the crud

Ugh! The crud has been beating me up all weekend and then miraculously I wake up this fine Monday morning and feel OK. Typical. I mean, I’m not well, but better. Well enough to go to work after I spent practically the entire weekend in bed. Yeah.

So, on the drive into work I hear Meghan talking about this game on the iPhone called Words with Friends. What can I say, been playing it all day with friends and family. Love it! My new favorite thing!

Joe took me out to dinner tonight at Mama Ricotta’s since I missed all the fun parties this weekend. Super sweet! Then he helped me get the tree up. Yep, you heard that right. I just put my tree up this evening and by put it up I mean all I have done is get it out of the box and fluff all the branches. Lights and decorations will have to wait for tomorrow cause now the sick seems to be creeping back in and I am worn out just from that.

In other fun news there was a package from my Aunt & Uncle in the mail today. I had no idea what it could be and I would have never guessed! It is a super cute yoga top with a koi fish. Super cute! I will totally be wearing this to my next class.

In other random news, I upgraded the bunny condo this weekend (about the only productive thing that was done). I attempted to get some good shots of them this evening, but their was little to no cooperation on their part as you can see.

Oh, and I am still working on the baby blanket. I have finished the 70th repeat with only two left. Then… the border. Can’t wait to finish this sucker up so I can work on something new and maybe a bit smaller. This thing is getting pretty big to be lugging around with me.

chugging along

I’ve decided to start using more functions on my camera, hence the daily pictures that have been showing up here. I’m trying to take them first thing in the morning so I don’t get to distracted by the day.

Today was spent thinking about studying and then finally getting to it. My schedule for this class is going to be pretty tight for the next few days. I took the last quiz tonight then the last chapter test will be tomorrow and then I will most likely take the final on Wednesday. I have a feeling that Wednesday evening is going to be a big adrenaline crash. I will feel so much better when it’s done!

On a lighter note I am up to repeat 58 of the 72 required for the baby blanket. I’d take another picture, but really it looks just like it did last time… I’ll take more once I start on that border. Picking up all those stitches just has  be so excited, NOT!

cletus

This morning I took a picture of Cletus. He’s really doing an amazing job of keeping the Northern Mockingbirds from using our new patio set as a jungle gym/toilet area. You go Cletus!

Not much else to tell today. Wasted time Goofed around on Facebook for a while then headed out to the farmer’s market and other mundane, but much needed errands. Now I’m home and contemplating a shower so that I can be presentable to meet up with friends tonight. Maybe just one more look at my farm on Facebook…

da plane! da plane!

We live relatively close to the airport, but luckily not under any of their current flight paths. Though, the ride in to work in the mornings takes me directly underneath one and super close to an actual landing strip. It’s pretty awesome to drive underneath a humongous plane in the morning and I have been attempting to get a pic of it. This is the best I could do today…

moon and blankies

Took a pic of the moon as I was leaving the house this morning. Can you see it? Right above that cluster of trees in the middle…

Still working on the baby blanket. I’m more than halfway through the body of it and then on to the edging. Can’t wait to finish this thing so I can move on to the next item on my list. Yep, there’s a knitting list cause the closet is getting too out of control and it is no longer making me happy to open those doors. The yarn must be knit!

random things and some food

Here we are in December and  I seem to have completely missed blogging about Thanksgiving. Of course, the entire thing was filled with nothing but pecan pie… maybe a little turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, really just food in general. Oh and did I mention family? I may not talk about them a lot here, but it’s really nice to get everyone together and just hang out at Mom and Dad’s. Maybe do a little shopping and did I mention eating? Good times!

I really didn’t take any Thanksgiving pictures since that seems to be brothers job. So here is a nice picture of the evening sky as we were headed home on Sunday. It was really quite lovely. A lot nicer than the image I caught here. The clouds were really amazing!

Then Tuesday morning I awoke to this…

Weird, especially when you drive to the corner, make a left and it’s completely gone. Not a speck of fog to be seen. Seems someone must have left the Christmas fog maker on next door.

Tuesday night I headed over to the monthly Charlotte Knitting Guild meeting and ate lots of food (I’m sensing a theme here) and participated in the white elephant game. Fun! I was the lucky person that ended up going first which meant I got the pick of the gifts at the end. I picked up this cutey patooty tape measure from Lantern Moon. I mean, a girl can never have enough tape measures.

So, that’s it for now. I’m still knitting on the baby blanket and I’m pretty sure I have finally passed the half way mark. Whoo! I’m starting to feel like it may never end. Just wait till I get to pick up all those stitches for the border. Awesome!

is going to the dentist considered procrastinating?

I stayed home from work today so that I could get some of my school work done, cause as usual I am doing everything but. I even had a dentist appointment this morning and then told myself I would get to work as soon as I got home. I knit. Watched a couple shows on the DVR. Called to check on a few things for work.

OK, so I did spend some time on school, but not as much as I had planned on. This leads me to the looming question… am I ready to continue with school? Is this what I want/should do right now? I have a lot of things to think about especially when it looks like their is some opportunity for me to move up at work. Which begs the same question. Is that what I want? Or should I concentrate on work and forget the schooling for now? Well, I have a few months to think about it. I have a feeling school is going to be on the backburner for a while.

catching up, again

I feel like I’m always playing catch up. That may have something to do with the fact that I am always procrastinating by doing things that are completely non-productive. Enough of the introspective stuff! Here is what I’ve been up to for the past week.

1) Knitting on the biggest most giant needles ever. They are size 35’s and felt like knitting with large tree branches, which, except for the fact that they’re actually plastic, is what I was doing. When I went back to the baby blanket (size 8’s) it felt really bizarre. Like I had switched to toothpicks.

2) On Sunday I made Maple Pecan Muffins from Joy the Baker. I highly recommend this recipe. They were super delicious! The prep wasn’t too hard except maybe for browning the butter. OK, that wasn’t hard. I think you can handle it.

The finished product. Please ignore the random items on the island… it gets crazy on their sometimes.

3) Sunday night a couple of friends came over and Joe said he was going to get the fire pit going. We still had a bunch of scraps from the new wood floors so he used ALL OF THEM. Not just a few at a time. He threw in the entire box. Giant flames ensued. It may have melted paint off of the cover…

Cletus was not impressed in the least.

4) Tuesday was an exciting mail day! My order from One Planet Yarn & Fiber arrived with this lovely bounty. I ordered it as a kit with this pattern The Cedar Leaf Shawlette. Their customer service was great and I just cannot wait to start this.

Alas, I have a list of other things that must be done first. In my attempt to organize and to have things actually leave the closet of yarn,I have compiled said list and an order in which some things need to done. The goal is to stick to that list until I can get through at least 3-4 items. We shall see…

surprises

You see that? It’s the sun and we haven’t seen it for days thanks to Ida. It was a gorgeous day!

After hitting the Farmer’s Market I headed over to Rainy Day Creations to pick up my raffle prize. I was pleasantly surprised! It included two Debbie Bliss books and three from Ella Rae. Can’t wait to sit down and peruse these!

While I was taking the picture of the books the doorbell rang and look what greeted me. Boxes! So what did they contain?

Those are two cute knitting bags I purchased from ruddawg on etsy and she also did a special order for me. She was kind enough to line a bag I had knitted a while back and just didn’t carry since it was so floppy. It is perfect! She even added something so it has more body and will certainly see the light of day now.

Knitting bags

My new fabulously lined bag

The smaller box contained my first installment of the Sip ‘n Stitch club I signed up for this fall. As soon as I opened the box the smell of yummy fresh ground coffee was overwhelming. I am so tempted to brew some now, but I think I will contain myself and wait till the morning…

Not only did I receive the expected, coffee and yarn, but there was also a super cute coffee cozy and I was thrilled to see that it was made by my friend Aimee of fairieknits! Bonus!

That about does it for now. Time to get cleaned up and meet some friends for dinner.

too tired for a title

It’s been a long time hasn’t it? A lot has happened in the past month or so and honestly, I just don’t think I have it in me to play catch up.

At the moment I am really attempting to organize and figure out what I need to do with myself. Sometimes taking a hard look at what you’ve been doing with yourself can be pretty enlightening. A few weeks ago I gave away 3 years of Martha Stewart Living magazines. Really? Why on earth was I saving those? These are the amazing introspective issues that are being worked on. Set them free!

Tonight I decided to work on some charity knitting for the Charlotte Knitting Guild.  Dish cloths are being collected at the December meeting and I definitely have some excess cotton that needs a good home. See paragraph two about letting things go. Looks like I may finish the first one this evening.

I’ve also been fooling around with the settings on my camera. Fun! Sepia may be seeing more use in the future.

It’s late and I have lots of things planned for tomorrow. Things like the Farmer’s Market, grocery shopping, and school work. Good times!

a fresh start

Today feels like a really good day and that’s saying a lot for this week. Luckily for us Joe had this past week off and was able to get a lot of things done around the house that were necessary after the break in. One of those thing being available to let our handy man in so he could start the repair job on the dry wall. He will be back this afternoon to finish up. If you ever need someone who can do it all and actually cares that it’s done right, let me know and I will get you his info.

I woke up early this morning and headed out to the farmer’s market. Perfect brown eggs. The one on the bottom right is now in my belly… delish!

I also picked up a couple of Arkansas Black apples. Thought I would try something different. Oh and I am totally excited about those onion and cucumbers in the jar! Can not wait to crack that baby open.

Last, but not least, some nice colorful veggies. I found a couple of recipes this week I wanted to try. My cooking skills aren’t the best so I’ll keep you posted on the results.

That’s it for now. Off to get ready to go to the door showroom so we can figure out which replacement door we will have installed. Wish us luck!

the break-in

You never think you’re going to be the one… Yesterday around 1PM Joe gets a call on his cell from our home phone. It’s the police. Someone has broken into our home.

The two of us race home to find four police cars parked out front and the warning to not touch anything since they are still trying to get prints. This is one of them trying to get prints off of the TV that was mounted to the wall. Looks like they stood on the table and pulled to no avail.

Here is a peak behind the wall mount. At minimum we will have to have the dry wall repaired. Hopefully that stud is intact.

Our front door was in shambles when we came home. Apparently it is pretty easy to kick in most doors. The deadbolt just tore right through the frame.

 

Here are some remnants of our door.

 

So we could actually leave the house to, well, look for a new door Joe was able to rig us up some new framing so the door would actually close and lock for the time being. Not bad! You have to love wood flooring re-purposed as part of a door.

From what we can tell it looks like we got off pretty easy. Our neighbor came home for lunch and it looks like it may have spooked them into leaving in a hurry. They got away with a flat screen TV, Wii plus games, Playstation 3, and a few other small items but they left some other things by the door and there was a lot more that could have been taken. Our neighbor didn’t realize what was going on until he left his house later and saw our front door wide open, that’s when he called the police and reported it. I’m just thankful they left quickly and that we came home to the police and not an emptied out house, or random people. You just have to look at the upside to these things.

 

Here’s a few of the officers checking out another TV that they were hoping would have prints… looks like they may have been smart enough to wear gloves.

 

This is what I had to drink after everyone left the house.

 

Oddly, I don’t feel violated so much as pissed off that someone thinks it’s OK to just help themselves to things that we have worked hard for. It’s just hard to fathom the mindset of someone who thinks that breaking in an stealing someone’s things is perfectly acceptable behavior. I really don’t get it.

Today the Brinks guy came by and now we have an activated (and yes, it’s on right now) alarm system. That makes me feel better about the rigged up front door. Still waiting for the door guys to call and come by so we can get an estimate on having a new more secure door installed.

As odd as it seems, I feel like we were lucky and that this is a lesson learned. Never thought I would say it, but Hooray for the new alarm system! I feel better already. Well, at least a little.

and their were farm animals

Unbeknownst to me I was in for a livestock filled weekend. Leaving work Friday I decided to walk outside to get to my parking deck and ended up in the middle of the Blues, Brews & BBQ event that took place this weekend. Almost immediately I spotted the pen of goats and sheep. I suppose their purpose was to look cute and be fed by us humans or possibly be BBQ… do you BBQ goats?

They also had a pen of llamas. Dr Gemma was right, totally stuck up little things, but cute. A bit on the matted side, but cute.

After work, Joe and I, headed up to WV to visit the fam and to wish Dad a happy birthday. Oh, and Joe had to fix his parents TV set up. Typical visit home.

Saturday, Mom and I headed over to the annual Mound Festival to see what sorts of arts & crafts we could find. Guess who I bumped into? Alpaca! Cute, adorable, super friendly alpaca. These guys were part of the Good Shepherd Farm Alpacas and their coats had been sheered and made into some lovely yarn. I bought two hanks of natural yarn from Biscotti and Gracie… their pictures and stories are even on the labels. How adorable is that!

Sunday morning was Dad’s birthday so in an attempt to get a picture of him with his cake on his actual birthday (we celebrated Saturday night) the cake was picked up, held at an angle for the photo op, and then…

CAKE DOWN! That cake was thrown in my generally direction being the picture taker and all. I was saved only by my wits and ninja like reflexes. The floor, however, was not.

This is what icing looks like on your wood floors, beware the cracks and crevices.

The floor was saved by Mom’s mad skills in icing removal. The cake was lost to the big trash can in the sky.

In case anyone is interested I should be posting pictures of my lovely alpaca yarn soonish. Just need some good lighting.

greek it is

For lunch today I went over to the Yiasou Greek Festival with a couple of my coworkers. If you’re in the Charlotte area, go! The spanakopita is SO good and they go great with the Greek fries. Really, you should go. They also have lots and lot of desserts. No worries about them running low, this was one table of like 5 filled with the deliciousness.

what i did today

I commandeered a few of Em’s tomatoes as payments for watering them and their friends.

Took a picture of the gorgeous night sky after it rained almost all day.

The rest of the evening was spent almost exclusively reading for school. Blech!

the garter stitch

I have been knitting a lot of garter stitch lately. A lot of garter. These are four cute little washcloths I knit for our friend who just had a wee one a few months back. Gotta get them delivered to her this week.

Still working on the Noro garter blanket. Getting ready to splice in the 5th ball of yarn here in a few. After I read Chapter 2 in my biology book that is.

Then Sunday I started this cute hat made out of more Noro Kureyon. Finished it up last night. Super cute!

 

School started a few weeks back and I took my bio quiz on Monday morning. Did pretty well, but now I need to get to studying so I can take test #1 this weekend. Oh procrastination! You are such an evil mistress! Yet, I love you anyway…