Progress?

This may look like progress but it doesn't feel like progress.

I've been knitting, purling, ssk-ing, psso-ing, inc-ing, dec-ing and all the other 'ings there are, but I feel as if I'm working on the same round over and over and over and.....

I ran out of yarn for the bottom ruffle and had to order more. The yarn has arrived, but I'm waiting until I finish the whole skirt (if that should EVER happen) before I knit the bottom in order to make sure the skirt is the correct length. Too short - that I could fix...just add more. Too long - run screaming from the house.

I almost ran out of yarn for the next ruffle up, but just made it, I hope. The bottom of that ruffle has to hide the top of the bottom ruffle.

The ruffle I am working on now just goes nowhere. I swear that it doesn't get any longer, no matter how much time I work on it. I'm almost out of yarn from the first skein, and that yarn must be going somewhere, but I don't see it. The second skein better get somewhere...

Really, it had better get somewhere. I am both bored and annoyed by this project, and it's getting more and more difficult to look forward to the end result. I started a second project to break up the boredom and it's pretty and a nice break. It's on size 2 needles (Signature needles with the stiletto point and so far I've managed not to stick them in my ears)knit with sock yarn and it's a scarf, so it will be a long-term project. A very long-term project. But it just needs to be finished by cold weather in LA, so I'm OK.

But the skirt??? Sweet Mother of Purl, let it end!!! Please, just let it END!!!

Warning!

Well, OK. Hadn't thought to do that, but ..OK.

What She Said

Proves that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Sorry, H.

Lifting My Head Up Off The Table

long enough to tell you why it was on the table. But this is whining, so be forewarned.

I went to the bank. No problems.

I went to the grocery store. Tried to buy plain yogurt. There used to be such a thing. There may still be but I couldn't find it amidst the FOUR MILLION containers of yogurt flavored of everything else that isn't yogurt (banana yogurt-blechhh...).

Settled for vanilla yogurt. It's going into a recipe so no harm done, I hope.

I did NOT go through the check-it-and-bag-it-yourself aisle. I will not go into what happens to me when I end up in a fight with that fresh hell.

I did go to buy gas at Kroger since it is right in the Kroger parking lot. (Why on earth can't we pay a couple of cents extra for gas and have someone pump it for us, I would like to know.) The machine wouldn't take my Kroger Plus card, so I had to go get the attendant. He came out of his air-conditioned booth and fixed the problem. Then it wouldn't take my debit card, so I had to go get the attendant out of his air-conditioned booth and he fixed that problem. Then it wouldn't take my code for the debit card, so I had to go get the now-kind-of-annoyed attendant. He wouldn't come out of his air-conditioned booth and made me pay at the booth.

How much gas do you want? he asked.

A full tank, I answered.

Nope, pick an amount. $30? $40?

How the h*ll would I know? I picked $30.

I pumped the gas, and as I put the pump back in its holder, I heard a woman's voice. I turned, said Pardon? and she said:

When you drip gas on the ground, it hurts the environment.

I looked at the ground, didn't see any gas, looked up puzzled, and she explained that I had dripped gas and that if I shook the nozzle into the holder, gas would drip back into the holder instead of on the ground.

I'm a good person. (First of all, I wasn't even tempted to deck her.) I recycle. I drive a low-emissions vehicle. I feel bad that the LYS where I shop throws the cardboard boxes in the trash (but not bad enough to offer to recycle the boxes myself and I'm a good enough person to feel guilty that I don't offer to do so). But baby Jeebus, Mary and Joseph, on my worst, huge-carbon footprint day, I don't even register on the scale of the damage currently continuing and continuing and continuing in the Gulf of Mexico (NOT the ocean, newscasters), so give me a break, please.

On the way home, a rock hit the windshield, but didn't break it, and I arrived home to find a box from Knit Picks.

Things are looking up. I hope. Or I'll go back to trying shots of tequila.

Fitflops

These are my new Fitflops. Aren't they gaw-jus???!!! (OK-maybe a bit gaudy)

A couple of knitters had talked about them: how comfortable they are; how they are good for your feet; how they will make your legs and butt look really, really good. (I'm fifty-something, so that particular ship has sailed. Not gonna happen...)

So off I went to buy some. They are really comfortable, but very soft and they kind of bother the foot I have not had surgery on. I live in Chacos and they have saved me surgery on my right foot, so far, and so I worry a bit about what these may do to my foot. But I've read reviews that say they help plantar fasciitis, so I'm willing to try. And since I have lost the receipt that I had intended to save for a return within 30 days if the shoes didn't work out, I guess I HAVE to give them a try.

Older daughter did say that she wanted to try them when she visits this summer, but she may have been humoring me.

Progress

Of sorts.

I'm not going along as quickly as I would have thought on this skirt, but then, I wasn't thinking too clearly when I decided to make this. There is the underskirt and then the various ruffle layers attached to the underskirt. This means I am knitting the skirt twice, and it is 40 inches long. The bottom ruffle is on the right side of the photo and I have run out of yarn. Once I finish the ruffle above, I will try it on again to see if the skirt is long enough or if I will have to order more yarn.

What keeps me going, aside from sheer stubborness and the fact that I do love the finished skirts I have seen, is that Sallyknits is making one too, and she is far, far ahead of me. In fact, based on what she was knitting at last week's knit-night, I'll bet her skirt will be finished by this Thursday's knit-night. It's beautiful and it serves as motivation for me to keep going, even when I am tired of working on it. I spent the weekend frogging nine rows, then knitting four rows, then frogging three rows. I apparently think of the feather and fan pattern as so easy that I don't have to pay proper attention to what I am doing.

Here is my new invention! It is a homemade bobbin to hold the yarn for the bottom ruffle. I'm sure it's just like the bobbins people made before there was plastic, but I did feel like a genius when I came up with the idea. Doesn't take much, does it?

Frogging

No, not hunting these: Ripping out this:

This is miles and miles, well ok, hours and hours, REALLY, of ripping back knitting.

Knitting Lesson # 417 (or thereabouts):

Do not knit while talking with a friend on the phone about why you are NOT in Blowing Rock, NC as you had planned to be because the air conditioning in the car gave up the ghost in Greenville, SC and you turned around and drove back home in the hot, hot car even though the car had just had $103.00 worth of Freon put in it on Monday and was supposed to be just fine and had in fact worked fine for the first hour and a half of the trip and how you didn’t get to go to World Wide Knit in Public Day yesterday like all the other kids because you had to go car-shopping instead because dH wanted you to test drive the cars since you will be the primary driver of said new car and frankly, unless you are buying a turquoise Thunderbird convertible, car shopping is about as exciting as buying a water heater, and you do realize that you are NOT buying a turquoise Thunderbird, so really, all you do care about is that the car is comfortable and has functioning air conditioning and, wow, I am all about stream-of-consciousness today, eat your heart out, uh, what’s her name? - and I have discovered that ripping out purl stitches is easier than ripping out knit stitches and that I need to learn to read my knitting because if I had read my knitting instead of depending on the row counter which I had neglected to click a couple of times because I was on the phone I wouldn’t be spending HOURS ripping out stitches-oh, yeah, eat your heart out Virginia Woolf - and I hope all this ripping out does not cause me to put rocks in my pockets and walk into the nearest river because that would be the red, red Chattahoochee and …..yuck, and then I would miss a nice dinner at Bonefish with the friend I was talking with on the phone when I messed up my knitting and why are there quotation marks in this sign?

What Do They Sell?

The Echo Park Time Travel Mart.

Younger daughter sent me this photo from LA, and I don't have a clue what they sell, unless they mean this literally, and that could be. Only in LA perhaps, but it could be. After all, someone out there sells spells!

I'll let you know what they sell when she lets me know.

If the squirrels don't get to it,

looks like the raccoon will.

This Friend of Mine -

-let's call her Kathy - protested when she called me today that she does NOT make some wonderful, delicious, exotic, and different meal every night. I don't live near her, but I talk to her almost daily, and we talk about what we're doing. I'm usually knitting; she is usually cooking. Even when her husband is not home for dinner, Kathy makes something wonderful for herself.

Who cooks just for herself?

She mentioned that her husband was not going to be home tonight for dinner and I asked her what she was going to have for dinner - all by herself. Baked salmon with mango salsa (which she made herself. Of course).

I rest my case.

Let's Have Mexican!!!

I have a friend – let’s call her Kathy (that’s her name) - and she loves, loves, loves to cook. Me? Not so much. I see making dinner night after night after night as supremely b.o.r.i.n.g. She sees it as an opportunity to try something new and different. Every night! I think that is a good attitude to take towards something you have to do anyway, but I can only very occasionally manage it. Like once or twice a year. Cooking for guests is an entirely different thing. It can either be intimidating or fun depending on what I choose to try to make. But the day after day stuff? Bleaahhhhh.

Yesterday, however, was one of the days I decided to emulate my friend. I picked out recipes from the Pioneer Woman's cooking blog: tequila lime chicken, Mexican rice, pico de gallo, and homemade tortillas.

[Oh, let’s just kill the impulse to cook in one meal, let’s do. ]

Step one: the grocery store. No problem. I found everything I needed.

Step two: mix the ingredients for the tequila lime marinade. Uh, no tequila. Good thing I decided to marinate the chicken overnight. Liquor stores aren’t open in Georgia on Sundays. Why? I have no idea. Probably the legislature protecting us from ourselves: getting blotto drunk six days a week is enough, perhaps.

Step three: dH volunteers to go to the liquor store and get tequila. What kind? he asks. I have no idea. When I was in Mexico with my friends the first year, they sent me into the store to buy some -I asked what kind? Just not rotgut! they shouted. So that was my answer to dH.

Step four: Since dH bought better tequila than I probably would have, I decided that it must be good enough to drink a shot of. I see people on The Good Wife do that, so I tried it.

Whooooo---eee!….probably won’t do that again…

Step five: Mix the ingredients for the marinade, put the chicken in it, and put it all in the refrigerator. Done.

Now today:

Step one: make the pico de gallo. EASY! So easy and so good that I don’t think I will ever get store-bought again. (But the fumes from the cut-open jalapeno? Yikes!)

Step two: make the dough for the tortillas. Easy! Except for the stick form of Crisco which expired in:


Oooops!

Fortunately I had a recently-purchased can of Crisco (I hate measuring that - dry method? submerged in water method?) so I used that and the dough sat covered by a towel for an hour; then the dough was broken up into ping pong sized balls and sat another hour in a towel-covered bowl. There is no yeast in the dough, so I have no idea what it’s doing in the bowl. Siesta time? Conspiring against the cook?

Is there a collective noun for tortillas? If there is, whatever it is, I have it. FUN! The trick is to roll out the dough so thin that you can see the counter top through the tortilla (black counter tops rock!) and then to cook them for just 20-30 seconds on each side with the heat just right. And that’s pretty easy to figure out after you end up with the first one either burnt or pale but cooked through. In the time that it took to cook one, I could roll out the next one. Honestly, I don’t think they taste any different from store-bought wheat tortillas, and there’s not a round one in the bunch (maybe that’s the collective noun?), but it was still FUN to make them.

Dinner:



Results: delicious.
Prep. time: two days
Cleanup time: don't ask

Tomorrow night: takeout.

Measure How Many Times? Then Cut Once?

Is puddling still in vogue???

Is this considered puddling???

OOOOOOOOOPS!

Seems Fair to Me

Don't Bet Against a Squirrel

It took him about a week, but he's figured out how to get the top open.

Knitting

Knitting and I are not getting along lately, and so I am taking the day off. We’ll see how that goes…

First of all, there is the $%^&* skirt. It is a bit snug. It’s more than a bit snug. The swatch is lying in the bottom of my knitting basket, abandoned, lonely, and angrily shouting at me:

I told you so. I told you so. But did you listen??? No, you did not, and look where you are now.

I admit it. I did do everything involving the swatch correctly, but when it told me that I had one stitch too many over two inches, I scoffed and thought, “No big deal.” But it is a big deal over 205 stitches. Maybe I’ll try blocking it before I start the bottom ruffle, where the knitting becomes fun and interesting, using a lace pattern and hand-painted yarn.

But not today.

And the gorgeous raspberry colored yarn? That too is at the bottom of my knitting basket, shouting out, Make a decision already!

I meant to use it for the Glitzy Cat's Paw Wrap with more stitches so it would be wider. But after I made a bit of it, I just didn’t see the pattern as well as I would like because the yarn is so thin (lace weight). So I took that out and started on a Bit of Fluff wrap, using three times as many stitches so that it would be wider. But on two different sizes of needles the fabric was SO light and fluffy that I wasn’t sure it would stay on my shoulders; I’m pretty sure it would just lift up and float away.

Then I checked on Ravelry, entered the type of yarn and found over 500 projects listed. I checked through some of them, found a pattern I liked, downloaded it, studied it and decided it wasn’t something I would like to wear.

So I am stalled on that project as well, and that is it for today. No more knitting.

As a bonus to my day, I received an e-mail this morning from my nephew, who is getting married in November, and I thought the link he sent was for a wedding site. There was nothing in the message line, so I should have known better, but I opened the e-mail and the link anyway. The link took me to a pharmacy in Canada that has, so they claim, great prices on Cialis. Obviously some program has hijacked my nephew’s address book. Yay.

I’ll run the anti-virus program and the spy-bot program and then draft a letter of apology for anyone who gets an e-mail from me offering them a great deal on Cialis!

**********************************************************************************

And now for something completely different. In one of today’s NYT wedding announcements, the groom, in discussing the couple’s first meeting, said “It was not a good first impression,” adding that they were each dating other people then, and glad to be rid of each other.

All righty then.

Unfaithful Knitter

I admit it; I am fickle. I really, really intended to do no other knitting than the $%^&* skirt until I had finished the %$^&* skirt.

But at Thursday's Knit Night, another knitter was making a beautiful wrap from this Cascade 100% Baby Alpaca Lace yarn. (Made in Peru, color 1410) It is so soft, so delicate, so everything good that I was powerless to resist, and now I am starting a wider version of the Cat's Paw lace wrap that I finished just before I started the $%^&* skirt.

It will be nice to knit with something other than thick, stiff, waxed, colored dental floss for awhile.

Knitters Can Be Strange People

At least this knitter can be.

My Mohs surgery went well yesterday except that it took an hour and a half less time than it was scheduled for (3 hours). And this seriously cut into my knitting time!

Mohs surgery involves having a microscopically thin layer of tissue removed and then waiting for the biopsy results to see if the surgeon needs to remove more tissue. It's all done in one appointment and the goal is to remove as little tissue as possible. The doctor performed the surgery and then told me it would be a half an hour before she had the results.

So I settled in to knit on the Satan Sasha skirt. My phone was off; Dh had not come with me; I had nothing to do but sit and knit. Perfect....... But then there was a knock on the door and the surgeon and three other staff were there.

Me: It hasn't been a half an hour.

Surgeon: No, you're lucky. We were able to get to this right away. We got it all. We'll bandage you up and you are set to go.

Me: But it hasn't been a half an hour yet.

Surgeon: (probably thinking "Bless her heart, she must be a bit slow.") No, you are LUCKY. You are finished!

So home I went, with far less knitting accomplished than I had expected.

I can't do anything strenuous for two weeks-knitting is not strenuous, right???

And it's a good thing I can knit and knit and knit because I think I might have to rip out the fifteen inches or so I have knit on the skirt. Before I started working on it, I was a very good knitter and made a swatch. (I NEVER make swatches!) Then I washed and dried the swatch. (I NEVER wash and dry swatches because I NEVER make swatches!) My knitting was just a bit too tight. So I ignored the swatch and started knitting. (This is why I NEVER make swatches!) Somehow, the circumference of the waistband was correct, so I went ahead with the body of the underskirt, which is now FOUR inches too small. I'm calling the store I bought the yarn and pattern from later to see if by any sort of blocking miracle, this will work.

But I suspect that I should have paid attention to the swatch and changed needle size. I think I will be starting over.............................

This and That

I was out late (8:45) last night at a pre-pre-wedding dinner where I had lots of fun and possibly too much wine. So my mind is not working well today.

Topic one: The Satan Skirt

I really am knitting and knitting on this and on no other project, but I seem to be making little progress. I hope to have it ready for an evening wedding in October, but .... I just don't know. I am only into the second of TWELVE skeins.

Topic two: Consequences of too much time in the sun

I have to have Mohs surgery on Monday for an "active" type of squamous cell skin cancer. I've had this surgery before, but on apparently lazier forms of squamous cell cancers. So I'm a bit put out by all of this, but today the paperwork arrived for the surgery-permission forms, etc. and along with them was a question/answer section. One question was:

Q: Can I die from this?
A: Squamous Cell Carcinomas and Melanomas can spread to other parts of the body and may lead to death under certain circumstances.

And even though I did know this, and even though my dermatologist told me that I caught mine really early (it's small), seeing this in print did not improve my mood.

Topic three: The weather

According to the hyperventilating weather forecasters on television, we are about to get clobbered by terrible storms. It's dark out, and now I hear the first of the thunder. I just hope that no Oklahoma type tornadoes go through here.

And a bonus - some advice: If you know where something is, leave it there. (I can't find my glasses.)

Persistence

is a synonym for squirrel.

Dh has wired the bird feeder closed but this squirrel is determined to get back inside. I've been watching him for awhile, and he tried to get the top off again so that he can climb inside and eat everything, but so far, no luck! He can get some of the smaller bits of nuts from outside, and that will have to keep him happy for now. I don't think he will be able to get the top off, but I've learned not to bet against a hungry squirrel.

Buyer Beware?

I bought this Pagewood Farm, Hand Dyed Yarn, Willow Creek Green at Wildfiber in Santa Monica; younger daughter picked it out for a scarf. Now I suppose that this is partly my fault, but I made the mistake of ASSUMING that there were four ounces/400 yards of yarn because someone had corrected the printed label and written in the correct yardage for 4 ounces by hand.

Apparently I should have understood that all the label really meant was that for each stated weight, there was the stated amount of yarn.


When I weighed the yarn at home, after I became suspicious that the small ball I had wound could truly be 400 yards, I discovered that the ball contains only 2.29 ounces. Nowhere on the label is there printed any other weight/yardage than what is shown in the photo above.

I have bought some mohair to use with this yarn in order to have enough for the scarf, but I'm wondering, are we supposed to carry gram/ounce scales with us to yarn shops now???

(And can I blame making this mistake on the intoxication caused by yarn fumes???)

Update: I have heard from my knitting friend, L, who also works at the LYS, and she says that the label tells me (in handwriting) that I am buying 400 yards of yarn, not four ounces, and that the 2.29 ounces I got when I weighed the yarn sounds right. So it's just confusing labelling (in my not-so-humble opinion) and I did get what I paid for.

So.......... never mind!!!

Update #2: I've just had an e-mail from Pagewood Farm, and in part it said: We believe that we should have made the label clearer and we are doing that in the future . We appreciate you taking the time to let us know this.

And they didn't even call me an idiot or anything!!!

Peonies!!!

There is no better day in the garden for this amateur gardener than the one when I can go outside and cut peonies from my very own yard. And this is the first time in three years I've had any; they just didn't do much during the three-year drought.

Peonies and a rose? Perfect!!!

What is This?

It's this bird feeder --- with a squirrel in it.

And in spite of how small the feeder is, the squirrel wasn't trapped. When he heard us open the door to go get the feeder, he scrambled out so fast he was a blur.

It's now fastened shut with wire...we hope it works.

No More Excuses

I have finished the socks that were on the needle. I have finished the Simple Yet Effective Shawl that was on the needle and I have blocked it.

So I have no more excuses to keep me from getting going on the Satan Skirt (aka Sasha Skirt) that I have been avoiding even looking at since I came back from Austin. I love the finished project; I don't love knitting with the waxed dental floss that making the skirt requires.

And I just know that SallyKnits will have made a lot of progress on hers and will have it at knit night on Thursday and I will be envious.

Must go knit......

My Haiku

Oh those fiddly bits.

How I hate those fiddly bits.

Begone! Fiddly bits!

They are Socks...

I started the second sock on the way to Austin and finished it this morning. Only the toe remained. I love the yarn---Crazy Zauberball---and there sure is a lot (definitely not alot) left.

I should learn to knit socks from the toe up in order to use more yarn, but I think I'm too lazy. At least today.

Uhmmmmmm.....

That is eighteen-month-old Elizabeth's response to every question I ask her. Sometimes she follows up with the rest of the answer in a language that is not English, and other times she just wanders off. She does have a bit of an English vocabulary: up, down, momma, daddy, the names of her two sisters, outside and inside (they sound quite a bit the same), and nine, which means mine. She is a DOLL!!!

I leave tomorrow, and boy! will I miss them all!

A Sleep-over

Older daughter told her children this morning that I was arriving tomorrow morning for a visit.

My grandson said, "She's gonna have a sleep-over?!"

Actually, I'm going to have four of them.

Can't wait!

The New York Times

does it again.

I love the Sunday wedding announcements. They are just plain fun to read. My favorite from today's paper announced the wedding of an elderly couple.

"The bride, 90, will take her husband's name."

Well, ok, but maybe not for long.


(I do wish them well. May we all live so long!)

Whew...I made it.

Last week, as my friends and I were innocently wandering through Stitches South, minding our own business, bothering no one, suddenly out in front of us appeared The Most Beautiful Skirt Ever. We asked the woman wearing it if we could take a photo of the skirt, and she said that we could.

She turned out to be a saleswoman/enabler for Fine Points Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio. An hour and a half later, two of us had bought the yarn required to make the skirt.

These are the best photos I have found of the skirts, but they really do not do the skirts justice.

The short version:

The long version:
Making this skirt involves knitting an underskirt with Louet Euroflax (100 % Wet Spun Linen) which is a whole lot like knitting with waxed dental floss. I am not exaggerating here. It's stiff, bendable and not at all nice to knit with. It also tends to spring off the needles when I'm not looking. However, after it is washed and dried IN THE WASHER AND DRYER! it is soft and drapy.

The underskirt is all knit in stockinette except for the occasional purl row which is used to pick up stitches from to knit each of the tiers. Each tier is made from a different Claudia Hand Painted Yarn. The colors are gorgeous and it took an hour and a half to go through the various color combinations. The bonus? Claudia herself was there to help.

But yesterday, I started the project, and spent last night at knit night so immersed in struggling with the waistband that I barely knew what else was going on around me. And then this morning, more of the struggle.

Notice all the needles..........

We sock knitters always try to convince those would-be sock-knitters that you only knit with two needles at once, so they should not be intimidated by the porcupine-like mess of four double pointed needles they see us working with. This part of the project involved three circular needles - with their six points - each needle of a different size (no idea why, I was just following directions) and because I had had to take the live stitches off of a provisional cast-on length of waste yarn, I had to hold a crochet hook in my mouth to pick up all the ^&*() dropped stitches that manoeuvre had caused.

It was a mess. The goal was to knit the two long sides of the band together to form a casing for elastic. It took me over three hours to finally accomplish this. Did I even know if I had the same number of stitches on each needle? Did I even know if I had the required 205 stitches when I finished? Did I bother to count???

No, I did not. It was all I could do not to throw the whole thing into a very long time out.

But I persevered and this is the result:




The rest (until I tackle the tiers) is brain-dead easy (and probably just as boring). Just stockinette stitch on size 4 needles for 40 inches.

NOW I'll count the stitches.

And with any luck, there will be 205...but if not, I know how to increase or decrease...(in other words - cheat!)

Well, that is just plain wrong!

I just read a knitter's post about an episode of Hoarders during which the people who were going through the hoarder's house found lots of knitting needles. Apparently when she wasn't hoarding, she was knitting (if she could find the needles). They told her she didn't need so many and then when they found a box of Addi Turbos, they made her throw them out along with other needles.

I'd have thrown the anti-hoarder crew out myself. But then, I didn't see what the rest of the house looked like.

Glitzy Cat's Paw Wrap

It is finished! I used just five skeins instead of six. It's long enough...

I am not going to block it because I like the texture. There is a blocked version at the LYS and it shows off the lace pattern better, but I like the texture more than the lace. So it really is finished.

The End

of the wisteria. One day of rain and this is what is left.

Rats!!!

Stitches South

Stitches South 2010 is in Atlanta this weekend, and I spent the day there yesterday with fellow knitters from our local LYS. There were more wonderful, beautiful fibers and yarns there than you can imagine.

However, what happens at Stitches South 2010 stays at Stitches South 2010.

(Right , S and L ?)

Ah Wisteria!

We were warned, after we planted wisteria to grow up the posts to the deck and arbor, that we shouldn't have done that. Thanks!

Once a year, for about a week and a half, it is beautiful, covering the arbor and making this lovely, sweet-smelling, lavender curtain over the steps.

I really do love it.

But then there's this:

I have learned in years past that it is just easier to leave the leaf-blower on the deck, so that once a dozen or so times a day, I can blow the debris off.

And not to anthropomorphize or anything, but why does wisteria hate us???

In addition to dropping pounds of debris on the deck, it has taken the end of the arbor and pulled it downward. It's trying to take down the very structure on which it lives! It has also tried mightily to take down the gutters on the back of the house in its attempt to get up onto the roof of the house.

Once the blooms are gone, we (the royal we - I mean dH of course) will fix this and that will require taking down some of the trunks of the wisteria.

And I think I will buy a machete!

Dear Younger Daughter,

Remember two years ago when I came out to visit? Well, before I left Atlanta, I bought what the salespeople told me were really "cool" shirts and that they were perfect for my visit to Los Angeles.

But when I got to LA and showed them to you, you rolled your eyes and sighed. You said, and I quote here: They look like something Reba McEntire would wear. I had no idea then what you meant, but I knew it wasn't good.

However now, thanks to a trip to the mall this morning, I discovered what Reba McEntire would wear because she has her own line of clothing! Who knew!!! (Example below) So I wandered through her collection and bought................................................................................................

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
nothing.

I still don't know what, other than the label, makes something something Reba McEntire would wear, but you can breathe a deep sigh of relief. When I come to LA next time, I won't be wearing her label.