Creating a…Rainbow!

Last week I knitted this cushion front. I love things with rainbows on them, well, those of you who visit regularly know I love real rainbows too!

Anyhow, I wanted to try knitting a rainbow, and it was fun matching up the wools, but I think I got the indigo and violet choices wrong way around…

Anyhow, yesterday I sewed the back on to make the cushion cover, stuffed a scarf in to see if it was alright, looked out the window and saw:

,,,a rainbow!

Serendipity!

 

Actually, upon mature reflection I am not happy with the way it turned out. I’m going to rip the backing and redo it using denim instead of cotton, as it isn’t sitting properly. And whilst I’m at it I think I should undo the purple and mauve stripes and re-knit them in reverse order. Otherwise it will annoy me.

So far two of my children have tried to run off with it, but it is really intended for the Shop!!

 

This evening I’ve ended up with all three girls home, which is amazing…amazingly noisy!! The dogs have taken refuge at the other end of the house because the girls were making so much noise and clatter in the kitchen! Its SUCH fun when they are all here, I so love it!

Of Saucers

So you know the way Ireland is saucer shaped, geologically speaking, mountains around the edges and all them bogs and flat farmland in the middle?

D'you know why it’s so?

I’ve a theory...it’s to keep all the water in and to make sure we float.

Put a saucer in a bucket of water and you'll see.

But here's the thing now; if you get too much water into the middle of the saucer what happens?

It sinks.

So I’m just thinking here, that if anyone has immediate access to the climatic tap that's doing the unending dripping on Ireland, they might want to take a wrench to the valve and shut it off for a bit, before we either drown or sink???

And no, I wouldn't fancy living in the Sahara, and yes, I kinda like the emeraldishness of this island, but c'mon haven't we enough water to be going on with for now?

Of Heckety's Cooking

I just made a batch of Drop Scones/ Flapjacks. Very tasty, and to my non-gluten requirements. Youngest came over to have a look, and test one, and remarked:


‘Ah, Carbon Flapjacks!’

She had a point. When I turned around from the stove, visibility in the kitchen was a bit low…

Still, it’s always good to know that the smoke alarm is working… and with my cooking it does get a regular workout!

Actually, I used to have a cross-stitch hanging in the kitchen which said:

'Dinner will be served when the smoke alarm goes off.'

I should re-hang it....

Friday HodgePodge

You know, I get the distinct impression from yesterday's highly witty and amusing comments, that you are failing to take both my new transport, and my green credentials, seriously...


I am DEEPLY 0-fender-ed...

However I forgive yez, and as a gesture of reconciliation I offer you this quotation, which I got from the Living Life Fully website:

We have shaped ourselves into new people, and we have done so by our decisions. There’s no going back, of course, and I guess most of us wouldn’t want to if we could, even though we’re acutely conscious of mistakes we’ve made. We have to remember that each of us is new at this business of living and content ourselves with the fact that most of us have plenty of time to make good decisions in the future.
(Earl Nightingale)

I especially like the 'new at this business of living' part!!

I have always thought that doing one's best is good enough, whatever the circumstances, although there will be times when one doesn't, for whatever reason. Lately I've realised, through reading and my Mom's comments, that learning to be kind to one's OWN self might also be important.

Do I treat myself with the same kindness and consideration I show to everyone else?
Heck NO!
I drive myself, expect perfection at every turn, try to be always better than 'good enough'.
WHY? And I bet yous all do exactly the same!

How is it we can be gracious to everyone EXCEPT ourselves?


Got an email from a friend this morning:

'How daft is it that the temperatures in Dublin and Sligo are colder than Murmansk?? According to my weather forecast on the iPhone it's 8 and 9 versus 14!
Hope there's still ice at the north pole...'

It does seem a bit strange! She's boarding an ice-breaker today for a three week expedition...
Jealous? Moi???

Last thing: in my Etsy wanderings I found this shop , Northernlights, selling old-fashioned carpet bags, which I though existed no longer...they're gorgeous!

Mary Poppins eat your heart out!!!

Brand Spanking New Transport a la Heckety

D'you like my new transport? Good eh!

You have to admit its a mega lifestyle statement in the green credentials, standing for-

endurance

thrift

simple living

longevity

It saves on heating because I have to pedal so hard to get up the hill home that I stay warm for ages...

AND...it even saves on household water use, because when it rains I arrive home clean so...no need to shower!

What more could one look for in a new vehicle?


Admit it- you're jealous!!

To Knit and Knots

Well these photos are in the wrong order, but never mind. I was about to say that in the time I was hors de combat, I knat and crocheted...well the family will tell you I'm always crochety, but that would be another issue entirely!

Ulla would be proud of me, as despite using no fabric, I finished over fifteen balls of wool from my stash (some dating from when Eldest was a baby and I knitted her cardigans!) besides another five balls I bought recently.

Howzat!!

For this cushion cover I tried to use up as many ends as possible, and then I found the really fluffy ball in the back of a drawer, which I bought years ago on a trip to Tenerife:
Then as I still had even smaller ends left over...I crocheted the next one...

(actually, I think someone gave me a bag full of ends and scraps some time ago, and these are some of them)...obviously, there's a bit of finishing yet to do!!

This is the new wool I bought as I wanted to knit me a cowl big enough to pull over my head since my winter jacket has no hood. Well I won't be cold this winter coming!! Its enormous!

This photo was meant to be first, as it is a bagful of scarves and headbands I knitted since Easter for Youngest's fund-raising. It kept my hands busy, and was very portable when I was constantly up and down to Dublin, so served its purpose that way.

Since the fundraising is almost complete, I'll be putting these in the shop in the Autumn, if anyone is looking for neck-warmers and mobius scarves. These provided much of the scrap ends I used in the cushion covers, and I've some more yet!!

...but now and again a project just doesn't work out...

So since I was brought up on the 'waste not, want not' philosophy, it is re-made!

And there you have today's ripping yarn!!!

Of Chocolate Cake and Quietude

On Thursday after supper, Eldest, Youngest and I were hanging out in the kitchen. I was sitting on the sofa knitting, Youngest was experimenting with a new chocolate cake recipe, and Eldest was in a lot of pain and trying to distract herself by reading but holding the book was too difficult so she was sitting at the table.

Result was that no one actually did what they intended, but did we have a party!!

The girls got to discussing comedy and, because I couldn't be bothered watching the You Tube episodes of what they were discussing, they started enacting it...people pay to see Eldest in action and here's me with a free viewing!!!

The pair of them 'took off' comedians, did skits, fenced, sassed each other, played bits of films, spilt chocolate batter, danced and sang and roared laughing at themselves for about an hour and a half- it was the most hilarious free show!

The chocolate cake was eventually got into the oven, the book was rescued from under the table, Eldest retrieved her slippers from the Fluffster Dog who was chewing them, and Youngest started in on the frosting. At this point things became rather heated as one wanted chocolate icing and the other wanted coffee, so they compromised with mocha.

Unfortunately Hoover Dog got a bit overexcited with all the activity and started chasing his tail, whereupon he got a paw tangled in the phone cable and knocked it off the desk. The clatter startled him so he raced under the table, taking the phone with him and wrapping the cable around Eldest's legs too. Youngest dived for the broadband box-thing before it hit the floor, forgetting to let go of the utensils she was holding...and sent mocha icing all over the Hub's desk, the broadband yoke, phone, floor, etc etc...

Well, as you can tell, she saved the broadband, the dogs cleaned up the spilled icing, and the flex was untangled, but...the excitement wasn't yet over!!!...

Despite the icing mishap, there was still enough to over-ice the middle of the cake, and as she stood back to admire her work, the top layer slid slowly sideways, cracked in half and departed off the plate in opposite directions!!

Plate tectonics 101!!!

Both girls and Hoover dog tried to rescue it, the girls winning by a very small margin!

Eventually I got a chopstick and speared one side of the cake to keep it together in order to spare Youngest's anguish, whilst they started eating the other side, aided by their father who arrived home from work at the crucial moment, for some reason doing a Johnny Cash impersonation and singing 'Ring of Fire' at full throttle! (well its better than Elvis and 'Jailhouse Rock' which is another of his...)

Another quiet evening....not!!!

Good'n'Bad

Doctor's appointment this morning. Much as I like and respect my Doc, I hate people wandering around inside my head so it was a bit wearing. So she's doubled the meds, which is as far as its possible to go, and is sending me to see someone in a few months probably. More head poking-eeeww...

Wouldn't it be great to unzip the top of one's head, take out the dodgy contents, leave them for poking at and come back when the White-Coats have finished and put it back all cured...sounds like a side of pork, huh!!

Or if there was a little window in one's forehead and they could look inside and say, 'Oh I see the problem!' and with a woggle of a screw-driver and a thwack of a spanner fix me.

Ideas for the future! And no, I do not be volunteering to be guinea-pigged!


And now for the EXCITING stuff: The Rabbits, Brer and Little Grey, funded a laptop for yours' truly here, and it ARRIVED THIS MORNING!!

I tell yous, I think I'm in love!!

I've spent the afternoon setting up/ activating/ fiddling/ and generally getting acquainted with my new friend, and its such fun! No one can tell me to shunt, or go away, or move over, for any reason, because THIS machine is MINE!!!!!!!!!

Outside is grey and wet...in the kitchen is burnt potatoes courtesy of Eldest...the hall is reverberating with Youngest's attack on my poor piano...but me? I'm lolloping and frolicking around the Internet with a big grin on my face!!


And if you are looking to gird your loins into Warrior Mode, read Tricia's post...its kind, and funny, and really uplifting! Love ya!!

A Degree of Achievement!

One is most most pleased with one's Eldest, at present.

Yesterday she got all her final results and passed everything just fine! Most proud of one's daughter's achievement, are we, despite obstacles and hiccups.

However, one would like to observe, for future reference, that acquiring a Degree may say plenty concerning the mental capacity of one's brain, but it is no indication of elevated status...viz...

She arrived home this morning in time for breakfast- pitta bread with scrambled egg, fine, garlic hummus and salad for seconds??? Next thing I hear her out in the back kitchen chatting to someone...well the dogs were with me so who...?

Not who, what: she was in the fridge talking to the jar of olives...

Finishes her breakfast and washes up her plate, oh joy! oh rapture! someone clearing up after themselves...washed using hand wash and the floor cloth...then dropped on the floor and tripped over and all the clean utensils knocked off the draining-board as she holds on to it to try and pick up her plate (she has trouble bending and stooping)...

She straightens up, with the plate, grins at me and remarks: 'Well I guess you know I'm home now!'

Uh-huh!!


But it was very funny, and absolutely typical!!!

Of Computer Scans (lost) and Head-Days...

Onyhoos…as the aunt from Belfast used to say…

I was over at the folks on Friday using their scanner to copy some crochet patterns before passing on my old magazines, and found I’d forgotten how to file the scans once done. As a result, I had to hunt through Dad’s documents to recover everything, and even now I know I didn’t get them all.

I did warn him to watch out for stray crochet patterns, and he promised to check any reports in progress before emailing them off…can you imagine some big corporation mogul somewhere opening the latest report on European Medical Devices and finding a couple of crochet patterns included. Would that count as a twoferone d’you suppose?


On a good head-day I can get in the car for three destinations: the folks’ house, our Church, and ‘my’ School.
On a very good day I can teach in School, and I can also do the grocery shopping. So far this year I haven’t been able to teach which is a bummer as I do so enjoy the children; all I’ve done is play the piano once a week for Assembly, and many weeks, not even that. Playing the Organ on Sundays is mostly possible as well as a lifeline, as people come round and chat to me, whereas I could not go to them.
Also on a good head-day I can go out to the garden and do stuff, or even sit outside. Unless you’ve ever had the problem of going through a door, you wouldn’t believe the sheer frustration of watching all the weeds in the flowerbeds wave and snigger at you while at the same time growing taller and taller…

Mind you, if you’d had our weather lately you’d be thinking it was still winter! Not only has it rained constantly, and sometimes hail too, but it’s a rare day when the temperature gets to even 10 degrees! I’ve had the fire in for days in a row- and this is JUNE! And to add insult to injury, the Hub’s Aunt rang and was saying that where she is (in Surrey, I think) they are about to be having a hosepipe ban! I offered to post her a bucket of water, but like all of our extended family, she refused to accept any post from yours truly here…Spoil sport…

Return of the Jed...nut?

Hello people!

Thank you for checking on me in my absence, and the kind thoughts- I really appreciate yous, even though I didn’t answer.

Since Easter chez Heckety, it seems to have been one thing after another and getting Eldest through the last six weeks of College was only the start. Family in hospital (fine again now, thank goodness), several daughter dramas, Youngest’s three fund-raising events for the Church youth trip to South Carolina in July, constant sword play with the Black Beast (way beyond being the Black Dog), increasing panic attacks, and the ruddy agoraphobia which likes to pop in just to spice up my life… basically all the fun of the Fair, without the fun…

Add to that the Hub’s online Theology Course, Youngest’s facebook social life, and my access to the computer has been short and sporadic.

I’m not complaining, as such, just explaining. If manic depression is my lot then my family is more to be pitied than me. In fact I’ve often wondered, and this isn’t morbid, more of an academic question: since I’ve been given this Beast, which turns nearly every day into a battle, why couldn’t I also have been given my best friend’s cancer, or my other great friend’s slow paralysis, and let one of them have complete health and strength? Both have them had so much more yet to offer and such amazing personalities, but such short active lives. Me, I’ve already had a longer life and far less useful.

Ours not to reason why… and I know all about accepting what one is given… but it makes me wonder. Never mind, I’ll get the answer someday!


But even around all that life as we know it continues…hovering under the stairs just now I discovered one of the Nativity Wise Men hidden in the sock basket…huh?
I’d be looking a long way for that come December!

I also caught Hoover Dog making a collection of all three downstairs floor rugs in his favourite sunny spot in the hall. I suppose he thought I wouldn’t notice…like the girls thought I wouldn’t notice them giving away all their clothes to the Goodwill then asking to be taken shopping for new ones…scuppered that one too…

Is it my role in life to be a spoilsport, je me demande????


Anyhow, just so’s you know, I’m trying very hard to glue my mind back together and re-join you cyberbuddies. I mayn’t always be able to go beyond the front door, but you bring the tea and quilt parties into my kitchen and I do sooo enjoy your company!!

I’ve surely missed you!