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I Heart the Hodgepodge

Wednesdays used to be ho-hum…until Joyce started hosting the Hodgepodge!  Whoop Whoop!  Join in…link up with Joyce!

1.  George Washington-Abraham Lincoln-Thomas Jefferson…who would you most like to meet and why?

Oh my…what a tough choice!!  I minored in history, so I’ve done a lot of reading about all three incredibly brilliant men!  Every single one of them would be a pleasure to meet!  I’d love to meet Washington and find out if, in fact, he was the humble guy some have described him as.  I’d love to meet Lincoln because I’ve read that he was quite the story teller.  I’d also like to warn him to stay away from that crazy woman he eventually married.  She was psycho, I’m telling you!  I’ve read a biography about her!  I’d love to meet Jefferson to chide him for not clarifying the whole “Separation of Church and State” thing.  Sheesh, but politicians have certainly made a mess of his words, now haven’t they?

Oh, what wonderful insights I’d get if I could meet any one of these brave, trailblazing men!

2.  What’s your favorite chain restaurant?

I’d have to say Panera, with its Black Bean Soup and fresh bread!  Yum!

3.  When you look back on your life, do you imagine you’ll think about the goals you failed to meet with regret? Or will you look at what you accomplished and say: it was good?

I will most definitely look back and see all I’ve accomplished.  I’ve worked very hard for everything I’ve gotten.  I was never given anything, including my education, which I had to work for and pay for myself (am still paying for it, in fact).  I can, at this time, say that every single goal I’ve set for myself has been realized.  Years ago, I dreamed of finishing college.  I did it twenty years after graduating high school.  I wanted to be a teacher.  Six years later, I am teaching.

Now, for my last goal…winning the lottery.

😀

4.  Grapefruit-take ’em or leave ’em? Given the choice between an orange and a grapefruit which would you choose? Would you prefer it served as is or squeezed into juice?

I love grapefruit.  What a yummy, sour fruit!  Honestly, I’ll take it however it’s served up!

5.  When was the last time you cleaned out a closet? Is there a closet in your home that currently needs cleaning? What are you waiting for?

I helped Rooster clean out his closet a few weeks ago.  I periodically “rearrange” the closet in my bathroom.  Really, aside from a bit of straightening, I think my closets are alright.

6.  You get to have lunch with three famous people…who would you like to see round your table?

Do they have to be dead or alive?  Is it the table in my house or a fancy restaurant?  Details, details.

heeheehee

Let’s see…famous people…hmmm…

I’ve gotta go with my knitting ladies…Stephanie McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot), Cookie A, and Anne Hanson.

I need to meet Stephanie so we can plan our children’s wedding.  I know this sounds stalker-ish, but it really isn’t.  See, we’re both from Canada, even if I am a naturalized U.S. citizen.  Her hubby hails from Newfoundland, where I was born, and everyone knows that Goofy Newfies, as we’re called, must stick together.  Thus, with so much in common, I find it quite natural that she and I discuss the wedding plans of our children.  See, I have this dream that Rooster will marry her daughter, and then we’ll have lovely get-togethers where I can sit under Stephanie’s wise knitterly tutelage and soak up all of the knowledge she has about all things yarny.

Did you know I found this on Wikipedia?? She's definitely famous if she's on Wikipedia. Wait. She could have put the information in hersel. Still. Nobody's taken it down yet.

Cookie A…well…she’s the queen of sock knitting, and I simply MUST meet her.  I test knit for her last book.  My name’s even in the back.  She’s brilliant, I tell you!

Anne Hanson is a divinely gifted pattern designer.  Her shawls are g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s, and her blog posts are filled with beautiful pictures of the trips she takes, knitting, gardening, and cooking.

Oh yes, I like to party hard with the stars, do I not?  😀

7.  On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your ability to parallel park?

Hmmm…I’d say about a five.  Down in south Florida, we only had parallel parking in front of our house, and I was quite good, when I wasn’t gently tapping the fronts or backs of the cars in my way.

:::cough:::

No dents happened, I can assure you.

I’m a bit out of practice these days, but I’m sure it’s like riding a bike.

8.  My Random Thought

With yesterday being Valentine’s Day, I thought I would share photos of what I sent to my sweet Chicky-Poo, who is in her second year of college.

Before you scroll down, please keep in mind that I am the same mother who sent her soccer cleats after she left them at home during the holidays.  I included a “surprise,” which I blogged about here.

Um…yeah.

Valentine’s Day was gonna be fun.

First, she got one of those giant cards…the kind you get at Walmart.  Dang, but I took a picture but must have deleted it.  On the return address part, I put, “From the Ones Who Love You Most.”  On the back of the envelope, in LARGE letters, I wrote, “Someone cared enough to send the very best.”

Yeah.

The post office is across campus, and she had to walk all the way back to her room with that huge envelope.  She said that no matter which way she turned it, there were embarrassing words on it.

heehee

I also sent her a box with the following…

Isn’t that the cutest thing?  It does more than just sit there…

I purchased it in October when a vendor came to my school.

Also included in the box was this…

What?  Haven’t you ever gotten anti-itch cream for Valentine’s Day?

See, I found it under her sink the other day and thought that I’d send it along to her…just in case she got the itch to ditch school.  This will fix that right up!

heehee

I also threw in two boxes of yogurt bars, which I happened to spy on my one and only trip to the grocery store in the last couple of weeks.

All in all, I’d say she received a FINE package…

Light Anxiety

Light Anxiety occurs every year around Christmas.

It sneaks up on you ever so slowly.

One moment you have a beautiful tree…lit up in all of its glory…

Then, one night you look over and see a tree sporting a dark section near the middle…

You wander to the tree, praying that your eyes are deceiving you.  But no.  They aren’t.  You discover two rounds of unlit bulbs.

Light Anxiety sets in.

You have a problem.

You have already decorated the tree.

You have already placed presents beneath it.

What to do.

You growl to yourself every time you walk past it, determined to get to the bottom of the issue.

You try not to tear the tree apart in the process.

You give up in resignation.  Your tree will not be perfect this year.

But then…God intervenes.

Remember that His Word says that He will never give you more than you can bear.

(I kind of think that Light Anxiety is not what He had in mind when He breathed life into these words, but I also know that He is merciful.)

Oh yes, God works His magic and directs Anne Hanson, knitter extraordinaire, to blog about a handy-dandy tool (and then He directs you to read her blog at the very height of your despair)…

You head to Home Depot in search the gadget and eagerly hurry home to try it out.  The salesperson at the store vowed that it would work wonders.  You keep your fingers crossed.

Of course, you read the instructions carefully.  You are working with an electrical current, after all.

You remove one of the bulbs in the unlit section and plug the empty pod into one part of the tool…

Then, you press the trigger twenty times as instructed, but nothing happens.  On to Step 2.

You check the fuses by finding the end of the light strand…

Because you are so handy with home-improvement projects, you know that Christmas light strands have two fuses, and the covers slide open…

Fuses are tiny things, so be careful not to drop them…

When multiple light strands are plugged in together, it is not uncommon to blow a fuse or two.  Replacing them usually fixes problems, so you replace yours.

No cigar.  The lights still don’t work.

Then, you notice a part of the instructions you had previously missed…the part where the handy-dandy tool has a fuse checker…

Cool beans!  If the light turns on when the metal ends make contact with the metal ends of the fuse checker, then the fuse is good.  No more throwing away supposedly “bad” fuses!

But, the problem still isn’t fixed, so on to Step 3…circuit checking.

A tip:  Never, ever do this while your teenager is writing a rough draft of a research paper.  Said person will get very annoyed with you.  Of course, if this doesn’t bother you, by all means proceed.

Checking a light strand’s circuit is a little tricky.  First, you must do this with the lights plugged into a power source.  It is fine to leave the lights on the tree, plugged into another set of lights that works.

Second, you must hold the handy-dandy tool a half-inch away from an unlit bulb, beginning with one end of the lights.  Do not…I repeat…do NOT hold the tool close to a lit bulb.

What you discover will happen is that the tool will emit a high-pitched beep when you have a current (i.e. above a lit bulb).  An unlit bulb is a clear indication that there is no power getting to that bulb.

So, you hold your hand over the lit bulbs (to block false positives) surrounding the unlit ones and make your way around the tree, not really understanding what you are doing but persistently going forth.  Because you don’t know what you’re doing, you frequently test out the tool by holding it, on purpose, over lit bulbs, causing the tool to beep loudly.

Meanwhile, your boy-child grows more and more angry.

Let him stew.  It’s only a rough draft.

Continue making your way around the tree, holding the tool over each unlit bulb until you finally reach one where you hear the beautimous (yes, that is a made-up word, but it’s my blog, so who cares) sound of a beep.

Even though the bulb is dark, you know there is a current running through the circuit to that point.  Check the bulb beside this one.  If you do not hear a beep, then you can surmise, through your wonderful power of deduction, that this is the faulty bulb and, hence, the cause of the Light Anxiety you are currently experiencing.

But, you still aren’t sure.  It is at this point when you discover that your handy-dandy tool has another neat feature…the ability to check the bulbs from the light strand.  It even has a bulb puller-out thingy (which you don’t need to use because you are such a fabulous DIYer).

After pulling out the bulb, you stick it into the bulb checker…

You must make sure that the bulb’s wires make contact with the metal sides of the bulb checker.  If the bulb does not light up (see the picture above), then that bulb is dead and headed for the trash can.  Likewise, if the bulb is good, the bulb will light up…

You replace the bad bulb with a good one (remember to check the new one first).

This is when you hear the angels start singing again.

They are heralding the exodus of your Light Anxiety while ushering in the peace that accompanies a fully-lit tree…

Star Struck

Ok…so I didn’t get to go to Sock Summit.

If you’re not a knitter, let me explain what Sock Summit was.

It was probably one of the most fantastic knitting get-togethers ever.  Think of it like a Woodstock for knitters.

You know how much I love knitting socks…so I would have loved to have attended.

But I had a couple of problems…

1)  No money

2) No job to make money

So, I stayed home, turned a bit green every time I read about someone else’s brush with this or that famous designer, and knit my own pair of socks all by my lonely self.

I also consoled myself by reading the blogs of some of these designers.

I even posted a couple of comments.  I tend to be a little shy, but when I see something that strikes my fancy, I like to say a little something.

And you know what?

Two of the ladies emailed me after I commented!

The first person was Anne, who writes KnitSpot.

And she didn’t send me just one email.  I think she sent me three!!

Take a look at her blog and join me in ooohhhing and aaaahhhhing over her incredible shawls.  Her photography is incredible.

The next shock came tonight.

I was doing my “mom” thing…

No…not cooking dinner…

I was at the high school, handing out schedules at the Freshmen Orientation.

During a lull in the action, my phone vibrated.  I had an email.

Upon opening it, I discovered the sender’s name…

Are you ready?

It was…

Cookie A

I almost fell out of my chair.

Remember the red socks I just finished?

That was Cookie’s pattern!

And I’ve got a little something new “cooking” on my needles, if you get my drift.

I tried to explain to the volunteer sitting beside me why I was picking up my jaw from the table.

I’m not sure if she got it.

If you’re into fibery crafts, you understand.

Both of these ladies’ responses were personal and very sweet.  It was cool to find out that they do really pay attention to the people who comment on their blogs.

It was probably a good thing that I didn’t make it to Sock Summit.  I would have returned home with a serious case of dry eye syndrome from not being able to blink…afraid to miss a glimpse of a famous knitter.