Once again, ten days

Since I posted, that is. It's been fairly busy. Daughter Carmen and her friend Mark came last Thursday and stayed until Monday morning. They're from New Jersey, and Mark has a boat there, so they were keeping a pretty close eye on the storm. They met Brady for the first time and enjoyed the other grandchildren, as well. And of course, Lexi and Rose spent as much time as possible with Grammy.

We celebrated Rose's seventh birthday, and this time it was Kyra's turn to have the long, pouty face as Rose opened her gifts.

Sara had taken Rose to WalMart to select her cake - she liked the one that came with a crown. It was actually supposed to go on top of the cake, but the writing didn't leave enough room. The girls had fun putting the crown on everyone's heads, including Lily's and Brady's.

Carmen and Mark took the northern route home on Monday - through Ohio and Pennsylvania. That way they entered New Jersey near Trenton and only had twenty or thirty miles to Carmen's condo. She said they didn't hit any road closures until about a mile and a half from her place; then they only had to turn around and enter the development by the other entrance. Mark's boat is still afloat.

New Window

Wednesday, the Safelite technician came and installed a new rear window in my car.

It was a beautiful day, so he was able to pull the car out of the carport and have plenty of room to work.

Later I drove to Paducah, doing some errands on the way and others when I got there. I didn't see my knitting friends as I had hoped to, because Panera was closed for some reason. Then I went to Metropolis and had supper with Alyssa and her family.

About 11 a.m. Thursday, as I was working on the computer, it went off. I figured that the electric company, who have been replacing poles and wires in the area, had interrupted the power temporarily. I shifted over to the sofa and started knitting. About an hour and a half later, I realized that the clock radio in the weaving room was working and registered the same time as the non-electric clock by the computer. So I checked the breaker box - one breaker had flipped. It was the same one that had given a problem before. I called the electrician, but told him it was NOT an emergency - only a few ceiling lights and outlets off. He came yesterday and disconnected the line running out, underground, to the shed. He realized that he should have done that when he was here a couple of weeks ago, so he didn't charge me anything.

Later yesterday, I went into Mayfield to return books to the library and attend the 'Fall Festival' at Rose's dance school. Some of the students danced, and then there were games (you had to buy tickets - it was a fund-raiser, after all) and hotdogs and soda.

Rose is in there somewhere. Here she is beforehand with Kyra, who is taking gymnastics this year instead of dance.

And, of course I had to get a picture of Lily. At 3 1/2 months, she looks huge compared to Brady, whom I saw on Wednesday.

It's had to get good pictures of little ones, but I think this is the best of the several that I took. Looks like she needed to be repositioned in that stroller, doesn't it?

Big Game Hunter

Great-granddaughter Lexi spent the weekend with her father and went deer hunting with him. She got one!

The tattooed man behind her is her father, Andy. Now her grandfather needs to make special deer jerky for her from her own deer. Her grandmother refuses to cook any game, but PawPaw makes wonderful jerky. Maybe she'll share some with me.

I wonder if she helped field-dress the deer?

Edited later to add: Lexi called me this afternoon to tell me about her deer. It is a doe, about 160 pounds. She said she refused to help field-dress it, but she did hold the flashlight - I guess that's helping, too. She said her mom will get the shoulders, and Pawpaw will make jerky for her. I forgot to ask if her dad, grandfather or cousin Jake (age 12) got anything.

Our Gang

That's how my daughter titled her email message when she sent me this picture; one of the girls had posted it on Facebook.

I love it! My two granddaughters and their children. Alyssa and Brady were just home from the hospital. their daughter/sister Alexis is 11 - nothing like raising your own babysitter! Sara is holding Lily (3 months) with Rose (7 years) beside her. Lily was one ounce less at birth than Brady was. She's grown a lot in three months, hasn't she?

And Alyssa says this is what Brady looks like after he has nursed.

Very contented! I told her to put some clothes on him - it's getting cold. She said they both like the skin-to-skin feel while he nurses, and that he starts looking for a nipple as soon as she takes his clothes off.

Do you think he has enough hair? That's par for the course in our family; I don't think we've had any bald babies.

Knitting:

I've finished two shawls in the last few days. They were both started in September.

 This one is done with some wool I spun several years ago. The top triangle is undyed, the dark stripe near the bottom is colored wool dyed with green synthetic dye, and the rest of it was dyed with onion skins, I think. That medium-value stripe in the middle started out gray, I believe, and the rest was white. The shawl pattern is called 198 yds of Heaven. I don't usually use other people's patterns, and when I do, I don't make them exactly as written. This one was meant to be scarf or shawlette size, but I wanted it larger, so I used a larger needle and did at least one extra repeat of the pattern. It is a full-size shawl. I could probably make it even larger, but I did only a gentle blocking.

This one is not real large, but it is as large as I could make it with the one large skein of sport weight acrylic that I found in the yarn that was donated to my church for the knitting group. I started at the bottom with enough stitches for one repeat of the fan and feather pattern I used. I then added one stitch each end, every row, adding more repeats of the stitch pattern as I had enough stitches. I like the wavey edge at the top; it is simply a result of the stitch pattern.

Take the bad along with the good

That's what 'they' say you need to do, isn't it?

First the bad: Friday my neighbor's lawn mower threw a stone at my car and this is the result.

I no longer have comprehensive insurance on the car, and Robbie's homeowners insurance said they would not pay since it didn't happen on his property. Even if they would, the damage is less than the $500 deductible. At first I said something about going halves, and he was OK with that, but then I thought that would be awfully chintzy of me, since he's been mowing a large part of my yard for several years just because he likes doing it.

Now the good:
My great-grandson, Brady Ray Ragsdale was born this morning at 11:33. He weighed 8 pounds, 7 ounces and was 18 inches long.

This morning, before he was born, while she was in labor, Alyssa arranged for her first husband's parents to pick me up when they took Lexi to the hospital to see her little brother and then to return home (end of fall break - back to school tomorrow). They were going to pick me up about 2:30, but when Brady came earlier, she was jumping up and down, begging to go right away. I was ready, so that was OK with me. Beverly and Bobby consider Alyssa their daughter, so they were just as interested in seeing the baby as anyone else. (They are also very nice people and took me to a store to get bread and toilet paper after we left the hospital.)

Lexi and Devin got to hold their baby brother before any of the rest of us did. It was the first time Devin ever held a baby, but Lexi's an old hand at it, because she has several younger cousins. Alyssa had bought T-shirts for them saying "Big Sister Lexi" and "Big Brother Devin" and a onsie saying "Little Brother Brady". She gave the kits the shirts in the hospital room and they put them on right away.