Blog award! Yea me!

I have been knitting alot! Yea! The scarf in the picture is one that I started before I broke my wrist. I had just gotten it started and was so upset that I couldn't finish it for winter. Well it will be done for next year. I really like the pattern, it is simple but interesting enough, and I think it is real pretty! It is made using the yarn I won from Toni.
The next picture Is called "Heather Chill Chaser" the yarn is one of the Schaefer yarns that I bought and the pattern was designed by a good friend of mine, Chris. she is an excellent knitter, you should see the stuff she has made. The yarn is reall nice to work with. I would love to buy some more when I get rich.



I won an award! It was given to me from http://bookshipper.blogspot.com/ she has a great book review blog.
So I am passing this award along to a few others that I love for different reasons.
I tried to pick different blogs from the ones I picked last time.
1. My daughter Ashley has a photography blog that has some really great pictures on it. (her computer is down so she hasn't updated it in a while) http://throughmyeyes-ashley.blogspot.com/
2. My friend Shelley has a great birding blog, with some absolutely great pictures! http://birdinginmichigan.blogspot.com/
3. Lastly, Toni (same one I won the yarn from) also has a book blog - http://acircleofbooks.blogspot.com/
If you were picked, please try to share the wealth and pass along the award.

Quote of the week - "Ambition is a poor excuse for not having the good sense to be lazy!"

We had a very busy weekend. Sat. we went out for breakfast (as usual) then went to Ithaca to do some shopping. While walking down the isles of "Micheal's" my back started hurting and got continuously worse! I love shopping but all I wanted to do was go home. When we got home I sat with my cherry pit pillow on my back. Glen went to help our friends with a concession stand. My back got better but then it went into my neck! That too got better, "Thank you God!" that night we went out to dinner with the friends that Glen had helped. We went to Little Venice in Trumansburg and had a great time with them. On Sunday, one of Ashley's friends from high school(Alicia) came to visit her for the day. They came over and went to church with Glen and I.
Later that afternoon we went to some other friends of our and saw pictures of their mission trip to Honduras! WOW! what a poverty stricken country! They were down there for a week helping with a medical facility and pouring concrete floors for families that only had dirt floors in their house. Then ironically enough after seeing these poor people that don't even have electricity we played with their Wii (bowling, bull riding, tennis, etc.). It was fun with them but I still have no interest in getting one myself.

GREAT giveaway over at: http://www.bookroomreviews.com/

Books - "The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic" by - by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny. This book actually takes place about 10 min. down the road from me! It is about some of the patients who were committed to the Willard State Mental Hospital. This is a real sad book. I am sure there are some people who did belong there but it seems to me that many of the patients should have never been committed! Most of these people were committed in the last 1800's and early 1900's. It seems like it didn't take much to get a person committed back then. I'm glad I wasn't there then, LOL. Alot of people just didn't have anywhere else to go, and women were there because they were beaten by their husbands and were afraid and depressed about it, well who wouldn't be? People were committed because they heard voices. Today "Hearing voices" is not a symptom of mental illness in itself. 3% of the total population hears voices. Some people were there for over 40 year, and upon their death, it was said they should have never been committed for that long! Boy, Psychiatry has come a long way since then, thank God!
I just started another book by my friend Erin Grady - "Whispers", very good so far!

Reading through the states -
1. California - Echoes, by Erin Grady
2. Florida - In Her Shoes, by Jennifer Weiner
3. Iowa - The Learning, by Ruthann Weaver
4. Massachusetts (Cape Cod) - A Year by the Sea, by Joan Anderson
5. South Carolina - Bastard out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison
6. Kentucky - The Believers, by Janice Holt Giles
7. Minnesota - Hit By a Farm, by Catherine Friend
8. North Carolina - Scrambled Eggs at Midnight, by Brad Barkley & Heather Hepler
9. Montana - My Hutterite Life, by Lisa M. Stahl
10. Kansas - Waiting for Summer's Return, by Kim Vogel Sawyer
11. Idaho - Indian Creek Chronicles, by Pete Fromm
12. New York - The Lives they Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic, by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny

Top 5 reasons you can't wait till spring (if you live in the south this may not apply to you! LOL)
1. Flowers!!!!! I love flowers.
2. Not having to dress all up in winter clothing.
3. Being able to sit on the porch and drink my coffee.
4. Taking my kids outside to play.
5. Just that much closer to summer vacation!