Recounting

So fall will be here tomorrow.  A time when my garden starts to peter out, my yard doesn't need to be watered as much, the kids are back in school and the neighborhood is quieter.  It is also the time when I start to recount what I accomplished during the summer and make plans for fall and the holidays.  A re-counting of sorts.  Of course my to do list and my completed list are very lopsided.  I am usually running this way, a day late and a dollar short.  Lately I have been on a knitting jag and have accomplished so many things, but have a large list of things I still want to do.  What is it about women that make us make such huge goals that we can't finish unless we become 10 people?  Oh well.

On the other hand, I got to go to a wonderful class reunion this summer and connect with so many old and new friends.  Family reunions were always fun and having our grandkids around is always a blast!  Our youngest grandson, Tyson, starting walking (or I should say running) this week and it makes your heart smile to watch the look of wonder on his face as he accomplishes each new thing.  And he is only 11 months old! 

Best of all, our huge garage is making progress.  We just finished the roof.  Next will be the garage doors, probably around Christmas.  Then a break to next spring and the final push to get it sided and the floor poured.  And we will have a wonderful new garage!  This has been a huge undertaking for my husband, but it is really turning out so wonderfully!  I am really proud of him!

Just to let you see what I have accomplished lately, here is a shawlette which is my first attempt at knitting lace and a knitted purse that I did as a challenge on Ravelry.  It actually was kind of fun, which I never thought I would want to do, but now I have plans to do another in the near future.  Guess another item just got added to the to do list!

Cindy

My cousin Cindy Olsen Starr died last Saturday.  She was 56.  I haven't seen her for years, but it really set me back.  When I was growing up, Cindy was 3 years older than me and I looked up to her and wanted to be just like her.  Later on we went to high school at the same school, Bonneville.  She was a senior when I was a freshman.  Around this time she started having some health problems and she had struggles over the next several years.  She married, had kids and tried to do everything right.  Sometimes she did. Sometimes she didn't.  But she never gave up trying.  That's what I remember most about Cindy, when she set her sights on something, nothing would stop her.  So rest in peace now, Cindy.  You can quit trying so hard.  You are in a better place and I look forward to the day when I see you again, free of all the things that weighed you down in this life!  Love you Cindy!

This is a link to obituary if you would like to know Cindy better.
 http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/postregister/obituary.aspx?n=cindy-starr&pid=153499077&refsvce=google#.TmmktfzPpYg.google

Chris

Blogging issues

I have been trying to log on for two days to make an entry, but have had issues with my blogspot account.  Found out tonight that Google is changing from Google Page Creator to Google sites and that in the process you have to have a new host for your third party widgets.  I just spent 2 hours going through the steps to get this done.  Apparently, when you enable third party cookies and delete the history under Internet options, it is not making it through to AOL.  So I have yet another program that I have to log onto using the internet explorer.  I just thought I would let you know in case you are having the same problem.  I have made Google aware of it, but who knows when they may address it. 

On an up note, I am glad to be back!

Chris

A little knitting

We stayed home this weekend, worked in the yard, worked on the garage and just napped.  It was actually a very nice weekend.  I canned soom beans too, which I have been desperately needed.  Hope to get more.  My patch is late this years because we had to replant everything this spring!  Good Lord willing, and it don't freeze, we still should get what we need.

I also did some knitting!  I tried a shawl in a KAL on Ravelry and it stoked me, so I decided to try a fingering weight one that has lace.  I found this downloaded pattern on Ravelry and so I decided to try it.  In case you want to try it, it is the Holden Shawlette.  Anyways, I went and bought some nice yarn, Cascade Heritage, and started it last Thursday.  I spent about 2 hours a day as an average and I finished it yesterday.  So without further ado........................

I can't wait until this fall when I can wear it with my navy sweater and levi skirt!

Chris

Happy Labor Day!

I am busily working along in my yard and my garden!  Canned 10 pints of beans today.  Also cleaning for the holidays, although I am not sure we will have anyone around to celebrate.  Maybe we'll take a drive, or go to the movies.  Not sure yet.  All I know is that Gene and I are both needing a relax break, so that's what this weekend will be.  Finish a few honey do's, take a nap, knit a little, cook!  Sounds like a plan, eh?

Hope you have a great long weekend! 

Chris

Busy, busy!

Well, I guess it took me a few more days than I thought to get back to you!  You know how it goes?  We have had 2 birthdays this past week and Gene and I both got the flu, so there you go! 

Want to see what I have been doing? 

 A pair of cuddly wool socks for Gene........

 A scarf to sell at the craft fair in November

 A cuddly warm wrap for me when the fall nights get here.............

And a shawl, don't know who it's for yet!  Anyways these are what I have pictures of right now.  I also knitted 2 keyhole scaves for the craft fair, another pair of socks, and 3 dishcloths from cotton yarn, but I didn't take pictures of them.  Right now I have 2 more pairs of socks on the needles, another keyhole scarf  (red!) and today I started a scarf for me.  I also have a sweater in a partially done stage, that I go back to every day or so.  That one will take til about Christmas to get done, but that's okay!  This is how I am battling empy nesting.  I really am enjoying it!

So last Thursday was Bailey's seventh birthday and Gene's was on Monday, so the family got together at Kendall and Christy's on Sunday and had a cookout!  It was really nice!  I have to tell you, it was different!  For so many years all the family events have been at our house!  And while I love having everyone there, it was alot of work to get ready for and clean up after everytime!  It felt good to relax at their house and let them be in charge.  I just brought a salad and sat and played with Tyson!  At 9:30 we headed home so Conner and Bailey could get in bed for school on Monday morning!

 Bailey got a Hello Kitty cake!  She is really into Hello Kitty right now, most of her presents had the great Kitty on them.  Anyways, when they went to pick up her cake, she made them add Grandpa to the cake since we were celebrating together!  So cute!

One last picture for the night!  Back in June, we moved Tiffany and Joe into a new house too!  They have they beautiful home, on six acres, which is great for their menagarie of animals.  Sunshine, the cow came to live at our home's pasture, but the rest of the animals were transplanted at the new home.  They have a dozen or so chicks (now mostly grown), a piglet that is growing fast, 2 dogs and this rooster.  This rooster is from their last year's batch of chicks.  They never had the heart to kill him, so they just let him run around.  He has become buddies with the 2 dogs and now thinks he is a dog!  He just wanders around the yard all day, eating bugs and crowing at dawn (usually under Tiffany's window).  Life is good!  I get such a kick out of him, because he has become a master at adaptation!  If he needs to, he can run with the chickens, the cows, the pigs, or even the dogs!  And now he is such a part of their landscape, it would be downright lonely without him!

Have a great day tomorrow on the first day of September!

Chris

Peek A Boo!

So you thought I was kidding when I said I was going off radar for a few weeks!  Whew!  I love August, but then I hate August too!  I love reunions, I love my raspberry patch, I love the smell of the fresh cut hay behind my house, I love early mornings working in my yard, I love camping and everyone trying to squeeze in a little more fun time before school starts.  But then I hate the heat, I hate the anticipation of the heat going away and winter setting in upon us too soon, I hate school starting up again and everything on our road being so quiet.  So I guess you could say August and I have a love-hate relationship!

So where do I start?  Well, our class reunion was actually the 29th and 30th of July and it was  a success!  It was so much work, but so worth it!  I think at 52-54 we are realizing our mortality and wanting to get close again.  We are already planning a dinner or luncheon around October, because 5 years is just too dang long to wait to get together again!

  This is my bf from high school, Melanie Hart Belnap!  She was in charge of the reunion and I was her able assistant!  Neither of our husbands went to Bonneville with us, but they were awesome!  They did all the heavy lifting for us and helped the evenings go off without any hitches!  Thanks Brent and Eugene!  You are the best (that's why we married you)!

It is hard to realize that Melanie and I are both grandmas!  I remember when the most important thing in our lives was deciding what outfits we going to wear so we coordinated with each other!  Now we both have awesome (and stressful) careers and blossoming families (mine is a tribe, actually) and suddenly we are looking more like our moms than our high school pictures.  Mind boggling!

This is another of my bfs!  Holly and I went to high school together and were pretty good friends. Then we decided to be college roommates!  There is a bond when you live with someone that you don't get any other way!  Holly is our resident artist!  When we in college she used to draw the newspaper adds for the Bon Marche and we always had awesome outfits floating around our apartment!  She even painted our Bee for our reunion!  There was no one better than Holly to play hooky from class with, and let me tell you this woman has the most awesome laugh!  You can be on the other side of the store, never see her, but when you hear it, you know Holly is there!  I found her once in Walmart with that laugh!

Have you ever tried to get a large group of people to all look at the camera at the same time?  Not easy!  We had about 75 people from our class attend between Friday and Saturday night!  Here are 42 or so of them!  Our original class had 305 graduate from it, so this is very small compared to the whole lot, but it's the cream of the crop!  Hurray for the Bonneville High School Class of 1976!  Go Bee!

And on that note, here is the Fighter Bee!  This was our school mascot!  It used to lay in tile at the entrance to our school.  Stepping on it had consequences!  If you were a bee, you would have to scrub it with a toothbrush, and if you were from another school, well lets just say more than fight resulted from insulting our Bee!  Holly painted it on clear vinyl so we could lay it out like it used to be!  I told you she was an awesome artist!

Well enough for today!  Tune in tomorrow for another installment of my July-August travails!  There is still much to come!

Chris