Thinking back....

This last year and a half have been really tough & I don't know why it is but I've been doing a lot of thinking about it over the past few days.

Thinking back on it now, my birth mom & the rest of my biological family aren't the whole reason I moved back to Minnesota. At the time I thought they were for a brief moment in time in my mind I thought they were the whole reason I moved... But there was much more to it than that... I didn't realize it then & I may not ever fully realize it but I'm starting to see bits & pieces as they happen.

The pieces I see now........I see now that I had to move back when I did not just to be closer to my family, both biological & adopted sides, but to prepare (although I didn't know it) for my Mom's death, so we could go to her funeral & burial, to see what kind of person some people really are, to be in a place where we live on the lower level, to be able to have both my hip surgeries & I'm sure there are many more reasons I just haven't seen yet. In the midst of my thinking & pondering about the last year and a half or so & everything that happened, a song popped in my head. It's called Trust His Heart. I hadn't heard it in a really long time but it just came into my head & I could only remember a few of the words but it was just stuck there. I went looking on YouTube & found a video with the lyrics of the song & the first time I watched it all the way through I just broke down & cried...

It was such a comforting reminder, that I seem to need almost constantly, of how God is THE one in control & all we really need to do, as hard as it is to do, is to trust him. Even when we don't understand, don't see His plan and can't trace His hand.... Just trust His heart ♥

EXCITING NEWS

Hello blog world! I have some very very exciting news for anyone that is following my blogs. I am having my left hip replaced on July 13th!!!! I am so excited!

Memorial Day Weekend 2010

I haven't updated recently so I figured I'd post an update about last weekend. On Thursday (5/27) Brian & I left for Iowa. We drove to Indianola to visit with my Grandma. We stayed over night & on Friday morning we made gum drop cookies & Brian helped! That was a lot of fun. I wasn't thinking about it when we were there but I'm gonna have to get the recipe from Grandma's book so we can make them here at home. Anyway, later in the day on Friday we met one of Brian's video game friends & his wife & son for supper on the way to Iowa Falls. We had a great time there too. We got to Iowa Falls around 9 or 9:30 at night so all we pretty much did was go to bed. I'm normally a night owl but Tom goes to bed early & it had been a long day driving so I was pretty tuckered out anyway.

On Saturday morning I started going through some of my Mom's things. The main reason for taking this trip at this time is that Mom's ashes were buried on the day before Memorial Day. So Saturday was spent going through her things & deciding what to keep & what to get rid of & so on & so forth. It was hard but I think I held up rather well. Saturday night we packed up the van..... ended up bringing back WAY more of Mom's things than I had originally planned but it's alright. At least it'll stay in the family instead of going to strangers. There is still a lot to go through that is out in the shed but we just didn't have time so we'll have to do that next time we go down there. Not sure when it will be but I hope it will be soon.

Sunday was the burial service for Mom & since Brian had to work on Monday we had to leave yet on Sunday. The service was absolutely beautiful. My Mom's brother Don headed up the organizing & carrying out of everything & he did a wonderful job. A good family friend the Stensons came to the burial. They had found out too late about the funeral otherwise they would have come to that too. I hadn't seen the Stensons in about 10 years I think. It had been a super long time. They had met up with Mom & Tom last summer for a little bit. At the end of the service when it was time to inter my Mom's ashes, my brother Jonathan & I got to lower Mom's urn into the ground together. I was doing ok up until we did that.... That's when I completely lost it. When I looked up at Jonathan he had a tear running down his cheek so I know he's been struggling with it too. Brian tried to take video of the service but I'm not sure if he got Jonathan & I with Mom's urn. I wasn't really paying much attention to where he was aiming the camera. After the service we went to Pizza Ranch in Emmetsburg & then came home. It was a relatively short drive home compared to the drive to Indianola.

Not really ready to share pictures yet. I tried to make a slideshow/video of some pictures to share but I can't seem to get it to work right so I guess I'll just keep trying. Maybe it's not working cuz I'm really not ready to show pics yet, idk.

As of today it has been about 6 days since the burial & I'm doing better than I thought I would be doing right now. I still have my moments but I didn't break down crying watching the videos or looking at the pictures of the service. I'm sure there will be some rough times ahead but I believe burying Mom's ashes gave me some much needed closure that I was missing in my grieving.

Swatches I've made so far

Here are the swatches I promised I'd post pictures of. The pictures aren't great but I hope you can see the stitches alright.





This is the front of the e-wrap stitch. The e-wrap stitch is the first stitch I ever learned. It's also the easiest to remember how to do lol.










This is the back of the e-wrap stitch










This is the tight side of the diamond stitch











This is the loose side of the diamond stitch










This is the front of the stockinette stitch











This is the back of the stockinette stitch. The front & the back are pretty much the same & I really like that :-)








This is the front of the purl stitch swatch... I tried a little too hard to block this swatch so I think I might just redo the swatch altogether.










This is the back of the purl stitch













This is the front of the knit stitch












This is the back of the knit stitch







This is the front of the honeycomb stitch. I think I might make a scarf with this stitch, not sure yet though. I suppose I could make a scarf with each of the stitches if I really wanted to but I particularly like the way the cast on edge of this piece looks.








This is the back of the honeycomb stitch

Accidental creation

This past weekend I was trying to make wrist warmers following instructions I had found online. Well it turned out to be too big for my wrist BUT it makes a really nice bottle cozy for 1 Liter bottles LOL




Here is my bottle cozy on a 1 Liter bottle of Brisk ice tea. :-)

My afghan is almost done!!

I know it's late but I just finished sewing the two panels of my afghan that I have knitted & I wanted to show them off. Looking at the width of it so far I think I want to knit one more panel to sew on to it so I have a really nice blanket for when I'm sitting on the couch watching tv or something.... Yeah...one more panel ought to do it.

I've also been busy making swatches of the different stitches I've taught myself how to do on my knitting loom but I'll work on showing those off in another post :-)

My afghan panels

Blocked Panel

Unblocked panel

I finished blocking my first afghan panel last night! YAY!! It's not perfect & it's a little crooked in m y opinion but it's MINE, I made it & so far I love it!!! I'm so proud of myself! I know the pictures aren't perfect but you get the idea. Now all I have to do is block the second panel & sew them together so I can get a better idea of how big I want my afghan to be :-) I couldn't figure out how to get the pictures on here the way I wanted them to be so I guess this will have to do for now.

Trying something new

Hello fellow bloggers! I'm new to knitting, blogging & all that good stuff. Today's project is blocking the panels for the afghan that I have recently knitted on my knifty knitter loom. I'm not sure I did it right but it's a lot flatter (from what I can tell) than it was before. Here's hoping it turns out the way it's supposed to so I can sew my panels together! :-D