On the road again

In case you didn't know I am on the road again. We are currently in Mebane, NC.

The weather is nice here. Thank god. I am hoping to stay out of the nasty weather the whole time I am in the truck.

Earlier this week poor little Nannies was not feeling so well. I am happy to report that he is feeling like his normal little self again. Let me tell you that a sick dog in the truck is NOT a fun thing. Yesterday we spent a good deal of the day washing ALL of the bedding in the truck. I will spare you the details.

Oscar is doing well. He has taken life in the truck back to his normal self. He has been snoozing all day long and chowing on his food and making a mess with the kibble right before bed. It's like nothing has changed.

HEY! I wrote a song this morning. We have heard tons and tons of Christmas music and it get stuck in your head and I have to change the words to suit me better. Ok here gos...

(in the tune of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer)

You know Oscar
And Nannies
And Marlie
And Mugsy
But do you recall the most famous doggie of all?
Lassie the Border Collie...

That's all I've got for that one. I also wrote one for all you cat lovers too.


You know Vickie
And Princie
And Sebastian
And Spooky
But do you recall the most loving Kitty of all?
Willie the black nosed kitty...

Ya like?

In the good news category, Chris found my Garmin Forerunner under the mattress in the truck. I was thrilled. I have looked all over for it and was really mad at myself that I could not find it. I kept hoping it would turn up and it finally did.

Well not much else new with us.

SMILE!!!

Ketchup Blog

This is the Ketchup Blog. I hope you like pictures because that is what this will mostly be.

Tom Kat's Halloween Party

Our Lovely Hosts Tom and Kat aka Kari and Brad

Kari "Katie I mean Kate Holmes" And Laura the Flapper

Steve The Hawian Dude and Betsy ready for the Slumber Party

Laura The Flapper with Little Sister Disa the Sex Kitten!!!

Everybodys fav celebrity couple! Starring Tara as Brittney Spears and Josh as K Fed.

Laura Again with Drew as Captain Spaulding. Scary!

That concludes our people section of this blog entry. Now we will move onto the knitting section.

Purplie Wurplie Sock (Yup I finnally finished these. It's been months in the process!)

The Autum Socks (they are the tallest socks I have ever knit)

Dishclothes galore and more in the works.

Scarf. I don't really have a name for this. I love it though and have another one on the needles!

Close up of the almighty scarf

My latest pair of sock. Thanks for the pattern Betsy. I am using the Sundra pattern you gave me!

That concludes the knitting section of this blog entry. Now we will move onto my random thoughts...

• I wish Chris was home. He's been gone a month and still has not seen the house.
• I miss my big brown dog.
• I wish I could cook all the stuff on the food network and eat it and not gain an ounce.
• I wish I could knit in my sleep.
• I'm glad my cold is going away.
• Why is Nannies such a little pig?

Greetings from Woodbury

Well here I am. Sitting in the livingroon of our new home, blogging. Here it is...

You may be surprised to see that our house number is 2208. Well let me tell you I was pretty surprised myself when I came to walk through the house at 2375 and discovered that it had no breakfast nook.

The plan was to put the office in the breakfast nook. When I walked into the new house and there was no nook it through the plans big time. Well I went to the rental office and told them what was going on. I came back Saturday and talked to Dana (who we rented the TH from originally) and started looking at some of the other units. We ended up with this one. I am thrilled thrilled thrilled with this house. We did sacrifice our fireplace to get into this house but I think it is 100% worth it. We have a wonderful view of the woods directly behind our house. Here is a pic of the living room. Can you see the awesome woods right out the giant sliding glass door?

I would much rather have this beautiful view than the fireplace. Our rent will also be $20 less a month without the fireplace. Here is the kitchen...

We don't have a trashcan yet. Hence the wonderful trashbag by the dishwasher!

I got the keys to the house Saturday afternoon and moved the stuff that has been living in my car into the house then. Sunday my Mom and I moved 4 car loads of stuff in and gave the kitchen and bathrooms a little spruce. Yesterday, Kari came over to be there with me when the movers were moving the stuff in. Thank god for movers. It was worth every penny to have all of the stuff brought in the house. I don't think I would have survived yesterday without Kari though. Today I have continued to unpack. I have the down stairs in pretty good shape. I am ignoring upstairs so far. I will start working on that later this week. Here is another pic of the living room. This is taken from the kitchen into the living room.

Well that's all for now. I think it's time to veg in front of the TV for awhile.

Nannie Lion

Disas Paper Bag Collection

Apparently she has even more in the basement

Our Next Load!

This is our next load. It is another lorax machine. It is a john deer clearing machine. We are bringing it to ashland WI. I am blogging this from my phone! How freaking cool is that?

Another Test

Nannies

You have new Picture Mail!

Another test of my mobile blogging

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PICTURES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pictures, pictures lots and lots of pictures! Lots of patients brings you lots of pictures. Lets start where I left off being pictureless. This is the Grove Crane that we brought from Shady Grove, PA to Baton Rouge, LA. It is 62,000 pounds and besides the wait for it it was a pretty painless load.
This is the scraper that we brought from Tulsa to Redding, CA. This beast almost killed us. It was 107 outside when we loaded it and it had no brakes. It weighed in at 67,000 pounds was 41' long, and was 11'6" wide. This is my wine tank. It was full of delish wine when we picked it up and I drank it all. Well I shared a little bit with Nannies ;) This load was pretty cool actually. This tank was 13'6" wide and 13' tall. We had to have escorts for part of the trip.Arrr arr arr. Nannies is singing to you. Arr arr arr. Good morning to you! Good morning to you! You look like a monkey and you smell like one too! Arohhhhhhh!!!!After the tank we hauled a Oshkosh truck back up to Oshkosh WI. I think I was so happy to be going home that I forgot to take a picture of that load. Opps.

This is the "lorax" machine that we hauled out of WI to CA. That attachment at the end grabs the tree and cuts it down. That's why I call it the Lorax machine. This thing was 69,000 pounds.Here's Chris yapping on the phone in Reno. I'm sure he's talking to Skip. Hi Skip! It was cold up in NV. Hence the long sleeved shirt. We even had to wear jackets.And that brings us to now. We picked up this Komatsu PC300 in Chino, CA and we are going to be dumping it in Grand Prairie, TX in the morning. This biggie was supposed to weigh 70,000 pounds but with that big ole' bucket on it it weighed in closer to 74,000 pounds. This is the heaviest thing we have hauled so far and we are probably pushing our luck.

We are in Weatherford, TX right now. We pulled in yesterday and selected a premo parking spot with Idle Aire. Yesterday we watched the Busch race then the truck race and today we are watching the Cup race, yipee, and tonight we will take off to camp out at the consignees doorstep so we can start the hunt for another load.I also have some knitting pictures. YEAH!!!!!! It feels like forever since I posted knitting pictures but I feel like I should have a lot more to show you. Oh well this is what I've got.

This is Chriss red white and blue socks. The yarn is self patterning so I just knit these around and around to showcase just the fun yarn. I'm sure the only time you will ever see these crazy socks on Chriss feet is if you are over at the house.
These are my autumn socks. I bought this yarn at depth of field in Minneapolis when I was still working at Admiral. I was with Betsy when I bought it. Remember Betsy???? I just didn't feel like knitting it this summer. Once we got up to Reno and it was cool and fall like I knew it was time to start these socks! I am working them from the toe up with Brown Sheep Wildfoote. I have two skeins of this yarn so I am going to just keep knitting until I run out of yarn.

Here is another pair I have been working on. I don't really have a name for these. I just call them my purple socks. I am working these from the toe up also. I feel like I have been working on them forever. They just aren't holding my attention. I wonder why some projects are like that? I have one done and slowly but surely I will get the other one done.

This is another pair of yummy mittens. They are going to be nice. The blue is the inner mitten and is baby alpaca and is super soft. The green is the outer mitten and is cascade quatro Peruvian wool. I like these because the inside will be super soft and the outside will be warm and durable.

Well that's all folks. I hope you enjoyed all the pictures. Sharing them with you ate up hours of my life. hehe.

PS. I think I'm going to look into this mobile blogging thing that blogger offers. I can take pictures with my phone and then send them right to the blog. So check back and don't be surprised if there are some blog entries that are just pictures with out any comments.

Another pictureless blog???

Ok I will try to get some pictures to take in this blog. Let's close our eyes and pray to the blogging picture god. ******************* Did it work????

So we are in Sunny Southern CA. We loaded a big Komatsu excavator yesterday and Chris is currently trying to get the weights right on the trailer so that we don't need to sneak it through AZ. Fun times.

I have two small dogs on my lap right now that are both shivering like mad. We have the Idle Aire going and it is a brisk 65 in the truck. It feels good to me. Last week we were up in NV and it was COLD. It was in the 40's and perfect sleeping weather. We even had to take out the extra comforter.

I thought we were praying to the blogging picture gods people?????? It's not working!!! LEt's try again shall we? *********************************

Well in case you are out of the loop, Chris and I rented a town house in Woodbury! I am super excited!!! We will move in October 15th. So that means that we will be home around then for sure! It is really nice and I can't wait to cook in my own kitchen again.

I have been knitting away. I finished another pair of socks for Chris. The red, white and blue ones. I a currently working on two pairs of socks and various mittens. I have also been reading alot since we left the house. I actually finished Cold Mountain in about a week. I am sad that I don't have another book to read right now. I will be looking through the craptaculor selection at the truck stops until I find something. I really enjoyed Cold Mountain. It was very descriptive and there were a few things different for the movie. I guess that is a good thing when the book and movie are a little different that way it keeps you guessing.

Ok I guess our praying to the blog gods did not work.

Playing Catch up!

Ok ok I know I have been a very naughty girl on the blogging scene. It has been weeks. I'm here now though. Since I blogged last we have done loads. This is the crane that we waited for out of Greencastle that went to Baton Rouge, LA.

After we left Baton Rouge we bounced up to Tulsa OK to pick up this beast.

This is a road scraper and it was a PIA. When we loaded in Tulsa it was 107 outside and absolutely horrible. This thing also had no brakes which made it that much more of a pleasure to load. After we finally had the beast on we took off for Redding, CA. Once it was on the truck it wasn't too bad and the trip was pretty. One night we spent the night in a National Forest in Northern California. It was quiet and there were about a million stars in the sky.

After ditching that load we headed down to Southern CA and loaded this.

This is an empty wine storage tank. It was the biggest load we've hauled since I have been on the truck. It was 13'6"wide and 15' tall. It's saving grace was that it was nice and light. This load was an adventure also. Right after we loaded we picked up a pilot car to take us to the AZ line. Then in AZ we were on our own. It turned out that AZ wanted us to have a pilot car for about 20 miles of the trip in the middle of nowhere. Well we made the executive decision to not get the pilot car. We were happily rolling down the road, hadn't seen an AZ cop all day when we come up on a convoy of AZ police escorting a super load down the road. One of the cops rolled down his window and wanted to know where our pilot car was. OOOOOOOppppppps!!!! He sent another cop after us to give us a ticket. We were expecting the worse. It ended up not being a bad deal though. The ticket was $95 and the pilot car would have cost $200. It probably made us grey though. After that the trip was relativly uneventful. We picked up a new pilot car in LA and had him until GA. He was a real piece of work. Then we picked up a another pilot in AL. Having a pilot car was interesting. We hit a nasty nasty thunderstorm in Birmingham and I was glad to have the pilot cars.

Well now we kicked that off and have set up camp at John and Kathis' here in Lithia Springs. We are on the hunt for load going to or thru the house. I promise we are trying to make it home again.

I must mention that I have seen many animal in peoples trucks, Cats, dogs, ferrets. Well we stopped one night and parked next to guy with a MONKEY in his truck with him. A monkey!!!!!!!!!!!! Could you imagine????

Yesterday Kathi and I went and got our toes painted then headed over to the mall for some light shopping.

I could update you on the knitting front but I'm not going to bother since apparently I can not upload any pictures right now. Sorry. This seems to be my new problem.

JACKPOT!!!

Well we are still in Greencastle, believe it or not. We finally loaded our crane yesterday. This morning we ordered our permits and knew that we had the day to kill once again. Hopefully we will get out WV permit and get the heck out of here tomorrow.

Today I hit the jackpot. Chris took me down into MD to do a little shopping. First we went to Y2Knit in Funkstown, MD. Y2Knit was a nice little shop in a cute littlepart of Historic Funkstown. I picked up a couple of magazines and some sock yarn and went along my merry way. I really wanted some 40" addi turbos to knit socks in with the magic loop method so I was hoping that we could stop at another yarn store up in Hagerstown, The Knitting Cottage(sadly they are without a website). Well this was the jackpot. It was owned and run by a nice Mennonite woman. They have a large selection of yarn, tons of addi turbos and the prices were AWESOME. I got 3 skeins of Lambs Pride Bulky for 3.75 a skien. What a deal!!! The addi turbos were only 11.50 and 12.55 each. I also picked up a few more skeins of sock yarn and some books.

( I also had a pic of the rest of my stash but the computer will not upload it. GRRRRRRRRRRR)

So when the day was done I walked home with
Knitters', Crocheters', Weavers', and Spinners' Travel Guide
This book is a guide to shops all around the country. Chris wanted me to have this book which I find funny since I will now be able to look up yarn stores wherever we are without having to turn on the computer.
220- 220 projects for Cascade 220
I have looked at this book for months and months when ever I go into a yarn store. I really like 220 and I figured I could study this book a long time.
Knitscene fall 2006 magazine
knit simple fall 2006 magazine
Interweave Knits fall 2006 magazine
#1 40" Addi Turbo
#2 40" Addi Turbo
3 Skiens of Pink Lambs Pride Bulky
I plan on making a cabled felted bag with this
1 Skien of Fortisima Colori Socka Color
I am going to make my honey yet one more pair of socks with this. It is really cool red, white and blue self striping yarn. It knits up red and white striped alternated with blue and white flecks. It is really really cool!
and
2 Skeins of trekking XXL sock yarn
one in stripy (that's a Laura word!) black, pink, green and white and one is shades of purple. I love this yarn, I made Chris peacock socks with it also.

I am so all set for awhile. Ahh, happy knitting dreams for me now.

You'll find us in Greencastle PA

We have been here too long... The people who work at the little booth in the truckstop who sell phones recognize me and chitty chat with me now. One guy says to me this morning "You guys are still here?"

We have resorted to doing things like this to entertain ourselves...

That was one of Skips contraptions. If you can't tell it's two forks balanced on two toothpicks on top of a salt shaker. The waitress was impressed, she said it was art even!

Since I blogged last we've sat around a whole bunch. Over the weekend we loaded a crane and brought it up to the Philly area. That was a really nice drive up and back. We went right through Lancaster county and I seen more Amish people than I have ever seen in a day.

Sunday morning was exciting. We were eating breakfast in the restaurant when we head some lady yelling at someone in the store. We turned around to see what was going on and a lady ran through the truckstop in just her underwear. Yup, just her panties. You never know what's going to happen next. After streaking through the store she broke a glass case before being hauled off by the cops.

Chris polished the truck one day. I've been knitting and knitting and knitting. I started another of these cabled bags. Here's a pic of it mid-way through. I am working on the lining now and then I just have the finishing and the strap.

I am almost done with one cabled sock for Chris. I think I am at the toe decreases but I really want Chris to try them on before I start the toe decreases. For someone who wants me to knit them socks getting him to try them on is like pulling teeth. Here it is so far. These really are some very nice socks.

Well I think we're going to head over to Grove and see if our crane is ready yet. Wish us luck. Maybe some day we will leave PA.

Just Hanging out

Well here we are again just hanging out. We finally got our permits Monday afternoon and delivered that load on Tuesday morning. What a relief to get that off the trailer. After we delivered we headed over to the TA in Greencastle, PA (which is where we sit as I type). After a bit we headed over to on of the agents office to visit with them.

Yesterday we ran a shorty up to Johnstown, PA and back. It was a nice day yesterday and the drive up was really pretty. We skipped the toll road and took the backroads. We were up and down mountains and through little towns the whole way.

This morning we delivered the return load and headed back over to our new home here at the TA. We had the truck washed and did laundry and that has been out exciting day today. We don't have a clue what we are doing next. We are holding out for the agent we visited to load us but Chris is losing his patients already. I guess I'm ready to hit the road also.

Since I blogged last I have finished the lumberjack socks.

I have also knit 3 apple baby hats. I know of two unborn babies for two of them and then have one more already made for whoever should bet pregnant next. I took this picture while they were sitting on the dashboard when we were in line for the truckwash:)

I started another cabled bag yesterday and plan on starting a pair of cabled socks later today. It's time for a thinking project and a real cable project should do the trick.

I wonder if there is any yarn stores around here???? Hmmm. I may have to check that out.

Our New KY Home

After delivering in Texas we booggied up to Texarkana to load a load to PA. After waiting for permits, and having A\C problems we arrived in KY. Well WV is a PIA. They have changed the way that they do there permits and we found out that they are really really behind issuing permits because they changed there system. So Thursday night we pulled into a Flying J in Cattlesburg, KY and set up camp. That's Skip and Mugs the Pugs. They are running one of these glorious loads with us! So anywho, we set up camp behind the trailers and whipped out the grill! We shunned the J and had some steaks and asparagus on the grill instead!It was really good and a nice night so we were happy.

Then Friday rolled around and we thought that surely we would have out permits in the morning so we could still deliver on Friday. 10 am was the cutoff for us getting our permits and still being able to deliver Friday. Well 10 came and went and still no permits. After twiddling our thumbs all day and discussing our options at length, Skip got his permit at about 4:30. It was too late to go for the weekend but at least he can leave first thing Monday morning. We thought surely our permit was right behind it and we would be getting the call soon. Yeah right... Friday came and went and we have no permit. We are still on standby. We will start the thumb twiddling again Monday morning.

Yesterday we checked into the Days Inn. The dogs are happy to be running around, I have been using the computer and watching TV. We even ate at my friend Bob's house last night. Bob Evans that is:)

This week has been a productive knitting week for me. I also have managed to locate a yarn store here in town. (Thanks Leslie! I used mapmuse.com) I just hope that they are open on Sundays. I will try calling them in a little bit here.

This week I started and finished this cabled purse. It is from the book Last Minute Knitted Gifts.

It is a wallet sized bag made with Koigu. It was quick and fun to make . It's really hard to see the pattern in the picture but there are little mock cables (right twists) that run along the side the bag and in the middle there is a leaf motif. After working on the bag for a little bit it was really easy to read my knitting so that I had to look at the pattern minimally. It also has a stockenette lining so it won't pull and get stretched out. It look less than one skein of yarn which is also a big bonus. I had bought two skeins of the kouigu to make socks with but when I seen this project I decided I would like to make this bag since I am a sock knitting fool. I will probably make another one these bags with the other skein.

I have also been working on these socks. I am calling them the Lumberjack socks.

These are made with Lion Brand Magic stripes. They are just plain socks knit around and around and around. I like them. It's kind of nice to have a totally mindless sock project with no pattern to think about. I am working on the toe decreases now so I almost have one sock done.

Hopefully today I can hit up that yarn store in Ashland, KY and start cooking up a new project! Well that's all folks.

This post brought to you by Idle Aire

Greetings from TX. We are currently holed up in the truck in San Antonio, TX. We will deliver this

tomorrow morning down in San Juan, TX. His name is Brutus. He is a 1963 Cat Wheeled Dozer. Brutus doesn't look quite as impressive with the canopy down. I could kick myself for not getting a picture of him before we had the canopy dropped. Oh well too late now.

I don't think I have mentioned lately how much I LOVE Idle-Aire. Friday night we hooked up to the Idle Aire in El Paso and had a lovely time watching TV and using the computer without worrying about it dying. Today we are hooked up in San Antonio watching the race in cool comfort.

Here is a pic of my finished butterfly shawl. Don't you just love the deck of the trailer as the backdrop?

I have also been working on socks like a mad fool which seems ridiculous since it has been 100 degrees outside the past few days. I felt silly putting these socks on to take the picture. Look!!! I finally finished these socks. I was looking back on the blog and they made there first appearance in April. I can tell that they were worked on for a long time since the second sock is a bit bigger than the first. Either I have loosened up my gauge in the past few months or I was really angry when I started them (hehe).

I am also making excellent progress on Chris' socks. I am calling these Chris' peacock socks. The picture doesn't do them justice but in the light the colors remind me of a peacock. I am a little worried that I am going to run out of yarn. I am just going to keep knitting away and hope for the best.

Well that's all folks. All is well in the big blue truck.