An Unexpected Dream Come True

Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose parents held, briefly, season tickets to the local concert venue known as Pine Knob. That summer, those parents went to several concerts at Pine Knob, while the little girl and her younger brother stayed the nights of the concerts with their grandparents.

Actually, this is a true story.  Late summer, 1978.  The little girl was me.  I was six.  Bob Seger was my most favorite musician of all. I loved to listen to my parents' records, especially Bob Seger ones.  If they didn't want to listen to music, I would beg to be allowed to plug the headphones into the turntable and listen all by myself while everyone else watched TV or did other things.

One evening,my parents were going to Pine Knob to see Bob Seger.  I didn't know this until they dropped my brother and I off at our grandparents (whom we loved to spend the night with), and Grandma asked who was doing the concert that night.  Bob Seger, they told her. 

Bob Seger!  That changed everything. I did not want to spend the night with Grandma and Grandpa.  I wanted to go see Bob Seger!  Those of you who are parents can imagine the scene that ensued: stubborn 6 year old girl not wanting her parents to go to the Bob Seger concert without her.

In fact, I still remember chasing my parents' car down the (not terribly busy) road beside Grandpa and Grandma's house, crying and yelling for them to come back and take me to the concert, Grandma running behind trying to catch me before another car came along and ran me over!!! You could say it was one of those events that leaves a lasting impression on a child's life.

Fast forward 41 years.  Historically, DH and I have not been concert goers.  Our lifestyle and budget hasn't included many live performances of anything, especially music, unless our children were the ones performing.  I can count on one hand how many 'real' concerts I've been to in my life.

Bob Seger went on tour again this year.  His final one, it seems (or, at least that's how it was billed, and at 74, you wonder how many concerts he has left to sing).  Did I want to go?  Badly.  Extremely badly. Did we have money to go? No.  This summer, this whole year actually, has seemed like one surprise financial challenge after another.  So I resigned myself that I would never see Bob Seger in concert.

But then something happened, that at the time seemed completely unrelated to concert going.  DH had an unusual work assignment that had him out of the country for nearly three weeks.  And there wasn't a whole lot of lead time to prep for it. Saying that I found this sudden (and, at the time, length undefined) departure traumatic would be an understatement. We're not talking a normal work trip that has him 2-3 time zones away for a week or maybe two. We're talking other side of the world, days and nights reversed, not sure when he'll be back or if we'll even be able to talk on the phone daily.

Well, we got through that.  Maybe someday I'll even write a post about the experience.  And once DH came back, and spent about four days recuperating (while maintaining his normal work day) from both the jet lag and the ungodly long work hours put in while in this other country, he found out he'd earned some extra special recognition at work.  Some sort of points redeemable for goods kind of thing.

Here's where these two seemingly unrelated stories blend. 

One of the options for points redemption was tickets to the concert venue DTE Energy Music Theater.  Formerly, in my childhood, known as Pine Knob. Can you guess where this is going?

YES!! DH and I went to the Bob Seger concert on our wedding anniversary in June!  For free!!  (Well, for a lot of those "you done good" points he'd gotten at work.)

We had awesome seats, the below picture was from where I stood, not even zoomed in. We were that close to the stage. 

I had just the most fantastic time. And a long held dream of mine came true. I might not be 6 (I'm 47), but for a while, I was a little girl watching her most favorite musician--he has always remained my #1-- on stage and listening to him sing (and me signing along) the songs of my youth. What an unexpected dream come true, in the strangest of plot twists.

I got to see Bob. At Pine Knob.

A Chapter Ended

The California Horse has returned home.  Well, to his owner's parents, at least.  Not to California, where he originally came to Michigan from in May 2017, but to the farm in Oregon they had purchased since then.

After a little more than two years of leasing him, the time came to say goodbye.  I most definitely miss him.  Not just the daily routine we had, no it's more than that. I think that possibly I have felt a deeper connection with this horse than any of the ones I owned.

In the early morning hours last Wednesday, as the sun was rising, I met the horse shipper at the barn.  The California Horse's owner had made all the travel arrangements with them, I just needed to provide his paperwork for interstate travel, and have him and his gear ready to load onto the big trailer that would carry him away to his retirement out West.

This horse has offered me the chance to take my riding to a whole new level, and even as he was leaving, I again got a new experience: loading a horse onto a big horse van.  I was the one to lead him up that ramp on the side of the trailer, and stand with him while the stall partitions were put into place around him.  Other than snorting a little, and standing at attention with his head up, reminding me just how huge an 18 hand horse is, he was very good.

He waited patiently for everything to be secured, the ramp to be stowed, and the door shut.

Then the chapter where he and I share life together closed, and he left for the new chapter of his.

Goodbye, California Horse.  Thanks for the experiences, the knowledge and the memories I will carry with me forever!

(Post Script: I got a text, about 48 hours later, that he had arrived to Oregon safely and was settling into his new home.)

Yarn Along: August; socks & socks & a shawl

Happy Yarn Along Day!  I'm excited to join Ginny for this month's Yarn Along.  For some reason, it just seems like it was forever since the July edition.

There's been several car trips for me in the past month, which means lots and lots of sock knitting.  Because socks are such an easy, portable project that fit (mostly) right in my lap, I can while away those hours as a passenger quite productively.

I finished the On The Fence socks I talked about last month.

And I so loved doing colorwork socks that I immediately found a new pattern and yarn combo for another pair.  Might be selfish, but I'm keeping both the On The Fence socks and my current project, Christmas Eve socks, for myself.  Kind of handy that the other female members of the family (K3 and my mother withstanding) have larger feet than me. So, if I want to keep a particular pair, I just don't knit any longer of a foot than I need my personal socks to be.  :0)  I do have another color combo of yarn in the wings for a second pair of Christmas Eve socks for someone else, if I have time to get them knit yet this year.

But for the ones that are mine, all mine, I am using two colorways of Knit Picks Stroll Tweed: dove heather and forest heather.  The colors are gorgeous together, better than what the photo makes them look.

I am nearly finished with the blue and grey Beachcomber Shawl that I mentioned in last month's yarn along post. I had started it, only to find I was using a size 6 needle rather than a size 8 (darn tiny numbers on those interchangeable tips!), so I ripped it out and started again with the correct size.  It's a very fast knit and I only have two rows of the final lace chart to complete, then it's on to the picot bind off!  

Once that is off the needles, I have in mind some grandchildren-sized sweaters to knit before Christmas.  I think I can get three little sweaters done. . . the biggest one will be a girl's size 8, and the smallest a 6-9 months. . . There's plenty of time to get them made, right? Plus finish my Christmas Eve socks, of course.  I find it's nice to have a "big needle" project and a pair of socks going at the same time.  You never know when you're going to need a portable project. ;0)

I read quite a bit this past month (also a by product of increased time in the passenger seat).  I finished the Fall of Giants that I was reading in July, then read Death on Tap as well as Meet Your Baker, both of which are fun mysteries by Ellie Alexander.  After that I read Wildflower Heart by Grace Greene, which was a good book but after the others it kind of fell flat with me.  Not on the same par.  So, I ordered up another Ken Follett book, Winter of the World, from the library, and read the vast majority of it over a (not very enjoyable) weekend camping/canoeing & kayaking trip with a group of people who, it turned out, like to sit around and do a whole lot of nothing while yapping about a whole lot of nothing.  Since I'm awful at sitting for any length of time without something the engage my hands and/or brain, and I have a low tolerance for mindless chatter, I read. Ended up finishing the giant Follett book in less than a week.  Rude of me?  Maybe.  But to me, not sticking to the plans and therefore missing out on 1/2 the time we'd planned to be on the water was rather rude.  Kayaking was the whole reason I had decided to go on the three day trip with this particular group.  Anyway. . .

How's your knitting and reading been?

Grandkids, Self-Serve Snacks

It's been a busy summer.  We've had the grandkids a few times in the last month, and they always seem to be looking for what yummy treasures might be growing at this little place here.  With a little help from DH (getting the tractor out and positioned for them), and a little ingenuity of their own, K3 and Toad have snacked on cherries and mulberries.  They didn't seem to mind that it took a lot of time to pick them and not much time to eat them, it was the quest to reach the fruit that they enjoyed most of all.

cherry pickers

mulberry pickers with an 'elevator'

mulberry pickers testing their balance 

(K3 was able to stack 3 crates high and climb on & off without falling)

Yarn Along: July, a Little Late

I'm a few days late in joining Ginny for this month's Yarn Along. But better late than never, right? I'd say that having two grandkids and DH home for a week really threw off my schedule, but then again, I haven't posted at all since last month's Yarn Along, so. . .

Let's start anew.  Maybe July will be a better month with more posts than June.  Since the last Yarn Along, I finished the Riff socks I was making for Honorary Son.

I figured I was probably going to run short of the blue and white striped yarn, and it was kind of a one-time purchase, so I added in some thick red stripes.  Call these patriotic.  Or Captain America-esque.  Honorary Son likes the Marvel movies as much as he likes music, so I'm pretty sure these socks will be a hit when they are gifted to him.

Love the criss-cross pattern on the foot and leg

With that birthday gift out of the way, I cast on a pair of socks for myself. Because, you know, you can only make so much stuff for others before you need to make something you can keep just for you. (Yeah, I know I made myself a shawl out of the pickle-colored yarn in May, but these are socks. I love wearing handknit socks.)

The pattern is On The Fence, and I'm really enjoying how easy it is to do this little bit of colorwork near the cuff and toe of each sock.  The rest is plain stockinette, so really flies.  I have one sock done and am on the foot of the second sock all ready.  The yarn I'm using is Stroll Tweed from Knit Picks.  The gray is Flagstone Heather and the blue is North Pole Heather.

I also cast on for another Beachcomber shawl, this one in blues and gray, intended to be for DD2's birthday (got to keep working through my homemade birthday gift list; after Honorary Son comes DD2).  Although I think I'm going to have to rip it out and start over as I discovered that I was using the wrong size needle.The one I'm using is too small.  *sigh*  They should mark those interchangeable tips with larger numbers so they are easier to read. Or, as K3 told me when I asked her to read the number on the needle, "Grandma, you need to get a magnifying glass."  (Hmm, perhaps that is permission to get myself an OttLite?)

Speaking of easy to read, I've managed to read quite a bit of a very large book--shown in the first picture with the finished Riff Socks.  I still have a few hundred pages to go. The book was recommended to me by a friend who knows I like history, and I am very much enjoying reading Fall of Giants by Ken Follett.  Since stockinette knitting is great for squeezing in time to read, I can probably knock off another hundred pages or so while finishing my On The Fence socks.

I also read one other book in the past month. Roar by Cecelia Ahern is great for picking up and putting down when you're busy, as each of the short chapters is a brief story independent of the other chapters. A thought provoking read.

Yarn Along: June

This afternoon I am joining Ginny's Yarn Along. 

May was a very busy month.  Also a very wet month, so on days that were just too waterlogged to be doing anything with the garden or flower beds, I was able to get some knitting time in.

I finished (but still have yet to block) my Nurmilintu shawl in the pickle green yarn.  I really, really should just take the fifteen--or thirty (picot edge and all those pins that requires!)--minutes it will take me to wet it down and pin it to my blocking boards.  It's such a nice shawl, and the weather is still fair enough that I could wear it once or twice before summer gets to the 'no extra layers, I'd run around naked if I could' kind of temperatures.

Once the pickle shawl was off my needles, I've restrained myself to monogamous knitting on the Riff socks for Honorary Son.  I had the foot and heel done on the first sock, when I started to get a little paranoid about the amount of yarn left (the yarn I'm using is only about 360 yards to the skein, which for smaller socks has been plenty).  Wanting to make these socks as symmetrical as possible, and having the increasingly sure feeling that I would have to add a partial skein of yarn in order to make them man sized, right after finishing the heel portion of the first sock I put the stitches on stitch holders, cut the yarn and began sock #2.

As you can see from the picture above, after doing the heel of sock #2 and the first 10 rows of the lower leg chart, I decided to switch yarns, adding in some red for a while.  I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to do the rest of the leg in red, and then the cuff in the striping blue & white, or if I'm going to do a block of red, then some blue/white stripes, and finish off the top with more red.  Whatever I decide, they will definitely be unique, patriotic, and loud socks.

I really like the stitch pattern that begins at the toe, criss crosses up the foot and will wrap around the leg.  I'm getting antsy to finish these socks.  Partly so I can see them in all their glory, and partly so I can cast on for one or two of the next projects I have on my list for this year.  But, summer typically is a season of less knitting, so I've got to absolutely get these socks done before September (when Honorary Son's birthday is).  No casting on anything until these babies come off the needles for good!

Currently I'm reading Home to Big Stone Gap, which I picked up at the annual used book sale my local library holds on Memorial Day (as part of the village's huge Memorial Day doings).  It's set twenty years after the novel Big Stone Gap, which I read a year or two ago, and I didn't realize the author had written more books.  So I'll have to do some searching to see if I can get ahold of the couple that come in between the first book and this one.

Other books that I read in May were:

• Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult, which was a mostly interesting read.  This is the second novel I've read by Jodi Picoult, and while I like her writing style, I'm not sure I feel the same about the subject matter.  I guess so far both books have turned out to be not as light/entertaining of reading as I was hoping for at the time I read them.
• The Story Keeper by Lisa Wingate.  This is an author I find myself seeking more of her books.  They are thought provoking, somewhat educational in a historical context, and yet entertaining and easy to read.
• The Bright Side of Disaster by Katherine Center.  A nice quick read.
• Pray For Silence by Linda Castillo, another thriller with an Amish setting by this author.  I have to confess that while these are gritty and sometimes make me squirm, I'm hooked and will be looking to read more of this series.
• Stuck in Manistique by Dennis Cuesta.  By far, my favorite read of the month.  Just somewhat silly, but really entertaining, especially if you've ever spent time in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  A very easy reading book, and I hope the author will write some more in this style.

One Weekend, Two Milestones

What a whirlwind this past week has been!  At this time last week, I was prepping to leave early the next morning to drive up to the U.P. and attend DD2's college graduation.  And, I was awaiting any word from DS1 or K2 about being in labor and heading to the hospital.  In the previous two weeks, K2 had four bouts of false labor, her due date was coming up, and her OB had said it would be anytime now.  Anytime, or sometime on May 3rd, when they would induce her if the baby had not come by that morning.

Friday morning came.  DH and I hit the road, early, for our 500 mile trip.  At nearly the same time, DS1 and K2 headed for the hospital and the scheduled induction.  My brain was in two places at once.  No way was I going to miss DD2's graduation on Saturday morning (or the reception her department was giving at 3:30 Friday afternoon), but I really didn't want to miss Rascal's arrival either.

The whole long drive (nearly 9 hours because of delays from an accident that closed part of the expressway, and construction in several spots along the way), DH kept asking if I'd heard anything from DS1.  Not really, not until about 12:30 when DS1 texted to say "no baby yet, but she's finally at 7 cm"  And then again at 2:45 when he texted "still no baby; hopefully soon".  And then at 3:15, just as DH and I were arriving in town where DD2's departmental reception was happening at 3:30. . .

"He's here!  3:13 p.m."

Rascal had arrived!  The pictures DS1 texted me looked like my new grandson was a sturdy, healthy baby.  It was really hard to be so far away; my arms were itching to hold that brand new little bundle.

DH and I met DD2 just as the doors were opening at the building where the reception was; the building where a majority of her college classes had been held (at least the lecture classes; a lot of her labs were held outdoors).  We enjoyed refreshments, a delicious cake, and listened to the faculty speak about this graduating class.  Each of the two dozen or so prospective graduates of the department (at a mainly engineering college, those falling under the auspices of Forest Resources and Environmental Science are few) were given a few minutes of fame in which they spoke their name, degree, and future plans into the microphone.  I was glad I was present (yet what I wouldn't give to be able to be in two places at once).

Graduation was the following morning.  We arrived at the ice arena (where else would an Upper Peninsula college hold it's commencement ceremony?) early so that we could hopefully get seats near where DD2 would be seated.  DH was bored, and ended up going out and walking around while I held our seats for about an hour and a half until things got started.  I admit, I was on Facebook looking at newborn pictures of Rascal. . .

Until the candidates for Bachelor of Science degrees started filing in behind the Doctoral and Master's candidates.  Then I spotted DD2 and started taking pictures of my own.  Most of them turned out kind of blurry, because I was zoomed in so far and everyone was in motion.  Although, when it came time to pick out ones to share here, that blurriness was kind of a good thing since I try really hard to maintain anonymity and not post pictures where faces are recognizable.

filing into her seat for the (3 hour long) commencement ceremony

getting out of her seat to go walk across stage and have her name and degree announced

Such a proud moment!  Our baby, our fourth child, was now a college graduate.  She holds a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Ecology and Management as well as a minor in International Spanish.  In the first picture you can see that she wears two stoles, the red & white one (with yellow tip) for her study abroad in Peru, and the green and white one marking her as a member of the Xi Sigma Pi honor society (of Foresters).  She barely missed out on graduating with an academic honor cord as well; her overall GPA just 0.10 shy of cum laude even though her departmental GPA had her at magna cum laude.  *sigh*  That little tidbit bugs her a little, she really wanted to graduate with an honor cord like both DH and DS2 did from the same college (especially since they are both engineers, while she is a 'tree hugger' as those students majoring in forestry and environmental sciences are known).

DH and I headed for home the next day, through rain for a little over half of the 500 miles.  It was a bittersweet trip; we've been to the U.P. at least once a year for the past eight years, since DS2 began college there and then as soon as he graduated, DD2 began school there.  We plan to retire there, but that's a good decade off yet.  Neither one of us wants to wait 10 years before we get up there again, so we tossed around a couple of ideas (such as an annual vacation there in the interim between now and retirement).  Yet, as much as we wanted to stay in the U.P., we also wanted to get home ASAP and meet our new grandson!

It ended up being quite late when we arrived home that night, so we had to wait until after DH got home from work on Monday.  I swear that was about the longest day of my life.  I had promised DH I wouldn't go to see the baby without him, but yet, it felt like he was never going to get home from work!

In actuality, he got out of work a good two hours earlier than he has been for most of this year so far (the demands of his job are another post for another day; I'm wearing quite thin on what's become routine).  We were at DS1 and K2's house (she and Rascal had been discharged from the hospital on Sunday) by 5:15, and we were able to spend over half an hour there seeing K3 and Toad, as well as taking turns holding Rascal before having to head home so DH could get ready for a work related conference call.

Rascal looks identical to Toad as a newborn.  Yet, I saw an expression on his face that also looks like one his sister is prone to.  And he has my long bony skinny fingers! It's going to be so much fun getting to know this little boy and watch him grow.

Rascal, my third grandchild