Anything Nice...

Hi Folks. I know it's been a while since you've heard from me and I apologize. Me old Mum taught me, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Well, there's been very little nice to report on for quite a while. But darn it! This can't go on forever can it? I figure, today is the first day of my 61st year on this old earth. Well actually yesterday was my 60th birthday, but I'm a night owl and for me it is still "today". So, anyway, it's the beginning of a new year for me and I really hope things get better.

So where were we? Oh yes, the big storm that took down our trees and our wires and our neighbor's wires. A nice lady artist had taken some of our chunks of wood to work with and she came back for more. And while she was at it she cleaned up the first stump closest to the house. It's hardly noticeable anymore and hubby has made a new bonsai display area there. The old tree in the back is still lying where it fell and most of the debris is still there. For my birthday hubby says he will plant a veggie garden back there. It would be nice...

Had a huge scare in February. A very close family member attempted suicide and was in a coma for a few days. The hospital was about an hour and a half away but I or hubby needed to be there every day. I was so afraid. There was pneumonia, liver damage, brain damage. A sad, damaged psyche that can't or won't be fixed. He got better. He went home. He's trying. But I can hear him sliding back when I talk to him. A constant, wearing worry.

Which wreaks havoc on blood pressure, etc., etc... I am a well lubricated pin cushion. (smile) Only ruined one dress with blood stains. Naturally it was in light spring colors.

With gas prices so high and all that driving back and forth to the hospital for weeks, our already stretched very thin finances took a huge whack. Property tax didn't help either. Putting groceries on a credit card only works for so long. So now I am selling my things to help make ends wave at each other. My Mom is mad at me for not managing well. She's not the kind of Mom who will just hold you and let you cry and pat you on the back and tell you everything is going to be ok. She wants to move back to Oregon and it's just breaking my heart. It took SO many years to get her to live close by so we can help when she has one of her falls. We've been through all that a few times now. Oh well, at least she is still ABLE to move back to Oregon.

More later...

Brief note

I don't feel eloquent enough to express my feelings on this 9/11. Suffice it to say that my life was changed forever. But in no way comparable to those lives that were stolen by monsters not fit to walk the earth. Nor comparable to those lives that were ripped apart with loss. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

I have started to list things for sale on eBay. So far just books on lace, knitting, quilting and cooking. To come are more books, quilt magazine collections, vintage sewing machine parts and attachments and other things too numerous to list. Please have a look!

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZgmcsew

Thanks and God bless you all!

A little setback...

Hi y'all. There are more pictures and good stuff coming, honest. I had a good plan for catching up but I had a little accident that has set me back a little. Yesterday I lunged across our little bathroom to catch a falling bottle and mangled a muscle in my hip. Made my sciatic nerve mad too. So my war with the dust/thread bunnies had to wait a while. But not too long. At least today I could walk a little.

While my Roomba was scurrying around my room today I dragged the big vac with the long hose in here so I could sit in my chair and get those corners under my desk. Roomba doesn't do corners very well. Anyway, I would have waited to do this tomorrow but while I was having a nap after breakfast my computer shut itself down and wouldn't wake up. Seems the dust bunnies and the 104f temperature today overwhelmed it and the fact that the a/c was on along with a fan didn't help at all. So I just had to wage war with the hoard and rescue my computer. Vacuumed all around it then opened it up and vacuumed it inside. Not too bad but the poor heat sink was hot enough to roast marshmallows. So I aimed a fan at the heat sink for a while until it cooled down, crossed my fingers and turned it on. I was SO happy to hear that lovely Mac "bong"! Now I am keeping a fan on the space in the back so it doesn't happen again. Keeping a better handle on the dust/thread bunny herd would be a good thing too, ya think?

Haven't picked up my knitting yet. My right thumb, the one with the worst beginnings of arthritis, has started "clicking" for want of a better term. It's a weird sensation to say the least. Doesn't make it hurt any more than it did so for now it's just a strange thing. I WILL knit tomorrow!

Lastly, a dear friend's young daughter has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and is about to start treatment. Very scary. The round robin I was just working on is for her Mom. They are in my prayers. And another friend just went through two dental abcesses at the same time and is suffering the after effects in a very hard way. She is in my prayers too. All extra prayers are welcome!

Nighty night all!

Where have I been?

Hi Folks! It has been a very busy time around here since my last post. My Mom had another fall. This one assisted by a 4 year old neighbor who leaped off the stairs and into her arms for a hug. Wasn't very funny at the time but in hindsight someone should have been there yelling "timber!". Mom went over backwards like a felled tree and wrenched the living daylights out of her back. Took a couple of days to convince her that she needed to go to the ER. The fact that she couldn't move at all and was in immense pain might have had something to do with it.

So after a day and a night in the ER zonked out on morphine and muscle relaxants she was transferred to a convalescent hospital for a week or so. Last year's fall put her in a convalescent hospital that was about 15 minutes away. This time it was waaay out of town, about 40 minutes. So DH and I took turns going to see her everyday. Got her home and tucked in last Wednesday and she is getting better every day.

Then my younger sister decided she needed to come down from Oregon on the train and stay with Mom for a few days. I guess she needed to see for herself that Mom didn't really have one foot in the grave and was as well off as I and Mom had been telling her. That visit went well enough and we loaded her back on the train tonight. Now, hopefully, life will begin to get back to some semblance of order. (Knock on wood!)

I received the next round robin to work on. Not sure yet what I am going to do, but I have a couple of ideas. Here is what it looks like now.



And for L&L here are some pics of the sleeve of a new shrug I am working on. In the first pic I thought I'd be clever and put the cuff over my lamp to show the "lace" off better. Not real successful in my opinion.



Here's one of the sleeve "laid out" so to speak.



The lace swirls around the sleeve because all of the decreases are done exactly the same, all in one direction. And the colors swirl around and climb up the sleeve. Gradually, every 16 rows, I am replacing some of the lace with stockinette, until there is no lace left. I've just changed to a larger needle and will knit the last of the sleeve and the back in plain stockinette. The next 2 pics show the gradual changes.



If you look closely you can see the stockinette beginning to be introduced.



And here you can see the stockinette is almost solid at the top. After another 20 or so rows of plain stockinette I will start knitting back and forth for the back. Wonder what the colors will do?

So there you have it. Love to have some comments on the sleeve so far. I am off to bed now and a deep, healing sleep. "Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of time..." Good old Shakespeare!

Almost but not quite!

Well, dear reader(s), I have 3 of the 4 wide borders done on the round robin so no picture yet. First thing tomorrow will finish the last wide border, then add a thin frame border. Then I will take a picture to post tomorrow night. Promise!

Been playing musical money with my accounts. The Fed refund is supposed to deposit tomorrow so I am praying.

Lois, hope you had a wonderful day playing tourist in Vancouver. I would have loved to be with you. It has been so long since I was there I bet I would hardly recognize the place anymore.

That's all for tonight. I am off to my cozy bed as the rain beats down yet again. Nighty night!

Feelin' old

It's surprising how much 3 days of intensive piecing, after years of not making all those movements, can affect older muscles and bones. You hold your entire body differently when using a sewing machine. And rotary cutting layers of fabric on the dining room table? OY! My back, my hands... ow!

I woke up today wondering if I was coming down with the flu. Aching all over and moving like molasses in Winter. Getting physically older is a drag! No other symptoms though, just achy and tired, tired, tired!

So I had my cup of hot Ovaltine and took some Advil and went off to the post office to mail the Round Robin. Got a bright yellow box for it, the same yellow of the blooming Oxalis that is swallowing up my front yard. Also mailed another DVD to my cyber twin. (Hi Laura!) Came home and made breakfast and commenced to wade through the 300+ emails waiting for me since I hardly read any yesterday. Just finished the last one half an hour ago! Whew!

So I made it through the day with just a very short nap. Did 7 loads of laundry, read all my email and thought about all that I plan to do tomorrow. My desk is an incredible mess, as usual. Need to tidy up my fabrics, pay the bills (ugh), vacuum up the thread bunnies and maybe work in a lovely hot shower. My Mom had one of those new baths installed, the kind you walk into, shut the door and sit down. No more trying to struggle up out of a slippery tub. I'm going to try it out when she cruises off to Turkey this month.

Well, I should get to bed. It is storming again tonight so I should sleep good. See y'all later!

Time Flies!

Good grief! It's nearly Wednesday already! The older I get the faster time goes by. All that humbug about "when you're having fun"? Balderdash!!! It's relativity I tell you! When you get older time speeds up. Doesn't have anything to do with slowing down and having to take naps. NO! It's all a physicist's plot. (grumble, grumble)

So for 2 days I have slaved over writing this slipper pattern, and working out changes for different sizes. And I only took 2 eensy weensy naps. Honest! I even went to the post office today to mail my Round Robin box.

Did you know the post office has ***pretty*** boxes now? Mine has roses all over it! It's gorgeous! And big enough for the pieced center, extra fabric, a few goodies for the participants and room to spare for as the project grows. Very cool I think.

I ran into 2 neighbors while I was at the post office. I love living in a small town. :o) One of them wanted to come home with me to look at my sewing machines again. Oh Lord! All the Christmas stuff has been taken down but the boxes haven't been put back up in the attic yet. So one can barely get in the front door. And, for the same reason, one can hardly get into the parlor where most of the handcrank machines are, which is what she wanted to see. She was polite. I was embarrassed.

On the upside though, Percy didn't run away from this sweet little red haired lady. That's a first! Maybe it was her soft English accent. Or maybe because she really is a short little lady, 4 foot somethig. Poor Percy, everyone is a giant to him.

So, here I am, about to go nighty night. There's supposed to be a big storm coming with lots of rain. I hope so. Good storms always energize me. Tomorrow I'll bake bread! Cinnamon raisin and egg bread. I better get to bed. I'm getting hungry. :o)

Feelings

Alex brought home a nice note from friend Vera today. She loved the slippers and they fit perfectly! That's a happy feeling. :o)

Nice thing number 2 is... Fiber Trends is interested in the pattern!!! That's a WOW feeling! And Alex is proud of me. That's an awesome feeling!!!

I "fell off the wagon" and bought a bunch of Sierra Bulky at Knit Picks. Now I know exactly why! Gotta work out different sizes for the slippers and knit samples. It was preordained! That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :o)

Just finished winding the Sierra and filled up a whole 'nother bag. That's a yummy feeling.

Tomorrow I must clear off my desk and pay bills. That's a yucky feeling. But then I will finish 2 quilt projects that are on deadlines and that will be a relieved feeling. That relief started tonight as I found the 2 little bags of Civil War fabrics I had been saving. Cleaning up my room makes such simple magic.

And the topper for the good feeling day, my friend Lois is finally through with the Canadian election and we had our first "visit" in weeks tonight. I sure missed yacking with her online nearly every night. Guess I'm spoiled. Oh well!

Nighty night!

Tagged!

My cyber twin Laura has tagged me!

Four jobs in my life [best to worst]:Assuming these must be paid jobs...

1.) Lifeguard and swimming instructor at Temescal Pool. 1966
2.) Quilting lecturer and teacher, also did commission quilting, designed and published my own patterns and wrote a miniature quilting column for several magazines.
3.) Bookkeeper for Coastal Ordinance in San Leandro for Captain Wolfe. He was a good man.
4.) Bookkeeper for Encore Glass. Twenty Two year of pure misery.
(Absolute favorite job is what I am doing now, being retired and a knitting housewife.)

Four Movies you could watch over and over:

1.) The Abyss
2.) All Star Wars Movies
3.) All Harry Potter movies
4.) Any Jimmie Stewart movie

Four Places you have lived: Just 4? Sheesh!

1.) Thirty miles outside of Madison, Wisconsin, in a cozy trailer in the snow. 1949 - 1954
2.) Vancouver, B.C. Canada, 2 years of ice skating in the street, playing violin in the Kitsalano school orchestra, playing Badminton, loooong summer days camping with the Girl Guides, cycling to the beach for fish & chips with my best friend, and to the soda shop for 25 cent root beer floats on Saturdays. Good times! 1961 - 1962
3.) Millington, Tennessee in an off-base 2 room duplex, shared with a TON of cockroaches. My son David was born there and that is the only good memory I have of Millington.
4.) Benicia, California, in an 1887 Victorian 3 doors away from where Alex was born and raised. A real home at last!

Four Places you have been on vacation:

1.) 1978 - Cross country camping from Oakland, California to Dallas, Texas, in August, in a tent, in constant thunderstorms, with new husband Alex who had only left the state of California to go to Germany for the Army. Alex had never seen Carlesbad Caverns or the Painted Desert or the Indian countries. Or camped in a tent tied to the car so it wouldn't blow away in the pounding rain with lots of thunder and lightening. We were going so Alex could meet my Grandparents. My PawPaw died the day before we got there.

2.) 1980 - Camping alone in October for 2 weeks, moving from lake to lake in Northern California, fishing with the companionship of a darling kitten who adopted me in the wild and who loved to ride in the car. Peaceful and quiet at that time of year. I loved it!

3.) 1956 - Carlesbad Caverns and the Petrified Forrest, just me and my PawPaw. Sure miss him!

4.) 1959 - Cabin camping in Mina, Arkansas with my Dad's parents and brother, Grampa Mac, Coco and Uncle Mike. Good swimmin', fishin' and wraslin'.

Four websites you visit daily: Beyond a lot of blogs and knitting websites...

1.) My bank

2.) Buy & Hold to check on my tiny portfolio.

3.) Seattle Times to read Crankshaft.

4.) Grimmy to read Mother Goose & Grim.

Four of my favorite foods: Along with eggs any way, dark chocolate with nuts and caramel, BLTs, Southern fried chicken livers and fresh hot biscuits, cold hot dogs and cold pork and beans right out of the can...

1.) Shrimp, prawns, langoustine, whatever you want to call 'em. More is better!

2.) Rare filet mignon with sauted mushrooms and spinach salad (with baby shrimp). (Excuse me, I have to wipe my chin.)

3.) Crab (and shrimp) Louis, with fresh French bread and real butter.

4.) Creamy Navy beans with hot buttered cornbread.

Four places you'd rather be right now:

Can't think of any! I'm so happy right here, in front of the computer, knitting on the desk, television above, surrounded by beautiful yarn and affectionate kitties, talking to my friends.

Four Bloggers i am tagging:

1.) Yarn Harlot - http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/
2.) Pink Lemon Twist - http://www.pinklemontwist.blogspot.com/
3.) The Knitting Doctor - http://mousepotato.typepad.com/knittingdoctor/
4.) Will Work For Yarn - http://willwork4yarn.blogspot.com/

Fussy Old lady!

Well, I am still fussing with this not-to-be-felted clog for friend Vera. It worked out to knit it on smaller needles, size 8, it came out to my size (8-1/2) using the women's small in the directions. So I've ripped it all out and started over using the women's large directions.

I fiddled around with toe up type cast ons so there wouldn't have to be a seam in the middle of the sole. But nothing seems to work out. The figure 8 leaves a loose ladder down the middle. Before that I tried the Turkish cast on with a different slipper pattern that didn't work well. I'm going to try it with the clog pattern now and see how that goes. If it doesn't all work out tomorrow then I'll just knit the clog as written and she'll have a seam down the middle of the sole.

I'm worried about Alex. Yesterday while working in Mom's garden a rose thorn poked him in the hand, that fleshy part between the thumb and the forefinger. He says it bled and he washed it, but by the time he got home it was all swollen and red and hot. I worked it over with peroxide and neosporin and a bandaid, and we did it again before bed. Today he says it's better but it doesn't look like it to me. He must be a little worried about it because it didn't rain today but he stayed in, ALL day! That is not like him at all.

This worries ME because way back when we were newlyweds he had a puncture on the same hand from a kitty tooth. But he didn't tell me about it until he showed me a red line going up his arm! At the hospital he had IV antibiotic, then at home we did Betadine soaks for a week. I sure don't want to go through that again!!! If it isn't better tomorrow I guess we'll start the soaks.

I know it's not a big thing compared to so many other things that could happen. But healing thoughts would be appreciated. :o) Guess I'll go say my prayers and get to bed. Love and Hugs!

Waaay tired!

Sorry gang. No pics tonight. I am bushed! Spent part of the day taking down Christmas decorations and have been winding ever since. Gonna get the last of it done tomorrow. Then I'll have all these wonderful, neat and organized bags of yarn, like giant jewels. And my knitting machines will be uncovered and might actually get used sometime for something other than piling stuff on. What a concept! :o)

And I'll be able to sew again! Mom wants a new fleece jacket. And I have to make some quilt blocks for an exchange, using a 100 year old handcrank Singer. And mending? Let's not go there. Anyway, I'll be able to see my room again as a place to be creative.

So, if y'all will pardon me, I want to get to bed before the sun comes up. Nighty night!

Slowly...

You know that list I made last week? I might get it all done in the next couple of days. :o) A friend sent me this... Actually I think this describes Middle aged A.A.A.D.D. I have graduated to elderly A.A.A.D.D. That's when you sit and think of all the things that need to be done, trying to decide what should be done first. By bedtime everything is consigned to tomorrow.

Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D.
Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests;

I decide to water my lawn.

As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye - they need to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the living room where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers. I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day: the lawn isn't watered, the car isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, the flowers don't have enough water, there is still only one check in my check book, I can't find the remote, I can't find my glasses, I don't remember what I did with the car keys, and my neighbor called to tell me he turned off the hose that was flooding the driveway.

Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired. I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail.

Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember to whom it has been sent.

Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!

GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY.
GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL.
LAUGHING AT YOURSELF IS THERAPEUTIC

Sound like any of you?

Busy Work

Why no post Saturday morning? Well... Friday was a busy day of wading through a pile of accumulated mail on my desk, balancing my accounts in Quicken, paying bills, reading a ton of email, submitting a resume for a part time job here in my hometown, discovering my fax line was dead and figuring out how to do it through my computer, dubbing tapes to DVDs for a friend, recording the new episodes of SG1, Atlantis and Gallactica for later dubbing and finally, ripping out the cuff on my clog and redoing it in the contrasting sole color.

After all that, while the knitting needles were still "hot" (so to speak) I cast on for the second clog and almost finished knitting all but the second sole before I looked at the clock. It was after 4AM! So instead of posting some babble on my blog I went to bed. I didn't even read my funnies or play a few games of Spider, as I usually do to relax me before bed. (Laura, it really does relax me! )

So what have I done today you ask? Pretty much more of the same. Plus I got a couple of books from my nephews that were "You ***really*** shouldn't have" gifts. But they were from my nephews so I felt obligated to go through them before I found better homes for them. One was the Redneck Grilling Cookbook. The pages are a quarter inch thick so it didn't take too long. There weren't any recipes that I would use but the illustrations were cute. The second was a 1996 book of Dilbert cartoons. Brought back all the horrid memories from the office and all the (insert your favorite derisive term here) I had to deal with for 22 years. Took far too long but I did it. I rewarded and consoled myself by going through the new Herrschners Yarn Shoppe catalogue. Lotsa yummy stuff in there! I am firmly on a yarn diet but... books don't count, right?

So, as soon as I post this blog entry I will read my Sunday funnies, try to finish the second clog, play a couple games of Spider and get to bed. Tomorrow will be clean my room, laundry, cook a pot roast, bake some cinnamon-raisin bread and felt my clogs. Along with reading all my email that ought to keep me busy, don't you think? :o)

Babble, babble...

Well, my dear granddaughter is of the opinion that I should post to my blog everyday, even if I don't have much to show and tell. So I shall!

Let's see... yesterday I left the house for the first time this year and ran a few errands. Had to mail a couple of very old craft magazines from the 1920's and 30's that I sold on eBay. I found out that I could print the mailing label AND the postage (paid through Paypal) right on my computer. Way cool! If I hadn't had other errands to run I could have had the envelopes picked up by the post office for free. I think this is really neat and I'm going to be selling a lot more stuff on eBay this year.

But, as I was saying, all I did yesterday was go out and run a few errands. Nothing too strenuous except for climbing in and out of the car a few times and getting up and down my rickety Victorian stairs. But this morning I woke up stiff and aching! No fair! Physically aging is no fun.

Almost finished with one of my green clogs. Just adding some green fuzzy stuff to the cuff tonight. I'll post a "before" picture before I felt these. They are so huge!

That's all the babble for tonight. :o)

Woo Hoo!

The Ham was yummy, the blackeyed peas were delish, the cornbread was hot and dripping melted butter, and we had a lovely Muscat instead of champagne. I'm not much of a wine drinker so this was really nice! First foot was some gorgeous Chrystal Dark glasses so now we have 8 and can use them when we have more than 4 folks for dinner. And a pair of fluffy green bath sheets that will match my new felted clogs. And he didn't even know they were going to be green! That's because I do most of my knitting in my room in front of the computer, with the pattern and yarn on the desk and the Ott light over my shoulder. He usually doesn't see my knitting until it is all finished.

But that's not what I'm woo hooing about. :o) The very first edition of the Opal Chatter's Newsletter came out a few minutes ago and there is a feature called "Blog Spotter", and my blog was chosen as one of the 3 for the New Year!!! Woo Hoo!!! And if that wasn't enough I'll get a free skein of Opal too!

Wow! What a nice start for the New Year! Thanks Mary Lou and Soxie! You can see the Opal Chatter's Newsletter here - http://www.ptyarn.com/newsletter.html.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

"Grow old along with me... the best is yet to be!"

Today is our 28th wedding anniversary. I'm knitting Alex a lace vine bookmark. Hope to finish it tonight. Alex got me a bunch of flowers at the grocery store. Are we an old married couple or what? :o) I am roasting the 2 ribs we had left over from last Christmas' prime rib. Roast potatoes & carrots, biscuits, wine sauce. Nice little dinner? Tomorrow back to laundry and such. Time to start on the apple pie filling.

Making good progress on my Lyra! Up to row 141 of 179. Whoopie! Having this Ott lamp really is making a difference. Knitting goes a lot faster when I don't have to tink back to fix mistakes. Feels SO good to get a couple or 3 rounds done a day. Nearly 1000 stitches per round now.

I did some online pricing of those kids play mats that come in jig saw pieces? Very pricey! Today I got a whole set for $16.99! And that includes shipping! I will be using them as a blocking board for my knitted lace. Cool huh? :o)

This was our "going away" picture after the reception.



Dig those crazy glasses! LOL! And nowadays his hair is all white and mine is... well, it ain't platinum anymore. *grin*

Languishing Lyra

While my mystery yarn socks are waiting for the rescue yarn to come, I am finally getting back to my languishing Lyra. While it was sitting, under everything else on my desk, the tip protectors came off and a *bunch* of stitches slipped off of both needles! Aaaargh! It took forever to get things back to where they should have been but I am finally making progress again.

To solve the tip protector problem I found some little plastic doohickeys that work great. They are used to put a screw into a sheetrock wall and expand behind the wall as you put in the screw. But they also fit perfectly and firmly on the end of fine needles!



Spent most of today cleaning out an old chest freezer that is going out the door tomorrow. Yay! I live with a genetic pack rat and the house is very visible evidence. But the freezer too?!? Anybody like persimmons? I have TONS! One of his gardening clients has a persimmon tree and Alex has to bring loads of them home every year and squirrel them away in the freezer. And a tree load of Gravenstein apples. And I found enough rye bread to keep a deli going for a couple of days. And whole fishes right out of the Bay. And tons of blackberries off our thicket before the City cut it down to do some work in the alley. And plastic containers with mystery stuff. And tomatoes from back when we actually had room to grow them ourselves. I'm going to make blackberry jam and tomato paste and apple sauce and probably some mystery soups. :o)

And his sister, Mary, has been active in Rainbow Girls for years. Every time they made Lumpia for an event they put a few bags in our freezer. Half our freezer was full of Lumpia and bagels and giant pretzels. I told her to call the Masons and tell them to have a feast.

A new side-by-side is coming tomorrow and it *will* be neat and tidy and organized! I am in a clean-it-out-and-get-organized mode and seem to have been building up to it all year. Mr. pack rat is worried.

Welcome to my blog!

Here I plan to show what I'm knitting or crocheting, share pics of my kitties, talk about various things like quilting and using treadle and hand crank sewing machines, and just generally ramble on.

I can't promise I'll post everyday nor that I will be witty or grammatically correct, although I will try.

So come on in! Read, share ideas, leave comments, give me tips, just generally make yourself at home. :o)