I didn't knit today

I folded laundry instead. Mounds and mountains of laundry. It had to be done.
I also took a picture of the milk.

Just in case you were unaware... Milk contains milk. Write that down in case you forget.

No longer a UFO

That's right! I finally got Mom's blanket out of the basket and finished it. Sorry, but I won't post any other pictures until she actually gets it in the mail. She's been waiting for quite a while.
But if you're on Ravelry I've got a couple other pictures there, because she can't go poking around to see them. :)
I started this thing in 2006 to give to her for Christmas. Seeing as it's now 2008, you can imagine how well that went. I did give it to her... I wrapped it up and everything. It was just still on the needles at the time.
heh.
So ya... a little over a year late, even though the actual numbers of the years makes you think it would be longer. It didn't even take that long to knit. Or I'm just faster than I used to be. Probably a combination of both.

siiick

too sick to knit. too sick to write.
we've been hanging out in the living room watching movies since Friday.
the laundry situation is getting dire.
send in reinforcements... bathroom monkey... laundry fairy... kitchen genie...

We have tex mex soup to eat, and since that's a file I can copy and paste, here's the recipe for you.

Tex Mex Bean Soup

Julie Mayfield - As served at the family reunion in Gatlinburg September 2007

1# Ground turkey/beef
1 pkg. taco seasoning
1 pkg. Ranch dressing mix
1 15-oz. can black beans (drained)
1 15-oz. can great northern beans (drained)
1 15-oz. can pinto beans (drained)
1 15-oz. can niblet corn
2 c. water
2 c. salsa, mild or medium
1 14-oz. can tomatoes
Garlic powder to taste (or you can do what I like to do and use your leftover sketti sauce)

Brown and drain meat. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes. Serve with lime chips or crackers.

If Elle can do it...

Last night was a big night for me. I left the house.
*cue shocking dramatic music*
I went to the S&B meeting at the Starbucks. At NIGHT. By myself.
I had to psych myself up to do it. While I enjoy meeting new people and having friends, I've very content to rely on the buddy system. I like to have a winggirl with me, just to keep the monsters away. But I have no knitterly friends who could come, so I had to go alone.
I was watching Legally Blonde (John bought it for me on DVD, because now that we don't have TBS anymore I never got to see it) and if Elle Woods can pack up and drive all the way across the country for Warren - even though he was a dipstick - I could pack my little knitting back and drive 20 little minutes down Hwy 55 to meet some people. Right?
And even though I didn't know quite where it was, I went.
And I got lost. Of course. I ALWAYS get lost.
WHO puts a Starbucks inside a Kroger less than a block from the other Starbucks? The Starbucks that you can't see from the intersection because of the monster Rite Aid that's in the way?
So not only did I suck up the courage to GO to this meeting, I even asked the guy in Kroger if there was another Starbucks around.
Determination, my friends. I had it in spades last night.

And I met nice people! Jackie, Jackie, and Beth were there. I will have to ask them if when I mention them on my blog, if I can link their blogs. I'm not sure of the etiquette there.
But they were nice. We admired each others' knitting. And I stayed until the end and got to hear the hilarious story of how Jackie found a 'possum in the tool drawer, set it free, and found another one later.

I'm going to go back next week.

I would post pictures of the project I took with me and worked on, but I can't. It's one of those secret things. I'll tell you about it later.

More gems from Rowan

I explained, for the hundredth time, why darts is a game for grownups and he can't play.
Rowan says:

Why do adults play games where they throw sharp items?


And then today, one of the great truths of life was revealed:

If you eat a candy cane and then drink V8 it's very yukky.


And finally, hear him read.

New chairs and some knitting

First the knitting. I've been waiting for someone to pick the Green Shadows colorway just so I could knit it up, and finally Jessica did!

This will be a soaker when it grows up.

And I finally broke down and bought the boys some chairs for at the table. Rowan was too big for the booster seat on his chair, but too small to sit at the table properly. And kneeling on the chair was making his handwriting for his homework not as good as it should have been.
I looked at the Stokke chairs, but holy cow are they expensive. I found another brand, Hippo Smile, on eBay, and could get 2 chairs and pay shipping for the same price as one of the Stokke chairs. So, I finally quit thinking about it and just did it. They arrived today and were very well received.

And it's nice to think that we'll have chairs for people to sit in when they come for dinner too.

I am a grownup. I swear

Really.

I'm keeping a blog with Jenn. It's so much fun to do a two person blog. And it's things like this that show how well matched we are.

hee hee!

'sup?

I've been doing stuff. We went to Atlantic Beach this weekend for a fish conference. Good times. LOVE sharing the hotel room with the boys. Oh wait no I don't.
We know that Mommy needs her downtime in the evening. She really needs it. And when two little boys are in her hair until 11, and then get up at 6... ya.
But we did have a spectacular view.

and we did get to go to the aquarium

I should have let it eat him.

I finished Chelle's pants before we left:

and need to get them washed and have their real picture to be in the mail when the post office opens on Tues.

And Rowan needed a new hat, so I did that today:

I really don't have any really great stories from our trip. It rained, a lot, and we swam in the indoor pool, ate at the 4 Corners Diner (twice) and just chilled with the fish-a ba-arn people a little. I like those guys. And ate yummy all you can eat fish. That was nice too. So aside from the minor irritation of being "on" for a while, it was a good trip.
But next year, we're farming them out and going on our own.

Video fun

Dancing kids!

Niall:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vwTC--5AQdI

Rowan:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pIQ8E3r8Bwc

Superglue is forever.

Especially when you get it in your hair.

Support your local business?

We had car issues over New Years.
John and Rowan went feed the fish and on the way home the car sprang a coolant leak of some sort. You would think that coolant would be unnecessary, even in NC in December, but apparently that isn't so. Picky engine...
Anyway, the options were limited, it being New Years Day and all, and USAA wanted to send a company from Chapel Hill. Why? They're 30 some odd miles away. And since we'd have to pay for it ourselves anyway, I hauled out the trusty yellow pages and we called a local guy.
Lucky for us, he was there, and willing to tow, and even had a garage and could do the repair. So John handed him the key and we all got in the car and went on our merry way home knowing that our Shegeki was in good hands. (Shegeki being the name of the car, which is a Honda. It's named for the previous owner, who went back to Japan, but was well loved by the boys even though they hardly knew him.)
John didn't hear from them the next day, but he was driving the work truck, so we really didn't worry. And they called yesterday saying that we could come pick it up, so all was well.
So... John picked up Rowan from school and they came home in the Big Green Truck so we could all go pick up Shegeki and have our little car back. I looked on google maps to make sure we knew where it was - right up the road! Local!
And then we tried to find the place.

Yep. We drove by it at first. It's in a residential area. I wasn't even sure that all the cars in the front yard were solid as clues. I mean, this is NC after all.

And it is a trailer. And no tow truck to be seen. But there was a high fence in the back, so maybe that's where they hid the garage... or the bodies...
I wasn't sure if we should stick around, because who knew if Festus was in there with a shot gun getting ready to come out and tell us to get offa his proppitay.
John tried calling them, and after a few busy signals got through. He found out that yes we were in the right place, but no one was there because they were out towing someone. Lesson learned, call before you come over. We decided to wait until today to go get Shegeki. Something about this place... after dark... I'm sure you understand.

Someone was there this time, and the high fence was open. So we got the full glory of the body shop.

It was kind of shady, being surrounded by all these cars, some in pieces, behind a tall fence, with a guy who wasn't sure if he could take a check (they normally wanted cash) but made a call to Willy and Willy said it was ok. Thanks Willy.
Sorry for the blurryness of some of these pictures. I was trying to be stealthy. I'm still not sure Festus wasn't lurking around somewhere.

But they fixed the car, and it made it home, and as long as something doesn't go wrong with it soon we might just use these guys again. I mean, you can't get much more local than Willy, and he did come out on a frosty New Year's Day to get Skegeki and fix him of his ills.

It was an adventure. Mildly scary when we weren't sure if we were in the right place yesterday, but fine today with dude there taking the check and giving us the key. It was almost as good as that one time in Atlanta...

2008 - The year of less slacking!

I'm calling it the year of less slacking instead of the year of no slacking, because I'm not a fool.
I know slacking will happen. It's nature. Or entropy.
Whatever you call it, slacking will occur. I'm just going for less of it.

Which is why, instead of just hanging around waiting for Chelle's remeasurements for britches (see aforementioned slacking as to why they're only now just getting on the needles) I decided to do something that I've been meaning to do since last year, and cast on Coronet for myself.

The yarn is from BFL, from Zenstring. I think the colorway is Lufaloo. How long have I had this yarn? *ehem* The lable says Cinnamon Stitches, so it's from before the name change. Ooops.

Coronet would work better for a solid yarn, yes, but that's what I wanted and I also wanted that yarn, so I did it anyway. And the cables don't photograph well, but you can see them in person if you look. And really, the yarn was too pretty for a plain old hat.

And it fits! Yay!

Be aware:
Yes I only finished it last night, and here I am uploading pictures already. See? Less slacking. But this level of I'm-on-it-ness won't last. Because there are things like laundry and 3 year olds to muck it up.
and that Santa stocking? ummm... we're glaring at each other from across the room. But I have a plan. I'm just waiting for Rowan to be back in school to try it out.

The Dwead Piwate Wobberts is here for your soooouuuul

OK, so maybe it's not the Dread Pirate Roberts... Maybe it's just a cute little Santa Claus stocking that you promised to make for a friend of your Mom's.
You know what I'm talking about. You know about those projects that seem like they're going to be a walk in the park (No problem! famous last words) but for some reason - misalignment of planets... desertion by the knitting muse... fickle fate... - for some reason everything that can go wrong will go wrong. What should be an enjoyable time can reduce to you cowering under a blanket that you didn't knit, scowling at some cheeky Santa who insists on smiling at you from across the room, and chanting to yourself that this is an inanimate object and it's not secretly stalking you in your sleep. Right?
And how the heck do you turn a heel on something that's knit flat? I've looked at I don't know how many instructions so far, and can't figure it out to save my life. I'm going to have to improvise.
Which is the main reason that I'm only this far:

Let's not discuss how many times I've had to rip this bad boy back to get this far.
Let's also pause to note the other main reason that I'm only this far:

But, in my defense, TWO of the times I had to start over are pictured above.
(He's wearing the striped shirt.)

Please excuse me. I think I saw the Santa move...

Birthdays, toothiness, and keeping up appearances

We are settling in to the new house. Slowly but surely, the boxes are making their way out the door and into the recycling bin. Yessss! I had a deadline of sorts: Niall's birthday. I've determined not to give little man the shaft simply because his birthday falls close to Christmas, and moving wasn't going to put a dent in it either.

So he got his cake:in the shape of a Big Green Truck - as requested for the big green truck birthday party.And lots of presents. Among the favorites were the garbage truck that I snuck by him that day at the Sprawlmart, and the 5 little monkies set that Pop and Fannie sent.

---

In other news, Rowan lost another tooth, thus necessitating an extreme close up shot of his toothiness. Yes, the orthodontist does have his work cut out for him doesn't he?

---

Now that the birthday is over, we can decorate for Christmas. Of course, this has to happen on a weekend when both John and I are walking around feeling like someone has been beating us over the head with the snot stick, but get it done we shall.
Ladies and Gents, may I present our 2007 version of the tree.

And even though we are feeling a bit slack this year, what with waiting until today to get the tree up, and doing the bare minimum thus far, I carried on and got the stockings hung on the mantle. Because even if nothing else is done and you have random boxes of crap that you don't know what to do with hiding back in your bedroom... Even then, if you have a snappy looking mantle it looks like you have it all togetherEspecially if you can get the dog to lay down in front of the fire.

Merry tidings y'all. Pass me the wassail.

House!

We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel... boxes wise.
yee!

writer's strike, schmiter's strike

Someone call Hollywood. You can't make this stuff up.

Ya ya ya, I've been gone and not posting. I'm still knitting, and I have pictures on my camera. I've had other things to be doing, and as long as I'm still working on the knitting the babies are getting their pants. so essentially all is well in the world. so long as babies have their pants.

because pantsless babies can pee on your stuff, you know.

What have I been doing? What have you been doing? If you don't keep a blog, hushup about it.

We're buying a house! We close on the 16th. That's one week from today folks. And who is packing up the house where we've lived for the past 5 years? Me. And who is helping? *cue the chirping crickets* uh huh. That's what I thought. We'll do the actual move over Thanksgiving. Bring it. I am going from a rack in the corner to an acutal closet. A walk in closet. That's right. Walk. In. Closet. Hoo!

Also, Kim has been sick. She's been riding the nausea train since the beginning of August. She got her gall bladder out at the end of Sept. It didn't help and she's been bouncing in and out of the hospital since then. They weren't helping her, and even had her pegged as a drug seeker. I think if my body was trying to digest itself from the inside out that it would be a little bit painful, but what do I know? Finally she got someone listening to her, and she's now getting the care she needs to get better.

So then what does she do?

She goes and gets bitten by a freaking squirrel.

Yes. You read that right.

My sister, who has been slowly donating her organs one at a time, and is finally getting better, went and got bitten by a squirrel. A baby squirrel. And let's not forget she's on bloodthinners.

We're waiting for her to go Cujo on us.

Someone get me an agent.

Call off your dogs!

I'm alive! I swear! This is really Milli and no one has hacked my blog to post that I'm alive when really I'm just tied up in the basement.
I've been naughty naughty, knitting only as much as necessary to get the job done. I've been writing, borrowing someone else's characters and playing with them anonymously - and no you may not see it. That's what the anonymous part is about.

Abby - your pants are done, dry, and ready to send. I will package and weigh them today and send you an email.

Dimples - your pants are done and need the emboridery still. I have it mapped, just need a spot of time to sit down and do it.

Anne - your vest is nearing done, should be done by the end of the week. I have a bit of math to do to make sure the neck is good. When's the wedding? I don't want to cut it close.

Szbaby - I'm casting on for yours. I'll PM you what your total will be so you don't get a shock.

See? I'm knitting. some. And TV starts again this week so I will be knitting more. And it's FINALLY less than 90 degrees! So that means knitting too. Wee!

Promise promise. If I come out with any writing that is my own characters, I'll be sure to tell you.

Are you sure it's not Friday the 13th?

So I had to take Loki to the vet today. She needed her doggy shots and heartworm check etc. I'm ushering Niall and the very excited dog out the door (you'd think she never got to go in the car. She gets to ride every freaking morning!) while hanging on to my diaper bag and the leash - which I conveniently forgot to attach to the dog.

Loki takes off tearing down the street to see some ladies who are out walking. Niall, of course, takes off in the other direction. I slam the door yelling at Loki and scoop Niall up. We have just enough time to get to the vet on time.

Ya. Locked the keys in the house.

Sooooo... put Niall in his carseat and shoo Loki into the car, and run over to check if I remembered to lock the side door. I didn't, yay! So I grab my keys and get in the car and peel on out of there so we can get there in time.

We get to the vet, and I realize that I don't have my diaper bag with me. I'd dropped it in the driveway when I was chasing Loki down and realized that I didn't have my keys.

Soooo. I leave Loki with the vet, take Niall back to the car, and drive back home to get my bag. I had to have it because my wallet was in there and I needed to be able to pay the vet. It was at the bottom of the driveway, very dirty. Obviously I ran over it. But my glasses weren't in there so I didn't worry about it.

Got back to the vet and in to our appointment. The vet and his assistant are looking Loki over and she's being all friendly with them. Good times. Then Niall decides he wants a snack and opens the diaper bag. The inside is FULL of powder. I never took out the powder box from when we were in Gatlinburg last weekend. It was almost new. Powder was EVERYWHERE.

So now I'm home again, trip to Target was cancelled. My diaper bag is run over dirty on the outside, and powder fresh on the inside. Niall is doing puzzles and Loki is snoozing on the couch. I think I'll stay home the rest of the day!

Wait a minute, I'm a knitter?

Am I really?
Y'all, I have not been able to bring myself to pick up the needles regularly this month. I'm too busy whining and whinging about the hot. And I'm not kidding! Last night the weather guy made a special point (complete with baseball analogy) to tell us that this month is not only the hottest August on record... it's the hottest month EVER recorded for the Raleigh area.

Wee!

And yes I know that I have people waiting on me, which is why I'm poking along a row at a time here and there on my knitting, and have been generous with my time estimates for myself because I know how slack I'm being.

Never fear... I will be stuck in a car for hours this weekend as we drive to Gatlinburg for a family reunion. Hours. On I-40. I'll be knitting with the a/c vent aimed at my face.

So what have I been doing instead of knitting? Getting Rowan ready for school took some time. Sitting at the pool talking about how hot it is. Running on the treadmill thinking that I have to be insane to do something that causes that much sweating when it's hot out. Hiding from the laundry and various household tasks - that one isn't working out too well. Hiding from Niall and his screamy self - ya, that one isn't going over so well either.

It can't last forever, right?

Abby, I agree... it's all about the humidity. And I'm glad you're patient about your britches. Though you'd be even more demented than I am if you actually wanted to use them on a day like today.

Rachel, so glad you aren't leaving for the big city. Can't wait to see the new place!

A monumental day

Today.

My little guy went to Kindergarten. Wasn't I just pregnant with him yesterday?

He was so excited, he was up at 5:30 asking if it was time to go yet.

He wanted to wear his backpack the whole way there so everyone would know that he was a big school kid and not just a boy out for a walk.

Serious business.

He was there all day, from 8:15 to 3:00.

When we picked him up, he was on cloud 9 saying,
"Mommy, I was so busy having so much fun, I didn't even miss you!"

Little stinker.

I love you to pieces little guy. To bits and pieces.

walking to school