My Weekend in a Nut Shell

Took my mother to Branson yesterday to shop a little (bought very little) and have lunch. Rather than shopping at the outlet malls (many to choose from) we chose to go to the new Branson Landing which is build along the water front in downtown Branson (down the street from Dick's 5&10). It is a nice venue if you do not have a mall close by but there is no shop there that you would not visit if you did. Nothing really original or unique. With in the area there is a Hilton hotel so if you were vacationing it would probably be a nice place to stay.

The real bite was there is a parking garage that was free when I was there when it opened it first opened. Well, the free is no more. They are cashing in on every car that parks at least $2.00 up to $8.00 if you loose your ticket per car.

The whole thing is a pain because you get a ticket with a code that you have to punch into get out of the garage then you have to put money in before the gate will raise. As you can imagine, it is a big CF trying to get out. Cars back up and people get impatient.

In addition to the kid and parents were rude. There is a trolley that runs down the middle of the shopping area. So I was trying to get Mom on and into a seat when some rude kid nearly bowls her over to get in the seat. I asked if we might sit there since I had been waiting and the mother mouthed off that they were loading to and needed a seat. Begrudgingly she made the kid move. Then getting off a kid in the back of the trolley was jockeying for position with another kid (both unsupervised) and nearly knocked Mom over. I was close to jerking a knot is his tail when the driver reprimanded him. I think he had had enough of these kids too.

If that was not enough, on the way back to the house this guy on a motorcycle was riding next to me and decides to pull in front of me. He almost clipped the front of my car then flips me a off behind his helmet. So of course I had to send one back at him. Mom asked what that was for and I told her he deserved on in return because I was not doing anything to menace him. Boy, what a jerk!

Today we will go to visit Dad's grave in the Veteran's cemetery. There is to be a ceremony conducted by the Korean War Veterans with a rifle salute. My brother will participating in the rifle salute. Following that Mom will be coming home with me for the week for a visit with family.

Well, that is my weekend so far......

Long Weekend

I am with my mother this holiday weekend. It has been raining on and off all since I arrived. This is a good thing since there has not been much rain here for some time. Southern Missouri unlike the Kansas City area has not been getting all the rains this season. As a matter of fact, it has been a long time since there has been enough rain here to make the creek flow that runs next to the property. Nice for a change.

As I sit here typing this I hear the spring time country sounds. Loud but also peaceful.

I got to see the new addition to the family. Her name is Babe. She is a mix probably lab and something else, approximately 10 weeks old. She is a very sweet girl who has big feet to grow into. What beautiful eyes she has.

She is a very quite puppy. No hyper at all or barky. Her favorite thing so far is eating and sleeping. Mostly sleeping. I think she is a night dog. She likes to sleep in the day time and comes alive after the sun goes down. She is already mostly potty trained, does not some into the house uninvited and pays attention very well. One big plus is she likes her aunty.

Tomorrow we are off shopping. Not sure where or what for as yet but what the heck who needs a reason to shop. May decide to do the outlets. Sometimes they have pretty good sales on holiday weekend.

What a Day! ! !

I, unlike my friend Chelle, did not have the day off today. My day started off with me finding a puddle of oil on the garage floor under my car. It has been in need of some maintenance that I have been putting off for a while. Well today was D-day for the maintenance. I had to drop the car off at the shop to have it checked out. Especially since I am going to be doing a little traveling this weekend.

The verdict turned out to be that there was nothing leaking so the mechanic was not sure where the puddle came from. So I just had the maintenance done. I got off very cheap at $400. The car is a 2002 Buick Regal with nearly 90,000 miles and the only thing I have had to do is change the oil, new battery, and tires. Not bad for 5 years.

I had been giving some thought to buying a new car with better mileage but I am over that now. Even though I am spending $200 a month for gas it is still cheaper than a new car payment.

I have a good start on the lace bottom shell. I am glad to be doing the mindless stockinette part. As mentioned I am using Red Heart Luster Sheen which is pretty nice to knit with. It does split a little but not as much as the LB Microspun.

I am not usually a blue person but I do like this blue since it is a little darker. Besides it was this blue or white as a choice and I did not want to do white. I would have had it completely dirty by the time I got it completed. I am looking forward to seeing this complete I think I am going t like it. If I really like it a lot I may do another in a different yarn.

Do overs in Process

OK. I got a grip and finished knitting the yellow sweater. All that is left is the binding off and assembly. I am glad now that I had to redo the back. I was able to fix the flaw that had been bothering me so I guess there was a reason that I made the mistake. I had a short row that probably was not visible to anyone else but me. You know how it is the you know it and it bothers you it needs to be fixed. I feel much better now that it is corrected. Now I can go on to wear the sweater and be happy with it.

As for the shell lace border. I did end up frogging it back also. I only had to go back 5 rows which does not sound like much but with it is 5 x 300 it adds up. I am ready now to focus on it and redoing these 5 rows and moving on to the mineless 80 rows of stockinette. Onward and up ward.

I think this is the last thing I am making specifically for Stitches. This is good because I need to spend more time on my yard than on my knitting for a time.

What was I thinking?

This is the lace for the bottom of the shell. I am almost done with the 23 rows x 300 stitches (knitted in the round) and now I see a bad patch that starts 5 rows down. I am going to attempt to fix this situation but if not I will have to frog it. Hope not.

Once I fix this minor thing it will be all stockinette for a while and with any luck I will not screw that part up.

I may need to slow down on my knitting for just a little while. I am making to many mistakes lately.

I thought I was going to finish the never ending yelllow sweater tonight so I was matching the fronup with the back to see how it was coming and noticed that I missed an armhole decrease on the back, which just will not do. This means taht I will have to from the back and redo it. I already did that on the front. I usually focus better than this.

All is no lost though. I will just have to take a deep breath and focus on one thing at a time. I need to get the yellow sweater done so I am putting the shell aside until I am finished.

What a Fun Day

I am in St. Louis this weekend to be with my friend Nancy and her family. Her youngest daughter graduated from high school so we had a party for her today. It was nice to be with them on this happy occassion.

Seems like only yesterday she was just a little red headed girl and how she has turned into a beautiful young woman. How time does fly. One minute they are small and in what seems like the blink of an eye they are grown. As you can tell I am feeling really old.

Another fun thing...I got to she my friends first granddaughter today. She is a beaut. She looks just like her mother did when she was a baby.

These are the friends I am going to spend my vacation this summer with at Cape Hatteras. We will all have much time to play with this little girl. I can hardly wait to see her on the beach.

The Tofutsies Project

The picture does not do it justice. The patterning is very interesting in that the cuff is shaded while the gusset and instep are striped. I love the feeling of the fabric. I used size 1 needles as usual but my gadge was a little smaller than normal so it was necessary to add a couple more stitched to get the desired fit.

The skein is wrapped very tightly so after completing the first sock the skein is just starting to loosen up. Since these are anklets, I can probably get two pair out of this one.

I like working with the yarn for the most part but it does split easily so you do have to pay closer attention to it because of that. The end produce is definitely worth it.

I am having a really wierd week at the office. My computer has decided to rebelle. I was in the middle of editing a document when all of a sudden my keyboard stopped working and the mouse when haywire. Fortunately, I had saved the stuff I was working on on a flash drive so I did have something to work with. I called our help desk to report it and got no assistance by the end of the day so I called again yesterday morning. Finally, I got someone to come help. This person was not sure what to do so took my computer to the shop and I have not seen it since. The fix should have taken maybe 10 minutes if they new what they were doing. No telling now when it will return to my desk. I do have another one to use for the time being but it is not the same. I hope I have it back soon.

Also, the guy that I have been working with on this documentation has been tied up for a while and finally had time to work with me yesterday but since I did not have my computer with the software I need, I was not able to get the work done. Is it Friday yet? I want to trade this week in.

What I Did on My Day Off

I took the day off Friday to get the paperwork completed for the mortgage payoff. Did you know that in most states everything is not official until the release of mortage is recorded with the Recorder of Deeds? I found this out when I received the papers from the mortage company. It cost $24 to get the job done.

Since I was in Independence anyway, I had to stop by Knit Craft and found the wonderful yarn on the left in the sale bin for $3 per skein and got the brightly colored Trekking 135 (I think Chelle has some of this).



After the trip to Knit Craft I went to have lunch at Ophelia's which is on the corner. Ophelia resides in the building that used to be Osco (a.k.a Skaggs/Katz). It was such a treat. I had a lovely Blackened Scallop Spinach salad, which was devine. They serve warm bread with an oil/baslamic vinegar dip. OMG was that wonderful.

Since I was heading north already, I made my way up to Liberty to the shop there and on the 50% off shelf found the Artful Yarns Fable (top right) which is 85%pima cotton, 15% silk. It looks gold in the picture but is acually pink, rose, yellow, and green. Lastly, There were two skeins of Regia. They are the same color but different lots which to me make not difference what so ever. Each is going to be on a different foot so I don't think it make a difference.

I had such a good day. I just reminds me of what a wonderful time I can have when I semi-retire in approx 5 years if all goes well. If I can be good and save my pennys I can live comfortable.

In the Bag

I decided that I wanted an small bag to have for evening at Stitches so I did this one yesterday out of the One Skein Wonders book. It will be felted soon and embellished with probably some funky felted flowers. I think it will be really cute. May make a larger version at some point. It was a really quick knit.

As you can see my big baby Gracie is very interested in the ribbon scarf. She has watched just about every stitch as it progressed.

Gracie likes to keep up with the latest projects and usually ends up lay all over them just to give them a little inspection. She is usually very thorough. If necessary there might even be a nap included at no extra charge.

I had thought of putting some fringe on this but I think that I like it as it is. Fringe can be kind of fussy some time.

There is another scarf I am think of doing that is crocheted. I have been so involved with knitting that I have not done any crochet for some time. Might be fun for a change.

Stay tuned for the finished flelting and any other new thing I may want to throw in.