Lace
OK, so after I finished my homework I played with my new yarn.
I might actually have gotten a little carried away and stayed up late to work on this. It will end up being a stole. I'm using the same pattern as I did for this one.
I'd stay and chat longer, but I'm falling behind on my knitting.
Look at me, being responsible and all.
I'm working on this:
When what I really want to do is play with this:
Recently Brother purchased a 13 foot Winnebago trailer.
He's spent the last few months fixing it up and it was finally ready for its maiden voyage this past weekend. He checked out the internet and found a Michigan State Park that was about halfway between his house in Detroit and our house in Chicagoland, so we all set off on Friday and met in the middle.
Having never been to this particular campground, none of us knew which were the good sites. Luckily, when Husband, Daughter and I showed up, the man in the guard shack told us that we could take a drive through the place and pick out whatever looked good to us. There were some sites that were just pretty terrible, but there were also a nice selection of good sites as well. We were actually rather surprised at how scarce the campers were. We've been to places that were wall to wall with people by Friday night, but apparently Yankee Springs Deep Lake unit isn't one of them. We found some nice deep sites near a water pump, the outhouses, and a swingset.
Brother and his crew arrived a couple of hours after us, by which time Daughter had discovered that there were a lot of toads and tree frogs in the area.
Nephew was especially enamored of the frogs and caught 8 or 10 of them over the course of the weekend.
One of the points of interest in the area is the Devil's Soupbowl, which is advertised as a glacially carved kettle. On the map it seems to be a pretty impressive feature. After making the 2 mile hike to get there, we have all determined that it needs to be renamed the Devil's Disappointment. It's a large low place to be sure, but it is also full of mature trees, making it impossible to really see it. Even though it was slightly less than impressive, we did climb down to the bottom, just so we could say that we had.
Other than a trip to the beach (sans camera, sorry) we spent the remainder of the trip hanging out at the campfire. There was a lot of cooking,
and eating,
and children playing in the dirt.
So after a couple of good nights' sleep
it was time to wipe down the tent (because naturally it rained like heck the night before we left)
and head back to civilization. And as I stare at the pile of laundry that needs to be washed, and look at the decimated refrigerator contents, I'm wishing I was still relaxing in the woods.
Knitting
Well, really, what else did you expect me to say?
There's sock knitting
and lace knitting
and sweater knitting
and I love them all.
Jerseys
We're not really much of a sports house. No one watches much football or basketball. No one ever watches golf or baseball. Husband will watch tennis if it's a major tournament and someone he likes is playing.
Daughter and I, however, prefer hockey. Because her first experience with hockey was when the Red Wings won the Stanley cup last year, they are her favorite team. She's been asking for a hockey jersey for a while now, and on her birthday she finally got a Red Wings practice jersey with "Datsyuk" on the back. As far as I can figure, he's her favorite because she likes yelling his name: dot-SOOOOOOOOOK. (voice as low as you can get it on the second syllable, oo like zoo, not book.)
I like the Blackhawks because I live in Chicago. Also, they have a very good, very young team. In fact the captain of the team turned 21 on the same day I turned 41. When he attempted to grow a playoff beard, other members of the team were heard to call it "embarassing." So in honor of Johnny Towes (pronounced taves) I have a #19 jersey.
J is also for Jerseys because I couldn't think of anything else besides jeans, and though I wear them constantly during the cool and cold months, there's no way I'm taking a picture of that for the blog.
** Knitting Content **
I'm in the midst of making a pair of socks. I'm making them for a man, which in and of itself is a challenge. They don't really make yarn in "man" colors. I looked all over the internet to try and find something that a man would be willing to put on his feet. I finally settled on Socks that Rock in Shadow. The next hurdle is that all I know is the shoe size of the intended recipient. I don't have easy access to the feet in question, so I have to guess on number of stitches and such. Here's what I've got:
Sadly, that is my foot, and it fits me just fine. This leads me to believe that there is no way that this will be a comfortable fit for a 6 foot, 200 pound man. I may have to go back to the drawing board on these.
So Son came upstairs yesterday and said, "Look Mom, you're not the only one who can make socks."
I'm so proud.
Insomnia
Like many people, I occasionally suffer from an inability to sleep. My problem is not in falling asleep, but in going back to sleep if something should happen to wake me up. Once I'm all the way awake, it takes me 2 to 4 hours to get back to sleep. It doesn't happen a lot, which is a good thing because it's all kinds of annoying when it happens. I've adapted several strategies for dealing with it. Most of them do nothing but pass the time.
1. Counting. Usually heartbeats. Most commonly every 4th one. Or use the same number for four sequential heartbeats. Start over at 100 or you'll start getting numbers that are too long. I used to try to imagine the numbers being drawn on a chalkboard, but my chalkboard hand couldn't keep up with the heartbeat tempo.
2. Breathing. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Same thing you do every day, only now you're thinking about it.
3. Plan tomorrow. I don't often use this one because I figure the more active your mind is, the less likely you are to fall asleep.
4. Mental vacation. Picture a beach. Picture yourself at the beach. Picture whoever else you want to have at the beach. Or go with a waterfall, or a rainforest, or whatever relaxing location floats your boat.
5. Talk to God. Or yourself. What was good in the day. What could have been better. Same problem with this one as with #3.
6. Word bubbles. This is actually what I do most often. Clear your mind totally, then let a random word or short phrase (no coherent sentences or thoughts) bubble up to the top. Metacarpal, dungeness, factorial, esplanade, quixotic, fundamental, fungible, retardant, multiplicity, ectoplasm, frothy, hammerhead, winnow, darling, preternatural, etc, etc. Nothing that makes sense, just whatever random thing pops up to the top. For some reason my words all seem to have a lot of sylables.
7. Blog. When all else fails, think up an entertaining entry for the blog, preferably something that will move the ABC-along along.
Location: Crouse House, somewhere in the Chicago suburbs
Time: 30 minutes before the 4 day camping trip hits the road.
Characters: Me, Husband, Daughter
We hear water running in the background, then shut off. Moments later Daughter enters, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel
Daughter: Mom, I just threw up
Me looks at Daughter completely nonplussed.
Me (to Husband) Well now what do we do? If we leave now and she has to come back home because she's really sick what will we do? We can't take two cars because the mid-life-crisis-mobile you bought only seats 2 people, and Daughter is bringing DBF with her. Do we call the whole thing off? WHAT DO WE DO NOW!!??
Me and Husband spend 15 minutes discussing options, making phone calls and taking temperatures.
Me: Oh the heck with it. We'll just go. If she needs to come home later we'll figure it out then.
Turns out whatever she had was a short term thing. She got sick once in the car on the way to Devil's Lake, then one more time in the afternoon and then she was done. Good thing too, because I really don't know what we would have done if she had to come back home. I imagine that Husband would have been left stranded with no car for a couple of days.
This camping trip is an annual affair, with a large group of friends and neighbors who go out into the wilderness for a long weekend, usually near the end of June. This year we were staying at Devil's Lake State park in Wisconsin. We let Garmin tell us how to get there, so we got to experience something that we had never done before. We rounded a corner and the pleasant GPS lady told us, "Board Merrimac Ferry."
We've never been on a ferry before. Husband panicked became concerned and had me look at the map to see if there was an easier way to get to the other side of the lake. (I think he was concerned about how much this was going to cost.) I checked the map and determined that the fastest way for us to get where we were going would be to bite the bullet and take the ferry across. Turns out it only added about 10 minutes to the trip and didn't cost a thing.
We arrived at the group camp site around 5:00 and commenced setting up the tents.
Husband and I slept in the blue and gold tent, Daughter and DBF in the green one. If we should ever have a similar setup in the future, we'll put the girls tent a little farther away, as it turns out that two tent walls don't have a lot of noise reduction properties.
There was a path just behind the girls tent which led about 100 yards to the shower building. This building is surrounded by 80 foot pine trees, at the top of which nest Blue Herons. Turns out that when Blue Herons nest, they like to do so in large groups. This is certainly the case at Devil's lake.
The treetop photo isn't a great picture, but I have a less than perfect camera for this kind of photography. In any case, the birds were there, a lot of them, and they vocalized pretty much all day and a good part of the night. Because it was continuous, it wasn't hard to tune out after a little while. The larger problem came at night when the turkey vultures would come and try to raid the nests. At that point there was a lot of screaming and shrieking. Because it was midnight when it was happening, I'm not sure which species was making the noise, but I would guess it was the Herons.
We spent the weekend doing a lot of hiking
Swimming
And hanging around the campfire.
Not a bad way to spend a weekend.
Screen name: PetoskyTurtle
