brunch

Our two families - ourselves and Yuri, Matthew and Ashley, took the kids to a restaurant on the beach for a very good, kind of spendy brunch on the beach. It was sunny and beautiful!

this idea in my head

So, I had this idea in my head that it might be fun to make one's own knitting needles. I got a few dowel rods at Lowe's, cut them up into 10 inch lengths or so, and sanded them. Here is a page ripped from the employee handbook at my latest job, covering the workbench whilst I put a coat of linseed oil on them. That handbook is great to have around for those times when I might need it! It was hard to figure out the best was to make the tapered ends. My lathe is slowly making its way over from Minnesota, but I tried using a pencil sharpener on the ends. It worked OK. Ideally the points would be long, sloping gently and dull at the ends. Later, I glued some little stones from Lake Superior on the ends. Sort of cute, but need to work on the points.

A few weeks ago, my neighbor's sister was visiting and saw us leaving the house, with me carrying a bag of knitting.

She asked me if I would ever consider teaching some girl scouts, as a volunteer, so that they could earn their knitting badge.

What a blast that was! The girls were about 10 or so, and were all pumped up about making scarves. I made each girl a little canvas bag, stamped with a hot pink heart of yarn and needles, and made a little list of local shops and cool websites for them to check out. The first class was tiring, with me running back and forth between each girl to explain over and over how each stitch goes. I cast on several and did one row for each of them so they could just start right out knitting. For the second class I did, some of them had made some progress and a couple had the most adorable things: a scarf with so many picked up stitches on the end it was on its was to becoming a neckerchief, and one with holes, loops and unintentional bobbles. Cute.

The great part about the class was that they had cookies for sale afterward, and who am I if not a supporter of my local troop?

a little San Diego in February...

Ice Cream on Coronado

These pictures are about a month old. About a month ago, unlike today which is cold and rainy, it was a warm, breezy night. We went with our friends Yuri and Matthew and their daughter Yuri to dinner on Coronado Island, then looked around for this great ice cream shop for dessert.

messy room of the month

This is our messy pre-teen boy's room of the month. Can anyone top this mess??

a couple of knuckleheads

So, I have finally found the camera after months of looking. Who knew it was in our 11-year-old's upper nightstand drawer? Now I will have to take some pics and find something pithy to say.

The boys are doing well over here. Frankie has gotten straight A's for the second quarter in a row - this school here has been an excellent fit for him. I pray we can keep him here in this school until he graduates. He is now in 9th grade. We will see. Naters is responding to our attentive monitoring of his homework. Heh heh. He responds to colorful threats, like Jose hanging a good Cuban machete from his belt and threatening to whop the side of his head with it like a good Cuban papa. I have promised to tie him up, but peanut butter on the bottoms of his feet, sprinkle bacon bits on top of that, and release the dogs.

Work is going well although I keep getting pulled away from my beloved sub acute unit and made to work on the surgery unit with joint replacement patients, fast discharges, where I do little or nothing of any life-affirming, meaningful stuff other than setting up discharge. I'd rather be at the mall, frankly. Although there is alot of social need, much of it I am powerless to change, which makes it less rewarding. Heeh hee, maybe someone from work will actually read this and I'll be relieved of all tasks entirely! Anywhoo...its good. One thing about being financially stable with a working spouse, and not dependent on my income anymore is that I feel more confident and more outspoken. I can be dedicated to my profession but at the same time, a bit sassy about it. It is a good place to be. I feel very blessed and lucky.

Jose, Frankie and I have been watching NCIS as much as possible. We agree that Abby is adorable. I agree with myself that Jethro is hot. Since Special Agent Gibbs works on a wooden boat in his basement, this has reminded Jose that he has projects to work on in the garage, involving sharpening his chisels and building a wooden container to hold his chisels, and putting a nice finish on his chisels. Other than that, I am not sure what he does in there. :)

a couple of scarfs only pink!

Here are a couple of scarfs I made for a Breast Cancer Awareness fundraiser. The buttons on this one are yummy black cherry buttons that I ordered on etsy. The above scarf is not as hideous as it looks in the pic - its very soft pink bamboo. Very pink - would not wear in all likelihood...