Cars Planes and Trains

My blogiversary was yesterday.   I'll pretend it's today for good measure.

I was out and about.  I was in Washington DC for a weekend with friends and family.  A way too busy weekend, full of family tensions and really really fun friends.  Weird mix.  But yesterday was the zoo with a fabulous bunch of ladies and their adorable kids.

I enjoy DC but I think I had enough for a while.  I'd like to explore the surrounding area more, head out to Leesburg and surrounding Maryland and Virginia.  Maybe when the leaves turn I can talk Marky Mark into it.  He loves that area so it would be an easy sell.

I did actually get a little knitting done.  I was keeping peculiar hours so there were a few moments when I was alone and got in a few rows.  I'll show them when there's a bit of progress.  For now, I have to undo the "knitting" PeeWee did on the plane on the way home.  She loves to wind the Addi Turbos around each other "knitting".  Clever little thing.  I'll wait to undo that mess when she's in school tomorrow.

I found a new nifty web doodad, thanks to my younger hipper friends...  twitter.  It's pretty clever- you drop a bit of info and get to find out in a sentence or two what everyone's up to.  Thought I'd show I'm not as daft as I think I am some days.  A tired three year old, no stroller, way upper 80's and a lot of hills in the National Zoo will make you feel old and very un-with-it. 

For those of you who are quicker than I, yes, that is a Schrodinger bag up there hiding the socks.  I've decided they are the best thing.  I bought that one for a gift and kept it.  They are the perfect little bag for little kids too, I should tell her that... they are the perfect size for all the tiny traveling toys they like to tote if you're looking for a little kid type gift. 

So, can you tell I spent the day in and out of cars, busses and airplanes?  Yeah, I am both link- happy and random today.  In honor of my blogiversary I'm asking for comments from all my readers.  I'm trying to figure out if and when and how I'm going to keep the blog going.  I've gotten a bit off track with the knitting, not posting so much about it as I'd like, or frankly, doing as much as I would like.  I'm on the fence with blogging here.  If I'm talking to myself there may be a problem with that...  Let me know you're reading and if you are I'll keep with it.  If not, I may go to simply posting knits as they come off the needles ::yawn::

Added bonus: there's a prize in it for your comments.  I've got a few skeins of yarn looking for new homes (paring down!) so we'll see whose home it makes it's way too.  

PS- I know who my non-knitting loyal readers are and if you win you'll get something you can use, like maybe actual finished socks!

Just in time for warm weather!

Home is good

PeeWee says thanks for the well wishes.  We're home now and aside from a little limp where she's got a few band-aids you'd never know she'd been in the hospital.  Kids are so resilient.  I feel like going back to bed and she's on the go!

Yes, those are the socks in bed with her.  I worked on them quite a bit but was so exhausted that I just couldn't focus one tiny bit so alas, they are not quite done.  Plus, I was making a conscious effort to knit loosely so as not to have some super tight sock and that had the opposite effect.  Weird pooling once again.  Tough luck though.

Things went exceptionally well.  They found things are functioning above what they expected and so there is likely another year before they operate again!  We have some other tests they would like to do, mostly for future diagnostics but I'm not even thinking about those today.

Anxiety

Feeling like I'm climbing up a greased wall around here.  

I have 101 things I need to be doing but since this is the first remotely quiet moment today I'm sitting on my ass on the computer, trying to catch up with blogs and email and other goodies.  

We have to be at the hospital with PeeWee for 6am.  It's one thing to get up at 6am but to be somewhere?  That's a stretch.  Thankfully my brother volunteered to be in charge of Big Brother tonight and tomorrow, who is going to be in for a rude awakening getting up early enough to catch the bus!  Not quite the 5 blocks from school life at their house.  It'll be good for him.  Build character, right?

I have my knitting set aside and hope I don't forget it tomorrow.  The nurse told me it will be 2-3 hours for her cardiac catheter.  I ought to get pretty close to done with the sock in that time.  While I like the yarn, Marky Mark asked me what the hell I was knitting and could it please not be for him!?  Yeah, buddy, I'm really in the habit of making you mostly pink squishy socks.  Big Brother said 'yeah those are really ugly'.  Hey, at least I know there will be no stealing of these!  (too distracted to make a link, but the same socks from a few posts ago, not ugly to me!)

Just to show I am not all doom and gloom, here's another bit of recent crafty ADD to show.  It's the dress I whipped out the other day.  PeeWee loves it.  She says it is like a princess dress.  Not quite, but close enough!  I've got another on the sewing table ready to be hemmed.  Today did not pan out to be a sewing day, as Marky Mark could not take off early enough for me to do much of anything, so it was just PeeWee and me.  As you can clearly see, she is a miserable wretch and absolutely no fun ever to be around.  

I am a domestic goddess

Or a really good fake.

In the oven right now is banana bread, mmmm, it smells good. We went down to the French Quarter Festival this morning and when we got home the bananas were looking a little worse for wear so I decided that banana bread was just what we needed for breakfast tomorrow and whipped some up.

I've been in domestic mode this weekend. I got a bunch of tea towels and have been stitching away.

Yes, the floorcloth in the kitchen is polka dotted.  It goes with the whole seriously retro kitchen theme.

This one is a little bit of yellow linen I had laying around.  I like the chickens.  It needs hemming next.  I think Wednesday is going to be sewing room day, unless we keep PeeWee home (keep reading for more on that)

More polka dots in the background!  This one is the traditional stem stitch, not as happy with it as with the backstitch I used for the others.  I think I would need to be stitching with much finer threads than I am using to get the effect I should be getting, so I abandoned that idea.

It's been fun and a nice change.  Being able to whip up something so simple which just makes me happy is a nice change of pace.  I've been trying to work up some patterns to use.  These towels I picked up are a really good size- 33 inches square and the patterns I keep coming across are a little on the small side.  I plan on adding more fruit to the last one, a work in progress.  PeeWee wants me to add a pineapple to it.  Thank goodness for water soluble ink!  I have some ideas for designs which run the whole hem, too.

I went to the book store Friday with a gift card and I picked up a books on redwork, pebble mosaics, household item softies, Hawaiian quilts and a general design book.  I think I have a touch of crafters ADD.  Maybe it's spring in the air.  Maybe it's me being incredibly adventurous.

I have my sock in the car for waiting around knitting.  I'd get a picture of it but I'm trying not to put anyone to sleep.  I will probably get it finished this week with several chances to wait in doctors' offices.  I get to go for my follow up to my physical, which to me is a silly waste of time since I have already gotten all the follow up information from her, except I've got this laryngitis thing so it's good to have the appointment lined up.  Thursday PeeWee has a cardiac catheter, a normal follow up for her general cardiac care.  I'll be so glad to get this test behind us, it will give us a bunch of answers we've been waiting for.  It also means several hours of sitting in a waiting room.  So I might do some light reading too.  (Like I said, all over the map these days.)

Simply because...

I promise yarny goodness is coming soon. Until then enjoy this bit of goodness. If simply for the shoes... (figured you couldn't miss the hair, impressive as it is)


Back in the days of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Red Army had an official choir composed of male soldiers and musicians. It still exists. The Red Army Choir performs throughout Russia to this day.

Now consider the Finnish rock band called The Leningrad Cowboys. A little while ago, they held a concert in Russia, in which - to the screaming applause of Russkie teen-agers - they got the Red Army Choir to join them on stage for a performance of "Sweet Home Alabama." In English. You couldn't make this up.

Technical Difficulties

I'm chugging away on the sock I showed the other day.  I got most of the foot finished while getting my hair colored this morning.  It was good timing too because it was a serious grey hair weekend.  Whoa!  Big Brother... well, he was being an irked 14 year old.  We're good now but it was a little rough there.

No pictures.  I am having technical difficulties.  There is more memory on my ipod than my laptop so I am having trouble accessing things right now.  Should be taken care of by the end of the week when the new computer arrives and I unload a lot of stuff onto that.  I can't even export photos now because of the memory issue.  A transfer then big delete is in order.  I ignored the notice that the memory was filling up.....

Anyway.  The sock is chugging along, I made then embroidered a very simple A-line dress for PeeWee, and I started another needlepoint ornament.  I ordered some tea towels to embroider too.  Lots of gifts coming up soon.  I am overdue for a house warming one too.  I wish I could show off some of this stuff!  It'll just keep you coming back to look if I make you wait, right?

Rare Pink Dog Sighted

I bought some patterns from Aerie Designs.  They are some cute.  This one is the mini greyhound.  I decided to tackle this one before the life sized greyhound.   (I know I had a rant about crochet patterns, but I do crochet.  I just don't want to think I am getting knitting patterns when I am actually getting crochet patterns.)  This one came with some little outfit patterns too.  It was well written, impressive with so many parts involved.  I used some Cotton Tots  for this, a yarn I really enjoy.  It's easy to find, super soft, inexpensive and gets better with age.  I used a ball and then some.

I'm sitting on a huge backlog of creative ideas here.  Yarn, paper, and fabric are all calling my name. 

I have no idea where to start.  I'm actually a little overwhelmed by the choices.  I am hoping to have some good things to show off soon.  I did some updating at the Etsy shop.  I've got more to list but I must be picking busy times of day to try, the picture uploading has been sluggish for me.  I know, it sounds like shameless promotion, but I'm just mentioning it for looky loo reasons- you can see what non-knitting things I am up to.  Not that there's been much knitting to show here...