I have done much in the last month. My family from Sweden came to see us and we spent our free time showing them around. The sun finally came out and gave us all sunburns only to hide behind the clouds again this weekend. More rain to continue the allergic reaction in all of us to the plants and trees who obviously have way too much pollen and dust on their hands. So really, I have been sick since mid April. That’s around the time that the daily high temperatures went from 60 to 80 over night, and heading up into the high 90’s.

But my cactus have been thriving. I learned from my neighbour that there was to be a cactus and Succulent show and sale that I could enter some cactus in. That night I potted a few plants and put them in the show the next day after work. I went down to San Francisco for a few days and came back to this…

First Place

First Place

Second Place ribbon?

I have no idea what the stickers Vs. the ribbons mean, but cool all the same.

A lady I work with just found out that she would be having a boy and that gave me a good reason to rush to Joann’s and get some yarn for my first baby blanket. How could I not make a blanket for her?

I decided on this yarn…

Bernat Boucle was my first yarn. Sure, I really started with a Red Heart yarn in light mossy Green, but Boucle was the one AFTER the starter yarn. The one I had waited to pick out on my own after I made the ceremonial first project, the wash cloth. It was my first scarf and the first scarf-gifts for Christmas 2004. It will be so perfect for this new baby, who will also be my student in just under a year.

I have already done the first stripe. It’s just going to be very simple. Three rows of double crochet, three of single and three more rows of double crochet. Then on to the next color. This will have sort of a wavy effect, but still be boyish. It will be soft and not too warm since the baby is due in the summer time. But it will still be warm enough for the winter and the best part , it’s washable AND you can put it in the dryer.

I have not been starting any other projects. No excuse for this. Well one good excuse depending on the way you look at it. I’m trying to finish all of the scarves that I have on my needles. All of them. Meaning no more new projects until I have finished the scarves…and no more yarn. Yes, I know you have heard that one before. Many times. From many people. I’ll let you know when I fail completely and show you pictures of the new yarn I buy. That being said, notice I said nothing about buying new knitting books.

Not that I have a problem buying new knitting books. I only own a few…I own Stitch and Bitch: A Knitters Handbook and Stitch and Bitch Nation as well as Confessions of a Knitting Heretic. I will be getting Stitch and Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker soon. I have flipped through a few knitting and crochet books and I have to say that Annie Modesitt and Debbie Stroller speak in a language that I can understand. They both have things in their book that no other book has and VERY easy to follow directions. Great for a new knitter.

So I went down to my Aunt’s birthday in Concord, CA for dinner at Benihanas. The food was good, the service was fast and the guys at the other table were drunk and obnoxious, but we tried to ignore them.

The chef worked so fast, this was the best picture I got of him. Check out the onion volcano.

After the dinner, I asked my mom if she wanted to go to the book store and away we went to look through the knitting and crochet book…mom crochets. But of course we spent the time making fun of a lot of the books and laughing like we were high. We found at least four “knitting for your dog” books. Funny how there were no “knitting for your cat” books. My cats would TOTALLY love a sweater like this. Oh well.

A dog sweater that any dog would want to tear off their body, but still look damn cute in.

I didn’t buy a dog knitting book, but Knitting for Dogs seems to have a lot of cute patterns in it.

I did find two books to take home. The first one was on sale for five bucks. I did not read through it much before I got it…just saw some of the stitches that I wanted to try. It gave me some ideas at least and it was cheap. Not for the new knitter though. The directions are not very good. I wish I had read through it better at the store. I might not have bought it. It’s called The Knitting Directory.

The one I loved was The Knitting Answer Book and it was worth the buy. You have a question? It’s in here. I can’t rave about this book enough. I had no idea there were more then five ways to cast on…there are. This book is awesome.

I always go to the children’s section to see the children’s books and sometimes get them for my classroom. I don’t go to book stores a lot so I don’t know if this just came out or if it has been out for years, but it was just too cute to ignore.

Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Jen Corace

Hey, I don’t like to eat peas…I totally understand why ‘Little Pea’ has the long face.

And yes, it is still raining. I went back to San Francisco anyways and got this cool shot from Fort Point by the Golden Gate.

Behind me people were surfing and when I say surfing I really mean they were sitting on their boards because the waves were too rough

So I got a little sun in the last two days. In fact it got pretty hot on Thursday. Well not HOT hot, but it still was hot enough to shock me when I got into my car after work. If I had AC in my car that worked, I might have turned it on. So, hot enough. Then today it started off warm. It was nice to sit outside with the children and feel the sun warm my back in no time at all. I could see a large amount of blue sky and very few little fluffy clouds.

Then when I was on my way home it got colder…darker and finally wetter. It’s raining again. Yay.

Another view of the American River. I used to park near those trees, ten feet or more under the water. The call box is up on the hill above the parking lot.

The sidewalk that used to lead to your car from the bathrooms on the hill.

This is the second time this year that the river water has gotten this high. I had never seen it this high before this year so I just had to take a few pictures. Yes, this used to be a parking lot.

The American River

The flood waters rise and just a few feet from the water line, a California Poppy tries to bloom. Good luck.

So on Sunday, Patrick and I drove down to see the Giants play the A’s…in the rain. Is there any other type of weather? I’m forgetting what the sun looks like.

The baseball players looked just as jazzed about the weather as we did, therefore they did not try too hard and the A’s won. It was fun though, Bonds even played. I don’t care to comment on the whole scandal revolving around him, but the billboard near the park said in big letters “Trade Berry!” It was funny and mean all in one. That’s about as much thought as I will put into it.

We drove around for a few hours after the game. Half to look around at things we have not seen before and half because we needed to find a bathroom. Something that’s very hard to find and you just might have to pay for it when you do. Or go in a Port-A-Potty and those are just not me anymore. I’ll hold it, thanks.

But sometimes in the rain, some colors come out that you just don’t see every sunny day. I love how everything is shiny and clean. Did I say sometimes? Because I really mean that. Here are the pictures anyway…

Spring Training?

The Golden Gate.

Pond at Palace of Fine Arts.

Lady at the Palace.

Nope, not fog. Just low rain clouds.

And the car picture…my MX-6 this time.

Tommy, our only male cat (he is not complaining, what tom cat would refuse to be lord over two female felines?) loves the laundry fresh out of the dryer. And when I mean fresh out of the dryer, I really mean that he will go into the dryer to get at the softener coated clothes. New sheets on the bed? He is all over them, literally. White sweaters on your body? You will take a piece of him where ever you go. But on rainy days like this morning I understood his obsession and let him take a four hour nap in the heavy blanket we were getting ready to fold…only to wake him up with the flash of the camera.

He looks so pissed cute!

I was so upset to hear that the business trip that Patrick was going on would be during the week.  I grew up in Santa Cruz and wanted to be able to go with him down to Monterey and show him around.  It’s a trip we have always wanted to take,  but something else always comes up.  So he was going it alone and he was going to bring back pictures.  He was even going to go to the aquarium in Monterey.  I was excited that one of us was going down there and maybe this would be the start of a new trip in the works.

That’s one thing about Patrick,  he’s a pack rat when it comes to information about the places he visits.  I am still sifting through packets and post cards from two years ago.  The pictures are worse.  I had to miss a trip to Florida with him and all I got back was a bunch of pictures of clouds.  The year before,  I had the cam in my hand, so thank god we got some pictures of the area and family.

No matter where we go,  Patrick will always take pictures of the clouds in the sky and sunsets.  When we were in Finland two or three summers ago,  he went down to the river by my families house at the same time every night to get the 11:30pm sunset.  But most of that trip was spent snapping large bodies of water.  When we went camping in Salt Point,  CA the cam was pointed towards the birds, never mind the baby skunk that I totally wanted to catch on the memory card.  But this trip,  not only did he bring back three post cards of Otters,  but he took four pictures of fish at the aquarium and over TWENTY-FIVE pictures of Otters.  Plus the picture of his car.  That’s another picture that keeps showing up in the file after road trips.

But this story has a sweet side and not just a shit load of Otter pictures.  The night before he went to the aquarium,  Patrick called me from his hotel room to check in.  He shared that he had seen an Otter eating while he was having dinner.  I reminisced about my love for seeing Otters in the wild and went into my encyclopedia state of mind,  spouting facts about Otters including them hitting their food with rocks…with sound effects.  I guess this stuck with him as he tried to catch those fast buggers in a pose.  The action shots are amazing,  though a bit fuzzy.

Sometimes life gets busy and I forget the smallest things he does.  He told me when he got home that he loved the sharks the best,  but I saw no pictures of sharks.  Enjoy the pictures.

Relaxing after a large meal

Clean Otter next to Godliness?

The Kelp Forest, my favorite place as a kid

Patrick’s Mazda MX-6

Just more mountains of yarn to be rolled up into balls and made into something.  People ask me why I roll all of my yarn into balls,  even if it is a center pull skein.  I honestly don’t know.  Sometimes it fits in my bag better and sometimes I just want something to do with my hands.  I don’t like to have to pull at my yarn while I am Knitting so it’s easy to have  a ball unraveling at my feet.

I have plenty of the Purple wool and not so much of the brown wool so I might try to make a hat AND scarf this time.  Wow,  I am so living on the edge.

Yum, purple and it’s pretty soft too.

Ok, so this mess is a little scratchy.  It will get rolled up and put away for now.

I only have one ball of this very light brown thick Alpaca yarn.  I am waiting for two more balls to come in from a yarn shop since it’s very popular.  It has been sold out for months.

No clue what to knit.