I made some progress on Clark’s stocking

Here are a couple sweet pictures. I wish we could combine the best of both. It’d be priceless.

I need to shower so I can go out today. Costco run. Clark is crying because he wants to put his toys on my chair, and none of the other 6 barstools in the immediate vicinity are good enough. Max is screaming in the swing because he wants to be held.

Ah, mornings.

It’s been a productive week, and I’m dying for some down time.

Yesterday, I was scheduled back to back from 9 am to 9 pm. And I’m not even kidding. But, we got some Christmas shopping done, and that’s good. I’m close to finished.

Over the weekend, I dyed some silk for a hat that’s so pretty, it makes me want to cry. It’s a honey blonde color. I desperately want to spin it, but haven’t had the chance.

I now have a plan for Clark’s stocking. We’re going to do stars. I’ve picked the colors, and knit 4 whole rounds on it so far.

I have laundry to do, gifts to wrap, Christmas boxes to put back in the garage, etc. I don’t know if I’ll get time for anything fun today, but I’m going to try.

Oh yeah, now that I’m mostly healed up from a biopsy, I need to start exercising again, too.

So, Nate cleaned out the “cupboard under the stairs” over the weekend, and uncovered a box that NEVER should have been there in the first place.

A box I’ve spent hours looking for since we moved into the house 3.5 years ago.

A box full of yarn. And needles. And lots of other stuff. It was the “throw everything lying around the living room into a box because I’m pregnant, and sick, and tired of packing” box.

That one.

It’s the box that had Hayden’s Harry Potter Sweater yarn in it. She gave me her sweater for Liv, and I promised her my yarn, when I found it.

The bad news… it reeks. The cupboard under the stairs gets no air circulation at all. Everything that was in it (which was supposed to be empty boxes and wrapping paper) smells musty, and it’s gross.

Abby tried to wash a pair of knee high boots that she now nearly fits into. It didn’t work. I’ve thrown away the shoes and over half the yarn. I think the needles will air out eventually. But the nice yarn… Silky Tweed, Lopi, Brown Sheep’s Cotton Fleece, and something wildly colorful, tho’ I don’t know what it is… I can’t bring myself to toss. So it’s been sitting in my hall for a few days.

Any ideas?

I think the felted bags are ok. I washed them with my towels in hot water, heavy soil setting. They shrunk more, but that’s not a problem. Is there some safe way to wash my yarn that’ll get that gawsh awful smell out? The lopi, being a softly spun single is the least likely to survive, I think.

Max is crying, gotta go.

Somebody…

just noticed that he doesn’t have a stocking.

Dangit.

I’d brought up the bag o’ stocking yarn a week or so ago from the basement with the intent to finish his. I have about an inch of it knit from a couple years ago. Now, I DO have a stocking for him, it’s even one I made, it just isn’t part of the set that the girls hung from the kitchen island yesterday.

It’s still in the garage with the other misfit stockings that we don’t use anymore. They’re cool, but they’re huge, mismatched, and a few years ago I decided I wanted to make us all smaller stockings (easier to “stuff” and Santa is appreciative) from a single color palette, so while they’re all different, they clearly belong together.

I have plenty of yarn, but as with most other things I’d like to do, lack the time. However now that it’s been noticed, I need to move it up on the priority list.

The kids decorated our tree yesterday. It looks pretty good. I still have boxes of ornaments in the garage, but I’m not sure if they’ll make it out this year. As I’ve said a lot recently, I’m tired and it’s just not that important to me. The white poles in the kitchen are candy-cane wrapped with ribbon. The poinsettia garland is up. I’m not sure what else we’ll get done before Christmas. Maybe we’ll save setting up the nativity for Christmas Eve? That could be fun.

On Saturday morning, Nate and the kids watched the Charlie Brown Christmas Special on the laptop in our bed.

I am not a fan of the Charlie Brown holiday specials. I can’t get over how mean everyone is to each other, and most especially to Charlie Brown. Verbally abusive and belittling. It makes me sad. But my family enjoys it, and that’s ok.

Here’s a cute picture of Max from this morning.

Brandy, we’re really enjoying the blanket you made. Now that he’s a little bigger, it’s perfect for a good, sturdy swaddle. Thanks!

It’s finished. I will still need to wash and block it at some point, but it’s serviceable and I want to get it out to my mother-in-law. It doesn’t match my house one bit, but isn’t for my house, and it’s pretty.

6 skeins of Cascade 220 with plenty leftover, but not enough to make another 2 rounds of color pattern, and 1 more round would look incomplete. I checked.

Size 6 bamboo circular needle.

Despite it’s small size, it’s quite warm. A convenient knitting project for our sub-freezing weather.

I want one.

It’d have to be superwash to be practical in this house.

It has been really cold here. Hasn’t been above freezing in days and seems to hover around 20 degrees F, which means it takes a lot of effort (attention and frequent thawing) to keep the hummingbirds fed and happy.

Shortly before this big freeze, the pump on my goldfish pond stopped working, so there’s been a solid sheet of ice on it for days. I can see something reflective that looks like it’s laying on the bottom of the pond. I’m hoping it’s not a casualty, but I can’t imagine what else it would be. That makes me sad. I wonder who it is.

I’ve had somewhere to be every day this week, (which makes me grumpy), so we’ve had to go out and brave the weather. This has given me an excellent opportunity to use the lovely blanket Carol crocheted for Max. Isn’t it cool?

Despite the weather, I haven’t been cold. Everyone else I’ve talked to is freezing their tails off, so I feel like a bit of a freak.

Nate and I are celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary today. I love seeing the years pass by. Life gets so much better with age. It’s bittersweet with the kids because they’re passing through ages and stages they’ll never be in again, and though it’s great to see them grow into fine young people, there’s a sense of loss for their “little-ness” as well. Fortunately, marriage is the opposite. I wouldn’t go back to the “young married” days for nuthin’! They were certainly great in their own way, and we were happy.

But this is so much better.

Happy anniversary, love! Being a deadline day, I hope you’re able to come home tonight.

I am half way done with the last bar on the Log Cabin quilt. My mother-in-law’s next chemo session is tomorrow, and I was really hoping to have it done by then but this week has been SO busy! Running errands takes a phenomenal amount of time. There’s a reason I don’t make a habit of it, I’d never get anything done! So, I’m still aiming to have the blanket done by tomorrow afternoon, but it won’t be blocked ’til later.

It doesn’t lay completely flat without a little coaxing. It’s not bad, but if I were to do it again, I’d pick up 9 stitches along the short side of the perpendicular bars instead of 8.

I couldn’t come up with one.

Last night, the girls decorated Grandma’s christmas tree. It’s become a tradition that we all love. I guess I should say the kids decorated her tree, as Clark participates now, too. It started out being just the girls, when they were quite little. They usually do it while Nate and I are out for our anniversary, but things got switched around a bit this year, so Nate and I were there and I was able to take pictures and play Christmas songs on my guitar.

In that last picture, you can see a little of Abby’s brioche hat. Here’s another shot that my internet shy friend took at school last week.

Our tree is up, but not decorated yet.

My list of things to do is humungous. I’m chipping away at it. Don’t know when we’ll get to the tree. Max doesn’t want me to do anything but hold him today.

This is a picture I took of Clark yesterday when he was supposed to be napping.

He has a screwdriver and a 2 inch screw that he’s drilling into the wall. I should probably have been upset, but I was really amused.

My house is messy, and I haven’t been able to do much beyond dishes. It’s driving me crazy. My brain doesn’t work when things are this cluttered. Yesterday, I left the house at 11:45 and didn’t stop running around, in and out, here and there, ’til 8:45 at night. Bah! My poor little baby. Both the boys tolerated it beautifully, but still.

This morning after taking the girls to school, I have to run to the store (in my pajamas, I’ll tell you) for diapers. Then I can come home for half an hour or so before having to go back to school for Veronica’s play performance. (Hopefully, I’ll be dressed by then, but I’m not counting on it). THEN, I’m coming home and so help me, I’m not leaving again unless it catches FIRE!

I want to get things straightened up around here so we can spend the weekend decorating for Christmas. I don’t know how that’s going to be possible at this point, with the whole week shot.

I finished the brioche hat for Abby a couple days ago. I wanted to take a picture, but didn’t get to before she was off to band this morning. I haven’t touched the Log Cabin in days. I was able to spend an hour from 10-11 pm last night relaxing with my guitar. That was nice. I was playing “Last Christmas” by Wham. It’s an easy song to play, but I don’t know the verses really well yet. The Christmas Song is another story. I can sing the whole thing, of course, but It’s pretty much all barre chords. The weird ones. Major 7s, Major 6s, 13ths…

I’m still bemoaning the fact that despite my goal every day this week to get things cleaned up, it’s Friday and I’m surrounded by mess.

Talk about feeling powerless.

Right now, Clark is throwing a bit of a tantrum in his room. He’s been at it for 20 minutes or so. Know why? Because Nate told him he couldn’t have the pen I was using to write my grocery list with this morning. I’m hearing “I WANNA PEN!!!!” over and over again. I have gone in and said, “If you want a pen, come out and get one.”

It’s had no effect.

The brioche decreases, as I suspected, aren’t as difficult as they look written out. But I find that’s true for most things.

I don’t think these are written particularly well, which may mean that I’m doing them wrong but it’s working out anyway. Whatever the case may be, I’m getting a good result, and I think I understand the concept well enough to adapt it to the hat I intend to design for my mother-in-law.

Here’s an amusing picture that clearly shows how long it took me to figure out how to do the transition from round to round.

Liv had an orchestra concert last night. She got to play the triangle in one of the songs. Bad mom, when I heard about it some time ago, I assumed that meant she was really struggling with that song and they “put her on triangle” for the sake of the performance. Come to find out, she’s doing really well, and had the sense of timing necessary to play the triangle accurately. Yay, Liv!

That is definitely a mark of improvement on her part. Timing wasn’t a strength of hers going in to music lessons, but (again, bad mom) having the subject brought up recently, I suddenly realized she’s doing significantly better in her guitar strumming now too, and that’s certainly about timing. Another bonus to her playing the triangle is that she stood up, so I could actually SEE her enough to get a picture.

Here’s a picture of Max I snapped this morning as the sun hit the back of the hood of his swing creating some neat light.

Clark is rummaging through our pen drawer now. He hasn’t thrown a tantrum in quite awhile. I think he needs some protein.

I am knitting a lot and am enjoying it so much! I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it.

I’ve made some progress on the Log Cabin.

My initial plan was around 30 inches square, not 40 as I had said earlier. I have one more bar to knit of this “round”, then one more round at which point, I’ll evaluate the size and remaining yarn amounts. To Jean-I’m using Cascade 220.

Over the weekend, I went through the girls’ half of my yarn stash and picked yarn for my first try at brioche knitting.

It’s rather fascinating.

Abby loves the hat and it looks quite lovely on her, so she’ll get it when I’m done. There are some mistakes here and there, but I’m not stressing it as it is my “learning” project. There’s a cabled brioche pattern in one of my stitch books that I’ve always liked. I think it’d make a warm and pretty hat for my mother-in-law but I need to learn how to do it. I’m following the pattern in Weekend Knits, and I’m about to start the decreases, which look complicated.

In a bit, the boys and I are going to my mother-in-law’s house so I can learn how to make her famous fruit salad at the request of my husband. It’s a holiday tradition in his family and one of his favorite things in the world to eat.

It’s cold and gray here, and it’s about time to start decorating for Christmas. That seems so overwhelming to me right now. Not the decorating so much as the fact that whatever I get out is going to have to be packed up and put back away in a month or so. Not to mention the fact that I have to clean up around here before there’s going to be room to decorate. If it were just me, I think I’d buy a little Charlie Brown tree, stick in in a bucket of water, put a strand of lights and garland on it and call it good. And I’m not feeling grinchy in the least. I’m excited for Christmas, I’m just in the mood to do it small and quiet this year. But the girls will be so disappointed not to have all the “stuff” out.

We’re going to need to come to a compromise, I think.