Lodges

I am a sucker for any place that calls itself a "lodge". I think some people feel the same way about "shoppes" and "inns." If you're willing to call your place a lodge, it's probably the kind of place I'd like to stay. Most of my favorites are in National Parks. The best one by far is Yellowstone Lodge:

Who wouldn't want to stay there? I've had drinks at the bar, but I've never stayed. Actually, to be perfectly fair, it's called Old Faithful Inn and isn't actually a lodge, but it still defines the category in my book. El Tovar at the Grand Canyon also is a "hotel" but should be called a lodge. Again, plenty of drinks there, but no actual overnight stays. Zion Lodge is a for real lodge. They even have rocking chairs on the lawn. Rob and I played in the snow there, but we never stayed over. See a pattern? Well, I want to break the pattern and go to this lodge and actually stay the night. Have you ever seen such a beautiful hotel? Me neither. First of all, it's in Oregon. Second, it looks like a Hobbit lives there. Plus, did you see the waterfall? Wow. Someday I'm going to stay in a lodge and maybe it'll be this one.

Bathroom

I painted two walls in my bathroom yesterday. It's a dark khaki green called "G.I. green". I really like the color, but something's not quite right. Somehow the pictures and the mirror don't look the way I thought they would. Does anybody have suggestions on how to make it flow better? Should I hang things up in a different arrangement or ditch the pictures all together?

Whoa.

I feel like I've been away for weeks and weeks. Harry Potter finally came out on Saturday (in case you've been in a long-term coma or something). R and I were so anxious. We got up really early and tried to pretend we weren't waiting for the book, but every time a truck drove down the street we would both panic and look to see if it was for us. The darn FedEx man (though normally FedEx people are awesome) stopped at the mailbox next door. The nerve! A little while later the UPS truck came rolling down the street and R and I shoved each other out of the way to get the the mailbox first. He said "Here's your book! I hope you like it!" I imagined that his truck was filled to the brim with Harry Potter books and nothing else that day. We ran inside, gazed at the package for a minute and then dug in.

24 hours later and we're both done (note neutral tone of voice).

It was perfect Harry Potter weather. You know, kind of dark and gloomy and dementor-ish.

The monsoons have been kind of intense lately. Today was especially crazy. Our front yard was kind of flowing and there were waves on the street. You can hardly see where the street ends and the yard begins. Wow!

seriously. waves.

This is a picture from the other day.

Isn't that pretty? My mom would say it was a picture of Grace.

p.s.

p.s. saw this at work today. Did not scream.

Field Work

Welcome to my office. I've been in the field for the past few days. On Monday I did a survey. That means that I walked with another archaeologist back and forth across a piece of land to see if there are any sites there. You walk 20m apart and look from side to side to find artifacts or structures or anything else prehistoric. This is what the view looked like all day:

We didn't find very much, but I did spot this cool thing. It's called a bedrock mortar and it is a place where the Hohokam, who used to live in southern Arizona, ground corn or mesquite or some other dry food right on the surface of the rock. They did it so much, that a little hole formed from all the grinding. There was no village nearby, it was probably used by people out on hunting trips. Sure makes cooking on the old Coleman stove seem a lot easier, huh?

Tuesday and today I've been working in Avra Valley on a much older site. We already know where the site is and are busy excavating it so that the county can use the land for a water project. The site is from the Archaic and Early Agricultural period. That means it's somewhere between 2000-3500 years old. The people that lived there were just beginning to invent farming, and they still moved around for most of the year. They didn't even have pottery yet. This picture is of half of a storage pit that I excavated yesterday. They might have stored food in the pit. It was filled with ash and charcoal and had small pieces of bone in it.

So, it's been a busy, fun week so far. I'll be in the field tomorrow and next week, and then it's back to boring lab work for me. I'll miss being outside. Today I saw two roadrunners and a jack rabbit before 6am! There was also a big bad guest at the site, but we won't talk about him.

Knitting Progress

Knitting has been happening around here too, even though it's 8,000 degrees outside. I've been working on this sweater for my sister. We have a deal worked out where I knit her a sweater and she makes me a nativity set for Christmas. She asked for a beachy white sweater. I'm making this one up as I go along, and I'm not sure she'll like it. We'll see when it's all done. Right now, I'm up to the armpits. It's knit in a merino blend because my sister has been known to wash and dry wool sweaters. Besides, who wants a sweater that they have to take special care of? There will be a deep v-neck and a big hood. You can just see the beginnings of the neck shaping now. I'm making it kind of long-it should hit mid hip. That way it'll feel more relaxed and beachy (do you actually know anyone who wears a sweater on the beach?)







I'm also working on the slippers pattern from Knit 2 Together. There are a lot of beautiful patterns in this book, but a lot of them call for expensive yarn, so I'm going to work up to them slowly. The slippers only need a little bit of yarn. The pattern wants three strands of wool held toegther and a contrasting color for the top, but I'm changing it up a little. I'm holding two different colors together the whole way. I think it will look cool once it's felted. Here it is all knitted, pre-felting. When I get the other one knitted, I'll felt them (Katie-help!) and show you how it looks.



Holding more than one strand of yarn at a time can be just too tempting for my evil cats, so I use this ingenious box Katie made for my birthday. You put the yarn inside and thread it through the grommets in the front.



The yarn stays all neat and uneaten while you knit. It's also a good place to stash unfinished projects when people are coming over in ten minutes and you're wearing your pajamas and the sink is full.

Sandstorm!

This isn't just a crappy picture. This is what it looks like trying to take a picture of a sandstorm. This one hit at about 7:30 and it's still going. It sounds like the ocean is right outside our windows. R. and I had to come inside because the sand was hurting our eyes and making our teeth gritty. It was really much lighter outside than this, but the camera seems to be focusing on the sand. This is from the curb looking back at our house. Whoa! You can't even see it! In real life you could see across the street, but there were huge blowing clouds of sand between us and the house. It's a little bit creepy because there's thunder and lightning inside the storm too.

They had predicted that today would be the first day of the monsoon and it looks like they were right! This sandstorm should be just ahead of the rain. Yay!

Rabbits

I really love the rabbit paintings by Michael Sowa. I have been looking for prints of them for a long time, but they're a little hard to find. The rabbits crack me up, but I also like to imagine the little stories behind the pictures.

This rabbit takes his bike to work because it helps him get through traffic.

This is my favorite one. This rabbit is in the window of a pet store and he does little tricks after the shopkeeper leaves for the night.

Off to visit Grandmom

This one is a private detective that has had a lousy day. On his way to the pub.

Trying on some fancy pants.

One day I'll find the prints and then I'm going to hang them all up in a row and tell stories about them.

Orbit's turn

What is with these two? Now Orbit has started napping in the sink. Where are we supposed to brush our teeth?

The big 2-7

The love of my life turned 27 on Saturday. We had a fun day, though it was too hot to really have a big party. Ryan and Ashley, Damon, Kacy, and Nick came over for dinner. Rob's favorite birthday treat is to cook a huge meal for his friends. He made "pork stuffed pork wrapped in pork"- a specialty only my brother in law Mark could appreciate. It was a gigantic pork loin stuffed with garlic cloves and prosciutto and wrapped in bacon. It was absolutely delicious if you didn't think about how much pig was involved. He also made a vat of horseradish mashed potatoes which might sound weird but they were really good. We had watermelon and birthday cake and cobbler and beer to wash it all down. Rob got some great presents-mostly Transformers themed items. I decorated the kitchen with these big stars and there were lights in the trees by the grill:
During the party Georgie sought refuge on the shelves in the dining room. Isn't it weird how cats choose random places to sleep? What makes her think that it's okay to sleep on the shelves? Since the party, I have seen her there a bunch of times. She claims that I told her she was allowed. hmm...

People left kind of late and we were exhausted. Rob fell asleep after the party with a pair of goggles on his face. Is this a sign he had a good time? I don't know, but I'm blaming Nick.