New Year’s day will be a pajamas-all-day experience for me, or that is the plan. We will do our annual batch of “Hoppin’ John” which is a blackeyed pea/rice dish eaten a lot in the southern states of the USA. It is especially popular on New Year’s day because the blackeyed peas (small beans, actually) are considered good luck.

I knew a woman from Texas once. She said she had a friend who put dried blackeyes in her change purse for good financial luck. That sounds messy to me, but I definitely enjoy the food anyway and it is a great excuse to have a day designated for us to eat it.

Three years ago I posted one possible recipe for vegetarian Hoppin’ John. Maybe you would like to join me in the kitchen? Today would be the day to get your groceries, that is if you want a jammies day on the First.

Whatever you do, may you all have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2007.

It’s not my fault. Sometimes yarn just talks to me. A few years back I walked into Threadbear and they had Brown Sheep Burly Spun yarn on display. It told me “Rug.” I told the guys at Threadbear the yarn wanted to be a rug. They said, “a rug?” They could not imagine it. (Click photo at Left for a larger view.)

I did not know what it would end up looking like but I was sure. And now that very first Burly Spun rug (which became my Basketweave Rug pattern is still on display at the Threadbear shop. I’ve done several other rugs in other yarns but this one may still be my favorite. And the guys? They like it a lot, they just needed to see it first. (For the record, this rug makes a really great lap blanket as well.)

So Saturday I went to Rae’s to pick up a check she had for me, one of my favorite reasons for going to any yarn store. And some new yarn came in. Well, a yarn I’ve knit before but it was in new colors. She knew I would want to see, because it happened to come in hot pink, purple and turquoise, my favorite trio of colors. And the yarn whispered “Kid’s socks.” I was doomed.

You see, a few years ago I was doing work for Dawn Brocco’s Heels and Toes Gazette (which is no longer in production for new issues but the back issues are available on her website). I had an exciting idea. I wanted to do a series of socks for kids, where each sock was different but in the same two or three colors. It was an idea that came too late for the issue at hand and I had to sit on the idea. For years. Until Saturday.

I took home the yarn. I got out the needles. And visiting Altu at her restaurant, in the car on the way to a holiday party in Ann Arbor, part of the time at the party, on the way home and a little more at my desk at home… I knit.

And now I have two socks. I choose to do at least four socks, two pair, which can be interchanged at will. I have made them in a size that little Isabel across the street can wear. These I am doing now are prototypes and then I will of course need to write a pattern.

Yes, I said four. I only knit two so far, these are in the photo. But they won’t be complete until there are four total socks, and no two will be more a pair than any other pair from the total count. I just love this fun I’m having. I had not “allowed” myself to do stranded colorwork enough lately. This is more fun than I’ve had with wool in a looong time!!!

I LOVE these sockies. I love them. I want to be a toddler again and have unmatched fun sockies. I’m not sure I can loosen up quite that much but maybe I can.

As for Isabel, I am pretty sure that she will love her sox by “Grandma Lynnie.” And for her mother, April, I think having 4 socks will make it easier for two to get washed occasionally… because trying to take something away from Isabel when she loves it very much, is difficult to say the very least.

I’m still fighting a case of the almost-headache blahs (this is getting old, it’s gone from Tuesday to Saturday off and on). I must have half a cold bug or something, it is taking my energy level down a bit. I’m afraid to sing too much until our gig is over Sunday night. But I did have a bit of excitement today, don’t you agree?

I’m on a major roll. I finished a pair of socks for Brian on Christmas day. I finished another gift pair on the 26th. I dug through all my boxes of unfinished projects to see what else I had on the needles. On the 28th I finished a pair for me. Right now I am finishing another pair.

Four pair in a week? Cool. OK, I surely did not *Knit* them all in that time, but I finished them and that counts for something. I was so low on small-sized double-pointed needles that I kept having to buy new sets. I will be free of that problem for at least a little while now. And since I usually knit two socks at the same time, on two sets of DPN’s, that is a nice cashflow boost, which I will enjoy.

Why do I have so many partial pairs of socks? Mostly because of teaching. I teach a particular pattern or technique, I work along with the class. I finish one sock or part of a sock, to the point where the class is done and I showed them what they needed to see. Then the project sits for the next class. Assuming there *is* another class, that is. Eventually I get to keep some of these for myself and that is a perk of my job. It takes a while for that to happen sometimes, though.

Both of the pairs I’m finishing for me this week were used as afterthought-heel demos. That has not been a big draw class in the past, though now I have five people already signed up for my class starting January 25 at Rae’s shop. Woohoo! This is my favorite sock structure for my own foot and I’m always happy to show it to others.
However, I am still doing other business tasks and therefore I have not taken photos of many recent completed socks for you. I just added five items under Polymer Clay Buttons on the shop. I did a little mailing to those who had asked for notices if I had new yarns, etc… and to an email list which allows advertisements.

And since the Fabulous Heftones are doing some performances in the next month or two, I did a mailing (paper and email) to encourage folks to come out. It’s more fun to sing to a crowd than an empty room, you know?

And lucky me, I have some yarn to dye. Nothing like a winter vacation, huh???

At least we had great food for dinner and a nice walk in the neighborhood after dinner. That’s a mini-vacation, a break of sorts. After dinner we did a little promo recording for a friend who has a podcast, and I’m working on my afterthought heel socks between typing here and there.

And I am counting my blessings. My life is pretty good, you know? I spent 4 hours today at Foster Center. I had fourteen children today and they were lively. One child knit, everyone else was on the computers. The knitter learned to unknit one stitch at a time (it’s called TINKing, which is knit spelled backwards… I did not make this up). She also learned how to make a tube by knitting on double-pointed needles. Magic. She has a couple of skeins of Noro Kureyon yarn and is making wristwarmers that change color slowly like a rainbow, in orange and pink and lavender. We both thought it was glorious.

Blessings. A space heater blowing on my feet right now is the best one of the moment. What I would have done for my very own space heater when I was in Africa, I can only imagine…. it got very cold at night where we were.

Photos are of three polymer clay offerings I added to the shop today. Photos of socks will follow when I can get free to do non-business work. If you want to see something new, though, I re-wrote the main page to my polymer clay subsite on Christmas Day, and it has some photos there… some old and some new, but probably all new to most of you readers out there.

Sometimes I forget I’m human… twice this week I got major headaches from “forgetting” to eat lunch. Lunch really is not optional, I need some sort of fuel mid-day as we all do. However, my schedule is odd and I often eat breakfast just before I leave and then I’m out for so long that I miss a meal time. If I could buy food at a restaurant I bet I would do it, but I am allergic to almost anything (but sushi or lettuce salad) that is available in restaurants. I’m relatively bad at planning packed meals when I’m going to be in town. Clearly this part of my life needs renewed focus, because the headaches are no fun.

So last night after getting out of computer lab I did as many of my errands as I could. (I did miss Rae’s knit in, unfortunately, but I got to see the folks at Threadbear and Linda at Little Red Schoolhouse anyway.) And then it was dinnertime. Brian got home from work around 8:20pm and we decided we would go out for sushi. I usually have lunch with Altu on Thursdays but for the 2 weeks of Holiday vacation I’m working the computer lab and I have to miss that ritual. So I went to the same sushi restaurant at a different time of day with a different person, and had the same great food.

Then home. I did bake a bit, more granola bars. I am getting pretty good at these, though I’m still not at the stage where they are perfect enough to stop tweaking the recipe. Every batch is a new experiment and these are very very good. If I’d had some granola bars in the freezer to start yesterday, I would have had food in my purse when I was hungry midday and maybe I could have skipped the headache.

I’m trying to think of more things like this, that I can make and freeze ahead for a quick afternoon boost. Maybe I can figure make some pumpkin bread or some sort of cookie/brownie/bar.
After baking the granola bars I went to bed. It was 11:00pm. I typically can not sleep until 1:30am at the earliest, and sometimes I’ll go to bed at 3am and not be able to sleep right away. Last night? I knit for a very short while but could not keep my eyes open. I was asleep by 11:15. I had taken a nice cup o’tea up there with me. When I awoke that cup was still on the stand with only a sip or two out of it.

Sleep is the universal cure. When there was little medicine to cure people, they would go to bed and sleep until the body could work through an illness on its own. I felt positively sick when I woke up briefly at 1am, but now it is 10am, I slept for almost 11 hours and I feel human again. Whew!!!

And as they say, tomorrow (today in this case) is another day. I’m so glad to feel well, it will be a good one.

I am at my desk in total silence other than the clicking of the keys and an occasional car passing by. I can not think of anything I would rather do today than continue this quiet bliss.

I am a very social person but I get wiped out by too many people, and then I need a quiet retreat. Last night when I got home after 4 hours with children at Foster Center, Brian offered to go out so that I could be alone. I said no at the time, but I would love some of that right this minute.

As it is, I am going to go run some errands, be with kids for 4 more hours this afternoon, run more errands, maybe hang at Rae’s for the Thursday night Knit in, and *then* be home in relative quiet. That is only a few hours away and I will be fine. I sure love it when the loudest thing I can hear is the furnace blower… total luxury.

There is still much to do for my business during this low-teaching time of year. I start my adult teaching schedule on January 7/Sunday, at Threadbear, teaching Perfect Hug Shawl (which is essentially three shawls in one pattern, depending on the size/length/yarn you choose). The photo at right is Diana modeling the Goddess size version.

Until then I have a website to fill (I took photos of six button entries today which will be added to the cart tonight if all goes well). And of course, our New Year’s Eve concert.

I have stayed up too late several days this week but finally crashed at a more normal time for me last night. Then I woke up when the garbage truck passed by and could not sleep again. It could be worse… I did get a bit done this morning.

I think I’m also a little dragged out from the smoke the other night. You see, we went to open mic night at Dagwood’s Tavern on Tuesday. We love the people there, and our friend Jen Sygit is the hostess of the weekly event. I always love going there when I can find a Tuesday night free.

We had a blast but I had to yell a bit to be heard when chatting, so my voice is tired, and all that smoke is hard on the sinuses at this time of year. Never mind that kids are sneezing on everything at work. Yesterday after the kids left I spent 15 minutes wiping down all the computer mice and keyboards, hoping to make things a little better for them. It’s definitely “wash hands often” season. So far so good, I’ve been quite well this last few years.

So today I will venture forth. The good news is that once I get going I enjoy myself. It is just that changing of gears that is hard for me. I’m just not good at transitions. Especially on cold, gray winter days.

I will make color in my day and I will bundle up. And I will enjoy the folks I see once I go forth! Have a good one, too.

Photo: The Fabulous Heftones at Dagwoods. Thanks to Jen Sygit for taking the photo.

Chris Wardell of Lansing Community Newspapers interviewed me via email yesterday, for an article regarding The Fabulous Heftones (and in particular our 8-9pm New Year’s Eve show at Lansing’s El Azteco basement, now called the Aztec Room). He says “The story will run in the Towne Courier for sure, possibly some other papers.”

I am not sure what the publication dates are. I think his deadline was Wednesday. It will surely be printed before Sunday, though, since that is the date we perform.

I will be on the lookout for the paper, though it mostly focuses on the East Lansing, Haslett and Okemos (Meridian Township) area and I am in the City of Lansing. Do keep your eye out for the article if you are in town. The Towne Courier does not have a web presence at all, so I won’t be able to share a link to it from this blog.

I’m pretty excited. I just found the email address for performance announcements at these papers, the week of Thanksgiving. I got an email thank you from the editor on Thanksgiving day, believe it or not. And already they are doing an article. I feel very supported. By the way, I grew up in the area that the Towne Courier covers so it is a little like being welcomed home. Way cool.

If you are interested in the show or The Aztec Room as a venue, you can check out the location’s MySpace page by clicking here.

Diana has been cooking all things sunny lately, in celebration of the sun’s return. Golden beets rather than red, yellow bell peppers, chard in yellow and gold… and citrus.

She posted a recipe for Sunshine Orange Shortbread on her blog yesterday. I know how much you like recipes. Diana is an artist in the kitchen, I can assure you that these cookies will be delicious.

Tracy (who test-knit my Button, Button, Who’s Got the Hat? pattern last year and I swear also tested my tea cozy the year before but I can’t find the documents to prove it to myself) is my first winner. She took the LynnH SockTour and found three embedded links (in descriptive text paragraphs) to pages/sites that do not exist anymore, including one of mine. Big oops!

Tracy, therefore, has won three patterns of her choice. That’s a great way to prepare for the mighty month of January, Tracy! I have always declared January to be “Selfish-Knitting Month.” We set our own needs aside for the month of December and sometimes before that, to knit for others. Or so it seems many of us do…

So January is Selfish-Knitting Month and Tracy gets to choose three patterns from which she can knit her projects for *herself.* Or not, her choice.

In any case, thanks for starting off the contest so quickly and thoroughly, Tracy.

Brian and I went on a walk Christmas Day in our neighborhood. The grass was green and we found two places where the myrtle/periwinkle groundcover was actually blooming! (That is Brian in the red coat, in the photo at left.)

It was very quiet in the neighborhood though we saw a few folks coming/going from houses and one other lone walker.

I took photos of decorations as we walked. I found one house where the inflatable decorations were deflated and flat, and it made me chuckle. Maybe they were out for the day or maybe they unplugged for some reason.

It is amazing… often we have snow by Christmas, though sometimes it is above freezing. However, most years the grass is golden and dormant by August. It is strange to see such green grass this time of the year. It was beautiful.

You already have seen decorated homes and no doubt these are redundant. But flowers blooming on December 25? In two gardens blocks apart? In Lansing, Michigan? I just had to share.

Well, I spent the last month working on my web presence… I had sites on four different servers and now they are all on one. I then did my best to update all the links on all the pages.

I have hundreds of pages on little obscure mini-sites such as The Fabric of Friendship, the LDTH Poetry Collection and Lynn and Brian’s Fabulous Yucatecan Adventure. The last one is 1996. My polymer clay site also began in 1996. There was much to do, to get these things brought into the relatively-modern age with proper current links.

I even checked the links on my blog sidebar, and this blog rendition is only since August. Even some of those sites had moved.

I created a new calendar through Gmail/Google, and I created a new shopping cart instead of my old patterns/yarns pages. It was a lot of very late nights in a row, to get this all in order. And now I believe I am done.

So now comes the Great Idea I got from Sarah Peasley. I’m having a contest. For anyone who can find a mistake on any ColorJoy.com/LynnH.com page, either a link or a misspelling of midwestern English, if you are the first one to find that mistake (or dead link), I will send you the LynnH pattern of your choice. I would prefer if you posted your finds to my email address at Lynn AT ColorJoy DOT com.

It is a good thing to limit these things, so the final day to find mistakes and claim a prize will be January 3.

As far as I can tell, the sites and pages I intend for the world to see can all be linked to by starting at the new navigation bar at the top of this blog page. I hope you don’t find anything, for my sake. However, I hope you win a prize, for your sake.

Two years ago I was in Cairo for Christmas, with my friend Altu. I even blogged a little that day, but I was paying by the minute at the business center at the Marriott, and I could not download photographs.

We decided to stay in the hotel room that day, to just laze around and celebrate by relaxing in our jammies. We were in Africa a total of 38 days and very few were relaxation days, we packed in as much as we could. This was near the end of our trip and we were ready for a “down” day. We had been in Alexandria the day or two before, and got some wonderful mideastern “fingers” which are honey/cashew and puff pastry… and we also had tangerines and guavas from a stand in Alexandria.

We slept in for Christmas. We figured out when to call home (I think it was about 8 hours’ difference between time zones, maybe more) and we ate breakfast of fruit, tea and pastry, on the 19th floor balcony of the Cairo Marriott on the nile. This is the view we had during breakfast. It is the world’s second-largest city, next to Mexico City (which I have also visited). From this vantage point, when there is not a lot of smog, it really looked as though we could see the tops of the pyramids in Giza. It makes sense… we were looking the right direction, and mountains can be seen for long distances as well.

That day we watched a lot of TV. In Ethiopia, the government controls the media, but in Egypt we had satellite and saw shows in at least four different languages. That was the week of the Tsunami (and Altu and I had been on the Indian Ocean at Mombasa, Kenya only 11 days previous), so there was lots of that coverage, as well as holiday stuff. Even though Egypt is only about 12% Christian, there were Christmas decorations at the hotel for folks like us, and the TV shows reflected the season.

Egypt is a fascinating place for many reasons. It is in Africa but also is middle-eastern/Arabic in culture/language. The radio station would say (in English) the “music of Africa and the Middle East!” Alexandria (less than 2 hours by car from Cairo) is on the Mediteranean and has that influence as well. When we visited the Christian churches on Dec. 26, we had to walk through a very old burial ground where the tombstones were written in Greek. We visited a castle on the Mediteranean (in Alexandria), and it looked very European.

The funniest thing that happened on Christmas two years ago, though, was a personal thing that could have happened anywhere in the world. We ordered room service for our midday meal, ate (it was disappointing, as hotel food can be, though the tea was just fine), and then decided to push the table back out into the hall to make more room.

We had to fuss with putting down the leaves on the table to get it to fit through the door. Before we knew it, we were out in the hall with the table, in our jammies, and the door locked behind us. Dang!

I got elected to go down to the front desk and get help. I was certainly covered up but not at all dressed for the elegant Marriott (part of which once was a bit of a palace built for Napoleon’s Josephine III if I remember right, an incredible building). We were in a second building, and it required walking outdoors under a covered area to get to the main building, then down some halls and past some stores and restaurants, before getting to the front desk.

So here I was, this obvious foreigner not dressed for prime time on Christmas day. I kept laughing out loud because it was so funny. I tried not to look at anyone while laughing because they can take funny looks very seriously in Arabic cultures and I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.

I made my way to the desk and had no trouble convincing them of my situation, one look and it was really clear. So I got a key and walked, walked, walked and took my elevator back to the 19th floor, to rescue Altu who was still stuck in the hallway. What a way to spend part of a lazy holiday!!!

Photos (for the record, I went through the trouble to make all these smaller photos clickable to large images this time if you want close-ups): 1) Skyline from our balcony, Christmas Morning, 2004; 2) Pastries called fingers; 3) Castle in Alexandria, posing with Altu 4) Fruit Stand where Christmas breakfast was purchased; 5) Same Castle, looking out at the Mediteranean Sea; 6 &7) Rooms in the Marriott which were originally built in a French style to make Josephine III comfortable away from home; 8 ) Dancer in Marriott restaurant which is in the back garden of the hotel; 9) Garden of hotel from balcony, showing several restaurants.

Go check out Sharon P/Knitknacks’ blog for December 21 (yes, I’m behind… it’s the holiday season after all). She knit a Hanne Falkenberg Ballerina sweater in a general purple/magenta color scheme. This requires zillions of tiny stitches (garter stitch in yarn approximately fingering/sportweight for the knitters out there). I think it was on size 3 needles. We’re talking a lot of knitting, and it was very well worth it.

The sweater is gorgeous. It makes her look incredible, besides. And she has the perfect necklace, accidentally, which was a recent gift. How cool is that?

Great job, Sharon!

I did it. I bought all the necessary “stuff” long ago, but on the 23rd I got an avocado which would go bad if I did not use it right away. We had short-grain white rice, frozen smoked salmon, seaweed sheets, wasabi horseradish powder, soy sauce and a bamboo mat.

I have been talking about trying this for at least 6 months. You see, Altu and I like to eat sushi (and other Japanese goodies) for our weekly Thursday lunch. But I’m told the word “sushi” might translate to “vinegared rice” and I try not to eat much vinegar because of my allergies. I thought maybe I could make rolls at home, minus the vinegar. Or so started this thought process, anyway.

Fortunately, the mighty Diana lived in Japan for several years as a young woman, and she has done this before. I chatted with her by phone this week about the very specific methods of making a roll that would actually hold together with the right “stuff” inside.

I could not imagine that the crunchy seaweed sheets would actually roll up without breaking apart. She assured me that the rice would steam it up enough, and that I should wet the edges (that weren’t covered with rice) with water (like licking an envelope). And that it would work fine. Her biggest hints were: Compress like crazy when rolling or it won’t cut well… and use much less filler for the roll than you can possibly imagine you need.

I made rolls. They compressed, the seaweed softened appropriately. Once we got out a serrated knife, they cut fine. They tasted just fine.

Mind you, I really do not like fish much. The smoked salmon I bought in the freezer department, I thought was sushi grade smoked (raw/smoked) salmon, which has a similar texture to soft “water added” ham. What I got was cooked/smoked fish and that kind flakes and falls apart when you try to cut the rolls.

I’m surprised to say it, but I’ve come to appreciate the sushi smoked salmon much more than I ever imagined, and I would have liked the rolls better if that was what I’d actually purchased. And they would definitely have been prettier and cut better that way. I’ve come a long way from the days when any unfamiliar food might bring on a near-panic attack. This is a good development.

In any case, Christmas lunch was pseudo-sushi rolls we made ourselves. (Brian cut up the fish and avocado, bless him… I really don’t like handling meat/fish at all… and he cut the rolls into bite-sized pieces when I’d finished the rolling.)

For dinner, Brian is making us a guinea hen. It’s a bird I saw wild in Africa that is known for good eating there. I don’t eat mammals/red meat, but I need to have variety in my diet so when I saw a frozen guinea hen in the freezer at Hiller’s grocery in Ann Arbor, I took it home. It’s a pretty small thing… like a small chicken. At least I like the flavor of most poultry, unlike fish which is something I usually eat for my health rather than enjoyment.

Brian once more is cooking for me, since touching meat makes me queasy. Someday maybe I can be a vegetarian but for now this is the best compromise I can achieve. (I’m allergic to dairy, egg, most nuts and some beans… there is no way for me to get enough protein without adding some meat at this time.)

I am cooking sweet potatoes and/or rutabaga roasted oven-fries tonight. The roasted veggies thing is really making me happy lately. We made a butternut squash that way this week, which was pretty good, but the memories of the rutabaga drive me to repeat that experience. And I’ve had roasted beets and sweet potato before so I may put an extra pan in the oven and do those at the same time. I figure the more you cook on one day, the more you have frozen and ready to eat on days you don’t feel like cooking.

A Lovely Yesterday

Christmas Eve Day was a beautiful, sunny, above-freezing weather day and we went for a wonderful walk together before we went to Brian’s family gathering. It was very pleasant. The drive was nice, and with my new laptop battery I can again do computer work in the car. I have determined to not work from dinnertime yesterday to bedtime today. I’m a bit of a workaholic (at least I truly love what I do) but sometimes you need to just knit for yourself and read or flop on the couch, you know?

The gathering was very nice. I always have a surreal experience when we visit Brian’s family. They need a genuine parking lot for just relatives to visit. My family has 3 cars, 6 people in the state, and that is when Mom and Fred are in Michigan. Brian’s family has 8 children, all but one is married and five have multiple children. Then this event included cousins and aunts/uncles. Whew!

I like everyone in the group, it’s a very fine assortment of people, but I overwhelm easily with chaos. I’m OK with 50 people all in a workshop focused on the same thing. A party or bar or gathering such as this, taxes my ability to focus. I have a hard time relaxing and enjoying the event unless I can sit with one person and talk one on one, in the least dense room/area available.

Last night I had time to talk with Aunt Peg for a long while and I very much enjoyed that. It’s also delightful to see the nieces/nephews growing up, they are getting SO big, most are nearly my height or towering over me. Only a few are young enough to still stand in my shadow.

We had the annual dollar gift exchange with the aunts/uncles and the whole gang. This is a great way to deal with the too-many-people-to-buy-gifts thing. They do have a great sense of humor, and for many years one package had a bag of ice in it. They get very creative sometimes with the wrapping, and often the way it is wrapped is some sort of hint at what is inside. For example, a package wrapped like a fish tank might contain goldfish crackers. Last night one of the gifts was a huge bow, maybe a foot (30cm) across, with a tiny tiny package stuck to its underside. In the package was a $1 bill wrapped in a lot of tape.

Last night Brian took a can of Green Giant asparagus out of our cupboard (he had purchased it but I refused to cook it, I only eat fresh asparagus) and put it in a large CD case/cylinder, which he wrapped in printed out asparagus labels he got from the Green Giant website. His sister liked the package (she is very creative, mostly a quilter) and appreciated the connection between the package and contents, although who knows if she’ll cook it? I took an empty pumpkin can and put a small package of pumpkin seeds (with the too-much salt coating that is typical) in it, put plastic tape around the can lid so it wouldn’t hurt anyone, taped the lid on and put a gold-colored bow on the top. Another of Brian’s sisters, also very creative, picked that package and appreciated the thought.

It is interesting that the sister who picked my package, was the sister who wrapped the package I picked. First I almost went for the box with hot green polka-dots and “asterisk” patterns, because I really did like the way the package looked. However, I was drawn to the creative package which looked like one of a pair of dice (I’ve got a pair of purple fuzzy dice hanging from my car rear-view mirror). I had to choose that package when it became my turn to pick. It contained a package with 4 dice in it, two of them trick dice so I can always throw a 7 or 11. Whatever! But very cute.

I was in Egypt on December 24, 2004. Altu and I went to the Great Pyramid (and a smaller stepped pyramid, Sakkara, that was cooler in a lot of ways though it was not in my travel book at all).

Altu just had to ride a camel, her trip would not have been complete without that experience. I did not think I would like this (I’m definitely a city kid and I typically like photos of large animals better than the real thing).

We rode the camels. It was absolutely wonderful, she had been right all along. Our guide (from what I could tell, he owned the camels) was funny and cheerful, and we were able to go places that you would not typically go on foot. The view was incredible. I loved it.

Here is a photo of the two of us on camels, two years ago today. In Giza, not at all far from the bustling city of Cairo, yet worlds apart. The gentleman in the photo is Nabil, our driver for a week when we were there. Nabil was the best thing about Egypt, a wonderful human being who really made sure we had the best experience he could give us. (The camel driver took the photo.)

Brian has been busy recording. This time it is two for-web videos. He’s putting his work on vox.com, a new place for this sort of thing.

He has posted two solo uke musical recordings, one is Christmas Time is Here and one is a bit he made up, called Santa Claus Rag. He also has a little blog post there about his new ukulele.

Here’s Brian’s new VOX page:

http://brianhef.vox.com/

A Weather Report of Sorts

In the last few days, we have had a lot of rain and no sun to speak of. Two days ago just maybe 3 minutes before the sun was to set, it actually came out. It was beautiful. The shadows were very dramatic, with no leaves to catch the rays on the way down. The rays were nearly horizontal and the color was golden.

I noticed the sun immediately. The phone rang and it was April: “Let us go for a walk while we have sun.” I grabbed my coat and we were off! We did not walk long but I took some photos. First is a plastic yard flamingo in my side yard with a sharp shadow about as tall as it is. Second is the houses across the street from me, lit up with the final rays of the day. (I am not sure if I have ever shared a photo of this angle of my neighborhood before.)

Color? Not Much.

I counted today. Of eleven houses in a row, ten are painted white (notice the lone yellow house second from right). A year ago it was twelve of thirteen, but last year the house kitty-corner from us painted taupe rather than white… still colorless but not the same as the majority of others. Lansing is just not fond of color, especially in our homes. Occasionally you will find a purple door in a “nice” neighborhood. Most likely you find bright colors on homes in more affordable neighborhoods… the more pricey, the less color, as a rule.

For the record, our house is also white (it’s aluminum siding and I do not want to paint that). However, we have the only brick-red roof on the block and the trim is lavender-purple and salmon (basically a lighter version of the red roof).

On Saturday (following the three-minute-sunshine day), the sky was one big cloud sitting about a dozen feet above ground level, or so it seemed. You could not tell where the sun was in the sky. It drizzled and spat rain all day. At 1pm the light situation felt like it could be 6pm. Miserable. It was a good day for socializing, and I did a lot of that.

The Great Web Migration

Perhaps I’ll write more later of the lovely socializing… but I’m still working on the moving/renaming/redesigning of my websites/web pages. Ten years making web documents is a long time (and a lot of pages) for someone like me who always has a lot to say! I have fourteen folders of web pages, each of them a sub-website, some more obvious than others.

For example, I have the LynnH SockTour which has 40 pages in it, and then I have a patterns area which has close to 20 pages, now all linked from my Online Shop. There is my ancient Mexico travelogue (it is ten years old but now at a new web address/URL) and my almost-ancient polymer clay site which requires some serious updating and has for about five years. I have a poetry/quotations mini-site which consists of 41 individual pages.

I actually did retire a few mini-sites that just were not valid anymore (pages showing off my previous Y2K computer consulting business, purpletree, the domain name of which I sold two years ago, and in which I have basically not worked for a handful of years). I had a calendar page with associated class information pages, and at least for now that same information is displayed on my new Google Calendar Schedule Page.

So for now it’s back to web pages, renaming, re-linking, placing the new navigation bars, looking for mistakes. When I think I’m done I’ll be running a contest for you guys to find mistakes (thanks to Sarah Peasley/Handknitter for that prime suggestion)… I hope that will be this week.

Meanwhile, goodnight.

There is a gallery of Latvian Mitten photos from the NATO summit. I was just overpowered by the incredible talent and history contained in these 4,500 pairs of mittens!

I’m behind the times, but over a week ago there was a post on the blog Style Files (warning, tons of pics so it’s slow loading), showing the work of a woman named Christien Meindertma who knits enormous cables in rugs, etc… she worked with a farmer in Wales to make items from his sheep. It’s not a very long article but there are several photos including a rug featuring a cable/aran-like diamond pattern that looks a good bit wider than my shoulders.

Also on this same blog is an entry for large crocheted rugs. There are unmatching floral-style motifs sewn to a backing net. Fascinating.

This reminds me of Dave Cole’s “Knitting Machine,” where he used John Deere construction equipment and a team of workers to knit a giant American flag with telephone pole needles and felt fabric as yarn. I saw the flag very soon after it was knit, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (usually called the Mass MOCA).

Sun, Shine on Me!

It is the darkest time of the year. Eric and Diana celebrate Yule which they will do tomorrow. Some calendars say tonight is the longest night, some say tomorrow. I say dark is dark and I’m glad to turn the tide. Come on, sun!!!

It is cold and rainy here. Bitter rainy, spitting mean, ugly rain. Not pounding rain, not a lot of it all at once, but the kind that feels as though it is slapping you in the face with its coldness. This sort of weather requires creative distraction. I live in the face of ugly weather much of the time, and I’m a wimp about feeling cold. People make it all worth going forth into the weather, at least for me.

People make the world go ’round

I had a pretty good Thursday, really. Started with a stop at the allergist’s office, they are a small office and the people are very good folks who really know me personally. I enjoyed exchanging holiday greetings there (they have next week off, lucky souls). Then I picked up a book at “Everybody Reads,” a new independent book store next door to the Gone Wired Cybercafe. Off I ran to see Altu for our weekly scheduled lunch, and when I got to her restaurant our friend Bev was there so I got to hug her also.

Food as Art

We had a great lunch at the sushi restaurant (Sansu) we often enjoy. It is wonderful to take time with her each week and just connect, really create space for our friendship. I will miss two weeks of Thursday lunches because I’ve consented to work holiday break afternoons at Foster Community Center for the computer lab. Four hours a day, three days a week, two weeks. I bore easily, and do not usually do anything for that many hours other than sit at my desk at home.

It can be very busy with children at the community center during holidays. I’m hoping my serenity stays intact during that vacation time. I will definitely bring my Ladysmith Black Mambazo CDs to play for myself. When I play a CD, my mind can focus on that music rather than the dueling commentary of all the video games, all playing at the same time. The CDs give my distractable mind something as a focus and I can come out at the end of my shift smiling. This is a very good thing… a success strategy before I get there.

Gatherings ‘R’ December

I have had a week of holiday gatherings, no doubt you all have had opportunities also. Last Sunday the Working Women Artists gathered and a friend presented me with some homemade spiced pumpkin butter. Three jars of pure heaven, pure ingredients, and lots of good vibes.

This friend had big surgery earlier this year and I brought her a homemade lunch one day, while she was still stuck in the house and bored crazy recuperating. The goodies were a thank you rather than a Christmas gift. She did not need to do anything in return, of course… for once I knew what I could do and I had the time so I did it. How often do we feel powerless over something? It was great to take her lunch that day.

But I tell you, I’ve really enjoyed the first jar of that sauce, it’s almost gone already… one day on buckwheat pancakes, and today on from-scratch oat/rice biscuits. There’s a little left of jar #1 in the freezer next to the other 2 full jars, and I will enjoy every taste.

More Unexpected Gifts

On Tuesday we had the big holiday event at the Mid-Michigan Knitters Guild. We had much amazing food available to eat, and much merriment. Rae brought me a gift, out of the blue, which was an Aladdin Stanley Thermos in lavender. A smaller version of the huge construction-green one I embellished a few years back, which is one of the most perfectly engineered products I’ve ever owned… it can fall from six feet (2m) and dent but not be injured in any real way.

I’m eager to decorate this new thermos as well. I’m well-known for my tea addiction (Rae included a box of my favorite tea in the world, as well) and I always seem to be leaving behind a tea mug at any yarn shop I happen to visit. This thermos will be well-used for years, I am sure.

We did a show and tell and a charity hat contest. (We knit hats for charity and we vote on which hats we like best, there are plentiful prizes to inspire us to knit away.) I’ve been really busy this season but I found a hat I knit years ago and never wore, so I donated that to the cause.

There were some very fine contributions to the contest. One year I won the contest with a really special stranded-colorwork pillbox hat in about 8 yarns, but that was before I was in the knitting profession full time. These days there is not much time to knit for fun or charity, I’m sad to say. The days when I’d send 4 pair of socks to Afghans for Afghans or Children in Common are gone. One hat to a local charity is what I can do this year. I’m knitting for my family, my friends and my business. This is as it should be, for today.

Friends! The Best.

And I end the day with gratitude for my friends. Yesterday I drove to Detroit Metro Airport to pick up my friend Ulyana and her daughter. The airport is enough to make a person lose her cool, but the time with my friends in the car on the way home was priceless, and that is why I volunteered to go get them in the first place. They bought me a gorgeous woven “pashmina” and silk shawl in Chinatown, NYC, and it goes perfectly with my coat (even though they didn’t know what my coat looked like when they bought the shawl).

Hang in There

Remember, it’s a stressful time of year for most of us. We hear expectations all around us, what this should be like for us. (What is that word, *should,* anyway?) We are aware of all the losses we’ve had or the dreams we didn’t achieve. In order to stay happy at any time of year we need to look at what we do have, right now.

And so (luckily) as I was in the shuttle bus yesterday at Metro Airport, going from the place I’d parked to the place I should have parked near my friend’s arrival, I heard Julie Andrews sing “My Favorite Things” on the radio. A sort of syrupy song… but I adore Julie Andrews after all these years, and the sound of her voice made me stop and breathe. The song is basically a gratitude list. Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens… Hmmm. Gratitude.

My Gratitude List

Tonight I’m grateful for heat, a roof over my head, wonderful food I didn’t have to cook, wool and alpaca clothing to keep me warm, a car that runs and money for gasoline to get my friend, a friend I love enough to give up an evening to get her at the airport, music, music, music, people I love, and especially my beloved Brian.

Photos: 1) Smoked Salmon Sashimi, on shredded daikon radish with sliced flavored ginger (pink) and wasabi horseradish (green at right). No, it was not cooked. Yes, I ate it and liked it. It’s smoked and salty, more like ham than anything else I eat these days. I don’t like any fish very often but I like the smoked salmon. 2) TNT Roll (fancy, spicy) with horseradish and ginger on the side, 3) Gift from Rae, 4) Gift from WWA friend.

I have finally filled in the last knitting class for January through early April on my Google Calendar. You can always get to it by clicking the “Schedule” link above on my navigation bar, which is probably the easiest way to get there.

Or right now, you can just lick on this link: http://colorjoy.com/weblog/calendar-colorjoy/

When you get there, you can click on any event to see more information including descriptions of the classes. I hope you find something to reward yourself after a bit of holiday knitting. I’m convinced that January should be designated “Selfish Knitting Month” after the crazy stuff we put ourselves through in December!

Diana has done it again. The girl is prolific and creative, and takes the time to follow her muse.

I thought maybe a baby Fast Florida Footie (size infant/O, as part of the 8 size for-purchase version of that pattern) would make a cute Christmas Tree ornament. She was up for knitting me a handful of them, at least one for each shop where I sell the pattern. I sent her yarn.

Next thing I know, she has ideas of her own! As in: the baby/coin purse-sized Sassy Summer Bag she designed (and which is part of the printed pattern for the larger purse) in Christmas colors? Oh, my! So cute! (I designed the adult-sized purse. When Diana test-knit the purse for me she came up with the coin purse version. I put it in the pattern with her blessing, it was so cute we needed to share it.)

And then Wednesday night at Knitting Guild I was informed that the mini Sassy is the perfect size for an American Girl Doll? How cool is that?

If anyone is inspired to make one or more of these, my patterns are available for immediate download on KnittingZone.com. They are also available as paper/printed copies in page protectors… on my shopping cart in the Patterns section. I do ship same or next day, but it’s 1st class mail so some folks would not get it very quickly from Lansing, Michigan (which is where I am).

Or if you are very experienced in socknitting, you could get the free version of the Fast Florida Footies pattern and adjust it yourself to the 24-stitch cast-on size. That will not work for everyone, but it would be fast if you were an experienced socknitter who knows how to make adjustments.

For the record, these samples were knit in Cascade 220 yarn, I do not know the color numbers (Diana has the ball bands). I got the yarn at Little Red Schoolhouse a few weeks ago. The bags were felted and they used 2-stitch I-cord as handles.

The footies in this photo were not felted… we tried a few and they are not as cute felted as they are here. You could make the footies from regular sockyarn using size 0 or 1 (2.0 to 2.55mm) needles, perhaps, and get an even smaller and cuter version for tree trimming. I like the ones I got, they are festive stuffed with tiny candy canes!

I am on a new kick, one I hope will stay stuck. I am walking every day. Now, being the woman I am, sometimes I think I don’t have enough time to walk. So I have given myself permission to some days only walk around the block, which takes 5 minutes. I have now walked 3 or 4 days in a row.

On the best days, of course, April and little Isabel come over from across the street and we walk together. Those walks are slower most of the time, but sometimes they include running, skipping or hopping on two feet at a time. Sometimes they include walking while carrying a 2-1/2 year old child. I figure walking slowly with a 35 pound “sack of potatoes” in your arms counts at least as much as walking fast without her. I’d much rather snuggle the kid… any time.

I am lucky because it has been particularly nice weather this week. It is mostly in the 40’s F, enough above freezing to be pleasant… and the sun has been out more than usual. One day it was just under freezing and a little windy, so I wore my full-length lined wool coat (a man’s dress coat I picked up at a resale shop for $30 or so about a year ago, not colorful as I would like but warm enough to be forgiven for it’s grayness). The wool with a quilted lining blocks all wind and goes down almost to my ankles. It is a great walking coat for brisk weather, I think.

I have always liked walking. I must say though, that I have never particularly loved the “great outdoors.” I like to be out, preferably on the porch, only when it is nice weather. That is not particularly often around here for about 3/4 of the year. However, there have been years when I walked outside even in knee-deep snow (this was several decades ago, but I remember).

The Norwegians have a saying that translates something like “There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.” I do have great boots and a great coat and alpaca winter accessories, wool longjohns and legwarmers, whatever I’ll need. I just need to get into the habit of walking. It’s a bit hard because I don’t have a very regular schedule and it will take a while to get this down to a habit. However, if I can learn to cook every food I eat, I can more easily learn to walk once a day!

What else is up? I’m knitting like a fiend, Brian and I are practicing a bit more in preparation for our New Year’s Eve gig at the El Azteco in Lansing (near MLK and Saginaw), and I’m trying to catch up on all the computer work I need to do. It seems I’ll never remember everything I must do, but I keep plugging.

Sophia took my class last Thursday night, on how to make my Wristwarmer pattern. She says she finished the pair the next day! Not only that, she decided to make the cuff a little more feminine. She inserted a lacy pattern and then ended with one round of a furlike “eyelash” yarn. Very creative and elegant for her friend, I would say. Go, Sophia!

I have had a year of being away from my desk. I’m finally not teaching as much and therefore I’m dealing with a tardy too-long list of desk jobs. The shopping cart that went live the last week of November, I had started in May. I had web pages on four different web hosts and was paying rent to them all.

So in the last week I’ve moved all my sites to the same machine that holds the ColorJoy.com/ LynnH.com and Heftone.com sites. That of course means that the navigation bars I had on my zillion web pages was pointing to the wrong places. I had to redesign the navigation bar. Yesterday I put the bar on several dozen web pages including a redesigned http://ColorJoy.com main home page. Of course I had a lot of pages for my patterns and yarns that now are on the shopping cart. I haven’t converted all of them, but I hope I’ve converted the most popular.

It seems there is no end of the things I put off. My desk is so piled I can’t move without an avalanche.

But Saturday we did enjoy company from out of town, and dinner at Altu’s watching Ben Hassenger perform. There was excellent company… Stan, Brian’s boss; our friend from Ohio, Regina, and Ben’s wife Barb… great fun.

And then I went home and worked on the website while Brian and our friend had fun with music.

Sunday I get to go to a knit in and also Working Women Artists. The WWA meeting is at Gone Wired Cybercafe’ on East Michigan at 6-8pm, if anyone would like to hear a presentation by a talented young photographer. All are welcome… artists, non-artists, women, dudes, old, young, and all in between.
Have a great end of weekend.

Friday night at Magdalena’s Teahouse (8pm) will be a concert by “Songwriters Anonymous,” a group of Michigan songwriters. This group includes two of my good friends, Art Cameron and Ben Hassenger (of Mystic Shake and Blue Jello).

The other musicians in the group are also great writers and it will be worth while. Brian and I will go for a while before we attend a holiday gathering (it’s the time of year for schedule conflicts).

Saturday night you can catch Ben Hassenger at Altu’s Ethiopian Restaurant. That show is earlier… 6:30 to 8:30. The show was publicized as a Blue Jello Gig (Ben plus Mystic Shake friend Pat Malloy) but it turns out this will be a solo performance by Ben. All fun… a great show no doubt. We’ll miss Pat but we will enjoy Ben all the more. He is a great performer, really involves his audience and everyone leaves with a smile.

I had a musical weekend. Here it is Thursday, and I have been too busy to post about it yet.

Saturday Brian’s band, Scarlet Runner String Band, played at Altu’s Ethiopian Cuisine. Actually, their fiddle/harmonica player (Mike) was down with the flu so only 3 of them played, but it was great entertainment. Regina was there for dinner so I sat with her and we had a good conversation. She is good company.

Saturday night after the Altu’s performance, Brian and I headed over to a little gathering for our other band, Abbott Brothers.

Two of our members have retired significantly north of here and so we do not see them enough. The gathering came about quite spontaneously because these two were in town for another event, and I had to put together gifts quickly.

Rae has those cute mini-sock-blocker keychains, the same kind she gave me recently. I love my little sock. I decided that since a few years ago I made mini socks for Abbott Brothers as tree ornaments, for their gifts, that I could make these mini socks this year.

I had not a whole day to knit five socklets. I barely made it but they sure did turn out cute! The top one in the photo is Socks That Rock, leftovers from Brian’s anniversary socks (and the sock is for Brian). That yarn I got from Rae’s. The two that match, are Arucania Naturewool teal/turquoise, also from Rae’s. The color is not very true here, it’s more turquoise than blue but with the green wrapping paper background you can’t see it.

The middle sock is one strand of a self-striping Regia sockyarn (from Yarn for Ewe several years back) held together with a strand of yellow sockyarn from Little Red Schoolhouse. The bottom sock is Dive Autumno (from Threadbear), left over from a pair of legwarmers I recently made for myself. It’s reeeeally soft merino that seems to not pill at all, and it’s a “singles” (sometimes called one ply) which I love. It also changes yarn slowly like handspun can. Nice stuff, though you can’t see the color change in something this small.

Marilyn (lady of the household at the home where we gathered) is a very creative woman. She did not miss a chance to make a beautiful presentation of holiday goodies for us to eat. I did not think to take a photo of the cookie tray until we had eaten most of the cookies, but this is how pretty it looked when we left. I guess the pretzels had white chocolate on them. They were really popular.

Sunday I spent time working on my yarn and dyeing business with my helper. After I took her home, I went to Magdalena’s Teahouse for the Seth Bernard and Daisy May concert. I never get over how good they are. I had a wonderful time being there and listening to that great music. Here’s one photo of them on stage.

Hmmm, I think that’s it for photos from this weekend. Maybe I can rest a minute now?

Wednesday was packed. I started the day helping my friend with her computer. From there I went to my private lesson on the west side, and then back to the east side to drop off a pattern order at Rae’s. I then proceeded to Foster Center to teach CityKidz Knit! program (those kids are just amazing, my glove girl finished 2 more fingers and started the thumb, I think she’ll finish a glove tomorrow).

After CityKidz, I ran home, changed into dressy clothing for the Habibi Dancers’ holiday gala dinner/party, then home briefly to change back into a warm sweater and back to my friend’s house with more computer hassles to figure out. I got home around 1:30am.

At CityKidz we dyed more yarn with Kool-Aid, great fun. I had a girl come back I had not seen since spring, that was great. There is nothing like my CityKidz to make my day into sunshine!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Speaking of weather, it’s unseasonably warm here. It should be around freezing but it has been in the upper 40s F. It was 42 after dark today. It has rained a lot but not heavy rain, it has just been a mist most of the time. We have green grass and squirrels running around with nuts in their mouths. I don’t know if it looks like spring or fall, it definitely does not look like December in Michigan!

Adorable Knitted Tree Decorations

Diana tells me she made some tiny Sassy Summer Handbags as tree ornaments, and she also made some infant size 0 Fast Florida Footies. I sent her red and green yarn (Cascade 220) and she went to town being creative. I am excited to see what these look like, it’s bound to be really adorable. She’s sending me the items in the mail, maybe she’ll take a photo for her own blog before she sends them off.

More Fat Socks

Lately my knitting consists of sock after sock in fat yarn. I’m 2/3 of the way through a first afterthought-heel sock for Brian in Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran, a sort of pale teal. Really nice yarn, a great color, but one that Brian would wear more than I would.

I bought this yarn last year thinking I’d make warmish gloves. Then I found some affordable angora-blend gloves at Target and bought those. I love it when I find things already knit for me, in fibers/colors I like. These gloves are black but that allowed me to have warm fingers right away, and now Brian gets socks. Cool!

Photo Soon: Knitted Gift

At the Habibi Dancers holiday party I was given an incredible handknit gift. I will leave you in suspense until I can get a photograph. Sally (dance name Sara) knit me a very unusual item because she knew I’d really appreciate it. Photos I hope very soon.

Bedtime. Catch you Thursday.

In September I posted that I was going to have a Throw-Away-Five-Things Day. I was really getting clear on how much stuff I had that I was NOT using and that I needed to let go of. I am terribly sentimental, especially about clothing, and clothing is the most extreme thing I had too much of.

Since that post, I have tried to toss things I didn’t like much, that I don’t use enough, or were worn out. I started in the right direction, but I ended up with one pile upstirs and one down, waiting to be hauled away. Not really big, but a sort of mess-shifting rather than eliminating.

A Major Turning Point

Today I was given the gift of love. A huge gift. My friend April came over for most of the day and helped me throw away TWELVE paper grocery bags full of stuff. Well, not throw. Those are going to charity. Another three or four are trash.

The give-aways are all in Brian’s car. One of our favorite charity thrift shops is very close to his regular path to work. He’ll take them on the way tomorrow.

Not only that, but yesterday when I spent a day with Eric and Diana (Brother and Sis-In-Law who I mention here so much), we went to IKEA and I got a small metal cabinet with six drawers big enough for my mailing envelopes. My kitchen has turned into my mailing center and yarn-winding area. This means that almost always I have one to three kinds of tape on the table, a few pairs of scissors, several types of writing pens/markers, envelopes, stamps, and other assorted related clutter, on the kitchen tables.

The new cabinet is just what I wanted. It was really affordable and yet it was exactly what I wanted. It looks like it’s from 1940 but it is not all scratched up. Since so much of our furniture is “retro” (original, not reproduction, much of it from MSU Salvage) the new piece works well without sticking out too much visually. Not only that, the six shallow drawers were the perfect setup for putting away tape and scissors, etc. I was able to really make a dent in the tabletop clutter and I’m very happy with the results.

Clearing the Kitchen Work Area

It was getting hard to function in the kitchen even before I had to start cooking most of my meals. With the new focus on home cooking in this house, the horizontal surfaces need to be available for food-related activities more and more. Not long ago I ate than half of my meals in (excellent, healthy) locally-owned restaurants but now I need a well-functional kitchen. It’s not really a space set up for two cooks but we are getting used to working together on meals from time to time.

Tonight after the cleaning push, Brian made fish and I made roasted rutabagas. I had been encouraged by many of you here to roast root vegetables (and we eat a lot of roots these days). I think my favorites are sweet potatoes and rutabagas, though we often make carrots and parsnips together and they are a great combination. Brian notes that we never ate this well before. The quality of our food is incredible these days and I’m really having fun eating new foods I had never tried before. The tasting of new veggies is a blast!

Nerves

However, the cooking/roasting is not yet fun for me. I don’t know why, but I can get really nervous before trying a new activity. I had never roasted veggies although I really enjoyed them when I have been able to find them in restaurants or at parties. (Zingerman’s deli in Ann Arbor often offers these in their deli case and they are wonderful). I was just sure I would chop them the wrong size, bake at the wrong temperature, put too much or not enough olive oil on them, turn them over too much or not enough or whatever. I think I’m just programmed to worry sometimes!

I was just sure I could not do it. I’m not afraid to try many types of things, and I’m pretty good at experimenting with baking cakes and quick breads. However, making main meal items is very unfamiliar to me, and thus still uncomfortable. I know how to make pasta in a hundred ways, I know how to cook a zillion possible meals with any bean or legume. Right now I can’t have those items very often and so I feel like a fish out of water, trying to learn new types of lunch/dinner meals. However, you can not get good at anything from avoiding it.

Success

The rutabagas were wonderful! It was a lot like eating potato french fries, but much much better. More moist, a little sweeter, a lot more tasty. I’m doing that again!!! Maybe on Friday when Brian plans to make another duck (he made one for Thanksgiving that turned out really well), just maybe I will try to roast some sweet potatoes.

The photo? Nothing to do with this post. It’s a photo of one of the farms at Michigan State University, last Saturday. There was snow that day. Today it is rainy and there is no snow anywhere. But I thought this was a great photo and thought you might like to see it! MSU is a beautiful place, I’m lucky to live so near the campus and see these fields so often. This farm is not a whole mile from my Post Office box, which is at the main mail-processing center (factory for sorting papers very efficiently).

Wow, it looks as though I missed a day of posting here. I feel as though I have not done that in months.

It was a busy day, I helped a friend fix her computer. I rarely do that anymore but she has nobody else to call. It required three different sessions (she has dial-up… downloads take so long, I go away and come back when they are done).

My helper also came and got some more sock yarn skeined up for me. I took her home and then Brian and I went to Magdalena’s Teahouse for the Seth Bernard and Daisy May concert. That was the RIGHT way to end the day!

Monday I designated as a special day off, as in don’t stay home. I thought about going to Chicago for the day (it’s 3.5 hours one way) but decided I did not feel like driving that much. Odd, since I long for Chicago most holiday seasons and I generally love driving. I went with the gut feeling, though.

So it turns out I’ll be having lunch with Diana and her hubby/my brother, Eric. They are just over and hour away. I’ve decided to go to the new IKEA in Canton to maybe get some lighting or a cabinet to store my yarn-winding supplies in the kitchen. They know a Thai restaurant where I can get food that I can eat healthily, or maybe we’ll go out for sushi again.

Thanks to all of you who have been visiting my shop (yarn/dyed socks website). For the record, I’ve also now added two music CDs by The Fabulous Heftones (that’s me plus my hubby Brian) to the merchandise available there.

Off to see my brother!!!!!! Oh, I don’t see him enough, I don’t chat with him enough. He’s my best fan, my best friend in the universe. The day is so warm (53F, springlike) that maybe we’ll be able to do a little walk or something. I hope!

I did it. I have 19 pair of handpainted (tie dyed) angora-blend and merino-blend, machine-washable Color-Tiger socks in my shop.

Yes, I know you can’t get to the shop from my main page yet. I spent the last week moving all my websites from four locations to one and getting my new calendar and shopping cart up and running. That means right now, only my blog readers know where to find the socks. That is a head start for you guys if you want them.

Remember, each of these socks is one of a kind. It’s not like yarn where I might dye 8 skeins in the same colorway. So if one looks like it’s “yours” I’d jump on it. Of course, I’d love to sell them all (a girl has to make a living), but it doesn’t matter to me who gets which one…

Here’s how the shopping cart works. You go to the site: http://ColorJoy.com/shop

On the top right are too-small links (I can not control their size at first try) showing the categories of merchandise on my site. If you want socks, you click Hand-Dyed Clothing. Then you are on the page where you scroll and see the whole listing of (right now) nineteen pairs of socks.

In order to buy, you have to log in but I don’t share your information with anyone. It’s just so I can contact you and get address information for shipping. Paypal processes my payments, even credit cards, but it does not share your financial information with me at all. You do not need a Paypal account to buy.

I ship patterns via First Class US mail. I ship yarn and socks via Priority Mail in the USA. I charge $1 per order for shipping no matter what you buy. That is, if you are in the USA. I do ship to Canada, Mexico and most of Europe, but of course we would need to work out shipping before I sent the package. If you pay me with a Paypal transfer from your bank account I wait for the transfer to clear. I do take checks and money orders as well, and the shopping cart will walk you through that.

I hope that at $19.50 for socks you do not have to knit yourself, this will be the perfect holiday gift. For yourself? For a friend? Let’s hope it works out well for you *and* for me. I love win-win situations when I can find them.

Diana finds the most incredible people online. Have you heard of Deborah Henson-Conant? Her domain is hipharp.com so you can at least start stretching to imagine the music, but check out the costumes!

Thanks for the link, Diana!