Catching up

This has been a very busy and mentally exhausting week for me. I can't really way what the problem has been. It hasn't been just one thing. I remember an old bumper sticker that said,

I try to take one day at a time, but lately several days have attacked me at once.

That's about how I feel. When I sit down to blog, my mind is just too tired to even try to be coherent. So, I want to do a catch up post, but I'm not quite sure how to word it so that it doesn't sound like I'm filling out a daily log or weekly report. I guess I'll just jump right in to it.

We'll start with my Saturday Sky:



This was looking off to the West. Behind me was blue skies and sunshine. The day started off cloudless blue, and I was afraid I'd have to post one of those solid blue rectangles again. However, along about 2:00 PM some clouds moved in. We never got any rain, and the clouds quickly moved back out, so I'm lucky to have gotten this picture. I like the way the sun is trying to break through there in that one spot.

This is Tim, Brian, and Brian. They were all promoted last Thursday night--Tim and Brian to two green stripes, and Brian to his purple belt.


We got another new student in the adult class. His name is Brad, and he is a black belt in Tae Kwan Do. I don't know what his rank is. He had a black belt with one gold stripe on it. Sensei let him line up with the black belts, but made him get at the end of the line. I didn't really get to talk to him that much, so I don't know how long he's been training or anything. Sensei said he'd been going all the way to Memphis to train. I don't know why. I guess he wasn't that impressed with the dojo--or dojang they say in Korean--in Greenville. He'd heard about our dojo and decided to give Isshinryu a try. I heard him tell sensei after class that he liked what he'd seen so far. I was paired with him for 3-step kicks, and I noticed that he set up really far back. Isshinryu is a very close in style of fighting, so we set up close to each other. I kept moving in, and he kept moving back. It was quite comical.

Speaking of black belts, Joshua is back from his month long vacation. Barrett and I were talking about that Monday. "It must be nice to be young," Barrett said. "And have no responsibilities and able to do something like that, " I added. Anyway, it was Joshua's first time in the new dojo. I showed him around a bit, and he was really impressed. Sensei has gotten it a bit better organized since I posted the first pictures. I need to take some more. The place is really looking good. Our commercial started airing Wednesday. Hopefully, between that and school starting we'll get a bunch of new students.

Now, on to fiber arts--Not much has been going on in the way of knitting. I am knitting all right, but I frequently have to put said knitting down to remove something from a certain puppy's mouth that doesn't belong in the aforementioned puppy's aforementioned mouth. Still, I have made some progress. The Jaywalker socks are back to where they were before I discovered my error a couple of days ago. I've gotten almost caught up with the monthly dishcloth rows, and have made good progress on the Football-along charity project. I'll post progress pictures soon.

Rylea is making progress as well. She's gotten a lot better about letting me know when she needs to go outside, but she still hasn't grown out of that chewy stage. Still, she's only three months old, and she's very smart. She's already learned to sit for me to put on her leash and take it off again. We don't have a fenced in yard, and we don't live far enough out that I can just let her run loose, but the last couple of days, I've let her off the leash under supervision.

Katie spent some time today showing her how to patrol the yard.

I suppose this could qualify as fine art:

I don't know what it is, but I like 'em. I almost missed out. I've been meaning to take pictures of these, but I never got around to it until today. This was one of the few bunches of blossoms left.

VAJoe.com will be donating $2,000 to military charities. People come to VAJoe and vote for their favorite military charities. They can nominate charities, also. The charities with the most votes and one randomly selected charity share the $2,000. You can vote here.

And finally...see what I have to look forward to? Yippee...