Big ole 24!!

Moose says i'm an oldy mc old old today.
NO way! I'm not old yet!
Mum and dad came down sunday and brought me a yummy ice cream cake! YUMMMM!!!
Moose's family came down last night and took us out for dinner....
and today.... today I get to go to work :(
BOOOOO!!!!

Working till close on your birthday should be a big no no but what can ya do.
I like low key birthday's anyway.

I'm sure you're all wondering what I looked like when I was a wee gaffer.

Nothing but cuteness coming at ya! Thats me and my bro *he will soooo kill me when he see this* I'm even sporting my mum's handknit superted sweater!!!

Off to work I go! Someone eat some cake for me while I'm at work.

Ola!

I know I know, where have a been all week right????
Well it was my second week of vacation and I've been enjoying it to the fullest. I've been knitting of course :)
I was working feverishly all week hoping to get a sweater I was working on finished in time for church this morning but by saturday afternoon I realized it just wasn't going to happen. I made the sleeves longer than the original pattern ending up needing to order another ball of yarn NUTS!! Oh well it will be done soon enough.
I know you're all shouting "Never mind the knitting what about Cuba??????"
Well Cuba was good, alot of mixed reviews and emotions but I definately wouldn't have changed going for the world, no matter how bad the food was *insert throwing up face here*
I don't know if I'll be able to get all of our vacation stories out in one post but we'll see how it goes.
First off I'm sure you're all aware now of my ability to vomit with pretty much any motion... :) Well guess what??? I DIDN'T PUKE!!!!! You don't know how awesome that is, I even ate food before and during the flights and still felt fine. My secret was a new medication recommended to me by the pharmacist, its called Bonamine. It did make me sleeping but I didn't care, it was a long flight home. So.... on to Cuba.
Cuba is a very poor country, and you're all saying yeah we know that but when I say poor I mean REALLY poor!!!
Don't get me wrong, everyone has food to eat and a place to live but thats it, all bare minimum. Some of the house were just tin walls and a tin roof propped up. It was absolutely awful the conditions these people were living in. Then there are all these people coming to the resorts, drinking their faces off and not moving their butts from the resorts. Unless you actually got off the resort you would have had NO idea of the poverty. Yes our tour operator said its a very poor country but to wasn't until we rented Moped's and went out on our own that we came across it all. 90% of our week there was spent touring the areas on our own and giving away the things we had brought for them. I have never seen anyone so grateful for a simple bar of soap. The things we take advantage for in this country is unbelievable.
On our last day there we rented a moped and searched for some people to unload the last of our gifts too. So we're out in the middle of no where driving down this *highway* (more like a normal road) and Moose says we probably should turn around, we don't want to run out of gas. Around we go and *i'm sure you know whats coming* yup we run out of gas..................... Couldn't happen to anyone else but us. Somehow though every bad thing that happens to us turns into a blessing. So there just so happens to be a "farm" of sorts across the road from where we were stranded. When i say farm I mean a run down house with a few goats and chickens outside. We go in and no say "No Gas!" We were well out of Varadero so the chance that someone speaks english is very minimal. One of the girls understood Gas and said ahhhh gasonlina. I will definately remember that word. It just so happens they had a car. Now this car was most likely something that had been passed down from generation to generation, a 1950's car. The guy ciphened out gas from his own car and gave it to us, not expecting anything in return. I can't get over the generosity of these people that have absolutely nothing to their name and yet they are willing to give whatever they have to complete strangers. If only the whole world worked like that, we wouldn't have the poverty that exists in these countries today. So before leaving we unloaded what we had left to give out. There were about 3 generations of the family there. One lady was sooo excited to get soap and deoderant that she was waving it at her family inside and smelling it.
We decided after our trip that we won't be going back to an all inclusive again. Moose can't sit still for two minutes so there definately has to be lots of things to do. The food wasn't too hot, we of course knew it wasn't going to be very good before we arrived and we did find something to eat everyday but a week of fries and pizza for lunch and dinner was just too much. The weirdest thing was there was NO MILK! Not one drop of pasturized milk on that island. The only thing we could find was powdered and condensed milk. How in the world can you live without milk?? Let me tell you I craved that stuff from the day I got there until we left.
Well I think I've babbled enough for today, i hope to have all my pics in a folder for you by the next post to browse through. In the meantime I leave you with one of my favourite moments of the trip.
That is the first time I've seen a real camel before. I just went over to ask the man if I could pet them and take a picture but before I knew it he had lifted me up onto its neck and gave Moose the camera to take a picture. Oh Miseur Camel you were oh so cute.

Adios Amigos!

Well the time has come!
I'm just eating breakfast and then we're off to the airport. Have a great week everyone and I see ya in a week.

Blanket of Hope

Hi All! Just a quick post before I go to bed.
Rebekah has started a blanket project for Sonya's husband. They just found out he has Lymphoma, a form of cancer. Go on over to Rebekah's blog and read more about the project.
Its called Blanket of Hope and she is asking for support of fellow knitters to aid her in knitting a square or two.

Now I'm gonna be gone for a whole week, and i'm sure somewhere in that WHOLE WEEK you could all squeeze a little knitting in for a good cause. The squares *or shapes* I should say can be any size,shape or colour just as long as they come from the heart.
So please, take a few minutes next week and help us out!

3 more shifts till Vacay!!!

*insert crazy happy dance*
3 more shifts, ohhhhh yeahhhh baby 3 more shifts and I'm outta there for 2 whole weeks!!!!!
I'm just a little excited. Its been a year and a half with no vacation so this is wellllllll overdue!

Lots has been going on here at CelticCastOn. Trying to finish up the bathroom before we leave, packing and putting together some packages for Cuban's. Add on top of that normal work, giving some kitty love and Phew! we definately need a vacation.
The bathroom is coming along, I have my doubts as to whether EVERYTHING will be finished before we leave. Moose has pretty much done everything in the bathroom by himself due to his shifts and days off. Usually I am the painter but when I came home from work last week he had it primed and painted so there goes my job. The rest really was plumbing, which I would be absolutely no help with. I did, however, get all the trim for the 4 rooms we will be redoing done, its alot of door casings and trim let me tell ya. Here's a shot of the shower installed.



On the knitting front everything is basically at a stand still. There's just no time to knit this week. The Tweedy Aran Cardi has been put in the WIP basket until we come back and not a stitch has been knit since last week.
I have however been getting some knitting ready for Cuba. The only knitting i'm taking is a sock project. I doubt I'll get any other knitting done during the week but the sock should be enough to fulfill my knitting craving.
A new toy arrived on Monday that i've been *not so patiently* awaiting. Its a walnut yarn swift handmade by the folks at Knitting Notions.

I first found out about these when Heidi had one on her blog and was receiving one from her fab hubby for her anniversary present. I've been saying for a swift for a while but hadn't found one that I was in LOVE with. I was set on getting an umbrella swift until I saw this swift and read the benefits of having a table top one.

1) Its dark walnut, I loooooove dark wood

2) It has many dowel holes on each arm for different size skeins to fit onto. Also great if your yarn shrinks a bit.

3) It takes seconds to put it together and take it apart. No need to worry about this big umbrella and where to store it.

4) It comes with a fabulous bag to keep all the parts together and store.

5) Its handfinished! They use tung oil and linseed oil and a layer of paste wax on top. Its soooo silky smooth, no need to worry about your yarn snagging.

I could go on! I Immediately ripped into the box when it can and gave it a spin. Its friggin fabulous!!! I kept saying LOOK MOOSE!!! THIS IS AWESOME!!! I LOVE IT!!

It was so quick, in a matter of minutes I had a freshly wound ball ready for a little trip to Cuba.

* Yarn is Scouts Appletini!*

Thanks for all your suggestions on patterns. I love all that you have suggested but didn't think they would work well with the yarn I chose from my stash. Were Appletini is varigated I didn't want to do anything lacey or with alot of pattern for fear of not being able to see the pattern too well. I did find a pattern that I think will work with the yarn. Its Sarah's free pattern called Honey of a hurricane socks. I seems easy enough so here's hoping!!

Must go get ready for work *sigh* ohhhh i soo want to cast on for those!!

Winter wonderland

So I realized in my last post that I didn't tell you all where we are going.....
There will definately be alot of these there...
And I might also be able to pick up a few moves from this....
Thats right ya'll we're going to CUBA!!! I'm pretty excited! I've wanted to go to Cuba for a couple of years now and we are finally getting the chance to go. I can't wait to lay on that beach and not have to think about work or how cold it is.
Its actually nice out this morning, we got a big chunk of snow last night while I had a little nap by the fire :)
I was amazed when I went out to take this picture this morning how mild it was out. Now thats what i'm talking about. I could handle tons of snow if it was just mild out and not so frigid.

So Project Spectrum started yesterday and you'll remember me saying I have nothing in those colours to knit with and I didn't want to stray from my tweedy aran cardi. Well after yesterday's post it clicked and I remembered the sweater I had been DYING to make but didn't want to stop knitting the tweed. Well GUESS what colour the yarn is?????? It MUST be fate hehehe
Grey AND blue in the one yarn, how sweet is that. Now I didn't have the pattern book for the sweater, I did that on purpose so that I wouldn't start it before I had finished the current project but yesterday I went ahead and ordered it. Hopefully it will arrive before next weekend when we leave and I could cast on and take a sleeve with me. I also need to figure out what sock project I want to take with me. I don't want to do just a plain sock but I also don't want to have to look at a pattern every two seconds while i'm there. Any suggestions!

Sooo the mouse story...... yeah I heard the mouse in the wall again. Apparently Moose got a mouse, but not the RIGHT mouse, or maybe there were two of them. Who knows! So we'll have to see if we can locate the other one. Knowing my luck we'll come back and they will be all settled in the house, sprawled out on the couch infront of the fire or something!

Off to get some things done!