Molly Bee's Attic

It's been a rough few weeks without my buddy. His toys are still around so it's easy to pretend he's just snoozing in the other room until I drop food on the floor in the kitchen and yell, 'Clean Up!' and no one comes running. Or when I need a big old hug and sloppy kiss....let's just say Cooper is a poor substitute. I have discovered a way to relieve a little of my Doggy-Less Life Blues recently though.  You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I've been walking three miles a night and 5 on the weekend days forever now. I've always stopped to greet the dogs I've met along the way; a head scritch here, a kiss there. I don't care if you're running, or in a bad mood and don't care to stop and talk, thank you. If you have your canine companion with you, I'm going to wreck your timed run and possibly enhance your bad mood, because your pup and I?  We got bid'ness to attend to! After all, all dogs on the planet belong to me....I j...

OK, so sometimes fraternizing with your fellow humans will bite you in the butt; not often, but sometimes.  Case in point, at the gas station today, I saw a young man wearing a green 'I (heart) VT' t-shirt ( exactly like the one above ), so I say to him, "I love Vermont...it's so green...well all of New England is really....so pretty." He looks at me like I have a hole in the head and then looks behind him to see if I am maybe talking to someone else. Nope. It's just you and me. Bucko! I try again.  "I was born and raised up in Northern Maine but live out here now. I sure miss the Atlantic." Again, he gave me an ' OK, who's in charge of the the crazy lady' look and finally said, in a clearly irritated, haughty, voice, "I've never been out East .". I say, " Oh, I just saw your 'I (heart) Vermont' shirt and assumed. Sorry!'. He looks down at his shirt and said (and I quote), "VT doesn'...

 I walk three miles or so  every night. I have a designated route around the 'hood. Three laps around-flat and paved.  It is so beautiful tonight that I decided to go a different way around a big field. I stumbled onto a segment of the Ice Age Trail that I didn't know was there. I do so loves me a path in the woods! The woods was chock-a-block full and covered with wonderful purple flowers.   I think it's called 'Mallow', but feel free to correct me in the comments if I'm wrong.  I heard something crashing around in the woods and thought for sure that after 25+ years of searching the prairie lands, I was finally going to find a moose here. Since I spent the first 25 in Maine, it is an unkillable instinct to search every swamp, field and woods for them. I KNOW we don't have them here, but I STILL have to talk myself out of looking once my brain kicks in! Turns out, here as in Maine, nothing sounds like more a full grown bull moose on ...

I love when three totally different planets end up in the same airspace and are forced to deal with each other. I was in Target today. All of the lines had a gazillion people except for one, so I made a beeline for it since I was on my lunch hour and time was limited. The only people in line were what folks around these parts refer to as 'gangsta'; a Latino couple, completely covered with tattoos, piercings, heavy gold jewelry, sun glasses and 'tough' clothes. He had the obligatory hat on backwards...over a bandanna. She was a little, bitty thing so pregnant that she looked like she had taken out the 14 month plan, chewing a huge wad of gum and looking bored. As I walked up behind them, it was clear he was having problems with the credit card machine and was getting  frustrated by it. The young woman cashier looked antsy as he inserted his Target card over and over only to have it beep and decline. Finally she said, 'Let me try something different', and took t...

This week's Diva Challenge is to use a bit of black in your tangle. This is probably more than the bit she was talking about.... but I never was one to follow instructions.I also run with scissors, don't play well with others and cry heartily over spilled milk-that's just how I roll.  It was good to do a challenge again. Haven't felt much like joining anything in any sense of the word as of late, but I'm sure it will pass. My success rate for surviving sucky things is 100% so far. I'm sure I'll survive the hole in my heart and house that Ben left too.  I did take a Zentangle class with friend-Janice last week. It was one of Katie Butler's that I had taken before on the use of 'Whimsical' patterns. Left to my own devices I tend to veer towards geometrical, symmetric patterns, but whimsical is right up Janice's alley! She hasn't been tangling long but has a distinct, flow-y, flowery flair and she totally rocked the class. She ...

 Big Ben ran joyfully over the Rainbow Bridge in the early morning hours of May 4th. It's only been a little over a week, but the hole he left in my heart and in this house hasn't filled in one bit. I know it was time. I promised that I would never let him suffer and I didn't. I made the most difficult decision    one has to make regarding a best fur buddy. I still think I see him out of the corner of my eye. I long to hug him again and feel his big, goofy, head on my shoulder; his soft, sloppy kisses. I would give anything for one more chance to scratch his soft, floppy, ears. My Sweet Boy, I hope you are in a place now where you don't hurt anymore; no knee pain, no tumors, no fatigue. I wish you endless fields to run and chase in, all the yummiest treats and all the toys you can destroy. I hope that the next time I see you, you are waiting at the doorway for me with that dopey grin and waggy tail, just like you did every time I came home the last 11 years. Un...

I joined a Sunday afternoon Dream Bird Shawl knit-along a couple of weeks back. There are 4 of us in the group and we all sat down the first afternoon and tried to decipher the multi-page pattern.  This involved counting (and counting and counting) stitches, a funky cast on, and placing a ridiculous amount of stitch markers. I got really frustrated, and when it got to the step where you 'don't place markers here because there are already  imaginary markers', I gave up all together. I got home and ripped the entire thing up and considered not starting again.  I have an amazing inability to not  anticipate spacial relationship in knitting. I can't 'see' how it should go or adapt to 'make it work'. I have to have definitive instructions and follow them to the letter. I had the same problem with Eliz. Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket where you essentially knit an amoeba-shaped blob and they when you fold it up-TA DA-it's a little jacket. Or i...

I went to Pet Smart on Saturday to get Cooper new dishes.  I got there right when they opened so there wasn't really anyone around. I was headed to the cat department when I passed a cart with a big bin of live crickets in it. Depending on their size, they were .12-.15 cents each. 'What an economical pet', I thought. [On  my planet, crickets are friends not food. We take them home, hand feed them yummy, cricket treats, paint their little toe nails and walk them in fields of clover.] I noticed that one of the lids on the bin was open and crickets were escaping; all over the cart and the floor. Afraid they'd get stepped on, I started picking them up to put back in the cricket bucket. The were easy to catch, they weren't really jumping-just crawling, but the more I caught, the more there were. Then I realized I hadn't shut the lid yet and the little buggers were still escaping. (Sigh.) I tried to put the crickets I had in my hand back in the bin and then shut it,...

One of the highlights of my week arrives on Friday afternoon. That's when Genevieve Crabbe over at 'Zentangle Harmony' posts her Weekly Round Up . She gathers all of the challenges, tutorials, new pattern step-outs and other yummy doodley things from that week's  blog posts from the art community and puts them all in one fabulous list. As soon as the bell rings at four PM, I end my work day and start perusing the new patterns. I don't take the time to check out everyone's blogs during the week so this service she provides is invaluable to me. I get a bunch of new step-outs that I probably would have missed otherwise.  Every once in a while, a new pattern catches my fancy and I obsess on it. Remember my Narwal period?  Or Breakers? Last week is was Knightstar created by teenage tangler, Daniel Lemothe  and it so totally ROCKS ! It's a gridded pattern and every square is exactly the same; two opposing parabolic curves. Simple, but when put together by...

I don't like to be pigeon-holed. I don't think anyone does. I know it's human nature to think that you know all about someone but you don't so... stop it . For instance, I wear purple shirts..a  lot. But just when you think to yourself, 'Hey Self, there goes Molly. She wears purple shirts', I'll turn right around and wear a green one. Just to mess with your mind (ECHO, Echo, echo). That's right. No one puts Baby in a corner! You don't know all about me. I could be Batman! Preposterous? Maybe, but have you ever seen us in the same room together? With that in mind, I love to run into other folks who don't let society (or you could insert the word 'reality' here) define them. This morning, on the way to work, I encountered their king. He was ahead of me at the stop sign on Nesbitt Road. He was driving a silver Chevy Cruz and it was decked out ! It had small tires so it barely cleared the ground,  colored hubcaps,  custom dual exhaust, dec...

Things have been relatively busy at Chez Bee these days. The weather is getting a little warmer and the winter blues are scampering away. There have been garden seedling to plant and garages to sweep and spring cleaning in general. I have discovered that I can knit on my evening walks now that my fingers don't freeze off. I knit about an inch a mile. Tuesday night I walked 3.5 miles and last night I walked 2.5 and that (plus the little head start I got at Knit Night last Friday night) gave me a sock leg in record time. Tonight we find out if I can knit the flap and turn the heel at 3.5 m.p.h.! Accomplishing it, and accomplishing it without puncture wounds to my protective outer coating are two different things. The struggle is real.                       I drug out 'Tribal Narwal' from the closet where it has been sitting in time out 'thinking about what it's done' and commenced work on it with the hopes of getting it...

People say to me all the time, "Molly Bee, why don't you post more bewb pics on your blog"?  So here you go! I was at the polling place at 6:45 AM, waiting for the doors to open, and I was still Voter Number 98 ! I suspect that there are MANY of us that don't want to have to pack up and move to Canada in November. I do LOVE Canada, and living on the island they have set up and waiting for us (Cape Breton) would be my dream, I HATE packing! If you haven't voted yet, please do so....and continue to do so whenever you can. It's more important than ever! 

As most of you know, when my Dad passed away on April 1, 1999, my Mum gave me a coin bank that belonged to him and it's one of my dearest treasures. It's one of the wooden box ones with the old post office box door that has a little alphabetical dial lock on it. Since then, I try not to spend any change and just keep socking it away into Daddy's bank. Then I take it to the bank on November 1st (his b-day) and April 1st and cash it in. I didn't get to do it in November because I was just getting home from California, (I felt bad because it was the first one I missed in 17 years!) so it's been a year since it's been emptied this time. I could hardly lift the thing...$192! I also try never to spend $5 bills and when I get 20, I take them in,and put them in savings. I had close to $300 in $5's.  Cha Ching! I went to Knit Night with the girls Friday night, but didn't knit. I have been working on my shawl so much that I've all but blown out my wrist and ...

It's been a rough couple of weeks around Chez Bee which means there has been precious little housework (even more 'precious-er littler' than usual) and more drawing and crafting.  After help from Friend-Jen on this finorkin' pattern , (Not the designer's fault-I totally over thought the chart to the point of no return.) I've made some headway on my shawl. Close up of stitches. It's honeycomb but you won't be able to really tell until I block the bejeepers out of it. This is a horrible shot, but more accurately represents the yarn color. I don't generally wear bright yellow and this yarn, with it many shades, reminded me more of honey and honeycomb than the one on the pattern.  There's also been copious amounts of doodling. Nothing takes me out of my head and tranquilized my mind-monkeys like a clean sheet of paper and an ink pen. This is a card I made for my friend Kathy.  The pattern in the upper left is my ' Ob...

I always have fun at the grocery store. I'm that annoying lady who insists on looking at you, smiling and saying 'hello'...or that your kids are cute. I'll help you reach something if you need it, direct you to where to find an item if I know where it is, or help unload your groceries at the check out. We live in  this new world where most people are oblivious, self-involved and pre-occupied.  And I live in a city where trying to handle your life among the seething masses tends to make folks distance themselves out of sheer self-preservation, but I was born and raised in small-town Northern Maine.  I knew all my neighbors. We said hello to each other when we met face to face. For good or bad, everyone knew everyone else's business and we all looked out for each other. I've been here for 26 years now and I refuse to have those little sparks of civility, humanity and common courtesy  stomped out of me by the same people who pride themselves on their 'Midwe...

Shattuck Swirl This week's Diva Challenge was a monotangle; only use the Shattuck tangle in your tile. Shattuck is one that I use often so it was a pleasure, meditative and very cathartic, to draw the same strokes over and over.  Thanks for another wonderful challenge Diva!!!

Last night was Knit Night with the girls. I went to supper with Friend-Dale Harriet beforehand, which is always a good time. Then there was an excellent band at the cafe- The Soggy Prairie Boys . I'm a Soggy fan for life now! The girls set to work cheering me up and succeeded brilliantly. I couldn't ask for better Knit Sisters! This morning I had a wonderful brunch with Friend-Janice, to celebrate another successful mission completely around the sun. She doesn't really celebrate her birthday but I'm ever so happy she was born, so I made her go....because it's all about me. We went to Pancake Cafe-yum! We munched, chatted, and  laughed until we cried. I was in such high spirits and optomistic that I figured I'd keep it going and head on over to Farm and Fleet to look around at the gardening stuff. That's right, I fully intend to torture and kill some veggies in my garden again this summer. I had such a great time perusing all of the little packets, decidi...

This has been a week of surprises, some happy, some not so much...but that's the way life goes, eh? In focusing on the positive, this is one of my favorite 'happy treats' of the week.  Friend-Gail sent it to me from Texas for Pi Day. How cool is that! Can't wait to make a Pi cake!  Another happy surprise was a bonus from work! Yay! I had a couple of ideas for treats for myself in celebration. I really want a pair of small diamond stud earrings. I also want a mondo set of Prisma colored pencils. Both are spendy and not something I could buy usually....so I thought and thought and thought about which to get and finally came to a decision...a Bissel Symphony steam mop.  Do I know how to live it up or what? One of the not-so-happy surprises of the week was not so much a surprise, since we knew it was coming, but even so, you're never really prepared.  Amy the sheep passed away at Heartland last night. Amy was a gentle old girl. She was 14 years old wh...