Mountains and Motorcycles

I love to ride my motorcycle. Good thing, as lately I spend a lot of time on it. And by a lot of time, I mean a 90-minute commute one way, 4 days a week. Twelve hours a week on a bike in what is right now, unpleasant heat. I have olive skin but still use a 45spf sunscreen every day. Even with sunscreen, I'm getting very dark. You'd think my skin would feel like leather, but fortunately, so far it doesn't.

One good thing about the commute is that every day I get to view some of the most awesome scenery in our entire country. I get to travel at relatively high speeds on beautifully paved, curvy and shady roads, looking at trees, kudzu vines, quaint barns, and mountains.

Here are some pictures I've taken from the bike. Yes, I did. Once in high gear, my left hand is free and it takes about a second to call up my camera phone & snap a pic. The drawback being that some of these pix aren't as detailed as I like, and a couple come nowhere NEAR capturing the beauty that is apparent to the human eye, but they'll have to do. Each picture has a caption if necessary. Enjoy!


In Sevierville, you can go to an entire store dedicated to Beef Jerky. Not kidding.


These barns have dotted the countryside in the South for as long as I can remember.


Very hard to see, sorry. But every day I ride past this, and it makes me smile. These people have put up their own street sign at their driveway, crooked of course, and it says "More R Less."

Once I get to Sevierville, I take Veterans Parkway, which goes by the back parking lots of Dollywood but also bypasses all the traffic through Sevierville & Pigeon Forge. Along the way there are places where one can see up to 5 layers of mountains. The next 3 pictures were taken on that route.





Because the forests here respire so much moisture, we have a lot of mist (humidity, LOL), which is what earned them the name "The Great Smoky Mountains." In the morning and evening, it looks like the picture above. During the day, if there is cloud cover, it looks like the pic below.


There is one hill that I top every morning, when suddenly it's no longer just foothills covered with trees, but the full scope of the Smokies, looming large in purple-gray-blue, 4x as high as the highest foothill, and surrounding me by about 120 degrees. It never fails to give me goosebumps. The two last pictures are miserable failures at capturing the breathtaking beauty but they're the best I could do...

WAY Far Behind

We've been up to a LOT and I haven't been chronicling it here like I probably should. So today's post is a lot of pics, each with a caption or a little blurb per group. Hopefully if I'm caught up, I won't feel overwhelmed at the thought of writing in my blog. LOL

We'll start with some B's Eye View photography. Betsy LOVES to take pics of our aquarium, for some reason. And even though there are like 15 fish in it, she always snaps a pic of this Kissing Gourami. Also in the mornings when it's asleep down behind something, she worries if it's dead.












We've had some really nice weather, in the 80s during the day and 60s at night. So of course nice weather and Friday night equal "Can we put up a tent & sleep in it?" I told the kids yeah, sure... so Diantha, Veronica, and Amy from next door took like an hour setting this up, played in it about another half an hour, and then the winds kicked up and there were storm warnings issued.

[Here on the Right are Diantha, 3 yo Beverly ("Betsy") and my beautiful and handsome 9yo son, Josiah.] Down came the tent & in came the kids. Who knew?

Below, I also caught a good front & back shot of Princess Beverly (with leaves caught in the back of her skirt, LOL).




We took the tank off the 650 and painted it metallic gunmetal gray. Here is the tank. Also the bike, reassembled.

I am going to paint green-into-silver-into-purple ghost flames on it & clear coat it yet.

We also painted my son's Icon helmet, which we were blessed to find pawned for 1/3 the retail price. It was flat black but now it's AWESOME. It actually took me a minute or two to figure out how he got the helmet to look bigger than a bathtub. See if you get it. LOL

So Diantha, Des and I were in the TwitKAL (Twitter Knit-a-long).

A bunch of Twitter knitters voted on 5 different categories of patterns (shawl, shrug, hat, gloves, sweater) and then voted again on the top winner from each category.

The winner was the Traveling Woman shawl from Ravelry. I blogged my finished shawl already, here.

This is Diantha's, which was knitted in Jojoland Melody superwash merino wool sock yarn on size 7 needles. Beautiful!

Wordless Wednesday - Autumn Color

More B's Eye View Photography

Beverly's been at it again with the camera.

Apparently her Banana Chocolate Chip muffin for breakfast impressed her enough to need to snap a pic of it.

Our weird guard-dog cat, D.O.G., was keeping the last 2 Mountain Dew cans safe for us, and she thought that picture-worthy also.


She snapped a nice shot of her big brother Josiah. Isn't he cute? When he isn't tormenting her, he is darling.

Like when he is sleeping.

And we must have one of Mommy, walking through the house. The lampshade perspective is especially artistic.

In our living room, we have an old Army trunk that I got for $5 once at a yard sale. We used to keep videos in it, but now it's just empty. I do have a really nice, glass-topped, metal-sculpture-bottomed coffee table.

But since my older sons have managed to break like 3 other heavy-glass-topped coffee tables, I like the old trunk. You can put your feet on it, fold laundry on it, and spill your can of soda on it, and not worry about damaging it. Perfect.

B must think so too, as she was inspired to snap a photograph. Notice the extraneous coaster.

One more, a Cheesy self-portrait. Thank you, B, for cheering up our lives with your smiling face. And thank you for allowing us a glimpse into your little world, through your pictures!

Now, a couple pics of me own...

My parents were over to visit for the day on Saturday. This is my mom, Judith, holding Beverly for her nap.

My parents HATE our having kids, and every time since my 2nd, that I have told them I am having another baby, my mom has said, "Oh NO!!," like I told her I had cancer or something. When I am pregnant, my dad takes every opportunity to tell me that I need another kid like I need a hole in my head.

I don't really understand this, because we don't ask them to help us support the kids, and we don't get welfare of any kind. And, once the kids are here, they seem to like them ok.

Here is Beverly explaining football to my dad, Jim. Or maybe I should say James, since he gets ticked off if we shorten Beverly's name to the affectionate Betsy. So maybe NOBODY should be allowed to have a nickname? It's a thought.

The Dr. Pepper-Hoodie big-box store anomaly was gone today, but we found a little-girls' doll fail.

This is one of the reasons my girls don't play with Barbie types, yo!

Stuff That Has Happened Recently

Another Big Box store anomaly. Our local big box store/indoor walk-for-your-health club is remodeling. I mean big time, confuse-the-customers, move-the-whole-store-twice remodling. They finally have the new pharmacy in, and the BP machine in a little nook. The machine is separated from the pick-up window by a half-wall topped with glass, which they have obliterated with ad signs in English and of course Spanish. Someone set their Dr. Pepper and hoodie up on the little ledge, probably while they took their blood pressure. For reasons of my own, I am taking my BP each day while we walk. The first day, we didn't think a thing of it.

On Day 2, we took a picture. Today was Day 3, and we took another pic. Shall we take a pic every day until some diligent employee notices the Lone Hoodie and removes it? Hmmm?

B has been at it again with the camera. Her favorite subject matters seem to be Mommy and Daddy, probably because what she looks at and whom she deals with mostly are, um, Mommy and Daddy. So firts thing in the morning Saturday, she snapped pics of the two of us. Thanks, B.

I have a tattle-tale pic of myself to share with the world. The other day as I went around the house doing this, that, something else, I kept having to put on reading glasses. I only wear a +1.00 but still, need them sometimes. I kept getting aggravated, because every time I needed a pair, I couldn't find them and had to go hunt up another pair. I sat down at the table to put on some glasses to look at something, and Diantha said, "Um, Mom... Why are you putting your blue glasses on your face when you have two other pairs on your head?" What is the answer to that? As Grandpa said to the kid in The Princess Bride, "You're very smart... now shut up!"

Artemas has been playing with more pearwood in the front yard. I have a really good stainless-steel hone to sharpen our really good chef-quality knives, but several years ago the oak handle and stop cracked. So Artemas took a piece of pear branch for a handle and a round of a larger branch for a stop, sanded them fine, water-base urethaned them, and mounted them on the hone. I love it. The odd shape fits the palm of the hand perfectly. Bravo, Artemas!

I finished the BumbleBee-nie I was knitting for a toddler boy. I really like the way it turned out. I had what I thought was a really good pic of the crown, but these dress-dummy heads are so WEIRD. Instead of being kind of round like a head, they are narrow from side to side and then really LONG from forehead to crown. The shape of them really distorts anything one puts on them. So the pic of the crown of the hat looked all misshapen, and when I tried to correct it in my photoshop program, it just got worse. So, one view is all you get.

We went to Gatlinburg for part of today, to visit with my parents who are in a time-share there. We really only live about 50 miles from there, so don't ask me why it always takes so DANG long to get there. By now, I am exhausted. So I will try to write some more tomorrow, about the Left slipper-sock to go with the BumbleBee-nie and about our day trip!

Range, Redneck, Spindles, Knitting

So I went to the range today w my 21yo DS#1. One of the mags from my weapon is seriously misloading. I do have arrangements already made to send it in for servicing, so I am kind of glad the problem showed up before I shipped it off, so I can let them know.


I noticed that on the X-1 targets I was using, the 8 ring is the same size of the 9 ring on the 12" Dirty Bird targets. Hmmm, if I use the Dirty Bird, my score is even better.

I shot 26 rounds right-handed and 10 rounds left-handed. Pics speak for themselves.


Pic of the dirty bird target up top is from a couple weeks ago but you can see what I mean by the ring size.

Artemas has started making wooden items for his Got Wood 4 You shop at Etsy. Last night he was working, and working, and working on a spindle that we could NOT get to balance. He hit on the idea of putting the shaft of it in the drill and making his own "spinning wheel".


You can see from the pics that he and Diantha had a big time of it. Gotta give them points for creativity.

In the one picture, Betsy had just taken a bite of Cola-slow-roasted pork and looks like she is either in ecstasy, or she can't believe the redneck ridiculousness of her brother. LOL.

Seems like every time Des and Tony are over, the kids get into something like this. Nice that they are getting older and actually get along!

Also it seems like every time they are over, B takes camera in hand and has a heyday running around between all the tall people, taking pictures. so I have included here, for your viewing enjoyment, some B's Eye View pics of the family.

Left, 17 yo big brother Artemas

Right, big sister Desiree with sleeping Hannah


Left, 14yo big sister Diantha, who is a peacock.


Right, Hannah.

Or rather, Hannah's legs, which is all B could reach with the camera.



Left, big brother (in law) Tony. She always makes him look like a giant.


and, God forbid I should get left out, this time she also nabbed a pic of Mom.


Artemas finally did get one spindle done to put up, this one a top-whorl. It has a 2" pearwood slice with the bark still on, screwed-in silver color hook, and 9" oak shaft.

I tried it out and it spins well.

I have been knitting, but not enough. So here for all the world to see, are my latest knitting fails (geez I use Twitter so much, I almost used hashtags. #knitting #fails. LoL)

The right cotton slipper sock, finished. But I did not cast on the left, because I wanted something to knit while I was walking this week, and I can't do the provisional, toe-up crochet cast on while I walk. Call me uncoordinated or something.

The beanie hat to go with the slipper socks, partway done. It keeps slipping off my needles, and true to Ross household form, I can't find any of the 36 needle tips I have lying around here in limbo. So despite my really good idea, I can't knit this while walking either, because I keep having to pick up lost stitches.

I cast on a Mossy Jacket (pattern here) for Hannah for Christmas, though I am going to knit it in a v-neck raglan with centered button placket. Like I need ONE more thing to do, but Hannah LOVED a hand-dyed recycled yarn I made, that coordinates with this one. And, I am a sucker for my grandbabies.

And the best #knitting #fail of the week... I lost the socks I was working on for Josiah. [Hangs head in shame]. But! I haven't looked under my bed yet. There is a very special place under the head of my bed next to my nightstand, where knitting projects left on my nightstand go if ignored for more than about an hour. So there is hope...