Our puppy has landed

I dont think it's a big secret that Todd loves to hunt. Anything that can be hunted, will be hunted during the appropriate season.




Last February, our Jack Russell died. Todd's rabbit dog (a beagle) is gun shy. And his bird dog (a german shorthair pointer) passed away a few weeks ago, but really, hasn't been able to be hunted with for the last few years due to old age.

We put off getting another dog, mainly because I was enjoying not having a dog in the house. We could go away for the weekend and not have to worry about a dog being inside, or sending the dog to either be boarded or to other people's houses.

But this fall, Todd started talking about wanting to buy another bird dog. A German Wirehair Pointer. Supposed to be good hunting dogs, and yet, good with kids (which is a must in our house). So I said fine, go ahead and look.

Um.....yeah.

Around the 1st of the year, he looked, he talked to a bunch of breeders, one of them being a breeder in MINNESOTA, and I ended up mailing off a check for a deposit on a female puppy. Who was born yesterday.

So here the middle of March, Todd and I will be driving to Minnesota (to a point just south of Minneapolis) and back over 2 days to pick out and pick up our puppy. And no, the kids are NOT going with us. Rather, they will go to my parents for the weekend. I'm not that with it to haul 2 kids 13 hours away in one day.

What was I thinking?

Winter Chores

I really, really do not like winter. Especially the older I get......

Usually, Todd is home from work early enough that while I cook dinner, the kids and him go out and do the chores.

But last night, he was at fire practice. And the kids were at basketball practice (yes, only Jessie is on the team, but the coaches son is a friend of Tyler's so Tyler goes to practice to play with Braden and they keep each other occupied). So I had to do chores.

Hello chickens.

Only 6 eggs today......slackers.

Actually, I should be thankful there are only 6 eggs today

we have 5 dozen sitting in the fridge!

Hello David the bull.





Hello Piggies.

I cannot wait until you guys go to the meat locker the end of February.

Hello horses.






Hello cows





Hello steers.

Yes, Punx really, really needs a bath......when it warms up a little bit

I'll get out here more and get right on that.

Hello heifers.

Yes psycho heifer (the one in the very back),

I am leaving so you can eat in peace and quiet.

On a good day? I can do chores in 20 minutes usually. When all the water troughs are full. On a bad day? 1 hour to fill all 3 water troughs.



Last night was a good night.

Mud, knitting and more basketball

Yesterday we had buckets of rain. I wouldn't know how cold it was as I didn't venture out of the house:)

Today is grey and gloomy. And very, very muddy.

Instead I worked on this sweater - hopefully it will be done by the weekend. 1 1/2 sleeves to go.

I think I did the sleeve cap wrong, but I'm not ripping back and fixing it - nope, not me. I've already ripped it back once, it's not happening again.

Jessie's basketball game on Saturday? Another win for the girls 24-4.This game was interesting - Todd went to high school with some of these parents, and Jessie went to preschool with 3 of the girls on the opposing team.

I tried to catch the expressions on some of the girls' faces - they get these really nasty looks on them they are concentrating so hard.

But I haven't taken the time to learn all the settings on my new camera - yet.

This week will be a busy week for us, with basketball practice two nights, Todd has fire practice, and we are going to pick up a usedbutnewtous portable basketball hoop and stand. Jessie's been after us to get one so she can practice at home and I found one through one of the Churches that I work with.

Way to go Huskies!

I completely forgot about the basketball game that Jessie and her friends WON on Saturday.

14-6

Yep, that's right. They won. And it is soooooo educational to see your daughter grow and develop her defense. ahem.

• We won't talk about the body check she did on some poor girl on the other team that resulted in that child landing flat on her back.
• Or about the pushing and shoving match that was the end result of a fight for the ball that the referee had to get inbetween the two girls to break it up.
• Or the 8 pile ups on the floor over the course of a 40 minute game when both teams were fighting over the ball.

Lets just say.....that our girls are scrappers. And this is coming out more and more with each practice they have and each game they get under their belts.

And Thank God for wonderful referrees who used the game as teachable moments......

Now if they could all just connect with the basket on a regular basis, life would be good! Oh well - that will come with age and experience, I hope:)

Kris

Meet Frosty

The kids' busdriver is having a snowman building constest. I haven't heard what the prize is, but.....

....the kids spent a good hour and a half creating their snowman at the end of the driveway on Sunday afternoon.

I'm so glad they found a use for Todd's ripped rubber boots and my old broom:)

Too bad they couldn't have built him yesterday - it might have stopped some of the bickering that was present in our house between the two of them!

Although I did manage to get more done in the laundry room:

I got the peg shelf and the bench in my laundry room all finished up - just in time for Todd to come home and say "yes, I like it go ahead and do the new cabinet the same way". What a relief! He likes wood to look like wood, if you know what I mean:) Tonight I will start on the cabinet - at least get the inside done so I can get everything put away.....

See that little quilted mat on the bench? Yes, I made it yesterday in about a half an hour. Nothing fancy but it sure beat paying the $20 they wanted for a little braided rug to fit on there! And it came out of my stash.......

Enjoy your day!
Kris

Laundry room makeover

I'm home today....our normal babysitter is sick, and I didn't feel like calling all over the county to find another one:) due to the holiday.


Friday night we installed the cabinet above my washer and dryer, and went from this:




To this!:






I love it. I have to finish it yet, but hopefully that will get done this afternoon. Tommy (one of Todd's friends who builds fantastic furniture) brought it over - and it was a tight fit to get it wedged in there. We previously had a metal shelf in there, but I'm on a kick to spruce up the house this year, and probably next:) It was waayyy cheaper to have him build it from scratch than to go and buy a premade cabinet. And it fits in there exactly.



Tyler thought it would make a nice hiding space before they lifted it up. We wondered why one end was soooooo heavy! lol.



This morning I played around with paint and stain. I know what I want, but.....acheiving it was another matter. I think I finally found the look that I like:






flat white paint with walnut stain rubbed on gently over top. I want the distressed look, without all the beating up of the furniture. I didn't want to sand any corners off of this peg shelf, as it is painted blue underneath the white, and I certainly don't want that showing through!


Enjoy your day! I'm off to do some more painting and staining:) after I hunt up a pair of rubber gloves...............
Kris

Sun

I think we are finally on the upswing temperature wise. 30's the rest of the week and with any luck, high 40's on Sunday. I'll be loving the sunshine!

Jessie's steer is continuing to do well. He's on a little break right now - every cow/calf/steer on the place has a nasty case of ringworm. So he didn't go to the show last weekend and probably won't go to another show until the end of February. Which is fine with me - washing and drying him in the 20 degree weather is no fun at all! Although tonight our friend is coming to clip him - his hair is really, really long and I guess it is easier if you keep up on it?

I had to break down and buy myself a new camera. I loved my canon, but 3 pictures and the batteries would go dead. Didn't matter if they were new batteries, newly charged, super nice batteries, deader than a doornail. I went through 4 sets of batteries at the basketball game on Saturday. Enough was enough! So I brought another Canon, on sale and have really been enjoying it.

And my newest knit? Tang from Custom Knits. Very, very fast.

A simple turtleneck sweater, knit almost entirely in the round. I started this on New Year's Day weekend (during our 8 hour driving marathon from Pennsylvania and back) and now that my Pimlico Shrug is finished, I want to get this one done. 5 more inches on the body, the sleeves and the turtleneck.

I'm working on getting the laundry room ready for the cabinets to be installed tomorrow night after work. Then it's onto the kitchen - I really cannot wait for this to be done.

Have a warm Thursday!
Kris

Pimlico Shrug

After 5 months of on and off knitting, this one is finished. Thank the Lord. This one was so simple it was tiring. I wanted something that I didn't have to think about, that was pretty mindless. This certainly fit the bill!



I wanted this shrug in the worst way. The problem is, I didn't do the lace pattern that the pattern calls for - i just decided to do a simple seed stitch.



BORING.



So I only knit the body rectangle to 20" instead of 35". The sleeves were a chore - I picked up stitches and knit them in the round, rather than knitting them up separate and sewing them in. I really don't like seaming.

And I didn't knit the ribbing around the body as long as I should have. I'm lucky if it is 4" long instead of 5 1/2". I figure I can always go back to it later and add more too it. Same with the sleeves - they are only 7" long instead of 10 1/2".






But I am so happy to have this one done. Hopefully I will get a LOT of wear out of it.


Details:
Pattern - Pimlico shrug by Knit2together
Yarn - Berroco Ultra Alpacha, color - winter squash, 4 1/2 skiens
Size - Medium
Needles - US size 7 & 8
Mods - I knit the body section in a simple seed stitch to 20". And I picked up and knit in the round for the sleeves. Oh and the collar - i only knit to 3 1/2 - 4 inches.

Snow, basketball and painting....

... that was pretty much my weekend!

The kids didn't have school on Friday - so I got a "snow day" too. I really can't tell why they didn't have school - we were out and about and while the roads were snow covered, they weren't really slick.

Saturday was Jessie's first basketball game - what a HOOT! 10 girls got at least 18 fouls called on them (that we caught) for being too aggressive.

We lost - 14 to 8, but they tried. Our girls just aren't consistent with actually making the baskets yet. If we had made every basket that was attempted - our score would have been 44.

And yes, they ended up on the ground more often than not fighting over the ball. But they had so much fun.

As one of Jessie's friends who happended to stick around after his game to watch her play said - there is no way I am playing basketball with these girls - they fight too much!

Tyler wanted to go hunting with Todd in the worst way this weekend - it's muzzleloader season and pretty much Todd's last chance to hunt this year. But...with highs of 11 for Saturday and 18 for Sunday, we didn't want him sitting out in the woods all afternoon.

So Todd and Tyler went back in the woods behind our house. No deer were seen, but they did see lots of tracks where apparently the deer were coming right up around the house!

Yesterday I spent getting ready to paint the laundry room. We are getting a new cabinet for above the washer and dryer on Friday, so I had to take down the old metal shelf, pull off the wallpaper and paint. I thought I was going to have to call in the HazMat team when I pulled out the washer and dryer. Apparently I don't clean behind those 2 appliances enough:) But it is nice and clean now, the walls are painted and we are ready for the cabinet.

I am not sure that I am sold on the color - it's got a pinky/grey tint to it - I'm thinking I may want something that is more a brown/yellow tint, but I'm waiting to repaint it until after the cabinet is in and everything is painted white (cabinet, trim, etc.) and distressed. We'll see.

Enjoy this sunny day....although I hear we will be heating up to the mid thirties by the middle of the week in Ohio. I cannot wait!

Kris

Cold

It's been cold here. I know mid teens/low twenties isn't cold for some of you, but for me, it is pure torture!

Water hydrants were freezing on a daily basis while I was off work the last two weeks of the year. Fortunately, some heat tape took care of that before we headed back to PA last weekend so that the guys doing our chores didn't have to go through what I went through every day (haul out the torpedo heater, plug it in, wait for it to fire up and thaw out the hydrant, and move onto the next one - mostly, unfreeze all 3 hydrants every. single. day).

We are expecting a storm starting sometime this afternoon and running through tomorrow. They are saying a possibility of 11 inches. I'm hoping for more like 25 - just so I can be snowed in and stay home. And if the electric goes out - all the better in my book!

I've been cleaning and decluttering. You can't tell it by my fabric stash:

Or my yarn stash:

But I have a plan. I'm not buying any new fabric or yarn until all of this is used up. I have 6 quilts that are half done - bed sized quilts. Those are going to get done too. And if I use all my yarn and fabric, I'll have a terrific start on next years Christmas presents and probably about 8 new sweaters for me!

I've just about finished my PIF gifts from last summer. Look for them in the mail sometime next week ladies.

Christmas decorations are slowly coming down here and we are getting ready to start installing new cabinets in our laundry room and kitchen. We are doing this in phases so that it's not a huge strain on our budget - just a minor one. I'm not one for eating Kraft macaroni and cheese for a month.....lol. All that is left to do is the building (a good friend who has all the woodworking tools) and figure out how we are finishing them (I'm holding out for painted white and distressed, Todd is holding out for stained oak).

Enjoy these snowy days!!!!
Kris

Shopping Tunic

I was a little unsure while knitting this knit. I started it Christmas Day in the afternoon, and after about 7 hours of on and off knitting finished it up. Bulky yarn is not always very flattering if you aren't built like a twig. And I am not a fan of very fitted knits. I don't like having to always suck in my stomach.

I knit the large, as I was afraid anything else would have been to small for my average sized self.

I should have knit the Medium. It was HUGE when I tried it on when it was finished. Like 4 or 5" too big around my waist and chest huge.

I blocked it in lukewarm water, and it grew something like 10" in length. So I popped it in the dryer and checked on it every 3 minutes. After 15 min., it's a little fuzzy (like it was starting to felt) but it is so soft, warm and cozy. And it fits perfectly.

I love it when this happens!

Details:

Pattern - shopping tunic from twinkle big city knits

Yarn - Rowan big wool - 3.5 skiens

Needles - U.S. size 19

Size - Large, shrunk down to probably a medium

Mods - None. I may sew the collar down in the back - it seems to want to stand up. But....other than that I love it.