Summer Cold

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Renaissance Fair

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.

What a Deal :)

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click on picture for larger image

click on picture for larger image

 

 

 You gotta love the 1/2 Price Book Store .  For a little over 1/2 the retail price of the Quick Knits: Cool Projects I got both books.  I love knitting capelets and shawls so Viva Poncho will give me some great ideas.  Transforming a poncho into a capelet or a shawl will be what I would probably be doing, tho’ there are some capelets in the book :).  I like my capelets to open in the front and that is something I will change when I knit them. 

Should be fun.  As soon as I finish my grand daughter’s afghan and find some time, I might start something from one of those books.  I have some more patterns finished on the afghan and will get a picture sometime this week to post so that you can see that it is coming along.  My goodness I have to be very careful when knitting certain rows of the lace because it’s easy to lose track of where you are and I have to tink back to figure out where I made a mistake.  So I can only knit on it when I am not in jepardy of being constantly distracted, like babysitting with the grand children :P.

I love my new job, and tho it is very busy I don’t feel stressed out, rushed maybe, but not stressed.  Liking what you do helps alot. 🙂  It’s a lot of detail work and that is what I am good at and enjoy.  I always thought I would have made a good research scientist because I love Science (it was my best subject followed by English), I notice small details and am terribly curious (much to the annoyance of others :P), however math is not one of my better subjects, so I didn’t pursue it.  I use my talents as I find a place for them and they can make life interesting, to me, but not always to others  🙂 . 

We have had a lot of rain and thunderstorms this last week, tho’ no tornadoes like other parts of the midwest.  Hope all my friends in the other parts of the midwest are safe and sound.  Looks like the weather for at least the next week here is going to be rain free and after tonight (which will be close to, but not quite, freezing, sigh) it will warm up into the middle 60’s to lower 70’s in the day and middle 40’s to lower 50’s at night.   Hope the 3 or 4 little plants in my garden will be all right tonight.   The others are seeds that should come up soon.  At least it isn’t snowing ;P.

Happy Mother’s Day

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Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day

 

 

Hope all my friends are having a wonderful Mother’s Day.  I miss my mom and wish I could tell her Happy Mother’s Day, so all of you who still have your mom around, be sure and let her know how much you love her.

I have gotten another full pattern finished and have started the 4th pattern on the afghan.  It’s getting bigger and coming along.  My goodness, it is so soft. 🙂

My children got together about 1 pm yesterday afternoon and I wondered why they were all together and didn’t have me come over.  They had my grand-daughter call me about 5 pm telling me that her mom needed me to come over to help her with something.  I went over and they were all in the back yard, so I walked back there.  They had prepared a garden for me and even had some plants and seeds for me to plant, they’d had to cut small trees out of the garden area and pull a ton of prickly weeds.   I had told them that I sure missed having my vegetable garden to work in and eat from.  What a wonderful Mother’s Day gift.  You need to know that my children were never fond of working in the garden as children, because I use to send them out to pull weeds when they got into trouble :P.   So for them to have prepared a garden for me touched me deeply.  They each have  flower and/or herb gardens that they enjoy tending so I guess it wasn’t a horrible thing to have them work in the vegetable garden when they got into trouble as children ;P.

Progress on the afghan

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click on picture for larger image

click on picture for larger image

 

 

 

Lest you think that I am not working on the afghan for my grand daughter here is a picture of it’s progress (see son, I am knitting on it :).)  Each full pattern takes just a little less than a full skein of this yarn.  I wish they hadn’t discontinued it, it’s such a wonderfully soft yarn and I would have made other things with it after knitting this afghan, because it’s a pleasure to knit with. 

My job is going fine, I’m settling in with my duties and find I’m comfortable with the detail work and learning what pages go with each item.  As soon as the bank gets a phone and computer at my desk my duties will increase a bit because right now I can’t call the insurance companies to have them correct loan numbers etc or look things up in the banks system so the processors are having to do that when I find things that need attention, but I’m happy with my job. 🙂  I wish that the temp service had told me tho, that my first check would be a hard copy being mailed from out of state and not direct deposit so I wouldn’t have expected my check in my account.  It didn’t come in yesterday, so hopefully it will come in the mail today.  My checking account is hungry and I need to feed it ;P.

Hope everyone is having a great May, gosh this year is sure going by so fast.  I hope the spring and summer and fall stay a little longer and the winter is a little shorter tho :P.  Gotta take my car in, hopefully next week end to see what is rattling and sounding like it wants to fall out of the front end of my car, the roads here are just shaking  my poor little car to death.  Don’t want to be driving and have something just fall out :P.

Life on the Fast track

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My Balcony

My Balcony

 

 

Ahhh, Spring!!  The birds are singing and it’s beautiful with the trees flowering and leafing out here and yesterday was hot as heck!!  We’ve been in the 50’s and 60’s until Thursday when we hit upper 70’s and yesterday we were mid 80’s,  Sheesh.  This week will be back in the 60’s again, thank goodness because the air conditioning isn’t working yet at the bank I’m working at.  They are still doing repair and rebuild work after the big flood here in Cedar Rapids last year.   Anyway this is a picture of my balcony.  It’s not screened in like my apt in TN but it is so wonderful to have a balcony again.  I have a place to put my plants outside and to sit and spin or knit (when it isn’t raining or way to hot.  I didn’t go out on my balcony in TN when it was way to hot either ;P).  

 My life has been a bit busy this last week.  8 to 5  job and I have to get up at 5:45 (get ready, make lunch, take care of Thor) because I have to leave by 7:15.  I am working down town (about 16 to 17 min from where I live) and there is no parking lot at the bank, only metered parking on the street, so I had to pay for a parking permit to park in a parkade and walk 3 blocks to work.  I really don’t mind the walk (and there is a skywalk that goes from building to building so I won’t get wet if it rains, but it’s a bit of a meandering walk that takes an extra 7 min or so to walk), just hate having to leave 15 or more min earlier :P.  Tons of stuff to learn in the new job (isn’t that always the case? :P) and that leaves me drained when I get home.  Had a couple of evening things I had to attend to this last week and still try to get to bed between 9 and 9:30 pm so I can start all over again at 5:45 am the next morning.  It’ll be much better after I adjust to the new stuff and time period.  Saturdays are busy too with laundry and errands, but I’ll get a routine down, put some fun back in my life and it will all be good. 🙂

click on picture for larger image

click on picture for larger image

 

 

This is something my sister has been working on.  It’s called silver clay.  I’d never heard of it but they put silver powder (yeah the real stuff!) in clay and she said you have to fire it after you have finished making whatever it is you are going to make with it.  I think she did a wonderful job.   She’s rather crafty too (making things, not sly – sly to me is not a good thing to be, ie decietful, full of trickery :P), guess crafting things runs in my family :).

 

Oh yeah, to my son who just finished his 4th blanket in the last month!!    PFFFT 😛  I’m working on Jade’s afghan, I did some rows today :P.  Should have some evening time to work on it this coming week :).

One of my craft items

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click on picture for larger image

click on picture for larger image

 

 

 

This is a frame that I enjoy cutting the pictures out to fit on the mat.  It looks pretty cool and I’ve made a few of them as gifts.  I really need to make me one ;P.  I hope this is large enough to show off the wonderful pictures.

 

 

I got the call I was waiting for today, I start work on Monday. 🙂  I really don’t feel stressed out about this job, not that I think it will be a piece of cake, but I feel at peace with it.

My grand daughter has been asking me all week, when I go to pick her up from school, if I am knitting on her afghan, as she picks it up and cuddles that luciously soft yarn :P.  I guess I should be working on it. 😛  With the unpacking and trying to get a job I just haven’t felt like working on a project that required concentration.  I’ve knit two of the soap holders, one as a birthday gift to my previous supervisor and one for my grand daughter (who loved the special custom made Sandalwood/Rose soap and the holder.)  I should be getting that last skein of yarn I purchased last week soon.  I think I will still be about 3 skeins short, but I will keep trying to track them down.

 

Happy TEA Party Day

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venus5ab1 

 

My son has his web hosting site up and running and I’m switching over so this is my first post on his hosting site.  He’s decided to go with Word Press for the blogging part.  It’s a lot different than what I was use to at Yahoo, but I’m learning it.  If you are interested in changing hosting servers, you can contact my son, I have a link to his website in my blog roll.  I like the fact that if I have any problems, I don’t have to be connected to an out of the country service rep (that has a hard time with American slang or phrasing), I can just go over to his house and yell at him :P.  JUST KIDDING SON!!!

My unpacking is coming along and I’m just waiting for the back ground check to come in, should be today or tomorrow, so that I can start working at the bank.  Hopefully this position will turn out to be a temp to hire job and not just a long term temp job, because it pays well and I enjoyed working with the mortgage title company, this will be a bit different but I’m excited about it anyway :).

Oh yeah, happy TEA Party Day!!!  TEA = Taxed Enough Already!