What A Difference A Week Makes

I know, suprise, suprise, I am posting after only 1 week!! I am really trying to develop a new routine and making blogging a little bit more of a priority..

In just one week our weather went from freezing, with a dusting of snow to almost 80 degrees for the last 3 days. That allowed me to get outside, alot. I managed to get peas planted in the main garden and to make a salad border to my herb bed. I put in scallions(2 types), lettuce(several mixes of leaf lettuces), radishes and carrots. Everything got watered in and now we are awaiting a week of predicted rain and more seasonable temps. It will be a bit longer before I start planting the intermediate season stuff like beets, more carrots and spinach. And I need to buy some seed starting mix to get all my warm weather crops going in the mini greenhouse I have set up on the front porch.

When I went outside this morning I was greeted by some pretties, brought into bloom by the milder temperatures. First would be my 1 and only daffodil. I put in 2 bags, 30 bulbs each, of naturalizing daffs. They got put in the ground a little late and in a hurry. But so far almost all of them have sent up leaves and I will have a few more bloom before the season ends. But daffs will multiply readily and in the next few years I should have a beautiful driveway lined with yellow nodding heads in the spring.

Then I noticed that I had gorgeous white blossoms all over the bush right by my driveway. Yesterday the buds were all still tight with no sign of color. I think that my brother/sister in law told me this was a shrub magnolia but I could be wrong. But it looks a lot like the magnolia on the other side of the house. And I am confident about that ones identity. And to be sure I walked around the house to look at the leaves on that one to see if it indeed matched and it was in bloom also. It is a bit taller and it's blooms are a dark purple. I never used to be a magnolia fan but I think I am now!!

Now some pictures of my furniture finds. I think I mentioned the display coffee table last week. I ordered this off Ebay hoping to get a decent peice of furniture. Boy was I happy when this arrived at our door. It is all solid oak with tempered glass. It is very well made, all by hand and should last me forever. The seller never even charged me shipping and it arrived in a huge wooden box that he built around the table so it would arrive safely. I will probably be ordering a end table later on. The quilts in the table are some older ones I bought years ago on ebay, before everyone caught on, and things were still bargains. BTW-there are baskets under the table. They fit perfectly and allow me to store my knitting projects right where they are easy to get to.

My next furniture find was a godsend. I was sewing at my dining room table. It was too high and hurting my neck. I had hoped to find a small portable sewing table online, but the ones I found were going to be about $150.00 with shipping. Well, this week on my shopping day, I stopped into an antique store in Fayetteville, looking to see if they still had a ceramic peice I had passed over several months ago. Of course it was gone but this little table caught my eye. It was marked as "antique sewing table" for $125.00. I did think this was a decent peice and the price was probably worth it. But I wasn't willing to shell out that much right then. So I stopped by and talked to the owner, telling him how I was intrigued by the table, but really couldn't afford it at that time. I was not trying to talk him down, really I wasn't!! But he started scratching on his notepad and said "$75.00" And without even hesitating I said "SOLD" And it came home with me..It is solid mahogany with a metal bar on the bottom that holds the legs in place. You lift the bar up slightly to fold up the legs which is what makes it portable. Very very nifty. Wish they still made them like this. Now mine is a bit crooked over all, but still very usable and now is holding the machine in the following pictures. I used it to sew a few blocks last night and it is just the perfect height.

I have been plugging away on the swirl shawl but don't have any new sweaters in the works. The quilt is still slowing making progress also, but alas I need more fabric. So I ordered some today and will probably have to order some more.

My kitties have developed a new daily habit. They found that for most of the mid day, the sun shines into our bathroom right into the soaking tub. So they started taking sun baths together. It was so sweet to see them all warm and snuggled up so I threw in a big feather comforter to make it even nicer. They love it!!

And Miss Daisy can't be left out. Although it is a bit harder to get pics of her!!

What's Been Going On

Just the same old, same old. But I do have a finished sweater to show off. And a few newly started projects. Plus our new-to-us bedroom set, which also led to a new quilt being started. With me, it is always alot of starts, with not quite as many finishes.

So I will start with the finish. To make me feel good. To remind myself that I do make nice, useful, comfortable things and not just waste hours crafting. Cause sometimes when I have to look at all those UFO's piling up I do get a bit down in the mouth with what time and money has gone into them. And that will probably never get done in my lifetime, at least by me.

So here is Gathered Pullover #2. Just to remind. The pattern is from Interweave Knits, available from their on line store for immediate PDF download. It is an easy pattern to work, although my version does have a few modifications made to suite me a bit better. The yarn is DK weight this time, and dyed with the liquid gleaned from soaking black beans before making soup. This took 2 skeins and their is a slight difference between them, despite being dyed together at the same time. I don't have a proven explanation for the difference. One is a more solid blue with tiny bits of a lighter blue. The second, which ended up being the sleeves and top of the sweater, has a lot more variation to it. And the lighter spots were a bit more green than blue. I would have been happy with both skeins being either version. So probably when I run out of frozen black beans, and need to do more, I will re-dye. My feeling is that I had too much fiber in the pot at once. The fiber tends to take up the dye fairly fast and maybe I did not get the yarn moved around fast enough to be even. The other idea is that when hung to dry, 2 of my 3 skeins had contact with my fiberglass shower wall. Maybe there was some sort of chemical reaction?? Who knows. But so far the blue has held up well under 2 washings and wearings, plus all the time that went by while the knitting was underway. So I feel pretty good about it's fastness. And of course, I can always re-dye if it fades!! So here are a few pics.

This next project has been going on for about a month. Previously referred to as "Secret Project" I am not sure why!! But this is my swirl shawl in progress. I have always loved this block and recently finally purchased the pattern. It is a JoJoLand pattern that I bought at a LYS. Every other quilt shop I saw this in was always out of the pattern when I asked to purchase it. The yarn is all fingering weight, sock yarn, dyed with natural materials. These were all the experiments that I did whilst I was new at the whole mother nature dyeing thing. Some of the materials were cochineal, black walnut, apple, marigold, lichen, dahlia, logwood, indigo, black bean, balloon flower, pecan, hibiscus, coffee, hollyhock, and dock. Well at least that is all I remember at this time!! The blocks are knit on to each other so no sewing together which I know would drive me crazy at the end. I am about 1/3 of the way thru and I know it will look a million times better once blocked. But it can not stay secret that long so here goes with the sneak peek!!

Next I do need to show you a few quick pics of the bedroom suite we finally ended up with. Found it on Craig's list for a song. It had been the guest room suite of a guy with a half million dollar house and had hardly ever been used. It is from a high end manufacturer and the only blemish on it is one we put in getting it in the house!! It came with a mattress and box spings that was worth more than we paid for the whole set. And boy is is comfy!! Pardon the the unmade bed. See the gray lump at the bottom?? When that lump is sleeping, the bed does not get made!!

And that leads me right into the last project. A quilt. For that bed. Nothing I have comes close to fitting in either size or style. I had a quilt started. With all brights and polkadots. But I laid those blocks out over the bed and boy did that not work. At all. So I rethought. One block I have always loved was Rolling Stone. I made 1 that is in my sampler wall quilt, hanging in the living room. And of course, my passion for civil war prints is pretty well indulged, so I had plenty of fabric to get started. That is, if I could find the box with all my civil war prints in it. The same said box also has my round robin blocks in it and I have seen it since we moved. But at this time, it is hiding somewhere. So I had to go buy a few new prints, none of which I like as well as what I have hanging around somewhere. But at least I could get started. I made these 2 blocks in just an hour or so. I didn't spend alot of time pinning or matching and they still came out just great. So maybe I can do something without my OCD slowing me down!! When the blocks were laid on the bed, in the room, they felt just like they belonged. So I just have a few hundred more blocks to whip up. Well, maybe just over a hundred. And this will get sent off for machine quilting, so it can go on the bed sometime before the next century begins.



Other than that, the garden's the only thing keeping us busy. I personally dug, with a shovel, a huge herb bed up by the back porch. It is at least 25 foot by 10 foot. Every shovel full of dirt held at least 1 big fat earthworm. And the dirt was so black and healthy looking. Better than the big garden a few yards away. I have not planted any herbs yet. It is still just a bit too cool. But it is ready. This year the bed will also hold all my salad veggies. So I just have to step out the door to pick a bowl of salad. I also put 4 blueberry plants in and hubby planted 6 muscadine vines. We will probably go pick up fruit trees over the next couple of weeks. We are hoping to buy them all locally but may not be able to find everything we want. So then we will go back to mail order. BTW-I ordered but have not received, 3 lilacs that supposedly handle warmer winters better and bloom well in the lower states. I can't wait til I can bury my nose into a bush full of amazing purple pannicles and breathe deep that amazing smell.

I Got the Blues, Yes, I got the Bluesssss.....

As usual, it has been a few weeks. I have been busy. Nothing unusual or new. Well, except for knitting projects. And dogs.

Let me introduce my dearest dog, Daisy. DBIL & DSIL brought her over from Chattanooga almost 2 weeks ago. Of course she remembered us and was happy to see us. But when Mary & Richard left she did seem a bit confused. And she hated our tile floors. But she has settled in without much ado at all. She had a couple of accidents in the house until she figured out how to let us know she needed out. She has never bothered the cats(their food or their litter), gotten in the garbage, barked much at all, or tried to sleep with us. We can have her out in the yard and she will run but not run away. She does not dig or chase cars. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?? Well there are a few things that we did have to work on. She chewed a baby tree in half one day out in the yard. We caught her so she did get properly admonished. And for days she kept trying to get in our face constantly all day long. We solved that in just moments when we figured out how to use the "penny can". She will back off and go lie down as soon as she hears the noise. We have actually only had to use it a few times in one day and seldom since. Now she seems so much more settled especially in the evenings. I am working on training her. She sits, stays and comes pretty well. We just started on "lay" down but at the rate she learns it will be old hat in a day or so. The cats have taken their good old time getting used to it all. Especially old Lexi. But for the first time, tonight, Jack is asleep in a chair in the living room just about a foot from where Daisy is also lying. One of the reasons I wanted Daisy to be ours, was that she was a good walker. Turns out she is not able to go on our walks after all. She is awesome but the other dogs out here distract her too much. There are so many dogs that are not confined to quarters and come out when we pass by. There has never been any aggression between them and Daisy. But she thinks they want to play and it is too hard to drag her on by. So I go by myself and most days I walk further than she could anyway. And both DH and I get her out in the yard for plenty of play time. By the way-the picture of her on the love seat?? It is the only thing we can not break her of. She loves to sleep there at night. So we gave up. And everynight I cover the loveseat with her fleece afghan and she gets up there and sleeps like a rock.

The blues that I got?? They are these beautiful ones that I got when I used the liquid from black beans to dye some yarn. The first dip gave me the blues in the hat. Which will also be a sweater(already on the needles, another gathered pullover). The second dip gave me the lighter blue. I am not sure if it is lighter cause the dye was beginning to exhaust or if it was because the yarn was not superwash(takes color faster and better) or if it was cause I ran out of cream of tartar so I only used alum as a mordant. What ever reason, no matter. I am going to knit and felt some hotpads and the color works very well with my kitchen. The third dip was over an already dyed yellow yarn. I threw it in to get some green and although the pics don't really show it that well, it is a very pretty green. Some folks on my natural dyes Yahoo group say that black bean dye fades fairly fast. But so far the hat has been worn out on all my walks for almost a week. Probably at least 8 hours of direct sunlight and I have not noticed any appreciable fading. So I am going to hope for the best and accept any fading that may come over time.

I have several new knitting projects going. Of course you could tell from above that I am making a new Gathered pullover. In that lovely blue that is the same as the hat. This is DK weight yarn so it will have a bit more body than the same sweater knit in sport weight. And I plan on making several more adjustments in the pattern to make it a bit more perfect. The other project is one that I am doing to use up all the bits of natural dyed yarn I have on hand. No pics yet. Lets just say it is going to be gorgeous. More on that later.

We have finally started making real plans to take our 2 DGD's to Disney World over their spring break. We have our hotel rooms booked and most of our travel plans laid out. We haven't told the girls yet and hopefully we will do that this weekend. I can't wait to hear those happy voices shouting out with joy!!

Awesomeness

Awesomeness on this walk, on a gorgeous winter day, in the amazing state of Tennessee. I know, I do go on a bit too much about our new locale but unless you have been here, don't you roll your eyes.....

Awesomeness on this finished project. The tshirt I am wearing under the sweater simply does not do a thing for the look, but it was what I was already wearing. And DH is so not the photographer. But you get the idea. This is knit from sportweight yarn, hand dyed by me with husks from black walnuts. It is not as dark as I would like but I think I am not going to get it any darker. I want to immediately cast on for another one. But no yarn........must order......must wait for delivery........must dye..........must wash.......and wait for it to dry............swatch........so no new sweater til sometime next month. So I guess I will dig in my stash and start some quicky project to tide me over. I would start peicing a quilt but I can't seem to find my rotary cutter. I know I packed it to be in the car when we moved but I sure can't seem to find it now.

Awesomeness, cause I managed to get thru an entire week of healthy living. I was feeling a bit sluggish due to the 15+ lbs I had put on since summer. I am not exactly sure of how much it is since I have not owned a scale in many years. But I found a website that is proving to be very helpful to me in getting thru the weight loss. It is called Sparkpeople. It is not just a weight loss site but has tons of info, tools, inspiration and success strageties. It was started by a man who made a bundle with an on-line company that he sold to Ebay. He wanted to give back to the internet world so he started this site and offers it all for free. I joined a group that is doing a cyber walk across the US. I chose Portsmouth NH for my starting point. This is where DD will be living very soon. And I will end at the other coast, at my DS's location. I am using Mapmyrun.com to help me track the journey. I am in Mass. right now and I do think this is going to be a very long term commitment!! But the group has been together a long time and are very supportive to us newbies.

http://www.mapmyrun.com/walk/united-states/me/kittery-point/386680740102

Any non-awesomeness in my life right now? The cold we are getting ready to have the rest of this week. I do not do 8 degrees, even at night. But what's a few frigid days deep in the month of January. I have my knitting and my friends to keep me warm.

Last FO's of 2008, On to 2009

I think I am the only blogger in the whole entire world who did not post a "Good Wishes" type entry for the holidays. But I sure enjoyed everybody else's. I watched lots of great YouTube Christmas Carol videos, saw tons of holiday picture montages, read a good bit of New Year's Resolutions, and laughed over The Panopticon's "12 Days of Christmas" with Delores the randy Sheep. Me-I just sat on my lazy bottom and knit. And for once I actually have pics of a finished object. Of course I had to wait until someone else took the picture, download it onto his computer and then send it to me.

That someone was my dearest brother-in-law, who with his wife(hubby's sister)came from Chattanooga for dinner the day after Christmas. It is the first time they have been over to our new house. Heck, it is the first time they had ever been to our house at all. In 32 years. But now that we are much closer we all vow to make up for lost time. Now maybe we will visit, oh, maybe every 6 months?? We are such a close knit family and all!!

But I did make one heck of a great Christmas dinner for them. I had appetizers. Fresh strawberries, blackberries and 2 kinds of amazing cheeses. We had a soup and bread course. With homemade breads, rustic brown and french. And Curried Pumpkin soup. Well with out the curry cause I forgot to make sure I had some on hand. Then it was the smoked turkey they brought, killer Au Gratin potatos and roasted Balsamic Brussell Sprouts. Oh-and I forgot to say wine. We did have wine. I would say it was good wine, but little did I know that under the foil at the top, instead of corks, they had screwcaps. It is hard to call a wine with a screwcap a good wine. But we made up for it in quantity. Dessert was a homemade Cranberry Cheesecake that did it's damnest to not come out of my ancient springform pan. But the food gods must have known that if I am making a once in a 32 year dinner, nothing should go really wrong.

In between courses, we took walks over our property and up the road to see the view. Richard(DBIL) is doing our landscape plan. I love to grow things, but I have absolutely no idea of how to make things look good. I have no flow, no vision, no clue. But Richard does and I pretty much twisted his arm to help me out. So we photographed, measured and drew out the whole property and hopefully within a few more days, we will have a plan on paper to start implementing.

So while the camera was out he took pictures of Ken and I in front of the house. It just so happens I was wearing my latest finished project-My "February Ladies Sweater". I wasn't sure when I knit it that I would like using the Nashua Creative Focus yarn because of its inherent fuzziness. But you know, it worked up just fine. My only regret is making the sleeves about 4" to long. They come almost to my wrists and they really need to end just below the elbows. I could probably take them out and reknit the cuffs. But you know what?? I am not. I will just wear it like it is and when I knit it again, I will make adjustments. But it is warm and comfortable and well worth the time I put in knitting it. Wish I could say that about every garment I make.

The first project of 2009 is my Gathered Pullover from the IK library. Right now I am in the middle of the cabled area on the front. I have both loved and hated this project at one time, sometimes only minutes apart. I love that I dyed my own yarn, from native black walnuts, hated that it is not dark enough, Loved that I got gauge the first time I tried, hated that it was way to loose looking. Loved when I recast on with smaller needles, hated that I had to take it back out cause I let it twist when I joined in the round. Loved that the sweater will not have cost a fortune to knit, hated that the yarn is not the very best quality, with little breaks coming way to often. Love that it is an easy pattern with lots of stockinette, hate that I can't knit for long without arm pain. Hopefully I will have more loves than hates when all is said and done.

I also managed to get pics of my finished indigo Firestarters. This was the first time to use this base yarns from Catnip Yarns. It is a very soft 100% wool superwash sock yarn that dyed up so very pretty. I could not wait to get these socks done and on my feet. To bad that the first time I wore them they showed serious signs of wear over my big toes on both feet. So I will have to save these for delicate wear and make sure those dagger toe nails of mine are always well clipped before donning said socks. Still they are very pretty. Even if the blue still crocks off just a bit turning my feet a very worrisome blue color..

There was one place in the neighborhood that I did not have a photo for in my last post. I talked about it, but I still had not grabbed the camera any time I was headed in that direction. So DBIL stopped and took this photo of the large billboard right by the side of the parking lot. I tried to convince him to wait til dark so he could also take pics of the christmas lights at the adult bookstore that is also at our interstate exit. They look like fireworks exploding. I love those lights!! It is so much fun living a mile from such interesting landmarks!!

So now for my New Year's wish for all of you. I can only hope that everyone will find peace in their hearts, joy in their lives and happiness in every thing that they do. And that no matter what the differences, that they can lay down together and take a nap like my 2 beasties!!

Walk About

Don't don't faint dead away. 2 posts in less than a week. What is the blogging world coming to?

There will not be much about knitting today. Not that I haven't been knitting, I have. On the indigo socks, which if you could see my fingers, you would know I am telling the truth. The blue does not lie. And I got a sample of my new sweater yarn into the black walnut pot. What I got out was a nice warm brown with none of the harshness I got with the sock yarn and walnut. So I guess that I will go ahead and start the process of dyeing up 1600 yards of sport weight in a nice yummy brown here as soon as our funky weather gets it's act together. I do not consider 36 degrees and dense fog to be condusive to any kind of outdoor activity.

So on to the real subject of my post. In the few short weeks I have lived here I have enjoyed a number of very nice walks. Some upwards of 5 miles round trip. And I have been amazed at how beautiful the area surrounding us is. So I am taking this opportunity to introduce you to our new neighborhood-with the hopes that some of my dear friends will find it a lovely enough place to come visit some day.

First up will be our closest neighbors. They live directly across the street. And all that separates us from them is an almost invisible electric fence. So some days I look out and it appears they are standing right in our yard. They aren't!! They are so lovely it makes me feel a bit embarressed to not be a vegetarian.

Next house is one we should have bought. It was sold at absolute auction just about 3 weeks before we bought our house. It is a bit smaller house but with about 10 more acres and a killer view. But unfortunately we did not hear about the house while we were searching and missed out on that opportunity. We keep reminding ourselves that it would have meant a lot more mowing and not nearly enough space in the house. We would have had to build on. Still.......

Now these neighbors are the quietest ones we have. No kidding. Never cause a bit of stir. Of course, we weren't around on Halloween. That might have been another story altogether!!

The graveyard shares a nice spot atop a hill with this house. An older gentleman lives there, hopefully not all alone. Cause this house is huge. And again, with what must be a jaw dropping view.

Now, don't start thinking that all our neighbors live quite up to the standards of the last few houses. There are plenty of these around.

There are only a few more houses on our road. They are obviously small working farms with decent houses but really really nice land. They have small herds of cattle, lots of wheat fields and large gardens.

I have always loved old barns with roofs caving in, just barely standing. But enough to protect the hay they need for the winter months.

All around us are old twisted, garled trees, covered with lichen and moss. I love the way they look against a bright blue winter sky.

Even in the depth of winter, I still find intersting bits of color to attract my eye, and camera.

Again, it is not all without its down side. First of all-the interstate runs about a mile behind our house. Of course, it does make it easy access to travel anywhere. Or to come to see us!! This is interstate 65. Runs south from Nashville, thru Birmingham and right down to the coast of Alabama.

And then there is the interesting bit of adult intertainment at exit 6 of said interstate(our exit, of course). I haven't been able to get pics yet. But we have a famous attraction called Big Jim's Boobie Bungalow!! You can Google it, cause it causes quite a stir when traveller's down the highway see all the billboards for miles. Also there is at least 1 adult bookstore and probably one other "club". But honestly except at night, the parking lots are empty. Even then it doesn't bother us. We are just far enough away no one would get lost and come down our road. And it does give us a landmark to tell people to look for. Just get off the interstate at the Boobie Bungalow!!

And so that concludes my tour of the area. Hope you enjoyed the walk along with me. This picture is one of our house taken on my walk back down the hill. I think this summer it will be much harder to see when the line of trees leaf out.

And this my friends-is for you. Just to remind you that I love you all!!

Back to the Business of Pictures!

I used the excuse of not having the transfer cable to my camera for not blogging. Who wants to read about my boring life, unless I at least throw in a few decent pictures. But out of the blue, the other day, I remembered that my fancy dancy laptop has a card reader! I had never used it, but remember reading about it when I first got the computer. So I located the said device on the front of the laptop. I found it a bit hard to slide the tiny card into this miniscule slot and it made me a bit nervous to try and force it. But lo and behold, it did work and now at least I can attempt to entertain you, both visually and verbally. Whether or not I succeed is up to interpretation!!

First up is an attempt at taking a night time photo. I finally found my tripod and we were about to have one of the 2 biggest full moons of the year(these occur at the full moon closest to the winter and summer solstices). So I refreshed my memory on how to use the shutter delay and shot away. This was the best attempt, although it was not just what I had envisioned.

Then this is the very next morning. We had so much rain in the last few days. Some parts of Tennessee set a record for the most rain in 24 hrs. So the ground was very saturated and with the cold mornings it set up the perfect scenerio for the formation of hoarfrost. When I woke and saw what beauty had been laid out before me, I just had to grab the camera and go outside. Cold hands, be damned.

What I failed to get in a picture are the 2 deer that visit the back of our land each morning. That morning they were standing right next to a stand of trees that were sparkling with all the crystals. Just an amazing sight. Of course, those same said deer, will probably be the bane of our existence come spring planting time!!

My knitting is still progressing slowly. Not that I don't work on it every day. But my right arm has really been bothering me. And I can't blame it on my computer use because I just don't get a lot of time to sit here and use it anymore. I am doing all kinds of stretching and range of motion exercises but nothing seems to be helping right now. So at least I get a little done each day, knowing that things will still get done. Just not prolifically, like in my wildest dreams.

I am now at the heel of the 2nd Indigo Firestarter. Of course, I was already there once. A few days ago. But in turning the heel, I just did not have enough stitches. I counted and recounted until I finally realized, my stitch count had been off from the beginning. Or almost the beginning. Since I started at the toe, the first thing I do is a bunch of increase rounds. So I just stopped with those a little early. And it makes me mad, cause I should have known. At one point, I had put the finished first sock up against the one in progress. And they did not match up quite right. Did I stop then and try to figure it out? Well of course not. I just kept on going another couple of days. So then I had to just frog the whole thing and I am just now back where I was. But hopefully it will just be a few more days to finish up. And in that time I can get my next project started by dyeing the yarn. I have a huge bucket full of black walnuts soaking on the back porch. I will strain that off in a couple of days, throw in the yarn, let it sit for a couple of days. Then rinse, dry and wind into balls. I did decide for sure to make the Gathered Pullover from IK. I have the pattern somewhere in the sewing room stuff, still packed. So I will probably just rebuy the pattern from the IK on line store. In fact I may never buy their magazine again. But just wait until a pattern I like shows up there. Some show up in a matter of months. And I will always be that far behind in my knitting projects anyway!!

So now I will close with a cute couple of pics of my monster kitty Lexi. She has had to become a completely indoor kitty now. And thus, has been a bit bored and restless. She is climbing on everything(she did not used to) and getting into everything. I am trying to be better about giving her some one on one play time each day to tire her out. So far that is working-NOT!! But I will stop in and buy her a few new toys next time we get to town. She loves a laser pointer and we don't seem to have one right now in our possession. But she is a good girl and she let me put her in a dog sweater while we were still in Chattanooga. She didn't even act to horrible about it all. I think she looked quite like a little fashionista!!

And now of one of Lexi helping us unpack.

Just a few Words(and only words)

I have to admit, I have gotten quite addicted to using a blog reader. I happen to be using Google's Blog reader, but there are many others. I can go every day to Google Reader and there are all the new entries made since I last checked in. And on the home page there are always 3 new blog suggestions for me. They home in on the content of the blogs I read and then find others that I may also enjoy. So far I have added a number of new knitting and fiber related blogs to my list and very much enjoy reading about all the projects that they are pumping out. And this brings me to today. I bring up my page and there are 16 new entries for me to read. And then I start to feel guilty. Very very guilty, knowing how long it has been since I posted to my own personal page. So here I am, for what it is worth. Maybe I will show up tomorrow on someone else's blog reader. And that someone will say, Gee I thought maybe she fell off the face of the earth.

I guess the best thing to happen since my last post is that the move to the new house has been made. Everything is here, except my camera cable. So there will not be any new pictures for awhile. Til either I find the wayward cable hiding somewhere, go to Chattanooga and find it there, or if all else fails, buy a new one.

We have done a fair bit of unpacking. The kitchen is up and running, although I am still missing a few pots, pans, utensils and dishes. I went and made a grocery run to Walmart which costs the better part of $400.00!! That's right, it now costs a small fortune to restock a pantry and eat for a week.

The rest of the house is partially together. At least the best we can do til we decide to buy more furniture. I have a few pictures up but have already run out of the picture hooks that I use. Both computers are operational. In fact we are quite pleased to say that our internet access is much better than what we expected. We are using a company that provides signal thru cell phone towers. As far as we can tell it is the only company that is not rationing signal by using a FAP, or Fair Access Policy. All other non land based providers ration signal so that if you download much of anything you can not use any more signal that day. Or you can pay an horrendously huge amount of money each month to use a business level account. And even then you probably could only download 2 or 3 songs a day before they cut you off. But for now, with this company we can surf and download just as freely as we did with our cable internet access we had in Oklahoma. Yes, it is a bit more expensive than cable. But until the phone company decides to provide DSL(neighbors on each side of us have it) this is what we have. And darned happy to have it.

The kitties are adjusting quite well. Lexi has regained her bad habits of jumping on tables and counters. I keep putting her down and telling her no but I think she just has to "own" everything first then she will stop. Jack took a bit longer to come out and relax but as we speak now, he is lounging on my knitting on the couch, waiting for me to come back and sit with him.

On the knitting front: I totally have the February Ladies sweater done and it has even been worn. But I do not have a good finished picture yet. I started the Firestarter sock in my hand dyed indigo. I have one sock done and just cast on for #2. The yarn turns my fingers slightly blue every time I knit but it gets less with each session. The yarn, with it's subtle variations in color are gorgeous, soft and cozy. I love the Firestarter pattern and this is the 2nd time I have used it. This time I was knitting with finer yarn than called for so I had to add stitches. But it has all worked out perfectly in the pattern and the socks fit me to a T.

I am starting to think ahead at my next project. I have some yarn here I could go ahead and knit up a shawl. But I am not in the shawl kind of mood. I am in an anther sweater mood. Maybe it is cause the house is cold and propane is so very expensive. But for whatever reason, I think I will go and order enough worsted weight undyed, and dye and knit something fast. I am thinking maybe Gathered Pullover from IK. That is such a nice, easy sweater that I think will flatter my figure and look good with jeans. I have lots of natural dyeing options that wouldn't be too hard to dye up in a large enough amount for an entire sweater. More on my decision next time.

Ken is in his office working with Abba playing. It really makes me want to see Mama Mia. To bad we can't find the DVD player!! We know it is out there, just have to work thru the boxes a bit more!! Meanwhile I think I will go dance a bit in the livingroom(out of DH's sight) and use it as exercise and to warm up just a bit!!