Daisies of yarn

The Daisy throw is finally finished! It went quickly, but that was such a neat project to work on because Mema, my grandmother, started it and I got to finish it. So, in a way, we finally got to work on a project together, which makes me feel really good. :)


I couldn't resist taking a picture of it with my bouquet of Gerber daisies. Before I had the real flowers to compare it to, I thought the crocheted daisies were a little too bright and unrealistic in their colors, but now I think they look pretty lifelike. Not much difference between the real flowers and the yarn flowers is there?


It's amazing how much that one little throw really livens up the living room. It's just so cheerful. I'm having to resist the urge to turn right around and start crocheting a daisy afghan of my own. Yarn is expensive and I don't even need a full-size afghan. But then the artist in me says, "Regardless of your logical arguments, it would still be fun to make." My logical side has never been stellar in its reasonings, so we'll see how this little internal debate goes.

On a completely different note, I saw this on MSN and was simply amazed. That makes me want to think twice (or even three or four times) before I go to one of these restaurants again. I'm certainly not a calorie counter, but even I don't think it's very wise to consume 2 days worth of sodium in one meal! Wow.

Update on Wilbur & everthing else

I think I may have over worried about Wilbur, just a tad. Hey. Worrying is what I'm good at. Anyway, the vet had a look at him and wasn't too concerned. She agreed that the eye cap needed to come off, but in order for that to happen Wilbur has to be soaked once a day for 15 minutes. I then need to rub (gently) at his bad eye with a wet Q-tip for as long as he'll let me and then put a little chloramphenicol on his eye and put him back in his aquarium. Poor guy's gonna get waterlogged, but if that's what it takes...

Here's a picture of how I soak him. The jar is covered by a cloth so that he can still breath (and a rubber band so he can't get out) & the water is not deep enough to hurt him. It's just like a bath. Actually I think he looks a little silly in there.

It's a snake in a jar. The best fun for kids of all ages. Get yours today! :)

Aside from caring for lil' Wilbur, I've been keeping busy with sewing crocheted daisies together. When mom and I went to Texas to go through all of Mema's stuff, we found a hoard of yarn skeins and crocheted things.

These daisies were packed away with a photocopy of the instructions. And written on the instructions, in Mema's handwriting, were the words, "Kathleen's Afghan." Mom and I were really surprised. So I took the daisies home and haven't done anything with them until now when I finally broke down and dug them out of the closet. I didn't know how many I had, or what I could do with them, but I took them to Angela and had her look at the instructions with me. So much easier to understand those things if you have 1) a person who knows how to read crochet instructions and 2) they can then explain it to you.

I laid out the daisies that I had in various patterns until I came up with this one.


In this picture I've already sewn the daisies into rows. I'll post a follow up picture of when it's all done. It's really so colorful. I love how vibrant the flowers are; just like real daisies.


Speaking of vibrant flowers... Look what my wonderful hubby sent me today! I got flowers! Yay! I'll take Gerber daisies over roses any day. It was a great birthday surprise. Looking at this picture makes me want to go stare at the real thing for a while.

Toodlepip.

Birthdays & Vet visits

Well, I am officially one year older today. Yeah! Go me! Woo hoo!

On a sadder note, Wilbur will have his first ever vet visit today, and it's not for a happy reason. He has an infection in his right eye.


I emailed photos of his bad eye to Erin (vet tech extraordinaire) and she explained that the covering over his eye needs to be removed right away and if it's bad enough he might even loose the eye.


So, we're a tad worried about our little guy right now. :(

Back in Moscow

The Idaho chapter of the Wildlife Society was in Moscow, ID this year. Usually I'm not too interested in these sorts of things (science people talking about science things...yay), but we used to live in Moscow and we have a lot of friends there so, this time, when Ryan went I went with him.

It was a good drive. The roads were very clear (thankfully) and the weather was good. We stopped in Boise for the night and got to visit and play Guitar Hero with most of the Buzga family, including Donald. He was having a really good day and a great time was had by all, I think.

By the way, Don, I really, really wanted to upload a certain video of a certain someone singing to a certain Guitar Hero song, but I didn't! I was sorely tempted, but I prevailed! So, can I be your friend again? :)

I like Guitar Hero, but Ryan loves it. It's the only video game he really gets excited about, and he's good at it too.


"It's the eye of the tiger, hm hm do da bee boop..."

We brought cookies. Jeannette passed them around.
The next morning we drove the rest of the way to Moscow, after stopping in McCall for lunch. This cute little restaurant has what I must say are the most impressive pancakes I have ever seen.


I felt compelled to leave my own, just-served food untouched just so I could run out to the truck and get my camera and document this pancake. I say "this" pancake because there is only one pancake in this picture.


You are not worthy.
Normally I would say that it could be a pretty hard task to top that pancake experience, but I think that being able to go back to Moscow, visit the church and stay with friends...was at least a close second. :)

You know I'm kidding. Being with Christian friends is always the best experience.


When Ryan and Chris weren't talking about songs and church subjects they were usually talking about fishing and fishing trips (But none in March, right guys?).


Jeannette and I visited her sister Stephanie one day, and on the way there we saw this big bird in a tree. This is the closest picture I could get. I want to say it was a Bald Eagle, but I can't be sure. It was certainly big enough to be an eagle; I just don't know what kind. Suggestions anyone?

We got to celebrate Jeannette's birthday; a date that completely slipped my mind, so I had no card or present ready. I made Chris let me do the dishes before Jeannette got home. I guess I could count the dish washing as a sort-of present. Either way it's on my calendar now!

Don made little strawberry-kiwi-banana-whey-etc. smoothies (which were very good) for everyone and the candles spelled out Happy Birthday. Ryan missed out on the awesome smoothies because he had to go to the conference banquet. :(

I got sick on the very last day. I had been sick the week before, and I think that it just hadn't completely worked itself out of my system yet and decided to have one last hurrah before leaving for good. In spite of that, we had a really good trip. We got to see most of our old church friends and we also got to meet David Mitchell, who was preaching at a Gospel Meeting at the Moscow Church and who, coincidentally, was going to preach at a Gospel Meeting at our church in Blackfoot the very next week (March 13-15). Small world, isn't it?

New Truck

Last Saturday we drove to Colorado with my folks and picked up our new truck. It was exciting and a little scary at the same time since we would be driving back and forth over the same road that our old truck died on. (They've fixed the guardrail, by the way.)

Thankfully it was a very quick trip. There wasn't much time for me to dwell on anything bad.
Mom, Dad & Cricket arrived at our house Friday afternoon. On that day Ryan got sick so we 4 missed the bowling night. :(


We drove to CO bright and early on Saturday. Ryan felt even worse that day. Luckily he still had his sense of humor.


Here he is trying to eat a Krispy Kreme doughnut with his mind powers.


Daniel, my brother-in-lay, got a hold of my camera on Sunday evening and on Monday morning we drove home with our new truck.


Before we left, though, Mom gave Ryan a very useful gift. :)


This is the first vehicle that we've ever purchased brand new from the dealership. It's a beautiful truck, with some very cool extras that we originally hadn't even thought about getting.


I've driven it. Once. We went to the grocery store last night and I drove. That was the first time I'd driven anything since before Christmas.


I made sure to hang the moose poop on the rear view mirror before we left the dealership.