Happy Birthday Cara!

You get a recycled picture from last year bc I am still trying to figure out how to use Pia's Mac...but I'll try to make this post "fresh".

Our girl has a birthday today.  She's too far away, all the way over on the East Coast.  We miss her like 60. She's this:

• The person the room always revolves around
• The Family Fixer (doesn't every family have one of these?) She always makes sure everyone is doing okay and if they're not, she Fixes It.
• Tough-Nut Scrumpy Outside
• Gooey Marshmallow Inside
• The Sports Nut.  You name the sport, she's either watching it, has watched it, or is going to watch it.  And that probably includes the Bass Masters Tournament and Jai Alai.
• The Car Gal.  Got a problem with your car?  Ask Cara, she can tell you what to do, where to go and how much it's gonna cost.  And will mail you the parts to fix it.
• The Reluctant Traveler.  HATES and I do mean HATES flying.  We're talking dread, misery, restless leg, air-sickness bag usage, drugs necessary air traveler.  And yet she will fly to spend a vacation with her family.  That's LOVE.

I love you so so so so much Cara Lee!  Have a happy birthday, I assume y'all will go to The Tavern for your weekly dinner.  Be sure they make Sloppy Joes and Niblets for you.

Happy B-Day to My Little Lulu!

Oh my little grandpuppy!  Here you were on the car ride home the first day.  Your name was MIA (terrible dog name, btw.  Gary is better than that!) and I'm proud to say I immediately KNEW you were Lucy.  You were skinny and scared and a wee bit neurotic.  Except for the skinny part, we share some of those traits :-)  Now you're a sassy two year old:

Always smiling, always happy, always a good friend and companion.  Even though you are terrible on a leash, I will always walk you to the park.  I will always throw your tennis ball (even though I'm a bad tosser, due to bwoken awm).  I will always let you sleep on "your side" of the bed, even though your black dog hair looks awful on my white sheets.  And I will always be your grammy.

The Birthday Month

August is a crazy birthday month in my extended and immediate family!  During August, we celebrate these birthdays:

1. Lavs
2. Lucy-Lou
3. Cara
4. Jamie
5. the twins (Liam and Alex)
6. Ray
7. Jon

And I may have forgotten one or two.  Of course, everyone who is born in August is a fabulous human being (or dog)!

I had a low-key birthday, which is fine by me.  Once you hit the 50s, do you REALLY want to celebrate each passing year?  I'm fine with a phone call from my kids (which I got from each of them, nice work children.  Even though I have phone phobia, I like talking to you).  Pia got me a great card that said "happy birthday cake-killer"; she tried to find pie-killer but no luck.  We enjoyed our drive home from Ellensburg, and she let me stop at my favorite thrift store in Moses Lake and pick up some vintage patterns (and she found an AWESOME velour and metallic dress for camp hi-jinks), then she treated me to pizza.  I got a gorgeous shawl from Susna:

which I'm over the moon in love with :-)  I seldom receive knitted gifts (cuz I can just knit my own stuff), so it's a special treat.  LOVE IT!!!!  I also got an adorable piece of yard art from The B, a chicken saying "BAWK", which is perfect.  Cuz y'all know how I love me some chickens.


On the down side, my computer is officially DOA.  Boo.  But P  is letting me use her Mac (and I'm relearning all the Mac commands I haven't used in ages), which is nice of her.  And Cara has a laptop she's going to let me have, thanks Car!  Of course, few of my files were backed up so that's a real PITA, but I think I have most of my knitting patterns saved on Rav and I'll just have to recreate the rest :-(

A Quick Seattle Trip

No pix or anything exciting to report, but I had a nice few days in Seattle.  Helped Susna by happily accepting all the knitting mags and patterns she decided she didn't need, went to TWO knitting evenings with her (this gal knows lots of knitters) and got to see the B both at the Ostrom's Sidewalk Sale (which was AWESOME.  I was expecting a Precious Moments crap-a-thon plus grab bags, but they had really good stuff) and at the knitting night at Serial Knitters.  Plus spent a night at Mom's house and can report that she is still putzing around :-)

Also stopped by the cabin on my way to pick up Pia in Ellensburg and got to see Meg, Ryan, Hads and Carson.  Those babies!  So cute!  And getting so big!  Carsie is going to be walking before we know it, and Hadley will be driving next week I'm pretty sure.

It's good to be back home in my own bed, but visiting the fam is always fun.

PS computer still broken.  Hoping for a miracle.

SHIT

My computer just crapped out.  Like I have "the blue screen of death" whenever I try to start up my computer. SHIT SHIT SHIT.  That is all.

A Tomato!

We have ONE tomato (and it's about an inch in diameter)!  Katie and I are very excited to find that single little green tomato on our Topsy-Turvy Tomato Plant.  It's our only gardening success story thus far this year.  Our TT Strawberry plants are growing like mad, but all we have gotten so far is NUBBINS which are as horrifying as they sound :-(  I think we maybe got 4 green beans on our pitiful plants.  I am counting heavily on The Potatoes in the Garbage Can to salvage my wounded gardening spirit.

Monday Fun

I was kind of bored this morning (after cleaning the bathroom and the kitchen), so I decided to dye some yarn.  I have some natural dye, which is always fun to use.  This time I tried Woad, which is crazy.  It looks all yellow-green in the dye pot:

But as soon as you take the yarn out of the dye bath and expose it to air, it turns blue:

One skein didn't "take" as much dye as the others, but I'm overall pretty pleased with this little experiment.  BTW, Woad has been used as a dye for thousands of years, starting back in the Neolithic Age, so that's a fun fact!