It's About Time

After a year of living in Tennessee, I am finally getting out of the house and meeting people. One of my many obsessions on the Internets is Craigslist.org, and knowing how much of a sucker I am, I always avoid the Pets section. For some reason, I decided to visit the forbidden section and saw an ad asking for help with rescued Arabian horses. I could not believe my eyes!! I have been a horse fanatic since I knew what one was. I read every single horse book in the school library and would spend hours drawing from them. I would draw on just about anything I came across, including my school desk. While my teacher did admire my artwork, she was not too pleased with the chosen medium. Arabians have always been my favorite horse by far, and I would dream of having one of my own. Working with these horses is like a dream come true for me. I have spent the last two weekends giving them baths and nursing wounds from neglect. I can't wait to go out there tomorrow and see how far they have come in a week. Volunteering is such a rewarding experience, and I have always tried to be involved with some sort of animal rescue group. Never in a million years did I think that I would have the opportunity to work with the horses of my dreams!! I didn't want to bring my camera out so I took some pictures with my cell phone. The first three mares are the rescues. They already look so much better than they do in these pictures. I can't wait until I can show them completely recovered.

Get Your Own!

Rob and I have also been doing some landscaping. Check out the new entertainment center for the cats. They sit at the window watching the birds all day. And you know I just had to buy the birdfeeder with the faery!























I have been knitting. I am nearly finished with a sweater for my friend Debbi. I will get you a picture really soon I promise. I am also in the process of stringing the beads to make Bauble. Unfortunately, I ran out of beads and have to wait until they come in the mail to finish stringing the 3.5 yards of beads. I haven't worked on my shawl lately because I have been a bit distracted and I do not want to screw it up. Ariann and Deli are snoozin' in a basket at the moment. I have Oragina screaming for a swatch, and I just bought more beads for another Bauble. I am making myself tired just thinking about all this stuff. I'm goin to bed!

Chip 'N For Dale

This is a letter I recently received from members of my knitting group back in Orlando regarding one of our members, Dale. I can honestly tell you that Dale is one of the nicest women I have ever met in my life. She is kind, considerate, and an incredible Wife and Mother. I plan to donate, and I will try to knit her a pair of socks by the time she is released. I have the yarn picked out already, so now I will attempt to actually knit them between chasing after a new puppy. (Yes he is home! I will post pictures very soon. As you can imagine, things have been crazy)

On June 23, 2006, Orlando area resident, knitter and spinner, Dale Jarrett, left for Houston, Texas to undergo a bone marrow transplant. Read about her journey here! http://www.jarrett.ws/dale/

In an effort to help Dale with the expenses she will incur, we, as members of the Orlando Area Knitters and Spinners, have started a fundraiser. Beginning July 3, 2006 through August 2, 2006, a knitting or spinning related prize will be offered on our blog: http://chip-n--for-dale.blogspot.com/. The day after the fundraiser closes, those who have made a donation will be eligible to win those daily prizes. For every $5 (US) donated, you will be eligible for one chance at terrific prizes! The first name drawn will receive the prize from Day 1, etc. Please check the blog daily for a picture and description of the prize offered and to check the daily tally!

When Dale is released from the hospital, a gift basket chock full of socks, hats and slippers knit with prayers and good wishes from the Orlando Area Knitters and Spinners, along with the Pay Pal check card, will be sent to her in Houston.

The knitting community is a giving one; a perk of their generosity, is the prizes.

Thank you.
Jackie & Janette

To add Dale's button to your site just copy and past this code...

<a href="http://chip-n--for-dale.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/6301/chipn0ce.jpg" border="0" width="132" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" /></a>

I Had To Share This With You

Please Click Picture For Information

Long Awaited Shawl Picture!!

In case you didn't catch this insane and barely coherent entry I figured I should give more info about the shawl in yesterday's picture. The wonderful, beautiful, gorgeous, fabulous, awesome, I'm running out of adjectives, shawl was knit by none other than Becky from Knitting Interrupted. She donated it as a prize for Give A Little Katrina Relief which has now raised over $100,000!!! Becky is too awesome for words give away such a fantabulous (i'm just going to start inventing adjectives) knitted shawl, and I'm just too lucky for words to have won it. Right now Becky is collecting snippets of yarn for her Snippets Journal project. You can read all about it here. Becky, thank you again for the shawl!! I will love and cherish it always :)

Locks Of Love

First of all I just want to tell everyone thank youuuuuuuuuuuuu!!! You all made me smile, and you have no clue how much that was needed right about now. Since I have let the cat out of the bag I can tell you my main motivation to take the plunge and chop of my locks. It is a wonderful charity called Locks Of Love. I donated a foot of my hair, and I feel really good about it. I didn't even cry when she cut it. Here's proof...

See I'm all smiles :) My Grandmommy took me and was my support. Thank you for everything Grandmommy. You are awesome. She's been wanting me to do this for a while, and she's pretty happy with the end results. I will admit that I feel a little strange, and I miss my hair. That's nothing compared to the happiness I feel when I know it will help someone who doesn't have any :)

Fun Ways To Donate

One of the blogs I read is having an auction for one of her paintings. She will be donating the proceeds to the Humane Society. She's a wonderful artist so go check her out.

You can also make a donation by buying the pattern for a pretty ribbed top here. She is donating the proceeds via a friend's 200% employer matching program.

Full Thread Ahead is selling Bear Kits and all profits are going to the Red Cross.

Little Knits is donating 100% of their net proceeds until September 8th.


If you know of any other places donating money, let me know.

Please Donate :)

My friend Janette and I were talking on the phone today about donating money towards hurricane relief. Janette made the point that if everyone in the US would just give just $5, millions and millions of dollars would be raised. I know times are hard and the gas prices are rising, but I'm sure that you could give up a few cups of coffee or a couple of 2 liters of soda and make at least a $5 donation. I for one am taking the money I was about to spend on some yarn I shouldn't have been buying in the first place and donating to both the Red Cross and the Humane Society. And for some incentive on donating check out I'm Knitting As Fast As I Can and Zeneedle. These wonderful ladies are giving away prizes to donators. So far they have raised over $4,000!! I know that number is going to rise higher and higher.

 

How About That!

Hi everybody! Guess what. I just found out that I was nominated and I am finalist for the category of Best Knitting/Craft Blog for the BoB Weblog Awards 2004. Well Holy Macarena! I surely never expected that. Thanks so much to whoever nominated me!! That put a big ole smile on my face :)

I finally got the buttons on the Origami Bag. I found the at Jo Ann Fabrics and Crafts earlier today. This thing has been just laying around forever without a button. It was one of those projects that I just wanted to knit even though I would never use it. It is going to go live with Rob's Aunt Connie. His sister Karyl saw the pattern and said, "Oh wow this is something Connie would like." I said, "Oh yeah? Well I already made it, and she can have it."  How cool is that.

Now you know I didn't just go in Jo Ann's and come out with only a couple of buttons. I also got some jade beads, sterling silver clasps, head pins, bell caps, and a ball of black fun fur. All of the jewelry making stuff was 40% off and I used a 40% off coupon for the yarn. Yippee!





I forgot to show you something that was Christmas related. I was on the phone with my mom one night after she had been putting up Christmas decorations in her yard. She was just a little freaked out over the directions for her Santa Clause. When she told me about it, I immediately told her to scan them and email them to me. Look for yourself! It is unbelievable. Is that not freaky?! Haha! Now is that a typo or someone playing a practical joke? My mom got so freaked out by it that she threw the directions in the trash can. I sure hope she remembers how to reassemble Satan oops I mean Santa again next year. Yikes!

On a much more serious note, if you would like to make a donation to help the millions of victims of the tsunami, msnbc.com compiled a list of organizations you can donate to. I found this link on Nanette's blog. Thanks Nanette! It sucks majorly that I even need to bring this up, but here it goes. Before you make a donation for a tragedy such as this, you want to make sure that it is a legitimate organization. Unfortunately, some evil people (I could think of a better term, but I'm trying to keep it clean) like to take advantage of a situation like this one and make money off of people. I imagine each organization on that list has been researched. However when in doubt, you can just donate to the Red Cross. You know that they are legitimate.

I'm Baaaaaaaack

Yahoooooo! My internet connection is finally back. It took me a while to get all caught up on everything after a week with no internet, but I'm back up and running now. Thank you so much for all of the prayers and well wishes. That had to be the longest hurricane ever! The police had us all get in our homes by 12pm on Saturday, and Frances just stalked us right off of the coast until Sunday. She then kept us all under seige until Monday. We were very lucky and did not have any damage to our home. We did have a bit of excitement though.

As you know we decided that it was safer to stay at home instead of fighting the traffic as thousands of people evacuated. I was getting slightly calm about it until the paramedics came through our neighborhood. They had their sirens blaring and were shouting over their loudspeaker, "YOU ARE IN A FLOOD PRONE ZONE!! YOU ARE IN A FLOOD PRONE ZONE!! YOU ARE ADVISED TO EVACUATE TO A SHELTER!!" It was unreal. I felt like I was in one of those disaster movies. I had the inevitable panic attack until Rob convinced me that the water wasn't going to rise all the way up to our second story apartment. That calmed me down and we decided to stay.

After that we were sitting in our apartment having some lunch when we started smelling smoke. We ran around trying to find the source of it, but we couldn't find anything. That is when we realized that it was coming in from the vents, and it was getting stronger. Rob started gather up our important papers and belongings, and I dialed 911. I ran out the door to try and find out which apartment was on fire. Now keep in mind I was barefoot, in shorts and a tank, and running through a full blown hurricane. I'm trying to talk to the dispatcher while I'm getting blown every which way and fully drenched.

About that time two police officers were patrolling my area and spotted this crazy lady running around half dressed in the middle of the storm. They figured something was wrong. Haha! Well I took them up into the apartment and they confirmed to dispatch that there was smoke coming through the vents. They then began checking all of the apartments in our building. Rob and I were getting our stuff ready to go out the door when we heard the officer call up the stairs. "We found the problem you guys. You don't have to leave." He explained to us that one of our neighbors decided to heat up their food by burning paper in a metal trash can INSIDE THEIR APARTMENT!! People are just brilliant I tell ya.

On the bright side of the incident I got to be on the radio! The station we were listening to was asking for people to call in with their Hunkering Down stories, so I decided to share mine. They started cracking up and called it the Mike Tyson Grill. They got such a kick out of the story that they mentioned it a few more times during their show. My grandma even said she heard a different station warn people to not burn paper in trash cans to heat up meals. Too funny!

Well that is my crazy hurricane tale! I did manage to get some knitting done believe it or not, but I didn't work on my Christmas presents. Instead, I knit up three 9x9 squares that will be collected and knit into an afghan for a woman who lost her husband in Iraq. If you would like information on how to participate, contact me.

Things are about back to normal now. We thought we were going to get Ivan, but it looks like the poor people in the Panhandle are going to get it instead. My prayers are with them and the people Ivan has already left in his wake.

I'm baaaack

I haven't posted in a few days because I have been in the hospital. I'm all better now thank God, but I'm very tired. I didn't get any knitting done at all while in the hospital. I thought about getting my husband to grab it for me but I was too out of it. I started the swatch for Just Peachy. It's the one on the cover of the Summer Vogue Knitting Mag. I think I'm going to change the pattern just a bit. I don't like how it rolls at the bottom, so I may do an inch or so of seed stitch or p1 k1 ribbing. Hopefull my Aunt Lydia's Microspun will meet the gauge of the pattern. I'm too broke to buy what it calls for. Well I'm off to bed but before I go I wanted to tell you about a charity for wounded soldiers. A fellow blogger posted a comment with a link to a webpage she made for it. She is knitting a lap robe to send off. Check it out here. I'm sorry this is so short. Like I said, I'm wiped out. I'm off to bed.

=^.^= Critter Knitters Coalition

Someone on one of my knitting lists wrote about this website the other day, and I thought that I should share. This Coalition provides blankets to various animal shelters in the city of New York to provide comfort to the animals in a highly stressful situation.. The blankets can be knit, crocheted, or sewn. If you don't have the time to make a blanket they glady accept new or used and washed sheets, towels, blankets, rugs. Animal treats and toys are also accepted and will be given to the shelter along with the blankets. If you just want to donate some yarn that is great. The yarn will be given to a volunteer and made into a blanket. Their goal is to have no shelter animal in NY without a warm and comfortable blanket to sleep on. I plan on making a blanket and sending it in. They prefer acrylic yarn because it holds up to repeated washings, and I have a ton of extra acrylic yarn. I am sure many of you do. Check out the website by clicking on the logo above.