On the Road Again

Tomorrow morning I go to East Texas to see my family.  I'll leave in the morning for the 3 hour drive.  My iPod is fully packed with podcasts and ready to go.  I am so excited!  I haven't seen my parents in 6 months.  Saturday I have a family reunion to go to at my grandparents house.  I will definitely take pictures and will probably not post again till Monday.  Have a great weekend everyone!  I know that I will! 

Weekend

Let's see...  Saturday I cleaned, ran some errands with Kevin, knitted, and watched some TV.  Sunday we went to church, I cleaned, knitted, read, and watched some TV.  Monday was slightly more eventful.  I read some in the morning and then went for a walk.  I walk at the cemetary near my house.  That creeps some of my friends out, but it really doesn't bother me.  It's a pretty peaceful place.  If I go around it twice, it's almost 3 miles.  It is a good way to track how much I have walked.  Oh, and I saw two roadrunners there!  I haven't seen any of those since I was little and lived out in the country.  At 3:00 p.m. I had a hair appointment.  After that we went to our friend's house to take homeade ice cream and brownies.  Bill and Shannon just a baby boy last Wednesday and the plan was to take them a meal, but they had already cooked a brisket for the holiday, so they were happy with the desert we brought.  I had planned to take pictures of the glorious homeade ice cream.  We have just about worn our ice cream maker out making homeade vanilla ice cream.  My husband will not add any type of mix-in or dabble in any other flavor.  It must be strictly vanilla!  We have the typical plug-in, motor, with a cylinder surrounded by ice, rock salt, and a bucket, ice cream maker.  Here's the recipe:

6 large eggs
2 cup sugar
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
whole milk

Whisk the eggs until well beaten in a large bowl.  Add the following 4 ingredients and mix well.  Pour the mixture into the cylinder and add milk until you reach the fill line.  Mix well and your ready to get it started.  

I didn't say that it was a healty recipe.  And no, you will not die from eating the eggs raw.  Once the eggs get to a freezing temperature in the ice cream maker, they are safe to eat.  I've been eating this recipe my entire life and have never gotten sick. 

Good eatin'

We had a party today at work for all our employees.  Lots of barbecue, beans, cornbread, and chocolate cake!  This picture is from a different eating event, but I found it appropriate for this post.  We had a great photographer as always.  Very creative.  This is a pic of me and my friend Veronica from work.  She's saving me from drowning. :)

Finished

Well, I finished my swimming lessons last night.  I have to say that I was relieved.  This is what I accomplished: I got on my back by myself and floated, I swam across the pool on my back, and I can hold a floaty board in my hands and kick.  I'm not able to kick and move my arms yet.  That is still REALLY scary!  I really do feel like I accomplished something though.  I can now swim on my back without being terrified!  I may not have conquered my fear completely, but at least I faced it.  I have to thank my friend Tish.  She was my backbone through all this.  She's the one I talked to every evening after my lessons.  She encouraged me and supported me through it all and told me how proud she was of me.  Thank you Tish!  Love you!  Also Veronica, my work girlfriend!  She has been an encouragement to me too!  Thanks V!  I will be calling my friend's with pools soon (you know who you are) so that I can practice.  I think I will probably take lessons again in the future. 

It's raining it's pouring...

It is really coming down out there.  I love it!  I have a huge window in my office that pretty much covers the expanse of our lobby area.  I enjoy being able to see outside.

Tonight is my last swim lesson, that is if the lightning stops by then.  Please pray for me!  I really want to do my best this evening and not hold back anything.

This is my next project that I just started working on http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEspring07/PATTleaf.html.  I'm doing it in a similiar green color, but mine will probably be longer in length.  We'll have to see. 

Going to the Gym

I'm leaving for the gym at 4:30 today.  I LOVE the using the eliptical machine!  It's my reading time.  Most take their MP3 player, but I find this to be prime reading time.  Sometimes I work out next to a talker.  I find that it does make the time go faster, but I am sad at the loss of my reading time.  It's not that I'm unsocial.  It's the same way when I'm flying.  I just want to read.  Is that too much to ask?!

Thank You

Thank you all for your kind and encouraging comments regarding my swimming lessons!  They are greatly appreciated.  

Well, after Christmas I talked Kevin into letting me get an iPod.  I love my iPod.  It's a video iPod and it really came in handy the other day when our electricity went out for 11 hours.  I at least had a fully charged iPod that lasted me for several of those hours.  I had just downloaded Ms. Pacman and Sudoku a few days before.  Anyways, I am really getting into free podcasts.  They are great!  There are about 4 knitting podcasts I listen to, but my favorite non-knitting podcast is John Piper http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/.  If you have never read anything by Piper, I highly recommend Desiring God! 

Progress

Yesterday Kevin and I went to River Legacy Park with some friends from church.  It was a beautiful day!  I accomplished quite a bit on my sock.If you ever want more attention, think about taking up knitting.  It is a great conversation piece.  I personally do not knit for attention, but I can't say that I don't enjoy it. 

My first post!

Yeah!  My first blog post ever.  I have many interests and didn't want to narrow it down to just one, so you'll hear about all of them eventually.  I'll just dive right in to my evening last night.  I am learning how to swim.  No, I do not know how to swim.  My entire family does not know how to swim.  There was a tramatic experience that happened at my brother's swimming lessons when he was 5 and I was 3.  Let's leave it at that.  Needless to say, my mother never took us back to take swimming lessons.  I honestly feel like I was jipped!  For someone who has been taught to fear the water their entire life, it is freaking hard to take swimming lessons as an adult!  I just finished my fourth 30 minute lesson.  I can now swim across the pool on my back.  Quite an accomplishment I think.  I'm still having trouble with the swimming that involves laying face first in the water on my stomach.  I think it's the fear of DYiNG!  Okay, I know I'm not going to die with the teacher by my side, but that's what it feels like at every lesson.  Sounds like fun, huh?