Smoke-It's still here...

...and I feel guilty even mentioning the smoke, based on what's happening in Texas and Louisiana, but it really is getting old.  As for the people in the southern U.S.  My prayers and my heart goes out to them in the terrible tragedy.  We have donated to Samaritan's Purse, who has many people on the ground assisting and they will be there for years to come.  They still have teams rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina so many years ago.  They come and don't leave until the job is done.  A very worthy organization if you're interested.  There are many more too, including the Red Cross.

As for the smoke, I had my oil changed yesterday and they showed me the cabin air filter.  It was full of soot, as was the engine air filter!  Of course they had to be changed too, but it does make you wonder what our lungs look like after breathing in even more than the car does!

On to happier things.  I finished Hayden's socks last week...

And his brother Kale's socks this week.  Both were made with half balls of sock yarn I had left over from other projects.  I wish I had some of those fancy sock blockers so they would look less wrinkled, but this is what you get.  Hayden's are for a third grader, but Kale's fit me!  And he's only 10 years old!  I think he's going to have some big feet. :-)

I also finished Piper's blanket.  When I measured it after washing it was 5 1/2 feet X 5 1/2 feet.  I thought it was 6 foot square, but this is plenty big.  I think she'll like the bright color since she chose it.

I made these dishcloths yesterday . The end of the skein was just enough for a matching coaster.  Very fallish wouldn't you say?  Since it's still in the 90's here and is predicted to stay there for the forecasted future, this is as close to fall as we'll be for a while anyway.

I cast on a shawl after I finished the socks yesterday.  Can you even consider these two rows as begun?  This is a Knit Picks yarn and the colorway is "Mountain" something.  I'll let you know in the next post and hopefully will have more progress to show in it.

I also began the first of what I hope is several blankets for the local Veteran's Home.  I usually try to take 8-10 blankets there before Veteran's Day.  This year a gentleman from our church has moved to the home.  He will be the first person to get a blanket from me.

This was Maddie last week at the lake.  Ahh!  A dogs life.  She slept like this for about 20 minutes and looked so relaxed and happy.

A faint haze of smoke, but mostly blue. This was last week.  Now it's all gray again, at least here at home.

Dennis had a coffee mug that Mandy gave him for father's day about 4 years ago.  It had his picture with all of the grandkids sitting on his lap.  They all had bed hair and were in their jammies.  It was so cute and he absolutely loved it.  He used it at work every day.  Last week he took it out of the microwave and dropped it.  He was so upset with himself.  Although I didn't have the same picture, I ordered him a new one with recent photos of the kids on it.  Here's Miss Piper, Kyleigh and Caleb are on the other side but I am not allowed to show their pictures on my blog anymore.  Suffice it to say, they are also precious and sweet.  Grandpa was so excited when he got this on Tuesday.  He actually had tears in his eyes.  He does love his grandbabies.

Miss Piper's first day of pre-school was on Tuesday.  She is SO tall!  I'm excited to see her in a few weeks.  She told me she is really liking her school and has made some friends there already.

Dennis is on vacation for a week starting tomorrow.  We had originally planned to go to Oregon with the new trailer but all of our favorite campsites are booked all the way into next weekend because of the holiday.  Then we decided to go up near the Canadian border for a few days next week.  Well, the smoke and fires may decide that's a no-no.  It's looking like we may not even get to use the new trailer until next year! 

We have to go up to the lake tomorrow and wage war with the squirrels again.  We've been fighting them for a couple of weeks now.  They've decided to make a nest in the insulation under the floor of the trailer.  We have a four seasons camper, which means it's heavily insulated for winter camping.  It also makes a cozy nest for rodents of all kinds.  We've never had an issue with any rodents until this year.  They won't give up.  We've tried all kinds of repellents and they just laugh at us.  Dennis has ordered some sheets of metal that he is going to put on the bottom tomorrow after he tries to make sure there are no squirrels actively inside.

I've got some laundry and cleaning to do before Bible study tonight.  I made zucchini bread yesterday from the zucchini's at the lake garden.  Yum!  It's not weight watcher friendly, but was still worth eating it!  I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend.  My prayers will continue for the people down south.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all of our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God." 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Blessings always,

Betsy