David's Birthday Weekend

David turned 64 on Saturday. When I asked what he wanted to do he said "go to Edgar's Acres and thin the raspberries." Okay. That's what we did. David was content to just wind down from a very busy two weeks, relax, and get his marionberries tied up and his raspberries thinned. As you can see, he does look relaxed. Johnny and Louie love it when David sits and relaxes.



Happy birthday David. You are the love of my life and my best friend.

Sue

Editor's Note: Thought I had posted this on the 25th. Must be the teeth.

Report on a Generally Boring Week

I've no pictures, no links for you all this time around. The past week has been just routine, standard, and nothing out of the ordinary. Just root canals, work, and knitting. So let's see what might be of interest to my dear blog visitors (I assume you're there).

Last weekend ... got caught up on OHS 2009, Blog, bills, and mail. I did freeze more tomatoes we have ripening in brown paper bags on the formal dining room table. Oh, and we watched baseball and football, and football and baseball. During all of this baseball and football I did knit. Got one project done but can't post it right now. The expectant mommy might read this blog and don't want to ruin the surprise. She gets it next Thursday so pictures will be posted then.

Monday I got another root canal done. I've been having such a rockin' good time having my calcified roots drilled that I decided to get another one done. Good thing I like this endodontist. Came home, took some vicodin, and watched more baseball. No knitting. No no. No knitting while on drugs. Doesn't work.

Tuesday through Thursday the usual, work, work, and more work. Pain, pain and more pain, but whose complaining. It gets sympathy, but would rather be able to eat a grilled flilet rather than pot roast cooked all day in a crock pot. We had rain, wind, sun, cold, and the usual October weather. Oh, and more baseball. You see, I'm married to a died hard Yankees fan. He's on his own right now since John is living in Portland. I HATE THE YANKEES. No secret, David's known this since our second date.

This morning we got up at 5:00 a.m. and headed over the Edgar's Acres. Ahhhhh. Love it here. The dogs love it here. Tooth feels good, work will wait unti Monday, and we get a long weekend in Paradise. I've put the sunflower seeds in salt water to soak overnight and will roast them tomorrow in the oven. I've brought over more ripe tomatoes and will freeze them on Sunday. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice so I'll be outside planting and working in the garden.

I did finish another pair of socks this morning. I'll have pictures when I can locate my camera.

Well, dinner is almost ready and smells delightful.

This is truly an unexciting posting. Oh well, who said life has to be interesting all the time.

TTFN

Sue

Happy Birthday Susan!

Susan turned 60. Not only is that a milestone birthday, but also an occasion to celebrate and party. Susan's sister, Barb (on the left) came from Wisconsin to help celebrate!

Susan has a fabulous group of friends. People she works with came. Here's Gillian toasting Susan's 60th.

Gary, Ruth and Jim came as well. It was so good to see everyone. It has been a while.

Cynthia cooked up her famous green beans. She cooked up four quarts worth, and not a one was left after everyone ate. Here's Cynthia with Pat, having a good time.

Barb made it a point to get to know everyone. Here she is with Carolyn and Sid. As you can see we had great weather.

Myrna and Deb came, as did Chiya. Take my word for it. We are hardy Northwesterners. People stayed on the deck as long as they could.

Katie, Steve and Cindy were there as well. What's a party without the Date Night group.

Sandra came up with a fun game. She made kitty faces with a note on the back that said "I purr for Susan because ..." Great comments. Here's Susan sitting with the donations for the kitties.

Here's the family photo. Susan, Barb, and their nephew Jake, and his charming girfriend, Kara.

It was a blast. It's taken me a week to recover, but I loved every bit of it all. The planning, the food prep, talking and emailing old friends and having a fun time. Thanks to David for all of his help and for grilling all of the entries (shrimp, salmon, turkey, and flank steak). Thanks to the guys for helping him as well.

Happy birthday again Susan. You do 60 well. We all hope we look as great at that age.

TTFN

Sue

Updates

I went to the monthly gathering at the Eastside Knitting Guild and had a wonderful time. Nancy, one of our members got a great discussion going about what makes a great knitted sweater, and fun dialogue was flying everywhere.

I also picked up so more stockings for Operation Holiday Stockings 2009. I am constantly overwhelmed by this generous group of knitters. They are always knitting for someone else, or for a group that needs knit items. All of these knitters and the knitters attached to the Guild are such a kind and caring group.

The knitters at Stitches from the Heart in Bellevue, sent 105 stockings. Wow. They are busy knitters, and look at how beautiful they are. I picked up a couple of bags of stockings from members of the Guild, for a total of 64. Again, beautiful, and so appreciated.

The troops really do appreciate the time, love, and thoughts that are in each stocking.

We have so much gratitude to these knitters.


I also finished up another baby blanket, this one for Nolan Patrick. I am hoping he loves it. I loved knitting it for him.

I learned a lesson this week. On Tuesday I came home from another round with the endodontist, this time with Vicodin. Well, DON'T try to finish up a sock toe while on drugs. Yep, messed it up and will have to spend some time this evening tinking my way back. Don't worry, no Vicodin tonight. Tooth much better.

TTFN

Sue

Sock Frenzy

I've been going through a sock Frenzy for the last six months. It has nothing to do with the Sock Summit. It all started out with needing more socks, and having fun yarn. However, the true push was this little guy.
Johnny. I had a sock that needed a new heel. It looked a lot like this...

Johnny found it and now it looks like this ...

It's Johnny's new favorite toy. He drags that sock around with him everywhere. It's like he knew it was an old used sock so he might as well enjoy it. I should add that it IS the only sock he has ever bothered.

That got me looking at my sock collection and the condition the socks were in. Once inspected, I realized I needed to knit some more socks for the colder weather. Thus, the frenzy started.

So far I've finished four pairs, one sock of a pair, and working on two socks.

Pretty aren't they?

This pair is made with Universal's Bamboo Sock. I loved knitting with this yarn. It has a nice hand, and feels good on the feet. It didn't split or twist, and it was fun to watch the stripes appear. As you can see from the picture, there is a definite nap to the yarn. One sock was knit starting with the outside end, and one was knit starting with the inside end. I have gone ahead and purchase more Bamboo Sock because I do like the yarn.

These are fun. I knit these with the Regia yarn from Schachenmayr. This is a nice sock yarn, feels good in the hand, and fun stripes work up quickly.

I will keep you all posted on my current sock frenzy. I have so many lovely yarns I want to knit, but I still am having fun knitting for all of the upcoming babies.

The sun is out, and I have garlic to plant this weekend. Lovely fall day at Edgar's Acres.

TTFN

Sue

Operation Holiday Stockings 2009

It's time again. Time to start of Operation Holiday Stockings. This is our 5th year, the first year being 2005 when my LT was in Iraq. The promise is still in place. As long as we have soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will continue with Operation Holiday Stockings.

I'm not sure if you can see the expressions of wonderment and joy on these soldiers faces, but they were so thrilled to know that a group of people back home cared enough to send them a box of stockings. This unit decorated the hall with our stockings, together with tables full of stockings, and they celebrated the holiday with a bit of our love.

If you know a soldier who will be away from loved ones over the holidays, please email me at ramsddj at aol dot com so we can include him/her this year. It is so important they know we love and support them, and that they have our prayers.

Check out our Yahoo Group page for more information and pictures. You can also check out my postings during October - December 2008 for more pictures and information.

On behalf of our soldier, we thank you for your continued support and love.

TTFN

Sue

Saturday in Portland

Saturday was a wonderfully lazy day. We only had one obligation and that was in the evening. I needed to pick up a specific color of yarn for a project I am working on so got on the internet and searched for a yarn store in Portland that carried Encore yarn. Hence, we headed off to Oregon Worsted Company's Mill End Store. They have tons of fabrics, but a limited yarn department. However, they had the yarn I needed and that made me happy. I had not been to the Mill End store in 30 years so it was nice to visit again. Gail, the lovely lady that talked with me on the phone and held the yarn for me was a doll. Emily, the cashier was wishing she was anywhere but there.

After that I asked David what he wanted to do and he was open. I took advantage of the opportunity and announced we were going to go on a yarn store crawl. David is a good sport. We had already been to one (the Mill End Store), so I got the addresses to a couple of stores I had heard about and wanted to visit.

We went to Twisted on NE Broadway. What nice ladies, and what a fun store.
We enjoyed visiting with the sales staff. David, of course, found something besides yarn to talk about while I looked around at the store.

Friendly as true Portlanders can be. Love them. Also love the wall of sock yarn, and all of the legs.

Next we went to Yarn Garden on SE Hawthorne. Another store I had heard about.

Friendly staff again. I love Portland. I hate to say it, but there is only one yarn store in the Seattle area, Weaving Works, where I feel welcome and enjoy the staff. So far both of these stores are fun and have great staff. Friendly and very helpful. And ... humor, they all have humor, and love what they are doing.

They Yarn Garden is in a building with what appears to have been five stores, with five separate doors. They occupy all of the rooms, and its a blast to keep going from room to room to see what they have. Even David was interested (he had no clue I took this picture).

It wasn't long before David found the room with the comfy chairs.

I bought fun sock yarn at each store, and am anxious to finish up the pair I'm knitting now so I can get started on them.

After a nice lunch at Broadway Grill, we headed back to the hotel and relaxed before heading off to the reunion. We met up with Debbie and Bob and then headed into the Mt. Adams room. So many old friends actually showed up this time and we had a good time.

Bonnie, Debbie, Gordon and I grew up together. In fact, I've known Debbie since I was three. It was so good to see them. Considering our age, we actually still look the same.

Then there was the treat that all of my girlfriends from high school (and college) came. It's been a long time since we had a snapshot of all of us together. Here is Debbie, Debbie, Becky, Me, Lily and Nancy. What a beautiful group of women.

Debbie, thanks for "making" me go to the reunion. I had a wonderful time, and left feeling good about the friendships that seem to continue through the year.

Well, I'm off to go work on a knitting project.

TTFN

Sue