Spoons & Stitches

While I was walking through Michael's Arts and Crafts a few weeks ago I saw a skein of Red Heart Shimmer yarn. I had already been seeing visions of a peppermint swirl design in a scarf or a hat. When I saw the Shimmer in red and white I knew I had to make those little balls of shiny goodness into something fun for Christmas! As you can probably tell by the name of this scarf, I had visions of peppermint sticks in mind. I tried a number of ways to make the strips go diagonal, but after starting a few different designs, I decided that vertical strips would be better. I really love the way this came out, so I'm sharing it with you. Supplies: 1 ball Red Heart Shimmer white 1 ball Red Heart Shimmer red H size crochet hook Piece of cardboard or similar item to wrap your yarn to size the fringe Yarn needle Scissors Scarf Body Using the white yarn, ch 252. (I like my scarves really long and this reached about to my knees. You can make it any length you w

Anti-Inflammatory Food If you read this blog more for the spoons than the stitches, then you probably know what chronic pain is like. Living with chronic pain is not easy, particularly the unexpected changes in your pain level. You might have a really good day or a really bad day-and no way to tell which is coming. Right?  I recently went to my nurse practitioner about my pain. I'd had two days of horrible, crying on the couch, pain. Just sitting still was painful enough to cause tears, never mind the idea of getting up and moving on that knee. This was two months AFTER my knee surgery, so it shouldn't have been that bad. I begged her for an answer, other than more narcotic pain medicine. She told me: change your diet. Oh please! How many times have people told me that if I just lose weight I'll feel great again? Yeah right. I did it once and I still felt like crap. For reference, see my first knee surgery that came when I was at normal weight . No, no, she said.

I recently read a blog by one of my favorite bloggers-Jen @ PIWTPITT. She talked about being the World's Okayest Mom . That got me thinking-what makes the world's greatest mom? We hear about Super Moms, Soccer Moms, Perfect Moms, and all kinds of other titles. But what does a woman do to earn one of these titles? While I was thinking about this, I saw visions of the mom who drives her kids everywhere, packs them perfectly healthy lunches every day, bakes cookies, volunteers on the kids' PTA or home schools her kids, plans play dates, and still has energy to clean the house (which is spotless) at the end of the day. I don't know about you, but I can never live up to that. I will never win the "World's Greatest Mom" award from the world. No outside person would look at my struggle in motherhood and think I'm great. But there is something I realized not long ago-it's not the world that I need to approve of my mothering skills. (I almost called the

So this weekend we went out shopping at the brand new Harris Teeter grocery store in our neck of the woods. Well, it's not that close really. It's several miles away (and by several I mean about 10 or 12). To put it in perspective, we have an IGA a half mile from the house. And a Food Lion two miles from the house. This new HT is way farther. But it's still way closer than any other HT and way bigger than either of the other two. It opened last week and hubby and I decided we just had to give it a try. Overall-I'm impressed. It's one of the ones I used to refer to as a "Taj Ma-Teeter" because it's HUGE. Full produce department, giant deli and more birthday cakes than you can shake a stick at! Note to self-they have cookie cakes there and that's what Connor had wanted for his birthday party. Woohoo! I don't have to drive to the other side of Durham on Friday! We loaded up on groceries. Frozen dinners for those of us who don't like making