Wow, August has been so crazily busy this year.  Our schedule has been packed every weekend.  So, here is a catch up from last weekend and then I’ll need to catch you up, in a couple of days, on this weekend’s craziness….

Last Saturday, Paul and I went to meet our friends Elaine and Steve (and Elaine’s sister, Karen and her husband George) at the Saratoga Racetrack.  I had never been there before. I have lived 45 minutes from the place for over 7 years, dealt with “track traffic” and heard about the racing every night for 6 weeks every summer, yet had not set foot there.  And I’ll tell you why:  I wasn’t that interested in horse racing.

However, many people told me, “But it’s the EXPERIENCE of it all.  You have to go.”  Here is what I thought:  It would be crowded.  Really crowded.  And what little money I’d want to bet, I’d likely lose.  And, again, I wasn’t that interested in horse racing.

However (again), given the opportunity to see our friends Elaine and Steve, which doesn’t happen very often, and given that it was for breakfast before the track opened when not many people would be there, but most importantly that we wanted to see them, we happily met them there!

And it was a wonderfully uncrowded time to catch up with them:

We had some breakfast:

Including the fruit salad I made from our CSA fruit share that week!

It was excellent!

Then, when we got kicked out of the track, which they do at 10am so that they can let you back in at 11am and charge you an entry fee, we went into Saratoga and looked around.  Paul and I resisted going in here:

Which we regretted three separate times later in the day, because they make REALLY good cupcakes.

But, we didn’t pass by this:

.

…Where we got excellent cinnamon raisin bread and I ate it for breakfast every day this week.

It was then that we parted ways with Elaine and Steve, and Karen and George, as they went back to actually watch horse racing, and we headed home.  We had more things to do.

First up was pick-your-own day at our CSA farm!  I forgot to bring my camera.  But we picked a boat load of beans and some parsley and some basil.  We missed some of the other things like okra and snap peas because we got there late (see aforementioned trip to the track).  I’ll show you some pictures of what we got in a little bit.

After pick-your-own, I was off to the Anniversary Ice Cream Social at The Spinning Room yarn shop to celebrate the three year anniversary of Deirdre owning the shop (and she happy-anniversaried me for NOT owning the shop for three years!).

It was yummy and fun!  Deirdre is great and has done wonderful things with the shop.  I have said this before, but I’m grateful that after I sold the shop to her, she still wanted me to come back and teach classes and then, more recently, that she wanted me to join the shop girls in working there.  While shop ownership was not for me, being in the shop and teaching and being around yarn and knitters IS for me and I have Deirdre to thank for that!

Ok, that was Saturday.  Sunday I did this:

And then, because someone at the shop during the ice cream social said to me, “So, what new and fun classes are you going to be teaching?” and I looked at the class sample table in the shop and saw only repeat classes, and I started panicking, I started this:

Oatmeal Stout cowl by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka The Yarn Harlot, aka my blogging idol).

And then, on Monday when Paul and I went to the Guptill’s car show….:

….I kept working on it:

….and finished it!:

I love this cowl.  It is the perfect size and is nice and cozy.  And the pattern comes with instructions to make a longer, infinity cowl as well as mittens to match!

And then, because that wasn’t enough, I started this when we got home from the car show and finished it the next day during the doodlebugs’ naptime:

Isn’t that just the cutest darn hat you have every seen?!?!?  It is called Chouette and comes in several sizes. (this one is the smallest – for a 3 month old baby)

Alright, that’s it.  That’s what happened last weekend.

Oh, except we got our yearly visit from the blue heron!:

Stay tuned for this weekend’s wrap-up. I’ll give you a hint.  It involves more picking, and spinning and me finding out if I got any ribbons at the fair and a party.