Knitted Cuteness

My first week of house-wifery went reasonably well. Somehow I have become more klutzy than usual and have had several instances of breaking things, dropping things, injuring myself, etc. Nothing too serious that warrants further description, merely annoyances. I managed to get some exercise in each day, visit with a few friends, and begin the onerous task of going through everything we own and figuring out whether to keep, sell, donate, or toss it. On Sunday we went to the Tucson Museum of Art because it is free on the first Sunday of each month. Also, I was feeling the need to walk around for a while in less than 100* heat. It's an interesting little museum, but I'm glad we didn't pay a lot of money to visit it. Joe is extremely good at taking pictures by holding out the camera and getting our faces plus whatever background we want. We have a ton of these pictures where it looks like we've just photoshopped our faces in front of different backgrounds because our position is nearly the same in each one. We call them the "Cheesy Series". It's much harder to do with an iPhone than a regular camera, so we've been slacking a little bit, but I made sure to bring my camera just for this purpose on Sunday. We are in the Plaza de Raices in front of the Art Museum, and in the background is a mural painted by Tucson artist David Tineo. Joe's beard is coming along nicely. 

I've been working on a toy for my co-worker who just had a baby girl named Cleah on Mother's Day. It's taken me shamefully long to complete this sweet little butterfly. The knitting part was fine, but all the sewing together at the end was dreadful. I hate sewing. I knit so that I never have to tie knots, cut thread before it's been used, or any of the other annoying things that come with sewing. The back of the wings are just regular craft felt. Normally, this would not be anything worth commenting on, however, there is apparently some sort of run on felt in Tucson right now. I went to three different craft stores and they all had empty racks of where the felt should have been. The only thing I can think of is that with the start of summer school and camp all the teachers and counselors must have run out to restock their felt supplies. The wings flap a lot on this little guy, and I think it will be fun for Cleah in a couple of months. The final picture includes a turtle I knit for Joe a couple of years back because the butterfly looked so lonely on the brick porch. The turtle's shell is removable. 

Finally, the lovely ladies of ACPA threw me a surprise quasi-baby-shower at the annual end-of-the-school-year-potluck. Each bought me one or two of their favorite children's books, and they all contributed to a hefty Target gift card. Also, Cleah's mom bought me a travel diaper pad thing that can go in any bag because we had a long discussion about the utility of diaper bags when we went for afternoon tea this week. It seems to me that a diaper bag is simply a bag with the word diaper in front of it. Supposedly there are lots of special pockets to keep the mom-on-the-go organized, it's easily washable, and it comes with a changing pad. I have enough bags already with lots of pockets that are easily cleaned, so with this travel changing pad I can just go ahead and use them. Thanks Meaghan!