Crochet Me Crazy

Still trying to get Alison well. She was hoarse and losing her voice yesterday. Yesterday, she went out to feed the show goats and found they had escaped the arena so while she was walking and trying to find how they got out, she found a goat with its head stuck in a plow. She came back and got me and we spent some time trying to get the show goats rounded up and back in the arena. I couldn't see how we were going to get the goat unstuck from the plow. She was skinny and apparently had been there for some days. I brought her some food and water. Then, a relative came over and got the goat free. Once she was free, she was falling down and week so I brought her to my yard and put her with my deer. She got stronger and was able to walk fine after a couple of hours but she's still really skinny. We put her back out with the rest of the goat herd last night. We're about to go out there and move her again though. When Alison went to take care of her show goat this morning, she said they other goats were beating up on the skinny one. We're going to try moving her in with the little show goats now. Anyway, I'm finished with the Wedding Ring Afghan...I'm just weaving and weaving and weaving in ends now....lots and lots of weaving of ends with this afghan. It's really pretty though! I'll try to get time to take a picture of it soon!

Today was a non-stop day. I brought my little crew to church this morning minus Michael. He had to work out at the ranch he works at today because the owner was in town. We came home straight from church and loaded up the kid's show goats in the trailer to take them to stock show validation. The got back and we got ready for pumpkin carving. We grilled hamburgers and ate and then the kids worked on their masterpieces. That took a long time.

I'll take pictures of them once we get them lit up. We ran out of time tonight. I decided I wanted to go the State Park to take a shower tonight so Alison and I just got back from doing that. Now, we're settling down to relax. Alison has been fighting a cold all week and I've been working on getting her better. Tomorrow is the start of another week that I'm sure will fly by as usual! Hope everyone has a great week!

I can't believe this but I've run out of yarn for my Wedding Ring Afghan AGAIN! This the third time I've had to send my husband to get me more. Lucky for me, he is in San Antonio every week for his job and there is a Hobby Lobby right down the street from his office! HA! I didn't want to over buy the yarn but boy, was this pattern off on the amounts of yarn needed to make it! I bought the yarn to make this Wedding Ring Afghan before summer. At the same time, I bought the yarn to make THIS afghan....

This afghan may prove to be challenging and I'm a little scared to start on it. I read online that there are some errors in the pattern and lots of people had to work through it and wing it a bit. I've always LOVED this afghan. I guess I should at least try. It's a granny type pattern so it shouldn't be too hard to figure out...right??? HA! I may be nuts!!

I had many, many saved free crochet square patterns but I lost them all when my hard drive crashed. Today, I spent some time looking for free crochet square patterns online and saving them again. Makes me want to make some. I had so much fun making my King Sized Afghan from various square patterns. Crochet Me Crazy: 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006 I found this blog where she shares some really nice free crochet square patterns Confirming His Covenant I really like this blog and all her references to scripture put with her patterns.

We had the horses next to our yard today and I got these pictures of the horses and Gracie greeting each other. It was sweet.

Now, I finally got a picture taken of my Wedding Ring Afghan. Not the best picture...I was in a hurry but you get the idea! It's coming along! I actually only have two more rows to add to it and I'm done. Well, there's all those ends to weave in but that won't take long. Well, this is visitor's week at Alison ballet this week so I'm gonna be watching all her classes this week. She's such a beautiful dancer. Her teacher came up to me today during class and told me how beautiful Alison is and how you just can't not watch her when she's dancing. She said your eyes are just drawn to her. It's a high complement! I have to agree but, of course, I am extremely biased since she is my daughter. I love her very much and am extremely proud of her in so many ways!

I don't like this "New" Blogger format at all! Why can't I get paragraphs anymore? The paragraphs and spaces are in my posts but when I publish my posts, they aren't there! Well, I have two strips of my afghan put together. It is actually looking better with the sewing method instead of that rippled mess it was before! I had to send my husband to get another skein of the varigated yarn yet again yesterday! That should be enough to finish it off I think. Here's a little sample of what I've got done so far....

I am feeling extremely stressed and worried right now. I think I think too much. I can't really go into the details on this blog but there are just things on my mind that I am really concerned about. Today, my stomach feels sorta nervous and queasy as I think about all the possibilities. Anyway, the purpose of this is just to ask you to pray for me if you think of it and for the situation in general. God knows what is going on... Anyway, and to top it off....my normal stress relief, crocheting, is not a happy process right now. I hate this Wedding Ring Afghan that I am working on. I don't like how it's coming together at all. When you join it, it is all ripppled up and looks terrible! I was joining the pieces with a slip stitch like the pattern said but I just decided that I'm going to sew them together instead. I didn't have too many joined so I'll un-do those and start over. The whip stitch join seems to be working a little better to try to get the thing to lay better. I have more control on how it's coming togethe with the new method. I've only sewed two pieces together the new way. I am determined to finish it anyway....too much work has gone into it not to finish it. Soo....hate it or not -- I am carrying on!

I just can't believe how fast the weeks are going by! We didn't have water for a couple of days this week because the well pump went out. We were going to the state park to take our showers at night. You don't realize how precious every drop of water is until you don't have it! Can't wash your hands or flush the toilet. This is the 2nd time we've not had water since we moved here but it's expected. We knew that was how it was here. As a matter of fact, I'm preferring to go the the park for a shower at least once a week even if we do have water. The water is so extremely hard that it does a number on my hair. My hair needs a wash in different water at least once a week. Anyway, I was thinking how much life has changed since we moved from Houston 3 years ago. Things I took for granted back then, I don't even give a second thought about not having now. A dishwasher?....wow, that seemed so long ago. Now washing dishes by hand is no big deal. I'm just happy to have water and a full size sink! HA! Anyway, what else have I been doing? Hmmm...my morning routine is to get up at about 8 am and feed the cats in the barn, then I grain feed a couple of horses, and then give the goats grain. We burn our trash here so I do that every couple of days....this week I took on the mission of pulling some rag weed. I have my work cut out for me...

It gets mowed but it takes over and if I can get it pulled, it won't come back and the grass can grow. I did a pasture last summer that way and this year that pasture looks great. Today was a slow day around here....we had two people want to do a trail ride so Alison took them out. The phone wasn't ringing, it looked like it was going to rain so they unsaddled. Then, we had two more people want to come ride so Alison is just abouto have to go re-saddle a couple more horses to take those people out. The rain has never came. Other than that, Jeff's been working on some project around here that needed to be done. Alison and Serenity were messing with the horses....practicing barrells in the Arena, and riding around double on Princess. (Have I mentioned that I Love these kids) Much to Alison and Morgan's unhappiness, Morgan had to work in the state park today and I believe he works again tomorrow. He worked last weekend too. Those two are still happily together and working through things that come up in their young relationship. I don't see any signs that this is going to end any time soon...they just keep working through the stuff that come up it seems and seem to come out closer after each issue. I'm okay with everything so far. This first LOVE stuff is rough on a mom though! Well, I here's my mess of an afghan I'm working on. I'm not really happy with how this one comes to together but by golly, I will finish it!

I spent today about to throw up while cleaning the RV that my son has been living in for the past year. I am so disgusted because he has done so much damage to what was a very nice RV. I've just barely gotten started just trying to clean surface dirt at the moment and vacuming, etc. I haven't gotten down to the soap and water cleaning part yet. There is still a lot of his junk in his room that has to be gotten out before I clean in there. I feel like I'm in an episode of HOARDERS! So far I've burned two bags of trash out of there and the place stinks! Anyway...pretty depressing. I've got to get the RV cleaned out because I'm going to use it for storage for some things I want to get out of the house. So anyway....it's part of my still trying to get organized and settled in the new place....slow going but I'll get there eventually!! We had a pretty busy weekend with trail rides this past weekend but Jeff didn't have time to get a lot done on his days off because he guided the rides for Alison. Alison fell from her horse while practicing barrels on Thursday! Her stirrup fell completely off while she was rounding the barrel and she went to the ground. She was okay but her hip and shoulder was sore for several days. She missed dance that night and she was too sore to do guide the trail rides on Saturday. My car is giving us problems. It needs a new water pump on it we know but now the Service Engine light is on so I'm not driving it. I have to drive Jeff's diesel truck but I can't do that for long because it's way to expensive to put gas in. We are waiting to hear back from Jeff's dad...we've asked him about buying his little truck. It's small but nice and I would love nothing more than to just have a dependable vehicle for once. I'm not crocheting on my afghan right now because I ran out of yarn. I bought the amounts of yarn the pattern said to get but I'm short. I'm mostly using the yarn to join so I don't think the dye lot will matter much. Jeff is going into San Antonio tomorrow for work so I'm sending him with yarn label to buy me more so I can finish it. It seems I'm too disorganized right now to get any pictures made.

I can't believe it's already Thursday!! We are still trying to get things squared away around here a little at a time. Life doesn't stop so we just have to try to get things done around everything else. Believe it or not, I still have a couch in my front yard. We had 4-H meeting this week and I spent the day in town yesterday taking Morgan and Alison for their first follow-up orthodontist visit. Now, I'm trying to decide if we have time to go to Serenity's pep rally at the school today. She has a football game tonight. Alison has dance but I should probably go to her football game tonight and watch her cheer. Had a busy morning this morning feeding all the animals and we don't normally do it but Alison and I fed the horses this morning because everyone is gone. There are 31 horses out here so it's a little more time intensive to feed horses here than it was at the other place. Since then, I've been moving junk around, burning the trash and washing clothes. I'm sitting down now for a little break. I think I'll check my washing and sit back down for a little crocheting before I make my decision on whether Alison has gotten enough school work done for us to go to the pep rally. I have to sit down and plan meals to make a grocery list some time today too....tomorrow is my grocery trip which is an all day affair. Well, hope everyone is having a great week! Here's my new back yard...