Gotta Branch Out

 So...I'm still having trouble getting going with anything substantial on the "knitting front." It's  just so difficult to envision needing anything warm when it's still extremely hot outside. I still am enjoying mindless knitting though. I've been knitting tiny mittens again.

 I have a plan for them that I may not follow through with. My daughter, Paige, is leaving in a couple of weeks to attend U.C. Davis in Northern California.  She's excited to finally be leaving home after spending two years at our local community college. She'll be rooming with three other girls in off-campus housing, and, although they didn't know either other until a meeting on a Davis Facebook forum for transfer students, they've been planning "apartment" decorating all summer...on student budgets, of course. I have this idea that I'll send them little "holiday" decorations throughout the year. I'm picturing making a little mitten and hat bunting for them to put up around Christmas time. I've noticed a "pink" trend in a lot of their little projects, a pink gate with their names on it, for example, for a little gate they have in their back walkway.

I'm not sure how I'll feel on the day we drop Paige off five hours away from home, but right now, I feel happy for her...and us. It can't have been easy to have your mother be a teacher in a small town. I knew way too much about some of her questionable choices in high school and college. I think we're all ready to have her start her big adventure. I do think she'll miss us a little though. The other night she came home, and as she walked in, she said, "I love our house." I'm thinking she mainly meant the full fridge, but I liked that she seemed to already start appreciating how nice we tried to make it for her and her brother, whether they noticed it or not.