She shops, she scores!

Did you get in on the sale?  I don't know if its a yearly thing or not, but Interweave Knits sells its damaged books for half price during their Hurt Book sale.  And from what I hear, if you don't jump on the sale the very moment it goes live, you are out of luck.  Fortunately, I sit at my computer for most of the daylight hours and I was online when my email arrived notifying me of the sale.  Quickly, with the stealth of a maniacal knitter (hey, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about!) I clicked on the link and started loading up my shopping cart.  Then with the same amount of stealth, I clicked on the checkout button.  Yeah, baby!  I scored 6 (SIX!) books.  Witness the folksey-ness that arrived at my doorstep yesterday:

So now I have 156 knitting books recorded in my LibraryThing.  For some reason, I like that number.  And just so you  know, that number doesn't count how many knitting magazines I have stacked around the house.  My fingers get a crampy feeling when I think about cataloging all of them.

You may be asking, "So how hurt are those books?".  At first appearance they look like they are from a used book store, mostly with creases in the soft bound covers.  Here's the worst amount of damage that I found:

I can live with that.  Who's to say the book wouldn't end up that way in the long run anyway.  I haven't had the time to read them yet (must spend time with the niece and neph) but I've got a gut feeling that all the pages are intact.  My scaredy cat has picked out her favorite one too:

Smells pretty good!

...because when they wake up they bark and chew and tear things up.  Piper has become a blessing and a curse.  Originally, my son was 100% committed to owning and caring and paying for this dog.  The boy is 16.  He's a teen.  I should have totally predicted what would end up happening.  And you can probably predict what I'm about to say.

Dear son has relinquished ownership of the pup to those who have more patience and rearing skills.  Those new owners are his parents.

I can't say we didn't see this coming but we really wanted to see if the boy had it in him to pour out enough love and money for the pup he so lovingly saved from the animal shelter.  He's a kind hearted soul, after all.  And the Sharchitect (which my DH will from now on be referred to as) and I had grown too fond of the pooch to find it another home.  How can you not love a belly like this:

Golly, can she bite and chew and chew and bite.  She's starting to learn what a loud "NO!" means but she is showing defiance to it at the same time--kinda like a teenager.  She's definitely brought out my maternal instincts.

My niece and nephew are in the states for a visit (and their mom too) and those kids are so much fun.  Can we talk about natural curls?!

One word:  Sproing!  R's hair is down to her waist if you stretch out one of those curls.  She's in love with our Chihuahua and even wrote him a letter, and just to HIM I have to stress, about coming to the states to visit him.

And the nephew is a walking comedy show.  He can entertain himself by playing with his vast collection of vehicles and making vrrroooming car sounds (watch out for the spit spray though).  While opening gifts on the first night of their visit, he pulled out the tissue paper and commenced displaying large amounts of glee by tossing around the paper.  It had to be brought to his attention that there was something else in the bag and with that, he showed a slight look of displeasure as to how there could be anything else more worthwhile than what he had already discovered.