Shawl Knitting and Shin Splints

The center of my pi shawl from the July projects from EZ's Knitter's Almanac, quite possibly my very favorite knitting book of all time. I just reread it every so often when I'm feeling out of sorts. My favorite thing to do? Have a very important errand that forces me to leave Jeff with all the kids, take myself to Taco Via, eating refried beans and chips and reading my Knitter's Almanac. I leave refreshed, ready to deal with almost anything the crazy house full of kids throws at me and with a very full belly. I know, I know. Therapy would probably cost a lot less than my yarn habit, but it works for me. Plus there's usually good food involved.

I'm too lazy to actually take the shawl off the needles and photograph it properly. This is the high tech version, folded a paper plate, shoved it in there and bunched up the other half of the shawl underneath. Center the whole thing on two pieces of paper? Stunning. I'm actually on what I think will be the last 20 rounds. Should be adding a border and casting the whole thing off soon.



The shin splints? From my little adventure trying to not leave this munchkin waiting for me at the airport. I was wearing moderately inappropriate shoes. Low heeled flippy sandals that I went running across the landscape between terminals. At least they weren't fancy high heelers that would have torn up my feet. I've just got a good case of the "OW! Damn! OW!'s" now with every step I take. Looking at that face, it was totally worth it.

Jeff and the 3 boys (damn I'm outnumbered seriously without my daughter here) have decided tonight's the night for the big family tennis tournament. I play tennis about once a year. I've already played with Jeff a week ago when it felt like 138 degrees in the sun. It wasn't pretty. I think that plus the shin splints ought to be enough to get me some more "errand time" but it doesn't sound like that's gonna fly.

And people wonder why I knit so much...

Honey, if I wasn't knitting most of my day, I'd either go entirely insane, start killing people or drink. OK, drink more than I do now. Somehow knitting balances me in the freaky world that surrounds me.

Yesterday, all I had to do was drive to the airport to pick up the youngest Weasley (my son Joey) from the airport. He was flying solo for the first time, returning from his dad's in New Mexico. Being an extreme Type A personality, I left early enough to leave time for construction issues, parking issues and knitting time waiting. My apologies to my local knitters who've already been through this story once.

Short story: I was there to pick up Joey as he walked off the plane and all is well.

Long story: You don't want to read it and if I had to go through the whole thing again I'd probably have to go home an go back to bed.

Medium story: Construction down to one lane on 635 to the airport put me behind schedule, but I wasn't worried since I'd left early. Terminal B circle parking lot not only full, but blocked off and no entry allowed. Parking lot between terminals B & C full, I end up locked inside where the stupid ticket machine won't accept my ticket, won't let the stupid bar go up so I can get out of the parking lot and NO ONE is inside the stupid guard box with said bars across the road. I'm locked in for over 20 minutes here. People stacking up behind me while I'm trying to back up and decide whether driving up the really REALLY big hill and over curbs in my truck or busting through the gate at the parking lot exit would be the best bet of getting out and doing the least damage, hopefully avoiding prosecution by airport authorities. I'm trying to back up and try the hill when other cars start piling up behind me. 2 cars back is this woman that's cursing me at the top of her lungs. I realized I'm walking back TO HER CAR with my hands in fists balled up so tight that I had fingernail marks in my palms the rest of the afternoon. I am not a violent woman, but I swear it was all I could do not to punch her right in the face! (As Teri pointed out, my metal hiya-hiya double pointed needles would have done the trick, good thing I didn't have any in my hand at the time or Joey would have been hearing, "Sorry your mom can't pick you up today honey, she's in jail" and you KNOW they'd have taken away my needles. Not a pretty picture.)

ANYWAY, a very nice man came up while I'm in tears, worked with my stupid parking lot ticket and on the 14th try it WORKED! There were NO buttons on the stupid ticket taker machine to call for help, it just kept beeping and saying "insert ticket" over and over. I gunned it out of there without doing any damage to people or airport property, went to the lot PAST the next terminal and found the last parking spot. In the midst of this I received an update from the airline saying that Joey's plane would land 20 minutes EARLY. Are you freaking kidding me?

Oh, and it was in the upper 90's and muggy as hell. I hit the ground running, run past the C terminal, run past the stupid parking lot I was locked in, wishing I'd see that same lady locked in herself but no one was there. Ran, ok stumbled along through the B terminal because you KNOW his stupid gate would be at the other end, right? Saw a Southwest plane unloading at gate 22 where Joey's plane was supposed to be and people walking along. As I stumble past, gasping and sweating and looking around like a crazy woman, I shouted at people "Did you come from Albuquerque?" Seriously, people pulled their bags closer to their bodies and looked around for security. Someone finally said "no" so I dragged myself to the arrivals screen and saw the flight was on the tarmac and going to a different gate.

I also had to pee the entire time. But I made it. I was there with a smile. Sweating like a pig and shaking, but I was there.

Oh, and my daughter? She's coming back from NM in a couple of weeks. Get to do it all over again.

THIS is why I knit. After the 25 minute hike back to the parking lot with Joey we just sat in the truck with the air conditioning blasting. I told the kid it was to cool down and I wanted to hear about his trip. It was really so I could knit a few rounds of my pi shawl, preparing myself for whatever crazy shit was coming my way next.

The yarn crawl on Saturday? Fabulous. I really behaved myself too. Most shops gave 25% off. TWENTY FIVE PERCENT. I spent less than $150 and was in and out of FIVE yarn shops. Amazing. I ended up with two skeins of crafty in a good way sockyarn (did you know she's going back to school and not dying for a while?), Cascade now has sockyarn. I bought some in a blue that matches the ribbed happy-happy-joy-joy sweater I made a few months back and some dark green for lacy socks of some sort. Can't wait to see how they knit up. What else? Oh, a skein of Schaefer elaine to use as a border to make my migraine blanket a bit bigger. (I knit it out of all the ends of the elaine yarn I'd made scarves out of my first winter as a knitter and it's a titch colorful). I also picked up a cute flower hat kit for my new nephew/niece (we don't know which yet). OK, it's for a niece, so if it ends up another nephew, I'll have to hang onto it. Colors in the pic above. Driving around the country with women you like buying yarn? It doesn't get better than that.


My Maltese Fisherman's hat from EZ's Knitters Almanac for June. I still have needles in the top as Jeff needs to try it on and I'll see if it's big enough or not. I couldn't wait and already cast on and have knit almost the entire pi shawl, July's project, out of laceweight painted yarn I bought at the Knitting in the Heartland vendor market.


Mom's felted ballcap, 2nd version. This one seems to be more adult-head-sized instead of too felted for a child to even squeeze on their head. I'm still not a fan, but it's done.

You know, knitting as therapy isn't that bad of a deal. The only main side effects are no storage in the home (it's all full of yarn) and lots of hats. lots and lots of hats.

Ganomy

Every time I go to the Sunflower Knitters' Guild meeting I get all kinds of inspired. We meet the 3rd Monday night of each month at Toto's on Johnson Drive in Mission, KS. Combine that with falling asleep while knitting and reading Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac, and there you have it. A gnome hat, or as EZ calls it, the Ganomy. Made with every little last bit of my mountain colors mountain goat in bark brown. I'd made Jeff a pair of socks from this yarn that felted in his boots the first time he wore them. I made it with two strands held together to get gauge. I also ran out of yarn a bit before the end, but very close. In a very Zimmermanny moment, I created a new ending for it and I think it'll work. I really do like the construction of this hat, your ears are covered and warm, good fit.

We always run out of hats around here, scandalous for a knitter's house, so I'm on a mission to knit a bunch of different hats to stock up for winter.

My new mission is to try to make all the projects in EZ's Knitter's Almanac in the months prescribed. I'm sure many have done this, but it seems like a monumentous task to me. One hat down, two more to go in the month of June. I've just finished the neck shaping on the Maltese Fisherman's Hat out of brown sheep bulky. Hope to have it done in a day or two. That is, if I can put down the sock yarn blanket.



OH and YARN CRAWL!!!!! Damn, I love saying that. No, Hollering that. I'm an official driver for our KS yarn crawl on Sat. Can't wait! I got my final severance check from the old job. As a smart woman, I'm investing it. Investing it in YARN. :) OK, so I already put $$ into the kids' savings accounts and mine & Jeff's too. AND the knitters made me promise not to knit while I drive. Or at stoplights. Cripes. I wasn't even the one who knits while driving on WARD PARKWAY! You know who you are. At least I just knit on really long straight roads. Usually.

Will somebody please make me put down the credit card and back away from the yarn shops?

Oh my holy hell. Do you KNOW how many yarn shops there are in the Minneapolis area? It boggles the mind. I've also noticed an awful lot of liquor stores. Long winters. Travel tip----instead of just googling for yarn shops when you travel, you miss so many cool shops that may not have websites---google for the local knitting guilds and check out their list of shops! Here's the list for the Minnesota Knitter's Guild. If I make it to two or three shops each trip, I should be busy from now until I retire, should I still be working for the same company. Last trip I visited Skeins (no website) and the Yarn Cafe. I wanted to go back to both of these this time, but made myself go somewhere new.

This trip I went to Depth of Field which I must say was a FABULOUS fun place to visit, entirely too much money was spent. Let's just say malabrigo lace found its way into my hands and didn't want to leave. mmmmmmmmmmm malabrigo. On a side note, did you hear about the fire at the Malabrigo plant? OH let's hope they find a place to keep up their dying and such!

Tonight I took myself to Excelsior after work and stopped in at Coldwater Collaborative, a very quaint shop in a beautiful little town in the middle of all these suburbs. Much money was spent here as well, I left with some of the most amazing sock yarn I've ever had the pleasure of fondling. Casbah sockyarn from Hand Maiden. 80% merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon. Gorgeous colors. At that moment I could have rationalized selling off a kidney just to go home with the rest of those skeins.



ANYWAY, very cool shop! It was a beautiful night. I wandered down the block, took myself to dinner and sat at an outside table eating my steak and taters, walked further down the road, and there's a LAKE there. I had no idea. I know this land is full of lakes, but man it just sneaks up on you. BEAUTIFUL. I sat on a bench, knitting away, enjoying the evening. That's the kind of business trip I like.



Wishing you good knitting views where ever you sit and knit!

From Super Knitter to Super Knitiot in a single bound round!

Well crap. Crap, Crap, Crap. Had a nice long road trip last weekend to Lake Webster campground in western Kansas. Five hours each way. FIVE HOURS! of NOT having to drive. So, I cast on the sweater that WILL be mine. Though I'm sure she didn't realize it at the time, Marnie actually designed Astoria just for me. It will be mine. It's even knit out of my very favorite yarn, Cascade 220! Can you believe it? So, off to knit my first official piece of colorwork. Yes, I had some mosaic on Jeff's boyfriend sweater, but that was actually just slipping stitches and only knitting one color at a time. This one should be interesting.

Being a fan of the top-down knitted raglan, you'd think I could handle the basic fundamentals. Yes, the increasing and all that went perfectly. But after I got to the campground, looked down and after FOUR HOURS of knitting (I took a nap at one point) I saw a little thing. A little blip. Kind of a hole-ish thing. I thought, oh, surely I just twisted a stitch, nope. Maybe I purled at some point instead of knitted. nope. I had set it down, picked it up later and proceeded to KNIT IT THE WRONG DAMN WAY! And then knit on for the next three hours. I'd short-rowed myself a nice little blip/hole/eyesore. I'm sure another knitter wouldn't even bother, but being super Anal knitter, it has to come out. I was so disgusted with myself I put it away and haven't had the heart to frog it or even start over yet. It's pretty much a frog the whole damn thing option. It happened in about the 8th row or so. Seriously? The first thing I learned after the basic knit stitch was to ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS make sure the yarn from the ball is attached to the needle in my right hand. always. fuxxing knitiot.

Ah well, the sweater is packed for another trip to MN. I've been consumed by another project lately. Wanna see?

The Itty Bitty Sock Yarn Bits Blankie!
The details:
Needles: 2 sizes larger than you usually use for knitting sock yarn. I knit most socks on 1.5 hiya-hiya's, so am working this on a size 3 addi turbo circ.
Yarn: Leftover bits of sock yarn. Save a little bit from each to use for darning.
Cast on 64 stitches (or how ever many you want to!) I normally use 64 stitches to start a sock from the top down. Knit until you almost run out of yarn, change colors and stripe away. When you feel like it, bind off. Pick up another yarn and pick up and knit stitches along the sides, then knit away. I'm planning to do this in a log cabin type style. Knit one side for a while, bind off, pick up stitches on the next side and knit away. I'll post an actual pattern once it'd done, but you get the picture.

***Make sure to slip the first stitch of each row purl-wise with the yarn in back. This makes for a lovely border and also much easier to pick up stitches later! OH, except when you are knitting the first stitch of a row with a new color, knit the first stitch with both strands, then continue along with the new color. Otherwise, first stitch is always slipped.***

I'm off to accomplish nothing other than a few inches of my itty bitty sock bits blankie! I'm not sure if I have the heart to frog what I've started for the Astoria sweater or not. I'll probably just pack new balls of yarn and leave the first part to frog for the bottom after the hard part is past. Cripes almighty, you'd think the color work would be the hard part, wouldn't you?

Off to Minneapolis for another week for the job. Got a LOT of neat yarn shops all mapquested and printed out. Hope to make it to a couple if I have time. Gotta love yarn shops open until 7pm! WOO HOO!

Zing! KaPow! Zowee! Mild Mannered Office Drone by day, SUPER KNITTER by night!

Ever feel like SuperKnitter? I totally did today. Yes, I had entirely too much time on my hands and had fallen asleep last night to American Life channel with that old Batman and Robin show with all the POW! Zoom! WOW! stuff.

Seriously, I don't feel like SuperKnitter because I've completed a technically amazing piece of knitting. No, it's because I'm wearing three hand-knit-by-me sweaters to work this week. Tuesday I paired the recycled cotton from a VERY fugly tempting into Tomato from the No Sheep for You book with a white denim blazer. ZING!



Today I wore my friend the Sizzle with a white & red patterned blazer. I had to frog off the shoulder trim because too-tightly bound off 100% mercerized cotton on my pits is not a pretty thing. ow. I never even replaced the trim, I think it looks fine. Professional woman again. KaPOW! (And my bra wasn't showing through this badly, it was just from the flash. I promise!)



Tomorrow I plan to pair my JUST COMPLETED ChicKami from Bonne Marie Burns. Damn I love this sweater. I've knit 3 now. THREE SKEINS of Frog Tree cotton/silk blend bought from Misknits. Three skeins. This may be the cheapest sweater I've ever made. By itself, a very cute summer top. Paired with a funky blazer from Chico's? Mild mannered office woman indeed. I won't wear it with the jean capris, but will probably put it on with a long denim skirt. Zowee!

Man, I gotta tell you, these designers all show their sweaters off modeling the sweater, standing in front of a beach, or hanging in a tree in a beautiful glen. They don't know what they're missing. Nothing shows off a sweater like a headless pit shot. I can't imagine why I get no calls for my photography skills.

OH, and the bags at Knit Wit, that little shop in Olathe? You know the ones, the kind-of-cloth-ish fabric totes you get when you spend over $100? Yeah. They're hot pink now. Ask me how I know. Well, Six skeins of Cascade 220 and a few pattern books later and I'm the proud owner of this one here. See what happens when the computers go down at work and SuperKnitter is told to go out and run a few errands for an hour or so?


Go on and be a SuperKnitter too. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to liberate a sweater from its imprisonment deep in that bottom drawer or way back in the closet. My sizzle and tomato sweaters were just waiting for a hero, for their chance to shine. You know you probably have a couple hidden away somewhere too. It's amazing what a blazer can do. Find one, fix it if it needs it or cover whatever bugs you and WEAR your knitting!

You don't even have to say "kaPOW" under your breath while walking around the office, but it totally helps.

Oh and Jeff is absolutely my superhero too. Not only did he put in a new fake-walnut laminate floor in our kitchen and front entryway this past weekend, the man rigged up this angled wooden platform under the bunny cage and now their poop rolls into a bucket for easier disposal. Zowee!

Do not be fooled by our fluffy cuteness with wiggly noses, we are actually evil poop machines

These came home the day after the wedding. Somehow on the way back from returning the tables and chairs we rented for the shindig, there was a detour to the bunny shop. cripes almighty. Yes, they ARE cute. Yes, they ARE soft. Yes, their noses DO wiggle ever so perfectly. But they POOP. a LOT. And they are NOT coming into my house. It gets freaking cold in Kansas, so the boys and Jeff had better damn well figure something out. Maybe they can set up a little heater system. NOT. COMING. INTO. MY. HOUSE. Not gonna happen. Their names are Lion and Midnight. Beth wanted something cute and the boys wanted something fierce. We girls figured out we could call the brown one Dandylion, Lion for short, and the boys are no wiser. These aren't even the kind you can spin wool from.


Ah, airport knitting. I got about 3 inches done on the current Chickami. I'm using Frog Tree silk & cotton I bought at MisKnits in a dark navy. It should be gorgeous. THANK GOD for thick wool socks. After hauling butt carrying a heavy backpack and bag to try to make it to an earlier flight and fly standby (the ticket counter woman told me there was plenty of room) in heels, my toes were getting a bit sore. After learning that they'd actually overbooked the damn flight by 11, I had two hours to wander through the airport to the very other side of the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, and my baby toes were screaming. SO, what does a knitter do? Pulls out the pair of nice medium weight socks that rock socks knit up tightly so there's good squoosh factor, put them on and ditch the heels. Yes, I wandered through the airport at a leisurely pace in my comfy socks with no shoes. Damn I love knitted socks. They're better than a super hero's cape.

Minneapolis, yes. As a perk to the new job, I get to go there about 5 times a year. It's just been one week each month for April, May, June and probably July. Then it backs off to October and again in January. Minneapolis is freaking COLD most of the year. I don't know how those people do it, but more power to them. The best part? They have a TON of knitting shops. My current plan is to hit 2 or 3 each time I go to town. I should be good for the next 5 years and then can branch off into the St. Paul side. I went to a neat place called the Yarn Cafe, where they have FOOD and YARN and lots of tables to sit at. Oh, and diet coke. DAMN you gotta love that. They are also open evenings, so I had a fun time roaming around and sitting and knitting for a while one evening. A few hours beore my flight, I stopped by Skeins, a shop in Minnetonka. I can't seem to find a website for them, but they had really nice yarn and a ton of books. I behaved myself and spent less than $100 on yarn and patterns this trip. I was told of a neat knitting group that meets on Thusday nights, but can't remember where for the life of me. I'll call Skeins next time I'm in town and find out. I love sitting and knitting with new groups when I travel.

More knitting on the farm. Got back to KC Friday night, took off for the farm on Saturday morning for the day. THIS time I was prepared. I brought more bug spray than you would think humanly possible. I had the extremely toxic high deet stuff for spraying the top of our ballcaps, shoes and ends of jeans. The mildly toxic mid-deet stuff for clothing and bellies. The barely-deet and mostly picarin stuff for arms, legs and necks, etc. Also sunscreen. I was a spraying fiend-momma. I also reapplied often. Some of the locals were talking about how it's a bad year for ticks. EVERY year is a bad year for ticks for me, but they were right. We went hiking across a bunch of land Jeff is wanting to buy (this one is quite pretty without the whole rat-poop-filled broken down farmhouse with mold damage and animals in the basement.) It's just land. And ticks. And ponds, creeks, forests, pastures and ticks. I pulled off at least 5 from Jeff's clothes. Nature boy doesn't BELIEVE in bug spray. Yeah. I'm a believer. Our only come-apart was on the way home, Elizabeth had one biggie just starting to nibble on her belly. She survived that trauma and when we got home I did a MAJOR tick looking-over and we came out clean. Jeff came home the next day and I pulled more off him. OF COURSE he drove my truck, so every time I get in there I think of the ticks he brought home and probably laid thousands of tick babies just waiting to pounce on me when I drive to work each morning. No, I don't have a problem or anything. Hey, surviving my "wow, my freckles are moving.....wait, those aren't freckles.....holy FUXX they're EATING ME!" situation last year deserves a mild freakout now and then.





Came downstairs this afternoon thinking "those girls sure are being quiet on this playdate" usually a sign of trouble around here. The scene melted my heart. Junior weavers. Yarn everywhere. Our back porch rocks.


The one thing I decided (besides we're absolutely buying stock in a bug spray company) whenever we do move out to our farm to be (years from now, don't worry) is that I really REALLY don't want my own animals. I've got no problem with a farm dog or two and some cats (OUTDOOR farm cats). Those are ok. I've got a problem with having to take care of them every freaking day. And the poop, OH GOD the poop. You've got to DO something with it. Yes, the image of me spinning yarn from my animals and then knitting into amazing hats and sweaters to keep us warm in our later years will have to NOT include fiber from my own animals. I'm going to make friends with people that have animals, help them during shearing time, and then the poop is not my responsibility. Yes. I have issues. I'm ok with that.



PS, I promise to post more than twice a month so these things don't take an hour and a half to read. Sorry!

Friends don't let friends knit drunk, on a boat, in total darkness, while decreasing a toe, but apparently new husbands do

OK, so maybe not drunk, but seriously tipsy after two and a half strong pina coladas made with REAL coconut and lots of rum, yum! Yeah, I knit an ENTIRE toe of one sock in the dark while drinking and rocking on the boat in the dark. DARK dark. Only stars above dark. Impressed Jeff's aunt and uncle (the captain of the boat and his wife, also a captain) and impressed the hell out of myself as well. Until the next morning. Holy hell, I've never seen a more fugly piece of knitting in my LIFE! Entire two inches had to get ripped back out. But sitting on the boat watching the sunrise? Knitting on wollmeise? It doesn't get any better than that. I brought 2 skeins of wollmeise along for sock knitting and the best EVER knitting project bag from Carmen, aka Girley Purls. Oh and I was totally singing "Give me Two Pina Coladas....one for each hand..." the entire honeymoon. I know it. Yeah, I'm still singing that song.

The first night, before much limbo-ing and pina coladaing. I was actually carried under a LOW limbo pole by a large Bahama Man and I've got to say, that was something you don't see every day. Jeff's cousin has that pic on her camera, so I'll post it later.

My survivor-man, after throwing rocks up at the coconuts and gathering them as they fell. The man spent almost three hours beating these on sharp rocks until he got two of them peeled down to the final layer. We're going to use a drill to get to the coconut milk. I've heard the varieties out on that island either tasted like heaven or like stinky feet. Let's hope these are the angelic ones.


The sock that had two knitted toes. See what a little pina colada will get you?


A little deck walking. Can you believe the colors of the water?



OK, you KNOW he totally licked that thing, don't you? Claws and all. Jeff caught at least 4 crabs and almost pulled this giant crawfish out while we were snorkeling. He really IS Nature Boy. After a mild come-apart while snorkeling, I realized I truly am Nature-Over-There-Me-WAAAAAAYYYYYY-Over-Here Girl. My kind of snorkeling is where you float along, and say "Oh, how lovely, way down there, at least 50 feet away from me, is a beautiful creature. How about that?" THIS kind of snorkeling is more of the HOLY SHIT THESE THINGS ARE ALL TOUCHING ME!!!!! MAKE THEM STOP TOUCHING ME!!! Seriously, we were IN the fish. Beautiful fish, colorful fish but IN the freaking fish. INCHES from the damn reefs. I had the same freaking out feeling as when I was being eaten by the thousands of itty bitty ticks in the country last spring. Damn nature.


This starfish was left behind on a low tide, so apparently dead. It came home with us. It was also the color of my other pair of wollmeise socks that were completed on the honeymoon, therefore they will be called my Starfish Honeymoon Socks. It is now brown, still big and VERY smelly and will probably take 20 years to fully dry out.



These were knit while looking at this kind of a scene the ENTIRE week.


Are you tired of this long post and pictures yet? It's almost over, I promise. Stay with me, you HAVE to hear about the fishing! One morning we were anchored outside of a cut, where the Atlantic Ocean comes into the Sea of Abaco. I guess this means good fishing. Not being much of a fisherwoman, I figured I'd sit and knit and watch Jeff do his stuff like a good little wife. WELL, the man proceeded to set up some complicated crap on this super fishing pole, rigging up lures and smelly fish parts and the like. Then told me that after he got it all set up just so, I could HOLD THE POLE until something happened, where he, being the fisherman you see, would come and take the pole away. So I could be like a hook on a dock. Yeah, that'd be fun. After telling him just where and how he could put that fancy pole I walked up to the front of the boat.

I picked up this spool of fishing line that looked like a big spool of thread. It had two hooks on the ends and a sinker. I cut up some hotdog bits, dropped them into the water and BAM, BAM BAM BAM BAM! Every time it hit the water I was pulling out fish. Serious fish. Poor Jeff, his fancy pole and lures and funky floaty system didn't catch one damn thing. I caught over 18 fish. EIGHTEEN FISH! His uncle about wet himself laughing about it. Jeff would get to the other end of the boat, sit down with his pole and BAM I'd catch another one. Hell, I was even catching TWO AT A TIME! hotdog and hooks on a string, baby. High tech fishing. Jeff did catch a barracuda while we were sailing, but it dropped off before I could get a picture.

Jeff finally gave up the pole and figured I was catching dinner that night. After checking the book to see which ones were good for eating, we saw I was catching things called saucer eyed porgies, and grunts. About 6 different kinds of grunts. These things were beautiful, yellows and blues, stripes, polka dots, gorgeous. Oh, and why are they called grunts? They grunt like pigs while they're out of the water. I'm even holding Jeff's pole AND pulling fish out of the water at one point. Damn, that was fun.








Best. Trip. Ever.

Because there's nothing more romantic than saying "I do" under an antler gun rack

OK, seriously? There was a gun hanging on antlers over our heads? I had no idea until I saw the pictures. Dude, I just got married under an antler gun rack? Seriously? Oh and you KNOW it was loaded. You know what? Does that seem funny, yet perfectly fitting to anyone but me? The morning wedding was supposed to be outside but it was still freaking cold and so we had the ceremony in the "Cowboy Room", aka Jeff's folks' study/den/sitting room. It was just the immediate family and was wonderful. My old boss is now a minister so he and his wife came to town to perform the ceremony. It was very special and I am so happy!

Here's the new family:


The redneck wedding cake, which I think was one of the highlights of the day. Jeff's sister created this for us and used the wedding cake topper from her wedding ten years ago. We had a lovely place for it, but then the sun came out (thank GOD) and it would have melted anywhere we put it. This left us short of tables. What to do? Well, my inlaws rigged it up on a piece of plywood balanced on a kitchen stool. It doesn't get any more redneck than that, does it? My family rocks. Thankfully the sun came out, since at one point I counted over 40 children running around tearing up the backyard of my inlaws and that of their neighbor who graciously let us use their playground and basketball court to go with our badminton set.





Oh, and of course there was knitting...



The good pictures are coming later, including those with me in the gorgeous wedding shawl made by Cheri! My sister-in-law took amazing shots and I can't wait to get them!

The day was exactly like we wanted it, family and friends outside, grilling, eating, dancing, having a ball. The only sad part was that I wasn't organized enough to get my best friend here in town for the party. I owe her a really big girls' trip out somewhere soon. I'm thinking Vegas!

We're off for a week in the Bahamas! Woo Hoo! Much knitting of socks, sitting on beaches, drifting in the sailboat and doing absolutely nothing. Can't wait! Normal crazy knit blogging to come after I come back full of freckles. Between Jeff and my pale skin, I'm hoping we don't both burst into flames the minute we get off the plane.

Antler gun rack, knitters, big ass fire and monster charcoal grill? OH and some mike's hard limeades. You betcha. It doesn't get better than this.