Le Sock

I am on the downhill part of my sock! It is really further along than it looks in the photo. :) I may even be able to finish it with only phone consultation from my personal kintting tutor (aka Stefanie). All I have to do now is "knit-knit-knit." You have to say that really fast like knitknitknit for the full effect. Italics make it look faster too. This evening was knit night at the Knitting Nest. I thought Stefanie and I were the only ones who said knitknitknit real fast but I overheard another knitter say it this evening.

In other news, how can my football team be SO bad? And what exactly were the Redskins cheerleaders wearing this evening on MNF??!! Not that I look at them, but omg not only is the play calling bad for the team and we keep dropping the football, but the cheerleaders outfits are too u.g.l.y to look at as a distraction from the game.

In still other news, I continue my moguldom as a seller on Craigslist. This evening I sold a piano keyboard and one of the side tables. I do have to repost some things that I had buyers lined up for and then they didn't show up. I am thinking of expanding onto eBay but I need to read up on the rules. Anyone with any advice for selling on eBay? Advice on pricing and best ways to ship?

Time for a blog!

It's been over 10 days since my last blog. I feel bad for letting this go so long. It's not that there is nothing going on in my life to blog about, maybe there is too much that it is hard to write it all down. And, I admit, it is easier to post things on Facebook or Twitter as things are happening than to write a blog after the fact. I like the blog though, because it is more permanent. Or at least stored on Blogspot until I exceed my allotted free storage.

So, what's been going on this past week you ask? Appropriately there is a U2 song playing in the background as I write this. Yes, we saw U2 this week! It was a fabulous show with a most incredible stage spaceship-like contraption.

Before U2 came on we were entertained by Fergie and the Black Eyed Peas.

Amy and me with the U2 stage in the backgroundWow! This was enormous. No wonder they could only perform in stadiums on this tour.

Bono

It was great fun visiting with Mike's friends, Dave and Amy who now live in Scottsdale. Before we left the next day, we went on a short hike. The weather was perfect, in the 80s.

This is a pack rat's "house." Yes, there are real pack rats that are not people.

Dave and Mike

Never paid attention before, but here is what a dead saguaro cactus looks like.
Dave and Amy

After Phoenix, I flew on to San Francisco for a very intense day of meetings on Thursday. I do like traveling west for the extra sleep in opportunities because of the 2 hour time change. What I don't like is that it took all day Friday to get back to Austin.

Did I mention that we have another contract on my house??? Seems like I get contracts only when I am traveling on business and have to inconvenience someone in the local office to print out things that I have to initial and fax back. Maybe I should have been traveling more often over the summer!!

Today is Saturday and since it looks like we don't have to focus on cleaning out my house to show that we can focus on Mike's house. Here we have outdoor planting and de-cluttering to do. Today looks like such a nice day we think we will work outside. I will take before & after shots for your enjoyment of our handiwork in a future blog. Oh, and to tempt you to check again tomorrow, I have made significant progress on my second sock that I will show you!

I spy with my little eye

I spy with my little eye (assisted by an excellent zoom with my camera)...

That's Steffi in the open button down white blouse and her roommate Kris (aka Abby from freshman year)

Kris's boyfriend is in the Longhorn band. I can never pick him out because they all look alike in those uniforms. He may be somewhere in this photo, who knows.

I think Steffi is trying to take a picture of me!

The weather man got it all wrong about yesterday in Austin. He promised it would be a perfect - actually used the word "comfy" to describe it in the paper - sunny and 75 degree day. Instead it was pretty grey all day and never reached above 60. In the stands it was chilly and very windy making the football game seem longer than it really was. The experience was not helped by the Longhorns offense not showing up to play. Thank you Longhorn defense and special teams for making the game exciting!

I had intended to record Steffi and her flag group this week with my Flipz but I forgot it at my house and I didn't know how to use the record button properly on my camera. The good news is I have two more home games to figure this out.

Yesterday Mike and I picked out carpet for both of our houses and I also chose new porcelain tile for mine. It is hard chosing something to upgrade what is there now without going overboard and chosing something that I really like. The new flooring will be installed in a few weeks in my house after I move all of the furniture out. We're thinking that alot of my stuff can just go into hobbitland, the storage area in my house. The larger pieces that I can't or don't want to sell will get moved to Mike's or into a storage unit. Today Mike and I will start packing up my house. He is optimistic that it will be easy. But I know the enormous quantity of stuff that lurks inside all of the drawers, cabinets and closets.... Wish us luck!!

game day pictures from my phone

It was too rainy to take my good camera into the Jets game today. Had they had a stadium with a closed roof I would have been able to take my camera to the game. But, nooooooo, the Jets are not one of those sissy teams that plays indoors when the weather is not perfect.

I never understood this though - they play outdoors on plastic grass.

There is a brand new state of the art stadium opening next season and it still does not have a roof. This is just nuts.

Speaking of nuts, we spent the day standing and sitting in the rain today. We had entertainment. Good entertainment even. Entertainment in the form of the J - E - T - S JETS JETS JETS winning their game today in spite of their U - G - L - Y "throwback" uniforms circa 1961. I would have photos of the game to share with you, but it was too wet to bring my camera into the stadium. Did I mention it should have a roof?!

Here are a two photos from my phone. This one is Mike in his fashionable black plastic trash bag that I lovingly cut holes for his head and two arms. This photo and others like it is being widely circulated on email to his family.

I was able to talk Mike out of his plastic bag and into something more acceptable. So here we both are in our $1.99 emergency rain ponchos. At the end of the day we drove back down to the beach and watched the sky get clearer and clearer. It ended up perfectly blue with fluffy white clouds - now that is the kind of day we expected to have. But who knows, maybe the rain helped the Jets win. I am glad for that.

Running the Flag

I always wondered who the kids were that got to run the big Texas flag onto the field before the UT football games. Little did I know that one day one of my children would be doing just that! Check this out:

here they are in the endzone in blue jeans and white button downs

Hey, I recognize you! What are you quaffing??

Gettin ready to run it out!

Here we go!

That there is a pretty big Texas flag!!

They rufflle it for a while while we singTo be fair to both sides of the stadium (and this week's trick) they flip it







More singing and holding our horns up
There's Steffi!

And then they rolled it all up and got the heck off the field so the game could begin!

The group is called APO -as in alpha phi omega. They are a co-ed service fraternity and Steffi has pledged there. Assuming she fulfills her service hour requirements and does all the silly things required of pledges, she will be inducted at the end of the semester. Big "attaboy" (or "attagirl?") to Meg for suggesting that Stef look into joining this group. It seems perfect.

I am pretty pleased with the zoom on my camera. Our seats are just about as far from Bevo and you can get and look what I was able to photograph like he was right in front of me:

The game went on until almost 11 p.m. And it took us an hour to get out of the stadium, walk to the car 15 blocks south and drive home. But it was worth it all - UT beat Tech 34 - 24!! Hook em'!!

New looks

Just a few updates this morning.

My deck is almost finished!!

And Duncan got a new look for his first day of work today (Thursday).

Blogger is being uncooperative and is refusing to let me move pictures around. Here is what he looked like before:

in case you didn't see the sports page on Monday

the Jets beat the Texans on Sunday. Mike and I traveled down, met up with Meg, Stephen, Pete and cousin Johnny on Saturday. We had a blast Saturday afternoon and evening watching the UT and ND and USC games in various bars and then ended up at the Wild West. If only I had had my camera to take pictures of Peter and Johnny line dancing....but we all have the memories!

Here are a few pix from the game