I'm a winner

I entered my name in a contest on Good Reads. Doubleday is giving away 25 books for pre-release review. I was drawn as one of the winners of this book The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson! The only "requirement" they ask the winner to write a review to share on Good Reads. I think I can handle that! :-)

Princess Chunky

Holy Kitty Cat! This cat was rescued and weighs in at 44 LBs. And I thought Poo at 20 LBs is a big boy. Yowwwzzzza Read more here.

One more day......

The wait is almost over!

Tie-dye, Xmas Knitting, and Bands

Hippy Alert..... I found these lovely tie-dye bags on Etsy. They were handmade by gnomegrown I am very pleased with these bags and already have one of them stuffed with knitting projects. I tell you I was born in the wrong generation!


Poo has been helping with some Christmas knitting! :-) I met one of my knitting friends for coffee and knitting this morning after dropping Jimmy off at the airport. I finished the hat while we chatted and knitted. Poo, Kiki and I already miss Daddio. He flies back home Saturday morning which is his birthday. He is going to have a 23 hour birthday this year since we are one hour ahead of Chicago.

Last week Jimmy and I joined some friends to see a battle of the band competition. This was the band we were there to cheer on. They didn't win. We only stayed for the first two bands. The battle was held at Whiskey Dicks ,which is a biker bar. I have to say it is the first time I have ever seen a Tattoo place inside a bar.

Wires, Hollyberry, harvest begins & In the round....

Today my Knitpicks order arrived. Above is the Lace Blocking Wires. I must finish lace so I can try them out!
Here we have Swish Hollyberry to make the Opulent Raglan. The Hollyberry color is significant for two reasons. One red is my favorite color. Two for the first time in three years my Holly bushes have berries! Woohooooooo I am so happy!
These bad boys are the first picking of my Jalapeno crop. Finally the Habaneros are growing. Woohooo! So are the tomatoes. Getting all good and ready for some Salsa canning! Below are two lily blossoms from the front gardens. They are stinking the house nicely.
Drum roll..............
Jimmy's birthday present is finally hanging on the wall. His birthday is August 2nd.

I present In The Round for your viewing pleasure.

What is knitting this week....

My fingers are taking a short break from this lovely. I am very pleased how this Bubbly Curtain is progressing. I can't wait to see it hanging in the newly painted Powder Room. Oh and I am pretty pumped about the Lace Blocking Wires on the way from Knitpcks too....


I started a simple project to knit, which will keep me busy while doing cardio workouts. It is an iPod Nano Necklace knit with a hank of Stephspun yarn purchased at ComFest.





Today I have been working on my cozy wrap. This is coming along nicely and will be ready for the cool fall evenings.



I am very excited about about this new addition to our plant collection. I have wanted a hibiscus for a very long time and I got this gem for 1/2 off at Straders. The pot is from Garden Ridge and it was half off too.

NYC New Law Regarding Calories

What would you do if you walked into your local coffee shop tomorrow morning and saw something like this?


Would you still order it?

New Yorkers try to swallow calorie sticker shock
600 calorie muffins? The first city to adopt law faces unappetizing surprises

This spring, New York City implemented a new "law forcing chain restaurants to post the calorie count of each food in the same size and font as the price."

Picuture obtained here: New Yorkers try to swallow calorie sticker shock

As a frequent purchaser of prepared food in restaurants. I think this would be a good thing for me to make better selections. I can't wait to follow how this works for NYC folks.

Friendship Poem

Friendship Poem

WHAT IS A FRIEND

© By HARRY SMITH

A friend is someone who understands and someone you can trust.

They will listen to you both night and day without ever making a fuss. A friend will stand by your side when you are right and sometimes when you are wrong.

They will hold you up when you are weak and provide support to make you strong. A friend's love is unconditional and unique in every way.

And when you have problems a true friend will kneel with you and pray. A friend will stand by your side through thick and thin.

And whenever everyone have deserted you they still will be your friend. A friend once said to me that a friend is sent from God above and I believe this to be true.

Because God has sent a friend to me and that friend to me is YOU.

Reference: http://www.poetryamerica.com/read_poems.asp?id=244546

Say cheezzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I love this picture.... :-)

Music in the park

What a beautiful night for some free music in the park. Jimmy and I realized at about 6:15 tonight we have been missing free music here in Dublin on Sunday evenings.

That first picture above was taking from our seats. Not bad for arriving at 6:58.

Jimmy took the picture below from the area where he would like to sit next week. Next week we will pack a picnic dinner and head to the park much earlier. It was great people and dog watching too. Oh and knitting time. :-)

Valance hanging, Kiki blob, and Mojo Lounge

Yesterday we hung the lace valance in the Library. I am totally in love with how this project turned out. Check out the project page in my Ravelry Notebook.



It's pretty rare when Kiki's pretty face is captured in a photo. For some reason she usually looks like a black blob. This picture, while not the clearest, really shows off her pretty face.



So I have been on the edge of my seat since July 1st awaiting the 7/22 issue of Knitscene for the Opulent Raglan pattern. Which I pre-ordered the issue so it would just arrive at my door rather than going to a bookstore on the 22nd and risk other purchases (who me?). Well yesterday morning Jimmy casually hands me an express USPS envelop and says this came for you yesterday. I looked at him like he had turned green and grew fangs and said YESTERDAY????? OMG I ripped the package open and found this:


How can it be that IT was in my house 12+ hours without my knowledge?

Yesterday I ordered Knitpicks Swish DK Yarn in Hollyberry to knit the sweater in for myself. :-) I also ordered Lace Blocking Wires. I have wanted the lace blocking wires for a while but it really came to light after we had the lace valance hung when Jimmy said "the bottom edge isn't very straight". Well the lace blockers will help straighten things up. Also I wanted to make sure my order was over $50 bucks to get free shipping. -) Free is good....

Poo loves the sunshine. :-)


Well he didn't turn green or grow fangs but he did wear green last night for our trip to the Cap. We spent several hours at Mojo Lounge. He is studying for ITIL Service Manager Program . He will be attending the Chicago training listed on that page. Pink Elephant was the sponsor of the conference Jimmy attended in Las Vegas in February ~ the trip I joined him on. Just an FYI....

While he studied I knitted ~ duhhhhh and sipped an espresso martini.

Dog Poop really pisses some people off to the point of being crazy.... or maybe they were born crazy

So what started out as a lovely evening last night quickly went in the shitter. Earlier in the evening two of my neighbors and I shared a lovely bottle of wine on our patio. We had a nice conversation and comforted a friend (who I will refer to as friend 1 for anonymity sake) whose brother-in-law passed away earlier in the day. My prayers go out to her and her family. After we killed the bottle of wine we bid each other fair well and went on with our evenings.

About 30 to 60 minutes later I was sitting and knitting in my chair when I happened to look up to see friend 1's boyfriend standing in the middle of the road holding the lead of one of friend 1's doggies. He stood there for a good 30 to 45 seconds longer after I noticed. He was looking down the street intently. Well I was like hummmm wonder what could be keeping him in the middle of the intersection like that so I got up. I opened my window and to my horrorification I heard the "woman" across (lives in the house on the opposite crosswise corner) the street screaming at friend 1 to keep her "f#cking dogs and their shit of her yard" (or something along those lines) which I might add I am pretty sure the woman doesn't own her yard but that is a research project I will have to conduct. Well I was drawn into it from there and things went right into the shitter from there. Now friend 1 is the most responsible dog owner I have ever known. She wears a fanny pack when she walks her dogs and picks up not only her own dog's poop but other poop she happens upon. Shoot the first time I met her she was placing a nicely wrapped poop bag into my garbage totter (it was garbage pickup day). The last thing friend 1 needed last night was to be attacked because she had a very crappy day with a death in the family and all. Oh yeah and the fact that she stood right there and when the doggie was done with the poop release she picked it up.

Well later in the evening I heard the "woman" across the street still running her cake hole about the events of the evening and at one point I heard her say and the "fatty across the street" did something or other. I didn't hear the tail end. I wanted to jump up from my patio and yell sticks and stones........ but I didn't. I half expected to wake up this morning and find some obscenity spray painted on the side of my house but then I thought she wont do that since she would have to look at it as long as she lived there cuz I wouldn't get it fixed until the war was won.

Life is never dull in a planned community development that is for sure...... Boy I think I really miss the construction trailer that use to be on the "womans" lot when we first moved into the house. ;-)

Errata and being thankful for the Internet because I do remember life without it....

So I didn't get enough of valance/curtain knitting when I finished the Dappled Lace Café Curtain last week. Now I am working on the Bubbly Curtain in the Mason Dixon Knitting book. Yesterday while translating the chart into written instructions I had to take a step back and scratch my head. You see the instructions said the pattern repeat is over 18 stitches however the chart only had 17 columns. I thought I might have been shot out into another existence or something had short circuited in my head. But then I realized there just may be a published errata for this chart. So off to the World Wide Web I went and low and behold I found it. But now I am really pondering what folks, including my Grandma, did before the World Wide Web. In my Grandma's case, what did she do when she was left scratching her head while embarking to make that special sweater for one of her 8 darling children because the directions and/or chart didn't make sense. I wish Grammy where here to see how far her beloved knitting has come. She would really be tickled I think.....

I love green toes and giraffes....

It is sort of one of those weekends were the days seem fantastically never ending. I have been on a mini-vacation since 5:00 PM on Wednesday. Thursday I went and had a pedicure which I now have green toenails. I am sort of mixed on whether or not I like them or hate them. The conservative side of me wants to hate them but the rebel fighting mid-life-crisis in me wants to embrace the green toes while pondering what tattoo I would get should the mood strikes? It is a toss up between some sort of ying/yang picture or a giraffe.

Below is a sneak peak of the finished "in the round" painting. I was told that it looks like a hot dog because of all the colors that are found on a garnished hot dog. I myself see a stick figure....


Meet Molly the birthday girl. This was a retro themed party. Molly hand made her dress in about 3 or 4 hours. Very tallented that one I say....


Croquet anyone?


142 more party pictures can be found here.....

Opulent-Raglan

Wendy Bernard has done it yet again. This sweater is a very RICH beauty for sure. I can't wait to pick up a copy of the Fall Knitscene on 7/22/08.