Off we go

Sorry, no pictures this time. I have lots of them taken of all the beading I have done in the past month but do not have the time to download them and upload them to by blog. Plus for some reason I can not get into my Adobe Photoshop. It has me locked out and I have put in the unlock code several times. Oh well. I will work on that later.

So some news for anyone that cares.

We just had a new roof put on our home and then had the whole outside painted. It looks so nice now. We have been in this house for 21 years and this is only the 2nd roof but the first time we have had the house painted. So it was exciting picking out some new colors for the house as I was really tired of beige and brown. So now it is Terracotta sand and spiced berry. Sounds kind of exotic huh? Well it really boils down to deep berry for the trim and warm sand for the main part.

On the crafting front, I am almost done with my DD socks and of course will start another pair as soon as these are off the needles. I have several pairs of needles but find if I put more than one pair on at a time none of them get finished in a timely manner. I have also been beading up a storm. I have made 6 necklaces with matching earrings as well as some bracelets to go with them. I have not been crocheting at all this summer as I really like to crochet the prayer shawls and with the temps outside reaching up into the 110's I am not in any hurry to put a bunch of yarn on my lap!

We leave next weekend for Chicago to go and see our son that is in the Navy and his family. They will be moving from Chicago to Fort Worth this December so they will be a bit closer to us and it will be much easier to go and see them then. They will be in Fort Worth for 4-5 years and then my son will only have 3-4 years left in the service before he can retire at the ripe age of 39!

We just got back from Las Vegas earlier this week. We went to see my mother in law and just to get away for a few days and relax. We had a great time and stayed at Sam's Town this time. We had never stayed there before but have decided that is going to be our new place of residence when ever we go up there to visit. People there were so friendly. Even the hotel guests!!!

So I will not be updated the blog until towards the end of August. Hopefully by then I can figure out how to get back into my Adobe program and retrieve my pictures so I can post some on here.

Enjoy the next month!!!!

So much to show and tell

I promised ya'll pictures when we got back from Albuquerque and I always keep my promises. (well most of the time) So I have finally uploaded my camera to my computer and here are a few lovely things for you to look at.

Here is a lovely pair of socks I made for my DIL. The first pair I made for her looked like they could be worn by coneheads. The heel was so pointy, but being the great sport she is, she has been wearing them anyway. So I decided to grace her with another, better made pair. This is only the second pair I have ever done and was all excited about doing the "lace" top on them. Ribbing is highly over rated and is boring. This yarn is called Berroco Sock yarn. I don't remember which book I got the pattern from as I did them over a month ago.

This pair is for my Mom. She loves to wear socks to bed so, I made her a pair just for that purpose. I bought all this wool blend yarn when our Ben Franklin store was going out of buisness and my Mom is the only one I know who can wear wool. So she will be the lucky person to be getting LOTS of wool socks in the near future. This is the 3rd pair of socks I have made. They are getting easier with each pair. I am using the magic loop method. This yarn is called Swizzle and the pattern is from my "Knitting on the Road" book.

Here is the pair of socks I am currently working on. They are for my DD. While we were in NM I measured her foot so I could make them to order. I am using the magic loop method as you can see, and all of the socks have been made according to the Crazy Toe and Heels book. I make all of my socks toe up now and it goes so quickly. I started this pair on Sunday and am already almost ready to start the gusset on them. And of course, since I am doing them 2 at a time, I don't have the orphaned sock syndrome in my house. I am hoping to get these socks done in the next week as I promised her 2 pair of socks. She even picked out her yarn that I had with me. (You know I have to carry all my sock yarn and patterns where ever I go!) I gave her a choice of all the patterns and she gave me the honor of picking out whatever I wanted to do! So this pattern is from my book called "Favorite socks 25 timeless Designs from Interweave". Of course I have to convert most of the patterns from double point to magic loop but it is pretty easy (so far).

On the way back my DH and I decided to go thru the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. He had been a very long time ago and I had not been there since I was about 4. (also a VERY long time ago) This was a wonderful blooming cactus right at the point where you pay to go in. Everyone thinks the desert is such an awful place and just nothing but dirt, sand, tumbleweed, tarantulas, gila monsters and coyotes. Well as you can see there is much more to our desert than that. Of course we have all those other things but when the desert is in bloom it is one of God's greatest masterpieces.

I had to show you that my DH and I truly were at the painted desert. A very nice gentleman asked my DH to take his picture with his wife and then he was kind enough to ASK us if we would like to have our picture taken together. We so seldom get that priviledge. We were lucky that the day was so nice. As we were leaving the park about 2 hours later the storms were moving in. If you have never experienced a desert thunderstorm then you can not imagine how fierce and horrible they can be. There is no place outside to take any type of shelter. The rains and winds come from all sides of you. It comes in unannounced and leaves as abruptly as it starts. Now I have lived thru tornados and midwest winters and rains. But nothing could have prepared me for what happens in the desert when the storms come thru. But after all the years I have lived here I absolutely love it when it rains here. Everything is washed all nice an clean and the air smells lovely. Of course I don't enjoy any destruction that could come with the storms and believe me we have experienced that first hand a couple of years ago. Our 60 plus foot palm trees in our front yard were directly hit by lightning and it went thru the ground and took out our computer. Luckily it stopped there. Thank goodness no one was hurt as my DH was working on the computer when it happened. Anyway..................I still love the storms here. And the monsoon season has just started so I am waiting for the storms to begin.

I guess I have rambled on long enough. I must get back to those socks for my DD so I can get a few more rows done before we get ready to go to Mass tonight and then out to dinner. (normal Wednesday night activities for us)

I go back to work tomorrow as does my DH. I am sure my desk will be piled high with work but it will make the day go by fast.

Have a great day and leave me a comment sometime. (I get so lonely.)

Stay tuned

Yup, stay tuned to this blog. I have acutally taken pictures of the socks that I just finished and I am just about done with a second pair and will take pictures of those as well.

DH and I are leaving this week to go to New Mexico to visit our Daughter and her Hubby. We will be gone for about a week and hopefully in that time I will have some more sock photos to show. Of course I may have family photos to post by then too.

So you see, I have not fallen off the face of the earth but have busy doing what I love to do best. KNITTING, CROCHETING and BEADING!!!!!! Although I have not been able to spend as much time on any one of the areas as I would like. We have been very busy with church life, family life and home life. But every few minutes I can spare you will find me with my needles in hand trying to get "just one more row" done. It has become the mantra in my house lately. My hubby will ask me to do something and I will say "as soon as I finish this row". So now he asks "how soon before you finish that row so you can help me". So even after all these years of marriage he is still trainable!

Ok, well, I just snuck into this blog during my working hours to keep you all abreast of what was going on. So after our return from NM I will have a whole day to work on this blog and get you all caught back up on what I have been up to and give you some nice photos to look at.

Ciao!

Happy Mother's Day

It is Mother's Day and what a great day it is. This is the day when I am allowed to do what I want, when I want all day long! I of course return the favor to my DH on Father's Day too.

So today I am going to knit, swim, knit, knit and enjoy my family! I might throw in a load or two of laundry just to show my family that I AM STILL THE MOM!

So I want to give all of you a Happy Mother's Day greeting too. It is not easy being a mom but it is one of the most wonderful jobs I have ever undertaken. And the reward is..........................GRANDCHILDREN!

I will sign off now as this was not on my things to do today but just had to slip in here to my blog to make sure all of you moms knew I was thinking of you too.

Howdy from me to you

I sometimes can not think of any kind of title for my blog entries and that is so frustrating. I might try and do an entry without a title and see if it will take it. HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM...........something to think about.

Anyway I do have some updates on my craft life and life in general. I have finished all but one of the prayer shawls I had started. So now I have a cedar chest full of prayer shawls and comfy blankets. As soon as the cancer ministry office opens at our church I will be taking all of them down to be distributed to those in need of comfort and prayers. Until then I just wait for someone to call me and tell they are in need of a shawl and then I deliver it to them. The last one I am working on is a knitted one and since I am not fast at knitting it is taking me the longest to do. It will be very pretty when I am done.

I started to work on chemo hats the other day but for some reason they are not turning out like I want them too. I am trying to do them on my green loom and they are not giving me the stretch I want. Could be the yarn I am using. I may have to use a strand of sport or WW yarn with it. The yarn I am using is a soft kind of furry yarn from Hobby Lobby. Since I am not real experienced in the soft furry kind of yarn I would assume this is the issue. It does not feel like it has any give to it like other yarn does. So I will try it with another strand of other yarn with it. It is starting to get too warm to work on prayer shawls here in Arizona. So I will work on Chemo caps for now.

I also started another pair of socks. I have not even gotten the toes done and will probably stop for now. I ordered some sock pattern books from Knit Picks and want to wait until they arrive before I go much further as I want to make these socks with a lovely pattern on the foot and leg. I also am not happy with the way the last pair came off the circular needle. (I use the magic loop method) and am hoping one of these books will give me another way to cast off the cuff.

I just came off a little "mini vacation" and last week. I took off the Holy Days before Easter and then Easter Monday. I got a lot of cleaning done on the house and also got some pictures hung that I had been wanting to do for over a year now. (no I am not slow just really really busy) I will be taking another mini vacation the end of May and want to do some more work on the house at that time. Of course by then it will be over 100 degrees outside and the pool maybe where you all will find me during that mini vacation.





Here are a couple of new pictures of our grand daughter. She just came back from her own mini vacation. She was in Seattle with her other grandparents. Her grandpa had to have some surgery and she went there with her mommy to be a nurse for him. From what I hear she did anything he would ask her to do. While he was in the hospital she helped her "Grammie" make cookies." Looks like she might have had a little bit of fun, huh?

I really must take some pictures of my crafts and get them posted on here or you will never truly believe that I have been doing all that I keep telling you about.

Oh, I almost forgot. I have been beading like crazy too. I have made 4 necklaces and 3 pairs of earrings. I also made stitch markers out of lever back earrings and beads. They are so much easier to use than any other stitch marker I have tried before. So the beading craze is still strong as ever.

Ok, I am going to wish you all a great day now. Lots of crafting to do and so little time to do it in.

Whats up?

Had a few minutes and thought I would bring you all up to speed on what is happening in our lives.

The past month my DH and I have been fighting the worst cold we have ever have. I finally went to the Dr and was told it was a really bad upper respiratory infection that half our town has at the moment. Got some medicine and am feeling much better. DH toughed it out and is much better also.

I have been crocheting ALOT of prayer shawls this month. I also made "comfort" blankies for the children that have to go thru treatments for their illnesses. I have about 20 comfort blankets ready to go. I have 6 or 7 prayer shawls finished and am in the middle of another one. I will be doing this until our St Peregrine Shrine is finished (at our church). Then I will give all of them to the director of the shrine. Of course first I will have our priest bless all of them. I need to get tags made for all of them too to let the receiver know that they are being prayed for daily.

I found the best pattern for the prayer shawls so far and it works up so quickly and is nice and airly and very "girly" looking. Here is the website so you can see a picture of it.

http://milobo.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/evas-shawl-pattern/

Since it is so airy I can use some of my red heart yarn with it and it is not at all scratchy like some tighter crochet/knit things can be with that yarn. I use a P hook when I use the worsted weight yarn. I used a Q hook when I used my homespun or any other "bulky" yarn.

I am still taking the Financial Peace University course thru Dave Ramsey. I have until the first or 2nd week in April before that is over. I have loved every minute of it too.

This Thursday we are going to see Late Night Catechism III. It is suppose to be just as funny as 1 and 2! We are really looking forward to it. The proceeds from it go to Right for Life. So you bet we are going! Anything to promote the protection of the unborn! (sorry about the soap box there.)

This weekend we have our RCIA lenten retreat on the side of Camelback Mountain. It is an all day affair but well worth it. It is so peaceful up there. You don't even realize you are in the middle of the city when you get there. LOVE IT!

We are leaving next week for Las Vegas to visit my MIL. I have not been back since my December so thought it was time for me to go back up with DH and make sure she is doing ok. Plus we have some stuff we have to take care of for her so she can quit worrying about this "stuff". I know she is lonely even though one of her sons lives there. It is never the same after you loose your spouse of over 60 years! We will try and get herr out of the house a bit too so she can have some entertainment. Maybe we can get her to play bingo with us or even a few slot machines. (Like that is ever a problem for her.)

Have a great couple of weeks and I will let you all know if we hit the "big" one in Vegas.

January 2009

I can not believe it is almost the end of January of 2009. Seems the older I get the quicker the time flies.

Not much going on in our lives. At least other than the normal day to day grind of working, eating, sleeping and crafting when time allows.

Right now I am working on a knitted prayer shawl of my own design. (trust me it is nothing fancy but VERY easy to do). I am crocheting a star shaped lapghan in pastel colors. I love the pattern and will do it again with worsted weight yarn next time as the baby yarn is taking a VERY long time to do so I can only do a couple of rows a night before my hands ache from holding the small hook and yarn.

I have ordered a fillet crochet pattern of the Last Supper. It should be here in the next week. I know it will take a while to do but I am hoping once it is done I can fame it and place it over my fireplace. It will be done in crochet thread (and I am complaining about baby yarn?). The nice thing about fillet crochet for a lefty is most people have to read the pattern from right to left but a lefty reads it left to right just like a book! Lucky us, huh? The other nice thing about fillet crochet is it goes so much quicker than other crochet. The "holes" go quickly and increase the size of the project rapidly. Now, with the crochet thread I know it will not go that quickly and as intricate as this pattern is I am sure it will take a bit more time than normal, but that is fine as I am not giving it to anyone for any special occasion. Well, that is unless I get it done by Easter and then I will give it to my Hubby. He will love it.

It has been really warm here in AZ for the past week so it has been hard for me to look at the lapghan or the shawl to work on. We have been in the high 70's and even hit 80 yesterday. In fact, socks and dishclothes have been appealing to me but I have promised myself no new projects until these two are completed. It is suppose to cool off this next week so I will get busy on them again and hopefully get at least one of them completed.

I want to get back to my beading also but will not do that until those two projects are done. So I have plenty of motivation to get them finished don't I?

My cousin from GA is coming in this weekend for a conference in Tucson. She is going to spend the night at my Mother's house and we are all going to get together on Sunday for brunch and a nice visit. I have not seen her for almost 10 years! The nice thing with her it never seems like you have missed a day of being together. I am looking forward to seeing her again.

I have also started taking "Financial Peace University' Course from Dave Ramsey. It is really great and I have already learned a great deal about personal finance. We will be changing our live style a bit but if done properly we will be completely debt free by the time I retire! That gives me 10 years to complete everything and I know it can be done because I have crunched the numbers and it is completely possible. My mother took the course last year and I read his book last year while she took the course. So I decided to take the course this year and Mom is going thru it again for review and revising of her budget. Of course this does take up some of my "crafting" time but it is well worth it and the course is only 13 weeks long, one evening a week. I think I can handle that. But sometimes the homework I get takes SEVERAL evenings for me to complete. That is where the time comes into it.



My grand daughter has started dance class and totally loves it. Doesn't she look cute in her dance clothes. She is doing tap right now and will learn other methods but not ballet because she is too young for that. Her feet need to develop more before ballet is brought in.




I don't know if you heard or not but the Arizona Cardinals are going to the Superbowl! This is a picture of my son, Josh (on the left) and his neighbor Scott on Sunday's game day. It was kind of hard for us in a way as we lived in Philly for 4 years and kind of got attached to the Eagle mania up there. But since we now live here in Arizona we support our home teams. Now will the Cardinals win Superbowl? I have no idea. The Steelers are a pretty tough team but then we have come this far, why not? Superbowl is on Josh's birthday this year. He is kind of excited about that too. So you can guess what we all will be doing for his birthday can't you? We will be at his house parked in front of his BIG screen TV watching the game and eating lots of yummy things and enjoying the company of family.

Better go and get something done.