Celebrating Freely!

It is the fourth of July and here in my corner of this big, blue marble it is also The Fourth Of July. It is the day we Americans celebrate our Independence. It is a solemn and awe-inspiring thing and we honor it as the day requires.

Essentially, we blow stuff up, hang around flaming grills and garb ourselves in vivid tones of red, white and blue. We are a sophisticated lot, here.

I celebrated Independence Day in the standard manner, being as I am no different than my fellow citizens. I am certain that this sort of thing was going on all over this great land today. First, I cast on for a second Broadripple sock and let out a rousing cry of,

"Brrrrrrrrripple!!!"

(I just can't for the life of me call that pattern by its correct name...)

For those of you keeping track, this means that I finished the first one already. You may now take a moment to recover from the shock since I can't imagine anyone not overwhelmed by this sudden bout of finishing.

Next, I began to prepare myself for an afternoon of fun and patriotic festivities at Mommy and Daddy Sheep's house. Of course, I couldn't go empty-handed and this year I got it into my head that I needed to bring cornbread. With the recent acquisition of a mini muffin pan, it seemed only logical that I should bring Itty-Bitty Cornbread Bites. (I just made that up...it's not a real thing.)

The first batch was horrible. I happen to like a sweeter cornbread and what I ended up with was a savory version. Gah! Batch #2 was much more to my liking. They were itty. They were bitty. They were sweet. They were perfectly cooked through. Just what I was looking for!

Quarter for scale, not consumption.

I packed up my Itty-Bitties and made it to the folk's house in good time. Of course we were joined by Baby Brother Sheep and Sister-in-law Sheep. They brought, not only additional nibbles, but a great niece Sheep as well. (Baby Brother Sheep's marriage brought a whole new generation into the flock, you see...) Lastly, we invited Aunt and Uncle Sheep. This was necessary so that they could make up for their decision to skip the Memorial Day cookout in favor of their son's wedding. That's all fine and dandy, but there was no one to bring the lemon squares and I felt I was owed.

They are good lemon squares. Really good. I like them. A lot. I have been "mentioning" their absence at the family cook-out for over a month now and can only imagine the relief my parents are feeling at my having been stuffed with lemon desserts. I suppose I might have been a little overly dramatic about the whole thing...

I even managed to knit a few rounds in between scarfing down vast quantities of barbecued ribs, cornbread, and lemon squares. I may need to rinse out the sock before I wear it, but that is the price you pay for independence.

Even better, we got to sit out on the deck in the actual, honest-to-goodness sunshine for a whole hour before the rains started to fall again! Frankly, I can't imagine a better way to spend the holiday.

Now it is time to kick back on the couch at home, digest the meal and decide which leftovers to have for dinner. It is also almost time to start dealing with a certain Absurdly Gi-normous Kitty who doesn't much like thunderstorms and fireworks. Since both will be happening tonight, I suspect that I may need to sacrifice a bit of my personal freedom in order to comfort a large mass of orange fur that will no doubt be attached to my leg. I probably won't be able to move from the couch for a while.

That's OK. I've got the knitting to keep me occupied and there are plenty of lemon squares left over for sustenance. I should be all set for the remainder of this Independence Day.

I hope that, for those of you who are celebrating the day, it was a lovely one and that you were free to do all the things you love the most. Just don't ask me for any lemon squares.

Some things are just not free no matter what.

SA