Friday, July 31, 2009
in the Aisle of the Craft Store
Alright, I will confess. My little trip to deliver the old newspapers to the recycling bin was actually an excuse to drive onward a few streets to visit H L the craft store. I had not been there in awhile, and I found a 25% off coupon at their website (although it had not been printed in the paper—marketing alert)
The item I’m looking for is holiday colors in 3-ply sport weight acrylic yarn. There is a red twist which might work, but I have time to keep looking.
While standing and staring at shelf after shelf full of yarny goodness, I overheard a mother talking to her youngun in the seat of a cart. The boy was maybe a little over a year old, and he kept slapping his mom’s arm, or tummy, and tugged on her shirt. I remember that being a signal from my pre-word son that he was umm, thirsty.
This mother told him to “No Hit! Not Nice!” a bit too loudly, considering she was standing close enough for him to smack her arm again.
Then she backed up a little so he could not reach her, and said “If you hit mommy again, I will have to spank you.”
I walked around the end of the lane and almost bumped into a clerk who was busy counting stock. She turned and looked at me with a wrinkle in her forehead. “Did I just hear that?” she whispered. “If you hit again, a spanking?”
I nodded, just as cart with child and young mother came into the aisle.
The clerk winked at me as if we shared a secret.
I’m still not quite accustomed to seeing people the same age as my sons as being parents. The girl most likely did not realize about her choice of words and actions, and does not have the years of hindsight that I do. The toddler looked fine enough, tho there did not seem to be any other interaction between mother and son.
Neither the clerk nor I said anything, but I smiled at the child. I smile at every child I see, but the “stranger! danger!” lessons don’t allow a kid to smile back very often. This one did not.
I used the coupon on a 4-ply acrylic yarn called Earthy Ombre a bunch of lovely shades of Autumn and it will peg loom knit into a fine hat—maybe nice enough that I’ll keep it for me.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Blanket is Finished
29 July 2009 10:37am CDT
APHGAN COMPLETE 
the Northwoods color, granny squares aphgan
with border is DONE
just as Joe Fox was asking Kathleen Kelly to meet him in the park on my vhs tape of You’ve Got Mail
then I sat awhile longer trimming cotton tails, all the time until the tape stopped playing
Details with Pictures will come whenever my in-house former professional photographer is able to provide service
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
While I’m Gone, You Look Over There
Writing is not the first thing I want to do with my time, which is probably why I have not been here at the blog in a whole week.
For one thing, 5 days was a time of taking painkiller tablets after a root canal. Both dentists say to give the tooth more time to settle down, and repairs to the crown will help as well. Too bad that part doesn’t come until Aug 11. However, I am beginning to believe them, because yesterday (Monday), I was able to chew roast beef cut into tiny tidbits for supper, then have ice cream in the evening at Concert on the Quad, and went to bed without any medicine at all.
the Lucas aphgan has single crochet stitches all the way around as the first row of the border, with double crochet stitches as the second row going onward. Next time I pick it up, I will be ready to turn the first corner again.
Meanwhile, Tell Me A Story is begun by Elizabeth H who does quite well with writing but does not have a club near to her house.
Since I am not doing much here these days, maybe you might like to visit/comment there.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Catching Up a few days in summer
What’s happening lately:
All the paperwork has been turned in to say I will be a Teacher’s Assistant Substitute again, for the upcoming 2009-2010 school year. I asked if I need Continuing Education hours, the response is No, not to Sub. I did enclose a photocopy of my CPR renewal class.
Saturday was a wedding at church, with the seating tables and food service tables arranged in a way I have never seen before in all the 25 years I’ve been at services inside that building. Goes to show it’s not the place, it’s the people.
Sunday was a luncheon and program honoring a retired couple who are moving to a state out East, to be closer to many of their relatives. We of the church family are gonna miss ‘em bunches.
Monday morning I got a root canal on a tooth, upper left second from back. That one has been a leetle ache since last summer, then a beeg ache through Thanksgiving and most of Christmas break.
When I finally got the new permanent crown the last week of December, I thought the dang thang would settle down, but still, I wake up with my knuckle pressed against my cheek just outside that tooth.
It seemed odd to have a different dental person working on my mouth, but he came highly recommended from the dentist I’ve been going to for 21 years.
Perhaps I should not be typing after taking a prescription ibuprophen.
Monday evening was the Concert on the Quad, with a nice Samba trio. I carried a folding chair and my Yarn bag down the street, found an open spot to sit near the lamp, then bought a dish of ice cream, whose profits go to music scholarships. Ice cream during the evening after a root canal is a leetle mistake.
While listening, I peg loom knitted a bright stripes baby hat. The gal sitting next to me gave it a thumbs up, seemed quite fascinated with the tools I used.
On the walk home, I bumped into a former neighbor heading towards her car, so we stood on the corner for a half hour catching up on the deeds of our children, our current jobs situations, medical ailments after age 50.
This overweight body, with these knees and tendon problems, well, standing on concrete for a half hour should not soon be done again.
so here it is, Tuesday with a few chores around the house done by 9am already. Then I put in a videotape from the cabinet, made myself all comfy on the couch, with the granny squares aphgan on my lap.
I crocheted the last seam, the LAST SEAM!!! stopped the tape, ate some ramen noodles for lunch, hung the bathmats on the clothesline outside, then got all comfy on the couch again, started the tape, and crocheted 18” of the first row of the border.
Youngest Son Chris has returned from his trip to DC, yet has not returned my camera to me. I’ll probably have the aphgan done by the time I have the means to get documentation.
Husband has put a notice on his blog that he will not post very soon….hhmmm, he has been studying a very detailed book about a computer program. It looks like his job has moved to top time-consumer for awhile.
As mentioned, lingering toothache, but am told this is to be expected, and a new pill can be taken in 9 minutes. Supposed to call the doc on Wednesday about bothers or progress.
Hope you and yours are doing fine on a summer’s day.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Her Speech at Commencement
Why I am sitting indoors on a lovely evening
I am watching/ listening to a speech by author J. K. Rowling
at graduation for Harvard class of 2008
it’s well worth the time and inspiration
the InnerNet is a wondrous place, bringing the world to my keyboard
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Morning of Reminisce
Over at Husband’s place,
Decrepit Old Fool talks about a guy cussing.
Having been raised in a house where my dad was almost 5 years in the navy, then 30-some years working in a steel mill, I know how a man can turn the air blue right there in the living room. I learned early not to say a cuss word in English class or a job interview.
Cuss words, as in 4-letter “bad” words, are what gets most folks all upset. But swearing takes so many forms. I loved the guy on Superman’s tv show saying “Great Shades of Elvis!” whenever he came upon some weird situation.
Somebody talking about swear words usually calls forth in my mind a scene from, um, it’s been 10 years ago now.
Pardon me if you’ve heard the story before, but it’s one of my life’s favorites, so I’ll probably be boring the staff at the nursing home when I get to the ramblings age.
When I worked at a daycare center, we had great restrictions on cussing. One gal lost her job for saying a cuss word in front of the kids (even though she had good reason to swear!) We were supposed to set a good example, use positive reinforcements during teachable moments.
One morning, I was in the 3 year olds class trying to get the knot out of a string and bead toy, all the while trying to keep an eye on other students in the room. A little girl with dark and curly hair who wanted to use the string was waiting nearby, watching anxiously.
“Oh puddelfrickits!” I muttered.
What does that mean? she asked.
“It’s a swear word.” was my answer.
Her dark eyes grew thoughtful.
“You are not supposed to swear!” she told me reprovingly.
Puddelfrickits is a word you can say at school I told her, just as the knot came loose at last.
The day moved along, and I had forgotten our conversation.
Next morning, when her dad brought the girl to school, he called me aside, asking me about “the P swear word allowed to say at school”
So I had to explain about swearing when the situation is not going well, and yes, puddelfrickits is approved word use.
She looked up at him triumphantly.
“I Told You I can swear!”
he shook his head at me like I’m crazy, then again, a teacher in a room full of 3 and 4 year olds has to be a little bit nutty to stay sane.
Well, the other kids wanted to know what all the discussion was about, so Miss Curly Dark Hair set about telling everybody they could cuss when they got mad, so long as they said “Puddelfrickits!”
By the end of the day, every student in the class found opportunity to say the word at least once.
I thought the other teacher was going to club me over the head with the plastic bowling pin.
By the end of the week, we heard it less often, and I would say by now none of the children even remember. They are in Junior High these days.
If you are wondering how the Mister and I manage to live in the same house, partly it’s because we have blogs to express our different ways of thinking.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Interruption of my Solitude
When will I learn to not answer the phone during the day?
it’s what the machine is for, yes?
When the phone rang I was sitting on the couch, the last song on the cd playing, the last few stitches in the latest seam of the granny squares. My timing is good, I often have to set a limit for myself so that my butt and my hands don’t get too tired.
But Phone, it could be urgent! so I toss aside the humongous aphgan, touch the Pause button on the stereo, skitter past the edge of the coffee table, hop over the corner of the treadmill and the leg of the weight bench, grab up the receiver saying Hello even before I have it settled properly over my ear.
The chirrup on the other end mispronounces my name.
Without correcting her, I settle in and get the computer to put a game of Solitaire on screen.
She is from the cancer society and seems to be all in a tizzy about how our fair state is going to increase taxes on a pack of cigarettes, saying that in two years, the things will cost $2 more than they do today.
A higher price of cigarettes will often deter someone from ever starting to smoke.
Do I support a tax increase on cigarettes?
just as I find the last King and drag it to the empty space
I like to play dumb hillbilly now and then, which often gets my husband and sons climbing the walls, but I did live in hill country the first 22 years of my life before college, so I can drop back into the mindset.
With a light touch of disinterest coming through my voice, I told her I don’t care how much they tax cigarettes.
I don’t smoke ‘em.
There was a bit of sputtering on the other end, but she managed to come up with secondhand smoke effects everyone in the vicinity.
She couldn’t see me shrug, but I told her that we all gotta die of something, that she is wasting her time, I am not interested giving anybody else any money when I have the co-payment for a root canal coming up next week.
Before giving her a chance to say anything else, I took the receiver away from my face, said “Have a good day” and hung up.
And now I’m having second thoughts about being so rude because I figure she’s a gal actually trying to earn her way in the world and I’m a part-time Sunday School teacher who should act like a pillar of the community.
Next time, I’ll let the machine answer.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Long Live the Marketplace
In the last week I have proven myself to be a bit gullible with advertising.
Here’s my story: I have some really pretty BERNAT yarn bought more than a year ago on Clearance. The color is not even made any longer, but I have enough in-house supply to work up an nice baby blanket. The label says to use a size 4.0mm crochet hook.
So one evening, I laid out most of my crochet hooks across the coffee table. Husband looked over every now and then with a bemused expression. I sorted them by size, brought in a couple little cases bought at yard sales. I’m always trying different ways to organize my hobby products.
In the whole bunch, only one turned out to be a 4.0mm, and it is made of a plastic which I do not like much because my hands sweat, so I can only work maybe 3 rows in a sitting.
So, I went looking on the ‘Net for a 4.0mm made of a different material. I don’t plan to begin the project until I’m done with the Lucas aphgan near the end of Summer, but I did not know how long the search would take.
While clicking here and there, probably bringing in all kinds of cookie spam to infect my computer, I came upon a type of crochet hook with a square handle and metal hook.
It looked interesting, I might like to try it. Next day, I went to a little yarn shop not too far from here. The owner has never heard of such a hook, and said she doesn’t think her supplier could provide anything like it.
So I went looking again on the ‘Net. I hadn’t put the page in my reference, and barely found it in my history. All the detective shows on television always make the search look so easy…then again, they are not looking for square crochet hooks.
One place had a nice list of all sizes, then little flashing notice which said Temporarily Out of Stock.
Finally, I come across one where the advert said there are ONLY 2 LEFT IN STOCK! in the size I wanted.
So what do I do? I put one in my cart. Plus a different size just in case my stitches did not meet gauge.
Those hooks arrived on Wednesday, the day before I got to show ‘em off at Yarn Group.
Next in my brain comes the thought that I would love to knit some straight panels on my long peg loom. I have had one lesson and a printout of instructions, but went looking for a picture book I had seen at a big box bookstore a few months ago.
Dang, that book is out of print now! but I found a little online shop which has Only 2 Available! so of course, I had to order it at the Clearance price because I never know when I might have a whim of a need to read it and follow a pattern.
Something about the Only___Available catches me.
Ah well, I will use them all some time in the future
to make something pretty…..
~~love and Huggs, Diane
ps last week, a friend was teasing me about the number of
crochet hooks I own, guessing 30? more?
Oh, um, I probably have that many on me… .
I thought a second, then reached for the pouches of hooks in my project bag
one for smaller hooks, one for larger hooks and loom picks
She counted the hooks right that minute in my bag
Forty-One crochet hooks
At home I have at least 20 in one box, and a different pouch holds 24 hooks
In some circles, I might be considered to have an illness 
Thursday, July 09, 2009
One Way We Disagree
The other afternoon, Husband and I got together to clear out the silverware holder. There are only two of us living here now, yet the utensils overflow and it seemed like we were always sorting through.
Back in the olden days, a newly engaged couple would register their pattern for the flatware, but that could never happen at our house. We have different expectations when it comes to what we are willing to hold and work with in our hands.
Our utensils are a hodgepodge of wedding gift, inherited, whatever we bought at yard sales, or leftovers from what the sons used in the sandbox or carried off to their apartments.
So, we set out all the butter knives.
He chose some to keep, I chose some to keep.
Likewise with forks, spoons, soup spoons, serving spoons, and even grapefruit spoons.
There were very few we agreed on. He doesn’t like ‘corners’ on the handles. I want 4, not 3, rounded tines of the forks. He doesn’t like the ones that have such a slim handle that it could slip through the hole of the dishwasher basket. I told him to set those in with the bowl facing down.
We left each of our favorites, and will set them aside while looking for our own, and kept a few to have on hand for visitors.
this is what I carried off to the thrift store
it weighs as much as a bag of flour
Today, the silverware drawer is so much lighter that it almost fell out when I yanked on the handle.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
the Kid is in a Good Place
Youngest Son Chris called to (his words) “check in” and to tell me that he made a $33 purchase of a humongous storage capacity chip for the camera. I didn’t ask if he will want to be reimbursed when he returns the camera to my fond little hands.
He is on the grounds of the Washington Monument in our nation’s capital. Aunt Stephanie had to go out of town for a couple days, leaving him at her house, with her car keys, and a map of the DC Area Metro system.
He says he drove her car a couple miles, parked at the station, then got on the train to do the tourist thing.
I’m so glad he is outta town and having fun. When I was his age, I already had a baby to care for, so moving into married student housing for my mate to finish his college degree was the big adventure of the year.
And knowing that Chris called without prompting
warms my motherly heart.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Having the last laugh
A small blurb in the paper led me back over to my computer to find the link for the video
You Tube—UNITED Breaks Guitars
Having a son whose life’s work depends on his guitar,
I have much sympathy for this fella
the paper says that the airline will reimburse for the repairs
and the songwriter is busy coming up with a new tune of gratitude
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Roots of Tree, Root Canal
Last evening while we were getting ready for a meeting at church, a friend’s cell phone sounded. She answered, chuckled a bit, then set her phone on Speaker and placed it on the table.
A mom explained that her child has been doing much practice of a song we sang in last Sunday’s Worship Service.
A little girl’s voice began singing a song about a tree with roots going down to the water, leaves up to the sunshine, etc. Our whole committee gave loud applause back through the phone.
This morning, I heard the word root in a different context.
as in Root Canal of a tooth on the upper left
I’ve known for quite awhile now that the tooth is sensitive to cold (I missed doing church Nursery duty because of the ache) but I figured the crown put on in December would settle in soon enough. Last week began a new feeling of pressure, meaning no wish to chew pecans or popcorn.
Routine cleaning and x-rays today, so I mentioned my latest concerns with that tooth. An extreme close-up x-ray showed us the inflamed (not yet infected) lingual root.
It seems that needs a very delicate procedure to fix, so I got a referral to an endodontist across town.
Soonest appointment is Monday July 20.
Meanwhile, a tooth on the other side has some decay where it meets an ancient (as in before I got married) filling, so an appointment to return next week to my regular dentist should take care of it.
Getting old requires so much maintenance.
Thanks to my working husband for good insurance.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Don’t let rain stop ya
Son Christopher has gone outta town to visit Aunt Stephanie in our nation’s capital, and he borrowed my camera to use on sight-seeing opportunities.
Last evening, Husband sneaked a couple pictures of me using pink yarn for tying together the nature’s color granny squares, but he is on the treadmill so I won’t bother him just now.
All this is leading to why I haven’t been here at the blog in awhile.
My interest, my time, my fun
has been consumed with a most lovely yarn project.
Alas, no pictures of this step in the process, unless Husband sends some.
There was a few days when I had to set it aside and decide a different size and connection. A gal in my Yarn Group mentioned that there was too much advice dropping by.
During the interim, I peg loom knitted two adult hats, crocheted bookmarks for sympathy cards, crocheted four pairs of potholders.
But last evening, beautiful weather, the shade of the house falling on the picnic table, I used up two hours to set out rows of sewed together squares and got much adjusted and ready for the next phase of crochet.
The queen-size aphgan is so big that I will probably have to lay it out on the couch and leave it there until the last fasten-off.
But when it is done… a Thing of Beauty
a Treasure for Lucas and his bride.
Today is a holiday, and the sound of rain just outside the screen window woke us up. We decided to ride our bicycles to McDs anyway, breakfast and a nice latte as our goal.
We were alone on the Quad, a bonus of quiet on campus.
My hands got tired holding the grips, so I won’t be working yarn until later.
Meanwhile, I think I’ll begin reading a book
waiting on the shelf since before Spring Break.
Here’s hoping your weekend is going so well 
~~love and Huggs, Diane