Different Lines, Cicadas and Bullfrogs

We've been very busy with the end of the school year for my children, swim team practices and meets, summer camps, helping with Vacation Bible School and now we are getting ready to head out to church camp where I will be in charge of a couple of great camp crafts. 

Of course I have been knitting when ever I have any spare time.

I finished a beautiful and unusual shawl called Different Lines.  I saw it a few weeks back on the Ravelry "New and Popular" section and got sucked in.  I love looking at this section to see what other people are knitting and I find myself quite often starting a new project that I didn't know I needed to do.  I love the contrasting stripes and the unusual construction (with short rows) of this shawl.  I looked in my stash and found two very different yarns that I would have never put together (Araucania Lonco and Schafer's Susan).  But they were both 100% cotton and it turns out that they look great together.  I love the feel and drape of the cotton.  I hope to use it a lot this summer in the too cold, air conditioned buildings.

My mom's birthday was a couple of weeks ago and I knitted her some oven mitts and dish clothes. 

I have a set of these oven mitts and just love them.  They are from Mason Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines and are called Toto the Extremely Useful and Cute Potholder.  The Ball Band dishcloths are also from Mason Dixon and the striped dishcloth is Grandmother's Favorite.  You can never have too many dishcloths!

And I made some great polymer clay teacher's gifts for my children's teachers.  

And now for some wild life.  Cicadas!

 We have been experiencing the 13 year Cicada's in our area.  I somehow missed these growing up, even though I grew up in this area.  So this was my first real experience with them.  They lasted about a month and really made a lot of noise. They weren't too bad at our house but we found them in abundance all around the area.

And here is what they look like as they emerge from their exoskeletons.  Really creepy and really cool all at the same time!

And this is the little frog that my daughter raised from a tadpole.  He's a bullfrog and we bought him from our local fish store.  Both of my children have 10 gallon tanks so they each got one and my sons promptly died but we really enjoyed watching this little guy slowly grow his back legs and then very quickly grow his front legs and begin swimming to the top of the tank for air.  The whole process took several months.  We moved him to a smaller habitat and his little tail shrank in just a couple of days. 

We let him go in our neighborhood pond - all covered with duck weed.

And I'm sure he will live a long and happy life.