Need a Name!

Looks like our little knitting circle is going to expand soon! Yippee! I love knowing these ladies want to get together, knit, socialize and drink tea :) Now that we've gone from just a couple staunch attendees, to an actual circle maybe it's time we elected a name for ourselves. I'm currently at a blank but I think it would be pretty cool to have tee-shirts and be able to display our name and some kind of crazy slogan! It is my goal, after all, to make this a permanent group. I feel like I've connected with all of these ladies and I would feel very sad if we couldn't continue our little gatherings. That and I love to cook and who, BTW, give me the motivation to clean the house! It'll never be Martha perfect but at least the floors will be vacuumed and the toilets cleaned!! LOL!

Serious progress is happening on the beanie for my little man. I've decided to amp it up a little and add some knit embellishments to it. Can't explain it - will have to snap a pic and post it so you can see what I mean. I'll have to finish it and get the wild man to pose with it on so you can get the full effect!

Had a really wonderful Bible study this morning. The message was powerful and even though I didn't feel like I had connected with with weeks written work as much, the video was spot on. Beth Moore is very inspirational and simply riveting to listen to. You can see and hear just how much she truly believes what she is saying and that kind of genuineness is so rare to find. I know I respond to her earnestness and her passion. She makes me want to learn more every time I hear her speak. I want that surety in my spiritual life. I think I've done everything I could to fill my life up with {{stuff}} - you know what I mean - instead of what I've really needed. I don't know how to let go and move that knowledge from my head to my heart. I feel like I should know what to do and it's so frustrating to feel that I can't. It's like dealing with my anxiety. I pretty much KNOW what the causes for it are, and what most of the triggers are, I just can't seem to let go enough to find the solution. It's not like I enjoy having excruciating pain when I experience a panic attack, right? I certainly don't ask for it. But, there it is...and I can't seem to do anything about it. The point is, for both my spiritual life and my anxiety, I'm fighting something. There is some springy resistance to my efforts and I don't know how to get past it. I want to truly let go and feel the Holy Spirit filling me with peace and I want to be able to handle the anxiety with out the medication. That's it in a nutshell.

On the book front, I have several on the bedside table. Along with the Bible and the Bible study work, I have The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry, a slightly disturbing mystery revolving around a woman battling her own mental health demons, The Willful Child by James Dobson, a hopefully insightful guide to raising a willful and stubborn child, and The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson, an incredibly detailed (mathematically speaking) and intense murder mystery about a Swedish hacker and her friend, a famous news-journalist. As you can see, I enjoy a wide variety of subjects :)

Time to roust the wild man! He actually napped today - first time in a week, I think! Then it's time for a turkey dinner, mmm!

Blessings to all!

Yikes!

I've really been slack this year! Blame it all on Facebook!! LOL!! Anyway, I've started knitting again and even though it feels like I'm knitting for everyone else I'm determined to finish some of these outstanding projects. I've picked up that dreaded hubby sweater again and have made significant progress on the first sleeve. I'm aiming for finishing the whole thing by the end of this year. Will this be my one and only attempt at a "real" sweater? Quite possibly! I think I've knit several miles of stockinette UGH! Anyway, it will look smashing on my good looking hubby. I'm also making a cotton tassel hat for my little wild man. Reminds me of how much I dislike knitting with cotton - no give and hard on the hands!

Also on the short list, the very lovely cloche from Boutique Knits. I'm using Manos Silk Blend, which is a lovely soft mix of merino and silk, in a gorgeous coral colorway. This will be a Christmas present for a lovely woman I'm very blessed to know. I have another friend I need to think of something for, too! I'm also making a palindrome scarf out of leftover Peace Fleece worsted in Khrushchev Corn colorway - though, I'm rethinking the scarf bit. I'm leaning toward using it as a neck warmer, securing it with a couple of nice buttons. The only problem with the yarn is the scratchiness. One would need a turtleneck under it - or, I could line it with fleece! Oh, that is ingenious! See, the ideas are just flowing! Anyway, this is slated as a Christmas gift for my MIL. She won't be wearing it long though! She's moving to FL for six months after Christmas! The final thing on my immediate list is another hat for my beautiful boy. This will be the Inca Snowflake Hat from Itty Bitty Hats by Susan Anderson. I'm going to use a lovely dark blue Cascade 220 instead of the Noro Kureyon suggested. Not that the Noro isn't lovely but I think it'll get more wear in the blue. I'll still do the snowflake and trims in white :)

Projects just laying around include several pairs of socks that I swear I'll finish soon. One has a lace pattern and is written as a chart which, for the life of me, I am apparently unable to comprehend. The other is a simple pair of men's 3x1 ribbed socks for my hubby. I figure I'll finish the pair for him LONG before I get back to the lace socks. I also have my crocheted hexie afghan that for some reason I have abandoned. I think it was taking me far longer than I anticipated. I also need to order more in the colors I have and since I'm flat broke I can't restock to finish it. Which is a darned shame because I LOVE that thing and would really like to finish it!

On the back burner are more felted purses and a felted tote. I'd also like to start a gift cabinet and do some really cute baby and toddler stuff. Stock up on some good things for any up coming baby showers.

Wild man is doing great! He's growing up so fast I can hardly believe it. We've been potty training and he's responding well to it. I hope I can convince him to poop as well as pee on the pot. He did try to poop today. So I think he's got the hang of it - he just needs to keep recognizing what his little body is telling him. So far so good and I don't want to jinx it!

Hubby's doing well. Work stinks for him but he's soldiering on. We're just grateful he has a job to go to when so many don't these days. So he's trying to keep his head above water and not let work get too personal.

I've been involved in my mom's group again. Mousam Valley Moms - check us out! We're on facebook and our schedule is (should be) on the Curtis Lake website. We've got a great group of moms this year and we're packing our months full of activities. I'm on the steering team and that seems to be working out ok - though what they feel I have to contribute is still beyond me! In addition to the mom's group, I've joined a woman's bible study on Wednesday mornings. I'm finding it very fulfilling and eye opening. Right now we're in the middle of an awesome Beth Moore study called Breaking Free. Perfect for me at this point in my life! Hubby and I are also doing an evening study once a week that is mostly for fellowship and little for study! We enjoy it though and make sure we do the homework together. In the nearly 20 years we've been together we've never done anything like this together. Now if I can overcome my obstacles to prayer...

All in all, we've been busy and for once, it's a nice kind of busy. We just found out my brother bought a house in Wichita and is excited to close and move in. We also found out my MIL is buying us tickets to FL so we can go down to visit her and my SIL! I'm SO excited about that! I've never been to FL and if my SIL will have me (well, the wild man and me) I'd like to stay for several weeks. Hubby would go down for a week then come back here for work. We'd miss him terribly but he only has so much time for vacation and I think wild man and I would have an awesome time! We would be going down with the whole family, too, which is incredible! Talk about the wild man having most of his aunties in one place!! He won't know what to do!

Anyway, that's pretty much it in a nutshell! Lots going on and lots more happening. I'll try not to be such a stranger :)

Blessings to all!

Denise Gets a Kiss from McDreamy!

From the Sanford News:

Fosters.com - Dover NH, Rochester NH, Portsmouth NH, Laconia NH, Sanford ME

Shared via AddThis

Dempsey Challenge

My girls are in this video of the Dempsey Challenge! Look for the woman in orange in the wheelchair! She even got a hug and kiss from Patrick Dempsey! Yippee!!

Fair Time and Farewells

Oh, I'm so excited I could squeal!!! It's almost fair time and I can't wait! Nothing precedes Fall like fair time! Hot, hazy, dusty and humid days of wandering around the fairgrounds with your family in tow, avoiding the hawkers and carnies, while stuffing yourselves with fried dough, fair fries and cotton candy. Ahhhhh.... We've already missed the Cumberland Craft Fair which always seems to fall on the worst weekend for us. I haven't been in years and even had it on my calender this time...no go. So now, we can't miss anymore! Acton Fair is the first one and it's the end of this week. After that, we'll hit the Rochester, Cumberland and Fryeburg Fairs. I just love to walk around and sample the food. Hubby likes looking at all the vendors goods and my Dad just loves the whole atmosphere. And, if there's an active track with races, all the better! I always feel like a little kid at the fair. Seeing it through my sons eyes is the best. He loves the animal barns and can't get enough of cows and bunnies. Plenty of photo ops will abound I hope!

My sister is getting ready to move out on Wednesday. She's not going back to Atlanta rather to Wichita to move in with our brother. Then they are looking to move south to the great state of Texas very soon! I'm sad she's moving out...we didn't get a chance to do our sister night this time and I'm not sure when she'll be coming back. Now that she's out of college she won't be doing college breaks so I don't know when we'll see her again. Hopefully she'll come home for Christmas! In any case, things will be a lot quieter around here. Sadder, too, I suspect. She and our Dad have a tight relationship and he'll lose his dinner buddy when she leaves. He's also not so keen on her idea of moving out west. I think he's just disappointed she's not going to be staying in Atlanta pursuing a higher degree. I just want her to be happy and if that means her moving halfway across the country then so be it.

Still haven't hooked up the camera to upload all our recent pics so nothing new from the summer to show off. I'll need to empty the memory card before fair time so sometime this week should do it!

Till then...stay safe and happy knitting!

Lazy Days of Summer

I can't believe I haven't posted anything in over a month! What's going on with me!! Well, I can tell you that facebook has it's hooks in me and is what takes up a lot of my time. Those stupid farming games!! LOL! Like I don't have a real garden of my own to tend to...do I really need several virtual farms? It's all good, though. I've reconnected with a lot of people I haven't seen in nearly 20 yrs and my mom's group is on there so we have a place to discuss meetups and playdates. Also, if I want to find any one of my girlfriends I can just check their most recent post! It's a great way to stay connected but to tell you the truth, I really miss my blog. I'm hoping with colder weather coming in a few months I'll have more desire to sit inside and type away!

Quick updates, my wild man turned 3 in July and he's growing like a weed! He's been so much fun this summer. He's already getting too big for his tricycle and I have to think about adjusting his seat! We got him a swing set and he's been loving that - especially the slide and trampoline! He's been swimming at the lake, the beach and the pool this year and I think he definitely prefers the beach. So much more for him to do there. What a joy he's been! Oh, we've also had our challenges. He's into the "opposite" stage right now. Whatever I say to him, he says the opposite! I'm sure you moms know EXACTLY what that's like! LOL! Needless to say, I have a lot more grays popping up every day!

I haven't knit a blessed think in about two months. I haven't even touched my crochet project, the hexie blanket, in almost as long. I guess the summer weather got to me. That and the fact that I've been reading like a fiend! I'm getting the urge back to knit again and I'm hoping to have a pair of socks done for my hubby by Christmas. I'm also hoping to have the hexie done by then. I think I'll need to order another skein of each color in order to complete the size I want which is somewhere between lapghan and twin sized. I have a lace scarf I'm anxious to try out that will fit nicely in a portable tote. I have a lot of clean up work to do in my stash area. I also need to clean up our office - yuck! It's all in the same room, I just need to clean out and reorganize EVERYTHING!

I've got the wild man signed up for a once a week preschool. So we'll see how that goes. I feel like I'm not able to challenge him enough so I'm hoping this curriculum will help me generate some good ideas!

I'll have to start posting pictures again...we've had so much activity this summer! I'm sure you'll enjoy seeing what we've been up to!

Enjoy the rest of the summer! It's fair time soon - can't wait! It means that fall is just around the corner!

Stay safe and happy knitting!

XXXXXXXXXX
OOOOOOOOOO

Day Out With Thomas 2009

Wild Man's New Pics

Beautiful, t'ain't he? He's 3 next month...can't wait for his party!!!

Don't worry, haven't forgotten you!
More updates soon!

Photo Post

Lovely yellow iris - they are growing all over the yard.

Unknown yellow flower - they, too, are very prolific around the house.

Unknown perennial - has clusters of little pinkish flowers later in the summer. Sure wish I knew what this lovely plant was!

Wild raspberry bush sprouting forth little white buds. Yummy!

Absolutely stunning large dark purple iris.

Another unknown perennial flower that pops up all over the yard...the bees adore it!

Perfectly friendly pink geranium.

Delicate beautiful pale pink columbine...it's petals are almost translucent. Also growing wild all over the place!

Newly planted perennials - in the foreground, Shasta daisy, in the middle a Black-eyed Susan, and behind the azalea, David's Lavender Phlox. Already established are two colors of Violas and a second Black-eyed Susan. Trying to get a butterfly/hummingbird/bee friendly garden! I think I'm also going to pepper the empty spaces with some low lying brightly colored annuals.

Lastly, more of that delicate columbine. This time in a lovely dark pink.

Still working on the hexie afghan and loving every minute! Stay tuned for updated pictures and hopefully some of my MIL modeling her lovely sweater vest after I give it to her this weekend!

Stay safe and have a lovely week!

Hexie Heaven

I'm now officially in hexie heaven! What a joy to make these colorful little "flowers." I'm still not very fast and I'm averaging 2 to 4 hexies a day. At this rate it will take more than a month to get a decent sized afghan! Still it's so nice to be working with such a lovely array of colors. And, to give credit where credit is due...hubby did buy the yarn for me but only after I picked out the colors myself! I had them in my shopping cart at yarnmarket.com so while he did AWESOME at the whole buying thing, all he really had to do was make the purchase! Had he made the color choices too I probably would still be in the hospital recovering from the shock!

The MIL sweater is finished! Just need to get the right buttons for it and then I can give it to her. I'm going to block it today after we get home from church. Photos to follow and hopefully I can get her to model it for me! (Providing the sweater actually came out according to the measurements!)

Sorry to make this such a short, un-photo filled post but we need to skeedaddle onto church!

Happy Sunday!

I'm in Hexie Heaven!

My first 4 hexies are done and I'm already hooked! Ha...LOL! I'm still getting the knack of working with the hook instead of needles but as you can tell, I'm ready to rock! To be fair, I'm limiting myself to start...you see I still need to finish up the last little bit of my MIL's sweater vest. It's almost there and I want to have it done for this weekend. So I have to curb my enthusiasm for the looming hexie project and finish the vest before I go hexie crazy! Many thanks to Lucy for publishing such wonderful instructions and also many thanks to Kar for her gorgeous rendition of the Hexagon Afghan. Both ladies are rocking hookers! Uh, mind's out of the gutters people!

My gardens are coming right along...no pics yet as I'm still working on my perennial project. I've got my basil, parsley and lavender in and I'm almost done decorating the lamp post garden. All our veggies are in and we have many! Can't wait to see them starting to shoot up - almost makes me long for harvest time before summer is even here! Almost, but not quite.

It's a brief yet productive day today and I want to get back to it. Cheers to all and happy hooking! *snicker* Just love that term!

Recently...

Flowering Magnolia

Lovely Lilacs

Japanese Quince

Lovely white and purple Violets

Grampa (my Dad) sowing potatoes in the upper garden

Flowering pear tree

Flowering Almond

Flowering crabapple tree

Lamp post garden all ready for the annuals

Herb garden ready for some basil, lavender and parsley.
The chive is ready to flower and I've already harvested some fresh greek oregano.

Annuals garden ready for planting!

Whew! I haven't been posting much lately because we were having some major problems with our computer. I was bummed because it was one I built, albeit one that was built with 2004 technology. In any case, the CPU was outdated and had been tweaked about as far as it could be tweaked. I couldn't upload any new software - it taxed my poor PC too much! So, we were getting limited on our activity. I tried cleaning up the registry and uninstalling superfluous apps - running the disk defrag and compressing old files. In short, I did every thing I could short of wiping the darn thing clean and reloading the operating system to start fresh. I realized I could do that, in fact I have done it dozens of times in the past 5 years, but it still wouldn't solve the problem of an outdated CPU and maxed out RAM. The solution ended up being right under my nose. When my FIL passed away and my MIL went through his things, we inherited a fairly new (less than a yr) PC. It's been sitting in the office since he passed and it didn't occur to me that I could use it until 2 weeks ago! So I began the tedious process of transferring stuff from one PC to the other. It helped that I have an external hard drive and could transfer up to 70 GB at a time. It was figuring out which applications I wanted to reinstall on the new PC. Which ones we ACTUALLY used! In the end, I think we've done rather well! I repurposed a 2GB RAM card that was sitting around collecting dust and installed it into our new PC, upgrading it from 1GB to 2GB. I also repurposed the USB card, providing us with 4 more USB ports - comes in very handy! Unfortunately I was not able to save the video card - it, too, was too old. So now I have this really nice, mostly updated and upgraded PC, that is only missing a decent graphics card. It's been nearly a decade since I used a PC that didn't have a decent graphics card. The good news is it's the only thing we need to buy for this PC that I didn't already have! With the installation of an opensource photo editing program, GIMP, downloaded today - I'm finally good to go with my pics again! Yahoo!

On the yarn front, the never ending hubby sweater and the diamond trellis socks still languish in hibernation. I've been working on my MIL's lovely sweater vest and it's coming along beautifully! I've also started a simple pair of socks for hubby - his consolation prize for the unfinished sweater. I've also been working on some spa cloths - my goal is still the same - to have 12 done for the charity I'm making them for. And, this is BIG HUGE and MOMENTOUS: hubby bought me some lovely Tahki Cotton Classic DK yarns from yarnmarket.com, 14 different lovely luscious colors, to make the Hexie afghan highlighted in Lucy's blog, Attic24. Wasn't that absolutely wonderful of him??? Especially since he really doesn't get why I'm so obsessed with knitting and crochet. Massive kudos to my man!


The wild man is as wild as ever...his favorite word is "NO" mixed up with "That's MINE". He's talking ALL the time now and growing like a super weed. He still naps, mostly, which does give me a mini break in the pm. He's loving the warmer weather and wants to play outside all the time. Which is fine with me! I'm a TV addict and if not convinced otherwise, I'd stay inside all day! So he gives me the perfect excuse to get my fat butt outside and enjoying the fresh air. He amazes me every day - he also provokes me into tearing out my hair everyday but hey! We take the bad with the good and try not to go crazy! He's my beautiful strong-willed boy!


I've been reading up a storm, too, which is definitely a cramp in my knitting schedule. I wish I could knit and read at the same time! The only way that is possible is listening to my iPod and praying I don't drop a stitch or knit outside the pattern! Anyway, check out my book listing below and be amazed at how many I've read so far this year! My goal is 75 books. I read over 50 last year and I think 75 will be a cinch to surpass.

Time to upload some pics so y'all can see what we've been up to!

Ok, pics are done...my lovely SIL is here...food is being grilled, which means it's time for me to sign off.

Have a lovely safe holiday weekend! Happy knitting!

Oldie but Definately a Goodie...

Dug this out of our archival videos while switching to our newish computer...little man was about 9 months old.

Enjoy!! We did!

Wild Man and the Airport

So my sister has graduated from Emory University on Monday. She is currently on her way to Cambodia for an extended vacation to visit her mum and see the sights of her home country. She hasn't been since she was 9! Anyway, my father flew down for her graduation weekend. He had a blast! The wild man and I dropped him off at the airport and all the way home, the wild man asked when he could go into the airport and fly to see Auntie. He was quite taken with the idea of an airport and actually got a chance to see a plane take off! Tuesday we went to pick Dad up at the airport and the wild man got his chance to run around inside. This is not a large airport but security is still an obvious presence. They were tested and proved up to it when the wild man decided not to listen to me and ran right through a secured area! Two guards flew out of their chairs and cornered him, then shooed him back to me giving me the evil eye in the process. Like they hadn't heard me yelling, "stop"! In any case, I couldn't cross the barrier to get him and for a moment I wondered if they were going to detain him! They didn't, thank heaven, and he was properly chastised on the way back to where we were supposed to meet my dad. Luckily, Dad was disembarking during all this and happened to be coming down the stairs when we got there. Thanks be to Grampas! He proved to be a perfect distraction for the wild man and we were able to get out of there with no more problems.

I've had enough of airports for a while!

20 of My Favorite Things

1. Color-orange

2. Dessert-apple pie with a hunk of sharp cheddar cheese

3. Smell-lilacs

4. Flower-gerbera daisies

5. Animal-dog

6. Month-October

7. Beverage-currently...pomegranate green tea

8. Pair of shoes-Croc flip flops (well worn)

9. Snack-Triscuits & cheddar cheese

10. Song-currently...I'm Letting Go by Francesca Battistelli

11. Book-currently...Pushing Up Daisies by Rosemary Harris

12. Fruit-fresh cut pineapple

13. Hairstyle-pony tail with wisps tucked behind ears

14. Piece of clothing-currently...old faded well worn blue jeans

15. Store to clothes shop-Lane Bryant

16. Season-Autumn

17. Hobby-knitting

18. Thing to collect-books

19. Movie- any action/adventure, sci/fi or mystery/romance - seriously, any!

20. Restaurant-McDonald's (I can't resist me a greasy burger!)

Favorite things courtesy of The Simple Woman

Spring has Sprung...

What? Forsythia's don't sprout yarn?

Woot! I'm back!

Hey everybody! How are you! I've missed you so much. Been spending way too much time on facebook catching up with everyone I can think of. It's just too much fun for me...lol! It seems now that I'm knocking on the door of 40 I shouldn't be so caught up in what has been the 20 and under social networking site. However, as surprising as it is, those of us pushing 40 and even into our 50's are finding it a lot of fun. I'm a YoVillian, I play Mafia Wars, Dragon Wars and even dabble with the "gifting" apps. It appeals to the gaming geek within! Since I no longer have the time to devote to true gaming, nor am I likely to be staying up to all hours of the morning on a quest, the small games on fb are just the ticket for a geek at heart like me. Besides, I've talked with people I haven't seen or spoken to in over 20 years and it's a lot of fun catching up with what everyone else is doing. I toyed with the idea of tweeting but I can "tweet" all I want on fb to the people that matter to me! In any case, it's proven to be a slight *snort* obsession on my part.

In matters of knitting, I'm progressing nicely on the cardigan sweater vest I started for my MIL. I'm using Peace Fleece in Krushchev Corn on size 8 circs and it's a very lovely design. I'm hoping to have it done by Mother's Day. I'm almost to the underarm bind off and I feel it'll be clear sailing after that. I just need to find the perfect buttons! I've also started yet another pair of socks. One can never (NEVER) have too many pairs of handmade socks! These are for hubby to appease him as the never ending hubby sweater still languishes under the lamp table in the living room. I've also completed several spa cloths and made a soap sack that turned into a camera sack instead! It's been a little slow in the knitting department for the last month or so. I've been doing a ton of reading and I've joined a local women's Bible study.

The Bible study is remarkable. We're doing a Beth Moore study she produced in 2004 called The Fruits of the Spirit. Of course the relevent scripture is Galatians. I've truly enjoyed both sessions so far and we have 8 more weeks to go. Next week is my turn in the nursery...yikes!

The wild man is doing great! He's growing like a weed and challenging me at every turn. These days his favorite word is "NO!" and he can't say anything without whining. Some days it gets to me but most of the time I simply take him outside and let him run it off! Probem with that is it tuckers me out too! We've really been enjoying the warmer weather lately and taking every advantage to get outside and get some things done.

This is us at Memere's on Easter Sunday!

As much as I'd love to continue this update, I need to go check on my men outside. My hubby has a NASTY case of poison ivy from yanking the vines out during clean up week. He's a hurting unit and still has about another week to go. We're calling him Mr. Itchy!

The wild man back on the tricycle!

Having fun at a friends house and loving her slide!

Until next time, which I hope will be sooner rather than later, take care everyone!

Happy knitting!

What's Happening?

For some reason I have been seriously neglecting my blog. It's not that I don't love it...I do. I think it's that I needed (maybe still need) some space from it. There's certainly been a lot happening in my life that I could blog about but haven't. There's pictures I could post but haven't. There's even knitting stuff I could talk about and haven't. I think it's this, winter is so long and dull in these parts that by the time the snow begins to melt I've turned into a blob. The need for something other than these same walls and this same schedule is nearly overpowering. Big time cabin fever! So when we do have a nice day, like yesterday, when it's sunny and 62 and beautiful, we spend nearly all of it outside. Soaking up the warmth like batteries recharging. I figure I need a few more days like that before I can come back to this blog, my beautiful blog that I truly do love. The spark of creativity that pushes me to write and take pictures, even to knit and bake and do all the things I do, is slowly - ever so slowly coming back to life. My batteries need some more recharging. So don't dispair, I will be coming back...most likely with a vengeance and a mile long posting, updating you and journal-ing for myself all my Springtime adventures! In the meantime, I leave you with this sure sign of Spring, my son on a tractor during Maple Sugar weekend:


And just because I can, one of "His Cuteness":

In Celebration of Warmer Things to Come...