Is it boring here or is it just me?

I was catching up on some blogs Friday evening, Jody was working late.  As I was reading the Barefoot Kitchen Witch's post for that day. After reading what they were up to I thought that it would be so fun to do something like that.

The witch family is so cool.  They do the neatest things with the kids. They have the greenest thumbs too, HUGE garden, and Jayne is always cooking something, bread, cheese, 47 dozen cookies, cakes that are works of art.  I wish she could be my next door neighbor I'd be fat as a hog.

So I fired up the wood burning stove.

I knew I'd have to heat the little skillet for quiet awhile in order to cook something.  We keep the red pot on the stove top with water in it to add moisture to the house.

This was going to take a lot longer than my Rachel Ray record breaking 20 minute meal.

Actually, Jody called and said he was on his way home an hour and a half had already past so I zipped up to Dairy Queen and got us some burgers. 

 Oh well, I tried it again Saturday morning.  Jody was about to leave for work and he stoked the fire up for me and gave me the pirate look when I said that I was going to cook something on the stove. 

 Here we go!

 Not hot enough :(  That egg white should have turned the instant that it hit the pan.

Back to technology.  You have got to have plenty of time to cook on a fire or fire place.

 Within minutes... it's done!

Speaking of done... one sleeve done the second started today.  It's been a good knitting weekend.

I did toss a piece of bread with a slice of cheese on the stove to see what would happen.  I forgot about it....  started cleaning house and found it later in the day, cold and dry, the cheese had melted a bit but dried out after the fire died out.

Y'all go check out all the yummy stuff that Jayne and her family create.

It's Wednesday, again.

I'm sure you're bored with this... I know I am.

I have got so many projects going right now.

 The Tri-loom weaving. I was about to rip it out, this yarn was driving me crazy.

 But it's so pretty I decided to stick with it and worked on it over the weekend, at lunch today and again after work.  Maybe I'll finish this weekend.

 I've been making some cup koozies for Jolea.  She has a whole set of these retro aluminum cups, but for any of us who remember using our mom's set of these, you will freeze your hands off if you try to drink anything icy cold in them.  I'll send her a care package with some goodies for her new apartment in a week or two.

And then there's the watermelon/tropical punch sweater.  It still looks like two rectangles.  I measured the front this morning and I have about 6 more inches to do, then stitch the shoulders together and start on the arms.

Work is busy for all of us, but really stressful for Jody. They had a co-worker killed on the job last week in a freak accident.  Horrible.  Jody's still kinda shaken by it.  Now he's been put in that guy's job, DI Water, which is Jody's specialty.

It went from summer (90F over the weekend and Monday) to deep Fall in a matter of hours.  This is Texas!  In true Texas form the front came through in a classic sand storm.  What do they call those now days? A Hoodah? Hooha?  Sand Storm!  Now it's in the mid to upper 60's.  We're all freezing, but the days have been so pretty and bright.

Stay tuned I finished a project and I'll show you on Friday.  Oh! it's almost time for Modern Family, gotta go!

WIP What's inthe phone?

Besides the Work In Progress I thought I'd show you some random pictures in my phone.  What else have I got to do before starting dinner?

 Aww, baby bunnies that Dawn keeps under her desk at school.  She found them abandoned on the playground.  She bottle feeds them through out the day.

 Hey look it's the President!  He just flew over our school one day and Dawn snapped a picture of him.

Last Saturday I was driving down Park Ave. in Plano and took this picture of one of the 'Homesteads' original farms from the 1800's.  Look how dead the grass is!  I'll take another picture next week, we've had 3 really good rains this week.

Goofy cat, there was a fly on the chair so she sat on the little shelf that we set our coffee cup on.

 Now she's going to try to catch it.

 She's so graceful.  And elegant.

 The big loom.

And the even bigger loom!  When Jody gets a wild hair it's usually pretty big.  I think we may start weaving his wild hairs into a blanket.


Gotta go whip up some Chicken Fried Steak.

WiP

 Remember the Kool-Aid yarn?  I finally found a pattern that I could use.  It's for flax, no my yarn isn't flax, it's baby alpaca.  I rarely follow the directions completely.

This is what it will look like hopefully when I'm done in a few weeks.  I only have half the back completed.  It's a real no brainer to knit too.

I need to start a pair of socks for my niece, she kinda had her feelers hurt when she didn't get any for Christmas awhile back.

Gotta go run some errands at noon.  Only 4 more days left then it's back to work.

 Oh well....

WIP July ?? (what day is this?)

Almost finished with this pair of socks for someone who has a birthday in September.

They've gone quiet quickly considering I barely had time to knit in Key West and didn't knit at the ranch at all.

Speaking of the ranch.  Di had surgery last Friday, she was released from the hospital Sunday and they headed home.  Monday she was doing great and told Nita that she didn't have to take any of her pain meds!!!   Next step is a few rounds of chemo and maybe fingers crossed no radiation.

WIP Wednesday2/23

 I'm STILL working on these huge socks!  They were too huge so I'm frogging off the old and knitting the new on smaller needles. 

Here's a sexy close up. 

I'm also working on another pair of socks made of Reynolds Chesapeake.  It's out of Aunt Shorty's stash.  I love this yarn.  I wish I had enough to make a sweater, but I don't.... probably only enough to make 4 or 5 pair of socks.  Maybe a hat, or some mits, or some wristlets.

Sexy close up of this one too..... LOVE this yarn!

Jeff is preparing for his trip to Rio... yeah, the one in Brazil!  *sigh* my traveling kids.... I'm so envious.

Happy WIP Wednesday

The work in progress for today should be a chocolate pie for Jody's birthday, but I'll get that started in a minute. I just got back from seeing Burlesque with Lourdes and Jacque.  OMG... grab your nearest drag queen and head on over, you'll have a great time.  It's sort of predictable, girl gets guy, down and out in Hollywood, singin' and dancin' on the tables... all those things are fantastic if you ever dreamed of being a Burlesque or Vegas dancer like me.  And Christina belted it out as expected and Cher wasn't too shabby either. Her hair looks so much better straight than curly. 

I'm sitting here watching Nate Burkis, love this show.  Hate that I get so little inspiration from it that our Thanksgiving center piece will probably be a big bowl of Reese's Cups and Kit-Kats.  Hey, the bowl is antique Carnival Glass in a lovely amber color.  But still, he has some pretty good ideas.

Now for the WIP....

It's the never ending sweater.  I think I have frogged this yarn out a dozen times not really, just seems like it, I just couldn't make up my mind on the design.  I do that when I design my own stuff. It's a trial and mostly error kind of endeavor.

The socks look the same don't they?  That's because I took them to work and didn't knit much during my lunch time.  I tend to work while I eat.  I know, it's not good, but that's how I stay ahead of things, but not ahead of the socks.

Hope everyone is going to have a great Thanksgiving with family or friends or both.  It'll only be Jody, Jeff and I, Jolea is still in Key West.  I wonder if she's cooking a Fred Flintstone sized turkey this year?

I'll leave you with some pictures of Gracie.  She's getting so big.  She's going to the Vet next week.  His name is Dr. Snips Goldberg, he does neutering too.

 This is her circus act.... she hangs from ankles.

She was so happy to see her boy when he came home from Key West.

It's funny how she knows who Jody and Jeff will wrestle with her and who to come to when she wants to snuggle...  Mama.  She also knows the smell of chicken nuggets and who will feed her from their plate and who won't...  Mama.  That's rude and annoying and if they end up with kitty litter and paw prints in their potatoes it's not my fault this time.

Have a happy and thankful holiday, I know I will.

WIP Wednesday

Work(s) in progress.....

 Repeat after me.... make a swatch!!!!   Make it a full size swatch 4"X4".  That is unless you enjoy tinking and frogging.  Which I guess I subconsciously do.   This is the yellow sweater I was making to give to someone before they moved away.  You aren't color blind and there is nothing wrong with my camera or the lighting.... this is orange.  I knitted the whole yellow sweater up to the last 4-5 inches for the shoulders and I didn't have enough yarn to finish.  Yeah that... stinks really bad.

So I pulled out 10 balls of this orange yarn, which she liked better any way.  This is Classic Yarns Luxury Cotton DK.  I picked it up last summer on the sale rack for an unbelievable price. I had this side almost up to the point of making the arm holes and it just wasn't working out.  So, I'm frogging and re-calculating.

This is the other work in progress.  It's a bag.  I have it on hold for right now.  I really need to finish this orange sweater, then I'll show you more of this project.

I also have some sewing to do for Nita....  I'll do that tomorrow, I promise.

Happy New Year!

Did you have one? We partied like rock stars! More like rocks.... our idea of celebrating New Year's Eve, or what we like to call Amateur Night, started our very first year we were married. We would go get an ice cream cone at the Braum's Dairy Store on Southwest 89th street in Oklahoma City. We wouldn't even eat Rum-raisin or Egg Nog ice cream... we'd stick to the chocolate. We'd do this rather early because Braum's would close around 8PM. We'd then go back home and watch all the Amateurs on TV standing in the freezing cold waiting to hear what Dick Clark would say next.

Then the years passed (just like clockwork), we had kids and we decided it would be safer to just stay home and not get out for ice cream. And there were the lean years when we lived nowhere near a Braum's. It is was really because those Amateurs had probably started boozing early and were driving to the bar (that made me laugh) and could run over us and wipe out the whole family if we chanced the outing. (The family memebers know who instilled this thinking...)

Soon our kids grew up and couldn't wait to become an Amateur and party with the rest of the world. We still stayed home at the Command Center and watched from a protected area. Sometimes we would even invite people over! And we'd (more like I'd) partake in a beverage. But our friends were of the same thought as us, and as soon as Dick had done that thing with the light at the top of the tower they'd wobble off down the street to their house. Another successful New Year's Eve.

This year was no different.... by 10:30 I was ready for bed, Jody was plinking loudly on a mandolin. I began watching the 'coverage' on CNN. They jumped over to Key West, Atlanta, Savannah, Boston. Just jumping around... Kathy Griffin running her mouth trying to impress Anderson Cooper, CNN trying to keep the FCC from shutting them off (did you hear what she told the passers-by?) Then after the stroke of midnight on the East Coast they went to Key West and they stayed there..... they had missed the actual dropping of the Drag Queen, but they were interviewing her. Oh my gosh, maybe I could see Jolea, she was working (with the catering crew) the event after all. Of course I didn't see her in the crowd, but I did see my cousin.... she's with the Key West Chamber of Commerce, so she is usually at all these types of events.

Then I went to sleep to the sound of gunfire in the neighborhood. Who started that? Poncho Villa? That is probably the only thing that set the night off from any other night of the year.

We didn't watch any parades or football games on TV New Year's day, The Dog Whisperer was having a marathon!!! (It's most important that we know how to properly train that dog we'll never have.) The weather was beautiful... in the 70's! Jody worked on another strummer he's building and I knitted and re-started a needlepoint project I hadn't worked on in years. (We didn't eat any Blackeyed Peas!!!!)

Resolutions we're making.... year's ago Jody mentioned that he resolved to not make any resolutions. Sounds good to me. I will however start exercising more and get back to going to the gym... I'm walking out of school at 4, that stuff can wait until the next day. I'm going to take better care of my flowerbeds... I may even make a compost pile. And then there's the massive clean out.... I'm selling, or giving away, or throwing away everything we haven't used or touched in the past year! I may even have a garage sale in the spring.... I hate garage sales, maybe I'll find some one to sell it on consignment. Or Craig's list it.

It's just gotta go. Jody wants to start 'living like the Japanese'.... I'm not sure what he means by this. I know when we got married I was trying to figure out his 'style' of decorating. (You'd hate to have Bordello Chic collide with Jeremiah Johnson.) I came to the conclusion his style was Early Holiday Inn. You know, everything of importance bolted down so if it did get a little cluttered the room could just be blown out with a leaf blower. Hardly any furniture... if you had guest over they could bring their own folding lawn chairs. That's a little much if you ask me... (a little much doesn't quiet make sense here.)

There is change on the horizon and I'm not talking politics here.

I almost forgot!!! Jody ate a KC Strip steak last night!!!! We all did... it was heaven. Jody thought he would cry. If his throat feels alright today we may have Chicken Fried Steak tonight! I'm so excited.