gaysknits

what else can you do with a big ham bone except...

make a giant pot of split pea soup.  i know what you're saying...eww...but when i said i had a big ham bone what i meant to say was a huge giant ham bone.  i hated to waste it and hated even more to hog up freezer space so the soup is on.  no one in this house will eat it except the german and he's a dog so i don't know if that counts. i'll eat a bowl, the german will get a taste as long as i don't use onions to cook it with and then the rest goes to the numberoneson. he has been eating pea soup since he was a child.  i suppose it's comfort food. my comfort food these days is apricot brandy! i forgot how much i love it's sweet syrupy taste and the warm sensation after a swallow.  this was all made possible by my decision to make fruitcake this year for the mom for christmas. family tradition dictates that apricot brandy is a requirement and i think i drank more than i used to brush on the fruitcake.  ah well it's my holiday too and i must've needed comfort.  the holidays this year seem surreal.

they came too quickly and they are going too fast.  i meant to put my tree up last weekend while the little guy was here but he and the guy got all involved playing wii sports and i couldn't find the damn tree so i moved on to to other things. how do you lose a  six and a half foot pre lit chirstmas tree anyway?  i lost it for a week until i looked down instead of up and found it in a big white box with a full color photograph of a  six and a half foot prelit christmas tree. sometimes i wonder if i am not losing my mind.  the tree has been installed on the end table in the living room next to the fireplace and the big wreath is over the mantle and the mantle and the tree are all lit up in little white lites. the candy canes are in a vase on the mantle so miss husky cannot help herself and it is cozy and warm and i am so glad i took the time to put the three pieces of the tree together and stand it on a table covered with a lace table cloth.  wow could i have put forth any less effort? 

probably not but ever since the real tree i bought  fell over two times and i had to decorate it three times and then undecorate it all by myself i have lost a lot of interest in the project. the older i get the more grinch like i become but this year i came up with an idea i thought might revive my lacking holiday spirit.  i gave the little guy forty bucks and set him loose in marshalls dept store to choose gifts for his family.  he was beside himself with glee at the idea. he gushed. he proclaimed. he announced to everyone who gave him a glance that he was buying gifts for his family.  he sniffed, he touched, he held things up to the light, he made me model some until he chose the perfect gift for each person on his list...his mom, his dad, his sister, his pap and me. we decided upon five dollars a gift and went over on only one...because he wanted a specific gift for his sister and we rounded up to five ninety nine in most cases because after all it was still in the five dollar range.

buying a gift for me was tricky.  it was his idea to include me which makes it more special and together we arrived at the plan that i would choose several pair of knee socks in the five dollar and ninety nine cent range because i love knee socks he he wanted me to have what i really wanted.  then i hid behind a rack of bras while he made the final selection and hid it in the cart under the other gifts.  i swear i didn't peek.  when we got in line he pushing his cart and clutching his two twenty dollar bills tightly in his fist while loudly and enthusiastically exclaiming... "thank you soooo much for letting me do this!  i never got to buy gifts for my family before! my mom and dad never get a gift and do you and pap get any gifts or will this be your only one? i'm gonna make tags and write everyones name on them and put them under the tree.  i like getting gifts a lot but now i like giving them too. i feel so...i don't know what i feel...i feel like i did a good thing. i feel proud."   everyone within earshot was smiling ear to ear, the checkout girl was grinning as she quickly and secretively placed my gift in the bag while i sat not looking in the chairs on the side where the men wait for the shopping to be over. he paid his bill and carried his goods out to the truck.

i have to say i thought i was giving a gift to him and to his family...the one who got the biggest gift was me. he got the message.  he got it! he got the message that giving can be better than receiving. he got the message that christmas is a time for sharing not just getting presents from santa...although it is that as well. not since i had a similar experience with his sister a few years back when we stood in line at gabriel brothers with a sack full of quarters and dimes and nickles that she had saved up to buy gifts for her family was i so full of the holiday spirit...it snowed today so we're in for a white christmas.  later...love   g 

sometimes tiny is better...

fortunately this is one of those times.  i do not usually knit with fingering yarn.  i can honestly say i have never in my life even purchased fingering yarn before now.  usually i don't have contact with anything finer than worsted. unless you count the chevron scarf i knit in 2008 out of sock yarn and since then  i haven't wanted to recreate the hours and days and months it took me to finish the sucker.  hell i think i wear the thing just to punish myself for making such a loooooong  time consuming project  and because it is soft and comfy and colorful and it is about the only colorful thing i have ever had in my wardrobe!

me and the little guy had a picnic of sorts last weekend and wore our handknits to enjoy the sunny gorgeous fall afternoon  at the marina. this week i have dabbled in chunky yarn...the purple bliss scarf for bob's wife...she loved it...and i have dabbled in fingering yarn.

 

who knew it would be a new found love of mine that fingering yarn...and the multi who knew i would fall  in love again with the multi having previously turned against it because if it's habit of willfull misconduct and after having pooh poohed it's tendancy to do whatever the hell it wanted to do as far as color and pattern goes. multi fingering wool seems to work nicely...in this particular case anyway. did i say wool??? wool???  yes the wool has become another new found friend to me. i don't know if i am mellowing or losing my mind.  i rescued this yarn from the  clearance bin at the lys and my intention was to throw it in the bottom of the hat box until sometime shortly after hell froze over and then i saw this pattern.  multomah.   i had the perfect yarn for it.  one skein of fingering weight multi wool yarn.

 

this pattern has made me feel stupid and exercised my brain at the same time  and it really is simple but i have made mistakes and poor judgements ending in my having to spend some time tinking back.  i am happy with the results and would only be happier if i would put this sucker on a long piece of scrap yarn and see what it looks like all spred out. maybe  i'll do that but maybe i won't have the time.  i intend to finish this up and have it blocked and ready to be delivered to the mom on wednesday evening and presented to her as a birthday gift...along with the three different kinds of peanut brittle i am making her.  it's is a busy saturday for me so i am off to be busy and i will see you on the other side of the weekend maybe?   later...love   g

before i get ahead of myself...

let me report on the activities of last week end.  they were not for the faint of heart let me tell you.  my intention  was to put on my new flippers and float in the river on my back with my life vest on.

 

i suited up like i was jacques cousteau or something and proceeded into the water much like a graceless three year old would holding my nose and everything.

prior to this point in the afternoon the soninlaw had lauched his jet ski into the same water we were floating in and while we looked on he ran into all sorts of unforeseen mechanical problems and had to abandon the mission so we went on without him.

i must say i felt bad for him and but i also was hoping for him to give me a ride on the thing so i was a little dissappointed and the youngladygrandaughter was down in the dumps over the whole affair.

i had to do something to cheer her up and that some thing was tubing. first we had to  pump the tube up...this was it's maiden voyage. then we had to attach the tow rope dress up in our matching life vests and enter the tube.

the plan was that the guy would tote us along at a leisurely pace somewhat like the lazy river at sandcastle if you know what that's like but he quickly bored of that and let it rip sending us screaming with glee at 35 to 50  miles an hour behind the boat.  we laughed, we screamed, one of us peed our selves but i won't mention any names!  it was fun.

for three days after i was exhausted, i was in pain from my calves and thighs to the tip of my spine and then there was that old neck injury  which came back to haunt me. by friday my head and neck still ached and it was that day that a friend of mine gave me a knee board to try with the recomendation that i consider just watching the 16 year old use it but i probably won't take that advice. i'll have to try it myself you know i will.

some of us just don't know how to act our age.  thought i'd better post this soon...tomorrow we ride!  later...love   g

someone stole my poop...

not that i want i back or anything but the wierdest thing happened. well maybe it's not so wierd after all. when we were at the beach early one morning the guy and i and the little guy were walking the dogs on the beach looking for seashells.  the german  usually hits the beach running and then after about two minutes he takes a poop then he usually takes another poop.  this particular morning it was cloudy and chilly and we were bundled up in sweats and as was the case every morning the little guy was running through the surf as if it was a warm and sunny day and as if the water was not freezing cold. little boys have no sense of feeling i swear. 

the youngladygrandaugter came running up the beach to join us shortly after we left and i was carrying a white plastic bag full of poop which was cramping my strolling style. we walked up the beach about six houses and the guy suggested we leave the bag by the fence and pick it up on our way back. the spot we chose was near a public access and it was near the house where some old friends and neighbors of the little guy and the ylgd were staying that same week...really what are the chances? i remember joking that we should leave it on their porch and ring the door bell but instead i left it by the fench around the dunes.  we must've walked for an hour or two. that was the day we found a live crab that was attacking the ylgd's fingers and a sea horse that was dried and perfect.

 

the guy was sporting his video camera and all this in on tape including me walking around carrying a bag of poop.  on our way back i walked back to the spot where i deposited my white plastic bag of poop and it was no where to be found, i looked up and down the beach to see if it had possibly blown away but seriously a pound of dog poop isn't blowing anywhere! then i spotted her. a woman carrying my bag of poop and i know it was mine because she didn't even have a dog!  i was amazed that someone would steal my poop but then i gave it a thought and i would have and have done the same thing.

we all participate in keeping the beach clean especially those of us who enjoy  walking our dogs on the beach after all it wouldn't take long for it to become a disgusting mess of a place if we didn't keep it clean and if we didn't keep an eye out for others who were not so responsible. i guess i owe somebody a cleanup!  the guy is busy tonite putting together a video of our adventures on the beach and every time i see myself walking along nonchalantly carrying a white plastic bag of poop i have to laugh!  you had to be there i guess...you have to have a dog!  later...love   g

mark my words...

next time i will not be back for two weeks. as soon as you get to the beach and start to chill out and unwind and forget about your troubles and your job

it rains and a maybe a tornado blows through town and then it is sunny and warm and gorgeous again

and you have the time of your life relaxing on the beach in the sun knowing that it is snowing at home where you life most of your regular life and then you have to pack up all your crap and start the long journey home again.

next time i will stay for two weeks but this time we went on spring break. lots of families with school age children dotted the dunes and the light house and the shores because is was spring break.

we took advantage of that timing too and took the opportunity to treat the grandchildren to a beach vacation while they were off school.  as i said before i didn't knit at all, i only read a part of a book, and i didn't take tons of pictures.

i needed a vacation and i needed a break and i took one from everything i ordinarily do including cooking...i am happy to report that i never cooked a meal.  i'm still feeling a little lazy like that and i am still tired and not at all back into any kind of swing of things at all.

i took an extra day off work this week and it didn't really help as i still find myself being very tired as hell....beach bum tired i call it.  ah well it will pass.  i have been home since easter sunday and i still have  my flip flops, my toe ring and my nail polish on.

i  have not yet gotten on my gazelle even one time, i have hardly remembered to take my calcium and i have i still have not knit anything. i am working on a cardi of black and blue arucania nature cotton which i love but the yarn turns your hands and fingers all black and dirty looking while you are knitting with it so it sort of creeps me out a bit. i love the results but eww eww ewwwww.

anyway i finished all but the second sleeve before i left and left it behind while i was gone.  i haven't picked it up again because i am thinking about it.  one of the things i am thinking about is two closures or one?   i just sort of tacked  one on to see how i liked it and i do but i might like two better.  the other thing is although i love the length and the shape of the sleeves and really wouldn't want to change a thing about either i think i do want to change a thing about the top of the sleeve or to be specific the arm pit of the sleeve.

i think i have many armpit issues with sweaters and this sweater is no exception.  i realize that i have pretty skinny arms  but i am not happy to have such sag and bag at the top of my sleeve.  i may  have to pick up fewer stitches under the arms and start decreasing right away and taper the upper arm sooner and quicker to fit my skinny upper arm.

that translates to the need to rip out the first sleeve which doesn't really disturb me so much because i probably will not be wearing this until next fall or winter and  i have lots or time between then and now to rip and reknit.  i'm not that anxious to have black fingers anytime soon anyway.  now i think i will go out in the back yard to take some pics of the black and blue cardi and in the meantime i will leave you with a few of my favorite memories of the beach.

 

i predict that next week i will be back to normal or at least more normal than i am now!  in order of appearance...the spiral stairs from our deck to the beach walk, our view of the beach in the morning, coffee on the deck on day one, deck chairs looking over the view from heaven, somebodies sandcastle, our kite, the dunes at jockeys ridge, the currituck light house, my flip flops and toe ring, birds flying through the morning sky, chips and beer on our last day! later...love   g