Another Man in the Kitchen

Last week I got to escape the office for half a day to drive down to Camden, SC to do a safety audit on one of our groundwater monitoring teams. These are fun to do because the team gets an advance warning, we all are audited each week in the field by each other (so it's not stressful) and it gives an office person a chance to get out in the great outdoors for a few hours. It's been super hot and humid here, though, so it's not the ideal conditions for anyone to be outdoors.

I arrived on site just in time to get the last of a passing thunderstorm which made the mugginess more muggy and brought all the bugs out of the woodwork. I put on my steel toe boots and safety glasses and stepped out of the car into the meadow where the guys were working. Instantly I could not see because my glasses steamed up. But luckily, Ken was ingenious and had bought an industrial fan and matching industrial-strength power inverter for the car so that they had torrent of wind blowing across the tailgate and camp chairs they had set up by the well. Since every well was taking several hours to stabilize, they decided that they should take the time to set up as comfortably as possible at each location. Being pregnant, I was given "top fan position" with the cushiest chair. What gentlemen!

A good part of any decent safety audit is getting caught up on chit chat, finding out the woes of the field work, the adventure, the tales, and I likewise act as informant on office news, deadlines and other unpleasantries. Although I work with Ken all the time because we are in the same office, I don't see Woody very often because he's out of our Alabama office. So it was fun to see him. A highlight of the safety audit was the recipe that Woody described to me in detail. He hails from Tennessee and told me about this famous Tomato Pie recipe that he made that weekend. By the end of his impromptu cooking show (hand motions to demonstrate, colorful descriptors and passion), my mouth was watering with the thought of bacon and tomatoes. On the drive home I even stopped at a convenience store (no grocery stores en route for the whole hour drive) to buy the necessary cheese. What a pie it turned out to be!! I will share with you this secret:

Woody's Tomato Pie (this is probably not on the Weight Watchers menu)

Three large tomatoes (or so), chopped and well drained of juice (or you get soggy crust)
one baked pie crust (you can do 2 parts whole wheat flour to one part all purpose for more fiber)
one large onion
handful of fresh basil chopped or equivalent dried basil
about 6 slices of cooked bacon, chopped
1 cup of light mayonnaise (I used the olive oil mayo- turned out good)
1 cup of cheese (I used a combo pack of mozzarella, asiago, cheddar and provolone)
salt and pepper

Prepare and bake your pie crust at 350 for about 15 minutes. meanwhile chop and drain the tomatoes and onions, pick your basil and wash and chop and get the bacon cooking and drained. Chop bacon into small pieces. Once the crust is done, spread a layer of tomatoes, a layer of onion and sprinkle with bacon and basil. Repeat until all veggies/bacon have been placed in the crust. Season with salt and pepper and spread the mayo over the top of the pie like frosting. Then top with cheese and bake at 350 for about 1/2 hour. Serve with a fresh salad. This refrigerates well and tastes even better the next day!

Eastern North Carolina's Fall Fields

I was in Greenville of North Carolina for the past two weeks working, and I really enjoyed the scenery. Farmland and fields abound, and this was the first time I have seen cotton fields! This field was probably ready to be harvested, as all surrounding ones have already been de-cottonized. I couldn't believe that natural cotton was truly that white straight from the plant. I had the idea that it would need to be bleached to get the white T-shirt look.

I found a piece of cotton on the side of the road, as it is blown all over the place, and brought it home as a souvenir. Wouldn't it be fun to spin into yarn and knit a pair of socks? Only, the one pod is probably enough to do one finger of one glove! Spinning cotton is a different experience than spinning wool or alpaca. The fibers are so short. I have spun dyed cotton to make a hat, but it's one of those projects I haven't finished..

This is the cotton field from a distance. See the thicker patch near the treeline?

And here we are at a vacant field that I just thought was lovely in its own right. The trees, I am told by my work buddy, Jerry, are the infamous sweet gum trees. He says they make great shade, although he doesn't have one in his yard. He says he enjoys them from the safe distance of his neighbor's yard.

We decided to let Mavis the Sweet Gum stay planted in our yard through to the spring, and then we will transplant her again and put her along the back of our property line where the gum balls won't intrude on anyone's yard.

Meanwhile, Paul has arrived home safely from England, and it sounds like his mother is continuing to improve, thankfully. We are going to rest and take it easy this weekend.

Hotellin It

I was sitting at the desk in my hotel room the other night and looking at the assortment of things I had going on. Yep, life on the road with long working hours is about making use of the available time and multi-tasking. I was working on coloring jellybeans for my nursery age sunday school class while watching a movie I had from Netflix and shoveling leftover pumpkin cheesecake from Olive Garden (super tasty) with a protractor I had in my backpack (forgot to ask for a fork). Meanwhile, while the movie was playing, my computer was uploading my work email and timesheet. I had my knitting off to the side in case I had time for The Sweater II before getting to bed at a decent time.

Agent S

Another busy 10 day shift in Hendersonville, with more fun at the Waverly Inn. A few days into my stay, John, Diane and Darla, the innkeepers headed out on vacation. I was a little sad because they always make me feel like I'm coming home after a busy day at work. The fun thing is that the "innsitters" that came in to cover for them were every bit as welcoming and the transition was seamless.

On the second day of Jim and Susan's reign, I came back from work and they asked me if I knew anything about an auditor from my company arriving. I usually get a safety audit once a week and since I already had one that week, I was not expecting another one. "No, I don't know any more auditors arriving this week." Susan said, "Oh, well, we were just wondering if you knew if he was going to be a late check-in or not." I said that I was sorry I couldn't be of more help, but if it was a safety audit I was getting, then it was intended to be a surprise. Susan lowered her voice to a whisper and said, "We'll let you know one way or another if he arrives so that you have a warning." I laughed and admired her good humor.

Then next morning I came downstairs and my sausage and egg sandwich was wrapped in foil and sitting on the counter for me promptly at 6:30, same as what John normally does for me. I took it with me to eat on the drive to the site, and when I got in the truck and opened up the foil, there was a secret note in with my sandwich:

I laughed half the drive to work, and dubbed Susan "Agent S." I have dubbed all of us who can perform covert operations. I am Agent K of course, my dearest friend Laurie, Agent L, who I worked with in California, is one of the sneakiest of all when it comes to finding out the latest office news. My sister is Agent H and is real good with agent speak, and Mom is Agent M, pretty newly installed. Agent S is the newest recruit, and will do just fine holding down the mountain post in North Carolina. We had so much fun talking the rest of the week, and I'm sad that she will be gone when I go up there again in a few weeks.

Working in Hendersonville, NC

It was a long 10 day shift installing wells, but you can't beat the location. The mountains around the Asheville/Hendersonville areas are beautiful and I often had to pinch myself to make sure I really had it so good! This is what a drill rig looks like:

A lot can happen in ten days and we had it all: lightening and thunder, misty rain all day, hot weather, and a bloom of mushrooms of all kinds.

One day we were out in a field that must have been a favorite hideout for yellow jackets. We saw the area where they must have had an underground nest so I made sure the drillers set up away from the nest. I was writing notes in my field book and minding my own business when I got stung on the back of my neck by an angry yellow jacket that got stuck in my hair. It's been a long time since I was last stung, and it hurt, so naturally I screamed. Before I could say, "That hurt like a son of a gun, and it was a yellow jacket, I reckon," the driller's helper was pressing a wad of chewing tobacco onto the welt on the back of my neck. He says it pulls out the poison, and he did say, "reckon" a lot. We are in the south, and the hospitality does come with charm.

Now, this is one of the coolest aspects of doing work up here besides the wildlife. We get to stay at the Waverly Inn, a bed and breakfast run by a couple who treat you like family. They gave me the best room in the house, a beautiful room with an adjoining sun room since I was staying a piece (pretty much all month minus a few days).

Downstairs on the front porch they serve snacks and drinks so people can chat and meet other guests, while enjoying the peaceful event of rocking in the rocking chairs and enjoying the birds. Every evening they greet me by name and ask how work was, bring me a ice cold glass of coke and pull up a rocking chair for me. Afterwards, I enjoy a hot bath get something to eat at a nearby restaurant within walking distance and then come back "home" to grab a slice of homemade cake that John and Diane have in the kitchen. I mosie upstairs with my cake and herbal tea and watch a bit of one of the movies I brought. It was like working really hard for 12 hours and having 4 hours of vacation afterwards. Not bad!

On Saturday night after work, I went to see a play, Unnecessary Farce, at the Flatrock Playhouse. I laughed for 2 hours and came back to the Waverly and slept like a rock. It was a fantastic comedy, and I needed it after a few stressful days at work that followed the bee sting.

My sun room adjoining my bedroom at the Waverly.
There was a nearby nursery that has loads of cool shrubs and so on my drive home I loaded up to start working on our backyard.

I have 4 days off starting today and then head up to Hendersonville again for another 10 days. Have a good weekend!

Constant Companion

The Sweater II, my knitting project, has been my constant companion this week. We have argued ("I know I didn't purl those stitches a few rows back! Now you are making me pull out your last few rows!"), we have weathered the storm on the bike ride through the rain, we have waited out the storm in Caribou Coffee and today we were in the field together.

Yep, I'm down in Florence, SC working for a few days, and my job is to make sure two samplers keep their gloves and safety glasses on. So, while I'm keeping a close watch, I get a few rows in here and there. Now, me and my knitting are in the lobby of the hotel getting ready to pay some bills on the laptop. For some reason, wireless does not reach the 7th floor, so I've parked it in here in the lobby.

In a nutshell, my knitting has given me some strange looks, has inspired some conversation at the coffee shop and at the office (I'm in the process of giving knitting lessons to a guy in our office), and even though me and my knitting don't always get along, we are connected at the moment. With a good project, it's just plain hard to put it down!

The Good That Comes From Getting Lost

The crew that I was meeting on Monday afternoon called me and said that they were near the plant and "...are we at the right one?" There are many plants along the James River as the water is very useful for many of the manufacturing processes. No they weren't at the right one, and I proceeded to give them the best directions as possible, which weren't good because I don't know the street names (even though I have spent at least 6 weeks at this place or more over the past 3 months). The street signs are minuscule and so I go by landmarks such as "turn at the Exxon gas station and a right at the big church and a left past the railroad tracks, etc."

Anyway, eventually they got there and we began work. But the interesting thing is that in the process of getting lost, they found the location where Pocahontas got married! They told me how to get lost and find the same place, which is what I did today after work. I went down the road until it looked like it was going to dead-end at a manufacturing plant, and the followed the narrow road through a gate and down into a hidden town that was obscure from view by the smokestacks, etc. It was a quiet town of about 6 houses and one church and the road ended at the river. On the side of the road was a stone monument that says this town (Bermuda Hundred) is the area where Pocahontas lived and married the Englishman John Rolfe.

What a find! I've come to the easy conclusion that everywhere you go along these major rivers along the east coast you are bound to stumble upon some piece of history. Battlefields from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars dot the area. Yesterday I drove down the road a ways to Petersburg (pretty famous) to see the town and well-known battlefield. It didn't feel to be very kept up and I wasn't convinced it was tip-top on being safe, which is a shame because I could have really spent some time there. I was going to go to the battlefield but it seemed to be a bit isolated and so I didn't want to go there alone. In the end I went into a few antiques stores and then came back to the hotel. I did buy a very cute old-fashioned balance used to measure food and things like that. I bought it to weigh out my fiber and dye powders so that I get consistent results when dyeing.

Busy Drumcarding

Well this pile of colored fiber looks quite impressive when it's all together on the table! It did take me some time to card each color separately, as I worked on one color at a time while watching movies and talking on the phone. This was over the course of a few weeks, but it seemed to go pretty fast even though when I add up all the movies I watched, it took me many hours.

Now I'm working on getting the right amounts of each color to get the perfect color blend, and each batt will go through the drum carder a few times to get everything evenly blended. I don't particularly like having the "barber pole effect" which is a look you get when you have sections of individual colors. I like subtle color variations in sweaters, especially if it's for a man.

By the way, I'm back in Virginia for a week of work and I decided to bring my drum carder with me this time. As I had mentioned a few months ago, I had surprised the hotel staff with my hat box spinning wheel and I didn't want them to think I'm a complete nut job, so I concealed my drum carder (which looks like an instrument of torture, especially because it's homemade) in a duffel bag and snuck it in. We finished work early today so I have a few hours of blissful drum carding and the Food Network to watch. :-)

It's a Jungle Out Here

This field job brings out far reaching emotions in me on both ends of the spectrum. Today was one of those kind of days that fell into a couple of categories because it had moments of adventure, moments of peaceful harmony with the weather and moments of exasperations that made me pause to think, "they aren't paying me enough to do this."

A few weeks ago I was outside all day and the weather was simply perfect and I felt bad for all the folks working in a stuffy office. Yesterday the temperature out here was 100 degrees with 90% humidity (or very close to it) and it was brutal to the max. Today started out cool with the smell of rain in the air that had just cleared up and our first well was stationed in nicely cut grass and in the shade. All that was needed was windchimes and Paul bringing me a glass of lemonade and it would have been vacation.

Shortly after that, the thermometer climbed and we had to head deep into the forest where a well was found that no one knew existed. It was too dense to get the Dodge truck through and so we had to pack in and pack out all our tools and equipment. Since I had found a tick crawling around on my shirt yesterday, we had to wear tyvek suits today on our treck into the undergrowth and overgrowth. This is like wearing a trashbag with arms and legs (hot and sweaty). It was not real fun, but at the same time I envisioned myself as an action hero in a comedy spoof. And although it was hot, it was novel to me that we were actually sampling a well that was lost to the environmental society for who knows how long. Was it a case where the vines just took over and hid the well for 20 years? And who put it there? Anyway, it was kinda cool/adventurous.

Later still, we had to go to a different well further into the woods but we could actually get the truck part way there as there was a road- overgrown and rough, but still a road. The bad news was that the 1/8 mile that we had to hoof it was covered in poison ivy, mosquitos in swarms of 20+ and ticks and who knows what under the ivy and foliage we were tromping through. I was whining to myself and a little to Sean too, and felt that this was a very sad predicament to be in as it was near impossible to concentrate on the data we were collecting. We decided that we could work much more efficiently if one of us took on the roll of mosquito combatter while the other sampled. It helped the progress of the task, but the hour that we were down there was still grim.

Yet we emerged triumphant and I feel like my work life is more enriched by miserable moments like these. When I look back, I never would have imagined myself sampling in such beautiful places like these forests and swamps and shores along rivers, and I can later laugh at all the mishaps and miserable moments. I feel like despite the bugs and beasts, this is a dream come true!

Furniture Fest

While in Kinston, NC this past week, I stopped by an antique store to check out furniture and oil lamps (I collect oil lamps). I fell in love with these Victorian chairs instantly and thought how perfect they would look in the sitting room off the master bedroom, which we decided would be like a library / spinning room.

Most of the time I like to get up before Paul, and love to read while he's still sleeping. And, sometimes I like to spin at night after he's in bed, but don't like to hang out alone downstairs. So this little side room off the master bedroom is perfect for times like these. Paul let me have free reign to "decorate as girly as I please."


The above chair is supposed to be the gent's chair, according to the tag.


And this is supposed to be the ladies' chair. But Paul thinks this one looks more manly.

Then, I saw this beautiful mahogany corner cabinet that I adored so sent pictures back to Paul to get his stamp of approval to have this in the living room.

On my way out of town on Thursday, I stopped by the antique store and they helped me load everything in the truck. I bought a tarp in case of rain and tie-downs at Home Depot for the occasion. Good thing because once I got to Greensboro the rain was coming down in buckets and I hate to think what would have happened to the beautiful furniture in the back.

I did the obligatory stop at Dairy Queen in Cary-- this was the biggest Dairy Queen ever! Mom you would have been in heaven.
We assembled the bed that we bought last month and arranged the furniture in the bedroom to how we think it will stay.

Oh it is so pretty!

The sitting room with chairs and empty bookshelf.

We also set up our hummingbird feeder this weekend- it is so beautiful in our backyard! No visitors yet but they'll find it before too long.

Humans in the Headlights

Jerry and I were walking across a big meadow yesterday, heading out to check on a creek running through the facility. We had a long pole rigged with duck tape and a scooper and it was rather cumbersome. We were preoccupied with our trek across the field, keeping our eyes open for snakes, and making sure we didn't trip on the pole and scooper. I happened to look up in time to see a deer running pell-mell straight at us.

"Jerry, should we be concerned?" We both froze in our tracks and stared at the fast-moving animal heading straight at us.

"Nah, she sees us." We kept standing there.

"Uh, are you sure about that?"

And at that point the deer seemed to wake up from some inner reflection and said with it's eyes and panicked expression, "Oh, deer, there are people in the road!" Brakes slammed and it zig-zagged off into the trees 20 feet away.

Whew-- we all three sighed with relief -- we didn't get run over, and the deer didn't have us on it's windshield. That was a close one!

Weeds Aren't Always Ugly

This isn't the greatest picture, but I saw the prettiest flowers scattered throughout a wheat field in Virginia. They are undoubtably weeds since they are growing in a wheat field, and a weed is any unwanted plant growing in an unwanted place. I like how these bright purple flowers are bold rebels in a field of uniformity.

Weekend Projects and Afternoon Thunderstorms

As has been the habit of late, Paul and I have been spending the weekends on projects (between the chores). Here he is working very hard on sawing curtain rods in half so we can maybe someday get started on getting curtains up in our bedroom (yes, we are still getting dressed in the dark).

This weekend I was blown away by how much our yard has changed since I was home last weekend. This was this past weekend:

... and this was the weekend before!
Our other major accomplishment this weekend was getting our furniture moved into the house with the help of two gardeners and our neighbors. This dining room table (without the leaf) took 4 men to carry it into the house. Plus, we then had to attach the 8 legs and then flip it over- quite an ordeal. Wish I had had the camera handy! It is starting to feel more like a home with each piece of furniture we set up.

Just as the furniture was moved in (more pictures later) a thunderstorm broke out and it felt like one of those great summer showers with warm temps. and high humidity, complete with thunder and lightening. We opened the windows that were sheltered and listened to the rain and thunder. It ended up raining all night long and into Monday, and the whole way up to Virginia.

The clouds broke as I got there and so we decided to try sampling a well. We were just setting up to start work when rain started coming down in buckets and an emergency broadcast came over the radio announcing a tornado alert in our town. We quickly packed up and left the site, ominous clouds in the rear-view mirror. I got back to my hotel 15 minutes later and saw on the hotel lobby TV that a tornado struck somewhere in the city where we were and ten miles down the road in the shopping center where we often go to eat dinner. Sadly, 200 people in the area were injured and the regions struck have been declared in a state of emergency. Repairs are underway, but I haven't heard any details this evening.

On a positive note, Mavis and Big Red are doing great with all the rain, and we have a new addition to the tree family: a Japanese maple seedling that I found growing in the grass of the site I've been working at in Virginia. It was about to be mowed with the grass, and I just had to save it to add to our growing forest. Japanese maples are gorgeous!

Hotel Gossip

Now that I've been staying at the Hampton Inn by the site in Virginia for 7 weeks now, I've gotten to know the staff on a first-name basis and I'm treated like a guest rather than a customer-- it's what makes me keep coming back to the same place- a home away from home.

When I was checking out a few weeks ago, the manager said, "ok, I've got to ask because I'm dying to know: what is that thing that you have set up in your hotel room each time you stay?" Of course I knew what she was referring to because my hatbox spinning wheel has come with me on each trip, is a conversation piece at every airport that I've been to with it, and I've gotten used to the curiosity it attracts. So I showed her what it was all about and she was fascinated, but I think more relieved than fascinated to have her curiosity satisfied.

Today I came in early to check in and a maid gave me a very strange look as she said, "hello." Odd reaction especially since my hatbox was still in the car. But I had a hunch she knew I belonged to it. Two minutes later the manager, upon greeting me, said that she had a very worried maid ask her last week what my contraption was, and why did I have "a dog" laying in a pile on the chair. Luckily the manager knew what it was all about by then and could explain to the poor woman that I didn't have a dead dog in my room, and that it was merely wool for spinning yarn on the contraption ( I hope she explained that no sheep were harmed in the gathering of the wool) :-)

Wisteria and Another Cemetery

Well, I've made it through day six in the ten day shift, just over halfway there and I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Plus, yesterday was my birthday and I was treated to a birthday song serenade by the drillers and my fellow co-workers working in the field with me. It was kinda funny because everyone present were the rough and tough sort of gentlemen wearing hardhats and boots, and yet they brought in scones for my celebration pre-work treat rather than doughnuts. Who would have thought?

Driving back to the hotel this afternoon, it was the first day that I wasn't rushing soil samples over to Fed-Ex to ship to the lab, and so I had a leisurely drive. For the first time I saw beautiful purple flowers hanging all over different types of trees. They must have just started blooming, or I've been too busy to notice, but they look like they are hanging from a vine growing over the trees. This must be Wisteria that my mom's friend Charlene was telling me about: a plain vine that doesn't have leaves when it is in bloom, and it has gorgeous hanging purple flowers. Picture below is from Wikipedia.

I wish I had my camera handy to photograph each day along the roads I drive because there are noticeable changes to the blooms and leaf growth each day! What a glorious season spring is out here!

Wisteria (?) on the roadside here in Virginia.

Oh, and another exciting thing some of us saw today at the plant- a very large cat off in the distance, walking next to the railroad tracks, along the treeline. It was about 100 yards away and looked blackish brown with a long tail, and it moved like a cat rather than a dog, but it was the size of a large dog. Hmmm... I looked up black panther on the internet but no scientific evidence has proved the existence of black panthers in North America. Is there such thing as a large black bobcat with a long tail? This mystery is going to bug me, but will not likely be solved as we couldn't get a picture.

By now you know my fascination with all the cemeteries out here, and this is a beautiful one on my drive to the plant. I love how folks out here take the time to keep flowers on the graves.

Good night, and sleep tight!
P.S. Trish, on Monday I sent a batch of spun cashmere/silk back to you via UPS. Should be there soon...

Osprey Sighting

I so badly wish I could bring my camera to the sites where I work! The wildlife is phenomenal as there are usually habitats set aside or produced for the animals around the facilities. At this location in Virginia, we are working right along the James River and so the birdwatching is fabulous. As I was waiting for a pump to purge out muddy water from a well, I noticed some unusual hawks circling around above the river. Some came quite close to where I was and I got a good look at them. They were a lot different than the hawks I'd seen around in California, so I described the bird to Steve (a co-worker) who seems to know everything about anything (in a humble way), and he thought it sounded like an osprey. I came back and googled it, and sure enough this is what I saw:


These birds are fisherbirds, catching fish with their scaly feet (and big talons too). No wonder they seemed to not stray from the river. At first I thought they were vultures because they were so big and were flying in circles. But then I noticed the bright white belly and stripe along their faces, and had to admit I'd never seen a vulture with those characteristics. This picture above is compliments of Wikipedia.

A Day of Rest

Ah, Sunday. I love to take Sundays off from chores and work, although it seems it hasn't worked out that way much lately. But today, despite the fact that I had to be at the site at 7:00am, it happily was sleeting and raining all morning long. We finally gave up (with smiles and goodwill) and called it a day. I wanted to shout for joy of having a much needed Sunday afternoon off.

So I'm back at my hotel with a cup of hot chocolate (a packet of Swiss Miss with Marshmallows from the hotel breakfast bar brewed in my hotel room coffee maker) and my neglected spinning wheel at my beck and call. I even have a choice of a few good movies to watch on my laptop: "Sabrina, " "Finding Neverland" which I haven't seen yet, and "Never Been Kissed" also haven't seen, and "Uptown Girls" which I really like.


My Louet Hat Box in action.
Cashmere and silk from Tanglewood Fiber Creations. I love spinning this blend. Oh so soft and silky running through my fingers. It's going to be a fine evening indeed!

Weekend Reflections

Time seems to fly when there's no time to rest. I have had one heck of a week working with a drill crew to collect soil cores for chemical analysis. We are on another plant searching for buried chemical waste that was possibly disposed of years ago. It's interesting work, but highly intense since I'm in charge of contractors this time and having to monitor their safety as well as do the sample collection, recording data and keeping a log of all times of when activities are completed for legal purposes. We have been working from 7am to 8pm and then as I've mentioned before, our office is really team oriented so we have the 'dinner social hour or two' afterwards. It nearly kills me to be social with the work crowd at that point in the day when I'm tired and we've already been around each other every day for 13 hours. But that's the way it is, and I seem to be the only person in my office who needs some personal space. So go with the flow, right?


Since Virginia is a far drive or flight for all who are involved on this project, our office is trying something new: ten days on, four days off. So this weekend we are working, and we leave to go home for four days on Wednesday. I was thinking back to last Friday when I had the day off with Paul...


Paul organized and catagorized his Star Wars figures


I worked on my scrapbook.. still in November, 2004 "Our Wedding"

And we spent some time with the girls. See Fairy behind my neck under my ponytail playing hide and go seek with Paul?

It was a good time.

My mom and her friend Charlene are visiting us in the southeast for nearly two weeks. Or I should say, visiting Paul, since I haven't seen them since they arrived at our house. At least we will have the four days off to tour around the Charlotte area together and spend some time before they have to go back to CA the following Monday.

Well, best be off to bed.

Lifeguard Duty

Sometimes I cry and complain that I have so much traveling to do, but in the same breath I have to admit I enjoy the actual work. I really do love my job... but how to find balance? After all, one of my mottos is: "To work to live, not live to work."



This week my task is to sit on the river shore, or in the comforts of the rental car, a Toyota Highlander, and call the boys every 15 minutes to make sure they haven't capsized the boat or anything. I call up. Mike answers, "Yo. We're still alive." and that's the sum of it. Meanwhile I work on last sleeve of The Sweater, read my latest book: "Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict" and snack on cookies. I run out to pick up lunch for the boys and help unload the samples from the boat at the end of the day. Today is Day One of five, and I'm well stashed with lots of reading material, yarn and snacks.

More Travels

Last week Alicia and I ate in a diner called Maisie's, every day for lunch. It was located near the plant, and everyone that worked there treated us like real regular guests. They served good-old fashioned comfort food perfect for the cold weather we had.

I came home Friday night and spent the weekend with Paul, during which we did all our errands, laundry and chores. I re-packed my suitcase, added a new batch of fiber from Tanglewood Fiber Creations, grabbed my Hat Box spinning wheel and off I went this morning to Virginia. So I sit here now in my hotel room getting ready mentally for another week away from home. The travel is really fun adventure, but I really miss Paul when I'm gone, and it is hard being away from home for so long.