Tuesday, November 27th

I still can't believe how fast this part of the year goes. It's almost December. I have knitting to finish. Oh noooooo! Knit, Joan, Knit. I finished these fingerless mitts for my mother-in-law (they haven't been finished off yet, hence the yarn hanging in case a smarty pants was going to comment, not that I know any smart pantses, but you never know), and I've started a scarf to match, but I'm late because her birthday is this weekend and I'm not sure I like the scarf so I may have to rip and start over. Not the first time for a belated gift - they are fun because when the gifts stop coming, there's another. This is the yarn I used for my felted hat, minus the mohair.

We turned the TV around so we could watch from our chairs that are next to the fireplace in the living room because we are California Weather Wimps and when it gets chilly, we get cold. Even Cinders was enjoying the fireplace.

Cinders and Alex were sitting on top of electronics in the office. The electronics are not on, so there isn't any heat being generated. You can't really see the size differential, but Alex is much bigger than Cinders, and his fur is magnificent. She is matted, and won't let us comb or brush her, but she's still soft where she isn't matted, and not bad for a 17 year old cat.

Of course that is Alex on the right. To get an even better idea of how magnificent his fur is, I put his toy mouse on him and you can see how far it goes because his fur is so plush.
Mowry has beautiful fur, too, but being a short-haired cat, when I put a mouse on his fur, it didn't sink in at all. It's not the same mousey, but that doesn't matter. Mow Mow is sleeping behind my monitor as I type, but you've seen enough pictures of that for now!

Thanksgiving and the Friday After

We went to Will's cousins' for Thanksgiving. The food was delicious. It was an interesting evening. You know how families can be. I'm just glad Thanksgiving isn't a religious holiday. We have much to be thankful for, but it is a holiday about settling in America. Everyone who lives in America can celebrate, regardless of what they believe for religion.

The view from their house is incredible. You can see right across the bay to where we live. Yes, that's the moon out there, and no, I didn't take any pictures of the people. You can't really tell in the photo, but that's Fremont just across the bay from Portola Valley where the cousins live.Then tonight Ken and Diann and our former neighbor Heather and her five year old son and her parents and a friend of hers came over for a few quick snacks and then we went to the Tree Lighting and Holiday Parade down Niles Blvd. I made turkey sandwiches, we had cookies leftover from last night, I had apples (that I forgot about so we schlepped them to the parade in a backpack and then we schlepped them home), and Heather brought pumpkin pie made by her aunt for Thanksgiving that we had after the parade back at our house. Her aunt made 4 pies for 9 people, so she was glad to bring it and get rid of one. It was very good!

We probably wouldn't have gone if we couldn't walk from our house since driving and parking can be a big hassle. (Probably? We've lived in Fremont for 8 years and never went). Last year we had a 90th birthday party to attend on parade night, but this year we went and it was really fun! We thought it might be VERY cold, but we were better prepared than for the Train of Lights and it wasn't as cold.

Our neighbors had a float, and their son was juggling fire sticks. http://kandktwirl.com./

Where else but in Niles can you watch the float all it up being pushed home down the street after the parade?

Who needs the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade? We have the Niles parade, complete with ballons and all.

Wednesday Before Thanksgiving

It's almost Thanksgiving. Then comes "Black Friday" - the day that stores open as early as 4 am for special sales. I admit it - we went to Target one year with my niece at 6 am when visiting my sister in Orange County and it was then we decided never again. It wasn't worth it. OK, we went back the next year, but NOT at 6 am. This year we'll be at Trader Joe's for grocery shopping, on Friday, but also not at 6 am.



The pictures above and below are of the Niles Canyon Railway train of lights coming into Niles. It's decorated for Christmas inside and out and is an annual fundraiser for the NCR (http://www.ncry.org/) that is always a fast sellout. Since we volunteered on a few Sundays to help out when the train was in town, we were invited to a free test train ride last night.
The only problem was that it was cold for us California Weather Wimps. People kept walking thru the car leaving the door to the outside open. On the ride back from Sunol to Niles we found a different car that had been for a private party that was now done, so there was some food and the car was warmer.
Below is Niles Blvd. in Niles from the train. You can't appreciate how nice it looks from this picture, but I had to include it. It looks like a train set town.
Wow - this looks interesting. Can I help? What is it you are doing here anyway? Meow.

I see now, you're blocking a vest inside out. Hmmm, all those little strings (I guess you call it yarn) are very interesting to a cat, you know.
I finished my sock FINALLY. After a few too many ripouts and change of needles size, and everything else that almost caused me to give up, I ran out of yarn. Had I known, I would have made the calf part smaller, but I'm not about to rip again, so I used some black contrasting yarn for the toe. It looks funky and is bigger than my first sock, but it fit when I tried it on, so now I just have to make another one just like it!
We had two items to return to Costco and we love their apple pie - it's the best value ($8.99 for a HUGE pie - see the bowls and travel coffe mug for size), comes right out of their oven, and tastes delicious. It looks even better when it's out of the box! I cook, but I don't bake so I had to buy a pie.


I know what you're thinking - COSTCO??? Didn't she have "Costco Meltdown" just last week? We got there at 9:30 am because they open for business card holders at 10:00 am. We parked next to some big Chevy Tahoe that made shade for us, and waited a few minutes.


I thought Costco would be like Southwest Airlines (see prior blogs!) and not open one second before 10:00 am, but I was pleasantly surprised and wrong. They let us in about 14 minutes BEFORE 10! Will went to the return line, and I went straight for the bakery with all the other shoppers. They had pecan pie (neither of us like that), pumpkin pie (mmmmm, but someone else is baking a pumpkin pie) and Apple Pie. I also found a few other things we needed, and we were out of the store a few minutes before 10. We were on our way home by 10:05 am.


This is what I needed - an EXTREMELY positive Costco experience after the EXTREMELY sucky one last week. But I know not to get too excited as it could be bad any time again and maybe I should stick by my suggestion to not go to any Costco until January 2008! Why press my luck!


HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all! Let's all remember the things we have to be thankful for.

(I wish the spaces between paragraphs weren't so funky when this blog posts! The formatting looks fine before I hit "publish post")

Knitting and Cats and Things

Since Niles began as a movie town with Charlie Chaplin movies being filmed in Niles Canyon, we even have a Niles sign, much like the Hollywood sign, only better because it's not in Hollywood, it's in Niles!
Yesterday we did some yard work, cleaning out of drawers and garage boxes, etc. I was looking for a small day timer type of binder that had a calendar, address book, etc. from years ago, and a larger one that I had used a few years later. I'm trying to figure out what I want to use in 2008. I found the contents of the small binder, so I must have discarded the actual binder. I never did find the larger one. BUT...we got rid of a few boxes from when we moved, so that is good.

Today it is a little foggy and they say it may rain a little, they being the weather folks. Actually, the rain may come tomorrow morning, just about when I take the train, the light rail and then a three block walk to a client in Mountain View. But with an umbrella and one of my new felted hats, I should be ok. Remember, only the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz melts in the rain. although the way people dash to get out of the rain, you'd think otherwise. Of course no one wants to get soggy wet.

My friend who doesn't read this blog, had to put down one of her 3 cats because he was suffering from renal failure. He was only about 12 years old, and their favorite. While you can't acknowledge a favorite kid, you can have a favorite pet. I don't have a picture of Kyle, but he was a beautiful orange/buff male. Every time I hear a story like this, it makes me sad, but Kyle had a good life with them and was a lucky cat. She told me he's with Dave now, but he's also with Murphy, P.D., Sylvia, Maya, and a host of other cats I've known who are now gone. While they have shorter lifespans than we do, we certainly can love kitties and give them good lives while they are here with us. Kyle was one of the lucky ones, as were the others mentioned here.

I'm close to finishing my blue and green sock (finally, after 3 or was it 4 rips) but I'm running out of yarn. Yes, I have another ball just like this, but that's for the other sock. I would have knitted fewer rows at the beginning had I known, but math isn't my thing, so I didn't even think about it, especially since I've had a fair amount of yarn left over from the two previous sock sets I've made. Diann to the rescue - she may have some lefotver yarn that I can use to just finish off the toes, and yes, I'll make them the same to match. OR, she can advise me what to buy to finish off the toes. I just want to finish this sock - so I can start its mate, and hopefully not have as much trouble with that one as I did with this one!

I also finished one fingerless mitt. I was thinking these could be a good present for someone, but I needed to experiment on myself first. PLUS, it is the yarn (minus the mohair) that I used for my blue felted hat. I'm not crazy about the shape, but it fits me. If I make them for others, I'll need to make them a few stitches larger. I even added a few stitches from the instructions. It's that gauge thing I can't seem to master yet.

A blog with pictures is more interesting than one without, so here is Niles Blvd. then (1912)....and Niles Blvd. now....

Costco

I dropped Will off at a prospective client meeting in Santa Clara, and then I went to the Costco in Sunnyvale. I shouldn't be allowed to go to Costco alone. By alone I mean without Will since you can't even find an aisle for one second that you'd be alone in.

Who knew at 11:00 am on a Thursday it would be so bad? They finally opened more registers but too late to be of any help to me. But they DID have SF Bay Decaf French Roast Coffee, so it was almost worth it. We once bought about 10 bags of this coffee when we were visiting friends in Reno. We stopped by a Costco just for kicks, and they had this coffee. It's really good, and it's cheaper than buying it anywhere else.What a pit Costco was. Yuck. It's bad enough going to Silicon Valley - the only way to do that is when I can leave my car at home and take the ACE train (http://www.acerail.com/), but going to a Costco in the Silicon Valley? What was I thinking? I will do my best to stay away until January 2nd! What's worse than a crowded Costco in Fremont? A crowded Costco in Silicon Valley. Yuck. But I did manage to get what I needed and to spend almost $150. I bought:

1. 2 bags of this coffee (the van smelled great on the drive home)

2. A pair of pants for me for under $10

3. A Hawaiian style shirt and nice pants for Will

4. Two bath towels for Kathryn

5. Dried blueberries

6. 3 big boxes of cereal

7. A big container of grapes

8. Two containers of cat litter (one didn't have a top when I got to the register, but rather than carry the 30-lb. jug while a nice lady watched my basket, I just took a lid off another one. That's probably what happened to mine, anyway).

9. A flannel shirt for my dad

Now I put the receipt somewhere, but I am notorious for losing receipts and I can't find it at the moment, but I think it's still in the van. I'm also notorious for finding the receipt after looking EVERYWHERE for it!

I found a deal at http://www.slickdeals.net/ where I could get $10 off and free shipping if I used Paypal at http://www.beauty.com/, but it's also good on http://www.drugstore.com/ so I found $28.50 worth of things I needed at decent prices, including Mrs. Meyer's lavender shower cleaner, Tums, Dove Hairspray, and a few others things for $18.50 and free shipping. AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO BRAVE A BUSY, NUTTY STORE LIKE COSTCO to get it because it was delivered to me! FREE -no shipping! It was a one-shot deal. Now you can get $10 off and free shipping if you spend $49, but I didn't NEED to spend $49.

So that is my shopping experience for today. I hope I don't have much more holiday shipping to do because I HATE shopping when everyone else is out there shopping!

We walked downtown and I wore my new hat and went to the LYS where I bought the yarn. The sample that made me want to knit this hat was really different. The brim was much bigger and mine didn't felt as much - you can still see some stitches, but I love my hat. And it's warm. Will took a picture of me in my hat, and I took a picture of some fingerless mitts I'm making with the leftover yarn but I can't seem to add these pictures to this post, so maybe tomorrow.

Wednesday is Girl Night

Will has band practice on Wednesdays, so it's girl night for me. Ok, so I'm not really a "girl" , but so what. That means lots of HGTV and knitting and whatever. He used to play on Mondays, but Wednesdays are actually better.

I watched "House Hunters" - if it's scripted then the writers suck - can't they think of anything else but "it's small" (you came from a one bedroom apartment), "it's so outdated" (think retro), or "we can have our coffee on the back deck" (you won't). And then they end up buying one of the houses they criticized. I also watched "Designed to Sell" and "Get it Sold". "Get it Sold" is the only one who is honest and in their description it says "staging and price reduction" since that is all I can determine that realtors to do "market" properties. In my estimation this is not marketing.

And while fixing up a house to sell it (de-clutter, paint, etc.) is prudent, staging implies that buyers are stupid and we must do things to fool them. I was a buyer and I was anything but stupid. I bought the unstaged house with LOL furnishings (that's the original "little old lady" LOL). Maybe it was poor staging, but the same floor plan a few blocks away had two dining areas next to each other and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to use the rooms. I'm still at a loss as to how the buyers would get confused when looking at our bedroom when it had a bed in it, but not when we moved our furniture out and the realtor put in a rocking chair and a teddy bear. Wouldn't THAT be confusing?

I also watched Jeopardy and knitted. I worked on my third sock - this one's been ripped out about 3 or 4 times, I've lost count.

First it was too big, then it was too small and now I think it will work. I'm wearing the first sock I made in this picture. I also worked on some fingerless mitts. I had to rip out what I did and add 4 stitches, and I took a picture but it came out blurry, so it's not posted. It's out of the blue yarn Iused for my blue hat (minus the mohair). I really like the feel of this yarn, and I think it's on sale at my LYS so I need to check that out this weekend and maybe get some more. These are fast, easy knits for gifts.

I had no cat company at all. It was every cat in its place. They have special preferred spots. That's Mowry on the cat bed which is on our bed.

That's Alex on the cat bed on the couch in the spare bedroom.And that's Cinders on top of a toilet seat cover which is on top of a stool that is on top of Will's desk behind his monitor.

Working at Night After Work

I have a project for a client who didn't know for certain when they'd need it, and since they sent me home with a laptop and I can work from home, I planned to do it at night. What I didn't know was that it would take so long. It took about an hour and a half to back up the database, and it's not a very big database. Imagine if it was a large, active client like some of the ones I go to? I can't complain because I changed into my jammies and I'm watching TV as I'm doing this, but it's a lot of "hurry up and wait". I need to process a reverse split (if you don't know what that is, you don't care, trust me) and then do a recon and send the file to E*Trade so employees can see their stock tomorrow when the market opens at 6:30 am. I was told that some people who are "higher up" asked about their stock today. You know what? I don't care if they are "higher up". If an employee wants to see their stock, they should all be able to see it, whether they are "higher up" or not. That always gets my dander up.

I was in SF today and it was a beautiful day.

No pictures tonight. I'm watching Home and Garden TV and watching the process go very
S L O W L Y . As long as it doesn't get hung up, I can't complain.

Sunday 11-11-07

If you are into sevens and elevens, this is your day! It's Sunday and while it rained a lot starting yesterday afternoon and much of the night, the gray at the beginning of the day turned into a beautiful, cloudless fall day.

Diann and I felted our hats. She's right - felting is cool. Here are my hats before felting. Real "Joan" colors.

Here is Diann's hat before felting. Definitely Diann colors.

Checking on my hat while it's washing:

After felting but before shaping:

Here are my hats shaped and drying:

And I am doing the "model pose" with my pink hat:

It's like magic!

Saturday - lots of errands and then rain!

Sunrise this morning was beautiful!

I'll say it again...we really lucked out with the weather when my parents visited last weekend. Perhaps they brought the 75 degree temps with them from LA.

This morning we went to:

- a garage sale

- a flea market at the local college (see photos below)

- Kohl's (because they sent $10 gift cards in the mail, but they'd better get more prepared for the holiday shopping season because most shoppers didn't know how to get in one line and then proceed to the next available register)

- Half-Price Books (which used to be so convenient and close)

- Linens 'n Things (for one gift, but found another instead)

- Jo Anne's Fabrics (nothing I wanted)

- Trader Joe's

- a jewelry store (where I finally got batteries in two watches that I stopped wearing about two years ago when the batteries quit)

and then finally H O M E. Just in time because then it rained.

We passed by the farm near where we used to live. Mr. Guardino owns the property. He's in his late 80s and we know the farm will become housing once his heirs take over. Our city council already designated it as "high density housing" so if (make that "when") someone builds on it, it must be high density housing. I once wrote him a letter thanking him for the farm.

The trees are on the Ohlone College property. Even when the flea market doesn't have anything of interest to us, it's still a beautiful site.

This looks like it was probably an orchard at one time, and you can see the big houses peeking thru. This is just north of the campus.

Look how these trees lean? I was glad I had my camera with me today. Sometimes I think about bringing it, but this time I did bring it!

When Will bought me a digital camera for a present several years ago, I didn't think I'd use it. He knew I would. I take pictures of EVERYTHING, and those that don't make the cut get deleted. I was in the passenger seat, not driving.This is our first fireplace fire of fall 2007.

Last weekend we rearranged the TV room so we could fit two extra chairs for my parents, but this week the bar stools are back (holding clean and folded laundry waiting to be put away) and you can see the pillow and throw on my recliner, with the TV turned around so we can be in the living room with the fireplace and still watch TV.

Alex is so tall he stood next to my desk and put his front paws on it. Then he left, and with a running leap, he jumped up and is sitting behind my monitor where I don't think he's ever been. This has been a favorite spot of Mowry's, but Mowry is much smaller. Does he look happy? Well, it's hard to tell with Alex, but I think he's very happy.

TGIF November 9th, 2007

Is it really November 9th already? This is the time of year that seems to fly by. I'm not a fan of the holiday season, especially when we get Christmas commercials from our retails friends this early. I don't want to hear Christmas carols this early (I haven't yet) and I'm not sure I need to see Christmas items in the store yet, UNLESS it's a store that sells things to make, then we need them out early, but if it's Christmas decorations, etc., it's too damned early.

Nordstrom used to be the only store who put an ad in the newspaper around Thanksgiving telling readers they want their employees to enjoy the holiday and will put out Christmas merchandise after Thanksgiving. I don't know if they still do that, but hooray for Nordstrom. I may have even posted something like this before because it really annoys me to see Christmas in October. It's just greed. Why is a holiday season unsuccessful if sales didn't far surpass last year's sales? At least wait until after Halloween. Unless you're a craft supply store. Sheesh, why don't some stores just have Christmas stuff out all year. And by the way, not everyone celebrates Christmas.



This weekend we have to cut and trim things growing out front of our house. The picture above is from last year with the sale pending sign - escrow closed on October 6, 2006, so it was before that. Notice how short the bushes are.

The pictures below were taken today. The plant between the two windows up front and the plant next to the sale pending sign above and the plants to the right of the driveway have grown and need some trimming!

It's rare, but we occasionally get all 3 cats in the same place, and this time they are in 3 tiers:

Curious Mowry looking out the window on top, lazy boy Alex in the middle, and old Cinders all curled up and sleeping below. Alex is doing so well, and we are crossing our fingers that that continues. Doesn't he look happy here with his eyes closed on the cat cushion?

Mowry has been sleeping on my chair when I'm not here, but yesterday I came home and found Alex on my chair. This afternoon I finished up early at a client's office and was able to beat the traffic. That doesn't mean I didn't still encounter stupid, unsafe drivers, like the man who was in the right lane on the Dumbarton Bridge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbarton_Bridge_(California) until he encountered a very slow moving truck (that's what the right lane is for, dummy man) and he signaled and got into my lane, but I had to break in order for him to get there since there wasn't room in the lane for both of us), but there were fewer cars at that hour, and maybe fewer jerks.

When I came home and got onto my computer, instead of finding Mowry on my chair, he joined me for a few minutes on the desk. I happened to have a picture on my screen of my blue hat that is now completed, and that I am going to felt this weekend.

My new haircut. It was getting a little too long before.

Have a nice weekend!