Ten Days

I have been taking pictures every day, but not posting. Oopsie. I had an amazing birthday last week. I made some super yummy cupcakes.

And had a great birthday party at the American Legion with Jill, my parents, and lots of friends.

Jill got me flowers nine days ago and they have been the subject of most days' pictures. They amazingly still look as good as the first day she brough them home. Who would even want roses?


Don't know what the big flower is, but it's definitely one of my favorites. So pretty!



The ever-cranky Paisley even sat still long enough to get a picture (even though I didn't do quite as well at holding the camera still).


Used my ghetto swift to wind the plies for my very first 3-ply yarn.


Got my super soft batt from bohoknitterchic as my prize from the Halloween SAL.


And along with it came the Bedtime Bear batt that was my birthday gift to myself (well, one of them). I love it... so sparkly!

And I got this great shag carpet yarn from craftypuppylover. Look how awesome it was in a ball.

And I made it into the Golden Tulip Cowl, which I LOVE.



To finish off this amazingly long post, here are a few of some Mayo Clinic buildings, out the bus window as I was waiting to leave downtown last week.



That has to cover at LEAST the past 10 days, considering these flowers are again calling me to take their picture today. They're just so darn pretty. Happy Turkey Day! :)

Combo platter

I have taken pictures the past few days, but haven't posted. So, here's the combo platter from a few days. SO happy it's Saturday even though Iowa just lost their football game in overtime... ugh. It was such a close game. Looking forward to Sunday and a nice, relaxing day.

Starry Beret

Started the Opus Spicatum last night and finished tonight. Love the hat. But I knit too loose and it turned out really huge. Threw it in the dryer for awhile and may have saved it enough to be wearable. We'll see when it's dry. :)

Last night's photo.


And a few from tonight. After it got wet it grew even more. Oopsie. I'm not sure if llama will shrink when it dries... we'll see. I really like it, even more than I expected to and I hope that I cam make it work for me.

Reflections

Yesterday Jill hung up the little Ikea rack for pot lids. We really had nowhere to put them before, so it's nice they have their place. Everytime I go to the garbage can though I can see my reflection in the lids. I can't help but make a funny face every time. They are lined up just so that the bottom two have the same image, only different sizes. It's fun. I like it. Here's what I came up with:






I guess it kind of reminds me of those silly fun house mirrors... in a good way. I'm so easily amused it's ridiculous.

Is summer back?

We had another amazing day. The weather was perfect, we hung Christmas lights, raked leaves and have everything all in order outside for winter (even though it feels so far away when it's t-shirt weather). This is another of my favorite pictures from yesterday.

Warm Fall Day

The weather today is amazing. One week after the blustery cold Halloween and we are near 70 degrees with sun. The windows are open and the fresh air feels amazing. The dogs are so happy to be outside (though the barking at squirrels could stop anytime).

Caught Basstion mid-yawn.


And the always hard to photograph Madison with her Wiggly Giggly toy that no longer has any wiggles or giggles left. She loves it all the same.

Now if I could ever get her to actually LOOK at the camera.

Kiwi and Biggs getting a drink, I love the long shadows and Biggs' tongue in the bowl.


And Madison playing her favorite game of all time. Jump on the toy as hard as you can and see where is bounces.


I love WARM fall days with crunchy leaves underfoot!

photo365

Ok, Jackie of the KIPing it Real podcast has planted the seed to do photo365 and post a photo each day. I can't even blog regularly, but I'm going to try it. Especially since I have a new camera and one of the main reasons listed for taking on this project is to become a better photographer, definitely something I want to do. Something is also mentioned about sharing through flickr, but I think I'm going to try to put at least a photo on the blog every day. Even if I don't write anything. I don't think I can handle blog365 and photo365. And I care more about the pictures anyway.

Today's pictures are of Ziggy our 5 year old buff tabby cat. He came with half a tail as a tiny kitten and is really hard to photograph. But, yesterday I got out the camera and he sprawled king of the jungle style and posed. It was his day for pictures. Of course I got a bunch of not so good ones (I'm getting used to the new camera, or so I tell myself), but a few that I really like and that totally capture his easy-going nature and interesting color.





I have a suspicion during this long Minnesota winter I'll have lots of pet photos. It's just too darn cold to go outside! But, it will give me lots of lighting challenges as there is just nothing worse than the glowing cat eyes in a camera flash. As for now tomorrow is supposed to be 68 degrees and sunny. Yeah!

Monday, Monday

Interesting day today, weird cases at work, but the day went by so amazingly fast (yeah!). The weather is amazing and I'm getting ready to take my dogs for a nice, long walk.

I'm pretty sure Basstion thinks the weather is perfect for walking. He's such a funny old man.

The mums have survived the snow and cold, I'm sure happy to see warmer weather again.


This new camera sure is fun! This is the sun we have hanging on our fence,


and the cats being photogenic



The dogs are barking and walking awaits. I've had so much fun listening/seeing pics and video of Meghan, Jackie, and Jasmine at Rhinebeck. Can't wait to hear the podcasts!

New camera

I got a new camera! It's so exciting! I have been frustrated with the old camera for quite awhile, and Jill decided to buy me a camera for my birthday/Christmas. So, it's early, but so worth it! I've only had it about an hour, but I already love it. I got a Nikon D60. No idea what I'm doing yet, but I took a few pictures and now the battery is charging.









I am SO happy with this camera. Yeah! Now to get some other housework done while the battery charges because I know I'll want to take pics once it's charged!

Hayrides and winter?!?

It has officially snowed here. There was snow on the cars, grass, trees yesterday. It's a little early for this, but what can you do?

Saturday my uncle had his annual hayride. It was COLD. Very cold. Like it took me the hour drive home to warm up. Didn't get too many pictures, mostly because I hate my camera and my fingers were cold. But, trying to figure out what camera to get is really hard, there's so much information and I know next to nothing about it. I guess I'll have to take a trip to the camera store and get some info.

This one was kind of cute. I have no idea the names of farm equiptment, but the birds were all lined up on this orange thing and I liked it.


Me and my cousin that lives in the same city but I almost never see:


My animal zoo has been especially funny lately. Kiwi always has the best expressions.



And Ziggy looks so annoyed that I'm taking his picture, but he was so cute cuddled up with Kane.


I finished a simple shawl made from the All Hallow's Eve SAL by Brittany and it turned out really cute (minus the bad picture, but did I mention I hate my camera?)

More Lendrum Love

Ok, so I had HIGH hopes that I would be able to make Shutterfly work with the blog. It has these cute, cute, cute little slideshows you can export. But, they last about a day. Then they are no longer accessible. Not ideal. Or practical really. I'm not even sure what they think you might use them for and never need them again. But, I'm going back to trusty Flickr.

I have my Lendrum. I love it. I barely even check Ravelry anymore. It's my new favorite thing. I'm considering seeling my Babe Bulky, but at the same time I don't want to part with it (or those 2 pound holding bobbins). So, for now I am a multiple spinning wheel craft room. With little room to actually walk in the room. But, I don't need to walk in there anyway. Ha.

Here is my Lendrum, who has no name, even though I wanted him to have a name. And I do have the urge to call him Lenny, even though there are probably zillions of Lenny's out there.


The first yarn I spun on it was the second half of Brusied Ego from Spunky Eclectic.


I navajo plied on the Lendrum (bottom yarn) and the top yarn is a single from my Babe and the other half of the same fiber. I'm finding it much easier to spin finer singles on the Lendrum, which makes me very happy. I was starting to wonder if I could EVER get sock yarn, but now I'm getting much, much closer. I had a harder time getting consistently thin singles on the Babe Bulky, but still loved the wheel and made some awesome yarns on it.


I used the thick and thin Babe spun single to make Cosy's Baby Belle. SO cute. Love the pattern and the outcome.




And the second yarn I spun (and tested out the jumbo flyer), some of that Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid dyed stuff from a previous post. I filled the bobbin right up (over 6 ounces I think, but it wasn't packed on the bobbin like it could have been).


I made another Wham Bam Thank You Lamb (my 3rd!) and sent it to Jess in Colorado. It was destined to be hers for sure.


My Lendrum project of the moment is Bohemian Knitter Chic's Halloween SAL. I love Halloween. Love it. Need to get out Halloween decorations soon. This fiber is amazing and I'm having a great time spinning it.


The extras are really fun!

It came with the cutest little shawl pin witch's hat from Dawning Dreams

Now, I realize I surely have more to tell. It's been awhile. I have to upgrade Flickr because I'm almost out of free photo storage space and it's sooo easy to use (after deleting two posts that I tried to convince myself I could get the Shutterfly albums to work in) and it's not too expensive. And then I hope to be able to share all of tales.