Homeschool and Knit Mom

My Changing Life

2011-07-30T03:53:00.004-05:00

It's been many months since I last posted on my blog. I plan to start back on a much more regular basis now. I spend all of my time with my family and a lot of time knitting. I've spent the last 20 and a half years being a full-time Mom and homeschooler. As you know, just over two years ago my older son graduated from our little homeschool. Since then he's continued to live at home and go to a local junior college!! However, last month he moved out and to a town about 70 miles from here to finish up college. It was one of the hardest things I've ever been through. I'm handling it a lot better than I ever thought I could. It helps that we have a really close relationship and talk and text daily!! I miss him but he's very happy and with a great group of Christians!! That's very important to me!! This is not the only huge thing in my life...In a few weeks my younger son will be starting his senior year at home. I intend to make the most of our last year together on a full-time basis. We'll do school but we'll also do some things we enjoy- like going to the zoo, going to visit Logan, getting coffee at Starbucks and spending lots of quality time together!!! It's going to be a year to remember.

As far as my knitting...There have been so many projects over the last several months. But the big project that's coming up is another senior blanket for my younger son. He loves video games of all kinds but he's partial to Mario. There are tons of cute Nintendo/Mario patterns on Ravelry and I will be going through them, picking out the ones I think he'll love the most, and laying out my design!! I'm in no hurry for the year to be up but I will knitting a memory for my son.

When Logan graduated I had knit him his Harry Potter blanket. It is currently on his bed in the other town. That means a lot to me.

Well, this is very short and there are no pictures to accompany it but I needed to get my blogging feet wet again!! I will be back on a regular basis - blogging does a lot of good for me!!

Knit On and more later!
Shama D

I'm Back

2010-04-19T16:09:00.002-05:00

It's been months since I last blogged. I love blogging!! It does a lot for me to be able to write about my life and my knitting. These last few months have brought about a lot of changes in my life that I had to adjust to. After 13 years of homeschooling my older son started college in August. Not having him home with us everyday took quite an adjustment. He still lives at home and is going to the local community college so the adjustment wasn't SO big! It's a great little school. There are a reasonable number of students in each class (about 30) and the professors genuinely care!! He's had a great experience so far!! He'll be staying home until he's finished his sophomore year.

The other big thing has been the diet. So far I've lost 70 pounds but it's not been easy. I've been very tired and just did what I had to do. I did, however, continue knitting. I'm only about halfway through losing it all. But I think I'll be finished by November...

One of the biggest things that happened to me in the fall was my 25th high school reunion. I LOVED high school!! I was in band, choir and Madrigals (a swing choir). I had an awesome group of friends!! I had a very pleasant place in my world!! I was very happy!! However, the summer between my junior and senior year we had to move 12 hours away to West Texas. It was such a difficult transition for me. I'm still in contact with some of my friends from there but when I think of "my" school I always think of Vidor!! Going back to my class reunion became a much easier decision because I had gotten back in touch with a bunch of my friends on Facebook! I decided that I needed a new shawl for that night. AND I had to dye the yarn!! I had about 1000 yards of dye-it-yourself yarn from Knit Picks in my stash and I'd had it for several years. I broke it out and 3 jars of acid dye. I was going to knit this shawl Fibertrends Pattern #AC-27x Queen of Hearts by Bev Galsekas. It was great until I make some mistakes and I realized that I wouldn't be able to get it done in 2 or 3 weeks. So I did something I didn't think I would ever do - I decided to knit the Clapotis, like everyone else in the knitting world!! I really enjoyed it and I got it done very quickly!! I bound it off and wove in the ends about 3 am the day of the class reunion!!

It was an amazing night full of love and laughter and reuniting with some of my favorite people in the world!! The best part is that we're now determined to keep up with one another on an ongoing basis!!! I really love my friends!!

Tomorrow I'm going to tell you the story of one of those very precious friends!!

Knit On and more later!!
Shama D
It feels great to be blogging again!!!

Weight Loss and Knitting

2009-08-16T17:05:00.005-05:00

I've been overweight far too long. If there are any excuses it's that I've had a thyroid problem. I know, that's what everyone says...But almost 5 years ago I had to have half my thyroid removed. Since then I've been on medication to regulate it. The dosage has changed several times since then. I had such hope of weight loss and more energy once I did get it worked out. However, that hasn't been the case. But the other reason is that I just plain like food!! This is not a weight loss blog, but it is about my life and my knitting so I will be talking some about my weight loss for the next several months. This time the talk of weight loss and knitting go together.
Since I started knitting almost 7 years ago, I've wanted to knit certain things for myself like cardigans and pullovers but I didn't want to waste the yarn on knitting for a fat body!! However, I've knit a cardigan for my Mom and a pullover for my niece and I'm about to start two Humpty Dumpty intarsia sweaters for my nephews. But now that I've started this weight loss I'm having thoughts of sweaters and other fitted items for myself!!! One of my favorites is http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall06/PATTviveka.html . Another of my favorites is Provence Women's Floral Cardigan by Celeste Pinheiro from the Classic Elite #9071 book. It's got huge floral designs on it, but it's not overpowering or bulky. And my new favorite is the Classic Coat by Deborah Newton in IK Fall 2009. I don't usually go in for hand knit coats or bulky yarn but there's something about this coat that just grabs me! Now, I'd probably do a completely different colorway for all of these, but the patterns are lovely!! I'll let y'all know how the weight loss is going and also the knitting!!!! I'm very excited about this!!

Now on to things I've knitted but haven't blogged about. In the last post I mention two UFO's that are waiting for me to finish this baby blanket. One of the UFO's is a pair of socks from Opal Harry Potter yarn that my parents gave me for Christmas. I mentioned that back in my January 1st post. I also mentioned the pattern - the Horcrux sock pattern. I completely finished the first sock and am down to the heel on the second. It won't take me very long to finish it. But here's a picture of the completed one:

This sock and it's mate will look much better on me when my leggs are thinner!!

I named him Winston. He's a precious little duck that my friend Alice sent to LSSK. He was fast fun and easy.

Well, I guess that's about all I have to say this time!

Knit On and more later,
Shama D

The Blahs, Ravelry, Excitement, and Inspiration

2009-08-13T13:22:00.002-05:00

I touched on this last time but I thought I'd talk a little more about it now.
Every once in a while I feel a little out of sorts with my knitting. I will finish a project and if I can't seem to get the next one going in a timely manner or feel frustrated with what I'm working on, I get blah about knitting. It never lasts for very long but I hate that feeling.
Another thing that sucks the life out of my knitting is having too many projects going at once. For example, I am working a baby blanket right now, but I also have about 2/3's of a sock and an unfinished market bag still hanging over my head!! It's dragging me down!! As soon as I finish this blanket I must finish those other two projects so I can start my Christmas knitting with a clear head!! I know most knitters have multiple UFO's, some even have many UFO's, but it just doesn't work for me.
But something has now happened to my knitting life that I think will keep me inspired for the rest of my life!! It's called Ravelry!! In October I will have been on Ravelry for two years. Everyone goes on and on about how much they love it. To be honest, I've enjoyed it and played around on it a little but I haven't understood all the obsession. Howeverrrrrr, I've suddenly jumped on the Ravelry bandwagon!! I have a feeling I've just touched the tip of the iceberg, but I'm having fun!! I'm looking at patterns- either specific ones or searching for a type of pattern (i.e. shawls) I've joined several new groups and dropped a few I was in. I've never really participated in any of these groups, but I think I will now!!
Anything knitty makes me tingly!! I love knitting patterns (like Dumbledore), yarn, and knitting magazines, not to mention all the gadgets that go along with it... Along with Ravelry, these things keep me endlessly inspired.
Another thing that not only inspires me, but teaches, me is blogs. I don't read a ton of them but I have a few I love. The first one I started reading was Wendy Knits!! I've learned so much from her. She's amazing!! Right now I'm trying to catch up with Faith of Flash Bang Fibers/The Needle and the Damage Done and Jasmin of Better that Yarn blog and the Knitmore Girls podcast! When I read a blog I must start from the beginning. It took me more than a year or two to get completely caught up to Wendy. That's probably why I don't read more blogs...Yet...
What inspires you/brings you down?

Now, a project I knit earlier this summer. My husband's boss and his wife had their first baby back in April. Chuck had asked me to knit something for them. At the time I was working on the Harry Potter blanket and I couldn't take on anything else. But I finally got around to knitting her a little dress. The pattern is... http://fortheloveofyarn.com/Issues/07Summer/patterns/jumper.shtml
I knit it out of I Love This Cotton yarn from Hobby Lobby. I can't remember the colorway. You know how you knit a gift for someone and the response makes it all worthwhile? This was one of those!! They told Chuck how much they loved it!! How it was something they'd keep forever!! Then I got the sweetest Thank You note!! WOW!! It makes me want to knit for them again!!
Here's the dress:

Last fall I got an equally satisfactory response from two little jumpers I knit for my friend Kim's little girls. Here's a picture of them wearing their jumpers...

More later and Knit On,
Shama D

In a Funk, On a diet, and My First Pattern

2009-08-11T01:55:00.007-05:00

I haven't blogged in a few weeks!! I didn't realize how long it had been!! It's been kinda crazy around here.
At the end of July we had a weekend at my parents where we got together with my Sister-in-law's family!! We have a great relationship with them and we get together a couple of times a year!!
Last week Logan got his first car!! My parents got it for him for his graduation present! He's such a good boy and he really deserves it!!

So that took up a couple of days last week.
But more than that I've kinda been in a funk. Kelby wanted me to knit him Poppy Pig from Knitted and Felted Toys. I hate this more than anything I've EVER knit!! I can't even bring myself to take a picture of it!! Did I mention that I hate it?? But I did knit something that I LOVED!!! A friend of mine (Hi, Alice!!) sent me a really cute pattern from Ravelry called Hamsterbeans. I kinda went nuts with them! I made 13 of them in just a few days!! The first two I made were for my nephews. We were trying to get my older nephew (who's 2 1/2) to say hamster. He got it right the first time. After that he called them "spinsters" and "banksters". We decided that banksters were bank robber mobsters!!
Anyway, here are a couple of pics of the Hamsterbeans:

They were so much fun to knit!! And so fast!! I'm sure there will be more in my future!

The last thing I started and finished was my own design. I actually designed this dishcloth 2 years ago. I didn't take a picture of the FO because it was a surprise. Since I knit the original one I gave it away to my aunt (along with some other dishcloths both knit and store bought and a prayer shawl) after the death of my cousin! I had planned to enter it into the design contest that LSSK has every summer! But a dear friend of mine designed on just after I designed mine. She had no idea about mine due to the secret nature of the project!

One of the things I love is flamingoes. I don't care for the color pink unless it is on a flamingo!! But they are my favorite bird, so without further ado:

Felicity, the Flamingo dishcloth:

Sugar and Cream in a carnation pink color

Size 7 needles

*Mistakes on rows 20, 26, 27, 28 - now corrected! Sorry for the errors...
Cast on 40 stitches
Note: At the beginning and end of each row are 4 seed stich border stitches - 4B - you should used any border you prefer.

Rows 1 - 4 - Seed stitch*
Row 5 - 4B, K32, 4B
Row 6 - 4B, P32, 4B
Row 7 - 4B, K32, 4B
Row 8 - 4B, P17, K3, P12, 4B
Row 9 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 10 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 11 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 12 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 13 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 14 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 15 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 16 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 17 - 4B, K13, P2, K17, 4B
Row 18 - 4B, P16, K2, P14, 4B
Row 19 - 4B, K13, P1, K1, P1, K16, 4B
Row 20 - 4B, P16, K2, P14, 4B
Row 21 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 22 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 23 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 24 - 4B, P17, K1, P14, 4B
Row 25 - 4B, K14, P1, K17, 4B
Row 26 - 4B, P17, K2, P13, 4B
Row 27 - 4B, K13, P2, K17, 4B
Row 28 - 4B, P16, K4, P12, 4B
Row 29 - 4B, K11, P6, K15 4B
Row 30 - 4B, P12, K10, K10 4B
Row 31 - 4B, K9, P16, K7, 4B
Row 32 - 4B, P4, K19, P9 4B
Row 33 - 4B, K8, P19, K5, 4B
Row 34 - 4B, P6, K19, P7, 4B
Row 35 - 4B, K6,P18, K8, 4B
Row 36 - 4B, P9, K17, P6, 4B
Row 37 - 4B, K6,P3, K1, P12, K10, 4B
Row 38 - 4B, P12, K10, P2, K2, P6, 4B
Row 39 - 4B, K6, P2, K3, P8, K13, 4B
Row 40 - 4B, P17, K2, P4, K2, P7, 4B
Row 41 - 4B, K7, P3, K22, 4B
Row 42 - 4B, P21, K3, P8, 4B
Row 43 - 4B, K9, P3, K20, 4B
Row 44 - 4B, P19, K3, P10, 4B
Row 45 - 4B, K8, P1, K1, P3, K19, 4B
Row 46 - 4B, P19, K2, P2, K1, P8, 4B
Row 47 - 4B, K7, P2, K3, P2, K18, 4B
Row 48 - 4B, P17, K2, P4, K2, P7, 4B
Row 49 - 4B, K8, P2, K3, P2, K17, 4B
Row 50 - 4B, P17, K2, P2, K4, P7, 4B
Row 51 - 4B, K9, P6, P17, 4B
Row 52 - 4B, P17, K6, P9, 4B
Row 53 - 4B, K9, P5, K18, 4B
Row 54 - 4B, P19, K3, P10, 4B
Row 55 - 4B, K across, 4B
Row 56 - 4B, P across, 4B
Row 57 - 4B, K across, 4B
Row 58 - 61 - Seed Stitch
BO in pattern

*Seed Stitch - (K1, P1) across the row. Turn work. On the way back you need to knit the purl stitches and purl the knit stitches. This is a very good way to learn to read your knitting!! (If you don't know how already)

I've knit this twice so I think I've got the kinks worked out. However, if you find a problem please let me know. I'm also thinking seriously about trying this in intarsia in the next few weeks.

OK...About the diet. I won't drone on and on about it. I'm on the HCG diet. It's only 40 days at a time, then 6 weeks off, 40 days on, 8 weeks off, etc. I'm only on day 9. I'll get pictures of my progress probably more for my encouragement, but in case anyone is interested you can track my progress!!

More later and knit on,

Shama D

Summer Knitting Had Me a Blast...Summer Knitting Happened So Fa-a-ast...

2009-07-16T02:24:00.004-05:00

Every summer we all hear about knitters that put their needles aside as soon as the days begin to grow longer and the temperature starts to rise. These people rarely, if ever, pick up their knitting until we begin to see the days shortening and the temperatures decline. I, however, am not one of those. I can totally understand doing whatever it takes to stay as cool as possible!! (I live in Texas!) But I cannot stand to have nothing in my hands to work on. And the thing that makes my hands the happiest is knitting!

So...What kinds of things do people knit in this kind of weather? I really knit pretty much anything. For example, last summer I finally finished a blanket I'd been working on for my younger son. I started that blanket in either 2004 or 2005. I finished it after my Italy trip, assembled all the blocks, and took a picture of the final project on August 1. I don't something this big out of the house to work on. So I can control the temperature!!

Here's Kelby's blanket.

Here's Kelby enjoying his blanket and faking sleep:

I knit it out of Knit Picks Crayon. A really nice boucle' cotton. Kelby had picked out red, blue, and purple. I did it some different than the pattern. I doubled the yarn and increased my needle size to make the squares the size they needed to be. It's got a lot of imperfections because I was a fairly new knitter when I started. I got much improved as I went along. But Kelby loves it ans uses it all the time at home and takes it whenever he's away from home.

This summer it seems like I've been working on smaller projects. I didn't do this intentionally, it's just worked out this way. For this particular blog I'm going to focus on the one small project that took me the longest. It's the Skull Isle hat from Son of SnB. I actually said something about this nearly a year ago. I had bought the yarn to knit it but got frustrated and gave up. It's a fair isle hat knit in fingering weight yarn. I used Knit Picks Pallette in red and black. Those are colors used in the book but they're also Logan's favorite colors, so...

It took me nearly a month to knit it. The problems I had were
1. Teeny yarn and on size 2 needles and over 200 stitches per round.
2. Too many stitches for my 4 needles. I finally had to add in another set of size 2s. I had both sets of Knit Picks DPNs (wood and metal) and I ended up using ALL of those needles!! it really made it so difficult. It kept rolling back on itself. However, it was worth all the work and problems because Logan likes it!!!

This weekend I'll talk about some of my other summer knitting!
Let me know what you've been working on...(If I have any readers!! LOL!!)

Knit On and more later!!
Shama D
Jessiesgrl on Ravelry

What in the World Happened??

2009-07-11T22:06:00.004-05:00

I just looked at my last post and realized that for some reason or another, not all of it posted!! I don't have a clue what happened! So let me see if I can remember what I said...
I love casting on for a new project (except for knitting the first row). I love the feel of the yarn gliding through my fingers. I love watching the fabric grow as I make loops with the yarn and pul another loop through with a stick!! It's magical! I love challenging myself with new stitches and projects! I even like finishing - weaving in ends and seaming up!! I find seaming a challenge, but once I work it out, I have a completed project that I made!!

Right now I'm working on a hermit crab from the Amigurumi Knits book by Hansi Singh.
I love this book!! I always see the cutest little amigurumi animals and I want to make them but I don't crochet. When I found this book full of the cutest little knitted amigurumis I had to get it!! It's divided up into 5 sections:
Before the first official section she tells what amigurumi is and then a top 10 list of reasons why you will love knitting it!
1) Techniques: I haven't read this through because I always get too anxious to knit. But she gives you lots of hints, tips, and techniques.
2) Five Servings a Da: the Vegetable Basket - Six cute vegetables. I'd like to knit them and put them in a bowl on my table!
3) Get Your Barnacle On: Underwater Creatures - Six underwater creatures. I'm working on the hermit crab right now. It's quite a challenge but I'm loving it!! Hopefully pictures will be up later this week.
4) Garden Variety: Backyard Critters - Just creatures you'd see in your yard! But much cuter knitted up than in real life!!
5) Revenge of the Cryptids: Strange, Mythical, Cryptozoological Specimens - Three real or imagained creatures. My favorite is Nessie! I definitely plan to knit him in the not too distant future!
Hansi Singh is brilliant in her constrution of these knits! I highly recommend this book!!

Let me finish up with a project that I recently finished:
I decided to knit a shawl for my Mom for Mother's Day. I had wanted to knit her one for Christmas but for some reason I didn't get any knitting done then. Mother's Day was the weekend after Logan's graduation, so I knew I couldn't finish it in time. I started it about 3 days before. The day before Mother's Day I looked down at it and noticed a big hole in the lace edging!! I had apparently dropped a stitch that stayed in place for a couple of days before it let go!! So I had to frog the whole thing in front of my Mom. I just told her "Happy Mother's Day!" She laughed and said she was so glad it was for her because she loved it!! That spurred me on to turn right around and cast back on. It went pretty quickly and I got it to her a couple of weeks later! Here it is:

Knit On and more later,
Shama D

I Need to Blog again!!

2009-07-06T14:18:00.002-05:00

I haven't blogged at all since January. At that time I promised to blog at least twice a week. My excuse??? I think it's a valid one. This was the last year for me to homeschool my older son. It seemed like I worked my butt off from January 'til the day we had the graduation reception. I barely had time to sleep, muchless blog! I could write for 2 weeks about all that I did during that time but I'll give you the abbreviated version. I painted the trim in the game room, painted my bedroom, painted the stairwell (a much harder job than I'd thought), and finally I pulled down wallpaper in the kitchen, dining room, and entry, textured the walls, and painted! Thankfully, Logan was there to help me, especially with taking down the wallpaper!!
Also during that time I started a big special project for Logan's graduation project. He loves Harry Potter so I decided to use all the dishcloth, scarf, and other patterns online to make squares for a Harry Potter blanket. I knit it in strips, like scarves, and attached each strip together. The night before graduation I think I slept about 3 hours trying to put the strips together. I got up and worked on it for several more hours. I got it all put together, but it didn't have a border. I have since put on a border, but it's still curling really badly! I will probably cut it off and try something different - eventually.
Here are a couple of pictures:

Here's Logan relaxing on the couch with his blanket and a Route 44 Vanilla Dr Pepper.

Recently a girl on my online knitting group asked if we were process or project knitters. It got me thinking about a few things. I honestly can't decide which I am. I love everything about it!! I love casting on for a new project

My Friend, Kim

2009-01-06T16:27:00.002-06:00

About 4 or so years ago my brother and sister-in-law moved to Tyler, TX. They met and became friends with a couple they worshiped with. This couple had a little boy and had another on the way. Then a little over 2 years ago this same couple moved to Lufkin where my parents live. They began to worship where my parents worship. My parents pretty much took them in and began to babysit their boys from time to time. At some point Kim and I met and became friends. For me, it was an instant thing. She's so easy to like! There have been lots of times that we've been at my parents and we'd get together with Kim and the boys or Kim, Jesse (her husband) and the boys. During one of our earliest visits I was knitting (because I knit all the time) and for some reason it attracted Kim and she decided she wanted to start knitting. (She already knew how to crochet) She taught herself and learned amazingly fast!! From there she went to the last two WHIBSIBs and the Knit Out in Austin in between. (I'll discuss WHIBSIB in another post) She is an unbelievable knitter!! She knit a sweater for her younger sister last Christmas that was difficult and it turned out beautifully!!!! During the whole time I've known her they've been in the process of adopting a little girl from Vietnam. It was a long drawn-out process. While they were dealing with all that Kim found out she was pregnant. So, in September she had a baby girl and a few weeks later her husband and mother-in-law went together to Vietnam and finally came home with Maya!! So now they have their complete family - 2 boys and 2 girls!! Kim handles it all beautifully!!!
The reason for this post is that I got to spend a couple of hours with her this afternoon before we came back home. While I was sitting there talking and listening I realized that just being around her makes me a better person. She makes me feel like the future is going to be wonderful. She takes the stress of having four wonderful children 5 and under in stride. She laughs at things that are irritating. I'm about 13 years older than she is, but I consider her to be one of my best friends and she is such a wonderful influence over me! I feel so fortunate to have her in my life and I'm thankful that God has allowed our paths to cross!!
Thank you, Kim, for being who and what you are and for being my friend!! I love you!!

On to knitting related things...I was looking back at my last blog post and realized I made a mistake. I was talking about my Horcrux socks and said something about the lightning bolt scarf pattern. What I meant to say was the lightning bolt lace pattern in the sock. I've turned the heel on my first sock, picked up the stitches on the heel flap and I'm working on decreasing back down to my original number of stitches. Next time I'll post a picture.

Last night my Mom and I drove from Lufkin to Houston for my once a month sewing group. I started this with a group of women from church. Last night my Mom and two of my cousins were there, plus a woman from LSSK that lives in Austin. We had a really enjoyable time and I'm beginning to get to know some of the women from church that I hadn't previously known very well. Mom and I had a great adventure going back to Lufkin. I took my Austin friend back to her son's house and we were going to take an alternate route back to Lufkin. Somehow we missed our exit and ended up in Huntsville where Sam Houston State University is. It was dark and drizzly and as we were coming into Huntsville on I-45 I saw this HUGE white creepy thing that looked like it was in the middle of the road. I asked Mom what she thought. She had several ideas including smoke from a factory. However, the closer we got to this scary thing it turned out to be a gigantic statue of Sam Houston himself. I found out today that it is one of the largest statues in our country!!! Giant Statue of Sam Houston, Huntsville, Texas It is an amazing sight!! That would only happen in Texas!!! I LOVE this state!!

I'm sorry for the lack of pictures. Next time I promise there will be pics and more fun stuff!!

Knit On and More Later,
Shama D

Happy New Year and Some Resolutions

2009-01-01T20:07:00.003-06:00

Happy New Year!!!!! Today is the start of 2009 - DUH!! It's official and I can't pretend anymore - Logan's going to graduate this year!! How did the last 17 years and 10 months go by so quickly?? I will say that I'm so thankful that I had the privelege of homeschooling both him and Kelby from beginning to end!! I taught them to read, write, and do math. We've all learned so much together and I'm thankful I didn't have to turn them over to someone else to get the joy of all those firsts!! Now comes the time to start getting ready for his graduation reception. We'll have a come and go reception from home. I need to scan ALL of our pictures and my brother and I are going to put together a slide show to music. Plus, Logan is going to play some guitar and maybe sing with a friend of his! It's going to be beautiful, but so sad!!

As far as school we're going to start back on January 19th. Kelby has 12 math lessons left in this book. Once we finish this book we're going to stop math for the year and concentrate on finishing up history. We had a mix-up in our histor curriculum order and are getting a late start. Math takes up a lot of our time every day.

As far as knitting goes my first big project for the year is a Harry Potter blanket for Logan's graduation!! I'm going to use the myriad dishcloth and other HP patterns on the internet. I've printed out many of them and I'm always getting new ones from my friend Always Alice!!! She is a master pattern finder. She's always sending them to our online knitting group Lone Star State Knitters. I save those emails and save them to the end of the day like a special chocolate treat.

This year I'd like to learn to spin. I'll start drop spindling, but I'm far more interested in a spinning wheel. And, as usual, my taste is far bigger than my budget. I found a beautiful handcarved oak wheel. I can't remember the website, but I saw it on the Let's Knit Together video podcast. I also plan to start dyeing yarn. I have the Knit Picks sock blank and several pots of their dye. I so love to knit socks now!!

Speaking of socks...My parents gave me a skein of Harry Potter sock yarn. It's the Harry and Ron colorway. They also gave me a set of Knit Picks Harmony dp sock needles. I love them!! I've started the socks using the Horcrux Sock pattern. I would link you to that pattern but the only way to get it is to join the Six Socks Knitalong yahoo group. I'm enjoying it so far. It's basically a knit 3 purl 2 rib. Then there's the lightning bolt scarf pattern. It's neat.

I got no knitting done for Christmas presents. I did, however, do some just for fun knitting. I knit two reindeer from Mochimochi Land. She has the cutest and strangest stuffed creatures!! I really want to knit nearly all of them!! Here are the 2 reindeer:

They were lots of fun to knit and I learned some new things!! I will probably make more of these!! I also knitted some turkey hats for my nephews for Thanksgiving. They were silly but really cute on them!!!

Then I knit a couple of things for me. A couple of years ago I knit Santa hats for my family of 4, my parents, and my brother and sister-in-law. Then they had their first one, Alton, and I knit his for Christmas 2007. Then this year I knit one for my other nephew, Kaden. However, my brother and sister-in-law forgot to bring their hats this year and we didn't get our usual family picture. I decided I wanted some matching arm warmers to go with mine because I wear my hat a lot between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I finished them on the 23rd but it warmed up and I only got to wear them for this picture:

The other thing thing I wanted to share today is this slouchy cabled hat I knit last week. It's from the cover of the new Knit.1 mag.

I knit this using Bernat Softee Chunky double stranded in the Blue Denim Heather (I think) colorway. The only change I made in the pattern was to do the ribbing on size 10's instead of 7's. You're supposed to cast on 50 stitches and do your ribbing. Then you change to size 11's and knit into the front and back of every stitch to get the slouch. Well, I must have a fat head because 50 stitches on size 7's squeezed the crap out of my head!! I'm very satisfied with this hat, but it hasn't been cold since I finished it, either!!

Well, I could go on and on. But one of my resolutions is to blog 2 or 3 times a week this year!! So I'll be back very soon to gab incessantly!! I need to scan in a pile of pictures and try to get some sleep!!

Knit On and more later!!
Shama D

I'm Finally Back!!!!!

2008-12-23T00:53:00.002-06:00

It's been FOREVER since I blogged and it's been driving me nuts!! The month of October was a very stressful month because I was worrying so much about the election!! (for good reason) I can't really pinpoint what happened after the election. The boys and I did school until the Thursday before Thanksgiving week. We always take off from the Thursday before until sometime in January. Unfortunately, this will be Logan's last year to do that with us!
The weekend before Thanksgiving I put up all my Christmas stuff!!! I love having the trees and lights up. I love looking at them and enjoying the sparkle and sentimental ornaments, etc. Every year since Logan was born my parents have bought them special ornaments. Their first 5 Christmases they got them Hallmark ornaments. They've gotten some from Branson or ornaments that represent something they love doing.
For example, Logan got a Thomas the Tank Engine ornament and Kelby got a Percy ornament. Logan took a paint pen and wrote "Buzz" on his ornment. He went by Buzz Lightyear during his Kindergarten year. I was so angry when he did that. Now every year I pull it out, apologize for fussing at him about it, and get a chuckle out of it!!

I'm not going to go on and on tonight. I just wanted to get my feet wet again!! I've missed blogging a lot and I promise not to let this happen again.

Next time there will be lots of Christmas and knitting content!! I'll also talk a bit about the "knitting" group I've started!!

Knit On and more later!!
Shama D

Not Another Manic Monday

2008-10-06T08:36:00.003-05:00

I don't hate Mondays...It's the day we start back to our school week. I know the boys would prefer to play XBox Live all day, but I love our school time together. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but every day with my boys is a good day!!!

Last Thursday was a particularly long school day for us. We all overslept and started school very late. I decided that we all need to get up a little earlier. So I got on up at 6:30 this morning, did my usual things and got on the bicycle. My plan is to be ready to start when Chuck leaves for work about 9.

On Friday, Chuck and the boys cleaned up all the fallen branches from Ike out of our back yard. Now the trash sitting on our curb waiting to be picked up, whenever that might be.

We just had a very relaxing weekend at home.

Mostly, I've just got knitting to talk about. I started a teddy bear for my youngest nephew. I knit one for his brother along with a box full of knitted things before he was born. But my brother and SIL got pregnant the second time when their older one was 7 months old. This poor baby has only gotten a blanket from me. I found a really cute bear in Son of SnB. The one in the book is called Deady Bear. It's really gross because it's a teddy being stung to death by a bee. But I'm going to knit eyes instead of x's and no bee or pool of blood!! I'm knitting him out of Bernat Camouflage in Baby Camo. I'm trying to find a good contrast yarn for the tummy and muzzle.

While I was at Hobby Lobby I found some red, white, and blue yarn in I Love This Yarn. We're all going to have hats for the election. (Even though we'll vote early)

The next thing I have OTN (on the needles) is the red and black fair isle skull cap from Sonf of SnB for Logan. I haven't gotten very far on it.

The last thing is the Invisibility Cloak from Charmed Knits in a chenille yarn I got at an alpaca farm. It's a lightweight yarn. I started it for a friend of mine that's getting married. I'm really not sure what I'm going to do with it yet.

The other thing I have going on is I've started a knitting group for ladies at church. I only have one confirmed for tonight. I only sent out the email after worship yesterday morning so hopefully we can get more people there next month.

Knit On and more later!!
Shama D

I feel like such a slacker!!

2008-10-01T00:46:00.002-05:00

I really plan to blog a few times a week, but a lot of times I don't. Getting back into the swing of school has taken a while. It seems like at the beginning we take a lot longer than I'd like, but we eventually get it better organized. Not to say that we don't have our long days, but...One of the great things about homeschooling is that we start when we start. I like to start by 9:30 or 10:00. This year all 3 of us are riding the bicycle and the boys are lifting weights before we start. I think that's necessary, but it can cause a bit of a later start. Today was the best we've done so far. The only thing is that I messed up and don't have all the parts of my history yet, so we still have to add that in. Have I mentioned how much I love homeschooling my boys??

Last weekend was very busy and lots of neat things happened. On Friday afternoon the boys and I went to Lufkin. Some people where my parents worship had rented a place and did a show they call Branson in Lufkin. Several people performed mostly country music. It was pretty enjoyable. One girl sang a song about her baby - I was crying my eyes out!! (thank goodness the lights were down) Then Logan leaned over and asked if it was because he's a senior and I lost it some more. Right at the halfway point they did a tribute to the military. They had called wives of men who'd been in the military and requested a picture of them during their active duty. Of course there was a picture of my Daddy. I cried all over again. Then a boy sang that song called "Where Were You When the World Stood Still?" I'm sure I was a mess. My brother, his wife and their boys came up as well. It was a nice night. However, last week my brother fell off a ladder at his work and really messed up his knee. He's on crutches and everything. He's been to a specialist twice, but they haven't found out anything definitive.
Here's my favorite picture from Friday night:

These two are always full of something!!!

Logan is so good with Kaden!! Actually, both my boys are really good with little kids and babies!! That makes me really proud!!
I also got a picture of my Daddy and brother. The shirt Daddy's wearing is one I did for him when I was going through my shirt painting phase in the 90's:

We went back to Mom and Daddy's and relaxed for a while. I got to bed very late, however.

The next morning at 5 Mom and I got up and got ready to go to Austin for the Knit Out. It's only one of the two times I can get together every year with a big bunch of my LSSK girls. This year was so awesome!!! It's always so much fun, but this year seemed extra special. I got to see several people that I've been with in person several times and that I love very much. I also got to meet in person a few people that I've grown to love online. I got some knitting done, a LOT of talking, a few pictures, and a good meal!! Not to mention a really good frap from Borders! It was an awesome day!!

It's taken me far too long to type this up, so I'm going to post and try to get better at posting more often and faster.

Knit On and more later!!
Shama D

Now What??

2008-09-22T23:40:00.002-05:00

Now that I'm finished chronicling my Italy trip, what can I possibly blog about that can even compare. Don't get me wrong, I love my life, but it's not something anyone would tune in to read about daily.

Today was our first day back to school since Ike. Since we were at my parents last Monday and came back Tuesday we weren't settled enough to have a day of school. And since we only have school Monday through Thursday, I don't like to start on any day but Monday, if we can help it. So we had our first week of school then a week off. But like I said before, I'm in no hurry for this year to be over. Today we did our usual stuff but when we did Biology I pulled some of our human body books off the shelf and we looked at some of the body systems to supplement what's in our text book. I swear, we could probably spend a very long time on the human body. The circulatory system alone is amazing!! It all just continues to prove to me that God is and He is the creator of it all!!!!

It's kind of like when we started this history progam several years ago. I could have spent years on Egyptology alone. I didn't realize how quickly we would be in our last year and trying to finish it all up!!

There are still lots of people I know that don't have power. It's been tough for them all. Why were we so fortunate that ours came back on the 2nd day?? Tonight, Jasen, Chuck's assistant manager came over after they closed the store and ate dinner with us. He is one still without power. But he heard that they are trying to get everyone up and running by Thursday!! I hope so!! But, on the good side, I know people further south who came through with little or no damage or not as much as you would have thought. But I also know other's possessions were wiped out. I feel so sorry for them.

But to put it all into perspective, there's a couple I know who went to the hospital for the 2nd time last week to have their baby. For some reason her doctor let her go 2 weeks past. When her full-term baby was born she wasn't alive. Both of their families are devastated. Their having her funeral tomorrow!! It's such a horrible tragedy.

On a much lighter note:Knitting...
I don't really have much to report in the way of knitting progress. I'm still working on the 2nd jumper and I hope to have the main part done by tomorrow. I'd like to take them to the Knit Out with me this Saturday. I found a hat pattern and as soon as I saw it I knew that it needed to be worn by our preacher's 2 year old daughter. It will be fast and cute!! I can't wait to see it on her! If I can get the jumpers completed, I'll get that started and done quickly.
Here's the pattern:
Issue 57 – Daisy Chapeau
I'm not sure what color I should use. I usually don't use the color in the pattern, but this green is awfully cute!! But pink, purple, or blue would be awesome, too! I'll let you know my decision by the end of the week and hopefully some progress by the weekend.
Hopefully my next entry will be more interesting to read...

Knit On and More Later,
Shama D

Ike and Knitting

2008-09-19T09:47:00.002-05:00

As I said yesterday, my family made it through the hurricane pretty much unscathed. Here's the rest of the story...I was keeping an eye on the hurricane all last week. It started off with us on the extreme west side. Then we were smack dab in the middle. Last Wednesday morning I checked the Weather channel before we started school and we were on the extreme east side of the projected path. By the end of school that day I checked again and it had turned back and we were back in the middle of the projected path. My immediate thought was to get out. Wednesday night was the first Bible class of the new quarter and I'm teaching the 2 year olds this time so we went on to Bible class. We got to the church building early to make copies of a picture for the kids to color. Of course, people were discussing the hurricane, so I was listening to what they were saying. No one had any plans to leave. Of course, no one said I shouldn't leave. They were just giving their own reasons. Between that and what was being said on the news we decided to stay. The evacuations were being done by area, starting at Galveston and going north. They started talking about strength of hurricanes and how far north you should evacuate for each category of storm. Up to a category 5 we don't have to evacuate. That makes me feel better. And since the mayors of Galveston (Lyda Ann Thomas) and Houston (Bill White) did such a fantastic job evacuating and staying/and keeping everyone calm things were SO much better than when Rita hit. I'm so proud of our area because you never hear of looting, vandalism, blaming when things like that happen here!!!
Friday afternoon the wind began picking up like a thunderstorm was coming. I saw people out in our street. Kids were holding tarps or something and letting them fly out behind them like a cape. After dark our electricity started blinking off and on. Logan decided that the XBox needed to be turned off so that it wouldn't get the red ring of death. Also the satellite receiver would have to restart every time. I wasn't ready to turn the TV off for so many reasons. I wanted to watch the weather and I also wanted to keep some noise going. We'd kept our cell phones and Zunes charged. I fell asleep sometime after 1 on the couch, but I was up less than 2 hours later. The wind was whipping around outside. I don't know if it was real or my imagination, but it sounded like it was going in a circle. Everyone else in my house slept through most of it. I just sat here with a candle burning and knitting on an intarsia pocket for the little jumper I'm working on. I call it my hurricane pocket. The storm went on for several hours. I finally settled back down once the sun came up, but I never really went back to sleep. We finally took our frozen meat out of the deep freeze and put it in coolers. I had to work to get all the ice out of the deep freeze before it melted all over the laundry room. Once that was done I was finally able to sleep. I slept really hard for a couple of hours or so. All we had were some downed limbs and lots of pine cones and pine straw. Also the fence between our house and our neighbor's finally fell. That fence has been rotten and falling apart for years but they've refused to fix it. Now they'll have to if they want to sell it. By that evening we decided to pack up and go to my parents until we got power back. My parents had also lost power (2 hours northeast) but they got their's back the next afternoon. (Plus, they were connected to their neighbor's generator). Sunday night we called our house and our answering machine picked up.
Chuck came back home Monday morning. He was asked to check out several Mattress Firms on his was to see what/if any damage had been done. None of those stores had any damage. The biggest problem he had was getting gas. He stopped at a Walmart gas station and had to wait in line for 3 hours to get gas!!!!!!
My parents brought the boys and me back home on Tuesday. Costco and the Walmart nearest us were both shut down. I was able to get some milk. Yesterday we were able to get what we needed at Costco (milk and frozen food) and then we went to Walmart and got most of the rest. Walmart had almost no frozen or cold foods on the shelves. There was some milk.
We didn't have Bible class Wednesday night because there was no power at the church building. But it's back up now and we'll have Bible class and worship Sunday morning.
This whole thing has been so strange. But I'm thankful things are starting to get back to normal up here. Of course, my prayers are with all of those south of us who were hit so much harder!!

Knitting:
I've been working on Anouk ( knitty.com ) for my friend's newborn baby girl and the baby they're adopting that they'll have within the next month or two. This is a fun little knit. It's a little jumper that is not seamed up, but left open to wear a onesie or top and pants under. I'm about halfway through the second jumper. This time I'm knitting front and back at the same time.
Here's Rosemary's:

Here's the Hurricane pocket:

Here's what I've done so far on Maya's:

I also knit a miniature Christmas sweater ornament while I was at my parents. This is a super-quick knit. Probably just an hour or two.

Well, That's all for today. Tomorrow I plan to tell a bit about the people were with in Italy. What a great group of people!!!

Knit On and More Later,
Shama D

Second Sunday in Italy and Hurricane Ike

2008-09-11T13:05:00.004-05:00

On the second Sunday in Italy we were still staying in Rome. This Sunday morning we got up, went down to breakfast, got on the bus, and Maurizio took us to the church building. I think this time he was able to drop us off right there. There were many places on the trip that he had to drop us off and we had to walk the rest of the way or we finished a tour and had to keep walking to meet him. The main reason was that the bus wasn't allowed everywhere. I think it was because of how narrow the streets were. As a matter of fact, there were some cities, including Florence, that we had to stop and get a permit to drive a bus in that city. Those permits cost money. In those cities there are businesses that pay for those permits, so it's a stop on our tours each day. When we stopped at the cameo place in Pompeii it was because they paid for our bus pass.
Anyway...We got to worship pretty early that morning. The little church building was pretty neat looking, but it was a small building. This building had pews instead of the miserable chairs in Trieste. It also had window units that they used.

The preacher at this congregation is one that we help support. And we helped support his Father-in-law until he passed away. Now we send some money to his widow because if you preach in Italy but you aren't Catholic you are not recognized as employed, so she has NO money to live on. This particular congregation has been in their building since the 50's. They could sell this building and make millions of Euros, but they still wouldn't have enough to buy another place. Real estate in Rome is ridiculous!!!! Several members of this congregation were related to one another. Once again, these brethren were very sweet and friendly. They had a guest book they call "The Book of Life". They pass it around to visitors and we all signed it and put down where we were from. This book has been around for many years. Once again we sang in Italian and, once again, the fruit of the vine was real wine!!! GOOD GRIEF!!! After worship we stayed around and visited for a while. In a bit we walked down the street to this really neat restaurant. It was a very cool (as in temperature) place. So I really didn't mind staying. However, the room we were in was long and very narrow. I went on down to the end of the table and ended up being separated from the adults. I really liked the kids I sat with, but I felt like I was being antisocial. I couldn't understand the menu and some the people with us were helping, but I was too tired to ask for help. I even dozed off with my chin in my hands. I ended up getting a calzone that really wasn't good. But that was the very least of the meal. They brought out plate after plate of meats and cheeses (including fresh mozzarella!!!!!!) We weren't charged for any of that. We stayed there for about 3 hours. From there we started walking - and walking - and walking...My stupid blister started coming back...Needless to say, I was not a happy camper - AGAIN. We ended up back at the Colosseum. It was amazing from the outside - again. From that point it seemed a bit more tolerable. We passed a really neat statue of Julius Caesar.

If you'll notice at the bottom of the statue are the letters SPQR. We actually had that when we were studying Latin a few years ago. I couldn't remember what it stood for. It took Logan a bit to remember the Latin saying, but he remembered what it meant.
Senatus PopulusQue Romanus - The Senate and People of Rome. It really made me feel good that it had stuck with Logan all this time!!! We saw that everywhere in Rome - even on man hole covers:

Once again we walked through the streets and they were very hot and crowded. We came through a street and suddenly we saw this:

This is the Trevi Fountain. It is absolutely breathtaking!!!! I didn't get very many pictures and they aren't as good as I would have liked. But we were supposed to go back after we ate dinner and get pictures after dark. Unfortunately, we didn't go back. The fountain is really lit up at night.
We finally got to our last restaurant in Italy. It was probably my favorite. It was called:

We stood around outside for a while. While we were waiting we decided to look at the menu. (Even though our meals were pre-planned just for us) Here's what the salad page looked like:

There were pictures all over the walls in this restaurant of people like Dean Martin and Audrey Hepburn. I took pictures of their pictures! We weren't all that hungry because of how recently we'd had lunch. I did eat some of the food, but I mostly enjoyed the atmosphere. We were all exhausted, but we laughed and enjoyed our last evening together.
After we left we started walking again. (It was getting dark but I was still sweating like a pig.) We all walked to Hard Rock Cafe'. It looked so much like the ones in the US, but we still enjoyed it. We walked around and took pictures. I felt a little awkward walking among the paying customers, so I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked. But I was able to get quite a few. Here's one of my favorites - I imagine Kelli's too!!!

Here's one of Logan's

It was a really neat place. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot...We were right across the street from the American Embassy:

After HRC we split up. Some of our group went back to the hotel, the rest continued sight-seeing. It was too expensive to sight-see independently in Rome because you either had to take a bus, subway, or taxi back to the hotel. On top of which, I am very uncomfortable on public transportation. I won't even take a city bus in Houston downtown for jury duty. And, I was so afraid of getting lost and not finding my way back to where we were supposed to be. On top of which, I was so exhausted every night, that I was more than ready to get back to the hotel, take a shower, and rest. We also wanted to get all of our stuff packed up and ready to go very early on Monday.

Obviously, we made it through Ike in one piece. It could have been so much worse. However, I feel like I've written too much for one reading. I'll go in to more detail tomorrow.

Knit On and More Later,
Shama D

Third Day of School and Pompeii

2008-09-08T07:24:00.005-05:00

Well, today was our third day of school. This is the same time we started last year. We still get off from the Friday before Thanksgiving until after the first of the year. And we finish up by the middle of April. This is bittersweet for me. I absolutely love homeschooling my boys and being home with them everyday. Coming into the school room and closing the door (to keep the dog in) feels so right to me. We're in our special room, just the 3 of us and all's right with the world. But this is the last year I'll be homeschooling my Logan. He's a senior!! No one asked me if growing up was OK. It was never part of the plan!! At least I'll still have 3 more years with my Kelby. At the end of the year we'll have a graduation blow-out at home for Logan. There will be a lot of preparation for this throughout the year. I have some very special things I want to knit for him. Plus, I'd love to get him a new guitar.

On to Pompeii...Pompeii was our last big outing in Italy. It was on Saturday before we left early Monday morning. Let me go back to the day I found out Pompeii was one of our destinations. We had gotten a list of places and I was reading throught the list. When I came to Pompeii I screamed like I was at a Rick Springfield concert!!! I have just found the whole story of Pompeii so fascinating - sad, but fascinating. I had an idea of what I thought it would look like. I figured everything would be totally flattened. Just rubble lying around everywhere. It was still very exciting to me. Our trip up there was a lot of fun. We had bus ride from Rome to Pompeii that ws 150 miles. That trip was a lot of fun. For several days we had been making playlists on our Zunes and iPods and they were being played on the bus's stereo system. Logan took mine up front. It started off being down too low so no one heard my first song - the best song ever - "Jessie's Girl"!!! In a few minutes "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles came on and everyone wanted it turned up and started singing at the top of their voices. The boys next to me, Kent and Jeremy, started acting crazy!! They had us laughing our heads off!! Here's are 2 videos:
Kent and Jeremy getting down to Love Song on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
More Kent and Jeremy getting down to Love Song on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
I told you, these were the best people!! So much fun!! I am so ready to go on another trip with this exact same group!! (like that could ever happen)
Anyway, before we went on our tour of Pompeii we ate lunch. It was some of the best pizza I've ever eaten!! It was big (and not too cheap) so I bought one to split with Logan. I cut out a slice and gave him the rest. The plan was to let him eat all he wanted and I would eat what was left. Guess what?? There wasn't any left!! Mike practically forced me to eat some of his. I don't know if he was really full or if he felt sorry for me!! But I ate a slice of his, too!!
All week there had been talk about how this was going to be the hottest day of all!! I was really dreading that part. It turned out not to be as bad as I expected. I don't know if it was because I was so excited or if it was a bit cooler than expected. (cooler - not hotter than any other day)
Our tour guide was an older man who had been giving tours in Pompeii for several years. The really neat thing about him, aside from his outstanding personality, was that he had worked on a dig in Pompeii for a year in the late 50's. He knew what he was talking about!!! I was completely surprised at how much is still standing!!! Temples, stores, a bakery, houses, even the whore house!! The first big thing we saw was the Temple of Apollo.

Apollo shooting arrows

Diana facing Apollo
The next big thing we saw that day was a warehouse-type building where they store items as they are excavated. About 30% of Pompeii is still buried. This building had a lot of pottery, tables, statues, and other decorative items. There were also plaster casts of people and animals who died when the volcano erupted. The most interesting were a 17 year old pregnant girl who was lying on her stomach to protect her unborn baby:

And a dog that was tied to a wall and it balled up to protect itself:

As we walked along the cobblestone streets (one of the most difficult places to walk) there were so many small things to see that really stuck in my mind. For example, we saw some piece of broken marble. This is one that our tour guide referred to as the first Lego:

Pompeii was a very advanced city. They had running water. Unfortunately, the water ran through lead pipes. They had baths - cold. hot, and steam. I don't know how they accomplished that. We got to walk through the baths. In the first bath we came across a dog asleep on the floor. There are dogs all over Pompeii. Apparently these homeless dogs come in to Pompeii every morning and leave every night. One poor dog got up and walked off and he was SOOOOO skinny!! It made you want to cry! One of the next things we saw was a house. There was an opening where the front door used to be. There are partial walls, a fountain:

There was even a garden area. The houses in Pompeii apparently had up to 60 rooms in them. As we were leaving this house there were several dog asleep against the wall. Tempestt had a reputation for sleeping every time she sat down on the bus. They told her to sit down with the dogs and pretend she was asleep:

The next big thing we went through was the red light district. At the beginning and the end of the district were phallic symbols - one on a wall and one on the street. We actually walked through the whore house. There were several rooms. On the wall outside each room was a painting. These paintings were VERY graphic that showed what each girl's "specialty" was. I was amazed at how graphic it was and how the paintings were still so clear. After this we were headed for the Temple of Jupiter. It was a big open area. It was very attractive. There were lots of marble columns. There were columns on the ground and columns on top of those. This had been two stories.

This was basically the end of our tour. And my description is very abbreviated. While we were standing in Jupiter's Temple we got to visit with our tour guide. He told us about when he was working on the dig almost 50 years ago. They had found a metal box. They had a special oil they put on the hinges so that the boxes wouldn't fall apart. When they opened the box it was full of coins!!!! He asked his foreman if he could have one for a memento. He was told that it all belonged to the Italian government. At the end of his year his foreman came up to him and told him again that he couldn't give him a coin, but he had gift for him. They had uncovered a red cameo of a Roman soldier's head. He had it mounted in a ring. I was so excited that I wanted to squeal!!!!

It was in the the Temple of Jupiter that we got several group shots...It was then that I began to realize how much I was going to miss everyone. There were 3 girls that stayed together (2 of them had strep) and they had were from Alabama. I realized I was going to miss hearing them talk and laugh, and their cute accents.

Allison, Jennifer, and Emily. They were so sweet, despite their strep throat. They laughed and talked and were so sweet to everyone. Jennifer is getting married in November. I certainly wish I could see them on a regular basis.
In my next post I'll tell a bit more about our group.
Our tour guide told us that there were actually 3 different tours of Pompeii. I was more than willing to stay and go through the other two. Despite the heat and cobblestone streets, I could have stayed in Pompeii ALL day!!
After we left Pompeii we went to a shop that made cameos. We got to watch a demonstration of a cameo being made. The old man that did the demonstration had been making them for over 50 years. His hands were distorted from the work and the way he holds his tools. The cameos were beautiful and I found a couple I would loved to have owned.
That night we ended up back in Rome at another restaurant. This was such a cute little restaurant. I can't remember what we ate, but I do remember our waiter. He was absolutely hysterical. He started picking at the kids. He fed several of them including Logan. For some reason I was having a hard time getting pictures. Here is one of him next to Logan after feeding him one bite and waiting to feed him another:

Tomorrow I will post about our last day in Rome and in Italy.

Since I last posted I've done a good bit of knitting. I did a pair of socks for my Olympic knitting. I started them the day of the Opening Ceremony and finished them the night before the Closing Ceremony.

I think I'll save the other things I've been working on for another day. Tomorrow I will finish up our Italy trip.
Prayers for all of us that are in the path of Hurrican Ike!! I pray that is weakens and turns from the Texas coast!

Knit On and More Later!!
Shama D

Friday in Italy with a Little Knitting Content

2008-08-07T23:30:00.004-05:00

The night before last I finished a pair of socks. I received the yarn for my birthday over a year and a half ago from my parents. It's Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn in Mixed Berry. I had a hard time coming up with a pattern and there always seems to be something else to knit first. But before we left for Italy I started back on them. I knitted on them and finished the first one in Italy. I started the second one while we were there. I was determined to finish the second one (along with Kelby's blanket) before my online knitting group starts our Llympics at 7 am in the morning. I've finally decided that I'm going to use Knit Picks Essentials in the Peacock Multi colorway. It's a purple, turquoise, and green yarn. I'm going to do the Hourglass Eyelets from More Sensational Knitted Socks. Interestingly, my friend, Alice, sent out her daily patterns today and there was a pair of peacock feathers sock in this exact yarn!!

Friday in Rome was a turning point for me. The day off had really helped my foot. The blister was still there, but doing much better!!! I keep forgetting to tell about the graffiti in Rome. You have this amazing historical, yet very modern city and everything is covered with graffiti. It's such a shame. One of the tour guides told us that as soon as they power wash it off, it's right back on that same night. I didn't see any on any of the historical sites, but I don't know why. Anyway, Friday was made up of two main parts. The first part of the day we went to Vatican City. Vatican City is the smallest country in the world. It's surrounded by walls. We walked in and up a fairly high flight of stairs. Once again we had to go through security and screening to get into the visitors center. There were a huge number of people there. Our tour guide, Gloria, told us that earlier that morning three cruise ships had docked and all come into Vatican City at once. There were over 10,000 people there at that time. We were lucky we came later!!! Gloria gave us a little history and then she took us into a fairly narrow hall. This hall was full of statues, paintings, and tapestries. There were some beautiful things in there. We tried to keep our group together as we walked and marveled. One of the first things we saw was actually Egyptian statues:

I was especially enthralled with all the marble. Even the floor we walked on was a beautiful shiny marble. This next picture is of a painting. I thought these were 3D, but they were just painted to look like that. This is not the best picture, but:

While we were walking we heard a loud bang behind us. My first thought was that someone had gone past the ropes and knocked a statue over. However, there was a teenage girl with another group that either passed out or was having a seizure. She hit that marble floor and wasn't even able to catch herself. Darrin knealt down and was trying to do what he could. It was a minute before anyone from her group did anything. That was scary!!

Anyway, we kept walking down this hall, occasionally we would go through doors into another part of the hall. There were tapestries that told stories and maps. It was such a treat. If I'd taken all the pictures I should have, I'd probably have doubled the number I actually took. As we were going down this hall, we were actually heading to the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel was very crowded and not as big as I expected. It had beautiful frescos all over the chapel. I thought the ceiling was one big painting, but it was a series of frescos from creation through the New Testament. They were breathtaking. But like everything else we did, it was very hot and very crowded. That made it hard to really soak it all up.
One of the funny/ annoying things about the Sistine Chapel is that they didn't want us to talk in there. Needless to say, everyone was talking. There were these guys whose job was to shush everyone. I was wondering what kind of resume' you needed for that job. "I've shushed people at the movies since 1984." "I've been a church shusher since I was a kid." "You've got the job!!!"
The last place we went in Vatican City was St Peter's Basilica. It was full of statues. It seemed like we walked around in there forever.
When we walked out we were in this big square and our tour guide showed us where the Pope's apartments are.
After lunch Lara took us on a tour of Rome. It was another walking tour. While it was very hot, it was one of the most amazing days for me. We walked through this one square that was full of artists of all sorts. There were painters and musicians. Lots of people were walking around looking and buying. One of the neatest conveniences in Rome were these water fountains that just run water all the time. You could put your water bottle under it and get very cold water!!!! Or you could put your finger on the spout and redirect it out the top of the spout. They call it drinking from the nose. Here's Logan drinking from the nose:

This was another one of those days where you'd round a corner and find something truly amazing. For example we came upon this ancient and very worn statue right on a corner. Underneath the statue were all these pieces of paper stuck to the wall. It's a place where people put up complaints about the government - and always have:

After walking and looking we were about to get a big block of free time. Lara took us to another square that had a really neat fountain in the center and stairs all around. It was a great place to sit (once the sun moved). But the most amazing part of this particular square was the Pantheon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Pantheon was built to honor all the Roman gods. It's also one of the cooler places we went. Logan and I spent a lot of our free time in there. First we walked around and looking. It's not very big. One of the most interesting things is that there's a hole in the ceiling. So when it rains, it rains in the Pantheon.

There are drains on the floor for when that happens. This was also the only place I had Logan take a picture of me knitting. I was nearly finished with the first sock and I was enjoying knitting right in the Pantheon in the middle of Rome, Italy!!!!!!!!!!!

After we sat in there for a while we walked around outside and looked at the Pantheon from the side and back. I must admit that I was not very adventurous. I didn't want to go off exploring because I was horrified that we wouldn't be able to find our way back and meet the group! Our group started meeting back up and sitting on the steps of the fountain. When most of them had returned I took a picture:

While I was taking this picture, the cutest British boy walked up and offered to take a picture with me in it. I accepted. Before he walked off he told us about a big 4th of July party they were having. We already had dinner reservations, but I thought that was so cool!
From this area we started walking back to our bus. But before our tour was over, we went to a really pitiful place called the Ghetto. It's the area where all the Jewish people live. The really sad part is that most of the Jews that lived there during WWII were hauled off to Germany and killed. It took a long time for this area to repopulate. It seems that even to this day, they pretty much keep to themselves. The history was interesting, but it really made me so sad. There are several pictures of this area in my Flickr album.
Italy - a set on Flickr
As it began to get dark that night we got back on our bus and met up with yet another tour guide who took us on a night tour of Rome. It was really neat. It was, however, difficult to get pictures because they came out blurry. I did get a few very short videos of the outside of the Colosseum.
One of the funniest things we saw that day were two signs outside a restaurant:

Tomorrow I'll be talking about our last big day of touring. It was the day I was most excited about.

Knit On and More Later
Shama D

2008-08-04T08:52:00.000-05:00

Before I talk about Italy, I want to talk a little about my knitting. A few years ago (3 or 4) Kelby asked me to knit a blanket for him. The blanket is made up of 12 squares. All of the squares are the same pattern and even the same yarn. The only difference is the way I combined the colors. The yarn is Crayon 100% cotton boucle from Knit Picks. The colors are called "Red", "Purple", and "Blue". (I hope y'all can remember those complicated color names) The pattern is Retro Throw Pattern Free Knitting Pattern from KnitPicks.com Kelby really loves his blanket and that makes it all worthwhile. Here's the blanket:

Here's Kelby pretending to be asleep under the blanket:

While I was putting the blanket together I kept having to push Gracie off. I decided I needed to knit her a small blanket for the floor. While I was at my parents last their neighbor gave me two bags of yarn. I took 3 skeins of Lion Brand Homespun in purple and purple with other colors, mixed it with a blue and fuzzy blue yarn I already had. I used size 50 needles and got it done pretty quickly. Here's Gracie enjoying her blanket (although she still prefers to be on the couch next to one of us):

Now I'm up to Thursday in Italy. This was a bittersweet day for me. I already knew that my foot was needing a break. However, that was the day we were going to the Colosseum, the Forum, St Paul's church and the catacombs. They kept talking about how much walking would be required that day. I had already said I was going to stay behind that day. So we all got up that morning and I went down to breakfast with everyone else. That was going to be my only meal (besides some snacks that Donna shared with me) that day. While we were eating David told me that he was going to the Colosseum then catch a taxi back to the hotel to meet some of his Italy friends. He asked me if I'd like to go to the Colosseum and ride back with him. I said I would. I'm so thankful that I got to go. First, we met our tour guide, Gooyah. She began telling us things about the outside of the Colosseum. When it was first built they drilled holes and put steel rods in those holes to support the blocks used to build it. It was covered in marble. There was a war (I forgot which one) and there was no steel for making weapons, so the Roman chipped off the marble and removed the steel rods.

It has been reinforced in more modern times. It's just amazing that they would resort to defacing that amazing piece of architecture to get their metal. Next we all went into the Colosseum. In order to get in you have to go through security and have your bags go through the xray machine like at the airport. It's sad, but I'm glad security is so tight. Logan was very amused to see this:

I guess when gladiators fought and it was SRO, those outside just had to watch it on a big screen HGTV!! We finally walked in to this breathtaking structure. We went into a shaded area while she gave us more history. Everyone was sitting on, what I believe, were fallen columns!!!!! She was one of the best tour guides we had!! We got some free time to walk around and look at more. Logan and a big group of others went up some very steep stairs to the 2nd level. They walked around and got a better look and some really amazing pictures. Looking down, it looks like a maze of walls. It turns out that this was the area where the gladiators, animals, and prisoners were kept until they came up to fight. The original floor is gone because it was wooden, so of course, it rotted away.

Logan and our fearless leader, Mike:

We were all supposed to meet outside at a certain time so the rest of the group could move on to the Forum. I waited and waited for Logan. It was time to meet up outside and he was not back with me. I was pretty much falling apart. I finally went to the meeting point and Logan was already there. Mike had made him go out a different way and he wasn't able to let me know. He was as worried about it as I was about him!! After that David and I left to go back to the hotel. I was so worried about leaving Logan and so sad about missing out on so much. Not to mention missing out on time with our new friends!! I left my cell phone with Logan and had him call me a couple of times during the day to let me know he was still with the group and OK. Once I got back to the hotel I spent the rest of the day doing a number of "interesting" things. I knitted and finished reading New Moon. After a while I remembered that I had podcasts on my laptop. Even though I couldn't get internet I could listen. So I knitted and listened. It really helped the time to go faster. That was also the day I had the pleasure of hand washing some underwear and socks for me and Logan because we didn't have access to laundry!!
The next part will be Logan's version of the rest of the day: After I left they walked to the Forum. Political leaders were required to go to the Forum once a week and hear about what was going on in the government. (He's no help!! He enjoyed it, but he doesn't remember as much of the history as I do!! I love history) One picture that Logan took that day was a place called Mamertinum. I looked it up and found out something super-fascinating!! This was the prison where Peter and Paul were held:

That just blows my mind!!
The groups also visited St Paul's church. Here's a picture of the front of it. It is a beautiful building:

While they were at this church there was a baptistry. They couldn't go in, but they were looking at it through a window in the door. Inside the baptistry was some writing, maybe a scripture, it was talking about baptism by immersion. Mike was explaining to the group what it said. They tour guide asked if our group was Christians. Mike said yes, we are. Then she asked what kind. He explained a little bit - that we follow the New Testament example of worship.
Logan's favorite part of the rest of that day was the Catacombs. Unfortunately, because of all the fresco's they weren't allowed to take pictures. Logan says I would have been claustrophobic in there. It was apparently one of the coolest (temperature-wise) places they went. It is an underground burial place. People reserved spots for their families to be placed together. Logan said the tour guide for this part was hysterical!!
We were lucky with all of our tour guides. Obviously, some were better than others, but they all knew their stuff. Most of them stood out in my mind for some reason or another. I just enjoyed learning more history!!!
That night the group ate dinner out and then they were heading back to the hotel. The traffic was so terrible it took them forever to get back! Logan even called me to let me know they were coming. On the way back, Donna, took pictures of the insane driving. There was a mother on a scooter with her two children that cut in front of our huge tour bus!!!! That is how it is in Rome. And pedestrians better make sure it's totally clear before crossing the street!!! Drivers will not stop for you!! David told Logan that he's been hit by cars two different times in Italy. As a matter of fact, he has pretty severe back pain because of it!!
Once everyone got back I just about ate them up. I went down to the lobby and hung out with everybody. At night at this hotel the kids would stay in the lobby til all hours playing Mafia and other card games! They all got closer while we were staying in Rome because they had a place to all get together. It wasn't as convenient anywhere else we stayed.
I guess that's all I can tell about Thursday. Tomorrow I'll talk about our Friday.

Knit On, and More Later,
Shama D

2008-07-25T10:53:00.000-05:00

Before I start on Wednesday, I forgot to tell about something that happened in Trieste. We were at the mall after worship eating lunch and we were talking to some of the girls that we'd worshiped with that morning. One of them asked if Logan was my brother!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That really made me feel good!!!!

Wednesday was another day of transition for us. Unfortunately, we had to leave Florence at this point. I could have stayed there for the whole trip! But that day we were heading to Rome 143 miles away. Before we left we ate breakfast downstairs at our hotel. The first morning in Florence I noticed there was this red drink - I thought it was some sort of punch or something. I was wrong. It was orange juice from red oranges:

It was as delicious as it was pretty!! But the milk at this hotel wasn't very cold. The milk in Venice was cold and delicious. It tasted different than ours. (I'm sure it's what they feed their milk cows) Logan could have drunk gallons of it!!

Once again we all boarded our wonderful bus and started on our way. Our only big stop that day was 85 miles away in Assisi. (besides restroom breaks and lunch) I knew when we got to Assisi that I wouldn't be fit to do much walking. We walked into Assisi up beside the Basilica di Santa Chiara. It was a beautiful church. We stayed outside in the square for quite a while. We even had time for free time before our tour guide met up with us. It was a nice little square with shops on one side, the church on one, and a wall that looked down and up on the countryside and architecture around us. Logan found a castle that was WAAAAAY up from where we were and he really wanted to walk up to it.

While we were waiting in the square it started thundering. Logan and I were so excited and hopeful that it might rain!! But it went on and on and teased us.
Finally, our tour guide came. He took us into the Basilica di Santa Chiara and we walked around for a bit. It was a nice little church. It had the prettiest little window:

The walk through Assisi was going to be over 2 hours. I had decided that I wasn't going to be able to make that walk. So Lara gave me her spare cell phone and her other cell phone number. There were taxis waiting right by the basilica the whole time we were there. So I stayed behind on the church steps in the shade and waited. I had my sock that I was working on and I was also reading New Moon. After they left it started raining lightly. I just put my book, sock, and sock pattern back into my backpack and just enjoyed the cool and the rain. It did start coming down pretty hard at one point and I went inside the church and waited for a while. I must say that the whole time I was waiting to catch the taxi I felt a little nervous and on edge! I was afraid the taxis would be gone and I'd have to call the taxi service to send one. So i decided to leave a few minutes early. I walked over to the taxi and he said no he was taking a tour group. So I went to the one behind him and he was taking the rest of that group. I had been sitting there forever and the taxis had been there the whole time and had never moved until I needed one!!! YIKES!! So I called the taxi office and they sent a taxi. In a few minutes a taxi came. I don't think it was they were sending, but I got in. He told me to sit in the front seat. He asked me if the a/c was OK and we were off. It was an interesting ride through these tiny little narrow streets. We wound around and around. I don't think I'd ever get used to those windy little streets!! Anyway, he took me in the pouring rain to St Francis Basilica. It was a beautiful church. I walked up to the door and asked a guy working there where the square was. I ended up walking up this really steep staircase to the square. It was pouring down rain by this time. I walked to the door of the church and looked inside for my group. I started trying to call Lara's phone. It wouldn't put the call through at all. So I heard these two older couples talking. They were speaking English and were British!! They were so cute. So I asked them if they knew if I was in the right place. One of the little old men was very friendly and smiley!!! He told me stay right where I was and stay out of the rain!! If I hadn't been so worried about meeting my group I would love to have hung out with them for a while! (another picture I wish I'd taken, but Logan had the camera). In a few minutes Lara met me at the door of the church and I was relieved to see her but I had to say goodbye to my British friends! Anyway, we started walking back through the church and, funnily enough, walked back downstairs and ended up where I had started at the lower entrance to the church. From there we had a pretty good little walk to meet the bus. We were finally on our way to Rome.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot...After the group took off Logan saw something that he thought was very funny:

I guess even monks like to rock out!!

Every time we changed hotels I was a bit nervous because there was no guarantee that we'd have a/c. The hotel in Rome was called the Princess Hotel. It was the nicest one we stayed in. It had a nice big lobby. We all got our keys. Donna and I had room 809. Unfortunately, the elevator only went up the 5th floor. I was so angry and complaining about how uncivilized it all was. We got off the elevator and walked up one flight of steps and it stopped. I had held the number upside down - it was 608!! I felt so stupid! One flight wasn't too bad! Anyway, we had really nice rooms! We had lots of room and a really great a/c!!!! The only air conditioning problem we had was that the cleaning staff turned it way up while we were gone everyday. Once we got our things deposited in our rooms we went back downstairs, back to the bus, and to a restaurant.
That was a particularly enjoyable dinner. We stayed at the restaurant for a long time and ate and laughed and had a good time. That was also the first night that we got to have Tiramasu!! It was good. The coffee flavor was very strong, but I think we all enjoyed it very much!! I also went around from table to table and got pictures of everyone!! I forgot to take a picture of the adult table. That night Lara and Maurizio sat at a table with some of the kids!! We were so happy that they joined in with us!! We all gathered around and started taking pictures of them. I finally said it was like the paparazzi and everyone laughed. My picture isn't that great because I was off to the side, but here it is:

Logan said that Maurizio reminded him of George Clooney! He really was neat! There are a lot of neat things to say about the people on this trip, but that's what I'm going to talk about after I finish talking about each day.

After we finished eating we went back to the hotel and were able to get a good night's sleep.

Knit On,
Shama D

2008-07-23T09:15:00.000-05:00

OK, Now I'm up to Tuesday. Tuesday was a huge turning point for me. It was, by far, the hardest day of the whole trip for me. I could have easily melted down into a big baby and cried and asked for my Mommy. We got on the bus that morning and went to a Medieval town called Siena. By the time we got to Siena I was having a pretty bad problem. Yesterday I mentioned that my shoe had begun to rub the bottom of my foot. After walking around Florence Monday I had a full-blown blister on the ball of my right foot and a few other tolerable ones.

When we got to Siena we had to walk a bit to meet up with our guide. Walking up to Siena was beautiful and very deceptive. Looking out over the city it was neat to see all the Medieval architecture. I had NO idea what I was in for that day.

The really neat thing about everywhere we went in Italy was the surprise factor. You'd be wandering around streets looking at this or that, you'd round a corner, and suddenly you'd be right in front of a huge ornate church or in a huge open square in the middle of the city, or something equally as fantastic!!

Anyway, we started walking through Siena. One of the first things we went into was a church. (An interesting thing about some of the churches in Italy is that they have some human bodies or body parts called relics.) This particular little church called the Basilica San Domenico had the head and finger of some woman. (I found it online- St. Catherine) As our guide was telling us about this she lost everyone's attention while they walked over to look at the head and finger. She just stopped and waited. Once we left this little church we started walking through the streets of Siena again. Suddenly we were walking up this VERY steep street. (all the streets were cobblestone) When I say this street was steep doesn't begin to express just how steep it really was. It was very scary because if I fell, I felt like I'd just slide back down to the bottom and have to start all over again. So we start climbing this street. It goes on and on and on. When I'd look up and see that we were at a corner I'd be relieved that we were about to hit a plateau. Not gonna happen, my friend. We rounded the building and it just kept going. I was hot and tired and walking like this made my blister on the bottom of my foot so much worse. (I had put moleskin on that morning and it just rubbed right off) One thing I learned about myself on this trip is that I get REALLY cranky when I have to walk up steep streets - especially the longer they are. When we finally got to the top of this street it's a wonder I didn't punch some random person!! I wasn't taking a lot of pictures at this point, either. I honestly cannot remember what we did at that point. We FINALLY got to the top of this city. We walked through the amazing streets (that's in retrospect!!) and suddenly came upon an amazing church called the Duomo di Siena. It was HUGE!! It was originally supposed to be the largest cathedral in the world, but when the Plague hit and wiped out 80% of their population, it was never completed. However, it was full of beautiful artwork. We even got to see people restoring part of the marble mosaic floor. I wasn't able to get great pictures because my indoor pictures are usually blurry (when I can't use my flash). But here are a couple of pictures of the outside:

After our guide had finished showing us the inside of this church we started walking again. Once again we were wandering around through narrow streets and seeing a lot of old and interesting architecture when suddenly we rounded a corner and came upon this amazing open square called the Piazza del Campo.
In the square in Sienna on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

The day we were there the whole city was preparing for the annual horse race. It takes place around the edges of the square. Over 30,000 people cram into the square to watch this race. The town is divided up into groups called Contradas. Each contrada has it's own area, flag, etc, etc. You are not allowed to move from one Contrada to another. There were flags all over the city representing each contrada. They were practicing for different events. The horse race is apparently really rough. The riders try to shove each other off their horses - whatever it takes to win the race. However, if a riderless horse crosses the line first, that contrada still wins! Once the whole thing is over the whole city has a gigantic feast.
We ate lunch at a little pizza place right on the square. It was a neat little place. Here's a picture of Logan eating his first real Italian pizza:

After lunch we met back up with our group to head back to the bus. We had 15 minutes to get back when we left. It was as steep a walk back down as it had been going up. By this time my blister was full blown and I couldn't even keep up with the group. My sweet Logan stayed back with me, he took my purse and backpack and carried them, and he put his arm behind my back to kind of propel me down the road. We FINALLY made it back and we were very late. Being late was a problem because we still had one more guided tour that day.
The next place we went that day was Pisa. Going into Pisa the streets are lined with vendors, mostly illegal, all from Africa. It was strange to realize how close Africa is to Italy. I saw a lot of African things being sold. Why would I go to Italy to buy African tchotchkes? However, square in Pisa is a beautiful little place. The square is surrounded by a wall. Inside the square is the church, the baptistry, and the bell tower - or the Leaning Tower. We had the cutest little old tour guide named Uranus. He talked and talked. He kept emphasizing over and over that Galileo Galilei was from Pisa. The first thing he took us into was the baptistry. It was a neat little place. A girl came out and started singing. The echo in that place made it sound like there were several people singing in harmony. After she finished singing David asked if we could sing in there. Jesse led us all in Alleluia. I caught both things on video, but you'll have to go to my Flickr page to see them:
Girl singing alone in the baptistry in Pisa on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Our group singing Alleluia in the baptistry in Pisa on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Our tour guide explained that the Leaning Tower was reinforced by some engineers in the early 90's and is guaranteed to stand for at least another 300 years. Our tour guide said he figured it would stand long enough that his job is safe!!! He was so funny. Anyway, the tower is now open to the public for climbing up into. It's very tall and has tons of steps, so none had the time or energy to do it! But it is beautiful!! We took the obligatory shot of Logan holding up the tower. The sidewalk was lined with people posing for this exact shot:

After Pisa we got back on our wonderful cushy bus and our wonderful bus driver, Maurizio, drove us back to Florence. He dropped us off in the city and once again we started walking and walking until we got to our restaurant. It was a really neat evening. We met up with Krystine's family (one of the girls on our trip) and Ricardo Berdini (the son of the preacher from Trieste) and his girlfriend, Suzanna. We had an interesting meal with Ricardo and Suzanna. He has a degree in music and he's a perfomer. He's also planning to make a CD. He's just adorable and has the best personality.
After we left the restaurant Logan and I walked to the square and went to the pharmacy where I got these triangular pads for the bottom of my foot! Those things worked wonders!!!! Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time I walked back to my hotel room that night. At the time I hated that day, but looking back it was yet another wonderful day in Italy!!!

On the knitting front, I've got all the square put together in strips. I've also picked up and knit all the stitches on the first strip. Hopefully, by the end of the day and I can have the strips all put together. However, I'm confused about the edging. I may have to call Rainy and ask for help. But right now I feel really crummy and I just want to feel better.

Knit On and More Later,
Shama D

2008-07-22T08:52:00.000-05:00

I forgot to put up a picture of our interesting key chain attached to our hotel keys in Venice. They didn't want us to leave the hotel at all with our key, so the keys chains weren't super-portable.

I'm finally up to Monday (I need to get this done faster!). Monday was a day of transition for us. We had stayed in Venice from Friday night until then. At that point we were moving to Florence. We packed up the night before. Donna, my roommate, was so organized!! She was funny to watch. She had to think it all out and reorganize. I really enjoyed staying with her!
Anyway, when we got up Monday morning we ate breakfast at our very hot hotel, loaded our luggage on our ver cold bus, and headed for Florence. It was only 159 miles, but we had 2 restroom breaks and lunch.
At this point we had 2 kids sick. One girl, Emily, had strep throat. She was able to get a z-pack at a pharmacy in Florence without a prescription. That didn't do the trick, but she wasn't allowed to buy another one without a prescription. I felt so sorry for her!! But she persevered! The other one, Trent, had gotten sick the night before we left for Florence. He got a stomach virus. His parents were on the trip with us, but he didn't even wake them up! Thankfully, once we got on the bus he wasn't sick anymore!
It seemed like everywhere we went we were running late. Poor Lara (our tour director), was constantly telling what time to be where and how important it was to NEVER be late!! We did everything on time that day, but we still got to Florence a little late. Our new hotel was vastly different than the first. It was much nicer and had an a/c that really cooled the room. There was no elevator in this hotel and Logan, Trent and Damon's room was on the 3rd floor. Donna and I got our key, turned around and found our room right by the front door!!!!! That was so nice!! The only complaint I had about this hotel was that the bathroom door was like a shower door. And you had no choice but to cross in front of it when you stepped out of the shower. At least this one had an enclosed shower. (Looking back, I wish I'd taken more pictures of certain things). Once we got to this hotel we had about 5 or 10 minutes to get our things in the room and be ready to walk/run several blocks to meet our Florence tour guide. It was boiling hot and we took off. As we were making our way to the meeting point I noticed that my shoe was rubbing the bottom of my foot - that was just the beginning. Once we got down there we met our tour guide - he was really good!!! We started off at the end of this street (I cannot remember the name of it) On one side of the main street was the Arno River and on the other was the city. We started down a street. It had big beautiful wooden doors on either side of the street that were used for government business. There were also statues in recessed areas lining this same street. I took pictures of many of them. Especially ones that were of significance to us. The first one we saw was Amerigo Vespucci

There were quite a few beautiful and interesting statues on that street. One of the stories he told was particularly interesting. He told us that Leonardo da Vinci's father had something like 16 legitimate children and was well known, powerful, and wealthy. However, Leonardo was an illegitimate child of a servant. The man refused to allow Leonardo to use his last name, so he us da Vinci - or "of Vinci" - the town where he was from. The interesting thing is that no one knows or remembers his father's name or the names of any of his "legitimate" siblings!!
When we got to the end of this street it opened out into an amazing square called Piazza della Signoria. In this area there are many cultural activities. One night there was a ballet the next night an orchestra! The only problem was that during these things there were tons of people, it was hot, and there was no place to sit. The first thing we saw when we got to the square was:

David!!!! What an amazing statue!! He talked about how Michelangelo had studied human anatomy by performing autopsies (which was not allowed by the Catholic church) at a famous college in Padova. This allowed his art to be so much more realistic. Logan was so shocked that I would take a picture of a nude male statue!! I thought that was pretty funny. We saw several other beautiful statues right in that area. One my very favorites was the bronze statue of Perseus holding Medusa's head with blood dripping from it and the headless body at his feet. (Gruesome, I know, but I loved it!!)

We went on to see many beautiful buildings including churches, Michelangelo's birth home, and government buildings. It was all so amazing. But this was my favorite part. Another fascinating thing he showed us was Ponte Vecchio, or Old Bridge. It spanned the Arno River. It had once been a place of business that contained many shops. In the middle of the shops was an open area. This had been built to allow water to run through in case of flooding. Years earlier a flood had wiped out the original bridge and businesses.
That night we ate at a hotel down the street from ours called Hotel Mediterraneo. It was a beautiful hotel. The lobby was very cool! We then went to the restaurant and it was also air conditioned very well!! The food that night was delicious. One of the funniest things that happened was Darrin Feris', a man there with his wife and 3 kids, reaction to our getting real ice water that night. When he looked and saw the ice in our glasses he said, "Ice. I think I'm gonna cry!" Ice was hard to find in Italy!!!
I did something brave for me that night. I let Logan go back into Florence with a group of his new friends. They walked around and looked at things and had a good time!! It was so good for him! I do kind of feel like I held him back a bit on this trip. But he was so sweet to me and it was a great thing for our relationship!!! And at the same time, he made some new friends for life!!
Here's a link to my Flickr album that has all of my Italy pictures:
Italy - a set on Flickr
Florence was my favorite city that we stayed in. It was beautiful and very artistic. You could walk anywhere safely. Since our hotel was on the Arno River, all you had to do was find the river (which wasn't hard) and follow it back to our hotel. If I get another chance to go back to Italy, I definitely want to go to Florence for a longer time.
Here's Logan on the Arno River:

All I've talked about lately is Italy. I'm working on a lot of knitting right now. I'm making progress on my 2nd sock in this pair. I finished the first one in Italy

I've turned the heel on the second one and I'm moving on. I'm using Lorna's Laces in a berry color that I can't remember the exact name of. It was given to me by my Mom on my birthday in 2007. The pattern is from More Sensational Knitted socks. It's lots of fun. The other thing is a blanket I've been working on for Kelby for several years now. It's made up of 12 squares. I finished the last one last week and blocked them all out over the weekend. Yesterday I started putting the squares together into strips. I should finish those this evening and then I'll start putting the strips together. I'm using Crayon 100% cotton boucle from Knit Picks. Kelby chose purple, blue, and red. I've used size 11 US needles and doubled the yarn. Here's the pattern:
Retro Throw Pattern Free Knitting Pattern from KnitPicks.com
I'm so excited about it because Kelby's still excited about it. He keeps thanking me for doing this for him, so that makes it all worthwhile!! I'm just so sorry that I didn't finish it sooner. I have plans to knit ones for Logan and Chuck!! (But those are in the planning stages - and a secret)

That's all for now..Knit On!
Shama D

2008-07-19T11:47:00.000-05:00

I tried posting this Thursday night, but my internet shut down and I lost the whole thing!! I've got to get the rest of my trip posted or I'll forget things I want to remember.

I'm up to our first Sunday. Early that morning we got up and had breakfast at the hotel. We got on the bus and Maurizio drove us to Trieste. Trieste is a small town right on the coast of the Adriatic Sea about 100 miles from Venice. I believe Lara told us that it used to be part of Slovenia. As we drove into the town the beach was right next to the road. We saw some "interesting" things. I'm always shocked at what people think is OK. Modesty is modesty, no matter where you are!!! We had planned ahead to worship with the saints there. One of the men on our trip, David Thomley, preaches in Italy several times a year. He even keeps an apartment in Trieste. So he knew all the Christians there. It was so neat worshiping with our Italian brethren! We sang songs we knew very well, but hearing the Italian words made it hard to remember the English words. So Logan and I followed along in the book and sang in Italian. That was neat. Also, Mike told us ahead of time that there would be real wine used in the Lord's Supper. I'm so glad he warned us!! That is some nasty stuff!! I have no desire to aquire a taste for expensive vinegar!! YUCK!! Another interesting thing is that they had installed an a/c, but the older people won't let them turn it on. It was rather warm in there. Anyway, the people there were so sweet and friendly!! After worship we went to the mall in town. It was a 3-story mall. The bottom floor had a nice grocery store. Someone in our group found 1.5 liter bottles of water for less than 1 euro. We were flocking in there buying it and some of the kids got really large cokes. (BTW, there's no Dr Pepper in Italy. Logan wasn't too thrilled about that!!) Logan at lunch at McDonalds. After lunch he and I went down to another level to a store called Media World and I bought a new camera. It's slightly better than the one I had. I was so relieved to have a camera to chronicle our trip!!! Here's the first picture I took with it!

He was glad to find it and insisted we go in and look around. After that we went down to the gellato place and had our first gellato. Logan got mint chocolate and I got coconut. It was really good. An interesting thing about gellato is that it is regulated by the government. It's so famous around the world and they want to keep a high standard. I assume that you have to have special license to sell it.

After our stop at the mall we got back on the bus and went to a place called Piazza Unita d'Italia. It's a lovely square with lots of wonderful architecture. Most of our group went up a long steep street to see an old church and the ruins of a Medieval castle. I was already starting to get a blister on my baby toe, so I stayed behind. Logan went with the rest of the group and tooks lots of pictures for me. A few in our group decided to walk around and look at the shops around. I walked around a little bit by myself, but I also rested a little.

A funny story...While the group was in David's apartment Logan asked if he could change into his shorts and t-shirt out of his church clothes (he forgot to do it at the mall). David said it was OK. Logan was in the bathroom changing when David knocked on the door and asked if Logan was in there. He said he thought Logan was kidding. When Logan came out he was talking to David's brother, Mike (The one who got our tour together in the first place) and apologized for the misunderstanding. And in typical brother-speak Mike said, That's OK. David's just stupid sometimes." Brothers are brothers in their childhood or in their 40's!!!!

After everyone got back together most everyone got some more gellato. We got back on the bus and went to a place by the beach. We started walking up to Miramare. A beautiful castle (on the smallish side) that was once owned by Maximillian. He was a botanist. He instructed his military to collect plants wherever they went (he did the same) so there were beautiful plants and gardens around. It was a lovely place to visit. Here's a picture of Logan and me with the castle in the background.

Once that was over we got back on the bus for our ride back to Venice. We just ate at our hotel again that night. Afterward, Logan and I walked down to the little video arcade and paid for some internet time. That was the only time I was able to get on the internet and send an email. It was so neat to realize that we were out just walking around in Italy!!!

That's it for our first Sunday. Maybe I can come back tonight and talk about Monday.

Joel, Kristi, Alton, and Kaden are coming in about an hour. We're going to IKEA then they're going to the Melting Pot for a belated anniversary dinner. They're going to let us keep the boys!!!

More later,

Shama D

2008-07-16T18:05:00.000-05:00

I forgot to tell you about our hotel room. It was fairly small, but that didn't bother me. We had a longish narrow balcony that didn't let a breeze in. Our a/c was technically there, but you had to lay perfectly still to quit sweating. Here's a picture of our bathroom. Notice the open shower...And all the tile was slick as glass once it got wet. No shower curtain or anything. Little did I know what luxury that would end up being. (You'll see later)

The next day on our trip to Italy was Saturday, June 28. We got up that morning and ate breakfast at our hotel. We got on our bus and it took us to a parking lot. From there we walked down the street to a ferry. We were going across to the 118 islands that make up Venice. In order to get on that ferry we had to "walk the plank". They had a little plank that went from the ferry to the pier. It was only a very few steps but it was scary to me. The water caused the boat to move up and down. How embarrassing would it have been if I had fallen in the water?? It was so neat to look out across the water and see where we were going. I took a few pictures from the water. We got to Venice, got off the ferry, walked up the pier and I dropped and broke my camera. I was devastated!!!! Without pictures, the whole trip would have been a waste to me.

The first thing we did that day was to go to a glass blowers. It was a very hot, very short and very amazing demonstration. Once the demonstration was finished we went into a show room. This room was full of all sorts of glass. It was beautiful!!! Glass is one of my weaknesses! They had all kinds of drink ware, beautiful jewelry, glass chandeliers, and glass sculptures. I could have spend tons of money in there. Venice is known for its glass. There was glass in all the store windows. Glass rings are a particular weakness of mine. I had one once and wore it constantly until it broke. If I hadn't broken my camera (and had to replace it) I would have come home with a glass ring.

We took a walk with a tour guide around Venice and saw some beautiful architecture and learned many interesting things. One thing we saw were these structures in the middle of lots of the streets. These were wells. The people in Venice were surrounded by water, but it was all salt water. So they collected rain water in wells. The wells were guarded by soldiers round the clock to keep enemies from coming in and poisoning the water system. The covers were taken off the wells in the morning and evening and a guard stood by while the people collected what they needed.

The last big thing we toured that day was the Doge's palace. We went through room after amazing room. There were paintings and amazing architectural details. There was a room full of maps and globes that my roommate, Donna, drooled over. We also saw a couple of rooms of weapons and armor. There was even head armor for horses. Plus some piece of equipment that was used to torture men. All the boys grimaced at that! We walked through areas where trials were held. Some of them were more elaborate that others. Once the prisoners were convicted they were sent across the Bridge of Sighs to spend the rest of their days in prison. We got to walk through the prison. It was interesting and depressing.

Back to the Bridge of Sighs...It was given that name because as prisoners were walking across to prison there was one little area where they could look out and see the outside for the very last time, so they sighed.

That evening we went back across on the ferry. (I still never fell off the plank into the water) We ate dinner at our hotel again that night. Afterward some of our group went down to the beach at the Adriatic Sea.

One very interesting thing that happened on this trip was that Logan ate things I could never get him to eat at home. It was either eat what was served or starve to death. I have a story to tell about that when I talk about our Tuesday night.

Tomorrow I'll talk about our first Sunday in Italy and what it was like worshiping with the saints there.

2008-07-14T18:07:00.000-05:00

Well, Logan and I are back from Italy. What an amazing trip!! It was unbelievably hard, hot and NOT like home, but amazing!! There were plenty of days when I wondered how much it would cost to fly home early. But I am so glad we stayed!! We saw and did things that we could never do here. We learned to push ourselves. We learned so many neat and interesting things. I love history!! And we made some fantastic life-long Christian friends!!
It started off on Thursday, June 26. We met up with the rest of our group at Bush Intercontinental. One part of our group came from Alabama, the other part came from Tennessee. There was some bad weather that day so our plane was stuck in San Antonio. The Alabama group was stuck in College Station, and on their plane, for hours. Our flight was only delayed by two hours. However, our layover in Paris was only 50 minutes. By the time we finally got out of Paris it was after 6 pm on Friday, instead of 9:30 am. By the time we got on our tour bus in Milan and finally got to our hotel in Venice, it was after midnight.

When we got to Milan we were met by our awesome tour director, Lara. She ended up being our friend by the time it was all said and done. She was having to stay on our case to be on time and I know that wore her out. But she was sweet despite all that. We also had our wonderful bus driver, Maurizio. He took us everywhere in a brand new and very luxurious bus. It was a wonderful reprieve at the end of very long, very hot days full of walking and filling our brains.

There's so much to tell, but I'll spread it out over several days.

I did get some knitting done on the trip. I had started a market bag before I left because it was mindless knitting and I was too nervous to think about anything complex. I also worked on, and finished, a sock I started a year ago. I'm now pretty far into the 2nd sock. I'll show pictures of it all another day.

Shama D

Loving Italy and my Italy friends, but so glad to be home!!

2008-05-24T22:16:00.000-05:00

OK...I'm going to try starting to post to my blog on a regular basis. I'm no Wendy Johnson, but I'll do my best to tell about my family, faith, daily life and knitting. This weekend the boys are at my parents and I'm working with Chuck at his store. I'm supposed to greet customers when Chuck and the others are busy with customers. However, today there were hardly any customers. I certainly hope and pray things pick up the next 2 days. I discovered something wonderful today. Everyday before the store opens Chuck and whoever he's working with, say a prayer for a successful day and to be a good example to their customers. It encouraged me! Meanwhile, I'm enjoying some time with Chuck but missing the boys - a lot!!
Right now I'm about to finish the baby blanket for my 2 day old nephew Kaden. It's the http://majorknitter.typepad.com/photos/patterns/oh_so_soft_baby_blanket.html. (I don't know how to link yet). I nearly ran out of yarn at the store today so I had to quit working on the blanket and I worked a bit on the last square of Kelby's blanket http://knitpicks.com/Retro+Throw+Pattern_PD50393221.html out of Knit Picks crayon in red, blue, and purple. And, for some crazy reason, I cast on and knit a few rows of http://knitfish.livejournal.com/51964.html. I'm using Simply Soft Heather in Truffle. When I finish the blanket I'll take a picture and post it the next time I post.

Goodbye 'til next time!

2007-04-28T01:26:00.000-05:00

On this blog I'm going to talk about my day-to-day life and my knitting. I'm a homeschool MOm of 2 boys. The older one just finished 10th grade, the younger one just finished 7th. We'll be taking our long summer break. During this time I plan to have daily Bible study and have a reading time. Logan will also be tutored by our cousin about once a week to make sure he's ready for Advanced Math.
For me, I plan to try my hand at a little simple knitting design. If it works, I'll submit my designs in my online knitting group's yearly contest.
This is all for today. More later

Knit On,
Shama D