Knitting, Singing, the Universe and all....

Soooo, I found the camera charger *sheepish grin*and many thanks to all the saints who interceded on my behalf with the prankster fairies. We went to Alayne's for a neighborhood pot-luck this week, and friend (and drop-spindle spinner) Carole rushes over with 2 bags of alpaca fiber for me!! GASP! It's "dirty" but not greasy or smelly (like wool fresh from the sheep is). She won 10 pounds of this as a premium from the KUFM (local NPR station) fund raiser, and decided to share....... said Carole, "I never knew how much 10 pounds of Alpaca would be!". Apparently about 10 bags full! It's light and fluffy and a beautiful black with some dark brown flecks. I am being admonished to figure out spinning once and for all...... got the wheel about 10 years ago, took a Saturday class, and promptly spun the most lumpy fugly yarn that I never used it again (except to decorate my craft room ). Well, apparently the Gods are requesting that I try try again - why el

so I won't be posting pictures until a) I miraculously find it (Pray for me, St. Anthony!!) b) I break down and purchase one and then find the first one, or c) I learn to use my drawing programs and post drawings of my life..... ergggggggh! In other news, I put Stella & Marcus on the train in Whitefish Tuesday night, and picked up Jon & Cindy from the same train.... Louise stayed on the train and hosted Stella and Marcus in the sleeper compartment all the way home to Portland. Stella told me it was small but much nicer than trying to sleep in the regular seats all night. They were quite grateful that Cindy, Jon, and Louise had gotten the sleeper for their trip - the only glitch seems to be that Stella forgot (! it's usually attached to her by a very strong psychic cord!!!) her violin , so my big mission today is to pack it in a giant box of peanuts and mail it off to her.... Knitting news: Well, I mostly knit dish cloths when the kids were here and there was knitting

Stella and I went to the tattoo parlour today, to visit with my Ravelry (knitting) friend, Gina, and have her administer Mother/Daughter tatts. Marcus accompanied us for support and was in charge of documenting the whole dang thing. (Thanks Marcus!!) So when Stella was still "Katie" , a bunch of my friends and our children went camping every summer - Grrrl Camp!- and every trip, Katie would insist on using a sharpie pen to draw matching triskelian "tattoos" on our ankles. I would laugh and tell her that when I was "old" I'd get a tattoo with her.... she's had a few now, but this was my first (guess 50 is "old-enough" ha!) Here are some pictures to show how brave I was, and how very small it really is...... Mine is the Triskelian image that so enchants me (and appears on the Flag of the Isle of Mann, fyi). Stella's is a folded paper peace crane. Both of us got them on the inside of our left ankle..... forever :):):) It was over before

O.K., I decided to collect images of interesting Boler paint jobs off the internet - I love my Boler, and I love colour, and well.... here's the combo. Maybe I should figure out how to knit a Boler?! So I have added a slide show (on the right hand side of the page) of Cool Bolers!

It's pretty good - and I rather "made it up" from several places, but here's sort of what I did to create the salad we had with Marion and Sam and Stella and Marcus and Sara and Doc..... Seed and then chop about 2 pounds of good, garden-ripe tomatoes. Put them in a bowl with: 5-6 chopped scallions (use the green parts too) 3 large cloves of garlic-pressed large bunch parsley, minced (maybe a cupful?) Pour over the above, a sauce made of the following: 1/2 c. chunky peanut butter 1/2 c. soy sauce 2/3 c. apple cider vinegar juice of one very juicy lime 2 tsp ground ginger 1/4-1/2 tsp ground cayenne pepper 1 tbls. brown sugar is also in there -I actually microwaved this slop all together for about a minute just to get the peanut butter to coalesce with the rest of this stuff...... Put the bowl in the fridge and let it macerate all day. It was pretty good - although could have used even more tomatoes!! Just so you know, this one's for Sam - thanks, Sam :)

And we are very happy :) :) :) :)!!! Dinner with Sara and Doc and Marion, Sam, Stella & Marcus Pippin and Zuzu are in dog heaven! Violins have been played (and the new bow is significantly changing her sound - it's all good!) Pippin wants to marry Marcus (follows him everywhere, even to the bathroom) Miss Lily came over for a chat as well. This has been a great week, despite Jon being off wandering through cemetaries with his mother and sister in Pennsylvania....... they have a blog about that trip going at www(dot)magicalhistorytour(dot)blogspot.com

ok, here are pictures of the first of the Frog Prince Mittens. They are (as my friend Carol used to say) "gorjwah", don't you think? I am rather impressed with this yarn/color combination :) KStella and Marcus are arriving tommorow morning on the train!!!!! I am easily excited.... now I've got to go throw out/pack some more. Moving at this age/stage of life is more difficult than I imagined - too much stuff!!!

Jon and I have spent the past week "moving" from the big house to the carriage house that we have spent the past 6 years renovating. Here are pictures of the living room/music studio/kitchen downstairs. You may remember that the other half of downstairs is taken up with the office/shipping headquarters of our business.... upstairs, we have a large "master suite" consisting of a craft room, a library, a walk-in closet, and a sleeping area. Quite lovely actually :) And our friends, David So and Silver Leung, from China were here last week and helped celebrate by making dinner with us. David and Silver love to descend after shopping with bags of produce and tons of good company. Jon made pork & shrimp won-tons (using the "pick it up and throw it in the bowl 100-times" method to lighten up the filling!) to go in the noodle soup - his home made stock as well. We also had steamed spinich and baby bok choy, crispy baked chicken thighs, and watermelon, raspb

but were " frogged " after only 10 rows, due to a yucky wobbly cast-on edge. I cast on in my usual manner for mitts/socks (over two needles; this usually allows enough "give" to manage your hand/foot through) but apparently I was casting on especially loose - and i could not get the stitches to move in together for several rows of attempted "tighter than hell" knitting... so, Rip-it it went. Started over.... Since I had to begin anew, I thought I should try to knit on the hem these needed. This is a trick I've read about but not ever tried before. Basically , you knit the number of rows needed for your hem, then 1 row of purl stitches, then an equal number of rows in your pattern stitch. Using the purled row to delineate, you then turn your hem under, and on the next (pattern) knit row, knit about every 3rd stitch through an edge stitch of the hem. This is a very fussy row, and must only be attempted sober. Afterwards, have a glass of wine and admire y

Jon and I spent this weekend fixing the downstairs bathroom so we can have a nice house to rent to a visiting professor & family this school year. (We are moving into our carriage house, and saving a bit of money this first year of Jon's "retirement"). So we bought stick-tiles, on sale at Home Despot, some floor Spackle and a dab of white trim paint..... then we went to Costco and got 2 large shelving units, took them to our storage unit, put them together, put stuff on them, and made room for all the stuff we will have to store this year! Then we came home and stuck tiles on the bathroom floor - it really is instant gratification and I wish we'd done this 4 years ago after I pulled out the awful pink carpet (yes, CARPET in the BATHROOM! ugh) to reveal the marred/scarred 1960s linoleum. Tomorrow, we'll finish up and paint (just the trim) then Sara and I are planning on moving the kitchens around so that Jon and I are forced to live out there... "clear

Yesterday was spent travelling to Helena and back for the funeral of a dear family friend, Warren Morehouse. Warren and his wife Maxine, have been friends with my parents for at least 35 years, maybe longer. My Mom, Bev, and (my younger) brother Chip and wife Sharon also went. Chip and Sharon recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary -Jon and I celebrated our 5th anniversary this summer. Warren and Maxine had been married for 53 years!! Jon and I hope we live long enough to get to 25th!! If we get to 50, I'll be 95 years old - a little too old for new diamonds I think..... so it was nice that Jon gave me a lovely "forever" ring this anniversary :) Anyway, all this has provided a bittersweet thinking about time, and relationships, and love, and what it all means.......