Good Sunday morning.  It's a beautiful, bright and sunny day here.  This is the end of Peter Kevin's "birthday week" (what?  you don't get a whole week for your birthday?) and he's washing up the breakfast dishes.  It's not as bad as all that.  He's had four days of playing with his tools and doing pretty much what he wanted.

We've had a good mini vacation.  Sit back and be comfortable because here come the vacation photos!



first robin of not-quite-spring



rogue crocus



Thursday was a grey rainy day.  We hung around the house and I think I napped a good deal of the afternoon.  I had a small cold and wanted it to go away.  Some cold medicine, hot tea and copious amount of sleep seemed to do it.  I did rouse myself to take a photo of a robin in our back yard and the first crocus.

I also finished the bright and colorful socks made from the Crazy Zauberball.  I gave them to Pk for his birthday since he kept telling me how much he liked them.  And yes, they are that bright in real life.  He plans to wear them to dinner tonight. 

Friday, we got up and went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the Van Gogh exhibit.  I don't have words for how it made me feel.  The emotions in his paintings lept off the wall and straight into my heart.  I found myself standing in front of one of the paintings with tears running down my face like some kind of ninny. 

Needless to say, we enjoyed it.  I had a strange thought about how we were all (and it was a crowded exhibit) standing there in the silence with headphones on listening to the audio tour and no one was communicating about what they saw or felt.  It was a rather lonely way to look at art.

I brought some sunflowers home with me so the next time I'm faced with a grey rainy day, I can have some of Vincent's sunshine with me.

We wandered the gift shop (who doesn't love a museum gift shop?) and I found a crocheted camera.  It really works!  How odd is that?

They had stuffed toys knitted and crocheted.  My favorite was this knitted squid

We wandered the museum, first the Impressionists and then the Modern Art wing.  I will confess to a real fondness for modern art.  I like to try to figure out what (if anything) was going on in the artist's mind.

Most of the exhibits don't allow photography (and there are enough guards around to enforce this, ask me how I know).  I did manage to get a photo of a piece of embroidered art in a room with no signs saying it was BAD.

Called The New Autonomies, it's by an Italian artist named Alighieri e Boetti who died at 54.  It's embroidery on muslin and must be machine done.  Otherwise, it would have taken all 54 of his years and the stitches are so perfect.

As we wandered the rooms full of interestingly textured pieces, we would lean close to get a good look.  There would be a bell going off and we were trying to figure out what that meant.  It took a guard coming up to tell us to back up for us to figure out it was a proximity alarm.  It's frustrating when you're a tactile person and not allowed to touch.

We did the shopping yesterday and I got a haircut.  This is where my hair is right now (funny, I didn't stop and think of the background so just pretend you can't see the messy bookshelf and things hanging from my dresser mirror....).  It's taken me a while to get to this length since I had so many very short layers in my hair.  Since I have to go to work and be presentable and professional every day, I can't just let it grow.  I have to keep getting it shaped so it looks acceptable (to me) as it grows out.  This is still layered and I'll probably go a bit longer.  The color is a week old and much brighter red than what it is in my mind.  I'm always surprised when I see a photo of myself.

My hair is not straight and has a will of its own and I am way passed the time when I try to force it to my will.  I need it to be cut so that I can just dry it a bit and leave it alone.  I can live with this.

Today we're going out for pizza and wings for Pk's birthday.  The girls will be there.  I've made a chocolate sponge cake which still needs frosting and I have some laundry to finish and my mini vacation will be over.  It has been wonderful to have some time to just do what we want.

I am going to be one awesome retired person.

"Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill."

~The Buddha

When I was growing up, it was "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me".  As I got to be older, I realized the fallacy of this.  Now when I teach Handle with Care, I am always careful to include this updated (and I think more accurate) phrasing, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can break my heart".

Usually, I can see the light of recognition dawn in some eyes as I say this.  Most of us have been hurt at one time by someone's thoughtless (or worse, thoughtFUL) words.  I remember a time when my father yelled at me for something I hadn't done.  Looking back, I know his anger came from fear but to me as a child, it was anger pure and simple.

I remember that feeling so well to this day.......

and it influenced how I spoke to my girls as they were growing up.  I tried very hard to think before I spoke and not to speak/yell in anger.  You can be forgiven but it's soooo hard for people to forget.  My father yelled at me many times as a kid (he was a yeller) but that one time and all it's feelings of shame and hurt still sticks.  And it was probably 48 years ago or so. 

Not to start the week off on an profound note (Pk's cpap machine made noise all night -it beeps when his mask becomes unseated properly- and I didn't sleep as well as I could have), but this morning's Inspriation brought these thoughts and I thought I'd share them.

One of my constant resolutions for every new year is to think before I speak and to give other people the benefit of the doubt.  These are ongoing works in progress as am I.  Some days I'm better at it than others.  The internet has given us such a gift of long distance friendship and communication.  It's also given some folks the annonymity they need to spew forth all manner of ugliness.  I choose not to take part in that.  I'd love it if people remembered my words but I want them to remember them with a smile and not cringe inside.

Have a peaceful Monday.  It's a Federal Holiday here in the US  (President's Day) and the train station was almost empty this morning.  No banks, no mail, no trash pick up.  BUT, if you need mental health services, we're here.

Yesterday, Peter Kevin went out to run some errands and came back with an armload of carnations.  I put them into bunches and then posed them with the penguin I made for him several years ago.  He's made with black velveteen and white satin and a beautiful embroidered velvet vest. 

I don't remember where I found the pattern but he came out really well.  He lives on our dresser.

The rest of last week passed quickly and on Friday we had our annual Talent Show for clients and staff.  It's always the week of Valentine's Day and always well attended. 

I was determined to take time out of the paperwork and phone calls and go.  I'm so glad I did, otherwise I would have missed this

We have a large Asian component to our services and they performed a Dragon Dance complete with drumming.  It was wonderful.

Unfortunately, I can't show you any of the other photos I took due to confidentiality issues but you'll just have to take my word for the fact that a fun time was had by all. 

I served lunch and clapped and danced and had a ball.  It was a perfect way to end the week.  I even managed to get things in order for Monday's clinics so it's all good.

I met Pk at the diner after he got done toasting a coworker who is leaving (with three job offers, an unheard of situation in these economic times) and we had a quiet dinner. 

The chores were done yesterday so today we are free to persue our hobbies.  I'm going to play around with some alpaca that I have washed and now have to card and see how it spins up.  If I don't like it, I won't bother washing and carding anymore of it.  It's a bag of alpaca that I bought two years ago at an Alpaca Fest for what at the time seemed like a good price.  However, it's not much of a savings if I don't like the way it cards and spins.  It's better to pay for well prepped fleece than buy some chopped pieces that I don't like.

I was going to take it to Em's and use the drum carder she got for Christmas but haven't gotten there yet so I'm relying on my limited skills with hand cards.

Pk is going to brave the cold (they took the wintry mix out of the forecast but it's still cold) and play around in the garage.  Right now, he's on his way to the bakery to get us some donuts.  It's been ages and we're feeling indulgent.  I'm going to cook some scrapple and eggs for breakfast. 

Scrapple is one of those things that you either love or hate.  It's a local thing .

Scrapple, also known by the Pennsylvania Dutch name pon haus,^[1][2] is traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then panfried before serving. Scraps of meat left over from butchering, not used or sold elsewhere, were made into scrapple to avoid waste. Scrapple is best known as a rural American food of the Mid-Atlantic states (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland). Scrapple and pon haus are commonly considered an ethnic food of the Pennsylvania Dutch, including the Mennonites and Amish. Scrapple is found in supermarkets throughout the region in both fresh and frozen refrigerated cases.

(photo and definition from wikipedia)

I slice the scrapple and lightly flour it and then fry it in a bit of oil.  It's good with syrup on it.  My mother used to serve it for dinner when I was a kid and I hated it (with a hot hot passionate hate).  As an adult, I like it but only for breakfast and only drenched in syrup.  Pk loves it and so we have it a few times a year.  It's probably not the healthiest thing to eat.......

Living in this area, we have a lot of dishes that are Mennonite/Amish in origin.  One of our other favorites is Mennonite Chicken.  The chicken pieces are floured ( seasoned with salt, pepper and paprika) and put into a cast iron frying pan.  Margarine is melted and poured over the top and the whole thing is put into the oven until it's brown and crispy.  The chicken is removed and some flour is added to the pan with some broth and it's thickened to gravy which is then flavored with sour cream.  It's truly delicious but once again. not terribly healthy.  These are things that we eat sparingly but they're real comfort food. 

This will be a short work week for us.  We have no plans for Thursday but Friday is the Art Museum.  I am so looking forward to it.  It's as much a gift for myself as for Peter Kevin. 

Enjoy your Sunday.

Blogger is odd this morning (so what else is new?).  I can't seem to get the graphic to appear where I want it. (and their new verification screen is a pita.  I can never get it right the first time)   Wait, there we go!  I hope this is not an omen for the day. 

Oh, well.  This will be a little off but then people have often told me I'm a little off so I probably shouldn't worry.  I was chosen to meet with the Inspection Team yesterday.  The powers that be chose the folks to meet with the Team well.  We were all experienced staff members with 17+ years of experience and none of us was afraid to ask "what does that mean?" when faced with a question we didn't understand.

I think it went well.  The good thing was that we were able to explain exactly what we do and how we approach our jobs.  In the past, this particular Inspection Team just came and looked at charts.  This is all well and good but charts are such a poor reflection of what we do all day.  It was nice to get to explain ourselves.

I am being optimistic and brought my Madli's shawl to work on in Knit Group today.  I haven't worked on it in a long while and I'm hoping I'll have a chance not only to get a few rows in but to show the group what's possible with a few knit, purl, k2tog stitches (we'll ignore the bobbles for the time being).  The knitting group came up in the discussion with the Inspection Team yesterday.  They seemed to like the idea of addressing the whole person and not just their illness.

Pk and I had a quiet Valentine's Day.  I was so tired at the end of the day.  Not physically tired as much as emotionally tired.  One of my favorite clients (although he's not my direct responsibility, just a nice man) has cancer and is not doing well.  And another favorite one is incarcerated and another one just lost her husband.  All in a few days.  I love my job but sometimes it takes an emotional toll.  We deal with each new crisis and then hopefully get a bit of respite before the next one comes along.  This was just a rough few days. 

We decided to go to dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant and I had Walnuts Shrimp (that's how the menu reads).  It's fried shrimp and walnuts in some creamy sauce and it's almost comfort food.  We had a low key evening and I was asleep by 9 pm.  Not very romantic but not to be helped.

Things are otherwise just moving along.  Pk's birthday is next week and we have a short week as we always take off for his birthday.  It's in the middle of the no vacation zone on the calendar.  This year we're going to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the museum.  I'm really looking forward to it.  We'll have cake and ice cream with the girls on Sunday at the pizza place with the good wings.  They'll let us bring in our cake and balloons, we eat in there all the time.  They make such good pizza. 

Time for supervision.  I have to go pull some charts to take upstairs and make sure they're in good shape.

Have a peaceful Thursday.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I gave my coworkers valentines that fold up into paper airplanes (and already I've seen one flying down the hall so it should be a good day!)

And tonight PK and I are having a quiet date.  We're avoiding the restaurants that jack up the prices and jam in more tables for the holiday.  After work, we'll hit the book store and browse magazines and books and have a coffee/tea and then go to the diner for a tasty and normally priced meal.

But I wanted to take a moment to say some things about the Love of My Life.  I know that with internet speak LOML has become a much abused phrase but when I use it here, it's with all truthfulness.

Peter Kevin is truly the love of my life and my very best friend.  He's the one I think of when I hear a good joke or a tasty bit of gossip or an interesting bit of news.

Our road has not been smooth and straight, we had a very rough patch in the early 90's and were separated for 2 years.  Looking back, it was the best thing for us.  We both needed time to grow up a bit and we are the stronger for it.

And now at 54?  We are good together and I wanted to share some of the things that make him special in my eyes

-His compassion
-His generosity of spirit
-His willingness to help anyone anytime
-His sense of humor
-He has capable, strong yet surprisingly gentle hands
-He is a great problem solver (wonderfully agile and brilliant mind)
-He can fix things!
-He holds me and I feel loved and cherished and safe
-He gets my jokes
-He has a handsome face that makes me smile
-When he sees me his face breaks out in a huge smile
-He is a great kisser
-He puts me first and makes sure I am safe and cared for (I have to walk on the inside when we're in a parking lot)
-He opens my car doors
-He loves me

Even after 30 years, my heart beats faster when I see him.  He fills me with such joy and contentment and absolute love that I can't put into words.

When we were in high school, he shared a poem with me

I am yellow, You are blue, Together we make green.  Green is my favorite color.

Green is still my favorite color.

I love you Peter Kevin.  Now and forever.

And one week later, we have a pair of socks.  I don't think I've ever made an entire pair of socks in so little time.  (except for maybe during Sock Wars but I didn't enjoy those). 

They're comfortable on the feet and even when worn in shoes, the "bumps" don't feel uncomfortable.  The construction worked out easily and the pattern was really easy to follow.

They'be become Elanor's Feb socks.  Although, I think she prefers knits, she's happy for anything I make for her. 

And Pat?  the woman at work?  When I went in on Thursday, she was indeed ready to give it all up.  "I can't do this!"  I showed her mine and she was amazed and then said she would keep trying.  By the time she left on Thursday, she had worked up to the heel flap.  With any luck, she'll be in on Monday so I can show her how to turn the heel.

Friday night we went shopping after work since we were predicted to have some ugly weather this weekend.   We woke up Saturday morning to some wet snow that was all gone by afternoon. 

We went to my brother's house to help my niece with a science project (we were guinea pigs as she took our blood pressure and had us listen to music and then took our bp again) and it was snowing again on our way home.  It was colder and this morning, we woke up to another light dusting. 

The spring bulbs are going to be confused.  The crocuses will be ok since they're used to this kind of thing.  But I'm worried about the hyacinths and tulips.  They're not quite as hardy.

Peter Kevin says I shouldn't worry but you can see the tulips are well above the ground which is not normal for February here.  The days of warm, sunniness may have done some damage.

I watched The Help this afternoon and for once, a movie was just as absorbing as the book.  The characters were just as I'd imagined them and the acting was amazing. 

Tomorrow we are in for a major inspection at work.  They're looking at money and how it's spent and they'll be looking for us to have to give some back.  We, of course, don't want to give any back.  It's one of the more stressful of the inspections.  Our charts are in line and we're ready to discuss "the good work we do" so now all we can do is take a deep breath and get through.  Cross your fingers for me.  I have enough work to do on a regular week.

Other than that, this weekend was about the cooking.  I made some really good seafood bisque last night and tonight I'm frying some chicken.  I lovelovelove fried chicken but don't make it more than maybe twice a year since it's top of the "bad for you" list of foods.  And no, while baking it in the oven is passable, it's not nearly the same.  I'm going to enjoy this.

Pk and I are going back to the gym.  We feel better when we go and we like feeling better so we'll go.  It's never been about the dieting and losing weight but about the being able to walk up the stairs without being out of breath.  That's our goal and I think we can do that!

Now, if we can just keep it up.

And voila!  I finished one sock in 3 and one half days.  If only I liked the crocheted sock better.  I could be a real whirlwind.

Here's one finished sock with a close up of the heel. 

(and Dianne, they fit inside my shoes so yes, they are wearable)

I think I'd use a smaller hook with this yarn to make a tighter fabric if I were ever to do this again.  These will be fine knocking around the house socks but I don't expect them to last that long.

I followed a basic pattern and just threw in some rows of double crochet for a lacy effect on the cuff.  There's no way to make an actual ribbing.  I tried the instructions for "crocheted ribbing" but it's just aesthetic, not functional.  I kept the cuff short on purpose. 

I don't have much yarn left from the skein I started with.  Crochet does use up more yarn.

So, there you have it.  I'll take it in tomorrow and show it to my client who is determined to make socks.  Maybe it will inspire her to try again.  It really wasn't difficult.  The heel is done with short rows and picking up stitches just like a knitted heel. 

I guess I'm just not a fan of the bumpy crochet fabric.  I like my smooth stockinette socks best.

I wore my mittens today.  They are warm (all that double layers of yarn) and beautiful.  I'm going to leave them alone for now.  The pink yarn is superwash but the brown is not and I have a feeling they would not look good if I threw then in the dryer and only the brown shrank.(shrunk? shrinked?)

But, today I want to show you something I found interesting.  Backstory:  One of my knitting group members wants to make socks but is intimidated by "all those needles".  It doesn't matter than I have shown her over and over how you only use two needles at a time.  She's afraid.  She has no self confidence.  She has crocheted so many things including a Christmas stocking out of red and white cotton but if it doesn't come easy, she's afraid of it.  "YOU can do all these fancy things but I can't". 

So, I decided to help her make a pair of crocheted socks.  I found a pattern with a lot of instructions that seemed fairly easy.  She bought some yarn and a hook and we tried to figure it out together last Thursday.  She was not enjoying it because it took too much concentration.  (She likes things where she can just crochet along and not pay lots of attention).

I found a ball of yarn and my small hook and tried the pattern myself yesterday afternoon.  This is what I have so far.   It's a little thicker than if I had knitted the same yarn.  It's Knitpicks Felici self striping yarn.  It's light fingering.  I'm using a size F (3.75 mm) hook.

I'm halfway down my foot and starting to read the directions for the heel (they sound interesting). 

I generally like the way crochet looks but I'm not sure I like these.  Maybe if I used a smaller hook, it might be a tighter fabric.  The F was the only one I could find at the time and I didn't feel like going out to buy a smaller one on Sunday afternoon.  I'm going to finish at least one of them (although I should probably finish a pair). 

What do you think? 

I haz mittens!  They took a while but the weather has cooperated and been actually warm enough this past week so I didn't need mittens at all. 

The pattern is Hansa Mittens.  I used September's artwalk club yarn  (White over Red by Mark Rothko was the painting) and some Knitpicks merino/silk sock yarn.

The pattern was not hard to follow and I haven't decided whether to block them yet.  Maybe next weekend.  If I do it now, they won't be dry to wear them tomorrow. 

They are a bit big (also a reason to maybe not block them, I don't need them to grow any).  The tips of my fingers come to the part where the decreases start.  I wonder if I wash them and throw them into the dryer for just a bit if they'll shrink.  I'm not sure if the yarn is superwash or not. 

But I'd hate to ruin them after all that work.  I'm going to weigh the yarn and see if there's enough for a pair of footie socks with contrasting heels or maybe a hat.  I still need a hat since the beret I made was big enough for two heads to wear it simultaneously. 

Pk and I are having a Harry Potter marathon.  I know, you're all jealous over our glamourous and exciting existence.  8 movies in 3 days.  Today we have the last three.  When I finish here, we'll start and finish by 9 or 10 tonight.  It's good for plain knitting and maybe I can finish my scarf, too.  I mean, winter's only half over after all.

Handle with Care went well on Friday.  Just a few achy muscles and a jammed toe.  I was taking someone down and the toe of my sneaker got caught on the wood floor.  It's not too bad and I don't wear pointy toed shoes to work so I'll be fine.  Just a bit of a bruise.   And now we have three new trainers and have to gear up to start the training sessions in April.

It's February already!  Pk has a birthday this month (he's a Pisces) and we'll take a long weekend for it.  That'll be our holiday that gets us through until Memorial Day.  Work is good but vacations are necessary.  I can usually tell.  It's when I start getting irritated at my office mate for putting papers all over his half of the office (table, desk, floor, vent).  I'll have to remember to take a photo.  One person we were interviewing for our program noticed that half of the office was neat and half was a disaster area.  I would find it frustrating to have to look for things all the time. 

Is your work area neat?  Or are you a 'creatively messy' person?

I thought I'd share a few photos from the past week. 

First,  Broad St (aka The Avenue of the Arts) with City Hall in the early evening sunset.  Those green awnings there on the left is the restaurant where we had dinner.

Elanor's January socks.  Just plain cuff down socks made with some yarn from a fellow blogger who brought it back from London when she went to Wimbledon.  It's a wool/bamboo blend.  The colors are grey and blue and yellow and white.  El loves the pooling and stripes.








My swift doing its thing.  The yarn is for El's Feb socks



The start of El's Feb socks.  The colors remind me of berries and cream.  I didn't think it looked like much in the skein but caked and knit, it's beautiful.

Just a bit of end-of-the-week randomness.  I'm getting ready for bed so I can be rested for Handle with Care training tomorrow.  It's the one day a year I get to wear sweatpants to work!  

In honor of the Seventh Annual Brigid in Space Silent Poetry Reading, I offer you another of my favorites from one of my favorite poets. (and I had a lovely image to add but I'm at work and our filtering system doesn't play well with others)


i love you much(most beautiful darling)
more than anyone on the earth and i
like you better than everything in the sky

-sunlight and singing welcome your coming

although winter may be everywhere
with such a silence and such a darkness
noone can quite begin to guess

(except my life)the true time of year-

and if what calls itself a world should have
the luck to hear such singing(or glimpse such
sunlight as will leap higher than high
through gayer than gayest someone's heart at your each

nearness)everyone certainly would(my


most beautiful darling)believe in nothing but love


ee cummings