Crochet Me Crazy

We took Michael with some of his friends to Gatti-Town today for his birthday celebration. The kids have eaten lots of pizza and played a lot of games over the past two days! Here is a picture of Michael with all of his "birthday loot"! I'm adding the rest of the pictures to the Ritz Family Photo Album.


12 year birthday! 

Today is my wonderful son, Michael's, birthday! Oh wow...he is turning 12 years old! He is having a friend over to spend the night and I will be making him a sugar free cherry pie. We will take them to Gattiland on Saturday. His cousin, Brad, is supposed to be meeting us there.
Michael asked for a Game Cube for his birthday so that is what he got from mom & dad. He's had his other game system for about 6 years, so we don't go out and buy the newest things at the drop of a hat.
He's also getting a big Star Wars Lego set that got on clearance eons ago and have had hidden in the closet. He still loves to play with lego's. He's been doing that all week this week.
His other gift is the Chronicles of Narnia on CD...he will really enjoy that. He loves listening to stories and tapes when he goes to bed at night. My husband just recently finished reading the Tolken books aloud to Michael.
Michael is really a good kid. He's easy to please, flexible and has a good sense of right and wrong. I think God definately has a truly special plan for his life.

22 down ... 12 more to go!!


6" squares for square exchange 

I got the pattern for the pink and gray square here:
Nosegay Square

These two lovely squares were made by Tracy Barajas in North Carolina. THANK YOU, TRACY!!! They look great!


Tracy Barajas - North Carolina 


Tracy Barajas - North Carolina 

Here are 4 more squares I've done for the Crochetville swap. 16 more to go! At this rate, I'll be done in a week!


6" squares 

This is where I got the pattern for the white square. It's my favorite one!
Fisherman's Ring

Alright, here are 5 more squares I've finished. (I still have blocking and ends to weave in though) Only 20 more to go!!


5 more squares 

What did I do today? Let's see....
I cleaned the kitchen,
I crocheted,
I washed and folded a couple of loads of clothes,
I crocheted,
I mowed the lawn,
I crocheted,
I cooked dinner,
I crocheted!

I have been plugging away at my 6" squares but I broke couldn't resist and I broke down and started on a shrug for Alison using these
Fluffy Pink Shrug Schematics. I'm going to take my time on this though so I don't get behind in my squares.
I have actually attempted making this before and I messed it all up. Unfortunately I used a mohair type yarn that is very difficult to frog so I gave up on it. I'm going to see if I can figure it out this time. Alison has a store bought version similar to this and LOVES it but its yellow so it doesn't go with much. I'm making this one in white so she can wear it with more stuff.

Later on tonight, I'm going to post pictures of the squares that I've finished since the last post. I have 4 right now...don't know if I'll finish anymore before the next post later on tonight or not!

"Ta-Ta" for now!

I made this for dinner tonight. My sister gave me this recipe and it is definately a family favorite. Everyone loves it so much that I have to double the recipe. If you like alfredo sauce, you should try this recipe. It is SO easy, you don't even need to know how to cook to make this, but it will taste like you do!

My Very Best Alfredo #108883
recipe by HeidiSue

4 servings
35 minutes 15 mins prep
6 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups of fresh parmesan cheese, grated (must be fresh)
2 cups heavy whipping cream
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1-2 teaspoon white pepper, to taste

Saute garlic in butter until soft.
Add cream and bring to a boil.
Slowly add parm allowing to melt.
Toss with pasta and serve with garlic toast.

I usually fry some skinless, boneless chicken breast in a pan on the stove with a little seasoning on them to serve with this.

YUMMY!!!! :-)

I received another donated square in the mail today! What fun checking the mail have become! This is one of the most perfect squares I've ever seen! Charlotte in Iowa did an amazing job on this square. It is so perfectly symetrical and the stitches are very tight and even. It is very "stiff" feeling so it holds it shape very well.
THANK YOU, CHARLOTTE!!!!



Square donated to my "King Sized" Afghan project by Charlotte in Iowa 

Here are four more squares I have gotten done over the past 2 days for the Random Square Swap at Crochetville.


6" squares 

I may not include the green one because it is a tad bit over 6". It seems a little "wonky", too. I think I am going to try blocking my squares. I haven't done it before but it seems easy enough.

You can't really tell much about the grey square in the picture. The yarn has sparklies in it and it reflects so much that you can't see the details. It actually has a lot of bobbles in it. I had a little trouble with the pattern and had to "frog" a few times. I think I ended up with a slightly different version than the pattern but it looks okay anyway.
Here is where I got the pattern and what it is *supposed* to look like:
Antique Pearls Square

By the way, I am getting all of the patterns for these particular squares from a book called "101 Crochet Squares" by Jean Leinhauser. It's a great book.

Squares for "Blue Squares Too, Random Square Exchange" at Crochetville 

I received these squares today from Brandee in Florida ~~ THANK YOU, BRANDEE!!
Several of these smaller ones I will be able to add onto to make them 6". I am going to have to border all of the squares I receive anyway with the trim color I choose. Brandee did a great job on these, don't you think?


Donated Squares from Brandee Fondren  

Donated Squares from Brandee Fondren 

These two beautiful squares were sent to me from Alicia in Austin, TX
Thank you, Alicia...and also thank you for the adorable little pouch they came in! You are too kind!


2 6" squares donated by Alicia in Austin, TX 

I was attempting to make this square
Denise's English Primrose Granny Square
However, I got it messed up and came up with this version.


6" square for King Sized Afghan Project 


I got this pattern from the book "101 Crochet Squares by Jean Leinhauser"


Green, Mauve, and cream colored diagonal 6" square 

I did an earlier post about my King Sized Afghan project that I am asking for 6" square donations for. I have had several really kind people offer to help! This is the first square I received. What a nice surprise to have waiting in our mail box when we got back from our trip!


1st Donated 6" square I received! 

Thank you, Sandie, one of the many nice people from the Crochetville boards!

We drove into what turned out to be Grapevine, TX late Tuesday night. Dallas has a whole lot of suburbs that sort of blend into it so when I say we are going to what is Dallas to me is actually some suburb of it... We didn't really know anything about the place we were staying. We stayed at the Gaylord Texan which turned out to be a resort and convention center. This place was HUGE and by far the fanciest place we've ever stayed at. We were filled with dread the moment we saw it. I had our dog, Brindy, to deal with and I could tell this wasn't going to be easy. It took us 30 minutes to find the entrance to this place amid the parking areas and miriad of different entrances. The entrance was actually in the back where you wouldn't expect it to be. Then, we had to park and hike about 1/2 mile to our room! I don't know if I ended up taking a picture of this hall we had to walk down to get to our room or not, but I meant to. It looked like it went on forever with dozens and dozens of shandiliers hanging all down the hallway. The kids were completely mezmerized by the whole experience. Our room had a balcony that went out into the atrium which was the "riverwalk". It was really nice. You went out onto the balcony and it completely felt like you were outside but it was a cool 72 degrees all the time.


A look down from our balcony 


There was a complete riverwalk with fish and surrounded with beautiful gardens, shops, several restaurants....They just happened to be holding their Summerfest right now. They had planned childrens activities, crafts, facepainting, a petting zoo, live snake exhibit, model train exhibit, live butterfly exhibit, and a roping cowboy.


The snake exhibit at the hotel 


Alison with the roping cowboy at the hotel 

My childhood friend, Wendi, lives in Dallas so she came over and picked us up the first day we were there. We went swimming in her neighbors pool. Then, on Wednesday we decided we would leave Brindy over at her house so we didn't have to worry about keeping her hidden. Wendi came over to the hotel and we spent the day at the outdoor pool where they had waiters that waited on us and brought us drinks! (Maybe this place isn't so bad after all!) Jeff got back from his meetings and we all had dinner at one of the restaurants in the hotel. We decided we like it so much we wanted to lay around the pool again the next day while waiting for Jeff to get done with his meeting before we drove home. We decided to let Brindy spend the night over at Wendi's house so I wouldn't have to worry about her the next day since we had to check out and store our bags until Jeff got done. It turned out that Brindy did terrible! She was so upset! Wendi couldn't get near her because she was so terrified. She was shaking and Wendi couldn't get near her. She would run away too fast. She got better when she spent the night but she cried all night long. Wendi said she tried to put her in her cage, then in her bed with her but Brindy wouldn't have any of it. All she wanted to do was go sit by the door we went out of and cry. Poor girl! We've never left her overnight before and it was a completely foreign place to her. She did follow Wendi's dog, Daisy, around some so she would go outside when Daisy went outside. I felt terrible for Wendi, but she was a very good sport about it. She's an animal lover so that helps! The last day we did more pool lounging and then went to Wendi's house to pick up the pooch before we drove home.

If you want to see more pictures of the hotel and stuff from this trip, click on the link for The Ritz Family Photo Album. I'll be adding them to the Summer 2005 Album.

I had an idea while I was trying to figure out what I'm going to do about getting a comforter/bedspread for our "new to us" king size mattress. Our friends and neighbors gave us their old one. I've always wanted a king size bed becuase kids keep getting into ours (Our neighbor said they have a fogger for this problem...lol!) Seriously though...I kept thinking I wish I could crochet a giant scrap style granny afghan to put over a plane jane comforter but it would take me years to finish a project that large...I wish I had some help! That is what brought me to my idea....I decided to ask for help from other crochet enthusiast at Crochetville and some of my crochet e-groups. I am so excited that I have received some response of people offering to help! This will make this project even more special having these contributions from others from all over! I plan on keeping track of who and where the squares come from with online pictures. I would love to eventually get the squares themselves tagged but that may or may not ever happen. It would be a huge undertaking! At least I will have the information organized if I can ever manage to get that done. I will post pictures of my progress.
This will truly be a very special project, indeed!!

We buried out beloved cat today. He had not shown up since we got back from our trip. I was hoping nothing had happened to him but it was unusual for him not to be around. He usually stuck around the house. We have a neighbor that takes good care of him while we are gone. I found him today behind the bushes in our front flower bed. It looked like he layed down and died back there. I feel so bad that we weren't here when he died. Alison and Michael both cried. Alison was very, very upset. I have never been much of a "cat person" but this cat was an exception. He was a stray born in our yard about 8 years ago in our first house. He was so wild at first that he went into shock the first time we picked him up. He ended up being the most faithful cat, though. We took him with us to the apartment we lived in temporarily and then we moved to this house where we have been ever since. He's been with us for almost all of our marriage. Right after we moved to this house, he was almost killed by the neighbors dogs. After that, he pretty much stuck around the house. He was a huge, black cat. We all loved him very much.

My mom had made this when I was visiting her a few weeks ago. We loved it so much, we've been keeping this stuff around in our refrigerator ever since then. It might not appeal to everyone, but I normally don't like things like this either. I especially have always hated bell peppers. I don't know maybe my tastes are changing...I notice they do that as you get older!

Marinated Brocolli

2 cups fresh brocolli florets
2 Tbsp red bell pepper, minced
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tsp. Wine Vinegar (I used Red)
2 Tbsp Water
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1 lg. clove garlic, minced
1 Tsp. Salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

Mix oil with vinegar and add remaining ingredients. Toss mixture with brocolli. Marinate overnight or all day.

As planned, we spent the next day of our trip at Blanco State Park. We went to a little spring that I used to play at when I was a kid. Michael made things out of Bamboo and Alison made sponges out of algae. The best kind of fun -- lol! We visited with Frances, a friend of ours that evening and ended up staying until about 10 pm. Friday, we headed off to camp at Pedernales Falls State Park in Johnson City, Texas. The kids found a tree in our campsite right away that they started climbing around on. They had ropes they were swinging and climbing from. We spent Saturday at the swimming area of the Pedernales river. We skinned our rumps riding on the rapids, but it was fun anyway. We explored the falls and Michael spent his time catching frogs. It's funny because just about every picture I took of Michael while we were at the falls, he's got his head stuck in some little cranny or he's bent over inspecting something. The water was a lot lower at the falls than it was when we first saw it a couple of years back. I wasn't as nervous letting the kids walk around this time because most of the holes and caverns in the rocks weren't filled with water. It's really a beautiful park. We had a good time. We headed home on Sunday. Looks like we missed all the rain while we were gone. I'm thankful for my great neighbors who watch our house, feed our cat, get our mail, and make sure my plants don't die while we are gone!

I'm going to work on downloading all the pictures from our trip to my computer. Check out our Photo album to see the pictures! There are LOTS!!

Well, we have made full circle and are BACK at the same hotel in San Antonio, TX again! It feels like I have traveled the globe since my last post. (The good news is that I finished the 93 squares I needed to finish a vest I'm making for a Christmas gift!) Anyway, we left Friday, July 1 and drove the 8 hour drive to Hot Springs, AR. We got to the place we were staying at about 10 pm and then stayed up past midnight visiting with a couple of Jeff's friends from high school. They had kids around the same age as ours so the kids had a good time while we visited. We slept in their travel trailer. The next day, after we resisted much peer pressure to go to the lake instead, we went to a park called Gulpha Gorge to go repelling. Jeff learned to repell himself there and had promised Michael he would take him. Jeff has been wanting to take Michael repelling for years....I never dreamed I would do it too! I always said I wouldn't because I am scared of heights! Well, it wasn't a very high spot but all 4 of us did it, even Alison, and it was fun! It was a good place to get the hang of it before we try going off someplace higher. It was hot as all get out though.... no relief from the heat there! We must all be immune to Poison Ivy because those woods were full of it. We were all trapsing through there. No one broke out in anything itchy. We rushed back from there to get ready for the reunion party. Alison was amazingly outgoing! If you know Alison, you know how attatched at the hip she usually is to me. Especially anytime she is around a lot of people or strangers. She didn't even wait for us when we got out of the car! She took off ahead of us and we only saw flashes of yellow (her outfit) as she ran around and played all day. There were lots of other kids there. We left there to go see another of Jeff's high school friend's dad who is a parapalegic. We went home and ended up getting to bed real late again. The next day we were leaving. We went to visit the Mid-America museum on our way to Murpheesborough, AR. I carried Brindy around in my "dog purse" for 4-5 hours while we were at the museum! She is SUCH a GOOD Dog!!! I couldn't leave her in the truck because of the heat so I had no choice but to take her in. No one even knew I had her...she just quietly layed in there. She even rode the virtual reality roller coaster with us and saw a lazer light show! What a dog! The museum was a really neat place to take your kids! The kids had a blast. It's a hands on museum. I would have to say it is a much better museum that the children's museum we have here in Houston. We drove from there to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murphreesborough, AR and set up camp. This state park has the only public diamond mine in the world. We actually paid money to go out into a huge plowed field of dirt and dig for hours in the hot sun. The heat index was in excess of 100 degrees! We were troopers though....by golly, since we made it this far we were gonna give it our best shot to find diamonds!! You really start to feel kinda stupid after a few hours...then we look up and see there are lots of others doing the same thing! Young and old! Well, we didn't find diamonds....matter of fact, we didn't find anything except dirt and blisters on our hands. Seriously though, apparently there really are diamonds there. They average 1 diamond find a day. It was really interesting reading about some of the big finds. There were no finds while we were there. I think it is because they are having a drought and it was so dry. The ground was so hard it was very hard to dig. They say the best time is after a rain. Maybe we'll try again in the fall when its not so hot. We are quite the rock hounds, though. I can't count the times we have hauled home all our rock and fossils finds. They have a little water park there, too. The next day I took the kids to the water park while Jeff finished packing up the camper. We didn't end up leaving until around 4 pm! We had at least an 8 hour drive to San Antonio......the drive turned into 12 hours! We were both so tired. I started driving for Jeff right after Dallas. I don't usually drive much when we're pulling the camper but he needed to get a nap so we could make it the whole way. I had only been driving for about 30 minutes when the tire on the camper blew out...or off, I should say. When I pulled over, there was nothing left but the lug nut holes on the rim. The rim was completely demolished. This was at about 12:45 am....this is the 2nd time we've had a blow out on the camper in the middle of the night in the dark! We had just passed a long section of construction with no shoulders...thank you, Jesus, that we made it past all that before it happened! Jeff had it changed pretty quickly and we were back on our way... and a long way it was! We didn't end up getting to our hotel in San Antonio until 4:30 in the morning. Then we still had to unhook and park the camper and haul all our junk in from the back of the truck. We were exhausted. Michael stayed awake the whole trip...Alison snoozed most of the time. We collapsed. We had decided to stay at a different hotel than our usual LaQuinta Inn and Suites. Right after I got up the next day and took Brindy outside, I got a call from the office letting us know that the dog had to go. Apparently, they have adopted a new pet policy since our last stay there. They no longer allow pets on the property at all. That meant we were going to have to pack up all of our junk AGAIN! No peace --- I had planned on resting up today! I washed a couple of loads of clothes and Jeff got back from work around 3:00. We loaded up and headed for our trusty ol' LaQuinta Inn and Suites. Jeff and I took a badly needed nap. Tomorrow, the kids and I are driving to Blanco to spend the day at the river and visit friends.
We'll be here two more nights. We have reservations at Pedernales Falls State Park Friday and Saturday night. I'll be posting pictures of this weeks trip in our photo album and will post more later on the remainder of our trip. I'm going to bed now!