What a week!

This has been a week! Started a new job on Monday, that afternoon Mom found out she needed to be on oxygen 24/7, then I sliced the tip of my left middle finger off that evening! Monday was also our 35th wedding anniversary. That, let me be quick to assure you WAS a positive!

Last night I found out that Ruth Schooley, one of the Knitlist listmoms died Tuesday. Ruth was a great lady. She was warm, caring and knowledgeable. She loved to share what she was learning in the fiber world. When I was upset by something on the list, she had a gift for helping me see the situation in a different light.

Until the finger heals, I can't knit to destress! Yes, I tried. No, it didn't work.

Rocking Chair

We went into a consignment store the other day, and there it was...a little maple rocking chair. Perfect. We snapped it up.

When I was pregnant with Serena, we drove from San Francisco to Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Texas and Arizona to visit family. While we were visiting, we looked for a rocking chair. I love to rock, and wanted to rock my baby. In Iowa, uncles and aunts helped us look. Then Uncle Myron asked if I wanted one they had that he'd refinished. It was perfect. He called it a nursing rocker, low and no arms. As he said, "it has been chewed by a dog on one of the rockers, so you don't have to worry about the baby damaging it."

So we stuffed the chair in the back of our tiny Datsun and drove home with it. The back of the rocker was over the cooler in the back seat, so every time we needed in the cooler we had to tip the rocker.

That rocker rocked both children, and became a knitting rocker. No arms, which was perfect for this body's repetitive stress problems.

Then Serena moved out and took the chair with her. I missed it. She set it so she can look out over her view and rock quietly with a cat in her lap.

So now I have a new to me rocker that is just right for me. It is set so I can look out over OUR view -- withOUT a cat in my lap. For whatever reason, I have been able to start knitting again. Perhaps it is the rocker? Whatever, my Plisse is starting to grow a bit.

Just for fun Howard asked her if she would trade rockers. Her eyebrows went up all the way and she said, "but it is MINE!" Which is almost word for word what I'd predicted. We all laughed.

Oops!

I want to make a quick apology to Howard about my comment about not visiting the Brown Sheep Factory outlet while we moved.

He was very patient last year when we went. He talked with the ladies in the shop, encouraged me to buy and did not try to hurry me along at all. I did not have a concern that he would be difficult if we did go up there.

The reason I thought it would try "spousal patience" is called "logistics." To make that stop we would have either driven both trucks there -- incurring perhaps a mileage charge on my truck as well as additional gasoline expenses OR we could have parked the trucks somewhere, unloaded the car from the dolly, driven up and then back to the trucks. That wouldn't have cost so much in gas, but it would have extended an already tiring trip. I could not justify it in my mind.

So, other than the one point in time when he made an awful face when I suggested it half in jest before time, the decision was mine. I didn't suggest it a we traveled.

You know, I just realized that I didn't even take one photo of the trucks!

Mutterings

Yesterday we celebrated my mom's birthday. We'd originally planned to picnic on Serena's deck, weather and fatigue contributed to going out instead.

When we arrived back at Serena's, the power was off, so the garage door wouldn't open (took us a while to figure out the culprit.) As we were trying to get the door to raise, look what stepped out from the front of the house... I left the little bit of our car in.

Today was a "nibbled to death by ducks" day. I'm hoping tomorrow will be better. For whatever reason in their benighted minds, the phone company decided to turn on our DSL service last Thursday, but did not turn on the land line. The cell phones drop service in the middle of calls even though they show full coverage. Just one darned thing after another.

On the positive side, though, we think we have all of the totes out of the garage and stowed away. All of the kitchen boxes that made their way into the apartment have been unpacked. On to the next step -- bringing boxes up out of the garage and unpacking. Forward!

I tried to take pictures last night of our exquisite view. They were either too light, too dark or too shaky to post here. I'll try again later. We have a panorama view of Denver all the way out to the airport. I will figure this out!

long drive

We left our former town this morning around 7:30 and drove over 400 miles today to Ogallala NE. We thought about driving the rest of the way and swiftly decided that would be nuts. Is that the polite way to put it? If we had gone all the way, we would have either have awakened our daughter LATE at night, so she would have had a rotten night of sleep or we would have found a motel there, which seems silly, as we were both tired, hot, sweaty, grimey and ready to stop. So we did.

Stopped at a wonderful restaurant (walked over from the motel.) The waitress went absolutely out of her way to make sure that the food was safe for me. I know that food allergies make it more difficult for restaurants, but it sure makes it difficult on this end too! To have a waitress work so hard so I can safely eat -- priceless!

Right now we are in the motel room, praying that the air conditioning will finally kick in enough that we will feel cool enough to sleep. Right now, despite a shower, I am dripping in sweat.

We aren't going to stop at the Brown Sheep outlet. I'd love to. I really would. But with one truck on limited mileage and neither one exactly "fuel efficient," not to mention the "small" detail of spousal patience, I didn't suggest the stop. Actually, I did when we were originally in process of discussion of the trip, and his response was such that I dropped the idea. sigh I'd love to go, but we would probably spend more in gas for both trucks than I'd save. whine