I'm Sizzling... NOT!

I can't believe it has been a month and a half since I posted. This has been one wild and crazy summer. Piglet and I took a trip to Orlando to visit the parents. It was... well... like any visit with family. Shortly after returning we discovered that Annabelle, our 11-year-old Great Pyrenees mix, was very sick. We knew she was very anemic but it took several mortgage payments to figure out why. Turns out she has Immune Mediated Anemia, which, along with severe hip dysplasia, has made her extremely weak. She is now on Prednisone every day along with painkillers and glucosamine and Omega 3 fatty acids in hopes of getting her back up to speed. Our goal right now is to help her be comfortable until Big Boy gets home in December. Sadly, she was the only dog who would play with Baxter so now he is desperately in need of a friend. We decided it was either send him to “camp” every week or get him a puppy. Today he is off frolicking with new friends at our vet clinic’s daycare program!

The title of my post really does have a meaning. Last I posted I was working on Sizzle. It is finished… but I do not feel sizzling in it. The back portion is too large. Actually, it probably isn’t, but I tend to wear things that are more form fitting so I feel like it is. Last night at SnB we discussed a number of ways for me to fix this problem (without frogging) and most of them required a skill I do not have - sewing! I have to wonder if I should just stick to making blankets and scarves!

In the meantime I started two new projects. Reid is going to be a gift for Piglet’s half-sister for Christmas. It is done in light blue for the body and dark blue for the trim. She has the same blue eyes as Piglet so the blue will be beautiful on her. Of course as soon as I purchased all the yarn, the cashier at Michael’s handed me a coupon for 25% off my entire purchase this weekend. So, I returned all the yarn and will re-buy it on Sunday.

February Lady Sweater is the second project I cast on. The Superwash Bamboo from Elann is sooooo soft. I just hope the darn thing fits. It is top down construction so I get to try it on as I go. So far I am trying on each inch!

Lastly, I completed a sweater for Piglet. It is very cute. A little big, but cute. I have to make it big because the boy is growing every month. I just wish his head would stop growing, but I guess it is housing a big brain. He is coming up with new words every day and learning new stuff that scares the bejeezus out of me. His new favorite toy is my old cell phone. I never thought I would see the day when I had to tell my nearly two year old that he could not have his cell phone at the dinner table or take it to school.

Only 107 more days until Big Boy gets home… but who’s counting.

Happy 4th of July!

Gosh, it feels like forever since I last posted. Let’s see, I have done some stash enhancement, a little knitting and a lot of nose wiping. Piglet cut four more teeth, had pneumonia and an asthma attack. There have been trips to the park, the museum, playdates, a lot of sweat and a lot of nose wiping.

Stash enhancement has included eight more skeins of the Artyarns Royal Silk to finish up Sizzle as well as ten skeins of Superwash Bambooin order to do the February Lady Sweater and this lovely skein of Vesper that I scored in a destash on Ravelry. Yummy!!

I’ve managed to accomplish a little knitting. It is usually reserved for the evenings since, as the SnB gals will tell you, when the Piglet is awake, there is no time for knitting. The boy is nonstop. He is learning so much at school (or coooool as he calls it) and has recently blown me away with saying “thank you” in the correct context along with putting his empty cup in the kitchen sink. He is too short to reach so he just stands back and throws it in. The most recent is to mimic me putting on my bra, to include the um, frontal adjustments. And today, he discovered his own boobies and enjoys calling them boo boos. How can you not laugh at that!

Oh, you wanted to see the knitting. There is a second Hemlock blanket. It was supposed to be a wedding gift but I decided that two kids who don’t have a pot to pee in probably need dishes and not a hand wash and block blanket. If it doesn’t go to SIL, it will make a nice gift for someone else.

Next up is the Sizzle. The yarn is silk held with a strand of Zephyr to give it more weight. I am spoiled for anything else now. The yarn is so deliciously yummy. I just cast on for the front and I hope to have it finished by my Vegas trip.

Last is Piglet’s sweater. Due to my inability to do math, I changed the body from cabling to just 4x2 ribbing. The sleeves only will be cabled. Will it look funny? I thought it would be way too big for him but he seems to be in a constant growth spurt these days so it should fit perfect by fall.

This month we are off to Orlando to visit with Grandma and Papa and in August I go to Vegas with my two girlfriends and I am trying to squeeze in a trip to Maine for the wedding and my Grandmother’s 90th birthday party. I’m afraid I am going to have to sell my soul to the devil though and spend a day with the in-laws. I’m sure I will have great stories and photos to come!

Oh the places we will go

Edited to add better photos!








Before I tell you about our latest travels I will show you the latest in the Knotty repertoire of finished objects.

Details:

Pattern: Hemlock Ring Blanket from Jared Flood
Yarn: Ecological Wool by Cascade in Latte
Needles: size 10.5 Options
Size: Ginormous - seriously, this picture is taken with me standing on my bed (and I whacked my head on the ceiling fan - the things I will go through for ya'll)! I ran out of room on the foam blocks and had to pin parts of it to my bedroom floor - good thing I just vacuumed. Now I just have to find a way to keep all the feet off it for the night.

If I were to make this again I would probably change the bind off. The ruffled bind off is pretty but it is a PITA to block

Now, for the good stuff. Did you see me on television? Yep, I was on the news in several different cities. Last week Piglet and I headed to San Antonio to spend the weekend with Big Boy. We got to Atlanta on Wednesday night and as I walked to my gate I wondered why there were a bunch of long lines at the ticket counters. Little did I know! Our flight ended up being cancelled. Since I would have had to stand in a very long line with a toddler I opted to have Big Boy buy us some tickets on another airline - for the next day. The hotels all sold out so Piglet and I spent the night in Hotel Hartsfield! A local station interviewed us around 2:00 a.m. and apparently stations around the country picked it up. By the time our flight took off I felt like a Sherpa as I was carrying a baby, car seat, stroller, diaper bag and purse! So, that wasn’t bad enough… the next day got even better. Piglet exploded all over himself and his very last diaper. There I was, in an airplane with no diaper! Fortunately the flight attendants were willing to go up and down the aisle asking if anyone with a toddler was willing to give up a diaper. We ended up with a diaper too big and no clothes. Wait, it gets better… my luggage had not arrived when I got to San Antonio and Piglet was still naked. I finally broke down in the Target as I searched for things that would get me through the next two days without my luggage. The weekend ended up being fun despite it all. We spent time with friends and took Piglet to Sea World. I also got in a few hours at La Cantera mall where I played with the iPhone that I will eventually buy (and I bought a pretty pink case). I am happy to say that our trip home was uneventful. Well, with the exception of traveling with a toddler.


And speaking of the monster Piglet. He started “school” this week and seems to enjoy his days. Of course this means that I have to buy more storage boxes to hold all the pompom caterpillars. I think he is just happy they have goldfish crackers for snack every day!

There is one last bit of knitting info… I frogged the cabled yoke of Tangled Yoke today and I will restart it on size 4 needles.

Artifacts

A few weeks ago at SnB I was mentioning this pillowcase that showed up in my mailbox. It belonged to Big Boy when he was a child and his mother has held on to it for… well… too many years. She seemed to think that I would want it for Piglet. Big Boy knew it was on its way and yet neglected to tell me until I was standing in the middle of the kitchen holding it by one corner and saying, “what the fuck is this thing”. At that point he laughed until I cried. My Big Boy still drools like a five year old so you know it was even worse when he was five. Yes, that is a stain... only one of the many stains.

Not to mention, the pillowcase has been starched (yes, MIL did and still does have the maid starch her sheets and pillow cases - sleeping on them is a great way to get your skin exfoliated) so it now has this weird feel to it.

As I was talking about the pillowcase Lindsey remarked that she would like to see photos of “the bowl”. This baby was a wedding gift and I have tried repeatedly to get rid of it but somehow, it still lives. I have asked the movers to drop it but they refuse and instead drop my very expensive desk that I love. It is hand made of some sort of indestructible pottery (the people in tornado alley should build their houses from it, it’s that good!). I can’t give it away because it has our names and wedding date on it. If you know of anyone else with our names and wedding date, give me a holler and I will happily pop this in the mail to them. You can hang it on the wall with the nifty little hanger on the back.

Last night we were without power for over two hours. It was windy as all get out and apparently some lines went down a few blocks away. This was not been a fun time because A) I am not a back-to-nature kind of gal and I really enjoy television and B) I am scared shitless of the dark, especially when I am home alone. Now, I have three giant dogs that are absolutely worthless in this sort of situation. Calvin could care less about me; I am only here to serve him. Annabelle is as afraid of the dark as I am and follows me around like Velcro. She does however enjoy the flashlight and will chase the beam of light around occasionally running into a wall and giving me some entertainment. Baxter, well, he ate a book yesterday so he was sleeping off his fiber hangover.

I want to say thanks for all the suggestions on ways to amuse myself that will not land me in jail. I would love to take a pottery class but our adult ed system here seems to neglect those of us in between diapering years. If I needed my GED though I would be all set. I live in an area with a very high dropout rate so I guess they figure that folks need to be working on something other than bowl making. I am looking at taking a jewelry making class at the local bead store, but I have to wait until Piglet is enrolled in daycare. And of course I have to make sure that it doesn’t cut into my budget for my girl’s trip to Vegas! Think Piglet can exist on Ramen noodles?

I Need a Talent!

I am totally talentless. Ok, I knit. But that isn’t really a talent. It is the ability to follow directions; a skill learned at age five that will, supposedly, keep one out of prison. I can’t play the piano; I know, I tried for many years and frankly, I sucked. I can’t design bows like Rachel. I can’t scrapbook; again, I tried and royally sucked. What can I do? Well, I can shop and feed myself without having to change clothes after. Not exactly skills that will earn me some $$$. Well, shopping might but here where I live the average income does not allow for hiring a personal shopper to pick up your unmentionables at Wally World.

Ok, so by now you are probably wondering why I am droning on about my inability to do much more than turn oxygen into carbon dioxide. Well, because Big Boy leaves on Wednesday and will not darken our doors for another nine months. I need something that will occupy my hours besides keeping Piglet out of the toilets. In April, Piglet will start “school” three days a week and I am afraid that I will have nothing to do. What will occupy my evenings once the television season has ended? What will occupy my afternoons if Court TV doesn’t have a decent trial? I will have SnB on occasion but I can’t subject them to the whining of a toddler on a weekly basis - it just wouldn’t be nice. Last time I made it through by working, taking class and volunteering nearly full-time. Now, my time will revolve around nap and lunch.

Truth is, this deployment is harder because of Piglet. I know how much Big Boy enjoys spending time with him and it breaks my heart that he will miss so much. He gets such a thrill from teaching Piglet new things and I’m afraid I won’t have the patience or energy to take up the slack.

I guess I should talk about happy stuff. We had a nice, short vacation to Florida. We stopped along the way to visit with Susan and her family. I wish we had had more time because Piglet really liked Boogie. She was showing him a little of his future by having him hold her crayons while she colored. From there it was on to Orlando to visit with my parents. We didn’t get to do a whole lot because it was so freaking cold. Then it was on to Ft. Myers for a Red Sox game. Sadly, it was during that time we found out that Big Boy would not be coming home in April as originally planned. So, we headed home a day early. Leave it to the stupid Army to ruin a perfectly good vacation.

I know some of ya'll really enjoy the cool weather but I hope you will humor me and pray for sun and warmth from now until December. I am like a plant - I need direct sunlight to survive!

Around the World in 5 Days

Ok, I didn’t quite go around the world but I did go here…A view from our balcony

Last Saturday I flew to Vancouver, BC, Canada and met up with three other cool chicks…

On Sunday, three of us toured around the city, shopping and eating. Vancouver has tons of both and we did a great job spending money on both :-)

On Monday the fourth chick caught up with us and we boarded the Coral Princess for a cruise to San Francisco. I have never been on a cruise and this was a great way to try it out for the first time. Even on a boat this large you still feel movement so I was very sporty in my motion sickness bands!Back of the boat

Front of the boat

There was more shopping and dining. The cruise has a 24-hour buffet and I was considered an amateur compared to my friends.

We hit San Francisco on Wednesday morning and guess what we did? Yep, more shopping and eating! By the time my plane left on Wednesday night I was tired from head to toe!

Have I mentioned that we had never met before this trip? Ain’t the Internet wonderful? We all met on an adoption group online. Two of us have completed our adoptions and two are still waiting. The invite went out to a whole bunch of girls but the four of us were the only ones crazy brave enough to say, “count me in”.

So, where was Piglet during this time? Home with Big Boy. Yep! They had a great time. They went to the park, Home Depot, out to watch football, story time at the library and Costco. They had hamburgers for dinner; probably every night even though Big Boy says only one night. The house needed a good scrubbing, the fridge was empty and Piglet was wearing shorts he outgrew in June but they had a great time together and that is all that matters.

Leaving them behind for a few days was better than any drug prescribed. It was great to have no cares except (whether I would be warm enough; it was cold in Vancouver), and to laugh at crazy, stupid stuff. Trust me, taking “ME time” is great for your whole family!

While playing in Vancouver I noticed one main thing - people there like scarves. I wore my Swan Lake but as a scarf and not as a stole. It kept me warm and toasty. So, I came home and added about 10 scarves to my Ravelry queue and intend to start on Argosy tonight using the Sea Silk that Amy sent me! Oh, I also got to wear the Ribbed Lace Bolero and it was great!

Family Shamily

Well, I survived the familial invasion. It was a stressful time mostly because our families are so different. In fact, they are so different that we have managed to go 12 years without them meeting!

• My parents watch TBN-my in-laws watch PBS and ESPN;
• My parents read the Bible - my in-laws read War and Peace;
• My stepmother loves to shop - my MIL still wears the same clothes she wore 40 years ago (I’m not kidding! REALLY!) and prefers to go to museums on her vacation instead of a mall;
• My MIL likes to ask a million questions - my father likes to talk about himself;
• My parents want a brand new house - MIL doesn’t know why anyone would build a new house when there are perfectly good shacks out there that just need a little update, like electricity and plumbing (in-laws have 30 year old carpet in their bathroom. ACK!);
• My MIL likes to drink wine, beer (in the can with a cozy thank you very much) and martinis - my parents don’t believe in getting liquored up (it makes for a long visit);
• My MIL views Piglet as an educational experience - my parents just like to play with him, and;
• My in-laws have money to burn and have helped with Piglet’s college fund - my parents are living on my dad’s social security (don’t ask where the retirement fund went - it is a long story).

During my parents visit I had to keep sneaking into my bedroom to check the Verdict Watch on Court TV. Five months of testimony and the jurors still have to deliberate his guilt or innocence. I didn’t even see the whole trial and I know he is guilty! The verdict needs to either come in before the end of this week or wait until the end of next week because I will be away from the television. Now Court TV has moved on to the Warren Jeffs trial. I can’t believe I am saying this but I think the charges are a little far reaching. That isn’t to say that he isn’t guilty of being a sex freak! Frankly, the girl’s mother should be brought on charges for letting her 14-year old daughter get married to her first cousin! And State of Utah - 14 is waaaaaaayyyyyyy too young for anyone to get married.

Coming tomorrow... Tomato will be blocking and I will be playing with swatches. Stay Tuned!

Forgot to Mention...

For those of you I named Rockin' Girl Bloggers, you are now supposed to name 5 more Rockin' Girl Bloggers. For those of you who were not named, I didn't leave you out on purpose. I really wanted to name more people, like, Jayne - who dyes those fabulous yarns or Benne - who is the best writer evvah!, or Svetlana - who can whip up a sweater in a day (seriously, I don't think she eats or sleeps unless she has string and some needles!). Oh, there are so many that ROCK!

Last night I decided to lightly block the Print O' The Wave Stole to see if I really liked the pattern. It seems like this thing is taking forever but I think it is because it has center repeats and is only a 12 row repeat unlike the MS3 that changes with every row. This morning I viewed the stole in the light and I really like it. I also really like the yarn blocked. It is more blue than gray in the light. I am a little nervous about picking up the side stitches - this is tiny lace kids. See that bright purple cast on? This stole is supposed to be done in two panels and then grafted but after I started I found (on Ravelry of course) stoles that had been done all in one piece instead, and I like it so much more. So, now I have to find a way to turn that provisional cast on into a bind off. Hmmm.

Close up of pattern

So, that good day I mentioned? Well, yesterday Big Boy calls to tell me he has to go TDY to DC for three weeks. UGH! Ok. Leaving Wednesday. Wait... what? I swear his boss hates me and hasn't even met me yet. Then I thought of the upside to this. Piglet and I will drive up to visit one weekend. I have to drive through Richmond... with no timeline... I can detour to the Yarn Lounge. If I get in town early enough I can hit Knit Happens in Old Town Alexandria too. HA! Take that Big Boy! I have no rush to get back to my ghetto home so I can hit more stores on my way back. Oh, and what a shame he will be staying near Pentagon City Mall which just happens to have a Nordstom and Sephora.

Vacation... Not Really!

I’m back and I have so much to tell y’all. The past few weeks have been extremely crazy.

First, thank you for the prayers and good thoughts. Our trip home was stressful. We didn’t talk about “the issue” until the last day. This has taken a toll on my dad’s health. Just before we arrived he was hospitalized with chest pains and shortness of breath. The doctor found nothing wrong with his heart and blames it on stress. Some good news came this week. He went to court and his attorney says “the issue” has been dismissed and will go no further. Their house is 99% sold. They have pretty much severed all ties in their small town. It is sad really.

After a few days in Maine we headed to Big Boy’s family in Massachusetts. Thank goodness we stayed in a hotel! Our families are so different – there is no way I could discuss “the issue” with the in-laws. Instead I had to pretend like nothing was wrong and play nice. I can only play nice for so many days before I lose my mind! MIL seems to be losing her short-term memory because she asked me the same questions a minimum of three times. They never have enough food to eat; they don’t use spices in their cooking. MIL didn’t understand why I didn’t want to use the high chair that Big Boy used 38 years ago. It is metal, and rusted, and sitting out in the basement. We could just “tie him in”.

Piglet… Oh Piglet… He was a trooper in the car. But, then, he grew accustomed to having someone hold or play with him 24/7. Naps that are normally two hours in his bed became a half hour on Grandma and Papa’s laps. Coming home yesterday was a big hit of reality. Suddenly, he was required to go to bed on time and he had no one in his face all day (MIL). The poor kid was like a tourist attraction! And the questions, sheesh! Does he have a high chair? Why does he make that noise? When will he outgrow this car seat? Where do you buy car seats? Does he have a high chair? Why doesn’t he have a high chair? What does he eat? Well… you get the point. While we were gone he practiced rolling over on the beds and got his first hand slap (in-laws were not crazy about it but they can kiss my ass).

So, here are a few new photos of Piglet. He is hanging out on his new lawn chair, in my parent’s backyard.

His new friend E was trying to steal his binky and he wasn’t too happy about that.


Here we are at Fenway Park. Notice Piglet is decked out in his Red Sox outfit, Red Sox binky and binky holder. He now owns a training camp jersey just like dad’s!


A little knitting happened during the trip. I started and finished the replacement ruffle for Monica; got in a few inches on Crumpets before I ran out of yarn; and made it all the way to the start of the foot on sock #2. I also read The Knitting Circle and the new John Sandford book.