Overwhelmed and undertimed (is that word?)

Feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. I’ve got a to-do list way longer than my free time.

as you can see there’s not much crossed out! all must be done by Wednesday. I’ve been working on painting in the entry room. There’s way more woodwork than you’d imagine once you start painting it all. Just take a look around your own room, all the windows, doors, archways, baseboards and if there are stairs…the spindles, side baseboards, steps and rising faces. not to mention the handrails and posts. I’ve already spent the better part of 3 evenings and half of another day painting the wood. All of it needed a second coat. I just need to paint the spindles with the contrast color and I’ll be good for now. I plan to paint the center of the stair spindles the color of the walls.  I do need to paint the outside of the door but that’s not as vital to finish the room. Tomorrow I’ll paint the walls then we can install the ceiling and maybe the moulding before Thanksgiving. I will not paint on Wednesday since I’ll need to bake pies. and of course Thursday will be the big dinner and football! We’re eating here with 3 of my kids and some of their S.O.’s and my grandson. The girls and I have to work so it will be up to Hubby and Son to cook. this works for us, they’ve done the meal for the last couple of years. I always work the holiday and we eat at supper time. I do have to be careful to save up enough “points” for the big dinner and dessert. I’m losing weight on Weight Watchers and want to be careful thru the holidays not to gain back what I’ve lost. I’m hoping that I’ve found a weight loss buddy, one of the girls at work is interested and we may help keep each other on track.

I haven’t had much knitting time, I’m still working on the pattern for the mitts, hopefully when I get this paint work done, I’ll have time to work on them more.

til next time, keep knitting

Exams..good and bad

We’re still working on the house, after finishing the living room, we started to tear apart my entry room. This is where my desk, hubby’s desk, gun cabinet and other assorted items sit. It’s where you enter my house and gets lots of casual use. We have both our computers on the desks and they seem to catch all the clutter and dropped items as everyone comes inside. We have our computers on a network so that all 4 of us can be on at one time. Right now both desks are in the newly finished room since the floor, ceiling and walls are being redone. My house is about 100 yrs old and I think the folks that did any work before us were even more unskilled than we are because we’re finding so many mess ups. There were 4 floor coverings, a carpet, 2 linoleums, and an oil cloth floor all over top of each other! We’re going to paint walls and stairs first then put the ceiling back up and then the moulding. Yes, we’re going to have another go at cutting crown moulding.

Last week I had my mammogram. Thought everything was ok and then yesterday I got a call that the Doctor saw “something” on the films and could I go have it done again. I’ve been lucky 3 times that I’ve had biopsy and no cancer so of course I jumped on the worry train and wondered if my luck was over. They re-did the test this morning and said “ok, you’re good to go” Does this mean I’m lucky again…or just that the pictures were good? I’m just waiting to find out if all’s good. Pray for me if you think of me.

On the knitting front, I’m working on a pattern of fingerless mitts to go with the Brambles hat. Once I have the bugs worked out, I’ll publish it. Stay tuned for updates. til next time….keep knitting.

work and wonders

Well, the renovation continues. We’ve finished the living room! It took dear Hubby and I 8 hours to figure out how to cut and install crown moulding…yes it’s a B***H!!! I guess we’re both math challenged not to mention that we were trying to do it with hand tools and not a power saw. But we cut it and then re-cut it and re-cut it again until it was right. of course I had to look it up on the internet to find that we were doing it all wrong. It’s up and painted, the woodwork is done and the carpet installed. I’m not very good at cutting carpet either. again that whole math challenge thing comes into play. we laid it down and I thot I was cutting it about 3” long and of course it was 1” too SHORT! well, thankfully Dear Hubby can fix most anything and he took care of it for me. There are 2 wooden rockers, an office chair and a tv on a wooden stand in there now. we don’t have any other furniture and I don’t plan to buy any yet. We need to move all the furniture from the next room into there so we need the space. 

November is a month of birthdays for our family, we have one every weekend. We celebrated Caiti’s birthday on Sunday, she turned 21. I’m so proud of her, she’s graduated her nursing course and will soon take her licensing board test. I did finish the  Bramble hat and gave her that for her gift. She really liked it. It is Paton’s Classic Wool.   

I also gave dear Grandson, Beanz, his hat. he wanted the squiggly’s on top so we put 3 of them on for him. I wasn’t sure if he would like them or not so I asked first. His birthday is coming this weekend, but it’s supposed to get cold before that so he got it early. Now I need another gift for him because of course 6yr olds don’t count hats as gifts! I have something in mind that I know he’ll like.

I bought 2 new patterns for hats and mittens so I need to get busy. For Hubby and Son, I got the Balaclava hat and gloves from patternfish   PATTERNFISH - Men's Balaclava, Ribbed Hat and Gloves  and sweedish mittens from Ravelry   ravelry Swedish Fish by SpillyJane  . stay tuned for pics soon.  I have the next 2 days off. Going to have Beanz for a bit tomorrow and then Friday have the dreaded yearly Mammogram. I’ve had several cancer scares so I really need not to put this off any longer. Had my eyes checked yesterday, guess I’m getting old( at least that’s what the dr said) needed new glasses of course. Hope nothing else falls apart soon.

Til next time …keep knitting.

A day off

After working 30 hrs in the last 2 days, today was a nice break. Of course there’s always laundry and the house to catch up doing chores. but still I can do that in my sweats and socks. I did take a bit of time to work on clearing out my old computer and adding all my stuff on the new one. When oldest DS got a new computer, I got the old one. but I have absolutely no luck and crashed in within the first 2 weeks! thank goodness he’s a near IT man and was able to work on it and now it’s back up and running. I’m using a new email program and a new program to blog. this is being done on Windows LIVE. He tells me that it does a lot more so I’ll be playing around for a while to figure out exactly how it all works. I took some time while all the things were being transferred to do some knitting. I started the Bramble hat from Knitty. http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEdf10/PATTbrambles.php  if you do go get the free pattern…remember to download the chart for the cables. I unfortunately did not do this last week when I grabbed the pattern and so when I was away from home with needles and yarn in hand….couldn’t work on it because I had no chart! darn…darn and rats even! didn’t really matter. I was able to start the ribbing and I’m still on it. I did get the chart today and have it all ready so when I do reach that point. I’m ready to go forward. I’m using Paton’s classic wool in the color Water Chestnut. It’s a soft pink yarn. I find so many great things on the web that I often forget to actually knit!  I also finished making the little swirls for the top of my Mesa hat. http://www.patternfish.com/patterns/4771  I just need to sew them on the top and it will be ready for my grandson. My car is on the blink again. DS and DH are out in the cold working on it. They are the best guys! It’s only about 44 degrees out and they’re on the ground fixing it. New water pump, fuel pump (I think) timing chain and some other assorted parts. I shudder to think what I’d pay a garage if they weren’t so handy. Well, off to work on my hat. I’ll post some pics as soon as I get the cable part going…..til next time, keep knitting.