I am most pleased to report that we had a very uneventful weekend. There was knitting and television, good eating and a wee bit of hiking. Allow me to elaborate.

Knitting: I finished Dale’s Fionn sweater. It needs a gooooood blocking but then there will be a photo shoot. Assuming Dale is pretty again by then.

Television: We watched Into the Wild and, while I thought it was a tad lengthy, I did enjoy it. I also watched a lot of women’s basketball, Pride and Prejudice, and the latest episode of John Adams. You must realize that it was this fair amount of time with the television that led to the finishing of the sweater.

Good Eating: We had our friends Don and Lois over for dinner Saturday evening. I timed the serving of dinner with Earth Hour and we ate by candlelight. The pasta was delicious, the atmosphere was ideal and the company entertaining.’

Hiking: Sunday was somewhat mild and we took a walk over at the site of our upcoming Civil War living history event. I spied some snow drops and scared away some wood ducks. It was a pleasant way to spend a bit of time on a Sunday afternoon.

In between all of this there was snuggling on the couch and a lot of laughing. It was the perfect weekend and just what we needed to recharge our batteries and heal ourselves.

Don’t you love pansies with their happy little faces? Have a fun and safe weekend!

The drama and trauma of the past week have drained my blogging mojo, I think. So, today you get the movie meme that everyone else has already posted. Hello, bandwagon.

Just in case you’ve been under a rock, here are the rules:

1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them on your blog for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. Looking them up is cheating, please don’t.

Here we go!

1. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. When Harry Met Sally, identified by Maryse
2. You get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor’s office. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, identified by Wendy
3. Roll, roll, roll in ze hay. Young Frankenstein, identified by Jessie
4. Couldn’t go on? You’ll give the performance of your life. All About Eve, identified by Liz in IN
5. No! Not both of us! Not all of us!Gettysburg, identified by Robin
6. You’re overwrought, madam. I’ve opened a window for you.
7. That’s cool baby, you know how it is, rockin’ and rollin’ and what not. Grease, identified by Wendy
8. As you wish. Princess Bride, identified by Jessie
9. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a knife, and our lives. To Kill A Mockingbird, identified by Blogless Jan
10.I fart in your general direction. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, identified by Jessie

Have at it – and good luck!

ETA: Wow, you guys are fast! All ten movies were identified in less than an hour and a half. I guess I don’t watch very obscure movies. Either that or you’re all way more into movies than I realized.

Thank you all again for your kind words. I really do have the best readers! You all will be glad to know that we visited Dr. Al, husband of Blogless Sharon, yesterday and he says that everything is healing as it should be. It’s going to take time before his aches and pains are gone but we are very relieved to know that he is getting better.

So, let’s move on, shall we? I feel like there’s been way too much ugliness these last few days so how about if we look at some pretty things for a change?

Like spinning. Indigo Moon fiber in the perfect March Project Spectrum Color.

And new socks. Cider Moon Icicle in Avocado. I’m anticipating April’s Project Spectrum with this colorway.

How about some daffodils? No, they aren’t from my garden but they were table decorations at Randy’s birthday party. They sure make me yearn for spring!

And finally, Hannah. The prettiest thing ever.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your kind words, warm thoughts and heartfelt prayers on Dale’s behalf. We both read every comment and were truly comforted by them.

The healing continues, albeit too slowly for Dale as I think he’d like to have this completely behind him already. He’s got a ways to go. The eye is turning a lovely shade of yellow. Wanna see?

Pretty, yes? It’s so weird because from the right he looks absolutely fine and I sort of “forget” how awful he looks on the left until he turns his head. I get a little shock every time.

I’ve been trying to find some comfort in knitting, spinning and cooking but I’m still pretty rattled. Saturday I had to go buy a spring form pan and I got lost going to the store. Then when I got to the store I couldn’t for the life of me remember why I was there. It all came back to me eventually but I kept wandering around in a fog until I finally just went home. And then when I got home I climbed into bed with Dale and just cried and cried. I guess you could say that’s when it hit me.

Sunday I continued to be distracted and easily confused. I miscalculated how long the ham would take to cook and we wound up eating at 5 instead of 3. I forgot to put out the fresh pineapple that I had bought especially for Dale and I didn’t serve the rolls. I think you all know me well enough to know that this is really unlike me. I’m chalking it all up to a bit of leftover trauma and hoping I’ll be back to my organized little self soon.

In the meantime, look at this:

We let Hannah hide the plastic eggs this year and she put one of them inside a wall sconce. Luckily, Patrick spied it (and we smelled it) before she burned down the house. That would have been the frosting on the cake for this particular weekend, eh?

Today’s post is supposed to be all about my brother-in-law Randy’s 60th birthday party. Friday night he had a big bash down by the river behind his house (I’ve talked about this place special before, if you recall) with a bonfire, family and friends, loads of food and folk guitars and singing. He kept referring to is as a Vernal Equinox party but it was truly in honor of his birthday. I thought I’d have loads of pictures to show you. Pictures of people eating and drinking, singing and laughing, doing what our family and friends do best. I have one. Picture that is.

This is Dale and Randy’s friend Mike before.

Before what, you ask? Before Dale decided to hoist a flag. And before the top of the flag pole and the metal pulley that hauls the flag up the pole came crashing down and smashed into the side of his face.

I present Exhibit A. This is the 6 lb. hunk of metal and wood that split my dear husband’s temple wide open just before the festivities were about to get under way. Scary looking, isn’t it?

I was helping out with a few things when I heard Dale call my name. I looked over and he was on the ground. I thought he had slipped and fallen so I called over, “Are you okay?” And he looked at me in the most vulnerable and scared way and said, “I’m hurt. I’m bleeding.” That’s when I saw that the side of his face was covered in blood. I ran to him and saw a gash on his temple and knew immediately that he needed stitches. Probably a bunch of stitches from the depth and length of the cut. I squeezed it together and started yelling, “I need help! I need help!” I spotted Dale’s sister Lisa (she’s a nurse) and called her name. She told me afterwards that she’d never heard me sound like that before and she came running. So did Randy and Mary. They all thought Dale was having a heart attack or something, the poor things.

While I raced around frantically looking for my cell phone, Lisa and Mary got clean towels to apply to Dale’s face and Dale’s dad came over with a golf cart (we hadn’t brought our cars all the way down to the river) to bring Dale up to my Jeep. It seemed like everything was happening in slow motion but I think we were on our way to the hospital within 10 minutes of the accident.

We got to the hospital and I have to say, as awful as it sounds, that it was a good thing he was bleeding so much as we were seen much quicker than I think we might have been otherwise. The doctor explained that Dale had cut a blood vessel in his temple and that’s why there was so much blood. 18 stitches and two hours later and we were ready to leave. Dale was sporting a giant goose egg on his temple and an ace bandage wrapped around his head to apply pressure to the wound to decrease the swelling. His eye was already turning black and blue but he insisted on going back to the party. No surprise there, eh?

He was greeted as the conquering hero by everyone there. I made him sit, he made me let him have a couple of beers. And then we headed home. What a night!

By the way, Randy writes a weekly column for the Brockton Enterprise. You can read his version of the party here, if you’re interested.

There are pictures for those who want to see his eye as it looked on Saturday and Sunday. Just look in the extended entry. And if you don’t want to see them then don’t scroll up when you leave a comment. It’s not that bad, but then again, I’m used to it. It might not be good for the squeamish.

I shudder at the thought of how much worse things could have been and I will be forever grateful that Dale wasn’t hurt more severely. Really, this was a close call.

__(’Read the rest of this entry »’)

My mom died 10 years ago today. On the one hand, I can’t believe it’s been ten years. And on the other, wow, ten years? You know what I mean, I’m sure.

My mom made me this ceramic easter egg in 1979. Her attention to detail was incredible! She painted little squares to make it look like the bunnies are sleeping under a patchwork quilt and many of those squares are symbolic. A “C” for Carole, a teeny Siamese cat.

I treasure my memories of my mom and I treasure the mementos I have that spark those memories, too.

Have a great weekend and tell someone you love them, okay?

What’s a .knitter to do when the sleeves of her husband’s sweater are making her cry she’s so bored? Finish a pair of socks, of course!

These are for Hannah. I had hoped to finish them for last weekend as I wanted to give them to her as a gift for her stellar performance in “Grease” at school. That was not to be and instead I gave them to her quite unceremoniously yesterday afternoon.

She loves the yarn so much that she’s okay with the lack of sock sleeve and special presentation. The yarn is, of course, Vesper sock yarn, brilliantly dyed by my dear friend Julia of Knitterly Things.

See those perfectly matched stripes? I really can’t take much credit for that. All I did was make sure I started in the same place for each sock. Julia’s dyeing technique is what makes those perfect stripes.

And Hannah’s just a wee bit anal about the matching socks thing so she adores these. She was singing, off key mind you, the whole time I was snapping these pictures.

Why do you build me up Buttercup, baby
Just to let me down and mess me around
And then worst of all you never call, baby
When you say you will but I love you still
I need you more than anyone, darlin’
You know that I have from the start
So build me up Buttercup, don’t break my heart

The nice thing about a pair of socks is the only way they’ll break your heart is if they wear out.

I know that E is for Egg is not exactly original. Nevertheless, here I am, doing it. Why? Because I love eggs!

I get my eggs from Blogless Sharon’s farm. They are organic, they come in pretty shades of brown, green and blue, and they are delivered right to my door by my dear friend.

They are also fresh. The yolks are a beautiful bright yellow and they taste absolutely delicious whether I’m baking with them or cooking them for breakfast.

I enjoy eggs prepared in a variety of ways, from fried to scrambled to hardboiled, but my favorite is a simple poached egg. Sadly, I cannot make a decent poached egg. I keep trying, but with disappointing results. It’s okay, though, because this way poached eggs are an out-to-breakfast treat.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

How do you like your eggs?

The first pattern for Sock Madness 2 has been released so I can now show you . . . Zombie Socks!

They were designed by Sheryl Ball and she says that the drop stitch pattern reminds her of a dark and misty night where there just might be zombies lurking about. She also suggests listening to “Thriller” or watching a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” marathon while knitting them.

Aren’t they awesome? The pattern was very well written and lots of fun to knit. Entertaining as hell, too. I’ll let you know if Sheryl makes it available when Sock Madness is done.

The yarn is Opal Hand Painted Color #18 that I’ve had in my stash for ages. I think it’s perfect for Zombies.

Don’t look now but I think I see one coming! mwahahahahaha