Cash for Some Stash!

I went to see my Mom in the nursing home today to give her and my dad their Christmas gifts. They loved the homemade stuff! In return, I got some cash as my Christmas gift. Yippee!!! I'm going to go to a yarn store and have some fun. Can't wait! I will go after my daughter leaves to go back to college. I'm always sad when she leaves, so this will be a real pick me up, something to look forward to!

I've been working on Fetching. I have one done. It's so pretty and soft. I like this pattern.




I'm hoping to get the second one done by New Years Day. I'm doing a knit-along that starts then and I need these needles. But at the rate I'm going, they should be done. The knit-along is for fingerless mittens, not this pattern though. They are fun to do and work up pretty quickly.

Finally, I can rest

Christmas is now done. I had to work on Thursday because something had to get done that only I know how to do, now I'm off work until next Thursday, yay me. I get an extra day off next week because I worked yesterday.


We had a good Christmas here. Got lots of interesting things and my daughter loved all her stuff, especially the PS2 and Guitar Hero III. I couldn't find that dang game for the life of me. Finally found it at Best Buy. It's the wireless one. I didn't know there were different kinds. Once we finally got the thing to work, it was great. She's been playing it ever since. She comes up for air occasionally. My son got me a knitting book by Nicky Epstein about felting. I've never felted anything yet, so in my future I'll give it a try. It's a pretty book.






And soon the clean up will begin. I can't wait to get that tree out of the living room and put away. I do enjoy it, but it's time to go.

I made my daughter's friend a pair of Peekaboo Mittens. This is the last gift, I swear. She'll take them to her friend when she goes back to school in a couple weeks. My next project is Fetching for my daughter. I'll cast on for those later and hopefully I can get them done before she leaves so she can take them with her. And then . . . I'll make something for me.






Everyone liked their knitted gifts and the polar fleece blankets I made. Tomorrow we'll go see Mom in the nursing home and give her and my Dad their gifts. I'm sure they will like the knitted things.

The calm before the storm

I finally got this scarf done for my daughter's friend. I'm very sick of scarves, I just did two garter stitch scarves in a row. This newest one is 68 inches long plus fringe. I just can't get a good pic of this scarf, it always comes out red when it is actually orange, brown and yellow. Now onto something new! One of my daughter's other friends wants a pair of peekaboo mittens, so that will probably be my next project. Gotta get this stuff done before she leaves for college again. I can do it, I like knitting mittens.




I had a knock on my door yesterday. It was my neighbor. He brought me this cheesecake. It's a Bailey's chocolate chip cheesecake. Very yummy. I swear it weighs 95 pounds, very heavy. I could feed a small nation with it. But instead, I will have it out tomorrow when the family is here for Christmas. Christmas! I can't believe it's Christmas already. Where does the time go?







Pretty soon I'll put my daughter's presents under the tree and go to bed. I can't wait to see her face when she opens some of the stuff I got her. Priceless!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

OMG, I got a bonus at work! I was floored, I totally didn't expect it this year. We can have a merry Christmas in my house now! I went grocery shopping this morning, bought lots of food for my Christmas Day party, did some Christmas shopping, got caught up on some bills, and next week I have to call a plumber, ughhhhhh, but I can finally get the running toilet fixed! So Yes Virginia There Is a Santa Claus!


I stopped in Joann's to buy some gift tins for the fudge I made. Of course I had to browse the yarn aisle . . . of course. For some reason this yarn caught my eye, I petted it and walked away, looked around, came back and petted it some more and walked away. I don't know why it attracted me so, but it kept calling my name. So, I bought it! It's so soft and pretty. I have no idea what I'll make with it, maybe another headband. I just bought one skein. It sucks that they only let you use your 40% off coupon on one item.

In the meantime, I'm still working on this scarf for my daughter's friend. I just got done making her a garter stitch scarf, nice easy mindless knitting. I'm so bored with this thing though, I want to move on (and use my pretty Angel Hair!), making two garter stitch scarfs in a row is quite boring, but I'll keep plugging away. It's in fall colors, oranges, browns, yellows, but the picture makes it look red. I'm going to go knit on it some more in a while, and I'll keep my pretty Angel Hair by my side to give me incentive to keep going so I can knit something with it. This Red Heart Soft actually isn't too bad to knit with, it is really soft, occasionally it splits, but all in all it's not bad for an acrylic.

Well, I'm off to the couch . . . MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Bah Humbug

Five more days and then Christmas will be over. It's really depressing to me this year. I'm going through some of the motions, but no joy in it, I just don't care. I made one batch of fudge, may make another today, that's all the cooking I've done. Usually I have all kinds of cookies made. Bah humbug.


I finished the scarf I was making for my daughter. I like how it turned out. It's just basic garter stitch, nothing fancy, good mindless knitting to watch TV by.





Now I'll start the next scarf, which is a gift for my daughter's friend, another basic garter stitch scarf with Red Heart Soft (yeah, yeah, I know, that word . . . acrylic) but it was in my price range, so that's what I'm using. More mindless knitting. That's about all I can handle at the moment.




I need to get out of this funk.

It's not even officially winter yet

I'm at home today . . . yay! I had this as a preplanned day off, thank god, because we got a ton of snow over the weekend and I'm glad I didn't have to deal with rush hour this morning. I think we got around 9-10 inches. And thank god for wonderful neighbors who used their snowblowers on my driveway and sidewalks . . . YAY!!!! It's all cleaned up. I had to use a push broom to clean off the cars, there was so much snow on them and it was quite heavy, my little car snow brush was useless.



All that snow gave me an excuse to stay inside and knit . . . it's not like I need an excuse, but it was a good one! Still working on my daughter's scarf. Just a basic garter stitch. I thought I'd be able to whip this out in a few days. It's taking longer than I thought. I started it a week ago, it's now up to 50 inches. I have 15 more inches to go. Not sure if I'll put fringe on it or not, I'll leave that up to her. She is liking it so far!







I need to go tie on the next ball of yarn and continue knitting away at this thing.

The nest is not empty at the moment

My daughter is home from college for a month! A whole month! I can't believe how fast the semester went by. The next one doesn't start until Jan. 14, so she'll be here until around Jan. 12 and then the nest will be empty again. I'm going to enjoy every minute I have with her! Now the cats have someone else to bother.


Still working on the garter stitch scarf for my daughter. She loves it! I've got 20 inches done, at least 40 more inches to go, I want to make it good and long.


Last winter I made these aprons. I was going to give them to the females on my list at my Christmas Day thing I have for the family. But with Mom in the hospital and not able to participate in this "apron event" that won't be happening. They will just go back in the bag and maybe I'll try again next year. They were fun to make. You can get so creative with aprons. Maybe I'll keep one for myself and make some more.

There's less of me

I don't know how I did it . . . but I lost 10 pounds! I noticed my clothes have been fitting differently, and loose. Got on the scale, and damn . . . there are 10 less pounds of me. Where does it go? It's the Christmas season no less. Probably with all the stress of my mom and constantly knitting all those Christmas gifts, I have not been snacking, no time. And with just me living in the house, I don't keep a lot of food around.

Tomorrow is our office lunch. I can eat like a pig to make up for it!

Living Within My Means

I went to K-Mart the other day, yep, K-Mart, and bought these shoes, $7.49, half price! I'm excited, I have new shoes. Real leather too. I also bought a pair for my Mom for Christmas, she needs a shoe with lots of support. She'll love them.





So, staying within budget, here are some of the things I have knit for my family for Christmas. I've been working on this stuff for a long time.




I didn't realize I had made so much until I got it all laid out on the bed to take a picture. All of the yarn for this was within my price range, no yarn snob stuff here. I wish I could buy the pricy stuff, but I can't and I'm not about to go into credit card debt on yarn. I'm happy with what I can afford and these gifts come from my heart, not my wallet saying "see how much I spent on you, ain't I cool?" I'm not that insecure. By yarn snob I mean those who look down on others who don't buy the super expensive stuff or look down on those who use acrylic blends and stuff from the big box stores. I just don't get yarn snobs. Oh well, enough of that. For now.


So, I got them all wrapped up.





And of course a kitty had to come and check it out. Can't do anything without the cats sticking their noses in. This one is Mia. She acts tough, but she's a big baby.




I'm pretty much done Christmas shopping, little budget, gotta get creative on the gifts, and I think I've done pretty well with what I've spent. The rest of the gifts are all wrapped and hidden away. My daughter comes home tomorrow for the semester break, she'll be here for a month. I'm so excited and so is she!

Wake me on December 26

I got my first Christmas card. Look at that big FAT kitty on there. Love it! I don't send out cards any more, just one less thing to do in this season of crap. I used to send cards and then I would get cards back from those I sent cards to. I guess no one wanted to go first. So stupid. Now I get very few cards since I don't send them out. I don't really care. But this card made me laugh, it was from my daughter's friend, truly a surprise.




I went to my knitting group in Saline yesterday. I haven't gone there in a while, stuff just kept coming up. Truly a nice afternoon. We used to meet in the library but it's undergoing renovations so we had to find a different location to meet. We've been going to the McDonald's there. Food! And all the refills I can handle on Diet Coke! And the doors stay shut, no freezing winds blowing in. I always have a nice time when I go knit with these ladies.

I bought this yarn the other day:



I'm going to make my daughter a scarf with it. She wants something in brown or pink or brown/pink as she put it. So, this has brown and pink. Hope she likes it! Not sure how much knitting I'll get done today. I woke up this morning and my hands were tingling and numb. Weird. I think I've been knitting too much lately. And occasionally all morning they've been tingling and numb. Scary.


We're supposed to get some wicked weather today, ice and sleet and freezing rain. It hasn't started yet. I wanted to venture out to Target, maybe pick up a few gifts for Christmas, and I need some household items, and of course cat food. Speaking of cats. One of my brats chewed on my yarn last night, broke it off from the project I was working on, but I can't mention the project in case the intended recipient is reading. Had to tie a knot and add on yarn. But the thing is done now, and I like how it turned out.


If I do venture out before this storm, just may have to stop at the video store and rent some movies and just sit and veg out on the couch all day. Back to work tomorrow. My three day weekend just flew by.

Landmark Birthday

Thirty years ago today I gave birth to my first baby, my precious son. It's so hard to believe he's 30. 30! How in the world can I have a kid that old?





There he is . . . his first day of life. We've been through a lot through the years, good, bad and everything in between. He was such a funny little boy and a total joy to raise. He gives me inspiration and I look up to him, not just because he's taller than me, but because he's a fine young man.





So tonight we will celebrate his birthday with pizza and cake at my house. He requested pineapple upside down cake, so I made one.





Can't wait to eat that!

I'm still working on that second mitten for him for Christmas. It's so slow going. Went to the hospital last night to see Mom. She's doing OK. But she started crying, and I don't blame her, she's so sick of being in a hospital, nursing home, people prodding, poking, constantly. I just want to take her home with me. The hell with my job, the hell with everything. But I know I can't, so I just keep plodding on.

Anyways, I took the day off, to me it's a holiday, my firstborn's birthday!

One more mitten to go

I've been a busy little bee since I got home from work, I think I'm keeping busy so I don't keep worrying and worrying about my mom. Anyway, I made this blanket for my daughter-in-law when I got home. Another homemade gift can be crossed off the list, yay!





Pretty. I like the colors. But . . . when I pan out . . . we have Miss Pixie laying on the bed wishing I would let her lay on the blanket . . .





The cats were circling me like vultures when I was on the floor cutting this thing and tying it. Now, all I have left is one more mitten to knit, and I'm done with Christmas knitting. I can feel some relief coming off my shoulders.


Dad called while I was typing this. Mom has an infection at the surgical site, they are treating with antibiotics and she will be in the hospital for a few days before going back to the nursing home. This is a relief, I was so afraid there would be more surgery. And a big thank you to those with your well wishes! Very much appreciated!


Now, I'm waiting on my most delicious Stouffer's chicken parmesan to finish cooking in the oven, mmmmmmmmmmmmm, another frozen dinner, lol!


And where the heck did that snow come from this morning? It was a nasty nasty slippery scary white knuckle drive to work. I also shoveled that crap when I got home. Keeping busy busy busy.

I'm not feeling the love

I've gotten one of the Peekaboo mittens done that I'm making for my son with the Vanna's Choice yarn. I don't really like this yarn. It doesn't slide real good on the needles and it's getting aggravating. I did manage to make that whole mitten in a little over a day. That pic was hard to take, lol! I'm right handed and had to take the pic with my left hand. That gray color is not gray, it's green. It will not match the gray scarf I made him. Oh well. I'm not ever going to use this yarn again. I think it was developed for crochet as Vanna is a crocheter.

Not sure if I'm going to knit night tonight. Mom has been transferred back to the hospital with complications and I can't get in touch with my Dad to find out what's going on. It's so cold and the damn door of the coffee shop is always blowing open and freezing us to death. I wish they'd fix the stupid thing already.

I'm worried about Mom.

Coming up for air

Phew, been busy all day working on Christmas gifts. I got my daughter-in-law's Alaska Headband finished. I made it in Patons SWS. That stuff is so soft, but kind of splitty, all in all I like working with it. I also worked on my son's fleece blanket/throw today and got it done. I made it in Detroit Lions colors, even though the gray washed out in the photo. I like how it turned out. A very simple project, but more time consuming than you would think. It feels very warm.

Now, onto the next project. I searched to see if I had any of that Plymouth Yarn in gray that I used for the scarf I made my son. Found it, but not enough to make anything with. So, I'm making him some Peekaboo mittens with the Vanna's choice I bought last week. It has gray in it. I just don't feel like running all over town looking for the Plymouth yarn. Once the mittens are done, that's it, I'm done with Christmas knitting. It's been interesting making all this stuff. Being broke has forced me to be quite creative this year. I just hope everyone likes the stuff I made.

The storm seems to be over for now. We didn't get a lot of snow. But boy oh boy did it rain today. I just sat on the couch and knit and watched Dream Girls. I didn't really like the movie, just couldn't get into it. I watched The Queen last night. I liked that one, it was rather interesting.

That's it for today. I think I'll surf for a while! Tomorrow I'm still off work, I'll start the mittens then. So for now, nothing is on the needles, first time in a while.

Let it Snow . . . Let me Knit!

Nasty storm predicted for here, snow, rain, sleet, freezing rain, cold. The snow has started. There is no traffic on my street, very quiet out there, not that I live on a busy street. I've rented some movies, I've got yarn, and goodies, and lazy fat kitties. A good night to sit on the couch and watch movies and knit. I'm working on another Alaska Headband with Patons SWS, this one for my daughter-in-law. I'm almost at the end of my Christmas gift knitting, hip hip hooray! I've got a fleece blanket to make for my son which will involve crawling around on the floor and cutting. Oh my aching back. That will probably be tomorrow's project. I'm making it in the Detroit Lions colors, gray and blue. If I can find the yarn I made his scarf from and if there is enough left, I may make him a pair of mittens. Otherwise, that's it, I'm done with Christmas knitting!

I watched Georgia Rule last night. The damn DVD player wouldn't work, ughhhhhhhhh So I tried watching it on my laptop, the sound was horrible, couldn't hear it. I ended up watching it on the desktop PC. Not as comfy sitting in the computer chair as the couch. But at least I got to watch it. Broke down and used the credit card today and bought a new DVD player. So tonight I can watch movies on the couch, yay! I rented The Queen, I'll watch that tonight, and tomorrow I'm going to watch Dream Girls. Sometimes snowstorms can be fun . . . when you are all cozy in the house.

She loved the shawl!

I finished this headband the other day, Headband of Alaska, or Panta or whatever it's called. I really like it! I've been working on something else but can't post it here in case the intended recipient is reading this. I took Mom her shawl last night, she loved it! But she is having Dad take it home because she's afraid someone will steal it. It's not that fancy. Oh well.

I'm off work now until Tuesday, yay! Damn lawyers drove me nuts today. They can be such big babies. I'm hoping to spend a ton of time finishing off my Christmas projects/gifts and getting a little shopping done. Just not going to work will save my sanity, but I will pay for it on Tuesday.

And so the madness begins

The shawl is finished . . . hip hip hooray! It's drying and blocking, shouldn't take long since it's acrylic. I still need to sew in a name label for my mom, everything has to have their name on it in the nursing home. I've been working on the Headband in Alaska. Pretty easy knit, but somehow I keep managing to screw it up and have to rip back a little, at least I'm not frogging it.

I went to Walmart and Target with my daughter yesterday. Started some Christmas shopping. Yep, the rudeness has begun. Why are people so rude in the store at Christmas time? Do they not shop the rest of the year? Ridiculous. I made a little start. Not a lot of money this Christmas, so I won't have to shop a lot. There was no way I was going to those early bird sales, no way. I stayed asleep and went shopping in the afternoon. Got the tree up too, so all is festive in my living room.

The Shawl

When Mom was having dialysis her shoulders always seemed to be hanging out of her hospital gown, not very attractive. I decided to knit her a shawl. It's been slow going, I've never knitted anything this big. But I've been on a role lately. The other day when I was visiting she asked me to knit her a shawl. How ironic is that? She has no idea I've been working on this thing. I'm finally to the point where I can start the decreases . . . yay! I want it to be done and give it to her and start on some of the things in my queue in Ravelry. I'm chomping at the bit to start the Alaska headband. Hopefully in the next few days.

Last night I was calmly at knit night, just knitting away with the girls, chatting, knitting, eating cookies when who should walk in . . . my daughter! OMG, she surprised the heck out of me! I felt like a contestant on the Price is Right. I was so surprised and stunned, I don't think I've ever been that surprised in my life. She came home a day early from college and totally surprised me. I couldn't quit hugging her, it was so good to see her, and with all the crap I've been through lately, it was the fix I needed.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I'm not having it at my house this year. I'm looking forward to it bittersweetly, it will be at someone else's house, but my mom won't be attending.

I hope everyone who reads my blog has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Gobble gobble!

Oh Fudge!

Every holiday my family wants me to make fudge, so I made some today for Thanksgiving. Yummy! I'm actually going somewhere for Thanksgiving this year, first time in about 15 years that I'm not having it, yay! My daughter's friend left a Transiberian Orchestra CD here last weekend when they came home, so I listened to it while making the fudge, gotta get in the mood here.

I've almost got the second set of peekaboo mittens done. Just have to decrease on the top of the second one and then do the thumb. I hate picking up stitches, I never seem to do it right, but as long as the thumb stays on I'll be happy. Then I can get back to the shawl I'm making for Mom. She's in a nursing home now and it looks like she'll be there for 8 to 10 weeks. Very sad. So I want to get it done while she's there, half the time her hospital gown isn't laying on her shoulders good, this will help keep her covered up. They're working with her on walking and getting her strength back. Deep down, I'm hoping it's not 8 to 10 weeks. I'm in denial.

Now I gotta get off this computer and go knit some more!

I hate my hair

I really need to do something with my damn hair and I just don't know what to do with it. I've had it short for a couple of years now. I miss my ponytail. But then long hair got to be a pain so that's why I got it cut off. It's thick, wavy and getting lots of gray. Oh why oh why can't I be rich and go to a fancy salon and they could do something with it instead of going to the cheap place where sometimes they hack it all up and sometimes they do a good job. In the meantime, maybe I'll just stick a hat on my head for the next few months and let it grow.

Nobody warned me . . .

. . . that Ravelry was so addicting! Holy crap, I could spend hours there looking around. Beautiful stuff. I need more hours in the day to knit and browse Ravelry.



I finally finished the charity mittens. Now I need to figure out what to do with them, how to get them to the intended recipient. I love the color! I did donate a pair I had already made . . . may have to keep these for a Christmas gift to someone.

Now I'm off to the couch to knit. Really.

Ikea

My daughter was home for the weekend and we finally made it to Ikea. Cool place! I will definitely go back. All I bought was a tent for the kitties. First it was sniffed by Pixie . . .





Then it had to be sniffed by Mia . . .




Then finally Katie got in it! So far she's the only one who has gone inside it. My brave girl!





On the knitting front, I've been working on the prayer shawl. Made some progress.



My daughter's friend wants a pair of the Peekaboo Mittens. I just might have to take a little trip to Joann's tonight to get some yarn before going to the hospital, specifically Lion brand Wool Ease which I think is on sale for $1.79 a skein. This prayer shawl can get boring, I need something else to work on along with it.

Home for the night

I'm in for the night. I'm so tired of running back and forth to the hospital. Mom's still in there. There's some improvement, but she's got a long way to go. My poor Dad looks so tired. He's there for every visiting hour. Her hands are in restraints now and he helps her eat and drink. It's so sweet to watch these two old people, I've never seen this side of him.





A couple of weeks ago I finished the lacy scarf I was knitting. I screwed up a row and didn't have lifelines, decided it was long enough and bound it off. I do wish it was a little longer, but I don't think it will look good with fringe, so I'm leaving it as is. Now it's time to go sit on the couch and just knit and knit and knit until I can't see any more. I'm more than halfway done with the second mitten for charity. I may sneak my knitting to work with me tomorrow, I don't think any one will be there but me, heheheh

Time flies

Wow, times flies. I can't believe I haven't posted for a week. I've been so busy with running back and forth to the hospital, I don't know if I'm coming or going any more. I went to knit night last night (yay!). It felt so good to get away from it all. I talked to Dad after I got home and there was some improvement yesterday with Mom (yay!). Whoever would have thought I'd be talking about Mom's pee with Dad. Weird.

I did go see my daughter at college last Saturday. It was such a nice day and so good to see her! I finished the peek-a-boo mittens and since they were just a tad too small for me I gave them to her. She loves them! One of her friends wants a pair. So I'll make him a pair cuz he's so good to her. They knit up pretty fast. Then I gotta get back to Christmas knitting and the prayer shawl. Been working on the charity mittens lately, not a lot of time to knit, but they are finally almost done.

Happy Halloween!

My precious grandchildren. She's a goth geisha and he's a vampire. He's 4. When he came into the house I acted like I was real scared of him and hid behind the wall. He kept trying to tell me "It's me, Gramma". A gramma has to have fun with the kids. He's a crack up. Their parents were taking them trick or treating. Hope they had fun! I had quite a few kids come to the door, couldn't get any knitting done during trick or treat time. But I did manage to finish the peekaboo mittens afterwards. Yay me!

I can do circs!

I bit the bullet and tried circular needles, and I did it! I'm working on a prayer shawl for my Mom. Real easy pattern I found on About.com the knitting site. You keep increasing on the knit row for 12 inches, then knit and purl until it's as long as you want it then start decreasing on the knit row until you're down to 3 stitches. I can do this! The cables on the circs are stiff. Is that normal? I thought I heard or read somewhere that you can boil them and they'll soften up. Is that true? How long do you boil them, a minute, 5 minutes, until al dente? Or do you just live with them real stiff?

There is a contest in the building I work in. The building gave every suite a pumpkin and we have to carve it. The judging is tomorrow. Guess who got elected in my office to carve? Yep, me. I got it done and here is the finished result. I think it turned out pretty damn cool if I say so myself.




Poor Mom is hanging in there. I went and saw her tonight. She was at least more lucid. She had hemo-dialysis again today, and will have it again tomorrow, Thursday and Saturday. Still a lot of tubes going in, coming out. OMG, poor thing. They got those port things out of her neck and they are now in the shoulder/clavicle area. It's not so annoying to her. She had accidentally pulled the thing out of her neck, she's lucky she's not in hand restraints.

That's it for now. Time to go knit and watch Dancing With the Stars.

My Big Splurge

With all the running I've been doing lately, back and forth to the hospital, and all the overtime I've worked, I decided to splurge on mysef, on ME. I had a 50% off coupon from Joann's, and I bought myself a set of Boye interchangeable circular needles. They've gotten pretty good reviews on some websites I visit. I don't know how to do circular knitting, but now I will force myself to learn. I'm going to start with a prayer shawl for my mom. I found a real easy pattern to start out with. Hopefully I can get to this today.




As for Mom's condition, this is so sad. She's having so many complications from this surgery. They had to insert shunts or ports or whatever they are called into her neck yesterday so they could do dialysis as her kidneys are not working properly. It was so scary to see those things in her neck last night, sort of Frankenstein-ish. They are doing dialysis again today. She's so absolutely miserable. She got a morphine shot for pain last night while I was there, and hopefully that knocked her out and she rested somewhat more comfortably. One day at a time with this whole situation, and a day can feel like eons long during this hell.

On the brighter side, I went to the Halloween Knit for Charity and We'll Have Soup and Goodies Party yesterday. I'm SO glad I went. It was so fun, had a great time with my knitting buddies. I just love spending time with them, we have such interesting conversations, lots of laughs. A real great special group of ladies! You couldn't ask for a better bunch. Angela, our hostess made four, count them FOUR, pots of soup. I tried two and brought a bowl of a third kind home, I'll eat it for lunch today. Amy brought a wonderful Mexican dip and blue corn chips. It was soooooooo yummy! Sonya brought yummy pumpkin shaped sugar cookies, those were yummy too! Beth brought a salad and pita bread, and that was yummy. I took Rice Krispies Treats and some little brownie bites cookies I made, yummy too. Everything I guess was yummy, lol! I tried everything and had seconds and more and knit and munched and chatted and knit and munched and chatted some more. And I got this yarn from Amy who didn't want it anymore. Don't know what I'll make with it yet, but I'll eventually figure it out. All in all, a wonderful afternoon!

I Kitchenered!

I did it! I did the Kitchener stitch on the top of this mitten, woo hoo! I'm so proud of myself. that's the first time I ever did it. Now I have to make the second one.



This is the back of the hand.




And here is where the fingers can peek out if you want, or tuck them back inide.




I got the pattern here: http://magknits.com/Feb07/patterns/peekaboo.htm I hope I did this link correctly.

I've got my goodies all made for the Halloween Knit for Charity and We'll Have Soup and Goodies Party tomorrow. Now I can sit and knit and enjoy the rest of the evening. It's been a very calm, peaceful, enjoyable day off.

Yikes!

Two months from today is Christmas. Scary.




I got Mom's hat finished the other day. This one has my best seaming yet. I sure don't like seaming, ughhhhh. But I guess with practice it gets better. This is for Christmas along with mittens and a matching scarf. Pretty much everyone that I buy for has something knitted for Christmas. They better like it, because that's about all they're getting this year.

Been so busy with working and running back and forth to the hospital lately, I have not had time to go on the big R much. Maybe tomorrow. I'm taking a personal day at work . . . a day for me. I sure am looking forward to it.

Unexpected knitting time

I had some unexpected knitting time yesterday, lots of it. I left work early to go to the hospital for Mom's surgery, the power had gone out at work anyway, heheheh no I didn't do it! After surgery I came home, just pooped. So I sat on the couch most of the afternoon and evening and worked on my mitten. I was just too darn tired to even go to knit night. I did make some progress on mitten #1. I'm up to the peek-a-boo part. Hopefully tonight I can work on it some more after going to the hospital. Mom didn't have a hernia. She had an abscess in her colon that burst, causing all kinds of icky stuff. They had to remove about 6-8 inches of colon and now she has a colostomy bag. Poor thing. She knew going in that that could happen. It can be reversed in about 3 months, which means another surgery. She was so out of it last night I didn't go back and visit. I'll see how she is tonight, probably still groggy.

brrrrr, kind of chilly today. I put the furnace on this morning and let it go through a cycle, and same thing when I got home from work. I'll probably have to turn it on again later. Oh, I just dread the heating bills.

Surgery

Mom is going to have surgery. She has a blockage and a hernia somewhere in her abdomen, not sure if it's the stomach or intestines. Surgery is this morning. This really sucks. I feel so bad for her. Went and saw her again last night, she's so weak and hooked up to so many things. Just last month she had hip replacement surgery and now this. Let's hope this surgery goes well and she can stay out of the hospital for a long long time.

Transformation

I got this from one of the girls at Tuesday knit night . . .



And I made this with it . . .



I didn't like it. I screwed it up a lot and it was small and the ends I had woven in kept coming out, so I did this to it . . .





And now it's becoming some peek-a-boo mittens. There are some things I will learn by doing these mittens and some things I haven't done for a while. I was getting stagnant, time to stimulate the brain and try something different. I probably won't be able to take this to Tuesday knit night and work on it because I have to concentrate too much on it . . .





Let's see if I can transform this yarn into mittens.

Mom is still in the hospital and no diagnosis yet. Poor thing. She looks horrible. I'm going up there in a while and see what's what for today.

I also got a call from the library, I had requested Crazy Aunt Purl's book, "Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair". The book came in and I picked it up. I'll be digging into that soon.