FO! FO! FO!

I actually started & finished a project last night! A friend of mine had her baby girl yesterday & with our weather being a little cooler, I decided to make a hat to go with the feather & fan baby cardigan that I had made over the summer. I found a cute f & f baby bonnet pattern on Ravelry & started the hat around dinnertime. Somewhere after midnight I finished it. Today I need to block it & find some ribbon for the ties & get ir wrapped to bring to her.

Last week was very busy---lots of work around the house for me. I used the steamer that our painter had let us borrow & got the wallpaper out of the kitchen & Sunshine's bathroom. I didn't know what tedious & occasionally hard work it was! This week I need to pick up the paint colors & get to work on the painting.

I also did some hedge trimming in the front yard. The majority of our neighbors have lawn people who come out every week or every other to tidy things up so we didn't want to be "those" neighbors. I also got a huge patch (6x6 or so) of vine & weeds out of the back yard. Next is the Lantana bush in the corner. I'm letting Hunter take care of that one!

This week is the start of Christmas knitting as well as prepping for Sunshine's Fall Festival at school. I have to bake cookies for the bake sale & make up a candy basket for the silent auction. Hopefully we can stay strong & not eat the s'more flavored candy corn!!

Spicy goodness!

Hunter & I are both big fans of Alton Brown & his show Good Eats. For a while we've lusted after his spice storage & when we moved into the house & saw the pantry, thought "Alton Brown spice tins!!!!"

A trip to World Market for the tins (cheaper than Bed, Bath & Beyond) & Home Depot for the stainless sheet & we were halfway to spice storage perfection.

Yesterday Hunter got the sheet mounted, I alphabetized the spices (shush! this way I don't have to search!) and there we were---Good Eats-goodness!


On an unrelated note--Sunshine has 3 loose teeth! Her bottom 2 are pretty loose & hopefully will fall out (one at least) before Halloween. I have a cute Halloween Barbie for the Tooth Fairy to leave for her, as well as the big bucks for the first tooth lost. Her top front tooth is also loose, as we discovered at the dentist's office last week. My bebe is a big girl now! It's so surreal!

She's loving the new house---her room, the yard which is great. We've been to her new school to check out the playground (school was closed) a couple times & she agrees it looks like a great school. I need to call to set up a time for us to visit and meet the teachers. I'm hoping that she could be in her friend T's class. They were together all 3 years at pre-school & get along well together. A friendly face might help her transition. Actually, who am I kidding---she's never met a stranger (children anyway) & makes friends easily.

Slowly back to the world of the knitting

Monday night I managed to sneak away to Panera to knit w/ the Col. Knit Group. I honestly don't know the last time I went---sometime in August I think.

And as always, a dishcloth provided the perfect sorbet (if you will) for my knitting palate. I'm doing the ball band cloth from Mason Dixon Knitting's 1st book. It's about 1/2 way done--hopefully I'll get some time to work on it tonight.

Our new stove & range hood were installed--thank goodness! Our kitchen is coming along & hopefully I can get the rest of the wallpaper off in the next week & start painting. The floor comes after that!

We've been enjoying the sunroom/ porch in the back of the house. Well, Sunshine & I have. She informed Hunter that it was only for "girls & Barbies" so he's been banished. Poor guy! It faces East so by mid-morning the direct sunlight is gone & it's not too warm. There is an overhead fan which helps to move the air aorund & we have a great view of the pear & crepe myrtle trees with the birdhouses. We have a Blue Jay who keeps coming around---I think he sees the Blue Jay wind chime inside & thinks he's got to free his fellow-bird! We've also got a male & female cardinal, as well as some ofther unidentified birds.

While we know our way around our new neighborhood, we're learning where to go for certain things. I stopped shopping @ Winn Dixie two years ago after what is known as the Prosciutto Incident of 2007. I went to the one down the street from where we used to live, waited for the woman in the deli for 5 minutes before she finally came out & then watched as she got the deer in the headlights look when I asked for prosciutto. It became obvious that she didn't know what it was & that they didn't carry it. I was the bad guy for requesting such a ridiculous item. Come on----who doesn't love a little prosciutto?! It's one of my most favorite things & well, Hunter was deployed & I like to treat myself. So I gave up on WD & was picked on by friends for requesting my "snotty fancy Italian ham"

There is one near us & it seems clean, well stocked etc. So I went in this week to do some shopping. Everyone seems friendly enough. Decent sales (Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream was 3 for $10) & aside from their bagged salad looking kinda wilted, everything looked to be okay.

Until I tried to find the GoGurt that Sunshine likes. Nope, no strawberry with blueberry combo packs. Lots of Sponge Bob, lots of the Trix rabbit, no plain ol' GoGurt. The associate stocking the shelves was too preoccupied to ask what I was looking for.

As I wandered along I discovered there were no boboli shells (thin crust, thank you very much). Hmmmm, some other brand that I've never heard of, but no Boboli.

In case you haven't figured it out, you really don't want to grocery shop with me. I want what I want---doesn't everyone?? Then I wound up in the line with the really.slow.bagger. Normally this isn't an issue but when I have 10 min to check out & get to Sunshine's school it becomes a problem.

And I get all "Oh, let me help you bag" And I do, sort of like an 8 yr old after drinking 3 cans of coke that have been laced w/ pixie sticks.

Again, you really don't want to shop with me.

Still with the boxes!

Here's our living room the way it looked Monday. Note the boxes in the bottom right corner. They're slowly making their way out the door!



Our bedroom. Slowly things are making their way to their rightful places. Paintings/prints are being hung in all rooms.




And Sunshine's room in all it's pinky girly splendor! I'm really pleased with how it turned out & would be lying if I said my inner 5 yr old wasn't a tad bit jealous of the color & bedding! Although, our bedroom is pretty nice too! Most importantly, Sunshine loves it!