Friday, April 01, 2011

Inspired by CGN #1

This post is in response to CGN #1's post of Mar 16th - 13 Memories. In it she talks about her memories of her paternal grandmother. And it brought back memories of my Grammy. So here goes -
1.) Making Cookies - Mostly 'Wooden' (anise seed) cookies. It seemed like it would be out of the blue on a Saturday night, Grammy would ask if we would like to make cookies. We'd all go to the drawer in the breakfast nook and get hair nets and ask what we would get to do to 'help' mix the dough. Once the dough was ready it was time for serious work - deciding on which cookie cutters we would use. (It wasn't until a few years ago, making cookies with my own Grand's that I realized one of my favorite cutters was a fish.) And then waking up to the smell of fresh baked cookies. I usually gobbled a half dozen right out of the oven cause that was the only time they were soft enough to eat without total immersion in some kind of liquid - the warmer the better. But boy! were they good.
2.) I never, ever saw Grammy wear anything but a dress. I vaguely remember a few times in the winter when she put on a pair with her dress. I do, however, have a picture of her in overall's.
3.) Pinning her veil on over her bindilee at church. And feeding us SenSen to keep us quite during the sermon. Using her hankie to make a 'baby in the cradle' to keep our hands occupied.
4.) Grammy and Grampy on their bed, Grampy reading a letter from 'The Old Country' in German. I regret I didn't push to learn German to this day.
5.) Loading up the Rambler Wagon (which was a bit of a scandal when Grampy bought it as it wasn't the traditional dark color. It was CANARY yellow!)with bundles of newspapers and heading out the the weight station.
6.) Going to pick strawberries, gooseberries and raspberries. Picking apples and to make sure we'd return, having a old peanut butter jar full of hard candy close by. We'd take a piece of candy and wander off for awhile. When it was gone, we'd come back for another.
7.) When I was 5 I got chicken pox and was shipped off to Grammy's house so the younger siblings wouldn't catch it. It didn't work but I had 2 weeks of one on one with both of them. My most vivid memory was taking baths with baking soda to help stop the itching. However, Grammy wanted to save water, so she only drained the tub 1/2 way each time. Hot water and more baking soda would be added for the next bath. This worked out reasonable well until the cat decided that it wanted to eat. The cat was Aunty Linda's who was not living at home at the time. And it had reallllly looooog fur. Grammy forgot they feed the cat in the tub.... Aunty Linda happened to be home that night. All I have to say is A)Grammy was forgiven for trying to drown the cat and B)Thank goodness only the dining and living room had carpet.
8.)Christmas Pictures - we would be lined up on the stairs, in our matching nightgowns and be given candles. When it was time to snap the picture, Grammy would light the candles and Grampy would snap as many as he could in less than a minute so we didn't set ourselves on fire.
9.) How much she looked forward to meeting Oldest. Even before she was born, Grammy was calling Mom to ask about her.
10.) Harvesting the asparagus every year. It was planted next to the current's. Soon after the asparagus, the rhubarb would be in full growth and we'd have strawberry-rhubarb pie's for deserts.
11.) Making Uncle's favorite pie for his birthday. That would be an Onion Pie. Being a kid, I never asked to taste it but I wish I had cause I bet it would have been delicious.
12.) She had an electric stove and as a rule would set the burner on high 'for a quick start'. Sometimes she'd forget and we'd be cleaning up some interesting messes. Of course, there was the time she almost asphyxiated Mom while starting to make jam.
13.) How her lap was always available to snuggle in when I was tired or felt shy and needed to hide.
To this day, I miss her. I would have liked her to have met Youngest, The Boss and The Gift. I see so much of her in them. Her sense of wonder at the world and what it has to offer, her quiet ability to teach life's lessons and her ability to laugh along with other's when stories were told about her mishaps.

Thank you CGN #1 for inspiring me to write these few memories down.

Monday, March 07, 2011

Motivated?

I'm not called The Fibergoddess because I only have a little yarn and fiber. I freely admit I have A LOT of yarn and fiber. The last couple of years I've come to realize I don't have the time, motivation or brain power to work on large projects. So I have decided to work through my S.A.B.L.E. a little at a time by making smaller projects.
The last few months of 2010 I went on a scarf kick. I think I knocked out almost a dozen using at minimum of a skein a scarf. Some took more but most were 1 skein wonder's.
Last month I was hit with 2 babies arriving in the next couple of months. So I'm off the scarves and onto baby sweaters. I'm finding these fun and I'm using up more yarn.
Heck I even 'designed' a top down raglan that I'm cleaning up and put out on Ravelry. Who knows, if this continues I just might have to buy some yarn!
See!? This is not my design - it's Lucy's available at Mind's Eye Yarns website.




I haven't uploaded the pictures of mine yet. I was so motivated to make another sweater I took the pictures and cast on for another. This one is Lucy's but done with cotton.
And I'm swatching for another design I have in mind.
So do you think if I keep this up I can get my S.A.B.L.E. down to a stash?

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Hero or Zero

The last few days have been very weird and busy. I am the admin. staff for the Maintenance Dept. of a transportation company. Husband is a part-time driver for said company as well. This is pertinent to the story.

A few weeks ago, Husband had a trip where upon returning the brakes quit working on the vehicle. He was able to get it to a safe place, transfer people and possessions to the rescue vehicle and return them to the pickup point. The vehicle was towed in and examined at which time it was discovered that there was nothing he did to cause the failure. Nor was the failure something the Maintenance Dept could of predicted of prevented. Top Dog of Company was not pleased and tried to blame Husband AND Head of Maintenance (*HofM) for breakdown. When confronted with evidence that neither could have been prevented or predicted the failure, he backed down.
This past Thursday, Husband had a trip with the same vehicle traveling across the state. His return departure time was approximately 9:30 that night so I was not expecting to see him until the following morning.
Said vehicle computer decided that something was wrong with the engine and shut down the power. As most of the miles were to be on highways and the vehicle would not go faster than 5 mph, Husband made the right call to stay put in the Safe Place he found until the replacement vehicle arrive.
*HofM had been home, fast asleep for about an hour when he had been called about above vehicle. He was the one that drove the replacement vehicle out to Husband and drove/tinkered with (cursed, beat, pleaded, stroked and limped along) the original vehicle back to the garage. He then went home and got another hour's worth of sleep.
The reason I know this was when I awoke at Oh'dark thirty Husband was not home. He walked in about 5 am and related the short version of what had transpired before face planting himself in bed. I got the rest when I arrived at work.

Yesterday, Husband had a trip that was going out of state to a ski mountain. All was well until he parked the bus and the state DOT did an inspection of the vehicle. They decided that it was not safe to drive and put the vehicle 'Out of Service'. This meant the vehicle was not to be moved until it was fixed or towed somewhere for repairs to be made. I was Husband second call regarding this, Dispatch being the first. I immediately called *HofM and volunteered to drive the replacement bus to Husband. Withing 10 minutes of my call to *HofM, Dispatch called and I was on my way. I arrived at the mountain with enough time to help Husband to transfer all the passengers belongings to the rescue bus and to put Youngest into the van that *HofM drove to keep her warm. It's now spitting flurries and the sun was going down. The temperature when we arrived was 4 and 2 hours later it was well below zero. But the bus was fixed and warmed up quickly.

Husband, *HofM, Youngest and I all arrived back at the garaged at the same time – 9:45pm. I'm on pins and needles until I get to work on Monday to see what Top Dog of Company reaction will be. Will he consider all of us Hero's – this was a well coordinated, flawlessly executed plan that went smoothly with minimal interruption for the passengers (and that is a whole other horror story from what Husband has related!) or Zero's for allowing the bus to leave in such a condition that the DOT put the vehicle out of service, causing the company to foot the expense of running 2 vehicles out of state and the purchasing of parts to facilitate repairs.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Observations

So it's only a few weeks shy of my birthday and I sorta expected the onslaught of AARP stuff but to actually receive a membership card is, ummm, not joyous. Husband has been trying to get a rise out of me but I've been quick to remind him that his will be arriving in just a few months.

FiberCamp was awesome! I got to catch up with a few people. Took a workshop or two and decided that I WILL be taking the TKGA Master course.

I'm out of work (again!) but have been assured that as soon as a desk and computer are available I'll be working again. In the meantime, I've had some quality knitting time with a few UFO's and I've started to cull the UFO list.
These have been frogged















I had to tink these, again, back to the gusset.















I put them down and put the book with all my notes back on the bookshelf. So when I picked up the needles again, I just continued to knit with the needles that I had left off with. Turns out I needed to change needles in order for the thing to fit over my ankle! Tink, Tink, Tink!!!

I've decided on my plane project for next month. I've only to ball up the skein and add a set of needles. I'm hoping that it has that combination of mindless knitting and require just enough attention to keep me from going over the edge on the plane.

CG2 Niece is celebrating a birthday this week and we just received the invitation to The Boss's birthday party. Who said they could grow up so fast!

Oh! and Department of Public Utilities?! Next time you need to dig up the street have to common decency to knock on the door to see if I need to go out. Yeah, we had another leak (sewer this time) and this big truck with a generator behind it totally blocked my ability to move my car out of the drive. They finished around 11 but I had already called to change my 9:30 appointment.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Let the Party Begin!

2010 will be the 50th anniversary of my birth. And because my birthday is in January I decided to create a list of 50 Not Resolutions but Goals/Wishes for the upcoming year. So, without further ado, here is the list in no particular order (except #1) –

1. Enjoy my birthday! I'm actually looking forward to being the Big FIVE OH! Sometime in the coming year I want to have a knock down, drag out party. A family, friends, good food, music, outdoors, last all weekend party. Might need some help with that one.

2. Spin more! I have 2 wheels and have not touched either in the last 3 months. In fact, one is buried so deep in the TV/Computer/Storage Room I can't even see it.

3. Be better to my self. By that I mean do something for myself that I used to do. Money has been tight the last couple of years (not to mention the jobs have been crazy) and I let a couple of things slide. So I'm going to give myself permission to get a mani/pedi once a month and at least 3 full on body massages in 2010.

4. More ME Time. In keeping with #3, I'm going to go to some events and happenings that I've been meaning to attend for years. That includes FiberCamp Boston in January and StitchesEast in October.

5. Be better about keeping in touch with family & friends. I'm horrible at this and I need to touch base with people more.

6. Get the UFO pile down! I spent a lot of time in 2009 getting my S.A.B.L.E and projects uploaded to Ravelry and scared myself in the process. My UFO's are almost more than my FO's. I need to get the really old ones finished or frogged.

7. Get some of the House projects completed. Same problem as #6. We've got things started here that have been languishing for years. I must make a list of what needs to be completed and what is needed to complete it. Then put it somewhere that is in my face!

8. Continue to declutter the house. Seriously, we have TOO much stuff!

9. Decide if I want to keep my full size knitting machines. I'd love to use them but they take up a lot of room when up and I'd need time to acquaint myself with them again.

10. Use my Bond more. I have 2 and should get a new carriage to replace the broken one. They are easy enough to set up and put away. And it will help with #11.

11. My S.A.B.L.E.! Jeez!!! I knew I had yarn but until I started cataloging it for Ravelry I didn't realize how much YARN I had. I need to get rid of some and use a lot more!

12. Make a date night with Husband and stick to it. We need this in order to stay connected. After 20 years I'm not going to let him go.

13. Spend more time with the grandkids. Especially The Gift!

14. Make a 'date' with Youngest to do something to get her moving. She needs exercise so find something she enjoys and do it with her.

15. Learn more about computers. Giving my money to have someone 'fix' a computer goes up my butt!

16. Take more classes/workshops for fun and profit. I want to get a few more 'work' related skills under my belt which will help me towards my goal of working from home.

17. Travel. I would love to take a road trip around the eastern US and visit family and friends.

18. Vacation somewhere I have to fly hours to get to.

19. Donate more to charities. Not money so much as time and things they need.

20. Go through all my pictures and get them in albums. When I'm gone I don't want others to not know who's who.

21. Adopt the change things you can blah blah blah mantra.

22. Open an Etsy shop. That would help with getting the S.A.B.L.E. down to a stash.

23. Don't let my job take over my brain and life.

24. Get Youngest moved into the Big Room.

25. Start the 'remodel' on the kitchen

26. Get some on the broken/not working properly things done on the house.

27. Get a new car. But I have to decide on what I want first. That could take all year LOL.

28. Eat! I need to eat lunch at work. I must be better at walking away from my desk and finding a quite spot away from the chaos and EAT!

29. Spend less time hiding at the computer. Too much time is wasted on playing Bejewled Blitz on FB.

30. Get a quality MP3 player, sign up with Audible and walk away from the computer.

31. Don't spend as much time vegging on the couch in front of the TV watching crap.

32. Teach more workshops! I have a skill at teaching knitting and I should share that knowledge with others.

Humm, getting harder to think of things I want to do.

33. Seriously look into Linux. I have become more cranky with Microsoft as I learn more about my computer.

34. Start writing down my life story.

35. Start writing down my parents life stories.

36. Don't let things drag me down!

37. Don't take on more than I can do in 15 minutes. I have the tendency to add more and more to my plate and then crash & burn!

38. Be more forgiving to others. But don't let them walk over me in doing so.

39. Get the Azalea and Rose of Sharron in shape.

40. Plant Glads out back as a present for Youngest.

41. Find a church! I feel the need to be more connected with people who share a similar belief in a high power.

42. Attend the fall Loudon race. Maybe even make a weekend out of it.

43. Take some classes/workshops for knitting/spinning/crochet. I might know a lot but that doesn't mean I know it all.

44. Stop smoking! The money saved alone would be worth it.

45. Do something with my hair. Decide if I want it long or shorter and colored and keep up with it.

46. Get my foot taken care of. Right now, it's hard to wear boots cause it cramps up. And I've noticed that my big toe and the one next to it are numb.

47. Take my girls and spend a day at a spa. Get the full treatment!

Only 3 more to go and it's getting really hard!

48. Find a way for Youngest to see her father and his kids. Without violating the court order and driving me insane.

49. Find someone who can spend time on regular basis with Youngest who is not family.

and finally Number 50!

Have fun, relax and enjoy the next decade(s) with my family. I'm looking forward to seeing my grandkids grow up and become adults and what all the niece's and nephew's are going to do/become.

There I did it! Whada ya think?

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Memorial Day 2009

I Love My Sport!

As you know, I am a NASCAR Nut. After the Daytona 500, the next race that is a must watch for me is the 600 which is run on Memorial Day weekend. Usually this is on Sunday but this year due to rain it was bumped to Monday.

It started at noon and should have been completed about 4 hours later. However, Mother Nature had other plans and so it misted, spritzed, spit and poured! It was a challenge to watch. Run 20 laps, yellow flag, run 20 laps, yellow flag, repeat, repeat, repeat.

I had heard about the moment of silence scheduled for 3pm and was prepared to mute the race in order to participate. However, NASCAR beat me to it. THEY STOPPED THE RACE!!!!!!!!!

Threw a yellow, had all the cars park and shut off the engines. Everyone in the place stood. Picture 100,000 spectators (Yes, I checked this fact, Charlotte Motor Speedway's seating capacity is 165,000) on their feet, hats off and heads bowed, pit crews lined up across pit road, safety crews out of their vehicles, and on the TV screen a shot of the flag at half staff. For the whole minute.

What other sport would even consider this??? I've watched many a baseball, football and hockey game. Yes the National Anthem is performed before play starts but usually that's as far as it goes.

NASCAR has ALL our military branches as sponsors, either in the Cup, Nationwide or Truck series. Each race is started with the National Anthem and, weather permitting, a fly over of some sort of local military plane. There has been Air Force, Marine, Army, Navy and Coast Guard, National Guard and Reserve aircraft and personal at every Truck, Nationwide and Cup race for years.

The only time I have seen other sports honor our military is for a 'special' event. NASCAR does it every race.

So I love my sport.

To all that have served and to all that have supported a service person, Thank you.

To those that given the ultimate sacrifice, you are not forgotten.

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

It just keeps getting better

Monday the DPU guys turned the corner on my street . One new thing at the corner is this.











One of 2 hydrants that are part of the water main upgrade. However, the guys did a little damage when they got down to the triple decker across the street from me. This is what I saw as I turned off the main road to head to my house.








Lots of Gas Company vehicles.







I counted 3 utility trucks, 2 service vans, and this truck.















And then this was working away.






Not good.










They were just starting to replace the broken gas line. My across the street neighbor informed them his hot water heater was not working. Turns out that when the line broke ALL of pilot lights for ALL of the houses went out. So our houses were checked for leaks, the pilot lights for any gas appliances were lit and these guys were done about 8:30 in the evening. They not only dug up the side yard but really dug up the street.

Yesterday morning the DPU had gotten down to my house before I got out the door for work so I couldn't tell where the gas ended and the water started. The second hydrant was installed and covered by the time I got home from work. I'm not sure if we're hooked up yet and the street is half dirt. I'm just wondering if the city will repave the whole street or just where it was dug up. If they just patch pave, come winter we might not be able to get down the street.

And I'm almost done with Eric's socks. I'm not sure if I'll just knit until I run out of yarn or until I get sick of working 2-2 rib.