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I have to admit it was a bit of an impulse purchase.  When I confessed that to my oldest daughter, she said “why didn’t you just get a new pocketbook!”.

I’ve had a pretty busy two weeks.  I went with my girlfriend to visit her mom in Mount Desert Island, ME .  EIGHT hours drive from here where it rained the whole 4 days!

When I returned home AJ was here to visit and I took my grandson and my nephew to Lake Compounce for a 6 hour visit.

Yesterday my brother came down from Pittsfield, MA to pick up two queen sized mattresses from a neighbor who is cleaning out her daughters condo and I had to schlep mattresses with him from the second floor of the unairconditioned condo.  Then we bought her 9 bags of mulch as a thank-you because the place where he works stopped making mulch. 

All the while my smallest grandchildren were there begging me to take them to the Kid Museum in Middletown or to Lake Compounce.  Time has no meaning to them. I compromised and took Jake and Ryan to see ICE AGE #3 in 3-D.   Ryan left extracting a promise to take her to Lake Compounce next week.  We had grinders from the pizza place for dinner. I’m tired just writing about it.

I’m busy these days on face book, so I haven’t even been reading my blogs, but that’s because Amy, Paula, and Cynthia are slackers when it comes to blogging.   What?  Just because they have new babies?

 Also the the baby sweater knitted with the mystery yarn?   Remember that.  I lost it in the test drive of my new car only to find it when I came back to pick up the purchased car. I took it to Maine and forgot it there.  At least it’s all done.  Well almost.  I attached 3 i-cords and need to make the 4th to finish.   Hopefully I can get Louise to mail it back.

I’ve been knitting a lot lately.  I finished the colorful baby blanket, and now am almost finished with

One-Piece Baby Kimono by Cristina Bernardi Shiffman from the Mason-Dixon knitting book.  I’m using some mystery yarn I found in my stash which I’ve named Mystery Peppermint. 

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As you can see I have lots left over - even enough for the Zodiac.

I have good news from friends.  Sara T is pregnant and Darcy had another baby girl, Violet Elizabeth Graham. 

I told a neighbor about my reading page and she wanted to see it and I told her she could find it here on my blog.  If you’ve visited - Hi Sheila.

Today is my daughter’s 40th birthday.  I can’t figure out how she got that old, cause I don’t think I’m that old.

Sunday Kate and Doug are coming up for Father’s Day. John is playing in a golf tournament at his old childhood haunt Hubbard Height Golf Course in Stamford, now named E. Gaynor Brennan Golf Course.  We hope to get Aunt Marilyn and Aunt Jean to have dinner with us while we are there.  Beth and Chris have offered to let us sleep over.   On Monday I hope to see my Uncle Lenny and hand lunch with him.   A very busy weekend coming up.

 Last night I talked John to driving to Frank Pepe’s Pizza in Manchester.   It was great New Haven Pizza!

 I am burning a book I purchased from audible dot com and it’s taking a million year (not to mention disks).

I just wrote a whole post and moved away without saving to get a picture and lost it all uggg

 This weekend I went to my grandson’s playoff baseball game.  The were seeded number  8 and played the number 1 team and lost 12 to 9 in the last inning.   The pitching was great.   My grandson the Pitcher !

 After the game we went out to dinner - his choice of places - any restaurant on the Berlin Turnpike or in Wethersfield or Rocky Hill (I was hoping for Saybrook Fishhouse).   We went to Taco Bell and then to UP in 3-d.   What a great movie. 

Later we walked Beckette and he dodged another “bag pick up”.

My granddaughter, while I”m on the subject of grandchildren went to visit her Uncle Chris and Aunt Beth this weekend.  I think they spoiled her, which is not hard to do.  Her is Ryan and also my unnamed Granddaughter

And let’s not forget my youngest grandson, Jake, who will perform Yankee Doodle Dandy at Miss Joni’s pre-k graduation on Wednesday!

Here he is, Mr. Blueberry Eyes himself: 

I didn’t mention that I forgot to make button holes in the sweater mentioned in the last post.  I bought some ribbon and used snaps instead.  I think I’m going to take off the front snaps and put ribbon on that side too.  Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.

I just need to weave in the ends on the baby blanket and I can go back to my “Helen’s custom fit sideways sweater” on Tuesday, and knit in public at Sit N Knit Too in honor of Knit in public day.

Well now it’s 12:16 and all I’ve done today is blog, manage email and pictures and read the morning paper.   Off to be highly effective.   ciao

I had good intentions this morning of doing something on my Big TODO list.  I walked the Dog at 5:30 and then went back to bed as it was much too early to be awake. 

Woke up at 8:45 and took Beckett to daycare.  There were many dogs there this morning so I hope he’ll be tired tonight. 

 I then check the stack of bills and found only 2 that needed to be paid.  Made neat piles of the stack of paper and turned on the The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (audio book).  This limited me to go no father than my computer as the book was downloaded from the library.   It is a fascinating story.  I think that hearing it read makes it better.  The book is set on Guernsey Island in 1946 and the speakers all have English accents.

I did sew on the snaps and buttons on the baby sweater I made. 

Princess Fluffy took the opportunity of the absence of Beckett to beg some begging to be brushed.

 It’s been ages since I’ve been to Olympia Diner to knit with the Newington SNB.  I think I may go tonight.

My daughter called me Sunday and she said she’s started to show.  It’s so exciting, she’s more than halfway there.

 Tomorrow Home Depot is installing my storm door and my granddaughter is playing her viola in concert tomorrow evening.  I’m not sure that I’m the baby sitter or will be a concert goer.

 Last month my friend, Martine, came down for a visit to her boyfriend.  I met her for a birthday lunch at Westfarms Mall.  I also got to meet her sister, Annette.

Six days to Chris’ birthday and 19+ weeks until he’s a DAD!

 I’m updating my reading list today. 

I’ve been away for a few months, busy knitting.  I started a sideways sweater with Helen (Sit N Knit Too) and was progressing nicely, abet not as nicely as my friend, Martine.  She finished her sweater in April.  I only got to the  left front when we decided to take the Kousa Shawl class at SNK.  Since it started I’ve been knitting like a piece work knitter in a third world country.   I’m keeping up with the goals of the class even though we went on vacation.  (That’s Jan and Greg in the foreground)  I am 3/4 finished with the fringe, below, and the next class is saturday morning.

 The color of the whole shawl isn’t good, but you can see how it looks.  The actual color is the picture above.

This is the center square, which the rest of the shawl was built on.

In April we went to California to visit relatives and a quick trip to Vegas.  We started visiting Pasadina, CA to see Uncle Ed, who will be 90 this May.  We didn’t get the invitation until we got home or we would have rescheduled the trip to see him to coincide with his birthday party. 

We were only there for one day and then flew to Vegas to wait for Jan and Greg.  Of course, John paid a little Texas-Hold-em.

 Jan got tickets for us all to see the Terry Fator show.  I’d never heard of him, but now a fan.  His opening he welcomed the audience and said if we wanted to take pictures it was OK and even a video, but not all the show.  He is the ultimate entertainment.  He even has his own theatre at the Mirage.

From there we were lucky enough to fly in Greg’s plane.  John got to sit up front.  Jan and I sat and read books for the hour ride.  Owning your own plane is nice!  No lines, no baggage check.   It was hassle free until I left my pocket book in the Taxi when we were dropped off at the hanger. 

Luckily taxi drivers in Vegas are nice.  I got it back, after John called my cell phone a jillion times. 

Then back to Alamo, CA to spend a couple days with Jan and Greg and my nephews. 

Jack is taller than I am now.  eek.  A.J. still has the best smile, and is going to be a teenager. Where did the time go?  I don’t know what happened to the pictures of Jack and A.J., but here is Cooper:

This my new Grand-Cat, Cleo.   Isn’t she sweet?

 This is Beckett, last night, waiting for me to finish brushing my teeth.  I didn’t know that dogs could sit like that.

I am finished with the 8.5″ of the back of the sideways sweater.   Now to cast on 72 stitches for the right side.  I hope to have this done before tomorrow morning when I go back to Sit N Knit Too to start a shawl with Audry.   I seem to do so much better with goals.

I have a weakness - that’s buying some yarn every-time I go to Sit N Knit.  I also see a new project I want to start.  I need restraint.

I updated my reading list.  I can’ t remember two or three books.  I should do this more often.  Next Tuesday is the Berlin Peck-Memorial Library Book Club to discuss “The Last Lecture”.  Two of my neighbors are coming with me, Maryann and Sheila. 

 We, the some of the ladies of Beckley Farms, have started a Monday Night Card Club.  It’s lots of fun.  I lost $3 last week!!!

 I also spent $700 on repairs for my 3 year old Subaru.  The dealer said that it was spark plug coils were corroded.  This is in a garaged car.  WTF?

I had a little bit of no knitting time.  I think it was because I had so many projects going and was near the end of all but something was wrong with all of them.

 I finally finished the peapod and hat.  You can see I did the little bobbles differently from the directions, cause I didn’t like the way it looked.  These seem to be more pronounced.

Then my friend Martine came down from Canada and we went to Sit N Knit Too and started a sidewise sweater with Helen.  It seems simple, but the value of it is in learning the fit.  I had an AHA moment.  All the sweaters I knit were too small.  I thought I was knitting too tight, even though the guage was right on.  I even knit a swatch and bound it off and then measured.  The trick is to add inches to the bust measurement.  duh….

  I’m using Lily Chin  and Isager “scots pine heather” yarn and it very nice.  This is the left sleeve, but I’m no on to the front and back.

Golf starts up on April 20th and there is a meeting on 4/4 at Hawks Landing.  $19 walking for a round this year.

 We’ve been busy worring and meeting about the condo for the last month.  We went to a Town of Berlin Meeting to see if the SHADY DEVELOPER Nathan Kahn would get is builders permit renewed.  We also contacted a couple of lawyers to see what would be in our best interest - get the permit or not.  The town didn’t know how bad the situation was here and noted that he was in violation on many counts and ordered him to clean up the trash and put in street signs (safety issues).

We will never get the “punch list stuff” done.  I, for one, would just like to see the grounds cleaned up and topsoil applied and the rest of the shrubbery planted.  I guess we’ll have to wait for a new developer to take over.  We have taken dozens of pictures and presented them to the p and z commission and I think even the inland/wetlands commission and anyone else we can think of. 

One of the other defunct projects, who seem to have a far greater problem than we do, had their community featured on channel 30 news and Nathan Kahn declined to comment.  They only have 9 residents as where we have 22.  That makes it a log easier to share the cost of everything. 

 We eliminated mulching and fertalizing from the maintenance contract and one of our owners is going to spread the fertalizer if the owners but it.  We can maybe mulch next year.

 I have been reading up a storm and need to collect the names before I forget them - see them next post!