Bummer...

...I just learned that I have only a 43% chance of surviving a zombie apocalypse.

And yet our local rec board's adult classes never offer anything that could even remotely help me improve those odds. How un-useful is that? Seriously. :::sheesh:::

(Perhaps if I was more amenable to recklessly blowing the heads off the undead, my odds would be better?)

Free Pattern: Fast & Easy Fingerless Mitts

Red pair is made from Gedifra Fashion Trend Color; Brown pair is made from Malabrigo Merino Worsted.

After making about a gazillion pairs of these for Christmas gifts this year, each pair tweaked a bit from the last, I finally came up with what I believe to be an easy-peasy pattern for fingerless mitts that yields a lovely finished pair in very little time. You could easily do a pair in an evening if you're a fast knitter. I averaged one mitt per night, just because I get bored knitting the same thing for too long. I thought I'd share the pattern I came up with for anyone interested in giving them a try.

(Note added 1/20/10 - I've written a second version of this pattern for those who would like to knit these mitts in the round instead of flat. You'll find the circular version here.)

Yarn: 50 g of your favorite worsted weight (I use grams here rather than yardage because in every pair I made, I was able to get a pair out of a 50 gram ball, regardless of yardage, and I had a little bit left over.)

Needles: US 7

Abbreviations: K = knit; P = purl; SS = stockinette stitch; M1 = make one increase

Size: This pattern will fit an average woman's hand. After working the thumb, you can adjust the length of finger portion of the mitt to accommodate a number of hand sizes.

Both Mitts:

Cast on 34 stitches.

Work K1, P1 rib for 18 rows.

Work SS for 4 rows, ending on a purl row.

For Right Mitt:

K17, M1, k3, M1, K to end of row.
Next row: Purl.
Work SS for 2 rows.

K17, M1, K5, M1, K to end of row.
Next row: Purl.
Work SS for 2 rows.

K17, M1, K7, M1, K to end of row.
Next row: Purl.
Work SS for 2 rows.

K17, M1, K9, M1, K to end of row.
Next row: Purl.

You should have 42 stitches at this point.

K28, turn work, P11.

For Left Mitt:

K14, M1, K3, M1, K to end.
Next row: Purl.
Work SS for two rows.

K14, M1, K5, M1, K to end.
Next row: Purl.
Work SS for two rows.

K14, M1, K7, M1, K to end.
Next row: Purl.
Work SS for two rows.

K14, M1, K9, M1, K to end.
Next row: Purl.

You should have 42 stitches at this point.

K25, turn work, P11.

For Both Mitts:

On these 11 stitches, work K1, P1 rib for 4 more rows or until you reach desired thumb length. Bind off loosely. Break yarn leaving approximately 18" tail. With tail yarn, seam up thumb from top to bottom. After seaming, continue using tail yarn to pick up two stitches at the base of the thumb and then K to the end of the row. Rejoin yarn.

Next row: Purl.

Work remainder of the mitt in SS to desired length, minus one inch, ending on a purl row.

Work six rows of K1, P1 rib. Bind off loosely. Seam mitt down outside edge.

Eclectic...

...or maybe schizophrenic is more apt? What a scattered collection of tunes.

This recent post from Cathy Zielske got me wondering what was on my own Top 25 list. I don't remember the last time I looked at it. Now that I've checked it out, it makes me smile. Music makes me so, so happy. (Live music makes me even happier...the louder, the better.) It is a simple joy.

What's on your Top 25 Most Played list? Take a look...see what it says to you about you and life and where you are and where you have been. It's an interesting study, I think. I can look at each song title on this iTunes list and almost every one brings to mind a specific memory that drove me to add it to my iPod to begin with. It's autobiographical. It's memoir in music.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Music is a form of memory for me. For instance, Cher's "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" will forever be embedded in my mind, as it was on one of the first two albums I ever owned, purchased for me by my parents for Christmas one year in junior high, along with my first stereo -- AM/FM, turn table, cassette player AND 8-track capable. (The other album they gave me that Christmas? Something by The Captain and Tennille. LOL How's that for musical dichotomy?)

I will always connect Dire Straits' "Skateaway" with the summer my dad was in the hospital having gall bladdar surgery, because I heard it on the radio so many times as my mom and I drove down to Shadyside to see him.

There will always be an angsty connection for me between The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams," my senior year of high school and my then-boyfriend/later-briefly-married-to-husband.

Grateful Dead's "Ripple" has always, always made me cry. It not only reminds me of the tear-jerker movie Mask (hm, another Cher connection) that I've seen dozens of times, but it reminds me of a guy who I had been good friends with...we used to talk about all kinds of things together and had this connection to each other that I can't begin to explain even now. I've never had another friend like him. Only, later, this same guy came to like me just a little too much in a scary sort of way, and I had to make a choice to close him out of my life. It was the right thing to do. But the song still makes me cry.

Then there are songs I learned to play on the guitar. It was during a time when our oldest son was going through his own teenage angst. Relating to him was often dicey, but music often connected us. The year he was in 10th grade, he learned to play guitar. We both played for a while in a worship band at our church. Open the Eyes of My Heart was a song we often played, and even now when I hear it on Sunday morning, I can remember all of the parts, and how my son started it out on the bass and we all came in after him. It was the coolest thing. (There was another song whose name escapes me now that we all rearranged to play calypso style...that went over less well with the congregation at large. LOL) And even though it was "just" a church worship band, it was also cool that I was in it with my teenaged son. That group was a lot of fun. I have some really good memories there.

During that era, sometimes my son and I would sit down and he'd teach me bits of the songs he enjoyed. Earlier today, I had the urge to pick up my guitar after not playing it for a long time. My fingers had their own memories, letting me recall how to play (not well, mind you) the opening bars of Collective Soul's December. That simple thing stirred a particular joy in my heart, because as minor as that may seem, it was a connection between my son and me at a time when connecting wasn't always easy.

I'd like to think that music was, in the very beginning...God singing the world into existence, like Aslan does in The Magician's Nephew. Music is basic. It has meaning. It is full of life. Music can bring you home when you can't get there any other way. It can connect you to other people and other times. It can rip you open, and it can heal you. I cannot imagine life without it.

So far, so good...

...happy to report that no further appliance tragedies have occurred since my last posting. The dryer stopped ticking. My hair dryer is mysteriously working again. And Husband replaced the motor in the furnace tonight and it seems to be working better than ever.

Keeping fingers crossed, burning incense and dancing around with a live chicken in hopes that the trend continues. ;)

Our appliances are possessed...

And yes, he just loved having me taking pictures at this point in time...

Our furnace began making a high-pitched whining sound last Saturday evening just as the Steelers-Jags game got started. (Considering the outcome of the game, I suppose it was an omen.) Husband diagnosed it as a bad capacitor, which he could replace. Considering that this is the 30+ year old furnace that was originally put in the house and that we've had blessed few problems with in the 14 years we've lived here, that seemed pretty lucky. We've got a wood stove that keeps the house pretty warm most nights anyway, so a day without a furnace during unseasonably warm weather was not a big deal.

Fast forward to today. I called Husband at work today to ask if I should be alarmed that our dryer was ticking. It was not running, but it was ticking. Like a clock. Or a bomb. He was too busy to diagnose it, so I just unplugged it and left it for him to check out when he got home. By the time he got home, I was at work and he did not hear any ticking sounds when he plugged it back in, so apparently all is well.

Or is it?

I got home from work to an empty house, Husband and the kids off to visit his grandfather. It had gotten colder all day today, thus the furnace was running. Upon coming downstairs to check e-mail and Scrabulous games, I noted a weird sound coming from the vicinity of the furnace...kind of the sound UFOs made in 60s TV shows? You know the sound. So, when Husband came home, I told him there was a UFO in the furnace. (He loves it when I tell him things like this. Really. You have no idea.) No sooner did I say this than the furnace started making the same high-pitched whine as it had made last Saturday.

Going downstairs, he shuts off the breaker to the furnace, opens it up and begins grilling me on the noise I'd heard earlier.

Him: So, what kind of noise was it making before?

Me: I told you already. I even mimicked it for you.

Him: :::heavy sigh::: Well, can you mimic it for me again?

Me: OoooooEEEEEEEeOOooooooooo

:::crickets:::

Him: So, was it like the sound of a bad bearing?

Me: :::heavy sigh::: I don't know. I'm not all that up on my bearing sounds.

Him: But you're up on your UFO sounds?

Me: Yes!

Him: :::heavy sigh::: This will be so helpful at the hardware store tomorrow.

So...he's now removed the motor from the furnace and started a fire in the wood stove. It is going to be cold out tonight, thanks to a clear sky (which, I must say, is making for an absolutely stunning view of the constellations!). And did I mention the age of our furnace? Yeah. I'm thinking we're going to be biting the big one and buying a new frickin' furnace soon. Though I did point out to the husband that we should probably weigh the cost of any new home improvements against the possibility of needing to move out of the country should Hillary Clinton actually get elected president. But that's a whole other issue. And really, it's best not to discuss politics and major appliance replacement in the same conversation. Seriously.

(Oh! I almost forgot! I was drying my hair today, and my hairdryer shorted out on me! Started to make a bad, burned electrical smell and then shut off! Granted, of the three appliances, this is the least problematic to replace, but still...what the heck is going on today?)

Inspired 365

In an effort to reinvigorate my enjoyment of chronicling my life in pictures, I've decided to undertake a photo-a-day project this year (á la Project 365 and 3191). If you'd like to peek into my world and enjoy daily glimpses of my life, you can check it out at its own blog: Inspired 365.

New Year...

After what was a busy couple of weeks for us over the holidays, I'm finally taking some time today to think about the new year. I love this time of year...I love taking the time to reflect on life, on where I've been in the last year and where the next might lead.

I used to be a resolutions fanatic, but I gave that up some time ago. Three years ago, I created instead a list of intentions for the new year...thoughts about how I wanted to live my life more intentionally. I liked having those thoughts to guide me through the year instead of a harsh list of resolutions that left me feeling guilty when they so easily were broken.

That year, I also chose to use one word as my word for the year, a word to encompass all those things I wished to focus on. Appropriately enough, that year my word was intention. Living with intention. It was also the year I turned 40. I do not think the two things were unrelated.

Last year, I chose a new word for my year...balance. Looking back, I'm not sure I achieved balance in the way I'd intended it when I first chose that word. 2007 was a year of some amazing revelations for me...primarily, I realized how much I'd been living my life the way I thought other people wanted me to live it and not paying much attention to who I was and what was important to me. I spent a lot of time last year working though some periods of anger and resentment in certain areas. It was not easy, but it was good. I let go of a lot of the fears I had...fears of disapproval and judgment from those I love. Thus, I feel like I began to balance my life out on a grander scale...all those years of trying to fit into other people's expectations, now beginning to be balanced by fitting into the life that is truly my own. And thankfully, I feel free of most of those angry feelings I went through as I was re-discovering who I really am. It was a weird, unexpected process to go through, but I'm glad it happened. It's made me a better, happier person.

So, this year I've been trying to think of another word to capture that which I want to focus on for 2008. I've decided on deeper. Now that I feel like I have a renewed direction for my life, I want to explore it more deeply, continue to get to know myself as a woman in this stage of life and examine what that will mean as things continue to change. I don't want my passions and enthusiasm to stop at a superficial level but instead I want them to go deeper into both the big things in my life, as well as the little everyday things.

I think it is going to be a good year.