Succumbed to Sickness and Other Issues of Life

He Dear Folk, 

Dear Boy returns to Ithaca on Friday, he has a ride back, which is good because he has numerous stereo related items that he wants to take with him, one being a blue bucket of concrete which has a sub-woofer set into it.  This he started over the Thanksgiving holiday, but it takes a while for the concrete to set and various other sundry items are going back with him. 

I have tried to tempt him with my new found crochet skills,” how about fingerless mitts dear?”, “no they remind me too much of Dickens” and then he proceeds to enact the bent over hunched figure with fingerless gloves, not that I can do gloves, but it did remind me of “Steptoe and Son”.  If you are not familiar with Steptoe and Son the American equivalent was Stamford and Son, but I always much preferred Steptoe and Son.  “OK I get the point, no fingerless mitts.  How about a Watch Cap?”  I have a very nice pattern in a book I bought on Monday evening, more about that later.  A Watch Cap is like a seamen’s cap,” no I wouldn’t wear that.  How about a scarf?  No I don’t need that.”  Then when he found out that the temperature was down to single digits, he did think that he might need a long coat.  I said go walk around to the Thrift and have a look. 

I stopped off on my way home from work, at the craft shop to pick up a second ball of yarn to make a beret to match the fingerless mitts that I have almost finished.  This is my second pair of fingerless mitts that have been completed, because getting the pattern correct took numerous tries and unraveling and retries.  I even made one whole fingerless mitt in a mohair blend and Mr. B. said it look like a bunch of yarn just wrapped around my hand, plus I did not like the top of the pattern, so I have reworked that with a pique stitch.   I have come to the conclusion that I do not like slip stitches in crochet, mine never seem to line up and start wandering at a diagonal angle.  So I have remade them with minimum amount of slip stitches, in fact crocheting them mostly in a spiral and that works much better on this pattern and looks nicer.  The yarn I have is variegated in greens, purples, tangerines and in between, it looks great and I love the surprise of the colours as they are crocheted in, the look to me is almost zigzag and with a bit of a South Western look, I will be interested to see how it crochets up on the beret pattern, which is crocheted in a spiral. 

So when I was in the craft shop I took a wander over to the books and came across a book with forty crochet hat patterns in.  I like most of them, but some are a little outlandish and if one is looking for some more ethnic looking crochet hats you will find them in here too.  This is where I am getting my crochet beret pattern from.  When I got it up to the cash register it was forty percent off, so that was a nice surprise , so I used my fifty percent off coupon on my crochet hook that I needed. 

I have been looking into ergonomic crochet hooks, does anyone have any suggestions?  I would love to hear your comments on that. 

At the moment I am the only functioning adult in our house, Mr. B. definitely has the flu and has been off work for several days and does not seem to be getting better.  The Boy has a head cold and sore throat but not the flu I think.  I have felt, for well over a week that I should be catching something, but it hasn’t gone any further, but neither has it gone away, lots of sneezing and some coughing.  So with all us bed ridden and walking sick, the house is getting more and more into a disorganized state, with forays out to the wood pile to bring in wood to keep the wood stove going.  I think our supply of tin soups has just about been depleted, homemade soups in the freezer have long gone, I will have to make a pot of chicken soup, but that may have to wait until the weekend.  I do have next Monday off, Martin Luther King Day, yippee. 

I was looking at a Finnish blog called Hey Helsinki on Wordpress, a NZ girl living in Finland and she mentioned Korvapuusti, or slapped ears (they look like cabbage ears and thus hence the name) they are in fact a form of cinnamon bun.  I have a fancy to try making these, I may find a recipe in my International cookbook, or I will just look on line, and then it came to me how nice it would be to work my way through just some of the international recipes in the book. 

In fact the first gift Mr. B. ever bought me was a little German ring bound cookbook, from which I made Sauerbraten several times, and apple strudel;  which leads my mind wandering  to a documentary program I watched about children and grandchildren of Nazi war criminals.  How they carry such a burden of guilt.  One woman, the grandchild, who now lives in New Mexico, has a day with friends, once a year to celebrate all the good things of her childhood, including a grand German meal, poetry readings and music.  Both her and her brother found it necessary to feel that they should both be sterilized.  What guilt, but almost a hangover from the Nazi era.  Others reacted differently, writing books and obviously participating in documentaries.  What parents and grandparents can do to their children? 

I have a 2015 Diary, that’s what we always called them when I grew up, but I guess you can call them Journals or Planners.  In any case I went to the bookstore as I still prefer pen and paper, but as diaries do not seem to be that popular anymore the selection has definitely gone down, I must admit, I did not do too much looking online.  So I’m going through some old journals both written in and not, and I came across my “A Nicky Epstein Bouquet 2009”, which I kept as it had crochet, knit and felted flower patterns throughout.   Then I thought about it, I wonder if 2009 is a repeated year this year2015 and sure enough it is, so guess what I’m using for my journal this year. 

Wishing you well,

Christy