Anna-Liza here … of course. I think the Resident Sith Master only says weird things intentionally these days.
Mr. R and Mr. B are playing with superhero figures they got for Christmas with Zombie Son.
Mr. R: “I have an invincible suit.”
Mr. B: “But then we can see your weiner.”
Mr. R: “INVINCIBLE! Not INVISIBLE!”
Lyda here. Okay, that post title is just to draw you in. If you really want to see Santa, or at least his current position, you have to go here. You can keep checking all through the night if you want. And you thought those Norad guys spent all their time hooking up with hot aliens.
Me, I’ll be working on gifts. Yup. I have a knitted gift to finish (really, almost done, but I need to pick up some more yarn) and another super-secret gift to keep working on.
Which probably won’t be done in time.
I ran into a snag.
I need a more powerful drill.
That’s what she said.
Filed under: Culture - pop & other, Weirdness | Tags: Marin, quizzes, Rabbitch
| Which creature of the night are you?
Your Result: Sorceror
Control is the name of your game. You are a studied tactician and scientist and you seek a kingdom where things make sense, damn the morals, even if you have to create it. You are cold, calm and calculating. |
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| Vampire |
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| Incubus/Succubus |
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| Ghost |
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| Cthulu Spawn |
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| Demon |
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| Werewolf |
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| Which creature of the night are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz |
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Oh, that’s for Anna-Liza. I’m sure Lyda will post her results … won’t you, my dear?
Thanks to both Marin and Rabbitch!
Oh, Lyda here, I want to play too! Here are my results. Although zombies are creatures of the night too, aren’t they? I was sure I was a zombie queen… but I digress…
| Which creature of the night are you?
Your Result: Sorceror
Control is the name of your game. You are a studied tactician and scientist and you seek a kingdom where things make sense, damn the morals, even if you have to create it. You are cold, calm and calculating. |
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| Cthulu Spawn |
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| Werewolf |
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| Demon |
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| Ghost |
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| Vampire |
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| Incubus/Succubus |
|
| Which creature of the night are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz |
|
Filed under: Colorado, Family, Food & Drink, Friends, Knitting, Quilting | Tags: cabin, Campaign to Move Lyda to Colorado, Christmas trees, mountains, snow
Hi y’all, Anna-Liza here. I promised a post about snow, mountains, Christmas trees, and quilts, so here goes. (Okay, I only mentioned the Christmas trees and the quilts, but the rest goes along with it.)
We were supposed to do the annual Christmas Tree Hunt the weekend of Thanksgiving, but it was snowing too much. The road up to the cabin is terrifiying in parts a little bit scary even on a warm summer’s day, but it’s impassible when it’s snowing. (Once it stops and the county plows the road, it’s okay. No, really, as long as you have at least front-wheel drive and maybe snow tires.)
So we went on December 6th instead. The cabin has been in VSH’s family since the 1930s and they renovated it in the early ’90s. The renovation included really good insulation, putting a new foundation under the stone fireplace and adding a wood stove insert, but not adding electricity or running water. I should mention that I am personally against the idea of having electricity up there, and running water is more expense than it’s worth. They did improve the outhouse, which is nice.
If you’re unfamiliar with our little tradition, every year we invite friends to come up with us to cut Christmas trees, hang out in nature, and partake of hot drinks and snacks in the cabin. It’s a really fun day, and we’ve had everything from hardly any snow to snow up to my knees. This year was a medium amount of snow.
We went up the night before so we could prepare for the day. The place was 20°F when we got there. The fire and the propane heater got it up to, oh 45°F or so by the time we got to bed. It was nice and toasty by morning. Here are the quilts (and one afghan) that live up there, under which we snuggled all night.
This one’s my favorite:
I made a hearty breakfast, eggs and pancakes, bacon and coffee, to warm us up and stoke our energy for the day.
Hey, those pajamas were a gift, okay? They’re Japanese. And they’re really warm (the colors might help with that).
Here’s what I was looking at while I was eating breakfast:
We had several families come up, kids and dogs included. I kept pretty busy dispensing hot water, cocoa, and coffee and helping look after the kids who were too small to go out tree hunting with the older ones. Here’s a blurry picture of the inside of the cabin at peak attendance:
Mr. R did go out tree hunting with his dad, and he picked out our tree, cut it down, and dragged it back to the cabin all by himself. VSH was very, very proud of him, as was I. It’s a very nice tree and Mr. R was pretty excited that he could do all of that.
I did get a few more pictures. Here they are, whether you’re here in Colorado enjoying the snowy weather with me, or you’re somewhere warmer and just want to enjoy some snowy, Christmas-y images!
If you hold your cursor over the image, you can see the name of the picture.
Happy Snowy Holidays!
Filed under: General | Tags: Christmas knitting, Christmas rush, Christmas shopping
Hey, Anna-Liza here. Not much of a post–too busy. You’re probably too busy to be reading this.
Got most of my shopping done. The only immediate family member who has me stumped is Zombie Son. What do you buy a professional zombie whose hobbies you know very little about? Might have to be a gift card, although I’d love to come up with something else.
I’ll post about the Christmas Tree Hunt this weekend, and the interesting quilts and afghans that live up at the cabin. VSH even took pictures of them!
I’m wondering, if I started today, could I have knitted washcloths done for all of VSH’s female relatives by Christmas? (Ssshhh … don’t disturb the delusional knitter!)
Filed under: Culture - pop & other, Movies, Politics, TV | Tags: California, geek, it is to laugh, Star Trek
Lyda here. Sorry for the silence. I’ll post more soon, but in the meantime, ya’ll know I had to share this.
more lol celebs!
Hi, Anna-Liza here. As you know, I live in a smallish city. Last I checked, the population was around 80,000, so not really a small town anymore. But one of the things I really love about living here is that it still feels like a small town. And I also love the fact that our city government spends time and money on community events to bring our growing population together. As an example …
Last night we went to our hometown holiday parade. It was held on Main Street (which is also a state highway, but what the hey! They close it down for big events several times a year). The entries ranged from several very good high school marching bands to Girl Scout troops and Cub Scout packs to a group representing Peru. The pacing got a little patchy at times, and there were a number of entries whose sponsors were, well, obscure. The local PT Cruiser club turned out in force and all tricked out. There were several vintage fire trucks all strung with lights, and a contingent of decorated riding lawn mowers.
Afterward, everyone went to Roosevelt Park, which is one of the original parks in the original square mile of Longmont. There, the city has an ice skating rink in the winter, a rose garden, and a big open oval in the middle which is terrific for flying kites in the spring. The oval was once a race track–they held harness races–and I’ve heard there was once a lake in the middle where the grass is now. This is where they had the rest of the Longmont Lights celebration.
There was a fireworks display over the park, hot chocolate, muffins, and cookies in the senior center next to the park, hot chocolate stands stationed at intervals around the park, a computer-run light display in the rose garden coordinated with Christmas music, a train ride for the kids, and a lot of lights hung on pretty near every tree in the place. There was even a free pizza stand! Earlier in the day, Santa had parachuted into the park, but we didn’t see that.
This was all paid for by the city or sponsored by local businesses. We didn’t pay a cent so anyone could come and enjoy no matter how tight the budget. We brought a bunch of kids with us (we had six with us total, and some other friends came along who had three with them), brought the wagon for the littlest ones to ride in, and just relaxed, drank hot chocolate, and had a good time.
Yes, yes, I know we pay for this, at least part of it, with our taxes. I am very happy to have some of my tax money be put to such a use. Seeing so many families and, in particular, so many kids out having fun, smiling, warming hands at the fire barrels and enjoying a not-too-cold evening was way, way worth it.
Pictures? Sorry–with six kids to look after and my heavy gloves on, taking pictures was a little beyond me. Even if I had remembered the camera!
Continuing wishes for joyful, peaceful, loving holidays to you all.
- Ahtellyuwhut, that grey coverall is the perfect garment for wrangling Christmas trees on and off the roofs of cars. The gold crocheted twinset, not so much.
- Happy Holidays from the Colorado branch of Pollyanna Rainbow Sunshine and the Needles of Doom!
Filed under: Around the Blogiverse, Culture - pop & other, Friends | Tags: flashbacks, George Carlin, kisses, meme, menz, music
Lyda here. I was going to do another meme. I can just hear the Knights Who Say “Ni!” crying in glee: “A meme! A meme!”
This one from Paper Tiger Knits (warning – cute cat pics alert!) who did this meme here.
Music Meme
The rules:
A) Go to Music Outfitters
B) Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year
C) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline and/or italicize your favorite. Do nothing to the ones you don’t remember (or don’t care about).
Now let’s see… what year did I graduate…? “Where did I put the petitions, man?… What were we talking about…? Oh yeah, the petitions, man.” (George Carlin explaining why marijuana hasn’t been legalized.)
And then I looked at the Top 100 Hits of 1978.
The horror. The horror!!
I just can’t do the meme. So. Much. Disco. Bleeding from ears… The Rolling Stones don’t hit the list until #16, and that is Just. So. Wrong. But what can we expect from a year when “Short People” by Randy Newman made the top 50?
And yet, I’m ashamed to admit, I probably know all the words to all of those disco songs. Oh deary deary me.
The song from that list that I associate most with my senior year is ”We Are The Champions/We Will Rock You” by Queen. A very good friend of mine – the first guy who ever asked me on a date, the first guy I ever dated, the first guy I ever kissed (I kissed so badly the first time that he actually said “That wasn’t much of a kiss”, scarring me for life), the guy with whom I later had the Best Kiss Of My Life, the first guy to break up with me (although not the first guy to break my heart – that’s a whole other Oprah, as one of my girlfriends would say) -
But I digress…
Anyway. That guy.
Among many other assets, that guy had a car. And a cassette player in the car. Yes, children this was in the dark days before CDs. I know, scary. And yet we made it out alive. But I digress again… And cassettes of all the Queen albums. And we sang them at the top of our lungs. Especially that album.
I wonder where he is now and what he’s doing…
So, instead of the meme, I give you a seasonal joke (purportedly from George Carlin):
“The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.”
Filed under: Knitting, cats | Tags: Knitting, mousie slippers, Mr. B, Sparkle kitty
Hi, Anna-Liza here. That title is how you know this is still a knitblog. At least sometimes.
A friend gave me a pattern for mousie slippers for kids. It’s a pretty basic pattern and fairly old–it mentions Orlon yarn. However, it has a selvage treatment I’ve never run across before, and it is quite elegant. So I’m going to blog about it and even show pictures. I am aware that I’m quite possibly risking serious contempt when other, more experienced knitters read this (supposing they do) and say, “Oh, Pollyanna, how could you not know about that? Every knitter knows that!!”
However, I’m just going to have to risk it, because if this is something not generally known, it should be. And I figure there have to be at least a few knitters out there who don’t know about this.
Or maybe all of you know about this and I’m just a dork. But you know, I’m just a dork anyway, so I’m used to it.
So this selvage treatment. This is for the edge of the knitting that will show as the upper edge of the opening of the slipper, not an edge that will be seamed. The directions are so simple.
When you finish knitting your row, instead of knitting the last stitch, you bring your yarn forward between the stitch you just completed and the last stitch in the row, then you slip the last stitch purlwise. Then, when you turn your work to do the next row, you knit the first stitch through the back loop. (These mousie slippers are mostly garter stitch, so it’s always knitting. I want to experiment with this edge on stockinette).
That’s all. But the result is just beautiful. What you get is an edge with the knit stitches turned outward 90 degrees to make a nice square edge, very neat, very finished looking. And no need to add an edging of any kind. I don’t know how well these pictures will show what I mean, but see?
And this is why I didn’t try taking more and better pictures.
