Knotty Mouse

Today is Munchkin’s 7th birthday and our plans are to head for the all you can eat pizza buffet (the kidlet is all about some pizza) and the game store so he can get the new Lego Indiana Jones PS2 game that he’s been waiting for. I highly recommed the Lego games - we’ve LOVED the 2 Star Wars games and are looking forward to the release of Lego Batman in Sept.

I’ve already made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast & he’s been watching whatever movies he wants (within reason of course..) all day. Tomorrow we’re having the ‘family’ party with grilled hot dogs, corn on the cob & a Batman cake at the in-laws house… which Munchkin can’t wait for because he picked out his gifts (Bakagan ‘battle brawler’ creatures & cards) at Box o’ Toys with grandma but couldn’t have them until his party.

I’m still floored by the idea that I have a seven year old son.. in 9 years he’ll be driving a real car and not this coin operated one in the photo! EEP!

Happy 4th of July USA readers!  (and a Happy Friday  & a late Happy Canada Day since I missed it earlier this week..)

We’re having a rather large group of people over to the house today for a party/ cook-out/ early Munchkin birthday celebration/ excuse for the adults to shoot off fireworks/ etc so I’m writing this a bit rushed.  Its been an exhausting week here at Chez Mousie - but I finally feel like we’re making some headway with the new house.  I managed to get the entire kitchen cleaned up and somewhat organized.. which was great because just this morning already I’ve had to make 2+ dozen chocolate cupcakes and a few dozen hamburger patties for on the grill later. Later I’ll be making huge pots of baked beans, ranch bacon salad, and corn on the cob. I’m sure there will be enough food here to feed a small army.. lol.

Have a good weekend everyone.. and be safe!

A little change in format on the blog… some of the past week’s events in pictures

eating cold sweet red grapes

changing our light bulbs to energy saving compact fluorescent bulbs

knitting on my Nanner socks

(click for larger photos & descriptions)

I didn’t sign up for the official Summer of Socks because I actually had no clue it was going on… but I’m knitting socks anyway and challenging myself with more advanced patterns. Its pretty hot here in GA and I can’t think about knitting anything more substantial than a sock - 88 degrees indoors with a pile of sweater wool on her lap does NOT a happy Mousie make.  The sock on the right is Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Meadow and I’m using the “More Fun Than Cables” pattern to make socks for my mom.  I’m calling them “hidden cable socks” because the mock-cable pattern isn’t obvious in the yarn I’m using - but I know its there because I took the time to add it into the sock, and my mom knows its there when she looks at the socks.  I know it sounds corny but I really like the idea of the ’secret’ pattern in the socks as something special for my mom to know how much I was thinking of her when I was knitting her socks.

The sock on the left is Meilenweit Bosco sock yarn in WendyKnits “Nanner Sock” Plurker pattern.  I found Plurk through another blogger’s sidebar (*waves at Rilana*) and got sucked into the fact that its (to borrow a statement I saw somewhere else) “like IM on crack” complete with dancing banana emoticons and the ability to share photos.  THEN I saw WendyKnits  Nanner Sock and had to cast on for it.  The patterned stitch is almost as addictive as Plurk itself..  but will at least result in me having something (besides Plurk Karma points & eyestrain) to show for my time!  What’s funny about the socks that I have on the needles currently is that I have never made a pair of socks with a patterned foot and now BOTH socks I’m knitting are heavily patterned.  I’m SO glad that I finally learned how to read knitting charts - I can’t believe how much easier it is to understand a stitch pattern with graphs.  I’m to the point now where I wish that ALL patterns contained charts when before I was completely intimidated by those little symbols.

Sadly, I haven’t been online nearly as much as I was in the old house.. mostly because of a strange electronic interference between my computer monitor and the satellite signal on the tv.  Because my computer and the television are both in the living room I’ve had to curb my online time drastically so that Munchkin can watch tv without the tv signal going in and out.  *grumbles*  Its yet another interesting aspect of this move into the new house and the adjustment period that goes along with our new surroundings..  but things are getting better around here daily and its starting to feel more ‘like home’ finally. Hubby was even able to fix the ceiling fan & overhead light in the bedroom today!  Ceiling fans are an absolute necessity in the South in summer, especially if you are insane enough to insist on living WITHOUT air conditioning.. like we’re currently doing.  The house does have working central air (thank the gods..)  but we’re trying to be very conservative (bordering on crazy) with our usage to keep our electric bill from swallowing our bank account.  We do have to run it to cool hubby’s computer (its built for the intensive graphics that he does for his business and it gets very hot very quickly in the summertime) while he’s working- so I’m basking over the floor vents cool breeze as I type.

I’ve got a movie to watch from Netflix (our one budgeted “perk” that I haven’t gotten rid of yet) and a bag of Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos (which are awesome.. and I HATE Doritos) so I’m going to drag myself from the computer and onto the sofa for some movie watching!

(hopefully this gallery will show up in bloglines.. but there ARE pictures here and you might have to go to the actual website to see them.)

In between cleaning the filth left by the previous tenants (*shakes head*) and attempting to unpack the house a bit I’ve been working on a few knitting projects. I finally finished the socks that I had started at Yarn Harlot last September - though I had to remove the picot edge on one because I decided that I didn’t like it. I really love these colors together and the sock yarn is very soft and squishy. Unfortunately I won’t be wearing these socks until it gets MUCH cooler– around September.  I used Magic Loop, short row - no hole heel, Turkish cast on for the toe, and 60 stitches on size 1 Addi’s ( all project info can be found on my Rav page)

Due to utter confusion when we moved (understatement of the year, that one) all of our boxes ended up spread around the house and I was left to poke around the contents of unlabeled bins looking for my knitting supplies. I found my container of straight needles and my small bin of kitchen cotton and got started on some wash cloths for end of school teacher gifts. Even though I’ve never really been into knitting cotton or dishcloths I really liked the pattern I was using (from the book “Mindful Knitting”) and ended up making about 5 cloths before the novelty wore off. I gifted the rest to my MIL for her birthday and used the end of the cotton to make glass cozies for myself.

I really wanted to thank everyone for the comments and good thoughts during our move - it really means a lot to have folks sending good vibes during hard times.  I should be caught back up with returning comments & emails but I do know that there is a good chance that things got lost in my inbox(es) so if you emailed and needed a response to something and I’ve ‘ignored’ you.. please email again.

Oh, for those of you on blog-readers I’ve redone the header bar for the blog with a photo I took here at the new house.. they are the well worn prayer flags that are hanging from the deck roof.  The photo makes me happy - and it reflects the sort of feeling I want in the house itself and on this blog.

Hi.. this is Ms. Kitty stepping in for Mouse while she is busy cleaning & unpacking our new home and dealing with that two legged creature she calls “Munchkin” since he is home alllllll day long now. Apparently that weird noisy yellow creature got tired of eating the kid in the morning & spitting him back out every evening and has stopped coming for him..

The house is big & old.. the humans say that it needs a lot of work but I’m pretty happy here, especially since there is a very large yard that I can explore and big window sills to sit in. I used to live in a house like this when I was a kitten and we lived somewhere called “Athens” - that was way before Mouse and I were friends and I used to chase her around and bite her ankles all day long.. those were fun times.

Unfortunately the new house used to be home to a smelly dog that obviously didn’t have a litter box.. (those dogs are so uncivilized) and had fleas.. which makes Mouse and I very unhappy. Both of us are horribly allergic to fleas and we’re scratching all the time.. I’m glad that I got some medicine from the vet to make me feel better but I think that Mouse will probably have to start wearing flea collars on her ankles. The humans who lived here were also very dirty and Mouse has spent a lot of time cleaning up messes to make our new house look and smell nice.. I wish she’d stop using that loud machine that sprays the carpets and makes my paws wet but she says it will get out the dog smell.

As you can see.. I do have a really nice deck now where I can sit in the shade on this big chair the servants brought for me. Mouse keeps saying that she will enjoy spinning here when she is done “cleaning this frakking house” - I just hope she doesn’t think she’s going to be sitting in my comfy chair to do it.

Well anyway.. I should go and demand some food and water (which I already have.. that drives them CRAZY) and maybe trip up one or two of the humans for a laugh - I don’t want Mouse to think that I’ll be writing her blog for her all the time. I should probably go back to pretending to speak LOLCat so that I don’t get stuck doing this again.. I so hate when I get used as blog fodder. Meows!

Just a quick note that the move date has been pushed up by our current landlord and now we have to be completely out of our ‘former home’ THIS weekend instead of NEXT like we had previously thought. We’re in a panic, a tizzy, and whatever other word you can think of. My word lately for what we’re calling this has been “clusterf*ck”.  I’ve cried more than I can remember and been sick to my stomach every day for over 2 weeks now..  my stress level is through the roof, I’m yelling at everyone when I’m not crying, and I have a lovely skin rash from the stress.  My only point of sanity at the moment is my nightly “hanging out time” with Munchkin- I don’t know what I’d do without that kid. My husband has stepped up to the plate fantastically and has really held it together when I was coming apart at the seams.  I’m really grateful as well for the fact that my husband’s friends have come out of the woodwork with trucks and man-power to move us quickly at short notice… and I can’t wait for this to be over so that I can take my first calm breath in almost a month.

I miss you all (I haven’t had time to read or comment.. I’m sorry)  and I’ll be back as soon as I can.  It may take a week or two before I’m able to even respond to emails because I’m not sure about internet hookups or anything else of the matter. I’m just trying to get through this.. but thought everyone needed an update. I’m going to go back to packing now……….

–Mouse

There’s a lot going on ‘behind the scenes’ here that I haven’t been talking about..  I was hoping to have good news to share along with the bad news but that post isn’t happening right this minute and I need to get this damned elephant out of the room so that I can speak freely again.  I’ve been avoiding talking about “the bad news” because I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.  I still don’t (other than it sucks)… but it impacts my life both online and reality as well as affecting both the shop & the blog so I knew I’d need to come clean shortly. So.. here it is.

(I’m putting the rest of this behind a cut because it has nothing to do with knitting or crafting…)

Read the rest of this entry »

I was happy to see all of the Earth Day blog posts out there in bloglandia so I decided that I’d throw in one of my own as well - and publicly admit that I’m a ‘green freak’. Growing up in a rather crunchy granola sort of family I’ve always been interested in natural products & green living and I guess I really can’t imagine living any other way. My family recycled long before there was a curb side service, was part of a natural foods co-op, and shopped at the local health food store when it was ‘weird’ to do so… man that place had the best fried tofu samwiches! (I have no idea how to cook tofu.. but this stuff had a breaded crunchy outside just like fried chicken. It had sprouts & some sort of Italian style dressing on it.. yum.)

I get irritated when people bitch about doing simple things that will help to save the planet. How hard is it to wash a can? Please. Recycling here in the county I live in (and I’m in “metro-Atlanta”) is voluntary, which I think is a huge mistake. I also don’t the recycling services are up to par with the ones we had elsewhere because we can’t recycle paper of any kind. We’re one of the very few houses in our neighborhood who even puts out our recycling bins for collection- I just can’t imagine how much other houses are throwing away needlessly! I did notice however that I do throw away a lot of packaging during dinner.. so I’m going to work on buying more things in larger quantities so that there is less packing waste.
Our local supermarket is HORRIBLE about giving plastic bags for every single item, and double bagging to boot! I’m also rather irritated because they recently installed those ’self check out’ lines with the bagging stations that have built in scales so that they know you are putting your items into a bag. If I want to use my cloth bags at that store, I have to go through one of the TWO available ‘full service’ check out lines. Its nice when a company (who sells cloth bags with the store name on them) makes you choose the environment over convenience, isn’t it?

Wow.. time flies! Today marks 4 years of blogging, starting over at my Blogger blog when I was a newbie knitter living in a Tennessee town with one stop light. I can’t help that every time I think of this blog and the things I’ve been through while I’ve had it - the lyrics “What a long, strange trip its been” from the Grateful Dead pop into my head. To be honest, I almost quoted it in the title line of this post until it came up automatically and I realized that I had used it last year. Oops.

I’ve retired my usual “cheese-cake” graphic (with candles added for each new year) for something a little more fun.. I thought we all deserved some chocolate cake with pirate skulls. I hope y’all don’t mind that I seem to have already gotten my paws in the frosting.. it was too good to resist.. lol.

This blog-anniversary comes at a really weird time my life, but I’m not going to get into that today. Instead, I will say thank you to all of the people who have hung in with me on this strange trip. *namaste

(edited to add.. Ok.. I really hate WP 2.5. NOTHING on the cute little posting screen works and I’m doing all of my posts in full HTML. Harumpfh.)

1. Avada Kedavra Sock, 2. “dining room”- before 3. “dining room”- after

I know.. I know.. “holy shit.. KNITTING? On Mouse’s knitting blog? No way!” yes, way. I’ve been chugging along at night on the Killing Curse socks and have turned the heel on sock #1 while watching obscene amounts of CSI:Miami. I also found a “new way” (new to me anyway..) of doing a hole free short row heel which can be found here and is WAY easier than my previous method which was rather hit or miss. The pain in my hand from knitting is mild as long as I don’t knit for hours at a time.. so I’m trying to monitor my time and fly under the radar on that one. While I do miss knitting constantly I do NOT want to injure my hand/wrist anymore and risk further and more serious damage.. so I’m taking it one project at a time.

The photos on the right side are a before and after of my (useless for its intended purposes - which makes me wonder what sort of idiot designed these houses) dining room. Our house is a split level and its the room you come into when you come up the steps from the front door - so the mess and the clutter made me sad every time I came home. This is also the room that connects every other room upstairs so I was constantly looking at the mess and wishing it would go away even though I had no idea where to start in fixing it - some messes are overwhelming like that. A few days ago I ended up pulling everything out, throwing most of the contents of the top of the large table in a cardboard box to be sorted later, moving all the things hiding UNDER the table into the garage, and bringing up a small card table in its place. The small table with two padded chairs (also hiding in other rooms taking up space) became a really nice place to do homework with Munchkin at night.

Fair amount of bitching and an overdose of the real life of Mousie and a fair amount of swearing under the cut.. (so if you read this on bloglines you can feel free to skip the rest of this post if you don’t want to hear it) Read the rest of this entry »

Blah blah blah yarn blah blah blah handspun blah blah *cough sneeze* blah blah. Yes, I’m still sick and its making me miserable. If you’re expecting a package from me (not an order.. just a package.. ) they haven’t been mailed yet because I’m still in the “curl up under a blanket in the corner” phase.

The photos above are hand-painted Corriedale from Spunky Eclectic’s shop which I spun into 132 yds of worsted weight 2 ply…. The label says its “Rocky Mountain High” - which I’m sort of confused about since I lived in Colorado for 2 years and can’t place where green and wine ( I wrote “whine..” lol) come into play.. For the record, I’m calling it “Rose Garden” and it will be in the shop within the week. The stuff in the right hand corner on the bottom is my spinning in progress - a sport weight merino single in very bright colors.. which reminds me of Rainbow Brite.

I would have knitting to show you but apparently my gauge was WAY off and the Felicity hat wouldn’t even fit my son. Unfortunately I realized my error about 5 inches of stockinette into the hat so the whole thing is going to be frogged. My father in law has requested a hat (in black.. yawn..) that covers the back of his neck, so I’m in the process of either finding or tweaking a hat pattern to work for this. I found the Blue Hills Hat but unfortunately its bulky weight yarn and its just not cold enough for that here in GA… except for today.. because its 34 degrees outside and it was snowing this morning when I took Munchkin to the bus stop. Its supposed to be 66°F later this week. *boggles* No wonder everyone is sick.

Thanks to all of the comments I decided to keep Mousie Masala as the shop name and use “Two Paws” as the name of the yarns. I’m now having issues with Ravelry and its yarn system because I’d like to have photos of each individual yarn.. so I may end up naming things by colorway after all. *grumble* Its definitely not their system that is the problem.. its the fact that its set up for commercial yarn with set yardage, fiber type, etc. and all of my yarns vary from skein to skein. The actual problem is that I can’t get the page and the database to do what I want it to do.. best laid plans of mice.. and all that.

I wanted to thank everyone for their two cents regarding the Ravelry/yarn naming post.. I’m still working on emails from comments because (to put it mildly..) I’m sick.  Actually, I’ve spent the entire week doped up on cold medicine and  barely alive because I was hit with THE CRUD that has been going around Atlanta.  It started out with waking up last Saturday morning to the tune of yet another case of strep throat and the addition of some sort of sinus/ear infection and buckets of snot (was that TMI? you’re welcome).  If I blow my nose or sneeze one more time.. I’m going to cry. I don’t do well with adult cold medication (it makes me loopy- even at low doses) so I’ve been chugging grape kiddie cold medicine, eating cherry cough drops,  and walking around in a haze.

I have gotten a lot of spinning done because I lack the concentration to knit - so at least something good is coming out of this cold.  The above photo is about 55 yards of 2 ply worsted/bulky weight baby alpaca/silk blend handspun from roving that I picked up at Maryland Sheep & Wool 2 years back. I wish I would have thought to get more than an ounce or two but at the time I was a spindle spinner and didn’t think in ‘bulk’ roving.  Fortunately I have another ounce or two of a fawn colored alpaca/silk from the same MSW vendor that I could play with.  I definitely enjoyed spinning this fiber - its SO soft! Even my husband commented on the softness of this skein when I shoved it in his face and demanded that he pet the yarn - he’s pretty much used to living with a fiber addict at this point. I’m not sure what I’ll make with this because of the yardage.. but I’m definitely keeping it for myself.
Speaking of fiber addiction.. I’ve put my spinning ‘in progress’ up in my Ravelry projects list so it shows up on the sidebar.  My wheel has taken up permanent residence in the living room and my nightly routine has been to spin while watching ‘CSI:Miami’.  I’m hoping to have a few yarns for the shop available soon as I picked up a couple really nice rovings on Etsy from a favorite vendor.  They’re totally out of my usual color preference (purple.. purple.. & purple..) but I’m enjoying the change.

I’ve sort of been off in my own little world lately and have been doing a lot of thinking about where I want my business to go and how I want to get it there. Admittedly I try to keep the ‘business stuff’ off of this blog because I’ve been told before that people don’t really like when someone’s blog is all about their business. I can totally understand that but I also really love reading blogs that are written by women with their own shops & crafty businesses where they talk about their daily routines - be it cutting a million squares for quilts or knitting tons of hats for their craft show booths. I have a ’shop blog’ but I barely use it… its on blogger and I actually forget that its over there half the time. Its mostly a ’shop update’ announcement place anyway. I’ve been kicking around things about the business lately and when I got frustrated by having to explain so much to a non-knitting or spinning husband I was told that I should ask “the blog”- which is hysterical that he’d suggest something like that. (and he doesn’t even read Yarn Harlot.. lol)

So.. where was I? Oh yeah.. shop. I’ve decided that I am going to list myself as a “yarnie” over on Ravelry b/c I have been selling my handspun for a while, its likely that someone might have it in their stash, and I’d really like to pursue that part of my business further. I recently sent out a skein (in the photo) with the name “Two Paws Handspun” because its the name that I have all of my handspun yarns listed under on Ravelry in my own stash - and the name seems to have stuck. So this is where I get all confuzzled… In Ravelry you have a Brand name which also comes up under your user name in the “yarnies” section (say “Lorna’s Laces”for example) and then you can have different sorts of yarns (and LL has Shepard sock, Lion & Lamb.. etc) and you get a line that says where the person bought the yarn (”Knitch yarn shop” for example) or you can add in a website address. I’ve been sitting here for DAYS trying to decide how I want to list everything in Ravelry because I know that its a data base and would be a big fat mess to try and edit once its been done.. so I want it to work properly.

What I’m getting at here is that I basically need help deciding what name I should use. I could list the “Brand Name” (which would also be my Yarnie name) as Mousie Masala & then list ALL of the yarns as Two Paws Handspun - the whole whack of them regardless of plies or type. OR I could list the “Brand name” as Two Paws Handspun - then come up with catagories and names for the types of yarn I am selling/will sell (single, two ply.. art yarn.. etc). I really want to use Ravelry’s system to see IF anyone and how many folks have either stashed my yarn or used it as projects.. so I really don’t want to name each individual yarn by its colorway as I’ve seen some folks do. I have looked through Ravelry’s Yarnie section so many times that I’m starting to recognize people’s icons without looking at the names.

Where do I stand? I’m confuzzled to say the least. I’m not sure how I want to be “known”- whether I should go with my shop name of Mousie Masala that’s been out there for a few years.. or use the Two Paws Handspun as my brand (because Mousie Masala is technically the SHOP itself.. and Two Paws is the yarn..) and hope that people make the connection but then have to “name” all of my yarns. I’m totally over-analyzing this but I also want to be able to come up in the search thing when you type in a yarn. I *have* however changed the banner on my Etsy shop to reflect this name addition.. so I’m pretty committed to the name itself.

So, I’d really love to hear your opinion. I know there are some Rav Yarnies that read my blog too so that would be helpful to hear from y’all as well. Thanks in advance.

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
–Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems (1916) “Fog”
US biographer & poet (1878 - 1967)

for more information on the silent poetry reading in honor of St. Brigid : go here

♥ ♥Also.. its my 10th wedding anniversary. ♥ ♥

So.. I’m in my kitchen cutting off box tops for Munchkin’s school  (one of those ‘boxtops for education thingies that they’re doing for Valentines Day)  and I’m  struck with a case of deja vu.  I’m standing there going.. “what does this remind me of?” as I’m sticking the cereal box minus half its top flap back into the cabinet.. and suddenly it dawns on me.  There is a scene in the movie Better off Dead where the main character Lane Myer (John Cusack) is pulling out boxes of cereal from the cabinet and the cereal is pouring out all over the countertop & floor because the boxes have holes in them from where his kid brother has clipped the ads on the back to send away for the toys (and working rockets from vacume cleaner parts.. and books on how to pick up loose women..).  I am in the house by myself and I’m laughing my ass off over this –  the cat is now avoiding me because its clear that my crazy is of the contagious variety.

I don’t make a habit out of shopping and I don’t go out of the house much.. so it makes me a really good target for “sticker shock” when I actually do have to purchase something. When my car battery decided that it didn’t even have enough ‘juice’ to stay charged for a single day of use (close to 2 weeks ago now) I was forced to call around to auto shops for a replacement battery.  I was stunned to find out that a car battery - the cheapest one available for my brand of car- costs $60.00!! This is AFTER the $10 returned core fee…  *mouth gapes open*  I called EIGHT different stores to price compare and came down to that price as an average.

People.. I have a 1988 Dodge Shitheap with 200,000 ++ miles on it,  only 2 out of the 4 doors open,  no shoulder belts in the back,  the windshield wipers don’t work AT ALL, and only one window opens.  It also has no air conditioning or heat AND no working radio speakers.  You know that car commercial where the guys’ car is making a noise and he hits the dashboard, the car noise stops.. but then the car falls entirely apart? Yup, that’s what I drive. I’m beyond pissed that I have to spend this sort of money on a car battery for a car that I barely use - but my husband is out of town quite a bit and I really can’t be stuck here without a working vehicle in case of an emergency with Munchkin at school, etc.   I’m also irritated at Georgia’s utter lack of proper public transportation for those of us who live outside of the city of Atlanta.  I’d ride my bike (which is out of commission as well.. awaiting a tire & rim) but the nearest grocery store is about a 5 mile ride - which I’m not willing to do even if I was in the sort of shape that type of ride would require.

I’m still planning on having a second stash sale in the next week.. I’ve just been organizing, photographing & weighing out packages to check for postage prices. Thanks to everyone that bought in my fiber stash sale.. everything is out in the mail from that sale and should be on its way.

BTW.. I signed into my blog today and was told :

Blog Stats : There are currently 193 posts and 2,000 comments, contained within 27 categories.

2,000 Comments!  I decided after I saw that bit of information that a prize was definitely in order for the 2000th commenter..  so…  the prize for the 2,000th comment goes to Moon @ Nocturnal Knit Witch    so please email me with your address & I’ll send you a giftie! 

Its snowing in georgia! Woot!

Just a quick note to let y’all know that I’m going to be having a “de-stash” sale this week of yarn & roving. I’ll put stuff up as soon as I figure out shipping stuff and take better photos than are on my Ravelry stash listings..

edited to add: the weather is totally disagreeing with my need to take photos - we’re expecting sleet & freezing rain storms and the sky is gray & moody. I’ll be posting up sale stuff in the next week..

until then.. I’ll be on “Snow Watch ‘08″ for Munchkin.  Poor kid.. he’s dying to see some snow! (and not the stuff here on the blog.. lol)

The Old Year

A Farewell

Where art thou going so fast, old year,
Where art thou going so fast?
There’s a tremulous sigh in the midnight air,
There are requiem whispers of wild despair–
Chant they a dirge for the past, old year,
The shadowy, vanished past?
What is thy record, to-night, old year,
What is thy record to-night?
There are lessons of life unstudied, untaught,
There are dreams of its schemes unwritten, unwrought,
And gleanings of bliss or blight, old year,
Time’s gleanings of bliss or blight.

Not unmet were thy blessings, old year,
Blessings that brighten for aye!
There were deeds of charity, kindness and love,
Forgotten below, remembered above;
These, thy noblest incentives, old year,
Incentives that never die.

Snow-flakes are wreathing thy shroud, old year,
Winds wail thy funeral knell–
The seed time and harvest will come, as of yore,
And seasons return with their vintage and store,
But thou!—thy destiny!—death, old year
Pilgrim, ephemeral, farewell!

Mrs. C. I. Baker, Arthur’s Home Magazine, 1880 Annual

* don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out….  stupid year.  Here’s to a less sucktacular year to come, ok?