First tree in years

This year I decided against bringing the 2.5 ft tree already lit and decorated up from the basement where it lives under a plastic bag 11 months of the year.

On Saturday The Saint and I headed up to Greenville to see his friend Tiny aka The Giant and cut a tree. It's always great to see them and while The Saint and The Giant enjoyed a couple of holiday cocktails and caught up on all the latest truck driver gossip cause you know men gossip waaaay more than women The Giant's wife, granddaughter, son and I trekked through the snow to find just the right tree.

And here we have it...and the lights are pretty when you can catch them actually lit. lol

It's tough to catch blinking lights at exactly the instant when most of them are lit. That's a little house down there on the floor lit up. Looks a bit strange in this pic.

Here's this year's favorite ornament; one of Hallmark's Reindeer Girlfriends with her knitting basket. Rena found the set of three knitting, reading, drinking a glass of wine for me, she's such a good child. Love you Rena! I had to have them after seeing them on Grace's blog the other day. Thanks for the tip Grace, these are super cute. They were not easy to find either!

And yes, I actually have been doing some knitting, see...

it's the Irish Hiking Scarf that I'm making for my Mom. I think I'll have to knit in my sleep to get done but whatever it takes :)

I better finish getting ready for work.

Everybody have a great day and thanks to all of you who stop by and say hey.

wash day and another hat

I have never been so happy to see this...

Laundry spinning around in the washer. Man, two weeks without it has almost driven me crazy! Rena was super nice and did a couple loads; The Saints work uniforms and towels. Everything else has been piling up in the laundry room which also happens to be the way you get into the house, yuk! It's usually messy enough with the shoes, boots, umbrellas, coats, dog beds, yada, yada, I certainly didn't need two weeks worth of laundry piled up back there too. It'll take me a couple of days to get it under control but by the weekend I should be pretty sane again, maybe. *giggle*

On the knitting front, I'm anxiously awaiting Friday. That's when Rena and I will be packing off to the Late Night Yarny Party at City Knitting. We've been once before and it was great fun. We take our folding camp chairs, drinks, snacks and a big bag 'o knitting and hang out with about 50 other knitters, crocheters and spinners from 8pm til 2am. Or however long we can last. She's getting off work at 8 and swoopin by to pick me up. Can't wait!

And, I finished another hat, Hurricane (son Jared's childhood bear) was trying to model it for us but his head just wasn't the right shape and I had to roll the brim which made it look pretty yucky. What is that big hole there? So, here's me, in the hat, that will be going to a nice, dog-loving girl for Christmas.

No, not you Rena! ha ha ha
This is another incarnation of the Helping Hat that canKnitian posted the pattern for. Each one I've made has been different. I have such a hard time counting rows, lol. I just knit til it looks pretty much the same as the set of rows before it and twist it up. I think it turned out ok. The yarn is Philosopher's Wool. I wasn't too crazy about the yarn while I was working it but once I soaked it and let it dry, I love it. Nice and soft and fabulous color. Which my crappy camera really refuses to show you.

Hope all our friends are safe and sound over there in Omaha. It's a strange world we live in. Speaking of friends, we don't have any good news about our friend Ron. After all these weeks he is still in the hospital and classified as unresponsive. They're discussing a trip to Mayo for him. Thanks for continuing to send up good thoughts on his behalf.

Well, the dryer just "buzzed" for the 3rd time so I guess I better go fold some laundry :-)

Everybody have a great day!

Monday, bleh!

It's freezing cold outside. The roads are icey. My washing machine has been out of commission for almost 2 weeks.

I've been knitting like crazy but it's all for gifty stuff so I can't even show you what I've accomplished incase the gift-ees are lookin.

The high tomorrow is supposed to be 27. That doesn't even qualify as a high in my book.

I'll be glad when I can do some laundry again. Wait, did I really say that? My brain must be frozen...the repair man is supposed to be back for the second time on Wednesday. sigh Why can't they carry some parts on their truck? I think it's a conspiracy...

Here's a knitterly bouquet to say thank you for stopping by and listening to my whine.


I gotta go knit now...

An Evening with Debbie Stoller

WARNING: Lots of pictures in this post.

Woo-hoo! I got to meet Debbie Stoller tonight and she signed my Stitch n Bitch book. We had a little happy hour get-together at City Knitting, thanks Lorilee! followed by a trip to Schuler Books on 28th St for Debbie's introduction of her new book and some book signing. It was way fun!

Debbie Stoller, Kim, Lorilee, someone I don't know and Jessica! (italicized people are the fabulous City Knitting crew)

Debbie brought a few items to show us from her new Son of Stitch n Bitch book including this beautiful double knit argyle scarf.Leslie (sorry if I've misspelled your name) modeled this cute hat.

And just to prove I was there, that's me cheesin in the background, looking like I was actually involved in the conversation, lol. Notice how Debbie and I both chose red for the evening. hehe

Lorilee presented Debbie with her very own Know Your Cuts t-shirt and tote bag. Doesn't she look surprised?!

I believe a fun time was had by all.

I'll leave you with one last pic from Schuler's.

please ignore the head in the center of the picture :-)

FOs and a special evening

Hello evrybodee!

Debbie Stoller is coming to town! I can't wait for Wednesday to get here. Stitch n Bitch is the first knitting book I ever purchased and I'll be standing in line to have it signed, you bet! There's a little happy hour celebration at City Knitting before the book signing at Schuler Books and that should be great fun too.

I've been off work since last Wednesday and guess what I've been doing...besides eating and raking leaves...

KNITTING!!! 3 hats, thanks canKNITian for the pattern, and a Ballband dishcloth. And I've gotten 12 more rows done on my EZ ASJ. Nothing like a weekend of power knitting to get that old carpal tunnel syndrome flared up! lol Where's the ibuprofen?!








I really like the yarn in the red one and the green one. It's Schulana Colardino. I found it at my LYS but this eBay link has a good picture of the yarn.





Here's a closer up look at the hats...

I've decided that if I make any more with that pattern they'll be in solid color yarn so you can see the cables better. I just couldn't resist the colors of the Colardino though.

Now I'm working on a teeny tiny sweater ornament with my leftover Ice Cream Sundae yarn from the Neopolitan Monkey that I made. I really need to get busy on the Monkey's mate but there are so many other things to work on right now, waaaaa.

So, it's been a lot of years since we've had a Christmas tree, other than the 2 ft tree I keep in a garbage bag in the basement, completely lit and decorated, and I'm wondering how long a tree will last once you cut it down. I'd really like to have a real tree this year with lots of pretty decorations and lights but I really hate cleaning up all those needles when you drag it out of the house the week after the holiday. Anybody got any ideas on that?

Thanks for stoppin by. Have a great week and knit somethin.

Food & Family & a Beautiful Day

The Saint said goodbye to Mr. Turkey's paleness on a beautiful 2007 Thanksgiving morning...
all those leaves fell in about 2 hours yesterday

40 minutes in the fryer...








en voila! A golden brown tasty turkey!


Best turkey I ever ate!

My little helper, Rena, showed up to help with the last few preparations for the big feast. Thanks, Rena, I couldn't have done it without you. Seriously.

I think we used about every pot in the house by the time we were finished. It's a good thing we had 5 burners and 2 ovens, lol.

And, of course, you can't have a feast without a few of The Saint's favorite beverages...

The meal and the day were both unbeatable. We fed 12 here at Chez B.

Chef Wes (Rena's husband) came by around 6 and picked up his to-go boxes. He was finally finished with his day at work. He started at 4am and cooked 20...yes 20...18 lb turkeys and fixin's to go with 'em for the members at the country club where he is Exec Chef. He looked tired but I'll bet there were 250 or so well fed folks at the club. We're super proud of him and what he does. That man makes the best hummus on the earth!

Hope all of you had just as good a day. I'm looking forward to reading everyone's turkey day stories this weekend.

I've been knitting like crazy but can't post pictures though cause they're gifts for possibly lurking children, he he.

Have a great weekend and be sure to squeeze some knitting in between the shopping trips!

My first (and probably only *sniff*) baby hat...

Ta-da! I made this hat for my business manager's granddaughter. She couldn't find a hat small enough for her so I volunteered to knit one. She took it home today to see how it fit. I hope it will be perfect. Since Rena says she's not having any children I have to live precariously through others, ROFL.

Warning for Cass, cover your eyes and skip this next part...

Are you covering your eyes, yet? Ok, now scroll really fast past this next part and maybe you'll miss the picture of the dreaded meatiness to follow. lol Love you, have a great Thanksgiving. Here's a pretty lava lamp picture for you to enjoy before you get to the meat that I know you don't want to see. Doesn't it sort of look like a tornado? ok, are you scrolling yet? go!















Say hello to my little friend...
yep, thats Mr. Turkey, nervously awaiting the fryer tomorrow morning, mwa-ha-ha-ha, nevermind that bottle of sangria peaking out in the lower left corner. That's for later.

Yep, he's an organically grown, freshly murdelized turkey from one of our local growers, Heritage Acres Farm. He looks like a pretty nice one too. Let's hope he's really tasty. The Saint will be dropping him into the hot peanut oil tomorrow about 12:30 and we'll be feasting by 1:30, mmm-mmm.

And this is my frequently requested, crack-like substance called Pumpkin Apple Spice bread. More like cake you can eat with your hands than bread though. It has 2 1/2 cups of sugar in it and it is topped with brown sugar crumbly stuff! Yikes! And Granny Smith apples and a can of pumpkin. Mmm, it's tasty. You just can't stop with one piece of this stuff. It's very moist and has lots of those seasonings you associate with Thanksgiving and pumpkin pie.



And I'll leave you with this one more interesting photo of The Saint's favorite lamp. He looked up the other night and said, "look, we have our own little tornado"... m'yeah. Whatchu think?



You have to use a little imagination but I could totally see it that night. Maybe you just had to be there, lol.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!