End of year post

Yesterday I went to my local yarn shop, Twisted Yarns, because they were having an end of year sale. I didn't really need anything, but I thought I'd go look. Well...I came home with 16 skeins of this. Classic Elite Inca Marl...100% alpaca...it feels so lovely. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but I figure it will make a good project for the new year. Speaking of the new year, I leave you with an image of my last finished object for the old year. This is my grandson who is 22 months old. I had knit him a cap when he was newborn, but of course he has out grown it. His mom asked for a new cap for him, and I was happy to oblige. The new cap is made out of Berroco Comfort worsted weight. He seems to like it.

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope all of you have a safe and prosperous year.

I'm still here. I promise. I will try to come up with a decent post soon. Honest.

What's new

This weekend Corwin spent Saturday night with us while his parents went to a party. On Sunday it was such beautiful day, Wally decided to work in the yard. Corwin helped. Here is a picture of the two of them out in the yard. Somewhere, I have a photo of Wally and Andrew in just about the same pose. I will have to dig it out and scan it for comparison. One of the things Corwin loves to do when he is visiting at our house is get in and out of one of our chairs. He goes up and down, up and down. Here is a photo of coming down. I had trouble photographing Corwin, because he moves so fast. Anyway, you get the idea.

This is Corwin's favorite chair, because it is low enough for him to climb into, and he can grab the wooden arm rests for better leverage.

Canada

The week before last Wally and I had the opportunity to be in Canada. Wally had to go for work, and I came up later to sightsee. Here we are at Lake Louise. It was a beautiful day, but cold as you can tell from the way we are bundled up. We stayed at a B&B in Banff which is a lovely little town. One of the sights we saw was this elk down by the golf course. He was just munching away on the grass at the side of the road. I was probably less than 20 feet away from him in the car when I took this photo.

All in all, it was a lovely few days away from routine. We would like to go back again sometime.

Hurricane Ike

As promised much, much earlier, here are two photos of damage from Hurricane Ike. We saw a lot of trees that came up by the roots. It was sad to see so many of the old oak trees that came down this way. The pine trees tended to snap off in the wind.

Great box!

Caroline B has painted another outstanding box. Go to uniqart.blogspot.com

Update

I did not realize it had been so long since I last posted. Sorry. So...what's new?

The most excitement came from Hurricane Ike on September 12 and 13. Living in the Houston area, we got hit pretty hard. We lost 9 trees in our yard, but none of them fell on the house. We had four holes in our fence, but Wally was able to repair two of them quickly. The other two are pretty big, but fixable. We did have some leaking around our chimney and vent pipes. Since the house is only 4 months old, we are getting our builder to check the roof. There should not have been any leaks, even if Ike was a catagory 2 storm. We lost electricity for 14 days, but we had a natural gas generator built into the house, and it worked really well. We did not lose anything from the refrigerator or freezer, and we were able to make ice for our neighbors. All in all, it was a bad storm, but we were incredibly lucky.

We took some pictures of the downed trees, but have not uploaded them to the computer yet. I will try to post photos later, but I'm not making any promises.

Still Here

I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I'm still here. We have been dealing with an ancient computer, so no photos for now. I am knitting. Currently, there are three pairs of socks on needles. I know, I know, I should concentrate on one at a time, but yarn was calling my name. I have finished two stocking caps, one for Wally and one that I thought was for me, but Sarah likes it, too. I am still working on trying to unpack boxes and find places for things in the house. So nothing extremely exciting.

Beautiful Box

Go look here. This box is so beautiful.

Firsts Meme

I don't usually do memes, but I thought this one was interesting. I copied it from Zeneedle.

1. Who was your first prom date? And only prom date, Frank H.

2. Do you still talk to your first love? Talk, no, Christmas cards, yes.

3. What was your first alcoholic drink? A Whiskey Sour.

4. What was your first job? Other than babysitter, summer office help.

5. What was your first car? A 1973 Ford Pinto, which was rear-ended by a gravel truck after I had it for two weeks. I was lucky I was not killed knowing what we know about Pintos now.

6. Who was the first person to text you today? No texts today.

7. Who is the first person you thought of this morning? Wally

8. Who was your first grade teacher? Miss George, Manoa Elementary School

9. Who was your first best friend and are you still friends? I have no idea who my first best friend was.

10. What was your first sport played? Sports? Does a reading marathon count?

11. Where was your first sleepover? No clue on this one either.

12. Who was the first person you talked to this morning? Wally

13. Whose wedding were you first in? Cindy and Wayne's, I was a bridesmaid. It is also the only wedding I have been other than my own.

14. What was the first thing you did this morning? Put my glasses on.

15. What was the first concert you went to? It was either Jan and Dean or Sonny and Cher, both of which were in the old New Orleans Municipal Auditorium in the mid-1960s.

16. What was your first tattoo or piercing? Ears 1969, one hole each, done by a friend who lived across the hall from me in college.

17. What was the first foreign country you went to? England

18.What was your first run in with the law? None, so far.

19. When was your first detention? Never had detention.

20. What was the first state you lived in? Pennsylvania

21. Who was the first person to break your heart? A boy named Wayne in the 6th grade.

22. Who was your first roommate? My sister, Jan? College, Sue and Kathy.

23. Where did you go in your first limo ride? Obviously, I have been deprived. I have never ridden in a limo.

More Wildlife, But Smaller

Living in the forest has lots of pluses(sp?) and minuses. It's quieter here. We can see the stars better here. We have lots more insects and spiders here. This is one of my favorite critters that we have here. Green tree frogs! We have lots of them. They appear on the windows at night and eat mosquitoes. When it rains they sing loud and long. This particular frog likes our front door handle. He/she sits on the inside of the handle and dares you to open the door. Sometimes he brings a buddy, and there are two frogs sitting in a line one behind the other. (Photo by Sarah)

At the Beach

Where have I been? At the beach. We went down to Gulf Shores, Alabama for our annual trip to the beach. We were there for two weeks this year and rented two houses. We had a total of 28 friends and family during the two weeks. Not everyone was there all the time, but we did have a lot of people. It was fun, and I will post more pictures later.

Crystal

I have been the care taker of my mother-in-law's crystal for a number of years now. However, I was not taking the best care of it. At my old house the crystal was in the top of my cabinets in the kitchen. It was dirty and dusty and didn't look very pretty. So Wally wrapped it all up in paper and moved to the new house, but left it in the boxes in the kitchen. Today, Sarah and I opened all the boxes and washed all the crystal. Since it is crystal, we did it by hand. This is one of the reasons it had not been cleaned for a while. I'm a dishwasher kind of gal. Having Sarah help did make the task go more quickly. I am grateful for her help. Here are two photos of what the crystal looks like now. And here is the artsy fartsy shot. I couldn't help it.

I think when we get things more under control here, I will look into some sort of cabinet to display the crystal. It seems a shame to let all that loveliness hide in a cabinet.

Forest Neighbors

As many of you know, we have moved into our new house. We are still moving things from the old house, but we are sleeping and eating in the new house. The new house is on an acre plus of land, and it is in a heavily forested area. We have lots of trees, so we also have lots of wild life. We have seen deer, wild pigs, racoons, opossums and lots of birds. Yesterday, between trips to the other house, Wally and I were eating lunch at the new house. All of sudden, Wally called me to look out into the backyard. This is what we saw. If you can't see too clearly, here is a closer shot. Now our fence is 6 feet tall, so you know this is a big bird. We have seen lots of vultures out here, but never this close up. They are usually on the side of the road or gliding on the air currents.

What you can't see in this picture is the blue jays dive bombing the vulture. I don't know if there was a blue jay chick on the ground or what, but the blue jays were having a fit. They were squawking and carrying on and trying to get the vulture to move. The vulture just stood there and looked around. He was not moving. Finally, Wally went out into the yard, and the vulture decided to leave. It took off and went flying over the pine trees. We saw it circle around a few times, but the vulture did not return. Then the blue jays decided to dive bomb Wally. Ah, the joys of living in the country.

Busy, busy, busy. Moving, boxes everywhere, wedding, boxes everywhere, utter and complete chaos.

Knitting for a change

I finally blocked the rusted root sweater for Sarah. It's been sitting waiting to be blocked for months now. Sarah has been telling me, "If you block it, I will wear it." I will try to get her to model it for me later. The current sock is a little different than what I usually do. I usually knit simple, easy socks because they are very portable, and I don't have to think too much about them when I'm knitting. These socks take a lot of concentration, but I am really liking the way they are turning out. This is the front of the sock at the ankle.

This is a side view of the sock after I turned the heel. These are the Salto socks by Rebecca Kerner from Spring 2008 Knitty. It's a free pattern that can be downloaded. The yarn is Berroco Comfort Sock, 50% Super Fine Nylon and 50% Super Fine Acrylic, color 1811. I am knitting on Knitpicks Harmony DPNs, size 1 (2.5mm). The yarn is really soft, but it does have a tendency to split. It does not have a very tight twist.

Almost There

Here is how the house looked as of yesterday afternoon. We have grass, roses, azaleas and other plants now. The front door still needs to be stained, and there are lots of little things that need attention on the inside, but we are getting closer to moving in.

A Little Knitting

There hasn't been a lot of knitting going on here lately, but a little bit has gotten finished. This is a baby soaker that I finished last month. At the rate I am going, the baby it is intended for will be too big for it, and the weather will be too hot. Oh well, it looks pretty. The other finished project was this pair of PURPLE socks that I make for me. They are made from Trekking XXL sock yarn on size 1 (2.5mm) needles.

I did try some new dpns for these socks. I bought some Knit Picks Harmony laminated birch needles back in February. I really like them a lot. The needles have really good points, and they are very smooth without being slippery.

House Update

I haven't done an update on the house for a while, so here it is. Here is the dining room with another coat of paint. They still need to do some more touch ups, but it's looking pretty good. The chandelier is backordered, so we may move in and have it installed later.
Here is the entryway looking at the front door from the living room. The door has not been stained yet, and the floor is really dusty from all the work going on. The entryway light needs to be leveled, too. Over all it is coming along though. I really like the way the tile came out on the floor.

The screened porch was finished last weekend. It's going to be really nice to sit out there and relax.

This photo is of the front porch. We now have painted shutters, and the ceiling has been painted blue. It looks really good. The shutters are green although it's hard to tell from this photo.

Lastly, here is a shot of the front of the house as it looks now. There will be solid slabs topping the two columns on the sides of the stairs like those on the tops of the columns on the porch.

We talked to a landscaper this past week, and his first plan was way over what we wanted to spend at this time. It was great plan, but just too much money. We had a call from the floor guy last week. The wood floor that we originally picked out has been discontinued, so we had to start over on flooring. Fortunately, the floor guy was really helpful, so we were able to make a decision we are happy with.

We are working on getting all the little details on the house taken care of at this time. Hopefully, we will be able to move in by the end of the month.

Mosaic

Here is the mosaic we put in one bathroom of the new house. It's hard to see from this photo, but the mosaic is of sea turtles. It measures about 50 inches wide by 39 inches tall. We ordered it from http://www.mozaico.net/. They have hundreds of mosaics that you can look at online. Some of them are gorgeous. The bedroom that this bathroom is attached to has a beach theme, so we thought the turtles would fit in well.