The Return…

Well clearly I didn’t keep upon this blog. 9 years since my last post? Thank goodness I didn’t have followers depending on me lol. 
I have recently dived (dove?) back in yo my love of playing with yarns and sticks. And hooks. I didn’t give it up all together I just didn’t do it as much. Only when I needed to make something for someone. Now I am needing it again, just for the sake of needing it. And it didn’t take long to gt back into my old habits of a gazillion WIPS lol. I currently have two lairs of socks, ackrner to corner blanket that will end up being probably five feet by seven feet, a scafg, ashawl and a dish towel. I am totally OK with thismany WIPS because I’m conti king to work on each of them. The dish towel I started today. Its just a basic moss stitch that will have a contrasting stripe of stockinette on each end. Iam using Victoria Cotton that I got at my LYS, Willow Hills Yarn Co. Jlove thus store and the owner and employees are great!! Emily has gotten Mr backinto wanting to be part of the knitting community again.  

Imnot very far into the dish towel yet but so far I really live how the harm feels. The needles are a 16 in Hiya Hiya which I love. The join is amazing and it makes the fibre glide super smoothly!

Twilight

I’ve been sucked in.  Pun intended of course.  Utterly, and completely SUCKED. RIGHT. IN.  I recently bought Twilight on Saturday, and read it in about 6 or 7 hours. I couldn’t put it down. Then, I was disappointed. Not in the book of course, who could be disappointed in THAT? No, I was disappointed because I didn’t buy the second and third books in the series when I was at Barnes and Noble. WHAT WAS I THINKING? After Church on Sunday I broke the rules and bout New Moon and Eclipse, finished Eclipse Sunday, as well as half of New Moon, and by Monday afternoon I was done. And sorely disappointed again. Not because of the last book. But because August is SO. FAR. AWAY. That’s when the final book comes out. *sigh* In the meantime, Stephenie Meyer, the author, has a new series coming out in May called The Host (just go visit the website, it’s easier than individual links LOL http://www.stepheniemeyer.com) that looks really good. To get me by, though, I’ve begun reading the sereies again, and started Twilight yesterday, intending to savour the taste, reading slowly, not letting myself get so caught up in it. However, I finished Twilight last night and am just a little past the halfway point in New Moon. Oh well, it was a nice try 🙂

I’ve been thinking a lot about music in regards to this book. I’ve noticed a few other Twilight junkies (what else could I call us? We’ve found our choice of heroin, so to speak (and those who’ve read the books will get that :))) have some Twilight playlists. The one I saw most recently had a playlist going chapter by chapter. I’m not quite up to that point yet. Maybe by the third read I can get more organized. Mine is more along the lines of incidents that happen in the book that make me think of certain songs. Her goes:

Hero – Enrique Iglasias — I chose this as somewhat of an over all theme song for Edward and Bella. Every time I hear it on my iPod all I can think of is those two!

Like a Prayer – Madona — I chose this one because it reminded me of Edward’s absence during New Moon, and how she could still hear his voice warning her. As I listened to the words of the song, I thought they went rather well with that.

All You Wanted – Michelle Branch — This one made me think of Jacob and how much he loves Bella. How he just wants to take her away and fill the void that was Edward.

I have more, but I have to get ready to go to my knitting class (block of the month) so I’ll have to finish up sharing my list later 🙂

It’s goin’ down, down, down..

Went to my weigh in today, and GUESS! WHAT!  I went down another 2 pounds 🙂  Last week when I went, I’d gone up 1.8 because of having eaten like I was never eating again on my vacation, but I’m back in the swing of things now, and am down a total of 10.4 pounds 🙂  I’m excited! 

 In knitting news, I’m still going strong on the BSJ, and I am nearing the final steps of it.  I haven’t had a lot of knitting time everyday, and I have two main projects going, so I’m dividing it up between the two.  The other project is the Dragon Scales Shawl and I am really enjoying it. I am only about 4 repeats in, but it’s taking shape nicely 🙂

I chopped off my hair. It was past my shoulders, and my hair is REALLY thick, and I have tons of it. It’s quite close to the thickness of horsehair, only not as coarse. I went in to the salan and said “Chop it off. Up to the chin. Chucnk and layer the heck out of it. A lot.” And she thinned it like there was no tomorrow. It’s still thick, of course, but it’s really cute, and I like it. About a week or two before I cut it, my friend hilited it for me, and now the hilites blend well with the haircut 🙂 When the weather permits (it’s gloomy today) maybe I’ll post a picture 🙂 If you’re lucky. But we all know how awful I am at pictures. I also cut my daughter’s hair. It has been over a year since she had a haircut, and it was getting all splitty and broken at the ends, and driving me crazy. I cut it too short for her liking (it’s just below the chin) and she took one look at it and said I’M NOT GOING TO SCHOOL LIKE THIS. Now, while I’m not a beautician, I can do an ok haircut, and it wasn’t that the haircut looked horrid. She just wants long hair. But I had to put it up just above where the splitting was happening. She also has a lot of hair, but each individual hair is like spiderweb silk, and it breaks a lot when we brush it, and it’s really curly when it’s wet (which she, of course, HATES) and so with the curls and fragility of the hair, I had to do something. I like it, I think it’s cute. I styled it and used our flat iron to curl it under at the ends (our curling iron broke) and then she felt a little better about it. It’s a teench shorter in the front and scoops down a little longer in the back, and gets shorter in the front again. Hopefully she’ll get over the length. Next time I’ll jus have to stay on top of the trims and not wait so long in between so I don’t have to do such a drastic cut for the dead ends and splitties.

The girls are both having an eye exam today. Jessie, the oldest, already wears glasses (she had eye surgery when she was about 3 for esotropia and amblyopia, with means she had crossed eyes and a lazy eye…not sure which one is which) and since before the surgery she’s needed to wear glasses for being nearsighted. Her most recent pair broke. And not in a fixable way. The wire frames snapped when they got stepped on (by me 😦 ) and it didn’t snap at the joint, where I could fix it, but halfway down the arm, which was weird. I guess I could hav taken them in and had a new arm put on, but I just now thought of that, and she needs new ones anyway. Jennifer, the second kiddo, has had poor eyesight for about 2 years now. When I took her to the doctor for preschool she failed the vision test. The doctor said she needs to have another exam at an eye office, and that she wouldn’t trust her to drive if she were of age to. They also did a vision test at her preschool, of which she failed. We didn’t have insurance at the time, and her preschool had a program where we qualified for her to have a gift certificate to have her eyes examined by a specialist, and glasses if necessary. The doctor we went to said that her eyes were not 20/20, but that since she was only 4 that they don’t correct their eyesight because it will make it worse. WHAT??? I knew that not to be true, since my older daughter had needed glasses at age 3, and they didn’t hesitate to help her with that. Fast forward to this year. She did so poorly on the vision test at school this year that I have to have a doctor’s note indicating that she’s had her eyes examined. Interesting, I thought. So they are both going in today, and I’m sure we’ll be picking out glasses for both. Poor Jennie. She’s always complaining that it’s hard to see.

Other good news is that my girls are doing AWESOME with school. Jessica, in 1st grade, reads at just about a 4th grade level, does well in math, and really loves school. Jennifer, my kinder, goes to school all day (no half day at our school!) and can read at a mid first grade level! I’m very proud of them both 🙂

Letting go?

There are certain things I can’t let go of in my life.  My family, because I love my husband and my babies so much, I could never let them go.  Knitting, of course, because it’s my outlet.  My “bff rose” because he has ALWAYS been there for me, and reading/watching the news.  I don’t so much get into all the political crap in the news, but I do enjoy reading about what’s going on the nation otherwise.  And when I find a story that catches my interest, I read everything I can about it, until I just can’t take anymore, and then I still keep going.  And sometimes that is just fine, when you read about people doing wonderful things for each other, people helping others, etc.  But it makes my heart ache to read about certain subjects, namely child abuse and people killing their babies.  Why not stop reading it?  I can’t.  I just can’t.  I have to know, I feel like I’m going to miss out on something if I don’t follow the news.  I think I get this from my dad, who, when I was little, had CNN on tv 24/7 and would get royally peeved when someone changed the channel.  Anyway…back to the babies… How could someone harm such an innocent little being?  Sure, babies cry, but with time and patience, we can figure out what they are trying to say.  They have no other form of communication when they are so little, than to gurgle a bit, and cry.  I’ve never been frustrated with my kids that I felt like harming them, and I can’t understand what goes through the mind of someone that does this.  I’ve been following the news story on the little baby in Galveston, TX (I won’t link in case others haven’t read the story and have no desire to, because it is so sad…if you haven’t heard the story, and you’re interested, I’d just recommend googling it.)  I haven’t been able to get this little one out of my mind, and I’m not exactly sure why, but I think it’s because I have a baby son of my own, even though he’s a little older than that little one.   But I do know that my heart is aching for him and those who loved him.  I take relief in knowing that when he passed on, that he was greeting with loving arms from those who love him on the other side, and that he won’t have to feel the pains and sufferings that he endured while here for his short life.   In the meantime, I’m holding my babies close, and being greatful that I have them, and I pray that no harm comes to them.

Baby Surprise….

Not sure yet how I feel about this BSJ pattern.  Elizabeth Zimmermann must have done great in her math classes when she was in school, that’s all I can say!  🙂  I was working it on some DK weight yarn, and had to take it out so much that the yarn was becoming icky, so I switched to some already icky acrylic yarn that I had in the stash, and practiced on it.  The BSJ and I had some hate filled nights, but I refused to throw in the towel.  I persisted, found some great tips online, and yesterday I went to my LYS and got some help from the gals there, and voila!  It’s like it’s all just DUH to me now.  One of the things that helped me the most was that Becky pointed out that I was marking the needle at a certain point, and the pattern says to markthe stitch itself.  So I used the sms that looked like little safety pins, and marked the stitch for the double decreases and just have to pay attention to where I’m at in the row, check where the marker is on the stitch itself, and that is much easier than fiddling with moving the stitch marker around.  And I got some Plymouth Encore yarn, my size 7’s and am loving the way it’s turning out.  The Plymouth Encore is a royal blue with gold smidges throughout, and I think it will look great on my nephew (who is out of the hospital finally!!!  He was there in the ICU with RSV).

In Weight Watchers news, I’m still going, and still working hard at it.  Yesterday was the start of week 3 and my 4th weigh in.  I’m down 7.4 pounds now from when I started!  I’m excited, THRILLED!!!!  🙂 🙂 🙂

Lost another one :)

Today was my weigh in day, and I went down another 1.2 pounds 🙂  Now I am down a total of 6.6 pounds, and starting my 3rd week of Weight Watchers.  Just thought I’d share that happy thought with you 🙂

I am slowly coming along on my BSJ.  I must say, Elizabeth Zimmerman and I simply do not think alike.  Her math skills must be something to talk about because I was trying way too hard to figure out where I was on this sweater.  Finally I just wrote out row for row what I was doing, and how many sts I should have at each point, and it’s going MUCH smoother.  I think that once I get this one finished and I understand the mechanics of it, the next time it will be easier.  I am enjoying knitting it though, and I can’t wait to see how it looks!  I hope it’s big enough to fit my nephew.  I don’t know how big he is now, so it’s one of those play by ear (eye?) things.

Speaking of my new nephew, he is very sick right now.  The other day my sister, M, called and said that he went to the doctor because he couldn’t make any noise when he would cry.  So they said he has a virus or something, put him on prednisone, and a nebulizer treatment.  A couple of days later (yesterday) he went back in the morning and they tested him for RSV.  In the early afternoon, it came back positive, and they said that it was mild enough that there was nothing they could do and just keep an eye on him.  Two hours later he was in the emergency room wheezing and having difficulty breathing at all.  By evening he was admitted to the ICU, where he still is.  Poor little guy, only 3 months old, and in the ICU at the hospital fighting to breathe.  I know that mild cases of RSV aren’t as critical, but I was frustrated that her doctor’s office seemed so nonchalant about his health.  They didn’t even set up a follow up visit when they gave him the initial diagnosis of RSV.  I asked my sister when they told her to come in for a follow up to see if it’s gone, and she said “They never told me to come back” And my sister’s never dealt with RSV, so she didn’t really know how serious it could be.  I don’t know as much about it as I would like.  For example, I have no idea if it could be mild one minute, and an hour later so severe he could hardly breathe.  Is it like croup where it just shows up all of the sudden?  (I hated it when my girls had croup, it was so scary)  Anyway, poor lil T is in the ICU, and although he is doing much better today than yesterday my sister said, it’s still scary to have your new lil bundle in the hospital.

That’s about it.  I have to clean my house before I am allowed to knit anything today.  Although it’s cleaner than it was when I last posted, it still needs some doing done to make it more done 🙂 

Insert curse words here. ALL OF THEM.

I have had SUCH a day.  It began with me completely forgetting to go out on my walkrun this morning.  My partner called me up at 7:50 (I’m usually there around 7:30 or so) and said “So I guess you’re not coming over….”  Crap thing, the first.

I have to go to the laundrymat now because my mom has moved, two hours away, thus taking her washer and dryer with her.  Go figure.  Not that I’d have any room in my 12 square foot apartment anyway.  Crap thing, the second.

My house?  Let’s just say the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina looked better than this.  It’s hard to organize when you live in 12 square feet.  I hate the mess.  I hate the clutter.  I hate having nowhere to put anything.  I hate that I am the most unorganized person in the entire *curse word here* world.  Crap thing, the third.

My oldest daughter has lost a classroom book.  Each day they bring a book home that belongs to the classroom.  My daughter is the highest reader in the class, so she has to read the big chapter books (well, not big to you or I, but in the world of first graders, it’s cool to be reading Junie B. Jones Has  a Monster in Her Pocket).  Said book about Junie and her monster filled pocket is now missing.  I cleaned the girls’s room looking for it.  Not in there.  Looked everywhere in my room, even under the bed.  Not in there.  Cleaned all the crap out of the backseat of the car (which was all kid crap except for one grocery bag of dish detergent that was mine, that just got put in there today).  Next on the hurricane recovery agenda is cleaning the living room to fnd out another room where the book might not be.  She’s been doing really well with the book issue (she tends to put them down where ever she happens to be at the time, then forget where that place was fourteen seconds later, thus losing the book for all time and eternity) as of late and this is the first time in a long time that she’s lost another book.  BUT HOW HARD IS IT TO KEEP TRACK OF THE FREAKING BOOK???  She has the book bag it is supposed to remain in when she’s not reading it.  But it’s not in there.  WHO KNOWS WHERE THIS BOOK IS?  I’ll give yarn to the person who finds it.  This is crap thing, the fourth.

I do have a couple of non-crap things.  The first is that the dryers at the laundrymat I went to today are AWESOME.  We used 7 washers and at 2 dollars per load.  Then we lost a quarter, then my husband didn’t realize that he only needed to put 8 quarters in one machine, not 10, so we lost a few, sadly.  So we ended up having 3.25 left for dryer, and I had to run back to pick up the girls from school, which was 30 miles or so away.  I left husband there with the baby (who thought the laundry at was the funnest place on earth for some reason) and got them, also grabbing 20 dollars from the ATM by the school to get more quarters for the dryers.  When I got back to the laundrymat, it was all done.  Even dried.  I was impressed.  He managed to dry 7 loads on 3.25.  Are those some awesome dryers or what?  There was one laundrymat that I went to that was closer (about 4 miles away) that I spent 20 dollars on the dryers alone, and still had soaking wet clothes.  I was not pleased with them, and will never go back again.  So this was non-crap thing the first for the day 🙂

Non-crap thing the second was the bestest thing that happened to me all day.  I have to back track a bit here.  A few weeks ago, a friend of mine (whose daughter is also in the same class as my oldest) had her new(ish, she’s a few months old now) baby with her for something going on at the school… oh!  It was at the class holiday party.  New baby J was wearing a handknit sweater.  I got to looking at it and said “Is that a baby surprise sweater?”  Of course, my friend, not being a knitter, looked at me like I just talked to her in Chinese, and said “Um…maybe?  My sister in law made it for her!”  So as she was taking it off (it was warm in the room) I asked if I could see it, wondering if it could, indeed, be the famous sweater that so many seem to be making.  I was convinced it was.  Then, about a week ago, I saw her again and she confirmed.  She said “I told my sister in law that you wondered if that was the Baby Surprise sweater and she was surprised and wondered how you knew that.  She also had two copies of it, so she gave me one to give to you!”  She didn’t know she’d be seeing me that day, so she said she’d send it to school with her daughter to give to my daughter to give to me.  I GOT IT TODAY!  I’ve been wanting this pattern for a long time, but just haven’t ordered it online for some reason.  Maybe the powers that be knew that I’d get it eventually, and instructed me not to purchase it.  At any rate, I HAVE IT NOW, AND IT’S MINE!  I can now make one for my new little nephew 🙂 

So those are my craps and not-craps.  My head hurts and I have a tension headache.

Oh, there’s one more HUGE crap thing.  My boyfriend has passed on 😦  Well, he’s not really my boyfriend.  He had no idea that I ever even existed.  But I’ll always have a place in my heart for Heath Ledger. May he always rest in peace.

Update

For anyone who might be interested, I did my 2nd weigh in today at Weight Watchers.  I thought for sure I would go in and they would say something like “Well, just keep trying and we’ll see you next week” or “Just don’t give up yet!”  But instead…. I LOST 5.4 POUNDS!!!!!!  I was pretty thrilled, jumping up and down hehe. 

That’s all I wanted to post.  I haven’t knit a single stitch today, so there’s no newness there 🙂

Feng shui

I think I am slowly discovering what “feng shui” not only means, but feels like.  I’m trying to declutter my life, and by simply removing some clutter from my living room, and getting rid of a large piece of furniture (ok, so I didn’t get rid of it, I put it in my bedroom for now, until we “get rid of it” for real, but out of sigh out of mind, right?) from my living room really helped.  Of course, I put something else in it’s place, but it was less of a piece than what was previously there.  Before, I had this huge rolltop desk (the roll top part broke though, but it still looks halfway decent) there, and now I have my keyboard piano there.  The desk only served to collect crap.  We didn’t sit at it to write bills, or use the computer (which never set foot on the desk anyway lol) or anything.  It really was only there as a crap holder.  The piano however (or keyboard on a stand, but it’s a decent keyboard) looks much better there, and makes me feel like a small burden has been lifted off the shoulders, literally.  It’s incredible the huge amount of difference such a small change can make, really.  I am also going to attempt some rearranging in my living room, because I’m about due for a change.  But I can only accomplish this if my friend comes over to help me, for two reasons.  1) I’m not good at decorating.  I don’t put things in smooth locations, where they just seem to “fit” and 2) my couch is from like 1950 and it’s a hide a bed, and it weighs like 200 pounds, and there’s no way I can move that sucker on my own.  So if the fog clears up (it’s 10:00 a.m. and foggier than heck right now in Brownsville) then my friend is coming over to help me out with this project.  Otherwise, my husband will have to help me with it when he gets home from his vacation (he went to Utah for his birthday.  We didn’t all go because 1) we couldn’t afford it really, even with the free tickets, and 2) the kids have school and I didn’t want to pull them out and have them miss a week.

In knitting news, I’m coming along nicely on my opal Niffie socks.  I have one done, and the other is getting it’s short row heel, and then I’ll be in the home stretch (is that one word? homestretch?) for the foot and toe 🙂  I’m also still working on my moss stitch square for my block of the month.  Moss stitch, while I think it looks really cool, is rather boring to knit, and I’m slow at it because for one, I am a slow knitter, and for another, I am a thrower, so it takes that extra time to bring the yarn to the front/back/front/back/etc.  I have tried to knit continental, but it just doesn’t fit for me, sort of like the left shoe doesn’t really fit on the right foot.  You can wear it, but it just doesn’t feel right.  I’m content with it this way, despite everyone telling me that I NEED to learn it.  To those people I say MEH.  I can do whatever I want, any ole time 🙂

That’s about it.  I go in tomorrow to Weight Watchers for my first weigh in.  Well, second really, but this will be my first “results” weigh in, and I hope I have some.  And good ones.  I don’t want to go in and find out I am two pounds heavier than when I started because I have been working hard at all this preparing points and making the best of my meals to make them last so that I don’t get hungry sooner than I should.  So we’ll see tomorrow 🙂

Weight Watchers

I joined Weight Watchers on Thursday!  I am really REALLY hoping this will help in my quest to shed the five extra people living within me (well, five if you count that I’m using my 20 month old’s weight size as the body weight of those five extra people!)  I have my main goal of 10% insight, which right now is 24 pounds (I’ll leave the number at that, you can figure out the weight yourself if you like).  From there I guess we assess it and to another 10% of that body weight.  My “mini goal” is to hopefully lose 5 pounds by the time I go on my weekend trip to Denver on Feb 8.  Not sure if I can meet it, but I’m darned sure gonna try!

 I have been watching old movies lately.  Not old like silet film era, but some really cute Doris Day movies.  I watched Send Me No Flowers, with her and Rock Hudson and Tony Randall, and I watched Pillow Talk, again with Doris, Rock and Tony.  And I watched the Pajama Game, with Doris.  No, I’m not obsessing, but I do think I enjoy her talent quite a bit, and I really love that era for movies.  They are so … innocent.  Not filled with smut and sex and drugs and violence, but instead with innocent love and maturity.  If you have an recommendations for oldy moldies (as I call them) send them my way!

I got some sockotta sock yarn for Christmas.  I LOVE the colors.  But I must confess that I am not all that fond of knitting with cotton yarn.  I get the worst case of the ladders and it drives me batty.  I’ve been obsessing about it to the point where I think I drove my LYS owner crazy lol!  She is thinking that maybe I am pulling the yarn too tight to prevent the ladders, thus causing a ladder anyway.  So I changed to another sock, and am knitting a Jennie-sized sock on some nice beautiful feeling Opal.  Still have a touch of the ladders, but nothing I think a good blocking won’t cure 🙂  And I’m doing it on magic loop, because it was the only needle I had in my possession in the right size.  Which is fine, I like the ML ok 🙂