A South Park Republican's Mental Meanderings

10oT: Movie Addition

2012-01-24T08:43:00.003-05:00

Today's Ten on Tuesday topic is "10 Movies You Want to See RIGHT NOW." These can be any movie: not out yet, new release, old, or classic. All movies count and can be included.

Now, I should preface this post by admitting that I am not a big movie watcher. I like movies just fine, but I usually prefer the book, or any book. My imagination typically pleases me more than someone else's . So, you may wonder, why am I choosing to dip my toes into this 10oT if it is not something I can sink my teeth into (and yes, I referred to a lot of body parts in that there sentence considering it isn't even about body parts. Weird.). The answer is, um, well, just because. So there! Also, I have recently seen two movies, in a theater (I KNOW!), and I typed into my cell phone a list of movies, that based on the previews, sounded good so I actually do have something to say ...

1) The Hunger Games Yes, yes, it is based on a Young Adult novel, kind of like Twilight but trust me, this ain't no Twilight. I really want to see this movie. Like right this very second. Now there is the problem of me reading the book, in all honesty, at least a dozen times. I LOVED the book. In fact, it so captured my imagination, I forgot that the characters were kids. That being said, the pre-release hype of the movie is positive and well, if it is a dud, I will still love the book.

2) Twilight Breaking Dawn, Part 2 Having just mocked Twlight a mere sentence or six ago, it may seem stupid to say I'd like to see another Twilight movie. But I have a reason. The reason I want to see it and all of the horrid acting and gawdawful CGI effects is, well, because I saw the other three. I'm invested. I know this movie is going to be pretty terrible. I'm hoping it is going to be so terrible, it is a bit campy. And, if not, well, I hope some young underage beefcake has his shirt off so I can at least be a pervy old lady.

3) Safe House I'm not a huge fan of Denzel Washington (though I did enjoy him in The Pelican Brief) and I don't find Ryan Reynolds unbelievably hot. I did, however, like the trailer and I really got pulled in by the music during the trailer, so yah, I added it to my cell phone list.

4) GI Joe: Retaliation Full disclosure: I saw this on my list and had absolutely ZERO idea what the hell it was. A google search for the link lead to the trailer and hey, this looks like a nice brainless action flick! It has The Rock, a man with nice physique and a fellow University of Miami alum, AND it has some odd version of Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes. Good enough for me.

5) Carnage I know two people, who do not know each other, that have seen this play in Boston. They liked it. So yah. It is likely gonna hit close to home for this suburban stay-at-home-mom, but oh well, color me intrigued, I want to see it. Being that it is basically an hour long, I would rather see it at home OnDemand than for $11 in a theater.

6) Shame Uh, hello Michael Fassbender! I suspect that this is one of those movies where I am going to be uncomfortable and squirming in my seat just waiting for the awkwardness to be over. That being said Fassy has given some interviews which just warm the cockles of my ~~loins~~ heart. Heck, the man referred to letting his "beast" loose and destroying "the sweet shop" HOLY CANOLI! It may be purple prose, but dayum, me likes!

And, that is the end of my cell phone list. Which leads me to movies I haven't seen and are OnDemand ...

7) Moneyball Brad Pitt, looking hot and not like a dirty hippie? Yum!

8) Columbiana A woman is a "stone cold assassin" ... yeah for female empowerment. Also, I have some sort of twisted idea that it might be cool to be a cold, bad ass, killing machine. You know, if you only killed really bad people.

9) Horrible Bosses Now I know this wasn't huge hit (to put it nicely), but. BUT, if you know me or read really old posts in this here blog, you know that I truly had a Horrible Boss. A real wackado. One who would leave you a present one day 'just because,' and then not talk to you for the following two weeks because you didn't say 'Hi!' when you passed her in the hall. I mean I guess technically, she wasn't horrible so much as INSANE. But still. I want to see this movie and laugh and say "WIMPS! That ain't no horrible boss!"

Okay, right, well, I am now kind of stuck on number nine because nothing else appeals. Um ... hey look! Over there! Is that Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender?

Busted

2012-01-21T21:29:00.000-05:00

Tonight I made the kids macaroni and cheese from a box. You know, the crappiest type of mac and cheeses out there. Their favorite of course. The cheese sauce, as you may know, is made by combining butter (yum), milk (yum), and neon orange powdered cheese (uhhhh). Tonight, in my hurry to get dinner ready, I did a poor mixing job and a wad of neon orange cheesy buttery goodness caked onto a few noodles. A good mom would have stirred this in so that the kids could have as much cheesy flavor as possible. I'm not a good mom. I used my fingers, scooped that wad out, and indulged in that strange cheesy paste that transforms blah cardboard into crack. Only to hear J1 squeal, "Mom! You can't eat standing up, from the pot!" I told her she was right. And she told me to go to time out. So I did. And then she told me when I could get up. I suspect that if she knew why I was using my fingers I'd have been in that time out a whole lot longer.

Prickly

2012-01-20T14:14:00.002-05:00

Another day, another cowl? Perhaps. It seems to be a thing for me lately. Because, you know, this, my second cowl makes two, which is a thing? Oh Jenna. Anywho ...

At our annual Knitting Party, this year's swap gifted me with this yarn in the Christmas Cactus colorway. Now it is sock yarn, so one might think making socks with it would be logical. I, however, am not logical. Also, I recently unearthed (in my husband's car's trunk ... weird, right?) a pair of half, or perhaps a quarter, knit socks still (obviously) on the needles. Those socks are somewhat brain-requiring and I didn't want to start another pair so I did a little search of the yarn in my colorway on Ravelry. It is not the most popular colorway out there, but I saw this, and even though the dye lot there is a lot more red than mine, I decided to give it a go. Also, I am currently addicted to cowls.

The yarn was easy to ball up and had not a single knot. Sadly this is worthy of both note and excitement. What the hell happened to quality control yarn makers?? Anyway, the big down side of this yarn was the fact that knitting more than a row turned my fingers a lovely reddish orange. I was able to wash my hands each time I finished working on it and the dye came off. But it was annoying.

The dye leaching was annoying. And perhaps a smarter person would have not only remembered that, but thought about it before starting the blocking process. I did remember it, and not wanting my neck or my collars to turn colors, I gave the cowl two good washes in Eucalan. And then I let is soak in a third batch over night. In my sink. Which is some new age product and not porcelain. The next morning the water was reddish orange and so was my sink. NOT WINNING! Several serious scrubs with Bar Keepers Friend and the sink was once again white, but I was annoyed. Even with all of this washing and soaking, the cowl left reddish stains on three consecutive towels as I rung it out in prep for blocking. Also annoying.

As noted in these instruction, the actual pattern used was this one. I used it too. My only deviation was due to my inability to pay attention. In mine, the garter rows between the yarn over rows vary from three rows to five. Reddish orange fingers and all, I am happy with this cowl. It wraps around my neck three times and is more snug than loose, but not too snug. That being said, one of my CiF folks seemed to really like the yarn at our Knitting Party, so perhaps I will CiF ... I'm undecided right now.

Yarn: Done Roving Frolicking Feet, Christmas Cactus, 1 skein
Needles: Addi Turbo Circs, size 3.5 mm (US 4)
Pattern: Garter & Eyelet Cowl
Modifications: Varied the number of garter rows between lace/yarn over rows.
Time: 18 days.
Care: Machine wash, gentle cycle, cold water. Dry flat to block it out.

#48293

2012-01-19T10:44:00.001-05:00

J1 was telling her little sister that she didn't want to play with her. But she was doing it in a nasty tone and making J2 cry. So I was trying to explain to her other ways she could deliver the message without sounding like a snot and hurting J2's feelings. And this is why, two days later, my kids keep saying, "Please leave me alone, I want to play with myself." Parenting fail.

Toilettes

2012-01-15T14:58:00.000-05:00

This morning, I had the pleasure of taking mes bébés to The Cheesecake Factory for brunch. We met up with some awesome friends, the girls got some awesome Christmas presents, and we had an awesome meal. Sadly, due to Schikabibble's (the current in vogue name for Baby #3) placement directly on top of my bladder, and having a companion who is three and a half years old, there were a couple of not so awesome trips to the loo. And each and every time, I, or we, were faced with the automatic flushing toilet.

Now, in principle, the automatic flushing toilet is brilliant. It cleans up for people who are too dirty, lazy, or germaphobic to actually push the flusher themselves. In reality, well, in reality, it is never that nice. For some damn reason, the automatic flushing toilet will never flush, not even once, for the person before me. When it is my turn, however, the thing will flush a half a dozen times. Now, let me be clear, I am not a twitchy person, I don't have Tourette's, and I'm not wiggling around when I'm in the stall. Nonetheless, that toilet flushes like I'm marching a band in there with me. Inevitably it flushes once I've lined the seat with paper before I've even managed to sit down. Then once I re-line, it flushes again. A flush or two while I am going and then another when I stand up. Each flush, of course, mists my rear end. So basically I am using a public bidet. Which, quite frankly, is probably one of the grossest things out there, if there exists such a thing. A quick google search reveals that though there a lot of complaints about public flushing toilets, there is no technique which prevents such misting mishaps. I suspect that most people do not feel a need to, proverbially, build a better mousetrap, which is why I am converting, flip flopping, switching alliances. No longer will I be a line it, sitter. Nope, from this day forward I shall always be a squatter.

Not As Intended

2012-01-08T22:14:00.003-05:00

Despite the insanely warm temperatures (Damn you Global Warming!), I knit myself a warm and bulky cowl. In my mind I knew EXACTLY what I wanted. I wanted it to stripe, but not too obnoxiously. I want it to be neutral, but not boring. I wanted it to wrap around my neck twice, but not have too much extra play. I wanted it to be seamless and soft. Sadly, that which is in my head is not necessarily one with reality.



I used Jared Flood's Noro Striped Scarf as a jumping off point. But I did jump off quite a bit. Which is to say I knit two rows per color, and did so in a 1x1 rib. I didn't do any of his pretty edging, or use his pattern numbers.


The knitting of this baby was pretty darn quick. I enjoyed watching the shades of the Noro pop in and out. I did not, however, enjoy picking the twigs out of the Noro or dealing with the random breaks and knots in the yarn. In fact, that part was really friggen annoying. Not as annoying as trying to seam this monster together though. While my provisional cast on seemed quite normal, it wasn't. I used a crochet chain. Used the bumps and started my 1x1 rib. Which, I learned at 11:45pm on New Year's Eve, was an epic fail. It looked normal before I took out the chain, but it wasn't.

   In fact, it was almost as if it was not actual knitting. This may have been daunting to some, but not me. Oh no. I was sure it would be fine once I got to grafting. Ha! And HAHAHA. I had about 10 resources on grafting in a rib, none of which were actually spot on, and tried to cobble something pretty together. I tried. Over. And over. Never really stopping. Well, that's not quite true. I did take a quick break to ring in the New Year with a smooch for my husband and a chug of some iced tea, but that was it. And that is perhaps why, at 1:00 a.m. I said 'to Hell with you' and weaved in my ends. I wasn't thrilled, but I was tired and I wanted to be done.

The next morning, I was still tired, but I was also horrified. What awful crap was this? What happened to the perfectionist yarn cutter I once was? At the (smart) urging of a friend, I ripped, and cut that shit out. And then I started again. I had to reknit several inches because my end weaving was that damn good (unlike my seaming) and so the stripes are now no longer perfect. This irked me. And it still kind of does. But I am going to pretend it doesn't. In any event, I reknit and then, using my pea brain, decided to use the tried and true mattress stitch instead of some new age grafting stitch I made up out of frustration.



I do have a seam, but it isn't too unseemly (hardy har har). If you put the seam in the back, you can't tell my stripes are not in perfect colorlogical pattern order. So, good enough!

Yarn: One and a quarter skeins of Noro Big Kureyon and one skein of an unknown grey yarn I received as a gift from a friend
Needles: Addi Turbo Circs, size 5.5 mm (US 9)
Pattern: Noro Striped Scarf
Modifications: Cast on 55, knit 1x1 rib, bind off, mattress stitch
Time: Two weeks
Care: Dry clean (as if)

One of Four

2012-01-05T15:14:00.000-05:00

So remember when I mentioned that cruel, cruel mistress, Craft It Forward (CIF) 2011, which incidentally has not been seen anywhere in 2012 because people learned their lesson? No? Did I mention it? Well if not in short (heh, as if) there was a status on facebook that read something along the lines of:

It's time to Craft-It-Forward! Would you like me to make you something special in my oh-so-abundant-free-time? I have had way to much wine and am feeling friendly. I also smoked crack and dined on magic mushrooms. Life is a rainbow, experienced on the back of a unicorn. I will plan to craft something for the first five people that write a comment AND re-post this status on their own walls. Even as I type this, I suspect it isn't going to end well but I want something awesome from someone else. I am selfish. I will pay for this selfishness. Eventually your craft will get done, but only after I feel so guilty for being a slacker and have received a craft from you or someone else. Please pass the dutchie from the left hand side.

Perhaps it was a bit more succient. In any event, I had CIF well under control (read: no one had crafted me so I felt comfortable not having crafted someone else). But then. But then I was having a crochet issue with the Sweet Pea Shawl and joked that a friend could crochet my shawl for me as my CIF gift ... AND SHE DID. But then my other friend randomly appeared with an awesome felted gnome bag, with the gnome modeled after a real life one, well real life statute, obviously. So then my feet were to the fire. I am working on something for the crocheter, but in the meantime, gnomey said she saw a bandana cowl at a LYS and wanted to make one some day and I thought to myself I AM ON THIS. Except this is me we are talking about and so by on this I mean I had a month to feel guilty for not going to look at the cowl or picking yarn or starting the knit. But somehow I got off my rump and got to knitting.

It took me a week and a half to get her done, but I did it. I followed the pattern EXACTLY but because my yarn wasn't bulky, I doubled it. While this makes the fabric warm and dense, it does inhibit the drape to some extent. Having never seen the thing in real life, I was constantly checking other people's versions on Ravelry and kept thinking mine looked loooonnnnnggggg. And now that I have seen the one in the LYS, I can say my version IS long.

But my friend swears she likes it, so I am going to assume this is true. When she tried it one she gave it a little swagger. A swish and a wosh. Or something. It does not look as long and about-to-get-caught-between-the-boobs on her, as it did when I tried it on. I consider this a good thing.

As an aside, the yarn I used, Rios, while lovely to knit with, SUCKED BIG MONKEY LIPS to wind. Before I realized that CIF was a really stupid idea, I bought this yarn with various CIF ideas in mind. The first skein was twisted and knotted and took me an hour or so to wind due to having to manually untangle the shit. I figured it was a fluke. WRONG. The second skein? A FUCKING NIGHTMARE. There were so many knots and twists and tangles, I had to cut the yarn to get it out of the skein. I had to ball it by hand because it was so tangled on the swift that every turn made it worse. It took me DAYS to get it into a manageable ball. I have NEVER EVER NEVER NEVER seen such a disaster of yarn in a normal unassuming looking skein. If, and that is a big if, IF I ever buy this yarn again, it will be with the insistence that the yarn store ball it for me.

Yarn: Malabrigo Rios, almost 2 skeins, 52 Paris Night
Needles: Addi Turbo Circs, size 6.5 mm (US 10)
Pattern: Bandana Cowl
Modifications: Doubled the yarn
Time: A week and a half.
Care: Machine wash, gentle cycle, cold water. Dry flat.

Foggy

2012-01-04T10:51:00.000-05:00

I've been so damn slow at blogging my knits, in this case more than two years, that the details of what I did are some what ... foggy. NOT THAT I AM OLD AND LOSING MY MIND. I'm not. Advanced maternal age my arse. I'm a spring chicken dammit. Now, what was I talking about?

So, another Christmas stocking. I've blabbered on about Christmas stocking knitting. A lot. The stuff about the first stocking was useful. The stuff about the second stocking was not really present so I guess I can't say it wasn't useful. Anywho, I am going to shake out the cobwebs and hope for the best. I plan on knitting a third stocking next year for our third baby, who is due in April. A boy child?!?!? I go forth optimistically thinking I will remember something useful.

The stocking. It was fine to knit. No surprises or deviations. I started at the top and worked my way down, like the pattern calls for and unlike I did for the first one, where I went from the toe up. Once the stocking was knit, I went ahead and bedazzled it. I DID NOT BLOCK IT. Short of a tsunami, that sucker is never going to see water.

I have an "In Progress" knitting photo and an "In Progress" post-knitting, pre-seaming, damn what a mess photo.

These are of no help, and I am not exactly sure why I took them. Though the bedazzling was not difficult, it, combined with my inexpert color work, made for quite the train wreck on the oh-so-very-wrong side of the stocking. Also, I am not the best bedazzler ever. Or, maybe I *meant* for the boy snowman's arms to have muscles ...

What? Snowmen aren't JACKED? Well mine is. So there! Other than some creative bedazzling, the only other issue with the stocking that I had was its length. Having actually loaded that sucker up with goodies this year, I can say that the thing is HUGE. It is at least an inch longer than the first stocking.

It's the second to last one on the right. The one practically dragging on the ground. To fill it seems like a MASSIVE undertaking. I thought I was going to have extra stuff sticking out of the top. Instead? Instead it was like a cavernous black hole. It looked sad and kind of gaping in the middle.

There was another slight hiccup with the lining. As in the first one I cut, and a sweet friend sewed for me, was too small. I didn't account for the space the seam would take up. Duh. Not winning. My second go around turned out fine size wise, though my seaming it into the stocking itself was a little ghetto-riffic. Sometime I will tell you about the story of my sewing machine, the five+ year belief that I had lost the power cord, and the startling revelation that I actually didn't. In the meantime, I like the stocking a lot. It was not nearly the pain in the ass that I experienced my first go around and I am glad I knit it and hope my daughter enjoys it. If she doesn't, I'll just pinch her.

Yarn: Elegant Heirlooms, Googleheims Stocking Kit purchased from Angelika's Yarn Store
Needles: Addi Turbo Lace Circs, size 3.25 mm (US 4)
Pattern: "Moonflakes"
Modifications: Added extra stripe around white name band so both top and bottom had a red and green stripe. This matched the first stocking I knit.
Time: Ummm, two years total. EMBARASSING. But also due to my sewing, or lack thereof.
Care: Only use it once a year and don't let anyone touch it.

I Got Nothin

2012-01-03T13:52:00.000-05:00

So two out of three of my last posts have been about ... clean laundry? Christ on a cracker! Can you say boring? This is what happens when you are home all the time with two midget tyrants and a third on the way. You start relishing things like clean laundry. Someone needs to have an intervention. And perhaps, it could involve some prime steak, chocolate and a Louis Vuitton or two? Hello? Anybody? Damn.

Last week I did have the pleasure of slipping on some black ice and landing into a position known as Tebowing (going down on one knee with your head bent forward in your hand), NOT to be confused with teabagging, that is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Anyway, me, black ice, Tebowing. Oh, and did I mention it was right in front of about a gazillion people at ESPN? Yah. Awesome. Also, I am still immature enough that I jumped up "laughing" in an attempt to mitigate my humiliation and did not instead start crying like a baby because HOLY! SHIT! my Tebowed knee HURT. And, for the record, STILL DOES. I fear I will be that 70 year old lady who falls, breaks a hip, and insists on walking away thus causing more damage, and ends up quadriplegic.

Anyway, other than my bimonthly fall, things have been pretty quite here. There has been a bunch of finished knitting ...

Like Juliet's stocking. Which, actually, I finished knitting two years ago, seamed up last year (and made a liner that was too small) and just this year finally made a new liner which was sized right.

Like a cowl for a friend. Which I did for "Craft It Forward" a most AWFUL idea, and something that one year later I have yet to complete.

Like a different cowl for me. In which I learned that the power of my mind can not affect physics. Or, alternatively, I am an idiot.

I have put them up on my Ravelry page but have yet to blog them. Which I will. Soon. I think. In the meantime, I need to go upstairs and make sure my two year old has not dismantled the child locks on the window and attempted to scale the roof. What? That isn't normal for a two year old girl? TELL ME ABOUT IT.

Smile

2012-01-02T10:45:00.001-05:00

Starting the New Year off with happy feet in clean hand knit socks!

Annual

2011-12-25T16:30:00.000-05:00

As you may recall, I like to name my Christmas trees. So, without any further fanfare, behold this year's Christmas Tree: CHARLIE SHEEN.

Yes, he looks just fine. Handsome. He's not as tall as I'd prefer. But still. Seems good looking. Suave. HA! When you get all up in his business you realize he is CRA-ZY. His branches grow every which way, up down, right, left, hell, some even grow back into the trunk of the tree. He randomly sprouts HUGE GAPING HOLES. And ...

And an ENTIRE branch just fell off. FOR NO REASON. Like I said, this tree is bonkers.

Winning!

2011-12-20T08:54:00.001-05:00

This morning I went to check the laundry situation and was greeted by the most heartwarming sight ... My husband had washed my hand knots and then smartly, correctly, awesomely left them out to air dry! Score!

Done!

2011-12-01T16:58:00.001-05:00

My version of the Moderne Baby Blanket is dooooonnnnneeeee!

My pictures leave something to be desired (to put it mildly), but I am so done with this baby, that I can't see me waiting for nice light and doing another proper photo shoot.

Yarn: Knit Picks, Swish Worsted, White, Sugar Plum, Amethyst and Parrot. Less than 3 skeins of each.
Needles: Knitters Pride Nova Circs, size 4.25 mm (US 6)** These are a lot less expensive than Addi Turbo Circs and were just as nice **
Pattern: Moderne Baby Blanket
Modifications: Made MUCH smaller and improvised on squares once I figured out what I was doing.
Time: Less than 2 months.
Care: Machine wash and tumble dry low.

Armageddon

2011-11-11T08:34:00.001-05:00

First the freak snow storm. Then 12 very long days without power. Now on day 14 of no cable/internet/phone. As of those alone weren't signs ... It is 11:11 on 11/11/11!!!

Progress

2011-10-23T22:24:00.001-04:00

One more (quite) large block and it is on to the border!

Fancy Schmancy

2011-10-20T10:58:00.001-04:00

I, without waiting in line (because I'm not a kid anymore), got the brand new iPhone on Friday! And I just figured out that I can blog from it. I also, assuming this works, can add pictures. Like the following screenshot of a conversation I had with Siri, the phone's artificial intelligence, last night.

Moving Along

2011-10-14T09:14:00.002-04:00

Slowly but surely I am making progress, and a few modifications, on the Moderne Baby Blanket.

And, truthfully, I am enjoying this. It is pretty brainless knitting I can do while I am catching up on bad television, but at the same time, the blocks are small enough that it keeps me interested. I had mapped out how I was going to knit the various colors, but I already changed that twice ... and am probably gonna do it again. Am I crazy fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants knitter or what?

Show & Tell

2011-10-11T08:57:00.000-04:00

This week's Ten on Tuesday is Ten Things You Did This Weekend and guess what? I actually did ten things ... you know, other than sitting on the couch and catching up on the DVR!

1) Indulged in some Starbucks Shaken Iced Green Tea, caffeine and all!

2) A family field trip to Magic Wings, a butterfly conservatory in Massachusetts. Now, I suspect I might have mentioned it, oh like a gazillion times, but I really, Really, REALLY don't like bugs. At all. So why in the hell did it not occur to me that I might not like being swarmed by butterflies? It was like Hitchcock's The Birds, only with bugs. Kind of pretty, colorful bugs, but bugs nonetheless.

Despite the fact that my skin was crawling, I sucked it up for my kids. This is what is called AWESOME PARENTING (and probably the only example of such this weekend).

3) Next to the Bug House 'o Horrors is the Yankee Candle Flagship Store. We stopped there, where, it seems Santa is fond of the knitter folk as he decorated the top of one of his trees with yarn.

4) Late lunch/early dinner at Red Robin. Specifically, a Teriyaki Chicken Sandwich with a salad ... delish!

5) Cleaning up regurgitated Red Robin. Come on now, you didn't think it was all kitten and candy over here, did ya? Take one little girl with a hacking cough which leads to coughing fits, and throw in a belly full of food, and well yeah.

6) Knitting and unknitting a Moderne Baby Blanket,

7) Harvested all of the carrots in the garden. Which, even though they average about four inches long, is way more than we'll ever eat. Ever. Want some carrots?

8) BJ's ... the store, not the verb. Y'all ain't nuthin but a bunch of pervs!

9) Outfitted my eldest with el cheapo shirts from Old Navy. There was a sale. So now she has forty-three hundred long sleeved t-shirts. Of which she will probably only wear two. Despite proclaiming her love for each and every one in the store and again before I washed them. Because she totally likes to bust my chops. Of the joy of being three years old.

10) Repaired the stroller tire that EXPLODED in the car as we were driving to the Bug House 'o Horrors. What? Stroller tires don't explode? Bullshit! It sounded like a bomb went off as we were driving down the highway. I almost messed myself. But the kids were there in the car too so I kept it together. Oh, wait a minute, why I do believe that is another example of AWESOME PARENTING. Go me!

Ribbit MDLXXXVII

2011-10-10T14:08:00.000-04:00

SONOFABITCH! So you know how people say, "READ THE PATTERN, IN TOTAL, BEFORE YOU START KNITTING!" Yah, well I did do that. Even so I still started knitting the WRONG &^%@!$^* blanket. There is a big, adult-sized, blanket on the left page and a smaller, child-sized blanket on the right page. Some dumbass (yours truly) cast on the stitches for THE ADULT SIZED BLANKET. All that knitting I finished ...

Rrrrriiipppp. That 'swatch' up there was basically two squares, instead of one. I could have finished block two already if I was paying attention, but no, I wasn't. Dammit! I couldn't figure out why I was using up so much yarn on the first square and then it hit me that perhaps I should check the pattern again. So, note-to-self, if something seems hinky, it is!

Being Nice

2011-10-09T19:06:00.000-04:00

So a friend, my old personal trainer, asked me if I would knit a baby blanket for her so that she could give it to her best friend as a baby shower gift. She offered to pay me, but it seemed weird since I had just asked her an exercise question and well, now, let's say I find myself knitting a baby blanket. For a friend's friend. For free. And I need to finish it like, yesterday. Mind you, I don't knit for other people. Ever. So I had to really search far and wide for a pattern that seemed quick. And easy. And interesting. Or at least not boring. Though let's be honest here, quick was more important than interesting. So now I have this ...

And I am hopeful that it is going to turn into a Moderne Baby Blanket. Like yesterday. Oh boy.

The letter B

2011-10-06T16:51:00.000-04:00

For some reason blogger has taken to hatin' on me. Holding posts in limbo for a month or more or just refusing to publish them. Hatin. On. Me. Perhaps from my lack of use? I'm sorry. Geez. Get over yourself. Someone else might go and block and copy and try to publish the fuked posts that way, but I am, apparently, not that someone. Which you know. Sad for you. They were AWESOME posts. Not.

Anywho, I am trying again to post. In a timely manner. So we'll see. And this post is brought to you by the letter B. As in ...

Juje and I were driving in the car and I hear her sweet little voice perk up from behind me, "Mom! I have a Bug!"

Me: You have a bug?

Juje: Yes! Wite he-uh (Right here).

She holds out her hand: Bug!

Me: You want me to take the bug?

Juje: Yes, take me bug!

Me: Uh, ok ...

I use my Go-Go-Gadget Gumby arm and reach my hand back behind my seat and body and blindly aim for her direction. We make contact, and I feel something in my hand. I bring my hand back to its normal position and realize ...

Me: JULIET! THAT IS A BOOGAR! NOT A BUG!

Juje: Yes, mommy! Bug!

Perils of Gardening

2011-09-01T21:37:00.000-04:00

Time marches onward. Apparently without my words of wisdom littering the information super highway. Who'd of thunk it? Even so, I do feel the need to tell you, no warn you, no WARN you, about the deadly dangers of gardening. What? Gardening you say. Pushaw, gardening is for little old ladies with little hats, hardly what one would call dangerous let alone DEADLY. Yah, I thought so too. Lies I tell you. All lies.

This year Jillian decided she wanted to plant carrots (thank you Curious George) and so when she got carrot seeds for her birthday, well one thing led to another and BAM we have a garden with things like basil and chives and oregano and mint and eggplant and broccoli and tomatoes and lettuce and parsnips (snuck under the radar as "white carrots" when someone was a whiny pants) and of course, carrots. Well the garden has been going along swimmingly. Sort of. There have been many animal intrusions on my tomatoes including one that took the fence down and ripped my fence polls out of the damn ground. A bunch of acrylic yarn later and that bad boy was back in business. Since then neither deer nor Hurricane Irene were able to take down the fence again. All hail acrylic yarn ... well for all things not knitting.

Anyway, I was weeding this garden of our when I almost died. Every day or so when we'd be outside, I grab a weed or two and relocate it to the "forest" that borders out property. As I never was a formal weeder, I never did formal things like "wear gloves" so it was with a bare, virgin, hand that I grabbed a weed. A weed which immediately sent pins and needles into every place in my sweet little hand that it touched. Fingers, palm, thumb, zowie! A weed so painful to touch, that when I looked down at my hand, I expected to see raw, open, bleeding flesh. A weed so deadly that it caused two of my fingers and my thumb to throb and then go almost numb. HOLY SHIT, RIGHT? This all happened in less that a minute of touching the little bastard. HOLY FRIGGEN SHIT, RIGHT?

Obviously I dropped the weed immediately, but at that point the damage was done and I planned the last words I was going to say to my children and located the perfect place to lie down and take my last breath. I took a picture of it so that when I was found dead in a heap, CSI would view my pictures and be able to determine which foul biological weapon had attacked me.

Instead of say, being SMART, and calling 911, I texted my Garden Savvy Friend Michelle. Her response to my dire predicament, "Duh, you should have worn gloves." To which I was all, yes, thank you Captain Obvious but how long until I DIE? Her response, "Well, you're not dead. Yet. Don't worry about it." In hindsight, now that I have lived, I know to never contact Garden Savvy Michelle regarding matters of life and death. So, anyhow, as my afternoon progressed, I did not in fact "die" though I did continue to have ridiculous pain in my hand. Every time I examined my hand, I expected to see slices and cuts, but there was nothing was visible. It was so damn weird. I was having a nerve damage paralysis thing going on inside where you couldn't see it. I googled the hell out of everything I could think of (like to know if it was safe for me to sleep or if I would be sleeping an eternal sleep) but nothing came up. Bizarre.

The next day, the pain had mostly gone away, but there was still some residual nerve tingleyness that I DID NOT LIKE. Which is why, that night, when I met with my knitting ladies, I relayed my near death experience. At the end of my tale of woe, my LEAST garden/plant/landscape savvy friend, was all, "Ohhh, you weeded a stinging nettle." And LO AND BEHOLD SHE WAS RIGHT.

So there you have, my near death experience. With two important lessons. First, stinging nettles (which apparently have medicinal value ... SUUUURRRREEEE) hurt like a mofo. Second, when you are about to die from an unknown plant attack, ask a knitter for info, she will know more than Google.

Maybe I Need Cats

2011-05-25T17:22:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure who decided that canned tuna and pasta were a winning combination. It most certainly is not. Hell, I'm not sure who decided canning tuna was a good idea. It is, in fact, also not. Fresh tuna? Fabulous! Canned tuna? The opposite of fabulous. That being said, I've been hard up for EASY and QUICK dinner ideas for the kids. Jillian refuses to eat almost everything and Juliet eats almost everything. So, with this all swirling in my little pea brain, I decided to dump a teeny tiny can of tuna in a bowl with some plain ziti and some butter. A simple tuna casserole type thing. I mean millions of (fucking weird) people LOVE tuna casserole so my paired down version would be okay for the kids. This is what I thought. I mean knew Jillian would be suspect but I thought Juliet would eat the hell out of it. So it was worth the experiment ... also hello Omega-3's nice to see ya!

Well, Jillian was indeed suspect and with the whining and the whining and ohmygod the whining, pushed my buttons to the point where I threw down a bowl of un-tunaed plain ziti with enough force to create a ziti shower ... Woot! Woot! It is raining ziti! Now, while my crazy level is HIGH, it is not so HIGH that I did not realize that perhaps things would be better if I walked away for a few minutes. So I did. And when I returned Jillian had eaten the plain ziti and Juliet, dear sweet, I will eat anything but ice cream and greek yogurt (what the hell is that all about) Juliet, she had also eaten the ziti, while picking off the tuna. Every. Single. Bit. Then she took the tuna bits and rubbed them all over herself. So now I have a baby who smells like cat food. Let this be a lesson ... a-note-to-self ... don't think you can fool your kids into eating something you know is nasty. It will backfire. Spectacularly.

Girly Food

2011-04-19T15:34:00.007-04:00

A certain little girl turned three in these parts and there was some crafty (craFty not craPPy, though there was some of that too) baking going on as a result. Like a cake! A pink cake! A pink cake, shaped like an apple!

I have no idea why she wanted such a cake or how she dreamed it up. But here is my version of an apple shaped cake (pre-frosting). I ~~copied~~ was inspired by the Apple logo and, if I hadn't been up until three in the morning alternating between the cake and dealing with a sick baby, I think I would have remembered to swish the bottom part. She was happy, even without the bottom bit carved all right and proper, so WIN!

We also had some cake pops! And sugar cookies! With regard to the cake pops ... FAIL! I mentioned I had some cake pop problems and knowing that I tried another test round. Because you know, my kids is turning three which is such a big deal that I needed to practice. Ha! Me = Nutjob! Anyway, test round number two? That worked a little better and seemed to have helped with my dripping issue. So, of course, the final "real" batch turned out fucktastic. I ended up with three pseudo Hello Kittys who were really Hello Kitty's demonic sisters. One has a tumor, one is cracked out and one is perpetually scared like something is being rammed up her ... oh wait, there was, a lollipop stick. Anywho, there were many duds which I threw on a plate and referred to as a kitty graveyard.

'Twas only after I spent a day slaving over those motherlovin' cake pops and icing a gazillion cookies, that I realized I had nothing to shove a candle in, and well, you kind of need a candle to blow out on your birthday. So an uber-early morning trip to Starbucks netted us the cupcakes. Though I totally could have made them. And they would have looked just like that.

Socky Sherbet

2011-03-28T14:17:00.012-04:00

This weekend, while sprawled out on a couch during a girls' weekend, I finished the Sunday Swing Socks. As soon as they were done, I put them on and went for a walk along the beach hunting for sea glass. It turns out, I am a MUCH better sock knitter than I am sea glass finder ... even after consuming an entire bottle of wine and some Poochi Poochi Sake.

These socks were so unbelievably easy to knit. So easy that I never actually printed out the pattern. I looked at the pattern online and knitted from the iPad for the first round or so and then realized that the spacing was six stitches and eight stitches and that was then end of my need for the pattern. I did goof at one point and switch the eight and the six so one repeat is off, but I am pretending that it never happened and in fact, that last bit of the sentence is going to self-destruct as soon as you click away from this entry. Seriously. It will. Though you shouldn't click back and double check or my secret Sycophant Zombie Army will have to come and assimilate you into the fold.

Anyway, I digress. These socks are easy. Though I suspect that if these were your first socks, you might want to refer to the pattern a little more than me. I didn't alter anything in the pattern, except the cuff/ribbing, which I had started before I determined what pattern these socks were going to be. I'm not sure what the pattern calls for but a simple k1,p1 rib works fine.

Also fine? The yarn. It is ArtYarns and it is lovely. I am a fan of ArtYarns yarns and am bummed to hear (from several unrelated sources) that the woman who is ArtYarns is a bit of a yahoo who is trying to re-brand herself and in doing so is pricing her self out of the market. Well at least for cashmere. Which these socks are not. But still. I don't like the word on the street. Assuming the sock yarn stays affordable, and you are interested, I'd say it is a nice knit. Not splitty. Not knotty. Smooth and flowy and squishy. I'm not sure how it will wear and if the colors will fade (Koigu I'm looking at you ... fader!) as I have only used the ArtYarns cashmere and silk before, but I am hopeful. Really hopeful. I have a skein leftover, as well as a bit left over from each skein that I knit the socks from and am thinking kid socks (though these aren't superwash which could be tricky with the under three crowd).

So, as the great Charlie Sheen would say, these socks? WINNING, Duh!

Yarn: ArtYarns Ultramerino 4, less than two skeins, color 127.
Needles: Addi Circs, size 2.5 mm (US 1)
Pattern: Sunday Swing Socks
Time: 4 weeks!
Care: Hand wash and dry flat in shade.

I Tried

2011-03-18T13:36:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, for St. Patrick's Day, I decided to spread my culinary wings and make corned beef in the crock pot. I somehow ended up with a slab o' beef that did not include a spice packet, inconvenient as that is the other ingredient in 99.9% of slow cooker corned beef recipes. The internet told me to use pickling spices, to which I thought, vodka? 'Cause I use that to pickle my liver ... other than that, I have no clue what makes up pickling spices. By this point, both of my kids had decided to climb the walls and/or eat dog food, so I said, "to Hell with it!" quit my research and tossed in some mustard powder, black pepper, white pepper, a truck load (about half a cup) of garlic cloves and water. I cranked that baby up to high and hoped for the best. Which it turns out, was a good way to go as severalhours later the corned beef was quite tasty. I took my tasty corned beef, put it on some bread with the garlic and coleslaw and made a Reuben sandwich. Because you know, nothing says Happy St. Patrick's Day like a Reuben.

Thank You Sr. Sheen

2011-03-13T23:16:00.002-04:00

I've had this big plan, or rather, BIG PLAN to make cake pops for Jillian's upcoming birthday. WINNING! I've even dropped some murmurings about fancy cake pops. BI-WINNING! It is all very exciting. Or rather was. You see, I've had this plan for awhile and was quite bummed when Starbucks started carrying cake pops (in hindsight this probably was the universe telling me to get the hell off the cake pop bus - a bad batch of tigerblood must be why I missed this sign). I was bummed because it both took some of the wow factor away from my future unveiling and also raised the bar being that the Starbucks ones are pretty darn good.

So, with that in mind and knowing that my kitchen is perhaps the world's, or at least my town's, most sucktastic kitchen and such sucktasticness usually negatively affects my baking (yah, dozens of loaves of blank tasting pumpkin and zucchini bread I am talking to you), I decided, for probably the first time in my life, to practice. I went out and got all the fixings and dudes, if I had a tail it would have been wagging on hyper drive, I was so psyched. My kitchen was where it was at and beat anything 99% of the world was doing. I baked the cake and it tasted good. No, GOOOOOOOD. WINNING, duh! Then after it cooled I made the cake ball mixture and it was, well okay. The frosting was meh and took away from the greatness of the cake. But I could use different frosting for the final product so no worries. Tail? Still wagging happily. Once all was mixed, it was ball making time and that wasn't too bad either. My balls were not perfectly round, but they were okay. I tried a few other shapes and they were less okay than my balls (yes, that makes me laugh), but not too totally terrible. Next was stick insertion and even that went well. The last step, the most crucial step, the dipping. The dipping, it is where things went ... downhill.

BYE WINNING! I dipped and I dipped and then I dipped some more and apparently you need a degree in physics or rocket science to get this done right because my balls turn to crap. Lumpy dripping balls of crap. My fingertips radiate not sunshine, but death. My Adonis DNA has let me down. I've watched the Bakerella Cake Pop video, repeatedly, and even another cake pop video, repeatedly. And yet, without fail, my dipping turns to dripping and my pops become massive balls of FAIL. My tale is not over yet, DEFEAT IS NOT AN OPTION! I shall continue to drink tea made of pulverized dinosaur fossils and practice. And practice some more. And if things look still bad, well then I can only hope a team of Vatican assassins take me out before I break my baby's heart with substandard birthday fare.

Olfaction

2011-03-08T12:55:00.010-05:00

Another Tuesday, another chance to wow you with ten things! This week? Ten Favorite Smells and with that, we're off ...

1) Teen Spirit. COME ON. You had to see that coming a million miles away. A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido, YAH! I have no idea what Teen Spirit smells like ... locker rooms and desperation? Wait, I think that is the NFL. (Oh, and for the record, I realize that you will now have that song in your head for an eternity. You're welcome.)

2) Cookies baking. I suspect that this one is on everyone's list. Well, everyone that is you know, human.

3) L'Occitane Aromachologie Volumizing Shampoo and Conditioner. These are really flowery girly smelling (especially the shampoo, the conditioner is a but more muted) and I typically prefer more herbal smells for hair products. This stuff, however, wins me over. I remember using it at the Four Seasons hotel in Miami after my aunt died. I was sadder than hell, beat down and generally dog tired, but this shampoo/conditioner managed to perk me up a tad. When the smell wafted out as I scrubbed the shampoo in, I felt pampered, and in fact, when I use it now, the smell still is pampering to me.

4) A burning fireplace. But not mine. I can never really get my fireplace to send out that fireplace smell. Well except for the one time I forgot to open the flue and almost killed us all. But normally, when I am not burning my house down, I can't smell 'fireplace' in my own home. I can, however, crack my bedroom window as I am going to bed in the Fall and winter, and smell it from my neighbors.

5) Steaks on the grill. Because apparently I am, smellematically anyway, a pyromaniac.

6) Philosophy Amazing Grace. About a month or two ago I was at Sephora and there was a jug of Philosophy Amazing Grace hand lotion on the counter. I took a pump, rubbed it in, and was IMMEDIATELY transported back to Florida. There is something almost sunscreen-esque about the scent that makes me feel like home.

7) My newborn babies. When my kids were brand new, but you know, cleaned up, they had this delicious smell. Kind of like oatmeal? I dunno. I can't describe the smell, and suspect that there is some sort of biological pheromone thing going on to help a hormonally wrecked new mom glom onto her new baby. Whatever the reason, my babies both smelled Del.I.Cious when they were brand new.

8) Sunshine. I remember as a kid, coming inside and my mom giving me a hug and saying I smelled like sunshine. At the time, I thought it odd. Now that I am older, I know what she meant. A day in the sun has a scent. A yummy scent. And it is not body odor, you know, in case you were worried.

9) Coffee. I suspect this is a common one. But that is okay because coffee, coffee smells gooood. I love the smell of coffee so much, that after a night of stitching and bitching at our local Starbucks, I don;t mind walking out smelling like coffee. In fact, I like it!

10) Beer breath. I know, that is weird. The opposite of baking cookies and coffee. Really weird. I am not sure what whacked childhood trauma it taps into, but I find there to be something sexy about beer breath. Mind you, the owner of the beer breath can't be falling down drunk or it turns from sexy to repulsive in seconds. But in the right circumstances, I find beer breath hot.

Sockalooloo

2011-03-02T00:34:00.000-05:00

In between all of my cowl knitting, I have been working on my old Knitting Olympics/Ravelympics sweater. I'm plodding along without much motivation, but it is a brainless sweater that cruises along. Now that I have the front, back, and hood done, you'd think I would crank out the sleeves and be done with it. You'd think wrong. Instead, I've been working on a pair of socks. I dug out some yarn I scored at last year's SnB Holiday PartySwampamajig and balled it (I'm a Baller, yo), but wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. I batted around the idea of pedicure socks but couldn't commit. So I started the cuff and then carried it around in my knitting bag. Because you know, why not carry around random yarn?

It turns out my aimlessness was fortuitous as Linda is making a pair of socks and recommended the pattern she is using for my yarn and badabing badabang, I got me some actual socks on the needles.

Though this picture is some what crappy as one of my beloved little snowflakes took the camera battery out of the charger and put it ... somewhere unknown to me (JERK!), and I had to use our old camera, it doesn't totally hide an error I made in one of the socks. I was watching the snooze fest that was this year's Oscars and was moving along nicely until BAM, Jude Law and Robert Downey, Jr. appeared and were entertaining. That split second of shock was enough to have me all hinky in my sock. But not so hinky that I ripped back. I did tink, but the tinking is noticeable and yet, I am okay with it. One might consider this a sign that my kids have started to beat me down. If it gets much worse, if I let errors roam free, please stage an intervention.

Not Half Bad

2011-03-01T13:06:00.004-05:00

This week's Ten on Tuesday ... 10 Things to Like About March. Wow, that is kind of hard. My husband is a big fan of listing things he likes about months and even has a favorite month that DOES NOT CONTAIN HIS (OR MY) (OR THE KIDS') BIRTHDAY. I love him more than lobster, but I would swear this is weird. Apparently though, not so much? People seem to categorize this type of stuff and I had no idea. Anyway, when the husband talks about months he likes there are things like pitcher and catchers, spring training, bonfires and FOOTBALL! But me, I say, meh. I like seasons ... hello Winter, goodbye sweat ... but months in particular don't turn my crank. That being said, I am up for the challenge. Or at least I think I am. Let's see.

Ten (I hope) Things to Like About March

Number 1: My wedding anniversary! Not only did I marry my husband in March, we actually met for the first time in March, nineteen years ago. HOLY COW. Nineteen years. Hard to believe I met my husband when I was three years old [snort]. Anyway, this year is our seventh wedding anniversary and so I need to go find some copper and wool. Yah, wool. My husband is married to knitter so how easy is that for him? I mean, obviously, I could knit him something from wool, which could be easy and make me a nice and loving wife, but HA, No. We are talking about me here.

Number 2: Spring. My anniversary is on the Vernal Equinox and so I know for a fact that Spring starts in March. Truthfully, I'm not so into Spring. Lots of rain and mud and muck when I'd rather have the snow. I do, however, like flowers and I also like trying to grow veggies in my ~~death beds~~ plant beds, all of which require Spring like weather, so yippie Spring!

Number 3: One of my favorite (and embarrassing to admit to) television shows, Nikita, has a few weeks off before it's next new show. While I am irked that I have been left on a cliff for weeks, that means there is going to be a new Nikita in March ... yeah March! HELL. That was a total lie! I just looked up the link for Nikita and in doing so saw the preview for the next new show on APRIL 7. Hell and damn!

Number 4: March is a short word to write. So you know, if you are in school and have to write the date out, and like, spell it, then March is MUCH BETTER than, say, December. There are three whole extra letters in December.

Number 5: For most of March kids are back in school which means less rush hour traffic. I don't really deal with rush hour traffic anymore, but I remember getting annoyed when school was out and all of these extra people, extra people who were in my way doing stupid fun things while I was going to work, would be clogging up the works. So Woot! Woo! March! Go with your lighter traffic load!

Number 6: I like the cold. I like long sleeves. I like scarves. That being said, I also like skirts and so March is kind of a compromise for this conflicting set of likes. I can wear a long sleeve shirt with a scarf. And a skirt. My legs are blindingly white, but they are exposed to natural light which is kind of nice. There is a counter-argument to be made for no skirts and no shaving of the legs, but we will just ignore it for now.

Number 7: Each Day in March has some observance. A few of my favorites: 3/5 Multiple Personality Day; 3/7 National Crown Roast of Pork Day; 3/8 Be Nasty Day; 3/14 National Pi Day (Why? Because it is 3.14, the value of Pi); 3/28 Something on a Stick Day; and of course, 3/31 Bunsen Burner Day.

Number 8: March Madness. Now let me preface this by saying I don't like basketball. Not at all. And living in a state where Women's Basketball is King (or perhaps Queen) in the sport hierarchy, well, that sucks when you like College Football and even baseball. Howsoever, I LOVE MARCH MADNESS! I love filling out the brackets and watching the drama unfold. The brackets appeal to the orderly OCD part of my brain and the drama, well duh, who doesn't like drama. Last year I let a not-even-two-years-old Jillian fill out a bracket. All of her picks revolved around Sesame Street which is why she is probably the only person in the world who pick Murray State (Murray is a character on Sesame Street) to win any game at all. I mean come on, how great is it that?!?

Number 9: St. Patrick's Day. My husband is an Irishman named Patrick. So I must like this day, as per our marital contract. And well, his day is in March, so you go March!

Number 10: The last snow storm of the 'year' is typically in March. Not to beat a dead horse, but I like the cold and I like the snow. Usually March has the final-hurrah snow storm. It's never much, but it is there. In fact, of my last six wedding anniversaries, three have been snow-filled, so those seem like decent odds for March snow.

Yes, I know, I WAS stretching it. [ETA: I just read this list and realized I forgot March's Spring knitting patterns ... D'oh! That is better that traffic. And here, Easter candy! Geez, I forgot a couple of goodies!] Maybe there aren't a lot of awesome things to love about March, but. BUT. But there are some good things, I mean come on, Multiple Personality Day? I like it. Me too.

Repetitive

2011-02-18T21:57:00.001-05:00

Yah, you people who doubted my ability to control the weather? FOOLS!

Two days ago I finished knitting another cowl and the last two days the weather has been in the upper fifties and low sixties (fahrenheit) and very un-cowl wearing like. I am omnipotent. Feel free to seek favor with cookies or large bills. Or Louis Vuitton wonderfulness. I am not picky. I am also not hardcore badass when photographed in an artsy manner. But I try.

In any event, I knit a cowl that is eerily similar in pattern to the one I knit a month or so earlier. It was going to be for a Craft-it-Forward Facebook thing, but then I realized that the Malabrigo worsted yarn is basically roving and I don't like it. Not one bit. I KNOW. Another secret I need to keep from the cool kids. Everyone loves Malabrigo. Hell, I love the colors of Malabrigo, but the worsted merino, well, I am not sure what is the appeal. It is roving in a skein. It is shite. Not surprisingly, it wears like shite as well (my fingertipless mitts have more pills than my local pharmacy). Nonetheless, even after I realized my yarn choice goof, I plugged on through and now have myself a cowl that does not shed every time I pull it over my face. I like it though it is a little smallish, or rather my head is a little biggish.

The pattern calls for two skeins and I used just one. As you can see here, that was what I had left for the seaming. Since this seemed ... odd, I measured the cowl before I seamed it up and it was in line with the pattern specs. I'm at a loss. When I finished seaming, I had maybe a foot of ~~roving~~ yarn left over. From the first skein. Which ... yeah? I dunno. It is not even really a happy thing as I am not in love with this stuff and am chomping at the bit to knit something else with the remaining skein. Meh.

The pattern itself was super easy to follow and overall, even with my poor yarn choice, I am pleased with the finished product. So that, not-so-meh.

Yarn: Malabrigo, Worsted, Merino Wool, #37 - Lettuce - 1 skein.
Needles: Addo Circ, size 5.0 mm (US 8)
Pattern: Tuesday Night Cowl
Time: A month.
Care: Hand wash cold and dry flat in shade or dry clean.

Still in Rotation

2011-02-09T13:35:00.005-05:00

Quite some time ago, I knit Jillian a sweater. And, because, miraculously, I am not the worst parent in the world, the child has managed to grow. And grow. And so the sweater I slaved over no longer fits. Now, I suspect you think I am going to now tell you how I knit her another sweater, which, um, whoops! Not so much. Just because I am not The Worst Parent, I am also not The Best and so the kid has absolutely no handknits. Not a one. With this winter being cold, she could have used one so, negative points for me. Anyway, I did knit that one baby sweater, and guess what, I got me a baby who is wearing it.

Jillian was much younger when she wore this sweater and so she didn't beat it up too much. Juliet The Destroyer seems to grow at a slower rate, and is also smaller than Jillian was, so the sweater is getting a lot of wear. Which is good. And the sweater is actually holding up. Which is also good.

Oscar The Grouch

2011-02-08T13:20:00.007-05:00

Today's Ten on Tuesday topic is Oscar flicks. Unfortunately my husband has never won an Oscar so I don't have any pictures of my, now deceased, cat with an Oscar. I do, however, have an old picture of Ernest with one of my husband's Emmys so, that is what I am using. Pictures are nice with blog posts. And both are awards for some sort of achievement related to the media, so let's pretend this makes sense and move on. Ten on Tuesday. Movies you like. Specifically your top ten favorite Oscar winning films. Unfortunately The Academy and me, we do not agree, because my favorite movies? Not Oscar winners. Pulp Fiction? Nope! The Hunt for Red October? Nada. Dangerous Liaisons? Negative Red Dog Leader. Steel Magnolias, Return of the Jedi, Taken? No, ni, non! I do realize that part of the problem is that I am not a huge movie buff. I like movies just fine, but I'm not the type of person that enjoys watching the same movie over and over. A book, if I like it, I will re-read immediately. But a movie, not so much. That being said, I do enjoy watching the Oscars, while eating cheese fondue and betting on who is going to win. So, in an effort to comply with the topic at hand, I went through some past winners and decided which, of the winners, were my favorites (and having typed this, I realize that this was probably what most people are doing because really, how many people's favorite movies won Oscars? I am thinking, not many). And then I came up with a list of, well a list anyway. So here we go ...

Not Quite 10 Oscar Winning Movies That Didn't Stink
in my humble opinion

1. Slumdog Millionaire: Okay, this one could actually be elevated to movies I like. Not only did it not stink, it was quite enjoyable. Well all but that bit where the kid was swimming in refuse. Swimming in shit? Not enjoyable.
2. The Departed: This was also really good. Also, as a bonus Leonardo DiCaprio actually looked manly (unlike in say .. Titanic, which eh, blech and booo).
3. Gladiator: I don't care for Russell Crowe, but he looked kinda hot, so that helps this emerge from the pack. And, despite the fact that I do not like this movie, I cry whenever I see the end. Which, is actually quite often as it is always on t.v. and my husband always stops to watch it. Anyway, since it can make me cry, it gets a nod from me.
4. Shakespeare In Love: This movie didn't suck. I saw it in the theater and didn't want to demand my money back. I haven't watched it again, mind you, but I remember thinking it was okay. Well, but for Gwyneth Paltrow. Ms. Goop may be pretty, but her personality seems so annoying and it leaches into her movies.
5. Silence of the Lambs: This movie scares me. Still. I've seen it, or bits and pieces of it, a million times and yet, I am always scared. I chalk that up as a sign that the movie doesn't stink. Also, there are oodles and oodles of great lines ... PUT THE LOTION IN THE BASKET. Enough said.
6. Amadeus: My husband loves this movie. Me, I like the crazy laugh they gave Mozart. It makes me laugh. A lot. The rest of the movie? I couldn't tell you a single thing about it. But the laugh? Total winner.
7. Patton: I know. This is an oddball choice. I watched it in high school in my history class and other than the fact that it was seemed like the longest movie ever, I really enjoyed it. This is odd since I have no love, or memory, for history. But there yah go. If it pleased my sixteen year old self, it must not stink.

Outted

2011-02-03T22:52:00.002-05:00

Hi, my name is Jenna, and I have a secret. A deep dark secret. A secret that all the cool kids are gonna laugh over. A secret that will make 'em snigger and point.

I know it is rather pedestrian, but I like using a cable needle. I prefer it. Maybe it is gauche. Maybe it is old-fashioned. Maybe it slows down the knitting process. But there ain't no maybe about the fact that cable needles are just so much easier than the other options. So there you have it. I use cable needles because I like them. Commence the mockery!

Bed Side Table

2011-02-01T14:36:00.000-05:00

When life gives you two kids and yet another snow day, well, if you're me, you gather The Little Mermaid, an exersaucer, and some goldfish crackers and then you hide yourself in the office with coffee. Lots of coffee. Then you dig through your e-mail and see that the Ten on Tuesday topic is 10 Things On Your Bedside Table and figure, I've got two hundred things on my bedside table so this is no problemo! I did give thought to cleaning off my bedside table before photographing it. Heck, I even thought about giving the dust a swipe, but then I decided authenticity would be more appreciated. Okay, that is totally not true. Though I appreciate authenticity when people share slivers of their lives, the reality is that I am vain enough to want to clean off my bedside table before sharing it with the internets. Unfortunately my kids care not about my vanity but instead about MORE PRETZELS WOMAN. So the pictures were taken slapdash and you get a glimpse of the real mess that greets me every morning, dust and all.

Without further adieu ...

1) My lamp. Something about a bedside lamp screams ADULT. Or this could just be because I didn't have a bedside lamp until, oh, about two years ago. I love this lamp and when my table isn't loaded down with stuff, it is like a little happy acrylic beacon that makes me smile. That being said, this lamp is a smidge obsolete now because my alarm clock (my husband's cast-off because he would send it flying whenever he hit snooze) has a built in night light. Nonetheless, I like the lamp and my husband has a matching one on his side, so it's staying. Note that the shade is once again straight. I noticed it was a bit wonky after I took the pictures and fixed that immediately. OCD? Me? No, why do you ask?

2) Two baby monitors. Two kids, two monitors, two reasons why I don't get eight straight hours of sleep.

3) Hand sanitizers. There are three different types of alcohol based hand sanitizers on my nightstand. It's not because I am some freaktastic germaphobe (I like to lick toilets as much as the next gal), but because of the kids. Inevitably someone is sick and since I am beckoned for binky retrieval or blanket fluffing (no, I am not kidding, it is ridiculous) at least once in the night, chances are I am encountering a snot factory or am one myself. The hand sanitizer is one of the ways I try to keep the snot factory to a factory of one, either by sanitizing myself before I attended to my charges or sanitizing myself afterwards.

4) Hand Lotions. All that alcohol hand sanitizer? It dries my shit out. So I have lots of lotions. These are usually lotions that are not my favorite smell good stuff, but more utilitarian. Currently I am a fan of a Gold Bond tube. It is made for feet, but I noticed that when I slap it on the feet at bedtime, my feet AND my hands look better in the morning. Win-win.

5) Stack o' books. These drive my husband INSANE. They are a leaning tower of trashy romance novels that I love and when I want to unwind before bed, these are my go to reads. Each has been read, at least, a dozen times, and each one I still thoroughly enjoy.

6) Borrowed books. There are two borrowed books. First, The Hunger Games, which I checked out from the library and HOLY GOODNESS! I've had it for two weeks and read it three times. It is fluff but oh-so-delightfully-good. Good enough that I am going to be getting my own copy once the library gets its back. The other is the new Susan Elizabeth Phillips book, Call Me Irresistible. It isn't as laugh-out-loud funny as some of her old ones but it was good enough that I started it at 10:00pmish and ended up going to bed at 2:00amish because I read it straight through.

7) Synthroid. You are suppose to take thyroid medicine in the morning and on a very empty stomach and that means nothing for an hour after you take it. So no coffee for an hour each morning after you take it. Ha! And, uh, not gonna happen. I leave the stuff on my bedside table and take it when someone wakes me up at some unholy hour, or, I take it the second I wake up. This lets me mainline coffee all the sooner. Also, Snythroid makes a good rattle when you have to bring a baby to bed and want to doze a little while longer. Unless you have a destroyer baby who can open child-proof medicine bottles. If that is the case then you might find yourself half-asleep, in a rain shower of itty bitty synthroid pills and wondering what the heck is going on. FYI, this is like a shot of pure adrenaline to the heart and really wakes you up quick.

8) Water bottle. Needed for the synthroid as you take it with "a full glass of water" but not "a full glass of coffee."

9) Stain stick. My laundry basket is just around the corner in the closet so this is the most convenient place to leave the stain stick and the best hope for me to remember to use it. Which I rarely do. Though I really should. Me = slob ∴ stain stick necessary.

10) Note pad & pen. Every night when I crawl into bed, I think of a dozen things I need to do the next day. And, every morning when I wake up, well, I can't remember them. So the pads and pens are suppose to be easily accessible so I can write stuff down. Typically the pen won't work or I am under the covers and so they never get used. But I leave them there. Hope springs eternal.

Kosher?

2011-01-08T21:20:00.004-05:00

You know how they say bad luck comes in threes? Yah know? Right? Well, first I bought some yarn that looks really pretty when it is in a skein.

But looks like dogshit when knitted up. I haven't knitted it up, but I did a Ravelry search and saw some of the projects and well, wow. Just wow.

Second, I knit a hat. An Unoriginal Hat which fits so queerly, that I look like a yard gnome. In fact, I honestly cannot look at either the hat or this picture and not laugh out loud.

Third, I bought some yarn. Some newly released yarn according to the LYS owner. I asked if anyone complained of knots or breaks and she said oh no. Not that. In fact the only problem she had heard of, and it was on the internet, not from one of her customers, was that the tail of the yarn is sometimes woven into the skein, hard to get out, and can tangle.

Are you kidding me? This thing ate up my swift like a fat kid eats cake. RIDICULOUS.

So that is three right? Right? Let it be known that I am cordially requesting that we all agree that this is my three so that my knitting can return to normal.

Holy Cowl

2011-01-04T21:43:00.004-05:00

So in, literally, two days I whipped up a cow that I had seen at Stitches East. I left that typo there because it amused me. I knit a cow. Wahahaha. Okay, not really funny anymore. Moving on. Or not. I did say Stitches East which means last October, which means a finished object from last year is being blogged this year. I should be embarrassed but I still have a few finished objects from TWO years ago that I have not blogged so let us ignore that and really move on. I knit up a cowl. It was quick and I love it. Almost.

I love that it was a super duper quick knit. I love that the color is neutral but doesn't get washed out in my amazing complexion despite my fabulous lighting in that there photo above. I love that it covers the quadruple chins (that I acquired AFTER giving birth to Juliet, WRONG). And really, I could stop there. Hides multiple chins? WIN.

It also can double as a stole on a toddler and even a pre-schooler (which says VERY BAD THINGS about the aforementioned quadruple chins). And, for the record, the pre-schooler there, that is her "model pose" which I guess means she has a head ache from being overworked?

I also really liked the pattern. It was easy to follow and well written. I did have a few cables that gaped at the ends. I am not sure what I did to cause this. But I went back and tightened them up with extra yarn when I weaved in my ends because I am anal and crazy and was worried that The Fashion Police would beat me with last year's it bag should it see those gaping holy bits. Twas no big deal.

The only thing I am not totally in love with? The yarn. I double stranded some baby alpaca and some woolly cashmere, which is beyond heavenly soft but ... but it sheds. A lot. I have lint rolled the thing. Repeatedly. I have given it a superduper bath which sadly sucked out some of the body but not enough of the superfluous fluff so when I wear it I tend to sneeze. Or cry. Depending on whether the fluff goes up my nose or in my eyes. And since I have to pull it over my face to get it on, that fluff is going somewhere I don't want it to go. I am kind of hoping that it will defluff itself eventually. But I realize that this likely be a pipe dream. All that being said, even with the fluff, I like this cowl lots and have been wearing it. Tearfully.

Yarn: Frontier Fiber Mill, 100% Suri Alpaca, Regalia, 2 skeins with Filatura Di Crosa, Nobile, Color 15, Lot 0010, 3 skeins
Needles: Addi Circs, size 6 mm (US 10)
Pattern: Burberry Inspired Cowl
Time: 2 days
Care: Hand wash in cold. Dry flat.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T14:55:00.003-05:00

So sometimes when New Year's Day rolls around, I have an overwhelming urge to purge my house of all things Christmas related. This year the urge to purge struck which is why, at nine a.m., with a minor alcohol-induced headache, Jillian and I were removing the ornaments from Tom Cruise. It would have been even earlier but I also had an urge to wax my brows and 'stache (TMI? Perhaps). A great activity to do when you were one with the blender and Kahlua mere hours before. Anyhow, back to the urge to purge Christmas gobbledygook, and taking the decorations down and off of Tom Cruise Tree ... Now I know Jillian is two and a half and not the most delicate flower, but even accounting for her toddler toughness, I have to say, I think Tom was MIGHTY PISSED to be loosing his ornamentation.

Holy friggen needles Batman - and this is only one pile! Tom lost, maybe, fifty needles before today. And those fifty needles, they started dropping AFTER Christmas. Tom had some longevity. He also had a drinking problem as he was consuming ninety-six ounces of water EVERY DAY for TWO AND A HALF weeks. SERIOUSLY? I assume all of that water was what kept him beneedled? In any event, he dropped a few as he aged. Up 'til today when he full on revolted and went from full and beautiful to Charlie Brownesque.

Tom's revenge on his early departure did not end with his massive shed, oh no, it ended on when he sent me careening down my yard on my ass in a bra-less, wife beater, legging and flip-flop wearing state. Yes. That's right. We were taking Tom out to the side of the garage and I thought it would be no big thing so I didn't actually dress accordingly (accordingly to being seen by other humans, like say my neighbors, as I slid past them on my ass). I had on no makeup, in fact, my face probably had that red puffy look of the freshly waxed, my hair was held up with two different hair things, I did not have on a bra, but I did have on a tight white wife beater tank top. With leggings. And flip flops. And after I dropped Tom Cruise on his balding butt, he pushed me, and I slipped on the snow onto my butt, which, in a sign that maybe I need to lay off the cookies acted like a SLED and launched me down the yard along the side of my driveway. Boobs were flopping and GODDAMMITS were flying. Happy New Year's indeed!

Mission Impossible

2010-12-24T15:23:00.001-05:00

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

2010-12-19T16:15:00.001-05:00

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

2010-12-18T21:53:00.000-05:00

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

2010-11-07T00:06:00.002-04:00

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

2010-10-18T19:59:00.004-04:00

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

2010-09-28T12:50:00.003-04:00

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

2010-09-03T14:47:00.005-04:00

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

2010-07-06T13:17:00.005-04:00

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

2010-06-04T14:15:00.004-04:00

"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

2010-06-02T07:22:00.001-04:00

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

2010-06-01T19:49:00.000-04:00

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

2010-05-28T19:54:00.001-04:00

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

2010-05-20T13:49:00.002-04:00

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

2010-05-17T21:49:00.002-04:00

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

2010-05-10T13:35:00.003-04:00

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

2010-05-09T21:33:00.000-04:00

Happy Mother's Day!

Motoring Along

2010-05-08T19:57:00.001-04:00

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

2010-05-06T08:04:00.000-04:00

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

2010-05-05T08:11:00.000-04:00

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

2010-05-04T15:55:00.002-04:00

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

2010-05-04T13:57:00.006-04:00

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

2010-04-25T13:13:00.000-04:00

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?

2010-04-16T20:45:00.005-04:00

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

2010-02-19T11:57:00.000-05:00

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

2010-02-18T14:37:00.005-05:00

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

2010-02-14T22:56:00.000-05:00

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

2010-02-12T14:26:00.004-05:00

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 ...

2010-02-08T15:37:00.000-05:00

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 ...

2010-02-02T21:50:00.001-05:00

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

2010-01-30T18:29:00.001-05:00

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

2010-01-29T15:12:00.003-05:00

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 ...

2010-01-27T00:11:00.001-05:00

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

2010-01-26T23:36:00.001-05:00

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

2010-01-20T11:13:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-19T12:58:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-07T13:40:00.001-05:00

If LB was awake to see this ...

she would LOSE. HER. SHIT.

Fingered

2010-01-06T22:42:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-02T17:35:00.004-05:00

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.

Incompletus

2009-12-26T05:09:00.001-05:00

Poooor Deuce, already suffering from the Neglected-Second-Child Syndrome.

Her stocking was hung by the chimney with care. A whole lot of care being that the toe isn't bound off, the ends are weaved in, the seam isn't seamed, the body isn't bedazzled, and the lining isn't even a pipe dream. Santa must have been afraid because he skipped right over it.

Here's hoping your holidays were a little more successful than ours!

I May Have Crossed The Line

2009-12-25T15:15:00.003-05:00

In year's past I have given our Christmas trees famous monikers. We've had Gisele Bundchen (tall and skinny), Slim Shady (tallish and thinnish), and Danny DeVito (short and fat), to name a few. So, with that in mind,

Heather "Crazy" Mills McCartney (tall, thin, and missing a leg) wishes you all a merry Merry.

Close Call

2009-12-15T14:27:00.002-05:00

It seems that yesterday we were visited by gnomes. Or trolls. Or some other foul creature that took away this:

And left us with this:

Fortunately, the switch was short-lived and we have our sweet-tempered baby back. Which is good because we would have been screwed, I already cut the tags off so I can't return her!

Hustle, Me Must

2009-12-10T13:40:00.004-05:00

Twas a few weeks before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse (especially not a mouse). The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, but for one, which needed to be knitted.

So maybe I should get to knitting while my creatures aren't stirring, eh?

Necrosis

2009-12-09T14:57:00.007-05:00

Well, uh, we seem to have resolved our mouse problem. As the mouse crawled into Noah's Ark and died.

The Ark which will my husband will be throwing away tonight.

No Shit.

That there is the mouse, dead, next to the Ark.

I have to say, as an atheist, I am amused that the mouse died in Noah's Ark. As a mom, I am sad since it was a fun toy and now we have to throw it away. And, as a softie, I am a wee bit depressed at the thought of the mouse crawling in the ark with the mini animals thinking he had found kindred souls, only to end up D.E.A.D. dead. I want to yell at him and say, "See, you shouldn't have come to our house! Duh!"

There is a lot more to the story, such as my husband suggesting we throw away the ark (see, us = atheists) mere hours before the mouse was discovered and me saying no because I liked it; me, the wussiest of wusses, then finding the fucking thing dead in the ark, screaming, throwing the ark across the room thus sending the mouse carcass airborne; LB, seeing me freak the hell out, and mimicking me; and, me, calling my husband on his way to work, telling him I could deal with eleven mistresses better than I could with a dead mouse. I'm gonna skip the details though because really, the details can't top the fact that the mouse died in my kid's Noah's Ark toy.

Duuuuuddddeeee

2009-12-01T20:15:00.004-05:00

I know I don't have to post today being that NaBloPoMo is done and over. That is, of course, why I actually have something funny to post about. You see today, the kids were napping and I was in need of a little sweet, a little something something, and the next thing you know, I had accidentally gotten high. I KNOW. It was crazy. We had a can of ReddiWip. I decided I wanted some of that whipped goodness. I also decided to indulge in my white trashness (and avoid extra dishes - lame), and so I shot that whipped goodness directly into my mouth. And somehow I inadvertently think I did a whip it because I had a mouth full of sweet and a head full of, um, light headedness. Yes, while my kids were napping I was getting high (albeit unintentionally). Am I a model of awesome parenting or what?

NaBloPoMo, 30

2009-11-30T19:38:00.002-05:00

Whew! I made it. Thirty posts in thirty days. Well, thirty-one posts actually. I'm an over-achiever. Some of my posts have been less than stellar, more than some. The majority. Luckily NaBloPoMo is one of the few things in which it is all about quantity and now quality. But still, I did it. Go me. And now, for my final NaBloPoMo post, I shall continue with the shoddy quality.

Tonight we gave TD her first full on bath (as opposed to a sponge bath). She handled it pretty well with only minimal fussing. Once she was clean, we sniffed the hell out of her since the new baby smell was back. In addition to smelling her, we also rubbed her head because her hair is soft. How soft? "Damn! Feel her head. It's like cotton. Or dandelion fuzz." "I KNOW. It's just so soft. I want to cut it off and make underwear out of it." "?"

NaBloPoMo, 29

2009-11-29T19:42:00.003-05:00

I wasn't kidding about my slow knitting, brain farting, mojo.

Two nights worth of work. Here's hoping I can do a little better tonight!

NaBoPoMo, 28

2009-11-28T21:42:00.004-05:00

Seriously? I have re-knit the name band on TD's stocking five. Five. FIVE. 5. times. Holy crap. I'm not sure if it is a brain fart, or what, but it has taken me two nights to knit a six letter name band. I am amazed at my own idiocy.

NaBloPoMo, 27

2009-11-27T22:58:00.004-05:00

I've been (finally) knitting TD's stocking and now it's late and I have no time to blog! Instead I am going to share pictures of my poor, put out, puppy dog, who was bedazzled by LB.

NaBloPoMo, 26

2009-11-26T20:57:00.000-05:00

Now that LB is gaining some brain cells, I decided that we should start teaching her about Thanksgiving and how it is a day where you think about all the things for which you are thankful. Like mommies that are at your beck and call and daddies who read the horrible fish book over and over and doggies that play with you despite the repeated thunks they receive from the balls that you throw at them. Her brain cells, however, are not quite THAT high functioning. So I decided to dumb down my lesson. To wit:

Elmo Cake! When you are gaga over Elmo, you should be thankful at having a special Elmo cake made just for you for Thanksgiving. Right? I mean NOTHING says Thanksgiving like Elmo cake. Ha! I'm not sure if it was the neon red frosting, or the nightmarish thought of eating her fun furry friend, but whatever it was, she was not interested in eating Elmo. Not in the least. Which is fine, more cake for me! That Elmo is one tasty monster!

NaBloPoMo, 25

2009-11-25T21:11:00.004-05:00

Today was the kind of day where I needed to get out of the house. I'm still trying to keep TD away from humans, or rather humans with germs, which means that she is incompatible with going out. Which is why my trip out of the house ended up at the drive-thru Starbucks. 20.5 miles away. Yes, I drove 41 miles for a latte. It was a good latte. But still ... forty-one miles. Wow.

In addition to being crazy-driving-for-a-latte lady, I'm also crazy-buying-a-turkey-and-the-rest-of-the-brouhaha-that-goes-with-a-Thanksgiving-meal lady. Yes, we are doing a real dinner despite the fact that we are dirty, dirty mouse ridden people, who have a new baby, a small kitchen, and no time. I just typo'd moose with mouse, which would be less dirty and more amusing. Though harder to avoid. In any event, I decided to hoop it up, step outside of the box, and am making an Elmo cake for one of our desert items. Basically LB will have something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. It is baking as we speak. We'll see how it turns out.

NaBloPoMo, 24

2009-11-24T13:53:00.006-05:00

Today would have been my father's eightieth birthday. Given that I'm only ("only" snort, snort) thirty-four, that seems downright archaic, and surreal, to me. Anywho.

We've been having a bit of a mouse problem here at Casa da SouthPark. People that know me in real life, know that I don't say that lightly. Considering I am somewhat of a clean freak and I hate nature, mice make me want to scream and admitting we have a problem ... well, yuck. We're dirt bags. Who knew? It started the night TD was born and our dear sweet friend was watching LB. She put LB to bed and plunked down on the couch to veg with some bad t.v. Only once she plunked, Mickey appeared. Thanks for watching our kid. We're dirty. Anyway, a few days later, Boo found Mickey, bludgeoned him to death, and considered it a done deal. Unfortunately Mickey had friends, and now they want to torment us, or rather me. In the middle of the night. When I am half-asleep, defenseless and feeding TD. We've bought traps, but the fuckers laugh at our traps. So I'm thinking we need to rent a cat. I don't want to own a cat. I am a one cat human, and since Cat died, I'm done. But renting a cat, that seems like a good idea. And, if that doesn't work, well, I guess we'll move.

NaBloPoMo, 23

2009-11-23T14:36:00.003-05:00

I'm typing this with a munchkin asleep on my chest. Normally I'd put her down and let her nap in her crib or bassinet, but today I need to feel her warm little body mushed up against me. We had our two week check up and though she is fine, it turns out that she broke her collar bone during delivery. Though "common" with babies who get stuck, it also happens with babies who deliver rapidly. No one caught it when she was first born, and so it healed, or is healing, in a way that TD now has a bump on her collar bone where the bones knit together a smidge unevenly. When the pediatrician said this, I valiantly managed to keep my shit together. In fact, I very calmly said, "Wow, I'm freaking out right now." I love my pediatrician and she greeted this statement with, "Don't freak out. She is great." The pediatrician went through all sorts of range of motion things and strength and stretching things and determined that TD does everything evenly. She then got her partner, another pediatrician (obviously) to check TD out and he did a bunch of exam things and also thought she did everything evenly. Which means that she is not handicapped. But still, my baby broke her collar bone. And she has an umbilical hernia. It was not what you would call a gold star visit.

Also not gold star worthy, semi-homemade Sandra Lee's Thanksgiving meal, or rather the side dishes. They look so repugnant that I am amazed that the Food Network let her make them. And yes, I realize that is totally bitchy and catty, and I realize that it might be me being bitchy and catty because I am upset about poor little Deuce. Transference anyone?

NaBloPoMo, 22

2009-11-22T23:38:00.001-05:00

Christ on a cracker I'm cutting it close, it is almost tomorrow and I'm just now blogging! But blogging I am. If I wasn't on the verge of going to bed, I might make a better effort, but my pillow is calling.

NaBloPoMo, 21

2009-11-21T13:54:00.002-05:00

In a few hours I am going to oogle an under-aged boy. Maybe I shouldn't announce that on the internet ... but then again, impure thoughts, in and of themselves, aren't criminal, right? Anyway, what I am saying is that I'm going to see New Moon. Me, and several of my nearing middle-aged friends.

NaBloPoMo, 20

2009-11-20T12:46:00.004-05:00

Seriously dudes, I am the tiredest person ever. Due to a series of unfortunate encounters with other people's bodily fluids, I found myself naked and in need of clothes at three different times between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. As if that wasn't pathetic enough, these encounters culminated with puke in my hair and the need for a shower when it was still dark out. You know you are tired when a shower does not wake you up in the least. Surprisingly, this morning was atypical and not a regular occurrence in my life. Which could be why I am wrecked. I had visions of starting on TD's Christmas stocking during nap time today. But instead I am eeking out a blog post and then falling asleep face first on the floor. The couch is just too far. And the bed? Separated by two sets of stairs.

I am partially responsible for my own tiredness as I stayed up later than I should have making a Caramel Brulee Cheesecake. It is pretty damn good so I am not sure, even knowing what lie ahead, that I would have skipped the baking and gone straight to bed. I do know I'm not skipping the eating before I take a nap!

NaBloPoMo, 19

2009-11-19T13:03:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure if it is unfortunate or fortunate, but I did managed to leave the house last night, but I did not manage to do anything asinine enough to be blogable. Considering that I forget my name half the time, the fact that I left the house and returned to it a few hours later, all in one piece, seems like a win-win.

Speaking of win-win, can we talk turkey? For the record, turkey has nothing to do with win-win. That was my attempt at a seamless transition. And though it might have worked, it make no sense. Moving on. At my husband's urging, I (probably) will not be cooking a turkey this year. Instead, I plan to buy a pre-made turkey. Anyone ever purchased a pre-made turkey and if so, thoughts? I am leaning toward the Honey Baked Ham Company as it seems to be reasonably priced (unlike Williams-Sonoma ... deep-fried turkey teasing bastards!) and I have heard of it which implies that the food does not suck. Well, not really, I have heard of many places with sucktastic food. But I don't recall hearing bad things, so that's good. Sort of.

Here is a random picture of TD. She is not a turkey, and though she has the skinniest little chicken legs, she will not be gnawed on (by anyone other than me) for Thanksgiving.

Anywho, the upside of not cooking a turkey is that I will have more free time on Thanksgiving. Normally that might mean baby time, but BiL5 will be here, as will a niece, so I am thinking knitting time ... we shall see.

NaBloPoMo, 18

2009-11-18T15:52:00.003-05:00

18 Things I Wish I Did Today But Didn't
Another list, because it is the eighteenth day of NaBloPoMo and I still have nothing interesting and I could type this on my phone while I was pumping.

1. Hang curtains, any curtains, even toilet paper curtains, in master bedroom.
2. Clean the bathroom floors.
3. Make a Goodwill donation run.
4. Starbucks ... going through Pumpkin Spice Latte withdrawal is ugly.
5. Organize TD's room (I did sort of start on this but then there was hunger, poop, and a need for attention so I'm not even halfway done and it stays on the list).
6. Cure LB's cold - granted this is an impossible thing to do, but still.
7. Make dinner that consists of real food, not prepackaged microwave foods or fruit.
8. Make extra dinners and freeze them, 'cause if I'm gonna cook, I might as well cook.
9. Go for a walk - I did ponder this but decided it was too chilly for TD. Also, I'm not sure where my bra is.
10. Do my laundry. This might have unearthed a bra.
11. Paint my toenails. They look sketchy.
12. Paint my fingernails. They look plain.
13. Nap. Actually this can be replaced with "Sort out misc. papers in office" as I did doze off for thirty minutes.
14. Swap out LB's toys for the ones in the basement.
15. Shave my legs. I did get a quicky quick shower so I shouldn't complain.
16. Wax my eyebrows, or rather eyebrow. I need to make the one furry one into two.
17. Clean the hardwood floors. I'm thinking we need a steam mop. Or, rather this is my excuse for not having done them.
18. Fix LB's blackout shade. I broke it and kind of rigged it which means it can't open.

In other news, I am hoping to leave the house tonight for a short stint of knitting at Starbucks (hello lover, I mean latte). Maybe something will happen which will be blogworthy and I can get past the lists ...

NaBloPoMo, 17

2009-11-17T21:16:00.005-05:00

On this seventeenth day of NaBloPoMo, I shall list seventeen things that I enjoy eating or drinking from outside establishments (in other words, the well has run dry of blogging ideas) (also, the word establishment makes me think of a titty bar, and, for the record, those are NOT the types of places where I will consume either food or beverage. I am using establishment to refer to places not my home. Because you might think my home is a titty bar? I make no sense. Moving on).

1. Outback Steakhouse's Outback Special
2. Starbucks' pumpkin spice latte
3. Mom & Dad's stuffed eggplant
4. Dairy Queen's Brownie Batter Blizzard
5. Panera's breast cancer bagel
6. McDonald's french fries
7. Cheesecake Factory's ranch salad dressing
8. Bertucci's lestina pizza
9. Taco Bell's taco salad
10. Dunkin Donut's iced coconut coffee
11. Outback's coconut shrimp
12. Publix' subs
13. Melting Pot's fried broccoli
14. Puerto Vallarta's fajita salad
15. Harvest Cafe's coconut muffin
16. Silver Slipper's kumbak dressing
17. Red Robin's teriyaki chicken burger

NaBloPoMo, 16

2009-11-16T18:57:00.006-05:00

Despite the fact that my daughter was a full-term, full-sized baby, she received handknits from the nursery.

When it was time to leave I tried to give them back but was told we got to keep them. Which I thought this was quite neat as I thought handknits donated to hospital maternity wards were for NICU babies only.

NaBloPoMo, 15

2009-11-15T13:35:00.003-05:00

It's amazing what one day can do to improve your disposition. In other words, I have emerged from my hormonal pity-party and am now among the land of the living, or at least the land of those who wash dishes. Because nothing says normalcy like washing dishes. Oddly enough, last night was the least amount of sleep I have gotten in the past week as my boobs mysteriously dried up and TD was pissed and nursed for four hours straight. Which in addition to being sleep deprived, means my boobs are sore (and that is an understatement so understated that I can't think of anything dramatic enough to illustrate my point other than ow. Ow. OW.). So all things considered, I should be even more pathetic than I was yesterday. But I'm not. Go figure. Instead I am chipper and ready to share a funny anecdote. If only I had one. Which I don't. But I do have something. A weird food. Perhaps one of the weirder foods I have ever stumbled upon. To wit:

Yes, that's right, organic pancake batter (not weird). In a can (weird). We saw it and knew we had to get it because really, how could you pass it up. Should you decide you can't live a complete life without trying pancake batter from a can, then I direct you to the cans of refrigerated whip cream. Nestled amongst the whip cream you'll find this little gem, just waiting to be devoured. And, for what it's worth, I did make one pancake and it was okay. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but what I got wasn't too terribly special.

NaBloPoMo, 14

2009-11-14T10:57:00.006-05:00

This is another one of those posts where I am gonna whine and indulge in hormonal self-pity balderdash, so if you are not currently sitting in a dark room, chain smoking Marlboro Reds and listening to The Cure, you probably are going to be annoyed and have the urge to smack me and utter "Snap out of it!" Which is fine. You can do that tomorrow. But for now, I'm suggesting you take your perky happy self elsewhere.

I've heard over and over that bringing a new baby into the the mix will be "trying" or "hard" but that it gets easier. And I know that I can be a wuss. So I don't know if I am being a wuss, or if people aren't telling the truth, or I am just totally fucking lucky. But bringing a new baby home is like jumping into a volcano. Of acid. With open wounds. Naked. While being bombarded with country music. In other words, from this little portion of the universe, parenting two sucks right now. Surprisingly, it isn't TD that I am struggling with, oh no, she is easy peasy and the antithesis of LB at her age. In fact, she is napping. On her own. And during this nap I have showered, shaved (and what does it say that it has been so long since I shaved that my razor was RUSTY when I went to use it - which, incidentally I did, because my tetanus is up-to-date and I am a risk taker), cleaned out my maternity clothes, and started this blog post. Good baby, no?

It, life, the here and now, it sucks because LB thinks I am the anti-Christ and would rather hit me, throw food at me, kick me, or tell me to go fuck myself (in toddler speak, she lacks my refined vocabulary). I have no concern that I am ruining her life. Instead, I feel as if I am ruining our relationship. And just typing that makes me cry and also take a step back and say, Really Drama Queen? And yes, Inner Monologue, really, so shut it. In the last few weeks of my pregnancy LB was testing me. Asserting her independence and will of iron. So it is no surprise that she is continuing to do that now. But it still hurts. It hurts when she won't hug me or kiss or cuddle with me. It hurts when sees me coming and runs the other way. It hurts that she so totally tunes me out that my voice is silent to her. It hurts when I try to feed her and she would rather shake her head violently, throwing everything to the floor and kicking so hard she sends her highchair across the room. It hurts that starving is more appealing that being with me. It hurts when I grab her, go for a hug or cuddle and hold on as hard as I can, despite the fact that it feels like my retarded boobs are being sheered with glass, and she writhes away from me with all of her strength. It hurts when the one second of the day that she wants to relent and give in and acknowledge me is when I am nursing her sister and have to distance us because LB has a cold and I don't want TD to catch it. And it makes me angry. With her and with myself. It makes me seethe because I am trying. I am. I am trying everything I (and the internet, and the random people I've asked for insight) can think of. And yet. And yet I find myself yelling at her, pleading with her, walking away from her with the tears streaming down my face because I am so frustrated and I know I am making the situation worse. I want to cuddle with her and I want to giggle with her and I want her to know that I absolutely love and adore her with every fiber of my being but I don't know how to bridge the chasm that seems to be in the way. I have to say, that right now, right now parenting two sucks. It is heart breaking and draining and gives you puffy eyes.

(ETA: I realize that with all of my woe-is-me, it might sound like I am alone here on Mt. Pity Party. And I am totally not. My husband is being awesome and doing everything he can to make things better. From cooking and cleaning and fetching me water and cookies to taking TD in another room to give LB and me alone time, or rather LB time to practice her throwing accuracy. Unfortunately all of his helpful awesomeness does not include mind control over LB.)

NaBloPoMo, 13

2009-11-13T14:38:00.004-05:00

Friday the 13th?!? Spooky. Or not.

I started a new knitting project. While I was in labor. I haven't gotten far, but still, it's progress.

I did have some technical difficulties as the anesthesiologist who put in my epidural moved it and dropped five or so stitches and then it got caught on my purse and the yarn tore. But, a little fiddling here and a spit join there and I am back in business. Well, until TD's stocking kit arrives. I did order another one and paid for it, and am waiting for it to ship.