What Not To Say When Your Husband Is Driving

Do not start off a statement with an extended arrrrghh just when he has pulled out of the driveway. This will make him pull over wondering where the problem is. Potential accident, disaster, sickness. Whereas really it was an extended excited arrrrgh followed by there's the sea. (You can see the sea from our driveway - it makes me sooo happy.)

Some People Move Houses - We Move Countries

We haven't moved much since we've been married. In fact we've only moved house in the same city once and that was because we started off in a rented apartment (with rented furniture). But when we do move, we have to change the country.

A few days after getting married we moved from the UK to the US; 9 years later we moved from the US to Canada; and 6 1/2 years after that we moved back to the US.

In addition to everything involved with moving house there is all the additional paperwork for moving to another country. For people, belongings and animals. Except as we were driving this time we did not need any paperwork for the cats. Good thing as their vaccination records were not with all the other paperwork I had for crossing the border. (Put in a safe place that I would never have thought of looking if asked.)

As with our other moves, we have moved to a place where neither of us know anyone, although hubby has lived in California before; northern California and now we're in southern California. One big difference about this move is the time of year. The last two moves have been at the beginning of January to places that have winter; a shock to the system but at least you know what you are getting. Having moved here in the summer, I can't imagine that it will not be cold in the winter.

Moving countries presents more challenges than just extra paperwork. Suddenly there is a gap in the records of your life. Credit and employment history shows no activity. To be able to live normally, deposits have to be paid to obtain services and an explanation of every aspect of your life has to be provided to obtain a mortgage. But at last we have a house, internet and cell phones.

Let the good times roll.

A Day In San Francisco

How To Help Your Child Become An Adult

Last month I passed on a parenting tip. But how do you know your parenting skills have worked? After all it is easy to make your child think you are awesome but how does this translate into real life. One sign is when they grow up to be independent human beings making their own way in the world, obtaining information to make decisions secure in the knowledge that they can do this as you have been behind them encouraging and teaching.

And you feel so proud of them when it works out as this example shows.

We are in California and our son is in Calgary. So as I am an awesome mother I sent him a food parcel. The dear child considerately emailed me he had received the notice to pick up the parcel from the post office and he would do so after work. He then asked me what time they close!

One of us needs some work in the growing up to be independent department.

July

I thought I had loads of projects to show you that I had completed in July but I have one to tell you about. Agh, what happened? Well, despite knitting a bunch it still doesn't translate into completed projects. And in July I completed one pair of socks and almost another pair. This pair is technically completed but I want to lengthen the foot so I am not counting them as finished yet.

So here they are, the one finished item. I started the first one on 28 June as the designer - Anne Campbell was a featured designer in the SKA group for June and I had previously queued this pattern. The yarn is Fame Trend by Marks & Kattens and was a Christmas gift from hubby.

After completing the first sock, I decided to make the second sock with the same colour sequence. Except this ball of yarn was dyed in such a way that it was not possible to make two matching socks. Even where I found the same colours, it was plyed with a darker colour.

I mentioned in a previous post that there were two projects close to completion that I could finish. Well that didn't happen and now I have three projects close to completion. We'll be house sitting in a couple of weeks so if my memory holds up that would be a good time to finish projects.

Ignoring those projects I have just one thing on the needles which is a beaded shawl. Because I have all this time to knit. Huh!