It's Sunday morning and there is still a bit of peace lying about. Pk has gone down into the workshop to make noise and sawdust, the girls are still sleeping. I am showered and dressed and soon will go and make breakfast. We need to fortify ourselves because today is the day that Christmas comes out to play at our house.

But, before all of that. I want to share a little bit of my yesterday. As I told you Pk, Kate and El went to the National Air and Space Museum. There they are. Aren't they cute? I met them at a local chinese restaurant for dinner (that way no one has to clean up) and they talked about their day. I think the thing I heard the most often was "what a great day!". They saw lots of air ships but unfortunately you are not allowed to touch. This is always my problem in museums. I like to touch and they don't like it. But, even keeping their hands to themselves, they had a good day.

And I? Well, I went out to run some errands and picked up the yarn to make these. This is about half of my first thrummed mitten. (there's that word again, thrumm, thrumm, thrumm). I bought some Patons Chunky Shetland in charcoal. It has beige bits in it and I used beige alpaca hair for the thrumms. They are not as neat and well defined as some I've seen. The alpaca is very soft and bits of it get everywhere and end up knitted into the regular stitches. Here's what the thrumms look like inside. I can't describe how soft and warm they feel when you put your hand inside the mitten. Pk has requested a pair so after I finish the Christmas knitting I'll start him a pair. Or maybe I'll get good and finish them in time for the holiday. One can dream.

But the best thing about yesterday was waiting in the mailbox when I got home. Roxie sent me a copy of her new book, Sanna Meets Dauntless Swiftsure. I made the mistake of opening it and reading the first few pages. After that I was gone. I spent the next 3 and 1/2 hours reading this wonderful book. It's the first Sanna book I've read (image stolen from amazon.com) and it's so engrossing that I forgot I wanted to finish spinning my sock yarn and I wanted to cast on for the mittens. I eventually did those things but only after I finished the book. Sanna is one of those characters that when you finish the book, you ask "what now?". She is strong and caring. And I like that she is human and still learning. She makes no pretense of knowing it all, in fact, she freely admits that she has a lot to learn. And then sets out to learn it. In this book, Sanna is kidnapped and has to adapt rather quickly to a new way of life. And she does. There is never any doubt in her mind that she will find a way home and she makes us believe in her as well. I wanted to share this with my niece but she's a little young (Sanna has certain "feelings" that I'm not sure I want to explain to an 8 year old!) but when she is a little older, I am going to introduce her to Sanna. I think Maggie and Sanna could become friends.

Now it's time to go and fix some breakfast. Pancakes and sausage today. And then to make some cornbread for extra stuffing for dinner. We always have leftover night the Sunday after the holiday. It uses up the bulk of the leftovers and we always enjoy eating the goodness one more time. But there is not enough stuffing so I'll make some more today. And I have to make some more pumpkin pies. Emily took the leftovers home with her.

I'll be moving furniture in anticipation of a Christmas tree and changing the orange colors to red and green and sparkles. It's raining and damp and rather cold today. A good day to stay inside and decorate. Have a good and peaceful Sunday.

Thanksgiving was a nice day here in the wilds of South Jersey. We say South Jersey to distinguish ourselves from North Jersey even though we are one state. The north and south are very different because they are each influenced by different large cities. In the north they have New York with all of its eccentricities and in the south we have Philadelphia with all its brotherly love (how many police men and women have been shot this year?). More wealth is congregated in the north and more power. We here in the south often feel like forgotten step children when it comes to governmental issues.

But, as I was saying, Thanksgiving was a nice day. The turkey went into the oven at noon stuffed with our favorite cornbread and sausage stuffing. I also made some without sausage because we were having a vegetarian guest for dinner. We headed out to the movies to see Quantum of Solace (I have no idea what that means), the new James Bond movie. I think Daniel Craig is the best Bond ever. Ever. The movie is good. But he is drop dead sexy. Not, of course, as sexy as my own PK but a good second.

Funny thing happened at the movie. We were sitting behind two people (Em and Jim and Pk and I) and were laughing and talking because they hadn't even started the previews yet. The people in front of us were doing sudoku puzzles and being very quiet. After about 5 minutes, they got up and changed seats. The movie hadn't started! I guess they were there for the whole movie experience and like to be quiet and we were feeling joyful and festive. Oh well. I wouldn't really have spilled popcorn on them although I have been known to have trouble controlling my popcorn. Why do they fill those bags so full?

We got home from the movie and the house smelled great. We were going to play a game but couldn't decide on one so we just sat and talked and then we ate. It was delicious. Em and Jim and his sister left to go visit their parents and we sat and were amazed at how fast the day had gone. I think I said it three times.

Yesterday, Pk cleaned the house and I spun some of the roving I just bought. I'd show you but Pk has the camera and he is on his way to Washington DC with Kate and Elanor. They are going to the Air and Space Museum as part of last year's christmas gift. They left at 7 this morning and should be home (exhausted) by dinner time. I am going to enjoy the quiet of the empty house and maybe hit the local yarn store. I want to make some thrummed mittens and need some yarn. I have some alpaca to use for the thrumms but I need some yarn for the actual mittens. I like the sound of the word 'thrumms'.

I hope you are all having a good weekend. The sun is shining here and there is a red tailed hawk perched on my pool looking around. He is gorgeous. Look out squirrels!

It's here already. The time of year we call "the holidays" lumping them all in together. It seems like the time between Hallowe'en and New Years is one big celebration.

And I like it.

Actually, I enjoy Hallowe'en and the plethora of chocolate that is around and little kids in costumes. I have even been known to put on a pair of wings and have a good time. And I like Christmas. I like finding gifts that everyone will open and say "ooohhh". And I love Christmas trees and making my house all sparkly and decorated.

But I love Thanksgiving. More than all the others combined. I like the peacefulness of it. I know that it strikes fear in the hearts of many people but for me, I have always looked forward to the day when all I have to do is cook and enjoy the people I love. The days are getting shorter and the early darkness encourages us to nest and spend time inside with our families.

I know this time of year you see the lists of all that folks are thankful for. I'm no exception. I am thankful for a great deal in my life. Here's a few.

I am thankful for

• 
  first and foremost, the quirky, lovely, loving, funny, wonderful, supportive, caring, talented (is that enough adjectives?) people I call my family.
  
• that I have a job and insurance
  
• that my family has enough to eat and a place to sleep and clothes to wear
  
• that we are able to laugh
  
• that the internet has brought me new and wonderful friends whose lives I get to share
  
• that our family is always growing to include new people. It doesn't dilute who we are but makes us a stronger unit
  
• that George Bush will be out of the White House come January 20th
  
• that I can download free books on tape and listen to my heart's content
  
• that my children are grown and can make their own decisions even if I don't agree with them
  
• that I seem to have a guardian spirit who keeps me out of trouble
  
• that there are talented people who come up with new and interesting patterns for me to knit and who make rovings that are too beautiful for words




• sheep!
• and many things I will think of during the day and wish I had remembered to write down.

I am grateful for the things I have learned from all of you and the time you take to share your thoughts and ideas with me. And I want to leave you with this thought as the holidays descend upon us and we get carried away with it all:

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. -E. Kubler-Ross

Go out and be the light. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

I was sitting at my desk on my Friday, which was a payday, browsing the internet. This is not a good combination. I happened to visit A Piece of Vermont and before I knew what I was doing, I had placed an order. And when I came home from work today, it had arrived! From Vermont to New Jersey in a weekend. I was impressed.

And then I opened the package and I was really impressed. I had ordered some sock yarn that was labelled imperfect. I used some of this same yarn to make the socks I gave to my sister in law. I liked it so much I bought some more for me. And I bought some roving. It's superwash merino, bamboo and nylon. The top one is Blue Marble and the bottom one is Eleanor Rigby. And oh my, they are soft. And beautiful. And did I mention soft? Unfortunately, I have to put them away for the moment. I think I could become an ADD spinner and just spin little bits of everything I like and never do anything with the yarn.

It was nice to find the package waiting by my door when I got home. The day wasn't terribly stressful, just seemed long. And I have two more days before the long weekend. Tonight I am making cranberry/fruit relish so it will have some time for the flavors to blend before Thursday. Pk and the girls love this stuff but I like my cranberry sauce out of the can with the seams still showing. Yep, I'm a simple woman. But for anyone who's interested, this is the easiest recipe ever and you can alter the amounts to suit yourself.

Cranberry/Fruit relish

1 bag of fresh cranberries

orange juice

1 can sliced peaches

1 can pineapple chunks

1 can pears (cut into chunks)

raisins

walnuts

sugar

Put the cranberries into a large saucepan and cover with orange juice. Add sugar to taste. (Cranberries can be very tart). Cook over medium heat until the cranberries pop. You'll hear it. Add the canned fruits (drain them first) and what looks like a good amount of raisins and walnuts. Stir and cook for a few minutes. Turn off the heat and let cool. It will all be a beautiful cranberry color and will thicken slightly.

Now, I meant it when I said to make it your own. If you don't like pears, leave them out and add more peaches. Ditto raisins or walnuts. Add what you like. There have been years when I have forgotten one or another fruits and nobody noticed. The important part is to cook the cranberries and to add amounts that look good to you.

Confused? I'm sorry. I don't cook many things from recipes. This frustrates my girls to no end. One of the things I promise to do for them is to write their favorites down before I die so that they don't get lost. I don't know how my grandmother made cole slaw and it was my very favorite. She developed Alzheimer's disease before I could get her to tell me. I will try not to do that to my girls. There is a web site called blurb where you can go and publish a book of your own. It's not too expensive for something special, like, say, a book of favorite family recipes. So, I have to remember to take some photos of the things I cook this holiday season so I can put them in the book. Pk offered to take some shots as I cook so the book will have some color. It would make a nice gift.

Well, all this talk of food has made me hungry and it's time to go and start dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs tonight. And beans to go into the crockpot for tomorrow. Pk wants beans and weanies (ewww) tomorrow. I'll eat some eggs.....

eta: for some reason blogger is running all the paragraphs together no matter how much space I leave between them. I went back and bolded first words to make it easier to read. What a pain.

It's Sunday evening and the weekend is almost over. Almost. I can see a faint golden glow through the trees out of my back window. Dinner is in the crockpot and will be done in about an hour. I also roasted a turkey for our annual Thanksgiving luncheon for our clients at work tomorrow. The hospital provides all the sides (potatoes, stuffing, veggies and gravy) and volunteers cook the turkeys. I cooked mine this afternoon and as soon as it's cool, I'll cut it up and put it into a disposable pan to take back to work tomorrow. I never mind cooking the turkey except it's so heavy to drag home on the train and awkward to drag back on Monday. And it makes my kitchen smell so good all afternoon. It's hard not to want to eat it.

I managed to get the chores done yesterday with some help from the girls and PK. He and I went to the produce store and the buy-things-in-bulk-store and the local grocery store yesterday and then put all of the groceries away. It took a while but if the zombies come, we have food. I got all of the things we need for our traditional Thanksgiving meal. The pies will be baked on Wednesday night and the cornbread for the stuffing will be baked then, too. Sometime before Thursday, I have to make some cranberry fruit relish but that's relatively easy. I like to cook so I never mind spending this time in the kitchen. The house is clean and the laundry got done so we have clean underwear (a very important thing).

So, Sunday got to be a craft/recharge the battery day. Pk is outside doing something with wood and I spent the day playing with fiber.

I work on my christmas gift socks on the train and during the week at home. But on weekends, I spend time with my North Sea Shawl (from the book Folk Shawls). It's grown and is coming along nicely. The ends are done separately and grafted together. I'm glad I learned the kitchener stitch from doing all those socks! I have finished Lace section 1 and 2 and am working on the middle piece. Then it goes onto the waste yarn and I do section 1 and 2 again and the grafting begins. When it's finished, I'm pulling out the Wildflowers shawl and finishing that one. I'm about a third through the edging and then it's a lot of sewing. I like the colors on this one. The little bits of green just show up and make it look like the sea.

I have also been spinning today. Pk chose this roving at the Garden State Sheep Show and there should be enough for a sweater, or at least I hope so. It's very soft, a merino blend (I think-the label is lacking in any detail other than maker) and is spinning up easily. I washed this and whacked it to get an idea of what it would look like. He likes it so it's all good. Looking at all the handspun yarns online has given me confidence. Spinning has given me great enjoyment. Now, if I had bigger bobbins so I could have larger skeins......it's always something! I just ordered some superwash roving from A Piece of Vermont so I can try to spin some yarn for socks. What fun to make socks from my own handspun.

This is a short work week for us. Thursday is a national holiday and I took off Friday. There will be no shopping on Friday, just maybe a drive through the woods and some time spent enjoying the company of my family. Probably some knitting and maybe, just maybe some spinning. I am looking forward to it.

Well, dinner smells done so I'm off to carve the turkey for tomorrow and empty the crock pot for dinner. Have a peaceful Sunday evening and a smooth start to the work week.

Good morning. And welcome to Thursday. I get into work about 7:30 each morning, by choice. I could come in as late as 9 but I like being able to go home at 3:30 while there's still some daylight left. It's full-on dark at 5 now. I like the quiet 45 minutes or so I get before my office mate gets in. I sit in the semidark with only the desk lamp on and check email, messages and catch up with blog friends. Then he comes in and says "light" and puts on the overhead fluorescent lights.

It amazed me how many people read Sark. I found Succulent Wild Woman at a conference I was attending. I picked it up because of the colorful cover and intriguing title. And I fell in love. It spoke to a part of my soul that was so lonely. It made me realize that all of the weird, silly things I have inside are also inside lots of other people. It brought new words into my vocabulary, like 'nappish'. I feel nappish often and now I have a word for it. I also own two other Sark books, one of them is Eat Mangoes Naked and the other is the Bodacious Book of Succulence. They are both colorful and fun to read. All of my girls have read them and I have given them to young women I know for birthdays and graduations. Even though I am an adult and don't need anyone's permission to do or act the way I want, it was freeing somehow to be told it was ok to be me. No matter what 'me' turns out to be, it's ok to be it.

I finished the first of Pk's christmas socks last night. He knows I am knitting him socks and wanted to try it on. He was sure it looked too small. It's just a plain toe up with a 4x4 ribbed cuff. No pattern, just knit till I ran out of yarn. He pulled it on his foot and said "ooooh". First time he's reacted that way. He likes the toe up style and the way it feels better than the heel flap. Thinks it fits better. Sigh. I had decided I didn't especially like toe up socks and this would be my last pair. I should know better. I'm glad he likes the way they feel. I like knitting for him.

You know how knitters are always participating in one swap or another? Well, Pk has a "swap" of a kind happening in December. It's called "galoot-a-clause". How manly is that? If you remember, galoots are people who use hand tools. So, Pk has a guy in Washington state who likes wooden planes (tools, not flying things) and we just happen to have an old wooden plane that we can give him to fix up (galoots like finding old tools and rehabbing them. I guess it's like finding an old sweater and ripping it apart and recycling the wool). I think it's interesting to see how alike craftspeople/artists are. The galoots are all supportive of each other and answer questions. Pk had one guy make me whorls for my spinning wheel and it only cost us postage. I think people who create with their hands are all the same inside. The pride/satisfaction of taking raw materials and turning them into something that is beautiful and useful is something that is indescribable. And I am priviledged to have met so many talented people and have benefited from their knowledge.

Well, I hope you all have a good day. It's cloudy here and looks like it might snow (one can only hope!) but the forecast says only brief flurries. I have to teach Crisis Management this afternoon so I am wearing jeans and sneakers. I think today I am doing the take down, and not being the one who is taken down. Small comfort. I still end up on the floor.....and I get to demonstrate restraints. This is way too much fun for any one person.

Well, I want to know who decided that the temperature should take a nose dive off the cliffs of fall and right into winter. It's 27 degrees this morning (-2.7 C) and windy. It's only November. Last Saturday it was 70 (21 C). This came on much too fast and I want to protest. If I only knew who to protest to.

So, how many people do you need to have an official Knit Night? Would 2 count? That's how many people showed up last night. Emily and I walked into Borders and didn't see anyone with sticks and string. I asked one of the workers if they had knit night here. She said "well, last month one or two people came." Hmmm, doesn't sound promising. We decided to sit in the cafe where we could be seen if anyone else showed up. Here I was worried about crashing into an established group and it turns out, we were the group! We sat and had mochas and I had a rice krispie treat (I love them) and Em had a warm brownie with whipped cream. We knitted and talked. A trio of women came in and commented on my sock and one showed off the scarf she paid "over 50 dollars" for because it's "handmade with some yarn that is mala- something". I told her it was Malabrigo and yes, it is expensive yarn. The scarf was about 6 inches wide and garter stitch. Plain garter stitch. The yarn was attractive but nothing special. But she was proud of the fact that she bought it from an "artist". Emily and I decided we would make it a monthly event whether anyone else shows up or not. We are the Succulent Wild Knitters. In honor of a book by Sark called Succulent Wild Women that we really like. It was enjoyable despite (or maybe because of) being just the two of us.

I'm starting to plan the menu for Thanksgiving. I say plan but in reality we'll have the same food we always eat. I just need to make sure that we have the ingredients for the pies and relishes that we don't normally eat. And a turkey. Must buy a turkey.

It's time to go to work. I have supervision in a few minutes. Go out and make it a good day!