The Pres and I

Our President Elect stopped by our office a few weeks ago and we decided to keep him around. What fun was had by all having their picture taking with him. He is just like he looks, tall, dark and handsome and flat!

One of our vendors makes these true to size cardboard cutouts and sent one to my Supervisor. So far he had attended quite a few holiday parties and going home with another so his kids could meet him. He even became part of the family Holiday card. I'll see if I can get my hands on some of the pictures to share with you. They are a hoot.

We get off work at 2:00 today not sure if I will stop at any stores on the way to my BFF celebrating Hanukkah.

Have a Happy Holiday

Juliet and Mom + Dad

T & R have been taking tons of pictures and uploading the up on k0dak pictures. Juliet is about 3 months old in this picture. While the BSJ was fun to make IF I ever make another one I will definitely make it in a larger size and make the sleeves longer. I made the hat larger so she could wear it longer it seems like it works well for her now. This is probably the first and last time she will be wearing it.

Here is R my nephew with Juliet around 2 months old. I had to include a picture if him!

If you are a New Yorker you have to pick a team, looks like Juliet, by default of Dad is a Yankees Fan. Yeah! I believe one or more of his brothers are Jet fans.

This girl has more outfits than I do. I guess most babies do and probably can only wear them once. While this is cute, I can hear Juliet at about the age of 11 saying to Mom "How could you" LOL

Here are the sweater and hat before I shipped them off.

Have a great day and if I don't post again have a safe and happy holiday

WoW- A Fathers Return

Last Friday I was looking out my kitchen window and saw Stanley across the street. He has his back to me. So I went out and called for him but Stanley was in the garden. Then I knew it was Big Boy. I called to him and he ran right over. It has been a long time since Big Boy showed up for a visit. His last visit was 12/24/07. I have no idea where he hangs out between visits.

It amazing how he always pops in. This boy used to be the stud of the neighborhood but he has been caged and neutered and returned to the neighborhood. As you can see he is healthy but his face was a bit scratched up, but he turned as I took the shot. So when I hear cats fighting I have to think of him. He has been here for years! It amazes me how he has survived living out doors all year round. But I know by looking at him that there are others feeding him. The boys went up to him and they all smelled each other. Stanley was the first to greet him but was careful. I put of food for him which he ate a bit of then was on his way. I know they probably don't know he is their Father but I like to think after all these years that they do know they are family.

Please stop in to see what all my WoW friends were up too.

She grew too fast!

and I knit too slow. BSJ #1 was made for Annaleise who is now 10 months old now, she was 6-7 months old when I started and used a larger needle, oh well, another lesson learned. As BSJ#1 was my first I had trouble and took too much time thinking it out that it seem to take forever.

I put it on her but the buttons would not stay closed. So another sweater in our future, this time it will be toddler size. L & E stopped over to help me find out why my DVD player would not work after I replaced my cable box. I'm sorry I did not get a picture of brother Leon. He was having so much fun either trying to play with things in a non-child friendly home --magnifying glass or hand cream or with the cat toys. They did go home with wwf blue-footed booby that Annaliese is playing with in the video. It was brand new and still wrapped in it's original packaging. I took several still shots of her but she was a wiggle worm so I switched to video.


Both kids are just adorable and so happy and well behaved. They are my BFF grand babies #4 & 5 from daughter #2.

WoW--Pia's new spot

She has decided this is a warm place to go. Considering she fills the most of this cubby she keeps herself warm.

You need to check out the fun stuff on WoW

What a difference a week makes!

These pictures were taken last weekend 11/8. Here is what my Burning bush looked like a week after I took the pictures of my scarf & new yarn.

This is what it looks like today.
My Crape Myrtles were beautiful on 11/8

and today!Here is my latest knitting project. I saw the pattern on Rachel's site. This is only my third cable project the others were simple baby caps. It is taking me forever to do these because I am doing a lot of start and stops. Sometimes just too tired in the evenings.

The next two pictures show the true color. Notice the funky thumb. For the life of me I could not wrap my brain around the increases. I think it had something to do with a pattern that was translated. They are simply called Fingerless Gloves-Stulpen Rav link.

See how terrible it is? I increased too many stitches at one time. The directions read: Approximately half way through the chart start with the thumb gusset increases, for that increase eight times in every third round one st after st 58 and before st 1. Knit all the thumb sts in stockinette st. 3 rds after last increase put the thumb sts on a stitch holder and cast on two new sts. Duh! I have done thumbs before but this sure got me confused.
On the electronic front my DVD player lived it's life programed at the factory. So I ordered a new one here. I was delivered Friday just as I was leaving. Well, I hooked it up today. Pretty easy. Set the clock, the FM radio & have sound coming out when I put a DVD in but no picture. It is a pretty simple hook up so I have no idea why I'm not getting a picture. I have been watching all the shows I had recorded on my cable box DVR all weekend but took a break to see if I could set the DVD up. As I was doing this I noticed that my cable channels were not coming up. So called for tech help, unplugged to re-boot yada yada. Now I have nothing on the HDTV cable box. The one in the bedroom works (not high def) and the Internet works, so now I have no tv to watch. As I was straighting up my coffee table I found my portable dvd. I only got it to watch knitting videos, like Lucy Neatby two socks vids and the BSJ. Once I finish this post I am going to watch a movie and work on the other glove. Lets give a thumbs up if I get the darn thing correct this time.

MP3 player update

You may remember back in June when I posted about my big purchase using the stimulus money we received? I did not buy the Belkin adapter as I had an old cassette adapter I used in my last car that did not have a CD player. I am lucky that my PT Cruiser has both cassette and CD player.

So far listened to the "Good Earth" by Purl S Buck one of my favorite required reading when I was in high school. This one I down loaded from the library. I have also listened to "The Broken Window" by Jeffery Deaver, a Lincoln Rhyme novel. Then I went onto "The Disappeared" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, this was SiFi and the first in an series. I would listen to more but don't want to pay the prices I have found yet. The library does not carry these in audio. I enjoyed the book enough that if I can find each book on audio in the series I will listen to them. Don't you just hate it when you read a book from the middle of a series! I was lucky that this was the first. It is really easy to download the books. Each comes in 2 parts, while the Good Earth came in chapters. The directions that came with this player are basic so I had a little trouble figuring out if I could put both parts on at the same time. With The Good Earth, I was able to load the whole book and it just continued through to the end. My biggest learning curve is to remember to turn the player off before I turn the car off. Unlike CD or cassette books that stop in place when you turn the car off, the player will keep going. It uses a 1 AAA battery and I have gone through three of them, one because I left the player on all night! For the price and ease of use I recommend this player to the technically challenged.

Cats go Hi-Tech

Don't you think they would if they could!

Whiskers On Wednesday--The heat is on!

I have been so bad at posting that I could not even do WoW one once a week. On Monday October 20th, Sissy got on top of the entertainment unit looking for heat. By the 23rd I turn the programmable thermostat to heat. It would not go on until it was 68 degrees. Well, it finally got cold enough and up she went. Zorro followed. He does not know why she is up there but that is best friend and that is what friends do. She is looking at him at what a stupid boy he is! the bad part of this is now Sissy is sometimes getting on the tree which is Stanley's only place that he is comfortable.

Please stop in to see what all my WoW friends were up too.

Voting DONE!!

I was off on Friday so I went to one of our government centers and stood in line for 1.5 hours and voted absentee. I can not stand in lines so I was very lucky that they had chairs every where. People were so great. Everyone was in a good excited mood. The guy behind me kept my place open and when he got to the end I got back in line. If only I had taken my knitting with me. They opened at 1:00, I got into the door at 1:05 and they projected a 1.5 hour wait. Spot on! I have my "I Voted" sticker to wear on Today when I get to work this morning. It's all over but for the lines and the results.

I will be go glad! Just think we have to do this again in 4 years. I think we should have a King or Queen, and to think we won that war without all the technology! I just hate the ads, the money spent, the back biting. I hope tomorrow is a new day. If we do not get out of 1raq this could be our future! The Women of 1raq only got the right to vote in 1980. This is what it looked like for them to vote on 1/30/05. I thought that after we destroyed their country we took occupation to rebuild the infrastructure and help the people get back to a feet and live normal life. At this point in time I do not think we have gotten very far. I think B*sh's new job should be to run 1raq. Let's see what he can do for that country because he sure has not been good for our's.

Just a bit of US history of Woman Voting.

American women advocated women's right to vote from the 1820s onward. One colonial forerunner, Lydia Chapin Taft was granted the right to vote in 1756 by the town of Uxbridge, Massachusetts colony. In the United States, this was first achieved in the relatively sparsely-populated territories of Wyoming (1869) and briefly in Utah (1870), although Utah women were disenfranchised by the U.S. Congress in 1887. The push to grant women's suffrage in Utah was at least partially fueled by outsiders' belief that, given the right to vote, Utah women would dispose of polygamy. After Utah women exercised their suffrage rights in favor of polygamy the U.S. Congress disenfranchised Utah women.[ Other territories and states granted women the right to vote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but national women's suffrage did not come until the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1920. We have only had the right to vote for 88 years!!

Here is a link to Woman's right to vote world wide. Interesting.

I will get off my soap box.

Stash update.

I am trying to catch up with all that I've wanted to tell you about. Remember this? The 8 oz bag of fiber to the left turned into

this!

My friend Carol was bitten by the spinning bug and brought herself a wheel. I gave her the fiber as a gift for helping me out...and she in turn gifted it back all spun up. Now I wonder what will happen next! The three skeins have 86, 150 & 210 yards --446 total. I'll have to look for a pattern.

I joined a local sock club from Neighborhood Fiber Company. Love the yarn but the pattern that goes with it would be my 1) first toe up pair & 2) the pattern get lost with this yarn.

So, I will use another pattern for this yarn (yarn in person is darker) and use the pattern for another yarn, yet to be determined. I just hate to knit a pattern and lose all the details in the yarn. I might even try two at a time when I do the pattern. Since you know I have ADD when it comes to patterns that are any more than 4-6 repeats, I would really be stretching myself by doing that!!

Halloween a week early

OMG, I totally forgot to post about last Saturday. On October 25 three of my fellow co-workers & I the official photographer met at the parking garage at Tys0ns 2 to take pictures of of our Olympic team. I will just direct you to F1icker so you can see the videos and snaps I took. Our usual meet up is in Springfield at Lake Accotink but the rain was horrendous. Dazie and Chase's Mom (she is a Graphic Designer) made up the logo's and ironed them on doggy shirts. Lucy's Grand-Mamma got the shirts. She had Lucy for the weekend. Soon Lucy will meet with Santa. Rain and Marty Monsterpants brought their Mom. We were exhausted! The traffic on a Saturday at Tys0ns was like Xmas shopping. Traffic was lined up on the Beltway getting off on Rt 7, don't people know there are other ways to get there?
You can also check out last years Halloween pictures while your at it.

FO: Multidirectional Diagional Scarf

This will be a gift. Don't know for sure who will get it. It was a fun knit. I used three skeins of Noro Silk Garden Color #258. It is 6" x 71" long. I knit with size 8 circular needles. To tell you the truth, since I have started knitting again I have not use a straight needle for anything.

My Burning Bush made a great fall back drop. Ravelry link here

The battle is on!

We are having a battle of the bed. This bed once belonged to my beloved Pug Manda who shared her bed with Missy. You can read about them here

Last winter I kept the bed on the patio for the boys. They were not coming into the house everyday back then. I washed the bed and brought it in and Sissy has taken it as hers but Zorro think is is his.

Zorro 11/1/08 at 10:28 PM

Sissy 11/1/08 10:28

Zorro 11/1/08 at 11:04 PM
Now if I had a dog it could be worse. Cat in Dog Bed

Juliet's Hat

I finally finished the Hat to match the sweater for Juliet my sister new grand-daughter. I used the same pattern as this hat but used a smaller needle. Knit with Size 4 circulars and the same yarn. I threaded the three remaining matching buttons and just did a chain to create 3 loops. I have no idea if she will be able to wear both together. She may have to grow into the hat. Haven't heard from yet how they fit. I hope to one day get a picture of her wearing them.

I mailed the hat out on Wednesday. I received a thank you note from Juliet when she received the sweater, gotta love these kids who have their own note cards!

Have a great day!

BSJ #3- for Jabril

The color is more like a F0lgers coffee canister. Not this bright.
The buttons were a perfect choice
this is how much yarn I had left to finish up 6 rows. Had to run back to Hanc0ck Fabrics. I was buying buttons for the other two BSJ when I looked for a better yarn color for a boy. I had already picked up 2 skeins that would be OK for a boy but the pastel colors were not working for me. When I brought the first skein they accepted my 40% off coupon from Michael's but when I needed that one extra skein they would not accept it! So I paid $2.39 for skein #1 & $3.99 for #2. I plan on sending customer service an email complaint. I have always been able to use my AC M00re & Michael's coupons at either place.
This picture shows you the marker were I stopped decreasing. When it was time to knit the 90 stitches and put 34 on hold on either side I cut the yarn put the 34 x 2 sts on waste yarn. Joined the yarn and knit 10 ridges across, cut the yarn at end. I then put the other stitches back on the needle and joined at the beginning, knit across to the 90 & picked up 10 stitches. Knit 90 and picked up the other 10.
Yarn: Premier Yarns-Coral- Color Red

Needles: Susan Bates Quicksilver Circular Size 6; 4mm
Started July 28 and finished August 30, 2008


What I have learned: Don't over think it like I did for BSJ#1. By #2 I was making less mistakes. Just make sure you keep the marker on the one stitch that is left after decreasing. The other thing that made it easier was having one of those little round stitch markers every 10 stitches. As I worked from right to left I would move it as the stitch count changed. On the increase rows I would add markers as I needed. I am now on the third go round on knitting up a hat for Juliet's sweater. I finally mailed her sweater and other presents out on Monday. At the rate the hat is going she will be 6 months old when I finish. Hat not hard, I just have not picked up the needles since last Thursday.
I really enjoyed knitting up the BSJ once I got the hang of it.

WoW- Sissy

Last week I showed you Sissy keeping my seat warm when I take a break from knitting. Well, this is what she does when I come back to sit.

BSJ #3 is completed. Pictures later.

Don't forget to stop in and see WoW.

WOW

This is the other view of Pia from my last WoW post. She was not falling off at all.

Here is Stanley looking down at Pia who spends a lot of time on the couch with me when I am knitting.
This was the site I came back from outside. Sissy does this all the time. This was taken the same day but hours later
Of course, Pia in her favorite spot.
Please stop by WoW