Two Posts Within Hours of Each Other!?!

 

 

Yeah, so I was sitting here and I was thinking to myself……….I know there were more pictures I wanted to put in my post. I’m sitting here shaking my head because I think I’m losing it. I used to have a pretty sharp mind. I used to remember a lot more than I do right now. I hate growing old and losing parts of myself. Literally. Ok……..so let me get on with it and quit whining.

See that shiny pointy thing there in the midst of the lovely red?  The bottom lovely red is my wonderful thick flannel sheet. The top red print with the shiny thing is my quilt that my sister made me. I’ve had this quilt for a long time but never used it because of the dogs. So after I put Leo down I decided to bring it out and start using it. Leo went to Rainbow Bridge in the beginning of October. (seems like yesterday and sometimes seems like a lifetime ago) I have been sleeping with this since then. A couple of weeks ago one night I went to bed, got all comfy cozy and all of a sudden I felt this sharp pain. So I moved and it got worse! I got up, turned on the light, searched my bed and nothing. I REALLY thought I was losing my mind. So I turned the light off, laid down, covered up, got comfy cozy and got pricked really good. I freaked out, thinking it was a damn scorpion!  They aren’t prevalent here but I saw one in FL once and hey, anything is possible right? He could have been trying to come in out of the cold and found him a nice warmy place to sleep!!!  I found this long pin sticking out of my quilt. The only way it could have gotten there was when my sister made it. And I can’t tell you what year that was…….in the last 10 or so anyways. I pondered on how to get it out because I could feel a round head on it. There was no way I was going to bust a seam open and try to work it up to the seam. And actually I figured it was between the batting and this side of the fabric. Anyways, I went and got my box cutter and cut real slow and careful to make a little incision and voila. Out pops this 2” needle with a yellow round head on it!!! I immediately sent my sister and email with a picture of the pin. She said she had done that before, forgotten a stray pin in a quilt. I’m just glad it didn’t wake me up out of a sound sleep. I really would have freaked out, and then been mad.  :o)

This picture is what made me remember that I had more pics to show you. I made these for a couple that have been trying to get me to come to their church.  The dark one is black and charcoal and the other is blue and light lavender. It’s hard to see the correct colors. The red sure does pop out doesn’t it?

    

These should have gone with the previous post. The first is when I laid them on my bed looking for the configuration I wanted with the squares. And the praying girl up close. See what I mean about her scowly face?

And I had some sky pics but I think I’ll forego them today. It’s lunch and I’m starving!  Home made chili. MMMMMMMMMM. Wish I could offer you some. Maybe some day that will be a workable thing…..to hand stuff through the monitor. Not now. :o)

TaTa Again!
Kat
xoxo

Unlucky Luck and Crochet

 

As you can see by the ticket above, this is how my life rolls. lol. If it wasn’t for this kind of luck I wouldn’t have any at all. Wait…………that wasn’t right. :o) Anyways, lately this is how it’s been for me. But I’m not complaining too loudly because I’m still on the right side of the dirt. Right? Right.

I’ve been mia, I know.  That dang life again. It tends to get in the way of a lot of stuff. Life is different for different people. And so the story goes.  Mine has been one of basically work, home and doctors lately. I’m in the midst of a series of injections. I had one in my neck last Monday (not yesterday, I took yesterday off because I had the day off from work and didn’t want to drive into the city just for an injection). Next Monday is one in my lumbar, then the next Monday is a cervical shot again, then the following Monday is another lumbar injection. The first cervical injection worked for the first day great. I’ve had pain and bad headaches ever since. Yesterday I didn’t even bother to get out of my jammies. I stayed in my chair most of the day. It was a cold windy day here in SE GA (24 on my front porch – Hector’s water was frozen!) and I did manage to get a couple of crochet things done.

       

This was a present of sorts for a friend of mine’s mom who is here from NY state to see her first great grand child and see her son before he goes back to Saudi Arabia for another 56 day rotation.  The first pic is blurry. I didn’t notice until I downloaded it (don’t look at it close).  I used some #8 cotton from Hobby Lobby. Love those vibrant colors! 

I made this pot hanger with some nylon yarn/rope/thread that I ordered a year or so ago and never used it because I was disappointed in it when it arrived. I remember it wasn’t cheap either. I didn’t like it because it has this sticky coating on it. It was really hard to crochet with it as well because of the stickiness. But I stuck it out because I told my co-worker I would make her a pot hanger. I was really, really glad to be done with it. I actually had to make myself finish it, that’s how much I disliked making it. BUT this pot hanger will last a very long time. All she has to do to clean it is stick it in some soapy water and shake it to get most of the water off of it. She’s going to use it inside but it would be a wonderful outside plant hanger.

Dang it, it happened again. The pic is sideways!  I guess you’ll have to look at the two below of it in progress to get a better visual of it.  I made this lapghan for my sister for her birthday. I was piddling around looking for something in my totes, rearranging colors and skeins I think, and I came across these squares that I had made probably 3 or 4 years ago. They were for an afghan and I got tired of making squares. Actually the purples were in one tote and the variegated were in another tote. So I played around with arranging them and came up with this scheme. The darker purples were Vanna’s Choice, and the color is Eggplant. I plundered through my totes and found a full new skein of it!! My lucky day!!! NOT. I used it put them together to make the 4 columns then went around the outside of them to connect the four columns together and then was going to go across the rows to finish. Guess what? I lacked 7 squares of finishing the connecting outside round!!!  Sigh. Yep, that luck thing again. lol.  So I thought I’d go to Hobby Lobby weekend before last to get another skein. Nope…….Hobby Lobby didn’t have the color and I was freaked out because they didn’t have hardly any ILTY at all!!! So I thought, well I’ll go to Wally World just down the street. Nope!  Then I thought well crud….I’ll go to the Wally World close to the house. NOPE!!! So ya know what I did???  It’s really strange that RH Love’s Grape Jam is just a couple hairs of a shade different from Eggplant. And I had two and a partial skein of that. I used it to finish up the 7 square connection on the outside, went another round on the outside, and used it to slip stitch the rows together.  No one but me and you know the difference. :o)

        

Below are two hats and a little praying doll that I made for a friend of mine whose birthday is Thursday. She loved a little babie’s hat that I had made and had in my box when I went home at Christmas time. She said she wanted one but didn’t say what colors she wanted. So I made two in her favorite colors. See the pink one? I used three strands of Deramore DK yarn. This yarn is more like sport, it’s so thin. I used a bright pink, mauve and light peach color.  Does that top triangular piece look familiar? lol. That is a square from a CAL that I didn’t finish (sorry girls). I just lose interest really quick in stuff like that. I had made three of them and never made any more. So I used one on this owl hat. He’s kind of funky looking but oh well. She’ll like them both. I know she’s probably only expecting one but now she has two. And the little praying girl was a pattern that I found on a blog a while back. Sorry I don’t have the pattern with me or remember what blog it was that I found it on. I really can’t remember what the pattern was called. (I know, I’m bad…..so sorry.) I thought it was cute but it didn’t want to sit up like the one in the pattern so I pulled the middle of the bottom up through with yarn and tied it off so that it had an indent and it would then sit up.

    

I have started a baby, but set it down because these all had to be finished up. I’m kind of apprehensive with the baby…..I am not good with the faces. I was kind of disgusted with myself on the little one above because the face looked scowly.

Last for today is my chap stick holder I made Saturday. I had done another one in regular RH yarn and I hated it but it worked. So I was messing around and made one in #10 thread. This one sux too. lol. I like it except that I should have only done chains and not put the sc on the part that goes around the heart button to close it up. I’ve found it undone a couple of times. I’m going to make another one, hopefully the third time is the charm. :o)   See that cat? That little thing is a weapon. The kitty’s ears can seriously hurt someone if they try to do anything they shouldn’t. This was a Christmas present from a friend of mine. I love it. You put your two fingers in the eyes and it’s a defensive weapon. Let some Wally World parking lot lurker come at me!!! (It’s not just Wally World, it’s all over these days…….I just picked Wally World as that’s mostly what I’ve seen on the news or internet.) Believe me, when I walk out a store or am somewhere out and about, that little kitty is nestled on my fingers, just waiting for some unsuspecting thief or criminal to pounce on me. Bring it on Mr. Criminal….I’m ready for ya!!!   (I’m not paranoid, just ready is all) It’s seriously getting worse out there.

So my friends, that’s it for me for now. I have to catch up with y’all again. I’ll let you know I’ve stopped by. Hope your world is right and good…….I wish nothing but the best for you all. You all deserve it!

TTFN
Kat
xoxo

Tuesday Ramblings

 

Happy Tuesday!  Thought I’d pop in for a few minutes to say  hi and let you know I’m still around.

As you can see from the picture above, I have been doing a little bit of crocheting. What do you think? I like them. There will be more of these forthcoming in the future. The pink one is mine. YES! I made something for myself. :o)

Also, remember the vet I made the 24 hats for Christmas for? Wellllllll….he wants another 24, for next Christmas!  How awesome is that? I will be a hat making fool again. :o) Which is ok by me. I like making hats.  I made a hat for a church event that I went to this past weekend and got a wonderful compliment on it. She (the wife of the person who received it) said she had a hard time finding the seam on it. Apparently she purposely looked for it. I used to make my hats without joining and then realized they looked a lot better with the joining, and even too. So I take great pains to  make sure the joins look good. Also I weave the end in vertically, instead of horizontally.  It’s much more sturdier, if you will, and won’t have a tendency to unravel.

I made this owl, and I’m not real pleased with him. I am contemplating pulling his eyes and nose off and re-doing them.

    

This bag is a birthday present for a friend of mine in FL. The bag went really quick. It’s two colors of pink Deramore DK yarn. The bright was just too bright by itself so I toned it down a little with pale pink. The crab stitch is a cream and mauve together. I know it’s hard to see, but see the lining next to it? I have it pinned and need to iron then sew it and install it into the bag. In the second picture is my attempt at making a kumihimo braid for the strap. I’m using each of the colors on the bag times 2. Have you ever done kumihimo before? It’s very awkward. That’s why I have it set up like I do. The bottoms of your working yarns get tangled. I used clips to weigh them down but those got tangled also. Hence the set up you see to try to keep them separate.  I’m anxious to see how it turns out.

       

These two prints were part of my birthday present from the friend that I’m making the pink bag above for.  I cried when I opened these up. The first one is PeeWee and Misty. The second one has Pee, Misty and Leo in the top seat. How awesome are these???  When I was home for Christmas I went to visit her and she had a couple of this guy’s prints hanging on her wall and I loved them. They had her dogs on them. I just love these. I want to get them framed in the same frame. I just haven’t made it to Michael’s or Hobby Lobby to get it done. They were done by Todd Young.  Check out his work. It is really cool.

Now why do these two pictures lay on their sides??? :o(  I just wanted to show you what I did for myself on my birthday. I cut my hair!!! Short!!! For me anyways. I usually cut it every two years and donate to Locks of Love, and this time was no different, except that I cut it shorter. Normally it’s to my shoulder. This time it’s up off my shoulder. I love it too. It looks and feels so much better.

Lastly today…….Hector. He’s made himself right at home. This is him in my shed. On MY stool. I have been trying to get back into wood burning. I got off of my stool to give my back a rest and you know who decides that my chair is now his chair. Animals……ya gotta love them. I’ve come to love him in the short time that he decided that I was going to be his human. He still goes back and forth between my house and the neighbors’ but he’s at my house a lot.

So that’s what I’ve been up to since I last posted. My back gave out on me again and it was so severe that I decided to take a pain pill. I hate taking them. This time though the pill made me really sick. I don’t know why, normally I don’t have a problem with them. It’s been a while since I have taken one and I took it with food, like it says. I ended up in front of the porcelain throne but never actually did vomit.  After a little while my stomach settled but I still didn’t feel right. I went to bed shortly there after.  I’m still being real careful though so that it heals. Well as good as it can anyways. I am going to try to schedule surgery in July.  We’ll see what happens between now and then.

Anyways….happy Tuesday! I hope you have a wonderful week!  I’m going to try to do the same. Spring is just around the corner……only it seems like it’s already here in southeast GA.

TTFN
Kat
xoxo

Awesomeness

Is that even a word? Oh well if it's not, I'm using it. :o)  Well, I downloaded and installed Google Chrome and guess what? It now works. As you can see I've added pics to my post.

I am kind of at odds with myself and my crocheting. It's a weird feeling - I want to crochet, but I don't know what to crochet. And if you've been following me or know me, you know that I like little projects. The quick gratification is what I like.

So I have one project that I started last night and it'll be quick and easy. A friend of mine in FL saw a baby hat that I had done and she fell in love with it and wanted one herself. It was the brown and green owl hat. Her birthday is next month so I thought I would make her one in her favorite colors, pink and purple. And one of my sister's birthday is next month, I just don't know what to make for her. I guess it will come to me, I just hope sooner rather than later. I hate waiting until the last minute to crochet something and have to be rushed to get it done and sent out.

You may remember one of the dolls I made a while back. She has kind of a weird face. I made her for a certain little girl. The mother asked if I could make her one so I said sure. I've known the mother since she was a little girl, she went to school with my son and is the niece of a friend of mine. Well, after I made the doll I attempted 4 times to get an address to send it to her and no answer. I called and left a message, I texted, and left a message through FB twice. She (the doll) has been in one of my see through totes for a while now just staring at me, wondering when she will be able to get out. lol. So I decided that this baby needs a home. I'm sending her to someone that has been kind to me. It's only fair that I return the favor. And it's with love that I do this. So she is gone. I know the home she is going to will love her.

The next three below are what I made for Bella for her birthday. The little bag is just a bag for her to put whatever her little heart desires into it. The color is off in the pic but it's a pale yellow with two blues. And the tooth fairy pillow pattern came out of my Crochet Today mag. I was a little disappointed because the pocket on the back didn't turn out in the center like it showed in the pattern pictures. And I double counted my stitches too. I posted a pic on the Crochet Today FB page. It'll be ok though, I don't think Bella will notice that it's not in the center. :o)

The next bag is one I made for myself for my phone. I used leftover Psychedelic Mosaic yarn that I made Jen's pillow with. I so love these colors.

And lastly is a dump cake I made last week. This dump cake has maraschino cherries, crushed pineapple and mandarin oranges. And instead of melting the butter to drizzle on top I put pats of butter on top of the cake mix and it turned out better. There were no dry patches of cake mix. 

It's Friday, thankfully. This week has just drug on for me. I've been sick for 2 weeks, today starts week 3 and my head is still clogged up a lot. I'm ready for it to be gone. So many people are sick right now. I'm glad mine is almost over. 

May your weekend be filled with love and warmth. Remember to tell those you love how you feel. Life is short. 

TTFN

Kat
xoxox

Second Attempt

Ok, this is my second attempt at creating a post. What is up with blogger? I tried to include pics in my last post and it got hung up. :o(

Anyways I guess I will try to put the pics in first and then write.

Well, I guess I won't. No matter what I do it won't let me insert pics. Copy and paste isn't working either. Is anyone else having problems this morning?

I hope your day starts off better than mine!

TTFN
Kat
xoxox

A Sign of Things To Come? Grab A Seat

Hi.  I know I haven't been around. It's been tough for me lately. I'm trying to pull up my big girl panties. That's all I can do at this point. I will try to fill you in on what's been going on with me. Grab a cuppa joe, or tea, or pepsi.....something soothing.

You know about Leo and how hard that has affected my life. It's so hard losing your babies, especially when they are your whole life. I am getting better but he is never far from my thoughts and I think of him quite frequently. And the strangest thing happened a week ago today. I was off from work for over a week for the holidays. One night I went over to a friend's house to eat dinner with her and her mother that was down from Illinois and her boyfriend, and then we all went to a bike night at one of the local watering holes. This is not a normal thing for me to do. And that's mostly due to the fact that I go to bed early and get up early for work. I am such a hermit and home body. But she talked me into it. So I got home around 10ish and Leo's light was still lit. Normally it's out by this time. So I go in the house and my new little friend Hector the Defector (more to come on him) makes his way in the door before I can stop him. So I text my friend to let her know that I made it home ok and go to put Hector out and Leo's light is out. I can't help but think he left it on for me until I got home. It's a solar light that doesn't get a lot of direct sunlight but enough that it lasts a couple of hours after dark. Like I said, it's never on that late at night. (Look at Hector's pic below...see in the background the stones and lights? That is where all three of my babies are buried. Leo's light is the middle one, the brightest of all 3.)

So about Hector the defector. He is a kitty from, I'm assuming, next door. They have a crap load of cats and I'm pretty sure Hector is a large part of the reason because he has his two little man-friends, if you get my drift. Hector has adopted me as his human I think. I've been feeding him and he really loves me. I believe that in the future I will be taking him to have his two little man-friends disposed of because we don't need any more ferals in the neighborhood. I'm just afraid that the neighbor will complain, although I could plead dumb and just say he showed up on my doorstep, which really is the truth as far as I know it. Can she seriously do anything about me getting her cat fixed?  There's a place in SC, just over the boarder, called SNAC that is way cheaper than a vet for getting spay/neuters done.

And so last night I was getting ready to shut my door and get ready for bed and Hector was no where to be seen. But another little lovely was. She, at least I think she's a she, was sitting outside my fence halfway to the woods line just watching me. So I walked out the door and started talking to her. She didn't flee. Hector had turned his nose up earlier at some wet food that was salmon so I decided the heck with him and wondered if maybe she might like it. I walked Hector's plate out and dumped it on the stump of an oak tree that I had cut down last year. She came over and let me pet her and I talked to her a minute and left her to her meal. Wanna know where she was this morning when I came out to feed Hector at 4:20? Sitting on the stump. So when I left to go to work I brought some dry food out for her and put it on the stump. I don't have a pic nor name of the new defector. :o)

They're not Leo nor the companionship that I am used to but they will work in the interim of me working my bucket list off.

I had a scare back in the beginning of November. I am not real big about mammograms and that all goes back to my mother and her death. But the insurance company was sneaky and called me at work wanting to know when was I going to schedule my mammogram. And I knew I had wellness stuff to take care of too because plans were changing at the beginning of the year. So I scheduled one. Well I got a call a few days after the original mammo. They found something in both breasts, I needed to come back in and have more tests done. Alrighty then. When I got in there they showed me my scans from the first go around. The one in the left they were not too concerned about, it was more than likely calcification, it looked white and spidery. But the one in the right was a lump that was way deep and they needed better pics of it. So I had a few more scans done and waited. Then they called me back and said they needed to do an ultra sound. Ok, this is getting serious now. So they did an ultrasound and found that they needed to do a biopsy. At this point I am in tears. So I tell them my ordeal with my mother and why I have the attitude I do and maybe it's not the right attitude but it's mine, nonetheless. I scheduled a biopsy three days later. OMG what an experience. The lump was way back behind my nipple almost to my chest wall. It was hard for them to find it because it was so deep but once she found it she took three pieces of it for testing. She left a titanium clip in place of where the lump was located for two reasons.....so that they could find it again should it need to come out and if it didn't need to come out then it would show up in future mammo's to show that it had already been looked at. I had already decided that if it was malignant that I was going to have a double mastectomy.  I have double d's and have been single for over 13 years and at my age I am really tired of carrying those bad girls around. I was upset but at the same time resigned because there wasn't much I could do except take them off if the test came back malignant. The doc told me 3 days for the results. The biopsy was on a Thursday and I would have to wait over the weekend to hear. Talk about pins and needles. Friday I was at lunch and my phone rang. It was the doc, the lump was benign, a fibroadenoma. This is what webmd says about them:

Fibroadenomas. Fibroadenomas are the most common benign tumors found in the female breast. They are solid, round, rubbery lumps that move freely in the breast when pushed upon and are usually painless. Fibroadenomas are the result of excess formation of lobules (milk-producing glands) and surrounding breast tissue. They occur most often between the ages of 20 and 30 and are more common in African-American women.

Obviously I am one of the exceptions to the rule. I am 55 and white. While I am an exception, I am one happy exception. OMG.

Let's see, what else. Oh yeah........there's talk again about my job ending, in the next two years. Ya know what? I am not going to worry about it. There's nothing I can do except try to prepare for it. Seems it might come to fruition this time. Everything I've seen and heard points to it. All I can do is try to get what I owe paid off and try to stash some cash. Not easy in these times we live in today, especially since our government insists they need more of our money. And I'm not even going to go there right now. I just don't know how those idiots can sleep at night. I was sick when I heard about all of the earmarks after they averted the fiscal cliff. I knew it was too good to be true.

So on to other things. I was sick Christmas eve, with some stomach bug thing while I was in FL. And then I came back home Christmas day and on Friday got a real bad sore throat, that lasted into Saturday and I decided then that I needed meds because it was going to only get worse. Yep, it did. Not the flu but a very bad cold. I was in my chair from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday evening, in my jammies, taking meds, sick as a dog, watching non-stop Sons of Anarchy cd's. 16 total - 4 whole seasons. My list of meds included GrapeFruit Airborne, Zicam tab, Nyquil, Mucinex DM. I discovered that the Mucinex DM was not good for me, it caused my heart rate to skyrocket, almost beating out of my chest. Or so it seemed. I threw it in the trash. Tuesday I ran a low grade fever. Wednesday I had to come back to work and I was not feeling well at all but had no choice. Today I am dizzy from all the congestion in my head and coughing but I'm feeling better. I am going to run to CVS today and get a humidifier. I'm hoping it will help.

One good thing happened. Well, it lifted up my spirits anyways. I entered on the Sugarland site for participation in a song and wrote a verse that they accepted. Talk about cool! I found out about them accepting it Christmas eve when I was sick. You can find it here. Mine is the verse about the big dimple on his cheek. :o) I actually found it originally because I'm a fan on FB of Sugarland. I so love Jennifer's voice and am so envious that I can't produce a sound even close to her's. We will not even go there ok? :o)

So the rest is some of the crochet I finished, some I started and finished and all were presents. You may have seen a couple of these before when they were in the wip stages.

Boris. Isn't he just the cutest? The hat below is one I made for him.

A doll hat and Kylie's Lala Loopsy hat.

You've seen this before. A purse. I finished it with a lining for my sister.

More hats. Not all of what I made but some.

A dish towel for my daughter. My very first attempt. The pic doesn't do it justice. The top is a lovely hunter greeen.

A pillow for my daughter. The other side was different because of how the coloring started in the next skein. It took 3 skeins for this 16x16 pillow. This is Psychedelic Mosaic yarn from Bernat. I used big colored buttons but afraid I didn't get a pic of them. She loved it.

This is a dinosaur hat and bottoms. I amazed myself.

This lady went to one of my very good friends.

Purple is for Kylie, blue is for Bella.

Microphones. These were a big hit with the girls.

This is kind of a doily. I just made the top then made the bottom and attached them. Different.

My favorite color of all the hats. Blue Hawaii and Black - both Red Heart. The Blue Hawaii is the With Love brand. Such a pretty color. Striking I guess you could say.

So that's about it for me. I know I've forgotten some things but I've run out of time. I'm sorry it's been a long time, I just haven't had the motivation.  I sure hope this new year brings about better things for me. I'm ready.

May the sun forever shine down on you with more than enough light to see your way.

TTFN
Kat
xoxo