Mom's can do it all, right?

So!  First of all.  I AM NOT PREGNANT.  Just had to put that front and center because it seems like the last two times I talked about a vague "big thing" and then disappeared it was because there was a baby involved.  But no.  NOOOOPE.  NO.  To the point where because everyone I know is pregnant I am in the awesome/slightly painful process of purging all of the baby things.  ANYWAYS.

The big thing that caused me to disappear for a bit was that Destination Yarn - my hand dyed yarn company - was a vendor at STITCHESmidwest:

It's one of the biggest knitting shows in the country and is held at an actual convention center.  It was awesome and amazing and I learned SO much about knitting and business and vending and dying.  It was refreshing down to my core and also exhausting.

My "I can't believe I"m doing this!" face

Because of Stitches Destination Yarn has taken off in ways I couldn't have imagined.  Turning this little hobby of mine that was basically just bonus into an actual business and an actual for real job is amazing.  And overwhelming.  And awesome.  And insane.

And I"m going to work my butt off and make sure it really happens because THIS.  This is what I have wanted.  This is the goal I've been vaguely (and at times in a very crooked path) working towards for years now.

But that means that there has been NO balance.  I am all Destination Yarn all the time.  So everything else - with the exception of my kids/husband - has disappeared into a world of non-essentials.  However, I'm learning that there HAS to be balance.  And a balanced version of my life absolutely involves this blog.  I've been doing this for almost a decade now and I missed it sorely.

Plus having creative outlet that isn't all Destination Yarn is healthy and fuels creativity in other areas.

I'm just not sure what that looks like yet.  Honestly, probably like this.  An old school web-journal.  With stuff about my kids that isn't all click-baity (part of my break was fueled by some serious disgust with the world of parenting on the internet.  I may or may not get into that later but suffice it to say you will find no Listicles of Judging here).

There will always be knitting and yarn and travel and Cleveland and whatever is fueling my creative engine at the moment.  I may separate out the business stuff... I might not.  I'm working on figuring all of that out.

But yeah.  Baby steps toward balance.  Baby steps towards doing it all.  By opening up a browser window and writing something today I have at least taken that first, tiny step.  BOOM.

Lake Erie Thaw.

Edgewater park in the fog.

So Lake Erie is starting to thaw!  It was 45 and sunny today!  Spring might actually be a thing that is possible!  And it's all causing some crazy awesome Great Lakes weather.  Of course I had to take the kids to check it out.

We stopped by Edgewater Park on the way home from school today.  And it was basically an alien landscape. 

The blue skies and sunshine against a crazy thick fog and still iced over lake well... I really wish I had brought my good camera:

Although I probably had too much to manage what with 3 small kids and the dog...

They were super into climbing on the rocks.  Which was all sorts of fun:

Although 2/3 kids have NO FEAR which... yeah it made for a bit of yelling when the girl was determined to climb to the lake. 

Seriously, child.  You are making me nervous.

I don't think she quite realized that Lake Erie was the giant ice cube in front of her.  Once that was clear she wanted to walk on it.  Which, no.  Not with little ones.  Not during a thaw.

Although we did check out the beach.

Kindof.  I realized that sand + melting ice = a terrible plan.  So we drove around to the pier and checked that out instead:

On the way home we stopped off at our city view place taking bets along the way about if we would be able to see the sky line.  It's usually a great view - Lake Erie in the foreground, Cleveland in the background.  I've posted that shot here many times.  I figured it was about a 50/50 chance of seeing the city.  Turns out I was right.  We could see 50% of the city:

 My daughter thought it looked like someone erased the bottom half.  Word:

Yay for spring!

Girls' Weekend at Put-In-Bay.

So!  Last weekend some friends and I hopped on the Miller Boat Line and headed to Put-In-Bay for a much anticipated girls' weekend:

It was Halloween weekend at PIB so there were lots of shenanigans.  That .... we had no interest in, honestly.  Instead our weekend looked more like this:

Relaxing in front of a fire with good wine, good conversation, and noone needing anything from me?  PERFECT.

I wouldn't have thought of Put-in-Bay as the spot for a trip like this.  I know the island is fantastic with families (we took ours there last year and had a ball).  But for an adults only trip?  Mainly I picture bars and  well... shenanigans.  But my friend was certain it would be perfect and she was right.  We stayed at a "cottage" owned by her family.  Her descendants have been vacationing on PIB for 104 years.  Yes.  104.  Completely amazing and interesting.  I was fascinated.  So she took us on a little tour of the west side of the island:

The yellow house was her great-grandparents.  It's down the street from her grandparents' house, her cousin's house, and her parents' house.

It was the perfect day for a walk.  Fall on the lake is so beautiful!

We went out to dinner and ate the best fish fry on the island (it was good but nothing can compare to how my dad does a Lake Erie fish fry.  I'm spoiled on that one.):

We went to the Put-In-Bay Winery and tasted delicious wines with a fantastic view of the harbor and lake:

I liked the "Red Witch" wine in particular.  Interestingly it's a white wine.

It's one of these.

 We shopped the "junk store" aka the Antique Store where all of the proceeds benefit the Lake Erie Islands Historical Society:

And we enjoyed a fantastic Lake Erie Sunset:

 And caught the ferry home on Sunday in time to watch football with our families:

I missed them even if they are Steelers fans.

All in all it was a perfect, relaxing weekend.  We're talking about making it a bi-annual tradition.

Yay PUT-IN-BAY!

Disclosure:  The Miller Boat Line provided me with round-trip tickets to the island.  All opinions and photographs are my own.

Sandusky Bay on a Boat.

So!  A couple of weeks ago my parents rented a cottage on Sandusky Bay.  We went up for a night to spend the last official weekend of summer doing things like this:

Fire on Lake Erie.  YES.

And hanging out here:

Private beach and boat on a bay?  YES.

The morning that we were there, though was a bit too cold to swim.   So we took the kids out on a boat ride in Sandusky Bay (the cottage had a dock spitting distance from it).  The pictures turned out pretty neat.

This was actually supposed to be a Wordless Wed post last week but then everyone got sick with Hand Foot and Mouth Disease.  It's going around like wildfire right now.  And of course we all got it the first real week of Kindergarten.  But if we can survive that the rest of the year will be easy, right? SIGH.  Anyways here's some pretty pictures of Sandusky Bay!

First up we went and checked out Bay Point.  My grandmother had a place there when I was growing up so I spent LOTS of time swimming on the beaches there.  It looked a lot different back in the '80's though.  The whole Bay side was tiny rental cottages while the entire Lake Erie side was beach.  Now?  Not so much:

It used to be pretty heavily forested but it looks like they cut most of that down:

I have decidedly mixed feelings.  The Lake Erie side still has a small area of trailers (what my Grandma used to have there)

And the point part looks as wild and sand bar like as ever.  We used to hike there as kids when we could.  Sometimes it was accessible, sometimes the lake was high and you couldn't get through.  Either way it was an adventure because the whole thing is a changing sandbar - you never knew what you were going to find:

The google earth view shows it - the peninsula coming down from the top is bay point.  The "land" furthest into the bay is the point.

Then we went over and checked out Cedar Point.  It also looked a lot different when I was a kid.  I remember when they built the Magnum (1989) and it was SO HUGE on the skyline.  And before that the biggest thing we could see was the Ferris wheel.  Now not so much:

Also I should mention that if you are interested in going to Cedar Point on land they are about to start their HalloWeekends which is always a good time.

I tried to get a picture of the coaster skyline through the spray from the boat but...

Iit was tricky.  Especially since I had a 3yo on my lap.  I think I got a pretty decent shot, though:

I kindof have this feeling that now that school has started (the dude starts this week!) I might actually have time to blog about all of the fun things we did this summer.  Stay tuned.


Disclosure:  I am a Cedar Point Blogger however this is not a sponsored post.  I liked the pictures from the bay and would have put them up regardless of my relationship with Cedar Point just because they are neat.