Monkey Tale

A few weeks ago a small goodie arrived in the mail from Granny and Daddy Dave. Inside was the most enormous pair of red-heeled socks I've ever seen. Seriously! I have no idea how they managed to sweet talk Paul Bunyan out of his knitwear, but there they were.

Of course, J and I knew exactly what to do with them...




Meet "Bluey". J chose the hideous blue buttons for they eyes, and he adores them. Bluey is now his best buddy, and they are nearly inseperable. He even took a trip to the dentist with us today and got to take a ride in the cool chair. He's developing quite a personality, too. He tells J things like "You don't want to eat that broccoli," and "Bedtimes are for babies." But he also tells him that he'll protect him from nightmares, which is an awful sweet thing for a pair cut up socks to do. We are quite grateful to the evil little monkey.

A day or two after Bluey's creation, J turned to me and said, "Mama, Bluey's naked. He needs a shirt. A red yarn shirt."

And so, while no one else will probably ever be gifted with their very own handknit sweater, the mighty monkey wears his proudly. I didn't really use a pattern for it, and it's perhaps a bit large, but it makes it easier for J to help him in and out of as the weather dictates.


In other news, our little garden is coming along nicely. The tomato plants are starting to show their first little fruits, and the beans are climbing higher and higher every day. Last night we harvested our first tiny crop-- two radishes. J was brave and tasted one before deeming them "too ficy" and passing them along to Steven, who ate them right up. I hope the kid has a big appetite for them, because he's the only one in this house that will even come near them, I think.


Tomorrow we're off to Tennessee for my baby sister's graduation, and to visit with family. I'm looking forward to the destination, but the traveling and the prep that goes into it has just about wiped me out. Thank goodness we were able to get the kittens off to their new homes before we left. Could you imagine the nightmare it would have been to find someone to take care of them?!

Wednesday off

I switched my schedule around at work this week to accommodate my in-law's trip out of town, so I had today off.

I ended up going to work anyway, because one of my doctors wanted to adopt one of our kittens. They're technically too young to be going to new homes, but they're big and they're healthy, and the mother is done nursing them and anxious to escape the confines of our bathroom, so I decided to let them go.

I didn't think it was going to be hard saying goodbye to them. It's not like I ever entertained the idea that I might actually keep any of them, but kittens grow on you. Really, really grow on you. And when one of the other girls decided she wanted to take one, and chose the one that nearly died- the one I pretty much brought back from the brink of death- I did cry. Only a little.

So, two gone, two left to find homes for. And I realized after the fact that I really didn't have any pictures of them. Here's one of two and a half of them.


It's that little black and white one that really stole my heart.

After that, J and I went and spent some time at the park. It's been too long since we've done so, and it was great. The weather today was beautiful-- low 70s, no humidity to speak of, and wonderfully sunny. I was surprised that we pretty much had the place to ourselves.





Now, I do realize that the last picture isn't one of those cutest kid in the world sort of shots, but it's my absolute favorite out of the group because look what he's doing! Yes! My kid who, just a few months ago, had trouble negotiating curbs and steps is finally getting his balance and confidence. He's slow and meticulous, but he's climbing all by himself. We've visited this same park regularly for about 2 years, and today was the first time he attempted this.

The picture I don't have is of him deciding to try and slide down the pole! I'm glad I was underneath to catch him. Otherwise, instead of writing this, I'd probably be sitting in the ER right now waiting on sutures. :)

I still ahve yet to show you guys the progress I've made on the cami, but it's coming along. I'm just about to separate for the armholes, and I think it'll zip along from here. Still holding my breath about not running out of yarn, though. We'll see.

And I'll leave you with this shot of myself with a long-overdue haircut. I'm still adjusting to not being able to pull it back out of my face, but I do love it. She also trimmed J's up a little.

Whew!

Taxes are filed.

'Nuff said.


Actually, it's not enough.

Small rant: It costs $17.95 or whatever to e-file, which is totally worth the cost of not having to copy all the darn paperwork, etc. and then stand in line at the post office to drop it off. I'll happily pay the fee. But when it asks me if I want to have that $17.95 automatically deducted from my refund, it then informs me that they'll charge me an additional $29.99 to do so. **scratching head** Do people REALLY do that? No thanks, I'm quite capable of entering my card number manually. Glad I could figure that out.

Almost no knitting

It seems like forever since I've managed to update any sort of knitting content. I've been working on the ballet cami that I was supposed to be knitting, oh, about 6 months ago. I'm done with the waist decreases, and starting in on the increases. I'd share a picture, but I haven't got one. Besides, it's an uninteresting to look at purple blob right now. I do have my concerns about this pattern, though. I prefer my clothes to not be clingy. You know, hide the middle parts, etc. Even knit using a larger size than necessary, it appears pretty small and clingy. Yes, I do realize that's sort of the intention of the pattern. If nothing else, it'll look great as a shell underneath something, I suppose. Or I'll find it a proper home if I really won't wear it.

The reason there's been so very little knitting is quite simple. Time. Some days I feel like I haven't got time to even sit down. I'm on the go from the minute I roll out of bed at some ungodly hour (and I'm not a morning person), until my head hits the pillow at another ungodly hour.

Throw in a lot of gardening that needed to be accomplished before the plants died, and an impromptu plumbing job, and that's about all the excuse I need.

Yes, lets talk about plumbing jobs.

Hubby is not the most industrious person in the world. It's not that he's lazy, he's just difficult to motivate at times. He's slow and meticulous, and it takes him darn near forever to accomplish something that I could do in about 15 minutes. So, when he said he wanted to work on the flower beds, the skeptic in me rolled her eyes. But how do you discourage someone from doing something like that?

So Sunday, when he went out to finish the last of the straggling flower beds without prompting, I was quite amazed, and decided to stay inside and out of his way. Yes, I'm a hover-er.

All of a sudden, from the other side of the kitchen window, I hear a string of bilingual foul words, followed by a loss of water at the kitchen sink. Who knew that the main water line from the well ran directly through that flowerbed? Further, who knew it was only about 2 inches underground?


The hubby has bad karma. He cracked it with a hoe breaking up roots.

So it was a quick run to the hardware store to repair it, lest we be without water indefinitely. Ummm... not an option.

Neither of us have ever repaired plumbing before, but it seemed simple enough... Cut out the broken piece,

(notice hubby doesn't seem very amused)
fit in a new one, some of that blue goo to hold it, and viola! Fixed pipe.



Of course, I covertly made a quick call to Dad while hubby was at the hardware store just to make sure we were on the right track. Thanks Dad! and shhhh... don't tell Wil!

I wanted to show you pictures of the finished flower beds and the veggie garden. They're looking quite lovely! But once again, my morning time has run out. *sigh* maybe tonight, if I get home at a decent enough hour.