February 24, 2010

A request for prayer

Dear Fellow Travelers Along The Road Of Life,

Will you please pray for my husband and I? 

A situation has presented itself, which if it follows the plan God has intended for us, will significantly change our lives.

All I ask is that you pray for God to guide us in this decision, and if it is His will for it to be...that it WILL BE.  

I apologize in advance for the vagueness of this post, but I'm just not ready to discuss the particulars of the situation at this moment in time.  I know you all understand.

In His Love,

Rebecca and Matt

February 15, 2010

"Felt" Up

Well friends, I'm finished with my very first felted project!  I actually finished it last weekend.  I just haven't had (or taken) time to post the pictures of it yet.   

Here's my "Booger" Bag before felting:



And after felting:



Project specs:

Pattern:  Booga Bag

Yarn used:  Nashua Handknits Wooly Stripes (colorway: Key West)

Needles:  US size 10 1/2, 29" circular

Finished (felted and blocked) dimensions:  7in wide x 7.5 in high x 4.5 in deep

I am really happy with the way my first bag turned out.  I still think the colors are hideous, but in a good way.  In an "E.T. he's so ugly he's cute" kind of way.  I must admit, I'm completely amazed, intrigued and utterly fascinated at the entire felting process.

I was so enamored with the entire knitting/felting process while making this bag that I made another one.  In about three days.  :)  Imagine this one right side up with the handles attached (it's blocking and drying right now).  One thing I did different with this bag from the first one is that I hand felted it.  Instead of throwing it into a hot wash cycle in the washer, I agitated it in the kitchen sink with water as hot as I could stand it.  I believe I prefer the hand felting method better.  I had more control over how much it felted and I think I got a more uniform felt out of it.  The machine felted one had really felted spots and some felted but not so much as the really felted spots.  And I love love love the springy colors of this one too.  One last note to self about creating another Booga in the future:  KNIT THE I-CORD HANDLES FIRST!!!  Good grief, by the time I got done with the bag and realized I had six FEET of i-cord handle to knit, I thought I was going to induce vomitation by swallowing my own knitting needle.  I hate i-cord.  Oh, it turns out nice, and all that...but I just don't like making it.  It's boring.

The other change to the second bag was I knitted it a touch bigger than the first one.  I cast on a few more stitches than it called for to make the bottom of the bag, and I knitted several more inches onto the length (it turned out to be 9 in high when felted). 

Specs:  Same Booga Pattern, same brand of yarn (colorway Pastels), same needle.    



I'll admit, I've become addicted to this pattern and can't wait to make some more!!!  I'm picturing all the poor naked sheep wandering around out there that will be feeding my upcoming wool stash requirements! 

***On a totally unrelated note, does anyone have or know of a really good daily devotional book or Bible study book for new Christians?  I'm reading through the Bible (I've made it to the middle of Deuteronomy so far) and I have several books (Stormie Omartian's Power of a Praying series) that I have bought to read and learn from along my journey, but I thought I would check with my friends and see what, if any, devotional and/or Bible study books you have tried out and liked (or not liked for that matter...any advice is great!).  Thanks in advance!!!

February 7, 2010

This and that...

Good morning fellow travelers! 

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable Superbowl Sunday so far.  Who are you rooting for? 

We're not football fans around here (ducking to avoid the projectiles being hurled at my head after that comment!)...actually we don't care for much in the way of sports except for watching the Olympics.  I guess we're weird that way.  Our Superbowl Sunday is being spent being totally and utterly lazy!  We tried to go to church this morning, but when we got there, we realized that they changed the time of the service.  It used to be at 9am.  We arrived about 8:37 to see a sign that they are now having two Sunday morning services, at 8am and 10:45 am.  So we headed back toward home, stopped for a bite to eat, and hubby started feeling really bad.  He's had the flu this week, and he had a few dizzy spells before we were supposed to leave for the 10:45 service.  So, I decided to stay home to monitor him instead of going to church.  I think God would understand! 

I have a turkey breast roasting in the oven for dinner, and aside from checking that once in a while, I'm 100% committed to doing little more today than camping out in the living room catching up on my shows that have DVR'd this week and knitting my little heart out!  I love love love lazy days!!! 

Did I hear someone ask what I'm knitting?  :)  Well, as a matter of fact, I'm working on my first "me" project of the year...my Booga Bag.  This is my first felted project.  Remember the hideously ugly yarn I bought a while back?  Go check the picture, I'll wait.  :)

Here's that yarn again, this time being worked into a Booga Bag.  I still think it's gloriously ugly, but the striping effect is nice.  I've nicknamed this my "Booger Bag"...because although you can't tell very well in the picture, parts of the yarn appear the beautifully appetizing color of snot.  Or baby poop.  But I didn't think Poopoo bag had the same flair as Booger Bag.  But, maybe that's just me. 

"Booger" Bag in progress: 



Yesterday I had to make a hasty trip to the yarn store in order to pick up another skein of said hideous yarn, because when I first bought it, I didn't know quite what I was going to use it for.  So, I bought three skeins.  I should have bought four, because once I got into knitting the bag, I realized it's quite chunky and I was afraid I was going to run out.  While I was there, I found another colorway of the same yarn, which since it was on SALE, I bought as well.  :)  Oddly enough, these two skeins shown are the same colorway, but because of the long color changes, they appear to be totally different.  I really liked these shades, and will probably do a second Booga with this.  Or maybe not.  It all depends on what strikes my fancy!

Nashua Handknits Wooly Stripes (pastels): 


In His grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.  So if God has given you...ability...[use it] with as much faith as God has given you.  ~Romans 12:6 NLT

February 5, 2010

Better...more focused.

Thank you to everyone for your kind words the other day.  I don't know fully what was going on, but thankfully I'm feeling much better.  Part of it might have been hormonal.  I stopped the Pill in November, when Matt moved back in, and haven't had AF since then.  My body is probably freaking out and going back into full blown PCOS mode, which really depresses me.

I did take the suggestion made by a few of you to just make a list of what I was feeling overwhelmed with and decide which tasks could wait and which were the more pressing issues.  I usually have a few "to do" lists going at a time, and lists prioritizing which list comes first, and lists of which of the items on the first priority list gets done first.  Time to simplify maybe?  LOL 

Yesterday morning, while my sick husband slept off the most recent dose of Nyquil and antibiotics, I spent an hour in the quiet solitude of our home office reading my Bible, praying, and studying a few topics out of a Bible reading guide.  It was during that time that I felt a quiet calm wash over me.  I saw the fuzzy haze I felt I was looking through slowly shifting back into focus.  I believe now that my "off" feeling was God tapping me on the shoulder as if to say "Hey, remember me?  I'd like to spend some time with you." 

I spent the rest of the day catching up on the things that needed the most attention, and those that didn't get done I'm not stressing over.  I managed to get the "office" a little more organized, the mountainous pile of junk mail sorted, bills paid and filed, , and finished knitting the last of the baby gifts for Niki's twins.  I'm headed out later to ship them to her.  I can't wait for her to get them, I hope she likes them!   

It's a strange and new feeling for me to write about my faith and religion so openly.  I don't want to come across as a preachy Bible-thumping crazy woman, but I just can't deny the changes that have occurred in my life since I opened my heart to God again.  That's not to say that all my questions have been answered, or that my life is suddenly perfect rainbows and bluebirds.  The issues I struggle with are still there.  I have just learned that if I slow down for a moment, "let go and let God" if you will, that what seems so heavy and debilitating slowly becomes a little lighter and more manageable.  At least for me.  I'm trying to understand that He has a plan for me, and that if I ask...He will lead me in the direction I need to go.   
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path(s)."  Proverbs 3:5-6

February 2, 2010

Overwhelmed

I'm feeling a bit out of sorts today.  I'm overwhelmed at the amount of things that I'm behind on, yet can't seem to get the motivation to catch up.  My Google Reader has 127 posts waiting in it, and more keep getting added everyday.  I still haven't finished the baby gifts for my friend even though I'm knitting furiously on them what seems like every free second I have, and the boys were born over the weekend.  So much for getting those done before they came.  I've got a million thoughts going through my head for blog posts, yet can't seem to get them from brain to computer screen.  I haven't read my Bible or had any focused quiet prayer time for a few days. 

I feel like I'm meeting myself coming and going and I just can't get turned around to face forward for any significant period of time.  A lot of it has to do with the fact that I just went back on nightshift...the changeover is always hard on me and I feel like I lose days because of it.  I can tell that's not all that's going on though, but I can't put my finger on what the true problem is. 

Ugh...I just want to feel normal and get caught up!