Tuesday, August 26, 2008

A Trip to the Bronx

After two months of working on this baby polo for a co-worker of my husband, I finally finished it!! The pattern was from Debbie Bliss' Baby Cashmerino 3 and easy to follow. I think if I make this again I would probably try to do it in the round. I absolutely HATE seaming. I do however love the finished product and I hope the mom does also. I had different buttons planned but these caught my eye at JoAnn's and they looked great with the color which is a slate blue.

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We took the kids to the Bronx Zoo with my Dad at the beginning of the week. We all had a great time except for my legs and feet which hurt like hell from all the walking. Here we are in the Children's Zoo (where I used to work many years ago) in the Blue Heron exhibit.

Bronx Zoo Trip

Pretending to be Prairie Dogs

Prairie Dogs

What a great shot of this tiger! Except for the clarity of the picture that is. If the glass window wasn't between us it would have been a much better picture but then again I might have been on his lunch menu that day if that were the case!

Tiger

I love Polar Bears and when we walked up to the exhibit the Polar Bear was sleeping and just below the rocks. When he started to stretch and chew on a tree branch I started snapping away and this is what I got. I had planned to take my other camera with the telephoto lens but I didn't want to have to lug all that stuff AND the kids stuff on my back. Hindsight is 20-20 and I would have had some awesome shots!

Polar Bear

I could see him thinking, "What's going on over there?"

Polar Bear

My son wanted to ride the Skyfari and we were unable to all go together due to the 4 person limit. My Dad took the 2 kids and my husband and I had 5 minutes of alone time 150 ft in the sky. I was just a tad nervous because a few weeks ago the Skyfari got stuck and the people on it were up in the air for a few hours until it was fixed. That would not have been fun if it happened to us. You can see my Dad and my son in the cab that was in front of ours.

SkiFari

A picture of the Irawaddy River (aka The Bronx River) as we rode the Bengali Express Monorail to Wild Asia

Iravaddy River AKA Bronx River

Bactrian Camels

Bactrians

This is something I am designing for my Aunt to wear to her son's wedding (my cousin) in September. I am calling it "The Keystone Project" because I am using Swarovski Keystone crystals which are absolutely gorgeous, as you can see. The colors here are burgundy crystals with Swarovski Glass Pearls in the same color and Crystal AB clear crystals and Swarovski silver component spacers. I am making a necklace, earrings and bracelet for her. I will post pics of the whole set when I am done with it which should be in a couple of weeks.

Keystone Project

On the weight loss front I am still losing weight, slowly. I am hoping to step it up a notch when school starts later this week. After I drop the kids off at school I am planning to either walk with my friends and/or do my exercises at home that I used to do when I went to physical therapy.

In other news I am finally going to set up an ETSY shop to sell my jewelry and other wares!! I am excited about it and gathering all the information on how to go about doing things the right way. Expect to see me over at ETSY in a few weeks!!

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Sad News

When my daughter first started her religious education at our new parish last year she was assigned to a wonderful 19 year old boy named Robbie. He was a wonderful young man, full of life, funny with a great sense of humor and great with the kids. After a few weeks of teaching we found out he was feeling sick and later diagnosed with leukemia. He fought bravely and courageously for almost a year but he lost his battle on Thursday August 14, 2008. When he was going through his treatment during the winter I made him a hat to keep his head warm. I wanted to do something and I thought through my knitting I could make him feel a little better. His parents and sister shouldn't have to be going through this now, no one should lose a child. I cant say how upset I am over this because words cant really describe how I feel. As a cancer survivor it hurts even more because it makes you realize that not everyone, though brave and strong in their fight, survives. It makes me mad, mad as hell, because its not fair and it makes no sense. I am mad that his Mom, Dad and sister have lost their 20 year old son and brother. He wont be there to hug or talk to or just hang out with. I don't want this to happen to any more families. I want a cure for this damn disease. My daughter heard me crying a few minutes ago and got out of bed to see if I was OK and asked me why I was crying. I couldn't tell her just yet. I didn't want her to be up all night upset. I will tell her tomorrow and I know it will upset her.
God Bless you Robbie. I know there is another angel in heaven watching over us tonight.

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Give that Monkey a Gumdrop and Something for an Ass Kicking Headache

I sitting here in bed with an ass kicking headache so bear with the type O's and other grammatical errors because I cant focus. There is good news though. I received my July Rockin' Socks Club shipment and here it is:

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I absolutely LOVE the colorway and the patternS that came with it. I chose to do the harder of the two which is called Gumdrop Socks, because I didn't do the pattern for the last kit as many in the club didn't and for different reasons ranging from dislike to difficulty level. I felt a little of both these reasons. The colorway, as you can see, is a pastel and the first time that the Sock Club has made one. The colorway looks fantastic with the pattern is knit up. That's from what I can see of the 2 inches I managed to knit last night. I love to watch as the pattern grows before your eyes with all the beautiful colors of "Goody Goody".

These are the comleted NO PEARL MONKEYS made from May's Rockin' Sock Club Kit colorway called "The Incredible Shrinking Violet" The other pattern looked nice but it was way to difficult (after reading how others were fairing on the Ravelry forums and the RSC Blog). I usually like Yarnissima's patterns but this one just didn't go well (in my opinion) with the colorway. As you can see these are almost knee socks, well almost. They are MUCH higher than any of the other socks I have made in the past for myself. I had about 5 yds of yarn left over! Nothing like cutting it close right! I was thinking that I was going to have to dip into my emergency sock yarn but thank goodness I didn't have to do that.

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They fit like a dream and I love the way the colors came out even though there was some major pooling issues going on. Most of the RSC yarns I knit up seem to pool on me. At first I didn't like it but I have grown to love the pooling. I even joined the "Pooled Knits" group on Ravelry! Its good to know that I am not the only one who has this happen to them.

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I finished these in just under a month also which happens to be record time for me. I was also working on a bunch of other projects to so this IS record time for me. I started them on July 1st and finished July 31st. Not lightning fast granted but fast for me. I am trying to build up my stock of hand knitted socks for the colder months.

A few days ago I received my last package for my LYS, Knitting Central's Sock Club. It was a design by one of the lovely ladies that work there and the yarn that she chose was Alchemy's Temple Sock Yarn which happens to be a sport weight yarn that knits up real quick. I was going to cast on for these also but realized that I don't have my Addi size 3's available. They are currently in another sock in progress so they will have to wait. Its OK because I don't think I am going to re-join the sock club if they offer it again. Its not that I didn't like it because I did. There are a few reasons why. One is that money is extremely tight. I haven't even made any yarn purchases or used my Woolgirl or BMFA discount coupons yet because of this. Second reason is that when I get the kits I don't knit them up right away and I usually let them wait. Knitting Central makes the pattern available for everyone else outside the club 3 months after the sock club gets it. I can certainly wait 3 months for the pattern since I have so many other kits from Woolgirl that I haven't even started yet. Last reason is I rather chose my own yarn and colorway then have it picked for me. Don't get me wrong, the colors were all really beautiful and I was happy with all of them but like I said, if I can save my money then later pick and choose when the pattern is made available then that's a better option for me.

In Weight Watcher news last week's weigh in wasn't the best. I had a 1 lb weight gain. I was a bit upset with myself but my leader spoke to me and I think I had to much salt in my diet the night before which made me retain water. I went over my journal with a fine tooth comb and that was the only thing that would cause me to gain. I also had an almost 3 lb loss the week before which they consider a big loss (they like to see anywhere from 1.5-2 lbs a week loss). She told me that when there is a large loss the week before you can see a slight gain in the following week. Another thing she said to everyone that made me feel a lot better and made perfect sense to me. She said that if you come to meetings thinking that every time you are going to see a weight loss then you are going to be sadly disappointed because the losses come with the gains and vice-versa. Thats the way it is. Your body has a way of leveling itself out and its OK if you have a slight gain just learn from it and get back on track for next week.

I am hoping that my weigh in on Tuesday will show a nice loss and maybe I will get another 5 lb star! I never mentioned that I received my first 5 lb star 2 meetings ago. Recap of the stats:
Before starting WW: 176 lbs
Starting WW weight: 167.6 lbs
Current weight: 161.8 lbs
Total loss to date: 5.8 lbs

If you look at the whole picture I lost 14.2 lbs total but I dont look at it that way or I should say WW doesn't look at it that way. They take the weight you are at when you weigh in at your first weigh in which for me was 167.6 lbs.

Another thing I wanted to mention. I spoke about my Mom's Avon walk in my last post and I would like to ask everyone who hasn't donated to please read the post and donate to my Mom's walk. Its a good cause and I have some great prizes I would love to give away. If you are interested in donating please click on the link in my sidebar and it will take you there. Also, if you donate please e-mail me with the amount and your info so I can put you in the raffle for some prizes. Remember for every $10 you donate one ticket goes into the raffle hat. Twenty dollars is 2 tickets, $30=3 tickets and so on. So far there is no one in the raffle so if you are reading this you have a very BIG chance of winning something if there are only a few people in it. Its not the way I would like it but at this point I will take what I can get to have my Mom reach her goal. Please donate to a great cause so we can save women's lives. Thanks!