Knitting, life, Christmas time, and Diet

I have picked up my lovely hobby of knitting once again. My current projects should be linked at the side via Ravelry widget. My sister-in-law asked me about the Mermaid Tail blanket that is all the craze right now. I found a pattern that was knit, bought it and yarn, and have been working on the girls gifts. Not done in time for the party unfortunately. :( But we will be in Lansing again soon and can deliver them then. I also found an awesome Shark blanket (same designer) for my nephew! But first he is getting a TMNT hat in Raphael's colors.

In knitting the girls blankets I was asked by a family friend if I could make one for her daughter after said daughter saw it and went gaga. Of course I said yes. So I'm casting that on now to bust it out before the end of the month. Another friend asked about Harry Potter house mitts and scarf for her daughter, those go on the needles next! I'm slowly getting my sanity back via knitting and will be glad to sit over break and relax with my knitting!

Life - my poor middle child! Due to some outside circumstances we decided to pull her from public school and have her attend online schools. No more than a week in she faints due to low blood sugar while I'm at work and gets a concussion. Concussion = no stimulation....meaning no screen time....meaning no school until cleared of symptoms. Fast forward a month and still having headaches, next step is a neurologist appointment. She believes that the concussion triggered migraines and we are now trying an elimination diet. The girl is a picky eater as it is but when you take away chocolate & cheese - you severely diminish her foods she will willingly eat. Let's say she hasn't been entirely the strictest on this diet as I cannot starve her. She already doesn't eat much from one food group - dairy due to issues with lactose. And then on top of this she has hurt the muscle in her thigh at the knee. We are watching to see if swelling goes down for another week. If it doesn't potential physical therapy and/or MRI. Mind you this is all since the tail end of September to today.

We attended the second of four family parties we have this month. The first my youngest and I were scheduled to not attend due to a conflict but it was canceled so we went to the mother-in-laws side. Today we attended my side's party and I ate my fill in yummy cookies and homemade fudge. We even took our family photo outside since it was a lovely but damp almost 60 degrees here in the Mitten state.

Diet - more life a lifestyle change. I had to give up my Jazzercise position that gave me a free membership due to my work schedule changing. But I had a backup - Beachbody and became a coach. My awesome cousin Nettie is my sponsor and my Rockstar leader. I love 21 Day Fix but I have fallen off the wagon after Thanksgiving. :( My Monday is actually Sunday so I am starting over tomorrow. And since I got my Black Friday sale deals I might mix it up and try a new program! I'm tracking that journey on my other blog Slimming Down to RockTheFit (linked to my profile).

Crazy.......

I thought I was before but the past few months have proved that either I wasn't that bad or that it can just get worse. Knitting has been my sanity and of course this morning I do not have time to post the pretties that I have finished. My dad and step-mom divorced for a second and final time and much bickering and weirdness happened afterwards. See I may not have always liked my step-mom but I did grow to love her in the end. Her being the uber-bit$h that she was is what i needed to get out of an environment that wasn't healthy for me. So yeah I love her for that because I totally could have been one of those girls in school who was knocked up at 16.

School started and again busy stuff going on. This is my last year as the PTO fundraising chairperson. Can't say I am sad to see it go and really we only do one thing. This year it was decided that I would have all the little things (box tops, ink cartridge returns, etc.) reported to me and then I'd report them to the PTO. No biggie but now it's more work than ever before on top of me working, being a Junior troop leader (yeah more on that later), watching a kid in the morning (again) and being down to only 1 car. Oldest daughter J's troop bridged most of their girls last year and their leader moms as well. So this year the 10 remaining and of that 5 returning needed a leader - no on wnated to do it. So I steped up cuz how hard could it be to lead a troop for 1 year right? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA And on top of that I was scammed into watching on of the kids I'd watched before a few years back in the morning YET AGAIN. Not thinking that yeah I'd have her even longer in the mornings because of the late school start this year. >.< I love her and her mom but it's hard not to feel taken advantage of some days. Was tol that I needed to drive hubby to work this morning due to his ride/boss needing to drive his wife to a dr. appt. No biggie right? Was supposed to have her and texted mom and said 'If I am going to have your daughter Monday morning you need to make other arrangements for her because I have to drive hubby to work and don't have room in my car for her too.' Legally I had no seatbelts and I wasn't getting arrested or given a ticket because I had her daughter in my car. she argued 'What do you want me to do? No one else will take her. And am not asking her dad....' Dad ended up watching her this morning anyways because I said can't no way I can fit her in. Just frustrates me to no end sometimes the crap that I get myself into and then have to get out of because I am too nice a person. But the spine is growing and I doubt that I will be going through this hassle much longer.

And it's school fundraiser time. Yay! But I keep getting emails for people to volunteer - not that this is a bad thing - but the fricking info just went home on Friday 10/2 and i had emails starting 2 weeks ago! Ok thanks for being overeager to do this but I don't even have a schedule yet for the PE classes until later this week! UGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

And now I must get ready for work and try not to take my lack of sleep out on the kids. *SIGH*

I'm on a mission.....

First off the Katy Perry concert is tonight and I need to clean my living room and vacuum a LOT. Mostly because my babysitter is allergic to cats. Can't have her getting super sick while we are gone almost an hour away! So I clean....

Knitting - Keira's b-day dress is on hold at the moment. I am attempting to make a February Lady Sweater in time for my sister-in-law's wedding. I got a cute dress but well it's got small straps and we DO live in Michigan so I want to be warm if it's not that day. :) I also picked up another project that I hope to have done as soon as possible after the FLS - a comfort blanket for this project:

Nautical Yarn info@nauticalyarn.com is the “clearinghouse” for the Ludington Chapter of Project Linus. We typically collect 100-200 blankets each year and deliver them to our local hospital for children who have been ill or injured.

This week we received a request from the Michigan National Guard. Camp Grayling, Engineering Company, Unit 1434 is requesting the help of Blanketeers from the Ludington Chapter of Project Linus. Two-hundred fifty (250) Michigan soldiers are being deployed this spring. These soldiers would like to give Project Linus blankets to their children for safety, security, and remembrance while Mom or Dad is gone for one or more years.

A total of 500 blankets are needed. While we don’t believe we can collect 500 blankets, we would like to assist with blankets for the more vulnerable age group, children between the ages of 4 and 10. Blankets must be delivered to Nautical Yarn by May 1 so they can be delivered to the soldiers prior to their deployment.

Please help with this endeavor to help provide security for the children of our Michigan volunteer soldiers.

Nautical Yarn and several yarn companies, especially Plymouth and Berroco, have generously provided FREE kits to help with this blanket drive. Stop by Nautical Yarn to pick up your free kit (while supplies last).

If you are able to make a blanket for this endeavor to help provide security for the children of our Michigan volunteer soldiers, it would be greatly appreciated

Please email info@nauticalyarn.com

The nice thing about this is that if local - they have kits with yarn for FREE how cool is that. If not local the suggested size is 3 ft x 4 ft in a washable yarn. And then it can be mailed to them as long as it's there by May 1, 2009. So I'm heading out tomorrow and going to pick up some more yarn (I know I know really don't have space for it now but hey I'm knitting it I swear!) for the blanket that I hope to get done in time.

Spinning - I still have roving on my spindles that I need to take off and set, and one to finish spinning that half of the roving before I attempt to ply for the first time. I bought more Sunshine Yarns roving last week. posting pictures below. I bought yarn this week and let me tell you was it hard to NOT buy at least 1 of everything that I loved!

As promised :D

Second Roving of Sangria - a little more orange but I love it!


Peach blossoms roving - yum!


Color Collection - Sangria, Wildflowers, Rainforest, Daffodils, Bitterroot, Spiced & Arctic


And a little something green for ordering on St. Patty's day - a St. Patty's Day mini skein. :)


Now back to cleaning!

Sunshine and Jesus Freaks

Saturday was a great day. I got my rovings from Sunshine Yarns - woot! Pictures below. :) I bought Alpine and Sangria (got the last one!) and wanted Peach Blossom, Vampire and Watercolors. They were all so pretty it was hard not to get a box of roving like someone I know. >.>

Alpine


Sangria



I got the mail on my way to meet the rest of the worship team for the Winter Jam concert at EMU. A few bands that played were Hawk Nelson, The Afters, Newsong, Brandon Heath, Stephanie Smith, Francesca Battistelli and of course Toby Mac (formerly of DC Talk). The seats were general admission and we had nose bleed seats at the side of the stage. But the concert rocked. Toby Mac closed it out and had everyone on their feet singing along. He even closed it out with an old DC Talk song "Jesus Freak" it was AWESOME.

Knitting front - I have finally started a new project - Purple Summer Dress. I'm making this for Keira's birthday (my niece). It's a pretty simple pattern and I'll probably make more since I bought enough yarn to make at least one more in a different color. :) This is the top of the dress so far.




I did start spinning my roving last week at knit night. I'm about half way through the roving right now and I'd say mostly at fingering to DK weight of what is spun.

day 11

There are a few things I miss about not living in Lansing still - family being the biggest of course. But thanks to my Dad I became a big fan of Beaner's - now Biggby Coffee. He visited their East Lansing location a lot after they opened. And he is the one who got me hooked on coffee. So whenever I head home for a visit I pay a visit to the Elmwood location for a coffee. I was excited to find one in Wixom. But since I hardly ever end up out that way it seemed too far to travel for coffee. Then the Grand River/Novi location opened. I am more out this way but again not as often to justify coffee on a weekly basis there. Now I heard the news that in my small town of South Lyon there was one opening in the old Arby's. YAY! Truthfully SL and the GR/Novi one are about the same distance from me. However I am more likely to venture into SL at least twice a week. Seeing as how my LYS is there and my eye doctor and we lunch ladies venture that way for lunch at least once a week.

Maybe I'll finally fill a frequent customer card........ie. the one I've had since like 2003 that I got in Lansing.....maybe. :)

I finished the Spring Forward socks yesterday morning and then wore them to work. I LOVE them. And now have to work on scarves even though I really want to cast on some more socks..... But I must finish the requested items before I do another item for myself. *sigh*