New Year's Eve Maberga style

So, three days ago I was taken ill.  So ill that I haven't been vertical for more that the 20 seconds it takes for me to walk from any horizontal post in my house to my bathroom.  Yes, I think I'm dying...but then, A) I tend to be a big wimp when I'm sick, B)  I also tend to exaggerate, and C) well, I hate to break it you all, but we are all dying, eventually.

Yeah, ok.  So I've been taking some medication as well. 

Anyway, since I don't have the brain power or the tremendous wit to form my own New Year's Eve post tonight, I would like to direct you all to an awesome blogger who I've recently discovered.  I find that her New Year Post says all that I really need.  GO HERE.  Thank you, Emma.  And I hope that you knitters in the reading pool will check out her patterns.  Cool stuff.

Happy 2012 to everyone. 

Merry Christmas

from Maberga







Is that or is that not the most Charlie Brownish Christmas tree ever?  Yes, thank you, it is.  That's really the look we were going for.

If you find it as completely lovely as I do, and would like to replicate the effect in your own home next year, here's what you gotta do...

1.  Liberally, and I mean LIBERALLY, trim your olive trees.  Strew all the just cut branches around your property for inspection. Pick the biggest and the best one (duh.).

2.  Put the branch in a basket in your bedroom.  You don't need to put it in water.  As the branch dries out, all the leaves start dropping thus enhancing the overall feel.

3.  Hang a couple old and dried out chili peppers from the garden and the 4 christmas cards you received on the branches of your branch.

4.  If you feel exceptionally creative, you can make a few ornaments like this Star of David that I made (6 pointed stars are easier than 5, plus it really confuses people why you'd put a jewish star on a christian icon)

It's that simple.

So, David and I fell asleep on the couch last night listening to a Radiolab show.  If you don't know Radiolab, check it out and enjoy!  Anyway, I was saying that we fell asleep on the couch.  I woke up at about 3am, wide awake with jetlag...or maybe because I've been doing nothing but sleeping ala a narcoleptic since I've returned home.  I got up to get a glass of water and stepped on this...

That's a tooth, by the way.  A really big tooth.

When David woke up I asked him if he had any idea where this came from....hoping to god that he didn't say "my mouth".

"Oh yeah, yesterday Q found a skull while we were playing lemon."

I don't know what's stranger - that, in the middle of the night, I stepped on a big cuspid from an unidentifiable animal or that I know what playing lemon means.


Actually, the strangest thing is that having a dead animal's skull appear in our garden and having our dogs play dentist on it didn't make headline conversation news for my husband. 

No, no, no.  Don't be ridiculous.  I've haven't died from a tick bite.  Although that little bugger's head is still in my leg.  Should I worry about that?

I hadn't been writing because I was hanging out with family.  That's a pretty good excuse, I think.

But now I'm back ...

Home sweet home

So I've been in the States for about a week now.  Yesterday evening was the first down time since arriving what with Thanksgiving and all the family and what not. (If you're wondering why that sentence sounded funny, it's because I'm trying to take on the vernacular of the locals...you know, to try to blend in). Sunday evening down time means relaxing with a little football, some leftovers, and some knitting...basically lying around the house in comfy clothes recovering from the long weekend.  I grab some leggings out of my suitcase, borrow a big sweatshirt from mom and get busy on a new poncho. 

A couple hours later, I feel an itch just below my left knee.  I drop my drawers to have a look.  Hmm...looks like I cut myself shaving.  I don't remember cutting myself...I don't remember shaving my legs.  It's nice having the extra warmth that leg hair provides, what with it being late November and winter  and the Midwest and what not.  Anyway, I have a closer look and damn if I don't recognize what that little itchy spot on my knee is.  Yep, a tick.  A tick was trying to suck blood from my knee.  Unsuccessfully, I might add, what with it being my knee and what not.

I guess you can get the girl out of Maberga but you can't get the ticks out of her leggings.

So, on Friday we celebrated the end of another year of knitting together.  Wait, I don't think I phrased that quite right.  I don't mean that we were celebrating because we were ending but rather we were celebrating another year together, that is now ending...whatever, you know what I meant.

Have you ever noticed that when the topic of knitting comes up randomly at dinner parties, as it always does...or maybe that's just dinner parties I go to...anyway, have you ever noticed that everyone's connection to knitting comes in the form of a grandma?  Like this, "knitting?  Oh yeah, I remember my grandma clicking away in front of the fire."  That's the men's response.  The women's response is almost always this, "knitting.  Yeah, my grandma tried to teach me when I was a kid.  I hated it."  Upon hearing this latter response, of course, I pick up my glass of wine and move to another end of the table. 

As it happens in our little knitting group, every member has done her part to keep the world population in check.  Yep, three grown women, not a child among us.  This of course means that it will be very difficult for us to be someone's knitting grandma forcing our wooly obsession on sharing our artisanal skills with the offspring of offspring.  So we just pick people up off the street and teach them to knit.  Christine found this one....

 

She's called Jane.  No really, that's her name.  

Christine and I let Mette have the new meat...

 

so that we could concentrate on turning the second heel on Christine's dad's socks.  Wait, I said that wrong...it's not the second heel, it's the first heel on the second sock...you know what I meant.

I gave Mette a couple little friends that she had asked me to make.  

They are gifts for babies "born in November" Mette said, 3 months ago when she asked me to make them.  Yeah, the kids came out way before I cast off the tails on these guys.

Mette made us an awesome lunch 

 

and served it in her beautiful dining room

Thanks for another year of knitterly friendship, Ladies. 

Letter of the Law or Spirit?

Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know that getting myself to 100 posts this year by putting up a new You Tube video everyday doesn't really meet the spirit of my challenge BUT, I got this one from Mette today that had me on the floor laughing.



I want to be that girl.

Thank you to everyone who wished me well  congratulated me on my fruit sauces.  They were a big hit at the italian Thanksgiving. 


And many many thanks to the hosts for a day to be thankful for.