Southern-ese...and Yarn!

So I was having a discussion yesterday with Zel about certain things that we say here in Kentucky (which is part of the south as far as I can tell, although not the deep south) that don't make a lot of sense to people from other places (you Yanks and also foreigners).

The first one that came up was the phrase big ol' as in "Did you see that big ol' box over there?" or "That was one big ol' mess you got yourself into."

Then there was y'all which we take a lot of flack for, but really, every other language that I know of (read: Spanish, French, Italian) have a perfectly acceptable way of saying y'all. Why is it that we get such a hard time for this one? Really. Without y'all you wouldn't have the world's most redneck water tower ever which proclaims "Welcome to Florence Y'all."

And then we got to our favorite phrase (and one that I use a lot) which was bless his/her/their heart. This is really just a way for us here in the south to say something mean about someone without it sounding mean because bless his heart is never followed by (or preceded by) anything nice. "Bless his heart, he's not the brightest crayon in the box" or "Bless her heart, she has a great personality" or "He has a rather unfortunate nose, bless his heart." Really. This is just our way of trying not to sound mean when we are being mean. I guess it's a southern thing.

Another one, which is very common here in Kentucky (I have no idea about anywhere else) is the phrase I don't care to. Apparently in the rest of the world, this means "Hell no, I don't want to do that" but here, it means "I don't mind doing that at all." (Go figure, we're backwards.) For example, if someone asked you if you would mind watching their turtle over the holiday you would answer "I don't care to do that at all" if you were willing to do what they were asking. This is very confusing to people who don't know the system, since they tend to think you are being rude and very un-Southern by refusing to do something nice when you are asked. So, FYI, if you are in Kentucky and someone says to you "I don't care to" just smile and say thank you.

Moving on.....

I went back to Stitch Niche yesterday to buy MORE YARN! Yes, I can see that this is going to be a very expensive habit for me. But I decided that I wanted to try out Crazy Aunt Purl's Magic Scarf since as she says:

The basket weave/checkerboard scarf is probably my all-time favorite because it's easy and it looks great and I was so sure I was making crazy advanced knitting strides -- although, really, it's just knit and purl. It's so easy! Even though it looks complex! (I totally lied and told non-knitting friends this pattern was VERY complex and DIFFICULT knitting.

And since her patterns are written in a language I can understand, I thought I'd give it a shot. So, of course, this mean another trip to the LYS (since I may never be able to buy cheap yarn at Michael's or Joanne's ever again). I found wonderful multicolored 100% wool (I've also turned into a fiber snob) that is really soft and wasn't too expensive (only $12.00 for 150yds) to try out. I still can't figure out exactly how I want to work this up, but it should look pretty when I get it done. I may also go back and try to finish (read: frog and restart) my blue/white scarf that was my whole reason for getting into knitting in the first place since I was going to knit it flat and seam it up, but I liked knitting in the round so much that I think it would go faster if I just scraped the whole thing and started over. (Also, it's a little wide, so I think I'd like to make it thinner, and make it in Stockinette instead of garter, since when I started I had no idea about any of that.)

A side effect of my trip to the Yarn store was that I now what some Noro yarn (despite the fact that it is slightly expensive). I have no idea what I want to do with said yarn, but I want it. I must have it. I'm trying very hard to keep from going back to the yarn store today and buying some. I really don't need to, but I really want to. Oh well.

And...exciting...tonight we get all new episodes of both Ugly Betty and Supernatural which makes me happy. The previews for Supernatural looked very good (something about creepy dolls) and last week Ugly Betty ended with Amanda beating the crap out of Sophia in the elevator (which is always good TV) so I can't wait to see what happens this week. And, I plan on being home all evening so that I don't have to rely on the evil DVR to record things (which it doesn't do if it doesn't want to apparently) and I can work on my Magic Scarf. What fun!! Knitting and good TV. I love multi-tasking.

Oh, and I can't say much about my meeting at church last night except for Hallelujah!!

And, just in case anyone was wondering, there have been no Scopeman sightings yet, and no further email communications. Oh well. He will have to show up at some point.

And (last one I promise) Hi Jenny! Since you are (as far as I can tell) the only person that reads this. Isn't it sad that we live about 500 ft away from each other but I only get to see you about once a week?