Birthday panda

panda again
Originally uploaded by kamsarmer

Keychain/luggage tag for my friend Hazel.

Turned out pretty well!

stolen from bb

things I like:
crisp weather outdoors calling for big sweaters
my dog looking like a bear in his curly winter coat
Irish whiskey, neat
James May

not so much:
the new moon movie
folding laundry
some parts of work

things I saw yesterday:
puddles
a sweet smile on a bus-riding friend
my favorite yogurt

things that are wearing out quickly:
my work pants
darkness at 4PM

my radio stations on Pandora:
ELO
The Kinks
The Hawaiian War Chant
The Beatles (for the girlie)
Careless Love
Brad Paisley
Harry Connick Jr

electronic gifts I might not refuse:
a Wii
an iPod
an iPhone

problems my car is having:
I think it misses me as I'm walking to the bus lately

things to be happy about:
rain boots
roast potatoes
steady work with benefits and paychecks
my dear redhead and girlie

It's cold and it's damp

The suet feeder was lying in the yard next to the front porch when we came to look at the house. I'd always wondered what kinds of birds were drawn to a suet feeder, so of course, I took it as a sign that we ought to rent the place. We did.

Flickers, chickadees, juncos, and nuthatches. The crow who tried it out this last weekend was dark and glossy and incredibly suave, save the leaf caught on his back left claw. As he tried to look cool hanging from the feeder, it flapped quite garishly, like toilet paper caught on a lady's high heel. Silly crow.

Here is proof of some knitting, my dog, the wall over my desk and a link to other photos of things in my backyard, if you're interested.

Something

Figured I'd better have one of George's songs as the title to this post. After much wrangling, we've wrested photos from her phone (my camera battery died just before the big day).

I think she makes a smashing mop-top, how about you? I made the guitar and have firmly decided that cardboard is my new medium. I love that she still lets me participate in her costumes.

Her George mimicry and the batch of perfectly roasted pumpkin seeds were the crowning delight of my Halloween this year.

I have some fall photos to post and will try to do so soon. That includes *GASP* knitting which will be blocking tomorrow as I very happily take a Friday off.

Hope all is well with you!

Thanks, Lizzie!

What Would Happen Then

A bird, bright and quick, blue with livid streaks,

would arrive on the windowsill, as official harbinger, and then.

The low would be raised up,

the sneers crushed under their own bricks,

the teeter-totter would cease to choose sides

and sit in peaceful sway on its fulcrum

The kiss that had been held back

all those years at last would release

into the mouth in flood.

And why not would replace all other dicta,

but gently, as a sunlit nudge.

By April Bernard from Swan Electric

"..sometimes, you get what you need..."

Ever since I started crafting, I gazed in admiration at the walls of cool stuff others had in their work areas. Mind you, I loved using my kitchen table, but it wasn't MY space ( and I know that you know what I mean.)

Well, my dear redhead has disassembled a corner desk that we had and made a long, "L" shaped desk that we can both use. He has the bottom of the "L" and I have the long area. I'm still sorting my craft boxes (read "crap" boxes in DH-speak), and I have pared down, but I'm getting to the home stretch. I had a few dollaroons left on a Michael's card, and I splurged on some cork wall squares for my wall.

More photos to come in better light showing how they look with some of the beginning stuff in place!

Here's where we went

sand
Originally uploaded by kamsarmer

Moclips beach. Nice.

a little list

It's Saturday. Here's why I haz a happy right now:

*cello practice happening in the living room
*chocolate zucchini muffins cooling in the kitchen
*first day of vacation..WHEEE!
*off to ocean tommorow
*back from ocean for home-time for part of vacation...YAY!
*Mr. Smartypants sitting beside me
*birds who have FINALLY figured out that there's more than one feeder in the backyard
*lovely neighbor to watch the Welshie while we're away
*new craft desk built by Mr. Fix-It (one of Mr. Smartypants' multiple personalities)
*this lovely pattern which I think I'm going to noodle with for beach knitting
*an end in sight to boxes from the move

more later!

Chocolate Maths

Nicked from Norma:


YOUR AGE BY CHOCOLATE MATH


DON'T CHEAT BY SCROLLING DOWN FIRST!

It takes less than a minute .



Work this out as you read .

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate (more than once but less than 10)

2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)

3. Add 5

4. Multiply it by 50 -- I'll wait while you get the calculator

5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1759 ..
If you haven't, add 1758..

6... Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

You should have a three digit number

The first digit of this was your original number
(i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).





The next two numbers are ...........






YOUR AGE!

Well, I'm peeking out from behind boxes to see if anyone's still there.

Hello-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!

We are making the final push tomorrow; heading back to old rental house to clean and tidy so that we can get all of our $$$$$ back. Then we can really start settling into new casita. It is a true casita, tiny and very sweet. The backyard is still uber-dreamy to me.

We've even had our first houseguest, sorta-kinda. He visited from the sun-baked desert-lands, and though he slept at Seth's folks' place, we had lots of fun showing him the town while he was here. Hoping he'll be back soon on a more permanent basis.

Work is busybusybusy, and the best boss in the world gave me tomorrow off for the big cleaning. Whatta doll.

Hope all is well in your corner, whoever is still reading this.

Crafting will resume once I have a flat surface to work on.

Ooh, my kind of game!

Go play!

What's up?

Last Thursday, I volunteered as a chaperone for an overnight zoo trip with about 42 6th graders. Very cool. We entered the zoo as they closed for the night, and did some behind the scenes tours. Between the girls texting late into the night and the boys ostensible water-fountain trips (actual reconnaissance missions to check out the girls), not much sleep was had. One of the teachers and I got fed up around 1 AM and wandered over to the boys area and just LOOKED at them. She whispered to me, "You know, if these kids were smart, they could be meeting up in the bathrooms". I like her. More tours in the early AM before general opening. We had great folks leading the tours, and I got the marshmallow group to chaperone--they were fabulous kids.

I have proof that my husband actually does listen to me at times; he found our new house! It was a brand-new listing, we were the first people to see it, and it's terrific. Smaller than where we are, but with a back yard that reminds me of every lovely park I've ever seen. It's ginormous, and the house is very, very welcoming and cozy. So happy.

shadows and a bit of my new red front door

new backyard

Centraal Station Antwerpen gaat uit zijn dak!

Wow.

Saturday

We had a good time at Kelsey park Farm.

April catch-up post

Oh my, time does fly. We've just found out that we will be moving and so are house-hunting. Yay.
Finally got tired of seeing the same page pop up when I go on-line so here is a mish-mash of:

Easter food
crafty mess
Dog Mountain Farm visit

More details when I have regained my will to blog (and blab).

Flowers!

My Dad sent these to me in an e-mail--sorry the detail isn't great and they're a bit hard to see, but wow. Made from begonias, grass and tree bark, mimicking the pattern in a medieval carpet design. This is something I'd love to go see in person. NOTE TO SELF: Renew passport!

new glasses

Tai's cowl

Tai's cowl
Originally uploaded by kamsarmer

It's Queensland Merino in the Peacock colorway. Some seed stitch at the neck end and drop stitch to open it up near the face. She liked mine so much she wanted one of her own! Happy to oblige.

Yarn!

I made something with this.

Perhaps I'll show it to you........tomorrow.

Will you be mine?

Meet Jellybean. He made friends with the
penguin on top of our telly, but knew he
was destined to give his heart to another......

She said yes!!!!

Marion says I should use this for my logo on softies.....she's a clever one, that girlie!
(He's made from an old sweater and really did have a hole there....)

I've had the mousie idea kicking around in my head for a few weeks now. I was really stumped and couldn't get my head around how to make him the way I wanted. Then, last evening, the sky parted, the heavenly choir sang, and as I trolled my favorite blogs, Molly Chicken saved the day. She is an amazingly creative woman--I love her! Go visit and prepared to be tickled pink by her delightful menagerie.

Happy Valentine's Day! Don't eat too much candy.

Quirky with a side of boring and a smattering of unremarkable.

Tagged by Judith (friend of Mandella and thereby friend of mine), I relate unto you these 6 trivial and unimportant tidbits about your humble narrator. Going to add photos just for fun.

1. When I get off the bus to walk up the hill to work, after crossing the street I always step up onto the sidewalk between the fire hydrant and the traffic light pole.





2. I was the world's pickiest eater as a child. I'm a bit better now. A bit.











3. It's been brewing for some time now, but after watching the premiere of Top Gear's Season 12 and watching far too many You Tube clips, I've finally realized that I have a terrific crush on James May.









































4. I find macadamia nuts to be a waste of time .










5. I am extremely myopic, a perfect candidate for refractive surgery, and after 20+ years in ophthalmology, you couldn't pay me to have it done.







6. On many occasions throughout my life, I have gotten so excited about traveling that I have literally made myself sick.







I know that this one has made the rounds, so I will break the rule and not tag forward, but if anyone is interested in playing along, please do! Thanks, Judith!

TopGear Season 12 Preview

This show is unparalleled. SO. MUCH. FUN!!!!

FINDING JESUS « Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?

FINDING JESUS « Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?

shoes and stripes forever

plaid and stripes.

Peeeeenk

Amarillo

Yellow. Not a traditional Christmas color,
but both of these were taken right
around the big day.

Just outside our house during the storms
that kept us away from work and school
for a few days.














Cookies made by Fran in a successful attempt
to recreate Geri's classic peanut butter kiss
cookies. They were GOOD.






Tomorrow will be interesting. Pink is not
one of my favorite colors, but I'm sure
there's a bit of it in my Flickr photos.....

Idea stolen from here (cool blog) who was inspired by an idea from here (yet another cool blog!)
I'm slow to join the party, but I think the color week idea is so much fun that I'm playing anyway.





Blue for Monday (always a good choice): a knitted/felted backpack I made for Marion way back when she took ballet and needed a bag for her gear.




And Purple for Tuesday: hydrangeas in the backyard this summer.






More colors to come. I'll try to keep up.

knitting

Blue Moon mohair yarn in
Blarney Stone colorway.

Really sumptuous.

Tried 3 or 4 things with it and frogged it each time.

Finally got it right.

Cast on 100 stitches, size 6 circs.
Garter stitch till I had just a little left,
then did some drop stitch rows to open it up near the face.

For me!

Thanks again for the yarn, KT!