Spoons & Stitches

Ever had one of those days when you feel like it takes so much to get out of bed that by the time you're dressed you've got nothing left? Of course, most of us have. Today was definitely one of those days for me. I slept badly and woke up worse today. The bright spot that got me up and moving, as usual, was my boys. Today was costume day for Connor. I didn't get any pictures yet, but they should get sent to us early next week. In the meantime you can see Connor with his Cookie Monster slippers. Connor and I had a fun talk on the way in, about what I don't recall. Despite the fatigue, I had a good time at our little afternoon social at work. My boss had a very scary costume: Manager in a Full Suit. If you knew the man you'd know how scary that can be. Lately I've been getting a lot of satisfaction out of work and that is a HUGE improvement for me. It doesn't fix the constant fatigue, but I do feel good know I'm being more effective. The end of the day wa...

SAS is holding their annual employee craft fair on December 1st. I have decided to get a booth this year and sell some of my knitted and crochet pieces. Maybe some of my home-made jewelry, too. It should be a lot of fun. So far I have created a few scarves and two different styles of market bag. The first market bag was the green variegated one below. I loved that color-this photo does not do it justice. I might be almost hoping that one doesn't sell. ;) The other, which I like to call the cow bag because of the black and white spotted look, was also fun. The photo doesn't do that one justice, either, but it's cute. It reminds me of my Grandpa, who worked in the dairy extension program at NCSU for much is his career. When my sister and I were kids he used to take us over to the vet school and let us play with and pet the cows. And no, we didn't tip them. I guess I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for cows. I am working on a little crocheted baby sleep sack too...

So I haven't posted anything in quite some time. The summer was a tough time for me after losing my BFF Daniel on Cinco de Mayo. I remember the week after the funeral I had several dreams about him. Last night I had another. The theme always seems to be the same: he's not really gone. Halfway through the dream I'll always realize that he shouldn't be there, that he has passed away, but we always move on and interact again. It's been awhile since I practiced dream interpretation, but I don't think this one takes much work. I miss him-that's obvious. I particularly missed yesterday when I realized I couldn't go to my taekwondo class and really wanted to hang out with someone. He has been my go-to dude for so long. We could talk about anything, joke about anything, disagree about everything and still be best friends. We were polar opposites politically. Normally you'd think that would make for lots of griping at election time, but it didn't. We had ...

These last few weeks have been a fun time for me. I took on the largest knitting project I've tried so far: a cardigan sweater. This was inspired by a book I read, " Knit One, Kill Two " by Maggie Sefton . Yes, I love knitting mysteries, crochet mysteries and the like. I believe my fellow stitchers would call them "fiber fiction." I call it fiber fiction addiction. ;) Of course, one thing to note is that this particular pattern, the Whodunnit Shell, was actually created to be a shell. However, throughout the novel the main character kept wanting to create a sweater. So, by the end of the story, so did I. I transformed the Whodunnit Shell into the Whodunnit short sleeve cardigan. (I hate long sleeves.) I followed the directions for the back in garter stitch, then split the front into two different pieces. I picked up the stitches for the sleeves and made them in stockinette stitch and finished with four rows of k2,p2 ribbing. I decided it was too short, so I croc...

Okay, I just had to share this story with you. If you're a parent or a child's caregiver, then you know how hard it is to herd a tired child. For ages now my youngest has been in the habit of getting up with the sun-when he waits that long. He's an early riser like I haven't been since college. By the time I get up in the morning, he's already out of bed and on the computer. Oh yes, we are raising geeks, never fear. Unfortunately, this means that frequently he is more tired than he appears. That tiredness can manifest in many different ways. Lack of cooperation is a common one. When Michael tells Connor to get dressed, instead he gets Connor hopping around like a bunny rabbit 'cause it's funnier (at least to Connor). We don't have the inclination to chase Connor-bunny, so sometimes things escalate. The good news is that as days go, this was not really a bad one. We got Connor dressed and he was acting pretty helpful. Then it was time to leave. Usually th...

Okay, in retrospect this is too frickin' funny so I must share. At the time it was just a major pain in the tuckus, but I'd rather laugh now. Wednesday night I was supposed to be at a friend's house to hang out. Someone I hadn't seen in ages and ages. I got a call just as I was about to call her and it was from my beloved husband. He told me the van wouldn't start and would I listen to the sound it was making? I tried, but we all know what wonderful reception cell phones get, so the true sound didn't come through. I kept giving him advice to deal with it, including such gems as: "Turn the wheel and try again." "Pump the accelerator a few times, then try again." "Give it a minute. Now make sure you turn the wheel and the key at the same time." Okay, that last one I just made up, but most of my advice was about that useful. One note of suggestion to those of you with decent regular cars: Do not take advice on starting your car from so...

I finally conquered that project that's been nagging me. The turtleneck dickey . I finished the neck today and struggled with the binding off starting around midnight. I tried to use a regular bind-off method, but that wasn't going to happen wiht this one. I tried it and couldn't get the piece over my head! I had to start over and alter the bind-off method. Instead of the usual knitted bind-off, I added some stitches to it. For every knit stitch that you bind off, there are two additional yarn overs that are also bound off. Basically, knit a stitch, bind it off, then YO and pull the YO through the loop on the needle. Do that twice, then knit a stitch and bind it off, etc. This made a neckline that was loose enough for the piece to fit over my head and be comfortable. Personally, I think it looks good, too. :)