Ethellovestalking’s Blog

I know, I know. Where have I been? What have I been doing?

The truth is, I’ve been meaning to post here, but good intentions never really happen, do they?

Here is one of the reasons I’ve been busy at home:

Her name is Suzie Q, and she was dumped in front of a friend’s house about a month ago. I wouldn’t have been such a sucker, except that she is completely house-trained. She does okay with the cats and doesn’t tear things up. She’s showing off her favorite pair of socks I gave her when she first arrived. Beside her on the floor is her lovey, a long dogbone.

Also, school started for both girls, as well as dance and gymnastic classes. Each one gets to choose one extra-curricular, after-school activity. Jesse likes gymnastics, and Jennie started dance class this year. Both really seem to enjoy the classes, and I like the fact that we aren’t traipsing all over the place every night of the week (like with sports).

Here they are last weekend.They decided to have a spend the night party with each other. This is the first time it’s actually worked… usually we have to take Jennie to her own bed because she worries Jesse to death.

I am working really hard to get ready for the Overmountain Victory Trail Association events here in the county next weekend. The OVTA is a group that educates people about the men that gathered and marched across the Blue Ridge Mountains to defeat Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of Kings Mountain. Each year a group from the OVTA marches along the actual route, stopping at sites along the way to perform dramatic interpretations of the events that would unfold. I’ve been one of a handful of people this year to pull this together. There’ so much to do that now I’m just ready for it to be done.

I’ve bought yarn for Amanda’s Squatty Sidekick for my sister’s December birthday (conincidentally, her name is Amanda). I also got some Lamb’s Pride to make a Sidekick for me ( ) and yarn to make a cowl for my co-worker friend.

Hello, everyone! Ethel is so happy to see you here!  Here I am yesterday morning- can you believe all the ways I can find to waste time on my way to work? I’ve been trying to get a good rearview mirror shot for months now. Finally, I have one I’m happy with.

Thursday was Jesse’s first day of school this year. She’s fairly excited to get back- I think summer was beginning to become boring to her. She’s wearing her new uniform jumper, which I like because it isn’t too short. She likes to play like a boy and the shorter skirt things never really worked with that. She’s also very, very tan. She gets that from Dana, not me. I’m very white. We’ll call it porcelain skin since that sounds better. Jennie has gotten quite a tan too, as they play outside a lot at her new preschool. In this particular picture, it appears that they are liking each other. No bickering at this specific time of the day, I guess.

This is the best I could do at showing the beginnings of a new wrap. It’s star stitch, which I found in a pattern calendar thing, and I like it alot. It’s easy to memorize and the pattern shows up great with this yarn. I’m going to do about 10 inches, maybe 12, of the star stitch on each end of the wrap, with all garter stitch between. I’ve managed to get about six inches done already.

It’s terribly muggy here in the South, which we rarely complain about. This is summer- it’s supposed to be like this. But I’ll sure be glad when fall comes along. Until then, I’ll sit in my chair near the air conditioning vent and knit on this wrap.

This is where we went Thursday- without kids! This is Raven Cliff Falls, in the Mountain Bridge between Caesars Head and Jones Gap, SC, near where my family is from. The hike to the viewing area was about three miles roundtrip, and it was nice. No climbing or hanging off of sheer rock faces, which were requirements for me if I was going to hike anywhere.

The falls were WAY across a gorge, but the conservancy had built a gazebo and deck for hikers to hang out at and enjoy the views across the way.

Along the way, Husband Dear found this nice rock for me to scramble out on for a picture. Sorry we are so far away- there are only so many places to put your camera for a timer shot. We really had a nice time without the girls whining and complaining about the day’s activities.

Here is my latest camera obsession, probably caused by looking at too much nature. This is a wonderful hobbit hole I found along the trail. At first, we were looking at the weird shape of the tree above the hole (see?)- but then I noticed the perfect hobbit house underneath the weird shape, so I had to take a picture of it. So there. I’ve shared my hobbit hole sighting.

Mountains are my favorite places to go. Beaches are nice, but they are nowhere near as beautiful as mountains. This is Table Rock, in Upstate South Carolina. My family’s land was in a valley between Table Rock and Caesars Head, so that either way you looked , you saw mountains. Dana and I drove through Table Rock State Park after we went hiking, and I couldn’t resist taking stopping and taking a picture.

This is the tiny hotel where we spent the night. I won’t lie- it’s not the most wonderful place on earth. It had a clean shower and satellite. There is a story behind it though… 13 years ago we were tent camping at Table Rock with our friends. Each couple had a small dog as well. Now, it started to pour, to the point that the tent was floating up from the stakes. We packed it up, loaded the dogs and went looking for a place to stay. This little hoteis all there is up there. And it only has four rooms- W,X,Y,Z. Our friend was amazed, in a real bitchy way, that a place with only four rooms chose the end of the alphabet to name them. I was just glad not to be sleeping in a wet tent. So the four of us plus the two dogs piled in this room for the night. We all had to take showers in the shower that was out in the open room, which upset Husband Dear dreadfully. This time there was only the two of us- no friends, no dogs… sort of boring comparatively.

Anyway, we are re-adjusting to our real life- with kids.  It’s nice too, I reckon. Louder and more frenetic, but normal for us.

Friends, Ethel has been sick. I mean, sicksicksick. Okay, I wasn’t near death, but still… I felt like it.

Remember Daughter Dear’s stomach virus thing Sunday? Guess what can happen if you sleep with a sick person? You can get sick too. Yup.

I left work early yesterday, feeling particularly crummy. Because I knew I would feel crummier, I did a load of laundry that had to get washed and then I took a bath and shaved so I wouldn’t feel my prickly legs the entire night I was sick.  Then I curled up in the bed and wished it was 24 hours later. I got better about 10 hours later, actually, although I am still tired and haven’t eaten a whole lot. That stomach virus broke my streak of no stomach viruses in 1o YEARS!

Tomorrow will be a better day, I think. As long as Daughter Smallest doesn’t end up with the virus!

Hello, Ethel’s friends! Can you see which one of these things is not like the others? All of them have a half- attempted decent polish on them, so that’s not it.

It’s the cutie piggie on the left there- the one that is red and purple all on its own… His injuries were a result of housework. Really. I stubbed my toe on the threshhold between my kitchen and den, thus resulting in a icky toe. I was afraid it was broken for a while. But Husband Dear did the “Can you wiggle it?” test,” and because it can wiggle it cannot be broken (according to him). It would seem that dangling horrendously would be wiggly AND broken, but it’s okay right now. And a Housework Wound badge as well.

The older daughter had a blechy stomach bug yesterday. I’m not even sure it was a stomach bug, as her allergies have been awful and it may be caused by drainage. Anyway, I spent most of my Sunday going  in and out of the sick room and watching cartoons with her. Fun for a while, but the cartoons get old after about the seventh hour! She’s better today- and I’m hoping that the little one doesn’t end up with it next (if it is a virus).

I am on little to no sleep right now… I think I might try to hit the bed early, but with the possibility of sickness I never sleep well.

It’s only 15 minutes until the workday ends, and I’m wasting all of it. There’s so little to do right now that I have to spread my work out over the course of a day.

I’ve uploaded some of my journal pages for y’all to see, because besides knitting, working in my journal is my favorite thing to do. At first I tried to create something specific with the pages, but now I just like to paste bits and pieces of interesting stuff in- a picture or something from my day. I don’t like completely written pages.

This is one of my favorite pages. I like the hat and the combination of parts that make the girl up.

I pre-painted this page with acrylic paint. The water marks are from pressing the opposite page and this one together. The hand is an accident on the work copier. But, with this one, I can’t figure out what to write on it, because there’s going to have to be a particular mood to fit it.

Anyway, there are no interesting plans for the weekend. Husband Dear will be getting rid of the limb in the back, and I will be doing laundry. I’ll try to take pictures of all the excitment.

Hi everyone! Here’s me this morning, right before heading into work. I look unusually happy… I am a morning person when no one is irritating me. Anway, I didn’t have any eventful pictures to share, so you’re stuck looking at me today.

Last night I met my friend Pam for supper- without kids. We had a great time, just sitting and talking and eating as slow as we wanted. I didn’t have to worry about whether or not she had to go to the potty, because she took care of that herself. We decided two weeks ago to meet every other Wednesday for supper or coffee- just to get out.

Today I hada Frappe and a doughnut for lunch. I don’t think that was the best thing for me; especially now that my stomach feels yucky. I would have been better with the cheeseburger. While I know with my smart self that I need to eat better- so much better- I can’t quite commit myself to doing it. Making lunchand bringing it seems so boring… and time-consuming. Yes, yes, I know it’s the smarter, healthier thing to do.

Because I’ve been thinking lately about how I can be happier, I decided that I am not going to take any crap off of anyone. That includes my family, Husband Dear’s family, others that may give me guff. I just though “Jeez, I’m almost 40 years old and I’m worried about what someone thinks about me.” That is ridiculous.

Here are some other things I’ve decided:

1. I’ll make time for the things that please me. Knitting, journaling, reading. I’ll knit what I want; write and paste in my journal when I want; and read any kind of book that I want. Do you see the common thread in there- what I want.

2. I will not be afraid to voice my displeasure with something. And not in a passive aggressive way.

3. I will wear black combat boots or pink Maryjanes if that pleases me. To heck with fashion.

4. I will dance- wildly and with joy.

5. I will not be unhappy with my body- it has done and still does a great job. I will tell it so every day.

Here’s what I woke up seeing this morning, after the sun had risen. Didn’t hear a crack, or a storm or even the dogs raising cain about it. Can you believe that? It amazes me that I wouldn’t have heard something like that, or whatever caused something like that, during the night- and our bedroom is on the back, right beside this. Luckily, it didn’t crush the girls’ tree house and swingset; it only grazed the top. I called and called Jesse’s dog and was a little worried when he didn’t respond, but Dana went up to check on him and he was in the doghouse still. “I think he doesn’t like to get his feet wet,” Husband Dear told me. Stupid dog.

This is the yarn I’m using for Cozy. I bought it at SAFF a couple of years ago, enought to make a sweater, but it is not the softest yarn, and I decided it would bother my skin. So I gave up the notion of the sweater and went with the idea of a shawl. I’ve played with several different patterns but kept coming back to Cozy because I like the lace look of it. What you see here is the beginnings of the Bell Shawl, but I’m not so keen on the pointy end. The yarn is 2 ply sportweight yarn, color Thistle, 420 yards (it cost $8). It came from Bovidae Farm in Mars Hill, NC (828-689-9931). I really like the variety of yarns they had at SAFF.

Here’s my Shiny Happy Face at Sullivan’s Island in May. This was the first trip we took to the beach with both girls, and Jennie’s first trip to the beach ever, and we had a great time. I forgot my bathing suit, but since we were only there for the weekend, I survived with just shorts and a tank top. You can see how windy it was, and you can also see the grey in my hair.

Only because my friend Sandra hollered at me with an email, I decided to try writing again. There are always so many things I want to post, but then I think about what else I could add to make it a neat blog post, and then I end up not ever posting. I promise to try to do better. Or Sandra may thump me all the way from Croatia.

This April we went to Disney World. Though I’d come to dread the idea of the required Disney World trip (I don’t like crowds), I ended up enjoying the heck out of myself. We took Dana’s mom with us for Adult Backup; she’s never been to Disney World so it was a treat for her also. We stayed in the cabins at Fort Wilderness Resort on Disney property- and it was so much better than a hotel.

This photo is right before we left. See? We don’t look too haggard. Also notice that the Younger One doesn’t have the ability to be capture in still life. She’s apparently Dancing to the Beat of Her Own Drum here.

Here are Dana and Jesse swimming with a dolphin at Discovery Cove, a SeaWorld property. From the time you enter Discovery Cove, everything is taken care of- food, towels, snacks, wetsuits for dolphin swimming, snorkels…everything. This was a very enjoyable day for Dana, Jesse and me. (Jennie spent an extra day at Disney World with Dana’s mom.) After swimming in the coves and floating down the temperature-controlled lazy river, I planted myself in a chair and read the entire day.

Here are my two nuts. I’m not sure I can explain what they’re doing in this picture, other than annoying the heck out of their father, who was taking the photo. They did much better than I anticipated on the trip- they rarely fought or whined. And when they did we fed them something and then stuck them on a ride. That seemed to cure the whinies.

This is my favorite photo of all (without us humans in it, I mean). Dana took this at SeaWorld- it’s a manatee, by the way. This particular manatee went around and around, top to bottom, stopping to look at us on each turn. I guess we were as interesting to her as she was to us. I could’ve watched her all day. Plus, it was in the air conditioning, always nice in Florida.

I’ve started knitting Cozy again. Before, it seemed like a pain in the butt, with it’s eight row repeat. But I htink I’ve grown up some since then so I will try again. I’m working with some pretty purple berry heathered sportweight wool spun at a farm here in North Carolina. I’ll upload a photo soon.

And now, I have to go back to work, Sandra. But here’s one more summer picture for you….

Jesse and Jennie, Sullivan’s Island, SC May 2009

My friend Katie from near here started an ABCs of Me posting thing last year. I’m sure the idea has been around and around the internets, but I’m just catching on (or getting in). Here’s my first post, out of ABC order because this particular item about me is very important right now. And I couldn’t think of an A to start with.

My fiddle. Last April I asked my father in law to keep his eyes open for a used fiddle, because I decided I wanted to learn to play. For some reason I thought he would be in pawn shops or something, not that there’s any instance where I can remember him being in one. But he plays  the guitar and hangs out with friends who play instruments of a varying nature, so I thought a fiddle might turn up somewhere.

Father in law, who is resourceful, called in short order to tell me Cecil, one of the varying instrument friends (he plays standup bass) had just the fiddle for me. In fact, Cecil had three. He doesn’t play fiddle, never has, but somehow ended up with three of them. He sent it down to me with the instructions that I could use it as long as I learned to play it.

I took it to the music store here in town, a place dominated by men. The owner looked it over, told me it was in excellent condition- a German student violin from the 20s or 30s. I bought strings and rosin and a shoulder rest. I cleaned the case out, borrowed a bow from my Mother in law…

Now almost a year later, I’ve actually gotten the courage up to really learn to play it. I didn’t even open the case all those months. I’m teaching myself, so what I’m doing right now is making sounds that rival a good cat fight. But the cat fight is becoming more inviting.

Each day I practice four and eight note scales, and then I practice bowing the strings in a way that makes a fiddle sound, which is different from how a violinist would play.

I love my fiddle. It’s old and worn. It’s been played a lot by somebody, or lots of somebodies. And it has lots of stories to sing, I’m sure. Now I’m going to learn to make it sing mine.