S--ks

Once upon a time a man named Teapot went to his wife and said, "I have no socks. I don't know where all my socks are going but they seem to be disappearing."

The good wife said, "Well dear, Daughter #2 is supposed to be folding laundry and putting it away so perhaps if you ask her where the socks are then she might tell you."

But Daughter #2 said she was folding socks and putting them away as they were washed.

This now meant that there was a mystery afoot. Socks were disappearing at an alarming rate.

The good wife pulled open the washer and looked inside. Then she looked under the bed to see if the socks were hiding under there. Finally she looked in all the sock drawers in the house and couldn't find them anywhere. She scratched her head in consternation and wondered where on earth the socks had disappeared. That's when Daughter #1 came to her and said that all she had in her sock drawer for the last few weeks were odd socks and then only one set (I can't call them a pair since odd socks do not constitute a pair). The poor good wife was feeling very bad that the socks had seemed to disappear and was thinking that everyone blamed her because she had been threatening to burn all socks left in the front porch, or the living room, or the front deck. (Why socks got left on the front deck was beyond her). For days she ruminated over this problem and finally she decided to look in the pile of clothes inhabiting Daughter #2's bedroom floor. It was a terrifically scary job, but she (literally) waded into the it fearlessly (well maybe not fearlessly). After losing herself in the terrible pile of clothes on the floor several times, there were still no leads on the missing socks.

The good wife sat down in consternation and ruminated some more on the problem. Perhaps there was a sock bandit in the house and the socks were being stolen. But then the good wife thought this was totally ridiculous since, who in their right mind would steal used socks. Days went by, and the complaints got complainier as Teapot went out and purchased himself some new socks and Daughter #1 complained that she had been wearing the same socks for weeks. (Peeew!)

It was then that the good wife noticed that Daughter #2 was strangely silent about having no socks. After everyone had departed for school, the good wife stealthily crept into Daughter #2's bedroom, she opened Daughter #2's drawer, and there were, you guessed it, no socks. Deflated, the good wife was just about to leave the bedroom when she decided to open the wardrobe door. Two months worth of clean socks were on the floor of the wardrobe along with placemats and dishtowels and a bunch of unmentionables... all the hot water washing for the last month. The good wife closed the door and quietly left the room.

In anxt, the good wife began to think that perhaps her Daughter #2 might be becoming a strange kleptomaniac. Perhaps she liked to steal the hot water washing because the good wife as a mother might be not such a good mother..... then the good wife's parents arrived and she admitted all her fears to them.

It really was the best idea to inform her parents of her fears because, as good parents who have lived through teenage years before, they were able to set the good wife's mind at ease. "The hot water wash is on the floor of her wardrobe because she doesn't want to match and fold all those finicky socks," they exclaimed.

The good wife sat there with a light bulb turned on.

All day she planned.

Finally, the Daughters arrived via the school bus promptly after school. The good wife waited until Daughter #2 was quietly sitting on her bed reading a delightful library book and then she walked into her room. She asked her Daughter (the sneaky sock avoider) how her day had gone, and while her Daughter #2 was telling her all the things that happened at school the good wife opened the door of the wardrobe and kicked the clean hot water wash out onto the floor in one fell swoop!

Daughter #2 turned red and the good wife threatened to make her wash floors on her hands and knees every day for the next month if ever she stock piled laundered socks or anything else at all again.  The good wife will be doing a wardrobe check each Wednesday. And Teapot and the Daughter #1 are happy with happy feet.

I always hated s--ks and now I know why! I've passed on my s--k hate to Daughter #2... waaaaahhhh!

Going Bald (cont.)

Going bald might not be so bad since I now, in my rush to prepare for the trip to FSJ, have a cow lick supreme..... I think it might be time to find the scissors!

Going Bald

I'm still working on that scarf that I started two weeks ago though I must say that it is coming along nicely. I can make one turn around the neck and I have enough hanging down on one side I just have to finish knitting the other. But I have noticed one thing.... as I sit knitting away I keep finding my hair. So then I have to stop knitting and pick out my hair.  I have come to the conclusion that my scarf will be about 2% human hair.  Maybe my hair is falling out because of all the drugs I had to take for my back. Whatever the reason, it is actually starting to bother me that my hair is everywhere....but not in my head where it is supposed to be.  Tonight is knit night and I'm looking forward to having an evening to work away on my scarf.... I might even finish it... depending on how much gabbing I do.

I am on my way to FSJ today.  Pops is going to get his eyes checked..... usually he needs someone to drive him home because he's like Mr. Magoo. So no knitting. Well I might take it with me and see if I get some time while I'm waiting for him. It's sunny and nice though the leaves are gone from the trees so it won't be submersion a la orange today. I'm taking the camera so I might have some pictures tomorrow.

See ya round I've got go fix my bald head!

Tickle Me Pink

Thanks for the comment on yesterday's post on pink... I do have to say that I really didn't want anyone to feel that I think they are in the wrong if they like pink.... no indeed.  If pink is your bag and you can wear it without vomiting then go for it. Sometimes when I see pink on others I'm quite jealous that they can take pleasure in it while I violently dislike it.  Colour is a very personal thing so every person is entitled to enjoy whatever colour is a pleasure to them. And I do have to fess up.... I headed upstairs yesterday morning after posting on this blog about my hate relationship with pink and there in all it's glory was another Murphy's law slap-in-the-face in the form of a pretty soft pink blouse that I had purchased earlier in the summer to wear with a pair of brown culottes!!! I needed to go lie down.  Maybe the reason I forgot it was because I dislike it's colour so much.

Anyway, I've always had difficulty choosing my favorite colour. When I lived in a normal house.... (you know, the kind with drywall) I had a terrible time when it was time to refresh the walls with paint. I would stand in front of the paint chip display in the hardware store and want to cry. Then I solved the problem by just wanting to bring home a whole pile of paint chips in all the colours and glue them onto the wall. Teapot was not happy with this idea! So paint became a life long problem...... until we moved to our log home. Phew.... I was finally able to put the whole painting problem behind me. Thank heavens the person who owned our house before us had picked the red tin roof because that would have been pure agony picking out the right colour for the tin. Still two years ago, we decided that cream coloured Berber carpet which the previous owner had chosen, was completely crazy in a farm home and we took it out with no plans for a replacement..... and when I got sick of the plywood floors and decided to paint them choosing a colour almost put me in a straight jacket..... I finally chose red based on a friend's suggestion.

So you see that colour has always been an issue for me. I like them all (except for pink). When choosing new counters for the kitchen last year... during the great renovation, I chose one with just plain brown. I tend now to go for neutral mostly because my head starts to spin when I have to choose.

Green is simple divine. Very calming when it comes to moss green or any shade there of. I also love Granny Smith Apple green especially against black. Forest green makes me happy because of the name and I tend to think of owls and wolves and deer and their soft velvety lips. Who wouldn't like forest green if it reminded you of those things.

Red is awesome. I love and red plaid. I feel like getting up and marching when ever I look at red. It makes me feel energetic. I love red and any shade of it, like burgundy.... ummm wine, candy apple red... oh yum, fire engine red... very nice....gotta love red.

Orange is gorgeous.... reminds me of autumn. I love the word autumn.... and rarely say fall. Cantaloupe melon is lovely when teamed with cream.

Yellow if it lemon or butter is very pretty....and though I'm not gone on mustard I do like gold.

Blue and any shade there-of is the colour of the gods. Can't say enough about blue.  Indigo.... awesome! Sky blue... divine! Ocean blue.... sumptuous! Blue-green.... I want to immerse myself in it! No wonder there are so many shades of blue.

I can go on and talk about all the colours but I might make you nauseated. You see I have a terrible colour affliction. My brain starts to do jumping jacks when ever someone asks me what my favorite is..... I just cannot choose.  As a result I have a tendency to chose colour combinations instead. I love moss green and cream. I love dark denim blue and lilac. I love red and black. I love orange and ecru. I think butter yellow and cornflower blue are lovely.  I think purple and brown are nifty. And I think turquoise and coffee are great.... and that's just a few.

Lately, I've been thinking about painting the floor since it is really showing a lot of wear and tear. Our couch is the colour called espresso and so I have chosen (how I did it is beyond me) beige with a touch of green to paint over with a dry brush technique... it will be at least another year before we can get flooring down in the living room unless the hardware store where we buy flooring has a really good sale. I also have always wanted my bedroom to be moss green with cream and or black accents. I'm working on that one.

So after all these confessions of a true colour addict (better than drugs) it is no wonder that I am a fibre artist. I really have no idea where I was going with all this.... oh yeah, if you're into pink go with it. Just cause I'm not doesn't mean you shouldn't be. Colour is personal.

And now my head is spinning with all this talk of colour. I think I might need a tranquilizer..... yeah... oh my God what have I done! I've opened up a real can of worms now..... Teapot is going to be so mad.... I'm thinking maybe I'll have to go spend some time in the hospital... yeah... some nice white walls... that'll calm me down....

A Survey Of This Household

It's unanimous... the whole house agrees that pink sucks. In hind sight, I am embarrassed that I ever forced my kids to wear it when they were little.  But to be honest, I really feel that little girls don't have much choice. Pink is everywhere in the little girls clothing section of pretty much any store. Then a few years ago, I actually purchased some hot pink alpaca rovings. OMG that was hard on the eyes! But I persevered and finished spinning it in record time. (Probably because I hated the colour so much.) Yesterday I was going through my basket of hand spun yarn and came across that hot pink alpaca still balled up and ready for use and it was then that I decided that I would never have anything to do with pink again. Five years is a long time to leave perfectly good alpaca yarn alone with no project in mind. What I had in my mind when I brought that stuff home is beyond me. Then in another basket I found a partial baby surprise sweater in a soft bubble gum pink fibre that I have never had the ability to finish. I raveled it out, skeined it up and washed it and it will go in my "for sale" pile. After that my pink-hate reigned supreme all day. Last night, I was going through all the possible backgrounds for the Ye Olde Batt facelift, and I just about puked each time I landed on anything resembling pink.  I don't know when my hate relationship with pink began... it just seems like I've hated pink forever.

I realize that this is abnormal and that there are a lot of people who can wear pink and carry it off with aplomb. I sometimes see women wearing pink and think, gee, that looks super on her. But when I wear it I want to go racing to the bathroom where I can enjoy a view of the inside of a toilet. I have passed on the hate relationship I have with pink to my children. When they see pink they go, "Oh yuck!" which recently happened when we watched Miley Cyrus's new movie called The Last Song.  In the movie she picked out some cross breed lilac/pink confection style dress for a wedding she was going to attend.... the girls groaned in agony when she picked out that dress.... and I have to say that it's probably all my fault. But in all honesty, the dress really didn't do anything for her..... I think it would have been hard pressed to do anything for anyone. My reaction was, Oh God who picked that stupid thing out! (Otherwise the movie was not too bad for a coming of age movie.)

I don't have a problem with women being feminine or anything but they can do that so well without getting sucked in to the pink confection movement. I think plaid gum boots prove your feminine side quite nicely. (I can't see a man ever wearing plaid gumboots!) I also think that a soft butter yellow will do very nicely for those moments when you feel you want to look like a soft sweetheart. Even Ice Blue looks awesome on a woman who needs a moment to draw the attention of a/her man. Here are a few pictures of the Together brand of clothing sold by Sears..... All of the articles of clothing are very feminine and there's not a bit of pink anywhere to be seen.

Mind you, most of this clothing has lace or embroidery and lace is just plain awesome..... very feminine.

I think what it is that makes me dislike pink is the fact that it is so over used. I actually can handle pink if a man is wearing a nice pale pink shirt..... and I don't think it is gay. I think that pink on a man means that he's very comfortable in his skin, be he gay or otherwise. I also have a skirt that I made a few years ago that is brown with gold and pink in the pattern and it is really pretty... mind you I never team it with a pink top... (I don't think I own any all pink clothing)... But the point is that the feminine side of pink is not part of this fabric.

This is the material for my skirt....and the only pink you'll find in my closet.

As a matter of a fact, in view of men wearing pink more often, I don't think that pink is the be-all-end-all of femininity anyway.Whenever women want to look pretty and innocent they choose pink. But the only innocent thing that can carry off pink are flowers and sunsets. And that in my opinion, is where pink should stay.

After all this, I am heading off to get out of my yellow nightgown, to shower, and put on something that absolutely does not look even remotely like pink.

Hope You Like It

A little seasonal face lift for Ye Olde Batt... hope you like it.

Cool!

Now if this isn't cool then I don't know what is.... you can go here to read some more about it.