Whew!!  It has been a very busy, but SUPER awesome week and long weekend to say goodbye to Summer and kick off the Fall!  We started by the annual end of Summer trip to the New York State Fair on Tuesday.  This is always what we do to mark the end of the season, and it's something of a tradition.  At the end of the day, we sit in the same spot and have ice cream from the same vendor and that marks the official end.  We were there ELEVEN hours this year and I was mostly on my feet the whole time, so it was exhausting!  It was a lot of fun though. 

Vinny really loved it.  It's the first year where he could really enjoy it with any cognizance and he thought it was awesome! 

There was something exciting to do everywhere he turned! 

This little baby goat was very cute! 

Now this monstrosity - this is something my entire family just loves, but it just makes me want to vomit every year that I see it.  I mean, it's hundreds and hundreds of pounds of butter!! That's just a vile thought, no matter how you sculpt it. 

By Saturday I had nearly recovered enough to get to the meet up again at Shamballa's and do a little knitting. I didn't accomplish enough to show off anything, but it was a nice time.  The Shamballa Cafe is a very nice little local spot and the owners seem very nice as well.  It's very warm and welcoming and comfortable.  It doesn't have the pretentious air about it that other coffee spots seem to have.  I am sad though that with soccer season kicking off, and a baby on the way, it will probably be a good long while before I'll be able to get back there again.  

With a nice long weekend, I was able to get so much done, and it was wonderful!  It was a little frenzied, so I do suspect it was an early taste of nesting since I have now officially entered the 3rd trimester! There is so much to do before the new baby arrives.

I've been working on some yarn for the store, and some baby alpaca yarn for a custom spin job and I was able to make some really good progress on those items.  The multi-color will be going into the store probably this coming weekend after I get it all measured and weighed.  I think it's a total of 8 ounces, with 2 skeins of the primary standard spun, and a skein of novelty spun for coordinating trim.  The black is for my custom job - 32 ounces! - I have a lot of spinning to do!! 

 With my nesting frenzy, I gave the kids assignments in the kitchen to wash walls, all surfaces, windows, mop floors and get everything spotless.  I even had David wash the ceiling as he was the tallest, and boy did the whole room need it.  Until you do just a giant cleanup like that, you don't even realize how much has been missed in the day to day cleaning! They did a super job and I'm all ready for fall baking now!

Once that was done, I started on a project that I've been meaning to do for some time.  I've got a back splash that goes around my entire kitchen counter and sink area that has long been prepped for tile, and I just haven't had any time to do anything with it.  I've finally gotten around to starting the project, and I'm really excited about it!  I'm doing a mosaic with white tiles, and broken pieces of the same dish pattern that I have.  I can't wait to get it all done, but I think it's going to be a bigger project than I had anticipated.  With helping (supervising!) the kids' cleanup in the kitchen, I wasn't able to get as far as I had hoped, but at least I've gotten started.  It took far too long just to get that far. 

The weekend ended with a nice relaxing picnic at the in-laws house.  Luckily, it was warm and pleasant and the little ones were all able to enjoy the last 'swim' of the season.  Even with all 7 grandkids there, it didn't get chaotic!!  It was really great! 

And so, Summer 2008 is over, and we are now ushering in Fall.  I don't generally look forward to Fall all that much, but I am this year for some reason.  I've got some great things planned!  I'm going to be canning tomato sauce, and apple sauce which I'm really thrilled about!! We'll be going to do our annual apple picking in a few weeks. 

Oh, I haven't talked about the garden lately… it's doing fine, but I've been banned from it.  The hubby says it's too warm out and I'm too pregnant and he doesn't want me doing too much work in the gardens or yard from this point out, so he's handling it.  I keep telling him I can do it, but he's trying to just take good care of me, so I try to just let it go and let him help.  It takes an effort at times, but I probably do need him to temper my fits of work frenzy that I get myself into.  I know I need the balance because I can really overwhelm myself with all the things I try to do.

I'm also really looking forward to the 2008 Fingerlakes Fiber Arts & Craft Festival in a few weeks that I go to every year with my mother-in-law.  I love it, plus we'll be making our usual stop at the Mennonite store for canning supplies and whatever other goodies we may find there.   

After all of that, it won't be too long before it's time to figure out how I'm going to cook the Thanksgiving turkey while in labor with baby #5!!    I think it's going to be a really, really wonderful Fall and I'm so excited to be getting it underway.  So many great things planned, plus a new family member to meet… it's going to be awesome!

Yay for Fall! 

This past Saturday, I finally made it to a meet-up again after nearly 3 years!! I had been going really regularly until Vince was born, and then after he came along, it was just impossible to get out and since I work out of the home, I didn't want to lose any time with him, or pawn him off on someone else.  By the time he was big enough that I felt ok about being gone a couple of hours on Saturday mornings, his sister started soccer which either made it impossible to go because of the games, or because of nap-times or because of something.  Always something. So, it was really great to be able to get together with the local gals again for some knitting and coffee - or a smoothie for me, since I gave up the caffeine when I got pregnant.  

With all of our various family trips this summer, and the gardening work outside, I hadn't had much time to work on the baby socks, so I took those along to work on.  I've got 5 done so far, and enough yarn to do 5 more!  I need to get to work though.  Life is so busy it's hard to find time to get anything done and I definitely want these finished before the wee one arrives!

Back several months ago, I joined Meetup.com to find other knitters and spinners in my area. We seem to be hard to find these days!!

Well, in June 2004 I finally made it to a meeting and just had the BEST time! These are some great ladies. If you are looking for other fiber fanciers in your area, you should really give Meetups a try. Always fun!

This is a picture of me and some of the Meetup ladies. There is Diana with a sock, Sky, Me, and Elizabeth with a hat she made from the Stitch n' Bitch book.