Been a busy couple weeks, with work and all.  Daniel took me to Lynchburg to tour the Jack Daniel's Distillery a week ago, Thursday.  It was a real surprise and a lot of fun.  I had told our tour guide (Jesse James) the first picture I'd ever seen of my husband was one where he was handing David Lee Roth a bottle of Old No. 7.  He (Jesse) decided he wanted a pic with Daniel at the end of the tour.
     I've been working on small projects when we are driving but I decided to take an afghan I'm making for Daniel's best friend in California.  Her favorite color is blue so I'm doing an afghan like the one I did for our friends Billy and Sue in shades of blue with a white accent.  It's turning out beautifully!
     I finally finished the afghan for Billy and Sue.  Nice and large for a tall clown!  LOL!!  I've got to weave in the ends and rinse and freshen it.  I'll put it in the storage bag with some dried lavender or something to keep it smelling nice then put it in a gift bag.  They get married in 2 weeks. 

     I'm trying to make a lot of Christmas gifts this year.  Seems we spend a lot of money on people that we really shouldn't so I'm making toboggan/scarf sets for the neighbors and their kids.  Still a bit of money, but I think Mom and Dad will appreciate it more.

*Sigh*

It seems I have good intentions on keeping up with my blog.  I'm fairly regular journalling each night before bed, but I totally forget about my blogs.
I've been working for FICOSA North America since January.  I started as permanent part time in injection molding as a mold press operator.  I enjoyed it because I worked 12 hours a day Saturday and Sunday and picked up extra hours through the week when I wanted.  Our department went to full 12-hour shifts so all of us who were part-time were made full-time.  No more part-time employees.  It's a rough row to hoe sometimes.  I work 2 days, off 2 days, work 3, off 2, work 2, off 3.  The upside is I get to go to church every other weekend.
As for my crocheting-I'm still crocheting as much as possible, but with my days off chopped up instead of all at once like before, it's hard to get all my housework done so I can sit and crochet and not be distracted by things needing to be done.
I'm making myself spend time on my crochet which means I'm making myself take some down-time on my days off.

I've taught myself to "knook".  It's knitting with a crochet hook and is really easy and much faster than knitting.  Knitting can be so slow for me.  I tried to teach myself to knit, did a pretty good job, but it was so much slower than crochet I gave up on it!  I have since finished a scarf for myself and started one in a self-striping baby yarn.

I finished a beautiful granny afghan (one big square) in shades of teal and purple.  I found the yarn at Wal-Mart and bought it with no particular project in mind.  This just sort of happened-I'm really proud of it!
Right now I'm working on an afghan for some friends who are getting married in August.  I thought I had it done, but wasn't happy with the size so I frogged the last couple rounds and have increased it by several rounds.  I have about 3 or 4 more rounds left and I'll consider it completed!  I'll post a pic when I have it done!

First Week

Well, week one is behind me.  Twenty four hours worked in 3 days.  My fingers look like sausages and my entire right arm and shoulder are on fire.
I started a job Saturday packing automobile parts-car rings and bearings.  Twelve hour shifts, 3 day weeks.  
The hours are insane.  I work 4:45 AM till 5:00 PM.  I'm up at 3:45 to get ready (shower before bed because it takes hours for my hair to dry), out the door by 4:30 because it's a 10 minute drive to work.  (I'm lucky.  Some of the people I work with have hour drives and live just over the Time Zone line, which means it's an hour later where they live than it is here.)
The day starts with stretching exercises, then we're given our job assignments.  There are a handful of lines where parts are packaged.  They are coated with machine oil and delivered in plastic sleeves to the plant.  The bagger is the first in the line.  He/she wears cotton gloves to keep skin oil off the parts.  The bagger places each part in a plastic bag and drops it in a box on either side of the line for the boxers, who build their boxes then pack the parts in the boxes and send them down the line to the packer who packs the boxed parts into cases for shipping.   Breaks every 2 hours with more stretching at 11:30 before we go back to work after our lunch break, then a long walk from our work area to the employee entrance at the end of the day.  We walk about 1/4 to 1/2  mile just coming and going to our stations at the beginning and end of the day.
Today is my first day off and my husband sweetly let me sleep in, and just wants me to relax.  I never blogged much, but plan to try to keep a "journal" of my time at work, because I haven't done hard physical labor in decades.  This will be an interesting journey being 51 and starting something new.