Hey who left this bandwagon here?

I don't care.  I'm jumping on it.

Scroll down till you find The Joy Dare.

Read my 2c worth here.

Two things that almost happened, and some that actually did.

Things that did:

- We went to Manitoba for Christmas and had lovely visiting times with lovely people.  I knit a lot of dishcloths and handed them out like candy.  I was very socially engaging.  (not really)

- I pinched a nerve in my neck or upper back or something by ...sleeping.  I am still trying to make it so I can use my right arm on a regular basis without weeping.  Weeping is annoying.

- I'm still knitting, though.  Even though I watch my arm move while I knit, I insist that it "doesn't move very much" as I knit, and cannot therefore be contributing to the pain.

- I knit another thing for myself.  A pair of fingerless mitts and I have yet to lose either of them.

- I bought myself some new earbuds while we were in Manitoba.  Mine tend to walk off and insert themselves, uninvited, into someone else's ears, and then leap off when no-one is looking, and be lost forever.  (I'm not going to tell you whose ears, but I am going to tell you a story about B.)  Let me preface this story by mentionning that I bought new earbuds for both the offspring for Christmas, as well.  Three new sets of earbuds.  Mine should be safe.  Just to be sure, I bought mine in a colour I was sure no twelve year old male would want near his person.  They're either teal or turquoise, but colour is not my strong suit.  (Spelling colour with a U right where it belongs?  THAT'S my strong suit)

So a few nights ago I was sitting working on my book listening to music and B walks in.  "Those earbuds are the coolest colour EVER.", he says.  (Notice what a good Canadian he is.  He pronounced colour with the U in its proper place.)
I offered to trade him for the earbuds he got for Christmas  if a) he could find them and b) they worked in my ears, because I do love the brightly coloured wee cheapies I bought myself.
He found his lost earbuds in 3.6 minutes.  I tried them.  I hated them.  They kept falling out, and even when they were in, they did nothing to block household sounds.  I informed him of this, earbuds were exchanged, and all was rosy.
The next morning I came downstairs after B had left for school and when I sat down to start work I noticed black earbuds plugged in to my laptop.  As  I was working up a perfectly good mad, I noticed a wee note tucked under my laptop lid.  "Notice anything different?" it read, so I laughed instead of getting mad, but when he got home from school I said "Nice try, bud." and held out my hand, and that was that.

Two Things That Almost Happened.

Thing One:

I have two sets of stupidly expensive knitting needles.  5 needles to a set and really, you who ARE knitters know how much Signature needles cost (or you are off to google it this second), and those who aren't knitters really shouldn't try to find out how much they are because you don't need this much evidence that I am not mentally stable.  (In my defense, the first set was a gift.  I opened it and said "Do you know how much these cost?  Are you crazy?" and then thanked TB profusely and cast on a sock.)  They are not only nice and sharp just like I like them but they are oh so pretty.  Really really pretty.

Here's the thing about double pointed needles.  (hereinafter referred to as DPN's)  A set of double pointed needles minus a needle becomes a handfull of pretty pointy sticks.  And in this case, an expensive handfull of shiny sticks.

I took a sock project to B's hockey game last night.  I sat down on the steel bleachers, knitting away, my hands nice and cosy in my "knitting at the hockey game" fingerless mitts that I made for myself from yarn I bought in the Netherlands, and it was all so pretty to look at, the sock I was knitting and the new mitts and the shiny sparkly DPN's, and - I dropped one.  I heard a tink! and then a second tink! and I looked down at the steel bleachers and saw a gap much wider than my stupidly expense needle.  Two tinks, I thought, and then looked to see how I could get under the bleachers.

And there was no way to get under the bleachers.  Not even for an enterprising small child.

I stopped breathing.  In my mind I did the math.  "$$$$ / 5.  They are not going to dismantle these bleachers for that."  (Aside - I wonder what they WOULD dismantle the bleachers for.  I wonder what is under there.  I've been watching too much Monk lately.  I bet Monk could solve a murder if only they would dismantle those bleachers. I'm calling Tony Shalhoub.)

And then I cautiously moved my purse, and there lay my pretty pretty needle, astride the gap, and I bent forward and picked it up carefully and put the DPN project away and I may never let those needles leave the house again.

So I almost lost a really expensive needle.  That would have made a good story, no?

Thing Two.

I let the dog out to do her morning thing at Still Dark O'Clock earlier this week, and she Did Her Thing, and then leapt aside in sudden terror and started barking.  It was dark, but there was snow on the ground, and even though I didn't have my glasses on, I could see that there was nothing to bark at, and then something large and lumbery started moving away from the base of the tree out front.

Something large and lumbery and porcupine-y, and much bigger than my small bossy dog.  Promises of treats did nothing to dissuade her from defending the front yard from The Thing, and she has always ignored me when I say "Come!" so finally I resorted to ...this is what you get when you don't train your dog properly.  "Come!" means nothing to her, but "Leash!"?  Apparently that means you stand still until someone in their nightgown comes across the snow in her bare feet to put your leash on.  Even if she doesn't have a leash.  I brought her in and gave her a treat and she spent the next hour at the front hour, whining to go out and teach The Thing a lesson.

So that would have made a story too, hey?  "My dog attacked a porcupine in our own front yard!  And we live in the city!"

But none of it happened, so I have nothing more to talk about.

In which the universe offers me crazy pie, and I turn it down

(the crazy pie phrase is borrowed from the Yarn Harlot.)

This post is partially for those of you who have ever gotten way too far into some project, usually in the kitchen, and thought "But Martha made it look easy!"  (This doesn't have to be La Stewart herself.  It could be anyone who made it look easy, and was all excited about it, therefore making you think you could do the same thing.)

So I made these.  I got all the way up to just having to add the flour when the little girls I babysit were here - measuring and pouring are way up there on the list of things wee girls like to do, so it was all good.  There was oatmeal and sugar all over the floor, and I tidied and swept before adding the flour because it was just flour and a few tsps of things left.

HA.  So the girls left and I made lunch and went looking for other cookie in a jar recipes and one recipe I saw said "if you are new to this - you really do need to tamp each layer down as you add them."  Well, huh, I thought.  The lady who gave me some of these last year said the same thing, but you know, I left out the walnuts - it'll all be good.

Well, good is relative, I suppose.  Go back to that link?  See how the chocolate chips are well, brown?  As in not covered in flour, because whoever made them did NOT have to smack the jar on the table approx 432 times in order to get all the flour in?

There will be a fine coating of flour dust in my kitchen for the rest of my natural life.  At one point, I considered reprinting all the recipe labels, and adding "1/3 c flour" to the list of ingredients needed to perfect the cookies, but that was too much like giving up.  Also I discovered that the Italian seasoning spice bottle fit into the sealer quite nicely, and if I pushed on it with all my might for a count of ...well alot.  ...I had room for the flour.

And then I was looking at the finished jars, all wiped down and lidded and thought you know what would be nice?  Instead of cutting out circles of cloth that nobody will ever have use a for for the topper, I'll use handknit dishcloths!  And I counted my pile of dishcloths, and I have eight and a half.  And then I noticed that the round ones looked better than the square ones, but I only have two round ones, and this thought actually flipped through my head:

Well they only take a few hours to make.

And then I multiplied "a few" by ten, and even without looking at the date, knew that the universe was once again attempting to get me to take a big old bite of Crazy Pie.

So if you get one of the ones with a square dishcloth on it - be proud of me.

And pretend the chocolate chips provide a nice contrast, will you?

In which Murphy and I call it a draw for today

So I have this son.  He's 12.  He's grown approximately 8 billion inches since the beginning of July and mostly, he eats and sleeps and plays hockey.

Monday morning I was looking at him lying on the floor begging not to go to school because he was soooooooooooooo tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired, and he looked - well, awful.  Then he said his ears hurt and his legs hurt and so I thought, okay you have been complaining about being tired for six months.  Maybe you should see a doctor.

So today he bounces out of bed cheerful as a (insert cheerful thing), says his ears don't hurt, and he feels great!  Hopefully he has hockey today!

And I had to take him to the doctor anyway, because they charge $50 for cancelling an appointment less than 24 hours ahead of time.

So Murphy won that one.

***

I got home and decided to bake cookies.  I was in the kitchen trying to decide what to bake when there was a knock on my door, and there on my doorstep was the lady I work for, with the three tubs of frozen cookie dough I'd bought from the preschool fundraiser.

Take that, Murph.


(I looked up that whole Murphy thing, cause I was trying to explain it to my left brain and I couldn't remember where it came from.  And seriously - there's someone out there whose name is Murphy, attorney at law.  (I left out the first name just in case I should.)  I think that I would be nervous having that person defend me.  If I ever committed a crime.  I don't plan to, but there are still teenagers living here.)

Operation "Cheer My Mom Up"

So my mother is even more laid up than usual, what with the broken femur and all, and she's in pain a lot of the time, and I was looking at her bulletin board the other day thinking it's been a while since she got mail ...

And she loves Christmas ...

And I had this idea!!!

Who wants to send my Mom a Christmas card?  Even if you don't know her, you can just sign it "Sue's friend Hepzibah" (alternatively, feel free to use your real name) -

wouldn't it be awesome to fill her bulletin board with Christmas cards?

It's likely best if you email me at brekke2004@gmail.com for her address.

Please?

Whoosh!

Six hockey games in four days!  (B's team won them all.  Lots of close ones, too.)

So the last five days have been arenas and take out coffee and the smack of the stick against the ice and really, is there a sound more Canadian than that?  And mothers screaming encouragement from the stands and lots of good cold Canadian air ...

And a dog with a backache and kids with earaches and heartaches and an amazing dance performance by my daughter's talented hiphop troupe crew.  It's a called a crew...

And church and a potluck, and an hour or so with my mother, who would like to sleep until either the winter is over or her leg is better or something interesting happens ...

So today is about writing a book.

I should post once in a while.

So it's been exactly one while since I posted last.

Update:  the lower something-or-knobby-other than sticks out on the end of a femur is the bone that is cracked, not broken, on my mom's leg.  My mother remains unconcerned about laying blame and is just lying around healing.  And trying to scratch inside the (somelongname) splint she's wearing.

Novel update:  (novel as noun, not adjective)  I had to make a decision this week.  Decisions make me fractious.  The Novel, as is, is not quite adult and not quite YA, so Changes had to be made.  But first I had to decide who I was writing for.  Some people decide this before they write a book.  These, I suspect, are people who actually believe they can actually write an actual whole book before they have shuffled off this mortal coil.  I am only one of those people who believe that because, whoops, I did it.

So it was either make it grittier or replace the protagonists mother, who was kind of a co-protagonist, with someone much younger and therefore someone the imaginary YA reader wanted to read about.  Nothing grittier occurred to me, but a spiky teenaged year old girl, all elbows and wild hair, showed up and told me her name was Greer, and she was perfectly capable of raising one young boy.  (she actually didn't tell me her name.  I had to guess.  I guessed for days.)

Weird writing thingummy:  I pondered how to effect such a change.  "Maybe," I thought, driving around doing errands, "Kirna could die in childbirth." and suddenly there was, in my imaginary head, an outraged shriek, and someone saying "I will most certainly NOT die in childbirth."  The discussion continued until I found a way to get rid of Kirna that she would agree to.

Animal update: (also noun, although what other part of speech could animal be?)  She is currently gently bewildered, as I have barricaded her into the dining room because she has a sore back.  More accurately, she has a sore back when she is not taking anti-inflammatories (with a syringe!  I squirt them into her mouth and she tries to lick them off her tongue!  It's very entertaining.)  Even though the drugs take away her pain, she must continue to act like she is in pain if her back is to get any better, ie, not jumping on the couch, or racing up the stairs, or being an enthusiastic small dog.

There is no way to explain this to her, so I have barricaded her into the dining room, so instead of sitting at my feet staring at me because she is in pain, she is sitting at my feet staring at me because she wants to lie on her blanket on the couch.

And that's all I have to say for, oh, a while or two.

A Small Story

I may have mentionned that I was raised in a turbulent home, by an angry, frustrated woman who did not know how to control her temper.

A woman who gave her life to God when I was 10 or 11 ...and the transformation began.  It wasn't overnight.  It wasn't even over the course of a year, or two years, but now, three and a half decades later - here is a story about my mother.

She called me from the nursing home Friday, in terrible pain.  The aides had gotten her up to be weighed, (she is unable to move on her own at all), and in the process, had hurt her knee somehow.  Saturday she was sent for xrays, and today, I discovered that she has a broken bone somewhere in her knee, and is in a cast from hip to ankle.

I waited until I was no longer angry to call her and see how she was doing.

"I feel sorry for Jennifer*" she said.  (*Jennifer is not her real name)

"Jennifer?"

"The girl who hurt me.  She just forgot my knees don't bend, and bent it right back."

No anger, no judgement, no sense of entitlement, no feeling sorry for herself.

That right there, people? 

That is a woman who knows Jesus.