I'm having a lazy day today. I COULD be mopping the floor, but I don't feel like it.  I swept it and did the bare minimum amount of housework that I could - vacuumed, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, swept the kitchen and hallways, made the beds and picked the laundry up off the floor of the kids bathroom - and I've decided that I want to devote today to knitting.  I'm finishing one of the baby sweaters and am trying to chart an anarchy symbol and heartagram so I can make beaded w...

My boss at the hospice called today.   I expected to be asked to go sit vigilance with someone, but instead of giving me a patient's details she said she had a proposal for me. She asked me how I'd feel about an ambassadorship.  I'd be an ambassador for the hospice with one of the local nursing homes.  I'd go and meet with the directors and managers a couple of times and month and be the liason between that nursing home and the hospice.  I'd be dropping in and schmooz...

When our kids were small, we started having what we call 'international night'.  Basically, we'd make food that was traditional to another country for supper, try to learn a few words in the language of that country and we also talked about that country; what it's traditions were, where it was located at geographically, it's culture and what role it played in the global scheme of things.  For instance, when international night was French, we ate coq au vin and had proifteroles for dess...

I have just come across the coolest knitting pattern.  THE coolest pattern.  Of all the patterns I have come across, this is the coolest. It's a doll knitting pattern (patternS, actually).  Not an ORDINARY doll, not just some plain old regular baby doll.  A Joey Ramone doll.  JOEY FREAKIN' RAMONE!  How cool is that?!! But the fun doesn't end there; I also found a Henry Rollins doll pattern, complete with tattoos.  Yes, you read that right.  HENRY...

I'm not going to say where I found this ad at; I just want you to read it. It's titled 'for a man who has got too damb skinny', and it's as I found it, spelling mistakes and all. I am slightly embarised to say this but I've allways been pretty skinny. Well here lately I have been commuting back and forth from college on a bike. Well I did have a mens small size waist and now I find I have the waist size of 10-12 year old boy, according to underwear sizes. Well its really embarising to...

Antique photographs.  Degaeurrotype, cabinet and imperial cards, tin types....anything dated pre-WWII, but more specifically, memento mori. In the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, most people didn't have access to a photographer.  The photographs that we take for granted these days were almost unheard of, and some people went their entire lives without ever having their photo taken. So, their photos were taken in death instead.  Sometimes people were pose...

Dear Dad, It's me again.  I've lost count of how many times I've written to you in the past few months, but if I had to guess I'd say it was over a hundred times.  I know in my heart that you don't NEED me to write, that you already know how I'm feeling and what I have to say to you...but it helps me to write it down anyway (and I know that you know that too). I miss you, Dad.  I miss you every fucking day, in one way or another.  Sorry for the profanity, btw.  I k...

I don't mind spiders when they're living outside.  I don't mind watching them spin their webs; I'll even go and watch them work and admire the finished results. But what is guaranteed to give me the willies and make me run away shrieking is a decent sized spider in the house.  When I was pregnant with our 12 year old, my husband and I found a hunter spider the size of a bread plate crawling down the side of our couch (we lived in the UK at the time and had the screenles windows open...

I have hair!  I know that we've all got hair, so you can quit saying "so do I!!!" now. What I mean is that I have enough hair to gather into two little ponytails.  It's long enough.  It hasn't been long enough for ponytails since I was in my early 20's. So, ponytails are a big deal for me, and I've been sporting them for a couple of days now.  I figure I'll eventually get tired of them, but right now I'm loving being able to tie my hair up so I don't have sweaty wet hai...

I attended a retirement ceremony this morning.  It's the first one I've actually WANTED to attend.  I've been to others out of a sense of duty, but this one I really wanted to go to. It was for Chief Master Sergeant E.  CMSgt is the highest enlisted rank you can attain, and only a few ever reach it.  You've got to be something really special to be a Chief. We've known Chief E since we were in England, 12 years ago.  He was a Staff Sgt and had made Tech Sgt whilst w...

Link I just left a response to Locamama's excellent article 'What's the most expensive thing you ever bought?' and it got me to thinking about the best bargains I ever got.  I'm a big bargain shopper and LOVE to get a great deal! I bargain shop mainly for clothes and shoes, but occasionally for the house and electronics too, so I'll list the best bargain I got in each of those categories. Clothes: A Calvin Klein jacket and pant set that was tagged with a retail price of $160. I ...

Ok, so I'm showing these a little early...I said tomorrow morning, but I have an appointment in St Louis then so I'm posting them now. This is my purple hair (hi, 'miah!!): And just for fun, this is me: Those are my bug-glasses. I love that big gradient tint sunglasses are back in style; I can go without makeup some days and still look groovy!  Yesterday I didn't have time to shower and style in the morning, so I tied my hair back in a black bandana and threw on those g...

This is what I started last night: I'm making it for my mom - I changed my mind about the last lacy scarf that I started and have decided to frog it (that's rip it out and use the yarn for something else in knit-speak) - and I'm using a pale lavender silky textured sport-weight yarn.  So far I'm very happy with it, and am pleased to report that it's not as hard as it looks. It's not the kind of thing that you can knit whith your eyes closed or whilst watching TV because i...

No, not 'tar-jay'.  TARGET.  As in bullseye.  Something to be aimed for and shot at. I don't usually make much metion of the various ans sundry rumors that I hear about my husband's career field and the way it's heading.  I figure that it's not of much interest to anyone, and that the rumors are usually just that - rumors.  However, this information I'm about to share is starting to look like it's going to become reality, and it scares me to death. There i...