the first day

if you snoop around in the knitting blog world these days it won't take you long to find someone who is signed up for the "EZ KAL" (that's elizabeth zimmermann knit-along) for those of you not-in-the-know.

and if you are a knitter and don't know EZ then you have some "googling" and reading to do! and you know, truth be told, i have some more reading to do too. i have only one of her books but would like to add more to my library. ( in fact, i've put 2 on my Christmas list!)

elizabeth is not like the knitting pattern writers of today. she doesn't write pattern books with amazingly, inspiring, fancy pictures and photo shoots to die for. with yarn suggestions that make you jump into the car and spend your last pay check at the LYS.

but she writes amazingly informative books filled with real information about knitting. like.... if you were to take a college course on knitting...these would be the books.

my daughter and i were recently talking about EZ and called her the albert einstein of knitting, she's just that smart. you read her, study her, practice her and quote her........for years.

"Is an exciting new improved Christmas every year really necessary? Is it in the spirit of the Solstice? The human heart hankers after stability and tradition. The feeling and atmosphere of Christmases past, the anticipation of those to come, and the magic presence of Christmas now should all blend and blur, to give the distraught soul something to hang on to....           Elizabeth Zimmerman Knitter's Almanac,  December chapter

i guess she knew about more than just knitting......elizabeth zimmermann, the woman who revolutionized knitting, died on november 30, 1999.

okay!!!!! get out the calendar and paper and pencil today.

26 days to go.

if many, or any of the things that you want to get done for the Holidays are going to happen.....   you must have a plan.

very important here!!!! use a pencil, be realistic, there are going to be things that just will not make the cut. that's what erasers are for.

so there is no quilt.

tonight your job is to sit on the couch with all those ideas and really look at that calendar and start your plan.

remember, don't plan too much, just enough to make it special and fun.

in the past few days i have......

traveled many miles, looked at many farms, lazily slept-in every morning in a four-poster bed that was my Grandmother's and is promised to me someday, ate way too much food, visited with relatives, learned more about my geneology...

 taught my Mom to knit, knitted some myself, listened to the Weather Channel for hours (told you i would), took drives in the country, drove by dozens of houses that "so and so use to lived in", ate at two different cafe's with cheap paneling and chicken curtains for the decorations but they served the best food ever...

tried to build something with a set of Dominos and my 5 year old 2nd cousin while his brothers, 2 year old twins where jumping around crazy and trying to get my attention with something else!!! (okay...that was a crazy night)...

 watched fishing and hunting shows when not watching The Weather Channel, did watch Grey's Anatomy Thursday night but had to "fill-in" my Dad all along the way, talked about the weather, hunting and fishing when we weren't watching the hunting and fishing shows......

and welcomed in the count-down to the "30 days till Christmas" on the tailgate of a pick up truck, piled with blankets and warming my hands with hot coffee while watching the best homemade, heartfelt floats, decorated horses, haywagons hauling Baby Jesus' in a Mangers, and Santa Comin to Town in his Sleigh......

.......my daughter recently came to my little knitting shop and taught a Basic Fair Isle Knitting Workshop. so i kind of have Fair Isle on the brain.

and do you know what i've, noticed.....

the tops of old, stone and brick, round silos, the really good ones, hundreds of them, are patterned like Fair Isle?

just an observation from The Heartland.

tomorrow i travel home. it's been relaxing. time.....well....spent.

do you ever......?

i just need some down time. i need some me time. some do nothing time.

i think i have, coming up, just what the dr. ordered.

work has been.....un-explainable. and i think it is just plain-'ol, tired me out.

we have an 11 hour road trip tomorrow to South Dakoka to visit my parents for the Thanksgiving Holiday. i'm looking forward to some long, open roads, knitting time in the car, catching up on downloaded Podcasts, looking out the car window for hours at farms and fields of nothing, eating at a Cracker Barrel.

and then a few days relaxing with family. visiting the family farm, seeing cousins, meeting new cousin-in-laws (if there is such a thing) and 2nd cousins that have been born since i've been there last. eatting yummy food, shopping at grocery stores that don't have an amazing selection and listening to the Weather Channel all day (cuz my dad always has it on).  in South Dakota you worry about the weather, of course he listened to it all the time when he lived here too!? then we turn around and travel back.

sounds a bit boring? sounds good to me!

you know that Alice...she disappeared in through the Looking Glass. and Lucy...into that Wardrobe. and then there's less known Meg...with her time-travel in A Wrinkle in Time.

well.......i've fallen into my mailbox....with all my dreamy Holiday Catalogs and Magazines. and YOU CAN'T MAKE ME COME OUT!!!

it's not even so much that i want to order gobs of stuff. there's sooooo much inspiration there. i see so many things that are SUCH great ideas and i just keep thinking, "i want to make that, do that, try that".

so...i've made a little list in my head. cut out some pictures. and have a little idea for this year.

last year i did the 12 days of Christmas here on my blog. this year i'm thinking about the idea of....

30 DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS.

let me get my lists organized and check back here on Nov. 24th for the countdown to begin.

1. first name   laurie.

2. were you named after anyone   no...but my younger brother is named bradley and my parents best friends also named there kids laurie and bradley. they are each a year younger than us. weird huh!

3.when did you last cry   humm? oh...got a tear in my eye while watching the Oprah Show yesterday.

4.do you like your handwriting   most of the time.

5.what's your fav lunchmeat   don't eat it much but still love b-o-l-o-g-n-a.

6.if you were another person would you be friends with you   i'd like to think so.

7.do you have a journal   this is my most successful one.

8.what's your fav ice cream flavor   anything with lots of stuff in it, i like the stuff more than the ice cream. i should really just eat a candy bar.

9.red or pink   pink.

10.what's your least fav physical feature   my height.

11.who do you miss the most   my Granny.

12.what are you wearing right now  my Hue pjs.

13.what's the last thing you ate   i'm drinking coffee right now but we went on a Chicago Skyline Dinner Cruise lastnight.

14.what are you listening to right now   the hum of the computer, Paula Dean cooking on the Foodnetwork, the dog crying at the backdoor (but i JUST took him out!).

15.what's your fav smell   many...but one at the top of the list is mornings in Florida, by the Ocean.  that smell makes my whole body relax.

16.if you were a crayon what color would you be   it's totally impossible for me to pick just one.

17.who was the last person you talked to on the phone   my friend and co-worker Amy, couldn't find her on the pier lastnight before we got on the dinner cruise.

18.what's the first thing you notice about people you are attracted to   their eyes and how they listen.

19.what's your fav drink   depends....coffee, Pom tea, diet coke, margaritas, and my son just got me started on S. Pellegrino.

20.eye color   green.

21.favorite season   i like all the seasons...even tho i complain.

22.what books am i reading   right now i'm reading all the amazing Christmas mail order catalogs that are flooding my mailbox and trying to keep up with the seasonal magazines!!!!!  i have just bought 2 new books for my bedside tho. Mireille Guiliano's new one: French Women for all Seasons and Elizabeth Berg's The Handmaid and the Carpenter.

23.what's on your mouse pad   no mouse pad, no mouse.  i have a lap top.

24.where's the furthest you've been from home   i guess California but the tip of Maine seemed further away.

25.where were you born   Seattle.

hey readers....why don't you have a go of it!!!!!!!!

socks that is.............socks of a different sort.

no "2nd sock syndrome" here.  if you are a knitter you know all about "2nd sock syndrome". it's that affliction that sock knitter's get after they finish the first sock. for some it sits in the knitting basket and never gets it's mate. sad really.

there is really no excuse for this sudden sickness. when you decide to knit socks you know that socks come in pairs. i mean you have two feet don't you? you know that when start knitting them you will want to someday wear these socks, right? you would never go into your dresser and pull out two miss-matched socks and wear them. hey, you wouldn't pay full price or even leave the store with only one sock when making a sock purchase!

so why is there such a big hurdle over making and finishing that 2nd sock?

well as you know i've been on a "sock kick" lately. and i've also been working on some socks of a different sort.

last night i finished #3 out of the 5 Family Christmas Stockings that will hang on my fireplace mantel this year.....and they are all VERY different!

some folks like Christmas Stocking with a theme, some like them that all sort of match but are different in colors, some like a stocking with a family member in mind. mine are just where-ever my fancy takes me. i like to decorate for Christmas in somewhat whimsical colors, not your traditional green and red so this affords me lots of choices with Stockings.

so far........one is a 19",Kelly Green with Fuschia Trim (felted), another is a 15",Creme Lacework with Orange Trim, and the one i finished last night is a 23" Striped Stocking knit with 12 different colors...leftover pieces of Manos yarns from previous projects.

tonight i will be casting on for another...i think it will be the one i just saw today in the new issue of Interweave Knits. (pattern by www.kristinnicholas.com a fav of mine). gotta go dig thru the stash to see what funky colors i have for that one.

early last summer the big cranes came and began tearing down our corner Wallgreen's Store. it took them most of the summer to do it. then they began the slow process of re-building a new one. you know the new super-store looking ones. the ones with the big, fancy everything. we just had the old-fashion corner store-ish one.

in the same little plaza area of the Wallgreen's is a Starbuck's. it's the Starbuck's that i frequent the most. stop there, maybe once or twice a week on my way to work.

Wallgreen's is finally getting very close to re-opening. there are "signs" that you can pick up on that you just know this big event is about to happen. lights begin to fill the store, the paper comes off the windows, you can see the shelves start to fill with all sorts of goodies. stuff like that. we can now safely have headaches and cut fingers again.

well this week something really crazy changed over there by that new Wallgreen's. it must have happen overnight, the evening before i decided to go get a coffee at the Starbuck's that shares a parking lot with Wallgreen's.

it was really foggy, gloomy, and misty that morning. a great morning for coffee and i, along with a few other coffee drinkers were not quite awake yet as we pulled into the parking lot to get our morning java.

they (whoever they are) had repainted the parking lot and redirected all of the spots. now talk about doing the same thing the same way for years......it was like adults in bummer cars......without coffee! you get use to pulling into a parking lot from the same direction in the same way, pull down a lane, park, get your coffee, leave in the same direction and head to work. the whole lot was different. all the lanes that were North and South, you get it, are now South and North, drivers were looking at each other, turning around, hands in the air, going down the wrong way, some just gave up and parked sideways.

you really shouldn't do this to people who haven't had their coffee!