Good Morning

Hmm, I think I have a little of the post holiday harumphs.  Don't get me wrong, we had a great holiday!  Christmas Eve at the in laws:   Look at this cute family! 

We had in laws and cousins over for Christmas night dinner -- Very fun! We went and visited my Ohio relatives over New Year's and had a ball.  Cousins for my kids and sibs for me.  Spectator sport for my dear husband.  We helped my mom take down all her decorations Monday, and then, guess what I came home to...you got it.  A house full of Christmas decorations.  All of which I love.  I hate to take them down for two reasons:

1. The house looks so bare and wintry with the decorations gone.  You know, the quality of light is different during the winter.  Brighter, yes, but without the green of the leaves to buffer it, stark somehow.
2. I hate to take Christmas items down and put them away.  It's a flaw in my personality.  I hate to put stuff away.  I'd rather walk past it for a month...

But, DH brought the boxes down from the storage room  and I'm plugging away at it.  And I really mean plugging.  And it's his fault.  See, he got me this .  Yes, it is the Lotus Blossom Shawl from Fiddlesticks in the Onyx colorway.  Funny how husbands will use a link in an email that you send to their office address to get you exactly what you want for Christmas.   I really like this shawl.  I'm into instant gratification, see, and this is knit on bigger needles (Takumi US 8 flex) out of dk weight wool and silk (kind of rustic, reminds me of Lavold Silky Wool) so it's fast!  I'm up to the last 6 rows...and I guess they aren't so fast...this sucker is getting big.  Pattern review:  clear, easy to follow, large charts, easy to memorize.  I'd knit this shawl again... insomuch as I ever knit anything again.  Which isn't so much.  Anyway.

Progress on one front does not successful knitting make, however.  Witness.  On the left is my knitting bag (actually a beautiful felted job out of Araucana Nature Wool Chunky that makes me very happy) which contains the third iteration of that beautiful green and brown Kureyon.  Now a spiral scarf (a la Scarf Style) for me.  Maybe.  I'm knitting it on 9s to get the fabric right, but it's too big.  Likely frogged again.  How many times can you rip Kureyon and have it still hold up?  We'll see.

In the middle is the red felted bag I was working on.  Nature Wool Chunky again.  See the needle?  Yep, I'm in the middle of ripping this baby out, which is proving difficult as I had to knit from alternating skeins to get the color to even out...not the right shape in the end. 

And on the far right is some new yarn we got at the shop, Magallanes, I think (the labels are all gone) Araucana again.  Can't figure out what to do with it.  It's thick and thin and I got enough to make a shawl.  12 inches into it, I didn't like it.  So rip.  Then I started a spiral scarf. (I really want one of these for myself and can't find the right yarn, dammit!)  Didn't like it.  The colors are fab, but the wool is scratchy.  I washed a swatch and it does soften,....decisions, decisions.

My knitting spot

This meme went around before Christmas.  This is one of three good spots in my living room.  I try to alternate to achieve even wear on the couches...weird.  So, there's good light, an ottoman, a blanket, often a crackling fire in the evenings, and as many remotes as one person could want.   Life is good.   Oh, and there are also many Lego pieces, a great Giant Geode growing kit, and a dog chew toy within reach in case I, you know, don't feel like knitting.

How to start a Family Altercation in 30 Seconds or less

Look over at my sidebar.  I'm reading a new book.  It's called Freakonomics.  It's a really fun romp in the hay that is economics and actuarial sciences.  What?  An oxymoron you say?  The so-not-a-numbers-person-author-of-this-bog calling a book about numbers a "romp"?

This book is some serious fun.  Especially if you have relatives (who shall remain nameless, but you know who you are -- not you Mom) who are super conservative and parrot every crazy, Pat-Robertson-esque idea they get from their crazy, conservative, Catholic Church, including the fact that these guys are sinners for simply suggesting what they suggest in this book and that the DaVinci Code is a sin because people think it's true and that Planned Parenthood as an organization was started in the '50's by a lady who wanted to eradicate black people from our inner cities.  Like shootin' fish in a barrel, baby.

Now, dear reader, you know me.  I'm a 43-year-old, fairly Liberal (I love to capitalize that word -- gives it such cache, doncha think?), practicing Catholic mother of two who puts many of her foibles and innerworkings on the web for all to digest, no,  puzzle over, no,   enjoy.  I live in an urban core and I knit.  And I read.  Really, that's about it, unless you count all the enabling I do of the activities in which my family participates.  I am the black Liberal sheep in a family herd of conservative Republicans.  Fine.  My age has given me perspective and I enjoy a good political discussion as much as the next guy.  My mom and I can stay up into the night and never name-call, just enjoy the jousting.  I love that about my mom -- she's a great verbal jouster.  And she has also got the age-perspective thing going.  Such fun.   Where am I going with this thread?  Oh, I don't know.  I'm just sad about narrowmindedness, I guess.  Sad about the book-burning , aspersion-casting, holier-than-thou mentality that exists in institutions that I love -- namely my family and my church.

Here's the deal.  It's my job to poke them with sticks -- sticks like, "Have you read the book? No?   Because I have, and I don't think these guys are advocating abortion -- I think they are bemoaning the society in which crime drops in direct proportion to an increase in abortions."  Or sticks like, "Hmm, that book is fiction.  Yes, it's set in real places but it's fiction.  No, it's classified in book stores as fiction -- yes, you are supposed to know that when you read it."  Or sticks like, "Really, I thought Planned Parenthood was developed in the 30's to provide desperately poor women, urban and rural, with decent reproductive healthcare."  Yeah, sticks like those. 

I guess I've gone on long enough -- I've got issues with my reading shrug, but I'll take pictures of that tomorrow.  After I've ripped some of it out and re-worked it.  After I finish my shawl.  And after I finish my book.  Peace out, baby.

p.s. -- I just had to add this picture of a very spoiled, very comfortable Christmas dog.  I love my dog.

Comments

[Ruth]

That's the "you're not going to make me move, are you?" face ... what a cutie. S/he looks a lot like Sister Sue, the dog I grew up with.

I loved Susie.

[Pat K]

What a beautiful shawl it will be. And I know how you feel about putting the Christmas stuff away. Now my house seems so plain, too -- and no snow to make it feel like winter, just bare trees and everything all brown.

Love your puppy dog.