How could I have known?

David and I have a (rather annoying) tradition around gift giving to each other. We buy each other gifts that are actually gifts for ourselves. For example, one year I gave David a gift certificate to the Home Depot so he could build us a dining room table. One time David gave me an entire new set of really nice pots and pans (he’s the family chef). Then there was the time I bought him a leather jacket that was, ooops, 5 sizes too small for him.

I’m not even sure how it started (actually I’m sure he was the first but if he were blogging, I’m also sure he would say the opposite). I can say, however, that as the years of marital bliss have been passing, dotted by birthdays and Christmases and anniversaries, the gifts have become ever increasingly obviously not for the receiving spouse but rather for the giver.

So last year, for David’s birthday, I was faced with only two options:
1. completely give up any pretense what so ever and buy him yarn or

2. break this evil chain of selfishness

Any knitters reading this must be thinking that that would have been a no-brainer. Buy yarn, of course (I could have said that the yarn was for something I would knit for him…I mean, if I needed to explain). BUT, instead I took the high road (ok, it wasn’t soooo high, my birthday is three weeks after his so I knew my decision would pay off). I bought him this:

It’s a dremel. It is THE tool to assist him in his pipe making adventures. It was so clearly for him that I wasn’t even sure that I bought the right thing. I had never seen one before so when I went to the Self (“everything for do-it-yourself”) I had to ask the nice young man in the red shirt to help me find it. I think that men have an unspoken, universal fraternity because this nice young man talked me into buying the expensive brand-name Dremel instead of the Black-n-Decker cheaper version. (Ok, before I get a bunch of emails from men about that last comment, I will admit here and now that, yes, we women have an unspoken, universal sisterhood. And women knitters…don’t even ask, just get that hand-dyed alpaca).

Boy am I glad I shelled out the big bucks for my dear husband.

It happens to be the time of the year for pruning the olive trees right now.










Ya’ know how seeing a big pile of things makes my imagination fire up? Well, thanks to my husband’s dremel…

olive knitting... needles!








Honey, if you’re reading this…how could I have known? Really I tried…please don’t take back the yarn you so generously gave me for my birthday.