All the Lights Are Coming On Now

I spent the day with my mom's sister. She had a box of photos she salvaged from the house of my aunt who died a few months ago and we went through them together - I digitized them and she helped me identify who everyone was. This aunt was like Mary Poppins when my sister and I were little. She was a single mom and moved to our town because my mom and she were close. Even though she had a son my age, she kind of adopted us and took us on all kinds of adventures. Since we were all broke, she would come up with all this wild - but free - stuff for us to do.

One day we had a picnic in the grass as close as you could get to the airport runway. I was only about six so I'm not sure how close we actually were, the ear-splitting, chest-crushing sonic extravaganza was mind-blowing. The sandwiches weren't bad, either. She worked in the gorgeous NBT Building in Tulsa and one night she convinced the janitor into letting us go out onto some platform as high as you could go without safety gear. Pretty thrilling to a kid. Another time we were sitting around and she said, "I'm sick of this room. Let's redo the floor!" So we drove all over time and dumpster-dived behind carpet stores looking for sample squares and other usuable scraps of carpet. It didn't matter what color or pile it was, we tossed them in the backseat of her VW bug with us and away we went. When we got back to her house we put them all together into a crazy quilt carpet for the new look. We went storm-chasing, all kinds of stuff.

Today was great, too. She showed up at my door with a box of photos and a picnic lunch and we laughed and cried as we talked about my mom and all the stuff we used to. The most priceless treasure I pulled from the box was the only known set of pics of my mom holding Killer. She died a couple weeks after Killer was born and she was only strong enough to hold her that one time. I didn't know my grandma had snapped pics, so these were news to me.

Got new glasses, too. I look (and the girls say I act) like this guy now.

I finished the Aran winter set, but you'll have to ask the Grandmother of Europe if you want to see them. I gave them to her for Secret Santa and I forgot to take pics first. I was making them for her all along and then when she dissed me and quit carpooling with me I decided I wasn't going to give them to her after all. Then I drew her name for Secret Santa so I got to give them to her anyway. I Also finished a set of legwarmers for my yoga instructor sister-in-law. I stitched an 'om' on one and the sanskrit word 'namaste' on the other. Here they are (click for better view):













I made them from a vintage Jane Fonda-era aerobics pattern (except for the emblems - did those myself), and they are pretty bunchy. This gal I made them for is pretty toned, so I hope these don't just drop right to her ankles. I'm pretty proud of the design, though.