Bathroom Jesus

Some people see Jesus on their toast.  Me?  I see him in the bathroom.

Photo taken in the bathroom at work.  They took off the hooks behind the door and are patching them up.  I had to take this before they start sanding and painting.

This Year’s Themes

Pork Chops and Tchaikovsky

I’ve found that I go through music seasons.  In the Late Summer into Fall I am generally interested in Singer Songwriter music like Ray LaMontagne or Ryan Adams.  During the Winter I’m normally overindulging in the holidays and whatever station is playing the best mix.  With the Spring comes Top 40 because I want some pep in my step and Summer is normally Country music (don’t cringe.)

Lately I’ve been tempering the Singer Songwriter with Classical.  I just downloaded The Very Best of Tchaikovsky and I have been listening, rather voraciously, for days. 

Whether it’s visions of Sugar Plum Fairies dancing in my head or Swans waltzing through the lakes, I can’t seem to get enough.  It reminds me of being a child, driving anywhere with my mom.  She always had Classical Music playing in the background.

Mostly what comes to mind is driving to the butcher shop on a Saturday, listening to her hum along.  I loved every minute.  Well, at least in my memories I do.  I was a persnickety child.

I miss being with my mom.  She truly is one of my closest friends (friend seems like too casual a word, really) and I don’t talk to her or spend enough time with her.  She lives five hours away and I hate it. 

As I was listening to Tchaikovsky on the way home from work, humming along, I imagined listening to it with my mom while we’re canning homemade apple sauce and apple pie filling next weekend.  It would be even better if my sister was there too.  I missed their jelly making extravaganza a couple of weekends ago. 

I wish we all lived closer, but until I win the Powerball I’ll have to be satisfied with the occasional weekend and holidays.  Of course, I’ll have to bring along The Very Best of Tchaikovsky to set the mood.

Hair dye malfunction

I dyed my hair purple red, the other night and everyone is so entranced with it.  Why are people so much more intrigued with you when you dye your hair an “unusual” color?

“OOOh, I love your hair!”

“You’re so punk rock!”

“I’ve always wanted to dye my hair that color, but I just don’t have the guts.”

That left me thinking that it really WAS as bad as I thought it was the night before.  The color was supposed to be Medium Reddish Brown.  I guess when your hair is on the blonder side of the spectrum that translates to damn near magenta. 

I read through the instructions, left it on for the 15 minutes it suggested, and when I rinsed it off I saw that the water was purplish. I thought that wasn’t too unusual because the dye always looks deeper when you’re rinsing it.  I got out of the shower and almost screamed.  My hair was PURPLE!  Of course, it was wet and would certainly lighten up.  It did, but it does look a little bit too magenta for my taste.  I already went through that phase when I was in college. 

I went through about ten different shades of Manic Panic.  At one point I had green bangs and the rest was hot pink.  Thankfully it wasn’t permanent color, but it is a little disconcerting to be out in the rain and have the dye running out of your hair onto your clothes. 

I slept with a towel on my pillow on Sunday night. 

I really hope it’s not THAT unusual looking or else I’ll be in the HR office defending my personal style.

Let’s just talk about stash, shall we?

I was thinking about how much yarn I have in my stash, but I NEVER have the color, fiber, style or weight that I want. I have tons of sock yarn and when I say tons, I mean it.  Hubs made a joke that we don’t even need furniture. We could just sit on mounds of yarn or I could make a knitted cover for our house.

I thought that he was exaggerating, but when I try to find something that I know I’ve purchased, I find myself digging through bags and bags of yarn.  I really have to organize my stash.

Why do knitters stash?  Well, I can say for myself that it starts when I go out looking for yarn for some outlandish project that I want to do.  For me, outlandish means a sweater.  I have far too little patience to knit an adult sweater unless it’s on size 15 needles in super-bulky yarn that I shouldn’t wear because it is way too bulky for my frame.  I end up at the yarn store, wallet in hand, to purchase yarn for the outlandish project.  Inevitably, I see the section with the sock yarn and it’s all over. I end up leaving with a huge bag of sock yarn.

I have a rather large addiction to making socks.  You can afford to make them in more decadent fibers because you’re not purchasing a ton of it (yeah… ) and they satisfy the instant gratification for someone like me.  You can also experiment with different, more difficult stitch patterns and if you screw something up, you don’t have to get disgusted and scrap the whole project.  Well, you can, but it won’t seem like you’ve wasted your entire weekend. 

I keep telling myself that I’m going to go through my stash before I buy any more yarn, but I still find myself standing in front of the Mini Mochi, Lorna’s Laces, Panda Silk, or <insert name here> with eyes glazed over and drool running down my chin.

This is the internal conversation that goes on.

“I must HAVE that! It’s so pretty!”

“No, you don’t need that.  You have all you need at home.”

“No!  You don’t understand, that is GORGEOUS! I have nothing that color! I NEED that color!”

“Well, you are right.  You don’t have that shade at home.”

“SEE?! Well, it’s on sale.  I might as well buy two of that shade and LOOK, they have some in Kelly Green!”

“Sigh.”

This is why I have bags and bags of yarn, some of which I have not touched since I purchased it.

Hoard much?

The Beauty of Ordinary

There are lots of ordinary things that I have come to love due to the Macro setting of my camera.  It provides you with the ability to really zoom in and see the beauty in ordinary things. 

Why I Knit

Why do I knit?

That is a multi-faceted question.  There isn’t a way to wrap it up into a nice little package, but I’ll try and explain for my 2.5 readers.  (I’m counting you, mom.)

I started knitting trying to knit when I was a child.  I learned how to cast on and I learned garter stitch, but I had no idea  how to finish anything and I sure didn’t have a pattern that I was knitting from.  I was more successful with crochet or shall I say, I was more successful with making giant, granny square afghans, but knitting was always more comforting to me.

I think the most successful thing I knit was blocks that I made into an afghan.  I stumbled through the casting off and sewed the “thing” together.  It fell apart shortly after. 

I gave up.

I tried again shortly after I graduated college.  I made a scarf.  This was waaaay before Ravelry and I had no pattern to go by.  I don’t even know what happened to this scarf.  I think I was probably too embarrassed to wear it.  Knitting was not “cool” then.   I remember calling my mother and her walking me through the cast-off process. I quickly forgot it because I was clearly not going to EVER do that again.  What a failure!

I didn’t pick it up again until years later.  It’s funny.  The fiber-art gene runs so strongly through my genes.  My grandfather was a weaver, after all.  He had a rug that he worked on that was in the Oval Office until Jackie Kennedy redecorated, that bitch.  Way to screw up my legacy.

I was walking through one of the local craft stores in my area, The Flower and Craft Warehouse, when I saw a bag of this beautiful yarn.  It had a pattern for a shawl that had both crochet and knit instructions.  I thought that I would surely crochet and it would be a perfect Christmas gift.  I bought four bags in different colors thinking that everyone was getting handmade shawls that year. 

I came home and looked at the knit instructions and thought that I should have no problem knitting them as the knit instructions looked far easier.  Remember, I am a whiz at the granny square. 

Youtube has everything so I thought it would be a fabulous resource for knitting help.  Boy was I right. 

And thus, the love affair begins.  I started knitting and I haven’t stopped.  I never finished one of those shawls.  I started looking up patterns and started making socks, wraps, baby sweaters, hats, you name it.

So, we get back to the question at hand.  Why do I knit? 

Painters paint to stay sane, ha!  Writers write because they have no choice.  I knit because I need to create.  It is addicting to see a fabric being created by your own hands, to see loved ones marvel over a simple scarf, or to see a baby wearing a sweater and hat that you’ve made just for them, that you’ve put a little bit of yourself into. 

I knit because I’m a knitter. 

I was born a knitter.

Schnoz

Yearning

Warning:  Emotional Post Ahead – Brace Yourself

I had the house to myself for the past couple of days and I’m not going to lie and say it hasn’t been wonderful.  The only time I am truly alone is when I am on the way to or from work, but as I was wandering through the house today, something hit me. 

I was lonely.

I wasn’t lonely for my in-laws.  I wasn’t lonely for my hubs.  I was yearning for something that I’ve never had.  A child.  I wanted to be nurturing a child, at that moment, and I was so sad that I wasn’t.

It’s been pushed into the back of my mind, for months now, because I’ve been trying to lose weight.  I lost 30 lbs and thought I would be ready, but I was still petrified. 

I am petrified.

I’ve always been told that there is never a good time to get pregnant.  Hubs and I were always waiting for us to be in the “perfect” position to have a child.

Well, folks.  We’re running out of time.  And I’m still scared.

What if it’s too late?  What if I have a hormone problem? What if I get pregnant and go to the doctor and they are horrible to me?  I’ve had a GYN be utterly horrible to me in the past.  What if I’m a horrible mother? 

I obviously have some issues to work through.

I’ll get there. 

I hope.

After the Rain

Word of the Day

This simple word could mean so many different things to so many different people on this day. 
What does it mean to you?

another flower post

Have you noticed that I love flowers?

Laugh Until Your Sides Hurt

We all need to take the time to play and, most importantly, to laugh.

Hubs and I visited friends yesterday who had recently had a new baby.  We haven’t seen them for months so it was great to catch up, have some good conversation and, of course, some play.

Miss P (above) has all the toys that she could want, but what was the most fun yesterday?  A toy named Mr. Tickles.

I painstakingly crafted Mr. Tickles out of a can cozy, put him over my hand and proceeded to chase Miss P around the porch.  We took turns chasing each other and boy did we laugh.  We all laughed.  We laughed until our sides and throats hurt.  We laughed until we cried.

It was the best fun I’ve had in a long time.

We all need to take the time to laugh until our sides hurt.  It reminds you that life is good and simple, if you let it be.

Mum’s the word

I love mums.  I’ve been watching the plants right outside my front door bloom for a couple of weeks now.  I’ve posted a couple of pictures already but I took some this evening. 

Mums are a sure sign of fall.  I love fall.

I would plant my yard full of mums if hubs would let me.

I’m ready for the brisk chill of a Fall morning.  Bring it on!

Spy