Gotta Knit!

Went on a Tour

Saturday morning started bright and early with us quickly swallowing our breakfast to head out to a stranger's yard.    The Man and I were volunteers for the annual Decatur Garden tour.  If you are local and happened to have gone we were at garden #2.    Nicest folks live there!  They brought us out coffee and muffins then tried to feed us Bar-B-Q for lunch.   We sat on the front porch of their 1929 Bungalow welcoming visitors to their garden.   My favorite part of their garden was this huge black Tupelo Tree.

 

 

 

Another front porch I loved.  This is seriously Southern with all the hanging plants.   I swear I thought I was in the pages of Southern Living Magazine!   There was even a sleepy cat on the front porch steps.

 

The Man and I mainly go to get ideas on what to do and what cool plants are out there.  

 

 

 

But have to say I really liked the idea of having a sitting parlor in the backyard.

 

 

One of the gardens was a front yard converted into a a lovely vegetable garden.   They had melons all over the place along with fall veggies like kale, spinach, lettuces, etc.

 

 

Then there was this bird bath nestled in plants on the side of house.

 The Man and I are having dreams of maybe one day being on the tour.

Ch-ch-change

Popping back by in case anyone is still here.   There has been lots of change going on around here.   Some of it I'm involved with and some of the changes to be I am a bystander.    All of the change will be good when the end results come but going through the process  can be challenging.  No major drama going on here but it is not my news or life so I will not be posting on it. 

Internet surfing this morning and checking out blogs came across the Holstee Manifesto.

Last Weekend

 

Last Thursday,  we jumped in the Mini an sped Northwards headed to New Jersey.   The Man's family was throwing a bash for his Grandmother's 90th birthday!

Isn't his tee tiny Grandmother a doll!    There were over 40 people at the restaurant to honor her and fun was had by all.   She left the restaurant with the coolest sunglasses on looking all of the Rock Star that she is.                     

We spent the rest of the time visiting family and me knitting up a storm.   I had to rip out what I had previously knitted on my linen raglan sweater and start all over again with a smaller needle.   Turns out I did have correct gauge.   With my issues with gauge I had not one but two master knitters check my gauge which also included the designer.   She thought I needed to drop down a needle since the yarn was known to stretch.  Figured it was a good idea to follow her advice.   Quickly ripped it out somewhere in Georgia and cast on somewhere in South Carolina.   By the time I was headed home, I had almost doubled what I had ripped out so was pleased with the progress.   Would show you but decided to leave the knitting with The Man.   Didn't think security at the airport would like metal cable needles trying to board a plane.

                

Which brings me to my incredibly brief fling with New York City.

We are headed to the New Jersey entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel here and what a great view of the city.   The Man was trying to convince to stand up in the car through the sunroof to take the shot.   Decided that was a wee bit to touristy to me.     The entrance is gorgeous and would love to have taken a photo but last time I tried that I received a very stern lecture from a none to happy police officer.   Think it was my wide-eyed look with my Southern drawl and not fitting a Terrorist profile that I was able to keep my camera that day.                  

Once in the city there was of course TALL buildings

                     

                                 

                                         

and taxis galore.

                  

as we zoomed down 34th street,  I was able to see the Empire State Building.

    

then we were in another tunnel headed to Queens for my flight out of LaGuardia.   The Man dropped me off and was headed to Rockaway Beach to go surfing with his sister.  

As for my knitting and The Man,  they both are meeting at another airport in two days.   I'm trying out the Jet Set lifestyle and headed to another big city this week.   In the immortal words of Austin Powers  "Yeah Baby!"

Feeling Zippy

Besides the usual holiday weekend stuff of going to a cook out, having a picnic, naps galore and watching fireworks we had some other type of excitement in our household.

The Man went and got a Mini Cooper S this weekend.

   


We were all over town driving that thing.    I even went all Jason Bourne (well sorta) in an underground parking lot.   What a fun drive!

Lost a Ton of Weight

Was a little busy all of last week getting ready to get rid of a ton or so of weight.

Almost all of that was on the lawn.

Then we were filling up the carport.  

 

once that gave out we were headed to the driveway.

there was even more on the driveway but I had to stop snapping photos and start taking cold hard cash!

First person showed up an hour before the sale and the last person was after the sale leaving us a note of what he'd taken.   We met a lot of nice people, got rid of a bunch of stuff and made several hundred more than we had hoped.   

The Man and I went out to a locally owned restaurant, Farmstead 303  that gets almost all of it's food from local farmers to celebrate.   I just had to get the most summerish drink which was a Honeydew Cooler.   Basically Honeydew Martini sorta.    Both The Man and I were asleep by 8pm that night.    Lots of work but so worth it for decluttering and funding new house projects!   You gotta love losing a ton of weight!

Extroversion in the Muggle World

Thanks to Knitch, I received an all points bulletin that this Saturday is World Wide Knitting in Public day.  For those of us in metro Atlanta,  Knitch is having the throw down party for all the extroverting  fiberolics which is also known as Atlanta Folks knitting in public at Park Tavern in Piedmont Park.  Crocheter are welcome too.                       

                        

I do hope to be there exposing my knitterly ways to the general public like I usually do.   Get a thrill thinking that all over the world others will be doing the same.   Where will you be knitting in public this Saturday?

Lazy Holiday Weekend

What a lazy but event filled Memorial weekend we have had.   It all started with a neighbor taking his young son for his 1st camping experience which was in their backyard.

                                                                                then we had appetizers off the bush.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                           

                                                                        

followed by dessert!

 

                                                                                              

               

Then Saturday we had Dog Olympics in another neighbor's backyard.  That is Annie not quite making a hard left turn.

 

                                                                                                 

and there was an invite to a soft opening of a local restaurant,  cruising the Art's Festival and having an amazing Italian dinner last night courtesy of my visiting  brother-in-law who's a chef.   His girlfriend showed him a photograph of a meal and he whipped it out.   Yeah, I was amazed too.

Changes

It's been a long time pondering but will begin to slowly work on dusting off, rearranging, spiffying up and just doing some plain Spring Cleaning on this blog.   Been wanting to make this blog visually more of me and less of Typepad but did not have the know how to do it and lets be honest I'm way to frugal to hire someone to buff it up for me.   Flinging money at yarn yes but hiring a qualified professional to buff up and make pretty a blog I do for personal enjoyment?   Um, no way.  

Thought this might help with me getting a clue.   Started reading it last night from the very beginning but skimmed through it since I had already done what they were telling me to do.   You know, how to set up a new account with them, etc.    But I have high hopes as I get deeper it will help me with backgrounds, changing up and generally giving me some brilliant ideas.

The other thing I've been pondering for a long, long time was getting a nice camera.   Now I love my Canon tiny digital camera and I've gotten good photos from it for many years now but it can only do so much.   Last weekend I just happened to see a commercial for this camera and I spent the next day and half reading all I could on it.   Sunday I dragged The Man out to the store and home I came with a new toy!   Had my nose in that manual last night to but can only read so much  before my head is to full of vital info.   Course I've been throwing it into auto focus and snapping like a mad woman.   

It's the Nikon D5000.   Loving it! 

Scents of Summer

Growing up there was a huge Gardenia bush my Mom had planted just right outside my bedroom window.   For me summer are those hot nights with the scent of Gardenias in the air.   Imagine my delight when I got home today and found this in our backyard.

There were just enough blooms to put a bouquet in the Den and one in our guest bedroom. Wish I could wear one in my hair tomorrow but to many sneezy folks at work for that ever to be accomplished.       

                  

Now if I could only keep Jack's nose out of them.   I keep finding him in the Den with his big black wet honker of a nose shoved in a Gardenia.

Knit Stuff

Figured it was long over due to throw up some knit related stuff on this blog.  Little over a week ago came the day when I suddenly woke up an became one year older and hopefully wiser.   One of my cousins was in town and a local cousin came up to help me celebrate my day.   We had a grand ole time but I wanted to share what Kathleen gave me.

It is a knitted washcloth made with Aloo yarn which is sorta like a loofa but softer and in yarn form.   She'd made me one years ago but I had used it so much that it was now worn down to a super soft washcloth.

The really cool thing about the washcloth is the pocket the soap goes in!  Brilliant pattern design if I do say so.  Wasn't she sweet to throw in the soap too?

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But that wasn't all!   Think she was tired of seeing my Tesco shopping bag as my knitting bag.   Now I'm a styling and profiling knitting machine.

 

Sorry about the sideways photo.   Just got a brand new camera and have to learn a lot including how to make the photo's act right.