Life's a Stitch

Friggin frigerators and life lessons

First it was the washer and dryer, then the garbage disposal, now it's the fridge that needs to be replaced. I usually buy the best I can afford, adhering to my father's advice of quality before quantity. But I'm beginning to realize, that like cars, at the end of ten to fifteen years or so, even the more expensive model is nearly worthless.

I would like to justify a stainless steel cabinet looking fancy schmancy fridge, but thought it's just not worth an additional $80 per year of refrigerator life expectancy for good looks. I opted for practicality and hit the Sears outlet store to find a helluva deal on a Jennair fridge with a tiny dent on the side. I got a taste of what I wanted - the handles are stainless steel. A high quality fridge at a low price, my kind of bargain. OK, so we have to raise the cupboard an inch so it can fit, but what price glory?

Problem solved, right? Not that easy. Upon examination of the specs we discovered that although it fit widthwise, the door won't open a full 90 degrees, not to mention enough to remove the drawers for cleaning. Back to the drawing board.

It's a trivial problem in the scheme of things. I've been following a knitting blog for a while and discovered that Max, a fellow knitter, is now blogging about his transition from life into death. He has been diagnosed with untreatable cancer at age 40. Puts things into perspective. Max's candid posts are important lessons that remind me that dying is a part of living.

Here is a photo taken in Germany. Butterflies are often used as symbols of the transition from life to death to rebirth:

The dream continued

Forget what I said about getting over the jet lag in one fell swoop, it's taken me far longer than I expected to get over it. A luxurious complaint indeed.

The best part of our dream vacation was when our friends took us to the island of Usedom, in the northeast corner of Germany, on the border of Poland. At the turn of the century it was vacation spot for the rich and famous and summer "houses" a.k.a. mansions were built in a row for miles facing the Baltic Sea. Being in East Germany, these homes deteriorated during times of socialist rule. Now they have been renovated into vacation condos and this is where we stayed:

Our view:

Thank you Ingrid and Ulrich!

It is also the place where Kiri, now happily blocking, was finished:

It's back to work this week, my next post will be later this week. I love my job, but don't you hate the first week back after vacation?

Forced detox

This is a story of an errant water bottle. Somebody on our flight from Amsterdam to Seattle did a poor job of packing a one litre water bottle. As her luggage was being loaded onto the plane, said bottle escaped her bag and fell into an open panel into an irretrievable position causing a significant delay. You see, it required unloading all the baggage, disassembling part of the plane, retrieving the bottle, fixing the plane and reloading the luggage. I forgot, a chunk of time was spent on paper work to record the water bottle incident. Three hundred passengers and the crew were not happy with a woman named Nicky. I was especially miserable as I was forced into an unplanned knitting detox that stretched from ten hours to eleven and a half. I thought I had planned well with my plastic Denise needles, however, I attached the incorrect size to the project in progress.

On our arrival in Seattle I enthusiastically dug through my luggage for the correct size in anticipation of our long layover. I didn't notice the sign above my head which read that is was illegal to open any luggage prior to customs inspection under penalty of fine! I sweated through the line up convinced I was caught on camera or by some knitting needle sniffing pooch. After waiting for the rest of the luggage, lines for immigration, customs, rechecking of luggage...I never did get to knit even one stitch.

Another happy trip photo, after a couple of nights of sleep it seems like a dream. This is in the bell tower of a cathedral in Stralsund, up a narrow passageway and a couple of ladders - 366 steps in all. I think I left dents in the guard rail and I most definitely did not look down:

Look what was waiting for me at home. I won a contest on Michele's blog - Beknitted. Thanks, Michele! You know it will be put to good use.

25 hours and counting

We're back in North America after a wonderful three weeks in Europe. I've been up for a record 25 hours in an attempt to whip jet lag in one fell swoop.  It's easier in this direction since we gained nine hours. I'm hoping to stay up late enough to get a full night's sleep.

The best parts of the trip? Spending time with our friends, Ingrid and Ulrich, who were our guides and ultimate hosts throughout northern Germany and into Poland; precious time with family in Denmark; meeting up with former language students who have lived with us in Canada; and Bryant's enthusiasm about his adventure travelling with a church group from Spain back to Germany for World Youth Day. As for the knitting content - the wool shops in every German village and town, no matter how small; Addi needles for $4-7 euros; and yarn for half of Cdn prices.

Here's a photo of Ingrid, Helga (a former student of ours), me, Chuck, Bryant, Ulrich and in front, Lotta, Ingrid and Ulrich's daughter who participated in the same Cdn/German exchange pgm as my daughter six years ago.

And my first stop on the day of our arrival:

Hello from Germany!

This is the land of incredible wool shops! I'll have lots of knitting content when I get back. Meanwhile it's been great with good friends, beautiful scenery, and even a stop at a Medieval (sp?) torture museum for Bryant. We'll be back in two weeks.