Mundane Stuff

This might be the first time ever that I’ve not looked forward to the end of a school year; as a result, it’s flying by at lightning speed, and there are about a billion and one things to do each day.  Speaking of lightning, we’ve experienced some wild weather this past week.  Days have been muggy and in the evenings storm clouds roll in and treat us to thunder and lightning in the Cascade foothills.  This was our sky on Friday evening.

this picture was taken by a friend

All of the extra nitrogen in the air has turned everything a vibrant, almost surreal shade of green and our lawn is now a jungle.  

We’ve not had lots of time to enjoy the scenery lately, but we did break away for a few hours on Memorial Day to have lunch in a local park.  The Girls entertained themselves by throwing rocks in the river.  My DH tossed a few stones as well.

I sat and knitted, while imagining myself fishing.

 

My eldest daughter had her first job.  She cut up and passed out apple and pear samples at the Vancouver Farmer’s Market several weekends back.   It wasn’t a permanent job, but she’s hoping to be called back over the summer. 

While she tempted shoppers I meandered through the stalls.  It isn’t a very big venue and there was only one fiber booth present. They were alpaca vendors from a nearby farm in Woodland.  There are lots more llama farms than sheep farms in this area for some reason. Their displays were charming.

I bought a bump of roving in blended, natural colors and some DK weight yarn in an alpaca/merino (80% to 20%) mix in a lovely shade of lavender.

This handsome fellow is Boris.  A2 designed Boris and then sewed him by hand for her art class. He is a bunny/feline hybrid.

 

In addition to Boris, A2 also made a Ninja doll for her friend, Devin.  Devin is quite a dynamic character.  He visited us over the weekend to pick up his new companion and we were all entertained by his charm and wit.

That white-hot mess next to chibi-Ninja was my fifth and final attempt to create a pair of Nebraska Cornhusker’s socks using Intarsia.  After being ripped from the needles, this ugly arse swatch was tossed in a corner under the living room table, where it still resides unless one of the kitties has dragged it out to gnaw on.  I will still make Cornhuskers socks for my friend, but the “N” will be a raised motif, rather than colorwork.

The booties I knitted for the fundraising auction (spoken of long ago in my last post) sold! So did the ruffled scarf. 

I was surprised when my girls got all miffed about the scarf.  Apparently they all had placed dibs on it for Christmas.  Another skein of netted torture , I mean yarn, in the exact colorway was purchased and the replacement scarf is about half-way finished.

The kitties are up to their usual shenanigans.  Their favorite place for refreshment is from the fish bowl.

A nasty gang of evil raccoons is back in the neighborhood, so we have to perform a careful kitty check each night. 

Rumors of a possible stint working at summer school are still just rumors.  Every little bit helps though, so I’ve crossed my eyes and hope that it comes to fruition.  

We had a bit of a reality check this last month.  Firstly, my necessary shots have unexplainably jumped up in price.  They are now almost $3,800 per month. Thank heavens for insurance, or I wouldn’t be walking. 

Secondly, we are normal (mostly) and honest people.   Exposure to a few other families’ realities made us aware that compared to some, we are like the Cleavers.  Even with my potty-mouthed driving and inability to keep folded laundry in my children’s drawers.  The second part of that opening statement comes after weeks of hopeful waiting. Sadly, my husband’s wedding ring that was left in the boys bathroom at the Daddy Daughter Dance earlier this month was not returned.   I asked my DH if it could have possibly been knocked into the garbage can, but he said that the sink was on a completely different wall than the garbage cans, so that would have been virtually impossible.  I spread the word and posted signs at work, but nobody brought it in.  He was much more positive about the ordeal than I was though.  His response was, “Maybe someone whose family was in real need found it and it made a big difference in their lives.”  I knew there was  a reason that I married him!

Thirdly, we have a terrible ant problem.  They’re the little ones known as “sugar ants”, ”moisture ants”, or “concrete ants”.  Regardless of their name, they suck.  All food is kept in sealed containers, yet the little buggers still find their way into everything.  I do not like ants. At least they don’t eat yarn.  

Brown Cat, Brown Cat, What Do You See?

 based (very) loosely  on the book, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”.

Brown cat, brown cat, what do you see?

Blue and orange booties,  I’m glad they’re not for me!

Besides the baby booties, what do you see?

Teens heading off to prom,  cute as they can be.

Teenagers, teenagers, what do you see?

Three silly girls, peeking  ’cross the tree.

Silly girls, silly girls, what do you see?

Another couple going out, it’s Dad with A3! 

A3, A3, what do you see?

A wayward gnome who’s back at home, with a cup of tea.

Little gnome, little gnome, what do you see?

A hat that will fit on a brown kitty!

Brown, kitty, brown kitty…

“I don’t think so!”

On A Windy, Monday Afternoon…

Sadly, most of our cherry blossoms are now on the lawn.  Each time the wind picks up, little pink swirls of petals dance across the yard.  There are petals stuck to the sides of our house, windows and on the roof. They’ve even worked their way into the nooks and crannies of my van.  I wish that they’d last longer.  On the tree.  Not in my car’s ventilation system.

I’m making baby booties to be auctioned off for a cheerleading fundraiser.  They’re  in our local high school’s colors, and they’re itty bitty things that would never have fit on any of my own children’s feet. They’d be perfect for smaller babies or premies though.  Those are size 000 needles,  (which is why the poor, spindly things are so bent up), and the yarn is from my coveted stash of Cabin Cove Mercantile yarn (hand dyed by Dave). 

 If there is enough left-over yarn in these colors, then I’ll make a matching hat to go with them.  Including the ties, there are 2, 751 stitches per booty.  A small part of me wants to include that information on a card to place with them on the auction table.  I don’t mean to sound petty, but should these close in the $5.00 or less range then I might have my feelings hurt just a little.  I know several friends who have had their handmade items sell for ridiculously small prices at charity fundraisers (Karen’s quilts). 

A1′s musical ended this weekend.  The students all had a fabulous time and the performances got better each time.  I never did take any pictures of the ginormous tentacles we were tasked with making several weekends back.  Here are a friend and A1 dressed as inter-galactic flight attendants.

And here she is demonstrating the Polarity Reversal Drill.   The life-preserver is in case of an emergency water landing.  All of the female characters had really big hair throughout the play and there were lots of references made to Star Trek and early sci-fi movies.  It was very campy, very fun and there was a lot of audience participation.

 

A3 auditioned this morning for her school’s talent show, but they’ve not had news back regarding who made it in. 

A2 starts working in color this week at her art school.  Students there spend many months using only black and white, so it’s a big deal when they finally get to start using pastels.  She’s a long ways off from using paints though.

A1 is going to the Junior/Senior prom this Saturday and A3 is going to the Daddy-Daughter Masquerade Ball at her school.  A2 and I will have a date night involving lots of chocolate. I need to make sure that everyone’s dresses, shoes, etc. are clean, dry and serviceable for the occasions.

Not much else to report, other than people at work keep talking about fishing, so now I really want to go drown some worms. Cheers!

 

Wonderful, Amazing and Pretty Darned Good!

In spite of my incessant complaints about not enough time in the day, constantly being broke because of my children and general grumblings about my M.S., I must admit that life is most excellent.  Especially when served with heaping helping of silliness and joy. Sometimes just seeing others’ glee is an excellent reminder to enjoy random moments.

 Two nights ago my charming and talented trio of daughters treated the neighborhood to a back yard concert.  Why yes, A3 IS playing the recorder using only her right nostril.  They make me so very proud.

My former student joyfully accepted his new, orange hat.  He was so enamored with it that he kept trying to sneak it on throughout the school day, which is against the rules.  By far, the highlight of my day yesterday was when his current aide walked him over and he presented me with this thank you note (names blocked for privacy). This has been added to my box of treasures. 

His mama sent me this photo she’d taken from her phone.  What a gleeful smile!

Several years ago I had started a pair of toe-up socks for a co-worker.  Me, being me, I never documented how I’d turned the heel or cast off for the first sock, so making a matching second sock has proven quite challenging.  After 6 or 7 tries I created a reasonable facsimile of the first heel. 

Last night I totally failed at duplicating the picot bind-off though. And wool, being wool, those darned fibers locked together and ripped out about 1/2 inch or more of the other sock stitches when I tried frogging it.  But alas, today it shall be finished and another UFO will be gone from my WIP bin. And if I can’t duplicate the picot edge exactly, then I’ll just make the left sock (random foot assignment) as ruffly and obnoxiously wide as possible. 

Don’t forget to add levity and silliness to own your day. Your happiness might make someone else’s day one to cherish and remember. Cheers!

Can We Have a Do Over?

The weekend weather couldn’t have been more perfect!  Blue skies, warm air, no mosquitos or wasps… it was heavenly.  As of this morning our flowering cherry tree is about 3/4 of the way open.  I adore this tree and wish that the blooms would last longer than several weeks (barring any windstorms).

I finished another “Potato Chip” scarf for the gift box.  This netted tape yarn was a different brand than the skein I used to make the last scarf.  The former yarn didn’t have as much yardage so this version was longer than the first; however, the first skein was a little wider so the scarf was more ruffly.  I definitely prefer the wider yarn. Too bad that I threw away the labels before seeing which was which.

 Another weekend knitting project was trying to mend a much-mangled fingerless mitt that belongs to a friend’s daughter. It looked like the poor thing had fallen into a garbage disposal and little bits of yarn were sticking out all over.

 In one place only a scant row separated one hole from the other. This was one of those times when I wish that my mom or grandma was nearby because they would have known exactly how to fix this.  The only thing I could think to do was to remove the remaining center row, pick up stitches around the whole, new, bigger hole and then attempt to knit while picking up the side stitches.

The other problem was that I couldn’t find matching yarn for the patched places.  The color differences really showed in the natural light too, so it drove me crazy (short trip) while working on this.

Steven was very helpful.  Adding kitty saliva really made the yarn slide easily and helped graft the loose ends together.

 The end results weren’t quite what I’d hoped for, but the gloves will be serviceable again. I hope the young lady won’t be too disappointed.

On Friday I saw a former student.  He was wearing a hat that I’d knitted for him two years but it barely fit him.  I asked if he wanted a new one and he said, “Yes. An orange hat.”  Here is the start of his orange hat.  He probably won’t need it again until next fall, but I’ll give it to his mom this week to put away.

While I knitted away like an old lady, the rest of my family pursued other endeavors.  My DH taught a class down in Eugene, Oregon. My eldest child and one of her friends made their first attempt at a life of crime.

their friend’s car

 

My middle daughter drew pictures and entertained herself by alternating between sitting outside in the sun and then finding me to whine about how boring her weekend was.

My youngest skipped around in the sunshine and spent her days bringing every toy and blanket she could find outside.

Yes, my friends, it was a good weekend. Cheers!

Mid-Week Report

Not much happening here, but that’s a good thing.  Another F.O. has been added to my gift box.  These were made with some left-over sock yarn and there were only 26 inches of yarn left when they were completed.  They aren’t the most attractive things to look at, but at least they are functional.

Lately I’ve been trying to ramp up the girls’ lunches so they don’t get bored. Soup in a thermos turned out messy and/or impossible.  Either the lids would not seal and they’d leak, or else the lids would seal, but become pressure-locked so that nobody could open them. PB and J gets old after several months and there were some days where even the fruit, etc. came home uneaten. Two or three times a week  now I’ve been putting together our own versions of Bento boxes.  They seem to enjoy the variety… for now.  Once the novelty wears off then they’ll probably stop eating these lunches too.  Feeding everyone at home is much easier.

         

Thursday evening A1′s play opens.  Performances run for  two weeks.  A2 hasn’t disclosed if she’s entering anything in her school’s art show yet, but I hope she will. A3 might be playing the piano for her school’s talent show because her teacher talked her into auditioning.  Cheers!

Necessary Evils

… or maybe it’s just that I’m evil. Bwah ha ha!

First, a Rant: Dear people who do not knit, knitting is NOT sewing.  One involves yarn and pointy sticks (which can be used as weapons in the case of emergencies). The repetitive motions in knitting produce a calming, Zen-like state of being and sometimes yields pleasing, useful objects. The other craft entails fabric, ironing, pinning, cutting and long periods of sitting upright behind a cursed machine with less-than-satisfying results when I attempt it.  Just because I neurotically carry knitting in my purse and pull it out during each and every lull in the day does not mean that I automatically partake of every craft that you remember your grandmother doing. They are NOT the same. Thank you.

Yesterday my eldest daughter sent a text requesting the use of my sewing machine.  Everyone who resides in our home or reads this blog knows of my aversion to sewing machines. It’s my belief that my girls learned their very best curse words from listening to me sew, which may explain why she chose to text, rather than call.  She’s in the high school musical, “Return to the Forbidden Planet”, and “she” was tasked with creating 10 foot + long tentacles that can reach on stage and grab cast members during one of the scenes.  When I picked A1 up from an all-day play practice an army of teenagers proceeded to file out the stage door and load this fabric into my van.  In A1′s defense, she didn’t “volunteer” my services, but when the stage manager asked for someone to make the tentacles several awkward minutes of silence followed the request.  Eventually my daughter succumbed to the pressure and raised her hand.  She is assisting in every way possible to make these, but our school district doesn’t offer Home-Economic classes (they have something similar, but sewing isn’t part of the curriculum), so she can’t sew. As evil as the craft is, it’s necessary that I step in. Several cast members have seen me knitting while waiting to pick her up and have asked me to sew costumes for them.  The assumption being that because I knit, I must also sew.   

The tentacles are supposed to be “patchy” because they represent the warped recesses of someone’s mind, or the “IDs that march”. It’s a pun in reference to Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” and the warning to “Beware the Ides of March”.  Apparently this play is full of them. Anyway, they  must be completed by tomorrow. The last laugh is on them though because they shall be covered in cat hair, courtesy of Miss Bonny.  This evening is a potluck cheer banquet as well. As I’ve often told my girls, “I deserve to be put into a good home someday.”

Other necessary evils this weekend include sorting 15 years worth of school work, art projects, letters and other treasures.  Being the sentimental sort, I’ve saved absolutely every scrap of paper from my children’s past.  We have, or rather had, about 15 boxes and bins full of “stuff”.  Sorting through the papers is nostalgic and time-consuming.  Deciding what to recycle is really hard because every little scrap and bit brings back memories of when the girls were little.  I’m resolved that each child shall only have one tote full of memorabilia and that our attic will no longer pose the danger of collapsing from undo weight. I’ve awoken from sound sleep in a panic out of fear of fire.  All that paper would virtually explode if ignited. It must be done.

Finally, not something “evil” or “necessary”, but rather something amusing. The netted tape yarn that’s abundant in every craft store doesn’t serve any tangible purpose, other than to make really neato-looking ruffled scarves.  The pattern is incredibly simple (8 stitches, garter stitch until yarn is gone). Of course having to spread open the yarn to find the next loop is fiddly and working with HUGE needles is quite ungainly, but there is nothing “difficult” about making these.  Absolutely zero skill is required.  None. Nada. Zilch. There are no intricate yarn overs and lacy patterns to memorize or charts to follow. Exacting precise tension while producing eye-popping Fair Isle isn’t a factor.  Yet, several people have raved when seeing this. They’ve expounded about how “Talented” I must be and how much they love the scarves.

Of course, the compliments were kindly meant, and they came from non-knitters who don’t know any better, but I find it ironic that something requiring no higher thought processes than those used to tie shoes garners more attention than intarsia socks knitted on size 00 needles. This has been added to my Gift Box. I will make at least one more to use up the impulsively purchased novelty yarn, but then it’s back to my boring, unimpressive knitting.

Back to creating evil tentacles. Somebody has to do it. Cheers!