Labor Of The Day

For some reason in the past few years Labor Day has become one of my favorite holidays.  Not so much in the past.  Do you know I still wake up occassionally at this time of year with nightmares of going back to school?  My school days were not that incredibly terrible or anything too dramatic, but it seemed that every year around Labor Day I would begin to organize myself for the upcoming school year.  New notebooks, pencils, pens etc.  Everything quite compulsively put in it's proper place.  Somewhere around mid-October it would all fall apart and I would be desperately disorganized and confused.  This combined with the usual "mean girls" treatment  at school haunts me to this day.  After all these years (decades!) the dreams are quite vivid:  the missing homework assignment, the outfit that just wasn't the height of style for that year, the "bad hair" day, the non-existent boyfriend..............

All that side, the daytime hours of this time of year are quite pleasant.  I seem to be getting a lot accomplished in the way of stitching and crafting.  I've been able to tune-out the outside world for a bit and comfort myself with familiar handicrafts.  Knitting socks is still tops on my list of relaxing pastimes.  While visiting my parents last week I discovered a lovely new yarn and some new colors of an old favorite.  This new start is Kroy Sock Ragg Shades "Grey Brown Marl".  Not a name I would have picked for it.  I would call it "Sock Monkey Blend".

Laboring on Banana-Walnut-Chocolate Chip brownies.

Laboring at laundry. 

Past labor.  Last weeks finish.  Kroy Sock "Clover Colors"

Another labor from my week at Mom and Dad's.  New Red Heart Yarn Stardust in purple.  This line of yarn has metallic thread in it, but is amazingly soft and easy to work with.

Today it's overcast and rather cool.  58 degrees F with a pretty good breeze going.  Hence the laundry trying inside.  Last week the clothes dried in about a minute on the line.

Do to the somewhat cloudy skies, Coal and Carmella need a bit of relaxation.  Seems to me they needed relaxation from the heat too.  Cats will be cats!

 A new labor...American Girl cheerleader outfits.  Not my favorite thing to make.  I think that reverts back to that whole "means girls" thing from my school days.  This is my version of the local school district, Little Miami.  This is a special order fro my friend Samantha.  She used to coach gymnastics with me.  Now the traitor coaches a cheer squad.  OK, a bit harsh.  It's her daughter's cheer squad and there's the potential of at least 20 orders coming from this prototype, so I really shouldn't be trashing the cheer thing.

At Christmas it was the blizzard and this visit to my hometown was Hurricane Irene.  We all held up pretty well and I was glad I could be there to help my parents with the clean up.  Some very large oak limbs came down, but overall we fared a lot better then most in Northern New Jersey.  The town of Paterson was especially hard-hit.  This is the city where my Irish great-grandparents settled when they first came to this country in the 1890s.  My grandfather used to take us to see the Great Falls on the Passaic River.  Last week on CNN they looked more like Niagara Falls!  My heart goes out to all the people on the east coast who lost property and priceless family mementos to the hurricane.