As Promised - Answers to Your Questions

Hello there!  I hope all of you had, at a minimum, an "acceptable" weekend.  A friend of mine recently described her weekend that way and I think it's a good way to think of it these days.  As she said, it was nothing that interesting or exciting, but it wasn't a bad weekend.  So there you go.  If yours was more than acceptable, lucky you!

As promised, today I will answer the questions you asked me in the comments of this post.  But before I do, please let me tell you that once again, Blogger is being wonky with comments.  Either I don't get notified that they are there, or I get them a week after they've been posted.  So if you did ask a question, and it's not answered here, that might be the reason.  It makes me crazy, but I have no idea how to "fix" it.

But let's just move forward, shall we?

Kim in Oregon asked:  What was the first album you ever purchased?  

Hm, this is a hard one.  My musical tastes were largely influenced by my older sisters (11 and 12 years older than me), and frankly, they bought all of the albums - The Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, etc.  I remember buying 78 rpms when I was a kid for particular songs I liked (yes, I'm that old), but I suspect I was college age when I bought my first album on my own with my own money.  I'm *guessing*it was "Tapestry" by Carole King.  I still have it, along with the others I purchased since then (sadly, my sisters took their albums with them when they moved out of the house after college).  Anyway, "Tapestry" is still one of my faves, and I know Every. Single. Word. of all of the songs.

Araignee wanted to know:  When it is chilly and gray outside what is your quintessential autumn meal? I mean in a perfect world, pandemic shortages and considerations aside?

The first two things that came to my brain are not meals, though I guess you could consider them as something for breakfast.  Anyway, those two things would be the recipes I have for Martha Washington's Gingerbread (which I make into muffins), and Maple Oat Scones from one of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks.  However, I'm guessing she means more in the line of dinners ... so I would have to say stuffed peppers or stuffed cabbage made in the crockpot.  To me, those are cooler weather meals (spoiler alert: I would never not eat them, regardless of weather!), and I love a cold or rainy day when the house smells so good the whole time.

Alison had two questions:  1) Did you have a happy childhood? What is your best memory of being a child?

Overall, I had a very happy - if hectic - childhood.  We moved a lot, so there was a lot of new schools, being the new kid, etc.  We were also pretty poor, so there was the occasional being farmed out to live with relatives for a while, but overall, I think my childhood was wonderful.  We were a close family, and enjoyed each other's company, and my parents always did a good job of making it feel like our lives and desires were limitless, even if they were not able to afford everything we all thought we 'needed.'  I have many wonderful "best" memories, but one of the most fun was when we would go on summer vacations to the shore (this was when I was 4-6 years old or so, and we lived in New Jersey, not far from the ocean).  My parents saved what they could and every year we went for a few days, and stayed in cheap but clean motels.  It was so much fun to be at the seashore, AND the very best part was, since we were on vacation, we could have ice cream for breakfast!!  I can remember once or twice a waitress questioning the choice, and my father saying, "We're on vacation - we can all have whatever we want for breakfast."  Even as an adult, when we have been able to take vacations, I still make sure that I have ice cream for breakfast at least once.

2) I would also like to know if you hang your 6 pack of yoghurt bottles over the side of your shopping trolley?

OK, this one stumped me a bit, because I don't know that this is a "thing" here in the U.S.  But in answer, all I can say is that we usually make our own yogurt, which probably ends up being closer to Greek yogurt than anything else - really thick.  It's always plain yogurt, and we add what we like to it, or sometimes use it like cream cheese on a bagel.  When we do buy yogurt, it's generally the big container because we eat so much of it, the small ones are gone almost immediately.  I will take our yogurt or the store-bought kind sometimes in my lunch to work, in a small container.  I have a feeling that is a really boring answer (sorry Alison!). 😃

Kathy B. asked:  Why was that big ship on your old header?  I think of the Edmund Fitzgerald when I am on the paddle board and my bow on a wave.  I think how it is likely that is how the ship broke in half.

That ship was one of the ones at Old Mystic Seaport in Connecticut.  I took the photo when we visited there on a driving trip to New England about three years ago.  Old Mystic Seaport is someplace I have wanted to visit ever since seeing some photos in a geography textbook in fourth grade.  It did not disappoint, and I took a ton of photos, all lost now on my old hard drive that died.  That ship was one of the ones there, and I just loved the way that photo turned out, so I decided to use it for my summertime header.

Dee had a somewhat philosophical query:  If you could have a "do over" and change things up, what would you do over?

This is always a good question, and I do think about it every once in a while on my own.  It always comes down to individual events, and most strongly, times when I inadvertently hurt someone's feelings.  The big things - college, marriage, where to live, etc. do occasionally make their way into these thoughts, but mostly again, in relationship to times when I have hurt someone without meaning to.  I learned the hard way at an early age not to live my life with a bunch of "woulda, coulda, shoulda" thoughts, so I really don't dwell too much on that.  But being a sensitive person whose feelings are easily hurt, I always think of times I've done that to others.  If I think you deserved it, no big deal, but if you didn't and I didn't meant to do it, it kills me and stays with me forever.

WendyKnits had an interesting question to ask:  We have an ice-breaker question at the start of our weekly staff meeting, so I'll ask you this week's question: What characteristics of your astrological sign do you think are true to your character:

My astrological sign is Pisces, and they are considered to be governed by a constant push/pull energy between their intuitive, spritual core inside and the realities of living in the physical, outside world.  YEP.  They are likable and friendly but can be moody and introspective. YEP.  They are emotionally sensitive. OH YEAH. And they are empathetic. YEP.  In the negative traits, they are idealistic, negative, and escapist.  YEP (though I think idealism is a good thing, for the most part.  But when I get caught up, I can see it as a negative).

Cheryl got down to brass tacks:  As a fellow knitter, I am curious about your stash. How big it is, how it is stored, etc. Pictures would be fun.

My stash changes constantly, not just because I have tried in the past couple of years to knit from it only, but because twice a year I go through it and anything that no longer appeals to me gets donated.  But it is still probably larger than it needs to be, partly because I used to work in an yarn store, and then also because I bought a lot of stuff when it was going out of business.  I know it's smaller than a lot of other people's, but much larger than those who only keep what is for specific projects.  

Here is a photo of my stash in its "home" - a set of cubicle shelves bought at Target years ago, and cloth bins where the yarn actually lives.  Each bin also contains cedar blocks and lavender sachets to keep moths away.  

(I never realized how hard it is to photograph something in a corner!)

Here's a photo looking into one of the bins:

Nance has a knitting-related question as well:  Are you a Continental knitter or an American knitter? And were you taught that way or did you switch?

Like Donald Trump and his minions, Nance, I am a TRUE AMERICAN!!! hahahahahahahaha ...

Seriously, though, I knit in the American/English way 99.999999% of the time.  It's the way I was taught, but I taught myself to knit in the Continental way when I worked at the yarn store so I could help customers, and can do it well enough for the times I use more than one yarn.  Like anything else, I'm sure with practice I would be better, but right know I'm happy with the ability I've got.

And lastly, Shirley wanted to know about our house:  I think you live in an historic home. (I think I remember some reference to the age of your house.) Can you tell us a brief history of your home?

We live in Center City Philadelphia, which is the part of the city that existed before the Consolidation Act of 1854, which expanded the city's borders to include all of Philadelphia county.  Our house first appears in city property records in 1850, belonging to John O'Connor ("of Ireland"), a brewmaster, whose wife was deceased, and who lived with two daughters: Mary, a schoolteacher, and Margaret, a spinster (and I'm guessing that didn't mean someone who used a spinning wheel!).**  It is a fairly typical rowhouse, three stories and a basement, but we are lucky in that at some point the people who lived here bought the lots behind them and next to them, meaning that our house is two rowhouses together (meaning the back walls were demolished), and the lot next door is a carport (a real luxury in the city), and our walled in garden.  The funny thing is that each of our public utilities - water, electric, and gas - are registered for a different address!  The street we live on is a typical old Philly street, wide enough for a horse to pass through, but not for instance, city snow plows to make it.  Our car (a Mazda 6) *just* makes it!  Because Philadelphia has so many streets like this, there are special trash and recycling trucks for those neighborhoods, so they can fit down the street.  Our particular street exists for only one block, period - also not unusual for Philly.  We live within easy walking distance of just about all of the places you've heard of - Independence Hall, the University of Pennsylvania, the Liberty Bell, etc.  It's a wonderful neighborhood and one funny thing about it is that originally the houses were built and were tenements, housing many families who worked in the grand townhouses for the people who lived in Rittenhouse Square.  An early nickname for our neighborhood was "Rottenhouse Square" as a result - you know, full of "dirty" Italians, Irish, Blacks.  Now, the tenements are individual homes, and the grand townhouses (most but not all), have been turned into multi-family units, either as condos or apartments.

**This has always amused me, since my grandfather on my mother's side was John O'Connor, so in theory, we could be distant relatives!

Phew!  That's a lot - maybe more than you ever wanted to know.  But I do enjoy these posts, because I love finding out what people want to know, and also, I'm nosy enough that I like to find out about other people myself.  

If you have thought of any questions you wish you could have asked, keep them in mind for the next time.

Here's hoping we can all have a good week - or at least an "acceptable" one, right? 😉