Girl, Woman, Mom

The $2.99 Nightmare

2012-01-13T09:21:00.001-05:00

I guess the app looked a lot less scary on a buddy's iPad (actually the parents' iPad) and because I am happy to let my youngest play games on my iPhone, I agreed to get the app for Jack.

I never looked at the app or previewed it beyond the screen shots that are at the end of the app description. But even if I had, I'm not sure it would've mattered. Jack played the game with his friend at my older boy's soccer game and never displayed any fear, apprehension or anything that would've led me to NOT get the app.

It wasn't until the middle of the night that the subject matter finally got to him. He woke up screaming and ran lightening fast to my room. And now, almost one week later, he is afraid to be in any room by himself, making bedtime nearly unbearable.

The app of doom is...

Plants vs. Zombies

I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the app that has caused all this fear and anxiety. I think he's also seen a commercial that involved zombies, not in their cutesy animated form, but in human-actor-spent-hours-in-makeup form. This is positively frightening to an already spooked 6 year old.

At bath time, he normally takes over the master bathroom tub which is like a pool to a little guy. There are about 700 Duplo Legos floating around and he plays in there for a good 30 minutes while I sit on my bed knitting or watching tv.

Not any more. Now he feels I need to be next to the tub the entire time. Needless to say, my evenings are spent trying to convince him there's nothing to fear. And staying by his side the entire evening.

I am wracking my brains trying to fix this problem. My older boy has tried to help by loaning Jack his dream catcher. He even clipped it to the drapes so it's above Jack's bed. Then he made a dream catcher out of K'Nex for him, too! Jack was skeptical as to the effectiveness of any dream catcher but Connor really believes in it and so he has tried his best to convince Jack that it will help. To be sure, Jack has slept all through the night the last two nights, but it's the getting him to sleep that has proved challenging.

I even passed the baton to my husband last night since Connor needed me to help him with a school project. And I could hear my husband saying to Jack (quite robustly) "man up, Jack! Go to sleep!"

That ought to work.

The meat of the matter

2012-01-09T15:02:00.001-05:00

What makes a true friend so true? Text exchanges like this.

Holiday recap

2012-01-04T09:45:00.000-05:00

When Christmas comes, and then goes, I am always left standing in a pile of discarded gift wrap, toy packaging and cookie crumbs, wondering, "what just happened, and why am I five pounds heavier?"

I love to watch Big Bang Theory and I imagine Sheldon explaining the Doppler effect with his hilarious sound effects to boot. That is what the holiday season is like for me, from Halloween through New Year's Day.

I feel blessed, though, because my family made it through the holiday season without any major illnesses (no barfing, strep or ear infections) and no injuries (boys wrestling but five years apart? Not good) and we managed to see nearly every single member of our extended families without being subjected to the horrid lines and delays of a major airport.

In terms of our travels, we did travel quite a bit. However, we traveled in our new Toyota Sienna minivan which drives so nice and is so spacious so the boys don't have to breathe on each other and risk WW3. So to me, traveling was much less stressful. I love, love, love my new minivan and let me explain why a mom of only two boys, ages almost 12 and almost 7 would want an 8-passenger vehicle.

Sliding doors on both sides of vehicle. No more having to warn them on every exit not to bang into the car next to us. No more worrying about the Chicago wind blowing the doors into the car next to us. Now, if I can just train these guys to use the door on the side they were sitting on, then we'd be okay. I swear it's like explaining nuclear fission to these two...

Next point, they have plenty of space to spread out their video game cases, Pillow Pets, iPods or whatever. They do complain that the van doesn't seem to have enough ports for all their tech gadgets though. Jeez.

Next, I am often transporting other kids around. I don't sit for other kids, but when my boys have friends over in the wintertime, we generally don't have kids walking a couple blocks in cold weather. I am happy to bring them home. And now that Connor is in middle school, that blending of elementary schools from all over the city, he has friends that live clear on the other side of town, so a car trip is essential. Sometimes, a mom friend will call me in a semi-panic that she's not able to pick up a couple of her kids from school, and since I might be there anyway....I am always happy to do it. The more the merrier, I always say.

The van is so versatile that we were able to move seats and stow seats and bring home a new TV and my second favorite thing in the world right now--my new digital piano. I am scraping the rust off my brain and fingers and I've hauled out the music books I've had since middle school and I'm relearning to play piano. It is wonderful....

So there you go. This minivan and I are becoming a tight-knit pair. And I nearly forgot to mention the front seats are heated. LOVE YOU, BUTT WARMERS!!

Our last trip, which was just this past weekend, involved driving to northern Indiana for one night, then up to southwestern Michigan the next, which was New Year's Eve. The weather was a little touchy, and my husband decided to drive, which was awesome for me. I had to work on a baby blanket anyway. The first thing he said when driving the van for the first time was, "Man, this thing is like a BUS!" And I was like, "I know! Isn't it great??"

In other news, the two gift ideas I thought would really thrill my boys are not all that thrilling. This is not a news flash. This is reality. However, I'm going to keep working on them until they LOVE these gifts. More on that later.

My youngest began ice skating lessons last evening. We went to the ice arena after Christmas for open skating and he was hanging onto a large orange cone for the first half hour, then decided to skate without it. He really did okay for a beginner. Then on our way out, we saw information for skating classes and I decided to sign him up. I'm hoping it's going to work out though. I wasn't aware of the 12:1 ratio of students to instructor and these kids are all about 6 to 8 years old. After class, we went to the hockey shop in the ice arena and had both the boys' blades sharpened and cleaned and bought fabric guards for them called Soakers. I can't WAIT to see them skate with these now....Could be YouTube material. When we were at open skating last week, Jack fell down on his behind a couple of times and I kept encouraging him and praising him for his efforts. He replied, "My bottom's doing all the work!"

I've done more than eat rum cake

2011-12-22T16:59:00.001-05:00

Last Friday was the last day of school for my boys for two weeks. Two weeks of not having to catch the bus at 7:30 a.m. for the younger one, and not having to wait until 4 p.m. for the older one to get home. No need to get up early (yet the little one does) and they still have the need to play with other kids. I really thought they'd want to spend every waking second with me! Geez....blown off again....

Ah well.....it's nearly Christmas and I'm happy to say I'm sufficiently in a good Christmas mood. I wasn't so sure if I'd get there! Now if only my husband can relax and enjoy the holidays. Work is work is work, though, and there's never really a down time for him.

Here's what I've accomplished recently.

I have finished the seamless yoke sweater for Jack! There's one area on it I'm not particularly pleased with, but it'll do. He wore it yesterday in some drizzly damp weather to help me walk our dog, Comet.

I also finished a hat for Connor that didn't quite turn out the way I hoped it would and it's all his fault. He would have nothing to do with I-cord and a pom pom coming off the top of the hat, so I ripped it back and knitted it with steady decreases to conform to the shape of his head, which is round, and not at all like a cinder block, which I've been claiming for 11 years.

He will never wear this. I just know it. By the way, he is not naked in the pic, just showing me his pecs because he's been doing push-ups every day and increasing the reps. I guess he's after big muscles already at his young age.

And then yesterday, I cleaned up our basement so Connor had space free of dust and dog hair clumps to drive his Air Hogs Hyper-active remote control car. A little bit of dog hair gets tangled up in the axles then we have to spend a half hour with a safety pin and tweezers pulling the hair out. A real pain in the arse. They should have put a warning on the box. Anyway, upon cleaning up the spaces down there, I started looking through the myriad projects I've begun and I got a little bummed, because I'm such a slacker. I was going to make a wonderful crocheted ripple afghan and never did get very far. I think it gets too boring for me. I dunno. So today I looked at it again and thought, "should I get a hook and continue on?"

I made a scarf out of it instead. And I've worn it twice today. Good idea, I think.

And finally, I have been baking. I've made dozens of Christmas cookies and also made my very first rum cake. I found this beautiful baking dish of Paula Deen's on clearance at Wal-Mart and once again, made a decision based on my subconscious efforts to turn into my mother, who made many a Bundt cake. I found a recipe on allrecipes.com and voila! Rum cake. It was delicious!

For Christmas, I need to finish up a knitted Squirrel on Wheels for Connor. I think that's about it! I've never been this prepared for Christmas. It's quite shocking....

A jumble of treasures

2011-12-04T10:21:00.001-05:00

I really thought I was not going to be able to complete the decorating this year. I had a rough week, for some reason. But I enlisted the help of my two boys, who while not fighting, actually did a pretty good job of decorating our Christmas tree.

I'm no longer a fan of our nine foot artificial tree, but I realize I'd be on my own going out to a farm to choose and cut down a live tree. Can't seem to convince my husband that this is a fun, memory-making activity! I believe it's because one year, when we had just one tiny child, we brought home a live tree and the trunk needed shaping up in order to fit into the tree stand. Unfortunately, he didn't have the right tool, and this made the job nearly impossible. All sorts of non-merry expletives flew, and I do believe he never wants to handle a live Christmas tree again. It's so sad.

So, like the many times I've done it before, I'm making the best of the situation. Looking back at it now, I think the most difficult part of the tree decorating for me was clearing out the toys and train table from our front room in order to make space for the tree. I've been thinking for a while now that I want my formal living room back. It's currently in use as the Wii room, and we hardly even play Wii anymore.But I've had visions of beautiful seating and stylish lighting and, oh never mind. It ain't gonna happen for a few years.

Once I reclaimed the room, it was easier to move on with the festivities. And to help, I put a Veggie Tales Christmas special on Netflix thru the Wii. So the boys occasionally fought over the step stool but they really did a fantastic job of decorating with what might be the strangest assortment of Christmas ornaments ever.

Here you'll find handmade ornaments I picked up at craft shows, ornaments the boys made, a few here and there that I made, some from different vacations we took, a few "Hallmarky" type ones, and some rustic-looking ones because I just love that look of woodland holidays. There are a few smaller ornaments with the boys' names on them, and I now realize I'm missing some. Bummer... I see a few that were giving to me by family or friends as gifts and I treasure them so much. See the knitted pickle to the left? That's from my knitting friend. It brings good luck!

When I was younger and at home, my mom would have my older brother and me decorate our tree, which was always a real tree. It smelled so good... My parents had made a trip to Germany one year to visit my sister and her family who were stationed on an Air Force base. They brought home with them many beautiful German ornaments that I can only describe as wooden, colorful and whimsical. These are still in boxes at what is now my brother's house. He doesn't decorate for the holidays really because it's just him, and he's very busy and tired from his job.

I have fond memories of John and I taking out each ornament wrapped in tissue and saying, "Oh! Remember this one?? It's my favorite!" And we had a lot of favorites.

Today, I still have that same feeling when I unwrap a favorite ornament. It may not be much to someone else, and it may not be trendy or stylish, but it means something to me, and hopefully to my family.


Here's the tree without it's topper, that I had to go buy this year. A 9' tree with a 9' ceiling leaves little room for a topper!

I need someone to slap me upside the head

2011-11-29T09:06:00.001-05:00

Dear Blogosphere,
I just screamed at my older son for accusing me of serving him fish for breakfast. Of course I would not serve him fish! Jeez! But I did serve him chicken, and if you know my kid, you know that is the breakfast of choice! I know, really? He doesn't eat normal breakfast foods, except for the occasional bagel, which I totally spaced out and didn't buy any while at Trader Joe's yesterday. Nope. No bagels. Instead, I was being self-centered and bought myself a container of unsweetened coconut milk and raw blue agave nectar. I know. REALLY?

What is wrong with me, you ask? Let me tell you. Have a seat, this could take a while.

I'm trying to eat healthier, in order to feel better because I have a condition that causes me to feel fatigued and completely bitchy. This is not perpetual PMS, which some males in my family would like to believe. No. This is called redundant colon. I have a large, sloppy colon. And by large I mean the doctor drew a fanciful diagram of it on paper and it looked like instructions on how to make a Celtic knot. Except my colon is clearly not as pretty. And it's not well behaved, either. When normal people eat, their brain sends a signal to their colon that it's time to visit the bathroom. My brain is clearly too busy sending signals to my fingers that allow me to "knit two together through back loop with working yarn in front---oh nevermind."

My body just doesn't send or receive signals that help keep things moving. Instead, I can only imagine my colon is like a squirrel storing up for winter. "I'm just going to hang onto these last six meals you've eaten because you might find it difficult to find food later or something. Just sayin'." --Colon

It sucks, to be quite honest, and I don't want to live on medication, but I may have to go that route. Aging and stress only exacerbate the problem. I just had another birthday, and while at least one of my birthday cards stated my age at 29, you can't believe everything you read. And stress? I don't have much stress, but I "think" I do. I let things get to me. This is a "chicken or the egg" scenario. Does the body make me stressed? Does stress make the body not work well? It all goes round and round. And apparently cannot find the exit.

Here is today's stress. My younger son is not feeling well enough to go to school. Personally I think he could go, but that's because I was supposed to volunteer at school an extra hour and fifteen minutes longer than my usual hour and fifteen, and now I can't. He is not feverish, but he's complaining of a sore throat and he has a gross cough. Let the record show he will not be playing DS, Wii or computer games today. He may watch tv. That's it.

Another stressful situation is being faced with decorating for Christmas and not feeling like it at all. Against my angst, I began last evening by clearing out all mixed up toys in our front room, which we lovingly refer to as the "Wii room," and trying to move a train table by myself. That didn't go well. It went, but not gracefully.

The older boy and I hauled up sections of our 9 foot artificial tree which I hate, and began putting it together. Fluffing out all those branches takes time, and when you don't like the tree, you just end up resenting each and every bough. I still can't seem to get the tree straight.

I began opening boxes of multi-colored lights from years past, which I also dislike. I like all white. The kids don't. They win. I began at the top of the tree, and worked my way down, and then I did the dumbest thing ever. I said to myself, "This isn't going too badly at all!"

The next box of lights I opened was apparently shoved into the box last January and only half the string works now. I only figured that out after spending fifteen precious minutes untangling them. Darn. Then I came across a set that didn't work at all. I tried wiggling lights. I tried changing fuses. Nothing. Double Darn.

So now I do not have enough lights to finish the job. And with a kid home sick today, I won't be going to Home Depot anytime soon to buy more. And this brings me to part two of Christmas decorating. My neighbors are all decked out with lovely scene-stealing displays in twinkling whites, reds and greens, and all I have are box upon box of more multi-colored LED icicle lights to hang on my house. Did I mention how I hate the multi-colored ones? Yeah, they are ugly--all the way. And to make matters worse, last year, the lights kept going out (all of them) by themselves, and not go back on. I attributed this to a problem with the exterior outlet. I followed the manufacturer's instructions on not plugging too many sets in, but still had this problem. So several times this past winter, I would trudge out into the deep snow on the side of my house and unplug and the plug them back in. They worked for a while, then went out.

This summer, we had an electrician over for an unrelated issue and I mentioned to him the Christmas light problem. He tested the outlet and declared it fit. He said the problem must be in the lights. If he would've said "operator error," I would've punched him in the gut.

So if you were me, would you want to get on a step ladder and install all those crazy-ugly lights just so you could trudge through the snow everyday and night to light them up? No. Me neither. It's like thirty degrees today with gusty winds and me and my colon do not want to go up on any damn step ladder. I think if my family wants exterior lights they are going to have to do it themselves. I don't mean to sound all Scroogey, but really people. Step up.

Here are some pictures unrelated to multi-colored lights or colons. Except for the last one.


Jack helps flute the pie crust for a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie at Grandma's house.


My boys in the tree at their Grandma's house in Detroit. It was unusually warm and sunny this past Thanksgiving!

Finished!

2011-11-17T16:42:00.001-05:00

It was grueling, but I managed to do it! I finished the dreaded Angel Stocking!

It didn't turn out TERRIBLE, but it's not my best work, and it sure was difficult to send this to my sister and call it good. However, she called me Tuesday, upon receiving the package in the mail, and she LOVES it. So there. Mission accomplished.

I did cringe inwardly as she mentioned that her daughter (my niece, Melisa) and her hubby definitely want more children. They will make more adorable babies, I'm sure. The question is, who can I find to knit more stockings?

In other news, I went from thinking I could knit or crochet a hat for every single great niece and nephew. I have 15 of the little critters. I'm a great aunt fifteen times over. There's no way. I started to crochet a hat about seven different times from seven different patterns, and I soon realized, these are not the quality of hats I had in mind. What I had in mind were classic knit hats complete with cables and maybe bobbles for the girls. Maybe if I start in January of 2012, I'll have them ready for next Christmas. But in 2012, there will be two more greats born, for sure. It's an army, I tell you.

So I gave up after those seven false starts, and began a sweater for Jack instead. It's working up nicely in bulky yarn. I'm attempting a seamless yoke sweater with some Fair Isle patterning on the yoke.

My older son has requested a knit squirrel on wheels from Knitting Mochi Mochi. He would also like a hat of some sort. Squirrel was started yesterday, but I'm keeping it secret from him.

In still other news, I have a thing for cables now. I've been thumbing through two great books in particular by Melissa Leapman. She is a designer whom I took a class from at Stitches Midwest in '10. She's a fantastic teacher, by the way, and a great book author too. Lovely patterns, great technical writing. I want to knit everything in cables. We'll see. Maybe I'll design Christmas stockings replete with lovely classic cables. In one color.

I suppose this qualifies as "progress"

2011-11-08T10:22:00.000-05:00

Oh Lord help me

I had to ask a friend to make sure I kept working on this angel stocking by Mary-freaking-Maxim instead of starting new projects. But I think my friend knew in her heart that I would get it done, even if I did start three to eight other knit or crochet projects in between now and Christmas. So she hasn't really hounded me. Plus she's in Costa Rica right now riding on zip lines in the jungle. She's not really thinking about my tortuous knitting project.

Then my niece, who is also a knitter, came for a visit a few days ago. We had plenty of time together to knit and soothe one another's knitting woes and complaints. I was happily distracted by helping her sort out some seaming issues on her son's sweater. And we bought a zipper for it, and I sewed it in for her. Oh, and I think I helped untangle some yarn for another sweater she started, too. Despite all this distraction, I managed to drag this stocking out of the Ball Sack (that really is printed on one of my yarn project bags) and pick it up again. For the second time.

See, I've already knitted this stocking once. But I didn't follow the instructions for true intarsia. Mary Maxim does not include these instructions. They assume that you'll be smart enough to know what you're in for when you buy the yarn and the pattern. They didn't know who they were dealing with, obviously. Just because my mother was a wiz with these types of projects, doesn't mean I am. Fair isle, I like. I LOVE. Intarsia? Blegh.

I was carrying my yarn instead of whatever-it-is-you-do-with-all-those-colors-when-you-can't-carry-them. So whereas with Fair isle you have these lovely floats on the wrong side of your fabric, with intarsia, you have yarn barf. Fair isle floats are neat and tidy. They are easy to handle. See?

The inside, or backside, is lovely like the right side....

But this angel stocking is making me cringe. I am almost finished, and I can't wait. My niece enjoyed this type of knitting. She's made two, although not the angel design. But they were just as difficult, in my mind. So whenever she witnessed my mini-tantrums over this thing, she cringed. "How can you not enjoy this??" she would ask me. I would give her the stink eye. No words necessary.

I'm getting there, although I'm not entirely pleased with my skill. There will be a lot of fixing necessary on the back side.

And I just want to add that my niece was complaining about having to knit "another 6 inches!" in the same color in stockinette stitch! I'll gladly do that for ya! Anything to not have to change colors and twist yarns and not have the stitches all limp and loose.

Rare moment of peace

2011-11-05T23:18:00.001-04:00

If I could just get all the way through Siblings Without Rivalry, perhaps I'd deal with the fighting with a sense of calm assertiveness. Wait a second....isn't that Dog Whisperer-speak?

But really, Connor doesn't like his little brother and the LB has learned to play hard ball as well.

I don't like it.

Today, I took the boys down to our local park so we could enjoy this rare beautiful weather. It was only a tad bit chilly, but so sunny...

My younger son and I practiced tennis. He is six, and taking some basic tennis lessons through our park district. He loves the class, and it was his idea to practice at the park's tennis courts. I was surprisingly patient for the first 20-25 minutes, but then my lower back began to bother me more and I was finding it painful to move too quickly. Thus chasing three tennis balls was a pain.

So we went over to the play structure where Connor was practicing kicking his soccer ball over the entire structure. Eventually, the two boys played together. It was a beautiful thing. God, how I long to see the big brother put an arm around his little brother and just be nice. I know this is possible. I've witnessed it in families. I think this speaks volumes about the type of family we are.

Ah well. What can I do?

My taste in broadcasting is beginning to concern me...

2011-10-23T22:39:00.004-04:00

Just a quick note: Don't bother with Around the World in 80 Ways, unless you want to be annoyed out of your gourd! DO check out Hairy Bikers--if you like food, and friendly, hairy motorcycle dudes.

If you have tween kids, you may have been subjected to Fred Figglehorn at some point in your life...If not, he's a character played by a kid from Nebraska who started out with little video clips on YouTube, and now he's, like, famous!! Check him out at www.fredfigglehorn.com, or the real kid's YouTube channel: Lucas Cruikshank. He's kind of funny, if you can get past Fred's high-pitched squeal. He has some music videos too, like one about Christmas being Creepy...really cute. Love it. Here's the link to his YouTube channel.

My older son is wondering why I have looked all this stuff up. I said I just wanted to know more about this kid who has become a "cyber celebrity." And, truth be told, I want to make sure there's nothing slimy that Connor might stumble across if he searches for Fred stuff. (Not that he isn't coming home from middle school sharing all the knowledge regarding subject matter he is WAY too young to be confronted with--jeez)

Fred!

But my close friends are happy to hear that I've gotten a little mainstream in my viewing habits. Thanks to my friend, Maggie, I've become hooked on CBS's The Big Bang Theory. I've even gone so far as to watch past episodes on Demand and online. Love it! If only I had DVR....So it's not all Ancient Aliens and River Monsters here. I'm kinda sorta being a tad bit normal.

Oh, and one more: Masterpiece Mystery on PBS! Inspector Lewis... love to watch these online. Caught a snippet of one episode one evening, but had to miss a great deal of it to put little one to bed. Very good mystery.

Okay, I'm done ranting about television. Next time I really plan to blog about my reading habits! Middle school reading!

I REALLY put off this project...

2011-10-14T18:19:00.002-04:00

I don't even know how many years ago I began this quilt, inspired by a quilt in Kaffe Fassett's book, Passionate Patchwork. I knew I wanted to make a small quilt, since I'm not that good at it and tackling a bed-size quilt just wouldn't work for me.

I got so far as the quilting, done on my machine with a free-motion darning foot. This is not easy until you've had several hours of practice. This is why I packed the unfinished quilt away and went on to a thousand other things.

I'm not sure what inspired me a few weeks ago to take it out of the storage box containing just a few unfinished sewing projects, but I did. I also removed from the box a brand new package of simple machines, known as "door stops."

Curious?

Some experienced quilter recommended that I place two door stop wedges under the back of my machine, claiming that it is easier to do meandering or stippling on your quilts.

Of course, I purchased the door stops then never tried it. Until now.

And something happened when I began the process of free motion quilting once again. A transformation, if you will.

I turned into a raging maniac. There is a more appropriate term I could use to describe myself, but I'm trying to keep this family-friendly, you know??

I had so much difficulty, because it had been a few years, and I wasn't even good at it back then! It would be like almost learning to ride a bike, putting the bike away for three or four years, then getting the bike out and expecting to ride it perfectly.

Luckily for me, I had to take my oldest son into the doctor for an x-ray of the foot, and that's when I realized the key to my success on this quilt was latex gloves.

(Isn't this post crazy?? I know...)

So we left with no fractures in the foot and a few pair of latex gloves. And despite my complaining, tense shoulders and frustration of continually running out of bobbin thread (I need to shop for more bobbins) I finished the quilting. Sure there are some ugly spots but you really have to look for them, unless you're an experienced quilter, then you might find them easily enough. I don't care, though. It's done, baby.

I've only made a few quilts, and only one large enough for a twin bed. That particular quilt was hand quilted by a lovely group of Mennonite women in South Dakota. One woman finished the quilt with binding made from one of the fabrics. It's beautiful. I could never quilt like they did. Anyway, the other quilts I made were basically wall-hanging quilts. I was able to fudge my way through machine quilting and then making bias binding and attaching it first with the machine, then using an "invisible" hand-sewing stitch to finish it.

This particular quilt I bound with the backing fabric. That is, I made sure the backing fabric was about four inches larger all the way around than the quilt top. After quilting it, I trimmed away the excess batting, then I trimmed the backing fabric, folded it, pressed it, pinned it into place and sewed it by hand with that handy invisible stitch. My fingers sure did hurt. But it's done, baby. Done!

Below are some pics of the process of using the backing fabric to bind your quilt. And here is a tutorial on that invisible hand-stitching method. (Note, the dog's head is not vital to complete the quilt, but my dog is always around. Always.)

Random act of silliness

2011-10-09T09:28:00.000-04:00

Have you seen that TV commercial for some cable or phone company where they tout how efficient and wireless they are as opposed to U-verse, which is supposedly the opposite of all that? My friend and I love the commercials because the antagonist, U-verse, is represented as a talking pile of communication-type wires and paraphernalia. And "he" has this gravelly voice like he smokes too much.

Well, we discovered she had a U-verse of her own when she was trying to knit leg warmers out of this bouclé-type yarn she bought. As she was working with the skein, it grew into this unruly bundle of a mess. I swear it literally grew. If you're not aware, a bouclé yarn is highly textured and usually considered bulky. Hers was in a really cool color scheme, mostly black with some jewel tones in it. It would have made great leg warmers except that with bouclé, you can't see your stitch definition at all. And since it's bulky, by the time you put a leg warmer on, your calf circumference increases by approximately one inch. This is what I consider an "undesirable side effect." Kind of like those explained in the "fine print" voice on drug commercials.

"Side effects may include nausea, vomiting, infections of the lung, kidney and ascending colon...."

You know what I mean.

So, I found a new project for her bouclé. To become U-verse's cousin. A slightly off-kilter version of U-verse. Not really a great conversationalist.

Disclaimer: Only two ping pong balls were compromised for this demonstration.

If you are interested in this project, you should probably seek medical attention.

Paper clay + watercolor = DELIGHT!

2011-10-03T09:44:00.001-04:00

Have you ever used light weight paper clay? It's usually sold in small quantities at craft stores. When I purchased some, it was white. While researching this product last night, I see it's also available in colors. The white was perfect for me for this particular project because I knew I wanted to paint the dried pieces in the delicious colors of fall.

I made these scrapbook embellishments to celebrate my favorite time of year--fall. I love the colorful, rustic earthy tones of this season. I love the cooler, crisp air, too. And this clay is an air-dry clay. No baking needed!

For this project I used tiny cutters from Pampered Chef, or cut the shapes freehand with a sharp craft knife. The sharpness isn't because the clay is difficult to cut; it's because I like to get detailed.

The other techniques I used for the embellishments are sewing on cardstock (I used heavy weight thread that denim jeans are made with), stamping with distress ink, and I also printed on the cardstock with my HP printer before the paper was cut to smaller sizes.

It's all about the Marys...

2011-10-01T08:43:00.001-04:00

My crafting ADD has struck again! Although this was premeditated ( I DID mention I would be doing this) I decided last weekend to begin a project from a MaryJane Butters book I found at my library. Yes, this is the same book that lassoed me in to the Farmgirl network and now I'm sending mail art once a month to another "sister..." Way cool. October is a great month for mail art.

But I must stay focused here...

See, every once in a long while, I get this bug where I decide to go through my crafting stuff and snippets of ideas and this and that, and just start cleaning up. I haul a trash can over and wham, bam! It gets filled up with garbage. Like, for example, a knitting pattern of the worst fitting mittens ever. Why would I keep that?? I don't need a pattern to make ill-fitting things! Noooo...completely capable all on my own.

While commencing with the trashing, I came across a small collection of colorful Mary Engelbreit calendars from years past. I actually used these calendars. Because, I was head over heels in love with the art of Mary Engelbreit. I love her story, too. To me, her illustrations represent the way life could be if we all wore clothing of Danish and Scandinavian influence. (It goes back to that Fairisle thing I had going on a month ago..)

I did something at the time I thought meant I was brave and fearless. I threw the calendars in the trash, thus opening up space in my bookshelf and making the trash can about 8 pounds heavier.

About a week or two later, I discover MaryJane Butters' book at the library, see the calendar bags idea and think to myself, "it's time to pick through the trash, girl."

And here is the delightful result of my trash picking...

My first bag, a little rough, but made me giggle with delight!

The first of only two bags I made was a little rough in the sewing. I had no experience sewing with transparent nylon thread, and I had to dig out this thing-a-ma-jigger made out of that clear plastic material you may have experimented with in wood or metal shop back in the day...Anyhow, this thing allows you to sew with larger cones of thread on your regular ol' sewing maching. Except my transparent nylon nightmare thread wasn't in a large cone. It was a small spool. But it was behaving badly loaded in my sewing machine so I sent it to the thing-a-ma-jigger and it all worked out.

Here is what I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE about these bags. They have imagery inside and out. They are more durable than they let on, and they are fairly easy to make. And when you show a finished bag to a friend and tell her it's made from an old calendar, she squeals and suddenly has to pee. Really. I'm not lying about that.

Bag no. 2 was born yesterday. I tried to be a little neater and succeeded thanks to using my brain for eyelet installation instead of more brute force. I like brute force for certain projects, but as it turns out, eyelet installation into paper doesn't really need it.

I just love this particular illustration. Makes me want to knit a hat....

Don't you just love this proverb??

If you are interested in this project, go check out or purchase the book, MaryJane's Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook: For the Farmgirl in All of Us. Here are the supplies you'll need:

10 pages from a calendar

clear contact paper

ruler

craft knife

transparent sewing thread from Hell (that's not a brand name....)

4 large eyelets

a few feet of twisted cord (check out the home furnishings/fabrics portion of your local craft store)

sewing machine

I've been using the first bag for toting around my supplies for the candy corns in the previous post and it's working out great! Plus it's a great converstaion piece. The sad part is, I'm going to run out of Mary Engelbreit calendars sooner than later.

Have to whip out a whole bunch of these...

2011-09-26T23:55:00.000-04:00

Isn't this a little sweetie?? I sent three crocheted cupcakes to school for Jack's teacher to add to her Treasure Chest. When the students earn enough tickets, they get to choose one thing from the chest. I knew these cupcakes would be popular. They were gone in about two days. Since they are a little more work than what I have time for (as I'm totally avoiding the angel stocking) I decided that since Halloween is right around the corner, why not make something along those lines for the chest?

I need to make yet another trip to Joann's tomorrow for more safety eyes. I love the little bit of shine they add to the candy corn. I'll write up a pattern if anyone is interested. They are really easy.

And another little distraction out of the way!

2011-09-22T15:02:00.000-04:00

Hurray! Just finished one of the two Christmas stockings I've been commissioned to make. Ok. "Commissioned" sounds so formal. I was asked. And I said yes.

Then I cried.

No, that last part isn't true. Sure, it's been tricky learning to knit intarsia, but I am very happy to learn new things. Always. So here it is:

The stocking on the left was the sample my sister Kathy sent to me. I'm not sure, but my late mother may have made that one. The stocking on the right is the one I just completed for Kathy's granddaughter, Shea. This sweet little baby will also be getting the angel stocking, when I muster up the courage to complete it. Here is it's current state, if you haven't been following along.

One more distraction out of the way...

2011-09-22T11:09:00.002-04:00

Yoga Socks Complete!

Actually should call them Yogurt Socks because I don't really do yoga anymore but DO eat yogurt. Yoga would immensely help my poor body and it's slow functionality....however....well.

Nevermind.

Anyhow...very easy pattern to follow but I did have difficulty understanding some of the instructions. I made things up and it all worked out great. Just like my parenting skills! (Although the jury is still out if things are turning out "great").

Also, signed up little Jack for Reading to Rover at our local library yesterday afternoon. There were three different therapy dogs he could've chosen to read to and he chooses the Golden Retriever. In case you don't know, we own a Golden Retriever. He is awesome. But back to therapy: Her name is Holly, and while very cute, her therapeutic method seemed to amount to licking Jack's leg, being scolded, and then laying of the other side of the handler's chair, not at all close to Jack while he read three books to her. I was disappointed, but Jack didn't care. Earlier in the day he asked me how the dogs can help a kid to read. I was all, "Oh, Jack! You'll see! These are therapy dogs and they are trained to, well.......the dog will just help you to read!"

He says, "Does it talk?"
Me: "No! No dog can talk, silly!"

But I did expect more, I think, than the licking! Ah well....

In this photo, Holly is getting ready to tackle the bag of treats held by her angst-ridden handler. Jack is just ready to go check out a Wii game. Priorities, Mom...

And lastly...

"Yoga Socks" pattern by Justine Turner. Find her on Ravelry!

Hmmm...I think something's missing here

2011-09-21T11:30:00.000-04:00

My adventures in Intarsia Land are a bit perplexing. But, I'm working it out. Literally. I had this angel stocking nearly completed then realized it's so damn ugly because I don't really know how to knit Intarsia. All I had to do was access one of my many books. So instead of starting from the beginning, I'll be starting from just below the "name" area of the stocking and working down until I can graft the bottom of the stocking to the newly improved angel portion.

I can't say when I'm going to be doing this. I'm a little scared.

I'm a little bit country

2011-09-19T22:29:00.000-04:00

I never heard of Maryjane Butters until sometime this past August. Seems I was browsing for books at my local library and stumbled across her book entitled "MaryJane’s Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook - For the Farmgirl in All of Us." Something about the title appealed to me, so I picked it up and began thumbing through the pages. I knew nothing of an Internet presence, mail order business, or the network of "farmgirl" sisters around the world.

But I know now, at least about the network. In fact, I decided that I am a farmgirl at heart even though I live in the burbs. There are sisters in every demographic. Cities, out in the country, on a tropical island, in the burbs, like me. I like to imagine a woman in a Manhattan apartment with cafe curtains and ceramic cow creamer on her tiny kitchen table. Or, a lady on Oahu baking every type of banana-nut confection in a vintage oven...

Then there's me, in a Chicago suburb with one rusty birdbath and one failing tomato plant. Sure. I fit in!

I'm sure the birds avoid this like it's a pool of acid.

So I joined this network, at no charge, of course, and immediately signed up to participate in my very first Farmgirl swap: Mail Art.

Simply put, Mail Art is something you make and mail to another sister you've been assigned to. And you receive mail art, too. Then in typical Jenny-fashion I waited too long to start my mail creation. I had an idea in my head and even went so far as to sketch it out. The problem was I needed (in my mind) to actually knit something as part of my mail art. I happened to just come back from a little road trip to see my husband's parents and decided to practice some more Fair Isle knitting in the car. So when I came up with my mail art idea, it naturally involved Fair Isle. Leave it to me to complicate my life by deciding to create something for someone when I don't really know what I'm doing in the first place. But since I was learning, and the month of the mail art swap is September, I figured a piece of mail art that was super cute yet taught the recipient something would be just perfect! I had plans of giving a short, yet interesting lesson on Fair isle. The Shetland Islands, pulling the wool from the sheep instead of shearing, you know. All the basic stuff. But who am I kidding here? I'm knitting with "yarn" from the craft store that is all crammed in my bag just two feet away from a total tangled meltdown. (Technically, it'd be ME having the meltdown.) There were no sheep involved, and if there were sheep involved, they probably came from test tubes rather than the rugged hillside of Fair Isle. I realized soon I'd have to scrap my "teaching" approach and just get something out in the mail.

"Farm-like" basket on my front door...

So I got busy while the kids were at school and quickly knit up a little Fair Isle pouch. I'm not even sure how I decided what patterns to follow in my book. I just knew I had to get this sucker in the mail and it had to be super cute. To inspire even greater "cuteness," I braided some "yarn" together and knotted the ends then forced the trim through knitted stitches to act as a draw string. Thank goodness it worked. I was flying by the seat of my pants, per usual.

I made a quick card complete with cut-out sweater and rub on letters. I wrote a little note inside and sent it off to Arizona. Later, I realized, the recipient is probably never "blue" when "summer's through." I mean, we're talking 100+ degree days there. She probably opened her envelope, saw this sweater and choked.

Ah, but then I got MY mail art in the mail and I realized how happy it made me not only because it's beautiful, but because I got mail from another "farmgirl" at heart. This is what I received.

It goes perfectly well on the little side table in my kitchen's eating area. It's on a canvas and I just love it.

In the meantime, my tomato plant from downtown Chicago produced fruit but it didn't ripen. Oh well. I tried. I really, really did.

If you are interested in learning more about the Farmgirl Connection, simply follow this link. You will see there are also blogs from every possible farmgirl demographic, if you just want to read instead of participating.

I ran back to my library today to check out the book again, because I recall a project in there I really want to do. I'm going to be making bags (reminiscent of our reusable grocery bags) from calendar pages. And I saved about half a dozen Mary Engelbreit calendars. I'm really not sure when this will happen, but you know it will. I'm sure some other projects will get set aside, as usual...

Do I REALLY need this distraction in my life?

2011-09-15T10:04:00.003-04:00

I think about it a lot. I wonder how I can make it better, more efficient. I often help my neighbors with theirs as well, because, well, I will get some coin if I do. And reputation.

Daily, I check on it. I try to help it grow. Occasionally I consider spending money on it to help it along. But so far I haven't. Because that would take away from my budget for yarn and DIY waxing products.

Why do I keep at it, if it doesn't do anything for me on a cardiovascular level?
Why, why, why??

Because it's ADORABLE, that's why! There's nothing like that vocalized fanfare when a busload of tourists visit one of my many businesses!

"Yahoo! Wee-ha!"

I LOVE IT. I'm talking about Cityville on Facebook, of course! Cityville is an app created by the presumably fun and carefree folks at Zynga. They also keep us busy and brainy with games like Words With Friends. I like to think that I'm getting smarter each time I play a word like "QAT" in this Scrabble-like format. (In case you're wondering, I didn't discover the QAT word by just throwing random tiles out there. I learned about it on NPR.)

Anyway, I love those little double decker buses full of tiny people! I love the fact that I can grow and harvest crops but not play Farmville. I've tried Farmville and I don't like it. For some reason, Cityville just clicks for me. I'm working on crop mastery for wheat. Oh yeah. And....Pretty soon I'll be building a bridge! Oh yes! But it will take a long time...

Do you know why? Because most of my Facebook friends do not play Cityville, which means I do not have many neighbors. And with just a few neighbors, you either have to spend your city cash (fake bucks) or you have to be Facebook friends with people you don't know. I tried that once and it was awful. And I don't have much cash in Cityville. Sure, they'd like me to spend my own cash to get their fake cash, but...

Wait. Doesn't that sound absolutely insane? It does. They want you to get out your real credit card and spend your real money to get their FAKE MONEY to build your bridge or upgrade your cupcake bakery. Nutso! Yet people do it everyday. I don't judge you, people, but I need my money for yarn and DIY waxing products.

No. Not me. I will probably never be able to upgrade my elementary school because I don't have enough neighbors to fill the really important positions, like Hall Monitor, Gym Teacher and Paste Eater. Yes, that's right. Apparently I need a Paste Eater in order to upgrade my elementary school. Or I can spend five city cash to fill that position. Hmmm... No thanks. The kids who do attend school in JenTown will just have to stay at a third grade level, or they can just hang out at my mall. Of course I have a mall in my Cityville! Duh!

A little more class, while taking fewer classes

2011-09-10T07:50:00.000-04:00

To me, it's hard to believe I've attended Stitches three years in a row! I'm not a typical die-hard attender though. Heck, I'm not a die-hard knitter, unless you consider that I will die an early death if I don't remember to get up and get some exercise...but that's another story.

My friend and I decided to take Market Session classes this year at Stitches for two reasons:

we may be hung over and sitting through a 3-hour class while sweating gin and attempting to knit sounds much too daunting. Secondly, the classes get expensive. Oh, and there's a third reason, too. We might get humiliated. Why, you ask? Because we are not die-hard knitters. And when we walk through the luxurious halls of the Renaissance Hotel in Schaumburg and we're not wearing one of our knitted sweaters or shawls replete with complex yarn-overs and three-needle bind-off shoulders, well, everyone seems to know it. Seriously, if she and I wore our failed shrugs, we would either be met with snickers and all-out laughter, or we would be accosted by the knitters who thought we needed an intervention of some sort....

"That Simply Soft yarn is, well, not really yarn, dear. You've been misled."

So Market Sessions classes are held in the giant "expo" portion of the Renaissance where hundreds of fiber vendors have set up shop. Not so luxurious, but a bottle of water will set you back $4 and some coin. So there is that... Anyway, they set up these black drapes to make about 8 "classrooms" and there is probably enough space for 20 students in each one. The instructor wears a headset mic and if the timing is just right, you can hear your own instructor, plus the instuctors on the other side of the black drapes on either side of you. Unless of course you are in the last classroom next to the concession stand. This provides you with the gasps of market-goers who have just purchased a $12 ham sandwich and a bottle of water. That adds up to about 30 yards of fine hand-spun, hand-dyed silk, for goodness sake!

We took "Stranded Knitting," which does not mean knitting when you're stranded (exactly what I'd do if stranded. Serious about that.) and "A Taste of Bead Knitting."

Stranded knitting isn't new to me, but like most things, I often jump in without fully understanding what it is I'm doing. This can and often does lead to frustration, bad knitted projects, and cussing. So I really did benefit from this class. I knitted up the swatch according to the instructor's handout and actually made a cute little bag out of it. I only need a chunky rustic looking button to secure the top and it will make a great Christmas gift.

As for bead knitting, I consider myself a skilled crocheter when it comes to beads, but have never attempted knitting with beads. It was not too difficult, really, but I didn't care for the finished "bracelet," I do realize the purpose of the hour-long class was not to provide us with a finished project as much as it was to teach us the very basics of bead knitting. I have learned enough to add beads to a knitted project, and that's all I wanted.

So, a success, I would say, in terms of classes.

Now, as for success in other areas of our trip, I can safely say we did have a good time with no hang-overs, no overeating, and no watching Justin Timberlake skits on Youtube into the wee hours. We must be getting old. The only part of our Stitches adventure that didn't quite work out was my complete stupidity of leaving this container of Trader Joe's dark chocolate covered almonds in my car all day. That was unfortunate. But then again, we probably would've eaten the entire container. Don't think we didn't try, though.

When we checked into our hotel, I promptly floated the container in a bucket of ice water. When we returned after dinner, we were left with a one-piece chunk of dark chocolate covered almonds. One big candy bar. Good thing we "borrowed" a fork from Weber's. Although, truth be told, it was pretty solid and we were tired. Mining for our dessert just wasn't in the cards that evening. The Fiber Plus bars came along because they are tasty. At least we had those...

In other Stitches news, this year, I splurged a bit in the Market. I bought one hank of this ribbon yarn called Cha-Cha. Trendsetter makes it. It's really awesome and knits up all ruffled. I'm making a scarf. It was about $29. Yikes. That's a lot for me to spend. I also purchased two balls of a very fine yarn, but for some reason, my photo didn't come through. I'll add it later. Guess what I'm going to make with it!!

A SCARF!!

Because of the stranded knitting class, I've been practicing quite a bit. I had purchased a bunch of yarn at Joann's a while back and then realized I had no idea what to do with all the yarn. (Gee, THAT'S never happened before.) So I got out my book on Fair Isle knitting and got to practicing. Here's what I've done so far.

I've even made a small Fair Isle pouch for a friend on super tiny circular needels. Photos on that later.

Two fun-filled days of mini vacations

2011-08-21T10:36:00.000-04:00

In lieu of a real family vacation this year, Mike took three days off work and we spent two of those days having fun with the kids. Here are a few pics from Shedd Aquarium and Six Flags Great America.

Maybe I know what's going on...

2011-08-19T19:55:00.000-04:00

My last post, I was lamenting over feeling blue, or down, or just icky.

I really felt like I wanted to be alone...to do nothing...but stare off into space.

I'm not sure when this came on, but here's what I'm wondering. Is it because my oldest, soon-to-be-sixth grader, Connor, has NO interest in:

Reading
Journal writing
Joining any club in the middle school (several are offered)

And when I talk to other middle school parents, and learn that their offspring is signed up for choir and orchestra, oh and another one is in A/E math...

I KNOW that comparing my kid to other kids is wrong and downright dangerous. Yet I'm wondering why my kid doesn't show any interest. I wonder sometimes if he's a little depressed. He has had a lot of trouble sleeping lately.

One thing I don't say to my kid is, "hey. Johnny is joining choir AND orchestra. Why don't you give it a try?" I don't do that for two reasons. The first is, I'm not going to make my child think he has to be like some other child. Secondly, I would never get any support.

When I was in school, I lacked the self-esteem and confidence needed to much but try to be a good student. I did sing, however, and thanks to the wonderful and inspiring teacher I had, I sany for two years in middle school, and all four in high school. I was also on the yearbook staff. Looking back, I wish I would've joined student council, but I didn't feel confident enough to even try. It seems that my parents were happy that I was a good student and they liked the fact that I sang. My mom loved coming to our concerts. It made her very happy. But if she ever thought I should be doing more, she never let me in on it.

Connor is lacking in some confidence, and I'm afraid it's because of our parenting. This is why I lay awake at night.

Granted, there are many new things happening here, and perhaps this is why I've been blue and a little anxious.

Connor going off to middle school means he won't be bringing work home for me to see. It's all done with a system where mom and dad get online and check his grades and see what assignments he might've forgotten to do or turn in, etc. Middle school also means there's the potential for bullies. Sure, the potential was there in elementary school, but there are many more kids going to middle school. I think there will be kids starting 6th grade from 6 or 7 elementary schools in our community. Because there are so many students, they divide the 6th graders into two groups: blue and white (school colors.) Our kids just got their schedules and group assignments in the mail. You can bet the phone lines and cell phone text messages have been all a-buzz. We learned that of Connor's two closest friends, one got white and one got blue. We got blue. Before he knew his assignment, one of these friends told Connor and I that white is better and you should want white. And I'm just rolling my eyes and thinking, "oh, really?"

The other new thing is that Connor tried out (last spring) and made a travel soccer team called the Arsenal. The team has only been together for one season. There was so much anxiety about travel soccer. It was really bugging me. Connor knew boys in school who are part of a different soccer organization and he constantly shared with us just how good these boys are at soccer. They would all play every day at recess. One of his good friends started out playing recreational soccer on Connor's team right after he moved here. It was clear this kid was a natural. Soon after half a season, this boy tried out for this other organization and made it. We were amazed. He didn't play soccer a year ago. He just started. I wondered if Connor felt like he needed to make it into this organization as well. Only problem was, at the time, Connor didn't have enough skills or the right amount of aggressiveness to be a part of this group.

Then an entire season went by and another good friend announced he, too, was trying out for soccer.

This is probably where the next hundred thousand gray hairs on my head came from. As expected, Connor announced he would try out too. Sure he had improved in the short amount of time he's been playing soccer here in Illinois (did NOT play in Michigan) but I had my doubts whether he could make this travel soccer team.

(More on this subject later...gotta check on the kids.)

Snap out of it!

2011-08-16T23:59:00.001-04:00

I don't know what's wrong with me today. I'm feeling blue. Down. Wiped out.

It could be lack of sleep. It could be all the changes that are happening, like my oldest going to middle school starting next week. Or my youngest going into first grade. Wow...

Or it could be anxiety over my oldest being on a travel soccer team this fall. They played six games in a seeding tournament this past weekend. They ended up ranking higher than they did last season, which was the first season for this team.

I dunno. I just feel worried and anxious and irritable. Maybe this is not the type of wound I'm worried about...

I sure hope this turns out

2011-08-09T20:32:00.000-04:00

This synthetic fiber spaghetti you see above is my first attempt at knitting intarsia. Intarsia means knitting with different colors in such a way that you have to have little balls or bobbins of the individual colors hanging from the back of the work, while you work. Try doing this during PMS and you may curse like a sailor. Trust me. I know what I'm talking about.

My eldest sister, Kathy, asked me to knit two Christmas stockings for her new granddaughter, Shea. The reason they need to be this style of knitted stocking is because my late mother knitted these stockings for me and my siblings. All seven of us, and she and my dad, as well, had unique knit stockings, thanks to Mary Maxim. Not sure who Mary was, if she was anyone at all, but she seems to have come from Canada and she had a lot of knitting and crocheting and crafting going on. My mom must've knitted 50 of these, because several of my nieces and nephews who are now grown, have them. My niece Shannon, also a knitter, successfully made one for her son. There's hope I can do this too.

[Another trademark Mary Maxim item was the bulky knit sweater jacket. I owned at least one of these as a child. They were extremely warm and wonderful. By today's standards, they probably seem totally cheesy and might just get you a butt-kickin' on the playground. But back in the 70's, they were in.]

Kathy asked me months ago in a casual conversation if I would do this knitting for her. I said, "yes! Of course. I'm always knitting and crocheting." Then she asked me if I ever did these stockings before.

Why would she ask that??

"Well, no, but I'm sure I can handle it." C'mon, it's knitting. Not rocket science!

While it's not rocket science, it does take some skill. What that skill is, I'm not sure yet. It might be to have the b*lls not to crumple the whole project up and throw it to the fire. I have started over once. Lesson learned? Don't knit in bed with a lame table lamp to one side. This causes arthritic shoulders, pissy mood and general hatred of all things yarny.

I was even prompted to Google "intarsia" to make sure I could change colors without causing unsightly holes in the knitted fabric. I found a great tutorial on The Purl Bee website, which is one I look at frequently.

Gosh, it sounded sooo complicated! I knew I was screwed. Until I read the last line, "When in doubt, twist!"

That's twist colors, not your body.

I sure hope the finished product, an angel stocking, turns out. Send your good luck vibes this way, folks. I'll just be knitting, twisting and forever untangling.

Still stitchin' this summer

2011-08-04T08:37:00.000-04:00

Many people find it hard to believe that I still make time to knit and/or crochet in the summer months. One person in particular finds it nearly impossible to have yarn on your lap in this heat. But I don't usually sit outside to work on projects. I will melt. Of that I'm sure. Oh no. I like air conditioning. And I hate humidity. We have had so many hot, hot days in Chicago this summer, I've often wondered if we are in Texas.

I mentioned in a previous post that I've was perpetually crabby. Let me prove it to you.

Sure, I've been crabby, but I'm not this cute.

This little guy is from the book Little Knitted Creatures by Amy Gaines, and he was relatively easy to make. It took me a while to figure out a different way to do the eight little legs. The author wrote the pattern so the legs were knit flat then seamed together. Well, there are only six stitches to begin with, so I decided to do a type of I-cord instead, and I'm pretty happy with the result. I didn't stuff the legs either. They didn't really need it.

I really like the book and there are many, many projects I plan on knitting when I can. I also picked up Knitting MochiMochi by Anna Hrachovek. This book is a bit edgier than Little Knitted Creatures. For example, there are patterns for knitted smoke stacks complete with pollution pouring out. They're called "Cuter Polluters." I'm pretty sure I'm going to make one or two of these.

I am also nearly finished with a custom made bracelet for my sister-in-law. She keeps me well-stocked in clothing for my boys from JC Penney, and I ocassionaly make things for her. Here's my first attempt at a navy crocheted beaded bracelet. Remember these? I've been working on more of them.

And here's my second version, minus the silver beads.

On this second one, I'm using more beads and just pulling up two when I complete a stitch, as opposed to the normal instruction of pulling up one. It makes for a fuller, heavier bracelet. Not sure which she'll like, but she can have either one. On a side note, I couldn't find size 20 crochet thread in navy, so I purchased a spool of heavy duty sewing thread and doubled it up. I really like crocheting with it. But now, at my advancing, encroaching age, I cannot work on these without my reader glasses on. No way.

I don't have photos ready yet, but I am also working on a big knitting project for my big sister, Kathy. I have a lot to say about this project, so I'll keep it for another post.

And here is Connor displaying a super-awesome paper project he perfected this summer. Believe me, we found all his attempts lying around the house. Afraid to throw anything away, in case it was "a good one!" This one is so good, and it has been handled by everyone while still keeping its integrity.

When this piece is lying on the desk, it's sort of shaped like a hand grenade. But you pick it up and "squish" it and it reshapes into a sphere, which is not unlike Epcot Center. Very cool texture. He folded and pinched and applied little glue at the seam to complete it. I don't have the link handy with the instructions. But if I think of it, I'll provide it.

And in closing, here is the true definition of a "kid."

Pictures and ramblings and such

2011-07-30T10:35:00.000-04:00

My friend asked me last evening if I'm going to sign Jack up for rec soccer again this fall. I feel a slight pain in my chest whenever anyone brings up "Jack" and "rec soccer" in the same breath. You certainly cannot tell from this pic, but Jack on a soccer field would be like Lance Armstrong with knitting needles. Can you picture the look of confusion mixed with deer-in-headlights stare? Because you really can't tell here. During the last several games, one could find me on the sidelines, gritting my teeth while shouting at Jack to at least....Move around! Pretend like you like soccer!! Please--this is embarassing!

I'm thinking "no," we probably need to take a break from soccer for Jack this fall. He loves gymnastics anyway, and I think we need to pick one activity. Besides, our older son, Connor, was picked for a travel soccer team and we will be quite busy with that on the weekends. I believe his games are on Sundays instead of Saturdays, but I really don't know much yet. All I know is, he is looking forward to it and we are too. I really enjoy watching the kids play soccer.

This photo was taken at Connor's last rec game this past spring. His team was in the tournaments and did pretty well. It was such a hot day for the springtime, but we all survived. The boys even ran around in between games, instead of complaining about the heat.

Summer has been the busiest ever for us. I am shocked by how quickly it has all gone by. Jack was involved in a gymnastics summer camp for a few weeks; he also did a Safety Town camp in Naperville for one week with two friends from preschool (so cool we still keep in touch!) and he just finished a week-long camp at Peck Farm entitled Prairie Pirates. The poor kid was actually groaning about having to go to Prairie Pirates because the Safety Town week was such a long drive and I was perpetually crabby, but I reassured Jack that Peck is right around the corner from our home, and it will be a much more relaxed camp. After the first of five days, he was loving it.

Connor did a soccer camp. That's it. Simple. But we have spent oodles of time at the local pool. Not this pool:

This was a slip-n-slide with a pool at the end. Dont' ask me about what's going on here. Just know, I didn't mean for Jack to get a bloody nose when my legs dropped. Why his face couldn't plant on the pool as opposed to the grass is beyond me. From this pic, it looks relatively safe to be sitting on your mom's butt. Relatively...

More pics to come. I keep being interrupted by boys.

You ought to be in pictures, kid!

2011-07-29T00:11:00.001-04:00

I may be cast as an extra in a short film entitled "The Witching Hour" this Saturday! Mike read about it online and my friend and I sent in our info with photos attached. We received an email back with attached release forms, wardrobe info and when and where to show up.
I have yet to shop for some garments at the local Goodwill. Our Goodwill is huge, so I'm optimistic.
This reminds me how I used to think about getting involved in community theater. I got a taste of it from a few sources. Mike's parents were somewhat involved in community theater years ago, when their son was young. I have a fond memory of my mother- and father-in-law practicing a dance for A Christmas Carol at our house back in Indiana. And their son, my brother-in-law, Jason, was in a few plays, too. I always enjoyed seeing these productions. I thought then that I would like to get involved. But I never did. I figured I couldn't attend rehearsals and such with a young child in tow.
Where I live now, in the suburbs of Chicago, I don't know about any community theater, but I have no excuse any more. My boys are old enough to come along (and yes, I dream they would want to get involved too) and it could work.
So, I should probably use this iPhone for good as well as evil (aka: Wordfeud, Graffiti Ball, Facebook) and find out what community theater is around here. I mean, knowing me, I probably won't be satisfied just standing in a crowd wearing a gored skirt and linen top. I just have that feeling.

Where I have been...

2011-07-24T20:16:00.000-04:00

Craziest summer ever for me and my family, and we haven't even gone on a vacation! (But that's another story)

I have been too busy playing a silly sim game on Facebook to blog. It's a sin. It's a shame! Because I love to blog and love to read blogs. But Cityville on Facebook really got my attention. Oh, and so did Gardens of Time. But I must find a way to incorporate blogging time into all that city-building and hidden object-finding.

Oddly enough, I blogged more when I was on vacation in Maui. I have this nifty iPhone from Apple, ever hear of it? and I downloaded an app that allows me to blog with text and pics and everything RIGHT FROM MY PHONE! Amazing! And now that I'm back in Illinois, I barely blog.

It's because of children. They suck up my time, my energy and sometimes my thoughts! I think I have even neglected my husband a bit! So it's time to organize my time and manage it better. After all, school is starting soon (Aug. 24) and I will have larger blocks of time to get organized and stay on track with my exercise (pretty much non-existant now), my crafting (it's coming along!) and my house (can you say, "dust?")

So for now, this is what I can manage today. This little entry. No pics, because I don't even know how to get the pics off the iPhone yet. Geez....

More to come, I promise!

But before I sign off, I want to say to the three people who read this blog, "Thank you!"

J

Mom seeks comfort and moral support

2011-06-23T00:01:00.001-04:00

Gosh, I feel just terrible. I had a long day today, and because I get so tired of repeating myself over and over again, it resulted in a meltdown that made my baby cry because he thought I hated him.

He was over-tired, I had had enough of the day in general, and I really shouldn't have yelled.

Now I'm watching Frasier and Golden Girls reruns on the Hallmark Channel.

You guessed it--thrown back into REALITY

2011-04-21T00:14:00.001-04:00

We're baaaack!
Let me tell you--wearing flip-flops on the flight back to Chicago was not my most brilliant idea. Sure, it was in the 80's and sunny and dry in Maui. But O'Hare International Airport was experiencing cold temps and wet, slushy snow at 5:30 a.m. Monday morning. That's our beloved Midwest. When we left for Maui on April 10, it was around 80 degrees in Chicago. We returned one week later to cold.

No one can sing it better than C-Lo: "Eff youuu, Eff youuuu."

But we were ready to come home and squeeze our boys. The boys, however, could've gone another week with their grandparents. My older son even texted his disappointment that we didn't get stranded another week.

Honey, I hear ya loud and clear. We were in true paradise. What a gorgeous place to visit.

Now I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things, living my normal, non-resort-like life. Driving kids here and there? Check. Eating peanut butter out of the jar? Oh yeah--just a little.

But I do daydream a lot about Maui. The gorgeous sunsets framed by majestic palm trees, the luxurious pools and accommodations, the snorkeling while sea turtles slowly dance in the water beneath.

Ahhhhh......

Tomorrow I must get moving on a school project to "send off" these fifth graders into the realm of acne and teasing. I just know the rest of my hair will go gray in the next three years. That's fine. It will match the hyper-pigmentation on my face, as well as that look of constant dull pain brought on by children asking me to invest in foam pipe insulation or to look up how to beat an entire video game.

Kids, I don't really want you to build a colossal marble run from our upstairs to the downstairs (that is what the pipe insulation is for) and if I'm going to sit at the PC, I would much rather be looking for patio ideas than helping Kirby beat all those bosses by inhaling them or whatnot.

Well, I must get to bed. I'm still dealing with the time change and this cold, miserable weather. I wore a turtleneck sweater and jeans all day, donning a wool coat while outdoors.

Sigh.

Maui "wows" us

2011-04-15T13:42:00.001-04:00

My husband's employer really takes care of us on these trips. It's not fair, we keep saying! I've been posting things to Facebook and I only intend to share this wonderful trip with my friends and family. Believe me, I never dreamed we'd actually make it Hawaii. Now that I'm here, I wish our family could see this beautiful part of the world.

Yesterday we fought and clawed our way to two empty lounge chairs by the adult pool. Guests like to stake their claim to poolside lounges early in the morning, around 6:30 am. But they physically aren't there, sunning or swimming. We managed to secure two lovely spots partially shaded by an umbrella, so it all worked out. I needed the shade desperately. My forehead is fried. I have to buy new foundation for the skin tone "medium well." It hurts like mad!

Then in the afternoon, we headed to the spa for our first treatments. I had the Ili Ili stone massage and Mike had the relaxing massage. I now vow to get my own stones and learn how to do this wonderful technique.

We then had to shower and get dressed for a group dinner at Gannon's, a very fine eating establishment on one of the most spectacular golf courses I've ever seen. Apparently the likes of Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger have homes on it. We were treated to a fantastic array of foods created by Chef Beverly Gannon, including Kobe beef sliders and lobster pastas. There was Cirque-like entertainment flowing between our tables and on the surrounding lawn all evening. Then couples hit the dance floor for an hour or two of fun, but it was warm!

I secretly let our travel coordinator know that it was Mike's birthday and she arranged to have a firebreather come to the table while we sang "happy birthday" and Mike got to blow out the "candle."

Below are some pics of the lovely wedding chapel area here at the Fairmont Kea Lani. I can't imagine any bride feeling anything short of a princess at this place.

What day is it anyway?

2011-04-14T15:02:00.001-04:00

When we get ready to go on a trip earned with Mike's company, we must go through the arduous task of choosing which excursions to go on and what spa treatments to indulge in.

(If I didn't know me, I would HATE me right now.) Just to give you some perspective, my normal routine of packing before a trip involves deciding which OTC kid medicines the boys might need, whether or not the younger one will need extra underwear, and gathering various chargers for the myriad electronic devices we will undoubtedly need should the boys get bored. And they always do.

But back to this current trip...

We signed up for a few different excursions, sight unseen. We decided on the rainforest hike, the Halekalea bike ride, ocean kayaking and snorkeling and finally performance sailing.

(Hate me now?)

But because we arrived two days before the work trip started and we spent an entire day sucking down blue Hawaiians poolside, we realized that doing some excursion every single day no longer appealed to us.

Hmmmm....cocktails poolside with a smutty novel or riding a bike at 35 mph down a 10,000 ft volcano?

Let's just say, we did the math. Sunburn or road rash? Liquid calorie overload or dying on the front of a Sebring convertible?

Obviously we cancelled on the bikeride, and after spending the day with our hiking guide, Randy, we knew we made the right decision. Randy confirmed for us our suspicions. He said people DO die on the bikeride. He said that they were "losing about one per year." My little quip about becoming a new hood ornament on a rental car is not so much a joke as it is a very real possibility.

The rainforest hike was awesome. Randy, of Hike Maui, picked up our small group at the resort and went over all the info we needed to have a great experience on the hike. Armed with backpacks, Keen shoes and boxed lunches and cameras, Randy drove us around the island to the "green" side. This side of the island is the desert side. All the lush green you see in pics of Wailea is due to intense and constant irrigation.

After a 75 minute van ride on a portion of the Hana Hwy., and a very entertaining and informative narrative about Maui, Hawaiian mythology and local celebrities, we arrived at a little farmstand on the side of the road. The hike is on private property. Some landowner lets people hike on his or her land.

All of our rainforest pics are on the real camera. I only have one on my phone, and since I'm blogging from my phone, I can't post those pics yet. Once we get home, I'll have many pics to post.

Mike jumped off waterfalls, we all went swimming in the natural pools and went under the falls and learned so much about the "canoe" plants, feral pigs and the lizards. We tasted fruits right off the trees, we held in our hands the medicinal fruits the Polynesian people rely on for various ailments. We saw hundreds of thousands of kukui nuts on the ground. These are the nuts made into beautiful garlands presented to us visitors and worn by many resort staff. We now have three garlands. I just love them!

We ended our day yesterday with a lovely luau on the grounds near Makena. When we arrived by coach bus, little school girls and one little boy dressed in brilliant orange and yellow garb greeted us with kukui garlands. We enjoyed cocktails, pupus (appetizers) and finally a delicious dinner and delectable desserts. I was so careful to try and avoid gluten so for once in my life I ate very sensibly, avoiding the desserts and appetizers altogether.

This basically means I'll have to make up for all the lost calories today while I'm sipping some umbrella drinks by the pool.

On the company's tab.

Hate me yet?

;-) Aloha!

More paradise, please!

2011-04-12T22:33:00.001-04:00

I really can't say enough good things about the Marriott Wailea Beach Resort here in Maui. It was beautiful! The staff was awesome too.

But we haven't left Maui. We simply moved down the coast to the Fairmont Kea Lani for the work sponsored portion of our trip.

Our room at Wailea Beach was lovely--this place is triple-lovely! Refer to pics below. (There are some limitations to blogging on an iPhone.)

I also want to thank dear Jessica at Cheeseburger Island Style for her fast, competent service and also for giving Mike s*** in such a fun and sassy way. Mahalo, Jessica!

Last night we dined at Longhi's, a Maui fixture since 1976. I passed on the complimentary pizza bread even though the aroma was driving me mad. Instead I ordered spicy steamed mussels. I couldn't convince Mike to try them, which isn't surprising, but that meant more for me! They were so delicious! I want some more right now!!

We walked by an interesting-looking restaurant sign yesterday during our three-mile hike along the shore. It's fun to say! Try it: Humuhumunukunukuapua'a.

Roughly translated I believe it means "nothing on menu is under $39."

No, really. Just kidding. It's Hawaii's state fish, a lovely tropical reef trigger fish you are likely to see while snorkeling.

I know you want to say it some more. Go ahead. Try it at the McDonald's drive-thru.
----------------------------------
I just woke up from a much-needed nap. The combination of time difference, sunburn, and waking at 4 am every morning finally caught up to me. I'm going to finish up my green tea then we're heading down stairs to explore this place. I'm thinking there might be some fruit and a cocktail in my near future.

Vacation of a lifetime!

2011-04-11T13:09:00.001-04:00

Getting to Maui was easier than I thought. First of all, this is a trip my husband earned from all his hard work with his company. And he does work hard. I've finally gotten used to him being out of town one to two nights per week. I've finally convinced my oldest son that he doesn't get to sleep in my bed whenever dad is out of town! Sorry, kiddo. I don't particularly enjoy sleeping next to the human rototiller.

But back to more important things!

We are in Maui! The first part of our journey is at Wailea Beach Resort & Spa. This is a Marriott property.

Our suite (they upgraded us to an ocean-view suite) is the largest room we've ever stayed in. There are two balconies, two bathrooms, a living area which is quite spacious and a separate bedroom. There are also 2 televisions.

The other reason why it was easy to get here from Chicago is that the 9 hour flight was quite enjoyable. Another first for me was the size of the aircraft. We flew United on a 777. I love big planes. I love to look at them, I love to watch them in their paths high above our neighborhood as they approach or leave O'Hare. Now I finally got to fly on one. Not only was it smooth, we upgraded to economy plus and got seated directly behind the wall of one of the galleys. This gave us leg room galore and priority viewing of the flat screen tv. I dozed in and out of Tron Legacy and How Do You Know. Mike and I took turns playing Doodle Jump on my phone. We're so sophisticated...

Currently I am enjoying a cup of Kona coffee on the balcony while blogging from my iPhone. I am listening to the waves crashing on the beach (oh what a lovely sound!) and also listening to a variety of birds singing.

There is a five hour time difference from Chicago. I'm in my resort & spa robe and slippers. We're going to take in one more cuppa then we're going to exercise. We haven't checked out the fitness center yet, but we may just do a brisk walk around Wailea. Yesterday we were awake for twenty hours. We ate dinner and tried to act like normal coherent people but Mike noted I looked ready to fall face first into my Balinese stir fry. Sophisticated, indeed!

I will add more later. We're here in Wailea until tomorrow then we move up the road to the Fairmont Kea Lani for the work-portion of our trip. And by "work" I mean hanging out with other paint people. We always meet folks that my husband knew only via email or phone calls. It's always a lovely time.

To my dear family staying with my boys: we miss you but we know you are all having a great time together!

Aloha!

Sweet Things

2011-04-02T19:07:00.000-04:00

I've been getting some crocheting time in while not yelling at the children.

They have been completely nuts lately! These cupcakes are calorie-free. And gluten-free! (I've decided to give up gluten since it seems to not agree with me and frankly, I'm sick of the things I love the most NOT agreeing with me.)

Here's Boo from Super Mario Bros. I made for Connor's 11th birthday. Sure, it's not a 3DS (from Nintendo) but it IS a character from a Nintendo game. I think Boo turned out pretty good, despite the fact that his body is not a spherical as I thought it should be, and I had to rip back some rows to make modifications. It sounds highly technical I know, but mostly I fudged and finagled and said, "that oughtta do!"

I'm hoping my children turn into "sweet things" despite the poor attitudes they have now. I know they are little works in progress, as we all are. I try to make sure I have a great attitude, but it's hard sometimes when I have this complete sensory overload from the kids. I occasionally want to go into a dark room and lay flat on my back and listen to whales mating.

And in about a week, I will not suffer from the child-induced sensory overload. I will be relaxing in Maui with my husband. Ahhhhh.....I can already feel the warm breezes rolling in off the ocean. I can picture myself with a tropical bloom in my hair, crochet hook in hand....

Wait. That last part automatically appeared on my screen. I did not write that....

Honestly, I'll be knitting a baby blanket on the plane ride (9+ hours) but while we're there, I will probably not work on any projects. Unless you call sipping cocktails a project. Of course, I'll be Project Manager. I wonder if gin & tonics taste different in Hawaii? Sounds like more research is needed.

So much for endurance

2011-03-03T16:12:00.000-05:00

Remember that great little papercrafting hideaway I made in my walk-in closet in January? I think it was January....Well, I haven't been in there since right before Valentine's Day.

I stalled. Again.

I'm like an old vehicle whose owner hopes and prays she'll start, she'll run, and not leave you stranded in the Meijer parking lot loaded with $150 in groceries.

Man, sometimes I get started on something and I'm unstoppable! That's been true for knitting. Ever since I learned to knit I've knitted so many things. So many good things and a few sucky things. When I put that craft space together in my closet, I was so proud and so eager to hideaway in there with my punches, stamps, giant pads of patterned paper (with glitter!). I knocked out a few cards, then...

fzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.....

Just like a disappointing dud of a firework, I fizzle out.

I realize it's not a PERMANENT fizzling out, but it's enough of a stall to make me wonder what's wrong with my engine. I was planning on making all these cards and sending them to my sister and niece to sell in their flower shop in my home town. I think that deep inside, I know they won't sell. Not because they're not good enough, but because the economy is not picking up there and people are struggling to pay their bills and buy their meds. It's a small town having trouble recovering. Did I just give up on it?

There are other areas where I fizzle out as well. But they are far more important than homemade cards. I recently purchased two books from the teachers' store for my boys. Grammar for the fifth grade boy and modern writing (otherwise known as D'Nealian) for the Kindergartner. Connor has been doing great in school, with the exception of grammar. So I had this plan of having him do a worksheet from the grammar book everyday to bring up his grade. He was willing enough, but I stalled. As it turns out, he is wanting to bring up the grade anyway and the last weekly grammar test he took resulted in a "B" which is fabulous. Quite an improvement from the D's and C's. Well done, Connor.

Jack has been struggling with writing his letters backwards. I'm not that concerned about this because Connor did the same exact thing. Letters and numbers. They are doing the same thing. Connor outgrew it and prints so beautifully now. Jack is getting better. We do practice quite a bit at home, but not necessarily in the book I purchased. He has an easel in his bedroom and one side is a white board. He generally uses this magnetic white board to play out scenarios he creates with his imagination, where Mario is the red captial "I" and Luigi is the green one. There are other various characters represented by different letters. He also uses the dry erase markers to draw out the scenarios. It's very interesting to watch. I'm going to have to capture this on video soon, because I want to have a record of it for when he's older. I think it's brilliant.

Just two days ago, I had to send both boys to their respective rooms for not being very kind to each other. They needed time to cool off and be alone. Jack ended up writing several sentences on his board. He wrote something like "Connor thinks I'm dumb and stupid and he says he loves me," and some other stuff. Of course there were many misspellings because Jack is only almost six, and he hasn't learned hundreds of words yet. It was exciting and heartbreaking at the same time to see this declaration. I called Connor in the room and he said, "Yeah, Mom, he already told me what it said." Then Connor said, "I don't think you're dumb or stupid, Jack." And then they were friends again. At least for a few minutes.

So, while I may have stalled on the grammar and writing, the boys seem to be doing better in those areas. Lesson? Maybe I need to realize that it's not my mission in life to fix every little thing. And maybe just because I wanted to create some cards and do some scrapbooking, I don't have to "work" in there every single day. I have a full-time job, and there's plenty to do to raise up these boys and take care of this house.

And that's where another hindrance shows it's ugly mug, leaving laundry unfolded, and dishes piled up.

It's not crocheting. It's not yoga (I wish).

It's Mario Kart.

Yes, you read that correctly. It started out when Jack needed my help winning gold trophies in many (okay, ALL) of the cups and I begrudgingly agreed to help, at first. And then I found myself willingly helping. By "help," I mean "do it for him." Gee it was fun! I was pretty good! Nearly every time I won a trophy after racing four courses, it would "unlock" a new character or new vehicle. Wow! This is so cool! And it's exactly what Jack wanted. He wanted to unlock things like his big brother had already done.

And then I would find myself playing Mario Kart when BOTH BOYS WERE AT SCHOOL.

Can you imagine? How FUN! I mean, "ridiculous!" Forty-two years old, playing Mario Kart just for fun.

Ah, well. I must have a little fun sometimes, too. A girl can't always be vacuuming and driving kids here and there. Right?

Right.

But here's what I've accomplished while dodging pirahna plants and hurling koopa shells.

Chocolate brown little V-stitch blankie. Upcoming niece or nephew in May, so I gotta get some things made.

And then this hat caught my eye...

This is the Xenocryst Hat by Linda Shelhamer from Knitscene magazine. I was in a hurry and even though the pattern called for size 6 circular needles (16") all I could find were my 7's, so I used them. I wear this hat, and it's a tad too large. So I have another one on the size 6 needles that were tucked away behind some other things and it's nearly finished. The properly sized one is for a cancer patient. I also plan on making a third one for a friend. This could very well be my new FAV hat pattern. This yarn is, surprisingly, "I Love This Yarn" from Hobby Lobby. It looks like I get two hats from one skein. Cool. It feels good, and I love the tweediness of it.

But I really have to start the King Boo project for Connor's upcoming birthday this month. I really need to get started tonight. I am also nearly finished with the feather and fan baby blanket I started last summer. So glad I did, since I'll need it for a gift soon.

I've been daydreaming about an upcoming trip Mike and I are making to Maui. I still can't believe we're going to Maui. It's like a dream come true, really. We've never been and we're even extending our trip a few days. Needless to say, I've been working on getting in shape for this adventure. We may be biking down a 10,000 foot mountain and sailing and doing ziplines and such. Trust me. Knitting and crocheting will probably not be sufficient exercise for this adventure. But rest assured, I'll have something to do on that long plane ride.

A refreshing change of pace

2011-02-18T09:12:00.000-05:00

My older son Connor recently spent oodles of time tinkering at his workbench in the basement. He wasn't fixing old clocks or CB radios. He was making an air gun. That's right. He created this thing with a pipe, an old plastic Coke bottle, a ball valve, a tire pump, and a hose clamp or two. It was large, heavy, cumbersome and he thought, "WAY COOL!" and I thought, "Oh no. It looks like the Unibomber works down here."

But it just blasted out a short puff of air. He was hoping to go hunting, maybe? I dunno....I digress.

Now he has rekindled his interest in Origami. I capitalize it because it's

WONDERFUL

SPECIAL

BEAUTIFUL

He loves it. He found a site where he could make stars and such using sticky notes. We only had one or two pads lying around. He made due with the yellow and the pink, but he wanted more. More color! More variety!

A few years ago, I'd purchased a small set of Origami papers and it came with a small leaflet of instructions for various shapes. They were hard to follow, mostly, plus Connor was only six or seven at the time.

Now, he looks up what he needs on YouTube and sits here at the desk and creates. He's messy, like his mom. He wants immediate gratification, like his mom. But he's soooo stubborn, like his dad, so when he found a YouTube video to make this unbelievably detailed dragon, he wanted to get started right away.

Ah, but he must be maturing, because after a half-hour or so of folding, pausing the video, restarting and such, he knew it was too complicated for him. And he didn't throw a fit or anything! He just conceded. But I was proud of his effort. He has learned so much about the various folds (mountain fold, valley fold) and squashing and stuff. He told me he even stayed in at recess yesterday to hang out with a classmate with a broken foot and taught him how to make the frog.

I would love for Connor make me about twenty of the Ninja Stars in various color combinations so I could hang them in a display in our house. That would really brighten up these winter days.

Charmander, I choose YOU! Set these damn cards on fire!

2011-02-10T13:28:00.000-05:00

When my oldest son, Connor, was younger, he was given some Pokemon cards. I'm not sure by whom, but he thought they were pretty neat. Over time, he would get more Pokemon cards. But he still seemed too young to be able to grasp the concept of the TCG, or Trading Card Game. Heck, when I researched it, I could barely comprehend the strategy, the rules--even the point of it! But researched it, I did. And I found a helpful website dedicated to teaching people how to play the game. I really believed at the time that Connor would get into playing the actual TCG and go to tournaments at the local hobby shop and such. I could see it. I could hear him saying, "Pikachu, I choose YOU!"

So Connor and I tried to play the game with his Pokemon cards. And it wasn't all that great. In fact, it was sort of boring, and sort of stupid and pointless. But every now and then, more Pokemon cards would come his way in the form of gifts.

Now we have all these cards, and somewhere, somebody mentioned to my dear impressionable son that some of the cards may be "worth something."

Since we've used the Internet to purchase used video games or specific toys that are hard to find, Connor knew that there is a forum for buying and selling Pokemon cards. And once he did some poking around on his own, he realized that he wanted to sell his cards right away and make "thousands" of dollars.

Even I know that he is not going to make thousands of dollars. He might make $100 but I would be amazed if he does.

The dilemma facing us is that he is too young to input all the information to list each card on eBay. And I don't want to.

That's right.

not

want

touch

this

"project"

with

thirty

foot

pole.

No thank you.

But I'm the only one who can help him.

But he is not that focused or driven to stick with this project.

No thank you.

(Charmander. A fire Pokemon.)

I'm going to hide the stuff and hopefully he'll forget about it. That's my plan. It's a good one, huh? I think so.

Despicable Me!

2011-02-08T16:50:00.000-05:00

After seeing the movie "Despicable Me," and falling in love with it, I thought I should really attempt to crochet a Minion. Then I was surfing online and wasn't at all surprised to find that someone already did. This woman is talented and ambitious. I first discovered her stuff while looking for Mario and Luigi patterns. I never made them because I thought they would be too involved. Plus, my little Jack would rather use a red Duplo Lego as "Mario" instead of a real Mario figure. This is a fact. We've bought two different sizes of Mario characters and I even spent HOURS making a somewhat flat felt character that never gets played with. No problem, kiddo. He has a great imagination....but I digress.

My nearly empty wine rack came in handy for the Minion to rest while the glue behind his eyeballs dried.

I want to make one with a big smile, too. I have lots and lots of yellow yarn now, so no excuses. (Except for the fact that I have yet to finish the lap blanket for my SIL's boss plus two baby blankets due in May.)

Here is Wolf Dreamer's Minion pattern. I thank you, Wolf Dreamer! This was fun to make. I especially enjoyed making the goggles.

Off to play in the snow!

Crochet rules! (Well, so does knitting...)

2011-02-04T09:04:00.000-05:00

Two days with no school due to the blizzard. This little project began as a different scarf. A neighbor, who is learning to crochet, met with me at a local coffee shop right before the blizzard hit. We were going to make the One-skein scarf from the JoAnn.com website. She is hopefully still on the way to making this. I, however, being the distracted dufus I am, ended up with the wrong number of stitches and instead of starting over, I decided that I really liked the way this clearance yarn was working up and went on to make a wider scarf without the scalloped edging. I'm so glad I did. I used up nearly all of the two balls of this JoAnn Traditions yarn, which can be quite challenging to work with. (Probably why it was on clearance.) I added fringe and have been wearing it whenever I get a chill, indoors or out. It's very long. I used a size 10.5 crochet hook. There are probably about 202 stitches along the length of the scarf.

I love it!

Perhaps you heard me screaming

2011-02-03T22:59:00.000-05:00

The kids have had two days off school due to the "storm of the century," or "Snowpocalype,"--you choose your phrase. They're going back tomorrow though. Hurrah!!

Just one minute ago, the older kid came into my room, where I'm tucked into my warm covers, laptop on lap, browsing Etsy and Flikr, and tells me he is having trouble sleeping because of the Goosebumps DVD I played today. Two little movies. Two very short, ridiculous movies and he cannot sleep. Sure, four years ago, I realized this same DVD freaked him out a bit and he DID have difficulty sleeping. It was one night, not a few months' worth of bad nights...But he's going to be eleven next month. Why can't he be more afraid of me grounding him from the Wii and DS for a week than this silly kid series?

At one point today, I had four boys here. My two and two different neighbor kids. Then one of the boys went home and the older two went back outside to play on the unbelievably huge amount of snow in the front yard. They shaped what looks like a bowl for snowboarding or sledding. It's not that big, but it's kind of cool.

Then the two older ones went to another neighbor's house and had a snowball fight with two kids there. And then the two kids from there came over to my place and played in the snow. And then I gave them each a brownie. Yum. They loved that...

Then the two neighbor kids and my son and his friend and my younger son were all inside playing Super Mario Bros. on the Wii and it was absolutely hilarious and quite raucous! Just in our family, we find it really difficult and frustrating to play this game with four players. Mario usually ends up picking up another character, such as Luigi, Blue Toad, or Yellow Toad, and throwing them off a cliff or toadstool or something. It gets out of hand and it's either very funny or very, very frustrating. Well today it was funny to see these four kids (with my five-year-old laughing and cheering them on) play as all four Mario characters. I wish I would've photographed them or even taken a short video, but I was too busy watching them play.

Soon, though, I had to kick everyone to the curb so my boys and I could run to Kumon and drycleaners. That's when it became apparent that my two were

exhausted.

And so was I. We were all afflicted with extreme yawn syndrome. You know the kind of yawn that involves your whole body, and you keep yawning and can't seem to stop. I was thinking, "should I even be driving?"

So to have my oldest come in and tell me he's having trouble sleeping at 9:30 at night makes me crazy. Crazy, I tell you.

And when my husband got home tonight he asked me what was wrong. (He could sense my impatience) and all I could say was, "they've been home from school for two days...."

In the course of writing this post, he has come in twice more, tears welling up in his eyes, and still congested. I've promised that we're throwing the movie away first thing in the morning. I got him some nighttime Triaminic for his cold symptoms and a breathe-right strip.

And I managed to do all that with patience, kindness and understanding. No screaming. Not on the outside, anyway!

Sunny after the blizzard

2011-02-02T14:42:00.000-05:00

Leaning yard stick...

View from the upstairs window...

Yah. I'm staying in. If it weren't for the wind, I'd go out and play!

Coffee, wine, movies and Cheeze-Its: all stocked up

2011-02-02T08:55:00.000-05:00

The blizzard is here! I swear I haven't seen conditions like this since I was very little. It's really amazing! I'm just so thankful we don't have to go out in this. The snow has drifted so high in front of my house, just the tops of the dormant shrubs are sticking out. The wind is still brutal.

The blizzard warning is still in effect until 3 p.m. today.

Normally, I sleep pretty well through storms, but the way the wind rattled the bedroom windows last night left me to sleep in fits and starts. Then I had this horrible dream that we were supposedly selling our house, so this crew showed up in the middle of the night and removed a toilet from our bathroom. They were also digging up something in the backyard, removing the shutters and doing other odd things that they claimed they were hired to do, since our house was "under contract." We argued and argued and didn't get anywhere. Then the next morning, we awoke to find the entire downstairs of our house filled with water, about six feet high.

Very strange, indeed.

Here are some pics:

View to the west in my backyard. Our patio box blew several feet toward the fence then started getting buried.

View to the east. I love how high these drifts are. My back stoop is clear though. The wind definitely worked in a pattern.

That black thing is my mailbox. Somewhere out there is the road.

My back door neighbor's house.

The blizzard is-a comin'

2011-02-01T10:22:00.000-05:00

It's not just the midwest that is bracing for this massive storm, it's going to affect one third of the United States. We have gas for the snowblower. I shoveled off the initial snowcovering from the walks and driveway this morning. (I like the exercise). And I stopped at Walmart yesterday to stock up on milk, Cheeze-it's, coffee and Claritin. I forgot to get wine, and I'm out of wine. There's still time, though. I have to go to school today to help in the Kindergarten class, so I'll make a quick run and pick up a few bottles of my absolute favorite: Red Guitar.

Hoping to have some good blizzard pics to post! Also in the process of creating some Valentine's cards. All I want for Valentine's Day is a good meal. I love to go out to eat to a really nice restaurant. We have tried unsuccessfully to go to a small local Mexican place called Bien Truca. This place is small. It may be two times the size of my walk-in closet. We tried Friday night and the wait was an hour and a half. Well, there's no place to wait in the winter. We skipped it. Again!

Weekend update

2011-01-31T13:16:00.002-05:00

OH. The weekend's over, isn't it...

We traveled to southwest Michigan this past weekend to see my in-laws. We were having "Christmas" with them! Better late than never, I always say. The weather was so perfect for traveling. Sometimes, it can be treacherous driving in the midwest in January, but it was uneventful. The boys even traveled nicely and played their DS games side by side, where one kid loads the game and the wireless signal travels between them so they can both play. I was knitting in the front seat. Hubby driving, me not paying attention to driving so I don't feel the need to criticize... It was one of those rare moments in our family when all seems peaceful.

But us grownups had more on our mind. A work colleague of my husband has just received a cancer diagnosis this past Friday. He wasn't feeling well and felt sick enough that he was admitted to the hospital. Now he is facing several weeks of intense chemotherapy to fight the lymphoma that has caused masses to grow in his body. He will have a bone marrow biopsy to really confirm the status of the disease, which his doctor is initally labeling stage 3. Our hearts are heavy with this news. This man is just a few years older than us, in his mid-forties. He has a wife and children. Obviously we are constantly thinking about him and his family and really pulling for him. Like he said, he has so much to live for.

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Here are some cheeful pics of my boys opening their Christmas gifts from their grandparents. They really had a great time visiting and playing with the two cats, Midnight and Bariah.

And the boys with their grandparents.

And the kitties...

Bariah, above, is about 15 years old and normally she stays away from visitors, but she even came to me when I called her. She's really loosening up in her old age. The kids could pet her without her hissing at them or batting at them with her paws. Midnight had an ear infection several months ago and now her ear is permanently crinkled. She's a "papa's" cat. She likes to sit on his lap and look out the window. She also likes to eat lots of catfood and shows little interest in other food. But Bariah, on the other hand, likes people food. We had ordered pizza and she was underfoot, waiting patiently for the kids to drop some for her. I don't think she got much, this time.

Well the midwest is gearing up for a massive snowstorm, so today I must make sure I stock up on the things we need in case we are snowed in for a few days. Poptarts, juice pouches and coffee. That should get us through.

A mish-mash of things

2011-01-28T08:51:00.000-05:00

Loving these folded flowers. But this button is huge! You could not mail this card in a regular envelope.

The color is all wrong in this photo. These look really cute in person! I swear!

Another baby card.

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We're going to see my in-laws tomorrow to celebrate Christmas with them. We're a little behind schedule, but it's been difficult to find a weekend where we're all free. We are actually going to miss Connor's indoor soccer game tomorrow night, but his team thankfully has more players, so there are plenty of subs. In other words, he will not be too terribly missed.

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I just finished another shadow cable hat (by Bernat designs) for my sister-in-law's boss, who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. I certainly hope she finds this hat is soft and warm on her head. I hope she gets better, too. So many women afflicted with this terrible disease...reminds me that I must be diligent with those self-exams!

Laundry held up as I crafted in the closet

2011-01-27T15:27:00.000-05:00

It's cold and snowy outside. Comet got to enjoy this lovely winter weather while I scraped off the driveway and helped Jack build up his snow hill before the afternoon bus came. Comet always looks so much at home and natural as his fur is getting covered in the fluffy snow. But don't you think he really looks at home here? Oh, I would've loved to join him, but I had to make a card for our neighbor who just had a boy. They have two little girls and now a boy. They should be home from the hospital by now. I made these for the baby, but now I'm just going with the hat. I think the booties are too feminine.

Not sure why this card took me forever, but it did. I was having frustration over dye inks. I think I'm going to get rid of them. I hate the way the ink repels on the surface of the clear stamp, and you don't get a solid imprint. I really love pigment ink. It's bold, solid and reliable. I have more coming in the mail. Thanks, overstock.com!

In a funk

2011-01-26T17:44:00.000-05:00

My oldest son is doing so much better in school this year. Last year was a tough year--the move here to Illinois, a teacher who seemed intolerant of any student struggling in the least. This year, he is doing great. Except for one subject. Daily Oral Language.

I think they're on week 16 of DOL. Each week there is a test. The test will have sentences on it and the student must correct the sentence, adding quotation marks, other punctuation, etc. The tests will also ask you to give the root or base word, or singular vs. plural. You get the idea.

Well, apparently, my son doesn't really get the idea. Most of these weekly tests have come home with a D on them. Compared to the "A's" he is receiving in spelling, social studies, math and geography, this is a bit frustrating for him as well as me.

I have been known to sit here at the home PC and type out mock tests covering everything from cell structure to ecosystems, to math worksheets. I have spent hours making flash cards, matching games and the like, all for the sake of my kids' education. I don't want them to fall behind.

But now, as I sit here with this pile of DOL tests, I am wondering if my spending hours picking through the rubble and making worksheets, or quizzes, or whatever, to help him is really, truly going to help. He wants to do better--that is certain. The best way to help him is currently eluding me.
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I am also frustrated on a few other levels. This isn't serious frustration. I just wish I had more time to create. I've made myself this awesome papercrafting space in my closet, which is great! I just wish my family thought it was great that Mom has this place to go by herself, where she can maybe spend an hour. I don't think it's practical or fair that I should only craft when kids are at school. Unfortunately, I have other things I have to do, like shop for groceries, run drycleaning, get my hair cut, or even vacuum around the house. No one appreciates me running the vacuum while they're here.

And then there's the guilt I feel for not spending all my free time with the kids. They like to play board games, or card games, or whatever. I WANT to play those games with them because they won't always want to. In fact, it won't be long and Connor won't want anything to do with me. I have to embrace these moments now.

But there's a tiny, selfish part of me that knows if I wait for my kids to be in college, it'll be too late for me to do the creative things I love to do now. I could stay up later at night and craft, but that will bother my husband. He can't sleep if I'm up. I don't get that, but that's the way it is. So what do I do? My first thought is to get up at 5 a.m. Believe it or not, I enjoy getting up early. I can make a cup of coffee and get to work. I will have an hour and a half before I have to tend to the older one getting ready for school.

I've even tried to have a kid do creative things next to me, but this just disrupts the creative flow I try to get going. It just doesn't work. Understandably, they would want to use all my inks, and punches and scissors and stuff, and the next thing I know, I have an upside down inkpad on the carpet and the last piece of red paper has been chopped into a zillion pieces. Then I get upset and they feel bad. Sort of.

The other thing that is bothering me is just extended family stuff. It's too involved to get in to here, in this forum, but I'm wondering why a disconnect has occurred. I'm wondering if I really care.

A bloomin' Valentine

2011-01-25T13:46:00.000-05:00

Got this wonderful idea from Paper Crafts magazine. I don't often buy mags like this (because they cost money, and I would rather spend the money on craft supplies!) but I thumbed through it at the bookstore and decided at $4.99, I would get lots and lots of good ideas from it.

The embossed ivory paper (with the vines) is so old, I probably bought it 8 or 9 years ago. It was on clearance. I often bought supplies on clearance back then because I liked getting more bang for my buck. But what I've found is that these same supplies sit around for, say....8 or 9 years before I really figure out what to do with them.

I really like the way this card turned out, and I'll probably make more of these and see if my sister wants to sell them in her flower shop, the Algonac Water Lily.

The red card in the background of the first photo is coming along nicely but I still need to do some tweaking, in the form of some supplies I just purchased through Overstock.com. Did not realize they had stuff for crafting, but so glad I checked! Check back in and maybe you'll see a revamped version of the XOXO card.

Happy Tuesday!

Lumpy, bumpy throw

2011-01-23T20:22:00.001-05:00

I don't know what to call this yarn...I bought it from a parking lot sale in Portage, Michigan that was put on by the Kalamazoo Weaver's Guild. I was a pretty inexperienced knitter at the time, but I liked it immediately when I saw it, so I bought it. I thought the price was more than reasonable: there's quite a bit to each hank.

1/25/11 note added: Found a ball band! It's called "Island Cotton" by Ironstone Yarns out of New Mexico. I thought someone from K'zoo had spun and dyed it, but that was not the case.

When I started knitting the sample of the Shalom sweater here, I loved the ribbed pattern, so that's what I am knitting here, with this nubby stuff. I wasn't convinced the stitch pattern would even show up, but it is and I like knitting the pattern as well as looking at it. I don't think this throw will be very large, but my ten-year old son, Connor, has already laid claim to it, which is perplexing to me. I figured he'd want the toe socks or something, but no. He wants this throw.

I love using up yarn from my stash. It saves on the purchase of more Rubbermaid containers! However, I did purchase yarn for the Shalom sweater, and perhaps because of the shrug fiasco, I decided to buy cheap yarn for the project. Maybe I'm not confident in my knitting ability.

No. That's not it. What I lack confidence in, is that I'll be able to modify the pattern so the sweater actually looks good on me! But the important thing is, I'm willing to try it. The yarn came to just under $18, which is cheaper than aforementioned throw! I will gain even more garment experience, and that is priceless. Bec and I are going to start it in two weeks. We have a few projects to finish up first.

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In other news, I purchased a Shake Weight yesterday. This thing, designed to tone your arms, shoulders and chest, has become a punchline. But it was on sale, and according to the product packaging, I too, can have lovely toned arms, shoulders and chest in only 6 minutes a day. I think I can handle it. Besides, knitting with bulky yarn and size 15 needles is not quite giving me the tone I'm looking for.

Too cold to craft?

2011-01-21T21:43:00.006-05:00

I think the high for today's temperature will be around

10 degrees (F)

My crafting area is in the basement. The unfinished basement. I have my craft table (a really super old drafting table) next to the only window in the basement. At least I have a large area rug covering the cement floor. But it's still very cold down there, and as I have been making cards the past few days, I'm beginning to wonder if it's bad to store my rubber stamps and ink pads in such a cold area.

This may be sickening, but my walk-in-closet (hubby has his own) is ginormous. And I'm not really a clothes-hound or a shoe girl. If you know me, you'll know what I'm talking about. So I am thinking about clearing out some space in this huge HEATED closet for paper crafting.

Last night, while my older son was at math enrichment, I darted over to Borders to browse mags. I picked up this one all about studio spaces for crafters. The mag was $14.99 so there was no way I was buying it, but I looked through it and thought, "I could do that! I know how to hang shelves!"

But the problem in the basement is that it's unfinished, and I'm not going to start putting concrete anchors in the poured cement walls to hang shelves. However, the closet is full of shelves, and drywalled, so I can put in more, if I want.

Hmmmm... the gears are turning. Slowly, creakily, but definitely turning!
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After writing the upper portion of this post, I went out to run errands while the kids were in school. I stopped at Lowe's. I shopped. I came home and started clearing out things, organizing things and bringing papercrafting things up two flights of stairs. It was quite a workout! And here are the before and after pics!

All I purchased was one 4' table, one slim set of drawers, one hanging closet organizer and several clearance bins in hot pink and funky flower patterns! The rest of my organization stuff I already had--in the cold, dungy basement. The white wire shelf I borrowed from the kids' play area in the basement. They won't even know it's gone...

Bit by a card-crafting bug--again!

2011-01-20T07:37:00.000-05:00

Necessity is the reason for hauling out the ink pads, stamps, punches, and rub-on letters. Plus, I probably caught a smidgen of this bug when I made these thank-you cards just recently.

The need was to have three birthday cards ready for the three latest "greats" who will turn ONE this summer. Time flies...seems like they were just born! I am talking about...

Michael
Elliot
Xavier

Three sweet boys.... And I understand that two more babies are due this year! My niece, Melisa, is expecting her first child in a few short months. No word on boy or girl, it's going to be a surprise!

Isn't that sweet? I am so excited for Melisa and Bob!

And my nephew Wayne and his wife are expecting child number #2 this year as well.

You know what this means: I will be forced to knit. How (ahem) cruel...

Three-legged monsterwear!

2011-01-19T20:12:00.000-05:00

I met my friend for a pedicure today and she surprised me with these delicious socks!

Three of them!!

She says they're always packaged this way--an odd number of socks! Well, honestly, who doesn't have an odd number of socks in their house? My neighbor told me she has a huge drawer full of odd socks. Huge! (There ARE six people in their family....)

I love them and I've been wearing them all day. And probably all night, too...

And here is a short video I made of me wearing the socks...

(brace yourself--could've been a contender for a Golden Globe!!)

Off on a tangent

2011-01-18T21:15:00.000-05:00

I may never know why my mind works the way it does. Why, for example, do I have strange dreams every night? They are so crystal clear that at times, recollecting a dream will affect my mood--usually for the worse. I remember dreams I had years ago. Many, many years ago.

But there are times during the day, when a thought, or a memory from long ago will pop into my head and consume my thoughts for a few moments. This exact thing happened just the other night.

When I was a kid I got up early to get ready for school. I always had time to eat a good breakfast (sometimes three scrambled eggs) and watch some morning TV before it was time to head to the bus stop. Have you ever found yourself talking with friends about TV programs from your childhood and it seems you all watched the same thing? Yeah, so, I never found anyone who watched this one particular TV show I did, called "The Great Space Coaster." I even have snippets of the theme song running through my inner playlist.

I happened to have my laptop on my lap the other night when this memory of "The Great Space Coaster" popped in. So I do what any normal web surfing individual would do: I Google it.

And I end up on Wikipedia. As usual. It seems that no matter what I Google, I end up at Wikipedia, where the information I read may or may not be true. Because anyone can edit Wikipedia. (One slow day, I searched on the site for "bohus stickning" which has something to do with knitting, and I get this: "Did you mean bonus stinking?" ROFLOL!!!)

Reading through the Space Coaster info on Wikipedia, I realize I don't really remember the puppet like characters by their names, except for one notorious character: M.T. Promises! That meanie. He obviously made an impression on me.

A little further down the page, and I see a familiar name connected with the voice of Goriddle Gorilla. (I have no recollection of this gorilla guy....) The name is Kevin Clash. Have you heard of Kevin Clash? I've heard of him, and remember the name because it is a pretty cool name, I admit. But I don't know what he looks like or anything. (I think I've been living under a rock for quite a few years.)

If you don't already know, Kevin Clash is the voice of Elmo! You know Elmo! Of Sesame Street? That's Kevin Clash's voice. But who the heck is Kevin Clash???

I realize I'm about to find out. I feel like I am on the verge of a great discovery! I press forward!

Click.

Wow. Here's all this information about Kevin Clash, except...where's a photo? Is he married? I don't know why but I like to see how these famous people are like you and I by reading about who they're married to, how many kids they have, or their favorite place to eat. But this whole Wikipedia thing is all about Kevin Clash's professional life. And I start to wonder--is he really a REAL person? Maybe Elmo is real....and Kevin Clash is some made up name to throw us off the scent of something really spectacular. It gets one thinking, I tell you!

I read on down the page and it says that Kevin Clash has also done the voice of Clifford.

Really?? I think I've seen every Clifford episode and the voice is John Ritter (RIP, dear John). I have watched a lot (and I mean A LOT) of kid programming, to the point that I even know that George Carlin and Ringo Starr have narrated Thomas the Tank Engine episodes. I love the George Carlin ones....

I keep reading and see that Kevin Clash has even appeared on the Food Network show "Grill it! With Bobby Flay" sharing his "Killer Ribeye Steak" recipe. WOW! I am so intrigued now. (Of course I'm picturing Elmo standing next to Bobby by the grill, basting brush in fuzzy red "hand.")

Now I'm really ready to meet this Kevin Clash guy, so I click on the Food Network link and get....a short summary of that episode's recipes. No pics, no quotes even. No Kevin Clash.

Impatient at this point, not to mention it's like midnight, and I'm exhausted, I scroll back up to the top of the entry and see that he wrote a book about his life as a big furry monster. So I end up on Amazon, and finally, FINALLY see a photo of Kevin Clash.

Not what I expected.

A day or two later, I revisited the Wikipedia site and found links to interviews and such featuring lots of Kevin Clash photos, information, you name it. If only I would have been a little more patient, and thorough. But maybe part of me wanted to believe that Elmo is....well... Elmo! All furry and red and lovable...there really is no puppeteer behind the fluff. But alas there is, and you guessed it. I'm going to get his book, and read about how being a busy puppeteer pretty much ended his marriage. That stinks. That sort of thing shouldn't happen to Elmo.

I will end this by noting that by visiting the Food Network site in search of Bobby Flay and Elmo's voice, I ended up getting really, really hungry. And I may or may not have run downstairs, made two pb & j sandwiches and scarfed them down with a glass of orange juice.

What can I say? This all started when I was thinking about being a kid.

Hand-dyed discount

2011-01-17T17:58:00.002-05:00

A while back, I found five hanks of hand-dyed cotton yarn at a Tuesday Morning. It is dyed in Chile. It was $6.99 each, which I couldn't pass up. So I started rolling it into balls and realized that it doesn't match. But I read the label and it says to alternate yarns every two rows to assure an overall blended effect. Easy enough: you just knit two rows with one ball, then carry the yarn up the side and switch to the other ball. Very neat trick.

I started knitting right away. My good friend, Bec, thought we should try our hand at yet another article of clothing. Apparently, she is not too scarred by the whole "shrug" fiasco. I guess I'm not either. The more we knit, the more we learn. So, without knitting a gauge swatch, I proceeded to knit the Shalom cardigan. Immediately, I noticed how beautiful this hand-dyed yarn knits up. Sure, it seems to come unplied, but that doesn't seem to affect the finished stitches. However, I haven't knitted a piece that can be washed and blocked, so it's hard at this point to make a determination regarding the yarn. Nonetheless, I love the color blending of the yarn. And I love the rhythm of knitting the ribbing pattern, which involves purling through the back loop and knitting through the back loop.

Not surprisingly, the small amount I knitted was enough to show me that it's coming out way too small. The colllar won't even reach around to button. So, it's clear what I have to do:

Knit a gauge swatch. And block it.

Doesn't sound fun, does it? But it's necessary. I can't wasted precious hours of my life knitting a sweater that won't fit. Been there, done that.
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In other news, today is Martin Luther King Jr. day, so the kids are home. Earlier today, we were finally getting some snow, coming down in big fluffy flakes. So the kids wanted to go skate at the neighborhood pond. Upon arriving, it was clear I would have a lot to shovel. I didn't realize how much snow we actually got! But the shoveling went well, and I got a workout in, too. Other neighbors came out to skate and play hockey. We all had a good time, even though the snow turned to a sleety rain. (All of our coats, snowpants, gloves, etc are in my dryer)

Connor, in orange, while his friend throws snowballs.

Jack, taking a break from skating, to build a snow hill.

Kyle, in a comfy seat, pelting us with snowballs!

Neutral baby stuff

2011-01-14T13:00:00.000-05:00

My neighbor is expecting her third child this month. She and her family don't want to know if it's a boy or girl! They already have two little girls. I've decided if it's a girl, I'll add a few little white crocheted flowers to the hat. If it's a boy, well, the hat will be great, but not sure about the booties. There are quite a few bootie patterns out there so I may just make up a quick pair that are more boyish. The yarn is Baby Cakes. It's 50% cotton and 50% acyrlic. I just love quick little projects like this...especially since I'm going to attempt to make myself another sweater.

Oh boy.....

Bag 'em and wake up!

2011-01-12T15:38:00.000-05:00

The crocheted-then-felted bag is finished. So here is what I think:

I should've used a smaller hook. I think I used a "J." The bag would've been slightly smaller but would've felted tighter. Obviously, I'm not trying to close up those large holes--they are part of the basket design. My limited knowledge of felting knit and crochet items leads me to believe knitted things felt better. Not sure though.

I used the bag last night to take my younger son's homework and my Nook with us to the older son's guitar lessons. We hung out in the hall during lessons. It was all good. Jack did great on his homework (Kindergarten is rough, I tell you!) and I got to read some more of Sleepwalk with Me by Mike Birbiglia.

I first heard of Mike Birbiglia on This American Life on my public radio station, WBEZ. I really love that show. Mike has been on several times, and I'm never disappointed. Check out the podcast for This American Life either through iTunes or thru their website.

Speaking of comedy, my older son was explaining how awesome snakes are and he said, "If it weren't for the deer and canteloupe, the snake would be extinct!!"

I love this free comedy club I live in. The drinks are pretty strong too.

I "felt" better

2011-01-10T23:46:00.000-05:00

"Five by five! Or six by six! I want them ALL!!!!"

First of all: I forgot to post this pic of my oldest son. The Rubik's cube guy. I do believe he's daydreaming about more twisty puzzles...

And here is a crocheted "basket" being agitated in a bucket of hot, soapy water in my kitchen. I scrambled today and tonight to get the crocheting finished so I could felt it. I have given up trying to felt things in my washing machine. All the rinse cycles are cold and I need it to rinse hot. So, a knitting acquaintance from Kalamazoo suggested I try felting in a bucket. I used to have a small plunger to do this with, but I found it has been used for its real plunging purpose...so....I am using an Oxo potato masher, which hardly ever gets used in this house.

Below is what this "basket" looks like. Felting crocheted things is not quite the same as knitted. Maybe if I would've used a smaller hook to make a tighter fabric, it would've felted tighter. Who knows? I think I'm going to be happy with this anyway. I just like the look of it already.

I'm using a regular ol' bucket to help give the basket some shape as it dries. This bucket has melty salt in it. The kind we use on our walkways and driveway when they get slick. We haven't had any snow in over a week, so hopefully I won't need to call on this salt before my basket is dry.

I'm not sure what I'm going to put in the finished basket yet. I have a feeling it might end up being used for balls of yarn. The pattern is from the Purl Bee. It's called Stash Basket. It was very easy to crochet. Their pattern uses a different fiber, and is not felted. I just went out on my own and decided to make my basket this way. The yarn is Paton's Classic Wool. You can find it at Joann's, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc.

On an ending note, my five year old asked me last night if I could teach him to knit AND crochet. He wants to make a blanket. How sweet! I did try to teach him to make a basic foundation chain this morning. He did okay, but it's hard to teach those little hands to hold onto everything. Hopefully he'll want to practice some more tomorrow. Then he can make his mommy a bracelet!

The boy and his latest fixation

2011-01-09T23:43:00.000-05:00

Brothers can be really mean to each other. My sons have moments now and then where they actually talk to each other without name-calling, hitting, shoving, etc. Those moments are like little flakes of gold panned from a stream to me. I realize how precious they are. I am almost brought to tears.

Tonight, while Connor and Jack were walking down the basement stairs, I hear Jack ask his brother, "Connor, do you still think I'm weird?"

Who knows when Connor told Jack he thinks he's weird, but there is no doubt in my mind he did. In fact, Connor thought he was being so cool by arguing with me that Jack is in fact weird because he plays with Legos (Duplo-sized: the larger ones) in the bathtub. And he does. Every bath, Jack plays with his blocks. They are usually Mario characters. A red block is Mario, green is Luigi, and the little square blocks with four little raised circles, are the Toads. Here's what Toad looks like:

Totally cute, don't you think? I love Toad. I love the Mario games, too. I often go to bed at night with some Mario world jingle in my head. It's sick.

Here are the blocks that Jack plays "Mario" with:

He plays with them in the tub and also out of the tub. We keep them separate. Lord knows we own a LOT of Duplo blocks.

Now here is what dear Connor is into lately. His latest fixation? The Rubik's cube and other "twisty" puzzles.

And here are some of the "twisty" puzzles that Connor has:

The black cube to the left is something he has tried to make on his own from other cubes. This was not successful. The one at the top, second from the right, is a regular 3x3 cube he has modified, with the help of a Dremel tool and wood filler and markers, to make into a more complex geometric shape.

He is ten.

He is constantly thinking of how to push the envelope. Not because he is some kind of genious, but because of Youtube. Some parents have to make sure their kids aren't looking at sexual content on Youtube. Us, we have to monitor what Connor sees on Youtube and try to strike that balance of letting him experiment with making his own twisty puzzles or telling him he simply cannot do what he sees on Youtube.

It's frustrating. Yet, it's exciting, too, because he is gaining so much experience by having the trials and errors of building things. Will he become an engineer? I can only hope....

Today he came home from Toys R Us with three brand new 2x2 cubes. And now he is on his way to making a 2x2x4 rectangular twisty puzzle.

I hope it works out. He would like my help, but I can't seem to help him without that practical, frugal side of me going, "Geesh! Why can't you just be happy with the ones you can buy in the store??" And I tend to sigh. A lot. He picks up on this and it hurts him. So I try to stay away, while still trying to be supportive. It's frustrating.

Did I already mention that?

Brand new toys meet Mr. Dremel.

I am hoping this works out. Not because he spent his own Christmas money buying these cubes that are now dismantled and disfigured. Because I don't want him to get discouraged and give up.

It's frustrating.

And they really mean it!

2011-01-07T15:35:00.001-05:00

Thank You cards complete.

Now the kids must write in them. I have a feeling they should only use pencil.

A flurry or two will cheer me up?

2011-01-06T11:54:00.001-05:00

It's been cold here, but so terribly dry. No snow on the ground except for a few short piles left over from once giant snow forts at the end of my driveway.

A little snow fell today but it's that dreadfully cold snow that only makes its appearance on rooftops, mulch and cracks in the sidewalk. It's no good for anything fun, really...

I need to be more cheerful today. I didn't sleep well, and when I did sleep, I dreamt more strangeness (this happens nearly every night) that left me feeling down and a little angry this morning. I should also mention my older son forgot to mention that he needed at least four photos for his timeline project. I noticed he worked on his timeline last night but did not use any photos. I made the grave mistake of waiting until bedtime to ask him when he was supposed to turn in the photos. You know what the answer is: today. Gee, Connor, could you give me a little notice? Heck, if I wouldn't have brought it up, he would not have brought ANY photos to school.

So in our typical morning rush, I am desperately trying different photo CDs for the ones he needed. But I also had to dig out my husband's old, old scrapbook from his childhood. Ugh. I was mad. I was mad at him and mad at myself, because I'm supposed to get organized this year. How can I get organized if I can't even keep up with his homework?

Today, I will make thank you cards that my kids can write in and sign, and we will mail them out to our family members from afar who sent gifts and gift cards to my boys. As soon as Jack gets on the bus for Kindergarten, I'm going to make some cards.

More buddies!

2011-01-05T08:52:00.002-05:00

Little Jack LOVES his stuffed animals. When my first son, Connor, was born, he was given a stuffed beagle dog by some family members who, at the time, owned a real beagle who was beloved but a real pain in the butt. His name was Barney. To this day, Connor, nearly 11, sleeps with Barney dog and takes him overnight to Gramma's, or where ever we travel to.

I bought Jack a stuffed German Shephard named Chester when he was born. I've always wanted a German Shephard and thought we'd get one, as a second dog, when we moved to Illinois. But alas, I don't think I want a second dog.

In addition to Chester, there are numerous other stuffed toys Jack sleeps with every night. He said his bed is a camp and he's in charge of all the animals. Last night, after kissing him "goodnight" and singing his favorite lullaby, I left his room and snuggled in my own bed to read. I could hear him talking away to all the animals. After about five minutes, he was sound asleep.

Here are two of the latest homemade buddies. I don't know what he's named them yet, but in typical Jack fashion, they are probably "Bear" and "Bunny."

About a year ago, I found a book at the local library to make knitted teddy bears and fabulous costumes for them. Ballerinas, pirates, fairies, fisherman--but for the life of me, I cannot locate this book even on Amazon. I'm not giving up, though. I WILL find it!! The blue bunny is from another fabulous library book called Knitted Toys: 25 Fresh and Fabulous Designs. The bunny was a lot of work, but so worth it.

"Let's be real, Dad."

2011-01-04T13:10:00.001-05:00

Our five-year-old son had to do some holiday journaling while on break for his Kindergarten class. On each page, the students are prompted with a question, such as "What did you eat for your holiday dinner?" Our dear Jack wrote "ham," and drew an animal lying on its back, legs in the air, with ham-colored skin. Very cute. A close depiction of the North American Ham.

On January 1, 2011, my husband was going through the journal with Jack and saw that two more pages needed to be completed. First, "how late did you stay up on New Year's Eve?" That was easy: 10:45 p.m. And the last page, "What is your New Year's Resolution?"

Even I realized this is a difficult enough concept for many adults, let alone a Kindergartner. So my husband did his best to explain what a resolution is, and what a good one might be for Jack. He suggested that perhaps Jack could get along with his older brother.

Jack immediately replied, "That's not gonna happen."

Reality knocks

2011-01-01T11:29:00.000-05:00

For the first time ever, my husband and I decided to take a little vacation at Christmastime without our children. In years past, we have spent every Christmas either at home, or at a family member's home. We have been blessed with many wonderful holidays with family. But several months ago, upon talking with our good friends, Scott and Shelly, we decided to not just TALK about taking a trip with them, but to actually make the flight arrangements and hotel reservations and just do it! Our friends had cause to celebrate: twenty years of marriage! So we decided to go to Las Vegas on December 26, stay until the 30th, then come home.

We had a great time! I'll post some pics (there are only a few) when I get have time. But for now, I'm sitting at the kitchen table, watching the ten year old eat pizza rolls for breakfast, the five year old keeps dancing around the table with an armload of magnetic cubes about to meet their demise on my floor (that's going to be loud) and my husband turning up the volume on ESPN to overtake the noise of reality. The dog threw up once on the floor earlier and now the click-click of his claws on the wood floor remind us that we have a wood floor. And a big dog.

I've only had one cup of coffee, and I have big plans today: take all the Christmas stuff down. So I'm off to make more coffee, drink said coffee, and get to work. My New Year's Resolution is to GET ORGANIZED. And I simply can't get started on that until all the garland and decorations are put away.

What an ass!

2010-12-22T23:08:00.000-05:00

Have you ever taken your children out to dinner and you half wonder if it's a good idea? They may fight, they may whine about the wait, the food, the seats. Many of us parents have paid the bill at dinner only to realize a small percentage meals were eaten, and by eaten, I mean "picked at" because the parents were too busy fussing over the kids. It's like setting money on fire.

But when you go to dinner with your husband and children, you may find the source of embarassment is not the beloved offspring. It's the dad.

We are short one child tonight. The Little Brother of Great Annoyance is staying over at a friend's house. So the three of us decided to go out and get some last minute shopping done. But first, we decided to get a bite to eat. We settled on Olive Garden.

I'm not sure how it came up, but once last year, my then nine-year-old son made a great joke about a jubilant Christmas song about a donkey. I'm not sure I understand the song, because I can't even listen to it all. You may know it: Dominick the Donkey. I'm not sure if he was supposed to be a donkey in the manger scene, or what, but apparently, he does some singing in the song.

So Connor thinks it's funny to change up the lyrics from "hee haw, hee haw, hee haw! It's Dominick the Donkey!" to "Ni hao, ni hao, ni hao--it's Dominick the Chinese Donkey!" and it stuck. (For those readers who don't know what "Ni hao" means, it's the way to say "hello" in Chinese. We absorbed this bit of foreign language knowledge from a preschool show on Nick Jr.) We all thought it was hilarious and liked to share Connor's cleverness with anyone who would listen. I mean, if they'll listen to Dominick the Donkey on Sirius/XM, they'll listen to my kid's joke, right?

Well, the Chinese Donkey reappeared tonight at our table in Olive Garden. Here was my nice-looking husband, casually dressed, thumbing with his Blackberry, putting out all the fires that can flare up in a paint company, and occasionally exclaiming "Ni HAW!" which is like a hybrid donkey braying a Chinese greeting. Just one "Ni HAW!" and I notice one of the ladies sitting next to us turning her head and squinting her eyes suspiciously at our table. Connor is smirking yet shrinking in his chair, and I have my back to the rest of the patrons so I don't even know they're staring at us. I kind of assume they might be, but it's fairly noisy in the restaurant, so maybe the braying blends in with the other conversations. When it was clear that Connor was embarassed, my husband was only encouraged to do it again, but only when Connor least expects it. I didn't think too much of this. I mean, I am married to a man who once smeared clear hair gel on a toilet seat he knew I would be using in a moment. I fell for it. I mean I nearly FELL on the floor. I'm pretty used to his antics.

After dinner, we headed to the toy store to look around and pick up some last minute gifts. Somewhere in the Fisher Price Imaginext aisle, I spy my husband walking toward the end of the aisle and there's a woman following him down the same aisle and then I hear the loudest "Ni HAW!" ever. So I change my direction so she doesn't know I'm with him: the man with Tourette's syndrome, braying like a jackass in Toys R Us. At this point, I make up my mind to steer clear of him until we're ready to go.

We all get into the car and I'm like, "You should've seen the way people were looking at you in there!" And my husband laughs and says, "Oh, I know! You should've seen them in Olive Garden!!"

Okay, let's go home. I need a drink.

Stock up, Nancy! There might be a shortage soon!

2010-12-18T18:53:00.001-05:00

So I've noticed this trend I've apparently been on. I recall it may have started a few years ago with a tiny container of cream of tartar. (How many times have you read a sentence not in a cookbook with the words "cream of tartar" in it?)

I bought some to make play dough for my oldest son, who was actually my only child at the time. I was very into some homemade play things, like the dough, or even cutting the front of a colorful cereal box into a four-piece jigsaw puzzle. Not my original idea, but one found in a book for keeping toddlers busy so you don't go crazy. Personally, I think I still went crazy, and cutting cereal boxes into jigsaw puzzles definitely added to my psychosis. Then perhaps six months to a year later, I bought some more cream of tartar, because I probably didn't look hard enough to find the teeny tiny container of the original cream of tartar. I tend to keep a full and unorganized pantry, you see.

When all was said and done, I probably had three or four little containers of cream of tartar. I was asking people if they needed any. "Here! Take some cream of tartar! It's FREE!!"

Then similar things happened with other items. Kosher salt in the big blue box. Got two of those. Worcestershire sauce. Yarn. And yarn! Knitting needles and crochet hooks. You get the idea.

Now this fall, when we started getting our typical midwestern winter weather, I realized I must have forgotten to buy snow pants for my older son at the end of last season. That's how I usually do it. I buy them at 70-80% off at the end of winter and put them away for the next year. I had to go searching through the giant Rubbermaid tubs in the basement looking for some snowpants for him. All I found were last year's which I was certain would not fit. But lucky for me, they did! Really, lucky for him. He's the one who needed to stay warm and dry.

A few weeks ago, I picked up a new pair of snowpants for him at Gander Mountain. I managed to find a fairly inexpensive pair, rather than the $99 ones. I just can't justify spending that on a growing kid. So now he had his old pair, and a new pair. Plenty, right?

But while putting some towels away in the laundry room closet, I found another brand new pair of snowpants!! Complete with the tags. Size? 10. That's his size. Hmmmm....I have no recollection of purchasing these pants. I don't even recognize the tags, which means I probably picked them up at Costco. So now he has three pair. That's good though. He's all boy. He may go through all three pair by the time March rolls around.

I know, you're probably thinking, it's a pretty innocent mistake for a mom to make and all in all, a few too many snowpants isn't all that bad.

But now I realize he also owns three pair of winter boots, all the same size. The current size. I guess last year's fit him just fine, then I bought a pair for fifth grade outdoor camp in early November. Then somehow a third pair materialized. My husband would not have bought them. Hmmmm. If he spontaneously sprouts more legs and feet, I've got it covered. But he probably won't, will he?

I am beginning to wonder if I'm suffering from some sort of memory loss. I do know that last month, I managed to leave my cell phone in a public place I just visited two times in one week. I have NEVER done this before. I swear, I am hardly enjoying the wine these days. So that's not it.

It could be my advancing age. It could be. Or maybe I just really need to get organized. That would be something. Odds are though I will find more snowpants, boots and kosher salt.

Cookies, cookies, cookies!!

2010-12-13T09:13:00.001-05:00

Cookie exchange update: Now attending two parties, Thursday night and Friday night. Need 7 dozen for Thursday and 6 1/2 doz. for Friday. Plus, I need to make appetizers for both parties. Whew! This is going to be fun, though. I'm looking forward to it! I think I have a few dozen more to bake. I'll take inventory later.

Decking the halls!

2010-12-07T12:36:00.000-05:00

Even though I really wanted a real tree this year, I changed my mind when I realized how much they cost and we put up our artificial tree. The whole family got into decorating the tree after my husband put the lights on. I usually put the lights on, but this year, I did the outdoor lighting because he really doesn't like doing that, and so I lobbied for him to do the tree lights. It's a big job. Connor and Jack helped put on all the decorations and candy canes. It was so fun and sweet. When I was little, I loved looking at the ornaments on our tree, and trying to find my favorites.

Check out that cool car ornament in the middle. That was my prize from the neighborhood ornament exchange party we attended last Saturday night. Isn't it sweet? I loved it.

Cookie exchange update: 17 bakers, so we have to provide 1/2 dozen for each person, plus some to munch on during the party. I know which cookie recipe I'm going to bake. It's my favorite. My husband and brother love them too. I should probably just not eat between now and December 17. This could get ugly....

Ho, ho, (cough, cough, cough)...

2010-12-04T12:02:00.001-05:00

Despite fighting a cold and regularly scheduled hormonal issues, I managed to bake some Christmas cookies today. But something wasn't quite working out. I ignored the part of the recipe card that stated my cookie pan ought to be greased. I ignored it because this particular cookie recipe has two sticks of butter in it. I figured there's no way these cookies are going to stick!

Now, if I were a real baker, I would've realized that glazed almond cookies are coated in egg white before baking, therefore you should put them on a greased pan. Ahhh, the blasted egg whites. Damn.

So after the first batch put up the fight of their little glazed lives to stay on that baking stone, I got smart, or at least I thought I did, and sprayed cooking spray on the stone.

Turns out the first batch forewarned the second and third batches that I was hoping they'd all slide off the stone like greased lightning. Every single cookie fought me on this one today. It was like I should've stayed on the couch, in my sweatpants, watching Leave It to Beaver.

In years past, I've baked lots of cookies for one season. I've made rum balls, chocolate chip-peanut butter-oatmeal cookies, Santa's whiskers, candy cane cookies, chocolate butter cookies, various types of biscotti, and the aforementioned glazed almond cookies, which are undoubtedly one of my favorite things in the world. I usually knock out all these cookies and manage to not let the whole house fall apart, or let kids go to school in p.j.'s or...you get the idea.

But today I had to force myself to unwrap the butter, get it in the bowl, actually bend over and dig out the hand mixer (I do not own a Kitchenaid) and get the job done. And the thing is, I actually cussed a little bit, too.

Yeah, I wasn't feeling great. My head has been hurting due to this cold I have. I went cold turkey off coffee starting today to improve my gastrointestinal health, and I signed up for this neighborhood cookie exchange and I may have to bake 14 dozen of the same cookie.

Let me repeat that last part: I may have to bake fourteen dozen of the same cookie.

So I have this looming over my head. I'm no Giada or Barefoot Contessa. I don't even own a Kitchenaid mixer, for heaven's sake! This will definitely cut into my knitting time.

Speaking of knitting, I just finished the most hideous knitted gift ever. It's for a friend of mine. We kind of dared each other to knit something for the other with this hideous yarn. Here's what the yarn looks like.

We purposely picked out the ugliest holiday yarn for this little gift exchange. I can't wait to see what she made me! But I really can't wait to see her use my gift in her new apartment. She better....

And I also just tonight finished a hat I thought was for me. It was with this self-striping yarn I mentioned in this post. It's a really pretty yarn. The interesting thing about it is it doesn't feel very elastic when you're simply holding a strand in your hand. But when your project is all knitted up, it has great elasticity, which is helpful if you've made a hat. When I was finishing it up, working on the decreases to close up the crown, I realized it was looking quite pointy, and I was loving it, so I decided to knit some i-cord from the top and then add a pom pom. And as I was holding this finished piece of knitting in my hand and thinking to myself (or I may have said it out loud) "this is possibly the coolest hat I've ever made!"

Then I made a fatal mistake. I let Jack try it on. Jack is five. He's cute as heck. The hat looks so cute on him that I'm going to have to let him keep it. Because I love to look at all that cuteness with knitted cuteness on his head. And then I want to chase him around and kiss him over and over....he hates that.

What my kids don't hate, however, is SNOW. And the snow fell through the night. This is our first real snowfall. December 4, 2010. The boys are patiently waiting for me to stop blogging and dig out boots and snowpants. I am just hoping they will shovel off the driveway, because my husband is on the loveseat, covered in a lavender afghan with laptop and college football on. He hasn't showered yet, which means he won't leave the house. We still have to go get a cut tree today. I should mention I'm in my p.j.'s too. I sort of slept in until 10 a.m. today. That never happens, but I'm sick.

Okay. Enough playing around. I must get some cold medicine and cold pizza into my system before there's a complete system failure. Then I must find snow boots. These boys are counting on me.

Probably, I used to drink from the toilet

2010-11-22T20:28:00.000-05:00

Right this very moment, my bed has been invaded by a kid. And a dog. The dog is the worse offender, because he is doing his spread eagle thing, letting all his fur and, well let's face it, MORE fur, hang out. He is slowly squeezing me right out of this pillow top.

But I don't care. His big old upside down head is against my feet. I can smell his wonderful doggy smell, I can.....

Yes. You read that correctly. I said "wonderful" doggy smell. I LOVE the smell of my dog. It's not a bad smell. It's not gross. It's warm, comforting, familiar.

(I feel like I'm really digging a deep hole here.)

Comet, my 3 1/2 year old Golden Retriever is my best furry friend. I love him and he loves me. I walk him and in turn I get to walk and be happy that I have such a good, good dog. A dog who smells so good, that when I'm kissing on him and sticking my face right into his fur and by his ears, I breathe it in, and feel all happy and lucky to have this dog. And he moans this pleasurable moan and sighs this deep thoughtful sigh that tells me he loves his human mommy. And I tell him at least five times a day that I love him, and he is such a good puppy.

I think I may have been a dog in a past life.

Who's that girl?

2010-11-09T21:13:00.000-05:00

Pajamas on at 6:30 p.m.; recently visited AARP's website to play Spider Solitaire; using a special serum to reduce brown spots....Hmmm....somebody must be approaching fifty.

No, just 42. Forty-fricken-two.

My eldest sister, Kathy, just celebrated sixty years. She has lived six years longer than our mother, who died when I was seventeen. We talked tonight on the phone, sharing what was for dinner, what's new in our lives. There was plenty of sighing in between the anecdotal snippets of raising children and grandchildren: "Where does the time go?" or "I don't feel forty-two," and "I can't believe I lived this long."

That last one was her, not me.

Because our mom died young and quickly, from cancer, Kathy always assumed she would be handed the same fate. Kathy has been heavy all her life, and many years of smoking has greatly reduced her ability to shake off the common cold. In fact, I remember her saying, "I'm going to die like Mom anyway--why should I quit smoking?"

I must admit that my mom's cancer and how little we actually know about where it started is something I think about at least every other day. I think back to times when she wasn't feeling well. She napped a lot in her bed. She seemed depressed. When I'm feeling aches and pains, I do what she never did: I get things checked out. So far, I've had a couple mammograms, breast ultrasounds and a biopsy in two areas. Everything is a-okay. My mom never had a mammogram. I don't think she ever had a gynecological exam since I was born. We had insurance. That wasn't the issue. We had access to healthcare. That was not the issue either. She was simply afraid. Afraid of what a doctor might find.

By the time the doctors found it, she had less than two weeks to live. And I was too young to know what questions to ask. So, all I can do is keep getting checkups, keep listening to what my body is saying, and keep walking the dog, not eating too much crap, and never ever smoking again.

That's right. I used to smoke, when I was in college. But I quit. And I never ever went back. I was determined to lose that awful habit and I did. It's been almost 20 years.

So, as I approach forty-two this month, I think about what the rest of my life is going to be like. Sure, right now is pretty predictable: raise up these two young boys, ages 5 and 10. Clean up after two said boys. Walk aforementioned dog. Clean up after said dog. Pretty predictable stuff. There aren't going to be monumental knitting projects in my future. I won't be producing fifty scrapbooks of every Halloween my kids celebrate. I won't keep blogging about my adventures in vacuuming or making rum balls. I want to do more. As of right now, I'm not sure what that is. I'm not sure how much time I have to dedicate to learning something new to become a productive member of society. Right now, being the mom to these two boys is what I do, and it's great. Challenging, yes. Awesome--definitely. But I've forgotten about someone very important to me. Someone I've neglected a bit. Someone whom I should've gotten to know better before I decided to put her needs and dreams aside. Now I realize I must spend some quality time getting to understand what those dreams and needs are before I can make a move.

That sounds monumental on its own. Just finding the quiet time to spend sounds difficult for me. I'm constantly thinking about what I can do to help my five-year-old learn those dang sight words. I'm checking out library books that outline all the grammar my fifth grader should know by the time fifth grade is up. I'm trying to knit stuffed toys for great nieces and nephews. I have so many projects going on at once. It's craziness!

So, once the holidays are over, I do believe I'm going to have to lock up all my knitting supplies, leave the elementary education to the people at school, and force myself to take a look at what I have left. What do you want to do? What can you do? Where are your talents? Why are you wearing those ill-fitting jeans? You know--important questions about life.

Love Language

2010-09-13T12:43:00.000-04:00

Lately, it seems I've been focusing too much on how difficult my older son can be. This, in turn, causes all sorts of problems. Instead of "filling his bucket" with love and praise for the good he does, it depletes his bucket and depletes him as well. What can be more heartbreaking? Of course, I've spent many nights laying in bed wondering how I could be so thoughtless.

I know a few people who will argue that this is crap. These are the same people who think I simply need to force my will upon this child. When I want to respect my child's feelings, even if he is expressing anger, it appears to some people that I am coddling the child.

All I know is this: most of the time, us parents don't have all the answers, and we need to seek out help because we want to raise healthy, happy children. I often seek help in a few forms. Reading, talking with other mothers and talking with my counselor. The parents who think they know all the answers are the ones who forget that they have children. They forget that children will behave LIKE children. They forget that most childish behaviors are undesirable. They think they're dealing with little adults. They believe that the child should do as they say, not as they do.

Here is what I'm learning from "The Five Love Languages of Children," by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell.

Of course, it is necessary to train and/or discipline our children--but only after their emotional tanks have been filled. Those tanks can be filled with only one premium fuel: unconditional love. Our children have "love tanks" ready to be filled (and refilled--they can deplete regularly). Only unconditional love can prevent problems such as resentment, feelings of being unloved, guilt, fear, and insecurity. Only as we give our children unconditional love will we be able to deeply understand them and deal with their behaviors, whether good or bad.

My son's 3rd grade teacher in Michigan suggested this book. I'm so glad he did, but I'm disappointed in myself for not truly giving it my full attention until now. I can't get that year back that I missed out on filling Connor's emotional tank. I know it's never too late, though. I also know that nearly every day will be a challenge, but also a tremendous opportunity for growth.

And I call myself a knitter!

2010-09-09T16:22:00.000-04:00

A few weekends ago, a good friend of mine and I attended Stitches Midwest, which is an expo of sorts, a symposium of knitters and crocheters and "fiber fiddlers." We signed up for three classes together. We really wanted to take "Two-at-a-time-toe-up-socks" or some ridiculously titled class, but it was full. And since we didn't know what "Bohus Stickning" was, we thought it best to stay away, lest we ended up in a classroom full of pious maids and butter churns. So we settled for "Short-row Savvy," "Colorful Cables," and "Making the Most of Self-Striping Yarns."

Just typing that last title makes me laugh. Because, it wasn't our first choice, and we thought we couldn't be taught much in three hours regarding self-striping yarns. Maybe we were right.

First of all, I had such a bad week the days prior to Stitches that I wasn't even sure I wanted to go. I figured I'd be such a downer that it would ruin it for my friend. But getting away for a few days was really what I needed. So we headed over to a closer suburb of Chicago and got to class.

The self-striping class was first. There were about a dozen ladies in there. We were required to bring a ball of self-striping yarn to class. There was no homework, just the yarn to bring. Easy enough! But right away, we realized something was wrong. You know. It's that feeling that you just arrived for a college course on French II and you only speak broken English and Pig Latin. Our yarns sat on the table before us. And the other ladies, their yarns sat on the tables before them. Or should I say, their fibers. Real yarns.

Picking up her ball of yarn, my friend said quietly to me, "Is this striping yarn?"

And I used that same stuff she brought for a failed felted purse project and I knew. It doesn't stripe. It, it just...well, it's just a mix of colors...sort of.... (and I was thinking of the zippered pencil case I knitted and felted and it looks like something a cat threw up.)

My yarn, on the other hand, "stripes," if by "stripes" you mean "makes a lame-ass attempt at a cheery picture of ... something...."

We eventually drew the attention of our teacher. She wanted everyone to know that what my friend brought wasn't self-striping yarn. It was "variegated." And I forget the word she used to describe my yarn, but it was at best her attempt to be nice. And she was nice. But my friend and I felt bad. We felt like we were imposters. Should we take our sorry excuses for self-striping yarn and leave? Should we leave the yarn and sneak out?

We did neither. But while we were all busily knitting up swatches of our, ahem, self-striping yarns, my friend and I started talking about the Stiletto Spy School in Las Vegas. And eventually drew the attention of another student, who obviously thought we were way too cool to be in a self-striping yarn class at Stitches.

Yeah, sistah. We are bad-asses.

Walking away from the hotel that afternoon, we felt slightly humiliated yet we were definitely having fun. We were aware, while being surrounded by hundreds of knitters, many of whom were wearing something they made, that we were oddballs at the convention. We were not serious, die-hard knitters. We were just a couple of gals having a fun weekend poking fun at ourselves (and a few other people) while knitting with totally crappy yarn and drinking a few gin and tonics. Oh, and then we went to the mall and tried on impossibly tight and form-fitting formal dresses. In the Juniors department. Just for fun.

I tried on yellow and she tried on orange. We were part of a rainbow of fruity flavors. And we were laughing so hard in the Macy's dressing room, commenting on how we looked. I, for one, could feel the breeze on my hind end. Of course, where my thighs start and my hind end ends is a total gray area these days. She offered to take my picture! What a friend!

Oh, no thank you. That would just be wrong. (The model above is about the size of my thigh.) And we quickly got out of those dresses and back into our regular clothing and carried on with the evening.

After a good dinner and hours upon hours of talking in our hotel room, we finally hit the sack for just a few hours sleep before our 8:30 a.m. class. Which we were late for. Again, off to a great start at Stitches!

Lucky for us, our morning class was taught by a cool instructor, author and knitter extraordinaire, who kept our attention despite our tardiness and other obvious shortcomings. For this class we had to prepare swatches before coming, and we had dutifully done so. So there was that. But we were working kind of slow, and the class was chock full of fast knitters. Plus we had like three hours of sleep, too. And working cables with two different colors of yarn on three hours of sleep is just not something either one of us will EVER be prepared to do. I mean, Why? And changing colors and knitting cables, oh my gosh, Sally, this sucks!

But we made it through, somehow, and made it to lunch. We ocassionally asked one another, "what exactly are we doing here?" One of us would ask; the other would shrug. We were hung over at a knitting convention.

Our last class, Short Row Savvy, was pretty difficult to get through. First of all, we were late again. I don't know how. We had lunch in the hotel, and thought we would make it down the hall, but we walked in to find there were not two seats next to each other. However, a nice man student in the front row, decided to move over one chair to free up two chairs together for my friend and I.

Oh, but we did not want to be in the front row. But there we were. Tired, suffering from heartburn and general malaise.

Our instructor was such a nice, proper woman. Hailing from Canada, she was the epitome of neatness and good manners.

We were in definite trouble.

She attempted to teach the class three methods of knitting short rows. It's a technique I'm not unfamiliar with, but I've probably only done one method, as in these dishcloths.

And I'm not exactly sure what method it was, but I remember knitting the wrap and the stitch together...

Anyway, we tried to do our best to hold it together during class, but when our instructor began explaining how knitting short rows into your garments to accomodate a full bosom, I felt myself unraveling (no pun intended.)

She described how to take measurements from one's own body based on bust points (nipples) and other factors. My friend, who has an ample bosom, was shrinking back, hoping not to be used as an example in front of the class. Our instructor was full of good manners, however, and refrained from using anybody's bosoms as examples. I, personally, have enough bosom to know that I must choose my clothing wisely to fit properly. And if I were ever to knit myself a top, I should definitely consider putting in short rows as bust darts. However, I'm probably not going to get to that level of knitting anytime soon.

It was when our dear instructor began describing how short rows can be inserted into the back of the garment to accomodate a Dowager's hump, I completely lost my composure. I could not speak, but I was trying desperately to mouth to my friend, "She's talking about 'hump darts!'" but no words would come out. I must have looked like an ill person. I'm sure my face was all contorted and I do believe I was crying as well.

Please understand, I'm not poking fun at people with a hump on their back. I completely get why. It's just that knitting a garment with darts on the back? Really?

Well, in conclusion, I want to say that we had a great time, not because we were at Stitches, but because we had fun together and had time to really talk and get to know each other even better. We laughed, we cried, we sort of knitted.

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What I did take away from Stitches was a neat pattern for a mitred square hat by our self-striping instructor, Sandi Rosner. I knitted up a mitred square in class with my horrid yarn, but that quickly went into the trash upon returning home. I did go to one of my LYS to buy some self-striping yarn to make the hat and I came home with this.

It doesn't stripe. Because it's not self-striping yarn. It's just variegated. I learned nothing in class, except how to knit a mitred square.

Don't get me wrong, I really like this yarn (Happy Feet by Plymouth Yarns) and it was a pleasure to knit with. It felt good to knit with it, but I had my doubts as to whether or not I should continue to knit this hat even though the yarn wasn't what I really wanted. I did knit it, however, and I really do like the hat a bunch.

Today, I stopped by the LYS with my completed hat, but the owner wasn't in, so I didn't get a chance to show her how the Happy Feet sock yarn looks in a hat. I did find a new yarn to try however. It seems to be a knockoff of Noro, which is a beautifully dyed silk yarn. It is also expensive, so I won't be buying any in the near future. This new yarn is also by Plymouth Yarns and it is called Kudo. It is 55% cotton, 40% rayon and 5% silk. I bought one skein at 100g and 198 yards for $11.99. What do you think? I saw the samples the store owner knitted and crocheted with. It DOES stripe. But do you see how easily one can confuse variegated yarn with self-striping yarn when it is still in a hank like this?

Stay tuned for a finished mitred square hat....

Well don't I feel like a jerk...

2010-08-19T13:41:00.000-04:00

Just learned yesterday that my older son's teacher is still undergoing chemo treatments for a brain tumor. She had surgery back in February. We didn't know any of this, of course, as we're new to the school system and don't have any older children who would've known about this. The students will be taught by a long-term substitute teacher from another school in our district.

I have many hopes for this coming school year, and now I've added one more: that this teacher battling cancer can pull through with flying colors. I hope she gets all the excellent care she needs and love and support from her family and friends.

Not even well thought out....

2010-08-17T00:10:00.000-04:00

As we're approaching the beginning of a new school year, I'm already building up my supply of anxiety about everything that usually makes me anxious about school.

What are my kids' teachers going to be like?
Does the older kid's teacher tolerate kids with focus issues?
Does she even tolerate kids?
Could MRSA be a problem this year?
Will I regret signing up for three committees?
Can I tolerate the secretary cum gate keeper?
Why does she speak to EVERYONE like they're four and a half?

Today I picked up our school supply packs. Yes, instead of shopping for all the VERY SPECIFIC school supplies for my two gents, I opted to have the ladies in charge of that particular committee do the shopping for me. It seemed expensive when I placed the order, but truly I probably saved $30 not taking my kids school supply shopping. Now we can concentrate on the other shopping: shoes, gym shoes, some clothing items, and new 5" Fiskars scissors.

In the meantime, I'm craving some embroidery. That's not a fancy name for a dessert. I was checking out this website, Sublime Stitching, and it's very inspiring. I'm thinking of a PRE-school year gift for teachers; a framed embroidered work of art, complete with stitched plump apples and sharp number two pencils. And how's this for an epitaph?

Sure hope you're not a mean teacher!

I've told my Kindergartner "teachers don't bite!"
Wish I could say the same for him!

Why CAN'T I do better than this?

2010-08-12T23:51:00.000-04:00

I'm really discouraged right now. Just writing this for me to look back on when I'm not soooo discouraged. But now, I'm overwhelmed by parenting. It shouldn't be this hard, but if I were to ask my husband, he would say that I'm making it too difficult. But I don't think I am....it's just hard.

I'm not even upset that Connor put a hole in the guest room wall with his foot while doing a flip on the bed.

But I AM upset how much I sigh, how much I verbalize my impatience with these kids. I am upset how I can't do everything that needs to be done. I react less to the hole in the drywall than I do with being asked if a friend can come over. I swear, these kids have a friend over, or go to a friend's house nearly every day. I don't mind having extra children here. Not at all. But my kids are acting angry and frustrated. It is a vicious cycle.

What's frustrating for me is that I can tell my kids are frustrated with me. With us, as both parents. They are acting out because of this frustration. They are frustrated because they witness my anti-calm. They see that I am tired, worn out and just plain defeated. They witness this power struggle between Mike and I and then they have power struggles with us because they must think we are game.

And it shouldn't be this hard. But it is for me. I'm hoping these SAM-e supplements kick in soon.

What exactly is going on here?

2010-08-10T19:01:00.001-04:00

It's just short of five p.m. in the western suburbs, and I've four boys in my house. Two are mine, the other two are friends of my boys. There is a lot of noise here. Jack is making fireworks sounds with his voice. (He's a loud kid to begin with.) Connor and his friend are making little pea shooters out of K'Nex pieces. But I also hear a lot of banging in the basement, so perhaps they're building a car. Not sure.

No one but myself is in the family room watching.....iCarly. I know. I'm a kid, too. Except I'm having a small glass of wine. I wouldn't do that if I were a real kid. Just an almost 42-year-old kid. And tonight I'm looking forward to watching Growing up Twisted.

Today started out a bit rocky for me. Okay, nearly every day does, because many days, I don't necessarily want to do the mom gig. I'm tired of being perpetually interrupted while on the phone, toilet, or mid-row of a knitting project. So today we looked "forward" to a follow up appointment at the ADD clinic about 40 minutes away. I was prepared with the "Healing ADD" book I've been reading, and the two supplements I've started Connor on. I have also started taking SAM-e, myself. I'm trying to help him and help myself in the process. However, the social worker at the clinic doesn't want to hear about supplements. She just keeps asking me the same questions over and over again. "Is he sleeping okay?" or "Is he eating?" And he gets weighed every time. The problem with trying different meds and different dosages of meds during the summer is that it can be difficult to determine how much the meds are helping when the child is not actually in school. Connor IS doing Kumon for math enrichment, so there is about 20 minutes taken up each day doing a worksheet. However, that is not the same as going to school.

The "eating" issue is an issue with any kid taking a stimulant for ADD. Either group, the adderall group or the ritalin group, will cause a marked decrease in appetite. For my son, the lack of calories causes major turmoil for him. He gets so irritable and so teary. When he gets his appetite back (on higher doses of stimulant) he wants to eat at approximately 8:45 at night.

My husband reminded me this morning that I should just report to the social worker my observations not laden with my emotions. That is hard for me. I've been trying to encourage my husband to read this "Healing ADD" book and help me figure out where we think Connor is in terms of the six types of ADD. However, he doesn't have time, or interest, and apparently, the book holds no significance for the clinic we currently go to. When my husband learns this, he will for sure never crack the book. That is okay. Maybe I have to be done with it, too. It's just a book.

I am very frustrated but a part of me just wants to let go of it all, and see what happens. My son doesn't get in trouble at school. He doesn't have to move his card to red, he doesn't get sent to see the principal, he doesn't have trouble getting along with other students. He just has trouble focusing. And, the part that is most difficult for me, he is argumentative, slightly defiant, stubborn and smart as a whip. He is not argumentative or defiant with other adults. Just me, and sometimes his dad. And his dad, well, he's smart as a whip, stubborn and LOVES to argue. So there's two heads butting together...

Back to iCarly, I guess.

Memories...and Mma Ramotswe

2010-08-06T09:58:00.000-04:00

I found these in the basement while unearthing the faux furs and batting. I was really into painting these vegetables and sewing the panels into dishes. In fact, I have a plate holder in my kitchen with two. I really like them. Not sure why I stopped working on these. They would be great on Etsy, don't you think?

The eggplant, portobella and artichoke never made it into plates. I should finish them up. I have plenty of canvas and the thick fleece that gives the plate dimension. I picked up this idea from this book. Really cool technique.

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In other news, I have been reading AND watching The No. Ladies' Detective Agency. And I'm loving the novels and the HBO series, which I'm borrowing from either the library or the video store. When I say "love," I mean LURVE. What a beautiful character Mma Ramotswe is. I would love to have her over for bush tea. And I have a new appreciation for Africa and Botswana.

If you haven't read it, I suggest you pick up the first novel, titled as above. The author is Alexander McCall Smith.

One can of Red Bull is all it took...

2010-08-04T18:49:00.000-04:00

I've been reorganizing the basement the past two days and came across some crafting supplies I haven't touched in about seven years. I found the faux furs I purchased to make stuffed animals (only three made, I think) and an entire container of various quilt battings and fiber fill stuffing.

It would be interesting to know how much I ended up spending on these items. I really don't think it was a lot--I'm pretty cheap--um, I mean frugal.

The first idea I had when I unearthed these supplies in my dark basement was to cut all the furs and fleece fabrics up into 8 or 9" squares, and make a patchwork blanket. But that would require I purchase some fleece for the backing. I really, really didn't want to purchase more stuff to make something that won't look all that great. So, I decided to make some other things.

I made three pillows and a kid-sized blankie. I really do need at least one of the pillows to prop me up when I'm reading to Jack in his bed every night. That is one of my favorite things to do, but I usually get such a stiff neck. And I won't even bother finding a good massage therapist around here. I'm convinced the majority are not very good at their job. But I digress...

Soft pillows made. Ahhhhh....and that can of Red Bull Sugar Free was not even monster-sized! I love that stuff.

The Neat, and the Not-so-Neat

2010-08-04T10:56:00.000-04:00

Working on this lovely "neat ripple" afghan with Vanna's Choice Baby...whenever I get another Michael's coupon I will promptly spend it on another color...I hate paying full price!!

I plan on having this finished by next Spring. Giving myself plenty of time, because you know I will probably have six other projects on needles at any given time.

And here is the not so neat...

Sweet baby needs some grooming. He really hates it though. And I admit, I love these fuzzy paws with the fur sticking out all over the place. It stormed early this morning so he got a little wet during his morning wiz.

Granny-licious!

2010-08-02T15:53:00.000-04:00

Finally, here are better pics of my granny pillow. We've all taken turns resting our head on it. It works great! Hehe heh....

Yes, there seems to be a little "wonkiness" on the single granny side, but I don't mind. This totally fits my personality!

In other news, I've finished the second hat for Halos of Hope, the organization which provides handmade caps for chemotherapy patients. This yarn was AWFUL to work with (it WAS on clearance) but it made an incredibly soft hat.

The pattern is really fun. I started another one in Caron Country, which I found at Hobby Lobby a LONG, LONG time ago on the clearance rack. I love the way it is knitting up, but it will make a much smaller cap, suitable for a child. Now, I don't want to think about a child going through cancer treatment, even though many, many are. I am so grateful for my healthy children. They may make me insane sometimes, but they are healthy.

Here's one of them now: Jack, squinting in the bright sunlight. Gosh, he's cute. That shirt was made with an iron-on from JoAnn Fabrics. We also purchased the shirt there.

Here, boy!!

Gosh, he's cute, too! I am surrounded by cuteness here.

Latest projects and adventures

2010-07-29T23:15:00.002-04:00

picked up Connor from a week of overnight camp at Sherman Lake outdoor center in Michigan last week. We planned on this camping adventure for nearly a year. Literally right before we moved from Michigan to Illinois, Connor did a week-long day camp at the same place with his best friend. They did the skateboarding and rollerblading camp. This year, the boys were old enough to stay overnight for a week, so that is what they did. I was nervous, I don't mind saying. This is my first-born son. He loved it when I read to him every night, even up until 8 or 9 months ago. I was afraid he would be homesick, or that he would get sick and I was so far away. He didn't even miss his iPod touch or DS. He had a great time.

When I walked into Kellogg hall to see him after 5 days, he clearly did not want to see me. In fact, he asked me to leave. He wanted to stay for another week.

Now, after the last few days, I'm ready to send him for a few more weeks.

I love you, Connor, even though I believe you are trying to ward me off here.

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The grannies I have been working on turned into a pillow. I had a pillow form stored in the basement for quite some time. Finally, it's a pillow. My corners got a little wonky, not sure why, but I love it all the same. The following pics are before it was made into a pillow. The pillow pics were blurry, so I'll retake photo tomorrow.

And here is completed chemotherapy cap that will be donated to Halos of Hope.

I loved the yarn. Jo-Ann Sensations It's a Wrap. This knitted up very soft and the texture is lovely. Pattern is free from http://www.tiajudy.com/

Here is another cap I'm working on. This is a Bernat pattern. I made it once before when I was new at knitting. It's a fun cable pattern, too.

This yarn was on clearance at Jo-Ann's. It's Debbie Mumm for Jo-Ann. It's a terrible yarn. It's not easy to knit with at all. However, it is extremely soft.

And here's my baby with some left over balls of acrylic from the granny project.

Lastly, I found this wonderful pattern for a neat ripple afghan. Well, it's not so much a pattern as it is instructions on how to get the ripple. You can choose your stitch count and how many rows of one color. I think I'll use all Vanna's Choice Baby yarn. I really love it for an acrylic.

I need patience

2010-07-29T13:28:00.000-04:00

(Project pics coming soon)

I KNOW that Connor's persistance will serve him well someday. I KNOW that. But this child is driving me nuts. He is so much like both my husband and I, and it's proving to be a volatile combination.

Like me: he sees something neat and just knows he can make it. Never mind if it requires a pager motor or a ball valve--he can do it and he wants to do it NOW. Not tomorrow, not later, but NOW.

Like hubby: he is stubborn, argumentative and very persuasive.

Ahhh, but school is starting soon. August 25th, I love you and I can't wait to see you.

So, tonight, I'm going to go to a boot camp exercise class. Yes, you read that correctly. I, the one who does not really exercise, is going to a boot camp with some neighbor girls. They are all probably younger than me and hopefully one of them knows CPR. I predict that I won't be able to walk up or down stairs or sit on the toilet without excrutiating pain and discomfort. I am going to pay to go to this class in more ways than one.

Summer flying by...better not blink!

2010-07-14T10:55:00.001-04:00

I check on a few blogs daily because they are so inspiring, whether with words, photos, or both. Suz Crochet Groove is one of my absolute favs. She is great with color and she is always crocheting! I must remind myself she is not looking after a 5 and 10 year old, so of course she has more time!! But seriously, I love to keep up on what Suz is working on, and also what's going on in her life.

Here's my attempt to figure out how to make these squares she has been working on. I made six last night, in between the tears that fell during Deadliest Catch (good-bye dear Capt. Phil) and then I checked Suz's blog this morning to see she has provided instructions! I was totally winging it. I didn't make mine exactly like hers, but they do look similar. I plan on making throw pillows for my bed to match the king size rag quilt I will soon be working on.

I'm ready for that week off again

2010-07-02T13:40:00.015-04:00

Not sure why, but I have no patience for my kids lately. They're just being kids--boys, in particular. I think maybe I need more sleep?

Comet needs more sleep, too, apparently.

These days are just flying by, as I'm driving kids to their friends' homes, or to swim lessons, or taking them to the pool we joined. It's definitely worth the money, but I had such an eerie feeling the other day as I was standing in one foot of water by the little kids' play area where Jack was playing, and there was a group of about 6 or 7 teenage lifeguards with a bottle of bleach, latex gloves and a long handled scrub brush working on the cement deck area between the pool and the seating area. I asked a mom next to me, "any idea what they're up to?"

And she responded, "They're probably swabbing up the poop deck."

"Huh?" I replied, not wanting to sound too intelligent.

Then she proceeds to tell me they've had some problems with kids pooping in the pool.

"What?"

I mean,

"WHAT?!?!?"

I know it happens. People are supposed to make sure their little babies and small children are wearing swim diapers or plastic pants, but sometimes, people don't follow through on something you'd think would be a no brainer. I mean, do we have to educate everyone on the amount of bacteria in a bowel movement?? Apparently, some people don't get it. The pool is not meant to be a large community toilet. That is just disgusting beyond belief.

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My older son stayed the night at his friend's house and then that friend stayed over here last night. They stayed up too late and got up too early. And they didn't like my turkey burgers, even though I made REAL bacon to top them and added real cheddar cheese. Bacon is supposed to save the day, but this time it didn't. I have to admit, that while cooking the bacon last night, I was eating it, then when I sat down to eat dinner with them, the burger clearly wasn't very good. I mean, you can't expect a super lean turkey burger to taste good after you've just ingested 4 slices of real bacon. I should've known better. They each ate half their burgers before they begged to be done. Sorry guys....

Here they are watching something compelling on the tellie.

It was Tom and Jerry.

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I think I'm just upset that my Luigi hat didn't really turn out. At least I bought real yarn this time, albeit clearance yarn at Wool and Company. Jack wants to be Luigi, and he wanted a Luigi hat, so I found this pattern for a newsboy cap and crocheted it up for him. The first attempt was too small, so I frogged it and began again with a larger crochet hook. But it's just wrong. Clearly wrong. Maybe when I add the white circle with the green "L" it will look better.

But I don't think so. Plus it's wool. And this is July. You do the math.

And this is Connor seconds later running away when he realizes I have a camera in my hands.

The possibilities are endless

2010-06-23T12:21:00.005-04:00

I managed to get through the week without my kids. It was a lot harder than I thought. It didn't help that I thought I was having a heart problem and spent three of the days at the doctor's office getting an EKG, blood draw and stress test. As it turns out, I am extremely healthy. Perfect blood work, not even a hint of a cholesterol issue, and great liver and kidney function to boot. My heart is in great shape. So what is wrong with me? I think it's more like, what WAS wrong with me. Here's what I think: I was taking an Alavert-D and a diuretic every morning, along with my Super B vitamin and a probiotic capsule. One nurse I spoke with through our insurance company felt that the Alavert-D plus the diuretic was not a good idea. Why? I don't know, but when I stopped taking them, I didn't feel that tightness and scary pounding in my chest. So, I'm not taking them. And surprisingly, I'm not having the awful hay fever symptoms I've been plagued with in the past. I am only taking the vitamin and probiotic now. What I need to focus on is more water, more exercise and more relaxing.

My car, on the other hand, took relaxing to a whole new level. After running a few errands yesterday, I came back home to get a few more things done before it was time to pick up my youngest and his friend at camp. I went to start the car and it was completely dead, but making a ticking sound even with the key out of the ignition. I had to call on my neighbor to pick up the kids, along with me to sign them out.

I realize this is a pretty unspectacular story, but here comes the good part:

My husband fixed it. He researched it, he did some things, he asked someone a few questions, and now it's running. All for the cost of a new fuse and a new battery.

Again, sounds pretty unspectacular, but what you may not know is, my husband is not the car-fixing type. In his frustration, he would normally joke in a non-friendly way that I did something to the car. There was none of that this time. He just jumped in and fixed it. No having the beast towed to the Ford dealership, where surely it will be at least $500 to repair stuff that probably doesn't need repairing. I HATE car trouble even more than computer trouble.

But my husband: What a man.....

Actually, he just picked up his brand spanking new Ford Taurus work car yesterday and I think he realized that if my car is in the shop, I get to drive him to the airport today and I get his new car this week.

Me + kids coming and going to camp + hot sweaty weather + dirty feet = very bad for new work vehicle. Hey. We're all motivated by different things, right?

I'm just glad it's fixed. What a man!

So much good stuff

2010-06-20T21:25:00.003-04:00

I'm not posting much on my blog because I'm too busy reading other blogs! There is so much good reading out there, especially in the creative areas. I love to hear how busy moms are still rockin' the sewing machine or being the guest designer for a scrapbook company.

And today is a special day because we're back home after retrieving the boys from their grandparents, which was a treat for all involved, and it's Father's Day. And my boys have a terrific father, one who has been extremely patient with them the past two days, despite their coming down from a "grandparent high," which can cause delusions and general insanity. Please understand, this is NOT a knock against grandparents. I fully understand why my boys love being with them, and why they act strange when they're back with us. It's just different. Both Connor and Jack had a wonderful time and didn't really miss me, even though I started pining for them Wednesday night, and still had to wait until Saturday to squeeze them and hug them and kiss them and call them "George." But I digress. We're back to reality now, so I'm prepared for it all, armed with Oreos (for them) and coffee (for me). Bring it on.

That old chestnut

2010-06-16T16:55:00.004-04:00

This little sweater vest keeps coming back to haunt me.

What happened was I made this sweater vest for my great-nephew, Douglas, who turned two in January. Douglas's dad, my nephew, Dave, had to tell me that the vest wouldn't even go over Douglas's head. (I think he may have a big head, but that's not really the problem). So, I said, I'll make a bigger size! And I did, and this time, I put a button flap with three little wooden buttons on the left shoulder. This, I surmised, will surely work out great. Little infant clothing often has the shoulder flap so it's less traumatic to pull clothing over their heads. Dave's wife sent the little vest back to me, so I could do something with it.

Now, I haven't heard if Douglas's second sweater vest fits. Today, Douglas is a big brother. My nephew and his wife are welcoming their second child, another boy, sometime today via c-section. So, I have this little vest, with the little neck opening, and I'm staring at it, thinking, "the pattern should've allowed for a larger neck." My friend pointed out that the arm holes are much more spacious than the neck opening. So my initial thought of just opening up the left shoulder and knitting a button flap onto it is not going to work. Because the neck opening is still too small.

I went into one of the five Rubbermaid containers to find the blue and ivory cotton and low and behold, I find a sweater vest back on a stitch holder, and I'm like, "What the heck is this??" And so I'm straining my brain trying to remember. And I have no idea what size it is, or what size needles I used.... This is where good note-taking would be helpful.

Last night, I met my friend for dinner and we stared at the little vest and I started counting to determine what size the half-finished vest is. It is a 2. And it's the back, so no worries about the v-neck yet. So, I completed the back, and I happened to choose the correct size needles. And now I've cast on for the front, but somehow, I've got to modify this pattern to make the v-neck bigger.

And I never want to know if either boy is going to wear this vest. I just don't want to know. It's better that way.