Knitting on the Road

I've mostly Moved

2007-12-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for the most recent posts for my blog, you will have to go to www.kenworthknitter.wordpress.com. I have been using it for a couple of weeks and really like it. I finally figured out how to post the buttons from this blog over there and I have moved the ones that I wanted to move, but didn't move all of them.

I have a rant...if you don't want to read it, skip it.

I kept this one going, and will probably continue to do so for a while, because I was involved in SP11, but since that is over and my upstream pal, due to family troubles, flaked on me, I don't have to keep it going any more. I would have been okay with it, if she had in some way kept in contact with me, but she didn't. I contacted my moderator and she assured me that my pal would be in contact, but she never has. I haven't gotten an email from her since the middle of November and then nothing. I am extremely disappointed and angry that she couldn't even be bothered to email me occasionally or comment on my blog, but she has been on Ravelry!
I know that there are people that flake in these things, but I expected better from my upstream pal. Unrealistic, I know, but still, I was ever hopeful that she would come through or at least offer some kind of explanation or comment.

Rant over...I am going to leave it at that. I've said my piece and if it makes any difference, it's made me feel better.

Edited to add: I contacted my pal and I think that it was resolved to my satisfaction, I don't know if to hers or not. I need to publicly apologize to her because she is going through something very tough and I was maybe a bit impatient and needed to cut her a bit more slack. I still believe that communication would have solved a lot of the problems, but it's now water under the bridge and I'll follow my DH's advice and just leave it.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-20T20:03:00.000-08:00

I am still noodling around with Wordpress and their blogging software. I have to figure out how to post all of the buttons and stuff that I have worked on for here and move them over to that one, but I am finding that it's easier in some ways and not so easy in others. Posting pictures, if I use photobucket is so much easier and it works for me, but it's harder if I use the photo uploading in the blog site.

As Jo commented on the last post, it's kind of finding the one that works the best for you because we aren't paying for it and it is a free service.

We are on our way to my parent's house for the holiday weekend. We wanted to be there tonight, but we will be there sometime tomorrow. I hope it is semi early, as I have to brine the turkey, and I can't push it of on my mom, because I have the ingredients to do it. We also have to stop and finish doing her grocery shopping because she gave me a list of things she forgot and we have to get the pies for dinner. She didn't want to bake and I can't, so we're buying. We are also furnishing the sparkling cider to go with dinner. We found some at target last year that was green apple cider that was just delicious, so we were tasked with bringing it again this year.

I will leave you with a couple of shots of Monument Valley that I took today as we were driving north. It's not a real representation of the views we saw today, but it does give you sense of the vastness. The above picture is representative of of the myriad of monoliths that litter the valley floor.

Until next time, I hope that you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and don't hurt yourself to badly if you decide to hit the malls on Black Friday. I will be out and about in Colorado Springs and Pueblo on Friday, but only to pick up some hard wood flooring and a new mattress for our truck (THANK YOU, GOD for new mattresses)!!!

I think I might be moving

2007-11-11T09:40:00.000-08:00

I am messing around with Word Press to see if I like it better than blogger. I have had some problems with posting pictures and stuff here, so I thought a change of venue might be the ticket, but I am going to play with it for a bit and see if that's true. You know what they say about the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence....we are going to see.

If you want to see what I'm trying to do, come see it here. Right now this is just a test, so I have moved all of my posts from here to there, so it will look the same except for the new post I'm putting up today.

Come along with me

2007-11-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

on a trip across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. We had to make a delivery in Portsmouth, VA on Halloween, and then go to New Jersey and New York to make deliveries. So in the interest of blog fodder, and the fact that it would only cost $5.00 more to go across the bridge/tunnel, DH decided that we could go that way so that y'all would have an interesting blog post for the 1st day of November.

This first picture is the official start and the place where they want money to allow you the privilege of driving out to the middle of the Chesapeake Bay and disappearing for several miles in a tunnel that is actually below the commercial shipping channel of the bay. If you were privileged to go through the first toll booth of the east bound lanes, you would have gotten to give your money to this little lady. She was all decked out in the spirit of Halloween. As you can see, she has her festive orange ghosty/Boo bucket hat on. To further the ensemble, she has added several strands of shiny purple and black garland with orange pumpkins as a necklace. She has completed the outfit with and orange T-shirt with black undersleeves and, though you can't see them, a pair of black pants. Quite festive, if I do say so.

As you leave the toll booth, you are greeted by a bridge that seemingly stretches on into eternity. But let me tell you right here and now, it does not. Oh no....you go out a little island and enter the area of the tunnel. Here is a picture, stolen directly from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel Website (because I can't fly), that shows how you go out on a bridge and the shipping channel passes over you while you are down under the water in a 1 mile long tunnel (both are approximately the same length). On the first nice little island that you come to, there is a rest area, a fishing pier, and a restaurant. You can go out there and watch the ship traffic go by, cast a worm or other fish enticing delicacy, and grab a bite to eat, all in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. How cool is that. Not that we were able to do that, cuz you know, no truck parking. But we could have, theoretically.

The first tunnel, the Thimble Shoal Channel Tunnel, was reached after crossing approximately 6 miles of bridge. It was 1 mile in length and this is the approach. Here we are actually in the tunnel and here is the proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel".We did this twice, the second tunnel is called the Chesapeake Channel Tunnel as evidenced by this picture. We saw quite a few ships, both coming and going down the bay and back into the ocean. Probably the coolest photo I took was after coming out of the first tunnel and looking back in the mirror to see the shipping channel we had just come under. One of the ships had been getting ready to cross over the channel as we were coming across the first bridge. We watched him getting closer and closer and then figured that he would be gone when we came out of the tunnel. In reality I got this really cool picture, taken in the passenger side mirror of him getting ready to cross over the tunnel. Isn't that a cool picture? I made it bigger, because the small size just didn't do it justice.

From shore to shore, we traveled 17.6 miles on bridges and in the tunnels. If you add in the approaches to the tolls and everything, it is 23 miles long and from toll booth to toll booth, it is 20 miles long. The north bound lanes were completed in 1964 and the south bound lanes were completed in 1999. The north bound took 42 months to complete and the south, without having to dig any tunnels, only bridges, took 46 months. The original north bound side cost $200 million dollars and included the cost of doing the tunnels. The south bound side cost $250 million. The water ranges in depth from 25' to 100'. One of the interesting things is that neither the north bound or south bound was paid for with any tax dollars. The first was funded by revenue bonds and the second was funded by revenue from the tolls and revenue bonds. The bridge/tunnel connects Virginia Beach with the DelMarVa peninsula and saves 95 miles to points above Delaware. All of these facts were stolen from the facts page of the official website of the CBBT.

As you cross the final bridge, you come on shore in the Eastern Shore of Virginia. You get to see all of the things that you typically think of at the shore, but what is cool is that it's surrounded by water. On the east is the Atlantic Ocean and on the west is the Chesapeake Bay. To the east is this lighthouse that you see for miles and miles as you are crossing the final bridge.
As you head up US 13 onto the eastern shore, you see several of these little gems where you can pick up anything from soup to nuts and everything in between. There are many of them and they all have in common the bright yellow paint and the gaudy signs. some of them advertise more food and less fireworks, but they are all pretty much the same and all are tourist traps for the shore vacationers.

There are all kinds of neat houses in Virginia, and the eastern shore is no exception. I am really drawn to the low country style of house and also to the Federal style of house. I took some pictures of houses:
I love these big old houses with the huge porches. I wouldn't want to have to clean any one of them, but I can admire them and wish that when we win the lottery, I will buy one so that I can have a house at the shore, although I think I want something a little smaller.

We tried to stop and have some seafood; Maryland crab cakes sounded really good; but there is just no place for a truck to park that might have some decent food. We stopped at a little truck stop and had some decent spaghetti, which was okay.

We drove up to New Jersey last night and parked at the customer that we were delivering to and this morning I called a friend of ours that we haven't seen in several years because we were 2 blocks from her house. I chatted with her for a while and then she kindly brought us some coffee and said that she wasn't going to let us get away without coming the two blocks to see us. Her first comment when she answered the phone was not Hello, but "There's no _________ way."

We finished the trip in Binghamton, NY and saw some very pretty colors in the leaves on the hillsides.

There hasn't been all that much knitting going on, except for the dog sweater, but that should change in a couple of days. I am trying to figure out what I want to knit next and I'm sure something will catch my attention.

Oh...when we were in Portsmouth, we called all of the kids down there and we all got together for dinner. I took the baby socks I had knit for our daughter-in-law and gave them to her at dinner. I kind of think that she liked them. In a couple of months she will have her second sonogram and will find out the sex of the baby. That will make knitting so much easier, although the colors of the yarn that I picked out for the BSJ are unisex, so I'm good there.

Until next time....sayonara!

I finally got

2007-10-28T16:52:00.000-07:00

a project finished. I have been working on a pair of monkey socks that were supposed to be for my mom for her birthday. They won't fit her. For some reason, the sock is very difficult to get over your heel and it fits either my son or my husband. They turned out really nice, the colors are vibrant and worked really well with the patterning of the monkey, they just have a small opening at the heel. I don't know what part of the sock I needed to make bigger to make it fit better, but it fits the boy and he's going to get them. The colors, hot pink, orange and chocolate brown aren't really a boy color, but as he says, he wear boots most of the time and no one will see his socks and he will finally have a pair of hand knit socks after the fiasco of the last pair I tried to knit for him.

I think I wrote last time about finding out that we are going to be grandparents....oh, yeah, I remember. I did tell you about that. Well anyway, I had a little bit of yarn left over from the monkey's and decided to knit a pair of baby socks for the grand baby out of it. They ended up using all of the variegated yarn and then the socks were finished with the brown so they have brown toes. They are as cute as can be.

I really want to knit a BSJ from EZ...what that means is that I want to knit a Baby Surprise Jacket from Elizabeth Zimmerman for the baby. I was discussing it with DH and looking through Ravelry at all of the BSJ's that are posted and getting ideas. I decided to do it in untraditional baby colors and ordered some Cherry Tree Hill yarn in some blues and greens. In the planning and scheming, DH suggested that I do the BSJ and a pair of matching socks for the baby and do a pair of socks for our daughter in law that match. So I ordered two skeins of the yarn and will do that for them.

We have been from home to Ohio, Indiana to Laredo, TX, and now we are on our way to make a delivery in South Carolina and then we will go to Virginia, New Jersey and New York. It's kind of nice knowing where we are going to be and what we are going to be doing for the next few days. It is also nice to back in the groove and actually making money instead of being down and having repairs done.

The only bad thing this week is after being home last week I have been fighting some kind of upper respiratory thing. I have a cough and the symptoms of a cold, but I don't feel all that bad. I think it has to do with being at home and fighting the allergy to the cat. I am allergic to cats. My sister has one. She kindly cleans the guest room thoroughly when we are coming, but the cat makes a beeline for the guest room every chance he gets, and because their house is under construction, none of the doors have door knobs and none of the doors (except the two bathroom) can be latched. All he has to do is push open the door and he has free access. Any way, the last two times we have been home and then left there, I have come down with the same yuck. I got better the first time just in time to go back and do it all over again. Makes me not want to go home if I'm going to end up sick all the time.

SP 11 is entering it's last month and I hope that my downstream pal has enjoyed the gifts that I have sent or had sent to her. I am putting together a big box of the last month, but I have sent her several things through out the course of the time and am hoping that she's enjoying all that I have sent. My upstream pal sent me a wonderful gift certificate to the Loopy Ewe, which I will use the next sneak up. I love any excuse to shop the Loopy Ewe, don't you?

I don't have much other information. I tried to get some good pictures of the harvest moon outside of Houston the other night, but the roads were so bumpy that what I got is this:
This was probably the best of them, but the moon was huge and orange and the typical Harvest moon. We started seeing it right on the horizon when it was its largest and then watched it climb into the sky and become small and white.

One other thing....I am thinking about moving my blog. I have been having some problems getting pictures to upload and various other things and am thinking of moving to one of the other blogging sites. Any recommendations or thoughts? Any of them that you absolutely love, any that you hate? Any input would be helpful. Thanks!!!

On our way

2007-10-18T11:39:00.000-07:00

home for the weekend. We brought a load down to near Myrtle Beach, SC and now we are picking up a load that is going to Ohio, but it delivers either tomorrow, unless they say we can deliver it Monday and we'll go home and DH will do things like change the oil in the big truck and I will get to pick up my mail (read yarn). Oh and my my new Cat Borhdi book should be in the mail and oh maybe my booty club yarn, so see, we need to go home.
Did you know that it is 80 something degrees today down here? That's just too hot for October. I got some comments about seeing the color that we saw in Montana and how in the east there isn't that much color because of the lack of rain. Boy did I see that coming down to South Carolina. Is it too warm for the trees to be changing or is it that there just hasn't been any water in the form of rain. We stopped at a truck stop on the back roads in SC yesterday and they are under water restrictions and all permits for burning have been canceled. The grass was dry and crunchy. Down near the coast, things seemed to be greener, but then, there is always more moisture near the coast because of, you know, the ocean.
I meant to blog about this the last time I posted, but in the course of things, I forgot. We found out a couple of weeks ago that the son/stepson that got married in May and his wife are expecting, and we are going to be grandparents. Now, in the great scheme of things, that just sounds weird for me to be a grandma. I know that I have a son who is old enough, but hopefully wise enough not to, to present me with a grandchild. But with DH's kids being older than mine and you know, married and such, it's okay, but I just don't feel old enough. But DH, he's OLD. He should be a grandpa, but me, I'm just a youngin, I'm not old enough. But it's all good. It gives me an excuse to knit a BSJ from EZ and to do up some baby booties and maybe a blanket out of mason dixon knitting and .... hmmmmmm!
A couple of weeks before we found out about the baby, DH's oldest son let us know that he was getting engaged. We met his then girlfriend at the middle son's wedding and liked her very much. They seem to have a lot in common and she's from an area of the world that he has a lot of interest in, so they should make a good match. They aren't planning on getting married until probably August of next year and that takes a lot of planning. They are doing it all themselves and it sounds like, from the preliminary stuff that SS1 told me, they are looking to have an outdoor wedding, maybe in a conservatory or something. There DH's kids go again....trying to make the evil wicked step mother feel old.
Now if we could just get DH's youngest son married off and in a few years, mine we'll be doing good. Oh wait, I almost forgot. We still have one living at home that's only 11, so I guess it will be a while for us to get them all out of the house and gone.
Have I mentioned yet that it's too hot for October? Just checking to make sure that ya'll are paying attention.
I don't have any pictures to put up this time. I'm still working on the monkey socks that may or may not fit my mom. If they don't, I'll give the monkey's to someone else and knit mom something toe up that I know will fit. Might not be as wild as the monkeys, but they will be hand knit socks.
I messed up the other day. I was emailing my SP and sent the email from my regular email address and so now she know's who I am. That's okay, sometimes I think that might be better since now I don't have to do all the cloak and dagger stuff and can just come right out and ask.
I have blogged about having to have the truck repaired and being off of work for a week. Well, this last time, in California, when we had almost $9000.00 worth of repairs, we had to borrow some of the money from the company. Not because we didn't have it, but because the Kenworth dealer would not put all of the repairs on a credit card. We paid the bulk of them and then borrowed the rest from the company. We made arrangements to pay it back in increments and then today they took OUR WHOLE PAYCHECK!!!! and then said that we still owed almost as much as we had borrowed. We called the man that had made the arrangements, and it's back to being taken out in increments, but that doesn't make up for the fact that we have no paycheck this week. They did call us and give us an express code to have the money in a comchek, but now we have to find someone who will cash a check in that amount or if we can just deposit the check into our bank. It's all a mess. Anywho, at least now we are back to getting paychecks and not having them take all of it at one time which makes me less stressed.
I tell you, I am such a sucker. I love the yarn that Roxanne at Zen Yarn Garden puts out. I like them so much that I have joined two of her sock clubs, Well, she decided that she wanted to put out another sock club, only this time it's call the Sumptuous Sock Yarn club. She wants to know if you are ready to knit "with luxurious and exotic yarns? Want to wrap your feet in pure luxury? This is the sock club for you!" She is starting the club out with Mongolian Cashmere and silk. Now if that isn't luxurious, I don't know what is. And the price for a three month club is pretty darn good, too. So if you are so inclined, rush right over and join me in pampering yourself or someone else (great for gift giving) with the sock club. Just to show you what kind of product she puts out, this yarn is something I bought from her before I knew about her sock clubs and it's what made me know that her sock clubs would be, in the words of Lawrence Welk, "wunnerful, wunnerful!" This picture is from her Art Walk sock yarn club, and I love this yarn. I haven't done anything with it yet, but I may use it for my mom, if the monkey socks I am making right now don't fit. I think she would like the yarn and it's smooshy and springy and , well you get the picture.
I sent my sister her socks in the mail, and she got them some time last week. I called her to make sure she had gotten them, and she hadn't even tried them on. What's up with that? Don't you think that if someone sent you hand knitted socks that as soon as you got them, you would at least try them on? I realize that it's been maybe a wee bit hot for wool socks, although they are a lace pattern, but you would think that maybe she could have tried them on. I did talk to her a couple of days later, and she had tried them on and liked them, but said that it has still been too hot to actually wear them. My niece, the one that ended up with the "Not so little boy" socks that I knit for DS, wears hers constantly. My sister said she loves them and looks for them to wear all the time. At least I have one hand knitted sock devotee. :-)
I don't guess I have anything else right now. We might do something fun this weekend, but then who knows. If we do, I'll try to remember the camera for blog fodder.

Out of California

2007-10-13T18:59:00.001-07:00

and headed to Ohio. We finally got the permit that we needed at about 10:30 Monday morning and the two pilot cars that we needed for the narrow, twisty roads that we were detoured onto. Now to kind of explain why we needed pilot cars, I will show you what the load we were carrying looked like from the front. Our trailer is 8'6" wide and the load we were carrying was
14 feet wide. Hubby was having to look around almost 3 feet that was hanging off either side of the trailer. Here's what the same thing looks like from the rear... If you make it larger, you will be able to see just how much is hanging off of either side. Any way, it was a nice weekend in Redding. Not quite what I had hoped for, but we just kind of hung out and did laundry and DH got the tires, all 10 of them, rotated. Then, because we weren't hooked to the trailer, he took me to the grocery store and I was able to mail my sister her socks...Hope she likes them.

On the way through Oregon, we stopped in Canyonville at the Seven Feathers Casino and Travel Plaza. If you are ever traveling I-5 and are looking for a good reasonably priced restaurant, stop at exit 99 and go to the one in the travel center. Any who, the morning that we were supposed to get up and leave really early, DH got up and took some pictures of the sunrise. Now usually, you get sunset pictures on my blog, but these were too good to pass up showing to you. Aren't the colors just beautiful. I didn't actually get to see this sunrise as my darling husband decided that I really didn't need to get up at 0'dark thirty. After looking at his permits for Oregon, he also decided that maybe 0'dark thirty was a little bit early for him and the morning curfews in the Oregon towns and he went back to sleep for another hour or so, but he was thinking of my blog and took these loverly pictures, wasn't that sweet of him?

As we were making our way up California 89 the other day, we were able to see a view of Mount Shasta that we don't usually get to see. We were also able to see the first snow of the season, at least for us. I love seeing Mount Shasta...it's a beautiful mountain that just kind of pops up out of nowhere and signals that we are in Northern California. The picture on the left is the mountain seen from the side. You don't usually see pictures of it where you can see both peaks. I thought it was kind of a cool picture and wanted to share it with you.

We delivered in Seattle on Wednesday and promptly picked up the load we are on now heading for Ohio. We usually run out I-90 out of Seattle and go through Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, and then to head south Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and then on to the delivery in Ohio. I have show several pictures of the route that we are taking in my blog at various times. If you look at the archives for the end of July or maybe the first week in August, I showed some pictures of a forest fire that was burning on the side of the road in Montana. When we went through it on Thursday, I was able to take some pictures of the devastation that the fire did and to show just how close to some trailer homes that it came. I don't know if anyone is living there anymore, but it came awfully close to them. I tried to take pictures of the same things that I had photographed when it was burning, but going east instead of west kind of threw me off and I missed the mountainside that the helicopter dropped his bucket of water on and then I got the place where the fire crews were, but only as a blur on the side of the building.

We did see some absolutely lovely fall colors on the roadside in Montana, but something that we both noted was that most of the colors are some form of yellow with very few reds or oranges and when you do see those colors they are transplants and usually in landscaping. That picture is blurry on the side because it was taken out the window of the truck as we passed. It's not the best picture of color that I took, but for some reason, the ones that I fixed and cropped and showed what I wanted, didn't get uploaded. Crud!!!

I have been trolling ravelry and reading the group post for the SP11 post. I'm starting to feel guilty that I haven't sent more to my SP. I am gathering up some stuff, and actually have a box with some yarn that I hope she is going to really love, but I have only had something sent to her. I hope she isn't feeling neglected and I need to get some more stuff for her box and send it to her, although....if things got done in the workshop, there should be a handmade wooden item that will go wonderfully with something she just broke down and bought. It will make her knitting life much easier, and not only that, but it was hand made just for her when I put an order in with my Dad. It should be similar to mine, but yet different. That reminds me...I need to check on Dad and make sure with the visit from his oldest grandson this week, that it got done.

On the knitting front, I have been working on a pair of Cookie A's Monkey socks in Duets sock yarn in the colorway "Hot Flash". I love this yarn and the colors are ones that you wouldn't think would go together, but they are great. They are hot pink, chocolate brown and pumpkin orange. I'm going to have to take a picture of them in really good light so that you can see the differences in the colors. I haven't actually taken pictures of them yet, but I will and will post the in progress the next time I post. I'm having trouble with the last repeat that I am doing for the second leg. I keep ending up one stitch short, and I know that I started the round with enough stitches, so I am going to frog this last repeat and do it again. That's what you get for trying to do some knitting while fighting a migraine. I finally took out DS's scarf and pulled it out of UFO status and back into WIP status. It's mostly garter stitc with about 20 rows on either end that are patterned. Now if I can make sure that both ends look the same since it is something that I just made up as I went along. He's excited and it will be another FO that I can cross of the list of projects on Ravelry.

I think I am going to go read some more of the group posts on Ravelry and then put the lap top to bed. Hopefully I will post again really soon.

California

2007-10-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

We were here, Now we're leaving for a while....you know, sung to the tune of California, Here I come. We are finally leaving the sunny climes of CA heading to the cooler regions of the Pacific Northwest. We are carting a 14' wide load from San Diego, CA to Seattle, WA. It's not very tall, only 4' or so, but it sticks out 3 feet on either side of our trailer. In the state of CA, we have to have an escort. That means that we have someone following us everywhere we go telling us what is coming up behind us and clearing the lane from people behind us when we need to move to the right or the left. It's only the second time that we have had an escorted load, and it's an interesting experience, to say the least. (I guess we are going to be "stuck" in Redding, CA for the weekend. We need a county permit for a detour, and our company didn't get it for us, so we now have to wait until Monday morning to get the permit.)

We got to California last Friday. We had a load of military equipment (2 hummers) that we brought out from Chambersburg, PA. It was a fast and furious trip, but we made it to Camp Pendleton in time to sit for the weekend. We went up to Ontario, just outside of LA, where the only truck stops in the greater LA area are. We went there because we figured that we would pick up a load in or around LA and that was where we decided to go. Not only that, we were having some white smoke coming out of the stacks and there was a Kenworth dealer/shop in Fontana, about 5 mins from Ontario. We ended up having to put the truck into the shop to the tune of $8,500.00 to replace a cracked head, a blown head gasket, a cracked exhaust manifold, and a broken turbo charger. We stayed in an old Best Western hotel that was okay, but it wasn't great. It did have a pool, which was freezing, and a hot tub. I wasn't able to use either, but the boy used both and enjoyed it.

We were home the week before last to pick up our mail and to get things like snow chains (can you believe it's that time of year already?) and to do some minor repairs on the truck, mostly preventive maintenance. While we were home and getting our mail, I got some good stuff. I almost always have yarn waiting for me at home (three sock clubs will do that) but I also had some of the boys school books waiting for us. We are slowly but surely getting everything together and getting this school year off to a start. The only thing I haven't ordered now is the Spanish program that I want to use, but if I don't do that until after Christmas, we have plenty of work. I decided to change math programs this year and chose Teaching Textbooks. One of the things that I like about this is that they teach math "things" that I am not comfortable with and don't have the first clue about teaching and the program is written by two Harvard graduates for the homeschooling community. It starts with grade 5 and goes through the many subjects of high school math...yay!!!

On the way to California, we went through New Mexico and saw this sunset:

The sky was a burst of brilliant oranges and pinks against a backdrop of shearing clouds that reflected the sun in such a way that the sky just looked like it was glowing. I must have taken 40 pictures of it driving down I-40 and these show the different colors that we saw.

On the weekend while we were in Ontario, CA waiting to get the truck fixed, I went out on the trailer and set up my yarn winding station. I was able to wind all of this and actually got some funny looks. Our neighbor, in the truck stop, came back and saw me and wanted to know what I was doing. When I told him I was winding yarn, he wanted to know for what reason, and then I had to show him the socks that I had finished and show him that the yarn is wound so that I can use it to knit socks from. I happened to have my stash outside and he couldn't believe that my hubby would allow me to keep all of that on the truck. I felt like getting the picture of the "super stash" out and showing him how little I really have. I could list each one seperately, but if you want to see what they are, you can look at my stash. I wound the Knitivity yarn that day, two skeins of Oldfield Creek Sock and Yarn Handpainted, some knit picks gloss, the Shelridge farm, and some Lorna's Laces yarn. I still have some more to wind, but I don't want to wind everything, although I do sit the fence about what winding does to it. It does make it easier for me to store if it is in cakes as opposed to hanks, but is it bad for it?

I cast on the other day for a pair of Monkey socks by Cookie A, and I'm finding them a quick and easy knit. They look really complicated, but they are cool. I have a Duet Sock yarn from a Swell Yarn Shop in the Hot Flash color way. It is chocolate brown, hot pink, and orange with the coordinating yarn in the chocolate brown. It is making some awesome monkies. I'm going to give them to my mom for her birthday, since I can't seem to find a pattern that the Mountain colors yarn that I was going to use for her socks, wants to be. Everything that I have knit with it so far is just not right.

I'm still working on the tank top for my sister, although it is in danger of becoming a UFO. It's still in my knitting bag, it just doesn't seem to see the light of day very often. I need to finish it so that it's done and she has it, but it's all stockinette all the time and you know how that it.

I finished the I love gansey socks and I need to get them to my sister. They were knit for her birthday, which was the end of September, and I think I had them done in time for her birthday, but we weren't there, so she doesn't have them. Amanda made a comment about how much knitting I get done on the truck and I guess it's all a matter of perspective. I don't think that I get all that much done. It seems to me to take forever to get anything finished, but then again, I do usually have 3 or 4 things on the needles, so maybe that's my problem. I also tend to get a case of finishitis and then all kinds of things go up on the blog, so that may be why she said that. And yes Dawn, these were done cuff down. I know, I told you how wonderful toe up was, but sometimes that pattern just calls for cuff down.

I cast on a pair of socks toe up, but the yarn that I'm using is just not working out for that pattern. It's the Mountain Colors Barefoot yarn, and with the little bit of a halo that it has, it's just hard to see any kind of pattern. I'm going to have to frog them and put the yarn away until I find something else that it wants to be.

When we were in Oceanside the other day I got some good, or at least interesting, pictures of the Pacific ocean from the rest area just south of Camp Pendleton. The rest area has an overlook that is under a bunch of trees and you kind of have to look out through the trees to see the ocean, so that's why the pictures are surrounded by the trees. You can see the ocean and the pretty blue sky on both of these pictures.

In the rest area there were a bunch of squirrels that were begging for handouts. I got a couple of pictures of one that ran up and down a low wall begging. He was kind of cute, and had a really funny, short tail. It looked like half of his tail was missing. He looks like he's giving me what for, doesn't he. He was mostly just begging, and by the amount of sunflower shells and stuff that was littering the ground where their den was, I would say that the squirrels are fed quite a bit.

Also in the rest area were a couple of types of flowering trees. I took some pictures of them and maybe someone who reads this will know what they are. The first one is a good sized tree that has these bright red puffs on them. They are really interesting and I have no idea what they are. the second one is also a rather large tree that has pinkish purplish round puffy balls on them. There is no fragrance from either tree that I could smell, but I also didn't get really close to them.

I guess that it is time to go to bed now although I did want to say a big thank you to my secret pal from SP11. When we were home, I got a post card from Virginia City, NV. I guess she had gone there and sent me a card. I also got, and man I love this, a gift certificate for the Loopy Ewe. Thank you SP, I LOVE it with all capitals. I will use it the next time I'm able to catch a sneak up.

The Great Frederick Fair

2007-09-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

Last night we got invited to the "Great Frederick Fair". We went with my sister and brother-in-law and some of their friends. There were 8 adults and 6 children...the youngest was 2 and the oldest of the children is 12. Going to the fair, at least for kids, means riding the rides. I'm mean though. When we go to the fair, we actually go to see the exhibits. The only problem with going to see the exhibits at the fair on the last weekend, is that a lot of the exhibits have gone away. We went to the sheep barn, cuz you know, knitter = sheep or at least their fiber. The sheep that were left were mostly meat or dual purpose breeds and there wasn't a lot of documentation to tell you what you were looking at. The best things that we saw in the sheep barn was the icelandic sheep and the angora and cashmere goats. There were also a pair of cashgora goats that were awfully cute. But, of course, I don't have pictures of any of that, because I left my camera at home.

We have been at home since Tuesday morning. We made the choice to come home so that some preventative maintenance could be done to the truck. We were going to leave on Wednesday, or Thursday at the latest, and here we still sit. DH was done with the truck on Thursday, but there weren't any loads around here, at least none that weigh less than 44k lbs. We'll get something on Monday, not a problem, except the no money coming in thing, but there is also none going out, so it's a wash.

I posted that I had finished the socks for DS. I finally got some pictures of them on my niece's feet, since they ended going to her. She's younger than the DS, and therefore, her feet are smaller for the misjudged size. She was also a real booger about letting me take the pictures of her feet. I ended up threatening to take them back and give them to someone who would cooperate. Her mother convinced her that she need to let me take the pictures and once that happened, she was fine. but it was a long road to that point.I think I will adopt the Elizabeth Zimmerman school of thought. Don't knit for anyone in particular, find someone that the garment fits. That works for me and makes it easier when I screw up. I think the color is closer to the pair on the left, but you can see the flecks of color on the pair on the left.

I have been working on the "I love Gansey" socks for the Six socks KAL. I have turned the heels on both and am working down the foot. I am knitting them for my sister for her birthday tomorrow, but I won't be done with them tomorrow, but she knows that and knows that she'll get them when she gets them, kind of like the tank I'm knitting for her. I'm knitting them each separately, magic loop, and knitting a little on one and then a little on the other. It's working out pretty well.

Here is a picture of the niece and the DS...they are working on one of those word fill puzzles that is different every time you do it because each person will use different verbs, nouns, adverbs and adjectives. I caught a couple of the niece making faces at me, but I decided not to show those. She would be mortally embarrassed and would never let me take another picture of her again.

I was so excited the other week when I caught a sneak up at the Loopy Ewe. I actually got in in time to get some of the patterns that I wanted from Wendy of Wendy Knits and some Wollmeise yarn....Let me just say about the yarn, GOOD GOLLY, MOLLY is it nice. I haven't knit with it yet, but it is absolutely gorgeous and kind of tightly spun and soft and I can't wait to start a pair of socks with it. I was able to boot the DH off the computer long enough for the sneakup and then I gave it back to him rather happy.

We are on the way to California. I finally found us a load after we went home and DH did some preventative maintenance on the truck. I found a decently paying load hauling some Hummers for the Marine Corps. After I called our dispatcher about booking it for us, he called about an hour later offering us a load going to NH for less than a dollar a mile and then you have to deduct the empty miles and the tolls from that, and it was pitiful. When DH turned that down and asked about the load going to CA, the dispatcher asked if we still wanted it. Well Hello, I did call you and ask you to book it. I found out all the particulars and knew what it was paying and how heavy it was and everything, of course we still want it. So we are beat feeting for San Diego, Camp Pendleton to be exact. Looks like we might be trying to find something to occupy us in San Diego for the weekend, so if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, please, please leave me a comment.

A really weird thing happened this morning. We had parked at a truck stop for the night last night and this morning as I was walking the dog, this old man got out of his truck and came over and asked me if we were hauling those hummers. When I answered yes, he proceeded to attack me for the government's policy on the war in Iraq. Now I may not agree with everything that the administration is doing about this war, but by golly, I support the troops that end up doing the fighting and if getting them better equipped and better armored vehicles to use in their duties is going to help, we are going to help if we can. Granted we are getting paid to do this, but that's only fair for us to be able to make a living. Besides that, DH was in the Marine Corps when he was a much younger man, and he kind of likes the military load.

As requested by Shelby for SP11, I am posting a picture of my stash. Now this is really the stash that I have on the truck, although if you go and look at my Ravelry stash you would see tha I actually have stash stashed in several places in multiple states, but since I can't get to all of it, I can't post all of it. Some of it is in Colorado, some of it is in West Virginia so I don't have it all with me. It tends to keep DH from being so crazy about the amount of yarn that I seem to have collected in the last 8 or 9 months.
The container fits under our bed in the truck and I can pull it out if I have to, to get to all that yarny goodness.

Next time I post, I will post pictures of San Diego and whatever it is that we decide to do there and some pictures of the Wollmeise (squeeee).

Here we go again

2007-09-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

With me forgetting how long it has been since I posted. I cant believe it's been two weeks, or there abouts. We haven't really been doing anything except in the last 8 days, we have sat 5....can't make any money that way. We finally got a load on Monday that delivered on Tuesday and then sat until Thursday and picked up a load that delivered today. Now we are waiting again. If we don't get a load, maybe I can talk my dear darling husband in to going to Old Sturbridge Village, or maybe, if I'm feeling really lucky, to WEBS. That's about 50 miles away, but I might also try to find a way to go to Boston, which is only 40 some miles away. We have been to Sturbridge before, but it's a different season than the last time and they do have craftspeople that do all kinds of fibery things that I would thoroughly enjoy seeing.

The weather in New England, at least this part of it, is beautiful. It's sunny and warm, but not sweltering hot and cool at night, which makes for good sleeping weather. I don't notice that a lot of the leaves are turning yet, but you can definitely tell that autumn is not far away, and close on the heels of fall will be winter.

I finally finished the pair of socks that I was knitting for DS, but they don't fit. The measurements that I took oh so many months ago are wrong. I either measured the heel turn dimension wrong, knit it too small, or something, and he can barely get the socks on and they are extremely snug. They will be given to my younger niece, even though they are a dark grey with the tweed flecks in them. She can wear them with her cowboy boots or winter boots and no one will see that she's not wearing "girly" socks. Now I have to go through the stash and see what else I have for the DS. I will knit him up another pair of socks, just plain, out of something that he will wear. He really wants a pair and I feel bad that the ones I knitted don't fit.

I also am still knitting on my sister's tank and the "I Love Guernsey" socks from the Six Socks KAL. I'm about 1/3 done with the tank and have turned the heel on the first of the socks and have the cuff done for the second...just getting ready to knit the heel flap and turn the heel on it. Hopefully I will have these done in the next little while as I am going to give them to my sister for her birthday. I think that I am going to modify them a bit and only put 1 repeat of the heart motif on the top of the foot and make the rest of the foot in stockinette stitch. That would be more comfortable inside of her clogs, I think, but still have the pretty stuff showing. I am using a subtly variegated yarn or not even variegated just hand painted in subtle variations of the same color and it's showing the patterning very well and looks pretty.

I am getting ready to cast on for a pair of socks for my mom. She was going to get the ILG socks, but the yarn I have for her just wasn't working....too fuzzy. I couldn't see the pattern, and what's the point of doing a pattern if you can't see it?

Now I am on a hunt for a special yarn for my secret pal. She is a die hard fan of a certain ball team and she wants yarn in those colors....lets see if I can find it. There are a lot of yarns that have almost the right color, but almost just sometimes doesn't get it. I will either find the right yarn, or I will come up with some other things for her.

Well we got a choice of two loads...we are going to Maine to pick one of them up and we will be taking it to PA, the other went to Florida where no freight comes out of. Not a great load, but it is getting us moving and not sitting, which makes DH happy. I guess that's better than having him be upset all weekend because we aren't moving and then not wanting to do anything. :-) At least we know that our company loads out of the area that we are delivering to, so we shouldn't have a real hard time getting a load out of there.

Maybe the leaves will be turning and I'll be able to get some fall pictures. Then I could post said pictures on my blog and then I would actually have some travelogue pictures. Ooohhh, now that would be something new. Or wait, maybe I will get some ocean pictures. I don't think that I have actually ever seen the ocean in Maine. We have been to Maine once, but we weren't near the ocean, so I couldn't get any ocean pictures. Maybe this time, DH will actually stop somewhere where we can get some Maine Lobster.

I guess after the weekend, I will have another post and will answer some of the questions that I posted. Have a great weekend....mine looks crappy so far.

Finally....

2007-09-01T12:13:00.000-07:00

I got to wind up some of the yarn that I picked up when we went home this last time. We were in San Antonio the other night and we had hooked up to IdleAire, and while we were watching a movie, DH helped me wind yarn inside the truck. That entails putting the winder on the pull out table and then he has to hold the swift on top of the box lid while I wind. We did seven or eight skeins and then decided that we could do the rest another time. What you are seeing there is some Lisa Souza Mombassa, some Louet Gems in Fern Green, some Yarn Lust Sinful Signature in sloth which is a really pretty mist grey and lavendar. The pink is some Zen Yarn Garden Wool and silk in Silk Roses colorway. The rusty color is Doodlebirds creations in Tiger lily and finally the darker blue is Fleece Artist Sea Wool. This is only about 1/3 to 1/2 of what I got and I will put the pictures of the other stuff up separately. There is some more Louet Gems Sport...the red one is the large 100 Gram skein in Cherry Red and the brown ones are two 50 gram skeins in Sandalwood. I have decided that I really like this yarn for those socks that need to have a solid color yarn for stitch definition. I works up nicely and the colors are very nice as well.
The two here, the teal and the pink and brown are the club shipements for Mama E's C*Eye*ber Fiber Crazy Eights Sock Club shipments for June and July. The top one is called Sea Sick and it has coordinating heel and toe teal with the multi body and the bottom one is a Merino Silk yarn that is called Chocolate Raspberry. As I told Mama E, neither of these are colors that I think that I would order, but that's one of the reasons that I buy sock clubs...they get me out of my comfortable "Martha" colors and lets me try things I wouldn't on my own.

A lot of the yarn that I purchase is a result of enabling by Lime n' Violet's podcast. They always spread the goodness around and let everyone know about the things that they have found from one podcast to the next. This next yarn, which my camera doesn't do justice to, was one of those. They were talking about Yarn Lust one day and talking about her yarn based on the seven deadly sins. I, of course had to go and check it out and found Sloth. This yarn is gorgeous. It's kind of a misty grey with overtones of lavendar and is sooo soft. My picture makes it look either blue or grey, but that just isn't what it is. It's shiny and purply and grey and oh so pretty. This one was in the picture of the wound yarns, but it was something that I wanted to share it by itself. I broke the 100 gram skein into two parts so that I could make socks with it, but it does come in one large hank.

Three other yarns found because of Lime n Violet are from Doodlebird Creations, Posh Yarns, and Pigeonroof Studios. The orangey one is from Doodlebirds Creations and is called Tiger Lily. It's a really nice yarn that comes from a friend of Lime n' Violet and was in the studio. She provides really good customer service and the items come well packaged.

The middle yarn is from Posh Yarns and the colorway is called Sweet Pea. It is a British company that is a cashmere/silk yarn that is amazing. The colors are pink and lavendar and are pretty close to what the picture shows. The way that they package their stuff to send to you is great. "They" say that presentation is everything, and their presentation is very good.

Finally, Pigeonroof Studios is a nice yarn and kind of reminds me of Koigu. The colors are very vibrant and the yarn I got from them is called Violet's Blue. I will do some socks out of it and I will probably do something like Monkey socks out of them.

Finally I got some sock blockers from Chappy's Fiber Arts. I chose the knitting needles in the yarn ball and they are nice. I know that dh could have made me some, except that he told me he needed a pattern to be able to make some, so I bought some. They are made out of oak and finished very nicely.

Dh decided that I needed a picture of my on truck stash, so here it is. It isn't a great picture of me, but it does show the amount of yarn that I have on the truck. It fits under the bunk in our truck and I have the ability to shop the stash when I am starting to knit a pair of socks. With the additions of the yarn pictured above, I now have a bunch of solid yarns as well as several variegated yarns for different patterns that would work well for that. I do have more yarn than that, but it is either in our container at my sister's house or stored at my folk's house. I don't have lots of yarn, at least not like this lady. Her stash is HUGE. I could happily shop her stash for many years and knit up everything I want to knit. Can you imagine trying to load everything into Ravelry?

I have been working on the I Love Gansey socks and the plain Joe socks for my ds and the tank for my sister. The gansey socks are going to be for my sister for her birthday and I can say that because she doesn't read my blog. I love this pattern. It's difficult enough that it keeps your attention, but not so hard that you can't learn the pattern and know what comes up next. I'm into the ribbing on the socks for ds and it's hard to work on them cuz it's just boring. The yarn is nice, but the plainness of the pattern is boring. I need to just bite the bullet and finish them so I can cast on the pair for my mom. I have that blue Mountain Colors Bearfoot that is fuzzy and gorgeous and will make a wonderful pair of socks for her. I just need to impress upon her that she really needs to hand wash them. I'll even give her a package of the wool wash so they don't shrink and/or felt.

I hope that everyone is having a nice holiday weekend and has tomorrow off. We don't, although we will be at my sisters for at least part of tomorrow, even though she isn't there and is on vacation. It will be nice to sleep in a real bed and then take a shower and go through the mail that we have...probably some more yarn and some books, at the least.

We didnt

2007-08-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

get to go to GATS (Great American Truck Show) but I don't think that we feel like it was a huge big deal. Other than getting there to sign up with brokers and find out some more info about the things we need to do for using our own authority, there wasn't anything that we were burning to see or do there. I needed some Infinite Aloe, DH needed a couple of lights and other than that...nadda. It just kept us from spending money. It is a little frustrating when you ask to go to Texas and then you are only offered trips to North Carolina or Nebraska, but then again, you know, they aren't a travel agency. LOL
We have been running pretty well, getting some miles and we were able to go home last weekend to get our mail. I still haven't taken pictures of the yarn that I got. When we had time, the trailer was in the shop for brakes and I couldn't use it to wind yarn, so DH wouldn't let me get out my yarn to take pictures of it. I have started my I Love Gansey socks from Six Socks KAL. They are turning out gawgeous!!! I got some yarn from The Fiber Denn: Laine Ruban in Silver Forest. It is showing off the cables really well, unlike the Bearfoot yarn that I started out with. The Laine Ruban has no halo and it looks and feels like it is the same base as Koigu. It's soft and in shades of gray green that is lovely. I think they may end up being my sister's birthday present. I think that she would like them and her birthday is next month, so I have plenty of time to get them done. I did one repeat of the pattern last night on the first sock and then cast on the second sock and got halfway through the repeat on that one while I did laundry today. I have started doing my socks that way so that I don't have second sock syndrome (SSS) and I get them done about the same time.
I still haven't finished DS's socks, because I have gotten to the 3 X 2 rib and it's not all that exciting, although the foot fits ds really well, at least for this week, and he is excited for me to get them done. They are good for working on when we are watching movies and stuff, but the other socks that I have going take more concentration and I work on them while we are going down the road and can tune everything out, or I can listen to podcasts.
We spent most of the weekend having our truck worked on or DH working on our truck. We had an air leak in the trailer and when we took that in to get it fixed, the mechanic said we needed new brakes as well. So DH had him do that as well as replacing the broken part. It ended up costing twice as much as the mechanic said it would and then DH still had to help him get the wheels on right on the trailer, because the mechanic put them on wrong and DH was UNHAPPY about that. I got to do exciting things like laundry twice...wooo hooo!!! although I did have some good knitting time in there.
We watch Blade Trinity on television the other night in a truck stop. It was an odd movie, although oddly compelling. We watched a few minutes of it and got hooked, so we ended up sitting in the tv room and watching it. Today, while DH was changing the oil filters and fixing some other things, I was inside the truck stop doing laundry. The tv room had A Few Good Men on. It's the one that has Tom Cruise, Kevin Bacon, Keifer Sutherland, Demi Moore, and Jack Nicholson. It's about a court martial of two marines for committing a "Code Red" on a fellow marine. I am not a huge Tome Cruise fan, but I do think this is probably one of his best roles. I had to stay inside even though my clothes were done so that I could see the end of the movie.
I don't have much of anything else until I am able to take some pictures of the yarn and the socks that I am working on, so until something happens or I get to take some pictures, I bid you adieu

This Weekend

2007-08-21T17:27:00.000-07:00

we were able to have a break. We delivered our load to Broken Arrow, OK on Thursday, and then on Friday we picked up a load ending up in Delaware, but it had 5 stops to it. We had a delivery to make to Fayetteville, AR that was supposed to deliver Friday, but after waiting 4 and a half hours to be loaded, we weren't able to be there. I called and set up a delivery appointment for Saturday morning. Friday evening, we got to Tontitown, AR and found out that they were having a Grape Festival. That entailed a Spaghetti dinner, crafts people set up in tents, a book swap/sale and a carnival. We went to a restaurant called Mama Z's and had a spaghetti dinner and found out that they were the restaurant supplying the pasta and maybe the sauce that was being used for the dinner at the festival. One of the pluses of going to the restaurant over the festival for dinner was air conditioning. It was hot and humid and sticky. After dinner, we strolled up to the church grounds that was holding the festival and wandered through the craft tents. We were able to purchase some things for our as yet unbuilt house and something for a Christmas gift. We then took the DS to the carnival and let him ride a few rides. When tickets are $1.00 a piece, and the rides cost 3-5 tickets each, it gets a little pricey. We spent $11 on tickets and that allowed him to ride 2 four ticket rides and one 3 ticket ride. He had a great time and it was fun watching him laugh and smile while he was doing it. We also picked up some grapes, it being a grape festival and all, that taste almost exactly like Welch's Grape Juice. I even asked what kind they were, not concord cuz those got frozen, but now I don't remember.
Saturday morning we got up and made our delivery and then headed out across country towards St. Louis. DH had said that we could get a hotel room for Saturday evening, with a pool, because we had all kinds of time and not very many miles. We stopped at a rest area in Missouri and picked up the coupon books for hotels and found out that not very many hotels were honoring their coupons, didn't have truck parking, didn't take pets, or charge an exorbitant fee for having a pet in your room. I did a lot of searching and finally found the hotel that we needed to stay at. They have a very generous pet policy (they don't charge for them), a pool AND a hot tub, a hot breakfast and they also have a cocktail hour and a half in the lobby that includes snacks, sodas and juice, and if you want them beer, wine and mixed drinks (3 per person, please). And what is that wonderful place to stay....Drury Inn & Suites in O'Fallon, IL. It is a new hotel and if you clicked on the link above, you can see that it's seven floors of very nice rooms, great beds, and friendly staff. We were able to walk to Buffalo Wild Wings and get dinner and then come back to the hotel, get our wine to go with dinner, eat, swim a little (the pool was cold, for some reason) and then do a mile on the treadmill. They do have a neat pool, it's half indoor and half outdoor...you can swim under that glass wall and go to the outdoor pool. They had a large enough parking lot that we could park the truck, although we did have to wait until noon of Sunday before we were able to get out. We had to wait for the parking lot to clear out some to be able to get around .
The only bad thing about staying in a hotel is that we have a really bad habit of staying up really, really late watching television. We have a tv on the truck, but we don't watch a lot of commercial television. We mostly watch movies that we already own. So when we get a really nice room like this one, we tend to watch a lot of things that we don't normally get to see.

We did have a good time and got some rest and relaxation away from the truck. That's always a good thing. The only thing that I really wanted to do that didn't get done was to wind up the yarn I got at home and to take pictures of it. It is still residing in the bin under the bed and hasn't seen the light of day since it was placed in there. I hope to do something with it in the next few days, although I think I have been saying that since we were home, LOL! I didn't even take the laptop into the hotel when we were there, even though they did have wireless service, but it was one less thing to carry in.

Sunday, after we left the hotel, we went to Brownstown, IN to make the third stop in this load. We got there just as third shift was starting, and when DH asked if they would take the two pieces off of our truck, the guy that he talked to said that he didn't know how. Fifteen to twenty minutes later, he came over and knocked on our door and said that he would go ahead and take them because he couldn't see us sitting there overnight for two pieces. YAY! We were able to get up to Bellefontaine, OH for first thing Monday morning, which meant that we got to do the miles to Nazareth, PA on Monday instead of having to do them over night on Monday night which meant that we were able to get the delivery for Nazareth, PA and Georgetown, DE off and be done today by 2 p.m. PDT.

Now, we are sitting in Bridgeville, DE waiting for a load. We are trying to get them to give us something that will take us to Dallas, TX for this weekend, or at least for Friday and Saturday so that we can go to the Great American Truck Show. We need to go to the show to be able to talk to some people about the things we need to do for going out on our own. Hopefully they will be able to find something that heads that way and we will be able to go. Not only that, I need some more Infinite Aloe, and we first bought it at the Dallas show and we should be able to pick up some more there.

The weather here on the East Coast is cold and rainy and really a change from what we have been used to. We actually had to dig coats out of the storage bag this morning because it was so cold. When we stopped at a rest area, DH got our and turned the heat on in the truck because I was freezing and I had even put a sweater on. It did warm up a little bit in southern Delaware, but it's still chilly, just not pouring down rain anymore.

I don't have any yarn pictures or any knitting pictures today (see explanation above) but I have been working on ds's socks, and I have the heel turned on both of them. He's getting excited and wants me to finish them so he can wear them. I want to get them finished because I want to re-start the six socks Gansey sock for this month and I want to knit my mom some socks in the blue/purple Bearfoot yarn that I have for her. Because of the mohair content in the yarn, I have decided that I am going to do one of the ribbed socks from Barbara Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. There are three or four different rib patterns and I think with the halo on this yarn, it needs to be a simple sock. I know that it didn't work for the Gansey sock, I couldn't see the cables. When I have something to show, I will.

DH has Pure Country running, so it's time to grab DS's socks and go back in the back and watch the movie. See ya!

SP 11

2007-08-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

Yay....Shelby is having an contest and so I am going to post the answers to the questions that she asked here like she asked us to do.

1. What is the one knitting accessory you could not live without?

I couldn’t live without my Knit Picks Options. They are pretty much the only needles that I use for everything. I have decided that there is nothing you can’t knit on circular needles.

2. If you're heading on vacation, do you take knitting with you?

I do take knitting with me. If so, how much and what type of project? I usually take whichever projects I have going in my knitting bag. Because I use a tote for my knitting bag, I usually have 2 or three projects going in it and then the yarn for a pair of socks or two.

3. Where have you traveled to that you'd consider your favorite spot?

Because of the lifestyle that we have, I travel all the time. Some of my favorite places would be Yellowstone/Tetons National Parks, the mountain that my folks live on, and then the whole western part of Montana.

4. What is your favorite knitting book at the moment? Do you own it?

Right now my favorite book is not a knitting book, but a spinning book called In Sheep’s Clothing, A guide to Hand Spinning and I like it because it’s giving me an understanding of the different properties of the different breeds of sheep and their wool. It’s telling me the different length of fibers and the softness and such. I do own it, I bought it at the Interweave Hurt Book Sale. I also love Big Girl Knits. The beginning of the book is a wonderful lesson on styles for different shapes and sizes and the patterns, while I don’t like all of them, are wonderful and there are several that I would like to knit.

5. Do you listen to podcasts? I do listen to podcasts. Which is your favorite(s)? I listen to Lime n Violet, Stash and Burn, but I would have to say that my favorite is Knit Picks Podcast. It is very professional and gives a lot of information.

I'm going to have to go read some of the other blogs to see what other people answer to the questions. I would be interested to see what other people do on vacation and where they call their favorite places.

Hopefully, this afternoon or evening, I will be able to take some pictures of the stash enhancement that I acquired when we went home. I got some lovely yarn and stitch markers and a row counter bracelet that I think is just the neatest thing. I don't know why I didn't get one of those earlier.

Generally...

2007-08-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of pictures to post, but that ain't so today. This is probably going to be a text mostly post.
I got my pal for SP11. I enjoyed SP10 a lot, and I am looking forward to spoiling my pal, although I was told that I have large shoes to fill...I think I am up to the task.

I haven't heard from my other pal yet, but they do have until tomorrow, so I'll try really hard to be patient.

Today is my niece's 7th birthday. We were home for the weekend and got to see my sister and her family, and I went shopping for my niece with my sister. From what I understand, gifting the little miss is kind of a crap shoot. She has an 11, almost 12, year old sister that she takes her cues from and if Big Sis doesn't like it, she doesn't like it. I bought her clothes, and left the tags on (how tacky is that) so that my Sister can take them back and exchange them if Little miss decides she doesn't like them.

The reason for being home this weekend was so that we could pick up our mail. We had not been home since May, when we were there for my stepson's wedding. Needless to say there was all kinds of stuff waiting for me when I started going through the mail. I got magazines, bills, ads, and oh yeah, I got some yarn, some more yarn, and then some stitch markers and a row counter bracelet, and then maybe a little more yarn. The yarn and such was stuff that I have ordered over the course of the last three months and I got some really good stuff. I also received the first installment on the two sock clubs that I joined. The yarn from the Zen Yarn Garden's Art Walk sock club is absolutely gorgeous. It is based on the colors of the Hallucinogenic Toreador and I would have to say that it was wonderfully done. I also got my yarn club offering from C*eye*ber Fiber. It was loverly as well. I haven't had the time to play with them yet, but as soon as we get a breather, I plan to wind them all up and then figure out what I want to knit with next. There will be enabling pictures, cuz you know, I don't like to keep this all to myself.
The best thing about being home was I finally got to see, in person, this: I was going to post the picture, but blogger is being a booger!
And this: And for those of you without inquiring minds, they are pictures, which have been on my blog before, of the packages I got from my Secret Pal and from my Tea Swap partners. They both did good and I will enjoy the packages immensely. While we were at home we did share the Chocolate Creme filled Maple cookies as the desert with dinner on Saturday night. I really didn't know what to expect, and they were GOOD! More so than I would have thought, so thank you LeAnn, they were a hit. The rest of the items from the two packages are either here, on the truck, or packed away in the box that I had to buy to store yarn in the container. I think that the only things I didn't bring were a couple of skeins of yarn, but I kept the rest.

We are in Erie, PA right now and heading for Oklahoma. On Streets and Trips, it looked like we were going to be close enough to Lake Erie to be able to see it, but alas we aren't. Bummer. I wanted to take a picture or two of the lake so that there would be something cooling here, but you know how that is.
I hope to, in the next couple of days, take some pictures of the goodies that I got when I went home and post them here. I got some Sea Silk, in some really neat colors, all turquoise and blues and greens that is really gorgeous. Hopefully I will get some decent pictures to show off the colors. I might even try my hand at lace with that stuff because it is just begging to become something lacy.

I think that I will quit rambling on and post this for posterity. That way I will be able to remember that sometimes I do post even when I have nothing to say.

Secret Pal 11

2007-08-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

So I am a joiner. I joined SP11 because I had such a good time with SP10 and had such good swap partners and enjoyed spoiling and being spoiled by them. So here is the questionnaire for this round:

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? I am a natural fiber kind of girl. I like to knit with wool, super wash wool, cotton (for dishcloths), silk (of course) and other natural fibers. I do like some of the bamboo yarns.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in? I use the Knit Picks options set and I store them in the case they came in, although I do have a needle case waiting for me at home.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? I have been knitting off and on for about 30 years, probably more off than on, but I have an intermediate skill level and am not afraid to try anything but color work, thanks to the sock groups I belong to.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? I do. It can be found under lyndahitt@earthlink.net

5. What's your favorite scent? I love the scents of lavender and vanilla, although my favorite cologne is Inis, an Irish perfume that is very clean and crisp with overtones of citrus.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? Is there anything but chocolate? Or caramel? Or the two together, especially dark chocolate and caramel.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I have three spindles and try to spin with them when I can. I need to keep one out to use while we drive down the road.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I listen to all kinds of music. We have XM and listen to country, the decades (up to 60’s anyway), Celtic, folk, etc. I’m not big into hard rock or rap (that’s not music).

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand? I love earthly colors. I’m not wild about orange.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I am happily married with one child still at home and we have a dog.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? I do wear scarves, hats and mittens, but have never understood ponchos.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? I spend and inordinate amount of time knitting socks, I’m just not really speedy. I like to knit things for other people.

13. What are you knitting right now? I am working on two pair of socks, two dishcloths/facecloths and a tank for my sister.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? Sure I do!

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? I almost exclusively use Knit Picks options. I love the slickness of them and that they are circular. I own some straight needles, but they are packed away in my stash box. I have found that I can do anything on circulars that I can do on straights, but not vice versa.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? I have a store bought yarn winder and my DH and father built me a wonderful yarn swift.

17. How old is your oldest UFO? My oldest UFO is about 9 months old and is a scarf for ds that is being knit out of Lion brand. It’s too hot to knit on it right now, although I do need to finish it before winter.

18. What is your favorite holiday? I love most holidays.

19. Is there anything that you collect? I collect 19^th century ephemera, the items of everyday living, especially yellow ware, ironstone, crocks (Red Wing, most especially), Carte de’Viste photographs of children and women from the mid 19^th century and kitchen stuff. Of course, I do collect yarn, at least that’s what my DH says.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? I would like any of Nicky Epstein’s “On the Edge” books, Cables Untangled or any of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s books that I don’t own, especially the Opinionated Knitter. I would like to have a stitch dictionary or three at some point.

What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I have a subscription to Interweave Knits.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? At some point I want to learn to do color work and to knit intarsia, just not yet.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? I am a sock knitter and wear size 8 women’s shoes

23. When is your birthday? July 8th

24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID? I am on Ravelry and my username is lyndahitt. I know, really original.

At least now I will be able to put this where my pal can find it when I am assigned a pal. I think that I can mark it so that it shows up in the side bar and I don't have to keep pushing it to the top.

The night sky

2007-08-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

We were coming across Colorado the other night and got near the little town of Sargents (on the side of Monarch Pass) and pulled off into a wide spot on the road to sleep for the night. DH took the hound out for her nightly ritual, and started calling to me to come out and see the stars. They were amazing. When you aren't in a town and don't have the distraction of the lights, you can see an amazing amount of the lights in the sky. Several months ago, on a trip to one of the sports/camping stores, we picked up a star chart for DS. When his Dad started calling us out to see the stars, he asked to take the chart out to see what we could see. We were able to pick out the big and little dippers, orion's belt, and several other constellations. It was pretty cool to be able to set the date and time and see all of the different constellations that should be visible between the 40th and 50th parallels. As we were looking at the stars, the moon started to come up over the mountain. We were able to actually see it moving up into the sky.
Have you ever been to the Smithsonian and see the clock that is a pendulum that swings in a circle and knocks down the little cones? You feel like you can almost see the world turning by the way that the pendulum moves from cone or mark to the next. That's how it was with the moon coming up over the mountain. It was kind of like tick, tick, tick and every tick brought the moon just a little higher into the sky until it was almost full and we could see it with all of the craters and everything.

DH decided to get the binoculars out to see the stars better, and then we got the camera out to try and take some moon pictures. He then decided to combine the two and see if we could get some closeup pictures of the moon that showed the definition of the craters and such. Now I can't swear that these are the pictures taken with the binoculars or if they are just really good zoom shots. There were about 40 pictures of the moon on the card and I only was able to keep about six of them. Most of the ones taken with the binoculars on the camera were BAD!!! But I think that these might be ones where everything lined up and we got some cool shots of the moon.

The next day, we went to Canon City and met my parents for lunch and then took off south to cut across New Mexico and into Texas. As we were cutting down US64 in New Mexico we came upon a thunderstorm. We weren't in the rain and were able to see these rainbows in the sky.

Both of these were taken out the front window of the truck. They were taken as the rainbow was fading, but we had seen incredibly vibrant double rainbows and were able to see them from end to end. I couldn't get the camera quick enough to take those, but I did get these two shots. Aren't they pretty? Something that we noticed as were were looking at the double rainbows, was that the outside one was a mirror image of the inside one. The colors were reversed on it. I had never noticed that before, probably because I had never seen a set so vibrantly before.

We spent the day yesterday just chillin in the truck stop. I was able to knit a bit, and then we watched some movies. Some of the truck stops have a system called IdleAire. On that system you put this adapter in your passenger window and then you bring this contraption into the adapter and then you have air or heat (depending on the season), television, pay movies, telephone, internet, driver training programs etc., all for the low, low price of $2.18 per hour (or $1.85 per hour if you sign up for the gold membership). The biggest benefit of this service is that you don't have to idle your truck. You save the cost of the fuel, the wear and tear on your truck, and you get to have unlimited television (some channels) and then if you want the premium channels you pay a flat fee for the whole time you are hooked up. High speed internet is a flat fee, outgoing long distance is another flat fee and then they also have pay per view movies. We never pay for the telephone service, rarely for the internet, but we will pay for the extended channels on the television and sometimes will do a movie. Yesterday, the boys watched several westerns on the "free" channels and then we decided to watch a movie. We picked Catch and Release which I thought was a cute movie. It was kind of sad and funny and then everything turned out all right in the end. We then decided to watch A Good Year with Russell Crowe. Very good movie, but then again I really like Russell Crowe. Finally, DH and I decided that we would watch Amazing Grace. It was about England in the 18th century and William Wilberforce and William Pitt fighting for the abolishment of slavery. If you like historical drama's, this one was very well done and although it was very late and DH missed most of it, I enjoyed it.

We are stopping now, for brunch, and I really have run out of things to say. I am still knitting on the dishcloth, ds's socks and am trying to find the yarn that I will use for the Guernsey socks from six socks KAL. I wanted to use some of the Bearfoot that I got the other day, but it is too fuzzy and the cables don't show up well. I may have to wait until we get home and I can look through the at home stash and find something that will work. I don't think that I could talk DH into stopping at a yarn shop again...besides that, I have some stuff that I have ordered waiting at home for me...Louet Gems, that will work...oh good, got that settled. whew!!!

Catch you another day!

Not n Montana anymore

2007-07-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

The post that I posted the other day with all of the yarn was kind of jumping ahead of the stuff that happened on the way to the truck stop where I was able to wind all of the yarn. We left Bozeman after shopping at the LYS and then having a yummy dinner at Carino's Italian Grill...we were there during happy hour and they have loverly Bellini's.
I know that the news has been covering all of the fires that are going on in the west, some lightning started and some man started. We were heading west on I-90, and the air started to have a tinge of smoke smell on it. It was in the early evening, not time for the sun to go down, but this is the way that the light was:

You could look directly at the sun and not be blinded because the smoke was so thick. It didn't help that we were going through a river canyon and it was funneling all of the smoke. As we drove farther, the smoke got thicker:
It really looks like it is sunset, but it was actually about 4 p.m. mountain time. It was kind of an eerie kind of light, and you could really smell the smoke. It smelled like you were camping and had a really big campfire going with some really green wood that was smoking a lot.

If you look at the center right of this picture, you can see the plume of smoke coming off of the hillside. There was a pretty good fire burning or it had been burning right next to the road for a couple of miles. As we were driving, there were signs telling you to watch out for the smoke and that visibility would be poor and that you should drive with your headlights on. All of a sudden, we started hearing the chop of a helicopter. We looked out the windshield of the truck and saw this helicopter with a load of water in its bucket. It went
directly over our truck and went to the hillside that was to our right. I was able to snap this picture of what he was treating just before he
He opened the bottom of the bucket and the water fell on one of the hot spots that were scattered throughout the hillside. I didn't try to take a picture of that, because I actually wanted to see it and I knew that if I was trying to photograph it, I wouldn't have really gotten to see it. It was so cool to watch. He lined up right over one of the flaming spots and let loose from several hundred feet in the air and it sprayed out and hit the ground where it was needed, or at least some of it did.

Some of the unsung hero's in fighting the fires that we hear about on the news are the wild land fire crews. Every time there is a report of a fire, a crew member checks it out either from the air or on foot or in a truck. If it is a fire that needs to be fought, a crew is assembled and a camp is set up. We saw where some of the crew for the fire on the hillside was deploying from (sorry for the bad pic). This was a couple of miles down the road from the fire, and the crews were doing what they could to help the ranchers and land owners wet down their houses and barns in case the wind shifted and brought the fire back their way. Each of the large structures in this group had an irrigation sprinkler running on it to keep the wooden parts of the building wet enough that they wouldn't catch on fire. All of the men in yellow shirts are part of the wild land fire crew that was working this fire. There were 30-40 of them all up and down this frontage road.

One of the things that was amazing to me was that within a couple of miles of passing the flaming hillside, the air cleared up and you could actually see the sun in all of it's glory.

I posted that I was getting ready to rip and restart Soleil from the Summer 2007 Knitty. I ripped out the cotton ease yarn incarnation, and then I cast on with the Butterfly mercerized cotton. I really like the Butterfly yarn. It's smooth and shows good stitch definition and knits up nicely. At least that was my first impression of it. I got the first repeat done on the lace bottom and realized that I had forgotten a YO a couple of rows back and had to rip it out again. I cast on the 160 stitches again and got three rows into it and it was looking so good. The pattern was showing up and it was smooth and then I realized that somehow on the second or third row I had twisted the stupid thing and so to the frog pond it went for the third time in one day and I decided that I would put it in time out for the rest of today and I started a DW dishcloth in Summer Splash. That's going along swimmingly and I can hardly wait for the pattern to come out for the next Six Sox installment.

It is unseasonably hot here in the north west. Boise, ID was at 98 today when we stopped for lunch and grocery shopping. Boise isn't supposed to be at 98 degrees...we are in the northern climes of our country...it's supposed to be cooler here than the rest of the country. Even Bozeman, which is usually 15 degrees cooler than the rest of the state was in the low nineties the other day when we were there. That is just so wrong. I want to come to the northwest and be cooler. I don't want to swelter up here. We do enough of that in Texas or Alabama or Tennessee.

I guess that I don't have anything else that is exciting or fun or anything to blog about, so I'll catch up with you later in the week.

Still crossing Montana

2007-07-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

We are still in Montana today, did a whopping 381 miles today. (that was all posted yesterday, before I finished the post. Now we are in Washington) That's because I got to go here. I am a member of the Six Sox Knitalong, and the sock that is going to start in August is recommended to be knit out of solid color yarn. I have quite a bit of sock yarn on the truck, as you can tell by what is in my Ravelry Stash, but nothing in a solid or semi solid colorway. This, at least in my mind, necessitated a trip to a yarn store. The yarn shop in Bozeman, which is mostly right on our way to Seattle, only means that we have to drive about 15-20 miles out of our way to drop the trailer and then go in to Bozeman and then back out to Belgrade, MT where the truck stop is that we drop our trailer out. Usually we also get to eat at a good restaurant rather than a truck stop. Today was no different. We went to the yarn shop where I procured much yarney goodness. First there was the sock yarn...Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Purple Mountains: OH MY!!!
This is just the most incredible mixture of purple and royal blue. It changes colors almost imperceptibly, but the mixture is amazing. Not only that, it is incredibly soft and squooshy. I'm liking it a lot. I then picked up a skein of Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Brown Bark. Again the colors are incredible and change from one to the next very nicely.

My darling husband, ever the enabler, got stopped at the book shelf in the shop and came up with this gem for me. I picked up a couple of spindles at Estes Wool Festival and have been having a real time with spinning on them. Ever the thoughtful man, he found this and encouraged me to buy it. Not only will it help me to learn how to spindle, but it has all kinds of other information about spindling and the history etc. It's a book put out by the editor of Spin Off Magazine and is called A Handspindle Treasury.

I have been working on a tank for my sister out of this pattern. The biggest problem was that I bought the yarn before we had decided on the pattern and tried to make the yarn we bought work. IT DID NOT! It was yukky :-p So, when we were in the yarn shop yesterday, I found some Butterfly Super10 Mercerized cotton that was a much more appropriate yarn for the top. I like knitting it better. The stitch definition is way better and I think that she will like the color better. It's less yellow than the first batch of yarn. We had the boy with us in the yarn shop and he is ever on the lookout for yarn that he likes for socks. Now, I have been working on a pair of socks for him forever. They keep getting shoved aside for something more exciting, something with a deadline(self imposed or otherwise) and the poor thing would really like me to knit him a pair of socks. Anyway, he picked out this: It's Trekking...at least the boy has good taste. I then picked up this skein for a pair of socks for the Husband:

The final bit a yarn that I picked up was something else that DH decided was "me". He said, and I quote: "I can see you wearing socks made out of this". So I had to buy it, don't you agree? It's all purple and blue with some brown and green. It's 85% merino wool and 15% silk. It's gawgeous! Oh, you want to see a picture of it? Really? It's so nice and soft and I really like it a lot. I want to pet it.....Oh, the picture? Here it is: I'm thinking something in an anklet or something because there is not a lot of yardage on the skein. Either that or a soft and squooshy scarf.

Now, I've posted pictures of all of this wonderful yarn, and as observant as I know you are, you've noticed that all of the yarn is caked and ready to go. It didn't come like that, oh no! Most of it came in hanks and had to be wound into center pull balls. The next couple of pictures will show exactly how that was accomplished.

We set up a yarn winding station on the trailer. I pulled out my ball winder and the wonderful swift that my dh and my dad made me and wound up all of that yarn. Not only that, I was able to take the skeins of Barefoot and divide them in half with my handy dandy scale that we bought at a kitchen store.

These are the tools of the wool winding trade:

And finally, one last picture to show that I actually do finish projects. I present you a picture of my FINISHED Victorian Lace Socks in Koigu PPM, Light blue colorway, semi solid in a ladies size 8:
I really like these socks. I've been wearing them all day and they are comfy and pretty and look great with Birks...so there. I squeaked by under the deadline and they are finished. Yay for me.

I have a 'nother whole post to do about the excitement we saw yesterday and we were coming across Montana, but that will have to wait until tomorrow or the next day. It will be another picture heavy post (aren't all of mine) with some cool and not so cool things.

Ciao

Drive by

2007-07-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post a drive by because I will probably be out of contact for the next couple of days. We are on our way to Seattle, and that necessitates going through South Dakota and Montana. I usually don't have service for the internet in these two states, unless something has drastically changed since we were up here last time.

I promised some pictures of the wip's that I am working on, but bad blogger that I am, I haven't even gotten the camera out to take pictures. I need to do that too, cuz I will be finished with the Victorian Lace Socks that I am working on for Six Sox Knitalong probably tomorrow, and I haven't taken my in progress photo yet. This will be the first sock that I have finished on time since I joined six months ago. Yay for me.
When we went up to Platoro last week, the whole trip was along this river. My Dad is a flyfisher and I had to call him and tell him just how green he was that we were there and he wasn't. The only fly in the ointment that I could see was this:

Now, the fishing with artificial flies and lures only isn't such a big deal, but the daily bag limit of only 2 trout, 16 inches or longer might pose a bit of a problem. What if you fish all day and catch 23 fish? How do you choose which two over the 16 inch limit that you want to keep? Oh there was one other fly in the ointment...a good portion of the stream that ran through this really cool valley with excellent fishing possibilities was owned by a fishing club that meant that not just anyone could fish there. Private sections on a very public stream.
Here is some more random mountaino goodness. These are some of the mountains that you see as you are going east bound on I-70 over Vail Pass. They still had a bit of snow on them at the end of June, but I doubt that they do anymore. An interesting side note about these mountains along the road over Vail pass; during WWII the mountain divisions of the Army trained in these mountains getting ready for going to Europe to fight in the Alps and other mountains on the European continent. There is a rest area at the summit that has the story of the mountain divisions as well as some of the athletes that have trained in these mountains for Olympics and what not.

I am so jealous...I have been reading some of the blogs that I enjoy, and I heard about a trip that Jo, from Celtic Memory Yarns, got to take to Houston to visit Angeluna and take a dyeing class. I am jealous on so many levels. I want to have some friends like that, where I can just say, oh, by the way, I heard that you are doing "this" on the weekend, can I come and it would be okay. I'm jealous cuz I want to take a dyeing workshop. I'm jealous cuz they got to meet and I so would like to be friends with Jo and with Angeluna. But jealousy isn't going to do me any good and I will just have to develop friendships like that. I used to be a part of the community that ebay used to have on the antiques chat board. We did things like that. I was apart of a couple of group get togethers, and 5 or 6 of the people that were regulars on those "boards" even came to my wedding when I married DH. But, since we have been on "The Big Red Truck", I have let those friendships lapse for lack of time and attention and don't belong to any of those communities any more.

I know that things will change when we get our house built, but I get impatient. I know that all good things come in time, but I want it now. I want to be a part of a community where I have actual friends. I have made some contacts for that in the community where we will live, by attending the knitting group that meets at the LYS that just came into being this year. I think I blogged about it, but a resident that has a graphic design business decided that in addition to that, she wanted to run a craft store locally. She was able to get a stash of yarn from someone that was really great yarn and got some other things and set up shop. (kind of simplified, I know, but kinda sorta how it happened) Now we have a LYS and a place to meet that caters to the local knitting community. Anyway, I attended one of their Wednesday afternoon knitting groups and enjoyed it, although I am so way more conservative than most of the residents.

As an out take, I would like to post some more flowery pictures taken on the road...

I don't have any idea what any of these flowers are ( I really need to get a Rocky Mountain Flower book) but I took them when I was wandering around the other week taking pictures while DH moved stuff around on our trailer.

Have a great weekend, and I will be back as soon as I can get online, and I WILL have some pictures of knitting, hopefully a finished object or two.

We Made it

2007-07-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

up to Platoro, CO and back down. It was slooooowwww, bumpy going, but it was a beautiful trip. After I got the message from Debra in NC, I found it on the map (we have a trucker's map too) and saw the little, tiny gray road (indicates a dirt road) that we would be going up. Now, when we go to visit my parents, we have to go up a dirt road there, as well. The difference in the two is that the roads in Fremont and Custer counties are at least maintained. There is a sign at the very beginning of the road we went up that the US Forest service has a contract with the local county for the county to maintain the road at least ONCE a year. It didn't look or feel like it had been maintained since it was opened in the Spring. It was all bumps and washboards and huge mud puddles. That's okay, the scenery completely made up for the road conditions.

There was a bit of snow left in the really high country, but not much. As you can see from the picture above, that's all that was left that we saw on the trip up there. One of the dumb things that I forgot to do was to take some pictures of the little community that we delivered to. It was at 10,000 feet and was only open for about 4 months of the year. They don't keep the road up there open all year, so when the snow flies, the road closes. There were a couple of lodges, a bunch of cabins and a gold mine. That was the extent of the town. They did have a decent restaurant, so we got breakfast and started back down the mountain.

If you have never been to Colorado before, you wouldn't know that it is a free range state. What that means is that if you own cows, they can range anywhere they want, within reason. For instance, they aren't allowed in downtown Denver, but when you get out of town and are in the country, they can just about go anywhere. If you don't want cows in your yard, you have to fence them out...that's your responsibility, not the cow owner's to keep them out of your yard. Any way, this is just one of the groups that we met up with on our trip to Platoro...
It was kind of funny...the little ones were afraid of the truck, but the big ones just looked at us and wandered out in front of the truck like we weren't even there. Silly things

Aswe were coming down the mountain, we looked over to our right and this is what we saw. There were two cowboys that were working a herd of cattle and moving them down the valley. We watched them and their three dogs work a small herd of cattle that had broken off from the main herd that was here...

It was kind of cool to watch the 5 of them working together to get the cows down the valley. It was also amazing to watch the dog work. I think that they were working harder than the cowboys were.

We went further down the road and stopped at a view spot. While DH rearranged the items on the deck of the trailer, I went out in the woods and took some artsy fartsy flower and nature pictures. We got a new camera a few months ago and I really haven't taken the time to use it and find out what it could do, so I decided to try it out a little bit in the woods. Here are some of those pictures.
This was a cool fallen log that I found when I was walking the trail. I thought that the log itself was cool, but the composition with the aspen tree with the carving in it just made it even neater.

I don't have any idea what either of these flowers are, I just was playing with the focus on the camera and getting the flowers in focus while everything else was blurry behind it and liked these two. I especially like the one to the right. The colors are so saturated and I love that purply blue color alot.

Here's a picture of the truck taken through the aspen trees that were on the trail of this little view point. I just thought it was kind of a neat shot of our truck "out in the wilds".

Finally, here is a shot of ds and the dog. One of his favorite things is harassing the dog. He loves to walk her and play with her and she spends most of her time in the back of the truck with him, either laying right next to him, or when he is doing school, she will lay under the bed at his feet. I would say that they are pretty much buds, but she is still DH's dog. DH is her MOST favorite person.

We got down off of the mountain and ended up sitting in Walsenburg, CO for a couple of days. It was semi productive in that I got things like laundry done, but I also got a raging case of food poisoning. I spent a miserable 24 hours and was convinced that I would have to die to get better. If you are ever going up or down I-25 and see the Acorn Travel plaza....don't stop and eat at the A&W. It is bad news.

Since then, I have been spending more time knitting and less time on the computer, hence the lack of posts to the blog. I am just about finished with my Victorian Lace Socks for the Six Socks knitalong. I might actually be done with these before the dead line of the end of the month. Since joining the KAL, I have done two other of the patterns, or at least attempted them, and I didn't finish either of them on time. One I still haven't finished, and in fact, I had the socks for ds, loosely based on the Horcrux socks, done nearly to the heel turn, and ripped them completely out because they just were too wide.

I am still working on the tank for my sister, but I don't think that I am liking the pattern that I am using with the yarn that I am using, and I think that I am going to change to a tank from the summer edition of Interweave Knits. It is a plain tank, but both of the straps are lacy and I think that I like that one better and it will fit the yarn better.

I will take some pictures of the WIP's and post them the next time that I make a blog post. Until that time, enjoy your week.

In the last week....

2007-07-12T20:34:00.001-07:00

I have been wanting to post for the last few days, but because of spotty internet service and just trying to catch up after being on vacation for THREE WEEKS, I have gotten some of the pictures edited and waded through the mail I hadn't and now I am ready to post. This will be a picture heavy post, you know, because that's kind of what I do, but also because where we were was just gorgeous and we couldn't keep from taking pictures.

I posted last on July 3rd, and then we had the Fourth. We were able to stay for the fireworks at the lake and we also went to town for the car show and the flea market so here are some pics of the car show.
This was DH's second favorite car...it was a pretty sweet looking ride, but wait until you see his favorite....

Now to me, the coupe isn't all that much different than the station wagon, but I think that the yellow one reminded him of his childhood. He had one similar to this that was handed down to him from his father, who bought it brand new. He was reminiscing about drag racing it and fixing it and all of that while we stood and looked at the cars. The man who owned this one had done an excellent job of restoring it. The interior was immaculate and the exterior....well, you can see the exterior.

My favorite of the show, was this....

What can I say, I'm just a truck kind of girl. I would so much rather drive a pickup than most any other kind of car out there. Not only are they eminently practical, you sit up off of the ground high enough that you can see what is coming toward you and you can haul stuff. When you live in the country you have to be able to haul stuff....feed, hay, lumber, kids, kids stuff, trailers, etc. You just can't do that with a car.

We made a rather disappointing run through the town flea market...the only thing I bought was some fresh kettle corn (YUM!!!) and some lavender scented lotion made from honey. It is really nice lotion and was produced by someone local. We did go visit some friends that do metal working so that I could show DH what I want for the railings of the front porch of our house. This couple designs and does metal work and other types of crafty things. One of the things that they have done recently is to design these metal panels with scenes in them for use as either wall art or porch railings. They can do anything that you can think of and they do really fine work. One of the things that turned us onto them was a Christmas gift we got from my parents... personal steak brands. They're cool!!

After we left the flea market, we went to the campground for Lake DeWeese, a local reservoir that has boating, fishing and of course, camping. My dad and the DH had taken my folk's camper down and set it up on Tuesday night so that we would have a place to watch the fireworks from. The local community puts on their fireworks over the lake. We had grilled food, eaten in the camper because of the rain, then we toasted s'mores, my aunt and uncle came down to watch with us and a good time was had by all, as evidenced by the following pictures....

Check out the hat...he'd been begging for a cowboy hat for a while and a shop had some inexpensive kid's hats and wha-la....he is a cowboy.

It started to rain, and not ones to allow our good time to be ruined by the rain, we dug in the back of the pickup truck and found the wonderful, huge golf umbrella. Mom and I shared it in front of the fire. It contained the heat and kept the front of us warm and blocked the cold wind from the back.
This is what the mountains looked like before we got the rain and it was a cold, windy storm. The skies got black, the mountains disappeared and the rain started. It was a fast moving storm, and shortly after it started, the clouds moved on and this is what the mountains looked like:

Can you say "SNOW" on the fourth of July? That's right, the mountains got snow on July 4th!!! Now granted, they are over 14,000 feet high, and what would be a cold rain at 8,000 feet should be snow at 14,000, but c'mon....it was the FOURTH of JULY....there's not supposed to be snow.

After the lightning, did I forget to mention the lightning? that made us think that maybe the town would cancel the fireworks, and when the skies cleared somewhat, we watched the natural fireworks that the sunset put forth. It was like nature was celebrating with us the founding of our country and reminding us that we live in the greatest country on earth. It showed us a spectacular light show put on by God himself...want proof....then look and behold:

You can still kind of see the clouds that were left over after the storm in these shots.

Can you believe the colors in the shot above? Hey Ray, if you read this, wouldn't those colors make a loverly yarn?

I see pictures of sunsets like this where the sun is coming from behind the mountains or through the clouds and the first thing that comes to mind is the Hallelujah Chorus.....Hallelujah, hallelujah. I swear this was better than the fireworks, although we did Oooohhhh, and Aaaahhhh at the fireworks. My shots of them are nothing spectacular. I finally gave up trying to take a picture of them and watched them...here is a
couple of the shots that almost turned out:

The fireworks were great, the company good, the food fun and so all in all, a fine time was had by all.

I mentioned that we had been on vacation for three weeks. It really wasn't a vacation for all of us. DH still worked the first two weeks and then the last week was spent running errands, going to Colorado Springs, and then "doing the Fourth". We were all ready to leave on the 5th, but the company had other plans...we didn't actually get a load until the 10th. Then we went from Westcliffe to Fountain, CO and then to Denver to pick up the load, then to Kansas City, MO and back to Kansas City, KS to deliver that load. The next day, the 12th, we picked up in Olathe, KS and went to Houston, TX where it was nothing if not HOT and HUMID. Not only that, but the air conditioning in our truck is intermittent at best, so we start out the trip with air and then after 50-60 miles it goes off. It is soooo hot and sticky, yuck. We left Houston on Friday and drove up to Dallas. We spent the night in Dallas and had 2 fans running, four windows and a side door open just to keep it cool enough to sleep. Fortunately we were parked where there weren't any other trucks running, so we didn't have the heat from that. Sometime this morning it started raining, and we had to shut the door above our head 'cuz our pillows were getting wet.

One of the things that wasn't work related that got done while we were on vacation was this:
I have been NEEDING a yarn swift. I have been looking at them on ebay and Joann's and debating what kind to buy, when I came across a conversation on one of the knitting sites that mentioned the do it yourself directions for a yarn swift. I showed it to DH and he said that he could make it, no sweat. The last week we were at my folk's house, I made my dad hold some yarn for me so that I could wind it into a center pull cake on my handy dandy ball winder. He didn't like it much, and when DH asked for some help building one, Dad jumped at it (he didn't want to have to be a swift again). They came in the house a couple of hours later with this little beauty. Not only is it good looking, but it works like a dream. If you, like me, are needing a yarn swift, contact me here and we'll see what we can do about that.

The next bit of news that I have is that I finally got my invitation to Ravelry. This site could be dangerous. It has all kinds of options for fiber artists and crafters and I could probably spend a lot of time organizing things and looking at patterns and what not. If you haven't yet, and I can't imagine that you wouldn't have, go put your name in for an invitation. They are still in Beta testing and until that is done, their computer program is inviting a certain number of users everyday until everyone that wants to be a part of the site is invited, so you might have to wait a while, but it is soooo worth it. It's fun and it helps you to keep your stash organized and keeps you from doing what I do, buying two of the same books because I know that I want it, but I forget that I already ordered it, so I buy it in a bookstore and then I end up with two of them. You can keep track of your projects, your Works In Progress (wip's) and use the site to find different kinds of yarn, and ... and ... and ... It's cool.

Look at what the DS found. He was outside playing in the dirt (isn't that what little boys are supposed to do?) and he came in to show his Nena this...a "horny toad". I didn't think that these little creatures were supposed to be as high as 8,000 feet, but I would be wrong, cuz here is proof. Can you see how red DS's hand is...the poor thing got sunburned. I am such a bad mother, I sent him off to go riding without sunblock and this is what he looked like when he came back. Bad Mom, Bad Mom...oh well, isn't the first time and probably won't be the last.

One evening, DH was out taking pictures of this really incredible sunset (pictures would follow, but none do it justice) and he decided that we needed yet another picture of "THE Big Red Truck" all lit up. Here it is.

I guess that is all the news that I have. We are on our way to Colorado again with a load. This time we are going to a little mining town called Pletoro...it's not on any map, but if you have Streets and Trips, you can find it. The directions that we got from out company say that we will have to go 17 miles on a small US highway and then 23 miles on US Forest Service roads. That's okay, but if you have been in, or lived in, the west, you know that USFS roads are usually dirt. That's kind of rough on the Big Red Truck, not to mention its occupants. We have to call when we get there and have someone lead us in. Let's hope we have cell service out in the middle of nowhereville.

I did forget to mention that while we were on vacation, we had a birthday celebration for my dad, DS and me. We went to the General Store and had lunch. The General Store is a little building up on the mountain that serves breakfast and lunch and then has a dinner show on Saturday nights. They usually have a Bluegrass show along with either a chicken or a steak dinner. It is something that has to be experienced. Anyway, we went there, had lunch, passed out presents to those with a birthday (sorry no pictures, forgot the camera) and then went home. We gave my dad some spurs for his birthday, which was a really good present for him. He's been looking for some and we had found some for him quite a while ago and finally had them and him together, so he got them. The boy got some books, a hat, a puzzle and a dvd about wolves. He really likes wolves, so we try to give him things that appeal to him. He also is into dragons, so we have a little bit of variety to look through. I got a handthrown chip and dip bowl from DH, a Celtic Woman CD from DS and then my mom and dad gave me Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting without Tears, and Knitter's Almanac. I think, after looking at the books, they are very similar, but have a couple of different things in them, so I will keep them both.

Now that is really all...I have been working at this for hours because of the slow in truck internet connection and waiting for all of the uploads and stuff. When I have more news to report, I will be back, or even if I don't have any news...just because I have to post.

I am sooooo Happy

2007-07-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

I got the boxes from my Canadian Tea Swap Partner and the one from my secret pal....they both outdid themselves. Now I do have just a little caveat about these pictures....I didn't take them because I haven't actually seen the stuff that I got. Because of our life, all of my mail goes to my sister's house and being the good sister that she is, she took these for me, after my niece had called me and told me about all of the really neat packages SHE had gotten. Without further ado, I will post the pictures from my Tea swap partner....

It looks like I got some wonderful chocolate, some good tea and some great yarn....I will let you know when I actually get to touch and taste and see all of the items exactly what what in it.

I also got a package from my secret pal. She also sent me some really incredible stuff and her blog can be found here. Now here are the pictures, from Kathy:

I can't wait to try the stuff from EO. I LOVE french lavender and love the fresh clean smells of citrus, so I can't wait.

I have been wanting to try one of these as well, and just never had, so this should be fun. It will look loverly in my little glass tea pot, like the one that I sent to Leigh Ann, my tea swap partner. Kathy also sent me a knitter's journal with a little tiki man on it....here's what the whole package looked like: Thank you, thank you to both of you. Going home will be a wonderful Christmas like experience with all of this great stuff waiting for me.

We are still in Colorado. DH isn't working this week, and neither is the DS. Today, my Mom is teaching a Bible study, so we all got booted out of the house. The boys decided to go riding, and so they took my parents horses and borrowed one from my uncle and away they went. We had been in town yesterday because I have an aunt who collects some of the same things that I do and she and her husband have no children. They have been after us to come and get some stuff from them, so yesterday we decided to go to the "Springs" and see them. We also had some errands to run to get things ready for building our house. We went to a plumbing supply store that carries these. We found out that they are not something we are going to afford....$3300.00 for a kitchen sink was a bit much!!!! So that also let out these. We didn't even get the price of the bathroom vessels because we just figured they would be way more than we wanted to spend. Anyway, the man helping us was very informative and very helpful, so in the fall, when we pour our slab and are getting ready to do the plumbing stuff that has to go into the slab, we will use that company for those purchases.

Last weekend we went on a ride on the four wheelers and this is some of what we saw...

This was taken from the top of Locke Mountain. If I knew where exactly I was looking, I could point out where our house will be, but I am not quite sure.
My mom and dad have a Schnauzer that loves to ride the four wheeler. As you can see he has his own little box that rides on the front of my Dad's scoot. He sits there and if anyone gets in front of him, he has to howl and bark at them. DS was playing with the dog and put the goggles on him....needless to say, they didn't stay on long.

Here are some pictures of some wild iris...they are much smaller than the ones you grow in your garden, but no less beautiful.... DH got down on his belly on the ground to get these flowers from this perspective. I thought he did a pretty good job.

Here we are relaxing at the end of the trail before the trip back down the mountain.... and here is the DH Riding on the back of the four wheeler....he almost always lets me drive....he gets awfully dirty. The back of his shirt was covered with dust.

On Sunday afternoon we went down and staked out our house for the last time. We marked it with the fluorescent orange paint and metal stakes so that we can talk to an excavator about have the site prepared for the slab of the house. Should be progress on the house in the next couple of months, and so you will get to see that as we work on it.

Have a great. Enjoy the and I will see you back here the end of the week when we are back on the road. Enough of this vacation stuff...LOL.

Another post

2007-06-26T12:52:00.001-07:00

I promised yesterday that I would make another post and here it is. As I said, we have been in Colorado for over a week. We made it in time for us to go to Estes Park for the Estes Park Wool Gathering. We got there late in the day and went through the sheep barns and then the market barn and that was all. I picked up a couple of spindles and some fiber for spinning, which I didn't take pictures of, for some reason, but I did get some pics of a couple of the sheep:
This little guy followed me around his pen. He wanted to nibble on everything that I had, my purse, my camera bag, my tee shirt, just everything. But he had the most incredible brown eyes.
After spending some time with the owners of these Jacob Sheep, we decided that we are going to own some. Their fleece was just incredible and the coloring was gorgeous. Not only that, the breeders of this particular group of Jacob were just the nicest people. They were willing to spend time talking to us and give us some pointers about them and gave us a card so that when we get our house built, we can call them and get a couple. This group of sheep was a mama and her babies. I don't know what kind they are because there wasn't anyone there to answer questions.

As we were going up the mountain from Westcliffe to my Mom and Dad's I was able to get DH to stop so that I could share the incredible view that we will have from our land.....

This is actually the view of the mountains that we have from our land. These mountains are surrounding us and no matter which way we look, we can see mountains that are over 14,000 feet high.

Here are some gratuitous sunset pictures:

Some sunrise pictures because my DH is working for a local builder so that he can learn to use the system that we are going to use to build our house and that entails him getting up at 0'dark thirty in the morning and he was able to catch these:

this is a sequence of the sunrise out the front of the house where my parents live.

And finally, here are some of the local flora and fauna:
And then, because there are so many little ranches and ranchettes, we see quite a few of these:

And because I have joined the unsocialized Knitters homeschooling group I have to report that we have not been doing any school this week or last week. It's probably the only break that ds will get this summer, but I figured that he is going to be busy with his papa and that is more important than doing school is right now.

Have a great day and I promise to post again soon.....

In Colorado

2007-06-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

We have made it to Colorado...actually we got here Friday night, but things have been going on, and I haven't had time to post, or more accurately, haven't taken the time to post.

A couple of weeks ago, I sent my secret pal 10 pal her last box...she really liked the things that I had sent to her. If you want to check out her blog, go here and you can see the pictures.

We got to my folks house on Friday evening, just in time to have a snack and go to bed. We had spent most of the day in Denver doing fun and exciting things like getting tires for the big truck and taking showers and then fighting the Friday afternoon traffic through Colorado Springs. Then we had to go to the little town near where our land is to drop the trailer and then we drove the tractor up the mountain...that's 14 miles of dirt roads that lead up to the development that my folks live in. We have land 2 miles outside of town and are just off of the paved part of the road. We came past our land and can't believe how green it is. The moisture up here has been needed and well received by all. The further up the mountain we came, the greener it got. Now our land is a 40 acre plot that has 8 trees on it. Yup, that's right, 8 trees. If I take a picture of our land from the road, because you can't actually see the property lines, you might actually think that we have a nice little patch of trees...nope. Those are just on the other side of the line...don't belong to us....can't use 'em. Makes for a kinds of barren piece of land. But that is okay...you can buy a LOT of trees for the 25 or 30 thousand dollars that a piece of land with trees cost more than our land cost us.

I will have to post again later, probably later today the 25th, when I get my pictures edited, burned to a CD and then uploaded to photobucket so that I can post them to my blog. We have been on vacation at my parents house for the last week and I can't get my mother's internet connection to work on my laptop, so I am posting from her computer and didn't have enough gumption to upload the pictures just yet. I will have some incredible sunset pictures and some gratuitous animal pictures and I will have some fiber porn that I picked up at the Estes Park fiber festival.

Be back later....

Eye Candy

2007-06-10T19:07:00.000-07:00

I was going to post these for Eye Candy Friday, but I couldn't get Blogger to upload my pictures, so here are the pictures I was going to post.

Most people call them weeds, and I wouldn't want to cultivate them, but I love to see these. My husband took the pictures that I am posting because he didn't want to pick the flowers. He wanted me to have them, but I don't have any way to keep them in the truck.

The final picture is of our truck as taken through a patch of long stemmed grass that was in the field in front of the truck....you can also see the boy standing next to the truck. Any time we a stopped somewhere that there is a place that he can, he is out of the truck running around and playing. Most time he will

We had stopped for the night in Amarillo, TX (yes, in Texas again) and were planning on going to the Quarter Horse Museum, but it was closed until the 9th, when they were having their grand re-opening from the grand remodel. Bummer....we'll catch it another time. We are sitting in Las Vegas tonight with a broken air conditioning. We just had this fixed the other week and it really burns me that the air is broken again, but thank God for Idleaire and a hubby that will let us sign up and use it. In the last post, I showed you pictures of a wad of yarn. I have been working on that wad, on and off since then, but it is still a wad of yarn. I have much more wound on the two little balls that are part of the yarn, but it still sits on my dash looking like a wad of yarn. I will prevail though. I will get it all untangled.

I have started the socks for this month's Six Socks KAL - the Victorian Lace Socks that are going to be beautiful. I am using some yarn that I picked up at Stitches West from Webs called Kangaroo Dyer wool. It is wonderful, but it isn't in spring colors. When I went through the stash that I have in the truck, there was nothing that was appropriate, but I am loving this pattern for my first lace project sock.

I am still working on DS's socks and have a couple of dishcloths planned, but no progress to show.

Have a great week...

Here we sit.....

2007-06-05T15:15:00.001-07:00

in Nashville, TN. Now normally that wouldn't be a bad thing, but I can't even get to a yarn shop. I did get to the post office today and mailed the final package for my SP10 partner and the packages for my Tea Swap III partner. I have enjoyed both of the experiences, but I think that I will wait for a bit to do another one, unless it's a dishcloth swap, or something of that nature. I loved getting the ideas and the packages together for them, but because of the nature of our business, finding a post office is not an easy thing. Then my DH gets cranky because of the packages on the truck....you know men....and he told me I can't do another one until next year. He's mistaken, LOL.

We sat last weekend on the border of Missouri and Kentucky, in Charleston, MO. In the truckstop there was this cute little pond that actually had a pair of ducks on it. I don't know if they have a nest or not, because I didn't want to disturb them too much, but they wandered from one side of the pond to the other and only really got upset if we took the dog outside on the grassy area that was their lawn. If you look behind them you can see the highway behind them. That's where they live, right next to the highway in the land that is the truckstop. The weather was beautiful and the boy and the dog got to go out and play...should have gotten some pictures, but I didn't.

If you have children, you are ever hopeful that they will be able to help you when you really need them to. The other night when we were sitting somewhere, I asked the ds to help me wind some yarn. I needed him to act as the yarn swift and hold the yarn for me while I wound it on the cake... This is what we ended up with...and the picture shows you after I have spent several hours trying to unravel the mess and get back my whole skein of yarn. This is what we should have ended up with:
I didnt realize until too late that maybe this wasn't a job for an 11 year old. He's too fidgity and while he does take direction well, this might just be beyond him. Oh and this cake...husband acted as my swift, as he did for the following yarny goodness.
This is Malabrigo...it is hand spun in Uruguay. It is some of the softest yarn (well, natural fiber yarn) on the planet. I am lucky enough to have 3 skeins of it in these absolutely wonderful reds and browns. The color is called Stonechat and it is some of the nicest yarn I have. I think that I am going to make a felted bag out of it, but that almost seems like a sacrilege for as soft as it is. I still think that i will because it will make a beautiful bag. I can alway get more if I want to.

I also got some Shaeffer Anne...this is another one of those beautiful sock yarns that has wonderful colorways. I kept looking at this one and thinking that it was all greens and purples and stuff, but when I had hubby help me wind it the other night, I realized that it was all different shades of green and teal. It is loverly and will make someone some nice socks. The colors that are showing up here are not even what I took on my camera, but they show you the gradations...just think more green and less blue.

I just realized something. I don't have much for knitting progress to show you, because I have been untangling yarn and spending way too much time online looking at knitting and knitting related things than I have been knitting. I need to stop that. It becomes dangerous. I was reading a couple of blogs the other day, and while doing so, you know, I looked at some of their FO's and found this sweater. I showed it to hubby and he said that I should knit it up. I started looking at yarn and found out that Francis Patrick not only has gorgeous sock and shawl yarn, but they do a bulky yarn and will do special orders in the colorway of my choice. Hubby said to order it and work on this sweater so that I will have a gorgeous sweater to wear this fall and can practice for making this sweater, which I bought the yarn for at Stitches West.

We finally got a load and will be going to Las Vegas for the weekend. We are picking up a load that delivers outside of Las Vegas, and this weekend is the Las Vegas Trucking show, so we may get to go. I will have to have a small project to carry with me for those down times of waiting while hubby talks. He does like to do that.

Oh, and lest I forget...I promised Enid, who left a comment about the wedding we went to a couple of weeks ago, that I would post a picture of our youngest son. I had posted several of the older boys(men) and there weren't any of ds.
He isn't here by himself, but here is all of he boys, and I can still call them that cuz I am the evil wicked stepmother. The youngest thinks his older brothers are pretty "cool".

Here is one of hubby too...he actually smiled for me, although it did take me three shots to actually get a smile out of him. For some reason he thinks that he can't smile for a picture. My mother has to threaten him with bodily harm to get him to smile.

I hope that everyone is having a great week and I will post again later...Ciao

We made it!

2007-05-26T12:56:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-05-09T20:26:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

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....

Back to winter again

2007-04-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

We have left the warm springtime temps of Hagerstown, MD, where we sat for the weekend (we're talking temps near 80), and have entered the very chilly temps of northern Indiana (tems around 40). Last night when we stopped to sleep, it was sprinkling. When we woke up this morning it was a torrential downpour and our truck was leaking. There was a steady little drip at the head of our bed that soaked one corner of each or our pillows. This woke us up at about 4:45 a.m...we weren't even supposed to get up for another hour and change, but up we were. My poor DH...he got out the flashlight and was tearing apart different parts of the truck to see where the water was coming from. It is baffling why the truck is leaking, and he spent a couple of hours on Sunday caulking with silicone and it's still leaking.

I finally got the Springtime in Paris socks done. They are nice and fit me perfectly. I still hate the yarn that I used and will probably not use it for anything else, although I really like the idea of the yarn, but don't like executing the knitting with it. I love the color in the sock. They are a real departure to what I usually use, but I do like them and will wear them with my birks and crop pants with pride, because darn it.....I like them. They were knitted on size US 2 circs, toe up, two at a time out of Tofutsies yarn.

In this picture you can kind of see the Eiffel tower pattern on the one sock and the raindrop pattern shows on the one above. I will most probably wear them with the eiffel towers on the inside and not on the outside because I like the outside fabric better than the inside fabric.

Here's a picture of the very first DW dishcloth that I have done. I really like the way the red and white worked out and patterned on this. I also liked how fast this cloth worked up. It was super quick, I think I got it done in one afternoon of knitting going across Texas. This was knitted from Peaches and Creme in colorway peppermint. It was done on size US 7 needles just like the directions said to do.

Here are the things that I am working on right now. This picture, taken on the keyboard of my laptop, is a new face cloth for my mother. I made her one for Christmas that was knitted out of a cotton/linen yarn that she says that she loves and she asked for another one or two. This is being knitted out of a new yarn from Elann called Adara. It is 87.5% mercerized cotton, and 12.5% linen. It is a wonderful yarn to work with and the colors in the yarn line are incredible. My picture does not do this justice in any way. the colors in this are two purples, a bright pinky red, and a natural linen yarn.

These are the socks that I am working on for DS. They are being knitted toe up, 2 on two circs following the Crazy Heels and Toes method. They will eventually be Horcrux socks, from the pattern for the six socks KAL, but I really like the way that socks knit up using this method because it is easy peasy. They are being knitted on US size 0 circulars with Knit Picks essential tweed in a grey color way.

In my last post, I posted that I wasn't disappointed because I knew that my surprise from my SP was sitting at home. Well.....I now have it in my hot little hands and am thoroughly enjoying reading all of the text and dreaming about the patterns. There are so many that I want to knit, and I will. Thank you Tart Diva for your thoughtfulness in providing me with the hours of enjoyment that I will get out of this book.

I also want to thank all of the people that commented on my post about losing my grandmother. It was a pleasant surprise to get the emails for the comments and to know that people were reading my blog and cared enough to send their condolences. I would answer each comment separately, but I haven't figured out how to go from the comments to the email address of the poster. I will have to do so from the pages of my blog, but know that I do read everyone and appreciate all of the comments, unless of course they come from a mean spirited troll and then they will get deleted, because I can.

We are now going through Chicago, and the sky is so overcast that we can't even see the tops of the buildings that identify the Chicago skyline. Not only that, the traffic is terrible. It has been a while since we were through here, and there is all kinds of road construction that wasn't here the last time we did come through.

Well, I think that is probably all for now. I don't have any other knitting to show off, and I haven't taken pictures of the yarn I got when I went home (but I will and will post some yarn pRon for you) so I can't show and tell. Needless to say, I got some wonderful stuff and will show it the next time I post.

Another Trip through Texas

2007-04-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

Do you know how big a state Texas is???? See how straight that road is? That is the kind of road we have been traveling for three days and most of that time was in the state of Texas. We made a pick up in Wyoming and took it to Louisiana and about 600 miles of that trip was in Texas. Then we picked up in Louisiana and went to San Antonio area. That was another 500 miles in the state of Texas. Then we went to Laredo and picked up a load going to slOhio. (Yes the sl is supposed to be in front of the Ohio, because that is what truckers call Ohio when they aren't being crude. Trucks have to travel at 55 mph, which is a hazard for the trucks and the cars because of the difference in the split speeds. Cars get to travel at 70 mph and it is sometimes kind of hard to judge the difference in your speed and the truck ahead of you when they have to go so much slower and you come up on them really fast at 15 mph difference in speed.)

All of the travel in Texas showed us a different part of the state than we have been in most of the time. We got to see the eastern border, as we came out of Louisiana and that part of the country is beautiful. All green and lush and not at all like the mental picture that you get when you, or at least I, get when you/I think of Texas.

This is a really good time to travel in Texas because it is green and hasn't had a chance to dry out. Most of western Texas is farm/ranch land and during the summer, the parts that aren't irrigated are dry and dusty and windy. Right now they are just windy. Here are some pics to show you some of the beauty that is North and West Texas....Don't you just love the blue bonnets. There are carpets and carpets of these along side the road and in fields and they are just gorgeous. They make you glad that spring is here.

Let's see....knitting....I am still working on dishcloths, my springtime in paris socks, although I have gotten both of the heels turned and it's just a matter of knitting the legs and cuffs as far up as I want them to be, which won't be far. I love the pattern, I hate the yarn I am using. I love the colorway of the yarn, and I will probably like the socks when they are done. I just don't like the yarn right now because it is very splitty and I am using the wrong size needles, but they were what I had when I started and I got gauge, but it is not working out to be a really nice fabric that will wear well. Oh well, I won't buy anymore of it again....(although I think I have two skeins in different colorway. Sounds like swap fodder to me.)

I also am getting ready to start on some socks for DS. I am part of the six sock kal and I think that I will do the Horcrux socks for him. His feet have gotten so big that he can actually wear with comfort all of my store bought wool socks. Besides that, I have some really nice knit picks essential tweed that will work up nicely for that.

I was going to post some pictures of the dishcloths that I finished, but when we went to visit my granny last week, I showed them to my mother and she snagged them. They were really nice. They were knitted on US7 needles in the basket weave pattern that was the mid march dishcloth KAL. One was done in a really springy Lime green, yellow and white which I liked so much I bought another ball of it. The other was done in maroon, blue and white. The both turned out lovely and I guess that my Mom really liked them, but I just wished that I had gotten pics of them first. LOL

I am knitting a DW cloth this week in Peaches and Cream in the peppermint colorway. I like this cloth. It's not as fast for me as the basket weave, but I do like the way it works in variegated yarns.

I posted last week that my DH took a detour on the trip to Louisiana so that I could go and visit my granny, who was extremely ill. We got the call yesterday morning(afternoon) that we had lost her. I am a little sad, but she is no longer hurting and has gone to heaven. She had gotten so that she wouldn't eat, couldn't breathe very well and her white blood count was very high, for no reason that the doctors where she lived could find. She was supposed to go to a hematologist and an oncologist yesterday, but that didn't happen. There was some thought that she had developed some kind of leukemia or some other blood disorder or cancer. I personally think that she was ready to go. She was so uncomfortable and absolutely hated the fact that she couldn't feed herself or get out of be and was dependent on everyone around her for every little thing. But, it was funny, when we went to visit her, even as sick as she was, she was still worried about how her hair looked, because she had company, you know.

We won't be going to the funeral. I don't feel the need to go and say goodbye, I did that when we saw her. I don't feel the need to go see all of the family that might be at her funeral because they didn't see her when she was sick, and that makes me angry. My cousins, and there are a lot of them, couldn't be bothered to go and see their grandmother when she was on her deathbed. Most of them live in the same town/city that she did and it was too much to ask for them to go and spend 20 minutes with her. Anyway...that's my rant about that. I feel better now.

I guess that is all that I need to say tonight. We are done driving for today (at 8:37) and we might get to watch a movie or something.

I am no longer disappointed

2007-04-12T11:20:00.000-07:00

This was supposed to be posted yesterday, but because we outran our signal, I had to wait until today to actually post it.

I am no longer disappointed. My Secret Pal came through for me.
She knew how much I was lusting after this:

and Lo and behold when my sister went and checked the mail the other day....there it was with a nice little note about this being only the first surprise. Now that is exciting, granted, I haven't gotten to actually see or hold my very own copy of the book yet....but I have it on really good authority that it is with my mail and will be there when we get on the other side of the country again and can pick up the mail.

We are in Colorado right now. My grandmother is extremely ill and so my wonderful DH decided that we could go the long route to our delivery in LA and swing through Colorado Springs, CO and see my granny. My folks picked us up at the truck stop because it was their day to come to town and spend the meal times with my granny feeding her and just being with her. We also had to have another small problem (less than $200) with our truck fixed and were able to do that before my folks got to town and so DH was able to go with us to see granny and out to lunch. We went to a Chinese Buffet and had a good lunch with my folks. We then had to get back to the truck and head out, but not before we went with my Dad to look at a truck that he's looking to buy. He kind of wanted DH's opinion on it, so we went and spent an hour or so looking at it and my Mom and I sat and visited in the car while the boys took the truck out for a test drive.

I have some pictures of things that we saw on the road from Peetz, CO to Casper WY. You know you always hear about the land marks that people saw as they were traveling on the wagon trains. Well we went up the back roads out of Sidney, NE and were able to see Chimney Rock. It was about sundown and the rock was outlined against the colors of the sky. It was beautiful.

Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoythe glimpses of our journies

April Snow

2007-04-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, April 6th, this is what we woke up to:
Great big fat snow flakes....it's April for goodness sake. I guess this is Global warming in all its glory! LOL

The really weird thing about this snow was that 10 minutes later, this is what the view out our windshield was:

This whole thing was repeated about 3 times in the time that we got up, got dressed and walked over to Waffle house to have breakfast. The sky would be blue with not a cloud in it and then 10-15 minutes later another snow squall would blow in and the process would be repeated. It was pretty, but made for some slick walking and driving.

Here is some snow on the fender of our truck:

After we left the truck stop I spent most of the day working on my knitting. I finally finished a dishcloth of the man in the moon that I had been working on and started the one from the 2007 March Mid-month KAL. I know, I know, I'm running a bit behind on the dishcloth KAL. But, like the Yarn Harlot says....there are no knitting police and I can do things in MY own good time.

I sent my secret pal a surprise the other day, and it seemed to go over well. That's good, you know, as I don't want to send things that are crappy. I'm just hoping that I am reading her answers to her questions correctly and purchasing the things that she likes. It's really kind of fun because we have a lot of the same likes and dislikes, so it's kind of like hunting up things that I would like.

Today the weather in Iowa is absolutely visually beautiful. The temperature when you go outside is kind of brutal, but visually it "looks" like a spring day. We stopped in a rest area yesterday that had a bunch of spring flowers out that were looking just pitiful. The temps had fallen so low that they were "frosted" and kind of just curled in on themselves. I felt bad cuz they were so wilted. Not that there was anything I could do, but you know...

Again, I want to wish everyone a "Happy Easter".

Lynda

I'm disappointed

2007-04-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

My secret pal told me that she sent me something and I didn't get it before we had to leave out again. :-(

We had a load snafu yesterday and so we went home to get the week's mail and take showers and sleep in a bigger than single bed. We even went to the post office this morning to make sure that we got all of the mail that was there. The postal people didn't have it all put up, but the postmistress that was on the counter was kind enough to check and make sure that we didn't have any cuz she knows that we drive a truck and we had told her that we were leaving. Oh well....I'll have to get it next time we go home.

We applied for our own authority today, or at least we filled out the paper work and sent it to the office of OOIDA for processing today. It will take a month or six weeks until we actually have our own MC number and have the ability to haul loads that we choose instead of being subject to the vagaries of the powers that be.

This whole thing is just more than a little scary. While we are leased to someone they are responsible to find our loads and to pay us, whether they get paid or not. When we go out on our own, we have to do the collection and finding the loads and all of the paperwork that that entails.

Anyway, in the linear course of getting to the point that we can do this on our own, we signed up for one of the internet load boards and when our company is slow in coming up with something, I go online and find us a load. The only problem with the internet load boards is that a lot of what ends up on them is the crap that nobody wants. Stuff that moves for $1.11 a mile just don't cut it. We really have to have more than that to keep our heads above water.

On the knitting front, I have turned the heel and finished one of the feet on my Springtime in Paris socks. I really like the pattern and the colorway of the yarn that I am using, I just think that I am using needles that are a little too large and probably should have used US 1's or maybe even horrors US 0's. They look fine, and they fit fine, I just think that the fabric could have been a little firmer and therefore they would probably wear a little better than I think they aren't going to wear.

We are on our way to Colorado. Have you ever heard of Peetz, Colorado? Me neither, and I grew up in Colorado. See that little blue box on the map? Peetz is about in the middle of that little box. It really is out in the middle of, as my Dad would say, "Nowheresville". I guess that they are putting a wind generating farm out there and we are delivering parts of one of the cranes that is going to be setting these things up. This load is a load that I found for us and before the company took its cut, it paid about $2.00 a mile. That's not a bad freight rate.

Going to Colorado seems like it will be a good thing. I talked to my Dad today, and I found out that my granny is very ill. She's 88 or 89 and scrappy as all get out, but Dad said she isn't doing real well. He and his siblings are taking turns sitting with her during the day, so it sounds like maybe we should get there to see her. I guess that when we drop this load, or before, I will get online and see what there is that picks up in Denver and heads south or West and we'll take a detour through the Springs to see her.

I guess that's all the news that I have, at least for now, so I will sign off before I am booted off by losing my connection.

Have a Happy Easter!!!!!! and remember that Christ rose from the Dead on the third day and that is the reason we celebrate.

Has it been that long

2007-03-31T13:35:00.000-07:00

Has it really been since the 21st since I have blogged. Time sometimes really does get away from me and I don't know where it has gone... ;-)

We have been "home" since Wednesday, and it is driving my DH nuts. We have needed to clean out the inside of the truck some for a while because when you have three people and a dog living on a truck, it gets crowded in a hurry. When you add all of the "stuff" i.e. school books, reading materials, knitting paraphernalia, and the clothing that we all need, we just don't have all that much room. We then add all of the things that we "think" we might need and it just gets out of control. Add to the fact that winter clothes and hats and boots and socks and scarves and mittens and gloves all take up way more room than warm weather stuff, and we just were overburdened. We have spent the last couple of days doing some sifting and refining and have taken a lot of things off the truck, but DH is DRIVING ME NUTS!!!!!!!!! I guess that Husbands are supposed to do that to wives. Isn't it what keeps us knowing that we are alive?

One of the things entailed in cleaning out the truck was getting my little yarn stash under control. When I started to organize it, I realized that my small yarn stash was not so small. It had outgrown the two boxes that I had to contain it (it might has something to do with listening to Lime n Violette and all of their yarn pRon) so I had to decide what could be left at home and what I NEEDED on the truck. DH made the observation that perhaps I am collecting yarn. Not just any yarn, mind you, but sock yarn. Really really nice sock yarn, at that. So, I had to box up about half of it and leave it in the container in a box...boo hooo, waaaahhh. But he's happy that what I have on the truck is contained in one tub, that can be pushed under the bed, and it isn't at our feet any longer. It makes for a roomier look to the truck, whether that is reality or not.

I also got to play with my new ball winder. My sister makes a wonderful yarn swift. She is able to hold the right tension and keeps the yarn coming off the skeins just right. DS loses interest too quickly. He really wants to help until he realizes that it is a major undertaking and it is cutting into his computer game time. DH makes a passable yarn swift, although he tends to keep his hands at the wrong angle and then the yarn doesn't flow as smoothly as it should. After an hour or so of winding yarn into balls, he saw the real need for a real swift and so will build me one at his first opportunity. YAY!

Anyway, I have been working on the Six socks KAL socks, and darn-it, I won't have them done today. I am such a bad KAL person. Although, I did only have part of March to do them...so maybe I "ain't so bad". Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I was assigned my swap partner for the Secret Pal #10 and then my computer promptly ate the emails that I had gotten from the SP hostess along with all the information about the swap and I was going nuts. I didn't want my spoilee to think that I was a flake and not contacting her and all of that, but I didn't have her contact info. Then I find out that the hostess has had her computer go belly up with the hard drive fried and I'm thinking that we are deep trouble. But I should have know....you don't get to be a Secret Pal hostess without being way more organized than I am. She had the forethought to print out the list of all of the swap partners she had partnered up and she was able to give me the contact info so that I wouldn't look so bad and could actually not flake out on the swap....Thank you Heatherly!!!!

I have been glancing through some of the blogs that I like to read, and I am sooo jealous of all of the people that got to got to NYC and REPRESENT. We were so close, but so far and I couldn't make it. We were on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, which would have entailed driving straight up US 13 through DE and NJ and then I could have taken the train and all, but it wasn't in the cards. I will have to keep track of where else she is going to be and then maybe I can do one. I would so love to see her and see the things that everyone was talking about.

I guess I should get off of here and go help the DH drive me just a little more nuts than I am, but it's better to be a little nuts than in the dog house. LOL

Have a good one.

Welcome to Spring

2007-03-21T16:47:00.000-07:00

Today is the first full day of Spring and it sure feels like it here in Tennessee. We got a load out of Texas and are heading to Lancaster, PA. The route from the Dallas area to Lancaster takes us directly through Louisville, KY. That means that we get to go to the Mid-America Trucking Show for Thursday and Friday. We also have enough time to go through West Virginia and get our mail....which should have some really nifty things for me and others in our family. I know that I have several skeins of sock yarn sitting at home waiting for me and DS has some books, and there might be a cd or something for DH. When you don't get your mail for several weeks at a time, it makes for surprises several times a year.

I am still working on the socks for Six Socks KAL for this period. I am bound and determined that I will get them done by the end of the month so that I can start on the next socks when the KAL starts and not feel so rushed. Two months should be plenty of time to get a KAL done, wouldn't you think?

I also have another pair of socks otn for DS. They are on little bitty needles and since he is so hard on socks, I thought that a really firm fabric would be good. He doesn't have very big feet, so it shouldn't take too long, although I am spending most of my time working on mine and not his.

I haven't started the mid month dishcloth for the MonthlyDischcloths KAL
yet as I have another dishcloth on the needles that is a man in the moon and I want to finish that before I start the other. We went to Wally world today and the selection of yarn was pitiful. I wanted to buy some Bernat or something like that and all they had in the main section was a bunch of different acrylics. I then went to look at their pitiful selection of knitting needles and found some dishcloth cotton, peaches and cream. They also had some of the 1 pound cones, in cream, white and one variegated. I almost bought a cone of the cream, but didn't know where I would keep it. Not only that, but just how many cream colored dishcloths do I want?

I'm hoping that Spring is here to stay. I need for it to be spring, I
need to quit wearing the long sleeved shirts and get out my t-shirts. But to do that, I need to clean all of the winter stuff out of my closet here on the truck and get the stuff out of the container so that I have more than 2 t-shirts and warm weather clothes. Is it safe to do that? Do I dare take off most of the cold weather clothes and swap? Will we get somewhere where I will freeze to death because I don't have the right clothing? Such a dilemma!!!!

This blogging thing is getting easier and easier the longer I do it. I am getting more proficient about being able to put things into the blog that I want to add. I don't always get the pictures taken that I want to take, but at least it won't be so blah now that I can put clip art and stuff into it, YAY!!!! Isn't it just a bit more cheery with the flowers for spring?

I don't have much else to post, except for a big Hello to my Secret Pal 10 swap partner. I can hardly wait to start spoiling my partner and being spoiled by my other partner. I think that it will be fun and my spoilee will be surprised...at least I hope so.

Enjoy Spring.

Happy St. Paddy's Day

2007-03-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

Every time I talk about our Irish heritage in the hearing of my sister, she questions where I got Irish heritage. I then have to proceed to remind her about where our families came from and what their last names were. Then she understands that just maybe we have the right to claim a little bit o' the Irish.

We were sitting just north of Pittsburgh, PA yesterday morning getting our load from Laredo off of our trailer when that winter Nor'Easter started. It started as little balls of ice and then in the course of about 15 minutes turned into great big, fat flakes of snow. Before we got out of there, there was probably 1/2 to 1" on the ground. We left there and went to the grocery store where we got the requisite dinner of corned beef and cabbage, which we cooked in our crock pot. When we came out of the store, the snow in that area had abated for a bit.

We are on our way to the Dallas area, and the further south and west that we get, the warmer it gets. You would never know that we had just come out of that nasty weather up in the northeast if our truck and trailer wasn't so dirty and until this afternoon, covered with 2 inches of ice.

On the knitting scene, I am still working on the socks for six socks KAL. I had to frog them clear back last night because there were some problems with them. Let's see, I miscounted the stitches per inch and made them 12 stitches too wide for my feet. Then, for some reason, there were a couple of places on the increase areas of the toes that had holes that I couldn't fix except to frog. I was going to leave then as they were, but then I wanted them to be wearable and to last for a while so I decided to frog them and start over. Now, to get them done before the end of the month. The yarn I'm using for the socks ----------------->>>>

I also have a pair of sock on the needles for the DS. They are on 0's, so they are going to be taking a little longer....but they will be a good firm fabric that should last until he outgrows them.

I am also working on a dishcloth called "Purly moon". It's cute and is going well. It has the man in the moon in it and I am doing it in light blue cotton-lin, which I like a lot. It works up nicely.

I have downloaded the first two days of the mid-month dishcloth KAL, but have decided to wait until I am done with the one I'm working on to start it.

We organized my yarn last night. I had the bag of yarn that I had gotten at Stitches west but we hadn't put the yarn away yet. We just kept moving it around because it didn't have a place. In January I had purchased these large crafttainer's at AC Moore just to store my yarn and my books on the truck. My yarn quickly outgrew the one for yarn and so we put the books in a box and the yarn in the second container. Now it is organized by sock and dishcloth and then the other container has the yarn I bought for the Kerry sweater from Black Water Abbey Yarn, (which looks a whole lot better than the picture shows) and other miscellaneous yarns such as the yarn I bought to knit the dog a sweater and the gloss that I bought for the DH and some other wool that I can't remember what it is.

I hope that we get out of Dallas and they send us back east. We have requested to go to Louisville, KY for next weekend so that we can go to the Mid-America Truck Show. Think Stitches on steroids with everything geared towards Semi trucks. We went last year and weren't able to get there until the last day and we only saw half of the show. We got the things we went for, but we didn't see any of the show trucks or the trucks they have set up to look at and missed all of the music, etc. Also, I hope the weather is better this year than it was last year. It was so cold when you had to stand in line for the shuttle buses and stuff.

I hope you have had a good St. Patrick's Day!!!

Finally...

2007-03-10T12:58:00.000-08:00

I finally got some pictures taken of my "finished object". I have several dishcloths and the pair of socks that I was working on for my DH. I was trying to upload the pictures, but they seem to not want to show up in my blog. You can look at the things I have finished here. Technical glitches that I can't fix sometimes drive me nuts...;-)

In the "on the Road" part of this blog, we are traveling across Texas on our way to Laredo. The temperature is a balmy 83 degrees, the sky is blue with large, fat, fluffy white clouds scattered across it. It sure is different than the 12 to 18 degrees that we were experiencing as late as Wednesday up in the Chicago area. Tuesday night in Janesville, WI it snowed on us. Only about an inch or inch and a half, but it was still white, it was still precipitation and it was still cold.

I was going to post some pictures of what we did on Sunday, while we were still stuck in Rapid City, SD. If you would like to look at the pictures of our "mini-vacation" please go here.

I am looking forward to finding out who I am partnered up with for Secret Pal #10.
I have some ideas for thing to find for my PAL as we travel around, but I have been patiently waiting until I find out some more about them. What I like, might not be what they like and I don't want to buy or make or anything something that isn't going to fit them to a T.

I guess that's all the news that fit to print. Hope everyone that might just take a glance at this is have a wonderful day and a better weekend.

Ciao

Secret Pal #10 (revisited)

2007-03-07T01:01:00.000-08:00

I am going to join this Secret Pal # 10 and the rules say that you have to answer the questionaire and have the answers posted on your blog, so here goes:

#1. What is your favorite yarn to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *NOT* like? I like all yarns that are natural fibers. I have been using some bamboo Tofutsies lately that I like, a lot, or at least since I got the yarn vomit cleaned up. I don't like the novelty yarns very much and absolutely abhor one type of moda dea yarn that has tinsel running through it that I used to make a scarf for my sister.

#2. What do you store your needles/hooks in? I store my knitpicks in the case they came in. My straight single points are in the top tray of my stash box and my crochet hooks are in my large knitting bag. DH has said that he will make me a needle case with leather on the outside...we'll see.

#3. How long have you been knitting and where did you learn? Do you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? I have been knitting off and on for 30 years. I learned in junior high home ec class and would consider that I am an advanced beginner. I am game to try anything as long as it contains knits or purls and working some of the things I have lately, and successfully, yo, ssk, ssks...etc..

#4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? I do have an Amazon wish list that actually has some knitting books on it and can be found at spoons34595@mypacks.net on amazon.

#5. What's your favorite scent? I love the scent of English Lavender and vanilla, but my favorite perfume is an Irish perfume called Inis. It's clean and crisp.

#6. Do you have a sweet tooth? What's your favorite candy? A little bit of a sweet tooth. Chocolate of course, but DARK chocolate. LOL

#7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I like to sew, plan for building our house and decorate. I do spin, although I haven't since we have been on the truck. I own a wheel and will again when our house is built.

#8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3's (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)? I like all kinds of music. We listen to country, western, christian, Celtic, Irish, jazz, swing, 40's, but not hard rock and especially not headbanging music.

#9. What's your favorite color? Any color that you just can't stand? I am partial to greens that are on the dark end of the scale and like colors that complement the greens, like browns, blues, some pale yellows. I really don't like orange and virulent purples.

#10 What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I am happily married to the love of my life. We own a small trucking company (1 truck and my husband drives) that we lease to a larger company. We are on the road all the time, but have Internet access most of the time and enjoy what we do. We have a Parsons Jack Russell terrier and a DS that travel with us.

#11 Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or poncho's? I do wear scarves, hat, and mittens, but have never, and I mean never, seen the point of a poncho. I mean really....

#13 What is/are your favorite item(s) to knit? I am really liking the sock thing. I also like knitting dishcloths because they are quick and easy. They also allow you to try out different stitches and practice for a while and then be done.

#14 What are you knitting right now? I am working on a.) pair of socks made from Tofutsies yarn. They are being done Toe up on two #2 circular needles for this months Six Socks KAL. Love this style. b.) a scarf for my ds c.) a couple of dishcloths and d.) a pair of socks for my ds

#15 Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, plastic, aluminum? I have become very partial to Knit Picks options. I use them for everything because they come in so many sizes and lengths. I do have various sizes of bamboo straights and finally gave my aluminum straights to my niece.

#16 Do you have a yarn winder or a swift? I recently used a 40% off coupon to order a ball winder, but the only swift that I have is my husbands two arms, although he plans to remedy that and make me one modeled after the ones that we saw at Stitches West.

#17. How old is your oldest UFO? I have a blanket that I am working on for my ds that is several months old that is being done in crochet. The other things that I have are only a few weeks old.

#18. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas used to be my favorite holiday, but things in our family have changed so much lately that it is not the holiday that I remember. It has become stressful instead of peaceful. I do like Thanksgiving because we get to spend it with my parents and don't have the stresses that are there when we do Christmas.

#19. Is there anything you collect? I have a rather large collection of Boyd's Bears that is going to be liquidated when we get our container moved and I can get to the boxes. I collect Red Wing pottery, yellow ware bowls and advertising items, and crockery or pottery that is unique.

#20. Any books, yarn, needles or patterns out there that you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I would like to have some of the Austermann Step yarn in one of the natural colorways to make a pair of socks out of. I also really want the Mason Dixon Knitting book because of all of the great reviews I have read and from looking at the book. I am really spoiled and bad about just ordering what I want, although I am going to stop that so that I can give my dh something to have on my list for him to purchase. I have not subscribed to any of the knitting mags because I haven't decided which one of the magazines I like the best.

#21. Are there any techniques that you would like to learn? I want to learn Fair Isle and steeking....but only after I get proficient at the socks that I have started to work on. Steeking scares me to death. I work so hard to get the fabric of whatever it is done so that it looks nice and then I cut into it?

#22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? I am learning to knit socks, but I have yet to take my foot measurements. I wear a size 8 shoes, and usually wear women's medium socks.

#23. When is your birthday? My birthday is July 8th.

March 3rd

2007-03-03T18:55:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that it is March 3rd already and I haven't posted in a while. We left Seattle the other day and have had a wild ride for the last few days. First we broke down in Missoula, MT and spent the better part of a day sitting in the Caterpillar Truck engine repair building. We got that fixed, went to the truck stop for the night and then headed out across Montana. We got to Broadus, MT where it snowed on us and was soooooo cold. Then the next morning we made off across South Dakota in horrible blowing snow, cold, cold temps and icy roads. We got to the scales and were told that most of the state was closed on I-90, so we should go to Rapid City, SD and sit it out in the truck stop. That was yesterday morning about 10 am and here we sit. We thought we might get out today, and DH called the port of entry to get the paper work extended so that we could go and they changed their mind and said that we couldn't go. The roads are still closed to over sized loads and until the state police say so, we have to sit. Not only that, it sounds like Minnesota still has a lot of road closures or at least "difficult travel conditions" (as quoted from the 511 road report system) which means that we can't move.

On the knitting front....I have finished the socks for DH. They turned out very nice and I have cast on for the socks for the Six Socks KAL. It is an interesting sock and I think that I will have fun knitting it. I also have finished the mid month Dishcloth the the Dishcloth KAL and started the one for the first of this month. I have the yarn separated and in my project bag for socks for my DS and I will probably start them in the next couple of days.

I will post some pictures when we get out of South Dakota and I am not on the T-mobile hotspot in the Borders in Rapid City.

I got to.......

2007-02-26T13:37:00.000-08:00

go to Stitches West. Now you know, I just went there to fondle the yarn and to see what all the fuss was about in some of the yarns. (Yeah right!!!!) I wasn't going to buy anything but a skein to finish the DH's socks, but he is an enabler. He's the one that told me I had to limit my stash, but he's also the one who told me to buy the 10 skeins of yarn to make the Kerry sweater just because we were in the booth and she happened to have all 10 skeins. He also told me to buy ___________________________ (fill in the blank) because it had to be less expensive at the show cuz you don't have to pay shipping. Any how, we got into the show about 3 p.m. and had done a really quick run around by the time they closed at 6 p.m. That allowed me time to think I saw all of the booths and to buy way more than I had gone there to buy. Oh such "cool" yarn. I fed the sock yarn monster and then some. Went to the Brooks Farms booth and could have spent oh so much in there, but decided that I would either see them at MS&W in May or order online. They had a cardigan that I want to knit, and I want to use their yarn for it, so I could only buy one sweater's worth this go around.

I had an extremely hard time resisting the cashmere yarns. At $30 an ounce (yes you read that right), I was just a little leary of "messing" it up. Besides that, you have to buy at least 3-4 ounces and that would make for some expensive _____________________.

I was on overload while at the show. I saw so many things that I wanted to use, but only had so much time and so much money. At least now I know that I want to buy a bunch of yarn from Brooks Farms. Their yarn is incredible. I did buy some, in an incredible red/brown colorway that my camera just doesn't do justice to. The colors are much richer and the sheen is just amazing. Granted this yarn is 20% silk, but it just screamed my name when I saw it.

I also got several skeins of sock yarn: some Tofutsies, a skein of Trekking XXL pro natura in a blue/green colorway that reminds me of the colors in blackwatch plaid. I also got some hand painted Kangaroo dyed yarns that have a green/gray/purple colorway that is rich and yummy.

I found myself being drawn to the natural colors and more muted colors. Nothing I bought, except for the bright pink Tofutsies, was anything but muted colors. All of the colors were rich and deep and vibrant. I can hardly wait to get started on the projects and the socks for the yarn I had, plus the yarn I bought.

If you want to see pictures of the other yarns I got, although the pictures aren't great, go to Stitches West Haul.

I have decided that if I get to plan to go to another Stitches event, I am going to plan to take a couple of the classes that they offer. There were a lot of classes that sounded like they would be something that I would like to take, but I didn't know I was going to get to go and by the time I did, all of the classes were full. It is soooooo hard to plan anything with the vagaries of the trucking industry. We just never know if we are going to be able to go where we have asked to go, or if they are going to send us in the opposite direction.

Anyway, it was a good time and I would have liked to have a lot longer to wander and fondle and make purchase decisions.

Such Variety

2007-02-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

You remember one of the last posts I made I talked about the 4-5 foot snow drifts and the cold temps....Ain't so anymore. We are in Laredo, TX and the temp is 85 degrees. Such a change from where we were just a few days ago. Instead of having to bundle up, we are wearing T-shirts and crop pants (at least I am). I overheard in the truckstop one of the clerks commenting on someone complaining about the heat. She said that we don't know what hot is, because they still think that it is cold here. I told her that if you come from -12 below to this, it is hot, but a welcome change.

We are heading to L.A. with this load and I thought, Oh, wouldn't Stitches West be great fun. I then looked at the location of Stitches West and unless we get a load going north, I don't think that DH will drive the 300 miles or so that would take us to Santa Clara.....but oh what fun would be had by all. I guess I'm still holding out for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.

I am still working on the DH's socks, but ran into what looks like it will be a snag. I guess that it just didn't compute with me that 50 grams of worsted weight wool is not going to be enough to make socks for him and I started them anyway. Now I am going to have to knit until the yarn runs out and then wait until we go by my mom's and can pick up the yarn that I ordered from Webs. It was a good thing that I kept the online receipt I had gotten from them, because when I was looking at the yarn in the pictures on the website, I would have ordered a totally different color than what I was using. The yarn I had was soft brown and I would have ordered something with a name of gold something because it looked closer to what I was using than the soft brown did. Also, when I was on the website, I had to add a couple of things to the order, don't ya know. Now I have something to look forward to when we get to mom's.

I was looking at a couple of blogs, and I saw some really good comments and recommendations about Sweet Georgia yarns. I decided to go and look at her stuff, and found out that she is planning to take a hiatus of at least 6 months, soooooo I just had to find some Sweet Georgia Yarn. I found and bought, so will have that the next time we make it to West Virginia. I also bought some Austerman Step yarn bacause I want to knit up some for socks for my mother who has perpetually dry feet. I'm thinking that the aloe and jojoba will help with that.

I have copied and saved the pattern for the Mid-month Dishcloth KAL, but I haven't started on it yet. I also haven't finished the one from the first of the month, even though I have the patter all printed out and everything. I started to work on these socks, and everything else kind of fell by the wayside. I probably could finish the one from the first of the month tonight or tomorrow and then finish the one from my knitting book and then I would have finished up 2 of the 4 wips. I think that it would make DH happy if I did that, especially since I bought new yarn (he doesn't know that yet) and it would make room in my bag for some of the sock yarn that is in my stash box, then my stash box wouldn't look so full and THAT would definately make him feel better. I have to admit that he is a good sport about the room that I take up with my "stuff" and he doesn't complain overly much....well okay, he does complain, but doesn't make me take it off the truck. I keep reminding him that yarn weighs a whole lot less than the myriad of books that I used to have on the truck. I have cut those down to very few since I picked up on the knitting again.

I thik that will have to be all for today. It looks like DH has reached the point in securing the load where he would like for me to help. When we have to tarp a load, I usually go help him....and a lot of the time even when we don't because we get done faster if I do and he can't do it all by himself.

Brrrrrrr!!!!!!

2007-02-15T16:35:00.000-08:00

We got a load on tuesday that picked up in Western Maryland. That was a good thing! :-) It went to West Chicago, IL, which put us through the path of that wicked storm that hit the midwest and the northeast. On Tuesday night we stopped for dinner in PA and the ground was covered with slush and ice and snow and it was pouring down rain with a temp of about 20 degrees. It was nasty. We headed out of the truck stop and into Ohio. I had routed us over US 250 and then started to think about the weather and the road (which is mountainous and twisty and two laned) and decided that I had better find another way. I'm glad I did. The way we went was bad enough. We saw no less than 4 truck accidents and countless cars off in the ditch because the roads were slick as snot and people were just driving too fast.

Tuesday night we found a parking space in a rest area and went to sleep for our allotted 8 hours and got up to about 2 feet of snow and drifts that were as much as 4-6 feet. YUK! As we were getting dressed and stuff, we watched three or four trucks struggle to get through the drifts of the parking area. It was literally pushing the snow out of the way with the bumper and dragging your load over the drifts that had accumulated between the tractor and the trailer. About the time the 3rd truck was working his way out, two plow trucks showed up. they wanted to clean the parking lot but were unable to because of the trucks. They helped the one that was having trouble with the ice by putting salt or sand under his tires and he finally got out. That left us and one other truck. We weren't going anywhere fast because of the drifts and a 44,000 lb load of lumber, not to mention the ice that was under all of that snow. We couldn't get any traction. So my dh got out and asked for some sand or salt from the snow plow guy, and then he helped the other truck out of his space, and by the time he got done, we able to just drive out because the salt and sand and my dh with a shovel, had worked their magic and we pulled out without anymore trouble.

During the time that we were trying to get out and waiting and all, I was knitting on the pair of socks that I'm making. I was going to town, too, and got lots done. Then last night, after our little Valentine's day party for the ds, I made copies of the sock fitting sheet from Crazy Toes and Heels and decided that the socks that I was working so dilligently on were not going to fit anyone that lives in our house and unless you are a duck, they wouldn't have fit you either. So we visited frog city and tore them out back to where there were the correct number of stitches on the needles an will continue them again from there so that they will fit the dh. Ds said he wanted them, but I had already promised them to the dh, so ds will have to wait.

I haven't worked on any of the other wips, because I want to get the socks done, and now that I have measured all of the feet in our family, I will be able to make socks that actually fit and will actually be worn.

Now we are on our way down to Gregory, TX which is real near Corpus Christie....hopefully it will be warm down there. I'm about tired of this cold weather. I've taken to wearing my silk long john shirt under the sweater just for the extra layer.

I guess that is all for now.....have a great one.

Some more WIP's documented by NEW camera

2007-02-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

I have a picture of one of the socks that I am knitting. I am doing them toe up on 2 circ's and love this process of knitting socks. I started some cuff down and felt like I was getting nowhere fast, so I ordered the book Crazy Toes and Heels and really like the process a whole lot better. At least this way I feel like I am making progress. The only problem, and I know that it is me, is that I haven't figured out what I am doing that is making the toes so square. I will figure it out on the next pair...this one is for learning. At least that's what DH keeps telling me. At least they look better now than they did before. It least the toe is 2-3 inches wide instead of just 1/2-1 inch wide.

Here is a picture of the scarf that I am knitting for the ds. It is a pattern that I am making up as I go along and so far it is several rows of strait knitting; followed by a few rows of ribbing and then several rows of seed stitch. I then repeat what I had done and it looks really nice. I tried to do something with cables and I was having a terrible time, so I frogged it and started this. It is going a lot faster, although not as fast as ds wants it to.

I guess that is all I have to show off today, but it makes me happy that my wonderful, sweet DH took me out and bought a new camera so that I can do things like this and actually take pictures of things like Mt. Ranier and animals, etc. YAY YAY YAY

Pictures of WIPS

2007-02-11T14:32:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of February KAL for Monthly Dishcloths on Yahoo Groups. I am about 1/3 of the way finished with it and will work on it when we get back in the truck. I have the pattern printed out and everytime I am down there I forget it and when I want it, it's too much to go down the loooonnngg driveway and get it. Next week....I'll think about that next week. :-)
This is some Alacama wool that is 100% alpaca wool I found at A.C. Moore for $3.97 a hank. There is 50g in each hank, so I bought two so that I can make a pair of socks. This color is for socks for my sister.
This color is for me. I bought this one first and went back and bought the other two the next day because the price is so good and the colors are wonderful as well.
This final color, by default, will become a pair of socks for my mother. She will be surprised.

I have some other pictures of wips that I will post on another post so that it doesn't get too labor intensive to download if you have a slow connection.

Still at home

2007-02-07T17:33:00.000-08:00

We got home yesterday afternoon and are still here....no load, or at least not one that would pay enough to warrant taking it. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

I frogged the socks. The toes were square and that is not how they were supposed to look. My dh kept telling me just to finish them and not worry about it because they were my first and I was entitled to make a mistake on my first. They just weren't looking like I wanted them to, so I frogged them and frogged them and finally found another cast on that is working and the toes are round. Yay!!!

I got a package yesterday when we came home from Knit Picks. I had ordered some gloss yarn and some dancing sock yarn from them and it was here when we got home. When I finish the practice pair, I will start on the pair for hubby. Maybe I will have my two socks on two circs book by them and be able to follow the pattern so that they work better.

I found a site that will generate a custom sweater for your dog and we have such a weebie dog that we decided she needs a better, warmer something so I am going to make her a sweater. I have some variagated wool ease that may make a really warm sweater. We'll see.

Until the next time. Hopefully we'll be back on the road again.

Secret Pal # 10

2007-02-06T11:55:00.000-08:00

I am going to join this Secret Pal # 10 and the rules say that you have to answer the questionaire and have the answers posted on your blog, so here goes:

#1. What is your favorite yarn to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *NOT* like? I like all yarns that are natural fibers. I'm not wild about acrylic but will use it if it is appropriate.

#2. What do you store your needles/hooks in? I store my knitpicks in the case they came in. My straight single points are in a pocket in my knitting bag and my crochet hooks are in another pocket. DH has said that he will make me a needle case with leather on the outside...we'll see.

#3. How long have you been knitting and where did you learn? Do you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? I have been knitting off and on for 30 years. I learned in junior high home ec class and would consider that I am an advanced beginner. I am game to try anything as long as it contains knits or purls.

#4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wishlist? I do have an Amazon wish list that actually has some knitting books on it.

#5. What's your favorite scent? I love the scent of English Lavendar, but my favorite perfume is an Irish perfume called Inis. It's clean and crisp.

#6. Do you have a sweet tooth? What's your favorite candy? A little bit of a sweet tooth. Chocolate of course, but DARK chocolate. LOL

#7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? I like to sew, plan for building our house and decorate. I do spin, although I haven't since we have been on the truck. I own a wheel and will again when our house is built.

#8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3's (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)? I like all kinds of music. We listen to country, western, christian, celtic, irish, jazz, swing, 40's, but not hard rock and especially not headbanging music.

#9. What's your favorite color? Any color that you just can't stand? I am partial to greens that are on the dark end of the scale and like colors that complement the greens, like browns, blues, some pale yellows. I really don't like orange and virulent purples.

#10 What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I am happily married to the love of my life. We own a small trucking company (1 truck and my husband drives) that we lease to a larger company. We are on the road all the time, but have internet access most of the time and enjoy what we do. We have a Parsons Jack Russell terrier and a DS that travel with us.

#11 Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or poncho's? I do wear scarves, hat, and mittens, but have never, and I mean never, seen the point of a poncho. I mean really....

#13 What is/are your favorite item(s) to knit? I am really liking the sock thing. I also like knitting dishcloths because they are quick and easy. They also allow you to try out different stitches and practice for a while and then be done.

#14 What are you knitting right now? I am working on a.) pair of socks made of merino worsted. They are being done Toe up on two #3 circular needles. Love this style. b.) a scarf for my ds c.) a couple of dishcloths.

#15 Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, plastic, aluminum? I have become very partial to Knit Picks options. I use them for everything because they come in so many sizes and lengths. I do have various sizes of bamboo straights and finally gave my aluminum straights to my niece.

#16 Do you have a yarn winder or a swift? I recently used a 40% off coupon to order a ball winder, but the only swift that I have is my husbands two arms.

#17. How old is your oldest UFO? I have a blanket that I am working on for my ds that is several months old that is being done in crochet. The other things that I have are only a few weeks old.

#18. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas used to be my favorite holiday, but things in our family have changed so much lately that it is not the holiday that I remember. It has become stressful instead of peaceful. I do like Thanksgiving because we get to spend it with my parents and don't have the stressors that are there when we do Christmas.

#19. Is there anything you collect? I have a rather large collection of Boyd's Bears that is going to be liquidated when we get our container moved and I can get to the boxes. I collect Redwing pottery, yellow ware bowls and advertising items, and crockery or pottery that is unique.

#20. Any books, yarn, needles or patterns out there that you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? I would like to have some of the Austermann Step yarn in one of the natural colorways to make a pair of socks out of. I also really want the Mason Dixon Knitting book because of all of the great reviews I have read and from looking at the book. I am really spoiled and bad about just ordering what I want, although I am going to stop that so that I can give my dh something to have on my list for him to purchase. I have not subscribed to any of the knitting mags because I haven't decided which one of the magazines I like the best.

#21. Are there any techniques that you would like to learn? I want to learn Fair Isle and steeking....but only after I get proficient at the socks that I have started to work on. Steeking scares me to death. I work so hard to get the fabric of whatever it is done so that it looks nice and then I cut into it?

#22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurments? I am learning to knit socks, but I have yet to take my foot measurements. I wear a size 8 shoes, and usually wear women's medium socks.

#23. When is your birthday? My birthday is July 8th.

The vagaries of the Trucking world

2007-02-06T11:18:00.000-08:00

You know...sometimes I just don't get it. We ask to go home or at least run through town to pick up our mail and can our dispatcher get us with 200 miles? NOOOO. We deliver one load and he asks if we need to get home this weekend and we respond no, and what does he do? He gets us a load that delivers to the college in the town where we live. We have NEVER had a load that delivered with 100 miles of here, but we don't want to go home and here we are. It just baffles me.

Oh well, I will just accept the fact that I can pick up some mail and hopefully my knitting stuff, or at least some of it, that I have ordered online and go with it.

I really need to get a camera that will work for taking pictures. I want to post the pictures of my wip's, but my camera won't work....waaaaahhhhh. I am still working on the socks, they kind of look like elf socks with a square toe, but when I say I want to frog them, DH says to finish them and he will wear them and to chock it up to experience. I guess I will and then just go on to the next pair knowing what I did wrong. I also hope that the sock book I ordered will be in the mail when we get it. I want to learn to do toe up on two circ's without square toes. The book I ordered is by Queen Kahuna and should allow me to fix the problem of the square toes.

The scarf is still coming along and is quite pretty...ds wants it done now. Impatient little boys! LOL

I also have two discloths otn...one is the February KAL from Monthly discloths and the other is from a book called Knitter's Stash: Favorite Patterns from America's Yarn Shops. I adore this book. It has so many patterns that I want to knit up. I used it for Christmas presents. I was looking for some dishcloth patterns and when I went into my favorite LYS, they showed me this book. The patterns aren't really for dishcloths, but for face cloths made of Linen, but they worked well and were a really good size for that purpose. Not only that, it has a listing of a bunch of LYS's in it. My favorite LYS in Bozeman, Montana is in there. I want to try some of the shops in our travels across the country.

We are planning to be home the first full weekend in May so that we can go to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival . I have been before, but dh never has and he said it sounded like fun, so he will take me. I will get to shop....I never turn that down, and dh and ds will get to see sheep and dogs and other stuff that appeals to the "boys".

It's cold here with the chance of snow tonight. We got out of the mid-west just in time to miss the snow, but it looks like it followed us and will be here tonight. Bummer!!! I don't want snow.

Well that's all for today....must get some things together to get some of the clutter off of the truck when we actually make it home. DH is outside repairing things and taking things out of his trailer boxes, so I must take some things out of the inside of the truck.

Superbowl Sunday

2007-02-04T14:42:00.000-08:00

Today is the superbowl and I don't even care....I know boo hiss. But I have never been "into" football and don't have the want to to find somewhere to watch the game, although it seems like every truckstop in the country seems to have it playing.

Well, I frogged the cuff down socks on dpn's because I was getting nowhere fast. Those size 1 needles are awfully small. I found that I had 2 circ's that are size 3 and started with some merino wool that I had. These ones are toe up and I like this so much better. I guess I'm kind of an instant gratification kind of girl and I can actually see the toes on these and it makes me feel like I am getting somewhere.....yay!!!

I have finished the first three days of the monthly dishcloth mid-month KAL and I really like it. I'm doing it in Sugar and Creme, plain old red. Kind of appropriate for the theme.

It is soooooo bitter cold. The poor dog, she gets so cold when we stop and take her out. We have a coat for her and everything, but her poor little tootsies freeze. This picture of her was taken during the summer, but she looks the same, except now she wears a coat most of the time. My dh is asking why on earth I would want to post a picture of the dog on my blog...I think it kind of adds a little interest and besides that, I like our dog.

I'm still working on the scarf for the ds. He is a little impatient, especially with the cold weather that we are stuck in, but he's just going to have to wait. It will come, all in good time.

My poor mother...a couple of weeks ago I helped her spec out a new computer. The one she had had been mine 6 years ago, and I had had it for a couple of years before I gave it to her and it was on it's last legs. When we spec'ced it out we put Microsoft word on it. When it got ordered, it didn't have it. So now she is emailing me and asking where word is. I found a place for her to buy and now all is right with the world.

I swear I spend as much, if not more, time reading about knitting as I do knitting. I have to read the email digests from the various yahoo groups that I belong to. That inevitably leads to reading blogs from other people and looking at patterns, cuz you know that there are always going to be good links for things to look at. Then there is all of the other things that I need to do on the computer and keeping up with the blog and the homeschooling and the....and the...LOL

I guess I should get back to doing some of the other things that I need to do, like knitting socks, or dischcloths or a scarf.

On our way back East

2007-01-31T14:06:00.000-08:00

We were in Tacoma, Washington yesterday afternoon when we were making our delivery near the Port of Tacoma. We turned back south and were blown away with the view of Mt. Ranier. We have been in the Northwest several times and I have taken pictures of Mt. Ranier, but I have never seen it so clearly and seen it look so beautiful. I sent the dh out to take a picture and durn if the camera wouldn't work. We have to get a new digital camera. I just need to do the research and figure out what I can get with the highest pixels for the amount of money dh said I can spend. I would really like, no make that love, to have a digital SLR, but that is out of the budget that dh set. Bummer!!

With no digital camera, that means that I can't take pictures of the things that I want to take to post on here. That really bums me out. My ds has a little digital that I may try to use, but the pictures are so bad from it as it is one of those $20 instamatic style, webcam style digital camera's.

I have been knitting on the socks that I started, but it is slow going because of the size of the yarn and the needles. I frogged all of the ds's scarf because it was looking so bad. I was trying to get fancy and do some cables that ended up just not working out. I am now doing a combination of seed stitch and stockinette stitch that looks really nice. It is so much more even and just looks a whole lot better for the yarn that I am using.

I am really becoming a yarn snob. I was looking at the sale that JoAnn's is having now and there was very little in the way of yarn that I would buy because of the fiber content. Some of that feeling of wanting to use natural fibers comes from the years of doing Civil War re-enacting and living history. One of the precepts of doing these things well is that you have to use patterns, fibers and fabrics that were readily available or could be and were easily produced during the time period. After trying to do everthing authentically and period correct for so long, it is hard to not want to use the same fibers now. That's bad, isn't it.

I like the way the ribbing is going on my socks, even if it is slow. At least I will be able to say that I took my time and tried to do them right. I also can't work on them very well when we are driving because the bumps in the road make me drop stitches, miss the stitch I'm trying to hit, and I really have a hard time seeing the place that the needles are supposed to go into the stitches. These are best worked on when we stop. I do three or four rows before we go to bed and sometimes when I am waiting for dh to do his daily paperwork.

We are going to get our truck fixed, yet again. DH got a DOT inspection the other day and they found two little things wrong and we have to get them fixed and signed off on within 15 days. It's not really a big deal, and dh could do the work, but it has to be signed off on by a mechanic. The never ending life of working in the trucking industry.

I will get to knit while we are waiting for the truck to be fixed, which is the upside of all of this. We won't be moving so I can work on my socks....yay.

You all have a good day.

2007-01-29T14:52:00.000-08:00

We have left the cold states of Minnesota and South Dakota and are now on our way across Montana. We need to be in Spokane, WA tomorrow morning sometime, so I guess we will (or at least the DH) will be getting up at 0'dark thirty to finish the last couple hundred miles. I will get to sleep for a bit of time and then get up with him.

I finally started a pair of socks on dpn's, cuff down. Once I got the hang of the dpn's it isn't so bad. I only have one size, size 1, so that is what I am going to have to use for now. I do have two #3 circ's that I may try to use for knitting on two circ's toe up, after I finish the pair I am doing now.

I found a book that I want to order soooooo bad, called Crazy Toes and Heel that sounds like it makes knitting toe up on two circ's really easy....I need easy, don'tcha know.

I picked up my ds' scarf, otn, and worked on it a bit after I was working on the socks. It was like using jute rope on telephone poles after using the sock yarn on size 1's. I'm only using #6's with worsted weight, but it stil was a little strange.

I changed the pattern on the scarf that I'm knitting for ds. It needed a little something, so the area that I was doing the ribs in got changed to more cables. It actually looks really cool because it looks like the strands of the ribs start crossing. It is an exercise in making something from my own mind and enjoying the process. Besides the ds want's a scarf mom knitted.

Pictures are coming, I promise. I am going to do something about that when we start and see if I can't upload them either tonight or when we are going across Washington tomorrow.

Crossing the frozen North Country

2007-01-27T19:34:00.000-08:00

We are on our way to the Seattle area, and we are now crossing Minnesota. It is soooooo cold here that it makes you not want to get out of the truck. I guess, having been on the unseasonably warm East Coast for the last month +, this cold weather is kicking my bum.

I finished my Sis's scarf the other day, and I will try to post a picture of it in the next day or so. It was made from Moda Dea. I don't like working with that because the metallic thread that runs through it makes my fingers sore. I have 2 and a half skeins left, so will have to do something with it, or else find a swap to trade with someone for something else.

I have now started another scarf, this one for my DS. It's made with Lion Brand Woolease. I am kind of making up a pattern as I go and it's turning out rather well, if I do say so myself. I decided that since I had done the cables of the dishcloth for the KAL, I could do a cable on his scarf. I got out my Stitch and Bitch book and looked up how to do cables that turned back like they are supposed to and I am making a scarf that is 44 stiches wide that has 2 2x2 ribs on the outside (8 stitches) and then has 6 stitches on each side of the cable that are purled. It's purty!

When we came up in the real cold, my husband, who has become the stash limiting nazi, decided that he needed a new scarf. I had crocheted him one last year and it is just horrible. It looks kind of like a huge bow tie made from Lion Brand homespun. Anywho, it got taken off the truck and now he wants one that is decent. I told him I could use the wool ease that I had on the truck and knit him one, but he asked about the fiber content, and decided that anything with that much acrylic wasn't going to touch his neck, oh no. Sooo, we went to knit picks and he chose some of their gloss in a dark brown for a scarf for him, and not only did I get to buy enough for a scarf for him, but he wants matching socks. I also got to buy enough gloss for a pair of socks for myself and some of their dancing self patterning for myself. I also got some more of their knitpicks dpn's for knitting up this wonderful yarn.

I haven't done any knitting today...at least as of yet. I really want to start on a pair of socks, but I'm skeered or intimidated or something. I am going to buckle down and just do it. I have a couple of patterns to try and it's just a matter of printing one out and going to town.

Pictures of the OTN projects and the finished stuff should be coming shortly. I'm sure that will make my blog far less boring than it is now. I know that it's kind of bland, but it is only my second attempt at one and I am learning.

Have a wonderful night and stay cozy and warm.

Sitting in Delaware

2007-01-24T19:16:00.000-08:00

Here we sit in Deleware waiting for a load. I have been working on the scarf that I am making for my sister off and on today, at least when I haven't been online looking for the perfect sock pattern to overcome my trepidation and intimidation of beginning a pair of socks. Having never done it before, I am just a little leary and kind of scared. I don't know if my knitting skills will stand up to making a pair of socks. Oooohhhh well....I guess I'm just gonna do it.

I am sitting in the front of the truck having just gotten off the phone with my moher and getting her email program straightened out for her. My family is in the back watching an opera on PBS...it seems to be rather hilarious. I am writing in my blog. I am going to be more faithful about writing in this than I have been on my other blog.

I want to finish the Mid month discloth that I am working on and the scarf and then I can start some other projects.

I keep reading about people resolving to knit from their stash this year rather than buy anymore yarn. I don't have to make a resolution like that. I was told the other day that my dh will act as my stash buster. He said until I get some of the started projects done, I can't buy anymore yarn, and all of this after what I said about him being such a good DH and not grousing about my stash. MEN!!!!

I guess I will take my knitting and go in the back and watch this silly opera.

Later

First Post to this Blog

2007-01-19T12:00:00.000-08:00

Hi,
I am going to use this blog to keep track of the items that I knit while on "The Truck". My husband and I own and operate our own trucking business and I am with him on the road all of the time. I don't drive, and I need something to do while sitting in the passenger seat, and knitting, reading, crocheting and websurfing are the things that I do while we go down the road.

I am very fortunate in the fact that my dh is a wonderful man and has no problem with my hobbies and even though I take up some of the very limited space in our little world, he is very supportive. He also takes me to places that have really cool yarn shops, like Bozeman, MT and Durango, CO.

Right now I have a scarf for my sister, a blanket for my ds, and a dishcloth in progress. I also am itching to try my hand at handknit socks...my dh wants a pair and has agreed to be the guinea pig on my sock trials. I found a really cool sock tutorial last night as I was surfing the web and have decided that she made it seem not nearly as intimidating as I was imagining, so I am game.

I have a very small stash here on the truck, and most of that is cotton yarn for discloths. I started do those because my mother really wanted some, so I bought the "stuff" and started making some just after Thanksgiving. By Christmas I had made 6 of them and ended up giving 3 to my mom and 3 to my sister. They both love them!!!

When I started to knit again, after a hiatus of about 15 years, the first thing I did was to go online to find patterns and ended up finding the yahoo groups for Monthly discloth knit-a-longs, sock knitters, sock knit-a-longs and sock yarn sales. I should be set for a while.