The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Hi there!

Remember me? No, I haven't been to the moon. Just haven't been in the mood to blog. Gee....who cudda guessed!

Ok - the GOOD first.
For starters, Jenna was here in June and then Arlene flew in. We had our usual good time just hanging out, chatting, shopping - you know - girlie fun stuff. Arlene LOVES the Outlet Mall in Dawsonville and she hit that twice while she was here. Jen went to Circus Camp again and had such a great time she went for a 2nd week. Here she is riding a unicycle in their show.



One of our many activities were doing Flying Angels.
I used to LOVE doing these when I was a kid! Funny thing, though - I was never the Angel. (We won't go there, ok?)

I finally finished Arlene's socks. For the knitters out there, these were knitted toe-up with the Baby Cable Rib pattern in Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks book. The yarn is Opal Crazy in colorway 1903 on 2 circular needles size 0 .

I can't believe that I really can knit on a size 0. A couple of years ago I would have thought NEVER. EVER. Yes, I'm only a little proud of myself for conquering the I Can't Do That syndrome. Quite honestly my confidence level was heightened by all the many knitting friends I've acquired since moving here. I look at the beautiful projects that Claudia, Doug, Jen,Steve, Sandy, Katey, Jane Diana and Zina have done and you just drool. Plus, they and all the rest are more than happy to help when I didn't know how to do something. A very generous bunch.


Jen & Arlene went back to South FL and then I had all of 3 days to get ready to fly down for 2 weeks. My son Eddie, his wife Ivonne, & their 3 kids were coming in to visit from San Jose so this was the perfect time for all of us to get together. They stayed a week, and needless to say the house was VERY .....busy.

Eddie and Arlene
Ivonne & Eddie


All FOUR of my Grandkids!
Catalina, Gino, Jenna and Carlo. Oh yes - Jenna is holding Granddog Razzle.



We all went to Everglades Holiday Park and saw this guy from the airboat.


Then on to the gator show. Someone noticed that the gator wrestler was missing a few fingers. I couldn't help but think that he was lucky to have lost some fingers rather than some other body parts..


That's all the good stuff. The bad stuff is bad. My very good friend Claudia lost her husband very suddenly last month. I'm mentioning this for several reasons, We were all so saddened by this because everyone that knows Claudia knows what a wonderful person she is and how much her Irwin meant to her, as did she to him. Over this past month I've known of several other people who have passed away at what I consider a young age, people much younger than I am. It really makes you stop and think about your life, what you want to do and who you want to spend your time with. I also just heard about a friend of mine in Florida that was in a severe boating accident 2 weeks ago. Evidently somehow she got caught in the boat's propeller and was injured extremely badly. I only hope that she recovers in a way that she will be able to enjoy life again. I'm relaying all this because I think we can take life so much for granted. Ya get up, brush the teeth & hair, feed the cats (or dogs) and do all the normal stuff that we all do. I think what I'm trying to say here is ya just never know. My thoughts now are to do things that make me feel good, spend time with good people, make more frequent trips to FL to play with Jenna, Arlene, & Bently and not to let time go by and think, "Boy, I wish I would have done that".
I'm going to try and do all of "that".


Now for the UGLY. The weather here has been U G L Y. Hot, humid, and stormy. BUT, it could be worse. No tornados, no earthquakes, no hurricanes. Life is good.