Seriously.  I mean it.  Really.  Actual knitting content AND a photo.  Here’s the CIC sweater I have been working on for the last week.  I still have to weave in the ends and stuff, but it is done.  Finished it last night and already started the collar band for a second one.

I used green on the collar, waist, and cuff bands then black as the main color.  That’s all I planned going in on this sweater.  The rest was unplanned.  When I got tired of knitting black I switched to a scrap color until I ran out of it.  There was no rhyme or reason to that.  I think it tuned out pretty neat for my first real live sweater if I do say so myself.  And I did…so there.

Sunday night was “Glow in the Dark” at our church.  The kids all got together and had a party.  It was for k-fifth grade.  So here are my three youngest dressed for the event.

Hubby has training all this week.  Tomorrow is Land Navigation, can’t remember what he is doing on Thursday (bad wifey), and Friday he goes to get gassed.  He pulled out his chem mask last night and gave us both a dose of left residule CS gas from the last time he went through it.  My eyes burned and itched for about an hour and my throat was all tore up.  And that was 6 months AFTER did it.  Geesh.  Anyway, he asked me to make some beef jerky for him and his soldiers, so a pound and a half of beef jerky is currently in the dehydrator making my house smell sooooo yummy (and there is about 2 pounds left to be made still marinating in the fridge.  YUMMMM!)

Daddy’s hang gliding has been rescheduled several times now due to winds and stuff, but hopefully he can go up tomorrow.  We shall see.

Been working on some spinning.  Gotta finish up plying plain black sock yarn.  Should be done tomorrow.  I hope.

I didn’t get to cook some of the things from last week due to some scheduling conflicts and what nots…so here’s my new menu plan for this week

Monday: slow cooked chicken and noodles

Tuesday: fajitas

Wednesday: soup and sandwiches

Thursday : lasagna

Friday: steak and cheese subs

..before I start getting the kids ready for church this morning.  Did you all remember to set your clocks back and enjoy that extra hour of sleep?  It was great.

Hubster and I went out yesterday and that was just wonderful.  We don’t get many chances to be totally by ourselves lost in a crowd.  We almost always have the kids with us.  Well, they (the kids) enjoyed a wonderful time at the lake fishing with grandpa and playing in the sand.  They didn’t catch anything but seaweed-ish type stuff, but I remember fishing as a kid with my dad and loving catching pond scum.  Of course my brothers would throw it on me, and I would scream but I loved it.  shhhh don’t tell them.  Anyway, the kids fished and built sand castles, came home and had grilled steak and baked potatoes, and apple pie.  YUM!

Hubby and I went down to Wichita Falls and I got to go to a real live yarn shop.  While there, I found a skein of Trekking XXL in a wonderful purple/pink/blue colorway.  I have never used Trekking XXL before and I can’t wait to try it out.  In talking with the shop owner, she asked me to teach a spinning class…woo hoo.  Now I gotta set the time and price.  Hopefully the weekends I have open next month will fit with her schedule as well.  Then hubby and I went to Mardel Christian Book store and just spent hours (and a bit of money) browsing and buying.  I can’t wait to start a new Beth Moore study.  After stopping for a bite to eat, we got a chance to watch the movie, Facing the Giants.  We loved the movie.  It was so inspiring and just so good.  I can’t wait for it to come out on video.  This is one that I will enjoy watching over and over again.  Good clean wholesome FUN and INSPIRATIONAL.

Well, off to get the family ready for church.

Until the next time, stay cool and knit on.

Dear Blog-friends,

I apologize for being a bad blogger this week.  It’s been hectic.  Daddy is still here and I am still trying to convince him to stay forever, but he’s been nice to let me know that he is leaving next week as planned.  (WAH)  Perhaps though he will be back really really soon.  The kids are going to be totally lost without him around.  Especially child #4.  It’s gonna be rough for awhile after grandpa is gone.  Anyway, so I have been really busy with school work and getting back on track.  It’s not working though. The kids really aren’t wanting to buckle down and I can understand it.  We have done a few field trips and have more scheduled for next week.  We’ve been house hunting too.  Actually entertaining the notion of BUYING a house (eek…are we totally crazy or what).  Not sure we WILL buy a house but it’s really hard to find a rental to fit our family and accepts pets.  It’s not looking like we are going to be on post anytime soon and we are all starting to feel really cramped in this house. (starting…did I say starting..meant to say it’s about to overwhelm us)

I have been working on my sweater.  Not as much as I would have liked, but I am nearly done with the first sleeve and should start the second later today.  Speaking of today…it’s gonna be a busy one.  This morning we have training at church for Angel Food.  Our church is getting ready to sign on as a new host site and I can’t wait.  If you don’t know what it’s about, click on the link because there may be one near you.  The food is VERY reasonably priced and you get a lot of it.  You might not be interested in the food but know someone who is.  The whole family will be getting involved and working on it as a family project.  Yippee!!!!  Then hubster and I are headed south to Texas for the day.  Yup, just the two of us going down to the local yarn shop there (whoo hoo a real honest to goodness yarn shop…they better not be closed for some strange flukey reason) and then to our favorite book store to just hang out.  Then shopping for new household items we need (you know the fun stuff like towels and a new sauce pot kind of thing) and then a bite to eat.  (note….should get lots of knitting done in the car).  Daddy is going to take all 5 kids fishing (pray for him….you know that he doesn’t “accidentally” throw a child into the lake or something).  I have a feeling youngest daughter will mostly play at the playground, but the others have been begging him to go.  Then, if they catch anything, he will bring it home and after it’s all cleaned and stuff he’ll cook it on the grill. 

Tomorrow will be another busy day too.  After church, my daddy is scheduled to go…are you ready for this…..HANG-GLIDING!  Seriously, he’s always wanted to do it and there’s a place right here in town that will do an instructor/student jump.  If he likes it, then perhaps *cough cough* when he moves back here *cough cough* he’ll take the course to learn how to do it on his own.  So with hubster having to pull duty tomorrow (and part of today too…he’s there now but has someone to cover for him this afternoon) I’ll be the one that gets to video tape the event.  Should be interesting.

Other then that…well not much else will be happening this weekend!

Hope you all have a good one.  Catch ya later.

Wow…I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already.  Time is flying by this week and getting away from me.  I think the cold weather and rain/snow from our leave finally caught up with me and I am battling a cold.  I am all stuffy and swimmy headed.  I think I could sleep all day if I was allowed to.  But according to my son, i nap too much as it is.  He was trying to convince grandpa to stay because he needs someone to watch him while mom takes naps all day.  Huh?  I think I have taken a grand total of two naps in the last 6 months and they’ve been on the couch out in the living room while they all (the kids that is) have been watching TV there.  Guess he was just scraping the bottom of the barrel of excuses to try to get grandpa to move out here.

Josh started his wrestling practice on Monday.  My dad took him and wants to take him to practice next Monday as well.  And I have no problem with that.  They both had fun and some bonding time together.  Josh walked around the house yesterday in some sort of weird position that’s supposed to help strenghten his leg muscles.  Personally I think he’s going to be a really sore boy today but he won’t admit it.  He has his first tournament scheduled for Dec and has a lot to learn for that.  But I think he will do well.

Still have to go through the rest of the pictures from the trip…will get to that….eventually.  Almost done with the body of the CIC sweater, then finish up the sleeves and it will be done.  I am shooting for that to be done by the weekend. I finished up my Feet to Prayers partner’s sock and when I went to put her package together I found that the gift that I bought at the beginning of the swap fell and broke so I am going to go see if I can find something similar to replace it.  So there’s going to be a little delay in getting it in the mail.  Sorry in advance for that.

Other than that, I guess it’s a typical day here.  Hope you all have a great one.

I have just found this site through the Witherspoon Cabin blog.  I generally plan my menu for two weeks at a time, but will only list one week at a time here.  I am not including lunches this week, but will do so for next week.

Monday:  Pork Chops, stuffing, carrots

Tuesday: Chicken nugget salad

Wednesday: Bean & Cheese Quesadillas

Thursday: Chicken parmesean, spaghetti noodles, green beans

Friday: sub sandwiches

Saturday: Fajitas and home made tortillas

Sunday: Out to eat to celebrate “grandpa’s” birthday

I still intend to post pictures of our vacation.  I will have to skip day three since those pictures are still locked in a file we can’t access.  Thanks to Shelly for volunteering her son to help my hubby out.  Jim never did get a chance to call him yesterday and today is back to work.  So we will just see what we can see.

Josh starts wrestling today so that should be interesting to say the least.

In knitting news, my pal Kelly knew I was feeling rather blue this weekend and helped me come up with a toddler sweater pattern for the current CIC sweater drive.  It’s my first real person sweater.  (I did make 5 stuffed animal/doll baby sweaters during the Yarn Harlot’s knitting Oylmpics).  I am about half way through the body of it and hope to get a picture posted later today or tomorrow.  It’s just a basic pattern but I am using scraps and reaching into my yarn bag when I want a color change.  There is no rhyme or reason to the sweater, but I think it’s looking pretty cute.

Gotta get the kids back on track with school work so I will blog more later.

Ok, I admit it, hubby and I are total failures when it comes to understanding our computer.  I tried to move some files last week and rendered them unopenable.  I warned hubby about that and advised he not move the pictures we took on our trip.  Well, he thought he would just copy the files into a new folder.  Well, guess what?  Both sets of files are now unable to open.  So we can’t see the pictures from the first three days of our trip!!!!  Help.  Does anyone know how to fix this? 

Day two found us leaving Tucumcari, NM headed for Holbrook, AZ to the camp site there.  Some of the many things we saw along the way were:

We arrived in Holbrook, set up camp and played basketball and on the play ground with the kids.  Again, no open fires were permitted (do you sense a theme here) so we ended up getting Chinese for dinner.  We realized the heater wasn’t working, and the owner of the campground, John, came over to help.  He finally got us working and we were toasty warm all night.  We found that the thermostat wasn’t working so we had to manually turn it off and on all night long.  The next morning John served all you could eat pancakes to his guests and from what my family tells me…they were yummy.

More on day 3 tomorrow.  We visited the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest.  Another breath taking day.

I am currently caught up on all laundry, the camper is cleaned, and I am going to sit and knit a bit.

As we set out last Wednesday, we headed west.  I had never been further west then where we live right now and neither have the kids…so I knew it would be an adventure.

After about an hour or so of driving, we hit the state line.

The next sight to greet my eyes were fields upon fields of cotton.  (It’s really hard to capture cotton plants while speeding by at 60-70 miles per hour)  I resisted the urge to ask Jim to stop to see if I could pick some to spin or something along the way.

There were also lots of pastures full of horses and cattle.

As we continued our journey west, we hit New Mexico

and our first stop for the night.

This was a pretty campsite with a beautiful view.

And of course, vacations are all about playing.  We have a standing routine that once Jim drops the camper, I set it up and he takes the kids to go play soccer or football.  This day it was football.

Josh caught the ball in a diving leap, and I caught this shot.

And once everything is all set up and it’s time to start settling down, we start a rousing Connect 4 Tournament.  (I won this round)

Open fires were not allowed at this campsite, so no roasting of marshmallows, no hot dogs on a stick, or anything of the like.  But once dinner was done and cleaned up, showers taken, it was story time.  Here’s a great shot of the kids listening intently to my reading. (NOT)

We finally all settled down for a good night’s sleep.

 1. In your family, who is the forgetful one?
2. Have you ever forgotten anything important that really messed something up?
3. Do you have one of those friends that forgets everything, but can’t admit it?
4. What is your favorite way to keep track of things?

I did get some knitting in while on the trip.  I mainly worked on my sock for my Feet to Prayers partner.  It was so glorious to be at the Grand Canyon looking out over God’s handiwork and be able to pray for my partner.

Here’s a picture of the sock being knit at the top of the South Rim of the canyon.

As we headed to the top of Mesa Verde in Colorado I was furiously knitting on the sock so as to NOT look out the window and see how high we were going up the mountain.  Did I ever tell you all I was deathly afraid of heights?  Anyway, I finished the sock by the time we headed to the 4 corners monument.

I need to rewrite the pattern which is named after my partner and then my package will be mailed out.  I am shooting for early next week.  This sock has been through a lot, learned a lot, and had fun.