Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Animals of Africa

For a while I thought I would just move on from posting photos from our trip to Tanzania this summer but for some reason the last few days I have been thinking about Africa a whole bunch. Perhaps just enough time has passed to start to long for it again. Just three months ago our lives where so different. While working with the people in Africa is what motivates us, it is spending time in the bush with the animals that inspires us and fuels the fire that keeps our spirits and humility in balance.

Now I am off to bed but tonight I will leave you with the wiley rock Dasie which is actually closely related to the elephant. Personally I find this to be the greatest animal untapped by Disney and the like. Just look at all that personality! You should see them scurry around.

Onesies




Recently I was looking at my stepmother's blog and learned about freezer paper stenciling. This is a super cool method of making really easy stencils that are perfect for ironing on to fabric, painting away and then easily removing the temporarily adhered stencil. It was perfect timing to read about this cool method because it made for really fun decorating of onesies for the many babies that have been born recently. I think our next door neighbor's baby was born yesterday judging by the flutter of cars that has been in and out and watching one young woman literally run from her car to the front door. Here are the first couple of ones that I made but since have made more for three other babies! Hopefully I will post some more images if the parents end up sending me photos of the kids in their garb. I love to knit for a baby if I can but if I don't have the time or if it is someone that I don't know that well but would like to make some kind of gesture this seems like the perfect solution. It also has been fun for jazzing up my hunny's hospital scrubs!

Monday, October 08, 2007

getting back


getting back on the blog which is long over due! It is not that I haven't been having fun. It's not that I haven't been knitting. I have just been just too darn busy to get on the blog. This hat is a pattern that I had been wanting to try for a while and it was also my first cable knitting project ever (little yeah for me!) This is the greenery pattern which is available for free. I can't find the name of the yarn I used but I picked something that was a pretty generic 100% wool to be worked on size 7 needles as the pattern called for. It only took me just under a week of working on it when I could so it was a good amount of time that I will certainly make it again for a gift.

I really have never been quite as busy as I am right now. I have been busy and crazy at times when we are moving or going through exams when in school or things like that but this is the first time I just feel super busy and there is nothing in particular that I can point to to blame. People keep saying "welcome to your adult life" or "wait until you have kids". Gulp! Well, even though I am exhausted I do keep saying to everyone that at least it isn't that anything is "bad," just all happening at once. We have had lots of people visiting out of the blue which has also added to the chaos to have house guests on top of our schedules. We do have a very very fun one right now which is my very best friend from junior high. There was a time in our lives that you couldn't have pried us apart with a crow bar but we went to different high schools and colleges time and space drifted us apart. Even though we haven't spent more than a dinner once a year together in ages she has popped in our neck of the woods for almost a week as she is in the process of making a major life/career/location change and it is just a real joy and super easy to have her here. I couldn't say the cliche thing that it feels like no time has passed, but it does remind me of all of the reasons why we were so close and special to each other and makes me feel really lucky to have this time to reconnect.

Alright, I have to go figure out what I am going to wear for Picture Day at work tomorrow!