Where has the last month gone?

Wow, I can't believe it's been more than 5 weeks since I last posted. A LOT has happened since then!

The main event was a surprise visit to my sister in South Dakota to help her celebrate her 60th birthday over Memorial Day weekend. She had absolutely NO clue, and after her initial dumbfounded look of confusion, all she could spit out was "What the hell?!" (Which then became the buzz phrase for the entire weekend...too funny)



We had such a good time, and I am so glad I was there to surprise her, and help throw a surprise party for her on Monday evening before I left on Tuesday. There was some knitting going on, mostly in the backyard...the weather was pretty nice the whole weekend (except for the clap of thunder Friday night that practically knocked me on the floor it was so loud!) We also spent a good amount of time doing some dyeing. I brought along some Knitpicks fingering merino, some Lion Brand Fisherman's wool that I scarfed up a few years ago when Joann's was clearing it out, and also 3 skeins of white sock yarn I had gotten in a yarn swap. Diane had several kinds of natural wool also, and we set about putting color to it. First we had to wind the big Fisherman's wool into hanks. We decided to make some really (REALLY) long hanks so that we could have longer lengths of color when we dyed. It was kind of a pain, but in the end I think it worked out ok.

Here we are making the hanks, thanks to a piece of exercise equipment and a chair:


And here's what it looked like when it was ready to be dyed:


Some yarn in the steamer:


And all skeins drying outside:


A couple pix from the party:



Since I've been back, school has let out, baseball season has come to an end, summer has arrived with a vengeance (both in terms of heat and storms). The pool is open, a new hammock was acquired yesterday, let the fun begin! A storm last weekend knocked out power to over 200,000 people in our area. We were out for 26 hours or so. Mostly an inconvenience, the worst of which was having to bail out the sump pump....many many gallons of water hauled up the basement stairs and dumped in the driveway. We MUST get a generator....this is not fun.

We have a well, and so when the power goes out, the well pump doesn't work either so we don't have water, except for what is in the holding tank in the basement (and the hot water tank) We try to use it sparingly during an outage, knowing there is no more once that's gone. We went to Kim's for showers, and to charge our cell phones. Many people were without power for 3 and 4 days, so we were lucky ours was restored after only 1 day. Of course the storms keep coming, day after day, and knocking out more power.

Today (after another storm rolled through overnight) is supposed to be just lovely. Sunny, lower humidity, and about 82 degrees. Perfect. We will be at a graduation party this afternoon/evening where a pool has recently been installed. I think we are going to have a really nice day today!

Father's Day will find Mike enjoying the new hammock purchase. Doesn't this look comfy? I can't wait to try it out myself. I forsee lots of naptime, reading time and knitting time taking place right here: