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Thanksgiving Dinner wasn't THAT bad. It wasn't great either. First off we were in a separate room from everyone else. YEA!! That meant we could talk GUNS! a little and not cause some folks (staff and residents alike) to tip over with horror.

The food was interesting and tasted overall better than expected: a smallish tossed salad with not much GREEN lettuce (the white parts had brownish edges like old lettuce will get) with little piles of toppings around it — a pile of chopped black olives (ICK!), three small cherry tomatoes, a HUGE slice of cucumber (the thing was probably 2" x 4") and a scattering of thinly sliced red onion. The actual dinner: ONE smallish slice of white meat turkey with OK gravy, a literal teaspoon of cranberry sauce in a pill cup (pretty good—I wanted more), an ice cream scoop of dressing, and an ice cream scoop of green bean casserole (not bad but they were rounded just like a scoop of ice cream — little hay mounds of food), and a hefty serving (the most of anything on the place) of sweet potatoes sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar. (UGH!!) For dessert they gave us a whole pumpkin pie and a can of Redi-Whip which we took back to my CIL's apartment. The pie was pretty good.

As much as I vented here about the food and the whole Thanksgiving thing this year, it was OK. I also understand that the portions and food choices are for their paying residents not for the non-paying guests, even though I'm sure my CIL paid for the extra meals. The main thing was that CIL did Thanksgiving the way she wanted, at her place to show off her family. I think she was pleased and had a good time.

We're going to my SIL's Sunday and have Thanksgiving dinner again with our family foods. Everybody's happy. I'm bringing all my current and recent current knitting and we're bringing all the gun and accessory purchases they haven't seen.


Today I decided to block the Dr Who Scarf. The weather was sunny, mid 60's and a light breeze. It was great. We had an old front door screen that I laid out on the picnic table. As the sun is so low in the south and we have large shadow casting trees now, I kept having to move the table around to keep it in the sun. By mid-afternoon, the scarf was almost dry so I moved it and the screen to the patio and it finished up there.

On Mr WK's Twin Ribbed Sock, not only has the leg been finished and the heel been turned but I've picked up all the gusset stitches and have the establishing foot round knit. Now it's ready for some mindless knitting. I will be putting a matching light gray stripe in the foot, too.

And the Red Lace Scarf. As noted in a previous post, I'm on row 117. It's a slow knit, but I'm not in any hurry to git her done. I'm very pleased with how it's turning out.

I also took photos today of the finished Christmas Hey! Hey! We're the Monkees socks. They'll have their own post with photos and all the info soon.

blogging to: a quiet house

reading: A Certain Justice by P D James (an Adam Dalgliesh mystery)
and
Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot: "It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you." ~ Author unknown, sometimes attributed to M. Grundler

In The Mood

Mr WK's first Twin Rib sock is just flying. I've around 15 more rounds to knit and the leg will be done. As I mentioned in my last post, I did put an 11 round band of the light gray in about the middle of the leg. I got lazy and didn't do any fancy light and dark gray striping with it. Mr WK likes it and that's what matters.

I've also been working on the Red Lace Scarf. It's about 14" long unblocked. I've just over seven 16 row pattern repeats complete. Now that it's got some measurable length to it, I can speculate with a spreadsheet how many rows / pattern repeats I have until I'm done. Each pattern repeat is around 1¾" long. I figure the unblocked scarf will be 60" long. I may go longer, I'll see when I get there. The recipient is the kind of person who would wear the scarf indoors as a decoration not just outside as warmth. Anyway, if I stick to a 60" unblocked length, I've only 46" more inches to knit or around 420 more rows!!! And that means the scarf is around 20% complete. So. There.


I was downtown this morning to look for grip tape at a skateboard shop. None of the gun shops around here carry it. Anyway, I told the young lady at the shop I wanted only a few inches but if I had to buy a whole sheet I would. She looked a bit puzzled when I said I didn't want it for a skateboard but she didn't ask and I didn't volunteer any information. *I* didn't even call it grip tape, SHE did! She had a 2" x 6" piece of the fine grit black tape she just gave me.

I want to put it on the stock of my carbine where my cheek rests when I shoot with my scope. It'll help me create a more solid muscle memory of where my cheek needs to be each time without having to do the turkey thing with my head.

For the first time in a very, very long time I didn't wait until the week or few days before Christmas to do or start my Christmas shopping. I started today. Usually I wait and do it ALL in one day a few days before Christmas. But I was downtown and saw something for my BIL and while that was being wrapped I found something for my SIL.


This year for Thanksgiving, we're going to my CIL's; the one for whom I knit the Tiger Blue Socks. We've done this in the past and luckily my SIL who is a fabulous cook brings the cooked turkey. Previously, my CIL has had her own place for Thanksgiving. A few years ago she moved into one of those retirement places where you have your own place with a kitchen. You can also eat in the main dining room. She moved back out a couple of months later back to her own place which she had rented out. This past summer she moved back to the retirement place and it looks like it's for good. Anyway, this year she's having Thanksgiving. Not a potluck at her place with SIL bringing a cooked turkey as in the past. No. We're eating the main dining room with the rest of the folks who live there and their guests. None of us could convince her to come to my SIL's for Thanksgiving.

We all understand why she's doing this and I do applaud her for sticking to her guns. But it doesn't make the fact that we're not going to have a just family Thanksgiving any easier to swallow. But there are bright notes. At least three of us will be armed during dinner. None of us has to do any cooking on Wednesday or Thursday. We'll also be home early enough to catch all the Thursday night shooting shows on TV.

My SIL has decided to do a turkey on Saturday and the four of us will prepare and eat all of our traditional Thanksgiving foods. So some cooking on Saturday morning. We'll bring the guns and related toys we've purchased since we saw each other last. BIL will bring out the same and we'll spend the afternoon and probably into the evening talking guns. Heck, we may even decide to go shooting at a local indoor range. Must remember to bring the range bag.

blogging to: Memories 89

reading: Prairie Gothic by J M Hayes (an Sheriff English and Mad Dog mystery)
and
Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot: "We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution." ~ Abraham Lincoln

Happiness Is ...

I showed Mr WK his new sock the other night. At that time I only had the 16 round cuff complete. Now I've knit thirty-five rounds on the leg. He really likes the light gray accents. It's a whopping 4¼" long now. I think the Twin Rib pattern's going to be just fine. It won't be obvious as the leg is a very dark gray which suits Mr WK but it'll be more interesting to knit than just a plain rib where every round is the same which suits the knitter.

To balance out the dark and light gray yarn usage a little, I'm going to put either a wide band (ten rounds, maybe?) or two, four or five round bands of light gray about the middle of each leg. I may do that on the foot, too.

I wove in the ends on the Dr Who Scarf. Up next: washing and lightly blocking to set the stitches; mainly the woven in ends. It gets delivered Thanksgiving Weekend. I hope it's sunny and windy one day next week. After that I still have to do the tassels.


We went to the range today and shot our rifles; mostly frangibles that we reloaded last November. As we were still fairly new to reloading, we find the occasional squib in these "old" reloads. So we are being extra careful and making sure there is a Bang! and an ejected shell for every squeeze of the trigger; which you should do no matter what you shoot, reloads or commercial ammo. We're using our five-round magazines for these as these are all in boxes instead of stripper clips. So far, in the 500 rounds of frangibles we've shot since mid-September we've had two squibs. These were some of our very first rifle reloads. Yes, we reloaded quite a bit of frangible ammo as, at the time, we only had access to a 25 yard indoor range.

Out to 100 yards on a calmish day, frangibles are as good as "regular" lead jacketed, plated or clad cartridges. I've been working on my CQB (close quarters battle) skills; shooting offhand at 25 yards, in the aggressive, progressive stance mostly with my red dot sight. For several weeks I would do good just to get a few rounds on the 8½" x 11" paper target let alone on the M4 zero target silhouettes. The last couple of times, all my rounds were on the paper; some grouped, others fliers.

Today, I shot a nice six-shot group (black circle) with my iron sights; 25 yards, progressive-aggressive stance. I was aiming for the green dot in the black circle. The batteries on my optic were weak and I could barely see the red dot even at it's brightest and largest setting. So I went to iron sights. That's the smallest group I've ever shot standing, holding my carbine in the progressive-aggressive stance. And even better than today's improved accuracy, was how much fun it all was.

blogging to: various YouTube cowboy songs

reading: Murder at the Altar by Veronica Heley (an Ellie Quicke mystery)
and
Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot: "There is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine ... been here 4½ billion years. We've been here, what, a 100,000 years, maybe 200,000. And we've only been engaged in heavy industry a little over 200 years. 200 years versus 4½ billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we're a threat? The planet isn't going away. We are." ~ George Carlin

After All These Years

I miss it almost every year. I've been blogging for four years now. My first post was on Nov 15, 2005. A lot of water under the bridge but not much has changed. I'm not working where I was when I started my blog and neither is Mr WK. The other big change is we got back into shooting, Big Time.

And one more blog note. I've been getting some spam so now, I've activated the word verification for comments.

Well, I am STILL knitting and that's what I did a lot of yesterday and today. I didn't feel like weaving in the ends of the just completed Dr Who Scarf. But I now have a hard deadline for it; Thanksgiving weekend which is just over a week away so I do need to get cracking on those ends and the tassels. Still not wild about the tassels but as I won't have a chance to have the recipient try the scarf on before I attach them, I'll put them on and deal with them later. The recipient can always take them off or give them a haircut.

I did cast on for Mr WK's Twin Rib Sock on Tuesday. I had such success working with the 2.25mm dpns on my Christmas Hey! Hey! It's the Monkees Sock that I decided to give it a go on these. I also decided to try a little corrugated ribbing on the cuff. I cast on with the light gray and used that for the purl stitches and used the dark gray for the knits. I used the same technique that Wendy of Wendy Knits. The four rounds of corrugated ribbing that I did was pretty easy with that technique and everything was roses and daffodils until I realized / remembered that I should have cast on more stitches if I was going to use a smaller needle. When I took the cuff off the needles, it barely fit me.

I cast on with the light gray again and used my regular 2.5mm dpns and switched to the dark gray. I also decided not to use the corrugated ribbing although I loved the effect. I have only four skeins of yarn and it will probably take almost all of them for these socks even without fancy knitting. I will save this technique for another project. So. A dark gray cuff with a light gray border, a dark gray leg and foot with a light gray heel and toe. I "may" put a light gray band in the leg and maybe one in the foot to keep the yarn usage between both colors about even.

I'm making slow progress on the Red Lace Scarf. Six pattern repeats are done. It's still my sofa / comfy chair knitting and reading project, mostly in the evenings.

blogging to: a quiet house

reading: Murder at the Altar by Veronica Heley (an Ellie Quicke mystery)
and
Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot: "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." ~ James Madison

Shopin' the Stash

I'm not necessarily on a stash busting campaign but I do like to use stash yarn whenever possible. For both the current and future Dr Who Scarves it was and will be impossible as I don't have a stash of scarf yarn or miscellaneous wool or acrylic. I do, however, have a quite nice sock yarn stash. Which I delved into today.

I thought I was going to have to make Mr WK's next socks out of blue variegated Trekking XXL yarn. But lo, and behold, I found two skeins of dark gray and two skeins of a light gray sock yarn in my wool sock yarn stash. They are Froehlich Wolle Special Blauband. Click on Fall 2004 color card two and the dark gray is color #5 and the light gray is color #3. My plan is to knit the cuff/leg and foot with one color and the heel and toe with the other. I just don't know which. If these were MY socks, I'd do one one way and the other the opposite way, or dark and light stripes or something else. But it's not and even doing the heels and toes in a different color is out on the edge for Mr WK. Mr WK doesn't care which color goes where.

Now I also need to think about a ribbing pattern. I thought I wanted a fairly quick and easy knit so no lace, no cables and no fancy stitching. I also thought it would be nice if it were a different rib than the Spring Flower Socks. I paged through a couple of sock books and I liked the Twin Rib on page 47 of Charlene Schurch's first book Sensational Knitted Socks. You can also find the two row pattern here. Yeah, I know the second row of k1, p1 is going to slow things down but I do like the look and every row will be different! We'll see if I stick with this pattern when I actually cast on and start knitting. The photo in Charlene's book shows a k1, p1 cuff which seems to flow into the leg pattern so that's what I'll do . . . . for now.

I'm glad I got THAT figured out. Because the knitting on the first Dr Who Scarf is done. I cast on with and bound off with US9 /11 mm needles. Now to weave in the rest of the ends. I have about half of them already done. Then on the next sunny, windy day, I'll wash it and lay it out to dry, mainly to lock in the woven in ends.

I'm going to give the scarf to the recipient over the Thanksgiving Weekend so it must be done by then. I probably won't have a chance for him to try it on, so I'll do the tassels anyway. They're easy enough to take off.

Today we had our first real snowfall of the year here. On the tenth of October, it spit snow at us all during the Carbine class so this is my second official snow of the season. Depending on where or when you read or heard a forecast we're going to get less than an inch or around six inches be the time it's over sometime Tuesday night. The temperature is above freezing (just barely at some points) and so far nothing is sticking and no ice.

blogging to: a quiet house

reading: A Shot to Die For by Libby Fischer Hellmann (an Ellie Forman mystery)

Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot: "To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches." ~ Margaret Thatcher

Roll With It

Well, the Dr Who Scarf has progressed no further. It will probably next the first of next week.

I did find out that the recipient of the next one says No Sheep for Me. So it will most likely be 100% acrylic. I'll give her a bamboo-silk or soy silk option but frankly, it'll probably be acrylic because of the availability of the colors and the price. At least *I* get to choose which brand of acrylic. Cotton or even a cotton blend would be too heavy and dense for a scarf like this.


Meanwhile, I mowed the yard for the last time this year. Most of the backyard was over ankle deep in the neighbor's elm leaves. As soon as those suckers start falling we always get a few days of strong south winds. The neighbors and their elms are south of us so 90% of the leaves end up in our backyard. This year with all the rain and mild temperatures, was a banner year for leaves, acorns and pine cones. We had more redbud, birch, maple and oak leaves than we've ever had. But most of the leaves were elm.

I lowered the mower one setting from the lowest one and started in. It took me ALL day. All. Day. I started at 10am and finally finished at dusk. I took several short breaks to deal with the laundry and hanging out two loads and a longish lunch break so I wasn't out there non-stop. Almost every pass was actually two or often four passes. I also mowed two passes into each neighbor's yard. Usually, it only takes me one tank of gas. I filled up twice. I have a power assist mower walk behind so at least I didn't have to be pushing the mower, too. I was so focused on getting it done that I forgot to take before photos.

But gee, it sure does look nice. Pluses: I won't have to mow as early in the spring; when it snows it'll look pretty even if it's just an inch or so because the grass won't be poking up though it as much; I just mulched in all that free nitrogen for the grass.

Since work kicked Mr WK's butt last week we decided not to go to the outdoor range today and shoot rifles. Instead we stayed in and reloaded .45's and .38's. Sunday, we may go to the indoor pistol range as it's supposed to rain all day. Or we may continue to stay in and do some more 9mm's or continue to work up our .223 brass. Our .223 stash is slowly recovering from the major hit it took from the carbine class over a month ago but we're still nowhere near where we were. Thank goodness we loaded up lots of extra.

Next week when I get the Dr Who Scarf done, I may interperse work on some of the .223 brass with the knitting. It's all been polished and most of it has been de-primed and polished. The de-primed and polished brass, needs to be case gauged (checked for the proper size) then if it's too long, trimmed, chamfered and de-burred.

I picked up a VLD Lyman chamfer & deburring tool last week. Most reamers chamfer at 45° This one cuts at 22° which will help when you're seating non-boat tailed .223 projectiles. It will make seating boat tailed projectiles even easier.

blogging to: a quiet house

reading: A Shot to Die For by Libby Fischer Hellmann (an Ellie Forman mystery)
and
Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot: "If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing." ~ margaret Thatcher

In The Mood

All kinds of knitting going on here. Well, OK only the knit stitch over and over and over; rinse; repeat. I've only four more stripes or 84 rows left to knit on the Dr Who Scarf. I will probably finish it sometime Friday. Then I'm going to have the recipient try it on and see how long it is on him. It's supposed to be 150" long but it's difficult to lay out on the carpet and measure it. I'm not wild about putting the tassels on. I know the knitting will stretch and I'm hoping that I was able to shave off enough rows here and there to make it a bit short. Eventually, I know that it will probably droop to the ground even without the tassels. I hope I can convince the recipient that between actual wearings, it needs to be stored folded up flat and not hung around the neck of the coat on a hanger.

I'm going to wash the scarf but I'm not going to block it. I'll pick a sunny, windy day, wash it, squish the water out of it with towels then fold it in a couple of layers and set it on some dry towels to dry outside. I'll set the timer and refold / rearrange the layers every hour or so.

blogging to: a quiet house

reading: The Last Embrace by Denise Hamilton (a Lily Kessler mystery)
and
Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter
and
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Parting Shot: "I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air." ~ Margaret Thatcher