M is for Miscellaneous

This weekend, my husband and I dug up our front yard (we moved existing and added a few new sprinkler heads). I woke up Monday morning with every joint in my body screaming. He says, “Well, I’m not sore.” I replied, “apparently you didn’t work as hard as I did.” My knuckles hurt when I bend my fingers. My ankles hurt, my toes hurt (would you believe I stomped my own foot?), my elbows, my knees, my hips...even my ears hurt (Note: ears need sunscreen too)!

We also spent the weekend waging war on the squirrel(s) living in the walls of our house. If you wonder how I know its squirrels, I encourage you to read Attack Critters. (It's an amusing story.) Those little bastards have chewed a hole 3 inches high by 8 inches long in the side of my house. Do you know how much it costs to get a “Critter Control” company out? Five HUNDRED dollars. I give my husband a week. One week from today he’ll not only want to pay the $500, he’ll be ready to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for the extermination of those critters.

Saturday night, I let my daughter give me a French manicure. I took a couple pictures of it, but you couldn’t see anything in the pictures. Bless her heart, the little gal did the best she could, but I have to say that my cat could have done as good a job—only she wouldn’t have put as much love into it.

I screwed up last week when I said the sock class was “tomorrow” (wrong Tuesday). The class is “today”. I’m really very excited. Know what else I’m excited about? THIS I emailed the link to Ruth with the subject line, “I’ll drive”. Of course she’s going with me.
And no kids allowed!! (Well...my kids and Ruth's kids aren't allowed, but you could take yours if you wanted.)

L is for LOOK!!!

IT'S A HAT! Hell yeah, I made it! My very first knitted hat eh-ver. Can you see the cables? Damn skippy I did cables! I'm lucky to still have both eyes. Isn't it lovely? I might burst with joy.

And since we're looking...I thought I'd throw out this picture taken earlier today from my office window. Remember when I said that if it weren't snowing, you could see the mountains? Told ya so.
And then there's my daughter high upon a mountain in Boulder a couple weeks ago.

We went on a hike with one of my sisters. It became apparent immediately that (1) My daughter is out of shape and (2) my sister doesn't have children. My daughter whined and cried the entire afternoon, "my legs hurt" and "I'm tired" and "can we rest?" The little thing is lucky her Auntie didn't throw her off the side of the mountain!

And by the way--it really wasn't cold enough to justify the winter parka. She insisted on wearing that coat, but would have been fine with wind breaker.

K is for...

I haven’t blogged in what…a week?!?! ‘cause I’m all hung up on this stupid alphabet. The obvious answer for K is knit, but I had just posted the picture of the hat I am working on, and sadly, I’m not much further along than I was when I took that picture. But as I’m typing my to-hell-with-the-alphabet post, I remember that Ruth signed us up for a sock knitting class I guess they’re going to teach us how to knit two socks at a time. This oughta be good seein’ as I don’t even know how to decrease or increase yet. That teacher’s go her work cut out for her!

Hell, I don’t even have yarn yet and I guess Monday is to yarn stores what Sunday is to liquor stores. I found that out last week after I made my daughter ride her bicycle to the yarn store with me BEFORE dinner. Have I mentioned that the yarn store (like everything else in Parker) is downhill…as in the way home is always UP hill. It took us 4 minutes to get there and 45 minutes to get home.

This little sock experiment is pretty symbolic of how I approach life. I have little fear of failure. I just set sail and figure it out as I go along. Sometimes my ship sinks, but mostly I manage to get myself to shore. Here’s hoping I make it to shore this time! Regardless of where my boat lands, I’ll have a great story to tell!

J is for Jeopardous

I was all ready to give up on the alphabet thing, then a quick search of the thesaurus gave me the word, "jeopardous". This a perfect word to describe my would-be commute this morning. Fortunately, my husband took mercy on me and drove me to work in his truck. Why was the commute jeopardous? Are you serious? Have you looked outside lately? See for yourself just how jeopardous it is...Okay. So that picture isn't really a good example of the jeopardous driving conditions, however, it IS a good example of just how YUCK it is today. If it were a nice day, this top picture would be a fantastic view of the Rocky Mountains. Seriously. But it's not nice. It's snowing like mad in Denver Metro. Just look at the parking lot...damn near empty. I guess these people must all be "working from home". Must be nice.

The good news is that instead of risking my life driving my squirrelly car in these jeopardous conditions, I got to KNIT! It was so cool. The other good news is that thanks to my daughter, I have a lovely reminder that all will work out in the end...

I is for Initiation

Well, ladies...I was officially initiated into the knitting world on Friday. Not only did I have FRONT row seats to hear the almighty Stephanie Pearl McPhee... Check it out...there were more than 200 hundred people who came to hear her.
I have to be honest and say that my first thought was, "Wow...she has a really deep voice!" I can add that I found some comfort in that because I have a deep voice. I laughed so hard. I like what she had to say, but wished it had been less scripted. She is so funny, it would have been fun to just listen to her go. This is me with the Queen Bee herself...

Everyone was fantastic! I kept cracking up at all the ooooohhhh and aaahhhh uttered while petting all the various projects, "May I touch it? ...ooohhhhh that is sooooooooo NICE!" Ruth and I arrived at 3:00 for the 7:30 signing and were number 6 and 7 in line. The place filled up really quickly and I was grateful that Ruth thought to bring chairs!

Afterwards a group of us went to dinner, then another group joined us. The night was loud and rowdy and full of mutual admiration and respect. I was honored to spend my afternoon and evening surrounded by so many wonderful women.


...I also learned to knit in the round with double points...and there are cables in this!

Holy Schnikies is right! I'm lucky I still have both eyes (but the project is still young). The first few rows were so awful, I almost cried. I kept thinking, "how can anyone think this is fun?" It was just awful. But I'm sticking with it. I owe it to myself to give it an earnest attempt and I can honestly say that it is getting easier. I knit continental style (with the yarn in my left hand), so that purl stitch is a booger for me. I haven't figure out a way that works for me yet, but I'm getting closer.

And how about all these pictures? I can hardly believe it's me!

H is for Humor

I don't think I could make it to lunch time without a bit of humor. One of my husband's most endearing qualities is his outstanding sense of humor. And my daughter is quite a card herself. So naturally we wanted to celebrate April Fools Day with couple of good, old fashioned pranks.



I wake my daughter up every weekday with a cup of warm pink (strawberry) milk. She drinks her milk while I sing the "Good morning to you" song. On April 1, I woke my daughter with a cup of warm BLUE milk. I guess it was a little too early in the morning, because she didn't think it was funny...Until I said, "APRIL FOOLS!" She immediately started plotting a prank on Daddy!



We put her 36-inch doll in her bed and fluffed the covers to make it look like it was my daughter, then she hid behind the bedroom door and called for Daddy to come cuddle with her. Daddy climbed into her bed and snuggled up to her doll, then said, "What...what the? Hey...this isn't...!" At which point, my daughter leaps from behind the bedroom door and screams, "APRIL FOOLS!"



Daddy is a really good sport.


But the most fun prank came later that night, my daughter helped me make "cupcakes" for dinner.These are meatloaf muffins with mashed potato frosting. Of course my husband new he wasn't eating a cupcake, but he totally played into it. I thought my daughter was going to wet her pants when she saw the look on his face after he took the first bite. She laughed so hard, I was afraid she'd choke! It was a good day.

Ruth is always really good for a laugh. She has this great big laugh, and she throws head back and just surrenders to it. It feels so good to laugh. I love to be with people who make me laugh.

I have a co-worker in the Phoenix office that calls me sometimes and just says, "Make me laugh." Within two or three minutes we'll both be hee-haw snort laughing. At the end of the conversation, as we wipe away tears and start to settle down, one of always says, "Damn...THAT was good exercise!"