I grew up in the Midwest. The British Hubby always says, “You can take the girl out of the Midwest, but you can’t take the Midwest out of the girl.” I’ll always be a Midwesterner at heart. Here’s a few highlights of my favorite things to do when I visit my family.

Lightening bugs also known as fireflies. I used to spend hours chasing lightening bugs as a child. Sadly, the Midwest is the only place I’ve lived with lightening bugs.

The lightening bugs would pose for a photo shoot, but the corn was willing.

Summer thunder storms. When I landed, it was in the 90’s with much more humidity than the Pacific Northwest. This creates the perfect conditions for a summer storm with thunder and lightening. A good one rolled through that actually knocked out the power for a few hours. This provided an opportunity to knit by candle light. I didn’t think to get a photo, but here’s one with my knitting and a snack on the plane.

The food. I learned how to cook and bake at a young age. My mom and grandmother still make almost everything from scratch. In the summer, much of it comes from the garden in their back yards. I also love a good taco pizza. This is a specialty item that I’ve never been able to find outside of the Midwest. Think taco on a crust with a refried bean base instead of pizza sauce.

It’s the last day of June. I would love to say I liberated four orphans while I was in the Midwest, but I didn’t. A few just need some finishing touches. I did manage to find a lovely little yarn shop to buy more yarn. Below is hand dyed sock yarn from a local shop and cotton for dishcloths. I think I was missing the water while in the Midwest as I only bought blue yarn.

I also decided to start over on the TdS stage one socks. Here’s a photo of my cuff hanging out with the cuff from Stage three.

Update on other wips:

• Earth & Sky: Finished skein two! Sadly, it’s still not long enough to start the border so I’m going to have to acquire a fourth skein. Hopefully, I’ll find a good holiday sale this weekend.
• Chairty Malt: No progress made on this one.
• Washington Mist: Fourth short row lace section is complete. I’m on row 2 of 12 of the end . It doesn’t sound like much, but each row is around 400 stitches.

I would love to say I can liberate additional Orphans in July, but if I’m honest I will probably just add another month on to my quest. Or maybe I can try for nine Orphans the next few months.

I’m going to leave you with a bonus chicken photo along with the normal cat picture. Oscar the chicken is sporting his cheese head.