I have some pictures from the kid's first day of school. Even ones of Connor waiting for his school bus. He did excellent by the way. Not even a single tear... from him anyway!  But I have to get them off the camera yet, and I'm not really in the mood tonight. I promise.. tomorrow.

But I do have this ...

This is just screaming to be made into a bumper sticker.

I have to admit, that after taking so much time off, it is a little hard to get back at blogging. I mean, where do I start? Which activity from the past month do I highlight? What knitting project do I blog about?

Perhaps this is part of the reason why my little "vacation" extended itself.
But I'm back.. for now.. and I can't promise that I'll be blogging as frequently as I always have. Well, at least until the kids return to school anyway.

So what have we done this summer? Actually, not too much. Nothing exciting anyway. But, we did make a trip to Sandy Island Beach ...

(You will notice a complete lack of even a single picture of Cassidy. This would be because as soon as we get there.. every single time.. she manges to find a friend to play with and we don't see her, but from a distance for most of the day!)

Also in July, my spinning guild held its annual Summer "Dye Day" at Christina's house...

I didn't bring anything to dye, but after inhaling the vinegar fumes all afternoon, I couldn't resist going ahead and dyeing my holiday wool at home later that night...

I started out dyeing it "avocado green", but it turned out too much like baby poo. So I started a fresh dye pot with "sky blue" to try to over-dye that awful green... the result was, to say the least, very very surprising. I love the end result though.

And now for the most exciting news. The knitters among us will already know about Ravelympics, mostly because you just can't log into Ravelry without hearing about it. For the non-knitting readers, Ravelympics is sort of a take on the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics from the winter games, 2 years ago - but much much more organized. In a nutshell, Stephanie (the yarn harlot) had this idea... cast on a project, a challenging one, and finish that project before or during, the closing ceremonies.

Ravelympics is basically the same idea, but Ravelry forums are used to organize, cheer each other on, and see pictures of other's progress and finished items. There are even "events" for different types of projects, like "lace long jump" and "designers discus" (and the list goes on). Its cute, and its funny.. and its actually fun to be part of.

BUT... I held off committing to participate until the very last minute... the day before! So I totally missed the part where I had to actually "sign up for" a specific event. So no medal for me. And thats ok... I'm using this time to press on with the design of that lace shawl I've been talking about forever! I don't need a medal.. I'll have a beautiful, original lace shawl at the end, that I designed all by myself!

Since I didn't want to buy charting software, I searched and searched for an alternative, until I found what I needed. A font, specifically for knitting charts! And as soon as I installed it, I sat down to transfer my handwritten-on-graph-paper-chart into Open Office. I played, I tweaked, and did some more math.. then got started! I actually did cast on during the 8PM airing of opening ceremonies.

But by Saturday morning, several repeats into the project, despite the lace looking just gorgeous, I decided that my lace was too much for the body of the shawl. And that in fact, the lace I had spent so much time charting, would make a much better border for the shawl. I ripped it all out, re-wound the yarn, and sat down with my charting tools again and re-worked a new lace pattern. After 6 hours of more math and swatching, I had a new chart and casted on again...

Despite the poor lighting in an image taken at 10PM, I really do love this shot. Because I hope to make this pattern for sale as a .pdf download, I don't want to show too much. I am loving it, but I have at least 10 more repeats to go before I start the border section. Will I do it? I don't know... stay tuned!

After months of having to reschedule, Beth and I were finally able to make the trek down to Loren's farm for what we called, SteekFest. If you don't know what steeking is, and wonder why it might scare the crap out of a knitter, it is in plain English, knitting something with multiple strands of colorful yarn, top stitching the "channel" in which to cut using a sewing machine, then cutting it. Why a knitter would want to cut into knit fabric is very simple. Knitting multiple strands of colors is much easier knitting in the round, but you need to have openings for armholes, right? Chop Chop!

We decided that since we are all steek virgins, instead of risking an adult sized sweater, we would all knit itty bitty teddy bear/doll sweaters, and this way there wasn't a huge time investment if something went horribly wrong. Well, apparently my teddy bear sweater is hiding or mistakenly went into the trash bin during my last stash dive and divide because I was the non-steeking photographer instead.

Loren sewing her sweater...

Beth sewing hers...

Loren cutting hers...

Beth cutting hers...

And this is what the cut steek now looks like, all ready to have a sleeve sewn into it...

And when we were done steeking, we got out Beth's shiny new drum carder...

which turned out four soft FLUFFY batts of Loren's Albert Finney's lovely Finn lamb wool...

And and... then there was the visiting of the sheep...

We had a great time! Thank you Loren and family (animals included!) Oh, and we got to make the drive down in my new van. Huzzah! Now to read other accounts of Steekfest, see Loren and Beth's blogs. There are also several other pictures from the day in my flickr album.

Lastly, its Monday and that means music. I haven't come across anything new lately, but I have been revisiting music I've sort of forgotten about for twenty years, like this song...

There was a discussion on Ravelry's Lazy Stupid and Godless forum (of which I'm a proud member, obviously) about angsty music. I tried to remember my teen years and what I listened to when I was depressed and angry and.. well, I couldn't really think of anything. To this day, when I'm pissed off or worried, or nervous, or sad, I put on something fast and hard. One would think that to be counter productive, right? But for me, yeah, it sort of builds my anger, but before too long I'm dancing, and I'm happy again.

But... someone else mentioned "Dear God" and I remembered the very first time I heard it... And begging my parents to stay up late on Sunday night to watch 120 Minutes on MTV.

I obviously recalled my teenage angst.

I love this picture. So much.

So we got the blogs all moved in at our new host. As far as we can tell, everything is working just fine. But if anyone happens to run into any weird errors, please email me using the address over there at the top of the right sidebar.

I lack words. Mostly because I'm tired.

Spending nearly an entire day at a Toyota dealership will do that to a girl. But I got the deal we wanted. I was ready to walk, not once, not twice, but three times.

Who knew Toyota's were popular? (Ok, I did.) So popular that the dealership is "backed up", and we won't be able to get the van "delivered" til next week. Bummer.

I loooooove it. So much nicer than our usual Dodge purchases.

It is so hard to post after such a long hiatus. Part of me wants to sit here for hours and tap out a long update.. but I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to try to pick up where I left off, and get back into the swing of things.
Summer is off to an interesting start though! The kids finished their school year last week, just as Richard's office has decided to transition from maintaining a working office to everyone telecommuting. Great in theory.. and with gas prices so high, its a money saver. But starting off.. during the kid's first week of vacation, when everyday is barely managed chaos. Well, lets just say, we all hope to work out the kinks quickly.

As for knitting. Boing! is still in progress, though I've taken a little break from it. The Celtic felted bag is in hiding - I actually hated the pattern as it was slightly confusing. And when I hit a glitch like that in a pattern, I'm completely turned off. Maybe I'll go back to it.. I'm not sure.

What I am rather obsessed with currently is Lizard Ridge. I've watched Paige knit on hers a few times on Saturday mornings when we all get together and well, I was smitten. A weird thing for someone like me who tends to walk right past the Noro at every yarn store. Its pricey.. and its scratchy. But I couldn't resist any longer. And whatta ya know.. I actually don't mind the feel of the yarn. Its also incredibly helpful to my wallet when Beth at Sheep Thrills gives us Ravelers a sweet discount.

The pattern tells us to knit 24 individual "blocks", much like a quilt. Screw that. Too much seaming! So I'm working panels using the equivalent number of blocks. One panel down (left) and the second one in progress (right). I'll be making four total. I've definitely slowed down a bit this past week with all of the changes here at home, but I'm still making steady progress.. and I'm not bored yet.

And oh, Its Monday! That means Music!

Love Rise Against.. And love Little Boxes. For those unfamiliar, Little Boxes is the theme song for the tv series, Weeds (Monday evenings on Showtime) Every episode features a different artist singing the theme (see here for the most recent release). If you have never seen the show *gasp*, get the first few seasons from Netflix and catch up. Its one of the best tv series, ever. Fantastic writing, great acting, hilarious!

If you don't know what Loving Day is, read here.

Loving Day is an educational community project. The name comes from Loving v. Virginia (1967), the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage in the United States. Loving Day celebrations commemorate the anniversary of the Loving decision every year on or around June 12th.

I forgot to post about it last year. And while I planned to the year before, something else happened.

To borrow a paragraph from Devilstower at dailykos.com:

It's also a good day to remember that this kind of legislation, including the "Defense of Marriage Acts" now in effect in more than half the states, will one day be looked on with the same distaste as the law that put the Lovings in jail.

Now I'd planned to celebrate this day, much in the same way that Richard and I would celebrate our anniversary. However after spending the better part of the day at urgent care, I came home with a diagnosis of an anular tear in my L5. Pain patch, vicodin, mass quantities of motrin and ice packs. What a way to celebrate an anniversary, huh?