Happy Holidays

Christmas in California...









Happy Happy Joy Joy

On the first day of Christmas, my true loves gave to me...

A Very Messy House
And a Shiny Plastic Christmas Tree






Or, as Bridget says, we call it "Christmas" because it's Christian, and you make a mess.

A number of people have asked me if Bridget and Kate are having a hard time right now, since it is the first holiday season without their father. I suppose the answer is "yes", but not worse than you would expect, under the circumstances, and maybe not worse than other holiday seasons. They are very clingy with me, which I'm sure I will be nostalgic about when they are teenagers and won't speak to me.

Lust

Must. Knit.
Sylvi from Winter 2008 Twist Collective, by Mari Muinonen

NaKniSweMo (Part One)

Well, it is almost the end of November, and I completed my primary NaKniSweMo goal, to finish my February Lady Sweater, with a diamond lace pattern instead of the gull lace pattern in the original EZ sweater. This is knit in Dream in Color's Chinatown Apple Classy (worsted weight superwash), and the color is amazing. I have a secondary goal too, but having learned my lesson during Soctober to set the bar low, I am considering this success!

Wacky Project of the Week

Some time ago, I saw a photo in a gardening magazine of someone's "quirky" garden, which included an entire armchair covered in mosses. I thought it was a great idea, so I decided to do a simpler version in my own yard.

First, I had to find an old wooden chair with a removable seat. I found this one for $5 at The Salvation Army in San Rafael.


Then, I made a basket out of plastic netting left over from puppy-proofing the fence.


Which I lined with weed cloth.


And tucked into the chair to make a "seat planter" that would hold dirt, but also drain well.


I staple-gunned that to the frame.


And filled it with compost and potting mix.


And planted it with elfin thyme, and an ivy cutting. I may add some sweat pea seeds or other vining plants too.


Ta Da! Ok, I agree, the overall artistic quality is still a bit lacking, but I'm confident that it will look sufficiently quirky when the plants have filled in.

Bridget's 10th Birthday

There was mayhem!

Socktober

In October, I joined the Stash and Burn Soctober Challenge. My goal was to knit 2 pairs of socks, or about 700 yards of sock yarn. I finished my Rattlesnake Creek socks, in Dream In Color Smooshy, in the "Deep Seaflower" colorway. However, I'm still working on the leg of the first sock of the next pair, my Mingus socks in DIC "Good Luck Jade". This pattern is beyond my memorization capacities, so I can only work on them when I'm sitting at home with the pattern right in front of me. Maybe by the time I've finished the first sock, I'll have it down. Meanwhile, I've signed up for Stash and Burn's NaKniSweMo Challenge (National Knit a Sweater in a Month, a rip-off of NaWriNoMo, National Write a Novel in a Month). More about that when I have something to show for it....

Harvest

I'm proud of myself for actually getting a little closer to my goal of growing some of my own produce this year (and I even made a compost pile)!

These are lemon cucumbers. I had hundreds of lemon cucumbers. You know, you can give away one or two cucumbers, but most people don't want a bag of 10. Next year I'm going to figure out how to donate garden produce to the Marin Community Food Bank. I also planted eggplant, and have one on the vine, still. And strawberries, lettuce, parsley, oregano, bell peppers, lemons, lemon balm, lemon thyme, thai basil, sweet basil, chocolate mint, various tomatoes and a peach tree that grew about four peaches this year. Next year I'm going to try to grow exotic varieties of pumpkins.

My own private New Hampshire.

Thank You

Thank You
Thank You
Thank You

(yes, you, Alison)

Because of you, I got off my butt and sent money, made phone calls, talked to my family and friends and colleagues. And I know I'm not the only one.

Yesterday, I got to take my daughters with me to the polls before school, so they could see how we vote, and help me fill in the bubbles. And then I got to go to our "overflow" Obama headquaters at someone's house and make calls to Ohio and Virginia. And then we sat around the kitchen table listening to the radio as the results came in, and Bridget taught us all an Obama cheer-dance, and we ran around the living room screaming when Ohio was called, and I had to explain, several times between then and the end of Obama's speech, why I was crying.

This was something I heard last week on the radio (I don't know who wrote it):

Rosa sat so that Martin could walk.
Martin walked so that Barack could run.
Barack ran so that our children could fly.

Halloween '08

Before we start, this is a screenshot from the movie "My Neighbor Totoro" directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The creatures are the Totoros, and Mei is the younger girl in front.

Kate was dressed as Mei, and Moira is Little Bo Peep.



Bridget is a witch.


Grace is a Bloody Witch.

Here is everyone, getting ready to go Trick-or-Treating.




Note the pillowcases for loot. These kids don't mess around...


Here is Noodle in his costume. It was a big hit.




And examining the spoils, afterwards.

Halloween Preview