Author: LDSVenus

Happy Birthday USA!

/ LDSVenus

.I love my country and couldn’t let my country’s birthday pass by without saying “long may my country live and long may her flag fly”.  The freedom, this country affords anyone who is here legally and who is honest, is beyond what many in the world experience.  For those who don’t agree, this freedom affords you the right to speak your mind and disagree – try that in a country without the constitution and/or who has a dictator as a leader and see how much freedom you are afforded there.  HAPPY BIRTDAY USA!!!

I love this video of Red Skelton – one of my favorite old time entertainers.

http://youtu.be/TZBTyTWOZCM

Update on 2nd Comfort Shawl – Kinda Sorta :)

/ LDSVenus

Click on picture for larger image

.

Well, obviously deadlines were made to be broken ;).  I have been knitting on it , and this is not a great picture but just to show you it’s a bit over 1/2 way done.  I wasn’t able to knit on it as much as I had hoped and I made an error on a row and will have to tink back 3 rows to fix it, arrrgh!  That has made me put it aside for a few days but I’m going to tink the rows back this evening and get started on it again.  There will be a few changes to the pattern before I publish it on my website, some things that I weren’t what I was trying to do, but can fix them in the pattern.

I hope you all have had a chance to check out my sister’s blog Eat It Anyway, she has some good recipes and awesome crafts there. (Hey, sis, can I have some pralines now?) hehe.

Memorial Day – Thank You

/ LDSVenus

Memorial Day

THANK YOU to all those who now serve our great and blessed country.

THANK YOU to all those who love this country and served in the past.

And to those who served with pride and honor and lost their lives, WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOUR GREAT SACRIFICE IN OUR BEHALF OR IN BEHALF OF OTHERS WHO SOUGHT FREEDOM.                 (John 15:13)

Busy Month

/ LDSVenus

 

.What a busy month this has been.  Things are picking up at work and it has been pretty busy (tho’ my supervisor tells me it’s not that busy – I’ve seen the numbers and it has picked up, but yes it will get much busier :P).  This week will be the busiest of the month and will only get busier as the summer comes.   My weekends this month have been busy with church projects for service.  I went to the Temple the first Saturday of this month (it’s a 2 1/2 to 3 hr drive), cleaned the chapel the next Saturday and yesterday our Relief Society did a service project and made baby blankets for the neonatal preemie unit at our local hospital and made thank you and birthday cards for the local meals on wheels program.  Always feels good to do service, but makes the weekends go by way too fast :P.  Next Saturday I have a dear friend that is coming to town to visit me and to see her daughter graduate from high school, that does not seem possible – only yesterday her daughter was this little girl getting ready for kindergarten.

There are some people who ride the bus in the mornings that have varying degrees of Down’s syndrome.  They are going to their day hab programs or to the places that hire them to work a few hrs a day.  I notice that when other people get on the bus they usually sit farther back.  I don’t, I sit up front closer to them – I enjoy their playful light hearted chatter with each other and their friendliness.  They always have a smile and a hello and it’s a refreshing distraction before the stressful duties of my job.  I feel like they are the closest I will get to angels here on earth.

I continue to work on the comfort shawl, but have not had the time to work on it as much as I would like to, I was hoping to be done with it by now, but am just a little bit over 1/2 done.  I’ll give my self another couple of weeks before I start fussing at myself.  I do knit a few rows on the bus ride home and when I’m not to busy to take my lunch break, I knit then too, but that really is not nearly enough time to be spending on it.  I’d really like to be spinning on that cria alpaca, however I can’t justify my spinning until I get closer to finished with the shawl.  I’ll update my progress on the shawl next week, maybe setting a deadline will make me find the time to work on it.  sigh.

One Year Ago Today…..

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

Son & Grand Daughter

 It’s been a year ago today since I lost my youngest child.  He called me almost every night and I miss those phone calls.  He never had anything  really serious talk about, I think he was just lonely and wanted to talk about what his day had been like to someone who would listen to him and cared about it.  My biggest fear is that his little daughter won’t remember who he was because she was only 3 1/2 and she and her mom live about 5 hrs from me.  My car won’t drive that far so I have no way to visit her and if the mom ever comes to my city, she’s never let me know.  I’m not angry at the mom, tho’ she will have a lot to explain to her daughter when she gets older, I just hope she will help my grand daughter to remember her dad, who loved her very much.

.

Grand Daughter's Watercolor

.
My oldest grand daughter is very artistic.  She likes to do beading and she plays the violin.  Now she has done this watercolor in her art class (she is in middle school).  I’m properly impressed – I know my sister will be impressed too as she is also very artistic as well and she and my grand daughter are best buds.   I also enjoy many crafts and I sing so I guess she comes by it naturally. 😉  She gave this picture to me and probably tomorrow I will go find a frame for it.  I introduced my other two grand children (who will be 5 and 3 next month) to the Smurfs.  Hehe, they loved the old cartoons.  When I go to babysit on Friday nights they always ask if I’m bringing my Smurf dvd (bought it from amazon.) 
..
 
I’m over half way through the 2nd comfort shawl now.  Had to tink about 4 rows, twice – was trying to knit in a car while carrying on a conversation while on the way to the Temple in Nauvoo last Saturday (such a peaceful place).  Anyway that meant that I had to re-knit the tinked rows twice,  sheesh.  Hope everyone is enjoying the last of spring as we get ready to head into summer.  And I have to say that we have hit the upper 80’s already this last week, and my air conditioner is on the fritz.  My land lord is going to have someone come look at it.  He looked at it and said he thought it was the fan.  After today the temps are going back down a bit so it won’t be so hard on my fur baby.  At least living on the upper floor of the apt I have been able to leave windows open so it wasn’t sweltering inside.

Happy Easter – 2011

/ LDSVenus / 1 Comment

He is Risen!

 

Spring is my favorite time of year as new life begins to bloom and trees and grass take on their beautiful green colors, wipeing away the dreary winter.  One of my favorite things about Spring is Easter and the Atonement and Resurrection of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.   How blessed I feel to know that I can repent and try again when I make mistakes and that because Christ rose from the dead, that there will be a resurrection for all of us.

The youth speaker today told a very powerful story that gave a simple example of the atonement.  I found it already written out on this blog.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

Wishing everyone a blessed and wonderful Easter Day.

2nd Comfort Shawl Update & General Conference

/ LDSVenus / 1 Comment

2nd Comfort Shawl Update - click picture for larger image

 

Here is the newest picture.  It’s coming right along and looks pretty good so far, it is not blocked in this picture.  I promise I will post the instructions as soon as I am finished so I can make sure all the kinks are worked out.  I’m sure it will be at least several weeks out before I’m finished with this shawl.  I’ve been able to knit on it a lot the last two days as General Conference is this week end and I do have the BYU channel on my cable here.  So I’ve been able to sit on my couch and knit as I listen to the Prophet, his Counselors, the quorum of the 12 Apostles and the other General Authorities of the Church speak.  It has been wonderfully uplifting, a spiritual feast which has been so needed.  I have looked forward more than usual for several months to General Conference in anticipation of the spiritual uplift and peace it always brings to me.  What a blessing my tesitmony is in my life, knowing the Gospel of Jesus Christ is on the earth again, with living prophets and apostles and their living testimony of the Savior.  

With all the upheaval in the world today, natural disasters and personal burdens and turmoil – I wish you his peace.

The Bus Ride

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

Well while my foot is healing I had been getting rides from a co-worker, but she isn’t able to take me anymore so for the past few weeks I’ve been riding the bus.  I have to get up earlier and it gets me to work about 30 min early, which is fine – I’d rather be early than late.  Usually it is pretty boring, except for some unusual people who ride occasionally.  However yesterday on the way home we were about a block from my work and had to stop for a train.  There was a tractor trailer (aka Big Rig), from the local community college for training new tractor trailer drivers, coming the other way also stopped.  All of a sudden it started rolling onto the track with the train coming.  All of us in the bus were “Oh my gosh!!”  Pretty quick the student driver jumped out of the truck and the instructor got the truck restarted and was pulling it off the tracks while the train was stopping and the student driver ran in front of the truck just before the truck got off the track.  He made it to the sidewalk but I thought “DANG!!”  I’m sure he failed that test!!!  He’s lucky to be alive.  Everyone on the bus was talking about that for the next 30 min (takes me about 40 mins to get to work and to get home in the evenings, but only 15 mins in my car)  Then just before we got to my stop a pick up truck ran a stop sign and almost hit the bus as we were turning.  I told the bus driver as I got off that it had been a really interesting ride that day.

2nd Comfort Shawl Start

/ LDSVenus / 1 Comment

Start of 2nd comfort Shawl

 

Ok, I promised a picture of the start of the comfort shawl I have designed (well I didn’t create the lace pattern – it appears to be a shetland lace pattern, someone correct me if I’m wrong – but I did design where that pattern went on a rectangular shaw.)  I am stagering the pattern every other row rather than have them right under each other every row.  I’ll post another picture when I get more done, it was hard to block enough of it to see the design properly with so little of it done yet.  This is alpaca yarn, and unfortunately has been disconntinued but it is very soft and I love it.  A comfort shawl should be comfy and soft and so I wanted to use alpaca for it, I should have just enough to do this shawl.  🙂

PIF IS HERE!!!!

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

PIF!!!! (click picture to enlarge)

.

I got home from work today and there was a box for me.  WOOHOO! it was the PIF (pay it forward) from my knitting/spinning  friend at LS Fiber Adventures.

Don’t you love getting unexpected packages?  It came at a perfect time as this has been a hard week.  I opened it up and there was all this loveliness!  She knitted me the most beautiful lace scarf with beautiful shades of turquoise (my favorite color!)  I’m sure she spun the yarn as well.  It will be well loved! 🙂  There is some beautiful Bluefaced Leicester roving to spin – I’ve never spun this kind of wool it will be a fun adventure and spinning hand painted multi color roving is way fun because you never know what you will end up with.  There is a CD with gospel music that will be a wonderful addition to my Sunday music, I love hymns and gospel music ;).  There was a fun pair of Easter socks (they will be very fun to wear!)  There are two very cute  journals, as a latter-day saint I do keep a journal, tho not as diligently as I should, this is a great reminder to keep up with it and when my present journal is full, these will take it’s place.  And last but hardly least there is some very yummy eatable goodies – wonderfully delicious wafers rolled around a vanilla creme 🙂 and Cadbury mini eggs.  I feel like it’s Christmas!!!