Rain, rain, rain

Hi everyone! It seems like a lot of the country is getting rain right now. We went quite a while without any, but the last few weeks have been rather damp. It poured constantly from about 2:00 yesterday morning until about 9:30 this morning. It is supposed to rain more this afternoon too. Everything is damp and it’s dreary out and it sure feels a lot like fall.

This is the most colorful tree in our neighborhood. It’s in Dennis’s cousins yard right across the street. Not the best picture, but it’s raining again and I wasn’t about to go stand outside to take a photo. 🍁🍂🍁We’ve also had very high winds that have blown most of the leaves that have changed, off of the trees.

Since Zoey it’s so little, she can fit under several portions of our fence. Plus, the previous owner took the gates off and they are an unusual size so we have not been able to just let her run loose in our yard. We bought this little fence and have had it just past the patio on the grass and it’s worked perfectly for her. We can move it around wherever we want it in the yard. Now, with the rain and the snow on the way, we bought this patch of pet grass. Apparently it’s not regular Astroturf, but don’t ask me the difference! We put it under the deck during the past few days of heavy rain and it’s worked a charm. We don’t have to go stand in the rain and she can go potty without getting completely soaked. Enough rain blows underneath that it washes the mat off well too.

I finished the wrist warmers for our granddaughter Kyleigh for Christmas. The pattern is “Cloudburst” by Arienne  Gray.  They were quite fun to make and very quick. Although I was worried about the chart, they also had written instructions that I haven’t noticed before. I have no idea what the yarn is. I’ve had it for years and years. They are blocking today. I like to wait to sew in the ends until after blocking.

This is the prayer shawl that I’m working on for the medical center. I just began the second skein and I think it will be big enough with just the two. If you remember, these are the two skeins I got for one dollar each at Michael’s in their clearance bin. I believe they are cakes that were pulled out and so could not be sold at the normal price. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them though. The yarn comes out just like a normal skein. Such a deal. I’ll have a 24 inch wide by 5 foot long shawl for two dollars and it’s very soft!!

I have been working on stocking our pantry since we moved into the house. I re-organized it a bit a few days ago.

When I go to the store I just buy 4 to 6 extra cans or jars of whatever I’m getting. Now that we have pretty much everything we need, I’ll just replace what we use. The hardest thing is replacing it from the back without messing everything else up! I would love to have some of those racks that you can put cans on and they just roll forward but those are ridiculously high priced and we don’t need that much food.



We finally found a new freezer. They are hard to find these days. The one that came with the house didn’t work when we plugged it in and was pretty old. I listed it on Facebook marketplace for free and someone came and picked it up within 20 minutes! The refrigerator was left at the house too and works great. I’m just used to having a freezer so I can take advantage of sales. Of course there aren’t many of those anymore are there? I’m hoping turkeys are on sale before Thanksgiving. I think we will probably have around 20 people here for dinner. 

I think that in the post where I talked about volunteering for the medical center, I wasn’t very clear. For the time being, I will just be knitting and crocheting for them. It’s very limited with the volunteers that can be around patients right now. My sister is a baby rocker in the NICU,  but she hasn’t even been allowed to be at the hospital for almost 2 years now. There is a waiting list for that volunteer position, although I would love to do it too. I’ll probably do something else when they allow volunteers back in.

It’s been a relatively quiet week. Dennis and I had our annual physicals Tuesday morning and they gave us the Covid boosters while we were there. As usual, Dennis had absolutely no reaction to it which is wonderful. But I had the same reaction I did to the original two shots. Yesterday I felt pretty icky with bodyaches, low-grade fever and headache. Today my arm just hurts. It’s good to have it over with. Now we just have the last shingles shot at the end of November.

I hope you are all doing well. Take care of yourselves and make sure you keep some food in the house. Those supply chains, at least here in the states, seem to have broken badly.

Bless and love,

Betsy

Busy Weekend

Did you all have a good weekend? We sure did. It was busy and full of fun too.  Miss Piper had no school on Friday because of teachers meetings. I picked up Lizzie, their puppy, from the vet around noon and brought her to our house. She had had her third set of shots. She and Zoey  played all afternoon. Mandy and Piper came for dinner Thursday night and then Piper and Lizzie got to spend the night with grandpa and grandma! That was fun. Piper and I did a little shopping on Friday and grandpa got to watch both of the puppies while he worked! For his sake we weren’t gone very long. 😍

Then on Saturday, Melanie, Dennis and I took a day trip to the Kansas/Nebraska state line. There is a church that was built right on the state line and that is where our grandparents on our Dad’s  side and an aunt and uncle and cousins are buried.

It has been 40 years since I’ve been to the cemetery. It was February 1979 to be exact, when my grandma was buried. I knew approximately where the graves were, but thankfully this little cemetery out in the middle of nowhere has a list mounted on a little building showing you name, plot, date of birth, death and where the people were born! How wonderful for genealogists. Over 40 headstones in the cemetery had our maiden name of Saathoff on them. It is a tiny, tiny cemetery and I would say maybe a third of the headstones where our family. The first one below are my grandparents

This is my dad‘s brother and his wife. My Aunt Joyce just died a couple of years ago. Uncle Ernie, Aunt Joyce and their kids are the ones we were closest to when we were growing up.

They had two little stillborn babies, Ricky and Jay. 

Cindy was my sister Melanie‘s age and Cathy was just 11 days younger than me. We had lots of fun together growing up. 

Here is Dennis walking Zoey in front of the little church. It was a cloudy and windy day but not too cold.

I finished our grandson Caleb‘s socks. These will be part of his Christmas gift. He’s 14 and I thought a pair of wool socks would be great for when he goes snowboarding, which is quite often since they live near a ski resort. That little ball is all that was left of two skeins of Patons Woodsie. This is the first time that Patons has disappointed me. Usually I have quite a bit left over when making a pair of socks using two skeins. This time I did the heels in a black yarn because I knew there was no way I would have enough.

Now, I have barely started a pair of wrist warmers using the pattern “Cloudburst” by Arienne Grey. It’s a charted pattern and I detest charts, but I’m going to give it a try anyway. These will be for our 16-year-old granddaughter Kyleigh.

I’m still working away on the prayer shawl too, in between other projects.

I delivered the bag of mittens to a local school this morning. They were so excited! I also had five hats included in K-3rd grade size. She’s hoping I’ll continue to make them for next year.

Mandy’s going to kill me for posting this picture because she has her glasses on and her hair back but I thought I would show you that Brad really does exist. He’s just been working out of town for the past two years and only home for sporadic weekends. He was here this weekend and they took this quick picture to send to a family friend. I think it’s a great picture of all of them but of course she doesn’t like it. We never like pictures of ourselves do we?

And here’s another photo of our little Zoey sitting on Piper‘s lap when she was here last week. According to the vet there are just 2 ounces in weight difference between Lizzie and Zoey, but Zoey still looks huge next to her.

I hope you’re all having a blessed day I’m enjoying each and every moment that God has given us here on this earth. Take care of yourselves. I know many of you are in the process of getting the Covid booster and or flu shots. Make sure and get lots of rest.

Blessings and love,

Betsy

One More Day

We have one more day of beautiful sunny weather with the temperature hovering around 80°F. Beginning tomorrow we’re told there will be a drastic drop in the temperatures, so I’m enjoying today to the fullest. I have all of the windows and screen doors open and enjoying the breeze as it’s blowing through the house. I have a puppy curled up on my lap taking her nap and all is right with the world.💜

I finally finished up the socks I’ve had on the needles for almost 2 months. It’s a very simple Hermione pattern and it was knit with Knit Picks Stroll Tweed in the Lost Lake Heather colorway. I always enjoy this pattern.

Yesterday I cast on another pair of socks that will be for our grandson Caleb. This is using Patons Kroy socks in the Woodsie colorway. I am a bit disappointed and I probably should have weighed the yard before I began, but I know I don’t have enough to make one sock out of each skein of yarn. This has never been a problem when I’ve used the same yarn in the past. The socks aren’t any bigger than others I have made. They are supposed to be 100 g in each skein but there is no way they have that much yarn.

The leg is only 5 1/4 inches so far and I haven’t even begun the heel. That little ball of yarn on the right is all that’s left of one skein! I found the ball on the left in the bin of sock yarn that Debbie sent me. I don’t have any solid colors to match, which seems rather unbelievable. What do you think? Will it look all right to do the heel and toe out of the yarn on the left? I’m sure that he will use these socks while snowboarding, so they will be inside his ski boots and no one will see them, but I still would like them to look nice.

I have about 18 inches done on  the shawl that I began knitting for the hospital. Underneath the shawl is a puppy that’s taking her nap!

I saw this on Facebook a couple of days ago and couldn’t stop laughing. It is SO TRUE! Don’t you think so?

Here is our little girl. She wants to be right with us every minute of the day. She went to the vet yesterday for her second set of shots. She weighs exactly 5 pounds and is in perfect health according to him. Honestly? We have no idea what we did before she came along. She has us both wrapped around her little paws. Her antics never fail to make us laugh and she and Lizzie are the best of friends. She is still having about one accident a week in the house and we have no idea why. The vet tells me that that is normal and that we can’t  expect more than that. She’s just four months old this week.

She helped me clean the shower this morning. Now that was fun! I had forgotten to shut the bathroom door and she was determined to lick up the cleaner to see what it tasted like! Yuck! Dennis to the rescue. He came and took her into his office with him while I finished that job. Then I moved on to the refrigerator where something was spilled over the weekend. I took the drawers out of the bottom so I could clean underneath and she was right there to help with that too. Then, I moved downstairs to the family room to vacuum and that chased her back into the office because she’s terrified of the vacuum cleaner! Life is certainly interesting with a puppy around.

We walked with Piper home from school on Friday trying to get Zoey used to being around children since it’s just us old people here along with seeing Piper several times a week. I know it’s important for socialization for her to be around other people and animals. My goodness that was the perfect place to go! There must have been 40-50 children petting her, picking her up and walking with us. They have so many people out in their neighborhood all of the time that it’s a good place to go and walk both Zoey and Lizzie. Our neighborhood has mainly older people, who are very rarely outside. I think I’m going to try to do that at least once a week while the weather is nice enough.

I hope all is well with each one of you. God has blessed us with some amazing weather the past couple of weeks and I am enjoying every single minute of it. I know it will end soon but I’m going to enjoy it while I can.

Blessings and love,

Betsy