Breakfast Ride

4/20/08

We took advantage of the second nice day in a row and rode with a group of friends to a little town about 30 miles away for breakfast. Good home cooking, bottomless pot of coffee and lots of fun. Came home and worked in the yard. Hubby mowed and I trimmed up rose bushes, cleaned up plants and took some of the houseplants outside. They were very happy as they just don't winter very well in our house. They love the back deck and will be beautiful by mid summer. Assuming the cats leave the poor plants alone.

This and That - Has Spring Finally Sprung?

4/5/08

It was a cold and blustery day.... We were at the park photographing a high school senior and these balloons were stuck high up in a tree. I want to believe it was a balloon release at the end of the party to celebrate. My fear is they escaped in the wind and there were many tears shed by the birthday child.

4/6/08

I officially started the Mystic Light KAL. I keep reminding myself this is my first true lace, my first real cables and my first KAL. The KAL part isn't turning out so bad. Of course I would like to be keeping up with the clues but that was never a real part of the plan. I simply don't have that much knitting time and truth be told, I have way to many projects on the needles at any one time. As of today I am all the way up to Row 17 but I have an uncrossed cable 2 rows back. I need to talk my courage up to tink those four stitches back and fixing the cable. Something I have never done. Wish me luck.

4/7/08

I married out of a family that doesn't cheer for any team past the local high school level into a family of diehard Kansas Jayhawk fans. When the Jayhawks and the Wildcats play each other I cheer for the Wildcats and become rather obnoxious about it just because it stirs up so much trouble in this family. But when the Hawks are playing anyone else I support them 100%. The final four was particularly exciting this year. This is a screen shot off of my TV. I did a fair amount of knitting during those games but it had to be mindless and on big needles.

4/13/08

The 13th was my birthday. One of the big ones that everyone seems to dread but I was kind of excited about turning 50. I'm not sure 60 sounds so hot but I have 10 years to sneak up on that one. For my birthday I chose to go to Manhattan, home of the K-State Wildcats, where my two kids attend school and/or work. My son works at a printing company and has a new press that he wanted to show us. He handles all those buttons quite well. What he was printing surprised me a bit or rather seems quite odd. He was printing door hang tags for a famous pizza company. They use them for when they deliver a pizza and the person isn't home! It reads some thing like "Sorry we missed you. Call the following number and we will redeliver your pizza". Do people order pizzas and then leave? He was doing a run of several thousand so this must happen at least occasionally. While in Manhattan we ate at Old Chicago, met my son's girlfriend (very sweet girl. She gave me a bouquet of flowers for my birthday.), had ice cream at Dairy Queen and in general enjoyed the day with my kids.

4/14/08

I won't go into the long story of why my husband has to dig this area out to fix a leak around the sewer pipe but it involves two dead squirrels and rain. We need to relandscape the front of the house anyway so here he is tearing out the bushes. What does he find under the bush he is working on here? Four newborn kittens. Mama had been at supper the night before but not at breakfast so I wasn't surprised that there were baby kittens but now what? I put them in a cardboard box and brought them in the house while the digging was going on. When he finished I sat the box back where he had found the kittens. By 11 pm they had all been moved to an undisclosed location. I am pretty sure there are more than four as Mama appeared to have swallowed a medium size mixing bowl and she is historically a rather prolific Mama. Would anyone like some cats? Please.

Prayers, positive thoughts, whatever you have, please, send it.

 

In case you have not read my blog before I recently had a cancer scare. You can read the posts by clicking on those last two words in the previous sentence. I thank God I am cancer free.

In late March a 26 year old co-worker was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has now undergone a double mastectomy. Today she found that she has at least stage 3 cancer, she has probably had it for over a year but was told it was probably fibrous and not to worry. She will have chemo, radiation and cancer drugs for at least 10 years. This means no babies for at least 10 years and if the tests done on Friday reveal the cancer has spread, it was found in 4 of the 12 lymph nodes, then she cannot have her eggs frozen and there will never be babies.

Also today we found out about a recently former co-worker. She is 31, has a child approximately. 2 years of age and will have a double mastectomy on Tuesday due to stage three cancer.

What in the hell is going on?

PLEASE check the girls every month, PLEASE insist that a palpable lump is biopsied and PLEASE don't think you are too young, too old, too healthy, too anything to have cancer. I now personally know three women under the age of 35 with stage three breast cancer.

First Flowers

These were the first flowers in my flowerbeds this spring. I now have more but there is too much wind to photograph them properly. I worked in the beds for about two and a half hours this afternoon and everything looks much better. All the broken limbs are picked up and most of the leaf trash is gone. The wind was helpful in that it was blowing new leaves in as I was removing the old but that is always a problem when you have as many trees as we do.

Mystic Light Swatch

4/2/08

I haven't started knitting the Mystic Light shawl yet but I have reknit the swatch a couple of times. This is my first attempt at what I consider real lace, my first provisional cast on and my first time reading a chart. I missed a cable, changed needle sizes a couple of times and made a few unintentional design changes but other than that I think I am ready to start knitting the shawl. I found in knitting the swatch that I need the house quiet and maybe even empty to do this very well. That may mean this is a very long term project.

Road Trip

We seem to have been on the road a lot lately. Two granddaughter's have had birthdays, my father-in-law celebrated his 86th birthday, we have gone to photography seminars, and other fun things that take us up to two hours from home. Each time we have planned to wash the car before we leave town. Each time it has rained or snowed the day before and made car washing pretty much pointless since we drive through a small pond on the street in front of our house. I was actually taking pictures of the mud splatters on the window in the first picture but really like the look of the hubcaps better. Hubby was drooling over some tools in the tool store. I had been drooling at the fabric store earlier in the day.

3/8/08

This my leg. Not very interesting but next to it sits my knitting bag. This is where it lives when we are in the car. Right by my feet. Next to the door in the winter so it insulates my forever cold feet more and summer time, well, it usually has to block some of the AC off my forever cold feet. The knitting project of the day was a prayer shawl. It is nearly complete since the last trip this past Sunday.

Coming up:

Hot cocoa swap

Cold and wet = stew

More Finished Objects

3/5/08

A sweet little bunny dishcloth. I just loved this little guy and his fluffy little tail is my favorite part. I was pretty proud of the edge as well. I have finally knitted enough that I can control my edges enough I don't want to go back and bind them with fabric or something. I try to pick projects that inspire me to learn if even just a little bit. Though I didn't really learn anything new on this one it was the first time I have worked on the diagonal. I got a lot of practice increasing and decreasing.

 

 

 

3/6/08

My first mittens! I am so excited. They are for my college age daughter. Of course it is now too warm for her to wear them but there is always next year. I love this pattern and will certainly be making it again. They will be great Christmas presents next year. I already have some yarns picked out. This project forced inspired me to learn and try several new things. A huge buttonhole which scared me but turned out not so difficult at all and I really like the ribbing along it. Picking up stitches for the thumb was the first time I picked up less stitches than there were stitches to pick up. This meant I had to decide where to pick them up. That turned out OK too. The very best thing I learned, kitchener stitch! The first mitten I just totally butchered it but the second one I watched the video on knittinghelp.com and it was so easy. I could not figure out what I was doing when I read the instruction in the book but after watching the video a couple of times it was a breeze. I won't remember it when I try it again but hopefully the video will always be there.

 

OK, so I am a little proud of my mittens. You get a couple more pictures.

 

And if you can stand just one more, how is that for kitchener stitch? Now I am no expert  and this was my first time but I think I did pretty good. In case I didn't, lie to me anyway.