books, outings, and projects

are what has been keeping me off the blog! 24 hours a day is all we're allotted? Really?

Anyway, first books. Harry Potter, of course! I was very pleased with how it all ended. I'm certainly not putting any spoilers here, but if you're into that kind of thing, check here. That was finished on Saturday, and I did not get to reread it immediately, as is usually my custom (first time through at a gulp, second time to catch what I missed), because my sister borrowed it. I did get to read the Yarn Harlot's first book, which my mother had brought over for me. So two great books in a week - not bad.

We've also gone on a few outings this week. I enjoy the word "outings," probably because of my deep affection for Mary Poppins. On Monday we went to the Capron Park Zoo - not the biggest zoo in the area, but much less crowded and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. We saw kangaroos,

lions,

and llamas, among other things.

But what impressed my children the most? A wooden box shooting bubbles into the path.

Um, I could have done that at home.

Tuesday we took a recommendation from Amy and went to the Beavertail Lighthouse Museum. The park it was in was beautiful, and the weather was just perfect. We stopped at the Jamestown library and its playground as well, and the kids had a great time.

Lastly, we went to see a friend's band play. They rocked. It was especially cool because they played at the local Arts in the Park, which I remember going to every week in the summer as a kid.

Sorry the only picture I had of the whole band has a prominently featured ass. He did the foot-on-the-drums thing a lot.

As for projects, I wish I could say it was mostly knitting, but I'd be full of crap if I did. There's been some knitting - I cast on a Baby Surprise Jacket that will either be for Baby Sister or the niece/nephew-to-be, depending on what size it comes out. The pattern is both as fun and as much of a leap of faith as I thought it would be. The major thing I have worked on, however, is organizing the pictures on my computer. See, I used to do scrapbooking, before I knit. Big Brother has a pretty big scrapbook of his babyhood, Little Brother has a somewhat smaller one, and Baby Sister was born after I learned to knit. Poor kid. So I had tried to organize the multitudes of pictures on the computer by subject, intending to print them a bit at a time and scrapbook as I went. Each kid got a folder, special occasions like camping trips or Christmas had their own folders, and so on. But when you get to the point where a single folder has over a hundred pictures in it, it's not terribly well organized, is it? So I decided to rearrange them by simply giving each month its own folder and moving things around accordingly. It is taking a truly stupid amount of time, and I sincerely hope finishing it will be satisfying. Ugh - I don't even want to talk about it anymore.

So, that's what's been occupying my time this week. Hopefully I will get to take some shots of the BSJ and put them up this weekend.