What to write?

Sad posts are such a bummer. But I can't think of much else to write other than this. If your children are sick, follow your gut and do something about it. My college student son called me 5 am just days before he was to come home for the holiday, that he was sick. I told him (and myself) to ignore the $100 deductible, the cost of the cab and the bother with getting dressed and all when you are sick and GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM.

He had a staph infection on his arm. It started out as a small pimple that grew in 2 days to a quarter sized abscess. He could have died. He didn't. I'm grateful. Thanksgiving.

Leaves and Snow

This was the Monday morning scene here in Northern New Jersey. Snow falling mixed with falling leaves. Truly weird. Our town hasn't even begun to make a stab at fall cleanup. There are mounds of leaves still awaiting pickup and tons of leaves glued to trees holding on for dear life trying to delay their eventual demise - or in my case, to return to the earth as mulch.


This is my deck, yup I haven't moved the cushions yet (what will the raccoons sit on?)

Oh well, let mother nature do her thing. Fortunately, I did get this done...

Lawn sprinklers winterized - check

Pool closed - check

And because the appliance gremlins won't leave me alone, I had to buy a new dishwasher. So far they've successfully killed my refridge, my dryer and they are working on my stove. I'll fight on, I must, I can't let them win!

On the knitting front, I've been having fun. I started that Elann Pinwhell sweater coat.

After about 10 tries to do a circle using size 10 doublepoints, I remembered that I had these cute little ones I bought at Rhinebeck last year.

I'm stumped now at the sleeves. I'll have to get some advice from my LYS.

Finished the back to a sweater

and made these lovely neck warmers called Cherry Garcia.


STAY WARM or send me some of your heat!

Mom's Birthday Update

Mom: "Ok, so what did you make?"
Me: "Mom, you know how you always say you are chilly indoors."
Mom: "Not anymore, because they (my sister and her family) keep the heat up now."

Mom opens the package and looking quite skeptical, slides her hands into the gloves mitts.

Mom: "Where are the fingers? You didn't have time to do fingers?"

I give up...

What season is this?

When I was single and living in New York City, I didn't pay attention to the seasons as much. I knew that winter was coming when the heat came on (thank you landlord); I knew that spring was coming when I got more requests for dates (you know, spring fever); I knew when summer was imminent when my coworkers began plotting planning their weekends at the shore and each morning in the fall, it was actually glorious to go out to work with the bright skies and colorful leaves - central park was a painters palette of beauty.

Now, in the suburbs running a household you are supposed to be acutely aware of Mother Nature and HER schedule. Yes it is fall, but just because there aren't many leaves actually falling doesn't mean you get to goof off.

For example, my pal Phyllis knew what time of year it was when she showed off her pumpkin patch that had overrun her deck at her lake house

She was also hip to the season, regardless of the weather, when she showed off her newly minted sweater made with the lovely Louet Gems -

It was Halloween and she was playing around

But me, I'm a romantic (and lazy I reckon), I was swayed by the balmy unseasonable weather and, well, you know, the need to knit. Last week I did do something seasonable, I hauled in my tropical plants because the weatherman said Jersey was going to go frosty overnight.

Otherwise, nada. I haven't done much seasonably. Oh, I did buy bulbs but I haven't put them in the ground as yet. I haven't had the sprinkler system winterized (shush, don't tell the insurance company), and, one other kinda major thing I haven't attended to -

I haven't closed my pool!

I keep telling myself that I'm mentally fatigued from the drama with sending off my first born to college, AND living through two other major milestones - turning one child 13 and another one 16 all in the same year! Poor family planning...

Anyway, if I give you pleasant proof why it has been easy to forget about fall tasks, will you think kinder of me?








Freesia still in bloom in November - amazing!

Doin the math

Whelp, after my last post about my subnerdy disability with math I decided to give this whole math and knitting thing a try. I won't attempt to learn the source of my math aversion without professional help but I'm open to suggestions, all I ask is that you all be gentle...

This would be a good time for me to overcome this problem. This week is my mother's 87th 82nd birthday (I think, wait, I have to do the math 2007 - 1925 = 82!) I've decided to make her a pair of fingerless mitts and perhaps a scarf. Each year finding the right thing to get her is a serious challenge. She saves everything! Unless it is from one of my brothers then she flaunts wears it often. Not with one of her darling 3 daughters. She saves it, she says, for a special occasion. I'm not even going to try to analyze what that is about!

I made this silk shawl for her out of 5 different kinds of silk yarns -

I've never seen her wear it except for this shot that I took shortly after I gave it to her. Oh whatever. I'm going to finish these

and give her something to match. Should I give her another scarf or a hat? Seriously I don't know why I'm even trying to figure it out, she'll never wear them...

I shouldn't complain. She's is entitled to do whatever she pleases. She raised 7 of us! I can't even begin to know what that was like. I have two brothers who are twins and they are like 6'4" and my mom is only 4'11" She had to keep those giants in line! And me, I was the mouthy type. My older sister used to stop traffic with guys gawking at her all the time and my older brother was sent to Korea to jump out of planes and my other brother broke his hip jumping off something he shouldn't have and my baby sister escaped an abduction and...

So, Mom, you can do whatever you damn well please - just please do it wearing my cute little mitts?

Bingeing on Hats

I love making hats. I hate the math involved. You know there's the gauge divided or multiplied by circumference and stitch pattern divisible by... I've always had a math blockage. Even when I was a techy, I could do hexadecimal because somehow I thought that kind of math was more logic and patterns and not really numbers. One day I'll get to the bottom of that but for now, making hats isn't that easy for me - the getting started part that is but I love the process of going around and around and finishing with something you can wear the next day.

Phyllis gave me that tam pattern she got from the internets. It was supposed to be a chemo hat for my brother-in-law but I thought it looked too feminine so I guess I'll keep it.

I made this one for him instead in Blue Sky cotton. It's called Utopia. I hope it fits him.

I'm sending him this bulky roll brim one too

while waiting on Trick or Treaters last night, I made this easy k1p1 rib with the softest two yarns: Classic Elite Premiere and Lang Thalja

and I decided to rinse out a few of my hats and have them dry in the autumn air

Calorimetry

Oh, and while browsing at Modern Yarn in Montclair during their Anniversary weekend, I saw that headband in the store and I loved it. I've made two in Noro Silk Garden 1 skein and you can make it in a couple of hours. I left out the button you're suppose to put in the back. I just tie it. Yeah, lazy.

Teenagers.... er, can be fun sometimes

Phyllis emailed me early Monday morning to say Andrew was in the paper. I had almost forgotten about Sunday's race after getting two teenagers up for school on Monday morning. Sunday was a town wide celebration and race for a high school teacher who has been stricken with ALS. His insurance (really sucks) doesn't cover nursing care while his wife is away most of the day at work.

My Andrew's reason for taking up cross-country was to prepare for this event. He decided this 1 year ago! With the support of his cross country team, he won the race! It was so fantastic to see a 16 year old work toward something for an entire year that included running 4-6 mile runs, daily! Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking, your kid practices the violin 8 hours daily but I don't think I'll churn out a prodigy in this lifetime so I'll be content with my cross country jock.

Jocks. Didn't like them at all when I was in high school. Years ago, I would sit at the outdoor coffee cafe and watch the grunge kids smoke and look grungy as the track team whizzed by. Both 'groups' looking at the other with the WTF look on their faces. As I sat and sipped, I found myself facing the age old dilemma for parents: What do I hope for my boys -grunge or jocks? Why must life always consist of extreme choices? Capitalist or Communist, Barry Manilow or Flava Flav?

Enjoying his 15 minutes of fame!

I get by with a little help from my friends...

Thank you so much for all of your funny cheer-me-ups. I tell ya, virtual friends and neighborhood friends can sure help a sista get outta bed!

My pal Phyllis came by for lunch and a visit. She was bearing gifts...


Phyllis brought me this cute little space shuttle pencil sharpener on the very same afternoon that it took off. She works for an aeronautics non profit so she knows lots about space and NASA stuff. It is good to have smart friends who can knit!

My friend Shirley had a fun wine and cheese knit night.


There was lots of knitting show and tell -

This is a beautiful silk boucle that she finished. She finished her boucle project before me :(


I also spent the day with my garden club for a hike in the almost rain. It was the first time that I'd been in the forest right after rain. The day began with a beautiful 1 1/2 hour drive where we got to enjoy the beautiful Fall foliage show as we drove to upstate New York. We only got lost once and stopped this guy to ask for directions.







I'm wearing this Araucania Patagonia cotton hat that I made, it was suppose to be a wee bit oversized. Aw geez, I had no idea how ginormas it is. I frogged it that night.


Our guide was very passionate about the living forest and our connection to it all. We learned that earth worms are not indigenous to forests. As a gardener that was a revelation because I introduce earth worms to my compost and garden in order to aid in soil production. This process is not beneficial to the forest because it speeds up the break down of the forest floor too rapidly. You see, we are never too old to learn!

Rhinebeck loot

See, I really didn't buy much. Had I successfully made it over to the wine tent, perhaps I would have loosened up to buy more.

I'm having a pity party

Yes, this past weekend was Rhinebeck. Did I go? Well, sort of.

The curveballs started flying earlier in the week. It was my Jonathan's 13th birthday. It's a big day for sure. For him, he has finally made it to teenagehood, for me, I get to endure another 7 years with a teenager.

Also going on that day was the first Knitting Club meeting at his school. No Jonathan doesn't knit (he pointedly reminded me of this fact) but everyone at his school knows that I knit so I was drafted to help. How do you say no?

That's the school nurse who bravely took on this challenge. Check out all of the boys! Jonathan waited outside really angry that this was going on on his birthday. Ugh...

After the club meeting, I had to race from there to an event my garden club was sponsoring. A youth garden day in town


For about a month we gathered up garden foliage and dried flowers for the children to assemble into garden sculptures.

Jonathan waited in the car. I was only able to snap a few pictures before I had to rush home to get the birthday boy cleaned and scrubbed for dinner which was to be at a restaurant called the Melting Pot. A fondue place, I thought it would be fun. Well $250 dollars later (I shit you not), not only did we have to "fondue" our own raw meat, but the new college student (oh, I didn't mention that he came home for the week?) is a vegetarian and he resented the fact that the restaurant brought out raw meat to be cooked in the same 'melting pot' as his "fondued" veggies. I was so mad at myself for this entire fiasco but had to put on a smiley face for the new teenager. The only thing I did right that day, it seemed, was to invite his friend along who sat between him and his 16 year old big brother who takes special pride in needling him every possible second.

So, yes, the college student was home from school that week. Have you ever had this experience? Welcoming home for the first time a newly minted college student? Somebody ought to write an owners manual for this event. I'll say no more.

What, you say you want to know about Rhinebeck?? Well there's more. Saturday, we were to take the college student to the airport at 10am. The 16 year old had the PSAT exam at 7:00am and a cross country meet at 11:30 am. The new 13 year old had to finish a school project plus get ready for a huge dance for a popular girl's 13 birthday party. Dad chose the airport. I didn't see him anymore that day. It seems he was overcome with a severe case of fatherhood regret that he missed the entire life of his new college student. He stayed at the airport evidently immobilized. The problem for me (other than the obvious) was that he had my car the family van because his car a late model midlife crisis convertible isn't really suitable anymore for long distance driving.

As the hours ticked away on opening day at Rhinebeck, I bit off all of my nails, ate all of the birthday boy's birthday cake and worked myself into such a tissy that I have very little recollection as to how I managed to empty my bank account, rent a car, drive the 1.5 hours to Rhinebeck, and stagger around the fair grounds until people began recognizing me (blogger bingo) and jolted me out of my daze. I did manage to leave behind my camara, patterns folder, my needles and little desire to do anything other than go to the wine tasting tent.

Well, I guess there's next year. The plan? To book a bed and breakfast for the weekend and not look back.