Winter Weather & Thor

December 12, 2010 / LDSVenus / 6 Comments

Christmas Tree 2010

.I put my tree up the first week-end after Thanksgiving. It’s a lovely little fiber optic tree that I bought from someone at work about 4 years ago. I love the color changes and that it’s small enough to fit in my apartment. Brings back memories of my mom’s first favorite tree. It was one of those silver aluminum trees that had the color wheel that you put close to it, and the sliver aluminum branches would pick up the changing colors. Later in her life, she had a beautifully flocked artificial tree that looked as real as any I’ve ever seen, and the skirt was a beautiful alpaca fleece, it even looked soft in the pictures.

Evening of Snow Storm

Next Morning

Well, we had a blizzard yesterday evening and through the night. However because the snow was heavy and wet it didn’t blow around in the up to 40 mile an hour winds, so we were spared that part of what most people experience in a blizzard. This was our second snow of the season and the snows are coming late this year, tho I’m not complaining, we will have plenty yet to come. We didn’t get very much, certainly not as much as those north of us.

Can I come out now?

Thor is doing well and is such a joy in my life. He has been such a blessing to me. He only expects food, water and time with me. Well, and an occasional treat that I can’t resist giving to him. He’s getting older, he will be 5 next spring which is getting old for a ferret. I’m blessed that he has been and continues to be healthy, but I know the time will come when his health fails, then he will need me to be a good mom taking care of all his medical needs, which I will do with as much love as he has given me.

I’m still knitting on the comfort shawl, it’s about 3/4’s finished now. I’m also finding time to work on spinning the cria fiber, I love the softness of it as I spin it. I’ve found that working on the comfort shawl for someone else who lost a child and spinning that wonderfully soft fiber has been comforting to me this Christmas season as I find my self missing my youngest son so much.

Navuoo Temple

December 4, 2010 / LDSVenus / 2 Comments

Early Morning Trip to Navuoo, IL

I had the chance to go to Navuoo again. It’s about a 2 & 1/2 hr drive and it was cold with a bit of freezing rain this morning until we were about 1/2 hr out of Iowa City. The Temple in Navuoo is so beautiful inside.

On the way home we stopped at Stringtown Grocery (a grocery store with lots of bulk spices etc) run by the Amish. I’ve been there once before and hadn’t noticed that their lights are gas lights since they don’t use electricity. I love their bulk spices and other bulk items. I was able to do some knitting on the way back (I was napping on the way up :P.)

I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas Season and that we are remembering the “reason” for this season. May the Lord bless and keep you all.

Harry Potter and Other Things

November 29, 2010 / LDSVenus / 1 Comment

2nd Spool of Cria

I’m finally spinning my 2nd spool of Alpaca Cria. This is the softest stuff!! It’s so wonderful to spin!!! Knitting it will be wonderful too :). This will be my 2nd skein of yarn and I might need one more, then I can make the shawl I have in mind for this wonderfully soft fiber.

…

spinning BFL/Romney

I got a friend of mine at my church interested in spinning with a spindle I made her, and she has gone whole hog, buying whole fleeces and carding them herself. I thought wow, I love to spin, but I’m not into getting a whole fleece, washing it, and carding it- yet! 🙂 She kindly gave me some of a BFL/Romney fleece (already carded of course) that she had purchased. It’s a very springy and surprisingly soft fiber. Not as soft as the Alpaca, but it will make a nice pair of socks or a scarf :). She has 7 whole fleeces on order for next spring. 🙂

I did go see Harry Potter 1 & 1/2 weeks ago. It was wonderful, and well worth the 2 hr wait in line (yes my daughter and I were one of the first in line so we could get good seats. Didn’t want a crick in my neck from having to sit way up front like I loved to do as a kid – can’t even imagine why I wanted to do that ;). I think they chose a good place to break the movie and I’m anticipating the next and final installment of the movie series. Nice thing is I don’t have to wait 2 years, it will be shown this coming June, so only a 7 month wait. 🙂 If you haven’t gone to see this yet, I encourage you to do so. If you haven’t seen any of them yet, I suggest you rent them in order, and then go see this one (it won’t make a lot of sense unless you’ve seen the others, like starting a book near the end and then wondering what in the world it’s all about.) Wonderful visual effects.

I will be a permanent employee as of 12/1. I’m very excited and it relieves a lot of “uncertainty stress”. I will still have to watch my finances until my son’s funeral is paid off, but it will be a permanent income source now instead of wondering how long will this one last and not losing pay on my paycheck for the holidays the company gives.

Happy Thanksgiving

November 25, 2010 / LDSVenus / 1 Comment

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with lots of Turkey, mashed potatoes, your other favorite side dishes and pumpkin or mincemeat pie. It’s a time to be thankful for family and for living in a free country and and all the other tremendous blessings that brings us. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Happy News Swallowed with Sad

November 17, 2010 / LDSVenus

I watched the Cowboy’s game against the Giants that was played on Sunday, on Monday night because I recorded it to watch on a different day, and OH MY GOSH they were awesome – it was like a different team. I was going to gloat about their amazing win, and I was going to, with great excitement, let my family know that my supervisor where I am working let me know that my permanent position would start Dec 1st instead of Jan 1st, I’ve been looking for permanent full time work for 3 years and was excited to have found something I enjoy. But I got some very sad news today. Not just one but two sad things. My daughter let me know that her Grandmother (her father’s mom) had passed away this morning. She was a wonderful lady in every sense of the word, she was always very kind to me. She will be greatly missed. Then my sister called me and let me know that my Uncle had passed away today. So my happy news was swallowed up with sad. This has not been a really great year. All we can do is pick up and go forward, hoping for a better next year.

Christmas Cactus – First Bloom for 2010

November 14, 2010 / LDSVenus / 1 Comment

1st Bloom for 2010

1st Bloom almost fully open

They bloom fast once they get going. I missed getting the picture of the bloom opening. They are very unusual but pretty. I love the hint of a very soft pink they have on them.

I’ll get another picture when I have several of the blooms open.

click on picture for larger image

Another update on this comfort shawl, which really should have been finished by now. It doesn’t look like it, but it is half way finished. By the time it’s blocked it will be much longer and wider than it looks. I love knitting with Alpaca, it’s soft and squishy and it should be a wonderfully soft and very warm shawl.

I have several shawls in the wings after this one, so I best get my bottom in gear!!!

My supervisor at the temp job I am working let me know this week that they will be hiring me permanent full time in Jan. I am very happy to know I will finally, after 3 years of working part time or temporary jobs, have a permanent and full time job and it will be nice to be paid for the holidays they take and will make my financial situation a little less precarious. I know we are given trials to learn from, and it has been a learning experience. I hope I learned everything I needed to learn because I certainly hope I don’t have to re-learn anything in that experience again.

Fall Back & Christmas Cactus

November 6, 2010 / LDSVenus / 1 Comment

click on picture for larger image

My cactus is blooming a little later than last year, which started in early October last year. I left it outside longer this year, until almost freezing at night, but we have had a nice fall so maybe that is why. I’ll post a picture just before blooms appear and then after they are blooming so that you can see the development of the buds to blooms. I did re-pot it this summer so that it wasn’t cramped up in that little plastic pot it was originally in. It seems to like the room and has been growing. I’ll probably have to re-pot it again next summer. I’ve had it for 4 Christmas’ this year, it was a gift from a friend almost 4 years ago. It would probably be bigger if I had re-potted it earlier instead of leaving it in that small pot for so long.

Well I’m a happy camper, I GET MY HOUR OF SLEEP BACK!!!! Don’t forget to set your clocks back 1 hour tonight before you go to bed, I can guarentee you, I WON’T FORGET!!!

I Hope You Voted!!

November 2, 2010 / LDSVenus

I hope you all got out today and voted. I did. My son and I tease that we cancel each other out. But that is alright, it’s our civic duty to vote, what an awful state we would be in if we didn’t have that right and opportunity!! Guess we will see in the morning who will be in control of the House and Senate and our state.

lsfiberadventure has posted a picture, of the PIF I sent, on her blog. 🙂 You can see it here. PIF’s are fun to do, they take time and a little bit of money :P, but they are fun. I think the most fun is waiting to see if they will like what you sent, and well, yes – the excitement of getting your own PIF package in the mail ;).

PIF Sent

October 31, 2010 / LDSVenus

I got all the things for my PIF ready and sent them off a week ago last Saturday. My PIF recipient has received it. If she posts a picture of the things I sent I will post a link for you. I sent her some really pretty fiber to spin, a cute old fashion Easter toy with candy in it, a pen with a soft plastic sheep’s head on the top, two hand knit dish cloths, a bag that I machine embroidered “I love to knit with handspun” on, two yummy special chocolate candy bars and the knitting book “One Skein -30 quick project to knit and crochet”. As usual the PIF was fun to put together. I may do it again next year. The nice thing about them is you have a whole year to put things together for your (up to 3) recipients.

I broke down and went to the Dr on Saturday because my breathing has been uncomfortable, lots of dry coughing, and I’ve been so tired I haven’t even worked very much on the comfort shawl I need to finish. He listened and said yes, you are rattling in there (referring to my lungs, not my head ;)). He also said that this was the sickest summer he can remember in his 50 years of doctoring. He attributed it the tearing down of many of the houses that were damaged 2 years ago in the horrendous floods they had here and all the mold and mildew that has stirred up. Everyone’s allergies have been much worse this year, including my own (and I have awful fall allergies). I’m afraid it will probably be the same next year when they finish up the “de-construction” of these flood damaged houses. He put me on some medication that will help with the coughing spasms and I will continue to take my decongestant and allergy meds. Oh the joys of allergies.

My supervisor at my temp job told me she had extended my stay and was checking into when they could hire me on permanent. WOOT WOOT!! That was what I was hoping for!!! I have been working temp jobs since I lost my job at the Title Insurance company about 3 years ago due to the collapse of the housing market. It’s been unsettling knowing the jobs were temporary, but Heavenly Father has been kind and they have been long term while I’ve waited for a job that I enjoyed and could do well that was permanent. I wouldn’t want to do this again, but it has been a learning experience and gives me a lot of compassion for all those who are seeking work in this awful and depressed economy. I know that my “good fortune” in being able to support myself (even if a bit scary because of the instability of this kind of work and the change in wages with each job), is because I pay my tithing. And I know that my ability to have a safe place to live, that is within my means, is because I work hard at keeping the Sabbath holy, leaving the worldly things to the other 6 days of the week. Those are promises that go with those commandments. How blessed we are when we follow the commandments, and how grateful I am to understand that.

Yesterday – Yes I had another Birthday

October 10, 2010 / LDSVenus / 2 Comments

Pumpkins at Bloomsberry Farm

As much as I’d like birthdays to just go away, they come every year anyway. ;P

My children took me with them to Bloomsberry Farm. It’s an annual ritual with them to take their children there to have fun and pick out a pumpkin for halloween. It was quite warm for this time of year, it was in the 80’s, so we drank a lot of water. I know I will miss this warm (even hot) weather this winter when the minus temps hit. There are quite a few things for everyone to do there so I will put a few pictures on to show you just a few of the things we (my children and I) and my grandchildren did yesterday. My children then took me to a wonderful Chinese dinner because it’s my favorite :), and when we got back to my daughters house, there was a beautiful and delicious fall birthday cake, which we enjoyed before I thought about getting a picture of.

Because of the very warm temps this year, my allergies really flared up. I now have bronchitis (it started a few days ago with coughing and continued yesterday with some congestion) and today I have the coughing and congestion and am very tired because my oxygen supply is more depleted. I try so hard to not let things go this far – it’s something I can almost always count on having when I catch a cold or influenza, seasonal allgeries, cats or am around strong smells (like perfumes) for very long. Sometimes I can stave it off with decongestants and antihistamines – but it won this time. I’ll be miserable for a week or two and then have the cough for about 4 to 6 more weeks and then I should be fine.

I didn’t go to church today because I wasn’t feeling well and because of how tired I am because of my breathing. While I was listening to the BYU channel (for some spiritual uplift) on Music and the Spoke Word, they said something that helps put things into prospective when we are offended or angry at others and find it hard to forgive them. “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for it to kill the other person.” Anger at someone else is detrimental to us personally and really doesn’t do anything to the other person at all. It eats us up from the inside out and takes away from the enjoyment of our own lives. Letting it go isn’t always very easy, I’d dare say that most of the time it isn’t easy at all, but I choose to let it go (and yes sometimes I have to work at it) and let Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ deal with the judgements, I do not yet see things as clearly concerning others as they do and I don’t want to be held in judgement for an unrighteous judgement. It’s enough to know that they are righteous and just and that everything will be as it should be – even if it’s not what I would have wanted, I need to learn to want what is right and just before them.

Now for those pictures. 🙂