So Much Done

The past 2 days have been spent getting our Christmas decorations down and put away.  Hubby takes down the outside lights and I take care of all the inside decorations.  Together we get the tree pulled apart and put away in the box that holds it and all the outside lights.  I am happy to say, all but 2 Holy Family sets are put away.  The 2 that are still out are on top of our 7 foot bookcases and hubby needs to climb a ladder to get them down and hand them to me.  (I don't like to climb ladders anymore since I fell off one and injured my head several years ago.)  It is nice to have that out of the way until next year.  Remember I told you about our tree that is flocked?  This is the only reason I do not like this tree:

That white stuff falls off the tree and it goes from the family room into the dining room and on into the Arizona room where we store the tree.  It is a mess!  We vacuum it up ASAP but usually the dogs have walked through it by then and it is tracked ALL over the house.

I had a Dr appointment with my Rheumatologist this morning and things are going quite well for me with the medications I am on.  She was very pleased to hear I had started back on getting some exercise each day too.  

I did take some photos on Monday when I went for my walk.  Wanna see?  Of course you do.

It is citrus picking time here in Arizona.  These lemons are so ready to be picked.  We no longer have our citrus trees and I am not sad about that at all.  It is a lot of work to make sure all the fruit is off so roof rats (look those nasty guys up) don't get in your yard and house.

These rocks were part of yard decor.  When you hear about the floods here in Arizona, these are the rocks that go flying in the waters.  Very deadly but they do make for some pretty yard decorations.

Not sure if these are weeds or ground cover.  This covered quite a bit of this persons yard.  I do believe they have a flower on them in the spring time.  I will walk back by there in a couple of months to see.

This plant is a dwarf palm tree.  They do not get very big and add a nice green touch year round to a yard.  Notice the rock decor again?  It is a thing here.  The reason their grass is all green is it is winter rye.  It will stay nice and green until our temps go back to then 80's.  then their Bermuda grass will come out of dormancy and green up their yard again.

A very dead tree.  I don't know why people let dead trees stay in their yard.  But it makes for fun photo.

I have no idea what kind of tree this is.  It is very lacy and airy looking.  It stays that way year round.

And of course, there are cactus here in yards.  This is the barrel cactus.  As you can see it already bloomed and those yellow pods on top are the end result.  You do not want to have a run in with these babies.  

So that is all of the photos that turned out from my walk.  I will be walking again on Wednesday and will try and find more fun photos to take and post.  Oh, and yes, our sky is really that blue.  We see that color at least 335 days a year.  It is the reason I get so excited when it rains.  

Time for lunch and to switch the laundry into the dryer.  I still have some decluttering to get done today.  Big Brothers Big Sisters are coming on Monday next week for a pick up.  I want to make sure it is worth their while.  LOL

Until next time.................happy crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!

WEEK 27 OF YOP 9

Hello again readers.  It is a quiet Sunday morning here at Casa de Noce.  Hubby is off to church for a meeting and then to teach a class.  We went to Mass yesterday evening to celebrate the feast of the Epiphany (aka: the 3 kings).  Since it is so quiet here, I decided this would be the perfect time to update my blog without interruption.

The only item I have worked on all week is hubby's socks.

It is the Scatterby Sock pattern and has been in my 'to do' pile for about 3 or 4 years now.  The pattern is a 4 row repeat which makes it not too bad to watch TV and do.  I tried on one of the socks the other day to see if they had enough stretch.  Oh My Goodness!  This pattern is even nicer than the Hermione's Everyday Sock pattern for cushion and comfort.  It has such a nice hugginess (that is now a word) to it.  This may become my new favorite pattern.  Sorry, Harry Potter fans.  I need to do another half inch and then the heels will commence.  It will be the Fish Kiss Lips heel again.  This pattern even calls for that heel.

It was a full week so not as much knitting got done as I would have liked.  That is the reason these socks have not gotten heels yet.  The best part of the week was getting some decluttering done.  I am hoping to donate 1 to 2 hours a day for that activity.  My other goal for the coming weeks is to get back to my exercise routine.  I was doing so well and then I let myself get sidetracked.  There is no reason I can not find 30 minutes a day to either go walking or riding my Teeter.  

As soon as I finish this update, I will be heading to the kitchen to make a loaf of bread for dinner tonight.  There is also a dishwasher asking to be emptied and an air fryer in need of hand washing.  After that, there is a walk in my future and I plan on taking my camera with me so I can get some photos of nature.  I figure if I can combine photography with exercise it will be much more interesting and fun.

Tomorrow we will be taking down our Christmas decor.  I love putting it up and it feels so bare after it is put away.  I jokingly said I was going to leave the tree up and just keep changing the decorations for the season.  (ie: red hearts for Valentines, green shamrocks for St Patricks, etc)  There was a craft store in Pennsylvania that did this and it was so cute.  But alas, I fear, if I leave it up all year it will loose it's appeal after a while.  Therefore, back into it's box it will go tomorrow.

What are you up to this coming week?  Any fun plans?

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

Y'all had questions

I have been remiss in answering questions that have appeared in the comment sections of my blog.  Today, I will rectify that little faux paux of mine.

Both of the questions to be answered were from Sam (farmgirlsam)

Can the tumblers with the designs/decals on them be washed?

     Yes, but only by hand.

Can you make socks for someone just by know their show size?

     Yes you can.  As long as they have 'normal' width feet as well as ankle and legs you can        make socks for anyone.  If their ankles or legs are 'thick' you will need to adjust your              stitches for that.  There are charts on the internet telling you how long someone's foot is        by their shoe size.  There are separate charts for male and female.  That is how I made        my sister in law's socks.

If you have any questions, just put them in the comment section and I will get to them soon.

Until next time..................happy crafting!

Fun Day

I have had so much fun today and it is only 1pm.  Getting up around 7 this morning, I immediately moved all the things out of the rooms hubby was going to clean.  When hubby started cleaning, I ran into my craft room to get it under control.  It was the 'catch all' room while we had all the company here.

There was a bit of decluttering done while I was in there.  Gone are 2 small bags of trash, 15 "project" bags of varying sizes, 4 boxes of crayons, a blanket and a quilt.  I am sure there is still plenty more in there that needs to find a new home, but I figured I worked on it for a couple of hours and that was all I wanted to do for the day.

As soon as the decluttering was done for the day, I decided to play with my Cricut for a little bit.  I made decorations for my hot/cold tumblers.  Here is one of them.

A llama!  Isn't he cute?  I really need to work with it more and more to get more out of it than just tumbler decor.

Today is also the day to wind my mantle clock and water my plants.  My Thanksgiving Cactus is now 1 year old and I am so please with the way it has grown since I transplanted it in the spring.

This sits on my sewing table in my craft room.  It gets the perfect amount of sunlight all year round.  Unfortunately, no one ever gets to see it other than hubby and myself.  But that is ok with me.  It was purchased because I had always wanted one and love the fact they are low maintenance plants.  Once hubby finished the backroom, I will be moving it to there.  Then I will be able to see it from my kitchen all the time.

During my time in my craft room I was listening to my new audio book.  I am so enamored with audio books now.  Hubby is hooked on them too.  He listens when he is doing the house cleaning and yard work.  I also listen to them when he is watching his sports programs and I am knitting.  I have tried to do ebooks while knitting but find it too hard to do, especially if I am working on something that needs me to watch my needles.

Now that lunch is over, I am going to go and prep our dinner and get it ready to go into the oven later this evening.  Then I will kick back and work on hubby's socks for a while.

BTW, I told you about the Honey Beer bread I had in the bread machine yesterday.  It turned out wonderful.  It has a nice tight crumb and is so tasty!  This will get made again.  The only thing that might turn off some folks is, it has cumin in it.  You can definitely smell it when it is being cut.  I can not taste the cumin though.  But then, I like cumin so it would not turn me off if I could taste it.

Until next time.................happy crafting!

HAPPY

My SIL is finally home from her Christmas adventure.  She sent me this photo:

The socks fit her perfectly!  It is so scary making socks for someone you do not have near.  Now I know what size she wears and I can make more socks for her.  She is VERY knit worthy.  She told me she knew they were made with much love.  Yup, VERY knit worthy.

I have been busy again today.  There is a loaf of bread baking in my bread machine.  It is a new recipe from my bread machine cookbook I just received.  Hopefully it will turn out yummy.  It is called Honey Beer Bread.  I will let you know.

The final Christmas cards with their monetary gifts have been written and addressed.  Hubby is taking them to the post office when he goes to get his allergy shot.  He's so sweet.

The dishwasher has been emptied and refilled.  That meant the rest of the kitchen got a nice wipe down and everything was put away where it belongs.

After I finish this blog post, I will pick up my knitting and and finish my audio book that is due back tomorrow.  I do have another audio book already rented and ready to go too.

We will be having pork chops for dinner tonight.  It has been a while since I made a 'real' meal around here.  I miss cooking and am looking forward to having a real home cooked meal for a change.

Menus for the next 10 days have been made as well as the grocery list.  Tomorrow will be grocery day.  We do not need that much but I want to get it done and out of the way before the weekend shoppers are out and about.

There is a puzzle sitting on my table waiting to be put out.  I was going to do that today too but want to wait until Christmas is put away.  I am thinking that will happen this weekend.  We normally do not put away Christmas until after the 6th of January (Epiphany).  For some reason, I am just D.O.N.E. with all the decor and stuff.  This is very abnormal for me too.  

Decluttering has already started.  As we are going around putting the house back to it's normal self.  We have found blankets, quilts and other bedding no longer of use to us.  Hubby also went through 'his' bathroom cabinets and found quite a few things to donate and also other things to trash.  This makes me super happy too.

That's about it for today.

Until next time.............happy crafting!

#1

It is my first blog post of 2020.  Why not start out the new year with a lovely post?  Hopefully all of you fared well last night.  We had quite a bit of fireworks going off in our neighborhood and I had one very scared little boy dog.  The girl dog was not too effected by it but I did wake up to find her curled up next to me around 2 this morning.  That is not normal, so I assume she finally got a bit scared also.

I am on my third load of bath towels.  When you have guests, your laundry increases quite a bit.  We have very thick and BIG bath towels so they take up quite a bit of space in the washer and dryer.  Hence the reason for three loads today.  All I will have left after that will be sheets.  Those may wait a few days before I do them.  It is not like I have anyone else coming to stay soon that will need clean sheets.

One of the things on my 'to do' list today is to do a bit of research on this.

I am bound and determined to get a good sourdough starter going.  Since it takes several days before you can use it, I wanted to get it going ASAP.  This will be my third attempt at making a starter.  I know, part of the issue is the temperature of my house.  I keep it down around 68F during the winter and most starters need it to be at least 70F.  

There are still Christmas cards with monetary gifts to be sent to our adult grand kids.  I had to ask each of them for their addresses and all but 1 got back to me.  If my Grandmother had asked for my address, I don't think I would have ignored her request.  In  fact, I had several requests this year from relatives for our address and I had no issue sending it to them. 

The only other major 'to do' today is to clean out our fridge.  Goodness, it is hard to find anything in there.  When you have 5 people rummaging through it each day to find 'snacks' it gets to be a hot mess.  I know there are leftovers in there from who knows when,  They need to be thrown away along with some expired milk and eggnog.  There are eggs in there that are begging to be hard boiled along with some fruit that needs to be used up in some delicious way.  All things that I love to do on days that are cold and a bit dreary. 

Tonight, hubby and I will be going to Trivia.  Our brains are full of useless information and we might as well use it to win gift certificates for free food. Right?

BTW, Signature Needles is having a sale until midnight tonight (January 1,2020).  25% off all items in their store.  I love their needles, especially the stiletto pointed ones.  If you have never owned any of their needles, you have missed out.  They are not cheap and I only purchase them when they are on sale.  You get to pick out your shaft length, cable length, point type and of course size of the needle.  The double points come in several lengths and also you can pick out the point type.  They also have straight needles and have options for the points, lengths and also the finial at the end of them.  You can also get them monogrammed if that is your thing.  That does cost extra though.  I use their DPN's for socks and they are slightly ribbed so the yarn does not slide off the needle if you set it down but they slide off so smoothly when knitting.  I also have some of their circulars and just today completed my set of circulars.  DISCLAIMER:  I am not being compensated to promote their product.  This is my personal opinion.

I hear my dryer buzzing so I need to go and fold those towels.

Until next time.....................happy crafting!