Much better

Did you hear my big sigh of relief after the AC kicked in this morning? :) Luckily we had cooler weather yesterday but the nights were still miserable. The only thing that was wrong with it was a wire had burned out in the outside unit. It's always the little things. :)
Anyway, I am thankful that it is fixed and that it decided to break for the home owner's warranty expired.
As for my sewing plans for this week, well they have been changed around a bit. I am knitting my first Christmas present of this year instead and will get to my sewing projects as soon as it is finished.

Weekend

We had quite a "hot" weekend, literally. Our AC decided to die Thursday night. It is not completely dead but the thermostat is stuck at 80° F and it does go up but not down and the air that comes out of the vent is not as cold as usual, also it does not turn itself off (I suppose because of the stuck thermostat). While it is barely bearable during the day - we can get a bit of a breeze going with open windows in the morning, before it gets too hot - it gets nasty at night. I hope the repair man will call early tomorrow and get it fixed soon. We were lucky that this happened before our homeowners warranty expires (we can't afford to renew it at the moment).

On Saturday we ran some errands, one of them included a second trip to Walmart (did our shopping Friday night) to pick up Del's prescriptions which were not ready on Friday. On the way back we decided to check out the Salvation Army's thrift store and I discovered that they sell upholstery fabric remnants still on the roll at 99 cents per roll regardless of how much fabric is left on it. I think I will have to go back there once I come up with a plan on how to use it. I remember seeing something in a magazine once where a lady made adorable looking bags out of that kind of fabric. I'd like to try that too.

I found some pink poodle yarn at the dollar store which will make a cute scarf - once it cools down a bit. The yarn contains mainly wool and does not slip easily through the fingers, so knitting with it in this heat is not really an option, but I love the colors.

I finished the pillow cover on Friday and the last of the items for Christmas at Sea yesterday.

This morning - before breakfast - I baked a batch of brownies. ;) I found the recipe in the latest issue of Cooking Light and although I had to change the recipe a little because I had no butter and no cherry preserve (I used margarine and raspberry preserve instead) they turned out well and are really yummy. Very chocolaty, perfect for that chocolate fix. :)

Church was all about the children today, Back to School Sunday. It was quite cute and we have a lot of children of all ages.

After a quick lunch of smoked sausage, corn on the cob, homemade bread and iced coffee and brownies for dessert I cast on a new hat and watched The Lord of the Rings on TV, quietly "dewing" away. ;)

I leave you with a view from my pantry window. Isn't that a lovely country lane? Hard to believe that we actually live in the city. :) The plant is a big bush, what kind I don't know, any suggestions?

I have a lot of sewing planned for the coming week, the weather forecast says rain, rain and more rain and I sure hope they are right. We really need it.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

WIP Wednesday (and Miss Kitty too)

Here is my latest - almost finished - knitting project, a pillow cover for my Fall sofa, not a new cat pad as it may seem. ;) I had the orange yarn left from a previous project (the Harley-Davidson scarf) and it was just enough for this project.

I just can't get the color right in any of the pictures I took of this project today, but this is the new shawl I am knitting (instead of the off-white one). The color is a lot livelier than it looks here.


And I made some progress on my little curtain.

I leave you with a cute picture of my little helper (who is just a little bit mad at me because I treated her for possible fleas yesterday). Have a wonderful second half of the week.

Cats

Look what came in the mail all the way from Vienna/Austria. Aren't they adorable?
They are a birthday gift from our recently married friends Regine & Gerhard.

Back to work

Del's vacation is over and I really enjoyed having him home last week and being able to sleep longer in the mornings. I did however find out that I never sleep much longer than 7 am if I go to bed around 10 pm. He got some work done on his model railroad and I finished up some knitting projects (pictures to follow later).
Last night we attended a family singing and ice cream social - with homemade ice cream - at our church and I am feeling a bit queasy this morning from the sugar overdose but that too will pass. ;)
Today I will spend some time catching up on housework that has been neglected last week and then working some more on my current knitting project.

Cake

One of the perks of having a birthday is that you get to eat chocolate cake for breakfast. ;)
In my case it was a homemade one that Del and I baked late on Thursday afternoon/evening. It was good but next time I try a different icing, this one was just a bit too sweet for my taste.
Now I am another year older (and hopefully wiser) and it does not really make a difference at all. :)

A Day in My Life - August 14, 2008

Del is on vacation this week so we were able to do some things differently today. We got up around 7 am, had breakfast, fed the outdoor cat, Miss K. had been fed earlier at her request (as usual) checked our emails, took showers, shaved and got dressed.

We picked up our mail from the post office, including several birthday cards for me and a beautiful quilt magazine my friend Liz from England sent me.


At 10 am we met up with a group of people from our church for a trip to the Farmer's Market and lunch at the Moose Cafe. We had never been to the market during the week before and it was very quiet. Not as many vendors or customers as on Saturday morning.

Our church:

The Moose Cafe:

Lunch was really good and the portions were big. Good thing we left the car at the entrance to the market and had to walk a little to get there. :)

A few more pictures from around the market:

On the way home we stopped at a newly opened Aldi store, I was curious to see what they have and what their prices are like. I don't think I will do a lot of shopping there as they don't seem to have a lot of the things I usually buy but I will check out their produce section every now and then.


Then we went to the craft store to pick up a few things I need for my fall decoration.


I plan to spend the rest of the day with knitting, I am working on some items for Christmas at Sea and a cushion cover for my sofa. I don't think we will need a lot of dinner tonight after that big lunch.

Finished!

The mint green shawl is finished.

Here it is happily blocking away on top of some old sheets on our bed.


And here it is out in the garden. I abused my poor husband as model for the second and third picture (he is on vacation this week and was promptly put to work). ;-)


The pattern I used in both shawls is from Monika at "Smoking Hot Needles".

No dye lot?

Despite the fact that it says "no dye lot" on the Red Heart Softyarn in off-white that I used for one of my shawls I found out on Saturday that the color looks completely different now. Great! The shawl was not big enough yet to be used as a shawl and I did not want to undo what I had knitted so far. So I just undid the last few pattern rows and ended it with several garter stitch rows. It makes a nice and warm scarf/cowl for cold days now.


Since this one was supposed to be a birthday gift I am now knitting a new one with a pretty berry pink yarn (the lady it is intended for wore a hot pink cardigan last Sunday so I think the color will be okay).

Cats

From the Kitchen

I spent a good part of the day in the kitchen. I made a batch of granola, some bread and butter pickles from a recipe in the latest issue of Cooking Light, fresh ginger ale, two different vegetable dishes and 24 chocolate cup cakes. I also washed two loads of dishes and chopped up some jalapenos for the freezer.


After all that cooking and baking I am looking forward to a quiet day of reading and knitting tomorrow.