A busy week

This poor blog has been suffering from abandonment issues & I must apologize.  I’ve been busy though.  

I’ve spent some time at the bowling alley.  Check out Zack’s score:

Boy, that was hard to watch.  I get so nervous & excited for him when he starts racking up all those X’s.  The entire bowling alley gets involved, a quiet hush comes over the place and everyone gathers to watch.  Nothing like having to perform under pressure!

I also survived a typical week in February in Virginia.  On Sunday evening/Monday morning, we had snow:

And on Friday, the thermometer hit 85 degrees.  

Meanwhile, Hubby was working out of town all week and I’m proud to announce that I (A) lit the pilot light in the gas log fireplace all by myself (this winter has been so mild it was the first time we’ve needed it!) and (B) I killed a spider all by myself.  I’m full of self confidence these days!

I started a stealth project.  Can you guess what it is?

My baby boy turned 17.  I’m still not sure how that’s possible.  I like to think I’m 28 so the math is starting to get tricky.  Pretty soon, Zack will be older than me!  

As you can see, a birthday has not changed his feelings about having his photo taken.   And I was so happy to see that he dressed up for his birthday dinner out with the family.

And lastly, I’ve been busy knitting Easter eggs.

We're having a baby!

No, that wasn't an earthquake.  It was me jumping up & down with excitement.  We're having a baby!

Well, okay, not "we" as in Hubby & I, but the family.  I'm not naming names because I understand bosses haven't been told yet, but there's going to be a baby in the family!!   I'm so excited!  My daughter, who is now 15, is the current "baby" in the family.  In other words, it's been a long, long time since we've had a baby to hug & snuggle & love on.  And other people's babies are even more exciting because you can give them back when they smell funny, won't stop crying or you just want to knit instead of hugging & snuggling the baby.

And the knitting....  Ooooh!  The baby knitting possibilities.....  There's socks & booties to be knit.  Sweaters and blankets.  Maybe a dress or a dolly.  Knitted blocks & balls.  Stuffed animals. More hats & booties & blankets and sweaters.  And of course by the time one project is finished, the baby has grown & needs a larger one so you get to start all over again.

Oh, the excitement!

Charity Knitting

I like to knit for charity, although I admit, I don't produce as much as I'd like to.  Over the years, I've knit more hats than I can count, teddy bear sweaters, baby clothes & blankets, socks, wash clothes and a few full sized afghans for charity.  This time, I've knit a shawl.

REACH, one of the homeschool support groups that we belong to, has a teen-led service project group, Teens Reaching Out or TRO for short.  One of TRO's service projects is raising money for cancer research.  Cancer research is near & dear to my heart since both my father & father-in-law died of the same form of lung cancer, I've lost a few aunts & uncles to various other cancers & my mom suffered from melanoma.  I offered to knit a shawl for TRO to sell or raffle off.

The photo is not great.  It was snapped quickly & in bad lighting, but hopefully you get the idea.

As you may or may not know, each type of cancer has a color associated with it as an awareness thing.  Think of all those pink breast cancer ribbons you've seen....   Lung cancer's color is clear, white, pearl or opal depending on which site you look the information up on.  When I was yarn shopping, there weren't any appropriate white yarns available so I chose this "Misty Taupe."  I'm pretending it looks pearlish or opaly.  The shawl has a beaded bind-off using "Gun Metal" beads.  Ok, so gun metal has nothing to do with lung cancer but I liked the color combination & the beads give the shawl a little weight & help it to hang well.  The bamboo/rayon/acrylic yarn knits up into such a light fabric that it almost needs the weight of the beads to drape properly.

My hopes are that TRO will be able to raise a bit of money from the sale of this shawl, that the moms will all want it for their nights out on the town and the teen girls will all want it to wear it with their prom dresses.  I know that I liked the shawl so much I knit a second one for the Etsy shop and now I'm thinking I might need one for myself.  I'm out of yarn though.  Pity.  I'll have to go yarn shopping.

A VERY brief post

This is going to be very brief because it's after 2:00 a.m. & I have to get up in the morning.  But Blogger hasn't been very friendly lately & I'm coming to realize that if I'm going to continue using this site, I may have to learn to blog at 2 a.m.  Seems to be the only time I can log in.

Anyway....

For this post, I could pretty much simply copy the last post.  Last time, I was half way through the beaded bind-off for the TRO donation shawl.  Tonight, or this morning as the case may be, finds me once again half way through the beaded bind-off for another TRO shawl.  Except this one isn't going to TRO.  This one will go to the Etsy shop.  Or I may keep it for myself.  It's a tad bit dressy though & probably wouldn't go so great with my jeans & sweatshirt look.

And of course, I still don't even have photos of the first TRO shawl.  One of these days.  One of these days soon because I'm delivering it on Wednesday.

Not much else has been going on lately.  Zack did well in his bowling tournaments last weekend.  I only got to attend Friday night's Scratch tournament.  Sarah came down with the flu so I stayed home with her Saturday & Sunday.  Actually, I've stayed home with her every day since.  I realized today that I have not left the house since last Friday.  Seven days.  I haven't even walked out to the mail box.  Good grief!

What's kind of scary is that the seclusion hasn't bothered me at all.  I have managed to keep rather busy.  Besides bringing Sarah jello & tea, I finished the first TRO shawl & started & almost finished a second.  I've done a few tax/year end book keeping things for Hubby's company, and I sorted, purged & de-cluttered our bonus room which is what we call our school/family/craft/my office/hubby's office/library/music room.   A lot happens in this room, which means, a lot of junk gets left laying around in here where it doesn't belong.  Not to mention how much stuff the room is supposed to hold.  When you think about it, it's pretty amazing that the walls don't explode from all the stuff involved in homeschooling, two teenagers & their gaming systems & DVD collections, two offices worth of desks, printers, computers & general office junk, all my craft paraphernalia, my book collection which gives the public library a run for it's money, a full drum set and a keyboard.    Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in here.  But there's a lot less than there was.  There's also a rather large box of crafty items I hope to list in the shop.

Ok, it's now 2:38 a.m.  I need to get to bed because I have to get up in a few hours.

Blogging Woes

I've been trying to get a post typed all day & each time, I was either unable to log on or Blogger ate it.  It's now 12:50 a.m., I have to get up in less than 5 hours and it seems Blogger is finally going to let me create a post.  Grrr.  Oh well, at least I was finally able to log in & at least start a post.  Let's see if I can get it finished.

And while I'm complaining, let me just say a brief Grrrr! to the fact that all day long, I was too stupid to type the post on Pages then just copy it here once I was finally able to log in.  I really do think I may need Alzheimer's medication.

Earlier, I was going to chat about all the cowls I've been making lately.  I listed several in the shop today.  The yarn I used was Deborah Norville's Serenity Garden.  Can't say I particularly enjoyed knitting with it - it seemed to be very splitty, but I LOVE the finished effect.  I love the colorways and I love the knitted fabric.  I'm thinking about using it for a t-shirt or tank.  I think wearing either would feel like being naked because the fabric is so soft & light weight.

Now, I'm over the excitement of getting the cowls listed & have moved on to being excited about the REACH TRO donation shawl.  I started the beaded bind off this evening.  Actually, I guess I started it somewhere between 6 & 7 p.m.  I worked on it all evening & by 12:30 a.m., I was just slightly past the half way point.  Sheesh.  Beeded bind offs take forever!  I really like them though & think my choice of going with the GunMetal beads rather than the Oyster ones was the right way to go.  I'm very pleased with the way the shawl is turning out.

As for Zack & his weekend of bowling tournaments, Friday night was the scratch tournament.  It was 80 of the best of the best youth bowlers in the area.  Zack came in 4th place in both doubles & singles.  For the singles, he was only 31 pins from first place.  Today's tournament was singles & doubles for the City Championship.  Zack bowled his average of 220 for both, which means he didn't place, but I still think he did a great job when you take into consideration tournament nerves & being on unfamiliar lanes.  Tomorrow is the teams portion of the tournament.  He's on a good team & they should do well if they can all keep it together.

I just hope I get to go watch tomorrow's bowling action.  Sarah seems to be coming down with the flu.  I don't want to leave her home alone if she's sick.  Actually, I'm a bit tempted to label her as officially sick tonight so I don't have to set my alarm clock for 5:30 a.m.   And speaking of alarm clocks....  I'm down to less than 4.5 hours before I have to be getting up.  Guess I better sign off & hit the sack.

Nighty night.

Beads!

Oh, I could be in trouble.  Serious, serious trouble.  Up until now, bead shopping has consisted of wandering one aisle of either Michaels or Hobby Lobby.  Recently, a friend told me about two different stores, one to the north & one to the south, that sell nothing but beads.  Today, I went north.

Oh!  Em! Gee!!

It's a dammed good thing my kids were sitting in the car waiting for me.  If not for that, I'd still be in that store, 8 hours later.

I am SO going to take a jewelry making class!  Right after I finish knitting the beads I bought today into the donation shawl.

And of course, no photos.  I haven't made enough progress on the shawl to bother and by themselves, the beads don't look all that special.  I think they are going to look fantastic once knit into the shawl though.

Oh, by the way, the name of the northern bead store is Beads on Parade.