Some News...

We'll start with the not so good first. The house we put an offer on did not happen. It would have been great. Just under 4 acres, walk out ranch style with a little pole barn... Now for the really good news. It would have been right around the corner from the yarn shop that hired me. Yep, that's right. I got hired by a yarn store. The Clever Ewe.

It's only part time, and I have to make it through training, but since I wasn't intending on getting a job for a bit, this might let me extend that window of not getting a "real job" by a bit. Just a bit. Which is great because I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up.

Now, let's discuss how I'm liking the other parts of Michigan. Living in an apartment? Meh, and by meh, I mean the dogs and I hate it. But alas, it is the evil we must deal with.

The environment. Well, today it crept up in to the teens, it snowed. There was very little wind. I loved it.

Our morning walk took me by these trees that if you look carefully you can see the creepers wrapped around the bottoms. There are a lot of trees. A LOT. I can't wait for spring.

The birds are everywhere, harking in spring I hope. There are the ubiquitous robin's, swans on the river, mallards and golden eyes, even a loon I saw on the rogue the other day. Sparrows chirping, and even northern cardinals! I haven't been able to get a photo of them or the shy woodpeckers yet, but I'm working on it for you guys. Promise.

And there are critters. We've seen the squirrels and what I think has been  couple ground hogs. They looked like small marmots so that's my guess. I've seen them twice, and twice have been able to keep the dogs from giving chase. I saw deer prints, and the above that I think are skunk prints. There were on the trail at Roselle Park.

If you look real close you can see them gathered in little grouping like how a weasel family member runs and they are definitely not a dogs prints. Yesterday the aroma of skunk was strong in the air. So that's my guess. Let's hope we keep it to just print sightings.

This was at the park with the observation Silo I showed you before. I took the kids up it the other day, and let's just say that was not a successful adventure. Those of you who know Sullivan, may recall he's afraid of heights. Let's just say, we made it to the top, we made it down safely, but pictures were not had; today however, I put the kids in the car, and ran in to snap some shots.

From the bottom.

Looking down.

The top.

The park form the top.

We live that way, to the north west.

As you can see there are a lot of rolling hills. However, that throws us that are used to a definite horizon, or even like me who am used to mountains in to a little bind with pointing out what direction we're heading. But we're learning. Slowly. I am actually already quite comfortable on many of the roads. Even with the drivers... Let's not go there yet, but I will say there was an incident yesterday involving a police car that no one gave right of way to and honked at me when I did so.

Sullivan so badly wants to run through the tall grass but this is sooooo not a dog park. I am being bad and letting them off leash but they have to stay on trail and in a heel. When others come by I make them sit omn the side of the trail and wait politely. Here's hoping we don't get cited. I also am making a point to carry my doggie poop bags all the way around this 3 mile loop and not using the little cans around it. I want people to low my kids are trained, have good manners, and can be off leash and I pick up after them diligently.

One of the few things making me nervous are these. There are a lot of them. I am starting to wonder how bad the hornets and paper wasps are in the summer. We shall see.

So, you may have noticed all the snow. Have a I said how much I love it? Too bad the skis and snow shoes are in the storage unit. We were told it would be spring here. Let's just leave it at that. However, due to this, there is few sticks. And as you can see from the picture of Sullivan, he likes his sticks. Well, another dog dropped one today, and he was oh so proud of it he didn't want to leave it when it was time to go. He adopted this "hiding" of them back in Wyoming so that he could find them the next time her was at the park. The ridiculous part of it is, he did remember where they were. But today he was so worked up, he couldn't find a good spot for his stick.

The sad thing is that this went on for some time. Long enough for me to remember that my camera had a video option, and long enough for me to figure out how to use it. I do need to apologize, it's not great video, but remember this is coming off a little Canon Power Shot PHD(Push Here Dummy) camera.

This wasn't the end of his stick hiding shenanigans either though you can hear me telling him right at the end to drop it. Silly Sully Monster. We will go back to that park first thing tomorrow so he can play with his stick again.

Quick before I go, we started a March Madness Challenge on our Ravelry group, The Wyoming Fiber Skeinks. Today while I started the sauce for the baked ziti for dinner before the afternoon walk, I popped in the last Harry Potter book and started knitting. I already tore these completely down to nothing on the first day of the month. That's right. On the first day of the challenge I started by tearing out one of my items that's a goal. We won't even discuss the other items. Then today as I got excited and distracted as Harry and Voldemort fought it out, I did this.

That would be a knitting F&%* Me of the Highest Order. Those are a pair of 2 at a time socks that I have now managed to connect to one another. Not once, but twice. How? Well the second time was just being an idiot but the first time I think involved dropping my working yarn, and picking up the second yarn in the same spot of color (Red) and knitting on without realizing that I picked up the wrong yarn strand. What is really sad, on the next side I saw that my color striping got way off and had one of those "That's strange" moments and still didn't collect the dots. It was the wine I tell you. It doesn't matter that I didn't have my glass of wine until after the walk at the park and getting the ziti put together, it was the wine. It was pre-wine happiness. Yeah, that's it. The truly sad thing, I haven't done this to a pair of 2 at a time socks since my first ever. was that 3 years ago? GGGgggguuuuhhhh.