Fall....where are you?

Okay, so I know it's not officially Fall but I am so ready!  I went to Walmart yesterday and got "supplies" and a few extras...like some Indian corn to put on the front door and some gourds..........for a bowl inside..............

 and Honeycrisp apples which I have never had but I've heard they're really good.  Even the check out gal said "it's the only apple I'll eat anymore".   I had one last night and I think I agree with her.....best apple I've ever tasted!  Sweet, yet tangy, crisp and reminds me of the apples we used to get before they started growing them for "shipping" which were tasteless.  I really stopped buying much fruit because it had no flavor and so many times they weren't ripe or had been frozen.

I was pretty "tuckered" after shopping and unloading and putting everything away and by then it was almost supper time so I "kicked back" and did some handwork...........hopefully this will be done by Sunday for Year of Projects post.............this is the "spooky spider" for Sam.............

My yarn didn't come yet and I needed something fairly "mindless" for watching T.V. so I had been wanting to start a Cozy Memory blanket that has been on Ravelry 
and it seems every podcast I watch is working on one or multiples.  Most are using leftover sock yarn and I don't have that much sock yarn  but I do have a LOT of old acrylic worsted weight so I went up a needle size  as the pattern was for DK weight and I am off and knitting!  Yes, I know...another project but I am needing to use what I have as the yarn budget is on hold until next month! LOL!

I also picked up these nifty little shoelaces that require no tying and one size fits all shoes.....we shall see as Miss Peeps has destroyed several pairs of shoelaces....on top of that she chewed through my ear bud wires the other day!  I wonder if she's cutting her adult teeth? 

I'll let you know how they work. 
I know it's not Monday when I post about books but I can't wait to share this with you....it is so COOL!  What Should I Read Next
Check it out.....just enter an author or book that you really like and it will show you a whole list of similar books.  If you join (which is no big deal....they're not trying to sell you anything) they will keep your lists for you.  This is so fun and it came up with many I've found on my own but there were lots of new authors and books I hadn't heard of.  Try it....you'll love it!
I have loads of work to do today so I had better "get a move on".  I hope you have a wonderful Friday! 
Oh, BTW, Ben is doing much better and we found out that they had given him a "nerve blocker" shot which may have caused him not to be able to talk when he first woke up although I still think they gave him too much anesthesia as it took him almost 3 days to walk and talk properly.  He seems to be doing fine now although he will have a long recovery time.  He's such a worker bee that this is going to be very hard for him.  He was already saying his grass needs mowing and he can't do it.  Oh well....he needs to learn to relax a bit so maybe this will force him too.  I think he got it from me....we are not couch potatoes by any means! LOL!
Happy Trails!

It's Monday....what are you reading, listening to and/or watching?

This was a strange week as I was trying to keep my mind off my son Ben's surgery.  He's had an injured shoulder from work and he had surgery for it today at the University of Iowa.  The fact that he was at a top hospital really helped.  He is home now but not without a few tense moments.  He had never been under anesthesia before and evidently it worked really well....too well, in fact.  There were moments when he couldn't speak and then he panicked.  He had the surgery early this morning and in the afternoon he was still having problems.  The anesthesiologist was in quite a bit as all his vitals were fine.  It scared me because it sounded like a stroke.  I talked to him awhile ago and he's home now but he has not had any pain meds yet and he sounds like he is drugged up.  He's hungry though and that's a good sign and good to have something in his stomach before he takes any pain meds too.  I wish I was there but it would have been difficult and he assured me he would be fine.  So, if I have been a little pre-occupied this week that is why.  You think you don't worry about them anymore at that age but you do!

 Here is one of my favorite pictures of Ben and Uriah together.

I did get quite a bit of reading done this week!  I finished 3 books...okay, so one was really a children's book but I didn't know that until I received it in the mail.

This was my library book and I rate it about a 3 out of 5...those darn award winners!  This was a story about a family and it was well written and interesting if it had been true but it was a made up family and there was no plot or story line that I could see and the ending fell flat in my opinion.

This was a children's book and so young that I don't feel in a position to rate it although it reminded me of my summers with my Aunt and Uncle on the farm. 

 This was the best book of all and last night when I couldn't sleep, I stayed up until 1:00 a.m. and finished it! LOL!  I really enjoyed it and it is a great young adult book and the type of book I loved when I was young.  A book that inspires you to dream and work hard and be self-sufficient.  See, I still like those books!
  It is based on the author's childhood of he and his sister helping their parents run their apple orchard in New Mexico.  You also learn a lot about apple orchards and what it takes to care for one and there are diagrams too and some math.  I'm thinking my grandson Sam might enjoy this one as he is very detail oriented.  This was a pretty thick book though so it was adult size for sure.  I give it a 5!

 I am listening to another Agatha Christie mystery...Hercule Poirot in The Cretan Bull.  Very good!

 I'm reading this issue of Sift from King Arthur Flour but it is not the first issue evidently.  I'm thinking of getting my SIL a subscription for Christmas as this would be right up his alley and it truly is a beautiful magazine.  More great recipes too!

I'm still pouring over this beauty and it is really mostly recipes so far and lots of ingredients that we can't get down here. But it is definitely eye candy!

I went to the library today and took back my one book but found nothing inspiring or calling out to me and looked for several books but they didn't have them even when the online catalog said they did...oh well, Thrift Books here I come!  I do have some lined up though until my Thrift books arrive.............also I am still reading this book although it is slow....I can only digest so much de-cluttering at once.  I think I'm on Chapter 3.........

This is a book I found while digging through stuff 
de-cluttering...........I love a good memoir so I hope it is just that.

Then there's this one which is the only book by Nicolas Evans I haven't read.  I remember years ago being in Barnes & Noble and sighting The Horse Whisperer for the first time and I had to buy it right then and there!  It had just come out and I couldn't wait for the paperback.   It later became a film with Robert Redford.   I still have that hardcover book....I should re-read it and yes the book was better than the movie.....aren't they always?   There's always a lot of nature in his books and I love that.

Friday night at the movies with pizza didn't happen last Friday night.  There were phone calls and I had made Eggplant Parmesan to use up some eggplant and by the time I ate and hit the sack I didn't want to get involved with a movie so I watched a podcast and did some crocheting....I hadn't run out of yarn......... yet!  I am missing satellite a bit as I still enjoy football and I watched a "cartoon version" of the Bears game on NFL.com but when they lost after being ahead most of the game I was glad I wasn't paying $30 a month to watch them lose! LOL!  I'm trying to catch up with Bakery Bear podcasts and if you haven't watched them you really should.....they are such a cute couple and there is so much more than knitting.  They travel around England showing historical sights and where I am now was following the legend of Robin Hood and the movie sights where Kevin Costner was in England.  I have also been listening to another audio podcast; The Knitting Pipeline which is very informative and there are wonderful tips on techniques and patterns.  It's a great one!  That's about it for this week!  What are you reading, listening to and watching?
Happy Trails!

  

YOP Week #11

What a busy week here.  The temperature went down from the 90's to the 80's and I took advantage of it but now I am exhausted.  So, today really is a day of rest.  I did manage to work on a few things in the evenings when I had to put my legs up or they would have fallen off! LOL!  So sorry I haven't been out here blogging or reading either but I wait all summer for this weather and I have to "make hay while the sun shines"!
You'll never guess...I ran out of yarn again on my Giant Granny...of course, the project I love the most right now.  But I ordered more yarn from Love Knitting which is a new to me website.  The shipping is $4.95 and they have a great selection.  I don't know if they are in the U.S. or the U.K. as they carried many U.K. yarns but reviews were great and service was really impressive most stated.  The URL has US in it so maybe they are here in the states? We shall see!  They also have another site Love Crochet
I think I got 10 rounds done on my Giant Granny this week before I ran out of yarn........I'm on round 48 of 64 not counting the border edging.  L O V E!  Favorite project so far this year!

I am back working on my socks and hope to finish them this week.  I just finished the heel flap on both of them.
  I really like doing 2 concurrently because when I'm done I will actually have a pair (as in 2) finished socks!  No 2nd sock syndrome.

I have 2 of the 3 washcloths finished for the grands for Halloween........the ghost which you saw last week........

and now the witch.............

and I have cast on the spider............I like the results but I was a little disappointed in Knit Picks Dishie cotton worsted that I used.  On the ghost above his head you can see a gray mark.  This was in the yarn itself but then when I did the witch, see the loop on the very bottom row to the right?  That was a knot evidently where they connected more yarn?  Both are very noticeable and I'm not that picky but I make enough mistakes myself without the yarn goofing up! LOL!

I have not touched my Multnomah shawl but hopefully I will get back to it after I finish the socks and cloths this week.  I also need to work on joining the Maybelle Flower squares but I have to learn the Join As You Go method for it so I need a time when I can concentrate without interruption or being tired. (You wouldn't believe how my girls interrupt me all the time and when am I not tired?) 
I did a lot of cooking this week as I had items that needed to be used up and then I mowed Friday and that really exhausted me and I have a riding mower!  Getting old is very tiring evidently.
In the evenings I have spent time listening to podcasts.  Knitting Pipeline which is really good and full of lots of wonderful tips and knitting content.  It is an audio podcast and I have lots of catching up to do on it.  Susan Anderson recommended her and she was so right!  The other podcast is The Bakery Bears which is fun and has so much more than knitting in it!  I am finally into 2016 on their podcasts and I hope to catch up before too long.   I hope you had a great week and that Fall has arrived where you are!
Happy Trails!

It's Tuesday...what are you reading, listening to and watching?

Are you a seasonal reader?  I love reading books that take place in the season I am living in at the moment..ie.  Fall books in the Fall, Winter books in the Winter and even reading holiday books at the specific holiday.  Today, my Fall books arrived....oh be still my beating heart!  Not really, keep on beating....please.  So, without further ado,  I present you with my Fall book picks..........

 I have wanted this book for several years now and finally got my hands on a copy.  I have some other Susan Branch books and they are "keepers".  They're filled with her gorgeous drawings, wonderful recipes and crafts for the season.  This is a non-fiction, of course, and I will be starting it tonight!

 There are book lists on the internet and Pinterest that say they are Fall book lists but they don't necessarily fit my criteria.....which is.....a Fall book has to tell a story that takes place in the Fall!  This is not always easy to distinguish if you haven't read the book.  LOL!  But there are clues.
Such as this next book  has to do with an apple orchard so I imagine there will be harvesting in the Fall although I see Spring blossoms on the cover....I just noticed that.

AMAZON:

"With frostbitten fingers, sleepless nights and sore muscles, 14-year-old Jackson Jones and his posse of cousins discover the lost art of winging it when they take over an orchard of 300 wild apple trees. They know nothing about pruning or irrigation or pest control, but figure it out they must—if they are to avoid losing $8,000 (because of an unfair contract). 

 With spot illustrations for mechanical-loving readers—the gears of a tractor, a plow with disks—and with mathematical calculations of the great mount of money to be earned, this novel has the sort of can-do spirit and sense of earned independence not often found in today's fiction."    

 

Okay, so there's some frost in there which could indicate Spring or Fall and then maybe it tells the story of an entire year.  I'll let you know but I will be starting this one very soon!

This next book reminded me of my Summers spent with my Aunt and Uncle and how I hated to leave come Fall.
AMAZON:
"Just before leaving for the winter, Jemima visits one last time her favorite places on the farm, recalling the wonderful summer she spent there with her aunt."

This book is written by Crescent Dragonwagon who wrote one of my favorite cook books of all time.  Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook.   She had a restaurant in Eureka Springs, Arkansas which was so good the Clintons stopped there when they were in the state.  So, Crescent and I go way back! LOL! 
That's all for Fall right now but please share if you have any favorite Fall books.
Now, as far as what I am still reading....quite a bit as this past week was busy taking care of (and cleaning up after) a very sick little dachsund and I am still not caught up but Annie is better!  She is 14 so I was really concerned and swore I would be off to the vet this morning if she wasn't better but she is.  I am still reading my library book...........which is just an easy read so far......
I am on page 221 of 357 so hopefully I will finish it this week.

   AMAZON:
 “It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon. . . . ” This is how Abby Whitshank always describes the day she fell in love with Red in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate an indefinable kind of specialness, but like all families, their stories reveal only part of the picture: Abby and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not only tender moments, laughter, and celebrations, but also jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets. From Red’s parents, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to the grandchildren carrying the Whitshank legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century, here are four generations of lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn house that has always been their anchor.

I'm still reading this magazine........it's very interesting and I'm so glad I didn't throw them out.  Last night I read about a couple in their 80's giving up their home and cider and flour mill in Vermont that they have lived in since 1939.  This man was a genius and they powered their house with water before being "energy efficient" was even a word...or 2.  What a great house which had not been modernized....right up my alley!  So sad they had to leave but they were getting on in years and he was afraid he would not be able to maintain the place.
  The house itself had been built in the 1800's or earlier.

Still listening to this tape and they are short stories of Hercule Poirot that I had never heard of...very good ones too.

And I still have not made Mama Dip's Breakfast Casserole....I haven't made much of anything lately and I need to cook and bake...and mow...and iron....you get the picture....I am behind!

 

As for things I watched and listened to.  Friday, movie night, I watched St. Vincent which Connie recommended and it was good! Thanks Connie!  I've watched some Bakery Bear podcasts, Inside Number 23 and also listened to an audio podcast Knitting Pipeline which is excellent, and some Heartland Episodes.  I think I'm on Season 5 now...love!

I hope you all had a great weekend and those in the U.S. got a chance to celebrate Labor Day and thank you to those who had to work on that day.  Please let me know what you're watching, reading and listening too and especially if you have any Fall books you can recommend.  

Happy Trails!

YOP Week #10

A day late but YOP goes for a week so, in reality, I'm not late.  But I am behind!  I had a very sick little dachsund this week and have been cleaning ever since and I'm still not caught up!  My Spotbot and I have both been working overtime.  But poor little Annie ate something outside I think and it caused her to be very ill but thank goodness she is on the mend!
So, here's what I worked on this week.  I've managed to complete 7 rounds on my Giant Granny which means I am on round 47 of 68 not counting the border.

 I love this project and I love Sandra Paul's colors that she chose............

 There's been no work done on my Multnomah shawl until I get a lifeline put in.  Also, I haven't worked on my socks.  But I did finish my ghost wash cloth.........it needs to be blocked but I'll wait until all 3 cloths are done.

 I started on the witch cloth............you can just see the end of her broom and part of her dress..........

I'm almost done with this doily but not sure I like it very much.  It called for worsted so I used cotton worsted but either I don't like the variegated or the cotton or the pattern......not sure which.  I will make a solid one in worsted weight but not cotton and see if I like that better.  This is pretty awful I think......I may tear it out as I REALLY do not like it.

I finally dug out my I Spy squares from Maggie that I ordered for the 3 I Spy quilts for the 3 grand boys for Christmas.  She also sent me a little extra package for myself.  I can't wait to start pinning and sewing them together.  I will include the rules for the I Spy game with each little quilt.

Here's my little 'extra' package she sent me.  What a sweetie she is!

 I hope you're all enjoying your long weekend if you get one.  I'll be by to catch up later tonight and tomorrow.  Happy Trails!

Wonderful Wednesday!

The sciatica is still with me but I think I'm getting used to it. I'm down to about 1 or 2 Tylenol at night before I go to sleep and my right thigh is still numb but....it could be worse!  I have been managing to stay busy.  I went to Walmart Monday and decided to buy myself a frozen dinner since I knew I wouldn't  feel like cooking when I got home and there were no leftovers. 

 This was scrumptious!  No artificial ingredients and real butter and cream......YUMMO!

I was trying to take another selfie in front of my "cinderella" mirror......don't I look different than the picture from a few weeks ago?  I swear this mirror is magic!  Of course, I'm farther away too....that really helps! LOL!

Tomatoes for Friday night pizza.  This is the last year I am planting anything down here....too many bugs!  I sprayed a detergent water mixture but so many were destroyed by whatever.  I got 1 green pepper and that was from 7 plants!  No more!

Too bad I can't eat the flowers as they're doing really well! LOL!  This is my clemaitis that took over my one remaining clothes pole.  It was just a little sprig when I planted it several years back.

Hibiscus..........

and miscellaneous...........

 I got this in the mail today and realized it is Labor Day weekend coming up!  Big sales everywhere! 

Today was laundry, changing the sheets and I baked a chocolate cake that is cooling for tomorrow's frosting.  I made a pork dinner in the crock pot yesterday....some pork chops, a can of cream of chicken soup and a package of Ranch dressing and cook on low for 6 hours or high for 4 hours.  Makes a nice gravy over potatoes and I had it with some organic green beans out of the can from Walmart.  Good dinner with little fuss.
I've manged to almost finish my little ghost washcloth......at this point he looks more like a little Frankenstein but hopefully that will change before he's finished.

I started joining my Maybelle squares until I realized I hadn't printed off all the instructions.....I need to do that.

a few more rounds on my Giant Granny...round 44 of 68 I think....I love these last few colors together.....

and on top of that I started a new project....a doily!  This is the pattern I have been searching for....I think.....we shall see..........I'm experimenting with the pattern and some Knit Picks Dishie worsted weight cotton.  It called for worsted weight.

I hope you're having a good week and everyone stay safe with the storms coming in!
Happy Trails!