Crochet Me Crazy

Just sitting down after taking my shower. Today felt like more than one day...We started the day out going to the stables for a 10 am trail ride this morning. I can't even really remember what all I did today but I know I was busy! I didn't have time to do anything extra and I'm behind on some cleaning that's driving me crazy.... TOMORROW! I had to take Alison to dance and then went back to the stables to drop Michael off. He is staying over there this week to help Mrs. Stables. Cooter, her full time helper is gone for the week with a horse that they are renting out for the week! WISHBONE is going to be a star! Ha Ha! ... I haven't got the full scoop on it yet but he's in some kind of TV Show or commercial or something like that. Pretty cool.

Anyway, Jeff hasn't gotten home before 10 o'clock but one day this week....sometimes as late as midnight. He's about at the end of his rope.


Well, here's the latest endeavor here at the ranch where we live....


Yes, they are bought specifically for the purpose of eating. There are 50 of them! I hope I'm ready for this!

Seems that I end up making my blog post when it's time to go to bed...last night I ran out of steam so I didn't get to post pictures of the baby!

Mrs. Stables had to go out of town and she has a 3 day old kid that needs caring for so I brought this little guy home to spend the night.


I just got finished giving him his morning bottle and he's out in the yard keeping Gracie company now...



I also remember to take my camera to the garden last night when I went up to water....



Corn


Arugula is yummy! I picked some Oak Leaf Lettuce and Arugula for our salad last night...

Alison and her friend were so excited that they got permission to go riding on the neighboring ranch. It's a very large ranch that the river runs through so they had "so much fun" riding around over there. There is an old home on the property that was the original homesite. Yesterday, Alison wanted show it to me so we rode over there on the 4-wheeler --- I was so glad I went because it is so NEAT!

and they are free, too!  I'll be saving some of these to make for Alison's card making

 damn it Janet, let's crochet!

I got some new No. 3 crochet thread colors.  I've found No. 3 thread is the perfect weight for making the little motifs for cards and scrapbooking motifs.  I absolutely LOVE the Aunt Lydia's Bamboo Ice Crochet Thread. 



I wish it came in more color selections!

I've actually got too many projects going on right now. I haven't worked on my rag rug in a bit. I have some more sheets I bought at the thrift store to cut up. I'm working on my Wedding Ring afghan. Then, when I'm only going to sit down for a few minutes at a time, I make the flowers for Alison's cards.



I think I'm making way for flowers than she could actually use! HA! But they are so fun to make.... I wonder if I could sell them and to who and where? .....

A couple more cards...the store is requesting Mother's Day Cards...



I've been pulling some of these giant things that were taking over part of my yard!


They are really pretty actually and I left quite a few but I think they were choking out other types of weeds and grass that I want to grow for Grace to eat.

Look at the Century Plants that are starting to bloom! These are by the gate to our road -- I think they are really neat looking!



Now, I just need to remember to bring my camera down to the garden in the morning when I water! It's growing beautifully! A couple of days ago the corn started coming up!

A beautiful bouquet of wild flowers my girls, Alison and Serenity picked for me....



I couldn't believe they found this variety of flowers on the side of the road on the short walk to the little store near the stables.

Wallet

Money Clip for his sister

Check book cover

Belt he made for his sister

Key Chain

So tonight I will share some of Michael's leatherwork he's completed.

I haven't got a picture of it yet but he came into the house today with a bible cover that we all looked at and said..... WOW....

Michael was able to get a great deal on a large lot of leather working tools. Our boss had met a lady that came into her shop whose husband was a leather worker before he passed away. She was considering selling his supplies. Our boss helped negotiate a deal with her and Michael was able to buy a huge lot of stuff! He was a very happy camper and even a little overwhelmed I think! Well, he can definately
open up shop now!

Here are a few of Alison's cards she makes and sells.


You can see a little of my handywork here...

We were excited to have my friend from high school and her step-daughter come for a visit on Wednesday! Mostly, what we did centered around the horses. On Wednesday, Alison saddled the horses and they rode in the arena. My friend has thought her step-daughter was going to be scared to ride the horses but what we planned on being a pony ride turned into her riding by herself in the arena. She did great and couldn't get enough of the horses while she was here.


The next day we went to the stables for an official "trail ride". I even went along and Mrs. Stables went with us as well. We had a nice long ride up on the high trail we don't normally use for tourists.

Off we go...



On the trail...

Then, we went to the river and the girls swam for several hours.

Feeding the bottle babies....There are 26 baby goats at the stables right now! What is cuter than a baby goat?



At the river...

From there, we went straight to Alison's ballet class. The end of day two and they were leaving the next day. The last day, Melissa and Alison went on a ride but came back soaking wet when it started pouring down on them! They left in the afternoon and then Mrs. Stables called to say her she was picking up her other grandson in San Antonio and he wanted the kids to swim with him at the river. I was tired but we went ahead and went to the river for the kids to get together. Yesterday, we worked at the stables. I won't go into details of that on my blog but came home feeling very upset....nothing to do with my job or the owner's. It's just some things I saw with the horses and the new guy. I was so upset I even had trouble going to sleep last night and I woke up thinking about it this morning. I'm emotionally invested in those horses now. I'll have to tell Mrs. Stables what I saw. We'll see what happens with that. The kids and I went to church this morning. Today is our day "off" here but I did go up and water the garden this morning. I definately need to get some pictures of the garden! We have stuff growing and we ate a radish and some arugula out of it while my friend was here! So cool to grow stuff!
Alison has decided she can jump on Magic and ride him with a piece of baling string when when she goes to catch him to ride.



She can ride him like this with just her legs and the string...he's such a great horse! The other thing she has taken up this week is running barrels. The first time Magic knocked the barrels over a few times and she got her shins all banged up!

Well, there is more I could post because Michael has finished some more leather stuff but I'm tired. This post is already pretty image heavy so I'll save that until tomorrow!

Have a good week!

Once I got the kids up this morning! The kids usually get themselves up but this morning I overslept and none of them were up! Mr. Stables was coming to get his kids at 9:00. I had to hike over to the tent and wake them up! Apparently, they stayed up late last night! They had about 15 minutes to get ready to go to church! LOL!

After they left, Alison and I had a lot of stuff to get done in town. I stretched my grocery trip 4 days over! I also had to get tired on my car. We had gotten 2 tires on the back a few weeks ago when I had the blow out but I needed front tires too. I feel a lot better now that is taken care of. I also got my hair cut today! I rarely get my hair cut. I usually put it off and put it off until I just can't take it anymore. I always wear it up anyway so no one sees it! It was getting soooo long...almost to my waste band! So...it took us a lot longer than our normal trip to town.

I forgot to post these pictures last night...

My son is not really into the horses like Alison is but Friday he wanted to go riding so he and Alison rode around in the arena and he got some horse riding lessons from her!




And they switched horses...the two horses are different riding experiences....



Here's some pictures of the kid's campsite when they were camping this weekend....



Alison making Gumbo...



The boys and fire...

The kids planned a camp out this weekend. The Grain's grandkids came over on Friday evening and they camped out. I had a sleepless night with them out there. Alos, the dogs slept with Jeff and I and they kept me up moving around all night. I don't like to sleep with the dogs and they usually sleep with the kids. The kids were camped a little hike away from the house and I was mainly worried about keeping an eye on their campfire. Alison cooked Gumbo over the fire. They didn't stay up too late though because we had to get up for trail rides this morning. Slow day up there at the stables and we came home early. The kids came back home with us again they've been busy entertaining themselves this afternoon...swimming, driving, riding the 4-wheeler, playing games in the horse arena. I *think* the kids might not end up sleeping in the tent tonight...I think everyone is tired and we are having some pretty strong winds. I'm really tired from my sleepless night so I'm going to bed now.

Jeff is getting home really, really late from work tonight. It's 11:14 and he's probably got an hour and a half drive to get home. Poor guy...we're thankful he has a job but it's really wearing him out. He's exhausted all the time. He works around 60 hours a week if you include the driving which he doesn't get paid for. They route him all of the place....back and forth. It's not a job people want to stick around for if something better comes along for sure. Most of the guys that were hired on when my husband was, feel the same way. They certainly don't make it easy for you. I hope he can get the Field Service Manager position when they post it. I don't know how a person can keep up that schedule forever. Pray for my hubby!

I spent way too much time crocheting today when I should have been doing other stuff! I would get started on it and then have to realize...I need to fold those clothes or whatever and have to make myself stop. I made deviled eggs today to try to make a dent in all those boiled Easter eggs!! The work load here at the ranch is pretty low right now because there's so much green in the pastures the horses don't even come down to eat half the time! Less feeding and less poop to scoop! Didn't even feed the cows last night because the neighbors cows got in with our cows. We aren't feeding them our cow cubes so we didn't feed. I think Mr. Grain got the fence fixed today though.

I stayed at Alison's dance today because I wanted to watch because she was learning her solo today! (Also, it was a good excuse to work on my afghan for an hour and a half) Alison is getting a nice little solo dance in the show. It's not easy either because it's super fast faced...It's the Finger Fairy dance from Sleeping Beauty. She's been practicing all night.

Here's some more afghan parts I finished. I couldn't wait to see what they will look like together so I assembled these pieces together. I think it's going to turn out really nice!

Here's the pattern I am using for the wedding ring crochet quilt:

Wedding Ring Quilt Crochet Pattern | Red Heart

I started on it and it is a very easy to follow pattern. Looks like this one will go pretty fast. Sure am glad I bought the yarn for both afghans now!

Here are my colors I am using, even though the pictures don't really show them too well....



Here are the afghan "parts" I've made so far...



I will eventually have to sew all these together which won't be too fun!

here's the blue yarn I bought for my Blue Star Afghan I have planned for later.




It was a stay at home day today. I used the weed eater to mow my lawn today. All they have is a riding mower and I didn't want to scare Grace half to death using that thing in the yard so I just did it the hard way. My arm was trembling when I was done from holding the weed eater for so long.

Yesteray, I accidentally let Grace out of the yard. I was rushing to grab the phone that was ringing and the kids had left it in the RV. I didn't latch the gate and the wind blew it open. She always follows me so she was right by the gate when it blew open. She was curiously looking around and walked to the creek and looked around. I started to just let her go and see if she came back but then I thought about the hogs. She's still too little to be going around on three legs out there. I can't make her do anything so I treid to pick her up....WRONG! She's way to heavy for me to carry now! I tried but I had to put her down. I at least got her headed in the right direction and she finally slowly got back around to the yard again and came back in the yard. I was relieved. She feels safer in the yard. She was a little nervous out there.

I sure hope everyone had a lovely Easter holiday! Ours was one of the better we've had a for a few years! My kids have always been used to our holiday traditions but things have been a bit different for the past couple of years. Well, I decided we were going to get the Easter stuff out of storage this year and hide eggs! Yes, my kids are getting big now but we still had fun with it. Over the years I have saved the plastic eggs from the various Easter egg hunts we have had. We hid 435 eggs on Sunday!! HA!

A little crazy but the Stable's grandkids came over and the 4 of them hunted the eggs. I believe there are still a few hidden today that we never found!

Are they too cool to hunt eggs?

On your mart, get set...GO!

Counting up their eggs...

The Grain's had a few neighbor's over and we had dinner at their house. The kids swam in the their pool.

We got up the next morning and made the drive to the big town....San Antonio! I've been saving my money from working and went prepared to take care of getting all the things we need. We went to the dance store, Hobby Lobby, the thrift stores, Best Buy and Target and Tandy Leather. There is never enough time when we got to the big town....we got home late last night by the time we made the drive home.

I got yarn to make the Blue Star Afghan and the yarn to make a Wedding Ring Quilt. That should keep me busy for awhile. I don't know how quick I'll start on those though. I hate to start something like that when I'm on the verge of being so busy this summer. But at least I have the yarn now and it was cheaper than what I was going to order online. I bought Hobby Lobby's "I Love This Yarn" which was on sale...it's a nicer, softer yarn anyway than the Red Heart I was planning.

Happy Easter!!

Busy but not toooo busy to make us crazy! LOL!

Came home and Jeff had made fajitas for us. (He was off today) Tonight, I got some eggs boiled for us to dye tomorrow and we filled the rest of the eggs....boy, do we have a lot of eggs to hide! Big day tomorrow. We'll go to church in the morning and then we're having a get together with the Grain's and having an Easter egg hunt. Should be a fun day!

Since I'm low on words here's some cute pictures Alison and Serenity took today while they were playing around....