Off the camera

Good morning! Back home again, living in comfort if not luxury. 🙂

I tackled the camera this morning and I managed to get photos out of its clutches – so here are some photos of things I have mentioned in recent posts – yarn from webs, yarn from Halcyon, progress on socks and red sweater. Enjoy!

Fancy-schmancy

I am sleeping in the lap of luxury tonight. I feel ashamed because I could be sleeping at mom’s, she lives about 3 miles from here….

I am attending a two-day work session, and they put us up in this very nice inn (Berry Manor) in Rockland. We fill the small place, but each get our own room. Meetings today ran until 5, then supper was until 7:30. So I wouldn’t really get to visit much with Mom. Tomorrow we are supposed to go until 4 but as we are getting yet another storm, some folks are worried about traveling, and we may wrap up early. If we do, I will pop over to say hi to Mom. And not even worry about the money that could have been saved if I had slept there tonight. 🙂

Check out this place – I am in a huge room with a king sized four poster bed with canopy, a fireplace, a big screen TV, a chaise longue, wi-fi, etc. My own bath with a whirlpool tub, and downstairs is a well stocked kitchen with ice cream and pie for the eating!!!

I told A tonight when I called that if we ever wanted to stay at Mom’s but there wasn’t room, this is where we would come instead.

And yes, my dears, you can WALK to the LYS. And it’s a good one! I of course, have not done that this trip as I am out of Y money. 😦

quick update

yesterday was stormy, icy even. But Mom and I braved the nasty weather, and headed off to Halcyon Yarn in Bath. We got there around 11, and pulled into an empty parking lot! We were horrified, thinking that perhaps heaven was closed for the day! But no, we were just the only people so desperate for fiber that we would brave the weather. By the time we left a couple of hours later, there were more people out. We headed over to Mae’s Bakehouse for lunch, pulled into the parking area – same thing – no cars! But we knew what it meant this time, and so were pleased to find it open, warm, with some delicious hot soup on the menu.

By the time we finished lunch, the ice was gone, it was just foggy and rainy for the ride home.
So, what did I get?

4 cones of their gemstone silk for necklaces
one skein of Heritage sock yarn in soft blues
one toe up sock pattern
one Elizabeth Zimmerman surprise jacket pattern.

And it occurs to me that joining the sock Kal over at KnittingSarah was not supposed to mean that I buy lots more sock yarn, but after investigating my stash it just had to be done. 🙂 The KAL will help keep me from just adding them to the bins in the closet. 🙂

My Webs order arrived this week as well, and oh my, I LOVE the yarns I bought. As soon as the camera and I are speaking to each other again, I will share. But let it be said, I wound 4 balls of sock yarn today, and I cannot wait to start work on the Madelinetosh. So, because I have the annoying rule about number of WIPs, I worked on my boyfriend sock today, and finished the first one. Time to go cast on the second!

Friday short list

This week has been long – after a few weeks of vacation, holidays, storm closings….to work a full week is hard! Add to that, it is tax training week, so I am working 5 days. Ugh.

As a result, my Friday list is pretty lame, folks – sorry about that!

I will be in Bangor at Husson University for one last day, learning all the ins and outs of this year’s tax preparation. I suspect we will get done by lunch time, which is good. I’ll head home after it is over, and just pass out on the couch! My brain is tired.

I may toss in a load of laundry, of course. And I will knit.

This year I have not been as productive in class as usual – only 1 hat and half of a sock! I blame the weather (of course!) because training was cancelled on Monday, due to rain and ice. That meant that we had to cram the day in somehow, and because I teach the volunteers how to actually operate the software, I could not just sit and relax during the lectures, but had to prep for the afternoon labs.

Screened porch is coming along, I will try to post some construction photos. Not sure how contractor has been able to get things done in the crazy weather, but this week, I see real progress on the things that require good weather – like the roof!

I stopped at the bead store after training today and got beads to make some more of Laura Nelkin’s designs (click here to see the one I will be making), similar to the ones I made a year or so ago for nieces’ Christmas presents – I saved the instructions, just had to track down beads I liked. Found some tonight, so when I start another project, it will be a necklace or two.

That’s it folks – slow list. Saturday will be more fun, I promise. Or it will be cancelled for rain. 😦

what I see

Let’s start outside… this is a view out my office window Monday – around 3:30 (which is seriously depressing). It hasn’t changed much since then, but by Monday night, it might. We are on track to get a lovely storm of wintry mix that ends as rain. Will that rain freeze? Or will it wash away all of this ice and snow?

I took these photos today when I went out to move the car so the plow guy can clean up the parking area. I was out a while, thought it was pretty warm out until I came in and my glasses totally fogged up. I checked the thermometer. 14 degrees F. And it felt warm. It will be a long winter.

What I see inside – so much more cheerful!

Here is my red star. A thinks it is a new Christmas ornament, but I might have to keep it up all winter, I love it so much. So warm and cozy. I wonder when she will notice? 🙂

Remember when I said I wanted to make a pompom garland, thanks to all of you who did amazing things with pom poms? I did it one afternoon last week, and here it is. I think it makes the loft railing look cheerful and merry.

And on my needles? Last winter, I made this great red sweater, from Tom Scott, as shown in Vogue Knitting. But the bobbles weren’t right on me, and it wasn’t long enough.

So, I ripped it all out, changed the bobbles to another cable and started again. This time, I am making it as long as the large size, and it will have to do because I am NOT ripping it out and reknitting it again. I LOVE the red color and warmth of it – it is Lamb’s Pride bulky, in blood-red (number 80, I think.) It works up fast, and I should be wearing it before the end of winter. (Which might mean May, I know. 😦 )

Friday list

Dear Mother Nature:

STOP IT! You have completely messed up my great Friday.

Thank you.

Revised Friday List:
Laundry
vacuum
wash floors
shovel
Grocery store
make niece B’s very late birthday card
PO
Library
knit
Order the skein of yarn I can’t live without online.

Here’s what my list USED to look like:
Shovel
Go get Mom
Head off to Bath to Halcyon Yarn for some yummy silk yarn and a few skeins of bulky Lamb’s Pride
continue on to Portland to visit with the knitting family members.

You see how it used to be fun and now it isn’t so much?

Well, the house will be happy to get some long needed attention. And I will be home to keep feeding the fires. Just learned this week that Maine is experiencing a propane shortage. We heat, cook, and dry clothes with propane, so this was a bit of a shock to us. It means we will try to reduce our use, but really, the only way we can put a dent in it is to heat more with alternative sources. We already do our hot water on demand, and do our laundry all at once, so the heat from the dryer is as conserved as possible.

Heating more without propane means we need to acquire more wood for the wood stove and more pellets in the next few weeks. But not today, it is too cold and snowy to even think about dealing with those deliveries. 🙂

Do you knit?

Today I was at work, where the heat seems to be inadequate to deal with sustained negative temps.

I was wearing a turtleneck, flannel shirt, denim jumper, tights and the following items:

and wrapped in a huge pi shawl, and a new coworker asked me “Do you knit?”

I wonder what gave it away?

so long 2013

Just thinking about the year behind and the year ahead. Strange thing happened tonight at work. A client my boss J has been working with for a long time called last week. We have been trying to reach him ever since, no luck. A few times this week, my boss drove by to be sure lights were on and plowing was done. Tonight, J went over to check on him, and found him lying on the floor, non-responsive. He called us back at the office, and we called the police; then headed over, not sure what we would find, but not wanting J to be there alone. Long story short. Guy lives in a place I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to live in, but he has resisted help for a long time, obviously some mental health issues. We have worked to keep him warm and fed, and not pushed the cleanliness piece of things. He is in his 80’s, has lived in this house his whole life and except for trash, has left it exactly as it was when his mother died, maybe 40 years ago? Piano music still open on the piano, that sort of thing. Tonight he was carted off to the hospital, his sister who lives next door did not come see what the ruckus was about. Such a dismal lonely existence! After the ambulance left, we moved some trash so we could leave his heater on so his pipes don’t freeze and returned to the office.

It made me seriously so appreciative of how I live and what I have, and what I do not have.

So what I thought would be thinking about knitting and crafting and gardening wishes and hopes will have some other stuff mixed in.

First – what HAVE I done this past year?

Got married and did some traveling with my wonderful sweetie.

A “posing” happily… which changed when I said it was going on my blog!

I discovered Elizabeth Zimmerman, and am in love.

Crocheted a whole blanket in the CAL – and finished it! Been a long time since I finished a project that big.

Learned to make toe up socks… with yarn I dyed myself!

Gave away lots and lots of hats.

Did more sewing than I have done in years – all simple, fast and fun.

Adopted a new little cat who was headed to a shelter.

Enjoyed my little pool, and sadly, saw its demise.

Made lots of fun cards for people I care about.

Won so many awards and blog giveaways that I can’t believe it!

Read lots of interesting books with the book group, and enjoyed my monthly meetings with them.
Made so many more things than I can show here, I just have been a knitting fool this year.

Had lots of changes at work, some hard, some not so hard, had to let go of lots of things.

Found so many wonderful bloggers, all inspiring me with what they do.

That’s my 2013.
….

I started this post last night and that’s as far as I got, because A called to me from where she was playing with the cats in the bedroom while I sat knitting in front of the fire “Won’t you come in here so we can talk?” I did, and we talked about 2014 and what we wanted to accomplish.

Neither of us really “do” resolutions, but we both set goals. Our goals for ourselves this year revolve around things like keeping the credit card under control, as it was a hard-fought battle with continued minor skirmishes to get it where it is today; unpack the books! (this involves building bookcases and painting a room, so is not as easy as it sounds on the surface); eat less food, more of it good for us; exercise more, especially in winter; do the homework we need to so we can begin building the garage (this means calling the septic guy and getting the design work done so we can see if we can afford to do it now, or just put the pipes in where they need to go and get the slab poured and the shell built. We dream of this as we shovel those cars out every other day….)

Those are “our” goals. Then we each have individual goals.

Mine are more like “things to keep in mind that I would like to accomplish” as I go through my year.

I have long wanted to have enough hand knit socks so that I could wear them every day with every outfit. I may even have mentioned it here. This morning, Sarah posted this lovely KAL for 2014, and I promptly signed on. Knit on socks every day. I can do that. I have enough sock yarn in my stash that I bet I won’t have to buy any more for months.

I want to keep on going on hats to give away, it means so much to the recipients, as I know personally from my work.

I want to keep up connections with my family. It is so easy to get wrapped up in our individual lives, and we live just far enough apart that it is easy to let time go by. So I will continue to push knitting gatherings, and drive where ever I have to to make it happen. Even though it drives me NUTS that my house is too far for everyone to come, yet they expect me to go to theirs. I just have to let that go, huh? If it is my thing to keep us together, then I have to make it work.

I want to work on reducing the fabric stash. That means some more skirts for work, and a pretty jacket I have all ready to go.

I want to work on the yard more this summer. Not just maintenance, but now that the construction is nearly complete, and should be, by spring, I want to put some of our plans into action. New pool, grapes, terrace, maybe some real gardens? I know I can’t do it all this summer, but I don’t want to let the summer get away with no progress made.

I NEED to clean the craft room, get it organized so I can work in it, not just at one table. That might mean releasing some supplies, building new shelves. Not sure, but it is overwhelming right now. I think I might need to go back to flylady.net for a refresher course.

I want to figure out how to earn at least a little money with my crafts. Not sure how this will shake out, but I have put it off long enough. I have one hat pattern that I think works up fast enough, is customizable and cute that it could be priced right, but I have to see if anyone else wants to wear one, and pay for it. I’ll explore that. Cards? Maybe, but I see them priced too cheaply everywhere I go. Why are handmade cards CHEAPER than grocery store cards???? Another post, I am sure.

Oh yeah – the blog! Well, you have all been so nice, caring about what I am up to each day, it amazes me. I’ll keep blogging, keep making my Friday lists (warning – during tax season, they will get pretty boring!), letting you know what I come up with and the progress I am making on things.

When I look over this list, and it seems the same as every day. Life goes on, I guess. We try our best to make it better, and we take lots of small steps forward. Sometimes we fall backwards, sometimes we clear a hurdle. When I think where I was 20 years ago and where I am today, it boggles the mind. I am married to a wonderful woman. I have enough of everything. I am very lucky, and goals, resolutions, plans, call them what you will, will not make me happier or luckier. Appreciating what I have will. So while I am keeping busy with all these things, I need to be sure to take a few minutes now and then to really appreciate how very lucky I am. And in case I forget, now and then a situation like last night will remind me forcibly to do it.