7 Quick Takes (Vol 172)

Here we are again, gathered together to partake of some blather. You know the rules. When you are finished sweating through my blather you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of Independence Day fireworks, over to Conversion Diary to see what everyone else has been up to.

Don’t blather till you see the whites of their eyes!

1.
Have you ever heard of “crowd funding”? Have you ever heard of Kickstarter?

Crowd funding is:
the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowd funding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns, to funding a startup company, movie or small business or creating free software.

Kickstarter is a company that promotes crowd funding. The reason why I am mentioning this is that Cartoon Girl has a Kickstarter project. I am not/Do not expect you to contribute. I just want you to go over there and watch the short video she produced to describe the project that she is raising funds for.
It tickles me every time I watch it. I would have just embedded the video but Blogger and Kickstarter don’t like each other and I don’t have the time at the moment to fiddle with the code to make it work.

Space Case Sally and the Purloined Pest

Go and watch the video.

2.
We have finally had a bit of rain this week. Rejoicing was heard throughout the Community Garden.
Granted, it isn’t enough to get us out of our drought, only about 1 inch total I think, but it was rain. And thunder. And lightening. All my plants just look all happy happy joy joy.


Oh thank you SO much Mother Nature for the rain that you sent!! We are all so happy.

3.
And speaking of rain.

We spent the 4th of July evening out a Blossom Music Center indulging in a bit of orchestra therapy. Knit Sib Erica went along as well.

Can I tell you that it was HOT sitting outside. My sweat had sweat. HHBL LOVES hot weather. Me….not so much. But for the privilege of listening to the orchestra, I will sweat a bit.

The first half of the program was excellent as usual. A fellow by the name of Loras John Schissel always conducts the Blossom Festival Orchestra for the Independence Day concert. He is a fountain of knowledge. We were enjoying ourselves.

And then we realized that there were flashes of light off in the distance that had nothing to do with fireworks. Lightening.

Oh it will pass us right be I am sure. But right quick we decided that perhaps it wasn’t going to pass us right by. Perhaps it was going to pass right over us.

And soon.

Dither, dither, dither, dither. Stay or go?

If it had been a regular concert we might have been able to seek shelter under the roof over the seating area.

But there were 15,000 other people wondering about that very same thing.

(this picture was taken two years ago, but the crowd was about the same size on Wednesday)

There is no way to fit everyone under the roof. Even if we all say that we are going to be BFF and we all lose half our body weight. It just isn’t going to happen.

So, after some quick thinking about it we folded up the chairs, gathered up the cooler, checked our area and walked back to the car. You could feel the humidity rising. You could see the lightening. You could smell the ozone. And just as we had put everything back into Coco and were opening the doors.

WHOOSH!!!!!! Down came the rain and the hail.

Perfect timing.

We were completely entranced by the display of lightening on the way home. I haven’t ever seen that much streak across the sky let alone hit the ground. Amazing.

4.
I am already questioning my sanity with the project that I have picked for the Ravellenic Games. I decided yesterday that I should probably read the directions through at least once before the actual cast on July 27th.

Dwarrowdelf Stole

There are some stitch combos in this wrap that I have never seen before. And the beginning construction was very confusing at first.

And I am an experienced knitter.

I am doubting my ability to get the whole thing done in 16 days. But I guess that is what the Olympics is all about. Setting a goal that seems impossible and then striving to attain it.

But I am going to have to buy an Addi Lace needle I think.

5.HHBL has been able to get back on his bike for some exercise. That is definitely a help for him as he is really missing playing baseball at the moment. There won’t be any of that this weekend but we are hopefully that by next weekend he can at least be the DH (designated hitter). But running is really still out of the question. Any movement that requires a quick change in direction is also not too good.

But he is making progress.

6.I have yet to get out and pick any blueberries. This week life in general conspired against me. It will half to be next week some time although I am not sure how that is going to be. Next week is just jam packed with work.

But if I don’t get out an pick blueberries then there won’t be any for the next year for blueberry muffins and blueberry coffee cake and blueberry pancakes and blueberries in my smoothies.
That would be a terrible thing. I don’t like to even think about it.

Maybe Wednesday morning…..I hope.

7.We are still waiting to hear from the insurance company as to whether Annie the Aveo is repairable or will be considered “totaled”.


Hmmmmmmmm, I wonder which one they will choose. Shoe Queen will have a rental car starting on Saturday so that she can get back and forth to her jobs. Hopefully we will know soon.

Then decisions must be made.