Surprise, I'm Knitting Today!

     I'm working on my bucket bag today. My head hurts from doing the math, for the dividing to start the handle. It helps me to visualize it if I draw a circle and divide it into six wedges.  So the handle is split now, half the stitches are on a stitch holder.


    I even took some photos and measurements today. I guess I got ambitious! The crocheted circle is 14 inches across. The body of the bag is 14 inches tall. It looked right to me, so I stopped. I measured after I had split and bound off the top edge. Purely a coincidence that it's as wide as it is tall.


    Now for the photos!

And finally, one with the cable remote, for scale, like I did for the black bag...

    I am also watching the weather today, as we are supposed to be getting our first snowfall of the season this afternoon into tomorrow. I am not happy about it, but I guess it's to be expected living in upstate New York.

My Frankenstorm Report

    Well, it seems that the worst of this hurricane has passed us. We were actually very very lucky. We only lost power very briefly, and just the once. Although Hubs tells me that his alarm clock was flashing again at 4 a.m., so that means it must have gone out again.


    It seems we have no horrendous damage. The creek in the back yard, that flooded so high with Irene, is hardly running hard. No flooding at all. It could be because we didn't have so much rain with this storm, as we did with Irene. This storm was mostly very high winds. I have seen photos of the riverfront in Poughkeepsie, where there was some flooding.


    None of our trees, or the trees in the wooded lot next door, are damaged. I consider that a blessing. I had left my deflated (and water puddled) pool mattress float in the yard; it didn't even blow away! However, Hubs had a hunting blind set up between the wooded lot and the pool fence, and it's nowhere to be found.  He set it up to air it out before he used it, and didn't take it down. It was staked to the ground with six stakes, he thought it would be safe enough. It seems he was wrong.


    Now I'm wondering if the supermarket is open, we need a couple of things. Maybe I'll go take a ride and see what damage there is around town. I am totally amazed that we still have power! We are usually the first ones to lose it.


    From the Weather Channel maps, it looks like the worst of it is over for us, the storm is south of us, and has moved further inland. I hope all my friends and blog readers in its path stay safe.


   

A Visit With The Aunties and Uncles

     Yesterday my Aunts and Uncles came for a visit, to my daughter Sara's house. These are three of my dad's four siblings. Uncle Joe lives in Florida, too far away to visit. My dad was the second oldest after Uncle John. Dad would have been 80 this year, so I know Uncle John is older than that. After dad was Aunt Kate, then Uncle Joe, and lastly Aunt Lou. Aunt Lou is only ten years older than me.


     Most of them live further upstate, and Aunt Kate and her husband Uncle Chuck were in Catskill for a bowling thing this weekend. So they went to Uncle John and Aunt Marge's house, and, along with Aunt Lou, they all came down for a visit when Aunt Kate was done bowling for the day.


     This is a photo of Uncle John, Aunt Kate and Aunt Lou.

    Here is a photo of all the Aunties and Uncles, and my mom too.

    From left to right - Uncle Chuck, Aunt Kate, Mom, Aunt Lou, Uncle John, and Aunt Marge.


    Aunt Lou is a hoot. My brother Chip stopped by for a while, and he looks so much like our dad that it makes Aunt Lou cry.  Here is a photo of my brother and his wife, Carol.

    So we all had a nice visit, Sara made food, and everyone got the tour of the house. The Aunts and Uncles had never been, it was their first visit. I think I'll even throw in a photo of Sara and Mike's house too!

   And lastly, here's a photo of Aunt Lou and Sara when everyone was leaving.

     My mom loves when she gets to see dad's brother and sisters, it makes her happy and I think she feels close to him. It was a good day. Thanks, Sara!
   

Waiting for "The Big Storm"

    Well, here we are, waiting for the Big Storm. All day I've been waiting. Early this morning, I woke up to thunder, and thought "Here it comes!" But no. After a little while it stopped thundering, and raining. As the morning went on, the sun even came out!


    All day, I've been watching the Weather Channel. And all day, they've been saying that it's coming. Before I left to sit with Miss Malia, I went down and brought in all the pool toys, and my Queen chair. Also all the towels came in, and whatever else I could carry that might get blown away by "The Big Storm".


    While I was with Miss Malia, I was still checking the weather on a regular basis. After a while, they added a tornado warning to the whole mess. And the sun was still shining. As I sit here and write this, it is finally starting to look like it might just do something.


   To me, the most disturbing thing is our new-neighbors-from-NYC. They put up a big tent type awning thing over the fourth, when they had a party. It is still up. I wanted Hubs to call them and ask them to take it down, and tell them that if it ends up in our pool and damages the liner, they will be buying us a new one.


    These are the very same neighbors who, when the hurricane hit our area last year, never even put their umbrella down on their umbrella table, much less take it inside. Here Hubs and I were, closely watching a tree on the corner of our lot, fearing it could come down (it didn't). We all got very lucky with the hurricane, it didn't hit us too badly. But it could have.


    It seems to me that preparing for the worst just make sense. Wouldn't you feel guilty if something you owned got blown somewhere and caused someone to get hurt, or Goddess forbid, killed? I know I would. That is why I run out there, even in the rain, to bring inside any projectile type stuff. It's not like I have to worry about my hair getting wet or anything...


    Hubs has gone to work, and I get to spend the evening here all by myself. I think it's time to go look for some candles... you know, just in case.


   

Someone Broke the Covenant.

   Here, in upstate New York, we have had an extremely mild Winter. I believe the whole northeast has, really. I have noticed that everywhere I have been, no one is talking about it. I have therefore come to believe that we residents of the area have an unspoken agreement to not discuss it. And if we break the agreement, Winter will come roaring her ugly, cold head down on us in all her snowy white glory.

   This past week, we had a snowstorm. Now, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, not nearly as bad. But this leads me to believe that perhaps someone has broken the agreement and discussed the forbidden topic.

   I, for one, have truly enjoyed this respite from true Winter weather. In years past, we have had to shovel a three foot wide path from the driveway to our door. It must be this wide, because with each successive snow storm, it of course gets deeper, and I insist on being able to walk through with a grocery bag in each hand.

   Many years, we have more than six feet of snow in total. Thankfully, some of it melts between storms, so it would rarely pile more than three feet at any one time. When our son was young, we used to make large snow sculptures in our front yard. We had a gorilla, a large shark complete with open mouth big enough for our son to sit in, and a variety of dinosaurs. I believe we started with an alligator.

   It was not unknown for the snow pile at the bottom of our driveway to still be there, however much smaller, in April, or even early May.

   Now it seems that someone has ruined it for all of us. And we were almost through the snow season. Hopefully, the rest of the Winter won't be so bad...