It’s crazy to think that I dropped Rusty off at O’Hare almost 24 hours ago to begin his journey to Australia… and, as of now (noon) he still has almost four hours in the air until touching down in Sydney!

We stopped for lunch on the way down. We were headed to one place but Outback was right in front of us, so we went there, and didn’t even realize it until we sat down & cracked a menu, noticing our surroundings, that we were at OUTBACK… as in shrimp on the barbie, Australia, and THE Outback. What a happy chance and fun way to start the trip.

Ooof. It was a very long day for me. I made a planned stop at IKEA on the south side of Milwaukee on the way home but skipped Trader Joe’s… even though for the first time in my life I actually had a cooler & ice packs with me. Timing was not in my favor and it would have been full-on rush hour by the time I got out of there. No thanks. I was stuck in slow/stop/go traffic enough, with traffic, wrecks, and construction still in full swing — enough that I set my GPS to “avoid highways” and took a little detour. I wound up on Hwy 57, which is the way I’d always go to/fro Milwaukee to visit Sharon when she lived there, and it’s probably been 20 years since I was on some of that stretch. There were a few more traffic signals in Plymouth than I remember!

And now, something to draw a seasonal smile…

Given all the art & music influences in their everyday lives, it’ll be interesting to see what these kids end up doing in life… what a joy to have a front-row seat!

Yeah! This particular Thursday is my Friday! I’m ready.

I took this photo at 6:15 the other night and I guess that’s “dusk,” because the pergola lights came on!

Leaves are starting to fall and gather, but you can see that we have a long way to go before the branches are bare. We’ve slowly started cleaning up the yard. And by “we,” I mostly mean Rusty.

On “real” Friday (tomorrow), I’ll be tidying my workroom so it’s presentable while I’m ZOOMing with Modern Daily Knitting & Lorilee Beltman. Kym sang Lorilee’s praises a while back (MDK summer camp & previous experience), so when the workshop for the Treeline Cowl came up — basically a class in stranded knitting — I bit. Colorwork, other than stripes & slipped stitch patterns, has always been such a challenge for me, so I’m looking forward to “tips & tricks” portion of the program. I got the class handout the other day and was impressed with how thorough & organized it was… and I’ve completed all my homework!

The kiddos are coming for a sleepover tomorrow! It’s been a while… we’ll be testing whether my patch job on the air mattress holds after Davy (the little sneak) stabbed it a few times with my little unicorn scissors the last time they were over.

Reminder to self: GET THOSE TEMPTING LITTLE TRINKETS OUT OF REACH!

The rest of the weekend will probably be all about laundry. haha.