bird and apple haiku

outside in the yard
bird snacks on leftover fruit
drag: glare from window

pardon me while i....

....delve deep into my knitting project, and



...season two of Downton Abbey.


I've been waiting for this for months :-)

snaps on saturday

Handwoven dishtowels, that I purchased in November when we went to a craft fair on a farm outside of Petaluma. I smile every time I use them. The only thing could make me love them more than I already do, would be if I had woven them myself.

Maybe someday....



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A note about yesterday's ball o' yarn and back again story: I posted it last night! TheMostImportantGuy even read it from his phone, I was watching him scroll through it! And as I went to make this post, I see it's been held back as a draft. SO ODD!

storytime: a knitting perfection picture book

Once upon a time, there was a ball of yarn.


It wanted to be a long loopy cowl type scarf.

So the perfectionist girl cast on.

And knit.



And it was good.

When the knutcase perfection knitter was done knitting, the scarf laid out beautifully.


Flat, scarf...flat!




Zig, scarf...zig!
Zag, scarf...zag!!


Roll, scarf....roll!!!



Wait.


I didn't mean roll like THAT, scarf.

THAT is poooopy looking!!

You roll so much you are inside out, and you curl this-way and that-way, and many of your colors all disappear!!

Guess what that means?!!



No more.
Bad bad scarf. :-(
UGH!

srsly.

MyFavoriteKid went to stay for a few days and his buddy's grandparent's farm. This is one of the many resident critters I got to meet when I went to pick him up.

dear anonymous....

Thank you for your comment to yesterdays post! :-)
You wrote:
next time (and we all know there WILL be a next time!), you can simply duplicate stitch over the wrong color with the right color
sorry to have to tell you this after you ripped back 6 rows . . .

And Guernseygal, you wrote something similar!
You wrote:
I understand. I hate knowing there is an error, but as it is colourwork there was actually a simpler fix. You could of swiss darned ( duplicate stitched) in the correct colour over the incorrect stitches xx


When I was at lunch with MizzSheep yesterday, she had offered up the very same advice. I have to admit, that while I know very well how to duplicate over a stitch, the notion escaped me that it could be used as a solution for my little (and I do mean little) knitting mistake. It had never entered my mind at all as being an option (which is saying something, I think).

Before I ripped back the 6 rows, I did exactly what you all were suggesting. I went to the other end of the ball of yarn, I cut out a section of the color of yarn I needed (it's variegated yarn, making the mistake even less noticeable, if you follow *sigh*), and I did exactly what both you and MizzSheep suggested I should do. I duplicated over the stitch. For those of you that aren't yarnies, what I did was to follow the line of old the thread exactly, and I "sewed in", or covered over, the old stitch with the new/correct color of yarn.

I did the fix. And I looked at it. And I looked at it some more under better light. And I looked at it again after putting reading glasses on. And I squished it between my fingers. And I hemmed and hawed about the texture and whether or not I could live with being able to feel it, even though I could not really see the mistake anymore. Much. And I thought about other sensible people I know use duplicate stitch to fix mistakes all the time, but how for me, I only use duplicate stitch to sew on a design, like a face on a stuffed toy or something. And I thought about how stupid that is, to not be willing to use a skill I use for decorating something, and also have it be a tool for fixing something. And I looked at the shawl some more. And I put the shawl down, ate some chocolate, surfed the internet, and came back and looked at the shawl again. And then, because my brain was still yelling something loudly at me (something I couldn't quite make out), and because my stomach was still doing backflips, I picked out the duplicate stitch that I had just sewn in. And then I ripped back the 6 rows.

It's like I just couldn't stand myself knowing that I hadn't really fixed anything....I had only just tried to cover things up (and the fact that I cant stomach that, is also saying something).


For me, this question really is not about the knitting. I know that. If you are someone reading this post, and if you would have also ripped back, do you also feel like that isn't the question? (or is it just me that is the knitting knutcase here?!). For me, the question is not about how I handle mistakes in knitting; it is about how I handle mistakes in my life. Knitting has just become an analogy.

I am not at all dis-ing people that can leave a mistake in their knitting and live with it, or people that make a repair to a mistake so that the mistake blends in to the background or even becomes "a feature". Seriously, I do not disrespect you at all. In fact: I want what you have. Or at least I think I do. I guess I'd least like to have the emotional option to choose whether to fix a mistake or not and still be able to live with myself, if that makes any sense. But right now I do not believe I possess the ability to have it be a choice. It feels more like I am obsessively driven to achieve perfect knitting. Not because people are going to see my knitting, but for me. Heck, even if I decided in advance to never wear my new shawl out of the house, I still feel driven to not leave a mistake in it.

Where else but my craft do I absolutely have the sole power to start from scratch, like nothing ever happened, if I don't like the result? Where else in my life can I get a total do-over? And why do I think I need or should be allowed to have this sort of power over my craft when the rest of my life doesn't all allow that at all? Why do I spend time even questioning myself as to whether or not I should fix a knitting mistake, when I know I will always end up fixing it....and why do I waste countless hours wishing that I could rip back the last 6 words or sentences that I said to you, the ones that were such the huge mistake, when I know it can never be undone?

I'm not sure if I'm making any sense here.
And I probably am a knitting knutcase.
But knitting IS analogous to my life, and my life and its varying components are integrated, not compartmentalized. And so this head of mind gets full of questions, and it is inevitably where I end up when I grapple with a mistake a see in a knitted work in progress.


Knut.
Case.

hahahaha

Love you all. Thanks for the comments. :-)

cross-eyed

Late last night, I put my knitting down in frustration, because I had found a stupid little mistake I made in the shawl I am working on.

By stupid mistake, I mean that it's stupid that I'd even consider fixing it. It's barely visible. I had been knitting along on a row, and the mistake occurred at the spot where I should have switched colors, but I did the color change in the wrong place. I changed colors one stitch earlier than I was supposed to. One stitch.

And so now there it is: one. danged. stitch. was the wrong color, an what is even more stupid is that the wrong stitch lays on a background of its neighboring colorway, and that color is barely a contrasting color. The colors are so similar, you can barely even see the difference. Let us also not forget that this project is a shawl, which means that in the end, it will be swirled around my neck all the time anyhow.

In other words, the mistake is barely visible.

I had lunch today with MizzSincereSheep, and showed her the mistake, and while she was kind enough to not laugh in my face, she did think it was rather silly to even consider ripping back to fix something so minor. Each row has over 300 stitches in it at this point by now, with colorwork happening on every row (albeit simple colorwork, but still), and the mistake was about 4 rows back. I was certainly not going to tink (knit backwards) 1200 stitches. And I couldn't drop directly down and fix the mistake because of the way I had changed colors (there was no yarn there in the correct colorway to fix it and pick it back up again). If I was going to fix this mistake, I was going to have to take the shawl off the needles, rip it back 4 rows, untangle the color changes, and get all 300+ stitches back up on the needles. And I was going to have to do all that for one. danged. stitch. that is barely visible.

MizzSheep totally talked me down, and I sat there with my iced tea and my lunch and I knit another 2 rows.

And then later tonight, when I was at home alone, I took the shawl out of my knitting bag, I freaked out, and I ripped it back and I fixed the mistake anyhow (ripping out 6 rows by now, not just the 4). I just spent quite a long time getting the damn thing back on the needles and getting all the stitches oriented the correct way. The mistake is fixed, and I my breathing is back to normal (it had been a little shallow). But my vision is fuzzy because my eyes got all crossed and kooky while implementing the fix.


I don't know what it is about me and knitting and not being able to let mistakes go when I see them. I certainly make mistakes all the time in the rest of my life that I don't fix, and many of them are mistakes that I absolutely should be fixing, because some of these mistakes are way worse than just a single stupid invisible stitch.

Maybe it's because the mistakes I make in the rest of my life cannot actually ever be fixed. I can apologies for things, try to smooth things over, but I can never really fix them. I can't undo my screw ups. I cannot repair them. I cannot rip them out, erase them, rewind them, make them go away, start all over, and have things in the end come out looking like nothing ever happened. Even after the apology or the correction, the effects of the mistake are often still quite visible.

Maybe I fix my knitting because it's the only time I can every really truly fix a mistake....fix it to the point where you (and I) would never even be able to see that anything wrong happened in the first place.


??

I ask myself these questions all the time.

feisty.

I am feisty. And a bit "worded out". With the holidays now officially over, many emails needed to be written today, almost all of which required me to think much more than I would have liked to. I'm not ready to think this hard yet!! MyFavoriteKid is still on vacation from school this week. In fact, he is out of town for a few days with his buddy at the farm of the buddy's grandparents.

In other words: I'm freeee!!!!

I should be throwing a wild party. Or sitting in my underpants and knitting and eating bonbons (which is more true to form, these hermit-esque days). I should not be typing and editing and editing and editing and editing all of these wordy, I-need-to-make-myself-perfectly-clear emails that I have been writing all day to contractors. Nor should I be over thinking emails to students and comrades regarding upcoming dance performances.

But I have been. All day, it seems. Except for a quick break to go to the zen center and then to the convalescent hospital.

Well, the emails are done. And now I will sit and eat cookies (I don't even keep bonbons in the house *sigh*), and my sitting will and eating cookies will probably not be done in only my underpants (too cold for that here), and rather than knitting, I will be fixing a mistake that I made in my knitting, because I-need-to-make-my-knitting-perfectly-clear just like my emails.

happy new year !

Wow, that title is creative, eh?? Hahaha. Sheesh. Let's start this year's entries off with a bang, shall we?!! ;-)

So, how was your new year's eve?

My new year's eve actually involved a party this year, which is not usually how it goes. How does it "go", you ask? Well, that is a good question! As TheMostImportantGuy and I backed down the driveway to head to the party, I asked him to help me put together a list of how we have spent all of our new year's eves past. We couldn't remember all of them. We knew that last year we went to a chanting thing at the zen center. And we also knew there was at least one year (perhaps two?) that included dinner out with my folks followed by coming home to turn on the tube and watch the west coast airing of the New York ball drop on the television. But there were several new year's eves unaccounted for (was there a concert or two in there? if so, who?!). I'm not sure if we are forgetting because we are developing the early stages of age-related brainfog, or if it's simply because we just don't usually do anything terribly exciting or memorable (I should just go back and see if I wrote about any of them on the blog...duh!).

What I do know for a fact though, is that even though I cannot remember what we have done, I can absolutely tell you what we have not done:
Every year since TheMIG and I have been together, I've refused an invitation for us to go to a party at the Warren's.

Who are the Warrens. Well. Back in the day, when I was still together with TheEx, he had met MisterWarren on a train platform and they quickly became fast friends. They had noticed that they were always getting on the same train car each morning to go to work, and one day they started chatting and found out they both had just become dads. When Warren and TheEx learned that their offices at the other end of the train ride were only minutes apart, they quit the train altogether, and carpooled together for years. During those years, TheEx and I were throwing lots of parties, and I would invite my friends, some of whom had partners and kids about the same age as ours, and the Warrens would come, too. Of course, TheEx and I never looked at our friends in the "your friends, my friends" sort of way. They all became "our friends", and in the long run, the families all got quite tight and everybody was inviting everybody to each others gatherings (mostly kids birthdays, barbeques, holiday parties, etc). A few of us ladies started a weekly craft night back then, and the guys in the bunch even created a separate poker playing faction.

When TheEx and I split up, we had our tough moments, but it really was quite the amiable break up. There was never the feeling that we needed to be "dividing up" our friends. Not one bit. But I always sorta felt like MisterWarren and the Warren family were more TheEx's friends (his best friends, actually), and at that time, and TheEx seemed like he could use a little support. I had a pretty solid group of women friends of my own as I transitioned out of the relationship. But Warren was TheEx's closest source of support, and so I kept my distance a little bit. We still stayed in touch, of course, but I always made it a point to avoid the annual new year's eve party the Warrens kept inviting me to. Every year TheEx would say that he had no problem whatsoever if I came to the party ...but every year I didn't go (and after awhile, I was dating TheMIG, so we didn't go....even though we were both invited).

Instead, TheEx and MyFavoriteKid would go to the party (and TheMIG and I would do....whatever), but also going to the party were most of my friends, the friends whose families had become mutual friends of the Warrens by that point, and were also invited.

Are you seeing how this all went?
It's part of how I ended up with the not-so-memorable-NewYearsEve-syndrome, I think.

Well, this year, as usual, I got an invitation to the party by email. And I don't know what came over me this year, but this time I accepted (after talking it over with TheMIG, of course...and MyFK...and TheEx....in that order).

Actually, I do know what came over me. What came over me is that early last year, a beacon of light shone down upon my sad little self, and I realized that I had been behaving like a hermit, and that I had been doing so for years. It just sort of crept up on me, so I didn't see it, if you know what I mean. After months of trying to figure out why I was a hermit-lady, I finally came to the conclusion that I had no friggin' idea! And that figuring out why might not help me solve the dilemma anyhow. I just needed to act. I needed to do something about it.

I spent a few more months trying to get up the nerve to try. And then around September or October I started really making a concerted effort to place myself in the path of people for a change.

It's been good (well, mostly good --- it's been sort of trial and error, and I've blown it several times, and in the process I have lost as many friends as I have tried to make, but that's another post), and last night, we went to the party. I got to ring in the new year with TheMIG, and with my friends, and with all of their kids (who, after a decade, aren't little kids anymore), and I also got to toot a new year's eve party horn with MyFavoriteKid.

Half the group.
Fuzzy. Because we were all laughing and carrying on ;-)

I am on the path out of hermit-town.
And I am hoping to keep traveling down it during 2012.

another lap around the sun

Another year of Blog365 = complete.

Many other goals this year = incomplete.

This has been a year chock full of one unpredictable thing after another, hasn't it?! I set out this year with well thought out and attainable intentions, along with what felt like a very solid strategy to attain them. The biggies on my list were to blog differently, to spin more yarn, and to work on my relationship to food.

I didn't get very far at all. In fact, I only got as far as January 2nd. hahahaha

That was the day TheMostImportantGuy and I saw the house that we decided to set wheels in motion to purchase, and at least 50% of my energy has been spent assisting in the renovation of said house (and renovations will not be completed until next year, at best). The other 50% of my energy this year was spent helping MyFavoriteKid transition into high school, helping my dad deal with a first (and now a second) life affecting illness, nursing two dogs for an entire summer after a dog attack and various surgeries, dealing with my own hand injury and booby-lump-scare, and finding out that working on my relationship to food was also going to include dealing with having to grapple with the oddest grouping of food sensitivities I could have ever assembled in my wildest imagination.

While this year really has not been all that bad, it has been no picnic. Nothing this year went quite as I had planned. The blog suffered, and I think my goal to spin a pile of fiber once a month lasted into mid-February.

I've spent most of this month of December trying to figure out what to do with the blog here in 2012, and whether or not to continue posting daily. I really don't care much for the quality of writing I did here this past year, and it really feels like I need to spend a day or two or three writing and editing one single post, rather than shoving something together late at night when I am too tired. That being said, posting every day is probably the only thing that I make myself do every single day, and it's an anchor for me that I am not sure I am prepared to part with at this point.

I'm not exactly sure where I am headed yet this next year, but at this point, I think that this is the direction I am pointing myself towards:

* I've been saying this for years now, and I really want to follow through: I want to learn how to use the features on my camera, and how to use photo editing software, so expect to see more photos.

*I'd like to write a few entries that are more like essays or short stories. I have so many of them in my head, and I need to get them up and out.

* I know I want to knit more (spinning too, but I am on a knitting bender right now, and loving it), so there will probably be more yarn stuff here.

* My relationship to food is changing whether I like it or not, and there have been revelations that I need to pursue more deeply, and that I need to write about, because I have been keeping them to myself, and it is not working.

* And.....I need to read more blogs. Because I haven't been. I am sick of living in the hermit-hole. Part of my hope for this year is to read more about you and write less babble about me.


Thank you, all of you, for your comments, your advice, your support, and the laughter you brought to the table this year. It has been soooo appreciated. I wish I could have you all over for a cup of tea so I could give you a hug in person.


Please: If you have a blog, please please please email me your blog address (AmpuTeeHee~at~hotmail~dot~com) or pop your blog address into the comments so I can add you to my blog-feed-reader-thingy. Do it for me even if you think I have it, okay? I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. I'm making a new reading list! Thank you thank you.

I hope all of you have a splendid New Year's Eve, and know that much mojo is being sent out for each and every one of you to have a joyous and prosperous 2012.

Much love, and much light~
bonnie (aka AmpuTeeHee)

all is calm

Our new home's little downtown historic shopping district at night.

a random photo from the weekend....

...because I am already too tired tonight to type much.

We were pulling up at a stop light next to this ol' kit car, its rims a-spinnin' and the music pumping. As we got closer, I was dying to see who was driving. It ended up being an older dude in a Santa's hat, and his passenger...



...Wile E Coyote.

the story of our new tree

Once Upon A Time.....

I wanted a Christmas Tree.

Truth be told, I really do prefer a real "live" (well, once-was-alive) Christmas tree. My love of having a real tree in the house mostly has to do with the scent of the tree wafting about the room, but I'm also a little attached to the memories of the tradition of going to a lot somewhere and picking out a tree and getting it home (as I get older, I find myself less and less attached to that sentiment).

I have a real interesting relationship with Christmas. I was raised in a household where we celebrated both Christmas and Channukah, even though my dad was Jewish and my mom had converted to Judaism before they were married (although in the long run, it was discovered that my mother was Jewish all along, because her mother's mother was Jewish, and had only pretended not to be Jewish to escape the Nazis. Crazy, eh?). Anyhow, I've always felt more closely connected with the Jewish holidays, but throughout my pagan-esque 20's, as I had moved out on my own, and was establishing my own traditions and links to the holidays, I discovered I felt less and less connected to the commercial and religious aspects of the holidays. My holidays, for me, became more about celebrating seasons, and it has carried through to today.

Basically this means that what I am reallly am linked to, and what I have been celebrating for decades in my own way, is Winter. And that is why I love having a tree, especially the smell of a tree, in the house (what you will also find in my house this time of year is lots of Christmas music from the 50's and 60's, smells of holiday foods, and many decorations relating to snow).

So.
Here we are, with the new house this year, and this gorgeous vintage-y looking living room with a fireplace, and....



...I don't know about you, but I think the room just begs for a tree in that window next to the fireplace there, which also happens to face the street.

But now I'm older. And I'm busier. And I don't like killing trees so much. And even less, I like dealing with disposing of them. And I'm not living at this house full time yet, which means watering would be a pain. And I get really sick of cleaning up needles. And who needs a fire hazard anyhow.

So I started looking for a fake tree. A pre-lit tree, at that (whee! even more old and busy, am I!).

I found a couple I liked, and that was right around the time that we were given the estimate of what it is going to cost us to remodel the kitchen and bathroom here next spring, which kinda makes my stomach flip a little bit, and it also makes me see every $100 purchase as, "Wait. That's one-fifth of a dishwasher." I decided we would not have a tree this year (*pout*) but that on December 26th, I would go out early in the morn' and snatch up a tree at 50% off and store it for next year (what I did do this year though, was go to Hallmark and buy a "2011 -- New House" ornament, which we stuck on the mantle of the fireplace).

I saw the tree I wanted. It was at Target, and it was $230. There are 5 Targets on highway 80 down a 30 minute trail from here to Berkeley, and I was determined to hit them all until I got the tree I coveted. We got to the first Target only to find that their holiday section had been completely revamped, and that they had removed every single tree and large lawn decoration. In fact, I saw lights and things in that holiday section that I will swear on my grave had not even been set out as regular stock just a few days earlier. It was very odd. Well anyhow, we bought an on sale storage bag to store the fake tree that we didn't even have yet, and we bought some icicle lights so that next year the house can look a little gingerbread-ish, since the hooks for the lights are already in place anyhow.....


...and then, after finding out that all Targets had pulled their trees, we headed on over to K-Mart.

I don't even know the last time I have been in a K-Mart, but I swear to you, K-Mart smells like a K-mart in a way no other store can, and it totally blew my mind that some things like a particular smell never do change, and it made me realize that if I am going to get a fake tree, I should probably also invest in some pine scented candles or something.

So at K-Mart, we found a tree we liked.


It wasn't as great the Target tree, but it would do. It's 7.5 feet tall, with white lights, and it had originally been $229, but was now marked down by 50%. Woot! When we moved from the display section to the stack of boxed trees ready for sale, we found that the tree we wanted was only available still with colored lights, and we wanted clear. But the display model had white lights. So we asked Mike, TheDudeOfTheHomeAndGardenDepartment, if we could buy the display model. He said yes, and it would even be another 20% off. WootWoot! Our lovely little display model, however, was fully (and I do mean fully) decorated. He would arrange to have someone take it apart and they would call me to pick it up that night or the next day.

I went back to the store the next morning to pick up the tree, and MikeTheDude rolled out a shopping cart containing the tree and huge box. I asked him if it was the stand that was inside the box, and he said, "No. That's all your ornaments, and the garlands, plus the tree skirt. That's how we roll around here." WootWootWoot!!

So for $100, including tax, we scored our tree, the skirt, and an a$$load of (very nice, actually) ornaments.

AND, if you total up the tree and the ornaments, this means we saved about two-thirds a dishwasher :-)

The End.

i should start cataloging the evidence

Our house was previously bank owned, and we find lots of evidence as to why the previous owners failed so miserably.



We can add that to the pile o' crack pipes and various other things we find stashed in the walls and attics.
Sheesh.

we're a little addicted over here....

We're boobin-out on way too much serial television this holiday vay-cay-see-ohhn.


We've plowed through season one, and now we're ripping through season 2 of Dexter right now. Viewing with a vengeance. Which makes us serial television viewers obsessively watching a serial killer who kills serial killers.

And we're only watching so much Dexter yesterday and today because earlier this week we also plowed through season one of Game of Thrones (that we've watched via OnDemand though).

Brain is mush, but entertained.
And I'm also getting lots of knitting done at the same time :-)

happy holidays

TheMostImportantGuy and I had a very nice day up at his family's opening gifts and sharing a meal. I tried to do the whole, "let's give each other hand made gifts next year" thing, and it was met with resistance. The niece said she'd made most of her friends gift this year, and it was too hard and took to much time. The sis-in-law wanted to put on the restriction that all materials had to be source from a thrift store or be used or from a garage sale (not a bad idea, if done right), but she suggested that because her idea was that each person was to aim for the most craptastic gift possible.

Oh, well. At least I tried. I think next year I'll just make them all something nice and thoughtful, and with a little love put into it, and show 'em how it's done.


I leave you with a crazy arsed ghost pic taken of me and TheMIG at dinner last night.



Crazy, eh? Not sure quite how that happened, but I find it quite interesting.


Hope you all are having a good holiday season!!
xoxo

snaps on saturday

Christmas Eve Dinner with my folks at the local Italian Restaurant.
We've been doing it for enough years in a row now that I believe we can call it a family tradition :-)

what i did today

My Day.

I got up much earlier than I wanted to (especially considering I should technically be on "vacation" time this week), because I realllllly did not want to miss the meeting of a new knitting group I joined a few weeks ago. The knitting group meets at 10am on Friday mornings, and it's about 30 minutes south of me.... and I really do need to write an entire post about how I ended up in this group and what trying to "fit in" has looked like, because there is definitely some meat on that bone.

Anyhow.

I got up early, and even after prattling around for a bit and preparing for departure, I still found myself realllllly not wanting to leave because it was freezing cold outside (literally - 29 degrees here last night) and because TheMostImportantGuy was having a lazy morning here today as it was his first day off for the holidays, too. But since I reallllllly did not want to miss the knitting group, I pushed on through, got myself all dolled up and festive looking by wearing a red hand-knit sweater and some holiday earrings. Then I dragged myself out of the house even though I really wanted to crawl back into bed, and I got in the car, and along the drive, I picked up a soy chai latte at Peets, and I drove all the way down there to the knitting group, and I parked the car, and that's when I noticed that the street parking was way more open than it usually is.

And then I looked at my calendar and saw that I had entered, "NO knitting group" in today's little box.

So poor little dolled up me and my soy chai latte drove home. And I knit alone.

DUH.
hahahahaha

vintage me.

Too tired to check and see if I have posted this photo once before (last night was another RassinFrassinShimShammin night of leg spasms, DangNabbit...and I am exhausted).

Hopefully I have not posted this one before and it's "a freshie".

Vintage me in headgear.


If I had to wager, it might have been my first night with it.

(and check out my mom with the Charlie's Angels hairdo!)

hooooboy!

And you thought that snare drum was somethin' eh???

Whaddya have to say about this?!?!



THAT would be TheEx's (early) X-mas gift to MyFavoriteKid. Which he purchase but will be kept at my house (I thought that sort of noisy gift-giving was something grandparents do, not parents!! Sheesh!).

Nah, in all seriousness, I was totally on board.

It was TheEx's idea to get a drum kit for MyFK, and it was he that shelled out for it...but it really was a team effort on some level. It was TheMostImportantGuy (being a drummer himself) who offered to help look for a really good used kit on Craigslist, and it was also TheMIG who set the drums up while TheEx had MyFK out of the house for a couple of hours. That way it was a full on wonderful surprise. My role in this? It was me who cleared out the den to make space, and I also gave up my living room carpet to go underneath it (I'd be wanting to change the color of the living room Flor tiles anyhow, so it was the perfect excuse.

But my real contribution?? I agreed to tolerate drumming in my house.

Sometimes I want to run around the house pretending to be MrsBennet from Pride and Prejudice...."No one knows what I suffer!!" Or maybe, "You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves."


All I can say is, at least I was smart enough to only allow an electronic drum kit and not an acoustic one!