Stingray, Anyone?

jengransting
Originally uploaded by pusstatmine.

This was the highlight of our cruise! Snorkeling with Stingrays!

T H E W I N N E R S !

And now, without further ado, are the winners. 

The correct number of pets I've had is 30.

Grand Prize Winner: JACKIE who guessed 30!. 

Her prize is 1 skein of Wollmeise, the elusive yarn that is so difficult to aquire. This is the Gewitterhimmel colorway.

The winner of the random drawing is STARSPRY!

The prize is this Lisa Souza hand dyed yarn in the Shade Garden colorway.

The FIVE winners for guessing the correct names are:

knit witch for guessing Tiger

Jennifer for guessing Queenie

Dawn for guessing Sam

Kristen for guessing Spot

Doug for guessing Dusty

The prizes are a selection of these Opal & Regia yarns:

Thank you all for participating and I hope all of the winners enjoy their prize. Please private email me your name and address and your prizes will be mailed right out.
For the winners of the names contest:: When you send me your address, let me know your choice of the color of Opal/Regia and these will be given out as I receive your emails.

OK - now for all the pets in my life that I've played with and loved, in no particular order:

Prince, aka Dusty: Beautiful buckskin gelding who used to love throwing me off. His favorite treat was Hostess Twinkies.

Sweetpea: Skunk: Yes, she was de-scented but always had that aroma about her. Not too friendly – liked biting.

Heathcliff: Black guinea pig

Elizabeth: Wife of Healthcliff - black with orange ring around her middle.

Charlotte: Daughter of Heathcliff & Elizabeth - black & orange (what a surprise!)

Greenie: Green garden snake I had as a child. I used to take him for rides on my swing, twisting him around one of the ropes.

Brownie: Greenie's tank mate. He rode on the other rope, and yes, he was brown.

Cup Cake: White and brown wire-haired terrier, with ADD

Big Skasy: A very large sucker fish that was not too pretty looking but he was my favorite fish in our tank. We had him for years.

Simon: Calico cat - at the time we didn't know that calico's were girls. When we found out that he was a she we just kept her name.

Cecil: Kind of a wildish cat I had as a kid. He may have been part bobcat as his tail was in a kinked up shape.

Snowball, aka Kitty-Kitty: A ranch cat we adopted. She thought her name was Kitty-Kitty because the caretaker at the ranch would call out, "Here, Kitty Kitty" when he fed the dozens of cats that lived there, and they all thought their name was Kitty-Kitty. Our Snowball was big, fluffy and white with a small amount of black.

Queenie: A beautiful gray cat (pregnant at the time & we didn't know) that was dumped at the Little League field where my son used to play. So we took her home.

Missy: Daugher of Queenie, a gray tabby

Freckles: Son of Queenie, also a gray tabby

Michael: Sweet, sweet, BIG brown cat that wandered to our house in a skin & bones condition with hardly any fur. He became a big, beautiful, fluffy healthy member of our clan.

Spot: Our first family cat. Beautiful black shiney fur. He loved when my daughter took him for rides in the basket on her bike.

Tiger: A totally wild cat that hid and stole our other cat's food. I used to sit outside and wait for him, with his own bowl of food and gradually he got used to me. Finally he even let me pat him. And he purred.  Beautiful medium gray with white.

Little Cat: Black tuxedo cat, probably was bi-polar.

Barney: Part Siamese with gorgeous slightly crossed eyes.

Ben: Cherry Head Parrot, not all that friendly. Used to do pretend biting but we never knew when he really would.

Sam: Beagle I had as a kid. The only outdoor dog we had because he couldn't be housebroken. My Dad built a 2 bedroom doghouse for him.

Joe: Brother of Sam, and shared the same doghouse.

Useless: NO, I did NOT name him. This was the best, sweetest dog anyone could ever have. His former owner was a mean, awful man. My Dad found out how badly this dog was being mistreated and offered to take him and the owner obliged. This dog was my best friend when I was a kid. He was kind of an orange color with floppy ears, and he went everywhere with me including to the library where he sat at the reading table on a chair, with his own book.

Sam: White German Shepherd, who was my wolf the year I dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween.

Loretta: Reddish-brown dog, first dog I had as an adult. She was a great pet and very protective when my kids were babies.

Patsy: An Australian Shepherd mix (blue merle color) adopted from the feed store. She was barely alive and our vet told me not to waste my time on her. She had to be hand fed because she was in such bad shape. She turned out to be a wonderful pet and super great watchdog.

Yote: Siberian Husky with blue eyes prettier than Liz Taylor's. He was the only pet I ever purchased from a pet store. Very good natured and thought he was a lap dog, a little tricky being that we weighed 75 lbs.

Sunny: My present day beautiful orange boy. He loves everyone.

Beauty Baby: My present day beautiful tortie girl and Sunny's sister. She's much more reserved than Sunny, meaning it may take years for her to warm up to you.

and the WINNERS are...........

Nope.......not yet.

The contest is officially closed,  and all of the lucky WINNERS will be announced tomorrow!

I have to do ALOT of some very serious work ahead of me today. 

Sheesh! Number of pets, NAMES, plus one pick-out-of-the-hat winner....

I must have been out of my mind! (FUN, yes? Yep!)

AHHHHHH......

I thought this picture would put a smile on everyone's face.

Contest winners will be announced on Saturday!

It's Contest Time!

Hey, Boys & Girls....It's contest time!

I'm celebrating my birthday this month and I've decided it would be a fun thing to have a contest. This is the deal. Over the course of my life I've had many, many pets. For this contest you have to guess the correct number of pets I've had. All of these pets have had names and were (and are) members of the family. The only pets not involved in this contest are the fish, turtles and snakes that were nameless. The 1st person who guesses the correct number of pets or closest to that number without going over, will be the winner of a wonderful prize package! Leave your guess as a blog comment to this post. I will also pick a name from everyone who enters in a random drawing, for an additional prize. PLUS, I'll put your name in twice if you put my contest button on your blog with a link to this post.

The button is above. Make sure to let me know that you posted it by leaving me a comment with the link. (And please host the button on your own server.)

Part Two: Guess The Names

I will also give out a prize to the 1st five people who can guess any of my pets names. Sunny and Beauty Baby's names do not count in this part of the contest!! Everyone can guess up to 5 names.

The contest ends on August 14th.  Winners will be announced on August 16th, along with a list of ALL the pets and a brief description with their name & species.

OH - the Prizes! It will be some very beauteous yarn. Very beauteous. I'm thinking Lisa Souza Sock!, Dashing Dachs, Lorna's Laces, and maybe some Wollmeise - maybe.  I may even give choices. And for you non-knitters out there (yes, there may be a few), I'm sure I can come up with something.

No Entries will be accepted from Anonymous posters or people 

who do not leave their identity and a valid email address for me to contact.

Only ONE entry per email address, please.

It's Almost Time.....

I'll have the details up for the C O N T E S T tonight!
In the mean time I thought I'd give you all something cute to look at.


No, they're not mine.

Ultimate Sweater Machine anyone ?

I'm selling this. I've decided that I have way, way too much stuff and it's time to shovel out.

This is the Bond Ultimate Sweater Machine Deluxe. The box has never been opened. Ya see what I mean about clearing out? I paid $250 at Joann's, don't remember when, and I'm asking $100 for it.

I'm posting this here thinking that one of my local knitting buddies might be interested in this. If no one is interested in this strikingly unbelievable offer I'll put a post up and offer it on Ravely, but I"d rather sell it to someone I know who might like to have this and save them some bucks. Pass the word. Either call me, for those that have my number, or email me at phyl1234@bellsouth.net.

I'm on a roll here. Over the past several weeks I've donated, given, sold, thrown out (nothing good thrown out, I assure you) because as "collector" there comes a time that one's collection becomes unmanageable. I don't know how long this sudden interest of mine will last so I'm taking full advantage of it while it's here.

I Think It's Time For A CONTEST!

My birthday is coming up. Sheesh! How did this happen - it feels like I just had one! I haven't had a contest in a good while so I thought this would be the purrfect time. Hey, ya don't turn 62 every day, right? (Thank God!)

This contest will involve animals and will be a guessing game.

I'll have the details posted in another couple of days, so check back to get the low down.

One thing I will say is that I'll be giving away some really beauteous prizes. Really. Good ones. Yarn. Wonderful yarn. The I can't take my hands off kind of yarn. The outstanding colorways type of yarn.

I love being a tease.

Come back in a few days and we'll have some fun.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Hi there!

Remember me? No, I haven't been to the moon. Just haven't been in the mood to blog. Gee....who cudda guessed!

Ok - the GOOD first.
For starters, Jenna was here in June and then Arlene flew in. We had our usual good time just hanging out, chatting, shopping - you know - girlie fun stuff. Arlene LOVES the Outlet Mall in Dawsonville and she hit that twice while she was here. Jen went to Circus Camp again and had such a great time she went for a 2nd week. Here she is riding a unicycle in their show.



One of our many activities were doing Flying Angels.
I used to LOVE doing these when I was a kid! Funny thing, though - I was never the Angel. (We won't go there, ok?)

I finally finished Arlene's socks. For the knitters out there, these were knitted toe-up with the Baby Cable Rib pattern in Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks book. The yarn is Opal Crazy in colorway 1903 on 2 circular needles size 0 .

I can't believe that I really can knit on a size 0. A couple of years ago I would have thought NEVER. EVER. Yes, I'm only a little proud of myself for conquering the I Can't Do That syndrome. Quite honestly my confidence level was heightened by all the many knitting friends I've acquired since moving here. I look at the beautiful projects that Claudia, Doug, Jen,Steve, Sandy, Katey, Jane Diana and Zina have done and you just drool. Plus, they and all the rest are more than happy to help when I didn't know how to do something. A very generous bunch.


Jen & Arlene went back to South FL and then I had all of 3 days to get ready to fly down for 2 weeks. My son Eddie, his wife Ivonne, & their 3 kids were coming in to visit from San Jose so this was the perfect time for all of us to get together. They stayed a week, and needless to say the house was VERY .....busy.

Eddie and Arlene
Ivonne & Eddie


All FOUR of my Grandkids!
Catalina, Gino, Jenna and Carlo. Oh yes - Jenna is holding Granddog Razzle.



We all went to Everglades Holiday Park and saw this guy from the airboat.


Then on to the gator show. Someone noticed that the gator wrestler was missing a few fingers. I couldn't help but think that he was lucky to have lost some fingers rather than some other body parts..


That's all the good stuff. The bad stuff is bad. My very good friend Claudia lost her husband very suddenly last month. I'm mentioning this for several reasons, We were all so saddened by this because everyone that knows Claudia knows what a wonderful person she is and how much her Irwin meant to her, as did she to him. Over this past month I've known of several other people who have passed away at what I consider a young age, people much younger than I am. It really makes you stop and think about your life, what you want to do and who you want to spend your time with. I also just heard about a friend of mine in Florida that was in a severe boating accident 2 weeks ago. Evidently somehow she got caught in the boat's propeller and was injured extremely badly. I only hope that she recovers in a way that she will be able to enjoy life again. I'm relaying all this because I think we can take life so much for granted. Ya get up, brush the teeth & hair, feed the cats (or dogs) and do all the normal stuff that we all do. I think what I'm trying to say here is ya just never know. My thoughts now are to do things that make me feel good, spend time with good people, make more frequent trips to FL to play with Jenna, Arlene, & Bently and not to let time go by and think, "Boy, I wish I would have done that".
I'm going to try and do all of "that".


Now for the UGLY. The weather here has been U G L Y. Hot, humid, and stormy. BUT, it could be worse. No tornados, no earthquakes, no hurricanes. Life is good.

Jenna Is Knitting

Last year when Jen was here during the summer I taught her how to knit but it just didn't "click". This year it did. I showed her how to do the basic knit stitch on Tuesday and she hasn't put her project down ever since. She worked on it until 11:00 PM last night. Amazing what a difference a year makes. Believe me, I didn't thrust it upon her. If she didn't like it that would be fine. She said that maybe she'll get SO good at it that she'll be a better knitter than I am. I told her that I hoped she would because then I could go to HER for help! This is going to be a little blankey for Razzle, her teacup Pom. No doubt he'll be wrapped and carried around in it.

Was Beauty Baby Shorn?

No she wasn't but doesn't this roving look exactly like her? When I ordered "brown" I had no idea that it would be a mixture of "browns" and I really do like it. I didn't realize how much it resembled Beauty Baby's coloring until my Boston friend Eileen noticed. I wonder if natural roving comes in orange? I don't want to leave Sunny out of this.


Sunny enjoying Beauty Baby's new assmat.

I'm An Addict

This is what just came in the mail today. Yes, it's roving, ready to spin.

Question: Do I KNOW how to spin?
Answer: No
Another question: Do I have a wheel on which to spin?
Answer: No

Hey, I'm LEARNING how to spin and I thought I'd need something to practice on. And it was a special deal. Fairly inexpensive. It's good to practice on inexpensive stuff, since what I spin will not be the best. Hardly. But that's fine - I'll knit it into something. A bunch of good sheep spent months growing this stuff and I'll do my best to show them off as well as possible!

The Laugh Of The Day

I had to go to the dentist today. Anyone that really knows me knows that I'd rather have major surgery than go to the dentist. I broke a tooth last night and 1st thing this morning I called and made an appointment to go in.

I arrive at my appointed time, 1:00 PM - they squeezed me in.

After checking in, the conversation goes like this:

Dental Assistant: "What brings you here today?"

Me: "I broke a tooth."

Dental Assistant: "When did you break it?"

Me: "Last night."

Dental Assistant:" How did it happen?"

Me: "I was having some Matzo Ball soup."

Dental Assistant: "What's that??"

(I didn't tell her)

ZZZZZZZZZZ

Now does this look like total bliss or what! I wish I could climb in next to him. Actually I can. Sunny's bed is on top of my bed so he can have some extra comfyness. Beauty Baby has her own, too. What can I say.


Beauty Baby on her "other" bed - the leather couch in the living room.

This is a scarf that I made to send to the troops overseas as part of a community service project that the Atlanta Knitting Guild has going. I haven't done anything to contribute lately and plan on doing more in the months to come. I'm also making an outfit for a Teddy Bear for the Trauma Bear project, which the Georgia Center for Children gives to children who are in crisis situations. The Guild has info and patterns on their web site if anyone is interested.

Yarn Update

Tempted Handpainted Yarn, in Bad Girl & Glam Girl


Wollmeise Yarn

Yes, I've been buying yarn. Sock yarn. What can I say. I must have enough sock yarn to put the entire population of Asia in handknit socks. As Dr. Phil says, " You can't fix the problem unless you acknowledge that you have one." Well, I DO acknowledge that I have one and so far I haven't been able to fix it. I think perhaps that it shouldn't be fixed. It makes me feel good, looking at all the colors and when you squeeze it, well, it makes me feel even better. There's a practical side to this also, for example there might be a blizzard and I might not be able to get out to any of the LYS to buy sock yarn. Or a tornado might be coming, etc. The yarn IS gorgeous, isn't it?

That Wollmeise yarn is a challenge just to purchase, I might add. It is in such high demand that the owner can't keep up with the demand and this yarn sells out INSTANTLY, as soon as she puts it up on her site. I didn't realize and read the post she put up, saying that new yarn will be offered on Fridays, and just as soon as I had several selections in my shopping cart they all started to disappear! It seems that you must purchase it IMMEDIATELY and go to PayPal to pay, or someone else will grab it up before you can wipe your nose. Amazing.....just amazing. There's an entire Ravelry Group dedicated to Claudia and her yarn, and exchanges go on between the members, and yes, some fighting and jealously as well. Do you believe it? All this over yarn.


THIS is the Cat Afghan Kit designed by Gitta Schrade. It is no longer being sold. And I now have one! At the Knitting Retreat I went to in February Joni brought the one she made and I of course fell in love with it. I since found out that the kit is no longer being sold. Instead of just saying "Oh well", I emailed the designer, asking her if she had any way of locating one of the kits. She lives in Germany and has designed many wonderful things including several other afghan designs. She wrote back leaving me the name and email address of a woman who works for the company that made it, and yes, they put together a kit for me, pattern and all. Granted, I'm sure it will take me the rest of my life to complete this, but I'm SO excited at the challenge.This is the one Joni made. If you look at the border, you'll see mice running around the edge. Just adorable. I just did a swatch to make sure my gauge is right. I knit loosely and CAN'T run out of yarn, plus I want those cats to look GOOD.

Making Up For Lost Time

I have been a very bad blogger. VERY bad. Oh well. Now I'll play catch up with a montage of what's been happening for the past month, in no particular order. Yes, I've been knitting. This is the hat & scarf that I made for Jenna when she went skiing in Vail with her friend Morgan and family during Spring Break. What a lucky duck! She's never seen snow or mountains like THAT before and had a blast. She did pull a trick on me, though. She called one afternoon, crying, and told me she broke her finger. I naturally went off the deep end, asking her what happened, etc, etc,. She said she just got back from the doctor. And it was her "ring finger". Then she said "April Fool". I wanted to smack her. That was the 2nd April Fool that was imposed upon me that day, the 1st was from my boss, and by the end of the day I wanted to rip someone's ears off. But I didn't.

I've been working on an ass mat for Beauty Baby, in her favorite colors. She's always been fond of pink. I already have the yarn picked out for Sunny's ass mat in a nice blend of blues, but I think he already has placed a stake in the one on the needles. I have to be more careful with those points!
This is Princess, one of my Grandcats in Florida. She's a VERY large cat, probably weighs close to the last Thanksgiving turkey. I don't know how or why but the small bathroom sink is one of her favorite napping places.
Now would YOU be just a little bit leary of patting Rocky, taking those fangs into consideration? You should be! He's gotten better in the biting department but he always seems to snag me at least once on every Florida trip that I make. This last one he only just grazed my right hand. I guess I just like to live dangerously because I can't seem to keep my hands off of him. But I have learned. The best time to do patting & squeezing is early evening, when he's tired and very groggy. I supposed he just doesn't know what's going on.

German Knitting Championship 2007

ATTENTION ALL KNITTERS! Look at this! Talk about being able to knit like the wind, plus they can look away and keep up the beat! I wonder what would happen if I tried to knit with such speed.....lots of knots?

BIRTHDAY SURPRISE IN THE BIG APPLE!

Happy 40th, ARLENE!
Bently, Jenna, and I surprised Arlene with a trip to New York City for her 40th birthday!

All she knew was that she was going "somewhere" for 4 days, was told to pack warm clothes, and that was it. Bently told her she was going to NYC the day before they left! They flew into Laguardia, took a cab to The Hilton Midtown, and I was sitting in the lobby waiting for them. She thought that it was the 3 of them going "somewhere" and that it was a shame that I wouldn't be spending her birthday with her. Tee Hee Hee! Little did she know this was all planned months ago. I'll put more pictures up tomorrow but for now here are a few:

A birthday toast!


Arl and Jen shopping at FAO Schwartz


Jenna the Snow Angel


Arl, Bent & Jen in front of our hotel. There's nothing like Manhattan at night.


Arl & Jen skating at Rockefeller Center


Jenna ordered a "Yahoo". Ya see how technology has taken over?


We ate our faces off at The Carnegie Deli. Now THIS is matzo ball soup!


Myself and Jen (the other Jen) at The Rainbow Room



Jenna packed a mean snowball for a Florida kid!