What makes a totally BLESSED Sunday:

1. Going to Sunday School.

2. Taking Ms. Lolly on a LONG walk in the beautiful, sunny, nippy air after days of days of rain.

3. Getting a good afternoon nap.

4. Having the ability and cleaning my own house including vacuuming.(Those with Fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatigue totally understand this one!)

5. The smell of something yummy in the oven for supper. Tonight it is baked stuffed peppers. YUM!

6. Feeling the Lord's presence in all of the above, every breath I take!

THANK YOU, LORD for this perfectly blessed day!

Summer, Ete, Verano...

Summer by any other name is still...

WONDERFUL!

Brrrr!!!!!

Ok, ok, I know that the northerners around here think we southern flowers are just WIMPS but you know...we just don't have enough of the cold stuff to develop the rhino skin we need to not FEEL the cold! So here I sit in my long-sleeved nightie with my new capelet around my shoulders, my flannel lap quilt over my feet and my very fuzzy Lolly Belle snuggled up close on them. The electric oven is on low to help warm the lower third of my apartment. My heating/air vents are at the top of the walls near the ceiling. Great for summer air conditioning but not too efficient in the winter. As you will all recall from elementary school science classes, heat rises. So the heat pouring forth from the vents just stays up near the ceiling. I have the 2 humidifiers going plus a pot of water on the stove to combat the dry-ness. I am a true southern gal. When the humidity gets below 50%, my lips and skin just dry up like Lake Lanier in a summer drought when the Corps of Engineers have let out too much water to the Chattahoochee River. How's THAT for a southern simile?! Just pray I don't run out of lip balm!

Another "happening" around here is that Lolly Belle Rose has broken her back canine molar. The doggie child does love to chew and has the jaws and big ol' honking teeth of a mastiff! She doesn't seem to be in pain. Perky and sassy as ever (when she's not snuggling, that is!) The vet we saw last Wednesday (Dr. Stotelmyer was off last week) said to just put water on her food to soften it up and then see Dr. S on Monday. So the plan is to go see our wonderful Dr. S on Monday to find out what to do about it.

Well that's all the news from the frozen south for now. Stay warm! p.s. Here's some pics of my A Capella Capelet that I knit over Christmas. I used vintage-like buttons I salvaged off of thrift shop garments. On Monday at the Last Chance Thrift Shop, everything is half off!
Shhh...don't the pattern author, but I like mine better :)

Merry Christmas!

Lolly’s favorite Christmas ornament is her musical moose. She looks forward every year to when I unpack it and put it on the tree. As well as being soft and fuzzy (her favorite qualities in a toy), when his tummy is pressed he sings “Oh, Christmas tree, Oh, Christmas tree!” in a very gruff, grunty moose voice ending on a raised pitch “huh?” as if asking approval. She can’t get enough of it. No matter where she is in our home, she comes running when she hears him sing!

This year, I allowed her to get a little closer for her cover picture. She was very sad when I moved him back to the Christmas tree. However, like all good girls and boys, she faced the disappointment stoically…until next year!

My Versatility +!

What a beautiful shawl by LeTonBeau! Here is a link to LeTonBeau's Versatility. Be sure to check out her pictures so you can see what the finished product looks like! As I am a larger woman, I added a repeat of the cable/bobble section so it would be wider. Here’s the first 24 rows of the main section…

My very first bobbles and cables! Can you see them? Can’t WAIT to get it finished!

P.S. If you are new to chart reading, don’t forget that you must read the chart from bottom to top AND you must read the odd rows left to right and the even rows RIGHT to LEFT. Otherwise, you will come out with wrong stitch counts and things (bobbles and cables) won’t match up!

Reality Check

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." - Helen Keller

Maybe that is why I love knitting so much...one small stitch at a time...focused...perservering...never monotonous...each stitch important to the integrity of the whole.

My Fibertrends AC-12 Brushed Felt Beret is finally finished!

Modeling a Christmas present for a friend...

Another Christmas present...the "No Knot Cravat"...

A slit is knitted in so the other side slips through.

No more losing your scarf!

Cinderella is Alive and Well!

I have been working mega hours on the 5th grade play. We are doing a funny version of Cinderella. It took me 2 weeks to get all the costume sheets finished...68 of them!!! PLUS running 30 Cd's for certain of the characters to practice with. But everything got out to the kids on Thursday. Whew! We start after school rehearsals week after next for 2 weeks. MEANWHILE, we've been working on the 2/3 grade musical to be performed in November..."Dinomotion". I'm telling you, there is nothing funnier than seeing kids in dinosaur costumes try to square dance! It ought to be a riot! My kindergartners and 1st graders will be doing scenes from The Nutcracker. They are really excited...as am I! So this weekend I finished working on Cinderella's ball dress. I found this really neat white dress at the thrift that would be a PERFECT Cinderella dress. It was really filthy and yellowed. So I brought it home and washed it up on the delicate cycle (you know you can wash ANYTHING in the washer...dry cleaners are really unnecessary!) It came out beautiful!!! Isn't it gorgeous? Can you believe it was only $10?!!!

I decided that it needed to look a little more period...so on with the drippy lace sleeves...

Add some velcro up the back for quick changes...

And lastly, a poofy overskirt...Voila! A Cinderella dress that any young girl would love to wear!

Before:

and After!