We all got the Swine Flu shot

Me and the kids all got Swine Flu shots this morning. We havn't had any bad side effects yet and haven't grown any tails. I think we are ok. I was pretty nervous getting the shot because of all the crazy stuff I was hearing but I figured that I would rather get the shot than get the flu with pneumonia later. I was becoming an agoraphobic and I was affraid to leave the house and catch the flu. Hopefully we don't have any thing crazy happen later! Tara got her shot before us and she is still alive too. :)

Oliver is finally singing.

I have been teaching Oliver how to sing. He doesn't have one of those beautiful parrot voices. He sounds more like an old man who smoked a little too much but he has been trying.

He has actually started to dance with me and try to sing along. It has taken over 3 years to get him to finally start opening up.

We have been working on some new words too. He won't say them yet in front of me but I did catch him practicing his new words while I was in a different room. I wonder when he will think he is good enough to say them in front of me...

Foster ferrets found a home!

I finally found my two foster ferrets a good home. I miss them though. :(
My kids got a little attached too.
We are adjusting to life again without them and are able to focus more on our sugar gliders.

Pretty has stopped biting

After carrying her around with me almost all day long. Pretty has finally stopped trying to kill me. Isn't she CUTE!!!

My new vampire bats!!!

The whole family playing in the shower curtain.


Hanging out in the shower curtain.


Up close and personal pic. LOL

These are way cool. They actually aren't Vampire Bats but that is what we have nicknamed them since they have bitten hard enough to draw blood. These are actually my new COOL pets they are Sugar Gliders. They are so AWESOME!!! The only problem with them is that they don't feel too comfortable with us yet so they have been a bit "nippy".
I have the a mother who is 5 years old and her two baby girls, who are 2 years old.
Their names are Pretty, Cutie, and Butterfly. I am not sure what one the mother is. I can't even tell them apart. I painted the front nails on one of them, the back nails on the other, and no nails on the last one.
My older son is scared to death of them and has been having nightmares of them ever since one jumped out of the cage and into his shirt. We couldn't get it out of his shirt because it was growling at us and trying to attack. About two hours later we coaxed it back into it's cage by at meal worm treat. Now my son is traumatized and doesn't want to go near them. LOL

Gracie's new "patio home"

I finally got my husband to make a house for Gracie. We are still trying to figure out what to do with her over the winter but at least now she has some cover from the rain and snow.

If she has another goose or someone to cuddle up to it wouldn't be such a big deal but she is all alone and I am afraid she will freeze to death. I think I am going to try to find another goose for her to cuddle up next to or try to find someone that already has geese so she could cuddle up with theirs.

I still have another option: I am trying to figure out a way to keep her warm in the garage or something. I am not sure how it can be done but I am thinking...

Her "patio home" is still not completely finished yet. I am going to put in laminate flooring or something so her poo isn't absorbed into the wood. I am also going to put some type of waterproof roof on it too.

If you have any suggestions on what I should do I would really appreciate it!

Rescued ferrets

I haven't had much time to play around with my knitting machines lately, thanks to homeschooling. I have taken on a few other things, like rescuing ferrets. I actually rescued 2 ferrets and right now.

They are brother and sister and are about a year and a half old. They are very cute and nice. They play with the dogs and follow everyone around the house. The lady that I got them from had them stuck out in her backyard. She had a very nice custom made cage but it was OUTSIDE. The poor things were shaking, wet, and cold when I saw them. I asked her if she knew that they were freezing and she said they were shaking because they were happy even though they were soaking wet with rain and about 40 degrees outside. I ended up buying them because I just couldn't leave them with that "Utard". They were a little underweight and seemed to not be feeling too well -- I wonder why?

I have nursed them back to health and now they are looking very healthy and are very playful!

Now I am on a mission to find them a good home.

On Wednesday night we took Gracie to church to be blessed. She was the only goose among a bunch of dogs. She didn't mind the dogs at all but some dogs seemed a little disturbed that she was there. She did very well on her leash and didn't try to bite anybody. She actually NEVER bites. The first thing people would ask was if she bites.

Gracie was a bit nervous though and kept trying to run to people to be held. When she is scared she likes to tuck her head into my arms and make me hold her (like a big baby).

I did manager to take a picture of her and Father Erik after her blessing. She was trying to run for comfort. We were very pleased at how good she did during the blessing ceremony and thank goodness she didn't interrupt Father with any "quacks".

Autumn Cabled Scarf

Here is another cabled scarf I made on the bulky. This time since this yarn is a wool blend I was I tried dropping down the second stitch from each side and purling it back up to get rid of the rolling effect. It seems to have worked pretty good. I also went over it with an iron. Turned out perfect. This scarf has 3 cables the cables on the ends are to the right and the cable in the middle is to the left. The cables give it a nice texture.

Pretty In Pink Scarf

I just got finished making this light and lacy scarf in light pink.

This is the first scarf that I have done on my Brother 260. YAY!

The cables gave it a really nice and elegant look. I ironed it a little to loosen up the stitches so that the cables will show better.

Gracie in the yard

Gracie has been staying outside most of the time now. She loves to roam the yard with the dogs, eat grass, and play in her pool. I do bring her in sometimes and she loves to sit on my lap and watch TV. Gracie has also made friends with a few Magpies. I can hear them talking with her every morning. I am wondering what to do with Gracie when Winter comes. I think she will freeze if I keep her outside especially because she doesn't have any other geese to keep her warm. I might have to have her inside all Winter long. I could also make some type of a home for her in the garage but then it is really cold in their too. Her is a new pic of Gracie.

Apples are growing

I planted this tree about 2 years ago and this year it has already got fruit on it. This apple tree actually is supposed to have different kinds of apples on it. Only 1 branch has fruit on it so far and the other 2 are bare. Maybe next year I will have fruit on all 3 big branches.

Perfect for baby

I love how this looks and feels. (It is really a light baby yellow, not the ugly tan it looks like.)

The texture is what is so cool! This is so PERFECT for a baby.
This is one of the swatches that I got with my machine. It is my favorite and is something to look forward to eventually making. Hopefully, I can make one soon for Tara's new grandson. Congrats Tara!!!

Updated pic of my bookmark

I haven't been working on this too much but I have made some progress. It will be finished one day!

Playing with the knitting machine

I finally figured out how to cast on but I am still working on figuring out casting off. This machine is way complicated. It seems like it will be quite a while until I can feel comfortable using this machine. If only I can find someone in this state that has one! How nice that would be! Until then I am doing this all solo. It is so hard to find anything to do with this machine it is driving me crazy! It seems like the directions that I do find are all short and not very thorough. Since the company had stopped making these machines I have to rely on finding something on ebay :(

Well since it is way late I thought at least I could post a pic of something I just did on the machine. I think it is called the honeycomb stitch (but not sure). Anyways I thought it looked pretty cool, or at least a little different. :)

I have heard there is a pretty steep learning curve with this machine so I am just going with the flow and learning by trial and error. One day I will be able to use this machine for something more constructive -- but for now I am happy just making a little swatch of cool looking nothings. :)

Ruffled scarf

I love how this scarf looks!
I am actually making another one but I am using the other side of the yarn, so that you can't see the white, you can see just the black and brown.
What a contast you can get the white look or the dark brown look with the same yarn.
I will post another picture of the dark brown one once I have finished it.

First try on my knitting machine.

Well, I was able to play around with my new knitting machine last night and was able to learn one way to cast on, decrease, increase, switch stitch type, and change color. I didn't bother trying to learn how to cast off because I didn't have any of those tools that would make it easier. I will try again tonight with a sportweight yarn. The yarn I used last night was really really thin. About as thin as dental floss. I wound up one of my own sportweight baby yarns to see how it looks on the machine. I can't wait to get my other parts in the mail. But for now I will do what I can and learn what I can with my limited stash of... NO TOOLS.

I found out that the computer does not do what I thought it did. It instead helps me to manually adjust measurements for... (I don't know I think sweaters)

Also, the machine doesn't do intarsia just fairisle, which is okay with me because I actually prefer intarsia.

Buying a used truck in Utah

You would think it would be pretty simple to go trade in an old truck and buy another used truck. Actually after we had decided what truck we were going to buy we started the financing part of the whole sale and I was asked if I was mormon. WHAT? I probably looked sick to my stomach. "NO" I said I am Catholic and the finance guy says "well so am I but do you mind saying you are a mormon so you can get the best interest rate" I said "NO" of course! (No soul selling over a truck here!!!) He seemed a bit angry that I wouldn't denounce my religion to get a better interest rate and the monthly payment I wanted. He thought by proving to me he denounced his religion to get into the (mormon) Deseret Credit Union by showing my his "member card" I would do the same. So I told him if he doesn't think that it was much of a problem to denounce ones religion over a truck I would go ahead and call my priest and ask him! He really didn't want me to call "the priest" but I did anyways. Yes, that is when I called Fr. Eric. Of course he confirmed my previous answer of NO.

I think the financing man was a little shook up after me calling father but he still asked me one more time to denounce my religion. I ended the conversation by telling him, like Fr. John Corapi would have, "I ain't going to hell for you or anyone else and especially not for some truck"

Well, this is just another one of those reasons that I love Utah, NOT!!!!

Remeber this conversation was with another Catholic! UGHHH, MY GOODNESS!!!

My new toy

Thanks to my daddy I have a new knitting toy. Well it's not really a toy it is a knitting machine I had to order a few small parts before I can start working on it and it needs a super duper clean up. Once I get the few small parts I can then clean it all up and start using it. This machine does everything. They say... you can knit a pair of sock within 1/2 hour with this bad boy. It also spits out baby blankets incredibly fast. I can't wait to get started making clothes! Now I can make items to sell without taking forever. I will still be making and selling handknit items but not exclusively, now I have more options. I am so excited about this machine. Yeah yeah yeah!!!

Some cool info about my machine:
It has a motor to run automatically. It has a built in computer with 770+ pattern options included. It is a double machine so I can make double sided knits if I want or single sided. It reads punch cards, so I feed it a paper with patterns punched out of it and the machine automatically makes the specified pattern. WOW!! It also has a 4 color yarn feeder (to do cool intarsia designs) like to make a sweater with cool multi-colored designs across it. This came with a HUGE bag of yarns a BUNCH of punch cards and pattern books.

My Mannequin Is Here...

Here is a picture of the mannequin with one of my scarves. She makes it look so nice.

Working on a cross stitch book mark

This is how far I have gotten, its not very far. I am not sure how this is going to turn out because I switched the colors around. It seems like it is taking forever!!! When it is all finished it should say "love" with some flowers and stuff on it.

I am back but with computer issues

I am back from my little vacation and I am trying to get back into my regular routine. I have a few pics and stuff to post but I have computer problems once again. Hopefully, I can return this little piece of junk in for another more worthy laptop.

I finally ordered a mannequin off of ebay. Her name will be... maybe... Headless Heather??? She will be my scarf model.

Fall is just around the corner so I have been busy knitting up some goodies again. My son just shrank my favorite knit pants I made for the baby, this is the second major knitted item he has shrunk, the first was a sweater. Oh well, it gives me an excuse to knit some more.

Mission Freedom

My friend had caught a little raccoon in a live trap. It was awaiting its death, its penalty for eating her baby chickens. I asked her to let me take it up in the mountains and let it go and she let me. YEAH!!! It was so cool to see a live raccoon. I see them all the time dead on the side of the road, but this time it was a real alive raccoon. Even though it did a bad thing it was too cute to be mad at it! We took it (in its trap enclosure) up into the mountains while we went for a hike. We let it go right next to a little stream and it sat there and drank the water using its cute little hands. It had a little bridge to hide under and a lot of ground cover and trees. It wasn't full grown but it wasn't a baby either. It isn't with its mommy any more but at least it isn't dead. I said a prayer that God would take care of it. I hope it is able to survive! I will be praying for it tonight! On our way back down the mountain we saw a rattle snake. It wasn't very big, but big enough to have a rattle. We watched it slither away near a stream. It is amazing how God created each living thing so special in their own way. God is so AWESOME and powerful; I can't believe how many turn their backs to Him.

A note from Fr. John Corapi

"Abortion is not one issue among many...it is absolutely unconscionable, unimaginable, that we could somehow rationalize that this is ok..."
Flash Point...
Flash point: The point at which something is ready to blow up. That has been my perception of Western society in general for some time now. Perhaps, a train wreck waiting to happen would be another way to put it. All evil can claim its ultimate origin in moral evil. Those that deny objective standards of morality merely facilitate the demise of their society. When it happens they will be nowhere to be found.That apparently large numbers of people seem to be intellectually and morally numb is not news, but the near light-speed evaporation of our way of life is. Actions have consequences, and sometimes the consequences can’t be seen this side of eternity. That does not mean they aren’t real. You will be seeing some of the consequences very soon, however, not the worst, but the most immediate.Personal liberty has already begun to be compromised. Various governments, including the United States, now own car companies like General Motors and Chrysler, mega insurance companies, soon perhaps health care and energy. Injustice is beginning to be seen from the smallest of individuals to the largest of corporations. The only problem with that is that governments have never been able to operate anything profitably, efficiently, or equitably. The little guy and the large corporation will all be equal opportunity recipients of heavy-handed injustice very soon.The government is about to dictate what car you can drive, how you insure it, what your bank can pay you or not, what kind of heating you have in your home, if you can have air conditioning or not. And, oh, if you eat a Twinkie your health insurance premium is going up. If you get sick, perhaps the Twinkie did it, and you aren’t covered.You might say that the government needs to control things to keep us safe, etc. That might work if the people in government could be trusted. They can’t, but we elected them. We get what we deserve, and many chickens are about to come home to roost.One of the inherent difficulties with a democratic republic is that it is only as good as the people in it. When a people lose their moral equilibrium, live in sin, and suffer the consequent loss of wisdom, then that nation’s days are numbered.Why? How have we come to this? It can be traced to the most compelling moral issue of our times, and we can’t escape from it, no matter how uncomfortable it is—abortion and other life issues. No matter what other rosy picture is painted by those that would have you believe all is well, God is not a disinterested spectator. Regardless of the high sounding rhetoric of the day, seeming progress in this or that area, it is an illusion. Nothing will ultimately go well for the United States or any other country until the injustice of all injustices is remedied. Until every human being is respected and reverenced, from the moment of conception to the last moment of natural life, no one will be safe and secure. Whether it is the helpless infant in the womb or the misguided and/or evil abortionist on the wrong end of a bullet, all deserve the safety and security of the law. Only God can in justice and wisdom decide when life begins and when life ends. When we attempt to usurp God’s job description we always come up short.

God Bless You,
Fr. John Corapi

Let freedom ring

Can you believe this!
I thought we had freedom of speech and religion? Does this not apply to Christians?
Isn't this supposed to be a Christian nation?
Gosh--What is next...
We need to send some prayers his way!
Where I live I can hear the bells from my church, and I live a 1/2 a mile away. I love sitting in my backyard or laying in my bed with the windows open and listening to the beautiful bells at my church ringing. It reminds me to pray. Every time I hear the bells ringing at my church I thank God I am part of His church. I remember how it was not to be a part of His church. That big narrow road that leads to hell used to be the road I preferred. Thank God He had other plans for me, the poor sinner that I am!

Got Cheese???

Gracie at 6 weeks old

Well, here is Gracie. She is bigger than ever and is starting to make a honking sound. I think she is going through puberty. Right in the middle of one of her cute chirps come a big HONK. It is pretty funny. She loves going outside and eating the weeds. She loves the big 3 leaf clovers. She loves to go for a swim too, but I haven't been able to get a good pic of her swimming. I will post another pic of her next week when she is 8 weeks old, since I am late for posting her 6 week pic.

The Snake

Here is the snake that we found in the backyard. Fr. Erik said it wasn't a bad snake, so we decided to bring it inside and play with it. It was about 4 feet long and really calm and friendly, but after a couple hours of handling, I think we made it's stomach get upset. It ended up throwing up it's dinner on my bedroom floor. It had eaten two baby birds. So, I ended up with these two half digested funky smelling birds on my floor and our friendly snake was taken out back where we never saw it again. I am not sure who was more traumatized, me and the kids, or the snake???
I don't think I will ever be able to look at snakes in the same way! I am sure the snake thinks the same of us. Anyways, Lesson learned: Don't go play with wild animals that are in your backyard even if they look nice!

I love McDonalds

Gracie's first outing

We have been given permission, by the manager, to take Gracie with us to our local Dino Park. YEAH! So, she has now had her first outing. She spent most of her time in the stroller with Weezy but she did have some play time. While the kids were swinging she was eating the weeds near by. We had a lot of wierd looks, some kids wanting to pet the "duck", and just a lot of good ol' fun! Now we have something to do with Gracie everyday. The kids and Gracie had so much fun!

New socks for Matthias

I finally finished another pair of socks for Matthias. I have another pair in the making that is almost done. Trying to finish my Medical Transcription course (http://www.careerstep.com/) has taken up most of my knitting time. I would like to be able to take my final by the beginning of October or sooner. The last part of the course is all transcription and it SUCKS! I am not giving up!

Gracie at 3 weeks old

She again has doubled her size. I figure I will give a weekly update of her since it is so cool how fast she is growing. It seems she has started getting little feathers in. She loves car rides and has had her first outing. She likes to wake everyone up in the morning by sticking her head in everyone's bedrooms and squacking.

Gracie at 2 weeks old

Gracie is now 2 weeks old. She is HUGE and so are her poops! She is getting better at sleeping by herself. As long as she has a stuffed animal with her she seems to be okay. She has been playing outside and eating a bunch of weeds and grass. It's really cool how she runs for the weeds and eats them all up. Well, not all because we have a lot -- but she tries. Sometimes she sleeps in the bed with the boys. She has finally outgrown her baby diapers. We are waiting for a bigger one to get here in the mail. We ordered a black diaper harness for her. I think it will match her color better than hot pink. She is still supposed to outgrow this next harness and then she will finally have her permanent harness in couple months that will last her and continue to fit on her. I have been feeling prickly feathers on her tail and under her chest. I think maybe she is going to sprout some new feathers pretty soon. She has been growing so fast it is amazing. She looks like some prehistoric beast. What will she look like next week??? We will have to wait and see...

Gracie at 1 week old

This is Gracie at 1 week old with Matthias. She loves to cuddle up to Matthias and he doesn't mind at all. She has been growing so fast she has already doubled her size in just one week. It is amazing to see her growing so fast. You can really go somewhere for a couple of hours and then come back home and notice she has gotten bigger. She responds to her name now. For the last 2 days she has really been after the dog. Everytime he walks near her she runs after him and bites at him. I think it is because she likes to bite on strings and stuff. He looks like a walking mop. I don't think she knows the difference.

My retreat was wonderful!!!

I am still trying to sort everything out in my mind. I did have a wonderful time at my retreat! I really had a beautiful experience at the mass we had on Saturday. There was something that happened to me at that mass that I can't explain but it did leave me with a feeling of total peace and tranquility. I learned so much and had such a renewal of mind and spirit I wish it didn't have to end. We learned a lot about Carmelite spirituality and some about spiritual warfare. Since the retreat was a silent one I pretty much hid out all day in a corner studying my bible so I wouldn't be found and spoken to. It worked! I left the retreat with some great short meditations. I will be using these throughout the year. Here are a few of them:

Thy love be done

Learn from me

Gentle of spirit

Humble of heart

Come to me

I am with you always

My sheep know my voice

Stay with us

God within

Do you love me

Be transformed

I thirst

Gracie made some new friends

Gracie finally made some new friends. She has been very affectionate with them and likes to snuggle up and nap with them. She falls asleep whenever I place one of her friends over her. Hope you enjoy these pics.

My silent Carmelite retreat is tomorrow

Tomorrow I am going on my 1 day retreat. With all of the kids and the pets there was just no way to go for more than a day. I am really excited to go. The retreat actually started today and lasts until Sunday but I am going Saturday only. I learned so much last year at our retreat and I am hoping to learn much more this year. I went away from last years retreat with a short phrase I have focused on all year... "Thy love be done". Oh, how it has chaged my year and how I look and react to people. So short a phrase but so rich in knowledge! I believe that this year we have a different Carmelite Father than last year and I am really anxious to meet him. God has been so good to me and brought me so much closer to him especially during this lent. I will finally have all day to spend alone in silence with my sweet Jesus!

Our first whole day with Gracie

Gracie has been doing really well. Her first 2 days with us have been spent eating, sleeping, going potty, and following someone around the house. If she's not following me around she is following one of the kids around.
Last night she slept on a towel by my son for half of the night and then in her box for the rest. I didn't get much sleep because we have these 2 owls in my tree that talk all night long and last night they seemed more talkative than usual.
Since Gracie has been spending more time going potty we thought it was time to try the diaper. The first time I tried to put it on her I tried for about 10 minutes and then gave up. Later on I tried for another 10 minutes and finally figured it out. Now I can get it on in about 1 minute. Gracie doesn't seem to mind it at all. I figured out that these first diapers don't do that great of a job of catching her stuff but are basically just getting her used to wearing them so when she gets her adult diaper in a couple of weeks that really does work she won't have any problems wearing it.
My dogs don't seem to be bothering her at all and I am not sure what the parrot thinks of her quite yet. Gracie doesn't even pay any attention to any of them. Here are some new pics.















This is a picture of Gracie yelling at me for leaving her alone. She was looking for me and when she finally found me she told me what she thought!















This is Gracie eating her breakfast wearing her very first diaper. I thought I would try feeding her some grass along with her regular food and she really liked it. She has been a really good eater! I wonder what she will look like in a week from now???

We got our little baby today!

Our baby goose Gracie arrived about 8:30AM this morning. She was hatched on Monday April 20th at 7AM. We were expecting her to be shipped along with a duck for warmth and company during her trip but when we opened the box she was all by herself. I called the hatchery and they said they must have forgotten to put the duck with her. She seemed to do fine all by herself and that is all that matters. I was planning on giving the duck to my friend Dolores who has a farm anyways. She was really thirsty at first and as soon as I got her into the car we had water waiting for her. She has been sleeping or drinking water for most of the day so far and she has eaten a little of her food. She is so cute!!!

We are getting a new baby!

Actually the baby we are getting is a baby goose. She is a Toulouse goose here is a link about Toulouse geese: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse_Geese. She should be arriving tonight, actually very early tomorrow morning. The post office said I should be expecting a call around 3am to go and pick her up. She was hatched yesterday and has been on her way here since her hatching. We have everything ready for her and we are so excited. We even have her starter diapers waiting for her (they are hot pink). She will be a house pet so she will be wearing diapers:)

Here is a picture of her bed she will be sleeping in for the first couple of days.

Here is a picture of her hot pink diapers she will be wearing. She has 4 different sizes that she will be using for the first couple of weeks. Then we will be ordering her adult diaper from http://thegoosesmother.com/.