Out with the old

I wish you all a healthy and happy new year.

The Muddy Bits

Wine bottle included so you may gauge the size of the hat. I'll polish that off later tonight.

This work is done...mostly.

Now I enter the phase of knitting that I seem to like the least--cleaning up the loose ends and hemming. As the knowledge and art of knitting have progressed for me, I've learned to weave in most ends as I knit and have only to snip them off. I still have to reinforce the color work on the star, block, and hem before I can call it a hat.


The matching gloves are calling me, though I think I want to adapt the pattern to convertible gloves or mittens. I'll decide as I move along.

Fare thee well forest mitts

Speaking of mittens, I lost my Deep in the Forest Mittens sometime last week. Likely they were left at a start of care I did at a nursing home in the heart of Detroit. Since most of the population there seems to be homeless people that were placed there, I don't feel right about hunting them down. This train of thought is in keeping with my idea that there are no accidents. I just hope they were found by someone in need and that they're keeping somebody else warm and toasty. Fingers crossed they don't find their way to a washer and dryer.

Better late...

Having been rather busy last week, I never got around to baking the Cherry Wink cookies that really are a hallmark of the season in our house. Ever since I can recall, we had these cookies every year. I didn't bake them last year because I didn't have a reliable oven. Besides my aching feet, I had no excuses this year.

As soon as I signed off last night, I turned the oven on and began the prep of chopping dates, pecans and maraschino cherries. Leo helped. I swear he's like a child. He didn't come running until he heard the mixer going and stayed glued by my side snatching errant dates and cherries that fell off the cutting board. He spit the pecans out. By 1:30, we were done and I finally had a taste of Christmas.

Next year, I'm getting Leo a chef's hat and apron.

When lice is nice

Disclaimer: for God's sake...do not click on the link if you are squeamish or eating. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Some years ago, and yet not long enough because the thought of it still makes me itch, I took care of a patient with Norwegian Scabies. Now there isn't anything special about the mites that cause this, except to say the level of infestation is monumental. The disease was identified in Norway--hence the name. While a relatively healthy person may have scabies with a handful of mites present to cause a bit of misery, someone with Norwegian Scabies is host to hundreds of thousands of mites.

No lie.

Can you see why this patient would be unforgettable?

I thought about that patient today as I was knitting on my hat and executing a beautiful lice stitch pattern common in Norway. One thought led to another and pretty soon I was thinking about the homeless patient who landed in our ICU to die of a secondary and overwhelming bacteremia and fungemia. Sad. I was not thinking of the mites per se as to do so invites nightmares. I will not forget what that infection looked like though, and in my 27 years of nursing, I've never seen the likes of something like this. May I never see it again (Amen).

Back to the lice stitch...I find myself wishing I'd held the white yarn in my left hand instead of the right as I've read this would have made the white lice stitches more dominant instead of receding into the red. Live and learn. Since I'm sort of new to this color knitting stuff, I thought I'd share that here so you can learn by my trials. I'm done with the hat portion of the cap and now doing decreasing rounds with a scattering of lice stitches. So, if you want the predominant yarn, in this case the red, to dominate, carry it in your left hand. If you want the other yarn, in my case the white, to dominate, carry that yarn in the left hand and the red in the right. According to several sources, one should not change the hand you carry your yarn in for the project. If it's something that you'll put down and pick back up later, you may want to do like me and make a note of which hand carried each yarn.

If you linked to that photo...sorry.

Holy Spurs

Here it is the day after Christmas, and I got nearly nothing accomplished. I can't believe how badly my feet ache after having spent 8 hours standing in my kitchen on both Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I swear, if I buy myself nothing else this coming year, I'm getting one of those fancy cushioned matts that chefs use. In the meantime, I've got my feet elevated and in a little while, I'm going to try a little sleep to see if I can restore some of my musculoskeletal function.

Ordinarily, my sister in law and I split the duties of cooking, but she was sick so I cooked both days. I'd planned on lasagna for Christmas dinner, but made that on the Eve instead and went to my old standard horseradish encrusted tenderloin with port wine reduction sauce for yesterday's dinner. It was fabulous. Leading the family in prayer both nights, I ended with a simple, Amen. Mr. Larger Than Life added loudly (because he can't hear himself), "in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spurs," ending with an elaborate giant circle he made around his head. I'm still a bit perplexed by that, but oh well, if it works for him, that's OK. The thing is, I've never known him to pray, but lately, he's all about the blessings.

According to him, my mother in law used to bless him when he went out of town. I never saw this with my own eyes, so I couldn't say if it was true, or confabulation. If I had to guess, I'd say it was the latter. His oddness is worsening of late, and I'm not so sure what's going on with him. Overall, he's physically in decline as well. He has a relatively new shuffling gait that appears as though he has Parkinson's, but he has no upper extremity tremors. I've offered in the past to take him back to the neurologist, but he's so terrified of bad news, he becomes irate with the suggestion, so I stay my thoughts. What will be, will be and my husband and I will likely be caring for him in some way, shape or form.

Much to most everyone's shock, now that my son has graduated and is interviewing for a job in Washington, MLTL's primary caregiver will be vacating his position of Saint of the Year and my father in law has something new to pray for. He tells my son daily, "I pray to God that you don't get that job," and with all of his very enlarged, malevolent heart, he means what he says. He also tells my sister in law that she's not a dutiful daughter because she won't come home and care for him. Now I ask you, who'd willingly want the job of taking care of someone so manipulative and ungrateful? My friends, my husband and I see the writing on the wall.

I'd better stock up on fig vodka.

A note about the photo at the top: though I said I accomplished nearly nothing today, I was referencing chores. Knitting? I got plenty done. I'm almost through the hat chart for that gorgeous stocking cap in, Northern Knits. It's my Christmas gift to myself. After everyone left last night and my house was silent, I went about perusing my yarn and options. My eyes came to settle on the one package I've avoided for nearly a month and I couldn't help myself one moment more.

Merry Christmas, friends

The remains of the knitting day

Almost there and not a moment too soon. There was worry for a bit that there would not be enough of the Manos Silk Blend in Woodland. All that remains are two grams (out of fifty). Cut it close, didn't I?


The knitting is nearly complete now and I've only to block and wrap after I finish what's on the three needles. That's only a couple of inches of small diameter knitting. Nothing, really.


I hope all of your preparations are progressing as smoothly.