Bad Juju

9/29/08

Imagine you are a 26 years old. You have had a lump in your breast for at least a year but since you have no family history and you are so young no one is concerned. Now imagine that lump is actually cancer. Fast forward 6 months. You have had a double mastectomy, radiation, a lung biopsy that is thankfully negative, your jerk of a significant other becomes an even bigger jerk and you finally send him packing and you are now facing radiation.
As soon as I saw the pattern for this I knew my friend Keri needed one. I don't like knitting things like this and I HATE stuffing anything so this was a stretch for me. I intentionally tried for unattractive since his lot in life is to be stabbed repeatedly. The heart on the front is of course for the jerk and the big C on the back is for cancer. She really is handling all of this better than I think I would have and she has a tremendous group of family and friends helping her along the way. Her life is better without the jerk and the cancer is loosing to her strength and faith. To Keri and a long, healthy life.

Hot, sweaty and gross

Kansas State University football game last Saturday. I hadn't been to a K State game since I marched in band day back in high school. Things have certainly changed. There are huge screens, instant replays, commercials, you name it, they got it. We were sitting with our backs to the sun. The students were opposite us facing the sun. My daughter is somewhere in that crowd near the goal line. I never did spot her.















The band was great and the cheer leaders, yell leaders and various other dance teams were working as hard as the players were.











Do you see the fire truck? That brought in Willie our mascot. He is just clearing the band in a yellow firemans outfit mid photo. The "bad guy" from the Ragin Cagin is at mid field about to be tackled by Willie. All part of the pregame fun and games.









Here come the players! What I really wanted in this picture is the smoke and the players running through it. Who is this guy sticking his arm up just as I take a photo?







Displaying the colors.








My daughter and I and why I call this post hot, sweaty and gross. We were all three. Though my Tshirt is pink it is a K-State shirt and the button I am wearing has a special story. A friend of ours has raised five daughters and they attended K-State some years ago. When she heard I was going to the game she drove home, got the button she had worn and brought it back to me at work. It says "my daughter goes to K-State". It is now on my inspiration wall next to my desk. I will pass it on to another K-State mom someday.

Motorcycles and Pretty Spiders

9/20/08

The weather was perfect all day long. Not too hot, not too cool, a very gentle breeze and productive. Late in the evening we were enjoying the end of the day on the deck and I got up from knitting to check the roses. This is who I found visiting my rose bush. Isn't she beautiful. I don't know that she captured her supper but she had the tip of the rose wrapped in a web. She had no objections to having her picture taken. Yes, I asked. I have this habit of talking to nature. Flowers, bugs, weeds... Thank goodness they don't talk back. I thought is was interesting that the browned tip of the rose is the same brown as she is. Coincidence? If the red/green/brown color combination works in nature it may inspire a future project.




9/21/08

Good friends, good food and a beautiful morning. We found a wonderful little cafe in Burlingame, Kansas that serves breakfast followed by an awesome bbq buffet. Wonderful people and amazing food. They love the biker groups and treated us like royalty.

Since we were already so close to Lawrence we rode on up to see the grand kids. It was a short visit as I had to be back for a meeting at church but a wonderful addition to the day.

I took this picture with a simple little point and shoot camera I carry in the car or on the bike. Obviously the date is wrong. It took me a while to figure out how to change the date and then remove it from stamping the photo. So much for simple.

What Can I Say

Have I been on vacation? No, but I am now. Seven days off work, add in four days for weekends and that totals eleven days that I do not walk into the job that pays the bills. Don't get me wrong, I do love my job. I have awesome coworkers and my patients are fun and challenging. It is amazing that for as much physical discomfort as I cause my patients they are usually grateful and happy to come back to us day after day until they are well again. For the next eleven days am I going to miss any of that? NOPE. So if I haven't been vacationing for the last month what have I been doing? First off I want someone to explain to me where the month of September went. I mean come on, I just turned the page on the calendar and now I need to do it again. I really like that picture on the calendar and it seems barely enjoyed let alone time to be hidden again. Just turned to October and that picture is pretty much beautiful as well. So I am officially in October. I do have a few fun things to share with you from the past month before I let October take hold of the blog. Here goes.

8/31/08


Labor Day weekend. None of the kids are coming home, I have a three day weekend and we have never been to Atchison, Kansas. It is the home of Amelia Earhart, beautiful mansions and reportedly many ghosts. I saw Amelia's birthplace, a couple of other museums, many beautiful mansions, the river, good food, a good time, but no ghosts. We plan to go back for some of the official ghost tours. But it won't be this year. Tickets go on sale in June and though there were a few random slots open none when we could attend.
This is the side view of the house below.



This is one of my favorites of the many we walked around. It was a beautiful evening to stroll through neighborhoods enjoying the architecture and hoping to see a ghost peeking out a window or gliding across the lawn to the carriage house. Notice the gargoyles on top the house?




Side view of these awesome guys. They sit above the side view in the very first picture.




He looks a little scarier from this angle to me. Like he is crouched ready to pounce as you walk out to the carriage house or sit in the back yard.






As the sun is setting they become the guardians of the night.






A little newer home, later 1800's than the one above. I liked the bunting hung out front and I love wide front porches. Every house should have a front porch.





This one is open to the public but we got there too late. It is falling into disrepair but still lovely.




This is behind the picture above. Isn't it beautiful? I would so love to sit here with a cool drink and some knitting.







Some flowers blooming on an old wrought iron fence. The flowers were so thick you couldn't see the fence.






I love the old street signs.








The river walk and veteran's memorial.



This little guy found a cool, shady place for a nap.

Another view of the river at the south end of the river walk. At the north end was a lovely little cafe where we ate supper.

I don't have pictures from the Amelia Earhart birthplace and museum but it also had a front porch complete with rocking chairs.

We had a wonderful time and certainly plan to go back.

TGI Labor Day Weekend

This image is from a few days back but I just love this time of day. This is taken from inside the house. Why didn't I step outside????? It doesn't show up any of the pics I took but the gravel is crisscrossed with I guess spider webs. They were reflecting light like jewels. It was really pretty.







The roses continue to bloom. I just dead headed this a.m. so had to take some pics. Yes this one is a lame attempt at camouflage. You have to get that water away from the house somehow.















I plan to watch this one all weekend.
















Do you ever read someones blog and they tell you they will send you a little something just for commenting, answering a question, etc? Well I enjoy reading Mary's blog. She was doing a little cleaning out and sharing with her readers. Look what I got! I am so excited.
This is the top layer. Oh yes, there were layers.















I loved the little extras. A wooden spool, a strip of leather, odd buttons, wire for beading.....




















A kit for a bookmark.




















A box of baubles.




















This eye candy is a combination of things. The lovely pink yarn I received along with a packet of teas, they were wonderful. I'm not sure why I received this package. It must of been from a long ago swap that I have forgotten about. I hope I kept up my end of the bargain. The purple is the yarn my daughter picked for a scarf to go with the new coat she plans to buy this fall. We were at Wildflower in Manhattan, Kansas where my daughter attends school. I was so overwhelmed and couldn't decide what yarns to purchase when my daughter saved my budget by telling me she would love a scarf. Needed some shorter DPN's as well. I could have bought oh so much more and within hours of getting home I signed up for a new KAL. I will have to go back.






















I had entered three items in the Ravelry Olympics. I metaled with this one. It is a scribble lace shawl that looks great with a little black dress I bought recently. The other wip, my son's log cabin blanket, is still a wip but I am hoping that a road trip tomorrow will finish it off. Lastly I was going to learn to knit socks. Foolishly that is what I was trying to do during the opening ceremonies. The ceremony was simply too amazing to get much of anything except plain old garter stitch done.

My Weekend Adventures

8/2/08

I read brooklyntweed's blog so I already knew I liked these mittens. Stopped by the book store to see if Vogue had hit the newsstands yet. I didn't even see the title until after I have picked it up because of the cover. I love the cover. It has it all, color, texture, expression, balance. I rarely buy a magazine but I brought this one home in part because of the cover. Thankfully I like some of the projects and articles inside as well.






My husband is in Sturgis for the big motorcycle rally. The original plan was for wives to go along but I couldn't go because of work and other wives had other issues. We wanted to take a support vehicle so the guys wouldn't have to carry so much on the bikes, we could take turns riding with our guys and we could actually lock up things like cameras. My husband almost never travels without a camera. This week he will have been in at least four states other than Kansas with no camera.
So with a week to myself, other than work, the fair, and who knows what else crops up I hope to get a good amount of knitting done. That much knitting requires a few movies. I went to the section marked 2/$1 and picked up some that I wanted to see and some I had never heard of. I actually got home with one I didn't intend to get. It may turn out to be the best of the bunch.

Saturday morning I took four projects to the county fair. Two received red ribbons, one didn't receive a ribbon at all and I didn't expect it to. It was one of the scribble lace shawls and other than the yarn they are nothing special. My Everlasting Bagstopper, I don't remember if it got a ribbon or not. Our display space is adequate at best. To see the bag I had to get down on my knees to look at the bottom shelf. Next to my bag was a lovely garment of some sort but I couldn't see the tag to see whose it was or what it was. There were several other items in the same predicament. I believe when we meet at the fair for knit night this week we will be discussing the display situation.


On my way home I stopped at a couple of garage sales. I found this lamp. It works. I don't usually go for things like this but it kind of spoke to me. Once I find a shade that works with it will decide its fate. At this point I am thinking of sanding it down and spraying it with one of the paints that looks like stone. I might also do some sort of mosaic or decoupage treatment. Time will tell.















My other garage sale purchase was this box of beads. A nice little assortment to add to my collections.








My last stop was at the craft store in town. They have everything BUT yarn. We are trying to talk them into it because they have employees that know yarn. One of the employees raises sheep, spins, dyes, knits and weaves. We will keep trying.
Anyway, they have a pretty decent bead section. I picked up a few things to work on an idea for some stitch markers.








Here I added some beads from the garage sale box.











Now I have added in some of my own beads. I want to keep the grey/silver tones but add a sharp contrast and I think it will be red. I have lots of red beads.


A lamp project and a beading project. I only thought I was going to get a lot of knitting done.





I am test knitting a pattern for a breast cancer fundraising calendar. I don't have a yarn source close by so when I went to "the city" I picked up every pink yarn I could find that would work for a dishcloth.
I am using the mercerized cotton second from the right and it is working up beautifully. Pictures and info. on the calendar at a later date.





Love this car seat blanket pattern but do not like the yarn. I was on my way out the door and needed something quick. It is sooooo yucky but knitting anything on a long car ride is better than knitting nothing. It will make an OK gift for someone or for the grandgirls and their baby dolls. I will knit this pattern again in something much nicer.





















8/3/08
I love ripe fresh from the garden tomatoes. This one has been ripening on the counter for a couple of days and it was perfect on Sunday. I

Pizza or Turkey?

7/27/08

I made homemade pizza with all the fresh veggies from the garden. There is onion, green pepper, garlic and tomatoes. It was the best pizza I have made in quite sometime.

I love my baking stones. The handles on this make it much easier to get in and out of the oven. My old one had a rack to set it on but I was always forgetting the rack. It was passed on to my son so I could justify this one.

7/28/08

This turkey has several siblings that "hatched" last fall. I knit up three or four of these guys for gifts in a short amount of time. I chose this pattern to knit for the household items category at the fair because it was an easy but visually interesting knit. I knit the first 1/4 of this cloth several times and finally cut the yarn off and threw it away. It was beginning to resemble a well worn piece of string rather than yarn. Once I got past the half way point I didn't have any further problems thank goodness. There is one very obvious error but of course I didn't see it until I was blocking. I'm sure the judge will see it as well but I enter more for fun than for the ribbons. Too bad I didn't remind myself of that when I was having so much trouble knitting this thing. After the fair he goes into the mail to an Internet friend who has mentioned she would like to have a turkey.

In addition to this dishcloth I took a scribble lace shawl, my misknitted Everlasting Bagstopper shopping bag and a preemie hat. There were other projects I had planned to take but it is best if they are completed before entering them in the fair.

Today I cast on a pink dishcloth that I am test knitting for a breast cancer calendar fundraiser. More on the topic in the weeks to come. I have tested some patterns for quilt designers before but this is the first time testing for a knit designer. I hope I am up to her standards. She does beautiful work.