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.

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?

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.