Family Invasion: Part II

I managed to get the quilt room rearranged for the arrival of SU's brother (A), sister-in-law (K) and two kids (E, L) who arrived Saturday night.



SU's mother (R) and I never made it to the knitting store. She was looking for a device that helps to measure the gauge of a knitted/crocheted swatch of fabric. Gauge is important to ensure that the finished item has the proper measurements, i.e. it will fit properly.

Once the remainder of the family arrived, we all went for a walk around the block. This was to help the travelers unwind. Eventually, we had dinner - spaghetti casserole, salad, potatoes, and cookies for desert.

We did some visiting and eventually everyone went to bed.

Sunday, Easter, saw the kids finding their baskets and plastic eggs filled with candy and toys. Frogs for E, and pigs for L. E loved his frogs and L loved her pigs. Needless to say a war was waged between the frogs and the pigs, but I'm not sure who won.

In addition to the family we already had, my mother and our friend A, came to dinner (which really is a late lunch, supper?). We had some appetizers that A brought - endive filled with a mixture of chopped up veggies. Dinner was ham, lamb with mint jelly, salad, and rolls.

While I don't like the taste of lamb, I did try some. It tasted pretty well the a popcorn jelly bean and the mint jelly. L, the niece, gave me a popcorn jelly bean to eat at the time I was trying the lamb and mint jelly. I thought it tasted pretty good. For some reason the lamb didn't have that lamby flavor.

Dinner was followed by the kids and A heading out to the park for some play time. Meanwhile, the rest of us helped layout the treasure hunt for the kids. Once the kids and A returned we had the treasure hunt. The kids loved that they could go into the office as they had been told they could only enter with an adult.

The photo is the annual group photo of those who made it to our Easter activities.

Family Invasion: Part I

SU's parents arrived late afternoon Thursday. I didn't hear them knock as I was listening to either Pandora, or a video of a dance troupe in Antwerpen train station.

At some point, I decided to sit outside on the front porch and knit. I did that for about 5 minutes when they showed up!

Now R, SU's mother, and I are to go find some hot cross buns - hopefully!

I've got to rearrange my quilt room and we may go to the knitting store.

Its cool and rainy here this morning.

Preparing for Family Invasion

SU and I have been preparing for the arrival of [his] family. This has been going on since last week. I've been trying to do this cleaning, really Spring cleaning, over a longer period of time, because last year I got sick right before their arrival.

I really think it was an allergy related illness, so this year I'm trying to spread the cleaning over time so as not to be exposed to all this allergy stuff. Its worked out well so far.

The only real areas left to clean are the dining room and the basement bathroom. Oh, yeah, my quilt room. It seems that my scrap bucket is overflowing, reminding me that I should make a scrap quilt. Sadly, those scraps will go into a bin and into the attic to get out of the way. The quilt room gets temporarily packed up for the visit and becomes a bed room.

SU has been busy cleaning out the back porch area and repairing the wind chime, which succumbed to the wind and started falling apart.

What to write and Plinky

What to write on a blog. Its not like my life provides a lot of entertainment, at least not what others would want to read. However, you are reading this, aren't you?

So as I was perusing Blogger Buzz, when I came across this web site Plinky. This site is a service that will zap you with inspiration and get you writing on your blog! Mr. Shakespeare watch out!

Its interesting to see that we have a site to blog about our lives or interests and yet we've got to have another web site to give us inspiration. I suppose we all find inspiration from somewhere, so that's not new. There's a whole self-help section for inspiration. It seems odd. I guess what's the revenue stream? Ads?

Basically, I feel like we're writing a lot of crap, have tools to help inspire us to write more crap. And for what? Is some future archeologist going to unearth our blogs and really understand what was happening in our lives?

I suppose eventually someone will write something really worthwhile, so perhaps its worth it.

And me? Did I use Plinky? No, but it did get me writing on my blog. At least for this crappy entry.

P.S. This entry allowed me to use my favorite word multiple times. That word? crap

My First Knitted Sock

My First Knitted Sock
Originally uploaded by i_bugsy.

So here it is, in all its glory! My first knitted sock! Ta dah!

It has a few problems, like the foot is too long. Its about 4.5" long from the heel to toe. It should be 3". I got carried away on the foot and just couldn't stop.

Another problem is that on the bottom of the foot, I must have been gabbing because I noticed a nice little hole. I must've dropped a stitch. My efforts to fix it only made it worse. So I moved on.

I also think I got lost when I was decreasing at the toe. I didn't get a nice straight line of decreases to the toe.

I did, however, pegged the kitchener stitch when I was binding off at the toe.

All in all, I love my first sock. Its too small for me to wear, but I love it!
I'll make another practice one and then I'll be ready for a real pair.

I'm so looking forward to it!