Proof: Recalcitrant Sun Dog

Tasha, not interested in leaving her spot in the sun. Not interested at all.

What Sunday Morning Looks Like

Whilst I browse my favorite department store, Amazon.com. I didn't buy anything. This time.

Doggie Pictures

Because they are cute, and they sleep cute.

Tasha, under my desk.

There's a dog here...

And she finally lifted her head when she heard the camera click.

Tre Bambini

This is what Tasha does when she wants something. Will you look at that sad little face? "Erin, I'm a starving little dog! When will you ever feed me?"

Well, Mom's been wondering when I was going to "put pen to paper" on this topic. Kent and I are expectant grandparents of triplets!!!!!!!! Oh, you want proof you say? well, check this out:

Count 'em: Baby A (Boy), Baby B (Girl), and Baby C (Girl). I think that's how it worked out.

Nicole is five months preggers and is as big as a house (must have picture, that front porch is really something) and carrying like she's going to deliver any day. Nick says it's all baby weight, except for that front porch I mentioned.

I'm the Knittin' Grammy (much better than Gramma and I need to distinguish myself - Nicole's mother can be Gramma). For my part, I've bought baby clothes for a boy and two girls, knit three preemie beanies, and am working on a little sweater for when someone gets to about 6 months. Everything was always way too big for either of the boys when they were little, and they were kinda little when they were little. The sweater looks ginormous compared to what I THINK should be the right size, but I'm just going with it. Blankies? No, I'm not knitting any blankies. Not yet anyway. Heck, I'd have to knit three. That's a lot of blankies. No, I'm interested in sticking with quick projects.

Yeah, yeah, I know the arguments. "Well, knitting a blankie is fast, it can just be garter stitch with a border. You can crank it right out." How boring is that? It just isn't for those of us with a short attention span. I can be fairly tenacious with more complex items. They are interesting. They hold my attention. If you go out to Ravelry and look me up (erinkristi, but I guess you have to have an account to do that...Flickr has a Knits folder that has all the photos I post to Ravelry), and look at my projects, you'll see this lovely black sweater in stockinette. Gorgeous, yummy Jaeger Extra Fine Merino...it's a UFO.

For the uninitiated, non-knitting readers: UFO is, in knitting parlance "UnFinished Object." It's surprisingly apt.

Anyway, the purple and white striped sweater could work for any of them, but it's going to scream "girlie" after I add the pink and yellow doo-dads. After the sweater are some booties, then another sweater, then more little sockies, then another sweater. The bambini will probably birth sometime during the latter part of the second sweater (at least I didn't call it a "sweatie") or the beginning of the second set of socks.

This weekend I'm buying diapers at Costco.

I don't know when Nicole's baby shower is. Lester (one of Nick's friends) told Nick that Nick will have to be "Nicole's bitch" during the baby shower. I told Nick I thought Lester was pulling his leg. Lester is a sweet guy, and at the top of our list of Nick's Friends We Really Like. Lester has a bit of a sense of humor, and it's quite possible that he's pulling Nick's leg right out of it's socket. But then, it's been a very long time since I've been involved in any baby showers, so maybe that's the way it is these days. The Funky Stork has a cute article about having a celebration for the expectant dad. Actually, it's a cool site and all about the Dad part of having a baby. Their logo is especially slick, and the whole place is very Manly Man. They don't mention a thing about the dad being the mom's bitch during the shower ;)

I tagged this as photography, too, because I hate how my photos of yarn and projects turned out! ugh! Did I forget all my skills? Does my lighting suck? Well, the lighting clearly does suck, and I tried to fix it using a low-end image editing tool (stoooopid). It's not the fault of the image editing tool. IrfanView, which is my absolute favorite quick image editing tool for tasks that don't require Photoshop, doesn't do the kind of heavy lifting that these photos required. I use IrfanView for cropping, sizing, lite editing, and viewing all manner of weird image formats because it's very fast. Small application footprint. BUT: don't give it images whose white balance so screwed up that new images are required. I think that's where we are with these. Shame, too, because I spent quality time on that activity. There are few things on which I'm willing to perform this level of rework. My photography of my yarn. No, I just can't let it go. This is a problem of Erin versus The Flash. I will win.

Maggie, aka Calendar Girl

Wide-angle lenses are cool. I'm experimenting with exaggerated perspective. Maggie and Tasha were my first two models.

For Jonathan: Shot with Canon 20D, 18mm, 1/15 @ f/3.5 ISO1600, WB Tungsten, color corrected in Photoshop CS2.

Update 10/6/2006: Okay, in this shot she doesn't look like much of a Calendar Girl.

Tasha, aka Goofy

You're right, too long since the last post.

Gee, finally getting to my email and what do I see? Mom, chastising me for not posting often enough. She's right!!! Thank you, Mother :)

Nick is into his own life now. We had a wonderful visit with him during Basic Training Graduation. He was so excited to be able to buy things with money he earned that he picked up a new CD player and a PSP, which is a cool little gadget. He's off to Fort Gordon for 29 weeks of Advanced Individual Training (AIT) in his field: signal networks, aka communications. He'll be one of the guys who supports the communications gear, the signal for walkie-talkies, wireless data transmission, satellite communicates, stuff like that. For those who understand the MOS system, he's in 25U. Here's a link that describes those duties: http://www.us-army-info.com/pages/mos/signal/31u.html. Fort Gordon is located on the Georgia/South Carolina border, it's the gray smudge just outside of Augusta. I-20 is the freeway that rolls by. If he golfed, he'd be in hog heaven. Who knows? Maybe he'll learn? Nah, won't happen; no joysticks involved.

He called this weekend to say he'd be home for Christmas for two weeks. He bought his plane ticket today and couldn't wait to tell us! I'll share his mailing address when I receive it later this week. His friend, Nick (a.k.a. Redgate Nick), moved a few blocks away and is within easy walking distance and he's excited about that. Redgate Nick got him his first job at Luna Maya Restaurant. Our Nick has since left, but Redgate Nick is head chef now and he's so thrilled and scared. He is "Redgate Nick" because he lived on Redgate Avenue and we kept getting confused - the possessive pronouns didn't always point to the right character, and otherwise it's just awkward to say or write. We have to call him Michigan Nick now, though, because he lives on Michigan Ave. Which doesn't make sense in Colonial Place where the streets are named after the first thirteen and a couple of important sea captains, of whom Michigan was not one, I'm sure. I don't think we'll really be able to break the habit of calling him Redgate Nick, though, because we've been doing that for a few years now. He shall always be...Redgate Nick.

My management changed at work so I have a new boss who has been keeping me really busy. He's an entirely different character than my former boss and that's mostly a good thing but he has pretty high expectations that are welcome but we're out of practice. I'm having a blast with my photography and I'm getting better but I'm behind on scanning and sharing so I hope to catch up on that this weekend.

Kent is involved in a local production of Don Quixote, abridged. It's supposed to be an "artistic interpretation" of the traditional story that the director was writing at the time of the first rehearsal; Kent isn't so keen on the interpretation. A Don Quixote scholar, in Germany, is long-distance coaching the director and reviewing the script as it's being written. Kent is in a supporting role (a good thing since he's still working on his Master's degree). Rehearsals are most nights and the show opens the week before Thanksgiving. School is mostly interesting but the fun part is some robotics activity that Kent is involved in. I don't understand all the details but when I do I'll share!

Patrick is rowing six days a week: qualifying for his first level of master skuller (or whatever it's called) in a single, coxing for the women's eight on Saturday's for Hampton Roads Rowing Club, weekdays rowing with Maury High School's men's four because Norview High, where he attends, doesn't have a rowing club, and having fun little races with his coach, James. He's really hooked on this stuff, is exhausted by 7:30pm, and has a permanent sparkle in his eyes. I'm pretty sure that last is because of the rowing, as opposed to drugs. He doesn't have time for them! Last weekend was the big fall race, Head of the Lafayette. I have video, I'm editing, I will share.

That's it on the home front, and I promised Mom I'd post this last night which I didn't so I will this morning and hope she'll forgive me :)

Oh ya. Here's another photo from Fort Benning. Apparently some French battalion had as their maschot a dachsund. "We're so confident in our manhood we'll have little dachshund as our maschot and display him with pride!" (You must, must say this with a Frenglish accent, please.)