January Wrap Up

One of the blogs I follow, Robin Lee Hatcher, (an author who lives here in Idaho) does a wrap up each month chronicling her monthly accomplishments.  In an attempt to live a more organized life in 2015 I have decided to copy her idea.

Books Read:
One of my 2015 goals is to read more and I think I have gotten off to a pretty good start.  This month I have listened through Audible to the second book in the Call the Midwife series, Shadows of the Workhouse.  I don't know if you have seen these shows on PBS or read these books, but if you haven't you need to do so now!  They are true stories written by Jenny Worth, a nurse/midwife in the East End of London back in the 1920's and 30's.  The tv show does a spectacular job but of course the books are even better.  I have one more book in the series to listen to and I will be sad when it is over.

I have started to read the Mitford books over again, before reading the last in the series that I just got for Christmas, and this month I read At Home in Mitford and A Light in The Window.  There is nothing more pleasant than a visit to Mitford!
So far this year I have read three books.

Movies and TV Watched:
I don't go to many movies but this month I have seen two; American Sniper and Unbroken.  Both very hard to watch but very hard to quit thinking about as well.  I experienced something I have never experienced before in a theater after watching American Sniper:  complete silence.  You could hear a pin drop.  And as we filed out of the theater not one person spoke one word.  It was a really strange experience.  I have heard that has happened after many showings of this incredible story.  I recommend both movies but be warned they are full of things I don't normally watch, torture, blood and bad language.
Parenthood ended last week and it was so bittersweet.  This is a series my whole family has loved and we have enjoyed watching it together so much.  I was sad to see it end but I was so pleased and happy with how they did it.  It was perfect and I have watched it about three times.  Downton Abbey has not been as good to me this season.  I'm not sure where they are going with it but I find that I need to make myself watch each episode - not a good sign.
My new favorite show is Fixer Upper - I am completely addicted and wish there were so many more to watch. 

Creating:
There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself. ~Ruth Stout
I love this quote and I think it is why I have enjoyed creating things so much this season.  I have enjoyed belonging to myself and doing the things that make me happy and give me joy.  I have had the best month ever in my sewing/crafting studio.  With my 2015 goal of creating with what I have on hand and not purchasing anything new, I have been amazed at what I have been able to accomplish.  In January I made
* 1 mug rug
* 1 table runner
 
* 5 heart garlands
  This photo has one of the heart garlands I made - in back of my five sweet grandbabies and 1 great nephew..
* 1 valentine tree
* 3 valentine candles
* 1 baby quilt for a gift

and since I haven't finished it I won't count it for this month, but I have started and made considerable progress on a quilt for my grandson Ryan - it is turning out to be far bigger than I expected.

Knitting - I have made a "wolf hat" for my grandson Aiden and I have started a sweater for me out of my handspun fleece from my sheep Ivy.  I have processed this wool myself and it is turning out to be a course and rustic brown wool.  My sweater will probably be more like a jacket but I am loving it and am excited to finish it.
Spinning - I have spun about 6 ounces of my white sheep's wool.  This fiber I sent to a mill to be processed and had them blend silk into it.  It resulted in a super soft wool that has been a joy to spin.  Eventually I will dye it - another process I will need to learn about as I have never done that before.  I'm trying to decide what color and am leaning towards blue or teal.  I am hoping for a kettle dye effect which is very tonal and rich in color.

Home Renovation:
After living in our home for 15 years we are determined to do some inexpensive updates.  In January we completed and installed a cupola on the top of our barn
 
 and painted and re-decorated our laundry room.
  
I especially love the sliding barn door my talented husband made.  It covers a storage area that is the underneath of the stairs.  I am thinking about making it into a "secret room" for the kids, filled with books and beanbag chairs.   It has been a fun endeavor and we look forward to completing some things we have lined up for the next few weeks.

Physical Activity:
Not too much to brag about here but I did get my Fitbit out and wore it yesterday and actually took about a 20 minute walk yesterday.  Now that the days are starting to get a bit longer I really intend to get into a regular walking routine.

All in all I feel like I have been very busy and productive this month.  I look forward to what February holds!

Time to Create

In January, in our neck of the woods, we deal with what is known as an inversion  It is when we go for weeks on end with no sunshine, deep fog, ice and all around miserable weather.  Some people deal with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) during this dreary time of the year.  I on the other hand, come down with a severe case of I Want To Make All The Things.    I think it started some time in December when I was in my sewing studio making my annual Christmas ornaments for my daughters.  My sewing studio is a room that was added on to the back of our garage.  Over the years it has been a storage room, a spare bedroom, and an exercise room.  Most recently I moved my sewing machine out there and have been slowing taking all my crafts from various areas of the house in an effort to have a single location of my craft goods.  There are a lot.

In December as I was working on my ornaments I got distracted with organizing my room.  I had a huge, coffin size tote filled to the brim with fabrics - some whole pieces and mostly scraps that I have held on to for about 30 years.  Pretty much the time span of when I started sewing.  I typically am known for throwing things away - I hate clutter, but that apparently doesn't hold true to my fabric.  I form some type of emotional attachment and I just know I will use that 2 inch by 4 inch scrap someday.  I just know it.  I was looking for a particular red fabric I knew I had when I realized how futile it was to keep my fabric this way.  If I couldn't see it, how could I use it.  So I began organizing it.  First I took all the small scraps and put them in a wire basket.  Then I took all the pieces that were about 1/4 of a yard and folded and ironed them into rectangles and stored them all standing up in a wooden crate I had that is about 4 inches tall.  Pieces that were 1/2 yard or more I folded in similar stacks and stored them in a larger wooden crate.  I have almost completed this task and the result is that I now can see every color fabric I have available.  My husband built me a 8 foot "floating" shelf and installed it.  I can put all my fabric in one place and now I feel like I can shop in my own store.  I have a couple more things to organize and then I will post some pictures.  I am so happy with how it is turning out.  It is actually beginning to resemble a place that is happy and cozy and very comfortable to spend my time in.

As I was organizing I realized how many patterns and kits and dreams of things I always planned to make and an idea began to form in my mind. 2015 will be the year that I create out of my stash!  I am going to do my best to use what I have and not buy anything new.  So far this month I have made a mug rug, a table runner, and three valentine garlands.  I am well into a quilt for my three year old grandson and have almost completed a flannel baby quilt that will be a gift for a new momma this coming weekend.  I have "shopped" through my own stash and have only spent about $35 total to purchase things like thread and stabilizer fabric - things I need to finish what I have started.  I have been having the best time doing this!  What is the point of storing all the stuff?  If I need new fabric in the future I can buy it then - but in the meantime I am having a blast using what I have - I love the challenge of it all.

I also decided to start renovating my laundry room.  I did purchase some paint and painted the room gray and used chalkboard paint to paint a huge chalkboard on one wall, my husband built another "floating" shelf,  I threw lots of stuff away and organized what I kept.  What a difference!  There is a storage area in there - the underneath area of our stairs, that has had a huge, heavy board just propped against the opening ever since we moved in.  It really is a dangerous thing as the wood is very heavy and nothing keeps it attached to the wall.  We are going to hang it on a barn door slider and make it functional.  Hopefully, I will have pictures to share of that very soon.  I am not a painter - I hate to paint in fact.  But the sad truth is that my husband hates it more.  So if I don't do it - it won't happen.  I am trying to convince myself that I really love to paint - I have several more rooms I want to renovate.  So far I'm not buying it - but I am not giving up. 

I know that soon I will be looking forward to planting the flower beds and filling the bird feeders but for now I am as content as can be - sewing, spinning, knitting, creating, painting, designing, cleaning, organizing......and the list goes on and on and on.

Blowing Off the Dust

 I wrote this post several days ago but it has been so long since I have blogged I have had a terrible time even figuring out how to access it!  I made it though - so here we go!

It's been over two years.  More than two years since I have written here and still I can't get this place off my mind.  Lately, I think about it a lot and feel a deep desire to write again.  So here I am.  Rusty and out of practice but with so many words swirling around in my mind, trying to find a place to flow and sort themselves out into sentences that have meaning and make sense.

I love January 1 and clean slates and new beginnings.  I love the prospect of new mercies every morning!  I love fresh starts and lists of goals.  So what better time to re-start writing in my blog?  I have lists and goals and ideas I want to put into words so here goes!

Christmas this year was busy and crazy and as our family continues to grow my house seems to continue to grow smaller.  I am working hard at being content with what I have but I must admit, a bigger house would be a wonderful thing.  Not a very probable thing as we are not that far away from retirement - but a wonderful thing none the less.  It is good for life to get back into a routine but I have been busy planning out the goals I hope to achieve this year.  I am not a fan of the "resolution" however, several years ago my good blogging friend, The Butler's Wife (how I miss her blog), challenged me to find a Word for each year.  What a journey it has been!  Last year my word was Anticipate.  I thought of all kinds of good things that I could be anticipating.  What happened was that I needed to relearn what the word meant.  I learned to anticipate Jesus in every situation, good or bad.  I began the year looking for an answer to a very deep and hard question in my life.  Today, I still don't have any clarity, but I do trust that Jesus knows and I anticipate that at just the right time the right answer will come.

My 2015 Word is Abide.  I re-read the book Shepherd's Abiding by Jan Karon as my Christmas book this year and the word stuck in my mind.  I began hearing it everywhere.  Old hymns containing the word started singing themselves in my mind.  It's not a very common word so I began to realize that God was speaking.  In many ways Abide seems like a continuation of the word Anticipate.  As I abide in Him I can anticipate so much.  I am going to find every hymn I can with abide in it and use them in my devotions.  Abide.  It is a lovely word.

I have set some fun goals for this year as well.  Being an avid knitter, my sewing has gone a bit by the wayside.  But for Christmas this year I made three of my grandsons Quiet Books for gifts.  Whew!  What a fun and exhausting project.  Trying to work in my disaster of a sewing room was challenging and in the midst of sewing I started organizing my room which contains materials for every single craft I have ever done.  I began realizing just how much "stuff" I have and I came up with an idea.  For 2015 every single thing I sew or knit has to come from my "stash".  I will have to buy buttons and zippers and maybe some thread to complete projects but I am not going to buy anything new to sew or knit.  What a fun challenge.  Already I made a new table runner for my dining room table using fabric and things I already had.  I didn't have to buy anything! Gray is my new favorite color and I especially love it with the reds!

As soon as I finished the table runner I pulled out some fabrics to make a baby quilt for my three year old grandson, Ryan.  I make a baby quilt for every grandchild and I am two behind.  So Ryan will get his quilt, soon I think, and it is browns and teals and full of bears.  I can't wait!

Another fun goal I have set this year is a reading challenge.  My husband told me the other day he loves to see me reading.  I used to read much more than I do these days and I miss it.  So when I found this fun reading challenge the other day on facebook I decided to take it on.  It should get me out of my box I think.  One of the suggestions that bothered me was "read a graphic novel".  I don't read graphic stuff.  But then I remembered I want to read the book Unbroken and after seeing the movie I realized it is very graphic - but in a way that is historical and truthful and necessary to the story.  So I will be okay.

I have always wanted to learn how to do calligraphy.  The other day I was in a Hastings Bookstore and I saw a calligraphy kit on sale.  It ended up in my hands so fast I didn't know what happened!  I decided then and there that 2015 was the year to learn calligraphy.  I haven't started yet - it seems a bit intimidating - but it will happen!

I have totally become a fan of the show Fixer Upper.  I love, love, love Chip and Jo Jo Gaines.  I became acquainted with her from reading the blog Mundane Faithfulness.  When Kara told of how JoJo flew to her home in Colorado Springs to decorate her home for Christmas it touched my heart and I knew she was a Christian who walked her talk.  I had never heard of the show before but I set my dvr to record all the episodes and my goodness - both my husband and I are hooked!  And now we are inspired to work on our house.  Our home is 15 years old and it is time to do some updates.  So we have made a list of renovations and have already begun!  The first thing was to complete a cupalo and weather vane for our barn.   I love it!

Next on our list is a laundry room update - we are removing an old cabinet and installing "floating" shelves.  We also have an old heavy piece of wood covering a cubby hole storage area under the stairs.  The door has never been attached or functional so we are going to make a sliding barn-style door.  Our main bathroom needs some paint and the "kid's room" needs a makeover as well.  We are excited to see what we can come up with.

2015 looms on the horizon as being an exciting and fulfilling year.  I am excited to learn new ways I can Abide with Him.  I am looking forward to working down my fabric and yarn stash and turning it all into beautiful things.  I look forward to learning new things and reading new books.  And it feels so good to be back in this familiar place.  Oh how I have missed it!

Whiplash

Ok, so after changing my blog into a knitting blog, I have decided to create a new knitting blog and keep this blog, Robinznest, as my personal, sometimes reflective, most of the time trivial place that I write and meet with friends.  Got that?

It just seemed like a good idea and an easy solution to my new knitting podcast.  I hadn't written anything in months and perhaps just sliding it into my knitting life would be the easy fix.  However, I found that I missed Robinznest being what it has always been and from time to time I feel stirrings of writing creativity that make me think I will start blogging more regularly again. 

So there you have it.  Robinznest will remain as it has been and Robinznest Knits will be the place that I release my podcasts and talk about my knitting.

And who knows, maybe someday soon I will start blogging here again.  I miss it.  And I miss you.

Robinznest Episode 2 - Confessions

 Listen to Episode 2 - Confessions by clicking below.

   
   
Podcast Powered By Podbean

This episode seems to have a couple of knitting confessions!

Off the Needles:
Lamb by Susan B. Anderson


First Confession:
My Ravellennics project, Sheep Run Socks were an epic failure.  Sad, but true.  However, I will not be defeated by the sock.
                    Crystal Socklet - Knitty Spring/Summer 2012
                     Fixation Ankle Sock - Sarah Keller

On the Needles:  I'm still working on the Sothia. This is where the second knitting confession came in!  I have shawl issues!
                      Shipwreck Shawl
                      Cedar Leaf Shawlette
                      Piper's Journey Shawl
                      Silk Moon Crescent Shawlette
                      Duchess of Cambridge Shawl
                      Is there a Color Affection in my future???

I am also working on the Sweetheart Skirt for my little 3 year old granddaughter.

Qued Up :
                     A cardigan for my daughter:  Wispy Cardi by Hannah Fettig
                     Baby gift:  either Flower Cardigan and Hat Set or Circle and Stripes Stroller Blanket,
                        both from Itty Bitty Nursery

On the Farm:
 Check up on the latest happenings with the calf, the chickens and the sheep.  I discuss whether to coat or not to coat the sheep.

A Few of My Favorite Things:
          E Z PDF Reader for my Kindle Fire
          Knitting Row Counter android app

Technique:
The difference between Fair Isle and Intarsia

Contact me at:

 My blog:  robin-robinznest.blogspot.com

email:  Robinznest.knits@gmail.com

                                                            Robinznest on Ravelry

See you next time!

Robinznest THE PODCAST! Episode 1 - An Introduction

Exciting things are happening at "the Nest"! Creating a podcast is something I have thought of doing for quite some time now.  And since I had a few days off this week I decided to just go for it. In my first episode I talk about my knitting, my farm, how I am growing my sheep into sweaters and of course my sweet grandbabies. I hope to be able to embed an audio player in my posts in the future, but I am a very slow techie person and it is going to take me some time to figure it all out. In the meantime, if you care to listen, go to iTunes and search in the podcasts for Robinznest. If you listen, please be sure to leave a comment on iTunes, it helps move my podcast up in the search engine. I truly hope you enjoy it!

SHOWNOTES for Episode 1 - An Introduction

www.knitpicks.com 

the first knitting website I discovered 

http://www.knitpicks.com/cfpatterns/pattern_display.cfm?ID=75002220  

this is the pattern to the infamous Mr. Foster.  Give him a try - he is an education in himself!

http://www.knitpicks.com/cfBlog/author.cfm/Knit%20Picks%20Podcast  

This is the first knitting podcast I discovered.

http://nevernotknitting.blogspot.com/  

This is a great website/podcast to follow.

http://www.knitmoregirls.blogspot.com/  

I have learned so much about wool and knitting on this site.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sothia   

The shawl I am currently working on.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lamb-6  

In the podcast I said this pattern was called Sheep.  My bad, it's really called Lamb.

http://www.ravelry.com/groups/team-sasquatch

This is the Ravelry group I joined for the Ravellenics.

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sheep-run-socks

Yikes!  This is my project for the Ravellenics!  Wish me luck!

http://www.sheepshed.com/

The most awesome sheep/wool/spinning resource ever!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAySfRG5pPg

The world's fastest knitter - whew!  She makes me tired just watching her!

http://www.knitpicks.com/cfneedles/needle_list.cfm?ID=300315&intmedid=Main1--Sunstruck Beautiful needles!

Contact me at:

 My blog:  robin-robinznest.blogspot.com

email:  Robinznest.knits@gmail.com

Robinznest on Ravelry

Thanks so much for listening - please leave me a comment and/or feedback and let me know what you think.  

 

Summer Days

Technically, it's not summer yet.  But it feels like it is.  School is out, weather is warm, flowers are planted and the days are longer.  I am enjoying it all so much.  For the first time since I can remember my summer days are feeling like, well, summer.  No more getting up early and driving to work, sitting at a desk spending my day behind a computer, and driving home, tired at the end of the day.  Now these days are filled with kids and field trips and popsicles and lambs and gardening and chickens and knitting and reading.  I run errands during the daytime like lots of stay-at-home women do.  I went to the nursery last week to pick up some more flowers and I went mid-morning and it felt so free!  It may sound crazy but it is the most liberated I have felt in many years.

Here are some pictures of things I have been busy with:

Sweet Ava Claire had her big dance recital.  Pure sweetness this girl is!

Poppa has started teaching Tyler the basics of horse riding on a horse just his size.

And whatever brother does, little brother has to do too.

We have added chickens to our little farm!  This is Marigold - the sweetest little hen.

This is Chrysanthemum, my little Buff Orpington.

He looks like his is squeezing them - but he is actually very gentle with them.

Tom Cruise - the rooster.  The name just seemed fitting.

We have spent the last 3 weeks building this chicken coop.  My husband is a master builder!

So, our little hobby farm is complete now - two horses, one miniature horse, two lambs, one jersey calf, a dog, a cat, and now about a dozen chickens!  I really never saw myself doing this - it just sort of happened.  But I am having so much fun and there is something so satisfying, so calming and centering, so fulfilling in just enjoying the basics of life.  I feel so blessed!

I Live On A Farm!

So it's true - little lambs really do eat ivy!

So it all started a while back after I got into knitting.  The whole process of knitting is so fascinating to me and the more I knit the more I wanted to knit and the more I wanted to learn about knitting.  I started reading blogs about knitting and listening to podcasts about knitting and I realized that many knitters were also spinners.  I recall as a little girl loving the story of Sleeping Beauty.  There is a part in the story where Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger on the spindle while spinning.  That never made sense to me because as far as I know there are no needles or pins involved in spinning!  Anyway, I digress.  My point is that I have had a life-long fascination with spinning but in all honesty I didn't know that you could even still do it.  I mean, I didn't realize they even still made spinning wheels.  But podcasts such as the Knitmore Girls and The Knit Wits made me realize that not only can you still get a spinning wheel but it is an art that is becoming more and more popular. 

I also loved learning about different fibers and what makes some fiber better than others to knit with.  An idea began formulating in my head.  Wouldn't it be amazing to raise a sheep, shear it, process the wool, spin it, and finally knit it into a sweater?  At first I dismissed the idea as something that would be impossible to achieve.  My life is busy enough thank you very much.  But like all good and fun ideas, it just would not go away.  I began researching what kind of sheep would produce the desirable fiber I wanted, just in case my dream ever got legs.

This brings me to last week.  I mentioned my idea to my husband and to my surprise he said "Do it"!  I guess I don't know why his response surprised me.  He loves raising animals and he has always been 100% supportive of my love of knitting.  But I wasn't prepared for his enthusiasm.  He went to a farm auction the next day to look for a sheep.

He came home with a steer.

My daughter with Little Bill

He texted me a picture of a sweet 2 week old, bottle-fed,  little Jersey steer and I was hopelessly in love.  That is how we became the surrogate parents of the sweetest little Jersey calf you can imagine.  His big doe-like eyes can melt butter.  He loves to be petted and played with.  He is absolutely adorable.

My husband also informed me that apparently Friday at the sale is for cattle but sheep would be selling on Saturday.  So we went back to the farm auction.  It turned out to be a bit frustrating for me because while I knew the name of the sheep breed I was looking for, I couldn't recognize one when I saw it.  And the auctioneers don't mention the breed as they are being sold.  I quickly realized that buyers were looking for meat sheep, not fiber sheep and none of them had ever heard of the breed I was interested in.  We went home to our little steer empty handed.

That same afternoon a neighbor came by to help my husband put some trim up on the barn and we got to talking about our experience.  He listened intently and said, "I know someone you need to talk to".  He pulled out his cell phone, dialed a number and handed me the phone.  A nice woman answered and I explained to her what I wanted to do.  She was very friendly but again, she didn't know about the breed I was looking for.  However, she did know where to point me.  She told me I needed to go to a place called The Sheep Shed.  Apparently, about 30 miles aways from me was a sheep farm that specialized in fiber sheep.  Wow!  I immediately called and connected with a most amazing woman who instantly knew exactly what I wanted and why.  She invited me to come over and told me she had two sets of lambs she just knew I would love.  Both sets had been born as a set of quads and a mother ewe can only nurse two babies well so they had pulled the other two and they have been bottle fed.  My husband and I jumped in the pick-up and quickly drove to The Sheep Shed.

I have lived here in this area for many, many years and I truly don't know how I didn't know about his place!  It is a family owned business that raises sheep for meat and fiber.  Not only do they do that, but Cleo, the matriarch of the family, teaches how to process wool and spin it.  It is a one-stop shop to learn everything I want to do!  I am so excited I can hardly stand it.

They showed us the lambs and I immediately chose the one month old brother and sister Rambouillet/Border Leicester Cross.  One is black and the other is white.  Cleo showed me what their fiber would spin up like.    After learning how to bottle feed them and care for them we loaded them up and brought them home to take up residence with Little Bill the calf.

They are so much fun!  Bottle feeding animal might get old if you have to do it forever but I can't imagine ever getting tired of it!  There is just something so natural, so earthy, so satisfying about taking care of such sweet and gentle creatures.

So now our little farm has horses, lambs, and a calf.  Next time I will tell you about....................

...............the chickens!

April Potpourri

Longer days, warmer temperatures, green grass, and blooming spring flowers make for one happy lady at the Nest! Our winter was mild, as far as winters go, but oh my, how I love summer!

The spring cleaning bug bit me mildly and I decided to paint my living room.  I did the kitchen/dining room last year.  I chose to carry the brown from the dining room into the living room and selected a darker brown to do an accent wall and the plant shelf area.  I really, really loved the results.  Choosing paint colors is so intimidating to me and I finally decided to just pick something, anything and get going.  When it was all done I wanted something fresh and new to hang on my quilt rack.  My sofas are a spring green color and so I wanted something to tie the browns and greens with a small red accent.  I found the perfect thing in my sewing room.  It was from a quilt kit that I have had for several years.  How exciting to get a new wall hanging and not spend a dime!

I didn't measure it for my rack and it ended up being just a bit to wide.  I had to fold in the side borders.

It is so wonderful to be able to be outside with the kids.  Here they are reading the Bible together.  Tyler was reading to Ava Claire about Adam and Eve.  I'm not sure where his version of the story came from, but it was quite entertaining!

I finished knitting a shawl I have been working on for several months.  Right after Kate Middleton married Prince William, she was spotted at a grocery store with a green shawl tossed casually over her shoulders.  Knitting designers everywhere went crazy trying to design a replica.  I chose this pattern called the Duchess of Cambridge Shawl.  I went with a wool/silk blend yarn in a colorway called Moss Tonal from Black Sheep DyeWorks.  I absolutely love the color - it has lots of variations of greens in it.  I had a bit of trouble with the pattern but the designer was good to answer my emails and I finally finished it last week.  I will be blocking it soon and then I will try to post a picture of it.  It is really lovely.  I am a bit nervous that I am more of a shawl-knitter than a shawl-wearer.  This would not be a good thing as I just ordered some more yarn to make yet another shawl.  I truly enjoy knitting the lacy patterns -they are challenging enough that I don't get bored and small enough that there is some instant gratification.

We lost a dear family member recently who had fought a long and hard battle with cancer.  He was my brother-in-law and was only 47 years old.  We flew back to Oklahoma City where my husband did the funeral and then we brought him back here to Idaho and buried him in the cemetary in the little mountain town my husband's family is from and that he loved so dearly.  My, he will be missed.  My favorite thing said about him at his service was that he WON his battle with cancer, for he is alive today and the stupid cancer is DEAD!  YES!!  He ran a very hard race but he finished so strong.  He and his family have been Godly examples to everyone on how to die with grace and dignity.

My sweet daughter Jessica will be graduating from college in TWO WEEKS!  I can't believe it!  It just seems like the other day I wrote this post, describing her difficulty in leaving home and starting college.  Now she is graduating with an elementary education degree and moving into her own rented home in the big city down the interstate.  I am so proud of my girl!  She has excelled in every area and worked so hard.  She student taught the third grade this year and absolutely loved it.  She hopes to get her very own third grade class this fall.

It seems that I am going to inherit some chickens in a few weeks!  Now this is something I never imagined myself doing.  There was a sweet lady in our church that talked her husband into getting her some chickens for eggs.  She died just a couple weeks later.  Her husband just doesn't want the chickens and offered them to us.  We thought about it for awhile and have agreed to give "chicken farming" a try.  I don't know the first thing about it but I have been surfing the internet and have found some great websites and blogs with lots of information.  My sweet Ava Claire wants her very own "chickadee" and I think it will be fun to get her one that she can enjoy.  She doesn't want just any chicken however.  She wants a white fluffy one -called a silkie I believe.  I am probably getting in over my head, but we are in the midst of figuring out what kind of chicken coop to built now!  Ha!  Life certainly never is boring around here!

And oh my.  Pinterest!  I have found more things to make and do and try than I ever could do in my lifetime.  And the list just grows and grows and grows.

There are just a few of my April happenings.  See you soon!

March Musings

So, since I haven't posted anything since February, well, I've been feeling a little lonesome for the ole' blog. I thought it would be good to stop by and jot down a few of the things that have been going on. So, in no particular order here goes:

I still love my new job. People keep asking me, like they don't really believe me when I say how much I love what I am doing. I really, really love it. I think why I love it so much is because it does not feel like a job. It feels like, well, it just feels like family. And I LOVE my family. So I am as happy as can be spending my days with four little sweethearts. I believe that besides their parents, there is no one, absolutely no one who can take care of children as well as a grandmother. And I am up for the task. I love each one unconditionally and their best is my priority. I am as happy as can be. Here we are at a recent field trip to the zoo:


And even though the days are longer than they used to be, I have a minimum of two hours every afternoon to read, knit, or watch tv. Unthinkable! I have never had that in the working world. I have watched two seasons of Downton Abbey and am in the fifth season of Friday Night Lights. I have knit a passel of fairies and dinosaurs. I am working on a shawl right now and am trying to decide between starting some easter knits for the babies or an intensely detailed pair of socks for me. I love it!

I hate spring. I always have. The word bipolar comes to mind. We have a few days of 70 degree weather and it is awesome. The next day is is in the 40's and the wind is blowing hard. I hate wind. I learned to hate wind as the child of a crop duster. Wind was the devil - it was not friendly to our livelihood. I still feel the same way.

I joined Weight Watchers. It's going well. I figured since I am more active now then I have ever been I should take advantage of it. My husband is doing it with me and two of my daughters. It's great to do it as a team.

And speaking of WW :), I just got Ree's new Cookbook. It is amazing. I made her saucy brisket for Sunday dinner and it was a hit. And the recipes can all be entered into WW recipe builder to figure out the points. So the two can co-exist.

I just finished reading John Ramsey's book - The Other Side of Suffering. John Ramsey is the father of JonBenet' Ramsey, the little girl who was murdered in Boulder, Colorado several years ago. If there is any book I could recommend to you it would be this one. It focuses mainly on the spiritual walk of John and Patsy Ramsey following the death of their daughter and the horrible, inexcusable treatment of them by the media and the Boulder Police department. I simply could not put it down and stayed up until after 1:00 in the morning to finish it. I want to read it again. If you have a Kindle, download this book now. You will not be sorry.

Next week is spring break. I am so excited. I have not have spring break off in many, many years. My teacher/daughter gets the week off so my nurse/daughter took a vacation week so we could all have some time off. Perfect! I intend to spend some hours in my sewing room working on a quilt and some other smaller projects. I can't wait!

We took a long weekend and went to Tuscon, Arizona for my husbands birthday. We met my brother and sister-chick down there and spent a couple of days in Tombstone. We had a blast. It was my first visit to Arizona and I totally get why people move there.

Beth Moore is coming to our area again. She was here four years ago and it was such a special time. I really look forward to hearing her again. I believe she is an anointed woman of God and I always learn from her words. And Travis Cottrell will be with her again. He leads worship like none other.

Well, that's it for now. It's been good to visit.