Well, Monday morning I was a total task master, and we got the house cleaner. I don’t think it’ll ever be totally clean again, but it was looking pretty good, so I put Clark down for a nap and took the girls out. We picked up Liv’s glasses, which were in for replacement after Clark broke them the second time in 2 weeks. We went to Hancock Fabrics to get liner for a skirt I’ve been wanting to make Abigail. They were having a big summer sale, so we came home with material for 2 more skirts from the clearance piles. The liners cost double what the outer fabrics did.

Then we hit the bead store.

Each of the girls picked out beads to make earrings, and the owner sat with them and showed us all how to do it. When the holes in Liv’s stones were too small, the lady got up and found an excellent substitute for them. She was so cool.

I bought some round tipped pliers for $7, and a bunch of those D hook things to make more earrings at home.

Yesterday, we extended an open invitation to the sisters-in-law and cousins to come and visit and make earrings. At 10:30, Hilary came and we played with colors and shapes. She left with 5 or 6 pair. At about 2:00, Emily came and made a number of earrings. She left at around 4:30, then at 6 or so, Angie came by. We looked at the earrings, talked about how to make them, and then I taught her how to knit.

She’s a natural.

She left a little after 10, I was still in my pajama pants, I’d been beading and swatching all day, and my house was once again completely trashed. It was a very good day. We planned a camping trip for next week without the men. Maybe we’ll bring beads.

I’ve been swatching for a sweater for Abigail. The swatches are blocking now, but I think I know which one I’m going for.

(totally rotten picture)

I want to make each of the kids a sweater/cardigan for the fall. I have Abby’s pretty much designed in my head, a good start on Veronica’s design, and not the slightest clue what I want to do for Liv, ‘though I’ve found a stitch pattern I’m going to explore. Clark will be last, so I haven’t given his much thought, other than I’d like it to have a hood.

Additionally, I’ve finished the handspun scarf that never made it to the sidebar’s WIP section. It still needs to be blocked.

And the Daisy Swatch Turned Scarf has been finished and worn. It is pretty, but doesn’t hold its block very well.

So today, it’s back to cleaning the house. Again.

Good morning. It’s been a crazy weekend around here, with friends from out of town, relatives from out of town, too many social gatherings, wanting to attend them all…

It’s been a lot of fun.

I had some stellar days this week, and some completely rotten ones as far as Health Group goes. One thing interesting that I learned is that Calorie King gives me more calories burned for weeding than it does for walking 3 mph. My goal was to work in the yard 30 minutes each day last week. I ended up working 75 minutes one day, and being too sore to get out there since.

So I’m gearing up for this week. How was yours?

He slept through ’til 5am. I got to sleep around midnight, so there’s 5 hours or so down. I’m not going to feel caught up for a long time.

We had a great time last night at the baseball game.

From left to right… Nate, me, Hayden, and Tim, Carol’s husband.

We got “goodie bags” with our tickets, which contained size 19 bamboo needles and a ball of Lion Brand novelty yarn. So Nate and Tim got to knit, too. Tim was very excited as it was his first time. Nate’s an old pro, tho’ it’s been a few years. I was proud of how little help he needed. The cute old ladies in the row in front of us were very impressed. They kept turning around to ask Nate if he still had the same number of stitches as he cast on. :-). Then they asked him if he cooked and cleaned, too.

Well, he cooks sometimes….

Yesterday was hard. It was really hard. Harder, I’m sure because I’m not sleeping. I’ve spent enough time on the blog detailing exactly how much I’m not sleeping, so I’ll spare you, but once he woke up again at 12:45 last night, I just stayed up with him and slept as I could in my chair, with Clark on my chest.

I took him to the doctor this morning, and as I suspected, he’s clear. No infections, nothing to medicate. It’s good to know though, because at night when he’s screaming and won’t even let me touch him… well… tonight it will be comforting to know I’ve done what I could.

So on the way back from the doctor, we stopped by the Bead Hut, which was highly recommended by Ellen. I thought that if I bought something sparkly, I might feel better. So I came home with swarovski crystal beads to do the only thing I know how to do with them, make stitch markers.

A friend of mine has made a bunch of stitch markers recently, and it reminded me of how much I enjoyed making them. So it’s been on the brain. The problem is, I have absolutely no need for more stitch markers. I have oodles. But I have friends in need, so anyway, I bought beads. Then I ended up using the beads I had already.

I love the third set down. Total mid-century sci-fi, and way better in person than in photo. It was really funny looking up my own tutorial to remember how to do it.

The lady at Bead Hut said that if you buy your beads and sit at their tables, you can use their tools and they’ll teach you how to do whatever you want with them at no extra charge

(it is still my not-remotely-humble-opinion that yarn stores should adopt that attitude. I wouldn’t be knitting today if the first yarn shop I discovered all those years ago hadn’t been extremely generous with the help).

I asked if she’d teach me how to make earrings. She said, “absolutely!”

I’m in serious trouble.

They have lots and lots of sparkly things.

And now I’m off to meet Janell to pick up tickets to Stitch N Pitch tonight.

I’m never going to sleep again. I keep saying that, don’t I? I also haven’t eaten or drunk anything today. I’m truly not functioning.

The preview for Fall IK is up, and there’s a sweater I’m pretty excited about.

Interweave Knits frequently has beautiful, heavily cabled sweaters in their magazine, but they’re usually drop shoulder, which will never look good on me. I always mean to alter and knit them. I never do. I love the neck on this, and the fact that it’s raglan. There is one thing I don’t like about it though, and that’s how the cables unravel and spread out over the bottom in the back.

It looks extremely unflattering, but that’s easy enough to fix by either shortening the whole sweater, which I’d probably do, or adding a cable repeat.

The Daisy Scarf turned out much better than I expected. I might actually wear it. It stretched out to be as wide as the Sea Silk Stole, and about half the length. When laceweight merino is blocked and stretched out, it’s so breezy and light, such fun to touch.

Clark is still lethargic. He’s laying at my feet.

Well, I’ve been plowing through the W-I-P’s.

While Nate was reading Harry Potter, I carded and spun the rest of the Targee fleece I’ve been griping about much of the year. The skeins aren’t washed and set yet, so they’re still a bit kinky, but they’re done.

I haven’t counted yardage. I don’t even care. It’s done, and I never have to work it again.

Second, I finished the Daisy Swatch Turned scarf. Finally. It’s blocking now, and I’ll weave in the ends when it’s dry.

It’s really hard to see in its “barely there pink”. Even in person, so I have no idea how I’ll get the final picture.

All that’s left are the purple cable gloves I’m trying to write a pattern for. And I’m not going to finish those yet.

So, with all that out of the way, I was free to ball my newly spun BFL roving. This is the smaller of the two skeins.

See the stripes? Aren’t they cool? The ball itself is a work of art.

I’ve ripped and started the scarf three times. I loved it in the original pattern (Fiona Ellis’s Campus Scarf from Scarf Style), but it would only have made a 40 inch scarf with the yardage that I have, so I modified it and cut 30% of the width.

I still really like it, and have decided that I’ll dye and spin a full pound of roving to make another scarf the way the pattern is written at some point. Though I like the slipped stitch I added on the edge instead of straight garter as it’s written.

The color patterning is a little better on the narrower scarf. This roving wasn’t dyed in even sections, it was kettle dyed with spots and splotches, so I’m happy to be getting the striping that I am.

Today, I hope to get to the store to buy some Dawn dish soap and more lingerie bags, in getting ready to wash some of the alpaca that Pat gave me months ago.

About reading Harry Potter (no spoilers)….

If you recall, Clark was up every hour Thursday night. Nate bought the book at midnight Friday night. He got home about 1am, and read to me ’til 5am. We slept ’til 9:30, then read pretty much straight through until 8:30 am Sunday. Clark was up most of Saturday night anyway, so I still wouldn’t have slept much.

I napped for 3 1/2 hours Sunday, Clark was up ’til 11 Sunday night, but happily slept the rest of it, so I got 8 or so hours. We were up very late last night, and Clark woke up 3 times between 1 and 5.

So I’m not getting any sleep to speak of. I’m so tired. My vision shakes while I’m awake, and my head twitches sporadically.

My poor baby is sick again. He has a high fever, but no other symptoms. Additionally, he’s been teething for a week with nothing to show for it, and his bowels are still causing him grief. That’s been going on for about a month now, which is all contributing to his lack of sleep I’m sure. Right about the time I decide to call the doctor, he shows improvement, so I don’t, and he sinks back again. I’ve upped his constipation medication, and we’re treating him for the fever.

And someday, I’ll get some sleep.

Good morning!

I made a little progress this week. I still didn’t manage any formal exercise, but I ate better, did some calorie counting, and yesterday I went to the store and loaded up on safe foods to eat so next week is already looking better.

I dropped back down into the teens at 219.4. That was a pleasant surprise.

Nate bought Harry Potter last night at midnight. We stayed up ’til 5 reading it, then slept ’til 9:30. We’ve made arrangements for the girls today, so we can read all day. I’m hoping to get done before church tomorrow, because I really don’t want to hear any spoilers.

Having finished my Sea Silk Stole, and my Daisy Swatch Turned Scarf (I haven’t shown you that one yet), and all my lovely spinning fiber from Black Sheep…. I’m not sure how I’m going to pass the time while Nate reads. So far, I’ve decided to continue with what I’ve been doing the last few days, which is making myself finish things. I’ve resumed spinning rolags from that wretched fleece. I like the resulting yarn, hate the fleece.

I have the remaining wool evenly divided into three bags by color, and only the light colored bag is carded. The medium and dark bags still need to be. The light rolags have been spinning up ok, though it took me awhile to get used to them again, after all the nice roving I’ve been spinning, but when I tried to card more rolags….

I just hate this stupid fleece. So I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to take it.

It’s beautiful.

I know that model shots are always more appreciated, though I’ll have you know that I’m feeling very puffy today.

And it seems ironic to resort to photographing a gorgeous silk stole in a bathroom, but it’s what I can do.

And the grand finale…

Nothing like taking a bunch of pictures of myself to make me want to drink more water and exercise again.

Back when I was thin and thought I was fat, I hated my face. My cheeks, specifically. When I smile, they puff up huge and push my eyes into little slits. I thought I had the fattest face ever. Then, back when Lindsay Lohan was a new and upcoming star, I saw her picture on a magazine and it said something about her desirable “apple” cheeks. I looked at them for a long time, amazed that they looked exactly like my cheeks, and here they were, being talked about as if they were a physical feature to envy. I was incredulous, not arguing that she looked great in the photo, and then I realized something.

Anything can be beautiful. Everything is beautiful. It’s all a matter of context and attitude.

Ok, this is turning out to be a very long, only mildly coherent post about body issues.

Nate and I were talking last night about clothing design, and dressing to flatter different body types, and how difficult it is to buy clothes “off the rack” when your body isn’t.

As a teenager, I was between 150 and 155 pounds, a D cup, and 5’9. I thought I was a cow. It’s true that I wasn’t a ribby teen. I hadn’t been “skinny” since I started developing at age 10. I was voluptuous. I was curvy. I was gorgeous and had no freaking idea.

I couldn’t find clothes that fit me outside of jeans and t-shirts, and the t-shirts looked bad because they all had small, round necks. Small necked shirts don’t flatter a large chest but at the time, I couldn’t recognize why I looked bad, just that I did. I tried sewing for myself, but those didn’t fit right, either. I learned a decade later that sewing patterns are written for B cups, and have to be altered.

It would have been really nice to know that as a 17 year old.

So in the end, I bought all of my clothes in the Tiger Shop, which is a teenage boys clothing store. Once I gained weight, I had no idea where to buy clothes. But that’s a different story.

One of my daughters is developing a physical feature that she may come to view like I saw my cheeks. She may hate it. A lot of people do. I think she’s lovely, as are other women with the same feature that know how to use it. (I’m only being cryptic in case one of my daughters reads this. I have no desire to give them body issues. As of now, they’re blissfully unaware).

Anyway, my journey through obesity has been a tremendous learning experience. I’ve grown as an individual, looked deeper into myself to find worth and value, and discovered an entirely new ideal behind the term “beautiful”.

This being said, I continue to think I’ve learned enough and want to be thin again, now that I can actually appreciate it and respect my body for what it is instead of wanting what I can never possibly be.

In high school, it was my 6 foot tall, huge-haired redheaded friend that had a thin, boyish figure and weighed 130 pounds. She was gorgeous, too. But I will never, ever be that. And I don’t have to be.

It is so freeing to know that.

We expect rain in June, but this is July. It’s not supposed to rain in July.

It’s dark and dreary, so I had to herd the girls into the bathroom to get enough light for a picture.

It ended up being a two day project, but we’ve got cute little purses. Abby is making a fourth for a birthday gift this weekend.

And although I spent a good hour or more on the stole last night, I still have about 4,000 stitches to go after ripping back 7 rows to fix a mistake.

The girls are standing over my shoulder right now, reading every word I type out loud, and now they’re giggling like crazy people. Doubled over. I can’t even think.

We’re SO putting in a movie.