Moss and ants and plants

Green Mountain Spinnery Moss basking in the May sunshine
I've been pretty much a monogamous knitter lately with the knitting pure and simple cardigan and you know what that means? Boring blog fodder. I cannot tell you how soothing this is to me. I guess I really don't have to sell YOU on the merits of knitting to soothe a tired sould, do I? No. I think you already know.
As I walk around the yard (blissfully aware that not one dog is barking it up right now and I'm enjoying every peaceful ear moment that I can), there is a lot going on in the bloom or soon to bloom department, even though I've had a moratorium on gardening for a couple of years now.

The Rhododendrums are starting to make an appearance. Welcome Rhodys!

The iris looks like it will bloom soon!


Columbine

Symbiosis of ant and peony

Make a wish!

Harold lights up my life

Harold's light at dusk:

Harold's light in the dark: (his hat inadvertently glows a bit)

Harold in the dark, funky style:

Dog days of Summer
Apparently, over the winter, many of my neighbors got dogs. Not just any kind of dog: BARKY kind of dogs. And they have been Kind enough to get a schedule going so that there is at least one barking/yippy dog outside at all hours of the outrageousness that is dawn-wake up hour, of course, picking up the schedule in the evening. The early evening to late bedtime shift is especially populare as we sometimes are treated to stereo barking. I noticed yesterday that there is now the proud addition of a howler. That was particularly gratifying.
Maybe I'll send Fig under their bedroom window tomorrow morning to meow his little heart out.

Let me at em. First, though, let me take a little snooze

That was fun!

You may remember that a while back, I did a picture blog entry about kool aid dyeing. If you look at that and imagine orange kool aid and no waffles, you get an idea of the process. I am still no expert. In fact, this dye job took the personal coaching of the Dye Guru himself. I had one skein done, to my amazement, similar to what I envisioned when I (finally )looked on the label to see if the yardage was enough for a pair of socks. Nope. I had to do another. Luckily they came out similar. I guess orange is orange no matter what. My kitchen smells sweet. Literally. My yarn is a wonderful color, and I'm happy. What more can a knitter/dye dabbler ask for?
Yarn Cam Closeup:

Ahhhh, orangey.
Remember Harold? The Gnome? Here he is in his summer home, surrounded by violets.
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE WEEDS. If, indeed, you DO see what appears to be a weed, it is NOT mine. I swear.

To the right of Harold is the Peony and Iris, to be bloomed in the near future. That should make him happy. I'll take a picture later tonight when he lights up. He, singlehandedly, makes my evenings.
DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT sneak into my yard and set him free. He may like to travel, but being alone in the world would give him anxiety.
~I have one more blessed day off from work. I guess this is a happy entry all around.

Pass the Kool Aid

Forgive me knitters, for I have sinned. It has been 5 days since my last blog entry.

Since you last heard from me, I've been knitting. Remember? This is the knitting pure and simple v neck cardigan in Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair colorway Moss (Say THAT 3 times fast!) Love it. It is just what I need right now with a crazy life in tow. And what is "IT" that I need? Plain vanilla. Stockinette, baby! Knit and think. Or knit and don't think. Either way, it soothes the ragged soul. Just thinking about following a stitch pattern gives me the willies right now.
The lilacs are sadly coming to a close for the year. This makes me sad. I did not get to enjoy their fragrance pouring in my windows because of the hurricaney flooding rain we got during the blooming time this year. These are the last lilacs to bloom in my yard. I will enjoy them while they last!

Wave goodbye to the pretty flowers!
But honestly, there is always this:

Who can resisit enjoying blue sky like that? I haven't done this for a while, in fact, I may be knocked off my sky queen throne. Can't have that happening. So, how's your sky? Look up and see.
This weekend:
~A long weekend, which is always appreciated
~the start of a huge, long awaited kitchen cabinet/new sink project. Can I get a whoo and a hoo!
~I am dye dreaming. It's Dave's fault. He had some orangey yarn that I fell in love with. LERVE, I tell ya. It sold, of course, before I could get my grubby little hands into the pot. So, I believe I will try my hand at an orange hand dyed yarn as I still have some skeins and kool aid left from Terri!
~I will (sadly) not be going to the Massachusetts Sheep and Wool. I know. Try to carry on without me.

Anniversary/Prom/Home from college: The day after!

Our home is full of happy people today, even those who had to find alternate arrangements to come home from college. Life is good today. And full. That's a good thing.
Here's a string of my favorite prom pictures. You can see that I love the unconventional ones.



I have to admit to having to restrain the tears and too many hugs or you know, the long perfected eyeroll would be displayed.
After prom, 4 of them went to the midnight showing of The DaVinci Code while still in their prom finery. This is the greatest idea I think I have heard ever.
Prom went off without a glitch, by the way. Bethany has stars in her eyes today. Or perhaps it's hearts, I'm not sure.
After seeing her off, Andy and I and our friends who share the same exact wedding anniversary as us went off to dinner. We celebrate as a foursome which always amuses the restaurant staff.

Andy (the smileless one) and me on the left.
We went to Dunaways in Portsmouth, NH. The food was divine, the wine delicious, and dessert? Well, see for yourself.

Mine was the frozen lemon souffle. Candles to light our day of celebration. Often when dining out, the portions are so huge that dessert is not even in consideration. Not this time. Everything was perfectly portioned and a work of art. I ate with my eyes as well as my mouth.
The best part of the evening was when we started to talk of future plans for our 25th. It's too soon to get excited but let's just say Ireland was mentioned.
Too late. I'm excited!

Please take a deep breath and read this as the run on sentence that it is meant to be: that is the kind of day this is. Fast and Furious. Ready?

Today is our 22nd wedding anniversary which marks the year that I am married as many years as I was not We are going out to dinner with friends of ours who have the same exact anniversary, same year we celebrate together every year and I can't wait it is Junior Prom night, Bethany's first ever prom so we must do the prom thing which is much more involved than I ever imagined with the meeting with friends to do hair and makeup and get ready and take pictures Derek comes home from college today we had to get a friend to pick him up because we could not fit him into our schedule can you imagine?
Is that it?
I'm sure not.

A good day all in all

Hip!

Hip!

Hooray!

Hope you have lots to hip hooray about.

Dave got a great gift

Look what Norma gifted to Dave! Thoughtful, no? Especially with the advent of the Trek with Me knitalong. I mean, what knitter WOULDN'T like to receive a yarn gift? He loved it. In fact, he loved it so much that he opened his bag and showed Norma the trekking skein in the same colorway that he already owns. THAT is how much he liked it. And apparently, he likes it so much that he carries it around everywhere with him. Just in case. I am not judging. I have been known to carry yarn as an emergency too.
And when Dave showed Norma his twin yarn, Oh, they laughed! How funny was that, really? A coincidence among coincidences.
I was standing there, minding my own yarny business because I did not have any trekking on my person and incidentally, Dave had not recognized me as the blue sky Sandy that I am, when all of a sudden, Norma turned to me and said (in a ceremonious voice, of course) "here. you take it then" or something to that effect. So, I got Dave's yarn! All of a sudden, I had trekking in MY bag. Serendipity at it's finest. Can I pick a place to stand or what? I mean, if YOU had stood there, YOU would own some trekking right now, you know?
So, Dave got a great gift. I loved it!
~~~
P.S.
Let's talk basement, shall we? I have lived for about 3 years now (or so it seems )without hot water or heat. And it has rained. Up until this very moment. It is NOT raining right now. I had almost forgotten that it can stop raining. A couple of hours sans rain and the water has been pumped out of our basement. With any luck, I will have hot water by morning and heat by next week. Is this a good day, OR WHAT?

The Good, The bad and The Ugly

I borrow my title from Carole for the day because it fits like a glove.
The Good:
Yesterday I made my way to the NH Sheep and Wool festival to meet up with many other soggy bloggers. What a wonderful day! There was Norma, Carole and Dale, Wendy, Dave, Sean, Manise (hmm, you don't have a blog yet?), Blogless Sharon, Maryse, MamaCate, Elisa (I'm still repeating, it "Sparkle Hayter"), Stitchy (who I regret that I did not get to speak with), Kellee, Amy Boogie (Who I almost did not recognize), JuliaFC, Laurie,Kathy (who may or may not be impersonated), PumpkinMama,Cheryl. And now my memory is failing me because I'm sure I forgot someone very near and dear to me so I apologize for having a memory lapse, but I had fun with you too. There is nothing like being soggy with friends to remind you what is important in life.

Snuggle bunny in NH. Wendy is in love with him.
There's a yarn story but it has to wait until tomorrow. It is that good.
The Bad:
If I say rain to you, you possibly think of a nice, steady dropping of water from the sky. No. This is not the weather that we have been having for 2 days straight, going on 3. It's more like deluge after deluge sporatically broken up with driving rain. There is a lot of water falling from the sky. So much so that I do believe I should be ordering me an ark. Or two. The ride home from the NH Sheep and Wool was not fun. Let's not talk about walking around in mud or skirting around puddles that could pass for small ponds.

My hands are actually sore from the white knuckle gripping of the steering wheel.
This helped a bit:

But they cost me $1.75. Worth every penny, I'd say.
The Ugly:
My basement

This is bad AND ugly, believe me. We have had water in the basement 4 times, including this one since we moved in 17 years ago. All of them involved extreme weather systems. All of them represent a bad, bad time of life. When there is water in the basement, there is a miserable husband. He does not sleep, paces the floor, walks up and down the stairs thousands of times to check on things and eventually dons rain gear and bails water out the door (Which I'm sure drips back in, but I'M not going to tell him, are you?) We have 2 pumps furiously trying to empty the water but it fills in faster than it pumps.
So, to get even uglier, we have no heat until the furnace dries out (with any luck it will dry out...again) and it's 45 degrees outside. We will soon be freezing our begeezus off. We have no hot water for showers. Stand clear, I'm beginning to reek. You have been warned. And I keep hearing things crash around down there scaring the life out of me. It's the floaty things. Things should NOT be floating in the basement. It's a bad sign.
Yes, it's ugly, but not as ugly as I am going to be tomorrow morning without a shower.

Join me in a swear?

Fuckin' A. I know. You don't usually hear that kind of talk from me. But just for today, let's have a potty mouth, shall we? I was at work (on break, come on, I'm not a time waster!!) reading Ten Big Ones, by Janet Evanovich. I told you already how much I'm enjoying the Stephanie Plum series and I'm quite sad to be nearing the end of the available books.
Anyhoo, in the book a character is trying to stop swearing and instead of saying FUCKIN'A, it is suggested that they say FUDGIN' A instead. I found this amusing. I am in a room alone at work and I'm giggling over Fudgin' A. The more I think about it, the funnier it became. And then the giggles took over. Soon, I was full out laughing, tears streaming from my eyes, worrying that I may indeed pee my pants. Not a soul around. Which of course makes it funnier. Funnier still was the fact that not one person found it necessary to enter the room to find out why I was having a baboon laugh attack ALONE.
Go ahead. Say it out loud: FUDGIN' A. See? It's funny! It was ridiculous, really.
Have you seen the quiz going around? Go ahead and take mine:
The Sandy Knits? Quiz. Can you handle it?
See how well you can do.
Fudgin' A!!!

P.S. I knit

This is knitting. MY knitting. Unusual, I know. I had begun to secretly worry that I had lost my will to knit. Nothing was doing it for me and frankly I needed another new project like my yard needs a few more weeds. And yet, here it is. But what this project has that the others do not is my attention. I guess I needed some plain vanilla in my life. Some good old stockinette to soothe the inner soul. This, by the way is the knitting pure and simple V-neck cardigan in some wonderful Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair, colorway Moss. I had almost picked out a wonderful blue color when the Project Spectrum for May popped into my mind. Hmm. Green, you say? Okay. Green it is. By the way, I own not one item of clothing, knit or otherwise in the color green. So, perhaps I am due.
Let's review. Knitting + excitement = happy sandy!
It's a good thing!
~~
A very special THANK YOU from Bethany for all the comments on the zebra picture. The day that most of the comments came in was her 18th birthday so you all played a special part in making her birthday special. I have been blogging for a long time, but I do think (between you and me) that she is still caught off guard that there are actually people out there that will respond to her mother's droning. Kind of unbelievable in an 18 year old mind, you know?
~~
Derek is selling his car, which currently needs work to actually be driveable. This family is not mechanical in any way, shape or form and car repairs add up to lots of money. This is bad, since money does not grow on trees. And if you DO have a tree that grows money, please send me a root. I beg you. He has a wonderful ebay ad that he worked hard on, so check it out and remember it if you know anyone looking for a project car. He has been very honest in the ad and I'm proud of him. I know. Proud over an ebay ad. This is the year 2006 after all! A couple of hours after he had the ad go live, he had an offer but the kid wanted to pick it up and drive it to Georgia and we did not want to be responsible for some kid stranded in the middle of nowhere because the car died. It can actually be propped back together for a short drive but Massachusetts to Georgia is a LONG drive.
~~
It has been years and years since I have been to a bridal shower. Today is the day. My cousin is getting married. I used to babysit him. If THAT doesn't make me feel old, nothing will.

Why?

Well. Today, as I normally do on Saturday morning, I was noodling around on my bloglines, catching up with all the knitters. The weeks certainly fly by and thank goodness for Saturdays, eh?
Remember Julia of Sisterknits? Her wretched disease has taken her life. She has 3 sweet daughters that need your good thoughts.
So, the wind is out of my sails for now. I cannot believe it.
I raise my knitting needles, Here's to Julia~ May your pain be over now.

Interesting zebras

Bethany went to Philadelphia last week on the band trip. This is my favorite picture that she took. She hates it. This was on the safari bus ride through the African Plains exhibit.
~click for big~
Zebras, obviously. Out of focus (which coincidentally, all of her safari pictures were). I think the out of focus nature of the shot makes it very interesting.
Like I said, she hates it. And she dared me to put it here to see what you think. So I am. She thinks that you will leave messages in droves saying that the picture sucks.
Will you?