Hello Fall!

You all know how much I love to organize and sort my yarn. Last Friday I pulled all of my sock yarn from the dresser - partially so that I could look at my Loopy Ewe purchases in the greater context of what I already had. Believe it or not, I don't have nearly as much of a yarn stash as some of my friends do!

I have always enjoyed writing my random(ish) posts, and so as we celebrate the return of school, of a more regular schedule, and of my extra kiddos this week I thought I would also return to my random Monday posts.

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  For Father's Day I made arrangements with a lovely young woman at church for her to babysit the girls once/month so that Sean and I could have a regular date night.


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  You all should be so lucky. Not only is our sitter completely trustworthy, but she is exactly the sort of teenager that you want as a roll model for little girls.


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  Sean was so excited about the whole plan that he made special arrangements for our first date night - which was this last Saturday. He treated me with an evening trip on the Columbia Star Dinner Train.


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  I actually guessed where we were going a couple of weeks in advance - but I didn't tell him that until we were almost there. Irregardless, it was a wonderful surprise to find out that I was right, and then to discover that the actual trip and dinner was every bit as special as I'd hoped it would be.


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  I really love riding on trains!


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  The running joke is that we spent the evening "Going to Hogwarts" which MY NEW IPHONE auto corrected to "Hogweeds" when I texted my BKB to tell her I had been right.


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  You have no idea of how happy I am to have an iPhone. Hallelujah!


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  I am very glad my children are home.


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  Ordinarily I really enjoy my time when the girls go spend a week with my parents. This last week, though, I was oddly off. Very little was accomplished all week, as I was overwhelmed by an odd sense of lethargy.


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  In talking to friends, I've decided that maybe I was just that worn out by this summer.


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  Frustrating.


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  Speaking (sort of) of Harry Potter, we finally watched HP 7.1 at home last week (I'm still not sure how or why we missed that one in the theater.) and then went to see HP 7.2.


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  A couple of thoughts. 1. I am not exactly new to fantasy violence in movies. 2. Nor am I new to fantasy violence/evil directed at children given my love for young adult/children's literature - much of which falls squarely into the fantasy genres.


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  Where am I going? HP 7.2 bothered me. It bothered me a lot. I wanted to scream at the screen, "THEY ARE CHILDREN! STOP!" I absolutely loved the book, but apparently when the action steps out of my mind into actual visuals I freak out....for all that they didn't dwell on it as they could have.


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  I'm going to reread the books....I have the audio versions checked out from the library. I think that will restore HP to my good graces.


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  I need to do a post on the follow-up from the family reunion. For now suffice it to say that the language of craft is a wonderful thing and I"m delighted to discover as an adult that I have a lot in common with some of my distant cousins.


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  I have a few sessions with a new trainer over the next few weeks to help me jump start my exercise routine again. Yeah!


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  Just to be perfectly clear...my food allergies are REAL, and YES I WAS tested for them, and YES I do have noticable and sometimes severe reactions to my allergens...especially as I've now been clear of them for quite some time. Sad that I have to say it, but there you go. If you are one of those people who find this to be incredulous, please contact me. I would love to have a conversation with you about my allergies.


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  JoJo the llama is safely out of danger now that the heat wave has broken. Mom and Dad will continue with their cooling efforts until the weather drops down to the 70's for good...but for now it's safe to say that he's going to be just fine.


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  The wee sheepies are not so wee anymore. You can barely tell the difference between them and the mamas.


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  I must get going. The girls still need back to school outfits and shoes, and as my extra little ones will be here in a few hours we need to go asap!


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  Have a great week everyone!