Chincoteague and Assateague

Sweet Daughter and I had the chance to meet up with some family members last week in Chincoteague. My sisters had rented a house, and we went up for some R&R for a couple of days. The house was right on the edges (several edges, actually) of wetland, and the views were gorgeous. The mosquitoes were the size of small hummingbirds, and you couldn’t open your car door without the little buggers swarming in to greet you. We even brought a bunch home with us – apparently we were the transport for some sort of insect foreign exchange program.

View from the bathroom

View from the deck.

In the morning, we’d get up bright and early and drive over to Assateague to spend the day at the beach. It’s a lovely place, very clean, with lots of “facilities”, changing rooms, and showers. We saw ponies. We saw dolphins. I relaxed. SD got her life jacket strapped on because she has no fear of the water. She’d start out with her favorite sport of jumping over the incoming tide. The lead to many, many instances of one wave sucking the sand out from under her feet as she landed just as an incoming wave would rush in and knock her end over end. This didn’t seem to bother her much, but when she tired of it, she picked up shells, made sandcastles, and has a wonderful time.

Wild ponies on Assateague

Sweet Daughter shows off her glitter Care Bear (temporary) tattoo.

The second night we picked up an ice cream cake from DQ. SD asked “I wonder what it tastes like?” My sister answered “It tastes like Pooh!” And it went downhill from there.

We spent two hours one evening riding the trolley in circles around Chincoteague, much to SD’s delight. We got ice cream, saw the Misty statue, and bought t-shirts. The town has managed to retain its identity, and hasn’t sold out to the tourism trade, which is nice to see.

Misty statue

After 3 ½ days of blissful relaxation, the 200 mile (and 5 hour!!) drive home blew it all to hell. So much for relaxed, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

SD and my sister.

Multifocal contacts update

After three weeks, I've decided that you can have them when you pry them out of my cold dead eyes. Seriously -- I can thread size 8 needles without reading glasses. I can see the computer screen. I can read the labels off of soup cans. I can read the newspaper. They're not perfect, mind you, but they are leaps and bounds better than regular contacts plus reading glasses. Night driving is a little different -- instead of the halos I used to see around lights (headlights, street lights, etc.) I now get a brightly diffused glow. Things like reflective road signs are a little brighter, and those sodium streetlights now look cheerful instead of gloomy and sullen.

I don't know how much they cost per box (I'll find out tomorrow), but I'd sell a kidney (mine, even!) if I have to.

All things bright and beautiful

Shorter Half is one of those types who does better on massive amounts of caffeine – or other stimulant. They calm him down, slow his speech to an understandable degree, and usually limit the number of conversations he will try to carry on with you simultaneously to a reasonable number, like 2. I’m sure most of you know the type.

Well, today Sweet Daughter and I returned home after her swim class to find him opening the mail. He’d ordered a strobe-type flashlight for my pistol and was busy taking the thing out of the blister pack, putting the batteries in, and muttering some sort of stream-of-consciousness monologue about the lack of quality instructions, or lack of quality equipment, as it wasn’t working properly, when viola! A bright flashy light appeared in my peripheral vision, reflected in the hall mirror from where he was pointing it down the stairs.

He then said something like “Hey! When it gets dark out, why don’t we turn off the lights, and I’ll go to the top of the stairs and you go to the end of the hall by the front door, and I’ll turn this on, and you can tell me how annoying it is!” I declined, possibly even telling him he was out of his mind. It was bloody maddening just seeing it out of the corner of my eye in full daylight.

Moments later I turned around to see him completely mesmerized, staring into the flashing light.

Truer words were never spoken.

Women and Shotguns

She came up with the size of the typical women shooter, and more importantly their unique differences from men. Women have longer necks, different chests, smaller hands and other distinctions that clearly indicated a need for a women’s shotgun.

So Marty created a shotgun with a shortened stock and length of pull so women could reach the trigger easier. The stock took on a Monte Carlo configuration to accommodate women’s longer necks. She also made the stock toe out, providing a better fit for the female shape. Marty then added a palm swell for smaller hands. In the end, you could argue that her Valmet 512 SC of fall 2004 was the first shotgun designed by a woman for women.

Except for the smaller hands, shortened stock, and length of pull thing (I'm 74" inches across, fingertip to fingertip), I think she's got some good ideas. *grin*. Go read the whole thing.

Like I don't have enough projects to do

So, in the comments of my Charities post, Linda in TX suggested that I check out Quilts of Valor. I used to quilt – that’s how I learned to sew by hand. Miles, and miles by hand… *grin*.


I sort of tucked it away in the back of my mind until I got home from work today and I found a minute to start paging through my quilting books. I wanted to do something patriotic that wasn’t cliché. Not that there’s anything wrong with cliché, I just wanted to come up with something original and a little low-key. I found a block that triggered an idea, and I think I’m good to go. Now, I just have to wait for the math side of my brain to kick in so I can calculate the size of the blocks and how much fabric I’m going to need.

I want to include a rather long quote that will run across the horizontal strips between the blocks. Other than embroidering it by hand, anybody got any ideas on the best way to do this? Fabric marker? (Not my first choice, I have crappy handwriting.) I’d like to do it in 18th century-style script but I don’t know what my options are. I’m pretty good with 18th century sewing technology, but I don’t even know what’s out there for the 21st century.

UPDATE: Ooooh! Thanks to Bob S. in comments, I poked around a bit and found I can allegedly use an inkjet printer. I'll check in to this ....

Another one

For the blog roll. Double Trouble, who has me seriously considering becoming a contender for the "who traveled the farthest for the next NE Blogershoot" prize. I wonder if he even remembers offering to let me fire his gun? I haven't forgotten. *grin*

Charities?

You’ve probably noticed that Sweet Daughter has been thinking about “Camouflage People” a lot this summer. On the way in to daycare this morning, I told her that CP’s have a pretty crummy job – some have to live far away from home and their friends and families, and some are in a place that’s even hotter than it is here (99 degrees today), and they live in tents, and it’s really dusty, and it's dangerous, and they do it all for not very much money. Tonight at dinner she asked me if she could send some of her allowance to them so they could feel better.

So, what are your favorite charities that benefit service members?

About to depart on her first airplane trip (that she remembers, anyway), SD is distracted from mugging for the camera just as the shutter clicks. She has spied a CP, and he must be addressed. "Thanks for keeping us safe!" she calls, while waving to get his attention.