Hot Fail?

No blog post for today. Sigh. Inspiration is at a low. Nothing going on. Tomorrow is another day!

Hot n' Saucy

We are definitely learning to feed ourself. In fact, we don't much like being "fed." Baby food? It is to laugh!
Cheerios--or Joe's O's, from Trader Joe's-- and food from Mom's plate, yum. Today we tried some bits of peach and some "real" banana. Big hit!

Also found another new toy, and it helps that it's from one of our "family" baseball teams. Daddy, of course, is a Dodger fan all the way, but Godfather is a Sox fan. We have found that so far, it's been a very compatible kind of team loyalty: unless the Dodgers and Sox were to play each other in the World Series, we can root for both!

Missy A, of course, is quite impartial so far.

This is what I should be doing. These guys have it all figured out!


Yes, it's Friday night, and I'm tired and not very inspired tonight. This is one of those situations where I might not even be blogging if it weren't for NaBloPoMo!

This weekend, I'd like to get busy on some of the boxes. We'll see how far I get! There ought to also be some shopping for window coverings, for D4's room and the office, and some new bookcases. Stay tuned!

Hot Desert

It has occurred to me that I didn't share any of my "scenery" photos from the ride to Arizona last weekend. Today was kind of a quiet day--mostly spent following a small person around as she crawled around exploring her house, and feeding her various kinds of baby nourishment--I didn't get any good pictures of my cats, D5's cats, or the baby. (Simon has just made himself a nest in a bag-o-bags, but as soon as I get up to get the camera he'll follow me and there goes that photo op!)

So here's your views out of the window of the bus, of Arizona as seen from I-10. I can't be more specific than that, except for the weigh station, because once you are out there, it's all just desert.

Now, I can appreciate the beauty of the desert, don't get me wrong. I know that it is a marvelously adapted ecosystem, and that it has a majesty and grandeur all its own. I know that.

It just doesn't happen to be the kind of terrain that I would choose to live in. No, I'm still an East Coast girl at heart, and my soul needs greenery to thrive.


Lots of greenery. Which, currently, it doesn't really get. Oh well.

There is a trip back to New England in my future. We'll be having a class reunion soon, in October as a matter of fact, and I plan to be there for it. I'm already scouting around for good airfares and convenient flights. It ought to be right in the middle of autumn color, too, which will be just right.

In the meantime, I'm still trying to bring my lawn back from the dead. I don't know if there is any hope for the grass or not; I guess time will tell. I'm hoping for rain, but not till all the boxes are either under cover or gone!

But that's a project for another day. Perhaps this weekend??

Hot n' Fuzzy

Thought I would share a couple of knitting photos tonight. First up is the second Sweet Pea hat, this one in pink. It needs a wash and block but I'm going to try to get that done so I can get Missy A to model it.

I also started the matching sweater. One pattern repeat finished, and the second is well underway.


The "fuzzy" in the title refers to the quality of my photography today.
At least, I hope it's the photography. I'd hate to think my eyes were that bad!
Not quite sure what's going on. I can usually get nice clear shots, and these looked fine till I uploaded them,
They're fuzzy on Flickr, too.

This one is the worst of the bunch: my CPH which got hauled out of UFO status today and got another inch added to the hood. I remembered why this has been in time-out for so long: it's a giant pain to work on!

The hood itself isn't so bad. The needles are fine; I'm using my Knit Picks Options, and I love the way they knit.

The yarn is nice. Colorado Yarns' Durango, in a nice dark red.
But, the hood is knitted up from the fronts/back/and shoulders, so there are floppy pieces dangling from it. Every time I turn the row, flip go the fronts, flop goes the back, and whang! goes my patience.
Knitting is supposed to be fun and relaxing.
And yes, this picture makes you want to reach for the focus knob. But of the ones I took today, it was the best. I suppose I could haul it out and take more, and maybe I will. And maybe--oh, look! A flying pig!
Now, there are some guys who do know how to relax around here, and they don't do it with frustrating pointy sticks and yarn, either. No, they just find some place that has room for them--or not, as the case may be--and zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Hi-Hi seems to love the planner. It makes such a nice cat pillow! Then of course as he gets more and more relaxed, he slips and slides around. Yes, I know I have quite a nest going there on the bed. The cats don't seem to mind it!

I have a really cute picture of Simon, too, but unfortunately he was sleeping on my leg when I took it, and I've been informed that I need to STOP with the pictures of my feet, already, Mother! so no footie pics today.

Hot Color!

For your viewing pleasure may I present Anne's lovely Kiwiberry squares as they progress inexorably toward quilthood. While I would love to regale you with pictures of my quilt-in-progress, I'm afraid that will have to wait a bit till there is a little more progress.

My bag is still packed with my machine and my quilt all together in one place. It's not going to go back into the garage, though, and I'm sorta hoping that I'll be able to work on it soon.

However, for now, my heart and my "duty" is still to the Ravelympics. I did manage to get going on one of the Baby Dressage projects, and hopefully I'll be able to get a picture tomorrow of the progress. I've done one repeat of the lace pattern--there are three repeats and then it goes into a different pattern. The hat is done and just needs a wash since it's been all over all kinds of unsavory places. Once it's clean I'll get little Missy A to model it!


This is the Brick Walk quilt that Ethel was working on tonight. She says it's 20 blocks--but each block has 12 of those units in it! So she's actually, to my way of reckoning, got 240 blocks in her quilt.

These are all homespun plaids with a unifying solid. I helped her choose the solid a couple of weeks ago--surprisingly, the deep hunter green was a great match with all of her fabrics. I think this will be a smashing quilt!

Ethel retired recently, at the end of the past school year, and she's been really enjoying having time to work on her projects. She shared a rather cautionary tale with us tonight at dinner. Under the heading that Teacher Must Prepare Properly, there is the subtitle that says that things change and just cause something was okay last year, doesn't mean it is still the same.

A teacher she knows of decided to take his (Adult Ed) class on a field trip to MOCA (the Museum of Contemporary Art) in L.A. Unfortunately he didn't check on the subject matter of the exhibit before going in with his students. Let's just say it was highly NOT suitable--oversized bits of interesting anatomy, if you get my drift. He was shocked and scandalized ans so were some of the students.

Hey, I just pulled up the website. There's enough info there to tell me whether or not I want to go to see the current exhibit (Measuring My Own Grave? I don't think so!) and it took less than a minute. Oh well, I guess we've all done things that in retrospect could have been handled better!

Hot Summer Night

If you are a large fur-bearing creature, and it's very hot and humid, it behooves you to find a spot that's going to be cool and comfy.

Hi-Hi has found such a spot. Here he's reclining in the doorway just outside my guest-room-to-be and current bedroom (the one I don't have to climb stairs with a broken ankle to get to!). You can also see on this just what a great paint job we have on the trim, can't you?

Oh well. At least it's got fresh paint. And considering the age of the house, and the number of coats of paint on it, I guess it's not too bad.

Anyway, you can see that he's got his little clown-bear with him. I just think it's very very cute that he has his toy--never had a cat that was so attached to a toy before! I must admit that it was much funnier when the bear was bigger than he was, and he'd haul it around in his little jaws. Now he has BIG jaws!

Hot summer nights are perfect for eating out-of-doors, and one of our favorite places is Islands in West Covina. It's shady and relatively cool, the kids can move around freely and there's plenty of room for the stroller if one of the babies is sleepy.

They're really growing fast. Here's Nate showing off his two teeth. He was having a good time sitting on the table watching the people go by.

He's been growing into those big brown eyes of his. He's got the deepest dimples, but as soon as he sees the camera, he stops laughing.

Check out those chubby little legs!
Little Miss A was a little dubious about the camera, too. We were trying to coax her to show off her tooth, but no luck.
However, there are some cute pictures of it on her blog.
When it's getting late, you can always kick back with your bottle. This is the new trick: holding it herself.

This was the perfect way to unwind after a busy weekend. Memere got lots of cuddles from the boys and even though I didn't get my hands on Little Missy, I made up for it today. We had a fun time--she is crawling really well and is very curious about everything. Today she managed to explore several rooms of the house. Poor Mamma! Now she has to keep the floors swept clean and the rug vacuumed, because this person can spot a furball from across the room and make a beeline for it.
She's inspired me. I think I'll go pour something out of a bottle and kick back with it myself!

Hot Stars

So the final activity of a Mystery Quilt Weekend is Show n' Tell, when people show off how much they've accomplished over the session. Because there was less time than normal to sew on this occasion, the most that people had to show was a block or two.

Here's one of them. I think this is the Butterscotch colorway (but I may be wrong, it's a bit late and I'm more than a little tired!)
Here's Anne with her Kiwiberry square. It's really one of the brightest and sparkliest colorways: the lime green really perks it up.

Of course, if you know Anne, you know that she has been on a lime green binge for a while now. She's made quite a few quilts that featured that color.

There's also a hint that there may be a Kokopelli-themed quilt in the near future, featuring... oops, lime green!

(But you didn't hear that here.)

Here's a whole grouping of the Sherbet colorway. You can just tell that Caren (second from the right) subbed in paler yellows for her star. There was someone else who subbed in brownish-golds, deeper hues, for hers. Both looked smashing, as did the original in Cheddar and Sun.


Louise was the only "finisher" in the Mint Chip color family. I think most of us assumed from the name that it would be mostly greens and browns, but there was quite a bit of blue in her kit as well.

The bus ride home was rather uneventful, which is exactly the way a bus ride should be! There were quite a few extra packages that came home, including at least four new sewing machines. No, I did not get one. I still am very fond of my beloved old Bernina 1230, a workhorse machine that has just enough computerized features to make sewing easier and more fun. I was reminded once again that I need to make time for quilting in my life...unfortunately, that means making space in my house for the sewing center. And that means, yes, moving out boxes.

Sighing over the interconnectedness of all these things.


Just in closing, here's what happens when you tell a 2-year-old to "smile for Memere." Cause everyone wants a picture of the Grandcarrot with an Islands beermat!

More cutie-pie pics tomorrow. Memere is heading for bed!