Edna Mae - What a Beautiful Lady - Remembering Grandma...

I'm currently unemployed, it's true. This isn't a pity party post though, no sir! :) ;) (also, why has blogger not enabled emoticons?! I NEED them to talk at you! O.O ;)). This is a short reflective post! One of the projects I have on my list for the not too distant future is to make two hats for my friends little girls (ages 2 months & 2 years old - joy! :D). The girls are adorable I assure you! :D In any case, the hat project had me perusing my crochet pinterest board (see it here - oh and follow too! ^-^) to show me all the goodies I've found on previous pinterest adventures! I worked my way to the bottom of the board and my eyes settled on a photo that made me slightly nostalgic... if you've been following my blog for a while you might remember it from this post.

I've been totally blessed by an outpouring of thoughtful people in my life who have passed on to me their yarn, their nicknacks, their stories of knitting/crochetting/tatting/crafting times gone by, their time and their patience. Namely I have to say my late Grandma Fagner was one of thee biggest gifters of her talents and time to me. She was involved in so many things throughout her lifetime and I realize she shared her passions as much as she could with me, my siblings, my cousins and so so many others. Here's a shot of my siblings, my mom and Grandma :) - this was the last time I saw her in person before she passed away. Isn't she adorable?!?!

Grandma lived an amazing life, she was 90 when she passed, though admittedly I thought she'd live to be 100 ;-), the lady had some spunk I'm telling you! After I was out of the Air Force I got to spend a lot of time with her, gardening, dancing & crafting. I am so fortunate to have had that time with her. I know she knew Jesus and that when the time comes I will see her again. Selfishly, of course I would rather have kept her here with us :). God's timing is perfect though and I trust that. Grandma looked beautiful and peaceful when I saw her for the last time at her funeral - the casket was perfect for her too! It had a lovely feminine touch with flowers and a beautiful light mauve color on the outside. The inside was a wonderful lavender and there was one embroidered flower. A lady til the end :). Grandma's are the best!

Over the years I've realized it was Grandma Fagner and my mothers love for peonies that encouraged my appreciation for this kind of flower... I was SO excited when I found out our last house grew them!! It's only fitting I share a photo of one of the blooms with you here ;)

And a few flowers I discovered existed in the past few years that I love too! :D

 Ranunculus'! 

Anemones!

Photo credit goes to Clarevision from their original post here.

"But Dawn, what is the point of your post?", you might be asking. 

Well, the point is, rather the points are: 

 - Hands down, my grandma was awesome. 

 - Thank the people that take the time to spend the time with you daily, you'll never regret it.

 - The flowers I like have everything to do with the beauty they are and that they remind me of my childhood.     Yes.

 - I have a lot of yarn I need to tend to and projects to make in between looking for jobs. ;) 

I hope this finds you doing well! now go do something the future you would thank you for! ;)

Gah! Where are those emoticons!!! XD

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Knit Beer Mitt Cozy for my Brother & his friend Colin

This project is a long time coming... My brother requested not one, but two beer mitt cozies to be knit last June (yes, it's been a year and some since O.o)...I said I would make them, but will admit, I was not feeling up to the task... being a bit overwhelmed by the idea of having to figure out the pattern for a mitten with specific dimensions for a mans hand knowing that knitting items other than scarves are not my strong suit... this project took a back seat for bit. I'm not sure when or how it happened but I did a query on ravelry one day and found this beer mitt cozy pattern in 3 different sizes! Gnarly man-hand size included!!! Okay, they originally called that size Large ;). I had my husband try it on for size as I worked them up. And yes, when I say I worked them up, I mean I worked them both up at once. My knitting tension varies from day to day so in an effort to make them the same large gnarly man hand size, this was just how it had to be... here are a few pictures of the finished products and the process as I worked them up on cable needles... cast on is such a mind boggle when I do this, but it is absolutely necessary. :)

Please note, the yellow added to the beer mitt cozy is embroidery thread. My brothers friends name is Colin and he thought it'd be absolutely hilarious to have C-Man noted on his cozy with a smiley face. I improvised and used the knit rows and stitches as markers after I'd graphed out how/where to put the words. I think he'll enjoy how it turned out lol :). The blue & back striped one is my brothers, made with some of my late grandmothers blue yarn. Always trying to pass on a sentimental feel for family projects. I think its important.

Also, should you want to make on yourself here is the link to the pattern. Thanks to knitty.com. :D

Lastly, for my fellow knitters out there, I will tell you I used size 10 cable needles and held two strands of worsted weight throughout (pulling yarn from inside and outside the skein simultaneously.)

Day of raking leaves

My sister and I were out raking up leaves and while the city picks up the leaves we rake, we have to put them in bags and hull them to the curb OR rake them there in one big pile... well we 1st tried a wheel barrel to get the leaves there since it was taking far too long to just rake the leaves to the front yard. The wheel barrel route lasted one trip to the front and then the wheel went flat and it veered to the left... all the way to the front :(. No bueno!

Continuing to rake and racking our brains as to an easier solution I remembered we had some plastic drop clothes that were huge - we could rake the leaves onto that and then take it to the front curb to be sucked up by the city! Viola!

Here's what it looked like from the deck...



...needless to say it cut the time in half! That plastic drop was big and could handle a lot of leaves! :)

Hopefully if you're looking for a way to cut down your time raking leaves you have a drop cloth handy to use. If not, the plastic tarps are pretty cheap at any home depot, lowes, etc.

Happy fall everybody :) Stay warm! :)

Good times, good finds and good food in NYC! :)

This past week my mom had rounded up the three of us girls (easier said than done ;0)) and stayed with our cousin Liz (who you might know better as the writer of Sex and the City, and she's the co-author of best seller He's Just Not That Into You) in the Big Apple :)

The trip was a blur we were SO busy!!

The 1st day there my mom had gotten us amazing seats at Dr. Oz' show! While they were moving the set around, Dr. Oz came closer to where we were sitting an my mom went ahead and asked why he doesn't wear a tie! :) He then grabbed the microphone from the guy who gets the crowd pumped up for all the applause's and asked what her name was!!! (squee!!!) Dr. Oz then said "Janel asked why I don't wear a tie" and went on to explain that when viewers normally see someone in a tie at their home its normally a guy who is serving them papers so his look is in between the tie and scrubs. Which was pretty cool and made sense. Dr. Oz was really personable... he had a segment where a girl had made brownies using a can of pumpkin mixed with Duncan Hines mixed topped with a bit of drizzled peanut sauce, well he brought over the platter and shared them with us!!:D In addition to all these fun tidbits, you might see my mom, sisters and I on the 400th show of his :). I'll be sure to post the youtubes of it when I see it :0). Before we made it to Dr. Oz's show we roamed around Rockefeller Center and across the street where we saw Billy Bob Thorton and Matt Lauer for the Today Show. We were literally 12 feet from them!! Crazy fun times! :)

We then galavanted around in the NBC store where someone offered us Jimmy Fallon monologue tickets, so we grabbed food before hand (yummy chicken that I can't remember the name of the restaurant :s) and once we went through all the security, briefing and were there for the monologue it felt like it took not even 10 minutes! Still, we had some laughs and it was really cool to see the set that they use... and that the background of a window with building lights behind it is fake :s. I did not know - ha!

Wow, that was just day one. Maybe I'll share day 2 tomorrow or something this is getting to be a LONG entry! :D

Onto a picture ;) - this is one of the items I scored while visiting! :) Found in a jewelry and second hand store called Jillery. It was so charming I had to share :)

WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!!

It's true! :) My husband just called me about 10 minutes ago - asked me if I was sitting down! At the time I was standing and so I DID sit down.... curiously wondering what he was going to tell me next.... as I said, "No, but I am now."

*silence*

"We got the house." He said as I heard the smile in his voice.

:-) "NO!! Really??!?!?" I exclaimed.

"We got it for the price we asked for and they are taking care of ALL the closing costs."

"ALL the closing costs? ALL of them?!" I countered.

"Yep.", he said.

"Wow! No way! Wow! Yay! Oh that's great! :) Wow!" I said still in shock and getting whatever bearings I had left asked, "When can we close??"

"We can close in as soon as a week." He replied, still with a smile in his voice.

The rest of the conversation was me saying wow, really, this is great, wow. And Donald assuring me that all the bullshit (lol) was now behind us. :0)

I'll try to keep you up to date as things progress - but I'm certain it will be busy - so forgive the lapse of blogging - I do want to share it ALL! :D

YAY!!!!! Weee!! Hi Ho! HI HO! Hi ho, hi ho hi hi! :D

What am I doing this 4th of July? Working the Corner...

... at a motorcycle race! My husband is really into motorcycles and most times when I am working on creating a project or taking my item pics he is our riding around with people he met on DC Sportsbike Forum I don't have the right gear (a decent jacket to save my skin) and since we are saving for a house (hope to hear something from our realtor today! Cross your fingers for us!) a jacket is not in the books right now ;)

Last Sunday my husband, Donald, asked if I wanted to go - the way he described it was that we would be helping people who already know how to work the corners in motorcycle races and be camping the night before (Friday night). I'm down for camping :) and I'm down for helping learn more about my husbands passion so sure. Come Monday morning however, I get this email Donald had received from a guy on the forum laying out what was going to happen while we were there and what we needed to bring. Okay - this was a list, an extensive list full of classes to learn about the flags they use on the corners on Saturday. I guess yes, they will have food for us but in truth, I'm doing the low carb thing and I'm certain that they will have caffeinated coffee(as they should) and donuts. *Please have eggs of some kind* (I beg ;)). Since the email came on a Monday morning and I'm dragging from the weekend I was overwhelmed and reconsidering.

At this point I must add Donald's birthday is the 5th and so I was thinking this would be a great way to celebrate with him. But how far does this need to go? lol

But I later woke up Monday afternoon and realized it's sure to be a good time. :) I'm bringing my own cooler with foods I don't have to think twice about eating, Donald and I will both be learning a good deal about motorcycle racing, and they are sure to have so kick ass fireworks! :) I just pray it doesn't rain ;)

I would like to add that when I was in Iowa growing up in my early to later teens I used to work in a concession stand at the Cresco Speedway. I'd worked the hotdogs, pizza, drinks, candy and Popcorn stand! :) SO much fun! It was usually fast paced and I liked it that way ;). Later when I was a senior in high school they had me sing the star spangled banner for the stock car races - which was really cool for me - I lovva to sing :). Cresco, Ia is a town of 3,500 people and I come from a background of making the most of what you have - so having not known anything else and based on Donald's description of the Corner Working, it'd be low key. lol But I'm wrong and that's okay. :D

As long as it doesn't rain, I'm sure I'm in for a good time :) Where are you watching YOUR fireworks at?? :D