Knitting, falling, letting go of PL, and all that!

Hello again,

My post in January I showed some yarn I purchased last year during the eclipse. They even came with a cute stitch marker. Anyway, I finished those socks! 

I did not go with this pattern and switched to a nice rib. 

I'm happy with the outcome although I didn't enjoy the process of making the heel & toes. For this sock I decided to knit them cuff down so I could practice knitting socks that way instead of toe up. The reason? I have some patterns and a book for color work socks, and all the patterns are cuff down. To me, toe up is easier. I don't have to graft or kitchener stitch the toes. I can knit until I run out of yarn so I don't have to worry about how long or short to make the cuffs. And the heels are so much easier (to me), no picking up stitches! 

So, I'm knitting a sock in stranded color work from the book Charming Colorwork Socks, toe up, and I just turned the chart upside down in my GoodNotes App and so far so good! 

The pale purple thread running through the base of the toe is my lifeline. So if I totally screw up, like my tension is too tight and I can't put them on, I can rip back to that point and start from there. I'm just knitting the one sock at this point to see about the correct size of my needles, since I was told to go up a needle size just for the color-work part. I'm really happy with the way it's turning out. 

When we went to visit Eric and fam last year, Angela took me to a local yarn shop,  Yarn Matters where we both fell in love with this scarf she had on display. I've started it a couple of times but was never happy with the edges on the sides. I figured out a way to make them beautiful by casting on 2 extra stitches, knit through the back on the first stitch and slip the last stitch with yarn in front as if to purl. This is a great project to take on the road or plane as it doesn't take a lot of concentration. 

The black yarn is sparkly...how fun! 

We had the kids, all 3, spend the night on Friday the 28th. It was part of Jenn's birthday present, we gave her a night out from Friday morning until Saturday at dinner time. At first we were going to go to their house but the kids seemed very excited to stay at MiMi & Papas house. I had Ethan and Elliott upstairs in my craft room playing. I set up some goodies at Elliott's table. They both had a ball with punches, paper, popsicle sticks and markers. We played in the basement and Ethan & I made a banana bread. 

Having them was a lot of fun! 

Since my last post I've been reviewing and reorganizing my scrapbooks. I've combined some Project Life albums that I didn't finish. For example; 2013 & 2014 are now combined into one album separated by year. I consolidated a lot and now I have several empty 12"x12" albums that I'm just not sure what I'll do with. 

I also consolidated the kid's and my albums. I had an 8.5"x11" and 12x12" album for each kid, Eric, Steve, Jenn, Logan & Emmy. I took all the 8.5"x11" layouts and put them into the 12"x12" albums. So, now I also have about 7 or 8 empty 8.5"x11" albums I need to figure out what to do with. 

My dining table is a great space to sort these out. 

The plastic on the chairs? I have 2 cats and both shed AND both love to lay on these chairs. We don't sit in here often enough for me to find removing the covers when we do sit, a hassle at all.

Some of the very first scrapbook pages I made, I look at and cringe. Not because of the pages themselves but because of the cut up photos. When I first started I went to a Creative Memories demonstration and I cut the photos in circles etc. I'm searching through my photos hoping they weren't the originals I did that to.

 

I started an ALL ABOUT ME album in 2022. It was 6"x8" and I've now changed my 9"x12" 2025 Project Life album into my album. Not sure if "x12" will be too big but I love to document with pictures so I don't think it will be a problem. 

Here's the cover page I changed: 

from..

to..

Some nature news. We live in a new development so there aren't a lot of trees and therefore there aren't a lot of birds. Since we moved in 4 years ago, we've added lots and lots of landscaping, trees, bushes etc. I've hung some bird feeders and we've been getting a lot of house wrens and house finches. The other day, I had a pair of bluebirds show up!!! So, I ran out and got some mealworms for them. Unfortunately we live in a VERY WINDY part of town. I had the food in little plastic feeders which were getting blown all all over the place and a lot if not all of the seed was just emptying onto the ground. So, I bought some metal feeders which are holding up a lot better. 

They tend to fly away as I approach the window so I might set up my DSLR camera in there. 

AND, I hate to bring this up but I fell! Jenn was picking us up to watch Elliott get her white belt at the marshal arts studio. Paul was walking out the side door to head to the mailbox and when he opened the door, he said "Jenn's here". So, I got my coat on and followed him out the same door. When my foot stepped out onto the top step, I went flying! It had a layer of ice on it because that side of the house doesn't get sun in the winter. It was horrible! 

There's the step 😖

This pic is from a couple years ago but you can see how it stays icy without the sun...

Our nest camera didn't record the actual fall but what happened afterwards. Here's a screenshot..

Jenn has her phone in her hand and is calling 911. 

The ambulance arrived and I actually stood up with Paul helping from behind and under my arms. I thought I was ok. I sent them away. The next day I was so sore. I had a hard time getting up from a sitting position or standing from sitting. Finally, a week later I went to my doctor because I was still hurting. He took x-rays of my hip and my tailbone. I got a call a couple days later that I had broken my tailbone and there really wasn't anything they could do, just ice and rest and ibuprofen (I can't take Tylenol). 

I got the x-rays posted on my chart and didn't really notice anything. Then I decided to Google what a broken tailbone looks like in an x-ray. 

When I zoomed in, I found what looks like a break to me. 

Zoomed in. 

So, soon I will post about our trip to Hawaii 😊.

Until then, as always, thanks for stopping by.