Life's a Stitch

This is one of those "someone’s got to think about these things" posts. Sandy recently posted about the dogs in her neighborhood, who seemed to work out a schedule so that one of them was barking at any given time. We live up a mountain and sound carries. Often we’ll hear a dog from further up the mountain and Grace will respond with a woof. The next dog down hears Gracee and starts in. You can hear it for miles each dog passing the message like a canine version of the telephone game. I wonder, I just wonder if that message was carried 3243.9 miles (hey Sandy, that’s how far apart we live), dog-to-dog, to Sandy’s house. Somebody’s got to think about these things.

Here’s Grace taking her turn in the game, this time competing with fire trucks.

Genes are strong little buggers. It’s been interesting with my SIL at my house, seeing the similarities between her, my husband and other family members. Chuck and his sister are both "category eaters". They eat all their veggies, move onto the meat, and then their potatoes. Come to think of it, this trait has been passed on to one of our children. We discussed the eating habits of other family members. There is one who mixes all his food together noting that it all goes to the same place anyhow. And another of my children would rather eat from separate dishes than have his food touch. If the "category" people were knitters I bet they would be one of those who finishes one project before starting another.   

Here is one of my four five six current projects. I’d better post before I remember any more. You can tell where I stand on this subject.

My refrigerator beeps at me when the door is left open too long, the microwave sounds when you set the time but haven’t pressed the start button soon enough, my new  washer and dryer’s ready signal repeats endlessly until you open the door. Give me a break. I’ve just gotten over that stage of life where little ones have needs constantly requiring attention and now my appliances have taken over. It’s not just me whining, I ‘ve overheard Chuck and my SIL growling at the blasted things. Remember when we lived in a beepless world? Another sign of aging, isn’t it?

How to achieve relief from those demands? Substitute them with a demand of a different, more pleasant kind. The idea is to get myself so lost involved in a lace pattern, nothing else will matter. Not the wedding details that are creeping up so quickly, nor the insignificant life annoyances like the incredible beeping kitchen. So, I’ve signed on for the Amazing Lace and I’m supposed to introduce my team:

Charlotte, Kiri, and Koigu were interested in co-competing with me, but the winners were Regal Silk and the Shoalwater Shawl. Koigu a long standing teammate is willing to take a break and sit out this race in my stash drawers. Kiri is my long distance team mate, having visited six countries last summer; this year’s adventure will only cover a bit of North America. And Charlotte, having competed and  finished successfully twice before, may just be ready for retirement. Regal Silk is showing her best colours for the project – Lagoon; a perfect fit for Shoalwater. This really does make sense to knitters. Let’s hear it for the team!

I’ve had a lucky week. First, I was shopping at Sears’ scratch and save sale and scratched $80 off on a pressure washer for Chuck. Better luck than I had in the cruise ship casino where I lost $2.35. I hate to part with my money with nothing to show for it. I am a good winner, however, even if it is only a scratch and save coupon –  yelping appropriately and giving high fives to the sales clerk. After paying we agreed that it  might be a good time for me to buy a lottery ticket. So, I did just that and bought a scratch and win ticket and shared it with the sales clerk. It wasn’t a winner, but it was fun to see him smile. 

This one you’ll especially appreciate. I’ve had a visit from a yarn fairy Godmother. Out of the blue I received an e-mail from my husband’s nephew’s wife, whom I’ve never met. She won a basket of silk yarn at a charity auction, and since she isn’t a knitter, offered to give it to me! Thank you, Valerie.

Make that three times lucky; how about some vacation photos:

1. Flowers in Balboa Park, San Diego 2. Feeling like I’m in a dream aboard the ship 3. San Francisco 4. Knitting bud Marsha, her husband, Dave, and I, in front of our ship 5. How many husbands does it take to wind a skein of Fleece Artist yarn?

We’re back from our wonderful cruise, but I have no pictures as my USB cable is somewhere between here and San Diego.

When the kids returned from camp or a school trip I always asked them what was the  best and worst parts of their trip. Upon our return all three kids asked us the traditional two questions:

The best parts: 1. Climbing up Telegraph Hill in San Francisco and seeing the wild parrots. 2. Seeing multiple pods of humpback whales at sea. 3. A day at Balboa Park in San Diego.

The worst: It took me along time to think of anything  and all I could come up with is the fact that I didn’t feel well for about an hour and a half after getting cold on deck one afternoon. I feel like a spoiled kid!

On the cruise ship there are meetings of Friends of Bill (AA meetings) and Friends of Dorothy (gay friendly social events). I’ve come up with a new group – Friends of Jane. This is the group of latter middle age couples you see doing their laps around the ship or brisk walks in the neighbourhood. I figure many of them are heart attack survivors participating in their cardiac rehab walking programs similar to the one taught to us by our rehab nurse, Jane. Cruise ships seem to attract Friends of Jane, but their dining rooms aren’t particularly Jane friendly. I have four additional pounds to prove it.

No pictures to show for it right now, but between my friend Marsha and I, there was a lot of on board knitting happening. And interesting visits to San Francisco’s Art Fibers and Victoria’s Beehive Wool Shop.

I’m not coping well without e-mail and USB cable. Hopefully we’ll have our computer back on Tuesday, so until then…

Don’t ask me where this came from, but when I was a little girl I thought that a leak in the hallway closet meant that there was a witch living in the closet. And it scared me to death. I was about three years old and my father and uncle worked hard to fix that leak while I lost sleep thinking a witch was going to get me during the night. It probably coincided with the airing of the Wizard of Oz.

My grandmother told us that it was dangerous to eat bananas at night. She supposedly knew of a little boy who ate a banana at bedtime and died of fright when he dreamed that his skin was peeling off. I think we believed her.

I have a new belief that I read on someone’s blog – sock yarn doesn’t count when it comes to stash enhancement. How about you? Any offbeat childhood beliefs in your past? Or present?

I’ll leave you with a photo of an FO that I can finally show you. It’s the scarf I wove on my Kromski, a retirement gift for my SIL, who is on a flight from MSP to YVR this morning. She doesn’t have access to my blog, so you get to see the surprise before she does. We’re so lucky, she is staying with us for a few months so she’ll be here to help with the wedding. To start out her stay she will keep an eye on Bryant while Chuck and I work on his recovery on a repositioning cruise from San Diego to Vancouver starting this weekend. We weren’t sure it was going to happen after recent events. You can’t see it but I’m doing the happy dance. I’ll be back in a week or so. And apologies to all those I haven’t been able to contact by e-mail. Our computer is still in its crashed state.

Hope you all had a nice Mother’s Day. I am a full time working outside the home mom. I’ve been one for years. It works so well for me, I think I’m a better mom for being a working mom. The problem is that I bought very early into the philosophy that says you can’t do it all, and have become very lax on the housework side of it. We ‘re not at the income level that I felt comfortable having house cleaners, besides, I couldn’t face picking up the house for the cleaners to do their job.

Here’s the problem – the kids, two of them, anyhow, have learned my terrible habits. Bryant’s room was so bad you couldn’t see the floor. Then he started sleeping in the family room because he couldn’t make it to his bed.  The other night he had the nerve to grump at me for disturbing him at 2:30 in the morning when I was combating sleeplessness with blogging. Whose family room is this anyway?

Time to attack the problem. After hauling out three garbage cans of junk, a bag for the Goodwill, and a box of garage sale stuff, we recovered four laundry baskets (none of which contained dirty clothes), three bottles of allergy nasal spray and two full containers of Folex spot remover (I wondered where they had gone and why were they in his room?) He now insists that all he wants in his room is a mattress on the floor – the minimalist look. Trouble is that he still has too darned much junk and no place to put it. He won’t even have underneath the bed space to stuff things. Any creative solutions? Anybody want to take him in and return him trained? Just asking.

Yikes, my computer monitor screen, the one attached to the CPU with all my photos and blog stuff, is black and has a message, something to the effect of: config.sys is not available or damaged… So I’ll dig through my laptop and find a photo to leave you with. How about an FO: a v-shaped shawl made from Heavenly yarn:

We get weekly visits from a cardiac rehab nurse. Nurse Jane, affectionately known in our house as the heart gestapo, comes equipped with a portable ECG, blood pressure cuff and a wealth of knowledge. We bombard her with questions, can he do this, can he eat that… Today he asked if he could dig in the garden. She said no, with a helpful explanation about how he has to build a healthy scar on his heart by resting for four weeks, the only exception being the cardiac rehab walking program.

I caught him in the garden with a mysterious amount of dirt missing from the left side of a large tree planter he had built. I say "I thought you weren’t supposed to be digging." He replies, I wasn’t digging. I was only moving dirt with a shovel." What am I missing here? Is that the same as "I’m not knitting, I’m just wrapping string on sticks?" What I really wanted to say was "If you’re not careful, maybe you’ll move enough dirt for a grave."

I’m the guilty party, though, as he was building the planter for my early Mother’s Day gift. It’s a weeping Katsura tree that was a royal hassle to get, but was a real bargain. Apologies to Dave, our dear friend, who had to drive twice to Langley to pick up the correct tree for us, and his son, Jeff, who accompanied me on a wild goose chase to try to find a large enough planter. Silly me wanted to put it in a planter in case we ever move. I’ve see the price tag on mature versions of this tree and it’s going with me no matter what. It’s a good thing my daughter has a forklift operator’s license.

You know how Sandy is about skies? I’m that way about trees. I’ve noticed pretty tree pictures recently at Knitting Iris (May 2nd post) and over at Lynne’s (whose garden always looks like a Thomas Kinkaid painting). So, if you have any trees to show me, I’d love to see them.

I invited Bry along for a Costco trip on Saturday. It’s difficult to get him to do stuff with me, but he knows my weak spots and a tendency to give in the purchase of things like beef jerky and books. There is something heart warming to this mother seeing her child eating any source of protein or reading a real adult book rather than reading rock star magazines while sucking a Slurpee.

On the way to the car he requests I take along a Beatles CD. I pick Sgt. Pepper’s and he quickly realizes the folly of his request. I have a tendency to sing while driving and I know every word to Sgt. Pepper’s, having spent many summer days in eighth grade, playing cards with my friends while listening to Beatles albums. We get into a volume match, he turns the volume louder and I turn up my voice. Realizing that his choices are the Beatles or CBC radio, he gives in.

I thank him and go into Mommy mode explaining what a miracle it is to be able to listen to your choice of music, while on the road, through four speakers. When I was a kid… to listen to music in the car meant hearing AM radio through one tinny speaker. And that was when my parents were in a really good mood. Otherwise it was talk radio, mostly about politics. Parenting does have its privileges. Heh, heh, heh (evil chuckle).

Here are the results of my recent sale shopping. One is Lorna’s Laces sock yarn in the Goldhill colourway. I’ve been inspired by others’ sock knitting and decided maybe to give it another chance. The other is LL’s Lion and Lamb in the Vera colourway. It’s been described as knitting with butter, and since we’re not eating any in my house anymore, I thought I’d trying knitting with it.

It’s been one of those knitting experiences, my daughter’s wedding cardigan, but as they say – the third time’s a charm. Thank goodness for good quality yarn which has mostly cooperated after three trips to the frog pond.

Trip #1 (left) – using the "s" stitch in the original design, this was the culprit that caused painful tendonitis in my wrist. No sweater is worth taking drugs over. One skein of the white and 25% of the mohair were unrecoverable.

Trip #2 (right) – substituted a diagonal net lace stitch – way off gauge with a distinct slant. Unless Elina walked down the aisle with a definitive lean to one side this was not going to work. This time all yarn was recovered from the pond in reusable shape.

#3’s a charm – substituted a simple openwork lace pattern. Easy on the wrists, gauge is better, and it looks like E can get married with her weight distributed evenly on both legs.