Happy Valentine's Day!!

Here's sending good thoughts to everyone for a very happy Valentine's Day!

(Thanks to David Malki at www.wondermark.com for the valentine image. Do go over and check out his pseudo-Victorian-engraving webcomics!)

Tap, Tap, Tap...

...is this thing still on?

Yes? Good.

So much for good intentions for posting every day, huh? I think I'll call January a loss and try again in February. NaBloPoMo has a neat theme for February: "want." So maybe I'll be able to explore that.

January has been one of those months that has been so up and down, I'm still trying to process it all. I think one of the reasons I've had "blog block" is that I wanted to do a post to honor my friend Dinah, who passed away this month, and it's been hard. How do you sum up almost 40 years of friendship in a meaningful way?

I've also been sick. Really truly awfully sick, to the point that I wasn't well enough to make the trek to Vegas for "the" baby shower last weekend. More about that later. The up side to it all is that I have finally recovered and it was truly amazing on Monday to find that I actually feel "good" as opposed to just dragging myself around. It's quite amazing!

Today is #1 Grandson's 21st birthday. Just in case I wasn't feeling "elderly" enough with a great-grandchild on the way, now I have a grandson who's "legal."

So, okay. I'm back to blogging. Let's hope I can keep it up! I've got a couple of pieces of unfinished "blog business" that I'll try to catch up on the next couple of days, and then we'll see what happens with "want"ing to do better!

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas...

... the Three Kings finally made it to the stable! We have a family tradition where the manger gets set up, minus the Baby Jesus (he shows up at midnight or so on Christmas morning, if we remember where we hid him) and the Kings travel all over the living room. They usually go across the mantel, over the windowsills, and finally get to the stable about the time the tree is gone and the rest of the room is cleared of most vestiges of Christmas. Well, not this year. It's been a bit busy and both D4 and I have been hacking and coughing so things are moving a little slowly.

However, I have managed a few things. My square for the Ships Project afghan is in the mail, and my Special Olympics scarf is done and ready to mail in the morning.

As far as floozy casting on, well, I got one thing started tonight while watching the first episode of the new season of Biggest Loser. This:

It's two colors of Encore Colorspun, Mistake Rib pattern, pretty fast and easy so maybe it will get done quickly.

I'm t hinking seriously of ripping out the basketweave scarf I started earlier in this Flooze-along, and redoing it in this pattern. I'll have to sleep on it, though, and maybe take soundings from the rest of the OOPs floozies.

Happy Twelfth Night (even though I'm posting this after midnight, so technically it's over. Pfffttt!).

On the Tenth Day of Christmas...

...we worked on taking down the Christmas tree, and cleaning up around the place.

Hi-Hi helped. Being his typical modest self, he didn't want to be shown packing ornaments or taking down lights, so he ducked the camera.

Oh well. He's still pretty!

Simon helped too. Simon's idea of helpful is to stay out of the way, thus avoiding being stepped on. He did, however, convince me that it's a good idea to leave the shredder unplugged. No, he didn't get shredded, nor did he get tail fur caught in the blades (again). He just jumped off the computer table, and turned it on, once again.

No more of that. So here he is, being helpful in his own way.

The pillows and afghan are a present from D4. I'm thinking they are going to stay around for a while longer, since they are really more "winter" than "Christmas."

Right?

I was a bad floozy today, didn't cast on anything or even wind any yarn. I'll try to make up for lost time tomorrow, though, since it will be back to work and back to chasing Li'l Missy A around. The segue to that is that once I've done that, I'll be ready for some good couch time.

Besides, there's a new season of The Bachelor starting. Talk about a cheese and whine fest! Oh yes, there will be good TV this week--new season of The Biggest Loser starts on Tuesday (thank you, DVR, for making it possible for me to watch it even though I'll be teaching that night!) and we've already started the Miss America reality show. These are perfect knitting shows--they capture that percentage of brain that isn't engaged in the knitting, so I can sit still and get lots done!

It's Contagious!

ATTENTION: There are SPOILERS below, so if you're in either the Year of Lace or Big Ass Yarn Club, and haven't gotten your Dec. package yet, and don't want to see what it is, DON'T LOOK !!!

Looks like there's another blogger in the family! This time, it's D1's sister-in-law, Pam, who lives in Washington. She's started a blog for her family news and is currently showcasing some of the wonderful photos taken by her daughter Catlyn. Check her out: Pam's Blog is here.

Also contagious is the Floozy Cast-On for this week! Here's my latest project:



and... a closeup of the project! Yes, this is the Totally Autumn pattern from Knitty, which I had started in a pretty lavender Lullabye from Lotus Yarns. It just wasn't working--the pattern and the yarn clashed too badly so it was frogged. Sigh. At least I was able to reclaim the yarn, and now I've cast this on in a different and I think more appropriate yarn.

This, if you're a regular reader, you may remember as having arrived in a box as a tangled mess. Once it was untangled and wound into a nice ball, it was given to me! So I'm using it with this pattern, in one repeat's width, to make a scarf.

So far so good.

I'm halfway through the first repeat, and it's looking as if it will work very nicely with this yarn.


Okay, here's another project that has been malingering but which has a deadline. I need to finish this so it can get in the mail in the next couple of days, since it needs to be in Idaho by the 14th!!


The scarf is for the Special Olympics, and the organizers requested that everyone use the same yarn: Red Heart, in these two specific colors. I had high hopes, but this scarf has definitely been another one of those "learning curve" things.

Oh well. It will get done, and hopefully it will be well received and well loved.


Okay, here come the spoilers.

You are warned.

If you don't want the surprise spoiled, STOP HERE!



First up, the Winter shipment from Year of Lace. The yarn is a lovely very soft merino lace from Fireside Yarns, and the pattern is the Snowdrop Shawl from Nancy Bush.
I think it's going to be very pretty!

Secondly, here's the latest shipment from Melanie at Lotus Yarns, the current Big Ass Yarn Club yarn--a smooshy soft blend of Suri alpaca and merino in a colorway she calls Winter Garden. Love love love!

Okay, that's all the goodies for now. I'm off to get in some couch time and cast on some more projects. I also have located the swift, so if the mood to wind more yarn strikes, I'll be able to do that.

Mission Accomplished!

Herein the tale of a poor little square. Just a simple, 12" by 12" square, in a pretty off-white natural sheepy yarn. A square which proved to me, as if I needed proof, that I am not now and never will be anything but an amateur knitter!



Every year, the nice people of NETA gather for a spa weekend, during which they do a little fund-raising for the Ships Project. This is usually an afghan, made up of squares knitted by the members, joined at a "joining party" and then raffled off.



Well, I'm sure it's no secret that I really want to become a New Englander again someday, so what better way to find knitting buddies than by joining NETA?



And of course, if I'm going to belong, then I need to take part in at least some of the activities. Luckily, knitting a square is an easy one, since the yarn and directions get mailed out anyway so why not to California?

Well, apparently mehitabel in California is doomed this year. I did my square (not as early as I would have liked, but still, it was done) and I had enough yarn.

Then I blocked the puppy. Ummm... 9" x 12" isn't going to do it.
So I waffled, and thought, and finally, on Monday of this week, with the support of Ellen and KnitDevil, I frogged the poor thing. Yesterday, since it was the first day of a new year, and I was feeling horrid anyway, I cast on again, using bigger needles, fewer stitches, and a modification of the same pattern.

Have I mentioned doomed to failure? Part way through, my Bryspun needle came apart. I just picked up the piece to work back and whoops, here's a needle in my hand, and a half-unraveled mess in the other.

Yeah. Have I mentioned that this is not the first time this has happened to me with a Bryspun needle? The previous time was on a train speeding through France, with my Sea Silk Paris scarf on it.

However. I do own more needles, and while I couldn't find an exact match--seems a bamboo 10 and a Bryspun 10 are not the same millimeter match, or something--close enough. Got to the end of the square, started to bind off... 12 stitches from the end. Out of yarn.

Project got put into time-out for the night. This morning, time for some stash diving. Came up with a ball of what might be exactly the same yarn, except of course this wasn't pre-washed-and-blocked-and-then-unraveled.

Big sigh. I figured, at this point, close enough, right? So I undid the bindoff, knit one more row for good luck, and then bound off.

The square is now blocked out to 12" by 12" and is happily, I hope, drying on a winter towel.

I know, it looks awfully loosey-goosey, and I'm hoping that once it's dry it will fluff up a little more.

All I know is that it's going to be on its way to Mona as soon as it's dry enough to travel. Even if I have to take a hair dryer to it! I'm crossing my fingers that the nice folks at NETA will think it's good enough for the afghan.

First Day of the Year

Welcome, new year! It's been a quiet New Year's Day chez mehitabel, with both D4 and I barking at each other most of the day. We watched the Rose Parade on TV and sorta vegged out on the couch, watching a Biggest Loser marathon. To be exact, there were two of them today, one on Bravo and one on FLN, so for a while we were clicking back and forth between them. Then they kinda got themselves synchronized, and were showing commercials at the same time, so we settled on the FLN one since it was the most recent. We'd missed the last two episodes, so it was good to catch up.

Yes, I do like some reality TV shows. Not the "Real Housewives" kind of thing, but Biggest Loser, Dancing With the Stars, What Not to Wear, and all kinds of Food Network and HGTV stuff. Hey, the dish is new to us. We are still getting caught up on all this sort of thing!

If you want to see lots more adorable photos of Baby New Year, you can check out his mom & dad's Flickr page.

Hopefully, I will be able to update you all tomorrow on my progress on the Feel Like a Floozy knitalong my knit group is having this week. Right now, I'm retreating to the couch and the TV and my cough drops!

End of the Year

NOTE: Blogger is not letting me upload pictures right now. So there might be a picture post later, but I'm not going to let it stop me from posting. So there, Blogger!!

Last day of the year. It's certainly been a year of changes, of upheavals and disruptions and lots of new things! I was trying to decide if this post should be about the year just past, or if I should use it to look forward to the next year. 2009 certainly promises to have a lot of surprises, and if it follows true to form, not all of them will be pleasant.

And most of them will be things we as individuals have little or no control over. So here's my list of things I want to see happen over the next year, with a little rambling added for auld lang syne!

One of the things I need to get working on is finishing the organizing and setting up of the house. I know it would have been done a long time ago, had it not been for that last fall back in June, which messed me up in a lot of ways. Of course, that could just be a pipe dream; maybe it would still be in the same state it's in. So:

1. the office needs to be organized and set up so that we have a place to do bills, and mail, and use the computer for fun and "work" without blocking off the passageway and without having to spread everything out on the dining room table.

2. the sewing center needs to be set up and organized. This is going to involve organizing and going through both the fabric and yarn stashes, and the button stash as well. Oh yeah...the buttons. Let's not think about those just yet.

3. the garage needs to be organized and cleaned out, too. There are still a lot of boxes out there that have things in them that we're missing--like the platters to the daisy dishes. Twice now, we've had to improvise on carving and serving the turkey, because the platters are still packed. And the Geo. Foreman is still missing, too. As are the bulb and lamp for the floor lamp. My Ott lights work all right, but aesthetically? well, they don't exactly exude "Craftsman" ambience!

4. There's that extra 30 lbs. I'm lugging around. Yeah, it's time for it to go. Not sure how compatible that goal is with the FMS, but we'll have to see.

5. I'm needing to "get out" more, I think. Why do I sit at home, wishing I had a knitting group to go to, when there are groups meeting all over town if I'd just get up and go? Ditto the Friday night quilting. It will be nice to have my own place to sew, but it will be even better to have people to get together with and bounce ideas around with.

There. That's not such an imposing list, after all. I'm going to sign on for Mission: Possible 2009 (on Ravelry) and also take part in the Feel Like a Floozy GKA this week--not so incompatible, really. Casting on several projects is a good way to get started on winnowing down the stash. I just need to remember to "shop stash first" whether it's a quilt or a knitting project. Or crochet.

What's your take on the whole New Year process? Are you planning to do more/less/change? Inquiring minds want to know!

The Stockings Will Hang...

...assuming that I can locate the stocking board! This is an interesting affair that screws down to the top of the mantle, fitted with cup hooks so that we can hang stockings on it. One of my husband's creations from years ago. It was taken down for the renovation, and it's SOMEWHERE in the garage.

'Nuff said?

The tourtiere is baked and ready for dinner tonight. Yes, it looks mildly underdone--it will "finish" in the oven at D3's tonight. She's making a baked pasta dish, and D4 found a "Yule Log" cake which will stand in for a Buche de Noel.

Christmas Eve is going to be fun!

Then of course, there are t he breads for Christmas morning. D5 has offered to make chocolate-chip pancakes, and these are just the supplement. Lemon-poppyseed muffins and cranberry bread. Mmm! Pickles will go in t he fridge once the bird is out; the fixings for pumpkin pie are handy, and those will get made tonight.



Ah yes, there will be baking tonight! Might even have to whomp out a few cookies, although #2 sent us a nice box of assorted cookies and goodies.

My big sewing project--for someone who hasn't sewn much this year, these two were big projects, never mind that they are very quick and easy quilts!

Well, except for the snipping. And the washing. And washing. And washing.

Ragg quilts are made from squares of fabric, with or without batting in between. (Denim ones are too heavy to put batting in.)

So, the blue one with the vroom-vroom squares is for Nate; the pink one for Audrey.


They'll get wrapped and put under the tree, though of course the wee ones are a little too small to open the packages without help. I happen to know that there's a couple of mommies who LOVE opening packages!


Here's sending wishes for a happy and peaceful holiday for you, wherever you are, and lots of health and happiness in t he coming year!

That Time of Year

Little Missy was wearing her new sweater, and we thought it would be a good opportunity for a photo session.

Well, we got great pictures of Li'l Miss rolling around on the floor. She was not feeling very cooperative.

However, she was nice and warm when she went to the store with Mommy. So it's all good. After all, the sweater was made to keep her warm. And also look cute.

She's wearing some big-girl shoes in this picture. They seriously affect her walking--she's used to barefoot, or stocking feet. Big ol' heavy clunky shoes? Well, it takes more effort to pick up the feet in those. What does she know of "winter" and things like that?








I've set up part of my holiday village on the back part of the sink--the bar that extends into the back room. Tuesday night, I had the quilt class members over for a potluck. This display is called "camouflage" as it's designed to attract attention away from the room beyond.


Because, of course, that room is full of boxes. Including the 17 boxes of ornaments, lights, and assorted trimmings that came over from storage.

We aren't going to discuss storage right now. I was hoping to be able to empty the unit, but after looking at it the other day, well, I'd need to build on another whole garage to house it. I think I'll just wait a bit and go through it a bit at a time.

Let's just say, 17 bins of stuff filled the Explorer, and we did leave about the same amount there of Christmas trimmings. I think next year, maybe, come November I'll go through and pare down the collection.

Maybe. And maybe I'll once again be able to use it all.

Hey, you never know!

We do have a tree up, and it's decorated. Not as lavishly as when there were a lot more pairs of hands to do it, but it's looking good.

Some of the bubble lights even bubble. Some don't. No idea why!

Anyway, the potluck was a rousing success, at least from what I was told that night. Everyone came, we had 15 people sitting around the dining room table (3 of us on bar stools, but still...) and it didn't even have all its leaves in. It was nice to share the finished (sorta) house with the people who've heard me fussing and whining about it all year!


This is just a gratuious cute-baby picture. The Ds and my sis-in-law took me to The Melting Pot in Brea for a birthday lunch feast.

Li'l Miss came along--baby makes 6? She was really a very good girl, ate the things that were good for her and wasn't given more than a taste or two of chocolate...



D3 and SIL, aka KnittingTerror on Ravelry.



The next picture is D5, Li'l Miss, and D4.


Some birthday loot. Amazing, really. There were even cupcakes from my Sooper Sekrit Rubberswap partner. I feel very spoiled!



Christmas house. Doesn't look as good in the photo as in real life...well, okay, they're kind of Charlie Brown lights, but at least we tried. And they are rather festive.


And, finally, my "new" temporary sewing area. Gotta get those babies' quilts done in time for Christmas! Well, or shortly after...

Hey, why am I here writing? I need to be sewing...

Still Here!

Just been a little busy and a lot tired from all that effort getting rid of the remainder of the debris from the old pantry.

Took the trash guys a week to take it all, and there is still some left in the back. After the rain today, there will also be some soggy cardboard.

Some of the tired has to do with health issues--no big surprise, I'm anemic again. Low hemoglobin, very low iron saturation levels = a very low energy mehitabel. Not what I needed at this time of year, but paradoxically, just getting the diagnosis has lifted my spirits.

Otherwise, I just feel tired and draggy and lazy and good for nothing, and start worrying that I'm getting too old and maybe I'll never be able to do anything, ever again. Once I know there's a "real" cause for it, it removes all the self-flagellation. Or most of it, anyway.

So, I'm back to blogging, although this post may be truncated since I'm hearing little sounds that tell me that "someone" is awake and playing, and not napping.

I'll start with the quilts. These two finished tops were presented at the last class--Anne's is a "row robin" quilt that her mini-group has been working on all year. Basically, each person did one row and set the specs for her own quilt: Anne's was cats and brights, with black. After being passed around in a brown paper bag each month, the quilts have finally come home to the original owner, ready for backing and quilting and binding. You can see more of these at Amy's blog. Ummm, Flickr page!

Then there was the annual reunion of my "Nursery School Friends." No, we haven't been friends since we were in nursery school, although it does feel like it. Our kids were in nursery school together, and since it was a parent participation nursery school, we all worked together in the classroom and on the board.
Yeah, our "babies" are now in their late 30's/early 40's. But we've been getting together for lunches and dinners, and the kids' weddings too, all those years. Doesn't seem like it has been that long till we look at some of our earlier group pictures.

There is a fifth member of our little "posse" but she moved to Nevada a few years back, and isn't able to come out as often as we'd all like.

Speaking of friends from Nevada, my pal SH came out for a quick visit last week. We took a day trip down to Roger's Gardens in Newport Beach, which was great for getting us into the festive spirit.

I took a picture of these ornaments because they were so unusual, and also because as the proud possessor of many many MANY buttons, it seemed like a good way to use them. Now, these are not hanging ornaments--at all. They weigh a ton each.
(This is where I stopped and put up the post when it was time to come home. Sorry. Now to resume.)

Anyway, if I were going to make some of these, I'd use fancy buttons and probably figure out a way to wire them into a styrofoam ball. Since I couldn't even lift the largest of these--seriously, it was that heavy--I see no need to reproduce them exactly!

I've been trying to get into the holiday spirit. One room is almost ready, and with a little judicious camera-angling so you don't see the boxes in the closet--here's the guest room!

Yes, I do have two more panels to fill in that space in t he window--see the white blur on the dresser? That's them. Just need a little ladder or a tall person to fix it up.

But at least it looks festive and pretty in there! I figure that q uilt ought to be good at least through Valentine's Day, don't you think??


Finally, I had to take this shot of the sky out of the window of my truck. No, we were not moving, it was one of those days when traffic is stalled so at least I got something good out of it.

Even made it home, eventually. Today has been a rainy day and predictably the freeways are a mess. I did make a good choice, though, and took the 210 home since I needed to go to Target (no lights for the tree, oh noes!, and T. has t hem on clearance). Since the 10 flooded somewhere around Baldwin Park, traffic was backed up clear over Kellogg Hill. I would not have been happy about that, since apparently my truck's heater is on the fritz. One more thing to fix!

All right, now my intentions are good. I will blog again. Soon. Promise!!

and Anonymous, thank you for giving me a burr under the bustle...

Nov. 30--End of the Line

Just in case you wondered what a dismantled old pantry looks like, here it is!

The boxes are what was inside of it...well, some of it, anyway. A lot of it got tossed. I mean, do we think that 20-year-old shoe polish and fertilizer are still good?

If you think so, you're welcome to come rummage in my trash cans and fish it out. I'm getting so good at this tossing stuff!

I tossed all the old baby food jars with the rusted lids.

I tossed all the plastic flowerpots--the ones that were almost crumbling with age and decrepitude.

Tossed the rusty coffee can that was filled with filthy clothespins, too.

Tossed the rusty lunch pails. Bye, Holly Hobbie!

Tossed the filthy fishbowl, too. No fish for you!

The boxes of jars are going to go to the curb on Tuesday night, along with all those boards. If anyone wants to salvage them, more power to them.




I'm not gonna do it!

We did keep the sprayer and the liquid-fertilizer/bug spray bottles. They might still work.

Kept the Christmas trees, too, including the 7-footer that I wasn't sure about keeping. Turns out, D4 thinks she can make it work. We'll see. I'm game if she is!

Yeah, look at all that. And I was told the cabinet was empty...

Nov. 30--and this is #27!

Don't see how I can possibly do 4 posts today, so I guess I'm going to have to give myself a big fat F for this month's NaBloPoMo. Sigh. Well, I had good intentions, and you know what those are good for.

Today is turning out to be a working day: I have a friend over w ho is tearing out an old cupboard. This monster was, once upon a time, the "pantry" adjacent to the kitchen. It is definitely a home-made, kluged-together thing, with doors that both swing in the same direction. It's almost 8 feet tall. We had it moved to the garage when we did the addition to the house--that was back in, wait for it, 1983.

It became a "garage storage" cabinet, filled with all kinds of detritus and miscellaneous garden stuff. All the poisons, for instance, lived in there--in '83 we still had a 5 and a 7 year old. I haven't had the nerve to crack open the door to this thing for years--ever since the day I opened it, found myself nose to nose with a huge rat, and slammed it shut.

Anyway, D4 and I decided that it made no sense to keep the space filled with a big old hulking thing that we wouldn't use, so it got slated for demolition. The only hitch is that she had told me it was empty--that "the guys" had taken everything out of it when we did the big garage cleanout. Hah! So B. has been emptying it, and has made a lovely big pile of stuff that I need to sort through (again? what's with all this decision-making anyway?) and toss or keep. Most of it will be toss, but some might just go onthe curb to see if anyone wants to recycle it. Tons of glass jars--baby food jars! Have I mentioned that my "baby" just turned **cough** over 30??

Maybe I'll try to get a couple of pictures of this stuff, just so you can feel the proper amount of sympathy for me. And especially for B. He, after all, has been festooned with spiderwebs most of the afternoon.

Why yes, when he's done, I will definitely buy him a steak dinner! After, of course, he showers...

Nov. 29--Almost December!

My current project. Must get this square done, and washed and blocked and in the mail ASAP.

It's for an "opportunity afghan" for NETA, to benefit the Ships Project. Hence the anchor motif.

I did this pattern once before, on the front of a little jumper for D1 back when she was about 4. It was wool, fisherman yarn (the itchy kind), and I did one repeat of the anchor with little cables running up each side. I'll have to see if my stitch count on this project will let me add some 4-stitch cables on the side...would be kind of nifty!


One of the nice things about rain is the spectacular sky effects you get afterwards. I took these shots to try to capture the glow of sun behind thunderheads.

The camera didn't get the glow the way I would have liked it to, but all in all these came out better than they could have.

Nov. 28...Post-Thanksgiving Wrapup

Well, some would say the star of the day was the food. I didn't get a good picture of the turkey, although there are lots of other pictures of food up on my Flickr page. (Or there will be as soon as I upload them. Patience, hoppergrasser!)

This is a close-up of this year's innovation. D4 decided, at some point this year, that a potato ricer would be a good thing to have. On a quickie trip to Williams Sonoma, which actually turned out to be not so quick, we found this model. Some deliberating and testing later, it followed us home.

Along with an apple corer (for apple pie, of course) and the acorn cakelet pan. So Thanksgiving proved to be the perfect time to try out all three.
Riced potatoes are smoother and less lumpy than mashed, and with a firmer consistency. There is also the option to incorporate copious amounts of butter, cream, and other delicious additions.


The apple pie was a masterpiece. It was juicy and delicious and is now all gone. She found a recipe in an old Cook's Illustrated for a sour cream pie crust, which she loves to make. In the food processor. Speaking of which, I was trying to figure out how long I've had mine. It's a Cuisinart DLC 7, and it's at least 25 years old--I bought it back when that was a real investment, but it certainly has been a trouper. I replaced the work bowl a few years back--it had cracked and while it still worked, it seemed like it would be a good thing to be cautious about, since t here's a lot of power in that motor. It's also on its second knife blade. But the motor is still peppy and the machine itself still gets plenty of use. I really do believe in getting GOOD tools and taking care of them--my Kitchen-Aid mixer is 23 years old and not so very different from D4's much newer one. Well, okay, hers is red and mine is basic white... and yes, both of them live on our kitchen counter and both get used.

Naters was letting the world know through his T-shirt that this was his very first Thanksgiving! He's one of the reasons we're all thankful this year!
On the other hand, his brother was introduced to a long-standing family tradition: the olive-on-the-finger. The Little Jack Horner updated, so to speak. He also showed a great deal of style in the snitch-the-little-tomato activity, too.

And the hostess with the mostest, after a long hard day of being adorable, bid us all a good night.

Wayyyyy past her usual bedtime!

But oh, did she ever love helping Grandma whip the cream--licking the beater was at least as much fun as birthday cake!

Here's hoping your Thanksgiving was as much fun as ours was!

Nov. 27--Happy Thanksgiving Day!

This came to my phone early this morning: our favorite Eager Eater, prepping for the feast to come!

Here's sending you wishes for a happy and fulfilling day with all the ones you hold most dear!

We'll be gathering with the "locals" and hopefully touching base with the rest of the family that's scattered around the country. With any luck, when I get back home tonight (we're getting together at D5's with her husband's family as well) I'll have more pictures and more reports. In the meantime, like little Nate, remember that good things are worth waiting for!

Nov. 26...Life in the Cat Zone

There is something irresistible to a cat about new things. Simon is no exception.

He's not really lapping at the marshmallows in my cup of cocoa, it just looks that way. He decided after a few (very loud) sniffs that this was, in fact, not a cat beverage. He's now curled up an inch away from the cup, probably just enjoying the warmth.

Yes, we still have no heat. Not that we really need it right now--at the moment, it's 65 degrees and raining--but it might be nice to have if the temps drop to the predicted 50 tonight.

I can hear everyone out there who lives in Snow Country (or just Cold Country) snickering. Yes, I mean you, Seattle Marie, and Sheepish Annie too.

Simon also likes to be helpful in other ways. Most especially, he loves to help D4 with her projects, since s he's the one who proclaims that he's "not a real cat" and that he's a "fluffy ruffle cat." "Real" cats are like Padua, rough, tough, screen-door-demolishing grumpycats, apparently.

Simon thinks any puzzle is improved by the addition of cat hair and the removal of superfluous pieces.


Last night, after class, I was all prepared to write a really interesting blog post. I was going to discuss quilts, and quilt classes, and what kind of fun stuff goes on there. Well, the plans got changed.

I noticed immediately when I turned onto my street that there was something different--no streetlights. No lights in the houses, either. Except for my car's headlights, it was quite dark.

Not sure what caused the outage, but it was definitely "lights out" in the ol' neighborhood. I arrived home to find D4 lighting candles.

Yes, she who had made fun of my candelabra, and my fondness for candlelight, was taking advantage of the non-electric variety of light.

The fire in the fireplace looks a little less cozy by camera-flash light, but let's just say it was a nice warm glow.

And the candles gave plenty of light to see by.

It would all have had a lovely 19th-century ambience, except for a few modern touches. Like cell phones, which allowed me to get text messages from my friend in Las Vegas, who was able to tell me why our power was out. (Substation in Pico Rivera offline, stolen ground wires. Some thieves really need to get caught and punished! Well, they all do. But these in particular!)

And of course, since there was no power, there was no Tivo recording our two favorite Tuesday night shows. I mean, how could I go to bed without knowing who won Dancing With the Stars?? Vegas Buddy to the rescue! He also remembered where the flashlight was--duh.

So there was the fun of opening a wine bottle by flashlight, and then sipping wine while reading in bed, also by flashlight, which is not nearly as much fun as it's cracked up to be. And then, at 3 am or thereabouts, when the power was restored, my room was lit up like a summer morning, since I'd left the lamp on when I left for the shop.

And that lovely post about quilting? Well, it's gone. Sigh. Maybe there will be some knitting soon though.

Oh, one last thing. This was a "trial run" for tomorrow's festivities--little bitty corn muffins shaped like acorns. The pan is from Williams-Sonoma and the acornlets are just as cute as they can be.

If you'll excuse me now, I need to go help "s0meone" get marshmallow off his whiskers...