So, there’s a little pond in our backyard. Like everything else done to our house prior to our moving in, it was not done professionally. I noticed some time ago that the pump had stopped. But I didn’t have the mental space, money, or whatever else I needed to deal with it. ‘Til last week.

And it was too late. The only fish I could find in the pond that had previously housed around 10, was this little guy, a descendent of the original 5.

That’s really sad. When we moved here, the pond had one big fish in it. I had an aquarium already with four large fish that I added to the pond when we moved in. And this little guy is all that’s left. I cried a little bit.

So, I got the hospital tank out of the garage, rinsed it, and set it up on the center island in the kitchen ’til we could decide what to do with him. I was reminded of how much I like having a fish tank in the kitchen, so as a family, we decided to keep it. We went out and picked up a filter and decor on Saturday.

I was planning to go with a natural, river theme. Nate really, really wanted a treasure chest that opened and closed with bubbles. Now, I’ve had fish tanks of various sorts most of my life, and I’ve never, ever, ever had a bubbling treasure chest. (Might as well get the neon pink gravel, right?). But I always enjoy making the husband happy, so we went with a Tiki theme.

And I love it!

That stupid little treasure chest is so relaxing to watch.

Open….

Close.

Open….

Close.

Open….

Close.

It’s rhythmic. I’m not going to get anything done for weeks. I could stare at it forever.

Open….

Close.

Which is kind of convenient as Max has decided that napping is for sissies, and being set down is for the dogs. At least I have something enjoyable to look at that passes the time.

The tank is a 10 gallon now. At some point, we’ll get a 20 long and another fish. (And probably some more Tiki stuff. Or a volcano). But for now, I’m content and Khan has some growing to do.

Something for everyone-

For my part, the fish is named Khan as a tribute to Shahrukh. We are still in full blown Bollywood mode at our house. Nate continues to find and bring new movies home. Paheli is the latest that I really, really like. (The talking puppets are hilarious). Watching Shahrukh act is something to behold. He’s amazing.

Liv, on the other hand, would argue that the fish is named for Aamir, another actor we enjoy watching. Taare Zameen Par is a fabulous movie (although I’ve only seen the second half. The first half is a bit sad). Disney has recently released a dubbed version, with the option of watching it original with subtitles. Liv thinks Aamir’s super dreamy. We celebrated his 45th birthday yesterday with pot pie and cookies.

And then there’s my brother, who will undoubtedly always see Khan as, well, KHAAAAAAAN!!!!

On Friday, I received an unexpected envelope in the mail from my friend, Katie. She sent a hat for Max made from yarn she spun, and it fits him perfectly!

It covers his ears and makes his face look chubby, and I love it. Thank you, Katie!

That night, I hosted a shower for my sister-in-law expecting her fifth baby.

She wants a rocker-recliner, so we took contributions for that

and she and I will hopefully pick one up tomorrow.

It’s quite convenient at times, having a graphic designer for a husband. He made a fantastic poster for me that coordinated with the plates and napkins and looked great.

It was a very fun evening and everything turned out well. I had a lot of help with the food, which is great because I was sick last week.

I’m still not at 100%. I’m quite tired and still stuffed up. But today should be a stress-free day. Nate, my knight-in-shining-armor not only made neat visuals for my party on Friday, but he also did the laundry over the weekend and cooked a fantastic dinner last night.

I’m feeling a bit spoiled.

Monday is my get-everyone-off-to-work-and-school-so-I-can-clean-up-from-the-weekend-and-do-laundry-day, but it’s mostly done. So, I’m going to (indulgently rest while I feel like crap) play with the boys and work on the shawl today! (And maybe start on my room, which is a total mess).

The shawl is almost to the second round of increases, which is where I was planning to add the rows of yarnovers.

I’d like to block what I have so I can get a feel for its actual size. It seems so small.

Here’s the last hat I’d planned to make for my mother-in-law.

It’s brioche stitch. Aside from the color variation, it’s the pattern from Weekend Knits. I’m loving me some brioche stitch. It feels amazing. It’s so pretty. It totally has me wanting this book.

So, once I finish shortening the Esther Williams hat I showed you yesterday, (I must have dozed off during the knitting of it, because while I knew I had to lengthen it, I didn’t have to lengthen it 3 inches!), the only other hat I have in mind to knit for her, if I get that far, would be a Tweedy Batt beanie. I wouldn’t have thought my Tweedy Batts would spin into a yarn soft enough, but my wristlets are softer than a hat she got from the hospital that she wears, so I’m interested to see how it’d work.

But, finishing the shawl may be a higher priority right now. I don’t know. I’m fighting a sinus infection and my brain’s all fuzzy.

I was getting ready to take pictures of the progress on my shawl and a hat for my mother-in-law. Unfortunately, I had already turned the camera on before setting it down, and it fell off the table and bounced on the lens.

Now the housing is buckled around the lens and the lens cover doesn’t open all the way without help. Crap.

But it does still work. I need to be grateful for that because I totally can’t run out and buy another one.

Stupid recession.

So, here are my pictures. I hardly have the heart to talk about them anymore.

(Clark wanted his Racer X car in the photo).

I finished this hat for her in January, but we decided later in the month that it was a smidge too short to adequately cover her lack of hair, so I took it back to lengthen it. It’s finally done. Same with the white and gold handspun hat you saw a bit ago on Liv, but I gave that back to her last week.

I have now learned that her very small head is small in circumference, not in height. I have one more hat (I keep thinking of new ones, though) to make for her.

I am halfway through the pattern, and the thing is tiny. BUT, I have enough yarn to keep going, so I’m going to mess with it a bit. I like the lacy bit right at the top center, with the rows of holes, so I’m thinking about adding a section of just those holes. I’m not sure where. We’ll see how it develops.

Dangit, I’m upset about my camera!

Busy week this week. I’m hosting preschool again tomorrow and I’m throwing a baby shower on Friday.

And my camera’s busted.

Sniff.

I started a fan stitch, half circle shawl from Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls. I’m using my handspun camel/silk yarn. It’s looking real pretty, so I’m not sure if we’ll end up dyeing it when it’s done like I’d originally planned.

It’s very, very soft.

So, I’m having a crazy busy week. So much to do at home. So much work. I’m going and going non-stop, and my brain is tired. I want to stare at the wall for awhile to decompress, but don’t really have that option.

I’m still not feeling particularly talkative, but we’re back to sleeping well. Yay!

I’m really excited because I put in 30 minutes on the elliptical five days last week. I only did my strengthening and stretching exercises once though. I keep forgetting that part.

And I exercised again this morning already. For some reason, the goal of fitting better into my current jeans size is more exciting and seemingly obtainable of a goal than losing 80 pounds.

I hope it works.

I still have three knitting projects lined up that I really want to start. And I still haven’t started them. With the current busy-ness of baby, preschooler, girls in school, exercising, and being really good about budgeting our groceries and planning/cooking dinner every night…. it’s easier to grab the guitar real quick for a bit of recreation than it is to commit to a stitch count and start a knitting project that might not work or fit, so I’m procrastinating.

But I miss it.

I’m so tired. I had three hours of sleep last night, and 4 or so interrupted hours the night before. My throat hurts and I can’t walk in a straight line. I hope I can nap this morning.

Max is sick and I’ve been up with him. He had a very croup-y cough on Saturday, so we started boiling a stockpot of water on the stove for 12 hours a day, putting several gallons of water into the air and now he just has a phlegm-y cough. And a fever. Poor guy. He’s been throwing up, too. Fortunately, he can still breath out of his nose, so he can still eat. And while it’s obvious at times that he doesn’t feel good, he’s still trying to smile.

I have a lot going on this week. Not much that is critical, but some running of the girls here and there, a dr appt, parent luncheon, etc. Oh, and I’m hosting preschool tomorrow. It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Out of the blue, Veronica noticed the wool she dyed over the summer, and asked me if she could spin it. Her attempts at spinning over the summer didn’t go so well, so I was braced and determined to be patient, despite the difficulty. And she hardly needed my help at all. She spun a bobbin full and is working on the second. How fun!

I took some pictures. This camera I’m borrowing from Carol takes really nice flash pictures, better than any of my cameras have,

but I still go for the non-flash pictures.

They’re so much more… alive.

My mother-in-law had surgery on Friday. The surgery went well. They think they got everything, said it didn’t look like it had spread, and didn’t have to reconstruct much if anything. There have been complications since the surgery that were scary, but as far as I know, she’s stabilized now and should be out of ICU today. We’re still concerned about her blood, which has to clot in the right places and not in the wrong places, as she has artificial valves in her heart. So we’re not out of the woods yet. Once she’s recovered, she gets to enjoy six months of weekly chemo. Prior to surgery, it was monthly.

I’ve changed my mind about the shawl I’m knitting. Instead of a half circle, I’m going to try a faroese from the top down with shoulder shaping.

Those of you who have been around awhile, like, a LONG while, will remember my green tweed shrug?

I frogged it.

It was kind of fun, actually. At first, I just freed the yarn and walked down the hall, unravelling stitches, then winding the yarn onto my niddy noddy as I walked back to the shrug in the living room. When that became tedious, I sat in the living room with the niddy noddy, and the KIDS walked down the hall, carrying the shrug and unravelling stitches, and I wound the yarn up as they walked back towards me.

I now have two huge skeins of moss green Kathmandu Aran yarn that I’m going to re-knit into a vest. I’m very excited, as I need some new sweaters. Today, I picked out a cable stitch to work into the front/center and all that’s left to do in preparation is soak the yarn to get the kinks out. I have a picture, but it’s on the other computer because I forgot to email it to my laptop before putting Monsters Inc on for Clark.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have pictures :-). I just don’t have THAT one.

Here’s what Max is doing, as I type…

He is getting SO big! Veronica has a hard time carrying him now. I’m guessing he’s about 30% of her body weight and catching up quickly. Of course, she’s a shrimp.

We had a bit of a tragedy this week. I have shawls on the brain, and as I pulled out all of my knits from the hall closet… my big, red shawl

is full of holes. New, unintentional holes.

The wrong kind of holes.

I can’t find any evidence that it was actually eaten, as everything else in the bin is just fine, and I don’t see any moth waste… but I’m not sure it’s fixable. It’ll take a phenomenal amount of time and eyestrain. I’ve counted 7 holes so far, but that was a quick lookover. I’m sure there’s more. One of them is unfixable, but I don’t think that one will spread.

Moving on, because it’s too depressing to linger-

I am planning to frog my huge, Donegal Tweed poncho to re-work into a cardigan. I’m excited. It’s a gorgeous turquoise color with red flecks of tweed in it.

Also, I went through the stash and pulled out two different compilations of yarn for shawls. This one will be a large, half Pi shawl (half circle)

and I found nearly 3000 yards of sock yarn, mostly Koigu with a few skeins of Carol’s yarn which matches up nicely, that will look great together in a full Pi shawl. I didn’t buy them to coordinate, they’ve been acquired over time and happen to be gorgeous together.

All this, combined with a few girl shawls I have planned for this spring (shhhhhh… don’t tell), and I have a year (or more, depending on how distracted I get) of knitting at my fingertips without buying a thing! It’ll make a serious dent in my stash, as all of my yarn fits in that little bin you see under the last picture, and maybe by the time it’s all done, I can afford to buy more!

Well, maybe on that last part.

But I’m looking forward to it, despite the fact that my elbows are really bothering me. I’m not sure why, but I notice it the most when I’m carrying Max, both in and out of his carseat. Infant carseats are brutal and I already make efforts not to carry it, but I really need to stop lugging that thing around.