Well, not exactly dawn, more like almost 8 am,

frost!

I had seen frost here in the morning sun a week or so ago, glad I caught some of it.

Then it was time to go in to work…
see that plant there in the window over the porch?

here it is, screen saver from this fractal images site

As winter approaches, the sun is lower in the sky, and it is lower than the building out front, so it streams into the window. There is no shade, so in order to see my computer, I have to resort to my own high tech ingenuity,

My camera travelled yesterday, but poor dh forgot that I told him the charged batteries were in the camera pouch. He got just one picture!  He says it’s a crappy picture, but it’s a beautiful place.

Attean Pond near Jackman

So things have been a bit hectic. I’ve applied and interviewed for a new job. Well, a new position in my office…

no, the information manager. Our info manager left in September, and I’ve been doing parts of her job (as well as my own). I’ll know within 2 weeks. I really want the best person for the program in the position. If that’s me, great, I’ll be happy for the raise and the challenge that will come with some aspects of the job. If not, I’m happy to give away some of my headaches!

So we all know what today was, and the kiddo and I met up with some other folks to trick or treat. Here’s the sky about 5:30 this evening,

I have no good pictures of the kids, they all came out fuzzy. There were 10 sixth graders plus one of the younger siblings… that’s nearly half of the class! They were quite a gang and had a great time. Our neighborhood, near the school, has more houses that are closer together, but they chose this neighborhood (a couple of them live out here, like in the suburbs!). This place looked creepy, but the family is known,

Mario is there, along with a pirate, a prisoner, my mafiosa kiddo at the door, and a bunch of others

The best was the second grader, she looked like she came out of the crypt, complete with gauzy filmy stuff over her outfit.

the booty!

He already gave up about a quarter of it-doesn’t like reeses type things. At some point it will all disappear!

This post was to be titled ‘i can see clearly now’ (because I have new eyeglasses), but last night was a www night. www=whatever the widow wants, and what the widow wanted was wine. Whew! To be fair, she came over at my request for coffee and to look at patterns. I brought out the wine towards evening…

It stopped raining! And dark glasses are good on this bright day,

This time around I decided to get something fun rather than something that disappears.

The odd thing is that these aren’t really the colors I’m drawn to, but they make my eyes brighter, and they looked the best, and they are fun, so now they’re mine!

I don’t like going to the eye doctor. I always feel like it’s a test you can’t pass, is this better? or this?, well… they look about the same. Two years ago I was frustrated by all of this and squinted a bit, and when I did, I’d find one looked better. BUT when I got my glasses, I found they worked best when I squinted. And I couldn’t wear them inside much or I’d get dizzy. I thought it was an aging thing, but it’s because they weren’t correcting an astigmatism in the left eye (the squinting corrected it, so the correction wasn’t in the lens), and because they didn’t sit correctly on my face-too high. This time around I was certain not to squint, very honest about neither looking better and neither looking good, and I was careful to choose glasses that fit the bridge of my nose, and I am so far very happy with how I see out of the new glasses.

Ruth sent this

along with this fabulous card for making a helmet liner.

How did she know this is what my evening would entail? Thanks Ruth!

The kiddo took some dog pictures,

gracie, zuzu

The girls’ auntie Bear tied a couple of days ago with Auden (this was planned), who is a largish, apricot standard poodle (I’m in love with his son, but sadly the son is nutless). I had a dream a few months ago that Karen had a litter of pups running around, and amongst them were a couple of red ones, so I’m wondering what color(s) these pups will be. Bear is a tricolor dog, you might not see it, but she is 1/2 border collie and 1/2 yellow lab! Here’s Bear dancing, her dad Tucker is the yellow lab, mom Kate is the border collie. (Tucker and Kate are my girls’ grandparents).

More dog pics over in my flickr set. The pups should be born end of the year and ready end of February, ~$500. Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll hook you up with Karen. She has plans already to donate a couple of the pups as service dogs, one to a family with an autitistic boy, and another will likely go to school to be a service dog for a boy with cerebal palsy. She’s looking for somebody to foster that pup until it goes to school…anybody interested?

gracie says ‘smell ya later!’

First some knitting… the back of the little sweater has been done for a while,

Like the lovely s2 k1 psso?

For some reason I am struggling with the fronts. I’ve started and ripped, oh, maybe 6 times. At least 4 of those times was because I couldn’t get the numbers to work. It took me whining about it to my knit pals, counting the stitches for the bazillionth time, counting out the pattern, realizing yes I do have it right, and finally it came out right. But… I forgot what S2 meant. So I was here,

Not so bad, but look closer,

When I thought, oh, I’m supposed to slip those 2 purl-wise. Got a few rows up and it didn’t look much different. So I looked at the directions (here’s a note to self-when you put something down for a week, take a look at the instructions again), I saw that S2 means slip 2 stitches as if to K2tog. OH. Now it’s back to what it was… BUT I forgot to switch to the bigger needle… so I’ll be doing a bit more ripping back. Ugh.

Shoe troubles…

My husband sometimes calls me Imelda because he thinks I have a lot of shoes. Aside from boots (and he’s hardly one to point fingers because he has at least 6 pairs of the same boot in various states of worn out plus as many in other varieties), I have maybe a half dozen pairs of shoes that I regularly wear, and I’m sure that Imelda would not have been caught in any one of them. I’ve been giving my Dansko’s a break now and then and wearing some old but in good shape Clark’s.
They look fine, yes?

When yesterday at work, my other foot felt kind of funny… blow out! Here, and on the instep too!

I took them to the cobbler, along with these, . The verdict? Clark’s are irreparable. Birk’s can be fixed, for half the cost of new, but they’d still look like crappy old shoes. So into the trash with them both.

This radio ad for a tanning place really disturbed me…. two women talking, ‘oh, how do you stay so brown?’. I’m pretty sure this ad could not fly anyplace but central Maine, or maybe rural Minnesota? My immediate answer to that question wants to be ‘it’s my genes’, but the drop of ‘red’ that I have doesn’t make up for the 99 44/100 percent wasp.

But this I found hilarious… The most recent National Geographic magazine had an article on Tonga. The flashback photo on the back page is this picture of the king from 1968. If you read the picture caption, you’ll see what Tonganese youth would call out to passing beauties, translated as ‘O fat liver full of oil, let us go and watch the moonrise’!

Last night I was at the Monster Mash. I’d've thought the 6th graders had outgrown this event, but no, many were there, including mine,

Thank you to Cathy for nominating me as nice. And to Jennifer for including me in the 7 things meme. I might get to these soon! I wonder if Cathy knows that the original meaning for nice is wonton or foolish? I’m pretty sure the Grammar Bible also indicated it means slatternly, and isn’t that nice?

The patterns were free as the LYS closed. So I got quite a few. Plus, they all know I like the old patterns, and they set them aside especially for me… Oh, and I had a bunch already too.  Time to start weeding out!

Here’s what I’m thinking…

This can be a little send off to Libby. Send in a comment with wishes for Libby, good memories if you know her, thoughts about retail in general (you don’t have to be nice about this one). Let me know which of these give away things you are interested in, individually (e.g., #27), as a group (e.g., crochet), whatever. I’ll leave this up for a week or so, until Nov 3. If only one person is interested in any particular item, they get it. If multiple people are interested, I’ll do a random draw per item.

It’s all in my flickr set. There are a lot of pics, so thumbnails here, embiggen to see or go over to the flickr set.

Any rottie lovers? It’s wearing a mock up of a Paton’s dinosaur sweater.

Scarf kit? A sales rep drop off with a bit extra.

Summer 2004 Wild Fibers?

Cast On, three issues, Summer 1998, Fall 1999, Spring 2000

‘Guy’ patterns

1. ‘Larry’ by Woolgathering Designs
2. ‘Richard’ by Woolgathering Designs
3. Reynold’s Designs for Men Vol. 33. Now I’m wondering why the pictures all look like the guys are hanging out of stables?

Unisex adult sweaters

4. Aussie sweaters
5. Ballybrae Trio
6. Penny Straker cables
7. Bunch of Scandinavian patterns
8. Unger Vol 241 from 1980 There’s a guy on the back cover, but it is mostly women’s patterns. This is what the fashionable set dressed like as I was heading off to college.
   
   A friend recently made a vest much like the red one, though shorter, out of one skein of Amy’s chunky yarn. And, my hair was a bit like the blonde’s…um, still is, but ever so much more current! I was never fashionable though.
9. Noro #6
10. Noro #7
11. Noro #8
12. Family Hats

socks

13. couple of old sock patterns

Babies

14. Woolies for Babies, most of these specify to use Sayelle Orlon Acrylic!
15. Silver Creek Classics light worsted
16. Phildar, the instructions are in English
    Inside, (don’t you want to dress a baby like a cow?)
17. This one is actually an 18 inch doll pattern, but would fit a premie
18. Bernat Baby Afghans

bigger kids

19. Preteen sweaters, don’t they look so hip? Not!
20. Circa 1940? This one is missing its cover and some of the pages, but what is here has the pattern info included. These actually seem to have stood the ‘test of time’
    
    Or not, but then we know my fashion sense may be lacking…
21. Maine Island Kids

Generally women’s sweaters

22. Silver Creek, worsted
23. Woolgathering Little Oak
24. Sirdar Evita
25. Pingouin, from the early 1980;s? The back cover is ok. There are some scary things with shoulder pads, but the black one is pretty good.
    
26. Phildar #76. More scary 1980′s stuff (wait! you do want this please take it!), but a decent guy’s chunky ribbed cardigan, and this that looks interesting,
    
27. 
28. Cleckheaton mohair
29. Cabled Raglan Cardi, isn’t this one of the hot items this year?
30. The cabled vest is cute
31. Leisure Arts!
32. Ponchos and Capes

Crochet!

33. Woman’s shell
34. A bunch of old crochet books
    
    Check out the awesome colors from the 1950 afghan book, The booklet with the line drawings is from 1935 and has some interesting stitch patterns, the ‘smart chair sets’ is from 1954!

Whew! That’s it (for now…….)

Did you see this news piece about the giant toilet? You’ve got to go see it in color… complete with seet and tank set!

This is what what the store looked like late this afternoon… (some are rather fuzzy, so if you embiggen don’t expect crisp photos!)

These buttons, have been in the store for nine years… hmmm… wonder why???

Libby made us leave with stuff… before she took us out for a great dinner!

yes, this is me…

Notice the pre-dinner beverage on the desk! It’s Fish Eye. Here’s Homer doing her fish eye impression,

At dinner we learned from Homer (aka Jane) that if you have a white sweatshirt that is covered in blood, perhaps because you’ve just gutted a moose and had to crawl half inside it to do so, that hairspray will get the blood out. Ya think Homer should compete with Heloise for helpful household hints?

I casually asked this woman if her daughter was pregnant,

oops!

I thought her dd was married to a Korean…. oops again, it is her ds that is married to the Korean! She was wearing a flowey baggy empire waisted shirt… and maybe she was tired, but I thought I’d seen her holding her lower back…

5 pm, time to leave!

last time libby closes the store door

Walked past the gargoyles…. to dinner at the Liberal Cup, took pics of the menus in case we couldn’t see them…

Five or six of us got the haddock,

why yes, libby’s earrings and ring do match-not! (paul!)

Which is Libby as herself and which is her as a bad-attitude small-minded knitter?

Homer and Colleen (she of the floodplain forest sweater and in the photo above) and oops mama and Deb and Patricia all helped Libby enormously these last two weeks.

Lynnie couldn’t make it and we missed her, but look who walked in! Lynnie’s cute son and his cute girlfriend!

We even had dessert! Here’s mine,

You must go see this badly filmed video… it is Mr. Keekers’ advice to single women.
Here. I love when oops mama does the Mr. Keekers voice. What you need to know is that Keekers is her dog! And not just any dog, but a pit! This is not the dog I ever thought this woman would have. If I have the story correctly, her dd was driving in NYC and saw a man badly abusing his dog. The man turned around, dd pulled over, shoved the dog in the car, took off with the dog, and drove straight to Maine! I haven’t met Keekers, but in pictures he looks a bit like the Little Rascals dog. His advice to single womean… (in case you can’t hear for all the cackling….) ‘wear meat around your neck, at all times’!

A few more pictures, mostly of the food (!) are here.

I have some things to give away… need to get them organized, but will get a post up soon. Mostly some old patterns, a bit of yarn, the rottie toy in my hands in the picture, not sure what else.