Sheep, wool, babies who soothe themselves

Yesterday, Heather and I had a fantastic adventure. We went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. We had heard it was overwhelming, crowded, and superfun - and I must say it lived up to all of those things. I never in my life imagined there were so many people interested in sheep. And wool. We sat in a 3 mile, 45 minute backup just to turn into the fairgrounds, then parked about 3/4 of a mile away.

The festival had sheep shearing, sheep judging, everything you could possibly imagine related to knitting, crocheting, weaving, and spinning yarn. It drew an interesting, but very nice crowd. Two quick stories and then I'll tell you a bit about how good Heather and I were. First, the sheep people are quite distinct from the yarn people. The sheep people are largely men (and large men) in overalls with funny hats and the yarn people are largely women with oversized bags. There were also the husbands, who were inevitably carting 2-3 children. Anyway, I stood outside one of the barns waiting for Heather to get through a line to make a purchase and heard maybe the leader of the sheep people (this guy looked like the words to the song "I've been workin' on the railroad might have been written about him) say to his friend, "I dunno. Some crafting junk" in reference to the 6 barns and one exhibition hall of yarn and knitting supplies. He's lucky some of the more rabid knitters didn't hear him.

The second little story involves a 75ish year old woman. She had obviously spent some time in the sun in her life. She pulled over with her friend near where I stood waiting. She said, "I'm trying to shove my boob back in. I was a little afraid to get it out, but I never thought I'd have trouble getting it back in." SURE that I had misheard, I looked over. Sure enough, she's shoving her boob back into her shirt. She continued, "I don't know why I let them talk me into a boob tattoo."

Anyway, Heather and I got what we set after and here's the shocker - NOT MUCH MORE. Ok, there may have been an extraneous purchase of some sheep pictures to hang on the wall - but they totally crack me up and had to come home with me. We came home with a spindle each, and I think 8 ounces of wool each to spin into beautiful yarns. Then we took a drive through the great state of Maryland before finally finding the beltway again near the Mormon temple.

On another note, Charlotte has learned a new way of soothing herself. Last night, she woke up in the middle of the night, cried for awhile, turned on her mobile and fell back asleep. The mobile must have some kind of hypnotic power. I swear, the music started and she keeled over and slept. I wish they worked like that on 3 yr olds. My 3 yr old is in a bad way today. Very overtired and having more fits and timeouts than necessary.

And with that, I close. I have pounds (of baby food) to puree before I sleep, and pounds to puree before before I sleep.