Monday, November 26, 2007

Back to our routine

We survived the lo-o-o-ng week off from school with a minimum lots of bickering. We had a very nice Thanksgiving dinner, with only a minor cooking crisis (which really wasn't a crisis at all): the aluminum pan that the turkey sat in sprang a leak which went unnoticed until it was put in the oven. Immediately, broth went all over the bottom of the oven and started to smoke. So we took it out, turned off the oven, and after securing a new pan and wiping out the oven, started again. The turkey was fine, if done a little later than we expected, and we enjoyed our dinner.

Friday dawned bright and early with the promise of Pink Paint-a-palooza. Tom's dad is a painting contractor and Tom worked for him during his school holidays, so Tom knows a fair bit about painting. He was meticulous, patching, priming and double-coating everything. One nice thing about all this yarn-dyeing is that it's made me much more confident about picking color and trusting my instincts about what looks right and what doesn't. The original color we picked (in consultation with Little Miss, of course), was called Easter Pink and had a lavender-ish cast to it. However, when we saw a sample of it on the wall, and saw what the furniture looked like against it, we realized it was not right. The furniture has a finish called "Vanilla" and is creamy. We needed a pink that was warmer. Several small samples later, we settled on Ribbon Pink.

Knitting was slow this weekend. I worked on some swatches, and made a little progress on a baby sweater I'm knitting (don't have much time 'til the baby arrives), and played around with piecing a baby blanket for the next Afghans for Afghans deadline.

Now it's back to our routine. I am definitely one of those people who needs structure in order to function optimally. I find lack of routine to be disconcerting, and I've even noticed that when I go away on vacation, I tend to create a mini-routine wherever I'm staying. At the shore, for example, I would get up, go out to pick up a coffee and the paper, and come back and read it, every day buying the coffee and paper at the same place. I could go all psychological on you, and talk about how I grew up in a house where my father's drinking made it impossible to rely on stability in our day-to-day life, blah, blah, but at this point, I yam what I yam. I was starting to feel discombobulated after a week with no school for the kids so I'm happy to settle back into our pleasant daily routine.

Which mean I've already fired up the dyepots for an update on Monday, December 3 (that's a week from today). I'm playing with some worsted and DK-weights so you'll have to let me know which ones you like. If I can, I'll do some more sock yarns and some roving, too.

Next post: another No-Bull book review...

9 comments:

mindy said...

Can't wait to see pix of the pink room. (will there be any yarns inspired by it?)

I hear you on needing the little routines. (must have a mocha with the goaties at 3ish- and some weekends just wreak havoc on that)

Anonymous said...

Oh no, I'm going to miss the update! I'll be in airports and planes all day. :(

Anonymous said...

I've been a lurker but want to respond about the routine thing also. I also function best with routines, but my family background is the opposite of yours: two very structured and stable parents. So maybe it's genetic? I'm the oldest, so that may be part of it too.
Glad you had a nice Thanksgiving and painting day.
Mary

MsAmpuTeeHee said...

Awww c'monnnnn...go all psychological! It's familiar to me LOL. ;-)

Carol said...

Routine is king! Or queen. I do more working than when not. I love the routine of it all; for the same reason too.

Unknown said...

I always blamed my reliance on structure on my Catholic upbringing, but it could also have been due to my boozing father.

Your Thanksgiving sounded perfect in an imperfect sort of way.

Patricia said...

As a regular reader I would like to pass this along to both you and your readers. Kristin Nicholas at

http://getting-stitched-on-the-farm.blogspot.com/

is having a virtual book launch party and yarn giveaway. The possibility of free yarn and yes a great designer blog is a great thing.

If this is inappropriate please forgive me.

Patty

Carrie said...

I am so much happier now that I've adopted the "I yam what I yam" philosophy. I'm 38 years old, and have decided not to struggle to overexplain me. I also need a routine, or I feel very uncomfortable and sluggish.

Glad you had a good holiday! My kids didn't want to go back to school, but the sniping and little arguments were starting to get to me, so I'm glad they're back in their routine! =)

Anonymous said...

It's nice that "Tom" knows so much about painting.
Isn't it just about the time of year again for him to be referred to as "Mister Silk Organza"?
What's his Christmas tree theme this year?