Tuesday, November 18, 2008

There were never such devoted sisters....

My sister Sandra emailed me today wondering why I hadn't put anything new on my blog lately. She wondered if I had bloggers block. The answer to that is no not really....maybe....I'm not sure....kind of....or maybe I'm just feeling lazy. How about all of the above? Or none of the above. I guess I'm really not sure why I haven't put stuff up on my blog for the past few weeks. I intended to slack off for a week during the elections and then get right back to blogging, but then that turned into two weeks and now we're heading into the third week. I am thinking that blogging is like keeping an up an exercise routine. If you skip a few days it's very easy to totally slack off. Come to think of it, I've been slacking with my exercise too. Baaaad Pam!!!!! Time to get back on the computer and back on the treadmill!Anyway, it was great to get an email from Sandra. She lives in a small Yupik village in Alaska where it's dark all winter long and you can't drink to drown your sorrows because it's a dry village. A couple of years ago Sandra had someone in the village make me an ulu which is a traditional Yupik knife. I love it and I use it all the time to skin ptarmigan and cut up eels for stir fry. Nah, I mainly use it to cut veggies and herbs like the parsnips in the photo.
Yesterday I received a fabulous package from my other sister, Brenda. She lives overseas so her packages always have a lovely exotic flair to them. Okay, so she lives in Wales, not Marrakesh, but it's still exciting to see the foreign postage on the odd silver plastic packaging. In this latest love offering from the UK there was a big box of tea. Years ago Brenda introduced me to strong British tea and now I am hopelessly addicted. Like any good opportunistic pusher of addictive substances, Brenda knows that I am hooked and will do anything for the goods. This is why I am often running errands for her and mailing packages of things she can't get in rural Wales. She gets her Vogue patterns and seam rippers, and I get my tea. When I opened the package, out wafted the most wonderful smell ever. The scent came from the best smelling little candle tarts in the world. You melt them in an oil burner and they leave the house smelling heavenly. The tarts come from this company called Dame Candles that no longer exists which is tragic. The owner, Wendy, came up with the most amazing candle scents you can possibly imagine. She was seriously olfactory gifted. I am completely in love with one of the scents called Pan. It's a blend of amber, cedar, sandalwood, white lilies, lavender, cloves, patchouli, vanilla and musk and it's to die for. Brenda shared some of her little candle tarts with me which is as generous as you can get. I plan on hoarding these until Dame Wendy comes to her senses and starts making candles again. Hahaha. Get it? A scented candle maker coming to her senses! I crack myself up. Along with the tea, candle tarts and some divine chocolates was a bag of oddball yarn. I love knitting small projects so Brenda sends me her bits and bobs of leftover yarn. Sometimes she throws in some fun hand spun stuff. As I was pawing through the bag looking at the fibery treasures, I came across something bizarre that left me speechless. Why Brenda why? The only logical reason I could come up with was that maybe she suffers from a rare infliction where in the middle of the night she is compelled to knit teeny tiny undergarments in her sleep with no recollection of doing so the next morning. To be fair though, I'll confess to making crocheted bikinis for my growing hair Velvet doll so perhaps knitters in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. So if my sister wants to knit teeny tiny underwear that's fine by me. Plus I've been knitting some teeny tiny things myself this past week. I'll share them tomorrow. I really am going to get back to blogging on a regular basis.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am sick to my stomach that you have shorts on, flowers on the deck, and lovely autumn colors, while I am sitting in the freezing cold darkness of evil Alaska!
I am equally sick that you got Pan!!

How come you got the nice ankles and I ended up with cankles?
S~

Brenda said...

I seem to recall that the clothing for the Dave and Gary Dolls went through a prototype phase... but I really can't be sure. On my monitor they look gray, and I am asking myself: did I really knit wee gray undies? They do look familiar, but I have no memory at all of knitting them.

Shanz, honey, to have Pam's ankles you'd have to accept her mutant thumbs as well. I'd stick with what I had, if I were you. (Will send you some Pan tarts in your Festivus package.)

Anonymous said...

I have enjoyed reading your blog tonight. I love crafting and seeing others' creativity. Also, I guess I wanted to add the thing I liked the most about this post is your relationship with your sisters. My only sister died some years ago and not to be debby downer it was just nice to 'be a fly on the wall' in a bit of your day!!