A Good Day is......

Well now that my pity party is over I can focus on the birthday party coming up tomorrow.  We are going to paint pottery and eat enormous amounts of chocolate. My daughter has turned 13 and I thought it would be appropriate to eat large quantities of decadent sweets.

 

 

I have taken more pictures of my creations and I have stopped creating much lately because I am struggling with a tunic that I would love to figure out. It is lovely but I am not great at piecing things together. I would much rather have a continuous project going until the end.

This looks red but it is brown. I am trying to fix my pictures so that they represent correctly what they look like. I am not quite there.

I really like this blue one. I only had a little bit of the wool yarn left and this is what I made from it. It is lovely. Because it is wool, it is a little bit itchy but very warm and it lays flat because of the twist. I am very happy with it.

This yarn is silver and very soft. It is 50% silk. The item is more of a cowl. It fits loosely around my neck and goes over my head easily. There are many loose strands of yarn because of the tulip design so it is a high risk for snagging. I will consider this more carefully next time I work with this type of yarn. It would have served me better in a tighter pattern.

 

I am so in love with this one, I may not give it up. It is so long and the colors are bold. It reminds me of something that I would buy at Anthropologie. I will definitely make a new one of these when I have enough scraps. 

 

This is similar to the scarf above. It was just a project that I worked on while traveling. I had no pattern and no real idea of what I was doing so it is fairly ugly and it is all scraps so I am willing to give it to a good home. hahaha. 

 

This one took me forever to figure out how to do the skulls. The pattern that I found online was not correct. The skulls curl in. I had to improvise to get a couple that are constructed properly. I will know exactly what I am doing when I get good yarn. I am planning to make this with white or cream colored yarn with trails of flowers in many different colors flowing through it. I have a gorgeous mental picture of it. :)

 

This is a basket weave pattern and I was amazed at how simple this pattern is. I was so happy with how it looked and I can't wait to buy pretty yarn to do these projects that I have only been practicing at.

This is another simple pattern that I thought turned out fairly well. I had to "sew" it together to form the circle and I wasn't happy about that. I have mentioned before that I don't like piecing things together. I will get more comfortable with these things. That is why I practice with material that is cheap. I want to be great at completing a project when I have the best material.

For now, I need to work on my photographs. Perhaps I will set up a photo box to capture the colors correctly and get the lighting right. Even though these are "fine" photos, I don't think they look at all the way I would like for them to. I may even have to make a sculpture to prop the scarves on for a better representation of the size. I have a few dolls that I made a year or so ago and I will put them up here also. I am having a great day when I have finished a project.





Tonight I feel Fat

I know that we all feel this way sometimes. I see the texture on my legs and I get depressed. I have very little willpower. I enjoy eating and I indulge often. My husband likes to exercise but I hate it. I am ready for warmer weather so that we can go for walks again.

My skull scarf is coming together. I really do enjoy yarn arts but I have been told that my abilities are less than impressive. Wow, that kinda hurt. I would like to be good at something that I enjoy. I guess I won't be selling many scarves if they are "less than impressive".

I am a little bit bummed. I think I will make this a short post for tonight and post pics of the finished skull scarf tomorrow. Maybe I will even have more of my geek quilt to show then also.

Once again, I am not listening to music. Perhaps I should, it might improve my mood.

Always more Projects

I guess I should start making lists.
I start things but have difficulty finishing them at times. The bigger the project the more likely I will quit before the end. Well, maybe I can change that.

This looks similar to another scarf but it is only the same yarn.

This is a lovely picture but it is difficult to tell that it is a scarf. I call it my ugly scarf. :)

This is a purse made from grocery sacks. I absolutely love up-cycling.

I am trying to get a handle on Rhino art so that I may do a piece for my hubby's office.

I am a goof. My son wanted silly faces to help sell the scarves. This one did not make the cut. hahaha.

This is the ugly scarf. It is actually one of my favorites.

I don't know what I am thinking sometimes. ugh.

Practicing the simple granny square.

This was a great stitch and I made the blanket quite large but then I took it all out because I don't care for pink.

I wish I could remember how I did this stitch. I really like it.

This is perfect in so many ways but I hate the colors. I will be making this pattern again.

I dyed the pink yarn because I am not so fond of pink.

The bulk of my collection.

The dyed pink ball of yarn. I was impressed with its size.

My new project is a skull scarf. This is not the best one but then again, none of them are.

This is the beginning of a geek quilt. I have only tacked down the pieces to some of these circles. I will do a satin stitch to hold everything firmly in place once I have all of my circles cut and tacked.

Skull scarf coming together.

It needs to be longer and maybe fatter. All of the heads will face the proper direction when I am finished also.

 

I am not listening to music tonight. I am about ready for bed. Goodnight sweeties.

Well, That was a Long Break

I am reinventing my life right now. I have failed out of nursing school and I am starting over from square one.
It is difficult to talk about to people that know me because failure was never an option. It was just something that I wanted to do. It was not necessary for income. It would have been wonderful to be able to say that "I have a career and that I am trained and licensed to do something that I am super great at" but now I am back to working hard at not working. 
I guess this bump in the road leaves more time for a blog.

Let's try this again and see if we can get it up and running like we should.

Today I am still 10 pounds from my ideal weight. I am still shooting for a 15 pound loss so that my fluctuations will be tolerable. ;)   I am doing the 200 sit ups program. http://www.twohundredsitups.com/

I hate exercising and this hasn't been that bad. I occasionally do yoga in the mornings because I always feel better when I am all stretched out and limber.

I am doing crochet and quilting at the moment and I will place pics of the projects as they progress.

This was a skull cap for a nursing school friend.

 Baby blanket for a child who's parents love to hunt

 This a knitted baby blanket for no one in particular

 Obviously my daughter took this scarf. I think it is crochet.

This is for a friend that has a latex allergy so this keeps her safe at clinicals.

These are one reason why dieting is so difficult. Peanut Butter Balls.

 

I have more pictures to add but they can be added later. I just wanted to get this blog back off of the ground. I have some topics that I would like to address each time I write on here. One thing I would always like to tell you is what I am listening to. So today I have been enjoying my Norah Jones playlist on Pandora. Right now it is Jack Johnson singing Cocoon.

The Time Change

Yeah, I kinda hate the time change stuff. I lived in Phoenix for 12 years and really loved not worrying about time change. So that is my excuse for dragging today (plus I have a UTI again).   :(

So I have been making lots of smoothies and enjoyed the first half of the ones that I made. The last few that I have made have been not so yummy. I was simply too brave. I thought that I could deviate from the recipe and build my own flavor and set the world on fire with my creativity and stuff..... I was wrong. I failed miserably and now I have a bunch of smoothie in my fridge that I really don't know if I will ever drink them. Gah!!.

Ok, so Halloween came and went and I was supposed to weigh 120 by that time.... I do not. I am 128.5. I decided that this is a life change that I have made and counting calories is not hard or bad and the lack of candy in my life is not bringing me down (too much). I will press on in a much more relaxed way and try to let go of the diet nazi inside of me. :) My clothes fit so much better. I have even rescued my favorite pants from the Salvation Army pile!! Woot! If only I could get back all those other clothes that I gave away before.... Oh well. A new good reason to shop.

I have two weeks before I leave to go see my son in DisneyWorld!  I simply cannot wait. I have one test to take and a couple of quizzes but I can't concentrate. I just want to hug his scrawny body again. It has been months since I have seen him. I will post many pics. No worries at all.

I have also located a hard drive full of my food pictures. I think I will post a few up here with the recipe for each picture so that my readers can see that I actually do cook. We will see how often they come up though. I am also working on two baby quilts. I can't believe so many of my friends are pregnant.

These are my new Urban Junket bags!!! Squeeeeee!! I am such a fan of this company! I couldn't be happier with this purchase.

My daughter and I busted my iPad. This was a very sad day but there is always good to be found; my husband bought me the new iPad and I will get this one fixed and give it to one of my kids. Someone (and me) is very happy indeed. 

Smoothies

Just a very quick note to endorse the fantastic world of smoothies. I have not had too many of them in my life and I have recently fallen in love with them. This seems to be a great website that teaches how to make different kinds of smoothies. I can feel the freedom to experiment welling up inside me.
http://www.smoothieweb.com/

Trippin'

I am back from the coast and I do have wonderful pics. I have also completed an exam in Pharm and I feel like I wasn't just backsliding on my diet but my studies as well. Will power is hard to come by. I am not trained to handle this kind of stress. ;)

I enjoyed taking photos of clouds. They were distractingly beautiful.The beach was immaculate and the weather was perfect. Unfortunately I didn't get to spend much time in the sun. My trip was a nursing convention and just because it was inside doesn't mean that I didn't have a blast. I love spending time with like minded people

.

I say the weather was beautiful but we did have a small amount of rain the second day that we were here. It was lovely though. The days were warm and the evenings were cool to cold for me. 

This picture was incredibly blurry but the colors were too pretty not to post it. 

This photo was taken out of the window of my hotel room. My husband pointed out the patch of sun on the ocean. It is beautiful. 

I built still lifes in the sand after the conference. I have more pics but I don't want to bore you with my silly fetishes.... oh wait!! That is part of the deal... I will post more!!!

So, every once in a while I come across a group of "things" mostly trash but sometimes there is a quality about the group that makes me want to save it or preserve it. So, I arrange it the way I like and then take pictures. Silly me, I know. This is a group of pics that I took in a parking lot about a year ago.







So, being home again is nice in some ways. I like the fact that I can get back on my schedule and I don't feel like I am just wasting a bunch of time goofing off. I do enjoy goofing off but I just can't live like that. I did not drink beer or wine like I thought I might but I did eat too much food and food that is pretty bad for me.

 This is fried eggplant with a cheddar hollandaise. (best way that I can describe it). It was by far my favorite dish!! Loved it.

This is a seafood stuffed portabella mushroom. It was fantastic but I prefered the eggplant. 

 My husband's dish was a fried seafood platter with collards and broccoli.

 My daughter picked chicken fettuccine alfredo with broccoli.

This is an up close of the happy couple. I love him so much!!