Bluepurl is moving to a new space, and even getting a new name! So keep checking back to see what’s what. Because it’s not quite there yet. Just tweaking a few more details….

Of course, since it’s me, I’ll make a huge deal about it until you notice and flatter me with thousands of supportive comments. 

OOOOO, it’s so exciting. I can hardly wait.

John Dollar, my son, put new strings on my mom’s guitar while we were visiting in Billings a couple of weeks ago.

Back in 2001, John and I visited Billings in late fall. During that visit, he picked up Mom’s guitar partly because there was nothing else to do but mostly because he can’t keep his hands off of musical instruments.

It was the start of something big – John is a great guitar player and singer. It was cool to see how far he’s come in such (for me) a short time.

Here’s another photo of the trip:

Spring has arrived – just – to Montana. I think in Wisconsin we’re about three weeks behind.

Since we got home, almost a week ago, I’ve had trouble getting my head back in the game. I am more distractable than a puppy or a fruit fly. Pre-spring fever or simple ADD? Hmmmm…

Laura McFarlane is my intrepid step-daughter. She’s a world traveler who has visited everywhere in Europe, several countries in Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Japan (those are just the places I can remember; there are probably more.)

She started her world travels in middle school with a trip to France and Austria with her dad. Later, she visited South Africa with a group of high school students. In college, she lived in London for six months. After college, Laura worked on fair trade and other issues for Oxfam for several years, so her work kept her going.

Last March, she traveled with us to London. The photo above is from a side trip we took to the city of Bath (which is called Bath because there’s a bath, a really old one from Roman times). It was an excellent trip and Laura was an excellent guide.

This year, from March until June, Laura is traveling by herself in South America. Currently, she’s in Medellin sharpening her Spanish. She’ll also visit Brazil and Argentina.

And! She is blogging here. So tune in to her travel diary. She’s a great photographer and a truly adventurous person.

After Dave goes to work and after she is done pouting about that, Skippy assumes her morning position at the top of the stairs.

She rests in the above position until she hears the mail truck coming south on our street. When she hears that, she pushes off from the wall and races downstairs to bark at the mailman.

I esimate she has pushed off from the wall with her front paws more than 3,000 times. That explains the marks on the wall and the hole in the plaster.

When she is finished, she congratulates herself because she has prevented the mailman – once again, thank God! -  from pillaging 227. She has successfully prevented a perimeter breach five times a week for twelve years. At her age, it’s a pretty good game.

My favorite part is the floppy lip:

I went to the Harmony bar in Madison last night to knit with the Tuesday knitting club. Tracy clued me in to this group; we went and it was totally fun. Great knitters, great neigborhood, great bar, great hot chips.

It reminded me of living in Missoula, Montana, the city where I went to college. Tattoos and blues and people having fun and doing what they love in a friendly bar.

One of the members, Rhonda, asked for help knitting swatches of her gorgeous handpainted yarn. What could I do but take a skein of the Sumac?

Thanks for the memories, Barbie. Didn’t we have fun?

My favorite Barbie accessory: tiny pretty shoes.

My darling husband told me he didn’t let his daughter, Laura, have Barbies when she was little. We didn’t marry until she was a teen-ager, so I cannot be blamed for this shocking act of cruelty. It makes me so sad.

Laura, any time you want you can come over and we’ll play Barbies.

Make custom Glitter Graphics
Blingee is my new medium. I am planning my MFA show as I drink. type.

Frozen river at sunrise, originally uploaded by Ann Foley.

When the temperature of the water in the Wisconsin is higher than the temperature of the air, fog rises from the river first thing in the morning.

What an unexpected treat. I’ll almost be sad to see the end of winter.

Frozen island on the Wisconsin, originally uploaded by Ann Foley.

I finished this pair of mini-monkeys (links to directions and inspirations here and here) last week and finally got around to photographing my feet and posting the photo.

It’s my first try at a lace sock, but I wasn’t really worried about the difficulty. 10% of the internet is knitting help, videos, tutorials etc. Google “ssk” or “turn heel” and you find links to hundreds of sites. So really, it’s hard to use teh interwebs and not end up knitting socks.

The rest of the internet: 40% Gawker media and 50% porn. Facebook is in there somewhere, maybe about 2%, like a big virtual middle school with all the kids competing be the first one to mention a new cool band.

Back to knitting. The hard part of this pattern is having to count. Every. Single. Stitch. You couldn’t knit this pattern while watching The Wire. But you could easily knit mini-monkeys and watch Lost. Lost seems complicated but really, there’s nothing there to understand. Tune in and knit away.

The part I found difficult was photographing my feet. I enlisted Skippy to help me set up the shot, but she was not amused. I am not your meat puppet, she says.

Here’s what to do with your unemployment time: make a paper model of the Bates house:

Or, make a gingerbread haunted house:

Ray Keim, an art director for Universal Studios Orlando, designed and built these nifty structures. His web site, Haunted Dimensions, offers downloadable instructions for these and other projects.

Thanks, Boing Boing, for being the source of all things interesting.