~::gifts, prizes, surprises and delights ::~

First: Kathy Dally, our resident caterer, brought me this little package for my birthday. It wasn’t my birthday—she was a month ahead.  But it was Easter.  And besides, I will accept  brilliant gifts pretty much any time, any day, any month.  But isn’t this so cool?  A sculptured bread chicken with herbal embellishment.  Ok. I ate the mama chicken.  but I still have the rooster. I couldn’t eat him. I loved him too much. The eggs were relief dyed; herbs tied to them.

Self portrait with following horse.  We were on our way to the grass.

Same horse, no longer following. I shot this with the phone.  He was having a hissy fit.  The cool bit is that the only thing actually in focus here is that rear left hoof.

Did I show you this?  Moon over the mountain.

The flowers Chels’ mom sent me.  They were a thank-you-for-taking-care-of-her. But really, I should have been the one sending the thank you.  Chelsea’s a great girl.

My little Easter basket. Mostly stuff you’ve seen before. But it all makes me so happy.  Bloom’s blue bird. I didn’t make the plastic egg.  And I added the Myrtle and Eunice chicks – which I loved in theory, but adored once I made them.

THEN: I won a giveaway.  Over at Color Me happy, Lynda is busy turning things colors.  She gave away this lovely packet of her dyed wool felt, topped off by a caned button.  The funnest thing about it was meeting her.

Delicious color sandwich.

Hereby hangs a tale: when I was at university, we stage-actor types fell in love with the 1930s and 40s. Specifically, with the clothes.  The wide legged, flowing, high-waisted pants.  The cool vests.  I’d done a little knitting in my life – mostly potholders.  So I figured I could make up an argyle vest as I went.  And I did.  I made if for this boy I liked. I don’t have a picture of that one. This one, I was making for myself.  But I quit in the middle

This piece of it went into a storage box and lived there in my garage for some twenty years, rediscovered from time to time.  Then, one day, Cam was going on a scout camping trip, so he went to the garage loft to find his fabulous camping backpack and one of our lovely high-class sleeping bags. But he couldn’t find the stuff.  So I went out there to look—and it was so weird.  The second I got to the top of the stairs, I knew something was wrong.  Things were – just not right. And the camping stuff was nowhere to be found.

Turns out that a scary guy who was secretly (and illegally) camped in the bracken along the river path on the other side of the river had been scavenging through our neighborhood late at night – for weeks.  In fact, we’d heard him the night before during a late night bathroom break.  Heard a strange sound outside, like someone had tripped over the strange metal-sculpture horned frog that lives on our back porch.  The next day, we found  our rather lethal weed-digging tool on the ground – in the oddest place. Luckily, we hadn’t let the dogs out, or he’d have killed them with it.

We had neighbors whose tools had been stolen from their trucks.  People who’d lost bicycles.  And when we checked our garage (it was the one night we’d forgotten to lock it), we realized that a bunch of small things were missing.

It was when Cam came home from his trip that we found out the people three doors down had caught a guy just climbing out of the large camping trailer they kept in their backyard.  “Uhh,” the guy said, once confronted.  “I lost fifty bucks.  I thought it might be in here.”  So our neighbor called the police who came and found the guy in his ratty little camping place.  They confiscated a whole array of things, including a hookah, a child’s bike, my son’s backpack, our sleeping bags.

We’d called the police, too.  And they came out – but they wouldn’t even dust for fingerprints.  Later that day, the policeman called us and asked us to come down and see if some of the stuff the man’d had might be ours.  First time I’d been in an evidence room. Officer Luthy brought out the sleeping bag and Cam’s backpack and began taking things out of the pack.  First, that guy’s absolutely filthy denim shorts (which literally could have stood by themselves) then our Dremel tool case – THEN THIS PIECE OF VEST.  ????????

He’d gone through all our storage, and he’d taken this unfinished, ancient piece of my knitting.  HOW WEIRD IS THAT?  So we got it all back, but I had to wash everything with hot water and disinfectant about five times before I could touch any of it.

That was before I knew about felting.  In fact, it happened about ten years ago, but it was just the other day when I came across this thing again and realized that all that carry-over yarn on the back side was now one solid mass.  And that’s the end of the story. Never saw the guy.  Never happened again (knocking on wood).  And this post is getting WAY longer than I’d planned.

Sweater I made for myself about twenty years ago (sheesh).  I just counted the stitches in one of my Dale of Norway sweaters and made the pattern up as I went.  See?  If there’s nobody around to tell you you can’t do something, you can do very surprising things.  Only problem was, I should have used needles two sizes up.  It came out just a little too small.  So Gin, the twelve year old, was the person who got to wear it.

Cammon, looking rowdy and redneck.  He destroyed his cute little truck, pulling his film equipment trailer through the west desert.  So he found this new old truck, just the right size.

The boys, getting ready for a run up the canyon.  That strap around Cam’s arm is his heart-rate monitor.

Cam’s robots.  He loves making toys, and he’s been fascinated by making them out of cardboard.

Would you buy these on Etsy?

The other son, getting ready for a bike ride.

Are you still with me?

Donna sent me these guys in January (I said I was behind).  Handmade with love and cleverness.

A whole family of deer.

And a kit so I could make them myself.  (Wait till you get here and get hugged, girl!)

Next to the last bit.  This should actually be about four blogs, but I can’t do that.  The point of this picture is the sweet, loving little dog.  See how he puts his head back and looks lovingly into my eyes?  The cutest little dog ever.

ya think?

And last of all, a dear friend sent me a hat.  A hat she’d made.  A gorgeous, wonderful hat. And she sent Rachel gloves (same series of adjectives).  She’s a wonderful person, just an amazing human being.

Now, I always hate to put pictures of myself up here because the face no longer matches the voice.  And see those wrinkles?  Holy cats.

But I went inside after we’d taken these shots and messed around in front of the mirror, and I can honestly say that every one of those wrinkles is part of my smile.  I tried frowning, and really, the wrinkles didn’t fit the frowns.  Or even an anger face.  Maybe pain would fit? But I haven’t had that much of it.  “Pained” as in raising children, yes.  Anyway,  for the first time, I didn’t mind the lines on my face.  And I thought maybe I’m not such an awful person after-all.

I just wish we didn’t have to age.  I wish we’d just go on, looking like ourselves till one day just – poof.  Drop and stop.

So I’m sharing better shots of the hat.  Because it deserves that.  My beautiful Gin in the beautiful, magnificent hat.

I adore this girl.  And this is the end.