We made it!

The last time I posted, I was getting ready to go to my stepson's wedding. In the interim, I had written a post with a terrible rant about the company that we are leased to and how they were jerking us around and NOT getting us home. But we made it home and got to the wedding and all, so I decided not to post that post. It wasn't very nice and I was a little (to say the least) ticked and you just don't need to hear that....so, here's a different post.

I have some really wonderful pictures of sunsets from our trip from Seattle to Laredo. We went across Utah and I took a picture or two in my side mirror. The colors were actually much better than the picture, but it still is a kind of cool picture taken behind us.

We then went into Colorado and I was going to post some of the really cool scenery in Utah, but I ended up with a headache and went to lie down and missed almost the whole of the really neat stuff down near Canyonlands and Arches, so needless to say, I don't have any pictures of the neat stuff, but here is what we saw as we crossed into Colorado.

I lived on top of that mesa when I was in jr. high school. My father worked in Mesa Verde National Park, and we had to go up the front of that mesa on a road they called "the cut". It was carved out of the side of the mountains and you felt like you were on the edge for the whole of that stretch.
It never ceases to amaze me how much I love the mountains. I grew up in Colorado Springs at the foot of Pikes Peak and the mountains just kind of call out to me that this is home and where I need to be.
It's a good thing, since our house will have about 210 degree views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that are mostly 14er's and are gorgeous. But of course, I can't find a picture of them on my computer because we haven't been out there for a while and I haven't found the disk that has the pictures of them. So if you want to see a picture of them, go here or maybe here. The second link shows some of the sites of the little town that we will live near. All of the pictures of the mountains in the background are the mountains that we see from our land.

On the trip, as we went south out of Colorado, we were able to see this: It is Shiprock. It rises up out of the desert in northern New Mexico and can be seen for miles and miles. The little town that is named after it, Shiprock, NM, is located on the Navajo reservation and is kind of sad town. It is run down and there isn't much there, but the rock formation is really neat to see.

The time in Laredo was pretty uneventful, if a tad hot. Our air was broken on the truck so we were driving with the windows open which allowed all of the bugs to enter the truck and precluded conversation, but in Laredo, we hooked up to Idleaire, which was a godsend. Not only does it control the climate in your truck, it also has television and movies.

We got a load out of Laredo going to Kentucky. We got withing 500 miles of home and then had to drive from Kentucky to West Virginia without a load. Not the best thing to happen, and what the whole rant post that I didn't post was about. Anyway, we made it and here's proof:
This is the groom, my husband's middle son.

This is a picture of the Bride and Groom, Jess and Drew:
This was a happy day, can you tell. This is a real good representation of their life together so far. They have a lot of fun and make for a good couple. Now for some absolute cuteness: This is the flower girl, a cousin of the bride. She was playing shy as she was throwing her rose petals. They said that at the rehearsal she did everything that she was supposed to, but she did the shy thing at the wedding. She is as cute as she can be, and I guess because our ds was one of the only other children at the wedding, besides her, she was fascinated with him. She kept wanting him to dance with her and finally he did towards the end of the reception.

Here is a picture of da' boys...all three of my husband's older boys. The one on the left was the best man and the one on the right was a groomsman:
My dh can't believe that I would put pictures of the wedding on my blog. It kind of freaks him out that I would place that much of my life out there for people to see. Oh well, he'll get over it.

On the knitting front...I finished the French market bag. Only it isn't a French market bag after the felting. It ended up being a pot luck dish cozy. My mother will love it, but it shrank so much that it will hold a 2 quart Pyrex dish. I forgot to take pictures of it before and after felting, so I will have to wait until my sister gets back from vacation next week for her to take a picture of it for me after the felting. I even made it bigger than what the directions said to so that it would be deeper and bigger around. I guess the knitting gods were angry that I didn't swatch and test felt the swatch to see how much it would shrink. I won't do that again.

The socks for ds are making progress. I won't take another picture of them because the progress is slow and there doesn't seem to be a lot of progress. The foot is getting longer, but not very fast because I work on other things and don't work on them as I should. I like the fabric that is being made and the yarn is going to make for a very nice sock for a boy.

When we were home last week, I got the yarn that I had ordered online and haven't taken pictures of it yet. Some of it was put away in the container until the next time we go home. I bought a bunch of worsted weight yarns that will felt well to make a booga bag and another try at the French market bag. I bought some greens and purple and a chocolate brown for a striped booga bag and then I will use some of them for the French market bag.

I also bought some lavender variegated to make a top for my niece and some nice yellow cotton to knit a top for my sister. They both need some cool cotton tops for summer, so I volunteered to knit one for each of them. Now it is just a matter of finding a cute, modest pattern for both of them.

I got some Sweet Georgia that I had ordered sight unseen. You know that Sweet Georgia is becoming impossible to get. There was a shop that had some, but didn't have more than one skein of a lot of the colors that she did. I called them and ordered 5 skeins from them. Four of the skeins were pairs and then there was one single. They are all gorgeous and will make something nice for someone. I hope she comes back from her sabbatical and starts dyeing again, because she has really nice yarn.

I also ordered some stuff off of etsy...need to quit listening to Lime and Violet. They are enablers. One of the things that I got was Malabrigo. It is a heavy worsted weight that is so incredibly soft. I got a crimson and brown mixture that is just lovely. I don't have a project in mind for it yet, but I will find something to make out of it. When we are stopped on Monday, if the sun is shining, and before I put it in the tub, I will take some pictures of the yarn and post some so that you can be enabled too.

I also go some more of the painted sheep's stitch markers. I love those and they are so reasonably priced. They have changed the configuration of them, and I think I like the new configuration even better, but I will wait and buy some later.

We are going to try to get to Colorado and see my Mom and Dad and have DH work with a local builder that is going to be building the same kind of house that we are. He offered to let DH help with the house so that he could learn how the building system works for when we put our house up. Anyway, we may be there the weekend of Estes Fiber festival. If we are, DH said that I can go, even if I have to go by myself. My mom is going to be going to visit her mom and see one of my cousins graduate from college the weekend that is Estes, so she can't go with me. I may take ds, so that I have someone to go with me, or I just might take the day and go by myself...so there.

I guess that is all that I have to say, at least for now. Enjoy your weekend and remember what Memorial day is for...Remember all of the heroes that have served our country and fallen so that we may have the freedom that we so enjoy.

Can you guess...

where we're going to? Where have we been spending a lot of time lately? Where are the roads, or at least most of them, incredibly straight and the hillsides, in spring, are covered with blue bonnets? You guessed it...TEXAS! We are on our way to Laredo, TX with a load out of the Seattle area. This is a decent run to get out of the Seattle where freight rates are horrible, like as in you can't make a living wage running freight out of the Northwest, but it's going to Laredo.

Now normally that wouldn't be a big deal. This week it is a big deal because of what is happening next weekend. My Dh's middle son is getting married.He is the first of the boys to get married, or to even have a real live long-term significant other. It promises to be a nice wedding, I guess. It's kind of a strain as the DH's ex will be there of course, and she is not a pleasant person. My hubby would say that I am borrowing trouble, but I just think I am getting prepared. The big problem is that we are supposed to deliver this load in Laredo, TX on Monday morning. If we get a load going to the house, that means that we have to drive 1765 miles to get to the house and get the rental car and drive to Virginia Beach for Friday evening. According to Microsoft Streets and Trips (a great program), that is 3 days, 5 hours and 52 minutes of driving. That is going to be really tough to do...so again, I may be borrowing trouble, but I think we are screwed. We'll see.

The only other alternative is to try and get to Laredo before the business closes on Friday and then pick something up on the yard heading home. That would give us a lot more breathing room, and may be something we can do. Again, we'll see. Or I could go online and find us a load that we could get our company to book and then we would be covered. There sure are a lot of ifs in those plans, aren't there? LOL

In the vein of getting ready to go to the wedding, when we were sitting in Tacoma on Monday, I went and got my summer "streaks" and got my hair reshaped. I haven't had a hair cut since last November, and haven't had "streaks" since last July. I was getting pretty raggedy looking. One of my problems is that because we aren't in any one place for any amount of time, I don't have a regular hairdresser. I used to when we were picking up in California all the time, but we changed companies and haven't been back to that place in over two years. She was good too...knew just how I liked my hair and was very good at giving me a cut that flattered my face and made me happy. I have been several other places and just haven't found anyone that pleased me like that. I think I did on Monday. There is a tiny truckstop on WA 99 that has a strip mall next to it. In that strip mall is a beauty shop and in that shop is Dianne. I told her that I wanted to have some highlights and she actually asked what color I wanted and then we talked about the shades and compared them to my natural color and she did a wonderful job. It was exactly what I wanted and then she cut my hair exactly like I wanted it which was a combination of two pictures and then to top it all off, she thinned my extremely thick hair so that it is definitely cooler for summer.

I haven't been knitting very much the last couple of days. We went to the grocery store yesterday and while shopping, I did something to my back/hip and it hurts badly. If I lay down on the bed or sit with the mini masseuse running on the sore spot, I am ok. Climbing in and out of the truck is a little tough, but I will work through it and be okay. Just a matter of time and good pain killers for a couple of days.

Tomorrow we are going to be going down through the back roads of Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. We will be going through some of the National parks in the four corners area, or around the outskirts of them and I will, hopefully, be able to get some phenomenal blog fodder. There are some beautiful canyons and arches and scenery down there that, if I can get some decent photos of, I would like to share.

Until I can get back online...hopefully in Albuquerque.

Lynda

Spring has Sprung

The temps are warming up and I am enjoying the nicer weather, although we did have to turn the heat back on in the truck because it was very, very cold in Minnesota and South Dakota. We are in Washington state on our way to Olympia for a delivery tomorrow morning. Just about everywhere we have been, the land is showing a definite greening and farmers are farming and grass is growing and there are flowers everywhere.

As we were coming across US 212 in Montana through the Northern Cheyenne Reservation we saw this sunset:

We also saw a rainstorm in the sky. It looked like the rain wasn't hitting the ground, although the area all around it had gray, overcast skies.


And then, as we got further west into Montana, just past Bozeman, as we were headed across I-90 I was reminded of the winter just past:


We had just left Three Forks, MT, where we had stopped for lunch at a deli called Wheat Montana. It is a place that is a farm, a bakery, a store and a restaurant. Their motto is: We sow it, grow and dough it. They also hold the Guinness world record for taking wheat from the field to the table in the least amount of time. It was done by taking microwave ovens out to the field and making a bread of some sort in the microwave, but they took it from the wheat stalk to grinding to making the bread and baking it in some 8 minutes and 13 seconds. To read about them and the care they take in making a chemical free product and the commitment to sustainable agriculture go here. Where was I...oh yes, I took this picture to show that there still is some snow left in the mountains when this very large bird flew into my picture. It may be an eagle, but I am not sure. As quick as he was in my picture, he was gone and I didn't get a chance to identify him. The picture next to it is of some more snow that is left in the mountains.

The last time I posted, I promised some yarn pRon. That is part of the reason that I haven't posted in so long...I hadn't had the time or the sunshine needed to take some pictures of some of the things I had gotten recently. I was finally able to do that yesterday as DH was fixing a problem with the truck in the small town of Whitehall, MT. Just a warning...may be a little bit picture intensive, as if the preceding wasn't... ;-)

I got several sets of these stitch markers from Hide and Sheep who can be found here. I really like the ones that I have with me, but they have kind of changed their configuration and they now have larger gems on them. They are really neat looking. The really small ones are for sock needles and the other ones are for needles that are up to size 7 (US). Here are some pictures of them.

Now for the really good stuff....YARN and some fiber.

This is some yarn that I got off of ebay from a seller called Francis Patrick Sales. This is hand painted and I think that it is hand spun. This is the second time that I have ordered from them and I love their yarns. Just look at the colors in this. I believe that the color way is Mountain Maize, but I don't have the label right here. Anyway, this yarn is soft, the colors are gorgeous and it is 100% merino. YUM!!!!
This next yarn, while the colors are very nice, is not nearly as soft as the Francis Patrick's. It is either from ebay or etsy (I know, bad blogger) and I probably won't buy from them again, but I liked the colors. This is not a very soft yarn and it isn't very tightly, either.

This next bit is some fiber and a drop spindle that I purchased a little while back from an etsy store MaineWoodsYarns that is wonderful. The colors of roving is called Biloxi blues and I really like them. I haven't spun it yet, but I will soon.

The rest of these pictures are my WIP's . There is a DW dishcloth:

and there is the Felted Market bag that I am making for my Mom in an orange and a deep olive green color that will be cool when it is done, but it looks a little strange right now:

And here is the washcloth (face cloth) That I am knitting for my mom. She got one for Christmas, but she wants another one, so I am using some Elann Adara that I bought as a result of enabling from Janet on the Dishcloth group on Yahoo. I had posted this before, but the colors were so off that I needed to repost the right colors and it looks so much better this picture than it did before. It is a basket weave pattern that is fairly easy and is kind of mindless once you learn the pattern.
I didn't post another picture of the socks that I am knitting for my ds. There hasn't been a lot of progress, but I didn't want to post them so that I didn't confuse the people that look at my blog that think the little starting parts of the sock look like a the top to a bikini...like I would be knitting a bikini...(snark).

I was hoping to get a good picture of Mt. Ranier, but everything here was overcast and socked in, so no Ranier. I posted the last time we were out her that I could have gotten a really really good series of pictures of the Mountain, but the camera batteries died and there weren't any more that were charged, so I didn't get wonderful ones that time.

The next time I post I should have some FO's to post. I have several things that are almost done and I need to get the socks for ds done just because I need to get them done.

Until next time....