Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering Gods grace in its various forms.

1 Peter 4:9-10

Sunday, May 31, 2009

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!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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!

Saturday, May 23, 2009

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!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

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!


Wednesday, May 13, 2009

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!

Monday, May 4, 2009

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?

Books on Tap for 2011

  • Knit Together - Debbie Macomber
  • Captured by Grace - Dr. David Jeremiah
  • Murder Most Foul - A Collection of Great Crime Stories
  • Fireproof - Eric Wilson
  • There's Something About Christmas - Debbie Macomber
  • Questioning Evangelism - Randy Newman
  • Murder Uncorked - Michele Scott
  • A Sacred Sorrow - Michael Card
  • Prayer: Does it Make any Difference? - Philip Yancey
  • Get Out of That Pit - Beth Moore

Books Read in 2011

  • What a Sista Should Do - Tiffany L. Warren
  • 90 Minutes in Heaven - Don Piper
  • Forgotten God - Francis Chan
  • The Purpose Driven Life - Rick Warren
  • Dead Reckoning - Charlaine Harris
  • Shadowfever - Karen Marie Moning
  • Chill Factor - Sandra Brown
  • Heaven Has a Blue Carpet - Sharon Niedzinski
  • Dreamfever - Karen Marie Moning
  • Wednesday Sisters - Meg Waite Clayton
  • Stealing Home - Sherryl Woods
  • Bound for Murder - Laura Childs
  • Bloodfever - Karen Marie Moning
  • Faefever - Karen Marie Moning
  • Darkfever - Karen Marie Moning
  • Under Her Skin - Susan Mallery
  • The Red Pyramid - Rick Riordan
  • No Wonder They Call Him Saviour - Max Lucado
  • I Still Dream About You - Fannie Flagg
  • I Am Number Four - Pittacus Lore
  • The Last Olympian - Rick Riordan
  • Spider Bones - Kathy Reichs
  • A Thread So Thin - Marie Bostwick
  • The Battle of the Labyrinth - Rick Riordan
  • The Search - Nora Roberts
  • The Titan's Curse - Rick Riordan
  • Wicked Appetite - Janet Evanovich
  • The Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan
  • Awakened - PC & Kristen Cast
  • The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan
  • Photo Finished - Larua Childs
  • Keepsake Crimes - Laura Childs
  • Sizzling Sixteen - Janet Evanovich
  • The Icing on the Cupcake - Jennifer Ross
  • Fleece Navidad - Maggie Sefton
  • Dyer Consequences - Maggie Sefton
  • The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree - Susan Wittig Albert
  • Heaven Has a Blue Carpet - Sharon Niedzinski
  • Dreamfever - Karen Marie Moning

Books Read in 2010

  • The Yada Yado Prayer Group - Netta Jackson
  • Silver Borne - Patricia Briggs
  • The Hole in Our Gospel - Richard Stearns
  • A Winter Marriage - Kerry Hardie
  • So Long, Insecurity - Beth Moore
  • Knit the Season - Kate Jacobs
  • Dead and Berried - Karen MacInerney
  • Murder on the Rocks - Karen MacInerney
  • where do i go - Netta Jackson
  • be sweet - diane hunt
  • The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown
  • Raven - Allison Van Deipen
  • Push (Precious) - sapphire
  • Faces of the Gone - Brad Parks
  • The Lace Reader - Brunonia Barry
  • Burning Lamp - Amanda Quick
  • Fired Up - Jayne Ann Krentz
  • The School of Essential Ingredients - Erica Bauermeister
  • Matters Arising - Sarah Harrison
  • The Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry
  • I Saw the Lord - Anne Graham Lotz
  • The Dangerous Protector - Janet Chapman
  • The Seduction of His Wife - Janet Chapman
  • Re-reading all the Tintin graphic novels - Herge
  • The Sugar Queen - Sarah Addison Allen
  • the last time i saw you - Elizabeth Berg
  • Garden Spells - Sarah Addison Allen
  • Wild Ride - Jennifer Crusie & Bob Mayer
  • Dead in the Family - Charlaine Harris
  • The Girl Who Chased the Moon - Sarah Addison Allen
  • Grave Secret - Charlaine Harris
  • Crawl Space - Sarah Graves
  • The Honey Thief - Elizabeth Graver
  • The Otherworldlies - Jennifer Anne Kogler
  • Saving CeeCee Honeycutt - Beth Hoffman
  • A Face at the Window - Sarah Graves
  • Draycott Eternal - Christina Skye
  • Shelter Mountain - Robin Carr
  • Virgin River - Robyn Carr
  • Death by Cashmere - Sally Goldenbaum
  • An Ice Cold Grave - Charlaine Harris
  • Grave Surprise - Charlaine Harris
  • Grave Sight - Charlaine Harris