A pic of the second strip for Arenne's poncho. I have added stitches to this one too, apparently I am boucle challenged. I had to add this picture to prove to Michelle that I am still working on the ponchos and not playing with the above beautiful hooks. ;)

The first afghan I crocheted. I made this around 9 years ago, the stitches have loosened a bit from washing, but it's held up pretty well. 

So I'm onto strip number two.

I've not had as much time to work on it today, especially after I conked out for quite awhile this morning. This illness is wiping me out, big time.

Tonight I took the girls to a school rollerskating party, which they had forgotten to bring the note home about. Honestly, it was the last thing I wanted to do, but they were way too excited about it. So, my parents took the boys, and off we went. We had a really good time, they were absolutely adorable, and did pretty well for their first time skating.

I have a doctor's appointment in the morning, hopefully they can get me fixed up. Back to the poncho.

Here I sit

feeling horrible, this illness is kicking my behind. Kids are blissfully asleep, laundry is switched over, living room is an absolute mess. I have got to get my behind in gear and get it picked up. I am so relieved, someone has been working for me, so I don't go back until Fri. Even that seems to soon, but it is so nice not to have to worry about working right now.

I finished one of the poncho strips for Arenne's poncho, and have started the second. As I posted, I had added an extra stitch, and it appears I decided to do one more later on, but I am just going to go with it. I feel like I've frogged it enough. Arenne is very excited, she asked if we would be done in 3 minutes lol. I wish I were that good. Hopefully I can get them both done this week.

I work on my dishcloth turned scarf in the car, etc. I keep it in my purse for when I am stuck by trains, in the pickup line at school, or in the fortunate moments when I am actually able to go buy myself a latte and sit and wait for it. My felting project sits lonely next to me on the desk. Poor thing.

Apparently I added an extra stitch. Thankfully when I went for more yarn I bought two more skeins for each poncho, so now I don't have to worry about not having enough. As you can see, I've done quite a bit since the extra stitch fiasco, and seeing as how I 've already frogged a bunch of rows once for doing this, I am just going with it. Hoping it will hide when it's all put together. ;) Please also disregard the pen colored on the desk, it's hard to keep things drawing free in our house.

Progress as of tonight. This picture is pretty dark. 

Progress so far tonight. :) 

Okey dokey, here is the first row redone, complete with 24 dc. HOORAY! Let's hope I don't have to frog as much through the rest of it. It's been slow going getting used to the boucle, but not as bad as I originally thought it would be.

So the row from the last picture has turned into this, 10 chains. I carefully pulled it apart and am starting over, only having 21 dc worried me, and I'd rather start over in the beginning than be mad at myself in the end.  

First row of one of the girls ponchos. It seems so small, but my guage is on. I was supposed to get 24 dc, but I am only at 21, not sure what happened there. 

A poncho has been started

So far all I have is my chain. Oh my. Granted I started it, and then didn't have much time, but this boucle is really intimidating me. It's hard to see where each chain is in all of it. I really hope it will get easier as I work with it more. I'm thinking I will do the four strips-2 for each poncho-and then sew them together and do the fur at the end. That way one of the girls won't have to wait longer than the other. Hopefully.

I am sick, it is making me very crabby. I am so tired of being sick and catching everything. Blech. My hands are also really sore, which makes me more crabby. Crabby, crabby, crabby. Yippee.

Can't sleep

and boy is it fun. The rest of my house is asleep, the only noises are occasional snores, rustling, and coughs. We have an awful cold running through here, Mr. Blue has had it for two weeks now. All weekend plans have been scrapped and we are vegging at home. Hopefully we will all be feeling better very soon.

My hands have been sore, I've worked some on my scarf and I am thinking I will start Abbie and Arenne's ponchos tomorrow. They are too excited about them, reminding me today that lots of other girls wear them at school lol. It's too funny seeing them as kindergartners and being "big girls."

I'd also like to excavate my desk and I need to file the pile of school paperwork listing precariously to the open side of the desk. I have gotten some Christmas shopping for the kiddos done on ebay, this could possibly be the earliest I have started yet. Drew will be getting Thomas the Tank Engine bedding set, and I can finally get my behind in gear and decorate his room. I picked up a Thomas border and some posters awhile back, but in the hopes of moving I hadn't put them up yet. Now that I know we'll be here for another couple years, it's time to put it up. I also found music boxes for my girls. :)

Bleh

I am politiced out. Very saddened by the outcome of the elections, but what are you going to do? Hopefully President Bush will prove me wrong in the next four years.

I am still working on my scarf, and the bag. I'm just about half finished with my scarf-hooray! and the bag is still in the same darn spot as I haven't picked it up in a week.

I now have quite the yarn stash and I love it!! Ebay rocks, and so does yummy yarn.

Now, I am off, as Big C has gotten a hold of a marker, and apparently he is the canvas.

So I bought

Stitch 'n Bitch today. :D I can't wait to start reading it, BUT, I am making myself work more on my scarf. I know I will not be able to resist long, but I have to get some of these projects done.

Okay, at least one.

I also got some delicious black yarn in the mail today that I bought on ebay, I am planning on making myself a poncho with it. I love having this yarn stash, it is growing all the time. I won two very pretty skeins of purple of yarn as well, I CANNOT wait to get them!

Blech

First of all, I have to work today, and I am just really not in the mood. Secondly, the yarn I chose for my boys' hats just isn't working. Thankfully they each have hats to wear, so it's not like they will be hatless, but still! Maybe I will make them scarves instead. We'll see.

It's a rainy, cold day and I would love to just be home, cozy in my house, crocheting away. Instead I will be at the restaurant, serving people food. Normally I like my job, today I just would rather be home. At least I am off tomorrow.

Mr. Blue and I will be going down to Dem party headquarters to help out for election day. I believe we will be calling people, which I am not looking forward to, but anything to help. The thought of Bush winning this election makes my stomach turn. I apologize to any Bush supporters out there, as I respect other people's views and opinions, even if I do not agree.

Any of you with kids who are Nickelodean watchers will understand this: I have the theme from the Miss Spider cartoon running through my head. It is catchy, and I like it, but really, when I am serving someone their burger and fries and singing "Spiders are spinning awaaaay..." it gets a little weird.

Progress Report

I thought I would do a project progress thingy once a week, and since I am watching Spongebob and Fairly Oddparents while working on my scarf, today is the day! Here are my current projects:

Dishcloth turned scarf-1/4 finished, but going fairly quickly. I did have to take out about 3 rows as I had missed a stitch, grrr.

Felted bag-hmmm, a little less than 1/4 finished, I am still working on the bottom. This one has been on the back burner.

Girls ponchos-the yarn is still all snuggled in the bag, I am a little intimidated by this one.

Boys hats-I had one started, but it looks more like babydoll size. Small babydoll size. I may finish it at this size for the girls to play with.

Baby afghan-around 3/4 finished. Now I have the motivation to finish it. I had started it a couple years ago-isn't that sad? But the yarn I was using was discontinued, I found some on ebay a few months ago-HOORAY!-so now I will be able to finish it.

Assorted afghans-have been sitting in closets for years now. I just don't have any motivation as they don't have the quick gratification of small projects.

Alrighty, I think that is it. Think being the key word there. I am not always the greatest at thinking.

My hands are really stiff and sore, I'm sure it's because I've been crocheting so much, but sheesh, it's frustating to stop for that. I am trying to convince myself that if I work through it they may get better.

Oh and
Happy Halloween!!!!!!!

Dishcloth turned scarf. 

Oh how could I forget this!!

Huge news, and I completely forgot to post, sheesh!

I found out this past week that my sister is going to have a baby! :) I am so very excited, this will be first neice or nephew from my family, I do have a nephew on Joe's side. I am so happy for her, she has PCOS and was told she would need help to conceive, so this was quite a surprise. The baby should be due in March, and two of my children felt they should name him/her. Here are their choices:
Sparkles
Necklace
Ring
Spiderman
Power James
Power Ranger

You've gotta love it, I'm just sure my sis will want to use one of them! ;)

Now I can finish a baby afghan I had started, and look into making something else cute and small and cuddly.

Whew

Birthdays are tiring. I had a great day yesterday, lots of fun. The kids stayed with my parents overnight, and Mr. Blue and I had a great night out.

This morning was a little scary, Ari fell out of the van and hit her head on a retaining wall. She is just fine now, but wow it was bad, my poor kiddo. :( She has a big scraped up knot on her forehead, but is otherwise okay. Very scary.

Mr. Blue's mom took the kids for the day today, and after we had made sure Ari was alright and given her lots of love and hugs and just hung out for awhile, we went to lunch all by ourselves and came home and NAPPED. Very, very relaxing. I definitely needed a day just to rest.

I did go yesterday and picked up more yarn for my dishcloth turned scarf. My hands have been sore today, so I haven't gotten much done, hoping to work on it a bit tonight.

Halloween tomorrow! I love Halloween, can't wait to take the kiddos out, we mainly hit family houses and some close friends. We'll end up at the inlaws for dinner and fun with them. Should be a good time!

It's officially my 29th birthday

Yippee. :)

I am up waiting for laundry to finish so I can throw it into the dryer, what a great start to my birthday.

I've been working on the dishcloth, but as I held it up today to look at its size, I started thinking that it would be a really nice, soft scarf. So, tomorrow I will try to run back up to Walmart for some more of this yarn. Creativity abounds!

Work was very rough today, crazy busy and I had to do a lot of physical work, blech. I am WIPED! I also got caught doing some mild smack talking about one of my bosses, something I NEVER do. Thankfully she knows me and we were able to joke it away. Whew. I was more complaining because she had done a lot of stuff to make extra work for me, which is fine, but in the process sprayed some cleaner on the floor out front, which is incredibly slippery. It was up to me to try to fix this, on a rainy, humid day. Seems simple, but I woke up stiff and sore and hurting, and the last thing I needed was 3 times my normal workload. Tomorrow I am out front waitressing, so that will be a little less dirty work.

The girls have their Halloween party at school tomorrow, as well as a read-in. I'm going for the costume parade, and the read-in and heading into work after it. I'm really looking forward to being able to hang out with them. After work, I'm going to hit happy hour with some of my coworkers, then Mr. Blue and I will get cleaned up to go to dinner, and then to a Halloween show with a bunch of bands. It should be a lot of fun, especially since the kids will be with my parents overnight. Happy Birthday to Me!

Now I'm off to the dryer, and then to crash. Night.