Claudia is at it again! She’s collecting donations for her annual MS Ride and there are many fabulous prizes to be won. In fact, just today I told Claudia I’d throw TWO $25.00 gift certificates to The Loopy Ewe into the pot. So head on over and find out all the details. GIVE EARLY AND OFTEN!
Thank you!
L, C
show a picture! I realize I haven’t posted any recent pictures of my baby – excuse me – BIG GIRL – in a little while so here you go:
These were all taken May 29 after a few mishaps – scraped chin, black eye, egg on the forehead. And two days later she skinned up her knee pretty bad. She’s quite the adventurer. She definitely keeps me on my toes. We’re a bit under the weather this week (just a couple of colds) so we’re hanging low, but three weeks from today we close on our new house! I can’t believe it already! On Saturday we’re going in again to check things out and do some measurements – it feels like forever since we’ve been there! We aren’t going to physically move, probably, for another six weeks, but still we’ve started to panic. We’re moving! To a HOUSE!!! Our own house! YAY!
Okay. Now I have to go measure stuff.
L, C
PS – Thanks for all your kind words about my monkey socks. Sadly, things have slowed down, but they’re all past the picot edge and the first repeat. I’m about five repeats in on one of them. S.L.O.W.
So it’s been awhile, and I feel badly about that, but things haven’t been so great and I’ve been taking the ostrich approach to life meaning I basically moved to my sister’s for a few weeks. The work they’ve been doing on our building made life here unbearable (the drilling noise was off the charts) and absolutely NO ONE is coming to see our house. Forget making offers, no one comes to see it even. At all. Which is super, super depressing. But when I’m not here I don’t think about how in a month we’ll have to pay two mortgages and I’ll basically be eating mac & cheese for the foreseeable future. I know that things could be much, much worse for us and I am thankful every day that we can survive in this situation (although Meli might want to think twice about college) but still it’s very scary and my stomach is in knots the minute I pull up to our parking space.
To combat these feelings of dread, I’ve been knitting. A lot. And I even have proof for you!
Yup. Five Monkey Socks. The Love In Idleness one I started a little while ago but was unsure of it and then I went on this jag where I’d cast on and start a sock and decide the colorway wasn’t working the way I wanted. Then somehow I had the idea that when I hit on a color that was good I’d put it aside until I found another color I liked and I’d start a kind of assembly line. I actually have a sixth sock started somewhere but I lost it (again – I keep losing this sock!) So once I had the five socks on the needles I decided that I would knit the cuff on one and then stop and move onto the next color. To knit the cuff, I do six repeats of the pattern. Once I was finished all five cuffs, I started doing the heel flap. (Basically, I didn’t go any further because I had to consult the pattern to remember the math on turning the heel. It had been awhile.) Heel flaps done. Check. And then I picked up a sock – it was the Love In Idleness one – and turned the heel. Then I knit the gusset. And then I was all like oh my god I’ve knit the gusset the sock is practically finished! So that’s what I did. I finished the sock.
Then I became obsessed. I couldn’t stop knitting and finishing socks. Every time I finished a sock I immediately wove in the ends and then cast on for the second sock. I didn’t do the whole picot cuff, just cast on and knit a row or two. But the needles are full and that’s what counts.
Now that I’ve got five new socks, I’m ready to start all over again. My plan now is to knit the picot edge and one repeat before moving on to the next color and finishing the cuff. Rinse and repeat. I’m not so obsessed anymore, but Meli is getting pretty good at giving me a little bit of time during the day while she plays on her own, so I’m making sure a sock is nearby. And no, I’m not sick of monkey socks. This pattern is absolutely my stockinette sock. Way more than the Jaywalker even (does anyone even remember Jaywalkers anymore?! How crazy were those days!) I have at least three more monkeys in mind. They fit great, are easy to knit, and look fantastic with lots of colorways. What’s not to love?
The last time we visited my sister, I took one of my niece’s hair clips and stuck it in Meli’s growing hair. Oh my god she looked so freaking cute (and OLD!) that I totally plotzed and came home and bought a gazillion barrettes for her.
The one she’s wearing in the picture above is from Lil Chatterbox. I bought this one and this one. (I specifically bought the purple pansy one with Vicki in mind. I just know how she’s loves pansies.) I also bought barrettes from Baby K Designs, Tiny Sweets, and ElleBowsAndMore. I loved these from Baby K Designs so much I went back and bought a ton more from her store. And these wonderful birds from Tiny Sweets are so adorable I totally cried when I put one in Meli’s hair. And my absolute favorites these days are the dragonflies from Lil Sugarplum. They stay in Meli’s hair super well and are too too cute. (By the way, I found Tiny Sweets and Lil Sugarplum because they were recommended on Cool Mom Picks, a very nice product blog I follow. I’ve bought a bunch of interesting things through this blog and haven’t been disappointed yet.)
Meli totally has my hair. Or at least it’s a lot closer to my hair than G’s hair. It starting to flip up in the back and she’s got these really short bangs because her hair hasn’t grown over her forehead yet. Just like mine was when I was her age. I’m going back to my sister’s tomorrow and I’m going to have to take all the barrettes so I can show my niece. I just LOVE having a girl! I’m so not girly, not really, but my baby can be (and my niece is very girly so my sister, who’s more like me, are living vicariously!)
It’s been a really really rough week on all kinds of fronts. Personal, professional – you name it. We’ve barely had anyone come see our house which is really starting to stress me out. My husband works for a bank – although he’s NOT a banker (he works in corporate services) – lest anyone want to egg my blog – but really that’s all I have to say about that. Add to all this the fact that they start drilling outside every window in my house at 8AM and don’t finish until 5. Even when they’re not right outside my windows, the house reverberates with the noise (basically because they’re either above or below me.) I have a headache by 8:30. So we’re out of the house all day a lot of days (they don’t work when the weather’s bad, but that has it’s own stresses – like they’re never going to finish if it doesn’t stop raining!) and by the end of the day I’m so tired I can barely move.
Even with my complaining, I know things could be so much worse. Trust me. Stress still sucks. So I’ll be hanging at my sister’s for a while and there might even be another great date with my husband which would make us happy to no end. Cross your fingers we get some tickets. I’ll be back next week. L, C
I hope the tax people were kind to you this year! To make the medicine go down a bit easier, I’ve got some new video of my crazy girl! There’s no stopping her these days, that’s for sure. She’s like a little old lady behind the wheel of an Oldsmobile. WATCH OUT!
And here’s a kiss from us to you:
Well, the house is on the market. Now we get to wait and see what happens. Can you say INCREDIBLY STRESSFUL? I am by nature a messy person. There’s nothing I can do about it – it’s in the genes – but now I have to live on the edge. Anybody can call at any moment to see the house and it needs to be PERFECT. I’m trying really hard, but the truth is I feel like no one’s going to buy our place (not really any reason to think this – except maybe the economy and something my realtor said: when you’re done with a place, you don’t think anyone else is going to want it either) and that no one’s going to come see it and yet I STILL have to live like anyone could walk in at any minute. It’s a weird feeling.
Also weird is the fact that when we leave here this summer (fingers crossed we sell the place!!!) we will have lived in our building for EIGHTEEN YEARS! Can you believe it? That means that G and I have lived together for eighteen years. I only lived with my parents for seventeen years. Weird might not be the right word. Surreal? I think about it and I don’t get sad or nostalgic really, just incredulous. It doesn’t feel like 18 years.
I am getting nervous about the move. Not the actual physical part of moving, but being a new part of an existing community. Will I fit in? Will people like me? Will there be knitters? (Actually, the neighboring town has at least THREE yarn stores. The town we’re moving to has almost NO commercial activity, so you have to go to the nearby towns for everything.) I must admit I’ve had fantasies about teaching all the local moms how to knit and hosting knitting days at my house. See? I’m going crazy.
I’m also trying to work through some stuff with the baby. Nothing wrong exactly, but I’m seriously thinking about having to wean her. Not because she wants it and not because I want it either but because we’d like to try to get pregnant again at the end of the summer and that means hormones that are not safe to take while breastfeeding. I’m incredibly torn – I don’t feel like it’s an option to wait on another baby (I will be 40 in January and if the frozen embryos we have don’t work, we could be looking at an even MORE difficult time conceiving) and I am also absolutely HEARTBROKEN about having to wean my baby girl. I’ve read a bunch of stuff and talked to my sister (who nursed three kids until each was two) and I’m going to start slow – trying to cut out nursing sessions during the day offering up lots of snacks and distractions and eventually, later, when it’s not as trying because we don’t nurse so much during the day, I’ll tackle the nights. I dread night weaning. Pure dread. I feel better now, though, because I thought I was going to have to start with nights and last night I tried not to nurse her once, at around 2AM and it was a DISASTER. So day weaning for now – or cutting out sessions that are just habit – and the really hard stuff later on. Still, though, it’s been really sad for me even just thinking about it. We’ve been so fortunate to have had a fantastic time nursing – it means so much to our whole family – G included – that to end it feels so terribly sad.
I’ll ask you this – please be kind in the comments. I’m in a fragile state as it is. Thank you for your support. It’s really great that I have this place to come to and vent. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.
PS – Thanks to everyone who voted for Gale. She made it into the top 20 which means she’s into the final round. Now it’s up to the powers that be. GO GALE!
Fellow blogger, knitter and photographer extraordinaire Gale Zucker has a dream:
In her words:
I’m proposing going to Heifer Project sites around the world, to photograph and tell the stories of how the work they do changes lives directly by giving people the ability to support themselves. You know my commitment to animals, farms, youth and trying to do some good in this world. Being funded for this Dream Assignment project would enable me to multiply my efforts beyond any way I could imagine or have been able to do until now.
You know how I love Heifer – anything that can bring attention to their great works is a good thing and Gale is a wonderful photographer – have you seen her book, Shear Spirit? It’s magnificent! Please follow this link and go help Gale. (You will need to register to vote, but it takes two seconds and means so much!)
Voting ends tonight! Please help!!! VOTE!
All my yarn, except a couple of socks and the sweater I have on the needles, is in storage. And my house STILL isn’t listed yet. Before the weekend if it kills me.
I just want my life back.
Nothing like that toddler goose step!
We’re home. Chaos has ensued. Basically, the last Tuesday in February I found a listing for a house that on paper looked perfect. On Thursday I found out that it really was perfect (perfect town, perfect location IN perfect town, perfect number of bathrooms (a real sticky point with us), perfect perfect perfect.) On Saturday we filled out all our paperwork and on Tuesday we found out they accepted our bid. (We beat out three other bidders – fortunately or unfortunately the section of the country I live in hasn’t really been affected by the housing crisis all that much.) So a week from start to finish. Before Meli’s party on Saturday, we were out of attorney review and had the inspection (still pretty much perfect.) Had her party, left for vacation and now I’m home blogging instead of getting my current house ready to sell. And they start the dreaded drilling on Monday (the drilling/jack hammering on our balcony and the outside of all the windows that will force me from my home – the one I’m currently trying to sell – for most of the daylight hours, six days a week.)
Things are CRAZY. I’m exhausted and the hard work hasn’t even begun. Oh and I’ll refer you to the video above – the one that shows the TODDLER.
I AM NOT COMPLAINING. Just stating facts. Things are very good, but still crazy. And exhausting.
I might be scarce, you know with the craziness. But I still love you.
