What a night!!

Our Historical Society hosted the Chamber of Commerce mixer last night. Since I'm an officer, I felt it was my duty to go. I don't enjoy going into groups where I don't know people. I guess the shy part of me rears it's little head when I go into those types of situations.

I didn't eat dinner because I knew there would be finger food there plus desserts and today was my weigh in at WW, so I didn't want to over due the food. Then I wanted to look nice, because I didn't think anyone would be showing up in tee shirts and jeans. When I went into my closet, I had a horrible time trying to find something! I realized that 95% of my clothes are very casual. When I found something that I really liked and tried it on, low and behold it was so big that the shoulder seams came about 3 inches off of my shoulders!! LOL Of course dh said it looked very nice, but I couldn't wear that! Turns out it was a 3x that used to be tight on me. hehe Finally I found a long black dress hanging there. When I tried it on, it actually fit me! Joy filled my soul! As it turned out, I could have gone in my comfortable jeans and a nice shirt! Who knew? lol My friend Deb said that I did a good job of mingling, which made me feel good because I wanted the society to come over as a friendly bunch of people (needy tho we are).

I did eat the food that was there including a piece of homemade cake that was delicious. When I went in for my WI (weigh in) this morning, I had lost another 1.2#'s!! I couldn't believe it!

So that's how my night went. Did I mention that I received a lot of compliments, that I don't know how to deal with?

Dizzy Wednesday

I'm glad you enjoyed my frog story yesterday! Seems like there's never a dull moment with those girls! lol

Today I'm feeling dizzy today. I think my sinus' are bothering me because of the weather today. It's gloomy and grey outside and rain is looming. That always bothers my sinus. Not too much I can do about it. I'm going to take some sinus meds to see if it helps.

Since some nice person sent me the knitting calendar, I decided to make the dishcloth pattern for January which is an elephant. Remember I'm not really a knitter, I'm a wanna be! Really I'm a crocheter! I got it finished last night and took it to my craft club this morning to show everyone. One of the ladies in my club who is a knitter and a crocheter is blind. When I showed her my knitting, she said that for someone who isn't a knitter, it looked darn good to her! She can feel the stitches and felt the raised elephant. Then another lady who is 85 and a knitter told me that I did a good job. So I'm feeling pretty good right now.

I couldn't decide what to take to make at the club today, so I put a ball of #10 thread in my bag, my crochet hooks and a couple of pattern books. When I got to the club, I had to help my friend with the afghan pattern like the one that I made. She wanted to make one like mine and so did my other friend. So then after helping them, a new lady came in and needed help learning to crochet. Of course I helped her! I finally got to look at my books and decided to make a potpourri angel. I had made a few last year and everyone loved them, so I'm making another one. Don't ask me who's getting it or anything, because I really don't have a clue.

Denise is coming over tonight. She wants to watch the new show The Moment of Truth with me. They hook people up to a lie detetor, then ask them questions. I'm thinking that this show is going to end some marriages! I saw a preview where they were asking a man if he would cheat on his wife if she wouldn't find out! Now if he says yes, I'm thinking they have problems! Who knows what other questions they will ask. It should be interesting. Denise even wants to have popcorn, actually kettle corn, while we're watching tv, so I'm saving some of my points (I'm doing Weight Watchers).

Guess I'll go work on my angel now. Don't for get to go to Aunt Kathy's Place, http://gimpykatk.blogspot.com/ , and enter her cool contest. And check out Kathy and Shelly's stuff at http://gimpykatkadezmom.etsy.com/ . They really have some nice stuff for sale.

Bye for now!

Terrific Tuesday

Ok, maybe terrific is too strong a word, but I wanted something that started with a T. It has been a pretty relaxing day so far. Tuesday mornings I go to a craft club with my friend. The ladies are all very nice and most of them belong to the Red Hat group that I joined. In keeping with getting back to some knitting, I started the elepahant dishcloth last night. I found it pretty easy which made me feel good. So I took it with me this morning to the club. Now I must tell you that we talk a lot at this club, so doing anything that I need to pay close attention to just doesn't work out well. I only had to frog once! which is amazing seeing as how much I was talking! lol I managed to get 10 rows done which really surprised me. When I got home, I had some lunch then went back to knitting. I think I'm about 10 rows from finishing it! I'm so proud of myself. The ladies who knit at the club told me that the stitches looked nice and even, of course I could see that myself, but it felt good for them to say it anyway. Maybe someday I'll make a sweater or something, who knows!

I have to tell you what happened last night. I was sitting and knitting when the phone rang. It was my dd, Denise, who was just walking from her car to the apartment that she's now sharing with her sister. She said that she likes to be on the phone while she's doing that. I could hear her unlocking the door when she suddenly asks me if Becca is home. I told her that I thought so, but wasn't sure because she hadn't answered my text earlier. She started gasping and saying omg! Her voice sounded scared and excited. Then she told me that she would call me back. Well I didn't know what to think! I was imagining all sorst of things, including a break in! After what seemed like forever, but was actually only a minute or two, she called me back. She said that when she went in she saw what she thought was a toy frog in the middle of the living room. She thought Becca had bought the dog a new toy. As she walked toward it, the frog hopped!! LOL It startled her. Then as she's talking to me, she woke her sister up to help her get the frog out of the apartment. We were all laughing at a tree frog in the living room when I hung up so the girls could try to get it and take it outside. They have no idea how this big tree frog got into the apartment. I thought this was funny, so I had to share it.

Tomorrow evening, the Historical Society, of which I'm the secretary, is hosting the Chamber of Commerce mixer at our Civic League Building. So last night, a small group of us went over there and cleaned. I've never been to a mixer before, let alone been part of hosting one! We will be having hor derves (probably spelled that wrong) and deserts. I promised to be there since I'm an officer, but I could really care less about going. It should be an interesting evening. I'll let you know how it goes.

Time to get off of here and start dinner. Bye for now!

Can't Find Them!

Have you ever made something then not been able to find it? Awhile back, I crocheted two beautiful tapestry hotpads. Do you think I can find them? Heck no!! I looked through every storage container in my bedroom this morning looking for them. For the life of me I can't remember ever giving them to anyone, but maybe I did! I remember thinking after I finished them, that they were so much work that I was just going to hang on to them for myself. I never do that, but it had taken me awhile to get these done so I coveted them! Shame on me! I guess that's what I get for wanting them so bad. I just joined a tapestry crochet group on Raverly and wanted to take a picture so that I could post them. ( Yes, I forgot to take a picture. How dumb can I be?) I'm so frustrated right now that I could scream!! That's why I'm doing this post. I'm hoping that it will relieve my anger at not being able to remember what I did with them.

On the good side though, I finished my doily with the hearts and pineapples! It is currently hanging in my bathroom drying. Well actually it's laying on this drying round net that is hanging in my bathroom. It's supposed to be used to dry your sweaters I think, but I always use it to dry my doilies! I will get a picture of it to post! It turned out so pretty and it's about 21 1/2 inches across.

Well, guess I'd better go and finish my laundry. Dh didn't leave me enough money to do all of it, but I had assumed that he did. So I did the towels and a couple of blankets in two separate loads, and now I don't have enough to do the sheets and dark clothes. Our landlord put a laundry room out in back of our apartments with 2 washers and 2 dryers in it. I really like that because I hated taking everything to the laundromat.

Let me know if you ever misplaced one of your favorite projects. I'm really hoping that I'm not alone in my frustration. LOL

Teaching crochet

This morning was my craft club. I love this club! I joined it quite awhile ago, and was asked last year to take on the responsibility of sort of a president of the club. We meet once a week on Wednesday mornings from 9 until about 11 or 11:30. Everyone brings a project to work on while chatting and joking. It's such fun, and everyone has become a friend of mine. They're great ladies.

It seems like everytime I decide to do something that's a little different, everyone else wants to do it too! This makes me feel good because it means that they like what I'm making. Last year I was making purses with flowers on them, and everyone wanted to learn how to make them. So I ended up teaching my friends how to make the mesh that went around the purchased bag and how to make the flowers. I have to admit that I really enjoyed it.

Now it's happening again. I've been working on an afghan that a lady who used to come to the club gave me the pattern for after I admired the one that she had made. Now it seems like everyone wants to make it, even at my Tuesday club! So last week I helped my one friend pick out the color yarn to use and then start her afghan, and today I showed another friend how to start it. I'm happy to share what I've learned how to do. Starting this pattern can be confusing, and it actually took me a couple of tries before I understood the directions. I'm not sure if it's the directions or me!

After the club, my friend and I joined our Red Hat club to get boxes ready for Operation Shoebox to send to the troops. Operation Shoebox was started by a lady in our town who's sons were in the military overseas. She started packing shoeboxes with things they would need, such as wipes, hand lotion, soap, shampoo, comb, toothpaste--you get the idea. It caught on and she had people helping her, then churches started helping, and different groups. Finally it got national attention. I'm not sure how many boxes get sent, but it's a lot. My craft club knit and crocheted helmet hats to add to the boxes to keep heads warm under their helmets. Our groups made over 600 and other groups made them too. I think we did 160 shoeboxes today.

Tomorrow is my first Red Dress meeting. I'll let you know about that tomorrow.

Time to go crochet!

Do you have printer problems?

The other day, my youngest dd, Becca, gave me the printer that she had hooked up to the computer in her room. She has moved out, about a year ago, and her sister, Denise, who has been using the computer and bedroom is now moving in with her. Denise is taking the computer, which actually belongs to her sister, Becca, as well as the computer desk, also belonging to sis. But Becca decided that mom should get the printer that she bought since she and her bf have a new computer and printer. Have I totally confused you yet?

I decided to clean up my computer desk and make room for my new printer, scanner, copier. I figured that I would have it installed before Becca came back to visit again. I cleaned off my shelf on my desk only to discover that I'd either have to somehow cut a hole in the back, or run the wires out the front and around to the back of the tower. Since I didn't like either of those options, I went through the wonderful stuff, crochet and knit patterns mostly, that I had on the shelf, then put them all neatly back and proceeded to clean off the top shelf above my monitor.
When I finally got the printer hooked up and the cd installed, Becca showed up. I was so proud of myself for actually finding the right place to plug the printer into on the computer and that I was installing the hardware without any help. That's when the problem occured! It said "Print a test page". It seemed to be working fine, but when the paper dropped----it was blank!! So then Becca took over and tried to troubleshoot the problem. She even downloaded new drivers. I think they may have been updates or something. But I'm still not getting anything on my paper.

I just went to Shelly's blog (http://kadezmom.blogspot.com/ ) where she was talking about ink cartriges that go out of date. So here's my thought~~~~do they go out of date in the computer if they're not used? It doesn't seem possible, but who would have thought that an ink cartridge would go out of date!? It might explain my invisible printing! The printer acts and looks like it's printing, but nothings on the paper. Invisible? Who knows? Just a thought.

She found a customer service number for me to call, but I hate calling. So I'm hoping that she'll do it for me. I know that I'm a wimp. You don't have to tell me. But I'm intimidated by computers! I can use them, but I really don't understand them. Know what I mean?

Ok, guess I'll go work on my afghan, or start my pink elephant dishcloth! Have a great day!

Finished the hat

This is the picture of the candy cane cap that I made. It's my first knit project for this year. I think it turned out good. I have no idea who will be getting it right now, so I'm putting it away for the future.

Since I joined a tapestry crochet group on Raverly, I'm thinking of making a tapestry crochet hot pad. I've made two, but I have no idea where I've put them. I think they must be in a box in my closet that has finished projects in it. They were so pretty that I didn't want to use them, and I'd put so much work into them that I didn't want to give them to someone who wouldn't appreciate them. So into the finished projects box they went!

I've also found a great doily that I want to make for Valentines day! It has hearts and pineapples. It would like nice on my coffee table.

I also plan to start my first knitted dishcloth off of the knitting calendar! I think this will be a fun project for me, and I'm hoping that it won't take me a long time to make. I'm a crocheter who knits a little, remember? lol

Guess I need to get off of this computer and start some of these projects. I'm still working on my afghan, but I need to take a break every now and then because the weight of it makes my left hand hurt. It's really pretty though. I've added it on Raverly as a WIP.

Have a great day!

Trying to settle in at Raverly

Yesterday was spent on the computer. The day flew by as I attempted to get settled in at Raverly. There is so much that you can put on there, and I'm stuggeling to find pictures of my projects. Then when I find the pictures, I don't have the book of the pattern I used! I may just post my pics without that. On top of that, they have a place where you can put pictures of your stash! I've never even considered taking pictures of the yarn that I have waiting for me to use.

So instead of worrying about all of that, I explored the groups. I found some interesting ones that I think will be fun to be a part of there. Thank goodness not everyone there is a knitter! I don't have anything against knitting, but I sometimes feel that crochet is underrated and underused. There is a group there that believes the same thing, so I joined it. There is also a group that does Tapestry crochet. I've only made a couple of tapestry crochet double sided hot pads, but it is very nice and not for the beginner. I have to find the ones I made to take pics of them. I know I have them put away somewhere, because I selfishly didn't want to give them away. I also found a group of walkers attempting to get in 10,000 steps a day! I doubt that I will achieve that goal soon, but it will help get me motivated again to start walking. I've stopped since I hurt my knee in September, but I think it's healed enough that I can do some walking as long as I don't overdo it.

That was my day yesterday. Not really exciting to most people but I did feel that I got quite a bit done. I even remembered that I had some of my project pics on floppies, so I uploaded them to Flickr. Sometime today I need to post them at Raverly. I have a doily that is especially pretty that I want to get up there.

In the meantime, I need to clean my kitchen and bathroom. So now I'm off to do that. When I get that done, I may take a break and finish reading book 5 of the Stephine Plum series. I haven't touched it since before Thanksgiving I'm sorry to say.

Have a great day everyone!

Goofing Off

Most of today, I've been busy undecorating our Christmas tree so that my dh could take it out after he got home from work. But when I finished that, I ended up goofing off by playing around on this computer. I went to my MySpace page and changed the background, added some pics and visited my dd's pages to comment on the pictures they had posted from New Year's Eve.

Then I decided that I should add a pic to my profile here, and maybe some new pics on the page.

The pictures that I've added here are from Christmas and New Year's Eve. "The Short One" is a picture of my husband, Dave, my youngest dd, Rebecca (who will be 20 in March), and the short one--Me!! Becca was wearing heels, but she's taller than me without them. I like this picture because everyone looks happy, and it shows how much weight I've lost. Of course it only shows it if you know what I looked like last January! LOL But it makes me feel good anyway. "Mom in the Middle" is a picture of my oldest dd, Ann (who is 39!), me, and my next to youngest dd, Denise, who just turned 27 on the 27th of December. I have some pretty girls! My boys aren't bad either!

Guess it's time for me to go work on the striped stocking hat that I'm knitting. This is a pic of what I'm working on, only I'm doing it in white and green.