So many blogs...so little time

I am having so much fun visiting all the OWOH blogs (at least trying to visit them all). Hope I can get through them all by Feb. 14.

Don't you love it when you go to one blog that takes you to another that takes you to another, and soon you forget what you were originally searching for but are so happy at where you ended up?  Well one of my fav blogs to start the "don't know where it will end" journey is One Pretty Thing.  If you are crafty and have not visited this treasure trove, you really must put it on your DAILY travels.  I don't know how these ladies keep up, but every day they have wonderful links to crafty goodness all over the web.  At the moment I am obsessed with crochet.  So I usually start wandering to crochet sites. My latest little find is JulieK. She has the cutest little crochet heart pattern. 

The pattern was a little tricky to follow and I'm not sure I got it quite right.  I had trouble at the point and then again at the top (I know, kinda crucial for a heart).  You'll see Julie's hearts are much more "heart" shape whereas mine are more "heart-ish" shaped.  I'd be curious to know if anyone else tried this pattern.

I had been working on an odd little doily pattern that I got in the mail, but was getting bored and thought these hearts would spruce it up.  What do you think?  The home-critics were not that impressed but I thought it was cute enough to put on the entrance table w/ a candle.  (Valentine day decorating...done!)  I have misplaced the odd little Crochet magazine where I got the doily pattern.  If I find it I will add that link as well. 

My photographic skills definately need improving. I would put more items on Etsy, if I could figure out how to get the pics to look more appealing! This is another of my 2010 resolutions.

Enjoy the hearts!  ~mly

Oh My!

Wow! 
I just have to say I am tickled pink or pickled tink or both!
Thank you to all my new friends who have stopped by and offered encouragement and such kind words!  I do need to figure out how to get out of this corporate "commitment"  it is taking up too much of my time  that should be spent visiting all these blogs and chatting with my new friends.

I hope to come visit you all soon!

mly

Give away!!

One World One Heart

I want to share a lovely blog and blogging experience that started today, OWOH. This was started by a lovely and talented lady, Lisa. It was her thought to have one big Blog block party! She asked all her friends to host a OWOH party with giveaways for several weeks. Of course everyone signed up, and they told their friends, who told their friends, who told their friends, and so on and so on...And before she knew it, there were over 900 participants! The blog neighborhood is kinda funny that way :)

So, go to her site and check out all the wonderful blogs and enjoy your travels from one to another.

I am still trying to figure this blog thing out (did you catch the double back-ground a bit earlier?) and thought it would be a good way to meet other bloggers and get some ideas (read as "desperatly need help!") about blogging :)

For the OWOH party, I am happy to announce my very first ...

Give Away!

To assist travlers on their magic carpet ride, I will give one lucky winner this lovely traveling purse.  It looks vintage-ish in that it is made out of some sort of plastic green straw material (think '50's).  As you can see I've added to this beauty by hand embroidering a lovely patch on the front AND back.  Multi-lingual as well!  Don't be envious of my embroidery skills :)

To win this "sorta-handmade" traveling purse, please just post a comment below.  I will randomly pick a winner from all the comments on Feb. 14!  The winner will be announced on Feb. 15.  (Please remember to provide me with your email address so I can contact you if you win!)


Enjoy the blog-party and your tavels to fun and interesting blogs!  Hope you stop by again.  I'm hoping to have some random thought or craft here at least several times a week.


Thanks for stopping by! (please ignore the mess)

Weekend and grandchildren

It was another rainy, wet, moss covered weekend in the northwest.  But nothing adds sunshine like children!  We had the grand daughters over this weekend (all 3) and their laughter, playing, and even snoring where like rays of sunshine.  We have 4 grand-kids, all belong to my step-daughter.  The oldest, 11 years, is living w/ his other grandparents right now, so we didn't see him.  The second oldest "Pickle" is 8 and used to live with us so is quite at home at our house.  Then there is "Cilly" who is 4 and very much a bulldozer with the biggest smile you ever saw.  Last is "Angel Baby" who is 2 and a half and very shy for the first hour.

The Boy is an amazing babysitter!  Much better than The Teen who gets either bored or annoyed after a couple minutes.  Her door shuts...alot these days.  But The Boy seems to never tire of taking charge and coming up with games.  As soon as he expresses annoyance or exhaustion, one of them will come running up to him and off he'll go again.

Bed time was so easy!  The Boy made one big bed in the playroom, selected an appropriate movie, tucked them all in and before the movie was over, they were all asleep.  Angel Baby fell asleep in Pappy's arms, so we just laid her among the other three and she didn't miss a baby snore!

We forgot how early they get up when they are younger.  The Teen and The Boy have taken to appreciating the joy of sleeping in on Saturday.  But Angel Baby was up at the crack of dawn!  And there The Boy was, ready to play, change, and feed her if necessary.  He's a GREAT babysitter! 

Hopefullly "mom" got some needed rest while we got some needed "little kid" time.  Lots of tickling, dress-up, puppets, and PB&J.

Resolution #2

This one's a bit more....intense.
Resolution # 2 is to use the exercise equipment and routines to increase my flexibility, health, and yes, size.

Now, first off you have to understand my background.  I grew up average sized, height and weight.  I ate whatever I liked, I played some sports, but "size" was never really a problem until.....pregnancy at age 27.  Now, after 27 years, you develop some pretty hard habits.  Like eat what I want, move when I want, by clothes that fit, etc.

I gained "some" weight with my first pregnancy.  Not problem, I figured I'd simply lose it after she was born. That was a problem, the weight did not go away.  Exercise was not only a foreigh concept to me, it caused pain just to THINK about dieting or exercising.  I mean, God made me this way, therefore I must be alright.  The way I saw it, I was going to get pregnant again, and would probably gain more weight.  So if I was going to put any effort into losing the weight, I could kill two birds at one time, and work off ALL the extra weight after the second child.  You know where this is going...  Second child came, with a lot more weight, and way less motivation to do anything about it.

Now my thinking starting moving towards the, "its only a problem b/c your clothes don't fit."  So the easy solution (god probid we go with a difficult solution) was to "buy bigger clothes" :)  Brilliant!!

In addition, around this time I heard about a lovely study that showed how the elderly were benefitting from excercising even if they had never excercised in their life.  This was great news!  One of my main obstacles to exercise was TIME.  Now, it looked like I could just wait until I retired and had lots of time for excercise!

Second child is now 12 years old, and my size has grown every year. I am now having to shop in a special section and stores in order to find clothes that fit.  And to really put salt in my wound, I cannot play with the kids and do the physical activities I once could.  This is the biggest "pisser" for me.  Size is one thing, but when I can't do the things I want, then we have a problem.

So, this leads to my New Year's resolution and the 2 goals I have:
1. Be able to wear clothes and have them look like the designed intended and not look like cloth hanging off my body
2. Have the stamina to do physical activities with my family

For Christmas my husband bought me Wii Fit Plus and a 5 day dvd work out program that includes Yoga, Strength training, ball excercise, Tai Chi, and something else. (He does love me, and actually never says anything about my weight, so he's not as bad as it sounds.)

My plan is to do SOMETHING every day.  Some days I complete a full hour aerobic work out, some days I do a 30 minute strength and flexibility training,

Here is where I am going to track what I do each day and for how long.  I'll also give you guys an idea on how its working towards my 2 goals.

Resolution #1

OK, this one is easy, so that's where I'll start :)
My first resolution this year was to start a blog.  Ta da!

Why and what?

I decided to start this blog for a couple reasons: 1) because I am having so much fun reading and interacting with other blogs that I wanted to join their world, 2) I wanted one place where I could showcase my crochet and "art" projects, and 3) I have an underlying desire to track the progress of my 2 resolutions.

As you can tell, I'm not very good at all the "techy" stuff with blogging yet, but I have LOTS of friends out there and am confident that by the end of the year it will get much better :)

The first is so far so good. I do need to add ALL the blogs I follow so anyone who stumbles upon this site can continue their journey onto other pleasant worlds.

Second one has started, but I'm finding my biggest challenge being the photos. I need to really carve out time to take, upload, and post photos.

So on to the third reason...(new post)

2010 Projects

The year has started off pretty well. I completed the Granny Square afghan (I actually completed this right before Christmas, but close enough!), the yarn basket, the smaller yarn basket for mom, and several hats.

The granny square blanket was inspired by a pattern I saw at www.purlbee.com. I adapted it to the request of my daughter (she picked the colors.) I don't see the pattern on their site anymore but they are offering a class, and there is a picture of the original one there.

The yarn basket was inspired by one of my favorite crochetters "Attic24". Again I adapted the pattern to match my own taste (I got bored just making single crochets) and the smaller yarn basket was born out of a request by my mother for...you guessed it...a SMALLer basket :)

Both are perfect for holding more yarn.