Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Remembrance

To all the veterans of all the wars:

I remember you.
I honor your sacrifices.
I thank you for your service.


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, not the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon, 1869-1943





Friday, November 7, 2008

Introduction

Mesdames et messieurs, j’ai l’honneur de vous présenter ma petite nièce, qui s’appelle Chloe Grace.

Here she is on her birthday, just a few minutes after her grand entrance.

bornsmall

The Baby Surprise Jackets I knit for her arrived the day after she was born. Good thing too, since the small one was so tiny she could only wear it for about two weeks. Note to self: Knit BSJs out of sport-weight or heavier yarn!

My brother sent an e-mail a few weeks ago with Grandma’s Magic Blanket as the subject. Here she is conked out under the quilt my mom made for her.

MagicBlanket

If you look closely you can see that she was working on her pacifier so hard before she fell asleep that it left marks around her mouth. Now there’s a little girl who knows what she wants!

Toes

I find baby toes impossible to resist, I don’t know why.

Here she is modeling the bigger jacket. Plenty of room to grow into this one!

RoomToGrow

Happy

I’ve convinced myself that she’s smiling so big because she likes her jacket ever-so-much.

Happier

I’m pretty sure she’s got my brother Jason wrapped around her little finger. What do you think?

Daddy

Monday, November 3, 2008

You Want Random?

I can do random!

I’ve been tagged. I cannot possibly be the only person who gets a little thrill when a blogger quotes me or links me. I go all fourth-grade shy and giggly, “who-me”-while-I-chew-on-my-braid-and-blush.

Anyway, my point, inasmuch as I could possibly have one, is this:

It turns out that I have quite a bit in common with the author of KnitGeekery. Obviously we both knit, and we both think we’re a bit, well, geeky. She left me a comment when I finished my Candle Flame Stole, telling me that she was working on the same project. Imagine my surprise when I checked out her Blogger profile and discovered that we share a birth sign. Fate, I tell you, simply fate.

She tagged me with the Seven Random Things meme, so here goes:

1) I hate cherry pie. Simply cannot abide the things. I refuse to bake them, I won’t taste them, I can barely stand to be on the same planet as them. This visceral aversion is undoubtedly lodged in my psyche because of the day I blew my entire weekly allowance on three Hostess Cherry Pies and ate them all in approximately 20 minutes. The phrase “sick as a dog” could well have been coined simply to describe the following four hours of my life. I’m probably being unfair to all the cherry pies in the known universe, but a girl’s gotta have some standards. Since I only have two or three of them on any given day, I hold on to them like grim death.

2)I still have my childhood blankie on my bed. I use it to prop up my books while I’m reading myself to sleep, and it makes a dandy backdrop for photographing yarn.

3) I’m terribly shy. I have distinct memories of having to be dragged out from behind my mother’s knee to say ‘hello’ to people. I compensate for this by making it a point to introduce myself at parties, and by doing public things like blogging. I’m still shy, but I’m not living like a hermit.

4) If I hadn’t backed into working in IT, and I’m still not clear on exactly how that happened, I’d quite likely be making my living as a pastry chef. I’ve always loved to bake, and the only thing that’s more fun than the baking is watching people eat what I’ve made. I brought a flourless chocolate torte to a birthday party one year, and the wave of silence which descended over the place as the plates traveled out of the kitchen was one of the proudest moments of my life.

5) I didn’t learn to drive until I was 26. There was simply no need before that. When I was living at home with my mother, we lived right on the bus lines. Then I moved to Boston, where it took me three days to work up the nerve to cross Massachusetts Avenue on my own. After that I lived in and around Oakland CA, and driving there is a contact sport. Finally, when I was 26 I got a job which required me to do occasional deliveries. So, at that point I gave in and my sweetie taught me how to drive. I still chuckle a little bit when I do something behind the wheel which makes him flinch.

6) Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s all about food and family, with very little in the way of over-commercialized nonsense. Roasting a turkey is really pretty simple once you get over how big they are, and I also get to bake pies (not cherry ones). What’s not to love?

7) I find the study of history hilarious and uplifting. It helps me to put things into perspective, and it’s a certain cure for any creeping cultural arrogance which I might find myself inclined towards. If you spend several years up to your ears in examples of human foolishness, it’s nearly impossible to stay smug for very long.

So there it is, seven random things about me that I don’t think I’ve blogged before. As far as tagging others, I think I’ll just leave it to fate. Anybody else want to play?