A little bit of craziness....

Hi all!

I hope that all of you are doing better than I!  I am a procrastinator from waaaaay back!  I can hold off doing something for a very long time. I've told myself for many years that "I work best under pressure".  Not really, it's just what I've had to do in order to actually get things done.   I'm not proud of that.   It's a terrible habit and I pray that one day I will learn to do better.  But, so far, well, I've not figured out how to change.

I have been sewing (yes, sewing!) for the past few days.  I made Quillows for my grandchildren and my nephews and niece.  I cranked out 5 Quillows in three days!  I amazed myself.  But don't you all get all happy for me.  It wasn't a difficult item to make.  All straight stitching on a two yard fabric, batting and an 18 inch square.  You put it together and then stitch a few stitches here and there with some thread and voila!  Little quilts that fold into pillows.

So then I wrapped all the gifts that I have going to Alaska and California and then hauled everything out to the FEDEX store.  I thought for some strange reason, that it would be cheaper.  NOT!  And to top it off, they tore the wrapping on my gifts as they were trying to pack them in a larger box!  When they told me what it would cost to send them to Alaska... well, I had them unpack that box so I could try to get them to the post office, and that is when I saw the torn wrapping.  UGH!  Anyhow,  finally managed to get everything sent out and they are on their way to their respective states!  If you want a shocker!  Read my tweet for today.  Crazy!

Now, I'm going to work on a few gifts that I need to finish by Christmas eve.  And I have a few other little tidbits that I have sew up for a few friends.  I hope I can get them done.  I'm also working on a few Christmas cards that have a little knitted something that goes with it.  I got this idea from two different ladies on Youtube.  Check it out!

Very Pink Knits 

 K Werner Design

I watch Staci's channel often.  I learn something new from her all the time!  And this is the first time I've gone to K Werners channel.  She certainly made me feel like I too could make these cute little cards.  So, there you go.  Check them out, maybe you'll find more things of interest on these two channels.

I need to get busy if I'm going to complete anything else I've yet to get done.  I hope you all are ahead of the "holiday" game and are able to enjoy the true meaning of Christmas!

Like Seinfeld... about nothing

Hello everyone!

First let me say, I hope you all had a marvelous Thanksgiving!  We had a wonderful one with our Baby Girl and Darling Drew!  It is so wonderful to be able to go to their home and see the beautiful job of cooking the Thanksgiving meal being done by your wonderfully grown up child and her Darling.  I would have taken pictures of her table with all the wonderful food on it, but we got a little too eager to enjoy the feast and I forgot.   We are so fortunate to be able to live as close to them as we do.  One down, one to go!  ;-)

So,  welcome to the post about nothing.  Yes, I said nothing.  I'm not sure what is going on except that I do believe I am feeling quite overwhelmed with all that is needing to be done this month.  So much so that I just can't seem to get motivated to do anything at all!  So here I sit, using my blog as a procrastination tool.  Telling myself I am actually doing something that needs to be done instead of doing something that is the least necessary item on my terribly long list of things needing to be done in the month of December!

I have sewing projects that still need to be completed.  (pffft, let's just tell it like it is, I haven't even started the projects!)  And those are projects that also need to be mailed off.  I haven't finished my knitted projects yet either.  Although, I must say, I'm closer to completing those more than the sewing.

And as late as Thanksgiving was... I still haven't put up any Christmas decorations yet.  I plan to do that tomorrow and Saturday.

So, this blog is about nothing that I've accomplished.  And about everything yet still to do.

I leave you now, in the hopes that I will accomplish one thing on my list before my next blog.

(wish me luck.)

A most lovely day...

Hello again.  What a wonderful day it is!  The sun is shinning and there is a dusting of snow on the ground.  I love waking up to snow, even a dusting!

 I know that this is only the beginning and that there will be more to come in the next few months and that makes me happy.  Of course there will be some of those people who will groan at this site.  And they won't enjoy my happy comments about the snow but that is okay.  It will be a pleasure to share my joy of snow with them and help them to see the beauty and wonder of it!  (or not... some people just can't be convinced)   And for those of you who think I don't do my part in the sweeping & shoveling of the snow...  I do!  Although, I do let my honey do the fun part which is using the snow blower!  (ha-ha)

There hasn't been much going on here since my last post.  Mostly trying to catch up on whittling down my Christmas List "to do" items.  I've been knitting up a storm and even trying out new stitch patterns!

There is a hat that goes with this.  Although, if I don't figure out how to finish the mitten top soon, there may only be a hat to gift!  This will be my first mitten.  Up until now, I've only done fingerless gloves.  Now I remember why.  ;-/

So, today, I will make a pot of stew and listen to some music and get to knitting!  I hope you all are having a most lovely day and I'll be back again soon!

What to do....

Hello everyone?  It's been so long since I last posted, I'm sure there isn't a soul who's going to be looking for a new post from me.  But, I'll take my chances and give this another try.

So much has been going on since my last attempt at a return blog posting.  And it's all been good, except for the part where I couldn't figure out how to post photos.  And I'm still not sure I'll be posting photos.  At this point I am just going to try to post words and see how that goes.

My family is doing well.  We've had visits from our First Born and Dilly-girl and the sweet grand babies, who are not so little anymore!  They are now three & two!  Amazing!  Baby Girl &  Darling Drew are together again.  Not sure if you all remembered but they were only able to spend time together on weekends and holidays because of their jobs.  But they have been reunited and are doing so well!  Honey and I actually spent a few days with them and it was so nice.  We hadn't done much of that lately and this month we'll get to spend time with them again over Thanksgiving!

My Honey is still working at the same job which he enjoys.  And when I say "same job" it's pretty surprising since he works as a contractor for a company in Offut.  First, it's a job that is under a contract and could easily and often not be renewed.  And secondly, after being in the Army and moving around and changing jobs, this is really quite nice to be able to have the same job and the same location for nearly 7 years!  We have NEVER lived anywhere that long!

So, what have I been doing since I last posted?  Well, I spent 5 weeks in Alaska this summer, one whole week with my Honey with me and the rest with my little ricky.  It was nice to be able to spend so much time with the kids and the grand babies.  Then I came home and it seemed like I hit the ground running.  I spent the rest of the summer helping in our Churches "Big Garden" and learned ALOT about growing & harvesting vegetables!   I also helped deliver to local church food pantries in our area. We are getting ready to deliver the sweet potatoes and brussle sprouts this Friday and then we'll be done with the garden for this season!  In September I started up the Fiber Ministry, Hearts to Hand, that I had begun last year.  We took a break over the summer and we meet up every Thursday evening.  We have three places/project we deliver to twice a year.  We knit (for the most part) 8x8 inch squares that will be sent off to a location in South Africa which then will be knitted together to form a blanket for orphan children with HIV.  We also knit up preemie hats, blankets and booties for our local NICU  and the last things are Chemo caps for the Cancer center.  We also have a girl who crochets a bunch of the baby items as well.  We gather everything together twice a year and have the blessed by our Pastor and congregation and then send them out to the various locations.  It's been such a blessing to be able to knit for good as well as for fun!  And I've gotten to meet new people in our community and get to know others even better.  I've also been doing a lot of personal knitting.  I'm working on Christmas gifts right now and I have to tell you all, I've actually knitted a few socks to completion!  And I'm not talking little kids socks, I'm talking socks for adults!  Namely me!  They are not perfect but they are wearable!

Woot!  I got the photo uploaded and here is my first pair of socks done with Magic Loop Toe up two at a time sock pattern!!!  I am still looking for a bind off that is more stretchy, but I used the Icelandic bindoff on these and they work better than your average bind off.  (one of the hazards of doing socks from the toe up is that the binding at the cuff is not very stretchy at all!)   I learned how to do the Icelandic bindoff from a Youtube channel called Very Pink Knits.  She has really great tutorials on knitting and quite often has segments on new or new to her stitches.  Love it!

I also made these!  Okay, disclaimer here.  I'm not very good at keeping track of patterns or yarn types! Heck, I can't even remember when I made these, but I did make these and may have even blogged it at one time, (that's how long ago I may have made them) but the reason I'm showing these to you all is because I actually used them in the garden this year.  They came in handy on one of those chilly (okay, cold) mornings when we had to pick green beans and I used them again when we harvested sweet potatoes!  When you pick green beans it's SO much easier to do with free fingers!!!  Anyhow, if you want the instructions for the these fingerless gloves, I could probably find them, but I can't guarantee it will be soon.  (just saying)

Okay, I think I'm done for now.  If these photos up load and the link works then I'll be one happy camper!  AND I'll probably start blogging on a more frequent basis now.  So, keeping fingers crossed... Until next time, you all have a great day and see you soon!

Renewing my blog page...

As the title announces, I am renewing my dedication to my blog page.  I haven't forgotten you all, although that may be difficult for you to believe since it's been ages and ages since my last post!  And for anyone that actually read my posts, I thank you for your loyalty and I hope that you will continue to visit my little blog from time to time because I really do enjoy sharing the things that go on in my little neck of the prairie with all my friends and family!

My good life is still very good!  And very busy!  But also very normal and perhaps to many, not so terribly exciting.  But it'a a good life and I am enjoying it very much.  As some of you know, my son and his family live in Alaska and my daughter and her husband live in KS.  They all are doing very well and recently had the opportunity to visit with each other.  My Baby-girl and her hubby went to Alaska for a week and went sightseeing with her older brother, Dilly-girl and grand babies  and spent a fun time with them all!  And I would normally add a photo of this event but I can't seem to figure out how to do that.  Not sure if it's my computer or if it has to do with the (ever better) Blogger.  But I do have lovely photo's of all of them together for the first time since a few christmas's ago!

In June our Son, Dilly-girl and grand-babies will visit us here!  (I hope to have figured out this photo upload by then).   And it will be so much fun!  They will be here in time to be in the Springfield Days Children's Parade, which I am leading again this year!  And we'll do all the fun things like going to the Omaha Zoo, and Laurenzen Garden, Soaring Wings Winery, and so on and so forth.  Then Son and Dilly-girl will go to K.C. and spend a weekend with Baby-girl and Son-in-law and Granddaddy and I will get to spend the whole weekend with our little Grand babies!  YAY!!!!!

Then...... at the end of July my Honey and I will go to Alaska and see more sights and do lots more exploring AND we'll get to be there for our grandsons 3rd birthday!  We are SO excited for all the fun to begin.  But in the mean time...  We will be working on getting our garden up and running again.  We've had some late snow fall and freezes so we haven't done much of anything in our garden and flower beds other than clean it up and till the soil in the garden bed.  We thought about planting rows of greens, but decided not to and now we are ever so glad we waited since that night we had a deluge of rain and it's been stormy off and on for the past week!  But, if all goes well, we hope to get those seeds in by next week.  And the serious gardening will not begin until after the 1st of May, which is not unusual for these parts!

I have been doing some knitting still.  I am currently working on another sock for myself.  It's a long slow process since I tend to work on it rather sporadically.  I have also started a Knitting Ministry in our church.  We knit together every other week for now and we have three organizations that we knit for.  The three projects are each for a different skill level which makes it very easy for anyone to join us.  And then, I recently purchased an antique spinning wheel.  It's a Canadian Production Wheel and it's designed to make lace weight and sock weight yarns.  Which is exactly the types of yarns I enjoy working with.  But, to make them is a whole other story!!!  I've been a bit frustrated with the learning process, but I keep telling myself that when these wheel's were made, little children were learning how to spin on just this type of wheel!  And if they could do it, then by golly, I can do it!  I'm beginning to believe, those children were MUCH brighter than me!  So, when ever I become too frustrated, I fall back on working with my drop spindle, just so I feel like I am being somewhat productive.  I've made one ball of single ply yarn and am working on another and hope to be able to ply the two together soon so I'll have a ball of working yarn to make mittens with (eventually).  My goal is to make thrummed mittens with my drop spindle yarn.  Perhaps you all can help me stay dedicated to that goal by asking me about it from time to time!  You know, to keep my on track.  ;-)  And my second goal is to make a ball of spinning wheel yarn by the end of the summer!

So, I will leave you all now to digest this first blog of this year.  I hope it wasn't too terribly boring and I hope to figure out the photo issues so that I will be able to post photo's in my next blog post.

I hope you all are doing well and I will write again next week!  Thank you all!

Have a wonderful day!