Whoah… today is my FIVE YEAR blog anniversary! I’m seriously stunned that its been that long since I started this on a whim when we lived in Tennessee and I was longing to connect to like-minded folks. I don’t really have much to say that I haven’t said before on my anniversary posts.. but I do want to say thank you again to all of the folks who read and comment. I’ve met some really awesome friends through this blog and I wouldn’t trade y’all for anything!

So, as you may have expected.. I’m going to have a contest. I wasn’t sure how to go about this because I really don’t have any store bought yarn to give away (the usual contest prize here in knit-blog-land) but I’ve decided that the winner of the contest will receive a “goody bag” of things. It might be chocolate, tea, incense, handspun yarn, or soaps… it will also contain something hand made by me but not necessarily knitted. If you win you can tell me of any allergies or hates (you know.. “the smell of flowers makes me barf” or “I hate yellow” would be helpful) so that I can tailor the gift package. Think of it as a Mousie grab-bag… try your luck. Ask around.. I think I put together rather good giftie bags.

So… what do you have to do? Simple. Leave a comment on this post and tell me something. Your favorite quote? Favorite memory? Thing you are thankful for? Anything you want to tell me. The only content rule is that it has to be something “nice” – nothing mean or nasty please. The only other rule is that this contest is ONLY open to people who have actually read my blog before. I’m not saying you have to ever have left a comment.. but please be honest and only enter if you actually are a blog reader (though I’m willing to make an exception for those folks who I talk to on Ravelry.. just leave your Rav name in your comment). I’m going to leave this contest open until Tuesday night at midnight and I’ll choose a winner via the magic random machine (or a drawing in a hat.. depending on how many folks enter).

नमस्ते (Namaste’)

-Mouse

Today was my friend Lady Deathwatch‘s first annual Thankfulness Tea Party over at her blog.. and since I LOVE tea.. I told her that I would participate. I was originally going to get all dressed up in my Victorian Gothic clothes and set out a pretty tea party spread (like Black Crow did..) but hubby woke up this morning with a craving for IHOP** and we hit the road for breakfast & a trip to Target for me to look at clothing*. I did get back in time to make myself a nice pot of homemade spiced chai ( I prefer regular old teabag black tea and Lakshmi brand tea masala from the Indian grocery) with my pretty blue tea set & one of my favorite mugs before Munchkin came home from MIL’s house hopped up on WAY too much sugar. I have to post some photos of my hair soon.. which is becoming an interesting work in progress. The pinkish strand you see in the photo is part of the handspun yarn dreads which are in my hair.. I’m taking a style cue from photos on a friend’s blog of her very cool daughter with different colored roving in her hair & bright eye makeup.

*Dude.. I struck out BIG TIME at Target. Everything I liked was in the wrong sizes or the wrong colors. I’m going to hit another Target sometime in the next week or two (hubby willing that is..) because I found the cutest a-line swing tops with little buttons but they only had a strange teal color left.

** this link doesn’t go anywhere if you click on it but if you mouse over them.. they say things. Think of it as footnotes.. or obnoxious pop-up commentary. I’m trying to get away from wanting to use parentheses every 6 words but I’m not sure if this is any less annoying..