Good Monday morning!

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a lovely weekend in spite of the news around the world. I’m trying to take my own advice and just watch a little bit of news. Just enough to keep informed but not too much so that I’m overwhelmed with it all. And then I pray and try to leave it at God’s feet. Of course the Ukraine and its people are in the back of my mind all of the time. Dennis went to the Ukraine several times on business and has many acquaintances there. He went to Romania and Croatia often and understandably, those countries are nervous as well with what’s happening. He has many friends there. I know all of you are just as concerned as I am. I will continue to lift them all up in prayer throughout the day and night as they come to mind.

All of my free moments have been spent working on this cross stitch kit. I had forgotten just how long it takes to do solid blocks of color like this. All of my respect to those of you who do a lot of  cross stitch with blocks of color. I did change the elephant from two shades of blue to the two shades of gray. The dark gray on the top of its head is actually an ear. I’m trying to change some of the blues out to make it more girly.

I still have a monkey and a giraffe to do and the baby is due in just three weeks! Oh well. We will probably just take it with us when we go visit. The visit is planned for late April. I should be able to get it done by then shouldn’t I?

My poor February socks are nowhere near being done. I still have an inch or two of the foot and the toe to do on the first sock as you can tell. I’m a bit disappointed in the yarn though. In the past I have always had plenty of yarn left after a pair of socks with Kroy yarn. You can tell by what’s left in the skein that there isn’t much there. They are exactly the same size that I always knit. I’m thinking I may need to use plain black for the toes. Otherwise, I really like the pattern that’s being made with this yarn.

I saw this blanket on Facebook this morning. The lady said she bought it from an Etsy shop. Isn’t it cute? I love those little puppy tails. I’m debating whether to buy the pattern or not. I have so many baby blanket patterns already.

Dennis got a new toy this weekend too. We ordered this pit boss from Amazon. It is for our camping trips.

We decided to go with a griddle instead of a grill. It’s portable and can sit on the table top. We also bought the adapter hose so we can use big propane tanks instead of those little one pound bottles. They go so fast and are so expensive. The grill that we had at the lake was 10 years old and it had lots of rust on it and was pretty much worn out. We used it virtually every day in the summer out there. You can cook everything on this that you do on a grill, plus more. Pancakes, bacon, grilled sandwiches, etc. can all be made on here along with the regular hamburgers, kebabs and other meats. You can buy a cover for it as well as a stand to sit on, but we’re going to wait and see if we actually need those things before we buy them. I’m excited to try it out.

Yesterday after church, we took mom for a drive to Mahoney State Park. It is between Omaha and Lincoln. We also went to Platte River State Park and Louisville State Park. They are all within about 10 miles of each other. We camped at all of these places before we moved to Spokane but haven’t been there since our move. My goodness how things have changed! Mahoney has a snowmachine and even though it was in the upper 50s yesterday, kids were out tobogganing on the hill. They have horseback rides and a tree top adventure area which I think are zip lines. There is a big swimming pool with slides and also a movie theater. There is a big lodge with a restaurant and lots and lots of cabins. It is huge compared to what it used to be. We have reservations to stay there at the middle of April. It will be our shakedown trip with our little trailer.

This is a bit later in the day now and getting posted much later than I planned. For some reason Blogger would not work for me this morning so I’m trying again. Meanwhile I went and got my oil changed. What a gorgeous day we have. It’s 71°F outside. I took my sock and I sat outside on a bench while they changed the oil and it was lovely then I came home and took Zoey for a nice long walk. Wishing you all a wonderful Monday.

Blessings,

Betsy