Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Goodbye to 2012

2012 was a pretty crappy year in so many ways but there were a few bright spots that I hope will carry on into 2013.  Here is my perspective on 2012 and some notes for 2013.

Stupid things I heard in 2012


  1. Guns don't kill people, people kill people as an argument against gun control.  Who came up with this stupidity?  Does anyone remember MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction when major international powers had so many nuclear weapons that if anyone started to use them life on this planet would cease to exist?  About 99% of all the guns out there were purchased legally by someone at some point in time.  Yet there are many in the hands of criminals.  Wonder where they came from?  The guns used at Sandy Hook, the West Webster shootings and, locally, in Bellaire last week, were all purchased legally so please stop the empty rhetoric....or are we already in a state of of MAD?    
  2. This won't hurt a bit.  Mammograms, injections, tooth pulling and exercises have occured with this assurance and it was wrong!  I have finally figured out that when someone says it won't hurt I am now prepared for torture.
  3. This will look great on you.  No it doesn't!  It's too short, the wrong color, the hem is uneven and it shows off the bits I don't want people to know about. 
Smart things I heard in 2013


  1. When in doubt, iron.  Don't know where I heard this but it is so true.  If you ask yourself if you can get away with not ironing something then you need to iron.  This applies to not only to the wrinkly shirt you left in the dryer overnight but to even more critical issues like your health.  If a doctor says you really need to take this pill get all the facts before blindly taking the 'required' pill. You could save your life.
  2. I can't think of anything else smart.  I guess 2012 was pretty crappy.

Notes for 2013



  1. From Couch to 5k.  Yet again I am going to eat less and move more.  I can walk a 5k in about one hour but this year I would like to do it with some jogging included.  The couch to 5k program looks pretty straight forward and, as an added incentive, I have already registered for an official 5k in early February.  When money is on the line I tend to do better.  Next goal is to figure out if my sneakers will work for this energized Alice.
  2. Money in will equal money out.  My income has continued to be modest but my out flow is a little less modest. I might actually have to write out a budget and follow it.  A new experience for someone who wrote and managed multi-billion dollar budgets in a former life.
  3. My mouth will finally heal correctly.  I have not written about this earlier but I had a tooth pulled eight months ago and my jaw does not want to close up the hole.  The hole goes into my sinuses,and even though every thing heals nicely, my body seems to like having a hole into my sinuses.  January 11 is another surgery to seal the hole.  It better work this time.
  4. Google will finally let me post more than one picture a month.  I really like writing with pictures but Google has messed up big time.  When have I ever posted one picture that was half a gigabyte large?  half a megabyte maybe, but half a gig?  Never.  Grrrr.
No creativity goals, no sewing UFOs to complete, no clutter to organize although all are needed, but I better find some smart things in 2013 that don't key off house work!

Happy New Year!



Oops! Shawl

This tale began on my birthday when the Jaunty Janetta gave me a hand-spun, hand-dyed lace weight skein of yarn.  It came from the FJCruiser shop on Etsy, and although there does not appear to be any lace weight yarn in the shop currently, the other yarns are gorgeous, reasonably priced, in a variety of weights and the colors are exquisite.

Such a wonderful yarn deserves a wonderful bit of knitting and I found the perfect pattern on Ravelry called the Monica Shawl.  Here is the link and I really want you to skip over for a moment to get a gander at this great shawl.

Notice the large size, the variety of stitches and that lovely spiky outer edge.  Gorgeous, right?

Although the pattern is written for sock weight yarn, I decided to use my lovely lace weight present.  I knew it would be a little smaller than the original but it seemed like a challenge I could successfully meet.

Here is mine in the colorway Flipper:

Beautiful effort with lots of pattern changes BUT what happened to the nice spiky outer edge?  It seems that I finished off the outer edge with a too tight bind off thus the spikes could not be stretched out to make the lovely spikes.

RATS!

I wear this a lot now that the days are cooled but I am still disappointed with my effort.  Maybe I should try it again?

Yeah, in another life!