It's Been a Week

Shall I update again?  Things haven't gotten very far from last week, mainly because we spent the weekend visiting my family for a bittersweet weekend.
My replacement at work falling through means I have discharge reports out the wa-zoo which all have to be done ASAP so my supervisor can look over them before I go over them with the families next week.  This is my last week working with the kiddos, I have 2 days left.  Tomorrow is my last day with one of them, and that is such a sad thing.
Since my medical screening took more time than we anticipated it looks as though the entire move is being pushed back about a week.  Not really a big deal at all, though.  What IS a big deal is that my husband is telling me they may not book our flight out to Hawaii until after he has separated from his current command, which means we can't adequately plan for things like possibly going on a cruise from the west coast, or making sure we can get the cats on the flight with us (pet spaces are limited, and it's first come first served.  This is a BIG DEAL.) It also effects our ability to find lodging once we get there, and I already checked and the Navy Lodge is booked for the theoretical dates we would need to stay, meaning we may have a hard time finding somewhere else to stay with our cats.
On the plus side we have gone through the majority of the stuff we never unpacked from the last move and have tossed quite a bit of stuff.  Wish we had tossed more, but at this point, I don't so much care.  At this point I want the plans made and the hard part behind us!  I just want to have the move started and it feels like it will never get here... even though I only have 2 days left with my kiddos at work.
Now, to try and get some sleep so I can wake up early and get a report out of the way first thing.

So.Much.Left.To.Do.

~Katy

How About An Update?

I see I have gotten out of the habit of updating this thing!  Some of you may be wondering what is going on with me.  I know some may be interested in the move.  And at least once of you (you know who you are!) is interested in that blanket.  So, here we have updates... I will start with the blanket.  It's the shortest update:

I have made virtually no progress on the blanket since the last blanket update.  My size on the squares has varied a TON and I had to go through and sort the ones out that were just FAR too big and set them aside to redo them.  In November I spend almost an entire day just redoing squares while at a dance competition that I refused to compete in.  I wanted to go to the event, because those will be few and far between after the move, but I was stressed out that weekend and really just wanted to relax.  So that is what I did!  I partied and danced with friends at night, and spent Saturday in bed in the hotel room with the competitions on the TV while I crocheted.  I might have made a square since then, but I don't remember, I got started on Christmas presents, and then I got focused on knitting socks from a book I got for Christmas.  But have no fear!  I have NOT given up on the blanket!  NO!  I will be bringing every single square and every hank of yarn for the blanket with me as we travel across country and then hop a plane over to the island.  I intend to have an entire suitcase dedicated to yarn. While leads me to an update on the move...

It is almost upon us.  Yikes!  And yet, none of it is scheduled yet.  I have one last appointment for my medical screening so I can be put on the orders, so we can schedule our move and have our plane tickets booked.  Good times.  That will happen this Friday and once that is all set we can get that all scheduled.  What we are HOPING is to get out things packed and taken away the last week of February.  My last day with my kiddos at work will be the 21st... that's right, a week and a half left with my kiddos :(  Then I will have that last week to tie up loose ends with work, and clean the house.  Eric's last day at his command is Feb 28... then hopefully, March 1, we will be out of here.

From here we go to NJ to say goodbye to his family for probably overnight (I am HOPING to make it at east a full 24 hours.) then up to Syracuse to spend the rest of the week with my family.  After that... dance competition!!  I have to get one last one in.  From there it will be off to Ohio to stay with some of my relatives.  Then to Nebraska with some of my other relatives.  After that we don't yet know, Oklahoma?  Montana?  We have relatives in both.  Or we could go through Colorado.  After that- Las Vegas!  Maybe for a couple of days.  We will see.  Then, there is again the chance that we MIGHT... maybe... take a cruise outta LA.  It's a good price.  I don't see how we can turn it down, it will be our 4 days to celebrate both of our birthdays which he will be deployed for, plus an early anniversary celebration.

Then we fly to Hawaii... and get started with our new life.

Did I mention our cats are coming across country with us?  Four cats.  One back seat.  We got them a tube thing for the backseat so they can move around and have a litter box... Well... could get interesting... We will see!

~Katy

Scheduling a Tweet from TweetCaster App

Hey there!  I'm organizing a twitter bomb to try to get Zibbet trending on twitter!  Since not everyone who would like to be involved lives in the US (aka,they will be asleep when we do this) and others will be at work or otherwise disposed, I wanted to shre ONE of the ways to schedule a tweet to happen at a specific time.

I use TweetCaster onmy android when I am away from my computer to manage the TeamZibbet account.  I also use it for another twitter account of mine and have for a year or two now.  Here are the steps to schedule a tweet to happen at a designated time in the future.

 First, you need to set up the app, and select your twitter account.

To write a tweet, you lick on the button that looks like a paper with a pen.  This is the same if you are scheduling a tweet for later or sending it in that moment.

Type in what you want yours to say.  Pardon the typo, it's past my bedtime and I didn't want to bother retaking... anyways, you type in your tweet and once it is written you touch the top right where there are three dots.

This will open up a menu with the option to Post Later.  Dooooo ittttttttt!!

That will open up a calendar to use to schedule your tweet.  Just choose the date and time (I of course selected the date and time of the twitter bomb!) and hit OK!  Done.  After this it will still have your tweet in where you entered it.  I just hit back until I get back to my feed.

Pretty simple!  Hope it helped.

~Katy

About That Blanket...

OK finally!  I have been promising a blanket update for months now, and finally here it is!

I have a little over 100 squares done, making me about halfway done with the squares.  Of course, then there will be stitching them all together and stitching the edging, so not half way done with the blanket quite yet. 

It is going much more slowly than I had hoped, but the past week or two I've really tried to pick up the pace.  Hopefully I can get this thing done in under a year!  We will see.

I tried to upload a picture from my phone... for some reason my phone camera seems to suck, for no good reason at all.  I was trying to get a picture to put on instagram and it would look great on the screen then I'd tae the picture and look at it, and it turned out horrible.  I don't understand why it didn't just take the picture like it looked on the screen! I tried a few more, and here is the best I could get.  That's a lot of squares!  I'm clearly going to run out of room in the bag before too long.

~Katy

The Gorgeous Watkins Glen

I know, I promised an update on the blanket.  It will be coming soon!  But I am also 2 weeks behind getting my post up about what I did on my birthday!  Eric and I went up to Syracuse, since our nieces first birthday party was the day after my birthday, and since we are moving off the continent it was our last trip to NY before the weather starts getting cold.  Once I had realized we are actually moving to Hawaii, I was looking into things to do there and there's a LOT of gorgeous hikes.  That got me to thinking about pretty places I have been and the very top of that list has to be Watkins Glen State Park.  It's a beautiful gorge whereyou can hike up right along the water passing and walking over and under waterfalls the whole way.  And since I made sure to bring my camera... and take about a ZILLION pictures... you can take our little trip with us a little late :)

I was thankful that it worked out to be a GORGEOUS day, warm enough to be chilly to mebut perfect in the sun and after a fewminutes of walking.  The nature of the gorge means the path is wet the whole way up, and the area had been rainy this season so there was, well, larger puddles than in the years I've gone before.  So now to sift through the pictures and share with you the best!

 We have arrived!  As you can see, the parking lot goes right up to the entrance of the glen.  You go up some stairs through a hole I imagine was drilled in the rock up to the bridge...

 You can see my dad and Eric in the front, and random strangers coming down the stairs.  It was pretty busy the day we were there!

To the right of the middle in this next one is a hole in the rock from wherewater once flowed through.  Note it is nowhere close to where the water level is now, you can't even see any water in this picture!

There are a LOT of stairs when you are going up the gorge.  It's harder going up, which we did, but this direction you are looking forward at the waterfalls above you, rather than them falling from where you are below.  You just see what is coming without having to turn around as much.

What was that?  I promised you waterfalls, not stairs?

This particular waterfall was ROARING when we were there.  It was honestly a little scary being so close to the water shooting out with the path behind it.

Getting closer!

 And here we are!  Eric and I under the waterfall!  Note my sweatshirt.  I was still chilly at this point.  I should note I did see one other person in a sweatshirt.

From behind the waterfall!  I find myself very thankful that I got my camera at the NEX and we got a protection plan for it, which includes water damage so I could get some of these pictures and not have to worry about having to buy a new camera.  It's still just fine though, even though it got a little bit wet.

From next to the waterfall, you can see how the water shoots out!

From above!  I chose this picture to post of the splash pool, as you can see the way the water has carved out beheath the path quite a bit.

Looking up at a bridge that connects to a path higher up.

A first look at one of the puddles!  I missed getting a picture of the puddle so big and deep that a large rock was placed in the middle for people to go across.

And another puddle.  I took a bunch of puddle pictures.

One of the signs in the park showing some of the geological history.

In case you are wondering how far into the sheets of rock on either side of the gorge we are at this point in the climb.

Eric sat for a minute and found a fuzzy friend, which I had to get a picture of!

More waterfalls!

 A picture of where the water is calmer.  The striations in the rock are amazing!

All sorts of water.  Here on the left there is a stream that falls into the gorge with a shower like waterfall over the path.  You can reach out and touch it!  Of course I did.

And got pictures from behind it!  Of course.

Another little fall.

A close view.

This to the right of center was another shower down the side ofthe gorge.  I don't remember ever seeing this one before, we think it was just because of all the rain in the past couple months. It was particularly gorgeous from behind because the drops just sparkled with the sun shining down through it, which I tried to get pictures of when we got there.

More of the creek.  It's just so pretty.

A particularly large puddle.  No rock to help us over this one... had to balance right against a sheer rock wall with one foot on the side of the puddle.  And yep, that is my husband in flip flops.

At some places the water carves out wider or more random circles into the rock.

Ah here we are!  That shower fall, from behind.  You can see how bright the sun shone through!

You can almost make out the rambow shimmer in some of the drops farther down.

I did also get a video of it.  It was just that pretty.

The creek gets wide and narrow, wide and narrow.

I actually got a short video of this one, it's some foam that looks like a big angel food cake.  It was slowly rotating there in its little corner.

And here is that video!

They were waiting while I took an indecent number of pictures.  Like pictures of them!

This is what they are looking out over.

And the sign above where my husband was standing in the previous picture

The frowning cliff...

It looks like such an unassuming little creek.  Minus the sheer rock walls to either side!

More stairs!  There are hundreds of stairs hiking up the gorge trail.

Here the water flows through a VERY narrow section.

A railroad track which runs over the gorge.  There is a sign with pictures of how the bridge was originally built.  Basically, they learned the hard way that having a support in the middle of the creek was a really bad idea.  Those stairs are the end of the trail.

Stopped to rest half way up the stairs!

After this we took a bit of a break. I had a hot dog and some very delicious locally made ice cream!  Yum!  Then we chose to take the indian trail along above the gorge to get back.

Looking across to the cliff on the other side of the gorge.

Random structure.  I need to look up the story behind this. I'm not even sure what sort of building this was once used as, but it's a pretty color!

Another surprise along the indian trail... a random cemetary.

The look down from that bridge we were looking up at much earlier in the pictures.

And the parking lot, from high above!  There is, as you could imagine, a steep, tall staircase near here that brings you down the gorge to get back to the parking lot.  You can see how gorgeous this day was!  Hope you enjoyed the pictures and if you get the chance, head to Watkins Glen State Park in Watkins Glen, New York right next to Seneca Lake.  While you are there, check out the wineries!  It's just a beautiful place to visit.

I'll get a blanket update posted soon!  :)

~Katy