Busy Stores

Good morning everyone! I’ve been busy the last few days running errands. I have volunteered to teach the first through third grade Sunday school class beginning in January, so I spent a couple of hours at the Christian bookstore yesterday looking over curriculum. Then I went to Michael’s and realized all of their yarn was half-price, yesterday only. Of course I had to buy a few skeins. This morning I went to the Dollar store to stock up on a bunch of school supplies. Pencils, glue sticks, crayons, construction paper, scissors, etc. It’s amazing how much you need to teach little kids!  The church would provide some of it, but it’s easier to just take my own back-and-forth and then I know what is in my classroom each week.

The Dollar Store was jampacked with people and then of course, it’s next-door to Michael’s so I had to stop in there. Because I can never pass up Michael’s. Ha! Today they have all of their fancy boxes on sale 70% off. So I picked up one or two of those. And then, Hobby Lobby is just next-door to Michael’s, so I went over there and bought some scrubby yarn so I can make some dish scrubby‘s for small gifts.  I keep a basket of dishcloths by my front door for anybody who stops in at the holidays to choose from. I would like to throw a few scrubby’s in there too.  Using my 40% off coupon it was only a little over two dollars for a skein of the scrubby cotton.  Then it was on to the grocery store to pick up a few things for tomorrow and Sunday evening. Whew!  I’m finally home!

Tomorrow night, instead of having regular Bible study, we’re all getting together to watch the new Netflix movie “The Christmas Chronicles.”  Dennis and I have already watched it and it was pretty cute. So we’re going to have finger foods tomorrow night and watch the movie together. Sunday night is the men’s tool exchange and women’s ornament/kitchen tool exchange at church. We’ve done this every year since we’ve been in Spokane, which is 25 years. It’s lots of fun and we have finger foods there too.

That was a lot of rambling wasn’t it?  On to more fun stuff.  I’ve started the first sleeve on Dennis’s sweater.  It looks more gray than brown here. The sun is shining brightly today so I don’t know why the colors are all wrong in the photos.

 I finished the 10th square for the KAL yesterday.  Only two more squares to go!  I like this basket weave pattern.

It was quite frosty outside both yesterday and today. I took this photo of a tree in the backyard to show you the  hoarfrost that covered absolutely everything including the sidewalks.

And I’ve left the best for last!  I had a wonderful package show up in the mail on Monday. It was a brown paper package tied up with string! It really was.  It came all the way from Lorraine and Gerard who live on the Isle of Lewis. Look at all of the goodies she sent me.

There is a gorgeous hank of brown yarn from one of the sheep right there on the Isle. The sweet notebook and the needle case are both made with Harris Tweed from the Isle.  The little gift tag is beautiful and has one of my favorite Bible verses on it. She also included a sweet singing angel ornament and a lavender sachet. Everything was made with Lorraine‘s own crafty hands.  Am I not the absolute luckiest woman ever? This was so unexpected. I need to think of something very special to use this yarn for. Thank you so very, very much Lorraine.

I’m almost ready to change my mind and put the Christmas tree up. I’m really missing it this year. For those of you who are interested, the test I had done last week came out negative for inflammation in my bones. Which is very good news, but obviously they still don’t know what’s causing my back to spasm so much. The neurologist called yesterday and said he wants to wait until I see the spine doctor again, which isn’t until January 2. I appreciate all of your wonderful thoughts and the prayers that you have said for me. I still would appreciate them. 

After being out and about for a couple of hours this morning, I will be down for the rest of the afternoon because of my back.  It’s quite frustrating. But, I know I have it better than a lot of people so I really don’t mean to complain about it, I just thought I would give you all an update because several people have asked.

I hope you’re all having a wonderful Monday and enjoying lots of Christmas cookies!

“But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”  Matthew 6:3-4

Blessings, Betsy

Happy Monday

I woke up this morning to a phone call. It was one of those robotic calls telling me my that Social Security  number had been “deactivated,” whatever that means. Ha ha! If people put half as much effort into doing good for others instead of trying all of these scams, wouldn’t the world be a better place? Anyway, it was kind of a rude awakening. I always hate to just let the phone ring in case it might be one of the kids needing me for something.

And that was my beginning to Monday. Then, I was out running errands this morning and I came out of one store to find that my car was completely covered with snow and big fluffy white flakes were still falling down. Was it in the forecast? No. My snowboots were at home in the closet. We’ll see how much of this snow that wasn’t supposed to happen accumulates to. Ha!

Now I’m home snuggled in nice and warm with laundry in the washer and dryer. I just printed out the Monday block for the KAL and I hope to start knitting on that this afternoon. Dennis’s sweater has been set aside all weekend. It’s to the point that I need to start working on the sleeves and they require a lot of counting to get started. I thought it would be better to work on when I was alone. Also, maybe this afternoon.

Here is the picture I just took out the back door toward the blue spruce tree. See those big fluffy flakes falling?  It’s hard to catch them in motion.

Brad, Mandy and Piper went to a chili dinner yesterday at Dennis‘s nephew Matt and his wife Kayla’s home. Kayla is the chiropractor that I saw when we were in Omaha last time. They had the entire family over for the afternoon. The only people missing are our two boys, Jamie and Alex and Jamie‘s two children, Kyleigh and Caleb. All of Dennis’s Mom’s other grandchildren and great-grandchildren were there. I don’t think that has happened in the last 30 years. Mandy sent us this picture.  That’s Mom in the back row, second from the left next to Mandy.

It sounds as if everyone had a wonderful time. Another family event that we sure wish we could have been able to attend. Mandy even FaceTimed with Alex during the party so he could talk to everyone to. I thought that was very thoughtful.

I was glad to know that I wasn’t the only one that didn’t know you could schedule posts on Blogger. I don’t know if I can do it through this app on my iPad but I have to use, but I’m going to investigate it further. Thank you all for your suggestions. I hope you’re all having a wonderful Monday and enjoying this season that is upon us. 

“The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.” Nahum 1:7

Blessings, Betsy

Found it!

Remember this blanket that I showed you yesterday?

Oh I am so in love with his blanket. Sharon at “farmgirlsam”  blog on my sidebar told me the designers name for it. The designer is in the UK and I ended up paying for the pattern, but I think it will be worth it.  It’s only available in hardcopy form, not digitally, so I ordered last night and hopefully it will be here within a week or two.  There is a KAL for a shawl that I want to join with Kim over at Napiers Knits, after the sweater is done, but I think I’m going to start this blanket too. I can’t help it, for some reason it’s calling to me. I hope I can figure the pattern out!

I did finish the ninth block of the “12 blocks of Christmas KAL”.  Please excuse the poor lighting. Remember I told you yesterday that the predicted snow hadn’t happened? Well, less than five minutes after I published the post it started snowing. And it has snowed on and off ever since, although it’s so warm none of it is sticking to the ground today. It still makes the lighting pretty bad inside so there are lots of shadows.

I have to stop looking online, because I also found this pretty blanket and pillows to drool over.

I think the colors that she chose are perfect.  What is it with me and crochet lately? Everything I’m finding to make is crochet. Maybe it’s because I’ve been knitting so much and I’m ready for a change.

Tonight is Dennis’s company Christmas party.  I always enjoy them. The food is amazing. Prime rib, ham, roast chicken and all the trimmings you could imagine. And then we play bingo for amazing prizes, including trips to Hawaii and 60 inch TVs! I have never seen a lot of drinking at these parties.  It is really frowned upon.  You are given one free drink ticket each, which we use for soda.  

When we started going to the parties 25 years ago, there were 28 employees. This year there will be over 600 people there! We also used to win several prizes every year. We haven’t won anything for years and years now. :-) Tonight Dennis is being honored for 25 years of employment. They will do a speech about him and he will get some silver eagles for his years of service. I have to say that this has been and is a wonderful job for him and he enjoys it.  It gave him the opportunity to travel all over the world, even though he is home a lot more now and rarely has to travel.  That’s not to say he isn’t looking forward to retirement in a few years. We’re trying to find health insurance options for me since I am younger than he is. That is proving to be quite a huge hurdle and may cause him to have to work a lot longer than we would like or had planned.

Well I think that’s it for today. Thank you all for your information on posting. I had no idea that you could schedule when to publish a post. I wrote these posts each and every day in November, not knowing I could write them in advance and have them go online whenever I wanted them to. I am so technologically illiterate! I hope you’re all having a lovely weekend wherever you are. 

“ I will give thanks to the LORD because of His righteousness; I will sing the praises of the name of the LORD  most high.”  Psalm 7:17

Blessings always, 

Betsy