We were visiting with friends in our living room last night when I felt something watching me. So I turned towards the window and saw this.

Well, his eyes weren’t glowing from a camera flash when I first saw him, but I did turn to see a face staring at me through the glass wall in our living room. I gasped as it took me by surprise, and the kids were delighted. So onto the upper deck we all went, about eye level, and 6 or so feet away from a raccoon.

Upon being discovered, it started climbing down the tree.

And I followed him down (figuratively) with my camera until I gasped again, when through my camera, I saw this.

There were four for sure, possibly five smallish raccoons on my lower deck, and the trees growing out of it. They scurried down the smaller tree, and climbed around on the railings before deciding to go back up the bigger trunk of the maple.

I know that picture is blurry, but it was so cute seeing the two of them cheek to cheek, staring in at us.

I would never have guessed we had ‘coons. They were small, and all exactly the same size, so I’m guessing it was an adolescent litter or something. Not being a raccoon expert, it’s just a guess. I hope they’re just passing through. I have a goldfish pond back there, and I don’t want them getting any ideas.

We went yarn shopping on Tuesday and didn’t come up with much. Except, some of the yarn at the second store we hit that I had admired this past winter was on sale. So I bought it.

Along with something that may or may not work for my friend’s chemo cap…

…which was also on sale, and either way, it was a good buy.

Thank you for the yarn suggestions. I’m going to go back through the comments and write them down for when I go into Seattle, which it looks like I’m going to need to do, to find yarn.

As for the stockings… I couldn’t find anything I liked, with the possible exception of Silky Tweed. It comes in the color diversity I’m looking for, but silk Christmas stockings????

I don’t know.

I have some in the stash already, I could start working on a mockup to see how it goes. But I’m going to continue looking.

Yays! to those of you who are having your family knit their stockings! I think it’s great! If this actually pans out in my family, I’m going to take a picture of each of them as they’re knitting it to keep in the stocking year after year, so as they grow up, they (in truth, I) can enjoy looking back and seeing how little they were when they made it. Fun, no?

Today was the first day of five weeks of daily swim lessons for the girls. They have had almost no water experience their entire lives, and I thought it was time they learned. Plus, Olivia’s boredom and restlessness had already set in.

It was cute. Veronica is very nervous in the water, and even though she is signed up for a “class”, she’s the only one in it, so she was 1 on 1 with the instructor, a cuteish, curly haired kid that obviously lifts weights. She was clinging to him for her life, and he very politely asked her to “please stop pulling (his) hair.” By the end, she was doing better, but I’m hoping she starts enjoying herself so this doesn’t end up being expensive, parent-afflicted torture for her.

The other two did well in their class.

We were going to go to another yarn store today after lessons to look for stocking and chemo cap yarn, but I pushed that off ’til tomorrow so I could do other important things like lunch, laundry, and kitchen cleaning. I hope to have something yummy to show you from the yarn store after tomorrow.

HA! HaHA! HAhahaha. Hahahahahaha. Haha.

I kicked butt this week.

THIS is the type of Health Group entry that I’ve wanted to post for the last year or more. So let’s get to it, shall we?

Monday- 35 minutes of treadmill
Tuesday- weights and physical therapy
Wednesday- 35 minutes of treadmill
Thursday- weights and physical therapy
Friday- …

Well, Friday would have been the 35 minutes of treadmill, but I got roped into taking the kids to the zoo unexpectedly with my sister-in-law and her kids first thing in the morning. We were there all day, hit the grocery store on the way back, made dinner…

Another aside, I made up the most excellent BBQ sauce yesterday. Fortunately, I wrote it all down. It was incredibly good. Nate gushed and gushed. We grilled chicken drumsticks. Mmmmm.

Ok, back to Friday. Immediately following dinner, Nate decided he wanted to take the girls to the drive in to see Cars. We didn’t get home until midnight, and I had NO time to exercise, however I did walk the zoo for 4 hours carrying the babe in the sling as well as a very heavy day pack with food, diapering necessities, camera, phone, wallet/Franklin, and an ample supply of water.

Like I said, heavy.

So I am content to say that I picked up Friday’s treadmill this morning, and still did the weights and physical therapy for the day.

I’m so proud. I’m so excited. I’m not even bugged that I jumped up a few pounds to 223. It’s muscle. I swear it is. And it feels great.

How was your week?

Well, I did. It just took some prompting.

Yesterday, I went to my LYS, which was closed. That is frustrating. Do you know how much energy and effort it takes to take 4 kids anywhere? But I guess this yarn store closes at 2 on Wednesdays for some reason, so I loaded, unloaded, and re-loaded all those munchkins for nothing. BUT, on the way there, Liv started up about how much she wants to knit again. This would mean buying her new needles, because hers are either missing or broken. (I can’t remember, but it’s one of those). It occurred to me at that moment that what I ought to do is let the girls knit THEIR OWN Christmas stockings. Yes?

So, that is what we’re going to try. Thus, about the only patterning we can do is stripes. But I think it’d be really cute to have stockings that the girls knit themselves. Maybe I can even get Veronica to knit? I’ll do the heel turning and gusset of course, but the rest, on a circular needle ought to be easy.

I still need to find yarn. From a yarn store that stays open during business hours.

I think we’re going to have the knitalong right here on Fridays. It works for me. I’m not sure about a start date yet, but if you’re already going on it and are dying to show or tell me about it, feel free.

Although it is wrong in every possible way to have to put a sweater on my boy in late June, I am happy to show it to you all.

Katie made and sent this great sweater for Clark, and this is his first time wearing it.

We’re going out, and his little arms and feet were cold, so I had to put socks and a sweater on him. Isn’t it cute? And I have to say, the proportions are perfect. It fits him just great! Thanks, Katie! She also sent the cute Boppy cover he’s laying on. And a great blanket, and.. and.. and… Thanks!

I haven’t made it out to a yarn store yet to find yarn for Christmas stockings. With all of the things I’ve started or committed to starting in the last couple weeks, I have no idea how I’ll do it all. It’s stressing me out. I need to either plan or cancel something.

I found out at church yesterday that another friend of mine has cancer, stage four lymphoma. She’s about my age, and has three very young children. She starts chemo today. She asked me to knit her a hat.

Her prognosis is pretty good. She said that lymphoma is a highly treatable cancer, but she’s scheduled for six months of chemo, every other Monday, and she doesn’t yet know how well her body will handle it. She looked very thin and frail to me yesterday.

It’s so sad.

So I need to knit a pretty and soft hat, and I’m not quite sure what to do. We’re coming into summer, so something lightweight seems smart, but I’ve heard that cancer patients can feel cold, even in a warm room. Maybe an Esther Williams would be appropriate?

Well, that didn’t work. I’m not as better as I expected to be, so I couldn’t exercise. Plus, I wasn’t really home all week anyway. In either case, I didn’t exercise, and I got to snacking towards the end of the week. So I’m not under 220 as I had hoped.

Oh well.

I’m not sure when I’m going to be able to exercise without coughing my brains out.

How was your week?

It’s been a busy week. I haven’t been home, like, at all, and since I’m still recovering from a sinus infection, it’s wearing me out! However, in my opinion, it’s been worth it.

Here I am, talking about starting up a knitalong for Christmas stockings, and then I go and buy a sewing machine and serger.

I am really excited. I’ve never used a serger before, but the shop will give me unlimited lessons for free to teach me how to use both machines to their potential. They are both used. The sewing machine is a Babylock Esante Es-e2, which is also an embroidery machine, and the serger is an older Babylock with some differential something or other. I think I got a really good deal on them, but the shop owner is a TOTAL hard sell/make-the-deal kind of guy, so you never know.

I’m about to start my homework from my first lesson on the machine, which is to stitch out all 100+ decorative stitches, large and small version, to see how they look on fabric.

Hee hee.

Oh, and I’ll talk to Nate about naming and making a button for the knitalong. I looked at Blogger really quick per Diana’s suggestion, but I didn’t see how I could add other users to the blog. So, I have a little bit of investigating to do before deciding whether to set up a knitalong blog, or just do it here like I’ve always done. Any opinions?

That would be 10.

Clark is 10 weeks old now, and completely charming. He started smiling last week, and we’ve been enjoying it. He’s had a happy sort of expression for a number of weeks, but it took a little longer to break into actual smiles. And he’s a bit under 12 pounds now, dropping a little bit in percentile.

What do you think about Argyle Christmas stockings? I think it could be fun. I’ve always loved argyle, but never knit nor worn it. I was looking through some of my vintage knitting pamphlet/books looking for retro-mod sock ideas to convert to stockings when I saw the argyle.

I think I like.

Also, Amy Lu suggested a knitalong for Christmas stockings. What do you think? Is anyone else doing it yet? I don’t know how to do the fancy knitalong websites I’ve seen. And to be honest, I don’t want to spend the time to figure it out, or in my case, make NATE spend the time to figure it out for me. I’d handle it like I have in the past, which is to have participants email me before Friday each week with any pictures they want me to post on their behalf, or to let me know to link to their blog on Friday’s post, Friday being knitalong day.

I think I’d be up for it. Anyone interested?