Fun on Christmas day!

Christmas day goodies!

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Fort Worth, Texas!

Adorable Apple Cozy

I whipped up this apple "cozy" in just a few minutes. It is another pattern by Theresa Grant from Ravelry. X really liked it and decided it was the perfect "teacher gift"!

Cup cozy

I crocheted myself this "cup cozy" from some Sugar n' Cream Natural cotton I had in my stash. It was fast and easy to whip up, and I made it in about an hour crocheting off and on. The pattern was modified from a coffee cozy pattern I found on Ravelry, by Theresa Grant. I modified the pattern to: ch 30, then the first row was all dc like Theresa's pattern, then each row after that I chained three, then did a *1 fpdc, then a dc next st, 1 fpdc*, around. I also went 14 rows instead of the 12 for Theresa's pattern and I edged it with slip sts on row 15. I was getting tired of my drink cup at work always sweating. I tried it out today at work and it was awesome! No sweating glass, and the fit was just right! Next time I might chain 26 to get a tighter fit at the bottom, but 30 worked fine.

Dh helped his brother cut some tree limbs yesterday over at his house, then went and installed a gas heater for our son and GS at their house. GS and I made some peanut patties today and also cleaned house. We still need to make some Cracker Jacks, and I still need to get some more Christmas shopping done, too!! Where has all the time gone?

Here comes Santa Claus!

New Stovetop

Last night GS#1 wanted to make bacon bites (above). One word of advice, DON'T seed the peppers without gloves on (I speak from experience!!) The only thing that eases the sting fast is MILK! :) The recipe can be found at http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/cooking on her sidebar under "appetizers".


The photo above is my "new" stove-top. We located this beauty at a garage sale for $20.00, and DH installed it post haste! My old one was probably from the late 1960's and was harvest gold! When we first moved here and didn't have a lot of time to remodel anything, DH had spray painted over it with appliance spray paint in a cream color, but over the last couple of years the paint had begun to peel and the harvest gold shone through. It was a sorry sight and I wasn't sad to see it go!! UGH! Of course, this has now sparked a whole wave of me wanting to start "remodeling". I have located new counter tops at Home Depot that I plan to purchase soon, and I have shopped for a new color of paint (for the cabinets) to match. What fun!! We also located a "new" stand alone bathroom sink for $10.00, but that will be a photo for another time after DH has time to install it. I love finding great deals at garage sales!!!

I finally figured out after all this time what I was doing wrong in uploading my photos to Blogger, by sitting down and really looking through it! The photos above are of a pumpkin patch we took our oldest grandson, X, to go see a couple of weekends ago in Flower Mound, TX. The bottom photo is a shot of X on his 9th birthday yesterday. We had a quick cake and candles ceremony, opening of presents, then X, his Dad and his Dad's gf were off to "The Cutting Edge" haunted house here in Ft. Worth. They told me they had a great "scary" time!

Freebie

Dh and I went to Garage sales on Saturday morning and found a wonderful deal! Our son has recently moved and has been needing a stove. We stopped at one sale and right next door in the driveway was a nice new looking electric stove that had a sign on it reading "free, works fine!" We went to look at it and the man who lived in the house came out and told us they had simply gotten a new stove and if we would carry it off it was ours! We took it to our son's house, plugged it in and it works GREAT! I love finding deals like that! I know I have been bad about not putting photos up lately, but I will try to get a photo of the stove up soon, along with my ball band knitting. My knitting has stalled out, but I really do hope to get going on it again this week. Last week was very stressful at work, but I am hoping the coming week will smooth back out for me.

Miscellaneous - Life

I had my 50th birthday last weekend, it was a quiet and peaceful day at home. I don't seem to get many of those anymore, so I really enjoyed it! My 8 yr old Grandson stays with us a few nights each week and he is a little fireball, always into something! :) I have been reading a lot again lately, and watching old movies. Last night my Grandson picked "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad". It was really fun to see it again!! Of course, first I made sure I watched the season premier of "NCIS". I also watched the premier of "NCIS Los Angeles", but don't feel this show will make it. The acting and plot was mediocre at best. Not even a patch on the original "NCIS", and I couldn't even make myself watch "The Good Wife". I'm not interested much in that kind of show. I'm looking forward to seeing the premiers of "CSI" and the "Mentalist" on Thursday.

This morning I decided to get some knitting mojo back, and started a new ballband dishcloth!! I am using some warm brown Sugar n Cream yarn, my contrast color is Chocolate Ombre Sugar n Cream Naturals. Photos soon!

Sew-a-long

I was looking at Stardustshoe's blog, and she is hosting a "pants-a-long" to make some shorts/pants. I'm interested in sewing along with her, as I haven't sewn anything in quite awhile. I have boxes of material from my days of working at JoAnn fabrics that DH would love for me to use up and "de-stash"!! :) I finally got a new memory card for my camera, but am still having trouble with uploading the photos to Blogger. Now I have to put them on Flickr first and it is irritating me to have to do it "the long, hard way". Waaaaaaaah! :)

On the crochet front, I have been working on a "Hello Kitty" purse for my friend's daughter. I have both sides done, just need to put together and finish up.

Cin/Cyn Summer Cloth Crawl

I have been participating in a cloth crawl with my "Cindy Knitters" group on Ravelry. One box is reused and travels from location to location with gifts for each Cindy participant. After much anticipation on my part, the box arrived in Texas today with all the goodies in the photo. The cloths are knitted with 100% linen yarn, I was also spoiled with a skein of Berroco Cotton Twist, Skittles, and a packet of seeds from Jefferson's "Monticello"! Many thanks to my gifting "Angel"- Cindy, aka CPL Rockfish! Also travelling to each location with the box is a map to mark our locations on, and a small notebook to write a note in. Thanks for all the fun so far, Cindy's!

Chickenbetty's Disc-Disc Potholder

I am still having problems loading my photos and even TAKING photos, but managed to take a picture of my newest potholder with my cell phone camera this morning! These pictures aren't good quality, but at least you can see what I have worked on. I found this pattern on Ravelry the other night. I ordered it from ChickenBetty, but it didn't get e-mailed to me till the next day, so I looked at photos and copied it as best I could. By the time the pattern came, I already had the flower side done, so I just followed the pattern for the second side. One person on Ravelry mentioned that she nearly burned herself using it as a potholder, so I inserted hot pad material from the fabric store in between the crocheted discs. It is a little thick, but at least no one should get burned using it. I have also crocheted a couple of other things, but I'm not quite done with them yet. Two are potholders also, and one is a washcloth. Hope to have my camera up and running soon so the photo quality will be better!

July 4, ribbons and bows

I am still having problems with my uploading of photos to blogger from my home computer, and now my digital camera seems to be on the fritz, too. July 4 weekend we went out on the lake in the boat, it was very quiet for a holiday! I think the public ramps haven't been open much this year, so only lake residents have been out and a lot of the residents are older in age (I guess this may be due to the lake being here for a long time). After going out on the lake for a couple of hours, we went to our niece's house and my oldest gs got to pop firecrackers with her children. I have been crocheting small items such as dishcloths, & potholders, but can't seem to get the photos to my blog. Oldest gs and son will be gone this weekend, so I might have more time to concentrate on figuring out the problem. I also have some beautiful hair bows I wanted to take photos of and show. My co-worker makes them to sell, and I bought some for my oldest gs' baby sister and also for my sister's granddaughter who is 3.

Short Vacation

Dolphin watch photo

My 50th birthday is in September, and my brothers & sister and our respective spouses always try to get together for a mini-reunion to celebrate a 50th. I have one brother & his wife who will turn 50 in a couple of years, then we will have to make another excuse to meet for the occasional mini-vacations. This year I chose Rockport, Tx., which is a small town outside of Corpus Christi, Tx. We had a good time seeing everyone and getting to play tourist. Dh and I lived close to Rockport early in our marriage, and it was fun to get to go back. We toured the Corpus Christi Aquarium, went on a Dolphin watch boat tour, rode the ferry over to Mustang Island and had a big day at the beach. Some of us went to see the Lexington, a ship that is now a museum, some went to Fulton Mansion, (another museum), some went to visit Goose Island State Park and some got to fish. We also had time to visit in the evenings, and see folks we hadn't seen in a while. We tried several restaurants and now have a couple of favorites for the next time we visit. I really enjoyed it!! :) I even got to crochet a couple of small things during the trip there and back. It appears I am still having problems getting pictures to download to blogger, so I will be ng on adding a couple of vacation/crochet photos.

Movie Marathon

Oldest GS and I had a Movie Marathon last night after he had a big day playing on the lake with friends and family. We watched "The Witches", "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken", and "Never-ending Story". I had to go to bed at about 12:30 this morning in the middle of "Never-Ending Story", I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore!

\
I am having problems with blogger not wanting to upload my photos for the last couple of days and all I can seem to get on here are thumbnail photos. Sorry! The topflappen (small photo just above this paragraph) was finally finished this morning.

Gehaekelte Topflappen

!!!Happy Dance!!!! I finally broke my crochet drought! It actually started as a puzzle..... I found this pattern on Ravelry, written only in GERMAN! It appeared that NO English translation was available.....so I did what any detective would do, and set to work trying to solve the problem. First I cut and pasted the text into a free translation website, then copied the very oddly resulting translation to a word document. Then I modified it with this translation of German crochet terms. After that, I found some information on various people's projects that filled in the rest of the gaps. Once I had a semblence of a pattern, I rewrote it for my own ease of "understanding". As a backup, I have a friend at work who's Mother is from Germany, so if my translation failed, I asked if she might mind translating for me. Happily, it appears that I did fairly well on my own! I plan to finish the final "flower outline" row tomorrow. After this I plan to try to "tweek" my pattern to resemble this lovely version of the topflappen. Unfortunately this person lives in Estonia and HER blog appears to be written in..........RUSSIAN! :)

Ideas for 50th birthday

In September, I will be turning the big five oh! My brothers and sister started a tradition when my oldest brother turned 50, in that we would all meet somewhere for a mini vacation to celebrate. Of course we went to a couple and then my husband pooped out on his 50th birthday last year and didn't want to do anything. This year mine is in September, but we will probably try to go during the summer months instead, since I don't know if our oldest gs will still be living with us or not, and I might be having to deal with helping him go to school. I can't really decide where I would like to go, although I have been really thinking about going to the Corpus Christi area, as I would like to take my gs fishing at Rockport, see the Aquarium, take the Battleship tour, and go to Port Aransas on the Ferry. However, I don't know if all siblings could make that trip. I don't want to do anything that would break the bank, either, since we all have various ranges in income. Hmmm. I need to put on my thinking cap!

New Vehicle!

Dh went looking for a new (to us) vehicle today. He works all week in Dallas, so in order to look for a car he had to do it on Saturdays. He had decided he wanted another Toyota, so here is what we got today:
A Toyota 4 Runner Limited Edition! It is 4 wheel drive and has a sunroof! Woo hoo! It is in great shape and guess who gets to drive it most of the time, now? ME! Dh has decided to drive the pickup back and forth to Dallas as it will probably have the better gas mileage of the two. I LOVE me a Toyota!

Photo update

I promised some photos of my grandson X at the recent air show held here, but haven't been on my desktop computer for awhile. I have been busy enjoying the laptop I purchased at a garage sale, but haven't yet gotten all my little "things" added to it yet (such as the capability to download photos).

Yesterday was the first full day of work at the new/old place. Why did I ever hate this job?! I enjoyed myself for the first time in MONTHS! I am even contemplating knitting or crocheting again! To help jump start myself, I signed up for a dishcloth swap. It should be a fun one!

Blue skys and Rainbows!

My job swap was made yesterday and I think I'm gonna come out on the better end of the swap after all. My old job and old boss looked like heaven after having to continue to endure the guy I had been working with for this last week. I moved all my work belongings over to the new building, and had a meeting with my new/old boss. It was very pleasant and exactly the ending I needed yesterday to start my Memorial Day holiday. My new/old boss is currently undergoing chemo for breast cancer, which I have already been through, and is handling it very well. They think they might get the tumor to totally disappear without even having to operate on her! She was very pleasant and welcoming, it was so nice to have someone who appreciates the good work I had done for her in the past! The guy I just ended working for was glad for me to do all his work, but never once acknowledged me for any of it. I have discovered I don't like people like that, as the"knife in my back" shows!

Dh and I are getting ready to go to garage sales this morning. Last weekend I got some great deals. All at one sale, I bought a laptop for $40.00, which I am currently typing away on, a Blackberry cell phone for $5.00 that was only a couple of years old, and a Sony Playstation with about 50 games for $25.00 for my grandson. I also picked up 5 0r 6 DVD's for about 50 cents each. Everything was working and in good shape! Who knows what today will bring!

You are cordially invited to my pity party......

I was justified in my weekend worries over my job. Today I was told I was being put back into my old job because another person's job was in jeopardy, so she wins, I guess. I really would rather not go back to the old job they offered me, but with the current job market, I can't afford to take the severance package they offered as the alternative. I am really upset, mainly because I did nothing wrong to deserve being pushed out of my current job, yet I feel I'm the one being punished. I'm letting myself have a little pity party tonight, and tomorrow I'm going to face everything with a smile firmly in place.

I am a closet "Survivor" fan. I was happy to see J.T. win the million dollars. At least someone had a good weekend!

Rainy Day Blues

It's 3:51 a.m. and I can't sleep. A late-night thunderstorm is rolling through right now, and it is raining cats and dogs out there. My Wienerdor-Retriever is afraid of thunder, so she is softly whining in the background. I am having some problems at work and am very bothered by some things going on. To try to take my mind off of my troubles, I have been browsing around on Ravelry but am not finding much to inspire me right now. I found a pattern for a purse that I would like to try sometime on Lionbrand.com. Whether I will ever make it or not is the real question. I haven't picked up a crochet hook or knitting needle for about 5 months, now. I have also been getting (sort of) interested in sewing again, but haven't done anything with that interest yet, either. All I seem to do anymore is clean house and work. Tomorrow, there is supposed to be an air show at the neighboring Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base located about a half mile from our house. DH has worked to get our boat in running order this week, so we can go out on the Lake tomorrow and enjoy the show from there. Unfortunately, I think I might also have lost my digital camera somewhere. It has been a challenge keeping up with some of my things, since I now have a VERY inquisitive 8 year old boy living at my house!! He is always making paper airplanes and exploring his environment! Last night, in an effort to try to cheer me up, he crafted me a paper purse! He is a very sweet and special person! This is one of DS's dogs, Sonny, who is currently greatly enjoying a snooze on the couch!

Late on Mother's Day

Dh is sanding a bench I bought at a yard sale awhile back. I have wanted it painted black for a long time, and my gs talked Dh into working on the bench today. Of course, before they got started, he took out time to drop a line and catch this fish! :)

Car replacement and Mother's Day

After several years of being accident free, Dh was rear-ended last Monday evening on his way home from work in Dallas. He was driving our 1994 Toyota Camry Wagon (left in photo), no finer car to be found anywhere! The boy driving the car that hit Dh flew over the hill and hit him from behind while he was stopped at the light. Dh was behind another person and our car was slammed into her car also, wrecking the front end, too. We had babied that car for several years and had over 350,000 miles on the original engine. I was hoping to make it to at least 400,000 miles, but I guess I won't ever know now. Dh will have the hard chore of finding a comparable car to replace it, probably another Toyota if I have any say so!


After a wonderful lunch at T.G.I. Friday's today, my son and gs presented me with this beautiful bouquet of wildflowers that they picked for me along the road to our house. DD called and said she had also sent a gift by mail, which hasn't arrived yet. Her Dh and the grandtwins are going to take her to the beach to help her celebrate the day.

Decoration

Last weekend we went to what my husband's family calls "Decoration". It is an old "East" Texas custom where families get together on a designated day, and go "decorate" tombstones with flowers and flags at the graveyard where their loved ones are buried. My husband's family maintains a cemetery in Collin County where his great- grandfather had donated the land for the cemetery. We all go to church there, then we go back to my husband's cousin's house for a "family reunion" lunch, we eat 'til we feel like we're going to pop, and have lots of good fellowship with family! Then we go down the road about a mile to the cemetery, have "Decoration" and the annual business meeting for the upkeep of the cemetery, and reminisce a lot about the loved ones who passed away before us. We enjoy getting to see a lot of family at least one time a year!

HOW CUTE IS THIS?????

I recently got a comment on my free fish potholder pattern from a lady named Doria. Doria made this baby blanket for her niece using my fish pattern as an applique! AND She included a photo! Wow the different uses people come up with for it never cease to amaze me! GREAT job Doria, and thanks for sharing your photo! Now I want to make one!

Also, have you seen the great purse pattern by Christy? Christy is always coming up with new patterns even though she is fairly new to crochet! I bought one as soon as I saw it!

New Truck

Dh decided that I needed a new (to me) vehicle, so he recently purchased me a cute little 2000 Ford Ranger Super Cab to drive! I know it probably sounds weird, but I have always wanted a little pickup, and now I finally have it! After all, I AM a Texan! :)

We got the truck just in time to go visit my dd and the grandtwins down at South Padre Island for the grandtwins 1st birthday. We had a fun, action packed time while we were there! We got to go out to the Island one day, another day we visited the Brownsville, TX Zoo. The third day was an all day long outdoor birthday party for the boys.

Still no crafting content for the blog right now. With my ds and oldest gs still living with us, I don't seem to have any free time anymore. My sister and her hubby stopped by last Sunday (unfortunately I was not home, but my dh was). They dropped off a news article about my Mother's family, who have been continuously farming land in Crosby County, Texas for over 100 years! It was really interesting and informative!

My computer finally got to where I couldn't even get on it, so rather than buy a new one, and in order to save money, dh wiped the hard drive clean (gulp!) and had to re-load all the software. He saved a lot of my photos and patterns awhile back, so I hope I can find everything again sometime. For now, I have no photos to add to this post, but hope to be back with pics of the new truck and some of the pics of visiting the grandtwins.

Fishing

This is my oldest GS with one of his good fishing buddies, Sonny.

This is the fish he caught all by himself today, with no assistance or coaching from anyone (even Sonny)!

Still no new crochet content to report....but I've been reading as much as possible. I am currently interested in Michal Connally's books, and also books by Jan Burke. Each author has a series going, so I am enjoying getting to follow the characters. I got new photos of my dd and the grandtwins recently.

I am still not giving up hope about being able to get back to my crocheting soon.