Wagons, Ho...

In case you were wondering about the whiny tone of my last entry, I wrote it while trapped in my house because our car had imploded rather spectacularly and loudly that weekend and was being towed away to the mechanics as I typed. Things looked dire, and our bank account was hemorrhaging in a scary manner with each passing minute.

The car repair was more than we could afford, of course, and it seems likely the rotten machine will need more repair within the week - but it's running again, at least for the moment, and it cost less than buying a new (used) car. (Big sigh of relief from the audience, thank you, thank you...)

Looks like I'll be able to go to the retreat, at the very least.

The trip to the Black Hills is still up in the air, but I hope... I hope... well, I hope to pet a prairie dog and gawk at a mammoth skeleton on my 50th birthday, is what I hope. We'll see.

In the meantime, the Teenaged Thug is entering his second week of his Freshman Junior** year of college, and seems to be doing pretty well, from the tiny window of information I'm allowed from my lowly parental position. In other words, he breezes in late at night, kisses (or worse, scroofles) my head as he passes by, and answers all questions with some version of "Fine. Fine. It's going fine, mom," while scurrying off to hole up in his bedroom.

I should know better than to ask. But I can't help myself. I'm a mother.

On the knitting front, I've got the neon orange lace socks done. Picture that in your head - and then try to forget you did, before your brain explodes. It's just as tacky as it sounds. Of course, I absolutely love them. There's no accounting for taste, especially mine.

I am following that feat up by knitting a pair of socks for Scott that raise the retina-damage-factor significantly from the bar set by my brilliant attempt to warn hunters away from my clodhoppers. I'm using some colorfully marled and striped Trekking Maxima (the orange mentioned above was also of the Maxima line; go for the gusto when you are lucky enough to have a husband who isn't afraid of color, I say), and then I'm adding my own little Barbara Walker-inspired twist on the whole thing.

I can't wait to get my stupid camera fixed. You have GOT to see this...

**This refers to the Thug's particular situation, in which he is graduating from high school with enough college credits to start his official college career as a Junior. More on that at some point in the future. This post is long enough!