For a while, I'd been a pretty monogamous knitter, working exclusively on the Anniversary Mystery 10 shawl. Then I hit the wall. My mojo for that shawl flew out the window.
So I set it aside and started a new sock yarn blankie. I worked on it almost exclusively for a couple of weeks, then I hit the wall. My mojo for the blankie flew out the window.
So I set it aside and picked back up the Vernal Equinox shawl.
I finished clue 5 today. Only one more clue and that one will be done. But don't worry, I still have plenty to work on.
There are very few times in my life when I have truly been left speechless. There have been times when I haven't though of an appropriate response until 5 or 6 hours later. You know how i is. You're laying in your bed late that night and suddenly you think of it.
"I should have said..."
I do that a lot. Still, there is one incident in my life in which the "I should have said" never came to me. More than 15 years later, I"m still not sure what
"I should have said..."
His name was Jesse, and he was recently divorced. Jesse had a thing for me. Oh, he didn't want a relationship. He just wanted for me to...as he said, "Come over to my house and we'll sit on my couch and whatever happens will happen."
I do give him credit for honesty. At least he was up front about what he wanted. No smooth words, talk of love, or promises he had no intention of keeping. I appreciated his candor. I also appreciated that he didn't push me into anything I didn't want to do. After a while, Jesse got engaged to a nice Italian girl. I figured that he would forget about me. I figured wrong.
We'd been having trouble with one of the transmitters. As I went in to work that night, my shift was relieving Jesse's shift.
"Come here, Becky," Jesse said. "I want to show you something." Thinking that he had some schematics or notes on the machine to discuss with me, I followed me to his locker. He flung his locker door open, and I just stood there waiting for him to pull out a log book or tech manual, but he didn't. He finally had to point to the picture. It was a Xerox, actually. It took me a moment to figure out what it was. It was his business.
The man had taken his stuff out of his pants, laid it up on the xerox machine and run a photo cop of it. As soon as I realized what I was seeing, my jaw dropped. I stood there--speechless, my mouth hanging open. Then Jesse said the last thing I wanted to hear:
"Well, what do you think?"
I didn't know what to say. I mean, what do you say to a question like that? I finally just stammered out, "It's nice, Jesse." And Jesse replied, "It kinda makes you want to do stuff to it, doesn't it?"
I said, "I think you'd better leave that to [your girlfriend].
There are very few times I am left speechless. Very few. But this was one of them.
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
--Robert Louis Stevenson
I was going to write this nifty little post about how when I was a child, I didn't understand why I had to go to bed while it was still light out. My dad used to love to tell of me standing in my crib protesting, "but it's not dark yet". About how, now that I'm grown, my work hours still necessitate me occasionally going to bed before the sun does.
But something was not right. Something was nagging at my memory. That's when I remembered. I'd already done it.
I was at work, with nothing to do at the moment, so I was up talking to the guys on the test tank. All of the sudden, one of them turned to me and said,
"Are those your real eyes?"
Momentarily taken aback, I just stared at him, then said, "What? Did you think my eyes are fake?"
He laughed, and responded that you know some people wear contacts to change their eye color, so he thought maybe I had colored contacts in.
It was then that I pointed out to him the prescription eyeglasses sitting on my face.
So, no, though they may look fake, these are indeed my real eyes.
I've been blogging for 4 1/2 years now, and coming up with a fresh, new title for each post is getting more and more difficult. So, you get what you get.
I got to sleep in until 8:00 this morning. Well, after I got up at 5:30 and let Rylea out and fed Squeaky. And that was after the alarm went off at 4:15 because I forgot to turn it off before I went to bed. Anyway, after taking care of the critters, I went and laid back down. Usually when I do that, I just toss and turn until I finally give up and get up. But today, I fell back asleep almost at once and slept until Rylea wanted back in. It felt good, too. I know some of you might not think 8:00 is sleeping in, but when you're used to getting up at 4:15, yeah, it is.
I had a banana that was almost too ripe to do anything with, so I made myself a smoothie for breakfast, after I whacked open my index finger washing the blender out. Banana, milk, a little ground flax seed, and some chocolate milk mix. But no blood. I decided it was time to get myself a new blender. The old one is leaking some kind of oil, and the top part--where you put the stuff to be blended-- is cracked. Since I've had the old one for some 15 years now, it's time.
I went to church, then came back and knit for the rest of the afternoon. This is how Rylea spent her afternoon.
"Good heavens! Do you have to keep shoving that thing in my face?"
I forgot to show you this yesterday:
Dallas Cowboys ice trays! I'm all ready for football season to start. Just two more months until the Hall of Fame game! You know I'm going to be watching because Emmitt is being inducted, so the Cowboys will be playing the Bengals. August 8th, here I come!
An interesting thing happened in church a couple of weeks ago. I'd meant to blog about it then, but just never got around to it. So you get to read it now. Our pastor was out on vacation, and we had a guest preacher. Towards the end of the service, he said he was going to do a survey, and asked everyone in the congregation to stand. Then he said, "I'm going to ask you two questions, and if you know the answer, remain standing. John 3:16--probably the most well known verse in the Bible--For God so loved the world...The question is, who said it and who did he say it to? If you know the answer, remain standing."
All over the sanctuary, people began sitting down. I'd expected about half of the people there to sit, but when they all got settled, only two people were still standing. Me and the youth pastor. I couldn't believe it. I figured surely more people than that knew the answer. The lady who sits beside me said, "I don't know who he said it to."
Pretty good job, for my first darning attempt. Normally, I wouldn't bother, but these socks are special. They are my Marion Barber socks. I wanted to keep them around just a bit longer. BTW, Marion Barber tweeted that he had his wisdom teeth out yesterday. Oh, I feel for him. He said he has some good pain killers, though. They sent him to outer space, or so he said.
I also need to fix these Varanasi socks. They've got a thin spot in the heel, and I'm going to duplicate stitch over it. I just haven't gotten around to it.
That's a light bulb inside the sock, because I don't have a darning egg. Yet. I need to place an order with Knit Picks. I need some more Options cables, and I want some darning wires. What I don't need is more yarn, but the new Felici colors are sooo tempting.
You know that TV show Bones? I didn't really discover the show until it was in season 3. I tried to watch a few episodes, but just couldn't get into it. Then I discovered that Netflix has it streaming in their Watch Instantly feature. I thought that if I went back to season 1 and got to know the characters and watch them develop, I might like it better. So I started with season 1, episode 1. By the end of that hour, I was completely and totally hooked. Now, I'm halfway through season 4, and drumming my fingers for them to get season 5 up.
One last thing before I go. You have GOT to see this video.
I have a love/hate relationship with feed readers.
I love them to keep up with political blogs--especially those who post several times a day, or with blogs like Engrish or Not Always Right, ones that I don't really want to leave comments on. I also love them for keeping up with those who post infrequently. There is nothing more discouraging than clicking through to a blog day after day, only to have nothing new to read. I stop visiting the site, only to go back one day and find that I've missed several posts. With a feed reader, I don't have to worry about that. Anything new will show up in my reader, without me having to waste time clicking through to a site with nothing new on it.
On the other hand, I hate them. It is too easy just to read personal blogs in the reader, and not click through to the site. When I don't click through, I'm less likely to leave comments. And for those who like to keep up with who visits their sites, posts read in a reader don't count as hits. Yeah, you can check the site monitor for references, but --at least in the one I use-- it just shows up as the reader hitting your site. You don't know who is using that reader.
Not only that, I think a reader adds a barrier between the author and the one reading the blog. When I used to bookmark my blogs and visit each one individually, I thought of the authors as my friends. Now, using a feed reader, it has become much more impersonal. It's like so many of them are no longer friends any more. They are just authors.
The question is, can I give up my feed reader, and reconnect with the blogs I read on a personal basis? I don't know.
The plant where I work has a co-operative agreement with one of the local universities, in which engineering and business management students can work there. They get practical experience in an actual work environment, and somehow it counts towards their degree. I don't know all the details, but it's been going on several years now.
One of these college students started working with my line today. He said he wanted to know every order that had something wrong with it--not enough parts, parts bent wrong, etc.--so that they can find out what the problem is and fix it. After I stopped laughing, for which I am very sorry, we got down to work.
He asked me how often parts shortages happen. I said, "Every order. Every day." At that point, my group leader Rod walked off laughing. Red didn't believe me (his real name is Blake, but hey, Red is a step up from what we had been calling him, which was Opie), and told me to call him every time I had a part come up short. By lunch time, he was rolling his eyes, too.
So, Red was jotting a note down and I asked him, "You're a college student?" He nodded, and I said, "And you spell like that?" Red answered, "I'm an engineer. I only have to do math."
Before I left, I asked Rod if "Dear CoWorker" would be back tomorrow. He looked thoughtful for a moment, and said he didn't know. Then he got it, laughed, and said, "He's going to have a time with her!"
I was asleep, and dreaming, when at around midnight I was awakened by a clap of thunder. Not just any old clap of thunder, but a super loud clap of thunder. I nearly came out the bed. What's cool is that in my dream, there was an explosion and a really big fireball.
I'm still working on the second blankie. I've decided to do it a little bit differently. I put all my yarn in one big bag. When I need a new square, I close my eyes, reach in, and whatever I grab is what I use. I've gotten 13 squares done, and the 14th cast on. I've put all my squares in a bag, too, and when I get ready to do the second row, I'll reach into the bag, grab some squares and that's what I use. I think this is going to be fun.
I've started new project. What is it? Here's a hint:
Need another?
Figured it out yet? OK, final hint:
Yep, I've started another blankie with the leftover bits of yarn from the first one. I'm thinking this one will be for my sister and her family. I'm going to make it slightly bigger than mine--14 squares wide to my 12. And since she's not as picky as I am, I will make duplicate squares. I'll also use solids, and a variety of fibers. See the middle square in the top row of the above photo? It's a cotton blend. I think it'll work nicely in her blankie.
I had hoped to get it finished in time to give it to her for Christmas. But thinking about it, that may be a bit too ambitious. Well, we'll see how it goes. If I don't get it done by December, there's always next year!
When I was a child, my dad told me the story of a man who, instead of saying grace before his meals wrote out his prayer on his dining room wall. When he sat down to eat, he'd just gesture at the wall and say, "Them's my sentiments."
Now, I don't advocate that sort of communication with the Lord, but that story has always amused me.
Every so often, I find a cartoon or a photo floating around the internet that just so perfectly matches how I feel that I need to share it. So, I'm introducing a new topic to the blog. I'm calling it
OK, first of all, with a speeding vehicle, a bull dozer, a squad truck, a fire truck, a helicopter, and 10-15 assorted firemen and paramedics stomping around, there's no way a rattlesnake will still be hanging around. Even if it was, it is highly unlikely that it would strike unprovoked like that. An estimated 95% of snake bites occur when the victim is trying to capture or kill the snake. Often, alcohol is involved.
Secondly, Johnny will NOT be dead within minutes. Rattlesnake venom is not that potent. In fact, most bite victims have several hours to get medical help before the venom becomes potentially fatal. And though I don't recommend it, many people have survived rattlesnake bites without seeking medical attention at all.
Finally, that bite is awfully high on Johnny's leg. Most bites--some 90%--are on the foot and ankle. Furthermore, a snake will seldom strike without giving adequate warning. That's why God made that little rattle on their tails. It takes tremendous energy to produce venom, and snakes won't use it unless they absolutely have to. A snake won't suddenly strike out of the blue unless they feel their lives are in immediate danger, and as shy as they are--well, see point #1.
OK, OK, I was watching an old episode of Emergency on Netflix, via their watch instantly feature. Roy and Johnny had just helped some teenagers that had been in a car accident. Johnny forgot his handy talkie and reached back into the car to get it, when a rattlesnake jumped up and bit him. Maybe it makes good TV adventure, but in my book, garbage like that only adds to the fear and hatred people have for snakes.
Even with all the moonbat animal rights BS that is out there, snakes are still the only animal it is acceptable to kill just because it is a snake.
