Random, some good, some bad....

Wow, has it been an action packed few weeks.    We have had three (3!) deaths (one a suicide) in our family since the week before Christmas.    If things really do happen in threes, maybe this last one was the end to it.  We can only hope.    

Things haven't been all bad.   In the normal way of things, life goes on, and lots of things happen at the same time.   So here is what I have been up to:

I have been taking Stefanie Japel's Design Your Own Shawl class.   Initially, I signed up for this in the hopes that it would pull me out of my homesick funk.   I am so glad that I decided to do this.   It has been challenging in a fun way.  I already feel like I have learned a lot about shawl construction and writing charts.   I especially like the weekly chats.   It is so nice to be in even a virtual room with like-minded people.   This is my shawl at the end of the first week.   Due to a mistake, and a major rip-back it looked pretty much the same at the end of the second week.    It is moving along better now.   The real challenge has been finding time to work on it.

Due to some co-op growing pains, it was decided that a knit/crochet group would meet at my house each Tuesday.   Unfortunately, the first day, no one came.   Pretty depressing actually.   However, rather than  staying home and feeling bad, I whisked my youngest son away from school work to spend an unplanned day at Epcot (Very un-funk-like of me, don't you think?).    We had such a good time.   How can it have taken me so long to discover the joys of park hopping?   We finished up at Epcot just in time for rush hour traffic, so rather than sitting on Rt4, we ran over to Magic Kingdom for an hour (theoretically, actually it was more like two hours).   There were so few people there that we got to go on all of our favorite rides with the longest wait being 5 minutes.   We even had time to take a picture of my DYOS shawl.   T2 staged the photo.   Check out Grumpy holding the yarn.   Don't you just love it?

 Feb 16th was our 15th anniversary.   Hubby agrees that it does not feel that long (which is a good thing).  We spent an easy day, getting up late, snuggling and talking.   We did lunch at my favorite restaurant then walked around town.   It was raining but I still got some pretty nice pictures with my new camera.   That's my hubby at the Castillo de San Marcos.   I am not sure why, but I really like this picture.   It is so un-staged.

 Sunday was our day to go to Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park.   This weekend was the annual reenactment of The Battle of Olustee, Florida's largest Civil War battle.    Friend Angie (see photo) is a Civil War reenactor.    We have had so much fun going to her events.   This one was a blast.    We got there early, placed our chairs right up where we would be able to see the battle clearly, found Angie and walked around.   There were North & South encampments for soldiers and civilians.  I was surprised by how many women traveled with the soldiers.    Angie says that families went along, as well as seamstresses and laundresses.    I already knew about the  "women of ill repute".    There was a separate camp that represented the residents of Olustee (where Angie and her friends were).     I met and got to chat with a spinner there.    She was very interesting.   It is impressive how much these people research the time and habits of their characters.    The battle is so loud that they hand you ear plugs on your way in.   I thought I would hate that part but with the plugs it was not bad at all.    I cast on a pair of socks for hubby while the battle raged.   It seemed appropriate somehow to be working on something for "my man" at such a time (tongue firmly in cheek).


T1 flew to NJ to see the ex, and got sick, which worried me.   But, he is home now and feeling better.    I am keeping him home from school tomorrow (while T2 and I make yet another trip to Disney to spend the day with NJ friends).     He has a busy rest of the week and I want to make sure he is up to it.    Have I mentioned that he got accepted to his first choice college?    We are very proud of him.   He will be going on FL's Bright Futures scholarship (not full ride but very generous), which has us all breathing easier on the financial front.   There is the possibility of still more scholarship money coming.   We are cautiously hopeful.


So you see, it has not been all bad.   In fact, it has been mostly good.