all in a day, bullet version

written earlier, just getting around to posting now. what, you think you can just stick food over the fire and leave it to go online????

most of the cooking is tomorrow, it's the readying that gets me

• finishing striped red scarf , show & tell another day. very cheery. for the OFA Red Scarf Project, of course.

• scheming up way to squeeze in a swing through Knit New Haven to get more red yarn, here's why

• not accepting there are a finite number of hours to this day

• wondering how on earth a supermarket could not stock enough fresh cranberries this week?

• delegating cranberry scavenge to Dave

(success!)

• looking forward to baking 5 pies. Love making pies.

• am also fine, happy even, with making cranberry sauce, veggie side dishes , mashed poatoes, grilled fish, corn souffle casserole, salad, appetizers but why of why did I agree to do the 100 long skinny breadsticks . again?

• sister Lulu does the turkey, stuffing & gravy. (in case you wondered.)

• everyone else travels to get here, we do the food. (see wondering, above)

• altho sister Marla was just in Italy and is bringing us a new apertivo . Aperol Spritzers for happy hour ! will report.

• wondering what the correct answer is to the 6:30 am question "what exactly is a cornucopia made of? not the contents but the outer thing?"

• but glad my 16 yo sits down, eats breakfast &grunts talks a little each a.m. (just found the answer, never knew it was that old)

• wishing someone would invent a self cleaning house

• offering mine as a beta site when they do

• thankful, truly, that these are my problems

redscarf: steal this for your blog

As of today, the OFA has just barely 1300 scarves. They need 3000 for the Red Scarf Project, to send in care packages to college students formerly in foster care, who are going it on their own.
I've been lucky enough to meet some of these kids. This isn't just some nutty knitters feeling good idea. The students truly appreciate what you are doing, knitting something by hand for them. Not only is it likely to be the only handknit they receive, it will likely be the only care package.

Here's the plan:
1) cast on for a red scarf and work on it as much as you can this week, and if you're in the US, especially over Thanksgiving. Pick a simple pattern and you'll maybefinish it by Sunday. Or next.

2) be thankful for whoever supported you with a care package when you were a student. Think what it would have been like without them. And if there wasn't anyone? Then you really know how it matters.

3) tell another knitter about it . There's info on the Red Scarf blog. And patterns.

4) STEAL THE POSTER above and put it on your blog. Really! If you click on it, it'll go to my Flickr page, just steal it from there.

5) Call your local yarn store and tell them about this. If they need a poster to print out, there's one of this one, print sized, linked to the Red Scarf blog. Offer to print it out for them & hang it in the store. Maybe they want to offer a discount on any red yarn for one day to perk things up?

6) Knit! I'm determined to finish the one I'm on now, and crank one more by the December 15th deadline. It is do-able. Join me?

My last pep talk on the subject is here, it has additional suggestions for helping out.

appearances

A couple of wonderful things showed up on the weekend.

Hand dyed handspun yarn by Annie at Maple Corners. She calls this Fire & Ice. I met Annie last summer in Minnesota, at the photo workshop. Among her many talents is making gorgeous yarn, often from her own alpaca. And look at what she wove. I can't wait to do something with it, I'm thinking (ravlink) Wave Cowl. Which would be extra special since then I'd know the designer and fiber artist. Here's her shop, I couldn't decide what I wanted so I said it had to be soft enough to be on my bare neck and asked her to surprise me, color-wise. I love it.

But the best thing to cross our doorstep? My older baby is home for the week. It's good to have him casting his shadow around here again. Now if I can get a round of crab empanadas out of him, it'll be a very excellent visit.

driveby posting

it is now necessary...

Navajo rug sample by Rena Yazzie, Hard Rock Reservation, Rocky Ridge AZ
(not the image I intended for this post but can't find where I filed the one I was thinking of)

If you live here in Connecticut, you've heard that phrase in the title eleventy billion times this week. Enough so just the first three words set your teeth on edge and make you wish to throw a phone across the room. Newsflash, we need to add an area code to all our phone calls. My speed dial is despeedified and geez is it hard to remember to punch in three extra numbers when you're calling someone who lives three houses away. I wish the recording you get when you screw up showed just a trace humor, instead of a scolding.

I'll leave you with a true but embarrassing audio book story: I am now so deeply engrossed in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo audiobook that I look for excuses to get in the car and hear more.(yes I do realize I can listen indoors too).I am loving the whole Swedish setting & characters, they are always making open faced fish sandwiches & drinking coffee or aquavit. Of course I think I know who did it. I need to see if my hunch is good. Listening on the way to drop my car at the mechanic's for a small repair, I pulled into the lot as a character entered the bedroom of another in the middle of the night. He said" are you OK?" and she replied " I'd like to have sex" . I pushed the pause button . Clearly the next line was going to be an action description of what they did and how it went.

I just KNOW the mechanic had to take the car for a test drive and I just KNOW he hit the ON button thinking he'd hear some tunes on the radio and instead heard a rich British acccent describing two people with swedish names having sex. You know he now thinks I am a pretentious perv who listens to well narrated audio pornography. Way to be remembered at the garage ! Skol.

cue the percussion

and the winner is....
Diane of WoolandSpice, Harry Potter on audiobook will be on it's way to you as soon as you send me your email & address.

Thanks for all the suggestions for my future book listening. And in case anyone wonders,check this out:

If you're thinking "..what're the chances?" .... It's 1 in 50. I know, probability is like that. Weird.

mid month review

Ahem. I called this meeting to review the status of monthlong goals and objectives. Referring to post 349 dated Nov 2 . Entitled "commitments with issues":

1. NaKniSweMo First let me say I heard Shannon Okey speak last Friday night and she smoothly spews out NaKnitSweMo as a noun, no pausing or giving it verbal quotation marks. Because she is just. that. cool. As far as my personal progress? I cast on this manly cabled sweater for Dave, got a good manly cabled start, and then found I had less manly cable knitting time than I thought. No way it will be done by month's end. Fail. But win for me because I love this kind of knitting and the Ultra Alpaca from my new LYS, Knit NewHaven , is heavenly to handle.

Win for Dave, who hasn't had a new handknit sweater in ages. Also win for me, I am tired of looking at this last one, which appeared recently for its 15th season. You'll note it is also manly cabled. What can I say? The guy knows what he likes.

2. NaPoBloMo The truly alert amongst you may have noticed this commitment was dated November 2nd which means..yup,technically a fail before I began. Cool. No pressure. So I missed another day in there too? Big deal. It's the 18th today. I'm declaring this one a cautiously optimistic win.

3. Vestvember Beyond fail. A non-start. I kept it real with my other projects....

4. ...such as the Red Scarf Project which I wouldn't dream of missing. I'm finishing this one I began last year. The brightness , randomness of striping and simplicity of stitch are a fine counterpoint to the manly cabled knitting . Although it may not be ideal (nongender), I feel pretty sure it'll find it's way to the right college student through the OFA.

5...and some holiday gift knitting. It's Malabrigo and it feels so fine I decided to wind the ball by hand last night, so I could touch all 215 or so yards. .

The color is Pearl. Mushroomish, purplish, slightly blackish shade with undeniable pearlescence. For a requested grey accessory. I think this'll work.

6. No more procrastinating on some long term cleaning/sorting/organizing. Hmmmmm. I read an essay I found helpful. So. I'm going to choose to go make a list of tasks, and it'll be imperfect. And then I'm heading off to the gym.

Meeting adjourned.
(This was written earlier, and I did make it to the gym after the list. The items on the list, well, see imperfection, above)