Voting has begun

Here is the Pretty or Puke tally as it stands:

Pretty: 4 (including 2 ladies who saw it yesterday at the health club and 'oohed and ahhed' over it unprompted)

Puke: 2 (This includes Monkey Boy and his Uncle Wedgie)

Stay tuned for updates.

Puke or Pretty?!

Please, please, please help me! I need all opinions: men, women and children. Is this knitting project pretty or does it look like cat puke, as my 9-year-old Monkey Boy says? This is going to be a gift so I really need to know. For your consideration:

Seriously soft and reasonably attractive or barf?

What else did you do in Michigan?

Thank you ever so much for asking. I knitted. I bought yarn. I packed yarn. I'm working on a scarf using some yarn I bought in Michigan. It is kind of a ribbon yarn but is really soft and not really slick. It is in yummy red and pinks and is dreamy to work with. I'm using those great stubby needle made for working with scarves. They are definitely the way to go. Check it out:

Knitting poolside at the Country Inn and Suites hotel in Knoxville. Living large!

Wonder

"There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million." ~ Walt Streightiff

Michigan – The Details

If you read this blog regularly, you know about the house that will never sell. It is located between Detroit and Ann Arbor and due to an economy there that totally sucks, we are stuck with it. I decided that I might as well get some payback for the tens of thousands that we’ve sunk into it since DH has taken the job in Florida and pretend it is our vacation home. It really is lovely there, so much cooler and less humid than here in the Deep South.

Anyway, I decided to drive there in the big red stupid SUV in spite of the cost of gas so that I could pack some things up and bring them back. So off Monkey Boy, Mr. T and I went. I brought a spare child with me, Mr. T, to make my life easier. Those of you with only children can understand this logic.

The kids were real troopers during the entire drive. I had loaded the car with plenty of puzzle and activities books plus every hand-held electronic device a child could want. What did the kids like best? The page in one of the activity books that let you track the license plates that you saw! Can you believe we saw over 30 different ones before we even left Georgia!? As tribute to the mommy sanity saving license plate checklist, I have created a 'tag map' of our travel route:



We used Knoxville as a halfway point and stayed in a great Country Inn and Suites hotel there. The boys took control of the pool and all was well.

When we got to the house, it looked great, in spite of being locked up for several months. No critters had moved in and no major repairs were needed. Life is good.

The kids had their week pretty full. Check out this schedule:
Sunday – Lazer Tag and swimming at the community pool
Monday – Swimming, shopping, grilling dinner
Tuesday – Meeting a friend for coffee, swimming, Cars movie
Wednesday – Going to Jeepers (kind of like Chuckie Cheese, but with rides, too.), lunch at Rainforest Café, more time at Jeepers, camping out
Thursday – Glow golf, swimming and packing

You should have seen their ‘camp.’ We have a deck that is about 20 feet off the ground with no exterior steps, so nobody, including creatures can get up there. I got a great deal on a tent from Walmart and it fit on the deck perfectly!

Friday morning meant getting back in the car for the next couple of days. Again the boys were great. If you are wondering, by the end of the trip we had seen 43 different license plates including 2 from Canada!

We stayed in the same hotel going home that we had stayed in coming up. Crackers, the possum, loved it.

Introducing . . . Crackers!

We 'adopted' a new stuff animal while driving through Kentucky on our recent trip to Michigan. He is a possum which we have named Crackers. Why Crackers? Because we got him at Cracker Barrel. Actually, the two names being considered were Crackers and Tucker (kind of a play on the name Kentucky). Crackers just seems to fit him better. Being a Southern girl, I have a fondness for these critters and this one is just so cute (though my DH thinks he is uglier than sin)!

I have been looking for an appropriate traveling companion, kind of along the lines of Flat Stanley. This guy was perfect. He's cute, Southern and has a little attitude. Look for him in future shots.

Driving Hang-over

Have you ever had a driving hang-over? After driving 20 hours this weekend, I totally have one. My head is fuzzy and my attention span is non-existent. All I really want to do is sleep, but my boss expects to work. Go figure!

The weird thing is I didn't have the driving hang-over yesterday, my first day back. I ran around like a mad woman, grocery shopping, picking up the dog from the pet sitter, cleaning Monkey Boy's room, unpacking and fixing a Father's Day dinner. But today is a different story. Today I'm in slow mo.

I found the following at http://katyknits.typepad.com/katyknits/. Let's see how much this gets around:

Please leave a one-word comment that you think best describes me — it can only be one word long. Then copy and paste this into your blog so that I may leave a word about you.

Road Wary

I'm just a wee bit tired after yet another 20 hour driving marathon from Michigan. In the past 8 days, I've driven/ridden over 40 hours. Big Red, the over-sized SUV, traveled bravely and truly.

I miss Michigan. It is just gorgeous this time of year. Check this out, Southerners: there were no bugs and the day temps were in the 70s. It was heaven. And we spotted tons of wildlife: deer, raccoons, the groundhog, etc. I'll have many stories to tell when it's not almost midnight and I'm not nearing a driving coma. Yawn. Nite, y'all.

On MI way!

I'm in the final stages of prep to go to Michigan. The fish have been fed; the cat has plenty of food and water and the last bit of laundry is in the dryer. And its just 10pm!

I taking Monkey Boy and Mr. T up to 'the house that will never sell' so that I can pack a few things to bring down before everything ends up in storage. But don't worry, dear friends, I will go to the library every couple of days to check email and update the blog. It will be picture-free, as I don't think they'll let me attach my camera to their PC.

See ya.

Know anyone who needs a great house cheap?

A little bit of Sadness

I'm sharing the sad part of me today. I was sending out an email today that went to several people. I was clicking names in my address book when I came to a friend's name, Carol, who passed away last year. She was one of Monkey Boy's teachers with whom I had a connection. Even though she died about 6 months ago, I can't bring myself to delete her name from my address book. It is as if I would be deleting her from my psyche. I know it doesn't make sense. I know it isn't logical. But, I'm keeping her email address in my address list. I miss you, Carol.

I finished something!

During my long absence from blogging, I actually finished knitting projects. Check out the shawl:

Monkey Boy believes in rolling all over any finished knitting project. No, I don't know why!

By the way, Monkey Boy has a favor to ask those who know him: don't show this photo to your kids. He has a reputation to keep.

I love this pattern. I got it from the Earth Guild in Asheville. The pattern is called "Super Simple Shawl" and it is. It is a great, mindless knit. I will definitely make another one of these. The 'lace' is made with simple yarn-overs and adds a nice touch:

Yes, that is Monkey Boy lurking behind the shawl.

By the way, I love my kid. He is just so cool. I'm not saying that he's perfect. As a matter of fact, he is able to find my last available nerve to get on faster than any other human. But in spite of that, I like him. I really do. He has some great friends, too. Let me introduce you to a couple. Let's start with the Divine Ms. C. She is everything a pre-teen girl should be: confident, beautiful, strong, opinionated, sarcastic, intelligent, and sassy. My favorite thing about her is her wicked sense of humor. I truly believe she will be president way before Hillary does:

The Divine Ms. C

Another one of Monkey Boy's friends is Mr. T. We met Mr. T and his family about 8 years ago and found out that Monkey Boy and Mr. T were born on the same day. Monkey Boy and Mr. T compliment each other. Monkey Boy likes to be in charge. Mr. T doesn't mind taking orders. It works.

Living large in a large nest, compliments of Zoo Atlanta.

Monkey Boy has many other wonderful friends, both old and young. These two just happened to be in my camera!

She's Back!!!

After my long break from blogging, I'm back. Ever get that totally overwhelmed feeling that if you add one more thing to your life, you'll end up in the clock tower with a semi-automatic? That's where I've been. But summer is here, my vacation is near and I'm better now. I've even finished several projects, which I will post later.

I've fallen in love with two of the newer knitting books that have come out lately. I know that most of you have read, Mason-Dixon Knitting , but if you haven't, buy it NOW. Love this book. I've read the Mason Dixon blog for almost a year now and feel they've done a great job of translating their conversation tone to the book. Plus, the patterns are great. The other book is Yarn Harlot’s Knitting Rules!, if you like her blog, you'll like her book.

Have you seen the movie, The Break-Up? It won't be up for any awards but it is definitely something that you can relate to. I want to know when I became Jennifer Aniston and started dating Vince Vaugn!? It was too close to my own life!

Can't wait to go on vacation. We're going up to the Michigan house (also known as the house that has been for sale FOREVER). Guess what? There's no TV there! We have TVs and can watch videos but there's no cable or satellite (we disconnected because we don't live there anymore). That means I might get significant knitting done! I'm bringing lots of cotton yarn with me to work on washcloths ("No, I'm not an addict. I can quit anytime I want. Really") and some yarn to make scarves for a friend who is moving to the Asheville area. If I run out of yarn I can always go over to my old LYS.

Of course we are getting ready for the 4th of July. I know it sounds strange, but the 4th down here is bigger than Christmas. We have a big party ever year and then we watch the big fireworks show from our front porch. We didn't have one last year because we were still in Michigan, but I'm told that my friends came over anyway and partied in the front yard.

I'm trying to clean up the 3rd floor loft today. Wish me luck!