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Hi!  Just in case you were wondering if I’ve been adding any new rovings in my shop lately, the answer is a definate YES!  I listed 8 new Superwash Merino/Tencel Blend rovings  just this morning.  If you have a moment, I’d love for you to take a quick trip over to My Shop for a visit. I hope you like what you see!  For now, here is a quick sample:

Usually, I can’t come up with enough things for a Ten on Tuesday blog post.  For example, 10 all-time favorite movies?  No clue! BUT.  When I saw Jess post about  her 10 favorite childhood games?  I knew I could do it too. Easy Parcheesi!

Ten Favorite Games from your Childhood
(In no particular order)

This was so easy,  games were (apparently) a very big part of my childhood.  I was also a reader too, but I think I played games quite a bit though never as much as my sister would have liked (as I’m sure she will verify when she comments on this post!).

1.) Checkers – Played with my sister and with my dad. Always a good game on a sick day.

2.) Solitaire – Learned from my dad.  He was very particular in method.  My girls were playing one day and Dave actually apologized to them (for me) when I stopped to see what they were doing.  Yeah, it is the apple and the tree thing.

3.) Cribbage – Played with my dad and sister.  This was my dad’s favorite game and one that he would play with family friends.  We would go on vacation to a cabin in Vermont and the adults would play this games into the wee hours of the night and my sister and I would stand in our room on the top bunk and peek at them over the half walls (who could sleep with all that noise!) I would really like to relearn how to play Cribbage.  (The phrase that always goes through my head is 15-2, 15-4, and a pair is 6.) (He also used to play Pinochle with my grandfather when we were really young,  but I don’t remember much except for the table in my Nana’s kitchen and the cigarette smoke.  There was also Pepsi in bottles, Deviled Ham, and Shake-n-bake.)

4.) Screw your Neighbor – This is a card came that I think we learned from my brother, but we would also play it with the neighbor girl who lived down the street.

5.) Spit – This is the fast paced double solitaire game. I love this one!

6.) Parcheesi – My sister and  I played this one at our Nana’s house.  She had coloring books and Parcheesi for us to play when we were left there.  It is a childhood memory for me though I’m not sure it is one of my favorite games.  (zzzzzz) It does rank higher than Monopoly though. (double zzzzzz)

7.) The Alphabet Game – This is the car game which I played with my sister and dad.  When we were little we spent a lot of time driving around with my dad when he went to pick up apples or deliver cider for the mill.  We spent a lot of time look for those “Q’s.”  I used to think that antiques was pronounced an-ti-cues…  Did I say that I was little?

8.) Other card games like rummy, crazy eights, Uno, war – Played mostly with my sister. My mom can be a pretty competitive Uno player though!

9.) Scrabble – This was my mom’s game.  She is wicked scary good and can do amazing things with those triple letter scores!

10.) Make Believe – My sister and I would play make believe games like circus or school for hours on end with games that would continue over days.  We would also “play Legos” like this too. We would make “people” and houses and set up scenarios and situations to act out with the “people” (They didn’t actually have Lego people back then they were 2-ers on top of 4-ers and how many 4-ers would indicate their age ( a 1 high would be a young child, a 2 high a teen, and a 3 high an adult).  We would also make tee-pees, covered wagons, and other types of “homes” out in the back yard and woods.

11.) Pool – When we were really little, we had a “pool room” in our house.  This room later became my sister’s bedroom, but prior to that it housed a pool table.  Relatives would come over to play with my dad and my sister and I would play pool sometimes.  Sometimes we would use it has a house for make believe and other times it was the holder of piles of laundry.

12.) Chinese Checkers -  This was a favorite game of ours when we were home for sick days or snow days.  We also used the Chinese Checker board for make believe games too. (And yes, the photo above is our actual Chinese Checker board. Can this be called vintage?)

Okay,  I could probably go on, but I seem to have hit 12 already.  I’m sure I’ll think of more in the middle of the night (and maybe even think of the one that I really can’t remember the name of or even enough about it to Google search it). So what were your favorite games?  Any of these?

Not false or copied; genuine; real

Made or done in the traditional or original way

Being what it is represented or claimed to be

FOR TODAY

from The Simple Woman’s Daybook via Bliss and Folly as inspiration in conjunction with One Little Word

Outside my window… a snow bank so high I cannot see my driveway.  It is bitterly cold, but I must go out soon trudge through the 2 feet of snow to pull wood out of the pile to stack next to my backdoor.

I am thinking… different things I can do this year to discover the Authentic Me.  My New Year’s Resolution is to “be more me” so I’ve taken “Authentic” as my One Little Word for 2011. There are so many things I have to try to figure out this year.  I’m not sure what the starting point will be, but I hope writing about it will help.

I am thankful for… a little bit of quiet after 2 snow days, but oddly I find myself  looking forward to the girls coming home from school today.

From the kitchen… the noises of the dying elephant in my dishwasher.  I really don’t think it is normal for my dishwasher to sound like this, but I can’t seem to convince my husband that we need to have something done about it.

I am wearing… my jammies still

I am creating… the beginnings of finding my Authentic Me

I am going… knitting with my Mad Knitters on Sunday.  It is time to get out and see my friends. Really.

I am reading… The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow.  I’ve just started reading this, but this is about a girl looking for herself and her place in this world.

I am hoping...  that my two daughters with mid-terms will be focused in their studying so that we can still do some fun things even though there are many tests coming up in the next couple of weeks.

I am hearing… the dishwasher, the furnace, Snickerdoodle purring…

Around the house… Quiet–today  is my first day this week with everyone at school or work. J will be home early today, around 1 I think, as she has a half-day.

One of my favorite things… I don’t know.  I can’t think of something.  I’m a little tired of things.  I would really like to have fewer things. Nothing is really coming to mind at this moment.

A quote to share…

“To thine own self be true, and it must follow,
as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
William Shakespeare in Hamlet

Here is some knitting that I am sharing…

I have for you (are you ready???) – My completed Sock Blankie!!!!  Ta Da!!!

According to my Ravelry Project Notebook, I started Sock Blankie on April 1, 2008.  He was always intended to be a long term project, so the fact that I’ve been working on him for over 2.5 years isn’t really a big deal.  For anyone new to Sock Blankie you can find the pattern information here.  Sock Blankie isn’t really made out of socks, but rather spare sock yarn.  Once you start making a sock blankie, sock yarn will come to you*. Trust me.  My Sock  Blankie has 113 squares.  Some are leftovers from my knitting. Others are leftovers from my friends’ knitting and my sister’s knitting and even from my sister’s friend’s knitting.  I also have some from a yarn ball exchange from the BlankieMania Group on Ravelry.  Sock blankie is from all over the freaking place, isn’t he!  Sock blankie is also surprisingly stretchy, bouncy, and a lot of fun.  Maybe Sockie Blankie is me – a lot of pieces and colors put together in a way that you wouldn’t think would work but somehow form a cohesive entity.

* Want some?  I haz some! LMK!!!

Socks, Baby Hats, Thorpes, and now Sock Blankie…

I’m knitting in batches.  A lot of something then moving on.

It started in the fall when I had to keep knitting to keep my sanity — 3 pairs of socks.  Then I moved on to baby hats — made what? Like 6 or 7?  Next up was mostly Thorpes with a Pixie hat thrown in.  I offered to knit them for all K’s friends for gifts to help her out.  Thorpes is the style of hat that is very popular this year, so I hope they are wearing them. But, if not, that is okay too.  Recently I was asked how I feel about giving away my knitting and if I worry about what happens to it when it leaves me.  I’ve been thinking on this quite a bit to figure out my answer.  If course, it is always nice when a hand knit items is appreciated and worn. That being said, I think I’m more of a process knitter than a product knitter so I don’t really obsess over it.  As long as I have the photos and the history, I’m good.  I don’t even wear all the knitting I keep for myself, so I don’t think I can get all that upset over it.

But you are waiting for the photos now, so I’ll be moving along.

J was very happy to model for me.  The only hat for her though is the light green beret that I made last year and finally got around to weaving in the ends.  Altogether I think I have made 8 Thorpes.  One for me, one for K, one for B, and 5 for K’s friends.  I have requests for 2 more that I need to start on soon before I’m completely out of the grove.  I used different yarns for the Thorpes mostly drawing on my stash.  I think they look best in handspun though.  I even used some of my Tour de Fleece yarns.

For example, Shaded Sapas

became this hat for K:

Since the holidays, I have been knitting on Sock Blankie.  He is almost done!  Just about 5 squares left and an edging.  What is up after that?  I have Stripey Cardigan to finish and yarn for Hemlock Ring (woot!).  I think my knitting  group is going to do Hemlock Ring as a KAL.  That will be fun and I’m really looking forward to it!  Oh, and I almost forgot. I have 6 skeins of Mountain Mohair to make into something for my sister.  I think probably a vest as it is not enough for a sweater, but any thoughts,  let me know, okay?

So, this is a pretty good start back into blogging right?  As always I hope not to go too long before the next post in which I hope to talk about Sock Blankie in more detail and my One Little Word for 2011.  Until then, take care and thanks for reading!