Knit along part 4

I finished off the mystery Knit along this week - it was a monkey! It was a lot of fun to participate in. I've never done a KAL before. Here is the finished product.








His mouth is a little wonky but considering this is only the second toy I've knitted I am happy. Especially since he required more shaping that the android. I also learned quite a few new skills - make one right and left, knitted cast on, French knots, kitchner, plus the designer's neat trick for making ears.

I'm also finishing up the latest android. As of this evening he needs ears, one arm (knitted but not sown on yet), a mouth and eyes. I should have a picture of him this week. My next project is going to be the bear from Itty Bitty Toys done in the grape colored yarn I received for my birthday.

On the gardening side, I have even more little plants! Once they get a little bigger I may prune some of them to give he others room to thrive.



Like my watering can? :)

And in other exciting news, J got his first haircut today. My baby is growing up! He didn't even cry, just looked at the lady funny and then went back to observing everything around him.


Isn't he handsome?

New Year New Resolutions Part 8

Today I crossed another thing off of my 2011 resolution list - I cleaned out my closet. It ended up being quite the epic project. I decided the best way to go about it was to take everything out and start from scratch. That way I couldn't just skim over what I had or ignore things back in the corners.

I started things off by going through my shoes on Saturday. I had shelves but wasn't really good about using them so I got rid of them and got a cute basket. This freed up space too.

Then today I went through the clothes. It's hard to get rid of things - I seem to have quite the sentimental attachment to some items. But today I was firm with myself. After all it's just stuff. And the finished result is nice!







On the knitting side of things, I just about finished the mystery toy. He just needs his arms, legs and tail sewn on. I'll post a pic of the cutie this weekend.

And on the gardening side of things, the sunflowers are beginning to sprout. I have three little buds in one bucket and two in the other. Yay!

I'm blessed

It's Monday and that means it's time to remember all of the things I have been blessed with. Gretchen at He Sows and She Sews started a blog party on Mondays as a day to remember the blessings in our lives. Mondays can get a lot of people down, so it's a good day to focus on the bright side. So this is what stood out to me this week:
- A loving and affectionate husband. I love him more than I could ever express
- A very intelligent four year old. The chats we have as we are going through the bedtime routine melt my heart. Plus lately he has been into reading Bible stories before bed, which is cool.
- An energetic one year old. He's very into exploring the world around him. It's fun seeing the world through his eyes, since it's all so new. There is a pure joy that we all seem to lose as we get older.
- My parents. I didn't realize this as I was growing up but they are actually Superman and Superwoman. They manage to balance taking care of my grandparents and still giving their kids and grandkids attention, in addition to the normal everyday grind of life. If I'm half as good of a parent as they are, then I'm doing a good job.
- Rain. It's been ridiculously hot (I know - July, Phoenix, big shock) but yesterday we got a very refreshing rain! Plus my sunflowers also got a nice soaking.

Check out He Sows and She Sews for more blessings!

It's raining!

I can tell that I'm truly an Arizonan. I'm thrilled that it's raining right now. It's very peaceful - I'm listening to the rain beat against the window while cuddling with a sleeping toddler on my lap. I wish moments like this would last forever!

Knit along Part 3

I finished the third clue of the mystery knit along today. The designer was right - this week definitely took the longest. This week was all about making the arms and legs. I also learned a new cast on method, the knit cast on. So now I know two ways of doing it (still want to learn the long tail method). Here are my animal's arms and legs:



The last step will be the finishing details. I still have to sew the pieces and stuff the critter. I can't wait until he is done!

C and I also started the garden today. We are beginning with sunflowers - they are supposed to be pretty hardy. We went to Home Depot yesterday and got our pots and soil. I need to go back and get more soil; I only had enough for two pots. C was so funny the store. He kept asking me about the oil we would need for the flowers. Also to him every yellow flower is a sunflower. Hopefully ours go well and we can try more challenging plants.

New Books!

My new knitting books finally came in the mail today. I ordered them last week from Amazon and have been stalking their website ever since to see when they would ship. This proved mildly frustrating for a few reasons. The first being that my total came to $24.99 - a mere penny short of free shipping. So I looked for something else order that would cost less than paying for shipping. C has been wanting to grow sunflowers so I ended up getting some seeds. This is where frustration number two kicked in - the seeds shipped first. Don't get me wrong, it will be fun to start on our garden but they weren't the point of my order. Frustration part three was the books originated from my hometown but took the longest to arrive. Oh well, in the grand scheme of things this is definitely not important!

My newest knitting obsession is with toys so I ordered The Big Book of Knitted Monsters and Itty Bitty Toys.






I'm really excited about some of the patterns in here. I'd love to make the stacked boxes for J (he still gets a kick out of things being knocked over). I'm also planning on making the bear for my niece and the puppets for my mom's classroom. I 'd like to make the hippo too, even though I do not have a recipient in mind.






I haven't decided what I'm making out of here yet, but I figured it would be a good book to make things for the boys. I'm leaning towards the mommy and baby monsters and the garden monster but I plan to make them all eventually.

The bad thing about getting the books is now I have a major case of startitis! Hmmmm what should I pick?

Haboob

Well the Sunny Side of the Street isn't an accurate title for my blog today! Tonight we had another haboob blow through the region. A haboob is basically a storm that collapses on itself sending up a massive wall of dust. The first one that blew through missed us completely. We weren't so fortunate this time but luckily it wasn't as bad as the first one - that one made national news! (EDIT: Nevermind, this one was mentioned on the Today Show too)

I was at work and saw this one coming so I rather hastily scooted out the door to head home. It was strange - in my rearview mirror the sky was brown but out my front windshield it was a blue sky with a few clouds. I managed to beat the storm home by about two minutes. Racing a storm is probably not the smartest thing I've ever done.

I didn't get pictures as the worst was blowing through but did manage to catch some pictures as it was leaving.

These three pictures were taken a the same time but from different directions. This is a picture of the dust heading west.




The rain following the haboob - coming in from the south. Unfortunately we got about five sprinkles and that was it.




A view facing north. Some darker clouds but plenty of blue sky too.




It's strange how they all seem different even though I was in the same spot. Then as the sun began to set, the sky turned a beautiful yellow and orange. This picture doesn't come close to doing it justice.





Of course my little amateur photographer wanted to take pictures too! He was pointing his block towards the sky and saying "cheese" (don't worry - it wasn't storming by this time)