Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Well, Look At That

My shame is gone. It was close. I almost gave up, but then I gave in and blocked it.

Holy Cow I blocked something



Holy Cow I blocked something



Holy Cow I blocked something



As if I could stay away from you.

The laptop is simply too much fun to type on.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Sweater-ish

My head was achey when I went to bed last night. I was hoping for some good sleep to reset my brain. But old dog is old and she had other plans for me.

She works with her own agenda and her agenda included getting up every two hours exactly to go pee and get a drink of water. I don't know why she choose last night to get up every two hours to pee and get a drink of water. Maybe she could tell I really needed to sleep and she must work counter to my needs. Maybe she has decided to get some joy from what little life she has left by tormenting me. Maybe she thinks I miss getting up every two hours with a baby and she wanted to help me feel nostalgic. But whatever the reason, I found myself dragging my weary bones out of bed every two hours exactly so I could be a spotter for old dog on the stairs lest she fall. I opened the back door for her so she could go outside because she only uses the doggie door when she feels like it, and last night she didn't feel like it. I opened the door to let her back in. I re-filled her water bowl. I spotted old dog on the way back up the stairs, and then, and only then, was I allowed to take a small nap before we repeated the process all over again.

Awesome.

So my head is still achey today. Not all splodey yet, but I can feel a little thread pulling in my head threatening to explode. Big Fun. So another quiet easy day inside. The kids built a tent and watched movies. I let them eat candy in their bedrooms. They think I'm the best Mom ever. They luv-ah me.

Luckily, with The Greatest home today, that meant lots of KNITTING for me!

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It is finally looking like a sweater. Well, it kinda looks like a sweater. Imagine sleeves. Can you see the sweater now?

Well it is finally looking sweater-ish. And it is almost done. Just two short sleeves, and some blocking and I will have a brand new blue sweater.

Speaking of blocking, I still haven't pinned out my shawl yet. My shame is great. I think I will have to pin it out tomorrow. Or stop blogging. One or the other. Honestly I'm still on the fence as to which way I'll go.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Cowabunga!

My thermometer looked like this

HOT!HOT!HOT!



so the only place to be was in the pool. And big things happened in the pool today.

Bird's first cannon ball(ish)!

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She's a big girl now, a dare devil! Jumping in the deep end and swimming like a fish.

She's had the ability for over a year, but lacked the confidence. The deep end is, after all, deep(ish. deep to a seven year old anyways). It is deeper than she is tall, and I know I avoid water that is deeper than I am tall (yet I am a certified scuba diver, I am a walking contradiction). But this is not about me, this is about her. My seven year old who is so petite she needs a 4T swimsuit. But her imagination is larger than our house. When she swims she is a mermaid. She thinks her cannon balls splash the neighbor's houses they are so big. I love that kid.

While she cannon-balled I spent my time like this.

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Life is good.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Friday Luh-va

I'm loving......

Sleep where you can



Naps! Just wearing the kids out until they sleep wherever they drop.

And speaking of Sweet Pea I'm loving the way she tells me she loves me. She gets right in my face and says "Mommy, I luh-va you!" Two syllables. So sweet. And she doesn't "luh-va" Meaty. And he is not her friend. But "Mommy I luh-va you, and you're my favorite." After years of Daddy reigning supreme it is good to finally be someone's favorite.

I'm loving....

Swimmin'



night swimming. (I know not a picture of the pool at night, but my night time photography skills leave something to be desired). Sneaking to the pool when the children are tucked snug in their beds. Swimming with no one splashing in my face. No one cannon balling on my head. No one climbing on my raft and dumping me in the pool every.five.minutes. Adult Swim is a beautiful thing.

And finally I'm loving....

AHHHHHHH  ZOMBIES!!!!!!!!!



The Walking Dead. My Dad bought me the first season when he was visiting and it got tucked away on our shelf waiting for that mythical moment The Greatest and I could sit down and watch it without the children around. It took weeks, but we found a moment on Fathers Day. We sat down that evening to watch just one episode after the children had gone to bed. Just one episode was all it took. The next thing we knew it was 2 a.m. and we had watched the entire season (which was only 6 episodes, in a related rant, since when is 6 episodes considered a full season? that's more like a mini-series or a television special event, how is that considered a full season of a tv show? and the next season is supposed to have double the episodes with 13! Again, not a full season! end rant) Anyways, at the risk of sounding like Sweet Pea, zombies are not my favorite. But this show is riveting. It is compelling. You can't look away. I'm obsessed. I've googled every spoiler I can find. I'm thinking of selling one of the children so I can buy all the comic books. I'm counting down the days until October when the new season premieres. I'm loving this show.

What are you loving this week?

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Gah! Tiny Men!

Whelp, my head went all splodey yesterday. Not unexpected with the way I was feeling, but disappointing all the same. Heavy drugs are a good thing. In fact I was feeling so good last night I should have blogged. Would have made for some funny reading today, if somewhat incoherent. I'm told my eyes were rather glazed like a doughnut. And my limbs were rather floppy. But I wasn't crying or throwing up, so I'll take a severe lack of co-ordination (which is rather close to my natural unmedicated state anyways) and a resemblance to tasty baked goods any day over the alternative.

This morning I feel much better, but we're taking it easy just to play on the safe side. Makes for boring blogging doesn't it?

Thank goodness I found this in my bathroom this morning. Just to spice things up.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



How on earth that got in my bathroom I had no idea. Thank goodness I happen to live with a professional lizard catcher.

Mighty Lizard Catcher



He caught him in under 10 seconds. It was amazing. I was so grateful. Because goodness knows I'm not about to touch that lizard. If Meaty hadn't been able to catch the lizard my only alternative would have been to stare at the lizard all day, so I knew where it was at all times, until The Greatest could come home and dispatch the lizard for me. Because I am not about to touch a lizard. I've gotten over the cricket thing, and I can squish them with a random flip flop with the best of them. I've mostly gotten over the spider thing and I can squish them with minimal crying. But I've got to draw the line somewhere, and it is lizards. I can't touch them. I simply can't. Everybody has a limit and for the moment that is mine.

I was grateful to Meaty for catching the lizard. Until the Greatest called on his lunch break and I relayed the harrowing story of how a lizard was three inches from my leg. The Greatest has a theory on how the lizard got all the way upstairs and into our Master Bathroom. He thinks Meaty snuck the lizard into his bedroom in the first place. He said Meaty was acting very odd a few days ago and appeared to be hiding something. The Great Detective can't prove anything, but he thinks the lizard in our bathroom is the same lizard Meaty has been keeping in a box on our back patio. And Meaty caught him so quickly because it is his pet lizard that he has been hand-feeding crickets for the past month and petting every day.

BOYS!

So glad I've only got to live through one of them. I don't think my heart could take more than one small boy sneaking and losing pet lizards in the house.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Just not my day

Headache today.

We're messing around with my migraine meds, and it ain't pretty. Just low level pain today, not too bad yet, but it is threatening to blow up in a big way. I can feel it.

Lovely.

So we hunker down and stay in inside. No pool. No park. No bikes. In short? No fun.

A lazy quiet day. Deep hair treatments to head-off the damage all that swimming is doing to our hair (google SMT hair treatment and do it to your hair STAT). And NAILS.

Zebra Nails



Thirty perfect little fingers. For the record, Sweet Pea requested those "Zebra Nails." She saw them at the nail salon in Wal-Mart and has been dreaming of them ever since. Mine are not salon quality, but I've got the fact that she's three working in my favor. She doesn't know the difference. She thinks they look fantastic.

And thirty perfect tiny toes.

Tiny Toes



My first attempt at this picture came out like this.

Jealous Puppy wants her nails done too!



I think our dog wanted her nails painted too!

Not so much fun for the boy today. But he got to play Plants vs. Zombies without anyone bothering him for their turn, so I think it was a win-win afternoon.

My soft cotton knitted ball is still soaking in a bowl.

Awesome.

Maybe I'll pin it out tomorrow.

Or maybe not.

It might be best not to set the bar too high right now.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Shamed Into Productivity

Still a Monday.

Again.

My pink cardigan is still unphotographed in all its glory.

Again.

My blue blob is still unrecognizable as the sweater it will someday grow up to be.

Is that a Purse?



Again.

Really, can you identify any of that as a sweater part?

And I simply could not face another Monday on my blog without having blocked my soft pile of loveable knitted shawl. But of course here it is Monday, and I haven't blocked it yet. So I quickly plunked it in a pile of water to soak just so I would have the appearance of progress.

Mmmmm...wet cotton.  Yum.



I'm closer to blocking than I was yesterday.

Shame is a perfectly acceptable motivator right?

Saturday, June 18, 2011

More Knitting?

Yup-a-doodle! More knitting!

It is the companion piece to the Puerperium Cardigan. Because who can have a baby without a hand-made baby blanket?

Who has a baby?



Pattern: Serenity

Yarn: Vanna's Choice, dark grey, 8 balls? bad blogger I don't remember

Needles: size 4 and 7? maybe even a 5 and 8?

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Modifications: I think I did some kind of modification on the blanket, maybe even one that was written into the pattern, a mod for a smaller blanket, but I don't remember what it was, I am such a bad blogger. I've been trying to plug projects into Ravelry lately so that I have some kind of trail for blogging later.

Review: I love this pattern. I love the way this turned out. I'm still kind of worried about the blanket. I choose acrylic yarn so the blanket could be machine washed. I think that's important in a baby blanket that is being gifted to a non-knitter. Machine washability is important. So I choose a beautiful washable grey. I knit the pattern and it was lovely to knit. A bit of a pain towards the end when I had eleventy billion stitches on the needles and they were rather hard to move, but it was worth it. Until I got it off the needles and discovered the middle of the blanket didn't lay flat, it popped up like a mushroom. Not so awesome. I blocked it with my steam iron to kill the acrylic. And it was steamed into submission, it laid flat and was beautiful.

No Mushroom Here



Only my steam iron was acting up. It has been dropped one two many times, and has a huge crack, and was leaking water, and was sketchy with the steaming. I'm worried it wasn't all steamed into submission. It looks good now, but I'm secretly worried that the first time the blanket gets washed that mushroom in the middle is going to pop back up. So everyone cross their fingers that I did a good job killing the acrylic and it is really dead, and it doesn't go all zombie and rise up the first time it comes into contact with soap and water, k?

But until the inevitable acrylic zombie apocalypse (which is way worse than the usual human zombie apocalypse) don't my cables look beautiful?

Cable-y Goodness

Friday, June 17, 2011

Friday Loving

Today I'm loving....

Plants vs Zombies

Getting Ready for the Zombie Apocalypse(tm)



Their favorite part is watering their zen garden, but I think mustache mode comes in at a close second.


And I'm loving...

My Slushie Maker!

Might Love this more than The Greatest



What can I say? I thought what I had with The Greatest was special. But this is true love. I don't like things on my kitchen countertops. I only leave appliances on it if I'm going to use them daily. So the only appliance I leave out is my blender. And now my slushie maker. Which is making my blender obsolete. The thing is heaven sent.

And I'm loving...

Cannon balls!

Cowabunga!



Summer is officially here!

What are you loving?

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Imagine That

Who would have thunk it? I've got some finished knits to show off around here! And they're my favorite kind of finished knits: Baby Knits!

Tiny Sweatery Sweater



Pattern: Puerperium Cardigan

Yarn: Telemark, discontinued color: Leopard, 2 balls

Needles: Size 6 Addi Turbos

Modifications:None

Tiny details on a tiny sweater



Review: Love this pattern! It was a joy to knit, no modifications required. Very cute, very simple lines. Love everything about it. Pork Chop's best friend was getting a little brother and I knit this for him. He was early and is unimaginably tiny. At a month old he is only five pounds. I've seen him, he is darling, but I still can't wrap my head around the concept of a five pound human being.

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This sweater is meant to fit a 6-8 pound baby, and it looks like it will fit him this fall. Which is rather perfect. I had intended it to be a light sweater to wear in the chilly air conditioning, but really, whenever it fits is fine. I just love the way it turned out. And the Mother seems to love it too (or was gracious enough to pretend she loves it) so that makes it a double win. I even love the simplicity of the neat little line of black buttons against the light grey garter button band.

Buttony Buttons



Does knitting get any better than this?

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Pork Chop

Today is a momentous occasion. It is the 11th anniversary of the day I became a Mother for the first time.

Happy Birthday Pork Chop!

Birthday Candles



My Pork Chop is by far one of the most amazing people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. She is creative, and insightful, and artistic, and hysterical. She is witty, and kind, and scary smart. I adore almost everything about her. She cleans her room. And helps her three year old sister make her bed. She earns straight As and is disappointed when she doesn't earn straight A+s by one lowly regular A. She fills her bag full of candy from the pinata then gives most of it away to toddlers who didn't get to fill their candy bags full of sweets. She is by far a joy to parent and I don't feel like I can take any credit at all for raising such a delightful individual. She just is who she is and she is wonderful.

Birthday Baby



Happy Birthday Baby. I love you!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Blarg

My adorable pink knit is still unmodeled.

My soft flovable ball of unblocked knit is still unblocked.

My blue blobby WIP knit is still blobby and looks pretty much the way it looked last week.

Must be a Monday morning.

And I just realized my Knitpicks knitting deadline is not July, it is next week.

Happy Knitting!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Friday Lovin'

Oh yeah Baby! It is indeed the triumphant return of Friday Lovin'!

And I'm loving...

Darling, simply darling



"Gnomeo and Juliet." I'll admit it. I rolled my eyes so hard I thought I sprained something when I first heard about this movie. But the kids were being so good I got it for them from Redbox. I don't mind wasting a dollar on a bad movie at Redbox. But I was surprised, this movie is DARLING. I adore it. I'm completely smitten with gnomes now. Which leads me to point number #2.

I'm loving....

Fiona?



my gnome. I mentioned on facebook that I wanted to decorate my entire backyard in gnomes a la Gnomeo and Juliet and a few days later my dear friend dropped this off at my door. Don't I have the BEST FRIENDS?!!!!! And isn't he darling?!!!! And aren't I in danger of having my house stormed by the punctuation police at any moment for my over misuse/overuse of punctuation?!!!!! But my impending incarceration for crimes against grammar is neither here nor there. Back to the matter at hand: my darling gnome. Sweet Pea named him "Fiona." When I pointed out that Fiona is more of a girls name she quickly changed her mind to "Santa Claus." I think it is a rather fitting name for a gnome that resides in our Christmas tree that lives year round on our back patio.

I'm loving....

All giggles and smiles



visits from Grandpa!!!!!!! (there I go again, taunting the proper use of punctuation, what can I say, I live life on the edge!) We all miss you so much. Just the other day Sweet Pea announced her HATRED for the airport because she wanted her Grandpa but he was at the airport, so she hated the airport with all the wrath a three year old can muster (which is a surprising amount of wrath. The airport should sleep with one eye open.) Come back soon!

And I'm loving this picture....

My Family



What are you loving this Friday?

Thursday, June 09, 2011

Exciting Things

Dear Blog,

Once again we have been kept apart for far too long.

Life is so busy, but the good kind of busy.

The end of the school year came faster than I anticipated.

There are boo-boos to be kissed. And games to be played. And books to read. And hours to waste swimming in the pool. I spend the majority of my day playing drill Sargent overseeing the daily chores. But the upside of this is I no long start my day by making all the beds in the house. The only bed I make these days is my own. Even Sweet Pea makes her own bed (or sometimes she cons Pork Chop into making it for her, as long as I'm not the one making her bed either scenario works for me).

Life is busy, but it is also sweet.

Of course there is fighting, and bickering. And the kids argue too. Some days I want to throw them all out the window and we are only on week three of Summer Vacation. Things aren't always picture perfect. But they're close enough that in a few years the edges of my memory will be fuzzy and all I'll remember are the afternoons listening to Pork Chop belt out songs to Rock Band on the X-box while her siblings cheer her on (she spent hours vainly trying to beat my perfect score on "Dani California" which I earned on my first try thank you very much. I jokingly tell her I earned it cause me and the Chili Peppers go way back. I can't bring myself to tell her it was 25% skill, and 75% luck). I'll only remember the lazy days in the pool, followed by late night roasting anything we can spear on a stick over our fire pit. Afternoons Pork Chop and Meaty spent huddled together plotting their anti-zombie strategies (it is a real meeting of the minds). These are the memories I'm going to hold onto. I fully intend to block the more unpleasant memories from my mind.

All this to say Summer Vacation is in fully swing, and I've been busy.

But we, my dear blog, have gotten an upgrade!

I can now sit with this beautiful view and visit with you.

Told you life was sweet



A generous gift, no longer am I tied to my desktop. No excuses now! I hope to spend the early morning here, enjoying the backyard before the heat of the day descends. Visiting with you my dear blog. Because there is so much to blog about.

I've got a finished knit.

Something for Sweet Pea



If only I could get Sweet Pea to hold still long enough to model it.

I've got an almost finished knit that is all knit and just needs blocked.

FLOVES IT!



I floves this so much (and no that is not a typo, that's a rather vulgar term that I've become enamored with and just can't resist. Sorry). Wait until you see it.

And I've got something loverly on the needles.

Just keep knitting, just keep knitting



As well as the usual kid cuteness.

Cutest Kids Evah!



I know, I know, you've heard it all before. Promises that I'll be a better blogger, more consistent, more faithful.

I'm not here to make promises. I'm just here to try. And I'm rambling because typing on the laptop is just so much fun. I see many long winded posts in my future until the novelty of my brand new toy wears off. So cross your fingers. This could be fun!

love,

me