Happy Easter...

Did you have a great Easter?   We did.   There has been so much going on here ar Chez Serenity lately, that a nice quiet family day was just what the doctor ordered.    The boys, of course, are too cool to color eggs but Hubby loves it which makes it fun for me.   We actually did two separate batches of them.

So what has been going on?   T2 (who is rarely ill) got really sick while on a visit to the ex.  The ex's Dr. diagnosed a sinus infection, and gave him antibiotics.   The day he got home, he was feeling much better but by midday the day after, he was feverish, shaking and feeling really ill again.   I took him to his FL Dr, who confirmed sinus & added strep to the diagnoses.   He prescribed an additional antibiotic, which T2 turned out to be allergic to.   Another antibiotic was prescribed.  After two weeks home, his first day back at school, I got a text and call saying that he was dizzy and ill.   Back to the Dr. we went.   It turned out that flying home with the sinus infection had done something unfortunate to his inner ears.   10 days of pregnizone, and another week home, and he was finally back on his feet.    While all of this was going on, we had friends down from NJ,  T2 auditioned for the music program at his college of choice (he did not make it but he will be able to audition again next year),  he got back together with the ex-girlfriend that we moved to FL to get away from, and we spent a couple of days at Disney hanging with NJ friends.   What can I say?  Motherhood is not for sissies.

Knitting is coming along.   I cast on two pairs of socks (Lisa Knits Basic Toe-up 8sts/in).   One in a boring grey for hubby and one in a pretty variegated for me.   I switch back and forth between them, in the hopes of staving off boredom with the added benefit of finishing both pairs at the same time.    My DYOS shawl is coming along.   I have had to rip back more than once.   It is definitely not social knitting as it requires all of my attention.    My easy knitting is the Reunion Cowl by Natalie Selles.   This is a lovely easy pattern, perfect for knitting at the movies and while hanging with friends.

Brave Girls Club

For the last three weeks I have been taking part in the Brave Girls Soul Restoration class.   This course combines mixed media art with introspective, prompted, journaling.   The journaling digs a bit deep and can be uncomfortable but then that is the point, right?   The art projects have been a blast.  I am new to mixed media and paints in particular.   I am LOVING it.

That's it for us.   Hope all is well with you.

(((HUGS)))

My little bowl has grown up....

WrapBowl Becomes WrapBag

As so many of you know, I have a thing for bags.   So after admiring my bowl for couple of hours, it was only natural that I should begin to think of ways to make it a tote bag.    I could have added handles right then and there but it would have been a bit small and I had tons of cut fabric left to work with.  After checking my fabric closet with no luck, I pm'd a friend who had offered to share her rope (bowl to bag, must have rope).   To my delighted surprise, she showed up at my house that afternoon with a box of rope.  Bless her and thank the heavens for friends who get it.

WrapBag in Progress

The rest of Sunday afternoon was spent watching Space 2001 (still confusing after all these years), Space 2010 (much easier to understand), and wrapping rope in pretty fabric strips.   My plans to sew on Monday did not work out but I got straight to work on it this morning.

WrapBag as Hat

With the rope already wrapped, the bowl grew to bag proportions very quickly.   Before long, even T2 was impressed enough to take an interest (that is my little darling with my bag on his head).    A quick trip out to Joanne's for purse handles, and the end was near.    After perusing the web for a bit, I decided to attach the handles with strips of fabric covered felt.  Luckily, it worked like a dream.

WrapBag w/Handles

After dinner, I took my new knitting bag outside for some pictures.   Hubby amused himself by taking pictures of me taking pictures (Okay, I admit it.  I think that was really cute of him).

Hubby's Picture of Me Taking Pictures

Why yes we do, in fact, have a flamingo on our front lawn.   This is, after all, Florida.   Sometimes I wonder what our neighbors think when I head out front with a seemingly mundane item and proceed to take 50 pictures of it.  

My New Knitting Bag

Wrap a bowl...

Wrap Bowl Before

Last Friday, I took a wrap bowl class a fairly new local quilt shop (Cinnamon's Quilt Shoppe).    The shop itself is lovely, the teaching space is clean and spacious, and the teacher was terrific.   I will definitely be taking more classes here.    The only problem was my sewing machine.   Although is quite old (got it as a gift while preggers with my 14yo), it has only started giving my problems recently.    I had put a new one on my birthday list and was content to wait, until I spent the first hour of this three hour class trying to get it the tensioner to stop eating the thread.   Due to this delay, and the fact that I wanted a bigger bowl then the class was meant for, this is what I  went home with (pretty even in its unfinished state).

Wrap Bowl During

The first thing I did when I got home was to order my new machine from Amazon.   Now I was not looking for something awesome here, just a good, reliable, workhorse that I can take to classes and use at home when I don't have the stamina for my bigger, more complicated machine.   After looking at prices and reviews, I ordered the Brother CS6000i.    It got great reviews and the price was killer on Amazon.

Wrap Bowl After

My new machine arrived on Wednesday but I was not able to take the time to get to know it (and finish my bowl) until today.   So here it is, my first wrap bowl.   This project was fun and easy.   I can't wait to make more.

If you are interested in wrap bowls, It's a Wrap: Sewing Fabric Purses, Baskets, And Bowls and It's a Wrap II: Sewing New Shapes, Exploring New Techniques were recommended by the person who signed me up for the class.    I have them both but did not need them for class and have not made any of the projects in them.   Over time, I probably will, though.    I am really intrigued by the tote bags made using this method.

Oops, we did it again

This past Wednesday, T2 and I decided to blow off our respective schedules and head down to Disney for the day.   Our annual passes were set to expire on Mar17 and we were considering not renewing.   Our plan was to start at Epcot, ride Soarin', buy tea in England, lunch in France, desert in Morocco, and jump over Magic Kingdom for the rides.  Perhaps predictably, our day did not work out as planned.    

Yes, blurry, I know.

Due to traffic and poor planning, it was noon when we walked into Epcot.   By then my sugar was dropping and I was not feeling great.   Instead of working our way around the world showcase, we went straight to Morocco and ate the sit down restaurant.    Although hideously expensive (must plan better in future!), the food was awesome, and the belly dancers were a hoot.

I even got to cast on a new traveling sock while we watched the show.    Unfortunately, I never really recovered from the sugar drop so while we did hit some of the other countries in Epcot, we did not park hop to Magic Kingdom.   I was just too tired and was dreading the two hour drive home.   As it is, we hit traffic going home that doubled the drive time.

In the end we renewed our passes, so the rush to get in as many visits as possible before we lose the opportunity is over for now.   Guess where we are going for spring break?

The World We Live In...

Knitting in St. Augustine....

 Castillo de San Marcos

 
With all that has been going on, I only just today, got to take T2 to St. Augustine for his birthday lunch.  Now, before you start feeling too bad for him, he did get presents, two birthday dinners (complete with cake), and a day at Disney.    The lunch thing is something that is just him and me.

Taken from the Castillo walls

After taking care of a couple of practical matters, we parked downtown, walked to our favorite restaurant, and had a terrific lunch.    Next, we spent several hours walking around the historic section of town (I took tons of pictures).    It seems that no matter how many times we do this, we still love it.  

The Bridge of Lions

From the center of the historic district, we walked to the Northern boarder, across to the Southern edge, and
back to our car.   We walked so much, that I could have had ice cream (which I did not).   The weather was perfectly warm and breezy.

Reunion Cowl

Did you tweet to Lion Brand today?   I did, while working on the Reunion Cowl (easy take along knitting) at lunch.  The idea was to knit in public and tweet about it before noon.   One lucky tweeter was chosen to win a gift certificate to Lion Brand, the amount to be determined by how many total tweets were received.    Here is the really cool kicker, a donation in the same amount as the gift cert, will now be made to St. Jude Children's Hospital by Lion Brand.   Sadly, I did not win.   Happily, I did participate in a fund raiser for a worthy cause.   It made the day, that much sweeter.

Random, some good, some bad....

Wow, has it been an action packed few weeks.    We have had three (3!) deaths (one a suicide) in our family since the week before Christmas.    If things really do happen in threes, maybe this last one was the end to it.  We can only hope.    

Things haven't been all bad.   In the normal way of things, life goes on, and lots of things happen at the same time.   So here is what I have been up to:

I have been taking Stefanie Japel's Design Your Own Shawl class.   Initially, I signed up for this in the hopes that it would pull me out of my homesick funk.   I am so glad that I decided to do this.   It has been challenging in a fun way.  I already feel like I have learned a lot about shawl construction and writing charts.   I especially like the weekly chats.   It is so nice to be in even a virtual room with like-minded people.   This is my shawl at the end of the first week.   Due to a mistake, and a major rip-back it looked pretty much the same at the end of the second week.    It is moving along better now.   The real challenge has been finding time to work on it.

Due to some co-op growing pains, it was decided that a knit/crochet group would meet at my house each Tuesday.   Unfortunately, the first day, no one came.   Pretty depressing actually.   However, rather than  staying home and feeling bad, I whisked my youngest son away from school work to spend an unplanned day at Epcot (Very un-funk-like of me, don't you think?).    We had such a good time.   How can it have taken me so long to discover the joys of park hopping?   We finished up at Epcot just in time for rush hour traffic, so rather than sitting on Rt4, we ran over to Magic Kingdom for an hour (theoretically, actually it was more like two hours).   There were so few people there that we got to go on all of our favorite rides with the longest wait being 5 minutes.   We even had time to take a picture of my DYOS shawl.   T2 staged the photo.   Check out Grumpy holding the yarn.   Don't you just love it?

 Feb 16th was our 15th anniversary.   Hubby agrees that it does not feel that long (which is a good thing).  We spent an easy day, getting up late, snuggling and talking.   We did lunch at my favorite restaurant then walked around town.   It was raining but I still got some pretty nice pictures with my new camera.   That's my hubby at the Castillo de San Marcos.   I am not sure why, but I really like this picture.   It is so un-staged.

 Sunday was our day to go to Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park.   This weekend was the annual reenactment of The Battle of Olustee, Florida's largest Civil War battle.    Friend Angie (see photo) is a Civil War reenactor.    We have had so much fun going to her events.   This one was a blast.    We got there early, placed our chairs right up where we would be able to see the battle clearly, found Angie and walked around.   There were North & South encampments for soldiers and civilians.  I was surprised by how many women traveled with the soldiers.    Angie says that families went along, as well as seamstresses and laundresses.    I already knew about the  "women of ill repute".    There was a separate camp that represented the residents of Olustee (where Angie and her friends were).     I met and got to chat with a spinner there.    She was very interesting.   It is impressive how much these people research the time and habits of their characters.    The battle is so loud that they hand you ear plugs on your way in.   I thought I would hate that part but with the plugs it was not bad at all.    I cast on a pair of socks for hubby while the battle raged.   It seemed appropriate somehow to be working on something for "my man" at such a time (tongue firmly in cheek).


T1 flew to NJ to see the ex, and got sick, which worried me.   But, he is home now and feeling better.    I am keeping him home from school tomorrow (while T2 and I make yet another trip to Disney to spend the day with NJ friends).     He has a busy rest of the week and I want to make sure he is up to it.    Have I mentioned that he got accepted to his first choice college?    We are very proud of him.   He will be going on FL's Bright Futures scholarship (not full ride but very generous), which has us all breathing easier on the financial front.   There is the possibility of still more scholarship money coming.   We are cautiously hopeful.


So you see, it has not been all bad.   In fact, it has been mostly good.