A few pictures of the family

I recently had pictures taken of the family.. The last time pictures were taken of the whole family was 10 years ago.. or so. Picture taking can be a chore with my guys, but I found an amazing photographer.. Look at these amazing shots...

The whole family.

Dad and the boys.. great shot!

Mom and the boys.. You know.. what we really look like all the time.

Sam, at nearly 14, and looking so much more like a man than a boy. (sniff, sniff)

And Ben, so sweet and glorious. His face already manly.

And finally a picture of the boys at their best...

Back from Never, Never Blog Land

It's not that I don't love you all... it's not that I haven't thought of you since September, and the felling of the tree, and I probably could have jumped on the computer in the last (gulp) 3 months, but I had serious training for a new position at work (I LOVE IT!) and of course the everyday, everything that comes with motherhood, a crazy attempt to learn the violin, keeping my sanity with knitting, and a full time job. The housework is still on the back burner.. screw it. You know I keep wanting to start a new years resolution of getting an organized life.. work, coming home to be the homework Nazi, spending 30 minutes (several hours would be better) cleaning house, getting dinner started, practicing the violin for 40 minutes to an hour daily, finishing the dishes, getting the kids ready for bed, getting to bed at a decent hour and getting up refreshed and feeling in control of my life. Go ahead.. laugh at my pipe dream. I do.. I cannot tell you how much I admire the women I know that do this.. I know them, I marvel at them. The more years I go through, the more I am willing to concede that this is just not possible for me.. I am a true Aquarian, I am an artist who gets lost for hours in one project.. I start to feel my fingers hurt when playing the violin and realize I've been at it for 2 hours. Ahh Well.. I'll likely try again this year. I'm stubborn.

In the mean time, I thought I'd show you the newest projects that I've finished...

This is this year's cardigan.. Aran, Peruvian Wool.. very warm, and it took forever..

I really love it. It gets a lot of attention and I'm

okay with that.. After this I need some instant gratification projects. This is really a trend for me. I think I buy most of my sock yarn stash during the few weeks after a big project is done.

Now the little grey sweater is a new baby sweater.. no pattern, I just know how to do a sweater, in the round and cut down the middle now.. I have gained a great deal of satisfaction from that. And those of you out there with new little grandchildren.. I know you will love this little cardigan.. I think it's about a 6 month size.

The inside is lined it with a little black velvet ribbon.. Classic.

Last.. not least, I made some hats for my nieces Kaelie and Callie (identical twins.. different likes.. love those girls) and for Ben who did not want to be left out of the fun.. the knitting was not a big deal, but they all picked out the colors, and we dyed the wool. I was pleased with their choices.. Ben is the blue and red striped. Kaelie wanted the blues, and Callie the greens,browns, and golds.

I will say that I tried to get every comment next to the individual pictures, but the blog gods are angry with my absence so..

Now, let's see if I can be better this time. I have just had some pictures done of the whole family and I hope to do a post that has some of the photos.. they are magnificent.. really, really good. I won't say tomorrow.. but let us say soon..

The end of the tree

This is mostly a picture moment.. so I'm going to show the moment to you in pictures.. however I must say that the men who did this job today were amazing. They were very skilled and smiled and worked together well. They arrived at 8:30ish in the am and were done right after 11:00 am. I miss my tree, and yes Pam, I cried. On the other hand the amount of light that is in my house is exponentially greater, there is sky behind my house. I will be sending these pictures off to Northwest Tree service.. I have even more really good pictures and I think that they would like them. They certainly deserve them. Quite a morning...

Stitch Markers.. and the Joy they bring.

Joan just sent me her stitch markers that she made.. beautiful!


Now apparently the all purple/pink were made by her sister in law and are really pretty.. they are light, they are set with earring hoop thingies (technical knitting term for you muggles out there) which I really like because you can open them up and put them on your knitting at anytime, without knitting around until you are at the perfect point in the round.








Joan's are made with glass beads (I'm drooling all over the things!) they are heavier, but not too heavy at all.. I really like the weight of them. Joan used the lobster claw doohickeys, (another technical term, you're learning all kinds of things today!)
Joan's are the ones on the left hand side. Her sister in law's markers are on the right.(I never actually got her name with this so, I'm sorry Joan's sister in law, I would give credit if I could!)

Both of these markers are wonderful and serviceable.. I kinda want to combine them though.. I want the earring hoop thingies combined with the glass beads that Joan has done here, because I find that I cannot use Joan's markers over a 6 needle.. and I'm going to want to use these all of the time! The hoop thingy can be used up to a 10.5 needle. I tell ya.. Joan's markers are now my permanent Sock markers.. and I will be using the not yet named sister in laws markers for those sleeves for my sweater (they are on a size 10 needle.. )

Can you see the little pink and green beads on the left... this is so delicate in real life.. I'm really sorry that photography is not my medium today...


Thank you, thank you, thank you ladies.. there is nothing so cool to me than getting new tools for your obsession. Especially handmade tools that I did not have to
a. make
b. buy
I love them both!

Sweet Gum Rollercoaster..

Well the end of the tree thingy is that she has to come down. BLAH!

Two other experts said that the joinings are weak on this sort of tree and that the limbs are just going to keep coming down. You see the tree is really, really big.

This is a picture from the front of my little house.. the tree in the back, in the middle.. that's the one in the back yard.

This next one shows how much of the back yard is covered in tree. And our neighbor's roof is right on the other side of the play structure. So two houses and 7 (soon to be eight) children and 3 dogs and 3 cats at risk here.. Not counting the adults.

But she is so beautiful, and her colors in the fall are second to none in all of the neighborhood. We won't get pictures of this, as we will be taking her down as soon as the tree crew can fit us in. Right now the kids have been told the back yard is off limits, and that is just sad. I may have to spend some time in my swing, just to say goodbye (Lord help me, that just brought tears to my eyes. It really did.) I told the boys that we will build something to hold the swing (I need it man!) until the new tree that we plant gets big enough for it. We won't be able to plant until next spring at least, as the crew won't grind the stump until then.

I don't even know how to end this post. I am not really torn about this. It has to come down, we are so lucky that no one has been hurt.

However, it feels a lot like "Your arm has to come off.. that or you die" and that is just not news anyone wants to deal with. I'm wondering if I will have phantom pains for my tree.

Pictures. and tree update...

So I thought I'd update again.. got a few pictures for you.. (and I really hate pictures of myself so I'm biting the bullet to post these.. vain as I am. )

Here is me trying not to scratch with my bow.. see me biting my lip?

Then there are the others in my household that are happy with my new passion...

Me in my newest finished sweater.. cotton, summer hoodie. (reversible, zipper up the front. ) I've been living in it.

Here is the newest sweater I'm working on.. a lace aran. Hard to see I know, but I'm really pleased so far.

Here are the very start of the sleeves, two at a time on cable needles. And clearly lacking really cool stitch markers to keep track of my increase place.

As for the tree news, we had an expert out today and they said that this tree can be saved.. that even it we cut it all off at the point of the break, our tree would grow back.. 6 feet in one year! By the end of next week, we will have this done! I cannot have another winter of wind, rain and worry. I do not want limbs falling on our children. We will be getting a couple of different bids and opinions, whether to lop it off at the break or trim it back drastically but keep some of the height. (I kind of like that idea) But we get to keep the tree!!!

Stormy Weather..

Big storm last night.. Big! Lots of rain, (nothing new for us.. this is Oregon.) but at about 7:45 PM (ish) there was a loud CRACK! and lo! a big branch from my swingin' tree fell into our house and shed.









That is right on top of John and I's bedroom window. No broken window, no roof damage! Yeah! No children outside in the swing (although Sam was swinging in it an hour before) no animals underneath the limb.







Look at that! One of the main limbs off of my beautiful Sweet Gum.












The gutter is the only real casualty and we will have to replace that soon (this weekend) .. remember, this is Oregon, one does not go without gutters.










This is what is left of my tree.. I'm nervous, we have to have someone come out and let us know if the tree itself must come down. I would be a sad, sad, sad lady if it does, but I will not risk house, or most especially life for the love of my tree..

The real problem .. I have a young teenager who has gone decidedly panicked over the possibility of losing a mainstay of his life.. he doesn't even know that the tree may have to come down yet. I do not want to tell him. I don't even want to tell myself.