Are You Sick of Mittens Yet?...

I'm still making them...  o.O  Hee hee...  This is actually a pair of mittens I think I started; even before I started knitting Eon's pair. So. I just last night picked them up again. I almost panicked, because I didn't put in my notes where I left off. (I was into the purl/knit part already..) But I calmed down and figured it out. ;P   The stitch holder is where the thumb will be.  I am kind of tempted to send a message to that person on Ravelry who has these (same kind of) mittens in her projects page, and ask her where the pattern came from . :)   I'm so curious, it's just unbearable not to know. :P     You can see a little bit of my book I just finished reading last night, in the picture. "The Hundred Secret Senses", by Amy Tan. (I got it at a used book store here, I finally got an "account" at~ You bring in any old [paperback only] books you don't want any more, and for each book you bring in, you get half off a book you buy~which is already only $2 or $3. And Eon has an account, too. :P) Anyway,  I really liked it.   I've been doing a lot of reading and some knitting & crocheting~~ I have to sit and "ice" my back; 20 minutes (at least) in each spot...  It's very time consuming. But it does help.  I don't know if my fall back in December is why, or what.. (I am pretty sure that's what it is~ It probably just made my already bad back worse. Or "Compounded everything", as the Chiropractor said...) But..  I was in bed all last weekend.  I do testing as a volunteer in my son's school every Friday. Well last Friday, my back was starting to hurt. Every time I'd get up to go get something, I'd notice my back was hurting/really stiff, when I got up out of the (little kiddie) chair.  Well that night it got worse. Almost all day Saturday I was in bed. I took a shower, but.. Got into some clean "pajamas"-  a t-shirt and cotton loose pants I got at the Salvation Army just to wear around the house..  (They're comfy. :P)   Anyway~ I am babbling.  Monday I couldn't take it any more. My husband took me to the chiropractor. It helped. But I still wasn't "better" (I'm still not, but...  It's a lot better than last weekend.)  I went again on Wednesday. But until I can get a referral from our doctor (which we are going to change and that's going to be more hassles...), I cannot afford to go anymore.    Anyway. I also have to do "therapy", similar to what their bed at the Chiropractor did to me on Wednesday~ which was NOT fun... :(     It's pretty painful, actually. But I do think it's helping.  I dread doing it, every day; though. I have to take a rolling pin, and roll it up and down (hard to explain).  I call it RPT: Rolling Pin Therapy. lol. 10-15 times each spot. Then when I'm done doing all that, I'm supposed to ice..  See what I mean about time consuming?  So I've been getting books to read or projects to work on, while I'm doing it. So it's not a "waste" of time. ;P 

Almost forgot I had another picture here. lol.  This is another pair of mittens like the grey ones in my last post. I think after I finish the orange ones, I am going to send everything. It is the end of January, here.  If I keep making things, it will be summer time by the time I send it all. (Plus, the box would be too big to send/afford to send..)   I might keep making things here and there though. So by the time it's winter again, I'll actually have some stuff to send. I don't do that well with challenges and stuff. It seems to take me forever to get anything done, anymore.     Well if you made it all the way to the end of this, you must be bored. ;P       I hope everyone has a nice weekend.  <3

Monkey Bread, and More Mittens..

I made some Monkey Bread today. I had been wanting to make some for years.  See how long it takes me? The recipe was somewhat confusing to me, but... It still turned out good.

It doesn't look so good here. But it was.  :)   Now I know how to do it, I'll probably make it more often.

And, I've been making mittens...  These are an old pattern, I think. The url doesn't work anymore. So I'm thinking it's just gone. But it's similar to Bev's Marvelous Mittens.  I'm sending these to Pine Ridge. Maybe.

And I made another pair of "Grow Mittens", like my son's..  These are for his teacher.  I'm glad I started them when I did, and was close enough to finishing them to actually finish them in time. Because tomorrow is his last day in that classroom. I didn't have any idea until yesterday, but he is moving up to second grade on Monday.  Yay!!  He will be where he is supposed to be now. Hopefully he will be able to catch up. We'll see...   He's excited about it. (So that's good~ At least he isn't scared/nervous/anxious..)  I met his new teacher yesterday, too. She's nice. So is the one he has. I'm kind of sad... :(  I'll miss all the kids in his class. (I only helped out in there a few times, but..)     Well....  That's about all for now. 

A Pair of Mittens

I finished the other mitten today.  Every day Eon would ask "Did you finish my other mitten yet?"  Well this morning I said "I might have a surprise for you when you get home from school today?" (I only had the thumb to finish..)  Eon said, "Is it edible?"  LOL!!! He is living up to the family name, that's for sure...  I said "No..." :P  They fit him perfect, too.

See?  :D   I wanted to get some of those little labels "Made With Love by Mom"; or "Handknit Especially for You"... I had some, but I think I only have one left. I wanted to sew them in the mittens, so I could write his name on them. (So they won't get stolen.. grrr.)       I cast on for another pair for his teacher, today.  I was sneaky and had him ask her what her favorite color was. :P  (I got two colors, too. But I knew almost immediately which of the colors I wanted to make, since it is also the school color.)   :)      

Mittens

A couple of days ago I got a package in the mail. Someone I write to/writes to me, sent me a pair of mittens she knitted me! And, the pattern to make some myself.  :D  I pulled the mittens out, and immediately the 8 year old was eyeballing them. Then I looked at all the papers in there; one was a letter and the other paper was the pattern. I said "She sent me the pattern, too". Eon said "Now you can make me some, too."  :P  (He isn't very demanding, is he?... ;P)  I said "What color do you want?" So he started going through my yarn bins and picking out yarn. "That one is too thick" (Red Heart Cloud) "That one there probably isn't enough yarn to make two mittens with though.."  So finally he picked out the blue I am making his Snuggie with (ughh... I'm going to start calling that thing an "Ugh-ie" lol...). 

Ta Da....  :P  One mitten done! (It really is done, I wove in all the ends since I took this picture. :P) And it fits him perfectly.  I'm so happy.  After my disappointment with my Shalom Cardigan; and before I did this mitten, I started and frogged three different times, with this pattern...  I actually have another mitten (orange) started with 9's, that I did wrong. So I took out all the needles, and ripped it back (GASP!) to the ribbing part; and am going to try from there.  I was doing increases all around each round, not just around the thumb area. (Duh...)   Eon's mitten I did with size 7's.  I wanted to do it with 8's; but I don't have any~ and my 9's were occupied. :)    I'm really loving this pattern, thank you Marsha!! :D  I haven't knitted mittens in a few years; and the ones I did do I had a problem with, and had to force myself to finish the second mitten..   Oh, these are called "Grow Mittens" I think? That's what she wrote on the pattern. I tried doing a search on Ravelry, and found these.  She calls them "Grow with me Mittens". So I'm not sure what the exact name is.  I wonder where the original pattern came from, though (she said it is an OLD pattern).  Well til next time~~  :)

Beautiful Colorado

Our family got to go to Colorado for Winter Break. We weren't going to, but...  My husband hasn't had a vacation/time off in so long...  So we decided to go ahead and do it.  I had a hard time trying to decide which pictures to blog about. But I decided on a few that I thought would show "Colorado".  This one was when we were driving on I-70.  I was amazed I got this shot. (Obviously as we were driving into it..)  The kids love going through the tunnels. (Well, the 8 year old still does..) 

Some pictures from the Garden of the Gods. I *think* the one of the left (used? to be?) is the "Kissing Camel (used to be "Kissing Camels" but the other "camels hump" fell off..) So I don't know if it is still called the Kissing Camels or what.  It's still a beautiful red rock, though. :)

This one just looked cool. Eon was climbing up there...

Water seeps out of the rocks and freezes.  I think that is so cool.

Fountain Creek, in Manitou Springs... They changed a lot of things in the park, by this creek. I guess they don't want people going down by the creek. (Which I can understand, the way people vandalize and pollute... And ruin it for people who really appreciate and love things like this..) Anyway. You can still go down there, but...

This is the view from our hotel window.. 

This was the view from our hotel window the next morning. :0  It snowed that same day. We went to our friends house to visit them, and when we drove home, the roads were horrible and it was freezing cold.  When I walked into the hotel room, I went to go into the bathroom (there was a heater vent in there that kicked out the heat and I wanted to sit by it til I got warmed up). Well (not wearing "snow boots" or snow shoes of any kind), I stepped onto the linoleoum (sp?) and whoooooop! Smack! Fell flat on my butt, and somehow managed to hit my left elbow (it still hurts) and whack my head...  :(  It hurt so bad I couldn't get up for a while.  The weird thing was, I hurt my hip/butt the worst when I fell. But my elbow has been hurting the worst since...  I don't know if I hurt myself enough to go to the doctor/chiropractor, or what...  But now my hips hurt so bad the last two nights, the only way I can sleep is on my stomach. :(  I'm seriously thinking about going to the chiropractor...   Anyway~~ Other than me falling, and the freezing cold; we had a wonderful time.  :)  It was 20 below Wind Chill Factor. Eon wanted to go outside and play in the snow while we were there, but we kept telling him, "It's too cold".  So he was happy when we came back home and it snowed/he got to make a snowman - in my last post... :)

The snow on the patio outside our room.  

The snow on the trees, by Soda Springs Park..   I saw some really pretty trees with snow on them somewhere else, but didn't get my camera out in time. (My husband gets irritated with me, I think... "Oh wait, I want to take a picture"... ;P)  So I took a picture of these... :)     I had some other pictures I guess they aren't on here though. So maybe I'll do those next time..    :)

Vacation is Over

This morning was the kids first day back to school after Winter Break. But....  Then, some "Winter" happened. :P  We got snow! Only four inches (at the most). But in this town, you would think there was a blizzard. School was cancelled today. So.. Winter Break was extended by one day.

It's a good thing I got pictures this morning (it still wasn't completely light out when I took these so if they look a little dark to you, too; that's why.). It's almost all melted now.

And it's a good thing our youngest son got out there and made a snowman when he did, too. It was already starting to melt while he was making it..

Ta Da... Mini-Snowman.  :P

I finished a couple towel/dishcloth sets (or washcloth~ I guess it depends on how the recipient wants to use them?) over Winter Break.  I had been wanting to crochet The Hanging Dishtowel forever.  So. I did. :P There is a matching dishcloth link in the pattern. But I did my own thing for my dishcloths. (I didn't have computer access when I was making these..) So, I chained 34 and just did the stitch pattern. Then did the stitch pattern around the edges.

This one is in "Desert Sunset".  I think it looks good in a variegated, too. 

Well, I am pretty sure school won't be cancelled tomorrow. So vacation really is over. (Sigh...)