The "Six Things" meme -

I got tagged by Vicki at The Virginia Purl with the latest meme- I am supposed to list six unimportant things that make me happy and then tag six people. I hate having to choose people so, on the honor system, six of my readers have to do this meme (don’t forget to let me know – see #4 below)

1. Last month when all of the Pink cherry trees were in bloom – they line a street on my way to work and when they begin to lose their petals it looks like pink snow everywhere!
2. Lying in bed on a Saturday morning and listening to the birds chirping outside, trying to hear more than robins.
3. The fact that the waitress at one of our Friday night date restaurants remembers us and greets us like old friends.
4. Having someone who is a new reader leave a comment on my blog.
4.1 Having someone who is an old reader leave a comment on my blog
5. Chocolate Orange jellies from Trader Joes.
6. I’m still astounded when after plying yarn on my spinning wheel it looks like “real” yarn and crochets up nice too.

On another topic - I really love three day weekends and this one, I did absolutely nothin' - well, I stayed in bed a bunch to try to beat this darn cold I came down with, and I finished up two "romance novels" - and spun up some Targhee top that I want to use to make a baby sweater with. Now that I'm getting used to it, it is fun to spin - very springy/spongy feeling - and I am plying two different colorways - (the result of buying fiber without a clear purpose then when you go back to get some more, it's gone...) I think they match very well though - I'll have pictures soon. Seein' as how it is Wednesday now, I guess I'd better hit the sack. This week is going fast enough as it is - I still have the newsletter to finish AND payroll. Ick.

Bored, oh, I'm bored!

We went to town today! First time I've been out of the house since Tuesday (seriously) Friday was so awful The Shepherd didn't even leave the house except to feed the critters.

We've had Chinook Winds since Friday afternoon tho, and the snow is GOING AWAY!!!

The British Columbian First Nations People have a legend that tells of a girl named Chinook-Wind, who married Glacier, and moved to his country in the far north. She pined for her warm sea-home in the southwest, and sent a message to her people. They came to her in a vision in the form of snowflakes, and told her they were coming to get her. They came in great number and quarreled with Glacier over her, but they overwhelmed him and she went home with them in the end (Leaving him to melt away in his tears, I guess - Wikipedia didn't tell any more of the story)

The Chinook (pronounced shinook - Chinook is a Pacific Northwest Indian word meaning 'snow-eater') winds can be explained with lot of meteorological mumbo jumbo - but basically they are warm winds that come out of the south (they have been known to raise the temperature from minus 54 degrees F. to plus 49 degrees F. in less than 24 hours (Loma Montana in 1972) - That's 103 degrees, folks - Chinook winds are not to be sneezed at (although they are tied to migraine headaches) - We can hear them coming - they literally roar across Bellingham Bay and for 12 hours yesterday it sounded like a jet plane was sitting on our roof, with the throttle open!. These warm winds can literally melt/evaporate a foot of snow overnight - which causes all kinds of havoc - urban flooding. roofs collapsing, etc.

So, all this free time has given me a chance to catch up on things like memes... here is the Eight Things meme that has been going around. So you can see a little into what makes my world go round...

My 8 favorite foods (not necessarily in order):
1 Mashed Potatoes
2 “Quality” Chocolate (dark is best)
3 Pop Corn (caramel or kettle corn best)
4 Tomato Basil Soup
5 Caesar salad
6 New York Steak
7 Arby’s Cherry Turnovers
8 French Onion Soup

8 Things I Did Today:
1 Slept ‘til 10:00 (hey, the sheep belong to The Shepherd, not me)
2 Took a shower
3 Checked my blog
4 Checked my email
5 Checked Miss Peach’s Blog
6 Went to town with The Shepherd, had lunch & got groceries
7 Watched NCIS marathon on TV
8 Washed the yarn for my last two Christmas hats (can anyone spell procrastinate?)

8 Favorite Stores:
1 Walgreens
2 PetCo
3 Haggen Foods
4 NW Handspun Yarns
5 Joanne Fabrics or Michaels Craft Stores
6 Village Books
7 Cresswell Boggs (a local gift store that is stupendous)
8 The Garden Spot

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1 Lorenzo’s (Mexican)
2 McDonalds
3 Café Akroteri (Greek)
4 Cliff House (local steak house)
5 The Hilltop (local family restaurant)
6 Panda Palace (Chinese, of course)
7 Hana Teriyaki
8 Applebee’s

8 Things I Look Forward To:
1 Days off from work
2 Weekends
3 Talking to my sisters on phone
4 Spring
5 Emails from friends
6 Comments on my blog
7 Black Sheep Gathering in June
8 Spinner Guild meetings

8 Things I Like To Do With Family:
1 Friday night dates with The Shepherd
2 Talk on the phone with my sisters
3 Talk on the phone with my nieces – “the Jennifers”
4 Parker’s Birthday party in September
5 Going to church with The Shepherd
6 Shopping with my sisters
7 Get togethers at holidays to visit
8 Go to “The Ranch”

8 Things on My Wish List:
1 Win Publisher’s Clearing House (no purchase necessary)
2 Retire in comfort
3 Get my left knee replaced
4 The book “Wrapped in Crochet” (actually that’s almost off the wish list since I ordered it yesterday from my book club)
5 A Maid
6 A new camera (but the old one still works great, so I can’t justify it)
7 A new car (as much as I love the Jelly Bean, it is 18 years old)
8 Win the Lottery so I could buy out the neighbors and give The Shepherd more pasture.

A Meme from Miss Peach

My friend Miss Peach has a very fun Meme on her blog today - Here is how to play:

Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures. Go to the 6th Folder and then pick the 6th Picture. Post it on your blog and tell the story that goes with the picture.

Here's my picture - from January 2008. My pictures arrange numerically (I guess) - so all the January (01/dd/yy) pictures are first, followed by the 02/dd/yy, etc.

After my dismal "scratchy scarf" failure with my older sister, my younger sister said she would really like a granny square scarf, but it COULDN'T BE SCRATCHY! - and by the way, could it include black, purple and red - so I went to the local craft store & put together these wonderful bright neon colors in a nice soft cotton yarn (this is actually one of the pictures that I took where the colors are all close to original - that dark spot in the back is the black) and crocheted and crocheted and crocheted on Granny Squares - & made a very nice colorful scarf for her.

I actually asked her last Sunday if she had worn it yet and she informed me that it had only been cold enough one day - she had worn it, but that it was a "little long". Well, I had made it judging by my height, which is 5'9" or so and NNT is only about 5'3" - so, mayyybbbeee, it might have been a little long?

She did, however, allow as how she could probably wrap it around her neck a couple of times and it would then be "not so long" it sounds like it was, after all, acceptable.

Better be - tieing off all the ends of those Granny Squares is an extreme pain in the backside - now I know why I don't make more things with Granny Squares. In fact, I really like a nice verigated yarn - the colors change - you don't have to do a darn thing, and you don't have hundreds of little ends to tie in.

Miss Peach invited all of her readers to play along and so do I. Tell us the story of your "sixth in the sixth" !!