The Rocket's Red Glare

Dear Mom,

The 4th of July here on the cul-de-sac is a tradition not to be messed with, and this year, in the spirit of the US Postal System, rain would not deter us from our celebration. We just had to make adjustments for the dampness, and rain ponchos only added to our 4th of July memories. In fact, as a testament to the importance of the day, our neighbors woke to find that their 8yo son had painted his face red, white and blue for the day's events. I don't think the red has washed off yet.

The food and picnic-ing was moved under the shelter of a canopy and into the garage and the grilling was done under a patio umbrella called into action, but as we had hoped, the rain trickled off in time to celebrate the evening with fireworks.

Every year the fireworks themselves get bigger. The Dads have taken it up a level. Or three. I can sum this up in one word. FUSE. I think My Hero has 100 feet of fuse in the garage. (If there is more than that I don't want to know.)Custom built supports are constructed for multiple explosives which are strung together and lit with some of that 100 feet of fuse. Gone are the days we can be entertained by smokey snakes and a sparkly fountain. Thankfully, sparklers will never lose their appeal and we can write our names in the dark, and dance along, twirling a sparkler overhead.

Every year patriotic music plays loudly during the fireworks display. A Cul-de-sac highlight and tradition involves a neighbor modifying a remote control vehicle with a creative display of fireworks which shoot off as the intrepid little jeep circles and dodges the fireworks display in the street.

This year, we seemed to be surrounded by huge display from neighbors and neighborhoods nearby. It occurred to me with all the shrieks and screams and loud percussive KABOOMs, the blasts and rockets and bombs bursting in air, that (God forbid!) should we be attacked by terrorists on the 4th of July, we would all stand there and ooh and aah and maybe even clap before we realized what was really going on.

Once the fireworks are exhausted, we have almost as much fun with clean up, as the kids and adults arm themselves with flashlights and brooms and clean up as much shrapnel as possible before we all head off to bed smelling of smoke and sulfur. Final cleanup the next day insures that no neighbors are left with any debris in the yards.

And a few Dad's I know are already planning on next year's fireworks display.

oh- and the boy with the painted face? up at 3 in the morning up-chucking some of the excitement and junk food he enjoyed....

Love,

Kim

What fireworks?!

Dear Mom,

This is our dog.

This is our dog on drugs.
I asked Keeper's vet if I could have some. She said no.
Happy 4th of July!!!
Love, Wendy

Current Events

Dear Mom,

As we usually do when the knitting group gets together, current events are thoroughly covered. It is a winding journey, these topics. Pay attention or you might lose your place.

This past week there were celebrity deaths to discuss. Which led to who was where when they were aerobicizing to Thriller and practicing their Moon Walks. Some of us were married (me), mothers (not me) and there are 2 of us who were still in high school. In fact, the youngest of us exclaimed her shock at Michael Jackson's age, saying, "I thought he was our age!". Two of us quickly pointed out that YES he was our age.

We moved on to really feeling bad about Farrah and how her death wasn't really getting the attention we thought it should, but one of us heard a family member had said that Farrah was private and it was all okay, and then we moved on to The Poster and how it was just everywhere and it really doesn't take much to remember that poster. And that it made a couple of college kids millionaires. It was the poster talk that I am pretty sure led us here:

We all remembered this poster, but, 2 of us clearly remembered a green shirt.

Remember this poster? I had it on my closet door. You know, so I could look at it when I fell asleep and then when I woke up, and some more when I was choosing outfits and getting dressed. It turns out that 2 of us, who at the time were teens living several states apart and would someday meet as knitters and become friends, bypassed the Rocky poster for pure Stallone beefcake.

I remember that Wendy had Shaun Cassidy on her bedroom door. I don't remember which one exactly. All that sugary sweetness starts looking the same after awhile. So I quit looking. I'll leave it to Wendy to take a stroll down that memory lane if she wants to.

And just to close the loop, The Young Lady has a Jonas Brothers picture on her bulletin board.

Love,

Kim

The Boy's got Skillz

Dear Mom,

I don't need to tell you this.

Having a teen in the house offers (almost daily) a new set of rewards and challenges. The random grisly behavior requires new creative ways of coping. As always, humor and revenge are a mother's best weapons.

It is that spirit I offer up these photos of how The Young Man parked the car in the garage.

Yes, it is within the allotted space.

And, as he was oh-so-quick to inform me, it really isn't his fault that HE parked at a nearly 45 degree angle in the garage (something that frankly I am not sure I could do even if I tried) because:

1. It is his Dad's fault for not telling him to turn soon enough.

2. It is because of where the car had to be parked. In the garage. It just stinks.

3. It is his Dad's fault for not fixing it.

Yes, I was still able to park my car in the garage. And I think this shot gives a better perspective of the extreme diagonal-ness of the car's position. My car, on the right, is lined up straight.

Like I said. The boy has skillz.

Love,

Kim

Boots

Dear Mom,

Last weekend, Wendy's Pipsqueak proudly showed us her cowboy boots. With the jingle bell socks I gave her which apparently drive Wendy around the bend. But whatever. It isn't like I gave her tight hip-hugging sparkly Britney Spears jeans or anything.

Pipsqueak was working it in those boots.

For a few weeks I've been wanting, and keeping my eye on a pair of suede boots in the clearance section of the DSW, hoping that I can snag them when they get marked down another 10%. Pipsqueak's boots turned that WANT into NEED. Need quickly began escalating to PANIC. What if they aren't there any more? What if I have lost them for.ev.er. in my desire to save another 8 bucks or something? When will I learn?

At first opportunity I got myself into that DSW, and as GinaWhoCanParallelPark told me, the fact that they were still there AND marked down to 50% off(!!!) was a sign from God that I was supposed to have those boots.

And they are MINE.

I won't be wearing jingle bell socks, but Pipsqueak can teach me how to Work It in these boots.

And p.s. - taking a picture of your new boots on your own leg is kinda hard.

Love,

Kim

Girls

Dear Mom,

There are some things girls do that just come naturally. Timeless things.

Things girls will only consider doing during a short time of their lives. Things that girl-to-girl need no explanation. Things you did, I did, and now we see a niece/granddaughter doing. And this is certainly NOT something we intentionally pass down, or a skill we teach the next generation to keep it alive.

I am talking about the Pretend my Hair is Long Phenomenon.

Yes, we all know when we see a girl with her cardigan pulled over her head and hanging down her back, that the PMHILP is at work.

This weekend, we saw a variation of the PMHILP, using a swim cover pulled into a pony tail and pulled through a ball cap. An inspiring new level of achievement on the PMHILP radar.

Nice to know in the uncertain world we live in, that some things don't change.

Love,

Kim

Ace

Dear Mom,
I found a stray USB flash drive mixed in with some old school supplies. Of course I wanted to check it out! I'm not very good with computer gadgets, but I did manage to insert it into the proper USB port and open up the files. I found a file titled "photography" and it contained some pictures taken by the boys 3 or 4 years ago. I was happy to see this picture of Ace, our Silver Sebright bantam rooster.
He was an awesome and beautiful rooster, all 12 inches and 2 pounds of him! We still laugh and talk about Ace and his antics. He took good care of his flock of ladies. While I would never, ever want another rooster, I wouldn't trade our time with Ace for anything. Ace was a good rooster.

Love, Bonnie Jo

Morning

Dear Mom,

I don't need to tell you that I am not a morning person. I find it much easier to stay awake into the wee hours than to wake up in them.

Now that Driver's Ed is finished (yay!) the Young Man has his days free to caddy. Having only a limited amount of questions allowed me per day to ask of the Young Man before he starts acting his teen age, my understanding of the process has the caddies lining up and going out on a first come -first served basis. Unless you are a super star caddy, I suppose, and then you can get scheduled with someone. I think. So far, I have run out of questions before I could ask that one. Sooooo, anyway, the earlier the Young Man gets there, the sooner he can "grab a loop" which I believe is caddy speak for "carry someone's clubs around the course for 18 holes" and the sooner he is done and free to do whatever he feels he needs to do. 'Cause, you know, it is summer, and he just wants to "relax and enjoy it and hang out with friends and stuff." Yeah. I hear ya buddy. It is summer for me, too....

I digress.

I am proud to say, and it is no surprise to anyone who knows him- The Young Man is intelligent and has a very good work ethic and the smart thing with this job is to report early, as I have explained. But Someone needs to drive him there. Most days, Someone = Me. Which means that I have to wake up EARLY to take him.

Mom, it will shame you to know this next thing: I drive him there in my pajamas. I KNOW!!!!! You DID raise us better than that. I know. Yes. You did.

Even worse, I don't comb my hair, wash my face ,or brush my teeth, either. I just get him there and get back. To bed.

I do have to admit, though, and Morning People who read this are going "DUH!", there are some nice things about Morning. Way less traffic, for one. And it is quiet. And not so hot. And pretty. I took the picture at the top of this post near the golf course. Dawn mist on the water.
Still don't think I will suddenly turn into a Morning Person, though.
Love,
Kim

They're Baaack!!

Dear Mom,
Look what I found in the flower garden today.

The Japanese beetle war is ON!

Love, Bonnie Jo

I did it!

Dear Mom,

I achieved my self-imposed deadline of having this dress (a grown up version of the Young Lady's "Tights are the Enemy" top-which she has NEVER worn, by the way) finished in time to wear this weekend. A relief. With a magazine deadline hanging over my head, I was beginning to make myself nervous. But I did it, the magazine knitting is moving along at a very good clip, and I am breathing easier now, knowing that I will have no problems (read that late night marathon knitting sessions) getting the pattern writing and knitting done. Wait. Let me be honest. Since most nights are late night knitting sessions, I should say all night knitting sessions. But, as I said, that won't need to happen.

The dress looks nice, but I've noticed a trend. When making things for myself, it seems that I have a tendency to make things slightly looser than they need to be. I can be critical of both my shape and the dress's when trying it on, and certainly neither are perfect, but, oh well. I think I quote Popeye when I says, "I yam what I yam."

The REALLY nice thing about this design is that it is worked from the top down and I could try it on and make adjustments as I worked on it. A REALLY REALLY nice thing that saved me a lot of grief. I've done a few top-down designs in the past, and in some ways it is a bit more fiddly to get going, but as a whole, there are less surprises in the fit and I am able to PLAN out design details, symmetry, and shaping better. Some of the time anyway. I suppose it all depends on what the thing I am designing is. Which is just one part of why knitting is interesting to me. The possibilities are endless.

To dress it up, I knit beads into the neckline, at the point where the bodice flares into the skirt, and at the hem.

Yesterday, with so many ideas floating around in my head and then subsequently on random sheets of paper, I went out and bought myself a 7"x 9" notebook of graph paper that I will dedicate to sketching out design ideas when they come to me. I've already filled in 3 pages, both sides, with multiple designs per page. The excitement of fresh ideas and creative possibilities! And at the same time, the challenge of balancing that with real life. Keeps things interesting.

Love,

Kim

Knitting in the Park

Dear Mom,

Five hours gone in the flash of a fire fly.

That is what has happened last night, and one evening last week, when I met with my knitting friends in the park.

We gather with folding chairs, our dinners packed, plenty of knitting and Bailey's Irish creme for "dessert". Bursting with conversation, creative ideas, energetic spirits (and the liquid kind, too) we knit until it is too dark to see our stitches. We haven't been locked in the park yet, or run off by the park personnel, but the summer is young. Last night we talked of bringing a folding table to hold our drinks next time- a spider crawled into Carol's "dessert" - so it may be only a matter of time before we are pitching a tent, bringing lanterns and a portable fire pit. And breakfast.

It is our rain or shine, summer go-to destination. We have a band shell to knit under when it rains, as it did last week, and a bathroom nearby. In fresh air and shade, we listen to each other and the chirping birds, and the shouts of kids playing. We meet dogs and their owners, and watch birds, dragon flies and the cross country teams practice. We mind our knitting, and tend to each other's concerns.

And last night we had more sparks of creative ideas than the park has lightening bugs.

We leave the park reluctantly, but energized and happy.

I can't wait til next week.

Love,

Kim

As the Bird House Turns

Dear Mom,
There is a drama playing out in my backyard. Chickadee Mama was evicted from the nest by Mr. and Mrs. House Wren. This aggressive little wren is known for driving other birds from their nest boxes. Apparently the male chooses several prospective nesting cavities and places a small twig into each. The female then inspects each nesting cavity and chooses one.

She will then completely fill the nest cavity with uniformly small twigs and line a small depression at the back of the cavity with pine needles and grass. She often has trouble fitting long twigs through the nest cavity hole and will try several different directions and approaches until she is successful.

I wonder if the twig sticking out the front of the gourd was placed there by the male or the female. I see straw and chicken feathers from my coop inside this nest! Mrs. Wren lets out a loud scolding rattle when we get too close to her nest.

It was difficult to get a good picture of her with my little camera. She was quite restless...and not too happy with my being around. Unfortunately, she chose her nest next to a mulberry tree, and it's pickin' time!!

Love, Bonnie Jo

Father's Day

Dear Mom,

In addition to grill accessories and a new supply of inflating needles for the bike pump from both kids, the Young Lady made her Dad breakfast for Father's Day. She set his place at the table and arranged the food on his plate.

It has been a Happy Day.

Love,

Kim

Vintage

Dear Mom,

I may be the luckiest girl in the world! I have a fabulous new bike! It's almost like Christmas morning, except it's about 100 degrees and really humid; but I was awake really early this morning riding my new bike up and down our street in my pajamas and bed head!!

The bike is actually Grammie's original bike!! Pretty sure original tires. Fat bottom seat. Old lady handlebars. Fenders. My favorite color. Could life be any better?!

Yep, just like Christmas morning. Happy happy.

Love, Wendy

Consolation Prize

Dear Mom,

My vest design wasn't chosen in the Blue Sky Alpaca contest, but they did send me a terrific consolation prize.

A cute little project bag was sent to me, filled with one skein of each of their new Spud and Chloe sock and sweater weight yarns and 2 skeins of the "Outer" bulky weight yarn and a hat pattern. The pattern was cleverly packaged in an envelope like a sewing pattern. There should be enough of the Outer weight yarn to make 2 hats from the pattern they sent.

It was fun gettting a surprise package in the mail!

Love,

Kim

The Road Less Traveled

Dear Mom,

One of the challenges and blessings of having a student driver is the necessity of finding alternate routes. Avoiding speed limits of, let's say, greater than 30mph. So, as we wind our way to the high school taking the indirect, slow road, we see things we may not have passed by otherwise.

Last week, in a moment of almost relaxed bravery, and only after scanning the 1/2 mile ahead of us for potential danger, obstacles, children, animals and CARS, I managed to take my eyes off the road and was rewarded with this creative garden ornament.

The entire bike has been painted to match and planted with the petunias. Of course, I didn't dare take this photo while the Young Man was behind the wheel and it was only when I was driving back home after dropping him off, did the Young Lady snap the shot for me.

Love,

Kim

Summer Evenings

Dear Mom,

Now that summer is unofficially here and I am with children all day (I know, I only have 3 but they have morphed into many more and they bring their friends along, too), it is time for campfires, s'mores and tent sleeping. Activities all begging for Daddy while I am in the air conditioned house enjoying my "refreshments" too!

Enjoy your summer evenings!

Love, Wendy

Happiness = A Kindred Spirit

Dear Mom,

The best part of my weekend ( besides the coming home part) was spending time with my sister in law. She married into The Family ten years before I did, and I cannot begin to tell you the many ways she and I are alike (we surprise ourselves sometimes) or how thankful I am that she is just there.

She is the quilter to my knitter. I should have photographed her quilts while we were there. You would love them. Her fabric stash rivals my yarn stash. On Sunday, we were able to break away and visit a quilt shop and a yarn shop, both within a few blocks of each other, and both places an oasis after our time with The Family.

The yarn shop we visited was ....have you any wool?. I found some of my favorite sock yarn, Claudia's Handpainted.

This colorway reminds me of a box of chocolates.

And this one, I think, will look great with a pair of jeans.

A new ( to me) yarn was pointed out, and my Kindred Spirit picked out this color so I can make her a pair of socks as a thank you for her hospitality.

It is Panda Silk, a blend of Bamboo, merino wool and silk. It feels heavenly.

So I bought a couple of balls for me! I will use it to make this.

And if I could just knit faster, or sleep less, or teach the dog how to vacuum ...

Love,

Kim

Dear Mom,

We spent our weekend celebrating the 80th Birthday of my father-in-law. The party was held at the farm of one of his daughters and the setting was ideal. There was plenty of activity to keep the kids of all ages happy and busy, and 40 beautiful acres surrounding the reunions.

Each table was decorated with a theme based on favorite stories or interests from Granpa's past. Even the barn was dressed up.

I took plenty of pictures of people, and almost as many of the animals. Here are Mandy, a 15 year old lab,

one of about 2 dozen chickens,

one of a panicky group of lambs,

and one of my favorite pictures taken this weekend- the barn cat.

Love,

Kim

Summer Begins!

Dear Mom,

Today was our last day of school. I host an annual desperate-housewives-mourning-the-last-day-of-school brunch. We make it a priority to have our peaceful brunch with each other before the hectic summer begins. We have so much fun celebrating the school year and prepping each other for the upcoming summer. Friends have moved away and new friends have been welcomed. We eat yummy breakfast food and drink mimosas or coffee with "flavors".

We also throw water balloons at the kids when they get off the bus and give the kids ice pops. This year we filled 750 water balloons!!
It was another huge success and the kids had fun, too! Let the summer begin!

Love, Wendy

The Young Man's Summer, week 1

Dear Mom,

This is what the Young Man is doing this summer. Driver's Ed.

I have two crystal clear memories of when I was learning to drive: Daddy's laugh the first time I stepped on the break, bringing the car to an abrupt halt, sending us lurching forward; and you yelling "LEFT" so I wouldn't plow down a row of mailboxes in the neighborhood.

I am trying reallyreallyreally hard not to shout "LEFT" when the Young Man is driving. I may curse myself one day, but I did ask him to speed up and at least drive the speed limit. I was afraid he would be late to class if we continued crawling along at just-above-idle speed.

I am considering having a large "Student Driver" magnet made to stick on the car when he is behind the wheel. Kind of a New Millennium version of "Baby on Board".

Love,

Kim