Knit Blogging

A few updates.

Remember this problem?



The sweater knit up far too wide for Milo. I recently got it out and started to make repairs to it. I trimmed off the bottom and knit up, adding additional length so it would be proportional to the width. When I was all done, I realized it was going to fix Max perfectly.

This is a problem because a) I already have a sweater in the works for Max and b) I don't have enough of the red yarn to finish another sweater for Max. The sweater was supposed to be for Milo. So I did the only thing I could do. I ripped out the entire sweater and started over.

But I've been having so much fun with the viking cables on Max's sweater that I decided to do Viking cables for Milo's sweater.

So here is Max's Twisted Orange Twist so far:



And here is Milo's Prince Harald in Red:



I only started Milo's sweater this weekend, so that's just one time through the chart and I'm going to go twice before switching to stockinette until I get to the yoke. I'm planning a shawl collar which doesn't sound too terribly manly, but I actually got the idea from a Rowan man's sweater, before seeing it again in a women's sweater in the Viking book. My version will look more like the Rowan sweater. Anyway, I'm thrilled with the Harald cable pattern and I'm thrilled with how Max's sweater is turning out, and so when I'm not working, I'm knitting on one or the other. I'm 1/3 of the way through the first sleeve in Max's sweater and hopeful of finishing the sweater while there is still some winter and cool spring left to wear it in. The sweater fits him PERFECTLY right now, which is to say, it's too big and there's plenty of growing room--I don't think he can outgrow it until 9th grade, which IMHO, is just about right. (Okay, I may be a little in denial about how much he's going to grow over the next few years, but it should DEFINITELY fit for another year, maybe two.)

Milo's sweater is more fitted, so I keep reminding myself to be generous in length and to decrease in moderation when I get to the stockinette section so he can get three seasons out of it. It's in a cotton blend.

I know someone is going to ask, so I'll say it now--Nope, I don't have anything on the needles for Ben right now. All in good time. It's more important to me to finish these so they can actually wear them before I go casting on a new sweater. I'm learning . . . it's all well and good to take a year to knit a shawl. Sweaters for boys must be finished up while they're still the same size as the sweater.

Ha ha

Today while waiting for his ski instructor, Ben thought it hilarious to practice skiing deliberately into the Ski Lessons sign.

Well, it WAS funny :)

So I took a picture.



This is my second to last week of criminally insane over-activity. The first week of March I get 10 hours back in my week and the following week is Spring Break. I'll still have to work, but at least we'll get a 1-week break from school activities. On the one hand, I'm grateful for the hectic schedule. It's a good way to keep my mind off February, which never feels all that great to me. On the other hand, well, no, it really changes nothing. I can't wait for March.

Ski Mom

It's Saturday morning and that means I'm happily camped out at a table in the ski lodge. It's 10:45 and the music being piped in overhead is from the late 70's, early 80's. It's a little too loud but it's been a long time since I've heard "Life's Been Good to Me" and the longer the music plays, the less I hate it. (For the first half hour I was here, there was no music and the place so so peaceful and quiet . . . .)

I don't get to do much here. I can maybe get a little work done because I have my laptop and my work with me, but the noise is distracting and in spite of good intentions, I only occasionally get much work done.

OTOH, what I do get to do is know that if Max is not here at the table, then he's out there having fun and skiing down the hills. Today we have the best snow fall we've seen this winter. It's beautiful, and as long as you're dressed properly and wearing goggles, it's a lot of fun to ski in. It's supposed to keep snowing on and off all weekend and starting tomorrow the lodge will start making new snow on all the slopes. In short, the forecast is great for my three little skiers on Monday.

For most of this month, I have to leave a little early to go home and change into my knitting-teacher hat. (In this case, I mostly just need to trade cars with Chris because he needs to Taurus to go pick up Max with the twins.) I mentioned this to Max on the way home and he frowned, saying he much preferred things when he knew I was in the lodge the whole time.

I can understand that. If you're out there taking risks for four hours straight, trying all the new stuff your instructor is asking you to do, it's helpful to know that if you really get sick of this, or need a break, or worse--break something, that your Mom is right there in the lodge. And I admit that I like being here to do just that. I can't really see him skiing from here --the best view from the lodge is actually of the learning slopes, and this class doesn't spend any time there.

But I like sitting at the table waiting to hear about how it all went. Drinking a cup of hot chocolate (we've learned to bring food from home whenever possible. The food served in the lodge is both expensive and horrible with the exception, maybe, of some cookies. So I bring two mugs and some packages of hot chocolate and two lunch boxes with hot-food thermoses, some fruit, and some yogurt.) Iming with Chris who is in his garage at home painting plastic car bodies and keeping an ear open for the twinkies.

Speaking of which, some of Max's class is coming in from the slopes now, so I'm going to wrap this up and wait for the update on what he learned so far. It's lunch time and they'll all head back out soon.

We Don't Get to Vote Today

Here in PA, we don't hold primaries until April, so I didn't vote today.

Mostly I whined--about my throat, not about not voting. I came down with a cold Sunday evening and although it's not the most vicious cold I've ever had, the timing is horrible. The kids' school wanted help finding volunteers for the Chinese New Year Celebration on Thursday and the Health Screenings on Friday. Gaye and I have business of hers to take care of tomorrow. I need to write two lessons for one client and take care of a conference call with another.

It's just one of those weeks.

On the upside, skiing went fine yesterday. Ack. We interupt this blog to go lay down or I might throw up. I hate being sick!

Tonight I went out in the slush and the ice and the rain

to put Senator Clinton on the ballot in Pennsylvania. Chris was worried that our neighbors would think I was a looney and judge us, but even though it was 8pm when I started (Chris got home late for dinner and I didn't want to take the twinks out in that weather), everyone was super friendly. The Republicans all got a grin on their face when they said, "Nope," they couldn't sign. The Democrats were all happy I'd come by so they could.

I really think most people WANT to participate in the process, frankly.

We quit when Max slipped on someone's porch. (I asked him to come with me because I'm 39 and I'm still afraid of the dark and our street is underilluminated. He peppered me with questions about the electoral process the whole time and it made the time fly by.) That was the sign that it was time to be done (and it was 8:30--I needed to get out there and get signatures because the deadline is Friday and I still need to mail these to Philly, and I need 50 signatures before I can mail them and this whole week is insanely scheduled, as was last week--but then, I only got my paperwork on Monday. Anyway, having canvased for 30 minutes, that got me over my own fears of going door-to-door, and now I'm ready to go after the remaining signatures before time runs out.)

Tomorrow I have to take Max to his skiing class, and then run and teach a lace knitting class for three hours, but then I'm going to take the twinks and go do two streets over in one of the new developments. Then I'll go around after school hours on Monday--and hopefully have my 50 signatures. (At most homes around here, where there is one democrat, there are two.)

(And Max is fine, don't worry

Making Plans

I really like New Year's Resolutions. I admit this year I didn't really get around to making them in time to start anything on January 1st, I'm glad it just didn't work out that way. As shiny new as the first day of the year always feels to me (which for me carries the accompanying motivation to take a stab at change), this year I just felt like I . . . didn't have enough information.

So here we are three-ish weeks later and one of my work projects has ended so I have a lighter week ahead of me. I'm looking forward to finally putting away my Christmas tree. (What?) And getting caught up on the dishes.

Anyway, here are the things I'd like to do this year:

*get better at reading the scriptures regularly
*hold Family Home Evening regularly. Heck, I'd be happy with once a month as improvement over last year, but I'm in the middle of taking a stab at reworking our family schedule and I'm open to whatever will work.
*lose weight. again. I'm growing more convinced this will require a medication change. again. Scheduled to discuss the issue with my doc on Valentine's Day. (I didn't get to pick the day.)

On a more minor level:
*Decrease the number of WIPs I have going. This feels kind of hopeless. But sometimes I think

I gave up my community garden plot after Gaye said I could have space in her backyard. This is a big relief as I really love my vegetable gardening, but I really need to pay attention this summer to the lawns and flower beds of her house and mine and the chances of my getting across town to the community gardens as well . . . even I had to admit that the odds were not good.

Giving up gardening altogether though--forget it. Max and I have already received two seed catalogs in the mail. He's picking out melons and strawberries. In fact, I keep meaning to get the catalogs over to Gaye's house so she can dream about her flower beds, too. She already has one bed that will look positively lovely once it gets properly watered and has a new layer of mulch. It's crying out for others to go with it. She's very interested in a tall, decorative grass for the front yard, so that will have to fit into the equation somewhere, too.

Tonight Was Kind of Fun

Our house was invaded this evening by a bunch of excited boy scouts and their webelos entourage. They have a Klondike event this coming weekend. I'm not clear on what exactly this is, but I think it's an event where they pull a sled full of supplies from station to station and use boyscout skills at each station. They'll be shooting a gun, tossing a tomahawk, cooking out in the open, and if I recall from last year, getting covered in mud. Maybe this year it will be less mud, more snow. (I'm a little bummed that it means Max is missing the Saturday skiing class, but we'll try to be very careful to make sure he makes the remaining classes. They made such a huge difference to his level of confidence and skill this week.)

I taught Max how to use my sewing machine and he sewed velcro strips on the back of brown furry fabric. They used this to decorate the sled to look like a Platypus. Their team is named the Aztec Platypi. They have a flag and a big sled bolted on to skis and a big cardboard platypus tail.

Today was piano lessons and an impromptu shopping trip to Jo-Ann's for Gaye and I. We were in charge of finding platypus fur and velcro. Did that. Had so much fun looking at all the dollar stuff at Jo-Ann's that we were 10 minutes late to pick up the kids. Oops. Bad mommy.

Alright. I have gobs of work left to do, so I'd better get to it.

AIM Loitering

::::taps foot::::

:::whistles a piece of musak heard earlier in the day::::

:::looks around the Internet a bit:::

Chris is out of town on business tonight and I'm just waiting for him to log on so I can tell him all about our afternoon at the ski lodge. But I think he might be having a bunch of fun with my cousins tonight, so I reckon I'll just write it all down here.

Ben and Milo spent an hour learning about skiing this afternoon. I was a chaperone, for which I earned one lift ticket and one rental. I had intended to sort of keep an eye on their lesson and then ski around Little Bear learning slope with them. However, Max saw me skiing around and even though he was skiing with one of his best friends, he wanted to ski with me, too. Since I don't know how much longer the boy might pick sitting with me on the ski lift over sitting with his friends, I didn't say no. After we went down Little Bear twice, he was ready for Deer Run.

Now, technically, Deer Run is just my speed. BUT. The weather has been all over the map lately and what we had on the hill today was a thin layer of snow topped with a thin layer of ice. In a few places it was bare hill and in a few other places it was plain ice. AND I'm totally out of shape. Totally. I haven't been on a treadmill in a year. I sit at my computer all day and I type. So I didn't really have the thighs a girl needs to keep up the kind of control you want to have when you're skiing on a steep icy hill.

I just plain couldn't keep up!

Max was soooo sweet. Trying to be so encouraging and saying "You can do it!" and "It gets better here soon!" As much as my legs were SCREAMING and I honestly wondered if I was going to lose all control in a few spots (and I was a good 20 minutes longer than Max and Brian getting down that hill. I really had to stop here and there and just stand there until my legs stopped screaming.) I still had my sense of humor about the situation--and the understanding that this was a wake-up call for me. At the bottom of the hill Max asked if I would go up again with him and I declined, knowing full well my only hope to get down that hill one more time would be scooching the whole way on my tush. I said honestly that I just was too out of shape and I'd need to get a little exercise before I could try that again and Max said honestly that he hoped I would because he really wanted to go down Deer Run with me again before the end of the season.

Hmmm . . . get back on treadmill or poke out eye with hot iron poker? Sheesh. Tough call. I came home and had a slice of pumpkin pie to think about it. (What?) Of course I'll get on the treadmill. I don't know if I can make enough progress to ski down Deer Run with Max before the end of the ski season here (it's not like we're in the Sierras . . .), but it gives me something to shoot for.

:::Sigh:::

Eeeenyway. I limped over to the area where Ben and Milo were still having their lesson, and they were just starting to do the thing where the little guy skis like ten feet and tries to snow plow and instead plows into the instructor (which Ben and Milo thought was great fun, but nearly knocked over the tiny petite ski instructor--we need one of the big guys for Ben and Milo. Their instructor should at least be twice the weight/height of the 6-yr-olds). So they didn't even make it down the hill yet.

Here's the thing. I totally can't take them down that hill by myself. a) there are two of them and they can't stop yet except by falling down and in general, I think falling down ALL the freakin' time when you're trying to learn to ski is maybe more discouraging than most of us remember. b) I can't ski backwards, much less snow plow backwards, and even if I could, I sure couldn't after shredding my thigh muscles on that glacial excuse for an easy ski slope.

I was a little bummed because it was clear to me that Ben and especially Milo both wanted to do more skiing and had more get-up-and-go left and I just DIDN'T. So hopefully next week the instructor will actually get them down the hill and I can maybe ski a little with them after the lesson.

One good thing--I managed to get Milo's socks fixed ten minutes before we left the house, so both boys had warm wool handknit knee-high socks to wear with their boots and even though MY feet were totally numb and frozen (I was wearing double layers of cotton socks, because I haven't finished a pair of wool socks for me yet), they were just hunky dory. Which is good, because numb, frozen feet (or really any other body part) will also make you hate skiing. And I want my kids to like skiing.

Which, bottom line, is what all my kids were feeling by the end of the day. Max actually RUSHED through his dinner to get out in time to get two more runs down the hill before we had to leave (it was dark, the full moon high in the ski, but skiing under the lights is pretty cool).

One of the other Moms who is always there through the whole thing is also the mom to one of Ben and Milo's kindergarten classmates. So for the last hour while we waited for the Max to finish skiing, the twinks ran around with T and her little sister, M. They made noise and were a disturbance, so I was glad when 7pm arrived and so did my son and one of his classmates. (We were giving him a ride home.)

So here we are back home. I have to find a way to stay awake because I really need to get some serious workwork done tonight. But I'm going to toss the littles into a hot bathtub and put them to bed early so they can dream big dreams of shushing down gentle slopes.

Sunday Evening Thoughts

KIDS: Chris and I have been talking about our parenting situation lately and while we haven't ruled out a time when we might get out those adoption papers and start filling them out in ink, at this point we've pretty much decided that now is not the time. We say this with some feeling of a heavy heart, because we both realize that the older the boys get, the less likely it is to be "the time." And a part of both of us WOULD very much like to have another child, in particular, we'd like to have the "parent a girl" experience. We suspect it's an entirely different road than the "parent a boy" experience, and we'd like to go down that road.

One of the wisest parents I know is a Catholic, homeschooling, single-Mom who gave me the advice that "the needs of the most vulnerable person in the house come first." Right up to the start of this year, I would have said that was Ben and Milo. Recently, however, we've come to realize that Ben and Milo have reached a nice coasting speed. They have a great teacher, they have us, and they have each other. They like their Primary teacher, they like their piano teacher, they like their school, they each have good friends in class, are ahead in both reading and math, and have cheerful, friendly dispositions.

So we turn our attention back to our eldest and check on him. How's he doing? Is he at coasting speed, too? And if we could honestly say yes, I think that would have resulted in a very different adoption decision, but neither of us could say yes. We both feel that our oldest is a little more anxious than he needs to be. He needs help staying on top of his schedule, guidance making the right decisions with his behavior, his homework, and his friends. Don't get me wrong--he's a great kid, has a good teacher, is doing well in many regards. There's just this very clear feeling between his father and I that he's more vulnerable than he needs to be. We feel he's doing well BECAUSE his father is his scout master and is at his school two afternoons a week, because his mother is at his school all the freakin' time, because we put so much time into what he's doing, where he is, and how he is doing. And there is definitely a feeling that this is NOT the time to let up . . . and won't be any time soon. I don't know if this is typical of parenting a middle schooler, or if it's just our kid. But we feel that if we were to adopt--in which case the new baby or child would be the neediest--that Max would be at risk in some way. I'm not saying that we're sure he would be, and I'm DEFINITELY not saying that there's ANYTHING wrong with the kid. There really isn't. It's just a gut feeling among Chris and I; if we need to "adopt" a kid right now, it's the kid we already have: the preteen. I know there are gobs of families that do adopt when there are teens and preteens in the house and it probably is exactly the right decision for their family. This year it's not right for us.

**********************************
KNITTING: I have a lot on the needles right now and feel perennially behind. I spent half of this afternoon trying to fix the mittens I made for my nephew. They were fine in every regard but one--too tight at the wrist. I cut the mittens at the wrist and reknit the area in question, then grafted the top of the mitten to the bottom. Sounds easy in theory, but when you consider that I often make adjustments to a pattern as I go and almost NEVER write down what those adjustments were, I'm discovering this can be a nightmare. I honestly wonder if it wouldn't have been easier to just knit a new pair of mittens. I have one mitten fixed. I'm in the processes of undoing a million little kitchener stitches after discovering a major error--for the second time.

Tomorrow the twinks start skiing for the first time. I haven't finished fixing their knee socks so they don't fall down. I'm close though. I've got Ben's done and one of Milo's. I might get them done by 4 pm tomorrow. I've told myself I can't finish Milo's sock before O-bear's mitten though. That's a lot of knitting to get done AND still get enough Workwork done. Is the post office open tomorrow? I know it's MLK Jr. day. I just can't remember if that's a federal holiday or not.

I'm visiting a friend on Friday who could be in the antepartum ward for another 5 weeks. I'd really like to bring her a little something for her little one. I'm going to blink and it'll be Friday though, so I'm trying to keep an open mind about that.

My eye is starting to twitch. I should go finish my workwork and then do some meditation or something. :)

That's One for Our Side

There's no way around it--it's a struggle to keep Max active. He's not a particularly competitive kid. He's not a particularly coordinated kid either. He is cursed with a not-really athletically inclined father who married a (let's-be-honest)-athletically-incompetent mother. Chris eventually found some activities he liked, and I eventually found some activities I like, but Max has struggled with this. He likes swimming, but the year-round program here is not a good match for him, and the summer-only program isn't enough. Football is soooooooo time consuming and sooooooo competitive, and so this winter I decided to go ahead and try to get Max on the slopes as much as possible during the short three months we call a ski season here in PA. He's doing the school program on Monday afternoons and another program for 4.5 hours on Saturdays. THe last two weeks were too warm to ski, but this weekend we were good to go, so we headed over there for the first lesson.

Max was nervous. He was pretty sure he was going to die, or at least look like he was dying, on the hill. He was worried about being the youngest and least experienced, or the oldest and least experienced, or just in some vague way, in a really bad position.

I gave him a pep talk. I talked about how between this class and the one on Mondays, he'd soon be able to go down with his two good friends who do the ski programs through other schools, but come on the same day our school does. This was encouraging to him. I walked him through understanding that this was a 4.5 hour CLASS, so it was fine to not know anything and to go ahead and hog the teacher's attention and just learn, learn, learn. Max perked up a smidge.

We arrived at the lodge and went on in. He was, indeed, the oldest kid there, but there were two other girls and at least one other boy who were close to him in age. We almost had a case of equipment failure when, for the life of us, we could NOT get one of his boots on. Abby, the youngest of the instructors, agreed to give it a shot and we were relieved to see that it wasn't just us. She finally pulled it off his foot, put her back into it, and popped some part of it back into its proper place. Max was soon buckled into his boots and he trotted awkwardly off after the others to go ski.

I ran to Target and the bank and then came back to the lodge to try to get some work done on my computer while he skiied. In between IM's to Chris I fretted. The last time I sent him down that hill he scared himself silly. It ended in tears and panic and I felt like Bad Mom.

I really wanted this to work. I wanted him to not just get better at going down the Big Scary Hill, but ENJOY it. I wanted him to think, "Wheee!" not "AAAAAAHHHH!" I wanted him to burn a few calories and make a few muscle cells and do it smiling.

Finally, lunch break arrived and he walked in the door, sat down, and said something along the lines of, "I've already been down [the Big Scary Hill] 5 times and I've only fallen down once. I'm learning tons and it's a lot of fun."

And I breathed a sigh of relief. He scarfed down lunch (the lodge has the most disgusting food known to mankind. We bought lunch today and vowed together to bring a bag lunch next week) and then ran back out the door. His instructor today is a father whose name I didn't catch, so I've been calling him Dad Instructor. He seemed genuinely to enjoy Max and Max trusted him. Which is the only way I can explain the FACT that by the end of the day Max had TWICE gone down the center hill (whose name I don't even know because it's the one covered in mogels and we don't go down those hills) and apparently on his second run down that hill he did a bit of it on his head, but STILL came back in the lodge glowing, happy, saying how great it was over and over.

And so, I am hoping it is a LONG and SNOWY winter.

Saving Me the Trouble

of having to articulate the complex feelings I've had on watching the political process lately . . .

Women's Support for Clinton Rises in Wake of Perceived Sexism

I'd been holding off on putting my Hillary bumper sticker on my car because our primary here is still four months away, but I reckon I might put it up sooner now.

FWIW, I'd be fine with Edwards or Obama--although I probably have the most concerns about his experience. But I keep coming back to Hillary.

And that's about as political as I want to get today.

Tsunami!

I am completely and unexpectedly slammed by work this week and my lack of recent blogging has me feeling guilty--so I'll officially blog that I won't be blogging until maybe this weekend, when hopefully I'll have some time to catch up. In the meantime, "Don't cry for me, Argentina," too much work means, well, it means I'll get paid sometime in February, and that's not bad.

We took this picture this morning (Yes! Yes, take down the tree is on my to-do list for this week!) Mostly we're hoping to send the picture to my grandmother, who sent a generous Christmas gift for all of us, and new church clothes is part of what we bought with it (Ben and Milo's pants in the photo were their birthday present from Gramma Gaye). Ben and Milo have matching red ties and Chris and Max have matching orange ties. They look spiffy and somehow manage not to clash.

We're still adjusting to the new winter schedule. Chris leaving every morning at 6:15 am and me getting up 45 minutes later to wake the kids and get us all out the door. It's still more rushed than I'd like and I'm contemplating just getting up at 6:15 when he gets up. Skiing should start tomorrow but we have a freakish warm spell taking us to 60 degrees both tomorrow and Tuesday and the mountain will be a mudslide, not a ski lodge. Maybe it's just as well since piano lessons start up again this week and it's going to be a full week.

More updates later in the week. I need to chase the kids off to bed before it gets any later.

Gathering Around the Glow of the XO

This computer was a gift to the boys from my Aunt Gee-Gee. It's rightful heir was the little tyke staring intently at the screen, but his parents deemed his attention span too short for that sort of thing and so it was offered to my three. It's an educational computer that uses all open-source software. Max has discovered a few of its limits, but I'm encouraging him to google all he can on the computer to see if he can eventually get a few of the websites he likes to work. We think we downloaded a version of flashplayer but we don't know how to get it installed and working. It's Linus-based operating system is foreign to us.

So I suggested that for now we just use it as it was intended--instead of trying to make it like a computer he already knew--to just accept it as an entirely new kind of computer. And we are making ground that way. He has already composed a few melodies using its music-making software, and the twins have spent literally hours video-taping themselves with its built in camera (sorry, we don't know how to send these anywhere else, or even what kind of format they're saved in). Ben and Milo have sore abdominal muscles from laughing hysterically at themselves. Milo has also used the music software.

We do know there is a way to upload the word processing files to a site that will save them in a format that his teacher can receive. We will master this when the need arises. Many thanks to Aunt Gee-Gee for her generosity and to Cousin A, who took the picture and thought of suggesting my kids as a recipient.

Today we had a quiet Sunday. Ben, Milo, and I headed off to church and left the coughing and hacking Max and the confuzzled and snot-ridden Chris at home. They looked very handsome in their new white shirts and ties. Hopefully by next Sunday I'll have their new pants hemmed and they'll look snazzy indeed. I realized as I got them dressed that I'd forgotten about their church shoes. I probably won't get that fixed until Easter now.

By dinner time Chris had showered and shaved and taken dayquil, so since it was our turn to feed the missionaries, he went and got them and managed to stay upright and conscious for the whole time they were here. Right now he's on the couch attempting to read the human resources manual of his new company, but I'm guessing he'll be reading it again tomorrow.

I'm grateful for two more days of Christmas vacation. I really like having the kids around and I've really liked the opportunity to sleep in, nap, and go to bed early, LOL. I tend to be sort of chronically sleep deprived and I can say I have definitely NOT been sleep deprived this week. What's the opposite of sleep deprivation? Sleep abundance? I wish you could store extra sleep for use later. I'd feel much better if I could know the extra sleep could be stashed away for future use.

Check Me Out!

I am so totally on vacation. Yesterday I thought I was due to start another batch of workwork for Client du jour, (du many years, actually) so in a panic and a bit of New Year's mania (I am so ready to kick 2007 to the curb. Not that I'm not grateful for its spiritual bonanza, but I'd really like to be able to pay bills in a more timely fashion. Just sayin'.) I dug in and dug out my office from it's volcanic ashes of writing-gigs past. I threw away four trash bags of materials from this year's projects (technically, I bagged them up and then called Chris to haul them away. He was sweet about it.)

Then I took the pile of "things to do something about" and went through that. Next, I updated the wipe-off calendar over my desk and the kitchen calendar and my desk calendar, which also doubles as a "due dates" calendar. Then I balanced both checkbooks, paid a ton of bills, and then, surprise, it was night and still no fedex package. So I pulled out the schedule again, realized that I'd gone up a line on the tiny little excel chart that was the master schedule and that I'm not due to start working again until the 2nd!

So today I did a meal plan for the next week, put together a shopping list, and took the kids to Target to spend their Target gift cards (and then we went grocery shopping, of course). Since Santa brought me a new sewing machine, I got a sewing kit to go with it. It comes with a bunch of thread (LOL, I had to search for the right term for that: yarn? string? What's that sewing stuff called? Oh, yeah! Thread. Right.) When I got home I spent 20 minutes going through all the notions that came with the machine and my new kit. I felt like a little girl lining up all the tiny shoes that came with her new Barbie. "Oooo! Lookit this little brushy thing!"

So instead of working half of each day for the next five days, I get to, well, clean my house and knit and sew--which I think is a fine trade off. My mother did most of my laundry while she was here, so a significant portion of the "mess" in the living room is just putting away clean laundry.

Speaking of domestic stuff--another gift I received for Christmas is a new iron. Our old one was a Black and Decker work-horse that still did a pretty decent job of ironing out wrinkles, as long as you weren't too picky about these things. Chris did his homework in researching irons and got me a nice one. Nothing too spendy or flashy--we only have our church clothes and the occasional dressy occasion to iron for. But he was thoughtful enough to get one with a steaming function so that I can also use it for the occasional bit of blocking. I used it on the sample I finished for the yarn shop today. The steaming thing was fast and fun.

My plan for tomorrow is to get Ben and Milo's new church pants hemmed up, Max's old church pants hemmed up, and the living room picked up. That about covers it :)

Merry Christmas

We had a very nice Christmas day here with G'ma Gaye and G'ma Judy. Emily got a stuffed squeaky squirrel for Christmas and was pretty thrilled with that. The kids got a perfect mix of toys and clothing. (I'm so happy, for we are once again a family with clean socks and underwear for all our boys.)

Ski season starts here in a few weeks, although it looks to be a repeat of last year's early warm January, in which case, ski season will be delayed. G'ma Gaye outfitted the twinks in new gloves, ski goggles, and balaclavas. I had picked up Max's skis from the ski shop yesterday--these were a garage sale find for $10 back in August or September. I had them waxed and they got some other maintenance done to them (grinding the edges or something) and we replaced the outdated binding with new adult bindings. The finished product looks much nicer than the pair I paid $10 for, LOL, but then, they're not a $10 pair of skis anymore, either!

A lot of what the kids got this year were things they really needed. With money from my grandmother the kids got new jeans, socks, underwear, pajamas, white dress shirts for church, and sneakers. My sister bought them all snow boots. G'ma Donna and G'ma Gaye both got them t-shirts they loved. G'ma Judy bought them slippers. I knit them all socks. These were all greatly appreciated. There were terrific toys for the boys--transformers, nerf shooters, puppets, and legos. There were wonderful books on warriors, art, animals, and science topics. There were two games for the Wii and two games for the gamecube, and a few controllers to replace the ones that wore out (and Santa brought some spare controllers for the Wii so that the boys can all play at the same time).

I had expected a *very* simple Christmas, as we budgeted mostly for the kids. But I was spoiled. Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled. Thank you, Chris and parents.

We also got the amazing gift of being offered the purchase of my aunt's 2003 Ford Taurus. We took her up on it and will get rid of the Expedition as soon as that is possible.

Tomorrow we're off to visit relatives in Philly for the day and then it's back home to dive back into work, but today was a quiet, peaceful day with good food and family, and we enjoyed it.

Bits and Pieces

For the past few winters we've put together goodie boxes for friends and extended family for Christmas. We've done this in part because the things are yummy and in part because it meant we could put together something nicer with the funds available.

This year I was having a heck of a time coming up with ideas for what to put in the box. Everything was either too hard to put together or too expensive to ship. I was reluctant to go with a box of cookies because that is so "done." In the end though, that's what we went with. I already had most of the ingredients in food storage and the kids love our cookie cookbook, so.

But the baking gods were in a foul mood. The first two cookies and a bar recipe went great. But I didn't put the boxes "up" enough and Emily ate all but a few over night. (And lived to tell about it.) I couldn't get back to baking again until Thursday because of workwork (and having some bug on Thursday) and the first thing I did was ruin 6 lbs of fudge. I quit and tried again on Friday. Finally, things started going better.

On Thursday Milo stayed home from school because he was sick. He sent his classmates a note:


He's still got a cough, but doesn't seem particularly sick anymore. However, Ben and I are sharing a new cold and I really just wanted to lay on a couch, whine, and knit, but I have guests coming all afternoon tomorrow (one set coming at 1pm for a quick visit on their way out of town, another set coming at 2pm) so we needed groceries.

This means the gift boxes/bags are nearly done.


We also received today a special delivery.


That is Snowball and Hoodie. We're rat sitting until their owner gets back from Christmas vacation. I'm a little nervous about having a dog who gets lavishly praised for killing vermin in the same house with two ratty-pets. So they're staying in Max's room for the duration and the door to his room is to remain firmly closed. Nevertheless, I'll be praying for them just in case. Having them here is a little like vacationing in Mexico. It could go well, or then again, it could go very badly.

Christmas knitting has gone relatively well. I don't know if I'll finish the last item in time for Christmas, but I did finish Oliver's mittens. I think they turned out very cute.


So did the piano teacher's mittens:


I'd better get back to work on Max's sweater.

It's a Mad Life. A Good Life, but a Crazy One

My brother-in-law is in the process of raising funds for a black box theatre in Columbia, Missouri. He is a busy guy. In an earlier version he did spontaneous Shakespeare. He had to cut it, but it's too much fun to miss.

I ran my PAC meeting Monday night. We approved the purchase of new swings for the school and the purchase of two urns for coffee and hot water. That was fun.

We interrupt this blog for breaking news! Chris has a new job!! He starts January 2nd in the management team of a local furniture company! He got the Offer yesterday but there were questions to be asked and he has signed the revised offer! We'll have new, better, GOBS cheaper health insurance WITH OUR SAME DOCTORS on January 1st!

Please. Everybody get up OUT of your chairs and dance with me!

Our new totally out of debt (except for the 1st mortgage) goal: December 2009. That's HELOC, car loan, and all. We hope to have everything except the HELOC killed in one year. No new toys! No shopping sprees for us! We won't be going out and getting cable. (Although we will probably buy more vegetables. What is wrong with this planet? Why are tomatoes more expensive than beef?) In 2008 we're buying back our FREEDOM.

Our Weekend

I'm sorry it's been so long since I blogged. The last two weeks have had crushing workloads and so much to do personally and I just haven't had the time. Let me at least catch you up on the most joyous weekend I've have since, oh, maybe my wedding (my kids were all born on weekdays ;)

It is HARD to sit down and type at the computer today because I am floating so HIGH off the ground.

The service for the baptism was the most beautiful I have ever been to. There were some snags. Thursday night Chris learned I could talk on ANY gospel topic instead of just baptism and so he urged me to say whatever was in my heart. Friday was so full with getting the house ready and grocery shopping for the Potluck and other preparations--plus the arrival of our friends and enjoying their company and young children-- I didn't sit down to write until about 10:30 and at midnight I gave up and just shut the computer down.

The baptism was at 10 am, so in the morning we were up and 'at 'em. Max, Chris, and Gaye took most of the potluck stuff to the church and plugged in the crockpot and hung out to greet people with the missionaries. I took the twinkies to the grocery store to pick up dh's cake and get a few more 2 liter bottles of drinks. Our friends went over to one of the local hotels to pick up another dear friend who had arrived from Ohio and they met us at the church, too.

Approximately 70 members of the ward, including some of their children, were there. Plus either the missionaries or Relief Society or SOMEONE had already set up all the tables in the cultural hall. My friend from Vermont, Sarah, and her mother (from Ohio) had both attended my baptism. So we had asked Sarah to give the invocation. I felt warmth on my head and was calmed while she spoke. There's no other way to describe it, but all the worry about getting everything done just melted away. I have to say I was blessed to not think about work ALL DAY.

We sang "Because I have been given much," and then I bore my testimony. It went fine. I don't know what I said but everybody cried and said it was perfect later. Everybody cried through the whole service, honestly. Brother Penn gave a terrific talk on the Holy Ghost. We all crammed into the area where the baptismal font is. The tiny little room seemed to stretch and make room for everyone. The Bishop baptized Chris and when Chris came back up my twins laughed with joy--I hadn't thought to tell them to stay quiet during the baptism--they're normally good at being quiet when they're supposed to be quiet, but they are very happy little people and laugh often and easily. But it was okay. It was so clearly a laugh of delight.



We returned to the chapel and Bro. Penn opened the mike to testimonies. Four people spoke and they were sooo wonderful. One speaker talked about the joyous memories the occasion brought back for him as his wife had joined the church during their fourth year of marriage. He talked about what that day had meant to them and the good things that had happened within his family since then. Another speaker talked about his reaction to hearing the twins laugh. A third speaker talked about a recent experience she had had with hearing the Holy Ghost during a time of need. The fourth speaker (Sarah's husband, Justin) spoke about the way his love for the scriptures has grown since his conversion a decade ago. (He knows Chris struggles with the language in the scriptures, but also knows Chris is determined to get past that.) Chris and the Bishop returned at this point, so the Elders' Quorum president gave a talk welcoming Chris to the Elders' Quorum, and that was fun because he got to have some fun with the fact that Chris had been attending regularly for some time now.

We sang, "Come Follow Me" and Max gave the benediction. He did great. There was much hugging and congratulating and more tears and then we set up the food, fed everyone, visited, told stories, enjoyed each other's company, and smiled a lot. I was really glad Gaye was with us. She had a good time and I could NEVER have done a good job telling her exactly what it was like. You really had to be there.

I was really glad I'd gotten the full sheet cake, LOL! Anyway everyone helped clean up and we went home with our out-of-town friends. At the potluck other members of that same family joined us, and so now we had 9 members of that family. We went back to our house with my mom-and-law and visited for the rest of the afternoon. Sarah and I made dinner for Chris's 38th birthday and we grown-ups stayed up late talking. (Somewhere in there I washed the kids' Sunday clothing so they could wear them again to church today.) Happy Birthday, Chris!

This morning we got up and got dressed again. We'd had freezing rain, so Justin struggled, but somehow managed to get his car packed up in spite of a layer of ice everywhere. I had given Chris a leather quad as a birthday/baptism gift, which meant I got my scriptures back (he had swiped mine many months ago, but it's not like I was going to insist he give them back, LOL.). It didn't last long. Max took them to Sunday school. Maybe if Santa brings him some scriptures, too, I'll get to keep mine. At any rate, we got to church on time. Everyone was still feeling the glow from yesterday. It was like no time had passed since the baptism. They confirmed Chris a member, and bestowed upon him the gift of the Holy Ghost, and then the ward sustained Chris as a member of the ward. Then they proposed that the ward sustain Chris as a priest and we did that. (Max loved that. Oh, heck, *I* loved that.) Then we sang the Sacrament hymn and the Sacrament was blessed and passed. Chris then bore his testimony, beginning with the fact that never had bread tasted so sweet.

And then Chris joined us back in the pews and the rest of meeting was a sort of ordinary Christmas Season Sacrament meeting. A violinist and a pianist did a special music piece and there were two brief talks and then it was time to say Goodbye to our Vermont Friends. (They had stayed to witness and participate in the Confirmation.) I hope they made it back safely home. I did a few things for my calling, then joined Chris in Gospel Principles. Interestingly, I'm not fond of being called on to give any of the opening or closing prayers because I just get so nervous, but noone else offered to close, so I did. And as I walked in the door of Relief Society, I was immediately pounced upon to give the opening prayer by someone to whom I couldn't say no, LOL. So I did.

After Relief Society, we rounded up the boys and met at the Bishop's office to witness Chris being ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood.

Who knew this day would come? But it did and it is sooooo sweet.

When I got home from church though, I lay down next to Chris on the couch and didn't wake until four hours later. I was tired!!

Monday

Yesterday was a semi-ordinary Sabbath. We went to church, which was a skeleton of its usual self, since at least half the congregation is either a student or an employee of Penn State--they all went home to whereever they're from (admittedly, a large portion went to Utah). You add that to the usual number who go out of town for Thanksgiving and you're left with, primarily, the townies with older children. Still, we had a good morning of church, picked up Gramma Gaye and headed home to decorate the tree. We made good progress until we got to the lights and discovered that exactly half of EVERY light set was out. Now, I don't know if you've tried to replace lights in your mini-light set in the past few years, but they make it terrifically hard now. You're pretty much just supposed to toss the set and buy new ones. Last year I fought this and it took five trips to Target to get all the outdoor features with mini-lights working. (To complicate things, there are different sizes of bulbs in those mini-lights and then you try to match colors--only they're out of the color you need in the size you need . . . .) I had learned from my experience, sort of, so this year we decided to just run to Target to get new lights. Because this was supposed to be a day with the family, we decided to all go.

What we learned was the wisdom of the council to avoid shopping on Sundays. Especially Sundays right after Thanksgiving with all the students coming back. Especially those conditions with Target. It was insane and took far longer to get out of there than we had anticipated. The only good that came of it was that we were successful in getting the gold mini-lights that we wanted.

Years ago we had a tree with a red and gold theme. We'd collected ornaments and a beautiful lighted angel tree topper and something like 8 strands of gold lights in there. Then in California rats got in it and ruined it all. The tree, the ornaments, the lights--it was all contaminated. Just disgusting. So we threw it all away. Over the last four or five Christmases, we rebuilt our collection, but we had given the "eclectic collection with multi-colored mini-lights" theme a run and since we had to replace all the lights this time around, we decided to take the opportunity to go back to red and gold. The extra ornaments went back into storage. In a future year we'll add a second tree for downstairs and give it the eclectic collection with multi-colored mini-lights theme.
In the meantime, the red and gold tree looks beautiful. We'll get a picture up at some point this holiday. The Christmas Tree skirt went traveling this year and I won't have it back for a bit yet.

Anyway, around 6 or so, Gramma Gaye went home, so I pulled out one of my new cookbooks to read:

I put my knitting in my lap and worked away at a sock for probably five rounds or so as I read--I made it through most of the introduction before completely passing out. I woke up at 9pm just in time to watch the ending of a movie with Ben Stiller as a nightwatchman at the Museum of Natural History. Then we all put on pjs and went to sleep. I woke up this morning feeling pretty well rested.

(Oh! Never fear on the buttons. I found them in one of the places I'd already looked twice. So now I just have to stay awake in my green chair long enough to get the knitting done!)

Today should have been a day full of workwork, but the kids don't go back to school until tomorrow and my tummy was a little off, so I paid the bills, got some work done, and otherwise entertained myself with other errands. I got more wood pellets and bought groceries for dinner and for the kids' lunches this week. Now I'm going to try to finish up the workwork I was supposed to get done earlier today so tomorrow I'm well positioned to start a final four-day push to write two lessons in the amount of time it normally takes me to write one. I'm also hoping to get the toe and top done on two different socks tonight. That would finish one pair of Christmas socks and get me to the half-way point on a second pair. That's what I was supposed to do last night instead of napping in the green chair :)

Jo, if you're reading this, please email me. I have questions about your grocery bill on this new way of cooking you're doing for your family.