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.