Repurposing the blog!

Hey everyone, long time no post!  I am a notoriously bad blogger, never keeping my promises.  I have decided to repurpose this blog - this time I'll be talking about our adoption journey!

I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up first. ;)  Stay tuned for the first adoption-related post - I should have it up by this evening!

Tink Back Tuesday

Welcome to the second edition of Tink Back Tuesday here at GnomeinTX!

This weekend, biomaj5, Liz, and I attended the DFW Fiber Fest in Grapevine. We had a great time perusing all the booths and spending way too much $$$. Here's my loot, and a picture of the three of us enjoying my new sod. :)

(1) Butterfly Girl Designs spindle with labradorite whorl (1 oz.) (2) Tyler finally finished knitting me a pair of socks! Pattern is Wendy Johnson's Double Eyelet Rib, yarn is Knit Picks Comfy in Lilac. (3) Two if by Hand BFL roving, colorway Exhasuted (4 oz.) (4) An improved photo of my Sprucey Lucy sock-in-progress. (5) Spinning Straw into Gold Mixed BFL roving (4 oz.) (6) From Left to Right: Myself, biomaj5, and Liz. (7) Ozark Carding Mill fingering weight, 80/20 alpaca/wool. (8) Madelinetosh Tosh Sock, colorway Terrarium(light).

I also snagged a new project bag by That Semifero Girl at The Knitting Fairy booth.

This week's knitting only involved finishing my Ripened scarf (this morning at work, actually!). It needs the ends woven in and to be washed, but I'll get a picture up next week. Now I can turn my attention back to the Sprucey Lucys and Geodesic.

Until next week, knit, knit on!

Making My Garden Grow Monday!

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, another weekly column! Actually, this is the second in a series of four columns I'm rolling out as I revamp my blog. Making My Garden Grow Monday is a chance for all of us bloggers to share what we've been working on in our yards and gardens throughout the week. Feel free to take my badge and link back to my blog so we can all keep up with each other!

The past two weeks have been busy here at Casa de Gnome, yard/garden-wise. On March 31 we finally had sod installed in our backyard. We have been in our home for almost 2 years and the whole time our backyard has been a combo of clay dirt (or mud, depending on the weather), weeds, and random grass that got blown onto our lot. Last year we added our raised vegetable garden bed, but otherwise the vegetation has been rather lacking. Here's a before and after shot:



It has been so nice to be able to walk barefoot through the grass and hang out in the yard this week! We've also been busy getting ready to start up our veggie garden for the season. We've procrastinated and had a bit of a late end to winter, so we decided to buy seedlings rather than start seeds ourselves this year. This week we hit up our local home improvement store for a variety of fruits, veggies and herbs.



We got 3 kinds of tomatoes, 3 kinds of peppers, okra, 2 kinds of squash, strawberries, cantelope, dill, thyme, sweet basil, cilantro, mint, and lavender. We will put them in the ground as soon as we finish this project:



We're building a split rail fence backed with fine-gauge chttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhicken wire to keep the dogs from getting into and digging up the garden. We had a lot of problems with that last year, so we're trying to improve things. The wire should be fine enough that we'll still be able to see through the fence so we can observe the plants all the way from the patio (where the above picture was taken from). Tyler is planning to finish up most of the fence this week, so we'll get the plants in the ground ASAP!

Until next week, happy gardening!!

PS: I'm going to be cross-posting my blog posts from my WordPress account for a week or two, and then I'll be moving over there permanently. Please update your bookmarks if you want to keep following me! http://gnomeintx.wordpress.com

New blog address!

I've decided to give WordPress a shot. Mosey on over and let me know which site you prefer! :)

GnomeInTX

Tink Back Tuesday

Welcome to the first-ever (and hopefully not last-ever) edition of Tink Back Tuesday. Tuesday is the perfect day for me to update you on my little corner of the knitting world, since it falls right after my Stitch n Bitch that happens Monday nights - I get a good portion of my week's knitting done on Monday, so you'll get the most updated pictures and progress reports for all of my projects. I also tend to do quite a bit of tinking on Monday nights, because I'm too distracted by crazy conversations about the special cupcakes of the day at our local coffee shop where the SnB takes place - hence the name of this feature.

I hope you enjoy Tink Back Tuesdays - please feel free to join in! I'd love for this (and my other upcoming features) to be a way for bloggers to connect with one another. You can borrow my banner and link it back to my blog, and leave a comment with your web address so I can compile a list of who participates to be shared each week.

Without further ado, here is what I've got on the needles at the moment.

Sprucey Lucy Socks by Wendy D. Johnson, in Knit Picks Essential Kettle Dyed (discontinued), colorway Timber:


I've had the socks on the needles for a few weeks, but I haven't been working on them very much, as you can tell. I was originally making them for my aunt as a thank-you/hostess gift, since she's letting us (us = Tyler, biomaj5, and myself) stay at her cabin when we go to Colorado in June for the Estes Park Wool Market. Because I've made lots of mistakes, and I like the yarn so much, I'm keeping the socks for myself.

Ripened Scarf by Danielle Chalson, in Lion Brand Cotton-Ease, colorway Azalea:


According to my Ravelry account, I started this scarf December 16, 2009. I think the last time I worked on it before last night was sometime around New Year's Day 2010. Yikes! Anyway, I have resurrected this WIP to stand in as my hostess gift for the aforementioned situation. I noticed when I took the picture that I have some frogging to do, because I was distracted by my chocolate peanut butter cupcake last night and didn't take care to follow my chart all that closely. Oops.

Geodesic Cardigan by Connie Chang Chinchio, in Tempted Hand Painted Lacy Grrl, custom colorway:

Last but certainly not least is my very first cardigan. This was started as a challenge/knit-along with my pal biomaj5. I began on June 2, 2010, and this is all that I have to show for it. I'd really like to finish this in time for our trip in June, but I'm just not sure if I'll make it! Maybe blogging about it weekly will help keep me accountable?? (Stop laughing. It was worth a shot!)

This weekend is the DFW Fiber Fest, and it will be my 3rd year in attendance. Biomaj5 and her friend Liz will also be accompanying me, and we're looking forward to it! I'm planning to purchase my first drop spindle and roving, as well as a shawl pin. Hopefully I won't break the bank, but if I do, at least I'll have something to keep me entertained afterward.

PS: I need to learn to take better photos of my knitting. Any suggestions on where/how to start??

New start in the New Year!

I've decided to resurrect my blog this year. :) To start, I'm just going to make a rough list of my goals and wishes for 2011.

-get pregnant (I'm not even sure what to say about this... but I really hope 2010 is the last year we'll be childless)
-read 88 books
-knit 11 objects
-learn a Bach sonata
-read my Bible every day (just purchased Eugene Peterson's The Message//Remix: PAUSE to help with this)
-run! (already scheduled for 1 10k and 2 half marathons)
-become better at communicating, especially on the phone

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure there's more things I'm not thinking of now, but you'll hear about them as they come up.

My epitaph

Today I am embarking on a journey to discover God's vision and purpose for my life. A friend suggested the book/experience "Chazown" by Craig Groeschel to me, so I am starting there.

The first section of the book ends with a question: During your final days, how do you want to be able to finish these statements?
-The thing that was most important to me was
-People say I stood for
-I made a difference in my world by
-God was glorified because I
-People knew I loved them because
-The reason I expect God will say "well done" is

I wrote these questions in a journal, and started pondering what I want my life to say. The answer to the first question came to me easily.
-The thing that was most important to me was FAMILY.

The other questions took more time. I let my thoughts wander as I read and re-read the questions. Certain thoughts started repeating themselves as I looked down at the page, and I realized these were some of my answers.
-God was glorified because I worshipped with abandon.
-People say I stood for equality.

The last few questions I still struggled with. I thought about what I would write, and realized this is just a jumping-off point, none of this is set in stone. So I wrote what I feel in this moment.
-I made a difference in my world by helping people achieve better health.
-People knew I loved them because I invested time in them.
-The reason I expect God will say "well done" is for setting a Godly example of what a wife should be for my children and others.

For now, this is my epitaph.