meme meme meme

Not much going on today so consider yourself meme'd
This was stolen from Geeky Witch
21 Firsts Meme

1.Who was your first prom date? Tom S.

2. Who was your first roommate? Wendy

3. What alcoholic beverage did you drink when you got drunk the first time? Southern Comfort (still cannot stand to smell the stuff)

4. What was your first job? Cashier in a grocery store, which also happened to be my first and only union job, as in the North American Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butchers Workman union.

5. What was your first car? 1963 Red VW Bug

6. When did you go to your first funeral? 1967 (I think) for my maternal grandfather

7. How old were you when you first moved away from your hometown? well actually home moved away from me at 17.

8. Who was your first grade teacher? Miss Ames and she wore red lipstick that was usually smeared and on her teeth.

9. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane? From Binghamton, NY to Boston, to London

10. When you snuck out of your house for the first time, who was it with? The Big 18 - you all know who you are!

11. Who was your first Best Friend and are you still friends? Chris, and yes we are still friends, I'm off to visit her soon too.

12. Where was your first sleepover? Sandy and Valerie's house

13. Who is the first person you call when you have a bad day? Nancy or my sister

14. Who's wedding were you in the first time you were a bridesmaid or a groomsmen? Lynnie's - it was a tres horrible seafoam dress with the big butt-bow and hamhock puff sleeves - absolutely hideous! what we do for a friends.

15. What is the first thing you do in the morning? turn on the news

16. What was the first concert you ever went to? Frank Zappa and the Mothers

17. First tattoo or piercing? I got my ears pierced when I was 13 in James A. Mitchener's kitchen (yes THE James A. Mitchener) and I got my first tattoo at 47

18. First celebrity crush? Jim Morrison

19. Age of first real kiss with tongue? 13-ish

20. First crush? Jimmy Huckle - Kindergarten.

21. First REAL love? Steve

New Spinning Group

I think we can call this a success for our first meeting.  We had six spinners including myself. 

Christine, brought homemade chocolate chip cookies and brownies and Judy brought cheesecake.  One thing about spinners they sure know good eats.

We had a great time sharing our stories, fondling each others fiber, showing off our projects and of course eating.  It was all over way too quickly, but I did get a good bobbin full of cinnamon alpaca spun.  It's coming out beautifully.

We are going to try to meet at least once a month but with summer coming we'll have to be a bit flexible and hopefully can get something really going by Fall.

Now you are gonna love this one. 

One of my cow-orkers, I'll call him Chas, was recently contacted by the ATF, then the FBI, then Homeland Security.  Apparently his cousin is on their most wanted list for bombing his former cow-orkers who just happen to be FAA employees (thus Homeland Security's involvement) .  Go to www.atf.gov - he's the first wanted poster on the home page! 

If you google his name "Robert Burke" for news, he's the top 7 or so hits.  This guy is obviously a nutcase. Apparently there was a family feud a while back and the FBI profile told my friend that he's at the top of his cousin's "to-do" list.

Now, I know none of this is funny, but we here have a very warped sense of humor and I need to ask - how inappropriate would it be to get a laser pointer to play with Chas' head…  hmmm I thought so.

I need a vacation…

Boy do I need a vacation.  As you may or may not know, I'm going to visit my friend, Chris and a non-blogger, who I've known since high school, which was a very long time ago.  She and I have stayed in touched and visited each other on and off since then.  Two years ago I took my daughter out to
San Diego where she and her hubby were now living, and then she came here last year for Mother's Day. DD will be staying with Grandma, yes the same Grandma she stayed with the last time I went out of town.Oh that's right this is a new blog.  Grandma is my mother and the last time my daughter stayed with my mom and dad for more than a night, she came home and exclaimed (and I quote!) "I can't believe you lived with those people!"  I laughed out loud and explained to her that yes I had for 17 years and that if I could survive that and come out semi-normal, she could tolerate a long weekend with little or no damage.

I'm still looking for fibery places to go.  So again, shoot me an email with your suggestions.

I forgot to mention that when Chris came out to visit last year the weather was tres horrible - cold and rainy the entire visit, so after a morning at the spa, I took her to my local yarn shop just to pick up some needles and yarn to teach her how to knit.  She had been watching me the night before and decided it was something she needed to do.  She was instantly hooked enamored with the joy of knitting. So I sent her home with a how to knit book, and some lovely yarns.  She’s' only called occasionally for advice, but now she's sick of scarves and want to move on to something more challenging.  Dare I introduce her to socks?!  I think so!  She also mentioned teaching her hubby to knit in passing, so I'm not sure if she's already taught him yet or is expecting me to in May. 

Tonight is the big meeting of the spinners in Westford at the library, I'm afraid I may have over stepped my place and sent out an invite to the entire spinning world via yahoo groups, but hey the more the merrier right?  So far the guestimate of attendance is approximately seven which is a great start for a new group.  I would really like to move the meetings to another day (and definitely longer than an hour!) heck I can barely set up and get my mojo rhythm going in an hour, besides Wednesdays are my Java Room SnB Knitting night and we cannot be cutting into that time.

I still haven't decided what to take in the way of fiber, merino? I'm so sick of spinning pounds of merino but suspect I'll need a bit more to finish the wrap, alpaca?  Lovely stuff but this requires paying attention which is fine when you are alone and not expected to socialize too, Llama down?  Hmmmm maybe, some Lorna's Laces fiber?  Could do that too.  I really don't want to haul it all there along with my wheel, but I may have to if I don't decide soon.

I got my new copy of Spin-Off yesterday and barely got a chance to glance through it.  I'm excited to read about "Spinning the perfect sock yarn" - heck I'd be happy to spin any kind of perfect yarn.  As for knitting, and speaking of the "wrap", I'm doing the sleeves together on a circular needle, and I got a little over a third of them done last night while I was watching Keith Obermann, unfortunately, Mom called at the same time, so I missed Keith and didn't get as much knitting done as I had hoped.  But now with a vacation trip to
San Diego coming up, I at least have motivation to get this done.

Just when you thought you had it all…

Ok I admit I have a pretty decent stash of yarn, fiber, knitting needles and various assorted sundries that although aren't necessarily required for knitting and spinning, can, however, make it more enjoyable.  My stash of stuff for sure isn't the smallest, but sure as heck isn't the biggest either.  But just when I thought I had everything I could possibly need, I stumble on to Lighted Knitting Needles… ok?  Now this is cool, strange, but cool and I start thinking of all the reasons I just might need these.   I stopped myself.

I used to be Snow White… but I drifted.

Quote from Mae West. 

Well this weekend went flying by.  I did get the sun room pretty well hoed out and lots of stuff organized at least to the point where I can now sit out there with my (fake) fireplace (really space heater) at night.

I love having my back room back.  It's my favorite place to hang out most of the year.  I still need to reorg the closet and the shelves, but I did get a lot done this weekend.

I even managed to spin some more of the lovely cinnamon alpaca and some of the rainbow bright batting that DD insisted on my buying at spa weekend.  It's lovely fiber but the colors are a bit to pastel for my taste.  I even taught DD to spin this weekend, so maybe she'll spin the rest of it so I won't have to.

Speaking of spinning there is a group of local spinners getting together this Wednesday evening at the Westford Library. So if you are local and spin, or just want to check out spinning please come and join us.

On the knitting front - I totally blew off the sleeves to the Yoga Wrap and spent my knitting time working on the socks, so far so good.  Oh, and I found the missplaced cashmere and started the hat about 10 times then put it away and worked on the socks.

Then there was my girlfriends this weekend. 

First some background, I'm a single mom by choice, which effectively means that there has never been a father in my daughters life other than as a sperm donor.  It also means that I have only dated a few times when she was really young, but nothing in years and years and even before I went into this self induced celibate state, I was not what you would call a good judge of men.  It's not like I'm anti-men, I'm just not the marrying/long term relationship kind and once I had my daughter, I decided that it was probably a good idea to put her first and not drag her into my usual bad choices.  This has worked for me for the most part and now I'm just too old and settled in my ways.  

So I have to ask myself, why is that people are always asking ME for relationship advice?  I mean really, I wasn't good at relationships when I had them, and now it's been so long who can even remember.  So I found this quote that I think I'm going to starting quoting to my friends  and family members who are currently going through their midlife crisis' and keep blabbing about it.  This could also be written about women because some of the men I work with - their wives? would have driven me insane in a week.

But anyway this quote is from Anita Miller (a comedian)

"My husband and I celebrated out thirty-eighth wedding anniversary.  You know what I finally realized?  If I had killed the man the first time I thought about it, I'd have been out of jail by now."

Enjoy…  Personally I don't think we are meant to spend eternity locked in a monogamous relationship.  For some it's hard just to be serially monogamous for any period of time. Eternity is such a damn long time.

She’s baaaaaaaaack

The buses rolled in around 9:45pm loaded with exhausted and hyper kids.  I think I was the only parent crying, I’ll let you decided why.  I managed to find DD rather quickly and we loaded her stuff in and headed out fast without running over anyone.

She was totally exhausted, running a slight temp and had a croaky voice.  Once we got home I fixed her some tea and listened to the dramas and adventures.  There were some rumors of someone getting caught with beer, but not her.  I think she’s still friends with the girls she roomed with although I’m not sure.  They never did find out who the pee-perpetrator was, which is probably just as well - all 14 year old boys are just nasty. (Which begs the question why would a Barbie Doll teacher want to do the nasty with one - ewwwww.)

I called her in sick this morning (she didn’t stir at all when I got up and showered) so I just left her sleeping.  I would have gone in to check that she was still breathing but you can’t even get into her room.

She brought me back a souvenir (a Jim Morrison poster) specifically the one I had hangin over my bed as a teenager. As in this (see below) Jim Morrison poster.  It still makes my heart go pitter-pat.  It’s that bad boy thing ya know.

^{Hmmm I’m not quite sure what this says about how she thinks of me…. I guess I’ll have to hang him next to the Johnny Depp Pirates of the Caribbean (light box movie poster that came direct from the Disney vaults - Thanks Jon!)}

^{On the knitting front the hopefully last skein of handspun merino is still drying.  I should be able to knit up the sleeves this weekend.}

^{In the meantime I’ve managed to missplace the cashmere I wanted to knit a hat out of.  Since I need to be knitting something so I started yet another pair of socks in Regia Crazy Colors 6 ply color Passion - purty huh?} 

^{This weekend I think I’ll start cleaning out the sun (three season) room.  For some reason it ends up being the dump/mud room in the winter and all the junk collects there along with the recycling.  I hate recycling.  I love the idea of it, but it’s such a messy pain in the butt.  But now that spring is coming and with daylight savings just around the corner, I need to spruce up my favorite spot in the whole world.}

^{Updates on the trip to come I’m sure}

UPDATE on the DC Trip

This was just too funny not to share.

Text message from my daughter:

“The Boyz from my buss can’t go to the dance tonite coz one of them pissed all over the bathroom (on the bus) and won’t fess up”

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww

White House News Alert

or how to stop my heart.  Darling Daughter and her class are scheduled to be at the Whitehouse today as part of their DC trip, so when I saw the news alert my heart skipped a beat and I was envisioning seeing my daughter is zippy handcuffs while being escorted out of the west wing.  But apparently all is well and she had nothing to do with the suspicious package that someone tossed onto the whitehouse lawn (I suspect it was just a bag o’ poo anyhow).

I’m off to the Java Room in Chelmsford tonight for the SnB Boston MWN knitting gathering.  I plan on bringing my wheel so I can spin the last bit of merino that I need to finish the yoga wrap.  I’m starting to worry that it’s going to look like I’m wearing an afghan, but I will finish it.  I’m hoping the blocking and dyeing help.

Running on coffee

I’ve had four hours of sleep and about a half gallon of coffee.  I’m just hoping my head doesn’t hit the desk soon.

Darling Daughter got off on her trip to DC - remember they had to BE at the school at 5:30AM this morning for the busses.  Gawd I hope the other parents were just as bleary as I was and didn’t notice the bed head and jammies under my sweater and coat.  I sure as heck didn’t notice them, besides the SUN wasn’t even up yet so it was still kinda dark.

Anyway is off on a 9 hour bus ride with a bazillion other teenagers and I’m here. SWEEEET!

My Yoga Wrap is coming along - I’ve finished the body and got about 1/4 of a sleeve done and guess what?  I have to spin some more.  I figured I would.  I will probably need to fill 2 more bobbins and ply them.  That should do it.

Did I mention I picked up one of those electric roaster thingies for cheap at Chez Target a week or so ago.  It’s a big one 20 quarts or so.  It’s totally programable and will be awesome for dyeing fiber!

I’ve decided narrowed down the color choices for dying my Yoga Wrap once I’ve completed it.  The colors I’m thinking are an olive green, or an indigo blue or something else maybe a russet brown.

Oh and someone on the NETA list contacted me about getting a new spinning group together so we’re sending out the announcement, since we’ve both been looking and wishing for one local.  All levels are invited, even people who might just be interested is trying spinning should stop bym

A room has bee reserved at the Westford library on Wednesday March 29th
from 7:00-8:00. 

I am actually going to try to get there around 6:30ish and will probably stay until until they throw me out the library closes around 9pm.

So if you are in the area or know of anyone who might be interested send the info on, and bring your wheels, spindles, or charkhas to play with and bring your handspun skeins or projects to show off.

We are going to try to set something up for once a month if this works out.

 

ADDENDUM:

I forgot to share with you my purchase from this weekends craft show.  I was specifically looking for a shawl pin that was very avante garde and tres funky.  This is what I found and had to have.

 

 

 

Click here to see it up close.  It also came with a matching (and detachable strand of beads so I can wear him as a necklace too)  Isn’t he gorgeous?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love San Diego

This is one of my favorite cities and after chatting with a long time (back to high school long) friend of mine who lives there, I decided that I needed to go for a visit, so I checked the fares - $200 round-trip?!!! I am so there. 

I booked a flight for the beginning of May - it should be just lovely AND Cinco De Mayo here I come!  Now for the best part - I am not taking my demon spawn darling daughter with me.  Nope, she gets to stay home with Grandma. I know I’m evil; I know she’s going to squawk, but after forking out more than twice that amount on her school trip to DC next week, there isn’t much she can say. Hee-hee. 

I can’t wait.  Last year this dear friend came out to visit me for Mother’s day, and I turned her into a fiber freak taught her how to knit.  From what she tells me she’s totally addicted moved on from scarves and she insists requested I bring my knitting with me.  LOL - as if I would travel without it.  Heck I have withdrawal symptoms when I’m just going to the grocery store and don’t bring my knitting, seriously. 

So I need to find all the yarn and fiber stores in the area (100 mile radius) so that we can fulfill our fix bond over fiber during my visit. 

I think I can also fit my DT Lendrum into my big suitcase, now wouldn’t THAT surprise her!!  

The Yoga Wrap is on hold temporarily.  I’m waiting for the skein to dry from having the twist set.  I spun another 350+ yards, but still need to finish up another big skein for the sleeves.   Screw it, I just won’t clean my house for awhile…  like until my mother comes to stay with D(s)D.  Maybe she’ll even do it! 

Addendum:  For those of you who have been following the trials, tribulations and adventures of raising my teenage daughter as a single mom, this is my horoscope for the day.

You’ve been trying to get a certain person to cooperate with you — to act as elegantly and respectfully as you know they can. The problem is that they may not be living up to your expectations, much less their own. Your job now is to let go of how you think they should act and allow them to be who they are now, even if they’re not living up to their potential, and even if you know it and they don’t. Not an easy task, but a necessary one, if they’re actually going to grow up.

TOO SCARY!