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Tagged by Beth

I have been tagged by Beth. So here goes 6 wierd things about me:

1) Oversleeping by 15 minutes will cause me to not go the the gym. Crazy I know, but if I don't get my behind through those gym door right at 6 am... I feel like I am better off not going because I won't get a "full" workout. My hubby thinks this is quite silly.

2) Seeing laundry, clean or dirty, OUT, can occasionally send me into a maniacal tail spin. It's a good thing we moved the washer & dryer to the basement from our first floor bathroom.

3) An eigth to a quarter of an inch can sometimes determine my mood- when it is the amount of room or lack of room in the waistband of my favorite jeans. Currently, it's a good mood. Let's hope it stays that way through the next week of parties and overeating!!!

4) I used to take my fork and squish crumbs on my dessert plate to get that last bite... and never thought anything of it until I saw this "trait" of mine being described by my husband at my bridal shower. The bridesmaids made a video of my then-hubby-to-be and asked him all sorts of questions. I haven't done this since.

5) I like a little coffee with my cream.

6) I have never completed a garment for myself!!!! They are all UFO's- sizzle, my cabled sweater, a lace shawl... socks...

sadly, grandma's ballerina slipper will have to be frogged. Not enough yarn to complete the other foot. My LYS doesn't carry the yarn anymore, but I purchased something comparable. The puple has a little fleck of pink in it and I figured that since I was doubling up on the yarn, I could just used the other yarn w/ it and it would be fine. I'm off to frog the slipper before I go to work this morning.


And of course there was a 50% off bin at my LYS! I picked up three hanks of this luscious alpaca- 100%. It's going to be a "test-tube" scarf for my hubby to see if he is allergic to alpaca. The store owner thought that maybe he was allergic to lanolin, which was something used to creat wool or process it or something in machine made sweaters (like the ones he has from a store and not my knitting needles). So we will see. I wonder if I could whhip this up before his b-day next week. Hmmm.


And a few mercy pics for your viewing pleasure...























I think she wants to go somewhere in her carrier. Too bad Starbucks won't let us come in there anymore.

My mom's house sold... and she made us come and get all my junk that was left in my old room. I found loads of colored pencils and other random crafts over the past few weeks...

We packed up our friend's truck and took her stuff to the intermediary home (my grandma's) where she has been staying since gram came home from the hospital in August. Gram wasn't able to live alone and has been terribly sad since my grandfather died. Thankfully, having my mom there seemed to help gram get better! Mom will be moving again in February, when she and her longtime BF marry.

We took my old bedroom set, which I will admit is somewhat dated, but it's free, a five piece set, and it has some sentimental value to me. I figured that once we have children it would be a perfectly not-new-so-I-wont-be-upset-when-they-write-in-marker-all-over-it type of furniture. We also got my mom's washer & dryer, which is much newer than ours. After Christmas we are going to hook them up. We will be the yuppies who have two washers and two dryers. We need one set per person, c'mon! I am excited about the double duty machines. We go through alot of laundry, mostly because of me and my gym clothes. I can't imagine what will happen after we have little ones.

It was a long day.

On Sunday, we traveled to Syracuse and met up with my husband's uncle & family. We had lunch/dinner at this great restaurant, Plainville Farms. Very family friendly, which was good because the cousins are 5 & 6.


















We exchanged gifts and look at what Mercy got! A cat tunnel! She's small enough for a cat tunnel- good news because the agility tunnels are a hundred bucks. Mercy promptly climbed inside her tunnel and layed down for a little nap. Now it's her favorite place to hide. We can't wait to get the connecting tunnels.


I did manage to get some knitting done. One more ballerina slipper for gram. Sadly, I think I have run out of yarn on the second. I hope that my LYS still carries this lovely alpaca.


One more fat ankle photo for your viewing pleasure.









The weekend would not be complete without a mad dash to the zoo, err, I mean post office. Two days in a row, and both were quite busy. Sunday at 9 pm and Monday at 11 pm. Of course, we will be there again tonight. One more gift to send. We hope.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Some FO's and UFO's

BEHOLD... the ballerina slipper. Thanks Marisol for the pattern!





Eww I have fat ankles. And ghastly white. You'd never know I work out, huh?




Mercy has nice skinny ankles. She seems to like her grandma's birthday gift too!








I used Lambs Pride worsted in Deep Charcoal.
It took me about a week. (amongst various other projects!)
The combination of the wool and mohair makes a really neat fleck in the yarn that I truly enjoy. But alas, these will be gifted to my mother dearest this weekend for her umm... 39th birthday... same age for the past fifteen years- you know the drill!




I have had a setback on sleeve island. Looks as though I may be here longer that I thought. Somehow I missed a stitch or row or something that would cause this gaping hole. I continued knitting on for several inches. Time to frog.

Thankfully the other sleeve was not adversely affected.

This weekend we will be traveling to Syracuse NY for the day to visit with some family that is in town... so I hope to get some car knitting in and get the sleeves back on track to wear for Christmas. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it.

I also got THIS surprise in the mail... well not really a surprise... I ordered it...



Karen Kingsbury's fourth book in the Firstborn series "Family." Her books are awesome and a superfast read! The stories are so gripping that you will stay up until all hours of the night reading just one more chapter... and another... and another.... (I finished this one in 2 days )I highly recommend her books!

Sadly, I will have to wait until spring 07 at the earliest for the last book of this series.




A piece of sad news... it appears as though my dear hubby may be ALLERGIC TO WOOL!?!?!?! How can this be? The fiber that I have come to love is the very same item that makes him sneeze and have hayfever like symptoms? Nothing I have knit him has made him sneeze... but then again, I haven't actually finished knitting him anything in wool. A woolease by Lion Brand scarf many moons ago... the camo yamaka was acrylic... Basically when he wears store bought wool sweaters he feel sick with watery eyes, scratchy throat, sneezy, etc.

But I have been secretly doing all this research on how to design him the coolest snowboarding sweater. Clipping photos from magazines the whole nine yards. Now is it possible that I may have to knit such a masterpiece in acrylic?!?!

Is alpaca the same as wool? If he is allergic to wool, is he allergic to cashmere? Oh the sorrow!

Maybe I should buy a skein of every time of fiber and do an allergy test.

Handmade Christmas Gift Swap!

Bright paper packages tied up with string.....


These are a few of my favorite things.















Look at all these goodies that Beth sent me! Look at this handmade scarf- so beautiful. I never knew that was how you made diagonal ribbing. I can't wait to try one myself. I wore the scarf all evening. A cute little ornament to go on the tree... cinnabon coffee... a new willowtree figurine for my collection... and even Mercy got a gift! Thank you Beth! You are the best!

This week has been a busy one, as I have been absent from blogland for a week! I did, however, receive a really cool pattern from Marisol for ballerina slippers, and I have one slipper done, one to go for my mom. I hope I can whip up a few more pairs for some others. before Christmas.

I cast on for a new and improved camo hat for my hubby. No yamaka this time. I changed the needle size and cast on about 10 more stiches. Let's hope!

Have a great Monday everyone!

It's a Bird.... It's a Plane.... It's a Hat?

It's a man's hat! No, it's Mercy's hat!



Wait, I know - a camoflague yamaka! One must keep kosher on the hunt, you know. (to all my Jewish friends, please don't take offense!)



We sure had a good laugh about this one last night. I simply could not control my laughter. Hysterics. A camo yamaka. That's what it looks like! We need to find a very small headed hunter, maybe a child, to give this to.

So it's back to the drawing board for knitting the hubby something. And I will knit on circulars ad check size/ try on often!!!