HOW DO YOU SELL A POOL???

I've had it. I'm done. I need to sell my pool, any ideas?

This morning, with my morning coffee, I go out to the garden to enjoy my lilies. They are in bloom and their fragrance in the morning air is delicious.

As I approach the yard, I'm always a bit hesitant about where I step since those hawks have taken up residency here. I'd hate to trip over any more bunny heads. Once I've established that all is well in the garden, I have to peer around the deck to look at the pool and hope that all is well there too. Two years ago, a pipe to the sprinkler system blew over night and flooded the pool. Water poured everywhere, out of the pool and flowed like a waterfall down the garden steps. What a mess that was.

With my coffee in hand and the perfume of my lilies still fresh in my mind, I pushed those disaster thoughts away and just enjoyed the fresh air and beautiful morning. But then, I notice, there's something floating in the pool. That &%$# dang pool...

I thought that it was a squirrel. A black squirrel. I've never seen a black squirrel in New Jersey least of all in my yard. Mary Anne over on Miss Woolly Knits always features black squirrels on her blog and I just knew that's what must be floating. Until...

Y'all remember that skunk I had a problem with last summer right??



WHY ME???!!!

My soon to be 16 year old and recently employed teenage son took care of the disposal details. Except when he pulled it out, the smell caused him to drop it in the bucket and flee. What a wus...

Needless to say, I no longer smell the lilies.

...now back to the regularly scheduled program

This is a blog mostly about knitting after all. I do get sidetracked, now and again. That list in my previous post is just a portion of my job description. With all that crap that has to get tended to, it's a wonder that us domestic working girls could ever dream of a hobby.

My yarn diet is still going strong (since December, thank you very much). Unfortunately, I've still not overcome the other dreaded ailment - Startitist. I was telling you previously that I had tried to tackle the 'ol stash. Impossible. The only way to deal with stash is to sell it, give it away or knit it. I created several piles on my bedroom floor. Here's a peek at one of them -

There's bags of Lamb's Pride, Noro and Debbie Bliss. Once when a local craft mega store went chapter 11, I nearly did the same when I bought their entire stock of Lion Brand something or other. Why??

Ok, on to the WIPs (works in progress for all of you newbies stopping by).

Featured here are the sad few rows I've finished for my bedroom sofa's afghan. The idea was to have a nice snugly throw for when I'm lounging in my room. It is now 9 months old.

You all know this one, my son's going off to college vest. It was scheduled to be finished before June 19 but with my son's post graduation social schedule, I couldn't hold him in place long enough to measure for the length. What did you say? I was suppose to do that before I started? Yeah right.

Ok, this lovely is from last summer. When I was 135 pounds. I'm now 145 pounds. 'nuff said.

Same story with this tank, although I love the yarn, Rowan cotton braid I think. It is basically finished but alas, I don't like how it looks. I think it has a frog in its future...

Ah, yes, this I started in October. A toddler sweater for my cousin's first baby. The baby was born in November and I was allowing myself 6 months to finish for when the baby became a toddler and he could wear it in the spring. Well what month is it now?

So I put everything else aside (including today's laundry) and got to work.



DONE. Just have to weave in the pesky ends and package it up and send it off to Philly before he starts kindergarten!

When the neighbors are dumb

Ok, so I've told you about this family of hawks using my backyard as a hunting range. The other day, I was just about to pull off in my car when one of the baby hawks scored a squirrel right on the front lawn. I pulled out the camera, put it on video mode and right from the safety of my car window, I shot a small clip of the feast, yuck.

Then my dumb neighbors come out for a walk. The mother is jogging. The father and the 5 kids, ages 3 - 11 along with the family dog, a huge lab being held on the leash by the 4 year old, see the hawk on the lawn. The jogging mother goes up to the bird and inquires of me, "what kind of bird is that?" The father gives the 11 year old his camera phone to go right up to the hawk and take pictures. If that wasn't enough dumbness so far, the father never takes control of the leash. While I'm filming from the car, I see the dog dragging the kid getting ready to bolt after the hawk. Could have been ugly...

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES

UPDATED - July 12 - thanks Phyllis for reminding me about hair drama, and thanks to the John McCain drama for reminding me about the being president part.

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.

Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes. There is no fast food or hair dresser. Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, complete science projects, cook, do laundry, do hair and pay a list of "pretend" bills with not enough money.

In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week. Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time. Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment.

He must also get the wardrobe together (and do hair) for any number of birthday parties, bar/bat mitzvahs and communions PLUS purchase gifts for each event and have them wrapped uniquely.

He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Emergency Room (weekend, evening, on a holiday or right when they're about to leave for vacation).

He must also make cookies or cupcakes for all social and school functions.

Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times. The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done. There is only one TV and computer between them, and a remote/mouse with dead batteries.

Each father will be required to know all of the words to every stupid song that comes on TV and the name of each and every character on cartoons.

The men must shave their legs, do their hair and wear makeup daily, which they will apply to themselves either while driving or making three lunches.

Each man will have to make an Indian hut model with six toothpicks, and get a 4 year old to eat a serving of peas, at the same time, all while doing another child's hair.

Each man must adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep their nails polished and eyebrows groomed.

The men must try to get through each day without snot, spit-up or barf on their clothing.

During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties. They must try to explain what a tampon is for when the 6-yr old boy finds it in the purse.

They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

He will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night without falling asleep, and then feed them, supervise bath/shower time, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair each morning by 7:00. They must leave the home with no food on their face or clothes.

They must clean up after their sick children at 2:00 a.m.and then spend the remainder of the day tending to that child and waiting on them hand and foot until they are better.

They must have a loving, age appropriate reply to, "You're not the boss of me."

The men must never feel inferior even when others suggest, insist or otherwise try to control and develop markets/laws regarding your every thought, bodily function and/or station in life. You must also be content to live on an island where you are never president, vice president and are cloned into a weird robot yes man (with a tan) to be secretary of state.

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes sizes and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor; each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up and when and if they had chicken pox. A pop quiz will be given on each child's teacher's names, subjects and when the next book report is due.

The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if... he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice. If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years...eventually earning the right to be called Mother!

Is this what I really did for the past 18 years??? DAYUM, I'm tired...

Boys, books and balls

What is it about raising boys and getting them away from balls and into a book? My first son, I think, I gave him a book before I gave him solid food. The same with my second son. Both of them turned out as pretty good readers. My last son, what did I do wrong? It is a battle to get him to finish a book. Today, case in point, what do you think I did to get him to go from these joyful moments -

TO THIS SULKING FACE?

I took him to a book talk. Harlan Coban lives in the neighborhood and he is always doing something with the library. Today, to encourage middle school aged children to continue to read for the summer, he along with a few dozen boxes of pizza, gave an informal talk about writing, reading and whatever else the kids wanted to talk about.


Little did I know, tonight was the Homerun Derby. It was as if I spoke heresy to the child when I told him that HE WAS GOING TO THE LIBRARY EVEN IF I HAD TO BEAT HIM WITH A BASEBALL BAT.

There, do you see my child down at the end of the table SUFFERING?

Well, I had the best time. It was delightful even. I wanted to kiss Harlan right on top of his bald head for being such a sweetheart to do this. Instead I had to barrel out of the hall and get home before Sammy Sosa or somebody hit a home run. Fortunately, as we drove home, the child did say that it wasn't so bad, just too many girls. I told him him to give it a few years and home run and girls will have a whole different meaning.

When your friends move...

You remember my friend Phyllis? She is moving to another town. She says that it is only minutes away. I know that we don't spend a lot of time together but there is something about proximity. I pass her house each time I have to go to the High School. I see her big picture window and I say to myself, "that's Phyllis' house." I tell my sons, if you are ever sick, go to Phyllis' house. Sometimes as I drive by her house, I remember a project that I have to ask her about. Driving past her house, seeing her walk her dog is a thing where proximity makes you feel closer to someone even when you don't spend a lot of time together.

It was raining buckets after my son's graduation. After the ceremony I walked back to her driveway that she so graciously lent me and my sister's vans. She offered us towels because we were drenched. Only friends do that kind of stuff.

Today Phyllis and I are going to hang out in Montclair, a few towns over. I'll bring along my son's going-off-to-college vest so she can help me with the shoulder decreases. I have no spatial sense at all and I always get crossed eyed when I have to do weird stuff with my knitting like measuring, grafting, decreasing for necks and other things that you have to do to garmets. It is amazing that I was ever able to knit a pair of socks.

Is June finally over??

Talk about exhausted. It has been a combustible month of emotions. My oldest son turned 18 and graduated from high school.

A lovely ceremony where I had the privilege of learning, at 48 years old, how to coax my 83 year old mother and her new hip up and down football stands in order to flee the rain. I did this in heels. She, as always, wore something more practical. Why would anyone wear heels at an outdoor ceremony? I don't know, I guess by the time I finally got to graduation day after having survived midterms, finals, prom, 18th birthday, selective service (%$%^# war), and the first college tuition payment - you have to pay in advance - I had officially lost my mind.

My mother didn't look any worse for the wear. She is truly a tough lady and wasn't going to let a few lightening bolts and buckets of rain ruin her day with her 4th grandchild! That smile is pure genuine grandmotherly love. My smile, on the other hand, is brought to you by Zoloft - nah just joking, but it would have helped!



So what was graduation day really like?

Well, it started really dumb. I volunteered to assist with the 'after party' preparations at 9:30 in the morning. Why I did this I'll have to undergo hypnosis to figure that out. I had a zillion relatives on their way and dummy me is in a gym monitoring the 'baby picture wall.

There were millions of these all over the halls leading to the gymnasium.


I'll spare you the details to the rest of the day but suffice it to say NOTHING went as planned starting with a frantic SOS I get from the soon-to-be graduate that he owes over $300 in book fines and his graduation admission tickets would not be released until more of his mother's anguish is extracted.

Then, this guys shows up.

It's my pool guy. I've only been asking for them to come for weeks but because I didn't make an "official" appointment back in February for pool service in early June, I was made to pay the penalty by having them show up exactly when I least had the time to deal with it.



This is what they left me with. That was on June 21st. Today, June 30, the last day of the month and a billion dollars in chemicals and mommy hours later, I just may have a picture of a clean pool by the 4th of July. If any of you ever dream about putting in a pool, CALL ME. I will send you my pool bills.

Meanwhile, my working-and-soon-to-be-16 year old is out stalking our backyard hawk.

This guy is literally littering my backyard with animal parts.

Then, my son discovers that this is a "baby" hawk. Look who took a dive at my son -

She be the mamma and she don't play!

And that's when this momma told her 6 foot son to stop playing with predatory animals, I didn't have time to go to the emergency room.

He did get some good shots though

The day continued to wear me out but some good things did happen. My pal Phyllis lent me her driveway to park for graduation; I remembered my tickets (yes I paid the fines); my husband arrived to the ceremony from work with time to spare and I got to be a proud and thankful mamma.

Priceless!

Community Gardening

I enjoy growing vegetables. Unfortunately, my backyard is considered one big salad bar to any transient critter passing through. I've spotted rabbits (see below), raccoons, deer, moles, woodchucks, ground hogs, ducks, skunks - just to name a few. They eat everything and anything - they also lounge on MY lounge furniture in the overnight hours. The ones who tried to take a dip in the pool - well, let's just say that I managed to fish them out after freaking out.

My town hosts community garden plots where I get to grow my vegies. It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do this because the time and expense involved doesn't offset the easier trip to the farmer's market. But I do this each year mostly because I get a lot of joy watching seeds grow into food, it is a miracle that never ceases to amaze me. I also feel that it is important for me to do this while it is still legal. Why would community farming ever be outlawed you ask? Well, seeds have become a major political and economic barrier to family and subsistence farmers because seeds are patented. Many seeds now are sterile. This tactic prevents farmers from harvesting viable seeds - some patented seeds DON'T REPRODUCE. Farmers are forced to buy seeds every year and, even worse, we eat this frankinfood! But, I digress...

The field is plowed in early May and thick, rich composted soil is brought in.

Beautiful virgin dirt!

This is what happens when you don't get your plot prepared in late May, WEEDS!

It took me two days to clear my plot of all the weeds. Finally, progress after the first day...

...and the second day after I got the tomatoes in.

My newly employed, soon to be 16 year old stopped by to lend me a hand.

If all goes well, I'll have a bumper crop of tomatoes, peppers, string beans and cucumbers by early August. Until then, I'll be visiting the local Farmer's Market. Not only do I get the best non supermarket produce around, I get loads of tips and talk on farming!

Farmer's Market circa 2006

UPDATE

This morning, after I finished adding today's post, I go outside to work in my garden. I notice this little clump of fur in the grass -

... where there's fur-

there's usually a body... I didn't expect a headless bunny though. The local hawk must have had him for breakfast. I guess hawks don't do head.... And this was suppose to be such a nice post :(

DESTASH FOR CASH closes

When I went to visit one of my favorite sites, this is what was posted:

Susan and I have decided to close the DeStash blog as of 10:00 p.m. today, 13 June 2007. The unending maintenance, problems with Blogger and constant sending of reminder email to members to follow the established guidelines set out on the blog have been more work than we anticipated, and frankly we are burned out and ready for the site to close.

That's right folks, Destash for Cash site is now closed. Wouldn't you know it. Just when I considered unloading hoards of yarn, they close. Yeah, yeah, I know that I only put up a few balls of dishcloth yarn but I was at least "thinking" about doing more - like my bags of Koigu and Debbie Bliss or even the 20 skeins of Lionbrand something that I bought when Treasure Island went out of business - I was seriously considering putting it all on the Destash site. Anyway, I guess I'll just have to continue with my yarn diet until I knit up all of that stuff. Thanks to Susan and Terri for providing such a great blog for all of us compulsive knitters!

Pathetic

I threatened to sell off some yarn to help pay for the quarter of a zillion dollars I'm shelling out for my high school senior. I pulled out all of my stash and had it piled high in the middle of my bedroom. Then, I went through yarn books and piled that high. I organized all of my loose patterns and piled that high. After all of those piles, this was the only thing I could bring myself to feature on the Destash for Cash site.


It sold in less than 1 minute.

Maybe I should consider running a Sugar 'n Cream outlet on ebay...

Prom Night survival guide

If you want to survive your child's high school prom, my first advice is not to have a daughter. The stories I heard from my friends about wardrobe woes for daughters was scary. Because of this, I thought I had it soooo easy. I mean, I have 3 sons. You rent a black tux, you buy a corsage and you're done. Right? Wrong! I won't tell you all that I've learned, why ruin the fun for you? I will tell you that you will pay for every little thing that you did to your mother when you were a teenager - compounded and with interest!

Don't let these smiling, adorable faces fool you. It was hell!








The long and short of it is, I'm broke and I haven't even written the college tuition check yet. Anyone want to buy some yarn?

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UGH....

Police drummer rips band's "lame" concert
06/01/2007 2:00 AM, Reuters

Dean Goodman The singer in the Police jumps like a "petulant pansy," the drummer is making a "complete hash," and who knows what the guitarist is doing?

Notes from a bitter critic? Actually, it's a disarmingly frank concert review from the aforementioned drummer of the newly reunited rock trio.

A philosophical Stewart Copeland unleashed his vitriol in a posting on his Web site on Thursday, a day after the band played its second show in Vancouver, the Canadian city where it began its first world tour in more than 20 years on Monday.

"This is unbelievably lame," Copeland wrote of Wednesday's show at the GM Place arena. "We are the mighty Police and we are totally at sea."

Most of the 20,000 fans at the venue might not have noticed a series of small flubs, but Copeland, singer/bassist Sting, and guitarist were painfully aware of them.
Copeland started the show off on the wrong foot, literally. He tripped as he took to the stage, and then banged his gong at the wrong time so that "the big pompous opening to the show is a damp squib."

He did not hear Summers' opening riff to "Message In a Bottle," and Sting in turn misheard Copeland's drum intro -- "so we are half a bar out of sync with each other. Andy is in Idaho."
They quickly recovered, but then Sting got his footwork wrong as he leapt into the air to signal the end to a shambolic version of their rat-race rant "Synchronicity II."

"The mighty Sting momentarily looks like a petulant pansy instead of the god of rock," Copeland reported.

"And so it goes, for song after song," he wrote, with tunes such as "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" and "Don't Stand So Close To Me" reduced to ruin.

"It usually takes about four or five shows in a tour before you get to the disaster gig. But we're
The Police so we are a little ahead of schedule," he said.

Fortunately, no fists flew backstage as they did back in the Police's heyday. The threesome fell into each other's arms laughing hysterically, Copeland said.

"Screw it, it's only music. What are you gonna do? But maybe it's time to get out of Vancouver."

The band's next show is set for Saturday in Edmonton.

Reuters

Holiday? What Holiday?

Somebody said we just came off a 3 day holiday weekend. Where?? My soon-to-be-employed son decided that he wanted to run his first mini marathon. So, for the past 3 weeks he has been getting up at the crack of dawn to train. Which means what? I have to get up at the crack of dawn.

Monday (the so-called holiday), we had to get down to the field in the early am because this year's race was threatening to attract some 6,000 runners all looking for grand prizes of BMWs and cash.

There were folks from all age groups and abilities. They all looked psyched too until a half dozen Ethiopians showed up. Well that was the end of that. The Africans gracefully sprinted to the finish barely breaking a sweat in the 80 plus degree temperature.

My 'not quite fully African' son did great for his first time out, a 22 minute 5k. Not bad! But no Beemer.

He only threw up once!

I tried to steal a quick massage at the therapy booth but they saw my garden clogs and knew right away I wasn't a runner...

All in all it was a fun morning and now my son is talking cross country track!

The pictures you will see below are more sad visuals of my continuing brushes with bad luck. My dryer broke down and I had the wonderful experience of visiting, for the first time on the 'so called holiday', my town's laundromat...

As it was the 'so-called holiday' weekend and I spent most of it drying clothes, I didn't plan any parties or cookouts with the kids. They sulked and complained and otherwise looked mistreated so I decided to drag my already tired behind to the supermarket on the 'so-called' holiday to buy burgers, hot dogs, coal, etc.

IT WAS DESERTED!!!!

I guess everyone was at their beach houses, pool parties, barbecuing, sitting out on the chaise and relaxing holiday. I couldn't help it but I stood in the middle of the store and didn't want to leave.

Back home, I pulled the cover off the grill, the first time this season and prepared to clean the $^$#@ thing so's my hungry boys could have a cookout when this masked bandit shows up...

I raced into the house. I don't know about y'all but raccoons in the daytime gives me the creeps! Did somebody say rabies??