KCS4 Questionary
QUESTIONS:
1. Whole bean or ground? beans please
2. Fully-loaded or decaf? Fully-loaded
3. Regular or flavored? I like dark, very rich coffee
4. How do you drink your coffee? black no sugar
5. Favorite coffee ever? I can't name a specific coffee but I really like the most bold, darkest coffee possible.
6. Are you fussy about your coffee or will any old bean do? At home I grind the beans for each pot, and try to use really good coffees. On the go I'll drink anything if I have to but I like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts best.
7. Favorite treats to have with your coffee? I like shortbread cookies, brownies and dark chocolates.
8. Anything else about your coffee preferences? I'm not very flexible, but not fussy! I like most dark, whole bean coffees.
9. Yarn/fiber you love? I love non scratchy wool. I love most Noro and Malibregio.
10. Yarn/fiber you hate? I don't care for slick feeling yarns and cheap acrylics and most frilly novelty yarns.

11. What's on your needles? I'm working on a noro vest and a rib warner also of noro.
12. Favorite colors? Red, blue, green

13. Allergies?
14. Anything you really love, really don't like, or just need to get off your chest?
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i love the surprise part of a swap. It realy is fun to have someone send something new and different!

Just Another Sick Day!

This is just my year for being sick. Since Thanksgiving I've had a sinus infection, been in the hospital with colitis and now out of work again today with a miserable migraine! I feel like visitor at work! I did see the DR and my medication for blood pressure is being changed. I've been waking up with my hands and feet swollen. ?Not too good for knitting or walking. Well enough whinging, I did get half of my rib warmer done over the weekend and now I'm feeling better so I'll work on it some more.

A Great Day

Today was a very special day for our country and for my family. I am very moved by our new president but on a personal level, my son closed on his house today! It is small, old and beat up BUT it is where he wants to live, it's a start and a great chance for him to get ahead ! I think I will always remember Steven's new start and Obama's moving speech as somehow connected.

sockacide

Sockacide--is there a word for something that was killing socks? I have a large collection of handmade socks that I have been working on for a many years. I love my socks, they are so comfortable and keep my square, fat feets so warm! Well, for the last few weeks HUGE holes have been showing up in my socks! I have discovered the culprit. I got a new pair of Birkenstock clogs. Also so comfy but I realized that the edge on the back was cutting holes in my socks. So now I have to wear my new comfortable shoes with the few commercial socks that I own. I guess not a major serious huge problem but quite annoying. So now I've been re knitting the holes in the socks or darning them depending on the size. I do have some left over yarn from the initial knitting but not for all of them so I have some very unusual patches on my soles.

I signed up on Ravlery for the National Knit A Sweater a Month Insanity! Since I joined, I've made two scarves, a hat and I'm working on another scarf. AND I don't make scarves usually. So where are my sweaters and vests? Well I started the Big Bebe Noro vest and the noro rib warmer also. Last night I also cast on the Hemlock blanket but pulled it out. Maybe I need to join a Startitis Support Group. Well I'm off to work on something until I fall asleep!

Thanks Secret Pal

I received a lovely box from my secret pal with three skeins of Malibregio Yarn and a pattern for a sweater. I received a skein in a red, green and blue my favorite colors. I need a few more skeins to finish the sweater off so I'll have some fun deciding on a few more colors. I have a deeper blue from my stash that looks promising and I'm thinking of a creamy color and amybe a black for the banding. Thanks secret pal it's lots of fun to plan a new sweater!

What a Little Snow Will Do

I am the worst cold weather person. When it is cold I just want to stay in. I'll do anything to avoid actually going out in the snow! Yesterday we had snow, not really much but freezing ice, blasty winds etc. SO I stayed in and kept busy. I finished my one row scarf, cooked up a storm (or actually cooked during the storm!) did most of a baby quilt for a friend's baby shower and started a noro hat.I also "gathered Christmas". The tree is gone since New Year's Day but now I've gathered most of the Christmas decorations to one spot ready to be boxed and taken back to the Christmas storage closet. I leave my snowman collection out until sometime in Feb.

So today I want to finish the machine work on the quilt, finish my Noro hat, shop for the testing lunch we do for our teachers before the ELA test. Next week is a very stressful week in NYC schools. We have the NYS ELA test. So much emphasis is put on this test due to NCLB which is more like KICK the Schools in the Behind!

Remembering "Tootie"

Since September, I have been visiting either on Sat or Sunday afternoon a great older lady on hospice care in a local nursing home. On my way over to visit her today , I found out that she passed on Friday. Tootie was a lot of fun to visit with. She knew she was going to die soon but she was not interested in complaining or whining -- and she sure did like to talk!! We spent hours just talking about our lives. Tootie liked to listen as well as talk. She told me funny and sad stories about growing up in Bayonne and Jersey City. I heard about living through the Great Depression and World War II. The only thing she was still angry about was that her son her only child died when he was only 40 and his wife a few years after.

Most of the time when I visited with her she was wrapped in the ugliest green variegated Red Heart Afghan that she had crocheted herself. Yarn snob that I am, I wanted to make her a soft beautiful shawl but she loved that ugly thing brought from her home! I never made her a shawl because every time I visited with her she proudly reminded me that she made this Afghan! I'll start visiting with someone new new week but I know I'll keep a picture of Tootie in her treasured green Afghan tucked away in my heart.

Adding to the Yarn Stash

If you ever saw my yarn closet and the various places where I have yarn stored (hidden) it would surprise you (it surprises me) that I spent yesterday going from one LYS to another buying yarns like my house was empty of yarn and I had six years or so of vacation to just sit around and knit!

I was in the company of fellow addicts which does not help and probably even makes my actions seem normal! First we went to Stix and Stitches. They were having a yarn sale and there were some great buys to be had. I picked up enough Silky Tweed by Elsebeth Lavold at half price to make a sweater and I got one of her pattern books for $5. We had a nice lunch then went off following my phone navigator to another yarn shop. the last time we were there, the place had a great sale basket and seemed like a yarn treasure chest. Yesterday, it just seemed like an over stuffed junk pile (nice junk) and the owner was kind of distant and cranky. I did manage to get enough Noro to add to some Noro I had at home to do a vest. Then we went to the last store, Modern Yarns which I had not really liked on our last trip. I got some beautiful kettle dyed wool from Araucania also in the half price bin and some coordinating full price cascade yarn to make another sweater AND and orphan LOrna Lace single skein of sock yarn. A quick stop at Starbucks and we were off to go home!


So now I need to start knitting and not stop for years BUT what did I do when I got home? I ran out to Kohls and spent my preChristmas Kohls bucks on a set of new pots for Steven, a new pair of black dress shoes for me and a new front door mud rug. Well I spent my $30 free dollars and a bit more THEN I jumped back into reading about Sookie Stackhouse and the vampires! I can not believe that I am reading all this nonsense BUT it really is entertaining.


Today , I need to get organized to return to work, meet my mother and grand mother for lunch and make two baby quilts BUT all I really want to do is get book 8 in the Sookie Stackhouse series!