Fuzzy Love

Procrastination

Mark's parents are arriving here soon for a short visit on their annual pilgrimage to Scottsdale. Now, perhaps your household is more on top of this sort of thing, but around here preparing for overnight guests means one thing: cleaning. Cleaning out the back of the fridge, putting away all but one of the knitting projects cluttering up the sofa, cutting a path through the toys in our guest room/study. So, this weekend, we had but one goal: to tidy up.

It didn't happen.

But we did find lots of other things that had to be done.

For example: Mark up and decided that we could not wait one more moment to have some bats decorating our front yard. I swear to god, that man actually got out some plywood and a jigsaw (that was still in the box), downloaded a template from somewhere, cut out a stencil (with adjustable wings) and made eight bats, complete with googly eyes.

This is not normal behavior.

Oh, and ghosts! We needed ghosts. Made with some old white napkins I couldn't get stains out of.

But those two projects hardly took up the whole weekend. So there was leaf-raking.

And pumpkin-carving.

And, when it was dark and we couldn't think of anything else to do but clean, we made origami bats. For the bat mobile, of course.

(Liam was in charge of all faces.)

Plus I cast on for yet another knitting project. I can't show it to you here yet because it is going to be a present, but those of you in Ravelry can see it if you want to (the project starts with C, ends with S, and I am the last person in all of knitterdom to make one). I've joined NaKniSweMo and am planning to cast on for a Tangled Yoke cardigan for that, so I cast on knowing full well I won't finish the gift project before I cast on again on Thursday.

But now, if you will please excuse me, I have to cut a path to the fold-out sofa.*

*What comfort guests experience in our house!

So Much for Autumn

I took that picture a few hours ago and there's a lot more down now. I think we beat out some parts of Alaska.

Good thing I have a warm sweater.

This yarn is so tricky to photograph; this picture actually makes the colors look more even than in real life. But it is the softest, squishiest sweater and I love it. I've had it on over a tank top all morning and feel nothing but softness. My only concern is that I have heard this yarn pills a lot, but I am hopeful that won't be too much of a problem; it seems like all my sweaters pill anyway.

I did make some changes. I added about three inches to the bottom and about four inches to the sleeves. I'm not sure why I had to alter the sleeves, since I think they look about the same length as the picture, but when I followed the pattern they barely covered my elbows. Maybe I have very long arms and didn't realize?

But I squeaked by with four skeins.

I finished up a couple of other little things this week. After all, what's a pirate without an eye patch? Or two?

I've made this pattern before, but it met an unfortunate end with the vacuum cleaner. Good thing it's quick and only requires a few yards of black chenille (or whatever you have, really, although I suppose it shouldn't be itchy). It's from Vickie Howell's book New Knits on the Block, but I bet you could figure it out all by yourself. Anyway, Liam has a story book about pirates and one of the lesser pirates wears two eye patches, so Liam decided he had to have two as well. He doesn't wear both for very long, however, for obvious reasons.

And Olivia? Well, her Katja has been reincarnated.

Mark took her to the grocery store yesterday. After she got her shoes on, she announced, "Be back," and climbed up the stairs to get a "hat."

And yeah, we left it on her.

Autumn

Sometimes, when the summer here is in the nineties for days on end, and playing outside is regulated to the early morning and late afternoon, I forget why I love Colorado. Actually, I grumble about it quite a bit. And then Autumn comes and it all makes sense again.

Autumn in the Scotia is (or at least it used to be - that place keeps getting warmer) a very short affair. It is also very wet, so the leaves, while much more vibrant and predominantly red than here, fall to the ground and stick there. But here! It is almost always dry, so the leaves are carried by the wind up into tall spirals that, when I first moved here, I thought could only be made of butterflies.

On Wednesday some friends and I took seven preschoolers to the zoo. It was a blustery day and, in one tree-filled spot, a huge gust shook hundreds (thousands?) of tiny yellow leaves free and they fluttered down around us. We stood under those trees for at least twenty minutes while the kids ran around chasing and collecting them - we brought home a wagon full - and we just watched. Really, really beautiful. (If only I had had my camera.) We also have a bowl of acorns and many giant seedpods.

And oh yeah: while watching little elephant shrews sniffing and scurrying and doing whatever it is elephant shrews do, Olivia pointed and, while pretend biting, said, "Um um um yummy!" Huh?

Anyway, these pictures around the yard will have to do. We spent a couple of warm afternoons this week playing with the leaves and playing "Scarecrow," which we decided isn't really that fun (we're just too good).

Thank You Peep

Have you ever seen Peep? It's a show for preschoolers that we are loving right now. It's a nice show about scientific discoveries by a yellow ball that's supposedly a chicken. And it has a really great theme song.

The show is set up with no commercials (yay!) and two ten-minute stories. After each story is a two- or three-minute clip of kids experimenting with the same sort of discovery made by Peep and friends. This is a great way to get ideas of things to do and we did one of them this weekend.

Sunday was a horrible, cold, rainy day here. We had hoped to go do some Hallowe'eny things, like a corn maze or a pumpkin patch, but it was not to be. So Mark and Liam went off to the build things store, spent $2.98, and brought home what is technically a pipe cozy (for, you know, pipes). It's a long, flexible tube. Cut it in half length-wise, add some masking tape and a bucket of marbles and your marble run just got living-room sized.

Good fun. Especially while working out the  loop-de-loop (or, as Liam says, "whoop-de-whoop"), which sent marbles careening all over, which in turn sent Fuzz pouncing all over. Quite a lot of entertainment for the price, if you ask me.

ETA: The whole list of Peep activities is online. This one is called High Rollers.

While Mark and Liam engineered, Olivia napped and I knitted. Mr Greenjeans is almost done.

I'm having real trouble photographing this yarn. It really is predominantly a dark navy blue, I swear, and the ball changes aren't nearly as dramatic in real life (at least I'm telling myself that). But honestly, this is the softest, poofiest, most wonderful wool I've ever laid my hands upon. There will be more Malabrigo in my life, I swear. I was actually hoping to eek this sweater out with just four of my six skeins, in order to continue to hoard the other two, but that's the fourth there and I don't think I'm quite going to make it. I did lengthen the body and arms by a few inches, after all. Happily, however, I will have enough left for a very soft and comfy hat. Maybe this one?

Joke of the day: What did one snowman say to the other snowman?

"Do you smell carrots?"*

*Thanks Kristan!

Fall Festival

We are so lucky. Liam's preschool Fall Festival was last week. It was held at a local stables so we had a hayride and a campfire with, of course, s'mores. That was a first for both kiddos, who adored them (of course).

(Fancy tights were de rigueur for all the smallest girls.)

And we got to meet the horses and feed them.

And there were activities too.

But, though I was rather clever in remembering to bring some anti-bacterial wash (since this was also a picnic), I did not remember to bring any sort of wipe.

Note: Marshmallows and hay are not a good combo.

Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Many people do the dinner thing on Sunday though, so people have time to travel back home on Monday (Canadians are flexible like that). We, going nowhere, celebrated yesterday because today is not a holiday in Colorado. I'm not actually sure why we're still celebrating two Thanksgivings at all, actually, except I guess that you can't have too much of giving thanks in your life.

Or turkey. And when I say turkey, I mean gravy.

Yesterday was also the Race for the Cure here in Denver and my friend Lisa and I walked together. We had lofty goals of rising before the sun and doing the all-woman walk at seven AM, but cold temperatures and the threat of rain changed our minds at the last minute. Turns out we would have had to have gotten up very early indeed to buy light-rail tickets ahead of all the technology-challenged people who couldn't figure out which three buttons to push to get downtown. Ahem. But instead we went to Starbucks, spent an hour on/about the train, and started whenever. Right in the middle of approximately 62,000 other people.

I didn't actually raise any money for the race. Bad, I know, but I did pay to register, of course. I felt like I had already pumped friends and family for a walk this year and didn't want to ask again (which is not saying I won't next year). Lisa raised a lot though. But I just walked. And strangely, it wasn't until the very end that I linked this experience in any way to my parents. A woman about my age was walking with a laminated paper pinned to her back that explained that she was walking in honor of her mother, who died of breast cancer this year. Her mother was born in 1950, which, of course, is too young. And on that paper was a picture of a happy, mom-aged, beautiful woman. So I cried a little bit. After all, cancer is cancer, right?

But mostly the race was amazing. Honestly, I could have fun with Lisa during a root canal, but it's also awesome (in the true sense of the word) to be a part of something so huge, so uniting, and so....pink.

We also got a hell of a lot of SWAG.

By the way, this is where most of the fun fur of the world has gone. Next year I vow to have a hand-knit scarf for everyone I walk with (but not a fur one).

Then, at dinner time, a little turkey breast (ha!), stuffing, gravy, pie, and those unimportant vegetables. Mmmmm.

We went around and around the table saying what we were thankful for. Here's the list:

• Our family (of course)
• Our friends
• Fuzz
• Swimmy
• Our health
• Our cozy home
• Mark's job
• School
• Baby dolls (this is where it fell apart)
• The trampoline next door (which we have never ever jumped on)
• Yarn
• Forks (okay, we're done).

So be a little thankful today, huh? And try to think of something better than forks.

Hallowe'en Sneak Peak

Arrr!

I don't know what Olivia says, but there's a lot of tulle involved.

And the beautiful thing on our table right now?

What's New: Kiddo Edition

Liam's big news:

That belt used to be orange.

The hardest part of the test seemed to be sitting quietly while he waited his turn. While waiting, Liam had to go to the bathroom. Now we've had a few discussions about using the bathroom during class, since when one kid goes, a chain reaction starts and they all end up needing to go. That, and Liam frequently forgets to shut the door, treating all the parents to a view of his naked butt (an awfully cute little butt, but still). So yesterday Liam had to go and, although he did shut the door, he also sang loudly the whole time he was in there.

In not-so-big news, he is making minions (guys, really). He can spend over an hour telling elaborate stories with these little people he's created. It's a kick to listen in.

Olivia's big news:

Um...no picture.

She has just started to use the potty! I'm excited. The end of all diapers is in sight and I can't wait. Although I'll probably tear up when it's all over.

Anyway, about a week ago she asked to pee in a potty. Where this came from, I don't know. Mark put it together and down she plopped and....well...peed. We threw a small party in the bathroom and she's asked to go every night since, just before bath. I haven't pushed it farther than that though. I figure the longer I wait, the quicker the transition will happen (the lazy parent's approach). And she's not even two yet, for heaven's sake. But sometime in the next three to six months she'll spend a lot of time running around naked and we'll see what happens.

In not-so-big news, she really likes to draw. Spirals, mostly. And in Easter egg colors.

There's more (there's always more), but let's pace ourselves, okay?

I Can Knit for Miles and Miles

Well, enough of that. Thank you for all the kind comments. I'm coping; it's just these setbacks seem to take me by surprise (why, I should be all better by now, shouldn't I?). Anyway, I do have a little something to show you.

(Liam took that picture. It's not meant to be artistic or anything; I was posing for Mark - shoulders down - and Liam grabbed our other camera and took this one. The shot from an angle just looks best, I think).

Fifi is finished. I think I un-knit this one almost as much as I knit it, but it's finally finished. And I really like this sweater with five extra inches on the bottom, I should point out. The weird thing is that the M pattern calls for five balls of yarn, so I bought extra, knowing that I'd want to lengthen it quite a bit. But I only used a smidge bit of that fifth ball, just to cast off and finish the arms. So now I have three balls of blue calmer to do something with. What's that? Take it back to the store? {scoff} It's Calmer. Besides, I bought it on super sale.

By the way, I'd love this sweater if I lost five pounds, but that applies to almost everything I wear, so what am I going to do? Give up Mocha Frappuccinos? I don't think so.

Up next: Mr. Greenjeans from the fall Knitty. I'm using some beautiful dark blues Malabrigo called Marine that I bought earlier this year on sale and have been saving for something. For some reason I want it to be a cuddly, highly-wearable, throw-on-on-the-way-out-the-door cardigan. But I couldn't quite get gauge, so I'm making a size small and hoping it will turn out somewhere between small and medium. This sucker is knitting up quickly too. And then: the Tangled Yoke Cardigan. Using - get this - more stash yarn.

Why all the stash stuff? Because I finally got every ball of stash (bigger than, say, an egg) into Ravelry. And I exported the not-so-little spreadsheet and discovered that I have approximately 22 miles of yarn. Let's say that again: 22 miles. So I was feeling a little greedy, a little bit like a hoarder, like those people that buy everything on EBay and then don't even open the boxes and they can't walk around their homes or use one of their bathrooms.

What does 22 miles of yarn look like, you ask?

Yeah, it's not that much, really. Well, there's another little basket next to the sofa and a Rubbermaid full of old crap (the sad bin of abandonment), but really, it's not that much. Especially when you look here or here and see what other people are doing. And have you seen how much room scrapbookers take up? Wow.

So, I've come to the conclusion that I'm really not that bad (really honey). I'm going to give a little attention to my stash (until Christmas, say) and then go back to doing what I've been doing. Or until I need more yarn.

Anyway. If you at all need some silliness in your day, and if you've ever heard of Eddie Izzard, check this out: Death Star Canteen, as performed by lego.