Felt Like Knitting

Beautiful Building

My Project for Today

Doing a little mobile blogging this morning... Turning an upholstered chair into a throne for Vacation Bible School. Looking forward to being done with the painting so I can add the jewels!

Blog reader?

I'm glad I came back to my blog in time to find out that Google Reader is going away.  This gives me a bit of time to find a new reader.  I would have been very sad indeed to have lost all my feeds.

I have Feeddler on my phone and it works well.  But I saw that some people use Feedly, so I downloaded that as well.  I like the way Feedly looks, but it will take some time to get used to it.  I can't quite get the layout yet.

What reader do you use and what do you like about it?

Ten on Tuesday - 10 Things I Did This Weekend

  Ice cream social - yum!

Today's post will not be a problem!  We had a super busy weekend.  It was so busy that we didn't even go to all the events to which we were invited.

1. Wedding - Our friends' daughter got married and the ceremony was lovely.  I helped cut the cake and that went pretty well considering the cake had a ton of whipped cream icing and the cake itself was frozen.

2. Church - I went to church like usual yesterday, but this time I was in the pews instead of up front playing guitar.  The college guitarists are back from school and they were playing.  It felt very weird.

3. Worship planning meeting - After having lunch with Steve and a friend after church, I went to the monthly worship planning meeting.  That's always very interesting and usually a lot of fun at the same time.

4. End of year music department party - The choir, bell choir and band got together for an end of the season party.  The band plays all year long, but that didn't stop us from being at the party!  :)  While at the party, I played...

5. Cornhole - This is a fun game.  I had heard of it, but hadn't played it before.  I was very bad at first, but got better during the second game. 

6. Ice cream social - Our neighbors have an ice cream social every Memorial Day.  It's always a lot of fun and the weather was perfect this year.

7. Graduation party - We were invited to three parties, but only made it to one.   

8. Throne painting - I'm creating a prop for Vacation Bible School.  Probably more on this in a future post...

9. Book club reading:  I started July's selection - The Charm School

10. Phone conversations with my dad, my mom and one of my brothers - I always enjoy talking with my family.

What did you do this weekend?  To share your activities with the Ten on Tuesday group, go to Carole's blog.

A Profusion of Peonies

Peony bouquet

Hello!  I hope you are all having a nice long weekend.  I've missed conversing with all of you and I hope you are doing well!

I have a lot of projects I want to work on today, but this morning I decided that my peonies needed attention.  They bloomed so well this year and the blossoms were all heavy and pointing to the ground.  It's hard to enjoy a peony bloom when it has face planted into the mulch. So I trimmed most of them off the plants and I'm now enjoying them in a vase.  It feels rather luxurious to have cut so many peony blossoms!

Some of the blooms didn't open up well before they hit the ground and they were starting to turn brown on the edges.  So I've now added another project to my list - making potpourri!  It's been years since I've made potpourri and I decided to follow these instructions.  (Actually I haven't even read the article yet, but I'm using their idea of drying the petals in shallow boxes.)

Drying peony petals

I'm off to my next project - painting a chair to make it into a throne for Vacation Bible School.  What projects are keeping you busy?

Greetings from the plastic table

Hey there, everyone!  Greetings from the plastic table.  :)  After my last post last, I brought our plastic table up from the basement and Steve helped me create this work space.  Maybe I'll get something fancier in the future, but for now it works great!  Here's what I like about it:

I have an area dedicated for all my work.  Before, I worked at the computer, the kitchen table, the kitchen counters...

It is big enough that I can spread out.  I usually have a lot of papers out while I'm working and this gives me plenty of room to see them all.

I am removed from the kitchen.  When I am working in the kitchen, I want to eat.  My workspace is just next door in the dining room, but far enough removed that I'm not constantly looking toward the pantry.

There is a lot more room for improvement in my work flow, work process - whatever you want to call it.  But I am feeling so much better now and I'm confident that I can take the next step to getting organized.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Treading water

Rule of thirds practice from photo class

I keep wanting to write, but there are so many things I want to say that it doesn't feel write to pop in and make a quick post.  So I'm just going to quickly get it all out here then later I can post little things that I want.  Does that even make sense?

Life is extremely busy right now, as I'm sure it is for most of you.  Being on the Worship & Music and Contemporary Band teams at church, December through early January is a hectic time.  In November I was elected as council/congregation president so I was also transitioning for that in December.  I worked to pass on my band duties while learning what the president does and preparing for the annual council retreat.

Add to that the website I developed.  (Did I ever show that to you?)  As I've learned, one is never done with a website, especially the first year.  (The first show registration, the first this, the first that...)  I am now working on summer camp registration and tickets for the next show.  I've missed both of those deadlines, but I have to be okay with it.  I don't like being a weak link in the organization, but there is only so much I can do.  Fortunately the other board members have been helpful and understanding.

Oh yes, I also started a photography class in December.  Steve told me there would never be a good time to take a class.  He's right, but having one more thing is a little stressful.  A new lesson comes out today and that make me three classes behind.  Unfortunately each class is only up for two weeks so I need to sign on soon.  (For those interested, the class is through ed2go and I signed up through my library system.)

And I signed up for Move More Eat Well 2.0 led by Cathy Zielske through Big Picture Classes.  It will be really good and I started the scrapbook, but I haven't had time to get back to it.  And I started stress eating yesterday...  Today is another day!

The other things like Project Life (not sure I will get to that until February), Bible study, band practice, sore back, family... well right now I'm feeling pretty stressed out even though these are mostly good things.  I'm just going to have to do what I can do and get to the other things later.  Except for my family.  I try to put them first.

I have been enjoying keeping up with you all through an app called Feeddler.  I'm not sure everyone is getting my comments, but I'll look into that later.  I know sometimes we only post the good things on our blogs, so I'm sorry for this "real life" post.  I hope you are all doing well in your real lives!

Ten on Tuesday: 10 Favorite Things to Photograph at Christmastime

Since I don't take great photos (yet!), I don't usually take a lot of Christmas photos.  So this list also contains things that I hope to photograph at Christmastime.

1.  My family members on Christmas morning, especially opening special gifts

2.  Snow (if it's around)

3.  Our Christmas trees

4.  Outdoor decorations

5.  Family members wearing or using the knitted gifts I've made them

6.  Christmas cookies

7.  Poinsettias and other Christmas flowers

8.  My Nativity scene

9.  Our mantle

10.  Christmas activities

 

What do you like to photograph at Christmas?  Share your list over at Caroleknits.net!

 

I love my new cake pop maker!

I've been attracted to cake pop makers for a long time.  But I keep resisting the urge to buy one.  When I went home to visit my parents earlier this month, I bought one for my niece's Christmas present.  I still resisted getting one for myself.  "They're just a gadget and this fad will pass."  "Sweets aren't good for me." "It's kind of silly to have a machine that makes little balls of cake."

But then yesterday I thought to myself that I could make gluten free cake pops for my Christmas Eve guests.  Wouldn't my gluten intolerant guests enjoy having a sweet treat like everyone else?  It is my duty as a hostess to buy a cake pop maker and make cake pops!

So last night around 8:30 I went to Kohl's and caught a great sale.  (The Babycakes Cake Pop Maker was on sale for $14.99 and I had a coupon.)   I got the cake pop maker, the cookbook and a cake mix.  Oh, and some clothes for Emma...  Then I ran to Michael's to get wrapping supplies so I could make cake pops for a hostess gift for a party we have this weekend.  By 11:00 or so, Steve, Emma and I were trying our first cake pops.  Delicious!

There is another kind of cake pop out there that is made by mixing cake crumbs and frosting together then forming the mixture into a ball.  I have had that kind once before and it was a texture violation for me.  But I really like the cake pops made by this machine.  One very helpful resource for me was this article from Love from the Oven.  The lovely gift tag is a free printable from Sass & Peril.

Ten on Tuesday: 10 Mittens/Mitts I Want to Knit

This is a perfect topic for me right now!  I have several pairs of fingerless mitts on my Christmas knitting list.  Not in any particular order...

Striped Fingerless Gloves

Prickly

Fable Fingerless Mitts

Vancouver Fog

Fallberry Mitts

Black Lodge Mitts

Blue King Cabled Mitts

Scotland Yard Mitts

Quilted Lattice Mitts

One Cable Mitts

Share your mitt/mitten selections at caroleknits.net!