Fuzzy Love

Still Here!

Yup, still here. Packing and cleaning and worrying that all the things I have to remember to do are going to fall right out of my overstuffed brain.

The house is feeling pretty empty right now. All the pictures and fun stuff is long packed and we're left with the crap that will be dumped into boxes of mystery: two toys from under Liam's bed, a candle stick from the back of the kitchen cupboards, a soother from the backyard (yup), a pile of (gulp) unopened mail. How fun those boxes are to unpack!

While I have a few minutes though, I do want to tell you about the week without television. In a nutshell, it was good. And I honestly don't think the kids really needed this week, but Mark and I certainly did. We needed a jolt of something to keep us from turning the television on automatically, especially at the end of a long day. It really brought to light how often we turn on the television just out of habit. Instead we played a bunch of games, drank some wine, and (gasp!) talked. Crazy.

As for the kids: Liam didn't ask for a show even once. That boy, I swear, is so fantasy-rich (thank you Auntie Sue for that term), he didn't miss it one bit. Case in point:

The Three Billy Goats Gruff acted out with a minimum of lego. Complete with bridge and yellow troll.

Olivia, well....she had a harder time. One of our little routines is that she watches a show while I shower in the mornings. This keeps her from standing outside the shower door crying and asking me to "come back, Mommy!" No show = no stopping this behavior. I was tempted, really tempted to turn the television on each morning, but I didn't and she actually did settle down by the end of the week. She and I read a LOT of books together and I took a lot of short showers.

Keys to success were nice days so I could toss them outside during that cranky hour after nap/quiet time and before dinner. Also books really were useful, particularly some identification books on bugs, birds, and local mammals that I picked up at the library book sale (I so love the library book sale). Although that meant that I was called forth any time a critter happened in to my children's sights; they were mostly of the bug sort, unfortunately, and close-up pictures of bugs are not amongst my favorite things (let alone the actual bugs).

We also played more games. At the end of the first day Candyland got packed (it's lucky it didn't end up in the garbage) and we started making up our own, better, games. Like this one: give your small child a hug, but turn it into a tight squeeze (use your judgment here) until he/she makes a weird noise because you are squeezing him/her very tightly. Then guess what kind of animal makes that funny noise. The noises will soon evolve from "a cat being stepped on" and "angry bird" to real roars, ribbits, and moos. Very funny for all involved (trust me); we now play this a LOT. And yes, I do think it is better than Candyland.

We also did a lot of packing. When I got tired, they got kicked to the backyard so I could have some quiet time. One day I gave them half a cookie to share with an anthill in our yard. That kept them (and a bunch of neighbor children) busy for a long time, although I think the neighbor parents thought it was pretty strange. And both kids played dress up more. The box (Tickle Trunk?) is overflowing with additional odds and ends discovered while packing, so they got really in to it and put on a couple of plays (with Liam as director, writer, and star; Olivia copying everything he did or said).

I won't lie to you - there were many more fights between the kiddos. More time playing together just means more fights, I guess. That part drove me a little nuts. But the quiet, when there was some, was fabulous.

But that's over now. This last week here is practically brought to us by television, especially since 99.9% of all toys are packed up. I hope to get into a more balanced routine in the new house. So, just three more days to go! I'm sorry I'm not keeping up with all the blogs I love so much, or the emails, but give me a week or so and I'll catch up. (I swear, I'm not moving again for a very long time).

Peace!

It is so blissfully quiet in my house right now I can hardly believe it: Olivia is napping and Liam is visiting a friend. I should be cleaning, but I've decided that this opportunity is too rare to waste on something silly like that. Instead I'm having me a hot cup of tea, a couple of chocolate chip cookies, and a little computer time. Then I'll get down to some reading and knitting. If this television-free week has taught me anything, it's that I can, in fact, knit and read at the same time (thank you Stefani).

Also, that some little cars and some cardboard can keep a little girl busy for a very long time.

I should be cleaning because my in-laws are arriving today for a little visit. They are kind enough (and clever enough) to stay in a hotel this time, as this house is full of boxes and the other house is empty of beds and fridges, but of course they will still hang around here some of the time. I think the charade was over anyway; their last few visits have given them a sadly accurate impression of our housekeeping skills. But then I have never claimed or aspired to be a domestic goddess (and neither has Mark, for that matter). I did clear a path through the boxes from the living room to the bathroom though. And vacuumed the stairs.

And get this: I actually finished the hat! As I write it is on its way to Josh's head in Washington state. USPS, don't let me down! As he hasn't seen it I won't post a picture here yet, but of course I have some out on Ravelry (for the record, it isn't exactly easy to take a picture of the top of one's own head). 

Okay, I'm off to do something quiet for as long as it lasts. I hope you get some peace today too.

So, What Do We Do Without Television?

Olivia did some grass butterfly catching (please note our lovely grass).

I did some knitting, of course. I made it to the decreases!

We played a little bowling for blocks. Topless was optional.

We made cookies.

And, after the kids were in bed, Mark and I played Scrabble.

So, all in all, not that different from a normal day.

Except the Scrabble. We hadn't done that in a long long time.

Spiders, Sweaters, and (Possibly) Stupidity

God help me, my ass is tired. Mark and I spent most of the weekend shoveling out packing up our basement. Now, our basement was not a place in which we spent much time. Actually, it was not a place that we went at all without putting shoes on beforehand and washing our hands afterward. Frankly, the last couple of moves were done without a whole lot of purging, this house has not been big enough for some time, and apparently that basement is the ideal habitat for a whole bunch of spiders. There were boxes that hadn't been touched in years. Also a filing cabinet that we have moved two times without opening (still taped shut). Amongst other things, we found:

• all the books, swag, notebooks, and "awards" (such as the highly-cherished Who Moved My Cheese award) from my last cubicle
  
• every box from every piece of electronic equipment we've purchased in four years
• four computers, one monitor, three keyboards, and two Rubbermaids full of computer cables
• credit card statements, phone bills, and tax returns dating from 1994
• several BBQ accessories that our lovely children put away in the window well.

I knew it was bad down there; over the years that room has been a reliable source of low self-esteem for me. It's actually occurred to me that it would be absolutely mortifying if Mark and I died in some sudden tragic accident and family members saw all this pointless crap.

But it's all gone now, baby! There is a mountain of trash at the end of our driveway. And that's with taking out two loads to Goodwill and three boxes of to-be-shredded stuff (like those ancient statements). I actually thought about taking a picture for you, but frankly it's embarrassing enough that my neighbors can see it (same reason why there's no "before" shot). Here's what it looks like now, with probably one third of the stuff that was in there yesterday morning:

Please note the dead-spider-free floor. I still wouldn't eat off it, but I would now let my kids down there in bare feet.

Perhaps the most bizarre thing I found down there was this:

That, my friends, is a sweater. A cables-with-lacy-bits, blocked, shoulder-seamed, and almost freakin' finished sweater. That I vaguely recall working on while preparing for my wedding. In 1998.

The pattern is missing, but it took less than five minutes on Ravelry to figure out what exactly it was (it helped that I only really had Vogue Knitting magazines back then). But then everything is complete but the neck, so I could easily finish it even without the pattern. Except for one unfortunate fact: I did NOT find any more of the yarn. Trust me, we went through every box down there. It's a nice scratchy wool with lots of white flecky bits in it, so I suppose I could find another use for it if I have to. But it certainly would be nice to finish the thing, what with it being such a surprise and all. (And Jeezy Creezy, now I have another WIP).

But now that I've washed the cobwebs out of my hair and am sitting on my ass, I'm feeling pretty good. Our move date is still three weeks away (May 9th!), and our largest and most god-awful task is behind us.

On to the next bit of craziness: Mark and I decided to participate in TV Turnoff Week this year. That means no television for one week starting tomorrow. Mark had to think about it a bit but he's on board now, which I find funny since he's not the one home with the kids all day where it is highly tempting to put on a show just to get through one simple goddamn phone call.       Ahem.      Anyway, we're not cutting out computer time completely, but we will cut back and do the bulk of our surfing, blog-reading, emailing, and posting when the kids are asleep or very much occupied.

In preparation I got even more books from the library (like The Treasury of Family Games), we have lots more packing to do, and beautiful weather is forecast. I've promised to teach Liam to play checkers and he dragged a 1000-piece puzzle out of the basement. Olivia has a new pad of drawing paper and her very own box of crayons. And Mark has just got sucked into The Dangerous Book for Boys. It does worry me a little that more than half of the kids' toys are packed but, oddly, they don't seem to miss them much. Instead they've been into the dress-up box a lot, which has had new stuff added as I've sorted through things.

Why are we doing this now, you ask, just as we are preparing for a move and maybe more than a mite bit stressed? Did you read the title?

Sooooo, wish us luck! I expect to have a bunch of new ideas on how to entertain small children by the end of the week. Assuming we make it, that is. I MUST be strong.

(Pray for me.)

Coming to Terms with Mental Illness

Josh: keep surfing!

Remember how I said a friend (the aforementioned Josh) asked me to knit him a hat? Well, to say that the request threw me into a tizzy would be an understatement. No one outside of my family has ever asked me to knit him anything before. After a little discussion, we agreed that he'd like something along the lines of this:

A watch cap. Simple. Piece o' cake.

Except that, since most of my friends are relatively unaccustomed to hand-knits, I wanted to be sure that this hat would dispel any lingering myths that might persist in their minds about them. That is: that they are itchy, chunky, and generally look hand-made.

So I decided to knit the best damn watch cap on the planet.

The pattern is the Classic Watch Cap (Ravelry link) from the book Hats On! and the design is based on the official watch cap worn in the real Navy. One by one ribbing. Ten stitches to the inch. Size 2 needles. With the flipped up part, twelve inches long.

Yes, I do have some perfectionist qualities that get in the way of my everyday life. Why do you ask?

That's a week worth of exclusive knitting right there.

(You know, if all those WWII knitters had just used chunky yarn a lot more soldiers would have had warm heads.)

Feel-Good Day

First up: you people are fantastic. Look what I've got:

I couldn't find all of the recommendations, but I will. Besides, this is probably enough to start. Clearly I'm turning this into a little project, huh? Thanks for helping; I'll keep you posted (this calls for a spreadsheet!).

The temperature here topped out somewhere in the mid-seventies today. After dinner the four of us couldn't resist one more trip outside.

(Some good friends are in town this weekend and a bunch of us went for pedicures yesterday. Not something I'm good at maintaining, and I'll tell ya, the poor lady had to work pretty hard on me - have you ever seen Dumb and Dumber? Ah well.)

The point is that, after the trip to the playground, Liam decided he wanted to walk in the opposite direction of home. It was such a beautiful evening, just at that time when the shadows are long and the light is golden, that we decided to follow him on a meandering stroll through the neighborhood. On that little trip we saw new leaves on the trees, a bunny, a spider, lots of ants, and a bird's nest. We also sniffed daffodils and blew dandelion fluff. It was child-led, and lovely.

And this is a round-about way of saying happy birthday to my wonderful Aunt Sue. (It was your kind of walk, Sue; wish you were on it with us.)

Indulge Me, Please

It is a flippin' freezing day here, with snow and rain and biting wind. You know what this sort of day is good for, right? Curling up under a warm blanket with a good book, of course! Now, throughout the course of this moving thing we're supposedly doing, I've noticed a small trend on my bookshelves: children's chapter books of the elementary-school sort. Without really thinking about it, I've been picking up new copies of my childhood favorites (most of my beaten-up originals are in a box in the basement) in anticipation of reading them out loud to my kids. It's one of those parenting fantasies to which I am prone: just imagine the four of us curled under a warm blanket next to a warm fire, taking turns reading aloud, the kids asking for pleeeease just one more chapter....  Anyway, I started thinking about the books I adored, I made a list, and I thought I'd share it with you all.

Sooooo, if you have a favorite that I'm missing, could you please tell me about it? I promise I'll read it if you do; I already picked up a copy of Mr. Popper's Penguins at the library on my friend Sara's recommendation - I swear, she positively glowed while talking about it. That's the kind of book I'm looking for. I just wasn't expecting penguins.

Okay, here they are, complete with old covers because pictures are more fun:

Pippi Longstocking: the super-strong parent-less girl who lives alone with a monkey and a horse and a suitcase full of gold. There's a new version out last year with illustrations by Lauren Child, the Charlie and Lola author.

Anne of Green Gables: I've read everything that Lucy Maud Montgomery ever wrote, including her diary. I've seen the Anne of Green Gables movie, I've been to the play, I've even been to her "home" in Cavendish, PEI. And I'm going to drag my husband and children there this summer and take pictures and buy a huge boxed set of the Anne series as a souvenir. And what a great time to do it - the book is 100 years old in 2008.

Charlotte's Web: Who didn't love this book? (If it was you, don't tell me.) A pig makes friends with a spider...look, you all know it, don't you?

The Little House on the Prairie: Same as the show but without Michael Landon. I ate up the whole series.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and especially Revolting Rhymes: Anything by Roald Dahl, really, although these are the three I remember as my favorites.

A Wrinkle in Time: I'm not quite sure how to describe this one, but it was my favorite when I was ten and for a while afterwards. It's another one with Christian under-themes, but I certainly didn't know that as a child.

Socks: Beverly Cleary wrote a lot of books, but this was by far my favorite. But I need to re-read it; all I remember is that it's written from the cat's point of view.

Do you see Liam getting into that one? Anyway, anything by Judy Blume, really. (except Forever..., which I bought by mistake as a child and hid under my mattress for years).

The Princess Bride: I'm not actually sure that this is a children's book, but if Peter Falk can read it out loud to a kid, so can I. By the way, although I adore the movie, the book is even better.

The Phantom Tollbooth: My favorite teacher of all time (Mr. Willett, grade six) read this to my class. When a young boy is very very bored, a tollbooth appears in his bedroom. He passes through and ends up in an entirely different world. Lots of wordplay; for example, he visits the Island of Conclusions, to which he must jump.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler: A brother and sister run away and hide in a museum. They take baths in the fountain and collect all the change. I thought seriously about if I could make this work, but was thinking more along the lines of a department store. With a toy department.

The Hobbit: I would never have picked this out for myself, but I got it as a birthday present and loved it. Dragons, treasure, wizards: what's not to love?

Island of the Blue Dolphins: I dare you not to love this book. A 12-year-old Indian girl, during the evacuation of her village's island, jumped ship to stay with her young brother who had been accidently left behind. He died shortly thereafter, and she fended for herself on the island for 18 years.

In reality Liam and I are reading his first chapter book together now. It's Stuart Little, which is a very good first chapter book - there are little drawings on almost every page. So far so good.

So come on; whatcha got?

Another Day in the Neighborhood

For about half an hour today I thought Olivia might never sleep again. I was just about to put her down for a nap when I realized I hadn't seen a soother (Canadian for pacifier, if you're wondering) in a long long while. Certainly she was plugged when she went to bed last night, but since then they had all completely disappeared. Now I realize she's old enough to go without pacification - I expect to get comments from the public whenever she's out and about with one - but we keep waiting for a less stressful time to ditch the habit. We're moving right now, for Pete's sake (it might not look like it, but we are). Anyway, the point is that as of today she still needs one while sleeping and I couldn't find one to save my soul. At one point I even checked the yard, because she's been playing out there a lot lately and you never know.

Have you ever heard that, wherever you are, there is a spider within three feet of you? I swear that I must always be within three feet of a soother, but they hide from me (and possibly laugh). We must have close to a hundred hidden around our house and car, but damned if I could find even one.

Finally I found one under my bed. A reasonable place, and one probably I should have checked before going outside. By this time Olivia was whining, "Mommy, I'm tired" and Liam was done asking nicely for help with his miniature race track and was whining too. Soooo....fast forward past book reading and cuddles and Liam coming into Olivia's room to declare, "Mommy, I'm fwustwated that no one is helping me," and I'm just about to leave Olivia in bed. She looks up at me and says, "Mommy, me need two soo soos."

Sure honey. Wait right here and I'll be back as soon as I find one.

Olivia and I actually had a lovely morning together. After dropping Liam off at preschool we stopped in to the library. They had a few new knitting books in (although nothing that turned out to be too exciting) and Olivia made some friends while I perused them. I went specifically to get some sort of stitch dictionary, as I'm doing a traveling scarf exchange through Ravelry, and I needed a reference. The gist of the exchange is that you knit the beginnings of a scarf - four to six inches - then slap it onto a stitch holder and mail it off to someone in your group. That person will knit another four to six inches in the yarn and stitch of her choice, and then mail it off again. The scarf makes its way around a circle of knitters and comes back to you in about six months time. I honestly don't expect that I'll wear whatever comes of it, but I do plan on making it sort of a collective art piece in my craft area in the new house. Anyway, I picked up the Field Guide to Knitting, because it is small and I'd forgotten my library bag. It claims to show me "how to identify, select, and work virtually every stitch," but I don't know about that, seeing as it has 161 stitches and that can't be ALL of them, can it? But it is complete enough so I'll keep it checked out as long as they'll let me and then I'll probably pick up my own copy.

By the way, on the way into the library we passed a little girl, perhaps four years old, who was dressed in head-to-toe pink and waiting on the sidewalk for her mother, who was gathering library books from their car. Olivia and I passed by her and Olivia said, out of the blue, "Hi princess!" The little girl said, with a touch of awe, "How did she know I'm a princess?" Takes one to know one I guess. Turns out the girl's name is Jasmine. I imagine she will be quite popular in kindergarten.

Olivia and I also dropped by one of my local yarn stores to pick up that last bit of yarn I'm buying for my friend's hat. The yarn had to be about sport weight, navy blue, and not too itchy, and to my surprise they recommended Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool. I was worried that wouldn't be warm enough, but the two employees worked together to convince me it will be, plus it's a great navy color. So I'm going to cast on for this hat (Ravelry link, sorry) as soon as I'm done here. The pattern is an adaption of the official Navy hat, and I really hope he likes it.

As for Liam, he's got a new favorite joke (that actually makes sense; usually he makes up his own).

Why did the chicken cross the playground?
To get to the other slide!

Finally, we spent some time over the weekend moving our bird feeders over to the new house (this is the sort of thing you do when you are moving without an urgent deadline). I've set up a spot outside the family room window and I plan to keep a little guide to Colorado birds on the windowsill. But back at the old house, Sir Liam was worried about the birds in this neighborhood, so I gave him some seed to put on the deck railing. He didn't come back in very quickly and when I looked outside I found him like this:

Waiting for the birds to sit on his finger and eat. (Tell me, how do you disappoint such sweetness?)

Okay, is that enough randomness for you? I'm off to cast on.

Meeting the Harlot

If you aren't into knitting, you might as well surf on. At best you won't care; at worst you will find this disturbing.

The Yarn Harlot came to our neighborhood bookstore last night. For those who don't know, she's a knitting comedy writer (really). Mark didn't get it AT ALL, but off I went as soon as he got home to take my place in line. It was a long line.

I was number 94, but no matter. My place in line was next to some lovely (and very funny) knitters and the time actually passed very quickly. I'm not sure how many people were actually there, but I know it was over two hundred and that the book store was a mite surprised.

Anyway, thanks to the people in that knitting group I've been going to (who waited much longer than I did), I got to sit right up front (thank you!). And I mean RIGHT up front - second row. So close I could have almost poked her with a needle.

And she was interesting and so damn funny. Much of her talk was about the meditative aspects of knitting, which is something I'm hugely interested in (well, meditation in general is something I've been thinking about lately - little did I know I'm already doing it on a regular basis). Anyway, I laughed until there were tears - seriously. Plus I adore her accent; it's Upper Canadian with just a touch of rural Nova Scotia (and lo and behold, she has family in Dartmouth), and half my family shares it. That accent makes me homesick.

Most impressive: she managed to be charming and sincere at the same time, even though I was number 94 in line and didn't speak to her until almost 10:00. She had to be exhausted.

I honestly loved her. She gave me a Canadian test. When she said that she was going to, I did a deer-in-the-headlights thing for a second: "Is she going to want me to sing the anthem in French?" and "The Yarn Yarlot is going to think I'm lying about being from Canada!" It did involve singing,* but not the anthem. I passed. Phew.

Her new book, by the way, is really funny.

ETA: I'm on her blog! Tiny, but I'm there: first picture, second row, black shirt.

*If you are Canadian, you can complete this song: "When you eat your Smarties..." Apparently it's something we carry with us forever.

Malabrigo March Madness and an Announcement

I caught the Malabrigo bug. It wasn't hard. Over the month I ended up with six skeins total (please, admire my restraint) and, at 216 yards a skein, man does that make for a lot of projects. So I've been knitting like a fiend all month. Here's some of what I've (pretty much) finished. My apologies for including a couple of things you've seen before, but I couldn't resist the mosaic maker. (Expect to see a lot of these in the future.)

1. Foliage  2. The Boy Hat  3. Mini Mitten 
4. Koolhass  5. A Better Bucket (felted)  6. Celtic Cable Neckwarmer 
7. Foliage  8. Easter Bunny  9. A Better Bucket

By the way, with the exception of Koolhass, all those patterns are free.

Malabrigo may be my new favorite yarn. It's 100% wool but incredibly soft, the colors are fabulous, and it knits up quickly on 6-8s (4mm-5mm) needles. I'm actually looking around for little projects to use up the leftovers. And it is the perfect yarn for hats and scarves; not only is it soft, but it pills like crazy if you knit it into a very soft and squishy sweater (like I did). It's best for things that don't get a lot of swishy action.

But no more Malabrigo for me for a while; I'm (eep!) on a yarn diet. The reason for this is simply that I have, in my possession, the yarn for the top twenty items in my queue. Yes. Twenty. I can't continue to ignore the stash.

Granted, these projects are oft-times in my queue because I have the yarn for them, but that's no excuse. That's all stuff I want to knit, after all. But remember way back last fall when most of my (22-mile) stash fit into four tidy plastic bins?

It doesn't anymore. Now there's a lot of overflow, a lot of unfinished projects, and even a huge bag of Cotton-Ease (it was on sale).

I'm afraid to calculate the miles now.

Since I have already perused all the Spring magazines I want to, I should have a stable queue at least until Summer and there's no need for more yarn until then, right? So (heh hemm) I hereby solemnly swear that I will not buy ANY yarn until June 21st. And then only with the gift certificate that my husband will surely get me for my birthday in early June (hint, hint honey). The yarn diet will continue either until I can fit everything into my four tidy plastic bins, even if I have to sit on them to do it, or until the fall magazines come out. Whichever comes first.

Except that a friend just asked me to knit him a blue hat (which I am so excited to do) and I don't have any appropriate yarn for it....BUT THAT'S IT!

Note: Knitting a Foliage in worsted with only two pattern repeats makes a beautiful toddler hat. When done in pink, the leaves look like flower petals and a certain little girl will wear the hat all day, inside and out, until you make her take it off for bath because she doesn't need to felt it.