Summer Fiber

One of the inevitable signs of summer around here is the dog hair. With three hairy dogs, there's always a lot of "free fiber" floating around. We don't have dust bunnies; we have dust buffaloes. But at this time of year, it gets a little crazy.

This is the result of ten minutes of brushing one dog. Bear in mind, that's a 110 pound dog, so you can imagine the size of the pile.

Good thing she's such a patient girl!

Now what shall I do with all this?

What Summer Looks Like Around Here

Summertime...

...and the livin' is easy!

And a little busy. The first week of summer vacation tends to mess with my schedule a bit, until the old muscle memory kicks in and I remember how to deal with having kids home every blessed minute of the day. We've been having lots of fun: playing with friends, swimming, shopping, lunching, going to movies, reading Harry Potter.

Yesterday we went on a field trip to explore San Diego's Old Town, which is really pretty cool. We visited a 170 year old Spanish hacienda, a more modest adobe house, San Diego's original one-room school house ("boys and girls playing together--eight lashes"), the original, teeny tiny "offices" of the first local newspaper (still going strong), the office of the "dentist" (who was also the barber and the surgeon--heaven help us), the old Catholic graveyard, and--best of all--our primary destination, the Whaley House, described as "the most haunted house in America." Stories abound of strange and ghostly experiences, and the boys took their cameras in the hopes of capturing a ghost on film, but alas, all we saw were a whole lot of live people. But we enjoyed good Mexican food, root beer floats, and freshly pulled taffy, so they weren't too disappointed.

(What do you think: does that bright blotch on the wall to the right have a face?)

I have been knitting, too. A lot, actually. I've finished the ribbed lace shrug, Sahara, a mystery pullover, and Sligo, but it was over 100 degrees today for the second day in a row, and I'm just not willing to model sweaters during daylight hours. It is supposed to be even hotter tomorrow. Thank God for air conditioning, though I shudder to think what the electric bill is going to be this month.

The kids start day camp on Monday, so I'm hoping to get back to a more reasonable schedule and catch up on my FO blogging next week. Stay tuned!