This is Soooooo Me

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

What a giggle. Thank You Viv for having this.

Finished Pair #2

Yep!!! I finally finished pair #2 of socks last night, actually this morning before leaving work. No pics yet, maybe later today after I wake up. Did figure out thought that I knitted the 2nd one looser than the 1st one starting at the Heel Flap. Interestingly enough I noticed that once I started knitting looser my fingers were not constantly going pins and needles on me. I must admit I like the way the tighter knit feels, but I don't like my fingers being all numb on me. What to do, What to do...I guess maybe smaller needles (she mumbles absently to herself )

More later when I am actually awake and conscious and have dealt with a few other life issues that are currently sitting on my plate.

Have a great one!!!!!

Back Home from PA

Good Morning All!!! Yep, back home from another adventure filled excursion with the RV. This time after coming back to the RV from a day in Amish Country and lots of good food, we found the awning whipped back over the top of the rig snapped off at the brackets. After much inventive thinking and thank goodness Dad was there and my brother drove over with another ladder and some electrical ties we were able to go to bed for the night. Then it was how do we get this all home. The answer...after talking to the insurance folks and some fellow RV'ers...take pictures and cut the awning off. So we did.
With that all done and taken care of it was a Clam Bake to concentrate on. The family tries to do one every year, lots of clams, fresh corn, beer, hot dogs, watermelon and fun with family and friends.
Did not help my wt reduction, but in the long run I did not do too badly. So now it is back to the daily grind of being at home, laundry to catch up on, work this afternoon and tonight, RV to fix, new lawn to deal with, Rick's ex to deal with (ick ick ick :( )and a really big house to clean.
For those of you who are familiar with the current job situation with Rick, looks like he has but to accept officially the position as a historian for an intelligence wing at Langley AFB. But it is a government job and they can be quite twisty and turny about how things go. You think you have it and then you don't.

Oh btw, am almost finished with sock #2 of the second pair. Really need to get some pictures downloaded.

Have a wonderful day all!!

Wow!! 4 days off...What will I do???

I have already kind of wasted one of them. But in a good way. Went to my Physical Therapy, and got groceries (lots of fruit and veges). Talked to some friends and started going through some of my paperwork that has been taking over my world. I also spent over an hour trying to make a plane reservation using my 'free' ticket for a trip to....you guessed it!!!! GERMANY!!!!!
My neice is going to be an exchange student in Koeln (Cologne) in the fall. So I will go over and visit my good friend Rachael, and maybe even be able to get together with Viv as well until DH shows 4 days later. Then we will take Holly south to Garmische. We all visited there in 2003 on family vacation and she would like to return.
I must say the free ticket is extrememly expensive time wise. I am so used to making my own arrangements that it was difficult trying to be patient with a real person and getting her to do all the things that I usually do when getting my 'perfect ticket'.

So I guess the next few days will be more organizing, some cleaning, and hopefully some knitting and such. Will be sure to keep you all up to date.

It Never Fails...

Been home from vacation for two weeks and have just today finally gotten some stuff done here around the house. A bit of cleaning and laundry and totally cleaned and rearranged our master bed room. Let me tell you it was sorely in need of cleaning and clearing out. I must admit though I did not make it into the closet. Maybe tomorrow with that. Tomorrow should be the vacuuming and cleaning of the rest of the house and then maybe a bit of fun stuff like going to the beach. We shall see

I must admit living near the beach (with in 15min drive) is not all it is cracked up to be. When you own a home and live and work in the area, when you finally have some free time, you have to do all the stuff that has to be done around the house instead of going off and having fun. I have decided it is better to visit the beach, you get a lot more enjoyment out of it.

DH and I are now ready to sit and relax a bit and have some dinner. I guess we shall pop in a DVD (maybe Buffy) and just veg a bit.

Catch you all later

Ahhh Vacation...

I tell you it is truly amazing what you ca accomplish while on vacation - away from your own home, that is. I have entered quite a few of my loose floss items on my organizational software. If I had known I would get so much done I would have brought more. I do have some of my Cross Stitch patterns with me, so I guess I can work on getting those into the software as well.
I have also made reasonable progress on my knitted top, the one that I was all the way up to the arm-holes (past the decreases and heading into the straight part) when I decided to measure it against a knitted top I already own and saw that it was about 1.5 to 2 inches bigger in width and decided to FROG the whole thing and start over. I must say though I am pretty glad that I did because my tenstion is much better on this try.
We met the lovliest couple while here at the campground, she from Germany and he from the US. Although they only just moved back to the US 3yrs ago after living in Germany for 30yrs. We have had dinner with them (we just happened to have brought brat wurst with us) and then they had us over to make S'Mores over the campfire, so now this evening, we will grill here at our site and enjoy their company one last evening before we pull up stakes and leave tomorrow morning. They have a dog about Misty's age and the two of them love to run and play together.
The down side of vacation is that after spending much time effort and energy on putting his Wed night class presentation together, this morning much to his dismay and consternation Rick's computer has again decided to CRASH. I feel so badly for him. Hopefully when we get home tomorrow he will be able to restore it all in time for class. He did not bring his boot disk with him.
So any way...I hope everyone has a fun and safe 4th of July!!!!

Believe it or not...I am still here

Yes, I am still around, although life has been quite busy these days. Which leads me to why I am able to post today...I am on vacation!!! 4.5 days of nothing but hanging out at the campground 10miles from anything. So I figured this would be a good time to catch up on my blog.
I am still knitting, and working (at both CWC and my private duty nursing job), and trying to bring a bit of organization into my life. I have even gone so far as to bring some of my organizational tasks here on vacation. You see, when my computer had to be wiped out even though we saved my Needlework Organization software, I had unfortunately not backed up all my progress in someplace save-able. So now I have to start all over again. Some of the project diary parts I will have to come up with from memory. That will be tough.
Anyway, I think I am up for the challenge. I want to know what I have, and what I can maybe sell. I am positive there are things I will either never get to, or have no intention of getting to at this point. So I may as well try to get a bit of my investment back.
Since I am not a big writer, I will close this at this time, and will do my best to keep up a bit better in the future.

My socks are done!!!

Yes, my socks are finished, I just need to weave in the ends and wash them and block them. My second one is a bit smaller than the first. I thought I needed to knit tighter, but I should have knitted the same as I did the first one. Also the gusset is 5 decreases less than the first one, as I could not figure out how to decrease 10 stitches and still have the nubmer of stitches left that I should.
As soon as I have pictures I will post them.

Home, Home, Home At Last

Well, we finally made it back to Virginia. It took a bit, and a couple detours, but we are here. "Are you glad to be back home?" people have asked me...well to be quite honest every time I go to Germany it gets harder and harder to leave. Although I must admit it was wonderful to see my parents, my dogs, and my 3 step-sons. By the way I got to see them in that order. Approximately 45min after arriving from PA (to pick up the dogs from my parents) the boys came tumbling in the door for their weekend with us. They just keep growing.
They all loved all their goodies that we brought them, t-shirts from Hard Rock Cafe in Koln (Cologne), Milka and Kinder Schokolade, and Shokolade Hase for Easter.
I am still in the process of trying to get through 1 months worth of mail (which had to be brought home from the Post Office in one of those big white Postal Boxes that they use to sort mail. Yesterday I did all the laundry that was here, and took my turn at the lawn mower. We still have one more round of lawn mowing to do today. I cannot even imagine what things would look like if we had been gone while it was warmer and the grass could grow faster.
As for my knitting and stitching...it is on hold for the time being. Must get re-organized a bit. I do return to my night shift job tonight, so maybe I will finish my second sock tonight (as long as I stay awake). I must admit after seeing all the wonderful sock yarns in Germany I am quite excited about the socks I will soon have in my possession (hopefully). Plus I have the yarns already purchased for some lovely tops for the spring and summer.
I will try my best to post some pictures as soon as DH gets them to me.
My hope is to do a bit more blogging now that I am home and have the hang of it. Just to keep myself honest Wed (April 19) will be my official Day 1 of re-dedicating myself to me health improvement venture. I just want to be healthier as in exercising more, eating better, and sleeping well. I am so glad summer is on its way since that way there will be alot more fruit and vegetables available.
So, until I catch up again,,, I hope everyone is well, and enjoying a lovely weekend with family and friends, and welcoming in the start of a new season.

Alrighty then....

Well, now that I have finally gotten my settings so that my blog looks like a real person wrote it, now I will do a little catching up.

I am currently at my friend's house in Germany and will keep this short. Rachael has now taught me (in the process there of) to knit socks. So soon I will have photos of that too.

Today, Michael and Rick went to Media Markt and got me an MP3 player so I can listen to German books on disc. So hopefully it will help me with my German. I am really moving into the computer age.

We are off to go celebrate Michael's Birthday with Mexican food.

One last try and then I will give it over to DH


Let us see if now there are spaces in my blog writing

Let's try this again

OK now let's try this whole mess again

Let's see if there are spaces now

Thank You RACHAEL!!!!!!!!

You are my hero!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank You for fixing my composing issue. You are 'the Bomb'


Now there are spaces in my writing.

I made it!!!!

Today is the first I have had my house back completely since last Tuesday. We made it through the Retirement, the House Guests, the Open House, and Rick being sick with a really BAD cold (fevers, sinus', the whole deal). I am exhausted, and so is he. We spent most of yesterday at Langley AFB trying to finish his out-processing. So today starts all my catching up here at home. Must admit though that the house looks great. Should stay looking great since the dogs are gone until we come home from Europe, and the kids will be here this weekend, but I will have time to clean up after they leave. So that should translate into coming home to a totally clean house in 4wks.
************I must say I am soooooooooooooooo ready for this vacation. I think there will be quite a bit of just kicking back and kicking around on this trip. Nothing great and spectacular, just regrouping, and getting our minds around the future a bit.
************One of the things we looked at yesterday was an RV that an AF guy is selling because he is PCS-ing to Austrailia! Our timing could be better but not by much, he is getting antsy and is coming down on his price. As long as Rick has a job we can afford to do it. That would be so cool.
*********** Time for me to run away and get some work done...go figure.

OK here are the knitting pics...

Yes, I think I finally have a handle of doing the picture part of this blogging stuff, just can't get the silly paragraph breaks to occure. Will have to see how you have yours set up when I come visit Rachael.


I just love these scarves...they are quick and easy and look so fun.


Then there is the famous "Bucket Cozy"...every bucket should have one!! Soon they will be all the rage.

The felt bag is how they look 'before' felting.


I am currently working on a snuggle shawl, but no pics as it is on round needles and I don't want to take it off. Must say though it is growing by leaps and bounds. One of these days you will have to teach me to make socks Rachael.

Weekend Update....It has been busy

Here they are...I hope the pictures of the new 'step up Library' in our family room.
My DH did such a great job designing and then building these. We have only partially filled them at this point, as he still has lots of books to bring home from the office post retirement.

Anyway...it has been a busy weekend with trying to get the house in order, since it will start filling up on Tues. and then won't empty until next Monday or Tues. Plus Matt brought a cold/crud thing here with him, and Rich caught much the same thing from his girlfriend and her family....so needless to say Mom/Nurse was quite busy for the last 2 days. I am looking forward to work tonight so I can just sit and knit for a while.
I think I will start a new topic to show off my knitting pics as I am not really sure if I can post them on this one too and not mess up the format. I already have difficulty getting my posts to look right. Can't seem to get the paragraph breaks to show up.

OK, maybe not so 'on my feet again'

Well, here I thought I was doing better, but after going to work on Tues and having not one but two co-workers coughing and hacking all over the place, I have now managed to aquire a sore throat/head cold, which is really a pain.

I tried to go to work, today, but was not successful, so I think it is back to bed for me, and then out for Dim Sum with DH and two friends. Guess that means I will be Designated Driver...like that is anything new.

Maybe even a bit of knitting for me today. That would be nice, especially since lately I am always cold, and I happen to be working on a a nice wooly shawl.

Back on my Feet again

Yes, I was a bit under the weather...not so awfully bad though. Enough that as of today I am officially 4lbs lighter. Just could not eat anything. So it was Tea, toast, and water for me. That is ok in a way though, since it has helped me jumpt start back into my Nurtrisystem program. Just so you all know that I am aiming for 20lbs down from where I am as of today (we won't scare you with that number) by my 40th Birthday in Mid May. It is a lofty goal, but I think I am game for it.
Yes, Rachael, there may be some more clothes coming your way with this trip in March....
The Olypics are keeping Rick busy in front of the TV, but he did finish the book shelves, and I have painted the back walls, so as of this afternoon I will begin filling them. Systematically of course:)
My knitting is coming along well, and as long as there is still some of my special yarn from Karstadt to be had, all will be well, if not, then I will tear out what I have and re-approach in a different way.
I really do have photos, but DH has not down-loaded them off the camera yet (wants to wait until I have put some books in the shelves and get pictures of that too), so he says.
Well, I am off to do some book organizing, and shelving.

And so begin the Olympics...

Well, here we are at the beginning of the Olympics, and I have now undertaken my first reasonably large knitting project -
let's hope I can finish it before the end of the Olympics.
Life has been a bit busy, but I think it will settle for a little while for the next few weeks. Hours at Coldwater Creek are decreasing (apparently this is normal for this time of the year), and that is OK. So I am now back to working 3 nights per week on my private duty case (this means more knitting time).
When chatting with a dear freind of mine we referred to being bitten by the Knitting Beast as having a tryst with the Knitting Gods...oh how right she was. I am sure I will again go back to my old stand-by of Counted Cross Stitch...one day soon. I must admit that making things that are very usable and wearable, and complete-able in short periods of time - in comparison to my BAP's in cross stitch.
We are definitely in the throws of planning Rick's Transitions out of the Air Force after 28yrs. Yes, 28yrs!!! So now he will have to find his way in the civilian world. We have no idea yet what is in store for us. We hope maybe some time in Germany (other than the 30day holiday after his ceremony), or possibly a move to Oklahoma for him to complete his PhD in History, and then there is always the possibility of us staying here in VA while he works with a crew of folks he worked with previously - which would include lots of travel (goody goody). We just have to have faith in what is meant to be and what will be best for both of us, as well as the boys.
As for the boys at this time...Rich has finally gotten a job working as a Waiter at a restaraunt called Smokey Bones (greates BBQ you will ever taste); they are also affiliated with Red Lobster and Olive Garden. Hopefully he is getting his act together for college this coming fall, but who knows. We can only do so much, and since his Mother is not all into him going to college who knows what will really happen.
Josh is doing his Model UN 'thing' this coming week. I really hope he follows his instincts and goes for International Relations and Photography for college. He has grown up so much over the past 2yrs. We are both so proud of him. He has really come into his own and made a spot for himself.
Matt...well he just keeps plugging along. He has now gotten his music composition soft ware and will be busy with that this coming weekend since his brothers won't be around to bother him.

Thanks for listening to my rambling. I guess this blog thing is a good idea. Maybe tomorrow or this coming week I will post pics of my Knitting progress so far.

The Weekend is here

Now that the weekend is almost upon me, I look back and see that I have not gotten much accomplished over the past week. Although, I did manage to work my way into the world of 'blogging', so I guess that is pretty good. I have also been working on my bucket (to be decorated) for work. Will post a picture as soon as I have one to post. I have also been knitting and reading.
I think today will be a house day though, I have already begun the laundry process and am going to tackle emptying and re-organizing my container/storage pantry. If I really make good progress I may even end up doing the food pantry as well. A bit of swiffering, and maybe even a good vacuuming will get done too. Then I can sit down and knit tonight after dinner.
The boys arrive tonight - the younger 2. The older one will arrive sometime tomorrow after the girlfriend's surprise birthday celebration at her grandmother's here in VA Beach.
Preparations are beginning for the whole retirement process (ceremony- party- then travel). Looks like we will be departing for Germany on or about the 19th/20th of March and return home on or about the 13th of April. It will probably be good for me to blog here when things get a bit crazy.