7 Quick Takes (Vol 234)

Oh how the days do fly. Did you know that there are only 60 days until Christmas? I am trying not to panic.

You know what to do. When you are done calming yourself with the weekly dose of blather snippets you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of the snow that isn’t falling at my house, over to Clan Donaldson, who is hosting this week.

Anything that is worth blathering about is worth blathering about badly.

1.
I know it may not be a big deal but I finally signed up for iTunes Match. I just got very tired of having to constantly switch out what music I was listening to on the iPhone.

Now I can listen to ALL the music.

Or at least I can once I figure out all the Match nuances. HHBL uses it all the time and loves it. I was just a bit slower to the game on this one. But now I can listen to my heat’s content.

That is when I finally get caught up with all the podcasts, of which there are almost too many. But I don’t want to delete any of them because I love all of them. I just have to be more proactive about being caught up with them. If I don’t then there comes a day when I find I have 30 podcast episodes to listen to and that just seems overwhelming.

I think, long ago, that I mentioned that for podcast listening I don’t use iTunes, I used Downcast. A much better podcast experience then using iTunes.

2.
The Frozen Northeast Ohio had it’s first “snow event” of the Winter season yesterday.

And we did not get a single flake.

Oh that was so lovely. And continues to be lovely because certain areas continue to get slammed…….

But not us.

LaurenLeap, I am so sorry to revel in your pain.

Well……..

3.
I have participated in more yarn rescue this week.

I took a swing over to the Volunteers of America thrift store that is about a 20 minute drive from Chez Knit. It happens to be right in the same area as the venue for the reception for this lovely couple.

I was wandering down the sweater aisle and there it was. A red sweater. A red CASHMERE sweater. This sweater had no holes, no stains, no rips. It was in fabulous condition but a bit to small for the ta tas (TMI?). But just because it was a small size didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to buy it. It was $5!! Re-use and Re-purpose are two of my favorite words.

Then yarn spoke to me, there at the VOA, and told me that it wanted to be something else.

And so, while watching I, Claudius on YouTube, I frogged the sweater. That may sound easy and painless but it wasn’t. A commercially made sweater is a puzzle that needs careful consideration and working. And sometimes they cannot be frogged successfully or the frustration factor is so high that you just throw up your hands in disgust and chuck the whole thing.

But not this time.

Well, there was one whole section that I had to throw away. The button holes for the sweater had been added directly to the sweater front and had cut the yarn in that panel so that if I had successfully frogged it I would have been left with many small sections of yarn.

But all the rest was frogged and now I have 1000+ yards of what I judge to be DK weight cashmere yarn that is just dying to be a wrap. I haven’t determined the yarn weight yet but I am a pretty good eyeball judge for this. But I will take the time later on today to make sure.

And then I will cast on.

4.
The frig is still waiting to be repaired. We now know that it is the compressor which is making that gosh awful noise. When the repair person said that word, compressor, I silently thanked my lucky stars that we have a one year Home Warranty. Compressor = $600+ repair. BUT we only had to cover the $75 service call.

Actually because the repair cost is so high they offered to give us the money to put towards a new frig. I did think about doing that but then decided that, despite the fact that I do not love this little frig that came with Chez Knit, I wanted it fixed. The frig itself is in good shape other than the compressor and not that old. Eventually I think we will re-do part of the kitchen and at that time I will get a new and larger frig. At the moment a larger frig will not fit in that space. There needs to be a bit of “demolition” of a poorly placed wine rack before anything larger can be put there. And really, I didn’t want to have to go out and get another refrigerator at the moment.

So they are ordering the part and hopefully the thing will be fixed next week by Bill, my favorite repairman.

The thing is so loud at the moment that I retreated to the bedroom last night to watch the World Series. I couldn’t hear the game.

5.
Can I say that sometimes I love YouTube. I mentioned in #3 that I had been watching I, Claudius while frogging yarn.

I watched this series in 1976 when I think it was shown on PBS. That must have been where I saw it because I know that in 1976 I didn’t have any clue what “cable” was so our choice of channels to view would have been limited.

And I am SURE that I haven’t seen it since then but I remembered it. Oh I remembered it. And I loved it. But I was frustrated because I couldn’t get it through the library and Netflix doesn’t stream it for some reason, or didn’t last time I checked. Oh I could get the DVDs through Netflix but it is annoying to have to wait for each DVD so that you can continue.

And then someone somewhere mentioned that I could see all the episodes on YouTube.

YOUTUBE???

Yup, there they all are, in all their Roman orgy glory. And so I watched the whole 12 episode series this week.

There are a TON of actors in there who have gone on to do other things. I kept saying, “Hey! That’s…….”. There was Patrick Stewart WITH HAIR, long before his days as Jean Luc Picard. Then there was John Hurt, three years before that nasty alien burst out of his chest. John Rhys-Davies made an appearance as a less than ethical Roman guard, no Sallah or Gimli in sight. The list is too long to put here so you are just going to have to go over to YouTube and watch it for yourselves.

Oh I loved this series.

6.
I have decided that one of the few things that I dislike about Chez Knit is the whole having to walk the dog thing in the cold…or the rain.

I know that walking your dog is the norm for most owners. But I was lazy for 12 years. Max the Magnificent needed to go out? I opened the garage door or the sliding door and just let him out to roam the yard. When he was ready to return he barked and I let him in.

But not anymore.

In the morning I have to make sure that I have “the poop receptacle” (plastic bag, free of holes) in my pocket along with my flashlight. Then I have to make sure that I have a coat and hat on as well as the fingerless gloves.

Is there anything more ridiculous than standing on the sidewalk, trying desperately not to look, while your dog does a “dukey” on the grass? I mean really, you don’t want to stand there and stare while the chocolate drops from the maker do you? So you stand and stare at the house to see if anyone is up. Or you whistle aimlessly and look at the woods. Then you get out the flashlight to ascertain where the offending pile is and do the cleanup.

Come January this is going to be very unpleasant.

Well all except for the momentary warmth of the log as you pick it up.

7.
Well, I have started down the path to changing wall colors. Just the first step mind you but a start.

We have a Sherwin Williams paint store a literal 5 minute walk from Chez Knit. So I stopped there this week to just look at picking up a paint swatch or two.

And walked out with an armload of booklets and swatches. Almost overwhelming folks! I spent 12 years with off white or “biscuit” colored walls. I am not one to paint walls as the whim takes me. And at OCK I didn’t paint any walls, I had someone else come in and do that for me. There were some very tall walls there.

Also in the Chez Knit before OCK all the walls were wallpapered.

Yes, I know, that was my fault. I put all of that stuff up. It was in the ‘90’s and I didn’t know what I was doing. Well I did know. I am a good and fastidious wallpaper hanger. When the progeny were taking their nap I wallpapered. But that is a story for another time.

I haven’t painted my own walls for MANY YEARS so that may explain why it is such a daunting task for me. I think I am going to be starting with the half bath which is small and contained.

Now to decide if the walls should be red or a deep cocoa color.

Decision, decisions.