WEEK 12 + LIFE NEWS

 

I have much to tell you this week so let's jump right into it.

More FO's this week!

Hubby's socks are finally finished!  The yarn was a dream to work with.  It was Malabrigo in the colorway Atomic.  The pattern is Car Socks by Beverly Johnson and is a free pattern.  I made a FLK heel on these but that is the only change to the pattern I made.  If you look closely, you can see that the right sock's cuff is much darker than the left sock.  I had no idea this yarn was going to be a gradient from dark to light.  But it is fine.  No one is going to see that part of the sock anyway.  As for the contrasting heels and toes.............I am not sure of the colorway but I do know it is also Malabrigo SW wool.

When those were completed, I picked up my SIL socks and worked on one of them.

The lone DPN is where I was last week.  These are so boring.  They do change colors but it is a very long way between changes.  I don't even know if I will get to the exciting part of the skein before the toe.  Not to mention, the yarn is quite scratchy.  I am told it will soften up after a good wash.  I hope so!

Since the RCR sock was driving me a bit batty, I decided to put it aside and work on palette cleansers.

Dishcloths to the rescue.  I have two completed and.......................

One more at the halfway point.  I love the yarn I am using.  It is Sugarwheel Cotton from Hobby Lobby.  I use a size 7 (4.50mm) needle to make these.  This is so soft yet wears quite well.  One skein makes 5 - 6 full cloths.  I will go ahead and use up the skein before I go back to the RCR socks.

I did something else with yarn this week.

I culled out my yarn stash.  There was one more of the large white bags done after this photo was taken.  I separated them into  worsted, bulky, fingering and DK.  These bags were given to the Prayer Shawl ministry group.  It was ridiculous how much yarn I had accumulated and knew I would never live long enough to use it all.  My family already had instructions to donate all yarn to the ministry, upon my demise, so I just took it upon myself to give them a head start. My husband panicked when he saw how much yarn was leaving.  I assured him there was plenty more in my craftroom to keep me busy for years to come.  This was all acrylic yarn and I have plenty of acrylic yarn left in my stash to make more prayer shawls to donate.  It felt wonderful to finally wheedle my stash down to a manageable size.

In case you did not know:

My goal this past week was to keep myself as busy as possible.  Dwelling on the 'what ifs' for my son was not healthy for me or those around me.  I am normally a very 'glass half full' type of person but worrying about every little thing and was making me a 'glass half empty' person.  So, I kicked myself in the bum and decided to find other things to occupy my mind.

FIrst thing I did was clean out my fridge.  And I mean CLEAN it out!  I removed everything from inside of it.  All the shelves were removed and given a good scrub.  Then I cut my plastic shelf liner...............................

And lined each shelf with it to make cleaning easier.

The idea came from a fellow blogger I follow.  She used vinyl placemats in hers.  I did notice, after installing the liner, it shrunk up a tish because of the cold temps.  That doesn't bother me.  At least the main part of the shelf is covered.  Removing the liner and washing it will be much easier than taking the entire shelf out to wash.  I even took everything out of the door baskets and got those cleaned and reorganized so it is much easier to find items.  That took me all day on Monday to do.

Tuesday I cleaned out my free standing pantry.  I love this thing but for some reason, things just get tossed in there and finding items is horrid.  The only shelf that is always organized is my 'baking' shelf.  So, I took out everything and got it all organized, labeled my plastic containers so I knew what was in what, threw out expired items and wiped down the shelves.  It is now a joy to open and grab what I need to make my meals.  I also know I do not need another can of soup for the rest of the coming winter LOL.

Wednesday I picked up Thor from Josh's house and took him to the vet.  The poor dog has terrible allergies not to mention his toenails were longer than most ladies artificial nails.  The vet we met with was fantastic.  He answered all my questions and gave Thor an excellent physical.  He gave me info for over the counter meds to help Thor with his allergies.  They even were able to cut his toenails.  Thor sounded like they were killing him when they did his nails.  He is not a fan of that procedure.  But, he survived and was very glad when we got out of the Vet's office.

This is also the day we were told Joe's car was going to be in the shop until the middle of October.....at the earliest!  (Gotta love having a foreign made car)  So we went out to  the dealership and picked up a loaner for him to drive. That was Blessing #1  On the way home, the windshield go hit by a rock and now there is a 22 inch spidered line in it.  We are waiting for a new windshield but...........it is a brand new car so it has to be ordered and guess what................the windshields are on back order! (yup, another foreign car)  It is still drivable though so that is a blessing.  Not to mention, we have full glass coverage with our car insurance so that is blessing #2!

Thursday and Friday was cleaning the craftroom and culling the yarn.  But the best thing that happened on Friday was this!

We were informed we were Great Grandparents again!  Blessing #3!  Actually she was born on Thursday but we got the news Friday morning.  Welcome to the world, Sophia.  She was 3 weeks early but weighed in at 6lbs 2oz and is 19" long.  She and mommy are doing fine.  They went home yesterday.  Not sure when we will get to see her in person since she lives in Texas.  But hopefully it won't be long.

We also did our grocery shopping on Friday.  Why does it wipe a person out to grocery shop one day a week?  I was so tired by Friday night.  Good thing we had leftovers in the CLEAN fridge for dinner.

There is no more news on Josh.  He had his MRI's done this past week and we have the reports but there is still not a real conclusion as to what is going on with his brain lesion/tumor.  Not to mention the medical jargon was so dang confusing!  He is still hoping to get a second opinion from the other neuro center here in town before he makes any final decision as to what course of action to take.  So, please keep those prayers going.  He seems to be handling things much better now and is at the point where he just wants answers and action.

How many of you are old enough to find the humor in this?

And that, my friends concludes this addition of today's blog post!

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