Knitting Blather and Manic Monday

Well, the so-called Dr Who scarf is done. All of the ends are woven in, the fringe has been added, and it has been washed (that means there is no animal hair on it for 5 minutes). It is approximately 65 inches long without the fringe and 10 inches wide. My daughter seems to be happy with it and I have to admit, I like it to, even if it was a little boring to knit. Now I may make a hat of some sort to match.

I started the fingerless gloves from here, I just love them! I think DD1 will also like them. I am still working on her black scarf with the lace diamond chain, it may be another scarf, but at least the chain takes away some of the boredom.

BTW, Monica is having another decluttering/spring cleaning challenge. I think I am going to do it again, just because I should get rid of more stuff. Go here to enter.


What is your favorite candy? For some silly reason, Hershey’s Milk Chocolate is my favorite, even though I know we are supposed (and it is more sophisticated) to eat dark chocolate.
Name one thing that you'd want to receive as a gift for Valentine's Day. Nothing.
Can we truly love someone who loves another? For a while, then eventually the love runs out.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone and thank you for the wonderful holiday wishes. I hope you all had a great time and were able to celebrate (or not) as you wanted to do. We had a wonderful Christmas season, both of my daughters were home and we played and worked and had a great time together. DD1 and her man left on New Year’s Eve, but it was wonderful to see them again. I have so much to say, since I have not been blogging, that this will be a long post so get comfy (but don’t worry, I will save some for tomorrow).

This year for the first time ever, I was not concerned with having enough presents for everyone, it was very weird. In years past I would actually go deep into debt to buy more and more presents so everyone would be happy, but for some reason I did not have that need this year and it was wonderful! I set my limit and actually came in under that. It is great to know that the holidays are over and I do not have to rob Peter to pay Paul. Another new learning experience for 2008.

I have been reading everyone’s blogs and seeing how everyone has kept track of their knitting and such for the year. Trek even lists what books she has read for 2008. I have never done that, but I purchased a journal yesterday at B&N with a gift card and plan to start tracking my knitting. It is amazing to me that people keep track of their projects and know exactly how much yarn went where. I don’t know if I am organized enough to do that, but I am going to try it and see if it helps me de-stash some of the miles of yarn I have sitting around here.


I did get the big ass wrap finished, here is a picture of it. I used a garter stitch on the ends to avoid the curling issue I was having and it looks okay, imho. I gave my daughter two different shawl pins, one was the little owl poorly pictured here, and the other one was a wooden stick pin that you can see in the picture of the wrap. I told her the story of the stick pin; I purchased it as a set of two at the Renaissance Festival in Atlanta a couple of years ago and used them to hold my hair in a French twist. One of the set was lost in the move and I loved the way the other one looked on the dark green of the wrap, so when she was trying it on I offered it to her also. She likes it like I did on the green so she took it and used it instead of the owl; I am now going to make her another scarf that she can use the with the owl.

Yeah, I did it, I made the deadline for getting rid of 50 things.
34. Face wash that I was allergic to but was too stupid to throw away.
35. A brown sweater that my daughter likes and I did not.
36. A mattress that was moved for no apparent reason.
37. 5 wreaths that I used to use outdoors (there is no place to put them here).
38. More yarn that was disgusting.
39. A set of King size sheets that I didn’t like
40. A dead orchid that I thought I could revive, but gave up on after a year and a half :-)
41. A new mixer that died after the second batch of cookies (it was a cheapo I bought because I have not yet unpacked the good one).
42. A group of coat hangers, we have way too many as we bought more while we were in the hotel and then received a box of them when our household goods arrived.
43. A bunch of cables that I found when unpacking.
44. A shower curtain.
45. Curtain rings.
46. 2 stuffed animals
47. A book, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War (yes I have resorted to listing them separately, but I figure this is fair since I have already gotten rid of over hundreds of books because I was too lazy to list them separately, or maybe because I didn’t want anybody to see the kind of crap I will sometimes read).
48. A set of queen size sheets.
49. A wooden hair pin.
50. And finally- A few books on tape.

I am so glad I got rid of all that stuff that I think I am going to keep on with this little adventure. I have a hard time getting rid of stuff, I love stuff, but I discovered that I feel lighter when I get rid of some of it. Why keep stuff if I do not need it? I think I am going to try and get rid of 5 things ever month for the next year and see how it goes.

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year’s Day.

Procrastination is a Good Thing

My oldest daughter arrived at o-dark thirty on Thursday evening; she was late to due to slush and fog, which was dramatically cleared when we left the airport. I was soooo happy to see her; it is wonderful to have her here. HOWEVER, there will be no more discussion of the Big Ass Wrap until after Christmas since my sneaky daughters found my blog and read it when they are in the mood. Now I am glad I never posted the pictures of the darn thing :-) sometimes procrastination is a good thing! This will now become my mantra, lolol (like it wasn’t before?)

You read here that we bought a huge Christmas tree; well it was so big I couldn’t reach
it to put the lights on, so it has been just sitting in the living room taking up what little room we allowed for the darn 10’ monstrosity. This morning we decided we were definitely going to have to purchase more lights so we left and got them and DD1 put them on the tree, it was so pretty it didn’t need the decorations. Here is a picture of it, though we still have not found the tree topper, (it is so tall it doesn’t matter, I can’t see it) and half of our ornaments are still hidden in the basement, I still like it.

I am still PO’ed at the PO, I have mailed a package to Marilyn three times and it keeps coming back. I don’t know what is wrong this time, the postage was correct and the customs declaration was completed correctly, but I received it back again last night. Marilyn, I don’t think these hats were destined to reach you. I will probably just take them to a local homeless shelter tomorrow. I am sorry the PO and I could not get together on this. I hope you had enough hats.

DD1 decided my house was too messy and that we were going to clean out the basement. We emptied about 24 boxes, found my old jewelry box and made room to walk around the basement. I am so glad she did because we got rid of a lot more stuff.

26. 102 books to Goodwill.
27. 20 books listed on Paperback swap.
28. 1 giant framed picture of woods (that normally would hang behind a sofa) to Goodwill.
29. A framed picture of a magnolia.
30. A working Nintendo that no one uses.
31. A Moo Cow creamer that was cute, but just more clutter.
32. Left over parts to a closet assembly kit.
33. 4 cookbooks that I have never opened.

She has decided that we are working in the garage tomorrow, I wonder how she would feel if I called in sick?

A Productive Day and a Contest

Yeaaaa, I got rid of some more stuff.
I will beat that January 1 deadline if it kills me.
20. 5 men’s ties that are very outdated.
21. A belt that went into the trash since it was broken (don’t ask me why it wasn’t thrown away earlier, I don’t have a clue)
22. A small tabletop waterfall.
23. A shawl (acrylic store bought, yuck)
24. Lots of old files that were shredded and will be used in the garden.
25. A wet suit that will never fit anyone in this house again :-)
Wahoo, I am halfway there.

I also finished the Big Ass Warp, it just needs blocking and then I will post a picture. Now I need to decide if I want to put the emobroidery on it.


Darcy has another contest going on for the tote bags in the picture. It is easy to enter just follow this link and please tell her I sent you.


Have a great day!

The Weekend

It is 2.5 freaking degrees right now, the high was 5 today, I have never heard of it being that cold! The windows all have ice and the fire took forever to get going today. It snowed all night and part of the day and it is expected to snow some more on Tuesday. I guess we will have a white Christmas after all, mmmm. . . BTW, I promise not to turn this blog into a weather blog, but I have never lived anywhere that had this kind of weather. I am determined to get used to it though!

I got so PO’ed (pissed off) at the PO (Post Office) (aren’t I a laugh a minute) the other day. As I said I went to the post office and mailed off all of the packages that had been waiting for me to get off my butt. I used the self-serve kiosk and everything went well, so I thought. The next day I returned home from work and found half of the packages on my front step with a stamp that said they needed more postage. What is with that?? How can a self service kiosk make a mistake? I don’t get it! I went back to the PO and asked them what the deal was and they could not give me an answer except to say that I probably clicked the wrong button when selecting package type. This doesn’t make sense to me since I used the same information for all of the packages and only half were returned. However I am not perfect so maybe I should be PO’ed at myself instead of the PO? Nah, I don’t think so :-)

We purchased our Christmas tree yesterday and put it up last night, but it is so pretty that I hate to put anything on it. It is HUGE, 9 feet tall and wonderful. Guess what we will be doing Monday night.

I unpacked two boxes Saturday and decluttered some more stuff (I find more stuff to get rid of every time I unpack another box).
13 4 perfectly good coats that we
have decided we don’t like or don’t fit, though I don’t know why we did not decide this before we moved.
14. Some yarn that I disliked went to Goodwill along with some more knitting needles.
15. A sweater that none of us remember ever wearing.
16. A dress that my daughter wore when she was in middle school (she is 22 now).
17. Old ornaments that were ugly and too heavy to hang on a tree.
18. an oversized container that was falling apart.
19. 4 bed pillows that were old and stinky.
I also posted 15 books on paperbackswap.com. I love that site; I get rid of old books and get new ones for very little cost. I am determined to get all 50 items out of my house by January 1.

I had to take Di to the vet again this weekend, her cough is much worse. The vet showed me the chest x-rays (yes, we get x-rays every time we go) where I could see that her heart has grown at a tremendous rate. It is now almost twice the size it was in July. The vet increased her pain meds for her arthritis and gave us new capsules for the cough. It is very hard to watch someone you love age.

Di and I spent most of Sunday in bed; it is just too cold to be up and about. We got up in the morning and made a wonderful spinach quiche then went back to bed to read. I finished The Pagan Stone, the third in a trilogy by Nora Roberts, I love her books. This book is definitely a keeper and a book I will probably read again. Between the book and eating, I did get to work on some knitting, but I think it is hard to knit in bed (but I still managed to do it).

Decluttering, Knitting and DOT

Well, I finally got all the contest stuff mailed off yesterday; I hope everyone likes what they receive. I have been knitting like crazy, my hands and fingers are hurting, in fact they are crying for some nice hot paraffin. I don’t think it is fair that something we like to do should cause pain! Knitting (or whatever your fun thing is) should cause euphoria, not pain.
I got rid of some more stuff, I am bound and determined to meet the deadline, anything that is usable is going to Goodwill, if it isn’t usable it is going in the trash.
10 Old medicines that should not have been
moved (like an old fleets enema from the army, and my husband retired in 1996). BTW, this stuff went into the trash.:-)
11 Books, paperbacks that I am through reading(should I start counting the books separately so I get to the 50 faster? What do you think?)
12 Some old dog toys that were just scraps. Did you ever notice how dogs like to take all of the stufing out of their stuffed animals and leave it trailing all over the house, but still want the scraps that are left??

The big Ass Wrap is coming right along now that I am happier with the ends, I cannot wait to see how it turns out, but I am getting tired of knitting for presents. Christmas day I am back to the sweater I started for me! :-)

This is Di with her current favorite stuffed animal, she has to have one at night just like a little kid. Aren't dogs amazing?

the cats love to drag the yarn all over the house, I would let them have this one (I hate boucle) but I am afraid they would swallow it.