It’s Tuesday, so that must mean…

 1)  I’m watching House.  Which I am.  I love Hugh Laurie.  I have a fascination with all things English.  Sometimes I think I should have been born English.  How it is that I ended up being born in Wyoming I’ll never understand.

2) I’m eating what turned out to good great chipotle chili.  One of my cardinal rules of chili is that you should never, ever use chili powder or cayenne powder.  Real peppers are crucial to real chili.  Beer is also a good addition - in this case Rogue Dead Guy Ale as a small tribute to the recent Dia de los Muertos.  Can you tell I’m from Texas?  Sheesh - chilis, beer, chili…

You should also read the directions before using a new appliance.  I make it a practice never to read the directions.  As a result, I did not know that you don’t add extra liquid when you cook in a crock pot.  Hence, this chili was finished on the stove.  Meanwhile, I left it on today when I was at work, and lived in total fear the entire day that my house had burned down.  Paranoid much?

3)  I’m also getting a little nervous - in this case, about submitting anything to my holiday crochet along because I’m such a freakin’ slow crocheter.  Nevertheless, the stripes are finished on one present - a scarf - but this is only partially comforting since it’s supposed to be plaid, not striped.  Finishing would be greatly helped if I was certain about  how to crochet in a plaid, but I’m still experimenting, you see.

In closing, I’ll say that kitty Callie’s now consenting to cuddle with her new people.  She only bites sometimes.

Costumes! Must be Halloween…

So of course it’s Halloween, and I like Halloween, and I’m going to wander about a bit tonight and see at what everyone else came up with.

Meanwhile, I came up with a couple of things for us here at my house. First me - I’m not going to bother saying what I am, because if it’s not obvious I really, really failed. Actually, I take that back. I’m specifically a North American seven-spot ladybug. See? I totally lucked out on finding a sparkly red felt remnant for the wings. I like the twisty antennae and stuff too. And I have a veil. ‘Cause ladybugs are ladies

Also, I have pets. 2 cats and a dog. Pets need costumes too, right? At least I was thinking that they did, but I had nothing. No ideas, and really, no time either, but I still felt like something was missing from Halloween if at least one of my babies didn’t have something to wear.

So when I found this costume at Curbly I thought it was awesome and decided to crochet very, very quickly. That was two days ago. Only one cat and the dog have costumes, because neither of them are possessed of much dignity. The older cat has excessive amounts of dignity and Very Large Claws, and I don’t think he’d like having a costume.

So, I present Audrey Corn (poor little thing just had teeth extracted today - hence the bleary eyes - but she’s still game) and Callie Corn! They managed to keep the costumes on for at least 2 minutes.

Happy Halloween y’all! Trick or Treat!

Mabel and The Cat in the Hat

Many people live near their extended relatives while growing up. I was not one of those people. I lived near none of my extended family and traveled to see them about twice a year. What I did have was a next–door neighbor named Mabel Mattingly, who was a pretty darn crafty lady. She was in many ways my stand-in grandmother and gave me a deep appreciation for things done by hand.

Mabel made me my first quilt, which I will show you all sometime. Should I have children, that quilt and its matching pillow is my daughter’s. Mabel also made awesome apple turnovers, the like of which I’ve never had again. She provided our house with various jellies and jams for all the years I was growing up in that house. She used to go to Louisiana to visit her family and pick mayhaws and come back and make ‘em into jelly. Mmmmm. She also had a big garden and taught me how to garden as well. I had a postage-sized plot out back that gave me great joy. She canned a lot of vegetables- she is the reason I adore pickled okra today.

One of the major things that Mabel did was make ceramics. She was not a wheel potter, she was a ceramicist; she used molds. She had hundreds of molds on shelves in the garage, all tied up or wrapped with giant rubber bands.  She had a big, deep kiln by the door to the kitchen, so deep that my small self couldn’t reach the bottom. She made me various things over the years, and I have 2 of them - a little turtle to put plants in, and a black witch hat. I also have a very pathetic vase she made with me - it’s the paint job that’s mostly pathetic. Mabel was an excellent painter - her colors were even and her finishes glossy. My witch hat isn’t very complicated, but some of the paint jobs she did were really intricate.

Hope you enjoy the little show that my kitten Callie put on with the hat that Mabel made me. Although I don’t know what happened to Mabel after she moved away, I always feel big warm fuzzies for her whenever I get out her handicrafts and remember the things she taught me to love.