A Wonderful Day

Today was a good day all around. This morning the stitches came out. I can not tell you how wonderful that feels. To celebrate I tried to stop by a yarn store for a treat ,but mercifully they were closed. I have knit through enough yarn that I can take some out of the garage and put it away in the house.

 Eric is well enough to go to his program tomorrow. I am still knitting at a good clip. I only have 6 more soap bags to knit for the fund raiser. Then I will use the scrap bag to make What Nots.

Whole foods had some oranges that I like in stock today. They also had some beets for tomorrows beet salad. I also picked up some of the chicken we liked.

So I am ending this short update on a very good note.

Getting Better

Well Eric is back to eating, so one more day home and he will make it to program 2 days this week. YEAH!!!! He is feeling much better and has not spent the whole day sleeping. He has a little more energy today.

Eric's Day program will be having a plant and craft sale on March 13, 2013. More details to come. They will be selling some plants they have grown. Also arts and crafts. I need to find out if they will be selling their greeting card packs also.  I am making soap bags, which the Taglit group will do the final assembly on. Since it is spring I will be making a lot of cotton things. There will also be some new earrings too. Since I still have 8 more soap bags to knit, it is time to go back to knitting. As usual 100% of the sale price will go to the Taglit Day Program at the Tucson JCC.  I will not be taking any money away from the program for supplies.

Please take the time to enjoy your families.

Eric is still sick.

We did manage to get Eric back on food today. It was a long slow process and took all day to get in a little over 200 calories into him. He still has the fever. So Eric will still be home tomorrow.  So you know where to find me most of the day.

I also had a very productive day and did a lot of knitting. Not much else got done today. Well its getting late and its time to call it a day.

On The Mend

Eric and I are on the mend. Neither of us is at 100% yet. I am about 80% so I did some catch up around the house. I was going to limit myself to 1 hour of cleaning but that slid out to 1 1/2 of cleaning. Then I was to tired to do anything but knit. I worked on What Knots, which are made of larger scraps of cotton yarn. I make odd sized and shaped wash cloths, coasters, and small facial scrubs to name a few. The whole idea is just to have fun making different shapes in lots of different colors and patterns. They are knit and crocheted.  I am finding it a nice interlude before I finish the last 10 soap bags for a fund raiser. So far I have finished 20 soap bags so I am 2/3's of the way through. Another Operation Gratitude scarf got finished tonight too.

Since Eric is going to be home again tomorrow I think I will call it a night. Also if you happen to bump into John please feel free to tell him that you heard it through the grape vine that he did a wonderful job taking care of both of us and the house.

Sort of a Slow Week

After our whirl wind weekend things took a little turn that I was was only half expecting. I managed to acquire Eric's cold and get over it in time for the first dental appointment of the week.  That one went fairly smoothly. Wednesday I had more dental surgery, which was not as bad as last time. It still knocked me for a loop.

I was still fairly out of it when we got snow at the house on Wednesday. I really enjoyed looking at our snow. I know those of you in snow country will be shaking your heads at this silly desert southwest girl. I my defence we have not gotten 1 inch of snow at the house since our newly minted lawyer was in elementary school. Yes, it has been a couple of years. When I have time I will down load my camera and i-pod and post some pictures including that of my little snowman.

I would like to thank Nancy G. for picking me up so I could go to the guild meeting. I was not quite up to driving yesterday. I would also like to thank Lisa and John for keeping things running smoothly on the Eric front. I was not up to dealing with anything on the Eric front for most of the week. John also did a great job running the house and getting meals on the table.

Needless to say not much work got done around the house this week. I am planning short catch up bursts through out the weekend and into next week. Speaking of cleaning I hear the washer calling my name so it is time to get back to work. Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy your families.

A Wirlwind Weekend

It has been a very busy weekend around here. Eric is feeling better and there was non-stop action that included Eric and a friend going to a mad science demo at Bookman's, a party for John and I. And that was just yesterday. Today was house work and laundry, followed by shopping at Trader Joe's with Eric. I had only planned to get a few things so I got a basket for Eric's lap, lets just say that it took a regular basket to get to the car. Eric also thought it was funny not to let me have the basket when it came time to hand it to the cashier.

It was such a nice day that I took Eric to La Encantia to walk. I pushed Eric around the mall for 1 1/2 hours. Did you know that most exercise programs give you bonus points for pushing a wheelchair. Even though it has wheels it can be cumbersome to push. It is just the sheer size of the chair plus the weight ( 90 pounds for the chair, 95 pounds for Eric, 20 pounds for the backpack for emergencies, 5 pounds for the pump and formula bag which is a whooping 210 pounds before any shopping) no wonder they give bonus points. Just in case it happens to you, if the elevator at La Encantia breaks down you don't have to do what Eric and I did. We left the upstairs section of the mall went to the parking lot, found the sidewalk and did a very controlled walk down a very steep hill ( no it was not a 2 to 3 % grade of ADA compliance but the usual steep foothill incline. The FYI is that if the elevator is broken you are allowed to use the freight elevator at the mid point in the mall. It is down the same hallway as the bathrooms on the upper level. It is accessed through the mall concierge desk on the bottom level. After 6 pm security is suppose to get you through.

I did manage to lose the same knitting needle for the 2nd time in two weeks. I think it is tired of knitting soap holder bags for Mother's Day. I am at the half way mark in the knitting project. I hope to find it soon. in the meantime I have to remember to put a new set of needles in my emergency knitting bag.

Well the day appears to be catching up with me so it is time to end this post.

A Solution Has Been Found

I have found a solution to my i-cord problem. The i-cord was taking me longer to knit than the soap bags. So I am using this Spool Knitter by Clover. I like the way it turns so there is not as much fumbling that goes on with this. It has been taking me 5 to 6 hours to make the i-cord using 2 dpn's. With the spool knitter I got 2 i-cords finished while watching TV tonight. This is a very good thing because I have at least 24 soap bags to make and I only have 8 completely finished. Yes I know that they look different but will function the same in the end.

In other news I did finish spinning and washing the last of the alpaca for Teri's shawl. When it is dry I thing I will go off somewhere to knit for a few hours to get it finished. All that is left to do after that is give the spinning wheel a good cleaning and a bit of polish.

Eric is on the mend and should be out of the house by Monday. We only have post viral asthma to deal with. By far this is the easiest part of the cold to deal with. Since he should sleep for the next 5 or 6 hours I think I will call it a night.

Same Old, Same Old

Eric has gotten the crud's again. This time a mid range fever and a very sore throat. So needless to say it was a long night. I have found out that this bug lasts 3 to 4 days. So Monday is the soonest I will get Eric out of the house.  Needless to say we are going to reschedule our romantic lunch.

John watched Eric while I checked out the new Joann's store at Oracle and Wetmore. I have to say that it is much better than the store at Roger and Oracle, but still not as nice as the one on the east side of town. For a grand opening I found their shelf's to be a little on the bare side with only one of some items. There was also too much candy lining the only way to the registers. Also is Valentines Day the ideal day to start selling Easter candy?

A whole lot of knitting got done; therefore I must buckle down and get some finishing work done.  Well it's getting late and I am sure that Eric will keep me busy tomorrow.

Another Busy Day

It has come to my attention that newly cleaned floors are more of a magnet for spills than a dirty one. I am also most likely to make a good portion of those spills myself.

I finished spinning and washing the "black baby alpaca" that did not feel quite right and left my hands black. After 4 or 5 washes with clarifying shampoo the dye stopped bleeding out. What I have left is a skein of dark gray alpaca from and older alpaca. It is not going into Teri's shawl because it is the wrong color. I will spin up the last bit of black baby alpaca tomorrow and try to get it washed too. Yarn takes forever to dry in cool damp weather. Yes I will get Teri's shawl done soon.

My knitting mojo was only interrupted by house work today. I have 5 more soap sacks knit up and in various stages of being finished. I will be making i-cord forever on this project. This should give me my first dozen and then only 12 to 18 more to knit. I am burning through yarn at a decent pace.

I also made a decision tonight that will surprise everyone. I have decided to forgo one of my yarn clubs this year in order to work on projects I already have. I will decide next February if I am going to rejoin. This did not take prodding by family members either.

Eric came home from his program today with the cold De jour, this time a sore throat and a fever. I will keep everyone updated. The good news is that I still have a lot of yarn to knit and fibers to spin. So no worries on that front. Since I predict it will be a long day tomorrow, I think I will call it a night.

I Have my Mojo Back..At least for now....

Today was a very productive day all around. I got all my errands done. I did a lot of general picking up. I almost caught up on laundry. You are right of course, I should not have told Eric that I was almost caught up. He went through bibs are a near record rate of 4 bibs in 2 hours. One did not even make it around his neck before he creamed it. Such as life in this house.

I went to go spin today and found all the music gone from my pod. So I played with the settings until I got the music back. It took about 2 hours to load all the music. So no spinning got done. I did however get my knitting mojo back. I am also back in the bad habit of getting the item knit and leaving the finishing work until later. I am sure that the pile will bite me by this weekend. I have 4 soap sacks ready for finishing now and one more on the needles that is almost done.

Did I also mention the 3 scarfs that I know of. Teri's shawl. A couple of hats. Plus project bags all around the house. So the theme of Wednesday through Friday will be knitting to get things finished. I will also tell you that I will not count newly cast on items as UFOs until they are at least a week old.

My goal this week is to knit through as much yarn as possible. To that end I hope to finish all the UFOs that I can. So it is time to catch some shut eye so I will be awake enough to knit tomorrow.

No Snow

Not much got done today. It was one of those unusual days when it was warmer and sunnier in the morning when I dropped Eric off then when I picked him up. The temperature also dropped 5 degrees from the time I left home until the the time I returned home with Eric this afternoon. We drove home through pouring rain. We also had rain and snow on the lower levels of the Catalina's. With all this we did not get any snow. I was so looking forward to making a Tucson style snowman. Think of a snowman between 3 and 6 inches tall. The last time we had enough snow for that Teri was still in elementary school. It was on Easter Sunday and just about every Minister and Priest in Tucson had determined that hell had frozen over.

Don't laugh at the next line if you are from a climate that has a real winter. I was hoping for 1 to 2 inches of snow to shut things down for a while tomorrow. But the weatherman did not come through. They said snow down to 2000 feet and we are just above that at about 2250 feet. Maybe we should have asked his wife.

Well I maybe on car pool duty tomorrow so it's time to call it a night.

10,000 and More

I would like to start off by saying that I got my 10,000 steps in today. Just in case you were interested, that is 5 miles of walking today. Which at my pace takes 1 hour and 40 minutes.

The more was, that I am now caught up on I-cord knitting for the moment. Today I knit 4 different I-cords.  Also, 8 out of 24 soap bags are finished. I am almost caught up on laundry, but pretty please don't let Eric know or he will go out of his way to make more.

I will try to get an earlier start on the blog tomorrow as I have come up with a quick and easy beet salad. I am just to tired to type up the recipe tonight.

Amazaing Math

Since knitting revolves around math, I thought I would take a minute to congratulate mathematician Curtis Cooper from The University of Central Missouri for finding the largest prime number currently know. The number — 2 raised to the 57,885,161 power minus 1 , which results in a prime number 17,425,170 digits long. No I don't think I will take this on as a knitting challenge. the 1 million row challenge is enough for me.

Today was a very slow day for me. I caught up with some friends. Yes I skipped doing laundry today and it will come back to me knee high by morning. I worked on the next fund raiser for Eric's day program. All I can say is that I am way behind in making I-cords. For some reason I would rather knit 40 rows of pattern then a 3 stitch I-cord that is 18 to 24" long. For some reason they seem to take me the same time to knit.

My major accomplishment of the day was 32 minutes of Wii. I told you it was a slow day. Since I might be doing morning car pool tommrow I think I will call it a night.

Laundry Rules

After I blogged last night I ran the dishwasher and started today's laundry. All totaled I did 6 loads of laundry.  All but the one currently in the dryer are all properly dispatched.  Did I mention I have at least 2 full loads for tomorrow already? Can someone suggest to Eric a different occupation then making laundry for me to wash? I also spent an hour organizing things. Does anyone else have a messy monster that creeps out and just leaves random bits in odd piles. If you don't would you like to borrow mine for a while?  I could really use a break from him.  I did also manage to sweep and mop, well actually scooba the kitchen floor today. Less than 8 hours later I spilled yucky stuff on the floor and will set scooba on its rounds again tomorrow.

As for knitting I got a total of 16 rows done or or to sound more impressive 640 stitches. I also got 10 minutes of spinning in. During that time my hands turned black from the so called natural black fiber. I can't wait to finish the skein and hit it will clarifying shampoo to strip out the "natural color" and see what color was actually sent to me. My bet is not black alpaca. And we have already determined that it was not from the first couple of shearings, the fiber is just to course. At this point I see a place mat in its future.

After the 3 hour cleaning spree this morning I was to tired to do much else today. No knitting got done tonight. I need to get more work done tomorrow, but it will be in moderation so I am not so tired at the end of the day.

Sick Boy Day?

It was a very long night with Eric last night. The end result was that he stayed home today and we both napped this morning. Not much got done around the house today no laundry got done which I know I will regret tomorrow.  I was to tired to tackle the serger threading so no sewing got done. No cleaning got done. Yes this is beginning to look like a to do list for tomorrow. So my goal will be to get as much done as fast as possible tomorrow.  I will have an empty house for about 1 1/2 hours tomorrow so the plan is to put on some fast paced music and clean, clean, clean. To that end I will put on a load of laundry and call it a night.

In Catch-up Mode

Everyone is on the mend. Eric and I got a full night’s sleep. Eric is at about 65%, we are hoping one more lay low day and out the door on Monday to his program. So needless to say a whole lot of work got done around the house today, including laundry, shopping, cleaning. Little things like emptying the dishwasher and filling the recycling bin also got done. These are the things I tend to ignore when Eric is sick.

 It looks like I will need to spin the 5th skein of yarn for Teri's shawl. Some how when the rows hit in the 350+ stitches per row the skeins just do not go as far. Since I will be spinning the last of my black alpaca, the shawl might be a little smaller than expected. I am at row 120 and hope to get to the 140 to 150 range so it will be a nice big and cozy shawl for Teri. So on tomorrows list of things to do is to card and spin the last skein. Clean and polish the spinning wheel. Do a through vacuum around the wheel, black alpaca just does not blend well with crème carpet.

 I also plan on trying to re-thread the serger. I made a mistake in thread 3 or 4 and it is just not hooking right. Then it will be off to alter 2 sweat shirts for Eric. The serger will then be put away and the sewing machine will come out to finish the sweat shirts and make a few more pillows for Eric's bed. I will of course hold them until Valentine’s Day so please do not let him in on my little secret.

 
Well I have about 15 minutes of cleaning left to do tonight and I hope to get another full night of sleep under my belt.