Monday, April 30, 2012

This Explains A Lot

When last I was visiting the Parental Units at Easter (remember the Easter Monkey!) Mimi handed me a leather bound notebook. On the outside it is fairly unassuming.

But on the inside. Oh on the inside there was gold.

Photographic gold.

For you see inside were plain lined notebook pages, old notebook paper, on which my Grandmother Pringle had pasted pictures. Old pictures. Old and fabulous pictures of my family.

Fred, Jennie, Jean

These are my Great Grand Parents, Fred and Jennie. And that lovely, curly headed child is my mom, the Mimi. Fred and Jennie, such solid Iowa names! Such solid Iowans.

Andrew and Maggie

These are the Great Grand Parents from the other side of the family. Grandma Maggie was always chuckling. And she had the cutest little chuckle. I can hear it still. She chuckled until the day that she went home to the Lord at the age of 98.

GLP looking dapper

My Grandpa Pringle looking very dapper indeed. This was a man that gardened in a shirt and tie at times.

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This just happens to be my absolutely favorite picture of Grandpa and I. I can look at it and smell his unique “aftershave” that was a combo of Listerine and Old Spice. Very uniquely Grandpa.

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Grandpa and Grandma. Oh you can just see the mischievous twinkle in Grandpa’s eye. He was a kid at heart.

And this last picture might explain a great deal about me……

This explains a lot A copy

Oh Grandpa and his sense of humor. It was larger than life.

There are LOTS more pictures.

I just thought I should warn you.

Friday, April 27, 2012

7 Quick Takes (Vol 162)

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I’m LATE getting these done. I know, I know. I need minions. You know the deal. When you are done here and have fully downloaded, highlighted and footnoted my blather remember to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of my ever expanding weed garden, over to Conversion Diary.

May the BLATHER be ever in your favor!

1.
Well, it is that time of year again….

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The geese that live at the local park have started to reproduce. Grrrrrrr.

And that means that we have to be extra vigilant on our morning walks because Canadian Geese with babies in tow can be VERY aggressive.

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But we have ever faithful, if slightly height challenged, Ben to keep us safe.

Get those geese Ben!

2.
Did you think I was done with complaining about my ipod and iTunes?

Well, this might be the last time.

I would promise but then it is iTunes so there is always something to complain about.

I finally decided that I needed to sync my ipod to iTunes on my new computer.

What a MAJOR pain in my ever expanding backside.

Plugged in “Dahling” to sync….and iTunes kept insisting that I didn’t have enough space on the ipod…. even when I deleted all the music off of my ipod and told iTunes not to put any music on the ipod….still no space.

FINE! I will just back it up with the old computer and whatever.

But then the old computer gave me the same message…even though I had wiped all the music off the ipod.

OH FOR THE LOVE OF PETER, PAUL AND MARY!!!

The iTunes message boards weren’t all that helpful……..

So I decided that it wasn’t worth the headaches and I reset it to factory settings after successfully moving my apps from Dahling to iTunes.

Resetting your ipod is a royal pain in the patookiss.

3.
I know I have mentioned on numerous occasions that I used to be heavily into scrap booking.

I have enough paper to last until, well until forever.

I have all the toys and tools a girl could possibly need.

And there in lies the problem. Or one of the problems.

I find that I have too much stuff. I can’t make a decision. I can’t get any scrapbooking done.

In fact, I don’t think I have done any scrapbooking for 6 months. I go down there. I look at it. I move some stuff around. And then I go and find something else to do because I get overwhelmed.

To be perfectly honest part of my problem is also my perfectionism. And wanting to lay out the “perfect page” and have the whole book be something that people “ooooo” and “Ahhhh” over.

So this coming week I am making some major “scrapbook materials” decisions. I will tell you all about it in a longer post.

I hate making these decisions!!!

4.
Oh man I am in the midst of a creative fire storm.

Sometimes it just comes on me with a wooosh. Sort of like a hot flash only with something good at the end.

And when I get into one of those moods and I have an idea that I want to execute then it is sometimes hard to reign myself in. I want to go and get all the materials necessary

RIGHT NOW.

I don’t care what it costs. I must complete my mission.

And then I get a hold of myself.

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These are some of the necessary items for my project. Plain old tee shirts.

And I had to buy a new set of knitting needles.

Oh. Darn.

I will take pictures of the process and tell you what I am going to be knitting using tee shirts….

If it turns out even half way cute.

Thank goodness that it is garage sale time because that is the only way that I could afford to buy a boat load of used tee shirts for a reasonable price.

5.
My Spring nemesis is here…..

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The Mulch

8 yards of it to be exact.

It is sitting there, waiting and waiting for me to start.

Now if it would just get a bit warmer and stop raining.

6.
I am continuing in my search for the perfect granola bar recipe.

And I have still not been successful.

I tried another recipe yesterday. On paper it sounded good. And people raved about it. I mean who couldn’t love something that had coconut, almonds and mini chocolate chips in it.

And they are good don’t get me wrong. But there is just one little problem. They don’t want to hold their shape. I made them and left them in the frig for the designated length of time but when I went to cut them they sort of disintegrated into little chunks. Lovely delicious little chunks but they are not the bars I was promised.

Maybe I am going about this the wrong way. Perhaps I should be developing my own recipe for Granola Lumps not Granola bars.

Hmmmmmm. Something to think about.

7.
Short garden update.

The peas are up. The lettuce is up. The spinach is making an appearance.

Broccoli plants are going in the ground today.

And we are planting another container of potatoes. But LaurenLeap and her dad aren’t making another tower. We are going to try something called Potato Grow Bags. Not these particular ones but something that we found locally.

I will let you know how it goes.

And of course there will be pictures.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

There Were Signs All Along The Way

Even at an early age we knew that Cartoon Girl had some talent.

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I believe that she is wearing the “dinosaur shorts” that I made her. At least that is what I am guessing.

Tee-ball was not the ideal activity for Cartoon Girl. She tended to stand there and stare off into space, contemplating the universe.

If you told her to play 2nd base, she “became” the base.

Immovable.

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She a MUCH MUCH better illustrator than she was a tee-ball player.

Thank goodness.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Putting the Cart Before The Horse

Sometimes I just get excited about something that I have created for someone.

And then I forget things.

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A box.

A box that is all prepared for mailing.

And in the box is a gift. A gift for Molly, the newest member of our clan. Something that I knit for her…even though her grandma is a MUCH better knitter than I am and I am sure that she will knit something fabulous. I have seen Joan’s knitting. She is good.

I carefully wrapped the gift. And then realized that I had wrapped the card IN the gift. SO I unwrapped the gift, retrieved the card, rewrapped the gift and got the box all ready to go to the Post Office.

And then I realized.

I had not taken a picture of the Finished Object.

DANG IT!!!!

I know, I know, it seems unusual to take a picture of a gift before you give it to someone. But if you are a knitter you will understand.

I have to have a picture of the “FO” because I have to list it on my Projects page on Ravelry. I can list it without a pictures. I have done that before when I forget to take a picture and then send the knitting off to someone else. But if I forget to take a picture then I have to put up this picture…..

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But I try to avoid that if I can. Knitters like to see pictures of what others have done. It helps us visualize what the project might look like before we embark upon the whole pointy sticks and string thing. And part of the fun of knitting is showing your FOs off to other knitters and having them tell you that you are a fabulous knitter.

I will take all the affirmation that I can get.

And so…..

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I had to unwrap the well prepared box. And not only did I have to open the box up but I had to unwrap the entire package, trying not to rip the wrapping paper and the tissue paper AGAIN.

But it was worth it.

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And because I have to have ultimate control I always stick in a little card with “care instructions”. And I have suddenly realized that there is a typo on the card.

Do not send me a message to tell me that it is there. I can see it.

And I am NOT reprinting it and opening the package and unwrapping and rewrapping and retaping the box.

Not. Gonna. Do. It. Molly’s parents will just have to forgive my inability to spell a very simple word.

Sigh.

I loved knitting this sweater. LovedLovedLoved.

I want to knit it again.

Can someone have a girl baby so I can knit this sweater again?

And hopefully the next time I knit a gift I will remember to take pictures of it BEFORE I wrap it up and get it ready to mail.

A girl can dream can’t she.

Monday, April 23, 2012

I Feel So HEALTHY!

I could leap tall buildings in a single bound!

I could spread 10 yards of mulch in the morning.

I just feel so healthy.

Why you may be asking yourself. You were weren’t you. Well I am going to tell you.

On Thursday afternoon a box arrived here at Chez Knit.

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OOOOOOO I love mystery boxes. This was the “Hypothetical Package That Might Be Arriving”. I had been instructed a few days before it’s arrival that I would need to be home close to the time of it’s arrival because it was perishable. That is if there was actually a package that would be arriving. A hypothetical package.

No letting it sit out on the front step for a day.

No letting it hang around in the garage for an afternoon.

Nope, I had to come home, open the box and then refrigerate whatever was in there RIGHT AWAY.

ASAP.

QUICKLY.

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Open up the box and whatever was in there was encased in it’s own cocoon of coolness. If this was a horror movie then the package would have been quivering and throbbing.

You know, that last sentence sounded a bit too “Harlequin Romance Novel” for my taste.

But I digress.

What is in there!!!!

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Oh be still my juicy beating heart. Fresh juices made the day before and sent directly to my doorstep by a thoughtful person (Cartoon Girl).

I probably should tell you that Cartoon Girl works for a company called Cooler Cleanse. I am going to let you just wander around the site to see all that is there. But if you have looked at the picture above you will realize that they produce fresh juices for your health.

And I do mean fresh.

These beauties arrived on my door on Thursday around noon. They had been produced the day before by the hard working kitchen staff and then sent out with their own freezer packs to keep them lovely and cool.

Cartoon Girl had been after me for a while to try some of the juices that Cooler Cleanse produces. She finally got tired of bugging me about it and just took the bull by the horns so to speak and sent me a healthy box.

It even has a heart on it! And there was a lovely card inside written by Cartoon Girl herself.

Now the thing is, these juices are FRESH. And need to be consumed within three days. And so that is what we have been doing.

Drinking juices.

I have consumed more juice in the last three days than I had in the three months before. I am not a huge juice drinker. Unless someone would come to my house every morning and squeezes me some orange juice fresh. Then I will drink juice.

I will say that there were some that I liked more than others. In no particular order of preference we received: Grapefruit, Kale & Co., Carrot Apple, Pear Mint, Apple Lemon Ginger and Green Leaf.

I uniformly liked any of the juices that were heavily fruit based. The Grapefruit was definitely my favorite (it was a wrench to leave any for HHBL) with the Pear Mint a close second. The Carrot Apple was very carroty and appley in a good way. It sort of reminded me of a carrot apple salad that I was particularly fond of growing up, only in liquid form. And the Apple Lemon Ginger was a very interesting mix. Very gingery which I like.

And then there were the green juices.

I had a few reservations there. The Kale & Co actually tastes good, I like kale. But I had a bit of difficulty with the liquid nature of it. And it was green. I generally try to avoid drinking things that are green. It brings back memories of water skiing in a lake that was filled with algae.

And did I mention that it was green.

I would sort of liken the experience of the green juices as liquid salad minus the salad dressing. Very fresh. An interesting mix of flavors. And green.

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I should probably confess that on the day the very healthy and good for me box of juices arrived…….

I had gone through the drive through at Wendy’s.

My bad.

Thank goodness all the lovely juices from Cooler Cleanse OBVIOUSLY wiped out any bad influences from the Jr. Cheeseburger, fries and small Coke.

Obviously.

This is NOT a paid endorsement for Cooler Cleanse. I just really enjoyed their juices.

I wish I had another bottle of the Grapefruit.

And that Pineapple Kiwi looked pretty good to.

Not that I am suggesting anything.

Because I am not.

Really.

Friday, April 20, 2012

7 Quick Takes (Vol 161)

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Here we are again. Gathered together to marvel at the boring chapters of my life. You know the deal. After you have committed my blatherings to memory you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of the rapidly advancing weed infestation in the lower flower beds, over to Conversion Diary to see what everyone else has been doing.

Let us blather together!

1.
The “tweaking” of iTunes continues here at Chez Knit. Apparently I have no life. Or I am just willing to spend hours upon hours rearranging and playing with and doodling with my iTunes.

The latest “project” is dealing with all of the CDs that HHBL and I have accumulated over the years.

And there are A LOT of CDs. And I thought, wrongly I might add, that they were all in either his iTunes or mine. Somehow, and I am not sure how, I have found a boat load of CDs that are not in my iTunes.

I think that at one point I deleted some music because I was running a tad short of space on the hard drive of the old computer. That is the only explanation that I have. I bought these CDs. Some of them I liked a great deal.

So I am re-loading music that I loaded once before.

I so love repeating work that I have already done.

NOT.

2.
Can you guess what this is?

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No, it is not a compost bin, although it sort of looks like one.

This is what Lookleap and I planted in it yesterday…..

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Potatoes!!!

Yes, that is our “Potato Tower”. Remember, gardening is all about experimentation and this is one of our experiments for the year.

We had actually thought about having more that one tower but they are a pain to build, especially with pallet lumber, so we are just doing one to see if we like the results.

I didn’t really participate at all in the building of the tower. That was LookLeap and her dad so all the credit goes to them. I just employed my electric drill to screw on some boards.

Thank you LookLeap and Garden Dad for all the hard work!!

3.
And continuing on with the general garden theme.

I am one gigantic mass of aching muscles right now. Between the work at the Community Garden and the work at home at the moment I am living on ibuprophen.

And I am ordering a big mass of mulch today….which I then have to spread.

Oh my aching 52 year old body.

But I just love how everything will look when I am done. And I know that all the hard work now means that I don’t have to work as hard later and can just sit in the back garden in peace and serenity.

But OH my aching back….and wrists…..and hands.

4.
I had fully intended to do an entire post, certainly with better pictures, on making corned beef from scratch. And I may do that the next time I produce this most excellent dish. But this time you just get a picture and me extolling the virtues of home cured corned beef.

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Holy Succulent Sandwiches Batman!!!

This was dinner last night. Corned beef and Swiss cheese with homemade Thousand Island Dressing. Technically a Reuben, only without the sauerkraut. HHBL isn’t fond of sauerkraut (I love it) so I just left that off this time.

And I couldn’t find my bottle of sauerkraut in the pantry so I really didn’t have a choice. I cannot figure out where that bottle went. I will probably find it when it explodes on one of the back shelves.

This sandwich was unbelievably good. I can tell you that I am never going to buy Corned Beef in those plastic packages from the store ever again. This really was an easy, if time consuming, thing to do. But really not all that time consuming because most of the time the brisket is just sitting in the brine in the refrigerator. You only have a bit to do at the beginning and the end of the process. Seven days it sits in it’s brine, making magic. And then it is cooked for 3-4 hours. Succulent, just the right level of “corned”. You can really taste the cinnamon that was in the pickling spice (which I also mixed up myself). Just a hint of ginger.

Thank you Michael Ruhlman for lighting the corned beef path for me.

I am having some for breakfast.

5.
Cartoon Girl sent us a package this week. I will give you the full scoop on Monday after HHBL and I have spent the weekend “taste testing”. But this is what arrived on my doorstep yesterday in it’s own little wrapping with cooler packs all around it.

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Six containers of totally fresh, made on Wednesday without preservatives, juices from the company that Cartoon Girl works for. HHBL snagged the “Apple Lemon Ginger” one to take to work today.

And I have been told by those in the know that the “Green Leaf” juice tastes like liquid salad.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

I personally am about to crack open the “Grapefruit” bottle.

6.
In the continuing vein of cleaning out I am going through a bunch of my older and mostly unused cook books, looking at the recipes, deciding which ones I might want to make, scanning said recipe, and then donating the actual book to the library.

I have a lot of cookbooks. Not as many as Mimi or The Chef but still a bunch.

And I love reading cookbooks. But I can tell you that I have found a couple of dated “stinkers” in the collection. I have also come across some really fabulous recipes that I am going to put into “rotation”.

7.
This last Quick Take is probably going to make sense only to knitters who happen to be on Ravelry. If you are on Ravelry come and find me. I am 4Bookworm.

But I digress.

This year is the London Olympics. 15 days filled with competition and sweat and blood and agony, yarn, competition, victory and the agony of defeat.

Did you say “yarn”? I don’t remember anything in the Olympics that has anything to do with yarn.

Why yes I did say yarn.

And knitting.

Yes, it is time for RAVELYMPICS! That biennial event where knitters compete in categories such as “Sock Put” or perhaps “Shawl Relay” or “Cable Steeplechase”. We have our team set up but now is the decision as to what to make. Of course I will be participating in the “Sock Put”, that is a given. But I am also contemplating a hairy, audacious lace project.

What to do. What to do.

Not that I am competitive or anything.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Easter, A Bit Late.

Yes, I know I am a bit late with this post.

Easter has come and gone. The Easter candy is but a distant memory on the lips and forever on the hips.

And I was going to talk about Corned Beef today. Because I made some…..

Totally from scratch.

And it is AWESOME.

But that will be for another day. What I wanted to show you was the pictures of Easter Sunday. Because I know you are dying to know what we did. And of course you want to know about the Easter Monkey.

We had the privilege of going to church on Easter with TMO and TSiL. And it was a boat load of fun and good times and fabulous hymns and……I just love Church of the Resurrection.

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Easter services for Church of the Rez are held at Edmond Chapel on the Wheaton College campus. You really can’t get a sense of how big The Resurrected Christ banner is. Take a look at the size of the people in the picture. Yeah, it is big. And totally amazing.

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This kid was seriously cute. And took his shades very seriously as well.

I put away my camera when the service started as was appropriate. No need to take pictures during the Easter morning service AND sometimes I just have to step away from the lens so that I don’t miss anything. I can get caught up in making sure I get just the right picture and I miss the “bigger picture” if you know what I mean.

But after the service and a short chat with Father Stewart AND being given the bestest insulated coffee mug because we were visiting it was out to the courtyard to see the Easter Monkey.

What? You haven’t heard of the Easter Monkey? He is the lesser known cousin of the Easter Bunny. You know the Easter Bunny can’t make it everywhere. If he is over scheduled he calls his Cuz.

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Unfortunately the Easter Monkey doesn’t have quite as sunny a personality as his more famous cousin.

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And he tends to sit on people’s shoulders and chatter away at passersby. Forgetting all about the whole Easter Egg business. And chocolate bunnies. And jelly beans.

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But he still has a certain appeal for children……

And adults with a new lens on their camera.

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There were BROWNIES!!! And coffee too. You know it is a good party when there are brownies and coffee.

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There was also an appearance of the Easter Cockatoo. Another lesser known, but much more colorful cousin of the Easter Bunny.

Do you know that the Tooth Fairy has a brother? Yes, he does. It is the Tooth Elephant. He takes care of the overflow, sneaking in on his little elephant toes and putting money under your pillow. Occasionally he is late, due to his more substantial nature, but he always gets the job done in the end.

Hmmmmm? You don’t believe me. Shows how much you know. The Tooth Elephant always seemed to show up at Chez Knit.

But I digress.

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There was enthusiastic dancing to fiddle music.

And then there were the children in their Easter Best.

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Oh be still my beating heart. Don’t you just want to squeeze those chubby little cheeks!!

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I am a sucker for little boys in seer sucker shorts and saddle shoes. And a TIE!

I am slayed.

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I have no words. A little boy in a gray suit with shorts and RED socks?

Oh help me I want grandchildren.

And that was my Easter Sunday morning.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

May We Never Be Parted

Lookee what my parental unit, Papa, sent me!!

He has taken on the monumental task of converting to digital format his vast collection of slides. And it is a monumental task.

Vast as an ocean filled with old film.

Wide as 144 boxes of slides can be.

Filled with who knows what.

1960 Fall #71 Nov Deb red chair1960 Fall #72 Nov Deb red chair #21960 Fall #73 Nov DSA and Deb red chair

BIG RED!!!!!

Yes, that is yours truly.

Follically and dentally challenged.

Egads look at the size of my cranium!!

Oh but even at a young age Big Red and I were destined to be together.

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Oh Red, my reading and relaxing buddy. May we never be parted.

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This is what happens when you forget to move the tri-pod.

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And this is what happens when you would rather do anything else than clean. Even take pictures of yourself.

You may go on with your daily lives now. Big Red and I are going to have a long sit and chat this afternoon.

Friday, April 13, 2012

7 Quick Takes (Vol 160)

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How on EARTH did it get to be almost the middle of April?? And Sunday is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic? How time does fly, especially when I blather. So when you have taken as much time as you need to ponder the inner workings of my mind then click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of the firestorm ignited by Hilary Rosen and her comments on Ann Romney, over to Conversion Diary.

Blather dead ahead!!!

1.
So, since we were last together I have become the proud owner of a new computer. It had been several years since I had to go through the process of switching from one computer to another.

I completely forgot what an absolute and complete pain in the patookiss this is.

Pain. In. The. Backside.

I put all of my pictures on my external hard drive so that I could just drag and drop them onto the new computer. That took a long time just to put them all on the hard drive. And then it took a LONG time to move them over. It wouldn’t have taken quite so long except……

Then the new computer decided that it didn’t want to recognize the external hard drive anymore. It wanted a divorce evidently. Thankfully the old laptop was still willing to date the hard drive so I had to drag and drop the remaining photos that I hadn’t transferred onto a thumb drive from the hard drive.

But I could only find my 2GB thumb drive. And I had A LOT more than 2GB of pictures.

Back and forth and back and forth and back and…

FORGET IT! So I went to Target and got a 16GB thumb drive.

But then there was the problem of iTunes. Oh iTunes you are a big headache sometimes. I had put all my music on the external hard drive…or thought I had. But when I went to add it most of the stuff was missing. Grrrrrrrr. And what was there was scrambled a bit. Grrrrr again.

What to do, what to do. What I didn’t want to do was to move music bit by bit. That way lies crazytown!

Hey wait a minute!! We do Home Sharing here at Chez Knit. I bet that would work. And sure enough I could see my library from my old computer on my new computer but…WHERE IS THE IMPORT BUTTON DAGNABBIT!!! I wasted a boat load of time just scratching my head like a frazzled baboon and looking at settings until I finally turned to the internet and found my answer.

And it was so simple.

2.
Oh, I got something else that I have been wanting………

A new lens.

Yes, yes I know. I already have four a few other lenses. But I wanted needed that 50mm. And the Parental Units sent me birthday moola so……

I bought it. And I did NOT get the expensive one which cost, well, a lot of money. But I am happy nonetheless. Now to play with it.

Joy.

3.
Regarding #1…..

When I wrote that particular entry everything looked rosy and happy happy joy joy.

But there was unhappiness in Chez Knit land. And pain. And gnashing of teeth and flinging of imprecations into the ethernet. And hours and hours and hours of work ahead.

Because even though at the end of the day it LOOKED like everything had transferred over it hadn’t. Click on something and I would get the dreaded “we can’t find the original file. Do you want to look for it”.

GRRRRRRRRRR

So thank you iTunes for the fact that I have had to search through all my music and audiobooks INDIVIDUALLY to find the ones that didn’t transfer successfully. Then I have had to delete the corrupted files and drag and drop music.

AND then there were all my audiobooks from Audible that had to be deleted and re-downloaded.

What an every loving headache!!!

And because I have to have everything “just so” I had to find all the missing artwork. And make sure that all the songs from all the albums are linked up. And that everything is labeled as I want it to be labeled.

OCD much Deb?

4.
Oh the weeds that are growing in my landscape beds.

I am overwhelmed.

And I am busy.

And it has gotten cold again. And there might have been some snow.

When they get to be the height of the plants on the African veldt please send someone to find me.

Thank you.

Tomorrow is supposed to be relatively nice so I guess I will be outside for a bit……

5.
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This is one of the blossoms from my Tea Viburnums. Shot with the new 50mm lens which I LOVELOVELOVE.

But I digress

I love my Tea Viburnums. You cannot believe how sweet these blossoms smell. Every Spring, when they bloom, I will have my office windows open and the fragrance will just waft it.

And I am happy.

But not this year.

You see, everything around here has blossomed about a month early. The viburnums have been in full bloom. But it has been too cold this week to open any windows and enjoy the fragrance. I would run out and give them a sniff and run back inside, dodging the snow/rain/sleet. And then last night……a freeze warning. And this morning the blossoms are looking decidedly bedraggled and droopy.

Sign.

But the Hosta seem to have survived. At least for the moment.

6.
I haven’t forgotten that I promised you another post or two from Peru. Life has just been very busy this week. And I had to get my homemade Corned Beef brining. And I am still recovering from going out of town AGAIN.

OK, FINE! I haven’t finished editing all the pictures yet. So sue me. I have work pictures to edit. And jobs to shoot. And I will get to them.

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As usual I took pictures in the grocery store. I am totally fascinated by foreign grocery stores. And the floor at PlacaVeya was so clean that you could have eaten off of it. There is a small army of minions whose sole job is to swab the floors all day long. I wish I had floor minions.

Look at the shine!!! They put American grocery stores to shame. And I have to say that I saw the same thing in Cuatla, Mexico. Pristine floors.

I wish I had floor minions.

And no, Max the Magnificent doesn’t count.

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But Alpha, I would gladly clean your floors for you…all day long.

7.

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I am also still working on some of the pictures from Easter. But every time I look at this picture it just makes me chuckle.

Doesn’t take much does it.