Latest project

I spent three days poring through the baby patterns on Ravelry looking for a new project to spark my interest. I was originally thinking of making a hat but instead came across a cute little crocheted dress. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/summer-blues-baby-dress The pattern says that it costs money but if you click on the link and sign up for their email you can download a free ebook that contains the pattern.

I like the look of the dress, it's simple with only a tiny bit of lace on it. Dresses with a lot of lace are a pain in the butt for most babies because they tend to get their tiny fingers caught in the yarn. Or get caught on mamas buttons. I also liked the colors of the dress because I'm not a pink fan. Neither is my daughter.

I stopped at three yarn stores today to see if I could find a #2 sport weight cotton yarn like the pattern. Two stores were closed and the third one had limited choices. I ended up with a #3 purple and white acrylic yarn. (Sensations Cuddle from JoAnns). I was hoping for a much more modern and darker color, but baby purple it is. Sigh.

As you can see I only have half of a yoke done. I'm not sure why the pattern has a front and a back yoke that are the same, and you sew them together. It seems to me it would be better made if the yoke was one piece. Oh well, I'm following directions.

I'll update with another picture when I get more done.

Happy new year everyone!

Yogurt flop

The second batch of almond milk yogurt was a huge flop. I thought it looked pretty good the other day when I put it in the fridge before I ran off for Ohio. This morning I tried to strain it through a couple if coffee filters and it wouldn't strain. Next I tried cheese cloth to strain it and absolutely no yogurt was left in the cheese cloth. It all turned to liquid and poured through. What a disappointment. I only bought that yogurt maker to make non milk yogurt.

Looks like I'm going to go back to buying expensive yogurt for my daughter.

Best job ever

Casey called me yesterday to tell me that she has food poisoning or some sort of stomach bug. She cant keep anything down. So last night I drove down to Ohio to take care of Evy so she can rest. Casey isn't doing any better but at least she can rest while I care for Evy. This morning I heard Evy cry so I went into her room to pick her up and her eyes lit up and a big smile spread across her face. She was so happy I was there to play with her. That smile alone is worth a million bucks. The job of grandma is so much more fun than mom.

New Years resolution

There's only five full days left in 2012. You know what that means, right? Resolutions. Have you thought about what changes you're going to make in the coming new year, if any?

I already decided last month what I was going to do for myself. I had been reading an article online about allergies and how to figure out if you have food allergies. I already know I have an allergy to wheat but I haven't been doing much about it other than making myself suffer by eating it. It's so hard to give up pizza, you know?

Anyway, the article that I was reading suggested listing all the symptoms you have, even stuff you think you can easily explain away like a throbbing toe you just bumped. List it all. Next was the obvious like actually giving up the suspected allergen. After 30 days, and then again at 60 days, you re-list your symptoms. Then you evaluate to see how things are working and if any of the symptoms on your list have resolved themselves. Seems easy enough so it's what I have resolved to do for myself in the new year, only I was starting a little early.

30 days have gone by. I have slipped a little bit and had some pizza. I also ate flour coated chicken a couple of times. Giving up wheat is pretty hard because it was probably 50% of my diet. Despite slipping a little bit I am seeing some of the more irritating things fall off my list of symptoms. At the 60 day mark I'll talk about some of them. For now though I have to mention one very obvious (to me) benefit of no wheat...inches lost. I've lost an inch on my hips and four inches off my waist. Never in all my years of dieting have I ever lost that many inches in just 30 days. Can't wait to see what happens at the 60 day mark, and the new year.

What's your resolution?

Trying again

As you can see my first batch of almond milk yogurt was a flop. With the holidays coming and all the things I had to do, I didn't have time to try again. Today however I have lots of time so I'm starting another batch in the hopes that this will be successful. Wish me luck.

An egg-cellent Christmas

Christmas dinner at the in laws is a lot like a pandora box. You never really know what you're going to get. The bitchy sister in law? Manic father in law? Wacky mother in law? It's always a gamble about what you're going to encounter at the in laws on any given holiday. We've learned to park at the end of the driveway in case we need to make a speedy exit.

We had all the in laws over to our house three days ago and everyone was very pleasant much to my surprise. Tonight we saw them all again for Christmas dinner. Both times we saw them they were easy to be around, in good moods, and pretty darn funny. It was actually a Christmas miracle To have everyone on their meds.

Tonight we took Carley's boyfriend, John, with us to the in laws for dinner, his first encounter with them. We thought we had fully prepared him for all that he'd encounter but we didn't expect a chicken. No one ever does.

When we arrived we noticed the trunk of my mother in laws car open and there were donuts and a pie in there. They put stuff in strange places so we didn't think anything of it. About a half hour after we arrived my sister in law got there and noticed the trunk open with the goodies in it, but she also noticed feathers moving around. She freaked and came into the house yelling there was a feathered animal in the garage. My in laws don't have any animals but their neighbor, who lives a quarter mile away, does. One of their chickens flew up into the trunk for the night and made itself to home.

My nieces thought the chicken was going to freeze so they asked my father in law if the chicken could come into the house. My father in law, minus his common sense, went outside and brought the chicken in to join the party. And there you have it, a chicken joined our Christmas party.

Poor John, this being his first Christmas with our family, is probably traumatized for life.

Yogurt

Last week I noticed that my Amazon account had enough money in it to buy myself a toy. The toy I chose was a yogurt maker. I selected a cheap yogurt maker by e-ware that looked like it would work for our needs. Or rather that of my daughter. She's allergic to milk and its darn near impossible to find her alternate milk products here other than almond milk. Yogurt seems to be an impossible find on our grocery store shelves.

This morning my package was delivered, correction, thrown, onto my porch. Thankfully the glass pieces were well packaged and arrived safely despite being thrown.

I read the very small instruction booklet and decided to give making yogurt a try. All you do is mix the milk of your choice with the probiotics, seal the jars, and put the lid in for 6-15 hours. I only made a half batch to see how idiot proof the recipe is.

Turkeys

Yesterday my husband and I were out Christmas shopping. Since we were close to the previous company plant we stopped by to make sure everything was alright with the building. His company outgrew the building and moved to a larger place right before he started running the company. The company still owns the building so we check on it every so often.

Yesterday when we drove into the parking lot there were about ten turkeys feeding on the lawn. Most took off to the nearby railroad tracks but two of them came right up to my car and acted defensively. They made all kinds of ugly noises at us and tried to chase my car. They are such goofy things. Just because thanksgiving has passed doesn't mean they are safe. I could have easy reached out my window and grabbed one by the neck and had it in the oven by dinner. They're just lucky I'm too lazy to catch my own dinner.

10 foot rule

Last night I had an urgent need... Beef jerkey. Steve wanting to take care of me suggested we make a quick run to the local redneck store before they closed. He's pretty awesome like that. What other husband would take their wife out late at night for beef jerkey? Lol

As we were in line waiting to pay for our jerkey I had a coughing fit. When I started coughing I noticed people backed up as far as they could go. Or they switched lines completely to get away from me. Everyone wanted to stay at least ten feet from me. Can't say that I blame them, I do the same thing.

Today we had tons of Christmas shopping to do and people were crowding me uncomfortably. Time to break out my secret weapon... COUGH COUGH COUGH! People got the hell away from me fast!

Then tonight as I'm sitting at the hockey rink with almost no spectators, a guy came up next to me. Because of our height difference he would be in my way when the puck was on one side of the rink. Time to break out the secret weapon. COUGH COUGH COUGH. Very quickly he walked to the other side of the rink.

I now know how to get people away from me and clear out crowded isles fast. Tee hee!

The CT shootings

This is such a depressing subject that I'm only going to speak of it once. Not that the subject doesn't deserve much more attention, I just can't bear to place my focus on it for much longer. I watched about 30 minutes of news coverage this afternoon. My eyes saw much more hurt than I ever want to see again. Tears spilled and I became overwhelmed like I'm sure all of you were too. So I did what was right for me. I turned off the tv and offered up my prayers for the victims, their friends, families, and each person who was effected by this tragedy. After praying I knew I needed to put my focus on happier things for my own sanity. So I started thanking God for the good things in our lives that have happened this week. My thanks were many. Focusing on the good things does help ease the pain of this tragic event. I can't change the events or take away anyone's pain but I know that being thankful has helped me.

May God bless the victims and their loved ones of the Connecticut shootings.

Ho-ho holiday yums

The holiday goodies from vendors are starting to land on my husbands desk. A week and a half ago a giant tin of imported cookies arrived from the local holiday inn. they were thanking my husband for sending business their way. That's where he has his clients stay. I ate a couple and made him take them back to work because the wheat isn't good for me. This week the caterer sent a coconut cream pie home for us to enjoy. Of course it was handmade with the finest ingredients. Another vendor sent dozens of Danishes to the office so my husband brought that home too. I ate some pie, minus the crust, but skipped the Danish. Tonight he brought home some grapefruits that another vendor had delivered. I'm kind of liking these vendor people a lot, especially the grapefruit people. Can't wait to see what else arrives for the holidays.

Cough remedy

This morning on Facebook a friend of mine who supports healthy living and clean eating posted about how to tame a cough. Talk about good timing with that post. Since I now sound like a barking St. Bernard I figured it can't hurt to try something natural as almost all cough syrups on the market can't be taken if you have asthma. Her post said you should mix 1/2 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar (not white vinegar), and 1/2 teaspoon of honey with water. The amount of water wasn't mentioned so I went with about a cup of water knowing I probably wouldn't be able to stand the taste of the mixture very much. I also doubled the apple cider vinegar and honey as it didn't seem like very much. As I expected the mixture doesn't taste all that great, but it isn't horrible either. Cough syrup tastes wayyyyyy worse.

So how does the odd mixture work? Not too bad, I don't sound like a St. Bernard anymore. Instead I sound more like a medium size dog. So the coughing sounds a little better and, I know this sounds gross but, I can actually feel the stuff in my lungs moving rather than sit there. So no, the homemade cough syrup didn't work perfectly, but I also didn't put chemicals from manufactured cough syrup into my body.

Next time you have an annoying unproductive cough, give the homemade mixture a try.

Perfect chair

I searched high and low to find THE perfect chair to call my own. As luck would have it, it ended up not only being comfortable, but the cheapest one I looked at. Every time I sit in the chair you can hear an audible "ahhh!" escape my lips. Yea, it's that comfortable. Apparently Zipper thinks so too because the moment I get up he quickly scrambles to take over the whole chair. When I come back to sit in the chair again he's been known to grumble loudly as if to say, how dare you sit in MY chair. I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have just bought two chairs. Sigh.

Jessie's hat

Guilt made me make Jessie a couple of hats right before we left. (I've had several people ask me why I only make things for one grand child and not the others) I think I posted one of the hat photos a couple of blogs back but the other one I forgot to take a picture of. The hat was a gingerbread girl. I made my other grand daughter one just like it.

This post is a reminder to myself to never, ever make her another. Right after this photo was taken her mother took it off her head and put it on her own head and claimed it. The hat then became all stretched out and no longer wearable. The gingerbread girl hat was tossed aside and never even put on her head.

Note to self: only make your own daughters and their children items that often take HOURS to make, because they are not appreciated. That gingerbread girl hat took about 4 hours to make.

Home

My husband and I got to spend time with almost the whole family at once this weekend. Caleb couldn't come because he couldn't get one of the days off that we'd be in New York, but everyone else was altogether.

I took some other photos with better quality on my camera (this photo is from my cell phone) but I don't have the energy to sit at a computer and upload them all. On the way home yesterday I could feel the flu coming on. About 30 minutes after we got home I came down with a fever and shakes. That means I just infected my entire family with the flu. Sigh. I hope they all have good immune systems.

I really don't have time for the flu right now with all the Christmas shopping I have yet to do. I also have to shop for and set up a bed and prepare and empty guest room because Case and her family are coming for a visit just before Christmas. There's also a Christmas party we are having at our house on the 22nd. Sigh. Lord, grant me energy to get it all done.

Hope your weekend was good. What did you do?

Off to New York

Our son is being deployed to Afghanistan in less than a month so the whole family minus Caleb are going to New York to see him and his family this weekend. We'll do our Christmas with them tonight and then church tomorrow morning with everyone. Our grandson is in a Christmas play tomorrow morning at church, can't wait to see that!

Have a good weekend everyone.

Pizza

Car was in between her two jobs today when she remembered it was payday so she asked me if I would like to go to lunch with her. Her treat. I couldn't refuse. She chose the restaurant since she was paying. That's our rules, you pay, you choose. She wanted to eat local so she chose a place where I had eaten twice previous and neither time did I get good service.

We had a waitress I hadn't seen before so I had high hopes.

On the specials board they listed a gluten free pizza and Car wanted pizza so I asked her if she wanted to have the gluten free version to share. She agreed so that's what we ordered, plus some regular bread sticks for her.

Our order came and the waitress plopped down the pizza, literally. Then off she sped. The first piece was almost done when she came back to check on us. I remarked how good the pizza was considering it was gluten free. I've made gluten free pizzas at home that were nearly tasteless so I was impressed. The waitress then said, oh this isn't gluten free its regular. She then said, I didn't hear you order gluten free. Then she took off. Didn't offer to have a new one made or take the pizza off our bill.

Rather than argue the point with her dumb ass, or anyone else, I came home and went all over the Internet advertising for them. Then I got sick. By then the wheat in the pizza made me queasy, gave me a metallic taste in my mouth, and I had a bad asthma attack. All that from just one slice of pizza. Awesome.

Excellent blog post to pass along

Earlier this summer I came across a blog about canning that I liked so I subscribed to it. She doesn't post a lot but when she does I always have to look at what goodies she's canning. This morning there was a post in my inbox about Noah that intrigued me. Yea, that Noah, the guy from the bible. Here's the post so you an go read it for yourself. http://canninggranny.blogspot.com/2012/12/well-just-come-to-your-boat-noah.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CanningGranny+%28Canning+Granny%29

Before you scoff at the message please think it over and converse with God. The message she gave in her blog has evidence all over the net if you care to take the time to open your eyes and read. Just one look at an email from Natural News ( http://www.naturalnews.com/ ) this morning confirms everything the canning granny's blog is saying. Watching the local news also confirmed it. The message she spoke of has been on my mind for well over a year now and it's time to pass it on. Do what you want with it.

Thanks Tony's!

The UPS truck backed up into my yard tonight. Figuring he had the wrong address again I was prepared to refuse the package since I hadn't ordered anything. Joke's on me, the package was for me, it was from the Tony pizza company. It was the stuff I won last week. That's fast delivery because I wasn't expecting it for a few more weeks. Normally when you win something it takes weeks to get it. Color me happy. :)

Hat for Jessie

I didn't feel like working on any of the other projects I have started around here, so I made a hat for Jessie instead.

I saw a few other cute ideas for future hats on Pinterest today so hopefully this week I'll have time to do a couple more.

Evy meets Santa

I sure wish I were there to watch her first reaction to meeting Santa. Thank goodness for pictures. I sure do miss her. Sigh. I get to see all my grand kids this coming weekend though.

Hot flash free zone

Hot flashes have been plaguing me all weekend. However I did find one place where I'm guaranteed not to get one... The ice rink! It feels like its 20 degrees in here and I have no hat, no mittens, and a light fleece coat. Normally I hate the cold but this is working for me.

Ugh!

The dreaded twitchy eye is back.  So are the stress headaches.  Why?  Not a clue.  Maybe Christmas? I dunno.  All I know is that I don't like twitches.