*blink* (posted by Lani)

Tell Don I said "Nice landing!" And I'm not being sarcastic -- I can think of all sorts of ways that could have turned out not as well as it did (curly propellers notwithstanding). I think it's hysterical that his friend took all those pictures, although I guess that's a guy thing ... bragging rights and all that. They both definitely get bragging rights for that.

And Steve? It's love. Love of you and love of brownies. You can have both, you know, as my Steve reminded me with a hopeful look when I read him that portion of your post. I hope your Steve is having a wonderful time, and his itinerary looks FABULOUS.

I found a copy of the Ballband Dishrag pattern from Mason Dixon Knitting online, yay for me! Natalie, creator of the great string bag pattern, actually has the book; I've asked her whether, aside from that pattern, it's worth actually buying and I'll be interested to hear her take on it. And speaking of Natalie's bags, did you finish yours? And have you used them yet? I've finished my two and have quite a bit of cotton left, so I'll probably cast on a "warshrag" this week and check it out. It looks like a brainless, fun pattern.

I've done nothing whatsoever on my Tempting this weekend, or on anything else crafty aside from picking up some pink girly yarn for a baby blanket for Mel. I thought about knitting it but I think I'll take the coward's way out and crochet it instead; I KNOW I can knock out a beautiful crocheted blanket quickly, and my knitting confidence isn't that high. I did pick up a pattern for an adorable baby hoodie that's knitted, though, and I may try that down the line.

So what did I do this weekend? Well -- I've done umpty-seven loads of laundry, talked to Steve about our broken camera, gone grocery shopping, looked at new cameras, cleaned my house, forwarded camera links to Steve, played with the kitten, bitched about not having a working camera, consoled the poor dog who is being traumatized by said kitten (he's totally overcome his fear of dogs and now appears to consider Pippen as something like a large spotted jungle gym, I've GOT to get pictures), pointed out all the missed photo opportunities due to lack of a functional camera, cooked lots of meals, muttered about the lack of working cameras in this house, and done some furniture shopping. I want new tables for the living room and need some type of storage option for the dvds/tapes/video games. Oh, and a new camera! Until then I leave you with this:

Jim and Alex, at the Club.

Love or brownies (posted by Ann)

I really enjoyed our visit last weekend, and I got some great pictures. Here's one of my favorites!










We've had a really busy week around here. I went to NY on Monday, and left there to fly to Chicago early Tuesday morning. I had the sailboat Thursday from 9 AM through Saturday at 5 PM, so I had a friend spend the night with me Friday night. We had a great time sailing, swimming, and becoming coated with bug spray, sunscreen and sweat. The good thing about fresh water sailing is you can always jump in the lake if you get too disgusting, which we did. I took several different groups out sailing with me during that time, and enjoyed myself tremendously.

We had some excitement on Friday, but before I get into it everyone is fine. Don was flying his airplane from Atlanta to Greensboro, North Carolina, to drop off a friend. One of the guys he works with has a son who is in a soccer tournament with an important game Friday night, and Rody couldn't get there in time so Don volunteered to take him. Well, he had a problem with his landing gear and the nose gear collapsed on landing. No injuries, actually Don says it was much less exciting than you'd think (good news, huh?). Rody took pictures of the whole thing and has them up on a website, so here's the link.
http://www.luckotheirish.org/ We're out an airplane for a while until it's fixed. Propellors aren't supposed to curl on the ends . . . .

And some good news. I heard from Steve! He talked to Don and left a message for me. He says he's doing fine and having fun, but I'll give you three guesses what the rest of the message was:

a) I love you
b) I miss you
c) Send 48 brownies, half with nuts and half not, to the last mail drop.

Yep, you got it, it was a brownie call. Nice to be needed, huh? Here's how to get to his trip log so you can see what they are doing.

www.wildernessventures.com
Go to "Keep in Touch"
Click on "Bulletin Board"
Log in with user ID 06pacificnorthwest2 and password 88gamgod
Click on "Launch Trip Log"

Three ... two ... one ... liftoff!! (posted by Lani)

Dear Ann,

Ok, sister mine -- here we go! We can tweak templates and all that good stuff later, but in the meantime let's get started.

It was such fun getting to both be at home at the same time, and getting to compare our adventures in fiber. Have you had a chance to try your hand at the drop spindle yet? I want to hear how that goes. I haven't touched the dpns or the sock yarn as yet since I'm still working on finishing my Tempting -- and then I need to knock out a quick layette for Melanie, Laurie's friend, who's knocked up with baby #2. I knew this, by the way. I really did. It just somehow escaped me that she was due in September, which is right around the corner and drawing closer every day. But! It's a girl so I get to make something frilly and girly, which is always fun. So post-Tempting, and post-fluffy-frilly-girly baby goodies, I'm going to overcome my sockophobia once and for all.

And speaking of being at home .. before I left I snagged the pictures off Mom's camera. See this?

I'm thinking we need to go back.