Wow! 13 Today!

I know I haven't been blogging much lately but I couldn't let this day go by without a birthday greeting for my oldest granddaughter. She turns 13 today!

Happy Birthday Kaycee!

One of my favorite shots from her 6th grade promotion last spring.

Cozy Place

This looks like a cozy place to do some stitching. Can't come soon enough.

Today in Jackson

Got a new coat and some boots and gloves. Getting excited!

The Old Days

Way back in the olden days of computers, before I was a grandma, when we still had 5 and 3 inch floppy disks, when the years were numbered starting with 19, this was the first movie I saw on a computer. I needed to smile today and it still worked.

Scarf or Skates?

Ah holiday knitting! The joy! The decisions! The choices! The love in every stitch! The kindness of those who humor us!

Veteran's Day 2010

To all who have served or are serving their country taking one day of the year to say thank you seems so little. Your service and sacrifices mean so much to many who may never realize day to day how you touch lives without ever meeting them in person.

For answering a call to duty and risking and sometimes giving the ultimate, thank you.

Hello There!

Well hello there. It has been awhile since I last posted. The month of October had lots of travel in it so I didn't pay attention to this blog but I am back now.

I got to spend time in Utah last month to see some of the family there. From Salt Lake we drove up to Jackson WY and spent a few days exploring that fantastic little town. We also went to Pennsylvania and saw a lot of Jim's family and see a bit of the fall color which I was told was past its peak but still looked pretty to me.

There were some firsts for me on this trip. I got to see New York City and the Hudson River. It was from an airplane window on the way to landing in Newark to make a connection to Scranton. I had never been in New Jersey either. Does the airport count? Coming home we went from Scranton to Detroit to Phoenix. Have you ever been in the Detroit airport? I was very impressed. The coolest part was a long walkway that had a light show and music. Going through it you felt calmer with every step or at least I did. The pictures I got aren't the greatest but will give you an idea of what I saw.

Until next time.

What I Needed to Hear

I saw this video on Miz Katie's blog and found the message just what I needed to hear. October is a wasteland of travel and transition. November I am diving in.

With your hands, young and old

I loved watching the children knit. What do you think about the ideas in this video?

Swirling

I would like to say I was so busy no blogging got done. However I wasn't busy just kind of mentally paralyzed by too many thoughts and no way to say them all and make sense. It all started Labor Day Weekend when I fell into the book "We Need to Talk About Kevin". Do you ever read something that makes you take a deep breath and a walk around the room thinking and then you have to go right back to it to see what happens? You know the wreck is coming but you can't look away and the feelings are vast and painful. What a story!

In other news-

Views like this will soon be part of my daily life and I am so excited about it. It feels so much as if I was meant to be there. More later.

That's How I Feel

I ran across this set of mugs today and the grumpy design made me smile. Does that seem wrong? That little bird shows just how I feel greeting a morning before I have had a couple cups of coffee.

Headbands

My goal this week...
get these headbands pressed and pretty for pictures
and
write up their information
and
get them listed on Artfire. (Not on Artfire anymore, but you can check out my shop on Etsy.)


So, do you have any goals set for the upcoming week?

No Secret Stash

I spent some time yesterday and today at the dentist. I was getting a cleaning and a checkup. That lead to today's appointment for some work on my gums. I am ashamed to say I neglected my teeth for a very long time. How long? Well long enough to be ashamed. I have some other work needing to be done eventually but it would be expensive and the insurance won't cover it because of a missing tooth clause. Too bad I don't have a secret stash of gold bullion. If I did it would all be done already. For now the importance of maintenance and regular exams and cleaning has finally sunk in.

New Way of Thinking

This week I gave a face lift to four places I do things online. I was torn figuring out what to do. I just knew I wanted to make some changes to how my blogs and shops looked.

In the end I came up with two different themes. I love roses and I used one of Jim's photos of a rose as the starting place for the new look in my Artfire shop and this blog. I had a little bird that hung around my old backyard and showed quite a bit of attitude. I always liked the shot I got of the moment I caught him peeking out of his favorite bush. I used that as a theme for my Cozy Stitches blog and my Zibbet shop.

As far as the Stitches blog goes I keep thinking I should shut it down and then I change my mind. Unlike this blog my Stitches blog does not have etsy in the URL and I like that. I don't sell on etsy anymore since I am too small time to pay the fees to have any sales at all there. I keep this blog because it is approved on a couple sponsored post networks and gives me a bit of money for new yarn, fabric and the like. For some etsy is wonderful and I have some favorite shops there that I watch for new work.

To my way of new thinking two themes, two blogs, two shops says it all about the Gemini in me.

I am not scatter brained.

I am multi-focused.

Pleasant Surprise

I just don't make that many sales online so each one is a thrill. The email notification in the inbox still gives me a little stomach flutter. I got one of those thrills this week and it was for something I very nearly kept for myself for my winter trips to Utah.

This scarf is on its way to a new home. It is so thick and soft and warm that it should be a perfect winter accessory for where it is going.

One other random bit of thanks this week goes to the USPS for making online postage so easy.

Quality and Comfort

I may need to shop for shoes soon. For an undisclosed reason at this time I may start needing more than the sandal I slide on every day. These days I opt for quality and comfort even if it costs a bit more. Not a crazy amount more by the way just a bit more because I am too frugal to go crazy.

Coolness

I like to use imagery during these long hot summers to create a sense of coolness around me. Most of those images in my mind include water. Walking across rain soaked meadows of tall wet grass or sitting on a sandy beach with a salt scented breeze blowing across my face or enjoying the sounds of a river from shaded banks all put me in a place or coolness and serenity.

We have about a month to go before the daily 100+ temperatures start to go away. Can you tell I am getting impatient and want it now?

King's Oak by Siddons

I have read a few books by Anne Rivers Siddons and thouroughly enjoyed them. Off Season and Colony were two of my favorites. King's Oak was a disappointment however. There were too many major events in the lives of the characters with themes that could have been a novel all on their own and I felt none of them were explored as fully as they should have been. I guess I was not the only one to feel this way since I found the following review from Publishers Weekly.

From Publishers Weekly-
At the heart of this intriguing but flawed, apocalyptic novel are Diana "Andy" Calhoun and her troubled young daughter. A refugee from a violently abusive marriage, Andy joins her stodgy college pal Tish in Pemberton, an exclusive, blue-blood, Southern community where everyone talks nonstop about guns, dogs, horses and hunting, but almost no one mentions the looming presence of Big Silver, the nuclear arms plant tucked into the woods. Despite her initial distaste for this lifestyle, Andy, "a squatty little Greek" who stands out like a sore thumb at patrician gatherings, is drawn into the polo-playing elite. She falls from grace when her overwhelming attraction to Tom Dabney, Pemberton's wild-eyed native son who has made the forest primeval his home, speculacularly ignites. When the arcane rites Tom practices can't save his beloved woodland from the nuclear destruction leaching from Big Silver, he wages war against his neighbors. Passion, dark atmosphere and vivid imagination color this dramatic narrative, but Siddons's (Peachtree Road) poetic prose is often overblown and it's hard to care about many of her wealthy, self-absorbed, essentially dull characters.

Other reviews on Amazon were positive but not many. I guess to each his own.

Road Trips

We love road trips or at least I do, maybe Jim just puts up with me. Our last drive went well but one trip last year definitely did not. A roadside assistance plan would have been nice to have. As it was we limped our way from Kanab to Salt Lake. I had to stay there for three weeks waiting for the repair. It did snow on that trip (what snow in March in Utah?) and right now the coolness of that sounds so nice.

Green Progress

Moving right along on the backyard, the trees were planted yesterday evening. We had some curbing done this morning to keep the flower beds, grass and gravel areas all neat and tidy. Sod will be delivered at 3:00 am tonight or rather tomorrow morning. All the pieces are coming together nicely with Augustin in charge.

It is a bit different than when we are in charge. For example every time we have moved, no matter how organized, I always seem to be sent to the store for something like mysteriously missing cables so that we can watch television in the new place.

Green

Some of the excitement around here this week is about getting our backyard finished. No more plain brown dirt! We are having some grass and trees put in. I know I should be more water conscious but I just crave a bit of green. Our old yard had trees and grass along with some other plantings as you can see to the right and the greenness and shade from the trees was so soothing. The trees attracted the small birds which I loved.

I think I am ready for some comfortable patio furniture with some pretty and soft outdoor pillows. That way I can enjoy the shade and the birds before it gets too warm in the mornings and in the evening as it starts to cool off. It always amazed me what a difference a bit of shade could make.

Thinking Back

Yesterday when I was thinking back on my son being thirty now I remembered the ride to the hospital. I know that men get excited and nervous and all they really want to do it get the laboring woman turned over into the hand of professionals.

However scaring a person half to death on the way there does not help at all.  We were fine and all I really wanted Jim to do was slow down and stay calm. Telling him that did not change how he drove that day or the day our next one was born either.

30? How did that happen?

Thirty years ago today my husband was handing out cigars because our son was born in sunny San Diego. James Michael is thirty years old today and I have no idea how it happened so fast.

With no offense meant to my daughters because I love you all he was the easiest of my three babies to take care of.

He is now a great problem solver. You know the kind of guy you call if you are not sure what is wrong with your car or how to do a home repair or how to make all your electronic gadgets work like they should.

Since I am not with him today I will let this video sing happy birthday for me.

Can you tell that he does not know how he got this old either?

Happy Birthday Jimmy!

Need the Ocean

I don't think this is the favorite time of year in the Phoenix area for anyone. We spend the months of July and August as well as parts of May, June, September and October trapped in our air conditioned spaces in homes, buildings and vehicles. I would be willing to bet it is not that way if you live in Outer Banks homes, Maine homes, Oregon or Washington homes. Or how about a San Francisco home? Didn't some one once say the coldest summer they ever spent was in San Francisco? I keep thinking it was Mark Twain but I am not sure. I guess I better go look it up. Cooler and closer to an ocean just sounds so nice right now!

Edit: I looked it up and Twain did not say that about summer in San Francisco although it has been attributed to him. The source is unknown.

It's Personal

Wandering the web it is surprising to me how many things you can get personalized. The reach is global and with digital files it is a matter of a few emails, a bit of time for making and shipping and your order is on the way.

I have found places to that will personalize food like candies and of course the M&M ads you see on television. You can get names, initials and phrases put on clothing, backpacks, tote bags and lunch sacks for sending kids back to school.

For sports enthusiasts you can get personalized basketballs, soccer balls, footballs, baseballs, bats, helmets and hockey sticks.

Around the house all dishes can be found personalized from coffee cups to serving platters. In softer goods blankets, sheets, napkins and towels can be monogrammed. With all this out there available all I have personalized in my house is a tile over my kitchen sink that says Kathy's Kitchen.

What do you have?

Yea!

It was a nice weekend around here. Football preseason games started with the Cowboys and Bengals. We showed our house and have a renter lined up. It is nice to think of someone in the place who will make it home. We were beginning to worry that we would need to start shopping for mattresses, sofas, tables, chairs and more to furnish it as a snowbird rental and what we really wanted was for it to be lived in full time. It feels good to have that settled.

Stuck on Blue

Yes blue is my favorite color. I enjoy all the colors but blue is peaceful and comforting to me. I see it in water and sky as a big part of my world. It can be deep as indigo or light and silvery.

Some of my favorite pictures have the blue of water in them and I find my eye drawn to it as I look over supplies when I start new projects and I am always starting new projects.

I think this shot shows what I mean about water and sky. So many shades and variation of blue in one shot. This was taken by Jim on the shores of the Great Salt Lake a few years ago and I have always liked looking at it.

I have a lot of blue in my shops on Artfire and Zibbet too. The most recent listing on Zibbet is this crocheted shawl in light blue. (update on the shop thing, I am on Etsy now and the link is at the top of the blog.)

In my blues on Artfire are a couple more of my favorites. I guess it is good when you make something you like. Then you can feel good about showing them off.

The scarf is nice and wide and the yarn is so soft. It is not too heavy. It has just enough weight to lend some warmth and be dare I say it again, cozy? That is what I am all about after all.

I made this headband on a day I was going through some of my fabric scraps. I don't really remember where or when I got this print but I loved the colors and the flowers on it and had just enough for a headband so as near as I know this is truly a one of a kind piece. I don't know anyone else that makes headbands like I do.

If  want to know more about colorful Blogfire crafting you can find the blog carnival this post will be part of on Friday Aug. 6th by clicking here.

Number 34

We got to spend our anniversary a couple weeks ago with family in Utah. We had a great time seeing the kids (the grown up ones) and the grandkids. We took everyone to a Real Salt Lake game on the evening of the 24th which happens to be our anniversary and a holiday in Utah. The game was followed by fireworks because of the holiday.

We took two days to travel each way. I know we could do the trip in one day but 11 or so hours of driving makes for one very long day and we aren't so young anymore. On the way up we stayed in Laughlin at Harrah's and on the way back at the Rio in Las Vegas. Rooms were courtesy of Harrah's. (Thanks)

 Above are all 6 of the little ones at the soccer game.