Fishing Buddy

My grandson X has a special bond with his "great-uncle" (my brother-in-law, "W"). X and I went to visit my sister and her husband, W one weekend (see photo below) when X was about 4 years old. W has a pond on their property that is filled with fish. You guessed it, W set X up with a fishing pole, hot dogs for bait, and started X out on his love of fishing! X still remembers that fun trip, and is always asking when he will get to go visit "uncle W" and go fishing again!




We found out Tuesday evening that W had been taken to the hospital with chest pain. He underwent an emergency double by-pass on Wednesday. He has been around most of my life, so I consider him to be another brother. My younger brother and I got to go visit him in the hospital at Tyler, TX last night, and he really looked good for just having gone through surgery. They already had him sitting up! Please keep him in your prayers, 'cause we sure do want him up and fishing with X again soon!

Fall fun...

Fall is here and Halloween is coming up! I love this time of the year! I remember going to the fair in September... candied apples, caramel apples, cotton candy. Then going for blocks and blocks with my big Sister at Halloween, trick-or-treating when I was little. So in the spirit of Fall, I made the potholder above from a pattern out of "The Happy Hooker" by Debbie Stoller.

Tribbles, Birthday

While looking through Ravelry the other day, I found 1870 Pearl's "Tribble" pattern (above). They are knitted and are fast and easy to make!

Yesterday was my birthday and DH got me several goodies.....He gave me perfume (Dior Addict) and at work I got a dozen red roses from him! He later took me to dinner at Mimi's Cafe. Also, a co-worker took me to lunch, and I got several "birthday" phone calls from various family members. All in all, a very, very nice birthday!

Saturday chores

This is what I did Saturday while Hubby went to work. Instead of sitting myself down and doing anything I wanted to, like knitting or crocheting, I heard a voice in my head told myself I needed to mow the lawn and weedeat the flower bed. The riding mower was on the blink, so I mowed with the push mower (pictured above). I was lucky and found a couple of fire ant mounds (my feet being in flip flops instead of shoes - WARNING, KIDS DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!). Whew! It sure was hot! I took a breather on the park bench (pictured) when I was finally done! Then afterward, to reward myself for a job well done, I went to the Library. Upon trying to leave the Library, my car decided not to start for a couple of hours, and so when Hubby got off work, he got to come rescue me (MY HERO). I think NEXT Saturday when I start telling myself to do chores, I'm going to ignore the voice JUST DO WHAT I WANT! :)

Food Friday

Last night my DD called and wanted me to share one of my *many* quick and easy recipes that I used to experiment on them with made over the years. I thought it might be fun to share for you to experiment on your kids, too. So, here it is:

Ice Cream Sandwiches

1 (3.4 oz) package instant Vanilla pudding (or flavor of your choice)
2 cups cold milk
2 cups whipping cream
1 cup miniture chocolate chips (or candy bits of your choice)
Graham crackers or large cookies of your choice

Mix the pudding and milk. Let it get set. Once set, fold in the whipping cream and mini chocolate chips. On a cookie sheet, spread cookies or grahams in one layer, top each with pudding mix, then top that with another cookie. Place in freezer for one hour to set. Take out of freezer, wrap "sandwiches" very well with cling wrap, place back in freezer until served.

Various meanderings.....

I just finished reading the last "Harry Potter" book in the series (no, I'm usually not this slow to get a Potter book read, but I waited in a queue to check it out from my local Library instead of buying it). Without giving anything away (if there's anyone left who hasn't read it!) let me say that while the story plot for Severus Snape ended up just as I figured it would, the rest of the book struck me as sort of "bleh". I think it was definately time for J.K. Rowling to move on. The book lacked the "Oomph" of some of the earlier ones for me, with just a smige too much of death and woe. And come on, guys, Dudley suddenly "loving" Harry? Let's get real! :)


Now that I have given my opinion about THAT, *smile*, a look over at Bron's blog this morning reminded me of a pumpkin I made a couple of years ago that I made using Sculpey. I won $100.00 in a contest at work for the first place pumpkin! Our customers all voted on the pumpkins, and I found out later that at first, a lot of people thought I had just slapped a mask on a pumpkin until they got a better close up! Ha! I didn't feel like I did it full justice with the "painting" of the face, (I was in a hurry the night before the contest) but it turned out o.k. I didn't "bake" it, so it dried out and fell apart later.

I also FINALLY got my invite to Ravelry last night. To say the least, I was very excited! All I can say is that I can tell it will be a fascinating place to look around in. I will probably lose hours there, and I can see why there are still about 20,000 folks on the waiting list!

Cycles

Not much to show or tell! (Sorry for the bad photo, too). I just finished reading "The Wheel of Darkness" by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The story was o.k. this time, but I have to say, their story lines for this series are getting less and less enjoyable to me.

In fibery news, I haven't done much needlework at all lately, as you are seeing. I go through cycles where all I want to do is knit, or crochet, sew, or read. These cycles just gradually come up on me and take over and sometimes have lasted for a couple of years. Right now I am sort of fading out of the crochet phase and going into a reading phase. I am also feeling more interested in getting out my sewing and knitting again. Maybe its the change of seasons? Don't know! :)

I am also hoping that when DH gets more settled into the rhythm of his job, I might have more time for myself. He tells me he will have to begin to work Saturdays, so that should give me 1 day of free time for myself. When DH is home, he likes my full attention and help with HIS projects (which translated means: I get to stand there and get him tools for whatever project he has going for the day, or just "talk" to him while he does the project, but not much free time to do MY projects!) :) The electric box below was this weekend's project. It was installed as part of a project so that the City of Fort Worth can install sewer lines coming to our house (yes, we are still on a Septic system right now).

Crocheted Potholders

My friend Maha e-mailed me today with a finished photo of her latest fish potholder (the free pattern is listed on my sidebar) that she made for her MIL who has a fish themed kitchen. Maha added her own special touch by adding a loop to hang him up with. Thanks for sharing, Maha! (I love his colors!) You can check out other things Maha has been working on over at the Granny Along. She has been making (AND finishing!) alot of beautiful things lately!

In other potholder news, yes, I had another attack of "chickenitis" after not doing much crocheting this last couple of weeks. We went to visit MY MIL & FIL on Saturday, and on the road trip there and back I got this done:

I need to get working on some baby blankets as for gifts for babies to be born in a few months. I really liked the one Maha made for her friend (seen on the Granny Along). I think I will finish up the two I showed you back in August and might start on one with Granny Squares.