Mistakes Unmade

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

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

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!

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

The Biggest Blizzard since ... Last Month?

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

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

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?

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

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!

Snow Phillie

The Season to be Freezin'

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.