p.s.

the size 0 needles are working MUCH better!

I love my knitting group

And I hate that I'm going to be leaving them soon. :( (is there an emoticon for big tear drops?) As much as i want to be in a new (not-falling-apart) house, I really really will miss everybody. Ms. C founded our knitting group in December 2006, I found it Feb 2007, and I've been at Panera's almost every Monday since then.

Everybody was so very nice last Monday, they had going-away presents for me.This first pic is travel toys for the kiddos - there were two teen magazines in there, too, but Little Sister already grabbed those.


Then, here's the other canvas tote, full of goodies for me.


I sorted it out into two pictures, so here we go...there's 5 dishcloths, 1 kitchen towel, 4 scrubies, 2 soap bottle dresses (these are so going into my kitchen, I never manage to make any for myself), and a sock yarn bag....


Then, here is a tea pot with Tazo tea (would you believe, I don't have any real teapots already?), a box of Good Earth Tea (I haven't tried this before, and it looks yummy), a mug with it's own cozy (and a flower!) two lacey bookmarks, and a little skein of yarn with a keychain that says its colorway is my name.

Oh gosh, I'm about to cry again. This is so nice of everybody....

knitting news

I had about 20 rows knit on my Print 'O the Wave scarf. The Lacey Lamb yarn is a lovely color, soft, and great to work with. But, I decided that knitting it on size 4 needles just wasn't going to have the pattern dense enough to be appreciated. So, ribbit, ribbit! I frogged it, totally. I'll start over when I find some size 0 needles. Hey! This means I can start a new pair of socks! There really is a silver needle to a dark cloud...

cars are expensive pets to keep.

So, I took the Aztek into the repair shop this afternoon. It had been acting funny, vibrating oddly at a specific speed, and we wanted to find out what was wrong with it before our next road trip. And, a turn signal light needed to be replaced. Little G and I arrived, talked to the customer service guy, and he said, "It'll need this and this, and this.." and wow! it would be under a hundred dollars (the Aztek's repairs are usually in the hundredS range, unfortunately. I don't know if it's all Azteks, or if we're just really rough on ours.)
The Little Girl and I went inside to the waiting room, to look at the fishies and watch TV. That was fun, she entertained the other customers just by being a cute little girl. She recieved two seperate comments of "What a good little girl!"
When I heard my name paged over the speakers, I knew it couldn't be good. When they can fix your car right away, they page you to go pay for it. It's only when there are New, Amazing, and Expensive problems that they call you to discuss it again. And yes, it was. Expensive, at least.
Did you know tires can break? I had never thought of it before, but, it made sense...the inner belts on 3 out of 4 of my tires were broken. That's what was causing the vibration. Thank goodness I hadn't had a blow-out with them. They didn't have a tire in stock to fit the Aztek, either, so they had to order it. And, the oil pan was leaking "badly", so I said to repair that too. The very nice customer service guy said that it wouldn't be done today, so they gave me and the Little Girl a ride home, and said they could come pick us up tomorrow. When it will hopefully be done. Hopefully EARLY, so that we can make it to swimming lessons...
So, I'm not going to make it to Panera's tonight for knitting. No car. Maybe I'll lock myself in the bedroom for an hour and insist that I'm going to knit by myself! LOL! and it five minutes there would be little people pounding on the door insisting they need mommy's help.
Big J keeps threatening to buy me a new car. I don't want to, I love my aztek, and I haven't seen anything I like that's big enough to cart our family (and the dog) around, but, when the yearly repair bills is larger than car payments, maybe he has a point.

not-so-fun swimming

Well, swim lessons have been a bit disappointing this week. We don't have lessons on Friday, and out of 4 days, two have been raining and lightning at swim lesson time. And the other two days have been cloudy and chill, so that when I get in the pool, I have to resist shrieking because the water is cold! and I don't want to scare Little J. The first 15 minutes of our 30 minute lessons have been spent holding Little J, who doesn't want to do anything except climb up mommy like a tree, because HE thinks the water is cold, too. The last five minutes, Little J hugs me and asks to get out, because he has gotten too cold to have any fun, while the ditzy tanned highschool lifeguard teacher tries to tell him "move around and you'll stay warm..." (it never worked for me. If you're below a certain percentage of body fat (and his teacher is nicely insulated.) once you're cold, it dosen't matter how active you are, you're still cold)

okay, enough grouchiness...the sun is out, there is a heat index warning so it should be warm for the rest of the day...we set up the little kids' wading pool in the back yard so in a little bit it should be warmed up nicely, and ready for them to play in. Me, I have some flowers to plant, so we all have things to do.

For all you Kansas people, we just heard Mark Lawson from KWCH on the weather channel! That's the cool part! but he was talking about sever weather in Kansas. Are y'all okay?

My newest skirt

new skirt, pic cropped
Originally uploaded by marigo

Okay, I took a very dark photo, indoors, in a mirror, and then I tinkered with it until it looks like this...and it's pretty accurate. I like it, it's light and cool, and dries quickly...I know, because I was chasing little kids through the water fountains at the zoo.

This afternoon we spent at the zoo, looking at the elephants and the butterflies and the botanical garden. We had much fun! i've uploaded pics to flickr if you want to see,

Tomorrow, Little J starts swimming lessons. He's not to sure about getting in the big pool, so we'll see how it goes. Mommy is going to be with him, and Little Sister and Little G will be in the baby pool. It'll be a fun family event! yay! :)