Cleaning the craft room overdue?

Recently on Ravery I joined the "Surmount the Stash" group.  Their theme is "Are you becoming overwhelmed by your stash? Feeling guilt for all those WIPs sitting unfinished while you purchase more stash? Join us for moderation in purchases and focusing on finishing what you started."

Before you can knit from your stash, you need to find the stash.  I admit my "knitting room" is a mess.  I started separating the books, yarns, accessories, etc.  What I found out is that I made more of a mess than it was before I started. 

I will get it straight.  After all as of 30 Dec I was officially retired.  I'll need to knit from the stash as I won't be making the kind of money I was before.  Admittedly, I did start stocking up last year.

So here are the before photos.  Who knows when the after photos will be taken.

Well, it's Christmas Day 2011. 

Tom and I opened our gifts last night as usual.  We started this back when the kids were old enough to understand that Santa didn't bring all the gifts.

Tom and I decided that this year we wouldn't go overboard on gifts for each other.  I gave Tom 4 German wooden smokers and some tools he needed.

Tom's Aunt Micky gave me a boy German Doll and Tom gave me the matching girl doll. 

We have a house advent calendar. Tom put a very small Steif bear behind one of the doors.  I thought it was my Steif bear, then on Christmas Tom gave me another German Steif bear.  I had always wanted one and Tom picked out just the right one. It's one of the light colored bears about 2 ft high and I love it. 

I'm sorry

I know I've been off line for almost a month, but I had some heath problems that took all my attention.  I'll try to do better.
I mailed out 7 Christmas (yes I say Christmas) boxes.  Some have already been received stateside.  Of course there was knitting in the boxes.  Also lots of candy and chocolate.

This weekend I intend to get the gifts wrapped that I have for some local friends and co workers.

kd

Proof of Christmas knitting

New home?

I put a a contract on a short sale house.  Won't know for months if I get it or not.

Jack at Bat

This is my dream kitchen

The House hunting has begun

I'm in JAX with Missy, arrived last Saturday.  We've been looking at a lot of houses and land.  Also spending some times with the grandkids.

Christmas knitting has started!

I have been knitting

Want to see the proof?

This boat neck vest hasn't been washed or blocked yet, but I think that it turned out pretty good.

Sunny day in Germany

Yesterday was nice, sunny and warm.  So Tom and I took the Miata for short "top" down ride.  Here's a link to the photos and video's. http://www.flickr.com/photos/knitone/sets/72157627358477417/

Retirement plans

We've been in Germany 2 1/2 years and have started thinking about where we want to go next.  OK, so I've been thinking about that since the first winter we spent here.

Retirement was my first choice.  So I've decided to retire in Dec (yes Dec 2011).  While we were looking at the finances, Tom realized that he's eligible to retire too.  So that's what we are going to do.  Tom's going to wait to spring 2012, but me I'm not waiting.

So after deciding to retire, we need to decide where to retire too.  We both love the south east coast.  We looked (over the internet) at places in Kingsbay, GA, Yulee FL, Callahan FL, and Fernandina Beach FL.

Fernandina is our first choice.  Now to find a home to buy.  We've discussed building and not sure I want to do that again.  So we are going to look at homes no older than 5 years.

Right now we are really just looking.  I plan on going back stateside in Jan/Feb time frame to really start my search.

Oh, the real reason Tom wants to retire is so he can buy his new Dodge Ram 3500 to pull the camper. Boys and their toys.

Lunch Time!

And they tasted as good as they looked!

Photo Restored

Tom found a program on line to restore the photos I thought were gone for ever.   Here are a few of the photos.

Comment

Someone left me a comment about restoring photos from a memory disk.  I know this was from someone I know from the Air Force as they called me a nick name I haven't used since I left San Antonio.

So I figured I try to find a program to try and get my photos back.  I found a program, downloaded it and it searched my memory disk.  The program found over 300 photos on the disk, but not the photos I lost when the Dell hard drive crashed.

Goes to figure, with my luck, the restore program found photos from back in Oct 2010, but not the ones taken in June 2011.

Oh well, it was worth a try.

And I have been knitting, photos to come.

This page reserved

Well, there would have been lots of photos of Saarbrucken Germany.  Would have been!  I took some great photos of my trip yesterday with two friends.  We had a great time and lots of laughs in spite of the rain.

So this morning I uploaded the photos to the "Dell" and deleted them from the computer disk.  There's my mistake.  I was looking at the photos when Tom asked for my computer.  He wanted to check out something.  Again my mistake.

To make a long story short, Tom was downloading "stuff" and while he was messing around, my hard drive died and when to computer hell.

Tom called Dell to get help.  They are going to send a new hard drive, there's no way to save the photos.

I know that it's possible the hard drive would have died anyway, but if he hadn't had the computer, I may have backed up the new photos.

So.... I'm back to the apple.

I quit!

Too stressful at work, too stressful with family.

Update to last post

Tom has corrected me.  He got the BMW up to 136 MPH, but my photo was taken after he slowed down.  Makes no difference to me, it was too fast!

Road Trip in BMW to Friedberg, Germany

 

Not sure if you can see the speed, but it's 136 miles per hour.  I didn't have my "good" camera with me, only the small Sony sure shot.  It takes great photos, but not at high speeds when the camera operator is shaking.  This was on a part of the autobahn without speed limits.  No traffic on the road.  Sunny and clear.  After taking these photos, Tom slowed down to 100 mph.

Computer back up?

Tom is still working on my Dell, but at least its back up and working.  He's loaded all the system stuff and now he's loading all my "Stuff".  My scrapbook, card making, photo and knitting programs are not "Stuff"!
I'm missing my favorite photo program, but Tom thinks it's upstairs in his room.  His room consist of a sofa, desk top computer (over 10 years old), his stationary bike (which has less than 2 miles on it), a big screen tv and his toys (Xbox, PS2 and PS3, Wii).  Can't say we aren't spoiled.

test

Time for a new computer?

What do you do when your husband accidentally formats your dell laptop?  I know he didn't mean to do it, but gee why didn't he read the warning pop up?

So until he figures out how to reset the dell to factory settings, I'll be using the MacBook Pro.  Still having trouble learning the Apple settings.

Hope you are having a better day than I had.

More vacation fun

Having fun in Jacksonville

Let's go swimming

Pool Time

On the road again

Talk about long trips! I arrived in VA at Moms on Saturday evening. Mom and my sister Cindy, picked me up. It was so great to see them. Sunday was mom's birthday, so we went out to eat with Cindy, Ronnie and Emily. Great food and Great Company. What did I give mom for her birthday? Well it's called a travel chair, it's a cross between a wheel chair and a stroller.

The week was full of quick shopping days. The travel chair really came in handy. I pushed mom all over the stores and she didn't get tired. Well maybe she got tired of holding all the clothes I wanted to try on.

On Friday we drove to TN to see Trina, Meghan and Davey. It was great to see the grandkids and of course Trina. We stayed in the Marriott, great place, the kids had a ball in the pool. We returned to VA on Sunday. Shortly after we left, Davey broke his leg in football

Today, Wednesday we are on the road again. I drove down from VA. Got as far as Brunswick GA. We are so tired. Tomorrow I'm going into Kingsbay GA. I want to check the camper and go to the Naval Base to see some friends. Then we'll go into Jacksonville to see the kids.

I'm in the USA

I arrived in VA on Saturday evening.  Have had a ball shopping with Mom.  Today we drove to TN to visit Trina and the kids.

We'll head back to VA on Sunday.

On Wednesday we'll head to FL to see Missy and family.

Can you say long road trip?

Leaving on a jet plane...

I’ll be on a plane Saturday afternoon (Germany time) and be in VA in time for dinner.  I can’t wait.  I’ll get to see my kids (ok, so they are all over 30, but they are still my babies).   Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that they are grown up and not children.  Guess they’ll always be little in my mind.

I'll have very little access to internet, so you may not hear from me until June.

My attempt at felting

Two bags I felted.  I admit I didn't really enjoy it.  So this may be my last attempt.

Family visit

Tom's aunt Micky and uncle Helmut came down from Friedberg on Saturday morning and left on Sunday morning.  They are such a great couple.  Micky speaks perfect english and Helmut's english is getting better every time we meet. 

We'll miss them when we leave Germany, but they've promised to come visit next year.