giving kicks ass (and so does receiving!)

First thing: my darling mum informed me that I did not have my comments settings enabled to allow anonymous or non-Blogger user comments. This has since been fixed... comment away!

Speaking of the ladies of my familia, my grandmother has a birthday coming up soon. She will be 85 years of age, and I hope that I age half as gracefully as she does. She is my namesake and one of my best friends. Whenever I am down in my hometown of Portland, OR, we always get together for at least one night of wine drinking (our average is one bottle each), watching Jane Austen flicks, sharing secrets (which seems to increase as more wine is consumed) and bashing on the current mess of political affairs in these United States. My grandmother is an elegant woman, raised by English parents and she taught me all about being a refined lady and a strong woman at the same time. She is also an avid crocheter and is always making something for a friend- everything from baby blankets to heirloom doilies. So, I put together a little care package for her:

That's 3 skeins of Cotton Comfort from Green Mountain Spinnery, a skein of my handspun Mountain Mist, a crochet hook case from Lantern Moon, and some loose Earl Grey tea (her favorite!) Hope she likes it!

Well, I was also the lucky recipient of gifts today. My friend Dave, easily one the best fly fishermen on the island, hooked a sister up with 12 sockeye salmon. Well, there is a catch... I get to keep 6 of said fish in exchange for smoking up the other half and giving them back to him- that's like, 20 lbs (at least) of filets. This is a small price to pay for yummy, yummy sockeyes. Seems he tried to smoke some up last week and the results were "interesting" to say the least. Since he has always enjoyed my smoked fish, he honored me with asking if I would do this for him- that's like two gifts in one!!!

But, the hits just keep coming... Dave also made us this cool shelf for the cabin we are intending on building in the near future in a remote part of Kodiak Island. Dogs and salmon... he know that those are two of our favorite things!!!

So, I am a very happy camper right now... I may even have some fiber content in my next post ;-)