Woo woo

 Things are getting a little woo woo around here!

A while back I stumbled across an online business coach/motivator type person on Youtube and I've been following her ever since.  In one of her earlier posts, she mentioned the book, The Success Principles.  I ordered it, fell in love with it, and have been working towards mastering all the suggestions in the book.  Well, okay, I've been working on, like, four of them.  There are a lot of principles to master!  

Anyway...  One of the things discussed in the book is manifestation.  I had heard of manifesting before and it always seemed like a lot of hocus pocus nonsense until I read The Success Principles and then stumbled across a Youtube video explaining the science behind it.  There really is science to back it up. 

And within a week of beginning my own manifestations, things started happening.  It was a little freaky, very exciting and a bit woo woo.  But things, granted, very small things, but things none the less, that I was asking/wishing for/manifesting started happening and continued to happen.  And I got pretty dang excited about the whole process.

When I get excited about something, I tend to run my mouth about it.  A lot.  

I talked about manifesting so much, a friend and fellow manifestor gifted me a set of tarot cards.

Tarot cards!  What the heck am I supposed to do with tarot cards??  But they were really pretty, the art work on the deck is very 'me' and I love looking at them so of course I turned to Youtube for a "What the heck do I do with tarot cards?" instruction video.

Now granted, I still have no idea what I'm doing with them.  But for the last few days, I've been randomly selecting three cards each day and, well, it has been super woo woo because each card I've pulled from the deck has had something extremely relevant to my current circumstance and/or mood that day.  Did I mention it's felt VERY woo woo?  It's been exciting, but pretty dang woo woo.

So what does all that have to do with today's post?  

One of the cards I pulled today was the Ace of Wands which represents inspiration and creativity and means that it's time I start a new creative project.  Well, Soctober is fast approaching and I'll be casting on a new pair of socks soon.  Woo woo!

But then I went to storage today to look for my winter clothes. Our storage units (yes, there's an 's' on there) are like black holes.  We put stuff in, then never see it again. Naturally, I found my coats but not my clothes.  But guess what I did find - a giant box of  beads and all the supplies I need for a project I had wanted to start a few weeks ago but couldn't find any of the necessary materials in the stores.  WOO WOO!

I'm super excited and hope I'll have something more than a bunch of beads to show you next time.

So, out of curiosity, do any of you manifest or use tarot cards to help guide your focus for the day?

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, Happy Knitting!

I don't think I have enough yarn for this

I'm worried I don't have enough yarn for this snow storm.  I didn't take it very seriously.  All winter, they've been predicting huge, major snow storms and on the day, it warms up and we get rain.  Not this time, I'm afraid.

Doesn't look like much, but that photo was taken about 30 minutes after the snow started falling.  In the time it took me to transfer the pictures from the camera to the computer, the snow completely covered the ground.  And the heavy stuff isn't supposed to fall until tonight.  We may actually get the 12 inches they've been promising.  I hope I have enough yarn.

Winter Driftwood Hat

I finished Winter Driftwood.  Because my version was turning out so much smaller than it was supposed to be (remember to check your gauge, kids!) I decided to leave out half a pattern repeat.  I was also running low on yarn.  The hat is supposed to have a tassel & I'm not sure what I'll do about that.  Either leave it naked on top or add a tassel with a contrasting yarn.  What do you think?

#todayonmyneedles

Indian Feathers has a few rows of beads now.  I'm loving how the beads contrast with the yarn, yet pick up the pinkish purple flecks in it.

Meanwhile, Minnie says its so cold outside, she almost wishes I'd knit her a sweater.  Almost.

TBT - The Blizzard Year

The winter of 1996/1997 was a wild one.  We had a blizzard every Thursday from mid December through mid March.  The snow was so deep we couldn't play in it because it was up, over Zack's head.

The first few storms were fun.  My husband had an excavation company at the time so we had plenty of backhoes, tractors and plows.  Instead of digging up the ground, the crew plowed snow that year.  When they were done for the day, they'd all come back to our house, cook dinner on the grill (If you've never grilled in a snow storm before you should try it.   The food is always extra yummy & you'll feel quite manly standing out in your winter parka, ski hat & gloves while playing with fire.)  We would eat, play pool, toss log after log into the wood stove & drink boat drinks while dreaming of summer & watching the snow pile up.  It was "good times" for the first month.  And then the cabin fever began to set in and we all began to despise the "s" word.

Eighteen or nineteen years later, I'm sitting here laughing & saying, "liar, liar, pants on fire" to the weatherman.  It was supposed to snow today, but the sun is shining and there isn't a cloud in sight.  Just the way we like it!

As for my knitting, I'm proud to announce, I did sew up the toes.

I'm proud to announce that because, well, ahem.... I have been known to toss socks back into the UFO pile to avoid kitchnering the toes.

And since I needed a #todayonmyneedles photo,  I started Indian Feathers.

The plan is to get the beaded lace edging done and save the boring stockinette part to do while I'm at work this summer.  Summer Knitting At Work projects need to be 1) mindless and easy to frequently put down & pick up, 2) portable, as in, the whole project can fit in a ziplock bag, and 3) preferably interesting enough for Security to ooh & ahh over when they search me.  Indian Feathers should work perfectly.

Randomly placed beads

#todayonmyneedles

Remember Friday's post about the cowl/infinity scarf and how I had originally wanted to include beads but decided against it at the last minute?  Well, I changed my mind.  Again.  It is a woman's prerogative after all.  So, I frogged the first version and started over.

The new version will have a smaller circumference and lots of beads.  Instead of being an infinity scarf type thing that can be wrapped multiple times around my neck, this will be one long, turtleneck/tube type cowl.  Remember It's Only Make Believe?  Asking Sarah to model it was a mistake.  She hasn't taken it off since.  But, I kept seeing her wandering through the house wearing her turtleneck/tube type cowl and I decided I wanted one too.  So, that's what this will be.  But mine will have beads.  I put a row of evenly spaced beads on the first round after the ribbing and the body will have beads sprinkled randomly around.

So far, I'm loving the new version.  The yarn is such a joy to knit with and the rounds go quickly.  The beads add just a touch of diversion to the plain knitting so that it's not too boring and the randomness of the beads means that I don't have to pay much attention to what I'm doing.  My kind of project!

I finished the Fisher hat, which I realized is actually called the Fisher Cable Hat.  It was a great, super quick, fun hat to knit.  I'm sure I will knit this hat again, although I may cut out a few rows in the stockinette area.  This hat fits me perfectly which means it's slouchy on Mr. Creepyhead and anyone else with a normal sized head.

And, just because yesterday's sunset was so pretty....

The Chocolate Hangover

It seems that I have found my chocolate threshold.  Hubby took Number One Son to bowling last night, The Daughter was busy munching on what ever she'd scrounged up in the pantry and in a not so brilliant move, I decided to have Hershey Kisses and Marzipan flavored coffee for dinner.  I don't, as a rule, drink flavored coffee but occasionally I indulge and a non-coffee-drinking friend had been given the bag of coffee and she'd passed it on to me the day before.

I know!  I have a non-coffee drinking friend!  Can you believe it?

Anyway....  I drank flavored coffee, which turned out to be excellent even though its Use By date was May of 2010.  I also ate almost an entire bag of Hershey Kisses.  To my credit, it was a normal size bag, not the giant, economy, Halloween size bag, but still. It was a lot of Hershey Kisses.  I got down to where there were only five or six let and felt like I might die.  I tried to finish them off.  I knew if I didn't, I'd start eating them again the next day or the day after that and end up wanting more.  But I couldn't do it.  I literally couldn't eat another Kiss.

Meanwhile, while Zack bowled, Mike did the BJ's shopping.  My Lord!  He must have bought one of everything in the store.  He brought it all home & stacked it on the dining room table, which apparently has stronger legs than I'd ever have believed possible.  This morning, I put it all away.  And when I was pouring the chocolate chips out of their giant floppy bag & into my Tupperware Chocolate Chip Keeper, I spilled a few.  And rather than eating them, I picked them up and through them away.  And that's how I know I've reached my chocolate threshold.

As for the knitting, I haven't been working on anything exciting lately.  I have several projects that only have a little bit of knitting left, or they need to be sewed up & of course there are a few second sock issues lurking in the basket.  My Good Girl self wants to finish those items before I start something else.  Unfortunately, I'm rarely my Good Girl self and those items continue to sit.  But the guilt prevents me from starting something new.  It's a horrible knitting Catch 22.  So, I knit a few Treasure Bags yesterday.

Ok, not a great photo, but cut me some slack.  I'm still suffering the chocolate hangover and I haven't had a full cup of coffee yet.

I really enjoy making those bags though.  They are quick and simple and "needing" beads gives me an excellent excuse to go craft shopping.  I've never done any beading before so the bags have opened up a whole new area of the craft store to me.  There are some seriously cool beads out there!  And that's at the local big name craft stores.  I can only imagine what I'd find at a store that specializes in beads.  I'm purposely avoiding Google.

And chocolate.