sherriknits

Wow, can you believe it is December already?

I spent a quiet day at the yarn shop today.  We started the day with this…

We tend to get a little excited around here because we don’t see this all that often.  It made for an entertaining day but it was also quiet.  The good side of that is  I made myself do neglected paperwork.

I spent the afternoon working on this…

This is the 2nd square of the Great American Afghan.  It’s pretty easy.  I took the picture after I had bound off the stitches in the middle of the row, the next row they are picked back up.  I’m done with that part now, too.  I actually had started another square after I frogged the other one but had forgotten it at home so this one was born.  I’m kind of excited to see a stack of squares like the Dip Lady’s. 

This evening our snow is melting (although the lawns are white).  We are supposed to get wind and rain tomorrow, that’s more typical for us.  We should be getting our tree up tomorrow to satisfy one little imp.  The furniture is moved but mom needs to do a little bit of de-cluttering first. 

Eek.  The holiday season is upon us and I feel anything but ready to do what needs to be done over the next month.  I’m quite certain I will get in the swing of it all soon, but not today.  I spent the day in the shop trying to get Christmas decorations up.  I can’t remember what I have but I know some of it is missing.  Hubby, kind soul that he is, came and took down my lights in the huge window that one section had burned out of and strung up new ones.  He also put a garland around my door.  That will help get me moving along, I’m sure.

The little imp is a little bugged.  He has this clock in him that says it is time for a tree…every year on Thanksgiving since he was about 5 he will start telling us on Thanksgiving day how the furniture needs to be arranged and where the tree goes…and it is TIME.  A few years ago, we changed where we put the tree and it took a few years to get over it.  He does not take well to change.  It’s life, buddy.  lol

Well, today, big brother asked him what he wanted for Christmas.  “Tree”, he said.  In other words, things must be done in order and he cannot move on until that tree is in place.  Thankfully he isn’t a greedy little fellow.  He usually wants one thing and is fine thinking about it.  This year it is High School Musical 2, available on DVD for the holidays.  That is exactly how he says it.  When an anticipated movie is coming out, we hear the commercial word for word. 

I happen to know that one new brother-in-law stood in the freezing cold for half an hour at Staples to get him something he knew he’d love.  I cannot stop telling all of my kids…my own and their chosen ones…how incredibly grateful I am.  I know that not all siblings are as patient and caring as mine are towards that one who had gotten much of the attention for many years, something that can’t always be helped.  But not only are we blessed with wonderful, caring children of our own, but they chose life partners who also love and value him.  It honestly makes me cry, good tears!

This year our extended family did something new.  We had a breakfast gathering at my sister’s.  Here’s a little glimpse.  I really just included my own family because I don’t know how the others would feel about being posted here.  (I couldn’t resist one picture of cousins and little baby, though)

The little imp had fun at therapy the other day.  I never could get a decent picture and even tried to take a little video but as soon as I started, he got distracted and it wasn’t worth trying to do anything with.  It was pretty funny.

Have I been knitting?  Yes.  i just haven’t gotten any pictures to post.  Nothing hugely exciting.  I was really wiped out on Thanksgiving day and instead of knitting, I vegged out instead.  After the breakfast, all of our kids went the other directions and it was just the little imp, hubby, my mom and I.  We had a nice dinner but after I cooked and cleaned the kitchen twice (while hubby undertook a huge project), I just did not much of anything when I was done until the kids arrived to play games.

Here’s our Saturday sky.

About an hour after I took this, I walked into the kitchen and commented on the moon….I tried to go out on the deck to take a picture of it but when I went out there, I couldn’t see it so hubby and #1 son both went out and started snapping pics.  Ahh, the joys of being tall.

I want to say thank you to all the friends I have made on here.  Tis the season to be thankful and I truly am.  It’s been a fun venture.  I was a little leery of putting myself out here like this, but have found it to be a huge blessing because of all the friends I have made.  I wish you all God’s best during this Christmas season.  Remember to stop and be thankful for the good things in your life.  Remember, too, that even the hard things work good things in us if we let them so there’s something to be thankful for there, also. 

Does this sound convincing?  I’ll try again.

i.AM.a.knitter

I really had a struggle with myself this evening.  Yesterday, as I said, I started the first square of The Great American Afghan.  I thought it looked a little wonky but I convinced myself to not make this a stressful project by letting myself do the perfectionist thing.  However, I still don’t like sloppy.

Today I had so many interruptions and I watched Lauri pass me up even though she started hers today.  That was not a big deal because I was busy and I won’t make this a contest.  (for myself)  I also heard from the Diplady that she had finished the inner part of the square and was doing the outer edge. 

My struggle didn’t come from these two knitters, it was my own frustration at myself.  When I got home tonight, I was finishing the second heart which made the inner part 2/3 done.  It became apparent to me that I had skipped a row on the first heart and that was why everything looked odd.  I decided to do the easy thing and rip back to that (after a little struggle with myself).  After attempting to fix it several times, I was thinking about the first row that I fudged a little bit on (and really, it was no big deal because there is a little bit of stitching over the top of that row), but I just wasn’t happy with it, so before I knew it, I had this:

Now, this has become an all too common sight for me.  At first I kind of laughed and then I started to struggle with whether I really am a knitter.  I know that I am capable of doing things, but I think my tendency is to not pay attention to what I am doing.  Once I start making mistakes, I start to lose confidence.

I really feel like I hit a crossroad at this point.  Am I going to continue or do I just face the fact that I am wasting my time.

Suddenly, something started rising up in me.  Am I going to let this defeat me, or am I going to press through and become the knitter I want to be?  This afghan is a great opportunity for learning many new techniques ~ but MUCH more than that, I had to ask myself if I was going to choose to be a quitter or was I going to reach  for an opportunity to improve. I have learned that in many ways, knitting parallels my life.  Will I choose to push through the hard things, the hurts, the struggles, the things I want to see myself do better, or will I just choose to accept defeat and think I am who I am and I can not change it. 

I choose to fight the fight. I will learn the discipline of working with care and I will not make it a legalistic venture by putting unnecessary expectation on myself.  I am human.  I love talking to people while I knit and sometimes this causes me to make mistakes…but I do know I am capable of tackling difficult projects and doing well at them.  All I need to do is do my best.

That said, here is my second attempt:

The lighting is never great at night, but at this point, I need a record of where I made it back to.  I am much happier with it because I found that by missing the row on the first one caused everything to be backwards and there was another mistake I had made that was a simple thing to correct once I actually *read* the pattern.  And this one just knit back up quickly.

I do have a few more things to show.

I have no idea how to get a good photo of a scarf.  The color showed up better in an earlier post but I just can’t get a better look at it.  I have worn it 2 days in a row and I who do not enjoy wearing scarves really like this one and don’t want to take it off.

I knit a very few rows on the Fly*dyed Ruby Redmond sock that I believe will be a Coriolis at this point.  It depends on how the yarn behaves.  I had it with me at Barnes and Noble last night and knit while I read. 

This is the whirlpool toe and I like what it is doing to the yarn.

I finally remembered to get a picture of our Saturday sky.

Rain.

Have a great weekend!  I’m going to go look at Ravelry before I get myself off to bed.

I woke up to beautiful sunshine.  I knew it was supposed to rain today but it was so nice and dry out.  I turned on the news while getting ready for work and all I heard was … storm coming, if you have anything to do outside, get it done early; flood warnings; wind.  Living in the Pacific NW, it is believable.

We haven’t seen much wind yet, but rain we did.

In case that looks like blue sky…

I’m watching one of the last Mariners games…I hope  a certain person doesn’t have on her Mariners socks because we’re ahead!

Today was one of the most fun days at work.  It was busy all day (yea!) and I had 2 calls within minutes of each other from old friends who live out of town and were driving down and wanted to stop in.  Fun!  I also had some other friends stop in.  It was the kind of day I love having a business.

I did get started on my 2nd Lucky Lurker sock but didn’t get too much time to knit today….too much visiting. 

Last night #1 daughter and hubby asked if they could meet us at Johnny Rocket’s in Olympia.  They wanted milk shakes.  It was not the greatest of experiences but we had fun meeting them anyway. 

She and I ran to Best Buy and she got one of the new Nano iPods.  It’s really cute.  If you’ve been reading here for any amount of time, you may remember my horrible experience with my iPod and Circuit City.  Best Buy has an extended warrantee that if you have any problems at all, you bring it in to them and they replace it IN THE STORE ON THE SPOT!  Guess where I will shop from now on.

I am off to do some knitting and watch the rest of the game.

Before I leave, I’ll share the results of a quiz I took today:

You are a Knitter, with the capital K.You are never found without needles and yarn in hand. Your favorite place is the yarn shop and you can never seeme to leave without buying needles or wool or a pattern or those fantastic stich markers. Darn yarn fumes.Your stash of yarn is the kind that spills out of closets and is taking over the house. And it’s still growing. Beware of SABLE (Stash Aquisition Beyond Life Expectancy). You may need to bequeath yarn to people in your will.Knitting is a lifestyle for you, not just a hobby. You do it for fun, to make presents, or to cool off. We need more of your kind in the world. Go start a knitting club at your school or local coffeshop.
Take this quiz!

Well, I got through my first week back to work.  No, it isn’t bad…but I couldn’t seem to get back.

I feel like I knit a lot this week, but I have no pictures to show for it.  None. 

I am still having so much fun knitting socks in the New Pathways book, but I knit and frog, knit and frog.  The frogging is not because I don’t like what I knit, but nothing has seemed right for the yarn or whatever.  I don’t even care, I am so loving everything I’ve learned out of it and my admiration for Cat Bordhi continues to grow and grow.  She is amazing and she really has a way of fostering enthusiasm in everyone I have talked to who have bought the book.  I love her passion for what she does.

This was my attempt at Saturday sky.

Ha ha….I forgot until tonight.  It was a beautiful day.

We went to a surprise party tonight for a co-worker and I have never seen a better shocked reaction.  The room was full of people and when we knew she was walking into the building, someone swung the double doors open and she stood there with her mouth hanging open…walked in the room, mouth still open…she kept looking around in such a stunned way.  I didn’t know anyone could keep their mouth open that long!  lol  It was great.   When I left work today, I told her I’d see her next week and I was so relieved to have gotten through without saying anything, we’ve all known about it since before I went on vacation!

I’ll go to sleep wit a smile on my face tonight…it’s fun to see someone so blessed.

We got home this evening and vacation is pretty much over.  Tomorrow I have a lot of work to do but it’s ok, glad to have a job. 

We ended up going to visit my in-laws.  It was nice.  We drove down the freeway to the Oregon coast.  The first night we stopped to see my sister-in-law and I really regret not taking my camera in to get pictures of her 8 black kitties.  I tried to get one on my cell phone but it was too dark.  Had a great visit with her, but short.

We drove about half an hour from Portland and stayed in a rest area that night.  Of course, when we got up in the morning, the RV did not want to start.  It was getting worse and took about half an hour before anything happened.  While hubby was first starting to work on it, I made a not very pleasant discovery.  I had left my makeup home. 

I called #2 daughter and she looked up to see who might have Bare Escentuals in the area.  We did find one shop but they were out what I needed so I decided to be brave and rough it.  haha  I was really amazed, though.  When we got to Grandma’s house, I called one salon that advertised that they sold makeup and asked if the had BE….she said no but when I told her my predicament, she was horrified, probably more than I was.  She made one suggestion of somewhere to call but I decided to just let it go.  A few minutes after I hung up, my cell phone rang and she had called me back to suggest somewhere else I might try.  Wow!  There are still people willing to go the extra mile out there in this world. 

We got to Grandma’s about noon.  First thing the little boy did was to haul the garbage can up the hill….hubby asked him if it was already dumped…yes, he said…got it to the top of the driveway to discover no, the garbage man hadn’t been there yet.  They had one small bag in their big can, not like ours which is always ready to overflow.

We could not believe the growth in the area….houses on every inch possible it seems.  I tried to get pictures of how quaint some of the changes are but it was getting dark and the pictures really didn’t show anything.  We go there fairly often, but don’t take the time to drive around.

I almost missed the sun, amazing how fast it goes down!

Just seconds earlier it was so incredible.  After our little cruise around, we stopped once more to take a look.

We drove down to the beach again the next evening, but the fog was coming in pretty quick.  Here’s a cold boy waiting for Dad to bring his sweatshirt from the Jeep.

This is my Saturday Sky picture…it was beautiful earlier in the day.

I don’t think I remember being at the coast like that and seeing so many nice days in a row.  The fog came in that one night but was gone in the morning.

We had a nice visit with the grandparents.  Hubby found the problem with the RV not starting and now it works every time.  I have always respected hubby’s ability to fix things, but this time he really had his fair share of challenges to figure out.  There’s only one minor thing left that he wants to trace down…the lighter thingy doesn’t have any power and he can’t find where the fuse is blown.  We even bought a new thing for him to hook up….and he kind of jerry-rigged it so I could turn on my laptop on the long drive home but no go….I blew a fuse and it took the turn signals and radio with it.  He gave me the most detailed explanation of why, but it was lost on me.

He always tries to fix everything he can when we borrow the rv.  Our friends appreciate getting it back with all the minor headaches taken care of and we are more than appreciative that they let us use it. 

There aren’t many places along the coast to dump waste from your RV, but in Nehalam you can drive to the wastewater treatment plant.  I thought this box that had the envelopes to pay was interesting.

That’s algae growing all over the box, the spider webs don’t show.

We got to stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  Actually, we never get to actually drive by it because one sweet boy has radar whenever ice cream is around.  We did walk through and see if they were working, we’ve seen it many times but today they weren’t.

The place was jam packed with people but we did find a table.

Eating ice cream is serious business for this boy.  He and I are both pretty slow so we finished in the RV.

We stopped in Astoria to eat and the silly boy made himself at home.

I didn’t have time to open the screen window as we approached the Astoria bridge.

I actually did get some knitting accomplished.  I made another Tibetan sock.  This time I used size 2 needles instead of size 5 as we did in class…and I like it much better.  The fit was perfect.  I need to frog part of the cuff, though.  The RV was so bouncy on the coast road and I read the pattern wrong and knit about 12 extra rows…I couldn’t remember doing so many rows on the first one I made and I wish I’d have checked when I was wondering about it.  I love it, though.

I think these will be the perfect house socks this winter!  I hope I stay excited about them and get some made for the rest of the family.

I also worked on the Riverbed Architecture…am hoping to get a pair of toddler socks finished before some friends send a box off to Afghans for Afghans.

I tell you, Cat is a genius.  Each sock I make, it makes more sense and I am just amazed that she figured this all out.  It is so fun and I can’t wait to start experimenting on some of my own ideas.

Well, I have rambled on enough…it’s good to be home and good to be back in touch with the rest of the world.  It was a nice break, though, to not have internet access, I think I’d have spent a lot of time playing on Ravelry and every other little thing I end up doing…but I’m glad to be back! 

Have a nice Labor Day…I’ll be working on catching up on bookkeeping.

Before I get to my little story about my class with Cat Bordhi, I get to announce that I have finished clue 3 on the Mystery Stole.  I have one week to get through clue 4.  The encouraging thing to me is that I am going to shorten it and this is where that gets done…I get to skip from row 218 to row 303.  I’m not sluffing off, I am only 5′ tall and I think a 77″ stole would be way too long.  I was feeling a little overwhelmed at being behind over 200 rows until I read the fine print. 

Now on to my Cat story.

Our class with Cat was at 7:30 this morning.  We did not get much sleep last night so I was pretty tired.  My friend and I stayed in Seattle last night but we still had to get up wake up at 5 a.m. and we might have talked until after midnight.

  A class with Cat is always entertaining and I highly recommend anyone taking one if ever they have the chance.  We were there to learn the new method of “sockitecture” that she has come up with.  It is pretty amazing.  You’ll have to get her new book that is just out if you knit socks at all. 

Well, we were going to knit the sock double-stranded, which means taking the yarn from the inside and outside of the ball.  Wouldn’t it just be the way that I would end up pulling out half the ball trying to find the end?  I have many times been able to get the end with minimal excess yarn, but this time, I had this big tangle of yarn which was quite frustrating to me.  The good part is that the yarn pulled easily from it so it wasn’t all that hard to work with.

At about 9, Cat gave us a 5 minute break so I decided to run up to the 4th floor to check in for the little trade show that her class was part of.  When I returned, Cat was madly knitting on my little sock.  She was a teeny bit frustrated, but mostly laughing.  Evidently, she loves to pick up someone’s knitting while they are gone and knit on it and then set it down before they return for the fun of it.

She decided she was going to wind my mess of yarn into a neat little ball but as she wound, she got a knot in the yarn and try as she may, she could not get it out.  Therefore, she decided to hurry up and knit on the sock so she could hide what she did! 

Unfortunately for her, I returned before she had covered her tracks.  I told her I had totally forgotten to knit 8 rows before I started on the increases and she kept assuring me it was no big deal, this was a practice sock anyway.  lol   She just didn’t want me to find her knot. 

What was really fun was that I told her I knew she wouldn’t remember this, but 3 years ago at this same trade show, we were taking a class that was incredibly stressful.  Her suitcase was in the little back room, so she was trying to discreetly sneak through our class with it and she happened to run over my yarn (or string) and it tangled terribly in her wheel.  We were both down on the floor trying to free it and it was the stress reliever I needed from this (very poorly taught) class. 

So, I got my copy of Cat’s new book signed “I hope we tangle ourselves together again one day!”  My friend got hers signed “Maybe some day I will get to do some secret knitting on your sock too!”

I will take a class from her every chance I get, even if I have already had the class.  Today’s class was kind of similar to last year’s, but we weren’t able to share her secret method until her book was out.  I learned so much from her today.  She is so gracious and will take time to help anyone who needs it and teach you all kinds of fun things besides what she started helping you with. 

I forgot to take a picture of the sock before dark, but here’s a look anyway…

And our late day sky today…I forgot about it Saturday and today seems like Saturday anyway.

Last night was date night and did we ever need it.  We haven’t been getting our regular ‘down times’ and I notice it.  We got a pizza and drove out to our favorite place.

The roses are coming to their end but they’ll come back if the lady is taking care of them, which I’m sure she must be.

I took a little walk on the dock.  These rocks have significance to me and they’re really here just for my own remembrance.

Today I made progress on my MS3 and actually passed where I was last weekend.  I’m glad I started over, but I don’t care to do those 100 rows again.  I bet we get to do them on the other end of the shawl, though.  Hopefully I will feel better about them by then.  Everything is going smoothly and I’m several rows in to clue 2.  My hope is to catch up next week when we have a little extra time.

We figured out the strangest thing tonight.  We lose our internet connection at odd times.  Our daughter noticed that it seemed to be whenever hubby came home with his Jeep.  Tonight we tested it and it really is what happens!!!!  He drove away and came back several times and every time it worked then quit.  He tried parking in a different place and now we think that might be what it is because it is working better tonight.  Any ideas on that one?  We’re trying to figure out if it’s the alarm system or what.

And here is today’s sky.  It was nice earlier today, but this evening it was threatening to rain.

Hubby and I got away fairly early on Friday.  We got a 2 day date!  I think this is the first time either of us could remember getting away and actually having some quiet, down-time.  We got to Seattle in the early afternoon and checked into our room.  We went out and got a bite to eat and drove around downtown Seattle a little bit.  It was crazy….lots going on!  I took a few pictures, but none of them were really good enough to waste space here.  For you coffee lovers, though…here is the Starbucks executive offices.

I wanted to get a picture of the original Starbucks but the crowds were so crazy and we didn’t get on the right street because we were sick of waiting for lights to change.

We got back to our room early and spent an enjoyable time relaxing for awhile.  Then we had to drive over to Barnes and Noble to spend our usual Friday night.  :)  The difference was, we didn’t have to drive an hour home.  We of course had to visit Starbucks there…but it’s not a B&N Cafe as we are used to and we had to sit in there without anything to read.  (Although I have been to that one several times and never knew I wasn’t supposed to bring things in to Starbucks just to look at!  I’m glad I never set off any alarms!)

Hubby was pretty tired and went off to sleep at a normal time.  I could not quit thinking about my Mystery Stole so I got up and started working on it.  MS3 and I are  not on speaking terms at the moment.  What’s crazy is the this is not a difficult pattern, but why I spend more time going backwards than forwards is beyond me.  I decided to put it down for a few days.  I was up until 2 working on it!!!!

In the morning we went to breakfast and actually just sat around the room until 11!  We can’t ever think of a time we just did that rather than being out and about and barely seeing the room.  It was great! 

Then it all kind of changed.  lol.  I realized I did not bring any mindless knitting with me and we were going to have lots of time to kill at the stadium before the concert.  Soooooo….I looked up several yarn shops in the phone book and told hubby just one was fine for me to stop at.  He wanted to figure out the parking at the stadium….but he said we had more than enough time to do that.  Well, we ended up way off track on the first shop and had to call #1 son for driving directions.  Since we wasted so much time driving through residential streets trying to figure out what in the world we were doing….it was getting a bit tense.  I also asked for directions to another shop.  That seemed easier so we switched plans and headed to that one.  Wouldn’t you know it?  It was downtown close to where we needed to be…but no parking.  Hubby dropped me off.  I won’t say much about the shop … I was so excited to go there but I had a really hard time finding some sock yarn (do love what I ended up with) and needles..and they didn’t seem to  understand that when I said hubby is driving around the block and I need this wound quickly please that I needed to get out of there.  I was feeling sick over it because it took so long at every light and I knew if he had to go around too many times it was going to be stressful.  He finally appeared in the shop (BEFORE they started winding my yarn) and told me not to worry.  The shop was cute, though.

We then drove to Qwest Field.  We have gone to enough Mariner’s games that we knew where to look for free parking and it’s a good thing we decided to do this hours before the concert.  People were already heading to the stadium.  We didn’t have to walk far at all.  In fact where we parked by a business, they were renting their lot for $20 a space. 

It was hot, hot, hot.  We walked around outside looking at all the fun stuff.  They were giving out free hot dogs, water, and pop by the Brooks and Dunn truck.  We’d just eaten, but stood in line for water, it ran out right before us and we tried a Jones diet cola…not bad for free. 

We got in line as a crowd started forming since we’d been told they’d open the gates at 2:30.  Thankfully we’d bought water but it was so hot and I almost finished mine.  For some reason, hubby didn’t open his.  We stood there baking and by the time they opened the doors at 3…we were all pretty hot, but in good spirits.  I had to throw out the rest of my water because it was open, but he got to keep his.  Our tickets were on the 3rd level and hubby said we should just walk up rather than find an elevator.  I think he might have regretted that decision later!

It’s a long walk when you’re hot and tired.  He wanted to walk around a bit but for some reason, I got concerned about our seats.  I am horribly afraid of heights.  He said he thinks all reason left me.  lol  

I wanted to go find our seats and let me tell you…they pointed up the highest section and said follow the alphabet until the double letters started, then find our seats  (we were ii)  As he started climbing, I fought panic but stuck with him.  Gosh… 35 rows up and it was already high.  I’m not sure if it was good that there was really no one else there yet or not.  Here is our view:

Please note the fact that the roof is hanging right over us.  I managed to take this picture after I finished bawling from being so freaked out.   I do have to laugh.  Poor hubby had a permanent crease in his shirt from me grabbing it when I felt like I’d spill out of the seat.  It really IS better when there are people sitting in front of you.  He is so patient and talked me back to rational thinking.  I was trying to figure out how in the world I was going to get back down, though, I didn’t think he’d enjoy seeing me crawl or go down backwards.  LOL

I was more than grateful for sock yarn at that point.

Sorry it’s blurry but I was not done shaking yet.  I don’t know how I managed to get that much knit, but by then people were coming up and I felt more secure in my seat.

A little aside, I am sick of this kind of thing ruling my life.  I had to rationalize my thoughts and looked around at everyone else laughing at how high they were and actually run down the steps.  If I believe God is in control, then I need to act like it even when I don’t feel like it.  I hope that’s progress.

Hubby really wanted to go walk around and convinced me that to sit in that seat from 3 until 11:30 pm was not very feasible.  Down we went.  I can do it easily if someone is walking in front of me.  We enjoyed roaming around but there is something I totally regret.  There were seats outside the food area that we think now were not ticketed seats and we could have easily had one!  I was kind of ticked that our tickets were NOT the cheapest ones and I couldn’t see how any seat there could be any worse than what we had.  I later met a lady who spent even more than we did and she was on the other side in about the same place.

This plane flew in circles around Qwest Field for hours. Someday I will think to zoom in so you can actually see what I’m trying to get a picture of.  It said “KC 2nite  and the name of the radio station”

When we made the climb back up, I told hubby I wasn’t going to do that again.  It was too much in the heat.  I would rather stand than climb all those steps again.  We stayed up there for 1 1/2 groups and then he wanted to go get dinner.  We took all of our stuff and ate down there and then found a great place to stand.  It’s good it was great (although it was behind those seats that we could have had) because we stood there for over 3 1/2 hours!  My legs ached so bad all the way home and all day today. 

We went to see Kenny Chesney but enjoyed much of the rest of it.  What I forget about events like this is that many people get pretty rowdy and it can get a bit much to deal with when they start knocking in to you.  It was still fun. Hubby was a professional musician when we got married and he just loves all the lights and equipment and everything about the production.  All our friends laughed when they heard what we were going to…because now all hubby does is worship music but that part of him will always be there to see the big show so the kids gave him tickets to The Flip Flop Summer tour.  Here he is looking at all the equipment down below where he wishes he could have walked.

 
We loved when Brooks and Dunn did “Only in America”….they had several video screens behind them of differnt flags, and then at the end of the song, different members of the military came out and stood across the stage.  I’d have gotten a picture but they got a standing ovation and it was way too cool to think about taking pictures.  Hubby sang that song at church several years ago when the whole worship team wore cowboy hats and stood behind a scrim so we could only see the outlines and red, white and blue shirts. 

Anyway…Kenny Chesney really knows how to put on a show and appreciate his audience.  I love that.  Look how beautiful it was.  (my Saturday sky picture)

See that bright spot down on the floor?  Here’s a closeup.  He came up out of the stage and played for a little while. 

 It’s pretty awesome seeing a show like this.  Outside, warm…lots of energy.

At the end, he signed a guitar and gave it to a little girl in the audience. 

When it was all over, the crush of people leaving was incredible.  We walked down the ramp and hubby had someone step on the back of his sandal and loosen the strap.  If he’d tried to stop and fix it, there would have been a domino effect of people falling so we just kept moving.  I tried to take a picture on the last round before we hit the street…the camera was over my head and I just clicked…and missed the mass of people, but you get the idea.

We got home at 1:30.  Hubby had to be at church by 7:30 this morning and the middle kids were playing on the worship team this morning also so they had to be there early too.  This left the little imp and I home to get there by the time 2nd service started.  I got up at 8 and could not believe how bad my legs hurt.  When I decided we should start getting dressed and maybe make it to first service so we could have the rest of the day home…I couldn’t find the little guy.  He was asleep in our bed after getting up around 6!  He slept until 11:30 and I gave up and zoned out on the couch.  That’s a rare occurrence but I just didn’t have it in me to drag him out of bed, get him dressed (tons of verbal reminders) and figure out how to get myself ready too. 

The day was relaxing.  I worked on my new sock yarn a bit.  Can you guess what it is?

Pretty, eh?

Before  I show you…here is the boy doing his sprinkler imitation.  LOL  Big sis didn’t get the whole picture, but you see the fun he has.

Here’s hubby convincing me he should go to Stitch n Pitch on July 26 to see the Mariners…

He didn’t want me to put this on here … but then said I could.  He’d been sleeping and had put my knitting on his chest so he didn’t mess it up.  I asked him if he was knitting and he showed me he was.

Here’s the evidence that I did the work.

The daughter was taking pictures of me unbeknownst to me and I am not sure I really even combed my hair today so this is all you get to see.

And here is what I’m making.

If you’re still here after such a long post, thanks for sticking it out.   I’m finally making a Jaywalker sock…a few years behind everyone else.

ps.  My computer has been repaired and should be home Tuesday!!!!  No word on that blessed iPod.

Today is the first day I feel like I’m getting back to normal.  Wow, a wedding is a lot of work!

Today wasn’t really warm, but it was a nice day.  I guess we stand the chance of rain tomorrow, then warm weather returns.  This isn’t  unusual for us this time of year.

I’ve been working on the Mystery Stole off and on for most of the day.  It beats me how some people actually had it done early yesterday.  I’ve found that if I do a row more than 2 times, the yarn starts turning dark.  I’m not sure if it’s the needles or what but I’m sure it will wash out.  I haven’t had too much trouble at all with the pattern, mostly just paying attention because I did a lot of visiting today.  My poor freind was trying to start a square shawl from the center and after living through the weird cast on (which ended up pretty nice), she kept twisting the needles when she had 2 on each of 4 needles.  It made mine look like a breeze!

I’m using lifelines from the beginning this time.  I just cannot get the beads to show in a picture.  They don’t show a lot but when the setting sun hits them, they are really pretty.  I’m sure it will show more when I get farther along and more beads.  This is a perfect introduction to bead knitting because there aren’t too many so it doesn’t slow you up a lot.  I feel pretty confident now in adding them with the crochet hook.  I’m on row 59 of 100 rows for this week’s clue.

The honeymooners made it to their destination at 10 a.m.  They texted me and said they were exhausted after flying all night and couldn’t get their room until 3:30 or 4.  That’s tough.  Arriving that way really causes them to lose a whole day but since they have the all-inclusive package, they can have room service all they want so if they get hungry in the middle of the night I guess they can call for food.  Who knows, I’ve never done anything like that!