Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

DSC_5747 Originally uploaded by ruddawg The faerose shawl is going nicely. Since this keeps me from craving ciggs, I knit a LOT. This time, got through the clue in 3 days. What you see here is the middle of the shawl plus 2 of the 6 side panels. The side panels are repeated 3 times on each side of the middle panel. I gave myself a gift for going 7 days without smoking, and bought a 60" Addi Circ to knit this on. Oh WOW does that make knitting easier! The length of it is oh, about 18" so far. I didn't really measure it.

When you are a smoker, your doctor will tell you out-and-out lies. They will promise you the moon, the stars, 72 virgins, and rivers of milk and honey once you quit smoking. "You will feel so much better! You will taste food better! Your clothes will smell fresh! Your breath will be like roses!!" Oh yeah sure. For one thing; I didn't smoke in my house. My clothes NEVER smelled like a night in a bar. Now I will tell you what only one Doctor had the balls to tell me: For the first six months after you quit smoking, you will feel like SHIT. Especially in the morning. You will hack up little balls of phlegm, and it will hurt to do so. Headaches, sore chest, colds, sinus crap is all you are in for. It will get better and better the longer you are not smoking. But those same doctors will also hand you the same line when you are overweight. "Just lose 10 pounds and you won't need to take your bp meds." My doctor said. To which I responded, "Dude, I lost TWENTY

I have a domain, http://www.ruddawg.com For now, it's tied in with Auctiva. I'm working on the whole create-an-online-store thing. It's confusing, time-consuming and frustrating. But I wanted my own domain name, I wanted my nickname.com.....oh that's sooo cool!

Dragon Bag Originally uploaded by ruddawg Ok, last one for today: this is the cooles fabric I've found so far (Well, in town anyways) for the bags. I'm in love with the design on the fabric!

Dem Fischer Sin Fru 3 Originally uploaded by ruddawg Completed to the end of clue 3. The shawl is beautiful and I will be cracking on clue 4 that came out this morning. Day 7 of the non-smoking thing. I knit whenever I start getting the urge to have a ciggarette. Valentine's day was spent pigging out on steak, chocolate cake, turtle cookies and parmesan cheese. My gift to my honey was the rib eye steak. His to me was authentic parmesan reggiano cheese from Italy. Oh I love it!

Yeah, I've quit smoking again: (no that's not my sister in the pic, but I wish I had ONE of those ciggs) The biggest thing that triggers my urge to smoke (or the stress urge to smoke) is my sister. I'm a laid back lady. I don't freak out over little things. Drama is not my scene. I'd rather spend my days quietly spinning, knitting or sewing. But my sister lives, breathes and sustains her life on drama. She's raising her own grandkids, there's always something going on with their cars, she's got more physical ailments that most 10 people. And to top it off, her family got caught in that mortgage fiasco. Their mortgage is now more than they make per month, so bye-bye house. And hello my house! When they move out, they have a month or so that they don't really have a place to call home. Hey, we have some room...sure come on over! We can put her and her hubby in the spare bedroom, and my Godson can bunk in with Alex. That's before she said that it wo

We've had some fun snowstorms here in Wisconsin. All this winter, we've been endlessly shoveling snow. Our favorite thing to say is "Oh look, it's snowing again!" But yesterday's storm beat them all. It even got our area on the national news. Here's a link from the Chicago Trib: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/wisconsin/chi-ap-wi-wis.weather,0,2281609.story You don't have to read it, actually it's quite boring. I'll summarize the fun part: "The National Weather Service said Thursday its preliminary figures put the highest accumulations at 21 inches at Orfordville and near Beloit, 20.1 at Saukville, 20 near Evansville and at Jackson, 18 at Glendale, 17.1 at Beaver Dam and 16.5 near Sun Prairie. " Our cozy little farm is located outside of Orfordville on the way to Beloit. Yeah, we've got something like 21" of snow in one day. Everything shuts down when you get 21" of snow in one day. Hell, even the

Dem Fischer Sin Fru 2 Originally uploaded by ruddawg What you see is Dem Fischer Sin Fru -Fisherman's Wife. It's a faerose type shawl. Faerose to me translates as "Oh, the shawls that don't fall off" I like that in a shawl. This is the completion of clue 1. I was waiting for a store in the mall to open up yesterday so I sat down and knitted for an hour in the food court. Two people commented: One older lady (older than me) liked the lace in it, and one BIG dude wanted to know what I was knitting for him. I cocked my head to the side and purred, "A shawl, and you will look soooooo pretty in it!" He laughed. The details: Knitted in Misti Alpaca Laceweight yarn in cream color on Addi Turbo size 4 needles. Now, I'm also in Secret of the Stole 2, but my effort got hideously screwed up and I frogged it. I'm not sure I'm going to start again. I knitted the first stole and gave it as a gift. The recipient received it, questioned