Bits and Bobs from July

I don't know what I was thinking, but my only excuse for trying to start writing here again so close to crazy time at work was that when I wrote last I didn't yet realize that the final craziness was upon us.

The NCGA wrapped up their session around midnight, Friday, July 1, 2016, a month ago and I've spent the month of July recovering, at least I think I've recovered...almost.  I'm still feeling a bit brain dead most of the time, but it seems to be getting better.

We celebrated my grandson's first birthday at the beginning of the month, and in typical one-year-old birthday style, there was a lot of food, a lot of presents, and a lot of messy toddler.

Before the messy part

 The only other event of any note in July was a quilt class my mother and I took together this past Saturday.  One of my goals for the year was to learn to sew, and I've been slowly doing that.  My mother used to sew a lot when I was a child, but hasn't really in a long time.  She bought a new machine about the time I did and we took a mystery quilt class at the fabric store in Sanford this weekend, just to spend time doing something together.  I'll probably never finish the quilt, at least not the size it's supposed to be, but it was fun.  As usual, I had good intentions of taking some pictures, at least of my mother and I, but I totally forgot.  I'll insert a picture of what I got done sometime soon if I can remember to take it when I'm home.

Other than that, it's now August, and I need to get moving, literally.  I started taking a tap class again about 3 weeks ago, and so far I'm enjoying that.  Class right now is on Tuesday nights, but will shift to Monday nights in the fall.  So I should be able to attend until early January at least.  2017 is a long session year, so session will start in mid-late January and at that point Monday night classes won't be possible.  There is a Thursday night class, but it's more advanced, so if I feel I can keep up in that class by that point I may be able to switch to that.

I'm going to try this month to start getting back into an exercise habit.  Rob signed up for a 10K race the end of the month, so I signed up for the 5K FunRun with the intention of walking it.  Need to get some walking in before then though if I'm going to make it.  Just ordered a new swimsuit so I can start swimming laps again, and I'm considering making an appointment with a personal trainer if I can find one I like through the Y.  Grand plans for sure, we'll see if they actually happen.

Until next time....

Long Time Gone

The longer I go without blogging, the harder it seems to be to come back to it, primarily because I feel like I should tell you everything that's happened of any significance since the last time I posted.  But that's just not realistic, so here I am back again, and I'll hit a few highlights and we'll just pretend it hasn't been that long OK?

My son and his family are back North Carolina, at least for the next couple of years until the Army decides to send him somewhere else, so we've been able to spend more time with him, his wife and the grandkids.  I love my kids, I love my grandkids, but spending a few hours with the grands makes me glad I'm done with the kid-raising phase of my life.  The joy of being a grandparent is being able to enjoy some time with them then send them back home with Mom & Dad!

We took a trip to Louisiana in March to celebrate the 90th birthday of Rob's Aunt Sue.  It was good to see some of his family that we rarely see and my DIL was able to bring the grandkids down too even though my son couldn't get leave.  Sue is my MIL's sister and is quite a bit older than her, but you can see the family resemblance.

Rob & I celebrated our 16th anniversary last week, and I can't believe he's put up with me this long.  There are days it seems like our wedding was yesterday, and others when it feels like it's been forever.  But that's true of most marriages I suppose, but I'm glad he's stuck with me for yet another year.

I took a sewing class for a few weeks and have actually learned how to use my sewing machine, although it will be a long time for I feel like I have any degree of expertise. I've also attended a couple of fiber events this spring, but I'll talk more about those in separate posts.

Other than that, it's my busy time of year at work, so my hours are erratic.  Some days I work relatively normal hours and other days I work until late at night just to get things done that need to be done for the next day.  I've been in my current job over 20 years now, and although some days I would like to find something different, for the most part I still like my job, and every time I try to imagine doing something else I think of all the things I would miss about my current job.  I keep my eyes open for something else that might be interesting, but I've essentially resigned myself to being here another 9 years and 8 months at which point I can retire with full benefits, and hope to do so!

O.k. quick and dirty update done, more crafting and other tidbits to come, assuming I don't get totally distracted again right?

Finally FO Friday

After taking a couple of weeks off for the holidays, the last two weeks of work have seemed inordinately long.  So I'm glad it's finally Friday, and it's a 3-day weekend to boot!

I was feeling the need to work on some quick projects this week and get the sense of accomplishment that comes with actually finishing something, so I made up these three hats.  Aren't they adorable?! The blue & green monkey is for my 6-month old grandson, the pink & purple unicorn is for my 3-year old granddaughter, and the blue & white bear is for my 17-month old nephew.

The yarn is Top This! by DMC and it comes with the cute little animal heads to make these.  Each one knits up in just an hour or two, so I made these in three consecutive nights this week.  One caution if you want to make these, the pattern runs very small.  I actually knit the monkey one twice.  I had heard that the pattern ran small, so I knit the toddler size for my 6-month old grandson, but even that looked too small to me.  So I ripped it out and made the small child size for him, and I made the full child size for my granddaughter and nephew.  If they're a little big, that's always better than too small.

I'm hoping for a relaxing weekend.  I've got some yarn to ply off the bobbin so that I can get started on my Spin the Bin goals for 2016.  I finished spinning the singles last weekend, but didn't want to start spinning something else until this last thing left from last year is completely done.  I also need to sort and organize some clothes this weekend and see what can be donated. Finally, I want to get Scrivener reinstalled on my laptop because so far I have made no progress on my goal to actually write for 30 minutes 3 times per week.  I reloaded my laptop early in 2015 and I've never reloaded Scrivener, which tells you how little writing I've actually done in the past year.  Hoping to change that.

So that's it for today.  Happy Friday!

A New Minnow in the Pond

I have a new nephew!!

Please welcome Miller Hayes Hartstein (formerly known as Minnow) into this crazy pond we live in.  He arrived Tuesday, August 5, 2014, so he's 1 week old today.

I'm thrilled for my sister and her husband, and know they'll be great parents.  I don't get to meet him in person until Christmas, but hopefully they'll share lots of pictures between now & then.

Now I've just got to get my act together & pack up all those knits I showed you in this post and get them mailed.

Well hello there!

P.S. I've been dying to post this all week, it was all I could think to post about, but I had to wait until my sister decided it was time to share him with the internets.  He's her child after all.

Throwback Thursday

I'm still at work, but I hated to mess up my streak for the month by failing to post on the last day, so I took a picture of this picture I have in my office of Rob & the kids.  This was taken in my grandparents' front yard Thanksgiving of 1998.  Carey was 10 and Logan was 7.

The thing I remember most about this Thanksgiving is that Rob fried the turkey but my grandmother refused to eat any of it because she was convinced that there was no way the turkey was cooked after only 45 minutes in the fryer.  Fortunately, my mother had the foresight to bake a small turkey breast in the oven, so MaMaw had turkey too.

Going Overboard for a Minnow

As previously mentioned here, my sister is pregnant, and her due date is in less than a week.  They know they're having a boy, but since they're not telling anyone his name until he's here, he has affectionately (and possibly irrevocably) become known as "Minnow".

Most knitters like to knit a little something for a new baby in the family, I may have possibly gone a little overboard in that department.

First, the knitted items I've already given them when I was out there in May...

A puppy woobie

Bib with adorable frog button (sorry for the upside down pic)

Burp cloth

Washcloth

 But that's not all.  I have a stack of other knits I've since finished that I plan on sending just as soon as he's born.  None of these are intended to be a surprise, but Julie if you're reading, don't go any further if you want them to be!

Lightweight Stroller Blanket

More Washcloths

Baby Sleep Sack with Hat

Baby sized "Old Man" sweater

 It's sort of odd in a way.  I knit a couple of blankets for my granddaughter, and I knit a christening blanket for my youngest niece (I wasn't really a knitter when the two older nieces were born), but for some reason the urge to do baby knits really came over me this time, and this was the result.  I'm sure it will taper off & I will go back to selfish knitting soon, but in the meantime it was fun to do some quick smaller projects that didn't take as long.

Pencils, Paper, and Pens....Oh My!

These are mine!

I admit it.  I'm an office/school supply addict.  I am completely incapable of going into an actual office supply store and walking out with nothing, even if they don't have what I went in for, I have to buy something!

Tonight's downfall however was the result of a "quick" trip to Walmart on my way home.  I needed to pick up 2 things, but right as you walk in the door.....school supplies!

I can't be the only one whose favorite part of a new school year was getting all the new paper, notebooks, pens and pencils.  I just never outgrew it I guess.  When my kids were in school I loved going shopping for all the school supplies.  Now that my kids are grown, I don't have that excuse. 

But then it dawned on me....I have nieces...and two of them are in elementary school.  They're in year round school and they're getting ready to start their new school year so I got my sister-in-law to send me their school lists.  Then tonight...in Walmart...I shopped!

Some pens, some pencils, folders & notebooks.  Index cards, glue sticks, crayons & dry erase markers.  A little of this, a little of that.  I had a blast.

Their lists are so long, I really didn't get that much in the grand scheme of things.  I left things like binders and pencil pouches for the girls to pick out.  Things that allow them to show their personality by picking a favorite color or print. 

And of course, I couldn't resist getting a few pens for myself.  I needed them...really...I promise.

A Full Day

You may remember that I told you about the fiber I dyed at Carolina Fiber Frolic, which didn't turn out at all like I'd planned, and how I used Michiele's drum carder to turn it into batts for spinning.

I spun that up this past week and I decided to try my hand at a fulled single ply yarn.  Fulling is pretty much like felting, you just don't do it as long or as hard so they yarn doesn't really felt, it just starts to.  The fulling of a single helps it stay together so that the fiber doesn't separate when you knit, crochet or weave with it.

This was the result.  I'm not in love with it in a lot of ways, but I'm not completely disappointed either.  I don't remember what kind of wool this was, but I have a suspicion that it was at least partially superwash something because it didn't full all that much.  It did a little, enough that I think the yarn will stay together and be usable, but this might not have been the best fiber to test my fulling skills.

There is definitely more twist in the singles than I should have for a fulled single, so I have a feeling the yarn will bias a lot if I try to knit with it.  I think I'm probably going to try weaving with it, if I can figure out what to combine it with to make something attractive.

After all that, I'm still most disappointed in the color.  It's all muted and muddy and while it is sort of pretty in a way, it's so far from what I was going for that I just look at it and go "meh".  I'm going to have to do some thinking to decide what might bring out more of the color in a weaving project.

In addition to getting the yarn washed this morning, I also washed all the baby gifts I've knit for my soon to be born nephew so that I can hopefully get those in the mail soon.  We went to a birthday party for one of Rob's coworker's 1 year old daughter for a couple of hours this afternoon and then went out to dinner before coming home.

So yes, it was a full day.  I know, I'm groaning too, but I couldn't resist

Quiet

My in-laws are gone.  My daughter, her fiance, and her friend are gone.  My husband has gone to bed.  It's 10:15 PM and except for the sound of the dryer my house is quiet.  Finally.

Don't get me wrong.  I enjoyed seeing everyone.  The bridal shower was fun.  Some friends came over and hung out on the back deck last night.  It was a people filled, social, weekend.  But I'm glad it's over.

It seems the older I get the more I crave quiet.  I enjoy socializing.  I like people and I like to be around them.  Entertaining is fun, when it's my choice.  Going out and doing things is fun.  But I need the quiet time to balance it all out.

I think it actually has more to do with sound than people.  I have the sound on my computer and phone (except for a call or text) turned off.  I play a few games on my phone or online, but I turn the sound off on those because I can't stand the dings and dongs and repetitive carnival songs that play over and over.

It's not all sound all the time though.  I listen to audio books in the car, and I enjoy watching a couple of hours of TV with my husband each night.  I listen to music sometimes and I've recently started listening to podcasts while I spin.  So it's not sound in general that bothers me, it's more the quantity of sound.

I sometimes reach a point in the day, usually in the evening, where I truly feel like I might scream if I have to hear another sound.  I've even tried Googling to see if there's some medical name for it.  Yes, seriously.  But there doesn't seem to be a name for it that I can find.  It's as if I have a physical capacity for only so much sound every day and then I can't take anymore.

I've always like a little quiet time to myself, so maybe I'm getting old.  Who knows, maybe I'm just getting weirder.

84 Days & Counting

My daughter is getting married October 4th and today she had her first bridal shower hosted by my mother, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law.

Carey with the hostesses

Carey and the Jr. Hostesses, my two oldest nieces

Carey & me

There was food and fun, and of course lots of gifts.

My sister-in-law came up with lots of creative ideas, like this party favor of a mini bottle of shower gel with a tag that says "From my shower to yours".

The "traditional" ribbon hat was rather stunning don't you think?

Can you tell that her primary wedding color is purple? 

Many thanks to the hostesses, and to those friends and family that came to share in the festivities.  The count down has begun!

Random Things on a Saturday

Today was a little bit of everything.

My parents came down around lunch time to bring me a small secretary they had at their house that I planned to make my new writing desk.

Cute isn't it?

The plan was to make my current "desk", which is really a sewing table/cart more of an actually crafting table where I could use my rigid heddle loom, etc.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize how deep the top overhang is on this desk, so when I open my laptop on it about 3 inches is hanging off the desk.  So it's now out in the living room being pretty with pictures on top of it, and I'm using the same desk.  I'll just have to move my laptop when I want to weave I guess.

We went to Fairview Dairy Bar for lunch, and then while Rob & Dad piddled around the house, Mom & I went to the yarn store, Hallmark, and Belk.  I actually did not buy a single thing at Find X Design, the local yarn store, so I was very proud of myself. Mom bought some yarn, a pattern book, and some needles, so we still did our part to help the economy.

I made my own economic contributions at Hallmark & Belk though.  Our Hallmark has an attached boutique which sells Danskos and I finally bought the brown tooled leather ones I've been wanting for a while.   I have these same shoes in Black & wear them all the time. At Belk I bought a t-shirt.  They also had Fiesta dinner plates as singles, so I bought a few more colors of plates to add to our every day dishes.  I've been wanting some more plates, but haven't wanted to buy full 4 piece place settings, which was the only thing I'd been able to find before now.

After Mom & Dad left I did some knitting, finished cleaning & sorting the bathroom cabinets I started this morning before they arrived, cooked dinner, then did some more knitting while I watched TV with Rob.

So nothing too exciting today, but all in all a good day.  Now I have a date with my spinning wheel because Tour de Fleece (more about that tomorrow probably) started today and I can't fail on the first day!

Throwback Thursday

I love "Throwback Thursday" because it never fails to bring back a memory I usually haven't thought about in a while.

This is one of my favorite pictures of me, my brother & my sister.  I believe we were about 7 (me), 4 (Lee), and 2 (Julie) in this picture.  The picture was taken on the front porch of the single wide trailer my parents owned at Atlantic Beach, NC until I was about 10 years old.

We had some great times in that trailer park.  It was on the sound side, so we swam & fished constantly.  I learned to eat oysters by going down into the sound with the old men at low tide and pulling them off the corrugated steel wall and eating them raw.  We only went to the actual beach occasionally because it involved walking several blocks and water was water to us.

Part of the trailer park is still there, but actual houses  have been built right on the sound.  What used to be a tangled mass of scrub and brush next door is now a chain hotel.  It was a whole different world back then, but it was our world, at least for large portions of each year.

Celebrating the Baby-to-be

My sister's getting ready to have a baby.  She lives just south of San Francisco ("on the peninsula" for those who know what that means) so I only get to see her a couple of times a year and usually because she & her husband come to North Carolina.

My mother & I flew out there a few weeks ago to throw her a baby shower, and we had a great time. Not only was the shower fun, but we got to do a little mother/daughter time as well with a nice lunch and massages at the spa.

Pictures are better than words sometimes....

Julie & Phil opening some gifts that arrived in the mail.

This baby will definitely be raised a Tarheel even if he does live on the left coast!

7 months pregnant, but still gorgeous.

Mom, Julie & Me (and some of the "spread").

Jen & Ava (Phil's sister-in-law and niece) naming the children's stories.

Decorating blocks.

The finished blocks.

Getting some practice in....

All the Hayes & Hartsteins that were there.

Miles the nephew-dog enjoying the ride

I love my nieces (my brother's girls) to death, but we're all very excited that Julie & Phil are having a boy.  I can't wait to meet him!

Do Chickens Dance?

My middle niece's first communion was EARLY this morning, so we drove up to Cary to spend the day with my family.  As I did for her older sister, I knit her veil.  She's 8 years old, so I'm not sure how impressed she was by it, but I think all the adults liked it at least.

She enjoyed being the center of attention for the first half of the day, but was glad when all the picture taking was over.

Can you see the "I'm so tired of smiling" smile?

With her father (my brother)

My sister & her husband came in from California for the weekend.  This was the first time I'd seen her since she got pregnant, so it was fun to "meet" my future nephew for the first time.

My sister in law's parents came up from Florida as well.

We went to lunch at Lucky 32 and it was a gorgeous day to sit outside and eat.  All three nieces were excited to see "Prince Phillip" so he kept them entertained.

Learning how to take a selfie

It's rare that my parents get to see all 3 of us at once, so before we took off the dress clothes we took a family pic.

After that we got comfortable...well, some of us.  My brother lost a bet on an NFL playoff game to my sister & her husband, so he had to wear something else for a while....

Dancing Chicken

We take our bet payoffs seriously

Just in case you're curious, if my brother had won the bet, then my brother in law would have been wearing a Duck Dynasty costume instead.

After hanging around for a couple of hours, the late afternoon was spent at the spring carnival held by my nieces' school, but I'd lost my picture taking mojo by that point.  They still have cake walks, and that made my day even though I didn't win.

All in all, a fun day with family.

December Recap

I had good intentions of posting several  more times in December, but that obviously didn't happen, so here's a quick recap in pictures.

I finished the Christmas decorating Thanksgiving weekend, and although it took several hours and pretty much every single ornament I own, the 9+ foot tree was done.

 I spent most of the first week of December in Washington, DC for a conference.  Of course I found a local yarn shop and made some new knitting friends.  I highly recommend Looped Yarn Works as a great place to shop and also very welcoming to strangers for knit night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Most of the rest of the month was spent getting ready for the holidays.  Our daughter & her fiance and my in-laws came for a couple of days at Christmas. My parents and some friends here in town joined us for Christmas dinner as well.  

Somehow in all the hustle & bustle of present opening and socializing, I forgot to take pictures of the actual gift opening, but here's some evidence of the aftermath.

My daughter liked the sweater I knit for her.  She had picked out the pattern & yarn a couple of months ago, but had totally forgotten about it, so it was a surprise.

And my friend Nicole was happy with the shrug I knit for her.  She had picked out the pattern & yarn when I drug her to the yarn shop on our visit to PA in September.

A fitting gift for me this Christmas!  I got several other items I wanted, but this was the funny one.

So Christmas is over, all the decorations are put away, 2013 is gone and 2014 is here.  I've been thinking about goals for the year, and that's another post that I plan to write soon.

But for now, we're all wiped out around here.