Random Picture Monday:

Some old pictures on my computer:

I cannot express in words how much Scilly loves her tennis balls.

She REALLY loves those damn things!

Madden helped me organize my yarn room

Shadow, our most "prissy-looking" cat, loves her some dirt and stink to wallow in any chance she can.

Mr. Handsome Hunter

He was always just so happy to hang out with us.

No ball, no chasing cats.

Just hang'n.

Tomorrow is the big "Flash Your Stash" reveal.

Stay tuned . . .

Because I'm a Dumbass:

I forgot to mention a few other things!

1) April 1st is the annual Flash Your Stash event, if'n you didn't know. I'm in and I hope you participate too.

2) On Saturday I met smiledr from ravelry, and (kindasortabutnotreally) helped her learn some knitting. This town is soooooo wee-tiny that, just like I suspected, we know the same people. My husband helped rough-in the plumbing on her house, lol! It was very fun to hang out and talk 'fiber stuff' with her. I hope she wasn't annoyed by all my blathering. Finding a local knitter/fiber person just gets me twitterpated I guess.

3) There was something else but I forget now. If I remember I'll let'cha know.

Reasons 248-260 To Always Have Your Camera Handy:

My ravelry Project 365 submission today. One of our themes this week was:

Extra Credit: If a picture is worth a Thousand Words how many can you find?
One day this week, March 26th, music and poetry seems to shine on. Find a perfect mix of a few lines of verse and one of your images to make these men proud.

1827 Ludwig Van Beethoven-Composer died
1859 A.E. Housman-poet born
1874 Robert Frost-poet born
1892 Walt Whitman-poet died
1911 Tennessee Williams-poet born

I'm not big on classical music (although I have a few favorites) and I'm even less interested in poetry. The only *poem* I really know is the one by Joyce Kilmer about trees, but since I'm ALWAYS taking pictures of the great outdoors, this one wasn't hard to do.

Mike - happy to give a sample

(Yes. I hate that he wears that shirt in public!)

Cool use of the hat brim

How do you give up six vials of blood?

Why, one at a time, of course!

All Done!

The nurse (phlebotomist [sp?]) was SO nice and actually pretty funny!

A huge Thank You to Suzanne for seeing Mike today.

Between Bakersfield and Porterville

Poor guy was tilling on a Sunday afternoon

Yuck! I hate nature!

This guy crashed my photog moment outside of El Torito in Bakersfield.

Some kind of flower,

also outside of El Torito

We had a late lunch in Bakersfield

(well, The Mike did. He's aways eating, lol)

Suzanne, next time you drive by the El Torito there, these are those flowers by the sign

Holy Fucking Crap, People! Check this out!

We got back to Porterville and The Mike made a pit stop at the Starbucks by our house.

While he was inside getting his StarCrack (tm)

I was sitting in the car reviewing all the pictures I had taken.

All of a sudden, there was a HUGE-ASS crash sound!

I look over and a car is kind of crumpled in it's front end.

While I'm watching it slowly roll backwards,

a fucking light pole from the median

comes slamming down onto the top of the vehicle

and blowing out the back glass.

BLAM!

That fucking fast things changed for the driver of that car.

Unbelievable.

xxxxxx

Public Service Announcement 1:

I just read in the San Luis Telegram Tribune (online), that Hearst Castle
is giving free tours on June 2nd.

Have ya heard of Mr. William Randolph Hearst? I'm going with the assumption that you at least know 'of' him.

Here's the Official website. Go poke around and check out some interesting things! When you take a tour, everywhere you turn there is something fascinating or mindblowing.

If you haven't ever been, I highly HIGHLY highly suggest you go - even if it's not on June 2nd!

How I Spent My Weekend:

"Hmmm. Where are some more eggs?"

Ella's 2nd Easter on this Earth

It was hard to be around all the 'Commercialism and Candy' mentality from my husband and his family today, but it was nice to just stay behind the camera and take a load of pictures. It was also awkward to be around my 'about to be ex-' sister-in-law.

Uncle Mike giving Ella a lift to get an egg

I have a freak'n TON of pictures of her expressions when she'd find another egg. She was so excited every single time. One time, while Ella was distracted, my FIL put an egg in his mouth, and we told her to 'look around Poppa'. She laughed so hard when she looked up at his face and saw a purple egg coming out of his mouth.

Another WIP into an F.O. this weekend

No idea of the yarn, but it's very nice. I'll be felting this one.

California Poppies

Friday, Mike loaded up the car with his fishing gear for the tournament he was in on Saturday. Our Friday Night Dinner was at one of the couples' house, and Mike's partner for the tourney is one of our group. After dinner we went over to the guy's house to load this into his boat

Tule River

This spot is actually between my in-laws property and the people who were hosting the dinner. This little river is pretty much what separates them. After we ate, Mike & I took a little walk. That's where the poppies were too.

Those Elusive Bass

Mike and his partner caught a whopping 1.01 lb fish. These guys (father and son from Visalia) caught the limit (5) and weighed in at an unbelievable 38+ lbs!! That's freak'n insane. The next highest was 3 fish at around 22 lbs (also out-of-towners). Our club's tournament just the week before was nothing like this! These guys won well over three thousand dollars for those babies.

This guy lives at the coast and he's partners with a guy in our club. He caught 2nd biggest fish at 10+ lbs and so they came in 3rd place. Both second and third place earned over $1000 each.

How fucking funny is THAT?

I would absolutely sport that logo

I went up the first time on Saturday around 8:30am. IN THE MORNING PEOPLE! I tromped from one end of the lake to the other and took, ohhhhh, about 137 pictures, lol. Lucky for you all I'm not putting them in here!

Lake Success

I like how the waters edge has the same curvature as the mountain mirrored on the water. Everything is so green and pretty right now.

Testing, Testing

This one is me trying to figure out one of this week's "themed" pictures in my ravelry 365 group. We're supposed to take a cd (or three or however many you want) and use it to create a mood (or some such shit) with the iridescent sheen - but not with the cd as the main focus. I so don't know how to do this. See, I thought if I took a plain white egg and set it ON the cd, then the rainbow effect would shine ON the egg. Nope. There are a few other pictures of my miserable failure, but this one I still kind of like anyway, despite it not being what I was trying to accomplish.

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

On the knitting front (and yes, there IS a 'knitting front' don'tcha know?!)

I resurrected (how apropos for Easter weekend) an old WIP. It's a purse to be felted, out of Cascade 220, with lots of striping and fake-isle. Purple, red, pink, lavender. It's been dormant on my ravelry space and I didn't realize how close I was to being finished until I finally looked at it again. The inspiration behind the colors is a very pretty fabric swatch I'll be lining it with. Ties in all the colors nicely.

This afternoon, I hauled outside all my Stitches West booty and took pictures in the sunshine . . . in my front yard . . . of it. Seriously? I think the across-the-street neighbors wonder about me. Part of me has a sneaking suspicion that they don't understand why we don't have 6 kids and thirty grandkids over all the time and that *they* think that *I* think all these yarn balls I'm always arrainging and taking pictures of in public are my 'babies'. Dumb people! If they only knew that the cats are my 'babies' LOL!

Oh! There's a pattern for a felted 'wine cozy' that I started this weekend, but canned it when I realized that winging it (you know me and patterns!) made it too large. BUT! It turned into quite the happy accident/mistake. The base of this pattern is created using short-rows to make a circle that you connect. So, I'm knitting away, sure that 'cast on 6' is only a suggestion from the designer and if she knew what I really wanted, it would have said 'cast on 12'. I'm watching this arc-like knitting get longer and BLAM! It hit me. I finally understand how those 'curly' scarves are made! (think that 'potato chip' scarf). Short rows! Magical!

Anywho, I scratched that pattern and have started a 'wine cozy of my own making'. It's out of the blue/lavender Lisa Souza 100% wool I bought back in '06 at The Knit & Crochet Show. I'm thinking I may needle-felt some grapes and leaves on it after it's felted.

Some of you know that I FINALLY got a booth at a shop here in town, and am selling my knitting (and knitting-related) stuff at a real brick 'n mortar. YIPPIEE. Unfortunately, I had donated 99.9% of my F.O.s back in December (for the tax deduction) since I had no place to sell it. Oh well. Now I'm busting my hump to knit up new stuff to stock my little booth with. It's a challenge coming up with items that will be affordable, yet made out of material I'm willing to work with and without the intricacies that would involve too much (unpaid) time in them. Things like lace or socks or cashmere - no one is going to pony up the true value of those handknit items and it'd be foolish for me to wish otherwise. So far I have a few lacy-ish scarves and two entrelac scarves. They look (to the non-knitter) more complicated than the average scarf, so I got that going for me, lol. Two other booths have crochet with a smattering of knits (and honestly? Their stuff looks SO "homemade" and it's all Red Heart. I don't apologize for my fiber snobbery.)

With all that said, if you know me in the real world (and are interested) you are cordially invited to knit up and sell in my booth. All sales are 100% yours and the rent can be figured out any old way - a one time deal, month-to-month, sporadically . . . whatever. The monthly rent is $45 which I'm responsible for overall. I figure all those projects that you've made for the experience but don't want to just give away? Sell 'em and make yourself some more yarn money, honey!

Also, don't forget, this Thursday evening - Borders bookstore on Mooney. See ya there!

Friday Funnies:

When I flickr-fu my first name:

HA! It's like they know me!

(this one and the next one

were some sort of

April Fool's pranks)

Some pictures (not taken by me) that I love over on flick:

Montana d'Oro

Spooner Cove

Pier at Avila Beach

long exposure of fog at a bridge

the cave between Pirate's Cove

(the nudie beach if'n you don't know)

and Avila Beach

Lake Tahoe

Emerald Bay

Emerald Bay has always been one of my favorite spots.


Pictures of Pismo Beach that I did not take (but love) as found on flickr:

Do not click here if you do not want an ear worm!

I listen to the nationally syndicated radio show Don & Mike pretty much every weekday, and Easterns Motors is one of their sponsors.

That song just grows on me! Hope it grows on you too, lol.

YOUR JOB'S YOUR CREDIT!

A Sprinkle of This and a Dash of That:

Today I learned more about how to use my bloglines account. Don't ask me to explain it clearly, but it has to do with seeing what blogs other people have subscribed to (at least seeing the people that *I* subscribe to already).

It's pretty damn fascinating actually!

I've been perusing places I never heard of or even knew to know about! Fascinating!

Here's a little morsel. It's an article about Genetically Engineered (GE) corn being sold in San Luis Obispo. Here, read it for yourself:

Genetically Engineered Corn in SLO

Avila Beach site of first known instance of labeling
Sierra Club, Santa Lucia, CA Chapter, December 2007

In what may be a national first, a local grower has voluntarily labeled genetically engineered corn being sold to the public.

The sign "Our own GE corn" appeared over a bin at Avila Valley Barn in September, with "traditional corn" identifying the contents of an adjacent bin. On request, helpful workers will aid shoppers in distinguishing between the two. (The GE product is skinnier.)

Known as Bt corn, the variety has been genetically engineered to produce a toxin that kills the corn ear worm. The Bt toxin is present in every cell of the plant, requiring Bt corn to be registered as an insecticide with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. About 30 percent of the corn planted in the United States since 1996 is estimated to be genetically engineered.

Avila Valley Barn's decision to label GE corn is apparently unique. "I have not heard of this happening anywhere else in the U.S.," said Renata Brillinger of Californians for GE-Free Agriculture. "There are some voluntary labels for GE-free foods -- we have distributed several hundred posters for farmers to use at their market stalls. But I haven't seen any like this."

The FDA does not require toxicity or allergenicity testing before allowing GE foods on the market, despite the recommendations and warnings of many of its own scientists. The first GE food, the Flavr Savr tomato, genetically engineered for longer shelf life, was allowed on the market despite the fact that it was known to cause stomach lesions in lab rats.

"Not surprisingly, FDA's 'no testing, no labeling' policy is opposed by the vast majority of Americans," writes Joseph Mendelson, legal director for the International Center for Technology Assessment and the Center for Food Safety. "Opinion polls consistently show that more than 90 percent of Americans strongly support the labeling of GE foods. More than half a million people wrote to the FDA to support a legal petition filed by the Center for Food Safety which demanded mandatory labeling and testing of biotech foods."

The Avila Valley Barn is owned by John DiVincenzo. The Santa Lucia Chapter has spoken with Dr. DiVincenzo on numerous occasions over the last year and a half about labeling the GE corn he has been growing for sale at Avila Valley Barn. He has agreed with us that more information is better than less, and the public has a right to know. We hope he will go on to produce informative materials available on the premises describing all the types of produce he sells - genetically engineered, traditional, no-spray and organic.

Jesse Arnold of SLO GE Free reports that, in a September 27 discussion with Robert Hayashi at the SLO Farmers Market, Hayashi said that Hayashi & Sons is also selling Bt corn, but did not say whether they intend to label it.
At press time, Hayashi and Dr. DiVincenzo had not returned calls from the Sierra Club.

A couple of things here interest me.

1) John DiVincenzo was our family's orthodontist. We call him Dr. D (original, I know). He was even at my brother's wedding in 2004. Super nice man! I'm proud of him for labelling his stuff, but I have to say I'm surprised he even offers it in the first place. The Avila Valley Barn is a place I consider 'natural' . . . like the apple cider from Gopher Glen.

2) Hayashi's is another 'natural' place and I'm quite disappointed they won't be clear whether they are labelling their stuff GE. Hayashi's Fruit & Vegetable Stand is practically a historic landmark and the Hayashi's have a long and successful agricultural history at the Coast. Sadly, that same 3rd generation Michael Hayashi mentioned is also this Michael Hayashi mentioned. Pathetic.

Here's another thing I happened upon.

Another blog I stumbled across . . . it has 11,889 subscribers so I'm guessing that everyone's heard of this place BUT me! The first picture made my heart skip a beat.

Doesn't that look downright delish?

crafty eliza and her shitty kitty. That blog name cracks me up!


Holy crap that's a hugeass blanket!






Freckles is doing SO much better since we got her medicine changed, and we've switched her to the dry diet food.

Last but certainly not least, my bestest bud Sheila JUST got her invitation to ravelry. Go here and friend her and freak her the fuck right out, lol! She's so new to ravelry, I think there's still some afterbirth in her hair.

(if y'all wonder what else I'm doing when I'm not blogging, you can see alot of my activity here. I just spent a hellofalottatime uploading and organizing 10 cds of pictures and three emails with a ton of picture attachments - all for the Success Bass Club. I'm also the Blogger for the club too.)