Monthly Archives:June 2008

Ladybug’s friend just had her first baby – and, of course, that baby needed a new blankie! I decided colorful was the way to go. Apparently said baby approved – she “showered” it with her approval (yup, she wet all over it.) Good thing I believe in using washable yarn for new babies, huh?

This is crocheted (here’s the pattern at Mother Fury’s request – anything for you, Mom!) – I’ve also been doing quite a bit of knitting – working on some dish cloths now for a swap on one of the groups over on Ravelry. I’ll show pictures of the dishcloths before I send them off to my swap partners. Those haven’t been chosen yet.

451 Press is having some overload issues – so, the knitting blog hasn’t been updated in over a week. They are working on that – installing new equipment, etc. Whoot! Thanks, 451!

And, the grandkiddos just keep on getting bigger – took the oldest out for dinner Sunday evening. He missed his “shopping day” the previous week because he was (gaso!) working! So, we took the youngest of Ladybug’s kiddos for HIS day – and took the Boy this week.

Mortified him in the checkout line – where we were buying him some ice cream and cookies. He told his Mama all about it – made her laugh at him and threaten to come along the next time to chaperone. He said that wasn’t necessary – because he knew she would just gang up on him WITH us. lol. Yup, I love it.

Busy week ahead at work – the last day of the year was today – fiscal year, of course. So that means I have to not only prepare the monthly report, but the fiscal year report as well. Monthly deadline is the 5th. Annual deadline is the 15th. I hope the rest of my numbers come in tomorrow. 😉

soooooo you all be good now, you hear?

So . . . I’ve been “swimming” with the Ladybug since last August? September? I dunno, somewhere in there. And, I’ve just sorta been in a slump if you will. Tuesday Coach Will says . . . you need to mix it up there, moosie! Try zoomers tomorrow.

me? ACK!!! I can’t do that!

Ladybug? Sure you can, Mama – just . . .


BUTTER

Yeah, that was me – cutting through the water like a hot knife through butter . . . zooming from one end to the other . . . and back again. Surprisingly difficult! My ankles felt like fire – like they were trying to disconnect from my legs – but the POWER in the water! Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!

You all knew that I am NOT a swimmer, right? Right – I don’t like to put my face in the water (brain eating amoebas and all that – and, oh yeah – water up the nose and the like) – you have to put your face in the water in order to swim!

Nevertheless . . . I am also not one to back down to a challenge – so, zoom I did – and cut my lap time in more than half! Shocked! Fun! (all without putting my face in the water, too – used a kickboard – of course, there WAS a lot of water going up my nose! Sputter, sputter, cough!

JELLY

That, my friends, is what my legs felt like after I got out of the pool . . . and for most of the morning after I got to work – rubbery, slippery, jelly.

It got better through the day – but I am a bit sore tonight.

Sooooooooooooooo in the infamous words of the Ladybug. . . .

it’s all COACH WILL’s fault!

heh

these bags are from Ms. Hiroko A, a friend of Keiko who sent bags previously for the project.

So many times we get caught up in our lives – caught up in the lives of other people – caught up in projects (some good and some not so good – you all know the types) – and we put our hearts and souls into all these things . . . .

. . . . and then they come to an end – or at least the end of our part in them. Such is the Share-A-Square project and the offshoot Bag Project. Yesterday I received the last 5 bags needed (from Japan, no less!) to make up the 70 bags I had promised Shelly I could gather together.

Tomorrow I will box them up and ship them off to Shelly in time for her to take them, along with 140 precious afghans, to the children at Camp Sanguinity. Yes, friends, they are precious – they represent hours of love and work YOU have put into them – and, THAT is precious.

From the bottom of my heart – THANK YOU for helping Shelly reach her goal – thank you for your support in so many ways.

You are each very precious to me!

Here’s a very nice article about the entire project.

Sadly I won’t be able to join Shelly and Sherry and others to deliver the afghans – I had hoped to be able to go along – but, someday I trust and hope that I will get to meet these two dynamic ladies. You’ll all be the first to know when that happens!

Okay – it wasn’t really a vacation – but I did take a bit over a week off work. June 30 is the end of our fiscal year and we cannot carry over more than 160 hours of annual leave. I was right on the cusp of that so needed to take some time off.

Didn’t go anywhere – but did have some much needed down time. I did have to go to work four hours last Wednesday for my CPR training – missed it in January when I had that pesky little heart attack. Other than that – no work for me.

Came home with BIG plans to clean my house and the like – haha! Didn’t happen. Well, I actually got this room straightened a bit – enough that I can at least walk into the room and find my way back out – without having to tie a rope around my waist for safety’s sake.

Hubby and I spent some time with Master TAT a week ago – and TAT and I had that lovely time with Miss Jackie, but other than that I actually kept pretty close to home – taking it easy. It was a much needed break (and, don’t tell anyone, but it is going to be a bit hard to go back to work tomorrow). 😉

Hubby and I decided that I couldn’t let the whole time slip away without at least getting out of town. We thought about running up to Anchorage, but he had some business appointments – so, we thought, how about Seward? It’s closer – so that even if we weren’t able to get a room for Saturday night (and we were not!!! Durned tourists! okay, just kidding) – well, it’s close enough for a day trip that wouldn’t wipe us out completely.

The plan was for us to sleep until we woke up this morning – get breakfast – get coffee – and get on the road. We headed for Seward just about noon. It was a drizzly sort of day, but we did find some sun spots here and there – and we had a lovely time together.

We saw some flora:
that’s an Arctic Rose – stopped alongside Kenai Lake and found a couple of huge bushes – can you see the rain drops? Well, maybe not in this smaller picture, but I hope to get some prints made of the larger shot. By the way – I know of at least one reader who likes to borrow other folks’ pictures. I don’t really mind, but please don’t forget to give credit where credit is due – okay? And it would be nice to ask first. But then, you all knew that.

We saw some fauna – first a shrew hightailed it across in front of our car – it made it safely into the underbrush. We saw a moose on the way home – and we saw a LOT of roadkill – looks like it is a big year for rabbits. (they are cyclical – I can’t remember if they have high years one in seven or one in two – I think it’s one in seven)

We visited the SeaLife Center and saw lots of animals there – harbor seals, and the like.

But on the way back from Lowell Point we saw:

see those two dots????

Here . . .

Sea otters just playing and rolling and eating while a fisherman sat quietly nearby watching them – and while we watched them. So cool!

On looking closer we noticed he did not even have his line in the water – he was so captivated by the otters – and I think he didn’t want to chance getting them tangled up in his line. You see the rushing water next to him? He is sitting on rocks below a spillway I guess you’d call it. Across the road where I am standing is a waterfall – it comes under the road and rushes into Resurrection Bay. His truck was parked nearby – and he walked down onto the rocks where he is sitting.

We also saw some kayakers –

We ate a late lunch/early dinner, walked along the harbor for a bit and then headed home. I took several more pictures in Seward and a couple of shots on the way home – I’ll show you at least the ones from the trip home next time.

I need to get off to bed soon – swimming early tomorrow and then off to work . . .

Look into the mirror and tell me what you see . . . that is what Shelly is asking. Okay, she is ACTUALLY asking for one of those horror stories we all have in our closets – the one where we got all ready to go out and thought we were at our very, VERY, best-est (is, too a word!) and somewhere along the line, sometime much, much later (mayhaps even after we had gotten home) we discovered that . . .

. . . our hem was torn and hanging, or
. . . our slip was torn, hanging, AND showing, or
. . . we had GREEN stuck in our teeth (no WONDER he didn’t care to kiss us good night), or
. . . we had a “ladder” in our hose – or our seams weren’t straight, or

well, you get the idea. Each of us has something like that in our history – maybe it even happened TODAY!

What’ve you got? What’ve you got to lose? Head on over to Shelly’s and get the skinny on the contest, write it up and email her with a link.

Then, tell all of your friends about it!

Oh, yeah, there are PRIZES, too!!!! How much fun is that?