Maison / Sydney

You Gutless Pumpkins

2009-10-30T12:06:00.003-05:00

This morning I did what I had been dreading for days. I gutted the pumpkins. This is my least favorite aspect of Halloween. I am the designated Pumpkin Disemboweler for the household--neither kid is really old enough and Rich just doesn't have the time. This has been my job for years, and I don't really enjoy it. In fact, I dislike it so much that for then past few years I no longer choose and carve a pumpkin a pumpkin of my own--figuring that cuts down on the pumpkin scooping I have to do by 25%, right? Passive-aggressive mom that I am, last year, when I was working, I did not remind anyone that Halloween was coming and that we should carve the pumpkins soon. Halloween arrived and we had no Jack O Lantern, other than the pottery one Mom gave us several years ago. And the sky did not fall, it was not the end of the world. I got out of pumpkin scooping for one year, which was not a bad thing....

But this year, because of the lack of carving last year, Rich and the kids have been talking about it for weeks. Gotta remember to get pumpkins, we can't forget like last year. And so, this morning, I cracked out the big scary knife and the other pumpkin carving implements of destruction and I went at 'em. I was afraid I'd be out of practice, but I did great. 3 pumpkins, thoroughly scooped in about 30 minutes. It may be a new speed record for me. Tonight they carve; I sit. My part is done.

In keeping with the theme for today, I am making Spicy Pumpkin and Apple Soup for Dinner, and I have Harvest Bread going in the breadmaker. I am rocking on with my bad homemaker self today. Word.

In other news, look what Rich just got:

It was the last one at Lowe's and it was half-price, and it unfortunately came without a manual. Rich and Mathboy are going to figure out how to use it so we can tell the lawn service to take their $230 per month in lawn-cutting charges elsewhere. Now if they only figure out how to get it started....

Seriously. Anyone have any tips? We had to push it into the garage.

Knitting: I have had serious startitis this month, starting no less than 3 socks. Maybe 4. There are toes everywhere. Here's the nicest thing I have going:

Midsummer Night's Dream socks from the latest Knitty, in Shibuiknits yarn. I totally love these. The yarn is great and the pattern is so much fun. I am already halfway down the foot on the second sock.

I also have a plain sock going for World Series knitting, the kind you can do without looking or concentrating, a second sock for catgirl, and the toe of another sock I started just because I really wanted to try the yarn. Goodness. And I have about 6 inches done on a wool baby blanket for Afghans for Afghans. Somehow I don't think I am going to make the deadline for the blanket. Well, I can always save it for their next campaign, right? (she said hopefully).

Did I show y'all this?

Colonnade, also from the latest Knitty, in Mmmmmmmalabrigo. I love it, although, if I could do it over, I would do the brown inside and the pinky-red for the lacy outside. This took, like, a week. Super-quick.

And I close with...

The Birthday Girl fresh from the shower and snuggling by the fire with a few of her favorite gifts. The Justice snuggie, Garfield book, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid were from friends; Rich and I got the Yeti in Disney and sneaked it home in one of the suitcases.

You know they're growing up when...

2009-10-07T09:50:00.004-05:00

1. Their clothes won't stay on the kid-sized hangers anymore. I just had to buy 5 packs of adult-sized hangers at Target to keep all Mathboy's shirts (and some of Catgirl's as well) from ending up in a pile on the floor. Of course, it's not that he minds them in a pile on the floor, but, um, I do.

2. They aren't that excited to have their picture taken anymore, even to show the blog-nation how cute they look in a tie.

3. They actually know how to tie a tie. Sigh.

Letting the Sleeping Cat Lie

2009-10-06T14:47:00.004-05:00

Not that I could have awakened him if I wanted to.

Isn't he cute?

October Miscellany

2009-10-05T12:50:00.011-05:00

Well, we made it through September. Every year, our ability to just survive September becomes more and more amazing. There's is just so much to do. It's ridiculous. Once school begins, all the activities begin, the Back to School nights, the Back to School Socials, the homework, and various meetings and appointments. As Rich said last Wednesday--when we were supposed to have a soccer game, choir practice, karate, and Back to School night--"It's relentless."

As it happened, last Wednesday ended up being pretty light because of that common September Monkey Wrench, the kind that trumps all the activities and sports and appointments: illness. Yes, Catgirl was sick. All week. And I mean, all week. It was a seven-day'er. Last Monday, the school nurse called me at lunch: Catgirls was developing a fever, would I come pick her up? She had been totally fine that morning when we had to run for the bus, but was now miserable. She pretty much stayed that way until Sunday morning, yesterday, when she woke up fever-free and feeling good. It was just the flu, according to the doctor, which is the worst because there is so little you can do for it. But at least she's better now, just in time for October and her birthday.

October is so much better than September. I can tell just from looking at my calendar--there's only half as many things scheduled, for one thing. Wahoo!

I finished this scarf:

Pictures can't do it justice. It's is splendidly squooshy, and destined for someone for Christmas, not sure who yet. Any requests?

I started a vest for Rich, in the same pattern that I used for one for Mathboy this spring:

I've got a good way to go on this one!

I ordered our Disney Photobook from a website called blurb, using their free software to design the pages. Their software gave me a lot more layout options than Ofoto or Kodak offered. I'm actually a little frightened at how affordable it was. It should come next week. I hope it looks good so we can bore all our friends with it over the holidays!

The Phillies managed to make it to the playoffs again! Yay!

Holiday Insanity Begins! This morning I drove Catgirl to school because, after being out for a week, she had too many books to carry on the bus. She also needed her flute and music stand for today, and there was a school project that was due Friday. I think we had about 100 pounds of stuff we needed to get to school. There was no way she could take the bus.

After I dropped her off, I went to Target, and figured I would get the Halloween candy while I was there. I was roaming the Halloween aisles, enduring the recorded screams and cackles from the weird animatronic witch and cauldron display, when I happened to glance around. Our Target apparently has decided to get a jump on the Christmas season, and they have already filled many aisles in the holiday area with Christmas cards and decroations. The candy aisles were side by side with displays of boxed Christmas cards. I took a closer look at the cackling witch-robot-thingie, and saw that she was surrounded by a display of Christmas lights. No, they were not Halloween lights--a ridiculous invention that a few people in our area hang--they were honest to goodness Christmas lights. Once I noticed it, it looked truly bizarre. And to have the screaming witch sound effects playing loudly as I looked at Christmas stuff was just ... wrong.

I am sure that, as the candy and the Halloween costumes sell, the Target staff will fill in the empty spaces with more Christmas stuff from the back. It will be a slowly morphing holiday season, from Halloween directly to Christmas (forget about Thanksgiving, there's not enough to market in that holiday). Hallo-Christmas? Whatever, it made me very unconfortable. I hurried to find the Mike and Ikes the kids had requested so I could get out of there (by the way, why do they care what candy we buy to give away? They're not getting any.).

Changes

2009-09-27T14:24:00.002-05:00

I would like to say a few words in farewell to ...

My nano. Sigh. A week or two ago, it suddenly died. I did not realize how much I used it and how much I relied upon it until it wasn't there anymore. Oh well. I have replaced it with this glamourous toy:

My new ipod touch. So far, we are still becoming acquainted. It's quite a change from the nano, and I am not sure about it yet. It is quite a piece of equipment, though.

I finished the socks I started this summer, and they look great. The pattern was driving me crazy with boredom by the leg of the second sock, but the yarn was loads of fun.

These are the Lace Rib Socks from Wendy's new book, Socks from the Toe-Up, and the yarn is K1C2's Ty-Dy Sock in Blueberry Fields. The color changes are pretty wild, but the yarn is so soft and very nice to knit. There was tons of yarn in this skein, I still have a lot left over.

I give you ... Baked Apple Muffins.

We were in a baking mood today. Yum!

No, this is not the Bayou

2009-09-16T13:08:00.004-05:00

This is New Jersey. It's pretty much one big suburb. But in our corner of New Jersey, bordering on the Pinelands and boasting a good amount of farmland despite the encroaching McMansions, I am so happy that we still get to see so much wildlife. Well, Rudolph would probably be happier if the wild turkeys would go elsewhere. But we all love these little guys:

This dude had the misfortune to be crossing our front path as I was taking the garbage cans out the other night. I caught him rather easily, and then everybody wanted a turn holding him. After dazing himself by repeatedly leaping out of our hands and getting re-caught, he finally sat quietly on Catgirl's hand for a while, before trying to climb up her arm.

Mathboy ran to get the camera and was our Frog photographer. After snapping some pix, we deposited our buddy in the grass and watched him hop away.

First Day of School '09

2009-09-09T12:48:00.002-05:00

And off they go. Mathboy looks little nervous, and he did still feel somewhat under the weather, so I hope all goes well!

A Magical but Exhausting Trip

2009-09-08T08:46:00.004-05:00

The books are not kidding when they say that a trip to Disneyworld is not a relaxing vacation. We returned Sunday night from our Disney extravaganza, and today both kids are laid up with colds, trying to recover before school starts tomorrow. But it was worth it because we had a great time. We hit each of the Disney parks at lest twice--and Epcot at least 5 times, because that's where the good food is! We also spent some time at the Universal Studios parks as well.

Although it was very hot some days, it turned out to be a good time of year to go: the lines were extremely short most of the time, and the crowds weren't bad at all. Two or three times, we took a break in the middle of the day to go back to our hotel and swim, and then went to a different park for the evening (usually Epcot).

Before we left for this trip, Catgirl had repeatedly stated that she would not be riding any scary rides. It was a little frustrating for Rich and me, because we had visions of waiting in line for the teacup ride again. Oy.

On the first full day, we went to the Magic Kingdom, and Catgirl consented to ride Splash Mountain with us. This ride, in particular, was the one she had said for months that looked terrifying. She absolutely would not ride it the last time we were in Disney and she said she wouldn't ride it this time either, so we were pleasantly surprised when she changed her mind at the last minute. It's a great ride, with the whole Song of the South story and all the music, and the fall into the briar patch is awesome. We were so sure that she would enjoy it if we could just get her to try it. Well...

Splash Mountain

...she loved it. And at that moment, a crazy Disney thrill-ride-seeker was born. After that, she wanted to go on everything. The Rock N Roller Coaster. The Tower of Terror. Summit Plummit, at Blizzard Beach (a five-story water slide, which you descend at about 50 mph, no tube). Dinosaur. Mission Space. Soarin' (one of our favorites). You name it, she and Mathboy were raring to go. Catgirl even wanted to ride the Hulk in Universal, but she did change her mind at the last minute about that one, and we did not blame her. Here is The Hulk, all seven loops and corkscrews of it:

Yikes. Once was more than enough for Rich and me, although Mathboy could have done it all day.

Here are Catgirl and Mathboy in the front car of Expedition Everest:

I wish you could see them better, but trust me that they are there. The kids rode Everest six times, in the front car, the back car, the middle. Catgirl, Rich and I prefer the front, Mathboy likes the rough ride you get in the back. Man, that one is an incredibly good roller coaster. If you are in the front, or close to it, you get a tremendous view of Epcot and everything around there from the top--at the point where the Yeti has ripped up the tracks and you have to go back down through the mountain backwards, in the dark.

The Disney Imagineers should be really proud of Everest. Not only is it a great ride, the mountain they built for it is beautiful.

On the first day, as we were waiting for the Magic Kingdom to open, Rich bought Catgirl new mouse ears: Pirate Princess ears, with a pink kerchief. They were a riot, and they got her noticed by "cast members" (Disney-speak for their employees) all over. She got picked out to participate in the High School Musical street show, the Flights of Wonder bird show, the Monsters Inc comedy show, and all sorts of things. We also think her ears got us chosen to be the first family allowed into the Animal Kingdom on the day we went there. They gave us noisemakers to shake at the opening countdown and announced our names...

...and we were able to race to the Safari so we got the first ride to see all the animals of "Africa." There was a lion. :o)

Just like our last visit to Disney, we all agree that we like Animal Kingdom the best of all the Disney parks. Beyond the fact that it has Everest, the whole park is so beautifully designed. I love the Tree of Life, and the design details on the walking trails are just amazing. Here's a meerkat standing guard on the Maharajah Walking Trail:

And look at the awesome digs this tiger has:

And here is the Tree of Life:

Clearly, this is no average zoo.

Well, I have many more pictures at my Flickr page, including some great pix of Universal. For example, here is one of Catgirl in Seuss Landing, at Universal Islands of Adventure, which we all really enjoyed.

Go on over to Flickr to look at, oh, maybe another 150 pictures, if you like.

Aubergine!

2009-08-16T08:08:00.002-05:00

Look what Mathboy made! He did this entirely by himself, except for picking up stitches to knit the purple fruit part onto the finished leaf and stem part. So he learned how to increase and decrease, he knit in the round on dpns, and he did I-cord. Great, hunh?

I made these:

(photography by Catgirl). The wool tomato looks better than the real ones unfortunately. Not the best summer for my garden.

And Catgirl and I made this apple container:

Rudolph kept us amused by climbing through our "fruit" basket:

Less than two weeks until we go to Disney! Wahoo!

Happy Bubbles

2009-07-30T11:33:00.002-05:00

Years ago, Rich and I went through a period when we played a lot of The Sims on the PC. That is the game where you create people and basically direct their lives on the computer. Eventually we got tired of having to tell them to go to the bathroom and take showers, and we moved on to more interesting games. But one thing that was kind of funny in the game was that when you upgraded your characters' surroundings (bought nicer furniture, or got a nicer house), they would have these little smiley faces over their heads. It made them happy.

This month, we all have had little "happy bubbles" over our heads when we go into the family room. See why?

That's Mathboy on the floor with his Algebra. Because, you know, like, why use a table and chair when you can sprawl out across the floor?

Yeah, I don't get it either.

I finished my shawl, and let it lounge on the new sofa.

Rudolph likes the shawl, too.

There is not much other news to report. Catgirl had a great time at her camp. She got to play the part of Mrs. Bucket for 2 scenes in the camp production of Willy Wonka Jr., and she got to sing a solo ("Cheer Up, Charlie"). She did GREAT. Mathboy had a wonderful time doing golf camp--so good, in fact, that we are letting him do another week of golf camp in mid-August. He has really improved his play, even made a par on one hole when he and Rich played last week.

Where Croquet Mallets Go to Die

2009-07-07T18:06:00.007-05:00

Our latest croquet set did not even get through the entire tournament at our summer party before half the mallets were broken. This year I saved the receipt and returned the set to Dick's on the Monday after the party ... which seems kind of wrong in a way I can't quite put my finger on. We bought a set, hosted a party and played with the set all day, and then returned the set. It's very weird. But still, it should not have broken, right? I mean, are these sets made to be used or what? I guess next year we really have to break down and buy the $150 professional set if we don't want it to be in pieces by the end of the party.

This year's winner was Catherine, wife to the 2007 winner, Scott. She played a great game. Attendance this year was lower than usual, for various reasons. We are going to have to shake things up next year somehow: we are conflicting with many other parties, vacations, and sleepaway camps. We'll have to think it over during the winter and will announce the New and Improved Party and MOLA tourney for 2010.

The night before the party brought a beautiful sight in the sky:

This picture does not do it justice. It was a double rainbow, that reached the ground on both sides. It was totally breathtaking, drawing people out of their houses to gawk, despite the sun-shower.

In other news, there is a new Algebra student in our house:

Seriously, why do cats have to lie on books? Anyway, the kids are delighted that he seems to enjoy lying on Mathboy's algebra. (Maybe it helps that the Algebra generally is lying on the carpet in the sun? Just a thought.)

As the summer progesses, we are finally doing some cosmetic work in the house. We've only been married for oh, say 16 years, so we thought it might be time to actually buy some furniture that was our own choice. Not that we are ungrateful for the things we have inherited from family members--it certainly has saved us money over the years, I know. But it is amazing that we have never really chosen any of our furnishings (except for a few little things here and there).

The walls in some rooms are starting to get on our nerves as well. Aside from the powder room that I painted last year, the last time anything was painted in the house was after the fire, in March 2002. Some of the rooms are looking a bit drab, or the colors are just plain getting on our nerves at this point. Catgirl's room had been painted pink after the fire, because she chose that color during the one month out of her entire life that she actually liked pink. By the time the guys were done painting her room, her pink phase was already over. She's been begging for a different color since 2003, was primised a new color in 2005. Finally, in July, 2009, she got what she asked for. PURPLE.

Unfortunately, it doesn't match her coverlet. We bought that in 2008 during a brief time in which she considered having the room painted blue. By 2009, she wanted purple. I think I kept putting off the painting in the hopes that if I waited long enough she might starts liking pink again. In the end, I had to admit that she really is not a "pink" kind of girl anyway.

The room does look so fresh and clean with the new paint. We were able to weed out a lot of the little girl clutter, and we made her a little reading nook in the corner.

After the Big Summer Party, Rich and I decided to force ourselves to Do Something about the pit that we called a family room. We were thoroughly tired of the steel blue that I actually first chose for that room in early 2001. No one liked the old leather couch (except Mathboy, but he's opposed to change in general. He wanted to keep the old minivan). Even the cat wouldn't sit on it. I had been taking refuge in the faded wing chair we kept in the corner.

In a rash move, we actually carried the much-maligned furniture from that room out to the curb. We figured that it would be easier to paint the room with it empty, and the lack of furniture would force us to finally put our money where our mouths are and buy new furniture. So. We painted.

Three coats of paint later, steel blue/gray walls have become a very pale buttery gold. Man, it is hard to paint light over dark. (As an aside: Please feel free to remind me of that the next time I want to paint a room a dark color!) Another problem: where we used paint tape to protect the ceiling, we discovered that the blue paint actually extended onto the ceiling by a smidge. So when we pulled the tape down we were left with a blue outline around the ceiling. Awesome. I dug through Catgirl's art drawer and came up with a fine point watercolor brush so I could go around the entire area painting over that outline.

Problem number 3: this is a HUGE room! In the tradition of the typical modern development house, our family room blends into the "breakfast nook, which morphs into the kitchen, all with no break in the wall where we could have a color change. So if you paint one of these "rooms," ya gotta paint 'em all. In the end, I had to go back to Home Depot for a 3rd gallon of paint. Rich made me buy a 4th, too, just in case, even though I swore we would not need it. It turned out that we did not end up even opening the 4th, but there is very little left of the 3rd, and I have not painted behind the fridge yet, so we will need it. 4 gallons! Sheesh.

When we were done, we packed everyone up and decided to stimulate the economy by going furniture shopping. We found some nice stuff at a Fourth of July sale, and are looking forward to the delivery. And this brings me to the last problem with our project: time. Not having bought furniture before, we did not even think about how long it would take to have the furniture delivered! We are looking at a good 10 days without a couch. When we went home after shopping, and saw the counch still sitting out by the curb, we actually considered hauling it back inside. But it had been out for 3 days by that time, so we were too skeeved out to actually do it. So we scrounged up some chairs from other rooms in the house, and re-hooked up the TV on its crappy old stand.

My knitting projects are coming along. I am about 190 rows into the lace shawl, and I just finished the first skein of yarn.

Actually, I had to cut off the last 10% of the skein, because it got so small that it collapsed into a tangled mess and I just could not sort it out. I wasted a precious hour of knitting time trying to detangle the mess, finally getting out the scissors and cutting my losses. I have enough of this yarn that it won't matter. I hope.

The blanket proceeds as well, but slowly. Here's a few of the squares with their borders:

I ran out of the light green yarn, but I have so much of the other colors that I have decided to plunge on anyway. For a while, the worsted weight garter stitch of this blanket was a welcome change from the tricky work required by the laceweight shawl. Now that I am used to the shawl, however, I am being more or less monogamous to it. The blanket can wait for the fall.

Well, gotta go pick the kids up from camp!

Summer Dreams

2009-06-21T18:58:00.007-05:00

So summer is really here now, even though the weather is not really cooperating. How do I know? Both kids are off from school now, and bored already. Well, not exactly. But Catgirl needs to have someone to play with AT ALL TIMES, it seems, and when she doesn't, things can get ugly.

I have me some Grand Plans for this summer. First, the kids are going to work on a subject everyday. Mathboy made out his schedule, which has Logic, Algebra, Latin, Vocab and Grammar, one subject per day. I am requiring only about 30 minutes per day. So far, though, it's been all Algebra all the time for him, and, so far, I've been letting him go.

He'll get bored of the all-algebra diet sooner or later, right? Meanwhile, I am waiting for the math books I ordered for Catgirl to come in the mail. Catgirl ended up getting First Honors, which means she had an "A" average for the whole year. I hear that 5th Grade at Good Counsel is a lot of work, however, so next year should be tougher.

Both of them all already reading like crazy, so that's a good start to the summer vacation. We've got the "To be read" and "Finished" piles of library books going.
Both kids will be able to participate in the Battle of the Books this year--Catgirl will be eligible because she will be in 5th Grade, Mathboy will be eligible because he will be going to a school that actually participates in contests--and we have the booklists posted on the fridge door. Mathboy enjoyed the first book he read off the list, Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer, that he persuaded me to read it too. It was very good. I seem to be knee-deep in Young Adult fiction these days, as I also am halfway through The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. I have to admit that this one is rather weird but also good. We all enjoyed Nation by Terry Pratchett and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman this spring, as well. There are some good books out there for kids and teens!

Both kids are going to start doing a regular chore schedule as well. I know we have been bad about that in the past. Mathboy is very good about doing a job when he is asked to, Catgirl...not so much. But I think we need to make them take responsibility for some things--let them be the ones checking to see if something needs doing and then just DO IT.

Second, I need to find a gainful employment, and the goal is to have that in place for the fall. Can I get a job lined up for the week after we get back from Disney? Oh, by the way, sir, I would love to work for you, but you will have to wait until after we come back from our vacation. 'Kay?

I do have some CLE courses I have to do over the summer, but if I want to move into teaching I need to make some strides to make that desire look serious. I did submit some online applications for some positions, but perhaps volunteering in some teaching positions in the meantime would be a good thing to have on my resume. I also want to write an article over the summer. I thought seriously about writing a legal-scholarly article about the Mount Laurel decisions, but they probably have already been done. Right now, I am reading a book written by some California law school folks about the decision. Although it does seem well-researched--which is surprising, since the preface implies the guys never even came to New Jersey to research the thing--it is about as biased a book as I have ever read, and the writing style is terrible. I keep thinking that I could do better, but what a job that would be. Probably more than one summer's worth of research.

So maybe I would be better off finding some timely issues and whip off a few articles for the NJ lawyer's paper. Or the Burlington County Times? Would a publisher buy a murder mystery set in the catty PTA of a catholic elementary school? So many ideas, not all of them good ones...

Meanwhile, Mom has had a great idea for a book, which she wants my help to do. More about that another time.

Third, I have serious knitting goals. Meghan, of the Stitch It! podcast, has challenged all her listeners to knit something in laceweight yarn. Coincidentally, I had just cast on the Leda's Dream shawl by Pink Lemon Twist, completely forgetting how much the Adamas Shawl of last summer had cured me of any hankering for lace. Oh well. I guess the cure was only temporary. So I am knitting my shalw along with a whole bunch of other listeners who likewise are trying out laceweight. We can commisserate on the poscast bulletin board at Ravelry.

This what I have so far. It is tough going: I can't seem to get the patterns memorized, and I have had to get used to a very different way of holding the yarn as I knit because it is so fine. It makes my hands tired.

Also, I want to finish my Great American Afghan before it gets cold. I have had a new idea about how I am going to finish it up, and hope it works.

I have 15 squares done. Although the pattern calls for 25 squares, I always knew I was not going to do all of them. There are several in the book that I just have no interest in doing (ahem, socks square, ahem). Besides, 15 squares took me over a year, and I want to have this finished This Year. 2009. Done. So I am going to do 16 squares. That means one more.

I recently laid out all my finished squares and had to face a harsh truth: they are not all the same size. Sigh.

About half of them are the requisite 12 x 12 inches. About half are 11 x 11. One square is a generous 12.5 x 12.5. It may be 13 x 13, I am not sure. I was so annoyed with myself, my measurement may not have been right. It definitely looks a lot bigger than the others. So.... what to do? I could trash the lonely biggest square, but the small ones really do seem a lot smaller than the regulation-size squares. Plus I was concerned about how the yarn I used (Swish Superwash Worsted, from Knitpicks) could stretch out a lot and distort the shape of the squares when the blanket was in use.

I thought about crocheting strips betwen the squares to add size and bolster their shape. But today I had another idea, which I like even more: Log Cabin border strips. I have five colors I am working in. Each square will have border strips of garter stitch knitted on to it in four colors, not including the color the square was knitting in. I can even up the shapes by adjusting how many rows I knit on for the strips.

I've only done this much, but I think this might be a great idea. Indeed, it may be genius. Or it could be totally crazy. Catgirl has already said she thinks it looks weird. We shall see. Whatever it is, I know it's better than crocheting strips between 16 squares, and better than stretching half of these squares to fit right with the other half. And again I say: we shall see.

Summertime!

2009-06-13T06:31:00.002-05:00

It's officially summer! Mathboy finished school this week, both kids' teams lost in the playoffs so their sports were over, the pool is open, and it is finally getting hot outside.

It was kind of a bittersweet goodbye to Mathboy's school. We are all ready for him to move on, but he did have 3 good years there. Lots of kids are leaving, so there were several kids feeling the same as he was.

I forgot to bring a camera to any of Mathboy's games, unfortunately. He pitched a lot of innings this year, and hit great--I think with an over 500 average. He got on base in every game. His pitching was pretty good too, but inconsistent. He either struck everyone out (he throws really hard) or walked everyone.

I finally remembered to bring a camera to Catgirl's last regular season game. Here is the pitcher in action:

Catgirl was quite a slugger this season, but Mathboy did not really notice. He did find the only shade at the softball field though:

Mathboy got to do another piano recital, and Mom and Bill were able to come:

I made a couple more squares for the Great American Afghan:

That last square turned out to be very cool. It was really fiddly at the beginning, but the result is awesome.

Then I received the Stitch It! Podcast charity blanket in the mail for me to add a contribution. The folks in this group make baby blankets and lapghans, sending the blankets around for knitters to add a section. I ended up doing three sections and a crocheted border to finish off this blanket:

Here's my part:

Well, Catgirl wants to go down for breakfast and is bugging me to finish this post. We want to get to the Farmer's Market to day, and then either the pool or to the famr for some strawberry picking. Our choice depends on the heat!

Whoosh!

2009-05-25T11:04:00.003-05:00

You know what that sound represents? The month of May, which just flew by me at the speed of sound. There it goes! All gone.

What did I spend the month doing? Well, not cleaning my house, apparently. I have been to a lot of softball and baseball games for the kids. Neither team is doing very well, but the kids are progressing and that's the important thing. Rich and I have been shocked anew by the small-town politics and the killer competition that seem so prevalent in the kids' sports. Get a life, people. Go root for professionals--the Phillies would appreciate your support, and get paid well to deal with the emotions of fans. Can we try NOT to crush the hopes out of our 10 to 12 year olds?

OK, my soapbox is put away now.

I read The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins. I loved it, and highly recommend it. Imagine Charles Dicken writing a detective novel, and that's really what this was. It could have bee a little tighter with the plot, and it was a little wordy, but the characterizations were terrific.

I planted the vegetable garden and the planters, and built a new fence around the garden to keep the plants fro becoming the Daily Buffet for the bunnies and the deer. The fence is just poultry mesh staple-gunned to stakes--not nearly as attractive as last year's little picket number, but hopefully it do the job a little better. Oh well. I was willing to sacrifice beauty for practicality. I don't want anyone chewing my chard and beans down to the grounds this year, thank you.

I've knit a couple and a half squares for the Great American Afghan.

I made a cotton veggie/shopping bag for Mom's birthday--forget I said that Mom, if, by chance, you should actually read this.

And I'm having some worries about this summer--specifically with regard to my job and my need for childcare. A change may be called for. I am not sure that my current position is the best for me, or that I am providing what my employer really would prefer, anyway. I think she'd rather have someone cheaper who would be available at her beck and call all day. I'm not going to do that. So ... I've applied for a couple positions on line just to see what happens. I would love to find something that did not requre commuting to Philadelphia.

Well, that's really all I've got today. I'll try to post more often than once a month!

Spring is here

2009-04-30T17:09:00.004-05:00

It's been so long since I last posted. I had to get a post in today because it's the last day of April and I did not want to skip a whole month between postings. So this post may be a bit sloppy, but at least it is still April, right?

April has been rather weird as far as the weather goes. It's probably been weird in other ways, but the weather is on my mind these days. We had some wintry days, some ridiculously summery days, and some spring days. Rain has plagued the kids' sports schedules, and our vacation to Harper's Ferry WV.

Harper's Ferry was neat, but it would probably be a lot more fun in the summer, when you can take advantage of the river rafting. We did manage to have a good time, despite the rain and the chilly temperatures. We biked one day, hiked to the top of Maryland Heights one day to get a great view of the little town below, got in a little letterboxing one day, and hung out with Leslie and Frank at our, um, interesting lodgings.

Here is Catgirl at Jefferson Rock (with raincoat over her Easter dress):

We had an interesting moment up there by Jefferson Rock. You may notice that the Rock is perched on pillars to hold it steady. This is because the wind and weather have eroded it so significnantly that the Army Corps of Engineers decided it was unsafe without some kind of support. Hence the table legs, and the large sign nearby (not in my photo) explaining the situation and asking people to refrain form climbing up there on or by the rock.

Well. After we took our sedate, rule-following photo of Catgirl in front of the rock, another family climbed up and blatantly ignoring the sign not to mention good sense and let their flip-flop clad young-uns climb up ON TOP of this precariously perched rock for a photo op. We all stared and muttered, not quite sure what to do. Is it our place to tell such people that they are idiots?

Here are both kids running up the stone steps to the church. These steps were carved over 100 years ago into the rock that makes up the mountain the town is built on--very cool:

Mathboy resting at the top of Maryland Heights, overlooking the town;

We had some good news regarding Mathboy's school prospects for next year: he got in to Doane Academy, and they are OK with him going into 8th grade. Mathboy should definitely have a challenging year with the 8th grade work and the adjustment to a traditional school envieronment (e.g., homework, uniforms, moving around from class to class, and did I mention homework?).

I also got a lot of knitting done this month. It was chilly enough Easter morning for Mathboy to wear his new wool vest:

And I worked on this little sweater for Catgirl while we were in Harper's Ferry. It was a quick knit, my first top-down creation.

I basically improvised this by building off a shrug I am making for myself (the Lemongrass Bolero by Stephanie Japel) and a little girl's shrug from the new Mason-Dixon Knitting book. Based on my experience making this little thing and the Lemongrass Bolero--which is now done as well, but I do not have a good photo--I am not sure I like the top-down thing. And let's be honest: it's the circular needle thing. I do hate working on circs. I'd rather do seams. Really.

Black Belt in the House!

2009-03-28T19:57:00.003-05:00

At the karate studio, everyone has to bow when a black belt walks in the door. We bowed for Mathboy we he came in tonight after his test, but we warned him not to get used to it at home.

Do I feel safer now that I know that there is a Black Belt in the house? Maybe not. But I am impressed. He really worked hard today.

The test started today at 1 pm. Perhaps foolishly, we had made dinner reservations at the restaurant of Mathboy's choice for 6:30 pm. There wer 8 kids testing, and there was no way, I thought, the test could go past 4 pm--or 4:30 at the latest. I mean, what can they have to do for more than 3 and a half hours?

Well... let me tell you what they did. This was like the Final Exam for karate. The Bar Exam. The Medical Boards. These kids had to show everything they learned in karate class over the past 4+ years of classes. And, as you may expect by now, it went past 4:30. Way past. These kids were finally presented with their new belts and sparkly new uniforms at 6:30 pm. Then there were pictures, and a lecture about how with great power comes great responsibility. So ...we are going to the fancy Japanese restaurant tomorrow night. It gives Catgirl one more day to get ready (when she first saw the menu for Fuji, I think she cried. She gets pickier everyday.)

These kids did 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 jumping jacks, then they did technique drills for about an hour and a half, then they did laps of kick drills, then forms, then sparring. Then they did the breaking drills.

Mathboy broke this slab of concrete with the heel of his hand. And it is real concrete--I had suspected the karate school of using some kind of soft quasi-concrete, but thi is real. Then Mathboy elbowed and kicked his way through a slew of boards. At one point, Catgirl turned to me and whispered, "We should have brought a bag for all the boards, Mom." She was right. Mathboy had quite a pile to carry to the car at the end of the day.

The final task of the day was that they had to do push up position, on their knuckles, on the concrete pieces that they had previously broken, for FIVE minutes. There were some tears by the end, but they all made it. During the last minute, the teacher walked around and put each candidate's specially embroidered black belt in front of them so that they could focus on what they were working for.

This is Mathboy's name and the karate school name in Korean. The other side is embroidered in English: Mr. MathBoy, if you please. All the lower belts at karate will have to refer to him by Mr. from now on.

In other news, I finished the vest for Mathboy. I don't have a shot of him modeling it, but here it is in repose:

This turned out great. I used the Dr. G's Memory Vest from Through the Loops,and Cascade 220 Heather yarn. I did go down to size 6 needles to get gauge, and I liked the way the knitted fabric looked on 6s anyway. It fits him very well, but there is sufficient length and stretchiness from the dense spingy fabric that it should fit him next year as well.

The Delegate from the U.S.

2009-03-11T08:08:00.008-05:00

Our excellent adventure in New York was last week. It's hard to believe, but I really think that Mathboy had an even better experience this year at the Montessori Model United Nations than he did last year. We stayed with my friend Elyse and her family, and were very grateful for the chance to stay with them.

We actually went up to NY a day or so early, and were glad that we did because we beat the 8-12 inches of snow! On Sunday, we met Elyse and her family at the New Victory Theater in NY and saw an amazing production of Henry V. The kids seemed to understand enough of it that they claimed to enjoy it as much as we did. Mathboy saw Times Square for the first time, and was pretty impressed ("such enormous TV screens!").

On Monday, when our schools were closed and everyone was scrambling to figure out how to get to NY, we were already there! Mathboy got to play in the snow with Elyse's son, who also had a snow day, and then we took the train in and spent several hours at the Museum of Natural History.

He finally got to see the Primate family tree that we had told him about last year. His favorite thing was the cladogram and the dinosaurs and mammal evolutionary display on the 4th floor. We were there for hours. Then we had to buy ourselves a transit map so that Mathboy could plan our way home to Elyse's house, as well as our travel for the rest of our visit.

On Tuesday, we went to the hotel in Brooklyn and met up with the group from school. A couple of the kids could not make it at the last minute, one being Mathboy's best friend at school and the other being his partner on the Security Council. Without a partner, Mathboy ended up being the sole delegate from the U.S. on that committee. That also meant that he would have to "wing it" on the topic for which his partner had been responsible: the situation in Sudan. Mathboy's first motion, once the committee really got started, was that they do the topic of Nuclear Weapons (his topic) first. His motion passed, and they spent the entire first day debating his topic. This was a great start for him, and he ended up being closely involved in the debate all day.

He wrote much of one draft resolution, and got to read it to the committee a couple of times. He had to field questions from the committee. He also had to deal with the fact that, personally, he was not entirely in agreement with the position of the country he was representing. This is good experience. Interestingly, the model seemed to imitate life, in that this delegate from the U.S. never seemed to get along with the delegates from France.

On the last night, after a full day of caucusing, the kids got to vote on their draft resolutions in an actual meeting room in the United Nations building. We were told that there were over 600 students and more than 300 parents and teachers in attendance--and I can believe it, judging by how long it took to find everyone a seat. Here is how it looked from the heights of the gallery, where the parents were:

You can't see the delegation from the United States among the throng; they scrounged up some seats at the back of the room.

During the voting, the president of Mathboy's committee asked if anyone would like to say a few words about their draft resolution--yes, would anyone like to stand up, without any notes or preparation, find a working microphone and explain in a few words to this group of 900+ people what the resolution was about?

So ... can anyone guess whose hand shot up? The Delegate from the United States, of course. The delegate who did not care that his mother was having a heart attack up in the gallery. He ended up doing a fine job. In fact, he did very well throughout the entire MMUN. The president of his committee praised him to the group at large as "an articulate young man," which was very nice to hear. He also took Mathboy aside at the end of the day on Tuesday and complimented him for his hard work and for doing such a good job handling the tough questions from the committee.

All in all, Mathboy had a wonderful time. He did not mind that he was not staying in the hotel with the group--it may have helped that his good friend at school wasn't there, so he did not have anyone at the hotel that he truly missed being with. We had the group eating lunch together both days, so he got to see them at that time, and they went to the United Nations together on the last day. He also enjoyed playing with Elyse's son and he liked riding the train and the subway.

As for knitting, I actually did not get that much done. I had been working on a pair of Garter Stitch mitts that I had planned to give as a thank you to Elyse, but since my grafting looks like garbage, I put them aside and instead gave her the lovely Lace Ribbon Scarf that I finished after Christmas. I did finish the Garter Stitch Mitts when I got home, but with such lousy finishing I am keeping them for myself.

Not my best work. In addition to the crummy grafting, they are a little loose because I made the larger size. If I were to do this pattern again, I would use a bulkier, smoother yarn--both to give them a bit more heft and spring, and to make the grafting easier! I also would adapt the pattern somewhat to come up with a medium size to fit my hands, I'd have to adapt it with the bigger yarn, anyway, so what the heck.

My knitting time in NY was limited because I spent a lot of the time walking around between the various meeting rooms in which our school's kids were caucusing. I got to see a couple kids give their speeches. One boy spent a lot of time with his head down, apparently sleeping! Adorable as it was, we were a little worried about him, and there usually was at least one parent in his room trying to keep an eye on him. So I turned the heel on a sock, but that's about it.

Since our return, however, I did get started on the "Dr. G Memory Vest," which I am making for Mathboy:

The yarn is actually a lot grayer than it is in this picture. It is a really cool steel blue color of Cascade 220 Heather, and it is showing the cable pattern very nicely. I had to start this project. I was having cable and twisted stitch withdrawal after finishing Inishmore. So far, this pattern is really pleasant to knit: the stitch patterns were ridiculously easy to memorize, and the yarn is very nice to work with. It's a vest, too, and in size XS, so it should be a relatively quick-knit.

In other news, Rich and Catgirl did fine while Mathboy and I were away. Rich took her to the Big Hill to sled on the snow day, because he is so much more fun than Mommy. (This is the truth. Mommy would have persuaded her that she would have as much fun making snowmen with the neighbors, because Mommy does not really like going to the Big Hill.)

Adventures with Inishmore, etc.

2009-02-26T17:13:00.008-05:00

I've been telling myself for at least two weeks that I need to blog, I need to blog. But it's hard to blog--or cook, or clean, or read--when you are spending nearly every free moment also telling yourself, I've gotta knit, I've gotta knit. Know why? 'Cause I was almost done with Inishmore, the Epic Sweater (and I mean Epic, as in Magnum Opus, as in Neverending, as in what in God's name was I thinking?) that I started last February or March.

Well, guess what?

It's done. It's not perfect, but it's still gorgeous. It's tremendously warm. And I love it. (Forgive my sloppiness in not doing the bottom button. I was grabbing a kid to be my photographer, and she rushed me so she could get back to enjoying our backyard on this pleasantly warm evening.)

As you can see, I did manage to turn it into a cardigan without screwing it up too much. I used one repeat of the twisted cable ribbing for the button and buttonhole bands. In order to keep the cable panels that I really liked, I altered the one of which I really was not too fond. Essentially I cut the large braid-like cable in half, as it was done on the sleeves, and thus did away with enough stitches to account for the buttonband in the center. I then took the gorgeous center panel and divided it in half, one half on each front piece, and added a twisted border stitch to the edge, to give the button band something to hold on to. In these pictures, the cable panels unfortunately look like they don't match up perfectly, but I have not noticed it IRL. Don't look too closely, Okay?!

It buttons like a man's sweater, because I forgot to put a buttonhole in what I did the right front of the sweater. When I discovered the error, I decided I did not care. In a very conforting coincidence, my hero, the Yarn Harlot, recently did an entire blog post defending her practice of putting buttons on the "man's side" for everyone--men, women, children and babies. Rock on, Harlot! And thanks for making me realize it's not that I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing, but that I was actually making an unconscious choice to rebel against gender stereotying in buttons. Um, yeah, that's what I was doing.

So the sweater is done, and I am very proud. It was warm enough to wear it yesterday like a coat, which is exactly how I envisioned wearing it. This was why I wanted to make it into a cardigan. On its first day out, where could the sweater go but ... to Woolbearers! My excuse was tha I wanted to get some Cascade 220 for a vest I wanted to make for Rich, but we all know I really just wanted to show off my sweater to people who would appreciate it. The saleswomen there yesterday were very attentive and kind, and I got all the sweater complimenting I craved. Thanks, ladies!

Meanwhile, here are just a few lessons I learned from Inishmore:

Purling through the back of the loop is a special torture created for knitters by other knitters. What did I ever do to Alice Starmore to deserve this kind of treatment?!
Alice Starmore patterns need to be knitted with a lighter yarn than that called for. Bulky pattern + small gauge = sore hands. Again.
Always pay attention to the needles you are using. If you use #6's by mistake when you want to use #4s, and then knit a whole sweater piece, you know you are not going to frog it. So pay attention from the get go.

I have no other knitting to show here, because I have worked on nothing but Inishmore. Frankly, Inishmore became an obsession with me for the past month. It was the only thing I wanted to knit. If I couldn't knit Inishmore, I did not want to knit. So my socks, Mathboy's sweater, and the afghan all fell by the wayside. Knitting time was Inishmore-Time. Once it was done, I did not know what to do with myself at first. My old projects don't call to me like they once did, until Inishmore interrupted the call. And I find myself experiencing Cable Withdrawal. So, I have picked up Mathboy's sweater , my socks, and even the Murky Muir, but my progress is rather half-hearted. (They have no cables, she whines, no twisted stitches....)

But I have got to come up with a good travel knitting project for next week. I am going to be spending 2 solid days sitting and observing in the conference rooms of the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott for the Montessori Model United Nations program. This year, Mathboy is on the Security Council for the Model UN, and his position deals with weapons of mass destruction. (In case anyone is wondering: he is opposed to them.) Last year's topic (Sweden's position on how to eliminate poverty in the world) was a lot more difficult, and required considerably more research. I feel like Mathboy is coasting this year with such an easy topic, but I know he will enjoy the program nonetheless.

We are staying with my friend Elyse for the NYC trip, and, although the commute from her house will be more onerous than for the kids who are staying at the hotel, the money we will save will more than pay for the extras we will get to do. Elyse scored us tickets to Henry V at the New Victory Theater in NY this Sunday, and I am very excited! Then, Monday morning we are going to the American Natural History Museum. Ever since last year, when Catgirl and Rich and I got to go to this museum without Mathboy (while he was in his UN sessions), he has been slightly peeved. This visit will fix that. No more peeve.

After lunch on Monday, we will meet the other school kids at the hotel, register for the UN, and then the excitement begins for him, and the knitting begins for me. But what shall I bring??! I have Friday and Saturday to decide. Oh, and do laundry and clean the house and plan meals for Catgirl and Rich for while we are away. But the knititng?!

Other Stuff: Schools, schools, schools. God help us on this one. Mathboy has his "shadow day" at Moorestown Friends tomorrow, but I think I have become a convert for Doane Academy. It's a very long story, but I think this place might be a better fit for him. From what I have seen, the administrators seem much more willing to be flexible about grade levels, which is extremely important in finding the right place for Mathboy. Plus, to have a headmaster say to me, "You son needs a creative program to fit his needs for advanced materials, and I would excited to address that challenge," or something very similar but just as amazing, was so mind-boggling that I think I almost fainted. I know I teared up (I don't think he saw!).

In case you missed the significance of this, let me repeat: A school administrator acknowledged that Mathboy needs Something More than a regular school curriculum and said that he was "excited" to try to come up with what he needs. I'm getting light-headed again right now, just writing about it. Excuse me while I go get a paper-bag to breathe into.

I'm back. Well, I can't think of anything else to report. I will have MMUN pictures next time I write, and probably more knitting. :o) Maybe I'll have school information. Who knows?

Brrrr!

2009-01-29T11:34:00.005-05:00

It's pretty cold and icy here in New Jersey these days. Good days to have a fire going and some knitting on your lap. We've been trying to keep the heat set low, but we find ourselves using the gas fireplace quite a lot, s I don't think we are really saving anything on heat. I know the monthly utility bill is a heckuva lot higher than last year, but am not sure if that is due to gas fireplace use or higher gas prices. Making full use of our wool sweaters, wool socks and various blankets is free, however, so I keep encouraging that.

Bizarrely enough, my daughter has NO SWEATERS. She's the daughter of a knitter and she has no sweaters. Of course, she hates sweaters, and won't wear them, which is why I have refused to knit her any for several years, but it still is the weirdest thing. She likes handknit hats and socks and scarves, though, so she has plenty of those. But no sweaters.

Inspired by the weather, I have been cranking along on my Inishmore.

I finished the back (huge, isn't it? but that's what the pattern calls for). I also did one of the saddle shoulders for a sleeve, before finally getting down and dirty with the math so I could figure out how to convert this pattern into a cardigan. I have gone back and forth on this question for a long time. Sheer laziness was leading me to just go with the pattern as written, making a regular pullover sweater. But the fabric is so incredibly dense and warm, and the pattern is so big, that I am positive I will get so much more use out of it as a cardigan. I think I have figured out a good way to do it, and cast on for the left front. It's a lot more fun to knit than the back--just because I get done a row twice as quickly, I guess--so I am working on it almost exclusively. I would love to see if I could finish this in the next few weeks, because I think this sweater would be perfect for March weather.

While I was procrastinating on the Inishmore calculations, I did a couple more hats. Have I mentioned how much I love hats? Man, they are so much fun. I made another Amanda hat, this time for me, but it has actually gone to Catgirl:

It's a little snug and too short for my comfort. Long boring story.

I then made this one for me, a Turn A Square hat, and it is perfect...

...even if the stripes are a tad wonky. The yarn for both of these is Malabrigo Worsted (mmmmm-malabrigo!).

I started a sweater for Mathboy using Cascade 220 heather yarn. Boy is that yarn terrific, especially in light of the price tag. I am going to be able to make this sweater for less than $30. What a deal! And the number of color choices available just blew us away. How did I not know about this yarn before?

This is Orange Twist, although clearly not orange. I think it's a very cool pattern for a teen boy sweater. I actually now have about 15 inches up the back, so I am making progress. It would be nice if I could get this done soon, so he could wear it in this cold weather, but I think I may have my hands full with Inishmore. There are only so many hours in the day for knitting, ya know?

In other news: The kids and I have also made up our first letterboxes, and have a pretty good idea of where to plant them. We just need some good weather so we can get them placed and write up the clues. Very exciting! We completed Mathboy's application to Moorestown Friends School, and have officially started walking around with crossed fingers. My boss came back from her Caribbean vacation, which means that the nice and quiet period for all her employees is over, as well. February is looking pretty busy already!

Meanwhile, we are waiting for Mathboy's teacher to hold the promised parent meeting about the Montessori Model U.N., which is rapidly approaching. It's only 4 weeks away, and we still don't know who he will choose for chaperones, and he has not had the kids doing any writing or preparing. They finished the initial set of questions, but that's it. In fact, he still has not given us the right dates for this thing. I found the right dates myself by going to the MMUN website. So, it looks like the organizational aspect of this event is just as messed up as it was last year. Fabulous. The saving grace, however, is that one of the moms has organized so many fund raisers that she may have the whole cost covered. That is tremedous, and the rest of the parents owe her huge thanks!

Ringing in the New Year!

2009-01-07T12:36:00.007-05:00

So I am playing hooky from work today, and the fact that I am home, by myself, without feeling too much stress about what I need to be doing, had me so happy that I thought it was time to blog. Best to blog in a good mood, don't you think?

It has been so long since I posted, but I can't really give a synopsis of everything we did since my last update. Well, I'll try a quick "sum up:" Mathboy had his birthday, and is now 12. We went to Thanksgiving at my brother's house. Rich and I both worked our tails off in early December--Rich harder than me, but then after his arbitration he was pretty much able to take the last 2 weeks of the year off. I was helping my boss prepare for our de novo divocre hearing on December 19th ... which ended up being postponed at the last minute, after we had worked so hard on it for weeks. Very frustrating.

We ended up getting our Christmas tree very late, so now, on January 7th, we still have it up and lit and decorated. We will probably take it down this weekend. It was not our best tree, all things considered. Probably the best thing we can say about it is that it's healthy. It's rather crooked and very puffy, and the angel keeps falling off, and we had to tie it to the railing that divides the family room from the breakfast nook in order to keep it from falling over. When Cat Crazy Girl hosted her book club over Christmas break, one of her friends told me that she liked our tree: "It's so outgoing," she said. I laughed so hard. Is that a nice way of telling me the tree takes up the entire room?

I was able to make knitted gifts for almost everyone this year, because I went small. Hats rock. You can knit them on the train, and (depending on the pattern) you can make one in a few days. I ended up making 4 Amanda hats, 2 Zeebees, 1 Hat Fit for a Boyfriend, 2 Winter Warmers. I also made some hanging towels from the new Mason-Dixon Knitting book, a scarf, some socks, and some fingerless gloves. Everyone was amazed at how much I did, but some of the stuff I had completed very early in the year and saved for Christmas giving, and the hats were so quick and easy, that I really don't think it was that big a deal. I appreciate that everyone lets me pass off to them the end-results of my hobby.

My favorite patterns, as is obvious from my stats, were the Amanda and Zeebee hats. I want to make more of these--they are so much fun to make and they FOs looks great.

Here is the Amanda I gave to Jill, made with Malabrigo Worsted:

WOW! Now I understand why everyone goes crazy over Malabrigo. This was a joy to knit, and the finished hat is soooooo soft and squooshy. I want one.

Here is one of the Zeebees, made with Knitpicks Cadena:

Very manly, eh? I want one for myself, in a heathery teal. What do you think?

Christmas was great. I got the breadmaker I asked for, and it works wonderfully. I bought Rich the Xbox game he wanted and a golf bag. We bought Mathboy the complete set of The Far Side (making good use of all the coupons we kept getting through the Christmas season), a sand wedge, and a bunch of other stuff. Cat Girl got ...

... an iPod Shuffle. Not the Nano that all the girls at school were probably going to get, but we figured a 10 year old did not need a Nano. Let's see how she does with the Shuffle. Already, she left it at her cousins' house over Christmas, and is waiting to have it mailed home. Hmm. Not the best of starts.

Other popular gifts included the PJs to match the ones belonging to Nellie ...

(see our out-going tree in the background), and various other doll accessories, and the gift that is causing me to hear the High School Musical Soundtrack in my sleep: HSM dance pad game for XBox.

Wait: We should backtrack again. With the many gifts that were requested for the Xbox this year, you'll never believe what happened the week before Christmas. We got the Red Ring of Death on our XBox. Of ALL things...! Rich had to disconnect it and have it shipped to Texas for repair, which, although free, would take 3 weeks. What a drag. We knew that this was going to take some of the fun out of Christmas: here's the Xbox game you wanted so much, sorry you can't play it until the stupid console gets fixed, but Merry Christmas anyway! In the end, we decided to buy a used console at Gamestop. It did not cost that much, and we heard that the Red Ring of Death can recur, so it will be nice to have an Xbox unit in reserve if that happens again.

We stayed home on Christmas Day, had a slug fest and played with all our new toys. Then on Dec. 26th, we packed up and went to my parents' house to see my side of the family. We exchanged more gifts, and had a nice visit. BUT I forgot to take pictures!

Then, bright and early on Dec. 27th, we jumped back in the Rav4 and drove to Charlotte to see Rich's side of the family. We exchanged more gifts! Had some great visits with grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins. I did remember to take some pictures:

How'd everyone get so Grown Up??!!

Ages, left to right: 10, 10, 12, 16, 14 (almost) ... WOW!

We got in some letterboxing:

Here is Cat Girl refusing to give up looking in this hollow tree for the box that was supposed to be there. And guess what? She was right. It WAS there. She found it.

With all that car time, I got in some serious knitting, and I am proud to say I got some UFOs finished so I could start the new year without them hanging over me. I finished these socks, which, I actually first started when I was sitting in Barnes and Noble waiting for the last Harry Potter to be released (July 2007, right?):

These are made in the Knittery old cashmere blend. I hated this yarn, I hated this stitch pattern, and put these socks down for months and months. 18 months, to be exact. Now they are done, and they are comfortable to wear, as I thought they would be. Actually, that was the only thing that kept me from throwing these away ages ago. Anyway, I am very glad to have these done.

I also finished the Lace Ribbon Scarf, although not in time to give to anyone for Christmas:

It turned out a little short, but otherwise is simply beautiful. I just knitted until I ran out of yarn, and since these skeins are hand dyed at Woolbearers, I would not have been able to get another skein to match, so this length will have to do.

I also finished a couple dishcloths, and got several inches in on my Inishmore. I did another square for the Great American Afghan, which means I now have 7 squares out of 25 done. And I started a new pair of socks:

This is Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 in an unknown colorway. I traded for it with someone on Ravelry. It is very pretty.

Finally, we are doing our best to get Mathboy into Moorestown Friends School for next year. He definitely needs to move. Unfortunately, he got into some trouble at school in December, so Rich and I did not feel the time was good to ask his teachers to write recommendations for him. What would we say? "Yes, we know he drives you and the other kids crazy by calling out answers, but would you mind writing us a recommendation? Thanks so much." Maybe we should remind them that if they write a good rec they will be able to get rid of him for next year? Maybe not.

Mathboy is very frustrated because he says he is not learning very much. He gets classes with the middle school teachers now, but they are not doing much that he doesn't already know, so he is bored. Meanwhile, I really don't like his main teacher for this year. I really don't want to deal with him, but I have to. I already had to meet him about Mathboy's misbehaviour before Christmas and now we have our regular academic conference next week. I don't think this guy knows how to handle Mathboy. He has decided that Mathboy needs to learn humility. Well, he could have a point here. But I can see that Mathboy may be having trouble with that when his teachers don't teach him anything he doesn't already know.

On an essay that Mathboy wrote for the English teacher back in November, he got a great deal of helpful contructive criticism from the English teacher, and there were also a few comments from the main teacher.

Here is an example of one of the main teacher's comments. Mathboy had typed "Thank You" at the end of his essay, which we, as adults, know is not really appropriate at the end of an essay. That is what a teacher should teach him, right? He is only 12 and has not had a lot of writing experience at this school. So, first, the teacher wrote that there was no need to put "thank you" here, and then he added:

"Are you expecting a prize, or some appreciation of your sharing of your intelligence? Are you thanking me for reading it? Has *humility* [underlined] not sunk in yet?"

HOW is this appropriate criticism? HOW is this contructive?

I do not like this guy.

Well, that's enough for this update, I think! Back to my laundry.

Blogger Guilt....

2008-11-25T16:45:00.007-05:00

I am a Bad Blogger lately. But it has been really hard to get good blocks of time to sit down and do it. Also, much of the knitting I have been doing is for other people and I kinda don't want to ruin any surprises by posting pictures here. So what can I talk about? I work. I clean the house. I drive a lot. I knit when I can. I read very little. I take the cat to the vet (long story, see below). So all I really have for you here are some idle thoughts.

The Soundtrack of My Life
Lately, all I seem to hear is one of the following:
The High School Musical 3 Soundtrack, which CatGirl has memorized since it is on constant play in her room.

She knows all the parts, and sings them all. She prefers Sharpay, of course.

Or Viva La Vida, the latest Coldplay cd...

Rich and I went to see them in concert for my birthday, and they were tremendous. But who knew that Mathboy and his friends would become Coldplay obsessed? His birthday sleepover was quite a sight: they played board games, video games, and PC games, with this cd playing constantly in the background, and all boys sang along. Wish I had video'ed it. It was kinda weird.

Or the sounds of the creatures of Spore....

...the new PC game we got CatGirl for her birthday, and which has become one of Mathboy's new obsessions (along with Coldplay).

What else can I show you? Oh, here's something:

A hat for Catgirl. Isn't it adorable? She's pretty cute, too.

And look:

Here's Rudolph pretending not to notice the flock of wild turkeys walking through the yard behind him. Unfortunately for Rudolph, he did notice, and it was either that night or a few nights later that we believe he had a close encounter with one of them. He has a severe injury to his left eye, and the jury is still out on whether he will be able to use that eye in the future. Did you know that there are Pet Opthalmologists? Well, there are. And they are not cheap.

What a Busy Month!

2008-10-21T12:19:00.002-05:00

I am not quite sure how October has ended up becoming the busiest month of the year, but, every year, without fail, this is what happens for us. And we are not alone--lots of friends are saying the same. You would think it would be September, since that's the month that school starts. But it seems like the busy-ness of school time needs a little time to get up to full speed, and it really hits max speed in October. Of course, we often make it worse by going away in October, which is what happened this year.

We went to the mountains of Virginia to hike and camp and stay at Big Meadows Lodge on Skyline Drive the weekend of October 3. We had a wonderful time, although I did discover the hard way that walking around your neighborhood 3 times or so a week was completely inadequate training for the trails we picked out. Here are just a couple pictures:

The night we camped out, of course, it was FREEZING. The fire was pretty, and good for making hot chocolate, but not much good in actually keeping us warm. By 9 pm, we had to get in our sleeping bags in the tent just to warm up. But we were lucky enough to hear the Phillies win on the radio--on the Philadelphia sports station! Awesome radio reception is, I guess, one of the benefits to being on top of a mountain.

When we got back, it was time to get ready for Cat Girl's birthday. She got some great gifts, including some new clothes for Nicki.

Her party is scheduled for this upcoming weekend. I would appreciate prayers: I am taking 7 girls to see "High School Musical 3," and they are sleeping over. Help!

Knitting time has been at a premium lately, because of other commitments. But I have gotten some gifts done for people, which I can't show here. I also started a Woodland Shawl for myself:

I am using Rio de la Plata yarn in the Crimson Green colorway. I am not sure I love this project, but I will keep at it. It's a lot narrower than I wanted it to be, and the yarn is kind of stripey. It could improve greatly on blocking, though, or at least that's what I keep telling myself.

I also made a quick improvised Edgar scarf for Cat Girl, and it is very cool:

The yarn is very soft, and the colors are so pretty. It's Sheep Feet, from the Sheep Shop Yarn Company. Very nice. I don't have a finished picture yet, unfortunately. I want CatGirl to model it for me. I am also about halfway through a hat for MathBoy, but have no picture.

Quick Update

2008-09-29T11:13:00.003-05:00

On Thursday, we are off to Skyline Drive, in the mountains of Virginia, for a long weekend. But before we go, I thought I would leave you with the following:

Girl with Pig and Braces. She smiles more now that she has braces than she did before. Hmm.

The Chemo Comfort Shawl, all done and awkwardly posed on an ugly office chair.

My first project from the new Mason Dixon Knitting Book, which I received last week. I actually won this book in a contest that Kay and Ann had on their blog over the summer, and it was so exciting to get it in the mail last week on the day it was published. The book is really wonderful--even better than their first book, I think. There are so many projects in there that I want to do, but I started with this one. I plan to make several more of these, in classier colors (i.e., solids) and preferably without the gajillion mistakes.

Another Turkey of a Blog Entry.

2008-09-22T09:31:00.007-05:00

It's not every day that I get blog fodder as downright cool as finding a frog on the commode. But that is what I had last time, and I BLEW my chance. I've never read a duller blog entry than my last one. Thank goodness I had a cute frog picture to make it worth a reader's while. Oh well. I am very sorry, and will endeavor to do better this time, even though I do not have the benefit of frogs to help me out. I'll see what I can do.

Unfortunately, this week's material is kinda, umm, boring. This is what I've got, people:

Braces. Cat Crazy Girl got a partial set of braces this month, and is SO excited. I know Rich and I were not this jazzed when we got our braces as kids (possible understatement of the day there), so we are a little confused. But we're glad she has such a good attitude about the whole thing. Bad mom that I am, I have no picture of the braces yet. I will post one when I have it. The plan for Cat Girl is to have the partials on for a few months to take care of the canine tooth she has that came in completely sideways, and to help straighten the front teeth that are all catty-wampus (how do you spell that?). That should only take a few months. Then she'll wear a retainer until all her grown up teeth come in and get a full set of braces to deal with a minor overbite.

Mathboy's program is a little more complicated, because apparently he has a ridiculously huge overbite. He has to start with an appliance to help move his lower jaw forward; after a few months with that, the ortho plans to put on a full set of braces.

Fun times. I had to make the deposit this month for both kids. I kinda saw stars when writing the check.

Working! I am working part-time now for a matrimonial lawyer in Philadelphia. In fact, I already got paid for my first 3 days of work, which was nice! Another check like that, and I've got the downpayment for the braces for both kids. Woohoo! My new boss is actually one of my old bosses--I worked for her in 1994, between my stints for the Judge. She was tough back then, and, from what I've seen so far, she's tough now. I hope it works out.

Are you bored yet? How about some pictures of FO's to brighten things up?

Knitting: I finished Hey Teach and I LOVE it. I've already worn it, like, 3 times? No, I think 4 times. I even wore it to the office. Why not? I'm not going to court. Hey Lawyer?

To recap, this was done in a cotton/silk blend that I have had hanging around in my stash for a couple of years. It is perfect for the weather we have been getting lately and I am very happy with it.

After all that cotton, and the seaming, and the buttons ... I felt a strong need to knit something small, with no seams, and that used wool. Socks, right? No! I still can't bear the thought of socks yet; it's too close to the Summer of Socks. I'm not ready. So...

I made hats. The left hat is Brooke's Column of Leaves Hat. A nice pattern, but completely obliterated by the busy yarn. The hat of the right is Nautilus Hat, a very cool pattern that you knit from the top of the hat down. This was a much better pattern for this yarn, as the stockinette and the eyelets are simple enough to compliment the yarn colorway. The yarn, by the way is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Peru in the Philosopher's Stone colorway (which has been discontinued). Some of you may be getting these for Christmas, so please forget you saw them. Move along.

A Shawl for a Friend. The Blanches are having a celebration for one of their members, and suggested that folks might want to send a scarf or hat or earrings--something to complement her "new look" after chemo. (The Blanches are so great.) So, being the weird knitter friend on the fringe of the group, I decided that I needed to make her a shawl. This lady is terrific, and deserves every prayer and good intention that can be sent her way. I want to make her a scarf that will be beautiful, soft and luxurious, and into which I can knit my best prayers and wishes for her recovery. And I want to be able to do this in 2 weeks, although 10 days would be better. Yikes! I started Friday night.

I think I found a great pattern: the Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl. It's very pretty, it's not huge, and the repeats are short and easy so I can work fast. The recipient can throw it around her shoulders for a little comfort, without having to deal with a full size shawl. But deciding on a yarn was a little harder.

My first try was with some Fleece Artist 2/6 I had.

The colors were beautiful, but I wanted the end result to feel luxurious and soft and comforting, and this was not. So I tried again:

This yarn was suggested by the ladies at Woolbearers. Made with Merino and Cashmere, it does feel soft and luxurious, but the color choices offered were rather boring. This looked okay in the store, but knitted up it just looks drab. So I went stash-diving again, and found this:

Laine's shawl, Take 3, with Handmaiden Mini Maiden silk and wool in "Midnight." It is beautiful and soft and luxurious. I would have preferred a cheerier colorway, but it is lovely. I am cruising along on it--it does go fast.

Other Interesting Items: So Mathboy and I got home from school last week, looked out the back window and saw ...

A whole family of wild turkeys, just wandering through. This is suburban New Jersey, not the wilderness. What up with all this? We've got a family of deer treating my tomato and green bean plants and my hydrangea as a buffet, frogs in the bathroom, and wild turkeys wandering through the backyard. Hunh.

And why is it that when I make tomato sauce and tomato soup with the fresh tomatoes from my garden and from our CSA share I get this color?

This soup is orange, people, not red. It tastes great, but the kids are very suspicious since the color is not exactly the same as Ragu or Campbell's, ya know?

Well, that's all I've got for now. Happy Fall!

In which we get a Froggy Visitor

2008-09-04T13:35:00.006-05:00

This morning, Rich was in the bathroom when my alarm went off so I went downstairs to use the powder room. I was still a little fuzzy in my head so I did not even jump when I saw this little visitor sitting on the back of the toilet looking up at me.

Kinda cute, isn't he? (or she?) I kept him in a bowl until the kids woke up, then we set him free. We hope he can stay clear of the Rudolph. We hear frog tastes like chicken. Rudolph does like chicken. C. says we are going to miss him. I'm trying not to think about how he ended up in the powder room. I'd rather frogs than bugs.

The wedding was fun. The kids enjoyed seeing their cousins. We got some hiking in and saw some pretty views.

The annoying thing was that we did not get Maine weather while we were in Maine. We got New Jersey weather in Maine. It was supposed to be in the 70s while we were there, but instead it was close to 90. Meanwhile, friends back home reported that it was in the 70s in New Jersey. HUNH?!

I did not finish any more socks for the Summer of Socks. I got through one sock of the Cross Hatch Lace socks, but then totally lost my sock mojo.

See? One sock down and half a foot on the second, but I am out of gas. I need a break from socks. So...

I made 2 squares for the afghan:

I started the Lace Ribbon Scarf, which will be a Christmas gift for someone.

It is SO pretty. The camera just can't do this pattern or this yarn justice. I am using the Kraemer Silk & Silver yarn again (just like the stuff I used for my Clapotis this spring, but this time in Navy), hand-dyed at Woolbearers. I heart this yarn. Love, love.

I am working on Hey Teach! in Fable cotton/silk. This is yarn that I have had for a while. I bought it a couple of years ago with the intention of making a summer top or a shell, but it was hard to find something I liked and for which I had enough of this yarn. I liked this pattern so much when I saw it; I do hope the FO looks as good as I hope! The funny thing is that tons of people are making this pattern now because the Yarn Harlot is making it--and hers looks great, btw. Anyway, it is a fast knit. I just started it last week, and already I have one front, both sleeves, and half of the second front.

I also cooked about 15 tomatoes down into this:

Much sauce, now in the freezer. And I still have this bounty from this week:

I have to go now. I need to Google eggplant recipes. And maybe salsa recipes for the tomatoes and peppers? The kids are terrified.