A. 8 Memory Makers Books - $65.00

B.4 Simple Scrapbook Magazines - $8.00

C.2 Creating Keepsakes books - $15.00

D.2 - Creative Memories Books - $10.00

E.2 - Paper Piecing Books - $10.00

F.5 - Zig Memory Systems Books - $8.00

G.3 - Becky Higgins books - $30.00

H.6 Various Books - $15.00

I.3 - Scrapbook Layout Books - $17.00

K.Rubberstamp Book - $5.00

N.3 Scrapbook Phrase Books - $17.00

O.2 Heartwarming Expressions Books - $7.00

P.Wire, book, Tools - $15.00

R. Quad Quick Kit Complete - $5.00

S. Sizzix Sizzlits 35 Die Set - Hardly used (Retail $149.99) - $25.00

T. Sizzix brass plate stencils - $15.00

U. Stampin’ Up! Retired Stamp Sets - $49.95

(Additional Complete Alphabet Set included, not pictured)

It’s official - this week I became a licensed Real Estate Agent!  Becoming an agent is something I have wanted to do for many years.  Be careful what you ask for :)  Almost 2 years ago I accepted a job with my Broker as a bookkeeper and assistant and completed my RE agent coursework over the holidays.  I have purchased and sold several homes of my own over the years, both in rural areas and the Twin Cities - and know how it feels going through the process.  Contact me with any questions you have both as a buyer or seller - Our team is highly experienced in all areas of the market. www.customerdrivenrealty.com

More to come!!

Susan is such a trooper with all my emails.  Thanks Susan! 

When last I posted I sounded quite morose.  Come to find out, my thyroid indeed had been affected by my surgeries and was basically at zero function.  Good news - I lost 10 pounds - bad news - my husband was ready to commit me (or at least take me to the emergency room) when I was HOT for hours, super anxious and basically sounded like a fruit cake.  The thyroid- although small - is a very powerful gland!

Anyway - I am working with doctor on my meds and feel much more like myself.  This has taken most of these past few weeks.  To top it off, dh was in NY for a week, scout weekend camping with son when he got back, then got another short term gig - in town but no less crazy.  He was camping again this weekend and next weekend (MEA already!!) our family is invited to a friend’s cabin!  This last weekend was our school festival as well as a band competition.  My 14 year old gets to complain the most about the cold as the colorguard girls were in their very lightweight, no arm covered costumes on the Eden Prairie football field Saturday night with the horrible wind and cold.  They did a great job though despite the fact they were freezing.

The boys survived camping in tents as well with 4000 other people and enjoyed a wonderful fireworks display and band performance after a very cold, but fun filled day working on advancement, meeting race car drivers and black hawk military personnel - oh yes there was a trapping station - to name just a few things they did. (Did I mention my son is REALLY interested in hunting and trapping?  He has a few snare traps set up around the yard.  I had to have him point them out so I don’t set them off)

The best part of my day was my WONDERFUL class over at The Yarnery with Susan Rainey and Glove Anatomy!!!!  She is a great teacher who never dispoints.  I have never made gloves and am sooooo excited to learn her secrets!  I have plans for at least 2 more pair after my initial ”test” pair. I have 2 more Sunday afternoons with her and a great group of knitters.  She is also teaching this at Amazing Threads in November so if you have a chance, check it out.

Gotta go - really have to get things back to square one around here.  I did a lot of shoveling in children’s bedrooms yesterday and washed practically every piece of clothing/towels we own!!  Now to get them all put away.

Update - overall my voice is better but I do not feel like myself yet.  I won’t go into it but I will just leave it by saying that I am just going to give it more time and hope to be feeling like me again soon.

I don’t think I am particularly fun to be around right now, I am trying to distract myself and get out of everyone’s way by getting ready for a huge destashing of our house later this month.  DH and I are going through every nook and cranny and will be using ebay, craigslist, and a garage sale to get rid of the stuff.  Let me just say that it is amazing how much stuff you can accumulate for other people and organizations in your house! We called my son in DC to ask him about all his stuff in the storeroom.  We will be taking pictures and having him OK what to get rid of.  He can use the money more than it being in my house.  I even had the kids go through the back entry closet yesterday.  It seems like the shoes multiply with no help and I do not want to rummage through the bin this winter to find mittens that do not match and hats that are too small.  I washed everything and it should be dry today.

I even had everyone strip all the beds and wash all the blankets.  The kids use the blankets to wrap up while watching TV and some of them were getting a little gamey due to being wrapped around bare feet all summer and being dragged across the floor.

Even though for most of the state school doesn’t start until Tuesday, we had 2 start last Tuesday.  It should be a good year - 4th and 7th grade now.  The 4th grader is really appreciating the wonderful organization of his teacher and the 7th grader is chomping her bit to get to the high school and she learns more about the variety of activities and classes. The 9th grader has been very busy with Colorguard and I am sewing 2 costumes this weekend - their first competion is later this week I think but I just do not have my calendar organized yet…sigh.

I did put a package in the mail for my mom yesterday with a book I ordered and the vest so she should get that on Tuesday? hopefully.  My buttons are still not sewn on to my free sweater but I did buy more yarn!  Michaels had the Patons wool on sale for $3.99 a skein so I picked some up for a sweater for myself.  I also purchased the Lion Brand Fisherman wool - maple tweed? - for a sweater for my husband.  It should only take 4 skeins so I sent the kids through the line separately with cash and a 40% off coupon :)  Hey - Don’t judge - I saved a chunk of dough!

I have been knitting some odd items that I will probably send to the indian reservation in South Dakota.  I am trying some new quick patterns.  I know what the weather service has said about the El Nino effect on our weather but I am more likely to believe the Farmer’s Almanac forecast.  How many times have they been wrong?  I also have other evidence by the crazy activity in my yard of the mice and chipmunks - and it is only September!  They are crawling up the downspouts and burrowing into the landscape much more than ever!

We are having my daughter, son-in-law, and grandson over for lunch today.  I can’t believe he starts 1st grade on Tuesday! 

Gotta go - I have cinnamon rolls in the oven.

I made this vest from Cleckheaton Merino Supreme.  The yarn is soft and scrumptious.  I purchased this at Coldwater during one of her wonderful sales.  I didn’t have enough of one color so I blended the colors together for the vest.  When I was finished I liked the way it looked but it looks awful on me - way too big.  The yarn has a wonderful springiness to it and that was enhanced by the seed stitch pattern.  I will be sending this to my mom.  She has more bust than I do and I think she will fill it out better.  She can wear it open or pin it shut if she likes.  If she doesn’t like it she has my permission to rip it apart to make hats and mittens with it :)  Mom - I will be sending this out sometime this week along with the book I ordered.  It should also arrive some time this week.

The other finished object I am keeping.  This is my “Free Sweater”

I ripped out the edging and redid the neck.  I put in a row of seed stitch around the neck and then did the applied i-cord.  I added 3 stripes to the sleeves and 1 stripe to the body.  I also reworked the sleeves from a different pattern - didn’t like how they felt. This is made from mostly Cascade 220 and Galway.  The buttons are on the bottom and I will be putting those on soon.  I happened to hit a sale at Hancock Fabrics and they were even 1/2 price!

As for the collegen injection…Everyone imagines their first injection - will it be the lips? the cheekbones? no - mine will be my vocal chord. :(  My right vocal chord is still paralized so I am going into surgery again on Monday for about an hour and have it plumped up to fill the gap between the 2.  This should help my voice and my breathing and swallowing and hopefully will remind the nerve where it is supposed to be.

I have many projects I am working on and a HUGE garage sale that dh and I are planning for the latter half of September!  Nothing is sacred!  Hopefully I will also sell some of the items my son is storing in my storeroom.  He needs the money more than these collecting dust in my house  

They had a special bond.  They were actually built quite a like - long and lean.

I have many more pictures but they are on her camera and not easy for me to download onto my computer.  She received a ribbon in all 4 of the events held.  She did very well.  It was fun to see her go around the ring.  She basically jumped up 2 groups and was cantering this week.

Oh yeah - she requested a fast horse, so they gave it to her.  You could tell that he wanted to really go but she did a great job holding him in and he responded very well to her.

I can just see her behind the wheel of her first car!

Zoe - our new high schooler - has discovered that she really wants to participate in marching band.  Now she does play piano, but I don’t think any of us has seen a piano rolled out onto a football field or in a parade route - at least on it’s own power and not on a float.  No, she has decided that she really likes colorguard, the people who twirl the huge flags around and have to learn choreography and flag manuvering.  Go figure!    We are very pleased because:

1.  Band kids are usually a good group of kids to hang out with.

2. She will have a built in LARGE group of faces she will know on the 1st day of school as they are practicing big time to prepare before the football season starts and their competitions.

3.  She will have a cute costume to wear - that I will probably be sewing as the other moms were very excited to learn that I can sew…yes, I signed up to be on the costume committee…

3.  She just might build up some muscles waving those flags around, especially in a nice brisk fall wind.

I was in marching band in high school and really had a lot of fun.  I just never figured this child to participate in this manner - she never ceases to surprise me.

(This is just a random shot of a colorguard.  More updates to come.)

Meet Thorn:

Thorn is an elderly, stubborn gent of a horse.  They did manage to get along during the week even though Thorn bit Alex in the side when he was using the curry comb on him, just like he was supposed to be doing:

On Saturday when we picked him up there is a horse show so we can see everything the campers learned during the week.  We got to see them leading their horses around the ring and mount up properly.

Then we got to see them ride around in the ring

Notice how much darker the second picture is?  Just as the campers were asked to reverse direction, the dark clouds that had been approaching all morning decided to open up and pour on us all.  That was the end of the show.  The horses stopped and it was very unsafe for the campers to be on their backs.  The campers quickly dismounted, led the horses to their hitching post and untacked the horses.  Everyone was very disappointed.  I had Alex explain more about what he did during the week but it just wasn’t the same.

After swapping out a few items from his bags and transferring them into Sophia’s bag, we departed.  Sophia got to stay an extra night because she is at horse camp - teen week- this week.  I had prearranged this beforehand and the camp was generous enough to allow her to stay without charging us any extra money.

She was a little out of sorts because she didn’t know any of the other kids that were staying for a second week but after they gathered everyone into the lodge she was feeling better. 

Next Sunday we will again make the 2 hour trip to camp to pick her up.  I am also going to ask if Thorn will be available and maybe Alex can ride him in the pen to show us what he learned.

It is really amazing how heavy a head gets…

I have been knitting and finally finished these socks:

These are my own creation.  My mom purchased the Bohus wristlets kit in the Green Mountain pattern when the exhibit was at the Swedish Museum.   I happened to have some Kroy sock yarn that matched the brown in the design so I just started knitting.  They turned out really well.  I just did some ribbing, then worked the pattern in a needle size up, and then worked a 7×1 rib after changing to the smaller needle again, throughout the entire rest of the sock.  (In case you are thinking that all I am doing is sitting around knitting, you would be wrong.  I had these babies knitted up except for finishing the toe and weaving in ends before the surgery.)

I did start another project though.  It is not a sock like I was thinking but another “Free” item.  I am making the Lett Lopi Vest. I am making this out of some Woolease I had in the stash.  This will be a nice vest to throw on over a t-shirt that won’t be too warm in the office.  Pictures will have to wait.  I am just basically working on stocking stitch in the round right now anyway up to the armholes.  I am almost there, great for TV watching.

Time to go - have to eat dinner and have my chauffeur drive me to my bookclub meeting.

I put the edging on the sleeves of my “Free” Sweater last night.  I read through the directions for the edging for the buttonband and neck edge and decided to work on that later when I am not on so much Vicadin - the directions didn’t make sense to me as I read them

I think I am going to start a new sock pattern as I have finished up another pair you will see soon after I weave in the ends.  I am not sure if I want to work on a top down or a toe up though.

Oh yes - today is our wedding anniversary.  16 years!  Can’t believe it.  I don’t think my dh and I could have imagined all the “events” we would have in our life but we are still here and a kickin’!

He does make a good nurse maid though and now has to cover my wound so I can take a shower and go for a walk to get the ‘ol sluggish digestive system moving again…

Isn’t it romantic?

I have dubbed this my Free Sweater as all the yarn was already in my stash.  This is Carri’s Garden Dream Sweater pattern.  I ripped out 1st sleeve I knit because it was just too snug.  I did see this critique on Ravelry as well.  I discussed the situation with Robin and Bridget and we came to the same conclusion.  After consulting a different top down cardi pattern that I know the sleeves fit well, I worked the sleeve over the whole sweater seems to fit better.  I added the 2 extra stipes onto the sleeve as suggested-might do another, not sure yet.  There is also a border to work.  I did add an extra stripe to the bottom of the body as well.  I have to dig up my size 5 needles now to work that border.  This is going to be a great sweater to wear. 

I am trying to stay out of the kitchen today.  I am having surgery again to have another herniated disk in my neck fused together.  UGH…the surgery isn’t until 5 PM today.  I am looking forward to getting this fixed but my kids are a little concerned that I will eventually have to have ALL of them fused?  I have assured them that should not have to be the case. I had 1 fused 7 years ago with great success.  The good news is that I will get the strength back in my shoulders and biceps and some of the numbness will leave and knitting and holding a book should not be so bothersome once I heal.  In the meantime I am collecting neck braces - I get another one today.  I could do this to supplement my income?

This is what I will look like for the next week or so-minus the wheelchair.  That is only when I am wheeled out to the car when I leave the hospital.  I should be able to post some more finished projects if I can keep the charged camera batteries out of the kid’s electronic items