I've Got.....

....Versatility!!!

Imagine my surprise and delight to find that I was given a button award from one of my new knitting friends.

It does make me feel all warm and fuzzy to have read, "You all make my morning coffee(s) a little more enjoyable.", by written by Keri from When Did I Become a Knitter? Thanks for the award Keri, and thanks for taking time out of your morning to read my ramblings!

I so agree with the sentiment she wrote about receiving the award, that it is a lovely way to acknowledge the many bloggers who, (like me) just blog for the fun of it--no other reason or agenda behind them.

It did brighten my day, when I saw this and the knowing that came with it that she read my blog. I am knew in the knitting blog world and have wondered if many new people read about my little corner of the world.

It brightened my day again today , when I remembered I needed to post about it. I needed some cheer--it has been a long, long, long, tiring work week. And add to that the fact that I have landed in the frog pond, the last 2 nights.

Yes! You read that right, 2 nights spent ripping out rows of lacework because I cannot get this pattern to work out!

I am a little tired of swimming in this pond, and if things don't shape up, this project will be throw with quite force, in a time out pile!

In fact, I just do not have the strength to pick it up to work on it tonight. I am going to finish this post, iron my clothes for tomorrow and go to bed!

One of the responsibilities that accompany the award is to list 7 things about myself:

1. My 2 favorite movies of all time are: You've Got Mail, and When Harry Met Sally.

2. The most played station on my Pandora list, is my Nat King Cole list. I so enjoy the music of that era.

3. I have made drastic changes in my eating choices, begun walking every night, and have lost 11 pounds since June.

4. My full name is Kimberly Renee. (Yes, my parents gave me a middle name using the French spelling for males)

5. I will be turning 50 in December.

6. My favorite place to go on vacation is Disneyland. For me it IS the happiest place on earth. (and heavens, so clean too!)

7. I am the mother of a child who stutters.

So, now I get to award this to 15 other people--my apologies if you have already received it, and no pressure to pass it either. I am just choosing to share the love! Some of these are book-ey friends, and some are fiber friends, and a couple are neither! I read so many more blogs than this--check out my sidebar to see many of my book favorites--and if you are a part of the Year of Projects, then please know that I read everyone who posts on the Rav page.

1. The Wooly Mammoth
2. Good Purl Gone Bad
3. Gingerbread Girl
4. Book Chatter
5. It's All About Books
6. Smithellaneous
7. At Home With Books
8. Crafts From the Cwtch
9. Small Things
10. Writing, Yarn, Pucks and Diapers
11. Handmade by Just-in
12. It Started With Ruby
13. His Little Wife (my daughter's blog)
14. Cloudberry
15. Project Stash

Have a super rest of the week, dear readers---as for me, I am hanging on for Friday and then welcoming our 3 day weekend!

*smiles*

a year of projects: week 8

Okay--so I am not really getting this posted officially on Sunday, but we had a wild non-stop kind of day..... but during the fun of the day I did compose this over and over again in my head!

If you have been following me for a while, you know I joined a knitting blog group called A Year of Projects. You can view my goals for the year in this post.

As you can see, I have made some nice progress on my Colonnades Shawlette--having completed the first 8 rows of the 8 row lace repeat. I only need to do those 8 rows over 2 more times!




Don't you love my purple life line? I am so glad I have it in, because amidst all my joy over my progress, I may decide to frog back those 8 rows and start over. Somewhere along the way I have made a mistake and I am not sure how the next 8 rows will play out if it is not fixed. :(

I should have my answer tomorrow after I complete 1 more row and then take a really hard look at it.

In other news, I wound my yarn for Adelaide's pumpkin hat, have decided on this pattern, by Sarah Hood and then purchased a 2nd skein of yarn that I think I like better. Here is a picture of both:


Which do you prefer? The one on the right or the one on the left?

I am approaching a tough work week, so if total exhaustion sets in when I get home each evening, it may take me a while to make the rounds visiting everyone else. Please know how much I enjoy the comments left and what an encouragement it is!

*smiles*

Weekend Cooking: markets & gardening

For as long as my daughter has been married, she and her husband have made it a habit to visit the farmer's market on Saturday morning. There are several well known markets around our area, some big and some small. Our very own little town of Kent, a southern bedroom community to Seattle has a little market that runs from May until October. We live in the Kent valley, an area that used to be all agricultural--rich dark soil which makes growing produce successful. Such yummy fresh produce abounds!

I have always meant to accompany them on some of these Saturday morning forays, but still having my own boys at home, boys with busy schedules, has made it difficult. But now, after 5 years, happily I can say that I went with them!

What did I purchase, you might wonder?
How about some:

1. Green Beans
2. Beefsteak Tomatoes

3. Basil
4. Cherry Tomatoes...and
5. A lovely bunch of flowers

Adelaide got a balloon.

I often think about the olden days--you know, when people grew their own food and were self sustaining. What a lot of land and work it would take for us to grow all the vegetables and fruit our family would need for a year. Because really, most of us city/suburb people garden for fun. Kind of like a hobby.

My husband puts in a small garden each year, and takes pleasure in seeing his hard work come to fruition. I thought I would share a couple of photos ---we don't have a very long growing season nor very much land to work with--but still, if I can get some fresh grown peas, beans and tomatoes, I will be a very happy lady!


How about all of you? Does anyone else out there have a garden? What do you plant?



Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads each week and offers a unique way to merge booking with cooking! Go check out her blog and see what other people have linked up with today.

...Thursday thoughts.....

• I am praying for my East coast readers. Please do whatever it takes to stay safe. That Irene storm is looking a tad scary!

• I am obssessed with watching old episodes of Bones this summer. This is a series I discovered this spring--and who new it was already in its 5th season? Certainly not me! But we are remedying the situation and have been Netflix streaming all summer, starting with season 1. We are now several episodes into season 4, so it looks like we should be all caught up by the time the new season starts!

• I have not blogged much about my books lately, because frankly I haven't had much to say. Since June I have been having some vision issues which resulted in even more drama revolving around my glasses, and now I am hoping we have found a solution and things will be good again. So, the bottom line is that it has been easier to knit at night than to maintain a sustained stare at a book page, and thus, not much reading has happened. To say I have been frustrated is an understatement.

• I am still reading The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine. I am really enjoying it, and am finding it very witty and wry..... A perfect summer read.

• I have recently added the following books to my library--and hope to get to them soon--

Oops---I started this post around 8:00 PM, and now it is 12:15 AM. I better get this tired body to bed. Hopefully I will be able to get a more substantial post up soon.

Take care, my friends.

Year of Projects: week 7 (and other stuff!)

Well I have certainly been a bad blogger this week! Seriously, just how did that past week fly by so quickly?

:::Warning to my knitting friends~~~the knitting part of this post is at the end! :::

I am not sure what I was so busy doing early in the week, but I do know that later in the week I was consumed by getting ready for a Baptism celebration backyard BBQ to be held in our backyard!

My sweet Grandygirl, Amelia (aka: Millie) was baptized on Sunday morning.


Because they live in an small apartment, with virtually no parking for guests to boot, Mama (my daughter Sarah) asked if they could have the party here. Of course I said yes, even though my brain was panicking as I thought about the result my yard has suffered due to the less than stellar weather we have had for the most part. Ummmm...yeah....yard work pretty much was nonexistent on my part. So, after work on Friday, things got kicked into high gear and thankfully I had lots of help too!

The joke on me, is that yesterday ended up being the hottest day of the summer so far, reaching 87 degrees with pretty high humidity. We have some shade out in the backyard, but not enough for everyone to be able to sit under-and my house is too small for 20 people to all sit around and eat--but our guests were troopers and I hope they still had a grand time!



Now on with the knitting news~~~~~~

I did manage to make pretty nice progress on my Little Colonnades shawl. I only have 7 more rows of stockinette stitch and then I can start the 8 row lace repeat section! Oh, but first you can be sure there will be a lifeline inserted!


And here is some news!!!!! I heard from my knitting friend who participated in a focus group for Skacel, (the only North American distributors of Addi needles), that a new needle is in development that will insert your lifeline as you knit! I am all over that one like white on rice. :)

I still have not begun the pumpkin hat I need to do up for Adelaide. I have been dithering over which pattern to use, but think I have finally settled on this one. I am considering doing the leaves using this different pattern....

And I have one more thing to share with you. A couple of weeks ago, I finished baby Millie's Acacia top but did not get a chance to photograph her in it. Well I finally did and I think it is adorable on her!

You can see big sister Adelaide in her blue one here.


I think that about wraps things up. Happy Monday to you all......

Year of Projects: week 6

Good Sunday greetings to you all! Another week has flown by and it is time for a little knitting update. First I just have to rant a bit, because my vacation has come to an end, and I must return to work tomorrow. I don't want to...(says me, stamping my foot!)...but I must as all good things do come to an end!

But on the knitting front of my life, I am doing a happy dance as I have a finished object to share with you. I finished the little Milo vest for baby Amelia...and I only just started it a week ago! Who knew vacation knitting could be this productive?

(as usual, click the photo for a more detailed look)

This is the second part of a two part project, the first part being the bigger Milo vest for big sister Adelaide which was finished in May. I wanted the girls to have little matching vests for Fall--the first set of matching garments I have knit for them. The cable pattern I chose was the X's & O's--for hugs and kisses from their Mimi! I knit Adelaide a size 3 in length and Amelia a size 9 months and hopefully these will fit them all winter. My daughter, son-in-law and the 2 precious girls will be moving to eastern Washington come September and the winters there are cold!

The yarn for these is a beautiful, locally dyed, washable Merino. I love the fact that Lyddie's is striped and Millie's pooled up differently. Matching....but not exactly! I changed the pattern up and added the picot bind offs to make them a bit more feminine.




Because I spent the whole week working on the little vest my shawlette progress has stalled a bit, but I hope to show great progress on it next week. I also need to get working on Adelaide's pumpkin hat--the one I made for her last year is too small, but should fit baby sister by October---whew! I really did not want to make 2 hats this year!

I also must show you some lovely yarn my knitting buddy, Donna, gifted to me. Is it not gorgeous? She didn't want it because she detests the color green and this had too much green it for her liking. Her silliness has turned into my gain!


I am not sure what I will be making from it--but hope to decide on something soon....which leads me to my growing list dilemma. My original list was all set, with the proviso that it would probably get changed when new appealing projects appeared on my radar. Well that time has come and I am adding 3 new projects to it---

* Girl's Best Cardigan by Georgie Hallam.
* La Petite Fleur Shawl by Vicki Mikulak
* Waffle Knit Dishcloth by Deb

Realistically, some items on the master list need to go to make room for these, but how can I choose? I love them all!

Happy creating wishes to all my fiber friends-it has been truly inspirational visiting you all and seeing your lovely projects.....

Weeend Cooking: miscellany

Well, here I am again, still trying to manage my lifestyle change. I did not do so hot during our little 3 day getaway--but today is a new start, and with work starting up again on Monday, I usually find it is easier to stick to the program.

I have been perusing a couple of websites--looking for some new recipes. It is very hard to feel like you must reinvent your whole cooking/menu repotoire--actually, not just hard but time consuming. I have been browsing through Diabetic Living and dLife for recipes.


My trusty slow cooker is my life saving friend, especially during the Fall and Winter months and my copy of Fix It and Forget It is very worn and dogeared. I kept thinking I would need to take some of my favorite recipes from it and healthy them up a bit, but low and behold I saw that there is another version out there. It is called Fix It and Forget: Diabetic Cookbook.












You can bet that I will be ordering myself a copy of that one real soon!


We have also been visiting a local fresh produce stand weekly--and boy are we getting spoiled! Fresh local corn, beans and peas. Add to that, Eastern Washington grown tomatoes, peaches and nectarines! Yum!

(fresh shelled English Peas)

Sadly, this will all be coming to an end soon. Can you believe it will be Fall in a month and school will be starting up again? I have a son in heavy denial!


Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads each week and offers a unique way to merge booking with cooking! Go check out her blog and see what other people have linked up with today.

vacation reads

We are getting ready for a little 3 day get away.

Not to a flashy spectacular kind of location, but a fun to us as a family location.

We are guaranteed sun and hot temperatures, something we have NOT had in the Seattle area this summer. Can you believe we are still comfortable most days in jeans and lightweight long sleeved shirts?

We will play in the water all day. And eat yummy snacks. And read (and knit) when not enjoying the water.

To me, this sounds like heaven.

I have been pondering which books to bring along since last week and posted a list here. Tonight I have picked the winners! The first on is The Three Weissmanns of Westport.


The cover and synopsis just sound like a vacation read. I am also bringing my Kindle which has many books on it. The one I am currently reading on it is, Pictures of You.

The book I have been reading for the past week has been Little Bee, but for several reasons (to be written about later) I firmly decided that one was definitely not coming along.

And now, here is a photo of our little Amelia. She is starting to coo, smile, look at her hands and other toys, and giggle!

Ta Ta for now!

yarn along

Ginny from Small Things, hosts a weekly event called Yarn Along. Here she encourages us to share what we are knitting and what we are reading all together in a tidy little post. Quite often, knitters are readers!


I am just getting ready to read The Three Weissmanns of Westport on our little mini vacation. I read positive things about this last winter from some bloggers I trust, so even though it has received quite mixed reviews on Amazon, I am choosing to ignore those and read away!

I am still knitting on Millie's matching Milo and on the the Colonnade shawlette for myself. I am determined to not let my little foray into the "frogging pond" deter me from this lovely little project!

Hopefully by Sunday, I will have photos which show great progress on both!

Enjoy your week.....

Year of Projects: week 5

Another Sunday, another update. My list of projects for the year can be found here, if you are so inclined to look. I did put up a photo collage so for you visual types (like me) it is a little bit more enjoyable to read about. :)

I had some good knitting moments this week, and some truly nightmarish knitting moments. By nightmarish I mean the kind where you want to bang your head against the wall, throw the project to the ground and indulge in a full fledged temper tantrum. I am not the only one who does this am I?

Anyway...I will share the good with you first. I finally cast on my little Milo for baby Millie. I am making matching vests for the girls for the fall. You can see big sissy's on my project page here. This pattern knits up quickly--and I am only making a 9 month size so it is pretty tiny. I really like this yarn--a dk washable merino that a local lady here dyes. It knits up so nice and evenly will no pilling or fuzzies.



Now for my sad story. Remember how I am making my first shawlette and using my first ever Madeline Tosh yarn? I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how much I liked the pattern and yarn and posted this picture... Well, I worked away on it for two weeks, and was just 3 rows from finishing the main solid body part, and almost ready to start the fun lace columns part when I.....*gasp*......dropped about 8 stitches off my needles!!!

OH Horrors!

Now, I can sometimes figure out how to pick up stitches, but not 8....and certainly not along the edge where I have been increasing with yarn overs and alternating between purling and knitting! The more I tried, the bigger mess I made. So I did the one thing I did not want to do....I frogged it all back to the very beginning.

And by beginning, I mean the part where you cast on....
Again.

So, here it is. Not very big anymore but coming along. I will not let this pattern beat me!


That is all the knitting news I have to share. We are going on a lazy 3 day vacation at the end of this week, where I get to float in the water, soak up the warmth of the sun, eat vacation snacks, and read and knit to my heart's content, while the boys play in the water like only teenage boys can do!

sAtUrDaY sNaPsHoT

Playing in the creek!
Lyddie,
July 2011

(photo taken by Grandma Becky)
More Saturday Snapshot can be seen over at Alyse's home!

satrurday bullets....

Ummm.....where did the week go??? I had every intention of posting several times last week and here we are again at Saturday!

• Today marks the beginning of a week of vacation from work. I need it too--working the equivalent of 1/2 day in extra hours just to make sure you have as many loose ends tied up and potential scenarios covered for you co-workers, is just plain exhausting. Add to that, my front desk partner took Thursday and Friday off so I was covering her job and trying to wrap up my job at the same time....tired!

• I finished Major Pettigrew's Last Stand earlier last week. I really liked it--and can't say anything bad about it. There are so many reviews floating around out there that I don't feel the need to add my thoughts in a formal post. I will say though: great plot, great prose, and great characterization. What more is needed to make a great story???

• I am currently reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave. This book was all the rave two years ago, and I kept meaning to get to it then, but other morsels kept jumping in the way and kept pushing this one to the bottom of the pile. This phenomenon is what I feel makes me a bad book blogger----I am never up with the current market. anyway, I am reading along every evening in it with fear and trepidation for the "big scene" which I know is coming and will be horrific, but other than that I am finding the book to be very thought provoking.

• On my Kindle, for my lunch break, I have been reading Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt. This is another one that was on everyone's list last winter, and now I am finally getting around to it. I am not that far into it so am reserving judgement.

• I am sticking to my new eating lifestyle and just ordered a book by Rick Gallop, The GI Diet Express: For Busy People. None of my surrounding libraries have this book, so I bit the bullet and purchased a copy. I am slowly but consistently losing weight. I am have also been quite successful in getting my water drinking in each day. Most days downing between 48 and 64 ounces.

• Kerry and I are walking every evening--sometimes pushing ourselves out the door at 9:00 at night to get it in. When we began this routine I could barely make it around out block---a fairly flat route, which took about 15 minutes, because I was so slow. Now we do that part of the route in a bout 10 minutes and we have added surrounding streets to the route including some steep little hills. The great news is that I am not dying by the time we get home and our walks have increased to just about 1/2 hour. Our dog LOVES this! I am a little afraid for when fall and winter arrive--the early darkness, the wind, chill, and rain. The fact is that we can't afford a gym so walking is all we have for the long term. It does help that I have my husband on board with this, as we spur each other on.

• My two little Grandy's have been gone on a trip all week and I miss them terribly. These pictures I am sharing are some that the other Grandma took of Lyddie playing in the creek that runs through their property.

• We will be going on a little 3 day vacation trip soon and I have been pondering which books to bring. I don't think I will be done with the two I am currently reading, but I think I want something a little lighter for vacation. My considerations are:

The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine
Thanks for the Memories by Cecelia Ahern
Knitting: a novel by Anne Bartlett
A Lesson in Secrets by Jaqueline Winspear

• I had a knitting disaster which I will be writing about yesterday. It is truly sad!
  

Ta Ta For Now........off to the grocery store and other sundry errands. Have a super Saturday!

*smiles*

(photos taken by Grandma Becky)