Wine and Races

Last week was busy as usual. It seems I always say that at the beginning of every blog. But it really was. It was busy after work busy, which, being the hermit that I am, usually doesn’t happen. But it did-twice.

Wednesday night I went to embroidery club at Pine Needles, only to discover that the embroidery thread guide on my bobbin case was missing. Missing! What? How? If you could see it you’d think-what the heck too. I was just saying how much I love my machine and have never had any problems. Then, suddenly and without warning, I lost this microscopic piece of hardware. And, the way microscopic things go, it’s a very expensive piece. Sigh. Oh well. If it’s not covered under warranty, then it’ll just have to be the repair that lines up after my new tires (October) and Vegas (November) and the holidays (December). Maybe then.

So, I left my machine there (insert sad face here-although I do have two other machines at home, I am a wee bit spoilt by this one).

Thursday night was wine night at Angie’s. (I do so love me some Angie-can’t wait for Vegas…but that’s for another blog)

There were several girls over

Somehow, Angie got left out of that picture-but recognize Laura, the ever present blog muse? She has become a required element of posting. (It’s sort of like the Where’s Waldo of my blog. Hey-I just realized that. I could make a little Laura contest, like spot the Pineapple on Psych. I could hide Laura all over the place, the possibilities are endless…..

Really, what does this have to do with the story at hand? Jeesh. Ok, back to wine night)

There, Angie’s back in a blur, and Ali is being, well, Ali. Yep.

The crap camera couldn’t see the wine and blurred all the labels, or was that me? Wait, no, it was not me. I am sure I had the wrong settings on the crapster. I really have a hate-hate relationship with that sucker. But I did get a book all about Photoshop and am hoping in the next couple of months to be able to really make my pictures look good, in spite of crappy equipment.

But back to wine night (I’m whining, but not about the night). It was lots of fun and I am dying to get back to Angie’s for a little wine slumber party. That would be a blast, except knowing me I’d last until about 9:30!

We had some nice sunrise skies this week. So I ran out and took a picture of the sky.

Saturday Mary B and I took off to Minneapolis and our yearly girls weekend out. We hit the Mall of America and spent about 3 or so hours looking around. I bought some chocolate covered espresso beans because I was saving up for yarn on Sunday….

….which was race day for the Women Run the Cities 10 miler. Cathy B came up in the AM and we all had a bit of a race going. Cathy was first in line, of course, closely (I’d like to dream) followed by me, and Mary brought up the rear. It was a perfect day for a race.

Cathy and I at the finish

Nice hair, huh?

 

Mary finishing.

I am not sure what Mary was thinking when she finished. I am in my smart glasses-

This picture cracks me up.

And the three wonder women after 10 miles.

Interestingly, each of us is exactly 10 years apart. WooHoo for the us.

That was fun, and, as usual, can’t wait till next year.

On the way home, I stopped at What in Yarnation and picked up about a hundred bones worth of yarn. How sweet if it had all been for me. Alas, it’s for our yarn group and the next Skacel Kal. We meet on Sunday to sort it all out.

And then I returned home to rest, relax, and have a little Coldstone ice cream, just because.

 

Tree Schizophrenia

Conversation with Dave

me: Dave, you are so lazy (I am saying this whilst he is resting himself in pillowtopia)

Dave: No I’m not.

me: Yes you are. How many times have you thought this-

Two nights later

Dave: (again in pillowtopia) Look, I don’t even have to point the remote, I have it all set up right here. Now if I only didn’t have to move my finger.

I rest my case

In other news

I took Trixie to the vet to have a lump removed on the same morning we had frost.

 

That’s  Trixie, frost and frost in case you couldn’t tell. Trixie was pretty hyped to get her lump removed. She’s been thinking it makes her look fat for quite some time.

I worked last weekend and noticed, behind the building, that this tree is half yellow and half green-tree schizophrenia. I guess getting into the season isn’t as easy as I thought.

The knitting group finally met on Sunday at Dunn Brothers, and came up with our Ravelry Group, Dunn Brothers at Two. Aren’t we original. Come visit if you are on Ravelry. Of course, it won’t mean much if you aren’t in the group. But lots of members is a bit of a status symbol.

That’s all for tonight. I have been so busy with little time off. I am working like mad to get the Log Cabin/Stars quilt cut, we are starting a new knitting KAL, I was spinning until midnight on Saturday, I am going to the cities this weekend, I have to finish my socks this week, oh, and I work every day. I swore I’d get more pictures this week but shoot, it slipped my mind in-between thinking of all these other things.

It was my parents 61st anniversary on the 16th. Happy Anniversary!

 

No News

Could be good news. I don’t have much news this week. Work, home, work.

I did share a little Packer love on Thursday.

I have to admit to a little fanball crush on Aaron. I wasn’t so keen on his weird mustache thing going on in the off season. And his girlfriend, just a little on the skank side, but hey, he’s young and rich and well, you know.

So, back in the slow lane known as my life, the weather has been fab, but we are on the last day of the upper 80 degree dry weather.

It’s getting less green out there, and we are on the way to a cooling off.

I got a new purse last week. It’s quite the purse. It was given to me and I actually really like it.

 

Gucci knock off? It’s big. I wanted to take the image off this picture and put it on another background but I just don’t know how to work my Photoshop. So I instantly went to Amazon and ordered me up a new book so I can finally figure out how to use it all. But, in the meantime, I got me a sweet purse. And big. I can easily fit some knitting in there.

This past weekend was VIP at Pine Needles so I went and I saw some pretty cool projects which Marsha and Suzie displayed.

 

Suzie and the bag.

I also finished the mystery quilt for retreat. But because it’s a mystery I can’t show you the whole thing-I’ll just give a little bitty hint.

It’s not too bad to put together, if you follow the instructions……don’t ask. (It was actually Dave that noticed the problem, thankfully BEFORE I put it together). I blamed the poor quality of the copy I had to work with. Certainly it wasn’t me.

Lastly, a couple of weeks ago Gramma’s got a new oven and cooktop.

You can sort of see the old, 1960 vintage ovens in this crazy picture-

Let me zoom in for you

Yea, well, the pulled them out like this

 

And put in these sweet Jenn Aire models. New ovens and cooktop. Maybe now when I cook there the meals won’t be either underdone or, most commonly, overdone and very chewy.

I also finished the Flow, which I made in bamboo which was a big mistake. I’ll model it for you next week.

And that’s all the news.

The End of Summer

Here we are at the end of summer. It went from boilation to cool all in about a week. I love the cool dry days. Dry being  a key word here.

So, I started working at Pine Needles in Racine a week ago Saturday. Maybe I mentioned it already, but I went back last Saturday and I have to say I like it a lot. It is soooo different from my regular weekday job. I get to hang around with fabric and think about fiber and it is just very nice. Besides the fact I like Marcia (the owner) and Suzie (now the manager of Racine) so much. And the rest of the staff too. I think it will be very rewarding.

Otherwise, it was a week of slowing down and easing into fall. Summer seems so busy. Going here and there, something up every weekend. Now I can relax. Although I haven’t seen the knitting group lately-they are meeting the 17th but I am working that day-sad. I have a request to meet on Sundays afternoons when the coffee shop is less busy! And a spinning night with Barb has to happen again when her house clears out.

Speaking of spinning (which reminds me of yarn) I gave Barb my Morrison from Yarn Garden for her birthday because it was the perfect gift. Then I started to really miss it so I called the Yarn Garden and had them ship me another skein, then another skein, then two other skeins. Jeesh.

Last week I got a box full of fabulous fiber.

 

Ooooohhhh, ahhhhh. As soon as I finish my socks and the Wrap me up, I think something is going to have to be knitted from these.

I also got my biiiig box from Nordstrom. Sweeet.

  

Full of new clothes. The funny thing is I get clothes from Tacoma that are for a little cooler climate than our summertime. So I end up not being able to wear some of it until now. But that’s ok, I’ll get at least 8 good months out of it. It’s not THAT hot here during most of the year.

I finished the Nobody Says No to Baby quilt and the Cuddly Kitty and sent them off to Katie, Dave’s neice.

There she is on the blanket (with Dave’s legs sticking out the other side!) I thought kitty looked a little crabby, but she is very very cuddly.

 

Katie says that Baby (aka Kaylee) is a little suspicious of the new blanket and kitty. We’ll see how it goes.

The garden in the front is at it’s last blooming.

These geraniums are about 3 or 4 years old. I got tired of buying new ones every year, so I just keep these in the house through the winter. I keep thinking they might not make it, but look how good they are. I do think they should be repotted this year. I hope it doesn’t kill them.

Angie called last week to say that Cora was over to visit.

 

She had a little candy to chew, which affected her smile. She is trying though.

Isn’t she the cutest EVER? Look at the girlie clothes. What is that about? When the boys were little, there were no such thing as cute boy clothes.

And I got my tickets for Vegas last week. It’s Angie’s 30th birthday and I have to buy her a big Vegas birthday drink. Martha is coming too for a fiber crawl and sightseeing trip. Oh, and I suppose I’ll visit Cody, since that is usually the reason for travelling there.

Week before last it was Laura’s birthday. Yes, our Laura, the ever present blog muse had a birthday. There was no Vegas (but maybe next year-although she has an Africa trip in the spring so not sure about Vegas-next year anyway), but we did get to lunch at Hunan.

Excuse the blurry picture. I had no flash that day. But there’s Mary K, Mary Pat, Rachael G, Laura, Angie and me. Aren’t we cute?

Then this weekend, besides working, I made mug rugs for my coffee gift basket.

I am not very satisfied. I don’t like my crazy circular pattern on the blocks. but I do like the idea.

We are making gift baskets for a benefit for Patrick’s wife Cindy (he works with us as a school nurse). Cindy was treated for breast cancer two years ago, and it has returned. So I am making the coffee basket, only it’s actually a bowl.

I have the to go mug and the mug rugs and the coffee and tea candles. I didn’t say, but I got those on a Sunday trip to Iowa a week ago with Mary and Laura. Laura drove and there wasn’t near the excitement we had last year with the shop hop (no, there was no ditch involved and it didn’t take 8 hours). It was a nice and pleasant trip though.

So all I have to get is the coffee and some tea to complete my basket.

We harvested our apples. They are pretty tart-I think they could have stayed on the tree just a bit longer. But the are going to become a delicious pie tomorrow.

Today is Labor Day. It’s a day we are supposed to be appreciating the laborers that came before us and paved the way for our working conditions. So thank you. I guess there are some who want to get rid of this holiday. But that would be a shame, because it is such a traditional end of summer holiday.

It was a sunny Labor Day today.

 

Trixie loves it.

Dave was all about it. Notice he is wearing the giant Skacel KAL socks I made last spring.

Jack had a Labor Day snack

Yeltsie enjoyed the sun too

and Beta relaxed on the couch.

I poured one more cup of coffee, and went to work on some quilt and yarn projects.

Nice hair.

Happy Labor Day, Welcome to Fall.