms.  We just need to schedule the person to lay it for us.  I have no idea why carpeting was thought to be a grand idea to be put in a bathroom/vanity area.  This is not the first home we have lived in that has done this.  I have pulled it out of every one of those homes too.  Little boys and carpeted bathrooms do not mix!!!  Enough said.

Now, many of you are thinking.....Why all the angst?  This is why.

All that 'stuff; on the floor is out of the master bath.  In fact, there are 4 more baskets behind the vanity chair, you can not see.  All the stuff from the guest bath is residing in my craft room.  I do not like disorder.  The older I get the more it bothers me.  This is why the change in counter top companies has me happy.

I talked to the counter top company this morning and asked if the sink cut outs could be finished off so I could use them for trivets or charcuterie 'boards'.  He was more than happy to do that for me.  The original company does not allow you to have any of the scraps.  So another win-win for us.

While all this construction has been going on, I have been the one running all the errands and go back and forth to Home Depot for various reasons.  I have not done one lick of laundry this entire week.  I bet you can guess what my weekend will consist of, right?  I have managed to fix dinner nightly though and today I even made dog food for Luna.  (poor old girl)  

Come back on Sunday and see what has happened in my knitting/crocheting/cross stitching world.

Until next time...........................................

Remodel has Started

 

Today is the day we start getting the vanity portion of our 2 main bathrooms remodeled.  Before I get into that story, let me show you the happenings of yesterday.

Being Valentine's Day, hubby was sweet and brought me home some flowers.  They are a blast from the past.

I was raised in Kansas and this is their state flower.  Sunflowers are such a happy flower.  Now, if you are in Iowa, they are considered weeds because they choke out crops there.  

There were also new glasses for me yesterday.

It sure is nice to see clearly again.

Last night, our daughter and her husband joined us for dinner.  I made sloppy joes using Italian sausage.  They were so tasty!  I have enough leftover for one more meal for hubby and myself too.

Now for the remodel story.

Our handyman arrived around 9 this morning.  The first thing he did for us was to load up all the 'junk' we had accumulated over the past several years while remodeling other areas of our home.  It was so nice to see all that stuff leave our property.  Hubby even went out to our two sheds this morning and pulled lots of 'junk' out of them too.  

Once the 'junk' was put into his dump trailer, he got set to demolish our main bathroom.  The noise was unbelievable.  My poor dogs were glued to my side and hubby's side.  About 2 hours later this is what we had.

Vanity is out as well as the sinks.  Hubby is now in there getting the 50 year old linoleum off the floor.  Tomorrow, the new cabinets will be put in.  Once this bath gets it's cabinets, our guy will demolish our master bath.  I will need to ask him tomorrow how long he thinks it will take for everything to be installed so I can arrange for the countertop people to come out and measure.  The joys of home ownership, right?

Tonight, we are having shrimp egg rolls.  I have already cooked all the 'innards' so all I need to do tonight is fill the wrappers and then air fry them.  So easy to do.  

Tonight, after dinner, I will be working on hubby's socks.  They are getting close to completion.  I will be happy when they are done and hubby will even be happier LOL.  Not sure what I will be working on next.  I am leaning towards going back to my cross stitch.  Only problem is, that is hard to work on while watching TV.  Stay tuned.

Until next time..........................................

YOP 11 WEEK 33

 

Hello again.  Do you notice anything different with my blog today?  On the right hand toolbar, there is a place where you can now enter your email address and each time I update my blog, you will get an email alerting you.  I want to thank Becki of Field Lilies blog, for finding this wonderful little tool we blogspot bloggers can use.  

There has been quite a bit going on at Casa De Noce this past week.  Sit back and relax for a few minutes and enjoy the show.

PUZZLES

Every time I work on a puzzle, it brings back memories of sitting for several hours working puzzles with my mom during her last years.  They are wonderful memories.  I finally finished a puzzle this week.  It does not bring back lovely memories this time.  It was a horrible puzzle!

Say hello to Grogu (the child) from The Mandalorian.  See all that 'gold' stuff in the middle?

Here it is again around the top of his neck.  Do you know what it is?  This is the way 3D puzzles look when you take a photo straight on.  The box calls it 3D............it reminds me of hologram stuff.  All I can tell you is, it was a bear to put together.  All the pieces were so similar in size.  You had to be super careful that the edges matched 100%.  Not to mention there were ridges on the top of each piece and those ridges needed to all go the same direction!

This came in a box with 2 puzzles.  Each is only 500 pieces.  I gently folded this one and put it back in the box.  The other puzzle is still in the box, unopened.  Both of these are going to my Son's house.  I refuse to work the other one!  Puzzles are supposed to be enjoyable and these are not that way for me.  This 500 piece puzzle took me over 2 months to complete!

Once I cleared off my puzzle board of Grogu, I started on a new puzzle.

This is much more to my liking.  It is 1000 pieces with lots of color and interest in it.  Kind of takes me back to my youth in the 60's.  I worked on this one for a couple of hours yesterday and really enjoyed it.

KNITTING

This past week saw me working on hubby's RCR socks.

They are halfway to the toe.  I need to thank Liz for finding out the name of this yarn for me. It is West Yorkshire Spinners Bluefaced Leicester sock yarn in Wood Pigeon color.  I purchased this from a friend several years ago when she was destashing her yarn before she moved out of state.  This yarn is a dream to work with.  The socks feel like they will be a sturdy wear too.

Then there is my poncho.

There were only 4 rows added this week.  I am not sure I am enjoying how opened the fabric is on this.  I am tempted to go back to where I switched to the US size 11 needle and got back to the US size 10.  You can see where the switch was made and the fabric is very loose.  I am afraid that it will not be warm enough, especially if there is any wind at all.  What would you do?  It sits in time out until a decision is made.  I believe the main problem is, the pattern says to use an Aran weight yarn yet what the designer used is more on the bulky side rather than the worsted side.  Maybe I need to find a different pattern????

GARDEN

The aero-garden continues to produce lovely vegetation for our meals.

We have harvested lettuce 3 times now as well as basil once.  I need to do a little bit of harvesting again today as the lettuce is really overtaking the planter.  The tomato plants are finally getting some growth on them.  Last week I pruned all but one stalk out of them according to the instructions of the gardening guide.  That really seemed to help them take off.  The basil was used in our meatball subs this week.  OH MY!  It was do yummy.  Tonight we are doing pizza and I will be adding fresh basil leaves on the top to give it a bit of oomph.  This has now been growing for 28 days.

HOMELIFE

We got a delivery on Friday.

These are our new bathroom vanities.  Our person putting them in will start on Tuesday.  So,  we will once again be in remodeling mode for the next 2 months.  The counter top people can not come out and measure until the cabinets are 100% installed.  Then it takes another 4 weeks for the counter tops to arrive and get installed.  This needs to be coordinated with the plumber who happens to be the person installing the cabinets for us.  Oh, and the weird blue light on the left side?  That is an LED night light for our dogs.  It is plugged in right next to the doggy door.  Luna (our old lady) was having a problem finding the door at night time so I put this out there to help her 'see' where it is.

On top of the remodeling of our 2 main bathrooms, we have a swimming pool guy coming to drain our pool and clean all the tile and repair any damage.  He will be here next week and will take 2-3 days to complete his work.  Then another pool guy is coming to take out our salt system and make it strictly chlorine based.  We have had to replace our salt cell every other year to the tune of over $400 each time.  We can buy a whole bunch of chlorine for that price!  We were told if it is the soft water feel we enjoy (which it is) just to add pool salt to the water and we will still get that nice soft water feel.  I can do that!

Our oldest dog (Luna) has been a problem eater for the past month or so.  She totally refuses her kibble and is selective about what wet food she will eat.  So, being the good dog owner I am, I searched the internet for home made dog food.  I wanted something that would give her all the nutrients she needed on a daily basis.  After about a week of going through copious amounts of recipes, I finally found one that basically had all the ingredients of her favorite (very expensive) dog food.  It is chicken based with lots of veggies and rice added in.  If you are interested, leave a comment and I will give you the recipe.  I fed it to Luna for the first time last night and she loved it.  In fact, she licked the bowl after it was all gone.  WIN-WIN for us.  Enrique still eats his kibble and I will not switch him over.  He is not a fussy eater.........yet.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday for us in the US.  My plan is to make an apple cobbler for tonight's dessert as well as home made pizza for dinner.  There is knitting to be done as well as some puzzle pieces that need to be put in too.  

If you made it all the way to the end of this blog post.............congratulations!  I would appreciate it if you would leave me a comment answering the questions I posed in this post.

Until Next Time............................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NO YOP HERE

 

Happy Wednesday. How has your week been so far?  We have fallen into our normal routine, finally.  That will be short lived though.  This Friday, our bathroom cabinets will be delivered.  Destruction of our bathrooms vanity areas will begin the following week...........we hope.

I have been feeding my sourdough the past few days and it has really taken off.  So, what do you do when you have a lot of starter and do not want to make bread?

You make sourdough/cinnamon/vanilla waffles.  Hubby was very happy to see these when he got up this morning.  This is what you do when you are up at 4 in the morning.

I love my little waffle maker too.

This is sitting on a salad plate.  Isn't it adorable?  For a $10 appliance, it is a real work horse.  

I have been harvesting from my Aero-Garden each day this week.  On Monday, I made meatball subs and had hubby cut some basil leaves to put on the sub rolls for a little extra oomph.  It was so yummy.  Last night I harvest quite a bit of lettuce for our tacos.  The lettuce really needed to be cut back as it was starting to overshadow my tomato plants.  So this morning it looks like this.

It is still going strong.  I am trying to be patient on the cherry tomato plants.  They seem to be very slow going.

Today, hubby and I have eye exams.  We are trying a new provider this year.  Hopefully we will like this one.  This will be our 4th provider in about 10 years.  It seems so many individual providers are letting some of these large chains take them over.  This sees patient care go the way of a cattle car.  They just push you through as fast as they can without really listening to the patient about any issue they are having.  Since I am on a medication that requires yearly eye exams, I really need to have someone that is willing to take the time and do a detailed exam, especially of my retina.  

I still need to make tortillas today for our dinner tonight.  My goal is to make them using sourdough starter this time.  Hopefully they will have a bit of a sourdough tang to them.

There has also been knitting each day.  Only two projects on the go (socks and poncho).  I am itching to get back to cross stitching.  Before I do, I want to finish Hubby's socks.  The poncho will not be needed for several months.  That means it can languish along with the Giant Granny Square blanket.  

What are you up to this week?

Until next time.............................................................

YOP WEEK 32

 

I am sitting here staring at this page.  How I wish I could be super clever with my opening line each time I post.  You know, something totally 'in your face' so you just HAD to read the rest of the blog post.  When I read other blogs, I am always impressed with the way they start their posts out.  It grabs my attention and makes me excited to read on.  Anyone else have this issue?

Anyway, today I have 'stuff' to show and talk about.  Let's get this thing going, ok?

CRAFTING

I have a finished item to show.

My SIL's RCR socks are completed and mailed. I finished them on Monday, mailed them on Tuesday and Texas got hit with an ice storm and snow on Wednesday. These only took me 10 days to complete.  Probably because I did not work on anything else during that time. 

Once those were done, I got a little bit of startitis.

Another pair of RCR socks were cast on Monday evening.  This time they will end up in hubby's drawer.  I have no idea what yarn this is.  The ball band has long since vanished.  I do know the yarn has been in my stash for years.  And, no, these are not matching up 100%.  The only part of them that will show is the rolled top and I don't think anyone is going to notice.  If they do, they are too darn close to my husband's feet!  Hopefully, the gusset will be completed on both socks by the end of today.  Does anyone else just love making heels on socks?  It always seems like magic to me.  I just love doing heels.  

Remember the Roe cardigan I completed, and then tried on and hated it?  I frogged all the yarn and said I would make a poncho out of it.  Well, it got started on Tuesday.

The pattern is Amenbo but, I am not making it according to directions.  I am knitting this without the wraps in it.  The cast on was the, new to me, Italian cast on (invisible cast on).  To accomplish this I sat with YouTube and did several starts and stops of the video while casting one for this item.  It only took me 4 tries to get it correct.  I cast on with a US size 8 needle.  Halfway through the ribbing I went to a US size 10.  After working a couple of inches of stockinette I switched to a US size 11 and am now making gauge.  It is a pretty simple pattern to follow.  I just did not want the little bumps in it and saw another knitter had felt the same way.  I loved the way theirs turned out.  This will not be completed in time for me to wear it this 'winter'.  You see, we are already heading up to 80F this next week.  I do believe our winter is just about finished for this year.

The Giant Granny Square blanket did not receive any love this week.  It was just too exciting to be excited about casting on projects and feel the joy when knitting them.  Welcome back Mojo!

GARDENING

The Aero-Garden is doing fabulous.

Today marks the 3 weeks since setting it up.  As you can see, the lettuce is going crazy.  Yesterday, I had to decide which stalk of the cherry tomatoes were the hardiest and then prune out the other stalks.  The basil is also growing like crazy.  The exciting part is, last night I harvested some of the lettuce for our hamburgers.

I got three leaves of red leaf and two leaves of romaine.  They were the perfect size to fit on a hamburger bun.  It looks like harvesting lettuce will be daily for a while.  Otherwise, it is going to take over the entire garden.  From what I have read, if I give it a quick rinse (to get dust off) and put it in a plastic bag with a damp paper towel, it will keep for several days in the fridge.  I will give it a whirl.

Tomorrow night, I will be harvesting some of the basil for our meatball subs.  And then again I will be using the basil when I make our pizza this coming week.  Those tomatoes better get a move on LOL.  They were the first to sprout and now the last to produce.  Go figure.

HOMELIFE

We are still waiting for our bathroom cabinets to be delivered.  I called this week and was informed they went to the delivery company on the 27th of January.  The delivery company is supposed to call us to set up a delivery date and time.  We are still waiting for that phone call.  Guess who will be hearing from me again next week!  Yup, the place where we ordered them from in September!  

Once the cabinets arrive, our installer will get them put in and only after they are installed will the counter top people come out and measure for that.  Then we are looking at 4 more weeks before those are available for install.  Hotel living is starting to look pretty darn good right now LOL.  (just joking)

This week was doggie pedicure week.  The same day we did the pedicure, hubby vacuumed and mopped the house.  While he did that, I washed their blankets they use daily to curl up in.  The dogs were not impressed with any of these actions.

Enrique won't even look at me he is so upset by all this.  Spoiled dog but I love him anyway.

Luna is giving my husband the death stare. Notice she has her blanket back and is guarding it with her life.  Poor old lady.

Today is grocery shopping day.  Yesterday afternoon, I made the menus up for the next two weeks.  This way I only need to do a major shopping today and then a minor produce only shopping next week.  I like going to the grocery store on Sundays.  There is usually less traffic in the store then.

On a sad note, my friend of over 40 years, passed away on Wednesday due to Covid.  She was only sick with it for 12 days.  Her daughter also contracted it but is recovering at home now after a 3-4 day hospital stay.  I have a feeling we are going to be dealing with this virus for years to come.  Take care of yourselves.  Please! 

OH! On a much happier note....  Yesterday, I pulled my sourdough starter out of the fridge.  Remember Arthur?  He had been in there since the middle of November without being fed.  I was a bit concerned that he might have perished without any loving for 3 months.  After I pulled him out, I let him come to room temperature and then I gave him a nice feeding.  This morning I took a look at him and TA-DA.................He is making bubbles!  He is alive although a bit sluggish.  He will get another feeding today and hopefully it will make him happier and back to being the very active starter he was when I stuck him in the fridge.  While I am not making bread at the moment, I wanted to make some sourdough tortillas with him.  Fingers crossed I can get him going so I can make some this afternoon.

Thanks for stopping by today.  I would love it if you would leave me a comment or two so I know you have been here.

Until Next Time......................................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!