Long Time We No Get Drunk Together

A quote from one of my uncle Harry's favorite movies, McClintock. Yes, I've been quiet. Sue me. A lot of stuff has been going down.

Eldest daughter is still struggling. We don't need to go there, except to say that the jerk who used to be her husband has paid about a tenth of the child support he owes. Thank God for her family.

However, good news from younger daughter and her wonderful hubby...my second grandchild is due to be born in April. Current name selections are Lilith or Xander. Middle names are quite esoteric, and have changed multiple times. :-) I couldn't be more thrilled, and yes, there will be baby knitting in the near future. Another happy thought - this baby will be sleeping in the cradle that my grandfather handmade for me when I was expecting my eldest. So far, both my children, my two nieces, my nephew and my grandson have started life sleeping in that cradle. I know my grandfather would be thrilled.

I've been knitting the Mythos sweater. Not in the yarn called-for, the cost of which is astronomical for a sweater to fit me. I wish designers would remember that just because the yarn to make their itsy bitsy teeny weeny size only takes a skein with enough left over to make a tea cozy, enough yarn for a woman of abundance means her wallet darn well better be abundant too. Given my second paragraph above...let's just say that instead, I got a seriously good deal on some Sockotta. Not the stripey kind, but one that gives a Jacquard kind of pattern. I'm loving it. Until I have to join the two halves by grafting the back, then we'll talk again.

And speaking of knitting, I've decided to get certified through the Craft Yarn Council as a knitting instructor. If I like the program, I may continue on and get certified as a pro. We'll see how it goes. There is also a strong possibility that my DH and I may be jointly teaching a class at a local university in Lightroom and Photoshop. We'll see on that too.

One friend of mine recently asked if I were having a mid-life crisis. The wench is only a few months younger than I! Why did she ask, you wonder? As well you might, given my general youthful demeanor and jejune outlook. (Look it up.) Well, she asked because of this.


Yes, it's a tattoo. After years of saying I would never get one, I suddenly decided I wanted to, and I will tell you why, because I can see you're panting to know. Which is seriously steaming up your monitor, so stop that.

The DH's nickname is Tigger. In return, he calls me Pooh, but is very careful not to point out that I too am stuffed with fluff. For years we've had a standing joke about him (who hates needles) getting a Pooh on his butt, that is if we could find it. The man is practically concave.

Anyway, I recently commented that I should get the Tigger on my left shoulder, where DH falls asleep most nights. And I caught a look on his face - he LOVED the idea! I was stunned, but there was no denying that he got all misty at the thought. That settled it...it had to be done, and as my 16th wedding anniversary gift to him.

The trick was finding the right Tigger. After a lot of search, I found the one above, with the same mush-mush look on his face that the DH gets. He signed off as liking it too. But being your crafty little Goddess, I added a surprise. Ladybugs are very special to us, and I added one, making sure she had nine dots on her back to represent our getting engaged and married in subsequent Septembers. Okay, everyone say, "Ahhhhh." The tattoo artists all did.

It hurt far less than I thought, even on my sensitive lily-white (or as DD2 says, "Pasty" - she went with me) skin. This photo was about two hours after the procedure. Now, nine days later, it's a bit itchy but mostly done healing, and I'm pleased. More importantly, the DH loves it.

Totally out of character for me to have done this. Maybe I am having a mid-life crisis. But as a quote I read in college said, at the end of my life I'd rather regret things I have done, than things I wish I had done.

I like that.

Some pictures

I promised some pictures of my Maia, and here she is. The color is actually a lovely emerald green, and the sheets under are olive. This is what I get for using my point & shoot instead of having the DH do studio shots. Oh well.





Detail of the neckline. Romi did some creative patterning here.











And a detail of the bottom. This is not a large shawl, nor as small as a scarf, though you could wear it as one. It's perfect size for tossing around your shoulders when the A/C is too high in the office, or your muscles feel like they need warmed up a bit.











Right out in front of our photography studio, a pair of cardinals has a nest that has hatched out four babies. They are starting to wander outside the nest now, and I was able to get a few pictures. I call this one, "Are you steppin' to ME?"








The parents aren't happy when I'm out there shooting, because they want to feed the babies. They'll go so far as to come into the bush, cheeping up a storm, but they won't 'lead' me to their babies by going close enough to feed them. This baby felt it was definitely time to eat.









And in one that cracks me up every time I look at it, I think this one would make a perfect ad for Metamucil. I think he needs more fiber, in spite of the pine berries I watched Daddy Cardinal ripping off the tree to feed them.

I've been busy

But I'll try to catch you up soon. I promise to post some pics tomorrow of Maia, the second in a series of seven shawls by Romi. I'm one of her test knitters, and it's such fun!

A Quickie

Just because you know you like them. :-þ I know I owe you some yarn and such pictures, but I've been pretty busy, as you'll see.

Every year we do a major dance studio's costume and action photos. And every year, we select an image we consider really good, like an incredible jump caught in mid-air, we blow it up, frame it, and unveil it when we sell the action photos at recital. It's become something people look for, and each year we try to outdo ourselves.
This year, the studio has their youngest soloist ever. She's ten. We got this shot of her. I really liked this picture, and felt that the youngest soloist deserved recognition. So I tossed a new sort of effect that I've been playing with at the picture, and came up with this.

I think she'll be impressed. And I'm hoping that I blow the ballet slippers off all her classmates!

Scotties Rule!

At least in my house, they do. I've been owned by at least one, usually two, and occasionally three Scotties since August of 1981. We'd recently been posted to England, and rather than quarantine the six-month old mixed breed we had, we gave her to the ex's mom. Given that he was a fighter pilot and prone to many and sometimes long absences, I wanted a dog for company. I was living in a strange country, and I was very young.

With some friends from our squadron on the same mission, we visited a breeder of several types of dogs. Our friends ended up with a Westie. I wanted a black dog, since through happenstance all my family's animals had been black, and the ex wanted a male. And he was waiting for us; the last of his litter, and wagging his tail off...but not raising the racket other dogs were. He was for us, and brilliant boyo that he was, Mackenzie knew it.

Mackenzie set an incredible standard. Bright, loyal, stubborn and loving, he was inspirational, literally. Mom fell in love with him, and has owned several Scotties since. By pure luck I'd stumbled on the right breed for me. And smart! Mackenzie knew I was pregnant with the eldest DD before I did.

Now as part of my Scottie-love, the DH and I run a list dedicated to the breed on Yahoo. The link is below. The DH has a wee Sheltie that suits his personality more, but he loves the quirks and foibles of our two Scotties, Jack and Benny, too. When a knitter friend of mine mentioned she was getting a Scottie, we invited her to AngelScots. A little over a month ago, she asked if it would be alright to post and ask for a knitter to test a Scottie scarf pattern from a booklet of same that she would be selling to raise money for Scottie rescue.

Do I need to tell you that the request didn't ever go to the list? I hopped on that. The friend is Liz Lovick, and you've already seen on here the brilliant patterns she does, including the Fair Isle Scottie hat I knitted, and the vest she knitted for me. Both, I understand, to be in the booklet. Liz sent me some ColourMart yarn in a yak blend, of all things - very soft and a gorgeous muted lavender. We agreed I would knit it testing the written instructions, and the DH would provide photos. Here are few that we sent.
For the record, this is a fingering weight, I used about 58g of yarn and the scarf ended up being about 5.5 ft long and 7.5 wide. The scarf is knitted in two pieces and grafted in the middle. My graft is imperfect, but no one will know but me unless they get WAY too close to me for their comfort.

I did attend Maryland Sheep and Wool on May 2nd. I only stayed a couple of hours, and I didn't make it to all the outlaying vendors. It was killer hot, for one thing, in spite of the fans going everywhere. Your Goddess does not do heat. I didn't buy much, but I'll take a few photos and post them next.

The Nerve

Sometimes, even your Goddess cannot believe the gall of people. Truly. And today is one of those times.

Back in December, another area photographer called me. A client/friend had asked him to do a restoration job, and as he got into it, he realized it was beyond his admittedly limited skill set. He brought it to me. This was supposedly the only copy of a woman's mother and son together. This picture mattered, a lot.

The photo had adhered to glass in a frame, and then the glass was broken. Gentle Readers, do NOT put photos behind glass unless you have the photo matted so that the glass isn't touching it. The least moisture, the photo emulsion turns to glue and you'll never get it unstuck. Then you'll be calling me, and I'm gonna have to charge you because I have this nasty habit of eating.

Ordinarily, I give an quote and require half down, but since this was a friend of a colleague, I didn't. Idiot me. I quoted two hours work...and as always put in a lot more...and the cost of a print. And I did the work, and was very pleased. I called the photographer and told him the job was done.

That's when he told me that another family member had given her a copy of the photo for Christmas. I was screwed, and so was he, for the time he'd put in on it. I've stewed over it a bit, but figured I had no recourse.

And now today. I posted a new photo on Facebook of some image enhancement I'd done. I'll show you in a minute. I tagged a friend in the photo because it was done at her dance studio. And turns out, SHE has a friend who looked at the photo in my work album, and also saw the before and after of the broken-glass-I've-been-stiffed picture. You guessed it (or should have!) - it was her mother and son. So she has the nerve, gall and presumption to ask me if she may tag herself in it!!!

Un-flippin'-real. I know my eyes bugged out because there's mascara on my monitor screen! I politely wrote her back, saying that since I hadn't been paid for the work she referred to as "beautiful" and "amazing," I was uncomfortable allowing her use of it. She says that oh, gee, she was never told by the other photographer that it was ready. :::head to keyboard::: I replied with an oh, gee back at her that since he knew she'd obtained another copy, he probably figured it was fruitless. I added that I was not too happy to be out my work and the print cost.

Now, this woman KNOWS she didn't pay for this work. Can you imagine her having the cojones to ask me to use it? Especially given that SHE HAS HER OWN FREAKIN' COPY OF IT????

I've said it before, I'll say it again, people are idiots. Including me doing the work on spec. :-(

On a happier note, here's the image I played with. Kind of a grunge/fantasy light thingy!

Laughter

About 18 years or so ago, the ex and I purchased a home in the town in which we live. It had been a three-bedroom rancher, but a previous owner had been a builder and added a two-story brick attachment with a sunken family room and a nice master bedroom suite upstairs. It was a good deal, and I liked the house...not the neighborhood so much, but the house.

Until. We had a serious gully-washer come through, and our house received a lot of run-off from the hill behind us. The rain started pouring in and the sunken living room lived up to its name. The ex, of course, wasn't home as he never was during a crisis (up to and including Hurricane Hugo!), and I frantically tried to save furniture and carpet.

Long story short, this builder didn't bother to waterproof the outer wall. We had one more deluge before we could have it fixed, and we couldn't save the carpet a second time.

What does this calamity have to do with laughter? I'll tell you. You knew I would. Around this same time, the British series of "Who's Line is it Anyway" was on Comedy Central. If you're only familiar with the Drew Carey version, that was limp and pale in comparison. The Brit version was hysterical. Rolling on the floor stuff. And I watched every single day throughout the mess. I'm not too sure it wasn't the only thing that kept me in my usual semi-sane state.

I'm a firm believer in the healing power of laughter. The DH and I have had some serious rocky times - almost all, I hasten to add, from external sources. We get along exceptionally well, mainly because I know how lucky I am, and he because he doesn't realize how heavily I keep him drugged. But there has never come a time when we couldn't laugh together, and if at times the laughter was a little bit on the hysterical side, well, it was still cathartic.

Almost two years ago, it was the last time we saw my father-in-law. We all knew he was passing, and only a couple of us could be with him in his hospital room at once. I stood in the hall with the DH and his older brother, and listened to them reminisce about their dad. They told camping stories, and house painting stories, and car trip stories, and throughout all of these warm memories was the thread of laughter. When I think of that day, I think of holding Dad's hand, telling him I loved him and trying to quiet him...and I think of that laughter.

Now, to quote Bill Cosby, I told you that one to tell you this. I stumbled (gracefully, naturally, as befits your goddess) across a blog today that had me laughing. Not just laughing, I should say. Guffawing till I was breathless, wiping away tears, and struggling hard to sober up when the phone rang. Now, I know humor is subjective, and what I find funny you may not, especially if you're a conservative about adult language and situations. I'm a bit like that in public (when did it become okay to drop the F-bomb in the middle of a crowded store?), but to read or watch as humor, I'm okay. If you are too, enjoy.

If you don't find her amusing, feel free to say so. I need a good laugh, and you'll do. :-)