Boy. It's been a very eventful week or so around here. When I get behind in blogging, catching up starts to seem like an insurmountable task, but let me just hit the highlights:

• Barb came to visit. We had a very enjoyable few days hanging out and swimming. Barb's probably the only person I know who likes to swim more than I do, and she was thrilled to bits with MSU's outdoor pool.
  
  
• Charlie moved in. He actually spent the second night of Barb's visit sleeping in the basement, because Barb was in the room that was going to be his. Prior to her visit, the room had been the storage area for all the crap we'd finally gotten out of the Ann Arbor house; we spent a couple of days more or less moving it out, nonstop, to make a nice guest bedroom for Barb. As soon as Charlie took possession of the room, he wanted to undo everything - he (we) moved his furniture in, hung up his posters, voila.
  
  It's been nice having him around. It was a bit of a jolt for all of us at first - he's been living on his own for a year and a half, now, and the lifestyle of a late-adolescent boy is quite different from ours . . . I'm having to get used to the sounds of video games and Boy TV replacing my classical music . . . but all in all, his being here is a very good thing, I think.
  
  
• The garden has gone bust. During that seemingly endless spate of moving that began right before we closed on the house, and ended when we reconfigured Chas' room (about two weeks), many plants in the (more or less completely unattended) garden developed rust. I wish I had caught it sooner; as it was I had to prune about half the plants out of the garden. And the yields have been underwhelming, to say the least: My bean plants were completely eaten by some kind of insect, the cucurbits (melons and squash) flowered but we got no fruit, many of the tomatoes got blossom end-rot, and on and on . . . (The chard is still going strong, though!) I guess that's what happens when you don't add fertilizers to your fill dirt . . . I'm about ready to rip the whole thing out and dig manure and other organic matter into it. I'm going to wait another week or so for the tomatoes, and then I'm going to decimate one bed. (The other has brassicas, so it will have to hold on a little longer - I think we will get some late-season broccoli and Brussels sprouts.) I have a line on some sheep sh*t that I'm eager to get, and this winter, we're going to raise worms.
  
  
• I've been knitting frogs. "Frogging" is the 'au courant' term for ripping back or ripping out or giving up on a garment entirely. I've been working on Aunt Betty's Legendary Socks all summer; I decided that the ones I had started last winter were too masculine, so I started a pair in vibrant pink and green. But the green yarn was acrylic - which I absolutely cannot knit with, no matter the color. So then I got a nice blue to go with the pink, and I've been futzing over the pattern (I'm designing them myself). It took three tries to get something I liked . . . and now I've discovered that the sock I'm currently working on will be wa-aaaaaay too small. (I can't even get it over my heel.) That's what I get for being so cavalier about gauge.
  
  I've hit an impasse with my Poodle Skirt sweater; I have to figure out how to shape it the way I want, and I have to figure out [a] which color of yarn I'm going to use for contrast and [b] how and where I'm going to use it. (I don't have enough Poodle Skirt yarn for an entire sweater.)
  
  It's extremely important that I have a brain-dead knitting project on some needles somewhere by TOMORROW, because . . .
  
  
• I go back to work tomorrow. (Today it's raining outside, and I cannot help but think that the rain is really the combined tears of a million college professors on their last day of freedom . . . ) I need something to knit in the meetings I'll be attending over the next few days . . .
  
  Actually, once we're over the shock of re-entry, I think I'll have a good time this semester. I like my schedule, and am looking forward to getting classes underway; I have some nifty ideas for the upcoming semester. And then, at the end of it, Emma and I are going to Chicago to visit Barb, so that's always out there to look forward to.
  
  
• And speaking of work, Emil got a job! Hoooray!! Two incomes, one house: That's what we've been trying for. He'll be working with people who worked at the same place he did some 20 years ago (which is a good sign, because that was a great place to work). The place is about ten minutes down the freeway, and is a long-established, very prosperous Lansing manufacturer.
  
  
• And speaking of the freeway . . . he, um, got a car to drive to work. If you hurry, you can see it here. (That's the Auto Trader listing, though, so I'm not sure how long it'll last since the car has been sold.) And Charlie got a new car, too - a '98 Honda Civic, two doors, five speeds, and a sunroof. (I must say, Bauman men really like their cars.) This feels almost like a surfeit of transportational devices to me, as I need about half a car - but I must confess that I'm enjoying the idea that I will have the blue Subaru more or less to myself, without having to negotiate transportation with anyone.
  

In brief, that's it. Now I'm off to lunch with my nephew Ben (yay!), and then it's back home to pace around the basement and plan my classes . . .