Coneflower Ranch

More things I did while I ignored you

I spent some time sitting here admiring the view

I'm not a fan of Summer. While everyone around me is lamenting the inevitable end of this summer I'm silently ecstatic that it's almost over. As summers go this one wasn't so bad here in the Hudson Valley. July had some brutal stretches in it but August has been quite lovely so far. In fact when I woke up this morning it was 49ºF. I was so happy.

As lovely as that lake is, in all the years I've been bringing the children here I've only gone into the lake once (It was over 100ºF and my friend Tiffany can be very pushy persuasive). I can swim. I just don't want to. I'm much happier sitting on my chair under my umbrella knitting.

Yep, I'm wearing a skirt. I don't even go through the pretense of putting on a bathing suit. We all know I'm not going swimming. There is also the matter of my pasty white fair complexion. I burn like a french fry. When you take into account that all my ancestors come from Ireland and Newfoundland this is not so surprising. In my entire life my legs have never been tan. Never. There is little point in exposing them to the sun. The first trip to the lake this year I wore a long skirt, t-shirt, SPF45 sunscreen that I reapplied a few times, a hat and I sat under a huge umbrella. I still got a sunburn. And yet I keep coming back. The kids enjoy it and I like watching them enjoy themselves. There is a lot to be said about parking yourself in one spot and having nothing much to do. It can be very relaxing.

This is the new Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn in what I think is #95: the Lime, Orange and Hot Pink. The camera isn't doing the colors justice. That dark reddish pink is a deep raspberry and the green leading into it is a soft mint. It feels like raffia when you pull it from the skein and I was a bit nervous about it at first. What I've knit so far feels pretty good and I'm hoping that washing the finished socks will soften it up some more.

When I figure out how to explain my default sock pattern I'll share it with you.

Things I did while I ignored you

Grandma turned Ninety!

Okay that's not something I actually did but I did help her celebrate. The whole family did in fact. Grandma has nine children. Each of them is married and together they gave Grandma twenty-nine grandchildren. In this less than flattering photo she is flanked by her two favorite first grandchildren, myself and my older cousin, Bill. As you can see some of the grandchildren are quite grown and we've produced about thirty great-grandchildren. (It may be more like thirty-two but I've lost track). Anyway, just about all of us took over a resort in Pennsylvania for a family reunion/Grandma's Birthday party. All but two rooms at Lukan's Farm were taken up by members of my family. I highly recommend it. The place was nice, the food was great and having days to spend reaquainting yourself with your family is more relaxing than I would have thought.

In order to keep track of us all we wore colored T-shirts with numbers on the back. Since Bill's dad was Grandma's first child all the people related to him had navy blue shirts with a number one on the back. My mom is child number two so we all wore maroon shirts with number twos on the back. And yes, after a few glasses of wine there were rousing cries of "We're number two! We're number two!" Yep, after a few glasses of wine we can be proud of anything.

Grandma, as always, looked fabulous. In my entire life I've seen the woman in blue jeans exactly once. She wore them for working in her garden. Truth of it is she had a gardening outfit. I'll never forget it. I was a teenager and spending a week with her and Grandpa at their house on Long Island. She comes out of the garage in blue jeans, a button down blouse, gloves and a hat. All coordinated, of course. So, it's no surprise that she had a different outfit for dinner each night and while the rest of us dressed down with T-shirts and whatnot she had sandals to go with her skirt.

Grandma's a good sport too.