Home Sweet Home

I'm HOME!!! Yippee! Yahoo! Oh it was so good to sleep in my own bed last night with hubby by my side. I've missed that very much. But...I do miss my little Piper a whole bunch. We had heavy rain when we left Portland yesterday for the first three hours of the drive. It changed to drizzle for awhile and then we actually had dry pavement for about half an hour. Then it was into the heavy snow coming down. I felt so blessed and thankful for good neighbors when we got home and found our driveway and sidewalks all snowblowed for us. I was thinking about trudging through snow to unpack the car and it was wonderful to find it all done. It's been flurrying all day today but no accumulation. I took Craig and Addie, (the lovely neighbors), two knitted dishcloths and Addie was overjoyed. She loves when I give her handmade things, especially dishcloths. She said Craig did the snow removal but she's happy to take the dishcloths! :-)

Following are few pictures that were on the camera when I got home. Miss Piper LOVES to be read to. She follows the pictures in the books and has definite favorites already. Mandy reads to her every single night and has since her first day home. Our family are all a bunch of bookworms. You should have heard our movers when we moved from Nebraska!

Here is the picture of Gracie, Teresa and Taci when we had lunch together two weeks ago while I was in Portland. All are bloggers that live in the Portland area and it's fun to get together when I visit. The three of them lunch together quite often and I'm jealous!

The last picture is of Polly and Chloe. Notice the same exact pose!!! They are always in the same position as the other. If one is curled up in a ball, the other is too. Chloe is really missing Polly today and Mandy say's Polly is acting lonely too. So sad.

I've spent the morning catching up on desk work and cleaning some. A busy day but it's really good to be home and around all that's familiar.

Sorry this is short. Lots to do when you've been gone a long time! Have a wonderful day.

Blessings,

Betsy

Busyness!

I have no pictures for you this week.  I'm sorry.  Life has caught up with me.  So has "Miss E"!  Tomorrow is my last day babysitting for her, and while in a way I'm sad to see it end, I think it will be good to get my life back.  She's big enough for daycare and the plan was always that I would only have her until our vacation if she had put on enough weight to fight off the "nasties" that kids seem to pass around.  As she has gotten older she is awake more.  I have no other little ones to distract her so I'm her entire source of entertainment.  Not much else has been accomplished this week.

Sunday morning my dear husband and I will be flying across the Pacific to Maui for 8 days of fun and sun. And warmth.  Blessed warmth.  It's been below freezing for several weeks now and I'm ready to break out the sundresses and sandals!  Be assured I will take lots of pictures for you to see when we return.  We have a favorite condo complex literally 20 feet from the ocean.  Fully equipped kitchen, washer/dryer, pool, hot tub and ocean.  What more can you ask?

I think I'm ready for Christmas except for the food.  We'll have 3 days to prepare after returning home before the kids start arriving.  Our dear son-in-law just started a job in North Dakota while our daughter is home in Portland, OR.  They plan to be here along with our son and his family from Montana.  This will be our first Christmas without Alex.  He isn't able to come home this year and it will be hard for this mother to celebrate the first Christmas in 23 years without him.

I didn't want you to think I'd forgotten you dear readers.  Just not a lot to say this week.  Lots of packing and diaper changing going on and that's about it!  I hope your holiday preparations are going well.  Please leave a comment and let me know how you're preparing for Christmas.

I'll see you in about 11 days and have lots of picures for you.

Blessings.

Betsy

Good Morning!

Good Morning again!  I can't believe another week has passed.  Thanksgiving was very quiet with just DH and I.  We did talk to all of our children that day, but none were able to be at home this year.  Christmas will be better.  Our daughter and middle son and their families will all be home.  Alex, in Japan, won't be able to come home and it will be our first Christmas without him.  Very sad.  I know we raised them to be independent adults-but oh, how I miss my babies!

Since I spent so much of the weekend just being lazy, I think I'm finally on the mend from this bug I've had.  The cough is still hanging on, but everyone I know who has had it says the same thing.  My voice is almost normal now.

I have a few pictures of projects I've made over the past week.  I'm not a great photographer in the best of circumstances and it's foggy and gray out this morning so these aren't very bright.

This first picture is of newborn hats for our local hospital.  I try to take 30-40 hats to them every month.  I made all of these from one skein of yarn!  I'm going to crochet the next few I make just for some variety.

This picture is a real disappointment.  It's very dark.  I made a drop stitch shawl for a charity benefit DH and I are going to this Friday.  The dress I'm wearing is a short sleeve "little black dress" so I'm hoping the shawl will help with the warmth factor.  It is doubled over in the picture so I could fit it in!  It's made with Paton's Kroy Sock yarn and I used four skeins.

This is a scarf and mitten set for my secret sister at church.  I'll give these to her in January when we reveal ourselves otherwise she would guess it was me!

This is my little Chloe, on snuggled up next to me while we were knitting other night.  She's my best buddy and never a critic. 



I'll just be watching little "Miss E" until the end of next week.  She's big enough to go to a daycare with more children and I'm getting "antsy" for my freedom once again.  It's been a good couple of months but I am ready to go back to my knitting group and nursing home visits again.

And speaking of  "MissE", she's just begun calling me in the way 3 month olds have when they're hungry! 

Please let me know what you're all working on and how your Christmas plans are coming.

Blessings,

Betsy

Happy Tuesday!

Good Morning!

It's cold here today in the Inland Northwest.  Snow is predicted for tomorrow night so I guess I can be in denial no longer.  It isn't predicted to be anything like what hit the eastern states last weekend but, to me, snow is a four letter word that I detest.

I'm sorry I have no pictures for you today.  My laptop has the camera software on it and it has decided to take a rest!  Hopefully I can get some tech support in the next few days from my son and figure out what is wrong with it.

I began babysitting for dear little "Miss E" yesterday.  She's almost 10 weeks old and a darling but has quite the mind of her own.  I'll have her for awhile until she's big enough to go to daycare.  Since she's so small, she isn't to be around other children very much during this illness infested wintertime.

This has been a huge reminder for me.  I don't know how new moms get anything done.  I forgot how labor intensive babies are. :-)  I think my knitting will decrease in productivity for awhile.  Don't get me wrong, she's darling and I volunteered for this duty.  I LOVE babies!  However, I'm not the 20 something I was when my babies were this age!  I was exhausted last night.

Guess what?  Little "Miss E" is vocalizing her feelings right now so I've got to run.  I'll try to be back with pictures soon.

Blessings,

Betsy

A bit of this and that!

Good Morning!  It's Thursday and a sunny sometimes and cloudy sometimes sort of day here in Washington.  Beginning the Oct. 31 my wonderful husband has volunteered me to babysit a newborn!  That wasn't said sarcastically at all, really and truly!  He saw a need and knows how I love babies and the logical conclusion was that I would love to babysit the dear baby.  And I am looking forward to it...however, I didn't realize how busy I have become until I started trying to figure out how to adjust that life for a baby.  I think the ladies at the nursing home will love to see a wee one but my Weight Watcher meetings will be probably be out of the question.  I'll keep you all posted!

I'm finishing up the third rainbow blanket today, (hopefully).  That will give me an extra for my gift closet.  I always like to have one on hand for a quick gift.  I also found a new scarf pattern on one my Ravelry charity groups this morning that I'm anxious to begin.

Tonight is Bible study here at our house, (every Thursday night is Bible study).  Right now we're watching the "Are you a Fan or a Follower" DVD series at church on Sunday nights and the various studies are discussing the videos during the week.  We're on video 4 this week and I'm learning a lot about myself and my goals in life.  Very illuminating and I highly recommend watching them if you get the opportunity.

Here are a few pictures for you.  The first is a box of knitted  items bound for the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  I forgot to take pictures of the completed items, so here's the box!!!!  Inside are 12 hats, 3 cowls and 2 scarves.  There are also two large ziplock bags of trial size shampoos, soaps, lotions etc. and 10 toothbrushes.  Everything is appreciated on Pine Ridge Reservation.

This is a picture of my "craft closet".  My yarn stock is running very low.  Usually those shelves are completely full. The shelves below the yarn on the right are greeting cards.  I send a lot of card to people for various reasons.  Sickness, loneliness, babies, encouragement, etc. On the very bottom right shelf you can see a completed rainbow blanket, a shawl bound for Pine Ridge Reservation Elder program and dishcloths.  I always keep dishcloths on hand as quick gifts for almost everyone.  I'm sorry the picture is a little dark.  It looked fine on the camera.

These are the geranuims on my back deck.  Considering that we've dipped below freezing twice this week, they still look fairly good don't you think?

 This is the backyard as of 15 minutes ago.  Look at the trees!  Absolutely no fall color on ours, but on the tree behind the fence, just peeking over are beautiful golden leaves.  The yard is still looking really nice for the end of October thanks to my dear husband who takes such good care of it.

And that's it.  A peek into my Thursday world.  I've cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen and now I believe I'm going to sit down with my crochet hook and try to finish that blanket.  I'm going to meet my dear little new baby friend for the first time today.  I'll have to think of a name for her to use online.

See you all again soon.

Blessings,

Betsy