Happy halloween!

As I already told in the previous post here in Hungary we don't celebrate Halloween as they do in the US or even in the UK. Like many things coming from overseas it gets more and more fashionable. I love dressing up, but I prefer the carnival... We didn't plan on any party or dressing up for the day, but my son asked for a Jack'o lantern... So we went to the market, bought a small pumpkin and carved it... I never did anything like this, but thanks to the advice Angela gave me (she pointed me to some really good sites)...

The most difficult time I had was scraping the pumpkin flesh out. (I cooked it up to a pumpkin soup. We'll see how it goes with Christopher).

Here is the end result. Christopher drew up the face:

And I put a bat at the back of it.

And here how it glowed in the dark (these pictures were done with my cell-phone's camera, which doesn't have a flash).

When we lighted it and turned off the electric lightbulbs, my son was so happy, he jumped up and down, clapping his hands... So it was all worth it :-)))

Lovely day

Here comes a long post with lots of pictures.
Chris's school is off for the fall break in this week, and I managed to get two days of vacation too. P. went to the lake and I have my boy for all myself (yay).

November 1st is the day of "all saints" and nov. 2nd is the "day of the dead", which means we spend time to remember those who are not with us anymore (or as we tell to Chris "those who went back to the stars"). This is the time when everyone (even those who usually do not) goes to the cemeteries, light a candle, and remember.

This year with many things coming together I decided I take Chris to the city where I grew up, and where my mom is buried.

We took a small wreath and lighted a candle, but Chris was adamant about a small bouquet of flowers.

Afterwards we stopped a "Cukrászda" (cafe? tea house? but the emphasis is on the sweets, the cakes. Chris asked for an ice cream and a frog shaped sweet.

We took a bus and I showed him the windows of the ground-floor apartment I grew up. (Behind the lilac bush is the window of my childhood room).

Then the elementary school I learned to read and write:

And the small river with the dam we played so much on:

On the dam we walked toward the "inner" city. I always loved walking there. behind in the distance there is the small pedestrian bridge, where I got my first kiss.

The small river (Zagyva) runs into a bigger one, and just at the crossing there is the boathouse where I went rowing for years.

The park behind the pool I learned to swim. When I was a kid, the small pond was crumbling and empty. Now it had frog sculpture, and water fountains.

We also checked the high school I went to.

And my son played on the new playground in the park right beside it.

Before we left he city we looked the sculpture that was put there as a remembrance of all who lost their lives in the first world war.

But the truth is that the whole city calls it "the naked butt", because from the walkway on the banks of the Tisza it looks like this:

I don't know about these days, but back it was common to make dates by "the naked butt".

By then the sky turned cloudy and windy and we got pretty tired, so we headed for the train station and got on the next train to Budapest...

After we got back we stopped at the cafe which is one of the place we meet for knitting. A girl from Ravelry was in Hungary and we met her. She is cute and young. Christopher was the end of his (and my rope). Until I had my son I never believed that when kids get tired they get hyperactive (which for my basically very active son looks like he goes nuts LOL). Now I know it happens but still do not understand... But by the time we got home, I made my baby have a shower, drink a cup of ovomaltine, and as soon as his head hit the pillow he fell asleep (yay), and didn't wake up until nine in the morning (I've been sleeping badly because he always comes over and sleeps in my bed... rather restlessly. Not last night. Yay.)

Ps: I shot the pictures with my brand new cell phone. I guess the 3 megapixel camera it has is not bad at all...

The day I thaught my collegaues to knit

The day was today... the turnout was nice, even some of the men came. It was fun,... after the initial struggle with the cast on, they got the hang of the knit stitch pretty fast. There were some girls who had learned how to knit but they didn't knit for ages found out that if they try it comes back pretty fast. So without further ado, here are a couple of pictures...Oh my cakes did well too (doing the disappearing act :-).

My boss concentrating hard...He said it would take some practice for knitting being meditative:

Interestingly the boys did very well:

Haircut

Just an other picture for the sake of my friend, Timea, who didn't see my new haircut in real life... Actually I rather like my hair now. In the last two decade I had my hair from very short one to long one down to my waist... As with the others this took a bit getting used to, but it generates nice comments and it is also easy to care for...

Economics

The current situation found it's way to my knitting... the exchange rate went crazy, which partly means P. is happy as a cat that ate the canary, his pension worth more (hopefully he will pay those bills he kept putting aside as I just found out :@(...), but I just cannot order yarn from abroad. It was expensive to begin with, adding to it the shipping made it even more so, but now I just cannot pay so much for yarn... So as much as I love the good stuff I have to make my stash work for a while I guess, or figure something out with the yarn that is available here. Thankfully the selection is getting slightly better with more yarn that has higher percentage of wool for example.
BTW... I have to teach my colleagues to knit. We have these events about once a month where one of us shows something of his/her interest. There was a "presentation" about India, a yoga class, they went to Nordic walking (all before I started there). I was telling my boss rather jokingly "well, I was thinking about this and I could take you all to fly... or I could teach you to knit..." to which he reacted surprisingly with "hmmm... you know what? that is a really cool idea!" and didn't left me alone until I organized it. It will be on next Tuesday. And some of the men will come too. Since everyone replied with "please bring me needles and yarn" I went to a second hand shop where I knew they also sold yarn. Of course I rarely buy there as these yarns are never enough for even a pair of socks, but now I collected some odds and ends for the "class" with the thought what we wouldn't use now I could take to Chris's school for craft classes, and I found a few small skeins of very fine, very soft gray yarn. It is even finer than regular lace weight. Of course I bought that all, and along with the other yarn for teaching I paid less than I would have for a ball of Noro...

Dahlia

I would go crazy without knitting. All those who say that knitting has health benefits are right...so are those who say knitting is like meditation. Even if I do something at the same time like watching TV...

Sometimes there are results too. My Dahlia got finished, blocked, and an I cord knitted for the tie. The pictures were shot at the California Coffee company, at the weekly meeting of the BICC, which is always great fun. At the moment there are seven of us. From six different nations. Seven different way of knitting.
Here is my Dahlia... Oh, and my new haircut. I almost forgot to mention it.

(I hope you noticed the matching socks! LOL)

The details. Dahlia by Mary Weaver, pattern can be found at Knitty-com.

I used ten balls of Debbie Bliss cotton-angora yarn bought from Ebay. Addi circular needles 3.25 mm at the bodice, 3.75 mm at the "skirt".

Modifications: I added a few rows of ribbing (mainly to prevent rolling) before the picot edging at the neckline. Did the skirt somewhat longer and instead of the sewn cast off I cast off loosely, making a picot at the end of the cables and adding and extra cast-off stitch at the purl part between them.

Also I got this far with the orangey bamboo sock I started again. The colors of the yarn are way too busy, so for the fourth try I just did ribs.

Ps.: Nicole, thanks for the pics :-)

Waves above my head

It feels like that at work. I have no idea if I do my job OK, or not. I keep getting tasks thrown at me with absolute disregard of the fact that I DID TOLD THEM that I have no idea how to use power point and excel.. Yes I will do it, but I need to ask for help, and it tales me MUCH MUCH longer... do you think anybody cares? I feel like putting out a table "No new tasks please -until I finish some of what I have now"...
But I do learn a lot. PowerPoint and excel stuff too. There was some knitting done to, hopefully I can post pictures in a couple of days.