photo credit: Furryscaly via photopin cc
Make yourself some corner bookmarks.
Open letter to white male comedians.
Sharks. (via unrealfred on tumblr)
What? He need a tow.
Anybody looking for a job? How to get hired.
Two guys experience having a baby.
Should I hang out my washing? (not necessarily safe for work)
With cats this smart they should have won the Cold War.
It's no secret: sports are valued more than anything.
A tribute to moms (better late than never).
Can I get an Awww...
Yesterday was Younger Son's birthday... and we totally forgot. We had been talking on and off about what to do for his 24th b'day so we didn't completely forget, but we missed the day.
Oops.
I called him to apologize and wish him happy birthday and chat. He is such a good guy that he laughed it off -- sincerely, I think.
[digression] In somewhat the same vein, I just glanced over the last few posts. Jeez, one would think I lived in the Quagmire Of Despair, which I most emphatically do not. Guess I just like to complain. [/digression]
Now, in celebration of yesterday's birthday, here are a few choice photos of the boy's man's life. (My photo library is heavy on his teenage years and light on the past couple. Before that, no digital camera; after that, he moved 75 miles away.)
May 16, 1989: the story begins:
Much to his mother's delight, he was never camera-shy.
When we traveled, he liked to pose in front of things.
He always loved artsy-techno stuff.
He sometimes looked to shoes to express his wild side.
He has experimented with short hair...
...long hair...
...black hair...
...no hair...
...and a beard.
He has always had the most delightfully wacked-out sense of humor.
He has also always loved animals.
and eventually got a dog of his own.
For better or worse, biking is one of his passions.
He is helpful...
...and has always made friends easily.
HAPPY 24TH!
See these two spice containers. Notice how similar they are -- size, shape, color.
Guess which one I put on my oatmeal this morning.
I have a shameful admission.
I may be a bit of a computer geek, but I am a lazy computer geek. One who would rather whine and beg for help than figure it out myself.
(Cookie, are you giggling yet?)
In the comments to my post yesterday, Lisa directed me to the Apple Help topic on how to move the iPhoto library to a different location. Duh. Why didn't I do a little internet research myself?
Lazy.
Upon further reflection, however, I decided that my whining had more to do with my confidence in my own abilities (or lack thereof) and fear of failure (mainly the latter). The same thing happened last year when I whined about how my Apple Magic Mouse was so unreliable. Erika pointed me toward a site that described how to use folded bits of aluminum foil and paper to make the battery connections more solid.
Now, in my own defense, I have no problem googling and YouTube-ing for help on a knitting problem*. I guess I have more confidence in my knitting abilities than my computer abilities. It helps that one can actually see one's knitting; computers are virtual -- everything happens behind the curtain.
Okay. Not lazy. Scared.
Will I use this new-found knowledge of myself to my advantage? Will I do a little research on my own next time?
Stay tuned...
* See, Cookie, I'm not that bad!
I celebrated my own Mother's Day yesterday -- spent pretty much the entire day in my recliner reading, watching Netflix, drinking coffee/soda/wine (as the day progressed), and knitting. This is Smokey's weekend to work (always with the night shifts) so when he is home he is tucked up in his bed with two dogs and a cat and a box fan for white noise. Today I might be productive. Hard to say, really.
Reading:
A few weeks ago I read a piece in The Nation by Deborah Kopaken Kagan about her experiences as a woman author and how she was demeaned by the publishing industry. I was so inspired/enraged by her experience I clicked over to bn.com and bought all four of her books to read on my iPad. (I also clicked over to her website and sent her an email telling her what I did; she emailed back that it made her cry.) Anyhow, I want to recommend her books. She came from an ordinary middle-class background, graduated from Harvard, moved to Paris, worked as a photojournalist covering a lot of gritty stuff (ex., she went into Afghanistan alone during the Soviet-Afghan war), eventually married, had three kids, started to write. The woman has lived more in her 40-odd years than a dozen other other people put together. I highly recommend her books, especially Shutterbabe (memoir) and The Red Book (fiction). Her collection of essays, Hell Is Other Parents, is pretty damned good, too.
Yesterday's book was Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich. I had read the first 60+ pages in fits and starts and was not particularly engaged by it, but yesterday I decided to give it a chance to pull me in. Which it did, in spades. Protagonist is a quant who specializes in the odds of disasters; the 3-person consulting firm he works for makes him rich. Then a real mega-disaster hits New York City -- essentially Hurricane Sandy plus Katrina -- and his life changes. Some of the scenes were lifted straight out of the news stories of Katrina. Good book, four out of five stars.
Last night I startd NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. Creepy as hell, that one. I follow the author on Twitter. He is currently on tour for the book and every day posts photos of readers attempting to kill him in various ways.
Knitting:
I am enjoying having several projects to hand at all times. A hat, a pair of socks, the top-down set-in sleeve sweater, a scarf of the same yarn as the hat. They are strewn about my chair in various stages of doneness. When I sit down there is the delicious feeling of What shall I pick up this time? Project monogamy, begone!
Stuff:
Remember the humungous external hard drive? I have moved most of my data files over to it and gone into my most-often used programs to direct them to that drive for files. Two programs have me stumped, though: Excel and iPhoto. I can deal with the former, but iPhoto is being a bugger. I have searched through all its menus and preferences and cannot find a place to tell it where to store its files. My internal 160GB hard drive has 76GB of photos. It would be nice to get them all moved and backed up. All suggestions welcome. (I started to email Younger Son yesterday to ask him but got distracted, had to reboot, lost the email, yada yada. So I'm asking y'all.)
No photos popped into my head to illustrate today's post. Here, in honor of Mother's Day, is a gratuitous one from 1984 of me being a mom to Elder Son.
photo credit: Eva the Weaver via photopin cc
If you wonder at that photo, I have no idea what it is or why it appeared when I searched for "link" on photopin.com. Just another of life's little mysteries, I guess.
Groceries, around the world.
How do you use Levels in PhotoShop?
Hello, amazing jumper.
Extra, extra! Read all about it! Tardis knitting attacks author Joe Hill!
Best song/fairy tale EVAH! (via Chris)
* * * * *
Other items OTN.
A couple summers ago I bought some worsted weight sock yarn when we were on the North Shore.
The person at the yarn store told me that one skein was not quite enough for a pair of socks, but that I could get two pairs out of three skeins. Hence, my choices.
During tax season I had decided that, when I had free time again, I was going to focus on knitting down my stash. Lots of good yarn there; time to use it. My priority would be to knit up the yarn that didn't fit into my Rubbermaid bins. Although I had planned exactly what I was going to knit first -- and it was not this sock yarn -- when the day actually came to pick up my pointy sticks, this is what I chose.
Sock The First:
It may not be apparent, but this sock is like armor. I knitted the foot and ankle on a US#2 and the leg on a US#3. Result: very dense fabric. The sock is also a little big on me; I am hoping a hot bath will correct that.
Heather, before you ask, here is the inside:
In other news, Younger Son was here yesterday to work on his car with Smokey. Did I ever show you the car they found for him to replace the 14-yo Chevy Metro he had been driving?
Someone had donated it to a tech school in St Paul, which sold it for very, very cheap, like <$2k cheap. YS is thrilled with it -- sunroof, turbo, heated seats, power everything, plus it all works (except for the speedometer, they are still working on that; he uses the GPS in his phone to gauge his speed).
Anyway, while he was here he installed a new external hard drive for me. My Mac Mini has a 160GB hard drive that is nearly full -- it has been nagging me for several months to delete stuff. I had done that, but it was a stopgap measure at best.
This external drive was one that had been sitting around where he works for a couple years; since his firm went to network storage they had no need for individual backup drives. It may not look impressive, but there are two 1TB hard drives in there. He set it up so that one mirrors the other -- automatic backup!
The copying/migration process, which kinda scared me, but to him was just click click, all in a day's work:
* * * * *
The official ice-out day on our lake was yesterday, May 5, the latest anyone can remember. Transiting geese and ducks and loons and maybe even some swans have been sighted and heard. The trees are still completely bare except that I saw that the swamp maple opposite our kitchen window was blooming. Maybe spring/summer really will come.
* * * * *
Well, there you have it: the minutiae of my recent life. Knitting has been on my mind constantly -- well, except for when I was fretting about the surgery -- and I hope to have more projects to show soon.
That phantom hip replacement? Postponed again. This is the fifth postponement. Let me just say... ARGHHHH!
Had the pre-op physical last Monday. Doc found a heart murmur, ordered an echocardiogram to check it out. I had been told about 40 years ago that I had a heart murmur but had none of the accompanying signs and symptoms that would indicate a problem. Apparently that is true when one is young, but this doc told me that as we age our heart valves become less flexible, and what was not a problem at 23 may become a problem at 63. Hence, the echo.
Results of echocardiogram: I have a noisy valve, not a defective one. No worries.
So why is the hip surgery postponed? I have a previously unsuspected urinary tract infection. No big deal, except that surgeon will not operate until my urine is clear. And two days of antibiotics was not enough to achieve that. He wants a clear urine culture, not just a clear urinalysis, and the former takes 48 hours and... there just weren't enough days between then and Monday to get there.
Wish I had remembered earlier that I needed the pre-op physical.
* * * * *
On the other hand, the spring weather has been... crappy. This was Friday when I went for the second urinalysis.
The lake is largely clear of ice but not nearly completely. This is the latest ice-out since we have been here, 22 years. The fishing opener is today on a lake farther north. The joke is that the folks there had their ice augers out to make sure their lake was clear.
Okay, now for something cheerful: the top-down sweater with the set-in sleeves is coming along nicely. Here is is drying after its preliminary blocking.
I thought it would be easier to pick up the neckband and button bands if I blocked it first. It may go to Afghans for Afghans or it may go to the Pine Ridge reservation or it may go into a cedar chest to await a possible grandchild. Hard to say...
photo credit: Kris Krug via photopin cc
I don't quilt, nor do I want to start, but this is amazing.
Spring peepers. (This has temporarily replaced the fan in our bedroom providing white noise.)(Link opens in a new window so you can continue to listen.)
A walk-in bookshelf.
Please notice that, to the grape-eating monkey, the world appears to be completely fair.
Pockets = autonomy. (via martinimade.com)
More on ethical clothing.
.
But first, mutterings.
* * * * *
Awhile back I won a contest at knitnzu.com. It was so long ago, in fact, that I don't remember what the contest was! Lisa offered the winner her choice from a number of different yarns. I gave her my list of favorites and told her to surprise me, so when the box came it was like Christmas and my birthday.
I warned Lisa at the time that the winnings wouldn't appear on the blog until after tax season. The time has come!
Yes, the yarn sat in its box until today.
There are three skeins of Lane Cervinia Cabrezza, a lovely soft woolen worsted which apparently was discontinued so long ago that even Google couldn't find it, let alone Ravelry.
Ha, ha, suckahs! I have the last three skeins in existance!
All lint and animal hair courtesy of our menagerie; opened box sat on couch for a l-o-n-g time.
Then there were two skeins of Knit Picks Palette, a yarn I have been contemplating. I bought one skein of Jamieson's fingering weight, thinking to experiment somehow, but it was so scratchy that I lost interest. The Palette, however, is a lovely soft wool. Methinks there may be some detailed colorwork mittens in my future (someday).
What colors would go with this rich bright brown?
Last but not least was this little treasure. Light fingering weight merino/nylon. Scarf? Socks? Time will tell.
Thanks, Lisa!
