Lace, Baby!!

The swatch of lace: this is my first attempt at lace, blocking, and complicated patterns.






It's all pretty boring. Pretty, but boring. This is the first pattern I've tried to follow that was more than a simple repetition. It is also this very soft and delicate yarn that I worry about tearing right through. I'm glad it's beaded at the ends because the swatch is so light that it would blow away!
I dig the beads. The pattern calls for drop beads but I couldn't find any and was more interested in starting then in driving around to different stores looking for them... so I found these pretty round beads and thought I would try them instead. I like the way it looks. I am neglecting the baby blanket that is done except for the sewing-in and the baby blanket that is maybe 1/3 done, not to mention the housework, the book for our next book club meeting, laundry and what's that other thing? What is it? Starts with and S.....
Oh yeah, sleep. I am neglecting sleep. I haven't been able to sleep much lately and I'm feeling pretty worn down. I'm ready for some real time off - a week maybe? Longer? Doubtful at this point, though. There is light at the end of the tunnel: the Big Boss and my work spouse (who is also my boss) are supposed to be training with me this week to learn some of the automation. I think she is worried that I'm getting so burnt out and frustrated that I'll jump ship before I finish my degree. Probably not. I would have to get a really good offer to leave the station.

So what's a work spouse? A work spouse is someone from work who knows you as well as your spouse (or better). In my case, she is my best friend and my boss (though we're pretty freakin' informal at work... it's more M*A*S*H than The Devil Wears Prada). I know that she won't eat onions, drinks Diet Pepsi and likes funky earrings. She knows that I won't eat fish, live on Diet Dr. Pepper, and can't wear earrings. We both love movies (we're movie whores, we'll see anything) and are married to men who don't like movies so every Friday (almost without fail) we have a dinner and a movie date. She knows without blinking what to get me for birthdays and Christmas. She knows what I want to eat when I'm sick or depressed. We could both live happily forever on bread, cheese and fruit, we both love Asian and middle-eastern food, and we are both so in love with Johnny Depp that we might just stalk him if we were in France and had time to do it right. We even make fun of people in the same way, though she is waaaaay nicer than I am. AND we travel well together. Really well. Scary well. It's not always an easy thing to travel with your best friend and we have not only traveled together, spending five or six consecutive days never more than 6 feet apart, but because of station budgeting issues we had to share a hotel room more than once and more than once we had to sleep in the same bed. (I snore. Really loud and she only makes fun of me sometimes).
My spouse is great to me too. He knows all of those things about me too and HE just came home with a monster cookie blizzard from Dairy Queen.
(~le sigh~)
I'm a lucky, lucky girl.

I called my work spouse last night and had dinner with her and her daughter. We had Cajun food. It was yummy. I know, I was supposed to embrace the alone time but knitting at her house for awhile and going out to dinner sounded like much more fun than boring and bad for you fast food and boring summer re-runs on TV.
We had a round of thunderstorms last night starting around 2 am and I was awake when they ended and the really big storms showed up around 4. The rain was crazy - there is a street light across the street from our house and I couldn't see it through the rain. I could see light, just not where it was coming from. Our sunroom flooded so bad that I ran out of towels had to use sheets.
I slept for a few hours and woke with a killer headache so I stayed home for most of the day. My husband worked my air shift for me - I'm going to really miss that. His last day at the station is the 17th.
Bean started her tennis lessons tonight... it was screaming hot and sunny (even at 6 pm) and she really needs one of those cool tennis visors. She looked cute and sporty with her pony tail and racquet... The first couple of times she tried to hit the ball it was sort of sad but she got the hang of it fairly quickly and by the end she had power (without aim) behind her swings. Her dad and I sat in the shade watching her. I knitted some lace (Hanging Garden Lace Stole from Knitpicks) because it was too hot to knit anything else and I somehow managed to leave the house with my knitting bag and no projects in it! I bought this pattern and the baby alpaca laceweight yarn awhile ago (and I swatched it). The pattern calls for drop beads but I couldn't find any so I bought round beads instead and I like how it looks very much. (I would post pics but I left my camera at work - I'm just scattered all over the place today).
Next week I am going to bring bug spray, sunblock, a blanket for sitting and a drink with lots of ice.
It was so hot when we were done that I could not even think about eating anything hot or heavy so I went to the store and bought cool summer foods. Here's what I had for dinner (try not to be jealous, ok?):
Fruit (watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew with grapes)
Chicken salad (chicken, cashews and grapes)
Garlic and Herb Havarti
Sesame crackers
I am a happy, happy girl.

Tomorrow I'll try to post pictures of the lace... it's frustrating and delicate and sooooo very soft.

Washcloth-a-go-go!!

So I finally have an excuse to clean out the back seat of my car!! On Thursday, my friend K and I have a date to knit. We've both been reading Mason Dixon Knitting and are feeling like we need to buy some cheap cotton yarn and stitch up some cute washcloths. It's a sickness. But I need to make room for carseats for the small and meduim-sized babies so that we can all go yarn shopping together. Woo hoo!!! There is something about the backseat of an SUV that just cries out for a carseat or a dog or something. I have neither carseat nor dog, and even Bean is tall enough to ride in the front, so the back seat has been relegated to wasteland. My guess is that I will find more than 10 books and that I will be ashamed of the sheer number of fast-food wrappers.

You know, of course, that "clean out the back seat of my car" probably means "throw everything from the back seat to the way back and then adjust it so that I can actually still see out of the rear window," right? Of course you do. You've been paying attention!

I am hungry... I (literally) have not eaten anything today that wasn't mostly sugar. In our office we celebrate the birthdays for the month at the first Monday meeting of the month so there was birthday cake. It was carrot cake. I love carrot cake. It's not my favorite, that's chocolate, but it's right up there. I think it's either the cream cheese frosting or the fact that it includes healthy stuff that does it for me. The husband is going to be working late and there's no kid this week so I'm on my own for dinner and I honestly can't think of anything that I want. I don't have to worry about anyone else's preferences and I can't think of anything that sounds good. I hate that.

When I am faced with decisions like this I usually call someone else to ask if they want to go out to dinner and then ask what they want just to limit my options. I do this with movies, too. I used to be completely unable to spend an evening alone - not because I don't like being alone, but because it happened so infrequently that I wanted to make the most of it - and then would be unable to decide what to do. On good days that meant I did nothing. On bad days I would call the idiot step-mother (in the days just before I knew she was an idiot and had the potential to be the stepmother) and she would come over and run my life for a few hours (days, weeks, whatever). I have since learned to appreciate and enjoy time alone, as even on the bad days it is preferable to opening your life to a slow but steady overtaking by someone who appears harmless but is really toxic.

(Wow, where'd that come from?)

I am really getting used to having her in Bean's life. I am still not entirely comfortable with it (mostly because she has a limited capacity for understanding boundaries and tends toward full domination) but I am really starting to loosen up. I think a wall of hate is easier than admitting that she really hurt me. Really really really hurt me. More than he did. I expected a certain amount of lying and cheating from him but she flew under my radar. No wonder I have trust issues.

(deep breath in, and we're out of time for today)

Riiiiight... so dinner... Chinese food is always a popular option when the husband is not part of the picture. But so is middle-eastern. Hummus and schwarma? Teryaki Chicken with rice? Cashew Chicken? Curry? Or do I (gasp) go to the grocery store (that would be that big building where you buy unprepared food, right?) and buy something to make for myself? I hate cooking for one. I love cooking for six or seven but one or two seems like more trouble than it's worth.

knitting content tomorrow!!

The Log Cabin baby blanket is going well......

It is about 11 x 14 here - it will require some blocking but it is a very fast thing to knit. There is something really satisfying about picking up all of those stitches. This would be a really easy first *big* project for someone new to knitting. It's all garter stitch and there is a LOT of practice casting off and picking up stitches. And, for me, after several pairs of socks it's nice to use bigger needles for awhile!

Don't worry, the second Crusoe sock is coming soon...
Oh, and look how good I've been:


I sewed in some of the ends last night!! I never do that. There is a very nice baby blanket (whose very nice baby is coming any second now) that has about a zillion ends that still fly free...

In other news - we managed to make it through the night without anyone bleeding (dieu, merci). I'm still in a state of "Wha?!?" about the whole thing... we did have (what my friends used to call) a doopty-doo moment or two. For example, in the summer we have extended bedtime. Now she has to be invisible at 9 and lights out at 10. Understand that on Saturday and Sunday nights I have been awake since five in the morning and while I do get to rest in the afternoon I haven't had a proper nap and am so ready to remove the mom face and just be the blank, tv-watching slug that every nap lover wants to be! Here was our bedtime conversation:
(9 pm)
Me: Bean, it's 9 o'clock, time to get ready for bed!
Bean: Ok, mom
(9:45)
Me: Bean, fifteen more minutes
Bean: Ok, mom
(10:00)
Me: Time for bed, pumpkin head
Bean(not yet in pj's): Oh, I need to take a shower.
Me (sighing): Nope, it's 10. Take a shower in the morning
(10:05)
Bean: Mom, can I read for awhile?
Me: (growing decidedly more frustrated) It is 10:05, what do you think I'm going to say?
*(Note, she reads all of the time. Constantly. I am NOT discouraging her from reading).
Bean (sadly): No. (whining) I just didn't realize how late it was.
Me (twitch, twitch): Good night.

The XXX picks her up tonight for a week. You know I'm going to miss her terribly but for at LEAST 24 hours it will be nice to have a conversation that does not start with "Mom? Do we have clean towels? Like, a lot of clean towels?"

My birthday is coming (hip hooray, five sheep shop for the big, big day) - anyone remember that book? Just me? If you have kids, go find Sheep in a Shop (or Sheep in a Jeep, but I like the first one the best. There are others but these are the ones I know). "Sheep like beach balls, sheep try out of reach balls. Sheep fumble, boxes tumble, sheep fall in a great big jumble." It just kills me.
ANYWAY.
My friends and family always say I don't tell them what I want (despite my EXTENSIVE Amazon wish list) so I'm going to list a few things for them. This is not a "buy me stuff" list, this is a "well if you were already planning on buying something for me here are a few things to put you in the right direction" list.
-Big Girl Knits and/or Classic Knits for Real Women and/or any of the dozens of books on my Amazon list
-A Yarn Baller and swift
-Yarn or a gift certificate for a store that sells yarn or Knitpicks.com - I luuuuuuv Knitpicks.
-Rachel Ray's knives (or cheaper knives like them. I saw some at Target for, like, $25
-A subscription to The New Yorker
-One of those gel eye masks that you keep in the fridge
-Those manicure gloves that you wear to bed after you soak your hands in lotion
-A manicure
-A lunch date. Seriously. I rarely see anyone anymore - we're all so busy that I would just like some time with my friends.

The Karma of Parenthood

Remind me to not get so smug about how adult and responsible my child is, ok?
So Bean was still awake when I got home last night so I talked to her for a minute and told her to get ready for bed. I was tired and had a headache (yes, again. I don't know what to think about this) and I got ready for bed. I heard the shower turn off and she came out of the bathroom and then she's in the bedroom, the husband not far behind. She has a cut on her arm - a scrape, really. A section of her arm near her elbow, it's about the size of a nickel. And it's bleeding (but not a lot) and she's crying so I say "Wow, honey what happened?" Get ready for this. Seriously. Especially if you have kids or want to have kids someday. She says "I wanted to know what shaving was like and then I cut my arm." She wanted to know what SHAVING was like so she shaved part of her arm?!? No. She wanted to know what shaving was like so she shaved BOTH arms. It was the right arm that she cut - sort of like what happens when you're right-handed and you have to polish the nails on the right hand with the left and they look crappy - only with a razor. I said, "You shaved your arms?" She starts crying again and says (I am not kidding here) "Yes, but not very well." At this point I was dumbfounded. I couldn't even yell.

First of all, WHO DOES THAT?!?
Secondly, I haven't had to baby-proof my house since she was four and now I have to do it again now?
Third, isn't this the kid who is so self-sufficient it's scary??

Luckily, I noticed that she still had conditioner in her hair so I sent her back to the shower. This gave us a chance to regroup and process this. She's a smart kid, she really is, but what the hell? So she gets out of the shower, we put a band-aid on it and we talked to her about it. It's not so much the razor as it is the idea that there are things out there that she knows she should not do and it frightens me that her thought process is "hmmmm, I wonder what this is like, I think I'll try it," without thinking about the consequences. She said that she shaved both arms so that they would "match" and she wouldn't get caught. I said "Oh child, I made you. I know every mole, every scar and every inch. Did you really think you could shave the hair from your arms and I wouldn't notice?"
I was probably nine or ten when I tried a razor. I shaved a spot just above my knee, it was noticed and there was a discussion... but she shaved her arms. (Who DOES that?!?)

What else am I missing? Don't eat tacks! Don't use Pine Sol as bubblebath! Don't get into mommy's migraine medicine!

SERIOUSLY!!

So she goes to bed and the husband and I handled it the way we always do - we made fun of her. "Whew," he says, "that was a close shave." I couldn't get that scene from The Wall out of my head. You know, now that I think about it, I went to a screening of The Wall when I was about 6 or 7 months pregnant. I had this worry in the back of my head that it might "do something" to my child to watch something disturbing like that. (Understand, I worked with women then that said that crying during pregnancy would produce a sad child). You don't suppose I warped her, do you?!?

Some knitting, some story, some favorites...

Here is that fair isle sock that I'm not knitting... It seems to have grown, achieved a heel and finished the side decreases. I seriously think this sock is cursed. First the abandoned, too small sock that preceded it and now I'm knitting without a real pattern. The original pattern had a horrid little heel with no picking up of stitches to start the foot. Phooey on that.

The problem is that the fair isle pattern has to keep going, otherwise you get a big blob of dark blue in the middle of your pretty patterned sock so I am knitting along bravely with no real idea if I'm going to end up with anything wearable.

Then last night at my Knit in Public meeting the pattern blew away. Away away. Like, over the rail into the street and away. Several members offered to go get it for me but, seriously, that's a lot of effort for a $2 pattern that I hate anyway.

So I'm driving away at the end of the meeting and I spied it caught in some grass so I stopped and rescued it. Of course, now there's no reason not to keep moving forward with this bastard sock. (~le sigh~). I hope some other project doesn't get in the way and distract me from finishing... Wait a minute, what's that?


Why, it's the beginning of a log cabin baby blanket as described in Mason Dixon Knitting. Imagine that!
It's hard to see from the picture but the colors are dark blue, light yellow, mint green and light blue. The next color stripe will be white and then I'll continue in that order until it is roughly "wrap the baby" size and it will (with any luck) be done before the baby is. Here's the problem... all of that changing of color nonsense is pretty and all, but you know how much I love to sew in the ends, right?


So the electrolysis...
First of all, it's not that painful so don't be such a big baby. I know the whole "First we insert an needle into the follicle" part sounds really bad, (like, really really bad) but you don't feel it until the electricity hits and then it's really just a little "ping" and then it's over. There were a few places that made this little hum all the way to my toes but when we hit a spot like that she'd do one and then move to another area and then come back and do another one. I would say "no sweat" but I was seriously sweating. I think it was just in anticipation - for part of it I was wearing those odd goggles you wear when you tan (not that I tan - and neither should you, cancer aside, it makes your skin leathery and icky I don't care how much cocoa butter you use) so I couldn't see anything. The other worrying thing was that I am actually allergic to certain kinds of metal (I don't often wear earrings because after about 30 minutes I want to rip them out of my ears and scraaaaaaatch) but so far I haven't had any kind of reaction. I don't think I could stand more than 30 minutes or so at a time because it really is sort of annoying after awhile, but all in all I think it was a great thing. I will be going back every 2 weeks or so until it's gone.

Friday Favorites
(I know it's supposed to be Thursday Favorites but what are you, my boss?)

Favorite Nail Polish (name and color): OPI "I'm Not Really a Waitress" (I promise, I'll stop using the fun colors while I type)

Favorite fruit: Banana - everything you need in a kicky yellow wrapper

Favorite embarrassing movie that I want to see: "The Lake House". I know. It's like the Miller Light version of The Time Traveler's Wife... You know, that's still the thing that pisses me off so much about the whole Pitt/Anniston/Jolie situation - Jen and Brad had a movie production company and had purchased the rights to The Time Traveler's Wife and I was really excited about it and now what? Pitt's an ass-clown. (Yes, I'm aware that they're not making decisions in their personal lives based on what movie I want to see but until any of them calls me to talk about what happened and actually personally involve me in their Lifetime Movie of the Week all I care about is that a movie that I want to see isn't being made because Pitt couldn't keep his marriage together for, what, eighteen more months?? He can rot in hell.
(But seriously, Jen, call me!!)

Favorite sport: Tennis - We bought Bean her first tennis racket (racquet? neither look right, though dictionary.com says both are fine) today. She starts lessons next week. I think I'm more excited than she is but I'm really hoping that we can find SOMETHING active that she'll like to do.

Favorite D'oh! moment: My work spouse and I were supposed to go to our book club tonight. She stayed up really late last night to finish it and then this morning she got a really beautiful floral delivery. It's her wedding anniversary. Oops. Work spouse says she didn't actually forget it was her anniversary. She knew her anniversary was the 2nd and she knew it was the 2nd but she just didn't put the two things together in her head. Don't try this at home.


So I'm off to discuss Wicked and Son of a Witch (which I finished before noon today, btw. Yay me).

Pledge Now, Pledge Often

Please pledge to your public radio station. You have no idea how much money we don't have. Nationwide, out of every nine listeners only one pledges. Where I live, it's more like 1 out of every 16. Our costs are going up - the national distributors are increasing their prices (Thanks, Garrison) and the money we get from the state and federal government is going down. If you are a public radio listener and have not pledged please call your local station and pledge what you can.

Thanks for the platform!

Friday Favorites and Electrolysis Tales tomorrow!!