Knitiot Savant

Fake

For some reason I've always wanted a white Christmas tree.  You know what I'm talking about; not a live one that's been flocked but a big, fake tree.  This year I splurged and bought one along with new glass ornaments in blinding colors to adorn the newest addition to our Christmas inventory.

I like tradition most of the time but I like change too and this year seemed as good a time as any to shake things up.  We went through our ornaments with a critical eye.  Ditched the ones that were broken, the glass balls that were cracking on the inside and were just ooky looking, little trinkets I'd kept simply because they'd been on a gift though I couldn't tell you what who'd given me the gift at the time.  The ornaments we kept all have a story.  We told Lili where we'd gotten them or who had given them to us when we put them on the tree.  The ones we bought the first year of our marriage when we were living in my parents finished garage, so broke that a Christmas seemed out of reach.  The fairy ornaments I bought for Lili when I was pregnant, certain that my little girl would grow to love fairies...and she has!  The ballerina slipper ornament that Lili picked out last year.  Ornaments for beloved pets lost and those still with us...each one we kept holds a cherished memory and has a special place on our shiny new and super fake and tacky tree.  We should have gone through them ages ago, but I'm glad we did it now.  Seemed like the right time and we should do it every year I think.

Wait..did I just start a new tradition? :-) 

Jack

This is Action Jackson..Jack for short.  We adopted him a couple of weeks ago.  Lili has always been a big help with all of our animals.  She feeds the dogs and our cat, Zoe.  She loves to play with them but she's really wanted a kitten of her own.  We were in Petco and, as usual, we stopped to look at all the beautiful kittens that need homes.  Of the three that were there that day, Jack stole Lili's heart.    

According to the group that rescued Jack, he was found when he was about three days old.  He was the only one in his litter to survive and the woman that nursed him back to health said that she didn't think he'd make it.  But here he is; frisky, crazy and the sweetest kitten you'd ever want to meet.  They named him Action Jackson because he was such a tough little guy and we decided to keep the name.  It was the only one he'd known for four months and it didn't seem right to change it.

Lili is a great kitty mommy.  She plays with Jack until the kitten practically falls over.  She makes sure he gets enough to eat and cuddles him as much as he lets her.  When she comes in from school, Jack pops up from whatever he's doing, (usually napping) to great his favorite little human.  Jack makes Lili laugh with all the silly things he does.  He's made our Zoe get off her fat butt and move a little more, (the usually have a rousing game of chase around midnight) and even the dogs seem to like having him around.  All in all I'd have to say adopting Jack was one of our better ideas.

Let's see if I still feel that way when we put the Christmas tree up. lol

Mellow

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day.  Ate too much, caught movies and really loved being together.  Friday I braved Black Friday to pick up fabric I needed for Christmas sewing.  I don't think folks who sew are as scary as people who are willing to crush each other for televisions.  Everyone at the fabric store was mellow and groovy; swapping bolts when they'd gotten what they wanted cut and talking about what they were going to make with what they'd chosen.

Today the plan is to head out for a nice lunch of Mexican food, (I can only take so much turkey) then dive head-first into my Christmas sewing.  Maybe even drag out the Christmas decorations.  Wow.  I can tell I'm really out of the habit of blogging.  All this writing and not one pic!  Hm...I'll have to make up for that by sharing pics of the newest member of our family.  You'll just have to wait to see how truly handsome he is.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks for the warm welcome back you blogging geeks!  Respect, yo!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving full of turkey and love.  Mostly love.

It Lives.....

Yes, I'm alive and kicking for anyone who still wondered.  LOL  This has a been one hell of a year; filled with weight loss, running, reading and the start of kindergarten and a step away from blogging. 

I haven't done a whole lot of knitting really.  Dug up a whole mess of unfinished projects and frogged the lot of them.  It was a reality check for me.  If haven't worked on the damn things since my last blog post odds were I wasn't gonna work on them in the near future.  I kept one project on the needles but it's probably not going to fit now.  (Yeah..the result of the whole weight loss thing. :-) )

And kindergarten.  Where do I start with that?  I'm thrilled/sad...such a mix.  I love seeing Lile grow up but I wanna hold her close.  All moms face this I reckon.  And it won't get any easier, I'm sure.

But I'm back.  No promises about blogging regularly.  Don't wanna make a liar of myself...and I need time to figure out the new Typepad.  Yeah..they changed that on my in my absence.  It's a plot, I'm sure. :-)

I'll do my best to catch up with the rest of y'all in blogland.  Peace out, knitters.

From the division of shameless rip-offs

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day weekend.  Mine was spent fretting about Lili as she barfed everything up her little tummy encountered.  We celebrated Valentine's Day on Sunday instead with a family lunch followed by watching a movie all snuggled on the sofa.  That pretty much made up for Valentine's Day in my book.

I shamelessly stole this literary list from Kat who shamelessly ripped it off from another blogger.  Sort of my way of encouraging the circle of thievery among bloggers who knit.  Please, feel free to steal from me.

Key
1) Bold the books you have already read
2) Italicize the books you intend to read
3) Notes in parentheses next to note-worthy titles.

1) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (started it and hated it so didn't finish it)
2) The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
3) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
4) Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
5) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6) The Bible (parts of it.  Not the whole thing)
7) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
8 ) Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
9) His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
10) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
11) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
12) Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
13) Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
14) Complete Works of Shakespeare (I've read some, but not all)
15) Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
16) The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
17) Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
18 ) Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
19) The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
20) Middlemarch by George Eliot
21) Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
22) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
23) Bleak House by Charles Dickens
24) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
25) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
26) Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
27) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 ) Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
29) Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
30) The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
31) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
32) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
33) Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
34) Emma by Jane Austen
35) Persuasion by Jane Austen
36) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis
37) The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
38 ) Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
39) Memories of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
40) Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
41) Animal Farm by George Orwell
42) The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
43) One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44) A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving
45) The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
46) Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
47) Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
48 ) The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
49) Lord of the Flies by William Golding
50) Atonement by Ian McEwan
51) Life of Pi by Yann Martel (started, didn't finish it)
52) Dune by Frank Herbert
53) Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
54) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
55) A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
56) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57) A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
58 ) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
59) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
60) Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
62) Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
63) The Secret History by Donna Tartt
64) The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
65) Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
66) On The Road by Jack Kerouac
67) Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
68 ) Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
69) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
70) Moby Dick by Herman Melville
71) Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
72) Dracula by Bram Stoker
73) The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
74) Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson
75) Ulysses by James Joyce
76) The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
77) Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
78 ) Germinal by Emile Zola
79) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
80) Possession by AS Byatt
81) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
82) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
83) The Color Purple by Alice Walker
84) The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
85) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
86) A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
87) Charlotte's Web by EB White
88 ) The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom
89) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90) The Faraway Tree Collection by Enid Blyton
91) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
92) The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93) The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
94) Watership Down by Richard Adams
95) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
96) A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
97) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 ) Hamlet by William Shakespeare
99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
100) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Wow.  Judging by this list I'm not very well-read.  I'll get on that.  Right after I finish that second sock.

A Bloggers Silent Poetry Reading

The Rose, the Lily, the Sun and the Dove
by Heinrich Heine

The rose, the lily, the sun and the dove,
I loved them all once in the rapture of love.
I love them no more, for my sole delight
Is a maiden so slight, so bright and so white,
Who, being herself the source of love,
Is rose and lily and sun and dove.

A big thanks to Knotty Mouse for the reminder about this wonderful event and to Mogs blog for hosting.  Drop a comment at Mogs if you participate.

Fri-Dee

nataliedee.com

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's....

actual knitting.  Pick yourself up off the floor.  I know I had to.  Not only is it actual knitting but it's actual knitting from an actual knitting class.   One of my goals this year was to learn a new knitting technique and I thought I'd start with learning to knit socks on circular needles.  I think by the second class I'm supposed to have the sock knit down to the heel flap.  Or something like that.  I've already managed to screw the sock up.  It was supposed to be 2x2 ribbing but, 1 1/2 inches in I realized I'd knit 1x1 ribbing so I jazzed up the ribbing to make it look kinda pretty and kept on knitting.  I don't really care how the sock looks, I just want to learn how to knit them on circular needles. 

I'm a completely self-taught knitter so the class has been a nice change of pace for me.  It's been cool to have someone right there to ask for help when I need it.  I'm not used to that at all.  Dude, I could get spoiled on this whole class thing.  Also, the instructor is funny as hell.  I'd take another class from her based on that alone. 

So, I have more knitting to do on my sock!  I'll keep you up to date on my progress.  Hopefully this one will not languish without a mate.

Fri-Dee

I want to eat this...now.

nataliedee.com