…you try not to smother your spouse in his sleep.

It’s been pretty stormy outside the last, well, month, so it’s been hard to get outside and run some energy out of these kids.  And my garden…..well it has exploded, between the squash and the weeds, I just can’t keep up.

We’ve been stuck inside for what feels like the whole summer so far, and I feel bad because school starts up again in 5 weeks.  !!!!!  I can’t believe it’s possible.  We did get a brief respite  – if not from the rain then from the monotony – on the 4th when we spent the day with friends.  I even made the girls festive shirred dresses:

I’m pretty proud.  It took me awhile to finish them because the tensioner on my bobbin casing is missing a screw so I can’t get proper tension on the elastic thread.  I had to zig zag with the machine and then hand thread the elastic through all 12 rows of shirring on both dresses.  But it wasn’t so bad….and it came out well and they were pleased.  (The fabric is called “Red, White and Bold” and it is made by Moda)

The 4th was fun, as I was saying.  We spent the day with our friends, whose children happen to be the same ages as mine and they love playing together.  I planted my face into some horribly- bad – for – you dip (Velveeta plus salsa plus black beans all melted together) and I swear I could have licked the darn bowl.  It rained pretty much all day but the babies fell asleep at the same time and the men folk were in the garage doing men stuff so us gals drank a bottle of wine and got to talk smack for awhile.  It was lovely! ANd even though we got rained on, we still managed to see the fireworks.  I think we found our new 4th of July tradition!

But on to lemons.

After our fab 4th we had Sunday dinner here with my family.  My uncle and grandmother are visiting (my hotel got sold!!!!  For $69k!!!!!!!!  I am so happy that someone is going to do something with it!!!!!!!) so we invited everyone to come over and I fed them some beef & broccoli lo mein and egg rolls.  I made the lo mein, but ordered the rolls.  And I made a yummy lime chiffon cake.  mmmmmmmm.  But I digress.  A good time was had by all, and I look forward to spending more time with the family before grandma heads back north.  Maddie’s back with us again, trying to help me stay sane.  And I need all the help I can get right now!!!  Gas prices, as you all know, still suck.  The economy still sucks.  So we’re stuck home.  And it’s rainy.  And stormy.  And my children are restless. And the worst part of all…….NO TV.  Yes, you read that right.  We are without tv right now.  Oh sure, we get a few crappy local stations that play nothing any of us ever watches.  Otherwise, nada. No Discovery Channel, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network. Oh yeah, we’re suffering.  I think Maddie may be re-thinking the whole “staying here” thing.

I’ve got art projects to keep the kids distracted.  It works, but only to a point.  It’s also messy and hard to supervise when you’ve got a grouchy teething wriggly baby who wants to get into everything.  Point is, we’re doing what we can, but it’s awfully quiet and grumpy around here.  Tv is a crutch, no doubt about it.  I’ve realized that we don’t actually watch it all day, but if it’s not on for background noise and distraction then things can get real uneasy real fast.  Maybe it’s just that it’s our routine and we rely on that routine to keep us structured and productive.  Without it we feel rather aimless and without anchor.  Amazing what a difference a noisy box with pictures can make!  I can’t even seem to get into a good knitting rhythm when it’s so quiet.  Even so, I managed this:

Emily’s socks are done, and I have already gotten about an inch into the next pair I am working on.  These ones are for me (good thing, too, what with all the frustrated energy I am knitting into them!) and they are going to be another pair of the Jaywalkers socks by Grumperina in Socks That Rock, in a colorway called “Little Bunny Foo Foo”.  It’s a chocolate and pink mix.  Hooray!