Many Assorted Updates

We're back in Austin!  We crawled into our bed at about 2 a.m. We had a flight that went from Ontario, California to Las Vegas, and to our surprise, the plane went from almost empty to completely filled (and a volunteer recruited for a later flight) even though it was the 4th of July!  We saw a lot of fireworks as we landed in Austin, professional fireworks shows in many locations around the area, but from the air, even the most impressive show is amazingly miniaturized.

While we were in California, our son Steven packed and mailed all the orders so nobody would have to wait unduly.  Our policy is to mail every weekday, if we have an order.  Steve is a smart and careful young man, followed detailed instructions, and didn't want any of my customers disappointed.  If anyone had the least problem with an order this week, please let me know.

I want you all to know that I have a new eBay ID.  John and I have an ID, "jsulliva" for many, many years and many transactions, and you can check our feedback on that ID, but it was just too confusing to have any of my knitting transactions, which have to be recorded in my bookkeeping, mixed in with personal transactions, so now I have some eBay things under diana_natters.  I would prefer dianaknits, but somebody else has that one.  I also have a sales site, www.dianaknits.com, which is my own domain name and has my products free of eBay and its various positive and negative attributes.

Also, please know that I greatly appreciate international orders, charge a low shipping fee, and send them USPS first class mail.  Unfortunately, they do take up to three weeks to arrive.  The international priority mail is quite costly.  If anyone wants to pay for that, email me and I'll do it.  I'm too cheap, myself, and when I buy from overseas I go with ordinary mail and wait...and wait.

While we were in California, we visited John's mom, who had her 85th birthday, and her daughter.  We saw my niece Heidi, her husband Chris, and baby Riley, who just had her first birthday.  We visited other friends in our old town.  Then we visited my sister Karen, her husband Jeff and gorgeous children Branden and Anna.  Next, we visited my sister Sharon, husband Maynard, grown daughter Christine (the real Legally Blonde), Christine's friend James, Sharon's son Thomas and Thomas' friend Lisa.  We went to Huntington Beach and met our tenant and her son - really nice people - and I had my first look at our new-to-us property there.  Then we went to the TSCPA annual meeting for two days and hung out with my lovely CPA buds, and finally back to John's mom's house.  Whew.  I hardly know what hit me!  We did all this in a little over a week, visiting San Bernardino, Highland, Moreno Valley, Simi Valley, Huntington Beach, Sunset Beach, Costa Mesa, and San Diego.  Whew.

We had spectacular, cool weather in California.  I hear it rained here.

And, in the middle of all that, I woke up one day with a sick tooth and visited a dentist and then an endodontist.  I need dental work once I get through the antibiotics, but I felt better quickly.

We certainly ate a lot.  Now that I'm home it's back to counting Weight Watcher points for me!  It's much too important not to regain the weight I've lost.

I didn't work on "Enchanted Edgings" too much, but John and I went over it and decided to move the silly fairy tale that was an into to the end and keep the beginning completely knitting-related.  I still have one chart to add, the table of contents, and some serious video editing.  Everything takes me forever; I certainly hope the time I took is reflected in the quality of the product.

When we finally had access to the internet, how painful it was to hear of the end of Knit Words magazine!  I have been a huge fan from almost the beginning, and I really am grieving.  If you can get some back issues, please do; Mary Anne included such wonderful instructions in each edition that her magazines represented a wonderful opportunity to improve knitting skills.  I wish her the very best in her future endeavors, whatever they may be; and I fully expect her to achieve every success, knowing what a talented person she is and what quality work she does.