Mission Impossible

Continuing my sometimes tactless, yet amusing to me, tradition, I present Tom Cruise:



He is a beautiful full tree who actually looks quite tall ... until you get up close and personal and realize, not so tall after all.

The funny thing about Tree Tom Cruise is that we searched high and low for a ten to twelve foot tree to cut down ourselves. Only when we couldn't find one, did we go to a pre-cut place where they said Tom Cruise was ten feet tall. Ha! We were obviously desensitized by all of the short trees we had previously seen because at the time he seemed quite tall. When the husband and I got him in the stand without arguing, I realize that something was amiss. By the time we had him situated in the living room, I realized we had been had. Tom Cruise is a shorty!

This is Getting Old

Today I've spilled two large cups of coffee and a gigundo glass of ice tea. It makes me think the Universe is trying to tell me something ... I'm over hydrated??

Realist

This is the first year that Jillian is really getting the Santa thing. Actually that's not true. She doesn't really get it. Let's say she is somewhat aware that there is a guy named Santa and that the soccer ball she wants, well she needs to ask him to give it to her. It was along these lines that we had a discussion on how, exactly, she was going to get that soccer ball from Santa.

J1: Where does Santa live?
Me: In the North Pole.
J1: Is Santa gonna drive a car to our house? In my car?
Me: No. Santa rides on a sled.
J1: A sled???
Me: Yes. He has a special sled that is pulled by reindeer. Santa and the reindeer take the sled from house to house and land on people's roofs. Then Santa slides down the chimney and puts your presents under the Christmas tree so you can find them on Christmas morning.
J1: HAHAHAHAHA. No Mommy! That's silly! You're silly Mommy! HAHAHAHA!

Dropped

Way back in November of 2009, on November 9, to be exact I started a little knitting project. A drop stitch shawl/scarf. I had been trying to recreate a store bought scarf, saw something similar at Stitches East, and decided to go for it. It required the casting on of one hundred and fifty stitches, which I did. While I was in labor. After I cast on the oodles of stitches, I was able to knit a couple of rounds before bellying up to the epidural bar. Then there was some dropped, not on purpose, stitches and a yarn break and I packed up the project and moved onto the having baby project. Since then I have worked on the baby project full time and am happy to report she is alive and kicking and learning to earn her keep modeling my knitwear.


The knitting project, however, was less full-time and more on and off. That being said, I finally finished it. The fact that a scarf took me almost a year makes me nauseous. I mean really. Ten months? For realz? In my defense (and yes, I do realize I am defending myself against myself, but whatever), I did finish a pair of socks and start a sweater and learn to crochet (poorly) so it's not as if I worked on it constantly. But still. Ten months!

The pattern was written by a yarn shop in Rhode Island called Unwind. Basically you cast on one hundred and fifty stitches, or one hundred and eighty if you are in labor (thankfully one hundred and eighty is divisible by five so it worked out perfectly) and then you knit those one hundred plus stitches, through the back loop, in the round, until the thing is eighteen or so inches. If you, like me, have a lot of yarn, you might go nineteen inches. Then you do this bind off where you are binding off five stitches and then pulling the yarn through a stitch and then knitting and dropping stitches and if this sounds confusing to you, you're not the only one. I am good at blindly following instructions, which I did, and it worked. But it was also a bit scary. Especially since I started it while driving in the car to Cooperstown (a city where I had no knitterly support) for a mini-vacation. I mean honestly, I was in the car with all this time to realize that for all intents and purposes I had knit the body of a sweater (read: LOTS OF WORK) and was doing some hinky bind-off which might be wrong and render all of that knitting USELESS.

Nonetheless, I did the cast-off and it seemed okay. I figured in for a penny, in for a pound and so I started dropping oodles and oodles of stitches. Seventy-five percent of the knitting I did? Dropped. Now not only was this sucky because all of my hard work was for naught. But also, I used alpaca which is basically like one big wad of self adhesive and thus, hard to drop. Really hard. In the end I did manage to get it done without breaking any of the long floaty bits (or anything else for that matter).


So then it was happily ever after right? Uh no. My nerves got another run for my money when it became obvious that the cast-on was WAY tighter than the bind-off. Now I figure that a slight difference in tension is normal, but when you throw in baby labor as part of your cast-on, you will, apparently, get the wholly mother of all tightness. Which in practical speak meant I could have a trapezoidal shaped scarfy wrap or take drastic measures. Those drastic measures? Cut the bars/dropped stitch sections for the cast-on row. Almost a year done of knitting and then I am faced with the prospect of hacking away at it. Which, me being me, I did. I went through and cut off the bars for the entire cast-on row. Then I gave the thing the evil eye and dared it to unwind or unknit. I did do a slight weaving of ends and kind of rubbed the ends figuring this and alpaca would put me in good stead. So far? So good.

After the cut-o-rama, I then had to block the thing as it looked like a pile of pasta. I was a bit scared of submerging it in water since alpaca has been known to turn into a wet rag of nothingness. After all I had gone through I decided to forgo my normal dunk and pin and got out the iron and a spray bottle. It was time consuming but, for the most part, I got all those drops looking smooth.

For the rest of its life, I will remember starting this scarf while I was in labor and having the anesthesiologist rip it when he went to put in my epidural. It is my Juliet scarf. For that reason alone I don't hate it. If I had to do it all over again that sucker would NOT be nineteen inches wide. I intended to make it a wrap but it looks TOTALLY stupid as a wrap and instead I wear it as a very fluffy scarf. I also am thinking the dropped bits would be fewer as I hate the fact that I undid so much of the work. But when all is said and done, I do like it and have worn it several times (like to ♥Rhinebeck♥).


Yarn: Schoppel Wolle, Baby Alpaka Naturbelassen, Color 98808870, Lot 1119344, 3 skeins
Needles: Susan Bates Circs, size 5 mm (US 8)
Pattern: Drop Stitch Wrap and Scarf by Unwind
Time: 10 months?!?
Care: Machine washable, gentle (hardy har har). Dry flat. Low heat iron.

Mine

There are a gazillion times a day where I find myself looking at my kids and wondering "Who are you?" They do these things that just blow my mind and give me a teeny tiny niggling thought that perhaps, just maybe, they give me someone else's kid at the hospital. But. But then. But then there are times, like today, that I am one hundred thousand percent that I definitely have the right kid. To wit:

Jillian was in her crib for "quiet time" when all of a sudden she start screaming MOOOMMMMMYYYYY! MOMMY! MMMOOOOMMMMYYYY! I NEEEEEEDDDDDD YOUUUUU! I hauled it upstairs to find her pressed into the corner of her crib, crying and sucking her thumb. When I asked what was wrong she pointed to a spot on her sheet and said in her most pathetic voice, "There's a buuuuuggggg." Ding, ding, ding! That's my kid. I. So. Get. It. I have been known to freak the fuck out over bugs. It is irrational, but I do it anyway. It turns out the bug was actually a wad of dog hair and I was quite capable of dealing with it and we all lived happily ever after.

Bigger Than A Bread Box

This morning, as I was walking into the gym, it was raining. Hard. I had Juliet in my arms with the umbrella, Jillian was holding my hand and I had my messenger style purse/diaper bag slung over my head with the strap bisecting my boobs. We were walking as fast as possible for such a motley crew and when we got to the door, Jillian let go of my hand, ran up to the handicap button and pushed it so that the door would open. She got there just as an older woman, in her sixties or seventies I would guess, was approaching. Jillian pushed the button and then skipped towards the door in that strange, happy, toddler, bouncy way. The older woman looked at me, smiled as we went through the door and then waited and rode the elevator with us, during which the following occurred ...

Her: You have such beautiful girls.
Me: Thank you.
Her: You've been busy!
Me: Yah, they keep me on my toes.
Her: Yes, but you've been busy - they are so close together in age (Me thinking HOLY SHIT SHE IS TALKING ABOUT BABY SEX) and another on the way so soon.
Me, realizing she thinks I'm not only a nympho but a pregnant one no less: Oh! No! This is just an unfortunate shirt/purse/look.
Her: Noooo. Nothing looks unfortunate when you are expecting.
Me: No, uh, no baby, I'm not pregnant.
Her: OH! You're coming to workout. (LOOKS AT MY NOT A BABY GUT) Yes. I see.

Ugh people, ugh. I was on the way to workout. I was carting around two kids, an umbrella and a ginormo purse/diaper bag. Was it really necessary to call me a fat nympho?

Cold Feet

For the first time in ... an eternity, LB/Jillian is napping. I decided to make use of this time and notclean, notlaundry, notdishes and surf the internet. Actually, I first spent time alphabetizing our kids books. Seriously. I have problems. I only got one shelf done though. Which actually is so irksome that I, well, I can't even verbalize the irksomeness of it. I can state, however, that I will most likely be alphabetizing more books tonight. Such is the fast paced life I live. In any event, as I was surfing the internet, my feet became unacceptably cold. Conveniently, I had a pair of handknit socks sitting next to the computer. Not so conveniently, they had been sitting there for months waiting to be photographed and blogged. So, in the interest of having warm feet with minimal fuss, I pulled out the socks, gave them a good shake (dust), used my shirt to wipe the dust off of the corner of the desk, and snapped a few photos. Then I put them on, sat back down and here I am, sock shod and sassy!



The socks do not to lie flat, making them hard to photograph in a normal sock-like fashion (and also making me nervous that they were not actually going to fit on my feet). So I ended up folding them in a way that, for some admittedly weird reason, reminded me of maxipads.



I can't remember much about these socks. Except that I started them in May and was less than thrilled with the colors when working on them and noticed something hinky with the heel as I was going along. Said hinkyness might be why the socks don't sit sock like.

As an aside, it has been so long since I've blogged, I forgot what I called my kids on the blog. Many years ago [snort], I worked with nutjobs and wackados and total anonymity was important. Now, not so much. So I am using my kids' real names. If you'd like, I'll also give you my social security number, address, and home phone number (yes, I know, how passé, I have a home phone).



Yarn: C*EYE*BER Fiber, Vancouver Island sock coordinates
Needles: Addi Circs, size 2.5 mm (US 1) which are now M.I.A????
Pattern: Um... Toe up star toe, stockinette, short row heel, 2x2 rib cuff.
Time: No idea.
Care: Machine washable, gentle. Dry flat.

Bad Rep

We are having record (or close to) heat up in these parts. As such, we, along with the rest of clichéd suburbia, bought a pool pass for our town pool. This purchase triggered my EXTREME cheapness gene and I now try to get the family to the pool every day. A nice idea, that when executed flawlessly rocks, but, when executed without perfection say, like yesterday, can result in Public Shame. A very fine Public Shame in front of people I know not so well, and only sort of a little bit.

So. Monday. National holiday observed. No one working. We decided (read: I steamrolled the husband) to go to the pool. I needed to find my swim suit and was hoping to find the one that covers my nipples (two babies and coughcough pounds later, this is a bit of a challenge). During my exhaustive search, Boo was in charge of getting Lady Bean in her pool attire. As I am on my hands and knees looking under the bed for a swim suit (I really should have a better system now that we have a pool pass, no?), I yell out "Put LB in her suit and a swim diaper. The swim diapers are in the box of random diapers. They are the pull-up type in the open bag. The unopened bag are the next size up." I was distracted and not paying close attention to either task and, of course, ended up in the overly boob revealing swim suit. HOT. But whatever. All seemed fine and we made it to the pool as a group and in one piece.

Once we checked in, we meandered over to the kiddie pool and Boo, not knowing anyone, sat between friends of a friend with their husbands and another, not part of that group, friend. It wasn't like we could have sat by strangers anyway as the pool, due to the holiday, was JAMMED. Packed. Insane. You know, filled with tons of people needed for a good public shaming. Anyway, I said our 'hellos,' performed introductions and then pretty much ignored everyone but my family.

Basically I was anti-social and we stayed to ourselves. For the five minutes it took me to notice that LB's drawers looked really REALLY full. I mean, honestly, for a diaper to be that full you need a serious bladder/intestinal problem. Or, as it turns out, a foot or so deep kiddie pool. As I watched, through LB's swim suit, Dora the Explorer's head grow and grow on my baby's ass, I realized what happened. When I was barking orders from under the bed, I was a tad unclear on what constituted a swim diaper. Boo, unfamiliar with the box of random diapers, heard "pulled up" and "in the open pack," and grabbed a regular, non-waterproof, pull-up from the open pack of regular non-waterproof pull-ups.

Did you know pull ups bloat like dead beached whales when emerged in water? It was HORRIBLE (though not as horrible as a dead beached whale, but close). LB had a badonkadonk only it was all diaper. I once described a panicked HOLY SHIT WHAT DO I DO? feeling and that is EXACTLY how I felt at the pool. I looked around and didn't think anyone had yet noticed so I whisper-yelled, "WHAT DO WE DO???" to my husband and he's all whisper-yelling back, "I DON'T KNOW!!" After determining that closing our eyes and willing a swim diaper onto LB did not in fact work and after scouring our resources (limited to none), we decide to slink away discretely. Weird after only being there mere minutes, but still better than the alternative, right? And frankly, I am not sure what we thought that the alternative was other than having people notice, point, and laugh. Which was still, you know, not desirable.

So we are gonna leave. Only, of course, LB doesn't want to leave. So she RUNS AWAY. Well waddles because a diaper that full, it cannot be run in it. Of course everyone takes notice of this turn of events. Which means that alternative 'notice, point, laugh' thing, NOW HAPPENING. So there I am, boobs flopping hither and yon in a suit that had no business being seen in public, oh and did I mention I am peeling from a previous sunburn too, chasing my waddling non-swim diapered kid across the foot deep kiddie pool as she is screaming, "NO! NO! NO!" When I do catch her at the OPPOSITE end of the pool, I have to tuck her flailing squirming self under one arm like a purse so I can use the other arm to corral by boobs. Public. Shame.

There is a woman around town who apparently has a big snarfle tooth and a kid that smears poop on random surfaces and she is known as "The Woman With a Big Snarfle Tooth and the Kid That Smears Poop." I fear I am now know as "The White Trash Floppy Boobed Peeling Freak Who Makes Her Kid Swim in Regular Diapers."

Apple

"Get Fat for Free!" proclaimed my local news paper, which was a reminder that today, today is NATIONAL DOUGHNUT DAY! Woot, woot! And, not only is it a HUGE holiday, it is a huge holiday where you can get a free doughnut at the Dunkin Donuts. This was such big news that not only was it on the front page of my local paper, it was also the lead story on my local news. The lead story which LB saw and absorbed. The lead story which persuaded LB to tell me I should go get some of "mommy's coffee." Being such a warm and loving mom, I took LB to DD and got some coffee. And that was all. Yes, I bought coffee and forgot to get the free doughnut. And the kicker is, not only did I flake out and forget the free doughnut, LB flaked out and forgot the doughnut too!

Frugal

Yesterday I went to the Shop Rite that just opened in our neighborhood. Because the store is brand new, the customer service is amazing. I was greeted by a young woman who gave me an aisle directory and gave LB and TD each their very own pink balloon (FYI this was HUGE as I was able to shop for ten whole minutes without either kid melting down). I was then escorted over to an area by produce where I got my Shop Rite card (it is a store coupon card type thing which I never saw until moving to New England). Anyway, as I am getting the card, LB sees strawberries and mentions she'd like some for when her friends come over. And the woman helping with the cards hears this and hands me a coupon for ninety-nine cent strawberries, which she tore from the weekly circular for me. Now, knowing I have the attention span of a newborn and the memory of a gnat, I clutch the coupon in my hand with my wallet so that I can't possibly pay without seeing, and using, the coupon. I shop for ten minutes or so and pick up half a dozen items, including the strawberries, and then I pay. After unloading my kids and my groceries into the car, I reach over to the seat next to me to put my wallet back in my purse. AND NOTICE THE COUPON CLUTCHED IN MY HAND NEXT TO MY WALLET.

Touched

If you asked me, I would tell you it has been awhile since I went to a fancy function. If I really thought about it, I'd realize that the last time I did anything fancy, was when I was pregnant. With my first kid. In 2007. Three years ago. Unfortunately, I hadn't really thought about it until it was too late...

When I mentioned to a friend, in passing, that I was going to go a wedding this past weekend, she seemed kind of excited and asked me what kind of dress I bought. THIS SHOULD HAVE RUNG SOME ALARM BELLS IN MY HEAD. Instead, I responded with something along the lines of, "Buy a dress? HAHAHAHA. No, I'm just gonna wear something from my closet." She then said, "Oh. Uh. Oh." AGAIN, WHERE WERE THE ALARM BELLS? A day or two later, another friend asked if I was going to get my nails done and, instead of heeding the silent HELLO!?! YOU NEED TO FANCY YOURSELF UP, I fluffed it off. In the end three different friends asked me about my wardrobe and grooming for the wedding and yet I still found my self climbing into the shower on Saturday afternoon blissfully unaware of the fashion horror show I was going to become.

Saturday, as my shower progressed I was feeling good. In fact, it was only when I was shaving my legs that I thought about my wardrobe and that thought was inane and something like, "Man, I wish I had planned better so I could have borrowed my friend's handknit shawl. That'd be great for a wedding." I had no idea that mere minutes later I would arrive in my closet wearing a towel and a fine sheen of panic as outfit after outfit was deemed TOTALLY HORRIBLY UNACCEPTABLE. Now you might think I am kidding. Being a little facetious. Maybe exaggerating. I remind you, however, that the last time I dressed up I WAS PREGNANT. In fact, the last two times I dressed up I WAS PREGNANT. And before that? My body had not created and ejected TWO HUMAN BEINGS.

I first thought I would go with my LBD (little black dress). The LBD that I wore to my last two functions. Yes, I was pregnant, but the dress was not a maternity dress. It was a fat girl dress from Nordstroms so it should have been fine. WRONG. It was a fat girl dress that took my could-possibly-be-a-baby-or-a-burrito-gut and turned it into a glowing round baby-filled orb. This dress magically gave me a great pregnant belly. And guess what, IT STILL DOES. Now, as hard as it is to believe, I didn't want to show up at the wedding looking nine months pregnant.

So I decided to dig further into the recesses of my closet. Which revealed many casual skirts, three fancy skirts that were either too small or too big, one fancy skirt which fit but was IRIDESCENTLY SEQUINED, and one slightly big but doable skirt that was SHIMMERY METALLIC. In other words, NO SKIRTS. Also, where the fuck did I use to go that I thought a sequined or metallic ass was the way to go? In case you're curious, I am keeping those two skirts should I find myself in those kind of places again.

When the skirt thing tanked, I decided to take a different tack and look at tops. The results where just as dismal. Though without the bling. I could pour myself into some Saran Wrap which would not-so-lovingly show off every roll and budge, or I could wear a circus tent.

In the end I went with tight-in-the-gut, loose-in-the-thigh, a-smidge-too-short, black pants that belong to my old black suit and an asymmetrical, YES, ASYMMETRICAL, top that was black with white ovals on it. As if the "artsy" ovals were not unfortunate enough, the asymmetry left one side dangling below my hip and the other side hiked up at my waist, above my pants line.

In an attempt to counter-balance my hapless outfit, I decided to blow out my normally curly hair. Great idea, right? Wrong. All of a sudden it turned into this limp, long, stringy mess with many MANY short post-pregnancy hair-fall-out-new-regrowth-strands sticking up. Since it flopped into my eyes, I decided a clip was the way to go. A clip, holding back a poof. A poof like Sarah Palin's. Only Sarah Palin has a hell of a lot more hair than I do and the hair that she has doesn't dangle limply. I tried to compensate for my thin limp hair by making my poof bigger. All I can say is that this was a mistake.

So, in summary, I went to the wedding for one of the guy's who works for my husband, whom I had never met, and sat with a bunch of the other guys that work for my husband, that I had never met, wearing ill fitting clothes and donning a coif that even 1980's Jersey girls would have shunned.

Please learn from my shame. Buy a new outfit for a fancy event. No excuses.

One May Be The Loneliest Number

A friend, referring to her son and his age, once said, "One, two and three SUCK but four, well, four, it doesn't suck so much. You just have to make it to four." I have to tell you, I didn't think one really sucked and so I wasn't concerned about what was coming down the pike. At one LB slept thru the night and spent the days playing, eating, giggling and being, generally, delightful. Sure she was spirited, but rarely did I think about selling her on the black market. I figured the dreaded two and three was more of a boy thing and was content with life. Then one and a half rolled around and the suck started to happen. Little did I know, one and half, one and a half didn't have jack shit on two. Two is the pits. Two is an asshole.

Two takes its favorite book and rips out the pages because the ripping noise is neat.

If you tell two to stop doing something and indicate that a failure to stop will result in a time out on the naughty step, two will do the something and then walk itself over to the naughty step with a smile on its face.

Two wants a granola bar but not that granola bar the other one no youtoucheditAHHHHH.

If two was a frat boy, he'd come to your house, drunk, pee on the floor next to your toilet, eat your cheetos, throw them up on your pillow, cop a feel on your mom and then brag about the whole damn thing on his Facebook page.

Two asks for a brownie and whines for hours until you give in. Once two gets the brownie, it takes one bite and then crumples the rest in its little fist and throws it at you.

Two will only wear a diaper if Zoe is on it.

Two cleans up all of its toys. Yes. It cleans up all of its toys and then, as you are about to walk out the door, finds the largest bin of toys and dumps it all over the floor so that it will take another ten minutes to clean up the crap and you will be late.

If two was Viagra, it wouldn't give you an erection. No. Instead it'd give you severe allergic reactions, chest pain, fainting, fast or irregular heartbeat, memory loss, numbness of an arm or leg, ringing in the ears, seizure and sudden decrease or loss of hearing or loss of vision in one or both eyes.

Two cries. And whines. At the same time. A lot. For no reason. For some reason you don't know. For some reason it doesn't know. For some reason only the dog knows.

Two only wants french fries and chicken nuggets. Unless you are out with other people. Then two wants anything but french fries and chicken nuggets and the thing that you ordered it. In fact, two often wants to not eat. Ever. Just to see if you would really go to jail for failure to feed it.

Two wakes up screaming in the middle of the night as if it is on fire because it needs you to reach the six millimeters below its hand to get the blanket.

If two has to put a toy away and does not want to, well, it would rather (and somewhat gleefully) take that favorite toy and throw it in the garbage than put it away. And then, with a smile, two will tell daddy all about how it threw away its favorite ball instead of putting it away like mommy asked.

Two, two is birth control. If we want to stop teen pregnancy, we merely need to lock up a bunch of teens with a bunch of two year olds. If any of the teens survive, I guarantee it won't be to go and have unprotected sex.

Small Things

For the last month(ish) I have been in a super, duper, sour-puss mood. I am grumpy and surly and negative. I am easy to anger and basically no fun to be around. I hear myself and my nastiness and yet I can't stop it from spewing forth. Delightful, eh? I suspect, or at least I hope, a lot of this is from not sleeping well since my kids have conspired to have me up every hour or so to help with those oh so meaningful middle of the night tasks like blanket unwrinkling or binky retrieval. I am tired of being a grump and am kind of sick of myself. Nonetheless, I haven't been able to stem my tide of vitriol. Last night, however, both midgets managed to spend the entire night asleep and without need for assistance and I am using that as my impetus to turn things around. Or at least try. Granted, I am so not Miss Mary Sunshine to begin with but at least I can fake it. And, in my first attempt at faking joviality, I am going to list one good thing that makes me happy ... vacuum lines in the carpet. Okay, so maybe that is lame. But honestly, there is something about seeing fresh vacuum lines in my carpet that makes me feel a little better about the world.

Six Random Things

1) I like silly bandz. I bought some on a lark for LB and decided to give her one when she did something good on her own and without my pleading. On a good day she would end up with five or six of them which, at the end of the day, I would take back so that I could start again on the next day. This worked out until she started breaking and losing them and I kind of decided that I liked them. Now we are running out and I don't have enough for her or for me. Which makes me sad. Yes, I am sad because I only have a few of my two year daughter's animal shaped rubber bands left to wear on my wrist. Can you say loser?

2) I have a kitchen in my garage. Well not a functioning one. And, not one with appliances. Fine, I have a bunch of kitchen cabinets and some granite counter tops in my garage. Some how when everything was stored, the island was stored properly, which is to say it is a functioning island with cabinets and a top. A functioning island that now has two days worth of mail and six bottles of soda sitting on it. My point: an island is rather useful in the garage.

3) I have reknit my short-row heel and made it larger. I like it enough that I have started the second heel.

4) I have also started a garden. I PLANTED STUFF IN THE GROUND. WHERE BUGS LIVE. Mind you the majority of my garden consists of herbs in containers. But still, there are some chives, basil, parsley and oregano IN THE BUG FILLED GROUND.

5) TD seems to have mastered the art of sitting up. Mere hours after we were at her pediatrician's and I stated that she in fact could not sit up for squat. Note I also stated she couldn't eat food. She made sure I knew this statement was one hundred percent true as she took her first ever bite of banana, spit it out, and then projectile vomited on me. A lot.

6) There are twenty-one episodes of Law and Order in my DVR. Every single one of them is from 1994 or earlier and has Michael Moriarty as the prosecutor. I watched those shows when they were first shown and thought they were great. Now I watch them and think they are great, yet dated. Stuff from my teenage years feels dated. HOLY FUCK.

Vexed

Still working on my socks and I feel as if my short row heel is ... too short?


It just feels small and I don't like it which means I need to rip it out and do it over. Of course, I won't have hotty hot hot Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone to watch and get me through which is a total bummer.

Also a bummer? Revlon Cherry Pop nail polish. Painted the nails yesterday afternoon and woke to small chips this morning. Shame on you Revlon!

Pretty

Happy Mother's Day!

Motoring Along

Still knitting STOP Almost have a pair of socks STOP


Okay not entirely true STOP Almost have half a pair of socks STOP And, as always, liked the verigated yarn in the hank and in the ball but not so much when knitted up STOP When will I learn STOP

Banal

Oh dear blog, how I have neglected thee. Even this post which was suppose to get the ball rolling has been sitting in the draft folder since March 5! Which is why this recap feels dated and stale. Nonetheless, I took the time to upload the pictures so I might as well post it right? Right. Though why I didn't post back in March ... ???

Taking care of sick kids and eating bonbons doesn't make for interesting blogging, soooo. Yah. I can recap the last several months as follows:

One kid sick, other kid healthy. Both kids sick, parents healthy. One kid sick, one parent sick, one kid healthy, one parent healthy. Wash, rinse, agitate and repeat. We can't seem to get everyone healthy at once and it is making me twitch. Our sickness peaked with RSV bronchiolitis which pitched TD into the land of breathing treatments.


Not all of the last few months have been woe. At one point we were all healthy enough to go to the local aquarium which was awesomely fun. I snapped this photo of LB. I LOVE IT. She is like a disgruntled street urchin.


I failed super spectacularly at my Knitting Olympics project. If I was an ice skater, I would have taken to the rink wearing no skates. If I was a skier, I would have gone down backwards, and on my hands. What I am saying is that I did not even complete one piece. Nope. Not a single one. Part of that was because I forgot I was suppose to knit on it. Part was because LB decide to unknit a bit of what I had knit. And part was because TD was very, very sick. Since the Knitting Olympics I have picked up the sweater once. To fix with LB undid.

Speaking of failure, my car repair? Failure. I had a rental for over two months. In fact, driving a second rental as I had the first rental so long they up and sold it out from underneath me. When I finally got my car back from the shop, I also got an $800 rental bill because apparently the insurance company and the repair shop were at odds. Weeks later and it is still not resolved.

The mouse problem seems resolved. We hired a company with a cutesy name and it sent a man out who foamed up our holes and poisoned the ever-loving crap out of those unfortunate interlopers who got sealed in. Then he came back a few days later and took away said (dead) interlopers and left us in mouseless bliss. There is a six month warranty which means that in July (seven months from our service date, which is one month past the warranty) you will hear me start to complain about mice reappearing.

One mouse up and died in the middle of the second one-week post-poison wait. Somewhere in the vicinity of my yarn. In exchange for my offer to perform acts illegal in some states, my husband agreed to go through all of my yarn to look for the dead mouse. Hours later it was discovered that the mouse had not died in my yarn (YEAH!) but in a small L.L. Bean bag that held my two glue guns and glue sticks (BOO!). The bag and its contents, organic and otherwise, were pitched. I have since needed a glue gun twice. Note, I have not needed a glue gun anytime during the last five years we have lived in this house. Karma is a bitch.

Continuation

Olllleeeee! Ole, ole, ole, OLE! Happy Cinco de Mayo! I'm celebrating with some knitting and perhaps, some salsa. Yes, that's right. Not only did I finish some baby socks, I started some Me socks!


If Cinqo de Mayo wasn't reason enough for a party, knitting some Jenna socks should be!

Duh

I'm an asshole! I know better. And yet. Yet, I admitted to the universe that I had two simultaneously napping children. And the universe, it said, Nu Uh. And up woke TD.


Since she was awake, I did manage to snap a photo of her wearing her new socks.

Jungle Boogie

Ta da! I finished the itsy bitsy baby socks. Unfortunately, the itsy bitsy (well not so itsy bitsy, rather rolly polly) baby is sound asleep and unavailable for a photo op. And actually, being that LB is also asleep ... this is really not that unfortunate. Two kids napping at the same time? Totally fortunate. Also rare. So of course I am using my alone time productively by farting around on the internet. Woot!



In case you are curious, these socks took up NO YARN. I mean really. I made a full on whole pair of adult Monkey Socks with this yarn and had two little balls left over. These guys took up one of the remaining little balls. Insane. Also, when used on such a small project, the yarn stripes and is not the psychedelic blur it is on bigger projects. Neat.

Yarn: Lorna Laces, Shepherd Sock, Color 302, Jungle Stripe
Needles: Addi Circs, size 2.5 mm (US 1)
Pattern: None. Toe up star toe, 28 rows in the rounds, short row heel, 6 rows rib.
Time: Actual knitting time - 3.5 days. Total time - one month.
Care: Machine washable.

Beholder

Growing up in South Florida, I'd often see houses that had outdoor art. And by art, I mean "real" stuff, commissioned for a good hunk of change, not a cardboard cut out of an old lady's bloomer-clad bottom, though I saw a fair share of those as well. Anyway, half the time the real art would end up being a geometric sculpture plopped down, seemingly carelessly, on an obscenely well manicured carpet of grass. I was reminded of this this morning after I was violently dragged into the world of the waking by an incredibly cute five month old imp. And yes, I realize that my semi-cognizant state may have affected my mental acuities.


Discarded exercise ball or art? You decide. Several years ago I bought an exercise ball so ginormous that Shaq would find it too large for athletic use. After several aborted attempts at exercising with the thing, it was relegated to the basement and has been there ever since, which is actually years and is a nod to my hoarder tendencies. However. HOWEVER. It turns out humungo exercise balls are great toys for toddlers. SO HOARDER TENDENCIES PAY OFF. WOOT! Not the point though. LB was playing with the exercise ball and when she was done, the ball didn't get put away (i.e., wedged back into one of our outdoor chairs) and rolled away during the night. And it was this, the rolled away $10 exercise ball, that made me think of fancy schmancy uber yard art.

Hello?

I have many MANY halfway finished posts which have languished in a draft folder for quite sometime. I hope to cobble them together to say something intelligent, but until then ... I have knit one sock. One sock that is too large for my bambina, but not so large that she won't be wearing it.


Ta da! Also, I need a manicure.

Oh For The Love Of Cookies

My poor sweet LB just can't seem to catch a break. First she got tossed about in the car accident, then she got a nasty stomach virus, and now she has an upper respiratory virus. In an attempt to be more empathetic I am trying to concentrate on her being my poor, sweet, pitiful sick girl and not the whiny brat who has passed on her funk to the rest of the family. Which ever way I look at it though, it has meant a string of cancellations for things we had planned to host. Can you say SUCK?

The latest thing to bite the dust was our monthly dinner gathering wherein we were hosting Mardi Gras night. To say I was psyched about this would be an understatement. I picked February solely because I wanted to do a Mardi Gras theme. I had planned a Bloody Mary Bar and was going to make vats of Hurricanes and a King Cake. I had beads! And masks! So canceling made me sad. Very sad. Knowing how disappointed I was, my husband sent me the following politically incorrect e-mail (an e-mail which reminded me that yes, I am married to the right man):

I’m sorry about having to cancel. I know you were looking forward to it. Maybe we can take the one in June and make it a South Africa World Cup theme. That way, we wouldn’t have to provide food.

Get it? Famine?

Try the veal. I’ll be here all week.

Sweater Scmeter

I don't like knitting sweaters. It's true. I like wearing sweaters. I like owning sweaters. But the knitting part, not so much. That last few days LB has been sick, we've been housebound and I've been a surly bitch. My patience is nil and my empathy for whiny little girls, sick or otherwise, is negative nil. I've repeatedly thought that I should turn on Elmo so that she could veg out on the couch and I could sit and knit next to her and maybe mellow out a tad. And this is a wonderful plan, except when I pull out the sweater I get more grumpy and more surly and then when LB drops her cup of milk, because apparently she is incapable of holding her cup for extended periods of time but also refuses to put it on the table because I asked her to and that means she must not, um, anyway, she drops her cup, creates a minute shower of milk droplets all over the couch, her sister, and the floor, and I explode. That sentence was so long, even I got lost in the middle.

So yah, I hate knitting sweaters. I do not, however, hate knitting socks. I like knitting socks. Speaking of which, here is a pair I finished knitting some time ago.



I find these socks to be quite comfortable when I am pole dancing. They prevent blisters when I am working a long shift and they keep my feet warm too. A+ for function. Also, A+ for form. See how aesthetically pleasing they are with their precisely matching stripes? Nice, eh? I suspect those matching stripes get me better tips.



Yarn: Regia, Design Line, Kaffe Fassett, 4253, 27053.
Needles: Addi Circs, size 2.5 mm (US 1) WHICH I HAVE SINCE LOST!?!
Pattern: Jaywalker
Modifications: Toe up.
Time: One month.
Care: Machine wash, tumble dry low heat.

Overlooked

You'd think that with my public declaration that BY ALL THAT IS GREAT AND HOLY THYSELF SHALL KNIT A SWEATER, I SHALL, that you know, I would be knitting on that sweater, or at the very least, thinking about knitting on that sweater. So it is with some chagrin that I tell you that I forgot, I KNOW, forgot ... forgot? Yes, plum forgot, that I was suppose to be knitting a sweater. Whoops!



I have since remembered but fear I may be so far in the hole that no amount of speeding knitting will make up for the time I spent doing ... stuff. I thought about trying to sound mysterious as if I have been doing something quite exciting instead of knitting but the truth is I haven't done diddly. I've been dealing with the oven. What oven? The LB oven, she burns at a steady 103.7, coughs like duck mimicking a fog horn and whines likes well, something, something annoying. Despite my dear heart's malady, I have done some knitting. Only time will tell, however, if it was enough to keep me in the race.

Under Pressure

I decided to sign up for the Knitting Olympics, which, quite dorkie, I KNOW. But still. Short of fingernail painting becoming an Olympic sport, I really can't see my advance-maternal-age-assed self entering the real Olympics any time soon, or ever. So yah, the Knitting Olympics, my chance at a gold metal.

What this entails is picking a project that would be a challenge for you to complete in seventeen days. And then you know, COMPLETING IT. You start it once the Olympic flame is lit and have to finish before the flame is extinguished. Straight forward. Well, except for the whole picking a project that is challenging. I am by no means an expert knitter. I am, however, somewhat educated and have good reading comprehension skills (so sayeth the SAT's). So there are very few knitting things that I have come across that are too challenging once I read the pattern. Granted, I am lazy and so the whole READING THE PATTERN? That can the be the challenge (ergo why I hate knitting lace charts). All of this is my verbose way of rationalizing why I am picking a simple sweater as my Knitting Olympics event. I picked the Holla Hoodie, a stockinette sweater with a few cables here and there. A sweater that even Knitty.com labeled "tangy" which means so simple a blind, one-armed monkey could do it. But this sweater, despite its easy skill level, will be a challenge. Honestly.

If you are observant, you might notice that Holla is listed on my sidebar as one percent done. This is not because I am a cheater and jumped the gun. No, this highlights why I chose this as my Knitting Olympics project. Several months ago (pre-baby #2) I started this sweater. I cast on an insane amount of stitches, realized my gauge was fucked, and quit. I quit because I was too lazy and time-deprived to knit a proper gauge swatch and start again. Thus, what seems to be my biggest knitting challenge right now is time. It use to be I could knit at work. I could knit at home after work. I could pretty much knit whenever the mood struck. Now, I only knit for a few hours a week when I meet my lady friends at Starbucks. The rest of my free time is eaten up by dishes, laundry, and dishes. So I am committing that for seventeen days, I am going to use my free time to knit a sweater. I am also probably going to use some of my work time (uh Elmo, can you babysit?) to knit a sweater. Because whatever it takes, did I mention ELMO???, I am going to knit that sweater.

Now this all sounds great and I sound very GO SWEATER! But. But, more observation would note that there is another sweater, the Kangaroo Duo, sitting over there on my side bar. Minimal investigation shows that this sweater has been sitting in a pile, unworked on, since November 2007. Yes, that sweater has been on sleeve island for over two years. Apparently I have absolutely no follow-through when it comes to sweaters. So, in addition to the time challenge, there is also the finishing a sweater challenge. I am hoping that the pressure of signing up for something, of publicly putting it out there, that this is enough to make me Git R Done, and, at the end of the seventeen days I will have a sweater, and a gold metal.

C is for ...

Crash!



Last week we were hit by a truck. I KNOW!

I was just minding my own business driving down the road when a wiener in a jumbo pick-up truck turned into us instead of the gas station. As his truck pushed us over the curb and I was heading toward a man pumping gas and an electrical pole I kept chanting in my head, "Don't hit the guy, don't hit the pole, don't hit the guy, don't hit the pole." I was also mentally screaming, "FUCK!" Though for the purposes of the A-B-C along I should take literary license and say I was mentally screaming, "CRAP!" In any event, I missed the electrical pole and the gas pumping man, and the gas pumps for that matter. Some would attribute this to providence, I, however, attribute this to a misspent youth during which I drove my cars ridiculously fast and extremely dangerously. Some instinct must have stuck in my brain. That or we were really feakin' lucky.

B is for ...

Baby Booties.



Some of the cutest freakin' baby booties out there. I'm not sure if it is the shearling innards or the big ole yarny stitches, but something about these booties tickle me and I lurve them. I lurve them so much that I am cramming them on TD's feet despite them being close to too small. I say close to too small because if I say too small I'd be a bad parent for cramming her toes in there. Anyway, I lurve them so much I am ignoring several disparaging comments regarding them from people who typically have good taste. In fact, I lurve them so much I am ordering her another pair, in a bigger size. Yes, I could make her a pair, but come one now, I still haven't even finished her C'mas stocking.



P.S. I totally hate the word lurve. It is so 'sloppy drunk' and yet, I used it a bazillion times in this post. I apologize.

Faux Pas

Dear Nordstroms Shopper:

Please accept this apology on behalf of my daughter. She is not quite two and well, you see, we've been working on manners here at Casa de SouthPark. Those manners include saying, "excuse me" when one burps or toots (toddler speak for farts). I realize that you were suffering from some extreme gastrointestinal distress which is why you were in the Nordstroms' loo in the first place. And I realize that the last thing you wanted was to hear was my sweet little snowflake chirp "'Scuse me" after each and every one of your toots. So, I apologize. She didn't mean to embarrass you (or me for that matter). She was just practicing her manners. Maybe you can take heart in the fact that all of her hard work seems to be paying off and that she is starting to learn manners. No? Oh well.

Sorry,
'Scuse me and her Mom

Ice

Yesterday we got a couple of inches of snow which resulted in some icicles on the windows of my car. Not a big deal, right? WRONG! It is a HUGE deal if you are a twenty-one month old toddler who goes by the moniker LB. A deal so huge that you must scream and shriek and have a goddamn meltdown the second you enter the car. Now I'm a nice, kind, caring mom, at least some of the time. So when LB screamed MOMMY! MOMMY! NO ICE. NO ICE. NO ICE, MOMMY! I was willing to scrape the icicles off. Just not in my garage. Which is why we had the following conversation:

LB: MOMMY! MOMMY! NO ICE. NO ICE. NO ICE, MOMMY!
Me: Honey, it is just ice. It's on the outside. It's fine.
LB: NO MOMMY. NO. MOMMMMMMMMMMMY! NO ICE. NO ICE. NO ICE, MOMMMMMMY!
Me: Okay sweetpea. As soon as we are in the driveway I'll scrape the ice off the windown.
LB: NO ICE. NO ICE. NOOOOOOOO ICE, MOMMY!
Me: Listen! I am not dumping the ice in our garage. You are just gonna have to suck it up for a minute.
LB: No suck Mommy. No suck.

A is for ...

Apple chips!



LB loves the apple chip. Which is a good. She could do a lot worse than freeze dried apple. Me, I am not a fan of the apple in its raw state. When it is freeze dried, however, it isn't terrible. Kind of like apple flavored styrofoam. Basically it has a good apple flavor without the hideous crunch. The apple chip also has the ability to stick to a greasy face when licked like nobody's bidness.



In my own defense, I will say that I was overly tired, as well as mildly annoyed at having to clean up yet another pile of LB's leftover snackage, which is why sticking these things to my face AND taking pictures seemed like a good idea.

Functionally Handy

I finished my fingertipless mitts a week or so ago. And then I promptly started wearing them. A lot. Which is why, now that I've gotten around to writing my finished object post, the gloves look well worn in the pictures. What I'm saying is that they are well worn.



Yes, they already have some pilling on the fingers and some felting of the stitches but that is okay because they are soft and they keep my fingers warm. I used the pattern #063, Lobster Claws, by Mac & Me as my jumping off point. I intended to make the mitts according to the pattern but then once I got to knitting, I decided to lengthen the fingers so that they went past my middle knuckle. Then, when I bound off my longer fingers, every few stitches I would bind off two together so that there was a decrease. Now the edge is a little snug and hugs my finger. I also decided that the ruffle looked queer and instead picked up stitches and knit a cuff. I added four stitches in the cuff so that it gapes a smidge. I did keep the stitch count the same for the mitts themselves though. In the end, if you look at the pattern and then at my mitts, you won't see many similarities. But that is fine because they totally fit my needs. A functional handknit? Who knew?



Heck, not only are they functional, they carry a cheesy dancing vibe in them. Too bad they don't carry the "wear a better shirt when taking pictures that will be published on the internet" vibe. At least I cropped out the stain on my shirt. Which is something since our upgrade to a newer version of Windows left us without any photo editing program. ASSHOLES. I had to use my Crackberry software for cropage. You can tell. I KNOW. Shut it.



Speaking of Crackberries, if I am being totally honest, I should admit that my knitting mojo for these was solely from my desire to wear mitts and use my Crackberry at the same time. While driving. NOTE: Driving and Crackberrying is dangerous and YOU SHOULD NOT DO IT. If you do do it, it is against my express instruction not to. Thus you, not I, are liable for any injuries or damages you may cause. I should also admit that I do not laptop while wearing gloves, fingertipless or otherwise, though with these mitts I could. My laptopping is done from the comfort of my couch where it is a temperate seventy degrees, and not so cool as to require hand warmers of any sort. My car, however, can be freezing. Literally. And when it is, my hands get cold when I drive. I tried wearing proper gloves. But then I couldn't use my phone. Even my store bought fingertipless gloves fell short since the thumb is totally covered. Instead of complaining I took action. Crazy for me, I KNOW.

My only gripe is that these are a little thick. They push my fingers out a little bit when my fingers are in a relaxed state. If I ever find myself with a lot of free time I would like to make the same exact mitts in a sock weight yarn, a superwash sock weight yarn. But for now, these guys are awesome and I will wear them lots. The End.



Yarn: Malabrigo, Worsted, Merino Wool, #607- Vetiver - 1 skein.
Needles: Two Susan Bates Circs and a set of Clover DPN, size 4.5 mm (US 7)
Pattern: #063, Lobster Claws, by Mac & Me
Modifications: Longer fingers; no ruffle or button; arm cuff with four extra stitches added to the cuff.
Time: Three days.
Care: Hand wash cold and dry flat in shade or dry clean.

Fabu

My eldest is sick with a cold. Which means she is a crying whining mess. So instead of interacting with her and dealing with the constant whining and crying, I have turned on Sesame Street (also known as ELMO, ELMO, ELLLLMMMMMOOOO) and let her plant herself in front of the t.v. I am an awesome COMPASSIONATE parent.

Schmaltz

It's been a million years since I blogged. I'd like to say it's because I have been elbow deep in hijinks, but in fact, I have been elbow deep in drudgery. Okay, I exaggerate. Ankle deep in drudgery with a good heap of day-to-day survival on top. And, in light of the real survival issues in the world (think Haiti), maybe I shouldn't even use "survival" as someone somewhere would say I am insensitive. But you know what? Fuck that. I'm not going to let a catastrophe hijack my use of exaggeration. Take that catastrophe! Also, sometimes keeping me and my two kids alive, well, that is an act of survival. In any event, I have been buried in my own little microcosm and the world has kept on going. But I am trying to step outside my bubble. I am. I shall live each day to the fullest. Starting with today.

Today I ... um, well. I vacuumed up dry wall dust. LAME. Life to the fullest. So today. Today I ... Crap. Oh, I know! I joined my local yarn bombing society. WHAT? Yarn bombing? You? YES! I KNOW! ME! I should note I joined its Facebook page. I'm not sure there is a real membership. But still. Crazy, no? Yes! And not just that I could be a local yarn bomber, which is crazy as I am a staid thirty-five year old housewifely-mother (not fucker, thankyouverymuch) now. But also crazy because Hartford, yarn bombing? Really. Who knew Hartford was so hip? So now that I am a member of the subversive (which in my head kept coming out 'submersive' heh) underbelly of knitters, the big burning question is, what do I yarn bomb that won't get me tossed in the slammer? I thought about yarn bombing the boulder in my front yard, but that seems feeble as a)I live at the top of a cul-de-sac where the only people that can see my house, and my boulder, are those coming over, and 2)I own the boulder. Hardly subversive. Unfortunately when I think of targets that won't get me arrested, those targets are all well hidden, and on my street. I think I am going to have to work harder at this subversive yarn bombing thing. In the meantime, I'll also work on getting up a picture of my completed fingertipless gloves. Also known as the first finished object of 2010!

I can't seem to type the word yarn bomb sans the yarn as I fear ending up on some government watch list. Not so subversive of me is it? But hey, I watch t.v., I know how these things work. One mention of yarn bombing without the yarn and the next thing you know I'm living in Cuba.

Provocateur

If LB was awake to see this ...


she would LOSE. HER. SHIT.

Fingered

No, I have not done a single thing on TD's stocking but I did knit a glove.


One glove. So basically it's as completed as the stocking which is to say not completed at all.

Pervy

I am a total Law & Order junkie. So, when I found rebroadcasts of the old Old OLD seasons (circa Michael Moriarty as ADA Ben Stone), I DVRed the episodes and booked a date with my husband. It was while watching one of these episodes, one from 1991, when Jerry Orbach appeared as a defense attorney!?!, that we had the following conversation.

ME: Hey! Edward Cullen. That is the name of the vampire from Twilight.

HUSBAND: [silence]

ME: You know ... Team Edward? Team Jacob? I like Jacob the werewolf but the vampire, Team Edward, is named Edward Cullen. L&O was ahead of its time using the name Edward Cullen for a character.

HUSBAND: Uh huh. How does it make you feel to know that you were ogling someone who wasn't even born yet when this episode aired?

ME: Jacob is 17 ...

HUSBAND: Right, and 1991 was eighteen, nineteen years ago. So I ask again, how does feel to know that you were ogling a kid who wasn't even born when this episode aired?

ME: Like a dude.