Meanwhile

Ah, the end of the school year, chock-full of end-of-the-school-year festivities. Sunday evening was Elvis' piano recital:

He played beautifully, and based on his unruffled demeanor, I think I was more nervous than he was.

The week before that was his presentation on being a veterinarian:

Meanwhile, his brother continues playing T-ball:



For those who you who got a kick out of N's teammate Daniel: This weekend, when told by the coaches that he couldn't say "Bad game, bad game, bad game" to the opposing team, he informed them solemnly that he was going to kiss each member of the opposing team instead of high-fiving them. You can imagine how well that went over.

(Fans of G., don't worry; Little Miss has her ballet recital next month, so you will get to see photos of that, no doubt.)

In other news, the lilacs bloomed

I knit a boatload of pre-emie caps:

Charcoal got glasses (no, not really; he just needs to wear them for reading):

a sweet friend knit me a beautiful pair of socks



and we got our first customer review on Amazon.com! And it wasn't even someone related to us!

Later this week: a No-Bull Book Review. . .

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...

The most wonderful time of the year

The first week of the new school year draws to a close. The twins began kindergarten, each in their own class, and of course are most excited by the opportunity to ride the bus. Elvis started fourth grade. In case you are wondering if I am wistful at sending the youngest off to school, I say "No wist here." I'm ready. And if you really feel tempted to ask me what I am going to do "with all that time," you can bite me.

In the meantime, in a Rabbitch-like development, we have two broken toilets and an oven that won't stop beeping. It's all Mel's fault: clearly putting Black Bunny Yarn next to Rabbitch's is like the combination of matter and anti-matter on old Star Trek episodes.

Update

Let's start with the stuff that's irking the shit out of me this week.
1. Lyme relapse. Aching joints, fatigue, brain fog -- need I say more?
2. Anna Nicole Smith coverage 24/7: A sad life comes to an even sadder end. Can we please move on?
3. Impending war with Iran. Oh God, isn't ANYONE in America paying attention? They're doing the same thing they did with Iraq: using an unquestioning media to feed us dubious conclusions and shaky intelligence to make war seem inevitable. It's not. Even if you could believe their so-called intelligence. Which you can't.
4. Impending deadline for book. First wave of designs are due. Will all of mine go down in the ignominious flames of my hubris and incompetence?
5. Problems with skein winder. This should make you, my customers, cranky, too, because it makes it harder/slower for me to get an Etsy update.

On the other hand, let's look at the bright side:
1. The people at Fricke -- who made the skeinwinder -- have been unfailingly helpful and gone above and beyond the call of duty to help me fix things.
2. I got the new Rowan Magazine, the new Interweave Knits, and the new Interweave Favorite Socks book to ogle. Yarn porn goes a long, long way toward making me happy.
3. It's snowing. Purty, and good knitting weather, too.
4. My mom is feeling very well.
5. The Dixie Chicks kicked ass at the Grammies.
6. Someone found my blog by googling "pattern for cranky pants to knit."