Duck!

I sent off my request to Rachel for pictures of us today with little Owen, hopefully I will have one or two to share when she gets back to me. If my brother were here, I would hit up his camera, but he is not. I am home alone.

Something has been bothering me lately. Lack of people to talk to.

Oh, good news - I think the 18 month old size (the size I'm knitting) will fit Owen really well as next fall rolls around. Unless he starts growing bigger the bigger he gets. Would that be exponentially? Unless that happens, I think we're safe. (Although I'm going to try not to wait until his birthday to finish it. I can do this before September, folks.)

That picture up there? That's the last installment of the first bunch of pictures. I've got more sitting on my desk, waiting to be photographed (or, you know, scanned... should I ever figure out how to work that blasted machine), so I'll be sharing more. Although I'm not sure anyone else finds them interesting. Do you? Find them interesting? Not that it matters much, because I'm going to keep posting them.

Somehow on Friday, I ended up scratching the corner of my mouth.  How?  I never remember the ways I get hurt.  Such a terrible memory.

This is the Quiet

I've finished the back of the sweater, and am on to the left front. That part should zoom by. And then it's the sleeves. And then the buttons (which I already bought and then showed to Steve one day and now cannot find for anything - argh). The buttons I'm going to use are very cute, they are wooden and have a tiny checkerboard pattern on them. Subtle and adorable.

I know that Rachel likes the color, because in one of the pictures she sent recently, Owen was wearing a shirt of that color. Phew.

On Friday I'll be working my first PNO. It's an event my company holds once a month in Appleton where the parents of kids with autism (who are in the program) come to a dinner we host. The therapists play with the kids and supervise while the parents get some time off to hang out with other people who are in the same boat. It's pretty cool, and I'm glad my schedule works out for it this month.

Oh, and after they screwed me out of 1/3 of my hours, I'd be nuts not to pick up the few I can get with fun stuff like this.

Tons of Stuff

Do you want to play the cutest little internet games you've ever seen?

Oh, go on. You know you want to.

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I have to share this because, well, it's kind of amusing. Before Valentine's Day, Michelle and I and her children went to the store to shop for supplies.

On the way back to drop me off at my house, Bean asked me if I had a new house, and I said, "Yes, I live with Aunt Mary now."

Hannah took this moment to pipe up from the backseat, "You had to move because you couldn't AFFORD it anymore, right?"

Sigh. As my friend said, "Thanks for the salt, kiddo."

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I am still working on the sweater for my little nephew. I'm finished with the lace panel on the front, and now I'm onto the back portion. Then it's on to the other front panel and then the sleeves. And then done! Hopefully before he grows too big for it.

Knitting is stressful.

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I have some pictures of the art projects I've been doing at work with the kids I work with, and I want to share them with you, because I think they are amazing. They make me really happy.

This picture was made using the watercolor pencils I got for work. I drew the phone and colored it in, and then he used his fingers to "paint" with water.

Pea in a Pod

I'm sitting here highly irritated at myself for neglecting a specific instruction in my knitting pattern that I have been warned about countless times before.

I did not read ahead. I knit on, through countless repeats of the lace panel on this sweater (at least two, probably closer to three) and then read the fateful words, "At the same time..." Which means that I had to rip back what felt like half of the painstaking knitting I've been doing and figure out where I am in the lace chart, then figure out which repeat I'm on, then figure out all of the rest of it and AAaaarrrgghhh!!! WHY IS NOTHING SIMPLE?

I like simple.

PS: It's the Peapod Baby set from Interweave a few years ago. The pattern is free on their website, and I've been yearning for a baby to knit it for for a couple of years. Lo and behold, I have a nephew now.

Bread

Amish White Bread
I, like many people suggested, reduced the 2/3 cup sugar to 1/4, with great results. Mom, Dad, Bruce and I all approved.


English Muffin Bread
Simply wonderful. Crunchy crust, crumbly slightly sweet insides, perfect with honey butter. Simple to make, with only one rise. I'm going to make this all the time. It's that good.

If you'd wondered what I've been doing lately, wonder no more. I'm making bread. At least twice.  And cleaning the house. And making soup. And learning how to embroider. And reorganizing the pantry. And unpacking the spare bedroom so that Bruce will have somewhere to set up a studio/practice room for his instruments. And jumping on a mini-trampoline whenever I pass it, for a few seconds at a time.

I'm a little busy. And (I hope this doesn't jinx it) I also think that I might be losing weight. A little bit. I bought a pair of work pants from Old Navy that were on super-clearance, because a pair of pants for $7.50 is a good investment, even if they're slightly too small, at least it is if you're really going to try to lose some weight. Anyway, they're size 14, and the last pair of work pants I bought was slightly too small at size 16. However, those were from a different store, and I don't believe they were "stretch". If you've ever bought pants with "stretch", then you know how much that can falsely boost your confidence level. They fit like a dream, though, and even if it doesn't mean I've lost any weight, I'm going to let it boost my self-confidence and my desire to slim down (some).

I'm also really impressed at myself for making the chicken soup I made this week. It wasn't anything fancy (in fact, I didn't add actual "chicken"), but it was much more than I would have thought myself capable of. Part of my New Year's resolution was to open myself up to trying new things, things that are scary. Cooking is turning out to be so enjoyable that I'm having a hard time understanding why I didn't start this a long time ago. I hope the rest of my experiments turn out as well as the cooking. I have a feeling they're going to. I can't wait.

Also, I started knitting a pair of felted clogs (from the FiberTrends pattern I bought almost a year ago). So far, so good. Oh, and I started over on my hourglass sweater, this time with a different yarn. So far, so good. The drape is much nicer with the new yarn and new gauge. I might have to do some creative increasing for the chest portion, but I'm going to cross that bridge when I get there. Still haven't ripped out the old sweater, because it's much more fun to birth a new project than to bury the old.

Dishcloth count is up to 6.75. That doesn't sound right, but those are the ones I was able to grab from the bin at one go.

Too Long

I'm waiting too long in between posts.

I worked far too long today. An eight-and-a-half hour day is still OK, but ten is just one and one-half too many hours for this chick.

I'm on my fifth dishcloth since Christmas. They were a hit this year, and so my master plan is to have all the dishcloths I'll need for next year before the end of January. That way, I can knit completely selfishly for the rest of the year, and when I get to December 15 panic mode, I'll accidentally come across these dishcloths and remember my grand scheme, and be my own salvation. Hurrah!

That's not all I've been knitting, though. I've also gotten further on my Hourglass sweater (remember that one? Probably not, it's been so long!) and have an almost-completed Embossed Leaves sock on the needles. That's the quickest sock I've ever knit, and I think it's because of the chart. 16 row repeat charts for socks are the secret to me finishing them in a reasonable amount of time.

My joints have been aching, and I've been feeling very lethargic. I'm hoping it's because I'm fighting off a cold, because I'm really hoping it's not the sign of another flare-up, because that would be the worst timing EVER.

My coworker had surgery this week, which means she'll be out of commission for at least a month. Hurray for hours, boo for being sick while working them.

How To: Dye Yarn with Koolaid

1. Wash the yarn gently in lukewarm water with a very mild soap. I used dish detergent.



2. Fill a pot with enough lukewarm water to cover the yarn.



3. Mix in your koolaid packets. A good rule of thumb is one packet per ounce of yarn. (If your yarn came labeled in grams, you can use an online converter like I did.) If you want lighter yarn, use less koolaid, if you want darker, use more. I also added a glug of white vinegar to my water, just to foolproof the mixture. Koolaid is acidic enough that you don't really need the vinegar, but I didn't want to take any chances.



4. Wring out the yarn and add to the pot of koolaid water.




5. Put the pot on the stove, and heat to nearly boiling. Stir the yarn very gently occasionally, to make sure the dye is well-distributed.

6. Turn off heat and cover the pot. Wait 30 minutes or so, stirring gently occasionally, until the water is clear. (I found that using a white plastic spoon to stir helped me see when the water was clear.) This means all of the color has been absorbed into the yarn.



7. Fill a sink with water the same temperature as the water in the pot. Don't use cold water, or your yarn could felt. Take the yarn from the pot, gently wringing excess water from it as you go, and place it in the rinse water.. Be careful of the temperature. If it's too hot, wait until it's cooled off a bit. There's no rush. (The water in the sink will cool at the same rate as the water in the pot, if it's the same temperature when you start.) Rinse the yarn very gently in the fresh water. Wash it again with a mild detergent, and rinse with water of the same temperature.



8. Wring the yarn gently as you take it from the water. Hang the yarn to dry, or if you don't have a place to hang it, lay it out in a cool dry place until it's completely dry.

When I was dying the orange/yellow, I started by using two packages of lemonade, and one package of orange. After cooking the yarn, I saw that it wasn't as dark as I would like, and I removed the yarn from the pot and added another package of orange to the water, mixing it in. Then I returned the yarn to the pot, and restarted the dying process. It turned out just like I'd hoped - a light orange/yellow color that I'll be happily knitting some lace from in a few weeks. Thanks for all of your input on which color to choose. (But as usual, I'm a complete jerk and disregarded everything but my own whims.)

My, What Authentic Floor Coverings!

My mom came over today to take a look at the new house. We made indian tacos and baked apples and talked about how festive we're feeling this holiday season. We also played a half of a game of cribbage. It's funny - I sometimes get the feeling that Mom forgets that I'm an adult, and can do things like follow a recipe without instruction. She's not terrible about it, but I wonder if it would be the same if I had kids of my own. When she was my age, I was four years old. I guess your kids growing up is a hard thing to get used to for most parents.

Here's a picture of the baked apples. Don't they look appealing? It's not my sort of thing - too many things going on - but they look great. Beautiful, I mean. And my house smells great.

Here's a picture of the needles and yarn I bought from knitpicks.

Huck and I took a walk through the swamp to the lake this afternoon. There's a path to follow, and it looks like it's been well-used, but it goes right through the marsh for about a half mile. It was very pretty, and the deer skull we came across was interesting, but I think I would have enjoyed it more had I not just finished It and my heart had not been palpatating in terror.

The Cable Guy

Our new house has internet as of yesterday. Last night, you may have noticed, I participated in one of my favorite activities of all time - drunken posting. Oh, how I've missed it. Oh, how my posts make little or no sense the morning after. In the larger of the two posts from last night, I quoted from a forward I recieved. When I've been drinking, I sometimes think that forwards are either amusing or contain useful information. When I'm sober, I usually delete them immediatly after reading them. When I'm drunk, I sometimes forward them on. I guess I've progressed to posting them on my blog now. I especially like the way that I avoided posting the whole forward, instead choosing to make a blockquote out of part of the email and then comment on it. Priceless.

Our cable man came out to our house yesterday and hooked us up. Tomorrow, we are getting a DVR. With the DVR comes the Family Fun package and HBO. We're not sure why it's called the Family Fun package, but it does have some of our favorite channels. I can't wait to watch Discovery Health all day long, and Bruce would marry MTV2 if it had boobs. We're pretty excited.

I can't believe how much happier I am to be living in this house. And I'm not the only one - as I type this, Huck is throwing his rawhide bone around the room and prancing around after it. It's very cute.

In other news, I got my knitpicks package in the mail two days ago, and I'm very excited to dye me some yarn. I haven't taken a picture of the yarn, but it's 880 yards of laceweight.

[I told Lisa about this on the phone the other day, and our conversation went like this:

Me: I got 2 skeins of plain-colored yarn today, and I'm going to dye them with koolaid!

Lisa: (pause) Is plain-colored yarn the same as "white"?

Me: (pause) Yes. It is.]

Here's a picture of the different packages of koolaid that I bought. I think that I'll be knitting an Icarus with one of them, and I'd like your opinion on what color you think it would look the best in. Here is a link to the Icarus Knitalong (which I will not be joining, I don't think) and here is a picture of the shawl that the knitalong posted when they started in May. And here is a picture of the packs of koolaid I have:

I also bought some needles. I can now say that I own a 16in size 1, a 24in size 1, and a set of five double pointed needles size 2. I'm very excited for those, because that's the size required for embossed leaves. I can't start them yet, but I now have the supplies.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm off to watch me some Fraggle Rock.

Balls, or Lack Thereof

I just saw on the Blogger Buzz that they're letting people use Blogger Beta to publish to FTP servers. (If that sentance doesn't make any sense, it's because I don't know what it means. All I know is that I can just plop this-here blog down over they-ah and y'all can see what I done wrote.) I'm excited that I don't have to go through the major hell that Bruce went through this past week finding a new publisher to work with his FTP. (Again, if that's technically wrong, forgive me.)

My new knitting project!

I've done two and a half repeats of the ribbed lace pattern. While it's definitely not anything that would be a challenge to someone who's knitted lace before, it's interesting enough that I'm keeping entertained. I'm also happy with the way it's made: you start out by knitting the lower half as one piece, and then work up the sides and back when you get to the armholes. It's called "Eyelet Chemise", which if I finish it means it will be the girliest thing I've ever owned.

I took a few before and after pictures of Huck's special area, so that Jess knows what to expect to find in a few weeks. Wanna see?

I zoomed in on the balls so you could get a better look.

And here's a picture of what they looked like a day after surgery.

Good thing I don't have kids, isn't it? I'm pretty sure this would be frowned upon if he was a human.

I keep expecting the sack to shrink and not be all flat-like-a-pancake, but I guess I'm not giving it enough time. After all, his balls were very large, and it takes a lot of time for skin to shrink back from holding something so big. It's like he gave birth to twins, really.

ETA: I just looked at the post for the first time, and I have to say it looks a little scarier than I intended. I'm going to take a picture of him today, a week and a half later, so you can see that he's not all covered in gross and looks generally a little less under-the-weather in his nether region.

One Year, Fifteen Days

We signed the lease on the (amazing) house from yesterday's post. That's right, we'll be living in a pink house. Luckily, none of my boys have any issues with their masculinity. There has also been an executive decision on the part of Bruce to call it "salmon" from now on.

I've been calling it That 70's House. When I show you some pictures, you'll see why. I love it. It's hard to find a house with that much character. Bruce's office has blue carpet. That's a lot of character.

I still can't believe how nice the landlords are being. They told us that if we want to paint, they'll pay for the paint. If we want to put in different carpet, they'll pay for the carpet. They're fine with both the dog and the cat. We don't have a higher security deposit, we've only been asked to have the carpets cleaned when we leave.

I promised pictures of Huckleberry and his first snowfall, so here they be.

Sorry for the blurry, the camera likes to focus on the falling snow, and not the dog.  

Better posture is making my back hurt for the time being. Also, when my brother gave me a back massage at the bar on Friday night, he bruised it. I didn't complain so as not to look a gift massage in the mouth, and also I've always thought there's little point to a light massage. Unfortunately, that's working against me now.

I've started doing some stretches as well, to loosen up my muscles, especially the ones in my back. I forgot how good it feels to really stretch. If I were more new-agey than I am, I would say that I could feel all the built up toxins releasing themselves and that I felt more healthy already. I don't like saying that sort of thing, though, because of the high risk of ridicule. I'll just say it felt damn good to stretch, and I'm going to do it as often as I remember.

I also started knitting something, and that something is an actual garment that is actually meant to be worn somewhere other than a foot! It's practically a miracle, and I bet you can't wait to tune in tomorrow. In the meantime, cross your fingers that I remember to take a picture of it, tiny bit of knitting that it might be.

And Few Things are as Scary as Math

After finishing two of the socks on my "to-do" list and completely ripping out one of the others, I thought it was penance enough to the sock-knitting god. I immediately started the post-planning, pre-knitting phase of development for the Embossed Leaves socks for which I've been yearning.

I dubiously cast on a few stitches with my size 1 needles, knowing full well that the pattern was calling for size 2s, and also that I don't own size 2s. I knit a gauge swatch. It was the requisite four inches across, with garter-stitch edging. I was very proud of myself. Until I missed gauge by a longer shot than I thought was possible. I sighed, feeling very magnanimous, and re-cast on size 0 needles.

I knit another gauge swatch. (This swatch was admittedly much smaller than the first.) I knit on and on in plain stockinette, and yet when measured, the gauge was further off than the first swatch.

The pattern calls for twenty-two stitches! "What insanely tiny yarn was the knitter using, that she got twenty-two stitches in four inches?" I asked myself. Being of sounder mind than usual when contemplating gauge, I wrote down the measurements I achieved, and took up my size 00 needles. A few seconds of pondering how this might effect my mental health, I thought about things. I mean, really thought about them. Then I looked at and read the pattern notes. Apparently, this pattern-maker decided to measure her gauge over two inches, not four. It was no wonder that with needles two sizes too small I was getting over twice the number of stitches she noted.

I remeasured my swatch, and pulled out my size 1s again. And sighed a big heavy sigh. And knit another swatch. (Smaller yet than the second swatch, which was barely two inches across.)

With my size 1 needles, I can get 24 stitches per two inches, which isn't terrible. I crocheted myself a chain of 70 stitches (some extras for leeway) and got to work with my first attempt at a tubular cast-on. I have only a very basic idea of how these things work, having only read one article of instruction when I was very drunk and online at three in the morning, but I think I understand how it works. It only took me a round to discover that a measley 64 stitches wouldn't be enough for a baby sock with the gauge I was getting on my size 1s.

I decided to add another pattern repeat to my socks, but I feared that this would leave me with elephant socks. I contemplated removing a stitch or two of the contrasting purls between the leaves, but the idea wasn't making me happy. I like the striking contrast in stitches. I worried on this thought for a while, and then noticed that the entire sock pattern is sized for 7 1/2 inch feet, and my feet are a (rather disturbing) 9 1/2 to 10 inches around. (Depending on the area being measured. I have flintstone feet. Elephant socks, indeed.) Small work to put one extra pattern repeat in there with my slightly smaller needles and get a wearable product, I thought. Even with my very wide feet. It should work.

And I proceeded to cast on 80 stitches, using the 1X1 rib method* in the glossary of the magazine. This was hard (as all thing knitting are at first) to get a grasp of, but I appreciate the simplicity of the movement. If you're a fan of the long-tail cast on, I'd give the ribbed long-tail a try. It's pure genius, and it works the way my mind says it should - the opposite of what you do to cast on a knit-look stitch creates a purl-look stitch. This will be endlessly useful in my knitting.

I then proceeded to knit two rows of complete crap, because I only perfunctorily glanced at the directions for the first two rows.

Tomorrow, though, I'll be totally set to start fresh, and with a good set of notes regarding how to proceed. For once, I'm taking all of this knitting "failure to launch" in stride, and not letting it get me down about the whole project. I suppose that's the power of finding a pattern you love and denying yourself the urge to knit it for almost a year. My love for this pattern and this yarn is indestructible. Nothing can stop it, not even the dreaded MATH.

*

When you're casting on a purl-looking stitch, look at it this way. Instead of putting your needle over and under ONE and over and under THREE and back through the loop made by ONE and TWO, bring your needle over and under FOUR, over and under TWO and back through the loop made by THREE and FOUR. Make sense?

Lots of Stuff

First off, embarassingly enough, I don't have the slightest idea what Susan's word "teh" means. It's definition is probably in her archives somewhere, else it's a bit of pop culture I have secluded myself away from, but all the same - I don't know what it means. I get the general meaning, teh = tre, or or very, or muchly, but I don't know the specifics. Susan, care to lend me a hand?

Secondly, I have done the impossible in the past week - I've finished off two pairs of socks that were languishing on the needles. Care to see? I thought you might.

The first pair is a triumph of mine. It's a beautiful yarn that knits up to the most delicious tweed. It's my second pair of completed socks, and the first pair I'm completely happy with, largely because I altered the amount of ribbing after almost completing the second sock. I'd known for a while that the ribbing on the first was a little excessive, but I had decided to "go with the flow" with the first. I chose to start the ribbing much before I needed to, and it resulted in an almost ridiculous three inches of trim at the top.

I had knit two socks before this one, but they had been top-down socks - this was my first try at a toe-up sock. I chose toe-up mainly because I wanted to use as much of the yarn as I could, because I think it's beautiful. As I was new to the knitting game when I knit it, I wasn't sure how much yarn I needed for any length of knitting, and I started ribbing too soon. When I got to the end of the second sock, I stopped the ribbing after an inch or two, deciding to edit the first sock to match. It turned out beautifully, although I may go back at some point and change the binding-off method. I used a simple bind-off, not one of the looser one's I've learned since beginning to knit.

The second sock is my real triumph, however. These socks are exactly what I want in a sock - not too long (long socks annoy my warm-blooded self) and with the right amount of jazz. They're Jaywalkers, and the pattern is really fantastic with self-striping yarn. I have a pair of Jaywalkers already (the first completed pair of socks I knitted), but these are really much more my style. I love the stripes, the colors, the ankle-high-ness. They're perfect. I even love the pictures I took of them - one self-portrait, and one self-portrait with the dog's whiskers in the corner.

Thirdly, we finished Angel this week. Yes, the full five seasons have been borrowed through Netflix, and I'm pretty sure Bruce is never going to recover. Even though it took 128 pictures to accurately describe his sadness at finishing the series. He loves him some Angel. I'm not as enamored of it as I am with Buffy, but it's hard to beat a Joss Whedon series no matter what it is.

Here are a few shots of Bruce cracking up when I asked him to show me his "Sad Face":





And then an actual picture of the Sad Face, the Sad Face that can be when you don't yell out "SAD FACE!" in the middle of trying to take a picture of it. Bruce is such a wonderful happy man that Sad Face doesn't come very easily to him, and you have to be sensitive to that and give him time to think about something depressing, like puppies dying or There is No Santa Claus, or perhaps the end of the television series, "Angel", for him to make the sad face.



And you know what? That's the best thing about him, the fact that it's so very easy to make him laugh, and that his saddest moments are his favorite series going off the air. He can be cheered up by a simple visit to a cheap chinese buffet, and his parents raised him to be completely independant and not afraid of anything (except for a television series ending). He loves life, and the very simplest things make him exceedingly happy. That's why he's perfect for me.

Lastly, our great friend Cam is coming to visit us in the beginning of November. I'm very excited for this, and I hope everything goes smoothly for his visit.

Socktoberfest! A Few Days Late!

On Friday night, in the midst of a jam session of my new favorite band, Third Leg, and also in the midst of a good old nostalgic beer-fest on my part, I found an old friend of mine. Actually I found his blog. We spent oodles of time way back when convincing each other that german class was to be avoided in favor of coffee. I owe all of my german knowlege to the fact that some of the boys in that class were too cute to miss.

He just signed on for Socktoberfest, and after looking at my sock collection:

Can't imagine what's wrong with this pair, can you? Um, I need to fix the long one.

This was my first sock, completed in January. I think it's time for a mate, don't you?

This one is probably going to be frogged until later - the needles have crappy joins, and I spend more time pushing the stitches around the needles than I spend actually "knitting".

Anyway, I have a few sock issues to work out, as you can see. Why not try and finish up a few things during Socktoberfest? Also, I have to get some of these off my plate so that I can feel good about starting the socks I've been salivating over for almost a year:

Embossed Leaves (and Fleece Artist sock yarn! Joy!) in the perfect shades of green.

There are a few other things on my mind. This plant has pretty much been left to die in my mom's room, and I want to revive it. Do any of you have green thumbs? Can you tell me how to save it? I've run out of ideas after giving it a)sunlight and b)water. (It was left in a dark room without attention for a few months.)

What do you think, is there still hope?

Hmm, I wonder why my pictures are cutting off at the bottoms?

Ok, Ok, No More Telegraph

I thought it was fun. Maybe I wore you all out with the very long-ness of it all? But you see, when I started it, it was going to be a small post detailing how we were home and I didn't feel like typing very much because, well, moving sucks. Don't ever move. But then I got started and I couldn't stop telling you all about the stuff we'd done. And it went on from there. I've got a few things I want to say to friends of mine:

• Jess is back from Florida and is in much better spirits than I would be after a trip to the Sunshine State if said trip was spent trapsing from softball field to softball field. Then again, it was for her lovely little sister, and given the chance, I would enthusiastically trapse around any state with my little brother to see all manners of musicals. If softball was his thing, I'd probably be just as excited.
• Also Jessica has just reappeared in the US, after an extended stay in GENEVA. For serious. She had a great time and met all sorts of cool people. She and I had at least one very funny instant message session wherein she was very disturbed at her choice of debauchery, but I think I assured her enough that she had done absolutely nothing wrong.
• Another friend of ours has recently made a giant change in his life, moving from The Patch to Wyoming. Bruce and I are really happy to see him doing good. Keep your fingers crossed for him, but I'm sure he'll be fine. Better than fine. Awesome.
• We're really missing Cap. That's about all there is to it.

Lisa, Todd, Mason, Sky and I went tubing down the Wolf RED last week. Our route took us past the Noviciate, where there's a pretty big waterfall which we got out of the water to avoid. On our short trek across the land, we found a perfectly good inner tube with a not-so-perfectly good plastic tube inside of it, nestled in with a perfectly good cooler. All of that could be explained. (Eg: maybe some rich people decided they were flatlanders and were too lame to take the cooler with them, and were too dumb to detatch them and just left them on the side of the river. Or perhaps there was a random sex episode, after which they just forgot to take their perfectly good stuff before launching off.) None of this, we all agreed, explained the fact that they'd left their perfectly good beer in the cooler when they left it behind. Obviously, something terrible had happened to these people. After all, who leaves their beer behind? It was pretty scary. Even more scary were the flip-flops that floated ominiously at the bottom of the falls. Naturally, we took the whole lot with us when we left. The cooler has been dubbed, naturally, the Dead Man's Chest. Aye, matey, we made merry with the dead man's beer, too.

Then, on Friday, my cousin's little girl had her first birthday. She was very excited and very happy with the gift I knitted for her. I didn't get any pictures (Bruce stole the batteries for my camera to put in his mouse, and I haven't bought any since), but just picture Kate with grey fur and dark blue stripes on light blue britches. I was a little worried that Hannah might be alarmed by Kate's masculinity, so I gave her a pink nose and a yarn bow on top of her head. Oh, before you get confused, Hannah turned six on Friday. It was her first birthday because before now, her parents weren't of the sort that celebrated holidays. (Don't look so confused, I'm sure everyone has Jehovah's Witness relatives. Don't you?) I worried and worried that she might not like it, because it was, after all, a homemade gift, and not nearly as cool as a Bratz doll or something, but she warmed my heart but good when she loved it right away. Her mom told her it was "made from scratch" and she's done a good job of making sure Hannah is really appreciative. Wow, it was so great. She seemed to like it almost as much as the fluffy white puppy she got from someone else (she named the puppy "Princess", because she's the "Queen"). She named the knitted cat "Harley". It's not quite as feminine, but it's exponentially cooler, and I'm happy. Two minutes after they arrived I wondered where Bruce was. When I looked down to the water (we were visiting at the Lake), I saw that they were all on the dock, Hannah on one side of him and Phillip on the other. In the sunset it made quite a picture.

So, that's what we've been up to. Much wine was bedranken on Friday night, much chatting was done with Hannah. ("Now that I'm six, I'm soooo much closer to dying," she said with a huge sigh.) She informed me that I don't look anything like my mom and dad (which I knew) and also that there was no way that Robby could be my little brother. ("He's like THIS MUCH bigger than you!" was her comment.) The great news is that now we live about 10 minutes away from them, and we can visit as often as we like.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!