Squares, Scones, and... Glasses

I have been making more squares lately, for Knit A Square; since I finished my sweater. (The sweater was for EEROP- although I do want to knit that sweater for Knit A Square, too.)  Okay, lets' see. The primary colored and lavender/green squares on the left are Lazy Sunday square. It's a free Ravelry download. The lavender and pink bear square is the Square Bear Square pattern.  The Aruba Sea flower squares are Framing a Flower square, with two inches added on to make them eight inches.  The two on the right are plain garter stitch squares. Had to add a row of crocheting around the blue one, to make it eight inches.  That's ten squares. I think that will be enough to make a package (plus I have a sweater to send, too.)  I am thinking postage is going to be high, to Africa. So I think I will send smaller packages. :)

And I have been baking again... :)  Mostly because "There's nothing to eat..."   (According to the kids, lol..) Plus I was having a major craving for scones, and I almost can't eat them without lemon curd, now. (Unless they are chocolate chip scones-these are raisin.)  I want to try making devonshire cream to go with chocolate chip scones.  I went shopping today, and got stuff to make it. Like I said, these are raisin scones.  I used a recipe from a Taste of Home cookbook. This recipe is exactly the same! And I got the recipe for the lemon curd here. Which was from taste of home, what a coincidence..  I also did not use any lemon peel, since I didn't have any. And it still came out great.  I also cooked it on low, I didn't even turn it on high. And it didn't curdle as much as usual. So. Cool..

And... Guess who had to get glasses?....  Me.   I have been having a hard time seeing lately. Everything is blurry. I can only see out of one eye, as it is; so I was getting kind of scared. Especially when driving, that's when I really notice it the most- and it's scary.  So, I went to the eye doctor.   I only needed a "mild" prescription, but boy does it help a LOT. I can see!... :D   But I'm not supposed to wear them while using the computer or reading. (Or crocheting or knitting.)   

Ravellinics Sweater Is Done

I finished it this morning. I am still weaving in ends, though. But it's technically done, right?  It's the T-Top Sweater from the Knit for Kids site.  I originally was going to try the Cuff-to-Cuff sweater, but I got too confused right away. Since it's been so long since I have knitted anything, I decided to try something easy. And I almost forgot how to cast on at the beginning of a row (for the sleeves).  Other than that, it was straight stockinette or garter stitch.  I also cast on for a size two (the smallest size), because I wanted to make sure I had enough yarn.  Using size 9 needles, I was right on with my gauge; but it still came out to size four measurements. Go figure. Probably just me.  Anyway, I am sending this to the Eastern European and Russian Orphange Project.  (Made the deadline by one day for the Ravellinics thing, too.) 

P.S. Not only did I have enough to finish the sweater, but I have almost a whole skein left. Thank you, Mimi; for offering to send me yours, though.   :) 

I Think I Got My Knitting Mojo Back..

...Alert the Press. LoL.  I have not felt much like crocheting or knitting anything, for a long time. I don't know why. I just fizzled out.  I don't know how or why it came back, but...  I got in the mood to knit.  I recently joined a group on Ravelry called EEROP. (Eastern Europe Russian Orphanage Project? Something like that..)  I wanted to knit a sweater to send. And, it happened to be time for the Ravellinics. So I joined that, too. (Sheesh I wonder why I lost my mojo?...   I get too much going maybe?)  Anyway I am knitting a simple pattern (since it's been a while), the Knit for Kids Classic T-Top Sweater.  I forgot how to cast on at the beginning of a row, and had to look that up to cast on for the sleeves. But now I am only about a half inch away from being done with side one.  :)   I cast on for a size four because this is all the yarn I have left of my big bag of Wool Ease. I bought a bunch of it, like 20 years ago. I think this sweater will use up the last of it. Anyway, with my gauge being right on, it still is measuring out for the size 6 sweater. Go figure...  I just hope I have enough yarn.

"Play with me, Mumma"...   :P  She has one ball in her mouth, and one on the floor...   LoL

Puppy-Sitting

Well, it's only bee two weeks tomorrow since we puppy-sat. I've been a bad blogger. This is Rosebud. She's my son's girlfriends' Mom's/family's puppy? Lol..  My son & his girlfriend got a puppy, and her Mom got a puppy from the same litter. (The place they got it from, coincidentally, is our old house- which they aren't supposed to have ANY dogs there, ESP a dog with puppies. Apparently dogs are the least of the animals they have there.) Anyway~~

This is Bailey, my son and girlfriends' puppy. I LOVE her. I wanted to hide her & keep her. (We all did, except maybe Dad..)

They are Husky/Lab/Terrier mix.

Rosebud about to lick Steve... :P

Me with Bailey..

Puppy Pile :P

It was fun at first, but...  It was almost like having twins. We had to barricade them in the kitchen, because they kept having accidents. The they kept trying to "escape".  So by the time they came & got them, I was done. (We had them five days.)

Evan brought Bailey over last night again. Look how fat she is getting!! I call her "Fat Ball".  I missed her. (Rosebud, not so much~ She is an instigator and kind of mean..)  Bailey by herself would be manageable (with Jetta).  I keep telling Evan I'm going to Puppy-Nap her. He says everyone who sees her, says that.

Besides being a bad blogger, I haven't really felt like crocheting or knitting much at all, either. I took a crochet project with us on vacation, but I didn't feel like working on it at all.   I have been in an Arts & Crafts mood a little.. Eon and I made some more Goo.  He kept adding colors to it, so I don't really know what color it is. Kind of purple-y, I guess.. 

I did manage to finish a pair of slipper socks, somehow... These have been done a while.  I have also been working on a scrap afghan, almost every night after dinner while I watch tv. (I have been watching tv lately, too. Something I never used to do much.) I started getting Netflix movies. Then when I don't have a movie, I see if there's anything on tv. I've been watching "American Colony: Meet the Hutterites". LoL.  I just started watching it, so I have to watch all of them...  Next Tuesday is the season finale. :P 

Here is the pattern link for these socks: Aunt Terry's Slipper Socks 1  Thanks, Paula for reminding me. :)

I realized a couple days ago that there was only a month left of summer vacation. So all those things I had "all summer" to do, I have to get done now. Mostly doctors appointments & dentist appointments, and school shopping. And having fun...  I don't know. We haven't really done much besides go on vacation & puppy sit. There isn't much to do here. Too hot to go outside, and nothing in this town...    I was thinking about getting some paint and painting some rocks. I don't know if Eon would want to do that.  He got three pen pals now, so he needs to write to them. ;)  Well I hope everyone is staying cool.

Summer Vacation

We went on a little summer vacation to Colorado (yes, right where the fires were.. ). Where we used to live.  My husband had a week off, so we decided to go.  Here are the boys at the Arcade in Manitou. Our old favorite hang out.  

:)  

This was by Rainbow Falls..

I guess since we are technically tourists now, we have to take a picture by the Garden of the Gods sign.

By the Garden of the Gods...

This is called the "Kissing Camels". Although one of the humps or heads fell off a few years ago (when we lived there, I think).

Rainbow Falls

Stairs going up to Helen Hunt Falls

Helen Hunt Falls (with some tourists in the picture..)

When we got back to the truck at Helen Hunt Falls, this fox was up the hill by our truck. It came almost all the way down to me. I was ready to jump in the truck, lol...  It probably is used to tourists giving it food. :/ 

And (besides lots of other wildlife), we saw a Yellow-Bellied Marmot on Pikes Peak. Look in the middle of the picture, to the left a little. He's (or she is) sitting on top of a rock. We saw a bunch of them up there.   We also saw deer, a baby bunny, squirrels (a black one, even), prarie dogs..   I miss Colorado. But I'm glad we were able to go there for vacation.

I have a lot of catching up to do on my blog. I am Puppy Sitting two puppies (I must be insane) this weekend (the puppies are asleep right now- free time, yay..) So stay tuned for pictures of the puppies. :)

Bowling

We got invited to go out to dinner and go bowling, with my son's girlfriends' family. I had never met her yet (they've been dating for maybe two months-- although I just found out about it not too long ago.)  So I was happy that we were going to meet everyone, finally.  And, we had never been bowling here yet, either.

Poor Eon..  He did pretty good the first game, but the second game her didn't get one pin. He was still smiling, though. So that was good. :)

Lovely bowling shoes... Lol.  Mine and the little sister of Evan's girlfriend. (I'm not sure if they would want me to post pictures of them here, so...)

Boys will be boys..  Eli doing bunny ears behind Evan.

:P

I'm surprised they all were letting me take pictures of them. They must have forgotten they never want me to take their picture.   
Eli had a little "fan club" at the counter behind him. I kept hearing these two high schoolers being goofy.Then I heard them saying, "Eli, Eli...",  and I laughed. I figured they knew him from school. I asked Eli if he knew them. He said "Yeah. They're my friends." I said, "Aren't you going to go talk to them?" "No"  I don't know how he has any friends, if he never talks to anyone. Lol...

Eon Got Mail!! :D

.... and so did I.  :)  I got a new pen pal on a Ravelry pen pal group I am in.  I got my first letter from her, yesterday. And she is so awesome she wrote Eon, too. I had posted for a pen pal for him on there, too. Tiffany said her son could write a little (he doesn't like to write), and send small things to each other in the mail. Now Eon has two pen pals, yay!!  Look at the goodies they sent him. A baseball card from their Junior (?) League where they live, a cook bookmark and some stickers. Awesome! I just bought Eon a package of baseball card protector pages like two days before this, too. Eli had given him some Yu-Gi-Oh (how do you spell that?) cards, that someone at school gave him (and he doesn't collect them).  Plus he has a couple Lego Ninjago cards. I thought this would be another fun summer activity for him. And how did Tiffany know that Eon collects bookmarks? I swear, he does.  Thank you so much, Tiffany and we will both be writing back soon. :D

P.S. We noticed there was a hole in Eons' envelope when we first got it, and then after we read the letter, realized that the pencil you sent also must have fell out through the hole. Kind of a bummer (but he has a hundred pencils, and thank you for sending it..)  :) 

One Mini-Scrapbook Is Done

This one was finished last night. It's Eon's scrapbook.  Who knew, with the way these kids go through toilet paper; that it would take so long to save up toilet paper rolls?  :P   I think he is a little more excited about it than he lets on. (He has to impress his 15 year old brother, you know..)  His scrapbook cover is supposed to be "Video Games". (That is all they want to do, all day, all summer long..)  :/   We did go bowling the other night, that was fun (but expensive).  It is too hot here to just go play outside...

Anyway, I got the instructions on how to make the mini-scrapbook here: Mini-Scrapbooks out of empty toilet paper rolls.  I thought it was an inexpensive (if you don't have to go buy the sticker, more papers, ribbons..) craft project to make with your kids this summer. :D  If you make one, leave me a comment I would love to see yours, too.

Have a Great Day <3

Father's Day Breakfast

I made Blueberry Stuffed French Toast for Father's Day for my husband. (We all got to eat it though, so.. :P)   The only one who doesn't like it is Eli, the 15 year old. (More for us, right?)  I waited too long to eat, and by the time we ate I was almost dizzy. :/  

Mini Scrapbooks~ Out Of TP Rolls

...well, two covers, anyway. I need more toilet paper rolls. Adele posted the link to make Toilet Paper Roll Mini-Scrapbooks on facebook. I thought that would be a fun (cheap or even free, if you don't buy anything to make them with..) craft project to do.  I got these two started, for two of the kids I send things to on PR.  I figured I would show them to Eon when they were done & see if he wanted to do one, too. (I haven't taken a picture of his, so far. He finished it plus some of the tags, today.)  :)   I just put some stuff by them to show maybe what you could put in each "page". I love that the TP ends make little slots to put stuff inside. I thought maybe if your child collects stamps; you could glue, or use double sided tape to put a stamp on one of the tags. Eon has done that with the stamps that I have pictured here, on one of his tags.  I also printed out some free fun "tickets" just for play, how fun is that? Eon loves it. :P  (Clicking on the download button took me to a page to pay for something, so I didn't do that.. I think I right clicked on it.)    Then I thought maybe he would like to do a real scrapbook. But...  Maybe another day. :)

ETA: I also found these videos on how to make mini-scrapbooks from toilet paper rolls, too. Video One and Video Two  How FUN!!! Mine seem so plain, now.. I need more bling. :P

Play Mailbox For Eon

I have been trying to think of things (cheap or free, of course) to do over the summer (since there isn't very much to do at all in this town, plus it's too hot to go outside & play for too long~ I hate that, btw..). I remembered a "Blue's Clue's" mailbox I made out of cardboard for Eon when he was really little. And I would put little "mail" (that I wrote), or if we got a little coupon box from CVS or something, I would say "You got some mail!"... :P  He would get so excited and look at the toys in it..  Well he is "supposed" to be getting a penpal from South America, soon. *Maybe*.   So...   I googled online for play mailboxes to see if there were any fun ones...  I didn't have any big boxes, so I used a cracker box. A standard letter (the long envelopes) will fit in the slot. 

I didn't want to download the faux rust can paper...  I guess I should have. I just bought a couple cans of spray paint, for a dollar something each.  I was going to paint them, with Eon. But his Dad said "Does Eon want me to paint his box for him?" I said "He probably would like that if you helped him" :D

So it kind of turned into a family project...  (See the big smile on Eon's face?...)  <3

Eon finished decorating it, with some red duck tape, and stickers.  You can see the slot in the top, where the mail goes in. And then there's a door on the bottom to get your mail out.

It didn't turn out anything near as cool as the one on the blog I got the tutorial from (greylustergirls' Kids Carboard Mailbox Tutorial).  I kind of wanted to do the painting like a "speckled" look, with the grey over the blue. But...   This is how Eon decorated it.  I still think it came out pretty cute.   I hope he gets some fun mail to put in it, this summer. :)

More Hook Monsters

I crocheted these, a while ago. I have one more (in greens) that I am crocheting. I made some stitch markers, too; and after I made one of these hook monsters I thought it would be cute to put a stitch marker on one & send it as an RAOK. Like it's an earring or something... :P 

Bloomin' Bag Is Done

Well I didn't take my Fendi Bag out tonight. I finished my Bloomin' Bag, and took it instead! :D  I mentioned before that I needed more yarn for the Hialeah bag, so I thought "I should work on the Bloomin' Bag- that ones closer to being done, anyway"...   I got it all out. I thought I still had to do the straps. But they were done, too.  This bag would have been done two summers ago, if I did not have to do any sewing... Lol

I made a "pattern" for the bottom piece of the lining, when I got done crocheting the bottom part of the bag. So I found that, cut it out, and pinned and cut out a piece 1/4" bigger than the pattern.

Then I cut a piece 8" tall by 36" wide.

I sewed in the straps.

Sewed the lining bottom to the side, sewed up the side seam, pinned it into the bag. (Sounds, and looks, so easy...) 

Sorry for the bad pictures. I don't know what the deal is with my camera. My husband got it for me for my birthday last year. I don't even think it is a year old. (Grrr...)

 

Here the lining is all sewn in (phone pic~ a little better but not much..)

And, the finished bag! Yay!...   I added that button into the middle of the flower, after we got home. I was liteally sewing the flower on right before we left. :P   I started this bag June 7, 2010. Finished it June 2, 2012.  Almost two years, it took me. It would have only taken me a couple weeks, if I had done the lining. I think all the crocheting was done by June 25th.  Anyway. Here it is, finally finished...  Now I have to crochet one for my Mom.

Random Stuff...

I used my Fendi Knockoff Bag yesterday. Only to go get the kids from school, but...  :P I might use it today, too. If we go anywhere. I've been trying to use the things I have crocheted, or knitted. (Mostly in wearables- I use all my dishcloths/potholders, etc..)   And, I have been trying to finish up UFOs.  (Sigh..)  I got out my Hialeah Bag to work on it. I was only not even halfway done with all the motifs. (Sigh again...)  Then, I realized I am going to run out of yarn. I know I had a bunch of skeins of grey. But I vaguely remember using them for a sweater. (Which I ended up frogging.) Then I thought maybe I used them for my son's afghan....  Ugh!! See why I should finish things one at a time?  Sheesh.   I actually have a couple purses/bags going that need to be finished. My Hialeah Bag, and my Bloomin' Bag. All I have left on the Bloomin' Bag is the straps. I don't know what my deal is...  I can't finish things.  I also promised my Mom I would make her a Bloomin' Bag, in "coral". 

Here we go again with the heat....   This was yesterday. (And, I am pretty sure it was about two degrees hotter than this, because it always is for some reason.)  Another Summer In Hell...   :/

Last evening, Eon wanted to go outside. I grabbed what I was working on (some longies), and went out there to watch him.  I know, he's 9 year old. But, I'm paranoid. Plus, (long story) he STALKS the neighbor girl!! And he will go over to their yard, come back, go back over..~ So, I go outside to watch him for a bunch of reasons.. That probably sounds worse than what I think it really is (him "stalking the neighbor girl"). But, the millisecond he gets in the truck after he gets off the bus, "Can H* come over?"  (They do come over sometimes, and he goes over their house, too.) And it hasn't stopped, all night long it's like he's obssessed with it. I finally told him he is going to start getting in big trouble, if he doesn't stop. (She got in trouble for it, too..)   He looks out the blinds to see if they are outside on their trampoline..  Tells me every little update. (Even if I DON'T want to know~ which, I don't...)  For a while, I thought "Maybe he's in love"...  But then I think, "Maybe he just likes having a friend nearby to play with."   Anyway, last night they (she has a litle sister, too) were out on their trampoline.  (They had company over, Thank Goodness...)  :P  Eon went inside and put this on. :P   Lol...   I sent this picture to my Mom. All she said was, "Is he trying to impress H*?"  Lol....