Having Fun in Austin, Texas

After working like insaniacs the last few weekends to get ready for seminar, and me putting in at least 2-3 hours on the knitting stuff every evening to get all the handouts together and Diamonds fixed up, etc., John and I wanted to goof off a little this weekend. We had fun so far!

Austin has a lot of live music.  We went to Boathouse Grill for dinner Friday, near our house, and listened to some bluesy country music while we ate amazing crunchy catfish. Then today we went to Callahan's General Store, a huge, old-fashioned country store with hardware, kitchenware, animals, western wear, gifts, seeds, fresh produce, farm supplies, feed, tack, etc., and listened to a friend of mine who is in a classic rock band that was performing for the shoppers.  We wandered around and shopped while we enjoyed the 60s music.  I especially enjoyed the young goats (!) penned right in front of my friend's band and ringed with little kids. One of them was incredibly cute. I am sure they would make just terrible pets. I'll stick with my rotten spoiled little dog.  A lady was shopping while carrying a fancy rooster. He seemed to like being carried around, and folks were walking up to pet her rooster.


I lived a lot of places, but to live somewhere where people chat over a rooster is particularly cool. I so enjoy these gloriously friendly, polite Texans. I'll miss the chivalry, too, young men calling me ma'am and opening the door or helping with something, and customer service at a level I've never seen anywhere else.  People here seem to have figured out that life is simply more pleasant if people will be more pleasant! There isn't much of that inside Austin anymore, since it's full of couples like us who moved here, bringing along all our various cultures, but on the farming outskirts it is still alive.  We had incredible sunny springtime weather today, and I saw lots of people carrying around seedling tomato plants and flowers, itching to start gardens.

In keeping with the "have fun" weekend theme, John and I, who love movies, are streaming Netflix.  Last night we watched "The Lincoln Lawyer" and tonight I'm going to see if I can find "Wall-E" because we've never seen it, and we hear it's very funny. We have to go for groceries or else breakfast will be toast, but after that we can goof off with a movie.

Not much of a knitting-themed post, is it?  But I did pick up a bargain on yarn and tapestry needles (I like size 16 & 18 metal tapestry needles best for sewing up most knitting) at Tuesday morning, and I worked on the knitting business a little this morning (it's hard to stop altogether).  Shop alert:  Tuesday Morning has lots of Boye needles in stock, at least the one near us does.   I also corresponded with a few readers.