Saturday, July 31, 2010

Places Being Seen, Things Being Done

Thank you for all of your kind and welcoming comments!  Returning to blogging after a long absence is kind of like going back to school after having been sick for several days.  It's scary in some weird way.  I appreciate your help in coming back.

How about some pictures of what I've been doing?  Below is The Yellow House Sampler from Sheepish Designs.  I love working on it and looking at it when I'm not working on it.



The fabric is 40-count Iced Cappuccino ... the lightest IC I've ever seen, in fact, and I'm using one DMC thread over two.  It's been such a long time since I've worked with regular old DMC that I'd forgotten how much I like it.  A little voice in my head is telling me to dunk it in come coffee when I finish.  We'll see.

Below is the new pair of socks I'm working on.  As you can see, hopefully, the second sock isn't gonna match up exactly with the first.  I know the idea is to make them look the same, but I couldn't help myself.  I wanted to see how it turns out.
I love the colors so far, but they aren't for me.  They're for a special birthday gift in September.  Someone gave me a pattern for toe-up socks, but it'll take me a little time on the internet to figure out how to start them.  The pattern makes beginning sound extremely complicated, so I'll be searching for a video (the internet is a wonderful thing) to help me.

I've been gone for several days.  We decided to take a little trip to South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore (I love it there) again and play some golf.  We had some very exciting weather, so there wasn't much golf, but it was a great getaway.

Earlier this month we took a trip to Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon.  Even though I've lived out west all my life, I'd never been to either place.  Finally, I've seen what "awesome" means.  The Grand Canyon is incredible.  You've seen a million pictures of it, I know, so I won't bore you with mine.  We took two days to visit the South and North Rims, and the drive between is worth your time.  On the way to the North Rim, you can stop at Navajo Bridge, which is 700 feet above the Colorado River.  Here are some rafters who waved and told us to jump (I'm sure they meant it in the nicest way).

First you see them close-up, and now here's a view as we saw them from the bridge.  Pretty cool, huh?  I'm pretty sure I need a raft ride.
  Mesa Verde was also amazing.  I loved it there, so I'm forcing you to look at one picture.
Thinking of how long these dwellings have been there makes looking at them even better.  We got to climb down into a kiva with the other kids (really, there were one or two other adults).  On our way home, we went on a crazy road called the Moki Dugway, which was a blast.  The pictures taken by other people are much better than mine, and you'll get a great idea of what it was like if you click on the link.  If you're ever in that area, do it!

I think that's about it for now.  I have one more full week and a day of summer vacation (gasp! sob!!), which has been reduced by almost three full days because of meetings (yawn) that my new principal and the big bosses think I need to attend.  Meetings aren't my thing, and I'll be doing my best to learn something, but I'll take my knitting just in case my brain needs some help.  I'm naughty, huh?  Make some fun.