Saturday, March 31, 2007

Thinkers

I have been getting some thoughtful questions from the kids the past few days. Here is my favorite one, this one is from Sebass:

"Mom, if it takes people to make other people how did the first two people get here?"

He asks this of me while he is sitting in the back of the van and I am driving great timing for a talk about the evolution of man. I told him that people believe different things; some believe that we evolved from apes/monkeys/cavemen and some believe that we were created by God.

With all the wisdom of a kindergartner he says, "Well of course there is a god, I heard about him in movies and read about him in books."

I was rendered speechless.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Knitting and Random Stuff

The mitten knitting seems to be working, this is the warmest we have been in months. We have been playing outside quite a bit the past few days. It has been great.



Look we even have a brown lawn (hey, it's better than a white one!)



We have great neighbours, they get pretty crazy with holiday decorations. Dave is finally getting all the Christmas decorations down. Today he washed all the blow-ups and left them in his backyard to dry. It's Christmas all year around at Dave's house!



I am finally posting some pictures of February's knitting. I don't know why it took me so long. Here are Sebass's socks. They are knit up with mom's hand dyed yarn. You can see that Sebass loves them, he has pretty much felted the bottoms just by wearing them so much. Next time I knit kid socks, superwash wool is the way to go.



Sebass is modeling a hat I knit for myself. I love the colours, they are very earthy with a bit a gold sparkles in it. A quick fun knit.



It has holes in it to pull pony tails through. Paul thinks it is funny, but every time I wear it people ask me where I bought it.



These socks have been done for a long time, but I finally put buttons on them. My love for these socks is not normal. They are perfect, I figured out that I need to knit for a size 10 and then do about 2 extra rows before I decrease for the toe. Did I mention that I love these?



Random Shmoo photo, do you see her pink nails?



She has caps glued onto her nails. They keep her from damaging the new couches when she scratches. So far they are working and she doesn't mind them once they are on. (Let's not talk about getting them on her) PJ picked the pink ones, they come in lots of colours at your local pet store.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Weekend Rambling

What a nice weekend we had! I can't say we have a whole lot to show for ourselves but we sure had a lot of fun family time.

I worked on Saturday morning as usual and them Paul gave me a surprise on Saturday afternoon. He knows I have been suffering from Spring Fever in a bad way so he cheered me up with a surprise trip to the spa.

He bought me a 2 hour relaxation journey at the ginseng spa here in the Loops. It was wonderful, it started with a rose petal bath, and then a 1 hour massage and a facial to top all that off. They even serve you tea and cookies while you are there. It was a wonderful 2 pampered hours to myself.

That evening I had a baby sitter scheduled and Paul and I went out for a beer and dinner then we headed off to the hockey game with no kids!!! We wrapped up the night at The Giggle Queens and Fillets going away party (they are moving to Alberta).

We got up this morning and took the kids to the last Sunday skate session. We were horsing around playing hockey and Sebass got to rough. He slid right into me and popped my stick up into my face.



Lets be thankful for that facial yesterday for this close-up no make-up shot. I think tomorrow this might be a real pretty black eye. It might be to sore to cover with make-up for work but I think if I wear my glasses to the office the frames with cover it pretty well. I never wear my glasses to work and they will distract everyone enough that they wont notice the banged up eye.



We came home and lazed around for the rest of the day. I did some spinning and some knitting, played with Lego's, did laundry, had a nap and then some. It was a nice family day, we need more of those!

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Goodies!

My Knit Picks package came today. I have to say it was very fast and very reasonably priced. All of these goodies came out to $100 plus a bit for shipping. They were kind enough to write "gift" on the box and valued it at $00 so I did not have to pay any customs on the package either.



The needles: 2 sets of 0's, 2 sets of 1's and 2 sets of 2's. I will let you know how I like them very soon.



The books. It is cheaper to buy books in the US and have them shipped to me even with the exchange rate. I have no idea why but if you look at the price of any book in CDN $ vs US $ it is way more in CND. The exchange is not to bad so I don't know why that is, I only know that it sucks.



This book:



is beautiful. I bought it to knit this:



My next sweater. It may take me a while, but it will be worth it. I just need to pick out the yarn.

Just a note US $35.00 CND $50.00 ridiculous. Even with the exchange and shipping I don't think this book cost me $40.00 CND.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Thrums

I started on the mittens. They are going pretty well. I don't know really how much roving to use per each thrum. I am worried about running out, I am not sure why, I am sure I could something around here that would work if I do run out.



I think so far my thrums are to big, or have to much fiber in them. I divided the amount of fiber that the kit came with in half, so at least I know each mitten will be even. This is a picture of the inside of the mitten. Can't you just feel summer in the air just looking at it?



Here is the outside. The colour is bad in this picture the mitts are red, but you get the idea.



For more information on Thrummed Mittens check out this post from the Yarn Harlot (she rocks).

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Spring Break

The kids are on Spring Break we survived day one. It was a little rough, the kids for some reason spent the better part of the day fighting with one and another. That is unusual for them, believe it or not they play well together most of the time. When they can't get along they have to play in their rooms by themselves and that works pretty well. They spent a lot of time outside as well, it was 12C and very windy but they loved it.

On the top you see the socks that rock yarn from the sock kit this month. I am waiting to start knitting them until the knit pick needles get here. The yarn on the bottom is some Lorna's Laces I bought on sale about 9 months ago. I thought it was funny that the colour's were so similar. The yarns have a totally different hand to them and will make two very different pairs of socks.



See? All ready to go. I know the cakes look like different sizes but they are both 80 grams, one is just wound more tightly than the other. I worry about running out of yarn with my big size 10 feet, especially on a toe up sock with some cables. This will prevent that from occurring all together.



I have been kind of anxious to get a start on these. But today something happened to make more patient for the needles to come:



The snow started about 10:00 this morning, I am not that happy to see it. I am always tired of it by the end of season and this has been a long season for us. It is 2C out so it will melt off quickly, provided it ever stops dumping.



There are perks to the snow day. I have cleaned out one of the kids rooms, all the kids art stuff, my sewing things and the junk drawer in the kitchen. The kids and I have decided it should be a pajama day as well, so we are being both comfortable and productive.



The snow has inspired me to cast on for this Thrum Mitten kit, I have never knit mittens and the thought of trying something new appeals to me. I figure about the time I get these done Murphy's Law will kick in and it will be to warm to wear them until next winter. Does reverse psychology work on Mother Nature?

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Smiling

I have the winter blues. I am so ready for spring to to spring I can't stand it! I thought what better to make me smile (and you) than some pics from Disneyland.

The kids are busy eating the best treat ever:


Micky Mouse ice cream



But what are they watching???!?!



The Parade of Dreams, of course.










I feel better already. I knew the Happiest Place on Earth would do the trick.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Happy Ass

I don't usually curse on the blog but my ass is happy now. I finally bought new couches. The pictures don't really do them justice, we still have that flat winter light around here so the colours don't show true. This couch is actually about the colour of the inside of a lime. It is pretty and I wanted a splash of colour.

I have never in my life had a new couch before. I have always had a hand-me-down couch. I appreciate the generosity of a hand-me-down, but how nice it to have a couch a picked out myself! I love them.



The couches were a point of contention between Paul and I. We have always been agreement that we needed new couches, but we never agreed on the timing. Paul wanted to wait until Shmoo (my cat) passed away, so she could not claw them up (don't worry Shmoo lovers, she is still kicking) I however was really tired of having a couch that was not only uncomfortable but embarrassing.

A local furniture store was going out of business and these couches were marked down 70%. I could not pass them up. I would never spend that money without Paul's agreement (which I did not have) so these babies went on my own credit card and I will pay them off myself with my dog and horse adjusting money. The up side of this: I picked out whatever I wanted and there was no arguing over what Paul wanted vs. what I wanted.

I explained to Paul that I will charge him for his time spent on my couches and I will bill him and the end of every month. I am having fun teasing him about it, I of course will not actually charge him, no matter how tempting the idea may seem to me, it is a little petty.

And most importantly: My ass is happy! It is a plus that I have a wonderful place to sit and knit.



Friday, March 09, 2007

Dishrag

I am not sure what has gotten into me but I feel a bit wrung this week. We all have a terrible case of spring fever and I am sure that must be part of it. Normally I get restless this time of year; tired of being cooped up all winter long. For some reason this year I feel listless instead. Everyday I make myself a list of all things I should be doing but I can't seem to get myself to the doing part.

I have not even shown you my Feb. finished projects yet. I finished a pair of socks for Sebass, they were small and quick and just what I needed. I have been plugging away on the lace shawl but I did not get it finished as I had hoped I would.

The lace is fun to knit and looks pretty but it takes focus that I don't seem to have right now, I am doing better with fairly mindless knitting. With the lace I am finding that I can't watch T.V. or talk with the kids while I knit. I do better with it if the house is quiet and I can just sit uninterrupted for a while. You can imagine how often this happens around here, so I pick away at when I can and try to work on a more relaxing project when the house is busy.

Paul has been working his bumm off at the office this last week. Working from 7 in the morning until 8 at night. He is trying to get more patients on the DRX machine. I have been doing my part with full time kids and part time work.

I have been reading "How to Raise your Spirited Child" by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, I am looking for more tools to put in my "mom" tool kit for working with the kids and their behavior.

Sebastian and I have been working a lot with his personal space. I feel like his personal space is so small that he tends to get right up into and invades the space of others. I am trying to teach him to hang back a bit and watch other kids play before he jumps in. He is such a physical kid that he intimidates other kids with his excitement and explosive energy. He seems to be settling down a bit with what we are working together. I am trying hard not to single Sebastian out so we are working on this as a family, we are all doing better than last week.

It is so much work trying to be a good parent, is that why I feel so worn out? I think I will call for a pizza and crack open a beer for dinner tonight.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Battle Stations

Things (Thing 1, Thing 2 and Thing 3) have been a little crazy around here.

Those 3 Things being the Dirty Rotten Kids, they are driving me crazy. I guess there is no better way to put it than this: they have been brats the past little while. Early last week I decided I had enough of it and I have been The Hammer since then.

When The Hammer meets with the Dirty Rottens it means war. I don't think Seabass has one toy left in his room, I know he has missed at least two meals because he could not sit in his chair and use his fork and knife. Q actually threw food across the table while a baby sitter was here on Saturday night. Thankfully I saw him do it and he went to bed hungry.

I am feeling pretty worn out, doing battle with the kids sucks. I feel like a crappy mom. The kids are getting better but I still feel like I have a way to go yet, wish me luck.