This and That for Thursday

Corey left this morning for his kayak instructors course in New Hampshire. He called to report that he and Mike had an uneventful trip there and were just relaxing at the camp. I think he comes home next Wednesday.

We had one more Simply Certificate to use before the end of June so Jim and I went out to dinner at the Beale Street Grill. We had a good meal. I think I like going out to dinner during the week as opposed to the weekend, because we never have to wait for a table on a Thursday night. 

After dinner, we continued heading east to East Rochester where we made a quick trip to the Village Yarn and Fiber Shop. I wanted to buy some hand carders so I could get my fleece into a form that I could spin. Last night I separated out a small amount of the fleece and washed and rinsed it twice. The washing, or scouring part of preparing of a fleece is pretty time consuming. You need to use very hot water and dish soap (like Dawn) to clean the lanolin out of the fibers. The water was pretty clean after 2 washes, but I'm not sure I got all the soap out during the rinses. I can do that again. Here is a photo of my fleece drying on my sweater dryer.

On Monday, I am doing a spinning demo for one of my kindergarten classes and I wanted to show the process of going from fleece to yarn to a knit object. The students visited a farm today to see some sheep, so they have a good introduction for Monday. Even though I am new to spinning, I figure that I know enough to talk about and demo spinning to a group of kindergartners. 

Here's big news: Gas prices actually went down 2 cents a gallon at our favorite BJ's! I didn't think gas was going to do that! What are you paying? We can get it for $3.99/gal.

It has started to heat up. Today it was in the low 80's and the kids were whining when we were outside for 15 minutes. Just wait until tomorrow is in the 90's! 

Hope all is well.

Monday, Monday

Yesterday we had a rare visit from our Iowa/Colorado friends, John and Ann. We met them in 1982 on  a Grand Canyon river trip and have been fast friends ever since. John is one of the founders of the Iowa bike ride, RAGBRAI and will be riding again this summer (along with me and 9,998 other bikers). John and Ann have a son and family in Massachusetts  and were on their way there to see their granddaughter graduate from high school. We were thrilled to spend an afternoon and evening with them, catching up on each other's lives and reminiscing about past adventures we have shared. They are welcome here anytime they are passing through.

Jim and I left John and Ann in Corey's care as we left for work around 7 AM. We encouraged them to stay until at least 8:30 so they did not get caught in rush hour traffic on 490. Hopefully, they had an uneventful trip to MA. 

Now that it is June, the students and staff at school are counting down the days until summer vacation. As of this moment we have 17 1/2 days left with students. Teachers have 18 1/2 days! Today was another beautiful day here so I was outside with my classes for a batting lesson. It was a good day.

I rode my bike to school today and hope to get one or two more rides in this week, it is all weather dependent and we have some rain in the forecast for Wednesday and maybe Thursday.

Hope all is well.