Balls, Bags, Babies and Blessings

I think knitting has taken over my life!  It's a bad addiction but luckily my OCD doesn't allow me to knit until my chores have been done :) haha... note: only a little bit of this blog post is about knitting

Recently I signed up for a six month subscription of shawl patterns; one being sent each month to my Ravelry account.  There was so much anticipation for the first pattern to be released on June 9th.  I untied my 447 yard skein, put it in a safekeeping place since I could not wind it at the moment, only to come home, pick it up and drop it!  Needless to say, it was a tangled mess! Three hours later, it was wound in a ball.  It got me thinking about a swift and ball winder.  But, they are pricey and do I really  need them?

Instead, I googled ball winder and found out about an unusual item called a  nostepinne.  Then I watched a you tube video and found it I could use a wooden spoon.  I carefully untied my second skein of yarn and started.  It worked great!  You can see my perfectly wound skein of yarn which allows me to pull the yarn from the center in the photo below.

This past week I received such a nice gift in the mail.  I've gotten hooked on reading Life After Money.  Ilona is the very creative lady behind this blog and she is so talented.  She can make something out of nothing!  She recently made up these shopping bags and had a contest on her blog.  I was the lucky winner of one of them.  It's so special that I think I'll use it as a knitting bag.

Speaking of bags, travel fever is taking over our family.  We found we needed some new suitcases and this time we bought super light ones!  With a 50 pound limit per bag, my bag easily gets overweight.  Do you remember the days of 70 pound bags?  Maybe I'm telling you my age...

 My dear daughter is a wonderful Mom to her two children.  But, sometimes I think she forgets that I too raised two children without all the new fangled stuff/ideas that are out there today.  She told me about a blog she read the other day about moms from the 70's.  It perked my curiosity so I found it here.  And, I read it and I really didn't think it was so bad.  No, I didn't smoke, and I didn't make fried bologna sandwiches, but I did use a play pen and swing for the baby.  And, my own childhood summers in the 60's always included red kool aid made with lots of sugar!  And, I never limited the sugar intake with my children.  And, guess what?  They came out just fine.  My, how times have changed.  The other day I was going to give my little grandson a summer drink of sharbat (rose water syrup diluted with water).  He said, "Grandma, I think it has red 40 in it"?  How did he know that?  Sure enough, I read the label and it did!  He drank some milk instead. . .

We had an earthquake last week.  It only registered 5.2 but I felt it!  It's the second one I've experienced since moving to California almost six years ago.  A funny sound woke me up just after 1:00AM.  I popped up in bed and felt the bed swaying to and fro.  I woke up my husband and he told me I was dreaming so I got up, checked the local news on my phone and found nothing. I went back to sleep and the next morning there was the headline showing the 5.2 quake! I'm just thankful it wasn't the big one and that everything was OK.  It seemed surreal. 

That's about all that has been happening around here this week.  We're suppose to be in for a heat wave this weekend with highs reaching the 100 degree mark!  I'm not a fan or hot weather but my tomato plants will probably enjoy the heat units.  Have a wonderful weekend and thanks again for stopping by.

With my best wishes,

Pat

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Amy's Five on Friday . . .