Time Goes By

My goodness it’s been a week since I did a blog post! Wow! It sure doesn’t seem like it. Time is flying by. Hopefully our master bathroom will be finished today and all that will be left is the electrician coming on Thursday to put in a new circuit breaker for the utility room. He has to add an additional circuit breaker. I understand none of it so I won’t even try!

Mandy‘s birthday was Thursday, but since it’s so hard to do anything on weeknights because of her work schedule and Piper‘s homework, we celebrated on Saturday. My sister and the three of us went and had pedicures and then we just spent the day together. We watched the new Disney new movie. I don’t even remember the name of it but it was cute, all about a magic house. Then I made chicken kebabs in the oven along with Mexican rice. We had cherry cheesecake for dessert, which is what Dennis and Mandy always choose for their birthdays.

I made a prayer shawl over the weekend for the hospital. This was such an easy pattern and I think the color is very cheerful. It’s called “Sunflower.” The pattern is “Afternoon with Anna prayer shawl.” I guess Zoey thought she needed to inspect it as I was taking the photo.

Two more pair of mittens were made last Friday.

And I finished the blanket, sweater and hat for our new little grandbaby. None of these things have been washed and blocked yet so they should all look a little bit better when they’re done.

Early Friday morning I picked up Lizzie for a play date with Zoey. She spent the night Friday night and they were together all day Saturday too. These two girls are so hilarious. Look how they’re laying in the same position chewing on their bones. They do everything together. And I mean everything. Lizzie is about 1 pound smaller than Zoey but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t hold her own when they’re wrestling! I have never seen two animals who love each other as much as these two do. They hadn’t seen each other for two weeks because of both of them being spayed two weeks ago. We just didn’t think we could trust them not to wrestle and tear their stitches out. That was the longest they have ever gone without seeing each other and oh my! You should’ve heard the happy yips and barks when I walked in the door with Lizzie.

Dennis was able to spend time with Neal and Jenny when he was in Spokane last week. He stopped to see them on the way to the hotel from the airport on Sunday night, and had dinner with them on Wednesday. My goodness, we miss them and our other friends.

Tomorrow morning is my appointment with the neurologist. It took over five months to get in to see him. That’s what happens when you’re a new patient, and that was with the referral from my neurologist in Spokane! I sure hope he has another idea for treatment instead of the medication I’m taking. I really don’t like some of the side effects from it.

Last night Dennis picked up pizza around  6:00 from Little Caesars, about eight blocks from our house. We had promised mom pizza for dinner. Just a couple of hours later there was a shooting in the parking lot right outside of Little Caesars. One person died and two others are in the hospital with gunshot wounds. It is so scary around here. There is no respect for life whatsoever. Constant shootings, knifings, etc. Thank goodness the few blocks directly around our house are pretty good so far.

Well, on that happy note I need to close because I need to help carry the new bathroom vanity upstairs. Take care and I’ll talk to you soon. 

Blessings and love, 

Betsy

How are all of you?

Just wondering how all of you are faring with the storm if you live in the eastern part of the US? We ended up with about 6 inches of snow on Saturday morning. Dennis took the snowblower down the sidewalks on our side of the hill and back up the sidewalks on the other side, so all of the neighbors got their sidewalks cleared by him. I think they appreciated it. He does enjoy using his snowblower and always did the same thing back in Spokane. With the wind blowing the snow back on him, he looked like the abominable snowman by the time he was done! Sunday and today were above freezing so there’s been a lot of melting going on which would be absolutely wonderful if it didn’t refreeze at night and make everything very, very icy. The plumber was supposed to be here at 7:30 this morning and he’s usually very prompt. At 7:40 I heard his truck backing into the driveway. Apparently he couldn’t get up our hill. Even in four-wheel-drive he was sliding backwards down the hill but was able to go around to the block behind us and come in from the top! That clinched it for me. I stayed home all day. Everything that had melted yesterday just turned to solid ice on top of the snow in the street. It’s a real mess. I took Dennis to the airport yesterday and didn’t have any trouble at all getting back up the hill. I’m just glad I’m in the house safe and sound.

Speaking of Dennis, he’s having our “Friday” night lake pizza tonight with our lake friends. I ordered the pizza from here and he’s picking it up after work and Larry, Nita, Paul and Lori are all having pizza together, just like old times. I’m not going to think about it much or I know the tears will start. I do miss our friends. Remember when I used to order pizza Friday night at the lake and Dennis would pick it up on his way back after work? The five of us called him our pizza delivery boy as everyone would be waiting by the time he got there after the drive from town. I do miss the lake a LOT.

We have been keeping our eyes on advertisements for campers because we’d like to get one this spring. Our plan is to head to Spokane for a month in the spring or early summer if it all possible. There just doesn’t seem to be much out there in the way of campers right now. We are now kicking ourselves for not keeping the little one that we sold last year. We know the floorplan we want and we know that we want it to be much smaller than the one that we lived in last year so we can get into national parks and state parks. Apparently camping has become very popular during Covid and there’s just not a lot to be found that’s in decent shape. The prices for new ones are astronomical if you can even find them, because again, because of Covid there are shortages of a lot of parts. We’ve even considered just putting a canopy on the back of the pick up and putting a mattress in there and staying in it that way. It just may come to that because we’re both ready to go camping again!

I have been busy knitting and crocheting over the weekend. I finished the baby sweater except for buttons and I made a baby hat to match. Everything still has to be washed and blocked, but I’m happy with the way it turned out.

Now I’m crocheting a blanket to match. Sorry about the shadows. The lighting wasn’t very good today at all.

There’s not much to report considering the only place I’ve gone since my last post was to church on Sunday and to drop Dennis at the airport. There were a lot of people gone from church on Sunday. The virus is really making its rounds here. We know someone who is just put on a ventilator for the third time and he’s just in his early 40s. His name is Steve if any of you would be willing to pray for him.

I sincerely hope you are all doing well and are safe and warm and staying healthy. 

Blessings and love,

Betsy

Snow Day!

We’re trapped. Well, maybe not completely trapped, but as good as. It’s raining ice pellets right now outside. In an hour or two it is supposed to change to snow and depending on who you listen to, we could get anywhere from 3 to 10 inches of snow by tomorrow morning. Since we live on top of this hill, we’re not going anywhere. Dennis is supposed to be flying to Spokane on Sunday for a few days so I hope the hill is passable by then. Meanwhile, I have lots to keep me busy. I’m a homebody and could happily just stay here all of the time and never leave. But then again, I love to travel, so I guess I have split personalities!😂

I finished the first sock with my West Yorkshire Spinners yarn. I have the cuff started on the second sock, but I’ve set it aside temporarily. I really like the way the pattern and colors change with this yarn.

This is why I said I set the sock aside for now. Yesterday I started this baby sweater for our new little granddaughter. It’s a new pattern to me and I think it is so sweet. It’s called the “Max Baby Cardigan” and is on Ravelry. I have a pattern for a newborn hat that has cables and I think I’ll make that for her too. Maybe I will have time to find the yarn to make a coordinating blanket. I know it won’t fit her very long as it’s a 0 to 3 months size, but I fell in love with this cute pattern and the sweet little cables. Obviously I still have the sleeves to do. Maybe I will get those done today since I’m not going anywhere! Then I need to find some cute buttons.

The next photo is my view right at the moment. I have music playing on YouTube that is set to winter scenes. I love the quiet music while I am sitting here in my cozy little space. As you can see, I have a great view of my yarn wall and there’s lots of room for Zoey to play. That pink playpen thing? We bought it when we first got her to keep her contained in the kitchen or wherever we were that we couldn’t keep a close eye on her. That didn’t last long. Very quickly a hole formed in the bottom. But both her and Lizzie love to play with it. It was the best toy we could have gotten for them! They go in the door and turn it on its side and they run around the entire room inside it like a hamster wheel! It is hilarious. They know how to close it in on themselves so all of the sides collapse and then they climb out and try to pull it open again. Zoey takes her food in there to eat. Hours of entertainment for all of us! Puppies are so funny.

And that puppy bed? Well, she does lay in it sometimes when I put it in the sunshine by the front door if it’s nice enough to have the door open, but most of the time you can find her in one of our our laps, sound asleep. She wants to be as close to us as she can get and we like that too. 

I just realized as I wrote that last paragraph that this has turned into a puppy blog, almost more than a knitting blog. I’m so sorry about that for those of you who aren’t interested. I just pretty much write about my life and hope, that for some reason, you all find it interesting enough to come back and visit with me again.

Our master bathroom has hit a snag. Dennis took the vanity and toilet out over the weekend because the contractor and electrician were supposed to be here early Monday morning. Would you believe they both completely forgot? I texted the contractor in the evening on Monday and he admitted they had forgotten. They stopped yesterday for about 10 minutes just to look at the job and remind themselves of what needed done. It sounds like someone may be here next Monday. It’s a good thing we cancelled the floor people. They were supposed to be here this week refinishing our hardwood floors. And that was allowing several extra weeks for the bathrooms to be finished! We are rescheduled now for the floors the week of Valentine’s Day. I sure hope everything is done after that. I do know that remodeling never goes according to plan and when you’re told a month, you should allow three!

I know a lot of you have snow predicted for the next day or two. Be careful out there and stay safe and warm.

Blessings and love,

Betsy