Fall is Here + Geneology is Fun!

October 24, 2009 / LDSVenus / 1 Comment

It's offically fall

I was wondering if the leaves were going to turn this fall. Things were green until about 1 to 2 weeks ago, and leaves were starting to fall off the trees without turning colors. I took this last night at my church and the beautiful fall colors are finally here.

I went to a Family History (geneology) Symposium this morning. Geneology is really fun to do and it’s so cool getting to know more about those in your family who came before you. My mom was very into doing geneology before she passed away, and my dad gave me copies of all her work plus he even made an album for me and my brothers and sister of him and my mom from all the pictures he had showing my moms life and relatives and his life and relatives, it’s very cool. My mom had found that my 5th great grandfather died in the Alamo. If anyone is interested in doing their own geneology you can go to familysearch to get started and there you can also down load a free geneology softwear called PAF (Personal Ancestoral File). If anyone has any questions about getting started if you will email me I would be happy to direct you to other websites. I may try, as time allows, to set up a page on my website with geneology information.

Christmas Cactus in Bloom

October 17, 2009 / LDSVenus / 2 Comments

Christmas Cactus in bloom

My Christmas Cactus is just blooming away. Those flowers are sure a pretty pink color. I really need to re-pot it this coming spring into a larger container, I’m pretty sure it’s probably root bound. I have a friend in TN that has a really large Christmas Cactus but she has potted it in a larger container ;P.

My church had a talent show last night. I took my spinning wheel and demonstrated spinning and had samples of fiber and spun yarn and items that I had knit from the hand spun yarn. It went over well. I had fun and saw some awesome talents from the other members, singing, instrument playing, skits, jokes, it was all good. I love the talent shows. 🙂

**Thanks son, it does look better :).

Yes, that is Snow! plus Alpaca!

October 10, 2009 / LDSVenus / 1 Comment

Somedays there are more than a week between blogs and sometimes there are just more things to talk about.

Snow in early October!

Yes, that is snow! I woke up this morning to snow coming down. Not the big flakes, just little ones but there it was, bold as brass. And it was a bit on the chilly side as well, only 30 or so but still with the wind blowing, I had to stop and get some ear muffs and of course I couldn’t find my gloves this morning and I knew I would be outside (see next paragraph) so I had to stop and get some on the way out of town. sigh. The snow stoped shortly after mid morning and never really stuck anywhere but on the cars, flowers and bushes and that is now all melted too. It really could have waited another year or two to snow as far as I’m concerned ;P.

Alpaca Farm

Alpaca - Llama - CVM rovings

Ok, for my birthday, my son took me out to breakfast this morning and then to an Alpaca farm that was having an open house. You can see all the goodies that I came home with in the picture on the right. One is my son’s, who wanted me to spin the Llama for him to knit with (the chocolate color) and the auburn color is mine :). We got the Llama on sale at less than 1/2 price, what a deal and oh so soft!!! I also bought some light tanish (is that a word? :P) CVM roving that is from a local owner. I didn’t know we had any in IA but seems that there are two here who raise the CVM sheep. 🙂 It’s nice stuff.

Alpaca

Llama

Lots of Alpaca and Llama were in attendance. They don’t really like to be petted by strangers, tho some will tolorate it. I was able to scratch a couple on the lower neck, you don’t really touch their heads, they seem to be kinda funny about that :P. Tho they had a few that would take a treat out of your hand. Fiber on the hoof, so to speak, is very soft stuff :). One of the Llamas (wish I had taken a picture of him) was a beautiful white with black ears and black spots just above his feet and he had a single rather than double coat which was extremely soft. His name was Radar.

Beautiful Fall Bouquet

And when I got home this is what was waiting for me. A beautiful Fall Birthday Bouquet from one of my dear sweet friends in TN, thank you Anne.

Since my memory has always been bad, when people remember my birthday I’m always amazed. 😛

I’m off Monday for the holiday and even tho it’s unpaid, it will be a welcome day to rest and relax. 🙂 Hope you all have a wonderful week end too.

Happy Birthday to Me :)

October 9, 2009 / LDSVenus / 2 Comments

I try not to think about birthdays anymore. It was certainly easier to do that when I lived farther from my children, but they insist on helping me celebrate one. My daughter and almost son-in-law are taking me out to dinner on Saturday evening. My son that knits is taking me to an Alpaca farm on Saturday morning – I will get to pet an Alpaca and I can see a little fiber in my future (saving a little out of my paycheck for that) :). I’m sure my other two son’s will be showing up or calling to let me know they haven’t forgotten it either. My dad sent me a wonderful birthday card that had my picture, of when I was 16 years old, on it. I’m sure he’s probably trying to make me feel better about having a birthday :P. Why can’t we start out older and each year get younger instead? 🙂

I’ll take my camera to the Alpaca farm and bring back pictures :).

Christmas Cactus

October 4, 2009 / LDSVenus / 1 Comment

Early blooms

Last year in mid November came the first blossoms I had on the Christmas cactus that had been given to me for Christmas the year before.

This year, because of the unusually cool Summer and early Fall temps, my Christmas cactus already has buds on it and it’s only the start of October. Hmmmmm. Wonder if that is just the difference in the cooler temps here for fall vs TN last year. With winter coming soon, I sure miss TN about now :P. I’ve already had to bring my plants in from my balcony due to the lower temps at night, sigh.

I’m still looking for that pattern that screams at me, KNIT ME, KNIT ME, for the alpaca shawl. In the mean time I like to hold the skein of yarn and feel it’s softness. It’s time to start spinning the 2nd skein of yarn :).

Yesterday and today I’ve been able to listen to General Conference on the BYU station of cable TV. It’s been great and very uplifting, I love General Conference time in the spring and fall every year.

Hand Crafted Soap

July 9, 2009 / LDSVenus / 2 Comments

CD Spindles

I decided to, as a fun project for the Activity Day Girls in my ward, to teach them to spin using a spindle. I bought these from one of the vendors on my spinning list who makes and sells them. The Activity Day Girls range from 8 to 11 years old and I thought this would be a fun activity. I am sure the girls will enjoy them. 🙂 Hopefully I am training new spinners for the future :P.

Custom Soap

It was time to reorder my smell good soap (one of the luxuries I decided I needed :P) and I have to say that Autumnoak makes the most wonderful soap!! She will even custom make soap for you. She loves what she does does and it shows! I love her Sandalwood & Rose and the Lilac & Lavender soaps . What wonderful smells and the soaps lather so nicely. I also love the way the soap lasts and doesn’t dwindle away quickly. You will have to go check out her etsy store and see all the wonderful soap smells she has for sell :).

Punta/Wenslydale Wool & Mohair rovings

She also sells roving and I bought some of this wonderful Punta and Wenslydale Wool roving (the beautiful blue and white roving). She also sent some very lovely Mohair roving for me to play with, I have never spun or handled any Mohair before and it is an interesting texture. I am excited to see what the yarn will look and feel like when I spin it.

If you spin you should check out the very nice rovings she lists on her etsy site. She is wonderful to do business with.

Floodstock

June 20, 2009 / LDSVenus / 1 Comment

click on picture for larger image

My son and his friend Dustin invited me to go to the Farmer’s Market with them this morning. It is once a month in the down town area. I thought Farmer’s Market, ok, vegetables etc, plus I had seen people working on the item in the picture while driving home from work every day for the last several weeks (I will describe it better in a min.) So I thought sure. Well it was awesome, they had a rock band performing old Beatles songs, many vendors selling everything from fresh produce to meat, to crafts, baked goods, a guy who did some awesome items with those ballons you twist into shapes. I’m going back next month and taking my camera with me, and more money :P. So be prepared for an update next month.

Ok, the picture. It is a sand sculpture, yep, I said sand! It says Floodstock on it (yeah, a take off on Woodstock). It’s celebrating the recovery from the terrible flood that they had last year that devistated the downtown area. It’s a way of saying, WE ARE BACK. There are still buildings in the downtown area that are being or need to be renovated, but the work is coming along. The business I work at is right there in the downtown area and they just recently finished their renovation from the damage the flood caused.

Click on picture for larger image

This small hand embroidered pillow is what I bought today, of course because I spin, but also because sheep are just so darn cute :P. Besides it was made by a friend of mine from my church who had a vendor booth set up there. 🙂 I also bought some turnips, because I love them and it was cheaper to buy fresh ones than the ones in the store that have the paraffin covering to keep them fresh.

I do have to say that Cedar Rapids has something going on all the time. I wanted to go to the Freedom Festival tonight up at Kirkwood Community College because 3 Dog Night was going to be there playing, but there are too many things needing my attention. I’m sorry to have missed seeing one of my all time favorite Rock groups. Maybe next time.

Birthdays

June 13, 2009 / LDSVenus / 1 Comment

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADDI AND AUSTIN!

I really need to get some updated pictures from my daughter!! Anyway we celebrate birthdays today for my daughter’s last two children which are 2 years and a week apart. Since Austin will be 1 she figured it would be ok to celebrate them together since he won’t notice the difference this year anyway. Anyway I get to go have fun at Chuck E Cheese today. 🙂

Amazing how fast children grow. You have your own and then all of a sudden you have grand children that age. But it’s much nicer having grand children. You get to spend time with them and leave them with their mother and go home to peace and quite :P.

I’m hoping to be finished spinning with the green and red superwash merino this evening. As soon as I get it plyed and set I will put a picture up of the skein (probably tomorrow or Monday). Since I am spinning the two colors together and it already looks like green and red candy cane stripes together, I am wondering what the two plyed together will look like. Someone at the spinning group, that I finally got to go to last week (it was fun), said they thought it might turn out looking cabled after plying the two singles together. I look forward to seeing :). It’s an experiment anyway.

Spring Gardens

June 1, 2009 / LDSVenus / 3 Comments

click on picture for larger image

These are some flowers from my son’s garden. He has beautiful flowers in the front and back yards. I still find it funny that these come from 1 of 4 children who hated to go weed the vegetable garden when he was younger :P. His gardens are really beautiful. 🙂

Summer Cold

May 20, 2009 / LDSVenus / 4 Comments

Renaissance Fair

Once again it is renaissance fair time. I won’t get to go to the one in Amana, IA, this week end tho’. My wonderful grandson shared something with me last week end. His cold (I love him anyway) ;P. I started not feeling well on Monday and had the scratchy throat yesterday and the coughing has started in earnest today. My co-workers are teasing me about the coughing, but I told them they might not be in such a teasing mood by the time the coughing stops. If it goes into bronchitis (which frequently happens because I have asthma) I will be sick with a cough for about 6 to 8 weeks, I’m sure my apt neighbors will be thrilled at night as well, as I’ll be coughing all night long too. sigh. I try so hard to avoid this every year for this reason. It is not tons of fun. My plan is to try and get as much rest as I can. This will also affect my singing in the choir :(, did I ever mention that I sing?

My job is going well and I enjoy it a lot, still have hopes that it might turn into a permanent job. I think I will go make myself some herbal tea for my cough.

LDSVenus-knits

This is about spinning, knitting, life and an occasional rant :)

Life