Return of the Blogger

ONE FOR THE "DUDE, SERIOUSLY?" FILES

(A TRUE STORY)

I got an email the other day from the nice people at Handwoven. They have some sort of online groupie thing and they send me helpful emails now and then (if by "now and then" you understand me to mean "with never-ending persistence") full of lovely product ads and clever hints for effective loom use which usually involve buying more products. The most recent one--which I did not delete unopened upon receipt--had to do with proper loom maintenance. I have a second-hand loom that was first assembled in the mid-eighties, so I figure loom maintenance is something I might want to pay attention to. Eventually. So I get the email, and as I'm looking at it and wondering whether my loom is properly maintained, I happen to casually glance at my loom and notice that it is, in fact, not being properly maintained at all.

Here was my first clue:

Can you see it? Take a close look at the bolt at the top center of the picture. Notice anything missing? I did. The bolt is missing the wing-nut that keeps this part of the loom from disassembling itself during use. Oops, wait a second. The bolt at the center left of the picture is missing its nut too.

How unexpected. A closer inspection is called for, I think. So I inspect more closely, and instead of finding that a few nuts have worked their way loose and fallen on the floor, I find this state of affairs on the other side:

and this on both ends of the reed:

Altogether, I am missing 8 nuts and half a dozen washers. This is when it occurs to me that this is not question of maintenance, but out and out sabotage.

Being a suspicious person, the only thing I can think of is that someone (and I think I know who, based on age, emotional development, and recent practices) has expressed his dissatisfaction with my parenting practices by engaging in low down dirty behavior. But I don't want to jump to conclusions, so I compile my list of possible suspects (my children and my cleaning lady, although I can't imagine why the cleaning lady would have run away with my loom hardware) and begin to ask questions.

No one will admit to anything. All (except the cleaning lady, since I didn't bother to question her) adopt expressions of wide-eyed innocence and proclaim their utter lack of familiarity with any missing loom parts. So El Husbando decides to help out, but his questioning, although less openly accusatory, yields no better results than mine. The good cop/bad cop bit has failed us. The incident is progressing from amusingly bizarre to thoroughly annoying and it's time to go hard core. I decide to employ Guilt. While the children are seated at the table enjoying the nutritious and satisfying meal I have prepared, I let loose with a torrent of commentary about how I cook and clean and drive them places and read them stories and all I get in return is betrayal in the form of craft vandalism and it makes me feel just terrible. With the emotional groundwork in place, El Husbando adds the final touch by offering a general amnesty. Just to make sure everyone understands the terms, he states very clearly that we know that someone is lying to us, we believe we know who the culprit is, but we are offering this one golden opportunity for the guilty party to remedy the situation by anonymously returning the stolen goods to El Husbando's desk.

Five minutes later, a child whose name has been changed to Thorbert Smedley as a punishment demonstrates his complete lack of understanding of the term 'anonymously' when he returns to the kitchen with a sheepish smile on his face and assures us that the hardware in question is now sitting on EH's desk. He took it and he is very sorry to have inconvenienced me.

Now that he has confessed, I just have to ask him why he did it. Was he mad at me?

"No," he says. "You know that woodworking thing I wanted to start? Well, I just kind of thought that these might be . . . you know . . . useful."

Flabbergasted as I am by his meandering logic, I suppose I have to agree. "Useful?" I want to scream at him. "Of course they're useful. You can tell, because I WAS ALREADY USING THEM!"

A KNITTING UPDATE, AND SOME OTHER STUFF

Did I post this already? I can't remember and I'm too lazy to check. This is Matty's new sweater.

The pattern is Abernathy and the yarn was Berocco Vintage, although I goofed by ordering worsted when the project called for DK. Extra silly, because Vintage comes in DK, so there was no need to use the wrong yarn. No biggie, though. The sweater is written in sizes mostly related to the toddler set, and I wanted to make a sweater for Matty that would last through next year if possible. So, with my fatter yarn, I was able to follow a size 6 pattern and get what should mostly be a size 8 sweater. I put a little extra length in the sleeves and body and the result is something long and skinny, kind of like Matty. Who now insists that he be called Matthew, by the way, even by his Mommy.

In other craft news, I have been continuing with my knitting schedule. Did I mention this? In December I got all organize-y and made a list of a whole bunch of projects I wanted to do and then divided them up into portions that could, in an ideal world, be completed each month. I met my January and February goals with no problems, but this is not an ideal world and March is proof of that. I was supposed to have finished Isa's socks, knit a colorwork chullo from a kit, and knit a skein's worth of yarn on my Ugly Afghan. I did the afghan at the beginning of the month and I'm almost to the heel turn on the second sock, but there is no way I'm going to get that hat done before Saturday, and at least one of my April projects is time sensitive, so I can't use April to catch up on March's leftovers. Ah, well. I'm still pleased with my progress, and even more pleased that only one of the projects planned for this year will call for the purchase of additional yarn. Yay me.

Winter here, like so many other places, was unusually warm and snow free. We were a little freaked by this, but we've decided to just accept the weather weirdness and get on with life. All the sunshine and warm temps, though, have got us thinking garden and here is the result of all that summery thinking:

Three whole trays of seeds planted, and it's only March 24. We've started a gardening notebook too. Nate helped, since he is my sous-gardener. This is monumental progress for us. Last year we never got farther than bringing the seed starting trays in from the garage. They sat on the laundry room counter for 8 weeks, until we decided we probably weren't going to start our own seeds and put them back where they came from. Most of the stuff we started today should be ready for planting in mid to late May, although we are experimenting with lettuces too, so we'll have to dig the new garden (we plan to put blueberries in the old garden, which won't work too well if we've already got it planted full of other stuff) in the next few weeks. This is, of course, a terrible plan, doomed to failure from its inception. As payback for the mild winter, I'm sure we'll get six feet of snow in April, especially as I've been indiscreet enough to start gardening, but there you have it. We're also hoping to put some fruit trees in, but let's not get carried away.

And that's about all for today. There's actually a whole bunch of other stuff to catch up on, but I've been plugging away at this post for far too long and I'd like to go knit now since I have come to loathe the evil green socks and the only way I can be free of them is to finish them.

Just In Case You Were Wondering

I have not evaporated.  I am still here, but my month of vacation is now being followed by four months of a whole lot of work.  I thought I might post a lot during vacation, but it turns out that there are only so many times you can write "I sat on the couch and knit while watching Doctor Who/Downton Abbey/Doc Martin" before you start to feel one-dimensional, so I gave it a miss.  Then I thought I might post once vacation was over and I started doing things again, but that didn't work out either.  First I got sick, which wasn't worth writing about at all.  Then on the other days my butt has hurt so much from spending the day at my computer (working, for once) that I couldn't stand to stay here one minute longer than was strictly necessary.  Also, there's still that pesky dinner thing everyone seems to want every damn day.  No escape today, either.  It's 7:22 p.m., and if I don't get cooking soon then everyone will end up eating crackers for dinner, which would make me look like a bad parent.  And I would hate for everyone to miss Taco Tuesday.  Off we go!

Finished Objects

Right, then.  I finished the KAL shawls and here--with no ado at all-- they are:

The lighter blue is the fingering weight shawl in Tosh Sock.  It is very springy and squooshy and will be a pleasure to wear around the neck, although not one that I will personally experience because it is a gift and I'm giving it away.  Though maybe not right this minute.

The darker blue is made from Dream in Color Baby, which is more of a lace-almost-fingering-weight.  The shawl is not quite as squooshy, but is quite a bit bigger and drapes just right around the neck.  I know because I do get to keep this one and I took it out for a test run this morning when I took the boys out for pancakes before school.  Can you see where this is going?  Not to worry, though:  I think the yarn --or maybe the pattern itself-- has magical food repelling properties.  It is true that I ordered my usual blueberry pancakes and also that I doused them in syrup.  But when my fork slipped mid-cut--as anyone could have predicted it would-- the spattered syrup landed everywhere except the shawl.  This means that I will be washing three coats and my fleece sweatshirt (and that small children were inexplicably drawn to me this morning), but I will not have to wash and re-block my shawl.  Flying syrup notwithstanding, it was so worth wearing the shawl to breakfast;  the waitress caught sight of it and gushed over it in just the right way.  I gave her an extra good tip for being able to ignore the dripping  syrup and focus on what was really important.

Both shawls are just a smidge smaller than the pattern called for.  I was worried about running out of yarn and all of my obsessive weighing and recalculation failed to prove that there was no need to worry, so I eliminated the last few short rows to make sure I had enough yarn to knit the final bead section around the top.  In the dark blue shawl, I also decided to do beads instead of nupps with the short rows and I'm not sorry.  I like the extra bling  and the way the beads click against each other and I was getting pretty weary of nupping.

I had planned to spend most of my time off cleaning out the basement, but the job is overwhelming and I haven't made much progress.  Instead, the knitting frenzy continues with a quick Abernathy sweater for Matty:

Abernathy Sweater for Matty

Detail of the cable, which looks a little funky to me,
even though I'm sure I followed the pattern.

I had to make some adjustments because I ordered worsted weight yarn and the pattern (DUH!!!!) called for DK. It's moving right along though.  I am almost done with the body, so just the sleeves and the collar left to go.  Although, now that I look at the pictures, I'm wondering if I should run the cables all the way down through the ribbing.  Hmmmm . . . .

A Little Time Out

I'm still here.  I'm off work for a little bit which means that (1) I'm not parked at the lap top all day and (2) I've been cleaning a lot.  Probably not cleaning 'a lot' by most measures, but certainly a lot compared to how much I usually clean, which is not very much at all.  In any case, it's nothing to write home (or blog) about and so I haven't been blogging.

I have been keeping up with my knit along stuff.  The last clue should be out this weekend, so there should be some knitting to post about soon.  The projects are coming out nicely and I'm pretty sure I have enough yarn to finish both of them.

I have also finished my bonus project from last month.  This is the Bandana Cowl.

It was quick and easy and makes a great scarf substitute.

I'm not sure I could have picked a better project for that random skein of Malabrigo Worsted, and now I know for sure that I have to learn how to spin a decent worsted weight singles so I can have more and more of this kind of yarn to work with.

It even matches our bird feeder friend, Mr. Cardinal.

He's quite a sight on a dreary winter day, isn't he?

Well, it seems like it's either feast or famine around here. One month I won't go away and the next I've got nothing at all to say.  One of the benefits of NaPloPoMo (curse its ever-present nagging!) is that I was always looking for the next thing to write about, a habit I dumped --with obvious consequences--as soon as the 31st rolled around. 

What, you might well wonder, have I been doing this month?  

First, we have been watching birds.  We set up feeders in the back yard and, should I bother during breakfast to look up from my book (Out of Oz, right now; yes, I'm enjoying it, but I'm parcelling it out in small doses so it's not over too soon), I can watch the birdies.  There is even a pair of binoculars on the table if I want a better view.  These are not our best binoculars, which hid first under an extra pillow I use to support my iPad when I'm sitting in bed (I keep the pillow on the floor normally, right on top of the binoculars), and then--after I discovered them next to my side of the bed and issued apologies to everyone who had been accused of concealing them-- hid in plain sight on top of my dresser and still have not made their way down to the table where they might be of some use.  But they do give me a slightly better view of the birds, as does the camera, although that doesn't help me until I put the pictures on the computer and blow them up big enough to see.

In addition to the jays, we have our usual chickadees, a very red cardinal, a wood pecker, and several bluebirds, but no pictures of them.

The rest of the bird watching is done here:

The chickens are up to their usual tricks, which is to say they spend the day pecking at the dirt and wandering in and out of the coop.

If they haven't seen snow in a few weeks, they tend to forget about it and then the next time it snows they are shocked and spend most of the day trying to decide if it's safe to go outside. If you look beyond all the chicken wire, you can see Laverne (or Shirley, I forget which and they don't seem to know either) standing in the doorway unwilling to venture out into this strange white world.

Her sisters didn't have the same problem,

but you can tell they are disappointed that there are no snacks hiding in the snow.

They are over their solstice blues, though, and egg production is back in full swing.  We are averaging 4 eggs a day and I've started using them as a dinner staple again instead of hoarding them like precious jewels.

Winter has also brought on a manic need to knit.  I spent the first week of the year obsessively cataloging and listing and ordering all the projects I intended to finish this year.  I prioritized them and set monthly goals and printed up a chart to fill in along the way, and when I was done with this New Year's organizational party, I started knitting.

January's goals were to finish Sullivan, which you can see below.

It is all done except for the blocking and-inexplicably- the clasp.  I was sure that I bought a pewter clasp at Hemlock this year, but I can't find it any where. I have also lost track of the magic thingy that helps me thread drawstrings through waistbands after they get pulled out in the wash, which might explain why my children have stopped wearing their sweatpants.  But that's not important.  The point is that I will be going out tomorrow to hunt for a decent clasp or pin for the sweater, and my mother has promised me that as soon as I do this, I will find the pewter clasp.  So all will be well.

Goal 2 was to keep up with the mystery knit-along, and I have done that:

We are now three clues in and I am anxiously awaiting the go-ahead to add more beads.  It turns out that I adore them and I'm starting to wonder what else I could decorate with these glassy marvels.

Goal 3 was to knit another skein worth of yarn into my Ugly Duckling Afghan.  This is the project that I started out of spite when I ordered three skeins of yarn in a color that looks like barf.  I am now in possession of 9 skeins of it and you can see below how much I have left to knit this month. Yay me.

In fact, I am feeling so optimistic about meeting my knitting goals, that I cast on for a bonus project, which is this marvelous little bandana shaped cowl-thingy.

The only thing left on my list (aside from some random weaving, which I have totally neglected this month) is some spinning.  But I still have 5 days left, and I'm off work for a bit, so I might even get that done too.  In the mean time, it is impossibly late and my husband is wondering if I know that my children are still awake.  I wonder what his children are doing?

In Stitches

It's a little cold here:  15 degrees.  Not quite so cold that we couldn't possibly go out (I feel compelled to say this, having just learned that a friend of mine spent the afternoon xc skiing and I don't want to look like a total wimp), but cold enough that we didn't really want to go out.  We were out all day yesterday and we'll be out for large parts of tomorrow, and today, bless its little heart, was the perfect jammy day.

Everyone had a different agenda.  Most of it involved TV and butt-sitting. Mine involved knitting.

It turns out that, if you spend the entire day at it, you can get a whole lot of knitting done.  6,720 stitches, to be exact.  You can also develop a numb spot in your behiney, but that's easily solved by getting up for snacks now and then, which I recommend.

Here is photographic evidence of my diligence today:

This is part of the mystery knit along that I'm doing.  We got the second clue today, which gave me 8 more rows to work.  If you look closely below, you can even see the little blue beads I chose for this yarn.

I'm very fond of them.  I have a second yarn I'm using for a larger version of the same knit along; I'll work on that tomorrow.

Here is the Sullivan sweater.  Yesterday it was two partial sleeves and a body; today I am more than 1/3 of the way through the yoke.  I am just about to start the neck shaping and the sleeve shaping is ongoing, so the rows are getting shorter and shorter, if by shorter you understand that I mean they now have fewer than 264 stitches each.

I would like to be done with this by the end of the week.  Like I said, it got cold here and I could use another sweater. Since it's only 9:00, I'm going to get back to work on it and see if I can knit until my hands cramp.  Shouldn't be long now . . .

In Which I Weave the Place Mats of Bitter Disappointment

I am not yet an expert weaver.  I know this because I have really just started weaving and it's a complicated game and there is a lot left to learn.  So I didn't expect perfection out of this project, which is only the third project I have woven on my floor loom.  At the same time, I chose the project carefully and worked with a user-friendly yarn (3/2 cotton, if you care) and kept careful records to make sure I was following the instructions, even though it took me 6 months to weave six measly place mats. And I was really excited to finish these because I have never, ever had a matching set of six place mats and I'm really tired of only having the option of "artfully mismatched" mats on my table.

So last week, after I got a little impatient with the whole slow cloth experience and decided to bust through the last placemat (and a little bonus mat made out of the extra warp that was, amazingly, still available on the loom), I took a whole whack of pictures.  Because I was really excited.

Here is the last mat; I had already started to cut the warp off the loom, which is why everything looks so saggy.

This is a shot of the cloth beam, which is where the loom stores the roll-o-finished place mats.

Here is the entire length of place mats laid out on my couch.  For reference, the couch is about 82 inches wide.

The next three show the three different patterns that I wove, two mats in each pattern.  All of the patterns are similar.  I know I harped about having matching placemats before, but I couldn't decide which of the three patterns to weave and I am realistic enough to know that I wasn't going to be happy weaving six of the same thing anyway, so I made thematically related placemats instead.

And here is where I prove that I am as much of a rookie as ever:

I have lined up three placemats for reference, one of each of the different patterns. Do we see the problem?

Same color: check.

Same design: check.

Same size:  FAIL!

DUH!!! How could I not realize that 18 repeats of one pattern would not necessarily create the same amount of cloth as 18 repeats of another? I already know that in knitting, different stitch combinations make different sizes, so why did I fail to transfer that knowledge to weaving?  Add in the fact that the open and lacy pattern condenses more than the others after washing (it seems so painfully obvious now), and what I have woven is not a set of six mats, but three pairs of off-white placemats.

BITTERNESS!!

DISAPPOINTMENT!!!!

I can only hope that it is true that we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes.  If so, then at least I am smarter, even if I am incapable of making six matching place mats.

In the mean time, my next weaving goal is to finish the towels I started on my table loom last year.  At least, I think they are supposed to towels.  There is a cryptic note in my plans referring to them as place mats, but I don't think I'm ready to go there just yet, so I will keep thinking of them as towels.  Once I finish them, all three looms will be empty.  I know I will set the rigid heddle loom up for another pair of Bronson Check place mats.  I'm very fond of the first pair that I made, which match each other nicely, and I'm equally keen to use up the cotton that I've accumulated.



I also plan to make some form of towels on the floor loom.  The great news is that the towels don't have to be the same size, since I don't usually keep all of them out at once.  Not that this matters, because the only thing that will vary from towel to towel is the color of the weft, and that is unlikely to cause a whole lot of variation in the size of the towels.  They'll probably look like little clones of each other, and then I'll be really bitter.

Not much else to report.  In knitting, I have finished the first sleeve on my Sullivan sweater.  I started the second sleeve at the barn today, but a few rows in I realized that I had lost a stitch somewhere and had to undo most of my work (though not the i-cord cast on, for which I am extremely grateful since it is a big, hairy pain in the butt to do).  In spinning, I am working my way through two four-ounce bundles of this polwarth roving,



 which my children and my cat



loved so much last year that they couldn't stop touching it.  Each bundle will be used to make a skein of three ply yarn, and I'm on the second the the three bobbins I have to spin from the first bundle.  Not a ton of progress, I admit, but more will come.

Ah, poo!  Who cares anyway; I can't even make matching placemats.

In Which We Fear the Tooth Fairy

Guess who lost his first tooth last weekend? 

 I came home from a walk (it was in the 40s here on New Year's Eve; how weird is that?) and discovered that the tooth had vanished without a trace.  We think it was removed by an apple fritter,* but the evidence--apart from one left over section with some incriminating pink spots on it-- had been eaten and there is no way to know for sure where the little pearly white went.

As soon as the first thrill of losing a tooth wore off, the questions began:

1. When will I get my present?
--Our tooth fairy doesn't give presents, s/he** usually  leaves money.
2. How much will I get?
--I think the going rate is a few bucks.
3. When will I get my money?
--The tooth fairy will leave it under your pillow. Usually you leave your tooth there and there's a trade, but since you don't have the tooth, you'll have to write a note explaining things.
4. Will I see the tooth fairy?
--No one here has ever seen the tooth fairy.  S/he doesn't come until you're asleep.
5. Asleep??  WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! 

Silly me.  I forgot again.  Matty's official position is that he doesn't sleep.  He doesn't care for sleep.  It gives him nightmares.  Instead, he lies down at night and, regardless of the incontrovertible fact that he wakes up in the morning (and never reports any unsettling dreams), he will forever insist that he has not slept.  Which left him in a bit of a pickle.  Sleep and risk the onset of bad dreams, or stay awake and forfeit the hard, cold cash?

He chose to ignore both options and negotiate instead.

1. WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!  I DON'T WANT TO SLEEP!!!!!  I'LL HAVE NIGHTMARES!!!!!!
--Well, I don't know if you have to sleep. Maybe you could just close your eyes like usual.
2. I DON'T WANT TO CLOSE MY EYES!!!!  I MIGHT FALL ASLEEP!!!!
--(Damn, he's figured that out.) Well, the tooth fairy can't come if s/he thinks you'll see her/him.  Couldn't you close your eyes a little bit?
3. (pause) NO!!!!!!!
--Well, do you ever see anything at night?
4. (sniff)  No.
--And what do you do all night?
5. (sniff) I'm just there.
--Maybe you could do that.  The same thing as always, just be there, and no looking for the tooth fairy.  O.K.?
6.  O.K.
--Great.
7. (great big teary brown eyes) But can I sleep in your room?

And it worked.

No sleeping, no nightmares, no illegal tooth fairy sightings, and two dollars under the pillow.  

The tooth fairy even saved me the note:

It says, in essence:  "Dear Tooth fairy:  I lost my tooth and now I can't find my tooth and I wish I didn't lose my first tooth.  From Matthew"

He was too excited to put the money away, so he held it while he watched TV.

A little while later, he decided that no one was coming to take the money back and he agreed to 'deposit' it in the incredibly loud electronic ATM bank we mistakenly got him for Chanukah. The bank keeps track of your deposits, and Matty thought it was so much fun putting the two dollars in (it has one of those little slots that sucks up your bills, just like a vending machine) that he put them in a few more times for good measure and now the ATM thinks he has eight dollars instead of two. For the sake of the general public, I plan to steer him away from a career in finance.

In minor knitting news, I have decided to join another mystery knit along.  I wasn't too pleased with the results of the last one, but this KAL is being run by the woman who designed the Annis shawl/scarfy thing that I just finished and I think it will turn out better.  The new design will involve beads, which is a bit wild and crazy for me.  You can blame the bling on the shortage of daylight.

The pattern is written for two different finished sizes depending on whether you use lace or fingering weight yarn.  I happened to have the right amount of both weights and no capacity to make decisions, so I will be knitting two mystery shawls, because I'm stupid that way.

Bead shopping was an event unto itself.  I tend to knock things over, so I spent my time in the bead shop under great stress and moving veeerryy slloooowwwllyy to avoid any unintended disasters.

Here are the results:

I hope the KAL starts soon.  Now that I'm signed up, I'm tired of waiting for everyone else.


*The tooth-apple connection is an inherited trait.  I lost my first tooth in an apple and so did Nate.  Matty's dietary preferences do not currently include apples, so an apple fritter was the best substitute available.


**The tooth fairy remains a mysterious figure here.  Short, tall? Male, female? Magical or fictitious?  It's all hidden from us.  And what does s/he do with all the teeth? 

Happy New Year

Here is to:

--fresh starts
--new dreams
--big plans
--constant modification of big plans
--achievement of smaller plans
--friends and loved ones
--sunny days
--new experiences and unexpected pleasures
--a good future for our children


Happy and Healthy New Year, from our house to yours!

A Day In Bad Phone Pics

Well, not really a full day.  First, I got up and took care of the animals and there isn't much to photograph there, even if I do love looking at my chickens in the morning.  Then, I took a very leisurely walk on the treadmill, which would make a very boring photo.  Then, I rushed around the house trying to get Isa and Nate and Me ready to go, and I was moving much too fast for any pictures.  Then we took Isa to the orthodontist, and no one wants a picture of the inside of another person's mouth, so that was out.  Then we went to get my contacts where we sat in the waiting room and played with the iPhone, so I couldn't use it to take pictures and then the doctor had a little look at my eyes and it was too dark for pictures, plus who want a close up of my eyeball.  Then we rushed off to the stables and that's where I took a whole bunch of pictures.  All of them were bad, but here they are anyway:

This is Liz, the world's friendliest dog, except that if you start petting her, you are never allowed to stop.  She likes to carry things in her mouth, probably because she's a retriever and they do that.  Today's prize was a brush.

Right here is the reason for all of the pictures:  Mr. Nate is having his first riding lesson.

He started by practicing some walking.

And some more walking.

Now he's on the horse.

Aaaaaand we're walking again.

Still walking.

Walking towards Mommy.

And smiling because this is about the most awesome thing he can think of.

Now we're walking on our own, with Sarah calling instructions from her usual spot at the center of the ring.  

Afterwards we did a whole bunch of other boring stuff, like cleaning up the house and getting ready to go out again because Isabel had two basketball games tonight. In between games we scrambled to buy some dinner and a chocolate cake, and it's boring details like this that remind me why I don't usually feature my day in photos.  But it hardly matters, because my kid is still smiling from his riding lesson.  And the other best part?  His big sis and most-of-the-time best friend Isabel thought it was great too.  She is busy hatching all sorts of plans for their future together as equestrians.   If only I could capture that in a picture too.