About Me

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Ten years into widowhood, after one year of incredible happiness and nearly 14 years of single blessedness. Retired, and mostly enjoying it. Still knitting. [Zen]tangling.again after a brief hiatus.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

The odds

Beauty and the Beast is probably my favorite Disney movie. And one of my favorite scenes is when Chip announces to all the enchanted servants that there’s a girl in the castle ~ which inspires the tour-de-force “Be Our Guest”.

I like that movie because Belle is Disney’s first intelligent heroine. Aurora and Snow White are insipidly good. Ariel is a brat, not unlike Cathy in “Wuthering Heights”, whose choices get most of the characters into deep [if not exactly hot] water. The only thing I really like about Little Mermaid is the music, which is infectious. Remind me to show you a picture of my own “Ariel” necklace; I’m often tempted to warble her theme song when I put it on.



La la laaaaaa, la la laaaa, la la laaa la la la la la la laaaaaa ... la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

I bought the kit for this when I worked in a quilt shop when I was expecting Middlest. So it's approximately 25 years old, as she'll be 24 this summer.

I may have mentioned that a sibling for BittyBit is under construction. We are anticipating another lively character in the tribe. “Over-the-moon” would not be an exaggeration; we take the admonition to be fruitful and multiply seriously around here!

I may have also mentioned that this is an estrogen-heavy tribe. As the girls grow up and marry, the odds get a little less, well, *odd*. [Which reminds me of the joke that a woman in search of a husband should not seek to date fellow employees in the tech field, because while the odds are good, the goods are odd.]

The only brothers I have are those acquired through marriage or hand-picked since my 45th birthday. The only sons I have, have never felt the need to throw up on my feet; they came to me housebroken and charming and fit to have dinner with.

The Almighty has apparently decided that life is not exciting enough at Diva Central. So, in addition to the regular portions of angst, drama, and slapstick comedy served up chez nous, there will soon be Matchbox cars and Legos and dinosaurs underfoot.

“Mama, there’s a *boy* in the castle!” OK, not in the castle, not just yet. But definitely in the oven.

Somebody mail me the Secret Decoder Ring, fast!

Oh, you want knitting content? This is the inside of my repurposed makeup bag, a leftover from my days as an independent beauty consultant. All those little pockets are wonderful for stitch markers, cable needles, row counter, and sundry other tools.



Here they are, all spread out on the table for your edification:



Blogger didn't think I should be able to upload the photograph of the other half of the contents, but you get the gist.

These are the sleeves for LittleBit's Celtic Icon hoodie, taken about ten days ago.



I'm now about 40 rows shy of the underarm shaping, and I think I will not have enough yarn for the side panels, which are also black. Also please note that nowhere in the book does it tell you how to “decrease 4”. You “increase 4” by K1P1K1P1K1 in one stitch on the right side of the sleeve, and doing P2K1P2 when you get to that point on the reverse. So I unvented my own “decrease 4” by doing SSK for the first part of the cable, then K3tog for the second, and passing the SSK over the K3tog. As near as I can tell from the photos in the book, that's what she did.

Be gentle with me; with the exception of the Ariel necklace which I snapped tonight, these are the first photos I took with my camera.

The bluebonnets are blooming. Will try to get you some decent pictures of them this weekend, though nothing can convey how amazing they *smell*, or the sound they make when the seed pod pops and broadcasts seed in the most unpromising terrain.

2 comments:

Fiberjoy said...

Great post! And oh the memories it brings of DD and her love of Ariel's singing when she was little. In fact, she bought a violin book of easy Little Mermaid pieces. It wasn't easy.

A little boy! Eureka!! You'll get it all figured out, no problem.

Love your "notions" purse. I need one of those.

Jeri said...

Good job with your new camera