Baby Blankets

Last week I made three baby blankets and finished one crocheted baby blanket.  On Saturday or so I posted on Facebook a picture of the crocheted one.  Good responses.  Now to post it here on the blog.

I think it looks all sweet and girly and something along the lines of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate.  Yum!!  My friend, Ginger, put in an order for two for her future twins!  Kori asked me to move closer! Others enjoyed the colors.  Rachele wants to trade bread-making classes for crochet classes.  I love barter!!

Monday - the MOST Dreaded Day of the Week

I have wondered if Monday gets depressed because it is the most dreaded day of the week.

I also wondered that after Sunday, a day of rest, why we should still be so tired on Monday.

Reasons I have personally dreaded Mondays.

1.  Not sleeping well on Sunday nights due to the dread of Monday mornings.
2.  Not being excited about going to employment on Monday where, even though I am an excellent employee,  being rated for job performance disturbs me.
3.  Not being happy that husband leaves the state often on Mondays to spend the next 3 to 4 days THERE instead of HERE.
4.  After having either 2-3 days to do whatever, I am faced with 4-5 days at the beck and call of someone else and the clock starting with Mondays.
5.  Still having to carry the whole load of housework, bill paying, child care, etc after working a 9 hour day outside the home and Monday was the day that started it all.

Poor Monday.  It really gets a bad rap.  I should be happy to have another day.  I should be happy to start a new week where hopefully I can always do better.

A large part of my issue with Monday is most possibly mental.  After retiring in February it took me a month or so to relax on Sunday nights when I started dreading Mondays.  Every single Sunday evening about 7 p.m., sometimes earlier, I would start feeling anxious.  But at least after retirement I could snap myself back to the reality that I did not have to go to work on Monday morning.

Still Monday Morning tends to be an issue.  Husband still leaves the state.  I still have to get up and going after sleeping later on the weekend.  Usually I mistakenly schedule appointments on Monday morning hoping to get things done and over with which I regret on Monday morning.

Oh well.

When you think about it, Monday is actually a stand-up guy.  He shows up every week right on time.  He takes the punches and keeps going.  If Monday didn't do it then Tuesday would have to and Tuesday doesn't strike me as being as strong as Monday.

So Monday, we may dread you, malign you, cry when you turn up, pull the covers up over our heads, but we're happy you are around.  After all, what would we do without you when we can't even get it all done with a 7 day week.  With 6 it would really be impossible.

Welcome Monday?  Today you are getting off to a sad start.  Husband is on a plane to California.  I could only exercise for 3/4 of the time I usually exercise because of the shower door installer coming at 8:00 - 9:00 a.m.  The shower door installer was an hour late.  The said shower door installer said this installation was going to take 3 hours instead of 2.  (If you do the math that means I am sitting here doing security on the bedroom floor while he works for at least 4 hours instead of 2.)  I got stressed and all ready drank a diet Pepsi.  I hope that the shower door installer really knows what he is talking about when he says this is only going to take 3 hours.  He is speaking Spanish but it seems that he is saying that there is a part missing or that he wonders about the measurements.  Oh dear!

Oops!  Up on a previous paragraph didn't I say I was happy to have Monday?  Repeat after me..... I love Monday, I love Monday, I love Monday.

Sigh.  Okay so that didn't really work.

Inheritances and New Knowledge

My Grandmother inherited what she called a Cocoa Pot from one of my great-great Grandmothers.  I am not exactly sure which one.  I had thought it was Selena Dworzin's but then Mom thought it was Nellie Mattingly's.  Either way, Grandmother inherited it.

Then at some point Grandmother gave it to Mom as it was to be hers anyway.  When Sara was born on Grandmother's birthday Mom decided that at some point in the future it would be Sara's.

When we were living in Louisiana, I inherited a china cabinet from my Grandma Dayhoff.  Once I had a place to safely keep the cocoa pot, Mom decided it was time for me to inherit it and keep it in safe keeping for Sara until she would inherit it.

In June we were camping down in Woodland Park, Colorado and took a day trip down to Cripple Creek.  It was a fun trip especially since all the museums were free that day.  I know there was a good reason why they were free but I don't remember why exactly.  But it was to our benefit.  It was even a good day for Nikki because she was allowed in the museum since she was a "polite pet".   See above.

Inside this particular museum you will not believe what I saw!  Well, maybe you will.  Anyway, there in a room set up as a parlor were three cocoa pots and I solved a little bit of the mystery I had felt around my own and Sara's set.

Now, my German Coffee set or "Mocha" set is not porcelain or special in any way except to me and my family and the family actually came to the United States prior to 1892 so it wasn't from this particular pottery.  But I think it has a connection at least to the type of pot it is.

Here are the ones I saw there:

And this is mine and Sara's.  What a nice discovery!

Patterns, Memories, and Dust

Yesterday I went through all the pattern boxes to determine which ones need to go and which ones I want to keep.  I came across this one.  It is the pattern we used for our Pep Rally uniforms my Junior year in high school.  We made the red one although in black and gold.  That was 40 years ago.  

I am not sure why I have kept it all these years because I never made it again.  There was never really any reason to get rid of it.

Another interesting aspect was the cost of the pattern.  $1.00  Now just plain old patterns are $12.95 or so.  Of course they seem to be on 50% off sale all the time though.  

I don't think I will ever lose my love and interest of sewing although I don't do nearly as much as I used to do.  I made many of the girls clothes when they were growing up.  It was/is harder to do boy clothes.  

When "jams" were the rage for boys I made Jared a pair.  He loved them but then when someone made fun of him at school because the jams were so long he stopped wearing them for a while.  I asked him why he was wearing jeans in sweaty Louisiana heat and so he told me about it.  I suggested that he look at the shrimpy kids who were making fun of him.  It wasn't so much that the jams were so long, it was that he was so tall that they had to be long to be correct.  And even more importantly those kids were little shrimps.  After that Jared wore his jams.  

I still remember the sewing class I took in 9th grade that started my garment construction adventures.  In high school I sewed many of my own clothes.  I have had sewing projects turn out really weird, kind of like the Bill Cosby show where the daughter sewed a shirt for Theo and it was ALL wrong.  Through the years I have come to the conclusion that I should sew basic garments and straight lines instead of really fancy stuff.  I've made blessing outfits for grandchildren.  They turned out well.

Here are some other patterns I found. I could never have convinced Bob to wear these clothes.  There were two things that I made for him. 1) a red down parka. He wore it for years.  2) a tan leisure suit.  Yep he wore it.  I wish I still had the pattern and I wish I could find a picture of him wearing it.

I made this dress for Leslie.  We were shopping one day and she found a dress that she liked.  I commented that I had made one just like it when I was a teenager.  She asked me why I didn't keep it.  Well..... I had no idea it would come back into style.

During the clean out yesterday I ended up with two paper cases full to over-flowing of patterns, memories, and dust!

Annual Motorcycle Trip

Each year we have gone on a 4 day motorcycle trip with friends.  Year one:  Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota.  Second Year:  Durango, CO.  This year: Moab, UT.  

This year we did over a thousand miles in 4 days.  Lots of fun, lots to see and do, lots of tired.  I fell and almost killed myself the first year at Rushmore.  Since then I have been VERY careful even with all the climbing.  The only issue for 2011 was the water weight gain that will take a few days to get rid of.

This is the entire group 2011.  Siebs, Redmons, Kings, and Ottleys.  Thank you nice tourist lady for offering to take our picture.

We decided the "boys" were an average of 11 years old when they got together.  John was the worst, then Robert.  I think Vaughn was happy that Cari didn't "allow" him to do all the crazy climbing because he really didn't want to do it that much.  She is an easy alibi.  Terry took it a little easy because he had a cold and also the one bad eye.  John really pushed the limits and Robert encouraged him.  Typical. This is a great picture of them in a calmer setting.

Robert climbed up to a corner of one of the Windows arches in Arches National Park.  Easy hike and great view.

Also at Windows Arches.  I think it's a good picture of us.  

Delicate Arch from a couple of miles away. I love telephoto lenses.  There is a .75 mile hike to take that is easy for viewing the arch and we didn't have to take a quart of water to drink either.  Although a bottle of water each was pretty much necessary.

In trying to be a little artsy I took this tree picture.  I might print it in black and white.  I aspire to be an Ansel Adams!

White Rim Canyon behind me.  Beautiful in person.  The canyon, I mean.  :)

Newspaper Rock with our traditional we-took-it-ourselves picture.

Holy Mackerel!  $6.50 a gallon with a minimum of $15 per credit card charge.  I learned that it actually against the law to put a minimum charge for credit cards.  Cari is writing a letter to Visa.  This was a rip-off place in the middle of no where outside of the Needles portion of Canyonlands.  They had us over a barrel.

The hotel was pretty bad but do-able.  We should have started getting reservations in January instead of May.  If we had had children with us it would have been REALLY bad because children get on the floor.  We, at least, keep our shoes on.  Also when the air conditioner compressor turned off it sounded like ice falling into the plastic container in the freezer.  Being Moab in summer the a/c was on all night.  So the ice cube tray noise went on ALL NIGHT.  Thank goodness we were exhausted and only heard it occasionally.  

I might post a few more pictures later if there are some interesting ones to view.

I am super happy to be home though.  I came home really anxious to get busy on the house some more.  

That's a good vacation!

Finished Project

Over the past week I have been pushing harder to finish projects.  I am still not moving fast enough for me.  But the family history organization is about organized and the pictures are moving into boxes fairly quickly.
Yesterday and today I sold 9 books from the ones we are not keeping.
Tonight I finished the scarf I started quite a while ago.  I really like it.  It's light and warm and also in every color.  I can wear it with anything I think.  I also started the afghan which I purchased the yarn for way back last year.  Have to move along.  Even though I will be able to take some with me in the RV I won't be able to take them ALL!