I’ve really been a slacker!  Ugh.  I’ve been working 48-52 hour payperiods, the last 4 weeks, along with Emily having to be at the county fair, all 5 days that it was running, have to go for 4H judging, of her knitting, shopping for wedding clothes, going to my nephew’s wedding, and trying to sleep in there somewhere!  The last 2 weeks of August were insanely busy.

For the good news, though, Emily entered her Wicked Sweater, her Foliage Hat, her Saucy Socks and her Cabled Mittens and got blue ribbons on all of them!!  Woohoo for Emily!!!!!! Plus, her Wicked Sweater got a special merit and if she wants to, it can be displayed at the Wisconsin State Fair next summer!!!!!!!  She’s only been knitting since March 2007, but she’s a most amazing knitter.  For her riding, she got two red ribbons, but she had a blast, and was so cute in her show clothes.

I’ve also been busy knitting away, with my Monthly Dishcloth KAL group. I love knitting dishcloths, that are a mystery.  I’m way behind on posting my work, though. In the gallery above, you can see the dishcloths that I knit, from the beginning of August. With the yellow one, I thought I might have enough yellow. I almost did, except for 1-1/2 rows, and the bind-off! LOL! Peppercorn was from one of the cones of Peaches and Creme that I got for Christmas from my SIL. The schoolhouse was a good September design. I just wish my purl stitches had been a little tighter.

Weather in Wisconsin has been uneventful and nice most of the time. The last 2 days have been damp and cool, though. Will love it when the extra moisture goes away. A few mornings this week, we had temps in the 40’s!!! The last two mornings haven’t been quite so cool. We haven’t needed the AC or the heat, which is good. I’ve needed long sleeves and quilts, though! LOL!

My thoughts and prayers are with those who live in TX. God Bless You tonight!

I’ve never had a parade, with this much drama, in my whole life!

The first weekend in August, is always Brat Days. It’s a 4-day festival with bands, a flea market, stuff for kids and of course, bratwurst in abundance. It’s a fund-raiser for the Kiwanis Club (I think). We hardly ever go buy the over-priced brats, but we always go to the parade.

Today, however, we only got a partial parade and thankfully, only a few people got hurt. As we are sitting there, a car FLIES by, at a freeway speed, or faster, through the residential neighborhood, where the parade was happening. Fortunately, when he went past us, it’s a divided road and the parade participants were on the other side. At the bottom of the hill, though, he hit a median and did hit some people. Apparently, injuries were non-life-threatening, as far as I know. It could have been FAR worse.

Eventually, this idiot was followed by quite a few cop cars and sheriff’s vehicles. I heard from another by-stander that the high speed chase started in Kohler, about 3 miles west of us and continuted into the middle of Sheboygan, where families lined the streets for the Brat parade.

My hubby, who works as a news photographer, started taking pictures and eventually walked down to the intersection where it ended. He’s now at work processing pictures for the newspaper and the website.

I came downstairs to his work cellphone beeping and it was the managing editor’s voicemail about the incident, but he’s out of town and doesn’t know that Gary’s all on top of it already.

Oh yeah, needless to say, the rest of the parade was canceled. At least we got to see the Budweiser Clydesdales, and the dalmatian, though! They were about ready to make the turn, to the road that goes to Kiwanis Park, when the yokel FLEW past us. I’m glad they were high enough up, on their wagon, to see it coming, and kept the horses in place, on the road, so the horses didn’t get hurt.

What I want to know, is how the idiot got through the barricades that were up, to block the road, for the parade. I really have no clue. Someone must have moved them, because they knew it was coming.

I felt bad for the little kids across the street, who had bags for the candy that is always thrown. They had to go home, empty-handed. I felt bad for me, because I had to carry Gary’s heavy chair home.

For more info later:
http://www.sheboyganpress.com

I guess I’m involved too, since I’m fielding phone calls, about where Gary is, etc.

We went out to look and there were none to be seen. Not sure where they all went. We had so many. Unless they were killed by predatory bugs or something. We still have a few eggs, though. Maybe we’ll have to go to Maywood Park and see if we can find some caterpillars there, to photograph. We are all rather bummed.

We are also wondering how long it takes tomatoes to turn red! Can you tell we are impatient? There is one that is so big, too! Can’t you just see it in a bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich?  Yummy.

I finally got a picture of my latest dishcloth! It’s called Summer Breeze, by Sue Schaefer. I knit it with Aqua Mist Ombre Peaches & Creme yarn and US 7 needles.  You had to be careful reading the pattern on this one.  Sometimes, there was a k2tog, that you wouldn’t expect and it kept messing up my stitch count, if I wasn’t paying attention! LOL!  This is the 14th of the 24 dishcloths I expect to knit this year!

I have not been keeping up with this, too well!  LOL!  This year, two milkweed plants sprouted spontaneously, by my garage.  We’ve have them grow there before, but really do nothing to encourage them, so they either come or they don’t.  Of all the times, we’ve had milkweed plants, I don’t think we’ve ever had a crop of monarch caterpillars, like we do this year.  It’s our own personal biology/science lab!

2 caterpillars - about 3/4 inch long
1 caterpillar - about 1/2-inch long
3 caterpilalrs - newly hatched today!

This is so exciting and we are out there all the time, keeping tabs on them.  We did research on the internet, to find out what the eggs look like and seen videos on YouTube to watch them hatch.  We discovered that there were lots of eggs on our two plants, so we have a lot of watching ahead of us.

Of the few that hatched today, one was so newly hatched, he hadn’t eaten his egg shell yet, and they do, since it has important nutrients for them to get started with.  Our leaves have lots of holes in them already!  These milkweed plants are in a shady spot, and don’t even have buds that would indicate they’re about to bloom yet.  I wonder if they will even flower, since most other milkweed plants seem to be blooming already.

Photos of the first two we discovered on 7-19-08:

They were only half-an-inch long, on Saturday. Today, 3 days later, they are about 3/4 of an inch and a little bit thicker. The front antenna are longer, too. It’s been fun watching them grow!

Here’s my July dishcloth. It was called Love to Knit, by Alice Imholte. I used light blue Sugar’n Cream, with US 7 needles.

Sarah and I just went to the grocery store, and I noticed when we got back to the car, that across the aisle from us, in the parking, lot were a van from Massachusetts, a pickup truck from Michigan, and a van from Maryland!  While we see Michigan plates in WI, all the time, since it’s right next door, Massachusetts and Maryland are quite the find!  The MA van had an outline sticker of a girl doing a gymnastics move and had a sticker that said the word “gymnast” below the license plate.

Also, the La Quinta hotel near our house, had a packed parking lot.  Tomorrow night, we will see how crowded it is over by Blue Harbor Resort.

Opening ceremony tickets hard to find
Photos of set-up for gymnastics meet

Starting tomorrow, in the North High School gym, is the 2008 YMCA National Gymnastics Championship!  We don’t have tickets, though.  It’s just exciting seeing lots of out-of-state license plates.

The high schools both built brand-new gyms in the last few years, so they have enough room, to hold a meet of this magnitude:

4,000 tickets sold
1360 gymnasts
21 different states

http://ymcanationals2008.org/teams.php

I see there isn’t anyone participating from Maryland, but maybe it’s a spectator!

This was fun to do, with lots of yo, k2tog,and p2tog! I’ve never done a pattern before, where the number of stitches changes from row to row, but it’s okay! It varied between 39 and 44 stitches. The yarn is 181 Faded Denim Peaches & Creme and knit with US 7 needles. It was designed by Jamie Monaghan.

I finished my second red scarf, too, last Thursday! Woohoo! I should be swatching my sock yarn, about now! LOL!

The weather has calmed down, although it could be warmer. I’m guess I’m not complaining, since it’s saving us a bundle in air conditioning costs.

This is the June 2008 KAL. It was worked with 54 Baby Green Peaches and Creme yarn, on US7 needles. It makes me want to take a tropical vacation! It was designed by Andi Worthy of the Monthly Dishcloth KAL yahoo group!

This is the mid-June KAL with 2 days finished. I’ve been too busy posting my pictures to knit, this morning! LOL! It’s just yo, k2tog, p2tog, etc, that is making the cable-y design. We aren’t using a cable needle. I love the lacy texture! I’m having fun knitting it. The yarn is 181 Faded Denim Peaches and Creme yarn, on US7 needles.

Oh yeah. It finally stopped raining. My computer corner is all back together, with a new rug on the floor. I love how the new feels to my feet. It’s a lot cushier than the 10-year-old rug was. The laptop was nice, but my regular computer, even at 7 years old, is a lot faster and has a much better monitor.

My heart goes out to the people still affected by the flooding. Ugh. Even when we had 18 inches of water in our basement, 10 years ago, it still wasn’t as bad as other people had it.

From the Sheboygan Press this morning:

Rainfall for the month of June now stands at 10.12 inches, already above the previous record of 8.68 inches set in 1969, according to the weather service reporting station at The Sheboygan Press.

Authorities said the downpour flooded more than 50 intersections in the City of Sheboygan on Thursday night, but all roadways in Sheboygan County were passable by Friday morning. Alliant Energy reported only 15 county homes lost power, and all electricity was restored by early morning.

Yes, it definitely doesn’t need to rain, for a long time, around here.  My side door won’t close all the way, because the sill is swollen.   We haven’t had to water our flowers, in the past week, because there’s been so much rain.  We got a little water in the basement, so we need to buy one small rug and a little basement paint.  It’s nothing to serious.   Also, the lawn needs to dry out, so it can be mowed.  The end of the yard is getting so long, but I’m sure it’s still too wet, since the sump pump drains there.

Today is nice and sunny, with a chance of thunderstorms, at some point, but I don’t think the storms will be like they were, earlier in the week.  We came through the storms, pretty unscathed compared to some people.  We were very lucky.

Over the weekend, we had 3.42 inches of rain!  For the whole month of June, we’ve had 6.68 inches of rain!  The Sheboygan River rose to 11.3 feet, which is three feet above flood stage.  It was spilling over the banks in a few spots, but not endangering any houses.   It was also flowing scary fast, and in Sheboygan Falls, where there really is a falls, AND a dam, it was going even faster.  We went to Settler’s Park last night and it was like being by the Whitewater Walk, in Niagara Falls!  I still need to upload my videos to YouTube.  I did take pictures, though, too.   

At the lower falls, the water was going by so fast, it almost made you dizzy!  Fortunately, there’s a nice strong fence between you and the water.   It was hard to focus on the water, with the camera, since it was going SOOOOOO fast.  At Settler’s Park, I noticed that parents of young children were keeping a tight grip on their children and being very aware of where the children were.

The rain ruined our trip to Madison on Saturday, since we just had gotten to the Henry Vilas Zoo, when we found out there was a tornado warning.  So, during the warning, we drove from the Henry Vilas Zoo, to the east side of Madison, to Applebee’s, so Emily could watch the Belmont Race.  Unfortunately, we were there for 2 hours, since we got there an hour earlier than we really needed to, because of the weather.  After we got to Applebee’s, the skies really let loose and it POURED!

On Monday, Lake Delton, north of Madison cut a channel through land, where there was no water, washed out Highway A, in Columbia County, and drained Lake Delton, sweeping a few houses off their foundations, in the process. In the newspapers, they show that the lake is empty.  I saw a pier, with just muddy ground underneath, with a boat, sitting on the ground.  So, the Tommy Bartlett water-skiing show, in the Dells, won’t have skiing this year.  Yikes.   In Mukwonago, WI, there is a dam they are worried about.  The ground around the dam is very saturated and they wonder if it will hold.  It’s scary, but nowhere near my house.

My basement got a little bit of water in it and forced us to clean up stuff that we’d been neglecting.  Also, DH is repainting the wall in my computer corner, so I have a laptop on a desk, with a separate mouse and keyboard, until he is done and it’s worth the time to set my desktop computer all up again.  We are still going to be moving things around, to finish painting and to put a new rug under my desk, so the desktop computer will stay in the other room.  So, now I have my charter mail coming into my gmail, since I’m without my Outlook for a little bit.

I’ll have to resize some of my pictures, for posting in here. and get those videos uploaded.  Two days without rain, has been a WONDERFUL thing. 

We drove down to the lake today, and could see where the muddy river water, joins the lake!  The whole harbor had muddy water, too, since that water has been flowing out there, in such a hurry.

Rapids, just below the dam, next to Settler’s Park, in Sheboygan Falls:

Lower Falls, in Sheboygan Falls

Gary just did some photos on worm castings, for the newspaper recently.

Casting their lot in the worm-poop business

So, he went out later and bought me some.  Today, I planted the geraniums, vincas and spikes, with the worm castings added to the soil!  We’ll see if it makes a difference!  I can’t wait.  I do have starter pictures taken and will post later.  I have to be somewhere right now.