Contest Time!

I just want to say a quick Thank You to the wonderful girls that I got to hang out with Monday night. It is so nice to be able to sit and talk about knitting (among other things) with other people that don’t think I am crazy for being obsessed. I had a blast and will definitely be back for more!

I am so excited since I recently found out that my mom would be visiting in mid April. You really don’t know how happy this makes me. I have seen my mom since we moved from California but she has yet to see me here in Florida. I am thrilled to death that she will be able to see our new house (in a somewhat close to being finished state) and meet our pets and get to hang out with me for a whole week. That’s where my contest comes in. Since she and my step dad will be here for a week with us, I would like to plan a few fun things to do. I know that I am blatantly fishing for comments, but oh well. I was surprised when I first saw that people were reading my blog so I really want to be surprised. The most comments that I have had on a post are 6. I really hope to get more than that. To enter:

Post a comment here, telling me something cool to do while on vacation. These can be Central Florida related or not. I just want some ideas for my mom and I to spend some time together. Btw, if you post about this on your blog, you'll get another entry. Just be sure to let me know in the comments.

Remember to leave your email address in the comments so I will have a way to contact you for the prize. If there is no email address and your blog profile does not list one, the prize will go to the next random winner.

You have until 5pm on March 5^th to enter. I will be drawing a winner randomly that evening and announcing it on the 6^th.

So what will the prize be??


A cute pink and denim purse that I got a couple of years ago. It was a gift but I have never used it because it is a bit small for an every day purse. Included with the purse you will get a skein of Ewe-phoria Yarns Sock It To Me Superwash Yarn in Pacifica, and the pattern for River Valley Socks from Anni Designs. I hope you like the prizes….GOOD LUCK!

In other news, we are meeting a dog today. The tenant in one of the listings we have is moving out of the country and looking for a home for her dog Bella. She is a 2-year-old pure bred Boxer. I thought that this was kind of a big dog for us, but I grew up with German Shepherds so I am kind of used to big dogs. T loves Boxers and wanted one when we were first looking. In fact, his two favorite breeds are Boxers and Beagles. How weird that we may end up with both. I guess the only things that aren’t good is that she’s young, and not spayed since she was a pure bred. I really would want to get her spayed as soon as possible. She is even trained really well and crated in the daytime like Diana is. So she will be coming for a play date tonight to see how she is with Diana and Jessie. I am kind of worried about her with Jessie since she has not lived with a cat before. Another dog…I must be crazy!

Almost Friday!!

Why does it seem like I have no time for posting lately? I am at the tail end of another very busy week and I am glad that it ends tomorrow. I know exactly what I will be doing this weekend: Cleaning (the house has been neglected the past week) and working on my real estate class. The real estate class is for sure the most important. It needs to be done by March and I am not even half way done. Why do I always wait until the last minute?? Since the hubby is working on Sat and we only get internet through his cell phone I will be heading into the office to use my work computer on Saturday. Maybe without any of the distractions that I usually have at home I can get it finished, then maybe a reward of sushi for lunch after…mmm…I don’t usually get to go to the sushi place here because T doesn’t like it. I have to wait until I have a day by myself to sneak away.

As usual for a busy week, I haven’t been knitting much. A row here and a row there but it just seems like nothing is progressing. Last night I was knitting by firelight though. We started a little fire in the BBQ and watched the lunar eclipse until bedtime. Really cool, the whole moon disappeared, then turned orange. I tried to get a picture but figured out that my camera doe not take good pictures at night with no tripod. We have a tripod but I was not about to dig it out. I was knitting on the Cami last night, it has been a while since I have showed picture of it. I think I am on the 4^th ball of yarn now.

I am almost done with the increases and will start the armhole shaping soon. It feels like it is close to being done but it looks like I have so much more to do from the picture. I am close to finishing the secret project too, maybe I will finish by this weekend.

Diana’s vet visit went well, expensive but worth it of course. She got current on all her shots and vaccinations and the vet had a look at her belly. Turns out that she has a staph infection so she gave her some meds. It looks like it is helping but I don’t think it is a fix to the problem. She still will have sensitive skin when the meds are gone. I think it will just end up coming back. She has another appointment in a couple of weeks for a check up so we’ll see. We have to bring Jessie to the next appointment to get her all up to date too. She will not be happy about that one, she was labeled “will bite” at her last vet. She would never…

I haven’t forgot about my contest either. I have a pretty good idea for it and I am just waiting on the prize to get here. I should have it all ready by the next post. I hope you all have a great weekend!!

-Michele-

Can you guess what they’re doing??

We decided to play hooky from work today and go to Sea World to finally use the passes we got for Christmas. It was a blast! It is so nice to be able to go to a park and leave when we want without feeling bad that we didn’t get our money’s worth. So yeah, the dolphins. They were trying to have some, uh, personal time. Ha, before I noticed T was trying to tell me what they were doing without making it obvious to the kids around. We also got to pet sting rays and dolphins, see little alligators, some manatees and the Believe show with Shamu. The show was amazing. The whales are so big and beautiful. You can see all the pictures in the set here.

Have you noticed all the contests lately? Everyone has been so generous! I entered a few and got lucky. I won the first prize in the contest over at Ridiculous Obsession.

This prize was over the top! I won Favorite Socks, which I have wanted forever, a cute Haiku Bag, a skein of Yarn Snob sock yarn and a skein of Sockatta sock yarn. Thanks LaVerna!! My hubby even tried to pass off the package as a Valentine’s gift when I got home yesterday. Since I have been lucky enough to win a couple of contests I am planning on having one of my own soon. Stay tuned!


I got another package in the mail last week too. I placed another order from Knit Picks. (I seem to be addicted to that site lately) I ordered More Sensational Knitted Socks and some Essential sock yarn. I looked at both of the Sensational Socks books but I liked the patterns in the second one better. I couldn’t believe that they were so much cheaper on Knit Picks than they were in the store. I probably should have checked Amazon too but I didn’t think of it at the time.

I have been getting back into my knitting lately but I have been working on all my WIP’s each a little bit. Not great for seeing the progress. The only thing I have worked on consistently is the secret project but obviously, I can’t show you that. I did knit on the Anastasia Sock while waiting around in Sea World though.

It is going pretty slow but I hope to have it done soon. I still like the sock so I think it’s the yarn that I’m sick of seeing. I may not knit the second right away, or at least cast on something new when this one is done. I have plenty to choose form now. :-)

Tomorrow we are taking Diana to the vet again. She is fine but she seems to have sensitive skin. Her belly gets really pink so we switched her to hypo-allergenic shampoo but she still is pink and now has a sore. We read her medical records and she has been given meds for this before. I don’t know why the foster home did not mention this. We just want to make sure that this is not bothering her. It’s always something with pets, isn’t it?

I hope you all have a great weekend!!

-Michele-

Still Alive and Well

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. And where did January go? I am amazed that February is already half over… I have been so overwhelmed lately. We moved our office again last week and hopefully we will stay this time. We closed my company and moved our real estate team to another local company. Even though we only moved a couple of streets away, it seemed more complicated than our last move. On top of all that we have been car shopping. We thought we found the one, a really good deal on a VW Passat, but it just needed too much work to be worth it. So we are back to square one and keeping our eyes open for good deals. Since we are not in a rush to sell we can take our time.

So have I been knitting during all this? A little but nothing too exciting. Most days I have either been home too late to pull out the knitting or just too tired. I couldn’t believe that days went by without me touching the needles. But things are slowing down now so my routing is getting back to normal. I have worked on the Anastasia Sock mostly since it is my purse project.


That is a picture from last week (when I planned on blogging) but I haven’t had time to take new ones. I am a little farther up the leg now. I think I like knitting top down socks better. I seem to have trouble with my socks twisting while I knit them even if I keep my stitches straight. This one only twisted a little but that’s probably because it has the spiraling eyelets. Plus when I knit top down they seem to go by faster. I am working on the never-ending leg now…I also worked on the secret project, which should have been a quick knit but will take me longer as usual.

We had some friends over for dinner over the weekend and my friend asked me how my knitting was going. Weird since she has never showed interest in it before. I said it was fine and she said that she was trying to learn how to knit. I couldn’t believe what I heard, she probably should not have opened that door with me. I pulled her inside and asked her what she was knitting. She was knitting a washcloth with cotton yarn and metal needles. No wonder she was not feeling it. Needless to say I sent her home with some wool and bamboo needles. I think the wood will feel better on her hands and the wool will definitely give more than cotton. Besides, she said that she wants to knit a blanket to help her learn. If she likes the feel of the yarn and needles we are going to find her some nice wool for a blanket. It’s fun to corrupt people!

Well that’s all I have for now. I am jumping back into my knitting and hope to see some progress soon! Although I haven’t been feeling too great the past couple of days. Maybe I will get more done if I take a sick day or two :-)

-Michele-

Another Contest

A busy end to a busy week (and month!) has prevented me from getting a whole lot done so no progress to show today. I plan to knit all weekend though. Well, maybe not all weekend. I have other things to do like laundry and cleaning. yeah right... :-)

There a bunch of contests going on though, and courtesy of Kris, here are a few:

LaVerna can't wait for Winter to be over.

The Spirit Trail has an awesome prize, really go see.

Purl Zen wants you to count the skeins. Beautiful stuff.

So go enter and be sure to mention that you saw it here. Good Luck all!