Soap Operas....

or soapies as my Granny called them. I just love my soaps (Y&R, BB on occasion and ATWT). I guess I got that from my Granny as I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mom watch a soap. I’ve been an avid watcher of As The World Turns since I was 16 years old. I have watched some of my favorite characters “grow-up”. I get frustrated with some of the story lines and swear if “that happens” I’ll never watch again. I never keep that threat.

Recently one of the main characters (Jennifer Munson Kasnoff Donavan) on ATWT died. She had made the decision in real life to leave the show and so they killed her off. It was some heart wrenching episodes and I shed a tear or two. Her on-screen dad, Hal Munson played by the wonderful Benjamin Hendrickson, died in real life during this time. What a great loss to ATWT and his family.

It seems the death of Jennifer started a trend on CBS soaps. After Jennifer died, Darla on The Bold & The Beautiful died. Now, they’ve killed John Abbot on The Young & The Restless! Gosh, I can’t remember ever watching Y&R without John. Today’s episode with Jack upset over loosing his father was touching. I hope Gloria gets booted out of the Abbot house and leaves Jack & Ashley alone. I go home for lunch and watch Y&R during my lunch hour and I usually tape ATWT and watch it in the evenings while I knit.

Friday I got an invitation to a friend’s baby shower that is on the 27th. I went to AC Moore and bought some yarn and I’m going to knit her a baby blanket. I’ve never knitted anything that big but it’s coming along and looking so cute! She’s having a boy so I got some baby blue and another color called His Blue Jeans (can’t remember who makes these colors) but they are so soft. I’m doing a basket weave pattern and it’s looking nice. I think my skeins of yarn are growing instead of shrinking as I knit. I got 4 skeins of each color and I’m still on the first 2 skeins. I’m debating if I should keep trying to have it ready by Sunday or knit up some bibs and burp cloths for her. My hairdresser’s daughter is having a boy in December so if I knit the bibs for the friend, I can keep going on the blanket for the other baby. I’ll see how far I get by Friday and decide. I can knit a couple bibs and burp clothes Saturday if I need to. Nothing like putting myself under pressure.

August 15th

I have finished my second warshrag. Actually, this is the third one but I frogged the other one. I just couldn't get my mind wrapped around it and kept making mistakes. The completed one is done in orange & blue (UF Gator colors!).

Hubs and I have finished our bathroom. We painted the walls a beautiful sunshine yellow and the cabinets are white. He put a yellow trim on the cabinets that looks just awesome. I am so tickled at how nice it all looks. Next home project is the spare bedroom. I've stripped the wallpaper border and next step is to patch and sand the walls. Then we can paint. That room will be a nice soft blue. Our bedroom will be a light lavender but we are a long way for working in that room. I have to strip all the wallpaper off the walls first.

I'm also knitting a beautiful Absorbia bathmat for our bathroom. I used a Sugar & Creme variegated in white, blue, purple & yellow. It will tie in the colors of all 3 rooms. This is my first attempt at doing a log cabin and I'm not sure I've done it right but it's a bathmat and who cares!

Had the vet out last week to remove the stitches from Cisco. He also palpated (checked for a pregnancy) Amber and she's in foal! I am so darn excited about this breeding and this upcoming foal. Now I just have to wait until March.

Can anyone tell me how to add photos to my posts?

My Life.
Well, hopefully things have/will settle down on the home front. Mama had her last (we pray) surgery last week. It’s been 3 surgeries since March.

My Horses.
Sunday after church Hubs goes to barn to feed the horses. He notices that Cisco has a long nasty cut on his face. He comes to the house and asks me to come take a look. I clean it out and call vet. Some good drugs later (for the horse, silly) and Cisco is now sporting ten lovely stitches and a drain tube. Email me if you want photos.

Cisco is a 6 year old unregistered (long story for another time) tobiano Paint gelding. He was the first foal born on our farm and literally was born in my arms. His dam, Nikki had foaled him outside right after she finished her evening meal. Hubs picked him up and carried him to the stall. We lost Nikki in a freak accident when Cisco was 5 months old. He’s a “lifer” on our place and my favorite trail horse.

My Animals.
We have 3 dogs and 2 cats. They are indoor animals. We have Lady, a black lab that we got for The Marine when he was 13. We hoped she would teach him some responsibility. That lasted for a couple years until she began running off when let out to potty and The Marine didn’t want to chain her up. She became my dog and is a wonderful nap partner. She’s also an avid swimmer and loves to “fish”.

Then we have Bo (short for Bochephus) and Gator. They are German Shepherds and are full brothers. I bred our female Xena in March of 2004. The boys were born 63 days later on June 2, 2004. She had a litter of 8 puppies which is pretty big for a first time mom. I was right there during the birth of them all. Bo is The Kid’s dog and Gator is Hubs. Guess who takes care of them most of the time?

Yesterday we had the most adorable Rottweiller puppy just show up at the house. I’m smitten with her and if she stays and no one claims her, we’ll keep her. Right now I’m calling her Mya which she responds to very well. I’m guessing she’s about 3-4 months old. She looks to be full blooded also.

My Knitting.
Knitting won’t always be at the bottom. J I’ve been working on the Absorbia bath mat from the MD book. This is my first time doing log cabin knitting. I’m so tickled at how nice this is turning out. It’s so soft and cushiony (is that a word?) and I can’t wait to put it in our freshly painted bathroom. I don’t think I’ve done the logs in the right direction so I bound off the row and started where I think I should be. I think I bound off on a WS row at one point so when I did my turn, it was wrong. I’m the type learner that I have to be shown how to do something and don’t always grasp it when I look at photos. I’ll post photos of it and the ballband cloth as soon as I figure out how. Remember, I’m still learning this blogger stuff.

Finished Ballband Warshcloth

I finished my first Ballband Warshcloth from the Mason-Dixon book. I have come to realize I don't know how to purl. Well, I do know how to purl, I just don't know how to purl the first stitch on a new row. UGH! I guess I need to just purl some swatches until I get better. I also need to learn to carry my yarn "up the side" when it's not in use. I have strips of yarn across the top of my Color A. Hopefully, I can go to AC Moore and Miss Laura is working (she retaught me to knit) and get her to show me what I did wrong. I'll also post on the Monthly Dishcloth group and see if Crys or one of the others can help me with that problem.

I really like the ballband pattern and how this knits up. It's larger than my "normal" cloths and roughly 8" X 8". I did mess up one row and repeated the patteren twice instead of just once.

On to the next Ballband or I may take a stab at the Nine Patch.

First post

I spend way too much time on the internet both at home & work. Lately, I've been browsing the knitting blogs. So, I decided to join the "bandwagon" and create my own blog. So, bear with me while I learn more about blogging. Eventually, I'll post photos of my Finished Objects (FO's).

I have several hobbies and will be writing about them from time to time. My first love are my horses. We raise American Paint Horses on our small farm.

I am also a fairly new knitter. I learned to knit years ago and decided to relearn it after my Marine son went to Iraq. (He's home safe now, thank God!) I recenlty bought the Mason-Dixon knitting book and I'm having a blast knitting my first Ballband Dishcloth. Don't know if I'm going to post photos of my first attempt since I made so many obvious mistakes. This was my first try knitting with two colors.

You can learn more about the Mason-Dixon book here: Mason-Dixon Knitting
Another favorite dishcloth site that has helped me tremendously is the Monthly Dishcloth Group run by Andi, Janet & Carol.