On Buttons and Bones:

Yesterday I was doing my weekly clean up of all the stuff I leave laying around. I like to start the weekend tidy in case someone shows up for a visit unexpectedly. I was in a hurry to get it over with because I was going to see the Coraline movie at it’s very first showing at 2:05 in the afternoon.

Mountain Man was restocking the indoor woodpile and we were doing the dance of avoidance. You know the way you flit through rooms with your arms full of stuff and you side step this or that or the other person doing the same thing. I was flitting. Not so much Mountain Man with his arms full of wood.

I thought myself quite good at that dance and I rarely do crash into anything along the way. Laundry headed to the wash room. Books to the living room shelves. Crafting stuff to it’s bins and containers. I was on fire. A fairy in flight. Nothing could stop me now. Crash!!!!! Was that exercise bike always there?

I spend entirely too much time without shoes on. I know this fact because of the number of times I have broken my toes on things around the house and yard in the past. I don’t even bother to go to the hospital for most breaks anymore.

I know the drill. They pack it in ice, ask me if I can feel it when they touch my toe tips, take an x-ray, charge me a lot of money and tell me to wear hard shoes for the next six weeks until it heals. I didn’t go to the emergency room. For a foot yes, for a toe no. I did pack my left foot in ice. I got in bed and put it up on a pillow.

I watched Young Frankenstein and Space Balls on DVD because I felt in need of some Mel Brooks medicine and I ate cookies in bed.

I didn’t get to the Coraline movie‘s first showing. By the time the swelling when down enough to let me put my shoe on Mountain Man had already left to go to a prior commitment and I couldn’t get to a later showing.

I will get to the movie sometime this coming week. I’m determined. I’ll be the one with the limp and grimace. My two broken toes on the out side of my foot safe in hard shoes.

Did I tell you I spent most of my childhood in saddle shoes?

On I’m It:

I got Tagged yesterday by Darkside of Knitting.

This was a first for me. In the beginning I was happy to join in. But now I have decided I never want to be bothered with them again. They are harder then they look and I found it depressing not having a fun filled life to write about. (I had wanted to write about my excitement over this being the first day of the Coraline movie today.)

Rules:
Link to the person who tagged you.
Mention the rules.
Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself.
Tag six other bloggers by linking to them.
Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment to tell them they are tagged.

I pondered this all day and although others find me quirky I don’t see it. So you will just have to be satisfied with boring.

1. I wear glasses and have since I was nineteen. I have never even thought about contact lenses. I think I like to be able to hide behind my glasses.
2. I’m a slob. I constantly have to pick up after myself. I get busy and next thing I know there is a mess all around me and I have to stop what I’m doing and do a tidy up.
3. I don’t like watching sports. If I was interested I’d be out there doing it myself. Sitting around watching sports makes me antsy and I don’t see the point.
4. I have a liking for things that aren’t good for me like junk food. Note the extra 75 pounds on my body.
5. I like to read children’s books more then adult fiction. Not that I don’t like and read it, I just like kid’s books more.
6. Apparently I don’t play tag well. I will never do another meme again. I have learned I don’t like doing them at all.

I do get that this is a way for us as bloggers to share the links and info so I will add a few links here because I like these bloggers and would like you to check them out also. But I will not tag them. I will just invite them to join in the ‘fun’ (If they find it so.) in my comments on their blogs.

Knotty Mouse, Little Black Crow, Judith and Mandella of Coffee and Tea Gals, Joan of Dark, Kiley of Red Letters Ink and anyone else that wants to take up this silliness.

This afternoon I will be having fun at the movie house watching Coraline in 3D with my ‘in the dark’ knitting. I’m hoping the movie is so good I don’t get any knitting done.

On Pretty Plants that Bite:

Picture of my terrarium of carnivorous plants last year.

It is February in the northern hemisphere and that can only mean one thing to a girl like me. Carnivorous Plants! If you are looking for them they are generally only available for sale in February. I rushed out to one of my local home improvement centers and scooped up these lovelies.















Those of you who have been reading here for a while know how bad I felt when an early cold snap came and I had left my terrarium on the window sill at night. In the cold behind the drapes I lost my Sundew and Butterwort. The Venus Flytrap survived but weakly (It had gotten colder then 40F behind the drapes.) and when it went into the veggie bin for it’s winter hibernation period I wasn’t sure it would survive.

My Venus Flytrap did survive in the frig wrapped in it’s damp paper towel and tucked into it’s zip lock baggie for the winter. But I must say it looked so lonely in the terrarium by itself when I repotted it last week. I just couldn’t wait for the new carnivorous plants to come in and go on sale.

I do have to go and buy a new terrarium jar for this year. I found that the Venus did not like quite the same temperature and humidity as the others and I got myself a Purple Pitcher this year too and all five will not fit in my one jar.

So now my new little Venus Flytrap will live with the older one and the Butterwort, Sundew and Purple Pitcher Plant will be grouped together in the new terrarium. At least until the Pitcher Plant gets too tall and needs a new home of it’s own.

Fear not. There will be no repeat of the slug feeding incident. Mountain Man has repented his grievous act on my baby last year. And he has promise not to feed anything larger then a small cricket to my plants again.















I am now a happy carnivorous plant mama again. I must remember to put distilled water on my shopping list for them. And what to name them?

On Selective Reading Time:

I have been cleaning house, reorganizing, and making room. And in doing so I have un-followed some people’s blogs. I feel bad about this.

I don’t know why I should, but I do. I will still be looking in on most of these blogs I just won’t be reading them within twenty-four hours of their posting anymore.

I will say that a few have lost my faithful viewing. Either they post far too infrequently to hold my interest or I grew bored with what they had to say. This is not to say that they are boring just that I have moved on.

Know that I am keeping up with the average of fifty blogs in my following bin and I also have a hundred or so bookmarked in a folder and I pop in on them when I have the time. This is added to by the blogs I am reading their backlog of stories and stuff.

What I realized was that I hardly ever read a book anymore. The same book has sat on my nightstand for over a month. My current read used to follow me around to be glanced at every chance I got. But as my blog list grew I have been becoming a desk potato. I walk around with blood shot eyes from computer screen strain. It was time to be kind to myself.

I was using my knitting and exercise bike as an excuse to read on for hours each day. But we knew it couldn’t last. I was running out of clean clothes and I had stopped doing my daily walk.

I love you guys in Blogland. It’s a wrench to pull myself away. But I have to do other things in my life too. So, I will still check in on you from time to time, just not as often as I once did. You didn’t do anything wrong to drive me away I just got tired of looking at the dishes and laundry pile up around me while I sat around reading your blogs. It could only last so long.

See you later. Lady Euphoria

On Who is that in the Lavender and Lace?:

Lets see, I’m back to knitting mittens for the homeless. There is house cleaning and shopping going on. And the shopping is more restocking than anything else.

I did go to the thrift store. I’m on the hunt for a dress and clothing for my daughters wedding in August. The colors she has for the wedding are not my colors so I will probably never wear it again. Nor is anything about this wedding my style.

Don’t get me wrong here. I love my daughter and I’m happy to do it her way. I just don’t have anything close to her modern style, natural, neutral, type thing going on in my closet.

I’m frugal. There I said it. I like to get my money’s worth out of the things I purchase. So though I want to look good and yet not steal the show from my daughter, I have the need to not break the bank on a dress that I won’t wear again.

Any other wedding and I’d either just be myself or borrow a dress but this is my daughter here. All black is out and will not be seen for days at this event. And I’m not free to do the lavender and lace thing either. All my pretty Victorian things will be staying home too. My wings are not allowed or my clunky boots.

This wedding is a long weekend affair, three days of meet and greet, at a retreat center/ organic farm out of state. Relaxed and laid back for the guests but with the self imposed freaky ban in place, not my thing at all. I just may have to buy casual clothes for this thing.

So I went to the thrift store and bought some light colored flowing skirts and matching cool cotton blouses and a few fifty’s style cotton dresses with the buttons down the front. (At least I can make them over to a Stevie Nicks thing afterwards and fifty’s goth is cool.) This shopping of course induced a quick trip to the craft store to buy some yarn. You know I’m gonna’ need a new shawl or two for this.

Do you think I can hide a small pair of wings on the back of a corset under my clothing to get to keep a piece of myself in a daughters wedding world?

On Silent Poetry Day:

Today is the silent poetry reading day and I was invited to join by Knotty Mouse this year. The mogs blog is hosting this year I think. But even if it is not feel free to join in today and post poetry today. And when you are done leave a comment on here or Knotty Mouse or The Mogs and let one of us know so we can all find your poem and read it.

Here is my bit of poetry:

Box of Memories and Dreams

By Lady Euphoria Deathwatch


There is a box inside my house,
that’s full of this and that.
A sweater chain, small knight on horse,
a pin made for a hat.

A fan, a screw, a safety pin,
A picture of a dog,
It has a few old bits and bobs,
a penny and a frog.

Some rings and things, a garter hook,
a red fish and a shell,
A long forgotten dream of things,
and needed things as well.

To fix a shirt, mend a coat
or pretty up a skirt.
A bit of color, pomp or dash,
and maybe even flirt.

My mom or grandma had these things,
collection of old stuff.
There still are hopes and new ideas,
all hiding in the fluff.

I pull out one or more if need,
the little things inside.
The bits and bobs of lifetimes past,
Now here they do abide.

A bathroom token, set of dice,
And keys that have no locks,
But mostly there are buttons there
inside my button box.

Edit:
Mouse got back to me and said The Mog is where you want to make a comment letting them know you have posted a poem.

On Umbrella Ribs and String:

A few years ago I bought myself an old parasol. The fabric was all dry rotted and falling apart at the folds and seams. I removed the old tattered fabric with its lace inserts and laid it out to measure. I didn’t find any comparable fabric so I put it aside until I could decide what I wanted to do. This was before the breast cancer and so it got put away for another day and pretty much forgotten.

Knotty Mouse had been over to my story blog and commented on the plain parasol (Yes, that is a plain black parasol. It does not repel water. Rain comes through it in fact.) that I used in the cemetery picture there and she told me that Knitty had a knitted parasol pattern there. I didn’t want to work on all those seams and since I wanted something lacy I didn’t want the bulk either.

I was intrigued and set to work in the round. I wanted something a little more lacy so even though I started with size US 5 needles I soon was using US 10 1/ 2 after a few up sizings rows. The ribs are 25 inches long so it is a good size.















It is Lily, Sugar and Cream Cotton in black with a simple ‘V‘ shaped ‘yarn over/ knit two together’ in the stockinet to give it a lacier look. I have a bit of black strapping on the edge and I’m still sewing it in place. I needed it to have something more substantial to sew the points onto the umbrella frame. And I’m still sewing and tying it down to the ribs.

It took a few tries. The first was too big and sagged between the ribs. The second try had to be frogged in a few places too. But all together I think it turned out well and I like the dappled shade it will make. So thank you Knotty Mouse for reminding me I had an umbrella frame with a beautiful handle waiting to be recovered and turned back into a pretty parasol again.















Part of me wants to add a bit of fringe to the edge or maybe just a tassel to the handle. What do you think?