The Big Easy

It's not often you get to take a trip to New Orleans and stay in the French Quarter, eat some great Cajun food, and have some family time too in the month of December, but I got to do just that. DH and DD joined me on the second day of the USAEE (USA Energy Economists) Conference (yes, I AM just that geeky).

We went to a fabulous restaurant on Bourbon Street called the Red Fish Grill. Here is the yummy wedge salad with pecans and blue cheese - almost too pretty to eat.
I followed that up with shrimp creole.
My dinner mates, DD and DH ordered a pecan-crusted fish (it seems they take that crusting seriously in the French Quarter!)
If you know me, you know I am all about the dessert. It seems a lot of restauants in New Orleans have what is called a fixed menu of several courses and ours had 3 courses and the last course was bread pudding. I am not a huge fan of bread pudding but the waitress said we could upgrade to a chocolate bread pudding that was really good. I'm always game for chocolate so I ordered that. Here it is.
It was simply de-vine!! I could not quit making those yum noises all the way through the dessert and the vanilla bean ice creme made it even more heavenly. I have to stop talking about it now, I am making myself hungry!

We got to shop and tour the French Quarter several evenings and on Saturday as well. The architecture was beautiful and here is a beautiful garden in the area as well.


We even enjoyed some musicians jamming on Bourbon Street. It was un-seasonably cold but maybe that kept the crowds away. Some of the bars, etc. looked fun and we posed in front of some of the funny signs.
Cheyenne said with the clubs, music, cigars, and other "sins" that New Orleans was like a grown man's Disneyland...lol

Of course there were some pretty racy clubs and posters too but overall it was pretty tame probably because of the cold, but there are always a few perverts looking to give away some beads...



We also had beignets (a yummy French pastry like a donut but way way better) and chicory coffee (ok, DD had the coffee, I had milk and DH had a Sprite) and the powdered sugar with the beignets was so thick, DD had to make herself a sugar mustache!





We also got the opportunity to take a tour on Saturday to see the Lower 9th ward and some other neighborhoods that were really hard hit by Hurricane Katrina and Rita. Living in the Houston area, we are very familiar with a lot of the evacuees from New Orleans and all along the gulf coast. Some of the homes are being rebuilt with help from charitable organizations sponsored by Brad Pitt. We were really hopeful that we might see him on the tour since we were visiting some of his projects (especially DD, I have to admit I used that as incentive to get her to come to New Orleans) but no such luck.

We toured a model home that is in a neighborhood that is trying to build back "green". It was really cool and we actually got some good ideas for future building projects of our own (such as collecting rain water to use for flushing toilets). Here is DD and DH in the really airy and nice bedroom.

As former renters and later landlords of affordable housing in Oklahoma and Missouri, we were appauled by two things. One, how expensive the new "green" homes were in these areas - not what we would call affordable and also by the fact that so few homes were rebuilt. It appears that there are several governing agencies and they all want to "preserve" the historical neighborhood and its shotgun houses. So that make it very expensive to repair such heavily damaged houses and impossible to just tear the worst ones down and rebuild a basic affordable home in its place. Some organizations are buying properties from those who do not want to come back, getting lots of donations to restore or rebuild and then selling them at a profit. What a racket... As usual, the little guy gets the short end of the deal.

Well, on to some FIBER content. Here are a couple of dishrags that I made. The pattern is called Chinese Waves and I used a self-striping cotton that together makes a really thick dishcloth. A fun pattern and easy to do.

The third project is a Starburst hot-pad that is three-dimentional. I liked how this project looked in the pattern and I liked how it looked when I got done but I am not super pleased with my color choices and how they looked together. I made it to match some dishclothes I had made for my MIL but the variegated yarn has such a small amount of yellow it doesn't blend as well as I had hoped. She really liked it though, now I just need to convince her to actually use it and not just hang it up for "pretty"!

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Well, we finally did it! We bought SEASON TICKETS to all the OSU Football Home Games on the Club Level. Let me tell you, once you watch the game up there you will never want to go back to a regular seat!

My DD, Cheyenne, and I were the lucky winners of the Bedlam Beg-a-thon...the OU vs OSU game tickets are hot commodities and she and I got to go and we had a blast! My DS, Asa, rode over from Tulsa with us on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and we checked out the local Buffalo Wild Wings and browsed at some GREAT shoe stores in Stillwater before walking over to the game from the house Asa is living in this semester. Poor Asa had to sit in the Student section, but they have a great time over there cheering on the team. BOY, was it cold.
Here is another fan who just couldn't resist getting in the picture with my DD!


Now, usually, I park myself on a barstool along the windows in the club level and have a great in-door view of the whole playing field. But this time, it was Bedlam for heaven's sake, so we were obligated to sit in our actual seats outside. I didn't really plan for that but I wore a couple of shirts, a fleece jacket and borrowed a knitted hat I had made for DS a couple of years ago out of NORO Kabuto which is a cool super bulky weight yarn with wool, silk, cashmere, and alpaca (yum) in a nice manly 2 by 2 rib pattern.
Here is a picture of us and you can see DD has her hoodie on against the weather as well.

It was really windy but we yelled and yelled. Especially when the OSU defense was on the field. It was a fabulous game and we just gave OU hell (I meant heck, Mama...). I was also wearing a pair of socks that I made from hand-dyed bamboo from Mama Llama and my toes stayed toasty warm the whole time!
I had no idea bamboo would be that warm (Just an fyi to other football fans). We did have an acrylic afghan in OSU colors that was a gift to us but shortly after half-time DD said she had frozen enough and so we went indoor to watch the rest of the game. I'm sure the "poor chickens" wished they could have done the same, it really got cold after the sun was fully down.

Unfortunately, we played really great until the last 7 minutes or so and OU ended up winning the game. However, the score 61-41 doesn't really reflect how close most of the game was. Our quarterback made a couple of interceptions that ended up being costly. Come on Cowboy Offensive line - protect that guy! Zac Robinson is too cute to let get hurt!

The up-side is that OU gets to play for the south for the Big 12 championship so at least another Oklahoma team is representin'. My DSIL is a big OU fan and so I try to keep that in mind, even though I bleed orange. Common guesses are that we will go to the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl in San Diego. What a great location and a great town to visit. Unfortunately, we have decided that it would just be so expensive to fly there, plus hotel, etc right at Christmas. So I am secretly wishing we go to the Alamo Bowl. We could drive there and I have a good friend who lives there that would let us crash at her house. But the best Bowl for OSU would definitely be the Holiday Bowl, so I guess I hope we get that one. We will probably try and have a Bowl Party or go to one in Katy somewhere. There are lots of Cowboy fans in Texas! Check out this cool website...Go Pokes!

Cold Feet, Warm Heart...

I have been knitting up a lot of socks this year for myself, as well as for gifts. The latest pair, Eclipse Socks were requested by my DD, Cheyenne. She is OBSESSED with the Stephanie Meyer books in the Twilight series. These 4 books are about star-crossed lovers, one of which just happens to be a vampire. Normally, I have absolutely no interest in vampires, I found Anne Rice to be just too blood-thirsy. But, I loved these books, after Cheyenne started reading them, I devoured all four books (excuse the pun). So when I found a sock pattern that had the cover of one of the books, I knew she would love it. She asked me to make her a pair in time for the 1st book's movie premier. Twilight is premiering this Friday, Nov. 21st and I just FedEx'd her the socks this morning. That should get me some good Mama points.
I ordered KnitPicks Essentials superwash wool and really liked working with it. I learned several new techniques with these socks, I did a twisted rib at the top which I love the look of and will definitely use in the future. I also did an afterthought heel. This was a major nerve-wracking experience. The first one I did in the LA airport and an elderly Vietnamese woman even went and bought me a bottle of water after she observed me concentrating so hard on this! lol I did much better on the second one, especially when I used my Ott lamp and a magnafier. That black yarn and tiny stitches are heck on those of us with reading glasses! I also learned how to do Intarsia in the Round! The pattern called for duplicate stitch on only one sock after the sock was finished but I was afraid it would be hard to see (see above blindness note! lol). I made the legs of the socks longer than the pattern, so I had to repeat part of the ribbon pattern. I also made them a bit slimmer as DD has a fairly narrow foot. The heel and toe in the pattern go down to 16 stitches, but I modified it to 24 on the toe and next time I think I would do 24 on the heel as well. I think they turned out awesome and very trendy looking as well. I hope she WOWs everyone at the theater.


I wanted to also show a pair of cute self-striping socks that I made this summer as a Christmas gift. I knit them toe-up on 2 circulars and ribbed all of the leg with a 3 to 1 ribbing. I tried a different increase at the toes that was supposed to make a rounder toe but I don't really like it that well so I probably won't use that again. This is a super-wash wool from Skacel but it is tons scratchier than the above KnitPicks or lots of other ones. I love the pattern but I plan to wash them at least one more time before I give them as a gift so try and soften them some more. I also seem to have a rather tight bind-off on these so I may re-do that before they go to their new home.


The third pair of socks are a pair of Cascade Fixation Ankle Socks from the stretchy cotton-blend fixation yarn. I actually knit both socks from a single 100 yard ball of that yarn and I wear a 8.5 to a 9 size shoe! I literally had about 2 feet of yarn left. I love the color but wish they were a bit less pointy. I used a size 3 circular needle and didn't really have any tension problems working with this yarn.


Finally another type of foot covering, a delicate pair of Crocheted Mary Janes for a newborn. I like to do some quick projects in the middle of a pair of socks or a more challenging project so one night I whipped these up. I think I may put them up for a future grandbaby as I don't think I can bear to part with them. Aren't they adorable?? I made these with some aqua blue sport yarn that my Mama got at an estate sale. Unfortunately, I think this yarn had been rolling around in a box of razor blades. Every 2 to 4 feet, there was a cut in the yarn. ARGhhhh! After I finished these booties, I tossed the rest of that skein and another one just like it in the trash! It goes against my frugal grain to throw away yarn, but that was ridiculous!

Well, more later, I have to get some work done...

Eire! My Eire!

Well, I've finally slowed down enough to go through some pictures and start blogging about the trip to Ireland that my Mama and I went on at the beginning of June. We couldn't have asked for better weather, it only rained on us like two times and that's the only got out our umbrellss! (This weird weather phenonomon seemed to be courtesy of my occasional "Bethel Triangle" that causes weird unexplained happenings when I'm around. I went to Canada immediately after Ireland and they had be deluged with bad weather before I came and it was 75 and beautiful while I was there and then I went to Southern California and it had been 107 all the week before I got there and it was a beautiful 75 the whole week I was there! Sadly, these powers do not seem as powerful in the Houston area where we have been "glowing" with mid-90 humid temps)

Our flight(s) over (yep, 2 for me, 3 for Mama) were great. Except the part where I could have been upgraded from Houston to Newark, but being the "great" daughter that I am, I politely declined. Seems like it would be really selfish to go and leave Mama behind in coach... Also, we left at 9:45 pm on Saturday night and planned to sleep as much as possible on the flight because we had things planned for the next day, but the blinking flight attendants had other ideas! They kept flipping on and off the lights thru-out the 8ish hour flight and offering food, drinks, etc every little whip-stitch. Honestly, if this had been daytime, I would have been impressed with the service but as it was, I am wondering if they were just sadistic by nature or had made a bet with someone!

I thouoght I would focus on the beginning of our trip for this post. We ate at Pappadeaux in the Houston airport and if you have ever been to Houston, you have probably eaten there, if you haven't, be sure and go there when you come. I had fried crawfish and Mama had fried shrimp (big surprise) and it was delish! In Newark, we ate at a cute little 50's theme diner, however, we ordered shakes and they were really impressive looking and yummy. Here's Mama with her strawberry one.


After we arrived in Dublin, we took a shuttle bus to the hotel where we were staying that night. Unfortunately, they did not have our rooms ready. We were prepared for this, since it usually happens since flights to Europe get in in the morning and check-out times are usually noon and they have to clean the rooms. I needed a Diet Coke in a BIG way. It would just have been better for everyone!

The hotel was very modern and had a large open lounge area for us to wait in. We decided to order tea (also known as substitute caffeine for me) and it was cool that the tour had arranged for tea for us for free! Too Cool. Although, that might have been a protective measure for the front desk personnel when people found out their rooms weren't ready... Here is a pic of that welcome brew, I had Earl Grey and Mama had some kind of Mint.


We got our room literally 15 minutes before we were to go on our tour of Dublin and raced upstairs with our bags and put them in the room, washed up and raced back down.

I have a really funny story about that hotel room later that night, we finished dinner and were waiting for a check, so Mama went upstairs to take a bath before I came up so I could take a shower. The room had a card reader inside the room that said it was for the lights. So she swiped the card and the lights came on and she took her stuff in the bathroom...and the lights went off. So she swiped her card again and went into the bathroom and started to undresss...and the lights went off. Soooo, she swiped her card several different ways and the lights would come on for a minute or so and then go off. It's a testament to how tired we were that she just kept at it a while, finally, admitting defeat, she opened the drapes, closed the shears and left the bathroom door open a little and took a bath in...twilight! Might have been a bit more fun with candles and some wine, but there you go.

So being the smarty pants that I am, I think she is just doing it wrong. Mama just lays on the bed and laughs at me swiping the card every way known to man. Finally, I call down to the front desk and they inform me that we need to LEAVE the card in the reader as long as we want lights! Oh! That makes some sense. Evidently in Europe this is somewhat common and is considered "green" cause it makes sure the lights are off when no one's in the room. Nobody told the Okies...

Another funny thing that happened at this hotel was I wanted to get a Diet Coke to take up to my room after dinner. So I went to the front desk and asked if they had Cokes machines in the hotel.

She looked horrified and said NO.

So I asked if the only place to get one was the lounge or room service.

She said YES OF COURSE.

So I said, well, I travel a lot and they usually have Coke machines and ice machines somewhere in the hotel.

She said WELL, THIS IS A FOUR-STAR HOTEL!!

So I said well even most 4-star hotels have mini-bars or fridges in the rooms for a Diet Coke.

Then, she says OH, WELL, WE HAVE MINI_BARS IN THE ROOMS.

Sooooo,when I asked if the lounge and room service were the ONLY place to get one, I GUESS it didn't occur to her THEN that there were mini-bars in the room. But then, I should have remembered THIS WAS A FOUR-STAR HOTEL! Just so's you know...

Animal Planet

First, I wanted to include a few pictures of my DH Mark and our black Lab Hank playing at the beach in Galveston. If you tell someone here in Houston that you went to the ocean over the weekend, they just give you a strange look and ask, "What ocean??".

But for land-locked Okies, Galveston IS the ocean and without a doubt, April and May are PERFECT for going to the beach for a day. The water is the clearest and bluest of the year and the humidity is low as well. We loaded up and I spent the afternoon parked in an OSU Cowboys lawnchair, knitting away on a really cute sock (see last post of turquoise stripe sock), sipping ice cold Diet Pepsi and enjoyed the view and the sound of the waves. Some "neighbors" next to us even found a perfect sand dollar. Now, that's a day at the beach. As you can tell from these pictures, it was pretty windy and Irish girl that I am - I even got a bit sun-burned!

Speaking of Irish, my Mama and I are headed for 10 days in Ireland on the 31st of May. Less than a month away! I have my eye on some beautiful Belleek pottery china and maybe an Aran Island sweater??



I recently got bit by the amigurumi bug and saw this darling Marine Turtle in the Knit.1 magazine. I don't always buy this magazine, but they usually include at least 1 crocheted item and this time there are 4 seriously cute crocheted amigurumi animals in it. I love turtles, especially after going to Hawaii where they have lots of turtle motif stuff there and I loved the turtle "Crush" in the Finding Nemo movie. So I decided to name this one "Crush" too. I used Caron Simply Soft and completed this guy in less than 2 days. I love him, don't know what I am going to do with him, but nevertheless he was a blast to make. Plus not 1 mistake in the pattern!

The next animal in this animal planet post is "Peggy Francis". I made an unofficial resolution to make to charity items this year, so this is my first finished charity item. She is a knitted bear for the "Peggy's Bear" project that is sponsored by my LYS. These bears are gifted to Alsheimer's patients who find them comforting. I named mine "Peggy" after the project name who is one of the store owner's grandmother and "Francis" after my maternal grandmother who was very talented at needlework. I am also including a picture of Peggy Francis with her new bear friends at LYS Yarntopia. Peggy Francis is made with Plymouth Encore Worsted that was in my stash.

What EXACTLY happens at a Knitting Retreat??

Well if the 1st Annual Knitting Retreat to Rockport, TX by a group from my LYS Yarntopia is any indication - alot of knitting, eating of seafood, and a lot of laughing. A group of us ate the 1st night at the Boiling Pot restaurant. Yum! Here we are in our bibs! Watch out for the rice and beans, they were MEGA-HOT! The next night we had a couple of adult beverages and decided to "GLAM" for the camera.





  I worked on a pair of socks from the fall's sock club made with hand-dyed bamboo yarn from Mama Llama.  The good news is I had a ton of fun, the bad news is I had to frog about 4 inches because of 3, not 1 not 2, but 3 mistakes.  Guess knitting and an adult beverage don't work for me!  I'm such a cheap date!
The pattern is from Fiber Trends called Peak Experience: Angel's Rest.  This yarn is so pretty on the stockinette foot that I almost wish I had just made a plain sock with it.  The pattern was fairly easy except the darn thing was designed with a yarn-over at the end of each needle.  What a pain!  The leg part is pretty tight to get over my heel so next time I might want to use the larger size of the pattern for the top and then reduce the stockinette size on the foot since that stitch count fit my somewhat narrow foot fine.  I wear an 8.5 - 9 in women's shoes and used 2 circulars size 1.  



I also took a really fun sock class from Patti at Yarntopia.  It was Toe-up Short-Row Heel with Yarnovers on Magic Loop.  This is my 1st pair that is Toe-up.  I had done short-row heels before but with the wrap method.  It was great fun, Patti is a fun and funny teacher.  I have the first sock complete. 
It is with one of last year's summer colors from On-Line which is cotton, wool, and nylon.  I think they will just get softer with every wash.  I think these are going to become a gift.  I used 56 stitches for the foot and increased to 60 for the leg because of my experience with the previous socks above.  I used 2 circulars size 1.


A lot has happened since my last post.  I had shoulder surgery.  Turns out the shoulder problems I have been having for the last 8 to 10 months were actually 2 problems.  I had a "frozen shoulder" and I also have 2 deteriorating disks in my neck (from a wreak years ago where a drunk driver hit my girlfriend and myself) that was pinching nerves and causing my left arm and hand to go numb.  Not fun!  I thought I might have torn my rotator cuff but fortunately not.  However, it was painful enough as it was.  The surgery wasn't bad though.  They did MUA (manipulation under anesthesia) so while I was out they wrench my shoulder and arm around until the adhesive capsules inside the joint break loose and pop and make noises.  I told him if they tried to do that while I was awake, I would definitely makes some noises!  They also gave me a dose of cortisone deep into the joint while I was still asleep.  I got back 90% mobility.  It sucks to get old (er)! 

My DD Cheyenne is graduating with an Associate's Degree in Business in a few weeks from Rogers State University.  We are so proud of her.  She has been going to school, working, and got married almost 2 years ago as well.  My DS Asa is doing great, he is finishing his freshman year at OSU in Stillwater and is pledging to the FIJI fraternity.  He has been doing a lot of community service and other projects with them so that keeps him out of trouble.  Cheyenne is transferring to OSU-Tulsa in the fall.  I am so thrilled that both of them will graduate from my alma mater.  Too Cool! 


I mentioned in my last post that I was having a contest for the anniversary of my blog.  Since I only had 2 "yarnies" who didn't disqualify themselves, I decided to have 2 winners.  Below are the 2 prize packages that go to lucky winners, Carolyn and MsBlondieKnits.

Two Year Blog-Anniversary Contest!!

It was two years ago yesterday that I started this blog. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago - time really flies when you're having fun! In honor of the occasion, I am hosting a CONTEST. For the next month through March 25th, anyone who posts a comment on my blog will receive a GREAT SURPRISE PACKAGE!! Here are a few hints...a yummy assortment of yarns along with accessories and other goodies. I promise it will be totally fun. The winner will be drawn randomly by DH. If you comment on more than 1 post you will get an additional entry but only 1 entry will be counted per each of my posts. Hopefully, that will incentivise me to post a lot in the next month. ;o)

Good Luck!


I wanted to post about an Easy-Peasy baby sweater that I made for my DD's new neice. I have been told that Joselynn (the baby) LOVES pink so I just had to make her a Hot Pink cardigan for Christmas. I used a pattern that I picked up in Boulder, CO at the Spindles, Shuttles, & Skeins store by a local designer. It is called EASY Cardigan for BABY #1 by Roxana Designs. I wasn't able to find the pattern available online but I am sure it is available through the store. I made it up in one of my favorite yarns, Cottontots which they also used in the store sample. I love the cute little cuffed sleeves. I changed it slightly by turning back the top edges at the neck and adding some decorative buttons. The bottom half is stockinette and top half is in garter so that keeps it from being too boring. I had made this once before in a varigated yarn as a baby shower gift for one of my mama's co-workers and it was darling in a varigated colorway. As you can see from the pictures of Joselynn, just the sheer adorableness of baby items (not to mention the baby herself) is its own reward for knitting or crocheting them up!




The SS&S store in Boulder was a fun store to visit last February. I think they had every knitting book I had ever heard of (and probably crochet as well). They had a large selection of koigu and sock yarn and a super selection of baby and children's yarn in all fibers and colorways. There was a heavy emphasis on wools and hats (go figure in a college town with skiing nearby!).

We Interupt this Blog for the Following Politcal Announcement...

Don't panic, I am not going to talk about the candidates or campaign for any of the Presidental hopefuls. What I am going to do is get on my soapbox. We live in Texas and I had wanted to registar to vote in the primaries, especially since pre-Super Tuesday it looked like a wide-open race. While ordinarily this is a fairly straght-forward process, let me tell you what happens when you venture into what I like to call the "Bethel-Triangle"...

First off, I had put this off until the last minute because I still have my Oklahoma drivers license...I know, I know. But I have several GOOD reasons why I still have an Oklahoma license even though we have been in Texas for a while. Like, I just got my Oklahoma license right before we moved and dagnabbit, that would just be a waste of money to throw it away and get a new Texas one.

Also, I have this disturbing fear that (a) I might have to take a drivers test to get a Texas license (you know, the DRIVING kind, not the written). I have been told that's not true, but why take the chance, I say. or (b) If I move back to Oklahoma, I might have to take a drivers test to get another OKLAHOMA license (you know, the DRIVING kind, not the written). I think you see the pattern here. Let's just say, I had a bad experience (ok, ok) 2 bad experiences when I took the Driving test at 16 and would strenously prefer that I not put myself through that again.

Soooo, back to the registering. I looked it up online and of course Ft. Bend county was practically the only county in Texas where you can't get the form off the internet. However, the web said the library keeps forms available. So I make a trip to the Library and guess what...They just gave out the last form and its too late in the day (on the last day) to drive to the county seat. Great! So after picking out a few books (who can resist) I overhear that there may be some forms upstairs. Cool! I know the Knitting Books are upstairs too! So I go up and find a crochet book to take home AND score 2 forms for DH and myself.

Well, I fill out these beauties, photocopy a utility bill with our Texas address and notice that it asks for a Texas driver's license number. Drat! However, it says you can use the last 4 digits of your SSN. But then I notice that there is also a box that says if you don't have a Texas Driver's license OR a SSN, just check here and enclose a copy of a photo id (anything works) and send it in.

So, in essense, you can registar to vote without a driver's license or a SSN. Now I thought you HAD to have a SSN to ... let's say work, file your taxes, even your kids have to have one now by their 1st birthday!

Basically, you can be completely undocumented and registar to vote. Is it just me or is this a sneaky way to let illegal aliens vote??

But it gets worse for my "trying to be a voting citizen" - I fill it out, put in my Oklahoma Driver's license number and a copy of my license with a very, very scary picture of me and slap that baby in the mail by 5 pm to beat the deadline for the primary.

Then I get a letter saying I am denied and can't vote in the primaries but can re-registar and vote 30 days later if I put in my last 4 digits of my SSN and/or check the box that says I don't have either a Texas Driver's License OR a SSN. GOSH! So, that's what I get for not going to the DMV. GRRRRR.

But on to crafty matters, I had unofficially resolved to make 12 dishcloths this year - averaging 1 a month. I have already made 5 so I have a big jump on that pledge. These include a blue and yellow Darrell Waltrip cloth (he's a Nascar driver) and a round petal discloth that I mailed to my Aunt Bethel (yes, I was named after her..), a washcloth with the Marines symbol for a former neighbor of ours who is stationed in Japan, and a coffee cup patterned cloth. All great "short-attention-span" projects!