Revive

I miss my blog.  Unfortunately I don’t have as much time as I use to, but I haven’t given up on it.  Maybe posting once a year is better than nothing.  A long time ago I signed up for the Ten on Tuesday that is hosted by Carole Knits.  I thought her topic this week was a great start to try and revive my blog.

Ten on Tuesday

Arches

BadLands

Grand Canyon

Waiting Dax earning Goofy.

Disney marathon

Maryland Sheep and Wool

Dragon Con

knitted Knee High Socks

10 Things I Did in 2015 That Made Me Feel Proud.

Top Ten 2015 Review

1. Did some runs. Ran in Disney marathon and earned my glass slipper.  Cheered Ms. D as she earned her Goofy.
2. Went on Epic Road trip. D planned the whole thing and she did a wonderful job.  On the trip we visited, St. Louis Arch, Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the sequoia’s and redwoods, Disneyland, Grand Canyon, and the Arches.  We camped most of the trip and I would love to go back to these places.
3. Learned how to cook ribs in the crock pot.  Used this recipe.
4. Joined the 50 something group. Liked being in 50’s because actually placed in a 5k run in my age group
5. Leaned more about how the court system works. Not the most positive moment of the year but went with Mr. T about traffic issue.
6. Read some good books, and became a huge Terry Pratchett fan.
7. Went to Dragon Con.
8. Made it to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.
9. Finished knitting socks.
10. It’s ongoing, leaned to be more independent.

2015

I love the New Year. It’s a great time for reflecting and making goals. There is only one other time that I do this in my life and that is around my birthday. The New Year is different. It stops the flow of a busy year, and gives me some time to really regroup. Here is my list of things I would like to work on in 2015.

Get Ms. D to Disneyland. She has been wanting to go for a long time, and I keep telling her maybe one day.

Finish the Christmas Stockings that a friend asked me to make for her. This started over 2 years ago. Her daughter got married and she asked me to knit a stocking for her new family member. I started it but struggled with it, she had no pattern for it and I really wanted it to look like the others. I struggled with finding the right yarn, the right gauge etc. Then my marriage fell apart and I had to start working more hours, meaning I had less time for knitting. Then her daughter had a child, so she asked if I could make another. I started feeling guilty for not having them done, so I told myself that I would not knit anything else till I had them finished. I just wasn’t into knitting them. The original did not knit in the round like I usually do, and it had a lot of intarsia knitting in it. I didn’t feel very confident knitting intarsia so I avoided it, which meant I avoided knitting altogether. I finally finished one of them, and then her daughter had another child. So I have two to make now. Sigh, I would really like to get this done.

DE clutter-I’m a pack rat by nature. Everything has meaning to me and because I like recycling I feel I can find another use for something. This causes a lot of clutter. So I need to find a place for things or get rid of it.

Fix the things that are breaking around house.

Take more pictures. I love pictures, and as I get older they have more meaning to me. You just never know how much your world will change. I have a tumblr with my sister were we try to take a picture a day and post it. We let it die last year, we need to revive it.

Keep up with this blog :).

Stretch more/ be more consistent with exercise/ add walking back into evenings. When I had my knee problems I had to see a sports therapist to fix it. He made me realize the importance of stretching and building strength in a balanced way. I’m terrible about stretching, it needs to become a part of my daily routine.

Eat better- make more meals. I have a tendency to eat cereal a lot.

As for 2014, I’m not very good at keeping track of what I did, but I know that overall I’m feeling better. So for 2015 become more me and give when I can.

Revive

I wanted to try and revive my blog. A lot has changed in my life since I started this blog. I guess the biggest would be I’m single now. My 23 year marriage fell apart when I found out about his cheating. It’s a very emotional topic for me and I’m just going to leave it at that for now.

We had to say goodbye to Rohan, our golden retriever.He was having problems with seizures and finally got to where he couldn’t walk. I think he had a form of cancer. He was our family dog form when T and D were young. Saying goodbye to him was like having to say goodbye to their childhood.

Both Tyde and Dax have grown. They have graduated from high school and are in college. I now work at an elementary school full time. We have two new family members, Pixar a cat we picked up from the animal shelter, and Willow, a dog.

Well that pretty much catches you up.

Last day

The last day of school for T and D was last Thursday. I took this picture when I went to pick them up. The amount of buses they have always amazes me. Dax said she once counted them and got up to 26. A big difference from the elementary school they went to that had a whopping 3 buses.

However today was my last day. I wanted to participate in Dawn’s, from Today and Everyday , self portrait month. She has a goal of taking a picture of herself daily for the month of June and has asked anybody who wants to do the same. I will not be taking pictures daily but did want to participate. So, I decided to let my self portrait be me in my little library. I’ve been using this week of no students or teachers to do inventory and to get the library ready for the next school year.
It’s a bit bittersweet for me. It’s been a busy year and I’m so looking forward to the summer break but also my job is being consolidated. I guess that’s what you would call it. There are several schools in our area that are dealing with low numbers of students and the county is having a hard time with budgeting. Because of this it was decided that any school with an enrollment of less than 400 students will be sharing media assistants, (that’s me), technology specialists and Vice Principles. We have around 380 students. I don’t know the pre-k students very well. They usually come in the library before I get there but for the rest of the school I know every one of them from kindergarten up to sixth grade.
I don’t know what it will be like next year. But I do know it will not be the same.

I will really miss this job. I have absolutely loved it.

Saturated

This is my Fay report.

Fay came for a visit on Tuesday and she has brought a lot of rain with her. I don’t ever recall seeing so much rain. It has been constantly raining, sometimes harder than others but never stopping. The news is saying that Cocoa Beach has received over 22 inches of rain and to expect another 4-6 inches. Fortunately we live in a low flood zone so we are not having any issues with flooding. Other than that there is not much to say about Fay. There are some small gusts of wind but nothing major, no power outages for us, just sobbing wet rain.
I heard a guy on the radio this morning say that even the best of houses will leak under these conditions. So we did a house inspection to look everything over and I can report that the house is water tight. There are no leaking problems, yeah. I guess all that tyvek, the sticky bonding stuff around the windows and that unbelievable heavy waterproof paint we used on the blocks when building the house has paid off. Whew.

I hope everybody else is staying nice and dry.

Random stuff

Well this post will probably be all over the place and there are no pictures. I’ll call it my random post. I was doing good there for awhile and actually posted at least once a week or more. But lately my mind has been in other places then the blog and I haven’t been inspired to post. My intentions have been good though, I have even been lugging my big old camera around thinking I will take some pictures of maybe this or that but haven’t clicked it once in the last week or two. I think I have been having a bit of the end of the summer blues.

I go back to work on Thursday, tomorrow. I’m going to miss the summer. I love having time to spend with the kids and to knit, spin, cook, go to the beach or whatever. The down side of all this is that I don’t get paid when I don’t work. Life is such a catch22. You either have the money to do things and not the time or you have the time and not the money. Anyway I think I’m done mourning for the summer of 08. I’m actually starting to get excited about seeing the kids at school and beginning a new year with them.

I’ve been working on a swap package. I joined an apron swap from Ravelry’s Sew Obsessed forum. The apron has been finished for awhile but it’s just sitting there. I’ve been trying to think of something to put with it as a gift but nothing is coming to me. I decided to not tell the person I have her and I’ve been spying on her. She has a Ravelry account and a Flickr account but I’m not getting a lot from it. I will probably wait till the deadline till I send it just in case I can find out more about her. I wish there was a questionnaire to go with this swap. I would have liked to know if she likes tea, coffee, beer, candles, candy, or favorite yarn, anything. Maybe I’m just not a very good spy.

Speaking of spying Dax started a Raverly account. Of course I put her in as a friend and I can see everything she does while on Ravelry, it really makes me feel like a spy to see what she is doing. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

Did you know McDonald’s fillet o’fish comes with half the cheese that it use to. Yep, I usually get the fillet o’fish with tomato added when I eat there. I have to open up the sandwich to scoop off the excessive amount of tartar sauce they put on it. While doing this I noticed I only had a half a slice of cheese on my sandwich. When I mentioned this to Rudy he looked at his and told me he had the other half. Maybe if they really want to save money they should consider putting less than a pound of tartar sauce on the sandwiches ;).

I finished the sideways vest but I need to block it.

The kids have a dentist appointment today which might be a good time to get Tyde to do some school shopping. The guy really hates being inside a store. I think all he needs is some shoes. He took his shoes off on the last day of school and I haven’t seen them since. He probably needs some socks to.

I didn’t join the Dish Rag Tag this year. I also didn’t join the Ravelylympics. I guess I’m not much of a joiner lately. However Dax did join the Ravelylympics. She will be knitting with team teen.

I got to meet with some other knitters in Titusville. It was a blast! I laughed and touched yarn and laughed and even met some other spinners. I also drank some wonderful tea and ate a blueberry scone. Well I didn’t eat the scone till I got home. I was too busy taking everything in to eat it while I was there. The group meets at Sunrise Bread Company on Thursday mornings. They are a great group of people. I knew one of them thru her blog, but the others I had never met. Regardless they made me feel welcomed, which is saying a lot because I’m usually a bit shy in large groups and keep to myself.

Dax has been reading the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer. I find this so funny. I haven’t read the books but I’ve read enough reviews to know it’s a vampire, teen, love story. Dax is the one that will do eyeball rolls when there are kissy scenes in movies.

Thanks to Dax I’ve heard all the Fablehaven books by Brandon Mull. She read all three of them to me this summer while I was spinning. I really enjoyed them and will try and get them in the school library. I have to confess it was interesting to have your child read a book to you instead of the other way around.

Well this is getting to long so I’ll stop here. Have a great day!

Maryland

These last couple of weeks have been hectic for me. I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel though and things should start slowing down after this weekend (I hope).

I was getting pretty excited about our trip to Maryland and then caught something with a nasty cough. For about a week I tried everything to get rid of that cough and finally decided it was time to go to the Dr. He gave me some antibiotics and cough medicine. All I can say is antibiotics rule. I felt so much better after taking them.

As for the Festival it went by way to fast. This was my fourth time to go to this festival and I have to say it is still overwhelming. There is just so much to see and do there. This year there were five in our group. Dax and I met up with my sister and her daughter and a friend of my sister also joined us. We camped out at Patapsco State Park. I did take a lot of pictures but wished I had taken more.

Some highlights from the trip:

-The dogwood trees were in bloom at the State Park, very pretty.

-I enjoyed meeting the couple who camped beside us. The lady was nice enough to show us some of her spindles that she collected from the festival and we got a bonus of entertainment when we heard harp music being played from their campsite. We looked over and saw the gentleman with her playing a harp.

-I really liked the Guest booth this year. It was a booth representing Medieval and Renaissance Textiles.
Bobbin lace that was being displayed at the Medieval and Renaissance Textiles booth.

Same booth, tablet weaving display. My sister calls this card weaving.

-I loved seeing all the hand knit items people who were visiting the festival were wearing.

-I also enjoyed seeing all the animals.
Checking out the alpaca or maybe I should say alpaca checking out Dax.

She must have met the alpaca’s approval. She let Dax pet her.

-I have a lot, I mean A LOT of pictures of sheep from this trip. Dax took my camera to the barn with sheep in it and came back with pictures of nothing but sheep.
This must have been one of her favorites because there was several pictures of this one in the camera. She told me his/her hair reminded her of Tyde.

I however thought this one had more of the Tyde look.

The girls taking a break.

We kept to the tradition of peanut butter and jelly sandwich picnic style lunches while we were there but decided to treat ourselves to some “fair” food before we left on Sunday.

-A big thank you to my sister’s friend Beth for showing us how to do Kumihimo.

-I can now say I have more roving/fleece in my stash then yarn. I think I better get off the computer and start spinning.

I hope everybody has a great week.

Not much to show

It’s been an incredibly busy week. I didn’t have much time to do the fun things that I love to do, so I have no finished objects or progress pictures and would really like to try and catch up on some blog reading today.

Yesterday we watched Rudy leave for his Boston Marathon trip, giving him our traditional Run Rudy Run cheer. We heard that Lance Armstrong is running in Boston this year. That would be cool if Rudy sees him there, which I really doubt will happen, but you never know.

Since I have no crafting pictures I will leave you with pictures of Rohan the bubble killer. I was playing around with the quality/resolution of the pictures to see if they start to get distorted at a lower quality but they seem fine. You can click on them to make bigger.

The chase is on:

Zooming in: I think he looks kind of mean in this picture :}.

Pop:

Have a great week.

Jan

Wow, January sure did go by fast for me. I was hoping to have not 1, not 2, but 3 projects done this month.

Here’s project 1.
Umm, not done, but close, veerrrry close.

Here’s project 2.
Umm, I had some collar issues so not done either, but oh so close.

Here’s project 3.
Yeah done, but the designated wearer does not like it and has a slight request. She wants me to lower the bodice. To do this I will have to take it all apart re-cut a new bodice and then put it back together again. Umm this one might not be done till 09.

On the up side I’m almost done with project 1 and 2. So I should have a good start for February.

Also if you didn’t notice I’ve been playing with photoshop. That software can do some really interesting things to pictures. Dax is lucky I didn’t make her shirt totally neon :).

Have a great week!

Cold

In the middle of the night, actually it was early in the morning around 4:00 a.m., I smelled something that didn’t smell right. It woke me up out of my deep sleep. My eyes popped open and I immediately said “something is burning.” Rudy must have been still asleep because he did not respond. So, I got up and started walking around looking for the source. I was trying to be quiet but Rohan was following me around. I don’t think a dog knows how to be quiet. Just the thump of his happy tail on every wall, floor chair is enough to wake up the whole household but I was on a mission, I wanted to know what was burning. I checked the oven it was off. I checked the computer. We once had a fan expire and something melted in the computer and it smelled bad but it wasn’t the computer. I walked in every room trying to pin point the smell and couldn’t. Finally I gave up and went back to bed. Of course Rudy was awake by then. I’m going to blame it on the dog for waking him up. Since he now comprehended what I was saying I once again said, “something smells like it is burning.” He then replied, “ it’s the heater”. “They all smell a little funny when they first kick in”.

Oh, duh.

We have officially used the heater in the house.