One Crazy Fiber Lady

I mentioned in my last post that my parents got me a new lens for my birthday. ¬† ¬†They got me the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS SLR Lens replace the kit lens that came with my Canon Digital Rebel XT . ¬†It was delivered while I was at the dude ranch so I couldn’t play with it until Sunday.

Play I did.

(As always, click for bigger.)  I like!  What say you?

Craft on!

Well another week has begun.  My birthday last week was very nice.  I thank you all for your birthday wishes.  I had a lovely lunch with Kim and Deborah at a nearby Thai place.  Thank you ladies!  Mom made my favorite meal for dinner.  The kids made birthday cards for me at school.  Awwww.  The folks took advantage of my Amazon Wishlist and bought me a new lens for my big girl camera.  All in all, an excellent birthday.  Much better than the ones with a bad ankle or coxsackie virus

I even made some knitting progress:

I started the center of the sleeve stripes this morning on the train.  I would have been further along, but I spent the weekend without touching the needles once.  Or a wheel.  Or even spindles.  I know, totally amazing.  What did I do?  Well..

I took the twins to a dude ranch in Northeast PA to spend the weekend with the SMC (Single Mothers by Choice)¬†Multiple-Mom’s second annual get together. ¬†There were 10 of us mommies, each with twins or better. ¬†Two of the 10 have an additional singleton and one mommy has triplets. ¬†Doing the math, that was 10 mommies, 2 helpers, 9 sets of twins, 1 set of triplets and 2 siblings = 12 adults, 23 children.

Wow. ¬†It was fun! ¬†The bulk of the kids were about the same age, within a year of my kids, give or take. ¬†They travelled in little packs, enjoying the freedom the contained grounds offered. ¬†There was always at least one mommy with the particular pack so they weren’t totally free. And the mommies enjoyed the time together, being with others who totally get it.

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

It was awesome.

Craft on!

This past weekend, my folks gave me a break. Saturday after lunch they took the monkeys to the boat. They didn’t return until dinner time on Sunday. I had the house to myself! It was sooo quiet.

At first I hadn’t a clue what to do with myself. But I’m resourceful and figured it out. I went shopping. Alone. Ooooooo. I wandered around the newly rebuilt mall, hit Century 21 and bought myself a new purse. Why yes, I am a bag ‘ho.

I picked up some sushi for dinner and settled down to watch the earlier Sox game archived in MLB.TV. Have I mentioned I love the internet?? Anyway, while watching the game, I did some beading and finally restrung the turquoise chip necklace I made for Alex last summer. He’s broken it a few times and it has been sitting for months waiting for me to get back to it. I also made one for Kat in a pink coral like stone. She’s broken hers already.

Sunday I had a nice leisurely morning. I skimmed through the NY Times on my Kindle. (BTW, love it too!) After a shower, I popped off to Dunkin’ Donuts for a large coffee and a breakfast sandwich. Yum! It was a nice morning.

The rest of the day was spent here:

Craft on!

Last Thursday saw lots of activity on the piers of the waterfront on the lower east side.

First, on Pier 11, I decided that it was time to show that I actually do still knit.  So after my ferry docked, I delayed my arrival at the office for a picture of the current project.

Yup. ¬†Ballerina is back in active rotation. ¬†Though I shouldn’t really call it rotation because it is the only thing I’m knitting. ¬†Progress has been made beyond this point too. ¬†On the way home and at SnB that night, I finished the raglan shaping and started the short rows necessary for the sleeve. ¬†The back, she is now finis.

I was nearly late for SnB that night as my ferry was late to leave for Hoboken.  There was activity on the pier to the south of us.  That one is a heliport.  We had a distinguished visitor in town.

Sorry for the less than stellar shots. ¬†I was hoping for excellent pictures as the ferry motored past the heliport. ¬†Except the larger ferry, the Sea Streak, took off at the same time and forced us wide. ¬†The lighting was also less than ideal, but I think you get the idea. ¬†There’s Marine One (and the decoy), as well as some pretty big escort choppers. ¬†Cool, eh? ¬†As always you can click to embiggen.

Today is my birthday and I’m having lunch with Kim!

Craft on!

Jess reminded me that it has been far too long since I promised the recap of my July 4th weekend. Didn’t mean to drag it out so long but work (where I do my best blogging) has been crazy as we work our way through the remaining bug fixes before the software release in a couple of weeks. ¬†Madness I say! ¬†Seems so long ago, but I’ve been told that since I haven’t posted anything since, it is still kosher for me to do so now. ¬†Hey it’s my blog, I’ll post if I want to.

Here’s the reader’s digest version. ¬†We spent most of the weekend on the folks’ boat. ¬†The end.

That wasn’t worth the wait? ¬†Sorry

Well it is true, we spent the weekend on the boat.  Thursday evening we rafted up with a bunch of other boats in a sheltered pond like area off the Hudson River.  We watched the fireworks from the bow of the boat.

What’s a raft up? ¬†Well, a boat will drop anchor and others will tie up along side it, extending out in a big funny shaped raft. ¬†Every so often another boat will drop an anchor as well so the big old flotilla doesn’t swing all about and eventually break lose.

This is the view from the bow of my boat looking to our port.  On the other side of those trees is the Hudson. The slip of land to the right is where the fireworks flew from.

And the view from the stern, also to our port.  We had more than a few boats.   The dinghies and smaller boats would tie up along the swim platforms of the larger ones.

There’s the little miss swimming around in the pond behind the boat.

The little man did mighty fine swimming in the pond too. ¬†Yes, they both were wearing their PFD’s so drowning wasn’t an issue.

That freed me up to do this:

Yup, it was a lovely way to spend a holiday weekend!

Craft on!

Edited to add: ¬†Instead of subjecting my knitting/spinning buddies with the Sims posts, I’ve started a new blog for that. ¬†It is over here.

It was a long and enjoyable holiday weekend. This picture of the twins sums it all up.

Hope those who celebrated had an equally good time. Real post tomorrow after I dl pictures from my big girl camera.

Craft on!