The Baptismal Gown

Back in March I announced that I was going to be an Aunt. No the precious child has not arrived yet but she will be here soon!!! I also announced then that I was going to make her a baptismal/christening gown. That has (finally) arrived! It took me several months because I'm a dreadful procrastinator but it is completed. Knowing how much I procrastinate I made my deadline to have it finished the day of my sister-in-law's baby shower so I wouldn't be finishing it up as she was delivering the baby. Naturally, I finished it the day of her baby shower. I'm excited about how it turned out but it burned me out from crochet for a little while I think. The baby shower was absolutely splendiferous. It had a book theme naturally and I helped organize a mad libs game with classic children's stories that was fun.
Now I'm just eagerly awaiting the birth of my FIRST NIECE!!!! :)))))))

eBeth and I with the gown. 

The gown. 

Myself, eBeth and my little sister Betsy.

Final note: If you're interested THIS LINK is for the pattern. It's a free pattern and while it was challenging in parts it's a doable pattern and obviously has gorgeous results.

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It's Monday! I'm Going to Be An Aunt!

So yeah, as you can tell from the title of this post.... I'M GOING TO BE AN AUNT!!!! Remember my brother who married my best friend eBeth last summer? She's pregnant!!! Obviously I'm super duper excited. :) I'm already crocheting a baby blanket (though I'll have to make two so I'll have a girl one and a boy one since they don't know yet). Also I'm planning to crochet a christening gown. There's lots of gorgeous patterns out there so I just have to find one I like that I also have the skill level to make as some of them are incredibly intricate. I'm kind of leaning towards this one pictured on the right (see the pattern HERE). It's supposed to be modeled after Princess Charlotte's christening gown. Decisions, decisions! Thankfully I've got a few months. :)

So on a much lesser though.... reading.

Currently Reading

• The Martian by Andy Weir- I love this book but yeah it does have a language problem. :( 
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 
• The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin- I'm trying to decide if I want to switch to the abridged version. This thing is two volumes each the size of LOTR! I love it but it's a lot! 
• The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens- I'm joining in Behold the Stars' read-along for this Dickens novel. 
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (re-read) (audiobook)- My next audiobook now that I'm done with The Swiss Family Robinson. I've been craving some Tolkien! :) That first chapter is so great though! The nostalgia is beautiful. :) 

Finished this Past Week

• The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss (audiobook) (re-read)- 

Coming Soon

• The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton 
• Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder (re-read)

Posts From this Last Week

• Album Review- Celtic Woman: Destiny
• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
• Classics Club Spin! 
• Period Drama Challenge February Recap

Classics Club Spin churned out the number eight so I'll be reading Madam Bovary. :)

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It's Monday! Life After Crochet

This past Saturday there was a craft fair at my church that my little sister and I participated in by selling our crochet products. We spent a hectic amount of time preparing plus my normal work so I haven't really gotten enough sleep recently. However it was a lot of fun and we made more than I anticipated so all in all I'm glad we did it.

Betsy and I at the craft fair. Yes she's taller than me. :(

But on to reading because though I've been crocheting like crazy I've also kept up with my reading

Currently Reading

• Beloved by Toni Morrison (I really dislike this book and want to be done with it) 
• Charlotte's Web by E.B.White (re-read)

Finished this Week

• Betsy-Tacy Go Downtown by Lucy Maud Montgomery (re-read) 

Coming Soon

• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• Othello by William Shakespeare 

Rebecca is the last book I have to "officially" finish in 2015 to complete my ridiculous number of reading challenges but I want to get a couple more books in after that. Othello is for the Classics Club spin.
I am trying to get all of my book reviews completed and published before Christmas. There's a lot in the stacks that just need to get brushed up a bit. 

To top off this post I have a couple funny memes I collected. :) 

Additionally I have a picture of some beautiful and unique bookmarks a friend of mine made for me. One has a Jane Austen quote and the other a P.G. Wodehouse quote. I use them all the time. :) 

Alright that's it for this post. I hope you all are having a great time preparing for Christmas and I hope and pray that you and I continue to keep our focus on God during the business of the season. :)

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It's Monday! Life, School and the Pursuit of Reading

Last week I didn't get an "It's Monday" posted an I'm sorry. I really hadn't done much reading and I still haven't this week but this week I'm not quite as crazy busy as I was last week. Not quite. I actually only got one blog post done last week, which was my link up for Top Ten Tuesday's which was about my Top ten favorite secondary characters in Austen. That was a really fun topic and you can check it out here. :)
Nothing much has changed in my reading world. I'm still listening to the audiobook of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South and reading Mary Westcott's (Agatha Christie's pseudonym in her younger years) book Giant's Bread. 
School? Every semester of nursing school we have a 25 question pharmacology test over a million and one drugs (that might be an exaggeration) that haunts us all semester and we inevitably put off studying for until the last minute. Last week I had that test and it actually went quite well thankfully. :) I now have one test and then the final left and then I'll be free!!!! :)
Life? I've been making some beautiful crochet projects recently to raise money for my mission trip to Costa Rica. Here are some pictures of my creations. :) It's been fun making them in my very limited free time. :)

So that's my life right now. How's yours? 

Linking up with Book Journey. 

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Where have I been?

This meme truly expresses eBeth and I. :)

My Birthday cake! 

Where have I been? Last week I didn't post anything! I failed my blog! Chill people! It was my birthday last week. Yep, I'm now old! It's official! Two decades… half way to forty… if that doesn't sound old I don't know what does. ;) I had an amazing birthday though and it was made so amazing by getting to spend it with my family and my good friend eBeth. I had an amazingly delicious chocolate cake that I made and of course ice cream! Obviously my birthday wouldn't be complete without watching my favorite movie Pride and Prejudice (1995) and drinking tea!
eBeth stayed the whole week at my house so we had lots of fun watching Jane Austen movies, some Star Wars, and getting hooked on The Adventures of Merlin. Of course we fit in a bit of Doctor Who too (which by the way I've finally caught up with it!). One of the best parts of the week though was getting to see two of the movies I've really wanted to see in theaters recently…. Frozen, and Saving Mr. Banks. Hopefully I'll have some reviews out for those soon but until then just know that they were both quite good. I also spent a good bit of time crocheting while we watched our various movies.
I got down with several very cute baby hats. I think they're some of the cutest I've made yet. :) It's been suggested that I set up an Etsy shop and sell them but I'm thinking about maybe selling them instead as a fundraiser for missionaries. I'm not sure yet… I don't' have tons of time and that would be a pretty big time commitment.

A pile of the salt rocks from the museum. 

We also spent an inordinate amount of time coming up with baby names. Several years ago I was obsessed with figuring out baby names and I actually read my parent's baby name book several times. This last week I came up with a new one that is totally geeky and at first I wasn't sure about but now has really grown on me. Wait for it…. Darcie Elizabeth! I know right?!?!?!?!?! You wish you'd thought of it first. The thing is, if she doesn't like Darcie, she can chose from the million different nicknames for Elizabeth. Everyone wins! Now to get it past my future husband…. :(

eBeth and I at the Salt Museum.
Movie paraphernalia is stored there. 

We also went to the Salt Mines for a tour which was quite cool! The salt is strangely beautiful in a way one would never think salt could be. 650 feet below ground is surprisingly very awe inspiring.

My bag full of books I got from my parents' to read. 

To top this all off, this evening I looked through my long list of book challenges I somewhat rashly signed up for and grabbed a bagful of books from my parents house that pertain to the challenges. It took quite awhile to find all of those books and I still can't find our copy of Gods and Generals. :( However, I was able to hash out more what specific books I'm going to read for the different challenges. I just worked around a bunch of books I've been wanting to read for awhile or I've heard of before. The good thing is that I work at a library and if I can't find a book there then it's a lot easier to pull some strings to get it from some other library. Now if I actually just sat down and read. :( School is starting up in just a week so I'd better crack down on that I'm hoping to use this last week to prepare for the next semester as well as get some last bit of fun movie/TV show watching and reading in. This next semester is going to be very intense, as if the last semester wasn't intense enough! The semester will focus on OB, pedes, and intensive care so it will definitely be different and very interesting. I've considered midwifery so I'm interested to see if I'll like OB. It will be a challenge I'm sure!
Thanks for reading my excessively long post and I hope y'all are having a great month!

Lois Johnson, avid writer, tea drinker, and reader but first and foremost, avid Christian.

The Weather Outside is Frightful!

The sheep ornament I made for the Jesse tree.

There is little that annoys me more than anything Christmas before Thanksgiving. However, against my nature, I actually have been doing a little Christmas stuff recently. I want to blame it on the frigid weather. It has been below freezing pretty much every night and sometimes all through the day for the last week or so. With such cold weather and us finally lighting our wood burning stove, how can I not think Christmas thoughts? I even went so far as to watch a Christmas movie yesterday!

I got to participate in a Jesse Tree project through my church. Twenty-five of us ladies each made 25 different ornaments for the Jesse Tree and then exchanged them so that everyone had one of each ornament for their tree. We signed up do it last winter with the idea that we would have a whole year to complete them…. yeah, not me. The college student said "procrastinate" and I did. About three weeks before they needed to be completed I started thinking about making my sheep ornaments. I looked at crochet patterns (as I planned on crocheting them) online and couldn't find anything that I really liked except for patterns for purchase. So I ended up creating my own pattern from the different pictures I had seen and I really like how it turned out. About two weeks before I needed to have them ready I decided to start working on them… slowly, but surely! About a week before they were due I started panicking as I only had about half of them done and that was half done without heads or legs yet. Procastinater till the end, I ended up finishing them up about three hours before they were due with the help of my little sister and mother. I never could have done it without them. :)

Another Christmasy project I completed was to pack a couple shoeboxes for Operation Christmas child. I try to do a couple every year… I don't always, but I try. This year I included a note with my address so hopefully I'll hear back from the children that get my shoeboxes!

However, on a more Thanksgiving note, I am finally on Thanksgiving break! I had a pharmacology test this morning for nursing that I did well on. I have been freaking out about this test all semester long so I'm glad it's finally done. I wish I could kick back and relax over this little break but I have another test right after the break so I will have to do some studying. :( However I won't spend the whole time studying, probably I won't spend enough time studying. I'm looking forward to spending some time with family and enjoying a great Thanksgiving dinner. What are you doing for Thanksgiving? Have you divulged in a little Christmas spirit yet or are you a Scrooge like me? ;)

Lois Johnson, avid writer, tea drinker, and reader but first and foremost, avid Christian.

Monthly Report Card- March 2013

I am still getting used to 2013... and it's the end of March. Please tell me I'm not the only one?
So, an interesting month for resolutions in that I have a surprisingly high grade. I'm so proud of myself.

Study!!!- B

I have done rather well on this though on Spring Break I definitely slacked. Needless to say there were consequences.  

Read or Re-Read at least 5 books- A

I was heavy on the re-reading this month. I read Heavy Weather by P.G.Wodehouse and then re-read Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion (all obviously by Jane Austen). I had a lot of fun re-reading the Austen novels as some of them I hadn't re-read in awhile. So finally FIVE BOOKS!!!! Besides achieving my long sought after goal, I also had a lot of fun with my reading.

Take at least one walk per week or bike at least once a week-A

Excellent! There was even one day where instead of being productive and making cookies I was lazy and went on an hour plus walk. 

Stick to my "Diet"- A

I did really rather well on this. There were about five days where I was not so good but I balanced them out pretty well with having salads the surrounding days. One of them was Easter dinner so I think we can excuse that one. :)

Play only up to three games of online Dominion per day-A

I did fine on this. However, as I said in my mid-month progress report, the website I play on shut done mid-month as the official online version came out. I about had a nervous breakdown and died but somehow I survived. Anyways, the official version is dumb and I hate it so despite my hopes it could be some compensation it is really just a torture. I feel like getting on the internet isn't even any fun anymore. :(

Cut down on computer time-B

I did fairly well. A nice chunk of the month it was getting fixed so it was a very easy goal.  It was hard learning to do without it for that time and now that I have it back I find it somewhat easier not to use it. Still though, work to be done here.

Do one crochet project-A

As I said in my mid-month progress report, this was achieved in the form of a scarf using the basket weave stitch that I think turned out very nicely indeed.

Write at least 3 more blog posts this month-A

As always, a nice plump A here. I wrote this post about memories of bad weather experiences, this post about the pervading use of bad words in society, this post with a recipe for healthy cookies, and this post about how Jane Austen's novels are not romance novels. So four amazing blog posts.

So this is a A- for this month.... my first A!!!! :)
For those of you who have been praying for my Grandmother who had a stroke in January, she has made considerable improvement. Walking is really improving, which is exciting but she still cannot talk past a one word response. So I appreciate your prayers there. We were able to bring her from the rehab center to our house for Easter dinner, which was very special. I will hopefully be posting a full blog post report soon with more details of what has been going on with her. God has been working in her and it is obvious in the amount of recovery she has made.

In closing I leave you with something that we always say in my church- He is risen... He is risen indeed!

Linking up with Kelli at She Learns as She Goes.

Lois Johnson, avid writer, tea drinker, and reader but first and foremost, avid Christian.

Crochet Projects To Do

I have been looking up some crochet projects to make in my spare time (whenever that is).  Those who know me are aware that right now I am in to hats.  I have had fun crocheting four so far and want to do more.  However, there are plenty of other items I want to make as well.

These are some patterns I have found on the internet that I want to try. 

http://mrsmicawber.blogspot.com/2011/11/liliaceous-scarf-pattern-and-tutorial.html

http://crochetncrafts.com/crochet/clusterandshellsscarf.html

http://www.caron.com/vickiehowell/patterns/hip_hip_beret/hip_hip_beret.html

http://moiracrochets.hubpages.com/hub/Crochet-Diamond-Earring-1

Lois Johnson, avid writer, tea drinker, and reader but first and foremost, avid Christian.

My Newest Crochet Projects

     This last weekend was the 4-H Fashion Revue competition for my county where we displayed many different items including our crochet patterns.  Like the great procrastinator I am, I didn't start working on my planned four projects until a week prior.   However, I ended up with two hats, a little doll satchel for my sister's doll, and a pair of earrings.  I had another pair of earrings as well but I could only enter four items, not five (as somehow my brain convinced me was so).  I learned several new things with these projects such as, don't leave everything to last minute or else you have to crochet several hours straight and hurt your poor wrists, which probably is going to give me arthritis later on in my life.  I did have lots of fun though.  Several of my patterns I found via Crochet Pattern Central, a favorite website of mine when it comes to finding crochet patterns.  I also was blessed to find one of my hat patterns from a book I chanced upon while working at the library.  All in all it was a good year for crochet and while I am in the crochet mood I had better get started for next year as it promises to be more busy then this one.

My sister's doll with the little satchel I crocheted for it.

One of the hats I crocheted.
The brim on this one had a unique stitch called a linked treble crochet.

My crocheted earrings.
I have crocheted several earrings before but they all used crochet thread.
This pattern used three strands of sewing thread, which was interesting to work with (by interesting I mean difficult).

My other crocheted hat.
I am sorry you can only see the front of it in this picture but you can get the drift.

Lois Johnson, avid writer, tea drinker, and reader but first and foremost, avid Christian.