The Sportsman

Today would have been my father's 100th birthday. That's hard to believe. He passed away at 73, still in possession of a full head of dark hair. (Everyone used to tease him about painting it with shoe polish...) It's hard to picture him as super elderly or most importantly, as belonging to the past.

He'd had a couple of bad heart attacks and we knew he was on borrowed time. He lived out the end of his life in his own way. He died while he was out fishing, on a beautiful day in May, in his favorite place in the world--Allegany State Park in western New York State.

There are worse ways to go.

The saddest thing about losing him--sadder than the idea of no more of his beautifully written letters, sadder than the loss of the warmth of the great pride he had in me--is the fact that he never knew my kids in any meaningful way. My daughter was 2 1/2 when he died--her only image of him is standing laughing behind a big window while he threw snow at her from out on the porch. And he died just about exactly 7 months before my son, who carries his name, was born. He would have been so pleased with their lives and with the kind of people they've become.

He grew up in a family of sportsmen--they hunted avidly, fished enthusiastically, kept an ongoing herd of pointers, oiled and polished their firearms collections.

You know when the police search some crazy person's home and the press says there were enough explosives to blow up a city block? Well, our house was like that. My dad would sit at the kitchen table melting down lead to load ammunition for hunting. We called his gun room "the fireworks factory".

Yet he was a gentleman's gentleman, a keen observer of nature, both human and otherwise, a spiritual man, full of love and pride in his family. He took great joy in tallying visitors to his bird feeders. And no one loved a picnic the way he did.

Picnics have never been quite the same for me since he died.

We lost him way too soon.

Blowing

The library had an early closing today due to weather. The weather forecasters said to expect a blizzard and the snow was a bit slower coming than expected but the temp dropped from 45 to 2 in just a few hours, with howling wind--just about as brutal as winter can be. I was just outside with Lucy, bundled up like an Eskimo, and it wasn't much fun for either of us. Good incentive for Lucy to accomplish what she needs to accomplish so we can get back inside ASAP! Will the library be open tomorrow? We'll see.

The one kind of winter driving that scares me is whiteout conditions and because of that I skipped yoga tonight. I can make up the class on Saturday.

Weight Watchers weigh-in was good--down 3.6 pounds the first official week. My co-worker did even better. We are rolling!

A new knitting project: I have wanted to try the Noro Striped Scarf ever since I saw it on Brooklyntweed.


The jury is still out on the color combination. So far it's awfully.....pink. This is two different Kureyon colorways--alternating skeins, two rows in each color, done in a K1 P1 rib. And which colorways are these? Eek--don't have the yarn here right now. I'll add that later.

Now to try to sleep with that wind howling outside...

Funky Chartreuse

Ta da! A finished project!


Socks. And with the frigid weather we've been having, another pair of wool socks will immediately go into regular rotation.


These were completed in four months, which, as you all know, is warp speed for me. I can credit all the time I spent in the emergency room, and doctor waiting rooms, and recent just generally hanging out with Mr. Kathie. Thank goodness I had my wits about me enough on the day that Mr. Kathie got hurt to grab the knitting before I followed the ambulance to the hospital!! As my mother would say, it's an ill wind that doesn't blow someone some good. LOL

Anyway, these are the Waffle Rib socks from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. The yarn is Sandy's Palette Sock in colorway 007. This was locally spun and dyed artisan yarn bought at La Bella Vita in Mineral Point, Wisconsin last spring.

The two pictures of the socks NOT on me give an accurate depiction of the color. It's a great mix--I just love the chartreuse. And I have a sweater that matches--the second sweater I made: a pullover knit from chartreuse Manos del Uruguay that is unphotographed anywhere (made pre-Flickr). I'll have to get a picture of it...

I also was really pleased with the crunchy texture of this pattern.


It added a bit of edge to a basic ribbed sock. I'll surely make this pattern again.

It's been a good weekend. Will and his friend Kelley visited yesterday with her chihuahua named Sanchez. Lucy and Sanchez cavorted together nonstop for HOURS. Their energy was just endless. Never a cross word between them; they did amazingly well together and oddly enough, seemed well-matched despite quite a size disparity.



I made a big chicken Caesar Salad, baked potatoes, and apple crisp. Will and Kelley brought a great crusty bread from Whole Foods. It was a great meal and I was well within my WW points.

Monday night I hit the scale and we'll see how my first official WW week has been.

Happy Birthday!

It's a day to celebrate here--Lucy is one year old today.

She's added a great new dimension to life around here. We always have been dog people. Well actually, growing up, I never had so much as a goldfish but I married a dog person and by golly, didn't he find a stray to adopt within two months of our getting married?? The three dog-less years between the death of the sainted Roscoe and the arrival of Lucy made for tough sledding in this family.

The new puppy days of "full immersion Westie" are behind us and Lucy has settled down to become a pretty much well-behaved family member. She has yet to chew on a household object. We keep waiting for the shoe to drop on this topic, an expensive leather shoe, but it's never happened. She seems content to chaw away on her toys. Hallelujah! I don't need to come home to find part of the kitchen floor gone, which has happened with previous doggies in this house.

She has also assumed the role of chief nurse to Mr. Kathie, and is doing a lot to make his housebound days this winter more enjoyable.


So it's a big day around here today.

In other news, car-starting-in-the-cold woes continue, and a new battery for one vehicle is going to happen tonight or tomorrow.

AND after my going it alone for a couple weeks, a co-worker and I have decided to go to Weight Watchers meetings together. She's entirely new to it and I hope to draft off her enthusiasm. The financial commitment is kind of necessary for me to be entirely serious about it all. Thanks Gerrie, for being a great role model. Here's to success for all of us!

Keeping Warm...and Annoyed

This would be the abysmal depths of winter--below zero most of the weekend. Too cold for extended walking but still I'm out with Lucy five or six times a day. Thank goodness for warm boots and for warm soup.


Lucy's favorite trick is laying down on her tummy and pushing herself along in the snow with one hind foot. She just loves to do this--it must feel good to her even when it's -10. But then I'm left dragging her along on her leash while she does this weird swimming through the snow. I have to confess my main priority is moving her around as fast as possible when it's super cold and then getting us both back in the house ASAP. So sometimes I'm not as patient as I might be with the snow sliding.

I got some sewing done this weekend but I'm not entirely happy with what I've accomplished. I'm working on the black and white project and came up against one block requiring partial seams as well as having crazy measurements. It's done and it's square, but everything doesn't meet up quite as perfectly as it ought to.


I left off sewing and glowered and stomped around a little, which doesn't help the block, but made me feel somewhat better.

I also tried to get going on the knit-on border on the KSH shawl. I've spent a lot of time reading the very detailed how-to about knit-on borders in Victorian Lace Today. It all made sense until I tried to do it. Then nothing made sense at all. Too many things I'm shaky with--the lace cast-on, the lace pattern itself, the knitting of it all onto the main part of the shawl. I think I'm going to pick the whole operation apart and work on the skills for each part individually. And I'm going to swatch the border lace pattern in another yarn to make sure I understand it. Fortunately there's time before the wedding shawl is needed.

I'm just plain in a funk tonight. The quilting isn't working well, the knitting isn't working well, the sub-zero weather is beyond tiresome, the Packers lost, and a big procedure change at work begins tomorrow and let's just say I'm not 100% on board with it.

I'm going to trust that better days are coming.

Winter Night

Trying to remember to be this joyful about winter when it's heading toward zero and blowing like a banshee outside:

Like now.

On days when it's not too icy, Lucy and I have been doing a daily 2.5 miles in the pre-dawn darkness. It's helping me get in my 10,000 steps and she seems to love it.

And--ta da--I'm down 4 pounds.

I'm also very excited to have found a local yoga class that works with my schedule. Yoga for me is a very humbling experience: I'm horribly inflexible and always have been. But I like the guided imagery and hope it keeps me somewhat agile. Will I ever do a backbend? Probably not, but hope springs eternal.

This week, I've mostly been hanging out with Mr. Kathie in the evenings, watching movies and knitting. Winter cocooning.

Boris is heavily into cocooning too.

We all promise to do something constructive this weekend.

Pictures were taken by Caro's Eric.

Packer Time

I sat down to watch a football game today--now THAT is a rare event. The Packers were up against Seattle in the playoffs with heavy snow making visibility pretty poor. But that was what made it fun. And the Packers won! Lots of happy cheeseheads...

And so some knitting got done. The heel is turned on Sandy's palette sock #2.


What with doctor visits and generally trying to keep Mr. Kathie company, this sock is speeding right along. Mr. Kathie, by the way, is doing well. He saw the doctor this week and has a nice new bright red cast. He's hobbling around on his crutches and keeping busy.

Reading: I finished a book I'd been looking forward to for quite a while--March by Geraldine Brooks. It's the imagined story of the father of the girls in Little Women. Ms. Brooks based a lot of his character and his voice on Bronson Alcott, the father of Little Women author Louisa May Alcott. I enjoyed it--the book's being set in the American Civil War gave it a lot of poignancy.

Year of Wonders, also by Geraldine Brooks, is also very good if you like historical fiction.

Tonya! I've started Sabriel by Garth Nix.

Tomorrow is my college gang's holiday party. Should be a great get-together with great food and friends that go back FOREVER. We always do white elephant gifts. Here's what I'm taking for some lucky recipient:


EEyew! Scary doll! I'm sure this is invested with some crazy juju as it was bought in Necedah during my bizarro weekend up there in the fall. I'll certainly be glad to get it out of my house.

Hooray for January!

The best thing about the holidays being done is that all the time-eating projects--shopping, cooking, decorating, and gift-making are OVER and once again--hallelujah--a small sliver of my day is m. i. n. e.

Now that the holidays are over, I've thought out priorities on my UFOs. The project with the most screamingly immediate upcoming deadline is the putzy little black and white top-secret block project. But I can only work on that in small doses. I think I'd be running around pulling out my hair if I tried to spend an entire day at a time on that project with its teeny half-square triangles and its wonky angles and measurements. But it's tops on the list right now. I have to make a conscious effort to get those done.

Behind that project in the pecking order is the quilting of my Serendipity, the last bit of binding handsewing on the Honky Tonk quilt (both here). Honky Tonk has been sitting, needing only a bit of finishing for about four months now), the red and white Delectable Mountains, and several other projects in various stages of construction.

I have a couple sets of antique blocks that would be quick table runners if I could only get to them. Really looking forward to playing with those.

And then of course the wedding dress project is sitting politely in the background. We have no firm wedding date yet (waiting for immigration issues to wend their way through red tape-filled bureaucratic mazes of two countries). Once the date is decided, that one will kick into high gear.

Making Color

This weekend has been about as bleak as could be--a January thaw has brought fog and wet and a dirty, sloppy look to our snow. So the answer is to shut it all out, dive into the fabric stash, and make my own colorful world.


I jumped on the Pink Chalk Studio pencil roll bandwagon--now there's a good way to get into some color! A few weeks back, I had seen the pencil roll as made by Jan at Bemused and then did some serious Googling to see it in its original form and to try to find the pattern.



The official pattern seems to be no longer available on the Pink Chalk Studio site, but there was enough information there to figure out the construction. And a big thanks to Jan at Bemused for helping me with the rest of the details. Since there's a flannel layer inside, I pulled out my walking foot for sewing the roll together and for the topstitching. Worked great.

What a perfect gift for a favorite little guy of ours on his upcoming 8th birthday...


And every bit came from stash. Yippee!

Finally a question: why is this woman smiling?


Because she walked three miles both Saturday and Sunday and has set some goals for losing some of the chubbiness in the cheeks. I'll keep you posted on my progress. Thanks Gerrie, for being an inspiration.

What's Happening

Snow is what's happening here. It's still just beautiful--pristine and crisp. I've been busy playing nurse to Mr. Kathie, who's feeling much better but who is still on crutches, and will be for the foreseeable future.

Work has been crazed this week. I'm catching up with library loose ends that were flapping around all through the holidays. I think I'm just about back up to speed. Fortunately our schedules here are flexible and our director is accomodating--I have to run home at least once a day to walk Lucy. Luckily home is close by.

I'm determined to start the knit-on border on the wedding shawl by this weekend. Photos as they become available.

And lastly, just so blog comments will be less confusing for all involved, I will now be signing comments as KathieB. Lots of Kathys/Kathies-- and that should come as no surprise to a baby boomer like me.

Holiday Reading

I haven't yet shared my Christmas book haul here. I'm a Virginia Woolf fan, and have long been interested in her circle--the Bloomsbury group. They were an interesting artsy gang--lots of free love and other Bohemian goings on against the backdrop of World War I and the years after.

My thoughtful son got me two books on Bloomsbury for Christmas:


I can't wait to dig into them.

So much inspiration to be had from Bloomsbury... I was really excited to see Kaffe Fassett's newest knitting book was photographed at Charleston, the home of Virginia Woolf's sister Vanessa. His mix of pattern and color looks very much at home there.

And I have saved a dog-eared copy of Country Home magazine from several years ago because of this house, which obviously owes a thing or two to Charleston. I was pretty excited when I started knitting and figured out who the owner is.

Our bookshelves here are bulging and I love each book. I love the look of them, the smell of them. I love to touch them. But the dirty little secret is that I have never read a number of the books here. But now I can chalk up one more as read.

Over the holidays I dove into The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, and enjoyed it a lot. It's the story of a group of misfit-types in a small Georgia town who look to a deaf-mute man as an embodiment of wisdom and understanding, without any real idea of the emotional burdens that he carries.. It was an Oprah choice a while back. Very well-written--all the more amazing because the author was only 23 at the time the book was written.

Back to work Wednesday.