Almost There

This is the last week before Christmas.  The last week of advent as we prepare for the birth for our Lord, Jesus Christ.  This is the last few days that we have to prepare our hearts and minds for this joyous event.  This is the time of year that I love.  It is so joyful being filled with friends, family, festivities and FOOD!

A few weeks ago my Grand Daughter helped me and my mom make Mom's famous party mix.  She was a big help stirring all of that stuff and taste testing it to let us know if it was good enough or not.  Here is a shot of her helping.

 

This past Thursday our Grand Daughter had her Advent program at Church and it was wonderful.  What a joy to watch all the children from her school perform some very special songs in preparation for the coming of our Lord.  Here is a shot of some of her Classmates during their song.

And here is a shot of her doing some of the sign language during the song.  (actually they all did sign language during the song)

Last night was her Dance recital but unfortunately we are not allowed to take photos during the performance but just trust me when I tell you she did a wonderful job.  In fact the other girls in her troop were watching her to make sure they were getting it right.

We have all the presents bought, wrapped and most of them delivered.  My hubby was a big help this year with some of the shopping and with the wrapping.  We were up until 2AM wrapping last night and had a wonderful time listening to Christmas music and enjoying each others company.

I think next year I will start the first of the year getting gifts for Christmas.  I love giving.  It gives me so much joy to watch the faces of others as they get a gift that is heartfelt.  I would love to have a homemade Christmas next year.  So if that is going to happen I truly need to start in January to get everything made that I would like to give to others.  So the list will begin very soon and will have much thought put into it.

I hope all of you have a Blessed Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year.

Craft on!

New Stuff

Thought I should probably get into here and show you all that I have some "new stuff" to show you.

We have a new member in our family.  This is Luna.  She is a rescued dog from Mixed up Mutts and Shephards Too.  They think she is about 4 years old and if you look closely you can see her back right paw is black.  That is from skin grafts she had to have.  They don't know how she damaged it but she is lucky as they almost had to amputate it.  She is a Chihauhau Minature Pinscher mix.  What a love too!  I was originally looking to get a Doxie for my Mother in Law but fell in love with this little bit of a thing and couldn't resist her.  She has a great personality and has made her way into our hearts in a very short time.  She has been with us now for two weeks!

Here is a scarf that I am knitting for someone very special to me.  I have never done somthing that will come out rectangular that is knitted on the "bias".  It makes the striping really kind of cool.

I am still beading too.  I have lots of stuff ready for the craft sale on the 20th.  Now I only hope that we have lots of people attend so I don't have to bring it all home and then decide what I am going to do with all of it.  Here are just a few pictures of what I have ready to go.  This is not even half of them and I am still working on more these next two weeks.

 And last but not least is some photos of my Grand Daughter who decided that it would be kind of fun to try out ice hockey.  I have a whole new respect for hockey players.  After watching her get her gear on I was exhausted.  And all I did was watch.  Of course she told us that she couldn't play hockey because she has all of her teeth!  She got 4 free lessons and we are taking bets on how many of them she will actually go to.  Last night she was already saying she didn't want to go anymore.  (she has only been once.)  So we will see.

 



So that is about all for now.  Some day I will figure out this blogger thing.  It took me over an hour just to get this all posted and aligned and I am still not happy with it.  Oh well, maybe when I have more than a couple of hours in a day free I will be able to do that.

Have a great week all and Craft On!

FO'S

As promised I did take pictures of the 'winter wear' that I made.

This is from a Chemo hat pattern.  My niece wanted a skull cap and this was so feminine that I just couldn't resist it.  I love the lace on the bottom of it.  It is made with Lorna's Laces and the color is Huck's Room.

These are called Peek-a-boo mittens.  They are really clever in the fact you can just pop your four fingers out of the mitten without the help of either hand or your mouth.  You can also pop them back in without any assistance.  It is nice when you have your hands full of children, purse, grocery sacks, etc and need to have some extra dexterity for something like your keys.

Finally is the scarf.  It is called Column of Leaves and was the first lace project that I had attemped on anykind of a large scale.  I loved doing it and will probably do more scarve in this pattern.

That is all for now.

Have a great crafty day.

FO's

I have some FO's.  For those of you that do not craft in any way shape or form...........FO stands for...............Finished Objects.  I have lots of FO's actually.

I finished the hat, mittens and scarf for my niece/God Daughter in Wisconsin.  Now I just need to get it in the mail so she can be nice and toasty warm this winter.

I finished 2 sets (necklace, earrings, braclet) of beading for the craft show/sale.  I have another set on the beading board and I just finished a chunky chain necklace and have another one that needs a clasp put on it and that will be done!

Amazing what a person can do when they get an extra day off on the weekend.  Especially if you tell everyone that you are not doing anything that day but working on your UFO's!!!!! 

I even got to work on MY socks a bit last night.  They have been sitting there for about 4 months now waiting for me to notice them again.  It felt good to get a lot of stuff finished up and be able to work on what I wanted with out any guilt.

I will try and take some pictures to post on here of some of the FO's.  I am so bad about taking pictures and I carry a camera in my purse all the time.  Go figure.  But I really want you all to see the winter set I made as well as some of the jewelry that I have designed and made.

Ok, well that is about all for now.  TTYL

October

Remember how I was complaning last month about it being September and still being over 100 degress outside.  Well, same gripe only now it is October!  But at least the swimming pool is still in use longer than normal.  Then I hear the other night that we are entering a La Nina season and that we will have a milder than normal winter.  GREAT!  This means we will have bugs up the kazoo next year.  I already have ants all over my back yard and we can not find out where they are coming from.  Now I will have crickets, spiders and goodness knows what other little critters to go with them.  All I pray for now is a lot of those cute little geckos that we have sometimes that eats all our bugs.

Ok, so much for my complaining.  Now on to the crafting front.

I got the scarf done this past weekend and now am working on the hat.  I should have that done this weekend and then the mittens will ensue.  The hat would have been done about Wednesday but I had to rip it out 4 times as I was not happy with the size of it.  I even swatched the yarn before I started and it still came out big enough for 2 small children to wear it at the same time.  It is now perfect and I am on the decreasing rows so it will be done shortly.

I have not done anymore beading for the craft sale and really want to get back to that but not until the "winter" wear is done and boxed up and sent to it's owner.  Then I can bead without and feelings of guilt.

Than my Grand Daughter found a lonely skein of light green yarn and decided she wanted me to make a blanket for her baby. (I am not sure which baby as she has LOTS of them).  So when she is there I do a couple of rows on it to appease her little self.  Otherwise it is tucked neatly away in my WIP (works in progress) area. 

We have not decided on flooring yet either.  I need to go to one of the flooring stores that my DH went to but have not had the time to do that yet.  Their hours are not very condusive to the working class folk. 

In a couple of weeks we are going to be heading to Las Vegas for our 35th wedding anniversary.  Our best friends are suppose to be going with us but that is up in the air right now since their house caught on fire and they are a bit displaced and waiting for the work to be done on it so they can move back in.  One of our sons and his wife are going also.  We are looking forward to getting away for a few days to relax and just totally enjoy ourselves.

Did I tell you that our youngest son made Chief in the US Navy? He was pinned on the 18th of September. We are so proud of him and his family. He deserved it too. We were not able to make the pinning but got lots of pictures from them of the ceremony. Here are just a few of them.

So that is my life up to the moment.  It may not sound exciting to you but to me it is wonderful and full of love, family and friends.

Until later..............................

Finally September!

It is finally September and we are still in the 100's.  I am so looking foward to some cooler weather.  This is the time of year when I get really tired of all the heat.  But as I well know we will probably have another month of really "warm" weather before it truly cools off for about 6 months.

I made my kercheif that I told you about last time.  I love it.  Infact I love it so much I have made 3 more of them.  One of them will be given to my young God Daughter.  She is an altar server and likes to veil but is afraid of wearing too long of veil because of the candles she carries.  She saw me wear my kercheif on Saturday evening and loved it so I promised I would make one for her too.  I have plenty of lace left to make many more of them in lots of different colors.

I have put my socks on hold while I work on a lovely scarf for a very special person.  I can not tell you who it is as I know that person reads my blog and I kind of want to surprise that person!  I am working like crazy to get it done so I can work on some more items for this same person.  Oh I just love mysteries, don't you?

I have not worked on any beading or other knitting/crocheting either.  Since our Daughter moved out we have been looking at our house and decided that we are going to be getting rid of bunches of "stuff".  We have too many "things" and it is nothing other than a bunch of clutters.  So we have been cleaning it out bit by bit.  I took a bunch of it over to our neighbor for her garage sale and a lot of it sold.  We don't take any money for it as she buys food for our church food pantry with the $$ and that works for us.  We still have LOTS more to clean out but it is a start.

We got new furniture for our family room last week.  Our Daughter took our old stuff (we were glad to give it to her) and I have been wanting a sectional for a long time and that is what we got.  I love it.  So now we are looking at flooring for that room too.  We have been living with bare concrete floors for about 7 years.  So it is time  now to finally decide what we want to do with the floor.  We went to 2 flooring stores this weekend and have two other flooring places coming to our house in the next couple of weeks to bring sample.  My DH is going to go to another flooring store sometime this week and look there too.  It is hard to decide what we want as there are so many possiblities and this will be the last floor we put in.  We have agreed on no carpeting.  With the animals and all the dust from our desert it is just too nasty to have carpeting all thru the house.  When we pulled up the old carpeting it was totally disgusting what was underneath it.  Nope, no more carpeting (other than our master bedroom)

So that is how my life is rolling right now.  Busy as usual and hoping someday to get back to "normal".  (what ever that is)

Still here

I am still here but just haven't gotten around to posting on my blog.  Always seems there is something going on when I think about it.

Anyway, I am knitting, crocheting and beading away the summer.  I have finished one prayer shawl since last I wrote.  I didn't get pictures of it as I know our Cancer Ministry at church was in dire need of it and finished it while in my hour of prayer so just left it in the office for them.  I now have a pair of socks on the needles and I promise these are going to be for me because I picked out the yarn with me in mind.  I also have the alpaca prayer shawl on the crochet hook and have not touched it in a long time.  It is just too darn hot to work on right now.  I will have the LaLa's simple shawl on the needles and have done a few rows on that this week.  Then I also have a survivor shawl on the crochet hook and love doing it as it goes pretty fast.

In the world of beading I have finished 5 necklaces, 2 bracelets and 5 earrings that will be sold at a craft sale where my mom lives.  That will take place in November and I would like to get several more sets done for it.  Mom is also working on sets to sell too.

I have also completed 3 snoods to wear to Mass instead of the chapel veils.  The veils are so warm and the snood is off the neck so they are a bit cooler.  I am also going to try and make a mimkhatah which is Hebrew for kercheif.  It is not like your normal kercheif but is really nice looking and ties under the back of your head and does not require bobby pins or clips to keep it on.  It will also be cool as it will be made out of light weight lace and only to to the bottom of my hair line.  So the neck will be exposed. YEA!

Our daughter is moving out this week.  She found a really adorable one bedroom apartment int he historical section of our town.  It was built in the 60's and you can tell that as soon as you walk in and see the turquoise range top and oven.  It has just been a year since she moved back home and I think she has done really well getting her life back together and it is time for her to venture out on her own.  She has never lived by herself so this will be really good for her.  She is only about 5 minutes from our house so that is nice too.

Other than that is has just been crazy busy with our daily lives.  Seems like we don't get much down time anymore and if I do manage to find some I am at my crafts which make me so happy!

Have a great week and I will get some pictures of the jewelry and post them.  I might even take some pictures of works in progress too.