My Birthday

So My birthday this year, started really early in the morning, I decided that I wanted to go watch the sunrise over Bear Lake. Sunrise was at 6:20 am, I arrived at the look out at 6:15 am. The trip to Bear Lake is about a 50 minute drive. I left the house at just after 5:15 am and was treated to a delightful moon rise over the mountains. The clear midnight blue sky was the perfect backdrop for the bright white sliver of the rising moon. I tried to get a picture of it, but was unsuccessful.
As I drove up the canyon, it was a treat to watch the sky transform from the dark of night to the light of day. On May 2, there was still snow on the ground, the farther up the canyon I went, the more there was. When I arrived at the scenic view I was not adequately dressed for the weather, it was 17 degrees F, and the wind was blowing, even with my hat, mittens, and fleece jacket, the cold was biting! I wanted to take a picture of myself there, so I did, this is it:


I didn't say it was pretty. Anyway after about 20 minutes hanging around and watching the sky change colors I decided that I had had enough, and returned peacefully to my apartment. I had intentions to go to the temple as well, but having arose early and went to bed late, I decided the time spent in the temple might be ill used. So I took a nap instead, and was refreshed for the visit of my friends. I attempted to go to work, when I got there I found I had not put on the correct footwear for work. I was not interested in work, and still being somewhat tired, I begged off work, where I was going to be doing some training. They allowed me to go home. What a happy birthday it turned out to be. I got to visit with some of my family members by phone. and spend time with friends and I didn't have to work. It was delightful. Around 7:27 pm I took the following picture:



The evening was warm and sunny, and my toes were calling for a picture.

Water

Hello everyone, There was water today on the Wind Caves trail! I haven't seen it for a couple years. Hooray for water!

Another one of the Girls

Aren't they just the cutest in the whole world?

Nieces

My eldest Brother and his wife will complete 12 years of marriage on Sunday, in celebration of this fact, they left town together for a few days for themselves. They have gone to Las Vegas, Nevada. I am watching the three girls for the four days of their absence. Here is a sample of the cuteness I get to endure...:o)

New Picture

Can you see my signature? click on the picture to make it bigger.

Pizza Sunday

Hello All,
A friend of mine from work told me that Sunday was his Pizza Day, and that they invite friends over for dinner and make pizza. What a good plan. You get to eat a really good meal (I suspect that homemade pizza is my favorite food item) and you get to socialize with your buddies, or meet new people if you so desire.

Well today church was called off due to excessive snow, the funny thing about that is that I got contacted 3 times to let me know that there was no church, once by phone, once by text message, and once by a visit from the Bishop and his counselor. The third time, I had a hard time keeping a straight face. but I was thankful that people were looking out for me, as opposed to getting to church and finding it all locked up. So I made pizza.

I have to say that this pizza is by far the best I've made. Unfortunately for those Wheat loving persons among us (I include myself in that category :o) ) it was not wheat, wheat flour does not lend itself to excellence in pizza crust. I made up my sister-in-law's pizza sauce recipe which I have adopted as the best in the whole wide world, and used a blend of four cheeses (gouda, mozz, parm, and cheddar) and a sprinkle of garlic salt on top. Heaven! if one is into such things. So here is a picture of the tasty dinner:

A Bag to Felt

Some of you may be wondering what became of the felting bag, well what else do you do on a snowy day when you have a new book to listen to and bald tires on the car and are well rested? Well I knit. At least yesterday I did. and I am very excited about the progress on the bag. Mostly because I am dying to start the sweater. I did a little swatch for the sweater so I could find my knitting gauge, and thus use Elizabeth Zimmerman's percentages on how to build a sweater. Oh what fun!
So here is a picture of said bag, perhaps a little over half done. (don't you love the wind and waves depicted on the bag? there are still snowflakes and raindrops to come...)
Have a beautiful day :o)

Snowy Day

____________________________________________________________________________


So late Thursday night, emerging from work I found that the corolla was buried in 8 or 9 inches of snow. Large flakes of snow continued to fall as I swept the snow from my car [I say swept, for I actually use a broom to remove the snow, much to some people's surprise. ] Having removed a great deal of snow from my car, I go back around for one more sweep as quite a coating of big wet flakes had built up as I was thus engaged. Now for the ride home. getting the car to move out of the unplowed parking lot was somewhat tricky as I stupidly had not yet purchased new tires to replace the balding ones I have. (and still have not replaced) The whole trip home I thought to myself, "see, you should have gotten new tires back in November when you thought it would be a good idea, or maybe before that in October, when you were told that the tires needed to be replaced, it would have paid off right now, for then you could have driven with much more confidence in this messy weather" I am very good at berating myself, in such situations. But I did make it home and safely too, with no damage to me or the car.

One of the things I adore about winter is the peace and quiet of the falling snow or of the newly fallen snow. Everything is carpeted in a blanket of white, all sounds are muted. At such times as these I like to pause and take in the serenity that is to be found. Such silence can be almost eerie, and yet, it has such a profound calming effect on me. It is hard to describe really, what one feels but indeed it is felt. I hoped to take a picture of the fresh snow that would show how I felt, but the day had ended and there was little light left to get a great picture. So here is a substitute. I do like the little twig that has broken from the weight of the snow. it reminds us to be yielding in the face of difficulty.

Good Mail Day

On Monday January 21, I began the adventure that is Interim Manger. After a week of it, I'm not certain I would take the actual manager job if they offered it to me right now. Maybe next week, but today, I would have to think and think hard! But then cats and two bedroom apartments have been playing on my mind a lot lately. It makes me feel sorta bad when I think that my Living room is also my Sewing room which is sad for anyone who wants to come visit, because my sewing area is in a constant state of ill repair shall we say....
On recommendation from a very lovely person I picked up a couple books by Sarah Caudwell, Wonderful Who donnit type books but with really really good word usage. I love words they do fascinate me. One word I have picked up on lately is Enigmatic, granted it is not that big a work, but do you know what it means? Today at work I said a whole sentence that was in "big words" and the two girls I was talking to both looked at me confused. It was awesome! But don't ask me what I said, it was contextual and I can't for the life of me remember what it was.
On one of the rougher days last week I had great Mail day, in fact it was Thursday. How odd, Thursdays are always good days, but not last Thursday, work was miserable! Oh but it was a good mail day, so I guess it still holds true. I didn't get to open my good mail though until Friday because I fell into bed when I got home, just after I put the ice pack on my knee, and fell asleep. I had a fall at work and got the biggest bump and bruise covering the majority of the knee area on my leg. I sent a picture to my mom, but figured the rest of the world doesn't need to see such things... Anyway, I got a box and three books. Two were the Sarah Caudwell books and the other was Knitting without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmerman. The box? well that was a box of yarn from Beaverslide, Montana. Below is the picture of the sweater I want to make with the yarn and above the yarn itself.
Have a wonderful day

New Year....New Projects!!!

Well hello my friends,
I haven't written in a few days. I really haven't been that busy, so that is not a valid excuse, I've just been doing other things...
I made a couple bunny rabbits for Christmas presents. Making bunnies, really isn't as hard as you might expect. and really it is quite fun to see it taking shape as you stuff it full of stuffing...

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

Shortly after the New Year I picked up a Knitter's magazine that I hadn't seen for a while and browsed through it for a while. A felted vest jumped right off the page at me. 2 hours later I was amazed at the simplicity of the pattern and felt certain I was going to make it. as I gazed longingly at the finished product I noticed that there was a purse or bag that looked just like the felted vest. Suddenly the vest paled in comparison to the bag! Off to the yarn store with one of my buddies and half an hour later and several dollars poorer, I had a nice set of Size 10 addi turbo circular needles and 5 skeins of yarn, Plus lots of ambition to get started. And start I did, [as i do all my projects...] After knitting three inches into the project I decided that I did not like the pattern all that much after all, so I set to work on my computer using the Fair Isle Knitter's best friend: Excel, and off I went redesigning my Felted bag. after several days of work on the designing process i came up with a design I just love and now here I am ready to knit madly, but I have to first take out three rows of stitching, all told that equals 398 stitches. Am I crazy? likely, but it is all in the name of THE PROJECT [whatever it might be at the time]. I've added a picture of what the purse looks like just now, and at some future date I hope to post a finished product picture!!
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________


___________________________________________________________________________