Finis!

No, not the kitchen; in fact, not much cooking is happening these days. We manage breakfast and lunch fairly well, but dinners are pretty much a lost cause.

Progress is happening though. And it'll all be worth it in the end. We already love the new stove!

PerBarbara's suggestion, I've replaced cooking with sewing and knitting---and actually finished several things: socks for David and Daniel, the tutu quilt for Sophia, and a hat for Jill! The fun part will be delivering them in person as we are headed to Chicago soon. (Jill and Michael have a working kitchen!)


Something tells me I could use a better model for my hats than stuffing them with a pair of pjs!

The quilt was hard to photograph, so Dick took a closeup of one of the tutus.


Mocha is a pretty tough taskmaster but tires easily.


Sewing the binding on this quilt gave me time to think. Earlier this week the newspaper, in addition to the tragic news from Japan, carried an article about the Iditarod which reminded me of the story of Balto and the Great Race. Have you read it? A statue of this dog is in Central Park in NYC; we searched it out a number on the way to a family wedding. (It snowed, then too?!)

I also thought about watching this elk herd just outside Crescent City,CA, about a week before its harbor was destroyed by the tsunami that originated in Japan. According to the news on NPR, tourism and fishing are the major industries in this town, and fishing was all but wiped out. The effects of that quake will be felt for a long time in this small town and, of course, on a much, much larger scale in Japan. It sure has made me rethink our family's earthquake preparedness!

UPDATE: We saw the moon on our walk last night! For once we didn't have our usual cloud cover.

Chaos in the Kitchen

Not too much knitting or sewing is going on in these parts. We are updating our kitchen which until a few days ago looked like this:

Gone is that hanging cupboard where everyone has bashed their heads! (One daughter called it the "Shaw initiation.")

Now almost everything else is GONE, and we can't find anything, but progress is happening. Stay tuned!

I've been meaning to post a couple of recent photos from Jill. We are looking forward to seeing them all soon. Here's David all dressed up for something at school. Can you tell he chose his own outfit?

Sophia loves Red Bear which was given to her by our neighbors long ago and is holding up quite well.

Daniel has his own bear. Don't you wish you could sleep this well?

Can't believe it's time to "spring ahead" with the clocks and wish everyone a very Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

Followed.............. (Image Heavy)

Why is it that every time we head to California or meet my sister, it snows? It happened last May and again in November, and this time our destination, Point Arena, California, had snow for the first time in TWELVE years. Are we snow magnets or what?

The snow we left behind you can see in the last post, but who knew it ever snowed this close to the Pacific Coast? While it was just a little on this huge rock, the lady at the yarnshop in Bandon, OR, said they had four inches even though most of it had melted by the time we stopped there. Despite the snow, rain, and unusually chilly temperatures, we had a fun time. We even detoured to drive through this redwood tree. (That's not our car, but it was a tight fit!)

Appropriately, a lighthouse stands on Point Arena but is no longer manned. You can climb it though, for a fee, but we didn't.

It does have a top!

More interesting to me than the lighthouse was this huge rock that was a sunbathing spot for 15 seals. After we left, my sister said the seal population tripled and thought they might be headed up the coast to the spot in Oregon where they give birth.


If you've never driven along Route 1 in California, you've missed an exciting ride. The roads aren't straight for very long and the scenery is spectacular. I wouldn't want to do it in the dark or on a foggy day!

Right after this photo, we hopped in the car and headed for home. (Dick had fun taking this one automatically.)

Before we left California, we stopped to take some flower photos, just to prove that spring really is coming. We've seen lots of daffodils on the roadsides but never calla lilies.


All that riding time meant that several knitting projects were completed. A choir friend is having chemo treatments for lymphoma, so I made her a hat from a pattern called "No-hair Day Chemo Cap." It is indeed "hairy," and our 4-legged hat inspector had to make sure it wasn't alive.

Another completed project is this prayer shawl for another friend who's had a really tough time with the after effects of her chemo regimen. This is a free Lionbrand pattern called Easy Triangle Scarf and is my "go-to" pattern for prayer shawls.

Ginger finally lost her patience with me. I think she means for me to quit typing and pay some attention to her, don't you?