I only dragged my blue chair to my nearest neighbor's house -- onto the street in front, actually, and across the street from the first new construction on our block in about 100 years, about which I am not really a happy camper. I think I'm the only person in the 'hood who hasn't met the new homeowner -- who is over there every freakin' day and often at night (like dark night, not just evening), doing Lord only knows what, even when there was nothing but a hole in the ground.
Anyway, because of something to do with the gas line, I think, there are construction warning barriers surrounded by a plastic orange fence around a hole in front of my new neighbor's house and I could not resist. The sun was in a such wonderful spot, I dragged the chair back to my own yard and set it amongst the flowers in the front garden. I used to be a good gardener... I think one of those is called "Scottish bells" and the other is a sort of geranium that's spreading all through the garden and there are also plentiful weeds. I'd love to leave the chair out there, but I fear it would not long be mine.
I have a LOT of this paint left over and, while I do love the color, I want more colors... other colors... different colors.
I bought some electric blue paint and slapped a new coat on a formerly dusty pink kitchen chair that's been holding towels in the upstairs bathroom. Man. It's a spindly kitchen chair from the '30s or '40s and what a pain in the ass to paint! Looks cool, though. I have to apply one more coat.
The color goes with absolutely nothing inside, outside, or around my house -- though the exterior window trim is in the area of those red pickets. It's vibrant -- a word that's never been associated with me; I have always been more... muted. It says, "LOOK AT ME!" without being yellow. (Yellow has it's place -- I love yellow -- but it's so often just wrong.)
Vibrant. Who'd a thunk it?
I wove in ALL the ends on Mack's sweater while knitting out last night. I forgot to bring yarn, though, so still have only to sew up the "small black" seam under the arm on one side.
I'm excited about starting something new. I'm thinking lace, probably a substantial scarf/stole. First, though, while I consider my stash and the possibilities, I must finish the kid blanket to send to Texas and will probably stash dive for suitable yarn for some squares for the "OFA girl" blanket(s).
I have today off and it's a glorious day -- w00t! The long weekend has been busy, but good. I'll be working the next three days, but I expect it to be pretty light with the holiday on Friday.
With the slow time, I might have an opportunity to work on the Mack Sweater! I finished off the hood last night, closed up the underarms, and wove in a few ends -- there are lots more ends, though!
All in all, I'm happy. I had the circs at the neck on Saturday when Mack tried it on and, well, let's just say that this little sweater has a very long life ahead. It came down nearly to his knees -- but the sleeves are also long, so that is good. There's nothing worse than a too-long body with short sleeves, or too-long sleeves with a short body. It's all very much in proportion, just a bit big. Room to grow.
Fifty years ago today, the people who made me who I am today... um, the people who made me... got married. Lordy. They only stayed married for 12 years, which means that they've been not married for 38 years -- and that's an awfully long time -- wow -- but married once they were and this day I always remember -- though for most of those years, I thought "this day" was the 26th.
It's A Wonderful Life, you know? Even if some of it was pretty crappy. If my parents hadn't married, my life would have been quite different. I do believe I would have had a life, but I might not have had the sisters and brother that I do; I might not have known the same grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins; I might refer to my parents as "birth mom" and "bio dad."
They weren't a very good married couple and they've been better or worse parents, just as I've been a better or worse daughter, but they're mine and I'm theirs and that will never change.
When Katie was little -- not as young as Mack, but still little -- she went through a Randy Travis phase. I think she finds that a little (maybe a lot) embarrassing now, but I think Randy did his part, along with Raffi, those three Hanson boys, and others to help hone her style and shape her love and appreciation for music.
Mack's got a thing for Johnny Cash. He doesn't watch much in the way of TV or movies, but one of his favorite videos is The Johnny Cash Show. It's terrific, really -- there were some wonderful guests on that show that weren't "country" -- Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Ray Charles. Mack has learned at least parts of many of the songs, often "accompanying" himself on a ukelele. "Jackson" is a favorite and he's said to his mom, and even me, "You be June." Ya gotta have a June to sing "Jackson."
Mack left a message on my mom's answering machine several months ago that's still there. "I keep a close watch on this heart of mine, I keep my eyes wide open all the time..." Can you imagine? The whole first verse sung in a 2-1/2 yo voice? It is priceless and woe to the one who ever deletes that message.
So, anyway, when I saw this Johnny Cash Action Figure, I had to BUY NOW! (Check out Jimmy Page and Kurt Cobain. Lord, there's Freddie Mercury and John Lennon, too. Love.) And they've been inseparable. My sister wrote, "The first night Mack fell asleep with him, white knuckles and all, and the first words out of his mouth when he woke up and stumbled into the bathroom: Where is Johnny's guitar?"
My girls talked about taking a road trip together later this summer. The price of gas, among other things -- but mostly, the price of gas -- has them thinking otherwise. It makes me very sad.
I remember many trips "up north," when I was a kid. We always went in June. Dad would haul the boat behind his Jeep Wagoneer, Mom stuffed all of our stuff in the back. Dad rented space in someone's garage for the boat, since we didn't have room in our own. I was always in awe of backing the boat into the garage... or down the landing into the water. Maneuvering with something trailing behind is something I've never done. I remember the boat strung upside down from the rafters in our garage for a paint job once. It was a wooden boat -- most of it painted white, but also some varnished parts. I remember the engine from my Uncle Jim's MG hanging from those rafters, too. OMG, that was the COOLEST car.
He was/is a pretty cool uncle, too. "Uncle Duck." That's how he signed the note authorizing me to buy cigarettes on his behalf when I was 11. I remember him flirting with a girl at Red Owl.
It was the Summer of '69. That's been in my head since T's last YouTube Saturday. That's one of my favorite songs for driving -- one of those where I can actually "be" in my convertible, windows and top down, the road stretching straight as an arrow in the middle of nowhere for as far as I can see, the blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds, the volume cranked (because I have an AWESOME sound system... in my dreams) and I'm just happy, behind the wheel, driving...
I can "put" myself in the back seat of the Jeep, right behind Dad. He always drove with the window down, his arm hanging out, so he'd have that driver's tan. His arm would get so dark sometimes; sometimes burn. He never cranked the radio. It would always drive me nuts that I could only just barely ever hear what song was playing. He'd be smoking a cigarette or a cigar, one summer he was even smoking a pipe, but it was usually cigarettes. I loved when we'd stop for gas, how the smell would waft in through the open window. Back in the day when someone came out and pumped it for ya, and washed the windshield.
My sisters and I took a road trip 29 years ago this month. Hard to believe it's been that long. I had a brand new Toyota Corolla, my first-ever new car -- which I bought right off the showroom floor, for around $5400, my only requirement that they swap the AM/FM radio for one with a cassette player -- but we swapped for my stepdad's brand new Ford something-or-other small wagon -- because we were four girls and we needed the room, and even with a station wagon we STILL had shit in garbage bags strapped to the top of the car -- and not strapped very well, either, because we got the signal about 45 miles down the road that we should stop and secure the goods.
We drove to Oregon and met Dad, actually. He had sold his house and was moving stuff into storage -- we helped them move. My sister Sharon played "The Snake Charmer," her one and only song, on the piano in the back of a pickup truck through the streets of Dallas. When the work was done, we took a week to drive down the coast of Oregon. I took pictures of my sisters on the beach at Cape Kiwanda. My husband, who I'd not yet met, of course, had just purchased a lot there to build a house. I might have seen him; definitely drove right by the site. Six years later, I was married in that house.
We drove down to Crescent City, CA, and saw redwoods. We visited Crater Lake and the Sea Lion Caves and played on gigantic sand dunes. We had adventures battling mosquitoes while pitching a tent at Yellowstone, visited Old Faithful in the dawn's early light, spent an unplanned afternoon in the mountains of Montana (and I wouldn't have it any other way), visited Wall Drug and Mount Rushmore, spent every last penny we had on gas and food to make it home.
Jalousie. I usually can't prounounce the name correctly -- jaloosy or Ja Lucy -- but I love them, anyway. There must have been jalousie windows in a home of my childhood. We moved a lot when I was a kid -- at least once a year until I was in third grade, and sometimes more -- my public school education was kicked off by three different kindergarten teachers.
There are certain things -- elements of design, decor, embellishment, architecture -- that stand out from my childhood. Coppertone, Avocado Green, and Harvest Gold; aluminum canisters and spice shakers; Tupperware; Danish modern furniture; jalousie windows.
It's crazy to have these windows in Wisconsin, but they are represented in many a sun porch, Florida room, or three-season room, and they always catch my eye.
I've posted photos from Flickr before, but never an entire post... Ta-DA!
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