Some Thoughts, and A Few More Pics

I just found it intriguing...

The pictures I have to share today are the ones that didn't make the original cut from our camping trip. They really have nothing to do with anything today other than I wanted to share them. There's some pretty shots but the light was only kind of *meh* due to overcast and smoky skies. Still, some beautiful colors.

Erosion is such a neat landscape sculptor

I've been listening or ummm... "reading" books lately as I have been knitting, walking the dogs, cooking, or pretty much anything that doesn't require my full attention and there have been some little jewels of perhaps, unintentional wisdom. They keep coming back to me at odd times, and I'm starting to figure out why they have been doing that.

Ka-Kawww!

I discovered the author Molly Harper when looking for books a ways back and I have decided I love her  books that take place in the south. I didn't care for the ones that happened in Alaska just because of some major theme issues caused by not knowing much about where I grew up and lived a good chunk of my life.

Another shot of the Mormon Crickets as well as the pretty scenery

While listening to her "And One Last Thing"; which despite what her critics say and the lack of sarcastic vampires, I think is one of her best books, She had the following little pearl of wisdom following the break up of a marriage and the reminiscing of what went wrong from one of the characters. She stated that they had never had any great challenges in their relationship to forge a strong working marriage. They had always kind of coasted along, "The problem with coasting though is that you're always going down hill."

Coming down out of the mountains.

And that one line got me. I thought, well, I've never thought of it like that but damn if it isn't true.

Where the Chugwater Formation meets the Tensleep Formation. If the Tensleep was a harder stone these possibly would have been arches in a few more millennia.

I myself have been coasting professionally for the last few months, and it was showing. I feel like I did a good job at work, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. It wasn't making a difference. This week as I started the new job that should have frightened me but instead excited me and is challenging me, I've been feeling happier. Everywhere. And I realized it's because I'm not coasting anymore. I'm learning daily and building skill sets daily, and I love it. I always seem to get frustrated with a job when I get bored. Perhaps it's professional A.D.D., but more likely it's because I don't like to just coast along.

More Petroglyphs. The darker one on the left was chalked in  at some point.

The other book I read just this last week was Dean Koontz's "Deeply Odd". And once again, in a book that was indeed deeply odd, there was a nugget of not only wisdom, but downright truth. A character was speaking of her deceased husband and a silly decision he made when she stated, "Just because someone is intelligent, doesn't mean they are always wise."

I dont't know about you, but I have met a lot of stupid smart people. I would never say I'm above average intelligence, but I admit that I know a lot of things about a lot of subjects, but damn if I can't be dense as a granite boulder some days as well. I think we have all done that. Done something so stupid, and look back at it and think, "What the...?" There's even been times that I have lucked out and not been seriously injured or even killed by a dumb move on my part, and here I'm really hoping that others have done things like this and I'm not really below the average intelligence that I think I am. Or perhaps that perverse part of me that loves to laugh at my own ridiculousness sometimes is a larger and more developed part of my personality than I am aware of.

There is something about agricultural scenes I always find peaceful. Perhaps I need to think about a farm for a living? There's always growth happening...

Well, that's about all the ramblings I had to share today, and the last of the pictures I had to pass on. ThinkI better pack up the spinning wheel and get a move on.

Speaking of peaceful scenes...

Weavings...

I had a friend who wanted to see how I warped my loom come over this morning to watch and assist in the job of warping. It was so much more fun with some one to chat and BS with as we got it set up. I have none of the fun time/worry/stress saving toys that I want to buy yet, but I've made do with some of the items that came with my loom and a couple I had to be able to play.

We got her all warped with a bamboo/linen blend yarn so I can play with a twill pattern. Last time I did a tweed pattern I saw the basic set up on youtube for. This time I dove into a teaching manual and set this up from a chart.

Well, the stripe and other basics are mine, but the set up came from the book. Unfortunately it is a dated text and my lack of knowledge caused an issue you can see below on the edges.

I am missing my edge warp ends. I know how to fix it though, I think. We'll see. I typically learn along the way and I'm glad I noticed it just a few pattern lines in so I can compensate for it. I'll the dark blue back a bit, or unweave I should say and start over. The light blue is simply my waste that will be pulled out later.

I was going for a more open softer weave with this now that i know something about my tension.

On the way out of the house with my friend I noticed my "crop cirlces" in the from yard that I meant to discuss here. You remember last week when I dove into that fleece for cleaning and sorting? Well, I learned a little something that day too...

DO NOT place buckets of hot water directly on your lawn. It cooks your grass. As you can see it's been a week and there is some young green grass coming up through the top dead grass. Thankfully I'm anal and though this was three batches of hot water, so a total of six hot buckets, I placed them exactly in the same place each time and only got two crop circles. We've been watering them a lot in order to get new healthy grass in before fall sets in and we end up with a couple circular weed patches next spring.

The Guy and I went to see Man of Steel today. It wasn't as bad as we've been hearing. I thought the acting was all okay, the guy was good eye candy, and it was an interesting take on the franchise. Then again, I'm not a comic book aficionado nor am I a fan of the old superman movies so I am not feeling the abandonment that a lot of the fans seem to be suffering from. Mind you, I'm not a critic so no one will take what I think seriously. I liked the storyline usage of his two fathers and the back story of the dying planet. I think it added to the story and let you understand the "evil" characters fury. And I heard someone making a comment that when superman was supposed to have taken place no black man would have been head of such a large paper. Wha...?!? One, why continue such a blatant stereotype, and two, did you not get the decidedly modern air of the film? It wasn't set in the era that the series originated so who cares what the ethnicity of the characters were? But then again, I have heard many a foolish comment from die hard fans finding ways to hate a new take on an old franchise. It's normal to an extent and I am not going to argue the merits or failings of the film. In my opinion, it was worth the three bucks at the cheap seats. Maybe the fact that I didn't wait with bated breath for the release and paid for advance tickets helped ease me into it? But then hey, I was just enjoying the eye candy.

Keep mind though, I am not going to go see the rest of The Hobbit films due to the crass commercialism of breaking it into three movies. I'm disgusted by it and I thought the first one wasn't impressive so I won't be wasting my time with the next two, and don't get me started on the butchering of the Harry Potter films. So in the end, I guess it's all about personal taste. Except the comment about Lawrence Fishburne. That was just ignorance.

Off to make dinner with me. I have to get up early tomorrow and go to work at the new job. How exciting is that!

Let's face it, I'm never going to get caught up

Because there are just so many other things I'd rather do than sit on the computer. Unfortunately in the last 12 hours or so I have spent a lot of time sitting on the toilet. But whatever seems to be torturing my gut at least waited for us to get home from the impromptu camping trip.

So, in the spirit of "catching up" let me start at the beginning of it all. I got the new job. I start on Monday. I will be regularly paid again here soon, which is a good thing. There were many pieces and parts to getting this new job and some serious miscommunications and other issues, but at this time it appears things will get going as of Monday morning at 8am.

I was hoping to start the new job this week. Because of that I gave notice for working full time at the restaurant weeks ago and had no shifts for this week. I will continue part time with the restaurant picking up shifts here and there for extra cash in my pocket since Publishers Clearing House has still not knocked on my door. Someday... Tuesday when I had no shifts, and Bob had the week off, we decided to do a quick camping trip. And by quick I mean we decided that morning after I got my first item off the loom to pack it up, and head north.

The Big Horns are beautiful. There is no doubt about it. Despite the smoke from our forest fires sitting in the valleys, and the early morning thunderstorms, it was still beautiful.

Even if in our rush to get out in the woods we forgot some stuff. Like Shiela's Rimadyl. I know, we're such bad dads. We ended up cutting it short by a day and heading home because we could see despite having her Adequin shot that she was hurting. That was not the only thing we forgot. Can you say camp stove? I think we learned the valuable lesson of not rushing packing. Make our plans, then ou list, and move from there.

In our wonderings we even saw something that is a rarity here in Wyoming.

That's right! Moose! Mom and two babies were happily munching away when we came across them. My camera misbehaved and focused on the trees in the foreground instead of the moose but I was able to get a couple pictures before leaving them in peace to continue eating. They are such a rarity here that I didn't want to disturb them.

Then there's the ever present antelope. I did notice that the ones up here away from people are a lot more skittish than the ones you see around Casper. They just aren't as used to vehicles and people.

We went up to the Painted Rock Lakes area. We had never gone in there and were perhaps a little unprepared for the rough roads. It was late by the time we got into the area and we decided to pull over into a little high meadow to camp as we were losing light and didn't know how far we still had to go. Little did we know as we packed up before the storm hit us the next morning that we were less than 20 minutes from the campground and lakes. 

That following evening though we decided to return to where we had camped so the dogs had some off leash freedom and we had the quiet away form other peoples camper generators and ATV traffic. I think we were better off despite the next mornings rain.

Despite the rain it was a warm night listening the cows in the lower pastures low to one another. That morning I made biscuits and grave and we packed up the car to come down and get an old girl her anti-arthritis meds. Here you can see Tucker who was terrified we may leave him on accident already loaded up. We weren't even done with breakfast yet.

Emmitt made himself a cushy nest on the way down out of the mountains as well. He's getting older now, at 7 years old he can get cold and stiff too. Regardless, he is still always willing to go.

We cut back through the Hyattville area on the way down. Such a pretty little agricultural area. For some reason that day we had constant bird sightings beyond the typical song birds. Above is an Osprey as we were heading to the Medicine Lodge Archaeological site. Below is a Red Tail we saw from the road.

I didn't make The Guy stop the car when I saw the mystery bird on a bluff. I should have because when I got home and zoomed into the picture you could see it was Golden Eagle. Unfortunately due to the zoom work and the moving car it was very blurry. Then there are my favorites. I have always loved Ravens, and this one was posed so nicely for me as we wound are way down out of the mountains.

Hyattville itself sits in a valley between the ridges of tilted ancient rock sediments. To the north is the Chugwater Formation and to the sour lies the Tensleep Formation with a green pasture land separating the red ridge from the greenish grey ridge of the other. Both formations are ancient and can often be littered with fossils. This shot was looking north as we were leaving the area heading towards the town of Tensleep to go up the canyon across the mountains to Buffalo so we could catch the interstate south to Casper.

I don't know why this tree and hay bales is so comforting to me, but I loved the scene when we came across it.

In this area was a nice little gulch with an RV park , creek with walking trails and an archaeological site with some imagination capturing petroglyphs.

I always love things like this and it was such a pretty area to get the dogs out after the bumpy ride out of the mountains. We all needed to stretch are legs a bit by this point. I am considering organizing a little retreat up to this park next year for the spinners and knitters of the group. I think it would be great fun. It was so quite and peaceful with its red rocks and green grass. We'll see what comes of it.

When we were heading out of the moutnains but still up in the high pasture lands I noticed some odd black dots on the road. After a few seconds I realized they were moving. I asked The Guy to stop teh car and got out to investigate. It seemed as though we were lucky to catch the Mormon Cricket migration. All those black dots on the road you see there? All of them were these bugs.

They are kind of a nifty bug that isn't a cricket at all. They are actually a katydid species. I have seen pictures of them in true swarms that make the thousands we saw seem like chip play but it was neat nonetheless to see them. The larger patch you can see at the top of the first picture is where the ones crushed by earlier cars or cows were being eaten by the next ones that came up on them.

In Buffalo we stopped at a local restaurant that my stomach has not been agreeing with since. I felt a little nauseas on the last leg of the way home but that passed. I made it to knit night last night where we al went to a mexican restaurant for dinner. We got home and continued cleaning and sorting gear when I decided to take the kids out for the evening stroll. About halfway through the walk I got that sense of impending gastric doom. You know the one, the cramps, the urge to squat and the cold sweats. I practically ran home and rushed through the door with the kids on the way to the bathroom. Let us just say it hasn't stopped yet. Oh well, if that's the price I have to pay for a beautiful camping trip tp destress before starting the new job, I guess I'll pay it. And on that note, I'm going to leave you to head back to the bathroom to make a payment. 

Hope you are all well,

Q.

Yeah, Yeah, I Know!

Once again despite my best intentions I have fallen behind. Both in my own blog and keeping up with others. If it helps, I have been busy. Ever have those times in life when you're stressing and thinking, "Why do I feel like everything is insane?!?", then stop and realize that you feel this way because it is insane? Well, I had that realization yesterday as I struggled to get out of work to head towards the Guy's family. My life has become a bit on the crazy side and mainly because I have no answers. No answers to anything. So much is up in the air and I am awaiting answers from other people before making the next decision, step, or thought towards either of them.

So today, This wonderful Sunday, I dealt with something concrete. Wool.

I know, you're shocked.

This is how my Sunday began. A cup of tea, and my fleece that I bought last month in Colorado spread out on the front lawn.

I think I learned a couple lessons. First one being that blanketed sheep are our friends. Even after scouring there is quite a bit of Colorado still left in the wool. Also, that perhaps I should have started with an easier fleece. But learning is what it is all about. In the end I will have a couple pounds of wonderful wool.

I sorted it a bit. Used the flicker brush (Thanks Cindy!) to open up the ends and stashed the locks away into mesh bags.

Then they got a hot bath with some dish soap. I purposely didn't take any pictures of the poop brown and aromatic water.

Needless to say, there is a reason I wanted to wash it. I had lot of water to dump. Including the three washes and the hot rinse each batch of wool got, I had A LOT of water to dump. I think my lawn appreciated it though.

Look how those locks opened up with just washing! Beautiful! I am going to love digging into this stuff. And what am I going to do with my Jacob wool after spinning? Well, I think this new toy needs to be broken in with a lovely wrap of sorts, don't you?

For those of you who don't reckognize what that new toy is, it's a LeClerc Nilas 45" floor loom.

And she's pretty and calling my name. A local was selling her and I had myself talked out of buying it. Her flyers picture wasn't flattering, and the information was a bit lacking. However, when I went and looked at her I was a goner. The check was written and now I have a loom. Which means that I better get to spinning. And I better come up with a warping board solution. Since I had such great luck with the PVC pipe drying racks that you saw above(I built those yesterday) I am considering a cheap PVC solution for now. Then there's the need for a bench. Let us not discuss the disgusting prices for new benches.

Anyway, off to stay busy. My back is aching but I still have fleece to process.

Return To Climbing, And My Dog(s) Troubles...

I used to climb; not obsessively, but a lot. Typically three times a week. Even on my work week when I worked a week straight of 12 hour nights. I made it to the rock gym in the early hours of the morning when a couple climbing friends and I had a key to let ourselves in. When I decided to train for competition, let's just say it got ugly.

Then one day I quit. What happened? I moved to Wyoming. I moved to a small town with a small rock gym that at the time was owned and operated by someone who didn't seem to care. We went a few times but over several weeks when no routes were refreshed, or new routes placed, I became aware that I had been spoiled to a wonderful gym. Then I tried outside. Finding people to teach the newbies where the good places are, was difficult at best. The person I did find seemed offended the day I wouldn't let her new husband who was recovering from a back surgery belay me. We'll discuss the safety issues later. All in all I think there were several issues there and I never warmed to the new husband and therefore I never climbed with them again and I just kind of fell out of climbing. No pun intended.

But a month or so ago I ran into one of the new owners of the local gym and she encouraged me to come check it out. Same building, same walls, but even in the three times since we started again, there have been new routes placed. So, I have let the knitting needles slow, the spinning wheel stop and have started climbing again. And with new climbs, come new calluses.

There's more calluses waiting to blow. Athletic tape here we come!

Ouch. Actually, that doesn't hurt that much. It's more of an irritation because it gets in the way of knitting. I just did it this afternoon. It will heal soon. The bigger pain is in my feet. Last week I broke atleast one toe. Worse than that, is that i bruised the tendons on the top of my foot good. It will all heal. I set the toe that needed it and taped it good. I ice the foot regularly and have been taking my ibuprofen. But shoving said foot into a rock shoe hurts. There's no two ways about it, but I'm willing to hurt a bit because dammit, I loved climbing and I'm finding that I still do. I love the ache it causes, the screams from my hands and muscles as I strain for a hold. The sense of strength and the glow that comes from getting to the top. I missed it. I missed it a lot.

While I'm on the topic of things I do miss, let's discuss things I don't. Stupid people and their dogs/kids. Yes, that's right. We're on this again. I actually have two things that have happened recently. Let's start with Saturday night. We here in Casper have an annual bluegrass festival on the mountain. This saturday night they held a free concert at Washington Park that the big name for was a band I've wanted to see for a long time so we went. The opening act, let's not discuss. The second act was better, and I have to say that the gal sounded just like Joan Osbourne when she sang Bring Me Some Water on VH1's Crossroads series. But more to the point, I took the dogs. After the first set Tucker and Sullivan were acting antsy so I took them with me to get food at one of the food vendors. I had multiple people get dragged to me by their dogs with no control and seemed horrified when I insisted that my dogs behave. My dogs no what is expected and I remind them when they act stupid that this is not allowed. While dealing with my own dogs and trying to detangle them from other peoples dogs, I had several people step in front of me in line. I was nice. I didn't say anything. Even when one of them had children that were hanging from the windows of the vendor vehicles, screaming and running through the crowd in "keep away from Dad" all while the parents thought their little scrotum rat in his Captain America outfit was adorable and funny. And my dogs have to be on leash? I finally took my place back in line when the said Captain America wanna be literally entered one of the food vendors trucks and ran amok.

Long and short of it, I got my food, and headed back to Bob and the other two dogs with my two. As we ate, we were accosted by many wanting to pet our dogs, kids running through my dogs, including one jumping over my dogs running between his parents and the play ground. I get it that I'm at a park. I get it that I'm at a family event, but really? You are going to let your child use a dog twice his size as a hurtle? My Great Dane Sullivan is not a fan of children, and to be honest, having this kid startle him by not only running up on us in surprise, but then jumping over him freaked him out a bit. I said something, and I said it kind of loud and I think the parents around us got it figured out because they had their kids give us a couple feet. Not a lot, but just enough to keep everyone happy.

As the sun went down the crowd started to thin out. But there was still the guy with his young golden retriever who was freeking out about everything. Yanking, pulling, barking. Basically letting him and everyone else know that he was not in control. Maybe not a venue to take this dog to? Then we had the continued assault from other peoples dogs who were not under control wanting to come say "Hi". Over and over again they stated how we get four dogs to do what they can't with one.

As it got completely dark, the boys got restless and as the space around us grew I let them have a little free time. Played with them with plastic bottles, let them chase and goof off within a certain excitement level. Solas took the stage and the crowd started moving with the music. Unfortunately, the family with the Great Dane Hurtler started to get a little rambunctious too. One of the dads started chasing some of the kids and when he tackled one child and they screamed, my dogs thought the kid needed saving. They stopped when called and came right back, in fact they didn't even get halfway to them. I had my kids settle since theirs were getting stirred up again. Well, several of the kids and parents went over to the playground and when they came back the one that had jumped over my dogs decided to tease them. He danced and pounced at my dogs who were in a settled stay. Sullivan's tail wagged once. Then he barked, and sprung as the kid got closer.

Lies, all lies. I swear! Do I look like I would have done that?

I honestly don't think he would have hurt the child. His ears were forward, and his whole posture said "Let's play!" As he bounded forward. He has tackled other people and dogs before to wrestle and that is what it looked like he was about to do but to a parent, a dog that outweighs your kid taking him to the ground is just scary so I shouted as he leapt. Sullivan broke off immediately. I wasn't even done saying his name as he turned and ran to me all galloping goofiness with his tail wagging and tongue lolling and I realized what had gone through his Great Delay of a brain. "You're going to tease me, Game on!"The kid unfortunately didn't see it as so fun. Or maybe fortunately. I don't think any of the parents saw it. They heard the deep bark, our shout and turned to see our dog coming back to us and their kid running to them. Needless to say the kid didn't wander far from his parents before they left. Maybe next time he'll think twice about teasing a dog he doesn't know? I kept waiting for a parent to say something to either the child or us, but nothing was ever said. The people a little ways over that had seen it came over and scrubbed all the furry butts and complimented us on them. After they asked that is. At least someone had manners around dogs.

The other issue I had last week was a recurring issue I've had at the dog park. On Monday I was nipped by these mouth breathers terrier mix as I was lifting my old girl into the car. All my dogs were in the car or my arms when it occurred. I didn't' kick the dog. I turned around and sternly said no and pointed away to it's owners (They're special I swear, and someone needs to tie him into a shirt that he can't take off. None of us want to see his 50+ year old hairy beer belly) while saying, "Go on now!". The dog ran back to it's other tall rat brethren that are all under 15 pounds while they stared at me. They had seen it. They didn't ask if I was okay, they didn't correct their dogs behavior. Nothing. They stood there and let their dog bite a stranger and laughed and waved and made some stupid comment about their bully dog who thinks he's boss. I looked at my leg. He barely broke the skin and as much as I wanted to I couldn't make an argument for rabies. The dogs are just untrained assholes. I took a deep breath and let it go. Or so I thought. I wiped off the blood, cleaned it up in the shower and went to work.

Wednesday I got down to the dog park, parked in the almost empty parking lot and was closing up my car when they pulled up next to me and told me, "You took our spot." Now, this is a public park. There are no handicap spots, and I don't park in handicaps spots as a rule. There are no assigned spots. There was only two other vehicles in the whole lot that can probably fit 30+ cars on a busy river day. I kind of looked at them, shook my head, locked my door and slammed it as I told my kids to heal and walked away. WhenI ran into them on one of my loops they glared at me. When their dogs went to approach I told all the dogs no, made my dogs pass and did not turn my back on their ankle biters. The dog that previously bit me was wary and kept an eye on me. I have to admit, if he bites me again, I will snatch him up, place him in my car and call the police to do an official complaint.

I did my two laps that are slow since the old girl comes with us in the morning. She is killing my exercise plan but I can't say no to her when she really wants to go. She's 17 for Gawd's Sake. I don't know how many walks she has left. I got back to my car and they had parked within an inch of the rear of my car to keep me from opening the rear hatch to load my dogs as usual. Stupidly they didn't look closely and notice the curve of their CRV's hood lets me open my rear hatch fine. So I did, and I let all three of my boys jump on the hood of their car to get in mine. I know... I know! I'm an asshole. I shouldn't have done it. My little guilty voice did pop into my head when I had to use the mean voice to get Emmitt or Tucker to do it. They were both thinking, "WTF? You don't let us jump on the car. Only in. Oh okay." Sullivan thought it was great fun and kind of popped in a divot as he jumped from their hood to my car. Another walker I regularly walk with was laughing. I had to open a side door to lift the old girl in, but other than that they didn't hamper me at all.  It was a parallel spot so I just pulled away when I was done.

The next morning as I was getting ready to leave the river here they came. They slam out of their car and he get's in my face pointing at his hood saying I owed them for the body work bill. I quickly pointed out that all they had to do if they weren't idiots was open the hood and pop it out. The metal wasn't creased, the paint wasn't scratched. No body work was needed but they were stupid enough to take it in and stupid enough to pay a bill for something they could have taken care of in 3 seconds. I also pointed at the scabs on my leg that their dog had left on Monday and that they and others had witnessed and offered while we were settling it up with a police officer to make a formal complaint about their dog. I also pointed out that I'm sure it's not the first time their dog has bitten someone and it's a single bite state. They got back in their car and I heard him call me an asshole. There is no excuse to what happened next. They had gotten me mad, then after all the shit they had pulled they had called me names in a passive aggressive move as they got in their car. Still, that is no excuse, but I was pissed. I slammed my hand on the window making them both jump and yelled. "What was that? Really? You're going to call me names as you get in your car? If you want to have a name calling contest you f*ing stupid hick, let's do it out here, because I think I'll win! Put your shirt on first though so I don't keep making eye contact with your lint filled belly button." They left. I calmed down, and I left. Thank God it was knitting day because I needed to vent, share my incredulity of the situation with my friends and relax. At least they let me think they're on my side. They probably thinking, Dammit Q, you're crazy, and not always in the good way. I know they'll bake me cookies when I'm in the state hospital though and wait for me to get out and tell them all the good stories. I will always be the dick of the dog park. Sorry.

Speaking of, I need to walk the kids.  Have a good one!

I Guess She Was Right

I was notified the other day that I needed to get off my duff and start blogging. I, inmy defense, stated that I had blogged recently and I was told something like , "Not like you used too". So today, I had a couple pictures to share of projects (I had to turn log into the computer to eject my SD card if that tells you how little I've been doing in relation to either the computer or picture taking), and when I pulled up blogger, I was amazed at all the blogs I follow and the amount of posts I was behind. So, I guess the accuser is right, and I have been lacking in my blogging duties.

Why would I fall behind? Mainly, I had nothing to share. I've been in a holding pattern since the retreat on many fronts. And who wants to read a blog about that? No one. That's who. But, I have had some change in that. I have started some projects, tore out others, broke some toes so I have not spun, and had some news about a job I applied for.

A Job?!? I heard that muffled outraged question. Yes, I applied for a job here locally and it seems I am progressing though the process. I have completed all the necessary interviews well, and just need to get a couple other things taken care of. Just little things, like psych evals (don't laugh, it's rude) and drug tests. Things are on hold until these are taken care of. Fingers crossed it's soon.

Now, since that is all I can tell you about that until I know more, let's change the subject. This is the first weekend of August. And do you remember what that means in my critter filled home? Bath time! That's right. The kids all got their baths today. They already have had three walks today because as I wrap this up, I plan on heading down to Washington park for the Beartrap: Down From the Mountain event. They'll come with but they're calmer about crowds and noise if they have a bit of energy wore off of them first.

The big music name of the night is Solas. I have wanted to see them perform for quite some time now and tonight is my chance. Hope to see some of you down there. I wil have my knitting with me. However, due to wanting to see the concert I will not be bringing this.

This is my Brandywine Shawl that I have been meaning to start forever. It is finally on the needles with Chart A done, but it requires a level of concentration as I follow the chart until I have it memorized that will not work well for going to a concert. It is another wonderfully written and charted Romi Hill pattern. I truly love using her patterns. They are beautiful in the end, and her pattern writing/editing is superb. In all her patterns I've done thus far I have never found a mistake. That says something, and having written my own patterns, I know exactly how much it says and appreciate the attention to detail and artistry of her works.

In eagerness for tonights event, I cast on something easier to work. Meet Redford.

This will be my new sweater someday. It's worked in a fingering weight wool/nylon blend, so it may be sometime before that someday happens, but I'm excited all the same. My goal is to have it complete for next years retreat.

With all that said and done, I don't have much to say. Other than if you feel the need for a good creepy movie, go see The Conjuring. It was nice and spooky but not gory. In fact, I don't recall any blood at all except a bite wound and a bloody lip. But it will make you jump. It's even more fun to go with friends and watch them jump. Though I do have to say, what is wrong with these people? Why don't the kids no to scream when the spooky stuff starts, not after it's already well into it? And why doesn't anyone pay attention when the dog won't go in the house? If my dogs refused to go into a house I can tell you right now, neither would I. And when something/someone has wrecked your stairwell and is scaring the hell out of you, don't go into the creepy cellar. Period. Just some life pointers people.

Have a good night everyone.