Our week is going well.  We’re kinda gettin’ the knack of this “Dana out of town” thing.  Each time gets a bit easier (and I’m sure the God of the universe will make me regret that statement tomorrow).  Lets talk about Works in Progress….some yarn related, some not.

Work in Progress: The Ugly Pink House

No news.  I have started looking for another house.  So far, no luck.  But I did enjoy the variety of really bad real estate photos and really bad real estate descriptions.  As a tip, if you are listing your house please don’t….

– Tell me that Mrs. Clean lives there.  I don’t care who lives there.  This is silly. Quit it.

– Show me only pictures of you and your family fishing off your dock.  It makes me think that something is really, really wrong with the house if you won’t even show me a picture of it.

– Try to use all the euphemisms for “short sale”.  If it is a short sale can you just scream “short sale”.  I don’t have time to wait for another delightful short sale so lets just save us both some time, shall we?  There’s no pretty way to say it so just. say. it.

– Show me a picture of your horse-sized dog lounging in the middle of the living room.  It doesn’t help your listing…really…it doesn’t.  Nothing against dogs but if he’s bigger than a small pony….

Work in Progress: Voting

Okay…who called the Supervisor of Elections and gave them a heads up that I was on the war path?

No sooner did I post about this little mix up and the little absentee ballot appeared in my box.  You know the one…. the absentee ballot they swore I never asked for…..the absentee ballot that they swore I didn’t have a confirmation number for….the absentee ballot that they swore it was too late for me to request… THAT absentee ballot.

I am now officially a responsible member of society, I have cast my ballot and I stayed out of prison since I did not go into a government office yelling and screaming like a lunatic.

I think we can officially call this little task “complete” and mark it off the list.

Work in Progress: Knitting 

(Warning….bad photography ahead)

It doesn’t look any bigger but I have worked on the Auburn Camp Shirt

Auburn Camp Shirt

I screwed up so some time was spent doing a little…ahem…redneck engineering.

I’ve also cast on the Tulip Socks….also by  Chrissy Gardner….also from the same issue of Interweave Knits.

Tulip Socks knit from the Teal color of Claudia Handpainted

This sock pattern is challenging a bit to me and I may move it over to 2 circs.  Trying to control 5 dpns and a cable needle is a bit to wiggly for me.

Work in Progress: Carding 

Yeah, I know.  I washed a whole fleece and now it has to be carded.  I don’t wanna talk about it.  Progress: Zippo.

Work in Progress: Exploring

When we were in Washington I realized that Anna Grace and I had gotten out the habit of just going exploring, seeing what we could see.  I made a commitment that we would get back into the swing of things and thought I’d start with a trip to the Dudley Farm homestead.  I scheduled it, scheduled folks to go with us, etc., etc. and plans just kept being changed and such.  I finally decided that taking these trips is something that Anna Grace and I should do together since the only schedule we’ll have to coordinate is our own and we’re committed to making the journey, not just trying to “fit it in”.  So today AG had more of a cough than I thought was passable for school so I kept her home. And since this little cough wasn’t slowing her down one bit….off we went.

The Dudley Family Farm State Park and National Historic Site

We drove about 2 hours north of here to a little town called Newberry.  The state park is open for self guided tours for a few days a week.  The farm is just the basic set up for a homesteader.  It was educational and a lot of fun as well.

Dudley Family House…Cracker Style

Sweet Potato Cellar

Dudley Family Kitchen…in a separate building than the house

Anna Grace doing laundry…the old fashioned way

Turkeys

Hello Mr. Mule

We had a great time, I’m so glad we went and I feel like we are well on our way to getting back to our exploring adventures.  In addition, when you combine our trip to the farm plus our letterboxing today, we have seen a lot of animals.  Here’s the totals:

1 chicken

1 mule

1 donkey

1 horse

6 cows

1 sheep

5 turkeys

A metric ton of goats

1 Llama

2 deer

A small army of squirrels

Work in Progess: Letterboxing

The main reason we started letterboxing relates to the exploring topic above.  I wanted us to get out, do something different, see new things.  Just because we don’t have mountains here doesn’t mean there aren’t beautiful and interesting things to see.  So… we started letterboxing.  This week, we have found 5 letterboxes and one hitchhiker.  Our letterboxing today took us all the way up to the Suwannee river.  Here’s the weeks progress in review….

We found Mystical Magnolia in Magnolia Park and that box had a wonderful hiding place.  We then headed over to the Winter Garden Dog Park and found 2 nice boxes that were easy for Anna Grace to find and helped her get excited about this again.

Later in the week we headed over to Lake Louisa State Park.  Although this park is basically in my backyard, I had never visited before our little search for “Happy Hopper”.  There are several lakes in the park and the place is just beautiful.  We also enjoyed hiking on the nature trail.

First we stopped at Dixie Lake

 

 

 

 

 

From here we headed to the nature trail and in search of our Happy Hopper letterbox and then headed over to Lake Louisa.

 

 

 

Today’s letterboxing adventures first took us an hour north of the Dudley Farm to the banks of the Suwannee River (town: Branford).

Way Down Upon the Suwannee River

 

Playing by the River

 

Old Man in the Tree

 

This letterboxing site is listed as Little Blue Marble and I can’t recommend it enough.  It takes you to a park in Branford called Ivy Memorial Park and there are so many little things to discover here.  Including… a shipwrecked steamboat that is out in the water.  You can’t see it unless the water level is lower but it’s out there.  I wanna get a canoe and row out to see it.  The Suwannee is (supposedly) clear enough that you can see it if you paddle over it.

Besides the great location this was a cool stamp and …. we found a hitchhiker!  Lots of fun.  I almost couldn’t get the letterbox opened.  It was shut so tight I had to approach these 2 guys dumping logs into the river.  Thankfully they were nice enough to open it for me.

From here we started heading home but took a detour through the old Ocala downtown area and headed to Veteran’s Memorial Park. (Raise  your hand if you’re shocked that I went to a cemetery today.   Oh…hello there… you must be new.  We’re always traipsing through cemeteries.  You’ll get used to it.)

Plaque honoring military nurses

 

Monument to Floridians who have received the Medal of Honor

 

We easily found the letterbox which was a nice flag stamp.   Being here gave me a good opportunity to talk to Anna Grace about the symbols of our country: the bald eagle, the flag, etc.

Work in Progress:  Anna Grace’s fine motor skills

We started Handwriting Without Tears this past week (the pre-k version) and she’s doing well.  But…bonus… I discovered that if she uses the triangular crayons her skill level goes way up.  Maybe we won’t have to restart occupational therapy afterall.  That would be lovely.

Thus concludes our “works in progress” for this week.  We’ve had a fun week, fun adventures.  So…what have you been doing this week????