It Has Begun!

So, I went to my annual physical this past Friday and was informed that I had gained 23 pounds over the past year. 23 POUNDS!! How could I have let that happen? And that doesn't count all the weight that I had lost and gained back after many failed attempts at weight loss. Not good. The doctor suggested the Body for Life program by Bill Phillips. I bought the book a long time ago, read it, but never went through with it. I decided that now is the time. And what's perfect about my timing is a new challenge begins tomorrow! And a co-worker is interested in doing the program with me. So, we started today! I got up, did my upper body workout and have been eating balanced meals every couple of hours. And I'm determined to stick with it for the whole 12 weeks. We bought my sisters home gym from her and purchased a stationary bike from Academy. I'm all set and ready to go! Wish me luck! I'll keep you updated on how I'm doing and if you're lucky, I'll post my before and after pictures at the end of November!

Hope everyone is having a great Labor Day Weekend!

One Strip Down...

Four to go! My newest WIP - Diamond and Rings afghan from Blue-Ribbon Afghans. I've made one already for a Secret Pal Swap and just loved making it. So, I was looking for a good pattern to help decrease my stash while using my size I Jimbo hook that I won back in June, and I found this pattern to be perfect! I found the first one I made a little long, so decided to cut about 1/3 of the length off and now I think it's just tad too short for me. Think I may just have to give it away and make another one for myself. Anyone want it?





Don't worry, the ends will be woven in before it gets shipped...

In other news, look what I got today!



If features this:



I'm so excited. Took me a while to find it, but find it I did! Congratulations again Jimbo!

And speaking of Jimbo, I got this Friday...



Woohoo! Actually, the one on the left is my I hook that for some reason never made it into my blog. I think I was just too excited to have it that I couldn't stop using it long enough to take a picture! It's made from the famous apple tree at the crick. The one on the right is the one I just received yesterday. It's size K and made of briar. I know this picture doesn't do either of the hooks justice. They are so smooth and so gorgeous, and I love usint them! Now, if only I can get my hands on an H hook, I may get inspired to finally finish that Cathedral afghan I started 2 years ago... Unfortunately, I keep getting outbid after I have retired for the evening. Oh well, one day. There's a contest going for an H hook right now, so maybe I'll win it. Yeah right. Maybe that's wishful thinking - I never win anything! Wish me luck anyways.

Ok, gotta get back to working on the afghan. Have a great rest of the weekend!

For the Tea Lovers

Ok, just a quick post because I don't have much time right now... I know if have several tea lovers reading my blog out there, and this post is for you! Thanks to mom and dad, I have discovered the best loose leaf tea available on the market. And I've had some great teas - Adagio and Republic of Tea are two of my favorites. But this one surpasses them all. It's called Teavana. Go check out their website, and if they have a store near you, by all means, go to it! You can smell and taste the teas. Unfortunately, I don't have one near me, so I had to pick from what sounded good, and I was far from being dissapointed! (Except I stupidly picked a fall mix of teas and while it is still wonderful, it's just not a summer tea). Well, that's about it for now! Gotta run. Mom is in town this week (she got here yesterday - remind me to tell you what happened with that) and we're running around today. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

I Was Just Thinking...

(dangerous, I know) that maybe some of you would rather see a family picture instead of one of just the parents and their grandkids... So, here ya go - unfortunately Kyle didn't make it :(

I'm Back!

And most of you probably didn't even know that I was gone...About two weeks ago (well, it will be two weeks on Friday), I loaded myself onto a southwest flight and headed out to California for a short vacation. Dad decided he wanted to have a surprise birthday/retirement party for my Mom and ask my sister, her hubby, her sons, and myself and Kyle to come out for it. As Kyle had just started a new job, he couldn't go, but the rest of us did! They came home from Vegas Saturday afternoon to approximately 75 people waiting for them. Us kids were the last to show ourselves and she was shocked! She had absolutely no clue whatsoever. It was so cool, and tons of fun. We were all scheduled to come back home on the following Tuesday, but since I've had no work to do lately because of my injury, I decided to stay longer and come home on Friday. I can't tell you how nice it was just to hang out with the folks! It was hard to leave.



Speaking of my injury, while I was in California, my hematomas finally decided to start decreasing in both size and pain! I couldn't believe it. Not sure what I did for that to happen, but whatever it is, I want to keep doing it! I've actually been in the office this week. Yeah! I go back to the dr. on Friday for an update. I'll let ya'll know how that goes.



Anyways, I'll leave ya with a picture of the parents and their grandkids from while we we in Cali.

Yeah, I'm Still Alive

But a lot has happened since I last posted! Well, maybe not really a lot, seeing how I've basically been confined to the house for the last month. The month before that wasn't all exciting either - basically travelling someplace different every week for work, and getting tired of it. So, when I got sent to Louisiana a month ago, I said enough was enough and got hit by a truck. A month ago today. Hence being confined to the house. Now, before you freak out, I'll tell you that I didn't break anything, and nothing was fractured. Basically I'm alright. There was major bruising and I have a lump on each of my thighs that the doctors are calling hematomas. They're unsightly, they hurt like hell, and they say it'll take 6 months to a year to heal. That means sitting at home with my feet up and ice on the boo boos whenever possible. Fun fun fun! Work has been great for me, and has sent some stuff here for me to do at my request so I don't go too crazy. Though it's hard to have the laptop or keyboard on my lap. The workers comp doctors haven't been so great, but I'll get into that later.

So, what exactly happened, you ask? I was on a job site logging soil borings from the tailgate of my rented pickup truck when one of my subs backed their F-350 1 ton duelly up to about 6-8 feet away from me. He put his truck in park, left it running, and started to get out. The truck then slipped out of park and into reverse, the door knocking him down, and the truck backing up right into me and pinning me between the two vehicles. It hurt. It hurt bad. But, I have to be extremely thankful that most of my height is legs, and I had an extra 6" due to my steel toe boots. If I hadn't had the boots on, or if I were a little shorter, it would have crushed my pelvis. Things being the way they were, I got crushed where I carry most of my weight and where the largest bones of the body are. I got lucky, very lucky. The following pictures are of my rental truck. The two trucks never touched each other.

Anyways, that's about all that's been going on in my life lately. I've been working on a few projects, read a few books, and slept when I can. Just thought I would update everyone while I was awake/aware enough to do it. Here are some of my WIPs (I don't have a picture of the most recent one that I started) and my one project that I actually finished.

This is a crocheted shawl using Rainbow boucle. I decided after this picture was taken that it needed fringe. Not sure how I feel about it, but it's nice and warm and I love the pattern. My most recent FO.

My first attempt at socks! I'm so clost to being done, but got tired of dealing with 5 needles. Maybe I'll get the inspiration to finish at least one sock and that will give me the inspiration to make a second one!

And my knitted self-fringing shawl that I have been working on FOREVER! Every now and again I get it under my skin to work on it, but I get about two rows done and can't bring myself to work on it anymore. It will get finished, eventually.

So, that's it on my end. Hope everyone is doing much better then me. I'll get into what's going on with the doctors later. I need to get this keyboard off my lap now :)

Why...

have I not been wanting to craft lately? I just don't get it. I have a knit shawl that I want to finish so I can start on new projects, and I'm still finding all sorts of new projects that I want to start, but I just can't get myself motivated to knit. Maybe it's all the travelling?

I'm so exhausted from travelling that I actually slept until 9:30 this morning. That's not like me. And I had to pull over into a parking lot to nap on my way home from work yesterday because I was falling asleep while I was driving. Not good. And to keep you updated - I leave again for Texas City on Monday, come home Wed. then I'm off to Dallas on Thurs with my capoeira group. Yea! 2 days off, but yet I'm still travelling. Then the next week I'm in Longview, and the week after back in Texas City. And supposedly Lake Charles Louisiana the week after with another trip to Texas City the week after THAT. One of my clients wants me to do some work out in Louisiana (not sure where) and right now I'm travelling through the middle of June. Ugh.

But, enough of the complaints. My sister and I took my nephews to Lowes last week and bought some plants for our gardens. I'm so excited about what I got! Too bad I'm not home to enjoy them... Anyways, lookie at what I got!

Stargazer Lilies - My favoritest flower in the whole world! And from what the tags say, they sould be really happy in my garden! They're so pertty.

And orange/red Lantana's. Woot! They look pertty too.

Of course, I may not be obsessed with my knitting lately, but I have been obsessed with my babies. They've been so good lately.

Waiting for Daddy...

Woot! Daddy's home!

We're so good!

For some reason, my layout isn't working for me today. And I've just spent way too much time struggling with it. Oh well. You'll survive, right? Hope ya have a GREAT weekend!

I May Be a Genius in Disguise

So, not 5 minutes after my last post, I decided to play around and may have actually figured it out! Woot! Now to get home and get the rest of my codes to post....

Web Rings

So, I'm involved in several web rings out there, but for some reason I cannot get the links added into my template! I'm getting so frustrated it's not even funny. I have literally pasted that code in between every line of my html code and either it doesn't show up or i get an error message. GRRRR! Oh yeah, and I had one of the rings on my blog before this whole switchover to google and it has disappeared. So, I've requested the code again, but can't get it to show! WTF? Anybody out there using google blogger that can help me? It would be so greatly appreciated!

So good to be home!

So, I'm home. For and entire week. Yeah! I looked back at my calendar for this year and realize I have been home for an entire 3 weeks this year. No wonder I'm so sick of travelling! Looks like I will be home this week, and then it's off travelling again for another 5 weeks. Ugh. The good thing about it is I will be receiving some really nice paychecks before ENSR takes over and I start getting comp time in place of my overtime.

Mom and Dad drove my new car out two weeks ago now, and I've managed to drive it 3 times. I ran some errands today in the cold and the rain and was enjoying driving it so much that I was looking for more errands to run! How odd for me. Usually when I've been travelling so much all I want to do is sit and veg. Here's a picture of my new toy:

Isn't she pretty? It's a 2005 Ford Escape Limited and oh so nice. Mom and Dad decided we shouldn't have a car payment anymore so, they gave it to us. Now we need to decide whether we want to sell the PT Cruiser or the Xterra so we can pay off the Xterra and have one less bill. How nice would that be?

The dogs seem to have missed me while I've been away. They are all following me around the house and piling on top of me when I sit. Even Smudge. Took some pictures of them today - Sorry that Stitch is a little obscene....But the pictures are cute!

Pay attention to us Momma!

We're sitting so pretty...

Aren't we cute?

Stitch is King of the Chair!

I don't know what possessed the dogs to start laying on top of the chair like that, but Zero does it too. I guess they're taking lessons from the cat.

Well, unfortunately my life hasn't been all that interesting lately. Working too much can do that to you I guess. I haven't even touched my knitting lately. It's so much of a hassle to try to bring it on the plane with all my work crap, and I haven't had much time for it while I've been home either. Hopefully I can make some progress this week. I look forward to being able to train capoeira while I'm home too - even if it's only two nights. I've been trying to practice my kicks on the road, but I seldom have enough space in the hotel room or the hotel gym (if the hotel has a gym) to work on that without hurting myself.

My throat is killing me today. I think I'm gonna make myself some tea and watch The Neverending Story on T.V. Ya'll have a great night and a Happy Easter!

Oh yeah, I forgot

For those of you waiting for this news...I went to see the nephrologist yesterday to get the results of my tests and see if I can have babies. And her answer was my kidney function is still stable at 50%. That's good news. The protein I lose did not significantly increase when taken off the Atacand. More good news. But then, she brought out the most recent study of pregnant women with FSGS. Of course, the most recent study was 1988, but the results are still valid. And here they are: 50% of the fetus's die. To top it off, 50% of the women suffered irreversible kidney damage and were on dialysis within 4 years. Not good statistics, eh? So, it was highly recommended that I not have babies. :( And these statistics didn't include my problem with blood clots. So, that's that. Guess we'll have to look into adoption! And in the meantime, spoil those little nephews of mind like crazy!

Josh

Ok, I must start off by saying that Josh Groban is a major cutie. And boy, can the dude sing! Mom and Dad gave us tickets to his concert for Christmas and off we went on Thursday! Kyle said he would just "suck it up" and go with me. Turns out he really enjoyed it. I must say it was one of the best concerts I have been to. And not only can he sing, but he's great with the crowd as well. Definitely recommend you make it to one of his shows if you get the chance.

The opening band was wonderful as well. Angelique Kidjo is the name. Music is African, and has a wonderful beat if you don't mind not knowing what the heck they are singing. I fell in love with her voice as well. Check her out when you get a chance. http://www.kidjo.com/. She sung a duet with Josh during the concert that was very moving. It's going to be on her new album coming out May 1st. I can't wait!

Mom and Dad are on their way out from Cali to visit for a while. Mom's spring break is next week, so she'll be out here all week. Dad will be leaving Wed. to go back to work. Unfortunately I'm leaving Monday to head out to Odessa so I'll only get to see them tomorrow evening. I'm so sad that I can't spend more time with them!

On the craft front, not much has been done lately. I've been working on my self fringing shawl when I have the time, but the time just isn't there. Work has been driving me insane and shipping me off to all corners of Texas. I try to bring my knitting with me, but by the time I get back to the hotel at night I don't want to do anything but sleep. Which is what I want to do now. Been going all day - mowed the lawn, ran errands, fed nephews, ran errands with sister and nephews, fed nephews again, entertained nephews... Finally have a chance to sit down, and I just want to do nothing. At least I'm blogging though, right?

Sweater Complete!

Well, almost...I still have to weave in the ends, but you can't really see them in the picture! It's a little small, but I did that on purpose as I'm in the process of attempting to lose weight. And I really need to wear like a tank top or something under it when I do wear it out in public - which probably won't be until next year as the temperatures are already in the 80's out here and it doesn't look like it's going to cool off again anytime soon. Oh well. I'm still proud! It's the first wearable I have made (other then shawls) and it turned out exactly as expected! And I didn't even crochet up a guage. Bad Jenny! When will I ever learn? Anyways, the specifics - the pattern came out of the winter Simply Creative Crochet and I used Patons Classic Wool in colors I can't remember off the top of my head (I'm at work) and Patons SWS in Natural Navy (the stripes). I'll let you know what the brown and natural colors are when I get home. So, now to the picture!

Well, what do you think?

Happy Friday to Me!

I received my package from the Magic Ball Swap from Bron! She really outdid herself. Check out all the goodies I got!

I know I was supposed to wait until I was working with the yarn to find all the trinkets inside, but I have a sweater to finish before I can start another project so I cheated. :) Here's all the fun stuff from inside...The little grey sheep is a tape measure - his little arm comes out. And he is so adorable! I absolutely love everything Bron. Thank you so very much!

On the work front, got out to Canadian safe and sound on Monday, and on Tuesday we cancelled the job. The temperature was in the mid 20's with 20 to 30 mile per hour winds bringing the wind chill into the single digits. We decided it was a bad idea for the driller's helpers to be sticking their hands in buckets of water to decon equipment. Not to mention other equipment was already freezing up. So, shut down and made plans for heading home. Woke up Wednesday to this:

Seems to be a trend here. Good thing we postponed the work! Definitely wouldn't want to be drilling in snow with temperatures in the teens and wind chill below freezing. It's supposed to be in the 60's on Monday. Flying back out Sunday. Wish us luck!

And to close, I found this picture on my camera when I downloaded pictures tonight. Aren't they the cutest?

Ok, off to work on my sweater. Only a sleeve and a half and the edging around the neck to go!

What do I do?

I just hopped on my magic ball pals blog to find that her hubby bought her yarn for her birthday. And not just any yarn...he bought her the same yarn and colorway that I bought her for the magic ball swap. So, the question is, do I keep the yarn for myself and buy her something different? Or do I just send her the yarn anyway with a little note saying I bought it before her hubby did? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Shopping day

i'm heading out shopping today to get some trinkets to put into my magic ball. still waiting for my yarn to come. hopefully it will be here waiting for me when i get back from canadian. i think i'm also going to buy yarn for the sweater i want to make from Simply Creative Crochet if i can find colors i like. unfortunately my michaels doesn't carry as much wool as i would like and finding patons sws and merino may be difficult. we'll just have to wait and see! i'll shower and head out as soon as hubby leaves for work. in the meantime, i'll be working on some WIPs that i need to finish before i will allow myself to work on that sweater!

I Found It!

I've been looking for Simply Creative Crochet Fall 2006 issue since its release date, and I've not been able to locate it. So, I'm here in Longview and my co-worker wanted to go into Books A Million and get a magazine. Just for shits and giggles, I decided to look, and there it was! I was so excited. And it was supposed to be taken off the self on either Jan 9th or 19th (something like that - I remember it had a 9. I think it was the 9th. I'm just to lazy to walk across the room and look). I can't say the magazine was really worth the wait, but there is a sweater pattern in there that I love and was the reason I was looking for it, so it make the cost worth it at least.

Today is my nephews 2 month birthday! They're getting so big so fast. They weighed in at 9 pounds 8 oz! Here's some pics that Jess sent me today:

Aren't they just so cute?!?! They've been taking up all my free time at home. Look forward to seeing them again!

On the work side, looks like I'll be heading home from Longview tomorrow. We pretty much kicked butt this week getting things done. Of course, it helps that the weather has been so beautiful. Mid-60's and sunny! Absolutely perfect sampling weather. Oh, and it has been decided that I'm heading up to Canadian (2 hours north of Amarillo) on Sunday and drilling all week. Not sure that that's where I'm most needed, but oh well. It will be good to be drilling again. Been a long time since I've done anything other than groundwater sampling. Should check the weather.

So, I think I'm going to do that and then play a little. Maybe even do some reading....

Work Sucks

So, I'm supposed to go home tomorrow and then leave again on Sunday to go to Canadian. And the week after, I'm supposed to go to Longview. Well, I'm still going home tomorrow (thank goodness) but now I'm going to Longview next week. And I'm supposed to come back to Houston, go to Canadian, and go to East Mountain the week after. WTF? How is that supposed to happen? Should be interesting to say the least. Needless to say, I need to have discussions with three project managers to figure out exactly where I'm going to be. Watch me end up in the office. I could just smack some people sometimes.

On a lighter note, I ordered the yarn for my magic ball swap! I was bad and ordered some for myself too. :) Shame on me. I'm very excited though. And I will finally force myself to make some socks! I cruised by the ville last night just to see what's been going on since I joined the freaks, and they're doing sign ups for a wool swap. I just may have to join. I wasn't part of the bruhaha that went down, but I am friends with some of those that were. Does that make me a bad person? I just love wool yarn and had such a blast doing the last wool swap...

So, I have recently gotten back in contact with a friend that I had like 15 years ago. We kept in touch here and there after I moved away from Pennsylvania in 92, but lost touch many years ago. Anyways, I got a message from her through classmates and we've been emailing ever since. I was so incredibly excited. Turns out we are still so very much alike, after all these years. It turns out she even has a secret passion for crochet! If you're reading this, Tammy, I'm very glad to know you again! When are you coming to visit? :)

Alright. I guess I should call Kyle and let him know my change in plans. He'll be happy to hear that I'm not leaving until Monday now. Maybe I'll even have some time to work on one of my many WIPs this weekend as well as study for my PG exam...

It has begun!

The magic ball swap over at fiber freaks that is! I'm so excited. This is my first swap with the freaks. I already have so many ideas of what yarn I want to use and what I want to wrap up in it. Now I just need to find the time to hit the stores! I'm stuck in Houston this week, then north of Amarillo next week, and east Texas the week after. By the time I get home, the swap will be over! Not good. But, I'll find a way to make it work. Time to do some blog stalking!

Why?

Why is it that people are so rude? Was up in Odessa Monday night and didn't sleep a wink. Why, you ask? Because from the time I got to the hotel at 8 pm until sometime in the wee morning hours, the people staying above me decided it was cool to stomp around their room! I swore they were going to fall through at any minute. And no, I'm not exaggerating - it was that bad. Especially in the bathroom. I finally gave up at midnight and called the front desk. They said they would call them and sure enough after I hung up I heard them stomp from the sitting area to the telephone. I got an entire 10 minutes of quiet after that. Then the stomping began again and this time it was worse! I was so tempted to kill them. I eventually passed out from shear exhaustion, but only got about half hour of sleep before being woken up again. Not fun.

So, got up Tues. morning and went down to breakfast. There were 6 tables and all full. Four of the tables had people sitting and enjoying a cup of coffee with their newspaper. Went and got a plate and started eating standing up. Woohoo! Finally, someone decided to get up and my coworker and I grabbed our luggage and headed for the table with our food only to get cut off by some guy. Drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. WTF? At this point in time I'm in a very sour mood. Didn't get sleep, had to eat standing up. We gave up on the table and headed toward the SUV we rented to see this:

Yup! That's snow! And I got to drive in it. Of course the streets weren't clear. Lots of fun driving to the site (and on the site, for that matter - seeing how it had no roads). But, I do have to admit that the snow saved my day. I haven't seen snow in years and was really excited. I think there was a total of maybe 1.5-2 inches. Not much, but snow is snow, right? It snowed on us the entire time we were outside working too. Eventually we were done with everything we could do without our water delivery, so we hopped in the warm car and waited. And it stopped snowing. Go figure.

The rest of the day went rather smoothly until we go to the airport. My co-worker forgot he had his lighter in his pocket so he stashed it in his backpack hoping it would get through security. It did. Me, on the other hand, didn't. Apparently I look like a threat or something because they decided for no reason that they needed to frisk me and then scan my boots with some machine. I just don't get it.

Today was a long day at work and I'm so exhausted. Kyle wants me to play WOW and level my mage, I want to craft, but I think all that's going to happen tonight is I'm going to sign off here and go to bed. I slept through my alarm this morning for an entire hour (hence the long day at work). Don't want that to happen again! I'll leave you with a picture of my babies on our new furniture....

I wish their eyes wouldn't turn blue with the flash though. It makes them look evil. Especially Smudge. But, I guess you could say it brings out their true colors! lol.

Night night.