Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Birthday, Baba!


Mr. Ray Giusti was born 112 years ago.  Still miss that guy "like sixty".  And if he were around, he'd be the funniest 112 year old ever.

This little family photo was taken in 1936.  That is one spiffy family!  Loving Baba's white slacks, and of course Toddie and Mom (Mom would have been 12 -- or 13 or 11 depending on what year she decides she was born lol) are all dolled up.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Yikes!!!!

I was working in my office this morning.  I heard a sort of big "WHOOSH" sound.  All of a sudden, Lulu was right next to me, trying to get in my lap.

When I went upstairs to see what mischief the gang had gotten into, I found this out in the back yard:

 
We knew this tree was dead but wow!  Wasn't expecting it to topple!  Thank god it didn't happen the other day when we were all out there raking and mowing! 

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

It's Good to Have New Knitters in the House

Because they have no understanding of WHY you have projects laying around that are nearly finished.  And they insist you drag them out and get them done.

Thanks to our resident nagger (that would be Cara), I have finished the Dale of Norway Sirdal Cardigan that has been sitting in a bag for 2 years.  And it's really beautiful.  Although I did mess up the buttonhole placement a bit.  But I'm not fixing it.  That would relegate the sweater to the bag for another 2 years and Car would never stand for that.

A Cute Trio


This must have been taken in 1958 or thereabouts.  Cute Dad, with cute little Laurie holding cute Baby Beezie.  Baby Beezie does not seem too happy with the holding, though.  Love my striped shirt!  And Dad was a handsome guy, wasn't he?

Friday, October 19, 2012

My Kids are the BEST

Have I mentioned this fact before?  :-)

I'm so lucky.  My kids have come to my rescue time and again over the past few years.  It's been a bit of a rocky road for me as I returned to single status, but they've been there every step of the way.

They took me in and let me live with them in exchange for dog-sitting, accepting UPS deliveries, some light chores and the occasional dinner of homemade mac & cheese.

They make sure that most days I have a car at my disposal should I be inclined to venture out (most days the pups and I just hang out at home, though)

They cheerfully accompany me on weekly estate sale/thrift store adventures.  Tony is now officially authorized to be my scout on his weekly sales route, and brought home 3 bags full of Value Village pattern book finds from Yakima.  THAT'S a good son, folks.

They took pity on me for owning a Blackberry (which I was constantly predicting was going to stop working the minute RIM went banko), and Katie gave me her iPhone.  Which I love and am up to typing about 2 words a minute now.

They took pity on me after they fried my laptop with a poorly aimed bottle of water.  The laptop they gave me a couple of years ago.  And Tony gave me his iPad.  Which I love.  And I'm now "swiping" and poking with my finger at any computer screen I attempt to use, after only 3 days with the iPad.

They took pity on me for being an Apple tard, and Cara & Tony reset up both the iPhone and the iPad so I can actually now download my own stuff from the iTunes store instead of Pia's, Katie's, or Tony's music.

Oh, and the computer I use for my work?  That is thanks to Pia allowing me to take over her Mac after my computer took a fatal dump.

The best, people.  The best.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Knit-O-Rama


Pia & I spent a relaxing weekend at knitting camp!  We headed up north to Camp Spaulding for a retreat with the Knorthside Knitters.  No rustic bunkbeds or treks to the outhouse for us, we stayed in a lovely cabin with its own bathroom, and probably 10 times the floorspace that our London hotel is likely to have.

Here are the lovely ladies who retreated for the weekend:

A great group of gals, and including Susan & her pal Alice, who came all the way from Seattle to knit.  Lots of knitting talent in this group :-)

And here are Susna and me modeling the "BFF Cowls" we knit for each other (you can get the pattern here)

Geez, I am the WORST poser for pictures.  The cowls are cute though.


Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Summer: Done

So sad to see our lovely summer of fun end!  I will always remember this year as the one that brought the Virginians home (after our relentless campaign...which really had nothing to do with their homecoming, but Katie, Pia and I will take the credit nonetheless)

Here's my list of the best stuff of the summer of '12:

  1. Cross-country drive with Tony plus our traveling companions Lois and Walt.  Poor Pooh Bear had to drive the whole way (NO WAY was he trusting me to drive his truck plus trailer hitched to the back).  We successfully navigated our way across the USA, only having to back the truck/trailer up once.  We also only ate burgers & fries ONE time the whole trip.  
  2. Our move into our big new house.  It's so much fun to room with "Team Plack", I couldn't ask for better roommates.  Well, except for the occasional accident by a canine member of the team (Walter, I'm looking at YOU)
  3. Having Tony & Cara all to myself for much of the summer while they job-hunted.  How great was it to have two pals at home all day?  SUPER GREAT.  
  4. Card games!  We destroyed at least 3 UNO decks due to our relentless daily games.  We wore out the 4 C batteries in the card shuffler.  We moved on to "Phase 10" (fancy Books and Runs, Zaids)  Now that summer's over and we can't sit out on the deck, our pace has slowed.  Time to get a new game going.  "Fun Dominoes", anyone?
  5. Teaching the ways of picking for vintage knitting & crochet patterns to my team.  You don't even know the years of teasing I've endured from these people as I insisted on stopping at any thrift store we passed.  The worm has turned folks.  I've issued a BOLO to all team members, and they do not hesitate to stop at any estate sale or thrift store that looks promising.  Tony has even taken on the Goodwill accounts at his new company (they stock the 'Will's candy display) just so he can get an "in" on any knitting stuff
  6. KNITTING!!!!  All four of the gang are now knitters extra-ordinaire.  Tony & Cara are busy building their stashes with fabulous yarn, having immediately absorbed the lesson that there's no point in spending hours of time knitting with crap yarn.  They've inspired us to drag out and finish some of our long-dormant projects.  And you know nothing makes me smile bigger than seeing all four of them knitting away while watching TV.
  7. TV: speaking of which, we've spent a fair bit of time catching up on some great series: Dexter (we had to skip Season 5? with the hideous Lumen in order to be ready for last week's new episode but all agreed we LOVED Trinity, greatest serial killer ever.  And I'm hoping Dex will get it over with and murder Deb, she's so annoying).  Game of Thrones (only have to wait til March 2013 for season 3!)  I'm only 1/2 season behind on Breaking Bad.  Cara is trying to convince us all to relearn to love Grey's Anatomy.  We are pretty sure she is the last person in America who still watches that show.
Anyway, it's been a wonderful summer and I'm sure autumn will bring new adventures and fun to the team.  We're already planning our trip to the Rose City Yarn Crawl for some serious stash enhancement.  Not to mention our upcoming Trip Of A Lifetime to England (though Cara & Tony had to bail due to new jobs = no vacation time.  Boo) at Christmas.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

THIS Guy Should have been Moderating...



"I'm sorry, Jim, I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm going to stop other things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird, I actually like you, too. But I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for.

The quote that launched a million joke tweets. Mitt Romney actually threatened to fire a guy onstage who is paid by an entity that uses .00014% of the federal budget. This is Mitt Romney's solution to help reduce the national debt. Shit on Big Bird."

And there was no mention of the words "47 percent", "women" "Bain Capitol" "legitimate rape"....huh.

And this:
"Tonight, the role of Mitt Romney will be played by some guy who would never have won the GOP primary.

Who the fuck was this guy? After a year and a half of campaigning on promises that if elected, he'll govern like Ayn Rand and Ronald Reagan's Mormon lovechild, when he took the stage last night, he spent 90 minutes pretending to be the guy who ran for Senate against Ted Kennedy in 1994, or for Governor of Massachusetts in 2002. He denied that his tax plan says what it says and paid lip service to teachers while his plan would likely cut tens of thousands of teaching jobs"

And this:

"Apparently "domestic issues" don't involve women's health, equal pay, student loan debt, or immigration.

Last night's debate was supposed to address "domestic issues," but what we got was a 90-minute bicker sesh about Social Security, Medicare, and taxes with brief forays into education. This may have been because both campaigns assume that only old people watch TV, but Obama missed a huge opportunity to connect with the millions of young voters who were in the process of making the debate the most tweeted-about political event in history. Nothing about women's issues? Okay. I guess we should save that debate for The View, the place where ladies kvetch about their silly, fluffy economic well-being as it pertains to their gender and roles as mothers and caretakers."

Monday, October 1, 2012

My New Favorite Blog



You too can waste most of an afternoon browsing through this blog.  Fabulous Victorian photographs and lots more!