Blog Award again!

Earlier this month, Anne sent me this pretty blog award. Her blog translates and defines it thus:

“This blog invests and believes in ‘proximity’
[meaning that blogging makes us 'close' - being close through proxy].”

Since I had only recently awarded some of the blogs I love, I was intending not to do this again. But that would have been churlish of me. Therefore, I gratefully acknowledge the receipt of this award and thank Anne most sincerely. I was honestly stunned at getting a second award, especially since it followed so closely on the heels of the previous one.

In keeping with the spirit of the award, I am to nominate eight bloggers who in turn 'pay it forward' to eight more.

Random Knits - she started the Aussie and New Zealand Knitters' blogring which has led me to blogs here and overseas. I have met Donna in person and her knitting is as good as it looks on her blog.

I Heart Knitting - a Tasmanian teacher and knitter

Rose Red - a 'local' blogger who loves red and shoes as well as knitting

Knitting Linguist - an US knitter and professor of linguistics; what's not to love?

Delighted Hands - a US knitter, quilter and sister in Christ

My recycled bags - while going through chemotherapy, Cindy challenges us all to recycle by turning plastic bags into crochet yarn she calls 'plarn'

Sheepish Annie - a US middle-school teacher, spinner and knitter whose dry wit keeps me coming back for her six-days-a-week blog posts; not to mention the adorable AGK!

and, one of the "big guns":
The Panopticon- the adventures of Franklin, Dolores and Harry keep me amused; but will he even notice that someone gave him an award amongst all those comments?

Christmas puddings

A while ago, Carol asked about Christmas traditions. I wasn't ready to talk about Christmas then, but it's edging closer and closer so something had to give.

Yesterday, DD and I made Christmas puddings. Until I was in my mid-twenties my maternal grandmother made them. Then, when she was too old to stir the mixture [1.5kg of fruit gets a bit heavy], my mum started helping; then she took over the job. Four years ago my parents decided it was my turn [as eldest daughter]. DD and I used the recipe my nanna posted to my mother from England. That would have been 1957 because that was the only Christmas they had apart from mum's birth in 1934 until nanna died in 1989 [with the exception of the war years when mum was evacuated in Wales]. I have a photocopy of the original recipe - I think mum still has the original.

Anyway, DD and I made the puddings in two batches and we mixed the dry ingredients by hand [no, a hand, not a spoon] - it's so much easier. The fun part of the tradition comes at the end - the final stirring when the threepences are thrown in [yes, we use real pre-1966, pre-decimal money - the coins are silver and are therefore not poisonous, unlike modern money]. Everyone in the house gets to stir the pudding, throw in at least one threepence and make a wish. SIL2B couldn't be here, he works on Sundays, so we made wishes on his behalf! Don't know if it works that way but we did it anyway. We had 16 threepences; last year we had seventeen so we won't surmise about what happened to the other one! LOL

The puddings took a while to cook - seven hours for the smaller of the two; about eight and a half hours for the larger one. But they're done and that's the main thing. The photos are both of the smaller pudding; the birds'-eye view is a more accurate colour.

So Carol, there you are, one Christmas tradition for you. Your turn to show me the knitting!!!!

Sunday Ramble

Still here, still knitting. Monogamously and slowly. I've made it to seven repeats of the Myrtle Leaf stole. The lifelines, which are inserted every six rows, have only been needed once; which is a sign I'm improving! Only 33 repeats and the border to do in less than eleven weeks! Some days I don't knit at all so that doesn't help.

I've not been well - not sick - just not feeling 'well'. Extremely tired, down but not out - I'm sure you know what I mean. It's the end of the academic year and assessments are underway, which means marking and making decisions re grades - not the most glamorous part of my usually interesting job. And then there's the paperwork! I thought computers were supposed to make life easier?!

But, look on the bright side: there are only three weeks left of TAFE, and four weeks at the community college. Then I have an eight week break, or eight weeks without pay, whichever you prefer. I prefer the former because I need the break. WM has a regular income and we're used to my 'seasonal' wages.

Then there's Christmas for which I am nowhere near ready, and the wedding, which is almost completely organised; you see, I have my priorities straight! LOL

It's an easy Christmas for us in many ways; WM's family gathers the Sunday before Christmas. We hosted last year so this year we just pack some meat for the barbecue, drinks, some coleslaw and a cheesecake [so 70s] and travel to another sibling's home. Easy-peasy [as my students used to say in the 70s]. Then my family's Christmas will be at my sister's house - 500km away; the travel is the worst part. WM has Christmas Eve off as part of his normal roster, so that makes life easier. We'll drive up on Wednesday, stay in a 2-bedroom cabin at the local caravan park, spend Christmas Day and the morning of Boxing Day with the family and drive home in the afternoon; WM has to work on the Saturday.

As for the wedding: nearly everything is done; of course, there are still some little things - the seating plan [can't do that till we know who's coming], the order of service [when DD and SIL2B make up their minds] and the mother-of-the-bride's dress: yeah, that's me. I hate clothes shopping and am trying to lose weight by watching what I eat [sort of - really, I'm too tired to care] and vigilantly walking 10,000+ steps a day every day. The walking is supposed to help cure the tiredness too; the theory is "energy creates energy"! Hmmm!

Enough rambling; I'm off to work on Myrtle.

questions and answers

Where have I been?

Good question.

Busy with work [it's assessment time] and wedding preparations. Then it occurred to me that Christmas was rapidly approaching. Oh my!

I've been so tired I didn't knit for a whole week. Not one stitch. I didn't even look at knitting books though I did read some blogs. Today Bloglines tells me I have 26 unread feeds, so that's not too bad.

On Thursday I was so exhausted that I went to bed at 9:30pm [early for me] and slept until 8:30 Friday morning - eleven glorious hours. Thank God for days off!!

But, more than that, I got distracted by investing in property. DD gave me some back issues of Australian Property Investor that she picked up at the Home Buyers' Expo. I have been interested in this subject for a long time but WM is very reluctant. Reading the mags got me all inspired again - it's a good time because it's a buyers market, interest rates are falling, rental rates are high and vacancies are low. But can we afford it? And would WM want to?

Useful or just 'artsy'?

I read this quote from Delighted Hands and it resonated so loudly with me:

it has to be useful--one of my problems with things artsy-what is it for?!!!!

Back in the mid-90s I had a burning desire to create something new from scratch. I knitted, crocheted, embroidered and did folk art. All crafty, all using someone else's patterns. I wanted something original. A trip to Broken Hill and a brief chat with Kym Hart [son of Kevin 'Pro' Hart] just fuelled my desire so I enrolled in painting classes. My first teacher, God bless her, only painted in oils; I'm allergic to turps so I painted in acrylics. I nearly quit but we got a new teacher - he was very encouraging and I developed quite quickly under his tutelage so much so that I did a Fine Arts course at TAFE.

I went back to work and my painting dried up. Then I discovered scrap-booking. This satisfied my artistic side - working with colour [my passion] and design. But I taught scrap-booking for a while and had to to produce pages to specification and my love turned to hate. I admire Carol's work but just can't bring myself to get out the papers, the glue, the photos and the embellishments again! It's so messy and requires so much work space.

But knitting continues because knitting is clean, portable, sociable [if one is not knitting lace!] and useful [to come back to my opening quote from Cynthia]. But does knitting satisfy my 'creative' urge? Mostly yes, because I knit from my head; I invent shapes and colour combinations that please me and sometimes challenge me. However, sometimes there comes a longing to be original; perhaps to take knitting in a direction it's never been before - but where that is I don't know!!