Happy Belated 4th of July! I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe time celebrating our nation's independence. The Cowboy and I had a pretty low key day. We hung out with some friends for a little while, did a little shopping, and then climbed on the roof to watch the fireworks on the golf course behind our house. No big deal right? Wrong. I was terrified to my very core. I was close to tears at one point, clinging to the edge of the ladder and Cowboy's shoulder with my white knuckled death grip. I almost crapped my pants.
This is not an exaggeration. I don't know when this happened, but evidently I'm scared of heights. It's a new one to add to the list. Spiders, sexual assault, geese, snakes AAAAAAAAAAAAAAND heights. Hello, fears. Eat my shit.
Anyway it was worth it. The fireworks were great (if a little far away for us to really fully appreciate). As I sat there and clung to the shingles and prayed to the Virgin Mother that a strong gust of wind wouldn't blow me right off the roof, Blain managed to take pictures.
I like this one. It looks like a flower.
Fireworks pictures aren't very exciting, are they?
Ah, one more for the hell of it and because the Cowboy was really proud of these pictures, and they do look cool a little bigger and it was neat to see them. And then as soon as that last firework went off, I climbed my happy ass off that roof (death grip, again) and went right to bed.In other news:
Our friends Johnny & Tiffany's little girl Syndey turns 1 today (Happy Birthday Syd!) and her party was this past Saturday. Sydney spent much of the day doing this:
Being cute.
It's what she does best. 
Hey! That's the same way I celebrated my birthday! Soul Sisters!I also got to see Ava, daughter of our other friends Jason & Belinda. She was born in March. The little cutie!
In other news: YARN PORN! YARN PORN! May not be appropriate for children under the age of 18. YARN PORN.
This bad boy was less than $30, but more than $28. That's all I will tell you. Get out your calculators and figure it out. But, it was on sale. 25% off. So I splurged. It's still more than I am usually willing to spend on yarn, but it hasn't kept me up at night with worry, so I figure it was worth it.
I have been knitting, even though I haven't been blogging about knitting. I have also been buying ridiculous amounts of yarn. It's out of control. BUT! I'm thinking of Christmas gifts and all that hand knitty goodness that people will unwrap on December 25th and how much money I will save come Christmas shopping time because I bought all my yarn in June & July. I have enough yarn to last me for a very, very long time. Here are some of my newest acquisitions.
This bad boy was less than $30, but more than $28. That's all I will tell you. Get out your calculators and figure it out. But, it was on sale. 25% off. So I splurged. It's still more than I am usually willing to spend on yarn, but it hasn't kept me up at night with worry, so I figure it was worth it. 
This is SILK. SIIIIIILK. It's so soft and shiny and look at that beautiful rust color! AND check out the label (I know, my picture is sideways again, I don't know why), it was like it was taunting me with that label so I had to take it home. No idea what I will make with it. Don't even care. Just like to take it out of the bag, smell it and then rub it on my face. Hey, I told you this wouldn't be appropriate for children. 
The picture doesn't do this yarn justice. It's 100% wool, kettle dyed, and beautiful, deep, rich variegated red. It's also thick in some spots and thin in others. It's heavenly. I am working with it right now (making a scarf) and it's wonderful. I love the way the colors and textures keep changing.With most of the new yarns I buy, I think about what a beautiful scarf it would make. I know I need to break out of my evil scarf knitting ways. This is what 5 years of knitting nothing but garter stitch scarves will do to you. I know there are so many more wonderful things to make with all this beautiful (read: expensive) yarn. I will prevail! Garter scarf no more!
In other news: I like saying In other news.
Damn stupid sideways pictures. Probably I need to resize them so they will appear correctly. Probably I'm too lazy to figure out how to do that.
So I was sick last week and I knit this up for my friend Marlene. She saw my soap satchel from Mystery Knit Nite and wanted one for her "feminine products". Hey, I aim to please. People need a place to put their tampons so that not everyone knows that you are carrying tampons, unless of course your friend announces it to the whole internets.
I also knit these slippers up the other night. What a quick knit. What an ugly pair of slippers. I love them. They are funky and homemade looking and wonderful. They are quite comfortable. I will be making more, and I bought the yarn yesterday to do so (told you, problem). I leave you now with another fireworks picture. Because I don't know how else to wrap this up. I call this one: 'Fireworks'. It's copyrighted. Don't try to steal it.
Seacrest Out. 
Baby Stinky Pants was born Wednesday evening at 11:03pm. Weight: 7lbs 12oz. 20 inches long.
Both mom and baby are doing great! Congrats to Kris and Christy on their new (stubborn, late, slow-to-arrive) daughter!!! Love you all!
"Baby Stinky Pants" was a nickname given to her by her own mother because of an unfortunate incident involving some pants that were stinky. And brown. Let's just say it was a nice introduction into parenthood for the parents. And quite funny to watch for The Cowboy and I. I won't post the pictures here. But I will post a wonderful shot of mommy feeding BSP. This is prior to the Pants becoming Stinky episode.
And one more just because I can and I like this shot because I think she looks Elfin.
Welcome Baby Stinky Pants!
This is Ellie Mae Clampit. Modeling the hat I made for her.
H-Sheezy's boy Gavin. Making sweet sweet love to his ice cream cone.
Cute Kid Number One. Cate. 
Oh yes, friends. That is exactly what you are looking at it and thinking it is. That is me, at the tender age of 1, in a wig. Uh huh. See, in my family, it was a really HEEEELARIOUS tradition to put my grandmother’s wig on all the babies and take pictures. Apparently they thought it would be funny. Later in life. You know. To show future boyfriends and stuff. "Hey look, here’s a picture of her in a wig. Ahahahahaha." What they didn’t realize was that this single incident planted in me, somewhere deep deep down inside, a disease that would not die for nearly 30 years. We call this disease: Bad Hair. 
Here I am last night. Er, uh, I mean, at my second birthday party. Sorry, I thought it was last night because I’m shoveling cake in my mouth like it’s going out of style. Which is NOT something I did last night. Sorry for the confusion. That is my grandmother’s hand there about the snatch the plate away from me. Hold it, Granny! I ain't done yet. So here I am on my 2nd birthday. As you can see I’m wearing a bonnet. Seriously Mom? A freaking bonnet? I mean I know it was the 70’s and all, but a BONNET???? And in case you can’t tell from the picture, my bangs pretty much started in the back of my head. In fact, I think I was all bangs. There was no hair behind that bonnet. Just bangs. 
Ok, maybe I lied. Maybe there was hair behind that bonnet. And maybe that hair was a baby mullet. And maybe I am ashamed of that. But at least I wasn’t sporting some Princess Leia bun-tails AUNT MARLIE. Yeah, I just called you out on my blog. How ya like me now? 
Oh this is a gem. I actually think I look a little crazy in this picture. And I mean that in a good way. Like I hope my kid looks like that. Because I love the way I look in this picture. Mischevious. Sneaky. Sly. Watch out! But that hat isn’t much better than the bonnet. But at least it goes with the nightgown in a very Laura Ingalls Wilder kind of way. 
A personal favorite of mine. Whoever got me up that morning couldn't be bothered to comb my hair. Look at the smirk on my face. I was a little wise cracker even at the age of 4. And I will tell you what. 26 years later and I still Enjoy Coke. 
Why, I do believe we’ve come to the “Self Haircut” portion of my childhood photographs. Everyone has one of these. Every kid, at one point or another, gets a hold of the scissors and gives themselves a little trim. Have you ever noticed that like 90% of the time it happens RIGHT BEFORE picture taking time? It’s like we have a sixth sense about that as children. Also, I think my mom did the whole pony tail thing to detract attention from my ridiculously adult sized ears that I was sporting here at 5 years old. 
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? About me wearing a lot of shorts that rode up back in the day? Yes, those were shorts. I loved them. I wore them every chance I got. Seriously. Ask my friend Sarah. She will tell you. But let’s focus on the hair. I used to pray to God that I would wake up and be like DJ Tanner. I would live with Uncle Jesse and Joey, I would have a cute little baby sister who said such witty things as "You got it dude" and I would have the most magical mall hair ever. I was not given good mall hair. My hair is fine. There’s a lot of it, but it doesn’t hold a curl to save my life and it’s as straight as a pin. Do you see my sad, pathetic attempt at mall hair here? If you look closely, you can see it. That is all my hair would do, and I assure you I used plenty of White Rain to try and make it higher. The only blessing I can count is that I was born late enough that I only caught the very tail end of mall hair. By the time I was in high school, mall hair was out.
And this is what was in. I don't even know what to say about this except that I think even I realized at the time that my hair didn't look good. I can remember going to my hairdresser and asking for bangs and telling her in no uncertain terms that I only wanted "a few bangs". I ended up with this mess. Thems bangs started WAY back in my head. There was nothing "few" about them. They were huge. And thick. And this was durring my dye-my-hair-really-really-really-really-dark-brown phase. This backfired once and I ended up with black, nearly purple, hair. I don't have a picture of that. Not this time. Maybe some other time.
Ah Prom Hair. Everyone's had it. It's not such a big deal. Check out that dress, though. I loved it. I got it from Winkelman's. I think it was a size two. Pardon me while I go shoot myself.
Our last entry in this edition of Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow, comes to us from the year 2000. It was around this time I thought it would be a good idea to chop all my hair off and dye it bright red. I didn't realize then, as I do now, that I have a very large and rather unusually shaped head. Cutting all your hair off and dying it an unnatural color will emphasize that. You know what else happens when you cut all your hair off and dye it an unnatural color? It takes a really really REALLY long time to grow it back out. Painfully long. (PS, Hi 
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is JULY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and just barely)
That's right. The Cowboy and his BFF Johnny got together last night to make pickles.
I tried not to think too much about the completely obvious and slightly disturbing significance of the phalic shaped vegetable that they had chosen to work with, and just enjoy the fact that there were 2 males in the kitchen-a-cookin' (and a-drinking, but what did you expect?). 
There will be no tutorial today about pickle making. I didn't help. I sat on my happy ass and played Rock Band (solo tour, thank you very much) and then read and went to bed. Oh, and I tried to take some pictures of the process, but these boys were not having it. They were not interested in being photographed and blogged about. Well tough noogies. Here is The Cowboy, being very uncooperative. As usual. Also, he needs a hair cut. 
A more immature person might take this opportunity to make some sophmoric jokes regarding men and pickles, and whathaveyou. I am not such a person. But I will show you some pictures of our mutant cucumbers, and you can perhaps form some of these jokes in your own mind. Feel free to leave them in my comments, if you'd like. Because while I may not make the jokes, that doesn't mean I can't enjoy them.
Our stash of cukes. Last year we had a ton of great cucumbers, but for some reason this year we got crap.
On the left: Gigan-cumber. On the right, a normal cuke.
Look! The Jam Helpers were back and eager to pose for a picture and help with the pickle making. 
Limes? No. Our mutant cukes.
I'm an idiot.
Hobbies: knitting, blogging, blogging about knitting, listening to Neil Diamond, cooking things in my crock pot, laundry (this isn’t really an interest of mine, but I do it so darn much it sure seems like a hobby), taking naps, making lists, drinking red wine, wearing socks. I guess wearing socks isn't really a hobby, is it? Knitting socks is a hobby. But wearing them? Not so much. So technically I should move the wearing socks bit to the 'likes' catergory below. But I'm not going to. Nobody's the boss of me.
Likes: avocado, swiss cake rolls, cold beer, pineapple, old French music, rocks, yarn, the smell of old books, Vera Bradley bags, show tunes, Bill Murray, flip flops, John Denver songs, goat cheese, rain, views that take your breath away, the smell of lake water and gasoline, the song "Roll me Away" from Bob Seger (it's on my mp3 player right now, ok? but I still love it), playing board games, ice cold Coca-Cola from a can, popsicles, dancing like the white girl I am.
Dislikes: mustard, washing dishes, being sweaty, painting my toe nails, Brendan Fraser, hairy backs, having my feet touched, people who say 'supposably', people who misuse your/you're or there/they're/their, having to blow dry my hair, changing batteries.
What my friends are saying:
