First of the Year

In 2010 I was very good abt my yarn purchases. I only bought with a project in mind and the majority of yarn bought was used. Then came 2011. I bought yarn because it was on sale. Because I knew I'd eventually use it sooner or later. Because it was pretty! The majority of that yarn bought is still in bags. I'm going to try to rein that in a bit in 2012. I still plan on buying yarn, but I'm going to try to have a project (or two) in mind for it.

With that said, I purchased my first skein of 2012.

It's Serenity Chunky Weight by Deborah Norville in Chocolate. I really like this yarn. I must since this is the 5th colorway I own!!! I want to make myself a bucket hat and while I wanted it to match my scarf (in Red Bayou), I bought Chocolate instead. My JoAnn's didnt have the color I needed. They were having a sale on the yarn which meant the shelf supply was low. I do like the chocolate and it compliments the scarf colors so it should be fine. If not, I'll be forced to buy yet another skein of this fab yarn and make another hat.

Which will most likely be worn next year. Our weather this week.

While I'm really trying to enjoy the mild temps, I'm really missing the cooler temps, esp at night. I'm hoping the cooling trend at the end of next week continues.

Saturday Sky

The weather has been amazing this past week. I still wish it was cooler, but the fact that I'm not in need of any appliance to either cool or heat my house is a good thing.

(yes that IS the moon!)


One of the funny things abt living in the south are the reenactments of the Civil War. Only in the south will they reenact battles won from a war lost. We had a field trip this past week to see such an event. Or so we thought. No battles were fought, but we did get to interview the soldiers.

What it was like to be a Confederate soldier.

These guys also had what the soldiers would have out in the field, some if it hand knit stuff. Fingerless gloves for the soldiers, scarves and socks. The gloves and scarves were hand made but the socks were not. These guys were really good and knew their stuff. It helps that they are decendents from actual Confederate soldiers!


What it was like to be a Union soldier.

I think he moonlights as Santa during December.

What it was like to be a woman in the field.

This one was fun because she was REALLY hand quilting while in character. She has a specific quilt she works on during these shows that uses reproduction fabric to further the illusion. I commented on it and told her she was doing a fabulous job. She showed me the entire quilt which meant part of it ended up on the dirt. I laughed and told her if the quilt police were here, they would have a fit with the quilt in the dirt!!! She laughed and said there were no quilt police on the battle fields, only back home! Yes I did take a close up picture of the quilt, but it came out too blurry to post. You get the idea from what's on her lap.

They also showed what medicine was like. NOT a good thing for some of the kids, including Baby Girl. After they described blood letting and HOW they got into the vein, she almost passed out. I ended up taking her home after the field trip. At least now we know she wont be going into the medical field!


I'm still working on my Coffee cross stitch. I try to get in at least one strand of floss a night. I put the socks in the car so I'd have something to work on there and I've started more afghan squares with blue yarn. More pics to come of those once there is some progress.

What have you been up to this wknd??? Will it be Super Bowl parties or shopping Super Bowl sales??

Already???

I can't believe today is Feb 1st. Mentally I'm only half way thru Jan. Then again I wore my shirt inside out today and nobody told me until 2pm this afternoon! What does THAT say abt my mental state????

Thankfully I'm still capable of knitting and I got my first Feb finish completed this afternoon (after I changed my shirt). It's a slouchy hat for Baby Girl.

She really loves this hat

and plans on wearing it to school tomorrow.

Nevermind the high will be 79. Honestly I dont even think we'll have anymore cold weather this year. The weather we've had this winter is more in tune with April temps than Jan temps. I'm not looking for a week of 20 degree lows, but having our highs hit near 80 is so wrong.

I also finished up 2 more skeins of yarn (4 blocks) for my afghan. Pulled out two blues this time around. Updated pics of that will be coming shortly.

I'm realizing that I really dont have that much knitting going on. My afghan, and a pair of socks is it! I'm still in the mood to knit hats, I'm thinking a bucket hat for me, but I dont have the yarn I want for it. I see a Joann's run in my near future.

Meanwhile, I wanted to work on something different so I pulled out a cross stitch this time, I Need Coffee Now! The last time it made an appearance, it looked like this.

Tonight it looks like this.

I'm slowly working my way thru this. It looks like blocks of color, but there's a lot more detail than I was expecting.

Who knows what I'll pull out next!

Saturday Sky

We finally had a cool front go thru yesterday so instead of having temps in the 80s, we hit a high of 71 with temps at 57 right now. It's giving me a chance to wear my hand knit socks for a change.


It's been a weird week filled with lots of kid activities which has left me feeling drained and in need of some quality me time. I did get a chance to watch a movie all the way thru w/o interuptions today, but I truly wont get the quiet until Monday when everybody is either at school or work. I dont have much to show in knitting, two more squares are done on my afghan and abt an inch more done on the slouchy hat. I REALLY need to remember to keep some kind of project in the car. Twice this week I could have worked on something, but I had nothing with me. Gotta find a vanilla sock to stash in the car for easy knitting.

And what's the best way to clean your house???? Why have your in-laws come to visit!!! They are coming out toward the end of Feb which means I have abt 3 weeks to get the house in some kind of order.

Is it too early for spring cleaning???????


*****Saturday sky brought to you by Baby Girl and her friend J.

Saturday Sky

Today's post brought to you in bullet form.........

• Baby Girl is officially double digits.






• It was cloudy for most of the day.







Very little crafting is getting done. There is a bug going around that is laying up a lot of us. Went to a wedding shower tonight and more than half of us were hacking. Hoping to pick up the needles tomorrow but not making any promises.....

Feline Fridays

Is that homemade mac and cheese?????

Something to Warm the Belly By

The weather has been bizarre here, one day cool, the next day hot, the following day you need to cover the plants. I wanted some warm-you-from-the-inside food and decided to make homemade mac and cheese. Most of the time we use the stuff from the big blue box (it's what they'll all eat) but *I* needed something different. I had all the ingredients (for the most part) of a recipe by the Barefoot Contessa so I went for it. It's just your basic run of the mill mac and cheese dish that I changed up a bit.

Here is the original recipe.

I used sea shells for the pasta.


I had the 8oz of sharp cheddar, but no gruyere so I used up what I had in the house, some jalapeno cheddar, a slice of provolone and a few slices of monterey jack.


I didnt have any bread (I really need to go grocery shopping) but I did have some Pepperidge Farm herbed seasoned stuffing so that got toasted up in the pan with some butter.


The cheese didn't melt as completely as I'd like so it was soupier than I wanted,

but I figured lets give it a try....

OH YUM!



Look at that cheesy goodness!!!


Everybody said they loved it, but I still have WAY too much left over for it to be a hit. I liked it alot, esp with the jalapeno (on a stick?) cheddar to give it a bit of a kick.

The best part?? The bread crumb stuffing mix on the top.

Do you have any favorite mac and cheese recipes?