m.o.M - mother of Michael

Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten*

A month has passed since kindergarten started, but the images are still so fresh of the beginning of an academic journey:

First haircuts

School clothes shopping                

 

Photographs by fixed objects to track growth over the years.

Bright, shiny faces.















And finally the big day!

*

All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

- by Robert Fulghum

Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK . Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation, ecology and politics and sane living.

Think of what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and clean up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Crafty days past, present and future!

  Mondnacht, here I come! 
  Originally uploaded by mother of Michael

A couple of rainy days in a row and the next thing you discover is you've made a stuffed Pointy Kitty and ordered a Japanese Knitting book!

New Style of Heirloom Knitting arrived today and hopefully the yarn won't be too far behind! I can hardly wait to begin the Mondnacht stole out of this book!

I sure hope it's a rainy fall!

Happy Fall!

By all these lovely tokens
September days are here
With summer's best of weather
And autumn's best of cheer.
-  Author Unknown

  Happy Fall 
  Originally uploaded by mother of Michael

It's Getting Exciting Now!

Ravelry says:

         

Found you!

         

• You signed up on July  8, 2007
• You are #14965 on the list.
• 35 people are ahead of you in line.
• 19059 people are behind you in line.
• 43% of the list has been invited so far

Could It Be Almost Any Day Now?

Ravelry Says:

• You signed up on July  8, 2007
• You are #14965 on the list.
• 653 people are ahead of you in line.
• 18913 people are behind you in line.
• 42% of the list has been invited so far

                 

            Photo by squirrel cottage

This is What I Call a Great Day for Knitting

Excuse Me, I Have to Go Shove DPNs Into My Eyes Now

That's me. The short one. The one people looked at and thought, "Do her parents really let her out of the house looking like that?"

Maybe my parents just never really looked at me.

That's not true because I know my father always looked at my hair after I got a haircut. One time, he took me back for more because he felt that there hadn't been "enough hair on the deck." Sigh. That's another story.

Maybe I picked out my own clothes that day and my mother felt that while I was expressing myself poorly, I had enough fashion sense to make sure the colors matched.

That can't be true because that's my father behind me. The one in the red pants and brown shirt. Looking at his garb proves one thing: They dressed me this way on purpose!

Let me tell you what happens to children whose parents dress them to look like little circus clowns:

1. They are always the last ones to be picked for a team. Oh, the humiliation!
2. They are always the ones that the only time boys would speak to them would be to say, "Hey! Tell your friend I like her and then come back and tell me what she said." Oh, the agony!
3. They are always the ones that have lots of blue ribbons adorning their bulletin boards. Unfortunately they are all participation awards. Oh, the injustice!

I know. This all sounds like one big pity party. You say, "You have a handsome husband, two fine children, a home and a garden. It all worked out okay. You overcame it." I actually thought that too.

Then I realized that in the shadows still sits that chubby kid who's only wish at the start of each school year was that that would be the year a new kid would come to town. A new kid who was chubbier, klutzier and zittier than her. And do you know what drew that chubby kid out of the shadows? RAVELRY!

Every podcast I have listened to this week has droned on and on about Ravelry. Brenda Dayne, Lime and Violet, Christa Knits and Lixie Knits It. Everyone's on Ravelry, but me!

Here's what Ravelry has to say about that:

• You signed up on July  8, 2007
• You are #14965 on the list.
• 2755 people are ahead of you in line.
• 17412 people are behind you in line.
• 37% of the list has been invited so far

Okay, so I'm not really last on the list, but DAMN! I wanna play!

To cheer myself up, I popped over to read The Panopticon, which I haven't read in probably seven months. Franklin is always good for a smile, if not a full blown laugh. His last post was two days ago and this is what he had to say:

"I'm also working down the leg of the second of a pair of cabled socks and clicking along a piece of lace. However, all may stop dead for a little while because...

I got my Ravelry invitation this morning."

AAARGH!

 

Red Sky in the Morning, Gardeners Take Warning?

Tho' the morning sky is beautiful, the afternoon sky is another story altogether.

Guess I won't be mowing today!

Aw, shucks.

A Finish!

Hurray! My "I Love Ganseys", the most recent Six Sox Knitalong offering is finished! And in record time for me.

When I saw the pattern the first time, I knew I had the perfect yarn for the project. A Regia Tweed that I had purchased earlier this summer in Munich, Germany: Ecru with flecks of gold and brown. Love it!

These were the first socks I've ever done with cables and while I've done other projects with plenty of cables, I've never owned a cable needle. In fact, I set off on my vacation using a pink paper clip for my cable needle. Real classy.

Once in the Hamptons, I decided I needed a real cable needle. I was secretly hoping to be whisked away to some posh-posh, overpriced, over the top yarn shop where I would simply have to purchase something incredibly extravagant for my stash. After all, I was in The Hamptons, right?

Yeah. Right. I was in The Hamptons, that much was true, but as for my posh-posh, overpriced, over the top yarn shop, that was only wishful thinking.

Needles and notions are purchased at the local
hardware shop in the Hamptons. Right there between the ball-peen hammers and the faucet washers. Just below the paint chip display, but still above the toilet paper holders. Outside is the .25 cent pony ride and Jimmy and Marilyn hold court in the windows.

But! The good news is that they had the cable needle that I was looking for and I was out of a store in The Hamptons for less than $5.00. That is a feat in and of itself, let me tell you!

So while I didn't get to visit a posh-posh, overpriced, over the top yarn shop in the Hamptons (and I'm not even sure that one exists), I did, in the end, get a pair of beautiful socks that fit as if they were made especially for me.