Grandma again!

It's been a long time since I posted and I joked to my daughter Anita that it took another grandchild to make me start posting again! Yes, it's true, Anita and Dave had their baby early this morning 2 1/2 weeks early. So meet Jordan!

And here is the proud papa!



This grandma got caught without some projects done! I never believed that he would come so early. So I'm off to do some knitting....

Our State Fair

I'll take a little break from catch up posts to tell you about our visit to the Minnesota State Fair. We think it's the best state fair. Certainly it ranks right up there and it sure is fun. This year I entered 3 things in the competitions. Two pieces of tatting - I won a first for the wreath Christmas ornament in the upper right hand corner (picture taken through glass so it's not very clear) and a second for the earrings in the lower right. I also was brave and entered the very competitive knitting category. I knew that there were so many entries in knitting that my chances of winning anything were slim to none and indeed I didn't place, but I'll be interested to see what the judge says about it. I entered the Vine Flower Dress that I made for Abigail. I didn't even take a picture of it at the fair. It took me a long time to spot it and it wasn't displayed so you could see it very well - understandable when you saw how much knitting there was to display. The yarn that I used was hard to splice without it being obvious and I'm sure they'll note that. Here is Abigail wearing it. It turned out so cute - of course the model helps too!!


The fair is a good place to people watch. I spotted this young man - think he's a little bitter?


And of course there is the food. My daughter suggested we try the deep fried "gourmet" pickle chips. I'm glad I shared them with the Compadre. I'm sure that my arteries will thank me! This must have been the year to go to the fair (staycations and all that) because it was more crowded than I've ever seen it. When we went into the food building to get the pickle chips it was so full that we couldn't move. More than a little claustrophic! I wonder what the fire marshall would have said. I was glad to get out of that building.

We go to the fair every year. I don't always enter my things in it but it's always more fun when I can look for my entries and see them displayed.

Catching Up

I've been wondering how to get all I have to catch up on in one post. Maybe I'll just have to catch the highlights! It's been such a busy summer and I've been neglecting my blog.

So, before my son's wedding, in early July we went on our 2 week vacation to Colorado. I had gotten a cortisone shot in each knee and I timed it perfectly so I was able to do a lot of hiking. I also made an attempt to hike up a mountain again. Did you catch that? I attempted it. No, I didn't succeed - and I decided that I like the valleys just fine! The mountains towering above us in the valley are beautiful and much easier to enjoy!! The guidebook said that the hike up to Mt. Sherman was "easy". Ha!!! For a billy goat maybe. We lost the trail at one point because of snow fields and ended up on an area of scree. The rocks were largish and unstable and I am afraid of heights. At one point I almost sat and cried - I was afraid to go forward and couldn't go back. Yikes. We met several people that were just picking their way along without hesitation but I just couldn't do it. I ended up crawling along until we found more stable footing. While we were doing that we observed other people hiking across the snowfield to avoid the rocky area and that's the way that we got down - still not easy but more doable. I hiked up to the pass or saddle area of the mountain to humor the Compadre. This is a picture at the pass - as high as I got. He claims that the best part of hiking in the mountains is seeing the other side. Oh, I didn't mention that there were gale force winds blowing up there too and it was cold. We weren't the only ones that didn't continue.

We did do many, many enjoyable hikes during our trip. I logged 34 miles of hiking. I had great intentions of continuing to walk when I got back but....


On our way to Colorado we visited Pete and Carol, some good friends who live in Texas. Yes, I know that Texas isn't really on the way to Colorado from Minnesota but they live in the panhandle and it wasn't really that much out of our way. We really enjoyed our visit. While we were there we were able to see the church that Carol is pastoring and meet some of the people from the town. The town was getting ready for their annual festival and they had a fund raiser that I had to participate in. It was called horse drop bingo - and it is played just like it sounds. The field is marked out in a bingo card and a horse is let into it and the first place he, er, drops his load so to speak, is the square that wins. I didn't win but it was fun just imagining the game. I wish that we could have seen it! Rural people have a different perspective than us city folks!

After we got back from vacation we had to hit the ground running. A wedding happening in two weeks and....we had decided to have almost all the windows and the front door in the house replaced . What were we thinking!!! That meant of course that the workers had to get to all the windows. And I have stuff!! So we moved and cleaned and shoved the piles into the areas that didn't need to be accessed and somehow it got done. Then of course after the job was done I needed to move it all back. I took the time to organize the "fiber room" and now I can actually use it! And since I had to move all my fiber related books out of the bookcase that they were jumbled into I organized them and even entered them into Ravelry. At least all those that Ravelry currently has in the system. I found a couple of duplicates that I gave to Amy. What I should do is print out a list of my books and carry it with me so that I don't by duplicates any more. The downstairs family room/sewing area is still a disaster area but I'll get to that the next time I have some panic deadline - maybe Christmas. I know myself. In the meantime I'm enjoying the newly clean areas and hoping that I can keep them that way.

Amy, Eric, and Abigail came for the wedding and we had to try to babyproof this house. It was next to impossible so we blocked off areas and did a lot of supervising of Abigail. This is getting really long so I'll catch up on their visit in my next post.

Excuses, Excuses

I've been taking some flak because I haven't posted much lately. I've got some good excuses! Here's the first one. My youngest son got married on August 1. Granted, as the mother of the groom I didn't have quite the responsibilities as when my daughters got married but nevertheless I'm using it as excuse number one.

Megan and David's ceremony was a beautiful outdoor one. It was a perfect day - even the weather cooperated! It was actually "cold" on August 1 in Minnesota. And no, for those of you that don't live in Minnesota, it's not always cold here - usual temps in August are hot and humid!

Abigail was a very cute flower girl!!

I wore the shawl that Amy made for me and Amy wore one that I have that Kelly made as a shop sample and that I bought. I don't know what pattern Kelly made but I do know that it took only 100 gm. skein of sock yarn.

Busy times here

Yes, we've gone on vacation, but we're back now. As soon as we got back we had our windows replaced in our house - which of course meant that a lot of stuff had to be moved because I have so much crafty stuff in this house and a lot of it lives in front of the windows. That means of course that it all has to be moved back. And last but not least we're getting ready for the wedding of our youngest son. So, in honor of the approaching wedding I thought you'd all like to see this video. Looks like it was a fun wedding!

A School Lunch Story

When I saw today's comic For Better or for Worse I laughed and laughed because it reminded me of a real life episode in this former school lunch lady's career.

Back in the "old days" in school lunch we made most of the food on site, from scratch. Including the bread. And during this period in my career I started my job at 6 AM at a school about 50 minutes away. So that meant that I had to leave home in the winter before the radio station announced the school closings for bad weather. This particular day I made it all the way into the school and so did my assistant despite horrible freezing rain that coated the roads with ice. We had a discussion about what to do but since school hadn't been called off we started the day's menu. Including the bread. All the while we were worried about the weather and how we would get home if our day was canceled. So of course as soon as we had the bread rising we got the call that we could go home. We had a discussion about what to do with the bread dough - we wanted to get back on the road as soon as possible before the roads got any worse and so we made the decision to put the whole bowl into the freezer and deal with it later. Now we're talking about a lot of bread dough. My memory is fuzzy but I think we used to use at least 30 pounds of flour in each batch. A lot of bread dough. I bet you can guess what happened. The next day when we got to school we couldn't believe what we saw. That dough took long enough to freeze that it had time to rise and overflow onto the floor of the freezer where it then froze into a large immovable lump. The custodian got out his ice chipper and it took a long time to chip away the frozen dough even with his help (and teasing). We needed that bowl to make that day's batch too - so the bread was late in getting started for the day. And it took a long long time to live down the "thing that ate the freezer" stories.

And just because every post needs a picture - here's one of Abigail "walking" her baby doll.

Two Years Ago Today

My Dad died two years ago and I still miss him. Funny how anniversaries bring events and people to mind. Really, today is just another day in June but to me it isn't. About this time two years ago today we were gathered around Dad's deathbed singing Amazing Grace as he left us to go to heaven. I still can't sing that hymn without tears.

Dad was a gentle soul, a wonderful father and a faithful husband to my Mom. He had a grace about him even during trying times. He was a WWII and Korea vet, he served in the Navy working with radios and radar. He was a smart man, he went to college when he got out and became an electrical engineer and worked on computers when they were first beginning. But most of all, he was our father. I still catch myself thinking I've seen him when I see an old man from the back that walks like he did or stands like he did. Or I remember him when I hear music that he liked or go to an event that he would have liked. I wish I had spent more time with him when he was alive, I wish that I would have had him over for dinner more often. Towards the end he was disoriented and confused but he sure loved to eat! I know I'll see him when I get to heaven but for now all I have are the memories.