Red Skein at Morning, Spinner Take Warning

Mr. DeMille, she’s ready for her close-up.



Yes, the hand is much better after washing.

And I am seriously coveting the lush curve of that lazy kate I saw on Brooklyn Tweed’s blog. [Fourth photo.] Truly a thing of beauty, and I’m not sure I’d ever use it, given my method of plying. Amending the Tenth Commandment to read “... nor his lazy kate, nor his niddy noddy ...”

Thankfully, there will be no room at the inn for extraneous toys and tools when I move. Though I do believe I will splurge on the prettiest niddy noddy I can find. It will make a great conversation piece on my coffee table, and what else is that rebate check for? [Oh yeah, the map console I’ve been yearning after for the better part of three years now. I’d almost forgotten. OLS = OhLookShiny = me]

I just realized that I know someone locally who loves to play with wood as much as I love to play with fiber. [I did look first at Ed’s website, but niddy noddies are conspicuously absent. Not that I’m complaining. Sometime we have to specialize, for sanity’s sake. I remember the time that I simultaneously coughed, sneezed, and hiccuped when I was seven years old and Mom was trying to fix my ponytail. I almost broke my neck, and she almost snatched me bald! Now I try to do only one of those activities at a time, and thankfully my hair isn’t long enough for anybody to inflict a ponytail upon me.]

The children’s father is no longer singing “Jailhouse Rock”; LittleBit picked him up on Saturday night and took him home. I guess he really did get the senior citizen discount! Today’s [4/22/08] NonSequitur seems apropos. OK, I’m done. At least for awhile.

The charcoal tweed stole is galloping along nicely. I draped it around my neck and shoulders this morning, and it reaches down to my waist on both sides. I think I may reasonably expect to wear it by the end of the month. Therefore, I find myself contemplating the next sweater. [Heaven forbid I should only have one project on the needles!]

Why? The dress code at work has changed for the better, recently. We have the freedom to wear jeans every day if we choose, assuming we do not have to appear in court or at a deposition, etc. And as the receptionist, I stick mighty close to those phones. So I wear jeans two or three days a week; the other days I tend to wear skirts, because I *like* wearing skirts.

We cannot wear T-shirts with our jeans. We have to wear something dressier. Though I confess that I push that line every chance I get. I have a number of knit tops that in the strictest sense of the word might be called T-shirts [notice how neatly I prevaricate? one of the results of working with lawyers] but are made from good-quality fabric and are neatly finished. These are not your basic Wal-Mart $6.99 throw-it-on-to-work-in-the-yard shirts.

I do adhere to the “no logos and no slogans” rule. I could wear a polo shirt with the corporate logo of our corporate parent, but polo shirts were not designed for these curves, and furthermore, those shirts are ugLEE. So, I wear a lot of scarves, a growing number of shawls, and the odd jacket. [You may take that any way you like.]

One of my attorneys, also a pusher-of-lines, commented recently that she found herself scouting for that third layer, something to take jeans and a top squarely into safe territory. As do I. It started with the acquisition of the black leather jacket, year before last. And continued with the late, be-nibbled Swallowtail Shawl, the scarf-width Clapotis, MS3 [Swan Lake], and my embellished suede jacket.

I never used to think that I looked good in a jacket. I just hadn’t found the right ones for my body type and personality. Yes, I resemble an ambulatory chair-and-a-half if I put on a traditional “Dress for Success” boring navy blazer. But in my Fibonacci sweater, or any of the things I have bought in the past couple of years, I look like the sassy, competent, confident Red Hatter woman wench diva matriarch force of nature that I am.

I want something teal. And lightweight. And relatively quick to knit. But not quite as mindless as stockinette. KnitPicks Gloss Lace is calling my name. I sat down with my copy of Knit Kimono last night and found shapes that I like, but no stitch patterns that appealed to me. I saw a floaty little cardi in a magazine recently, probably whipped up in $2K worth of Kidsilk Haze. The model was wearing it over a LittleBlackDress. I could wear something like it over a NearTee.

AARP now has “Beach Sudoku”, as well as the traditional kind. Kenny Chesney and Jimmy Buffett must be so proud! But the endless whooshing of the “surf” reminds me of some of the environmental tapes that we used to own, and now I want to drive down to Galveston.

Wow, this post is even more ADD than usual.

Dangerous, Expensive Bugs Have Bitten Me!

The gardening bug and the spinning bug, to be specific.

This will take you to a one-pot herb garden from Apartment Therapy. Or, if you tend to forget to water the pots, how about this? After the Great Fridge Cleanup of weekend before last, I am almost in the mood to cook. Almost. Dinner last night, while I took a break from spinning, was mac and cheese from a box, preceded by salmon-flavored shoe leather. Yes, I nuked the fillet just *that* much too long. It tasted OK, but fish was never meant to be al dente.

Here is a twice-spun bobbin. I filled it late yesterday afternoon and realized that the lovely, soft yarns that I spun back in the 1980’s were too soft and too loosely spun to survive as socks. So I put it on the lazy-kate and added more twist, using the smallest whorl on the flyer.



Back in the day, my preferred method for plying was to wind off a bobbin using my ball winder, then grab both ends and ply the yarn upon itself. That gave me a tiny loop at one end of my skein, and when I was knitting, I would feed the raw end of the next skein into that loop and only have to knit in one end.

Here is this batch, wound into a cake prior to plying.



And here is the plied yarn. Not bad for a few hours’ work. 54.9g of mixed fibers, predominantly wool, and just enough Hair of the Mo to make it wily and cantankerous. Definitely not the prettiest or best-balanced yarn I have ever made, but then it’s been 17 years since the last skein.



I don’t have a skein-winder or a niddy noddy, so I used the back of two chairs to skein it for washing. I have no idea which of all these boxes holds my McMorran Yarn Balance, but this looks to be somewhere between fingering weight and sport weight.

I think I would like the texture better if I had not put in the additional twist. It still wouldn’t have been suitable for socks, but it also wouldn’t have been a good substitute for baling twine. I think it will soften up now that I’ve washed it. I hope it will, anyway. Will let you know later this week, once it’s dry and I’ve taken another picture for you.

[Thank you, Jeri! I had fun, even if I didn’t produce the sockly equivalent of instant pudding. I’ll get there.]

Coincidentally, Jared had a nice tutorial on spinning yesterday.

Firstborn Tagged Me + Dancing *with* the Oldies

This one’s a little different, so I played along.

10 Years Ago:
I was freshly divorced and finishing my associates’ degree in Interpreting for the Deaf. There were four kids still at home.

5 Years Ago:
I was a ward singles’ rep [the calling followed me from my old ward to my new one, because the stake singles’ rep was a friend, and most insistent]. LittleBit was the only child still at home.

5 months Ago:
I was struggling to pay bills and had not yet gotten the word about the duplex, which is going to ease my budget significantly *and* give me space for a garden *and* give me a studio for the first time in 25 years.

5 Things on my To Do List Today:
1. Church
2. Knit while listening to podcasts
3. Spin
4. Nap
5. Read the new “Real Simple”

5 Snacks I enjoy:
1. Chocolate, preferably dark
2. Strawberries Romanoff from LaMadeleine
3. Carrot sticks
4. Ice cream
5. Graham crackers dunked in milk

5 Things I would do if I was suddenly a billionaire:
1. Textile program at the university in Denton [you have to jury into the program]
2. Pay off my line-of-credit and car, then buy a nifty old house to fix up
3. Vacation house at Galveston
4. Vacation house in Provence
5. Custom bookshelves to hold my books and my craft stashes

5 of my bad habits:
1. Falling in love with unavailable men
2. Displacement eating [eating my feelings]
3. Staying too long in an unsalvageable relationship
4. Avoiding confrontation
5. Wanting to save people

5 Places I have lived:
1. Boise, Idaho
2. Provo, Utah
3. Irving, Texas
4. Fredericksburg, Texas
5. Arlington, Texas

5 Jobs I have had:
1. Lima bean sorter for BirdsEye
2. Office manager
3. “Concession Mom” at movie theatre while earning associates’ degree
4. Motel maid [one week]
5. Receptionist, law office

5 Things People don’t know about me:
1. 6.5 fiancés, but “only” two marriages.
2. I used to go skinny dipping at the hot springs near Bruneau, Idaho.
3. I read “Les Miserables” in fifth grade.
4. I can play “Far, Far Away on Judea’s Plains” on the harmonica.
5. I interpreted three out of four performances of “Romeo and Juliet” when I was studying to be an interpreter; absolutely loved the experience. When we were done, my interpreting partner said, “Whew! That’s over!” And I said, “Ohh ... it’s over.”

5 People to Tag:
You’re on your own here. Just tag me back in the comments or shoot me an email.

Random thoughts:
Sometimes the joy just comes welling up out of nowhere. I was driving over to the trunk show at the yarn shop yesterday, and suddenly joy was spilling out of me and filling the car. What a lovely surprise after the misgivings, concerns, frustrations, and unholy glee of the past few weeks.

Why, when you bash your toe into a fixed object, does the nail blacken on the one that’s two toes over from the origami’d nail you’d like to lose [which would have saved you the co-payment on a future surgery]? This is a situation where the thousand words is much prettier than the picture. So, my foot’s not happy to be in a shoe ~ again ~ but it didn’t slow me down one bit on the dance floor last night. And it doesn’t hurt all that much.

Great dance. And a little flirting. The guy who used to knit [met him at the singles’ conference last month] was there, and while we didn’t flirt, we had a great Reminiscence of Sweaters Past. He’s knitted something like 25 sweaters, but none in the past 25 years. Maybe I can win him back to the dark side?

I’m off to read the lessons for my church classes.

Jailhouse Rock and Culture on the Hoof

If You Can’t Find a Partner, Grab a Wooden Chair

I called the jail on Thursday to let them know that the children’s father is diabetic and not taking his insulin, so that if he gets/got weird, that would be the first thing to check. I also asked if he would be out in time for LittleBit’s graduation in June.

They told me he was scheduled for release this Sunday night. Other members of the extended family who have sat out warrants for traffic tickets, say that Arlington must have a higher per diem rate than the places where they were “guests”.

Maybe he’s getting a senior citizen discount? [He was 67 on his last birthday.]

Main Street Arts Festival

Here’s a link to the musician we heard. Dancing in the streets? That would be us! She did a cover of “Travelin’ Shoes” that blew me away. I knew the song from when Maria Muldaur recorded it, umpteen years ago. This is Ruthie’s newest CD; I will buy it next Friday. “Travelin’ Shoes” is on this CD.

I also brought home four business cards: one for a jeweler whose work utilizes loose gemstone beads as both decoration and locking clasp. The styles are not “me”, but her designs are amazing! And three artists whose work spoke to me. I have bookmarked their websites, and once I have secured the giclée prints that I want, I will be happy to share that information with you. [Yes, I am going all Wollmeise-in-the-shopping-cart on you. The Arts Festival fell squarely between two paydays. If this were next Saturday, I would be standing at the door of the frame shop when it opened, and my debit card would still be cooling off.]

I think good art is that which makes you go “ohhhh” inside and get a little teary.

I also saw a T-shirt that I liked. White lettering on black, and it said something like, “I just haven’t felt the same since that house fell on my sister.”

One last comment on the Arts Festival, and it might sound like a complaint, but it isn’t. I've always gone with Brother Karitas, before. He’s an artist. We linger. We talk to the artists. Last night was an entirely different kind of fun. The six of us dashed here and breezed through there, and I barely saw anything, but still we did a lot of oohing and ahhing. And a lot of counting-of-heads. I asked the Good Brother if he felt like a Sheltie with a particularly unruly herd of sheep. He roared.

I may do the unheard-of and ask for his input on a screen name.

Today’s Agenda

Trunk show from Knitting Little Luxuries, at Yarns Ewenique
Chauffeuring Fourthborn and Fiancé to the grocery store
Dinner and dancing with the usual suspects
Knitting, lots of knitting
Spinning, dadgummit!

Knitting Progress

When I stand and hold up [Almost] Cozy with the cast-on edge at my toes, the needles are at my waist. I knitted up all the spliced-together bits yesterday, and when I finish the current [full] ball I will focus on the five partial balls remaining. It’s a little hard to judge just how much yarn I’ve used, but when I’ve reached that point I’ll have used seven of the ten original skeins. And I will adjust my progress on Ravelry, accordingly.

Have a great Saturday, everybody, and may all of your dropped stitches be intentional!

Tola’s Treasures and Other Topics

Unlike Tinks’ purple bag, the top of this one is ruffled.



It’s easier to get into than the first bag, and the ruffle looks so perky when the bag is closed.



This is the last dab of yarn from my Monkey socks, and I now have almost exactly two yards left. [All but the squeal.] It might be enough for me to re-knit the moth-eaten sock, but I think I will frog both of them and make mitts, instead. I can always knit another pair of Monkeys later.

Yesterday was certainly the liveliest birthday in many a year. I had sour milk for breakfast quickly swapped for (1) another bottle of sour milk and then (2) a bottle of chocolate milk, followed by tornado sirens last night. And I rented “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio” at Secondborn’s qualified recommendation and sat on the couch and knitted. Parts of the movie were heartwarming, and other parts were uncomfortably reminiscent of some of our own experiences. [The children’s father was not a drinker or a yeller or a hitter, but financial chaos is something we are all well acquainted with.] The mother’s reluctance to speak out against her husband’s choices is true to the time period and made me squirm for my own unwillingness to speak up, thirty-some years later. And we will not even talk about the soup.

Tonight I pickup Fourthborn and Fiancé at work and drop them at home before barreling over to Fort Worth to join the dinner group at the Main Street Arts Festival. I hope that we have better weather tonight than they did last night. [Yes, the prints are shrink-wrapped. But hail doesn’t care if it hits a plate glass window or an art glass objét...]

Much knitterly progress during the movie last night. I joined the tangerine-sized ball of splicings from Tuesday night, about three minutes after turning off the alarm and my CPAP this morning. And I grabbed another full ball of yarn, just in case I knit that up by lunchtime.

Thank you for all the lovely birthday wishes. I will photograph what my talented and creative sister sent me and get that posted soon. She has a talent for surprising me, and always in a good way.

And Sometimes Crisis - Humor = Time

While I am ordinarily delighted to hear a knock on my door and have it turn out to be Fourthborn or Fiancé, he and Firstborn and I spent 2.5 hours in the waiting room of the city jail, waiting for paperwork to be processed. We needed the car keys so that Firstborn could drive her dad’s car home. Traffic warrant.

Fiancé had been telling the children’s father to take care of the ticket, and he didn’t. And last night he was pulled over for driving 52 in a 35 zone while on his way to pick up the kids from work. When the officer ran his license, he saw the warrant. There are several silver linings that I can see in this mess: Fiancé is now serious about completing his driving time to get his full license. And the children’s father will not be driving anywhere for awhile. [He really shouldn’t be driving at all; he doesn’t see well enough, and he doesn’t think well enough. He nearly broadsided LittleBit and me last November.] And the officer who arrested him did not automatically take Fourthborn and Fiancé’s dog to the pound.

So, prayers please for Fourthborn and Fiancé, neither of whom is on her father’s checking account. They have to figure out what to do about rent next month if he’s still sitting out his warrant. And prayers also for LittleBit, who is probably the only one of the girls with any shred of respect for her father. She’s taking this hard.

At least it’s not his face on the side of a milk carton. We know where he is. And now I can honestly say that I have used the women’s restroom at the jail. Not quite as much fun, somehow, as retrieving LittleBit from the tattoo parlor last fall.

I looked at [Almost] Cozy during my afternoon break yesterday, and all of a sudden it’s getting long. I wish I had thought to take my knitting with me when we went to the jail last night, but I would probably have run out of yarn.

Oh, and happy birthday to ME!

[If you choose to comment on this post, please remember that the girls all read it.]

Blessed Are They Who Go in Circles...

[for they shall be known as Wheels.]

Perhaps the first and most important blessing was that LittleBit and I both slept like rocks, night before last. Heaven knows that when we woke yesterday morning, we both looked as if we had crawled out from under one. But after her shower and my bath, we each bore a remarkable resemblance to sentient life.

Do you ever have days when you know you are holding it together, but just barely, and that if you talk too much, or too many people are nice to you, you will start talking and crying all at once, and your voice will go up and up into coloratura soprano territory, and the only people who will be able to hear you, are dogs? I am pleased to report that I did not get my emotional passport stamped in Coloraturaland yesterday. But the border guards were eyeing me narrowly.

I focused on each call as it came in, concentrating on transferring the caller as quickly and politely as possible. There was one call where I utterly mangled the name of our company. And I just stopped and chuckled and said, “I’m sorry, apparently English is not my native language today. How may I help you, sir?” And he laughed, and I got him transferred, and life went on.

I did pick up an order of Strawberries Romanoff on the way into work, and I had that for part of my lunch. I figured it would excite less comment than if I tore into a pint of Ben and Jerry’s without so much as a howdy-do. [I am “eating my feelings” these days; it will pass, and next month I will be riding the train and walking from the park-and-ride, and life will be a little more balanced than it is at present.]

Yesterday was one of those days that steadily got better. I remember thinking, fleetingly, that it would be nice if one of my friends brought her wheel to Knit Night, because it sure would be comforting to sit and spin for awhile.

You know how I’ve said that Knit Night is a lot like being with my Relief Society sisters at church, only without the singing? One of them came up to me at the beginning of the evening and told me that she and her hubby were going out of town for a few days, and that she didn’t want her wheel to get lonely. Would I like to wheel-sit for her?

I would. I have no idea where I’m going to set it up and spin. At the moment it is taking up about half of my couch, but before I leave for work this morning I am going to clear a space and grab the kitchen timer and spin for a few minutes. She also sent home a ginormous bag of assorted fibers and told me to spin as much or as little of it as I pleased.

If you’ve ever wondered whether God hears and answers prayers [specifically, your prayers, or my prayers], wonder no more. He usually answers them by telling one of His children that it would be a good idea if s/he did X, though He doesn’t always tell us *why*. And when we follow through on the prompting and do X, somebody else gets blessed, and we get blessed for paying attention.

I didn’t spin at Knit Night last night; I spent much of the evening splicing together those bits of yarn I mentioned yesterday from the doomed Elann Crop Cardi. It was sufficiently meticulous work that I didn’t have room inside my head to fret, and mindless enough that I could enjoy the conversations going on around me and chime in every once in awhile.

I went home feeling cherished.

Today I will go into the office with my knitting and come home and spin until I cannot keep my eyes open One Moment Longer. Somewhere around here is a bag of vintage tussah and baby camel down, all neatly melded into roving. I wonder if I can find it before I take back her wheel next Tuesday night?

Crisis + Time = Humor

I’ll let you know when yesterday has become funny. Yesterday was the kind of day that made having to break into my apartment the night before one daughter’s wedding, seem hilarious. Or losing a toenail fifteen minutes before the other’s wedding began.

[So, something like six to ten years of composting before this guano becomes topsoil? In the meantime, hand me one of those lemons; I’m busy making lemonade.]

We now return you to your regularly scheduled knitting content. Long-time readers will vaguely remember the Elann Crop Cardi, begun in a moment of weakness after seeing Celtic Memory's lovely œuvre. [Last photo in the post.] The body worked in its entirety and the sleeves half-done and the whole blessed thing frogged after I stopped wading in the river Denial. Which meant frogging fourteen triangular points at the hem of the sweater. Which translates into thirteen shortish lengths of yarn that, added together, constitute an impressive chunk of one skein. Some of which I finger-tatted into rustic flowers, which I am now also frogging.

Using the same Russian join as I am to connect the individual balls, I am interspersing these shorter frogged bits with the balls when I reach the end of one, or when I come to a knot in the middle of a ball, of which there have been a few. [Not at all what I would have expected from the good folks at Berroco.] It is the perfect splice for a tape yarn like this: strong, and virtually invisible. A little fiddly, perhaps, but worth it in the name of frugality, and we know how much gets done in that name around here.

I would show you a picture of the shawl in progress, but those of you who are lace knitters know how unprepossessing a length of unblocked lace can seem. Suffice it to say that we are still knitting in Ugly Duckling mode, but when we are done, this shawl will break a man’s heart the way the blow from a Swan’s beak would break his arm.

[And now it occurs to me to wonder: do I want to knit this as a one-way fabric, or do I want to knit two halves and graft them in the middle?] No, no, no, Ms. Ravelled. We want to be heartbreakingly lovely in this shawl, not swaddled in it until the nice men in the white coats arrive. Basta! [Enough!]

Edited to add that after running the final error check on the tax return that I was going to have to fork over $106 with [hence the procrastination], and entering a few simple answers, we are now getting a $608 refund. Don’t everybody line up with your hand out, all at once!

Minor Changes on the Blog, and IRL

I deleted my “Spring Shawl Surprise 2008” button. I also deleted myself from the group.

I can only imagine how difficult it is to design a project that is delivered in weekly installments and have everything come out evenly, with minimal or no corrections. Maybe that’s something I’ll tackle in a few years.

I thoroughly enjoyed knitting “Mystery Shawl 3” from Melanie’s design. And I think there were minor corrections along the way, but I was knitting two or three weeks behind each release, so the bugs had been worked out before I got there.

But with “SSS 2008”, it seemed as if there were corrections every week, and sometimes several corrections in one week, and while the design itself was lovely, I just flat lost patience with the process.

So, no.

I have replaced it a RavelRaiser button. [Which it just occurs to me that I forgot to link.] They timed the appeal perfectly: I saw the link on a friend’s blog the day after payday [i.e. Saturday], and I had $10 to spare.

In spite of all the running around on Saturday, I got some puttering done chez nous. New sponges for the kitchen, and one last load to run in the dishwasher. I need to finish cleaning out the fridge and give it a good wiping-down, but it’s almost ready to restock.

I also used my new digital scale to weigh bits and bobs of leftover yarn for my stash on Ravelry, so that when I get my next brilliant idea to whip up something tiny, I’ll have a feel for which remnants to grab.

Anastasia? I frogged the first sock back to the heel. And got the second one ready to start its mirrored spiraling. Not a lot of knitting at church yesterday, and not much when I got home, as I was finishing the second mystery novel, which I think is going straight to Half-Price Books after work. [Almost] Cozy is another couple of inches longer, and I’m ready to add another ball of yarn.

In the menfolk department, I’m happy to report that I got enough righteous male attention to keep me going awhile longer. Junkies get methadone; I get hugs from my guyfriends, but more to the point, I get meaningful conversation with my guyfriends and come home feeling listened-to. It’s hard to feel listened-to when my child-in-residence is elsewhere.

Church was good. We got our new RS president, a dear friend of mine; the women in the ward will be in capable hands. I almost wish I were not moving in a couple of months. Almost.

And in the five years I’ve been attending this ward, I don’t think I’ve ever sat through a more reverent sacrament meeting than yesterday’s. I don’t know if the new people are innately more quiet, or if the young families we lost were all that noisy, or if it was just that uncomfortable quietness you feel at a party where you only know the host and are hoping that the other guests don’t bite. But I haven’t been able to sit and hear my own thoughts so well, in a very long time.

Duty calls. I had a few flashes of inspiration throughout the day yesterday, and I need to follow through on them.

All Dolled Up and No Place to Go

Giving props where they are due: “credit for both mom bases goes to apitchu orchard. i got the base for my new icon from here, it’s heavily edited by me, but credit is still due” [Fourthborn, AKA Nekokoi].

This is Ms. Ravelled, in the Famous Red Dress*, flirting at a dance:



Not sure if the animation will come through in the transfer, but I’m winking and saying “Wow”. *Just before Christmas 1996 I invested one of those luscious Moroccan rayon/cotton dresses, with the heavily fringed triangular capelet collar that came down to my waist in front and back. I paid more for that dress than I did for my wedding gown when I married the children’s father, and I loved that dress to death and [very sadly] retired it a couple of years ago.

This is me in my “dontcha” shirt, primed for knitting.



Most of the dolling bodies are Goyaesque in their proportions, not Rubenesque like me. Fourthborn went out of her way to find something that looked more Ravelled. And I am properly thankful!

Yesterday’s agenda
(_) Haircut
(x) Penultimate monthly drive-by-fooding of the elders
(x) Lunch in BigD with one of the Good Brothers and his friends. Good food and a new bunch of people to like. [Saw the Good Brother’s high school yearbook portrait. He was a babe! And back then I would have been too shy, and too intimidated by his looks, to have dreamed of saying hello to him.]
(x) Measuring furniture at the junk shop/possible layaway at said junk shop. Went to junk shop. Looked at the cupboard in daylight; took a pass. Found out how much the chairs cost. $850. Each. Cannot envision a situation in which it would be appropriate for me to spend $1700 on chairs that I would then be afraid to sit in. Oh, that pink stuff on the chair backs? Marble. Let the record show that I have excellent taste.
(x) Manicure
(x) Buying the digital scale; on sale for $9.99 at Harbor Freight yesterday. Regularly $17.98. By procrastinating one week, I saved $3.00. Woot!



(x) Drive-by-hugging of the Bitties and their folks
(x) Possible falling-down at what will become my LYS, though I can’t go too nuts there because I have to pay Uncle Sugar on Tuesday.



Oh yeah. JoJoLand Cashmere in a lovely warm lilac, about the same color as the sock I am knitting in the dolly, above. It hasn’t told me what it wants to be when it grows up, but I am thinking scarf or seriously decadent bedsocks.
(x) Shopping at Central Market. Two big bags of granola, and two artisanal chocolate bars. Mine had blueberries and lavender in it; LittleBit’s has raspberries and rosehips. [I will not covet my daughter’s chocolate. I will not...]
(x) Nap. Couldn’t keep my eyes open One Moment Longer by around 5:30. Slept until a quarter to midnight. So, no movie last night, and no movie rental either, and I guess we will be eating granola for all three meals today. Except for LittleBit, who will be having chocolate for one of hers.

Have you seen this, which can be found in this? I wonder how it would knit up in KnitPicks Gloss? Or their new Gloss Laceweight? Might be time for me to get in touch with my inner Coco.

So, I weighed Anastasia, as is, with the exceedingly ugly and way-too-skimpy afterthought heel [not specified in the pattern, I hasten to add].



1.25oz [35.2g]. And I have 2.62oz [74.5g] on the ball, with the second toe completed. And I began with approximately 4.0oz [112g]; when I pile the completed but to-be-partially-frogged sock on top of the unused ball and top it with the completed second toe, I come up with 4.02oz [113.9g]. The difference is a composite of rounding error in my calculator’s conversion of ounces to grams, plus the weight of my needle. All of which is a roundabout way of muttering to myself that I certainly have enough yarn to frog back the first sock and work a heel flap.

Today will be our first meeting after the ward boundary changes. Sacrament meeting first [which we normally have last], because we have to sustain the new auxiliary leaders and new teachers in their callings before we can go to our classes and be taught. And chances are excellent that I will run into Brother Sushi between meetings, as his new ward meets right after ours. I won’t see Firstborn and her tribe, however; they have dashed out of state to visit Willow.

Enough yammering. Time to knit!

“Peaceful, Easy Feeling”

[The Eagles have expressed so much that I’ve felt over the years, from “Witchy Woman” to “How Long”. Particularly, in recent weeks, the latter.] I am trying to understand how it is that, for a woman who used to crave male approval as much as I did, and jumped through as many hoops to get it, I can be sweetly content with my friendship with Brother Sushi. Perhaps because it is a holy thing? We honor the commandments, and we respect ourselves and one another’s limitations.

Which is not to imply that we do not laugh often, and deeply. But not at one another’s expense. We laughed a lot last night, and we covered a wide range of topics. As he signed the tab, he grinned and said, “Well, we didn’t solve all of the world’s problems tonight...”

But yes, there is that sense that when we talk, we figure things out, and sometimes we fix things, and sometimes we get ideas on how to tinker a little more, and sometimes we acknowledge that there is nothing we can do about a situation, other than pray about it and let other people have their agency.

And at the evening there is a heartfelt hug, and he goes home, and I sleep better than I have since the last time we dined.

I got two hugs last night, actually. The expected one when he opened the car door for me, and another while I waited for LittleBit to undo the deadbolt. It was a logical assumption on her part. My car was there, and it was dark; therefore, I was asleep in my bed as I usually am when she comes home. [I cannot believe I got home after she did, last night. Just flat boggles the mind, but then she's had a l-o-n-g week with UIL competitions.]

That’s twice in as many weeks that I’ve had to call her cell phone and wake her up to let me in. At least I haven’t had to get the crowbar out of the trunk and pop a window, like I did the night before Secondborn got married, when Fourthborn was home from Girls’ Camp one day early and sleeping like the dead. And I was standing outside, in the rain at 1:00am after a singles’ dance, and there were two drunken non-English speakers sitting in their car and laughing at me.

Good thing, too: the movable part of the living room window at “La Casa Cucaracha” was about 6” above the floor; my bedroom window here is about three feet higher, and I am eight years older.

LittleBit was so apologetic. And I totally understand her assumption; nevertheless it strengthens my desire to be living in the duplex, where the only three people who will be able to lock me out, are Me, Myself and I.

So what’s on the agenda today?
Haircut
Penultimate monthly drive-by-fooding of the elders
Lunch in BigD with one of the Good Brothers and his friends
Measuring furniture at the junk shop
Possible layaway at said junk shop
Manicure
Buying the digital scale
Drive-by-hugging of the Bitties and their folks
Possible falling-down at what will become my LYS, though I can’t go too nuts there because I have to pay Uncle Sugar on Tuesday.
Shopping at Central Market
Nap?

And knitting, definitely lots and lots of knitting. And maybe some pictures for tomorrow.

FIFO, Shmifo!

There are all sorts of interesting tax complications when you close out a business that maintains an inventory. I have just spent the last hour and a half digging up old tax returns and entering data on a shiny new spreadsheet. I was good about keeping up with my inventory. However, I did not keep track of when it came in and when it was sold. I started an Access inventory program and eventually abandoned it.

Why is this important? Because I am down to what I most devoutly hope is the last worksheet for my 2007 tax return, and I am accounting for the difference between starting inventory, ending inventory, and retail sales.

I can now tell you just how long it took me to clear out all the skincare and makeup that I purchased in 2004, not that you care. And the year before that, and the years after it as well, but 2004 was the year that I meticulously plowed all my sales, and every penny I could spare, into building up an inventory. And in 2005, the second full year that I was in business, I made a modest profit.

I did this not by trolling the ward list as so many people do. There’s been a disclaimer at the bottom of each ward list, as far back as I can remember, that it is to be used for church purposes only. I.E., not as a prospect list for the latest and greatest MLM scheme to come down the pike. I made a promise to myself when I became an independent beauty consultant that I was not going to advertise at church. This because we were Amway’ed and A.L. Williams’ed and I don’t remember what-all else during the years I was married to the children’s father. So I had a very discreet window sticker on the back of my car, and that was that. I didn’t take orders at church. I only rarely made a delivery between meetings if there was no other way to get product to them, and I had them mail me a check later. Most of my clientele was in my office and in my office building.

And it was fun. I never dreamed that I could be an effective salesperson, and I was. I had a lot of fun, and I learned a lot about setting goals and following through, and I made some good memories. I originally got into it because the children’s father lost his job, and we had no child support. My goal was to provide enough each month to make up the difference. While I never really reached that goal, it seemed that there was always a big-enough sale whenever I had a cash-flow surprise. And after three years, I looked at my cumulative raises at my day job and realized that they were covering a good chunk of what I was supposed to be getting from child support, and it was time to close up shop.

They like me at work. They value my efforts, they treat me well, and my office manager [who spent part of her adult years as a single parent] has kept the raises coming. I now make over half again as much as I did when I started with the corporation, nine years ago. So, no more independent beauty consultant for me. But as they say, the job’s not finished until the paperwork is done.

And I am just about there. Which is good, because I have until midnight Tuesday night to finish up my return. Uncle Sugar will be getting a very small check from me; I wish it were the other way around, but I am so thankful not to qualify for the Earned Income Credit that I almost don’t mind.

I was groggy almost all day at work yesterday but managed to avoid slugging down a cherry Coke. Decided that I would take in a movie. Got creative about driving to the theatre, which was in a small shopping center that I’d been to, but not the theatre per se. One of my “wonder where this goes?” moods, which took me all over one of the oldest and loveliest neighborhoods in East Dallas. I pulled into the parking lot about three minutes after the trailer should have been starting, with no indication of precisely where in the complex the theatre was located. So I drove up the expressway to a bookstore and spent a couple of hours reading the Harlot's new book [which I will buy next payday; it’s a gem] and scoring two hardcover volumes of Robert B. Parker. One Sunny Randall, one Jesse Stone, $6.98 each. And eating a cheese panini, with occasional breaks for knitting.

I will not be getting in touch with my inner Stevie Nicks tomorrow. We had crazy storms all over the Metroplex on Wednesday night, and the roof blew off the hotel where the event was scheduled to take place. Seriously. It was all over the frontage road to the southbound freeway before rush hour, yesterday morning. There was an email waiting for me from the Good Brother, saying it would be postponed, and there would probably be just lunch tomorrow, venue to be announced. Since I don’t know if I'll be able to get to the junk shop at lunch today, I might mosey over tomorrow and make some new friends and measure some furniture.

But dinner tonight with Brother Sushi is definitely on, so I had better get myself spiffied up for work and head on down the road.

I grafted on the fourth ball for [Almost] Cozy at the bookstore last night, and I worked four rounds on the toe of the second Anastasia when I first woke up this morning. Because I know you came here for the knitting content...

Putting the “Adverse” in “Adverse Counsel”

One of the legal secretaries put an envelope with settlement paperwork and drafts on my desk, to be picked up by adverse [plaintiff’s] counsel yesterday. He arrived shortly before lunch, picked up his envelope, and said, “Thank you, sweetie”. I was ~ uncharacteristically ~ speechless. After he got on the elevator, I sent this email to our attorney and her secretary:

[Plaintiff Attorney] picked up his check. And called me “sweetie”. Does he call everybody “sweetie”, or am I just special? Do I get to call him “shorty” the next time he comes into the office? Or should I just tell him that the only guy who gets to call me “sweetie” is my husband, and is he tendering an offer? [OK, I feel better.]

My attorney’s response:

Calls me “little girl”…guess he likes you better than me. [She is half again as tall as this troll bozo character. I kid you not; he’s about boob-high on me, and I’m not tall.]

I will be prepared, if and when he comes to the office in the future. Bless his heart.

I was prepared a couple of weeks ago, when a deposition ended and a different plaintiff attorney came out of the conference room and prefaced his question with a pause and then, “I know I’m going to regret asking you this, but could you call me a cab?”

Without missing a beat, I grinned at him and said, “You’re a cab.”

Says he, “I knew you were going to do that.”

Says I, “I have been waiting more than 20 years to use that line. Thank you. You’ve made my day.”

“You’re welcome. And would you mind calling the cab company for me?” We were both laughing that hard, silent laughter that makes your ribs ache. Now there is a man with a functional sense of humor!

I called Brother Sushi while I was stuck in traffic last night, to confirm that dinner was still on for tomorrow night. It’s his month to buy. He asked if I had any preferences. I told him, “surprise me”. And then I asked if my “dontcha” shirt would be appropriate, and he said it would not, not for either of the places that he has in mind.

We are celebrating my birthday at dinner this month. [Actually, I’m pretty much celebrating it all month long. I started with week-long celebrations when I turned 50, and every year the party gets extended a little longer. When I turn 100, I think the good times should start rolling about the time the last flake of confetti falls on New Year’s Day and not let up until I get my New Year’s kiss at the end of the year. [I am still waiting for my New Year’s kisses for the past several years. I wonder if they are stuck in escrow or detained in Customs?] The girls are up to some sort of mischief for later this month. I’m thinking that it’s a dry run, more or less, for the bash that I’ve told them I want for my 60th, when I’m hoping for Elvis and biker dudes and a dance floor, but this is not one of those significant birthdays.

What would be the best present at my birthday party? The privilege of handing a slice of cake [or pizza or whatever] to Middlest and having her feet under the same table as my own. Though I recognize that what I want may not be what she needs. Still, that would be my preference. Bow on her forehead? Optional.

And speaking of things on foreheads. Have had an interesting exchange of emails with one of the Good Brothers re: the garage band shindig this weekend. I peppered him with questions:

1. Would earplugs be prudent?
2. Am I going to be able to sit and knit during this [while rocking out in my chair, of course]?
3. Will they beat me with a vintage Fender if I sing along?
4. Will there be Harleys?
5. Can I get up and dance if I feel the urge?
6. Will you put frowny-face stickers on the foreheads of guys I should not talk to, or flirt with?

And he responded, “Ah, many interesting questions...where to begin.”

2. Knitting is completely possible.
3. People are encouraged to sing along or grab a mike and have some fun!
4. I’m not sure but I’ll bet someone will have a Harley...I wish [individual] could have made it in from [out of state] but he is too ill...he plays in a biker bar!
5. Dancing is also encouraged.
6. No need to worry about the guys that need frowny-face stickers...their wives will be keeping them in check.
1. As for earplugs...might bring some just in case but the guys setting up the gear are pro musicians.

As much as I love dancing [i.e., the all-day dance seminar at Gilley’s in Dallas on Saturday] or men in kilts [bagpipes and Underoos optional; i.e., the local Renaissance festival], I am having an exceedingly busy week at work, and I think I will require some vintage rock as a palate-cleanser.

Does anybody know where my tweezers wandered off to? I wonder if I still have that spare pair tucked into my embroidery floss box? When the kids [or their kids] excavate my home after I’m gone, will they find tweezers tucked into every change purse and the odd pocket? Apparently tweezers are much more selective in their breeding habits than are wire coat hangers. Drat the luck!

Much progress on [Almost] Cozy yesterday; unfortunately, it’s at that awkward adolescent age where it’s lumpy and bumpy and camera-shy. But I’m within an hour of splicing on another ball of yarn, so we’re nearing the 30% mark, more or less.

Thursday already? Woohoo! And I managed to sleep half an hour later this morning before the thunder woke me. This would seem to call for some celebratory knitting.

I like her socks better than mine!

Knit Night, as ever, was terrific. What a great bunch of ladies! It’s like being at church, without the singing. I think that if everyone had Knit Night, or something like unto it, there would be a whole lot less contention in this world. [Unless your neighbor had bought up all the Koigu; isn’t that how wars get started?] But think about it: if we sat all the leaders of the free and unfree world down in a room with the Harlot and Wendy and Cookie A and Cat and Annie, and we gave them sticks and string and got them hooked on cables and bobbles and lace, and they made leper bandages and prayer shawls, and the only assassinating allowed was in Sock Wars? As Louis Armstrong sang, what a wonderful world.

Speaking of wonderful things, what a nice picture of Tola and Mike on the Harlot’s blog yesterday. I did a shout-out in the comments. Tola answered back [IM via blogpost, LOL] and waved to Tan. And I was “inspired” to write the following. It’s funnier if you know the tune for “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree”.

I looked on The Harlot’s blog, and what did I see?
Mike and Tola in Annapolis – squee!!!
Book tour brought me such a nice surprise:
Mike and Tola, right before my eyes.

Harlot took a picture, and they’re so sweet.
He’s real tall, and she’s petite.
I didn’t get to go, but I was glad to see
E-friends grinning, close to WashDC.

(And it was fun to read through the comments and see SuburbanCorrespondent's name. [P.S., Secondborn loves your blog.])

OK, so if life is wonderful, why the title for today’s post? Because Micki is working on her second Anastasia, and I definitely like her sock better than mine. [All of her recent pictures are spinning, not knitting; it was her Lendrum that I played with two weeks ago.] She did an Eye of the Partridge heel flap, and that sock is pure poetry. So I will be trying the same for my second sock, and I think I will be much happier with it.

I am not happy with this.



I wore my Monkeys yesterday. When I took them off at the end of the day, there was a big old hole in one of them. I thought I’d inspected them pretty thoroughly for bite marks [moth damage; I do not have a new weird habit that you need to worry about], but apparently I missed something. So they will be washed very carefully and then frogged and the yarn recycled into footies or mitts or a scarf or something. I am way too frugal to throw out a pair of $20+ socks, and Jitterbug is too skimpy in terms of yardage to just frog and re-knit, and I just love the yarn. So it will join my green and plum Lola in the frogpond.

Insert expletive of choice, here.

For those of you who have been worrying about my mental health [you know who you are], this week has gotten progressively better. It helps that I like my job and love my co-workers. Having face time with the Bitties and their parents on Sunday also helped, as did going to LittleBit’s concert on Monday night and hearing all that glorious music. And Knit Night. And getting an email from an old friend who is unhappily married and just taking it one day at a time; that really put my singleness back into perspective.

I also learned long ago that service prevents depression. [I don’t mind being sad occasionally; I refuse to be depressed, ever again.] So I wrote a congratulatory email to someone I don’t like, whose hard work bore fruit. And I did LittleBit’s taxes. Twice. Once with TurboTax, where we discovered that I hadn’t paid attention to which program I was using, and it would cost $49.95 to get her $11.05 refund! And again using paper forms. I also used the interactive voice response program at work to allocate my upcoming raise into four buckets: my 401K, my Christmas Club account, paying down my line of credit, and the rest of it to improve what I laughingly call my standard of living.

[Almost] Cozy is perking along nicely. I added a third ball of yarn at Knit Night last night. A knitting project that doesn’t argue with me, is great cause for rejoicing! I need to go update my progress report on Ravelry.

I paid $3.23 a gallon for gas last night. I am considering getting that train pass a month earlier than planned.

Tonight I’m going visiting teaching, and then I just want to curl up on the couch and knit. I think I will check out that furniture shop again on the drive home tomorrow. Or maybe during lunch on Friday, since my best-friend-at-work will be off.

Actual Knitting Progress

See?



Here’s a closeup. A little blurry, rather like me this morning.



And this. I couldn’t resist. Just a few rounds before leaving for work yesterday. I couldn’t stay mad at Anastasia very long.



After work, I drove like a bat out of Houston to get to the high school in time for LittleBit’s concert. The junior varsity choirs have improved a lot since last fall. The varsity choirs? Goodness, gracious, great balls of high notes! They sang a couple of Russian songs and a Spanish love song, and a song about Mary holding the infant Christ and then holding her Son’s lifeless body one last time. It was was lovely and reverent and remarkably non-depressing. LittleBit had a solo consisting of eight widely-spaced, staccato accent notes in one of the Russian pieces. And they kept the house lights up during the entire concert, so I got plenty of knitting done on my whisper-quiet bamboo needles.

You know how some people go all berserkoid if there is any reverent mention of God in the schools? The choir directors, at least in Texas, seem to have done an end-run around that, with loads of songs in Latin that praise God quite boldly and melodically, and ask for His blessings.

[Abrupt change of topic; didn’t want you to get dizzy.]

One of my dinner group friends told me that President Monson wiggled his ears in the priesthood session of Conference last Saturday night. I told him, “You guys get to have all the fun! I wonder if there will be a little parenthetical comment when the talks are printed in The Ensign? [prophet wiggles ears; much startled laughter]”

I read excerpts from some of the Saturday talks in yesterday’s Meridian Magazine [click on link at left], and I applaud Elder Wirthlin’s gentle teaching that God loves variety in His people and created us to be individuals. I’m glad that our prophet is lively and warm and tenderhearted. And also, apparently, capable of wiggling his ears, though I am not.

When I joined the church in 1975, the girls who could afford it wore Jessica McClintock’s “Gunne Sax” dresses. I had a couple, myself, because I had to completely redo my wardrobe after joining the church. [Necklines came up an average of four inches; hemlines came down about a foot and a half; 1975 was the last gasp of the micro-mini, except for music videos and street corners.]

In the 80’s, the uniform-of-choice for good LDS sisters was the omnipresent floral dress with white lace collar. [I managed to avoid that look, chiefly because I spent most of the 80’s in maternity clothes.]

And now I wear what I want, consistent with comfort and modesty, which drives one of my daughters absolutely nuts. She worked as an assistant manager at Casual Corner a little *too* long, in my never-to-be-humble opinion.

I just smile when she asks why I am wearing top A with skirt B and remind her that there is fashion, and then there is personal style. And that fashion is pretty much the “foolish traditions of the mothers”, designed to create artificial distinctions and insecurities, to which I respectfully say THBPPPP!

I’m off to channel my inner Stevie Nicks. Happy Tuesday! Knit Night tonight, woohoo!

The Banging Wall

Suburban Correspondent had some good things to say recently about the joys and pitfalls of parenting.

And shortly after reading her post, I found this post waiting in my Bloglines. And I mostly agree, though her statement that “Children are natural teachers too, their gentle ways instilling respect and affection for siblings, a calmer pace for the household.” does not reflect my experience of motherhood. Maybe Charlotte got mellower kids than I did?

Speaking of my kids [you knew I would, sooner or later], the quietest of them recently posted something that helped me to understand her a bit better. She is also the most private of my girls, so I won’t be linking to her post. But it sounds as if she and I both have tickets on the Where Do I Go From Here Express. She has always been my Noticer and my Finder, even as a toddler, and I have no doubt that she will synthesize all of her thinking and feeling into an amazing and fulfilling adventure. But it will be on her schedule, and not on anyone else’s.

OK, my first Anastasia sock is done, as of about 8:00 last night. The afterthought heel is not for these feet of mine. So I’m going to try the pattern as written for sock number two, with the abominable short-row heel, and see if I like knitting it any better than I did last time. But I suspect that I will be making a third attempt, this time with Wendy’s toe-up-heel-flap heel, which fits me impeccably. And I may knit the leg of the second sock on a size 0 [2.0mm] needle instead of the 00 [1.75mm] that I am using for the foot. And I will probably be frogging the first sock back to the heel and reknitting from there, but I don’t even want to think about that at the moment. I’ve cast on the second sock, and it’s going into timeout for a day or two while I play with [Almost] Cozy, and give my severely-poked finger time to heal.

I had a really good day yesterday at Secondborn’s. And BittyBit made the funniest comment at lunch. She looked over at LittleBit and asked in a puzzled tone, “Who drew on your eyebrows?” [LittleBit has lovely, strong, neatly-tended eyebrows. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her eyebrows. Sophia Loren in the 1960’s would have coveted LittleBit’s eyebrows.] LittleBit told her a bit sheepishly, “Nobody ... I guess I should get my tweezers.” We all cracked up.

BittyBubba is an Olympic-class cuddler. [Even the old East German judges would have liked him.] So LittleBit and I each got our fill of holding somebody cute and male. It helped. A lot.

LittleBit has a pre-UIL [University Interscholastic League competition] concert at 6:00 tonight. I will be hard-pressed to make it on time from work. She has been rehearsing like crazy for this for the past two weeks. And we still have her spring concert to go, and her voice recital, and then graduation to get through.

I think I’m going to curl up on the couch with my knitting and the soothing voice of David Reidy before I have to think about something for breakfast and what to take for lunch. I don’t think that I’ve been to see Captain Kolache since LittleBit started driving herself to seminary. [I’ll take my G-rated testosterone fixes any way that I can find them.] Might be a good day for a field trip.

Way More Random Stuff than Usual

Obviously, my math skills were off considerably in yesterday’s post. Just as they were decades ago when I made 2/3 the rice but put in 3/2 the curry powder, thus putting myself off curry for the rest of my natural life. 1/4lb of lovely turquoise yarn roughly equals 1/8kg, so 112g would be about right.

I got notification of a possible match on the Churchboy Dating Service. Clicked the link and read his profile. He sounded plausible, so I logged in, and there was no profile on the actual website that matched his name. Just as I feared: Brother Right is a Fig Newton of my imagination! [Yes, I know, I know; if he were truly Brother Right, and this were the right time, he would have been there when I clicked. So he is obviously Brother Wrong, and I have been spared another disaster.]

KnitPicks has new wallpaper for your computer. Guess which one I chose? I may not keep it long; it reminds me a little too forcefully of what I don’t have, rather than all that I do. Can’t wait to hear what LittleBit has to say; she thinks so much like me that it’s scary, and she is in the same leaky boat!

OK, this is just weird. I think the sample is skewed. It reminds me of what my statistics teacher taught us, umpteen years ago: there are lies, d@mn lies, and statistics.

Yes, I am feeling seriously OLS [Oh Look! Shiny!]. Or just susceptible. I hadn’t cooked, really cooked, in two weeks or more. And yesterday I marched myself into the kitchen and started throwing away battered disposable plastic containers and emptying out the fridge.

Made a small pot of lentil soup with the usable portion of those geriatric leeks. Yes, the two that were left from the last time that Cooking Madness overtook me. Sautéed them in a bit of butter and olive oil, chopped up half of my sad-looking but not irredeemable carrots, dumped in the last of the red lentils [three years old but hurrah! for dried legumes] and a quart of beef broth. Decided it needed a little something and rooted around for a cinnamon stick that had seen better days, and a small handful of fennel seeds.

[Ate the last of the boxed cereal throughout the day and pitched the box. Ran the dishwasher *again*, as things hadn’t gotten entirely clean the first time around.]

Went back and stirred the soup, which smelled heavenly and was too thin for my taste. Fished out the cinnamon stick. Ripped open an envelope of Parmesan pasta, stirred it in, and reset the timer for a few extra minutes.

The end result? Rather bland in color, but nicely complex in flavor, and filling. Which is good, because I feel unaccountably empty. Jo’s post with the birds building nests made me smile; it also made me face the fact that I want to have somebody to cook for. LittleBit is gearing up for the UIL competition and working as many hours as she can. [We were both happily surprised to spend an hour or two in the living room together, late yesterday morning. She added charms to a bracelet, and I played on the computer, and we talked!] We have not eaten a meal at home together in weeks.

I am spending more and more time with the dinner group, which ensures that while she is otherwise occupied, I am not sitting in a corner, chewing off a paw. I do not want to turn into one of those women who natter on endlessly about imaginary ailments, or who accumulate a small country’s worth of cats. You know: the character that Ruth Buzzi played on Laugh-In, with her stockings rolled down and her hair in a net, sitting on the park bench and whaling Arte Johnson with her purse. Or turn into a “cougar” like some women I know, prowling restlessly for ridiculously younger men. [What would I do with one? It’s not like I could have a physical relationship with him, and what on earth would we talk about?]

Speaking of more statistics, this led me to this, which led me to this, and then this. What can I say? I was nearly done binding off the stitch marker bag that will be going out in the mail to my friend Tola. And just a wee bit twitchy. [Pictures of the bag, and her stitch markers, to be posted after she receives them.]

To make the bag, I used the tiny ball of yarn that was leftover from my Monkey socks. [Even better, I also found the socks!] It’s fatter than the purple yarn that I used for Tinks’ bag, so I cast on 13 stitches for a 12-stitch-wide bag and knitted fewer rows. I also doubled the number of stitches on my needle, the row after I formed the eyelets, so that I could work K1P1 ribbing for three rows and have a more ruffly finish to the bag. [And also because Tinks’ bag was a little fiddly to bind off since I had forgotten to grab the next needle size up for that purpose, and the opening was just *that* much smaller than I would have liked. But her hands are daintier than mine, so no harm done.]

This yarn is Jitterbug, very smooth and springy, so I had no difficulties anywhere in the process. And I have almost exactly two yards left, perfect for marking afterthought heels on the next pair of socks that I have in mind for myself. Can’t wait to see if what I see when I close my eyes, looks as good when on the needles. And can’t wait to show you!

I ended up not leaving the house at all yesterday. [Didn’t even turn my phone on.] Although at one point I would have just about killed for some French fries or hash browns. Because nothing says love like greasy, salty potatoes. I contemplated dashing out for a $5 pizza and to rent a movie, but fixed myself a small salad and hard-boiled some eggs, instead. Don’t cry for me, Argentina; I also ate a serving of the Dove 71% cacao bar that one of the Good Brothers gave me at the dance on Friday to reward me for my first official act as a moderator on our board. And about 9pm I whipped up a pot of risotto, to use up the last of the chicken stock.

I am pondering a couple of chairs that I saw on our walkabout on Thursday night. I think I will run by there on my lunch hour one day next week and take another look. There were insets in the chair backs that looked like thin slices of polished pink granite, and I think the seats were burgundy velvet. The chairs were carefully stacked atop a table or sideboard, so I couldn’t touch the chair backs to satisfy my curiosity. Very late-Victorian-Chinoiserie. Seriously quirky.

I think they would look great with my gate-leg table, tucked into a corner of the new kitchen. I remember that that particular shop has layaway, and they also have a small cupboard that was very inexpensive and only needed a little work [and a pane of glass on the door] to make it perfect for displaying my good china. I think the chairs would fit easily into my car for the trip home, but I think I would need help getting the cupboard out here. Happily, I know someone with a truck.

I got really bored last night, so I hauled out the Murphy’s Oil Soap and cleaned this up. Tilt your head sideways; Blogger issues. It’s 42” [about 107cm] high, 24” [about 61cm] wide, and the shelves are 4” [10cm] deep.



[Yes, that is a blue towel you see in the picture. It was a hand-me-down. I use it for grubby tasks, because I am trying to wear it out as soon as decently possible.] I don’t remember if I bought this cupboard from Brother Stilts when he moved, or if he gave it to me in exchange for my nearly-defunct washer and dryer. But it leaned facing against the wall in the previous apartment, and I would like to use it somewhere in the duplex. [It might be an excellent repository for my sheep collection.] Here is a shot of the four shelves; I need to put new screws into the sides of the cupboard, for them to rest on. Again, tilt your head.



I can envision this cupboard with bits of filet crochet lace tacked to each shelf. There’s a nice squished crownish molding at the top of the cupboard that disappeared when I snapped the first picture. Crocheting four strips of lace for these shelves ought to keep me out of the pool halls for awhile longer.

I was weary and full of good simple food when I went to bed last night. And I think I productively used up the excess energy that I’d been feeling throughout the day. I didn’t overeat, and I didn’t go out for retail therapy. Though it’s obvious from this post that I was doing a lot of virtual retail therapy! Instead, I puttered about and made my little corner of the world a more pleasant place to be.

Except for the nice chat with LittleBit, I wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anybody. I just wanted time and space to think. And I connected a few dots about my life and my purpose and had a bit of creative inspiration. All of which is way better than sitting around and feeling sorry for myself, which I mostly avoided.

We were not meant to dwell alone, we humans. We were meant to be devoted to one another. Sometimes the ten years that I have been officially single, seems like a very long time. And then I remember how I am thankful not to be unhappily and unequally yoked; that was far worse.

I got over seven hours of sleep last night. Can’t wait to see how this day unfolds...

The Social Whirl is Winding Down

At least a little. I caught a bit of traffic after work last night, and by the time I’d finished up at the grocery store, it was about an hour before I needed to be at dinner with my friends, with the finished brownies. So I called one of them and told her I would meet them at the dance.

I listened to an archived podcast of Sticks and String while the brownies baked, and I knitted. As of this morning, roughly an inch and a half [4 cm or less] remains before I bind off Anastasia and start picking up stitches for the afterthought heel. Between now and then, I want to make a trip over to Harbor Freight to pick up a digital pocket scale. There were somewhere between 1000 and 1200 yards on this 4-oz [112g? can that be right? wouldn’t a quarter of a pound equal just less than 500g?] skein, and I think I’ve used maybe a third of that, and I’d like to confirm that before making the fatal snip.

Back to the subject of Harbor Freight for a minute. Brother Sushi buys a lot of tools there, because they carry everything you can imagine, and at a discount. I had never heard of it until he told me.

When I needed the blue painter’s masking tape to line up the Wall Words on the dining room wall in the old apartment, that’s where I went [chiefly because my neighborhood grocer didn’t carry any, and there’s a Harbor Freight not too far from Secondborn and her tribe. Two birds, one stone, and all that.

Middlest had left McAllen and her Awful MIL and was waiting to join her hubby at Great Lakes after he completed his basic training for the Navy [the place where he apparently got the idea for a girl in every port. Bozo.] She was staying with her father and Fourthborn at the time. And we got to hang out a lot, which was very nice. But I digress on my digression.

There is a joke on one of the singles sites that I used to frequent, that the best way for a girl to get a date for Saturday night is to walk into a hardware store and peel a banana. I’m not sure that I want to understand all the logic or symbolism behind that.

At any rate, Middlest and I walked into this enormous hardware store that was teeming with menfolk of all ages and a handful of intrepid females, none of whom apparently brought their fruit salad with them, and most of whom looked as if they could tear down a Jeep in 23 seconds flat. As we were standing in line to pay, I had a thought. Middlest read my face and said, “What? ... What?” I murmured that I would tell her in the car.

Which I did, after we were buckled in and the windows were up and the doors were locked. “I think we just discovered the Testosterone Kingdom”. [That will only be funny to someone who is or used to be LDS, and is otherwise explainable only at Macaulayesque length. I’m not even going to try. But you could ask the missionaries about the three degrees of glory, the next time that they knock on your door.]

I think if I were the type to go hunting for a man, Harbor Freight would not be a bad place to start. You’re almost guaranteed that the guys who go in there are good at fixing things, or at least willing to learn. And “competence” is definitely one of the legs on what Tinks and I call my Three Legged Character Stool, the shortlist of what defines a “keeper” for me.

Unfortunately, most of the fellows I saw in there on my last trip, could either afford tools or dentists, but not both. And the ability or inability to go see the dentist is something that conjures up ghosts from my past. At the first apartment complex we lived in when we moved back up here from the Texas Hill Country, the maid/make-ready supervisor was a woman with a good heart and a lot of common sense. I really liked talking to her. We will call her Fannie Mae [just to irritate any government spooks who may be reading this blog].

And Fannie Mae was a smoker and one step up from destitute and missing maybe a third of her teeth. She was my age, and looked 20 years older. When one of my wisdom teeth cracked and fell apart as I was sitting and reading and eating bonbons, I probed that jagged remnant and wondered how we were going to fix it. And I thought to myself “I am not going to be [another] Fannie Mae.” Because I could look into my future and see myself losing one tooth after another; at that point I had not seen a dentist in over ten years and had not had medical insurance in thirteen. I think that is when I realized that in a material sense, my life was not ever going to get any better unless I made some drastic changes.

Thankfully, the fast offerings that our friends had paid into our church, covered the extraction. [Once a month, those of us who are able to fast, fast for two meals and give the value of that food, or more if we can afford it, as a fast offering to bless the poor. I have been the poor. And I have been blessed.] When it was time for the other three wisdom teeth to come out, the children’s father was working and had dental coverage. We were separating at that point, but he took care of me after the extractions, and I took care of him after his cataract surgery.

I am thankful to have a good job and benefits that include dental insurance.

So, I’m headed over to Fort Worth to watch one or more sessions of General Conference today, and I’m making a side trip to Harbor Freight. And I am leaving my bananas at home.

A Brilliant Solution

Need a swift to corral your yarn while winding it up? Middlest sent me this link. Clever! I still have my 20+ year old umbrella swift that has served me so well, and I can tell that it is getting a wee bit creaky. Not unlike its owner.

Great fun with the dinner bunch last night. Major storms were forecast for the evening into overnight, and I can hear stuff splashing down outside. One of my paralegals warned me that tornadoes were a possibility. I got a few drops on the trunk while we were at dinner, and we had a perfect evening for strolling. There were handfuls of musicians on the sidewalks and in some of the shops.

LittleBit got all the graduation paraphernalia that she ordered. I have a wee calling card on my desk that I would love to show you, but then the Bad Yarn Pirates would know who we are and come steal my Alice Starmore books while we were sleeping. Or possibly LittleBit herself, which would be even sadder. So, no.

But two months from Monday, my last child will be graduating from high school and beginning Real Life in Earnest. I loved the Harlot’s post last year and echo many of her sentiments.

And now, if you will all excuse me, I need to go out in the rain and pick up the brownie mix to make the brownies that I will be taking to the dance tonight.

A Veritable Knitting Spree

AKA “Stealth Project #1”

I woke up yesterday morning in the mood to play with pliers and silver and stones, oh my! And before breakfast, I had whipped up the stitch markers for my friend Tinks. You know, the stitch markers that she won weeks and weeks ago. Those stitch markers.

And then I got to thinking. How to present them? I didn’t have any fabric that I thought would do, and I really wasn’t in the mood to sew, anyway. So into the stash I went and came up with the leftovers from LittleBit’s first socks. KnitPicks Essential Tweed in the purple. Out came my Addi 1’s, and this was born.



This yarn is pure pleasure to knit. Nice and smooth, round and round, 15 stitches on each side, utterly seamless. All these toe-up socks have taught me a thing or two. I even knitted in the cast-on end when I did the first row, so the only weaving-in was at the top when I was done. The bag is about 1.75” [4.5cm] wide and a little over 3” [7.75cm] long. The eyelets are a simple K2tog, YO, with a knit stitch at the end of each row. If I had been thinking more clearly when I cast on at 5:30 yesterday morning, I would have cast on either 14 or 16 stitches per side.

What was inside, you ask? These.



The big one is amethyst. I don't remember, but I think the small ones are flat glass beads; they have a different sort of translucence than the Mama Bead, and they are crackly on the inside.

The ribbon which closes the bag ~ I didn't want to use the yarn, because it is slubby ~ is that skinny satin stuff you can buy by the roll at any craft store or fabric shop. If this hadn’t been a last-minute inspiration, I would have stopped at the fabric store and picked up a roll of matching purple, or one of the colors in the tweed flecks.

Sorry for the glare; I photographed this on the table in the cafe at the bookstore where we met last night before dinner. [At least you know that they keep a clean table in that cafe!]

Tola, honey, I haven’t forgotten you. I have the beads and the silver, but no idea what to do for something to keep your stitch markers in. I wonder if I have enough of that Jitterbug left that I used for my Monkeys?

Dinner with Tinks last night was wonderful as usual. There is nothing like spending a couple of hours in the company of a longtime friend, particularly when there is food involved. Tonight is dinner with a girlfriend from the dinner group, then a meet-up with the rest of that tribe for more walking-about. I am taking my “dontcha” shirt to throw on over my jeans when I shut down the popsicle stand for the day. It’s a little too casual to wear at my desk, not when my desk is the front desk.

Thursday already. Wow!

[Root] Beers, on the House!

I got the numbers yesterday for my merit raise and cash bonus. Can’t post them here because some of my coworkers read my blog occasionally. [Besides which, Miss Manners and the ghost of Emily Post would beat me about the head and shoulders with a pair of white kid gloves.] But I am pleased, and most grateful. And it’s safe to assume that there is a spinning wheel in my future. I asked my friend Jeri how long it had taken between her order and its arrival; she said about a week.

If I could turn cartwheels, I would.

I have finally finished one stealth project and have begun another that is somewhat related. Pictures to be revealed later.

Knit Night was fun, as usual. I was the first to arrive and got us some good seats. And then only lasted about an hour and a half before turning into a pumpkin. This is the third morning in a row that I have wakened an hour or more ahead of my alarm. Is it Christmas Eve and nobody told me?

Did everybody else catch the pranks on Ravelry yesterday? I was trying to come up with a clever post on the forum so that my Sheepie icon would get a hat. And I was mildly amused to find a Fabio book on my virtual bookshelf, less so to have a craft book with a crass title alongside it. I thought also that a “friend” link request was a spoof and declined it. But this morning I realized who she is and have posted an apologetic response.

They say that you lose brain cells with every pregnancy. I would appear to be living proof.

Much progress on both non-stealth projects yesterday. Maybe an inch added to Anastasia, and three or four to [Almost] Cozy. Not enough to justify dragging out the camera; you’ll have to use your individual and collective imagination(s).

Tonight’s the meet-up with my friend Tinks. It’s been way too long.

“Getting raked at the gas pump”

A new phrase in my vocabulary. I found it in an article on the company website and googled it. I think the verb is off by one letter. Gas is $3.15 a gallon here. Milk is $3.50 a gallon. I’m slightly more concerned about the latter. Yes, I consume way more of the former, but the latter is more crucial to quality of life, chez nous.

I had read that a large part of this is due to our dependence upon corn. [Confirmed by the cover of the newest issue of Time, which arrived in yesterday’s mail at the office.] It’s everywhere. In our food, in our gas tanks, in our animal feed. Which is why eggs are now worth their weight in gold. I almost wish that I had my old house back, with the chickens and the rabbits and the goats. At least now I have a real job, and I would be able to afford good hay for the goats, and I’d have fresh milk twice a day.

Although I sure don’t miss having to go out in the rain to milk. Nope, don’t miss that at all. Or having to drag Tuffy from the pen to the milking stand. [She was just smart enough to remember how surprised the neighbor's cat was at being shooed out of the feeding tray one morning. One angry cat, levitating eighteen inches into the air and coming down into Tuffy’s face with claws extended. One terrified goat, breaking free from my grasp, executing a triple axel on the milking stand, and pronking like an antelope back to the pen then leaping over the four-foot fence. The 125 yard goat drag: a twice-daily Olympic event until we traded Tuffy for breeding fees for three more docile does.]

I am so jazzed! My “dontcha” [Knitty] shirt that I wore to the dance on Friday night of the singles conference, washed well. I plan on wearing it to Thursday night’s walkabout.

One of the legal secretaries at work was teasing me gently. She asked what was going on in the big conference room, who was in there, what they were talking about. She told me that my days of being Miss Independent Receptionist are coming to an end; that from now on I need to be alert for little tidbits that would benefit my [future] attorney. I know that she was mostly kidding, but there’s a germ of truth in there. A good receptionist is well-nigh invisible and absolutely impartial. A good legal secretary is above gossip, but savvy about politics. We are talking a whole new set of paradigms here. I have to grow Great Big Ears. And keep them close to the ground. And try not to step on them. Or anyone else’s.

I think that I’m done swatching and on to the knitting. I present for your knitting pleasure [Almost] Cozy, an adaptation of Danielle Schoonover’s design in the Fall 2004 Knitty.



I have modified the K2tbl [knit two together, through back loop] to a simple SSK [slip as if to knit, slip as if to knit, then knit them together]. It’s a subtle difference that would be obvious in an untextured yarn and is less fiddly in my much-frogged Denim Silk.

And some verifiable progress on Anastasia.



This grey dangling end is hanging from the row that will become the afterthought heel.



The actual color is about midway between these two photos.