Old House Stories # 2- The Critter

 I have a lot of memories of our old house, here is another one:

A squirrel was sitting in my house gutter the other day. He had really gone too far. I mean, we have hawks that swoop down on such unsuspecting critters like him and here he was sitting happily in the middle of the gutter, munching on maple seeds staring in my kitchen window. I stared back wondering if he was really watching my face or was simply in maple nut nirvana. Either way he was going to get himself snatched off the roof if he didn't stop stuffing his face. More seeds in that ever expanding belly of his and he wouldn't just be lunch for a hawk but find himself stuck literally in the gutter.

Suddenly, a friend of his decided this was just too good to miss and there were now two squirrels in the gutter loading up on seeds. Normally I would have thought good deal, they are cleaning out my gutters from the yearly scourge of maple helicopters landing all over my roof that end up clogging the gutter downspouts. But they were making such a mess with the husks of the seeds dropping them all over my desk that I thought for a moment, you deserve to get picked off by a hawk. Shame on me.

Finally I had enough and send Watson, our Basset/Springer Spaniel out to chase them off. Poor Watson, he is getting up in age, but his eyes have never been his strong suit. He comes out the back door all ready to engage in battle with the intruders but he can never quite see where they are. I can point up to the roof all day and he will sniff the ground nonetheless. Low to the ground, Watson has the heart of the Springer Spaniel and the legs and dragging belly of a basset hound. He stir up some mighty fearsome barking but it will be all day before he reaches you.

Squirrels off the roof for now, I move on to filling my seasonal swimming pool. It's the type of pool you put up every year because my husband and I don't quite want a year round pool in the back yard. We seem to have amnesia when it comes to remembering how much trouble it is to drag five hundred pounds of hot sticky vinyl in the middle of the yard, slide the metal support tubes into sticky vinyl sleeves, set up the metal legs all without damaging our fingers, shins and ears of our neighbors.

My husband and I are aging too, as in we are getting too old to think just the two of us can do this by ourselves every year. But not just getting old as in in creaky bones and muscles but also our hearing. How can two people who are standing back to back not hear what the other one is saying when they are standing in the yard working on a project? It's beyond me. All I know is we are constantly yelling, "What? What did you say?" I am surprised neighbors don't come out and interpret for us. Of course none of them are much younger, so maybe they don't hear us.

Back to the pool, so the box says it takes only thirty minutes to set up and begin filling the pool. It takes us ninety, with a lot of sweat, swearing and wine at nine in the morning. Last year my wonderful husband built a wood deck by the pool so our grandchildren and I could get in and out easily. It made it so wonderful not having to climb up and down a rickety ladder. We kept the deck throughout the winter, but moved it down the yard so it wouldn't be standing right in front of our main deck all winter looking all forlorn. Of course that meant pretty much disassembling this deck because it was too heavy for us to move. It worked out great during the fall and early spring as a miniature playhouse for the and the granddaughters to play on. But, of course, once we got the pool assembled the deck had to be moved back in place. Which meant disassembling it again, and also reassembling it next to the pool. I think it was easier to build in place the first year. This time we had to keep pushing and pulling the five hundred pounds of vinyl along with poles and legs to get it in the right spot for the deck or else the ladder would not fit along a flat side of the octagonal pool. Believe me, we thought we knew where it would fit against the deck, but when you push, pull and scream at five hundred pounds of vinyl it tends to sit wherever it wants.

Finally, it was done. Back in the house, I washed vegetables to have with lunch when I looked out and saw the squirrel was back but this time on top of our pergola. The pergola sits on the deck right next to the pool deck. The next thing I know, Watson is outside barking, in the wrong direction again, at a squirrel he can smell but not see. The barking was enough to alarm the squirrel, but now I can see it panic as he realizes where he would have normally run and jumped when the dog came running out there was now a giant blue five hundred pound vinyl thing in his squirrelly path.

So, this squirrel is no dummy, he improvised and he jumped to the pool deck and and down the ladder. Now because I had immediately begun running the hose to fill the pool as soon as we had set up it up, I know that there are a few inches of water at the end of that ladder, but the squirrel did not. He suddenly reappears looking rather freaked out at the prospect of maybe having to swim instead of run. He is back on the pool deck closer to the loudly barking dog. Much to the squirrel's further chagrin, my husband appears on the deck to see what the dog is barking about. And the squirrel Olympics begins. Mr. Squirrel is so panicked to see a human and a dog blocking most of his paths to freedom, he begins running up and down the pool deck. He makes a quick decision to leap to the pergola and running along a narrow beam flies with hope and a prayer to the top of the house.

I am happy to say he made the leap, much to the amusement of my husband and myself. Watson, of course because he hasn't been able to track him still thinks the squirrel is lurking around the pool and keeps barking.

So summer has officially begun in our backyard.

Old House Stories # 1- Litter

I have a lot of memories of our old house  which sat on a very busy major street in our town. We had absolutely no privacy in the front yard, but lots of stories to tell. Here is another one:

 I was mowing our front lawn.  I have claimed the right to mow the front lawn mostly because I have planted two dozen trees, flowers and shrubs out front in the hopes of gaining some of the privacy we lost when our fifteen year old pine tree was destroyed by ice four years ago. 

 You don't realize how exposed and naked you are in your front lawn until you lose a thirty foot tall by twenty foot wide evergreen. Suddenly the world is staring at you when you look out the front door, stand on the porch and of course do anything in your front yard.

  So while I enjoy mowing the front yard so I can make sure all my little baby plants survive the weekly trim going past them, I also
have to endure the constant noise and wind of passing vehicles, trucks, semis, you name it going by on our somewhat busy street.  But the biggest hazard is trash.

 Whether it's the wind picking up trash from the trash container in the apartment complex across the street  or what I actually suspect is not so nice people throwing things out their car windows either way trash is a hazard.

I am reminded of the anti pollution commercial famous in the 1970's of a Native American standing near the forest on a highway and some woman throwing an entire bag of trash out her car window and it lands at his feet.   As a kid I always thought he should have taken his bow and arrow and shot the tire of their car but he was nicer than I was.

 Mowing along our yard I have found beer bottles, cans, wrappers of White Castle burgers, Chick Fil A, Arbys, and masks which apparently people are still wearing (and should wear if they are driving past my house throwing out trash).  The other day I found one fake fur Easter bunny ear lying on the ground.  That was just disturbing.  But all this is particularly gross in our post Covid world of not wanting to touch anything that might have 'the GERM' on it.  Especially a discarded mask!!!

And I won't even go into the number of times I've hit paper napkins which explode all over the yard looking like I hit a confetti canon.  The mulching attachment on our mower doesn't make this any better. It just mulches up the paper into even better flying confetti.

I either have to get over my germ phobia or begin wearing gloves to pick up trash. But I happen to like getting a tanned while mowing so gloves are definitely out.  I would have a golfer's tan!

So on I mow, trying to swerve around the debris, put on a glove and go back and pick it up afterwards.

Maybe I could make up social media memes asking people not to throw trash. Or just stop being a baby and pick it all up, like a good citizen.  :)

Hard Times

 It's weird how at different times in your life, going through hard times, or good times, you pick up different projects to work on?  Crafts and hobbies are so good to have on hand because you never know what you are in the mood in.  Recently I lost my mom of 92 years.  Even when you know it's time, it is never easy to lose a parent. My mom was my best friend.  While she never knit or crocheted, sewed or wrote stories, she loved seeing and hearing about what I was working on. She always marveled at every little items I created whether it was a hat or a dish cloth!

She was my number one fan.  It's not been very long since she died, but I still keep picking up my phone to call her before I remember I cannot.

Knitting has helped me rock away in tears, crocheting the dishcloths my mom loved me to make for her has helped keep me busy over a holiday weekend.  Now back at work I want to just stop what I'm doing and pick up some yarn and lose myself in the stitches.

My mom is where I get my bullheadedness from. You could never tell her she could not do something because she would find a way to get it done. I am the same.  

But she also taught me faith, trust and hope. Those are the securities I craft into my yarn projects and hope the bearer feels them.

One of the things that is helping keep me steady through these days of hurt and sorrow is knitting on my granddaughters' sweaters.  I finished the purple one and have begun on the oldest's red and splashy color one.  I have the back finished and am working on the front.  I can tell sweaters are going to be my next marathon of knitting items, much like my bears, socks and hats.  At least they take longer to knit so there should not be quite so many of them hiding in my gift stash!

Here we are, using the same plain easy pattern, but in red, pink and black and white. Worked with Hobby Lobby's 'I Love This Yarn' yarn.

 

Almost Finished

     I don't know how, when you are being very careful counting while knitting, you can still mess up lines of stitching!  I am not a great pattern follower but I have been trying REALLY hard on this sweater for my granddaughter to get it right.  So while I finished the front and back and sewed it together and began picking up the stitches along the sides for the sleeves, I was REALLY careful to pick up the correct number of stitches on the first sleeve.  And it turned out great, it looks a little long, but it measures what the pattern says it should.  So with confidence I began the second sleeve, picking up the stitches along the side.  

     Hmm... I could not get enough of the stitches picked up like the pattern said to, but I thought, that's okay it will be fine.  I think I was also watching episodes of the British series, Father Brown while doing this. We borrowed a dvd copy of the series from the library.  It was a new season and since we only had five days on the loan I got a little distracted watching several episodes in the evenings.  Anyway after knitting ten rows, I realized this sleeve was way too narrow. I counted my stitches and oh my gosh there were ten less than I had on the first sleeve. I had no other choice but to rip out all ten rows and start again picking up the correct number of stitches this time.  

I was doing well until, feeling cocky, I forgot to start decreasing immediately after picking up the stitches like I did on the other sleeve. Okay, I can make that up without ripping back this time, I only had a few rows done.  Night after night I settled into my rocking chair, after supper and prayer time and began knitting and watching more episodes of Father Brown.  I kept track of my decreases with my knit markers occasionally forgetting to put in a marker when I had decreased. Finally after several nights I was getting close to knitting the wrists.  I held it up and folded the sweater in half so the two sleeves were laying against one another and one was longer.  Well of course, I still had to knit the wrists. But wait, it wasn't the already finished one that was longer, it was the side I was still working on and still had an inch to go!   NOOOOOOOOOO

     Oh my word, how in the world did I knit too long??!  Now, what... I was sure my granddaughter who is five and very worldly in her fashion sense would notice that one sleeve was too long. I could just hear her voice saying, "um, Grammy, this sleeve doesn't fit right?"   And I am not the person to say, oh, honey your arms are just different sizes... What do I do?  

     Ugg, if I mark where I need to rip out it was two inches!  If I ripped it out I really didn't think I was going to get 32 stitches back on a needle with several dropped stitches and holes.  So I did the unthinkable. In fact, I didn't even know if it could be done. I had only done this technique once before with just two stitches.  I tinked back two INCHES of knitting. Yup...I  UNKNIT.  

     I don't know if that is a term in knitting or not but tinking does not describe what I had to do. This was totally UNKNITTING!!  

     But, it saved my sweater and in less than two hours I was able to begin again this time immediately beginning the wrist.  I was never so relieved to be almost finished with a project. 

     But now looking at the body of the sweater I am concerned the body is too short, but I am going to sew up the sleeves and sides and have my granddaughter try it on first before figuring out how to add inches to the bottom.  Me and following patterns...I am not sure about the next sweater

In this picture I have not finished the second sleeve, but I love the variations in the yarn. My granddaughter loves purple!  Hobby Lobby Yarn Bee Color Wheel  Grape Jamboree

 

Knitting So Much It Hurts

 It's been a long two years since my husband and I packed up our home of thirty years and moved to a different part of town.  There were lots of reasons, but unfortunately the neighborhood was degrading into loud music, cars with horribly loud music sitting in apartment parking lots at all hours of the night.  Now we have a quiet neighborhood but after redesigning our old house over thirty years to the way we liked it, we have had to start again adding some features we missed from our old house.  So we have been spending time adding grass seed, gardens and most recently a deck off the back of the house. Luckily it was a down on the ground deck but it took a lot of lumber and oh boy are my hands hurting from hauling lumber.   That wouldn't be such a big deal but I am working hard on knitting sweaters for my granddaughters, three of them before Christmas.  I have only knit one or two sweaters in all my years of knitting mostly because 1) they take forever to knit and 2) you usually have to follow a pattern which I am not good at doing.  

But I decided after knitting thirty hats this last year, it was time for something different. That and my family is tired of receiving hats.  And...I also decided to change up the knitting pattern and add a heart on the front: Tada!!

Now for you really good knitters this may not seem like a big deal, but it is huge to me to have to track down some graph paper, which I have never used...not being a math person I never saw the need until I had to make a pattern for the heart I wanted to stitch.   Luckily my daughter-in-law who is very crafty had some. So I have now advanced to working on the second sleeve and I will be almost finished with it!! I am so excited and hoping that it fits at least one of the girls. Yes, I measured but for some reason it looks short to me.  We'll see when it gets sewn up.  Oh by the way I am using Yarn Bee Sugar Wheel yarn for these because I love the color variants as I knit along.

But, because of all my knitting and wood-working, my fingers have been screaming at me. More than just the little bit of arthritis, two of my right hand fingers won't move at all or worse, get a charley-horse in them.  Ouch. The poor things have been overworked.  Picking up and carrying several ten foot long deck boards did not help them at all. 

One of my daughters bought me a hand wax tub where you melt the wax then dip your hand it to make it hurt less and feel smooth. The only problem is sitting around twenty minutes while the wax hardens on your hand which means you cannot do anything but sit still.  Using the phone or reading a book is impossible so I don't use it real often.  I also tried a roll on analgesic with lidocaine which works but again you cannot use your hand while it tries and once it dries the analgesic relief doesn't last long.

Even typing this blog piece is killing my fingers.  Suffering for so many arts can really be a big pain.

 

Happy Easter!

 

It was a beautiful Easter day for us this past Sunday. What was supposed to be a rainy possibly stormy day turned out to be sunny, mild temps and a slight breeze that was wonderful. We were able to attend Mass without rain spoiling everyone's outfits, have Easter Egg hunts and we even had several visits from the Easter Bunny as pictured! The bunnies visited our yard Easter morning!

But the funnest part of the day was getting to spend time with family and enjoying the enthusiasm they had finding eggs, plastic ducks, swinging and running up and down the deck my husband and I are working on and blowing bubbles. The highlight was when the 'Easter Bunny' flew over the house and dropped several eggs into the backyard while the granddaughters were playing. They were amazed and astonished. That is until several eggs rained down and hit both of my daughters on the head and just missed the one year old on the deck!

Oh my, what a day. It was wonderful and beautiful. We later watched video of Pope Francis blessing everyone on Easter Sunday. I even said, "I believe Pope Francis wants to keep going doing everything he can and die with his boots on." Little did I know that in 24 hours he would do precisely that. God bless him and may he rest in peace.

Looking Back

 Good golly, I was searching for a radio station a few weeks back when I stumbled across a very faint KMOX 1120 AM station.  It was faint because I live 90 minutes south of St. Louis but oh my it took me back to my childhood!

I grew up with summers of listening to the St Louis Cardinals on the radio. This was before they were broadcast on television.  Yes, we had a television but those games weren't on there. The best place to listen was the portable radio my dad always had at his workbench or outside when he was working on the house.

The other place I always remember hearing the games on that static-filled radio was at my mom's family reunions every summer.  It was always at one of my cousins' houses and always outside. No one's house was big enough for over 70 adults and kids to gather so we ate outside, played outside and visited outside all day long.  And you would hear somewhere in the yard a radio blasting out the Cardinals game.

It's hard to remember that it was a really long time ago when we did that. I'm 65 which doesn't seem that old but when I start looking at all the changes, the new technology, the ways things are done, it is so weird to think we only had landlines with a rotary dial...and only one in the whole house, black and white televisions, only one and it sat like a huge box in the family or living room. We had newspapers which had comic strips every day, we drank Kool-aid, shared a bottle of soda, ran around the yard barefoot and drank out of the water hose.  We rode bikes without helmets, roller skates with no knee guards, our swing set got going good when the concrete holding down the legs would work loose in wet soil and the legs would rock back and forth!

I am not embarrassed to remember any of this stuff. It is part of my history and I love telling my grand kids about it.  I showed my granddaughters a picture of my husband and I when we got engaged to be married, I had long dark hair and he had long dark hair as well!  My granddaughters refused to believe it was us in the picture!  I of course don't think Mike and I look all that different. But of course we do... 

There has been so much life lived and enjoyed. Of course there have been sorrows too, but those go along with a life lived.  

So I will enjoy trying to listen to KMOX way down in Cape Girardeau, the static and some of the weird noises I imagine are lightning strikes from a storm between us and St Louis.  I will roll down the windows of my Command Vehicle, otherwise known as a van and enjoy the oncoming rain and storm and hope my kids have good memories of their childhoods the way I do.

 

It Is Spring!?

 Whee, it has been quite a winter in Southeast Missouri.  We've had ice, snow, tornadoes, wind storms, warm days, freezing cold days and some days all of the above in the same 24 hours!  Mother Nature likes to keep us on her toes, but I can't say I've been paying her any compliments lately. 

  So in-between the storms, I try to keep crocheting and knitting to keep the worries away, but it has been difficult considering the many things I've had to worry about!  

  But I have been working on the usual knitted hats, I am crocheting a scarf in a rainbow of colors, mostly to use up some multi-color yarn I need to use or loose.  It's been sitting in my box for several months, but I usually pick it up ever night and do a row or two.  My husband asked me to crochet some juggling balls for him which worked up really quick and easy. He loves to juggle and is trying to teach our granddaughters ages 7 and 5 how to juggle.   I just crochet a circle and then use a tennis ball as my guide for the size and shape.  I use the cotton yarn I make my dishcloths from, a nice cotton from Lily Sugar and Cream. I love all the colors it comes in!

   Crocheting with my Sugar and Cream yarn is also a really good de-stressing activity if I am waiting somewhere like a doctor office or picking up a family member. It packs easily in my purse with my aluminum hook and dishcloths are so quick and easy to make.  My sisters and daughters love the dishcloths. I've made hundreds of them. They work up in about 30 minutes.

 But I have to say the last week was weather horrible, even for Southeast Missouri. In all the years I've lived in my town, which is over fifty years, we've never had a tornado come through. Last week we had not one but TWO tornadoes come through my town!  Now we are a town of about 45,000 people, so the city is not huge so when a storm comes through you are going to know someone affected by it.  The first one hit a block from our church and the office where I work. The next one which came two days later went right over my daughter's apartment which is less than a mile from my home.  My heart was in my throat all week and I think I know what a panic attack feels like now.  

While grabbing our record box and my purse and laptop, I did not even have time to think about knitting or crocheting through the storm. THAT was how upset I and worried I was. I know if I cannot knit or crochet during something it MUST be bad!  And it was..  

But today is a sunny day so hopefully we can relax and get back to work and of course more knitting and crocheting!

Here is the second sock I am knitting in a very soft ball of Hobby Lobby I love that Wool.

 

This is one of my mini bears from Yarn Bee sock yarn.

This is going to be a hat made from Knit Picks Wool of the Andes collection.

And this is my left over scarf of many colors I am crocheting from Yarn Bee Cake.

   

You're A Very Important...Person

 

I discovered a new craft store this weekend out of town that I fell in love with until I got to the checkout lane. I did not realize that you in order to make a purchase anywhere in this part of town you have to either state your age or admit you are over 21. I'm not kidding!

I brought my armful of yarn, a set of bamboo double pointed needles and a couple of knitting magazines to the front and was promptly asked if I was 21. Not quite understanding the clerk, I looked at the screen where because of the direction of their register monitors, my purchase was perfectly displayed for everyone in line behind me to see that I had purchased five skeins of hunter green speckled Lion Brand yard, one skein of black speckled yarn, four skeins of Lily dishcloth cotton, my dpn's, and two magazines all totaling up to over fifty dollars.

So when he said something about twenty-one I looked up incredulous. Wow, that was some kind of sale I got all that being that amount? I asked him, "My purchase is $21?"

He laughed and shook his head, "No, are you twenty-one?"

I looked at my husband who snorted, but he's not 21 either, and I said, "Uh, no...kinda over that, why?"

"I'm just trying to give you a discount."

"For what?"

Now he was getting embarrassed and began shoving my purchase into bags, "For being over 21. Did you put in your payment?"

I stared hard at him, "It's already finished, I pulled my card out already."

He dropped a skein of yarn on the floor and quickly picked it up putting it in yet another bag, "Okay then, here you go."

"You mean I got a discount for being over 21? Why?" I stood there not moving.

"It's you know, the senior discount."

"Why did you think I was a senior?" Now I was baiting him because everyone who knows me or even sees me knows I have a head full of long silver hair that most likely makes it easy to guess I'm not twenty-one, but I'm also not over sixty either, the usual senior discount age and I have never been asked this question in our hometown or for that matter been given a senior discount. And I sure wasn't going to start now.

By this time my husband is almost doubled over in laughter as were the people standing in line behind us. "No, you just have that mature, wise look to you."

Oh brother, mister you are getting yourself in deep now. "You mean my gray hair gave my age away?"

Panic was welling up in his eyes as he tried to laugh it off, "People dye their hair to get it to look like yours."

That was it, I grabbed my bags, shoved my receipt into my purse and walked out of the store. So much for that fun time. We hurried to the car because now it was raining and headed to a nearby fast food restaurant to grab some food.

"Seriously?" I squawked to my husband? I cannot believe that!"

He just laughed, "He was just trying to be nice and give you a discount."

"But I don't want a discount! I can pay for this, I'm not retired yet!"

We drove to the restaurant and ran through the rain. They were not busy so we had time to stand and figure out what we wanted. Walking up to the cashier, I put in my order as did my husband. He pulled out his wallet only to find he was two dollars short. "Can you spare me a couple of dollars?" he asked me. We do this all the time, we split our cash when going out of town and he had already spent most of his.

"Sure," I grabbed my wallet and began to pull out some cash when the cashier who had heard my husband ask me for extra cash, interrupted, "No you guys are fine, I gave you a discount."

"A discount? For what?" I asked my eyebrows which are not as gray as my hair is raised.

"A VIP discount. Here is the new total." The machine read exactly two dollars less than it had just a minute ago.

"I don't understand, what discount..." My husband quickly grabbed our drink cups and number and pushed me along to the drink dispenser before I could start fuming.

"Again? What is the deal with everyone thinking I'm a senior citizen up here? I'm not even sixty yet! I'm going to pull out my license and show that young man!"

"No you're not, let's find a place to sit down, Granny!"

I'd Rather Be Knitting!

 

I was reading one of my favorite knitting authors' blog today about her ski trip. Her humorous post reminded me of the ski trip my husband and I took just a couple months after we had gotten married. We were poor...I had a full time job that wasn't even paying minimum wage yet, and of course back then did not have benefits either. My husband was a full time college student with a part time job. But we had friends who skied often in the usual places; Colorado and the Virginias. But they had heard of a place to go snow skiing just one hundred miles away from our home town in Southeast Missouri for those on a budget. It was a golf course during warm months turned snow skiing in cold months, which in Missouri means only January/February IF there is snow.

It was still expensive by our way of thinking...we were living on love...newlyweds! But still it sounded like fun and my husband and I are always up for fun, especially when we don't know any better.

We drove up to a resort just south of St. Louis and spent Friday night in a very small hotel room. The next morning we followed our friends to the ski resort. It was, interestingly enough, not snowing, nor was there snow on the ground but our friends assured us there would be snow to ski on. This resort had snow blowers, machines that mixed water and fans that blew frozen pellets into your face and onto the ground. We saw one just inside the resort and watched how it kept the ski hills covered in snow. Genius.

We arrived at the lodge/restaurant/golf pro shop and waited in line to get our ski stuff. First we had to get tickets, everything connected with skiing means you need a ticket. Next it was time for the skis and the poles. The people behind the counter look at how tall you are and hand you skis and poles then point out the lockers to leave our shoes and excess baggage in and left us to figure out how you actually got your feet into the ski boots, lock them up and walk penguin style outside, down the wood steps to the ground, which was grassy with no snow outside the lodge. We waved our friends on outside as we were still trying to lock in the boots and stand up. My husband and I of course thought this was so very funny, waddling around in skis and very stiff boots helping each other out the door we watched everyone else navigate down the steps in skis.

It was very cold. Did I menti of "All you have to do," language which I have since learned doesn't mean anything when you are brand new at some activity.

We were practicing making V's with our skis when suddenly we heard a long drawn out yell coming from up the hill. The instructor kept talking until the yell got louder and louder. We all looked up the hill to see a man legs wobbling, poles flapping in the air screaming at the top of his lungs, "I can't stop!" He sailed down the snowy hill in-between our two lines of newbies. Our instructor quickly got out of his way as he flailed past, eyes bugging out in terror, hit the end of where the snow blower had stopped blowing snow. As soon as his skis hit the mud, they stopped, but he didn't. He executed a perfect front flip and face planted into the hay bales and the mud.

Not missing a beat our instructor turned to us and said, "Now it's time for you to head to the slopes!"

One by one we penguin-walked our way about face and no body said a word. We head over to the ski lift. At this place they actually had two different kinds of ways of getting to the top of the hill...hill, not mountain, we don't have mountains in Missouri. There was the usual ski life then lower down the hill there was a tow rope. We were instructed to head to the ski lift, show our passes and hop on while carrying our ski poles. My husband and I moved up the line and when instructed stood in front of an oncoming empty lift chair and hop when it hit us in the behind. That was fairly easy and the view was spectacular as we lifted higher and higher up the hill. The ride was fairly short since it was a hill, not a mountain, and as we got to the upper lift station we were supposed to hop off. Hop being an imperative verb because if you only leaned forward you fell on your face. What they neglected to tell me was if you aren't perched on the edge of your seat while you try to hop you also fall on your face. My husband hopped and landed gracefully on the landing area. I however remained on the lift, stuck because my legs were short and I was trying to scoot forward on the bench so I could hop. I got worried because the landing area wasn't very long and I could see that I that longer I took to get off the bench, the higher I was getting back in the air. I knew that I had to get off that lift because they told us not to ride it back down, whether they didn't want you riding it back down or because it was dangerous, so in a panic to get off I finally moved forward off the bench and face planted. Yup, hopped right off into a snow mound face down into the snow bank. At least it wasn't a mud pie.

Finally I joined my husband as we plodded our way over to our first trail. I don't know, it was a green or easy trail but it looked really steep to me. I began by tacking, left then right, something our instructor had said to do if we were afraid to go straight down. I don't care if we don't have mountains in Missouri, that hill was tall I tell you. I tacked all the way down, falling down on each side because I have absolutely no sense of grace when scared.

We made it half way down the hill to a point where we could stop and take pictures. I had my husband strike a pose but by the time I extracted my camera from my jacket pocket, and focused, his skis had another idea and he began sliding down the hill. I yelled, "Stop!" but he yelled back, "I can't!" So we have several pictures of him getting smaller and further down the slope.

At the very bottom of the hill the only way to get back up the slope was a tow rope. In the words of our instructor, "All you have to do is sidle up to the moving rope, keep both your poles in your right hand and grab the rope with your left and let it glide you up the slope."

Guess what? It really doesn't work that way. First of all you are trying to 'sidle' up to something going uphill when your skis are really wanting to slide backwards, the rope whips along at waist height which means you also have to lean over a little and grab the swiftly moving rope with only one hand and hang on for dear life as it jerks you uphill. After falling off the lift I didn't really want to do that again, so we tried. It required several numerous attempts on my part, two more face plants and about half way up I was exhausted. The only other way was to penguin-walk up the rest of the slope which we did. By the end of the afternoon all we had to show for our exhaustion and work were three not so spectacular runs, or should I say run, fall, run, fall down the slopes. We were cold, wet, and my face hurt from all the ice pellets the snow machines kept blowing at me.

My husband and I went back to the lodge/restaurant/golf pro shop and got some hot chocolate and waited for our friends. What an adventure. On the way home in our wet jeans, and with frozen chapped hands we did have some stories to tell. We had survived snow skiing in Missouri! After thirty years we've never had the desire to go to any big skiing areas. This one satisfied our snow adventure!

String Theory

My husband has always been fascinated by my yarn works. "It is amazing how you can take a ball of yarn and out pops a hat, blanket or scarf!"  Makes me feel like a nuclear scientist or something!

There is something calming about the sound of the click-click of knitting needles. Both my husband and my son-in-law comment on how it puts them to sleep.   This is why moms always had knitting nearby when putting the kids to bed!

I've recently taken up watching videos of "Train Ride from the Cab" in winter in Switzerland on YouTube while I knit.  The clackety-clack of the train wheels totally blends with the clickety-click of my knitting needles!  Who would think watching videos of traveling in the cab of a train would be so fascinating? Well, I do.  It is my calm sitting down in my rocker picking up my knitting after getting off work, doing fifteen minutes on my treadmill, calling my ninety-one year old mother to check in on her and before I get up to make supper activity I try to do several times a week.  It is healthier than smoking, drinking or shopping!   And I am learning how to knit hats as well as a small version of the teddy bears I knit. The regular version is about 15 inches high. The small one is five or six inches. Last night I found some furry yarn in my small stash and began making a small bear with it.  It is a pain to see the stitches on the needles, but it is really turning out cute! If I can finish it I think it will be a very special bear and I am going to look for more furry yarn on sale after I finished work and going by mom's house.  I am hoping the predicted storms don't show up until later tonight.

Nonstop Knitting

 The worries never stop, so I just keep knitting. This infinity scarf which I began months and months ago,  I just ripped out because it kept curling up. Why?  I didn't bother to knit and purl several rows at the beginning to keep it from doing that.  

 

It seems to be indicative of my life right now. So many things I cannot control and when I think I should control them,  I screw them up and makes things worse.   Such is my life right now. It is very hard to figure out what to do and say.  

I work a full time job that doesn't always keep my mind constantly busy so I have too much time worry.  I wish I could pick up my knitting and let that calm me down. But sitting at my desk knitting in a job where knitting is not my job, is a little hard to excuse. I mean people get coffee and smoke breaks, I could call it my sanity break I guess?

 

Control...too much tension causes my knitting to be sweaty, tight and look stretched.  Too little tension and it has holes, puckers and falls off the needles. 

My life of how much control, how little control I have or can have causes my daily introspection.  I cannot control all aspects of my life but I can control my reaction to things or events in my life.  If I practice the middle of the road control, then my knitting as well as my life is easier, looks and feels more calm and gives me less stress.  I can do this.