So it was a long... and stress free weekend for the most part.

I missed my friend's Christmas in July party in L.A. because I was being a lame friend and lazy bum.

Which is exactly what I accomplished this weekend.

I did do a few extras though.

First of all we were house-sitting for two family members. So Saturday we got to go swimming which was really nice because it was HOT here in Bako as usual.

I pretty much laid around the house all day and knit. Then at about 3 p.m. we got in the pool. Then we cleaned up our messes and left Aunt Nancy's house the way we found it, for the most part.

We headed back to my in-laws to take care of the dogs and stay the night there because they went out of town this weekend.

I did some more knitting and laying around.

Then at about 5 or 6 p.m. Stephen decides to start in on the bathroom reorganization and cleaning project that he has been envisioning ever since we moved in here.

Here are pictures of the results:


I love the bowl with the shells and the sand and the candle. It's my favorite part. It uses her shells that were not really displayed before and really shows them off.

With all the knitting I did, I was able to finish the sweaters for Gracie's twins and I have so much yarn left over that I am now making the matching socks!

These are my favorite sweaters so far. It's such a classic look and they are so cute and tiny!

I also began my own training program for the 2008 Nike Women's Marathon in SF.

I left the house at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday with Charlotte. We walked for 3 hours!

For those of you that do not live in Bakersfield, this is going to make no sense at all, but I want to tell you my route because I think I got a lot of mileage in...

Once out of my in-laws neighborhood (I don't need a stalker, thank you very much), I traveled north on Scarlet Oak, cross over Ming Avenue and Camino Media. I then traveled East on Camino Media to the CSUB entrance. I walked across the campus to Don Hart East. Crossed Stockdale Highway and then joined up with the bike path. I traveled west on the bike path until I got to the last pathway of the Park at Riverwalk. I then walked around the park going east until I got back to the bike path. I took the same route back. I passed the 10 and 9 mile markers along the bike path. Check out my cool route map below:


Just by a rough measurement using the scale and my tape measure, I figure I walked about 7.5 miles.

Surprisingly enough, I'm not that sore. My feet really hurt yesterday. Mostly my toes. And my lower back was bothering me. Towards the end of the walk I was feeling the burn in my upper thigh area, but other than that I'm fine. I did make the mistake of sitting on the couch for a couple hours right after and then I was pretty stiff when I tried to get up and walk. Nothing a little stretching didn't cure though.

Anyway. I am going to maybe start some circuit training or some kind of group training if I can get some other people on board with me.

I think it was about 2 years ago that my MIL went on a trip to Australia.

Biggest event of her life.

She talks about it ALL the time. ALL the time. We've all heard the stories over and over.

She still orders touristy Australia things, like beach towels, t-shirts, socks and kitchen towels emblazoned with kangaroos and kiwi fruit.

She also orders packages of these marsupials that clip onto things. They all wear vests that say "I ♥ Australia"

Recently my MIL was down at Ruth's house (her daughter, my SIL) and met some of our friends. I guess she really took to our friend John because now whenever she sees him, she gives him a marsupial. He's part of the marsupial club.

Well John started playing this game of "hide the marsupial." I think it may have started at my niece's birthday party... Ruth has this little mini church and one turned up in the steeple, praying... It was very funny.

Yesterday I was doing my usual morning routine of checking out friends blogs (or stalking people) and their photo albums to see if there was anything new going on.

John and his wife, Cara (who I am making something for) had uploaded some pictures to their photo album from her recent baby shower. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I saw this picture:
Actual caption: "You never know where a marsupial is going to pop up."
Comment from Ruth: "How the heck did that marsupial get there? It looks like he's hanging on for dear life!"

But the fun didn't end there.

At dinner last night with the family somehow we of course got on the subject of Australia... I believe she was talking about some kind of shells... Anyway all I could think of is the picture and we're at the dinner table and I just burst out laughing. Like a spit take, but with laughing. I really tried my hardest to hold it in, but I couldn't keep it in any longer. It just came out. Luckily my FIL had told a funny story earlier so I just said that I was thinking of that... and narrowly avoided some hurt feelings.

I then whispered to Stephen, "I have to show you something really funny after dinner." So I showed him the marsupial photo. Then he understood my laughing outburst.

So anyway I'm working on this project for Cara, like I said. It tells me I need to divide for the front and back and that I need to put some stitches on holders. So I have to find my holders. I only have 3 and I knew I would need the two biggest ones. I'm going through all my various yarn and knitting storage devices searching for them, when what do I run across?

You guessed it. A marsupial. In my knitting bag.

That's when I knew that this could not be a random occurance and that I must blog about marsupials.

Well... here is a picture of the baby jacket in progress for Cara's boy and a closeup of the marsupial (You can click on them to make them bigger):

Last week a friend in the business informed me that a reporter at the news station she works at was using stories written by your fellow citizen journalists as "research" for the story she was putting together.

The story the reporter was working on was about the Lopez-Hill house. We received a couple of great stories from the Kern County Superintendent of Schools — which oversees the Kern County Museum and Pioneer Village where they are trying to relocate the Lopez-Hill House — and from Glenda Rankin and Dianne Sharman — daughters of Lavern Hill, the home's last resident.

Glenda and Dianne had both done extensive research on the history of the home and basically knew this story forwards and backwards. 

I saw the reporter's story. It didn't have the depth that the story we got did, in my opinion anyway.

It got me thinking, why should we need a reporter to tell this story when the people who actually go through the story can tell it even better?

Yesterday I was watching the Ken Burns film, Civil War, on PBS. It was a rebroadcast of the original series and they had special insights from Ken between each episode. During one of his commentaries he said something to the effect of, "I wanted to use these photographs and journal entries to tell the story. They breathe life into this war in a way that dates and statistics cannot."

That's how I feel about citizen journalism too. So often when a regular reporter does a story they spend so much time paraphrasing and there is only so much space and important things that people have to say get left out.

When you tell the story yourself that doesn't happen.

Wednesday we had a lovely lazy morning. We slept in and then made out way out to the coast for Forth of July craziness. When we arrived in Pismo Beach, it seemed the local authorities had nearly every public parking lot closed off. Dumb. So we joined the thousands of other Bakersfield and Fresno residents in driving around for nearly an hour trying to find a place to park.

Finally, we went way up into the hills to park. This is where we parked. It was nearly 2 p.m. and I was starving. It was taking FOREVER to get around and with all the people and the no parking and the craziness I was starting to wonder why we even go there every Fourth of July. We were both getting really grumpy with each other, me especially because I can't function when I am starving.

I was determined to eat some Splash Café clam chowder. So we walked all the way down to the beach and got in a short line. We enjoyed some chowder in bread bowls. It was really thick though, thicker than I remember and it didn't sit well on my sensitive stomach. So I was disappointed again.

We walked around a little and went into some shell and gift shops. We totally found some really cute stuff for our house for way cheap! I am so excited. Most of the stuff I liked was from Pottery Barn and of course they mark up stuff to no end.

Check out my savings:
• Ships Wheel at Pottery Barn $199, in Pismo $37
• Decorative Sea Shells at Pottery Barn $14-19, in Pismo $2-9

And we got a really cute lighthouse for pretty cheap too.

So that pretty much made the trip worth it.

Next we met up with Stephen's cousin Jon and his wife Morgan in Santa Maria. We relaxed for a little while and then we hunted down some Mexican food. After we finished eating we headed back to Pismo Beach for the fireworks display. We parked in Grover and then walked down the beach. We finally ran into our friends Brady and Jennifer through the aid of modern cell phone technology.

It was really foggy. So we kept walking until we could make out the pier. We were pretty close. It was still really foggy though so we couldn't see like half the fireworks. There were plenty of people shooting off illegal ones, but it wasn't nearly as crazy as last year. It was still a good show though.

After the show we walked back to our cars and we stopped for some yummy dessert on the way home. It was nice to just go back to Morgan and Jon's instead of driving all the way back to Bakersfield. We had a nice slow morning the next day and we even visited a yarn and fabric store in Santa Maria. Everything in the store was 20% off, but because I went way over budget last weekend on my shopping trip with Megan and Brooke to Fresno, I wasn't really allowed to buy anything. I did convince Stephen to let me buy one book though so I can use up that Manos already!