Blue skies, smiling at me!

Good morning to everyone. I hope your Monday morning is going well.

We had a bit of rain on Saturday night and it scoured out the skies. For the first time in almost 2 weeks, we woke up to this! Our air quality was finally in the “moderate” range. This morning it’s in the “good” range. Hallelujah! It feels so wonderful to be able to breathe while outside.

I am making Piper a sweater for her birthday next week. I have made these same sweaters for her since she was in a size 2–3T. This one is an 8-9. The last ones I made her, the sleeves now go up to her elbows and she still wears them!  She is definitely knit-worthy. She loves everything I make her. I also have the yarn to make her a pink one and a red one too.

Sorry about the lighting but I took this at 5:30 this morning. I have the back completed and the left front and I’m almost finished with the other front side. Just the sleeves and the neck/button band left to go on this one.  I started it on Friday so I think I’m making good progress.

While Dennis was in Omaha last week Piper decided he needed to visit the dentist. Although he doesn’t look thrilled, he said he was having a great time playing with her. Notice the crown on his head! I think everybody should get a crown at the dentist and a hug like this would be nice too, especially if the dentist was as cute as this one. She most definitely loves her Papa.

Alex flew from London to Tokyo last Tuesday and sent us this photo of the inside of his plane. Notice how empty it is. That would have never happened before Covid. Now it was a relief for me to see how far away he was from other people.

I thought I would show you some of my fall decorating around the trailer. This first one isn’t really for fall as it stays up all of the time, but I do like it. This is just inside the door.  I made the cross stitch about 35 years ago and it has hung in all of our various homes.

My beautiful fall angel hangs right outside the front door, well the only door, on the slide. I used a command hook that is designed for the shower to hang it. I thought that way it would be able to withstand rain.

Some autumn color in the old camping coffee pot we used to heat water in when we tent camped.



The view from closer to the road.

Having familiar items that we have had around us in our house and flowers definitely makes this place feel home here. So far I am very content in my little trailer and not missing the house at all.

Larry and Nita decided on the spur of the moment to leave yesterday to go to the Black Hills and see Mount Rushmore. In all their travels around the world they have never been to Mount Rushmore and it was on their bucket list. We have seen it dozens of times and gave them a list of other things fun to do in the area. So we have Sophie staying with us this week.  She is very familiar with the inside of the trailer because of the lake, but she can’t figure out why it’s not in the same spot! Every time we go outside she looks around like, where am I?

It’s 49° this morning and I haven’t turned the heat on so both Sophie and Chloe are snuggled up in the bed with me as I type this.   They love these fleece blankets and so I lay them down on the cold mornings because they seem to be warmer for them to cuddle in.  Happy and content girls.  A bit spoiled too.😍

Eventually though, I’m going to need to get up and out of the warm bed and start my day. I have a small grocery pick up this morning and I need to find another skein of white yarn for the sweater. I don’t think I’m going to have enough for both sleeves. It’s amazing how much more yarn the bigger sweaters take than the little bitty ones I used to make for her! I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Blessings and love,

Betsy

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Oh my goodness it’s smoky out! This is our third day of not being able to be outside at all. This first picture is one that I copied from one of the Spokane news media posts on Facebook. It’s not my picture but it shows basically the same view with and without the smoke looking out from Spokane’s South Hill neighborhood.
I took the next two as I was driving to Jeremy and Alicia‘s house for dinner Saturday afternoon. It’s gotten much worse than this since then.  Our Air Quality is 498 on the AQI (Air Quality Index) chart which peaks at 500.  We’re in the Hazardous zone. No surprise there.

I don’t stay outside long enough to take photos now.

This was yesterday while I was waiting for Chloe to finish going to the bathroom. That is the sun.

I have begun wearing two cloth masks together when I have to go outside for anything. With one I was still choking and gagging on the smoke. With two masks it is much better.  Four layers of cloth. People look at me funny, but that’s okay.  If I can breathe it’s worth a few funny looks. 😍

This is the second time I’ve had this blanket this size. I realized I was knitting it with size 8 needles when I usually use size 10. I figured I didn’t have anything else to do so I just frogged it all and started over yesterday.

My phone completely conked out on me about a week and a half ago. I didn’t realize how old it was. It was an iPhone 6! It wouldn’t let me do any more updates and it was freezing a lot. I have a new phone now with a picture of this handsome guy you see as my wallpaper on it. It’s an iPhone 11 and I love how fast it is.

I had to pick up my grocery order this morning and on a whim I stopped and “gasp” went into Hobby lobby. It’s been ages since I was there. I picked up three packages of these mini LED lights. I think they are going to really brighten up the trailer this winter. They make me happy and really help with the darkness from the smoke. I have three strands of lights and each of them use four AA batteries. They are supposed to last 10,000 hours, so we shall see!  I had a gift card with $17.00 left on it and these were $16.84 with tax. I didn’t even have to feel guilty for buying them!



I am praying for everyone who is affected by the fires in the west and the hurricanes and tropical storms down in the southeast.  Our country is really going through quite a troublesome time in our history right now. All of the weather issues, political issues and even individual attitudes. I pray for peace and for an end to all of the violent rioting and protesting. I pray that people would remember that this country is a melting pot and that each and every person the world over matters to our Lord and Savior. We should matter to each other too. Hate will get us nowhere. It never has and it never will.

I love you all.

Blessings,

Betsy

Alone Again

Hello everyone! Surprise, surprise. I’m home alone with Chloe yet again. I was not able to go with Dennis to the funeral, but he did drive to Helena, Montana this morning and pick up our son Jamie, who is going with him. I’m glad he’s not making the drive by himself. I was really worried about it, but you can’t change what you can’t change. It’s probably for the best with all of the fires around here anyway. He got all of our important papers and documents and put them where it would be easy for me to grab and load the car up if I’m forced to evacuate because of fire. The way things are going in Washington, Oregon and California it’s not a far-fetched idea.

I started a pair of socks for his mom on Sunday night and I finished them about noon yesterday. These are plain vanilla socks as I didn’t have time to do a pattern and she likes the plain ones anyway. This is the Lion Brand Sock-Ease yarn in the rock candy colorway.  Mom really likes the socks I make her with this yarn. She wears them year-round because her feet are always cold. I don’t think I can make her too many socks.  Here they are with my feet modeling them for you.

I also put up my fall decorations yesterday such as they are. There’s not a whole lot of room. Maybe I’ll share one photo at a time with you. That way they will last longer. :-)

I am happy that I still have an island to hang my crocheted garlands on. The sign is one I picked up at the Dollar Tree several years ago.  It does make me ridiculously happy to still have some of our familiar things around us while living in the trailer.

Tuesday I ordered flowers for Karen’s memorial service on Saturday. I hope Dennis remembers to take a picture for me that I can share with you. Her favorite color was yellow so I ordered a standing spray of white flowers with yellow accents and a yellow ribbon that says “sister.”  It truly breaks my heart that I was not able to go, but I know Karen is the first one who would understand why I didn’t.  I’m also very, very happy that Jamie was able to get the time away and go with his Dad. As I said, I didn’t want him driving that trip alone again so soon after his last trip. It’s a long, long drive and also, they will get to have some quantity and quality father/son time that they haven’t had in years.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and those of you that have family or yourself in the vicinity of the fires, I pray that you all stay safe and alert. These are perilous times that we’re living in.

Blessings,

Betsy