Stop Her She's Knitting

An Overload of Wildlife

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Thu, 31 May 2012 17:20:00 +0000

Every once in a while around here at Chez Knit I have a day that just seems to be full of wildlife.

We do live in the woods you know. And woods just seem to be full of God’s creatures.

I started off the day by running over a squirrel. And I don’t mean that I just grazed him. If only. I could see him at the side of the road. He could see me. There was that split second of slow motion as you can see that he is thinking it over.

Doooooooooon’t Doooooooo Iiiiiiiiiiiit! my brain told me.

But he did. And then he stopped, right in the road, thinking about which way to go.

He thought too long.

Not a great way to start the day. But I soldiered on and went to a short photo shoot. Then back home to edit photos.

And as I am sitting at my desk noodling away at pictures.

BAM! A hawk soars in and goes for one of the birds at the feeder. Unsuccessfully I might add. But then I was treated to that hawk AND another hawk swooping around in the front yard and going from tree to tree calling to each other. Not another bird sound anywhere in the neighborhood and not a bird in site.

Sorry for the poor quality of the picture. A combination of light limiting screen and my long lens all the way out doesn’t make for crisp pictures.

There was so much squawking going on between the hawks that they woke up all the owls in the woods.

Every one of them. Right about noon. So I was then treated to 30 minutes or so of owls calling back and forth to each other. Some of them are pretty close but I just haven’t been able to zero in on them yet so no pictures. That would be an ultimate for me.

The hawks finally moved on. The owls grumpily went back to bed. I went back to work.

And then these ladies showed up for their usual noon time pecking under my feeder. I am totally captivated by their ugliness and their ability to flow across the yard in a silent river of turkiness. They make no noise whatsoever until they rustle the leaves as they enter the woods.

The other birdies came back slowly after the hawks left the neighborhood. The crazy looking Cardinals cheeping and talking to each other.

And I figured at that point that we were done with the Wildlife Follies for the day. Max the Magnificent and I decided that it was time to walk down to get the mail and enjoy the cooler temps. He knew the turkeys had been there and he spent the time it took me to walk to the end of the driveway racing back and forth and following their trail.

I was strolling back up the drive, checking out my Netflix video (The Tudors) and thinking about the fact that the one thing we haven’t seen yet this spring are the fawns that I KNOW are being birthed in the woods.

Hmmmmm, I wonder when they will show up. I wouldn’t thing for a bit yet. Please don’t let there be multiples. Momma will keep them far in the……….

And then as I was strolling to the house, opening the Netflix envelope, I happened to look up and to my left into the little strip of woods between Chez Knit and the house next door.

Take a good look. What do you see. Yup, a fawn.

And there I am on the driveway with Max the Deer Non-catcher barreling towards me.

In the house Max. Quietly!

I flow quietly into the house, grab the camera, which thankfully already has the telephoto lens on it, check my settings, prevent Max from going back out with me (he saw the camera and knows what that means) and quietly go back out onto the driveway.

I carefully snuck across the driveway and stepped into the woods in my ballet flats hoping that there wasn’t any poison ivy in my path and stopping every once in a while to take another picture.

Folks we are talking new fawn. New enough that he wasn’t even sure if I was something that he should be afraid of. He was unaware of me for a bit. Then he could smell me. Then he could see me but he didn’t do anything other than watch me as I slowly advanced. Momma was no where in sight which makes me think that he is very new indeed. They tend to leave a fawn in a safe place and go off to feed.

He stayed right where momma told him to until I was about 25 feet from him and then he moved further off into the woods.

My day has seriously been very, very good.

Well other than the whole squirrelicide incident.

Brenda Dayne I Kind Of Disagree

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Wed, 30 May 2012 17:42:00 +0000

We are going to talk about knitting and yarn for a while.

And I can just hear about half of my meager readers click off and go do something else.

Root Canal anyone? That sounds less painful than talking about yarn!

The silence is deafening.

But I soldier on.

Oh Brenda Dayne I never thought I would disagree. And perhaps this isn’t really a disagreement with you. I don’t know. I am so conflicted. You have been my knitting beacon. If you say it cannot be done, I go on to something else for surely you are correct in all things yarny. And you live in a place where people’s voices are melodious (I love that word and just wanted to use it).

Say it with me…

MEEELLLLLOOOOODIUUUUUUUS.

Ahhhhhhh.

But I digress.

So, back in December, Podcast #106 to be exact, there was much discussion about what to do with socks knit long ago. What to do with them if they are old and perhaps worn out. Or just old and you don’t like them. Make them into wrist warmers? Kiss them one last time and then consign them to the bin? Add new heels and/or toes? And many expressed the thought that if the socks had done their duty that you could dispose of them.

And I suppose that is true.

But then I stared wondering about socks that are in the sock basket that are old in years but aren’t that worn because……well….you just don’t like them all that much. What to do with them? Give them away. Just keep stuffing them down further in the bottom of the basket so that they can’t give you accusing looks when you pass them by?

Case in point.

These socks. I have been knitting socks since…..hmmmmm…..I think since 2008. And these are some socks that I finished that first year using the yarn Collinette Jitterbug to be exact. Yarn that cost me about $30 at Miss Chickpeas. Take a look at them. What don’t you see……well, you don’t see a ton of “wear and tear” on them. Toes and heels are still in pretty good shape actually. And that is because I don’t like them and therefore I just don’t wear them as often as some of the other socks in the arsenal. They are GIGANTINORMOUS on my feet. I had no clue what I was doing early on. I had no idea how to tailor my socks to my feet. I was clueless. And these socks show it. I think I have kept them around so long because they are the socks that I was knitting when HHBL had his little “incident” in 2008.

And then I heard podcast #106. And it got me to thinkin’. I wonder if I can frog back those socks????? Brenda Dayne doesn’t think so and she is my knitting guru (along with the Yarn Harlot of course). But I don’t like being told that I can’t do something……

One caveat on the following instructions. IF your hand knit socks are very threadbare at the heels then I do not think this will work. If it is just a problem at the toes then those can just be cut right off.

First I cut off the toes. I do NOT have enough patience to undo a very well done Kitchener toe. I am very good at Kitchener.

Then there was a bit of working the yarn to find the end that would successfully frog, and dealing with the fuzzies that are part of wearing the sock.

Necessity is the mother of invention when frogging a long ago sock. You may be asking yourself why I did this rather than just rolling it up in a ball….

Take a close look my friend. Very kinky yarn. Not “50 Shades of Grey” kinky just kinky. Wool retains it’s shape. And so, in order to get rid of that kinkiness I had to form the yarn into a skein.

Tie in 4 spots around the skein to keep it from getting all tangled. Tangles would sort of defeat the purpose of all of this. Do this BEFORE you remove it from whatever you have been winding it around. Believe me.

Perhaps I should rename this yarn “Christian Grey” because it is very, very kinky.

But the beauty of yarn that is partly or completely wool is that you can relax it. You can make it happy.

Gently put it into a sink filled with cold water (NEVER HOT) along with some baby wash. There are many wool soaking products but baby wash has always worked well for me.

Leave that yarn in there for at least 30 minutes. I could actually see the kinks relaxing as the yarn absorbed the water. When the time is up gently lift the skein out, carefully squeeze out the soapy water. Rinse and repeat. Then lay it float on a towel and roll it up and get out as much water as you can. But be gentle. Don’t rub it, just squeeze gently.

Gads that sounds like Yarn Porn.

Now back to the instructions.

However you aren’t done yet. Because you have to dry the yarn and you don’t want it to go back to it’s kinky state.

Carefully hang the skein on a hanger. Mine was hanging in the laundry room over a vent so that there was a gentle breeze every time the A/C came on. It was very hot and humid outside that day otherwise I would have hung it outside. And just to be sure that the skein didn’t “re-kink” I rigged up a weight at the bottom….

Not very heavy but just heavy enough to keep some tension on the yarn. Now leave it there for 24 hours until it is totally dry.

Voila! An unkinked skein of Collinette Jitterbug. Or actually half a skein because it comes in one big skein.

I have come away with less yarn than I started out with it is true. And Collinette Jitterbug isn’t a really good value for the money anyways (I think their skeins are a bit on the small side). But it was a $30 skein of yarn!

So, you can salvage yarn from an old pair of socks.

But only if they aren’t terribly worn. So maybe Brenda Dayne and I are both right. I like to think so.

For Those Who Died to Keep Us Free

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Mon, 28 May 2012 15:05:00 +0000

It is Memorial Day. A day filled with family, friends, grilling, and more sales than any one person could possibly cover.

It is a day to remember and thank those who have served to keep us safe and free.

I choose the later.

I choose to say thank you to my father for his service.

I choose to say thank you to Cousin Clint, Air Force Pilot extraordinaire. Super proud of you Bud.

I choose to say thank you to Karl, also serving in the Air Force.

I choose to say thank you to those men and women whom I meet in my travels who are actively serving in our military. They are always surprised when some crazy haired woman walks up to them in the airport, or the store, or the rest stop, sticks out her hand and says, “Thank you for your service.”

And I pray for them.

Every time I sit down at my computer I am reminded. I am reminded to pray for Alex, a student of HHBL’s who is currently serving in Afghanistan.

I am reminded to pray for Doug, severely wounded last year, who is valiantly fighting his way back.

And I am reminded to pray for Matt, the son of my college roomie. Matt is again in Afghanistan and I am again waking up at 2a.

And as I have done for the past 10 years or so, I will find a quiet place in my house and I will read aloud to myself the words of The Gettysburg Address. And I will cry.

So that you don’t have to look the words up I have printed them below. Take the time to read them. Read them slowly and carefully. And remember all those men and women who have served so valiantly, who continue to serve with quiet courage, to keep us safe and free.

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

7 Quick Takes (Vol 166)

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:19:00 +0000

Good golly Miss Molly how can it be Friday all over again. Where do the days, hours, minutes go? You know the Quick Takes rule. When you are done rolling around in my blather you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of Mark Zuckerberg’s plummeting fortune, over to Conversion Diary to see what everyone else has been up to.

Blather on me hearties. Blather on.

1.
Earlier in the week LaurenLeap and I were very concerned about our tomato plants that went into the ground last Friday. Somewhere along the way, perhaps last Sunday morning, we had a light frost. When I went out to the garden to water on Monday some of the plants were looking, how shall I say it….BAD. Burned leaves, definite frost damage.

Drat!!!!

But after spending a couple of hours in the garden on Thursday, getting the cukes and the basil in the ground, we think that all the plants will be OK. We were a tad worried about the broccoli as well but they seem to be setting new leaves.

I knew you all were worried so I thought I should let you know. Pictures will be coming next week some time I would think but at the moment the onions and garlic are doing well, the tops on the carrots are really growing, the peas are coming up, the rhubarb all seems to have survived the trip from Illinois, the Brussels sprouts are growing, the lettuce is taking over the world, the spinach is going strong, the beets are coming up with gusto, the cantaloupe looks happy, the basil smells so mouthwatering that I just want to lay there by the bed with my nose pressed up to the plants, and the first round of green beans are in the ground.

Over achievers? Who says that we are over achievers.

2.
What does it say about me that I am reading a The Hunt For KSM by Terry McDermott and I am listening to Green River, Running Red by Ann Rule (the hunt for a capture of the Green River Killer).

Best not to think about it too much I would imagine.

But I do love Ann Rule’s books.

And I am totally dependent on audiobooks to get things done during the day. Well all except for writing.

3.
For the last few days a female turkey has shown up every morning to peck as the seeds that fall down under my front bird feeder. I never seem to catch her as she exits the woods, it always just seems like she suddenly and very quietly appears.

Sorry for the quality of the pictures but those darn “light limiting” screens that we put in the windows really mess up pictures. They give a sort of fuzzy, brain addled quality to the photos.

Right?

Or is it just me?

Oh and this morning. There were FIVE turkeys just pecking and scratching away under the feeder and making a gosh awful mess. I am hoping that if they feel comfortable that eventually we might see little turkeys babies. I saw some briefly this week and that was the very first time ever!

4.
I had my own People of Walmart moment yesterday. I went in to Wally Mart to get some lettuce. Of course I saw someone that I knew. Hi Tiffany!! And we had to stop and chat for a moment. Although why she was there when she JUST had a baby 8 days ago is beyond me.

But I digress.

So I get in line and I am waiting. And then I look to my left and observe a fellow walking down the main aisle and heading for the check out line next to mine.

Is he wearing a skirt?

Well not really a skirt. More of a “skort”. That is a man that knows he wants to be comfortable and is definitely secure in himself.

And he was buying a big “Star Wars Legos” box.

5.
I am making yogurt again today.

When I told you how to make Yogurt waaaaaaay back in February I was thinking that the yogurt wouldn’t last all that long in the frig and I would need to be eating it all the time so that it didn’t spoil. I like Vanilla Yogurt…but I made a gallon of it. Literally a gallon. And that is a lot of yogurt, even if you eat a lot of smoothies.

But guess what. If you leave the jars of yogurt sealed and in the back of the frig it will keep a LOOOOOOOOOONG time. I just cracked the last jar of yogurt last week and it is good. A bit more “yogurty” but still excellent and smooth.

Summer is smoothie season around here so I really need more yogurt. And since it is a multiple step process that makes a bit of a mess so I want to get this done before we start having showings. I can’t stop once the process starts, or at least not until the jars are “resting” in their nice warm cooler.

Remember the Killdeer nest that I mentioned last week. The one that is right in the middle of one of the plots in the garden?

Overnight, between Wednesday and Thursday, something raided the nest and all the eggs are gone. LaurenLeap and I worked in the garden yesterday morning and we both noted that the eggs were gone but we didn’t see Momma and little babies anywhere. And then the woman who has the plot right next to the nest said that the eggs had been there yesterday when she had been gardening. So we have to assume that most likely a raccoon got them.

Darn it!!!

7.
Oh yes, and just because I don’t have anything else to fill my time I have decided that this year I am going to teach myself how to write in Copperplate script. I already have training in Calligraphy, although I am a bit rusty at the moment. I used to earn “mad money” when the progeny were little by addressing wedding invitations and such. But I have always loved the look of Copperplate. Of course I have no idea how I will use it, I just know I need to learn it.

Who wouldn’t like to be able to produce something like this!!

And because, you know, my days just drag by and I don’t have anything better to do.

Captain Tai Kwon Do Turns Ten

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:56:00 +0000

See that young fellow with the red sweatshirt on, second from the right? That is Captain Tai Kwon Do and today is his tenth birthday.

Why do I mention this?

Because I want to tell you a story. A story about God and His hand in all things and His watching over little children. I asked my cousin, Hadoo, if I could tell the story. It really is her story but she gave permission.

Although if CTKD were standing here next to me he would make sure that I knew that he is most definitely NOT a small child and that he can take me down if he needs to.

I am just glad to know that he is here because he almost wasn’t. It was a very close thing.

The lovely and strikingly tall woman standing next to me is CTKD’s mom, my cousin Hadoo. I am 13 years her senior. She is 13 years older than Cartoon Girl. Cartoon Girl is 13 years older than Hadoo’s oldest son. Cosmic symmetry. Next to Hadoo is her sister, Laura and on the end is the youngest sister/cousin….Auntie Poo. We do love our nic-names.

Hadoo used to live very close to me, just two towns over or 20 minutes driving time, however you want to look at it. Close enough that we could see each other on a regular basis and close enough that I could occasionally make her husband, Coach Soccer, crazy with the thought that I might try to slip mayo into something that I made for them. He doesn’t like mayo. And I like holding power over people.

10 years ago today we had just finished up with a garage sale at her house…

And she was 30 weeks pregnant.

Cartoon Girl had spent the day at Hadoo’s house being a good older cousin and babysitting Tech Boy. I picked her up late in the afternoon and stopped for a bit to help clean up the garage sale aftermath and to shoot a raspberry at their crabby next door neighbor. I distinctly remember telling Hadoo that she needed to go and put her feet up and rest.

Yes, yes I will, I will. Coach Soccer is taking us out to dinner. All will be well.

We go home. I put my feet up for a bit. Then take them down and start dinner.

And just about that time the phone rings.

It is Coach Soccer on the phone and this is what I hear….

DEBBIE QUIGG DEBBIE QUIGG SHE IS BLEEDING! SHE IS BLEEDING ALL OVER THE FRONT STEPS! I CALLED 911! COME QUICK!

Bleeding? All over the front steps? I am on my way.

That 20 minute trip between our houses? I did it in 10 minutes and it was the longest 10 minutes of my life. I did 70 mph on back roads praying all the way. Praying hard. Because Hadoo was only 30 weeks along and that is never a time when there should be any blood anywhere. By the time that I arrived at their house, a bare 20 minutes after the phone call they were already gone in the ambulance.

They had gone out to dinner and had returned home happy and full. Hadoo was about to walk into her house when, BAM!, she is hemorrhaging on her front steps. No warning, just a river of blood. CS didn’t panic. He called 911. He called me. And then God took over and orchestrated all the rest.

Their across the street neighbors were just returning from church and saw something was wrong and came right over. They watched Tech boy until I got there and these sweet angels even washed all the blood off the steps. They were in their 70’s at the time and not in great health and yet they knelt down and washed those steps until they were spotless.

There was a hospital 5 minutes from the house. The EMT’s arrived within minutes and knew that Hadoo was not going to make it if they didn’t get her to the hospital. But Hadoo’s OB doctor was on the phone and he was telling Coach Soccer to IGNORE what the EMT’s were saying. To put Hadoo in the car and bring her up to the University Hospital’s Level 1 Trauma center…..a 40 minute drive away, in traffic. The EMTs couldn’t take her there, it would have to be CS. It is very hard to ignore a doctor who is stridently telling you to do something. A doctor who is adamant about what he is saying to you. Thank goodness CS did. If he had put Hadoo in the car and tried to go to University she would have bled to death before she ever arrived. We didn’t know it at the time but she had suffered a placental abruption. That is an emergency any way you look at it.

The EMT’s transported her to the local hospital, 5 minutes away. She was in very bad condition. They couldn’t stop the bleeding. And at the hospital there was a doctor. A doctor who is NEVER at that hospital. He just happened to be there that particular day and at that particular time. A doctor who knew about preemie babies.

And that local hospital had a crack ER team. A team that saved Hadoo’s life. They made the decision to intubate her and do a crash C-section…in the ER. There wasn’t time to take her to the OR. It was now or never. They saved Hadoo’s life. They saved CTKD’s life. He arrived weighing just over 3 pounds and 17” long.

We also happen to live in a metropolitan community that has one of the best children’s hospitals in the country, Rainbow Babies and Childrens Hospital. He was intubated and on his way to Rainbow in the blink of an eye.

This is CTKD’s foot two weeks after delivery. So very very small. But so very very alive.

The Lord provided people all along the way who were ministering angels to Hadoo, CS, CTKD and the wider family. Nurses who pointed the way to the right insurance. Therapists to help with medical issues. Neighbors and friends and church family. And the Lord’s hand can be seen in all of it.

Captain Tai Kwon Do I sure am glad you are here. All straight A’s in school and a purple belt and all.You with your sweet, loving heart and that mischievous twinkle in your eye. Even at an early age you knew how to lock your brother out of the house.

You are 10 years old TODAY!!!

Now go have some cake and ice cream

One More Time With Feeling!

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:51:00 +0000

Well, we are putting our feet back into the home selling pool.

HHBL and I have been thinking about it for a while now. Contemplating the timing. Girding our loins for the fight. Steeling ourselves for the inconvenience and emotional toll that selling a home takes out on all who participate in the ritual. At least on the sellers side.

There were a number of things on the “realtor would like you to do this” list that we hadn’t gotten to the last time that Chez Knit was on the market. Those things are now done. Darn it the shutters really do look nice. In the last 18 months or so we have continued to clean out and pair down. Everything is clean and picked up and in place. Heck even the unfinished side of the basement is clean. Of course, if you know me at all then you aren’t surprised at this.

It is often said that a man’s job defines him. I am not sure if that is totally true but I do think that a woman’s home, or at least what people think and say about it, can define how she feels about herself in her daily life. And if you are a type “A”, over achiever, highly organized, perfectionist like I sometimes am, having your house on the market can be….difficult.

In the past I would worry as soon as the sign went up in the yard. I would worry that “they”, whoever they are, would not like my house. That they would be hyper-critical. And if they didn’t like Chez Knit then by extension they did not like me. I felt like I was in Jr. High again. Only with a big financial component to it.

I never said that my thought processes are always rational.

But this time around I am not feeling quite like that and I am thankful. And for some reason I am feeling hopeful. It may be because the neighbors down the street have sold their house. It may be because the agent thinks that now is the time to put the house on the market and that it is priced correctly for the market. It may just be that one of the first things that we told Rick and Donna (the agents) was WE ARE NOT STAGING A DARN THING.

Personally, the last time we had Chez Knit on the market I was afraid to live in my own house. Afraid to move any of the things that the stager had put up. Hated the art work. Thought the way that she re-arranged my furniture didn’t look right at all. Didn’t think that it looked like a “home” at all but just a builders model. Afraid all the time that things were not going to measure up to some unseen yardstick that kept moving. A target that could never be “hit”. It was a terrible and unsettling feeling and a terrible year.

However this time around my thought is……

My house is clean and bright. It is well organized and everything works. It looks good. The landscaping, especially the back garden, is looking lovely at the moment. It is my house and I love it, we just want something smaller and in a better location for us. If you don’t like it that is fine with me, your perfect house is not this one. If you like Chez Knit then please make an offer and we would be glad to sell it to you. But I am not going to get my panties in a twist about it if you don’t. I know that we have done everything that needed to be done before putting the house on the market.

And I am going on with my daily routine and my job and my cooking and my blogging. I am not going to stress out (much) when I have a showing. I am going to have my glass of wine in the evening and sit out on the deck with HHBL and enjoy the quiet. I am going to enjoy with all I have in me this stage of life that I am in and I am not going to let a little thing like a For Sale sign in the front yard make my blood pressure go up with angst and anticipation and fear.

At least I am going to try to.

A Wildlife Filled Morning.

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:30:00 +0000

I had grand plans for my blog post today. We have put Chez Knit back on the market (please sell, please sell, please sell) and I was going to talk all about it.

And then, just as I was beginning to think about what I was going to say. And as I was working my way through the last of the cleaning chores. Max the Magnificent scared the living daylights out of me by barking at something. He was practically vibrating as he stood in front of the dining room windows.

Grow…BARKBARKBARK…..growl……BARKBARKBARK…..

What the heck is wrong with you!

I might have yelled that at him after I had calmed my heart down.

I don’t see anything out the…………

Oh.

When Max started barking there was one lone Tom Turkey just standing in the middle of the cul de sac. Just standing.

And then there were two……

And finally there were three.

And they just stood there for awhile as if they were waiting for something. Wailing for…..

Someone.

Tails up, tails down, tails up, tails down.

Wings up, wings down. Wings up, wings, down.

Shake the bird booty. Talk turkey smack. Look around.

And after I got back from quietly running into my office, tripping over the dog in the process, taking off the wide angle lens from the camera and putting on the telephoto lens, I noticed that there were a number of female turkeys that were wandering across the lawn.

They are boring to look at…….but not if you are a Tom Turkey.

Hey babeeeeeeee. What is a sweet little turkey like you doing here.

Come over here and check out my wattle.

Well HELLO Gorgeous! Ignore the other Toms, I am the bird for you!

Tom turkeys can be so idiotic. At least that seemed like the general consensus of the females who wandered off into the woods. Or in the case of the lone female that gave them any attention….

Turning around and walking off into the woods along the driveway.

Oh babeeeee. Boom chakalakalaka. Boom chakalakalaka. Boom chakala……

Hey Guys! She’s leavin’!! Hey babeeeee. Yoooo hooo. Hey Honey Feathers where ya goin’?

Hey wait up! What did we say??

She didn’t even give them a second glance. She just wandered off into the woods and went on about her business without another thought.

And the Toms stood there for a time all dejected and confused. Tail feathers slowly drooping.

And then Max barked at them and they skittered across the lawn and were gone. Off pursuing some other female with less discerning taste and a rapidly advancing biological clock. Eggs ripe for the picking.

Ummmm, never mind. Moving on.

And then, as I was going back into the kitchen to get back to the laundry, I noticed a speck of something on the floor that at first I took to be a piece of dirt or a piece of stick.

Not on my nice clean floor! I don’t think so! I bent down to pick it up and realized……

It was a slug.

How the heck a slug got into my house I will never know. He was laboriously trying to decide if he could heat my hardwood floor.

I don’t think so buddy. I was felling in a generous mood so I…..

Scooped him up with a piece of paper and transported him outside where he can eat my basil in peace.

OK. I didn’t kill him on the spot because I didn’t want to have to clean up slimy slug guts from my floor.

But if I find him on my basil then he is a gonner. The Croc of Death will reap retribution on his slimy little butt.

Do slugs have butts?

Sorry, I said butt.

7 Quick Takes (Vol 165)

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:32:00 +0000

It’s HERE! It’s HERE! My latest installment of 7 Quick Takes. Oh the excitement. Oh the blather. You know the deal. When you are done OOOOOing and Ahhhhing over me incredibly boring life then you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of the horses racing in the Preakness tomorrow, over to Conversion Diary.

Keep Calm and Blather On.

1.
Don’t you just hate it when you send off a self-righteous, why isn’t this working, fix it and why didn’t I get my latest Smithsonian Magazine kind of email…..

And then find that you have forgotten to pay the renewal just about the time the Customer Service center send back an email telling you just that very thing.

Sigh.

Not that I would KNOW anything about that mind you.

Nothing here. Move along.

2.
I have another edition of “Deb’s Stupid Household Mistakes” to go along with the mirth of the electrician, the garage heater, the washing machine repair man. The list is endless.

So yesterday I mentioned that we have some handymen here to do some touch up things before we put Chez Knit back on the market. And one of the things on Mike’s “punch list” was to figure out why the light fixture in the stairway that goes from the basement to the garage isn’t working. And hoping against hope that it wasn’t something like a short or something else that would require getting an electrician in there.

So Mike is up on the ladder in a manner that made me really nervous and checking our homeowners insurance. He is up there for a bit and then comes to find me to ask me for a light bulb.

He goes back up and screws in the light bulb and VOILA! Let there be light.

Ruh roh.

Uh Mike? Can you tell me what was wrong? (please let it me something complicated that he has never seen before and that I didn’t do).

Oh yeah Mrs. Q (said in his slightly Amish accented voice), the light bulbs weren’t properly screwed into the sockets and one of the bulbs was burned out.

Please kill me now.

3.
On Saturday I hear HHBL calling me from the deck. He is standing there eagerly gesturing to me to come outside so that he can show me something.

Something good??

Not really.

SNAKE!!!!!!

Yes, I know it is just a Garter Snake. Garter Snakes are good. They eat things.

And there aren’t any poisonous snakes in my part of the Frozen Northeast Ohio. I know this because I called the game warden one time and asked…..just to be sure.

But it is still a snake. And I know exactly where it is living. In the concrete cover that is over the septic tank bubbler motor.

{{{{{Shudder}}}}}

4.
I am sure I will do a longer Community Garden update soon, when things start to get a bit busier out there. LaurenLeap and I spent some time in the beds yesterday. There is so much to do!

We have been a bit slow in getting the last of the winter wheat cut back and tilled in. If we let it go any longer we would have been harvesting wheat to grind for flour! But it is all cut back now thanks to LaurenLeap’s weed wacker!

Look closely at the picture. Not everything in there is clumps of dirt. Those four, neatly arranged eggs belong to a Killdeer who has made her nest right in the midst of someone’s plot.

And boy was she unhappy that I got close enough to take pictures. She was calling shrilly and fluttering around as if she had a broken wing. I was quick but she glared at me with her little birdie eyes as I left. LaurenLeap and I are hoping that the babies hatch out before whoever has leased the plot decides that they are ready to plant. The plots all around this particular patch of earth have been planted so it is just a matter of time.

5.
I am going to complain for one second.

Mike the handyman is in the process of re-caulking our shower. That means that we cannot use said shower for the next few days.

That means that I have to walk down the hall and use the shower in Cartoon Girl’s old room.

I do not like this. It is not my shower. It feels strange and odd.

I am done now.

6.
HHBL’s baseball season is in full swing.

YEAH!!!! Well, yeah except that sometimes I have to do the “official” scoring for the game and even though I am a good baseball “scorer” I still tend to give people hits when they didn’t earn them or errors when they aren’t warranted. But I am getting better and I am learning to just ask. But I am going to have to do some more intensive baseball rules education I am thinking

But I digress.

The start of baseball season means that there might be future posts involving pictures of

Fathers and sons at baseball games. Or Fathers and daughters if the occasion arises.

Man’s best friend waiting patiently for his favorite person to come off of the field.

Men in baseball uniforms. Yum.

7.
Today is…….

My 27th wedding anniversary.

Yes, 27 years ago today HHBL and I embarked on this crazy ride that is called marriage. I was going to write an entire epistle on it but I really like what I wrote for our 25th anniversary so I am actually going to direct you over there.

But I do want to say.

I LOVE YOU HHBL!!!!

A Strangely Disjointed Train of Thought

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:00 +0000

We have a handy man ( and his minions) here for a few days to get some things done around Chez Knit. A couple of more “major” tasks and a whole boat load of smaller painting things.

Yes, I could do a bunch of the painting myself. I have done all those tasks before. I have painted walls and scrapped siding and painted shutters and re-caulked various things. But I am not doing that this time. I am a WHOLE lot older than the last time and personally, I don’t want to die falling off a ladder as I try to paint the shutters. A better use of my time is out taking pictures of people’s fabulous kitchens.

Why are we doing these things? Other than the fact that the shutters at Chez Knit have faded from Forest Green to a dusty pale greenish color and the shed doors are dissolving with each rain and there is a leak in the shed roof and our shower needs, VERY BADLY, to be re-caulked and resealed?

We are putting the house back on the market.

Oh I hate selling a house. Such upheaval and disturbance. Such angst as people I don’t know walk through my house and pronounce it “Not exactly what we were looking for”. A woman’s house is a reflection of herself. Talk my house down and you cut me to the quick. You flay me. I question my existence and all that I do with my day.

Well…….

Not really. But you do make me feel bad and angsty for a bit.

But this time there will be no Joyce and Her Amazing Technicolor House Staging. NONONONONO! No fake trees. No strange artwork. No elaborate table settings that I am frightened of moving even one inch to dust because I won’t ever get it back to the correct level of “just rightness”. No odd handbag lamps with feathers that I have to put on the counter in the bathroom (NO JOKE on that one). It is our house with our furniture in place and my photos on the wall.

PFFFFFFFFFFFFT to you!

But the thing is. When I have workmen at the house I am all,

I MUST BE DOING SOMETHING SO THAT THEY THINK I AM NOT A SLACKER!

So strange. So odd.

My house is clean and organized. I just dusted yesterday. I actually vacuumed yesterday as well. And yet I got out the vacuum again so that I could look like I was cleaning……something.

And I did the dishes in the sink much earlier than I might have gotten to them because, well, they were there and the guys might notice that they were there.

And I really had to stop myself from cleaning and re-caulking the bathroom shower yesterday so that Mike wouldn’t see how bad it really is….even though he had to look at it last week so that he could correctly quote for the job. Good thing that HHBL dealt with that because I would have spent the time trying to explain to him why it looks so bad.

And as I was sitting at my computer this morning having a FB chat with one of HHBL’s cousins I thought,

OH MY GOSH! They are working right outside of my office window and they can see that I am on FB and they will think that I am a slacker. Maybe I should edit some photos so they think I am actually working.

And then I sat down to do some reading, which I do every day because, you know, I am a reader. And just about the time I put my patookis into Big Red’s leather depths Mike (the main man) walked back into the house to go and work in the shower in our bathroom and I just wanted to jump up and say,

Mike I really don’t sit down and indulge in this very often. Honest! I will just be five minutes and then I will get back to the whirlwind of activity that I usually am. Don’t think badly of me. Don’t judge me!

I am pathetic.

Maybe I will go and rearrange something in the basement.

Tee Shirt Yarn

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:12:00 +0000

Did you know that you can turn all those old tee shirts into yarn?

Do you care?

I love it when I can find a way to “re-purpose” something rather than just getting rid of it. A while back while I was ~~totally engrossed~~ wandering around on Pinterest I spied a rug that someone had made using tee-shirt yarn.

Tee shirt yarn???

And that led me off on a quest for the directions as to how to make this new and unusual thing. Thank goodness for YouTube. And I could just direct you over there so that you can watch the videos about how to make tee shirt yarn.

But what’s the fun in that when I can take pictures of the process myself.

So hang onto your hats and gather up your tee shirts and away we go.

You need a BIG pile of tee shirts. I wish I could tell you that each tee shirt will yield a certain yardage of yarn but it doesn’t work that way. The amount of yarn you end up with is dependent on the size of the tee shirt (bigger shirt=more yardage) and how thin you cut the shirt.

I had some tee shirts that I purchased at a garage sale. You should have seen the woman’s face when I told her that all her well loved and precious tee shirts were going to be cut into yarn. But I had already purchased them so she couldn’t have them back.

But I wasn’t completely sure that I had enough tee shirts for the two rugs that I wanted to knit so enter the PUM (Parental Unit Mimi) who took the opportunity to clean out a boat load of tee shirts and send them on to me. I used every one of the white ones!

Wash and dry your tee shirts first if you have gotten them from the garage sale or something.

Fold your tee shirt in half length wise and lay it on a flat surface.

This next step can be done with a rotary cutter or a sharp pair of scissors. Cut off the bottom portion of the shirt right under the arms. Keep the bottom tube of fabric and get rid of the top part that has only the arms and upper part of the shirt.

Unless of course you are Brittany Spears and then you can wear the top part of the shirt.

Cut off the hem at the bottom of the tee shirt tube and discard that.

Fold the tee shirt tube in half but not ALL the way in half and lay it out on a flat surface. Can you see, I have left about a 1 inch off set between one side of the tee shirt tube and the other. You will see why in a moment.

Now we cut. Be not afraid. You also do not need to be uber anal about measuring. Just eyeball it. I would NOT cut your tee shirt yarn and skinnier than 1/2 an inch because it will not hold together very well in a later step. Just cut up from the bottom fold and cut up to that one inch off set making sure you cut through the top layer of tee shirt but not through the far fold. Did that make sense?

Just keep cutting your tee shirt into one inch strips.

When you are done you will have something that looks like a very odd hula skirt

Now, carefully spread out the portion of the tee shirt that you didn’t cut through. Do not pull on the tee shirt fabric.

We are going to turn the tube into one long piece of yarn. Look at the yarn and you will see that the cuts are lined up. DO NOT cut straight across from A to A and B to B and so forth. If you do that you will end up with useless tubes of tee shirt that resemble giant rings of calamari. Cut from A to B. Then cut from B to C, C to D and so on. I would actually hold the fabric up with I cut because you do not want to cut the tee shirt material underneath.

When you have cut all of the tee shirt you will need to go back to the beginning and release the first strip. Cut from the outside of tee shirt material to the “A” at the top and voila you will have a big long squiggle of yarn.

But we are not done.

Starting at one end of the long piece of yarn grasp a portion of the tee shirt material between your fingers and give it a steady pull. Don’t jerk it just pull it and stretch it.

SHAZAM! The tee shirt rolls in on itself, makes yarn and gets even longer.

But before you start knitting you will need to connect all the pieces of tee shirt yarn. You can also do this step as you go along but I hate all the starting and stopping so I do it all at once and then just have a big basket full of loose yarn that I knit with.

Take the end of the working piece of yarn and cut a one inch slit in the yarn about one inch down from the top. Do the same thing with one end of the yarn that you are attaching.

Take the slit end of the yarn that you are attaching and slip it through the slit on the working yarn.

Pull the yarn that you are attaching up through the slit until it is all through. I am not explaining this very well I think.

When you are done give the yarn piece a good tug to snug everything up and knit away.

I knit the yarn with a size “I have no idea but it is big” needle. And at one point the cheapy plastic needle separated from the cord. But I scrunched it back together and soldiered on.

I am totally loving my bath mat.

A Tale of Hankies

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:50:00 +0000

Growing up I spent a lot of time over at my grandparents house.

I loved it.

I could be assured of Cheez-Its. And Apple Pie. And Pansies. And raw green beans from the garden.

But every once in a while I had to do a particular job for my Grandma Pringle because I “bended” better than she did.

I had to crawl under their bed and gather up all the used handkerchiefs that fell back there.

{{{{{SHUDDER}}}}}

Do you even know what a handkerchief is? Kleenex didn’t always come in a box you know. There was a time when, if you wanted to blow your nose, you had to have an honest to goodness linen handkerchief. One that you used and then washed.

And my Grandma had a boat load of them.

Oh Lucile always had a handkerchief handy. Day or night. Rain or shine. But who wants to have to crawl under the bed to get the used ones that fall down there during the night when you have a young and limber granddaughter who can be bribed with Cheez-its to do it for you.

Oh, and just as an aside. The same thing happens with me. I always stick a kleenex under my pillow every night in case I need one. And they always end up under the head of the bed. It is a kleenex graveyard under there.

Maybe this is genetic?

But I digress in a BIG way.

SO, a few years ago Parental Unit Mimi gave me an Alligator (I think) handbag that belonged to Grandma P. And inside said handbag was a huge stack of her hankies. Clean thank goodness. And just looking at them I was transported back to the split level house on Madison and the bedroom with the patterned wall paper that I stared at endlessly when I was forced to take a nap on the cot and didn’t want to go to sleep and the bed with the constant supply of crumpled and used hankies just waiting for me to crawl under there and get.

Ah the memories.

But what to do with said hankies? What to do. What to do. I thought and I thought. I thought about maybe making them into some kind of pillows or a quilt or something. But that just didn’t do it for me.

And then it came to me.

Frame them.

And so I have.

I picked the ones that I liked the best (6 in all) and then wandered around Michaels until I found a frame that I liked and this is how they turned out.

Now I just have to decide where to hang them.

Decision, decision.

7 Quick Takes (Vol 164)

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:44:00 +0000

The sky is cloudless and blue. The wind is soft. The frost has melted (yes we had scattered frost last night). And it is time to blather. You know the deal. After you have come down from the natural high that is my 7 Quick Takes you need to click on the picture to be whisked, at the speed of John Edward’s downfall from Presidential hopeful to scum of the Earth, over to Betty Beguiles to see what everyone else has been doing.

May the Blather be ever at your back.

1.
The spreading of the mulch is finally done! I finished yesterday afternoon after a 4 hour battle with the pile.

That is always such a nice feeling to scrap up the last of the stuff and then blow any mulch dust off the driveway. And then look at the huge stain on the driveway that will take weeks of rain to finally wash away.

And no, I am not getting out there to scrub the driveway.

Although I thought briefly about it. But I restrained myself.

Spring mulching is one of those tasks that I always start with such enthusiasm and end with loathing and a sigh of relief.

2.
I cast off the first tee-shirt yarn rug last night and oh it is so cute. I am not putting a picture up yet because I will post a “how to” next week. What I will say is that it is a bit harder to knit with this yarn than I had anticipated and the rug, the smaller of the two that I am going to do at the moment, really weighs a lot more that I thought it would.

But they are so cute.

And I am now going to be obsessed with tee-shirt yarn for a bit so be prepared.

3.
It is the little things in life that make us happy.

My Hoya is blooming. There is rejoicing here at Chez Knit. Or at least I am rejoicing.

If you have never grown a Hoya then you might think that the fact that it has flowered would not be a big deal….but you would be wrong. Hoyas are tricky plants. They like to be root bound, they don’t like to be repotted into a bigger pot if at all possible. In fact, they have a hard time blooming if you do. And it takes a long time for a new plant to bloom. My current Hoya is an off shoot of my first Hoya (which inexplicably died about 5 years ago). My first Hoya came from cuttings from Mimi’s Hoya which came from cuttings from Grandma Pringle’s Hoya. My first Hoya took 10 YEARS before it bloomed for the first time.

Yes, I said 10 YEARS. This time it was only 5 years and that was most likely because I was able to save a cutting that already had a flower peduncle on it. Once the plant flowers it will continue to flower in the same place every time as well as adding new places.

And how did I actually know that the Hoya was blooming, considering the fact that I wasn’t looking for it to bloom for several more years?

I could smell the blooms from two rooms away.

HHBL was most startled when I got up, ran into the sunroom and danced around in joy.

Like I said, it is the little things.

Mrs. Robin has made a nest way high up under the eaves of the house right outside my office window. I am hoping to be able to hear baby birds soon.

She gives me the evil bird stink eye every time I go out there to check. Trust me momma bird you are 20 feet up and I am not going to disturb the nest.

At least she isn’t dive bombing me when I am out there.

5.
And speaking of birds…..

The hummingbirds are back. Squeeeeeeee! They showed up all of a sudden around Sunday or Monday. Thank goodness I already had the feeders out for them.

This is a picture that I took last year and it is fuzzy because of the darn light filtering screens on the windows. But I am sure that I will be putting up more hummingbird photos as the season goes by.

I am totally obsessed with them.

6.
Why is it when Spring and Summer roll around that I want to just sit around and read all day. The library looks so inviting and smells so full of books. And I just don’t care about going outside to weed.

Perhaps it is because I used to spend all summer reading when I was growing up.

I worked very hard yesterday spreading the rest of the mulch. I think I deserve some extended reading time.

At least that is my story and I am sticking to it.

7.
The usual end of the week “camera dump” from the little camera.

This Is All I Got

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:39:00 +0000

Today was a day full of sunshine.

Full of soft wind in the trees and the smell of grass and the sounds of summer.

This was a day filled with mulch. Or at least 4.5 hours of it was. And I am pooped.

I am done in.

I am sitting in a chair and may never get out of it again.

But the mulch is done. Finished. Spread. Conquered.

I mulch no more!!

And so the only thing I have for you are some pictures. Just a few that have come in from Papa's ongoing slide scan project.

I apologize in advance. Hide the children. Pull the shades.

This is another in my "Big Red" series. We will call this one "Big Red and the Footed PJs". No hair, demented grin.

Oh and the oriental rug that Big Red is sitting on? That currently resides here at Chez Knit. And yes there is a story attached to it. You are surprised at this?

Caught in the act of raiding the cupboard! Obviously going for the nutritional oatmeal.

I am so sorry for subjecting you to this display of tights covered diaper. And sagging, wrinkly tights to boot which just adds insult to injury.

An exhibitionist even at an early age. I have no shame.

Well It SEEMED Like A Good Idea

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:18:00 +0000

Oh those ideas in life that seem really good and really fun on the surface. Those things that come into your life and you go,

WOW, that looks like it is going to be a boat load of fun

And then they aren’t.

Yes those ideas.

This was one of those ideas…..

A bunch of years ago HHBL and I looked at each other and thought,

You know, a TANDEM bike that we can ride TOGETHER would be such a boat load of fun that we won’t ever want to come home and feed the kids. Lets buy one!

And so we did. And you can see that we have a lovely and in really good shape tandem bike. It isn’t top of the line by any means but it isn’t a bottom feeder either. And we paid good, solid money for it.

And then we rode it a total of four times.

Four. Times.

And that might even be a generous count now that I think about it. It might actually be three times. And I don’t think we ever left the neighborhood. This bad baby has maybe 25 miles on her. She is like the car that was driven to church and back by a little old lady from Pasedena.

Ignore the flat tire, that is immaterial to the discussion.

STOP looking at that flat tire!!!

Now back to our story. So, why did HHBL and I stop riding the tandem? Or to be more precise why did we never actually start riding the tandem.

There were a number of reasons that I can think of but the biggest factor is that when I am occupying the “second seat” I just can’t see where we are going. Call me crazy but I really like to see where I am going when I am pedaling down the road.

Silly I know, but there it is.

I have no control over anything when I am back there and I like to have control of my world. I like to see what is ahead of me. It doesn’t make for a great ride when you have to lean to the right or to the left to see the path ahead.

It tends to make your tandem partner mutter at you and tell you just to stop that and pedal!

Of course there is one good thing about the tandem. I can have this in front of me.

Well hello there!!!

But then I can also have that view when I am riding on Hi Ho Silver. And if I am on Hi Ho Silver then I can also ride beside HHBL and talk to him and enjoy his scintillating witticisms and not just ride behind him with no power to say GO LEFT! GO RIGHT! Can I draft behind you because I am tired.

And sometimes I can ride WAY behind him because my biking mojo has just given up and gone to get a beer and some pretzels, leaving me panting and retching by the side of the road.

Not that that has ever actually happened. No, nothing to see there. Move along.

So, the tandem has been listed on Craigs List to see if we can sell her. She needs to go to a good home where people will love her and ride her rather than perpetually languishing in the shed, taking up space that the mice need to build their new condo.

Anyone want to buy a tandem bike with 25 miles on it?

Nature Can Be A Pain Sometimes

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:57:00 +0000

I am indulging in an afternoon cup of The Elixir of Life. Coffee for those not in the know about this wondrous brew.

I have been trying NOT to indulge in the afternoon caffeinated delight but today I just have to have some. I cannot get through the day or knitting this evening without a bit of a “pick me up”.

I tried tea but it just wasn’t doing it for me. Still yawning. Still dragging.

Why you might be asking yourself. Well I will tell you. It is because of this….

This is a Barred Owl. I did not take this picture although I sincerely wish that I had. In fact there was a point last night, or more precisely early this morning, when I thought about getting up and setting up the tri-pod and trying to take a picture of the Owl Conclave of Non-Sleepability that was going on outside. I certainly wasn’t getting any rest.

We live in the woods, as I have mentioned ad nauseum. And with the woods comes woodland creatures. And it isn’t all that surprising that we would have Barred Owls because they like to make their nests holes in trees, often holes that are made by Pileated Woodpeckers.

And heaven knows we have a boat load of those around here.

The first time that I heard an owl hooting at night here at Chez Knit I was just amazed and awe struck. Just so darn cool. I lay there in bed and marveled and listened.

Last night…..

Not so marvelous.

Around 2:30a I awoke with a start to hear the owls outside. Oh yes, I did say owls. I am not sure how many of them there were but there were a bunch. Evidently the entire neighborhood owl population was having an Hootananny outside. And one of them had stationed itself in the big oak right outside our window. And they were calling and chatting and hooting.

Hoo, Hoo, HooHOOOOOOOO (say to yourself “Who cooks for youuuuuuuu” and you will have the rhythm down.)

Calling and calling and calling. Near and far. Up and Down. Loud and Louder

And then every once in awhile someone would give a loud

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAWAAAAA.

And in the process scaring the ever loving daylights out of me.

Neither HHBL or I slept all that well after that.

Dang owls.

And then to add insult to injury this morning I was looking out the window and saw this…..

Yes, it looks like a mild mannered hole in one of the trees that reach up out of the ravine. But as I stood there on the deck I noticed…..

DANG IT! I am going to have to contend with squirrel babies in a little bit.

Nature you are a cruel mistress.

7 Quick Takes (Vol 163)

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:55:00 +0000

Well here we are again. Gathered at the Blather Table for another big helping of Deb’s incredibly productive and over the top life. You know the drill. When you are done being amazed by the blather you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of the horses that will run the Kentucky Derby tomorrow, over to Conversion Diary.

May the Fourth be with you!

1.
I hate to say it but most of the mulch is still sitting on the driveway. Mocking me.

But HHBL and I will be putting ourselves to work for at least part of the day tomorrow to move as much of it as we can.

I will not be mocked.

And it goes much faster with two of us working together in a concerted effort to conquer the beast.

2.
I love a day when I just crank out small projects that have been hanging around on my “to do” list for a long time. Yesterday was one of those days. Despite the fact that I was sweating up a storm because the temp in the Frozen Northeast Ohio hit 87F yesterday, breaking the record by the way, and I refuse to put the AC on in MAY, I cranked out work.

I was a machine.

Well, I was a machine up until about 4p when I sort of decided I had done enough and went off to read a book for a while.

But my “to do” list is much shorter. And I am happy.

3.
We finally put the screens in the windows last Sunday. It might seem like a mundane thing to most but it means, to me, that I can sleep with the windows open at night.

I lovelovelove to have the windows open at night. As soon as it gets even a modicum of warm I have the window open at least a little bit all night long. And that goes on until the end of September.

Well, unless the AC is on. But we don’t use the AC all that much if we can help it. Both HHBL and I like the windows open at night. I can hear the owls hooting and the coyotes singing and the peepers in the Spring.

Oh how I love the mysterious sounds of the night.

4.
Can I just say that without audiobooks I just wouldn’t get any weeding done. It isn’t that I don’t like weeding, I do actually. It appeals to my OCD nature. But sometimes I just need to have an audiobook going in my head to distract me from the endless task of weeding.

Currently I am listening to Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder. It is the thought provoking and inspiring true story of a young man who lived through the genocides in both Burundi and Rwanda. I would recommend it to everyone. And when you have been to some of the places that he speaks about it makes it all the more real.

5.
The Rose Breasted Grosbeaks are back!!!!

This picture is actually from last year, I haven’t taken any of them this year yet. Only the males are back and I haven’t seen them too much as yet. But I have seen them and I have heard them.

They have the most beautiful song.

6.
How about a quick garden update.

We have potatoes coming up in the potato tower, despite the whole tower being blown over last week in the wind storm. The actual dirt wasn’t disturbed so LaurenLeap and I just set everything to rights and all seems fine.

Holy Summer Salad Batman! We have a lot of lettuce coming up. My mouth is watering for that first salad of the summer.

And the spinach is looking good as well. I feel stronger already!

The onions are happy and growing as is the garlic, which you cannot see in this picture. We have both white and red onions planted.

But I am afraid we have had a garden casualty.

On Saturday night, well really Sunday morning, we had an unexpected frost. I knew when I looked out my window Sunday morning that we might be in some trouble. And it was confirmed on Monday when LaurenLeap went out to check on things at the garden and called me with the disturbing news about the broccoli. We have a number of plants that seem to have been pretty much done in.

But not all of the plants were so badly damaged. We will just replace the ones that took the biggest hit. All is not lost.

Ah the early morning garden. So peaceful

7.
A round up of pictures taken on the morning walks around the lake. I love walking there in the Spring, Summer and Fall. And I guess Winter too. These were all taken with the little camera, which I stick in my pocket before I leave

Who wouldn’t love seeing this early in the morning.

Get those geese, Ben! Most of them now see him coming and move away before he gets there.

These geese were none too happy to have to hustle off the path. They moved into the water but then hung there hissing at us.

I have protected my women from the evil honking bags of feathers!

We don’t encourage him to chase the ducks and ducklings. We like them.

And then there is the Killdeer momma who tries to distract us from her nest, which must be some where close to the path. They are ground nesters and the momma will flutter along the ground like she has a broken wing to distract us predators away from the nest.

I love our walks.

Wordless (Sort of) Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:49:00 +0000

My friend Debbie over at Whispers From The Woods always does a “Wordless Wednesday” post.

Her photos are stunning.

I stand in awe.

This is my contribution for a Wordless (almost) Wednesday.

What?

Haven’t you ever seen a Bacon and Eggs scarf before?

Mulching

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:58:00 +0000

I had a much longer and insightful post that I was going to give you today…..

It isn’t going to happen.

Why you might ask yourself? Well I will tell you that it was partly because of this.

The Mulch

Oh my aching back…and legs….and arms…and fingers…and neck….

I should just say oh my aching body. Because all of it does, ache that is.

It really started with the ivy. And just went on from there.

Ivy. I was an idiot, a supreme and utter idiot to have the landscaper plant it when we first moved into Chez Knit. I should have had my meager brain matter thoroughly examined to see if I had any clue what I was doing and then I should have been dope slapped until I gave up the idea entirely.

All that ivy that we had them plant….flats and flats of ivy that cost loads of dollars? I have pulled up almost all of it over the years and chucked it into the woods or given it away. All that is except the large swath of it that the lawn company wantonly killed one year. At the time I went into my “you are lower echelon drones!” mode (sorry, family joke) and got them to pay for the damage.

Little did I know that they were actually doing me a big old favor. Thank you so much!!! Thank you for wantonly killing that 10x30 foot patch of ivy and then paying me back for it. That was just one section of ivy that I didn’t then have to pull out.

Why am I telling you about this? Because I had to work on one more section of ivy today. And this is ivy that has been in place for 10 years….and it was very HAPPILY in place for those ten years. And it was growing up the brick wall outside my office. And it was making a break for the hostas. And it was looking to possibly establish residence on the front walk way. And some of the ivy vines were as thick as my thumb. They did not want to be moved.

However, I am a stubborn cus and I would have my way!!

Oh my aching back. But the ivy is pretty much all pulled up and what is still there is going to get a good bath with Round UP (sorry Shannon, I know that isn’t in the Master Organic Gardeners Hand Book) once the rain leaves in another day or so.

And then it is all getting covered up with mulch. Mulch which HHBL has wonderfully offered to help me move. We have a system. He moves it and I spread it.

I like that system.

And hopefully my back will be happy with me by then.

Pulling up ivy and slinging mulch is a very dirty business. I was actually crunchy when I finally came in.

Thank goodness for the “Super wash” cycle on the washing machine. I needed it.

This Explains A Lot

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:53:00 +0000

When last I was visiting the Parental Units at Easter (remember the Easter Monkey!) Mimi handed me a leather bound notebook. On the outside it is fairly unassuming.

But on the inside. Oh on the inside there was gold.

Photographic gold.

For you see inside were plain lined notebook pages, old notebook paper, on which my Grandmother Pringle had pasted pictures. Old pictures. Old and fabulous pictures of my family.

These are my Great Grand Parents, Fred and Jennie. And that lovely, curly headed child is my mom, the Mimi. Fred and Jennie, such solid Iowa names! Such solid Iowans.

These are the Great Grand Parents from the other side of the family. Grandma Maggie was always chuckling. And she had the cutest little chuckle. I can hear it still. She chuckled until the day that she went home to the Lord at the age of 98.

My Grandpa Pringle looking very dapper indeed. This was a man that gardened in a shirt and tie at times.

This just happens to be my absolutely favorite picture of Grandpa and I. I can look at it and smell his unique “aftershave” that was a combo of Listerine and Old Spice. Very uniquely Grandpa.

Grandpa and Grandma. Oh you can just see the mischievous twinkle in Grandpa’s eye. He was a kid at heart.

And this last picture might explain a great deal about me……

Oh Grandpa and his sense of humor. It was larger than life.

There are LOTS more pictures.

I just thought I should warn you.

7 Quick Takes (Vol 162)

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:53:00 +0000

I’m LATE getting these done. I know, I know. I need minions. You know the deal. When you are done here and have fully downloaded, highlighted and footnoted my blather remember to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of my ever expanding weed garden, over to Conversion Diary.

May the BLATHER be ever in your favor!

1.
Well, it is that time of year again….

The geese that live at the local park have started to reproduce. Grrrrrrr.

And that means that we have to be extra vigilant on our morning walks because Canadian Geese with babies in tow can be VERY aggressive.

But we have ever faithful, if slightly height challenged, Ben to keep us safe.

Get those geese Ben!

2.
Did you think I was done with complaining about my ipod and iTunes?

Well, this might be the last time.

I would promise but then it is iTunes so there is always something to complain about.

I finally decided that I needed to sync my ipod to iTunes on my new computer.

What a MAJOR pain in my ever expanding backside.

Plugged in “Dahling” to sync….and iTunes kept insisting that I didn’t have enough space on the ipod…. even when I deleted all the music off of my ipod and told iTunes not to put any music on the ipod….still no space.

FINE! I will just back it up with the old computer and whatever.

But then the old computer gave me the same message…even though I had wiped all the music off the ipod.

OH FOR THE LOVE OF PETER, PAUL AND MARY!!!

The iTunes message boards weren’t all that helpful……..

So I decided that it wasn’t worth the headaches and I reset it to factory settings after successfully moving my apps from Dahling to iTunes.

Resetting your ipod is a royal pain in the patookiss.

3.
I know I have mentioned on numerous occasions that I used to be heavily into scrap booking.

I have enough paper to last until, well until forever.

I have all the toys and tools a girl could possibly need.

And there in lies the problem. Or one of the problems.

I find that I have too much stuff. I can’t make a decision. I can’t get any scrapbooking done.

In fact, I don’t think I have done any scrapbooking for 6 months. I go down there. I look at it. I move some stuff around. And then I go and find something else to do because I get overwhelmed.

To be perfectly honest part of my problem is also my perfectionism. And wanting to lay out the “perfect page” and have the whole book be something that people “ooooo” and “Ahhhh” over.

So this coming week I am making some major “scrapbook materials” decisions. I will tell you all about it in a longer post.

I hate making these decisions!!!

4.
Oh man I am in the midst of a creative fire storm.

Sometimes it just comes on me with a wooosh. Sort of like a hot flash only with something good at the end.

And when I get into one of those moods and I have an idea that I want to execute then it is sometimes hard to reign myself in. I want to go and get all the materials necessary

RIGHT NOW.

I don’t care what it costs. I must complete my mission.

And then I get a hold of myself.

These are some of the necessary items for my project. Plain old tee shirts.

And I had to buy a new set of knitting needles.

Oh. Darn.

I will take pictures of the process and tell you what I am going to be knitting using tee shirts….

If it turns out even half way cute.

Thank goodness that it is garage sale time because that is the only way that I could afford to buy a boat load of used tee shirts for a reasonable price.

5.
My Spring nemesis is here…..

The Mulch

8 yards of it to be exact.

It is sitting there, waiting and waiting for me to start.

Now if it would just get a bit warmer and stop raining.

6.
I am continuing in my search for the perfect granola bar recipe.

And I have still not been successful.

I tried another recipe yesterday. On paper it sounded good. And people raved about it. I mean who couldn’t love something that had coconut, almonds and mini chocolate chips in it.

And they are good don’t get me wrong. But there is just one little problem. They don’t want to hold their shape. I made them and left them in the frig for the designated length of time but when I went to cut them they sort of disintegrated into little chunks. Lovely delicious little chunks but they are not the bars I was promised.

Maybe I am going about this the wrong way. Perhaps I should be developing my own recipe for Granola Lumps not Granola bars.

Hmmmmmm. Something to think about.

7.
Short garden update.

The peas are up. The lettuce is up. The spinach is making an appearance.

Broccoli plants are going in the ground today.

And we are planting another container of potatoes. But LaurenLeap and her dad aren’t making another tower. We are going to try something called Potato Grow Bags. Not these particular ones but something that we found locally.

I will let you know how it goes.

And of course there will be pictures.

There Were Signs All Along The Way

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:58:00 +0000

Even at an early age we knew that Cartoon Girl had some talent.

I believe that she is wearing the “dinosaur shorts” that I made her. At least that is what I am guessing.

Tee-ball was not the ideal activity for Cartoon Girl. She tended to stand there and stare off into space, contemplating the universe.

If you told her to play 2nd base, she “became” the base.

Immovable.

She a MUCH MUCH better illustrator than she was a tee-ball player.

Thank goodness.

Putting the Cart Before The Horse

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:40:00 +0000

Sometimes I just get excited about something that I have created for someone.

And then I forget things.

A box.

A box that is all prepared for mailing.

And in the box is a gift. A gift for Molly, the newest member of our clan. Something that I knit for her…even though her grandma is a MUCH better knitter than I am and I am sure that she will knit something fabulous. I have seen Joan’s knitting. She is good.

I carefully wrapped the gift. And then realized that I had wrapped the card IN the gift. SO I unwrapped the gift, retrieved the card, rewrapped the gift and got the box all ready to go to the Post Office.

And then I realized.

I had not taken a picture of the Finished Object.

DANG IT!!!!

I know, I know, it seems unusual to take a picture of a gift before you give it to someone. But if you are a knitter you will understand.

I have to have a picture of the “FO” because I have to list it on my Projects page on Ravelry. I can list it without a pictures. I have done that before when I forget to take a picture and then send the knitting off to someone else. But if I forget to take a picture then I have to put up this picture…..

But I try to avoid that if I can. Knitters like to see pictures of what others have done. It helps us visualize what the project might look like before we embark upon the whole pointy sticks and string thing. And part of the fun of knitting is showing your FOs off to other knitters and having them tell you that you are a fabulous knitter.

I will take all the affirmation that I can get.

And so…..

I had to unwrap the well prepared box. And not only did I have to open the box up but I had to unwrap the entire package, trying not to rip the wrapping paper and the tissue paper AGAIN.

But it was worth it.

And because I have to have ultimate control I always stick in a little card with “care instructions”. And I have suddenly realized that there is a typo on the card.

Do not send me a message to tell me that it is there. I can see it.

And I am NOT reprinting it and opening the package and unwrapping and rewrapping and retaping the box.

Not. Gonna. Do. It. Molly’s parents will just have to forgive my inability to spell a very simple word.

Sigh.

I loved knitting this sweater. LovedLovedLoved.

I want to knit it again.

Can someone have a girl baby so I can knit this sweater again?

And hopefully the next time I knit a gift I will remember to take pictures of it BEFORE I wrap it up and get it ready to mail.

A girl can dream can’t she.

I Feel So HEALTHY!

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:12:00 +0000

I could leap tall buildings in a single bound!

I could spread 10 yards of mulch in the morning.

I just feel so healthy.

Why you may be asking yourself. You were weren’t you. Well I am going to tell you.

On Thursday afternoon a box arrived here at Chez Knit.

OOOOOOO I love mystery boxes. This was the “Hypothetical Package That Might Be Arriving”. I had been instructed a few days before it’s arrival that I would need to be home close to the time of it’s arrival because it was perishable. That is if there was actually a package that would be arriving. A hypothetical package.

No letting it sit out on the front step for a day.

No letting it hang around in the garage for an afternoon.

Nope, I had to come home, open the box and then refrigerate whatever was in there RIGHT AWAY.

ASAP.

QUICKLY.

Open up the box and whatever was in there was encased in it’s own cocoon of coolness. If this was a horror movie then the package would have been quivering and throbbing.

You know, that last sentence sounded a bit too “Harlequin Romance Novel” for my taste.

But I digress.

What is in there!!!!

Oh be still my juicy beating heart. Fresh juices made the day before and sent directly to my doorstep by a thoughtful person (Cartoon Girl).

I probably should tell you that Cartoon Girl works for a company called Cooler Cleanse. I am going to let you just wander around the site to see all that is there. But if you have looked at the picture above you will realize that they produce fresh juices for your health.

And I do mean fresh.

These beauties arrived on my door on Thursday around noon. They had been produced the day before by the hard working kitchen staff and then sent out with their own freezer packs to keep them lovely and cool.

Cartoon Girl had been after me for a while to try some of the juices that Cooler Cleanse produces. She finally got tired of bugging me about it and just took the bull by the horns so to speak and sent me a healthy box.

It even has a heart on it! And there was a lovely card inside written by Cartoon Girl herself.

Now the thing is, these juices are FRESH. And need to be consumed within three days. And so that is what we have been doing.

Drinking juices.

I have consumed more juice in the last three days than I had in the three months before. I am not a huge juice drinker. Unless someone would come to my house every morning and squeezes me some orange juice fresh. Then I will drink juice.

I will say that there were some that I liked more than others. In no particular order of preference we received: Grapefruit, Kale & Co., Carrot Apple, Pear Mint, Apple Lemon Ginger and Green Leaf.

I uniformly liked any of the juices that were heavily fruit based. The Grapefruit was definitely my favorite (it was a wrench to leave any for HHBL) with the Pear Mint a close second. The Carrot Apple was very carroty and appley in a good way. It sort of reminded me of a carrot apple salad that I was particularly fond of growing up, only in liquid form. And the Apple Lemon Ginger was a very interesting mix. Very gingery which I like.

And then there were the green juices.

I had a few reservations there. The Kale & Co actually tastes good, I like kale. But I had a bit of difficulty with the liquid nature of it. And it was green. I generally try to avoid drinking things that are green. It brings back memories of water skiing in a lake that was filled with algae.

And did I mention that it was green.

I would sort of liken the experience of the green juices as liquid salad minus the salad dressing. Very fresh. An interesting mix of flavors. And green.

I should probably confess that on the day the very healthy and good for me box of juices arrived…….

I had gone through the drive through at Wendy’s.

My bad.

Thank goodness all the lovely juices from Cooler Cleanse OBVIOUSLY wiped out any bad influences from the Jr. Cheeseburger, fries and small Coke.

Obviously.

This is NOT a paid endorsement for Cooler Cleanse. I just really enjoyed their juices.

I wish I had another bottle of the Grapefruit.

And that Pineapple Kiwi looked pretty good to.

Not that I am suggesting anything.

Because I am not.

Really.

7 Quick Takes (Vol 161)

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:27:00 +0000

Here we are again. Gathered together to marvel at the boring chapters of my life. You know the deal. After you have committed my blatherings to memory you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of the rapidly advancing weed infestation in the lower flower beds, over to Conversion Diary to see what everyone else has been doing.

Let us blather together!

1.
The “tweaking” of iTunes continues here at Chez Knit. Apparently I have no life. Or I am just willing to spend hours upon hours rearranging and playing with and doodling with my iTunes.

The latest “project” is dealing with all of the CDs that HHBL and I have accumulated over the years.

And there are A LOT of CDs. And I thought, wrongly I might add, that they were all in either his iTunes or mine. Somehow, and I am not sure how, I have found a boat load of CDs that are not in my iTunes.

I think that at one point I deleted some music because I was running a tad short of space on the hard drive of the old computer. That is the only explanation that I have. I bought these CDs. Some of them I liked a great deal.

So I am re-loading music that I loaded once before.

I so love repeating work that I have already done.

NOT.

2.
Can you guess what this is?

No, it is not a compost bin, although it sort of looks like one.

This is what Lookleap and I planted in it yesterday…..

Potatoes!!!

Yes, that is our “Potato Tower”. Remember, gardening is all about experimentation and this is one of our experiments for the year.

We had actually thought about having more that one tower but they are a pain to build, especially with pallet lumber, so we are just doing one to see if we like the results.

I didn’t really participate at all in the building of the tower. That was LookLeap and her dad so all the credit goes to them. I just employed my electric drill to screw on some boards.

Thank you LookLeap and Garden Dad for all the hard work!!

3.
And continuing on with the general garden theme.

I am one gigantic mass of aching muscles right now. Between the work at the Community Garden and the work at home at the moment I am living on ibuprophen.

And I am ordering a big mass of mulch today….which I then have to spread.

Oh my aching 52 year old body.

But I just love how everything will look when I am done. And I know that all the hard work now means that I don’t have to work as hard later and can just sit in the back garden in peace and serenity.

But OH my aching back….and wrists…..and hands.

4.
I had fully intended to do an entire post, certainly with better pictures, on making corned beef from scratch. And I may do that the next time I produce this most excellent dish. But this time you just get a picture and me extolling the virtues of home cured corned beef.

Holy Succulent Sandwiches Batman!!!

This was dinner last night. Corned beef and Swiss cheese with homemade Thousand Island Dressing. Technically a Reuben, only without the sauerkraut. HHBL isn’t fond of sauerkraut (I love it) so I just left that off this time.

And I couldn’t find my bottle of sauerkraut in the pantry so I really didn’t have a choice. I cannot figure out where that bottle went. I will probably find it when it explodes on one of the back shelves.

This sandwich was unbelievably good. I can tell you that I am never going to buy Corned Beef in those plastic packages from the store ever again. This really was an easy, if time consuming, thing to do. But really not all that time consuming because most of the time the brisket is just sitting in the brine in the refrigerator. You only have a bit to do at the beginning and the end of the process. Seven days it sits in it’s brine, making magic. And then it is cooked for 3-4 hours. Succulent, just the right level of “corned”. You can really taste the cinnamon that was in the pickling spice (which I also mixed up myself). Just a hint of ginger.

Thank you Michael Ruhlman for lighting the corned beef path for me.

I am having some for breakfast.

5.
Cartoon Girl sent us a package this week. I will give you the full scoop on Monday after HHBL and I have spent the weekend “taste testing”. But this is what arrived on my doorstep yesterday in it’s own little wrapping with cooler packs all around it.

Six containers of totally fresh, made on Wednesday without preservatives, juices from the company that Cartoon Girl works for. HHBL snagged the “Apple Lemon Ginger” one to take to work today.

And I have been told by those in the know that the “Green Leaf” juice tastes like liquid salad.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

I personally am about to crack open the “Grapefruit” bottle.

6.
In the continuing vein of cleaning out I am going through a bunch of my older and mostly unused cook books, looking at the recipes, deciding which ones I might want to make, scanning said recipe, and then donating the actual book to the library.

I have a lot of cookbooks. Not as many as Mimi or The Chef but still a bunch.

And I love reading cookbooks. But I can tell you that I have found a couple of dated “stinkers” in the collection. I have also come across some really fabulous recipes that I am going to put into “rotation”.

7.
This last Quick Take is probably going to make sense only to knitters who happen to be on Ravelry. If you are on Ravelry come and find me. I am 4Bookworm.

But I digress.

This year is the London Olympics. 15 days filled with competition and sweat and blood and agony, yarn, competition, victory and the agony of defeat.

Did you say “yarn”? I don’t remember anything in the Olympics that has anything to do with yarn.

Why yes I did say yarn.

And knitting.

Yes, it is time for RAVELYMPICS! That biennial event where knitters compete in categories such as “Sock Put” or perhaps “Shawl Relay” or “Cable Steeplechase”. We have our team set up but now is the decision as to what to make. Of course I will be participating in the “Sock Put”, that is a given. But I am also contemplating a hairy, audacious lace project.

What to do. What to do.

Not that I am competitive or anything.

Easter, A Bit Late.

noreply@blogger.com (Debbie) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:43:00 +0000

Yes, I know I am a bit late with this post.

Easter has come and gone. The Easter candy is but a distant memory on the lips and forever on the hips.

And I was going to talk about Corned Beef today. Because I made some…..

Totally from scratch.

And it is AWESOME.

But that will be for another day. What I wanted to show you was the pictures of Easter Sunday. Because I know you are dying to know what we did. And of course you want to know about the Easter Monkey.

We had the privilege of going to church on Easter with TMO and TSiL. And it was a boat load of fun and good times and fabulous hymns and……I just love Church of the Resurrection.

Easter services for Church of the Rez are held at Edmond Chapel on the Wheaton College campus. You really can’t get a sense of how big The Resurrected Christ banner is. Take a look at the size of the people in the picture. Yeah, it is big. And totally amazing.

This kid was seriously cute. And took his shades very seriously as well.

I put away my camera when the service started as was appropriate. No need to take pictures during the Easter morning service AND sometimes I just have to step away from the lens so that I don’t miss anything. I can get caught up in making sure I get just the right picture and I miss the “bigger picture” if you know what I mean.

But after the service and a short chat with Father Stewart AND being given the bestest insulated coffee mug because we were visiting it was out to the courtyard to see the Easter Monkey.

What? You haven’t heard of the Easter Monkey? He is the lesser known cousin of the Easter Bunny. You know the Easter Bunny can’t make it everywhere. If he is over scheduled he calls his Cuz.

Unfortunately the Easter Monkey doesn’t have quite as sunny a personality as his more famous cousin.

And he tends to sit on people’s shoulders and chatter away at passersby. Forgetting all about the whole Easter Egg business. And chocolate bunnies. And jelly beans.

But he still has a certain appeal for children……

And adults with a new lens on their camera.

There were BROWNIES!!! And coffee too. You know it is a good party when there are brownies and coffee.

There was also an appearance of the Easter Cockatoo. Another lesser known, but much more colorful cousin of the Easter Bunny.

Do you know that the Tooth Fairy has a brother? Yes, he does. It is the Tooth Elephant. He takes care of the overflow, sneaking in on his little elephant toes and putting money under your pillow. Occasionally he is late, due to his more substantial nature, but he always gets the job done in the end.

Hmmmmm? You don’t believe me. Shows how much you know. The Tooth Elephant always seemed to show up at Chez Knit.

But I digress.

There was enthusiastic dancing to fiddle music.

And then there were the children in their Easter Best.

Oh be still my beating heart. Don’t you just want to squeeze those chubby little cheeks!!

I am a sucker for little boys in seer sucker shorts and saddle shoes. And a TIE!

I am slayed.

I have no words. A little boy in a gray suit with shorts and RED socks?

Oh help me I want grandchildren.

And that was my Easter Sunday morning.