WOW!

 

It is time to brag for a moment.  This happened on Sunday.

Sweet 16 for Josie.  It was fun being with her and some of her friends for the day.

But today............................She passed her drivers test.  She is officially a licensed driver.  So proud of her.  She is the first one in her group of friends to get her license and yet she is the youngest one among them.  She is pretty proud and so is this Mimi!

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

WEEK 5 UPDATE

 

Yup, it is that time again to come here and tell you all about the week I just had.  Just so you know, it was a very good week.  So, let's get started.

CRAFTING

I have a finish.

Wee Sherlock sweater and Little Boy Blue hat are completed.  The buttons will be sewn on today.  If you can't tell, we now know the baby is going to be a girl.  We are all very excited too.  I like the sweater pattern as it can be for either boy or girl.  The hat, I modified to have the same cable on it as is on the sweater.  The pom pom is also an added feature.  So, basically, all I use the hat pattern for is for stitch count and decreases on the top LOL.

I also have another frogged item.

The Summer Lacey Stole got pulled apart.  I picked it up to work on this week and decided to measure it.  Once I did that, I realized this would only be about 40" long when I ran out of yarn.  Not going to work so well.  But never fear.  I did find another pattern to make with the yarns in this.

Say hello to Dying in the Light.  This is a pattern I test knit several years ago.  The person who designed it is no long designing and all of her patterns have been removed from Ravelry.  This is such a relaxing knit.  It is all in garter with German short rows used to add in the contrasting yarn and there are some eyelet rows thrown in to add texture.  

TREASURES

I just happened to be by a Hobby Lobby the other day.  It is not the one I normally go to.  In fact, it is twice the size of the one close to my house.  Of course this meant I needed to go in and check it out to see what this one had that mine did not.  WHOA!  It was AWESOME!

First treasure was a pom pom maker.  I love pom poms but have never mastered the skill of making them 'by hand'.  This came in quite handy for the baby hat pom pom.

Next..................................

Two mini cross stitch kits.  The Christmas Nativity scene will be for our house.  The camper will be sent to my niece.  Her family is very much into traveling and have a very strong faith too.  I wanted to start on the Christmas one but when I pulled out the instructions I almost went blind.  Never have I seen a chart so small I could not figure out what the symbols were.  We are going to enlarge it on our printer so I don't go blind doing it, plus, I have a cross stitch magnifying glass I wear around my neck that will be put to use.

And lastly.....................................

The silicone gingerbread men forms are for my homemade 'frosty paws' for my dogs.  I figured if we eat animal crackers, they could eat gingermen.  The plaque behind it was also a find at HL.  I fell in love with it the moment I saw it.  I was so brave as it did not have a price on it and so I did not know if it was included in any of the sale items for the week.  SURPRISE!  It was part of the 66% off items.  In fact, everything I purchased was at least 50% off.  Correction, the cross stitch kits were not on sale but I love them anyways.

MY JOB THIS PAST WEEK

Yup, I had a job this past week.  My son was out of town for business and his wife works full time in a Dr office.  That means I had teen and dog duty.  The teen had a swim camp this week to prepare her for her school's swim team that starts in 2 weeks.  I had the privilege of taking her to and from the camp each day.  While she was at camp, I had 2 hours to kill which is how I found that HUGE Hobby Lobby store.

After camp was over we would go to her house for lunch and some girl time.  This also meant we got to hang out with Thor, the dog.

I wanted Josie to be involved in the baby set I made so I gave her the task of making the pom pom for the hat.  She was quite thankful I had purchased the pom pom makers.

After enjoying each other's company for several hours, I then took her to her play rehearsal and then I headed home.  Her mom got the joy of picking her up after rehearsal and then they had the evening together.  

I was super privileged when she asked me if I would paint her nails for her.  How could I refuse.  It was so fun.  

Can you tell who Thor loves best?  Before I leave this section I need to tell you something.  Today is a very special day.  August 1, 2021 is the day Josie turns 16!!!!!!!!!!!!  Can you believe it?  She was 4 years old when I started blogging in YOP.  

This was Josie when I started this YOP journey.  Quite a difference, right?  She is quite excited to be 16.  She has scheduled her driving test for this week Wednesday.  Hopefully she will pass it the first time.  I will let you know.

PARTING SHOTS

This coming week I have the joy of being home all week.  Hubby has been busy decluttering our backroom.  We have a handyman coming in next month to do some finishing work on that room so we need it ready for him to work on it.

I will be working on other areas of the house and removing more 'stuff' from our home.  My decluttering has taken a back seat lately.  Time to get back to it.

We had roof damage from a couple of huge wind storms.  That was over 2 weeks ago.  We finally got the repair done this week.  We had to have 8 shingles replaces.  

I will leave you with one of my favorite photos I took this week.

Sir Thorbert of Gilbert says "whatcha doin'?"

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

Week 4

Hello my friends.  Another week has gone by.  Time for me to write a little bit about my happenings this past week.

There has been knitting..............lots of knitting.

Another Wee Sherlock is being made for a very special baby girl to be born in January.  I started this last Sunday afternoon and was sailing along quite well.  On Wednesday I looked it over and thought this as waaaay too big for a newborn.  Maybe because I am a loose knitter and also because I was doing 3-6 months size.  I only had about 1 inch left on it before I was to start the sleeves but I just could not continue.  I frogged the entire sweater and started again using the instructions for the 0-3 month size.  It is oh, so much better.  I should have the second sleeve completed yet today.   The second sleeve has also been knit twice.  There was some very loose stitches the first time it was knit.  After it is all finished I will be on the search for some very feminine buttons that are NOT pink.  Mom is not a fan of pink so I will adhere to her wishes of no pink.

That is it for knitting.  The sweater outfit needs to be completed by the middle of August so I have time to wash, dry and wrap this little jewel up for the baby shower.  Every other WIP is on hold until this is completed.

I did do one other fiber related item this week.  My own design of a lacy boxy sweater that has been languishing for the past 6 years got frogged on Monday.  It was not an easy decision to make.  I just knew I would never wear it and the yarn was way too expensive for it to just hang in my closet.  So, now I have 1100 yards of Blue Heron Metallic DK weight yarn to find a pattern for.  I was thinking a shawl but I looked in my closet and I must have close to 15 shawls in there already.  I am sure something will peak my interest soon.

That is all for my crafting this past week.  In other news.........................

Can you hear Queen singing "we are the champions"?  We took first place in our trivia group Wednesday night.  If Josie had not been with us, we would have bombed out.  We needed her young mind to help with many of the questions concerning today's events.

Remember I told you we got solar up and running the 15th of this month?  Remember how I said we had so much cloud cover it was hard to tell if it was producing enough solar to really make a difference?  Well, Sunny Arizona has not had a full day of sunshine in over 10 days now.  In fact, it started raining here Thursday evening and it is still raining today!  According to my rain gauge.........................

We have had almost 3 inches of rain since Thursday night.  That is almost a half year's worth of rain for our area.  (Isn't my rain gauge adorable?)  It is supposed to clear up tonight sometime and just be nice and muggy for the next week.  With all this rain and cool weather our pool has dropped from 90 degrees to 82 degrees.  Our high temps have been in the low 80's for the past few days which is a real joy for us. 

This coming week I will have teen/dog duty.  Josie starts swim camp for her school swim team so I will be busy dropping and picking her up as well as taking her to her play practice.  Her dad is out of town again for business and her mom is working so the retired Mimi gets to have some fun with the Grand daughter this coming week.  This will be her last week to be 15 too.  She turns 16 next Sunday.  She has already told us she will be going to the DMV on Monday to get her driver's license.  

Time to get back to that sweater!

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

Week 3

 

Hello again.  It is that time again to talk about what I did this past week in my crafting.  Hopefully you won't get tired of seeing these.  It is all I have going at the present time.

Hubby's plain vanilla socks with FLK heels.  The orange marker is where I was last week.  Both of them are now on the same row count.  This week, I will be increasing the number of stitches so they will be able to fit over hubby's calves.  Not sure when they will be completed.  There are other projects needing to be started ASAP plus another project that I started last month that I need to give some love to or it will not be completed in time for an October birthday.

On Tuesday I did a little Amazon shopping.  Finally, I found some cloth baskets to fit in my craft table cubicles.

They are just perfect for putting my yarn into and will keep the yarn a bit more protected from dust.  It also makes it much easier for me to find what I am looking for since all I need to do is pull out a basket and look into it rather than bending over and trying to reach into the back of a cubicle which is 15 inches deep.  When these arrived, I just 'threw' my yarn into the baskets. This week I would like to take the time to organize it a bit more.  The baskets on the left have all my DK weight and the ones on the right have all my fingering weight yarns.

But wait.....................there's more................................

There are three of these storage units in my craftroom.  Well, one in my craftroom and two in the craftroom closet.  The one you are looking at is in the room itself.  I got these cloth baskets off of Amazon too.  Most of them are holding my worsted weight yarn and one of them is holding my lace yarn.  The ones in the closet hold my cotton yarn and my WIPs.  Those are now in these baskets.  It is nice to have the yarn more protected.  Plus, this way people don't gawk at the amount of stash yarn I have when they walk into my craftroom.  

We finally got our solar system up and running on our house, this past week.  It has either rained or been overcast each day since then.  (Sigh)  Not thinking we will see a big difference this month because of that.  We are in the heart of our monsoon weather.  I am not disappointed in the fact we are actually having a wet monsoon this year.  In fact, I am quite thankful for the moisture.  I was just kind of hoping to see how much of a difference having solar would make on our electric bill.  Oh well, this monsoon won't last much longer.  Maybe another couple of weeks and then we will be back to blue skies and hot dry weather.

Today I do not have any plans what so ever.  Hubby is watching the British Open.  Me?  Playing with yarn today and listening to my audio book is the only thing on my list.

What is on your list to do today?

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

Part Deux

 

Guess what I woke up to today........................RAIN!  I could not believe it.  It has been so long since we have had any measurable rain.  Maybe this monsoon season will be a wet one for a change.  We are in such a severe drought.  

With the rain falling I got another burst of energy today.  That makes 3 days in a row.  Hubby had errands to run and I gave him my grocery list so while he was out he could do it all.  While he was gone I got on my 'to do' list.

First up was changing our wifi passwords and then getting all our electronics re-synced with them.  That took me over two hours to complete.  Making up hard to guess passwords is not for sissies.  Hubby normally does it but I decided it was time for me to learn something new in the techno world. There were 2 loads of laundry done while I was working on that password mess.  I bought a new comforter for our bed several weeks ago and finally got around to putting that on today and taking the old one and getting it ready for donations.  Then there was this watermelon on my kitchen counter begging to be cut up and put in the fridge for snacking.  By the time all of this was done it was time for lunch...........thank goodness!  I was starting to get tuckered out.  Hubby came back from his errands and brought me a gift.

He loves to bring me flowers and I love receiving them.  

Last night I made picadillo empanadas for dinner.  I had 4 empanada discs left over. 

 So, I decided to make a yummy desert for us.

Cherry empanadas with almond flavored glaze.  Some folks call them hand pies or turnovers.  Here in the southwest, these are empanadas.  They are cooling now but I have a feeling they will be gone by the end of the day.

I am finally kicking back and getting ready to pick up some knitting to work on.  Tomorrow our electric company will be coming out to get our home switched over to solar energy.  Hopefully we will have sunshine then LOL.  Then tomorrow evening we have a handyman coming out to look at what we need to have done and give us an estimate on price and time.  Friday I have a lunch date with one of my friends and that normally lasts 2-3 hours.  The only other thing we are waiting on is our roofing guys.  During the monsoon wind storm, part of our roof shingles in the back yard completely lifted off and are laying upside down and buckled on our roof.  It may a while before they can get here though.  They are working on a home whose roof collapsed.  I think that take priority!

Tonight's dinner is going to be easy..................air fryer beef kielbasa with sautéed onions on hoagie rolls.  I'm going to make tomorrow's dinner at that time too...............ham pasta salad.  

How is your day going?  

Until Next Time......................................

Just because

 

I was just sitting here researching some stuff for a dear friend of mine.  After I got done I thought, "why not do a quick blog post".  It's not like I have anything major to talk about.  I just like dropping in to say "HI" to everyone on days other than Sunday.

Yesterday I got so much stuff done.  Of course I did......it was Monday.  I got labels sewed on the prayer shawls, menus made for the next 2 weeks, made a bday card for a friend's 91st bday, made a lunch date with a friend, sent texts to a couple of relatives to catch up on their lives (they have not responded back) and worked on hubby's socks.

Today, it is still morning but I have emptied the dishwasher, cooked the meat for tonight's empanadas, fed Arthur, cleaned up the kitchen from cooking and talked to my dear friend in Las Vegas for a bit.  After I post this, I am going to jump in the pool and get some water aerobics going.  I have teen duty this afternoon.  It is only a pick up and drop off but it gives me a chance to talk to her for a few minutes....face to face.

It is nice to have things completed before lunch time.  That give me the chance to goof off in the afternoon.  Actually, it is giving me the chance to do some amazon shopping LOL.  I am looking for baskets to go into the cubbies that hold my yarn.  It will be easier to pull out a basket and search it than to try and see clear to the back of a 15 inch dark hole.  Right?

What do you do during the week?

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

Week 2 of YOP 11

 

Another week has gone by and my fingers have been busy.  There is another FO this week.

Another "To the Point" prayer shawl is completed and heading to the prayer shawl ministry at my parish.  I had stopped making these for a while as we were not mailing out shawls because of covid.  Now that things are settling down, the shawls are being sent again.  I am hoping to use up the rest of the worsted weight yarn I have by making these.  Once that is used up, I will only purchase worsted weight weight for projects calling for it.  Like these prayer shawls and like this:

Yup, another Wee Sherlock is going to be made soon.  We have a dear friend (who calls me grandma) that is expecting her first baby.  Her husband is my BFF's son.  We are so happy for them.  I just had to get some lovely soft washable yarn for the wee one that is expected to arrive in January.  There will also be a hat, baby mitts and booties made to go with this. They live in Texas where there is actually cold weather!  We will know the gender the end of this month and the buttons and embellishments will be gender specific.  The yarn is from Hobby Lobby and is their Soft and Sleek low pill yarn.  Perfect for baby garments.

There was sock knitting this past week too.

I took them off the magic loop and put them on DPN's.  I am sorry, I do not find magic loop quick at all.  It seems I spend more time pushing the project up and down the needles then I do knitting.  The orange marker is where I was last time I worked on these.  The sock on the right has a few more rows on it than the one on the left.  But no worries.  Each of them has a row counter attached to it so they will be even in the end.  This is my TV watching project.

Speaking of row counters:

I purchased two more chain row counters this past week and they arrived on Friday.  You might remember I had a lemon row counter a while back.  Well, someone fell in love with it and I gave it to them.  Luckily KnittyGnat (on etsy) had another one in her stock so I grabbed it along with the sea turtle.  That gives me 4 counters and three are already in use.

That covers all of my crafting this week.  In other news:

Wednesday, I accompanied my BFF to go and help her pick up two foster puppies.  

Just had a bath

She has fostered before but never puppies.  Even though she has 2 dogs of her own, she tries to help out when the rescues get over run.  On Friday, I helped her take the puppies back to the rescue.  Her one dog got physically ill from the puppies bothering him all the time.  He quit eating and started throwing up all over the house.  He does fine with 'adult' dogs but not so much with 6 week old puppies.  She felt so bad taking them back but the rescue understood....especially since the dog that was getting sick came from them too.  Talked to her yesterday and her boy is all better now.  Eating and drinking and keeping everything down.

I spent the first part of the week deep cleaning my refrigerator and our upright deep freeze.  Oh my, the fridge was in dire need of cleaning.  It looks so pretty now and the shelves and drawers sparkle.  I only found 2 expired items in the fridge which tells me we have been pretty good about eating leftovers and/or watching dates on perishable foods.  In the freezer I only found 3 items that had not been vacuum sealed properly and were severely freezer burnt.  What the freezer needed was a total reorganization.  I would jump back each time I opened it as usually something big and heavy would fall out where my feet would normally be.  It now is all organized and opening the door is no longer a scary thing.  I still need to go through the freezer attached to our fridge.  Maybe that will happen this week.

We are in our monsoon season.  The past two nights we have had 30-50 MPH winds whipping up dust storms.  It has happened after dark so no photos of it to show.  We got a trace of rain last night with it but that is all the rain we have this monsoon season, so far.  Everything outside has a nice layer of dirt on it from the storms.  It feels so gross.  My car has changed from garnet red to dirt brown.  I would wash it but there is really no need until the season ends.

Today, Hubby and I are planning a chill day at home.  I will head to the grocery store at some point to pick up fresh produce again.  There will be some sourdough bread being prepared for baking tomorrow.  Hopefully, there will be lots of knitting done too.  I have a zoom meeting this afternoon with my Silk & Sonder journaling group.  Those are always so enjoyable and I learn so many new ideas on journaling.  Next week I have some teen/dog duties to attend to.  Other than that, it should be a fairly quiet week.  Maybe the socks will get close to completion. 🤞

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