A Wonderful Start....

Today was one of the best new year starts of all time!

First, lunch with friends with three major victories...1. sat in the back seat 2. fastened the seat belt with room to spare 3. sat in a booth with about 6 inches in front. All things I haven't been able to do in quite some time.

Second, a LONG 20 minutes walk with Lolly in the beautiful, sunny coldness! Victory #4...haven't been able to walk that far in ages. Lolly got tired before me!

Third, dropped off Lolly and went back out for 30 more minutes taking pictures! Victory #5...was able to stay out walking about for another 30 minutes! Victory #6...found out what was wrong with my Fuji FinePix camera that I have loved for these many years (it had been taking very blurry pics)....ready? Wait for it....THE CAMERA LENSE WAS FILTHY DIRTY!!! After noticing that through some sunshine pics, I cleaned it and VOILA! My camera is fixed. (much hanging and shaking of the head in disbelief.) I had never since I bought the camera cleaned the lense. Ah, we learn by experience, right?

Now, an evening of knitting, reading, talking with friends on the phone and reveling in 2 1/2 more days of "nothingness" until going back to school on Monday.

(Side note...the pic above was inspired by my art teacher neice, Kate. She always takes amazing photos and I thought of all I had heard her talk about artistic composition...note the different type of line shadows!)

Life and the Lord are good...very, VERY good!

Lolly and the Dryer Ball

Lolly loves toys. She has a HUGE basket full of them and she checks every now and then to make sure they are all there. Sometimes, just for fun, I dump the whole basket out onto the floor and let her pick and choose which to play with. Her little face gets so excited when she rediscovers a toy that has been at the bottom of the basket for a while.

While she loves her old toys, there is nothing that makes her happier than a brand new toy. This year, I decided to make her and all her doggie pals "dryer balls". These are made by wrapping a skein of wool yarn into a ball about twice the size of the ball you want. Then you put it into a net lingerie bag and tie the end close enough near the ball so it is snug. Wash it in very hot water and soap with some other things like jeans. The banging against the other clothes, soap, and hot water makes it shrink up and join together into a solid ball that bounces after being dried in the dryer. She can bite it as hard as she wants and it won't hurt it or her teeth! Also, doggies love the smell of them as they retain a trace scent of lanolin from the sheep from which the wool was trimmed. Result? One very happy puppy!

What makes a totally BLESSED Sunday:

1. Going to Sunday School.

2. Taking Ms. Lolly on a LONG walk in the beautiful, sunny, nippy air after days of days of rain.

3. Getting a good afternoon nap.

4. Having the ability and cleaning my own house including vacuuming.(Those with Fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatigue totally understand this one!)

5. The smell of something yummy in the oven for supper. Tonight it is baked stuffed peppers. YUM!

6. Feeling the Lord's presence in all of the above, every breath I take!

THANK YOU, LORD for this perfectly blessed day!

Summer, Ete, Verano...

Summer by any other name is still...

WONDERFUL!

Brrrr!!!!!

Ok, ok, I know that the northerners around here think we southern flowers are just WIMPS but you know...we just don't have enough of the cold stuff to develop the rhino skin we need to not FEEL the cold! So here I sit in my long-sleeved nightie with my new capelet around my shoulders, my flannel lap quilt over my feet and my very fuzzy Lolly Belle snuggled up close on them. The electric oven is on low to help warm the lower third of my apartment. My heating/air vents are at the top of the walls near the ceiling. Great for summer air conditioning but not too efficient in the winter. As you will all recall from elementary school science classes, heat rises. So the heat pouring forth from the vents just stays up near the ceiling. I have the 2 humidifiers going plus a pot of water on the stove to combat the dry-ness. I am a true southern gal. When the humidity gets below 50%, my lips and skin just dry up like Lake Lanier in a summer drought when the Corps of Engineers have let out too much water to the Chattahoochee River. How's THAT for a southern simile?! Just pray I don't run out of lip balm!

Another "happening" around here is that Lolly Belle Rose has broken her back canine molar. The doggie child does love to chew and has the jaws and big ol' honking teeth of a mastiff! She doesn't seem to be in pain. Perky and sassy as ever (when she's not snuggling, that is!) The vet we saw last Wednesday (Dr. Stotelmyer was off last week) said to just put water on her food to soften it up and then see Dr. S on Monday. So the plan is to go see our wonderful Dr. S on Monday to find out what to do about it.

Well that's all the news from the frozen south for now. Stay warm! p.s. Here's some pics of my A Capella Capelet that I knit over Christmas. I used vintage-like buttons I salvaged off of thrift shop garments. On Monday at the Last Chance Thrift Shop, everything is half off!
Shhh...don't the pattern author, but I like mine better :)

Merry Christmas!

Lolly’s favorite Christmas ornament is her musical moose. She looks forward every year to when I unpack it and put it on the tree. As well as being soft and fuzzy (her favorite qualities in a toy), when his tummy is pressed he sings “Oh, Christmas tree, Oh, Christmas tree!” in a very gruff, grunty moose voice ending on a raised pitch “huh?” as if asking approval. She can’t get enough of it. No matter where she is in our home, she comes running when she hears him sing!

This year, I allowed her to get a little closer for her cover picture. She was very sad when I moved him back to the Christmas tree. However, like all good girls and boys, she faced the disappointment stoically…until next year!

My Versatility +!

What a beautiful shawl by LeTonBeau! Here is a link to LeTonBeau's Versatility. Be sure to check out her pictures so you can see what the finished product looks like! As I am a larger woman, I added a repeat of the cable/bobble section so it would be wider. Here’s the first 24 rows of the main section…

My very first bobbles and cables! Can you see them? Can’t WAIT to get it finished!

P.S. If you are new to chart reading, don’t forget that you must read the chart from bottom to top AND you must read the odd rows left to right and the even rows RIGHT to LEFT. Otherwise, you will come out with wrong stitch counts and things (bobbles and cables) won’t match up!