Chapter 12 of The Last Boy

Starting to get to the good stuff in The Last Boy

Chapter 12 is upload HERE. Let me know what you think.

Chapter 11 of The Last Boy

Thought I would post two chapters today since it's been a while since I posted a chapter and chapter 10 is very short.

Excited to share one of the main and one of my fav characters, Kai and Lonnie.

Chapter 11 is UP! Enjoy

Chapter 10 of The Last Boy

CHAPTER 10 of the Last Boy is up!  Go on over and take a peek what is going on with the Folks of Newbury! It's all about Summer and Josh today.

This one is one of my favs

I remember when I felt the strong urge to write this poem. The words kept popping into my head urging me to write what was being told to me and I knew I had to post it right away on facebook. All these voices felt like they were inside me telling me it was important to write this down and share it immediately. So I did and it is one of my favourite poems I have ever written. I feel like I didn't write it, but was told the message to share it with those who needed it.

It's True

I'm sorry I had to go

I know you didn't want me too

Sometimes there's just no choice

I feel you calling me

I hear you cry for me

I know you feel lost

Please don't cry your tears for me

Darling

I am always right near you

Darling

Never far from where you are

Darling

It's true.

I am never far from you.

You felt me yesterday

Beside you, touching your face

It's true,

I was there, sitting right next to you

Whispering in the trees

That's me

Touching you with the breeze

That's me

Reaching out to let you know

I will never fully go

Don't you loose your faith in life

Darling

I am never far from site

Darling

I am always by your side

Darling

Waiting,

Watching

Loving

With you.

Just reach out your hand

Let the rain touch your palm

Let the sun soak up the tears

and warm your heart like a hug

Feel my warm embrace with the ones that are around

Feel the goodness in life

and know that I am sound

I'm sorry I had to go

I know you didn't want me too

Sometimes there's just no choice

This is not goodbye

Not when there is a sky

Reaching high above

I am the birds and clouds

Darling

The flowers on the ground

Darling

The tickle at the back of your neck

Darling

It's true

I am touching you.

Just reach out - feel the wind's embrace

Let the caked sand between your fingers break

Tumble free in solid blocks, like raindrops of all things lost

Take a deep breath of life

Let it fill your lungs, alive

You do not stand alone

Not when you can still see life all around………

It's true

It's true

Life is all bursting around you

It's true

I am always standing, watching, dancing too

It's true

With you.

~Deena Thomson~

Chapter 9 of The Last Boy is up on my The Last Boy Website.

The Last Boy Chapter 9

What is the definition of Family?

Recent events in my life have made me re-examine the meaning of the word family.

In the last few years but in particular recently  I have started to value the quality of life over quantity and that includes people in a life. Which brings me to what defines a family?

My husband and I both do not have large families and the family we do have we have not much contact with them. It's just really my mother who is extended family. I have no relationships outside of facebook friends who are biologically related to me. I have relatives of course, but I don't see them or interact much past a friendly hi and how are you? If I do it is rare, and usually something big has happened. My biological father's side I never felt welcomed and as an adult realized this was a correct assumption. On my mother's side the two people who seemed to like me have passed away. On my in-laws side, we see them for an hour at Christmas and Thanksgiving. I have a brother but he lives out of town.

So what defines a family? I am always told I have a large family based on the amount of children I have and I suppose in those terms I do have a large family. Six kids is not the norm now a day. But there aren't any cousins and aunts and uncles, grandparents and great aunt Martha's at any family events that my kids will experience as children. 

I am often questioned if this bothers me and although I know it should, for the most part it doesn't. I would love to have a family that extends past my front door but life doesn't always give you the picture perfect painting of what you think is a typical family. 

For better or worse this is the family I have and the bonus side is with six kids, chances are my grandchildren are going to have a blast growing up with so many extended family members. Fingers cross they want to be in each other's lives and I will be there to witness it all. 

There in lies the secret. When you think of the future whom do you picture there?

I picture my family I have made with my husband, our 5 sons and our daughter, my mom, my children's spouses and their children. I also picture my brother there... sometimes haha. Sorry Duane of course you will be there.

But I also picture some friends in the mix. Some old friends but most likely there will be lots of new friends and when I think of this it also reminds me that although I may not have typical family events I do have events where there are people around that I really enjoy and care for and I suspect they care for us too. 

In fact, I have the family I pictured in the future and it's still growing.

Which brings me back to recent events. Life is very short, a long life is not a promise, a given. It can be short and none of us know when our time is running out. It is important to relish in those individuals you cherish being surrounded by and not worry about what you do not have. It's illogical and the only thing it changes is enjoying what you have in front of you to the fullest extent.

My definition of family is the family my husband and I built- six humans that I can't even dare to think of a life without. Plus my mother who as much as she drives me to drink has always tried to be there and has been a life savour more than once since my younger kids were born. It is also the people who come into our lives during our lifetime and enrich it, even if it is only for a brief period of time. That is my definition of family.

The people, who make you laugh, celebrate, piss you off but you dust yourself off and get over it, cry with and worry that they are all right. They also worry about you too. 

That last part is really hard to find but there are people out there who will. There is always someone out there who will and it doesn't have to be many. It only needs to be one. This is why it is so important to let go of what you don't have so that you can embrace what you could have. Family isn't always about how you are related to someone, sometimes it's just the people in your life who care.

Family. It's such a powerful word. I love it.

Chapter 8 of The Last boy

Chapter 8 of the Last Boy is up on my The Last Boy website HERE

Sunny Day Pattern is finally available.

After nearly a year I am finally releasing Sunny Day pattern. Some patterns I can zip through in a few weeks and others take months. This is one of them. I feel really good about releasing the pattern after all this time.

The pattern can be found on Raverly HERE

The pattern can be found on Etsy HERE

The pattern can be found on Crafty Here

PHEW! Finally she is ready for others to create!

ENJOY!

Today is going to be a yoga kind of day

I never saw myself as a yoga type of gal. I eat meat, I like to drink wine and growers granny smith apple cidars. I am not granola at all and although I look like a curly head hippy, I am not one in the least bit. 

In fact I kind of rolled my eyes at people who were doing yoga, like they were self obsorbed idiots haha. I know, so not Zen of me. But that is the point I guess. I didn't think it would ever be my thing.

When I had my last child, the birth was very difficult and I ended up with a separated pelvis and dislocated hips. Both conditions don't just go away after the baby is born. In fact it took my pelvis nearly a year to heal (which it did with child #4 too) and my hips have never been the same. For 7 yrs I have had constant hip pain. The first two years it was really bad then it kind of dulled to a constant ache and if I did any hard workouts like running, I usually suffered for long periods. I have had to rest from running more than one time because of my hips.

My friend Sylvie kept telling me to try yoga and that it would help with my hips. I said yah yah, like the good friend I am and totally ignored her advice, until my left hip was once again injured from running. I was discouraged because it takes so much out of me to retrain myself to run again after periods of time off. I was desperate! I didn't want to restart yet again with running. Something had to give. Something had to work and the bottles of advil weren't cutting it.

So I gave it a shot. I went on youtube and searched out yoga for hips. 

Well the rest is history. Right away I felt better. Not perfect, but that was because I hadn't found the perfect poses yet that would work for my type of pain. BUT I DID, I eventually found the perfect video for me and not only did it dull my pain it took it completely away. 

Years of pain, years of having trouble walking was taken away with a 19 minute yoga video, 3 times a week. 

Now I am an addict. I try to do a little yoga every day. It has changed my  life in ways that I can't fully express. Erin Motz from Bad Yogi (erinmotz.com)is pretty much my fav day to day yoga that I follow. That and my miracle yoga for hips from Ekheartyoga.com. I have that video burned into my brain so I will never forget it. I even did it in Mexico every day when we went away this winter. I am serious. 3 times a week and no more hip pain.

Today I feel totally stressed out with my mountain of family home and super hyper because of all the Easter chocolate in the house. So I plan on putting on my fav yoga videos and stretching my stress away. 

It even eliminates my anxiety attacks and that is just mind boggling to me. Nothing has ever been able to do that. Nothing. 

Yoga is so simple too. You don't have to be in crazy poses to get the benefits of it.

It makes you calmer, breath better, move your body easier and just an entire full body and mind recharger. I love it and am proud to say I am one of those "yoga people". It has allowed me to take control of my body and life. I have ran consistantly longer than I ever have since I discovered yoga without injury. I feel stronger every day and it is all because of a little stretching.

I have to have half my thyroid removed because of inconclusive thyroid bioposy and the very first thing I asked was not, what if it is cancer but how soon can I work out after surgery. 

Yup it's official. I am a yoga gal.

Leaf poncho for Girl child

My daughter saw a wrap in one of my new yarn magazines that came in the mail. She folded down the corner of the page and when I came home from work, immediately showed me the wrap below.

She had to have it. She really wanted one of her own. I knew what she liked about it. The leaves, the ruffles and the asymmetrical way the wrap is displayed in the picture. But it is a wrap, not a poncho, and although it is great for a woman, I don't think it is practical for a 7 yr old who likes to play hard outside riding bikes and jumping in puddles. So I decided to create my own version of this warp but into an asymmetrical poncho. I also knew that I could get away with a similar leaf design that was free and just crochet the ruffles around the poncho. The results were the picture below.

She loves it and I love it. I think it turned out pretty good. My only complaint is the yarn I used. I let her pick it and it was a cheap $9 acrylic yarn (bernat worsted in Aqua) It is pretty scratchy and it took the gloss off my new knit picks 4.5 interchangable circular tips and now they are a bit rough to the feel. I am surprised because I have used Bernat before for my dolls but the Aqua seems to be really synthetic. Maybe it is the dye for the colour that makes it really rough? I have washed it once and put it in the dryer and it does feel softer but I am going to do it a few times to help soften it up a bit more. The bright side is, it cost me $9 and well, she is going to destroy it. This is a given. She is a kid and plays hard. It will also be harder to destroy because that yarn is TOUGH!! haha.

What I did to create the Asymmetrical Leaf Poncho

I found this  Leaf Afghan pattern and using just the leaf pannel I cast on for the large strip (the leaf pattern section) twice, I cast on 49 stitches, placed a stitch marker, cast on another 49 stitches and knit rows 1-24- 6 times. On row 24 I would cable 2/2 putting the last two stitches before stitch marker in front on cable holder, knitting the first two stitches after the stitch marker, then placing stitch marker back and knitting the last two stitches on cable holder and then continued with the rest of row 24. This way I had a nice little cable running up the middle. I cast off loosely and repeated the above instructions again so I had two equal pannels roughly measuring 25 inches long.

EDITED TO ADD- next time I do this I will just continue knitting for double the length and fold it in half instead of sewing the two pieces together.... DOH! Wish I had thought of that this time.... grr.

I then took my crochet hook and seamed up the sides with single crochet on the outside so it becomes part of the pattern of the poncho. 

THIS pattern has a diagram how to sew up the two pannels so it falls Asymmetrical. I left a 12 inch opening for her neck too even though she is a kid. I am glad I did. So easy and effective!

I then went along the bottom of poncho with my crochet hook and (2 dc, chain 1, 2dc, chain 1, sc in second stitch, chain 1,) repeated all the way around to give me a ruffled trim that did not rolled.

For the collar-

Round 1-single crocheted around the opening of the neck 

Round 2-  single crocheted through back loop. 

-Go to ridge created from sc in back loop, and (2 dc, chain 1, 2dc, chain 1, sc in second stitch, chain 1,) This created the ruffled look collar but didn't touch the neck. It also let the ruffles fall flat. 

She LOVES it and it was a fun easy knit with great results.

I think I want to make me one but in the Mesmeric cardigan colour work. I think I would wear it more than the sweater. I would minus out the ruffles and make it much longer and wider. I  would probably follow the measurements of the pattern I linked above demonstrating how to sew the poncho. I like the lenght of that one a lot.  So many possiblities!! 

Edited to add basic measurements to estimate the size you want-

To figure out how many stitches to cast on I measured from armpit to tip of fingers- Girl child was 21 inches and that equalled roughly to casting pattern for leaf twice (aka, 49 stitches and 49 stitches)

For how long the pannel should be the below measurements are a good guide.


 Baby-14, 15, 16, 18”

Toddler-18, 19, 20, 21”

medium child ( Girl child is a size 10/12 in kid so I went with 

25 inches) : 21, 22, 24, 25”

Teen- 25, 26, 27, 27”

Adult-: 27, 28, 31, 32”