Ferns & the saint

I was mostly just looking to see who there might be around February 14th who was not Saint Valentine & what caught my eye was the man of today: Aedan of Ferns.  Ferns.  In January.

Okay, ferns it is.  Also, Aedan meets so many of my favorite saint requirements.  Very little documentation (or so I thought). Died of natural causes.  Hermit, although it turns out he founded 30 or so churches; I just love the project management hermits, don't you?

First it turns out not to be ferns but Ferns, a cathedral, diocese & all-round happening place in greater Dublin.  Naturally Aedan of Ferns is the patron saint of Ferns.  But before he was Aedan of Ferns he was Aedan, son of tribal chieftans.  Then he was Aedan, local guy with reputation for "sanctity".  I put that in quotes because that is the word the calendar uses:  sanctity.   Before sanctity was a metal band, it meant having the quality of being holy.  I am always curious how a person goes about exhibiting this quality to such a degree that he gets a reputation, but alas that is barely covered.  The only thing I could find was that he founded all those churches as he had to keep moving...to get away from his followers.  Which in my book does make him a little bit holy.  The first one is in his birthplace, the last one in Ferns, where he died on January 31, 632.

Mostly Aedan seems to have had the ordinary saint/chieftain's son life.  He was a student/hostage to a local king.  He got a reputation for being holy.  & there is a back-story that his family could not take him to be baptized as an infant because of rising water & he magically floated across the water.  It didn't say but I am guessing he floated back once it was over.  Or maybe that is how he came to be a hostage.

That's it except more detail on the career, church-founding stuff.  Aedan of Ferns gave us Ferns (& a slew of other churches) & more recently the name Aidan, which has been in the top 100 for almost 10 years now, although I think Sex In the City might have just as much to do with that as our man of the day.  Also Aidan Quinn probably didn't hurt.

In which everything old is new again

I thought I was done posting for the month & then....& then:

the fruit bats at Dove World are trying to make headlines again.  All that publicity last year & they still did not unload the merchandise they hoped to.   I remember reading about cow being tried for witchcraft in 18th century France.  Dove World would love to put something living in the mix & burn it alive, I am sure, but the local constabulary are all out of patience with Jones et al.  Thankfully the inter-webs gives us full & free access to their whole agenda.  The only thing that cheers me about this is the typo in the title of their own event.

bring your guns to school day is working its way to reality, if unofficially.  A week ago I listed three gun related good times already on the record here in Fladidah schools.  Since then we have had another...in a pre-school.  The short version is the five year old found the gun in his step-fathers vehicle.  He made this claim after it fell out of his pocket during music class.  These are hardly the only armed incidents so far this year, they are just the only ones involving schools.  For those of you keeping score, we are averaging one a week.

In other local news this week:  a man died last night when he drove into (& killed) three horses in the dark; the horses had broken loose from their paddock & were not visible on the unlit state road.  Two different babies in two different towns are dead because two different adults rolled over & suffocated them while sleeping.  A drunk driver was arrested before he did any damage on the road when the people working the drive thru at the Taco Bell he was patronizing called the police & then discovered a child asleep on the back seat .  There is good news to (I suppose the Taco Bell story was good news, kinda):  a local rapist was identified via his FaceBook photos & has been arrested.  A pilot landed a small plane safely after deploying the parachute in his plane, for his plane.  The family of the officer shot & killed in the line of duty earlier this week expect to be keeping his K-9 partner.  I guess the good news is a little thin.

So I went out the back gate, into the fog & watched the sunrise over the horse gate between our back pasture & W*****'s.  Then I took this picture.

Salty goodness

First let me clarify, I started writing this way before the government banned bath salts on the off chance someone might snort them & get high.  or not get high.  & may I say Thank G*D we are all protected from bath salt abusers, but I for one won't feel safe until I can legally bring my gun to school.  Yes, I am still harping on that one.

Starting again with the way I meant to start:  over the past couple week-ends I have been taking a soap making class, mostly as a refresher because I have made soap, but not for a few uhm years & wanted to see it one more time in person.

The good news is, the new ban doesn't matter one iota if what you really want is to take a bath with bath salts.  You can make them yourself & it is not nearly the headache (literally headache if you hang your head over the lye-water mix) of making your own soap.  Making bath salts is easy & safe, you can do it with younger children even.  The kids just need to be old enough to keep their hands out of their eyes & nose; mommies out there will have to make that call themselves what age that might be.

You can google your brains out looking for recipes, or you can go straight here.  Or you can go to your local public library & look under Dewey Decimal number 668, 668.12, 668.124 or even 668.5. There are so many recipes & they are so hard to mess up, I am not even going to bother putting one here.  I offer only the variation that you can put everything together in a bowl, mix it best as you can & then seal it in a larger container & put it away.  Whenever you open that particular cupboard or closet or drawer, give it a shake, turn it upside down & walk away.  Everything will get & stay plenty blended.

& finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I did not make, or at least not alone, any of the salts in the picture.  They are mine, I didn't steal them or anything, but they were made en masse in the workshop & so added to them was the one ingredient I never ever use:  color.  I like color, I'm just not that committed to matchy-matchy toiletries.  On the other hand, my salts are in an old milk jug & are just plain old salt colored; they don't look like anything at all in a photograph. 

As for how they worked, you will have to ask M******.  I mentioned I had scented bath slats to unload & she volunteered.  Now that  look at the picture I can see there are doggy nose prints all around them.  Did I mention they are highly fragranced as well?  Also not really my thing.

Cold morning, warm feet

It was 52F in my house when I woke up a couple Friday's ago morning.  It was so cold outside (I think 27F is cold) that our heater had not been able to keep up.  I turned the heater off as it was blowing not-warm-enough air anyhow & am waiting for the sun to get that far & warm up the works.  Since I turned it off it got to 54F, which began to worry me.  & if you guessed the heat pump was dead, you would be almost right.  The good news is I have HVAC husbands & handyman boyfriends on almost-speed-dial (not my husband...or boyfriend, that guy tiptoed out after pushing little dogs under the covers to keep me warm) & later that same day I had a guy out dealing with it & around 10pm he came back a replaced the dead part. 

Anyone who cares to know (& I would certainly understand if you did not) knows that Fladidah has been having some cold, cold, cold weather.  It snowed here Christmas day, just flurries but still not the norm for 29degrees North.  This is roughly where Houston, Texas lies & just a shave north of Delhi, India.  Snow is hardly the norm.

But we are transplants here, directly from Houston but before that New England.  & before I was a quilter, I was a knitter.  & before handknit socks were all the rage, I knit them...out of worsted.

The short version is A cannot sleep if his feet are cold.  I know, weird right?  & he used to attend an annual conference in ski country, which was fine (he likes to ski & rarely gets the chance living in the USsouth with a non-skiing wife).  But at night, his feet were cold & the hotel had that weird discomfort=character thing that keeps me from traveling with him.

& so I made these, garden variety top-down socks, on US7 needles with the standard K1P1 rib.  I find it is easier to see the heel I am turning if it is in a different color, ditto the toe I am decreasing & just to make it look finished, I began with the first ?4? rows in that same contrasting color.

I know, I know it is hard to see the individual stitches.  This is not because the pictures are blurry so much as the socks have felted a bit over the last 18+ years.  Yes, you read that right, these socks were knit sometime before between 1991 & 1994.  It is true they get worn maybe three or four weeks a year & that's it, but for those weeks he might wear them almost every other day & that is plenty of washes & they have held up just fine. 

& that's it, that's all I've got.

Block Lotto: stacked coins

I spent a goodly amount of last summer pressed up against the glass over at the Block Lotto.  I kept telling myself I didn't have time (& I didn't) & I had enough quilt block swapping (& I had) but then...but then....

But then last September they did liberated house blocks.  Right when we were doing Funky Town.  & so I asked to join.

Next thing you know, my time went to hell.  Even those who only know me from reading this blog can see I went from ten-ish posts per month to two, maybe three.  I did nothing except claw my way from one day to the next & there really was no extra time for extra block swaps.  As a result I missed out on funky stars & funky trees

I am feeling much more myself (& for anyone who gets spread too thin over everyday unhappiness I strongly recommend a good medicinal dose of O'ahu) & once I got my own quilt block swap responsibilities caught up, I flipped to the Block Lotto & found January, a very colorful twist on Stacking Coins (or Chinese Coins  or whatever you want to call them).  Their directions are clear as day here along with a teaser for February about strings, specifically Sort & Save Your Strings.  So February looks to be a string fling!

I spent a happy day yesterday in my sewing room (which is almost certainly not falling into a sinkhole after all, but much more likely the clay underneath is shrinking because of the decade of drought & it is unlikely to drop more than three feet or so, isn't that good news?) going through colorful fabrics & making stacks of offset coins.  Very satisfying.  & yes, this one is in the hopper for a future Facebook Quilt Block Swap Group swap block. 

In the end I had several blocks all finished & photographed, but this one was my favorite.


Oh, another dead giveaway I was going to have to jump into the Block Lotto: I kept catching myself sing-saying Block Lotto over & over again in Rock Lobster voices.  I dare you to resist.