Random Wednesday

* Carson the Wonder Dog - I swear he literally flys instead of running!- was the dog who killed the baby cats a year ago when they were dumped onto our property sometime during the night and made their way up to the dog run. Carson doesn't let anything into HIS run! Except Briscoe. So when we had to bring Gilligan, the lone survivor of the kittens, into the house when he had his surgery to become a gentleman cat, I feared for Gilligan's life. He wasn't all that big at that time and Carson is a powerfully built Golden Retriever, to say the least. I didn't need to worry. Here is what these two spend the entire day doing:

These two are the best of buds. And Gilligan sure can take care of himself!

* It's going to be August on Friday. I know that schools start on the 14th of August here. At least the kids will be gone from the library during the early part of the day. I suppose I whould be glad they are inside and safe from the heat of outdoors and not getting into trouble out there in the world. They swarm in like bees as soon as the doors open and spend their entire allotted hour on Facebook or one of the other websites that provide 'hookup' ability. Or they play games - violent games - bloody, gory, destroyer games - vampire games - no wonder the kids (not all of them...) have no direction these days. And the only time the juvenile computers are empty is when they automatically shut off 10 minutes before the library closes.

* The Olympics are starting on the 8th of August....I have some problems about them being held in China but that's for another day. I love the Olympics. And this year there will be another Olympics being held during the same time as the ones in China - the Knitting Olympics! We are each making a dishcloth to represent the state we were born in and there will be a Parade of the Dishcloths around the Yarn shop at the Opening Ceremonies on the 8th. And the Closing Ceremonies will include a Parade as well....if one must be silly, do it right! Thanks to Lisa, the owner of One City Market - my favorite yarn store in the entire world!- we are going to have plenty of chances for silly. There will be several events we can compete in and even some judging - we've been advised that 2 of the judges are non-knitters and will be looking at the "Cute Factor". I might have a chance at a medal!

*Keep watching this blog for further info about a competition this Fall that is a hoot! I can't talk much about it cause Lisa reads my blog and she isn't to know details...Suffice to say, there are poles holding up the front porch on the yarn shop and teams are being formed to 'decorate' a pole. The public is invited to vote on their favorite pole by putting money in a bucket at the bottom of their favorite pole. The team whose pole collects the most money will win prizes. There will also be judging by local dignitaries. And all the money collected will go to a local charity to support at least one family during the holidays. I've put together a knockout team of myself and 4 other ladies! We've already got our theme, ordered our patterns, and divided up the work. I'm so jazzed about the Pole Competition...can't for the life of me remember what Lisa named it...anyway...look for more info and picture late in the Fall.

Ok...I've rambled enough. Thanks for stopping by....

* I know I'm probably nuts....but when I heard about the earthquake in California yesterday, I got homesick! I was born there and lived there for the first 10 years, just north of Los Angeles, and then spent 25 years of my adult life in San Diego....and I sorta miss earthquakes. Now, tornadoes scare the crap out of me...I think I've experienced only one hurricane (while stationed in the Philippines in 1979)...I don't think what we have here in Missouri or what we had in Rhode Island could have been classified as a blizzard...the only severe weather I really know about is earthquakes and tornadoes. Of the two, tornadoes scare me more...much more. So, I was homesick for California for a bit yesterday.

Two Blues and a Blow Out

I entered both of the above in the Webster County Fair last week. Each of them were awarded a Blue Ribbon! The Black, white, and red quilt is a large lap quilt and only uses 2 blocks with various placements of the black, white, and red fabrics to make them appear to be different blocks. Sorry I didn't get a picture of the entire quilt opened. the other picture is of Arnold - the overgrown pink mobius basket with the needle-felted quilted block motifs. He won a Blue ribbon, too.

Now to the blow out! Our internet provided, who feels it necessary to charge us double the going price for "high-speed" internet service just because we live just a bit further than the 1800 feet from the junction box, has been fiddling around, trying to figure out why we are not getting internet service at all since last Wednesday! Details are not important at this point - suffice to say, they are still unable to fix whatever the problem is...although their repair guy left a message on the answering machine on Friday that it was fixed ---IT WAS NOT FIXED! Those of you who use the internet on a regular basis - for email, research, word processing, email, games, email....you understand what it's like to not have internet service....it is torture! Pure torture. My DH doesn't use the internet much on the weekends and he has access at work during the weekdays so it really doesn't bother him to be without on the weekends. Me? I'm absolutely beside myself without being able to use the internet when I want to do so. So this is pissing me off! I hope they get it fixed soon...I'm about to reserve a rubber room for myself...I wonder if they have internet?

35 Years Ago Tomorrow

Yep, 35 years ago tomorrow I married my prince! While no marriage is without bumps along the way, and ours was no exception, we are still together and still in love! I adore this man!





Happy Anniversary, John! You are truly my Prince! I love you!!!!!

HodgePodge

Last year when I really started knitting in earnest, I took a class on knitted Mobius baskets. Based on the coreolis effect, the basket is knit as one piece but the handle twists and spirals, appearing to be knit on afterwards but it's really all one piece! It knits up really fast and then the wait occurs for the felting to dry. The finished product is really cool but only about 6 inches across. I wanted a bigger, more utilitarian basket so, with the help of Lisa the Wonder Knitting Teacher, we came up with the calculations to the original pattern to "embiggen" the basket. Here is the result.

It took 6 times the yarn to make this, even though we only doubled the stitches. I needlefelted the quilting motifs on to combine both of my loves. The two baskets are virtually identical, although different sizes. I call the smaller one Danny and this one Arnold, after their movie "Twins". Well, Arnold is at the Webster County Fair this week. He won First Place and Grand Champion last year at the Ozark Empire Fair...well will see how well he does in our local fair.

On another note, John had a minor bit of plastic surgery yesterday. He'd had a lump on his chin for the past couple of years that was increasing in size, slowly. On his last checkup he asked his doctor what is was and how to get rid of it. Turns out it's a cebasious (sic?) cyst and needed to come off. Yesterday was the day. I'm quite impressed with the precision of the incision and the neatness of the stitches to close it up. 9 or 10 stitches! And I'll wager there will be little if any scar. Mr. Wonderful is going to be perfect again! I love you, John!

First Harvest

John came in yesterday with his very first harvest of the season. His garden consists of 4 tomato plants. He has two roma and 2 pink girls. He got one tomato yesterday from one of the pink girl plants. ONE! And here is the evidence.


I see many more blooms on those plants so I suspect we are in for a terrific harvest a bit later in the summer - next month for sure. Pretty soon we'll have more tomatoes than we can possibly eat. That's why they came up with canning, I guess.

Humidity is down right now but expected to rise again by the end of the week. And I see on the weather forecast that we won't have rain for a full week! OMG! No rain for a week? What WILL we do? There was sarcasm if you didn't recognize it!

Sorry for the short missive today. More later.

Happy 4th of July

Just a quick note to wish you all a wonderful holiday weekend. John is in Salt Lake City for some quality grandpa time and I am here in Missouri for some quality knitting, sewing, and quilting time! Still in jammies. Might not get out of them for the entire weekend.

GOD BLESS AMERICA - the greatest country in the world, where you can wear what you want to wear, buy what you want to buy, craft what you want to craft, be what you want to be, or disagree with the government and not fear for you life or liberty.