Tale of a little boy's blanket

Remember this? 

It's the boys' blanket, that started out as a hexagon blanket and ended up a granny stripe... Mom fell in love with it and decided to pick up crochet again so she "hijacked" my WIP and started working on it. Like me, it helps her keep calm in times of hardship and she's been having a lot of that with my stepfather's illness.

So... with a little coaching here and there, she's been working steadily and here it is again--it's coming along beautifully!

This is how it was...

But then it started to get too big to carry around and take to the hospital, so I had an idea... Why not add some granny squares...?

And here's the result, I think it is looking quite nice, don't you?

She can now take make squares and more squares as she goes to the hospital with her husband and waits for hours until he's ready to go back home--and come home to join them :)

She will probably make at least another round of squares for the blanket to reach a reasonable size.

And from the look of it, I think pretty soon I'll have to set up another WIP for Mom to work on :) Great job, Mom!

Sneak preview :)

Just hold on tight... a couple more days till I come back with a lot more beauties of this little corner of Europe :)

xx

Teresa

Things that make me happy... and sad

One of my oh so many WIP's... can you guess what's coming out of this (I hope!) ? I know it's a bit odd looking but... Let's see!

Mistery WIP

I'm happy, I found a great book full of yummy stuff to make--I want to order a couple more online, they're so much more expensive here!

So many gorgeous projects to try out!

A few other little things that made me happy...

Brand new sandals I've been drooling over (Mom says they look like belly dancer sandals... I just wish I were in shape for that... lol... time to work on those new year resolutions that are stashed away and lose weight!!!)

My hydrangea are about to bloom :))))

and my chrysanthemus are nice and flowery

It's kind of late for these... I'm not really sure what's coming out of my hiacynths and my daffodills!

So... all in all, it's been a good week! 


The bad part is the news from Marjo--she was still waiting to hear the result on her biopsy and it turns out she will have to go through chemotherapy... why not pay her a little visit here or here and leave her a nice message? I bet it will help her feel better... Let's keep sending her good thoughts so she will get through this bad phase quickly!


xx
Teresa

You've got mail!

(Remember that movie? I love it, absolutely love this movie, with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks --well, I love most films she's in! And yes, I'm crazy about romantic, sappy sweet movies that end well, so when this came to my mind I thought it was the perfect title for this post...)

Whenever I get home I always check the mailbox--vaguely hoping that someone other than the internet, water or electricity companies will remember writing something nice. Usually that's all I get--bills or publicity, rarely I get some news from a good friend far away... But today I had a surprise...

I got MeMe Rose's giveaway in the mail! And I got that Christmasy feeling that we used to get as children, when we couldn't wait for the time to open our presents--I had to force myself to wait until I got a half decent picture to post here! Sorry, the camera batery charger is still AWOL so the trusty cell phone camera has to do the job...





So here they are, the lovely coloured hooks and the beautifull crochet bag they came in, with a little card and a sweet crochet heart :) I am sooooo proud to be the new owner of this pretty set in their purse!

Drooling over my new crochet hooks, the lovely bag, my almost ready hyacinth...  I'm a happy camper today! :)

I absolutely LOVE them, thank you MeMe Rose! This sure was a treat :))))

xxx

Meet Fernanda :)

Let me tell you about this lady I know, today. Her name is Fernanda and this is her balcony. If I ever met someone with a green thumb for flowers, it's her!  

The American connection :)

This lady is the Mother anyone would love to have. She's cared and nurtured her 2 children (and they're not children anymore, they're in their 40's) through good and bad times. As she cared for her own mother when she was old (she died almost 95!) with all her love. And as she cares for her grandchildren, just like they were her own children. She has three, two boys and one girl. She misses her son and 2 grandchildren terribly, because she can't see them as often as she wishes--they all live in the USA, you see. 

Fernanda is now retired, but always busy trying to find ways to help out, both her family and other people. Everytime she gets a chance she goes to the hospital with her husband or her daughter. Sometimes she doesn't have to go, because her son-in-law makes a point of being present at each and every treatment his wife goes to... but she's the lead "cheerleader", and wants to be present too. In good days, when there are no appointments or treatments, she offers to go shopping or to tidy up or do anything to help. Or even just pick up a little crochet. She picks up her grandson at the  train station when he comes home from school (poor thing, she says, he must be so tired from school and travelling all over Lisbon and it's so late!) But she doesn't remember she's tired too from running errands and helping out until she goes to bed--and then often times she cannot sleep because she's worried about her children, all of them.

Fernanda at the hospital parking lot

And when she's not caring for her children she's nurturing her husband, who's a wonderfull person too with a bad heart condition and has to go to dialysis 3 times a week, if not more. She's like a private firemen corporation because here firemen (off the fire season or not) have ambulances and carry ill people to their treatments at hospitals and clinics. 


Whenever she goes somewhere, Fernanda takes something tasty or some trinket to make us smile. And she's always got a smile, too, throughout good and bad times.


But her family knows how special she is. When she calls her almost 18 year old grandson on the phone he smiles and says "It's my Mom #2". And she smiles and melts inside, when she hears that...

Fernanda's balcony

So, when she saw my blog and ohhhhhhh and ahhhhhhh'd she shyly said "you could show off some of my flowers in your blog", of course I took some pictures (they are indeed beautuifull!) and here they are. 

She wanted me to post some pictures of a beautifull afghan she made for her mother many years ago (I wish I still had the one she made for me, when I was in college... but somehow it got lost when I returned to Portugal :( ). It was her made by her very own sweet hands, in the evenings when both of her children were off to college or in the US Navy and Gigi, her cat, was sitting on her lap keeping her company.

And now she's picked up and is continuing the boys's afghan I started some time ago--I think she missed crochet and needed me to give her a little push!

Mom and I, at her birthday last year (almost a year ago)

So here's to Fernanda, my Mom, the best Mother I could wish for. I love you, Mom!

Finally over... my little Ta-Dahhhhh! :-)

It's over! So now I can keep going (remorseless) with my other projects :-)

What do you think?

The bottom kind of looks like a starfish

Here it is again!

But this isn't all I've done this weekend... tried out some of Valeria's yummy cupcakes and she was absolutely right, they're fantastic!

Not nearly as pretty as Valeria's (I'm new at this! :-( ) but they sure taste good!

Some of the boys don't like frosting (how is that even possible??? so I left a few without...)

Today we were at the countryside--unfortunately no pictures, but hopefully next weekend I'll have some because we'll be back! Today was for cleaning, trimming trees, weeding and getting ready for hubby's birthday party next weekend... aside from recharging the batteries in Nature! :-)


And now off to make some flowers... African... Italian... Belgian... and have to find out if there are any Portuguese flowers too! Maybe Marlene can help...?

Happy hooking! :-) xx

Survival kit :)

Second walk to the beach, this one a bit longer. Don't forget I've been indoors all Winter, not even a few little walks, dreading the cold and rain and catching something nasty that would set off my treatments and postpone "The End". So walking to the beach is a major deed for me right now--my joints are still resenting the lack of exercise, plus the side effects of Taxol don't help. It's only been 2 weeks since "The End".

So yesterday (I had no company on this journey) I packed a little backpack with some stuff to help me survive on this adventure. A bottle of water, of course. A wallet with some coins in case I wanted to go to the little coffee shop on the sand. A sweater (only to find out that it was 24ºC - 75ºF outdoors!). And, of course, my crochet... A couple of projects, in case I got bored. I probably thought I was going to stay there for a whole week...

But of course I had to go for a walk too... 

And take a couple more pictures to show you what it's like. Fishermen all over the place! But then, fishing is in our traditions...

I love driftwood. I wish I could use this on something... but considering it was a huge log I decided to drop the idea!

And on my way back couldn't resist this. Someone decided to turn a bit of wasteland by the railway into a sweet little garden. Slowly but surely they've been cleaning the soil, setting the rocks around it beautifully and adding little flowers and bushes to create a little oasis in the middle of nowhere. This is probably what they see from their window, I bet the person lives in the building right next to it--and I was on the railway crossover path.


Isn't it pretty?

Have a wonderfull weekend!


xx