Gemstone

October 2004 - July 2009                          above picture circa 2005

Last night, we were about to leave the house for Nature Boy's karate class when he noticed one of our guinea pigs had a bit of blood on her nose.  Further investigation showed that the blood was coming from her backside and while she was not bleeding heavily, it was continual.  We zipped her off to the vet and found out that she likely had uterine cancer, something frequently seen in an older guinea pig like ours.  Basically, such a cancer is terminal for the guinea pig, so we had her euthanized.  Actually, when they gave us her little body back, the vet tech said her lymph glands were all swollen too....It looks like she was a pretty sick piggy.

We are all pretty sad.  Gemstone was from a litter of pigs that we bred. Nature Boy was in the third grade and still homeschooled when she was born.  We were waiting and waiting for the momma pig, Ruby, to have her litter.  We didn't want to miss it!  One day, we came home from Homeschool Gym and found Ruby just starting to give birth.  We got to see each and every baby pig be born!

Gemstone (on the right) was red and white like her mom, with part straight and part abyssinian whorled hair.  She was one of Nature Boy's very favorite pigs!

In early 2005, Nature Boy entered Gemstone in a contest at a local pet store....A couple of months later we heard back that Gemstone had been selected the April Pet Of The Month!

April 2005 Pet of the Month

Name:  Gemstone Owned By:  Nature Boy Story: My name is Nature Boy and I am 8 years old. (I have my mom's permission to enter this contest) This is my entry for pet of the month. This is Gemstone. She is 3 1/2 months old . Something special about Gemstone is that we saw her being born. Most Guinea Pigs we know like carrots, but she likes apples. When I snuggle her she makes happy noises. Thank you for looking at Gemstone.

We will miss our little burbling friend.

Oh dear, I did not sleep so well last night. <yawn> I woke up a few times, I had strange dreams...Not bad dreams...just strange!  I feel like I am moving very slowly this morning.

So, I have been applying myself to studying for my exam.  I am finding the materials I wanted to review and going over them.  I am using both my textbooks and a review guide I bought.  Honestly, I wish I had bought the review guide at the beginning of my academic program.  Basically, It is a big book of everything relevant to my profession in outline form.  It would have been handy when studying and reviewing for tests in school as I could look up a topic and get a succinct bullet list type summary.  Ah well...neither here nor there at this point.

The other thing I want to talk about today is spiders.

You may have heard or maybe you live around here and have experienced the fact that we Vermonters are getting a hefty soaking of rain this summer.  It has been pretty much raining every single day...And lots of rain at that! What I have noticed is an increase of creepy, crawly spiders in the house.  While I am not afraid of spiders....I would much rather they stay outside and not come inside.  I think all the rain and wet is driving them in to the house.

I love fiber arts!

My newest project and quick knit obsession.....

Headbands!

The greenish/bluish one I have actually worn, it stretched the lace a bit, that's why it looks narrower.  They are both wool and need blocking to open the lace.  And...best of all, the headband actually stayed in my fine, slippery hair! Yay!  I think the wool has enough grip to not slip out.

Yes, finally a sunny day yesterday.

From simple beginnings.....

To colorful wonderfulness.

I think I got my light yellow...It is a smidge brighter than my monitor shows it....Dh and I walked by oohing on aahing all day as it was drying on the deck.  It is a lovely yellow. 

My first yellow skein came out too bright!  So, to tossed in some green dye.

And got this lovely variegated green and yellow skein.

It is really, really pretty irl.

BTW...Notice the difference between the tidy yellow skein and the rat's nest green skein? That's the difference between a well tied skein vs. a not well tied skein when tossed into the pot!  Luckily, dh loves pulling apart tangled yarn.  He has already offered to tame the green skein.....I'm just going to give it one more day to dry completely before we....err.....he winds it up.

Today, I must study.  I am up and showered and ready to start my day...I'd best get to it!

Hmmm....Kinda sleepy this morning...Not much to say.....

Today we are supposed to have a sunny day.  At least that's what they were forecasting yesterday.  It will be nice to have a day to hang out laundry and maybe (hopefully!) dye yarn. 

Starting tomorrow, Nature Boy is going to be doing some morning computer camps for the next two weeks.  He is doing one on stop motion animation and the other on 3-D computer animation.  He is very excited about them.

Me? I see a great opportunity for studying!!!!  Except for a couple of days where I have conflicts, I am going to drive him in to camp,and then go to the University library and study for the mornings.  My exam is a week from this Thursday, so it is time to get into serious study mode.

I've got a lot coming up this week too! I'm hoping to get together with a friend tomorrow, Thursday I have to drive to NH.  One of my classmates is moving to Alaska next week and our little class is having a last get-together as a whole class before she goes.  Friday, I am going camping for the night with a friend.  And I've got a couple of appointments sprinkled into the midst of all that.  I think I will have to budget my time carefully this week!

Our chicks are still growing super fast. (Not like they really stop until they are full grown!)

Nature Boy loves to take the chicks out to hold and snuggle them. The other day, he was doing this and the cat came and sat on his lap, completely oblivious to the chick!

The chicks have enough feathers now to do little short hopping flights.  Remember they were little balls of downy fluff just a week ago?  Look at this chick's feathers now!

Crazy! And I think these pictures are from Thursday, so that means the chicks are more feathered now!

I forgot to take a picture yesterday of my knitting project....You'll have to be in suspense one more day.

K...I gotta go check the forecast and start up some laundry!

The red and yellow soaker is completed!

• Pattern: Punk Knitter soaker (If you click the link, you get an "Adult Content" warning.  I guess maybe she has some adult content on her blog, but this is a direct link to the soaker pattern...No adult content on that page.)
• Yarn: home dyed Cascade 220, red trim: Lion Wool
• Needle size: 6 for body, 5 for waist ribbing
• Knit size: Medium
• Stats: 9.5" wide, 9" waist to crotch, leg holes 4.5", picked up 36 sts for 2x2 rib cuffs
• Used Kitchener stitch to seam flap of the soaker to body
• New experiment: Turned waist and ran an elastic instead of a drawstring tie
• What I like best about this pattern: It's quite easy to knit, knits up in a few days and looks good!

The completion of this soaker left me with no project on the needles!  I really wanted to get a start on the Daisyhead bloomer pattern....But I need to learn some new knitting techniques (short rows) to make it and well...I just didn't have the energy or motivation yesterday to learn something new.  <sigh> 

That's okay...I figured if starting a new pattern felt overwhelming, I would just start an older pattern...I found some superwash in my wool stash and contemplated this:  Perhaps the best way to answer the superwash soaker conundrum is to make a new soaker with superwash and see what happens! So, I cast on to make a 1932 soaker in the superwash....I've only knit about 8 rows....I mention that because I am tempted to rip it out and knit a punk knitter soaker instead......

So, how did I find this superwash in my stash?  I kinda when crazy and hauled all my wool yarn down off the shelves (It's kept in purple bins on top of our living room bookcases) and emptied them all!

I then sorted the yarns and labeled the boxes as to what yarn in what colors was in each box and then I put them back up on the shelf.  Amazing what you find when you organize!  I found plain old natural colored wool....Just the ticket for the Daisyhead bloomer!  That's what gave me the idea to start it.....Even if I didn't have the motivation to follow through and knit the soaker, at least I have the yarn for when I am ready!

I did knit something else yesterday....It was a super quick knit and I have it upstairs drying because I blocked it.  Yup....I actually blocked something!  But I'll keep you in suspense until tomorrow. (Also known as: I didn't take a picture of it yet!).

Happy Independence Day everyone! Have a happy and safe weekend!