Hello Dear Friends!

Let's just bypass the usual "I know I haven't been around in awhile.......here are my reasons......please forgive me....." and get on with the greetings! I was going to title this "Hello Old Friends" but some people I know are getting uptight about their ages and would take the "old" to mean age and not length of time that we've known one another. So, being ever PC (snort!) I changed it.

I have no wonderful pics to show you. To be honest, I just ran out and snapped a few of the dog, bikes and the garden to have something to put on here. I haven't really been doing anything worth photographing lately, so no good ones to share. ;) The husband, however, has been taking pics like a mad man lately as he's been out on rides as much as possible. I've been teasing him that I'm going to have to make him a "honey-do list" for his weekends off just to make sure chores get done. VBG. To be honest, we've had some really great weather this last week, and I don't blame him for using the time to get in some great rides. I rode to work a couple of times this week, and I think I've worked the kinks out of the "helmet hair" issues. I will admit freely that I much prefer riding his bike to mine, and am actively campaigning for a switcheroo. I'll even give up the green paint job if that's what it takes!!! Otherwise I foresee some $$$ going into making "my" bike feel like his.

Today we went out to breakfast, as per usual for Sunday morning. During breakfast we decided to go out to Snohomish to take a look at the Classic Motorcycle show they were having there. (Snohomish is great for stuff like this.)We were on our motorcycles and whenever we go for a ride together, I prefer that he leads. That way I don't feel like he's being held up by me and besides that, he knows all the roads pretty well. Having grown up in the area, I can find my way home from most of the back roads between here and Snohomish, so I wasn't too worried should we get separated. Don decided on the really twisted round about scenic route between GF and Snohomish so it took us three times longer to get to the show than it normally would. No complaints...the ride was beautiful! Once we got into the show area, it was obvious something was going on. There were motorcycles E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E.! I've never ridden in much traffic, nor in a large group, so it was interesting for me, to say the least. We were lucky enough to find some parking spots down a side road close enough to walk into the show. The show was much larger than either one of us expected. We had planned on spending an hour looking around, but to see everything, we would have had to spend at least three times that amount of time. So...we kept to the main drag of the show, and didn't see everything, but Don snapped a huge number of pics. We did see some really cool bikes and WOW, the people watching! It never fails to amaze me what people will do/say/wear in public. lol After we were done with the show, Don led me home via Monroe. Those in the know, will understand that's not the most direct route...but it's a beautiful ride. All told, I put over 70 miles on the bike today. I know that doesn't seem like much, but when you consider I don't usually ride that much, it seems like a lot for me. Just for comparison...Don put over 150 on a ride this weekend, by himself. lol Talk about buns of steel! heheh

So I'm still working on the fab Monkey socks. I haven't been knitting much since I cut my finger. Finger is pretty much healed up, thanks very much. Just a little scab left. I've been amazed at the regeneration of skin cells in that area. I was expecting to have a dent in that part of my finger, but it looks like it will look pretty normal once the scabs gone. Yeah! So, not much knitting or spinning going on, but lots of cleaning. Ironically, and sadly, I couldn't do the fun stuff injured, but could slap on a glove and clean. Sucky, sucky, sucky! Oh well. It's nice to have some clean areas of the house for a change. ;) I'll get the Monkey Sock done and the Mermaid fiber spun up soon enough.

One of the great results from all the cleaning has been the number of items I've been able to find new homes for. YIPPEE! I'm part of the Freecycle system in our county, and when I've got stuff I want to get rid of, I list it on there to give it away free and then it goes to a new home. If no one's interested, I take it to the second hand store. I've offloaded so much stuff in the last month, it's been amazing! I'm trying to de-clutter the whole house to make it easier to clean and maintain. That, combined with getting the yard put together in an easy maintenance way will free up more time for us to have some fun. Right now, it's the work phase, but I can see the fun times phase not far off. ;) I've started going through my craft supplies and resources to weed out what I really don't need. This could take awhile. lol Anyway, that is part of the reason I've not been knitting. I've been using my knitting/spinning time to sort through some stuff. I'll get it done, and then have more time to play.

OK! So after the bike show and the ride we came home to work on chores. I was able to get some more seeds planted and the area around the tires weeded and cleaned up. We decided to cover the gravel in that area with shavings this year to see if that changes the growth on the plants there.

This picture shows the pathway that the tomato plants are going to go on, once it's cleaned up. ;) From this pic you can see the strawberry plants that have jumped ship into the pathway. Later this year, I'll build a new strawberry bed and move them there.

OK, that's pretty much all for now. Oh! Yes, Tucker is on a tie out cable in that first picture. Before you rant at me for tieing him up, consider this. He has a "thing" for the lawn mower. He's disabled it a few times and likes to "attack" it. Don was mowing the lawn. It's much safer for Tucker to be tied out when Don is mowing the lawn. ;) Usually the beastie is running free as he's a much more effective theft deterrent when he's running around. ;) Thanks for caring!