Maison / Sydney

Practicing...

2011-09-10T08:38:00.004-05:00

Practicing with Jing by posting this picture of a Blue Cochin snagged from another website.

Also a screenshot of the map of our latest bike ride, including the elevation:

And the kids can't wait for this to opne:

Sparks Flew!

2011-08-07T15:46:00.004-05:00

Imagine 51,000 people, the vast majority of them women and girls. Many of them are wearing either hand-decorated t-shirts, or light summer dresses, cowboy hats and boots. Now imagine them all, screaming as one, or singing along with one huge voice, and you just might have some idea what it was like to be at the Taylor Swift concert at Lincoln Financial Field last night.

I bought three tickets for concert way back in February. The plan was that dd and I would go, and dd would pick a friend to join us. Dd asked her good friend from next door, and they both have been counting down the days until the concert for weeks. A few days ago, they had the idea to make special t-shirts.

The shirts have a picture of Taylor Swift on the front ...

...and a list of all the girls' favorite T.S. songs on the back. (They also decided to write "Swift" on the top of the back of the shirt, like a sports jersey. Get it? Team Swift?)

The concert turned out to be amazing, and one of the best shows I have ever seen in my my entire life. It may even be the best show, I am not sure. It was dd's first concert ever--I hope she's not spoiled for life now, LOL.

The opening acts seemed to go on forever. I guess I am out of practice when it comes to concerts: when I saw the tickets said 7 p.m., I really thought we needed to be there by 7 p.m. Taylor Swift herself did not come on stage until about 8:30 or so, which made for a long wait, broken up by 3 or 4 songs each from a series of country singers. (The last one, NeedtoBreathe, we liked quite a lot, though.)

When the main show finally began, the crowd came to its feet and the sound of screaming was a palpable, living thing. It was amazing. The show began with words being written on the jumbo screens, and a Taylor Swift voiceover, but I could not really hear what she was saying over the roar of the crowd. Then the singer herself rose up through a trap door in the floor of the stage. She began to sing "Sparks Fly," complete with fireworks shooting from the top of the stage to punctuate the chorus. The crowd was her back-up, singing along with every word.

That's when I realized this was no mere concert. This was going to be something else.

I still am not sure what to call last night's event. It was not just a concert. It was a show in every sense of the word. The production value was incredible. For every song, there was a dance, or a scene acted out, or a story was told. The band and the dancers were terrific. The staging was beautiful. The costume changes were many.

For "Back to December," Taylor Swift and a white piano rose from beneath the stage in a glitter snowstorm that captivated the crowd. Dd tapped my shoulder, bouncing and pointing. "The snow is glitter, Mom, it's GLITTER!" For "Haunted," Swift pretended to ring enormous brass bells that eventually were lifted above the stage to reveal dancers suspended beneath them. There was something special in every song of the night. And throughout it all, Taylor Swift seemed as impressed with the huge crowd that sang as one as it was with her. "Philly," she said, more than once, "You're AMAZING."

Monster Knitting

2011-08-04T09:06:00.003-05:00

Possibly the only thing that did not get done on the mountain vacation was knitting. There was not a lot of sitting around time, and what there was got completely absorbed by the 959-page, 10 pound, A Dance With Dragons, that I dragged around all week (even to Camelbeach!).

I knitted a total of 4 rows on the lace edging to my Taygete shawl. That's it.

Well, I actually knitted them twice, since the first time I totally messed up. So can I count 8 rows of knitting? Over 300 stitches a row? Maybe not. Oh well.

Fortunately, there was a lot more knitting going on at home before we left. Mathboy finished his Loch Ness Monster, from Hansi Singh's Amigurumi Knits, about a month ago.

Isn't it adorable? He did everything by himself with this monster. There were several difficult skills that he had to learn, including seaming, picking up stitches, kitchnering, short rows, and i-cord. I was impressed.

After he finished that, we were both excited to start some projects out of our newest indulgence: The Big Book of Knitted Monsters, by Rebecca Danger.

I decided to start with Bea the Basement Monster. I figured it would be a great stash-buster pattern, calling for 1 skein of worsted wool and another 1/2 skein in a contrast color for the panel on the bottom of the monster's body. I grabbed a well-marinated skein of dusky purple Plymouth Galway that I found on a sale rack 3(?) years ago, and some leftovers of gorgeous Dream In Color Classy in a hot pink and purple blend called Ruby River, and dove right in.

I followed directions, gamely holding two strands of the yarn together and knitting around and around. I watched as the monster got bigger and bigger and the skein got smaller and smaller--and very quickly, too, since I was knitting from both the inside and the outside of the skein at the same time. Suddenly, I found myself scrounging in the cedar chest, hoping I still had another skein of purple Galway (whew! yes!). By the time I bound off the top of the body, Bea was an 18-inch tall monster of a monster!

Only then did I think to check Ravelry for other knitters' comments on the pattern. I learned that the pattern contains a pretty major mistake: it's not supposed to be knit double-stranded on size 9s, but rather single stranded on size 7s. The designer calmy told one ravelry user, oops sorry for the confusion. "Confusion?" This is a pretty major mistake, that doubles the amount of yarn you need for the project. It's more than just a little "confusion." There is no errata listed anywhere for the pattern. If you can't access knitter comments on Ravelry, you're out of luck.

No matter. She's huge but she's awesome. She likes to hang out on Dd's bed, because she matches the decor so perfectly. And because she's so big, she's a perfect back rest.

Mathboy started Lurlene the Laundry Monster, out of a really soft spring green alpaca. As of today, he has finished the body and a couple of her limbs.

She likes to supervise his piano practicing.

X-Treme Mountain Adventure

2011-08-04T07:39:00.005-05:00

Our usual summer vacations involve a lot of sitting. Most years, we rent a house in Ocean City, NJ, where we spend almost every day schlepping our chairs and umbrella and all to the beach, set up, slather the kids with sunscreen and settle down for the day. After a week of this, I typically have gotten through 2 books. There is some jumping of waves and some building of castles in the sand, but generally it's a pretty low-key way to spend a week.

This year we shook things up a bit.

In the Doane online auction fundraiser last November, we saw a listing for a week in a 2 bedroom villa at Fernwood Resort in Bushkill, in the Poconos, including two rounds of golf. No one had even made an offer yet. We had never been to Fernwood, and did not know anything about it beyond what I was able to find out on the Internet before the auction closed. The money would benefit Doane. The minimum bid was less than $100 a night, even ignoring the fact that Rich and Mathboy would get to play golf twice. How bad could it be? So we took a chance and offered the minimum bid, and we won the auction.

We did not know what the place was going to be like, but it seemed as if there were a lot of fun things to do in the area. We were determined to take full advantage. So last week, with Dd's friend ready to watch over the chickens in our absence, we packed our bags and drove off.

The cat tried to come with us.

We arrived in Bushkill along with some very gray skies. We couldn't check in yet, and that was the day we had planned to hike through Bushkill Falls. As soon as we finished eating our picnic lunch at the Bushkill Falls site, it started to pour. Mind you, it had barely rained in weeks--now that we were starting our outdoor vacation, the skies open up? It seemed pretty unfair. We were also getting worried, because our first glimpse of the Fernwood resort was pretty depressing. Grim, even. We tried to wait out the rain, but after an hour of browsing the gift shop and reading in the covered picnic area, we decided to just go ahead and do it anyway.

This is the only picture from Bushkill Falls that turned out to be any good. It's hard to take pictures in the rain! I didn't want my iPhone to get wet, and my Nikon kept trying to flash. Sheesh. Such a gorgeous, amazing place, and I have one picture.

After we got totally soaked at Bushkill falls, we drove back to Fernwood to check in, and we finally got to see our home for the next week. The villa was great! The kids had a loft with twin beds, we had a full kitchen, a jacuzzi tub and all sorts of amenities. It was the perfect place to serve as our home base for our X-Treme Mountain Adventure. (What a relief! I really was starting to think we had made a dreadful mistake.)

On Tuesday, Mathboy had decided that we should hike up to the top of the New Jersey side of the Delaware Water Gap, and we said okay with the optimism and hubris that only people who have climbed Old Rag in the Shenandoah National Park can have. After all, if we made it up Old Rag, we can do anything right?

Oh. My. God. After a couple of hours of this, we realized that the days of hiking Old Rag may be behind us. We persevered, and reaped our reward.

This spectacular view of the Delaware Water Gap, from Indian Head at the top of Mount Tammany.

After we hiked back down (using the not so steep side of the mountain), we stopped in at Kittatinny Point, and enjoyed our picnic lunch and a soothing wade in the Delaware River.

The rest of the week included more hiking, through hills and swampy forests ...

...fording streams...

...rapelling down steep ridges ...

...and following old rail lines between the river and the soybean fields.

While the guys played golf two mornings, dd got her first real horseback ride.

This is Phantom.

We also got to spend a day at Camelbeach Water Park, where Rich and I finally got to sit in those beach chairs for a day. We did ride a few water slides with the kids, but the beauty of having older kids is that you don't need to hold their hands all the time. (And I had a big book that I wanted to get through! It took me the whole vacation to finish A Dance With Dragons.)

We also got in a day of kayaking down the Delaware River, which was so relaxing.

We liked that so much, that we want to look into getting some boats of our own, and a rack for the top of the car.

On the last day, I went to the outlets while Rich and the kids did the Treetop Rope Courses at CBK Adventures. After 3 and 1/2 hours of climbing and sliding and ziplining, the kids came down with smiles and Rich came down with his arms shaking. It was quite a work out! Then it was time to go home.

Plenty

2011-07-06T16:36:00.008-05:00

I felt like a farm wife today. Or should I say Home Farm Wife? Whatever. In my efforts to find new and exciting ways to use up the endless zucchini bounty, I dug out my canner and my canning book, and proceeded to "put up" 5 jars of zucchini relish. As long as I had the thing out and filled, I got 6 pints of blueberries from Johnson's Farm, down the street, and went crazy. Five jars of blueberry syrup and 5 jars of blueberry butter later, I decided to go out and see what the home farm had to offer me today.

How about a pound of green beans and another zucchini? (I also got 2 heads of lettuce, but forgot to take a picture of them before washing them and putting them away.) You know, I think there may be a reason why they call New Jersey the Garden State....

We have reached the point in the summer where the garden is really starting to do its part, paying us back for all the watering and weeding we have done. The green beans have already supplied 4 or 5 dinners worth of veggies, not counting today's haul, and I have 6 zucchini in the refrigerator right now, even though I used 4 to make zucchini relish this morning. And there are several more on the vines that are nearly ready.

Thank goodness I only planted 2 zucchini plants this spring!

The kohlrabi should be ready soon, and the broccoli are almost big enough to pick. I've already made a huge batch of basil pesto, and a "huger" batch of kale pesto. And I sent dd out to pick the 2 biggest peppers she could find this morning, so I could cut them up for the relish I was making.

(By the way, can I say how COOL it feels to send your kid out to the garden to bring back food? I am not sure why, but it's just great. Here, hon, go out to the garden and fill this basket with basil. Awesome. I am such a weirdo.)

The acorn squash plants are like giant mutant bushes. We have 5, and each of them has 4 or 5 sqaushes that look like they could be ready to pick very soon. But I don't know what to do with so many acorn squashes already! It's only July! I expected to be harvesting them at the end of August, and stashing them in a crate in the basement for several weeks, or something like that. Isn't that what Ma and Laura and Mary did? (Except I do have an extra mini-fridge down there--ah, the benefits of modern life.)

We are doing our best to protect the plants from the varmints. Rich's fence goes all the way around, and the pretty wooden gates go all the way down to the ground. But there are these super-teeny-weeny bunnies that have no problem getting through the fence, and apparently they have a taste for edamame, of all things. I planted 8 edamame bushes this spring. They are down to sticks now. The amazing thing is that they are in the middle of the garden--row 3 out of 8. These bunnies bypass the tomatoes, turn their cute little noses up at the lettuce, snub the kale and the broccoli, and head for the edamame. But I worry what these tiny Asian-peapod-lovers will start to go after once the edamame are all gone.

Right now, the garden is a study in contrasts. I planted the veggies in rows in the back half. Rich is sculpting the front half to be more of a decorative garden. The veggies have grown to monster sizes in the back. Rich's front part is still barren, but he is making definite progress.

In the fall, I look forward to posting a picture that would show some of the late season veggie crops still going in the back of the garden, along with Rich's flowers blooming in the front. It will look great!

Things I Learned on my Bike in the past week

2011-06-21T15:18:00.002-05:00

1. It's hard to take a picture while you are pedaling.

2. Familiarize yourself with the garbage schedule of the towns you plan to ride through. It's no fun weaving between stinky cans and garbage trucks.

3. On some roads, you need to keep your mouth shut while riding, unless you like to get additional protein from eating bugs.

4. Even with my fancy new gel-techno-padded bike shorts, I still dread the moment when I get up from the bike seat and all the blood rushes back to my butt. Ouch!

5. I'm not a kid anymore. :oP

Too Darn Hot

2011-06-10T13:30:00.001-05:00

Fun times

2011-05-20T10:48:00.003-05:00

I have become a very inconsistent blogger. Here I am, with another monthly update, and I find myself overwhelmed with all the pictures I have to post and the events to report. This is why I really should write more regularly.

We had a wonderful visit with Rich's family on Kiawah Island, SC over Easter. The Saturday before Easter, we were on the beach all day. It just felt so weird to be swimming in the ocean, before Easter. The water was warm. The sun was strong--too strong for this New Jersey family, apparently, as we ended up having to take dd to the doctor for sun poisioning after a few days. But still, a good time was had by all.

Some tough poker games were played.

Many books were read.

Mathboy and his cousin got pretty good at managing the ocean kayaks in the waves.

Kiawah is so gorgeous, so totally different from the shores that we are used to up here in the northeast. This is the path out to the beach.

This is what we saw from the balcony of our room.

And then we had to come back to New Jersey and reality. Mathboy and I came home early, by plane, because his school was already back in session and because he had to get ready for the AP Chemistry exam. Even though we had a great trip, Easter break wasn't really long enough to recharge everyone's batteries, though. The kids are really looking forward to the end of the year.

It was very frustrating that the kids' schools have had different schedules so often this year. At least that won't be a problem next year: dd has been accepted at Mathboy's school. Hooray! It's going to be great having them together, in the same school, for the first time in 6 years. No more OLGC school for us, only Doane Academy. Hm, that means I better get dd signed up for CCD, though, doesn't it?

The past few weeks have been spent in a haze of baseball, softball, cardboard boat building, and trying to get the garden going. Mathboy played on the Doane baseball team this year, and hopefully learned some valuable lessons in patience and realizing that one has to work one's way up in high school sports.

Everyone got to bat when the Doane team played Solebury School (yes, my old school), at the Trenton Thunder stadium a few weeks ago.

It was really neat to see the guys out on that beautiful field.

Dd has been learning the same lesson on the school softball team, but at least she has the town rec league team as well. Rich is coaching dd's rec team, and he says it is a wonderful group of girls. So far, their record is 6-4-1, which is pretty good! Dd is still focusing on pitching, which she wants to practice everyday.

The seedlings have all been planted, and Rich is woprking on finishing the fence in front. We've planted winter squash, kohlrabi, cabbage, kale, sweet peppers, edamame, snow peas, green beans, broccoli, scallions, quinoa, beets, chard, and lots and lots of lettuce. We also have 14 tomato plants, including Burbank Slicing and Japanese Momotaro heirloom varieties.

I am very excited to see the tomatoes from these plants (the Momotaro seeds were about 25 cents each!), but I am wondering if I may have gone overboard planting 14.... I may be canning a lot of sauce.

Right now, I am just keeping my fingers crossed that everything does OK, because I already have several weeks of seed-nurturing behind me already. Half of the winter squash seedlings did not look so good this morning. I wonder if they got crushed by heavy rain last night. Gulp.

The kale is for the chickens. They love it.

While Rich and I were slaving away in the garden over the past few Sundays, Mathboy and a friend from school were building this:

A cardboard boat, for a regatta that Doane is hosting next Friday. Stay tuned, and I'll let you know whether they make it aacross Liberty Lake in this conglomeration of broken down liquor store boxes, Gorilla Glue and duct tape.

Who'd a'thought?

2011-04-05T09:30:00.007-05:00

Last night, I came downstairs from folding the laundry and Rich was watching TV. He had paused the screen, saving something for me to see. "Watch this," he said. "You'll never believe it. We're part of A Movement."

It turned out to be a commercial, I don't remember for what, but it talked about the "Home Farming Movement," and showed people happily tending a few tomato plants, in perfect rows, in perfect black dirt, with children cheerfully helping. We're at the forefront of a Movement with a capital "M." How'd that happen?

Rich said he felt like Crocodile Dundee, looking at the tiny garden plot depicted in the commercial. "That's not a home farm," he said and pointed out the window. "Now that's a home farm."

We don't have perfect black dirt and even rows of weed-free plants, and our children don't cheerfully pitch in with big smiles on their faces, but it's definitely looking like a Home Farm.

Rich has been working on the fence since last fall. The big swingset was taken away a few weeks ago by a family down the street with young children who will appreciate it. (That family deserves it so much more than we do: they spent a good week sanding it down, power washing it and painting it. I can see it in their backyard when I drive by, and it looks brand new.) And this past weekend, Rich borrowed a rototiller from a neighbor and cut up the sod and weeds within the fence. That's almost 2000 square feet of future garden space, people. (Or should I say Home Farm Space? I need to remember we're on the cutting edge.)

Now we just need to rake up all the clods of grass, get some topsoil delivered, and layout the actual rows within the fence. Gee, that's all? So far, I raked about a quarter of the space. It's pretty tough going--certainly more of an upper body workout that I am used to. This farming thing might turn out to be hard work, you know.

I did the easy part though: I order lots of seeds, and got a bunch started.
I've started seeds for tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, kale, choi and broccoli, and I have to start some more soon. But at this point, the only things our Home Farm is producing is lettuce...

...because I bought this awesome pot at Home Depot, and, of course, eggs.

All the little banties have taken a break from laying since early February, but Jackie (above) and Daisy have kept going, each of them giving us about 5 big brown eggs a week. Lenten Friday dinners have been yummy souffles and quiches, courtesy of the two Big Girls. I have to wonder what kind of sacrifice we are making, giving up meat for Friday, when the alternatives are so luxurious and delicious?

I am hoping that the banties will start laying again soon, now that the days are getting longer and spring seems to be here for real. We need to snap Lily out of being broody.

She's been sitting in the nesting box, warming nonexistent eggs, for about 6 weeks now, and I don't think that is good for her health.

For the entire month of March, both Lily and Audrey sat in the nesting boxes, while the other three enjoyed exploring the fenced in garden area. We started calling them the 3 Musketeers. Then Audrey snapped out of her broodiness and joined the group, so now they are the Four Musketeers.

Melanie hasn't done the broody thing at all, which is surprising.

I'm not complaining--I hate it when they go broody--but it is interesting that she hasn't felt the call to sit on a nest.

Now that we are getting ready to make the fenced in area into a real garden--I mean Home Farm--the chickens can't go in there anymore, so we are going to snake some wire fencing through the woods near the coop and let them wander in there. We think this will be much better for them than a fenced in pasture-type area, because there is lots of fun stuff to dig around in. Also, because we are going to attach in to the coop, they will be allowed to walk in and out, so they can go in on their own if it rains and if they need to go lay an egg. All in all, it's a much better situation than what they have had before, and it's a far cry from the confinement they dealt with during the snow of January.

Right now, I have the wire fencing temporarily placed, but I have not secured it to the ground very well. As a result, I keep looking out the window and finding Daisy outside the enclosure and trying to figure out how to get back in.

We have taken to calling her Daisy Houdini. I don't know how she is getting out, and I need to before I make this fencing more permanent!

In other news:

1. We survived two school plays. The plays were very good, but the last few weeks of practices before their respective performance weekends were completely and totally exhausting for the entire household. I am not sure I am cut out to be a Stage Mom.

2. Hot Pink shawl complete!

It's gorgeous, but will I have the guts to wear something this bright? Maybe I should have thought of that before I started knitting it?

It's Baseball time again...

2011-03-14T12:10:00.003-05:00

Even Rudolph is excited about it.

De-Blinging

2011-03-11T15:53:00.007-05:00

Catgirl and I have very different taste in clothes. That probably doesn’t surprise you, does it? After all she is 12 and I am … not. Of course we like to wear different things. I would be a little frightened if we liked the same clothes. There would be something the matter with one of us, if that were the case. That's not the issue that I am writing about here. We do run into difficulties, however, is because I would like her to wear different clothes than the ones she would prefer to wear. And isn’t that one of the basic issues facing all mothers and daughters?

When Catgirl was a baby or a toddler, I could dress her the way I wanted her to look. She was like a doll. A crying, tantrum-throwing doll sometimes, but that’s all water under the bridge, now, thank God. Sometime around kindergarten-age, Catgirl started to get picky about what she would wear. By the time she was in 3rd grade, I realized that it was pointless for me to shop for clothes for her without having her with me. If I bought something she didn‘t like, it would end up being a big waste of money. She simply would not wear it. Things would end up in the garage sale or donation piles, outgrown but still in new or nearly new condition.

That was the year we discovered Justice. In general, the clothes there are a heckuva lot more busy than I personally prefer, and they have a lot of animal prints which I despise. But Catgirl and I usually could find something there we could agree on. And the frequent 40% coupons they send in the mail don’t hurt. The discovery of that store marked the beginning of a period of détente in the clothing wars between Catgirl and me.

Fast forward to October 2010: Catgirl is in 6th grade. Catgirl has always been a sucker for super-soft sweats and anything with fur. Well, ok. We found this heavy sweatshirt, with a furry fleece interior, fur trim, and blingy initials on the front at a P.S. store, and she fell in love with it.
We negotiated, and it ended up being a birthday present. She wore it every day for a few weeks, and then it just got forgotten.

Last week, I pulled it out of the closet and pointed out that it’s the right season for this weight of a jacket again. Would she like to wear it?

She got that expression that all parents have seen at some point. You know the one; like they are hearing fingernails going down a chalkboard? And she said, “Mom … it’s kind of … little-kiddish.”

My little girl is growing up. She growing out of Bling.

And what a difference six months makes, hm? When we bought this jacket in October, she was still enamored of the rhinestones and sequins, like so many of the clothes at Justice. But the last few times we tried to find her some nice church clothes there, we left without liking anything. Justice has been getting more and more bejeweled lately, while Catgirl has started preferring plainer things. Plain tops are more her style now. When she was little, she loved dresses, but now all she wants to wear are pants. It's been interesting watching her tastes change.

But back to the jacket. Just like when she was little and I used to buy clothes that she ended up boycotting, I am looking at a perfectly good jacket that is going to end up being sold or donated in nearly new condition. Just like all those years ago, I am not so happy about that. So i am trying an experiment.
I am de-blinging the jacket. I got out my sharpest sewing scissors, and I am painstakingly cutting the threads holding the appliques and the beads and the rhinestones on this jacket, and, so far, so good. There will probably remain some indication that the letters were there, but at least the sparklies will be gone, and hopefully that will make it less "little kiddish."

The crazy thing is that this bling probably accounts for about half of the original value of this jacket, and I am cutting it off and throwing it away. (I just hope that this stuff wasn't all sewn on by some poor child in a Third World nation. Maybe we should have thought of that when we bought it though, hm?) But if it makes it wearable again for Catgirl, it's worth it.

Frozen Chicken Poop Doesn't Stick to Your Boots

2011-03-08T17:10:00.013-05:00

But, at this point, that's about the only good thing I can say about winter. We've certainly had enough of it around here, and we are very ready for Spring.

The chickens hijacked the blog for the month of February. Boredom and the short days of winter conspired against us to make for some very crabby poultry. There were many demonstrations of a chickie nature, and it was much feared that the price of eggs would increase substantially, as most of the hens went on a labor strike and refused to lay eggs. I am happy to report that I wrested control back, through utter ruthless efforts to distract them with oatmeal, cabbage, and a new area to explore. The weather has also come to our aid, and the simple fact that the days are getting longer. Thank goodness.

It is so hard to get good pictures of the chickens, because they move too darn fast, believe it or not. This is Daisy, the only chicken who has figured out the "chicken IQ test" that I have been using to keep them in their new pen area (see below)

It's finally warming up around here, which is cheering us all up, after our winter's hibernation. This week, I started our first round of seeds--the plants that need to be started 6 to 8 weeks before the last expected frost. I have a bunch more to start in another 3 weeks or so. It's exciting! Is it dorky that I am so excited? Probably. Rich put a quick, temporary fence on the front of most of the garden area, so that we can let the chickens run around in there.

It gives them a lot more space to explore than they have had for the past few months. I've got the old chicken tractor propped against the open gateway, and that keeps them in, although daisy has figured out that sometimes she can squeeze around the tractor. Rich has a beautiful, real wooden gate that we probably will hang this weekend. And sometime in the next month or two, we plan to borrow a rototiller from a neighbor and get it ready to be a real garden. Sorry chickens.

I know it's been a long time since I written a blog entry, but we only had "little stuff" going on around here. Not the most exciting fodder to write about, if you know what I mean. Maybe I could make it all more interesting by writing in headlines? Or writing like those teasers they use for upcoming news stories?

Health news: Mathboy's biopsy was a stressful event for all of us, but the good news is that they did not find anything pathological to explain his protein problem. But this is one of those times when no news was good news. The doctor believes it must be "minimal change" syndrome, and prescribed medication to treat that, and we will continue to monitor the situation in case it is a precursor or a very early symptom of more serious kidney problems.

Mathboy got contacts this month, too. Actually, I should say that he got a contact, as it turns out he only needs correction in one eye. He's 20/20 in his left eye and 20/80 in the right eye. Oh, so that's why he's been dropping all those pop flies. He had no depth perception. Oops. I had to really persuade the eye doctor to give him a prescription, because apparently the one good eye does a fine enough job that she thought he could get by. But she hadn't seen him on a baseball field lately. So now he has one contact that he wears for sports only, and the difference in his ability to see the ball, and his confidence in his ability to catch the ball, is tremendous.

Mathboy also gets his braces off this month. We're excited to see him without metal in his mouth for the first time in 2 and 1/2 years.

Exercise news? Yeah, well, Mathboy and I have not been out running for a very long time. I have been making due with the elliptical trainer and Mathboy has been taking it easy. However, I do want to get back to running when the weather is better. In the meantime, when I recently visited Mom and Bill, I took their dog out for a walk and tried to get him into a bit of a run. Well....

Dear Readers: I outran an Australian Sheep Dog. He's a terribly out of shape Australian sheep dog, but still.... I guess I'm not that bad after all.

Sports news: A sure sign of Spring, baseball and Softball seasons are beginning. Mathboy is playing for his school this year, which means it is the first year he has not been involved with Mount Laurel Baseball since Spring, 2004, when he played T-Ball. It's the end of an era. On the other hand, Rich has volunteered to be coach for Catgirl's softball team. Yes, the crazy is strong in our family.

In home news: Rich and Sydney's new king-sized Mattress is super comfy, but ridiculously huge and very expensive. Perhaps it would have been cheaper to buy a kids' bouncy house to sleep in, and it might have been easier to get that up the stairs. It took 3 guys to wrestle our new mattress--rolled up like a giant latex stromboli--up the stairs. I couldn't watch; I was sure they were going to break something. Later, Rich mused that it must be a turning point in your life when you buy a bed that costs more than your first car did.

It was Musical Mattresses that weekend, as we moved our old queen to Mathboy's room (so we can use his room as a guest room when we have company) and his old twin to Catgirl's room (because his mattress was better than hers). Mathboy has been growing so fast that it's hard to keep up, and he needed something a little bigger.

More home news: I discover mad locksmithing skillz, replacing broken doorknobs. For the first time in 10 years, the family now has a key that will open the knob for the front door. Next up for me: channelling my inner plumber, as we have 2 sink traps that need replacing. I've done it before, so I know how to do it, but man, do I hate squeezing under the vanity.

Coming up in Kid News for March: Mathboy and Catgirl discover the hard way that being in a school play eats up all their spare time, and then some. They are going to have to clone themselves to be able to attend baseball and softball practice over the next two weeks.

Music news: Sydney spent the month of February loading all her parents' CDs into an iTunes library. Turns out that is quite a job. Mom and Bill never met a soundtrack or compilation that they didn't like, LOL. They now have been reunited with a collection spanning 20 years, and things sound good in their house again. Turn off that TV, Mom, and groove to the iPod.

Cat news: Rudolph is the only one not looking forward to Spring, because it means there will be no more fires in the fireplace for him to sleep in front of. The only good thing about Spring is that it is one step closer to Summer: the season when kids go in and out frequently and give him several chances a day to escape and play with his friends outside, the Ticks.

(If we could only teach him how to sit like a real cat, that would be awesome. And maybe he could do some vacuuming?)

And now to the best part, the Knitting news: I did a crazy thing recently. I have been knitting socks since I taught myself how in 2006. I learned how using info from Wendy Johnson, and I learned to do them toe-up, because that was the way Wendy did them. (She might do them differently now, I am not sure.) Anyway, after 4 years and maybe 25 or 30 pairs of toe-up socks, I threw caution to the wind this January and ... cast on a pair of top-down socks. I know, I know. Maybe I should have made sure you were all sitting down before I just came out and said that.

Here they are:

This is the Nemesis pattern from Knitty, in the Tosca colorway of Handpainted Donegal Sock Yarn, which I bought at Woolbearers. The socks turned out great! I even did OK with the kitchenering for the toes. I used to say kitchener stitch was my nemesis (an odd coincidence with the name of this sock pattern, no?), but I'm getting better. They are very comfortable and fit great. When I wear them in boots (which is pretty much all I wore on my feet for 3 months), I can feel the sides of the heel flap where I picked up the stitches, and I don't love that. But it's not too bad.

Then Sarah came over and showed me the Socks of Insanity that she was knitting for her son, with about 100 stitches around, knit in rib on size 1 needles. I was so glad she came to visit. I hadn't seen her in ages! And sometimes it's nice to know that there are other people out there crazier than you, know what I mean?

As a bonus, Sarah brought her copy of Sock Innovation, and let me borrow it. Now that I know how to knit socks top-down, a whole new world of sock knitting has opened up to me, and I think one of the undisputed geniuses of that world is Cookie A. I'd always admired her designs, but had never made any because they are all top-down. Well, I dove right in with this pair:

This is the Kai Mei pattern, and it has a very cool lace pattern that runs down and over the side of the foot. I've read that it's a "honeybee" lace pattern, but I think it looks like a heart, which was perfect for knitting in February.

I love these socks. The pattern was fun and challenging, and the yarn was very pleasant to knit, but I am kind of annoyed that the skeins did not end up matching well at all. It's Jojoland Melody, and both balls were the same colorway and dye lot, but you see how different the socks look. They are more fraternal twins than identical, I guess.

I am clearly on a pink kick lately, trying to brighten up the winter with a cheery color. I've made a hat from magenta-red Malabrigo, a pair of fingerless mitts from pink sock yarn, and I am about halfway through a shawl of pink and mango colored sock yarn that is so bright it blinds the camera, LOL.

That's enough news for today, I think. I will be back soon with more updates!

Egg Diaries: Shmelanie's Big Run

2011-02-12T11:14:00.006-05:00

Dear Diary,

Well, I'm glad that's over!

I was just wandering down the path when someone picked me up and carried me over to the side of the people's house. I had no idea where I was, but then I saw it: FOOOOOD!!!! My buddies and I ran as fast as we could to reach the dewy grass and dirt.

We scratched around for a while, but then, to my horror, *plop*, down came Lily!

I wiggled and wobbled around the side of the house, only to find some small hands picking me up and placing me back by the grass! I shuffled as fast as I could, avoiding shiny ice and thick snow drifts to get back to the house.

When my friends came back later, they told me scary stories of a giant cat appearing in the window and giving my sis, Lily, quite a fright. (Not disappointed there. Hehe.)

Gotta go, though. More squishy oatmeal. ;)
XOXO Shmelanie
(This Diary entry was written and photographed by Catgirl, Melanie's official secretary and photographer.)

Egg Diaries: Winter, Day 45

2011-02-05T09:35:00.006-05:00

Dear Diary,

When will this awful season end? Between the cold white stuff on the ground, the ice, the wind, the freezing rain, I am finding it hard to remember the hot days of the summer, when we huddled under the coop to enjoy the shade rather than to take shelter from the wind. In August, it was so hot that the people brought us watermelon and misted the dust down with the garden hose. Now they bring us hot oatmeal and microwaved leftovers from the dinner table.

By the way, may I say how grateful I am that the young girl never seems to finish her dinner? Yum, leftover potatoes....

I must admit that I am getting seriously bored of cracked corn and oatmeal and winter squash. I want to dig in the dirt and leaves and eat some bugs.

We did find some dirt to dig in the other day, along the side of the house. It was only about 8 square feet, and we had to walk a long way donw the path the people shopvelled from the house to the coop, but where else do we have to go? With all this snow, all we can do is walk up and down the path. After a coupld of warmer afternoons, the snow next to the house melted in a few spots, and we were able to get to the grass and leaves underneath. You don't suppose the people really wanted the grass that grew there, do you? Hope not. It was delicious.

The people put a bale of straw in our coop last week to block the wind and to give us something to play with. Yeah, that went well. It only took us 4 or 5 days to completely demolish it all over this coop. Honestly, did they think a silly bale of hay would hold up against us for longer than that?

My sister Lily is broody these days. That means she spends just about all day and night in one of the nesting boxes. The confusing part is that she does change boxes once in a while. When Audrey was broody she picked one box and stuck with it, but Lily is all over the place. Well, at least it keeps her from trying to eat me alive. I swear, I am glad I can't see the back of my neck in a mirror, since she pulled out all the feathers I had there. I do hope they grow back, because my neck is cold.

More later, Diary. I need to go lay an egg.
~Melanie

A Whole Lot of Frogging Going On

2011-01-21T12:04:00.003-05:00

I've been doing lots of knitting and unknitting this winter. This post will cover the unknitting. I was going to write about the knitting, too, but writing about the unknitting bummed me out and I need to go do something positive to cheer myself up.

I have written about unknitting before. Last March, I ripped out a silk sweater that I had knit 6 or so years ago. It was the first time I had frogged an entire knitted garment like that, and I was surprised at how well it went. A good soaking got rid of the whole ramen-yarn effect. I did end up with a lot of small skeins, but they should be perfectly usable. As I explained last year, this sweater had been an epic fail in so many ways: the design was silly, it was not flattering for my body type, and the fit was horrible because I completely ignored gauge. This gorgeous yarn clearly wanted to be a shawlette or something like that.

It has been several months since this yarn's return to the stash, and I still don't have a plan for how to use it. But that didn't stop me from ruthlessly ripping out some more of my epic fails of the past. In fact, you could probably say that I got carried away.

I don't even want to think about how many months worth of knitting were undone in making the pile in the above picture.

Let's start with the worst and work our way up, shall we?

This was once a tunic style vest from Vogue Knitting. I have no picture of it. You'll have to take my word for it: it was very ugly. The design was questionable to begin with, but my execution was pretty crappy as well. Everything from yarn choice to my failure to finish the front properly resulted in an FO so bad that it had not seen the light of day since, oh, 2006? I had forced myself to wear it a few times, but when I realized that the weight of the yarn streched the armholes so much that I had to wear a shirt underneath to keep from giving everyone a clear view of my bra, that was pretty much the end for this garment.

This is a variegated ribbon/tape yarn made from 100% soy. It ripped out very easily. But I don't know what the heck to do with it! It's not like I was dying to have this yarn back in the stash. I got it from the sale bin at a store that went out of business years ago. I have since learned a couple things about sale bins at yarn stores. Yarn ends up in those bins generally for one of two reasons: (1) the store no longer has enough for you to be able to make what you really want with it, or (2) no one has any idea what to make with it, so it did not sell and now the store just wants to get rid of it. This yarn was in the bin for reason #2.

Catgirl wants me to "make something" for her with it. But what?

Does anyone remember this little number from 2008?

This is the only picture I have of it. I was so annoyed with it, I never did a "finished" picture of it. The lace is pretty, but the project ended up being incredibly small, even after blocking. Blocking only added a couple inches to it, but it never held the block anyway, shrinking bit by bit every day. I tried wearing it as a neck shawl with the ends tucked into the front of my coat, but it was not even a good enough size for that. Then I decided it would be a nice decoration for a table, and it has spent the last 2 years stretched over Nana's coffee table... and it was not long enough to reach the ends.

Now it looks like this.

The soaking and hanging softened the ramen factor, but it did not come out as well as the other things I have ripped. I managed to save about 80% of the yarn from the shawl, the end was too felted together and I had to cut a couple inches off. But what do I do with it now? It's not like I loved this yarn and was yearning to knit is again.

And now we come to piece de resistance:

This sweater was well made, with nice yarn--a great basic cardigan that I made at least 5 years ago. The yarn is Noro Silk Garden, an interesting silk/wool/mohair blend. Unfortunately, when I made this, I was not sure I would have enough yarn, so made it a little too short. Although I wore it a lot, I was never happy with the length. For the past couple years, I hadn't worn it because I was that unhappy with how short it was. It was very frustrating, because I loved the look of this yarn knit up in simple stockinette.

Under the influence of my crazy frogging frenzy, I got a crazy idea. What if I ripped it out and made a vest instead? The yarn reclaimed from the sleeves would help make the body of the garment long enough to make me happy. So I grabbed my scissors, and started pulling.

Now it's a pile of skeins, and I am an idiot.

This was, quite honestly, a huge mistake. First of all, this yarn has MOHAIR in it. What was I thinking? Ripping back mohair is a knitter's idea of torture. And secondly, I had forgotten how difficult this sweater had been to knit. There were several knots in the skeins, and sometimes the knots interrupted the long color runs so I had to cut and try a different skein to match it up. It's hard to rip when you have ends wound in among the stitches, so that caused lots of problems. And, because of all the breaks in the yarn, I now have a dozen little skeins of this yarn, but matching them up in the long color runs is going to be extremely difficult.

So what to do with all this "bounty"? I think I can see making it into some hats, maybe a cowl, maybe some mittens. I think it's only going to be any good for small projects like those. So much for my dreams of a long vest....

Old Man Winter is Having Way Too Much Fun

2011-01-13T14:37:00.006-05:00

So this is what it looked like in our backyard yesterday. This was only 5 or 6 inches of snow. Easy-peasy, right? I mean, we must be getting used to this by now.

But that's easy for me to say, from the comfort of the couch in my cozy family room, with the fire burning and the new heating system cranking away. I wonder if I would feel the same way if I were a chicken and my home looked like this:

This is what it looked like out at the chicken coop, after I shoveled out the worst of the snow and spread some straw around for the ladies to play in.

Keep in mind that this henhouse, although it sports a nice solid roof and cute red paint, is little more than a wooden box on stilts. It's not heated. We placed it in a corner of the yard where we thought it would be protected from the worst of the weather, with the shed on one side and the woods and the berm of the creek on two other sides. I've hung a tarp to give them more protection from rain and snow, and I recently propped some boards against the bottom of the coop to give them an area protected from the harsh wind blowing across the backyard. But it's still darn cold out there. Even before we got this latest storm, the temperatures were very low, making for cold hard ground and a cold henhouse.

We've had some amusing moments this week, watching the girls trying to deal with the snow. They really don't like walking on it, we know that. I am very glad that I bought that bale of straw a few months ago. It was a monumental failure in the henhouse--the chickens hated it, and would not go in the nesting boxes when the straw was there--but it has been great for spreading on top of the snow. It's more pleasant for them to walk on than the snow, and digging in the straw gives them something to do.

This helps, because I think they are getting bored out of their tiny little minds out there in the coop. Every time one of us opens the door, they all come running and look out to see if we've gotten rid of all that troublesome and cold white stuff yet.

Occasionally, they will get desperate enough to venture a few steps onto the snow, and we have noticed that some of them are more daring in this regard than others. Daisy, for example, is much more willing to brave cold feet if it means a chance to walk around outside. Melanie is usually just a few steps behind her. The other three are less enthusiastic. In particular, Jackie is a complete and total coward, and she would much rather stay under the henhouse and call for everyone to come back and stay with her. It's ironic that the biggest of the hens is the most wimpy.

So far, they haven't cut back much on production. We still get 3 or 4 eggs a day, so they are doing their jobs.

With the cold, we've had trouble keeping their water from freezing. We have two bottles, so we change them out every few hours so that there is always one bottle with unfrozen water available for them. It's becoming a bit of a pain, though, so the other day I broke down and ordered an electrically heated water bowl. And a couple of days ago, I started bringing them a treat:

Multigrain hot cereal. This bowl has a generous sprinkling of flax seed, because my friend Elyse suggested it might help make their eggs more nutritious. Hey, I'll try anything. But would they?

Yep. They loved it.

If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be cooking for chickens, I am not sure I would have believed you.

2011 brings Snow, Eggs, and a Shopping Epiphany

2011-01-07T07:54:00.006-05:00

The snow started here a little while ago, but they are saying we should only get an inch or two today. No big deal. I am better prepared than I was for the storm that came after Christmas. This time, I already put the chickens' tractor under the swing-set, so they would have a protected and relatively snow-free place to go outside the coop. I also fixed the tarp again in the chickens' area yesterday, so they should not be bothered too much by snow there. The Christmas snow last time was way too much for my jury-rigged tarp arrangement to handle, and the whole thing had collapsed under the weight of the white stuff. But today's snow should not be a problem for my pathetic little system of hooks and zip ties.

I know it sounds like I spoil them, but we all feel a lot of responsibility for them. Like any pets, they are completely dependent upon us to take care of them. But, unlike pets, they pay their way by providing us with FOOD--we are getting 3 or 4eggs everyday. For some reason, this really makes me feel my obligation to them even more strongly. It's like a contract: they're living up to their end, and we need to do our part, too.

The cat sneaked out this morning when Mathboy ran out for his bus. The bugger has perfected the art of hiding near the foot of the stairs in the front hall. He waits for one of the kids to run out to the bus, and dashes out behind: a white and gray streak leaping through, in the nick of time, before the door slams. You might think the sound of the door crashing closed behind him would remind him of the way he lost half his tail a few years ago. Apparently not. At any rate, even he did not want to stay out too long this morning with the snow coming down. He's back already, licking the white stuff off his fur and watching the snow fall through the window.

I ended up having to spend a while at the mall yesterday, in my hunt for the elusive Pants-That-Fit for my son. He's turning into quite the long, tall drink-of-water, and the pants I bought only a few months ago are already way too short. He wears them anyway, because he could care less, but Rich and I are have frightening flaskbacks of Erkel every time he puts them on. So I was determined yesterday to get pants that he wouldn't grow out of in a few months and secretly remove all the old pants from his closet so he couldn't wear them by accident. Mission Impossible? I was afraid so.

First stop: trusty old Macy's kids' department. I have given up on buying any shirts for Mathboy there--the kid clothes are just too ugly these days. But they usually have a good selection of Levis. But I discovered yesterday the limitations of kids' sizes: Mathboy has outgrown the 14s, which measure 27x27. I could have bought him 16s, which would have been 28x28. But that seemed pointless. Judging by the expanse of sock showing above his shoes and below his hems, he's probably too tall for those already. The size 18s measured 29x29. Those might be the right length, but they also would fall down around his ankles.

Crap. I was going to need 28x30 pants, and I think you can only get those in ... the men's department.

And right there, in the kids' floor of Macy's, surrounded by ugly dorky shirts and wrong-sized jeans on the boys' side, and ugly too-glittery shirts and babydoll dress on the girls' side, I finally realized it.

My days of shopping in the kids' department are over. My kids are now adult-size, or least teen-size. How did this happen??!!

Once I got my breath back, I bid farewell to the kids' department of Macy's, left my coupons behind, and walked out into the uncharted territory of The Mall, to hunt down the Perfect Guy Jeans.

My first stop was the Gap, because it was not too far outside my shopping comfort zone. Then I saw the price of men's jeans in the Gap. $60, anyone? Hunh? I wonder if the clerks noticed me laughing hysterically as I ran back out of the store.

I ended up at (gulp) American Eagle and (gasp) Hollister. My friend Mildred buys her kids clothes at American Eagle, and the display windows looked teenager-centered. And they were having a sale. Bingo! I ventured in. I found jeans and khakis in Mathboy's size, and felt pretty pleased with myself. This was easy, and relatively painless. The price was not as good at Macy's, but not as bad as the Gap. My confidence soared. I decided to challenge myself, and try to track down a "Cool Guy Shirt" as well. You know the kind I mean, right? The kind of shirt worn by boys who do not take pre-Calculus two (or 3?) years early, and who do not read 10-pound history books for fun?

I looked at the shirts, and, although I could tell that they definitely were for "Cool Guys," I also knew that Mathboy would hate them. Mathboy generally dislikes clothes with words and logos all over them, and American Eagle's stuff was all like a walking advertisement.

On a whim, I went down the hall to Hollister. It must have been the big "40% off Everything" sign in front that convinced me to go in, because I normally avoid Hollister like the proverbial plague. Hollister is one of those stores where the lighting is so dim that you can't find anything on your own, and the the music is playing so THUMPA-THUMPA-loud that you can't ask the clerks for help. And I did not think they would have anything Mathboy would like. It seems that there is no point in wearing Hollister clothes, unless you can make darn sure everyone knows you are wearing Hollister clothes. Fortunately, that's not hard with the way they plaster their brand name and logo acrrss the chest, arm and butt of everything they sell. As I've said, that's not Mathboy's style, so I did not expect to find anything for him there.

But I was pleasantly surprised. In the guys' section (excuse me, I mean "dudes" section), I found a big table full of heavyweight, long-sleeved henleys and t-shirts. They were all extremely soft, in nice subtle colors, and with very subdued logo-placement. I threw caution to the wind and bought 3 of them, for only about $50. And guess what? Mathboy loves them. Mission accomplished!

As a funny coda to this story, let me tell you what happened when I left the store, pleased with my find but a bit embarrassed by picture of the seriously-ripped male model on the store bag I was carrying. As I paused to let my eyes readjust to the bright light of the mall, I realized that a horrendously loud fire or theft alarm was sounding throughout the mall.

The Hollister music had been so loud, we had not heard it inside the store.

Good thing it was a false alarm. I hope the mall has some alternative plan for emptying out the Hollister store in case of emergency, since the alarm clearly doesn't work in there. :o/

IN OTHER NEWS....
We had a great visit with Leslie and Frank, who stayed with us from December 27th through New Year's. We did not do that much, mostly just enjoying the time with each other. My big gift was a Christmas Nativity Pyramid, that they had gotten in Germany when they were there in September. It's beautiful, and we all love it so much. It's fascinating watching it go around and around.

One day, we drove over to New Hope, PA, which has changed quite a bit since I grew up around there. We walked around a little there, had a nice lunch, fed some birds in the river, and rode the New Hope Ivyland Railroad.

Then we drove to Peddler's Village, which seems SO much different! Of course, that's what happens when you go back to a place after being away for 20 years! The Christmas lights were gorgeous.

Catgirl and I waited in line (in the coooooold!) to see the entries in the Gingerbread House contest.

These house were amazing. The winners were spectacular, but some of my favorites didn't win anything.

In this picture, the White House got 3rd prize in its category, but the Rockefeller Center on the left got nothing.

Check out this wreath, made entirely of gingerbread "pinecones." Wow!

The wreath only got an Honorable Mention in its category. The winner was this covered bridge scene, which was very nice, too:

Happy New Year!

Settling Down for a Long Winter's Blog

2010-12-27T09:50:00.005-05:00

So it's been a month and a half since my last post, and I feel terrible about that. I even mentioned the blog in some Christmas cards this year ("keep up with us during the year by checking out the photos and posts at my blog"), but I still haven't updated it in forever. I really should be better about this, shouldn't I?

I had all sorts of thoughts about posts I could have done before Christmas. I was going to write about how we somehow found the most perfect Christmas tree in all of New Jersey. There it was: just one of a bunch of trees cut and leaning against the barn at the tree farm. It took us about 5 minutes to find it. It was the first tree we looked at. It didn't seem right to find the perfect tree so easily, without any suffering or arguing amongst ourselves, that we looked around for a while longer, but there seemed little point. We all knew it was the one. So after we peeled Catgirl away from the family of bunnies in the barn, we loaded it up and took it home.

Finding some free family time to decorate it was harder than finding the tree!

The months of November and December brought us Mathboy's confirmation. I have pictures of him wearing the red gown that all the boys wore for Confirmation at the church, but he would prefer I not post those here. He did not enjoy wearing the red gown. April and her youngest daughter, and Leslie and Frank came to visit us for Confirmation weekend, which was a nice treat. We also ran a 5K race that weekend--my first race ever, the one that Mathboy and I started training for over the summer. I had to walk a couple of times because I had been sick for the 2 weeks before the race and slacked off on the training. But I still posted a respectable finish time of just under 33 minutes, which I felt was a success. I want to keep running, but the weather has gotten in my way here the past few weeks....

Audrey gave us our first eggs in early November. Audrey is a bantam, so the eggs were very small and cute. You can see how much smaller the yolks from her eggs are compared to one from a store-bought extra-large egg, but they are still yummy!

Daisy joined Audrey in the nesting boxes after a week or so, and then Jackie. They are both standard chickens, so their eggs are much closer in size to store-bought. The other two banties, Lily and Melanie, just started laying the week before Christmas. By then, Audrey went on a winter break, which was well-deserved considering that she laid 5 or 6 eggs a week for over a month. Regardless, we've had a few days this week when we collected 4 eggs, which is very good. The short days and the cold have made the laying schedule all wonky, I think.

We can tell everyone's eggs apart, which I did not expect. Audrey's are small,and more yellow than brown, Daisy's eggs are big and a warm brown, while Jackie's a pinkish brown.

In December, Rich and I decided that we really wanted to get up to New York to see all the Christmas stuff. We bought tickets for the Rockettes' show at Radio City, because we had never seen that, and made lots of other plans for an epic day in the Big Apple. We caught an early train out of Hamilton, and got to NYC around 8:30 in the morning, on a very cold day. We were very glad we had bundled up with long underwear and warm socks (and lots of handknits!).

Catgirl, Nicki and I started the day at American Girl Place. Nicki got her hair done and her ears pierced, and we had a delicious brunch in the cafe.

We walked around the city, and saw the Christmas sights:

We went up to the top of Rockefeller Center (where it was REALLY cold!):

We saw the tree in Rockefeller Center:

Throughout the day, we really did not have any trouble with crowds. We got to thoroughly explore and enjoy F.A.O. Schwartz and take our time with the windows at Macy's. The worst trouble we had was when we were wandering around Rockefeller Center, killing time before the Rockettes' show. There were so many people in the Lego store there, we had trouble really seeing any of the amazing stuff they had there, and we lost each other at least 3 times. It was the scariest part of the day for me. We decided to go see if we could get into the theater early, and fortunately we could.

I LOVED the Christmas show. That's pretty much all I can say about it. Was it hokey? You bet. A little strange? Absolutely. But the dancers, singers and actors were all wonderful, the staging was wonderful, the production value was wonderful. The living Nativity was breathtaking, and had me tearing up. The only thing that bothered me was the way that half the audience was late, and still finding their seats throughout the first and second scenes.

People. For what these tickets cost, you should have been there on time.

The New York trip really got us ready for Christmas. Next came a weekend of frenzied cookie-baking:

Christmas Cut-out cookies, and

chocolate-dipped Melting Moments.

Christmas itself was lovely. The kids got what they wanted (e.g., new phones and new coats, new golf club and new clothes for the American Girl dolls). We are not sure, but we think we could probably win a contest for the strangest Christmas gifts, for some of the things that were exchanged in our house. Mathboy got a model trebuchet. He put it together and it works! Rich wanted and received a weather vane. (He also wanted and received The Promise boxed set by Bruce Springsteen, which is much more normal and also was much appreciated).

We had planned to have a nice Christmas gathering at my parents' house on the 26th, but the weather threw us for a loop. For several days, the news people talked about a threat of snow on the 26th, but the Channel 6 folks (my favorite) kept saying that they thought it would go out to sea and that we might get an inch of snow, if any. But midday on Christmas day, however, they changed their tune and the forecast now called for about of foot of snow in our part of New Jersey.

We did not want to miss out on the chance to see everyone, so Rich and I pulled the kids out of bed early on the 26th. We threw on some warm clothes, packed up the gifts and got some coffee and toast, and were on the road before 8. We got to spend the morning and then some at my parents' house, and enjoyed a yummy brunch that Mom and Bill threw together very quickly. We had time to talk, look at old pictures, and play a game or two.

Unfortunately, we could not take time with our gifts, because we heard reports that the weather was already getting ugly in New Jersey. By 1 pm, we felt that we really had to get on the road to come back home.

It got very ugly here last night. We were glad we were home. Now we have about 10 to 12 inches on the ground, but it's blowing around a lot in the high winds. There are spots where it is over my knees, and some spots where you can see the grass. I was walking out to the coop this morning, to bring water to the chickens, and I felt like a real farmer...and wishing I could stay in bed. Ah, the price of fresh eggs.

Our favorite neighbor is snow-blowing our driveway as I write. I think I should send him a box of eggs later, hm?

First Egg!

2010-11-05T07:14:00.003-05:00

On Wednesday evening, I lifted up the egg collection door for the coop. The nights have been chilly lately, and I wanted to put some insulating tape over a huge crack in the corner of the nesting box ledge. I figured the chickens would appreciate it if I got rid of that draft for them. And then I saw this:

Someone laid us an egg! We haven't had another one yet, but this is an awesome start. We are not sure who's handiwork this is. It's small, so the kids think it must have come from one of the bantams. But I understand first eggs are usually small. It's brown, so it is most likely from one of the big chickens. Two of the banties are supposed to lay blue eggs, while the third bantam could lay blue or brown.

Stump the Clerk

2010-11-02T16:35:00.005-05:00

I tend to be the kind of shopper that ends up with veggies that are rather unusual. Because of this, I often end up playing a kind of game with the check out clerks at the grocery store. Over the years, I have stumped the clerks with all sorts of things. There was one occasion when the teenage girl ringing my order knew almost none of the vegetables I had laid out on the conveyor belt. She had to ask me about every one, and then she had to look each one up on the produce list, and our irritation with each other multiplied with each item she did not know or could not spell:

"What's this?"

"Lemon grass."

"And this?"

"Endive."

"Wha?"

"Kale." (through gritted teeth).

"Mmmm?"

"SCALLIONS."

[Insert questioning look here, as she silently held up the veggie for me to name it]: "Radicchio. Starts with an R."

The radicchio is a tough one, I know. I've stumped folks with endive as well. But the scallions? Seriously?

On the other hand, sometimes my veggies lead to some interesting discussions. Once, the young man (maybe 20 years old) ringing me up held up the butternut squash, and said, "People keep buying these, but I have no idea what you do with it. Should I try one?" We spent the rest of the time it took for him to ring the order and for me to bag discussing how you cook it and how he can look recipes up on the internet. I felt pretty good about that. I introduced a young guy to a new veggie.

I bring this up today, because I particularly enjoyed today's game of "Stump the Clerk." I was at Wegman's and the lady ringing my order was a trainee. She had a mentor doing the bagging and helping her learn how to use the register. Interestingly, the trainee was older than me, while the mentor was much younger. Perhaps it was a sign of the economy. Anyway, the lady was doing pretty well with my order until she came to this:

She held up the bag, and turned with a helpless pleading look to her mentor. I waited for the mentor to ask me, because she was pretty young. But to my surprise, the mentor immediately recited, "Anise, also known as Fennel. Code 4515. Tastes like black licorice."

Well, she blew me away. That girl knew her stuff.

In the past several years, I have really tried to expand the palates in our family by branching out and using a greater variety of vegetables. Fennel is one of those that I have been surprised to find that I truly enjoy.

I first tried fennel once when we lived in Philadelphia (B.K.: before kids), and I did not like it. I told myself that it was OK not to like it; I don't have to like everything. And I expected not to like it because I really am not a fan of licorice. That was about 15 years ago. Fast forward to 2008, when we participated in the CSA program with the farm from Pennington. With the CSA, we ended up receiving some rather unusual vegetables. It seemed a waste not to use them, so we did try a lot of different things. And I will admit that not everything was a hit with the family, but at least we could say we tried it. For example, we never got excited about eggplant. And the kohlrabi was just too silly.

The week that we got 3 fennel bulbs, I groaned, because I remembered making it in Philly and hating it. But I resolved to try it again. I ended up thinly slicing it up with new potatoes and baking it all into an au gratin dish and you know what? It was AWESOME. I have made it many, many times since then, and I even have found some other recipes that I like as well. And every time I serve it, I am grateful for the CSA that got me to try new things and to give a second chance to some other things that I thought I hated.

So everyone: Try something new today! Find a recipe online that sounds interesting. Go to the store and pick out something unusual. Look at the veggies that are in season. Play Stump the Clerk at your local store. It's fun!

Still Waiting

2010-11-01T07:31:00.002-05:00

The chickens are 23 weeks old today. Everything I've read says that they really should be laying eggs by now. But are they? No. I've been starting to think of them as freeloaders. I know they're lots of fun, but they eat very well and they are supposed to be giving me eggs in return.

Catgirl had fantasized that the chickens would lay eggs in time for us to use some in her birthday cake. As her birthday approached in early October, we waited and hoped, but got nothing. On the morning of her birthday, Catgirl went out to the coop to see if there was anything to collect. Imagine her surprise, when she saw these:

Yes! The chickens did not lay her any eggs, but apparently, they had decided to knit some for her. :o)

She brought them in and showed them to us, and Mathboy and I cracked up. I tried to say "How did the chickens learn how to knit?" with a straight face, but failed miserably. She said, "You are SO weird, Mom," but she was smiling so it was totally worth it.

Crazy October is over, thank goodness. About weeks ago, Catgirl got her splint off her finger and was able to return to active duty in field hockey. That combined with other activities gave her something to do after school everyday last week. Mathboy was very busy with cross country, religious education and preparing for Doane's Dungeon (the "haunted house" they do at school). Looking at the calendar, it appears that November should be a bit calmer. We have Mathboy's Confirmation and the River Run the weekend of November 12, but that seems to be it. Both kids are done with sports until spring.

Catgirl had a great time trick or treating last night with a couple friends. She and the girl next door designed and created their own iPod Touch costumes, somplete with many apps. It took weeks to make.

It turned out pretty good, although we probably could have planned the "under costume" outfit a little better. They were rushing to get going last night when I grabbed them and made them stand still for a picture. I do wish I had gotten them to pose somewhere other than in front of the powder room. Oh well.

Catching Up

2010-10-05T12:05:00.003-05:00

Maybe I should start this post by letting my kids off the hook. Their inability to get up on time was the top story on this blog for nearly a month, which probably isn't fair. They did manage to get on track a few days after my last post, and morning have been going fine for a while now.

Thins have been busy here, which is fairly typical for September at Maison Sydney/Casa de Sydney. There have been the usualy array of school activities, sports, back to school nights, etc. Catgirl did have her schedule change abruptly about two weeks ago, when this happened:

Broken finger. In the last field hockey practice before the games were supposed to start, she got whacked right on the finger with another girl's stick. We spent the next day visiting the pediatrician, the x-ray lab, back to the pediatrician, and then off to the "hand specialist." Who knew that a broken finger was such a big deal? And in the end, all they could do was mold a plastic splint to her finger pad, secure it on her finger with some tape, and say no sports for a month.

Depending on how you look at it, this has either complicated or simplified her life tremendously. She can't play the flute, so she has no band lessons, no flute practice, and I have not had to pay the school band fee yet. Also, she cannot play field hockey, which means that after weeks of practice she doesn't get to be part of the games. But she still wants to attend the games so that she can be part of the team. So she still carries her uniform to school on game days, goes to the game and watches for a while. Then I pick her up and take her home to do homework, which does take a little longer with a splint on her writing hand.

Actually, the weather has not been cooperating for the past week or so, which means that no one has been getting to play any field hockey lately. If the games keep getting pushed back, maybe her finger will be healed by then and she will be able to be part of the team after all!

Meanwhile, Mathboy is doing cross country at his school. With the weather, they have only been able to have one meet so far, way back at the beginning of the school year. He ran his first 5K in 23:36, which we think is pretty good for a guy who just started running in July. Now if it would just stop raining so they could have another meet, he is very hopeful that he can improve his time.

In chicken news, the young-uns are 19 weeks old this week. They are just about at laying age, although they still look a little gawky. Chicken teenagers:

Melanie:

Jackie:

Lily and Audrey:

Daisy the Paranoid:

We hope they are getting ready to give us some eggs soon. It really could be at any time now. They're certainly eating enough!

I knitted my first pair of gloves recently. I designed them myself, to take full advantage of some beautiful handpainted yarn I had and to go with a really nice hat I had made from the same yarn.

I always told myself that I would never knit gloves, and that anyone who did had to be crazy. What kind of nutcase would commit to making ten fingers in the round?

Well, apparently me. I had thought about making fingerless mitts, but.... Just how useful are fingerless mitts, anyway? When it's cold enough for mitts, it's cold enough that you want your fingers covered. So then I thought about making mittens. I do love mittens, because they are the best way to keep your fingers warm. Nothing works as well as allowing the fingers to share their warmth with each other. But I got hung up with practicality issues. It's hard to drive in mittens. Believe me, I know. So I just dove in and decided to make gloves. In the end, it wasn't hard, but by the last couple of fingers I was SO ready to be finished.

In wildlife news, we've had some interesting visitors to our house lately. One day, this guy latched onto the front screen door and stayed all day.

I am still not sure if it's cool or creepy that it turned its head to look right at the camera for this shot. (shiver.)

One really lovely fall day, I had the back patio door open with the screen latched so Rudolph the Annoying could not escape. I heard the strangest noise through the screen--some kind of snuffling sound. I looked out to see this guy, who had come right up to the door and was sniffing the shoes I had left there. He was completely oblivious to the giant white cat who was sniffing at him through the screen.

I took this picture and he still didn't notice either me or the cat. Finally, I just yelled at him (Hey, Groundhog!) and he took off really quickly. We are pretty sure he is young, probably the offspring of the groundhog family that lives in a creek bank behind our property. He must have moved out, and gotten his own place, under our shed. He still has not been formally introduced to Rudolph, the predator of the house.

Of course, said predator hasn't had mich time for hunting lately.

He's been busy. Zzzzzzzz.

Not Quite Back in the Swing

2010-09-09T14:01:00.002-05:00

School started yesterday for both Mathboy and Catgirl. Under normal circumstances, this would be a cause for celebration. But not with my kids, it seems. So far, school seems to give me nothing but trouble and has turned me into a NAG.

Just to be clear: I do not like being a nag.

The end of summer vacation means that the summer assigned reading had to be done and the book reports written. Despite having a good 12 weeks of notice that they would have to do these things, and having their mother reminding (nagging?) them about the reading for weeks, both my kids found themselves rushing to finish at the last minute. Catgirl finished typing the book report Tuesday evening at about 8 p.m. Mathboy finished reading the last book on the bus on the way in to school Wednesday morning. Cutting it close, hm?

The end of summer means catching the bus. The kids need to be downstairs, dressed and ready by 7 a.m. so that they have time to eat breakfast and make sure their backpacks are ready to go. Catgirl's bus comes at 7:20 and Mathboy's is supposed to come at 7:35. This morning, Catgirl was not ready for the bus until about 7:22. The bus was long gone at that point. It probably came a couple of minutes early, but it doesn't matter. There was no way she was going to make it even if it had been on time. Mathboy's bus stopped in front of the house and honked the horn at 7:25. Mathboy had not even gotten his breakfast out of the toaster yet, since he had not gotten downstairs until about 7:20 himself.

I was already tired of yelling and nagging by that time, having resigned myself to the inevitability that I was going to have to drive both kids in this morning. Since Doane starts at 8:15 and OLGC starts at 8:30, I decided to drive Mathboy in first and then swing back to Moorestown to drop off Catgirl. I rounded everyone up along with everything they needed for afterschool activities, and loaded us all in the car. We were on the road around 7:40, eating waffles on the way.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten about the traffic nightmare that Rte. 295 has become. We arrived at Doane at 8:14 (just under the wire). I had to take back roads to get to OLGC because the ramp to get back on 295 in Burlington is currently closed for contruction. I signed Catgirl in at her school at 8:47, almost 20 minutes late for her day.

As we were sitting in traffic, and I was trying really hard not to fume and just accept the lesson of the morning, I asked the kids what we had learned from what happened. I tried not to be a jerk, noting that I learned it might be better to make school lunches the night before rather than in the morning. (I was trying to reduce the sting of the situation by accepting a share of the responsibility, although the immature part of me insists the lunches were not the problem. Said lunches were packed by 6:50 this morning.)

Catgirl was silent, doing her best imitation of a teenager ignoring her mother. To be fair, her attitude may have been exacerbated because she had already lost screen time for 2 days and had been told she could not play or talk to the BFF next door for one day.

Mathboy's answer: "We should listen to Mom."

I was impressed. I didn't realize that Mathboy even knew how to suck up.

In other news, I have acquired the most wonderful household tool, an item that I believe will minimize strife, divisiveness and resentment in the family, and all sorts of problems. I present to you, my new Wonder Tool:

The dishwasher clean/dirty magnet. When you run the dishwasher, you make sure the "clean" side is facing out. After you empty the dishwasher, flip it to make the "dirty" side face out. My dream that there will be no more butter knives in with the clean flatware, no more dirty coffee cups dripping on clean plates, is within my grasp!

Ingenious.

I have also finished yet another shawl.

The Curatio shawl. It's beautiful, it was quick. Perfect vacation knitting.

I love knitting shawls, but I am not so good about actually wearing them. Right now, I have 4 shawls decorating the rocking chair on my side of the bed. It's just silly. I need to figure out a good way to use them if I want to keep knitting them.

Vacation Earl

2010-09-03T14:53:00.004-05:00

Our annual (more or less) pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Beach at Ocean City NJ ended a day or so early today, because of the forecasts for heavy winds and rain at the shore for today. It was hard to escape the doom and gloom of the forecasts all week, in fact, which, I do have to admit, put a small damper on our enjoyment of our vacation. Everyday, we kept checking the weather report and wondering if we would have to come home early. In the end, we did leave early, but we got a good amount of fun in before coming home.

We did go do the rides one night. Here are some ferris wheel photos (I take some every time we go to Ocean City, don't I?)

And here are my guys chatting and watching the sunset form the Deauville Inn:

We go to the Deauville Inn for a sunset dinner once every year. It has been a tradition for us since 2001, I think, which was the first year we rented a house in OC. This year, though, may be the last year for that. Dinner on the deck at the Deauville on Wednesday was hot, muggy, windless, and we were hounded by flies. Yuck. This is not a cheap place to eat, either. You'd think they could at least have a fan blowing the flies off the diners or maybe a citronella candle or two? Apparently not.

The ocean was not exactly easy-going this week. On the first day, when we hung out at the boardwalk beach, the lifeguards were adamant that swimmers stay close to the beach and repeatedly called everyone in for beach meetings. They also had to call everyone out of the water at least three times so that they could go help in rescues on other beaches. It set the tone for the week.

New things we did at Ocean City this year:

1. We finally brought some bikes, which was awesome. We could only fit 2 of the bikes on Rich's car, but I think we need to bring all of them next time. Our house this year was at 21st and Asbury, which was practically on the boardwalk, and only 10 blocks from all the fun boardwalk stuff. If we had all had bikes, that would have been fantastic. It would have been so easy to zip on up to the shops and the fun places on the boardwalk, instead of having to drive and worry about finding a parking place. Next time we need all our bikes.

2. Mathboy and I have found that running on the beach is 100 times better than running on suburban roads. Enough said.

3. Going to the boardwalk waterpark with "big" kids means that I can sit in a chair and read and let them go on all the waterslides by themselves. I like that. I like that the kids are smart enough and sensitive enough to stay with each other and watch out for each other and come to check in with their parents enough so we don't get anxious. They're growing up, folks.

4. Parasailing. This is really the only thing I have photos for. This was Rich's idea. I was dubious at first, but I came around. It was something totally new, and everyone wanted to try it.

This is Catgirl and me:

And here go Rich and Mathboy for their turn:

There was 600 feet of rope, but the guys on the boat estimated we were about 350 feet high in the air.

You get to enjoy the view for a while, then they reel you in and give you a quick dip in the ocean. It felt good, since it was about 95 degrees that day.

I couldn't believe how smooth it felt to ride up in the air under the parachute--you were up at the top before you knew it. I was surprised at how quiet it was up there, too. You couldn't hear the waves or the shore birds or the boat engine. It was very peaceful.

Goodbye Harry

2010-08-17T11:12:00.007-05:00

It is with much sadness that we bid goodbye to Harry Potter, the best guinea pig a family ever had. He will be missed. In the end, though, he obviously was in a lot of pain, so we are glad that he is free from that now.

Attila the...Rooster?

2010-08-12T08:30:00.006-05:00

Well, folks, we have found the crowing culprit. We embarked on our campaign to find the crower last night. After the chicks went to sleep, I sneaked out to the coop and chick-napped Audrey, the partridge with the suspiciously erect tail. The chicks sleepily complained a little as I nabbed one of their compatriots, but they were not sufficiently awake to put up much of a fuss.

I carried Audrey to the solitary confinement chamber (aka the old old brooder box) that I had prepared in the garage. She peeped a little on the way to garage, calling for her sisters. Once I put her in the brooder box, she must have fallen back to sleep very quickly, because I did not hear anything from the garage other than the crickets.

This morning, I got up very early to listen at the garage door. Nothing. I tiptoed in to the garage to take a peek. Audrey sat there quietly. I wondered if the cricket commotion might be intimidating her and keeping her quiet. But I can't do anything about the crickets in the garage. I felt terrible for imprisoning Audrey, but it had to be done.

Eventually, I got impatient, and stepped out onto the patio to listen for noises from the coop. I wasn't sure if the residents there were up and about yet, and was about to go closer to take a look, when....

COCK A DOODLE DOOOOO!

...came from the coop. I ran over to see if I could figure out who it was. Ally was standing there, with Melanie and Lily settled in the dust by her feet. Ally looked straight at me, opened her beak, and said,

"COCK A DOODLE DO!" Again. Right to my face.

"Aha!" I said. "Caught you!"

So we have our culprit, caught him red crowed, so to speak. I went to the garage to release Audrey back into the general population. She was very happy to be back with her friends. We are keeping an eye on them all for any further rooster behavior, but Ally will have to find another home in the next day or two.

Whodunnit?

2010-08-11T15:05:00.006-05:00

The Crime: At 6:51 this morning, a crow was heard in the vicinity of the coop. Upon approaching the coop, Complainant (me) realized that had she been 1 second earlier, she would have caught the crower in the act. As it was, however, she could not tell which of the chickens (who now sat there innocently awaiting their feed and water) had made the forbidden noise. Complainant waited a good ten minutes, delaying the start of her morning run, hoping to hear a repeat of the noise, but was unsuccessful. The suspects (see below) ate, drank, made many innocent sounding peeps, a few clucks, and settled down on the perch.

Further Evidence: On Monday morning, Rich gave testimony that he distinctly heard "rooster-like noises" coming from the coop area. Complainant and children kept a sharp ear all Monday for a repeat of the noise. Nothing was heard until this morning (see above).

Suspects:

#1. Attila the Hen (aka "Ally"):

Ally is a Bantan cochin with barred rock coloring. "She" was the first to feather out in the group, and she is the only one with fully developed comb and wattles already. She has never exhibited any herding or bossy behavior toward her companions. Ally was the first to start making a grown-up kind of chicken noise, letting out a choked bra-GAWK at least 2 weeks before anyone else started making that noise. Complainant has read online that barred rock females feather out much earlier than their male counterparts, therefore, she has always assumed that Ally was indeed a "she." But was all that feathering a carefully planned disguise?

#2. Jackie (aka "The Beast):

Jackie is a standard-size Partridge Cochin. Like Daisy (#3 below), she was acquired separately from the bantams, and spent her first week with another family. She was originally ordered from a mail order hatchery and is supposed to be a female (although I hear mistakes are occasionally made). Although she is the biggest out of the entire group, she is also probably the least bright and definitely the least popular. If chickens had mean girls like the ones in "Heathers," Jackie would be the Martha Dumptruck of the flock. Jackie never bosses anyone around and never leads; she is definitely a follower. But is all that meekness just a cover?

#3. Daisy (aka "Daisy Duck"):

Like Jackie, Daisy is a standard-size, acquired separately from the banties. She is a Buff Orpington, which have a reputation for being gentle and friendly. She is the only non-cochin in the flock, which means she is the only one with feet and legs that aren't feathery. Although she has never been observed to boss others around or even to peck anyone, it did seem as though she was making an early run for the top of the pecking order. She is often out in the front of the flock and others (particularly Audrey, #6 below) follow her around. lately, Daisy has been on the receiving end of pecking, particularly from Melanie (#4), but also from Lily (#5) and even Ally (#1). When she gets pecked, she lets out a loud honking type noise that makes her sound more like a duck or a goose than a chick. If Daisy were a rooster, why would she (he?) let these little bantams peck at her (him?) like that? Or is he (she) just waiting until he (she) is full grown rooster to fight back?

#4. Melanie:

Melanie is a blue cochin bantam, and until recently, was generally believed to be the youngest of the flock because she was much smaller and her feathers took so long to come in. Now she is the same size and her feather development has caught up. Melanie has the fuzziest legs in the flock, making her look like she's wearing gray fuzzy harem pants. She's among the most daring of the group, always willing to come close to the humans and peck a shoe to see if it's edible. Melanie has lovely eyes and does not mind being held. She never showed any bossy behavior until about a week ago, when her apparent campaign to terrorize Daisy began. Recently, she has taken to sneaking up behind Daisy and goosing her in the tail, causing the big yellow bird to jump about a foot and honk and then run away. Is it just innocent pecking order fun, part of a coup d'etat ... or rooster behavior?

#5. Lily:

Lily is a black cochin bantam. At first, she was thought to be Melanie's sister, but they have developed at very different rates so that seems unlikely. She now makes the same bra-GAWK noises as Ally, but is way behind Ally in comb and wattles. She is never the first to go anywhere or to get anything, so she is probably fairly low in the pecking order. She has never shown any aggressive tendencies, although lately she has sometimes participated in Melanie's torture of Daisy. When she was very little, she enjoyed being held in human hands and actually sought out being held on some chilly evenings in early June. Now, she remains one of the easiest to catch and pick up. She has the posture of a female, but her neck feathers are very shiny black and may be pointy like a male's. Is her gentle demeanor just an attempt to throw off our suspicions?

#6. Audrey:

The Complainant is very afraid to report that this chicken is the one she suspects the most, because this one is one of her favorites. This was the chick that she first picked to bring home. The lady at the farm where we got the bantams picked this one up and gave her to Complainant to hold, and Audrey hunkered down and went to sleep in Complainant's hand, melting her heart. Audrey is smart and audacious (according to Mathboy), assertive but not aggressive. She has never shown any herding tendencies. But she does look very different from the rest of the flock, with her feathery cheeks and her upright tail. She is the only chick who has not been heard to do any bra-GAWKing, still peeping like a songbird. Although said farm lady thought Audrey was a partridge, further research has persuaded us that she is an Ameraucana, which is pretty cool. (Go here and click on the picture on the far right in the top row. That's Audrey, all right.)

Investigatory Intentions: Since it seems to be difficult to get out there by the coop early enough to find out who is the culprit, the chicken detectives (us, in case you were wondering), plan to separate one chicken per night and make that one sleep in the brooder box in the garage. The thought is that, eventually, we will find one that greets the dawn with a crow and it should be easy to hear it if it is coming from the garage.

Could Audrey be the one? Is there only one? Stay tuned.

August is here

2010-08-03T10:10:00.004-05:00

Yeah, that's my title and I'm sticking with it. So it's really boring. What's it to you? If anyone wants to brainstorm some blog entry titles for me, go right ahead. Yes, kids, I'm talking to you.

July flew by in a haze of heat and humidity here at Maison Sydney. I am hoping that August will be a little cooler. I know that's very silly of me. But I can hope, can't I?

Last year at this time, we were starting to get excited about the upcoming Disney trip. This year, we are starting to get excited about the upcoming Ocean City trip. We are beach bound on August 28th, and the kids cannot wait. When we get back, we will have just a few days until the start of the school year. But that's all still a month away.

We don't have much exciting to report about July. I did finally finish a bigger and fancier chicken tractor for the chicks.

This was meant to be lighter and easier to drag around the yard. Unfortunately it turned out a little flimsy and the wire ends on the bottom frame tend to catch in the grass, so it really is not easy to move at all. Last night, after I finished it, the kids and I carefully carried it to the back of the yard near the coop. One of the joins popped out in transit, so need to re-glue that one. Rich and I need to figure out a way to make it more stable and smoother to move. But, for now, they can enjoy it in its present position.

It was hilarious when we first tried to put them in there. Catgirl carried Melanie out there and put her down and turned around to walk back to the coop to get another chick. Melanie flew right over her head and beat Catgirl back to the coop. This happened a few times. They seemed terrified of the big cage. In the end, we had to carry them over one at a time and close the door to the tractor to keep them in until we needed to open it for another chick. But once we had 4 of them in there, the other 2 did not want to be left behind so they followed. One thing we have noticed is that the chicks hate to be separated. Once a couple of them go somewhere, the rest of the always follow. Are they chicks, or sheep?

We were able to watch them enjoy the grass while we ate dinner. Afterward, Rich saw a hawk swoop down, obviously thinking he could get a nice chicken dinner, only to veer back up into the sky when he saw that he was thwarted by my chicken wire contraption. Take that, you predator! Haha!

In other news, Mathboy and I have started running. We're doing the "Couch to 5 K" training app on our iPods (C25K). It's a very gradual training program that has you alternate running and walking for approximately 30 minutes total. Doane Academy has a 5K run at the end of October, and we both want to participate. So far, Mathboy is doing great, and is already on day 2 of week 4. Seeing as how I am a lot older and heavier than my son, I am going slower than he is. I don't want to hurt myself and have to stop. That would not be productive. But yesterday I bought real running shoes, and this morning, I started week 3. It went very well! Either week 3 is easier than week 2, or having real running shoes made a big difference, or both. :o)

Also, we finally painted Mathboy's room late last week. It was time: the faux clouds and the space-themed wallpaper border were fine when he was 5, but now that he's going on 14...? Not so much. For some time, we have known that it needed to be done, but were completely overwhelmed by the job it would be: taking down all those karate certificates, and class pictures, peeling off the wallpaper, patching the many little holes in the wall, unloading the ginormous Ikea bookcase, unloading the computer desk so full of junk that he can barely use the computer....

Plus, we needed to agree on a color. Mathboy wanted dark green. I said no. Rich said he was old enough to make up his own mind. Sigh. In the end, we bought 4 or 5 samples, and painted splotches around on the wall to see what we all could live with. For a while, the running joke was that we should just get more green samples, do splotches all over the entire room, and call it Camo.

I do not have complete "after" pictures yet, because we have not rehung the pictures on his wall yet, but this is what we have so far.

Here is a "before" shot, from over the winter:

Look: SNOW! Remember snow? Remember that it was cold once?

Here is a "before painting" shot, after we had taken down the wallpaper border and patched many, many,many nail holes in the wall and prepped for painting:

Like the splotches?

Here's his room "after painting, and the purchase of new bookcases, curtains and bedspread:"

Still gotta hang those pictures up. :o/

Overheard at the Farm Fair

2010-07-27T09:46:00.002-05:00

Rich and I took the kids to the Burlington County Farm Fair last week. It's always a pretty fun event: they have rides, pig races, horse shows, tractor parades and fair food. But I think the most interesting part are the 4-H kids showing off all their animals.

Many people were pushing kids in strollers around the 4-H animal tents, showing their kids the animals. We particularly enjoyed walking through the poultry tent, admiring the chickens, and wondering if ours would grow up to be as pretty as some of the chickens at the fair were.

Several chickens had an egg in their little cages with them. I guess they had laid eggs in the time since their owners had last checked on them. At one point, after I had passed a cage which held a chicken with a big brown egg, I heard a dad behind me point out the egg to the little girl in the stroller he was pushing. He said, "Look, honey: he laid an egg!"

Just in case you missed that, let me repeat: the man said, "He laid an egg."

Melting Away in New Jersey

2010-07-18T19:33:00.003-05:00

It's been pretty hot here lately.

Very hot.

(Full disclosure: this thermometer is in the sun.)

It's pretty hot in this house right now--the air conditioner is having a hot time keeping up, and the computers are making this office even warmer--but I really wanted to get an update on the blog, so here I am.

The Chickie-Doos are growing.

Mmm, fresh kale for breakfast. Almost as good as a daddy-long-legs....

I am almost done with the Oriel Lace Cardi for me:

Coming up next month: We are going to paint Mathboy's room. Currently, we are in the color-choosing stage, and he has splotches of sample greens painted in various spots around his room. We have removed most of the wallpaper border that ran down the middle of the wall--and who knew that was going to be so much fun, hunh?

Keep cool!

Home, Sweet Coop

2010-06-26T13:41:00.002-05:00

The Feathery Ladies Audrey, Lily, Melanie, Attila ("Allie"), Daisy and Jack would like to announce that they moved into a spacious new home alongside the shed in our backyard yesterday.

Their lovely new home is painted a bright and cheery red, and decorated with pine shavings, last Sunday's comics and sports section, and a thermometer so Sydney can keep an eye on and periodically worry about the temperature in the coop area. Landscaping consists of wonderful sandy soil with some mulchy bits, perfect for dust baths, and populated by many delicious daddy-long-legs and ants.

They are still getting used to having so much space, and have trouble really believing that they don't have to be put to bed in a box in the stuffy garage at night. Last night they cried under the coop until they were finally round up and placed in the coop against their will. They quickly settled down in one big pile in Nesting box #2, for a sleepover.

They are pleased to note that their new home is consistently in the shade of the New Jersey jungle. They are still figuring out who gets to sit where on the perches.

Housewarming gifts are welcome. The Ladies particularly enjoy hotdogs that were allowed to cook too long (unlike children, they are not finicky about exploded hotdog ends). They are not very fond of strawberries, unless you let them sit in the dirt and they attract bugs. Yummm.

One Man's Garbage

2010-06-16T10:36:00.003-05:00

...is another chicken's home. Mathboy and I bonded over garbage-picking this weekend. You know, not every parent is lucky enough to expose her child to such a time-honored tradition. ;o)

It all started when I saw three wooden framed crates out by the curb on a nearby street. It took me a couple drive-bys before it finally occurred to me that they would be perfect for making some chicken things from. It got to the point where I would say somehting to the kids about how perfectly useful they would be, every time we drove by. Finally, I said to them, "If those things are still there tomorrow, I'm grabbing them."

They were there.

I zipped home to get all the baseball and softball junk out of the back of the car to make room and went back to get them. In the end, I needed two trips because they were bigger and heavier than I expected. Mathboy came to help with the bigger one.

With some plastic poultry netting and some more boards added for reinforcement, look what we made: A bigger, better brooder box! (Try saying that 10 times fast)

And the best is this, our chicken "tractor."

This will give the chicks a play-pen so they can go outside and be safe from predators. We can put it in different areas, so they can dig for bug and eat stuff and not ruin one particular place in the yard. Mathboy has come up with a plan to put wheels on it so that we can move it around more easily. I have told him that I am completely leaving this part of the project to him. I am not sure he really believes me yet, however.

The chickie-doos seem to like their new play-pen.

And I like that they are not in the garden anymore, for several reasons. For one thing, they were starting to eat the lettuce, which I just could not tolerate. Plus a couple of the chicks are now able to fly over the fence. Instead of making a break for it, they cry and cheep to get back in with their friends, but it was still a sub-ideal situation. And the final reaons I wanted them out of the garden? One word: poo.

Enough said.

In sports news, Catgirl's softball team stunned the league and the parents by winning two playoff games this weekend. They lost last night, though, so their season is over. They should be proud of themselves, because 4th out of 7 teams is quite a respectable finish for a team that went 2 and 12 for the regular season. Catgirl finished by successfully bunting for her last at-bat. Rich had been begging her to bunt all season, and she finally did it!

Mathboy's school finished on June 10, and so far his summer vacation has started off slow. At the school closing ceremonies last Thursday, we saw him get several awards of which he should be very proud, including the math and science award and an award for having the highest GPA in the grade. Go Mathboy!

I finished the Brandywine Shawl. It is gorgeous.

Great pattern! The yarn, though.... It took 14 rinses with woolwash to get this thing to stop bleeding dye. My hands were blotchy pink from the dye for a day or so. The needles are permanently stained pink. I was annoyed.

I have one skein left of this soft and lovely handpainted alpaca and silk yarn, but am not sure that I want to keep it. I've had this yarn since 2007. Every attempt to use it before now was aborted because the dye bleeding was so annoying. I pushed through this time, because I really thought it was the best yarn in my stash for this project. But now, with only one skein of 220 yards left.... Beautiful as it is, I don't know if I want to deal with the drawbacks of this yarn for another project. Ever.

OK, off to start party prep!

May: Blink and You Miss It!

2010-06-07T08:17:00.009-05:00

I don't think this is the first time that I have forgotten to blog in May. May is such a strange month here. Softball and baseball season seem to take up so much time, and it feels as if we spend the whole month in a frenzy of running to ballgames and practices. My car looks like we have lived in it for the past several weeks. We do our homework in the car, we eat in the car. I can't even count the number of meals we have gotten over the past month or so from our favorite "restaurant" (Wawa, since the kids have been thoroughly convinced that McDonald's is evil).

Then June comes, and we can take a breath and we realize that school is almost over. That's about where we are right now.

Mathboy was on a very good baseball team this year. They made it to the semi-finals of the playoffs, but sadly they lost in the last inning of this past Saturday morning. Mathboy ended the season on a high note personally, however, getting some really nice hits in the last two games. So he leaves the season without any real regrets.

Catgirl, however, is having a painful season. Their team has 2 wins and 13 losses. Enough said.

In other news, Catgirl and I picked up these little girls this past Friday afternoon:

Four bantam cochin chicks. The partridge (reddish color) is Audrey. The black one is Lily. The silver blue one is Melanie. The mottled one with the star on her head is a Barred Rock, and her name is Attila the Hen. They are also known as the Chickie-doos. They were from different families when we got them--you can tell, for example that Attila the Hen is a little bit older than the others--but they are clinging together like sister now. We hope (fingers crossed!) that they are all chicks and not roosters-to-be. We'll find out eventually.

Rich and Mathboy have been building an enclosure behind the shed to surround the coop we bought off craigslist. For the time being, however, the chicks are sleeping in a tub in the garage and they get to play in my fenced in garden areas during the day.

It took Rudolph the Cat a day to notice that our family now contains another bunch of animals that he would consider to be prey. You have to wonder what is going through his head. First we bring a rodent, Hairy Potter the Guinea Pig, into the house and taunt Rudolph by keeping the pig behind bars where a cat can't get to him. Now we are adding birds to the household? He must think we are crazy. When the chicks were in the garden on Saturday, he kept running back and forth between the kitchen and dining room windows, whichever gave a better view.

Oh boy. It won't be fun teaching Rudolph that the chicks are "friends not food." You would think a cat who lost his vision in one eye after being pecked by a wild turkey would have the sense to stay away from anything with a beak.

In knitting news, I have discovered the joy of patterned sock yarn. Look at this sock:

Isn't it charming? It's so funny--there is so much beautiful handpainted sock yarn out there, and right now I am enchanted with this basic Regia Jacquard. I got this yarn as a giveaway from a company several years ago. I had no idea how addictive and fun it would be watching the pattern develop as you knit.

The other thing I am working on is my Brandywine Shawl:

It looks like a mess now, but I know it will be gorgeous. It's the perfect pattern for this beautiful hand-dyed alpaca silk that I bought several years ago. Unfortunately, the yarn leeches dye terribly, so the needles are pink, and my hands and fingers turn pink every time I knit it. This is the reason why I hadn't used this yarn yet, even though I've had it for so long: the color bleeding is just so annoying. But I think this shawl is going to be spectacular, and I can't wait to see it finished. I wonder how many times I will have to rinse it when I am blocking it, until it stops bleeding color?

The gardens and veggie planters are doing well in this warm spring weather.

The second pic is the new garden I dug this spring. I have lettuce, green beans, potatoes and zucchini growing there. The old garden, which I apparently forgot to photograph, is only tomatoes, peppers, carrots and herbs this year. Zucchini had been doing worse there every year, so I decided to do zucchini elsewhere this year. I also added new garden soil to both garden areas this year, because I was concerned that the soil was tired. We need to start composting--it will give us something to do with the chicken waste we are going to have and will be good for the gardens.

I have already harvested enough Swiss Chard for one meal, I had enough green beans for another, and there's plenty of lettuce. I have 9 tomato plants, which may be overkill if they all produce well! But I also have a good supply of jars and I want to can tomato sauce for the winter.

Anyone want to see what has been taking up my dining room for the past 2 months?

War and Peace. A game that averages 40 hours of game play. Rich and Mathboy started before Easter, and they still are only about 2/3 done. Somehow they have kept the cat from jumping on the table this whole time. It's a miracle.

Blogging Slacker

2010-04-20T10:36:00.004-05:00

You know you are a blogging slacker when your own son starts pestering you on a daily basis to update the blog. I tell him he doesn't need to read the blog to know what's happening in our family, but he doens't care. Ah, well. It's nice to know that someone's reading it, even if it just someone hoping to see pictures of himself.

Hey, you know what? Since he's the one who really wants an update, let me write about him first. Should I post a picture showing the state of his room? No, that would be cruel. I can show you that he finished the root of his carrot.

This is something he started last August before we went to Disney. Obviously, he put it down for a long time. Now he is working on the leaves which will be sewn on to the top. We have been teasing him that his carrot is ridiculously fat, but it's not his fault. Everyone on Ravelry who has made this pattern had the same problem. Oh well, it's a good lesson, I guess to check Ravelry first!

Over Easter break, we spent a couple days in the Poconos at a resort called Skytop.

It was incredibly beautiful, and we had a very nice time. There were tons of cool things to do, including archery:

We hiked up the mountain for a gorgeous view:

We also hiked down into the valley to see some lovely waterfalls:

The guys got to play golf one morning while Catgirl and I played some tennis and then relaxed by the stream:

All in all, we had a nice time. I am sure that it is even more fun to go in the summer or the winter, because there would be lots more to do, but we did enjoy it.

In my own knitting news, I finished the Twist cardigan, and it turned out very nice.

I have no complaints about the pattern at all--it was very well written and worked perfectly. The only modification I made was to lengthen the body a little, because I like my sweaters longer. The yarn, however, I have a lot of complaints about and will never use again. I regret using it for this sweater. It is very soft and all that, but I think I would be much happier if I had made it out of Cascade 220. That being said, it is a gorgeous sweater, and I may have done my best finishing work ever. Check out the awesomeness that is this sleeve seam:

Not too bad, if I say so myself.

Another regret: I bought the most perfect buttons at Woolbearers one day. I brought the sweater with me, I brought Catgirl to give me her opinion, I asked ladies in the store for their opinion, and ended up with totally beautiful buttons that would have made this sweater sing! Then I got home, and put them somewhere safe while I finished up the knitting.

Where are they now? Not on the sweater, I can tell you that. I put them in such a safe place, that I could not find them when it was time to attach them to the sweater. I practically ripped this house apart looking for them. I still have no idea where they are. In the interest of getting the sweater done, I decided to use some buttons I had left over from a project I made several years ago. They are boring and a litle too small for the buttonholes, so they have a tendency to come undone. Someday, I hope the perfect buttons will turn up and I can change them out.

The sweater seemed to take forever. After I finished it, though, I zipped through a couple small shawls, because, like, they're uh, smaller than sweaters? I have no idea how, but they just flew off the needles.

My Traveling Woman, made with Ella Rae Lace Merino.

This was a great pattern. The only things that bothered me about it was the first sentence of the pattern, which reads as follows,

"Being an indecisive individual, this shawl is named after two things."

Unless the author meant to say that the shawl was indecisive, I believe this is bad grammar. Infact, it bugged me so much, that it almost turned me off the pattern altogether--that's how nuts I am. I know it's a free pattern, and I shouldn't be so churlish. Being a bit of a grammar stickler, I can't help myself. (See, that's how you do it. Go ahead, hit me.) In the end, I was able to control my craziness, and get beyond that first sentence to a truly well-written pattern.

Here is is the other shawl I made:

My Andrea's Shawl, made with Jojoland Melody Superwash and K1C2 Crockodye. They both turned out great and I love them.

Catgirl ended up wearing the Traveling Woman shawl when we went to my nephew's first communion this weekend. We had rushed out of the house and forgot sweaters or jackets for ourselves, and the day was a lot colder than we expected. We had just been having some lovely, warm days, and got a nasty suprise from the weather on Saturday! Luckily I had the shawl in the car, so she ended up wrapping that around herself and it kept her arms warm. :o)

Mistakes Unmade

2010-03-24T10:20:00.007-05:00

I am in the home stretch on my Twist cardigan. I am knee deep--or should I say elbow deep?--in the sleeves at this point. I have to say that, for me, sleeves are the biggest slog of a sweater project. For one thing, they are deceptive. They start all nice and narrow, but then you have to increase every specified number of rows so they get wider and wider. They are really boring, because every row is just more of the same as the row before it. And they need to be a lot longer than you think. This one needs to be 19 inches long before I can start decreasing for the sleeve cap. YAWN.

You know the worst thing about sleeves? Once you triumph and finish one...you have to do another one. Ack.

I am trying a couple of new strategies in my efforts to stave off sleeve ennui this time. First I started the second sleeve already, and have it going on seperate needles. When the first sleeve just seems too monotonous, I will switch to the second one and work on that for a while. So far, it is not providing any real excitement. However, I think that, when I finish the first one, it will be nice to know that the second one already has a good amount done on it. Hopefully, it will give me that "light at the end of the tunnel" moment that would encourage me to keep working and maybe even pick up the pace.

I also am blocking the body pieces of the sweater. There is no reason why I can't seam the shoulders and get going on the button bands and the collar. Hopefully, that will provide a needed change of pace.

Another one of my strategies for combating sleeve ennui is to take some breaks and knit something else. Rocket science, I know! Anyway, I caved to spring startitis and cast on a shawl in a beautiful bright color.

The color is much more fun to knit than the sedate taupe/khaki of my Twist. At this point, I am still in the super-dull stockinette increase section of the Traveling Woman shawlette, which makes even a Twist sleeve seem interesting. I am not sure if this is good or not. I am almost up to the lace part, which will be more interesting.

Spring is definitely here, and I am so glad. I switched around all the closets this week and cleared out the shirts in Mathboy's closet that don't fit anymore. Honestly, how is it that he can wear these things and not recognize how short they are? He had a couple turtlenecks that almost looked like crop-tops when he wore them. He came down for church this Sunday wearing one of these shirts and he was rather annoyed when I made him go change. Aside from the simple fact that wearing a turtleneck is ridiculous when it has been 75 degrees out for couple days, the hem of the shirt hovered right at his pants' waistband. He could not have tucked it in.

So this week I confiscated all the short shirts from both Mathboy's and Catgirl's closets, moved the t-shirts into the fronts and the sweaters and such into the backs. Then I moved on to my own closet. I was switching the contents of the shelves around when I came upon a sweater I knit for myself many years ago.

It was made with silk fingering weight yarn in a gorgeous bronze. The yarn was spectacularly beautiful. I had gotten a good deal on eBay, but it still wasn't cheap. I used it to make a pullover sweater with a deep V-neck and knitted ruffles around the V and the bottom of the sleeves. I had worn it once, right after I finished it, and never wore it again. It had spent years languishing on the shelf in my closet. Why would I neglect such beautiful silk so shamefully?

Because it was a train wreck--a knitted train wreck.

First of all, choosing this pattern was a mistake from the beginning. For example, I am a firm believer that bikinis should not even be made in sizes that have more than one digit in the number. If you need something bigger than a size 8, you should not be allowed to buy a bikini. Sometimes clothing manufacturers need to save us from ourselves, you know? Similarly, I think this sweater should only have been offered in small and extra-small sizes. The designer could have gently explained the limited sizing:

"For those ladies who do not fit into the measurements set forth in this pattern, please find another pattern to knit. Be assured that we are not impugning your body shape in any way. We simply want you to know that if you spend many months knitting this sweater on size 3 needles and using expensive silk yarn, you will be very unhappy when the result not only fails to flatter your body but instead emphasizes parts of you that you usually try to hide. Please don't be insulted; we have only your best interests at heart. There are much better uses for your time and money than to knit something that you will hate.

Sincerely, The Designer."

Would that have been so hard?

Maybe I should have known that I would look ridiculous wearing a deep-v neck with knitted ruffles all over the place, but I did not have that wisdom yet. I plunged on in and knitted it. The body and sleeves of the sweater were all stockinette, and then the ruffles were added on by knitting up from the cuffs and v-neck. It took several months of knitting, using tiny needles with this slippery silk.

I made a size medium, but I had my usual gauge issues so the actual size is a lot closer to the large and the stitches are a bit loose and sloppy. The sleeves were supposed to be 3/4 length and relatively tight. Mine ended up being way too long and wide and floppy, with the cuff ruffles hanging over my hands. By the time I was done, I knew that it was bad. My finishing work wasn't even very good, probably because I just wanted to have done with the montrosity by that time.

I pulled that sweater down from its exile in the top reaches of my closet this week and I faced the horror of it with honesty. I hate this sweater. I will never wear this sweater. Even more: I should never wear this sweater, because it is that bad. And I thought to myself, What a waste of really top-notch luxury yarn. If I had this yarn now, I could make something much better with it.

And then, just as I was preparing to throw it in the garbage--it was too bad even to force it on Goodwill--I had a thought. Why not try to rip the sweater down and unknit it?

So that is my newest project: unknitting the silk. This is going to take a bit of time. Fingering weight silk doesn't knit up too fast, and it doesn't unknit too fast, either. The crummy finishing work doesn't help matters at all. The seams are messy and hard to take apart.

So far, I have one sleeve and the neck ruffle undone. I tied what I have up in hanks, soaked it in some cold water to relax the ramen noodle effect of frogged yarn. Then I wrung it out, and it is currently hanging in the shower to dry. It's actually drying very quickly. I was a little nervous that soaking it would harm the yarn, but I figured that it anything I reclaim from the sweater is a bonus, anyway. If it's ruined, it can't be any worse off than when it was in Ghastly Sweater form.

When it's dry, I'll wind it up into balls. Meanwhile, I have to pick a project to make with it--something better suited to the yarn. I am hoping I can get a good 500 yards or so out of this thing. If so, that would be enough for a nice lace scarf or shawlette, or maybe a shrug or a vest? Any of these would be good summer knitting!

Signs of Spring

2010-03-16T13:26:00.005-05:00

The last of the snow melted this weekend. The million inches of rain we got this weekend may have been the deciding factor. So, yes, it is kind of squishy outside these days, but you can definitely see signs that Spring is on its way!

Bulbs are poking their heads out of the ground all over the place. On the drive to church and school, I can see that carpets of little white flowers are popping up in many places. Can spring be far behind?

In another sign of spring, Rudolph emerged from his days of snuggling in his fuzzy cat bed to luxuriate in a sunny spot in the playroom.

I thought he had a great idea to enjoy the sunlight today; after five days of heavy rain, the sun is a welcome sight today. I would like to go lie in a sunny spot myself.

Poor Rudolph did not get much time to enjoy the sun this morning before his person rudely manhandled him into a pet carrier and dragged him off to the vet for a teeth cleaning and his annual shots. Rudolph is a F.O.U.S., or a Feline of Unusual Size. Weighing something over 20 pounds, he is not easily squeezed into a pet carrier designed for normal cats. Unfortunately, they don't really make pet carriers for his size: you got your small carriers (for cats and small dogs) and then you got your large carriers (for large dogs). It's ridiculous to put him in a carrier for a large dog, so it's the small carrier for him.

Some time ago, after Rudolph's infamous and unsuccessful attempt to bring home a dinner of wild turkey, we bought him a fancy canvas carrier for the multiple vet visits he had to make at that time. I got it out of the basement to use today for the first time in about a year. After I wrestled him into the carrier, I tried to zip the end closed, without any luck. Not one, but BOTH zippers broke and I could not zip the end shut. I had to think fast, as the F.O.U.S. was doing his darnedest to escape, cat hair was flying everywhere, and I didn't want to be late for our appointment. In the end, I resorted to safety pins. It took six big brass safety pins to contain my vicious beast. He is at the vet's for the day today; I will pick him up after the kids get out of school. I hope the vet doesn't lose my safety pins...

We've actually had a lot of spring projects going in the past couple of weeks. My seed order finally arrived this weekend, so we planted lots of seeds. We have the seed starters all crowded close to the window that gets the most morning sun.

I want to improve the vegetable garden greatly this year. Last year, my fence did keep the bunnies out, but the deer reached right over and treated my garden like a buffet. So I need a better fence, and I need to improve the nutritive quality of the soil. Last year's just did not have the yield I have gotten before.

Catgirl and a friend in her Girl Scout troop have been working on their bronze award project. They have a goal of making and collecting 100 Easter "baskets" to donate to Catholic Charities. The "baskets" are made by cutting off the bottom half of a milk carton, punching holes around the edge and threading yarn through the holes. The yarn serves both to protect little kids against the sharpness of the cut plastic and to make the "baskets" look like more than just recycled plastic.

Catgirl's friend's mom (who is the leader) organized a big "basket" decorating event on Friday, where they got help from a troop of Daisies and a troop of Brownies in decorating the makeshift "baskets" with yarn. At one point, I looked around at all these little girls working hard threading yarn through milk cartons, and I said to the friend's mom, "We are running a Girl Scout sweatshop!"

The girls plowed through about 60 "baskets" in one hour Friday night. Admittedly, we did have to spend a few hours fixing many of them on Saturday, but it was still a great help.

These baskets, in addition to the ones the girls whave made over the past month, get them very close to their goal. Now Catgirl and her friend have to fill them with Easter grass and the treats they have collected and we will deliver them to the church this coming Saturday.

This past Sunday was Pi Day, of course: March 14th (3.14, get it?), so Catgirl's math teacher asked kids to bring in pie for Monday. Catgirl decided, for some reason that neither of us has figured out, that she wanted to make Key Lime pie. She had never even tried Key Lime Pie before, but she had it in her mind that that was the pie she wanted to make. I happen to have a good recipe for it that I used to make when Rich and I first got married. It's pretty much the same work to make two pies as one, so we ended up making one for us to enjoy at home and one for Catgirl to take to school.

Unfortunately, only a couple kids were game enough to try Key Lime pie. Most of them went for the chocolate cream pie that one girl brought or the ice cream pie that another one brought. I hear the teachers liked it, but in the end a lot of it came back home.

So now, we have a lot of pie in this house, people. This morning I had a piece of pie for breakfast. Not exactly the breakfast of champions, I suppose. I am going to try freezing some pie. It sure will be tasty in the summer. Mmmm!

In knitting news, I have finished the back and one front side on my Twist cardigan sweater.

I reallyreally want to wear this, so I am seriously motivated to knit it up fast. The yarn is very nice: soft to knit and a classy khaki color that will look great with everything. I am enjoying the pattern, too.

Kitchen Adventure on a Snow Day

2010-02-27T08:43:00.005-05:00

It looked like this outside again yesterday.

Nothing new, right? Ho hum. Snow on snow. This time it snowed sideways most of the time, so we have over a foot in some places, while in others you can see the grass. We did play outside for a while, as it was great packing snow. Mathboy rolled a snowball around the entire house. When it was up to his chest and wouldn't move anymore, it became the cornerstone for his new snow fort. Catgirl's snowball is becoming a comfy chair. What does this say about my kids? Fort vs. comfy chair?

After we all had enough snow yesterday, it was time for indoor stuff. I won't tell you the story of my personal worst Scrabble game ever. Instead, let's talk about my grand idea to make homemade soft pretzels, as documented in a photo essay by Mathboy.

Kim gave me an awesome cookbook for Christmas: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I love this cookbook. In fact, I love it so much that I was shocked yesterday to see that I have gone through an entire 5 lb bag of flour since New Year's, and I don't know how much whole wheat flour in addition to that. That's a lot of flour, folks. Most of the time I have been making the basic white bread recipe, but I also have made pizza dough and long rolls for meatballs subs. May I just say how AWEsome it is to have meatball subs on rolls fresh and crackling from the oven? Oh. My. Goodness.

Anyway. Today I thought it would be fun to try the recipe for soft pretzels--which are a favorite for all of us. I made the dough and then left it to rise while we were outside. Now, I do have to admit that I had to use whole wheat flour for about 1/6 of the total amount, and for dusting while we formed the shapes, because I had exhausted (!!!) my regular flour supply. So this recipe is not faithful to the book, and I probably should not blame the book for our results.

Here is Catgirl forming a pretzel shape.

She actually turned out to be the best pretzel shaper in the house. She's the most artistic, so maybe we should have expected that.

This recipe had us drop the pretzels in simmering water for a few minutes, like bagels. Here are some waiting to go into the water.

...and here are some in the pot.

Then, after they dried a bit on a floury towel, we brushed them with an egg wash and dusted with some chunky salt. Then it was into the oven on a preheated pizza stone for baking.

Ours were a little big, I guess, and they took a while to bake. But here they are, in all their toasty golden glory:

Am I the only one who thinks they look something like what an animal leaves behind? Well, I won't say it again, because I'm trying not to think about that. Just get that thought out of your head.

Needless to say, we will not be opening our own Philadelphia Pretzel Factory anytime soon. And I have new respect for the Amish at the Reading Terminal market who do the handmade pretzels. It was so hard to shape these things! The dough was very sticky, so we had to use a lot of flour to keep it from sticking to our hands or the counter. Also--or maybe because of all the whole wheat flour we were using--it wouldn't stretch well. Once we finally were able to wrestle the dough into something approximating a pretzel, it wouldn't hold the shape. The dough rose and obscured the pretzel loops, or the joins came apart in the pot of water. They just look malformed.

After all that, the taste really reminds you of a... a salty roll. Not that we really mind salty rolls. Not that this is keeping us from eating them, mind you. They taste good. But they don't really taste like pretzels.

And the cleanup? Oy.

Snow Math: 21.5 Saturday + 14.5 Wednesday = 36!

2010-02-11T16:55:00.002-05:00

Whatever way you look at it, there's a heckuva lot of snow out there.

The snow forts have reached epic proportions.

I have a lot of pictures, but many of them look just like the pictures from Saturday so I won't post those here. I am trying to give you some different views for today.

It's hard to show the sheer volume of snow with my pictures. Imagine someone has taken a giant can of shaving cream or spray whipped cream and spread it in a lumpy, wavy manner all over our town, and you have the idea. It's just crazy.

Last night we saw thundersnow--which I actually would say is a misnomer. What we saw were lightning flashes in the sky, not really like the lightning bolts of summer thunderstorms. They were much less defined, resembling perhaps the Northern Lights. There was no thunder. Maybe it was muffled by the volume of snow everywhere? At first, I thought there might have been a fire somewhere. As you all might imagine, that made us pretty nervous. All in all, the phenomenon was a little unsettling.

Catgirl has been re-reading the Little House on the Prairie books, which has been giving me a lot of thoughts about how lucky we are we don't have to tie a rope between the shed and the house so we can find our way out there in the blizzard to milk the cows.

Snow Tired

2010-02-08T16:12:00.000-05:00

The Biggest Blizzard since ... Last Month?

2010-02-06T12:19:00.002-05:00

It's deja vu all over again. This is a picture from this morning, but it sure looks like it could have been from December 20.

We woke up this morning to 12 inches already on the ground, with another 6 to 10 inches expected to fall today. The wind is gusting very strongly at times, so in some places there are drifts which go well over my knees, while in others you can see the grass.

I've done a little shoveling.

Not much. I'm so hoping that our neighbor with the snow blower will come by soon. Maybe I should walk on over to his house and bring him some coffee? Please wake up, friendly neighbor!

Catgirl was having a swinging time. She and Mathboy were out for well over an hour. They just came back in, dripping packed blobs of snow all over the floor. The hot chocolate is flowing!

Making a quick stop in the shelter of the garage to retuck her shirt into the snow pants...

Kitchener is my Nemesis

2010-01-27T13:51:00.008-05:00

I got my own dose of lessons in humility, lately. Even though other things in my life may be a mess, I could always look to my knitting to see some minor successes. Well, I could, until last week.

So I am making a pair of mittens. This is my first pair of mittens; I have made fingerless mitts before, and they are fun but really not that practical in January when your hands are really cold. I decided that, darn it, I've been knitting for 24 years, I ought to be able to make a pair of mittens and get some full coverage for my hands.

I have pairs of store bought gloves a-plenty, but my favorite thing to keep my hands really warm is a pair LL Bean ragg-wool mittens that I have had since college, or maybe high school. They have no fancy thinsulate filling or waterproof fabric. They're plain wool, with a thin wool lining. They repel the water because they are wool, and they are the best at keeping my hands warm because the fingers are together. They're awesome. Their only flaws are that they're a drab gray/brown and they are not handmade. I wanted to make some pretty mittens for myself.

I found the perfect pattern to do it: Wood Hollow Mittens from Through the Loops. I became obsessed with this pattern as soon as I saw it. At first, they were going to be my Ravelympics project. It seemed the perfect pattern: these mittens are doable within 2 weeks, but they still offer a stretch because they involved kitchenering a seam, which is a skill that I have not yet mastered. I found what seemed to be the perfect yarn: Berroco Vintage Wool, an affordable, machine-washable, and super-soft wool/acrylic blend in a gorgeous violet heathery color called Sloe Berry.

I couldn't even wait for the Ravelympics to start them. I cast them on last week. Full speed ahead!

I was completely entranced from the start. I love the twisted rib. I love the big cable-y goodness of the main stitch pattern. I loved the perfect point formed by the thumb gusset--man, I'm easily enchanted, aren't I? And then I got to the end of the fingers, where the pattern calls for you to kitchener together the last 7 stitches of each side together. Full stop. Screeching halt, actually.

And here I met my doom. When I said before that the kitchener stitch is "a skill I have not yet mastered," I was understating the situation. I was being kind. I was sparing my own feelings. I was letting myself off easy. In reality, kitchener stitch is a skill at which I outright stink. I suck eggs. It is hard to believe that, after so many years of knitting, I could be so bad at this particular kind of knitting. I'm pretty darn competent at so many other things in knitting (well, except for color-work, but let's not go there. Who needs different colors, anyway?).

Just as I do every time I try kitchenering (or grafting, as it is also know), I bravely dug out one of the knitting books I have that goes through kitchener in detail, complete with step-by-step descriptions and pictures and color-coded diagrams with little arrows. I dove in. Here is the result:

The kitchenering is at the end of the fingers here. If you can't see it in the picture, I will tell you that this is terrible. It looks awful. It's backwards. I don't know why, but my kitchenering always ends up backwards. If I am doing stockinette it ends up looking like garter stitch. If I am doing garter, it ends up looking like stockinette. I don't know why.

I pretended I did not hate it to death and moved on to the thumb, and then I started the second mitten. I figured I would rip it out and try again on another day. At the recommendation of someone on Ravelry, I totally wimped out on kitchenering the second mitten and did a three-needle bind-off instead. When she suggested it, I thought, Eureka! I thought I had found the perfect way for me to kitchener--by avoiding it entirely! Ha ha! I'll show this mitten, I thought.

But easier said than done, people. The three-needle bind-off needed to be done inside the mitten so it would not show. This meant turning the mitten inside out, which meant that they had be taken off the 6 inche needles right? That's where I got in trouble. I figured, 7 stitches are no big deal, I'll just let take the needles out and flip the mitten and they'll be right there. I don't need no stinking stitch holders. Right?

Wrong! The live stitches at the end of the fingers did not want to flip inside-out. Turns out those live stitches have a mind of their own. They know which way they are supposed to go, and apparently being inside-out was not on their agenda. I had to go digging for these stitches to try get them back on the needles, and it was not pretty. It did not help it was 11:30 at night, everyone else had gone to bed, and there may have been a glass of wine lurking nearby.

Here's my end result for the fingers on the second mitten (before I finished off the thumb):

See what I mean? Better than the first, but still no cigar.

So what have I learned, children? Practice, practice, practice. I tell the kids that they can't expect to be great at things the first, second or even the third time they try them. I need to listen to my own lectures. I need to practice this thing called grafting or kitchenering. I need to face my demon--nay, my nemesis--over and over again until I can beat it into submission. Well, I would be happy if I could just manage to deal with 14 measly stitches on a mitten, OK?

I close with a picture of some neighbors wandering through our backyard the other day.

I could not get them all in a picture, so you will have to take my word that there were 15--FIFTEEN--of them.

A Nauseous Skeleton Brings Humility

2010-01-27T11:19:00.003-05:00

He had high hopes, our Mathboy, as we headed off the Knights of Columbus for the spelling bee. He spent several days reading through the Scripps book of spelling words and was about as ready as he could be, considering that he also has mid-term exams this week at school and he has been pretty good about studying for those. I was throwing extra words at him in the car, once we got tired of the words in the booklet. Truth to tell, there were several words in the booklet that we never got around to quizzing him on because none of us could even pronounce them, let alone give him a definition. So in the car I just came up with words that I thought were tricky: crustacean, coagulate, sesquicentennial, expeditious.

When we got to the council’s headquarters, it was not quite as elaborate as we expected. They had fifty or so chairs set up for the audience, only about 12 of which were filled. There were 12 chairs for the competitors, but only 8 came. A few kids were there without anyone there to watch them. We had made Mathboy wear khakis, but most of the kids were in jeans.

Because there were only 8 kids, each round only took about a minute. One kid was out in the 2nd round, another in the 3rd, another in the 4th. In the fifth round, Mathboy was asked to spell “nauseous,” and that is where his night ended. He knows very well how to spell it, but he had a brain freeze. As he explained it to us later, he heard “nauseous,” but his brain started thinking “noxious,” so he started “N, O….” And then he stopped, because he knew he had screwed up. He told the judges that he knew he was wrong and that he saw no reason to continue. So that was that.

To his credit, Mathboy took defeat very well and with grace. We were very proud of him, because we knew he wanted it bad. His friend from school went on to win the whole shebang in a couple more rounds, with “smorgasbord.” His friend actually looked as if he were a little embarrassed that he won—it was almost as if he couldn’t help but win. I am pretty sure he didn’t try that hard; he just knows how to spell and how to handle himself under pressure. It was kind of funny, actually. We ended up giving him and his trophy a ride home—his parents hadn’t stayed to watch.

It was one of those situations where nothing really goes the way you expect. I thought the spelling bee was a big deal, but most of the kids certainly didn’t act as if it was and it was the same with the parents. I was surprised at how quickly it was over. All told, the actual spelling bee took less time than all the other stuff took--the explanation of the rules, the opening welcoming speech from the KoC grandmaster and his closing remarks combined took much longer. It was over so quick I even forgot to take a picture.

The actual spelling bee only had 8 rounds, I think, which goes pretty darn quickly with less than 10 kids. I was amazed at how quickly these kids went down—the first kid was out with “subsidy,” for which he needed a definition. The second kid was out with “follicle.” These kids were supposed to be the best spellers from their schools. It was very weird.

The title of this post comes from the two words that my kids will never misspell again. "Nauseous" was Mathboy's downfall last night, but "skeleton" was the one that did Catgirl in during her class spelling bee last week. She knows that word, she just mixed up her letters when she was spelling it out loud. Both kids are so supremely confident of their spelling abaility; it is interesting that they were both tripped up by words they knew how to how to spell. I am proud of them both. They did not do as well as they expected of themselves, but they have handled their disappointments well. I am grateful for the lessons they learned from this. Sometimes you really can learn more from failure than from success.

Where are my Apples?

2010-01-15T11:19:00.012-05:00

Or, In Which Our Heroine Learns Yet Again That Her Children are NOT, In Fact, Miniature Versions of Herself and Her Husband.

There are times when I look at my kids and wonder how on God's Green Earth they became the way they are. I know they physically look a lot like me and Rich, so I know they must be ours. And I am pretty sure that I have had a hand in raising them to this point. So where does this behavior come from? Where do their ideas come from?

This goes way beyond my kids' complete inability to find their shoes unless they are actually wearing them. (I swear, I don't remember being that hapless when I was a kid, but maybe Mom would contradict me on that.) My 13 year old son, who is no intellectual slouch, will stand helplessly in the kitchen and moan that he is hungry but that he doesn't know what to eat or how to make anything. What's that all about?

But I did not start this entry to complain about my kids. On the contrary, I am sometimes amazed and baffled by them, and that's what got me thinking this week.

Mathboy had to stay home sick on Wednesday. Now, your average 13 year old, when staying home sick, would spend a lot of time watching TV or playing video games. I seem to have very fond memories of doing exactly that at age 13. I got very good at guessing the price of those Egglands Best Eggs on The Price is Right, and I knew all about Luke and Laura on General Hospital.

I have a memory of one day when I missed the bus but was too afraid to tell my mother, because I knew she would yell at me for the whole drive to school. I don't remember how old I was, but I probably was not much older than Mathboy. Anyway, my solution was to hide in my closet until my mother left for work. I hoped she would think that I got out for that early morning bus without her hearing me leave. It was a ridiculous idea, but it worked. Mom eventually left for some appointments and I spent the day watching game shows and soaps. (I finally told her about this incident a couple of years ago.)

Enough about my misspent youth; let's get back to Mathboy's sick day. He did go back to bed for a while. He also took time to post his school absence on his Facebook page. That's teenager-ish, right? Then he got bored. So he turned to his bedside reading, which this week is ...

The Math Book by Clifford A. Pickover and Knotted Doughnuts by Martin Gardner. Then he started graphing out isometric worms, a math game discussed in the Doughnut book. Then he wanted to tell me all about them, step by step. Then my brain started to hurt.

Slacker that I am, I eventually distracted him with video games. He played some Bookworm and some Myst. He also made vocabulary flashcards in preparation for his Latin midterm. But most of the day, he graphed those worms. And he really enjoyed it. Fun times.

On the other side of the coin, we have Catgirl. First of all, as a complete extrovert, she is the only one is the family who can't stand to be alone. This, all by itself, can be a problem, as you may imagine. She also absolutely loves cheerleading. I have no idea where that came from. Not me.

Finally, and this is the kicker, she has been talking a lot about the upcoming school talent show. As a 5th grader, she is permitted to take part for the first time. She is insisting on doing it. She has noticed my lack of enthusiasm--after all, I quit Girl Scouts as a child because the troop wanted to spend several months of meetings planning and preparing for a talent show. I don't do talent shows. I don't remember ever really liking being the center of attention for something like that. So Catgirl has warned me "not to try talk her out of it because she has been waiting to be in the talent show FOREVER."

Uh, okay. So I can't talk her out of it. Instead, I am suggesting various group activities that could be done. She really wanst to sing--so why not sing a song from Glee or Taylor Swift with her friends?

This is where I start to wonder about her parentage, people, because her response was that "She wanted to perform all by herself."

What? Hunh? You want to go up on stage in front of all the kids at your school and sing a solo in the talent show? This would be my idea of a good torture for one of the circles in hell, and my daughter wants to do it? That reminds me: Mathboy sang that solo (a whole movement, by the way) at his Christmas Concert. And let's not forget the incident at the Montessori end of the year festivities in 2007. He had a solo, but he didn't tell us about it in advance, so when he took the microphone Rich and I were mortified and thought he was misbehaving. I still remember the shock when he started singing with the whole class as his back-up. Sheesh.

Where do my kids get the confidence to just put themselves out there like this? I don't think I ever had that. I don't know if I envy them or if I am scared for them.

Relax, Sydney. As the Yarn Harlot says: Here. Look at some soothing wool....

Lisa's Beret from Through the Loops, in Woolbearers hand-dyed Kona Superwash, the colorway Twilight. It's blocking on a plate suspended over my counter. I hope it doesn't fall over, because that's a new plate and it would smash on the granite. Excuse me, I have to go pad the area with dishtowels....

Christmas is not good for Blogging

2010-01-13T09:39:00.003-05:00

You know, you would think that something as special as Christmas would actually be great for blogging, but it's not. You can't post about gifts before they are given because, well, duh. During Christmas you (hopefully) got to see your friends and family, so you don't need to blog for them to hear about what's going on in your life. And then after Christmas? Well, you're just too exhausted to blog.

See? Rich and Rudolph were completely wiped out.

Now that we are in the second week of January, and everyone is (more or less) back in their routines, I figured I should take a few minutes to post an update here. But, at this point, I am not sure I remember everything that I wanted to say....!

Catgirl's cheer squad finally got to start cheering at games (prior games had been cancelled because of the snow), and they are having a great time. Here she was, all ready to go to the first game:

(She takes off the flannel pants and her glasses for the actual cheering.) A few parents and I stayed to cheer the cheerleaders for the first couple Sundays, and I got some video with my new digital video recorder. We had fun, and I am learning more about basketball than I ever knew.

Knitting Stuff:
Many lovely gifts were exchanged over Christmas at our house between us and between our wonderful extended families. I did not knit very many gifts this year--last year I had plenty of knitting time for small projects while commuting on the train, so nearly everyone I know got a hat. This year, I just had a few things, a couple of which were finished in the nick of time.

This hat

went to my Mom. She has been talking for ages about how she wanted a blue hat. I did make one a couple years ago, but I am not sure it was what she wanted. Anyway, this one was waaay prettier, waaaay cooler. This is the Snapdragon Tam by Ysolda Teague , in Madeline Tosh worsted yarn. I so wanted to keep it. I also made a pink one, which Catgirl and I are sharing. Actually, in her point of view, it is hers and I keep stealing it from her. Oh well.

I also made this scarf

for Leslie. This is the Scroll Lace Scarf, also from Ysolda, in some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport I had in my stash.

I also finished the Veyla mitts

in a cashmere/wool blend from my stash. How sad that I did not finish them in time for Christmas, so I have to keep them for myself. These are amazing! The color is kind of blah, and I did not love the yarn to knit with, but the finished mitts are so incredibly soft. I love how high and tight they are on the wrist, too. This pattern is yet another Ysolda design. I am really enjoying Ysolda's patterns, and will be making more, I know it.

Finally, I also finished the vest for Rich--yes, the one started back in ... September, was it? You'd think I could do a vest in less than three months, even a man-sized one, but what can I say? The pattern got boring. I had made the same pattern for Mathboy in the spring, so my boredom threshold was messed up. Anyway, it was done by New Year's Eve, and I was glad to start a new year without it hanging over my head. Rich is wearing it in the picture at the top of this post. It would go better with a light-colored shirt, but when your man happily takes what you knitted for him and puts it on right away ... you don't argue that it would go better with a different shirt.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T13:46:00.002-05:00

Snow Phillie

2009-12-21T14:35:00.001-05:00

The Season to be Freezin'

2009-12-20T14:12:00.008-05:00

It started snowing after we went to bed Friday night, and it did not stop until this morning around 8 or so. The result? According to the news, our area hit "the jackpot" in snow totals: 24 inches.

This is a view of our patio, taken from the back door.

I had the door open to take the picture, and there was a snow wall of about 10 to 12 inches of snow up against the doorway. The cat already had one front leg in the snow and was poking the other in, so I quickly snapped the picture and grabbed the varmint to pull him back in the house. Idiot feline.

This was the view that Mathboy awoke to:

See the snow up against the window?

Here's the office window:

This is the second floor, folks. The snow accumulated on the front porch roof under these windows.

Rich did a great job digging out the driveway this morning:

It's always hard to get perspective on the amount of snow there is from a picture. I mean, white is white. Maybe a picture of our neighbor's car will help:

Or another neighbor's house:

Catgirl was out for hours yesterday, while it was snowing pretty heavily:

But the best part is this:

Warming and drying everything by the fire afterward.

Cheerleader marching in the Cold

2009-12-06T15:29:00.002-05:00

One Cold Cheerleader
Originally uploaded by sydneycm

Catgirl marched in the Christmas Parade yesterday. Unfortunately, the weather was not too cooperative. It was in the high 30's and doing a rainy, sleety-type thing. Snow would have been nicer.

'Tis the Season

2009-12-02T09:37:00.002-05:00

It's December already! How the heck did that happen? Holy impending holidays, batman! Better get cracking with that shopping, and maybe some knitting. Nothing like the last minute, hm?

We had a great time on Kiawah Island with April, Mike, the kids, Grandma and Grandpa, and we even saw Aunt Tina, Uncle Frank, and Jeremy and his son. I have lot of pictures on the Flickr page, but here are a few:

The view from the deck in the morning. That's the pool in the foreground.

Look how big all the cousins are now:

Two generations:

Manhandling Sammy the dog:

First time fishing:

Hope he doesn't catch any of these guys, photographed from the deck:

Biking on the beach was great:

Fantastic!

2009-11-19T11:43:00.005-05:00

I don't know about the rest of you, but in our family we get speech ... habits, I guess you could call them. We start to use certain words, and then use them more, and then more, and then too much. It's like vocabulary addiction, you might say; our tolerance for the word increases, leaving us inclined to use it more and more and leaving our brain less able to find a suitable alternative. Unfortunately, as our fondness for that particular word increase, as it seems to serve more of our expressive needs, the tolerance of those around us for the words decreases.

Accordingly, Mathboy increasing use of the word "random" in everyday conversation began to grate on my nerves to such an extent that I recently told him I would fine him 25 cents for every time he said it. My threat actually seems to have worked, as I notice the word coming out of his mouth much less often. He has become less random, so to speak, and I am less annoyed.

In a similar vein, I have noticed that my own word of the month is fantastic. Now, I haven't heard any complaints from my family about my overuse. However, I have noticed that, thanks to the versatility and sheer beauty of the word, as well as my penchant for sarcasm, I have been using it in all sorts of situations, and to mean a variety of things.

So, in keeping with my word of the month, I offer you a few of the Fantastic Things in our house this November. You can judge for yourself what fantastic means by the context.

1. Schools. Mathboy's got his grades this week, and they were fantastic. We were blown away, not only by the grades but by the way the teachers write at least a paragraph of comments. It's fantastic to get such communication from teachers for a change. Mathboy's school is also offering some scholarships for the freshman class next year, which is fantastic news. On the other hand, Catgirl's teachers have been assigning a fantastic amount of homework. This is especially fantastic, when you consider that I also need to reteach the day's math lesson every afternoon, before she can even start on the homework. We had to let her drop flute and the school band, because the idea that she would be able to do the required 30 minutes of practice each night (or gets marked down a grade) is utterly fantastic.

2. Thanksgiving. The week after Halloween, Joann's was putting up all their Christmas stuff. Because of that, I got a fantastic deal on this turkey, and just had to share. I know he's ridiculous, and he doesn't really serve any practical purpose for us, but it tickles me to get seasonal decor in the season in which they are to be used for 80% off. Fantastic.

3. The annual drama over how to celebrate Christmas in my family was fantastic. I hope next year we can avoid this by not expecting too much from each other.

4. Growing lettuce indoors. I will have baby lettuce to eat at Christmas, thanks to my fantastic planter and my recently added growing lightbulbs--fantastically cheap at Home Depot, who knew? This picture is actually a week or so old; the seedlings are a lot bigger already. I have chard coming up, too, and something else at the other end but I can't remember what I planted there. My memory is fantastic.

5. My fantastic Snapdragon Tam, in the fantastically gorgeous Dream in Color Classy yarn in Ruby River. Catgirl wants it. I'm afraid it might be too big for her, but we'll see. If it is too big for her, it will go to someone for Christmas, which means another gift done. Fantastic!

6. Taking Hairy to the guinea pig vet. Two words: Rodent lice. Fantastic.

7. Catgirl made the cheerleading squad at school. This involves sparkly cropped shirts and being thrown up in the air. Fantastic.

...I leave you with this, but I know there have been more. I may have to edit this post later. For now, I have to go to get ready for Mathboy's fantastic 13th birthday party this weekend.

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.

More Socks before Maine

2008-08-20T05:52:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow we head up to Maine for Rich's cousin's wedding weekend, so I have a quick post with the latest sock, unbelievably finished in a mere 10 days by the grace of too much Olympic-viewing:

Spring Forward, done toe-up in Woolly Boully yeah oh yeah! sock, the Fishing with my Father colorway. The pattern and sock color are hard to photograph: the camera just can't show how loud this color is, and you just can't see the complicated pattern (because the yarn is so loud). I have to admit that the color grew on me as I was knitting. Actually, my appreciation of the yarn was no doubt helped along by how really pleasant it was to work with. Very nice yarn. The pattern was OK--not too hard once you got used to it.

Lean Mean Sock Machine

2008-08-07T15:28:00.004-05:00

First things first: No, I have not heard back after my interview. Yes, it's been about 2 weeks. New resumes are on the way out, but I am disappointed the guy did not call me back. He seemed really interested and it would have been the perfect job, I think. Rats.

I am slogging through the Summer of Socks, and being more sock-productive than ever before. This winter, I can wear handknit socks every day, I swear. I may foist some off on others, as well. Share the hand-knitted goodness, right? Here's the latest:

I finished the Fern Leaf Lace socks (although I recently discovered this stitch is actually called "Baby Fern," but who cares).

These are done with Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport and I LOVE THEM. I am KEEPING these, for sure. This yarn is so soft and was a JOY to knit with. It also is so pretty IRL--it seems a little drab in photos, I think, but in reality is gorgeous. Am I shouting too much? Sorry!

After those were done, I worked on the Seaweed Socks, in the Tofutsies yarn. As much as I loved the LL Sport? Yeah, that's how much I hated the Tofutsies yarn. The pattern, however, was great. Although it is pretty much lost in the busy colors of the yarn, it worked out well. In fact, I really think my enjoyment of the pattern was all that kept me going on these socks. The lace stitch has a short repeat--eight rows, I think? It was so tantalizing and really kept me engaged. "Oh, look," I would say to myself when the yarn was getting especially annoying, "Only two more rows and that's another repeat done. Only three more repeats and I can start the heel. Only two more repeats and the darn things is done. Woo hoo!" And lookie here:

All done! These were done on a size 0 needles (ouch!), and I made them with a short leg because I could not wait for them to be done. Then I had a little ceremony and threw the leftover yarn in the kitchen garbage with the coffee grounds and shredded zucchini ... Yuck. There may have been some evil laughter. Dr. Horrible laughter. Goodbye Tofutsies, and good riddance! But, on the good side, I am very pleased with the socks themselves.

And ta da! I just finished these:

These are Boyfriend Socks, which oddly enough I ended up making for Mathboy. The yarn is by Spindle City Yarns in the Camouflage colorway. This yarn was great--it was very, very nice to use, and I can't believe how much yarn there was in this skein. I could have made socks for boat-sized feet with this skein.

So now I have to work on the Coupling Socks, but am finding that pattern really hard to memorize. Must. Concentrate. And I started a new sport-weight sock, because you just gotta love those quickies sometimes:

This is going to be another one of those mishmash socks, where I cram a lot of other folks' techniques into one sock. The stitch pattern is Cross Hatch Lace from More Sensational Knitted Socks, and I think I've kinda got it memorized--row 5 is the only tricky one for me. I'm using the Zen String Lotus Toes Sport in Boreal, and size 2 (2.75mm) needles.

Lazy Days of Summer

2008-07-28T06:32:00.005-05:00

The camps have ended and the kids are sleeping in. They actually were looking forward to a week with no obligations, and they have advised me that it is my job this week to take them to the pool as much as possible. They want to see their friends and they want to stay in their PJs as much as possible as well. So, I'm wondering, the ideal week would be one in which they could meet their friends at the pool and swim in their PJs? I dunno. We'll see what we can do, I told them.

The play for Catgirl's drama camp was adorable. When we come to the big family wedding in a couple of weeks, we will bring much video for everyone's viewing pleasure: we have the play and the 95 degree piano recital from June.

New socks!
I'm working on these for this week's deadline in the Summer of Socks:

This is the first sock; the second is almost done as well. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in the Baltic Sea colorway, and it is wonderful to knit. It is very soft and the colors are gorgeous. I don't know how well the yarn will hold up over time, but right now I am in love with these socks. I used the Fern Leaf Lace stitch from More Sensational Knitted Socks, and the sportweight heel from Wendy's standard recipe.

In other sock news, I finished the first and am chugging along on the second Boyfriend Sock. It looks great, but the dark color of the yarn and the small needles make it a little less attractive to work on at times. I did forsake it for a while, turning to the Fern Leaf Lace socks, but I do want to finish it soon. I ripped out the Lotus Toes toe. Couldn't make it work for anything. I'll try again later. The Seaweed socks are proceeding very slowly because the yarn is really not my cup of tea.

The Jungle
The garden has reached that point in the summer where it would be more accurately described as a vegetable jungle.

The tomato plants have gone crazy and the zucchini plants churning out a zucchini every day. Even the broccoli plants still are giving me little florets here and there. I need to rip them out, but the guinea pig is enjoying their continued production for the time being. I planted bush beans, but the same varmint that ate all my chard in the spring is eating the bean leaves. As in the spring, said varmint is eating only that one thing and nothing else. Why?!

"Put on the Murder, Mom."
I downloaded the audiobook version of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express to listen to in the car with the kids and they are really into it. They make me pause the playback every few minutes so they can update me on how their theories have changed in light of the new evidence Poirot has obtained. It's a lot of fun. It's interesting for me, already knowing the ending, in that I am hearing a lot more real clues early on in the book than I remember noticing when I read it all those years ago. I loved Agatha Christie books when I was younger, but I became angry with her at times because it seemed like there was no way that readers could solve her mysteries. We just did not have all the onformation that Hercule Poirot had--at least until he would hold his big "this is how it all happened" conference at the end of the book. But I must admit, there are a few little tidbits of information dropped early on in this book, if you know what you are looking for.

I just found out that I was one of the winners in a contest on the Mason Dixon Knitting blog--I'm going to get a signed copy of their new book when it comes out in September! I am very excited; I loved their first book. And I won something! Woohoo! Ok, gushing over. :o)

Random Summer Thoughts

2008-07-17T07:53:00.003-05:00

Putting the "Sport" in Sport Utility Vehicle.
I wanted to show you a picture of the back of my car, but I keep forgetting to take one. You'll have to imagine it. On any typical day, we are carrying supplies for softball, tennis, karate, golf and possibly swimming. It's crazy, I tell you.

The Summer of Socks
So far, I have completed 2 pairs of socks in the past 4 weeks, which is pretty darn amazing for me. Here they are:

Basic 2x2 rib socks in Apple Laine's Apple Pie yarn, Blue Bayou colorway:

Aren't they pretty? They are sooooo soft. Wow. And here are my Peace socks by Wendyknits, done in Schaefer Lola:

These were done in thicker yarn on a bigger needle so they flew by.

I am cruising along on the first sock of a 3rd pair:

Boyfriend Socks in Spindle City Yarns' Camouflage colorway. This is truly yummy yarn, by the way--very soft and lots of sproing! I love it. I started these for Rich, but the spiraling of the colors is a little less subtle than I think he would appreciate, so these are going to go to Mathboy instead. The benefit of knitting for Mathboy is that his feet are nearly the same size as mine, so I can use my feet for measuring. Plus Mathboy has been clamoring for more socks. Rich? Not so much.

I also had a Moment of Craziness the other day and cast on 2 more toes. I was looking through the yarns I have had hanging around for a while and I guess the yarn fumes took over. Before I knew what was happening, I had 2 toes: one in Tofutsies on size 0 needles and one in Zen String Lotus Toes Sport in Boreal, on size 1 (2.5mm). The problem was figuring out what to do with these toes. I tried a few different patterns, but the size did not look right, even though the gauge was supposedly correct, so they have both been ripped back to the toes a couple of times. Currently, I am trying Wendy's Seaweed Socks for the Tofutsies and Coupling from Knitty for the Lotus Toes Sport (which is pretty light to be labeled "sportweight," IMO, but I don't mind). This is how they look now:

My Lotus Toe:

And my Seaweed half-foot:

Summer Camps

(Silly Hat Day). Catgirl is having the Best Time Ever at her Drama Camp, even though her group made some weird choices for their skit for the end of year show--choices she and her friend don't like. Apparently, the group has voted for a story about people who don't like waffles, and wanted the set to represent "Waffleworld." Catgirl's suggestions were rejected by the group, even though the teacher apparently liked them and supported her. Oh well. Sometimes democracy stinks. She's still enjoying it, though, thank goodness.

Mathboy is doing a half-day golf camp this week (hence the bag of clubs hogging the back of my car, see above), and really enjoying it. Next week, he has full day camp at the Y, which will include golf as well. I wish I hadn't signed him up for that, though; I think he would have been fine with another week of this half-day camp at Ramblewood. Oh well. Sometimes moms make mistakes. And, who knows? Maybe next week's camp will be great and we will be happy he did it. We'll have to wait and see.