Lists

Are you a list maker?  Every evening, I sit down with my bullet journal and make my to do list for the next day.  Some days the list is as long as the page and other days there are only 2 or 3 items on it.  The biggest thrill I get is from checking off the 'to do' items as they are completed.  

Yesterday, my list was quite extensive.  Since spring has arrived to the Southwest, it was time to get all the bedding from the guest beds washed, folded and put away until needed for company.  That, along with my normal laundry saw me doing 5 loads of laundry yesterday.

On top of that, I made it my goal to get all items off the dining room table put in their proper place.  With the retreat happening this past weekend, we got a bit lax as to where we laid our books, mail, knitting etc...  That makes me crazy to see surfaces cluttered with 'stuff' that belongs elsewhere.  

The other goal I make for myself is to have 99% of my to do list completed by lunch time.  What doesn't get done by then will be placed on the next day's 'to do' list.  So I had 2 loads of laundry from yesterday's list that landed on today's list.  Not too bad.  I am already on load #2 so it will be done shortly.

I did have a bit of a scare yesterday.  After my 'to do' list was completed, I decided to cast on a pair of socks for the hubby.  I pulled the yarn I wanted to use and went to get my favorite needles and.........................could not find them!  I had just seen them on Friday night when I was getting my knitting together to take to the retreat.  I hollered for hubby to come and help me.  We were going through every project bag in my craft room.  Then he looks as me and asks "Are these the expensive needles I got you for Christmas?"  Well, of course they are.  Otherwise I would not be pulling my hair out to find them!  

After about 45 minutes of searching for the needles, I took a break, said a little prayer (ok, it was a big prayer) and then went back into the craft room to look one more time.  BOOM!  I picked up a project bag and there they were right underneath it.  Now I had looked there several times already and they were not in that spot.  I think there was a gremlin on the loose in my house.

The socks have been cast on and the cuff on both pair is completed.  As for the pattern.....I am trying to decided if I want to do Hermione's Everyday Sock, plain vanilla (the yarn is self striping) or go with a small cable up the side of the sock.  The decision needs to be made soon, as I start on the leg tonight.

The dryer is buzzing.  Guess I should go and get the clothes out, fold them and put them away.  I don't see anyone else running to do it LOL.

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

PS:  None of the pictures in this post are from my house.  Thank goodness for images on Mr Google!

WEEK 36

Hello again.  It is that time of week when I sit down and try and entertain all you blog readers.  Try is the optimum word here.  You figure reading this blog will take anywhere from 5-15 minutes of your time.  That is 5-15 minutes of your life, you will never get back again.  Therefore, there should be something in this blog that holds your attention and gives you some type of entertainment for those 5-15 minutes. Right?  So let's start off with some crafting news.

Can you see the sparkles in this photo?  I know, it looks like there is lint on the fabric.  Nope, that is the metallic thread that is in the fibers.  It is plentiful as you can see.

The bottom section is what I completed this week.  The shawl has just increased to almost 400 stitches, so the going is a bit slower from here on.  I have 2 sections left to do before the bind off.  It is still a bit smaller than I had hope for.  I believe this will make a fine 'neck' shawl but not a shawl for the shoulders to keep a person warm that way.

There is a FO this week too.

Another To The Point shawl for the prayer shawl ministry  The body of this one is made with Vanna's yarn and the edging is Crafters Secret Soft from Hobby Lobby.  I really liked the yarn for the body of the shawl.  Take a closer look.

It was a bit on the tweedy side.  The other interesting thing about this yarn.  It seemed to change color.  In one light it looked gray, in different light, brown  and still in another setting greenish.  I tried all three colors for the edging and not one of them looked good with it.  Good thing I had a nice neutral cream colored yarn!

My mailbox this week gave me a lovely present to myself.

Sea Glass progress keepers/ stitch markers.  Highlandheffalump  (A fellow YOPer and blogger) made these and sold them last week.  How exciting to receive something from another country!  Let me tell you, these little gems are absolutely a delight to look at.  Liz did a fantastic job of making them and when she packaged them for international shipping, she did a fabulous job for that too.  The best thing is, they are not huge nor heavy!  These could be attached to your finest lace project and they would not pull on the fabric or weigh it down.

They are not very big either.

See how petite they are?  They will be perfect for socks and other small items as well as my shawls and other larger projects.  Thank you so much Liz for the opportunity to  purchase such a wonderful item.

That covers my knitting/crocheting this week.  I do have dishcloths in the making.  They will be revealed the last Sunday of the month.

As for other news..............We had a retreat at our church yesterday.  We really enjoy helping with the retreats.  The day after though..................we are pretty wiped out.  I will hand it to my hubby though.  He is at our friends house helping them remodel their kitchen.  And me?  Sitting at home having a cup of coffee and writing this for all you faithful readers.  Hubby was able to go to Mass yesterday but I ended up going today.  Now you know why he is out helping and I am home typing.

This afternoon, we will be heading to the other side of the 'city' to have dinner with our daughter, her husband and his family.  The 'kids' are doing all the cooking so us 'old folks' can just sit back, relax and enjoy the day.  It should be a nice day and the weather is perfect too..  Very sunny outside and in the mid 70's today.  

Next week is the beginning of Lent.  This is the time of year I become very creative with meatless meals on Fridays.  I am not a huge fan of seafood which makes meatless Fridays somewhat of a challenge.  If any of you have fantastic meatless recipes for main dishes, let me know.  I love to try new recipes.  Oh, and please, no tofu recipes either.  Tried it, hated it.  We do love beans and pastas and cheese etc.  

Ok, I do believe that is all for today.  I want to take a little time and work on my shawl before we leave.  Not to mention, my coffee cup is empty and is needing a refill.

Until next time...............Happy Crafting!!!!!

Free Day

This is my last 'free day' of this week.  We have scheduled things happening from now until next week Monday.  See?  Being retired does not mean you have more free time.  It means you get re-tired daily.  (see what I did there?)

This is the day I have chosen to go to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase a (hopefully) wonderful frying pan.  I have the Copper Chef pans at the moment.  Everyone of the frying pans is horrible.  I love the sauce pans and stock pots and the little 8" frying pan.  But the 10 and 12 inch fryers have never been nonstick since the day I bought them!  So frustrating to spend  half an hour every time I use them to scrub a pan (with a nonabrasive scrub pad) that is supposed to be able to be cleaned out with a paper towel.  So today, I will go and purchase a 'good' pan, be it nonstick or ceramic.  But something I can cook in that releases the food......ALL of the food!

The only reason today is frying pan day is.........hubby wants pancakes for dinner tonight.  I made pancakes in my copper chef over a month ago and was so angry by the time I completed all the batter.  Even last night, I was reheating my carnita meat and it stuck like crazy to the pan.  I do not use spray cooking stuff on my pans as that ruins the finish of them.  I may use a 1/2 teaspoon of avocado oil at times so things will brown up but that is it.  I also, hand wash all my cookware.  I am so done with this mess!  ARGGGGG!!!!  

Phew.....I feel better now.

My knitting as been monogamous this week.  I want to complete the "Summer Flies" shawl soon.  My fingers are crossed I can have it off the needles before the weekend.  We have a retreat at Church this weekend and this would be great to wear around my neck and shoulders when I get a little chill.  I am on section 7 of the "My Version of Summer Flies" pattern.  This makes the shawl a bit wider and longer than the original pattern.  It has been an ejoyable knit and I would love to make another in worsted weight next time.  That should make the shawl just about the right size to wear as an actual shawl.

I am off to go frying pan shopping.  My life is so exciting, isn't it?

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

WEEK 35

I never thought my YOP update header would be of a snowman in February.  But with the crazy weather we have had this week.............there was over 40" of snow 200 miles north of us.  Our mountains to the east of us are covered with the white stuff.  That is not normal.  The snow level dropped to 1500 feet this week.  That is super low here.  Scottsdale got snow and that is only a few miles from where we live!  Yes, I have lived here long enough to have seen snow in our neighborhood.  NEVER in February though.

This is what I see as I am heading east on the roads here.  Isn't that just gorgeous?  It will all be gone by the end of the week.  Well, that area will.  Our ski resort said they will have ski season through spring break next month!  WOOHOO!  I think our drought is starting to wane.  We received over 2" of rain in 24 hours.  Everything was all nice and clean after that.

So now that you have all that info, let's talk crafting news.

I have FO's to show.

The socks are done.  Love this yarn so much.  WEBS is closing it out so I purchased 10 more skeins of different colors.  Hubby also loves the feel of this fiber so he picked out a couple of colors too.  These are my happy socks.  The colors make me smile.

A tissue box cover.  I found Lion's Brand Mandala in DK weight and thought I would give this pattern a try.  It is crocheted and worked up fairly quickly.  I had seen these on another blog and really liked it.  She used scraps of different colors and they were spectacular.  The next ones I make will be done that way.  This one is a bit boring for my taste.

Since it is the last Sunday of the month, it is dishcloth time.

Six more cloths were made this month.  As you can see, I am using up all my bits and pieces of cotton yarn to make these.  I do have plenty of whole skeins of cotton but did not want to let these pieces go to waste.  Next month I will be using "real" skeins for them.

That is all for the FO's.  I am still working on my Summer Flies shawl.

I so wish photos would do this yarn justice.  It has a metallic thread running all the way through it.  Last week I had just finished the first round of lace butterflies which was section 2.  I am on the 5th section of the pattern now.  I hope this thing is going to grow quickly.  As of right now, it would fit an American Girl doll!  I am a bit larger than that!  There are only 3 more sections to do before it is completed.  There may be some added rows if it looks like it is going to be skimpy.

That is all for today's crafting.  This past week, I did purchase a Cricut Maker.  There has been some playing with it and I am loving what it does.  Card making will be taken to a whole new lever as well as some sewing and decorating ideas I have.

Yesterday, our daughter and son in law took us to the local Italian Festival.  My hubby is 1/2 Italian so we thought it would be fun to go and have a look.  WOW!!!!!!  So many people crammed into a 2 block area.  We made it for about 2.5 hours and then left to go and have a nice quiet Italian dinner at our favorite family owned Italian restaurant.  It was a perfect end to the day.  

The rest of today will be spent lounging around.  I have cooked so much food this week, we are just doing leftovers tonight for dinner.  

Until next time...............Happy Crafting!!!!!!

UPDATE FOR WEEK 34

 

Greetings all you faithful readers.  It is still dark outside here.  That is the perfect time to do an update, right?  So let's get to it.

There was a finish this week!  WOOHOO!

Another "To the Point" shawl for the prayer shawl ministry.  This was a VERY difficult one for me to work on.  I am not a lover of the color green.  Seldom will you find me wearing anything with green in it.  Even though everyone says I look splendid in green, it is not hanging around in my closet or anywhere in my home.  That being said, I know there are people out there that LOVE green and why should I not make something they will love.  There is a small amount of green left in my stash which will be made into more shawls.  It was given to me (thank you Linda) so I will not let it go to waste.   The best thing about this yarn......it is super soft and snuggly.  Of course it is an acrylic, but I am not a yarn snob.  If it feels nice, I will use it!

There is another half finish.

The "Car Socks".  I could not get a splendid photo this morning with it being dark outside.  Trust me when I tell you the toe is purple and hot pink!  

OK, this is a better shot.  Thank goodness for photo editing on my computer!  Anyway, I still have 52 foot rows to do and then 20 toe rows to do to finish sock #2.  My goal is to have it completed by next Sunday's update.  I have been asked what yarn I am using.....This is Diversity by Plymouth Yarn in the colorway Fruity.  A joy to work with, no wool, machine wash and dry and wears like iron!

The other finished item this week is...................the Moogly "Simple Home Basket" made for my DIL's bday.

It is about 11" in diameter and 9" deep.  She loves it!

There will not be another one made anytime soon.  This was so hard on my hands!

There was a new project cast on this past week.

"Summer Flies" shawl.  It has been in my library for ages as has this yarn.  The yarn is Blue Heron Rayon Metallic.  Yes, I know, there is green in this.  But there is also purple and lots of sparkles, so it makes it ok to have.  There is a different ending to this shawl than is printed on the original pattern.  It is called "My Version of Summer Flies".  I am going to be using that ending as I like the looks of it much better than the original one.  

That sums up my crafting week.  There were more dishcloths made but will post those photos at the end of the month.  What are you working on craft wise?

Tomorrow is a holiday here in the US.  Presidents Day, complete with parades and closing of all government offices.  I don't know how many parades will take place, seeing as the weather around the US is pretty crazy right now.  Lots of snow, rain, wind and just plain cold all over this year.  There was even snow in Hawaii last week!  We have been having rain on and off for the past few weeks.  Our temperatures have been about 15 degrees below our normal.  My heater is still running and normally by the middle of February I have my windows opened during the day for the lovely fresh air.  Not this year!

Not much else going on here.  We have a memorial to go to this afternoon for a friend of ours who passed away last month.  Seems like the dark colors in my closet are getting a lot of use lately.  Hopefully, this will be the last one for a while.

OH!!!!!!!!!!!! I knew there was something else I wanted to know.  In my midweek post (Don't think many of you follow except on Sundays) I asked if any of you have a die cutting machine like a Cricut or Silhouette.  If so, which one, how often do you use it, what do you mostly use it for, would you recommend the one you have or a different model?  

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

PS:  To see what others are doing in YOP, check out this link!

  

Happy Fri-Yay

Hello my dear readers.  Are you happy it is Friday?  It is amazing, even though I have been retired for over 2 years, I still love when Friday comes around.  Probably because I do not do many 'chores' on the weekend.  I really try to do most household things during the week so we can be free to spend time with our working friends and family.

How is your weather?  I hope you are all staying warm and as dry as possible.  We got rain all day yesterday and should be getting more on Monday.  This last storm played heck with my RA!  I was down for 2 days because of the barometer going nuts.  Today, I finally feel like myself again and am moving much better.  So, I am going to celebrate by having pizza and a beer for dinner tonight!  Yay me!

I cooked for Valentine's Day, even though I was not feeling up to being on my feet for any length of time.  There were pork chops smothered in cream of mushroom soup and also air fried garlic Parmesan asparagus.  So very yummy.  Hubby was very please too.  Do you cook something special for Valentine's Day or do you go out to eat?

This morning I finally was able to get out of bed early enough to go and have a fasting blood draw done.  This was supposed to have happened 2 weeks ago but, with traveling and then feeling like crap............well, it is now done.  Do you put off medical things just 'because"?

For the rest of the day, I am going to crochet on the prayer shawl I started last week.  There is also 1 sock left to complete, so that will get a bit of love too.  I started another shawl for ME, but have not worked on it since last Sunday.  Once the second sock is completed, I will pick it up again and give it a lot of love.  What are you working on?

Now, I do have a serious question.  Do any of your have a die cut machine?  Like a Cricut or Silhouette or Brother?  If so, what do you do with it.  Do you use it often?  I received an Cricut Mini several years ago for a gift.  I finally hooked it up last year only to find out it is no longer supported on the internet.  It has very limited capabilities.  I was hoping to make greeting cards with it but making cut outs to paste onto card stock.  Researching all the different die cut  machines is quite time consuming and who better to ask, then my crafting friends.

Looking at my calendar, I see we have a 3 day weekend here in the US.  It also looks like there is something going on everyday next week.  Fingers crossed my RA stays in control for the next 7 days.  There is too much going on to be laid up again for 2 days.  Do you keep track of your schedule using a calendar, bullet journal or electronic device?  I use all three.  That way I never miss an appointment...........well hardly ever.

OK, I am off to do some other computer stuff.  I am actually on the main PC today.  Hubby was away from it and I just plopped down and took it over. LOL  I normally use my laptop to write my blog.

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