This double life thing is not for the faint of heart

I have got to admit, this life of lies I am living is kicking my ass. Working on one thing when I am alone and another when others are around. It's not easy.

Luckily for me (that's sarcasm for those that didn't pick up on that) I have chosen two veerrrrrry slow projects between which to split my time. I am knitting my fool fingers off over here and I don't seem to have made much progress on either one.

I will get to take a break from those projects tomorrow, though, I am spending the afternoon with four kids under the age of seven. Their parents will be home about 6:00pm and the liquor stores are open until 9:00pm. This weekend is going to involve a lot of tequila. I may not get back to my knitting until Monday.

I'm living a double life

When my husband is home, I sit and knit on this Market Squares Bag from Bags-A Knitter's Dozen. I started it as a "stashbuster" to use up some of the wool I have piling up around us. That pleased my husband and he sits here as I knit on it, confident that God is in his Heaven and everything is right with the world.



This bag is going to be a fairly big bag. I am not sure what I will use it for, maybe a shopping bag or to carry sunscreen and stuff to the pool. I usually don't like bags this big but I am IN LOVE with entrelac and had to make it just for that reason alone.

But the minute my husband leaves for work, or mows the yard, or takes a shower, or a nap, my alter ego takes over and I start working on my top-secret project. It is a project that I started several months ago. I was unhappy with it and frogged it. Eric even referred to it as the "Red Cotton Beast". My husband's birthday is coming up at the end of June and I decided to give it one more try. I am sure you have guessed it by now, it is the Sweetheart shorts.




This secret mission has been without incident so far and should be accomplished by my deadline. If you should happen to see my husband, consider yourself sworn to secrecy, lest I release a jar full of moths into your stash closet.

I don't think we're in KS anymore...

A family in trouble...

There is a family in my neighborhood that has found itself in a terrible situation. I don't know all of the details, and of course I couldn't divulge them if I did, but Tim, Janet, Leah, Tanna and Olivia could use all of the prayers, well-wishes, and good thoughts that they can get right now. Please remember them when you get a chance.

Whew, what a busy weekend

Saturday was my birthday and between family and friends I was kept plenty busy all weekend. We got up early and went to IHOP for breakfast, went and did a little shopping, I got two new pairs of shoes. I got the black ones and the blue ones. The store didn't have any of the red ones or I would have gotten those. We went and spent the afternoon downtown at Mayfest. It was a beautiful day, the weather couldn't have been more perfect. Then we went to Pei Wei for dinner. We were going to go to the Driller's game Saturday night, but we were just too tired after running around all day and pigging out at Pei Wei just made us sleepy.

Today we went with family to Billy Simms Barbeque for dinner and back to my parent's house for homemade ice cream and strawberries and chocolate shortcakes. At Billy Simms Barbeque I had the "Smoked Jayhawk" but I thought it tasted like chicken.

My sweet husband has spent a big portion of his free time lately trying to get me a Wii game console for my birthday, to no avail, so I got an IOU for that, my parents gave me a $100 gift card for Macy's, my sister and her family got me a $50 gift card for Williams Sonoma, and my daughter got me a beautiful silver bracelet.

I finished the Kool-Aid purse. As you can see it is a very small purse, perfect for a little girl. I had made two more little roses, but though that was just too much for a purse this size.



I will be glad to get back to work tomorrow, I need the rest, and I don't think I will have to eat again for several days.

I hope you all had a great weekend, I sure did. I have the best family and friends in the world and they all made my birthday very special.

Big brother, big bear - little sister, little bear and a MEME

Here is a cheesy photo of the Princess and Mr. T-Ball with their bears.




Emma tagged me on her blog for a meme.

Here are the rules:

Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about
themselves. Those tagged need to write in their
blogs the 7 facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need
to tag seven others and list their names on your blog.
You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in
their comments so they know that they have been tagged
and to read your blog.

So here I go 7 random things about me:

1. I am getting tired of knitting those bears.

2. Someone once told me that I am the female version of my husband. We couldn't be more alike if we had been twins. The person that told me that was right, we are a perfect match for each other.

3. I don't really fit into the category of Democrat or Republican either one.

4. I believe in God and I am what you would call a Christian, but I think organized religion is a big ol' crock of doodoo.

5. I have never knit a pair of socks. Or even a single sock for that matter.

6. My parents have been married for almost 47 years.

7. I will be 41 years old on Saturday (05/19).

Now I am supposed to tag seven people, but I don't know seven people with blogs, so I can only tag five. Sorry.

Marianne

Sue

Mrs. Q

Julie

Eric

Warshrags, lemon pie and the orange thingy

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. I did. We got to spend time with our mothers and then had a late dinner with my daughter after she got off work.

My MIL was in the hospital last week and was diagnosed with Lupus. Lemon pie is her favorite, so I decided to make one for her for Mother's Day...the first one I have ever made. It wasn't necessarily the prettiest pie ever baked, but there was a lot of love in it.




I have made a couple of the garterlac warshrags, they are just too much fun to knit. I wish the blue one had photographed better. It is really kind of pretty in the solid color, puts more emphasis on the pattern.



And finally the orange pile of parts is beginning to look like a bear. He is gonna be about 25% bigger than the ones I made with Cashsoft DK, but that works out since he is for a bigger kid.

I think I fixed the problem I was having with my last post

You should be able to see the pictures now. I don't know what I did wrong, but maybe I have gotten it fixed.

Here is another WIP. I have been interested in Entrelac for a while now but hadn't tried to learn it because it seems so complicated. I found the pattern for this "garterlac" dishcloth and it is going pretty smoothly. It is not at all as confusing as it seems once you get going on it.

Sunday was sunny and 84 degrees, perfect weather for yard work

We didn't do any, however. We decided to take a friend to the zoo instead. It was a beautiful day and most of the animals seemed to be feeling pretty frolic-y yesterday.

No animals here, I just took a picture of the train as it went by.


Here is a humongous turtle eating the leaves off of a low hanging branch.



I felt the sorriest for the sea lions. Such a rough life they live.


Brice on the train.


Brice with a giant snake around his neck. Luckily the snake came from the gift shop.


Two little turtles peeking out of the water at us. I think they thought we were the exhibit.


Two bison, they work about as hard as the sea lions.


This polar bear put on quite a show, he was in a very playful mood yesterday.


These two adult(undetermined type of waterfowl)were very protective of the baby. They walked along beside it and when it would stop and eat one would stand and watch one direction while the other watched the other direction. Nothing or nobody was going to sneak up on that baby.


I also have a couple of WIPs to show...I didn't work on them this weekend either.

This is a purse for a little girl. It is made with Kool-Aid dyed yarn. The pink is pink lemonade and I think the subtle color fades are going to be too subtle once it is felted. Oh well, you live and learn. It was one of those "make it up as you go along" patterns and I am not sure what kind of handle/strap I am going to put on it. Any ideas...anyone? The leaves were dyed with lemon-lime and I have some yellow that was dyed with lemonade that will be knitted into two or three little roses to be applied to the front of the purse.


This is yet another bear from the Debbie Bliss Simply Baby book. My nephew wanted an orange bear so I am making this one out of Knitpicks Crayon. I am in love with that yarn. 100% Pima cotton, machine washable and soft doesn't even begin to describe it. One could say that it is FREAKING SOFT. I am going to have to make a blankie out of it. Starting at the top and going clockwise is an arm (on the needles), the front and back of his body, a leg, and a snout. I loved the ones I made out of the Cashsoft DK in the previous posts, but I think this one is going to be my favorite.



There that is my weekend in a nutshell, no yard work got done, very little knitting happened, but I sure did have a lot of fun.