Witness to History

I have cried 4 or 5 times already. I am so thrilled and excited and proud of my country.... Not just because of race, but because we had two roads before us, and we chose to take the high road. This win will have a profound impact on politics. We chose to reject negative campaigning and to believe in hope. It's amazing.

The streets of Detroit were alive last night with celebration. On our way home from the Lager House, where we watched the results, cars were honking and folks cheered to each other at each stoplight. Pedestrians raised their arms in triumph and danced in the streets.

Yes we can.

And for posterity's sake... J and I just after casting our vote.

There is knitting going on!

Snowman Hat
Originally uploaded by kbelle.

Amid the political action, neighborhood activity, church involvement, and time spent out enjoying Detroit, there really has been knitting.

This hat is a baby gift for a friend's upcoming shower.

Pattern: Snowman Hat from Itty Bitty Baby Hats
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft (white), Knitpicks Comfy (honeydew green), smidges of leftover RYC Cashsoft for the nose, and some random black wool.

Liberation

slutty?
Originally uploaded by kbelle.

Ok, so apparently my girl time last night helped me to feel a bit liberated and today I felt strong enough to take on the slut shirt.

The shirt I am wearing in this photo was the one I wore on what turned out to be the last day of my first marriage. I was married for months afterwards, legally, but that day is now clearly the end. In a last ditch effort to have fun together my ex-H and I went to a baseball game. I had only a few minutes to change so I kept the pink 3/4 sleeve button down and white tank from work and just put jeans or capris on the bottom. And before we left for the game he told me that I looked slutty.

My self esteem at that time in my life was so low that I totally internalized the comment and completely associated that shirt with me being a bad person. Although the lighting in my messy closet does it no justice, it is actually a very pretty, very girly pink that looks quite nice with my pale skin. Other than the fact that it is mildly fitted and shows that I am indeed female, there is nothing slutty about this shirt. There is nothing slutty or bad about me. But despite how much my life has changed for the better I've never been able to wear this shirt.

Until today. Go me.

I'm still here!

I hope some of you are!

Knitting has been slow. I've settled into Detroit something fierce and I've been actually too busy to knit. Add on a wrist injury and there isn't that much knitting happening. This weekend I hope to sit down and knit.

But, last night there was partying. My friend S and I are apparently the youngest Billy Joel fans in existence. We must have looked like a pair of silly co-eds to the rest of the folks at the opening of the Windsor Caesar's last night, but we had a blast!


Here we are taking a picture of ourselves in the bathroom. Later we got a nice gentleman to take one but it makes my arm look like a giant sausage so bathroom shot it is!
And here is the man himself. Very good show, just missed out on some of my favorite songs. But then again, almost every song is my favorite and I sang along like a maniac. My poor sister also received several phone calls full of music because I would get all excited about a song we used to sing in our childhood.
In this last shot you can see the head on the right of the lady who turned around, slapped my knee and shushed me. Yeah, grandma... I was at an 8th grade dance when I learned to line dance to We didn't start the fire, and I wasn't born when most of his big hits came out, but I know all the words by heart, even most of the obscure songs and so you can kiss my ass with your grandma perm.

Woot. We had a blast.

Debacle?

We had a great day planned for yesterday. We would go to the flower market, pick up some screws to fix the deck boards Weatherboy ripped up to repair a pipe, clean the house and have friends over in the afternoon.

At least, that was the plan. We came home with supplies and were making trips in from the car when I accidentally locked us out of the house. So there we were, standing outside with a pile of groceries and all the pets happily inside wondering why we didn't come in. Whoops!

After an aborted attempt to climb from the neighbor's third floor window to our open third floor window, we decided to break the glass on the back door. Glass is cheap to replace, our neighbor pointed out, and Weatherboy is handy so this should be a 1 hour project.


Wrong. While attempting to remove the remaining glass we discover that our door is so ancient and so painted that any attempt to remove the trim to replace the glass will result in complete destruction of the door. So all of a sudden we are installing a new door.

Luckily, Weatherboy's friends are up to the challenge!

A mere 6 1/2 hours later - a new door! And it's only 2 inches narrower and 5 inches shorter than the former door and hole! Hooray for lots of insulation and finish work to do!
So there is still a lot of work left, but I think the result is rather pretty. This project was on the list, it has just leapfrogged a few others. And once Weatherboy is finished with the insulation and plaster, I get to come in with my paintbrush. Our house trim is a dark brown and since it is the back door and doesn't have to match any of the neighbors' I am planning on painting it "Potting Shed Green" a lovely Martha Stewart approved shade of green.

I'm glad we didn't call the locksmith.

Finally, I finished something knitted!

It has been a long drought. For the past few months I have taken on too many projects and not finished anything. Throw a new job and pain in my wrist and thumb and there has been no progress around here on any of my creative projects. But, my knitting guild held a bag swap for our last meeting before summer break and so I managed to finish my bag on time.

Pattern: Wishbone Cable Handbag by Tygerlily also on
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool Ease in Natural heather
Needles: Size 11 and 6? 7?
Handles, frame and lining from Joann Fabrics

Reasons I love Detroit, part 3

Canine to Five. While in Florida I had a lot of options for doggie day care, training and boarding. I didn't feel like those options were as available when we were living in the Detroit suburbs. Then I found Liz Blondy of Canine to Five. She has set up a huge doggie day care business in the heart of Detroit, bringing a great business to the Cass Corridor.

My dogs love to go there! Annie absolutely looses her gourd when she figures out that it is day care day. Even Duke, who hates the care more than anything, will jump in when he sees Annie's excitement. He manages to find a girlfriend there every time.

And of course, Liz is the one who gave us Duke. She's the one who let me adopt that cute, skinny little puppy who is now a big strong baby who still needs hugs.