Woot!

My "Circle gets the Square" pattern was just added to the Knitpicks website!  I'm very excited to be part of their Independent Designers Program!

Good Book!

If you liked The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series, try this book:

The Son by Jo Nesbo. Another Scandinavian thriller, I'm turning the pages as fast as I can. 

And of course, you should read Outlander.  Katie kept telling me to read it, totes my kind of book and she was right. We are counting the days until the series starts!

New Design in Fall 2014 Knitting Traditions

I'm excited to see another of my designs in print!  "Wellington Boot Liners" are in the Fall 2014 issue of Knitting Traditions.  You can buy it here

She's Back!

At last!  Miss Colie has been in Canada for a whole week. She headed straight to her hot bottsy, gulped it down in about 30 seconds, shoved the binks back in, settled down in my lap and watched three episodes of bubble gups. It's good to be home!

Exhaustion

Sunday morning scene:

A Little Harvest

14 green beans and decided to thin the carrots

'Dos

Mother/daughter bad hair.  Me during my Dorothy Hammill phase.  Katie, not sure what phase this was for you.  Scrap noodle?  But your dress is adorable!

These Two

1. Never stop yakking.  To each other, to the dog, to anyone who is in the room, or in the next room, or on the next story of the house.
2. LOVE any sort of terrible Nickelodeon/Disney tween program.  And the one with the thumb in her mouth failed to mention she is not allowed to watch tween programs.
3. That one also made herself a bottsy last night.  Even though you're approaching 5' in height, you can still enjoy a botts.
4. Love a crafts project.  Grammy bought a beadazzler thing and shirts for them.  Logan channeled her inner Laverne De Fazio with a rhinestone "L" on her chest, and drew a pocket on the other side.  Not sure what Hads did, but there was a LOT of pounding involved.
5. Love Lucy like you would not believe.  The dog has been thrown a tennis ball more times over the last 2 days than probably in her whole life.  Not to mention all the petting and talking to.  Walter just wishes everyone would get off his couch.
6. Are always ready to put on a show.  What they lack in skill and talent they make up for with gusto.
7. Were finally convinced to change their underwear and take a shower.  Even though they have suitcases stuffed with outfits, we've been seeing the same shorts and t-shirts quite a bit.  And by "they", I really mean Hadley.  Logan has her grammy here, so has to be a bit cleaner :-)
8. Are still little girls.  They found George and Mary (Colie's ugly boy doll from Shopko and the hideous puppet doll we found in a closet when we moved in) and the toy stroller, and played house with what they could scrounge up.  And there's still thumb sucking, blankies and snuggling going on.  Which is delightful, I fainted when I saw the long legs and grown up airs.
9. Are always up for an adventure.  Too bad it's 100 degrees here, and us olds get tuckered out fast.  We did make it to the YMCA pool yesterday.  Thank god for Pia and her experience with youth activities.  I'd have folded by now.
10. Are pretty good eaters, though there's the obligatory "what is it, I don't like it" first.  And no great fondness for vegetables.
11. Are the best (albeit messiest, loudest and hungriest) houseguests ever.  

Beans!

My faithful little bean plant has produced a tiny crop!  You can't imagine how excited I am about this.  I've fretted over these damn plants for 3 months now, replanted them 3 times, had a fit when Walt trampled one of the three remaining plants and have checked them every single day.

I'll have to have a tiny little bean feast :-)

Olympic Team Members 2020?

probably not.  But these kids are nothing but confident.

The Hunyaks

The noise level has gone up considerably, we bought doughnuts and handed out quarters for the grocery store tattoo and ring machines, we've had a gymnastics show with multiple costume changes, Lucy has done more ball chasing than ever in her life, and Walter just wishes they'd go home. 

It's great having visitors!

A Few Pix

Beauty Shots from the garden:

Grow, tiny tomato and pepper, grow!

The view from Jon and Lorraine's cabin window

The darling fireplace Jon built from rock he collected (basalt maybe? from the cliffs by his property)

Busy Bees

Well, busy for ME, usually I'm sitting around knitting and not much else :-)

No pix but here are some updates:

1. I reached my 40 pounds lost goal last week, hooray!  Then promptly celebrated by gaining 2 lbs. this week.  And had my first gout flare up in months when I foolishly drank 3 glasses of wine at our dinner party (Peggy and her partner Patricia came over, along with Tony's new gal Laura.  Lots of fun!)  Back on the diet horse this week.

2.  We love Laura!  Tony's new gal pal is perfect for him: cute, athletic, smart, lots of fun, a good cook who does paleo/gluten free, and just an all-around great person.  It makes me so happy to see my boy so happy.  And bonus, she's an occupational therapist so I'm set for those old lady needs like a walker and arthritis exercises.

3.  Visitors!  Susna is coming over for a couple of days, bringing Logan and Hadley.  Can't wait to see those three ladies!  I may be babysitting Katie's friend Sara's little girl.  So we will be taking a toddler with us on whatever adventures we go on.  But I figure Logie and Hads are a nanny's best friend so I'm confident we can keep little Sienna Miller (the baby not the movie actress) entertained.

4. Garden:  we have two peppers, four tomatoes at last count,  a bunch of onions, and lots of squash/zukes in various stages of growth.  I haven't checked today, but looking out the window it appears that the garden has gone crazy over the last couple of very hot days, so hoping for much more produce.

5. Camping:  Tony and I got our long-planned camping trip accomplished after 3 years of talking about it.  We (Tony, Laura, Cara and I) were hosted by Jon and Lorraine at "The Property" (it really needs a good name)  The weather and the lake were perfect.  The company was lots of fun -- Alex and I manned the pedal boat for a tour around the lake (little did I know that my 6 months of riding the recumbent bike were going to pay off -- no knee pain at all pedaling the boat for an hour).  Jon was his usual hilarious self.  And Cara and I survived a night in the tent.  Luckily, Pooh had purchased a cot for me, so no need to actually sleep on the ground :-)  The two of us had to cut the trip short after one night to go home and take care of the dogs plus my above-mentioned gout situation.  But hopefully we can go back soon, as we now have all kinds of camping gear

6. Knitting: (obligatory content)  I am working on a couple of pairs of socks (one pair for Liam, who requested "light green, thick socks" -- couldn't say no to that), my ongoing "Crackerjack" scarf with stripes knit after each Mariners game, color depending on home/road win/loss, plus a sample cowl for the yarn shop.  I have about a million things I'm itching to start and some ideas for new designs of my own, so I need to knit faster.

7.  Katie is away at Camp Cross this week, it's going to be kind of quiet around here.  And dinners are going to be dull.  I hate to cook and Cara isn't much better so we rely on Katie for imaginative cooking.  Come home fast before we starve Katie!

Throwback Sunday

I took this photo about 30 years ago. On the dock at the lake:

Caris took this photo of Colie yesterday, same spot:

Same saltwater sandals too!

A Happy Fourth!

I headed up to Horseshoe Lake (aka The Property) to hang out with Jon, Lorraine and the three big boys for the day. Mike is spending July with his grandparents, currently taking sailing lessons.

Jon finished the tiny cabin and it's adorable

He built it all himself, mostly from recycled materials. I'm trying to talk him into building me a tiny house. 

Rando photos:

New pup Koda. Doesn't bark. I approve.

Bad Blogger

It's hard to blog when one's life is devoid of interesting events. Mind you, I find my life fascinating but to an outside observer, it's watching paint dry. But here are some tidbits:

I'm one pound away from my 40 pounds lost milestone. I'm thrilled that I've come this far!  6 months ago, I was unhealthy and unhappy with it. While I still have a ways to go to reach my goal weight, I feel so much better and yesterday I had to toss my beloved plaid shorts. Which literally fell off my hips. 

Cortisone shot worked well on my knee and I'm fairly painless for now. Tony's lovely new girlfriend Laura is an occupational therapist, so I'm assured of getting hooked up with a walker when I need one lol. 

Too many knitting projects as usual. I have two patterns ready for publication at interweave. One will be in their next Downton Abbey issue and the other in the fall Knitting Traditions issue. I'm also finishing up a scarf pattern which will be available through Knitpicks' IDP (Independent Designers Program). I'm excited about that, it's a big potential customer base. 

Little miss Colie is growing so fast!  Each morning starts with opening all the apps on my iPad then we settle down with a hot bottsy and the Bubble Guppies. Words are slowly happening. Once those floodgates open, there will be no stopping her. I'm also putting in weekends at the yarn store. They haven't actually taught me how to do much (answer the phones or ring up an order) but I'm a pro at putting yarn on the shelves. Now I need to find a good pair of shoes for work. Suggestions welcome. 

Our garden is growing!  I have given up on the green beans after Walt trampled my healthy plant. But onions, potatoes, spaghetti squash, zucchini, tomatoes and carrots plus lettuce are all growing. And Katie and I have enjoyed a few raspberries off our bushes. 

That's about it. I continue to be blessed with the gift of having the worlds best kids, who love their mom and make a happy home for me. I'm so lucky I have those four people in my life!