It is always something

With any luck I will wake up in Toad Lake MN tomorrow. It is not the end of the earth, but you can see it from there. But you know how it goes, it is always something. Today it was the dog, Dax. When I left for soccer last night (btw they won 6-1) Dax just seemed to be in a cuddly mood. When I got home at 10:30 the husband and GBT were very concerned about his health. He was apparently in quite a bit of pain. So first thing this morning I called the vet. After a 2 hour $375.00 visit, we brought Dax back home. He has a form of Lymes disease that causes an inflammation in the joints, it has settled in Dax's lower back. Between 3 of his discs he has calcification and that is bad. He is on 3 different meds, no stairs or jumping for 2 weeks. Try telling a shitztsu that he can't jump. This back issue is something he will have the rest of his life and could cause him major problems. I feel sorry for the little guy as he lays in his bed in a drug induced haze (probably thinking of light blue sweaters and shiny credit cards---oh wait that was me)

Despite that little complication and expense we are about 80% packed and ready to leave for Toad Lake. See you Guild girls after the 4th.

Tomorrow

Here's hoping this will be my sunrise. Chicks off in many directions for the next several weeks. Family vacations and trips. May we all travel safely there and back, and have a wonderful time with our families! See you soon.

Bon Jovi

So Bon Jovi is coming to Country Jam. When I heard this I got really excited and thought, oh this year we will get tickets and go. I was jumping up and down to tell the husband about Bon Jovi coming to the big EC town. He said, oh huh. I will go if I have to. So since then I have been resigned to the fact that Bon Jovi will be in town and I won't get to see him. So today MMT and I were running some errands. I was listening to the radio, but clearly not actually listening. All of a sudden MMT rifles through my purse to find my cell phone. She hurriedly dials the number for I94, "mom I am going to win us VIP tickets for Bon Jovi!" she exclaimed. She must have dialed the number 52 times before the nice person at the radio station said " we are on the line with the winner now". I turned up the radio to hear what lucky person had won VIP tickets to Bon Jovi.
The DJ was talking to the winner and asked if she was excited to see Johnny Rivers at the No. Wisc. State Fair. Johnny Rivers! Who in their right mind would want to see Johnny Rivers??? What if we had won----Yikes. Thanks goodness crisis averted there.

Oh, right, this is a knitting blog, not a blog about my children. I have tried to work on the Koigu sock the last couple of days. The second one (which is going as slow as the first one) is striping very different than the first. I am starting to wonder if I "pulled a Harlot" and grabbed 2 different hand-painted skeins of Koigu.

Right, Privilege or Obligation?

Is applying sunscreen a right, privilege or obligation? I checked with Webster's dictionary and I believe it is an obligation. An obligation we should not take lightly or be hostile about. Something we must do and unfortunately, do well. Because if we don't.........

Let's just say that now I may have lost the privilege to apply sunscreen independently, just like NK. We took the boat out yesterday for the 1st time this summer. It was a beautiful day on Lake Wissota (although I did not get to spend much time actually in the boat, I spent 3 1/2 hrs of the day in the blazing sun on the sand bar---perhaps I should stop there, I am still quite cranky about the whole affair) the kids enjoyed tubing and the day in the water. But due to my in ability to apply sunscreen and MMT's inability to apply sunscreen to my back (and the ordeal on the shore) I have several areas that are torched. Oops. So next summer on the Island, CB and ASJ will be quite busy applying sunscreen to NK and I.

After we finaly got home and cleaned up, I did try to knit during an re- run of Deadliest Catch, I was too fried from the day. I put the vest down and dozed off.

Part 3 "Is There an Intersecting Street?"

"Ummm . . . No Tim, there is no intersecting street. We are on an ISLAND with a view of the lake. There is only one road running in front of the cabin!"

In true Lake Superior fashion, a fast and furious storm blew in on Sunday after noon. OMG. Chaos ensued. Let’s see. Gee, it looks like a storm is coming. I am not too worried because when a bad storm is coming, Cousin Buddy puts he vehicles in the garage. His vehicles are out. Hmm . . . getting a little windy. I will call Ron; have him check the radar for me, see how long this is going to last. Then it hit. The worst storm I have ever experienced on the island. Yikes . . While on the phone, “Ron trees are falling; pray they don’t hit the vehicle. There goes another tree. Are you checking the radar? Check it faster! There goes another tree. Put The Girl on the computer (our 14 year old daughter) she is faster on the computer!” I should mention I was shouting into the phone at this point. (The photo was taken from inside before the storm hit, please note it is not a setting sun, it is 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon).

CT . . . “CB you have to look at this, there are trees all over down here in the back, trees are falling.” I should mention that CT was racing from one end of the cabin to the other looking out windows watching trees fall as though Paul Bunyan was waving his mighty axe.

ASJ . . . “Okay ladies I think we all need to get into the hallway where there are no windows and assume the position.” Yeah right . . . we all ignored her and ordered her to grab the chocolate, the yarn and go to the hallway by herself. She ended up opening the peanut M&M’s (my choice) as the melee of the storm swirled around us. Annie also was the one who noticed that it was raining so hard (horizontal I might add) that the rain was shooting in under the door in the back hall. NK and ASJ threw towels down and kept the flood waters at bay.

NK . . . The quiet one said nothing too much. She watched as the rest of us raced around and ate M&M’s. She looked and nodded as she went from window to window following CT. She very quietly helped Annie wipe up the water.

Storm over . . . As you can see we have a situation. The cabin is surrounded by trees (we may have to re-evaluate that) and no there is no way out. BTW did I mention that this particular tree also took out the power? ACK! Yeah, now what. Three phone calls to the power company (we did manage to get Tim twice), and a very nice man stopped by and said “the line is dead you can cut up the tree.” Umm, that would be a 50 foot tree lying across the driveway. By this time Cousin Buddy’s chain saw blade had broken. Yeah, right. Good thing we have food because we could be here for awhile. Next thing I know while I am conferring with Buddy, and CT and NK are down the road watching the Power Man trying to get the trees off the lines farther down the road, ASJ, our intrepid little friend had wandered down the road a little farther and found another Hero in our midst. Our new best friend Tony Sackett. Tony’s line of work is trees, and the removal there of. “Sure no problem I can have that cut up for you in no time!” (I should mention that Cousin Lorraine needs to be nicer to Tony, her neighbor. Tony was a Good Samaritan in the truest sense of the term.) Tony cut up the tree, we hauled it off (mostly CT & NK, they were awfully good sports about the whole thing) and WaLa . . . we were free (still no power). No I know that this sounds like this went fairly quickly. Not so much. We are talking hours, storm was at 1:00 in the afternoon, and tree removal was at about 6:30 or so. We then went straight to town and the bar. Had a couple of drinks and nachos and went back to the dark cabin. Sat in the porch and waited. The trucks finally came, and by 12:05 a.m. had power. And I should note that the young man who went up the pole had a very fine booty.

And so ends our trip . . . we did leave early Monday morning. I did not even try the pump again. (My friends were awfully good sports about the whole storm thing, they had to use the out house. And are looking forward to going to the cabin again next year! ) We did stop at Pine Needles on the way home and the Dairy Queen in Hayward. As we now as we contemplate our next trip, we will just have to sit and knit in NK’s new backyard!

NK the needle felter

Look at what NK did!!! The beauty of the bag speaks or itself!!!

Part 2 of the Knitting Retreat

Lupines

The lupines were in full bloom. And this particular hillside was blanketed with them.

Senior Citizen Sex
Let it be known that CT does not want to watch movies with Senior Citizen Sex. The movie “Something’s Gotta Give” was not, I repeat, not a hit. Next year we will have to screen all the movies a little more closely. And we will have to finish watching "The Quiet Man." There was a power outage and missed 1/2 of the movie.

Lawnmower Lullaby
Most morning we had our morning knitting session out on the porch. It was beautiful. Sitting in the porch, sunshine, waves lapping at the shore, birds singing. Friday morning the lawn boys showed up to mow. Soon dust was flying, so we decided to eat an early lunch. ASJ stayed out on the porch to knit a bit more. After we had everything on the table CT went to get her and she was sound asleep. It seems that the sound of lawn mowers is very soothing to our friend ASJ and it puts her right to sleep! She slept a little bit and then came and joined us for lunch.

The Frugal Knitter
ASJ’s new nickname. He Indian Name as you may or may not know is “She Who Knit’s Twice.” Due to her propensity to rip and re knit. We decided while she was ripping the sleeve off the pullover AGAIN, she is a Frugal Knitter. If you don’t have much money, just knit it, rip it, and knit it again. This works well for process knitters. However I do feel I should mention that since ASJ did not think that she would be able to gain ten pounds only in her arms, ripping it out did seem to be the correct choice.

To Koigu or Not to Koigu
CT never thought much of the socks she knit. She said it was not her forte so to speak. While on our little day trip to the cities she vowed to knit one more pair of socks, and if it didn’t work she was done with socks. She them proceeded to by sock yarn for two pairs of socks (yeah I know). Any way . . . I convinced her that good sock yarn is a must. “Steph says knit a pair of socks with Koigu.” I say it’s addictive. Sock in progress. She finished it at home yesterday . . . . she loves it. Need I say more?

Alcohol Consumed

Sangria, Parrot Bay Wine Coolers, Margaritas. And all of the knitting still looks good, no gapping holes!

Projects Completed
Annie finished a beautiful pair of socks. I completed a rib warmer! NK ran out of yarn to finish her last two rows of her Teddy Bear Jacket. Not too worry . . . she had more yarn at home! And as soon as it is done it will be on the blog!

Part three . . . tomorrow!