Merry Holidays

Good Lord, I forgot it was Monday and my usual blog day. If Dave had the TV on to Monday night football I would know it’s Monday. But he doesn’t because he is playing Diablo on his computer.

Manliness 1, Dave 0.

Anyway, Happy Holidays and all that. I have a few hilarious family photos to share, which are always good for a laugh. I love the missing man formation (where I, the picture taker, am not actually in the picture) or the fact that we sat in front of the camera for up to two minutes before deciding that the timer mechanism was probably not working correctly. Good times, people, good times.

So, by this time next week I will have my pictures posted and live video of Jack on a quilt. Because that’s what everyone waits for.

In the meantime, I am going to rest my bloat on the couch and enjoy some football before Christmas vacation is over, and I start looking forward to New Years.

I hope you, dear reader(s) (in case there are more than one of you) have had a wonderful Christmas holiday.

 

Is there such a thing as Blogerism?

Really. I am so over the top with the Blogess again. I swear it. If I could select all, copy her blog, paste it here and call it mine I would so do it.

But I somehow think that breaks at least 6 or 7 laws, or statutes or ticks off the APA nazi’s, or get’s me a ticket from Blogspot. Something.

I have to copy one thing though, because when I saw the commercial for Barbara Walter’s 10 most fascinating people (Baba Wawa) I said the exact same thing. EXACTLY-

“ I don’t like to criticize, but if your list of the ten most fascinating people includes three Kardashians then you’re doing it wrong.”

Absolutely no shit. The best part of the interviews was where Barbara says to the Kardashians “You don’t sing, you don’t dance…..um, you have no talent”. I will say that Blane likes the Kardashians. In a Friday night hooker sort of way.

We are in the final countdown to Christmas. It seems like I have hardly even seen all the Hallmark/Lifetime movies yet. Although there is an especially bad one playing tonight.

Cody took off for his cruise and called me this AM to tell me he flew the red eye. Literally. He was completely hung over and irritated fellow passengers by getting up to go to the bathroom and disturbing his sleeping seat mates. Then, in his words, making the returning veterans who were sitting around him, who have already suffered the horrors of Afghanistan, suffer through his “heinous gas”. My son is why I hate to fly.

There are a couple of convos (short for conversation, sort of in the same vein as whatev) I have to relate that actually happened in my house.

The first one just happened-JUST HAPPENED!

Dave is changing the channel (incessantly)

Sarah-(listening to bad Christmas movie with Billy Ray Cyrus and even worse child actor who I think played the childhood Shawn in Psych-and my God that was a long intro) What is this? Is this football?

Dave-Yes, this is Thursday night Football on Saturday.

Sarah-Oh, so this game has already been played.

Dave-No, it’s Thursday night football on Saturday.

Sarah-So, the game was played on Thursday and they are showing it on Saturday.

Dave-No, it’s Thursday night football on Saturday.

This is like one of those mirrors that are opposite each other where you see yourself to infinity. (And it was a new football game, being played on Saturday night but being billed as Thursday night football, and no, there is no logical explanation)

The other thing that happened happened a while ago and was so ridiculous it took me a while to even be able to blog it.

Sarah in bed reading a book-Dave picking up a shirt off the bed that we have been moving around on the bed for several days now because neither one of us wants to face the inevitable-

Dave-this is not my shirt.

Sarah-Well then it’s Blane’s, go throw it on his bed

Dave-(insert foot stomp here) I don’t want to-I want to go to bed.

Sarah-Seriously? It’s less than 15 feet away.

Next day red shirt is on dining room table which is 2 feet from the doorway where the shirt could be tossed on the bed. Really? Really Dave?

Now, I know that walking across the house was equated, by Dave, to the Bataan Death March, but I could not get behind that at all.

But, if I were Mrs. William Windsor Duke of Cambridge, I could probably understand and might even sympathize if this sort of thing went on

William-Bugger off-this is not my shirt

Kate-That’s bugger off your highness, thank you very much, and the maid’s valet probably mixed up Harry’s  with yours, so go throw it on his bed.

William-What? Do you have any idea what that entails?

Kate-Seriously Wills, it’s only down the hallway.

See? That’s a convo I could jolly well see as reasonable. Because, those people live here-and it’s a long way down the hall.

 

Laura has a bun…

Last weekend I went to Minneapolis for the long awaited yarn dyeing weekend with my friend Jill.

Jill had, long ago, ordered up a cone of fingering wt wool, bare and ready to dye.

After some thought, we decided to use a Kool Aide dyeing method. It’s non toxic, easy to do, and makes some nice colors.

I got there on Friday, knitted, watched some TV and made a list of necessities for the next day-things like tape and seran wrap, and, of course, some Kool Aide. Woo Hoo.

We decided on one more important stop-Lila and Claudines to bask in the fibery ambiance. And, I hadn’t seen the expansion, which lived up to it’s hype, and then some.

I bought some sock weight yarn to dye. It was my understanding that to do Kool Aide dyeing the fiber had to be all natural, and my sock yarn had 20% nylon. I was kinda scared.

So we set up. Jill had made some sweet little books for us to document our experimentations, and laminated some instructions.

Oh, I forgot. The other thing we bought was a scale to weigh yarn. We wanted to dye in 100 gm hanks. It was a precise operation.

Jill labeled the glasses for the dye and off we went. Here’s a little pictorial for your viewing pleasure.

 

 

 

 

See? The yarn really isn’t as shiny as it looks in the picture. It’s just the crap camera, and, well, you know. And, my yarn took up the dye, even with the nylon. Good to know.

I am planning on dyeing the rest of mine very soon.

Thanks to Jill for being the hostess with the mostess-and for making me a scarf that I don’t have a picture of yet. But I will soon, very soon.

Oh yeah, Laura and her bun. That was my teaser to make people stick with the parts that only interested Jill and me.

I figure if people got sick of reading and looking at my dyeing experience and couldn’t get to the Laura part-well, then that’s how rumors get started.

Laura came to the upper eschalon of the 2100 and this is what happened-in real time

Laura-I have a bun.

Sarah-Oh.

Laura-Here let me show you (turning around slowly). I can’t make this work.

Sarah-Well, you need to stick a pencil in it. That always makes it work.

Laura-Where’s a pencil?

Sarah-Here, let me get it good and sharp.

Laura-Ah Ha! that works! Let me show you-

Sarah-Sweet. Wait. I must have a photograph.

 

And, sadly my friends, that is one of the more thoughtful and intelligent of our conversations last week. It was a long week.

But when all was said and done, we did a little reveling, alien style.

 

I need a rider.

Dear Home and Auto Owners Insurance Company:

Yesterday my husband freaking lost his mind pointed out that I have a crazy bat-sh*t amount several sewing machines in my basement.

I went over and stood in front of his bigger than any of my machines plasma flat screen TV and said “Four. I have four sewing machines. Each serving a different purpose. And you should be happy I added another one

because now you don’t have to lug the 40+ pound work horse upstairs anymore”.

He was somewhat pleased about that, but wondered what the others are for.

I told him the little one is for being here when I need it and the 4th is actually a Serger.

Although he was a little distracted by the football game so the conversation actually went something like this:

Dave-Surgeon? Like I don’t work at Mayo and we can get one of those covered by insurance?

Me-Not surgeon, SERGER. Like a cutting/finishing machine.

Dave-Cutting fish? I won’t eat a sturgeon and you can’t make me.

After that, it deteriorated to juvenile name calling and various one-up-manships that aren’t important to this communication.

What is important is that the machines are worth a chunk of change, and, as my husband said quietly through gritted teeth suggested I might need to tell you, sweet insurance company that fixed my new car when I hit the deer and rebuilt half my house when it burned down, I have some expensive equipment that I can’t live without.  I need to know that you will happily (meaning you won’t give me any double talk and crap) replace said equipment without complaint, if I tell you honestly that I have it and it should, heaven forbid, be mortally injured by an act of God.

Thank you so much for your time, and please don’t raise my rates just because you think I’m crazy and won’t notice. Because I will, and so will my husband.

Sincerely,

Sewing Machine Lady

PS. If you are worried about me affording all this high end equipment, never fear. I work for the person who sold it to me. And to make ends meet, she has let me and a few others put some extra time in her sweatshop store. And next time, she said she’d even turn the heat on.

 

LiveJournal Tags: sewing machines,Bernina

Doin’ it better than me…..almost.

So, first of all, Blane’s 27th birthday on the 17th.

 

This makes me officially old. Because, after all, it is all about me. Plus that’s not any cake, that’s a Daube’s cake. Oh yeah.

Earlier in the day we had another Daube’s cake at work, because it was Cathy’s birthday. (It was also Jules birthday, and my former boss Sue, and Lynette in the office-it was a crazy amount of birthdays which makes me wonder about the 9 months previous to this date-Valentine’s Day? Puhleese.)

That all happened.

So I thought I’d blog it, but then I got to reading the Blogess and I was seriously feeling bad about my own blog. Even one of my co workers, who does not blog and should not throw stones, or whatever is appropriate for dissing a blog when you don’t write one, said my blog was a dull retelling of my boring life. Really.

So the Blogess was getting me down, down, down. I mean, the woman is hilarious and she has a cat named Ferris Mewler. Ferris Mewler-She originally chose the name Bob Barker, which is about as good as Ferris Mewler. I have Cat. Which I spell in the French Chat so my obvious inability to name animals isn’t so obvious. Not only that, but this lack of talent in naming is apparently generational since Blane’s cat is named Good Kitten.

And not only is the cat named Ferris Mewler, it has 5 toes on each foot. It has EXTRA freaking toes.

Here’s our list

No tail

No eye

No brain

(Yes he’s in the bathtub and no, he doesn’t know why)

And I am sure Ferris does not stalk the dog toys, that the dogs refuse to sniff, retrieve, or even carry around to simulate normal dog activity.

Then I started reading the links to other blogs off of the Blogess’s site and I was even more down about my pathetic attempts at entertaining myself in an online forum.

But then I realized I have one thing, the one thing, that no other blog will ever have..

**

My ever faithful and steady blog muse Laura. And even better, she is carrying a cow. If you only knew. 

Game on bloggers, game on.

**RIP Twinkles

The Northwest and Back

So, when I left everyone I was in Vegas. We were there packing up and the next day off we went to the airport. Martha flying directly to Seattle, me? not so much.

It was a sunny day in Vegas at the airport.

Here’s the snow we ran into at Red Rock yesterday.

I got to Phoenix after a while.

And when I got there, I decided that I could not face steerage. I just couldn’t. I was too used to foot space. I love me some foot space. So I did the unthinkable-I upgraded to first class. My friend Julie (jchant) says they charge so much to keep the riff raff out. Like me. Because I didn’t quite know what to do with myself up there.

I took a picture of my feet. Because I could see them.

And a picture of the seat next to me (empty with biiig arm rests)

And, the stuff they gave me.

I got club soda, TWO cookie packs, a pillow AND a blanket. Draped over the huge arm rest. Seriously. The flight attendant thought I was weird taking these pictures. I thought she was very lazy. She hardly waited on me at all. She got to sit and do her crossword the whole flight. Note to self-don’t fly US Airways. Ever. Again.

Mount Baker greeted us as we got to Western Washington-

And, check out the Seattle landmarks.

Seattle docks, Safeco and Century Link Fields.

Took a picture of the mountain on the way home to Tacoma. But I didn’t take any pictures whilst I was there. Not one.

I was only here for a couple of days. Watched some football, checked out the new ovens (sweet) and did my biz. Oh, and went to Nordstrom (again) and this time I did a little retail therapy and got a new credit card. It’s time I got some rewards.

Then hopped a plane for home sweet home.

Sunrise to the south and the Cascade range. There are three mountains there (4 actually, but it’s really hard to see the 4th). I do miss the mountains.

But when I got back, the fields of Minnesota were just fine with me-

 

Plugged into the radio (my favorite station),

and arrived in St. Charles, all in one piece.

Except I’m still missing these clothes.

A Little Vacation, A Lotta Travel-Chapter 1

So, as I said I took a little vacay last week. I think it was last week. I started out by travelling to Vegas to see Cody.

I took the early van to MSP

And while I was waiting for this, I finished this

The first of the  winter Skacel/Knit Purl Hunter KAL.

I headed out of MSP and made a stop in Denver. While I was flying there, the guy next to me said he was sure relieved that the flight wasn’t cancelled because of the snow storm in Denver. Really? Snow Storm? I am mightily glad I didn’t know that before I flew.

It was a little snowy, but not bad.

See the snow didn’t stick to the ground. So I got in just in time to wait.

DIA is kind of a weird place. The Frontier lady told me it’s supposed to look like the snowy rocky mountains. Maybe.

And then to Vegas.

The purpose of going to Vegas at this time was to see Angie who went with a group for her 30th birthday. But it was also to see Cody, and to visit with Martha.

Well, I did visit with Cody and ran all over with Martha, but never got to see Angie. She was very busy celebrating on the Strip.

Meanwhile, Martha and I ran around Vegas. We went to the Old Navy and Nordstrom Rack, (that was just the first night-we returned to Old Navy the next day) followed by the Quiltique quilt store, and then to west Vegas to the yarn store. Gosh we were busy.

The weather was beautiful. For the day.

We ate lunch at the Bistro at the Arts Factory, and they had very cool palette tables.

See? Cool. We ate a vegan lunch, and I have to be honest, those Vegans sort of came back at us. We were a little queasy after lunch. It was a delish veggie sandwich with sweet potato fries. We never figured it out, but after a few Tums we felt a little better.

We decided to head towards the strip to see if we could find Angie at O’Shea’s, but instead found this-

That’s what I’m talkin’ about. And it was the half yearly sale. I didn’t buy anything, but enjoyed the sweet ambiance of the customer service known as Nordstrom.

We went out to the strip, to O’Shea’s, but we weren’t able to find Angie. And we had to go meet Cody for dinner. I complained that the strip was too crowded so Martha took this picture to prove my point.

See how disturbing those crowds are? Jeepers. We had to go.

We saw some of the lights of Vegas, and the sunset as we drove away.

The Luxor

The Lights

  

The Sunset

We had Sushi with Cody and his friend Maral. So sushilicious. We were over the attack of the Vegans and thoroughly enjoyed our dinner.

The next day we decided to go to the Ethel M chocolate factory, where they make Mars candy (you know, like M&M’s, Mars bars etc). They also make other fine candies, and have a pretty cool cactus garden. Which, by the way, was getting spruced up for Christmas.

 

After we toured the factory and bought some delicious chocolates, we took a turn around the cactus garden.

 

I took a bazillion pictures, but I have to keep going with the story.

Because after this lovely scene, we decided to go to Red Rock Canyon. (I put in this link because it has the picture gallery, where you can see there really is snow-we couldn’t make that up)

We started the drive and saw this-

 

Lovely sunny mountains on the right, but where we were going,

well, not so much.

We got to the canyon, which was beautiful, by the way

But it was getting pretty chilly and the weather was coming….

As we drove up the canyon,

it started to blow and to snow. My first snow of the season and it’s in Vegas.

I have been to Vegas three times now, and each time it has rained. Each time.

Anyway, by this time I had put on two extra shirts Martha had in the car, and I got out to take the above picture, and Martha got this picture of me

Crazy. Oh, and that blue sweater and coral shirt? They never made it home. Don’t know where they went, but this is the last known picture of those clothes. Sad. But true.

We left the Red Rock Canyon and went directly to the Red Rock Canyon Casino

Yep. After another trip across town to another yarn store that we thought was 5 minutes away but was actually a half hour away and closing when we got there, we met Cody here for dinner buffet. Because seriously, if in Vegas, one must have a casino buffet.

We finally got back to the hotel and packed up for travel early the next day-

And so ends the first part of the journey. Stay tuned for part two-coming soon to a blog near you.