(Huge Sigh of Relief) Finally Finished

Okay self, repeat after me:

I do solemnly swear that I will never attempt to knit another pair of socks with a yarn weight of less than DK. So help me (insert whatever deity you worship here).

Egad.

After looking at poor little sock #1 for about a week, I cleared the decks and did nothing except knit for four days when I had extra time. I knew that if I didn’t get it done soon, poor little sock #1 would be an orphan.

I now have a great pair of socks in a colorway that I love, and two thumbs that are swearing at me as I speak write this post. I think because the yarn was so thin, I was death gripping the needles in order to control it. Doesn’t matter — I won’t be making another pair. But here they are…….

And also here….. The color is a little freaky in this pic. The colors in the pic above are more accurate.

Unconscious Mutterings #276

1. Track ::meet
2. Snake ::in the grass
3. Assignment ::notebook (loved those when I was a kid in school)
4. Blockbuster ::Video
5. Bombastic ::a speaker/writer too full of themselves
6. Adventure ::nothing comes to mind, so I guess I probably need one in my life
7. First time ::every time (it’s from a commercial of some sort but I can’t remember what it was for.
8. Aged ::cheese or wine or my back
9. Grip ::get a (get a grip, get it?)
10. Shortcut ::desktop or a quick way to get to Grandma’s house through the woods

Ten On Tuesday — 10 Places You’d Love to Travel To (That You Haven’t Gone to Yet)

1. Scotland — specifically, a town by the name of Paisley. I understand that’s where all of my McGibbon ancestors hail from.
2. Zion National Park — I have friends that are going there this fall and I am SOOOOOOO envious.
3. Banff National Park in Alberta.  I’d like to go around the time of the summer solstice — I understand  that it’s still light out at 11:00 PM around that time of the year.
4. Chaco Canyon in New Mexico — we’ve made two trips to NM and managed to miss Chaco both times.
5. Yorkshire in northern England — I’ve always been a big James Herriott fan and would love to see the area that he wrote about.
6. A walking tour of the  rest of England, too — the Cotswolds would be wonderful to see — and I understand that it’s perfectly fine to walk across anybody’s lawns and/or land.
7. Anne of Green Gables backdrop of Prince Edward Island.
8. Can I please go back to Niagara Falls? No? Okay, how about the Mayan ruins in Mexico then. I watched “Cracking the Mayan Code” on PBS awhile back and even though they seem to be a most bloody and cruel bunch, I’d like to see the pyramids and glyphs. It was such an interesting story.
9. Tuscany.  Ahhhh!!!
10. Nashville, TN — I’m a country girl way down deep.

Photo Hunt #108: Time

Sorry it took so long to get this post up. When I read the prompt, I knew exactly the picture that I wanted but it took awhile to find it. Here it is.

This a picture of my grandparent’s 45th wedding anniversary, which I think was around 1967 or so. I’m glad they had this party because my grandfather died before their fiftieth. The resolution isn’t great, but hey, it’s an old picture after all.

Do you see the clock on the wall? Grandpa said it was a 31 day clock. It bonged on the hour and half hour. There were numbers around the edge of the clock counting off the days of the month. As I recall, the pendulum was gold colored and had a round pattern on it.

The story of how he got the clock — the barbershop Grandpa frequented was in Fort Covington, a little town a few miles down the road. There were two barbers — one loved the clock and wouldn’t part with it, the other hated it and would sell it in a New York minute. Grandpa waited until the clock-hater was there alone and bought it from him for a minuscule amount of money. He was a savvy old Scot, let me tell you.

Unconscious Mutterings #275

1. State :: of grace
2. Lively :: Light & (yogurt)
3. Valet :: parking
4. Traction :: one of those neck contraptions
5. Official :: time keeper
6. Red hot :: chili peppers
7. Powder :: Puff Derby
8. Replies :: email
9. Flagrant :: scandalous
10. Tweet :: -y bird (get it?)

Blog Talkers #71

Story time …

What book is on your nightstand now? Tell us about it, post a blurb. If you’re reading it, do you like it? If you haven’t started, what are your expectations? Would you recommend it to a good friend? What type of stories do you like to read the most often? Why?

Well, first of all, I don’t have a nightstand, so I will tell you what book I have on my desk in the kitchen.

I recently purchased The Wrinkle In Time Quintet Boxed Set. I never had my own copy of Wrinkle in Time, although I had probably read it 15 times over the years from different libraries and always meant to read the rest of the Murry family set. So far, I have been able to read the first 5 or ten pages of Wrinkle before my daughter borrowed it, then Sweet Baboo started reading it, then a lady at work wants to read it. And on it goes. Oh well, after forty some years, a few more days won’t matter, eh?

My tastes in reading have changed in the last few years. I used to be a real big Stephen King fan, also Dean Koontz with a bit of Robin Cook tossed in. Then I turned to self help books for a time, “bodice ripping” romance novels, time travel romance, (check out Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series) and now to more contemporary fiction authors.

Right now, aside from my side trip that I am taking with my childhood books, I am enjoying fictional stories about women of a certain age, since I am now that certain age. The Red Hat stories (Haywood Smith) are a hoot, Janice Kaplan (check out “Mine Are Spectacular”), plus others make me feel that I am not alone in this part of my ever changing life. I also have to say, I used to read to broaden my views and improve my mind. Now, I read to be entertained. Listening to the evening news is disturbing enough, give me a good humorous book to read instead.

St. Patrick’s Day Cactus

This poor Christmas Cactus has no sense of what it is or when it’s supposed to bloom. It bloomed on/about Halloween, then again on/about mid March. Very pretty but obviously confused.

Here’s another pic of it from another angle. I’ve had this cactus about 15 years and the lady that I inherited it from said she had had it for about ten herself. I didn’t know a Christmas Cactus could live that long!!

It’s funny how their little minds work…..

One of GrandDolly’s new playthings are her Mr. Potato Heads.  She’s taken quite a liking to anything with a hole in it that she could shove a Potato Head part into.  Imagine my surprise the first time I found this stuck in my bathroom door knob.

When I take it out, she promptly finds it and puts it back in.  Not sure what the significance might be, but she likes it there.

Sunday Scribblings #108 — The Future of the Planet

I don’t have a particularly good feeling about our future. Everything in our society is speeding up faster and faster, and I don’t think we have a good handle on what to do with it.  Cell phones - computers - GPS units - we are overwhelmed by media blasting us from every direction and available to all by phone to all and sundry who want to reach us. We have a sense of entitlement that was unheard of fifty years ago. We have no manners, and we are extremely sociopathic, caring nothing for anyone or anything other than ourselves.

Okay, not everybody is like that. And I only mention it because I think this “I just don’t care” attitude is part of our society’s downfall. Of course, there are many people that mind their own business and life their lives in a good way, but you don’t hear about them.  When was the last time you heard anything positive on the news? If I hear two stories of happiness in a month, it’s been a good month in my book. Blood, gore, and violence = ratings. Bah.

But that doesn’t explain my bad feeling.

Unless you live under a rock (and lucky you if you do) you know about global warming, air pollution, water shortages and water pollution, over fishing the oceans, animal extinction due to habitats evaporating, etc, etc, etc. We have been warned by numerous experts that we are on the road to hell and will have no one but ourselves to blame when we get there.

In contrast, we have too few people trying to stop and undo this mess and they are fighting against special interest groups and big business that want to perpetuate the status quo. After all, that’s how they make their $$$ for the politicians in their back pockets and their shareholders in the boardroom. But the face that they want people to see is one of compassion for our planet, so instead of doing something NOW, they will appropriate some funds to conduct “a study”, another word for “there, that should get them off our back for awhile.” If it wasn’t so sad, I would laugh at the tap dancing that politicians and big business do when they are forced to look at our global problems. They just haven’t seen any evidence to confirm that our planet is ailing, you know.

So what do we do? We will do what we can. Commit to live as green as possible. Don’t litter. Recycle. Reuse. Walk. Carpool. Use less water. Use natural cleaners instead of chemicals. Cut down on electricity. Turn down your thermostat. Slow down on the highway. Offer your services to support green causes.

If we do these things, the world may still be a mess, but you’ve done your part in your little corner of it. You can take satisfaction in that.

Friday Fill-Ins #69

1. When I fell in love I knew it was the real thing! I couldn’t tell up from down, left from right, stumbling over my own feet with joy!!
2. I walk around with a goofy smile on my face when the flowers bloom and it heats up outside! Needless to say, I walk around with a frown all winter.
3. Oh no! The internet connection is down, but I have lots of projects that I can start working on.  It will probably take a dead internet connection to get started on them, too!! I spend way too much time on this thing.
4. “The Office” is the craziest tv show ever. But it is definitely an acquired taste — I just started watching it this year (third season?) after trying off and on to understand it.  Sometimes you just shouldn’t concentrate so much on something.
5. Cheese and crackers make a great meal! Especially when dipped in tequila.
6. Sweet Baboo would be a very unhappy camper without a garden. He never realized how much he liked growing things until we bought our house and had room to try gardening.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to closing my eyes and going to sleep, tomorrow my plans include doing some yard sales in the AM and sewing in the PM, and Sunday, I want to do some shopping and lunching in Sturbridge, MA.  Happy weekend, y’all!!