Accident Prone Knitter

Here you will find musings about knitting, home renovation, travelling, sports and the myriad of things I delight in. "Out into the brimming, sun bathed world I sped"

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Location: Central Pennsylvania, United States

I've lived in California, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Toronto and Pennsylvania. I'm a retired police officer, and I've worked in accounting and payroll related fields for the last several years.

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Ringing in 2007

Wishing you all a healthy and the Happiest of New Years.

We're in South Bend, Indiana at this weekend where MFB was broadcasting some hockey games for the Fighting Irish. We're headed home to Pennsylvania in the morning.

The concierge at the hotel we're staying at directed us to Le Peep a favorite of ours and we had a terrific brunch. I overheard a brief conversation from an adjoining table where someone said something like "can you imagine your mother knitting?"

After our excellent meal we drove off and thought we'd explore a little before we needed to be at the Joyce Center. Driving past the College Football Hall of Fame I pulled out my notes of the yarn store I had found on the web before we embarked on this trip. Michigan Street. Same as Le Peep. So we backtracked and wouldn't you know it - the yarn store was right next door to the restaurant!!! Le Sigh. There are so many things I could say about this. #1 I have egg on my face. (I didn't have eggs for brunch - he did) #2 Whaa?? I couldn't smell the wool? (I have a nasty head cold) Not sure if it's a good thing that the store was closed.

I'm not really one to reflect on things a lot, I'm a big fan of the Eagles and their song Take it Easy. But we seriously wish you all the very Happiest of New Years.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Eviction proceedings started

We live in a 125 year old home that has an exposed crawlspace in the basement. The home has it's charm and some historical roots in the area and we're out in the country. The temperature dropped drastically today. Yes, I'm setting the stage.

Something made me glance over to the top of the stairs tonight and there, ugly pretty as you please, stood a mouse. Thumbing his nose at me he was. He backed into his little hidey hole and MFB asked what was wrong. I don't think I used any colorful adjectives to describe the little...tenant. I may have. MFB went to look and out came the mouse. Definitely thumbing his nose.

I asked and no we don't have a mousetrap. I then asked for the usual other modes of dispatching an unwanted...rodent. Y'know - baseball bat, shotgun, Molotov cocktail, grenade. MFB asked if I was asking him to go buy a mousetrap.

I keep my yarn near the door to the basement and when I said yes he probably should because I could just picture the little...tenant deciding to eat my yarn. MFB said "Well we won't have to worry about him starving then will we?"

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Tuesday, December 26, 2006

When good Santas go bad

We're home, happy, tired and back to our daily routines already.

MFB's family numbers more than mine and rather than every person exchanging a gift with everyone we have what I refer to as a "Gift Fight". It's a lot of fun. How it works is everyone brings a $20 gift, then we draw numbers. The first person opens a gift, the second person has the choice of "stealing" the gift or choosing one from the pile. The next person can steal any gift or open one and so on. If your gift is stolen you can steal or open another and any gift can be stolen only twice. The first year we brought a gift that was the hit of the party and everyone wanted it. When all was said and done an email with a picture of the victor reclining in his "chair in a bag" with a beer in his head was sent tauntingly to his sister at least once or twice through the year. As I say, great fun. At the end you have a party with a lot of strategy, teasing and memories. Here's a picture or two of one of this years gifts - click on the pictures to make larger if you dare. May I introduce you to the Mooning Santa. He was NOT the most coveted prize. OK maybe he was!

The gift I brought was a small water fountain. I thought for sure at least two people might have wanted it - one in particular. This would have been a sure bet last year, however her guy surprised her with her dream of an Aquarium which I think they said was a 130 gallon TANK. As MFB said - you could swim in it. I filed this miscalculation under "Go big or stay home".

The gift I took home was something I was iffy about when I tore into the wrapping. However, this is my second evening reclining with it. It's a inexpensive massage chair pad with heat (the link is an expensive one). The massage and the heat works. Pretty darn nice gang, thanks!!!

It was a great visit. All the "kids" are growing up and only one is still in high school. One of the kids was out in Alberta for several months this year and he's home now. One of the other kids is going out to Vancouver in a couple of weeks so it was so good to see everyone so happy in a time of transition. I'm feeling old all of a sudden.

We did have a little drama though. We only have one large tin of Tim Hortons coffee left. We left our shopping for Timmy's too late. On Christmas Eve I left MFB while he was getting fitted for a new pair of hockey skates one of his Christmas presents and headed out to pick up one of the boys. Now any of you Canadians reading this know Tim Hortons closes up around 3:00pm on Christmas Eve and doesn't open till Boxing Day. Even with my contact at Tim's I couldn't get even a small tin of gold coffee. OH NO!! We had a happy ending, though. On our drive home on Christmas Day our research told us there was one Duty Free that would be open for currency exchange and GST rebate and we knew there was a Timmy's there. It was OPEN, they had large tins of coffee. All is right with the world and we got everything (except my family) we wanted for Christmas.

Message to MFB : See what happens when you wear your Toronto Maple Leafs sweater? Your team beats the Minnesota Wild!!

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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Merry Christmas to all




MFB and I are headed up to Canada for the holiday weekend so everyone be safe and blessed. And as MFB says in his blog:

"Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, joyous Kwanzaa and a safe and happy whatever-other-celebration you observe.

"A special Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States, Canada and all the nations on the front lines in the war on terror. May you be watched over and be safe until you can return home!"

I've been tagged

THE RULES:Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.”

I have been tagged by Knitiot at http://obsessivecompulsivecrafter.blogspot.com/

So, without further adieu here is the:

6 Weird Things About Me

#1. I have what, at best, would be described as a bizarre sense of humor
#2. I listen to talk radio all day at work
#3. I've lived in two countries, five states (one twice), one province, and twenty five towns (one twice)
#4. I love to drive, FAST, and in snow.
#5. I can participate in multiple conversations at one time.
#6. I do less domestic chores than MFB

Here are the people I am tagging:

http://knittyotter.typepad.com/otterknits/

http://lorishome.blogspot.com/
http://zarzuelaknitsandcrochets.com/blog/
http://www.millharrow.com/weblog/front_content.php
http://kathleenknits.blogspot.com/index.html
http://mapleontheweb.com/

Edited: I told MFB that I had to come up with 6 things that were weird about me and for some reason he fell out of the chair onto the floor in a fit of hysterical laughter. I asked him what he was choking out and he said "Only Six?" Above are the ones fit for print.

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Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Chalkboard anyone?

Last week my friend Twig kindly sent me by Mason Dixon Knitting's December 14 post to look at their "My So Called Mini Tutorial" as the post reminded her of our experience back in November when I thought I could help her with the My So Called Scarf pattern.

I glanced at the post as we're all so busy these days. Well I just now sat down with needles in hand and yarn at my side. I have been knitting this scarf off and on for over a month now using two strands of Trekking from the same skein and am now on my second skein.

I've ripped this scarf out once. I just discovered I have done the bloody thing wrong again but hopefully not to the detriment of the scarf.

Row 1 says: "K1 Sl 1" etc...well I slip it knitwise they say purlwise.
Row 2 says: "...purl the first stitch again...." I purl the first stitch on the right they purl the first stitch on the left ....Luckily Kay says Row 2 works either way, thank goodness.

I swear I am not ripping this thing out again. Learning to live with the mistake is ok.

Heah Twig! Thanks again, you're a real pal *laugh*.

Pardon me while I go find a chalkboard to write 100 times "I will not rip this scarf out".

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Post Party

We had our knitting group pot luck tonight at Kim's house. I had so much fun I forgot to take pictures of everything the group knitted for our local charity project. A talented group of ladies knitted up mittens, scarves and hats. Lots of terrific food, some knitting, and a ton of laughter make for a great evening.

Earlier in the day I did manage to take a picture of the two hats I contributed to the charity.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Break on Through

To paraphrase Jim Morrison and The Doors I finally Broke on Through to The Other Side. The other side of my knitting block to be exact.

With thanks to all my knitting friends out here for their support and understanding, I finished my two hats I hadn't been working on for our local charity. Our knitting group has a get together at Kim's house tomorrow night where we are turning in our projects and I have two. I know two doesn't sound like much but I've never made hats before and so this is an accomplishment for me. I'll take pictures tomorrow.

Speaking of breaking through, MFB's Maple Leafs finally broke their 6 game losing streak last night by defeating Tampa Bay 5-4. He didn't see the game as he was playing hockey.

My Avalanche are on their second game of a 3 game home stand and they won their first game on Monday night by defeating the Hurricanes 5-2. That was a late night for me. At this very moment they are playing St Louis and leading 3-1 4-1 in the 3rd period. They really need to win these 3 straight as they are not sitting pretty in the NW.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Disappointment

DU Pioneers have canceled the game they invited the Icers to play in October 2007. They just found out that the game had to count toward their regular season and could not be an exhibition game. DU's regular season schedule for 2007-2008 was already set.

A lot of us here will be disappointed for different reasons.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Catching Up part 100

I received an email from my friend at OC Knitiot who reminded me that I hadn't posted since November. I think it's because the only knitting news I have is the lack of news. Maybe I have too many projects on the go both in knitting and in life.

One would think I would have my scarves done by now or the little purse out of Noro but I truly have not finished anything in over a month. Can you tell I'm embarrassed? Here's a picture of the progress I have made on my Herringbone Rib scarf from Li.

Lately I have been concentrating on system upgrades and I found this cool add on if you use Mozilla Firefox rather than Explorer. It's called Clipmarks and rather than bookmarking an entire web site or say a post from one of you where you have your knitting how to's, it allows me to highlight and save excerpts from your posts. It organizes by tags and also remembers the addy of your post. It's great.

What's not great is my Denver Broncos against San Diego. San Diego just moved to 28-3 and it's only the end of the first half. Broncos made a quarterback change a couple weeks ago so you know we are not having a good year. Then there's the NHL teams MFB and I watch. His Maple Leafs have lost seven straight. My Avalanche won at least one game last week, but last night it looked like they decided not to play three periods of hockey (just like the Leafs) and I stayed up very late to watch them loose last night.

Our Penn State Icers had their 13 game winning streak snapped this weekend when they split a two game series against the Windsor/St Clair Saints. The Icers played well against the OHA AAA Senior Major League team and I believe this now puts the record between the two teams at 5-5-1. It was a good battle this weekend.

Here's some news that MFB broke on Friday's webcast: Penn State Icers have accepted an invitation to play the Denver University Pioneers in Denver in October of 2007. That's the Pioneers D1 team who have won the Frozen Four the last two of three years. I'm realistic that Penn State being an ACHA team going up against the NCAA National Champions don't have much of a chance in that matchup but they have a terrific goal to train for. In a couple months my fingers will be flying fast and furious looking for flights and hotel reservations.

Posting this picture may give me the motivation to finish the hat by this Thursday night which is it's deadline for my knitting groups charity project.

Wow I just read through this and it sounds a bit negative. I'm not - I've just been really busy. Work is always a little crazy although I love it. We have some wonderful friends here even though we've lived in the area less than two years and I've been lucky over the last two weeks to spend maybe not a lot of time with them, but cherished time. Hope you all are spending your time with your friends and family as well.