Knitting 40 shades of green

The best birthdays of all are those that haven't arrived yet.

    I have always had a strange relationship with birthdays. I have lots of birthday memories and while I remember them as great days to look forward to and one of my favorite days of the year "like Christmas but it is all about you", I also remember a good amount of tears.  I don't remember what I wore to school on my birthday in elementary school, but by high school I had taken to dressing up special on my birthday.  More often then not it was a black dress though since there was always something a little morose about the day.  I feel like birthdays are such an emotionally charged day and I am always just seconds away from tears some of them happy and some sad.  As an adult, I am still all about birthdays, I talk about it non stop for the weeks leading up to it so that people will know (and are not  expected to remember) it is coming up.  And then I throw/plan my own party in some way or another so that the day is recognized.

   

This morning several 5th grade students sneaked into the auditorium to wait for me, when I entered and was about to ask what they were doing there before 7:35 since I was early, they broke into "Happy Birthday".  Then Gustavo, whose birthday is tomorrow, went around and told all of the other grade levels that it was my birthday.  So I ended up with lots of birthday hugs and well wishes.  Later this evening I am getting together with friends for tapas and sangria at Jaleo.  I think it will be a fine way to start off my 39th year.

Decoration Day

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)
 
My father and grandfather shared a birthday, May 24.  I usually go to visit my father at the cemetery on their birthday but I found myself out of town for most of the day and so I went to the cemetery today for Memorial Day.  I placed flags by their headstones and shared a moment of thanks for their military service, that they came home safely and for the military service of everyone else who has ever fought for what this country stands for.  I appreciate that there are men and women who are willing to do this.  I just wish they didn't have to...

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

~Eric Bogle

fun in the mail

My mother never really took to knitting although I have taught her how.  I think she likes the idea of knitting better than actually doing it.  She has many other hobbies so I don't worry about it too much.  However, it would seem that she retains an interest in this craft due to my own interest.  She came across a contest which had as its prize a "skein of the month" club. 

She sent out a few e-mails and soon found that she need not enter the contest and could just subscribe to the club.  However, there is that problem of not knitting.  So, lucky me, she signed me up.  The club is sponsored by Webs and is inspired by the book One Skein Wonders.

Each month you are sent a skein of yarn, a pattern that can be completed with that skein of yarn and some other little trinket or gift from Webs.  This month's selection was a skein of Sheep Shop Yarn in Sheep 3.  This is a 30% silk and 70% wool yarn.  They also included the pattern Silky Leaves Scarf.

I will have to cast this on soon to try out this new yarn and I look forward to surprises in the mail for the rest of the year!  Thanks Mom!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mother, it is finished and waiting

Finally after years of waiting I have finished my mother's sweater. I brought it in the car on my way to Montpelier Fall Fiber Festival during the weekend of festivals with just the collar and the seaming left to do. I was meeting my mother there and thought I could seam it up while watching the sheep dog trials. However the weather was extremely hot and dusty and sitting around with a whole sweater on my lap was out of the question. My mother, however, wasn't aware of how close to finished I was. She pulls me over to check out the pockets in a sweater hanging in one of the booths (not wanting to ask about her sweater outright), she points out cardigans but then as soon as I mention that it is almost finished -- just a row or two on the collar and lots of seaming -- she states that it is much too hot for a sweater today and she will gladly come to get it once the weather turns colder (she is nothing if not gracious after her needling and nagging).

In past years I have given my mother flowers on my birthday since in my ego centric world it is my mother's day. This year I will present her with a sweater, just like the old sweater. Happy Mother's Day, Mom. Hopefully, she will agree to model it when she comes to pick it up (or when I drop it off). If not, I will have my photographer take some pictures so that I can do a summative post.

Vacation Knitting

I had a few days off and my uncle and aunt invited me up to their vacation house in the Poconos to get away for a spell. They have a house in Hawley, PA which is about a 5 - 6 hour drive. I knew there would be lots of sitting on the porch and looking at the leaves. I would need a project that would allow me to concentrate on the conversation and not the chart or tricky pattern.

The weather was lovely and we even got a bit of much needed rain which helped the colors come out a bit more.

While Autumn Rose was sitting there haunting me, I needed something a bit more mindless.  I came out of the gold (that is what I tell people is in there so they will understand why I won't let them see in there), stash, extra bedroom with the "Striped Silky Wool Jacket" which had been marinating in there for a couple of years.

I choose a slightly less bright colorway and the project fit my purposes perfectly.  I was able to finish one sleeve and get started on another before driving back to Virginia.  Here is a picture of the left front that I am currently working on.

Random photos of the nieces

Olivia and Rosemary

Lily
Ginger with a new sister (Rosemary, I think)The girls, sad Aunt Jaz has to leave.

Look who showed up on Tuesday!!

I better get knitting...

November 18: Bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, woncy

Seven years ago I decided to get a dog.  I never thought I would own a dog but after spending tons of time with an ex's dog (to the point that he would live for me for months at a time while his owner traveled for work) the house was feeling a  little lonely.  I would go to the shelter three or four times a week looking for a dog that fit my criteria (over 4 years old, female, not high strung).  I would read the bios and walk a dog or two and then stop at the first cage as you enter the dog runs.  There was "Harold".  He would be there jumping straight up into the air -- his vertical leap was incredible.  He had so much energy that I felt sorry for him so I would take him for a walk.  He didn't have leash skills but seemed rather friendly.  He was about a year and a half and seemed to enjoy getting out for a walk.  He had been found as a stray and was severely underweight.  He was not yet available for adoption as the shelter holds them for 10 days to be claimed by their owner.  He definitely didn't fit my criteria.  After a couple weeks of this looking, I decided that it would be a lot easier if this dog lived at my house.  I didn't choose this dog, he chose me.

He came home November 18, 1999.   He wasn't much into dog food and he would drop a treat and leave it on the ground.  How was I going to train this dog who wasn't motivated by food.  It was all I could do to get the 11 pounds on him that the vet considered his proper weight. But his desire to please was strong and he was soon laking well on the leash, sitting at the curb and coming when I called.  He was well loved by all of the children in the neighborhood and a walk could often become hours of walking and visiting and playing with the children in the neighborhood. 

He had issues.  He had been beaten by a man who drank Budweiser (or else my dog was a beer snob).  He had epilepsy.  He had an attention span too short to play fetch.  But he was a great dog and I miss him terribly.  I can't walk through the neighborhood without someone asking where he is and I have to relive that night all over again.

I miss you Tigger.

Birthday Girl

My sister is celebrating her birthday today, while she was born three years before me, I am not entirely sure which one this is.  When she graduated from college after taking quite a few years off before deciding that she loved academia and attending St John's College, a school so cerebral that I couldn't even imagine, she declared that she was going to be 25 again (or maybe it was a different age).  However, I am not sure if she continued aging from there or has reverted back to her calendar age.  But really it doesn't matter.  Today is her day and this blog entry is for her.

My sister is the greatest because:

1. She always included me.  When we were kids she was playing with some of her friends and we were making a cassette tape (remember those) recording of a haunted house adventure.  Instead of shooing me away she let me take part when they got to the "Room of Dentures", instead of making scared screams, I ask innocently (on tape) "what are dentures?"
2. She would make me feel better about my lack of talent at drawing by telling me she had 3 more years practice and that I would be just as good as she was if I kept practicing. 
3. She liked to hang around me and my friends.
4. She thinks that I am cool.
5. She had the courage to leave the course of expectation (college, graduate school, job) and move to 15 acres of land in the middle of no where and start buying domesticated animals.
6. She is not a failed gardener (like someone I know).
7. She is a great mother to two beautiful girls.
8. I was enough family to prevent homesickness.  When I was 7 and my sister was ten, she went  to sleep away camp for 4 weeks.  She loved camp and wanted to stay for the second 3 week session, but was terribly homesick.  Instead of coming home she convinced my parents (and the camp who had an age limit of 8 and above), that everything would be great if they could just send me to camp.  It worked out great and we enjoyed the three week camp session.
9. She understands the need to "look it up" when we discover something we don't know.
10. She is always looking out for me.  When She was three, she brought home the chicken pox from her nursery school.  She shared them with me freely.  I was not even a year old yet and in the manner of sick babies got very quiet and helpless.  Well, she knew that those pox  itched as she had a whole slew of them herself.  So, she scratched them for me.  I have one scar from my run in with the chicken pox, it has faded and is difficult to see now but right by my belly button is a scar that demonstrates a sister's love.

Happy Birthday, Sis! I love you a ton and can't wait to see you on Sunday.