90 degree fall

Sorry, I disappeared for the last month.  My reason is working 12hr + days 6 days per week x 4 weeks - with one quick trip home.  That equals one tired girl and very little time for blogging.

On my day off today, I went to a pumpkin patch just outside of Tucson with Sarah, BJ, and her 2 kids. Fun pics below.  And yes it was 90 degrees outside.  I was sweating!  Gross.  Not fall like at all!

Farm fun.  This is before we made our way through the corn maze!

Braxton with his perfect pumpkin.  You can't see it, but the back is all wrinkly!

Through the pumpkin patch.  I can't remember the last time I went to a pumpkin patch, but I don't remember it being this brown.  

Sarah, Braxton, Annaliese and me with our lovely pumpkins!

YaY Fall!

The ugliest mitten in the world :)

As you know, I was bored to the point of doing puzzles.  Which actually ended up being a lot of fun.
But after 3 puzzles, it was time to find a new hobby for now.

So I decided that I would learn to knit.  I know how to crochet and once knew how to knit as a little girl.  My Popo taught me.  But to say the least, I was not very good.
At Hobby Lobby, I bought a "Teach yourself to knit book" - which is fine and helpful.  But.....then I struck gold at my new favorite place - the Farmington Public Library.  The library is wonderful, with lots of natural light, plenty of tables, fast wi-fi, what more could a girl want?

Knitting DVDs, that's what!

So I checked out 4 volumes of knitting DVDs to get my knitting hobby jump started.
The first project was a simple dish cloth.  The second project an ugly mitten.
See below.

I say mitten, because I fully intend not to make mittens.  There will be no matching pair to this sad mitten. Not unless you comment and tell me you want it for Christmas and well then I'll make you a matching mitten :)

I have decided though that I could use my new talent of mitten making to make very small mittens for Winter decorations - a garland or something.  We'll see.

The real reason I decided I wanted to learn to knit is I want to make a pair of fingerless gloves.  And to make fingerless gloves I need to learn how to knit in the round.  Knitting in the round requires 4+ needles.  Now you can see why I need a DVD to help me.  I'm through DVDs lesson 1 and 2.  I'm going to watch DVD 3, but not make the scarf and then move onto the good stuff - lesson 4, when I will learn to knit in the round.  I better hop to it!  I leave here on Thursday!

Wish me luck!  And seriously if you want my mitten let me know :)  Or heck if you want the dishcloth leave a comment and I'll send one to you :)

Puzzles

So I finally finished my puzzle.  1,000 pieces.

Here's the picture :)  (thanks for the comments Sammy)

In progress:

Completed!

When I realized that my one puzzle wasn't going to last my entire month.  I went to Wal-Mart and bought a 3 pack of puzzles.  There was a small 100 piece, 300 piece, and a 500 piece.  Below is the small 100 piece.  I finished that puzzle in a day - too easy.

Mancos and a weekend at a B&B

Last weekend, I made my first trip to Mesa Verde as you saw from my previous post.  It was absolutely wonderful to get out of Shiprock for a little while and have a little R&R at a little B&B outside of Mancos, Colorado.

I stayed at the FlagStone Meadows Bed and Breakfast.  

It was a few miles off of a dirt road, with beautiful scenery and about a 30 minute drive to Durango, Colorado.

Driving down the dirt-road to get to the bed and breakfast.

Ahh...the smell of clean cool fresh mountain air.

Comfy living room, which if I showed you a picture of the living room where I am living now, you would understand why I relished my stay here so very much.

(Side note: I found a black widow in my bedroom in Shiprock yesterday.  Not cool.  I was moving dirty clothes and saw a big spider.  Earlier I had killed a daddy longleg there - nothing too worrisome.  So I'm standing there with the eebie jeebies thinking hmmm...what to do - get big wad of kleenex and go for the sucker?? Then I decide to peer a little closer...and guess what I see?!  yup a nice red hourglass staring me in the face.  wtf?!  seriously.  crap.  Ok, no kleenex this time.  I thought about taking a picture, but didn't.  So I got my shoe and slammed my shoe into the spider and against the wall, pretty much with all my might.  Half the spider legs ended up on the wall, the other half on the dress and guts on my shoe.  gross.)

View of the B&B on my sad drive away.

Mr. Hummingbird.  Meet Mr. Hummingbird, he had a bad headache when this photo was taken.  You see, Mr. H was flying around, eating out of Harris' (the owner of Flagstone) feeders, getting his breakfast and minding his own business when... WHAM! out of nowhere a glass wall appeared.  Poor little fella fell to the ground with nothing more than a poof.  Lucky for Mr. H, Harris heard him hit the window and ran outside to save him.  Harris picked Mr. H up, rubbed his little chest, blew in his face a little - to wake him up.  This is when I walk downstairs and get a close up of Mr. H.  

Harris says he usually does this if he catches them right after they hit, then he puts them in a little box for a few hours and they tend to do ok.  We went to put Mr. H in a box and he started to get fiesty, so we took him outside and released him.  He rested on a tree branch for a while before flying away.

Harris says that if you catch them right away, you can wake up the birds and remind them to breathe otherwise they often die.  

Harris says he tries to help the bigger birds too, but oftentimes they break a wing or something else making them impossible to save.

Guest Blogger: Buster

Ok, so Buster has been bothering me that it isn't fair that Penny gets to blog, but he doesn't.  

So here you go.

Hey guys - its me Biggaty Buster.  Lately me has got a bad rap around da house and wiz Penny and Bart-mew.  Mom and Aunt Sarah say me is a toy hog.  That I don't know how to share.  Well...I'm here to tell ya, that's not true.

Whatz really goin' on is, me is beeing a veerry good littl' doggie.  Ya see, me is playin' a game wiz meself.  The game is - how many toys, bones, food, etc can I fit in me mouth at one time.  See... I'm just keepin' meself entertained.  

Cuz Bart-mew and me we are buddies, but we like to have littl' compeetitions between us.  Mom says that's what boys do.  So BM and me we like to race, play, take eachother's toys, etc.

Below are pics of evidence of my superiority at my game, and me beating Bart-mew - which is what Mom and Auntie call selfish.

Really it's called winning.

I will give me cuz Bart some credit, becuz on this particular night, he tipped over the toy basket.  Then me swooped in and grabbed as many toys as I could and off I went....

This is me zooming under the chair, so mom can't take me toys away.

Me hiding under the table.  I like me toys, specially the ones that squeak.  Can you tell how many I have in my mouth?

After chasing me around for a while, I finally got tired of runnin' and I wanted to sit still long enough to get proof of my awesomeness.  Now can you tell how many toys are in me mouth???

----------------------

Ok, I'll tell ya.  3 TOYS.  That's right 3!  Can u believe it?!  That's a lot, specially for me.  Me has the red dragon, white bunny, and maybe Mr. raccoon or squirrel?  I can't remember.  Anyhoo as you can see I have all the toys and Bart-mew has none.  I WIN!!!

Mesa Verde

This weekend, I took a trip to Mesa Verde National Park - home of the largest cliff dwelling in North America.  

Cliff Palace

The Native Americans built these cliff dwellings around 1,400 years ago.  They had small hand and foot holds in the side of the cliffs to make there way up to the mesa tops.  On the mesa tops they grew crops of corn, beans, and squash.   They also hunted deer, rabbit, etc on the mesa tops as well.  

The circular structures are kivas - which you saw a picture of before from when I visited Aztec.  Typically the Kivas had a roof overtop with a hole in the middle with a ladder to allow the Natives to climb down into the Kivas.

A view from the Mesa Top

It was also from the Mesa Tops that the Natives would leave to travel for trade.  In these dwellings seashells from the Pacific coast were found as well as turquoise, pottery and cotton from the south.

They would also leave to find husbands for the women (it is a matriarchal society - the women proposed to the men).   They were not incestual, but rather looked at their family lineage to ensure that they did not marry a cousin.

Walking amongst the cliff palace.

------- Below is the 2nd tour of a cliff dwelling I went on.  Above is cliff palace, pictures below are from the balcony house.  No pictures of Balcony House from afar, because we met on the Mesa top above it and climbed down into it.

The hike to Balcony house was a little more strenuous than the trip to Cliff Palace.  Here is a picture of the 32 foot ladder we had to climb.

More of balcony house.  Again you can see the circular rooms, of the Kivas.  Important ceremonies were held inside the Kivas, as well as the ancestral history being told from one generation to another during the winter time. 

As you look above and see what appears to be "windows" those are actually doors to rooms.  There were a lot of ladders being used on the cliff dwellings.  The doors were small because it was a smaller area to cover in the winter when it was cold out.

Me on the mesa top - notice my Junior Park Ranger pin on my jacket.  I was volunteered to be part of a demonstration by my guide for which he gave me the pin (close up below)

Another cliff dwelling - Spruce Tree.

Here you can see Kivas with the roofs.  The two sets of 2 sticks coming out of the ground are actually 2 ladders coming out of the center of 2 separate Kivas.

My junior park ranger pin, which got me 10% off in the bookstore!

Call me Guida (girl version of Guido (our old car guy))

So before I left for Shiprock, it was time for a couple of minor repairs on my car.  I needed new windshield wipers badly and one of my headlights went out.
Sief and Sarah both have replaced their own headlights and I was thinking, ok - I should be able to do this or I'll make one of them help me.

Well, Dad got on the internet and googled how to change an Acura headlight - sent me a link and said good luck.  I briefly looked at the link and it says that in order to change the headlight that the bumper has to come off?!  WTF?  really? the bumper has to come off, that's craziness.  
It's also even more craziness that Dad sends this link to me with the comment, good luck!  First - if you see something that says - you will have to remove the bumper then you email me and say "don't you dare try this on your own, you crazy girl!!!"


Well, Sief and I popped the hood of my car, and right there was the light.  Easy peasy.  So off to the parts store I went, got my light, waited for my car to cool in the garage for several hours and we fixed it ourselves!  Easy peasy - took us 5 minutes and saved me $50 - which is what the dealership wanted to charge me.  Bumper stayed on the car :)  I think his link was to change the glass part of the light.