From Candy Cane to "Normal"

So when we bought our "handy-man" house a year ago I noted that one of the first things (okay I admit, my list of 1st things to do was QUITE long....STILL IS) I wanted was to paint the house to a "normal" color scheme. The thing looks like a candy cane. White house with bright red trim. If I lived at the North Pole, I could see me being the envy of all my neighbors BUT here in Central Texas it stands out horribly and I have hated the color combo since day one.

That said, we FINALLY chose our new paint colors for the house. Selecting the trim was much easier than choosing the main color. We ended up slapping a quart of a couple different shades on the house and living with it for a week before deciding, just today, that we are doing the third color option (which is between the two "extremes" we'd tested. I'm sooo excited, I want to go home and begin prepping the house for painting immediately. Unfortunately, we've got a busy week and busier weekend ahead of us so I must continue to be patient.

Since I can't jump right on painting tonight (hubby has to go get the paint first), I'm going to work more on my BEAUTIFUL garden that my dad helped my DH build for me. Well, they built a nice big fence around what WILL be my little plot of garden. Between the kiddos and the dogs....let's just say my home was not a place plants looked forward to residing. There have been more casulties than successes to date but now I've got an area just for my plants that I'm working on putting together.

Still knitting....just plugging along and hoping SOME day I'll have a FO to share. In the meantime, my KH Secret Theme Swap partner over in the UK FINALLY was able to rescue her package from the hostage situation it has been in as a result of the postal workers going on strike there. URG. The theme of her package I put together was "Dragons" and included one pattern of my own design. Yipppeeee! Of course, I'm knitting that thing as much as I can to make sure I don't run across any glaring screwups in my writing of the pattern.

Here's a pix of the stitchmarkers I'd made for Stacey Jean. The backdrop is a skinny scarf I knit up for her and along side the stitchmarkers is a pewter baby dragon (unfortunately who is laying down in the pix). I think (I hope) she liked it as much as I enjoyed putting the package together for her. I'll admit I almost gave up a few times and/or opted for a different theme but am pleased with the overall package and the pattern I designed for her.

As if that swap weren't exciting enough, I'm hosting a Winter Wonderland Swap on KH as well. We have about 55 of us signed up thus far and it is looking to be another fun and, hopefully, successful swap. Yarn, pattern, stitchmarkers and something hot to drink... Sounds like a winner to me!

Gotta run... projects projects projects!!!