Semi-Wordless Wednesday…I Mean Thursday

Yesterday was neither a single picture nor was it semi-wordless.

So that is what you get today.

Life is so confusing sometimes.

The Blue Bird of Happiness needs to take a tranquilizer.

An Engagement is Announced

About 10 days ago I received a Facebook message from this guy

Slim Jim. Slim Jim had an idea. He had a plan. But he needed some help. He wanted to propose to Shoe Queen on Christmas Eve. But he just needed a bit of guidance as to where the proposal should happen. And he thought maybe I could be hanging around to take some pictures when the big event happened. ALREADY he knows me so well.

Shoe Queen was expecting his arrival for a visit….on the 27th. And I KNOW she had this thought that there might be a proposal forthcoming….on the 28th. Not the 24th. So after some thought and multiple FB messages and text messages we came up with an idea.

The dreaded annual family picture just didn’t happen at Thanksgiving. Too much going on. SO the idea was floated to everyone that we would go over to the local town gazebo, next to the library, where we would quick snap a family picture or two so that I can finally get the Christmas cards done.

No I DON’T have the cards done. That has nothing to do with this story. Quit your nit picking!

So we squeeze everyone into Coco the Subaru and off we go. We pull into the library parking lot and several people in the car see that there is someone already at the gazebo, standing inside.

Oh man there is someone here already! He looks like he is waiting for someone.

Is he going to ask someone to the Prom?

We aren’t going to be able to get out of the car. We are going to have to wait. Can we go home and do this INSIDE in the WARM.

Well, SOMEONE is going to have to get out of the car! (said by me)

And just about the time I opined that someone (namely Shoe Queen) was going to have to get out of the car……she realized who was standing in the gazebo, dressed in a suit, flowers in hand.

That’s Jim?!?

JIMMY!!!!!!!!

I will just let you see the rest in pictures.

Welcome to the family Slim Jim.

Merry Christmas!!!

From Our Family here at Chez Knit

To Your Family

Have a Very Merry Christmas!!!!!

Christmas!?!?!?! That mean presents right? And a big meal with LOTS of crumbs.

SWEET!

7 Quick Takes (Vol 194)

It is hard to believe that it is less than a week away from Christmas. And the world seems to still be standing despite what the Mayans might think. So brew up some coffee and when you are done wrapping up all the blather here contained make sure that you click on the picture above to be whisked, as the speed of the disappointment spreading through all those who thought they wouldn’t have to buy another calendar, over to Conversion Diary.

The world can’t end! I have too much blather still to spread.

1.
The progeny are all home for the holidays!!! You can always tell that they are home because

The back hallway and bench are suddenly awash with shoes and coats and purses and other stuff.

2.
Can I just say that one of the things that I love the most about the end of the year craziness is all the “lets wrap up the current year” lists. I am having trouble getting stuff done because I will sit down at my computer for just a few minutes and then get sucked into lists of 2012 “best books” or 2012 year in pictures or some other list.

I just cannot help it. I have always been a sucker for any kind of list. I used to own all the “Big Book of Lists” and poured over them.

You don’t have to tell me that I am a nerd. I can hear you saying it you know.

3.
It looks like we will be having a White Christmas after all. There is a little skiff of snow on the ground at the moment but we are expecting more by tomorrow night. It is hard to tell how much we will actually get here at Chez Knit because we are sort of in “Snow Belt No Man’s Land”.

Our house is about a mile from the Geauga County line and Geauga County sits right in the snow belt. It is not uncommon for our house to get an appreciably larger amount of snow than people on the other side of our town.

You just never know what you are going to get. And I am trying, at this moment, to talk myself into going for my walk while it isn’t actually snowing. As with any snow belt area, and you know this if you live in one of the four “lake effect snow” areas in the USA, the snow comes in bands or waves. And it isn’t uncommon, during a Lake Effect Snow Warning, to have it be snowing at a rate of 2 inches an hour and then look out 15 minutes later and see patches of blue sky before the next band hits.

It isn’t snowing at the moment so I should probably take a walk.

And as an addition, I did take my walk…but not like I thought I would. I actually had to do several circuits of our street rather than the entire neighborhood as the streets were VERY slippery.

4.
I declare January as Selfish Knitting Only For Debbie month!

And I may cast on an epic project…..that is if I can finally get the Dwarrowdelf Stole finished.

And it is NO WHERE NEAR finished because I have had to work on other projects. But come January baby I am all over the rest of that project and others to come!!

5.
The Elixir of Life post for this morning (because I don’t have a #5 and I am running out of ideas).

The Mayans seem to have been wrong,
About the Earth's last big swan song.
So glad I didn't play along.
With coffee I have survived.

6.
One thing I DON’T like about the holiday season (well other than little old ladies driving 50mph in the parking lot and cursing out other drivers)….it is that I seem to have to go to the grocery store more often.

For most of my married life I have gone to the grocery store once a week. Even when the progeny were little it was only once a week. It was a big old pain in my backside to have to take three kids, ages under 5 years old, to the grocery store.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to go to the grocery store. Ask my mother. It is one of the things that we do on a regular (read daily) basis when we are together. So many aisles full of possibilities. But when I am leading my normal life.

Stop laughing at my use of the word “normal” in relation to my life. Stop it now!

Anyways, during normal life I only go once a week. But not during the holidays. I have to go to the store AGAIN today. I was there yesterday….and Wednesday…..and Tuesday.

Good golly.

We are out of bread and for once I am not going to take the time to make any.

7.
Here at Chez Knit, when all the progeny are home, it is best not to leave your iPhone unattended for any length of time…….. Especially when Cartoon Girl is around.

The Chicks are Back in the Nest

As of this afternoon, all the chicks are back in the nest for a few days.

Let the mayhem begin!!!

6 Months of Blog Header Blather

Have you noticed the changing blog headers?

I am hoping that you are saying a big YES! to your computer screens. If not then we have to have a talk about your observational skills.

I realized in June that I really needed to sort of “mix it up” in the blog header department. I was bored with the one that had been there. It, perhaps, had been there for almost the entire life of the blog. As enduring as the Sphinx. As boring as bananas.

Are bananas boring? Hmmmmm.

But the realization of my blog header boringness set off one of my interesting internal conversations. Yes I talk to myself! Who better to answer my questions than me.

I don’t want to change. Change is hard. I want things to stay the same. It is easier that way.

Change is good Deb. Change is good.

I don’t KNOW how to make a blog header. I don’t WANT to learn to make a blog header.

That is what the internet is for! Let your fingers do the searching. Put on your big girl panties and DO IT.

And so I did and found that it wasn’t all that difficult after all. I produced the first one and I knew I was hooked. Of course when the next month rolled around I couldn’t remember how I had made the blog header and I couldn’t find the website that had the instructions and I had to do the internet search all over again. Sigh. But now I have the whole process down pat. Set in concrete like Jimmy Hoffa’s feet.

And so I thought, as one of my end of the year posts I would just gather all the blog headers here in one place so that we could enjoy them together. When I change out the old header for the new one at the beginning of the month then you don’t get to see the old one anymore.

I know you have been feeling bereft about that.

I don’t want you to feel bereft about anything.

I have been amazed at how much I anticipate producing these things at the beginning of a new month. I have little post it notes all over the place with possible blog “tag lines” that will eventually make an appearance.

Ah the simple pleasures in life.

Thank you William Reichert

Friday was a day filled with party prep here at Chez Knit. I was so focused on that single goal that I was unaware of the horror that had taken place in Newton, CT until sometime in the afternoon. This is not a blog post about that. I wouldn’t even know what to say.

This is about something else.

Right, rabbit trail. Stepping back onto the main path now.

Sometimes when I am home all day here at Chez Knit, and I am immersed in a project, I forget to walk down to the end of the driveway to get the mail. HHBL now knows just to stop at the mail box before driving up the driveway.

Mail? Oh yeah, I forgot to pick up the mail. Oops.

I should probably side track for just one second to tell you that occasionally I sell something through Amazon. Usually that is a book. Sometimes it is a CD. When I send off whatever it is that I have sold I always wonder who it is going to and why they are buying it from me AND why they are paying me $25 for a soundtrack CD from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

You KNOW that is how my brain works! I am the person looking at all the cars zooming by and wondering about where each of those people live and where they are going.

Do whales sleep?

Never mind about that last question. Forget I even mentioned it. (YES, whales do sleep).

SO, we were talking about something. Something…….oh yes, the mail. I was deep in party prep on Friday and when HHBL walked in the door in the evening he carried not only Pad Thai for dinner (YUM), he also had a load of mail and papers because I forgot to walk down and pick it up.

Are you one of those people that must flip through the mail the minute it is in your hands? HHBL and I are those people. Come home from a LONG trip and the first thing that we do is flip through the mail. Unpack? No way! There is MAIL to look through. A pile of mail must be flipped through. Friday was no exception. There were the usual bills and junk mail as well as Christmas cards. It is a rare thing to get a Christmas card from someone that you don’t know.

But in and amongst the cards and bills and stuff was a Christmas card, addressed to us, from a man in Amelia, Ohio. A man that I didn’t know and that HHBL didn’t know.

Amelia, Ohio? Why does that sound familiar? Why?? I know I have mailed something to that town in recent memory……

The only thing to do was open the card.

Standard Christmas card signed by someone that I don’t even know. How odd. But also in the card was a small slip of paper with a note printed on it.

This is what the note said-

Just a short note to tell you how delighted I am with my purchase of the Robert Shaw Christmas CD. These were the albums we played every Christmas when I was a child and I have been looking for the second album on CD for years. I am delighted to finally have it. I am indescribably happy!

Thank you and Merry Christmas

I was stunned. Never in my wildest dream would I expect to get a thank you note from someone for something I sold to them on Amazon! And to make them “indescribably happy” in the bargain.

It brought a smile to my face on a day when the news was so very, very sad.

Thank William Reichert, you made my day.