Thursday - This and That

Just thought I'd do a post about this and that....a few different things going on lately.

It's been a very hot summer here.  So, I've been staying in a lot to avoid the heat.  I haven't accomplished as much as I'd planned due to lack of motivation in this heat and being stuck inside.  But, I have done a few things...

I knitted up a washcloth and scrubbie with some pretty, tan, Sugar N Cream yarn I had.  I love the results of this washcloth pattern.  It's simple but so nice.  It lays very nicely with great edges and corners.  It's the "Copycat Dishcloth" pattern from Ravelry and it's free.  The scrubbie pattern is also free and it's called, "Tribble".  I have a big, glass jar on our master bathroom counter that I have several shades of off-white and beige, hand knit washcloths in along with cotton balls and q-tips.  It's handy and the washcloths look so good in there.  They're very nice to use too.  Soft and pretty!

We bought a long dining room table a while back and I collected some chairs to go with it.  I just finished up some custom cushions for four of them.  I used fabric I got years ago for almost nothing...a whole bolt of it!  I still have lots left.   There are two antique chairs that I need to create cushions for too.  All the chairs will be sanded down and painted black.  I think it's going to look great when it's all done.  We just need cooler weather so we can go out in the garage to work on them.

My dad had a couple doctor appointments yesterday.  One was a bit stressful because he was going to get the results on tests to see if he has lung cancer.  I wanted to be with him for something this big...just in case.  Although, we felt it probably wasn't and we were hoping for the best.  My mom was being her usual, difficult self (Alzheimer's) and wouldn't allow me into the room but we got her to go for letting my daughter in.  I hated for my daughter to be in that position, just in case it was bad news.  But, she wanted to do it to support grandpa and to hear what was going on for my brother and I.  She even recorded it for us.  She's awesome!  Anyway...it was good news...he doesn't have cancer.  He has fluid in his lungs but it's probably due to his heart condition and some of the meds he's on.  Whew!  Afterward, we went out to lunch.  We've been trying to do that about once a week or so.  It's been very nice.

When we got home in the early afternoon, the temp in my car said 113 degrees!  Ugh!  We had a nice surprise shortly after that when it started pouring rain.  It dumped hard and rained for at least half an hour.  It cooled things off and gave the plants nice cool shower that I bet they loved.  My daughter's kitty, Sonora, was a little scared by the rain because it was so loud.  When it calmed down a bit, she enjoyed looking out the window and watching it.  So cute!

I've been meaning to put together a picture-full post to introduce a new (last December) member of our family but I just haven't gotten around to it.  I wanted to put a lot of photos on the post and all my photos are all backed up and I literally have thousands and thousands of photos (not just her) that I'd have to go through to find the greatest ones of her, download them back to my laptop, and then upload to the blog.  A big job!  So, I'll just go ahead and introduce her now.  That way I can continue to post pics and not get further behind on what the intro post would have.  

Here she is...our adorable Siamese named, "Sky".  She's my hubby's kitty and she is awesome!  She's so sweet, loving, fun, funny, playful, and she loves being with us almost constantly.  She's adorable!  We love her so much!  Here she is laying next to me while I crocheted one time this week...

It's been a long and difficult adjustment for Penelope to have another cat but she's finally becoming herself again...almost.  Here she is rolling on a rug this morning.  She's actually playing, roaming around the house more, and being loving again.  It's been tough for her and for me to see her not being her wonderful self.  So, it's wonderful to be getting her back.

Sky came over to see what Penelope was up to.  She's not used to seeing Penelope play and be the cat she was.

Our cats are still separated from my daughter's cat as they get to know one another.  Although, my daughter's cat is a very confident cat who's not afraid of much of anything and can be aggressive. So, we're not sure when or if we'll ever let them be together.  For now, they're just getting to know one another through a screen door we put at the hall near my daughter's room.  We don't love having a door there but it keeps the cats safe.  We switch back and forth with who gets to run around the house.  We either let Sonora out for a while while our cats hang out together in our large master bedroom and bathroom.  Or, our cats come out while Sonora gets to stay in her part of the house where my daughter's room, bathroom, hall, and craft room are.  They're very happy wherever they are.  They're all wonderful cats in their own ways.  We love them all so much!

The screen door we used is one we finished up that we'd started when we lived at our old house and had llamas.  All it needed was some color, stain, varnish, assembly, and screen.  Hubby made a frame for it to fit in the arch and ta-da!...a solution for our cat conundrum.

I finished spinning up a ball of roving this week.  I'm letting it sit for a bit before I Navajo ply it.

I've wanted to play a musical instrument for a very long time.  I tried piano lessons a couple times but didn't stick with it.  It was difficult to memorize all the notes and play different things with each hand from the two different lines on the music.  I've been thinking that something with just one line of music would be more practical to start with.  In my search, the ukulele has been suggested several times.  I finally decided to go for it when I found this great ukulele that not only is cute but has a wonderful sound...not so shoe-box-like as so many are.  It even came with an adorable bag!  So far, it's going well and I'm even enjoying practicing.  There are challenges with learning the many chords and the different rhythms but I'm enjoying it.  I find myself wanting to practice.  Wow!  Maybe, hopefully, I'll have a different answer someday to a question I'm often asked when people see my daughter masterfully play the harp...  "where does she get her talent?...do you or your husband play anything?"  My answer is usually...."um...I play the radio".  My daughter and I have a goal to eventually play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" together (harp and ukulele).  We found a beautiful rendition of it on YouTube that gave me the last push I needed to buy my uke and go for it.

Maybe I should have made this post yesterday and called it "Wordy Wednesday".  lol  Now that it's all put together, I realize I could have made several posts.  Oh well.  It's done now.  I hope you enjoy it.  And, if you stuck it out to the end...thank you! :-)

Have a wonderful day!

Sweet Salsa

I was doing pretty good at getting more regular with blogging and then life got crazy again!  It's been good and sad.

The good is that our daughter graduated with her master's degree in May and has moved back home.  We're so proud of her!  She's working hard now to find a job.

The sad is that our sweet dog, Salsa, left us just over a week ago.  Her health (kidney disease) had been declining and took a sharp turn downhill to the point that we had to let her go.  There was nothing that could be done to help her and it was obvious that it was time but it's been so much harder than I'd imagined.  She'd been with us for almost 12 years and, since I stay at home so much, she was an almost constant companion.  It feels like there's a hole in my heart and in our home.  It seems like she should still be here, or on the back patio looking sweetly through the window, playing with her toys, and just being the sweet, smart, happy, and beautiful girl she always was.

I've cried and cried.  Late in the afternoon of the day we let her go, I thought it might be better to put our sad energy into a hike rather than just sitting at home and crying.  So, that's what we did.  Hubby, our daughter, and I hit the trail.  I hiked in honor of her and thought of how much she would have enjoyed it.  We made a heart around a flower that was sunshiny like her.

She was the sweetest, smartest, happiest, and most beautiful dog I've ever had.  She was even adorable when she needed a haircut!

She was even more beautiful after she'd been groomed.  She was so cute!  People often said she looked like a stuffed animal.  We even experienced people stopping their cars when we walked her so they could ask about her.  She was a great girl!  This picture was from a camping trip.  She always loved to go bye-bye!  I miss that beautiful face, sweet eyes, and her smile!

She loved laying her her little cot/hammock when we went camping.

She loved going for walks and hiking.  We got her some boots a couple years ago.  It protected her feet on trails that had lots of rocks or gravel.  And, it kept her from getting hurt on all our Arizona trips when the pavement was blazing hot.  She walked funny with them in the beginning but soon realized they were great and didn't mind wearing them.  Adorable!  There's that smile!

She was my walking partner at home.  She walked great on a leash and rarely pulled.  I could tell that she loved going for walks because she'd nose bump my hand and look up at me like she was thanking me and telling me how much fun she was having.

She knew a ton of tricks...she could, sit, lay down, shake, high five, hit something (like the bell we hung by the door for when she wanted to go outside), weave through our legs, cha cha (go back and forth between our knees like dancing), spin, rewind, and so much more.  She was awesome!  And, she is SO missed!

Sweet P

How about a sweet Penelope post for today?!

She's just so darn cute that I can't stop taking photos of her!

Here she is testing out the throw I'm (still) working on.  I think she likes it!

Peek-a-boo!  It's warm in under the comforter!

In spite of all the cattitude she has....she does loves us!

Cozy

I bought a new throw/blanket lately that we've all fallen in love with!  It's super soft, very warm, and oh so cozy!  Our little Penelope is enjoying it too!  She's so cute!

We like the striped one so much that I went to TJ Maxx and bought another one.

And, you guessed it, she likes that one too!  :-)

All of these photos were taken with my cell phone and I used PhotoGrid to size them for Instagram.  "PhotoGrid" recently started showing up on the corner and I can't figure out how to get rid of it.  My daughter uses PhotoGrid and is able to keep it off her photos by clicking it off at a certain point.  I do that every time but it doesn't work for me.  I even took it off my phone and re-installed it to see if that might work.  Nope.  Sigh.  Oh well.  Does anyone know of another editor/re-sizing app that works great but doesn't do that?  Recommendations would be greatly appreciated.  :-)

Kitty Cuteness

Penelope is just so darn cute that I just can't stop taking pictures of her!

Here's a few of the newest ones...

She's always anxious to go to bed and patiently waits until she knows we're about to go upstairs.  Then, she races up and waits for us on the bed.  Sometimes she stays on the bed as we remove the comforter and pillow shams.  Here she is last night...looking like she was thinking, "come on, mom, hurry up, you're late for bed!"

She's a very snuggly girl but only with me.  She won't snuggle with anyone else in the family, no matter how hard they try.  She sleeps right next to me every night and has her own pillow that I put next to me for her to lay on.  Since it's started getting chilly at night, she's started to snuggle under the blankets.  She sometimes even puts her head on my shoulder or my pillow.  It's really hard to get a picture of her doing this because I have to do it with one hand on my phone, it's kind of dark, and she gets annoyed when she notices that I'm taking pictures...again.  But, I got one this morning!...

Since the weather has cooled, I'm back to knitting on this never ending blanket.  It works great because it's long enough to keep me warm...and, Penelope too.  ;-)

Does anyone reading this use PhotoGrid to size your photos before posting in Instagram?  Just yesterday the photos started having "PhotoGrid" on the corner.  That's kind of annoying!  Do you know how to prevent that?  Or, do you know of any other editing/re-sizing apps that won't do that?

Weaving!

I have a great little LeClerc floor loom that sits patiently waiting...and waiting...and waiting for me to use it.  I bet it's in shock right now because I actually am using it again!  I measured out some warp last week for a dish towel and finished warping yesterday.

I have a weaving assistant!  She supervised last week from behind the loom.  Yesterday, as I finished up, Penelope jumped up on my lap and looked up at me as if to ask what I was doing...

Then, she did a close up inspection to make sure I did it right...

Then, I started weaving!  Wooot!  It's so fun!  Why don't I do this more often?!

I'm just doing a simple plain weave for this dish towel project.  I love seeing how multi-colored yarn works up.  And, so far, this is looking great!  I have a busy day ahead but I hope to find some time to work on it today.  There's only enough yarn for one towel.  So, it should work up pretty quickly.

Happy Tuesday!

Celebration Road Trip

My dear hubby and I will be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary this December.  I feel even luckier now than the day we got married.  I see now, even more than I did then, what a great match we are.  He's more wonderful than words can express, we work great together as a team in life, and we have a ton of fun exploring the world together!  It's been an awesome and amazing ride over these first 25 years and I'm excited to spend the next 50 or more with him!  

I'm sure we'll do something special to celebrate on our anniversary.  However, his job is going to be keeping him a little extra busy for the next few months.  So, we decided to celebrate a little early with a road trip.  We hit the road for a two week trip to explore some parts of the west that we haven't seen or seen much of.  We took our RV/trailer (aka our little home away from home or cabin on wheels).  That meant the pets could go with us.

Little Penelope gets a little unhappy/nervous about traveling.  We found some treats at the pet store that have herbs to help calm her.  Luckily, they seemed to work.  Here she is happy, relaxed and rolling around on my craft studio floor just before we left...

She traveled better than ever and actually even seemed to enjoy it.  Yay!

We're not a big fan of long driving days.  So, our first stop was going to be Las Vegas.  It's only about five hours away (with stops).  That made it so the next day would be shorter too.

We drove through desert that I've seen lots of times.  So, I took advantage of travel time that I wouldn't be watching the scenery and I did a little yarn ball winding for my next project...

We had reservations at the Las Vegas RV Resort.  It's very affordable for a place with full hook-ups...a must when it's so hot there...and it's very nice.  This was our second time staying there.  

We pulled in, set up, had dinner, popped open a bottle of wine to toast to our trip, and headed to the pool.  It almost felt too hot to go swimming and the water was warm but we had the pool to ourselves and had a ton of fun.  They had a volleyball net set up, a ball, fun-noodles, and a squirt gun/tube.  We hung out down there for quite a while.  I think it was about 95 that night.  Here's a pic of the moon that I posted on Instagram that night...

We took advantage of their nice shower facilities and went back to get some sleep for the next day.

Here's a picture of our adorable little Penelope "helping" me put sheets on the bed.  We had the AC going but I think she was hot and the cool sheets must have felt good on her belly.  It was cute and funny how she had her back legs stretched out behind her...

It was still pretty warm the next morning at sunrise.

Salsa was enjoying a little attention...as always.

She tried her cute little head tilting trick in hopes of scoring a morsel of our breakfast.

But, as usual, it didn't work.

We headed out early, topped off the gas tank (ahhh...lower prices than CA!) and hit the road.  Next stop?  North Rim, Grand Canyon.  A first for both of us and we were so excited!

I'm still sorting through photos but I hope to have the next stop posted soon.  Stay tuned!

Road Trip, Day 5 and 6 - East Texas

The fifth day of our trip started in Austin, Texas with a short drive to East Texas to see family. The drive was gorgeous!  We went through rolling green hills with lots of trees, flowers and farms. It looked like a story book.  Perfect and beautiful!

We made a stop along the way to visit a yarn shop called, iPurl in The Woodlands, Texas.  I found it online when I started planning the trip.  I've been following them on Facebook and in May they posted some great tools they'd gotten in the shop.  I was hoping they'd still have some by the time I got there.

We received a warm and friendly greeting when we walked in and the entire visit was nothing but enjoyable!  The people were super nice, the selection of yarn and supplies was wonderful, and they had lots of inspirational projects displayed around the store.  And, yes...they had the tools I was hoping for.

I finally got a lucet!  I've been wanting one for a while but haven't found any in yarn shops until now.  This one is made with beautiful cherry wood and it comes with directions complete with photos.  I'm so excited to give it a try!

The other tool I was hoping they'd still have was one of these yarn ball holders.  It spins and keeps yarn easily available but doesn't let it tangle.  One of the sweet ladies in the shop said it's one of her all time favorite yarn tools.  They not only had some left, they also had a choice of finishes.  I chose this dark wood one.  I love it and I'm so excited to try it out too.

I looked up the company that made these wood tools and it turns out they came from California....where I'm from!  Funny how I never saw them in yarn shops at home and had to come all the way to Texas to find them!  I'm just happy to have them and happy they're handmade in America.

I'm so into crochet thread lately and always on the lookout for pretty colors.  iPurl had lots of it in a few different brands.  I had to get some!  I already have in mind what I want to make with it!

While my items were being added up, I noticed some cute purse handles hanging near the cash register.  Yes, I had to get some of those too!  Aren't they cute?!

They had them in several different colors but I had to have the red ones.

I think they'll look super cute on a black felted purse.  Or, who knows...maybe another color!

As she bagged up all my goodies, she put a little gift inside for me...

a set of cute little stitch markers...

My daughter even bought some yarn!  It's a beautiful sock weight yarn with pinks, oranges and (I think) some purple in it.  It's pretty!  She's planning to crochet a lacy cowl with it.

We enjoyed our visit to iPurl so much!  I think they enjoyed our visit too as we chatted a lot and before we left they took our photo and posted it on their Facebook page...

I wish we had a local yarn shop where we live.  And, I wish it was like iPurl!

Not only did they have great stuff and wonderful people but they also have lots of classes, stitch-alongs, charity project stitch-alongs, groups, etc.  It sounds like so much fun!

Back on the road...we headed north to visit my wonderful aunt and cousins.  We had a wonderful visit!  I love them so much!  I'm not posting any photos of them though as mine all turned out blurry (my daughter got good ones). It's always wonderful to see them and spend some time together.  Since we live so far apart, we don't get to see them very often.

We were excited to find out they have Cardinals and were quickly on the lookout for some.  It didn't take long.  My aunt re-filled her bird feeder and they were there in no time.  They were, however, quite hard to get pictures of.  In fact, they seemed camera shy.  We could walk near the window and they didn't always fly away.  But, as soon as we tried to take a photo, they'd fly away.  I did get a few from a distance though.  I just zoomed in with editing to get a closer look.

Here's a wider view to see her lovely yard.  It's so green!

Here's one of the Cardinals.

See...he's looking at me and about to fly away!

There were lots of other pretty birds there that we do don't have at home. I just wasn't able to get pictures of them either.  Oh...and my daughter saw her first firefly!

My aunt had Passion Flower vines on her fence .  I'm always fascinated by them.

I posted this one on Instagram.  I used an effect but it really was purple.

Isn't it amazing?!

Hopefully, Ladybug won't mind me posting her picture.

She's my aunt's dog and she's such a sweetheart.

I finished knitting my Gap-tastic cowl while I was there. It was perfect timing too!  It may be summer but people and businesses seem to keep things extra cool in the south with AC's turned up high.  I actually wore it for a while in my aunts house.  Ahhh...it felt so good!  I'm happy to report that my handspun Merino yarn is very soft and not itchy.  Yay!  I posted this on Instagram that day...

I had to get a photo of this before we left.  It's an antique child-sized desk that someone gave to my aunt when she was a child.  My mom played with it as a child too.  And, I got to have it for a while when I was little.  I have great memories of having this in my room.

Our visit was short but wonderful!  After a day and a half we had to hit the road again for our next destination...New Orleans, Lousiana!  I'll start posting about that as soon as I can.
The hotel we are at right now has bad wifi and I am finishing this on my cell phone.   It is quite challenging...to say the least!