1st Annual Pumpkin Carving

First let me say I am sorry that there hasn't been much posting going on around here lately, but I've been a little distracted. Not that it's all that good of a reason but the hubby and I have started playing World of Warcraft again. The last week hubby was off for vacation and since we couldn't afford to go anywhere we kind of holed up at home and played a lot of WoW.

Last weekend, to kick off vacation we initiated a new tradition in our household. Growing up my family never carved pumpkins and it just sounded like so much fun that we decided to start a new tradition. So while out shopping I found the perfect little pumpkin and this is what we came up with.....

Pre-carving drawing:


cleaning out the pumpkin:



(obviously NOT my favorite part and never again to be my job)

And finally, the end result:



And, the biggest reason I haven't been around this past week...the reason for the vacation...


We celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary on Wednesday. And our 4th year together on Thursday.

~~~~

I promise not to be gone so long again. Next time I'll tell you about our trip to Sedona for a friend's wedding!

World Card Making Day 2008

I'm posting a bit late I know (yesterday was World Card Making Day), I got sidetracked yesterday appliance shopping. But I didn't want any of you to miss out on taking advantage of this great deal from Stampin' Up.



This offer is only good until Oct. 11th, so don't let it pass you by. Online ordering is available through my website at www.kelleyerickson.stampinup.net Once there just click on the shop now button under my name in the top right corner, or give me a call and I'll be happy to help you.


I'll be back with pictures as soon as I figure out where my camera charger is hiding.

SP12 Final Package

I got my final package this week from my SP12 partner Katja from Finland! Thank you so much! You have no idea how nice it was to get something fun in the mail with all this other stuff going on around the house.

Look at the picture on the box, isn't that pretty? It was kind of late at night when I took the photos so sorry about the flash.


And look at the goodies! I can't wait to try and find the perfect pattern to use with the yarns.

There are 2 skeins of Novita Luxus Wind and 2 skeins of Novita Malibu. Katja also sent along some Finnish candies that my husband is loving and some Finnish chocolate that I will have to share with him. Unfortunately I didn't get to the mail fast enough and so it sat in the mailbox melting until we got it. (nothing a short stint in the fridge can't fix!)

Thanks again Katja, you have been such a wonderful SP partner and I really do hope that we can continue our friendship!


~~~~
For those of you wondering about the house, have no fear, I will be making another post soon with all the updates.

Minor tragedy on the homefront

The day seemed to be pretty normal, you could even say we were having a good day. Hubby is home for a couple of weeks rather than travelling so we have been enjoying our afternoons together. (he has to work on eastern time)

We had just gotten home from picking up a Craigslist find and were settling in for the evening getting ready to cook dinner and doing a bit of laundry. Hubby started dinner and went to take the trash out while I started some laundry. Hubby came in from the garage and as he rounded the corner into the living room he started yelling. The pot on the stove was on fire! He tried to put it out as I came running and he saw it wasn't going to stop he yelled for me to call 911.

Everyone is ok, we got all the animals out of the house and over to the neighbors but not before I freaked out. I was on the phone while he was searching for the animals and he couldn't find Ellie...thats when I freaked. I wouldn't know what to do if I'd lost one of the animals. As soon as I saw that she was ok I stopped crying and collected myself.

So what once looked like this:


Now looks like this: (angle is different)


and the oven is in the back yard for now


We were the talk of the neighborhood tonight, one family even brought out their grandmother in her wheelchair to stare at us. Talk about humiliating! Thankfully the neighbors were home to take the animals for us until the fire department left and we got a bit of initial clean up done. Tomorrow we start the heavy duty cleaning going through each room and washing EVERYTHING!

The firemen probably thought I was crazy because as soon as we walked back in the house I gasped...the first thing I thought was "damn, I have to repaint the whole kitchen!" To me it looks devastating, but I know it could have been so much worse. I just can't let myself think of if that had happened.

I'm still alive!!!

I admit I've been a very bad blogger but I have been busy. And sadly tonight's post isn't going to be long, it's late and I haven't knit a single stitch today so I really want to do that before going to bed. In the interest of brevity, I'm going to bullet point what I've been doing since last post.

- Photographing and posting yarn to my Ravelry Stash (still not done but Flickr won't let me upload more until next month)

- Organizing said stash into something other than piles

- lots of jewelry making (mostly earrings)

- making lots of cards

- general cleaning, getting ready for MyMary who will be here next week!!!!! :)

- making loads of progress on my Gathered Pullover sweater (sadly no photos, soon though)

- a completed pair of Dunes of Tinfou socks, pictures to follow soon I promise

I'm sure there has been more but this is really all that I can think of at the moment. It's getting late so I'm going but I'll leave you with a few pictures of some cards I've made lately. These open up to a show a Ghiradelli Chocolate Square. If you are interested, they are $5 each or $12 for 3.

SP12 Question of the week #12

I know I'm behind again but only by one week, I think the new question comes out tomorrow and hopefully I'll be back on track by then.

This weeks question:


I’m sure most of us have a proudest moment when it comes to knitting. A project or technique that you’ve tackled and completed beautifully. What is your proudest knitting moment??

And on the flip side? What is the one thing that you can’t get right? What is that one project that you’ve never been able to complete? Or that you did complete but then hid away instantly because it was too embarrassing?


So far my proudest moment had to be completing a pair of socks in just 4 days. I decided to push myself this year and try my hand at Sock Wars. After a rough start not being able to figure out parts of the pattern, I knit like the wind and was able to kill off 3 people before my assassin found me.

On the other side of that is my very first knit purse, which still is just an eyesore. I know what needs to be done to fix it but I'm not likely to do it. I'll probably keep it around as a reminder of my improvements.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm hoping to get a real post up sometime tomorrow complete with pictures since my USB port seems to finally be working. Look for a picture heavy post coming soon to a blog near you!

Catch up post - SP12 questions

I've been bad the last few weeks about answering the SP12 questions so here I am doing a catch up post while being tortured with hiccups that won't go away.

Question #9 - Have you ever entered your knitting (or anything else) in the fair? Would you ever consider it?

It has never even occurred to me to enter anything in the fair so of course I've never done it. And now that I've been reading a few blogs and seen a few people entering their knitting in the fair it has me thinking. Maybe one day I will but it's still a ways off.

Question #10 - What Olympic event would best descibe your knitting/knitting style?

I honestly can't say since I don't watch the Olympics. Not to mention I haven't had nearly enough coffee to come up with a decent metaphor. Maybe cross country marathons because I can stay focused on one project if I put my mind to it.

Question #11 - What is the best thing you've ever received in the mail/post?

Anything that isn't a bill or junk mail!