Have I brought enough knitting?? I have a wee tiny sock to knit, a new sock pattern, a star dishcloth pattern and the adorable Elefante .
I have many hours of driving ahead of me. Hope I have enough knitting.
I hope all goes well. We are leaving for vacation tomorrow and this will be the first time that Starsky & Hutch have been away from us. My mom is going to stay in the house to take care of them. They like her and know her well.
They must know that something is up. I am always followed, but it has been ridiculous these past two days. I almost sat on Starksy's head. He had followed me into the bathroom. When I sit down they both come over and will push and nudge each other, trying to get the closest.
So have fun while I am gone. I will catch up with all of you when I get back.
Hopefully I will have had wonderful adventures to share with you. I plan to knit while watching the sun come up over the ocean.
I need to come up with one of those blog quizzes. The quiz would help you determine what kind of shoes you are.
Are you flip flops, flats, heels, boots, pointy toes, sparkly, tennis shoes, Crocs or are you just a barefoot kinda person??
According to my boys I am not a sparkly shoe person, but my older sister is.
Last week I was shopping with the boys at Target and saw a pair of sparkly shoes. Silver sparkly slip on Converse, not the regular slip ones, it had a little wedge heel. I stopped and oohed and aahed them, liking them very much. While looking for my size (which I can hardly ever find) it gets pointed out to me that I am not sparkly shoes, Aunt Shelley is but not me. The other one carefully reads me the price. Mommy those shoes are $29.99, that is too much. He then offers some pink polka dot ones that are only $19.99. I am also reminded that daddy says I have too many shoes already. I find myself getting quite huffy saying that I can be sparkly shoes if I want to be. And if I really want them then $29.99 is not too much. This conversation continues in this manner for at least 10 minutes or so. Them "no you're not" me "yes I am" them "those are Aunt Shelley shoes" me "I'll get them if I want to"
Unfortunately I could not find the sparkly shoes in my size.
Fast forward to just a few days ago. New Target, new shopping buddies (my mom and Olivia) and there they were in all of their sparkling glory....on sale!
I found the magic number.
My younger sister is getting them for my July birthday.
See, I can be sparkly shoes if I want to.
My brother Jason, has finally found a wonderful woman to share his life with. I used to tease him and say that he was waiting for the girlfriend fairy to drop one off at his door.
Jason & Becca have been together for more than a year and are getting married in August. He is getting a bonus, along with Becca comes an adorable 5 year old boy.
The very beautiful Becca and her lovely mother Pansy.
This is my sister Shelley, her foot and an F-150 truck tire tired to occupy the same space at the same time. We hope she will be back on her feet soon.
Olivia and my cousin Lauren. She turned 21 several months back. How did that happen??
She was registered at Victoria's Secret. You can only access the registry online. Apparently they do not update the items at all. Becca ended up with three brown and pink dresses, two pairs of the same sandals, two of the same nighties and bras. So I personally would not recommend registering at Victoria's Secret.
I almost forgot the kicker, on-line purchases cannot be taken back to a store. What a pain in the butt this is going to be.
This green dress has to be one of the most beautiful things she opened. Becca will be just gorgeous as she and my brother stroll down the lane on their honeymoon.
After a very interesting conversation last night, I have been thinking about what makes a person who they are at any given point in their life.
I'm not talking about nurture versus nature, that does play a big part though. Some may think where you live, or if you had money, the right friends or clothes.
I think it is the hardships we endure that mold us the most. At the time you may not recognize it as a hardship. But it is the failures, losses and bad decisions in life that have the strongest impact. Most everyone has a turning point in life, like you just woke up from a daze and can finally see where you are heading. Then we ask ourselves, how did I end up here. For some it takes years to wake up and may be devastating for those around you to watch.
If things had happened differently would you be who you are today? Looking back I wonder did I really have to go through all of that to get here. Wasn't there an easier way to find the person you want to be.
I have told my friends that they would have not liked me 15-20 years ago. Bad tempered, naive, afraid to say much. A blog would never have been possible. Who the hell would be interested in anything I had to say.
John talks about what it would have been like if we had met when younger. What was I doing when he was 20 (well, I was 15 and he was too old for me). I wasn't ready for him when I was 20. I don't think I became an adult until I was 25 years old. We all have been molded by our hardships, and for the most part have come out stronger.
We had a nice little showing tonight. A few were missing but hope to see them back next week. Guess what?? I did not take one picture tonight. I had my camera just did not get it out. I should have though, Ruth made the most adorable stuffed toy elephant. We all want to make one now.
Ila is making a matching hat for the BSJ. It is as cute as can be.
A few of us stayed late talking. Boy, Ashley had a story to tell, had to run for a bathroom break I was laughing so hard. Three children can reek havoc on the bladder.
I did work on the dishcloth, it has a few more rows to go. I have yet to frog it, I think I will be able to leave the mistakes. My mom wants it, mistakes and all. This will be a big step for me. I am very particular about my knitting, it has to be perfect or as near to perfect as I can get it. I have frogged completed projects because I was not happy with how they turned out. There is a hat right now waiting to be frogged, the decreases are not even.
I hope to have some actual knitting content later this week. Maybe even an FO from me.
nearly a week late. I know, I have been slacking a lot lately. Things are fine, just not been in the mood. Haven't had much to say either, hardly in knitting to speak of. Gina left a comment, "Where's the knitting?" I don't know, I have made 3 or 4 more wee tiny socks. I needed some mindless tv knitting so I cast on a moss stitch dishcloth.
I do have some things planned just nothing I've started yet. I need some motivation. Not sure where it is going to come from. Maybe the vacation we are going on later this month or when Lora gets home. So until I have things to show...here is everyone from last week's knitting......
An interesting view of Becca's spinning wheel.
Here we all are. (Eli is the photographer)
Olivia brought her knitting too.
Look at that pretty fiber, can't wait to see it spun up.
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Ila is seaming up her BSJ.
Becca has been spinning.
Kristy is hiding behind her cabled purse.
I let Olivia and Eli take a few pictures. A very interesting view of casting on...
knitting and 
crocheting.
Lora and I shared a glass of wine together. No she is not home yet, but we talk often on Yahoo IM. I told her I would be happy to join her in a glass.
My glass of wine
Lora's glass of wine
about the HHFF adventure. We saw a tractor trailer lying on its' side in a soybean field next to the expressway. A fifth wheel motor home was in the median on its' side still attached to the truck that had all four tires on the ground. We were on our way to eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise, right outside of Indy, when I saw a fish flopping in the middle of the road. Yes, I said a fish. A hotel pond was so flooded that fish washed over the banks. We saw lots of children playing in the flooded streets. Some of the water was up to their waists. The parents were watching from porches. On a few of the roads we saw miles of bumper to bumper cars.
We were able to drive the last 30 miles home on I-65 S. A total of sixteen state police cars were seen heading north.
We did not come home empty handed, at least mom and I did not.
I brought the white alpaca finger puppet home for Eli. He had wanted the
ones I got in my "swap on a budget" package.
Here are two hand painted skeins from "A Good Yarn" in Greenwood, Indiana. The green hues is 352 yards of 100% superwash Merino. The blues are not superwash. I will have to be more careful with that one.
This incredibly beautiful braid of fiber 
is 8 ounces of hand dyed 70% wool, 30% seacell from the extremely talented hands of Creative. 
Go have a look, it's worth it. I'll wait.
No this is not for me (oh how I wish it was). Nicole was not able to come with us, so she gave me some money and instructions last week at Tuesday night knitting. I hope she loves it. It's hard to pick something out for someone else. She definitely did not want any pastels.
This shiny rayon is going to be a One Skein Coin Bag. Mom bought it for me to knit for her from a dad and his two daughters. The daughters had made earrings and necklaces to sell. They also had cat toys filled with catnip.
I'm not even sure of all the stuff that mom got. I do know that she got a hat form and some roving for a new style felted hat.
Olivia and Mimi having a good time.
We found this really cool felted witch hat. Olivia said it was heavy.
Here she is sportin Mimi's new hat.I don't even know where to start. Let me go back to the beginning...it is too much....Let me sum up... Prince Humperdink is gonna marry Buttercup in little less than half a hour. No no that's the wrong story. (Focus, you can watch PB later)
We were a little behind starting out because my mom is still on her Florida retirement schedule. She's not eager to be up and on the go by 8:00 in the morning. But that is ok, she is home with us for now so I can let a little tardiness slid by. Anyway we were traveling with a wonderful group of ladies and they did not mind a bit of a delay.
So we were headed on the highway looking for adventure.........and lo and behold we found it about an hour up I-65. There was rain, lightening, some more rain, no visibility, lots more rain, and lightening, did I mention the lightening? You know how you can't keep your eyes open when you sneeze, well I have that same problem when driving in lightening. Also made little scared noises and let a few shits and damns loose. Right about this time one of my passengers looks on her phone and tells me that this area has had about 1,000 lightening strikes in the past 10 minutes. I will admit, I needed to get out of the car. So we spent a little time at a Marathon Station. When we did get back on the road, we had only had a couple more exits to go. We were finally in Franklin, IN (just south of Indianapolis) and found out that you can't get there from here. There was severe flooding in the town and some (most) of road were closed.
Now we were on a quest for fiber and yarn. After a brief discussion and a vote we decided that we were not going to let a little water stop us from getting to the Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. In retrospect that may have not been the most wise decision, none the less we were determined to find a way to the yarn. The alternate route was a little out of the way but it gave us a great view of lots and lots of water. A cheer went up when we finally turned on Fairgrounds road. Everyone was soggy but in high spirits, we had made it to the yarn. It was a dismal sight but parking was good 
Becca found a wheel to play with. 
We did not see her until much later.
Some lovely fiber and hats.
Here we have some slightly damp angora bunnies.
There was much discussion at the fiber festival about how many of us were going to get home. If you needed to go south you were out of luck. A 50 mile stretch of I-65 South was closed 
and so was US 31. Many of the back country roads that would have taken us south were underwater. We talked about getting a hotel and waiting until today, driving about 100 miles out of the way, towards Cincinnati, and coming I-64 into Louisville. After stopping for dinner and later a DQ break we were able to find an open road that would take us south of Columbus where we could get on I-65 .
Central Indiana got about 10 inches of rain. Flood water reached the first floor of the Johnson Memorial Hospital in Franklin. The Hospital is several blocks from the fairgrounds where the fiber festival was held.
I have more but I am wore out all over again just from telling you. Many many hours were spent in the car. Come back by later.
and I caught one. Lora cover your blog next time.
1. What was I doing 10 years ago? 10 years ago this month we had a 9 month old Alex and were moving into this house
2. What are 5 things on my TO-DO list for today? Oh, am I supposed to have a to-do list??
3. Snacks I enjoy: Chips and salsa, peanut butter stuff (anything really)
4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Buy acres and acres of land and get every dog we ever want. And some lipo for myself.
5. Places I have lived: I have lived in Jeffersonville, then Iowa, then Jeffersonville, briefly in Louisville, KY, then back to Jeffersonville, IN again. Man I need to move somewhere....
6. Jobs I have had: car hop (I am reaching far back for that one) bartender, server, restaurant manager and some years in retail management.
Bloggers I am tagging for this MEME: Hmm, let me think.....
Suzannah she is a new blogger and has never done a meme before
Holly she needs to post something at least every two weeks or so...
That's all I have for now. Hey, if you haven't had a meme in a long time............YOU ARE TAGGED!
It has been a long time since the last DOT post. Don't worry Starsky and Hutch are just fine, I have been pretty busy. We have had an opossum family move into the backyard. Not very smart on the moms part. They tormented the dogs for about two weeks. Well yesterday about 6:30 in the am they (both dogs) caught and killed a baby one. It was quite traumatic for me to see. Possums are nasty evil looking creatures, with their beady eyes and sharp teeth, but I still did not want to see it killed by my sweet dogs. I was not surprised that Starsky went after it, but not my sweet fancy boy Hutch.
Don't worry I took no pictures of the carnage. Just the view I have while sitting at my computer.
Oh and this one. Starsky has a football that does not belong to him. I saved the ball after I took this picture.
These two belong to my sister Marla and her SO Alan. Rosie is a Yellow Lab mix. She is just as adorable as she looks. Her big sister is Lucy. She is the only dog I have met in my entire life that does not like me. I have tried everything, giving her toy, a huge bone still does not like me. Lucy is a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix.
