Shower…

Mid-point in remodel

I’m sure everyone has seen a shower before, but I think this one is gorgeous - mostly because it’s in place and it works! The photos on the right are looking into the bath and of the master bedroom. In the top photo on the left you can just see the little paint square on the door. Both paint colors were showing in the original photo, the top color will be the master bedroom and the bottom will be the bathroom. You can see both the paint colors here. From here most of the work will be done on the weekends.

I’ve been reading the last book from Diana Gabaldon, A Breath of Snow and Ashes. I had started it last year or maybe it was in the fall anyway I had to put it down, but now I’m almost to the end. I’ve been watching her site for clues on when the next book will be released, it looks like sometime in 2009 maybe. I really like this story and once I get going I can’t seem to put it down even though it’s really long. This has been my escape while working on the remodeling.

I haven’t touched my knitting in over a week! I have just a few more inches to go on the shoulders of the Salsa Sizzle, so maybe I’ll attempt to finish it this week.

Hope everyone is having a great week! I’ll try to get around and get some comments out there. I’ve seen some great post while I’ve been away!

Ode to the joys of Remodeling…

I apologize for the silence this week, but boy have we been busy!

Master Bath Before

Dad, Caveman & I have been up to our eyeballs in this bathroom all week. Oh and Home Depot is my new favorite hangout! LOL!

Let’s start with the photo on the left, shall we? Caveman & I ripped and sawed the fiberglass shower/tub out on Monday. It spanned the entire width of that side of the room (5′). Oh and the door no longer opens into the room, instead we took it out and turned it around so now it will open into the bedroom. Much better!!

In the center photo that is where the toilet used to be and was taken out 4 months ago when we had to septic problems. Sorry for the horrible photo!

In the photo on the right, the new toilet will be where the purple/blue trash can is and we finally have the gapping whole sealed off after finishing up the plumbing below. Now we can put in a new vanity soon.

We’ve definitely had some crazy mishaps that set us back for a short time, but it’s only brought us closer in the end! LOL So far it’s mostly been prep work so we can start building back. Thankfully we installed new bathroom fans that actually vent to the outside. Tomorrow we will be installing the shower and then the flooring is next, before we can get the toilet back together. We were originally going to go with tile in the bathrooms, but I think Dad has us talked into hardwood flooring like the rest of the house.

It seems like the work will never end, but hopefully I’ll be back soon with more photos. Hope everyone is having a great week!!

Thank you for the Birthday Wishes!!

I just wanted to say Thank You for all the wonderful Birthday wishes!! They were much appreciated and I had a wonderful day! I’m off to Nashville for another whirlwind trip! Whoopee! LOL!

See you tomorrow with some better pictures. Today’s and yesterday’s bouquets were courteous of Dover Publishing Co.

Happy Birthday to me, to me!

Birthday Flowers

ETA: I just found out (via Ravelry) that I share my wonderful birthday with two very famous knitters! Jared of Brooklyn Tweed and Adrian of Hello Yarn!! I love many, who am I kidding - all the designs by these great knitters too! You just can’t get any cooler than that! LOL

Holiday Weekend Progress…

Salsa Sizzle

On the Fourth, Caveman and a few friends took off on their motorcycles for a 3-hour tour that quickly turned into 5-hours! Good for my knitting, not so good on my nerves. LOL! He had called at about 2:30 to say he hoped it wouldn’t be another 2 or 3 hours, well at about 7pm they got back to our house blaming detours, holiday traffic, etc. LOL! Oh well, I watched an old Alfred Hitchcock movie, Vertigo and then started flipping channels to pass the time until they got back. That took care of the decreases, but the increases were completed a little more slowly over Saturday and Sunday. I’m still not sure what I’ll do for the neck and armhole edges, but I’ll figure something out.

I joined a couple of Lace KAL’s this summer, the Casablanca Mystery Stole and the Slow Bee Mystery Shawl II. I believe both are closed to new members now. The patterns will be available for sale after the KAL’s end though. I have completed the first clue of the Casablanca Stole and hope to get started on the second, but I’m afraid my knitting projects will be put on hold indefinitely. Next week we start the remodel jobs, but I guess I can work on Caveman’s socks (which haven’t been touched in a week), they’re small enough.

I went to the store and picked up two 36 gallon totes yesterday to house all mine and Caveman’s clothes. I got most of them in there, but I also ended up with two yard-sale piles and two summer piles for myself! LOL I have a few more miscellaneous boxes to cull through and a few things to pack up. I have no idea where we are going to store most of this stuff while we remodel. This is the part of remodeling I hate! Pictures to come next week.

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! It looks like a rough week ahead for me, so I better get started. LOL! Happy Knitting!

Fireworks!!

Fireworks from the 4th of July

These were the best 12 pics out of 45. Thank goodness for digital cameras, huh? I didn’t use a tripod, but I did shoot at a really low speed and just tried to time the shots correctly. Next year there will be a remote release and I’ll use my tripod for some cool shots! The last few pics were towards the end, see the smoke? It was cool because you could smell the black powder.

We almost didn’t get to see the fireworks though due to a late evening thunderstorm with strong winds, lighting and thunder. While we were eating a late dinner, it started blasting the restaurant. Luckily it stopped and we had a great time with some new friends!

Hope everyone had a safe and Happy 4th! See ya next week with some more knitting!

PS: Happy Birthday Mom and Aunt Carolyn!!

Happy 4th of July!!!

Happy 4th of July!

Hope you and your family have a safe and Happy 4th of July!

Ravelry is so cool!

I know you all (well most of you) already know just how cool Ravelry is, but have you seen the new and improved Friend Activity tab? This thing is lethal! I think my favorites and queue grew exponentially over the last two days. Now I can see more of what you guys are queuing, favoriting, and stashing! *queue wicked laugh here*

So it’s Thursday, the day before the 4th. My question: how many of you took the day off of work to make this a four day weekend? I almost did, but I decided to wait and take a whole week off when Caveman has his vacation in a couple of weeks. The master bed/bath remodel will commence then. We are getting excited about it, but also nervous too. I think we are going to go shopping this weekend and see if we can’t score a few deals on flooring, lighting, & fans, etc. That’s always to fun part. Hum, shopping. LOL Next will be the packing of our clothes and the few things we have left in that room. We are chanting the, “It will be wonderful when it’s over” mantra right now.

In knitting news, the Salsa Sizzle has been frogged three times. All I can say is the yarn is holding up really well! LOL I’m just not trusting that I will fit into the size 35″, but I do! I cast-on for a between 35″ and 38″ worked the picot hem and am decreasing on the sides to get down to the size 35″ before I start the front and back darts. From that point I’m going to follow the pattern for a while! LOL

I haven’t touched Caveman’s socks again this week but I did get started on the Casablanca stole. It is going to be so pretty!

Hope everyone enjoys their holiday! Happy Knitting!

Random Thoughts…

Well I’ve sat here to 5 mins now trying to come up with something to write. There are a loads of thoughts running through my mind, but nothing of major interest to share with you.

I guess the most prominent thought right now - Caveman’s classes will be finished up later tonight!! Woo-Hoo! At this point he only has one test left in each of his two classes. If he didn’t take either one (like that will happen!), he’d still get a B, so the pressure is definitely off.

I can’t wait to have a couple days off later this week. Next week is going to be rough, but this week I’m taking full advantage of the holiday! Hopefully we will meet a couple of Caveman’s co-workers Friday night to watch the fireworks. I love watching the fireworks display every year.

The 4th of July has always been a special holiday in my family ’cause it marks the beginning of the birthday month. I’ll be hitting the big 33 next Wednesday! Ugh! I’m seriously trying to embrace getting older and I have definitely grown alot during my 3 years of being 30-something. I guess I’m taking it kinda rough though ’cause I haven’t done everything I wanted to do by this point in my life. But who really does everything they wanted to by a certain age? I don’t think Life ever turns out exactly like you want or expect or dream that it will. Moving on…

Caveman & I were talking last night (and despite my melodrama today LOL) this year, but mostly this summer have turned out to be the best yet! It seems like good things happen to me in 5’s, 7’s or 9’s. I was born on 7/9/75 (in case you didn’t do the math earlier - ) and this August will be our 5th anniversary :D! Even with the uncertainty of our job status in October, we are enjoying every moment of our great summer now.

The yarn cakes up top are (starting at the top-left and moving clockwise) Knit Picks Shadow in Redwood Forest, Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud in Sunlight, Moss, and Autumn. There are two more Moss that were wound after this picture was taken. The Redwood Forest along with the auburn beads is becoming the Casablanca Stole (Ravelry link) and the Sunlight with the cream beads is destined for the Slow Bee Mystery Stole II (Ravelry link) . The Auburn Alpaca Cloud will become an Ice Queen (Ravelry link) or two with the left over auburn beads and I really don’t have any idea what the Moss Alpaca Cloud will be yet. Here’s a link to my yarn swift from yesterday too.

See I told you just loads of randomness! LOL

Monday, Monday…

Sorry for the radio silence lately, but the job is just demanding too much of my time these days! I had a few posts all lined up, on Thursday I was going to show the huge Salsa Sizzle and how I had to frog it. I thought I started with a smaller size, but I actually used the same size I originally knit for the Golden Sizzle. Once I re-ran the numbers I cast on for a smaller size. I plan to try it on in a bit, cause I don’t want to get too far along just to frog again.

Speaking of the Golden Sizzle, I tried it on a few more times and just decided it was too big. I obviously didn’t take into account that the rayon was going to stretch, so it was unnecessary that I made it longer and the arm holes were just too wide. To make a long story short I gifted it to my aunt! She’s happy and so am I because it looks great on her, just like Sizzle should! She’s here and in Nashville this week for the holiday,, so maybe I can talk her into photos later this week.

Here’s what the Salsa Sizzle looked like earlier this morning. I decided not to split the sides this time, so it’s fully in the round but still has the picot hem.

And because it seems today is WIP Monday, here’s the latest shot of the Grey Socks for hubby.

I love these! Plus they fit him great so far! Maybe later this week I can show you some stash enhancement! It just has to get here first and then I have to find time to photograph it!

I hope everyone has a great holiday week! Stay cool and be safe!