As promised the blossom of the Agaparthus plant. It’s a little puny but probably because the plant is a little bit puny too :P. But the color is beautiful :). The next one is a flowering Magnolia tree. I love those, they are so pretty!
It’s officially Spring when I see the first Robin! Two pictures because the first one that shows his red breast was blurry :(, and the 2nd picture was just his back, but there we go!! I had to pull over on the side of the road or into a driveway to get these pictures, hehe. Fortunately there were not any cars on the road at the time. The last several years I could not catch the first Robins returning for Spring so I was so excited to get them this year!!!
Well a deer and I had an argument over who should have right of way on the road, tho he neglected to tell me he had an issue with it as he made his point. It was a road with fields and lots of open area and it was night (on my way home from a church meeting) and this was my first experience with a deer’s right to the road. I saw a brown blur out of the corner of my left eye and thought, is that a dog, “boom” no it was a deer. From the damage it looks like he may have been trying to stop and hit me sideways. He didn’t fall over the hood or windshield so they were undamaged, I pulled over to see the damage and didn’t see the deer on the road, hope he’s ok. I felt like I had received a tender mercy from the Lord because the deer could have been in front of me and I’d have hit him head on, or hitting and damaging my door breaking my window on me, and all the damage those two places would have done. Tho’ it’s a bit pricey to fix for body work and the guy who did the estimate said it was safe to drive as it was body damage wise, and I was not injured. I took my car in to my mechanic for an oil change and had them look it over for other things that might have been damaged other than the driver’s front wheel well. They put it up on the lift and said they did not see any undercarriage damage, they didn’t see any leaks and the level of the fluids of my car were all ok. My car is 15 years old and I did not have full coverage because at it’s age they would probably just have totaled it and the money I would have received from the insurance would not replace it with a car as good, as it only has 50K miles on it. So I’ll pay the little over 3K to have it fixed and be glad I still have a good and safe car, but I will be on the look out for those dang deer!
We did have snow last Wed (about 2 inches) and snow yesterday (about 1 inch). But I forgot to load them in my pictures so no pictures of that today. But we are supposed to be in the 60’s this next week before it gets cold again!!!
Ok just a little vent about the time change. From the picture I’m sure you know where I stand. I know people are excited for that extra hour of light right now, but there are consequences when we change things that the Lord set up when he created the world and time. Changing time back and forth is harder on you as you get older and the studies show that older people tend to have more heart attacks when this happens every year. Also now children will be walking to school when it’s dark, just before light. Yes there are children who live a mile or two away from school (1 mile for elementary and 2 miles for high school) who’s parents work and can’t drive them and they have to walk to school. Again I know some people are very excited for an extra hour of daylight in the early spring because (especially in the midwest and places north) it gets dark in the winter around Christmas around 5pm but now in March it’s 6:20 so see it’s already getting lighter after work. So just be patient for a few months and let the light get here normally and naturally so others will be safe. The federal government probably won’t change it, even tho they changed it to begin with. So I will contact my state congress to put a bug in their ear to change it fully back to standard time for my state anyway.
The first picture is the Look for Happiness blanket (baby size). I am about 3/4’s finished. Getting excited to get this finished, even tho I am enjoying it, I have other things to get busy on!! The lightbulb markers you see running up the left side are counting 10 center patterns (four rows per pattern) because I need 39 and it is easier to keep track of how many I’ve knitted :). Nine center patterns left then the top border :). I will make this again!
The 2nd picture is our weather from yesterday afternoon to 3am this morning. We were almost as cold today, but starting tomorrow we will be a few degrees warmer and by Friday we will actually hit the lower to middle teens (without wind chill). I have stayed in my house yesterday and today, not my favorite thing getting out in way below 0 degrees weather. They are promising us lower 40’s on Sunday and Monday, impatiently waiting! Spring is getting closer even if it doesn’t feel like it :P.
I wish they would quit changing things on WordPress, this took an hour to get the pictures almost where I wanted them because creating the one choice I usually use, made them way to big and very long with no way to make them smaller. Ugh!
Anyway, my mind is un-fogged and I can think straight again and knitting on the blanket again, I’ll put a picture up of my progress in a few days or a week. I was very sick for 3 weeks in Jan, with some ugly respiratory virus’, RSV and influenza A, not at the same time (thank goodness!) but as I was almost over one I got sick with the other, very nasty critters.
The first picture is from some extra cold air that came down from Canada in Jan. Yes that is frost on the inside of the metal plate on my sliding glass door inside my apt. If I’d get some heavy thermal drapes that might not happen or if it did, I wouldn’t see it :P. I’m not a cold weather girl, but here I am anyway. sigh.
The second picture is the yarn I ordered before Christmas but didn’t get to start the Christmas gifts I wanted to do, partly because I was sick with a cold (this has been an ugly winter for getting sick for everyone I know!!) and wasn’t up to it. But now I can tell you what I got them for. I bought some patterns from Arne & Carlos and the Christmas tree decorations with the knitting Christmas ball color work ornaments was one of them. I will need to buy more of this yarn as I go. There are 24 ornaments in this pattern for $7, but just before Christmas they are 1/2 off. I’m really not into color work, but these aren’t very big and maybe I’ll decide I like it better than I did years ago. I haven’t started working on any yet, they will still be gifts, but I have a blanket and a couple of hats and a pair of fingerless mitts to finish first. All this sick stuff reset my brain and now that I feel human again, my knitting mojo is back. But this year I will have a little less time to knit because the new calling I now have in my church is much busier than the calling I had before. Especially while I figure out what I’m doing and get use to it!!! Having a little anxiety over the change and that is normal for me with change :P, but the knitting should help with that!
I got my 3rd and final Fall Surprise Knitting Box from Twice Sheared Sheep. I don’t think anyone who gets this box follows me so I wouldn’t be giving anything away in case some haven’t gotten theirs yet. Lots of goodies! I forgot to put the bear tin back in the box for a picture of the full box, so I added it to the other things I took out to get a better picture of. I love the wolves mug, will serve many hot chocolate drinks! The mini skeins are a dk weight. Not sure what I will make with those, will have to think on it, they are soft :). There is a huge hat pom in there too! Will give the bag to my grand daughter M for her crochet, she is trying to learn. Love the counting stitch marker with the tree of life on it, it matches the progress keeper I made with a charm I received with one of my other fiber purchases. I’ll try to get a picture of that eventually, I keep forgetting (what else is new). The mushroom stitch markers I will use for progresss keepers :). I do love the bear tin for stitch markers and the very cute hedgehog tape measure. The card in there (took a picture of front and back) shows what is in the box and tells a little about them. She will be taking orders for the boxes again in Jan I think.
The first picture is of hats that I knit every year. I use I love this Yarn Print (it comes in various colors) by Hobby Lobby. I like the striping effect it gives on hats. This year they are going to a family of children who lost their mom (3 boys and a girl). I thought they might appreciate new hats for winter. Hope they will like them. For this pattern I use worsted weight yarn, and cast on 89 stitches (for small and medium adults), knitting in the round, doing a 2X2 rib (the extra stitch at the last is knitted with the first stitch to make a good join in the round. I use a 16″ circular needle, my favorite is the Karbonz, it’s carbon with a metal like tip so It’s light weight. I use size 5 needle because I knit a little looser with my knitting style (continental combined) but the pattern calls for a size 6. The 2X2 rib makes it pretty stretchy. You can use less stitches for children, or a lighter weight yarn adjusting your needle size, for a smaller hat, just make sure it’s an odd number of stitches.
Hope everyone is well and enjoying the weather before winter gets here. We are still going between fall and summer weather and I wish the first frost would come early, my allergies are so NOT FUN, even my antihistamine is not doing the trick this year, and I’ve tried several, sigh.
My braided hibiscus tree occasionally goes crazy with flowers. Love the flowers! Every so often I have to spray it for aphids with a soapy water with a few drops of cedar wood oil (one of my doTERRA oils). The soapy water kills the aphids and cedar wood oil smell keeps them off for a while.
The alpacas in the next picture are enjoying the splash pad on a hot day. My son bought it for them last year. They love it, as soon as he drags it out and sets it up they are in it like any kid, lol. Occasionally one will lay down in it and hog it up. Tisk, tisk tisk. Sometimes he brings out a sprinkler instead, but there are some that stand on top of the sprinkler and hog it up, lol. They much prefer our winters which are often -20’s to -30’s without the windchill. Their coats are so dense that snow doesn’t melt on their backs, and rain doesn’t soak in! But, they spend a lot of time in the barn too, they always have access to get into or out of the barn. They love playing in the snow. He has large fans going 24/7 in the barn in the summer so they can stay comfortable when the heat is too hot to be outside.
Hope you all are staying cool, we are very humid and hot. Sweltering is what the weatherman said. Tomorrow they said with the humidity factor we will be around 101F.
For those of you not familiar with RAGBRIA, it stands for Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. It’s a non competitive 434 mile bicycle tour across the state of Iowa from west to east. This is the 51st year for this. So instead of spinning to the ride across France this year I will spin to the ride across Iowa, so all is not lost with my spinning. I planned on starting today which is the first day of RAGBRAI, however I noticed my the plied string I use as my drive band, is very frayed and being held by two of the small strings, so I will go get more string tomorrow and fix the drive band and start tomorrow. Always something isn’t it, I’ll call it a flat tire on day one.
I made two more dish cloths from the Hobby Lobby’s I Love this Yarn cotton. It’s a very soft cotton and I like it! These were a gift for a friend.
The 2nd picture is the Tree that I always show in the snow shots in the winter, so I thought I would show you it actually has a different life in the spring and summer :).
The 3rd picture is a braided Hibiscus tree. I love the flowers. It was a gift from my daughter for Mother’s Day, but she gave it to me early because she was afraid she would kill it before then, lol. I have small plants in my house but this is the first tree. I hope I don’t kill it either. I’ll set it outside for 6 hrs everyday when it warms up a bit and it’s not windy so it can get more sun than by my sliding glass door because it doesn’t get a lot of direct sunlight, tho it said it liked indirect sunlight too, maybe it’s not too picky!
Storms here today, tho so far they haven’t been too bad. But more storms tomorrow and Sunday. We will see what happens, we could use the rain.
This came from Twice Sheared Sheep. She has a Christmas Advent box, that can be signed up for, but I’m not sure when she will open it to be pre-ordered, they go fast. This box is part of 3 boxes of 2024, spring, summer and fall, and they have to be signed up for by sometime in Feb. Next year is the next time to sign up for them.
OK! In the first picture is everything that was in the box, then I took pictures to show them a little better. I didn’t show the bag in a separate picture because it showed up well in the main picture (sorry forgot to get a picture of the bell flower stitch markers and they are hard to see in the main picture, you can see them better in the 3rd picture). I was so excited to see these beautiful gifts. The 2nd and 3rd pictures are just more explanation of the items in the box. The yarn is beautiful and so is the round (rather than long) dried flower stitch counter/marker, and the stitch marker tin (it slides open) and the journal are so cool. I have a picture of the outside and inside of the journal, you can put so much information in it! I was so excited to see the blockers, I have wanted (but never justified the money because I’m cheap :P) some of these so I didn’t have to put the millions of straight pins in to block a shawl or scarf etc (yeah I will need another box or two of these). The stickers are cool as well. I hope there will be a tin separator in the next box for the tin, it makes an oblong X in the box to separate the different knitting stitch markers/progress keepers or you can not put one in and put small scissors and a needle in instead. One for each of the bags I use is my eventual plan, they come in a smaller size as well.
Had to take my car in this past Monday for an oil change and tune up. I make sure the oil is changed when it should be and do the tune up every year because it’s cheaper to do those things than to buy a new engine, tho those things aren’t cheap anymore either. I also had them check my battery strength and my brakes. They also checked all my fluid levels and said my battery and brakes were fine. I have a great mechanic and the business is always good to and honest with me, they never do extra stuff that didn’t need to be done. I’ve been going to them for about 13 years. I would have rather slept in but my car comes first, no car means no way to get around lol. I am still meeking (my way to say complaining) about losing an hr of sleep in the mornings, because going to bed early is not my natural time clock. I should be use to it about the time they change the clock back, sigh.
LDSVenus-knits 