Fiber Fool

This photo has nothing to do with 10 on Tuesday. Nor is even recent. I’m just reminding myself what is around the corner and why be tolerant of cold, gray days besides fire suppression.

Well, I’ve never been terribly big on the whole April Fool’s thing and before 8am yesterday I was pretty much done with looking at the Internet given all the false things appearing all over social media. I stand pretty much zero chance at listing ten things.

There were a lot of surprises in our household growing up. Most, if not all, the brain children of my mother. Many of then centered around birthdays, thus very positive and fun experiences and not really pranks.

The title of biggest prank in our household is shared by my sister and my mom. Hands down! It wasn’t an April Fool’s prank though. The sad part was that it shouldn’t have been as epic as it was.

It was my first term at UND in Grand Forks, ND, 4 hours away from home. I was always very attached to my family and having a rough time being away. I came home every other weekend for my sanity (and free laundry, I won’t lie). On one of those trips my mom and my sister kept ribbing me about my North Dakota accent. I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. I didn’t find that most of the people at UND spoke any different than we did in west central Minnesota. A few of the people from really small towns on either side of the Canadian border may have had slight accents in comparison to the norm, but they didn’t strike me as particularly different than any of the really small towns in Minnesota either. It also seemed to me like I had been there an awful short amount of time to have picked up an accent.

Over the course of the weekend both mom and Amber would occasionally snicker and make a comment about my accent. I remember getting really flustered and frustrated a few times when I’d ask for examples and they would just release peels of laughter in response. In retrospect I suppose that should have tipped me off. Eventually the weekend came to an end and I headed back to school. They never bugged me about it again really, but it still popped to mind every once in a while.

Fast forward another 5 years or so and I was getting ready to move out to Colorado and made a stop at home. I finally asked them about this elusive North Dakota accent. I’m not certain if I was hoping to identify the offending parts of speech so I would avoid them when I arrived in Fort Collins or what. Regardless, when I asked them about it I was once again met with laughter. This time, the kind of laughter that causes tears to stream down your face. I was lost and couldn’t figure out what was so darn funny that they couldn’t talk. Eventually between gasps for air one of the two finally got out that they thought they had told me it was a joke before I headed back to school that very first weekend. They were dying of laughter because here I had been under the impression for more than 5 years that I had picked up a North Dakota accent! The joke ended up being 100 times funnier than they ever would have guessed!

If you are stopping by just for Ten on Tuesday, I do want to mention the announcement I made yesterday - to help me celebrate my birthday month you can save 15% on all my my knitting patterns sold on Ravelry in my store using the code HAPPY37. Plus, all purchases through midnight Mountain time on April 30th will be entered into a random drawing for a refund of the winning purchase.

I hope all of you who celebrated the holidays this weekend enjoyed lots of good food and quality time with friends and family! As usual around these parts lately we played it pretty low key, though we went for a nice 3+ mile walk to the grocery store and back.

This week I’m grateful for:

1. Good coffee and the accoutrement to brew it well. More specifically, the burr grinder DH gave me for our anniversary several years ago and my french press. Because you can’t get through a Monday morning (especially an overcast one like today) without a good cup of coffee!
2. DH who puts up with me and my PMS. Emma and Brandon too. I think they sense it because Emma uncharacteristically cuddled with me this morning and Brandon is pretty easily coaxed to act as a heating pad.



3. Nice, well kept and well equipped outdoor spaces. This week I took a run around the lake and then interval trained on an outdoor fitness course Fort Collins has at City Park. It was a fantastic way to get in some different exercise and enjoy the outdoors at the same time!
4. My homemade granola. It just elevates yogurt and fruit to have that bit of crunch. And right now, anything ready made and not requiring extra energy is especially wonderful.
5. Amanda, for helping me save a bit extra on some new compression workout wear. My old compression wear is now baggy and thus no longer compressing.

What are you grateful for this first week of April? Sunshine? Flowers? Green grass? We don’t have those last two quite yet.

Now, April is my birthday month and I want to celebrate! So, for the entire month of April you can save 15% on any of my patterns on Ravelry! Just use the code HAPPY37 on the code redemption page. No minimum purchase necessary and you may use it as many times are you wish. This discount also applies to Nourishing Knits!

As an added bonus, one lucky person who makes a purchase on Ravelry this month will get their purchase refunded. I’ll assign each purchase a number and let Random.org pick the winner on May 1st and issue a refund for the total of your purchase. If you make multiple purchases, you’ll be entered multiple times, but only the purchase that corresponds to winning number will be refunded.