Happy Winter Solstice!

Happy Winter Solstice!

We spent the entire daylight portion of today in the big city of Marquette finishing up our shopping for the holidays. Made it home just in time to light the Yule log before it the longest night officially began.

Whilst in Marquette, Lila celebrated her fourteenth birthday a couple of days early and added a couple of holes to her head. She looks pleased eh? One on each side. She already needs her hair trimmed so we'll have to do that during holiday vacation. Saturday evening we watched the Manistique High School Drama club perform "Alice in Wonderland". They did a fine job of it. Lila has joined middle school drama and they start meeting when school is back in session.

Since we haven't been home all weekend, nothing was wrapped, or made. I'm trying to figure out which projects I can ditch instead of trying to cram in more than is possible to do. No sense getting too crazy. :)

A wonderful surprise to us recently was that our dear friend Rachel Mills wrote and read a story about how our families met and of our Christmas Eve tradition that we've been observing these past 12 or so years. If you are so inclined, give it a listen! Rachel is a wonderful writer and has a lovely speaking voice. She perfectly captured each of our kids personalities in her story. http://wnmufm.org/post/mills-christmas

 

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Tourtière Season

Tis the season for special main courses. Yesterday my favorite workgroup met and we shared a meal together in celebration of the winter solstice. I made Tourtière, Kristie made her famous AuGratin potatoes, Keith brought a delicious broccoli coleslaw, and Craig a crisp green salad.

Tourtière is a traditional French Canadian meat pie primarily made of herbed and spiced ground pork. The delightful recipe that I used is from Canadian Living (http://www.canadianliving.com/food/cooking_school/tourtiere_recipe_and_instructions.php) and the addition of celery and mushrooms is genius. I will be making this recipe again for a gathering of the Ewe-per Spinners and Weavers tomorrow.

At the end of our workgroup meeting we had a hand made holiday beverage exchange; I made Kahlua and Celtic Creme, Keith brought three types of his mead, and Craig four varieties of his home brew including a Scotch Ale! We will break into them soon in celebration of the Solstice, Lila's Birthday, Yule, Christmas Vacation, the turning of the mew year, etc... Oh Joy!

 

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Lila's New Do

Lila decided to go all the way, so we made an appt. for " a new do" Tuesday evening,

Just in time for a Holiday band concert, Drama Club try-outs, and the "Snow Ball" Junior high dance this weekend.

It was great fun watching the stylist cut her hair and she smiled the entire time.

The funny thing is, I had this exact same hair cut when I was in my early twenties! What comes around goes around....

 

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Throwback

Yup. Bought the Doc Marten 20 hole lace ups I wanted when I was in my twenties....two decades later. I checked with a few friends first to see if this was pathetic and was told a resounding no; though it may have been a biased sample. My favorite comment was "Like the Doc's! They say "I'm sexy and confident and I'm not afraid to kick your ass if you piss me off!" (They do kind of up the attitude quotient).

I wore them once with jeans and a lacy black sweater to the office. Stunned a few folks and delighted a few more. My ankles were a bit sore after 12 hours constant wear but otherwise all was good! I think I'm going to pair these with the cable skirt next week which should be fun. Rounding off the evening listening to some Siouxsie and the Banshees on what is apparently a throwback Thursday. I could only find Sam's Pikachu ear buds and the sound quality is severely lacking but is perhaps compensated for by having two tiny yellow pokemans emerging from my ear canals. Damn! They might look good with the boots.....

 

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"Dickson" is done!

Finished Dickson over the long Thanksgiving weekend downstate (actually bound off this morning!) and after giving her a quick steam tried her on before heading into work.

I'm quite pleased with how the cabling turned out and with the skirt in general. (Stand up straight next time!) Knitting this was a lot of fun and the only dull part was the ribbing!

At Sara's recommendation I went down a needle size for the waist ribbing and shortened that portion by almost two inches. I think if I were to do it again, I'd go down yet another needle size because once the skirt is on and the ribbing stretches it seems like it could get a bit droopy. I've only worn it for five minutes so will be able to tell more once it is on for a day or evening. I do not have a skinny waist so it seems like those with a more svelte figure could have an issue with waist baggi-ness.

Will be taking a brief interlude from knitting to do some more production spinning. I've been having take up issues with my wheel and I think it is related to how high my maiden was cranked when I put the new drive band on. I need to cut off the old drive band and crank her down and tie on a new one to see if that fixes the issue. Spinning can be frustrating if your wheel doesn't take in your spun fiber!

 

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