...and tired...

You know.. mother nature is a wonderful entity.. she brings us flowers and rain and sunshine in the summer...

it's got to be that she has an evil twin who takes care of winter lately... or she is totally harboring an evil thought or two for the spot on earth where i live.. or for the entire planet i could say, these days...

i have a short photo essay for how i am feeling about this winter....

SICK

AND

TIRED

i've been working on some filing/paperwork issues lately and have only been giving short shrift to knitting.. but i've worked my 20 minutes every day on my sfs socks and have had a bit of extra time to complete a pair of booties and hat for a neighbor who is expecting.. no photo evidence of that yet but i will work on it...

i think i could like this song... Hello World by Lady Antebellum ... because i do see light.. and a little hope .. in a little girl...

RomanceChallenge2011 - Review

RomanceChallenge2011
Originally uploaded by ddhockey

The Border Vixen - Bertrice Small

This author was a "go to" for a very long time. Her "Skye O'Malley" series was one of the romantic series that brought me initially to romance. The Border Vixen revisits Small's beloved 16th century United Kingdom - this time the borders of England and Scotland.

Maggie Kerr is called Mad Maggie because she can out-fight, out-run and out-ride any of her border neighbors. She runs the keep at Asir nam Breug and sees to the pass between her cousins on the English side and her home in Scotland. The pass has been used for peaceful traverse only for the past 500 years. Maggie is, however, the last heir to her grandfather and as such, needs a husband to ensure the future of the Scots Kerrs and the safety of the pass.

Intelligent, beautiful and savvy, Maggie soundly defeats the only suitor willing to take up her challenge. Humiliated, the suitor turns to James V, hoping to secure by royal decree what his skills in the field could not. James the king trusts no one but family and instead sends his cousin, Lord Fingal Stewart to marry Maggie. The king has picked the perfect man, even if he does not know it. Fingal sees he must win Maggie's heart and admiration before even competing and winning her challenge. The pair make a love match of strength, respect and smoldering - more than a match for the border wars, machinations and schemes of all who try to steal their home and the pass it protects, several of which carry this book to its conclusion.

Ms Small paints her heroines with respect - they are bright, learned, strong (or strong-willed sometimes) and every bit a match for the heroes she offers. At one point, her writing of the intimacies between characters seemed to be a little "out there" - but this book returns me to some of my favorite heroines. Mad Maggie is the traditional spitfire, but Fingal Stewart has qualities of a more modern man in his wooing of the young heiress.

If yo've only read the more current offerings of Bertrice Small and were less than "wowed", give this one a try. I hear my old friend "Skye O'Malley" calling me for a re-read.

Pushing the point and shoot envelope

... let me say before i start - IT WASN'T me - it was the camera!! The autofocus on the point and shoot camera i gifted myself with was faulty... now.. with another one in my firm grasp, i am getting to know what and what not... wink wink...

working with a digital slr much of the time makes working with a point and shoot sometimes like working with only one hand. This particular new camera is the same make as its bigger sister (canon) so i know the dots, the tees, and the buttons... and after research i found that this one can be manipulated....

so i will play with it in earnest over the next little while and see what it will do - but i also know that when i am in the city, or on the floor with a certain 1 year old whirlwind, it will do just what i want.. point and shoot...

point


and




shoot




so i will continue to point and shoot til i get it into my (sometimes rather thick) grey matter...




and a quote...

home isn't where you live.. it's where people understand you...

repeat...

there is a ton of repetition in my life.. in all lives i am thinking... make bed, sleep in it, repeat... fill shovel, throw snow, repeat... fill larder, empty it, repeat.. wear clothes, wash them, repeat... now, if i could only remember... think of something that makes you smile, repeat.....

in the days of january when minds turn to the "new slate syndrome", i think i will be happy with... get out of bed in the morning, do it just as you have been, repeat.

knitting is definitely an enjoyment of "repeats"... whether it is in the pattern itself (usually written as 'repeat from asterisk to end' and maybe 'repeat pattern between * to end')... or it's a repeat of making something because you like the way it turns out and must have more than one (pair of these socks, pair of these mitts, hat or scarf that would look better in that great hand painted yarn)... these repeats are not offensive to me as wash clothes, fold them, repeat....i find solace in repeating the stitches that it takes to create an object to wear... or to give to someone else to wear...yes i do enjoy those repeats...

i am currently repeating my socks for soldiers socks, i am on the heels of both socks currently (or concurrently if you like). I am currently knitting the edging on a shawl pattern by Brooklyn Tweed, aka Jared Flood, called Terra i believe in a yarn called Shelter... and btw the edging is two sets of large repeats on either "wing" of the shawl, consisting of approximately 14 smaller sets of 11 stitch repeats. i am also knitting another pair of the cabled fingerless mitts i made to learn how to cable without a cable needle (they are in a post further down with the link.. Mom's something i believe)... because the original ones are too long for my stubby little hands.. i like their length on my arms though, in the cold of january... the photo is of them unblocked and still curly and crinkly...

it's been a long time here, i guess i can safely say that even though i take time off from time to time, i am still writing, hitting 'publish post' and repeat.. i will keep my fingers crossed on that one, too...

a quote... hmmmm......

It is only a business matter, you would be doing me the service...

A New Romance

i've joined this challenge...


i tend to read a lot of romance ... and my to-read pile has increased thanks to the reviews on this site, so i might as well read the books and see how i like them! I sometimes audio-book them, so i can have someone tell me a story while i work or knit or knit or knit...and i find i like being read to!

totally changing lanes... frankly the most exciting thing happening right now is that i figured out the html for making that picture a clickie to the site AND have it open in a new tab/window. (thanks to another blogger here who gave me another version of the command). woh... i am still toying with the idea of moving this blog into bloggers newer template version, but i am totally afraid i will lose the links/pics/setup i have.. baby steps... baby steps...

...just like a tattoo

... i'll always have you...

this song (jordin sparks - the speer version whatever that means) has been on loop all day... on loop in my head when i wasn't here.. on loop on the pc when i was..

it's a song about romantic love.. yes.. and about moving on.. yes.. and about no regrets.. yes.. but it is also about how one's life is marked by the people who move in and out of it.. and how no matter what you do to move on, the tattoo will remain ...which is exactly what i want it to do.





mta: i've lost my touch.. my code won't make the clickie open in a new window... i am saddened by this... *wink*
mta part deux... i've found a new touch.. it works again .. YAY

annoyance can be a tse tse fly......or an elephant..

... i wanted a point and shoot/quick as you can camera... the one i have is icky and slow and me no likey...

... so i looked into it a little.. and decided on a smallish canon that would ... i thought.. do what i wanted..

...so why won't it focus on close things? Why will it not focus when in digital zoom? why.... why..... why....
now i did not purchase this at a camera store.. but rather a chain.. and do we really think that MAYBE 17 year old Tommy or Keisha or Joey or Lannie is going to know whether this camera is faulty or its operator is? I'm thinking not...

so tomorrow i will be on the phone to canon asking ... um. .... why????

i want to be able to take this smallish camera with me when i go places.. but i want it to focus in zoom.. i don't think that is too much to ask...

woh... i finally used my blog for a rant.... sorry....


quote for the day....

you know what men are like... it's all in the challenge...

to upgrade or not ...

i have had this same blog set up forever.. since before blogger made it template-y... i've learned what little i know about html here.. all the modifications i've made to this page i did long ago.....

... but looking at some of the newer blogs i see things i would like to add that i cannot add ...widgets and the like... and until i change to "layouts" i can't have them.

of course - in changing, blogspot tells me i will lose "some of the changes i've made"... which makes me leery... and sooooooooo... here stays the old version... sans the "follow" button.. or "views" stat... or "share" buttons..and my archive stays start to finish...

but i can post.. i can put my pics where i want them.. and i can change this or that in a manner i understand (sorta kinda) ... so here.. it ... stays....

i finished the pair of fingerless mittens teaching me how to do cables without benefit of a cable needle... now if i can only remember which "way" is done which "way"...lol photo ...unblocked...



a quote...

you don't need henry to explain

1.1.11

nope... it's not binary code... well, actually if it is, i don't know it.. it's the date..

between last night and this morning i have determined that...

-i am too old for New Year's Rockin' Eve (NKOTB and BSB appearance notwithstanding)

-i am too sensitive for New Year's Rockin' Eve (i don't care if Dick Clark is an icon and is trying, i am sad that he struggles as he does on national tv)

-i am probably too old to be a reveler (having done a new year's eve in times square... i am content to watch it all from the security and warmth of my livingroom now, with a few crudites and a bottle of prosecco...)

-and when you wake up in the morning after that night... the sun is up as usual, the birds are eating, the coffee is perking, the tea water almost boiling (yes i know i shouldn't boil it **wink**) and a new year, apparenlty, has begun.

I will make the rounds a little later to keep the custom my mother spoke of - that a man entering your house first on new year's day gives your house good luck for the year. But the quandry is.. who will come to our house and shove a man through the doorway first, i ask you?

midnight flames (well after midnight so... hmmm.. i think it counts)




quote for the new year...

I understand you completely!