Sometimes a girl just wants a new bag

Yesterday I went to visit our friend Flavio in the hospital. Poor guy - took the day off of work on Friday and ended up breaking his ankle in three places when his vespa fell on him. I’m sure that employers everywhere would say that there is a lesson in that. I say, yeah, there is a lesson! Italian healthy care won’t LET him go back to work for 3 months! In fact, they even have “health police” who come around to your house to make sure you are really at home. At the hospital Flavio, his girlfriend Mercedes, and I were talking about the differences between health care in the US and the Italian system. I was all set this morning to write an in-depth, intellectual, compare and contrast essay about the two systems but sometimes a girl just wants a new bag.

So I made this:

And I’m so pleased with myself that this is what I’m writing about instead.

Look! Here’s the back:

Here it is in action:

Doesn’t it hold that ball of yarn nicely? I think so, too.

In case any of you are really curious about the health care comparisons, I didn’t really have that much to say anyway. Basically in Italy they take much better care of you and your health actually seems to come before the bottom line (your employer’s or the HMO’s) but being in the hospital gives the impression of something out of WWII.

Well, that’s about it. I’m off to work on that pair of socks that is so nicely contained in my new bag.

Can you see it?





Look closer. Wait, I'll show you the same picture in the dark...

See those red lights glowing on the wall switch and on the water heater? That means that it's on. The water is warming up as I type. Isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? I'm just about in tears myself.



My hero, David, arranged for this beautiful moment. He called Mimmo, the plumber (and all around great guy), who works with his swedish wife, Madelaine (and all around hysterical - in the greatly funny way- woman). Upon hearing of our emergency they came promptly to attach the very wires it was that gave me a terrible shock. Unfortunately for them they had to do it by candle light since it was already dark outside and, well, I had that incident that lead to the overhead lights going out. Anyway, they would have done so in the dark anyway since they, as a practise, turn the electricity off before touching wires (they are so professional!).

So, I am happy to report, I will smell much better tomorrow.

Happy Woman's Day

Well, Day of the Woman was really yesterday but I didn't get to blogging yesterday. I was too busy being treated like the incredible, smart, strong, beautiful queen of a woman that I am. Coffee in bed, all dished done for me, the kitchen floor was washed - all this to demonstrate to me how appreciated I am.

Actually it went more like this...

wake up, normal day, normal day, go to first lesson of the day and student says, "did you get some flowers for woman's day?", I said, "no", normal day normal day, I go home, "David, today is woman's day." "Happy woman's day, honey. Do you want some flowers?"

The kitchen floor is still dirty but you don't notice because all you see when entering the house are these

Day of the woman here in Italy is quite celebrated. These beautiful yellow flowers are THE gift for the women in your life and you can't find a woman walking around town without a bunch of them in their hands. They are called mimmosa. Maybe you can't tell from my very small picture but they are very Suessian in that they are a collection of yellow puff pom poms (there seems to be a pom pom theme developing here on my blog ... for those of you who are questioning this new found fondness of mine for pom poms, I can only explain it as it relates in my mind to Dr. Suesse...not cheerleaders). Luckily for David, we have almost as many mimmosa trees growing around our house as we do olive trees.

Unrelated to any of these, but yesterday I actually finished (except for the cool "olive" designer label) the Colorbomb.

From Olive's Kitchen...

Recipe for Bits-n-Bobs Colorbomb Sweater




Ingredients:

1 extra large sack - yarn bits-n-bobs
16 days - knit two, purl two ribbing
11 days - home alone on the side of a mountain
1 fresh puppy (no older than 5 months)
1 March 10th designer submission deadline (optional)

Pre-heat house to 70 degrees. I find that pellets work the best but if you must, you can use central heat.

Begin with the ribbing -- knit 2, purl 2 thoroughly for 16 days. Make sure to not cut corners on the length of time of this step and do not add any imagination or creativity at this point. This is very important for the Colorbomb creative yeasts to have sufficient time to rise during this monotony. Put ribbing in a closet (or a sack under the bed if your house has no closets). Set creative starter aside.

In a large basket, dump contents of extra large sack of bits-n-bobs. Slowly add 11 days of being alone on the mountainside along with the starter. Once creative juices begin to flow, add the puppy. The result here, you will find, will be a minimum of 18 walks a day. Again, very helpful for the creative juices to have time to stew while you enjoy these 18 breaks per day in the natural world.

Finally, add the submission deadline. This is optional based on the chef’s preference. I like to add it or the Colorbomb will end up under the bed at some state of incompleteness.

Weave in all ends and wear.

Do-it-yourself

Do-it-your-own-damn-self…

I’ve been cursing that phrase for the past several days. How long ago was it when I last blogged about the water heater switch? Well, what I failed to mention that day was, when all was said and done – zero hot water, one unwanted shock permanent, four hours of precious knitting time lost, and one deflated confidence - I also lost the functioning of the overhead light.

So, for the past several days as I get up to pee in the middle of the night and wander into a dark bathroom, I curse loudly the man (and I’m SURE it was a man) who invented that hyphenated, hip phrase “do-it-yourself”. Yeah, I did-it-myself alright. Why wait for the overhead light switch to brake down on its own when you can DO-IT-YOURSELF?!

I have a hard time throwing things away.

I have a hard time throwing things away. I mean, you just never know when you are going to need, for example, one (or 20) of these:


Whenever that time comes, I’m prepared. (Yes, I actually take the time to wash them and store them).




Here is my collection of jars.


It should be a much larger collection but David strongly “requested” that I let some go last autumn.






Here are the lids…
I’m not exactly sure why I don’t keep them together with their jar. I think I just like to see a lot of one thing all together.






In the past couple of days I’ve been very busy making these:


Those are my new designer labels (Yes, that would be more “Olive” designer labels than I have completed designs. Oh well, I’m optimistic).






They look like this on a completed item:


Cute, no?






AND, when you make so many little things like that in wild colors, you get a lot of these:

True to form, I let my pile of little scraps of yarn build up as I made more and more labels until it hit me.








POM POMS!!!!!!





Mette, dear friend and knitting mentor of mine, I told ya I’d find a use for these!:



I'm delirious with pom pom possibilities.




I’m not sure but I might be spending too much time alone.

Little beaded flowers?

Did you ever just feel like making little beaded flowers?









Yeah, me neither. But I did today. I went to the Self "everything you need for do-it-yourself" as their promo goes. It's my favorite store. Usually I go there just to wander the aisles. But today I had a purpose. By way of the craft aisle (where I found some very festive beads) I went straight for this:

That is the switch that was supposed to solve my hot water problem. I was feeling so hopeful this morning about being able to have a hot bath today. I should have known better. In fact I should have known I'd have problems when last night I asked Jeeves about how switches work, you know, just doing a little research, and he told me this:

Forget that. I'll just unhook the bad switch and rehook the new one in the same way.

In theory this should have worked except that, well, the new switch wasn't the same as the old switch. It has less little holes in the back where the wires go. In fact, the switch was really a buzzer switch for a front door (apparently the Self doesn't have everything you need for do-it-yourself. A little knowledge is helpful too). Well, I tried to hook it up anyway. If it worked I would just hold it down for 3 hours until the water got hot or someone came to the door.

I proceeded to try every possible wire/hole combination until ... I got a shock. It wasn't a big one but it was enough to get me to give up for today ... and make little beaded flowers.