So Excited!

WooooHooooo! Last night I got a call from our local paper, Feather River News, telling me that I was a finalist in their recipe contest. I had submitted 4 recipe's, and 2 of them were picked. You could submit one recipe for each category, and my main dish and my comfort food recipe's were chosen!

So now I have to make them and take them to the paper on May 14th for a taste test. First prize is $100.00. My main dish recipe is my Mom's, and if it wins I promised her that she and I will go out to lunch, a fancy lunch, alone! If my comfort food recipe wins, I'll probably still take her to lunch. And of course any left over $$ will go in the yarn fund :-) Anyone want me to post the recipe's?

Have you seen this? I thank I may make some of these for baby gifts. How cute are they!!

I am in love with this!

Really, what would I do with this yarn.....160 yards of a bulky weight. I just love the colors! What could I do with one skein?



Spunky Eclectic

Blog Mishap

I had a bit of a blog mishap this morning.....for some reason my template changed by itself, and I lost all of the code that I had put in. I did my best to get it back the way it was......with a few color changes.

I am missing the KnittyHeads ring button, I have to go get the code again. And I lost my site referrers. They are not giving the code out anymore so I have to wait on that.

This took me all day, and if it happens again.....I may just bite the bullet and go to Moveable Type.

Not only have I been doing this most of the day.....this has been happening in my house.

The closet floor needed to be ripped up, all the floor joists replaced and then a new floor laid down.....thanks a lot termites!

8 Days and 7 Nights........

We are home from the hospital after 8 long days. Mister James is doing much better, in fact today he acts like he is no longer sick at all. I wouldn't wish RSV on my worst enemy! He was such a great little patient. The nurses all told me that he was the happiest sick baby that they had ever seen. I was told that there were cases of RSV this year where the babies were so listless and lethargic, James was never like that. He needed oxygen and nebulizer treatments, and we have an inhaler for him here at home.

I am so blessed that I have such a wonderful husband. He watched Katie and Ben the whole week. I couldn't stand the thought of leaving James' side, so they would make the 30 min trip every day to come and see me. Ben, who is 2, had a hard time. There were a few days that he didn't even want me to look at him. I think he was mad at me :-( But all is back to normal now that James and I are home.

The only good thing about the hospital was I could knit. I really only knit the first few days there. I was so worried and I needed something to do. After about the 4th day, I was getting a little stir crazy, along with lonely...and I didn't feel like doing anything. Thank goodness for the nurses who didn't mind that I talked their ear off. At one point there were only 2 patients in the hospital, so they had a lot of down time!

I got some great surprises when I got home! The first was a RAOK from Grenadine Girl It's a really cute felting kit for a little pouch. The next was a very nice card from Caitlyn wishing all of us better. And last but not least was a 15.00 gift certificate to Amazon from Romy. Plus all the comments and emails really made my heart warm. It's nice to know so many good thoughts are coming James' way. Also a big thank you to Catherine for helping me make my blog look so cute! I love the yellow and pink, my two favorite colors!

I also got my KnitPicks order, and my Elann order. I am just too exhausted to knit anything with it! I got 4 skeins of knitpicks Sock Garden, and 2 of the Sock Landscapes. Plus I got 2 skeins of the Alpaca Cloud for a scarf for my sister.
The Elann order was their baby cashmere for a shawl that I might get to one of these years!

Update

Hello everyone! I have been talking with Jenn on the phone and James has made his turn! The doctor had hoped that they would be out of the hospital by the 19th , but the little guy is still wheezing like cray so I assume they both will remain in that little room for a couple more days:( She wanted me to go ahead and sign in and update all of her friends:) She is itching so bad to get to a computer. Can't imagine how out of touch Jenn feels. More later
Catherine (Knittin' Around)

When it rains it pours.

First off, thank you for all the well wishes that I received about the kiddo's and my hand. My fingers are healing. They blistered and popped, and became more sore than when I burned them!

My 2 and 3 year old have tonsillitis. They have started antibiotics and are so much better now. Of course that's not the big problem anymore....my 2 month old, James, has RSV. It's really scary. We have to watch him very closely, there is a big chance he will have to be hospitalized if he is having trouble breathing. Right now his oxygen levels are really good. He is coughing up a storm, and it breaks my heart to have such a young baby be so sick.

He went to the doc yesterday, and today, and if he is any worse tomorrow, then we have to go back. I am so strung out. 3 sick children at once is not fun. Thank goodness Katie and Ben are feeling better. Now I am starting to get it. It was only a matter of time. There is no way parents can escape this when their children are sick.......They have all been doing a lot of cuddling with their momma.

I PROMISE this will turn back into a knitting blog as soon as I pick up some needles :-) There just isn't enough hours in the day lately!

How could I be so stupid?

Well, there won't be any knitting in this house for a few days. Not only won't there be any knitting going on, there won't be much of anything going on that requires the use of my left hand. I badly burned my first three fingers on that hand.

I was heating up a bowl of baked potato soup (my favorite) for lunch in the microwave. When I took it out and pulled back the ling wrap, the steam burned me. I wouldn't want to type the words that came out of mouth. That happened at 11 am....here it is 4:30 and my fingers are still in a glass of cold water. The pain is so bad! I have never had a burn like this before...it has turned white and I think there is a blister coming. The only relief from the pain is when it's in the water......falling asleep tonight is gonna be fun huh?

Not only do I do this to myself today, but my children are sick. Katie has a fever...and I am sure tomorrow it will be a cold, and Ben has an ear infection. What I wouldn't give to go back to lunch time and not burn my fingers....then I could cuddle my poor sick babies with 2 hands!

Fiber Snobs...Look Away

If you hate novelty yarns....STOP. Look away now. Read no further.
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I made this scarf for my landlord's granddaughter. I can tell you that I HATE working with this yarn. It's Lion Brand Fun Fur. I cast on 13 stitches and just knit in a size 11 needle. When I picked it up this afternoon, I had 16 stitches. How the hell did I do that? I did a k2tog and ended it with 14 stitches. Oh well, you can't tell...... I finished it in about 2 hours, I hope she will like it. She had one and someone took it from her in a restaurant. She is only 6 and was devastated, poor thing. I have to send it out tomorrow, I am afraid it will be too warm soon to go out with it on!

My first sock is coming along. They are for my Father in law. I wanted them done for his birthday...think I can get them both done in 3 days? I don't think so. They are coming for a visit next month from Montana. I'll have them done by then....or I hope so.

No, I didn't knit this. My wonderful Mother did. It's Kiri designed by Polly. She used 3 balls of Rowan Kid Silk Haze. It's so beautiful.....one day maybe I will be able to knit as beautifuly as she does.

Last but not least, I got Stephanie's book in the mail yesterday. It's is so cute! Is it bad that I have read the whole thing already? I think I may order another copy to give to my Mom. It's the perfect gift!

Something's bugging me......

And you know what it is? TERMITES! Can you believe that we found the little buggers crawling around on our floor! They have tunneled through the wall and are dropping on the carpet. It's a good thing that we are only renting this house.....but we were planning on buying it this year.

Not only do we have the termites, but the addition of the house (where the termites are) was not built to code. So there is very little space between the soil and the floor. So now we need to have a contractor come in, pull up the carpet and flooring, and dig out the soil. We are going to lose the carpet (not exactly a bad thing). So when all of this wok is going on, the children and I will have to go stay somewhere else. Mom and Dad are you ready for us?

Even though we don't own the house, it's stressful to have to deal with this. Our landlord is an older woman, and pretty much leaves all the "planning" to us. She just pays the bills.

On a good note, today is my son Bennett's second birthday. My sweet little boy is growing up. Why do they have to so that. Can't they stay little forever. Guess it make me sad to celebrate their birthday's now. Since we are done having children each little milestone seems to make me sad......or maybe it's just hormones (can I blame them? James is only 8 weeks old)

I also got accepted into the ROAK ring this week. That made my day. I have had 2 gift certificates for Adagio Teas already. One from Lu and one from Samanatha. I also received an ecard today from Sedie. How cool is that. Thanks so much all of you!

Now tomorrow we will all be driving to Reno to go see my in laws. They are flying there from Montana for a small vacation.....Reno is perfect for a day trip, maybe I'll even get to do a little shopping. (That would be yarn shopping of course!)

Doing some thinking

Last night I bought a book from Amazon for my Mom. It will either be for her birthday or Mother's day. Both are in the same week. At the LYS that she works at, she is known as the sock queen. If anyone comes in that needs help with a sock, she is the one they call. So I though that a book of sock patterns would be appropriate. I picked Socks Socks Socks : 70 Winning Patterns From Knitter's Magazine Sock Contest.

I hope that she will like it....I mean 70 patterns? Maybe I will get a few :-)

I then got to thinking about knitting in my family. There is a small yarn shop here in town. No really, in my town of 1000 people there is a yarn shop. They offer classes and I have thought of taking one. But then I decided that I don't want to do that. I want my Mother to teach me to knit. Her Mother taught her, and probably her Mother taught her. Someday I hope to teach my daughter. I have doilies that my Grandmother made for me, and some that my Mother made. These are things I want to be able to pass down.

Unfortunately I have nothing from my Fathers Mother. She died when my father was a teenager, and I never got to know her. Dad remembers her crocheting, but not knitting. What I wouldn't give for something that was handmade by her.

I never knew her, but I feel very close to her. Maybe it's because I have heard that she was very kind and gentle. Plus she is my Father's Mother. How could I not feel close to the woman that raised my Dad. My Father is the man that all men should aspire to be, and I believe that my Father has many of the traits that his Mom had.

I hope one day that my children will appreciate the handmade items that I pass down to them.

On the knitting front, I am making great progress on my sock. And I am pretty proud!