Thought you'd lost me again didn't ya!!

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

I hope everyone is enjoy their day. Hubby and I have had a lazy day around the house today. He is currently mowing our SEVERELY overgrown lawn due to the fact that he couldn't mow due to 20 straight days of rain. Let me tell you I think a freshly mowed lawn is beautiful!

Just as a side bar - the pic in the previous post is in Cozumel - the last stop of our cruise in March. Speaking of cruises, there is talk of another one!! Possibly to Hawaii or Alaska.

I finished the Stephen King book and also finished "Innocent in Death" by J.D. Robb (a.k.a. Nora Roberts). Another excellent novel by Ms. Roberts. I am currently reading "Lost" by Gregory Maguire. Mr. Maguire is also the individual who wrote "Wicked".

I'm attaching some picks of my current projects. I started on the Silverlake shirt last week and just couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling that something was wrong with it. Turns out I was using the pattern that is to be used if you are using chunky weight yarn. I, however, was using worsted weight. So guess what.......rip it, rip it, rip it! It's much better now.














I had also misspoke in my previous blog about the Schaefer Yarn Miss Priss. I am using "Renata Tabaldi" to make a moss stitch scarf.
















The clapotis is being made out of Blue Heron Yarns "Marigold". It's not looking too much like a clapotis yet, but give it time! :)

And finally the baby socks - coming along nicely, but taking me forever and they shouldn't - THEY ARE BABY SOCKS!




Well, I hope everyone is enjoying their day off and will have a wonderful evening celebrating our great nation and all of the wonderful freedoms we have. Happy Birthday America and thank you to all of the soldiers who are serving or have given their lives for our freedom.

Have a great rest of the week everyone!

Holy Crap!! It's a post!

I know......no one will be able to believe I'm actually posting. I can't believe it either. After much soul searching and contemplation I decided to do it.

So much has gone on over the past 8 months and much of it I cannot and will not discuss here. Everything is well in my life and that is all that matters. Hubby and I just celebrated 9 happy years of marriage and we are looking forward to many more.

I do have a new job. I work in a small clinic as an R.N. and I truly love it. The first day not so sure (just because it was a whole new atmosphere compared to where I had been) but now looking back (since it's been 6 months since I've started) I can honestly say I made the right decision. I choose not to speak about the facility I left, however if you would like to speak to me privately I would be happy to share my insight.

I have a couple of projects on my needles: clapotis, SilverLake shirt (made out of Fiesta Plum Pudding), moss stitch scarf (Miss Priss Clara Barton - I think), and baby socks for my stepsisters new baby (Taylor Gracey-Dawn). I'll have to put up partial pics later.

I'm currently reading "1408 (Everything's Eventual)" by Stephen King. We have seen the movie and I thought it was scary, but it was still good. Hubby gave me 3 books for our anniversary so I'm looking forward to reading those.

We also went to see the play "Wicked" on Father's Day and I LOVED it! I had tried reading the book before, but lost interest. I will definitely dive in now that I have seen the play.

I hope everyone in blogger land is doing well and I hope I can gain back some of my fellow blogger friends since I've been gone on such a long hiatus! :)

The pic is from the cruise hubby and I took with two really great friends in March.

Road Trip!

Last weekend hubby and I went on a wonderful little road trip to Robbers Cave State Park (I just couldn't get enough of the hiking from the weekend before!). We started off the day at 8:45 by participating in the Race for the Cure downtown at the ballpark. We walked with my friend, Laynie, from work. Hubby and I had signed up for the 1 mile, but Laynie signed up for the 5k so we decided to stick to it and do the 5k. We decided to run for awhile and left Laynie behind - she was ok with this, I promise. After the race, we met back up at Ihop and had a wonderful breakfast.

We left for the park at 11:00 a.m. and it took us 3 hours to get there. The weather and scenery were great. I don't really know how far we actually hiked, but it was definitely a workout and very rocky. One of Hubbies hobbies is rock climbing so he enjoyed some of that while we were there. After we were done hiking, we made our way back to the enterance to the park and rented a paddle boat. That was really fun and again the view was amazing. Hubby then treated me to a Tiger's Blood shaved ice drink. It was also good, but nothing compared to the great time we had together.

We ate at an Italian restaurant in Krebs called The Isle of Capri on the way home. It was okay. I had chicken parmesean and hubby had manicotti. The meals were served with spaghetti, ravioli, salad, breadsticks, and french fries. Yes, you read it right - french fries. We had no idea why they serve those with all of that.

I can't wait to be able to do this again. Maybe we'll try another state park when the weather starts warming up again.....

In knitting news....I have a couple of small finished projects. I made the cabled headband from the latests knitpicks.com cataloug (wore it for the Race last Saturday and I'm glad I had it), fingerless mittens, and a striped hat. I am currently working on another pair of fingerless mittens from knitty.com called Fetching. Pictures soon....

I hope everyone is enjoying the cool, crisp fall weather.

'Til next time!

Back from Retreat.....

I can't believe it's almost been a month since I blogged last. Time sure does fly! I've been very busy at work the past month preparing to teach a class, teaching the class and then teaching another class while working on changing 3 policies. The whole time I was counting down the days until the retreat and it finally happened, but now it's over and I wish it wasn't.

I left for Roman Nose Resort on Friday afternoon and arrived around 5:15. Only 2 people had not arrived yet, but we decided to go ahead and eat....seafood buffet. It was so good! We had a total of 12 people at the retreat and Terri and Karen came on Saturday to enjoy a full day of knitting. I think we had such a great group of ladies on this retreat. We all had so much to talk about and it was nice meeting new people. Lilian is the mother-in-law of one of the nurses I work with and Pat knew my mom when she worked at Bernina. Linda is such a skilled knitter and is so funny. Nina is such a sweet person and a good mom to Linen. Judy is the fastest crocheter I've ever met and does beautiful work. Sherry had been on the last retreat and it was nice to share memories of the last retreat with her and Margaret. Nancy is such a world traveler and has so many interesting stories to share. Lou can pick up the pace if needed (what happens at the retreat, stays at the retreat). Kay had very funny stories to share with us about e-mails. Kathy is also a skilled knitter and fun to be around. What can I say about Margaret?.....I told her we should turn around. Anyway....I had such a great time and thank you to Margaret for such a successful retreat, being a wonderful hostess, and a fabulous time. Can't wait for next year!! I look forward to trails, dark nights, and Park Rangers.....oh, and some knitting. The Survivors

The projects we could pick from were the Mobius and the Market Square Bag. I chose the Mobius and I loved it. I learned the Provisional Cast-On and the I-Cord bind off. I was able to finish it all in one day minus weaving in the ends. I also finished the drop-stitch scarf using the Crystal Palace Party ribbon yarn which was one of the Christmas projects I was working on. Today I finished a project that I had bought last week and worked on at the Retreat. It was the Plymouth Yarn vest pattern using 4 skeins of Baby Alpaca Grande. I used black and it turned out really cute. I can't wait to wear both of my finished projects out in public.




















Please excuse all of the pictures of me, but afterall the projects are mine!! I hope everyone had a great weekend and has a great week and I hope to see my knitting friends soon.

'Til next time!!

Last Game of the Season

Hello everyone in bloggerland! I just wanted to share some pictures of the Redhawks last game of the season from last night - a winning game! Hubby and I have attended 6 games this season and we have had a great time. My goal for this game was to have my picture taken with Rowdy - the team mascot. Goal achieved!















Not much knitting go on here. I'm still working on the pink Christmas scarf. I frogged the "Shoulder Cozy" portion that I had done about 3 weeks ago. Somehow I messed up the rows and had the right side on the wrong side - if that makes sense - therefore I decided to start all over again. Then I messed it up again so I thought I should back away from the project for awhile until I can get my brain straightened out again! Ha!

I've caught the scrapbooking bug again and I'm working on scrapbooking some of the pics from my trip to Laguna Beach. I took a trip to the Scrapbooks store over on May today to stock up on some paper and found out they are going out of business. I overheard her saying something about having a sale next week, so I guess she is closing soon. I think that only leaves me with the Scrapbookin' store in Edmond and of course the old standby, Hobby Lobby. Which, I can't complain, does have great paper. I just like the huge variety that scrapbook stores have to offer.

I did find out two weeks ago that I will be going on the knitting retreat. I'm so excited about going this year. I REALLY need a break. I'm so glad that there are others out there who find knitting fun, relaxing, and challenging. Having these kinds of friends makes it even better. I wonder what the project is going to be.....

I have currently lost a total of 21 pounds by doing the Weight Watchers program and tomorrow will be my 3rd week of maintanence. Three more weeks to go until I will hopefully become a lifetime member. It's been harder this week for some reason - we've ate out way TOO much so I'm hoping to maintain my 21 pound loss this week. If not I'll try again next week. I know I can do it - I've been doing it! :)

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend and enjoys the start of football season (come on cooler weather - you're doing great Mother Nature).

'Til next time!!

Lookie what I made.....

Since I have lost weight, I've had to retire 11 pairs of pants, which basically got rid of all of dress pants. So yesterday I took a little shopping trip to Name Brand Clothes. I bought $680 worth of designer clothes for the whopping price of $167! I was really impressed with myself once I came home and totaled up the previous price tags. One of my purchases was a pair of jeans that I decided to change up a little. It was so simple and inexpensive. I wouldn't suggest doing this with a pair of jeans that cost a lot of money (these only cost $15 and they are Tommy Hilfiger jeans), but I suggest going to a thrift shop and checking out their jeans if this is interesting to anyone. So total price (ribbon and jeans) was about $20.


Have a great weekend everyone!

Another finished hat!

Is anyone tired of the 100 degree weather yet? I can't belive it's been 28 days of temps over 100 and the weather peeps are still saying we have 20-some-odd days to go. I'm ready for a break from it. I'm trying not to whine about it because I know there are other places just as hot or hotter.

I went to the Knit-In at the Gourmet Yarn on Saturday and had a great time. I ended up taking Scandinavian Coleslaw which was a Weight Watchers recipe, but hubby and I will not be seeing that dish again in our house. It had a kick to it and definitely left the kick taste in your mouth. Oh, well, had to try something new and why take something to a potluck that I wouldn't be able to eat. I have found a dessert I really enjoy - South Beach Diet Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies. They are so good and they stick with you, so it's a great snack. Anyway, back to the Knit-In....I always forget what a great time I have when I am spending it with people with the same interests as me. We even talked about beavers, but I won't get into that - what happens at the Knit-In, stays at the Knit-In! While I was there I was able to finish the hat for my second step-niece and again the gorgeous Jackson is modeling it. The pictures don't do it justice. It's the same Roll Brim hat pattern from the previous entry, but I used Cascade Superwash 220 and Crystal Palace Yarns Little Flowers held together. I'm hoping to start on the matching drop stitch scarf tonight or tomorrow during a meeting I'm attending. Nothing holds my attention better than when my hands are busy too.

I have also started on a new project. It is the "Shoulder Cozy" pattern from the book Wrap Style. I am using Rowan Polar and I've already had to frog about 6 rows because somehow I got off and the right side became the wrong side and vice versa. But now, I'm back on track and moving right along.

I found out on Tuesday that one of my very good friends at work is moving on to something better. She has been offered and accepted a job at another facility where she will earn more money and have better hours. I'm really happy for her to be starting a new adventure because I know she's been unhappy for a while, but I'm sad to see her go. I was her preceptor when she started as an Extern and then also when she became and Intern and then an RN. I have watched her become a great and caring nurse over the past couple of years and I am really going to miss her. The other facility will be blessed with her dedication to her patients, her work ethic, and smiling face. Good luck Ashley!!

Everyone stay cool and have a good rest of the week!