Escape or how families can drive you mad

We are three states from home, California...home being Colorado of course. We're staying at the inlaws. I may start staying in our camper parked out in front. My inlaws don't drive me as crazy as the sister in law next door. Why oh why did they decide that living next door to their daughter was such a swell idea (I think they've rethunk that one). I love her, but oh the stress!!

But, I have figured out where Jimmy Beans wool is up in Truckee. It's only a little over an hour from here. There's other stuff we can do up there. Ah the promise of a yarn shop!!

But for now.....dinner must be cooked. I'll pop in later. Perhaps I'll have tales to tell and yarn to take pictures of....

Stuff going on in the family

has been just sucking up my time and energy. My money and my sanity. Suffice it to say that I have two extra children to take care of. Knitting has taken a back seat for the moment. I have finished a sweater but haven't even put it on to have pictures taken of it. No time.

So I am working on mending my heart and hoping that the family members who are going through stuff get lives back on track and I can pick up my pointy needles again.

Summer

Yesterday was my dad's birthday, he would have been 72 years old if he were still with us. My sister is going through many many pictures from our step mom's house. Boxes full of memories. Dad was an animal lover, he always had critters around and could often be found out in his garden carrying something around with him. The animals put up with him, enjoying the attention. He had a goose named "Gussy" that was one of his favorite pals to haul around the yard with him. I can still hear him saying "Come on old Gussy girl, let's go see what's going on in the garden".


Summer. I miss dad every day, but summer it seems more intense sometimes. I miss the garden, I miss the animals, I miss the relaxed atmosphere there in the back yard. When I was little, we had goats. I'm not sure exactly why we had goats, but my brother and I each had a goat mine was Nanny and Ted's was Snooper. They were half angora half pygmy or something (this was like 35 years ago, really all I remember is they weren't big, and they were white). I do remember my dad decided that we should breed them and he borrowed a ram from the ranch where Nanny and Snooper had come from. The ram's name was "Stinky" and boy was he!! As a kid I looked at this smelly, stinky hairy goat and thought "Good Lord!! What do you do with that fur!! Now I look back and think yarn, sweaters, spinning (after a good wash, of course).

Summer, it brings back these memories. Back then I was still learning how to knit. I don't know that I'd ever heard of spinning, it was something in the enclyclopedia with a picture of someone in a long skirt sitting in front of a wheel. But I was learning how to knit on cheap acrylic and probably driving my mom crazy with my dropped stitches. I don't knit as much in the summer unless we're driving on vacation. From my house to my inlaws house is about 20 hours of driving time, since I drive about half of it and computer boy drives the other half I can squeeze in about 10 hours of knitting time (minus the time I have to crawl back into the camper for pottying kids and making sandwiches).

Summer. Brings yard work. On one hand I'd love to hire the yard work done, but really we don't landscape the entire acre and a half. Heck we don't even landscape the front yard so to speak, we just go out and mow and cut the suckers off of the oaks and the yard looks pretty. But on the other hand I really find working out in the yard to be relaxing, even tho it does cut seriously into my knitting time (mostly I think, because I don't really look at trimming trees as work....goofy as that sounds).

And so I'm off with a nice glass of iced tea to trim trees and think of dad and his garden. At my altitude my garden will never compare to his, but I hope someday my kids have such happy memories of my attempts.