Favorite Quote

On day two of the November challenge we are supposed to share our favorite quote. I could not narrow it down to just one so I will share my two favorite quotes with you.

“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”  Mother Theresa

AND

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.”   Helen Keller

I finished the Pimpelliese Shawl last night. I received the additional yarn from Knit Picks and started knitting away on it. It wasn’t until I took these photos that I realized how different the colors of second skein are.  Both skeins say they are the “manatee tonal” colorway, but one is much lighter. When I held the new skein up to the partially finished shawl when I received it, they looked the same. I am a bit disappointed as this was supposed to be a gift and I don’t feel as though I can give it away like this.

Look at the obvious line on the left. I’m trying to decide what to do. Should I just frog the whole thing and use the yarn for something else?  What do you all think?

I cannot believe how fast worsted weight socks knit up.  I started these socks this morning and finished them right after dinner. They took virtually no time at all.  It’s just a plain K1P1 for the leg and knit stitch for the foot. I did an eye of partridge heel flap and kitchener stitch for the toe.

I made them to wear inside of my slippers this winter. The floor of the trailer does get pretty chilly.  They haven’t been blocked yet, as I just took them off of the needles.

Dennis and I took a drive yesterday as it was an absolutely gorgeous day. This is the road up to Jeremy and Alicia‘s house on the slopes of Mount Spokane.

Isn’t it gorgeous? There was just a little patch of snow on the right as you can see in the next picture. It reached 60° today and was absolutely gorgeous.  They have offered over and over for us to just keep our trailer up at their house and live in it there. Or park the trailer and live with them in the house until Dennis retires. They are so good to us, but this road gets pretty nasty in the winter and Dennis would have over an hour commute from their house. Days like yesterday when it’s so pretty it’s very tempting. You can’t hear a sound when you’re at their house, it is so quiet.

Tomorrow is election day here in the U.S. and I am keeping our country in prayer through it all. I am praying that the rioting and violence that is predicted does not happen and cooler heads will prevail. I hope those of you that live here use your right to vote as it is very precious and one we may not always have.  Never did I think we would have rioting and violence and have to board up windows because of an election here in our country.  Those are the kinds of things that happen in Third World countries, not here.  I have no idea what is happening, but it is not good.  And that is as political as I would get here on my blog.💜🇺🇸💜

Many Blessings, 

Betsy

November Challenge

Some bloggers are posting different challenges for November. I got it from Debi at "Barefoot Mom" over on my sidebar. For November 1 it is to post 20 things about yourself. Tomorrow the challege is my favorite quote. Lets see how long I can keep it up! 

 

1. I'm the baby of the family. Two older brothers, one older sister. My oldest brother died of COVID in May.

 2. I graduated 10th in a class of 494 in high school way back in 1978.

 3. I got engaged to Dennis when I was 16 and he was 20. We got married right after I graduated. I was 18. We've been married 42 years. 

 4. My Mom died very unexpectedly of a massive heart attack when I was 29. It was devastating to me and still is 31 years later. 

 5. I have three children. Mandy, Jamie and Alex. (1 girl, 2 boys) 

 6. I have three grandchildren. Kyleigh, Caleb and Piper. 

 7. I was born and raised in a town of less than 2,000 in Iowa. BUT. The town is in the middle of Omaha, NE. The Missouri River flooded years ago and left part of Iowa in the middle of Omaha. 

 8. Dennis and I moved to Spokane, WA 27 years ago because of his job. We love the Inland Northwest. 

 9. I adore chocolate. Especially dark chocolate. 

10. I have three favorite vacation spots and it's impossible to choose just one. Maui, Hawaii...The UK, specifically London and Bath...The Oregon Coast. 

11. I love to crochet and knit. I can also spin, but I gave my wheel away a few years ago to a mother/daughter who really wanted to spin to earn some money for their family. 

12. I have a soft spot in my heart for Veteran's. We have many in our family. 

13. I can't swim. I have taken lessons many times but I still can't swim. I'm terrified of water over my head

. 

14. I learned to crochet when I was 7 years old. My Grandma, (Dad's Mom), taught me. I made a little zig-zag blanket for my doll bed. 

15. I taught myself to knit by utube videos about 15 years ago because I didn't know anyone who could teach me. 

16. I have three of the smartest kids ever. Seriously. They are all brilliant. 

17. I desperately want to move closer to family when Dennis retires, but I don't want to leave Washington because it's beautiful and we have lots of friends here. 

18. I hate sauerkraut. 

19. I love peanut butter toast with chocolate milk. I also love pizza and could eat it every day.

20. I've been to Japan three times and I love the country and the people more every time I go. (Please let COVID go away so I can travel again!) 

This was fun! 

Blessings, 

Betsy

Three finishes!

I finally finished all three of Piper’s sweaters. I washed them yesterday and sewed the buttons on last night.  This morning I took them to the post office. I’m so excited to see her wearing them.  As you probably remember, I have already sent her the white one and she wears it constantly.

The red one.  Knit with Red Heart Soft in the “really red” colorway.

I have no idea why the hems are turning up on these three so significantly, unless I didn’t take them out of the dryer quick enough. The pattern calls for just two rows of garter stitch and I always do four to help with the rolling. Hopefully as she wears them they will get better.

This is really just a little bit darker pink than it showing up here but not much. I took the photos early this morning and the lighting wasn’t very good. I’m just showing the back on this one.

And the front of the lavender one. Since they are all the same, I didn’t think you really wanted to see pictures of the front and back on all three sweaters. Both the pink and lavender ones are knit with Bernat Softee Baby in the pale pink and lavender colorways.

I got this quarter with some change last month and I’ve been saving it to put in the package to send to Piper. Isn’t this a cool thing to put on the back? Bats! It says American Samoa on it, but I had originally thought it was representing Carlsbad Caverns because of the bats that fly out of the cave at dusk every night.

I took this last Friday afternoon when I took Chloe to the dog park. One of the kids who lives here in the park was there building a snowman. We ended up with 7 inches of snow on Friday. It was the perfect snowman snow. Very wet and heavy.   At this point it was still snowing and we received several more inches.

Yesterday the skies were bright blue, but you can see we still have some snow in the trees.   Many of the trees around town still had their leaves on them and with such a wet snowfall there was a lot of damage around our area. There are some people who still don’t have electricity. The temperatures have been very cold since then, although they are beginning to warm up a little bit and we’re supposed to be in the 50s by the end of the week.

We have tried all kinds of things to keep the moisture down in the trailer since it’s gotten so cold. It was in the single digits all weekend. We had a small dehumidifier that was supposed to be good for up to 450 square foot, which is a lot more room than we have! It did absolutely nothing. So we ordered this unit from Amazon last week and received it in just two days. It is supposed to be for a 2000 square-foot house! It is working wonderfully. Every evening I pour out about 2 gallons of water that it has collected. We are opposite of most places. We have very dry air in the summer when it’s hot, which is wonderful.  In the winter we have a lot of humidity, which is normally good too, but not when you’re living in a trailer. It can cause mold and mildew and we do not want that. So far we’ve been very happy although it does take up a lot of precious floorspace.

This post worked out very well for some reason. I would type a sentence or two or add a photo and then save it in drafts. Maybe that’s what I’ll have to do from now on. Hooray if that works!

We had to buy four new tires for Dennis’s new truck. We knew that when we bought it, but boy howdy! Tires are expensive!  We should be set for several years though.  I think we finally have everything set up very well for winter here at the trailer. The new manager has been very nice to us but I just found out today that the park is no longer having automatic deliveries of propane. We have to set up our own account with someone here in town. It was so handy before. A delivery truck would come to the park and fill up everyone’s propane and whatever the amount was that it took to fill our tanks would just be added to our monthly rent payment.  New owners! Everything always has to change. The office also had a very nice stock of emergency RV supplies. Those are gone now too. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me considering how many RVs are here at the park and something is always breaking on these things. Oh well. 

We are very cozy and content in our little home on wheels. I just wish it could be down in Florida by Cindy’s, (Delighted Hands), house instead of up here in the snow. She has the most gorgeous flowers in her yard. You should check out her blog post from this morning.  I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

With all of the numbers for Covid going up around the world and the elections here in the US, things are very stressful for a lot of people right now. Most of you remember Karen, Dennis‘s sister who just passed away last month from pancreatic cancer. Her husband Howard and their son Nathan were tested today for Covid. If you would pray that they turn out to be negative I would sure appreciate it.  Howard made a big pot of stew on Sunday and took it over to Mom’s house and spent several hours with her. That is worrisome. Both Howard and Nathan are showing symptoms and I am very hoping that it’s just colds that they have.  Mandy is quite concerned. She spent the entire weekend last weekend administering Covid tests at work. I worry about her too.  

I am definitely trying to turn all of these concerns and worries over to the Lord and not try to carry them on my own. I’m thinking of and praying for each of you too, as I know we all have our own things we are dealing with in our lives, especially now.  May the Lord bless and keep each one of you.

Blessings and love,

Betsy