Woolly Mutts

2011..the year I lost my knitting mojo.

Yup.  The knitting mojo - it is caput.  Gone.  Left the building.  Moved on to greener pastures.  Poof!  You may recall back here, a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, I was all fired up over Hawthorne. 

All 314 cast on stitches of her.  Perfect yarn, perfect pattern...what could go wrong?  That question is still without answer, but somewhere around row 15 I realized that it was a big old mess.  Big. Old. Mess.....and I ripped.  I casted on again, this time with special stitch markers and still a fail.  WTF?  I am better than this.  I have faced off lace with multiple charts and departed victorious.  I ripped again.  This time I decided I just needed a little chart break and casted on Lady Eleanor.  I've knitted the Lady before and enjoyed it SO much and guess what?  I screwed it up.  The bell tolleth for me.  I have lost the mojo. Knitting Sisters, you know this is bad. 

So, I decided I needed to clean the cache and go back to knitting 101.  I got out a pair of straights (I can't remember the last time I knitted with straight needles.), some yukky cotton and proceeded to knit myself some dish cloths, and I'm not talking about the really cute patterned ones.  No, oh no, it was garter stitch all the way and by the grace of the knitting goddess I did not screw them up.  So, I moved on to these little washie things...

....the swirly thing shown in the pic, which was fun and also executed without tears. 

I have now moved up to Popblock from the new Knitty.

A few months ago I thought this much garter stitch would send me to the funny farm, but you know what?  It's rather peaceful.  Sure, there isn't much skill or thought involved, but this is not a competition.  It is a hobby, a love, a lifestyle.  I am a knitter.  What I knit does not constitute a knitter, the act of knitting does. Right? 

Has my mojo returned?  I'm not sure.  I'm guessing that my problem has much to do with the fact that my mind was/is constantly going in a hundred different directions.  (Managing a retail store during the holidays is not for the faint of heart.) My lack of concentration kicked the mojo in the behind.  Such is life.  And, the knitting mojo was not the only one to take a hit.  Yoga, meditation, eating right, reading....all of it has fallen to the back burner and it is way past time to change that.

So 2012, all shiny and new, I am not generally one to make resolutions on your first day, or for that matter, any day, but this year I'm gonna get the mojo back. 

So say we all!  (Any Battlestar Galactica fans out there?)

A Missing Piece

This is a piece from a chess board.  I think it is supposed to be the Bishop.  It's partner piece is missing and we are waiting for the distributor to send us another one.  Until it arrives, the little guy sits alone on my desk and waits.  I feel rather like Mr. Bishop; alone and waiting.  AH has gone to Houston to spend Thanksgiving with his family and that is a very good thing.  He needs to spend time with them.  Family is important.  I needed to work and he needed to not have to worry about how I, an introvert who craves quiet, fares in a large family of extroverts.  It is all as it should be, but I miss him.

It's is cold and raining and I am tired.  I slept so little last night that I wish I could lay my head on my desk for just a little bit.  I can't wait to get home to our place and settle in.  Work is good.  Home is better.

People have been so kind to me, knowing I would be alone for Thanksgiving.  Even Sarah, the girl who does my nails, offered the hospitality of her family.  (I was REALLY touched.)  Friend Diana also invited me to join her family.  I will not, however, be alone.  My beautiful children will be stopping by for a bit on the way to other family obligations and honestly, I don't mind being alone.  I mind being without AH.  I mind that a lot.

Even now, missing my most beloved piece, life is still so wonderful.  I don't think I've ever been as happy and content as I am now.  I am so genuinely thankful that I want to dance and sing.  Or, maybe just sit quietly and send my gratitude out into the world.

So, thanks.  Thanks for reading.  Thanks for caring.  Sending love to you all, and maybe a little dancing and singing, too.  Namaste.

Random MOndAy

Gosh I love this time of year.  I love the color of the sky and the leaves on the ground.  I was sitting in bed on Saturday morning watching the wind blow the Weeping Willow tendrils like sheets on a clothes line.  We've had a spectacular run of mild weather, but, as I'm sure you know, I'm just dying to see that first snow flake.  While I stood in line at the grocery store this morning I overheard an older gentleman tell the lady next to him that we're going to get one h*ll of a winter...mark his words.  Time will tell.

This time of the year makes me want change.  I want to go somewhere else (Minnesota) and breathe in air over the lake.  It's funny, whenever I say I want to go to Minnesota people assume I mean Minneapolis, which would not be bad; both my parents were born there, but I want north.  Way north on the rock shores with the wind in my face and my hair damp with wave spray.  Not this year, and it's okay.  I have such good memories that I'm still happy.  I'll rearrange the furniture instead. :-)

I had to work on Saturday.  There is something fundamentally wrong with getting up before 8:30 on a Saturday, but in retail world you gotta do what you gotta do.  While I was out last week feeling poorly the mighty volunteer force brought up all the holiday stuff from the basement.  This was a tremendous help, but also a tremendous mess up near the front window.  Through the course of the day I managed to empty all the boxes and make the beginning attempts at making that space a nice little holiday place.  AH, bless him, came by in the afternoon and ended up staying the rest of the day helping put up lights.

Above both front windows there is an open overhang that already had greens along the edge, but the lights were dead.  AH spent hours in that cramped area putting in new lights.  There he is working away.

I have to admit that he scared the daylights out of me a time or two when I forgot he was up there and his voice came out of nowhere.  It looks so great...I'll try and take some pictures tomorrow.  We even made it snow white feathers in the windows.  Come see!

Randomness:

*Although I feel WAY better than I did a week ago, my intestines and I are still not on the best of terms.  I guess this sort of thing can take time.  yay

*I did an hour of yoga today without neck pain!  That is so fantastic I can't even tell you.  YAY!

*My wonderful family will be coming for dinner in about an hour, including the Marvelous Miss C.  We have moved family dinner to Monday nights and I'm finding that I enjoy the time cooking alone in the kitchen.  I cranked up holiday music on Pandora and sang along.  Bake Ziti tonight.  yum

*I love Pandora.  Such a good idea.

*I would totally buy Miss C the tokidoki tattooed Barbie for Christmas

...if it wasn't $500!  I just checked Amazon.  It's the Barbie collector apocalypse.

* Speaking of apocalyse...I have put this book on my wish list for Christmas!  Anybody else loving The Walking Dead?  Tip: do not watch while eating. :-)

Peace out. ♥

 

Walls and weddings.

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks here in Muttville.  Last weekend my friend Michelle got married in an incredible, multicultural wedding in which I got to wear a bindi.  In my world, where I am very easily entertained, the bindi wearing was awesome.  (for those who only follow on facebook, this is old news...sorry. Feel free to skim.)

See?  Awesome, right?  And look at Michelle:

...she was just glorious.  I mean, Nic was great, too, but Michelle, Michelle was breath taking. 

In other news; we are at it again, home improvement time!  One day I looked at the chipped red kitchen/dining room and decided it was time for a change.  These rooms were the first we tackled when AH and I were wed and almost 12 years later it was time to say goodbye to the red.

First up was to get rid of the super ugly, incredibly bad idea in the first place, wallpaper border and as any of you who have done battle with your own wallpaper demons knows, this is easier said than done.  Never again with the wallpaper.  Never.  You can quote me on this. 

Then we decided that it would be easier to paint if we took down the cupboards first.  Ha ha ha ha.  Ha ha.  Ha ha ha.  Really, it's ok to laugh.  The final one came down with the use of brute force and...well...sort of in pieces.  It was time for new cupboards anyway...on the top at least.  Last night Karl came with his work van and we paid another (I've lost count) visit to Lowes for the most basic of upper cupboards, this time with the added bonus of doors!  Afterward we enjoyed each others company with dinner at Chilis where he had a beer, I had a margarita (AH had a root beer) and we both teared up a bit over missing my mother, his grandmother.  It's good to be with those that understands when you miss a loved one.  All in all, it was a pretty darn good time, even the Lowe's part.  All the things that once lived in the old cabinets had to go somewhere...

...and what better place than the living room?  Luckily we are patient, zen sort of folks and don't mind this set up, especially because it's only temporary.  I think by October we might be back in business. :-) 

Adios red.  You were a darn good time.  What you see here is the blocking primer.  I'm not going to tell you what color yet.  I mean, you know us; it's gonna be COLOR cuz that's how we roll.  I will tell you that we are going to do the back splash in the kitchen using a combination of these:

Stone.  I LOVE these stones.  It's like looking at Lake Superior on the wall.  There will also be new pendant lighting over the L and some cheap, but what an improvement, flooring, though not right away.  Pulling up the flooring is going to be a chore that I'm not up to facing yet.

So, aside from starting physical therapy this week and stubbing my little toe so hard that the nail fell off, that about covers our last couple of weeks.  There are new videos of the Marvelous Miss C to share, but at the moment I can't find the flip camera.  It will turn up eventually. 

Autumn is coming!  All in favor say YEE HAW! 

The scoop on happy.

The other night I had an interesting conversation with one of Amazing Husband's sisters.  (Hi Nancy!)  AH has 5 sisters and they are all living in states many, many miles away from where we live, and sadly I have not had the pleasure of getting to know each of them on a personal level.  Nancy is a loyal (bless her) reader of the blog and during our conversation she made a comment on what a happy person I must be.   I guess that's a good thing, that my blog gives the impressive of my happy self, right?  I am happy.  I'm not the whistling, singing, bouncing kind of happy.  I'm more the serene kind of happy.  Soul deep happy.

But here's the thing...I think, like peace, happy is a choice.  I choose to be happy.  I know the world is a messed up place right now.  I'm not insensitive to it, I just know I can't fix it. I'm also no Polly Anna..la...la...everything is sunshine and lollipops.  I've walked in some dark places in my life and had to face some really, really dark realities.  It is so much kinder to my heart to stay focused on the lovely things and let the darkness take care of itself, and let me assure you, life is overflowing with lovely, the trick is to teach yourself to see.

I took a drawing class once.  It didn't do much to improve my drawing, but oh boy, did it change the way I saw.  Things stopped being "things" and became color, light, shadow...wonder.  Best class I ever took.  If you don't look, you can't see.

The real truth is that the center of my happy life is Amazing Husband.

The privilege of being loved unconditionally for my total self is beyond description.  He "sees" me and loves me anyway.  The sort of safe and welcoming life his love provides for me creates happy.  How could I not be happy? 

So Nancy, thanks for providing me food for thought AND for being such a great sister to a really fabulous brother.   I'm sending you lots of warm, happy thoughts.  I've got plenty to spare.

Time it was

Remember Bookends?  Simon and Garfunkel?  Such a lovely melody and I've had it playing in my head today.  July 1 already.  Summer used to mean trips up north and hours by the backyard pool, being home when the street lights came on.  Good memories.  Times change and new memories are made. It's all good.

The tall tiger lilies are blooming in a riot of orange and it's easy to be enchanted by them.  Despite the crazy weather this year the gardens are lush and happy as can be.

So, its been a week.  All this week AH has had to make the 2 plus hour communte into the city for a special training workshop.  He leaves before 6am and isn't generally home before 7:30 or 8:00 pm.  Today is the last day, thank goodness.  He's draggin.  Sunday, as he ran some last minute errands the Accent gave up the ghost in the Target parking lot.  Dead battery.  Haste was made to get a new one so I was not left without transportation all week.  Crisis level lowered to green. Yay.

Monday night the cat who needs 2 pills a day for her hyperthyroidism decided it was no longer convenient for her to take the pill with food, even the gourmet stuff and it became a two person job with one holding and the other stuffing the pill down her throat.  Strangely, she doesn't seem to mind much.  However, with Tom leaving so early she is missing her morning pill.  Not such a big deal in the scheme of things. I'm sure she's happy about it.

I've been having what I thought was shoulder pain for several weeks and finally got to the doctor to discover that it is not my shoulder, but my neck.  Bulging discs...c4 and either 3 or 5 or maybe 407...I don't remember.  He, my fav Doc Everson, is somewhat of an expert of this having just recovered from surgery for the same thing, though his was much worse.  Yah...not really wanting to consider surgery.  So, for a week I pop the Aleve and an occasional muscle relaxer which takes the pain completely away as well as puts me right to sleep.   Or, maybe puts me to sleep so I don't know I'm in pain.  Either way it works for me.  No lifting (especially Miss C.  Luckily I can get down to her level and have her come to me.) or straining my neck. Had to get rid of my admittedly VERY heavy purse (which I loved) and spent not a little time trying to decide what I really needed with me all the time and what I could leave at home.  Grr.  I go back in a week and we'll talk about some therapies that may include a visit to a chiropractor and/or physical therapy.  Sigh.  Could always be worse.

So, to perk myself up I went in for a hair cut and had a feather put in my hair. I do love a feather.

 You can wash them, curl them, brush them...just treat them like hair.  I am loving this like crazy.  I've found a few sellers on etsy where I could get a whole bunch of colors and do it myself.  This has brightened my day like a double rainbow!  One little feather and I feel all sassy.  Go figure.

Enjoy your long weekend and be safe with all the exploding things. 

 

A scattered smattering

Is this not just about the cutest thing you've ever seen?  See more here.  Thanks National Geographic for being you.  But wait, I might have something even cuter:

Little Miss Cambria Joy in all her zebra skirted glory attending the birthday party of pals Avery and Parker.  I mean really, could you not just kiss that little face all day?   Notice that sparkly silver shoe in her hand and not on her foot.  I think her mother has me to thank for her no-shoe preference.  I am so digging those adorable little bottom teeth.  Granny love; there is nothing like it.

This  is how my life has been the last couple of weeks; a little of this and a little of that.  Lots of that, that=work.  My boss has been in CA since 2/4 leaving the fantastic Michelle and I to mind the store.  I truly had no idea how many fires must be extinguished on a daily basis.  The weather has been a little apocalyptic (if we are to believe the weather dudes) with wild blizzard and extreme cold.  The wind chill right now is -11.  Our gutters have been dripping mad crazy icicles all around the house, but especially over the front stoop, turning it into a death trap.  Amazing Husband is out picking away at the mess right now so when the kids come for dinner tonight (Yay!) they might make it in the door in one piece.   

So, in keeping with the randomness of my life, some of the random things I am loving right now:

*Smartwool socks.  Warm, washable, a little funky.  Can't imagine a winter without them.

*Yankee Candle fragrance Mountain Lodge.  Smells like up north. Warm and welcoming.

*Davines No 14 Seal Salt Primer.  Apparently I'm not the only one in love with this stuff.  Several of my go-to places do not have it in stock.  You spray it into wet hair and scrunch.  I let it dry naturally, but you can blow dry (low or with a diffusser) for more volume.   The result is soft wave that hold LIKE CRAZY but itsn't crunchy. 

* My ipad an it's Otterbox case.  Never have I had a gadget I've loved more.  Karl gave me the case for Christmas and now my ipad could survive nuclear war.  This case is fantastic.

*Larkrise to Candleford and Downton Abbey.  I've just started watching both, Larkrise via Netflix and Downton dvr recorded PBS.  I do love me some British costume drama and both of these, though very different from each other, have provided some very enjoyable knitting time.

*Ray LaMontague, almost every song he's ever written, but especially Be Here Now.

Don't let your mind get weary and confused
Your will be still, don't try
Don't let your heart get heavy child
Inside you there's a strength that lies

Don't let your soul get lonely child
It's only time, it will go by
Don't look for love in faces, places
It's in you, that's where you'll find kindness

Be here now, here now
Be here now, here now

Don't lose your faith in me
And I will try not to lose faith in you
Don't put your trust in walls
'Cause walls will only crush you when they fall

Be here now, here now
Be here now, here now

From blog to book.

One night while my brain and I were in disagreement over the necessity of sleep I mulled over the horrors of a massive Typepad (the site that hosts this blog) server malfunction.  Rationally, I was confident that Typepad had every possible safe guard in place, but what if....what if they lost my blog?  I've been blogging for five years now and while I do not flatter myself that it is anything other than my sometimes pointless stream of consciousness, it has been a chronicle of those years and losing it would be sad.   I would like this blog to be a bit of a legacy, insignificant in the big picture of life and lives, but still, amusing for those future generations.  I would LOVE to have any sort of diary from my ancestors.  So, I started to consider the options.  I could print it all out and place it in some sort of binder.  A fairly large investment in time and money.  Or, I could use one of the online blog-to-book companies and have a book, or books, printed.  After some research I opted for Blog2Print and the year 2009 as my test subject.

Blog2Print made is incredibly easy.  Basically, you give them your blog address, choose dates, format, dedication, etc, and they create a book.  You have full control and the ability to edit anything before it goes to print. (I love that phrase...."goes to print".  Every writers dream words.)

And there she is.  I chose the soft cover option.  For one year...approx 150 pages it was $50.  Here is what the interior layout looks like:

I know, bad light, but you get the idea.

I presented the book at wednesdays family dinner and it got rave reviews.  Now to consider whether to continue to print the archives in the monthly format or bundle 2005-2010 together and then create a new volume at the end of each year.  Each kid would like their own copy so it could become a nice Christmas tradition.  I have to admit that I am equal parts proud-as-punch and embarrassed at the self indulgence of making books out of my words.  (I know.  I'm weird like that.)

Should you be considering a blog-book print, I give Blog2Print high marks.  Even delivery was quick.

 

You can't go home again.

So here we are, less than a week from the big day.  How does time seem to speed up every year?  I know I've been a terrible blogger, no question.  I'm actually on my lunch break right now, hiding in the office.  Don't tell anyone. :-)  I wish I could tell you that in the new year I will make every attempt to post daily, but I don't see it happening.  Work, you know?  I love it, but sometimes it's hard to fit all of life's pieces together in a pretty way.

Anyway, enough petty excuses.  I wanted to share this sort of strange thing.  Last week I had 3 nights of a recurring dream.  Ok, wait, a little back story here.....I'm assuming that most of you know I spent every summer of my life, up until I was about 35,  on Dunham Lake in northern Wisconsin.  Most of the inhabitants of the lake homes were relatives of my Grandparents.  My aunt and uncle built a really lovely home directly across the lake from my Grandparents when I was maybe 7 or 8.  SO, in this dream that home is for sale and there is some sort of bidding war and I am able to buy this house for a song.  Now, let me be clear that even in a less than pristine state, there is no way on the planet, even in dream world, that we could afford this house.  We could not even afford the taxes on the house.  Not that it's a mansion or anything super fantastic, but wooded lake front property....well, you know.  $$$$$$$.

I'm telling a friend about my dreams at lunch one day and she tells me that I ought to go online and see if the house is really for sale.  Then we agree that if it was, that would be equal parts creepy and sad since I would love to have the opportunity to be on that lake more than just about anything else besides world peace and for people to stop being incredibly stupid.  (Don't even get me going on that one.) In a perfect world the home that my grandparents built and my parents retired to would have been mine.  Had they been able to live out their lives there I would have inherited it.  But, life doesn't always work out how we envision and they had to sell it when they become to old to care for it.  Long story and one that makes me want to beat my head against the wall.

So, (If anyone is till reading after all this blah, blah, blah) yesterday I decide that I'm going to look online and just *see* if maybe my aunt and uncles house might really be for sale and you know what.....?  It's not.  

My parent's house is. 

I swear it's true.  I fully admit to sitting in front of the computer screen and sobbing my little heart out.   Here is the mls listing.

Sort of wild, huh?  Even stranger is looking at all the photos.  My parent's sold the house fully furnished, and while the new owners made a few changes, it's like one day my parent's just walked away and the house is still waiting for them.  Kinda sad.

There is no possibility of being the house's new owners.  Way too much money, and honestly, everything has changed so much there on the lake that I'm not sure I could go home again.  If money dropped out of the sky, though, I'd certainly give it a try.

Happy Solstice to all who honor the Yule.  A full moon, too! 

 

 

 

Five years

When I began this little blog five years ago its intent was to give me a place to share my new love of fiber.  Knitting blogs were quite the thing back then and since I've always enjoyed a chance to write it seemed like a nice way to spend some time.  I posted mostly my knitting or something knitting related.  Then I decided to expand it to my life in general and I wrote about what we did on the weekends, the mutts, gardening, pretty much anything that came to mind.  There was time, back then, to write as I lived. I wasn't working, both kids had fledged the nest and I was settling in to having leisure time.

In these five years I have expanded, digressed and deviated from the original plan.  A lot of life happened.   I lost my mother and Kody, the best darn dog ever.   Both of my children have chosen well and married.  My son became a fire fighter and my daughter a mother to the loveliest creature on the planet. (No prejudice at all.)  I have found a job that fulfills my soul and Amazing Husband and I are about to celebrate our 11th anniversary.   It was good and bad and happy and sad and it has been a privilege to share it here on this little plot of cyber land. 

There is still knitting, though I frequently forget to photograph it before it goes off to warm a little body.  I'm going to try and get better about that.  (Key word - try- ) I find that when I sit down to write that is becoming more important to write intelligently from my heart.  Sometimes that goal gets in the way of me actually putting word to screen.   Still, my commitment continues to be strong and I will write as I am able and have the words to do so. What began as a knitting blog as evolved into a chronicle of my life.

To those of you that take the time to read and share your thoughts, much gratitude.  We all have a voice and I appreciate you listening to mine.  Namaste.