Friday, March 21, 2014

Birthdays, Books, and Bird.

I realized that I had neglected to blog recently. I’ve been busy since last posting.

Let’s see…

I had a birthday, and so did my oldest friend in the whole world (oldest as in longest, not oldest as in age) Nina.

We celebrated with a couple Cosmos. A martini glass full of awesome.

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I know, right???

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Ok, that was really after the actual birthday.

On my actual birthday I got to see a famous knitter and author Stephanie Peal-McPhee with my sister and my friend Julie. Oh and Nancy was there for a minute. It was Nancy’s mom’s birthday too. March 5th is a popular day for birthdays.

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Check us out with our socks! Her new book isn’t actually about knitting. It’s about her life experiences. The reading was hilarious. She’s hilarious. There weren’t enough books to buy, but she did sign a book plate for me. “Happy Birthday Sarah” it says.

And last weekend we went to Vogue Knitting Live. Well, I went to the market with Julie, Nancy, and my sister.

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This isn’t at VKL, it’s Stitches West, but Julie is on the left and Nancy is on the right, so you all know who I’m referring to without having to look back (because I’ve referred to them twice now in one post).

Angela was also there, up from Portland. We all had lunch and I didn’t get a picture. Are you kidding?

The only picture I got at the marketplace was of the catapusses.

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Yep, that’s what I recorded. But it is most interesting right?

Now, I am working on moving and getting back over to Nina’s for my last three months of living in Tacoma. I am ending the same way I started, at Nina’s. Only this time I have a pet.

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He misses Dave tremendously, and he can’t wait to move.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Eastward

So, I got home from Stitches, took a nap, went to work for one day and hit the road to Minnesota.

I took a boat load of pictures on the 2.75 days we were on the road.

I tried to edit because I realize that no one wants to look at more than 7 or so of your vacation pictures. It might be different if it was a trip somewhere awesome and breathtaking. But this is I-90. There is some awesomeness, but it can be captured in one shot, not the 8 or 10 repeats I took to be sure I got said shot. And filming from a moving car can be problematic. I blame Dave’s driving. And the fact we were one wheel bearing away from disaster.

Snoqualmie Pass. Which had been closed a few days before and closed a few days after. But not our day.

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Yay. Columbia Gorge. We made it. Over one pass.

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Idaho-and another mountain pass.

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Montana  (there was a scary mountain pass here, but I was driving and there was no way Dave was going to let me take pictures and drive-he was too busy telling me to “slow up”. So irritating)

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Steaming ground…

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Frozen trees-

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You know it’s cold when the ground is steaming.

Wyoming. Look closely---see that thumb like thing sticking up behind the rise-just yonder-That’s the Devil’s Tower. And when we got the clearest view of it? My camera malfunctioned. Jeesh. AND-we have never noticed it before, even though this is drive #3 and we have looked every time. But there it is. I’ll try harder this summer.

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South Dakota.

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Minnesota Welcomes You. But don’t park here.

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Me, in Minnesota. So blissfully unaware that 30 miles from Rochester our car is going to break down, and that we, our 2 dogs, and 2 cats, are going to get a tow, ride in a shuttle, rent a car, get to Laura’s, go back and get our stuff out of said car at repair shop, get pizza and then drink 4 beers apiece. How could we know that?

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I am wearing a boat load of layers on top, but my legs are freezing.

There’s a bit of snow at Laura’s house. She lives in the country and it’s quite beautiful.

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Beautiful country picture.

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There are also a few cats.

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Not all ours. And none of which had seen dogs before. May I just say 9 cats running out of one room only to see their first dogs is about the funniest thing ever?

And there is some sort of sink thing happening because I keep getting sink pictures. Jack is usally supervising said sink, and there is at least on cat in the sink.

Jack and Freckles

But it was this picture that made me laugh out loud. Really. Out loud.

Sarah and Dave at Laura's

Gawd, I am still laughing. This captures 11 years of wedded bliss in one priceless photo. It really happened.

And, of course, no blog would be complete without this-

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My blog muse-In person! Isn’t she cute? And notice how I’m leaning in and she’s like-um, please stop leaning in. I have 4 pictures of this (thanks Dave) and in each one I’m leaning closer and closer. It’s a wonder she puts up with me at all. Well, she’s putting up with Dave, two cats, two dogs, her cats, cows, chickens and a whole lotta snow. So I guess I’m the least of her worries. It’s no wonder she’s leaving for Peru in April. (We can still find you there, you know…..) Oh, and did I mention she brought Daube’s carrot cake for us when we arrived? Jeesh. By Saturday Dave says-I’ve got to get off the carrot cake. (There’s support groups and a meeting at 2). (Cathy also got me a mini chocolate Daube’s cake-All of which I couldn’t bring back on the plane, dang it. This is why I was wearing my fat pants last week and didn’t even realize they were my fat pants until the end of the day, sigh)

I flew home Sunday after a whirlwind type of trip-but saw all my buds. I didn’t, however, take any cow or chicken pictures. What’s wrong with me? I did get to watch Laura chase a cow back into the pen. But no pictures.

And no, I won’t ask Laura to take any either. (Although the mama and calf would be cute….no?) Because that would generate an eyeroll the likes we have never seen before. And I just can’t be liable for what havoc that eyeroll might unleash.

“If we weren’t all crazy we would go insane” IMG_2153

 

Monday, March 3, 2014

Stitches West, 2014

Jeepers, there has been a plethora of travel the past two weeks.

I have all sorts of interesting pictures, but I’ll start with Stitches.

We, my sister Martha and I, travelled in style down to the San Jose airport, and made our way to Santa Clara for Stitches West, a knitting extravaganza like no other we’ve ever been to. (We did go to Sock Summit, but a totally different type of vibe)

So, we arrived early and made a beeline for the out of doors to replenish our Vitamin D.

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Straight up poolside…..

We were intrigued by the giant lamps. Martha said they were very illuminating. She might have been a little tired…..

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Crazy, right?

Our room looked out over the new 49er stadium. Levi Stadium. We used it as our navigational beacon to vector us back to the hotel when we went for our walks. Because we had to have a walk. In the pleasant sunshine.

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Check out the ginormous mega-jumbo tron looming over the end of the field. Yikes. That could be a mean close up if you get caught on that. Please do NOT circle me….(a little MN Twins joke…..)

Street view-

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Yeah. Ginormous like that.

The other views were like this-

Sunset…..

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Sunrise…..

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And the room was like this.

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Knitters have arrived.

We took two classes and hung out in the market (huge with thousands of vendors---exhausting) and with friends.

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It was so much fun.

Martha bought a giant skein of yarn-I mean giant. (I am starting to see a theme here. Although at the time, I guess I didn’t realize everything was GIANT. Huh. How did that get by me till now?)

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Phone for scale-she had to have it wound on a special giant winder (again with the giant-the hell?) because there was no way our ball winders could handle this baby. Everybody asked about it. Crazy. It was beautiful Miss Babs yarn though. I was VERY tempted.

We took a walk on Saturday with our friend Julie (on the left in the group picture). Here’s our tall shadows.

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There were interesting cement murals of wildlife which were pretty cool.

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This guy looks a little sad because someone wrote on his head…..

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And here we are, enjoying the sun. Neither of us remembered our sunglasses! (Maybe because we hadn’t seen the sun in a week or so….)

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We figured out meals in the courtyard,

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And saw some beautiful flowers.

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Cool huh?

On Saturday in the early afternoon, we attended a podcaster meet up. I was so happy to meet Knitty Barb and Tracie, Brenda Casteel, Debra JavaNut. And to be able to hang with our friends Julie and Nancy was wonderful. We also met many other fabulous knitters-all so open and friendly-it was great.

At the end of the day Saturday, we flew back home.

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We were ex-HAUS-ted. Naps were had by all!!

I can’t wait until next year.