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.

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

Idaho-and another mountain pass.

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)

Steaming ground…

 

Frozen trees-

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.

South Dakota.

Minnesota Welcomes You. But don’t park here.

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?

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.

 

Beautiful country picture.

There are also a few cats.

 

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.

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

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-

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”

 

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.

Straight up poolside…..

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

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.

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-

Yeah. Ginormous like that.

The other views were like this-

Sunset…..

 

Sunrise…..

And the room was like this.

Knitters have arrived.

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

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?)

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.

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

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

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….)

 

We figured out meals in the courtyard,

 

And saw some beautiful flowers.

 

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.

 

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

I can’t wait until next year.

Decluttering

Because we watch House Hunters.

We have started the decluttering of the house. Dave is leaving a week from tomorrow to commence our return to MN. This means we have to work fast. It seems like just yesterday we heard that Dave is back at Mayo and we are off again. Oh wait, it was just yesterday…..(When we moved out, I planned it down to the last detail about how it was going to go down. Now Dave’s in charge and here we go)

Please let this be our last move..Please..

Jack is on to us for sure.

He knows what boxes mean. It’s not been that long.

That doesn’t look too decluttered, but it actually is. See the bare dusted surface on the book shelf? Just above the large bag of my new clothes from Nordstrom? Wait, don’t look at that.

I got some free money from Nordstrom for sending a comment about personal shopping and had a couple notes. So, another personal shopping evening later and, well, a large bag of new stuff appears.

Well played Nordstrom, well played.

And it’s possible the good thing about moving back to Rochester? I have an hour drive to the nearest Nord.

But, back to Jack and the declutter, as we all did after a few hours, he lost interest.

Is there something behind the door? Maybe? No? Yes?

 

I decided, after packing up my stash for the 2nd time in two years, that enough is enough and I went back to work on this.

All I need to do is attach the bottom row. Then on to row 4. After row 4 I am over halfway done. I finished the last “block” in 47 minutes, which is down from the hour it usually takes.

So, this week I am off to Stitches West with my sister Martha. Down by Santa Clara.

Then the next week it’s the big drive BACK to MN. I never thought I’d be doing that again. I think, if this keeps up, I’ll need to be institutionalized before it’s all over.

So, the blog may be slow to catch up, but there will surely be a lot of news when it does.

Potato Wood Duck

I don’t know. It must be in the air that Dave and I make spectacles of ourselves where ever we roam.

Which is mostly Fred Meyer. We love Fred Meyer. I particularly love the Bridgeport Freddies while Dave prefers the Market. Neither of us venture down 19th to that Fred’s except to get gas. That one is ghetto.

I digress.

We went to the store last weekend and in the produce section (nothing ever good happens in produce) Dave was perusing the sweet potato bin (after first thinking that the russets were mismarked as sweets-what a gaffe, right?) when he held up a particularly fine specimen and said-Look, it’s a duck.

He couldn’t have been prouder.  Of course we brought it home.

Doubters. It totally looks like a duck.

Even the cat thought it was real.

(I tried to put a thought bubble that said “the hell…..??” but as usual photo shop defeats me)

I know, right?

 

It’s noble and regal and apparently needs a hair cut. I think we might have eaten it yesterday.

It also snowed last Saturday night.

I had to work Saturday. When I went to cross the bridge-

The next day-

We measured-

A little over two inches. On Sunday AM. Why, oh why, not on Monday when work could have been affected?

Chat wasn’t impressed-

I tried to take a picture of the yard in the AM but the beacon that is our neighbors across the street sort of ruined the effect.

Seriously, airplanes have become disoriented flying over head that damn light is so bright. The lady who owns the house is on a sabbatical and the idiots who are renting decided they needed to keep our house bright all night long. We appreciate that.

The Valencia also classed it up with some snow art-

Awww, thanks Valencia…um, wait a minute…..

Valencia? Really? Is that what you think?

Overkill, Valencia, overkill.

We love the Valencia. (In it’s defense, it is really quiet over there).

So peaceful in it’s winter wonderland.

So, that’s my week. What did I do in-between?

Well, a couple of Fridays ago I did this……

So sorry about the blur, but you get the point right?

It was a slow day, don’t judge.

PS AND-apparently we are not using the EOM distinction correctly because it would appear we were just sending the same subject line back and forth all day. With no body, just subject.

I think I just came up with a new past time.

Seahawks Win! Seattle Goes Crazy(er)!

It’s true. They won, Seattle went crazy, along with Tacoma, Longview, Bellingham, Spokane, many Oregon cities and North Dakota (Blane) and Nevada (Cody). North Dakota and Nevada are hostile markets for sure. I guess Cody partied with quite a few disgruntled 49er fans. Tough crowd. North Dakota? Can you say Vikings? Ugh. Me either. Blane says he’s finally a champion. In North Dakota.

And of course we were happy. Never saw a game like that coming.

I tried to get a good picture of the end of the game. But a little blurry.

But really, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Sorry Payton Manning and the Broncos. I really thought you might  win. Or at least score more than once.

We celebrated with the Superbowl Champers-

 

And we took a couple of Superbowl Selfies which I can NOT bring myself to post. Trust me. And maybe thank me too.

On Monday, the week before, was Grampa’s birthday, BTW, overshadowed by our excitement over the big Superbowl win. (Dave said “I guess it was wrong to think that after the game the Seahawks wouldn’t be every news story on every channel almost every minute”. Yes, Dave, that would be very wrong)

We were up at Stanley and Seaforts for Grampa’s birthday-the night time view of Tacoma was pretty nice.

Tacoma Dome. Justin Bieber was here last year. So was Taylor Swift. Famous right?

And cake.

Blurry cake. Dave took the picture. 1 candle for 91 years old.

And I’m not sure I’ve posted this before but here’s what happened.

Dave and I were walking the dogs one day-it was during our days off around the holidays. Those were the good days.

Anyway, were were walking along and I looked up in the yard of the house we were passing and, I kid you not, a full sized pig. Standing there. Staring at me. Or Dave. Possibly the dogs who were oblivious to the fact that there’s a PIG standing there. At first I thought-that’s a statue. Then I thought-that’s a real pig. And THEN I thought-DAMN-this is so blogworthy and I don’t have my little camera, my phone, Dave’s phone, nothing. Really? It flies in the face of the cardinal rule of the blog-always carry a camera. I am somewhat ashamed.

So I have gone back a couple of times but said pig has not been present. It was like some sort of a porcine dream.

But here’s the yard….

It was right there. Standing on that little rise. And it is my mission, in life, to get a picture of that up on the blog.

Get ready-I’m coming for you pig.