(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.