Counting down to Sept.1!

I'll start with the obligatory knitting content. Here's a picture of my current plain ole boring sock.



I bought a bunch of this yarn last year in a clearance basket at my favorite local yarn shop. I've been making socks from it as my no-brainer projects ever since. I love to wear handknit wool socks and they are easier to store and justify than endless sweaters.

Today I hit the local Goodwill. I was looking for sweaters to recycle and bought about 6. But I also found this:


Not bad for $1.99! It isn't the Coach bag of my dreams, as it is too small, but still, I couldn't leave it there.

I'm not posting pictures of the six sweaters I plan to recycle yet, but they will make wonderful yarn: lambswool & angora, silk & angora, etc. Next-to-the-skin soft. Now, why I go to such lengths to get yarn is another story. I'm congenitally cheap. And when people whine that they have to use the most inexpensive acrylic because they are poor, I feel a need to prove that a person CAN knit with natural fibers for less than the cost of a sweater's worth of Red Heart. It takes a little more time and determination, but not that much. My local Goodwill charges $3.99 for sweaters: not dirt cheap, but they have a good selection. The St. Vincent's in the area often have lower prices. Additionally, they run a place called Diggers Outlet, at which clothing is sold by the pound. Because I am large, I have to be resourceful if I want a sweater's worth of yarn, looking at the men's XXL options, buying two smaller sweaters that can be combined, or other creative solutions.

We're experiencing a lot of four-year old posturing around here lately. Colin has been a real tyrant! We had intermittent tantrums throughout the day, right through dinner. He's discovered the power in hating lately and loves to yell, "I hate you!" or "I hate (whatever)!" On our camping trip, he tore up a small plastic garbage bag that had Smokey Bear on it and proclaimed, "I hate Smokey Bear!" I had to laugh. Like, what did Smokey ever do to Colin?? He's going to be starting a new preschool program next week and has a lot of anxiety about that. This is the same school we tried to put him in when he was 2, and I ended up taking him out right away because I could see he wasn't ready. Now, he's been to preschool before and will be back in the same speech preschool class later in the fall. That one only meets in 6 week cycles, and Colin is in cycle 2. He will have a number of classmates from last year. I felt that he needed something a little more continuous this year and enrolled him at the Y for afternoons, 3 days a week. I'm hoping that after his first 6 week cycle of speech therapy class, he will be ready to drop that for now.

Anyhow, both boys are a bit nutty in this last countdown week before the school year starts. And when the boys are nutty, you can bet that some of that is taking a toll on the mother.

My little knitting group (I say that like I own it or something) met today. It was very small; just Leslie, Terri, and me, which was perfect. Two hours flew by before I realized what was up. I could have sat there knitting all day, but there were groceries to be bought, battles to referee, laundry to be done, etc. etc.

I still need to finish moving my stuff down to the basement. This, so we can clear all toys from the living room and prepare for the big porch project to go forward. We signed for our home equity loan on Thursday and I went to the builder's Thursday afternoon to take a final look at the plans and approve some fixtures and sign the building contract. Wednesday morning the design team hands off to the construction team, and away we go!

Scott loaded all the vacation pics to his computer then cleared the camera. I'll see if I can find some good ones to post so Zib can see where I was!

BTW, I haven't picked anyone for that timeline Meme yet. Let's see: Fathom, Wendy at Knit and Tonic, Entrelac, and Terby. That's four.