45

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, from the look at all of your blogs it sure looks that way.  I wanted to give you a quick look at my finished project number 45.  A Queen Anne Lace Scarf made out of bulky weight yarn.  It definitely changes the feel of the scarf  being made in a bulky weight, but I still think it is lots of fun.

 The colors are really beautiful, but you know my photography skills...they are questionable at best, especially on a rainy day.

 This is made with Lang Yarns Mille Fiamme, a yarn new to me.  It is 50% wool and 50% acrylic.  Loved the feel of the yarn and it was very easy to work with.  I have two more skeins to make another scarf for a Christmas present for a friend.  This scarf is a birthday present for my friend Lori. 

Look here at my Christmas cactus, she is about ready to burst.  I can't wait to see her in full bloom.  Hope you are all happy and healthy.

An Early Thanksgiving Wish

I have a lot to be thankful for this year even though this one goes down as one of my tougher years.  I love Thanksgiving as it gives me time to reflect on just how very fortunate I am in so many ways.  One thing I am especially happy about is the completion of my kitchen, which happened this afternoon.  Want to peek?

 Can I tell you how much I love it?  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!  It is finished, cleaned, cleaned some more and finally everything put back in its place.  Hooray! We are finally finished.

 My very dear friend Lynda sent me these lovely Thanksgiving themed figures as an early Christmas present.  I think they are adorable.  I love their smiles, you can almost feel their Joy.

 They were the only Thanksgiving decoration I had out this year.  The kitchen redo has definitely cut into my decorating these past few months.

I am off to Wisconsin tomorrow for a visit with all of my husbands family.  So I will leave you with these smiles and hope that all of you have a wonderful, safe Thanksgiving .

Sisters

Today is my sisters birthday.  I want everyone to pop over to Claudia's blog and wish her the best.  You see I am blessed to have Claudia in my life.  She takes her job as my big sister very seriously.  She is always there for me through all the crazy ups and downs of my life.  These past few months have been a very stressful time for me in so many ways.  I am blessed to have someone who is always there to listen.

When I was little Claudia shared a room with my other sister and me.  She was the oldest girl in my family and was always there to tuck us in at night or calm us down when we were scared.  She has had to help through middle school traumas, high school dramas and college craziness.  She has always been the calm in my storm.  She has always been wiser than me and there to give her advice when needed or just to be there to listen.  She loves my boys fiercely and loves me even more.

I have another sister that is three years older than me.  She is, well how can I say this nicely, estranged from the entire family with the exception of my parents.  We were very close growing up, almost like twins in that we shared almost everything.  When that started to change I am not sure, but now I haven't talked to her in years and she has not seen my parents in 10 years.  She will talk to them occasionally on the phone, but ten years????  Really that is inexcusable.  I am here taking care of my parents for the most part, but Claudia is a mere phone call away.  She will visit when she can,  and she does so much for my Dad talking to him everyday, or several times a day really helps to take the load off me.  Knowing I have her ear at anytime day or night is such a blessing.

So I have the both the good and bad of having sisters.  Because of this I realize how fortunate I am to have a sister that cares and that I am close to even if we are miles apart.  Sisters are a blessing, well those that care are.  So if you have a wonderful sister in your life tell her you love her today.  And please pop onto Claudia's blog and give her a special Happy Birthday for me.

Dear Noro

Dear Noro,

I feel like I had no one else to turn to so I decided to write to you.  You see Noro I have a love/hate relationship with you. I see you lined up on the shelves of a yarn store and I get wooed by your brilliant colors.  I tell myself, "No", again and again but you always win out.  After much deliberating I purchase your high priced yarn and I bring you home.


I am a bit of a yarn snob and so you fit right into my stash.  You can mingle with all of my alpaca and silk and don't even blink when I put you next to my Autumn or new Lang Mille Fiamme.  You can hold your own in any stash.  When I reach for you to make a project I know will not be appropriate for your loveliness I can not stop myself.  It is like the Noro Fairy comes out and sprinkles Noro fairy dust all over me making me lose all knitting sense. 

Take this lovely Queen Anne Lace Scarf.  I was looking for a beautiful scarf to make as a Christmas present for my knitting group Christmas Exchange.  You Noro Kureyon jumped out of my stash so fast I couldn't believe it.  I didn't even remember you were there.  I knew I should not be swayed by your colorway and your lovely yarn fumes.  Yet I picked up my size J hook and got to work.  I worked on you while waiting for my son's state swim meet to start.  Your scratchiness was distracting, yet I kept on.  I knew I should stop and use you for a felting project because you were so rough in my hands, I was nervous about the swim meet and didn't have another project so I kept at it.  So here we are today, with a beautiful yet extremely scratchy scarf that will be washed a million times yet never be right.

 Noro books you are not off the hook either.  I get wooed by your glossy photos of people having a lovely time in your Noro goodness.  I buy you even though I try to resist.

Then I almost hyperventilate until I can buy more of your over priced yarn to make another project.  Noro Taiyo you caught my eye even though your depth of color does not show up in these pictures.  I have been waiting with much anticipation until I could cast you on.  I have ignored that your yarn has broke now several times as I have tried to implement a crochet cast on.  Do I stop and think this may not work?  No because you are Noro and you have powers over me that I can't seem to control.

 Will I still love you tomorrow when I am frustrated with this vest?  Probably not but I know your power and I will sucumb to you again.

Thanks for listening,
Meredith

Busy, Busy...Part II

 The correct granite arrived at my house on Tuesday.  I love it.  It goes so nicely with my cherry cabinets.  And it is THE correct granite, the granite I have now had to approve in person, twice.  At least they got it right this time.

 On Wednesday they installed my sink and faucet!!!!!  Okay I know I am overly excited but a sink to use in the kitchen, I am thrilled.  The garbage disposal broke when the plumber removed it so it was another day before we actually had a functioning sink.  I was in Orlando at my sons swim meet when it was fully installed, so when I returned home at 12:30 AM, the first thing I did was turn on this faucet.  Fun, fun, fun I'll tell you after all this time without running water in my kitchen.

 While at the meet I received 4 calls from my tile guy.  There has been a mix up, not enough border tile ordered, ten more days.......... whatever just give me somewhere to wash my dishes and put on a pot of water and I am happy.  What is ten more days at this point?

 The tile will go here, too.  But for now we get to look at this.

 The electrician comes tomorrow to fix all of these.

 My bathroom is almost finished.  The painter comes tomorrow to paint this room, and touch up all the hundreds of places in need of serious help after this renovation.  Some of them were in need of serious help before the renovation, but now  they look even worse.

 My laundry room is finished.  New floors and cabinets.

 My new kitchen floors look great against the cherry cabinets.

 And last but not least I have finished my last Rustic Autumn Shawl from Knit Purl Gurl.  I made this out of Red Heart Boutique Treasure and I have to say I am not in love with the yarn.  It looks beautiful but the yarn splits a lot.  So I would not use this yarn again.

This shawl is a Christmas present for my son's swim coach.  She is an amazing woman and has done so much for him.  I wanted to make her something special, something she would have forever to remember us all by.  I can never thank her enough for healing him mentally and physically, but I can knit love into this shawl, hopefully she will feel it when she wears it.

 This is finished project number 44 for me for the year.  Woo Hoo!

Busy, Busy....Part I

This is a very busy time of year for everyone isn't it?  On top of having my MIL here for almost two weeks and my kitchen still under repair, we are in the midst of our high school swim meet championship season.  There has been stress, let me tell you, big stress.

 This is a picture of my two sons with their Grandmother.  Gracie is 93 years young and still going very, very strong.  They both adore her.  Having her visit with a non working kitchen was a bit of a challenge but we all survived.

 This is the granite that was delivered to my home over two weeks ago.  While very beautiful it is not what I ordered.  You can't tell much from this picture but it has a ton, and I mean a ton of gold in it.  Which would look lovely in a kitchen with dark brown cabinets, but since mine are cherry, this won't do.  This error put off completion of the kitchen another 12 days.

 Here is a view of my empty sink.  For 6 weeks I have washed any dishes we have had in my bathroom sink.  Oh how I have longed for a sink with a garbage disposal!!!!!  When I started this kitchen renovation I was determined to get it done before the end of our high school swim season.  They were supposed to start at the end of August.  Instead they started on October 4, demolition began with dust clouds everywhere.  My oldest son has mild asthma, he is the swimmer so I wanted all dust, glue, paint and mess done before his championship meets.  We are still not finished and his last high school swim season is now over.  So much for my plan.

 As a freshman my son was on a State Championship team.  That is an amazing feat.  He was able to perform at the State level and earn points for his team.  It was an amazing experience for all of us.  A boys swim team had not won states in our county since the early 1940's.  There were only two freshman on the team at that time that contributed, so for my son it was fantastic.  

The hoopla this year was that our boys had a big chance to win again.  Article after article in the paper mentioned it.  Last year they came in second with only 5 boys participating.  This year they had a bit more depth and with 3 seniors that are bigger and stronger they had a great chance.  

The district meet was two weeks ago, they sailed thorough looking strong.  We have one of the hardest districts in the state.  Last Friday we had our Region meet and they looked great, that is except for my son who came in third in both his individual events.  He was tired, sore and very worried.  He was a mess all weekend and felt the weight of the world was on his shoulders.  I don't understand swimming all that much but there is a science to tapering these kids, and if it isn't right they swim horribly at their one shot of success.  He was worried, and so was I.  These boys were under so much stress, so much was expected from them, and of course most of the pressure they were putting on themselves.  This was his last chance as a high school swimmer, it meant a lot to him.  

States was this past Thursday.  Here is a picture of my son's coach putting a medal on my boy for a first place win in the Medley relay (above).  It was the only gold medal they got. 

But my son did really well. Not as good as he wanted but well just the same.  Here he is with his haul.  A gold for the relay, a bronze for the 200 IM, a silver in the 100 breast, a bronze in the 200 free relay and one more a gold for another state title.

What a great experience for him.  Such a hard feat and to do it twice in his high school career is amazing.  

Swimming isn't over, he actually has three whole days off, then it is back to training for Jr. Nationals in Austin, Texas in December.  Then long course season and at the end of that he will depart for The Ohio State University.  Time flies so fast, and they grow up so fast.

A Visitor

 This is Wrigley, he is my next door neighbor dog and he is staying with us for a sleep over.

 His family went away for about 24 hours and he is under our care.  Isn't he adorable?  He loves to be held and to sit on your lap.  They were going to leave him at home and we were supposed to walk him.  But who wants to be left alone?  Especially if you are this cute.

There is only one problem.  You guessed it, Max.  He is a bit miffed about the whole situation, but he is dealing with it.  

Hope you are having a great weekend.