It's Underway...

This past weekend was the first one in a long time that I had a "real" weekend. Normally, I'm working most Saturdays, while I have Fridays off. And about once a month, I'm up at "dawn:thirty" to go to a Friday board meeting... 

So there was a very optimistic To-Do list, and another fairly optimistic "Honey-Do" list... 

Working on my craft table...

Hubby accomplished his part: we have The Great Pumpkin out on the porch. No picture; I'll take one tonight after yoga. It's better at night...

Knitting

So it's underway: the assembly of the Elkhound Afghan. This will be auctioned off for charity - or done via raffle, I'm not sure what they want to do with it. 

I didn't make all of the squares; about 4 of us did. There's some lovely Tunisian crochet, there's knitting and crochet... and a problem! 

I had asked for 12" x 12" squares. Well........ Not all of them (including the ones I did) meet that criteria. So we have some "Fisherman" color (cream) yarn that I'm filling in with. This will likely leave the afghan an odd size, but hey - it's home-made. The finishing will include doing a single crochet all the way around this thing and then a scallop to polish it. I had hoped to do the edging in the cream; however our local JoAnn didn't have enough cream. I bought the light grey. I may try to see if they have more cream. It looks like this will take a couple of weekends to do, so I can perhaps find them restocked. 

Afghan on Table...

I'll do something with the grey: perhaps a couple of pillows. And I can either include them with the afghan or I can give them to the kids for Christmas.

The Fluffy Scarf project continues...

Church

We got our new choir robes! They're Cubbie blue... And they were supposed to be breathable, but I gotta tell you --- I'm fanning myself like crazy (and it was about 64* outside during our Mass) and Ken the Baritone says, "Can you move a little sideways?" I asked him why and he says, "So we can share your fan!" 

They need to be hemmed. I guess that the choir robe folks thought we'd all be singing in 3"  heels! One of our members is taking care of that, thankfully. I can hem. I just don't like to. 

Fr. Matt blessed them and said that he hopes they'll make us sing better...Of course, everyone laughed and he said, "Oh, not that they didn't sing well BEFORE!!" And of course, we christened our choirmaster as "Pappa Smurf." 

Oh, the Prayer Shawl Ministry folks appreciated my two big boxes of yarn. Hope to see some of the shawls. They put them out on a table at the front of the church, so you can take one if you need it. 

The List

The list included me exercising (not done); finishing the Other Fluffy Scarf (done); assembly of the afghan (in progress); and cleaning out two corners of the bedroom (not done). Oh, and shredding (done). Hubby did mow the lawn. But the garden boxes needed tending and we didn't get to that.

In my own defense, I got some of my stuff organized. I paired yarn + projects into bags and we did get the Stash busted for the Prayer Shawl Ministry folks. Whoopie! More room for yarn!! (whoops; that wasn't supposed to come out...)

And Hubby had an eye doc appointment; it was time for his eyes to be dilated. So we didn't even get on our bikes. Neither of us does the eye dilating well... 

Cobbler!

Food

The 2013 Christmas Cookie Baking List is done. Of course, it's always fluid; we may add a couple, but we're not likely to subtract.

I made risotto for dinner yesterday - Hubby and Kid #1 had it. I also did some kale and I ate that. 

Still working on the "cleanse" and it's difficult this time around. I feel like I'm eating more and I'm frustrated. 

Of course, completing the "exercise" part of my list would probably help... 

Lunch today was a huge salad, a ham wrap on a low-carb small tortilla, and unfortunately, a stroll past the Halloween pumpkin... Today is just today. It's not a sentence of failure. So I start again. Keeping at it; not giving up. 

I also helped Hubby make cobblers. We had fruit that was "almost." You know the "almost" fruit: in a banana, it's the ones you set aside for banana bread.

This is fruit that was in the bin and was at that point where nobody was going to eat it if it was left there. So he peeled it and I made a quick crumb topping. There are 2 pear cobblers and 2 plum. I think Hubby ate them all! 

Random Dog Cuteness

So today was Columbus Day (or Take Over a Nation and People Day... depending on how you do it...) and we were thinking about the things that weren't going to be open. Normally, Mondays are our garbage days. We put it out anyway, and there were initially 2 dogs in this picture... Both of them always check to make sure the garbage man doesn't take more than he's supposed to. But I swear Tippi can hear me pick up my phone and knows what I'm doing. This is Quinn... Maybe I can catch the two of them at some point. 

It was funny: when the afghan and I were at my small folding craft table, Quinn was in front of me "supervising" (a/k/a napping). And then I had to move to the dining room table. Hubby set up his nice Ott Light so I could see what I'm doing. 

Then Tippi stakes herself out behind my chair. "Supervising." (a/k/a "napping") 

Ideas for the Blog

Annecy Guitarist

I'm liking categorizing the various things I talk about. It seems to work well. What I'd also like to do is perhaps include a picture in each post (or several, depending). I would also like to maybe include some other kinds of writing. 

Kid #2 says "You write like a newspaper reporter." Probably because I was one? And also, I know things tend to sound like "meeting minutes." Probably because I take a lot of them?? I'm well past my secretary days (not that there's anything wrong with that; just giving you some context). But I still remember lots of shorthand and I also type fast. If I'm not writing minutes on a piece of paper, I'm sitting in front of my laptop typing pretty much as fast as you can talk.

For now, I'll just stick in a random picture - here's my guitarist from Annecy from our trip this summer. Still kicking myself for not buying one of his CDs...

Recipes...I don't know. 

Maybe I'll do a photo blog every so often. Heaven knows I have a ton of pictures. Any ideas are welcome. 

Fall Color

What fall color?? With the random weather, we haven't had much to speak of. Here's what it looks like out my back door. Normally, I've got photographers pulled up on a day like this, taking family pictures and generally enjoying the chunk of forest preserve land behind me. 

Fall color?

Not so much so far; and it's mid-October! I need to get out to the Arboretum so that we can see what that looks like. Maybe next Sunday. My next weekend off will be Thanksgiving. But I do have Sundays, after church. Maybe there's a walk in there somehow. 

Politics

Interesting article on Huffington Post about the government shut-down. Click here to read about it. Seems like the Republicans are changing the rules mid-stream. Not cool. 

We are being laughed at. And I'm not sure that it won't happen again. People here seem to be incredibly stupid. They only listen to stuff that reflects their own views. Journalism as I knew it as a kid? Pffffffffth. Gone. It's hard to find someone to speak objectively; I know - I just posted a link from HuffPo. But it's one of the better news aggregators that I've been able to work with. 

Hopefully, someone in DC will have a spine and will  not let us just default. I have to say, I hope that the voters remember this in 2014. The gridlock and partisanship needs to stop. The uber-right -- they need to remember that they're a relatively small percentage of this country. The regular right needs to get them under control. 

That all sounds incendiary, but think about it... The Speaker let a SMALL SEGMENT of his larger party engineer this shut-down. Eric Cantor is gunning for the Speaker's job. The fact that in Colonial times, one man was able to shut things down -- yeah that's part of our history. But that was in the way-back days when there were only 13 colonies.

We need to move forward with the times. Invoke the 14th Amendment. And as voters, we need to have a grass-roots movement to stop Citizens United, and stop SCOTUS from generating an even BIGGER fiasco by opening up private donations to elections. Our politicians are supposed to be elected. Instead, much like slaves, they're purchased. And being purchased, they are, in a large sense "enslaved" to their purchasers. 

It's funny. They're all bleating about "those people" who "gorge themselves at the public trough." But they don't see themselves: career politicians who are paid whether or not the government runs; with honkin' big government insurance; decent government pensions; other government benefits.

But. But. But.... they're not "those people who gorge themselves at the public trough."

Except that they are. And you know what's even more hypocritical?

We keep electing them.