Ahhhhhhh crap. I just got a knock on the door. I opened it up expecting to see the Postal person with my loverly box of shirts I am expecting. Instead it was my incredibly sweet, but incredibly Baptist neighbor inviting us to a "hot dog supper" tomorrow night. I froze up. I told her that I'd have to check with Kyle first and that I'd call her later. The neighborly thing to do would be to go and be pleasant. I am just terrified that either she will try to get us to talk religion the whole time (which has been her pattern) or even worse, there will be other people there as well, all of whom want us to go to their church. I really don't think I could handle that. It would be weird and awkward anyway, since she is an old, conservative, Southern woman and we just don't have that much to talk about. Throw in the religious angle and it could be just unbearable. But she is just the nicest person you could meet and I don't want to hurt her feelings, either. Bah!

In other news, we have an appointment with a loan officer on Wednesday at 4 to discuss our options. Wish us luck!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh...we're home.

As nice as it was to spend a week floating around in a huge house in the Gulf of Mexico, I have to say that I am thrilled to be home. We came home to a ton of blooming trees and flowers and lots of Spring activity in the neighborhood. The sisters tilled a few more rows for the garden, and I heard a rumor that planting starts next weekend. I can't wait.

Unfortunately, we also came home to an ungodly stench in the bedroom. I know this smell, still fresh in my mind after all of these years. I haven't smelled it since I was a youngin' arriving for a ski weekend at the Vermont house. Something dead. In the wall. It is so gross. It seems to be in the wall between our apartment and the crawl space...yup...right behind our bed. Awesome. What balances the smell out is that, while we were gone, Adrienne broke in and steam cleaned all of our carpets. It was such a nice thing to do. Those carpets were driving Kyle crazy. It looks so nice in here now.

We didn't spend much time inside today since it was so nice outside and Adrienne and Erica were outside working on the yard all day. We walked to the bakery first thing in the morning and got muffins and huge cups of coffee to wake our tired asses up. Then we putzed around in the yard, watching Adrienne pull weeds and things.

Oh, this is interesting. At 3:30 we got our picture taken by a photographer from a local magazine WNC Parent. They are doing an article on families who have sacrificed financially so that one parent can stay home with the child. They did a little interview and took pictures of us all playing outside. It was fun! The issue comes out next week, and hopefully we can get a few good pictures out of it.

OH! We just watched America's Funniest Home Videos and the winner was from Vernon, CT. How odd. It was actually a funny one, too. I didn't recognize the couple, even though Kyle seemed to think I should.

Tomorrow is my morning to host our knitting group. I think we might have a screening of the potty movie. We have decided that potty training has officially started. Henry sat on the potty for a while tonight, a good start.

And that is all of the breaking news from Asheville. Florida pictures to follow.

Well, I have a little bad news for all of the long distance Henry lovers. As of early this morning, our digital camera went kaput. It will still take pictures under very particular circumstances, but none of them include snapping a quick shot of a moving toddler. Or flash. Or auto focus. Pth. We are going to have to take it to a shop when we get home and see if it is worth fixing. Until then, pictures might be a little scarce.

Today we got up and brought Henry to the golf course to go on a gator hunt. Since it is spring hatching season, we saw 15!!! Of these, only 4 were adults. the rest were babies, about 2.5-3 feet long, swimming all over the place. We also saw 4 turtles. Henry did a great impression of a turtle pulling its arms into its shell. Cute cute cute. He loved riding on the golf cart and kept yelling "Papa (Danny) watch the ROAD!!". It was pretty much the funniest thing ever. After that, Nana and Papa took him down the way to break in a neighbor's new pool. He was most likely the very first person to pee in it. That's m'boy! We had a low key night of eating too much crap and me getting my ass whipped playing cards. Danny was on a vedetta since I mercilessly beat him in a little Sudoku race this morning.

And in more important news....Tom and Katie had their baby today. Hopefully now that the baby is born, Katie will come to her senses and get the hell away from that creepy ass. Run, Katie, run!!! Suri "with a fringe on top" Cruise is in for a strange life, that's for sure. And because irony is not lost on newborns, Brooke Shields also gave birth today. I predict that her child has 72% LESS chance of ending up in a True Hollywood Story than the Cruise kid. I shall be waiting with baited breath to see if my theory pans out.

Wow, it's late. And tomorrow is my day to get up with the bean. It isn't much of a difference, since there are no shades on the windows. The sun seems to angle in perfectly so that its beautiful rays project directly into your eyeball at approximately 7:23am. *yawn*

Here I am, posting from sunny Florida. I can see the waves breaking from where I sit, inside, on such a lovely day. The sad truth is- a person can only take so much sun. Henry is a gorgeous shade of golden brown, but the rest of us haven't fared so well. We are super good about lathering the bean up and down with sunscreen, but we don't care so much for ourselves. I am doing alright because 1. I don't really like being out in the sun so it is easy for me to limit my exposure and 2. I don't tan. I burn and then go back to that beautiful shade of Conan O'Brien. I feel like I have a little bit of color, but I look positively pale when put next to any of the Kett clan. Kyle has by far the most entertaining coloring. He went jet skiing yesterday and since he was only out for an hour he saw no need to bother with the un block. From his feet to his knee (only on the front of his leg), from his hand to just above the elbow (only on the top of his arm) and his neck are bright lobster red. The rest of him is fairly white. He looks like he got in some sort of bizarre egg dying accident. It's totally hot.

We have been having a great time running around on the island, basically going from beach to pool to golf cart and inside to eat and watch too much tv for the weather. I must admit I am starting to get a little stir crazy. Like I said, I am not a huge sun fan, so there is only so much to do on this island. I was itching to take the ferry and go to the store, but when Kyle realized that all I was going to buy was a huge bag of Lay's Baked Ruffle potato chips, he nixed the idea. Maybe tomorrow.

Sally and Dick are coming over for dinner tonight. They are impossibley cool people, so I can't wait. They are old Frisco hippies who got rich somehow, I can't remember how, though. I know Sally used to be an actress. She dated Paul Newman's son, which makes her near royalty as far as I'm concerned. She is an Oscar voter, so she always lets us watch the advanced copies of movies that she gets. Like I said-way too cool for school. I'm looking forward to seeing them this evening.

Meanwhile, I have finished a pair of monkey shorts, a pair of custom monster shorts and am halfway through a pair of "Roanoke Gold" Malabrigo shorts to go with a little monkey t shirt. I think I should score a trip off island to go to the post office pretty soon. I can't wait to mail everything until we get back. Too bad I forgot my postal scale. I'll have to guess high on the weights and hope they fly.

Okay, I should finish this up before I get booted off the computer. Did I not mention the bane of my island existance? Two words: Dial. Up. Sheesh.

A quick update while Henry is still at the babysitting co-op.

Today has been another productive day and it's only 10:30! Go me! Henry and I dropped the boys off at work at 7:30 and then went up to Target to kill an hour before co-op. We returned 2 pairs of Henry shoes: a pair of watershoes for FL, size 7, too small and a pair of sandals, also size 7, too big. Huh? We got a new pair of sandals, size 7, just right. Unfortunately, Henry would rather tread across an ocean of broken glass barefoot than let me put the on him. He insists that his "brown shoes" are his one true love. That would be fine, but they don't breathe very well, so in hot weather with socks on, his little feet are going to fry. Without socks, his feet smell like a 13 year old's. Ew. So he NEEDS sandals. I am hoping that once he feels how nice and airy they are, he will grow to love them, too. I tried on pants, but I don't want to talk about it. Then we dropped off 3 big bags of crap that have been plagueing our closet for a year at Goodwill. From there, we went to Fyffe's house to drop the bean off for 3 loverly hours of freedom. I ran home to get directions to MHO and answer 73,000 emails about the monkey set that everyone loves and wants to know more about, but nobody is buying. I had juuuust enough time to swing by the bakery for a mocha and muffin (my weekly co-op indulgence) before the MHO appointment, which deserves its own paragraph.

It was so nice to sit down with someone who knows what they are talking about!!! She had my application in front of her with an official looking stamp on it. We are officially on "the list"! They are building 7 houses in West Asheville in the fall, and we should be able to get into one of them. I have to get her copies of Kyle's paystubs and a form signed to give AHS the ability to confirm his employment there. Then we have to make an appointment with a bank and finagle approval for 100-110k at under 6.8%. After that happens, we get to sit down and look at floorplans! She said we could probably get into a 3 bedroom with a payment that we could afford. It will be more than we pay now, but we will only have to put $1k down, so we will have a cushion to help us stay afloat until I start working again, which won't be long after we move in. Yay! I hate to get my hopes up again, but it seems like this time it might really work out. They seem to have a definite process, so if everything goes accoring to plan, we should be golden. We shall see.

Okay. I have to hit the yarn store and get gas before I go get Henry. I have some pictures to post later...

Well...things are moving pretty slowly over at the ole Hyena Cart today. I've only sold one thing so far. Pth. Ah well. I am already so behind that I guess I should be glad that I didn't get a lot of sales. But I'm a little sad they didn't go flying off the shelves. I guess I should just stick to what I've been doing. No fun.

In other news, it looks like I might be included in a big article in a local parenting magazine! It is about families who sacrifice financial stability to stay home with their kids. That should be interesting.

I've been pretty productive today. I have a huge to do list I wrote up for the day and it isn't even halfway done, but it will be, dernit! Done: Deposit checks, mail packages (to Australia and Canada!), email CSA, go to the yarn store. To Do: scrub kitchen cabinets, drop off Goodwill bags, winter stuff to the attic, bring recycling tubs down, call MHO.

Damn. I'd better get a move on.

Kyle got back from his camping trip safe and sound this afternoon and we all took long naps. It is pretty grey and damp out, so it was the perfect napping day. He had a great time and they ended up on top of Shining Rock sleeping in 60mph winds. Yup, and h had a good time. As long as he doesn't expect Henry and I to go with him? I'm glad he's enjoying himself. He bought a scale last week and we weighed in today. He lost 8lbs and I lost 3. Not too bad! I am setting a goal of another 10lbs by LEAF, which is a little over a month away. We'll see. Henry and I had such a good time on our walk the other day that I think I am going to try to make it part of our routine. I think it was a little over 2 miles, with lots of hills, and it didn't hurt my knees at all, so it will be good for us. And one of our stops is the playground, so Henry gets some exercise, too.

I don't like sleeping here alone. I rented a horrible on demand movie to pass the time. Must Love Dogs. Yup, I rented Must Love Dogs. As far as John CUsak movies go, this one ranked just above Serendipity and just below Identity. It was bad. Very bad. I didn't get to bed until around 1am and then I tossed and turned for another hour or so. I kept hearing noises and things, probably because it was raining outside. When Henry woke up at 6 I was NOT excited to get out of bed. Hence the big nap this afternoon.

We got word from the yarn co-op that the Malabrigo people have changed their shipping. Instead of the original 8-10 weeks, they now have a 3 week turnaround! WooHoo! All that yarn in 3 weeks! I am so excited!

I have a huge to do list lined up this week. I have tons of knitting to do, the Hyena Cart stocks on Monday, and I have to get ready to go to FL on Thursday. Ugh.

Did any of you actually go get Hyena Cart accounts? If you did, you need to go make some spots. I am in need of some guerilla marketing here people! Go! Go! Go!

Whew, today was a good and busy day! It is so nice outside-sunny and 80+ degrees. Kyle took the car to work since he took a half day, so Henry and I decided to be walkers this morning. We walked down to the bakery and got coffee and muffins, then on to the playground where Henry went on the twisty slide 750 times and then to the library. We checked out some new and exciting kids' books and walked back home. Henry actually fell asleep in the stroller, which amazed me. While he slept, I went and took pictures and stocked my Hyena Cart for Monday morning. Go look, there is some really cool stuff.

Anthony picked up Kyle and they are off for another hiking adventure. As nice as it is right now, it is supposed to be 40ish and thunderstorming all night. We shall see. It was really the only time they could go since we're going to FL next week and then they will be moving into their new place.

After running around outside all day, we are hot and sticky, so Henry is plunked down watching The Lion King and I am dallying around online. In just a bit we are going to go pick up Jess and Noah and go on a downtown adventure. I am sure it will be hopping since it is so nice out. I wonder if the drum circle will have started up yet. That would be fun. Ibet the boys would love it.

Henry has discovered the joys of breakdancing. His favorite song is 500 Ways to Kill a CEO by The Coup. Appropriate? Not so much. But he loves it. He gets down on teh floor and does The Coffeegrinder. He stands in the living room and yells "Breakdance" as loud as he can until you put that song on. Cute? Just a tad. He charmed the pants right off the hipster barrista girl at the bakery when she brought him his cinnimon roll and he screamed "ROCKANDROLL" at her. Yup. A hit with the ladies already.

Watch out.

It's spring! 

Henry's bed! 

Two best buds takin' in some sunshine and watermelon. 

Well I just finished a pair of pants, so I thought I'd give myself a break and update. Not that anything exciting is going on. It's not.

I managed to get Henry down for an early nap, so he should be waking up just in time for Noah to come over and hang out with us while his folks go through the inspection on their new house. I am hoping they don't find anything too big, there is already enough to be done on it. Henry will be happy to see him and I think it is nice enough to let the little maniacs loose in the backyard.

I found out last night that we got a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) spot at Green Toe Groun Farm, that is pretty exciting. We are splitting a share with some friends, so it won't bee too expensive, and we will be able to look forward to a big old box of organic veggies every week. They drop off at the co-op down the street, so it should be really convenient, too. I have been thinking that I should really get into cooking a little bit. Maybe this will inspire me since we'll have to come up with ways to use all of the produce. I am excited.

I am tired. I don't know why, but it seems like I just can't get enough sleep lately. Maybe it is because Henry has started waking up in the night again. The last 3 nights in a row he has woken up at least once. He wants me to come in and sleep in his bed with him. I wouldn't mind it once in a while, it is actually nice and snuggly, but you can't just do it once in a while. Pth. I am going to be in bed by 8 tonight.

Ooooh, I think I hear the pitter patter of little feet...

Someday I'll have time to sit down and properly updat again. FOr now you will have to setlle for some drive by picture posting. I am currently trying to knit myself out of a black hole...

I managed to bribe Henry into trying on one of the little outfits with the new batik shirts I jusr got yesterday. He looks so skiiiiinny! 

Clutching his jelly bean bribery on his hot little hand...