Picture from Spring Creek

This past weekend my cousin invited me and Eddie to come up to Spring Creek Retreat in Reliance, TN with some friends of ours to spend the weekend. This was a rare photo that one of our friends took of me and Eddie. For once, he's not frowning in a picture.

I think I need to do something with my hair. I look like I have wings.

New Journals

I sort of hesitate to put this in my knitting blog since it doesn't relate to knitting, but I know not everyone reads my regular journal. I know there are some who have knitting blogs and they just put everything on there, knitting related or not. I could do that, I guess. I just always thought that some of the things I write about should be separate from my knitting writings. I guess this can fall under "and other stuff", so that I can post it here. There is a link to my non-knitting journal on my knitting blog page if anyone ever wants to go there. There is also a link to a Books page where I'm trying to keep a list of the books I'm reading. Sometimes I don't keep up with that the way I should, but I'm trying to do better.

I wanted to post a picture of some really pretty journals that I found at Tuesday Morning a couple of weeks ago. I've sporadically kept written journals over the years, but I think it was mostly because I had such a boring journal or notebook to write in. I just love these journals and I know now that I'll write in them almost every day. I'm actually only writing in one and when I fill that one up I'll start writing in the other one. I'm currently writing in the Hydrangea one. The pages have pretty hydrangeas on them too, but when I tried to take a picture of the pages on the inside, the lines did something funny and didn't look right, so I gave that up. You can see the pretty cover and inside cover of the hydrangea one.

I loved it so much that I went back to Tuesday Morning the next day and after some digging (I really wanted it, didn't I?) I found another one just like it and bought it too.

I bought this next journal the second day as well as the other one, and it's really pretty too.

Japanese Pen Pal

My coworker Tisa's Japanese pen pal, Hiroko, is visiting her from Japan this week. Tisa brought her and her husband in yesterday to introduce her to her coworkers. Hiroko is such a sweet woman, and she brought all of the women in our office these packages of bubble bath. I wish I could read Japanese so I could know what the packages say. Maybe Chie could help me out. :))) The photo I took with my digital camera is not very good and I'm not sure why. Usually the pictures I take with it are really clear, but maybe it was the way the light reflected on the packages or something similar that made it look a little blurred.

I started crocheting a doily to give to Hiroko, but for some reason I was having problems with it, and the yarn I was using wasn't looking right, so I decided to start another one in a lilac color. I know I won't be able to finish it in time to give it to Hiroko before she leaves to go home, but I'll just mail it to her in Japan. I don't have any idea how much that will be in postage, but it's not something I'm worried about. I just wanted her to have a nice handmade gift.

On Sunday Eddie and I went to his mom's for Easter dinner and I had to take some pictures of the flowers in her yard. They were absolutely gorgeous. She has such a green thumb. I think she could put a stick in the ground and something would sprout out of it. I wish I had such a green thumb. About the only thing I've managed to have flourish are some African Violets I have in my office. I used to have trouble with them until I discovered self-watering pots. Of course, the pots on this page are pretty expensive, and I found one of mine at Tuesday Morning for around $5.00, and the other two at Home Depot for around $5 to $6. I also saw some pretty ones recently at Walmart. I bought one of those to give as a gift to a friend of mine. I'm trying right now to find her a pretty African Violet, but they seem to be scarce here now for some reason. Maybe they are out of season.

Here are the pictures of my mother-in-law's flowers. One is an azalea and the others are roses.

Teapots, Doilies, and Cedar Chests

I collect teacups and I have a few teapots. I decided to take a picture of one of my favorite teapots sitting on one of the doilies that I crocheted awhile back. I just started a new doily in an ecru/light beige color. I'll post a picture of it when I've finished.

In about the middle of April, one of my coworkers, Tisa, is going to meet a Japanese pen pal, Hiroko, after 40 years. They started writing to each other while they were still in high school and kept in touch after getting married, having children, and grandchildren. There was a period of about 20 years when they stopped writing each other, and one day a postman delivered a postcard from Hiroko to Tisa, who had moved to a new address since they last communicated. The postman knew Tisa and delivered it to her at her new address. She was so excited and they resumed communicating and have been emailing ever since. Hiroko had written in almost all of her letters that it would be great if they could meet one day. Now it turns out that Hiroko and her husband are coming to America in mid-April and are going to be staying with Tisa and her husband for a week. Tisa is really excited and I thought I would crochet a doily for her and her friend, Hiroko. So, this new one that I just started will be one of the gifts.

Tisa said that she had kept all of Hiroko's letters, over 100 of them, in a little cedar box that she had had since high school. She said that when she graduated, the Lane company gave these little cedar chests to girls who were graduating as a kind of hope chest. That must have stopped when she graduated in the late 1960's because we both graduated from the same high school and the girls in my class (1972) didn't get anything like that. I was just curious what they looked like, so I looked a few up on ebay and did an image search and this is what I found.


I have to say that I would love to have one of these boxes. I've been pricing them on ebay and I might bid on one soon. I don't know yet what I would put in it, but it would make a great box for just about anything that would be kept as a keepsake. Thinking about it, it's probably more nostalgia than anything else. In hindsight, wishing that I had had a pen pal, wishing that I had received one of these chests when I graduated. I love reading old letters, and cards. In fact, I think I have just about every single card that anyone has ever given me for birthdays, graduating, etc. I think it's just a wonderful piece of history, and a great nolstagic trip down memory lane. Maybe I should think about organizing them. Right now they are all in one of those large Rubbermaid containers.