Lucie

Saturday was a sad day here in my little household. I finally had to make the decision to relinquish little Lucie to the local animal shelter (which is a no kill facility). This has been a decision I have been dwelling on for the past month now. Little miss Lucie has been escaping (about 3-4 times a week) the confines of her happy home for almost 2 months now. She has also been fighting with Thomas and holding him down to bite the tar out of him on many occasions. This would be cute if it was playful but it was anything but playful. I don't know what happened to the sweet little kitten I picked up from my co-worker's house back in June but this little cat is definitely not her. I suppose Lucie just needs a "one" cat house. I have been assured many times that cats get adopted very quickly here which also made my decision a tiny bit less painful. I will miss her but ultimately it comes down to my senior cat's health. I know she will get a wonderful home somewhere to become the wonderful little pet she can be. We miss you Lucie.

Home at last!

Well I made it through Christmas alive! I received many gifts that I needed for my apartment. We had a wonderful celebration at my Nana's house yesterday including singing Happy Birthday to Jesus.

I am most thankful that I did not run into any traffic and I did not come upon any wrecks. I received many gifts that I had asked for over the year. The two I looked forward to most were my digital camera my dad got me and my sewing machine my mom got for me. In the rush to get my presents packed for the ride home -- I left my camera cables at mom and dad's so I will have to wait until the weekend to get it. Then I promise I will have a post at least one picture a day with my posts.

Speaking of pictures, I cannot wait until I get some pics of Lucie and Thomas up so you guys can see my kitties and other knitting projects I am working on. I am still thinking about my design for the Red scarf project. Well I am obviously not going to get it done typing away in this blog so that is all for now. Please read again soon.

Christmas time

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone is able to spend time with their loved ones and has a safe holiday. Please continue to keep our troops in your prayers and thoughts due to they unfortunately not being able to spend this time of year with their families. God bless our troops and keep them safe!

I love Christmas time. I love being able to open presents and being able to see my family and friends. Speaking of presents, I got my first comment on my blog today! It may not be exciting to some but I didn't think anyone but myself and those who like to know what is going on with my life read this thing. I want to say thanks Cathy in MN for posting a comment on my blog it means a lot. At least now I know that there are people who may happen upon my endless ramblings of my particular quirks in life and might be interested in my knitting projects.

.......anyways back to Christmas.........

I feel like I will be celebrating Christmas for almost a whole week.

This is basically how it will go over today and the next few days.......

Today 12/22/06 -- My first present: a comment on my blog. Now I know there are people out there interested in what I have to say and knit even though I am still in my beginning stages of knit expertise.

Tomorrow 12/23/06 -- I will be exchanging gifts at my mom and dad's house with my mom's side of the family then hopefully at some point in time delivering my best friend Julie's gift to her at her house.

Sunday 12/24/06 -- My friend Charlotte and I have devised a plan to meet up when I am on my way to Gene's house in order to exchange gifts from there I will be going to Gene's house. At Gene's we will swap gifts then go to his granddaddy's house to have the family do the number exchange** over there. Then it will be back to mom and dad's later that night for sleep.

**The number exchange is where the women bring gifts for women and the men gifts for men. They then number the gifts and men draw numbers for the men gifts and the women draw numbers for the women gifts. It gets pretty interesting.

Monday 12/25/06 -- Wake up at mom and dad's then get ready to go to (my dad's side of the family) Nana and Papa's house for family gift exchanging. Then later back to my little humble apartment where Gene and I will finally exchange our gifts.

Gee whiz it makes me tired just thinking about all that traveling. I am just thankful that it is all in driving distances of an hour or less and I don't have any flying to do like some people do for the holidays.

The scary part of this whole plan is that Lucie and Thomas will be in the house all alone for almost two whole days. I will be leaving enough food and water for them to get by on. I have a very large kitty food bowl and a self watering water bowl that holds more than plenty enough water for those two. I just hope Thomas doesn't go into a binge feeding and eat all the food in one day. I hate to leave these two kitties alone by themselves but I can't take them home with me because mom and dad have a dog and I just don't think that will go over too well with them.

I have all my Christmas knitting complete and I will be giving the presents out tomorrow. My two uncles have knitted camouflage hats and I finished my aunt Beth's scarf. I hope to get a picture of them wearing their gifts to put up on the blog. I didn't have a knit gift request from my aunt Susan; however, she crochets and I got her some really cool crochet hooks for Christmas.

Busy week

It's been a very busy week. I am still finishing up my knitting projects in order to give them for Christmas; however, I don't think I will finish in time. My mom called me tonight to tell me that we have moved our Christmas gift swapping to Saturday from Christmas Eve. So this means I have tonight and tomorrow to finish a hat that is halfway done, a partial scarf and a scarf that is about 2 inches from being finished. I am not going to panic though. I think I have plenty of time.

I went to our local wally world tonight and bought some press on nails to give myself an instant manicure for the holidays. I must say they look so natural. The fake nail industry sure has come a long way. I was truly amazed at how good they looked. Those $5.67 nails look just as good as those I would have gotten done professionally that would have cost me $35.00 or more!! Now that is being thrifty.

I looked up some wedding planning tools today and registered to get my free wedding planner I found on line. Gene and I have not set a date yet which is no big deal. We are have only been engaged a week---we are just filled with joy and excitement. I must admit I have looked at some wedding dress ideas online. They sure do have some gorgeous ones. I also registered to receive some free wedding accessory catalogs that should be here in a couple of weeks. I think I am going to ask my aunt Beth to be my matron of honor and ask Gene's little sister Mistey and my cousin Amber to see if they may be interested in being my bridesmaids.

I Passed my FINAL!

YES!!! I just checked my grades for my online class and I passed with a B !!! This means I will be getting my degree in the mail in a few weeks I am so excited. I can hardly wait until I can go back to school to start on my nursing degree!!

I also recieved a Christmas card today from a dear friend. Her name is Ms. Hurley. She is getting into knitting and she cross stitches beautiful projects. I miss talking to her a lot. I used to work with her in Warner Robins at the air force base there. She is a great friend and a wonderful person.

BIG NEWS!!

My wonderful boyfriend, Gene, is now my wonderful fiance! Tonight (12/15/06) when Gene came over to my house as we were planning to go out to eat, he dropped down on one knee and proposed to me! I said YES between the gasping for air and tears. The ring is absolutely gorgeous! After I got through my happy tears and hugging and kissing him, I called my parents to tell them the wonderful news. My mom was so ecstatic and dad was happy too!

The ring is so beautiful! I could barely keep my eyes off of it all night. Gene teased me saying if I didn't stop looking at it -- he was going to take it back home with him! Of course, that is just Gene for ya.

Motorcycle scarf

As I stated in one of my earlier posts, I made my dad a scarf when I first started knitting and well at the time it served its purpose. Dad informed me that it was somewhat short for a man his size and considering I made it out of a small skein of yarn it was most likely "short".


Anyway below is a picture of my dad and his Motorcycle Scarf:


Sorry for the darkness in the picture. The one where I used flash just didn't look right. The other picture is close up to show the pattern and the details of the scarf.


Motorcycle Scarf (the pattern)
2 skiens of Bernat Softee Chunky ( I chose the Grey Heather) A different yarn that you can actually block would be better to prevent curling. I was unaware of this in my early days of knitting and actually tried to block an acrylic yarn to no avail.
1 pair of # 8 (US) needles

cast on 32
Row 1-4 knit
Row 5 knit 3 purl across knit 3
Row 6 knit
Repeat rows 5 & 6 until desired length (end with a Row "5")
Knit 3 rows and bind off in knit.
You should end up with two knit "ridges" at the ends of the scarf.

This is my first attempt at writing a pattern so if you have questions or it doesn't quite make sense please let me know.

***Please use this pattern only for personal or charitable use.***

Just so you know..... I was unaware in the original posting that you CANNOT block acrylic yarn; however, if you were to make this with a wool type yarn you will be able to block it. Hopefully after that it will not curl.

Mom and Dad

I had to cut and paste my parents together here. When they go off on trips on the Harley they are never able to find a nice person along the way to get a picture of the both of them together.

This picture is from a trip they took to Helen earlier in this year (2006).

These are a couple of more pics of mom and dad. They each decided they needed a picture of themselves on the Harley I suppose.

Another One!

It appears that we have a mouse , Part two. I was recently typing away at my desk at work entering bills and invoices when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was a small maybe 1.5" long MOUSE! This means we have yet another mouse in my office back here at the shop. We have already laid to rest one little varmit and now we have another one. Time to bring the peanut butter back to work to bait the trap.
I wonder how a humane trap would work out: if I caught this little mouse then let him go outside??? hmmm, probably would just show up a couple of days later.

Final

Well I have taken my final exam in my last class I needed in order for me to graduate with a Associates Degree in Biological Sciences. I took my time and went over my questions twice. Now it is submitted in order to be graded. Based upon my progress so far this semester I expect to at least get a "B" out of this class. It has been a long hard road due to not being as strict on myself because I was not in a "classroom" every day. I can't wait until I am able to find out what I made on the final. Until then I will keep you guys posted.

Cole

One down, One to go.......

As I said before in my previous post I was knitting my uncle Craig a camoflage hat for Christmas. I used one of Bev's patterns and it can be found here.Well I finished it this past weekend and I have now started on my uncle Albert's knit hat. I hope that when I go home this weekend that I will be able to get a couple of pictures to post of these marvelous creations I have made.

I also made my dad a very nice scarf made of a bulkier yarn so his neck will stay warm when he is on his Harley Davidson. When I first started knitting I made him one but wasn't quite thick enough to withstand his driving. He was telling me he still get's a little chilled and its not quite long enough. I also need to get started on those fingerless gloves for my mom.This is my progress so far on my uncle Albert's hat.

My family gets together every year a weekend or so before Christmas to have a get-together to enjoy everyone's company and to socialize over the various finger foods that are brought to eat. It's sort of like a mini-family reunion. We all try to go but it is like every year there is always those couple of cousins that don't make it which we hardly ever see.

Another Cold one

I tell yall what-- I am not one that was made for cold weather. South Georgia just should not get this COLD. The high today was 45. Its supposed to get down to 20 tonight if not lower. On top of that my cat, Lucie, is in heat because that is the only logical reason I can think of why a female cat would want to leave a perfectly warm home to go outside in freezing weather.

Lucie escaped this morning when I was shuttling presents to the car for my co-workers. I liked to have never caught her and she was running for the road. My worst fear is for one of my cats to get runover. I finally got her turned back toward my apartment. Thank goodness my upstairs neighbor drove up from going to get breakfast and distracted her long enough for me to catch her.

I will be calling the vet to see how much it will be to get her "fixed". I love my litte Lucie but she has got to quit escaping the confines of her warm home.

I think for the next couple of days when I know I will be in and out of the house a lot; I am going to cage her up in my pet carrier I have. I'm sure she will think it is cruel and unusual punishment while she is in lock down while I am going in and out but I would rather know she was safe than for her to get out and Lord knows what happen to her.

The Mouse

For those of you who do not know me personally I am an advid animal lover. If I could I would take home every stray cat around and then I would be boyfriendless. Don't worry Crazy Aunt Purl if you are reading this because I would have way more than 4 cats, but hey 4 cats is a good round number. I myself have two and I would have 2 more if my boyfriend, Gene, was not allergic to them.

Anyway let me cut to the chase. The past few weeks there has been a little mousey running rampant in my office at work. I work in a small office at a trucking company's maintenance shop. Well this little mouse was not a problem until one day I felt it sniffing my exposed ankle! This meant the little mouse had to go ( I did not want to risk getting bit).

I work in the shop with 4 other people all of which are men and everyone knows how men can be. "Awe, its just a little mouse that's wanting to stay warm."
Well not to sound cold hearted but it had to go! I didn't want to necessarily kill the thing but it needed to be out of my office. I threatened to bring one of my cats up there but then I was faced with carting a litter box with me to work for the day along with a terrified cat.

I finally talked my supervisor into going and getting me a mouse trap in order to rid us of the little rascal. Yesterday we set the trap. This morning we had one relieved parts manager (me) and one dead mouse.

I gathered the little thing up trap and all and placed it inside a Hardee's to go bag to burry her in and said a few words over her. I hated that we had to kill the little creature but she was causing unsanitary conditions at work and unfortunately there were no humane mouse traps at the hardware store.

Mistey's Shawl

I thought I would share this project with you. Included in this post is a shawl that I made for my boyfriend's little sister last year for Christmas. Mistey is a Harry Potter fan and she had stated that she would like a shawl so I incorporated the two. I found some Red Heart yarn that matched as closely as I could find to the House of Gryffindor's colors and an easy pattern for a shawl. The following is the result of my knitting:

The first picture is before I had finished knitting hence the look of concentration on my face. The others pictured are my favorite aunt Beth, her husband my uncle Craig, and their child Chett. The picture immediately above these lines is of the finished project before I wrapped it to give to Mistey.

It's been a cold day

It sure has been a cold one here in south Georgia today. I think the low last night was down to 27 degrees F. All I know is that I sure was snuggled up under my electric blanket. I found myself surrounded by two cats that did not want to get out of the warm covers this morning either. The high is supposed to rise up into the fifties today but not much warmer than that the rest of the week. I have been running the heater constantly at work.
I am currently working on a Christmas gift to my uncle Craig. Its a knit hat worked in "Renegade" Bernat yarn. The varigations work up quite nicely to make the perfect camo piece. I will post a picture as soon as I can get my hands on a digital camera.

More about me

This is just going to give you some background information on myself.

I just learned how to knit last year from my Nana. She has always made the neatest gifts by hand that are cherished by the reciever. Although she hasn't done much knitting in the past years, I asked her last summer to teach me her art. It was quite a challenge for both of us due to I am left handed and she is right handed but she was able to teach me how to knit right handed.
And so my obsession with yarn and creating baby blankets, knit hats, and scarves began.
I am not that much of an accomplished knitter. I want to do more than just the three projects I mentioned above but alas my skills are limited but they make me happy.
I would like to do more charity knitting as time allows so far I have just made some little hats and gave to the nursery here at our local hospital.

Well onto other things.

I am currently renting an apartment in Douglas, GA. I live there with my two cats, Lucie and Thomas. Thomas is seven years old and Lucie is only about 9 months old. Lucie has decided she was meant to be a dog. She fetches her toys which I have to throw for her to go get. Even though it comes out as "meow" she does for all purposes "bark" when she doesn't get her way in playing or her treats. Thomas on the other hand is just a lazy old man. He hides behind doorways to pounce on the unsuspecting Lucie or just lays around the house.

My boyfriend and I have been going out since April of 2004. Since then we have both been trying to get our degrees, he has been trying to get his Bachelor's Degree in Agricultural Education and I have been trying to complete my Associate's Degree in Biological Sciences. My final is next week and it looks like I will be passing my last class and I should be getting my degree in the mail in the next couple of weeks.

I intend on furthering my education by going to the local technical college and taking nursing classes to one day maybe become a nurse.