What Happened to Blogging?

Kathleen-
Since last I blogged, I've been to Madison for a conference, where I saw this guy perform (SO funny).

Then we went to Montana for vacation. "Montana?" you say. "Don't you usually do that in August?" And we do. But this year we're attending a ton of weddings, and this is when the trip worked. So to Montana we went.

We were supposed to start with a river trip, but due to abysmal weather conditions, the trip got called off. So we went to the Archie Bray Foundation, and looked at cool sculptures:


And creepy ruins.


Then we went to the ranch, where we spent lots of time feeding the wood stove and relaxing:

And watching the deer cross the bridge because the river was too high to cross otherwise (indulge me, I love this picture of a startled deer).

Followed by a river trip that included Mike and I each learning to row a raft:




Snakes:who climb trees (can you say creepy?!)
Lewis and Clark historic campsites:


Beautiful sunsets (which followed cataclysmic thunderstorms)


birds:

and really cool rock formations:
Then we came back to Minnesota, and I got stuck in a post-vacation catching up kind of slump. Combine that with the traditional summer blogging slump, and you get the gap from my last post.

But I'm back! And I've been knitting! and spinning! and I have projects! All to be shown in my next post, since I've got enough pictures and catching up in this one.

Coming Up for Air

Hey Flan,

I would apologize for being incommunicado for the past 6-8 weeks but I'm too exhausted. I had forgotten about how The Job morphs in the summer, having totally repressed all memories of last summer into a nice black haze. Total stressful and exhausting chaos regins supreme.

Enough about that though. Knitting news! I decided to make a passel of hats for The Future Niece/Nephew. Given that we don't yet know if it is a niece or a nephew I decided to hold off on the blanket making. However, I could not repress the urge to knit for it, so hats it was. Someday I'll find the camera and take pictures, they're totally adorable. Also instantly gratifying as they're small and go quickly.

My new knitting obsession is knitting on small needles. I'm currently making a super secret project on size 3s. I've been officially judged mentally unstable by all the knitters who think that making grown-up sized garments on baby sized needles is an undeniable sign of crazy. I think it's turning out rather well.

Around Memorial Day one of the knitters and I sojourned to a not so local but oh so delightful yarn shop. The people are fantastic and very nice and there is a wonderful selection which spans from the usual and economical to the crazy expensive but so very covetous. I was lured in by some Malabrigo and some Blue Sky Alpaca Cotton. Yarn shopping was in the budget, but still I felt extravagent and a little guilty spending so much money on yarn.

However, last week I was listening to NPR and they were talking about the golf course at which the PGA was having their contest and how it was at a public golf course. For the shockingly low price of $38 you too could walk the 18 holes where Tiger had played. I heard the statistic and thought, "$38 for a single game?? That's 3 skeins of Malabrigo and it'll take me far longer than a couple of hours to knit that up." At the end, those guys will have had a nice walk spoiled, but at the end of mine I'll have a scarf, hat and possibly mittens. I stopped feeling guilty.

One last thing, Franklin has a compelling post for today.