Beware the Ides of March. The 15th of March is an auspicious day in history. In the year 44BC Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the senate by conspiritors led by Brutus and Longinus. In 1906, the Rolls Royce was introduced.The Godfather opened on March 15th, 1972. And in 1954 this blogger was born…

I’m sure some of you could use a break from the Slovakia coverage, besides I’m dying to show off Eyeleen’s Herringbone Rib scarf, cleverly wrapped around a pineapple. Who would have thought… great presentation. The scarf is drop dead gorgeous if you ask me, of course I’m biased. She did six pattern repeats, using a…

Another requirement for a decent vacation is a good book. I brought along "Eat, Pray and Love" an autobiographical account of one woman’s year of transformation; an excellent read by Elizabeth Gilbert. In one chapter she talks about declaring a major for your life. This trip I declared eating and knitting my majors with a…

If you’ve had high school age kids in recent years, you might remember their foreign language teacher’s warning about using Google Translate to complete assignments. One afternoon we were greeted by the hotel’s new fire warning system: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the technic defect was cared here. You shall must leave the building in peace, please.…

My traveling companions and I can now look a pig in the eye, secretly sharing the knowledge of its greatest pleasures. Having spent two weeks at a traditional European health spa, as opposed to a beauty spa, we ere exposed to all manner of piggy pleasures – mainly mud and copious amounts of food. Let…

Yesterday, it was time to put on our ruby slippers and return to our respective Kansases. Is that how you say Kansas in plural? How about Kansai, that’s the name of a local sushi place here in North Vancouver. Cousin Lene is back in Denmark, SIL Ellen in Minnesota, and after three flights and 15…

Well, I’m off to a spa in Slovakia, a dream that my SIL and I have shared for many years. Three Boesen women, two related by blood, one adopted through marriage, all knitters, off to the other side of the dream. To them, a thank you for being part of the dream. To you, a…

I have a friend who participated in a quilting crawl of the Washington Coast. Her friend found some particularly interesting metallic thread, but was hesitant to buy it, unsure if she already had some stashed. She made a fatal error called her husband. "Honey, can you go into my quilting closet and tell me if…

Here’s a glimpse of our Sunday in Steveston, a fishing village south of Vancouver. That’s Chuck buying wild drug-free salmon (note the red sign on the fishing boat): It was a gray and gloomy day in Steveston, while it was bright and sunny up the mountain where we live. This is due to an unusual…

You know you have it bad when you don’t leave home without a knitting project in your purse. You know you have it bad when, while dining in a nice restaurant, you think "Oh my gosh I’ve spent three hours straight without thinking about my knitting!" You know you have it bad when you dream…