Christmas in review

So it was a White Christmas here, despite my fears to the contrary. The whiteness wasn't award-winning, but at least it was white. Then a day later we got a good, old-fashioned blizzard, but even that wasn't award-winning. I was hoping for maybe 3-4 feet of the stuff, but we got only 12" or so. It was difficult to determine just how much snow we did get because the wind howled and caused a lot of drifting. Ah, well. Winter is still young.

On Christmas Eve we went to our good friends Jim and Lynn's for a delicious seafood chowder dinner. I wish I could upload some photos from that evening, but Blogger is in a snit, it seems, and won't let me. The chowder was generous and thick and full of haddock, lobster, shrimp, and scallops. I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Christmas Day we went to my sister's, where we celebrated the day with her, her husband, their son, their son's wife, their grand daughter (Violet, whom you've met before), and their son's wife's mother. (Pay attention, please, because you'll be taking a quiz when you finish reading this post.)

Violet comes in handy as the Christmas gift hander-outer, and we've put her to work in this capacity since she was big enough to hold a gift without dropping it.

She received a hot pink froo-froo skirt from her grandparents, and she immediately stripped down in the living room, put on the skirt with matching tights, and wore the new duds the rest of the day. (I'm told she also wore them the next day, and the next, and even wanted to wear them to school, but her mom finally convinced her they weren't the most sensible clothes to wear while playing in the snow.)

After the so-called blizzard, Mr. Cardinal paid a lengthy visit in the bridal wreath bush outside the kitchen window. I love to see the male cardinal year-round, but I especially enjoy him once there's snow on the ground and his deep red color contrasts nicely with the whiteness of his surroundings.

I'd like to ask him where Mrs. Cardinal is, since I haven't seen her in about a year, but he ain't talkin', it seems. Could be a sensitive subject, I suppose.

I've been on a focaccia bread-making kick the past few days. It could have something to do with Santa's bringing me a panini press. I've made paninis once this week and plan to try them again in a few days. Of course, the press is now on sale at Macy's, I couldn't help but notice in the newspaper today, for $40 less than Santa paid for it. That's always the way, and it reinforces the old "Ignorance is bliss" axiom.

I'm reading Bill Bryson's At Home. I love Bryson's writing. This particular book, which details the evolution of the "home" as we know it today, contains a lot of surprising tidbits that only Bryson could dig up. In the section I read last night, Bryson mentioned a fellow who spent three months trying to teach his dog to read. Needless to say, the endeavor was fruitless.

We can't even teach our Molly the difference between the "beep-beep-beep" of a truck backing up on T.V. and the beep-beep-beep of one backing up in our driveway. She goes into a frenzied barking at either. I can't imagine trying to get her focused long enough to decipher letters on a page!

Maybe, just maybe...

...it'll be a White Christmas after all.

Thumbprint cookies

Ok, ok, so these cookies won't win a prize for beauty, but they sure do taste delicious, and they didn't go flat in the oven.

I've never before been able to bake a batch of thumbprint cookies that didn't turn into pancakes in the oven. Today I tried a new recipe, and I like it. Granted, I have a thing or two to learn about the cookies' final appearance, but overall, the recipe is a success.

It's from Parade.com, and here it is.

The mega snowstorm that was supposed to arrive tomorrow, last into Tuesday, and guarantee us a White Christmas has decided to take a route too far south of us. Shoot. There's a chance of some "residual snow" backing into Maine from this system on Tuesday, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm adjusting to the idea of a brown Christmas and moving on.

Last evening I took a few photos in the house, trying to capture the atmosphere. Our tree looks pretty short when photographed from the balcony. We have a much taller tree, about 12' tall I'd guess, but the thing got to be such a dreaded chore to put up each year that we decided to save ourselves some stress and get a shorter tree. I think we made a good decision.

Have a wonderful week-before-Christmas!

Progress

A week ago I intended to finish decorating the house for Christmas. Then I kept putting it off. And putting it off.

Yesterday Ken put up the tree, however, so I no longer had an excuse for procrastinating.

This morning I've been making major progress.

The tree is decorated, and Molly's been enjoying its magic.

The bannister is as decorated as it's going to be. Usually I do more than this, but I kind of like the simplicity of it this year. Or that's how I'm justifying it, anyway.

My carolers are a-caroling.

And Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli, and Susan Boyle have been serenading me as well.

Now if only we could get some snow. SNOW, I said. Come on, Mother Nature. This isn't funny.

A little Christmas cheer...and raisins

We have no snow here in Southern Maine, except for the odd snowflake here and there. The northern half of the state, though, is getting hammered with a nice snowstorm today. I'm envious. I like snow for Christmas, then after Christmas I like it for cross-country skiing. A friend told me this morning that the Farmers' Almanac predicts little snow for us this winter. I hope it's wrong. It's been known to be wrong.

I won't fully get into the holiday spirit until that first significant snowfall, but in the meantime I've begun digging out the Christmas decorations.

The bubble light mantel box is in place, along with the nutcrackers beside it.

Yesterday Ken and I dragged the giant nutcracker out onto our front porch. He's a big fella, weighing well over 100 pounds, so it's a two-person job to take him outside and bring him back inside after the holidays.

In the past we've stored him upstairs, in one of the closets, but this past year we decided to make our job easier and just store him in Ken's walk-in closet. It took me awhile to adjust to his being there: I'd jump every time I walked past Ken's open closet door, thinking a stranger was standing inside.

I'd intended to get a lot of Christmas decorating done yesterday, but once Mr. Nutcracker had vacated his space, I decided to give Ken's closet a good cleaning.

That's a problem I seem to run into a lot since retiring: I used to stay focused on one task until completion, probably because I was always pressed for time and didn't have the luxury of wandering off course.

Now I constantly wander off course and find myself doing something totally unrelated to the original task. I've been known to find myself using Q-tips and rubbing alcohol to clean the vents in my oven door when I thought I was going to do a load of laundry, for instance.

Anyway, I did manage to set up our four little trees in the kitchen, dining room, front hallway, and bedroom. The big tree isn't up in the living room yet, but we'll get to that later this week, probably.

A couple of you have asked for an update on the gin-soaked raisin treatment for arthritis.

Ken is quite sure it's working. He says he's either not feeling the pain or not thinking about the pain, which to me is a good sign the pain isn't there. Once in awhile he feels a sharp jab, but for the most part the constant pain is gone.

I need to mix up a new batch of raisins and gin soon, so it will be ready when Ken needs it. He's being good about eating precisely nine raisins per day. Why that's the magic number, we don't know, but nine seem to work.

Christmas Knitting and other stuff

*If you're a knitter...or simply have a significant other,...you must see this video. It'll give you a good chuckle. For me, it also reminded me of conversations in this house....

*Friday's edition of American Profile magazine, tucked into the daily newspaper (which I did not steal from my neighbor, by the way:•) included a recipe for Turkey Tortilla Soup. This morning I finally tackled the dreaded task of deboning the leftover turkey, and then I made this soup. Now that I've finished off a bowl of it, I can tell you it's really, really delicious.

I halved the recipe, because I wasn't sure if it would be a keeper or not. Next time I'll make a full batch. I didn't have any cumin, never have owned cumin, don't plan to own cumin, have no idea what it is anyway, so I left that out of the pot. In place of a can of chopped green chilies, I simply used a can of diced tomatoes with green chilies. That worked fine. Also, I had no Great Northern or navy white beans on hand, so I tossed in a can of black beans. And finally, I had no avocados on hand, because the only ones I've found in the supermarket lately are from Chile, and they don't seem to be as sweet and tasty as California avocados.

But what I did add was a dollop of sour cream, with which I crowned the crushed tortilla chips just before serving. Umm-um. Good.

*Recently I read or saw somewhere the suggestion of adding sliced lemons to the vase of a flower arrangement. I'd picked some holly stems from our holly bushes, so I added the lemon slices to that vase. I love the effect, and the holly doesn't seem to mind. I'm having all I can do not to drink the water from the vase, because it looks so tasty and fresh! Actually I should have taken this photo a couple of days ago, when the lemon slices were looking fresher than they look today. I'm sure you still get the general idea, though.

It's a beautiful, sunny, mild day here in southern Maine. I, however, want snow. The mountains of Maine have it, and ski slopes have been open for a few weeks, but so far all we've seen near the coast is a dusting of the white stuff.

*I was planning to start some serious Christmas decorating today, but here it is 12:30 p.m. and I still have several other tasks to do before getting to the decorating. Perhaps I'll start my decorating tomorrow. Last year I had no Christmas spirit; this year I'm already feeling the first twinges of Christmas Spirit, so I'm hopeful. I think reading this post from Lene in Finland has helped me tremendously. She does exquisite needlework and writes so beautifully...and English is her second language!

So those are my thoughts for today. Now to get to work.

P.S. The hat and scarf in the header are from Sock Yarn One-skein Wonders by Judith Durant. The book and several skeins of sock yarn were given to me for my birthday this year, so I've been having fun.

P.P.S The hat and scarf are not for my husband, nor will I be knitting him a sweater! He hasn't asked for ice skates, either. Which reminds me, when we were dating, he gave me a pair of ice skates for Christmas that first year. I thought that was such a clever and thoughtful gift. We used to do quite a lot of ice skating "back in the day."

Pies for sale

So that was Thanksgiving.

I confessed to a friend last week that Thanksgiving dinner is my least favorite meal to prepare during the year. It's so darned much work, and then there's all the clean-up. For some reason, Christmas dinner never seems to be as much work.

I like Thanksgiving itself, for sure. I enjoy having family here on the big day, and I definitely enjoy the food. I guess having the meal catered would be my idea of a relaxing day. I wish we'd had some snow, though. I like to have snow arrive in time for Thanksgiving.

But on to the various topics in this post. At our sorority meeting last week, our guest speaker, Nancy, showed us simple tricks for creating table centerpieces and other creations to spiff-up the holidays. My header photo is my table centerpiece for yesterday. (Sorry it's so huge. That's why I haven't used header photos in my recent posts. Suddenly the photos are huge and practically shout at you when you open my blog. {Update! I discovered I'd accidentally disabled the "shrink to fit" option for header photos. I've got it working again, so this header photo is no longer roadside billboard size}.)

I know. I know, I can hardly believe it myself! I made that?! Nancy urged us to use alstromeria as our fresh flower in an arrangement. She said it's inexpensive and lasts a long time.

So at Sam's Club on Monday, I bought a big bouquet of alstromeria for $5.00. Then I went to The Dollar Tree, which Nancy also recommended over AC Moore or Michael's, to get silk greenery. For $1 per bunch, I purchased various ivies and such. I also bought one of those green things that florists put in the bottom of an arrangement to hold both water and stems. (What are they called? Florist foam or something like that?)

Now I was in business.

I cut back the stems of the alstromeria quite severely (after first leaving them too long, which created a bizarre arrangement, if I ever saw one), arranged the flowers plus some greenery plus some gold bows on sticks, and voila! A Thanksgiving table centerpiece.

I'll use the same idea for making a Christmas centerpiece. In fact, I've already bought some silk poinsettia and Christmas greenery. It'll be just a matter of getting some more fresh alstromeria.

As you can see from this photo, Violet joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. She got caught up in the spirit of the feast and made "pies" for each of us. She took orders to determine each's favorite kind. I told her mine was lemon meringue. I asked her if she knew what a lemon meringue pie looks like. She replied, "No, but I can make it yellow." So that's all she needed to know. She drew apple and pumpkin pies also, cut them into wedges, and distributed them to all of us. Then she decided to "sell" her pies. That girl is always thinking.

Violet's mom brought with her a story book about wild turkeys. She remembered our story of the time a few years ago when over 20 wild turkeys spent several days in our backyard, roosting in the trees at night and looking ridiculous because they were such big birds in such spindly trees.

Rachel read the turkey story to Violet and the rest of us, then they went out onto the back deck to see if they might spot some turkeys. No such luck, although we did have a flock of 18 wild turkeys hanging around our property about two weeks ago.

Marjorie Standish helped me make this lemon meringue pie for dessert. If you're not familiar with Marjorie and her down-home Maine cooking, go here. This cookbook should be a staple in every kitchen. She walked me through making a lemon meringue pie from scratch, which I'd never done before. I'd always used Jell-o lemon pie filling for these pies in the past.

Rachel brought a delicious sweet potato pie. Now I know why Oprah gushes over sweet potato pie.

So that was Thanksgiving. Now it's time to move on to Christmas. My white Christmas cactus is heralding in the season by coming into bloom. And I'm off to a Christmas craft fair later this morning....

Dr. Oz and I are neighbors, practically

I happened to watch "207," a local t.v. show, last night and was surprised to see my very own Dr. Oz being interviewed by Rob Caldwell.

The bigger surprise, though, was hearing Dr. Oz say he has a home in Falmouth Foreside and has been spending time there for years. His youngest child, a son about twelve, was born in Portland, and one of his daughters loves Maine so much that she was married in Portland this past summer.

The Ozes like to sail, hike, ski when they're in Maine, and they love to visit the many Portland restaurants. Dr. Oz said he likes shopping at Shaw's supermarkets, too.

No wonder I'm such a fan of Dr. Oz. He and I are practically neighbors!

(Raisin and gin update: It's still brewing. I'll allow Ken to try his first "treatment" on Monday.)

Well, this is enough to make a person want a little arthritis!

As I mentioned I would in my last post, I tuned in to Dr. Oz yesterday to find out what he recommends for treating arthritis. Ken suffers from arthritis in his back and is eager to find some relief.

The treatment Dr. Oz suggested is about the last thing I was expecting: raisins and gin.

You heard me, raisins and gin.

Apparently this is a folk remedy from way back, and many arthritis sufferers swear by it.

The recipe:

Put a box of yellow (white) raisins in a glass bowl and cover with gin. Let sit for about a week, then consume nine (9) of the drunken raisins per day. Not eight, not ten, but nine.

I did a little googling last evening to see if I could learn more about this treatment. Here are a couple of sites I found:

Here

And here.

Here's one more.

Sitting on our kitchen counter is a glass bowl with raisins soaking in gin. Ken's rather disappointed to learn he'll have to wait a week before starting to take "the cure," but with luck the week will pass quickly. I know this for certain: I've never before seen him so excited to try a new medication.

I'm not a doctor, but I play one.

I try to catch Dr. Oz most days. I like the fact that he often recommends simple home remedies for problems for which my own doctor would immediately hand me a prescription.

Dr. Oz takes a more common-sense, less chemical-remedy approach. Take, for instance, his recommendation a couple of years ago for dry skin in the winter. My skin, especially on my legs, gets so dry that it itches like crazy. I'd tried various lotions and salves, all to no avail.

Dr. Oz recommended safflower oil. Bingo! I bought a generous bottle of safflower oil at the supermarket and started applying it liberally to my legs after I shower. No more dry, itchy winter legs for me. And I've still got enough of that safflower oil to see me into my 100's.

Then there was Dr. Oz's recommendation for removing a wart. For some reason, while in Hawaii last year, I developed a wart on my right forearm. Very strange. I'm not prone to wartiness, if there is even such a condition. But there it was, on my forearm, and it bugged me.

Dr. Oz said to apply a small piece of duct tape to the wart, thus cutting off its oxygen supply. I ran to the kitchen junk drawer, found the duct tape, cut out a very small square, applied it to my new wart, and waited.

It took prehaps ten days to get rid of the wart, but get rid of it I did. Gone. No sign it was ever there.

Now, the big experiment which just might qualify me as an amateur surgeon: skin tag removal.

I had a skin tag for years right square in the middle of my chest, just below the bra line. I often feared I would accidentally tear it off, maybe with the nylon pouf thingy while in the shower.

Dr. Oz said to tie a piece of string or dental floss around the tag, cutting off its blood supply. I first used the only dental floss I had: waxed. Wrong choice, because I couldn't tie a good, tight knot with the waxed floss. After a few days of humoring the floss and the skin tag, I switched to a piece of string. Tied a good, tight knot. Waited a day or two and noticed Ms. Skin Tag had turned black. In another day or two she was noticeably withered. In another day or two she'd fallen off! No pain. No nuthin'.

So I've solved three problems so far without benefit of doctor's appointment or prescription. Tomorrow Dr. Oz will be discussing treatments for arthritis. I plan to tune in. I don't suffer from arthritis, but Ken does. I hope Dr. Oz suggests a simple home remedy for that.

It's all about Molly's comfort...and who can blame her?

It's Seek-the-sunbeam Season in this house, at least for our dog, Molly.

When fall arrives and the sun travels lower and lower on the horizon, wonderful, warm, nap-taking spots are created on our kitchen and front hallway floors.

Molly takes advantage of them.

If I'm not sure where she is at a given moment, I just look for the sunbeam and there I find Molly.

Sometimes Molly falls into such a deep, luscious nap that she doesn't notice the sun beam has moved on without taking her with it.

Sometimes she can kill two birds with one stone: keep an eye on the neighborhood and soak up some vitamin D.

Sometimes she just wants to be left alone to relax and enjoy the beautiful day, from the sidelines.

How to melt a heart

I have always enjoyed receiving heart-felt notes from nieces and nephews. Many of my nieces and nephews are only ten or so years younger than I (Sorry for the reminder, Cheryl), so I have notes from them dating back to the late 50's. I find it touching to picture a little hand holding a large pencil or pen, working hard to make the letters correctly. Probably the tongue is poised at just the correct angle from the mouth, too, in order to make sure all focus is on the work at hand.

It's fun to come across a note when I least expect to, buried somewhere in my disorganized pile of memorabilia.

Now, it's my little great niece Violet who writes notes to Uncle Ken and me. She and I practically share the same birthdate. Her birthday is just three days before mine (Oh, and sixty years).

Violet and I got together to celebrate our birthdays a couple of weeks ago. Violet arrived carrying her latest art work: A carefully crafted card with many words and happy drawings.

I love the frisky tails she puts on her "a's." Sometimes the frisky tail crowds out the letter to follow, such as a "y," but no matter.

Violet is at her best when she has markers and crayons in hand. She gets right to work, drawing fairies and chickens and houses with curtains blowing unabashedly in the apparently wide-open windows.

For my birthday card, Violet drew a happy heart and, best of all, a flower with multicolored petals. I wish someone would create a hybrid flower with exactly these colors on each petal. I'm not sure the flower's stalk needs to be quite as sturdy as this one, but if it is, all the better.

The pain of turning 65 was eased quite a bit by little Violet, age five.

Elves and crime

Got any little elves in your life?

If so, these elf slippers might be just the ticket. The pattern is free, from here, and it's sized for babies, toddlers, youths, and adults. I offered to knit a pair for Ken, but he declined.

I've had trouble mastering the "w&t" maneuver in this pattern, which frustrates me because I've done the "w&t" in other knitting patterns, but the felting process hides all kinds of gaping holes and what-not.

It's fun to pull the formerly huge, loosely-knit slippers from the washing machine and see slippers that an elf would undoubtedly be proud to wear.

Now, about crime. Apparently I've been committing it, maybe in my sleep. I was home alone last Friday afternoon when the phone rang, and the conversation went like this.

Me: Hello?

Him, loudly: HELLO.

Me: Who is this?

Him: You know who this is.

Me: I'm afraid I don't.

Him: IT'S YOUR NEIGHBOR.

Me:?

Him: Look, you've got to stop stealing my newspaper out of the box each morning.

Me: What????

Him: I'm tired of it. I don't know what the frickin' news is because you're stealing my newspaper each morning.

Me: You must have the wrong number. I'm not stealing your paper.

Him: You know you are. And it's got to stop.

Me: What number are you trying to call?

Him: Why did you suddenly change your voice?

Me: I didn't change my voice. I know you have the wrong number. What number are you trying to call?

Him: Yes, you changed your voice.

At that point, I could see the conversation was going around and around, so I hung up. And I haven't heard from "him" since.

I promise I'll quit stealing newspapers. And why am I stealing them, if we pay a hefty subscription price to get our OWN newspaper each day?

Ah, the memories

Ken and I caught the tail-end of a t.v. ad the other night and burst into laughter simultaneously. Apparently the commercial had triggered the same memory for us. I'll get to that in a minute.

Our old neighborhood was nothing if not interesting. We lived there for 25 years and were witness to all manner of happenings.

A day care center was part of the neighborhood. One afternoon as I drove home from work, I glanced in at the day care. Imagine my surprise when I spotted one of the little charges on the roof of the daycare's front porch. That's right: on the roof. Probably I should have stopped to alert the staff of their missing child. Yes, I really should have done that, but I was eager to get home after a hard day at work. I only hoped the child would be escorted off the roof before his mother came to pick him up.

Three houses to our left, the owners were surprised to come home late one night and find an elderly man, a complete stranger, sound asleep in one of their beds. Turns out the gentleman had arrived from a long drive to visit relatives...who happened to live in an almost identical home three houses to our right.

Late one night after Ken and I had gone to bed, we were awakened by lights flashing on our bedroom blinds. We got up and peeked out the window. A tow truck, with flashing light on its roof, was backing into a driveway across the street. Soon the tow truck hitched onto the residents' car and...hauled it away. Ken called the sheriff's department, thinking we might be witnessing a theft. No, he was informed, we were witnessing the repo man at work!

Our favorite memory, though, and the one triggered by the t.v. ad the other night, happened on a quiet, lazy summer afternoon. We were both in the house at the time. Suddenly we started hearing what sounded like a rumbling sound, then it became a loud, scraping sound. We looked out our living room window in time to see a car driving by, hauling a boat behind it. The thing was, though, that the boat wasn't on a boat trailer. It was being hauled directly on the ground! The car turned into a driveway just beyond our house, causing the boat to make a wild, wide circle as it entered the driveway. The driver cooly unhitched the boat and got back into his car. He wasn't able to leave the driveway fast enough, however, for the boat's apparent owner came out of his house with a baseball bat and proceeded to leave several impressive dents in the hood of the car. I'd guess this day marked the end of a friendship.

A few days later when Ken and I were out for a walk, we followed the scrapes made by the boat and were able to trace it to its origin, about half a mile away on a side road.

Oh, and the t.v. commercial? As I said, we caught only the tail end of it, but a car is speeding down the highway, hauling an engine or something behind it, without benefit of trailer.

We love our new neighborhood, but it just doesn't offer the drama of the old one.

Lobster Tales, Chapter Two: the final chapter

I should have taken Pete up on his offer to give me a wake-up call the next morning. When I have to get up at an outrageous hour, I set my radio alarm, but then I wake up constantly throughout the night to make sure my alarm is working and I haven't overslept. I bet I got a grand total of two hours' sleep, max, last Thursday night.

My friend and fellow A∆K member Lynn picked me up at 5:00 a.m. sharp. Her car's trunk was full of lobster meat, it was raining to beat the band, it was chilly, and we told ourselves and each other how happy we were to be out and about in this madness.

How do eleven sorority sisters pack 430 lobster box lunches in a little over two hours? It's not easy, but we've become a well-oiled machine after years of doing it.

Five of us worked in the kitchen; one mixed the lobster, with a little mayonnaise, in two-pound batches and passed it along to the two "sandwich makers," of which I was one. We filled the buns ridiculously full of the fresh lobster meat, full to overflowing, actually.

Then we passed the filled sandwiches on to our assistants, who wrapped them in foil and delivered them to the crew in the dining room. Here the sandwiches were boxed with a bag of chips, a thick homemade brownie, a fancy napkin, and a thank-you-for-supporting A∆K note.

About 1 1/2 hours into the ritual, when all seemed to be going well, the thing that happens every Lobster Box Lunch day happened again: we began hearing whisperings about the number of boxes yet to be filled, the amount of lobster meat left, and whether we'd have enough lobster to make the remaining sandwiches.

I've heard this every single LBL day since I retired from teaching in 2004 and could attend the LBL event. And I've never seen us actually run out of lobster meat. I've seen the hysteria, the panic, the cold-to-the-bone fear, but I've never seen the worst happen.

...until this year. We'd run out of lobster meat with 40 sandwiches yet to be made.

We'd done the math correctly; we'd ordered the correct amount of lobster meat, but then several last-minute orders came in on Friday morning. Orders are supposed to be finalized on Wednesday night. Hence, the problem.

I made a call to Pete; he said he could supply six more pounds of lobster. It wouldn't, however, be ready until 9:00 a.m. I'd forgotten, when I called him, that it was now only 7:30 a.m.

So we lobster ladies sat around for awhile, chatted, and waited for 7:45, when it would be time to head into Portland for the extra six pounds.

By 10:00 a.m. the additional lobster meat had arrived, and we were back in business. The final boxed lunches were made, we loaded up our vehicles for any deliveries on our routes home, and we were done.

Another successful Lobster Box Lunch fundraiser could now be put to rest. And what a deal our customers got: a generous lobster roll, a bag of chips, a homemade brownie, all for $8.

Lobster Tales, Chapter 1 of a two-chapter story.

My assignment this past week was to procure the fresh lobster meat for my sorority chapter's annual Lobster Box Lunch fundraiser.

I did a dry run last year with our former lobster-procurer: she took me to Portland's Commercial Street, showed me the pier where the lobster wholesaler is located, and in general led me through the paces.

I felt confident as I took on the assignment, solo, this year.

On Thursday my trusty Honda (auto, not motorcycle) and I made our way down Commercial Street. I love Commercial Street. It's lined with little shops and big businesses, sight-seeing boats, numerous restaurants serving the freshest seafood on the planet, squawking seagulls, and fishermen just in from a morning's work on the water. I'd love to have a chance, just once, to see Commercial Street one-hundred years ago. Ken and I have a large framed print entitled "Commerical Street, Portland, Maine, circa 1902." We both love that print and comment often about it. (What intrigues me is that Commercial Street, in earlier times, didn't even exist. The waterfront was farther "up the hill," not far from Congress Street. Commercial Street was built from landfill, in other words.)

I drove past DiMillo's Floating Restaurant and to the first street on the right immediately after DiMillo's. This put me onto Portland Pier. I slowly made my way out to the end of the pier, past Dan Lilley's law office and J's Oyster Bar. As I inched along, I couldn't help but wonder how old the pilings holding up the pier might be and in what condition? The pier is home to numerous buildings and also accommodates several parked cars and trucks. Heavy parked cars and trucks.Thought-provoking. (During unusually high tides, which visit Casco Bay perhaps once a year, Portland's various piers have to be evacuated because they're under water. Thursday was a bright, clear, sunny day, for which I was thankful.)

The last building on the left: New Meadows Lobster, "...live Maine lobsters from the ocean floor to your front door." Or, in this case, cooked, shelled, and packed-in-ice Maine lobster from New Meadows' warehouse to my car's trunk.

Pete met me. Pete told me to be there at 12:00 noon. I'd noted, as I drove to the pier's end, that my car's digital clock registered 11:59. I hoped I wasn't too early.

Pete's my new bff. He's a good guy, hale and hearty, and he didn't expect me to go out onto the lobster boat to do the actual lobstering. For that I was thankful, too.

Pete, however, is perhaps just a smidge too amused by the fact that I call myself a "sorority sister." I guess he was picturing someone nubile and striking. Sorry to disappoint him, but perhaps my generous check for 84 lbs. of fresh lobster meat, strictly knuckles and claws (or "k and c," as Pete calls them), helped to ease his disappointment.

I'd hoped to get a good view of the huge cruise ship docked just behind Pete's company, at the next pier, but I wasn't able to see it from New Meadows. So in place of discussing the cruise ship, I mentioned to Pete that shelling 84 pounds of freshly-cooked lobsters must be extremely hard work because I know, from too-occasional experience, that shelling one Maine lobster is hard work.

Pete agreed with me and said he can't find local folks who are willing to work that hard. Instead, a Korean lady does the shelling for him, and she often brings her entire family with her to help with the task. The lobstering crew at New Meadows starts work at 4:00 a.m., Pete said. He offered to give me a wake-up call on Friday morning, the day my "sisters" and I would make the actual lobster rolls. I declined.

As Pete loaded the lobster meat into my car, I wondered how I could possibly find enough refrigerators to store the containers for the next 18 hours. Pete assured me I was worrying for nothing: the lobster meat, in 2-lb. vacuum-sealed bags, was packed in ice. It would, he insisted, be fine in those styrofoam containers until the next morning. I hoped he was right.

I thanked Pete, left the pier, and headed home, hoping I wouldn't get car-jacked along the way. I was carrying precious cargo, for sure.

I (heart) felting

I get a charge out of knitting something super-ginormous then throwing it into the washing machine to felt it down to a reasonable size.

I've knitted and felted several pairs of mittens.

And several pairs of clog slippers. (I wore these all last winter and can hardly wait to tuck my chilly toes back into them in a few weeks.)

Numerous handbags. And now, these Project Bags, which are even more enormous, pre-felting, than the handbags I've made.

The Project Bag pattern comes from Kaleidoscope Yarns. It's knitted with a double strand of wool yarn. I like Paton's Classic Wool for felting, although I've used other 100% wool yarns with equally good results.

Here is my first project bag before it was felted. As you can see, it measures 27" across. After felting, it measures about 17" across.

Or, to put it another way, before felting a Project Bag is large enough to accommodate one almost-five-year-old girl.

Or it could hold a litter of puppies, or maybe four watermelons, or even a small, compact car.

After felting the Project Bag is just the right size for holding, well, your current project.

I'll be filling my Project Bag with yarns, needles, and knitting directions, I suspect.

Project completed...and a visitor

I finished the A∆K state banner a few minutes ago. Hooray!

Now I can pack away all of the paraphernalia that goes with a project like this and get back to my knitting.

Yesterday, as I was about to sew together the three sections of the banner, I made a last-minute change in the arrangement of the sections. I like this one much better.

Then I added the three border strips. I was dubious about the use of the purple, but it's an official color of A∆K, so I felt it needed to be there a little more prominently than solely in a few of the violet blossoms. Now that it IS one of the border strips, I like it. It gives the overall design some "pop."

This morning I attached the cotton batting middle section of the "sandwich," added the backing, then made the bias edging to machine-sew to the front edges and hand sew to the back edges. (That's the bias edging underway in the first photo.) That's now done, and I've added a little patch on the back with my name, my A∆K chapter, and 2010, for history's sake.

So, it's done.

And speaking of violets, my favorite little Violet paid us a visit on Sunday.

The first thing she wanted to do when she got here was go out to my flower garden to check on the fairy houses she and I made in August.

She was pleased to see the houses are still standing and in good condition. Best of all, though, is that she could tell the garden fairies have been in their new houses. She could tell, she said, because "the beds have been moved a little, so that means they've been sleeping in there."

Here Molly the Dog and Violet check on one of the fairy houses.

If I didn't already know Violet had paid us a visit, I'd be able to tell by this scene on my coffee table: acorns and an oak leaf.

The last few times Violet has visited us, she has left acorns behind.

She must have been a squirrel in an earlier life.

Another banner update

I'm obsessed with this project. I think about it night and day. For the past week our kitchen island has been littered with fabric, stencils, iron-on interfacing, "Heat'n'Bond," scissors of various sizes, glue, freezer paper, pencils, pins, and other extraneous materials.

I've made a second, emergency run to Marden's for more fabric.

And of course, I've neglected the housework, which is always easy.

I think this will be the final design, which is drastically different from the original design. At the top is the A∆K logo, which needs to be included somewhere in the piece. Scattered about the logo and elsewhere are violets, the official flower of A∆K.

In the middle of the night I awoke suddenly with the solution to cutting out the "Maine" letters: first iron a piece of interfacing to the back of the plain navy fabric, use the erasable pen to trace the letters backwards onto the interfacing, cut them out, then apply some Heat'n'Bond to the back of the letters to secure them to the middle strip of fabric before machine appliquéing them in place. I was assuming the middle strip should be white, then I thought perhaps blue would be better, but Ken says white works better. I'm still not sure which it should be.

The machine appliqué of Portland Head Light was surprisingly easy. I followed Linda's advice and did a test appliqué with scrap fabric, to get the feel of the process and the machine, before tackling the actual Head Light appliqué. (That was a good suggestion, Linda.) And Heat'n'Bond is my new very best friend. It makes appliqué a breeze, with absolutely no puckering of the fabric as you guide it under the presser foot.

I still have to sew the three sections together (after appliquéing the violets and "Maine" in place), then I'll add three narrow border strips around all four sides...and the hard part will be behind me.

I'm finding, though, that the closer I get to completing the banner, the more frightened I grow that my A∆K sisters won't like it.

But I guess if they don't like it, then they can step forward and take on the task of making a newer, better state banner, can't they?!

It's beginning to look a lot (or at least a little) like....

Portland Head Light!

The "New England Lighthouses to Applique" book arrived from the eBay seller on Monday, so I spent the rest of that day in a semi-paralyzed state as I studied the task ahead of me. What, oh what, had I gotten myself into?

There is so much tiny little detail in the appliqué pattern: Did I really want to get involved with this?

But I'd said I'd make the new A∆K state banner for Maine, so I told myself I'd best do just that.

Tuesday morning I high-tailed it to Marden's in South Portland. If you're not a Mainer, then perhaps you don't know Marden's. Marden's is a huge store, with locations throughout Maine, that sells "surplus and salvage" items: bras to wall-to-wall carpeting, greeting cards to furniture; you name it, Marden's probably has it and at a ridiculously low price.

At some of the Marden's stores, and thank heavens at their new store in South Portland, they have a huge fabric department. This is a quilter's haven, for most of the fabrics are top-of-the-line, name brand quilting cottons for $2.99-$3.49 per yard. I know. I know. It's almost too good to be true. The sales lady in the fabric department on Tuesday told me busloads of quilting group ladies descend on Marden's regularly, and there's a big group coming in from Pennsylvania in a few days.

With my Portland Head Light appliqué pattern in hand, I pushed my cart up and down the rows and rows of beautiful cottons, looking for just the right color and design for each segment of the appliqué. What I couldn't find, the sales lady helped me find. She knows her fabrics and, apparently, loves helping others. I hated to tell her I wanted only 1/4 yard of each of about fifteen bolts of fabric, but she didn't seem to mind tackling the job of cutting the quarter-yards for me.

Yesterday and early this morning I began cutting out the segments of the design. It was exciting to put the little pieces on the layout and see a close resemblance to Portland Head Light emerge.

And when Ken asked me, finally, what I was making, I said, "Come look at it and YOU tell ME."

He took one look and said, thankfully, "Portland Head Light!"

Phew. If he'd said a potato barn in Aroostook Country, I'd have scrapped the project then and there and returned to the comfort of my knitting.

Originally I was disappointed when I placed the pale blue sky piece on the layout. Why had I chosen such a pale blue? Then I discovered, after all of the other pieces were in place, at the bottom of the fabric pile lay the actual sky piece. It works much better, and I have no idea why I even bought the pale blue piece.

I stopped to update this blog because I'm now dreading the next step in this banner-making project: applying Heat'n'Bond to the back of each fabric segment, ironing it on, peeling off the top layer of the Heat'n'Bond, placing the fabric pieces in their final position on the liner fabric, and ironing them in place. I've never worked with Heat'n'Bond before so I'm not sure what to expect.

After the pieces are all bonded into place, the machine appliqué begins. I've never machine appliquéd before, either. Help.