Thanksgiving came and went in such a flurry that most of what I remember is but a blur, of what I can remember of it, Thanksgiving day went pretty well. We didn't plan anything big, I would be working up until Thanksgiving and would be working the next four days following it so I only had the one day to rest. Which is why I decided to make the dinner, which in hind sight probably wasn't the brightest of ideas, clearly I hadn't thought this through. ( but as you will soon discover as you read on, this wouldn't be the last of my misguided thinking this Thanksgiving.) The company was good, it was just our family, my son came up to visit and my husband brought his Mom up for the holiday weekend. There was good food and plenty to be had and ...Ah, well, there was one little glitch.

Here's a little thing I learned this year; when roasting your turkey in a your new roaster oven and you don't have any room in your tiny kitchen to put the roaster, it is perfectly fine to put it on a side table in the dining room, only I recommend that you do not place the roaster on a side table that sits directly below the house's thermostat, as I did, or at least, don't be so surprised that the register did not run in the house all morning because the thermostat believed that your house already was toasty warm from the heat of the roaster, like I was.

You, of course, will not even notice how cold the rest of the house is becoming because you're in the kitchen all morning with the oven on preparing the rest of the meal and if you're like me you probably still won't notice until some time after dinner when the tryptophan has kick in and everyone is settling down for an afternoon nap on the couches and your children are fighting for their share of the blankets.

It probably still won't dawn on you what has happened until your mother-in-law decides that she's too cold and needs to put on her cuddle duds because she isn't used to it being so cold in your house and you decide to check the thermostat with the roaster still setting directly below it.

"Hmm, the thermostat says it's seventy eight, that's odd it's usually never over sixty eight in here, sure doesn't feel like seventy eight." *looks down at the roaster* "Oh well, I guess I better finish cleaning up." *picks up roaster to take it to the kitchen, when suddenly, a thought occurs* wait for it...................Doh!

And so, my friends, if there is a moral to be gleaned from this sad little tale, I guess it would be "Turkey is a dish best served warm, in a cold house." No? Well how about, "Warm turkey in a cold house is better than cold turkey in a warm house." (arguable) I don't know, something on that order, never the less, the turkey was good though.

For giving thanks this year, I wanted to share with you pictures of one of the things that I am most thankful for this year and that is for the friends that I have made and had the priviledge of gathering with and sharing time with this year.

Laughing, learning and sharing our passions for knitting and (not only knitting) has been one of the greatest joys I have had this year and I truly cherish having been there with you all on your knitting journeys.

(Let me begin by asking forgiveness for this post. It has a lot of pictures and may take some time to load, I'm sorry.)

At Beth's knit night in November.

Oh what a tangled web.
Meleah and Lisa take a turn at untangling the skein from hell.

Shelly and The Blanket.

The Day of the Dead KAL Gathering at Amy's in November.

Captain Deb meeting Deepa in Coldwater Collabrative on the Treasure Hunt in October.

Stephania,

Deepa,

and Meleah and I crossed paths on the hunt at Coldwater Collabrative in October.

Shelly with her girls, at Sue and Christine's birthday brunch in October.

The Birthday girls.

Sue's kitties cozying up to Lisa on knit night in October

Sue with Willie.

Stalking Harlot in September.

Katie watching as her mommy spins.

Beth spinning with her drop spindle.

Christine and Meleah knitting at knit night in September at my home.

Twin cities knitter's picinic at the Harriet Rose Gardens at the end of August.

Knitting at the historic house/ coffee house in May.

Anne with her just finished sweater, with only about 18" of your left of the yarn ball.

Sue and Connie with her finished poncho, that she will have to put away until the fall because, honestly who wears a poncho in May?

The Play


The Set


The lovely and (a little scary) creatures in the pit.


Kew on the frosty lawn.

It was still dark, too dark, certainly too dark for me to be awake, but I was awake. Not only awake but I was cold, my body was aching from my muscles clenching, trying to cling to any remnant of the remembered warmth of my bed, (best not to think of that, it only makes me shiver more.)

It's a cold November morning and I'm shivering in the car on my way to the High School again, because it's Thursday. I can't help but think (again) that I must have been out of my mind to agree to doing this every Tues. and Thurs. morning. Ani has chamber orchestra at 6:45 am and as per our agreement I am taking her to the school. While I'm waiting for the car to warm up and shivering in the cold, I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps Ahn didn't have the right of it.

Ahn was a Vietnamese woman I worked with some years ago. Often we would talk about our marriage and families and Ahn told me that in her marriage she and her husband had an agreement as to the division of household chores. Their arrangement was such that Ahn was responsible for taking care of all things that were within the house and her husband was responsible for everything that was without.

Ahn did all the cooking, all the housecleaning, all the laundry, all of child care and bookkeeping. Every night she laid out clean clothes, socks and underwear for him to wear to work and made him his lunch for the next day. She helped the kids with their homework and anything else that they may have needed. When they built their home Ahn made all the decisions, she chose the carpet and wall colors, she did it all. Her husband wasn't expected to help with anything in the running of the household.

What her husband was responsible for was the care and maintenance of the cars, he was responsible for mowing the lawn, planting and weeding the garden and flowers and shoveling the walk in the winter.

I always thought this was an interesting arrangement, although I've always been of the opinion that Ahn was getting the short end of stick in this bargain. In theory it seemed to be a reasonable enough strategy, however, it always struck me as one of those plans that looked good on paper but in practice would surely fail due to the huge imbalance of the workloads. It just didn't seem fair.

However as I was listening to my teeth chatter while I waited for the window to defrost, I began to think that perhaps I had been too hasty in my dismissal of this plan when you consider this; Ahn never had to buy a car, she never had to change the oil on the car or take the car in for service and Ahn never even had to put gas in the car, for that matter. When Ahn had to be at work at 5:00 in the morning, her husband would get up at 4:00; shovel the walk, clear the snow off the car, start the car and let it run to warm up. When Ahn drove to work in the morning her car was warm, she wasn't shivering from the cold and her teeth were not chattering in her skull.

Perhaps she had the right of it all along, maybe striking such a bargain as this wasn't so very crazy after all. It almost may be worth it, to make such a bargain, to be able to sit in the warmth of a well maintained and preheated car on those cold, dark and bleak winter mornings.

Almost.

Stupid cold! Stupid darkness! Stupid morning! Stupid car! Stupid chamber!

(These kind of posts I usually relegate to my live journal blog but for some reason I started it on this blog so I figured I would go ahead and post it here, besides I promised my knitting buddies I would post soon. The next post will have more knitting content.)

Not much to see here only a bit of business for the a Knit Mitt Kit Swap I joined.
The following is a Questionaire for the swap.

The Questionnaire:

Are you allergic to any fibers? Nope

What are your favorite colors? Reds,Greens,Browns and Golds, Fall Colors.

Are you a new mitt knitter? No

How long have you been knitting mittens? Actually I've knit more socks than Mittens, I started knitting a Latvian Mitten about a year ago.

Do you prefer solid or multicolored yarn? I have no preference.

What fibers do you prefer in mitten yarn? Wool

Where do you usually knit mittens? Home or as a take along project

How do you usually carry/store small projects? I have a little zippered pouch for my knitting accessories

What are your favorite mitten patterns? I haven't knit many but I'll say Latvian

What are your favorite mitten knitting techniques?Anything that intrigues me.

What new techniques would you like to try? I'm thinking about trying to knit two mittens, or socks at the same time, one inside the other on double points or maybe Thrummed Mittens.

What are your favorite needles for knitting mittens? I used Bamboo double points, or magic loop on Addi's

What are some of your favorite yarns? Jamieson Shetland, Louet Gems Merino, Misty Alpaca,

What yarn do you totally covet? Socks that Rock from Blue Moon, Malabrigo

Any pattern you would love to make if money and time were no object? Not mittens but there is a point five jacket that I think is pretty fabulous, or maybe the Einstein jacket using Muench Touch Me.

Favorite kind of needles (brand, materials, straights or circs, etc)? I have a lot of Addi Turbos circulars, which I use magic loop to knit socks with, I also have several sets of bamboo and plastic double points, I rarely use straights.

If you were a specific kind of yarn, which brand and kind of yarn would you be? Classic Elite Renaissance.

Do you have a favorite candy or mail-able snack? I like chocolate

What’s your favorite animal? I'm a dog person but currently don't have a dog. I'm rather smitten right now with our cat, Hobbes.

Would you prefer super warm mittens or something more like fingerless mitts? Suppa warm

If you were a color what color would you be? Forest Green

What is your most inspiring image, flower, or object in nature? The Fall Foliage

Do you have a wishlist? No

Anything else you’d like to share with the group today? Can't think of anything.

Move along, there is nothing to see here.