90 Days

It is 90 days until our 15th anniversary and there are some things I want to accomplish by then. I am hesitant to say it aloud - as aloud as one can get typing but I think you know what I mean:

Type two pages a day to complete one of the books.

Keep up my knitting - such a task - so I can earn a trip to Hobby Lobby for worsted weight & cotton yarn and a LYS for some luxury stuff. This, of course, will be an anniversary present.

Continue and increase my workout calendar and make big inroad to my fitness goals.

You can feel free to ask me about any of these goals as a way of keeping me honest and motivated.

Want to see my soap sacks? If the answer is no you should leave the room: This is another one of those phenomena that goes with why the dentist's kids have bad teeth and the hairdresser's kids have funky haircuts. The knitter has been saying for the longest time how she needs one of those soap thingys that hold the soap ends so they don't end up all over the soap holder turning it into a slimy mess. This same knitter has looked over patterns to make them and never put the two of them together. She finally makes them for sale in the shop and until this very moment didn't think of knitting up a few more for personal use.
Tell me that happens to you as well.

The snow will be with us for a while even as we warm up to the low to mid thirties in a few days. I wondered out loud where all the water was going to go and Mr. Honey with scientific smugness enlightened me with the fact that 20 inches of snow only amounts to two inches of water.

I told him then he wouldn't mind if every house on the street took their 20 inches of snow each and put it in our basement.
Ha.

Pay No Attention to the Lady With the Needles

Notice anything about this photos? Yes, you there waving your hand. What do you notice? They're all in color. Oh, very good, but that's not what I was going for. What about you with the iPod tacked to your head. What do you notice? Snow? Well, take a free download my friend. Yes, they are all taken in the snow.

I learned a few months back that photos taken outside are better than ones taken inside - which doesn't explain why I bought a 30 inch light box to take photos indoors but does explain why I have yet to use it.
I traipse (indeed, I traipse, don't you?) outside and I take photographs of my items. Snow, cold, wind - I go out and take the photos. Recently, it was incredibly cold out and I had to photograph six shawls. I could only do two at a time before coming inside to warm up. I'm not even sure there was snow on the ground - it might have just been cold.

I take the photos in my backyard - my backyard in Chicago. Not a lot of open space in Chicago. On a clear quiet night you can hear things going on in your neighbors' houses. If you're in the right rooms of your perspective dwellings, you can hold a conversation with your neighbors that folks walking by can chime in on - I've done it.

My neighborhood is also quite active. Comings and goings all the time and we're all very friendly - thanks to some well planned block parties!
We've had some families move in recently and not only has that made the neighborhood more diverse (hence, I am no longer the only pigmented person on the block and now there are English, Polish. Italian and Spanish speaking folk as well. Throw in a French speaking family and we qualify for NATO.) Theses families have brought younguns with them to go with the already eager younguns who were born to the couple next door. These young folk are...inquisitive..shall we say? They need to know everything. One can barely leave the house without one of them asking where you're going, what you're going to do once you get there, how long will it take to complete your business, and the route you're going to take home.

I was entering the house one afternoon when three girls (ages 3-5) stopped me:
"What's new, Miss Bev?" One of them asked me with the other two standing close.
"Nothing, girls."
"Really?" said another, quite seriously. "Because it appears you've cut your hair."
I swear, put them in airport security and no one flies.

What does this have to do with the snow? No one in the past twelve months since I've opened the shop and started taking photos outdoors has questioned what the hell I'm doing. No one wonders why I bring stuff out in the backyard at all times of the year - but especially in the winter - and take their picture. Even when I march out with mannequin heads. I've seen them watch me, but no one says a word. Not even the girls - who practically live in our backyard because they are in love with Mr. Honey.

I can only surmise their was a neighborhood memo warning folks not to ask what the lady with the Styrofoam heads was doing - avert your eyes! Or perhaps someone ask Mr. Honey and depending upon his mood that day he told them it was part of some therapy and it was better not to ask. (Way to drum up business for the Mrs.)

But not one person has asked. Curious, that's all.

Mad Hatting - Part 2

So, I've already done the first hat and I have another one on the needles when I told the HB what I was up to. "I'm not really into hats."

Like that matters.

He said he'd rather have a scarf. I gave him a scarf a few weeks ago and now he has put a cramp in my knitting mojo. Should I make a combination of hats and scarves? Could it be that others of the male persuasion will not be into hats? Could it be some females might not want a hat because it doesn't match the coat, dress, hair style?

Who really cares? It's a a gift, dangit. It's the start of a tradition. A hat is something you don't have to wear to the office or the movies. You can pull that sucker out on a day like today where the weather is cold and your car needs to be cleaned off. A nice warm hat can come in handy for something like that. It can come in handy when you need to go to the store and you don't want to comb out that mob that some folks call hair and it will hide it nicely.

It's the thing one gets and compares it with the ones the others got and then you start to trade for the color you want all the while knowing it's going to wind up in the bottom of a dresser drawer until that cold snap hits and then you don't care if someone see you in an orange and green hat with a big, old pom-pom on it cuz you will be warm! And maybe Aunt Bev wasn't all that crazy when she made you all hats.

That's what the giving spirit is all about.

No, the mojo is getting a little of his own back. He will not be second-guessed. The hat making will continue and we might not get them all done by Christmas and no one will get anything, but it will be a good start to the hat project or maybe I will open a store on Etsy.

But the madness goes on.