I have my life back!

The wedding and reception have come and gone.   




   



Now that we have had a few of days and nights to sleep, I can say a great time was had by all. The weather was lovely for the reception and the egg hunt was a hoot.  We hid 1000+ eggs (plastic filled with treats and hardboiled) and that kept the hunters going for quite awhile.  I was in the back area watching the little ones look for eggs.  In the front the serious competitors roamed the property looking high and low.
There was fabulous food that guests brought to add to the basic hamburgers and hot dogs.  The bride spent many many hours over the last few weeks making desserts and freezing them.  There was wedding cake in addition to lots of cupcake styles and brownies and tiramisu (?).  We had people all over eating and visiting.  Angie and her family flew in from Montana, the best man came from LA, but most people were local or from the Roseville area about 45 minutes away.  It is a bit odd to have people at your home that you have never met, but think you should know.  My usual trouble with names adds to that conundrum.
The birthday party for Natalie was Sunday night at Chevy's and she got the birthday sombrero and song and was impressed by the whole thing.  That hat will probably haunt them for the rest of their days.  It's the sort of thing no child wants to part with, but has no practical application and is too big to be easy to store.  That's the sort of thing grandparents get to inflict on their children, heh heh.
I spent a lovely day spinning yesterday.  Such a peaceful thing to do.  Today it is raining and good book reading weather.  
I have my life back.

It's not over until it's over

Wedding week has arrived and it goes on and on.

Rachel married Chris yesterday afternoon as the rain/snow let up for the event.  We were at Empire Mine for pictures and they were married on the lawn in front of the cottage. The weather was chilly and that allowed me the excuse to wear a couple of my handknits. Rachel toughed it out wearing only a light sweater.  She was also surrounded in love so that must have helped keep her warm.  It was a small group for the ceremony, mostly family. The big party/reception is on Saturday featuring not only the happy couple, but also the annual egg hunt.  The exhausted parents that have been working their butts off are in the final stages of preparations for these festivities that are held at our place. Chris' friend James came up from Burbank to be his Best Man and Rachel had Jenn and Sierra, with Natalie holding the ring pillow.  Their vows were wonderful.

Our family is growing with leaps and bounds. We were just the 4 of us for years and now we have added Chris with Rachel, Barry and Erik and Natalie with Sarah (and another one on the way), Beth with Jimi, and a new member that needs a family - Jenn.   Holidays are more festive now with all the energy and personality they bring with them.  Marja couldn't get here for the wedding as she is in Germany with Holger and their twin 2 yr old girls Lilia and Elin.

Tonight we had a barbeque at Rachel & Chris' house with about 20 people.  Tomorrow we set up for the reception/egg hunt.  Saturday is the Big Event and Sunday morning there is breakfast at a local restaurant.  And, just in case we haven't seen enough of one another by Sunday, we celebrate Natalie's eighth birthday on Monday.  All the main characters will be there.  I love my family and friends, but next Tuesday I will want to sit in a quiet room and just be alone.  I have become more and more reclusive as I age.  Or maybe it is that I have become more comfortable with myself and can spend hours and days just being quiet and alone, going about doing what I love.

On the fiber front I am working on several projects, as always.  Nothing new is finished.  My big plan today is to swamp out my studios so they are safe for human habitation.  I have been throwing stuff in and  closing the door for weeks now.  They need to be made viewable by Saturday, as I'm sure there will be the curious ones who want to see, then know what I plan to do with ALL THAT YARN and FIBER.  I hope I can think of something clever to tell them.  I have lots of ideas - lots and lots of them.  So many, in fact, that I keep forgetting that they all take lots and lots of time.  Time is about the only thing I can't buy if I want more.  Starting next week I'm going to spend more time being retired and doing whatever the hell I want pretty much each and every day.

We've made a good stab at getting the place in order but we need to keep it up.  We have fence to pull (the posts are already in) and clearing to do and possibly some dusting now and then, but these are things we want to do.  No more have-to, here comes want-to.

Check with me in a couple of months and I'll let you know how well that plan is working.

(I have picture of the happy couple, but it is in my email and I am in bed writing this on my laptop so you'll have to wait to see it.  Coming soon, I promise.)

Slackers Unlimited sign me up

When my friends can tell me the date of my last post and how long ago that was, I guess I need to start getting more regular about this blogging thing.

The problem is severalfold:  1) the sun finally came out which means we have had 3 weeks to do an entire winter's worth of outdoor cleanup around here because we have 120 people coming on the 16th for a wedding reception ; 2) I retired and I am not interested in all day chores so only do 3-4 hours of 'must dos' each day ; 3) I have some books I need to read so I can return them to the library in time ;  4) I have a lot of knitting and spinning I want to accomplish. It turns out that blogging came in last. I think that I need to put photos on the blog entries and I haven't been taking any and if I had it would take time to add them.  At the end of each day, G and I flop into our chairs and watch 'Touch of Frost' from Netflicks.  I have done 5 burn piles in the last week.  See the March 23 picture of the fallen tree, then add about a million and seven sticks and branches that are lying all over the ground and need to be picked up and put in the burn pile and you have 3-4 hours of constant motion of bending, dragging and lifting.  It tires me out by the end of the day.  My left thigh cramped so hard on Sunday afternoon that I couldn't straighten my leg and had to creep forward all crouched down.  After years of driving a desk this has been an intensive fitness program.  By the next morning I am feeling good and I know this is good for me.  I just don't have photos to show.  We have had some help with weedwhacking, chainsawing and burning and I am incredibly grateful for that.  We are heading into the last week and into the housecleaning (my least favorite thing).

In my last post I didn't identify the shawl that I pictured.  It is called LazyKaty by Birgit Freyer on Ravelry.  The books I have been listening to are the Louise Penny "Three Pines" mysteries.  I just finished 'Bury Your Dead' and it was excellent.  It is a wonderful series with characters I love, especially Inspector Gamache.  Don't read "Bury Your Dead" until after you read "The Brutal Telling" or the flow will be different.  I suggest reading them in order.  I am now reading a series of mysteries that take place on the Shetland Isles.  There are 4 of them by Ann Cleeves.  I'm on the 3rd one and am enjoying these too.

I've been doing some babysitting and the toddler man is letting my get some knitting done.  That's a big step forward!

My knitting down the WIPs has made little progress.  Instead I have been knitting a Susan Pandorf shawl called In Dreams and am using a Verb for Keeping Warm natural dyed silk.  I just finished a cowl from yarn that was in a sock blanks that I got from Nancy Roberts. The pattern is at Ravelry and is the Inspira cowl by Celery Stalks.  A group of us from MeadowFarm (MF) have done a KAL.  I started a pair of socks from another MF KAL but have fallen behind as the wedding cleanup has been progressing. I also knit a Noni felted bag for MF as a sample.  It was very interesting and fun to knit.  I have never made a bag before, and it isn't really something I would personally use, but the construction was what I wanted to know.  It has these undulations in the sides that are fabulous.  Ellen is going to do the actual felting and I can't wait to see it when done.

Today is my library volunteer afternoon and a knit night at MF. I shampooed the living room carpet this morning, then babysat while S took a cat to the vet.  I also pulled up some cactus from the back garden.  Now that I have grandkids, cactus don't look as wonderful as they used to. Where I used to see interesting shapes and colors, now I see fingers loaded with spines and eyes poked out on spikes.  It doesn't make for a good image.  I have actually clipped the points of some of my favorites so the eye poke thing can't happen.

I'll be back again after the wedding.