Week of Olympics and Surprises

Happy Happy Tuesday to everyone!  Have you been watching the Olympics?  Are you ready for Valentines Day?  Well, I have lots going on that I cannot wait to share with you.....this will be a week with lots of pictures....I sure hope you do not mind the pictures!

First......I had a long road trip to see my son for his 21st birthday this past weekend.....and Jaime drove so that meant lots of knitting time for me.  I knit almost all day Friday and Saturday!  The Ravellenics officially kicked off this past Friday so it worked out perfect for me.  I have 3 projects planned for Ravellenics.  One is a WIP....that is my Suzi Shawl...then one pair of socks, and a shawl from the Strickmich!Club.  I finished the Suzi Shawl!

I mostly knit on my socks for the car ride and got them pretty far......

and of course was able to start my Strickmich! Club Hearts Shawl.

So far I am on track to finish these up for Ravellenics (I have a calendar for the shawl and I work on the socks once I meet my daily goal with the shawl)....then it will be on to my HyperCrazy shawl that I plan to knit on during a knitting retreat....that is right, I have a knitting retreat planned in 2 weeks and I am super excited!  I hope to have lots of pics for you!

Now.....for my week of surprises......I completely was not expecting any of this, but it has been very nice....I feel pretty special.

First.....a lady that knits with me during lunch knows how much I love the longhorns and she brought me a roll of Longhorn Duck Tape....she said just because I help her so much.....squeee!!!  I love it:

Then, another lady that I knit with during lunch ordered some project bags a little over a week ago.....(A podcast mentioned that you should respect your knitting and put it in a project bag).....well, her package came in and little did all of us know, she ordered each of us one for Valentines day.....she is so super sweet!  Thank you Barbara!

Now for the biggest surprise.....you all have heard me talk about my best friends....there is Darlene (my knitting best friend) that walked into my desk cubicle one day a couple of years ago and I am glad she did....I love her to death.....and then there is Ailene, my best friend I met 20 years ago and she asked me when I was due (meaning with a baby) when I was not pregnant.....and believe it or not, we have been best friends since....we had our first children 6 weeks apart.  Well, yesterday Darlene came to my desk with a HUGE Happy Birthday bag......well, my birthday is not till Februrary 25th, but when it is her birthday, I cannot wait to give her what I got her and she cannot wait to give me what she got me.....we are just the same like that....and with Christmas and everything else.....

I was so excited, I could not wait to open it.....well, I think I have told you before that Darlene sews (I do not).....she saw a cute sock project bag on a podcast and went on a mission to find the pattern.  She found the pattern and made me two bags....can I just tell you how perfectly awesome, wonderful and cute these bags are?  This is where you will get picture overload because I have to get every detail of the bags....she had tags made that say "Bags by AwesomeGrannie" (Her name is awesomegrannie on ravelry) that are so cute and I just think they help make the bags perfect!!!  Now, about the bags...there are two sections on the inside...one for each sock....there are snaps on the inside where you can run your yarn on the inside of the snap, and grommets on each side if your want to run your yarn through the grommet....she made the divider part a zipper pocket and put some stitch markers in there.....I cannot tell you how perfect and wonderful these bags are....I LOVE THEM...she also got me two skeins of yarn to make two pairs of socks.....I divided them last night so you can see them in the bags.....

Here is picture overload:

I cannot wait to start these pairs of socks.....The pink yarn is Bugga!  in sport weight because I have always wanted to make a sport weight sock...and the orange yarn is Pumpkin Patch by Ladybug Fiber Company!

Now, if you see where this is going....she made me two sock bags and got me two skeins of sock yarn (one for each bag)....well, do you remember that awesome skein of Miss Babs Katahdin she got me a couple of weeks ago (I talked about it here).....yup, you guessed it!  She also made a big sweater bag (to go with my big skein of yarn)....this bag is just like the ones from Fat Squirrel.  I know because I happen to snag a Fat Squirrel bag at the last update......but this bag is so much more awesome because I know it was made with love by AwesomeGrannie and I LOVE the OWLS!!!!  This bag is now holding my HyperCrazy!  Every detail has been taken care of....the perfect ribbon as the drawstring, the extras with the charm rings, and the grommets, and the "Bags by AwesomeGrannie" tags.....I just love them....and could not have asked for a better present!  Thank you Darlene!!!

These are the greatest presents ever and I will never be able to Thank Darlene enough!  There is another part to this story....you know how I mentioned earlier that Darlene and I just cannot wait and we give each other their presents early?  Well, we also tell each other almost everything!!!!  She has had this whole thing planned for quite some time....I took last Friday off for my road trip and she took last Friday off too....to sew all day.  However, I assumed she would be sewing all day on a quilt she is making her 5th grandchild (she makes all her grand children a quilt for their first birthday)......but she sewed on these bags all day.....she was so excited that she just had to tell someone!  She could not tell me because they were a surprise for me, and she could not tell the whole LSSK group (the online knitters group we are both members of) because she knew I would read it.....so she sent an email to one of the ladies in the group that would understand her excitement.....thanks Pat!  Now I can send an email to all the LSSK gals with this great news!

I leave you with a cute picture about 'the road'.....as I was on my actual road trip, a friend of mine sent this to me......I thought it was perfect timing!!!!

Happy Happy Tuesday and Double Happy Knitting!!!!