Surprise!

 

Howdy.  How are things at your place?  Have you had any surprises lately?  Please tell me about it if you have.

I got a surprise last night.  After spending the afternoon and early evening with Josie and her dog Thor, I was all settled in at home for a nice quiet evening of crafting and binge watching Eureka (on amazon prime).

My phone rings!  A REAL  phone call!  It's Josie wanting to know what time I will be coming to her house the next day.  I tell her I will be there around lunch time and there is silence on the other end of the phone.

"Uh, Mimi, I have dance tomorrow morning at 8am." (Josie)

"I thought you had dance on Friday morning during your in person school day" (me)

"Oh, I have it then too but I also have it tomorrow on virtual school.  I need you to come over earlier than lunch time.  Thor (the dog) will not leave me alone with I dance and if I close my door he claws it and tears it up.  He NEEEEEEEDS you!" (Josie)

"Um, ok, I will be there by 7:45." (me)

"Thanks, Mimi.  I love you.  Goodbye" (Josie)

I am still holding my phone in shock.  That means I will be over at her place from 7:45 until around 5:30 with a small break to go and pick up her lunch I promised to get for her.  (Culver's)

Once the shock wears off, I go into high gear.  I pack up my lunch for tomorrow, start going through my crafting projects that will be suitable to take (and semi dog proof), lay out my clothes for tomorrow (makes the morning easier), set my alarm for 6am,  and grab 3 of my Contigo water bottles to fill with MY water for the next day.  THEN, I settle into my chair and enjoy some TV with the hubby.

So, here I am at Josie's place.  The dog is sleeping under the kitchen table while I am typing and Josie is upstairs in her room dancing.  Or at least I assume she is dancing from the sound of feet jumping up and down above me.  Her next class is Spanish, so I am sure it will be much quieter around here for that one.

Now to show you some photos from the past two days.

Here was our sun yesterday around 5:30.  No, it is not sunset.  That is the color of our sun from all the smoke we are getting from the fires in California.  It is pretty to see but the air quality is horrible.  Needless to say, I did not go outside other to get from my house to my car and vise versa.

The sun is shining much nicer today.  The shadows are proof of that.  This is me and Thor the wonder dog.  Shadows sure do distort a person.

Yup, this is what the sun is supposed to look like here in Arizona.  We had quite a bit of wind that helped blow the smoke out of our city last night. 

Thor, the wonder dog, does not get the concept of personal space.  This was yesterday afternoon.............his nap time.

  This is where he is right now as I am typing my blog up.  He just wants to be close to his people ALL the time.  As soon as I am finished here, we will head to the couch and I will work on some knitting/crocheting and he will be sleeping on my leg again.

Until next time............................happy crafting & stay well!

Labor Day

Happy Labor Day for those of you in the USA.  Have you done anything fun today?  Hubby and I have stayed home (as usual).  He watch the FedEx cup golf tournament (Congrats to Dustin Johnson).  I did 3 loads of laundry, did water aerobics (that was more fun than work) and have been working on a couple of my crafting projects.

Since I am going to be occupied for most of the rest of the week, I wanted to get things arranged so hubby would not need to worry about any of my 'chores'.  I even have meals planned that will not take much time to make when I get home in the evenings.  Hubby is a great cook but I actually like to cook our meals.

My son and his family came by yesterday afternoon and we worked out this weeks schedule for teenager duty and dog duty.  The teen has so many things happening that is different this year because of the hybrid school learning.  I actually have an entire page filled out with dates and times of where I need to be.

Crazy, right?  But if I didn't do this, I would never have remembered everything.

Guess what I did last night?  I started 2 new projects!  Can you believe that?  I was in my craftroom altering the dog's baby t-shirts and saw a couple of bagged up skeins of yarn.  I have them bagged as I wanted to find a pattern to go with each of them.  Well.........what would it hurt to take a little look at the patterns I had sitting right there next to me.  Oh My!  I found a shawl pattern to use with my Cascade Sorata baby llama/silk yarn.  It is one I have done before and have worn it quite a bit.  It is no longer available as the designer has pulled it off the market.  In fact, I had test knit it for the designer.  It is Fodhla by Ruth McKeon (Celtic Knitter)  Some of you may remember her.  She was in the YOP group for several years.

The other project I started is a counted cross stitch.

I love doing lettering.  This is a very small item so should not take a huge amount of time to complete.  (I hope)

Hubby and I will be having our left over green chili pork tonight for dinner.  It was really yummy albeit very spicy hot.  

That is all from this part of the world.  I pray, those of you being affected by the fires that are burning are safe.  I know the smoke is really bad for several of my family and friends.  We are even being affected here in Arizona by the California fires.  Rain is very much needed!!!

Until next time.......................happy crafting & stay safe & well!

 

WEEK 10 UPDATE

Here we are, once again.  Time to update y'all on what happened last week in my crafting and a bit in my 'real' life.

Hubby's socks are coming along nicely.

I decided to do a heel flap this time instead of the Fish Kiss Lip heel.  So the flap is done as is the heel.  I am now on the gusset.  Hoping to get that finished up this coming week.  Seems like I will get more knitting time this week than normal.  (Will explain later)

Then there is the Havana blanket that I am in love with.

I am now starting to repeat the colors.  This is a fascinating way to do crochet.  The thought coming to my mind is, additive.  If the weather would cool off a bit I would work on this more.  

The purple arrow shows where I was last week.  There are 7 sections to this pattern.  Each section has 12 rows and is worked 3 times.  That means there are 36 rows done for each pattern section.  I am on repeat #2 of section 3.  Depending on how big it is when I finish this section, I may decide to do 4 repeats of section 4 so it will be long enough to be used as a cover for a bed.  It certainly is wide enough for up to a queen sized bed!

That is all the crafting for this week.  In other news..................................

Luna, on Thursday, had her teeth cleaned and a mass removed from her left flank.  She was totally whacked out when we got her home from the vet.  So whacked out she actually bit me!  This is my sweetheart of a dog.  I was shocked.  It took her several hours to become semi normal again.

She is required to wear a baby shirt for the next 2 weeks to keep her incision covered and away from her licking it.  This is not making her very happy but it keeps me from having to watch her every moment of the day.

Last night we went to our BFF's place and spent 3 hours having dinner and then roasting 30 pounds of green chili.

This was toward the end of the bag of chilies.  Otherwise, this large 6 burner grill was covered in chili.  We will be having green chili pork tonight for dinner.  YUMMY!  We love Mexican food.

While we were there, their big dog went outside and started running and did something to his leg.  He was limping and whining.  Since she works for a vet, she was able to talk to one of the vets and got advice on what to do for the remainder of the evening for him.  I just talked to her (by text) a few minutes ago and evidently he really messed it up bad.  They had to have him put down this morning because of the injury.  My heart is breaking for her.  He was so sweet and kind and gentle.  A gentle giant of a dog.

You will be greatly missed Magnum.  You were so loved by so many for many years.  Run free my friend.

This coming week, I will be on teenager and dog duty for my son.  He is going out of town for business so Mimi and Mommy  will be running all over to keep up with the teen's activities and making sure the dog is not in a kennel all day long.  The teen starts hybrid school this week.  It will be, online learning Monday through Wednesday and in person learning Thursday and Friday.  She has play practice on Tuesdays and Thursday evenings and swim practice every morning from 5:30 - 7:30.  This will give me lots of knitting time.  Hence the reason I am hoping to have the gussets on the socks completed this week.  They are the perfect traveling project.

How was your week?

Until Next Time........................Happy Crafting & Stay Well!!!!!!!!!

WHERE DID THE WEEK GO?

 

BAM!  And just like that it is Friday.  I can not believe this week is almost done.  As you read in my last post (Monday) I was extremely busy that day.  In fact, I got so much done on Monday, the rest of this week has been pretty easy.

Tuesday, most of my time was spent working on my two projects and trying to get progress made on each of them.  The best part of the day was a surprise phone call from my nephew who lives Seattle.  He is my brother's youngest and such a great guy. It was wonderful to talk to family and catch up on his life and what plans he has going forward.  

Wednesday was senior day at our local Kroger store.  As a senior we receive an extra 10% off our total grocery bill that day.  Naturally, hubby and I went to the store and picked up our needed groceries for the week as well as stocked up on items we use throughout the month.  After that little excursion, I dropped hubby off at home and I headed to WalMart.  I had not been there in quite a while and forgot how busy and big that place is.  All I needed was some baby onesies for Luna. (Explanation to follow)  Their baby department is clear in the back of the store and looked like it had not had any new shipment of items in some time.  I did find 7 plain white onsies and bought them and got the heck out of there.  Although, I will say, everyone was masked and was keeping their distance from others.  I just am still a little leery of being around a lot of strangers.

As you can see, I had to get long sleeved onsies so that evening, I did some little alterations on the onsies to remove all the snaps and also make them all short sleeved.

Thursday was the hardest day all week.  Luna had to go in for her dental and also for a mass removal from her left flank.  I had to have her there at 7:30AM!  Then I had to wait for them to call me to tell me how she did and when I could pick her up.  I got the call about 1:30 to come for her between 2:30 and 3.  They said she did quite well with everything and would explain what they found when I got there.  Now, does that sound ominous or what?

Hubby and I went to pick her up at 2:30 and she was still very drugged up.  She was so drugged she bit the vet tech that got her out of her kennel.  When we arrived home, Hubby was trying to carry her into the house and she nipped him too!  This dog has never even snapped at anyone, much less bit them.  We realized she was still under the influence and probably in quite a bit of pain from the mass removal.  We got her in the house, settled her down and then I put on her little onsie.  (that is the explanation)

She tried to bite me while I was putting this on her but stopped when she realized who's hand was in her mouth.  (Smart dog)  It took her quite a while to come completely out of the anesthetic and we made her as comfortable as possible.  

This is her temperpedic bed and she loves it.  She stayed in it most of the rest of the evening.  She did jump up on the sofa once (my heart took a real scare that time) and I went to help her get off the couch and then she totally chomped down on my hand!  I was totally shocked.  It hurt but she did not break the skin.  (Probably because she is missing quite a few teeth)  So I quickly realized, not to mess with this dog when she is on drugs and in pain.

About 10PM, I gave her a pain pill thinking it would help her relax and go to sleep for the night.  HA!  She was super restless and neither of us went to sleep until around 2AM.  Hubby said he did not hear anything so that is good.

She is much better today and is back to being the sweet loving dog we all adore.  Her incision looks very good.  She will be in the 't-shirts' for 2 weeks and then she will get her stitches removed and she can be naked again.  As for her surgery, she did have 3 teeth extracted (which we kind of expected) and the mass was a bit larger than they anticipated and it had attached to part of her muscle tissue.  So the surgery for the mass was a bit more extensive than they thought it would be.  It was just a fatty tumor so no need for concern for cancer.  Phew!  She will be sore for a while and her muscle will heal just fine.  Poor little girl.

So, today is Friday and hubby has just finished cleaning the last half of the house.  I am planning on going swimming (water arobics) later today and working on my projects.  My loaf of bread is just about finished baking and my house smells so good. Tomorrow we are going to our friends house to roast up 30 pounds of Hatch green chili.  That should hold us for another year.  While we are gone, I will be putting Luna in my craft room so Enrique can not bother her.  He loves her and is very curious about why she smells different and is wearing clothes.  She, on the other hand, is not as fond of him LOL.

Have a great day!

Until next time.........................happy crafting & stay well

BUSY MORNING

 

Happy Monday everyone.  Hope your day is treating you all kindly.  This is one of those days I woke up and decided to get in gear and get my 'to do' list completed quickly.  It has one more item on it to be completed and that will happen as soon as I take the last load of laundry out of the dryer.  The last item?...................................hit the swimming pool!  Our temps have dropped considerably, so I want to enjoy some out door time.

So for today I have completed:
 2 loads of laundry
 called my car dealership about a recall
 made a grocery list (only need 2 items)
 exercised on my teeter
 emptied the dishwasher
 made a loaf of bread

My new bread machine does a lovely job on the bread.  It makes my house smell so good too.

I have not talked about book lately.  Mainly because I was not really reading much.  Do any of you go through spurts where you can not get enough reading time and then you could care less about reading anything?  I am just now starting to read again after a several week hiatus.  Here are the books I am reading at the moment.

This was brought to my attention by fellow blogger Claudia Bugh of "The Knitting Blog By Mr Puffy the Dog".  I read this on Thursday evenings during our hour of Adoration.  It is one of those books that makes you take a look at your life and how you live it and where improvements can be made to better our world while keeping your faith strong.

This book is my nightly read and any other time I feel like I have 15 minutes to read.  This came from Josie.  She is voracious reader and loves to pass her books on to me so we can discuss them.  I have found myself chuckling while reading this one.  It is a nice light book to read throughout the day/

I also have two audio books I downloaded and listen to them while swimming and also while working out on my Teeter. 

I just started this one today so do not have anything to tell you about it................yet.

And, who doesn't like the Gaines!  This will get listened to after the first one.

That is all for today.  My dryer is buzzing and I want to get that done and hit the pool for a bit and then have lunch.  The rest of my day is going to be for crafting while listening to my book.

Until Next Time.....................happy crafting & stay well!

WEEK 9

 

Hello and happy Sunday to all of you.  I hope this past week has been good to all of you.  Those of you who were in the way of Hurricane Laura, I pray you made it through without personal harm.

This past week was not a productive week for this lady.  I do not know what happened, but there were actual days WITHOUT any knitting or crocheting.  Some of it might be the weather.  We have been over 110F for 50 days now.  That is a new record for us.  Not one I would care to repeat again though.  This heat just drains me.  Even though we have A/C, I still need to step outside from time to time to get groceries, get the mail and take out trash and recyclable items.  It is just plain HOT!  Even after the sun goes down.  Then it is dark and hot lol.

Here is a look at what I did manage to do.

Hubby's socks are moving along.  Each sock got 20 rows added to it.  They are still not to the point of starting the heel.  Maybe I will make it there this week.

The Havana blanket got it's seventh color added to it yesterday.  From here on, I will just repeat the colors until I get to the length I want.  This is a very addictive crochet project.  Unfortunately, it is also extremely warm to have on my lap.  Usually I can add a couple of rows before I start melting.  

Since I have learned how to do Mosaic crochet now, I am already planning the colors for the next blanket I am planning on making.  It will be a different design than this one and uses a bit of a different technique for it.  Same designer though, so I should not have any issues following her charts and instructions.

So that is all for my crafting this past week.  Pitiful, right?  LOL  

Good news!!!!!!!!!!  We finally got some rain last night.  And by rain, I mean it poured at our house for quite a while.  It dropped the temperature from 105 to 70 degrees in about 15 minutes.  Of course it raised the humidity from 12% to 89% LOL.  We even had thunder and lightening with the rain storm.  What a blessing.  There is a prediction of more rain coming our way this evening too. 

For those of you who do not follow me during the week, I have to show you this.

This is a cheesecake I made in my Ninja Foodi pressure cooker.  It is awesome and so easy.  There is a catch though.  You need to know 24 hours ahead of time you want to eat cheesecake.  But, the mixing and cooking time is only about an hour total.  Then there is the 3 hour cooling at room temperature and then in the fridge for overnight.  Hubby was thrilled with it too.

I also made carnitas in it and was super impressed with how easy it was not to mention the short amount of time it took.  Hubby had made carnitas on his grill a few weeks back and it took 3-4 hours.  I made them in the Foodi and it took 1 hour total.  I think I have found my new favorite appliance.  

We have air fried in it also.  I want to try making rice in it soon as well as steaming veggies.  

So, that is all for me today.  This coming week, Luna has an appointment for a dental as well as having a lipoma removed from her left flank.  She will need to be watched for a few days afterwards to make sure she does not bother her incision.  Our new vet does not like to put dogs in cones (I hate those things too) and neither does she want to put any kind of wrap on the incision.  She suggested getting a baby onsie for her to wear at night and just watch her during the day.

I will be measuring her from base of neck to bum to determine what size she will need.  I will also be cutting a tail hole as well as redesigning the bottom part of it so she can wear it when she goes outside to do her 'business'.

Until Next Time....................Happy Crafting & Stay Well!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

It is pretty early on Thursday morning.  Not even 7am yet.  The house is quiet as hubby is still asleep and the dogs have already eaten breakfast and are now taking their morning nap.  I wanted to post yesterday, but the day got away from me.  It must have been because of how nice my house feels now LOL.

I had told you on Tuesday, I would let you know how the cheesecake turned out this time.  OH MY GOODNESS!  It was fabulous!

Here is the slice I had before I devoured it.  It did taste like cheesecake.  Hubby was very happy with it also.  The only substitute I made was changing out the sour cream and using fat free greek yogurt instead.  Otherwise, I followed this recipe exactly.  If you have an instant pot of any kind, this is the dessert for you to try in it.

For dinner last night, I made carnitas in the Ninja Foodi.  It started on the pressure cooker setting then went to the sear setting and finally to the broil setting.  Total time for dinner to cook, 1 hours total from the time I dropped the meat into the machine until I plated it.

I added sour cream and homemade salsa on top of mine.  I have tried so many recipes for carnitas and have always been greatly disappointed.  This recipe was in the cookbook that came with the machine.  It was spot on!  Hubby was happy with this too.  The left overs will be reheated in a skillet and I will add eggs to it and make breakfast burritos for us.  

Today my goal is to clip my dog's toenails.  It is a struggle but needs to be done.  Their nails grow faster than mine.  I also want to boil up some eggs.  All of our stores have had them on sale lately so I have about 3 dozen in the fridge now.  There will also be a load laundry done today.

Speaking of laundry..............on Tuesday, after our A/C tech left, hubby was putting a few things away that had been borrowed by the tech. (extension cords)  While doing that, he knocked over a full gallon bottle of lemon scented Pine-Sol.  The lid popped off and spilled all over the floor in our Arizona room.  Luckily, that is the room where I keep our pool towels.  I handed him towels as he mopped up the floor.  Three towels later, he got it all mopped up.  He was angry with himself for being so clumsy.  I told him it was not a big deal and that the smell of lemons was much more pleasant than the smell of 'regular' Pine-Sol.  I threw the towels into the washer (without any detergent added) and washed them.  My washer smelled like lemons afterwards.  I left the washer door open, after they were washed, to try and air it out a bit.  The towels do not smell like lemons anymore, and as of this morning, the washing machine does not have the lemon smell either. The Arizona room still has that lemon fresh scent to it though.  LOL

Hubby just woke up so I can start getting my 'chores' done now.  

Until next time.................happy crafting & stay well.