Wow, I have been such a horrible blogger and then as it went on and on and on, I knew it would be a big job, so I put it off even longer!  We are going from meals in the crockpot to meals on the grill.  Also, from winter jackets to shorts!  In June, my younger daughter Emily graduated from high school.  We had a fun family party and a beautiful day, for the most part.  Weather is a factor, since Sheboygan tries to hold their graduation outside!  We did get sprinkled on a little bit, but never for longer than 5-10 minutes at a time!  I’m so happy that both of my daughters got to graduate in the “bowl” by Lake Michigan!

I’ve been busy knitting, though, in the past 6 months!  All the pictures are in the gallery above.  Will still post pics of Emily’s graduation, too. Weather has been hot and rainy most of the summer.  It’s mid-July and the grass is still green and soft enough for barefeet!

We are hoping that the flu passes us by. So far we””””ve been lucky, although Emily and I recently had colds.  Mine is still here, but getting better everyday.  So far, Gary has still been healthy.  Emily is hoping they DON”T have a “flu-cation” from school.  She thinks it””””s bad enough that we have to make up the wintry days on June 12th and June 15th.

Today, the sun is shining and the temperature is in the high 50””””s, which is a huge improvement over last week””””s rain. A few blocks from us, a sewer collapsed, so a major intersection is going to closed off for a month.  Ugh. I hope the time goes fast.

• February – Kiss Me (hot purple in Bernat handicrafter yarn on US 7 needles – Lisa Millan of Digknitty)
• Mid-February – Circle Cloth (Tan Sugar’n Cream and Fiesta Peaches & Creme on US 7 needles – Hakucho)
• March – Pot O’ Gold (Yellow Peaches & Creme on US 7 needles – Emily Jagos)
• Mid-March – The Windmill Dishcloth (Aqua Mist Peaches & Cream and Teal Sugar’n Cream on US 7 needles – Sew-Funky)
• April – Illusion Egg Hunt (White Peaches & Creme, Light green Peaches & Creme, Hot Purple Bernat Handicrafter on US 7 needles – Deborah C. Tilley)

Also, since we happened to be driving through Fond Du Lac today, and stopped at Animal Outfitters to buy some Sam’s Yams sweet potato treats.  Jasmine’s Gotcha Day is in 2 weeks and we wanted to get her a special treat.  You can see that she enjoyed her slice of dehydrated sweet potato.  It is crunchy and has ridges, so it’s supposed to help keep teeth clean.

Sarah got a new cellphone today.  It’s an LG Banter.  It looks pretty neat and takes awesome pictures.  She will have fun with it.

The ballband was started while sitting at Miller Park in Milwaukee, WI, while watching the Brewers play the Colorado Rockies. I had a blast, even though the Brewers lost that night. We were there as a part of Stitch n’ Pitch.

2009 January KAL - Ice Skate

2009 Mid-January - Cheyenna

Ballband in Brewers' colors, that was started on July 9th, at Stitch 'n Pitch

My family was very happy that Obama won the election and that it was a done deal even before we went to bed on November 4th. We look forward to the Inauguration now!

We had a great Thanksgiving and a wonderful Christmas, although I was so busy I barely got to enjoy it. Had fun at Christmas celebrations on both sides of the family. My family did a White Elephant gift exchange. Parameters were that the gift had to weigh about a pound and cost $10 or less. I ended up with some Charmin’ Ultra Plush toilet paper and while my sister thought toilet paper would be the ultimate gag gift (and we did laugh about it!), my family was in desperate need of toilet paper, at that precise moment, so we were glad to get it! LOL! Gary got a bundle of bungie cords, Sarah got some fancy hot chocolate mix, and Emily I can’t remember anymore. Gary almost got candy, but that was stolen away by a candy-hungry nephew! Bungie cords are more useful for him, anyway.

I didn’t get to open Gary’s present, until we were together with Gary’s family. He had it shipped to their house and then had my SIL wrap it in 3 different boxes, each one completely wrapped with ribbons and bows, too. It turned out to be an 8G iPod Nano in turquoise blue! So, I’ve been busy uploading music and getting that all set up to my specifications! Also, we had to delete a ton of music from my iTunes library that even Sarah wouldn’t be listening to anymore.

Emily earned all but $20 towards a Nintendo DS. She got Polar White and is enjoying it very much. Sarah was doing some video work for my nephew Ryan and got paid nicely for that, so she went out and bought a Wii. We’ve all been having fun with that. I bowl better on the Wii, than I do in real life! The cow racing game on Wii Play is hysterical. It’s also hard to play the game, when everyone is laughing really hard.

I’m way behind on posting pictures of finished knitting projects, but I was finding time to get them photographed.

We went to visit my SIL and BIL today, since Roger needed some help on his computer. The kids had fun dipping their feet in the backyard pool. We hadn’t thought to bring swimsuits, but the water was still pretty cold, so they thought they really wouldn’t have wanted to swim, anyway.

We ate lunch at Noodles, where somehow my Pad Thai turned into Pesto Cavatappi. We checked the receipt and he’d never even put the correct order in, in the first place! Was he even listening? Or are the buttons close together, on his register? I didn’t make a fuss, because the Cavatappi looked good and I didn’t want to waste perfectly good food. I guess I’ll have to try the Pad Thai some other time. The cavatappi was good, though! On our next visit, I’ll be waiting while my husband pays, so we can double-check the receipt right away, before they’ve made me something else.

My favorite thing about Noodles is the fresh lemon wedges that they have by the soda fountain, for the people who drink iced tea. Those lemon wedges taste really good in my Diet Coke, too! Yummmy! The heck with all the chemically-flavored Coke and Pepsi products. Nothing tests better than actual lime juice or lemon juice squeezed into a glass of soda!

Here is the mid-May KAL. It’s called Every Day Any Day, by Sue Schaefer of Harvest Moon Designs. It took me a while to knit, because I was trying to do all the purls, with the yarn over the top and that’s new to me, so it takes me a while. I can purl a lot faster, with the yarn going underneath the needle. I was watching some women knit, at my knit-night the other night and they were so fast, and so efficient with the yarn over the top of the needle. I guess I just need more practice with that. I like my continental knitting with knitting in the back loops and the purls underneath the needle! I’m pretty fast, with plain stockinette.

My daughter Sarah, just sent me an email, that says the cold front is working it’s way down the Lake Michigan coastline and that it should be going through Sheboygan, right about now!  I guess that’s the end of our warm day, huh?  Well, it was nice, while it lasted!  (7:05 pm, CDT.)

Here it is, from the backside. You can see the design, this way, too.

Here it is, viewed from more of an angle.

Another view from an angle. Isn’t it a neat effect? I’ve never knit an illusion cloth before!

Officially, this winter, we’ve had 82 inches of snow. However, that amount is again inaccurate, since we have 5-6 inches of new snow, out on the driveway, yard and sidewalk. Argh. It’s been snowing for about 12 hours now! Might I remind you, that it’s officially spring now, too? I might have seen a robin, but I’m not sure. I saw a bird in a tree, that looked like the right size and the right shape, but I couldn’t see the color of the breast feathers, since the lighting wasn’t right. Darn it!

Yarn: Sandnes Garn Sisu Fantasy #6547
Needles: Size 2 dpns (Chia Goo Bamboo)
Pattern: Silver’s Sock Tutorial

I already did another Finders/Keepers cloth. I think it’s as addicting as a ballband is! Although it will probably look better with 2 solids, than a solid and a variegated, since the variegated yarn would be hard to see, in the “hidden” row! This one is in blue and ecru, to match my kitchen.

Here is the 2008 March KAL, from Monthly Dishcloth KAL. It’s called, “The Empty Tomb.”

“They found the stone rolled away from the tomb…” ~ Luke 24:2

The stockinette stitch in the lower left-hand corner, is the stone being rolled away. The purl stitching, that resembles a tree, is the empty tomb and the rays are the radiance of the Lord rising from the dead! It’s very appropriate, since Easter is at the end of this month!

Man, it’s cold outside. The last time I was outside, I about froze, and the last time I checked the temperature, it was about 13 degrees F, outside! Brrrr. It’s supposed to be MARCH, not January! On the plus side, all the roads, that had deep, frozen ruts, have greatly improved, so driving around is fun again. One had to drive over those rutted roads, very slowly, or take the long way, driving on better roads.

Our neighbor is a sweetheart. He’s been coming over to help us chop the ice and packed-down snow, that was covering our driveway and at the moment, it’s 90% dry and clear. He’s also been big help at keeping the storm sewer free and clear of snow and ice, so our street doesn’t flood. We’ve had about 80 inches of snow this winter and the snowbanks were starting to take over the road. Then we had one warm day and 1-1/2 inches of rain, and the water had nowhere to go! That’s all better now, too. Tonight, we are supposed to get 3-inches of lake-effect snow, meaning only the east coast of WI is supposed to get snow, with winds from the East. The clouds pick up moisture off the lake and dump it on us, as snow!

Oh yes, and all of Wisconsin is in mourning right now, since Brett Favre decided to retire. So, it will be interesting to see what happens with the Green Bay Packers next season. I think it was time for him to hang up the cleats. He had a good run!

This morning, I asked a kindergartener, who was talking about football, if he wanted to be the next Brett Favre, and he nodded his head enthusiastically. I thought that was so sweet.

Here’s a close-up of the stitch detail.

I used Sugar’n Cream rose pink and dark pine, with US6 needles.

76 inches of snow this season
35-3/4 inches of snow in February alone
Measurable snow on 11 of the last 18 days.

With Monday’s snow of almost three inches, the season’s total rose to 76 inches and moved into the No. 6 spot, only 1½ inches behind 1961-62. First place (94 inches, 1904-05) seems safe — for now, anyway.

It’s just too much snow! LOL! We are running out of places to put it, and it’s way too early to think we won’t have anymore snow! Argh! I can’t remember such a snowy winter.

Back in 1985, right after I bought my first front-wheel drive car, Marshfield, WI got 17 inches of snow. It was the weekend of November 30th/December 1st. We didn’t see grass again, until spring. That was the big kahuna, though. No other snowfall that winter, had that much accumulation!

In December 2000, we got 51.9 inches of snow, in that month alone, but in January, February, and March, we hardly got any snow, so the roads were clear and dry and it wasn’t such an inconvenience.

This year, it snows like every other day and the plows can barely keep up, not to mention that every city is running out of salt! Argh. I can’t wait for spring!

On Sunday, we had temps in the mid-30′s and 1.56 inches of rain! It turned our sidewalks into mush, for the day and flooded the street. In the picture, you can see some city workers, with a shovel and a front-end loader, cleaning the snow away from the storm sewer, so the water could drain off the street!

I just realized I didn’t post my February KAL dishcloth, and I have a smaller version of it, to post, too! LOL! It turned out to be a heart-shaped box of candy, with a ribbon! What a perfect design for February! It was designed by Susan Mrenna of Knit A Little, and entitled, “Valentine Candy Box.