A Cold Weekend

It's shivery cold here. This week Barnes & Noble is having a teacher appreciation sale, so we're going to head over and see if there's anything we don't need, but will get anyway. DD loves to read Junie B. books, so we'll see if there are any she doesn't have.

Actually, I've been trying to figure out how to insert a link and have it say something besides the actual link name, and it looks like I might have figured it out! Yeah, me!

I cast on and knit the first few inches of my Ripples sock last night, thus avoiding the dreaded SSS. I totally see why SSS happens - you finish the first sock and put everything away for awhile. When you pick up the needles and yarn to start the second sock, you've forgotten all of the little things. Since the pattern was written cuff down, and I'm knitting it toe-up, I couldn't remember how many stitches I cast on. Also, I discovered that I did a different heel than I'd done (and become enchanted with) on my two most recent pairs. Oh well, it's a good learning experience for me. Never abandon a first sock! Everything will be okay - I love the pattern and the yarn, and really want to finish this pair.

I still have my shawl, ds4's scarf and dh's afghan to finish also, so there's plenty of knitting/crocheting to do. Since it's so cold, I may just pull out the afghan and work on it - crocheting and keeping warm. With a nice cup of tea at my side, the day may just be bearable after all.

Monthly Dishcloths 2008

I'm on the Monthly Dishcloth Yahoo group, and they do a KAL twice a month. Quite a few of the members have made a commitment to do all of the KAL's this year - that's 24 cloths.

Here's the first one - it's a football. I had to grab a picture quickly, as ds4 decided it was his cloth and was trying to take it as I was binding it off.

Never too cold to knit!

It's cold and drizzly here, but great weather for knitting. We were supposed to go to tennis lessons, but you can't play tennis in the yuck. The boys were willing to go, but the mom was not; so here we sit.

Can I just say that if I hear "Smoke on the Water" one more time I'm going to cry! DS3 fancies himself a rock star in the making, but only plays the first 12 notes of the song - over, and over, and over..... Maybe it's not menopause that's making me loopy?

Finished my January Sockamania pattern this morning. It has a dropped stitch pattern, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to do it, but it turned out wonderfully. That tiny bit of pinkish yarn is all that was left when I was finished. Talk about cutting it close! Now I've got to finish my Sockamania Ripple sock (did one, not the other) and I won't have any socks in the works. Not to worry, my February Sockamania pattern will be here soon.

Playing Games

We've recently begun playing a game that I've been dragging around with me since I was a child. It's a board game called "Agoniz'n" that was made in Bakersfield, CA (c 1962). It's a marble game, similar to Trouble.

Growing up, we always played it whenever we got together with my father's family. They were all in Bakersfield; we were in LA. Visits always involved staying over with my grandmother, eating at a great Chinese restaurant (in Bakersfield?), and playing either Agoniz'n or Contract Rummy.

We haven't been able to play the game for years. It requires colored marbles, and I couldn't find solid color marbles. Chinese checkers seemed to be the obvious place to look, but the newer games all come with plastic marbles and they just don't work for this game. The only glass Chinese checker marbles were always associated with a game that was just too costly, and since I'm cheap, I didn't buy them.

A few weeks ago, I happened upon a game store that carried "replacement Chinese checker marbles" for a reasonable price. So, we can now play Agoniz'n, and I can relive my childhood.

I'm feeling younger already!

Should we believe Dr. Phil?

Have you ever heard Dr. Phil say "If you act happy, you'll be happy" or something like that? We've all been mopey lately (turning into an old lady really chaps my hide), so dh and I decided that we would just start acting happy.

Much easier said than done. My kids think that I must be hitting the Valium or something. I tried to do some yoga and Ed (the dog) thought that I was planning to play with him and jumped on me. Not exactly something that brings the zen into your life.

Well - this is only the first week of the act happy idea. We got the purple "don't complain" bracelets from http://http://www.acomplaintfreeworld.org/ and the boys discovered that they could be used as lethal weapons. That just got me to complaining and the bracelets were soon out with the trash. Not that I'm complaining....

Guitars and Toys and learning to add links

All three of the boys have decided to take guitar classes. Since they will be taking a group lesson, that means that I have to find two more guitars. Thank goodness for Craig's list and our lively local music scene. I found two guitars that will become members of our family without too much financial outlay. If only one of the kids could sing, we could have another Partridge family!

We've also been clearing out the old toys lately. It's always a big decision whether or not to try to sell things. The Little Tikes Green Mountain thing was a lot of fun, but takes up a lot of space so it's the next thing to go. I've been watching http://ebay.com to see what they're going for, and the sales price seems to be around $150! For that amount, I'm willing to let go :) I even think that we have a box big enough for shipping.

My Blue Socks

I started these socks while driving back from WDW in October. I only got one done because it was yucky and raining and I wanted to watch the road (no - I wasn't driving, just wanted to be a supportive wife). This is the only non-pink/purple yarn that I had. I really like the color and as soon as I've knit up the sock yarn in my stash, I'm going to buy more non pink/purple yarn.

Now that I've learned how to add pictures, I'm learning how to add a link. Not bad for an old lady :o)

Son Socks -- Finally

DS1 asked me to knit him socks for his birthday in April -- one problem -- I didn't know how to knit socks! I finally got up the courage to try in July, and knit DH a pair (which he hates). Then I started knitting socks for myself, that way if they weren't great, I would be the only one fussing about them. After a few months, I was ready to start working on DS1 Christmas socks.

Next problem -- wool socks need TLC, not exactly what men are known for (when it comes to laundry). So, I searched for sock yarn that was son friendly and finally settled on plain old Wool-Ease. They're relatively thick, but he can throw them in the washer and dryer.

Now everyone wants socks! Unfortunately for my sons, my sock yarn stash consists of pinks and purples! Teehee, more for me.

My sad trip to the frog pond

I dearly love these ripple socks, but I've finally decided that since I did something wacky on the heel I will frog them (down past the heel, not completely). I don't know what happened. This is the second time these poor things have been frogged through no fault of their own.

The first time I had decided to do the pattern without the purls. I was getting ready to do the heel (toe-up of course), and decided that the ripple pattern didn't show up as well as I liked without the purls. Thus the first trip to the pond.

After starting them again, this time with the purl rows, I really liked them and showed my bit-o-sock to anyone who would look. Since it's been hot here and we've been wearing flip flops up until today, it was easy to show off socks.

Well, things were going swimmingly until I started to turn the heel. I don't know what happened. I thought I was doing a simple heel, but something went terribly wrong. First, I was knitting so tightly that I ended up poking a hole in my finger trying to get the stitches off the needle. Then, whatever I did made the heel completely unstretchable. I could barely get the things over my feet.

Being the stubborn person that I am, I decided I could live with it and kept on going. I continued trying on the sock thinking that the sock fairy would come down and re-knit it while I slept, but that has not happened.

So -- this morning, like a grownup, I decided that I had three choices:
1. Knit the other sock exactly the same way and then never wear them cause I can't get them on comfortably.
2. Knit the other heel differently and then never wear them cause I'm a bit anal and would always feel uncomfortable that the socks didn't match.
3. Frog them and try again.

I have chosen to frog them. I love the pattern, love the yarn (Lorna's Laces in Island Blue), and it's good to let go of the past.

So, please join me in saying good bye to my current ripples. They were great and I will miss them until I see them again.

My Elegance Socks

I had a terrible time trying to get a picture of these socks into a blog, any blog. Now that I've figured it out, I present my Elegance socks from Sockamania's October pattern. They where knitted toe-up in Knit Picks Clematis Heather Palette, which is a heathery plum. It was soft yarn, but now I know what people mean when they say a yarn is "splity." The pattern is fantastic, and fits perfectly. This was the first time that I actually followed a pattern (I've only been knitting socks for a few months). Anni's patterns are great, and I look forward to many more.

Happy Thanksgiving?

Edgrrr, our supposed malti-poo, thought the dinner smelled so delish that he jumped up into an extra chair and waited patiently. DS 3 thought it was so funny that he got a dishcloth and made the dog a bib, which he sat and wore without complaint.

DS 3 then got the crazy idea that the dog should actually eat at the table. Well, dogs being dogs, as soon as DS 3 put some turkey on his plate, Ed grabbed a big hunk and wolfed it down! The princess was quite distressed that Ed hadn't gotten any cranberry sauce with his turkey. After the boorish behavior, Ed sat calmly and waited for DS 3 to cut him some more turkey and then kept staring at the food until he'd been given some mashed potatoes.

All this, and no margaritas!

My brilliant idea

I have ds3 and ds4 doing a modified Sonlight this year, which requires tons of books. I got the bright idea that if I bought the books used I would save a lot of money. And, since I was planning to buy the books used, I figured I'd make a list of all the books that all of the kids would need (apparently for the rest of their lives) and have been looking for the books.

This results in millions of books! I'm still trying to figure out a good way to organize the Sonlight books, the fun books and ds2's high school books (yes, I'm a planner - he's only in 9th and I've got most of the books I'm planning to use through the end of hs). I started by buying little round dots to put on the official Sonlight titles. Well, the dots are labeled permanent, but they aren't. So I had to put the dots on and then tape them. Then ds3 and ds4 got into an argument about who would get what color. Luckily neither wanted pink, because dd claimed that color.

Now I have pink (core 1 & 2), orange (core 3), red (core 4), blue (core 6), dark green (core 7), yellow (core 100) and bright green (core 5 - the result of another brilliant idea - combining core 5 with Trail Guide to World Geography). Correct, that is 7 boxes of books. I only need three of the boxes at the moment, where do I store the rest? I'm tempted to go down to Home Depot and but enough wood to make huge book shelves. Not that we don't have 20 or so bookshelves already. What I have ended up doing is going to Sam's and getting their left over boxes with the cut outs and standing up the books in them. It's working so far, but I would really like a tidier method.

Still trying to get pictures

I'm still trying to get pictures into the text of blogs. I tried lots and lots and lots of times to do it so that I could post the picture of my pretty feet modeling my Elegance socks from the Sockamania October pattern, but no luck. I finally gave up and just posted a description.

So, here goes again (picture of the fishyghan I made for a baby friend).

Oh my, it actually worked! I feel so much better.

DD says she's in charge of the dog. DS3 says he's in charge of the dog. DS4 is crying because he lost a tooth yesterday and didn't want any of us to know about it because he wanted to find out if the tooth fairy was real - and mom and dad both noticed the missing tooth. It's right in the front of his mouth -- how could we miss it? I hope that I remember for next time.

BTW, mom is in charge of the dog.

My Elegance Socks

I finished my Elegance socks from the October Sockamania pattern (did the toe up version) and really love them. This is the first time I've actually followed a pattern for socks (well, I did a slightly different thing for the toe), and was very pleased with myself. Now if it would get cool enough to warrant wearing wool socks...

I'm still trying to get a picture loaded into the text of these messages so that I can post my finished socks to the Sockamania group.

Maybe I'm just too old for this new technology.

I've got a friend!

I joined Ravelry a few weeks ago, but haven't really had much time to look around. When I finally got to it, I looked at the "friends" section and was soooo sad to discover that I didn't have any friends :(

Well, today I got a friend! Big thanks to Rachel's knitting group for being my friend.

How many UFO's can one person have before it is considered a problem? I'm trying to get some old stuff finished - especially the knit afghan strips I started 30 years ago. But - instead of finishing things, I'm thinking of new things to start (and, unfortunately, new things needing new yarn).

I'm still trying to figure out how to add pictures, and wondering why in the world I should even be making a blog, but, ......