Yarnivorous

G'day all! Well maybe not the best of all days but not bad considering. 17 years ago on this day, after most of a year battling cancer, my mother died. It was a sad but in a way welcome thing. She had been so very sick and was fighting so hard, but there comes a time when you have to let them go. Someones Back 'Ome are facing a different but very similar problem. Their baby was born with a severe disability. Baby can't swallow so she breathes in any of the usual upper body baby fluids and her lungs are shot. What do you say to a couple whose baby can't stay in this world, not for love nor money? She's only a little thing. She's not had much chance at life. They've tried so hard.... So on this sad day, I look at the good things, the memories, the things that are learned. I thank Mum for passing on the crafty genes (though the Old Man was a crafter too) and for keeping me alive when I was a little wusster (asthma) so that I can enjoy this life. I ref...

G'day all! May is usually my flat month (three significant death anniversaries) but the last week has been rockin' so that is good :-) I thought things were not going so well when the Holy Blessed Sock (ie the sock that had been held by the Great One herself, aka the yarnharlot) took two weeks to knit. Oh my. 76 stitches and 2mm needles and it just draggggggged onnnn and onnnnnnnnnn and onnnnnnnnnnnn. So I finally got it to the point where I could cast it off and forget about it for the time being. I thought it killed my sock mojo. Nope! Got these ones done in a WEEK! I really enjoyed knitting these. I think it showed in that it took very little time to knit them. Yarn is Crystal Palace Panda Cotton in colourway Strawberries and Limes, I think (can't find the labels lurking - they will appear sooner or later). The colours are closest in the first and last pics, at least on my laptop which has very wonky colour balance. I used 2.5mm needles and a few less stitches th...

G'day all! My web host is down at the moment so pics are not happening from it. Since I now have a Flickr pro account, I might start using it for pics instead. BTW, I am natiel3 on Flickr. I've started putting up pics from our travels on it. Given that I took 700 pics plus some wonky-vids on the weekend and I tend to take about 200+ pics a day when we go someplace, this is going to take a while. And I don't put *all* the pics up, just the ones I think are worthwhile. Strange things from the weekend? Passing war/veteran's cemeteries on Monday. Each grave had a little American flag stuck into it. There were a lot of graves and a lot of flags. (Wonder where the flags were made? USA or China?) Memorial Day is a big thing here. We don't even get a day off for Remembrance Day back home. The rental car having the engine light on for most of Sunday, then it disappearing once we were back at sea level - must be some sort of altitude effect. Admitting that most of t...

G'day all! We hired a car. It is very strange driving. Very quick to get to WF and back but I feel so divorced from the road. We are going for a LOOONG drive, ok not that long, only up to Tahoe in the Sierra Nevadas. It turns out to be a long weekend here in the USA for Memorial Day . So we will drive to SF and pick up a work friend of Nathan's and choof off into the wild blue yonder. So far I have packed food, some clothes (suitable for a place that is good 2km+ above sea level - that will knock us around!), a book to read, a little knitting (of course - new socks, just finished a pair in a WEEK after the horrid PS sock of doom and despair that took two weeks of knitting for one anklet!), toiletries better come too eh? Don't want to be stinky! Ah, the spare electric kettle cos we like tea and my breakfast has to be soaked in very hot water. Umm, hope I have what we need! We don't have accommodation booked but I looked online yesterday and there was a lot avail...

G'day all! I am no longer grumpy but dangnabbit! A cop just cited Nathan for riding on the footpath. Grr. Nathan rides about 20m on the footpath cos it is the way to the train station and bingo bango they nab him. That is the only time he rides on the path! It isn't actually clear from the Californian highway Code or whatever they call it here that it is illegal but there was a ped so Nathan was "being dangerous." And the cop called him an illegal immigrant. I would love to show you photos of all the lovely things I've seen recently to take the edge off the dangnabbits but they are on Nathan's machine and I have to copy them to mine rather than just looking at them through the network (cos looking at them via the network doesn't work at the moment). I have lots of pics and couldn't find them cos I forgot they were on either my desktop (which is out of action) or Nathan's, which is inconvenient. I bought 3 balls of yarn today. My bad! anon!

(I wish it was my photo but I stole it from the wikipedia page on crabs) Grump growl grump. Having a bad day. Having a rotten WEEK! grump growl.....

G'day all! Today I abandoned the lovely ladies of the San Jose SnB and trawled off with my darling husband to places far. Well, far if you have to take the bus and ride there. Must say we got a really good park, unlike most of the people there - they drove and the parking was a little limited. Why? Cos of this! Yep, that is my nephew swimming in his pet event. The 200m breaststroke. Is that exciting? A couple of pictures of a random swimmer in a yellow cap bobbing up and down. Almost as good as the gazillions of pics I took of whales years ago - they were tiny little specs in the photos. LOL He came second! There he is on the dias, on the left of the pic. It really is him! For his efforts, he got a beany whale (Which he gave to me) a medal (which he didn't give to me!!!) a fancy water bottle and a TEN DOLLAR gift voucher! Don't spend it all at once! LOL Craig and Nathan. (Would you buy a used car off the chap with the beard? Nathan was feeling a little sheepish ...