I'm Back!

 

I've been gone a while, Friends.  Mostly I've been rather incapacitated and in too much pain to tend to my blog.  My right hip had been displaced since childbirth, unbeknownst to me, and after a fall and an injury back in 2008, it became obvious what was happening.

I had total hip replacement in March and I am still recovering, but as you can see by my photo taken at a wedding last week, I am free of pain and suffering!  I haven't felt this good, well, ever!

I've been busy with crochet projects on and off when I could manage, and I've posted a few of them here.  I'll try to be more diligent in future about keeping this blog updated.

Bastille Day Story

I know it's been a while.

Someday I'll have to catch up with y'all and let you know where I've been and what I've been doing.

Someday.

Meanwhile, stop me if I've told this before.


Whenever Bastille Day rolls around, I always remember my trip to Paris when I was 17.

I was traveling with a church youth group to England in 1970. It was quite a momentous trip in many, many respects. I had never flown before. We had gotten a charter on the first 747 plane to cross the Atlantic -- the return flight to Paris. In Paris, we had a 24-hour layover before we went on to Heathrow. It was so exciting!

I was 17. Besides one other girl on the trip, who was 15 or 16 at the time, no one spoke French. And our claims to "speaking French" were quite nebulous, especially since this was Paris where we learned that the French spoken is analagous to the American English spoken in the Bronx. We couldn't understand a word!

But we were so determined to use our French in possibly the only 24-hour period of our lives when we'd have the opportunity, that we just kept trying.

Because of the time zone difference, we arrived at our hotel in Paris at about dinnertime on our biological clocks, but it was after midnight there.

My friend the Freshman in French and I, the Junior, roomed together. We were wide awake as Paris was shutting down. We occupied ourselves by laundering our delicates in the "funny little sink in the bathroom" and then writing letters on the little balcony. So romantic! We were in our pj's and bathrobes. It was 2:00 a.m. local time and most of the hotel staff was leaving the hotel, their shifts having concluded.

Two young men saw us sitting on the balcony and called up to us to come down and join them! OMG! What do we say?

We closed the French doors and consulted each other. How do you say "Go away?" Ummmm. Don't know.

"Um" (me), "let's tell them to 'Come back tomorrow!'"

(Her): "Great idea!"

We opened the French doors and peered out, saying, "Come --"

-- and before I could say "back tomorrow," in my faulty French, they entered the hotel and came up to our room and started banging on the door!

OMG. Turn off the lights! Shut the door! Be quiet! Don't answer! They'll go away.

Then went back downstairs and outside and counted the windows (we peeked through the curtain with the lights still out).

They came back up and started banging on the door again!

OMG!

Then we got another great idea! We should use Morse code and knock S-O-S on the wall between our room and the one next door, summoning two strapping young men from our high school to rescue us.

I took a shoe and started knocking. The French guys went down stairs and started counting windows again. They came back up.

I stepped out on the balcony and the guys next door stepped out on theirs.

"Jo Anne, this is your own stupid fault. You should never have talked to those guys in the first place! And by the way, that wasn't S-O-S you were tapping, you idiot."

They went back inside.


So much for chivalry.

Well, eventually the French guys went away, but not after waking the entire hotel. (We learned later that one of the high school guys went down and went out drinking with them.)

Next morning while my girlfriend and I were having our petit dejeuner of croissants and cafe au lait, the Methodist minister who was the leader of the youth group came over to our table. Without even asking us what had happened, he said, "You girls are forbidden to speak French for the rest of the trip."

"But, Rev!"

"No buts. No French. Period."

Well, then it was time for our tour of Paris. We soon learned that our tour was taking place on Bastille Day and that on Bastille Day, all Parisians leave the city and go picnicking in the country. The place closes down! We saw the Louvre from the outside. From the tour bus, we saw the Arche de Triomphe and the outside of the Tour d'Eiffel because they were -- well, outside. Other than that, we were spoken rudely to by anyone we met except in one little cafe where we stopped for ice cream. (The BEST coffee ice cream I ever tasted in my life.) There I surreptitiously spoke a little French with the waiter until I saw one of the adults giving me the evil eye.

Finally, it was time to go to the airport. The minister was having a hard time understanding the tour guide and apparently the gates had been changed for our departure. The tour guide was trying to direct the minister where he should go and he couldn't find all the English words. He answered a question of the minister's in French and the minister turned to my girlfriend and me and said, "What did he say?"

You know those times when you remember later what you should have done or said and then kick yourself?

This wasn't one of those times. We'd been carrying this grudge for over 12 Whole Hours!

My girlfriend and I looked at each other, then turned back to look at the minister, shrugged our shoulders and said in unison, "I don't know, Rev. I can't speak a word of French."

Happy Bastille Day, Everyone!

My Own Igloo

I gave myself my moniker years ago when trying to set up a Yahoo! account. I tried to make it PenguinLover but that was taken. I really don't like adding numbers to a screen name that is already taken, so I tried MyIgloo.

That was taken too. By then I was getting a little annoyed, so I said, "Well, all right" (and yes, I really do talk to my computer screen), "how about MyOwnIgloo?"

Thus, a globally challenged persona was born (scroll down to the bottom of my blog to see my trademark).

May 2009 is a signature month for myownigloo because in May 2009, a law firm partner who likes to bake on the side made me My Own Igloo!

Ain't it grand?

Warm You Up Winter Swap Blog Question #4

What are your plans for Valentine’s Day this year?

Valentine's Day is a sore subject around this place.

See, DH and I sort of eloped on Valentine's Day.  Or at least we decided to elope on Valentine's Day but by the time we got ourselves to Las Vegas and got the requisite marriage license and found an open chapel, we were actually married on February 15th.

We had a wedding all planned for June and we went ahead with it anyway, for the family's sake, but it was our little secret that we were already married.

We have friends who were married in three different ceremonies and we actually planned on having three ourselves because it sounded like fun, but it took so long to get our respective households combined and somewhat organized (in fact, that project isn't completed to my satisfaction even today....), we never did do the third one in San Francisco.

DH is not very creative when it comes to holidays. He gives cards. Only cards. From all I can fathom, that's all his family ever did for any occasion was give cards. He is quite pleased with himself when he hands me a card, and I have given up on trying to augment his ways to include even poorly thought out gifts.

All that aside, our first year, I didn't get a blessed thing on Valentine's Day.  Then on the 15th, I got an anniversary card.  I wasn't happy.

Carefully, I tried to explain to DH that just because our anniversary was on the 15th, that did not exempt him from his Valentine's Day obligations.

Not only that, but the February wedding was not my favorite occasion to remember.  The chapel minister was a dirty minded man who made a comment about what DH must have been thinking simply because he offered me the wrong finger to put the ring on.  (I mean, some people count the thumb so when you tell them "your third finger," they just might get it mixed up, right?)

Anyway, between my mixed feelings about celebrating the anniversary in the first place and its proximity to Valentine's Day, DH just can't get it right, poor guy.  Not his fault.

So I try not to think about Valentine's Day at all.  DH and I are going to a seminar on how to survive a recession, not a bad way to strengthen a marriage, eh?

If I happen to get a card or a flower for either occasion, that'll be a bonus.

Warm You Up Winter Swap Blog Question #3 (West Coast Version

What would you do to stay warm and cozy while it’s snowing?

Yes, I remember snow.  And ice.  I'm an Illinois child, remember?

People who don't live in California often think that I live in a sunny clime.  But San Francisco is not often sunny, and it's not at all the balmy paradise that folks imagine.

One of the pastimes here in the summer, especially in July, is watching the tourists shiver their way around town in their wholly inapproriate attire:  shorts and sandals.  They don't often think to bring winter gear, but July is actually our coldest month.

I caught pneumonia in San Francisco when I first visited here in July of 1966.  I had spent the day before in Sacramento where it was 106 degrees in the shade, got the worst sunburn of my life (3rd degree in places), and then came to San Francisco where my all-weather raincoat was insufficient to keep me warm, especially considering the temperature of my skin.

Still, I haven't seen much snow here except on the mountaintops or on a trip to Tahoe or Reno.

What I used to do to keep warm was to bake.  I still do that here, even this past weekend.  I'll bake or roast something and then prop the oven door open and let the air get warmed up by the leftover heat.  Sometimes I even stand in front of it, warming my hands and behind, until it's all cooled down.

Also in the running:

• Wearing a very fluffy warm bathrobe;
• Taking hot, hot baths;
• Wearing woolen socks or houseslippers with a cuppa tea;
• Wrapping myself in an electric blanket with a cuppa cocoa;
• Snuggling with a) a cat; b) two cats; c) a reluctant husband (who is cold-blooded anyway so he isn't much good to me in these circumstances).

Bonus:  a picture of my Christmas cactus right before Christmas.  I raised it from an accidental cutting that got knocked off of a hostess gift I took to a Christmas party in 2007.  The cutting was just three sections long.  Look at how big it got!  You can just see its first bud forming.

Why Did I Learn To Crochet?

OK, in all fairness to the Warm Ewe Up Winter Swap moderator, I'll answer the question that she meant to ask me.

I was born to crochet.  It is my destiny.

Seriously.

My maternal grandmother crocheted.  She was a 4'8" spitfire of Irish heritage and she was left-handed.  In fact, she had several (I'm thinking maybe 8? but I can't recall how many) siblings, and they were all left-handed.

Sadly for her, both her children -- my mother and my aunt -- were right-handed.  They longed to crochet like their mom but they couldn't quite learn from a left-hander.

When I was born and showed a preference for the left hand, there was much rejoicing because now Gramma (she was still just Gramma then.  Later she would be known as "Little Gramma" by her great-grandchildren to distinguish her from their grandmothers) would have someone she could teach to crochet.

I learned to make a chain when I was 4 or 5.  I would have gone on merrily making chains until Kingdom Come but for a pivotal and rather traumatic moment in my tender childhood.

One day a lady came to our house to do business with my mother.  I am not quite certain what the business was -- my mother was an Avon lady at the time and probably it had something to do with that -- but for some reason, it was important that manners and protocol prevail that day.

The woman sat in a chair in the living room and waited for my mother, who went off somewhere else in the house to fetch something for her.  While she waited, the lady pulled out of her handbag two needles and began knitting something.  I was fascinated and nosy, of course.  I asked her questions about what she was doing and she answered sweetly.  We were having a delightful conversation when my mother re-entered the room just in time to hear me tell the lady, "I crochet."

"Do you?" she crooned.  "What do you crochet?"

"Oh, chains," I answered proudly.

The two women dispatched their business and the lady left.  My mother had no sooner closed the door on her than she whirled around and berated me soundly.  "Don't tell people you crochet!  All you can do is make chains!  That's not real crocheting!  If you tell people you crochet, then they expect that you can actually make something."

Looking back from an adult perspective, I realized that that lady and what she thought about me and my mother was of Very Great Importance to my mom or she wouldn't have been so harsh with me.  But at the time, I was devastated that I'd made an awful faux pas (even though I wouldn't have understood the term if someone had told me then that I'd made a faux pas.)

As soon as Gramma visited again, I went to her and demanded that she show me something else.  Something more than a chain.  Something like what she was doing.

Thus I learned my first stitch.  And my second.  And lo and behold, a Granny Square!

Every year someone gave my grandmother a gift subscription to Workbasket.  She kept them in a trunk in her living room and used the trunk as a footstool.  She let me read them and I taught myself how to read a pattern and began making Barbie clothes and toilet paper covers, the usual Workbasket variety of FOs.  My grandmother was envious of my "talent" because, she said, she didn't know how to read a pattern.  I guess the person who gave her the Workbasket never knew that because she kept getting them every year.  By the time I was grown up, they filled the entire trunk.  I'd grab a few of them every time I visited her but by the time I was in college, I had no time for crocheting.  I didn't pick it up again until recent years.

But nowadays, every time I make an FO that I'm proud of and I post a picture of it on Ravelry or on this blog, I think, "See Mom, I really can crochet!"

Breaking Virtual Silence At Last!

Falling for Ewe Question of the Week #7

Question:  What foods do you like to bake this time of year? Are there any that are traditional to you?


Answer:   For holiday gifts, I often make an old family recipe for Scottish shortbread.  In fact I made it recently for a swap -- not this one (sorry, spoilee).  I put the finished shortbread on a red plate and cover it with plastic and add a plaid bow and Voila!  Instant gift.  Well, I guess it's not instant if it takes an hour or two to make, right?  Whatever.
 
At home, I love comfort foods at this time of year.  One that comes to mind I learned from a TV cook who has gone on to the Great Kitchen of the Beyond.  It was called cranberry toast and consists of buttered toasted bread (we use rye or whole wheat) with canned whole cranberry sauce spread on it, topped with sharp Cheddar cheese and broiled until it's bubbly and brown on top.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  Now I want to go to the grocery store and buy the ingredients and make it for dinner.
 
I guess that last one doesn't count as baking, but I cheated.  At least I use my oven for it.
 
Update on Me:
 
In other news, I have a job!
 
I started on Wednesday and I love it there -- except for the part about zero tolerance on personal computing.  I'll try not to let the blog suffer.
 
Latest Creation:
 
Snowflake ornaments.
 

Until next week...

Virtual Silence

If I don't blog for a bit, it's for good reason.  Now that I'm officially terminated from my job, my occupation has become The Hunt.

On top of that, I've come down with a ghastly bug.  I've had to postpone all my interviews this week save one and take to my bed.

But one good thing about this is having discovered photos on the old laptop that I thought I'd lost.  The slippers above are called Slam Dunk Slippers.  I made them for a ginger-haired boy in Washington who has outgrown them by now and has probably passed them along to his baby brother.

I'll be back with good  news in a jiffy!

Take care!

Question of the Week #5

This is the Question of the Week #5 in the Falling for Ewe Swap on Ravelry.

Do you like football?

What is your favorite team?

What happened to Questions 1 through 4? you might ask.  I think I answered one or two in the blog somewhere but I can't remember where I put it.  But I didn't like the others or they didn't seem to apply to me so I didn't answer them.

This one doesn't apply much either, but it's a good opportunity to tell one of those anecdotes I'm so fond of.

My dad was a practical joker.  One of his proudest accomplishments was making his youngest sister ditzy. He did it by answering innocent questions with false information.

"Brother, what is the roller derby?"

"Well, Sister Dear, you know what the Kentucky Derby is?"

"Yes.  That's when the horses run around the track."

"Right you are, Little Sister.  Well, the Roller Derby is the same thing, except in the Roller Derby, they put roller skates on the horses."

Years later, my aunt's husband would call my dad to laugh about some of the things she fell for.  They would roar with laughter over it.

When Aunt Betty was all growed up, the ditzy making fell to me.

The most frustrating thing about this ditzy making was its sleeper nature.  Since one didn't know she had the wrong answer, one would not hesitate to pipe up and use her knowledge in front of others whose reaction would range from uncomfortable silence to out-and-out guffaws.

Remember the hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter?  (See Another Yarn Contest: My Black Hills Summer Vacation, archives July 3, 2008).  I was set up to fall for that joke where all basic education starts:  at home.

To this day I cringe to think that someday I might come forth with some perfectly reasonable explanation for something and face blank stares and titters.

So my answer to the Question of the Week is this:

No, I don't like football TYVM!

So, I don't have a favorite team.

But my favorite player is the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Someday I'll tell you a story about that one.  As soon as I quit blushing over it.

Black & White

This thank-you post has been a long time coming. Apologies to Kim.
It all started when DH, who is originally from upstate New York, took me to see where he grew up. There, he introduced me to the most wonderful confection -- (Ambrosia, Food of the Gods, Bliss on the Tongue) -- that I had ever tasted.
The locals call them Moon Pies but somewhere I got the name "Black & Whites." I'm not sure if this was DH's name for them or whether I made it up on the spot. Basically, they are sugar cookies iced half with white icing and half with chocolate icing. I guess they must look like moons to some. Anyway, I had never seen them in my 45 years of U.S. travels (at the time). My relatives Back East know that if they want to make me happy, they must send these to me by FedEx. But it's been a long time since my relatives wanted to make me happy, I guess.
Anyway, when Kim became my partner in the Summer of Yarn Love Swap, early on I asked her if she'd send me one after the swap was over. So, true to her word -- three months later and long after I'd forgotten I'd even asked -- I got a package from Kim with two -- count 'em!!! -- black 'n whites.
This only goes to illustrate why I have a blood sugar problem.
I opened the package in the car outside the post office. When I saw there were two, I was so impressed at Kim's thoughtfulness of including both DH and me.
But then I noticed that they weren't the same. One of them had a sugar cookie base and the other had a chocolate cookie base.
Which one should I eat? Did I really care whether DH got one? I mean, he'd had enough of these in his childhood, right?
Traditionally in these swaps, people take pictures of what they get. Here's mine. Taken before I'd even started the car for home:

A Wall of Importances

As my days at the office wind down, I am getting blindsided by something I hadn't predicted.  It seems stupid that I wouldn't have realized it, stupid is the name of the game when you're reeling from a heavy loss.

Every day another coworker says good-bye. Every. Single. Day.
I've built walls of protection around myself, only to find I've walled in something forgotten. Then I have to build another wall within the first, and another, and another, until I find myself looking through the windows (never one to completely close myself off, I put windows in my walls) at important things that I am not dealing with right now.

Things like flu shots and washing the windows and getting the last little bit of filing done.

It's at times like these that my tendency to organize every facet of my life comes in handy. I'm making lists.

Someday, after I've landed on my feet, I'll pick up the lists and start ticking things off.

But right now, adding "talk to the recruiter" and "set an appointment for an interview" and "get a haircut" to my usual daily routine is about the most change I can tolerate.

Top of the daily routine list is "when you've finished crying, remember to smile."

When I took pictures of my coworker wearing the hat I'd made her, one of them showed the address of the building where we work so I left it out of the blog. Now that it's no secret anymore, I include it as a memento of our years here.

Falling For Ewe Swap Question No. 3

What meals or foods mean ‘Fall’ to you?

Not exactly a meal or a food, but where we went to get food in the fall back in my hometown:  Eckert's.

Best apple butter on the planet!

The Summer of Yarn Love Swap Final Reveal

I figure as long as I am on borrowed time at my job that I should catch up on blog posts.

The final reveal for the Summer of Yarn Love Swap at Ravelry was kind of like the end of the world:  except that it ended with a whimper and a bang.  My spoiler Pamela (of Pamela on the Farm fame) and I had gotten to know each other quite well in emails and I was pretty certain I knew who she was, so the reveal wasn't all that surprising.  It seemed more like a mint on my pillow after full day of heavenly languor on the sun deck over Caribbean waters.  (This is the "whimper" part.)

In the last box she sent, Pamela included a letter that linked each item with her and her family and tied us together with our common threads -- and there are so many of those, it is uncanny.  I don't think she even realizes how linked we have become.

I don't think everything that she sent is visible in the photo above.  She sent playing cards and a car air freshener to represent both Ohio and the inevitable "life in the car" that moms like her lead.

There was lots of sock yarn for my baby projects (she knew I wanted to try making the Berroco design Celestine crochet dodecahedron).  (In fact, I have already started one this week):

What Pamela didn't know (at least on a conscious level) was that right before this package arrived, I had decided to try my hand at crocheted socks.  So not all of this yarn will become dodecahedra.

That book in the foreground?  Another one of the Amazing Pamela's Mind Meld products.  One of the questions on the questionnaire for the swap was, "Do you collect anything?"  At the time I said no, but when I saw this comb-bound recipe book from the Ohio State Fair, I realized that -- albeit not on purpose -- I actually do collect something.  Behold!  My grassroots comb-bound recipe book collection:

Clockwise from the far left:

• Best of the Fair previously seen;
• a Greek cookbook from a Greek festival I attended in Oakland when DH and I were first married;
• my grandmother's church's cookbook (Grace Lutheran in Northern Illinois); and
• last but not least, my childhood church (State Street Methodist in East St. Louis, Illinois) cookbook circa 1961. I distinctly recall my mother and the ladies in her church Methodist Women's circle collecting the recipes inside. They even wrote to then First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and received "her favorite" recipe for tomato aspic. That recipe, along with a cover letter from her personal secretary proudly grace the first pages of the cookbook.

See that little bag resting on top of the Best of the Fair cookbook in the earlier photo?  I really suspect that Pamela made what was in that bag and that it's a recipe that's in that cookbook, but she neglected to mention it in her letter, so we'll forever be in mystery.  (Unless she decides to comment on this blog post, that is.)  Anyway, it was a yummy treat that sent my blood sugar soaring and would have caused great damage had not my Dear Husband been nearby because after I'd tasted it and it became obvious that it was Not Long for this World, he thoughtfully disappeared the rest of it.  (He liked it a lot, too!)

Now, I would have been perfectly content with all of this, but then I saw the homemade item!  (This is the "bang" part.)

This bag is perfect in so, so, so many ways.  First off, it's entrelac.  I mean, I can't even knit and purl anymore, so just the thought of attempting colorwork this complicated boggles the mind.  Second, it's a bit of Ohio culture.  It's called a buckeye bag.  I wish I could go to Ohio and pick buckeyes and carry them in it!  But I'll have to settle for carrying crochet projects when I go to very special events.  Thirdly, although the photograph doesn't do them justice, the colors are just beautiful.  And fourthly, she felted it!  This is another craft skill I haven't done yet.  I am in absolute awe of Pamela's skills.

I have Pamelaonthefarm to thank for making the summer of 2008 delightfully memorable!

Our Roost Rulers

These are who DH and I answer to.

This is Booger.

It's hard to explain about Booger because I always get caught up having to explain her name.  See, technically, she's my daughter's cat.  But when my daughter moved out of my home, she couldn't take her with her to her new digs.  Then when I moved to San Francisco, Booger came with me.

She was my daughter's 18th birthday present.  At first she named her Michelle, which I thought was kind of odd.  I'm not all that keen on naming cats people names.  (Which may seem incongruous when you meet my next cat, George.)

One day DD came home and scooped the kitten up off the floor and put her on her shoulder at eye level and said, "Hi, there, Booger!"  It was meant to be a term of endearment.

But then the aha! light came on in her eyes and despite my protests, the name stuck.

For several years, I was too embarrassed to tell the vet what her real name was.  So in Los Angeles, the vet has her on file as "Baby" (my last name).

When I moved to San Francisco, I decided I'd better own up and tell the new vet the truth or I'd forget one day and regret it.  When I told the vet's assistant, she said, "We have a few of those."

Booger is half Siamese.  You can't tell it by looking at her, but you could if you heard her.  She talks a lot.  She's really bossy.  She bosses all of us around, including the other, older cat, George.

This is George.

George was one of a pair originally.  She and her litter mate sister were "twins" of a sort.  They had similar markings and the patches, but the black on George's face is on her left side and the black on her sister's face was on the right.  I called them our bookends.

The owners of the mother didn't want to separate the two kittens because they were obviously so attached to one another.  They were so attached that for the first year of their life, only once were they in separate rooms and that was an accident.  When they found out, they both jumped up and high-tailed it toward each other and lay panting in each others' paws for the narrow escape!

Well, the sister went missing after a year or so.  Later, we found her a couple of miles from where we lived in someone else's yard.  Apparently she had either been picked up by someone else or had adopted another family.  By then, she and George didn't recognize each other.

Yes, George is female.  Another long story.  I will tell it some other time.

And finally,

These are cat toys

There are more toys than this.  I got tired of finding them in odd places after the cleaning people vacuumed -- and of stepping on them -- and finally collected them all in a basket.  The cats come select the ones they want and scatter them around the apartment, but we pick them up faithfully once a week.

Autumn Question No. 1: What is your favorite thing about Autumn?

Here is where I risk alienating my vast readership and perhaps getting myself committed.  But swap requirements being what they are, do I have a choice?  The mod says answer the question, we answer the question.

"One thing I miss from Back East," people say in California, "is the seasons." But the first September I lived in Los Angeles, California, I opened the window and distinctly felt fall arrive.  The leaves didn't change colors, the temperature was still hot as blue blazes, the sun was still burning brightly, but there was something in the air -- something I couldn't quite name -- that told me autumn had arrived.  I could breathe it in, even in this state without the seasons.

Back in my childhood lo these many years, there was this -- for lack of a better word -- feeling that would engulf me at rare, unpredictable moments.

It was partly physical -- my skin would tingle, my head would flush from my scalp down, and gradually this feeling would swell as it pervaded my chest, my arms, my heart.

(No, it wasn't a heart attack!  You guys snickering in the back there can go now.)

As it moved through my body, it became more of a spiritual sensation.  I would feel part of something grander -- a family, a community, a nation, a people -- until joy would pervade my whole being.

Like I said, it was rare.  It was unpredictable.  There was never anything I could pinpoint that triggered it, no sudden heart-stopping moment, nothing anyone said.

However, it usually happened in the autumn as I was entering my house -- not on a special holiday or anything, just opening in the back door and feeling the warmth of the kitchen begin to escape as I walked in.  I would have just come home from school, spotting my favorite trees at the end of the street turning to gold and red, following the driveway to the garage stairs and the kitchen door.

I never knew when it would happen until an instant before it did, and feeling it come on was akin to hearing reindeer hooves clicking on the roof Christmas Eve.  "Oh, goody!" I'd think.  "It's happening again!"

Then it would engulf me and I'd feel so damn grateful that I was alive, that my mother was cooking dinner, that I had a warm home and a family to come home to, that the piano was there for me to practice, that my cat was there for me to pet, my books for me to read, my television to watch, and our table for me to set.

Don't get me wrong -- my childhood was nothing to write home to the Waltons about.  In fact, on a scale of dysfunctional families, mine probably ranked at least a 7.5 out of 10.  So there was no real tangible reason for this feeling to be there, really.

It hasn't happened since I left home for college.  (In fact, truth be told, it was probably earlier than that when it stopped happening.  The dysfunction in the end won out.)

But I never forgot it.  I hold it as knowledge in my heart that happiness and true contentment exist in this world, and I never let go the hope that the feeling will grow into constancy in my life.

In Other Crafting News

I spent the weekend creating bouquets, boutonnieres and corsages for a very elegant wedding (for less than wealthy people).



It is my second favorite craft to crocheting.  At least today it is.



When I have received the promised digital photos from the photographer, I will post more details.  Meanwhile, all I have are these two inadequate shots of the bride's bouquet that I took with my cell phone.



Note the entwined crystal heart beads if you can find them.  They were my favorite creative touch.  I included a matched pair in the groom's boutonniere.  He smiled when I told him.

Well, the first wedding pics are in and I'm adding one of them below.  You can just make out the amethyst hearts in both the bride's bouquet and the groom's boutonniere.

Hair

At my office's holiday party in January someone took this photo of the back of my head. She was fascinated with my hair.

It wasn't my hair.

Well, actually, it was my hair because I paid for it, but it didn't grow naturally out of my head.

I started to chastise her for something -- not seriously chastise mind you, but in that party-going, too-too way one does when there is alcohol being served (I can't remember what for, either, some remark or something) -- and just as I was making a disapproving "mou" with my mouth, the little stinker snapped another photo.

I was disappointed my hair was getting so much attention because -- besides the fact that I felt so unphotogenic -- what I really wanted to get noticed was my armadillo handbag.

(In answer to your question, I will quote Mary Poppins: "made of." You can only just see the strap over my shoulder in the photos.)

Oh, well. I suppose there will be other parties.

Another Yarn Contest: My Black Hills Summer Vacation

See that panorama up there? Those are the Black Hills of South Dakota. Where I come from originally (Illinois), they're called Mountains. (Since I've lived in California now for over 30 years, I have a new understanding of the difference between hills and mountains.)

But way back when I was a teenager in the '60s, those were the highest mountains I'd ever seen. The summer I was 15 I went with a youth group to a summer camp -- not for camping, mind you, but to work. Our job was to dig a trench from the top of the mountain down to the camp to hold a pipeline from a water supply for the camp.
Every day in the morning, we climbed this mountain. Every day at noon we climbed down for lunch and a rest period. Then we climbed back up and back down at nightfall.
I hated this youth group. I'd only been a member of the group for a year or so because my father, a church choir director, had just moved from one church to another. So not only was I a "new kid," I was a choir director's kid. I got picked on a LOT, and especially by the boys.
It seemed every time I turned around the boys were playing some sort of trick on me and snickering at me and thinking I was a stupid dolt.
Mind you, I know now why they were doing it.
My daughter is the spittin' image of me and has been at every stage of her life. In fact, she looks so much like me that when sorting family photos, if they're not marked with the year, I sometimes have to stare at the photo and look at the background and figure out which one of us it's a photo of.
This is what my daughter looks like today. She's 29. She doesn't look much different than she did at 15 -- and therefore not much different than I looked at the same age.

Not bad, eh?
So, like I said, in my old age (and after it's too late to work it), I realized that those guys were teasing me and tormenting me because -- Dang! I was hot!!!
(I'm not even going to say "If I do say so myself" because at the time I thought I was really, really ugly. It took having a look-alike daughter and seeing her every day and watching the men sniffing around her to find out that that coulda been me if I hadn't been so stoopid!)
Of course, people tried to tell me, "It's only because they like you," but I never listened.
Anyway, I digress.
One day after lunch time on a really, really hot day I was wandering around the camp biding my time and enjoying my rest period when these four guys from another cabin walked up to me and asked me to help them.
Of course, I was immediately suspicious. But they seemed really desperate. "Hey, Jo Anne," the hottest one of the bunch called out, "can you help us? We really need to find a hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter to clean out the fireplace in our cabin and we can't find the camp director. If you see him, will you ask him if he has one?"
"Come on, guys," said I, "you think I was born yesterday? You guys are pulling my leg again."
"No!" they yelled. "You gotta help us. Rev (the minister leading the work tour) is gonna kill us if we don't get this fireplace cleaned today!"

By the way, I ran across this public domain photo on the internet and it looks surprisingly like the cabins we stayed in:

I felt sorry for them and told them I'd try to find the camp director. "But what was the name of that thing again?"
So they had me repeat it over and over and over again and I walked around the camp reciting, "hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter"
until I found the camp director.
"Say, Mr. Camp Director," I said, "do you have a hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter anywhere? The guys need one to clean out their fireplace."
"Oh, sure!" he said, not missing a beat. "It's up on top of the mountain hanging from a sky hook!"
Oh, no. If these guys were going to get their cabin cleaned in time for inspection, I'd have to climb the mountain, find the hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter, come back down and get it to them before we had to climb back up again for the afternoon shift.
So, being the helpful and generous soul that I am,
(oh, yes, Dear Reader, I did)

I. Climbed. The. Mountain. Again.

Well, I guess I gotta make this long story short. Lucky for me, my friend Pam wasn't hungry enough at lunch time to come down the mountain and had decided she'd rather stay up there than have to climb it again in the afternoon.
She had no idea where they kept the sky hook up there but she helped me look for a little while.
Then she said, "You know, Jo Anne, I think a sky hook might be some kind of a joke. I mean, where would you hang a sky hook from?"
I didn't tell her about the hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter. I just waited on top of the mountain for the afternoon shift to arrive.
Along with the raucous laughter.

Hello, I'm Jo Anne and I'm a Swapaholic

I have so many crochet projects clanging around in my head daily that today I decided to be a legal secretary about being a crocheter.

I sat down and started -- *gasp* -- a list!

Then I checked all my online places where I get involved with swaps (mostly Rav, of course), and gathered them all up and put them on the list.

Then I put in every charity I had promised a crocheted item.

Then I put in every baby and wedding gift upcoming.

Then I put in every birthday and holiday gift upcoming.

Then I printed it out.

Then I thought of a gazillion more projects I'd forgotten to put on there that I'd bought yarn/patterns for.

I tried putting due dates on them but most of them said ASAP.

I'm in trouble. Deep, deep trouble. So I started my 12-step program today (is there a pattern for that?)

Anyway, meanwhile, I received another swap package. Thank you, thank you, thank you to Barbara from the Atmyhouse Yahoo! group who sent me two scrunchies in colors I just happen to LOVE and a bunch of recipes*, all of which I happen to LOVE, and candy ('nuff said) and a pencil and an emory board, and -- well, just look at the picture and see for yourself.



*(I am learning so much from participating in these swaps. I never would have thought to include recipes! And I love receiving them. I will definitely use these!)

Yarn Addict's Dilemma

My yarn stash has outgrown its containers by about double.

I live in a very small apartment.

So what am I doing entering a contest for free yarn?

*eye roll*

Be sure to mention my name, okay? You'll see why when you read the entry rules.