Home Away From Home

Hello and good morning my friends!  It's a rainy Tuesday morning here and I'm enjoying a quiet morning, talking to Piper on FaceTime and catching up on emails.  Yesterday was a busy one.  Chloe and I came home from the lake about mid morning and I spent a few hours running errands.  I came home and turned on, set and adjusted the sprinkler system.  I also trimmed some bushes in the yard, trying to avoid direct sunlight.  I still have several to do, but I had filled our "Green Bin" and so have to wait for another time to finish up.  Still, it was more physical labor than I have done in the past year and it felt good.  Today my muscles are telling me that they were stretched and I think that's a good thing.

I finished up two blankets for the Crisis nursery while at the trailer for the weekend.  Nita made the squares. Then I crocheted around each square, joined them and crocheted a border around blanket.  It always amazes me how time consuming the finish work is on a blanket like this.  I think they turned out very nice though.  I washed and dried them last night and will deliver them on Friday.  

I cast on a pair of socks this morning for Dennis.  This is the Merino Superwash bought last week from Knit Picks.  I think this will be my trip knitting for the weekend drive to Portland.  Aren't those harmony double points from Knit Picks pretty?  I like the sharp points too.

It occurred to me that I probably have some new readers that have never seen my lake home, so I took some pictures this weekend.  Please bear in mind that this is a VERY lived in trailer.  Starting in May I'm usually there five out of seven days a week for about 6 months!  This is one hardworking camper and I love it.

Here's my little, and I mean little kitchen.  Once the weather warms up the toaster oven there on the stove top will go outside under the awning. That frees up lots more workable space in the kitchen as I have a large cutting board on the stovetop that gives me more surface area that is easily moved for cooking.  Having the oven outside also keeps the heat out of the trailer during the summer months.  We rarely have to use the AC.  Dennis has his Keurig one cup coffee maker. (I use it for tea and hot chocolate.). The refrigerator/freezer is there on the left.  My rose hot pad hangs on a magnetic hook from the range hood.  There's the new kitchen faucet Dennis installed last weekend.  I love it.  It has a pull out sprayer, just like the one at home.  I sure makes cleaning the sink easy.  :-)

Sorry this one is so dark for some reason.  Our two lazy-boy recliners and the view of the lake beyond.

Sofa/sleeper.  It's only been used as a sleeper once. You can see my crochet/knitting decorate this home too.  :-). On the wall is a cross-stitch sampler I did years ago that says, "The Queen's Corner of the World."  Storage above the sofa and our recliner chairs too.  There is tons of storage in this trailer.

Believe it or not we receive 13 television channels just from the antenna.  Plenty to choose from, although we don't watch it much.  Mostly I watch "Americas Test Kitchen" just before I go to bed.  Under the chair seats is more storage.  A CD/DVD player came with the trailer along with speakers for outside too.  I have pictures of our children and grandchildren in this home too!

A huge, three door corner pantry.  This is where we store all of our food.  Plenty of space.

Sorry about the mess, but it IS a hardworking bathroom.  Oops!  I should have rolled up the toilet paper!  A big corner shower.  Nice!  I forgot to to take a picture, but right behind me is a 6 drawer dresser and three door closet in a slide out.  Plenty of room for our clothes.

Chloe likes our queen sized bed.  More storage on either side and above.  On both sides have nightstands and Dennis built additional shelves for each side so it's kind of like we each have a bookcase.  They are perfectly sized for paperback books above and below the shelves.

I truly feel that I could live quite comfortably in this trailer full time.  I haven't convinced Dennis of that though.

A picture of the flowering pear tree in the backyard.  We also have one that is about 25 feet high in the front yard.

We lost the tree that was here in a windstorm last summer.  This was planted in October and seems to have survived the winter just fine.  It looks a bit straggley, but I'm sure it will fill out in time.  Look at that gorgeous blue sky.  That is what it looked like since last Thursday...until today.

I hope you're all having a wonderful Tuesday.  I'm looking forward to seeing my "Portland girlfriends" on Saturday.  How fun!  Today is the day I'm going to dust the window blinds.  I always put that job off as long as possible, but it needs done.  

"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Colossians 2:6-7

Blessings always,

Betsy

Sunny, Sunny Day!

Good Morning and Happy Friday my sweet friends.  Guess where I'm going as soon as my laundry is finished this morning?  Yep.  My happy place at the lake.  Lori and her daughter Carmen have been there since yesterday as Carmen had a few days off of work.  It is supposed to be 81F here today and there isn't a cloud in the sky.  Spring has sprung in the Inland Northwest and it makes me happy, happy.

I found this sweet package in my mailbox this week from Taci.  It was my birthday present from February!  It kept getting sent back to her for some reason.  I have the heart hanging in my craft/office.  The bag will make a nice sock project bag and I'm thinking about what to use the Christmas fabric for.  Any good ideas out there in blogland?  I adore snowmen, (as long as I don't have to shovel it,) so I think this fabric needs to be used for something extra special.  Thank you Taci!

My Knit Picks order also arrived.  I bought Stroll Fingering weight yarn.  It's 75% Superwash Merino and 25% Nylon.  Perfect for the softest, hard wearing socks you can imagine.  On the left is Inverness Tonal and on the right is Pacific Tonal which reminds me of the ocean off of the Oregon coast.  Just check out Teresa's blog post from earlier this week when she and Gracie were lunching and painting at the coast and see if you agree.  This may actually become a shawl for me and not socks, I haven't decided yet.  On the far right are my new size 2 US double pointed harmony needles.  I already have a set, but I wanted to have backups.  You know how those pesky sock needles are.  Always disappearing.

A closer look at the beautiful colors.

Yum!

All wound into cakes with my handy ball winder.

Actually I prefer hand wound balls, but this was too much yarn to do that with.  If I start buying yarn this way very often, I may be asking for a yarn swift for Christmas.  It was a bit of a job to try to do this alone with no tangles.

Aren't the colors in these needles beautiful?

The latest socks for Alex all done!

Three more pair of mittens off of the needles too!

And what kind of post would it be without a Piper picture?

Piper's other Grandma, Marilyn, worked in an elementary school library for years before retiring last last fall.  Just before they left last Thursday, she went with them to the reading group Piper and Mandy go to every week.  She helped Piper pick out some age appropriate books.  That little girl loves, loves, loves to read and tells me stories all of the time.  She has quite an active imagination.  Mandy got the ingredients for this Strawberry Shortcake and they followed the directions, page by page and made the cake together earlier this week.  Look at that proud little girl!  It looks delicious.  She fed me a bite while we were Face-Timing the next day but I didn't quite get the flavor!  Ha!

One of the young ladies that worked for me years ago when I still was heading off to an office everyday came to visit Wednesday night with her two boys.  She stops in to see me whenever she is in town and they stayed overnight with us this time.  We had a wonderful, wonderful visit.  Dennis baptized her, probably about 10-12 years ago and performed her marriage ceremony too.  We just love her and I think the feeling is mutual.  She calls me her "other Mama".  She saw the socks I made and begged for a pair after she tried them on.  I think I'll need to try to find more knitting time in my days.  Ha!

I had another doctor visit on Tuesday and it looks as though I'll be having either a CT scan or an MRI of my head.  They want to check and see if I really do have a brain up there or if it's all air!  Seriously, I think because I'm still having dizziness and light-headedness they just want to rule out anything else that might be going on.  I think that since I had a stroke when I was 37 he's being extra cautious.  I'm 99% sure it's just the medication.  Oh well.

I spent some time at my sewing machine yesterday in the afternoon working on a fun little project.  Maybe I'll have something to show you next time I blog.  Meanwhile, since I'm not sure how it will turn out, I'm going to remain mysterious about it. Stay tuned for further updates!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and enjoy yourselves.  I'm going to use lots of sunscreen so I don't repeat last weekends fiasco.  :-)

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him."  Hebrews 11:6

Blessings,

Betsy

Rainy Days and Monday's

Does anyone else remember that song by the Carpenters?   I always find myself singing it when it rains on Mondays even though, like today, I'm usually fairly content to stay inside and knit when we have a day like this.  This is my view right at this moment in time.  A warm fire because it's chilly outside, Chloe asleep on her bed, covered up with a blanket and my iPad and knitting.  What more could a girl want?  Lest you think it's all I do, I have washed a few loads of laundry and vacuumed this morning!

The view out of the window from my chair.  The trees have budded out over the weekend, but the wind is blowing pretty hard, I hope those new little buds hang on tight.

I'm knitting another sock.  It was supposed to be for Dennis, but I bought some new sock yarn in my Knit Picks order so Alex will probably get the ones I'm making now.

Here's the finished pair from last week modeled by yours truly.

A girl, a hat and her dog.  Love this picture of Miss Piper that Mandy sent me yesterday.  Piper says she doesn't like it!  Polly is the absolute best dog.  She will let Piper do anything and adores her little girl.

Not much other news.  We had a wonderful weekend at the lake with perfect temperatures and sunshine with just a few fluffy clouds.  Those clouds were deceiving.  I ended up with a sunburned face and neck and I think maybe a slight case of heatstroke.  I think I'm more sensitive to the sun now too.  Meds again.  Bleh.  I refuse to give up my lake time though, so I'll have to be even better about sunscreen and staying in the shade.  

Dennis built me new steps yesterday for the trailer, another step higher so the last step isn't so high.  We took them out in the late afternoon yesterday, along with some cushions for the patio set. We finally  found some at Home Depot.  The cushions were in pretty bad shape after so much use but it's been hard to find replacement cushions that fit.  Lori and Nita will be surprised when they see them.

That's about it here.  Just lake time since I last wrote to you.  I hope you all had a lovely weekend and are enjoying spring, (or fall), wherever you may live.

"Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked." Psalm 84:10

Blessings,

Betsy