Last Month Re-Cap

Last month, I set some knitting goals.  So, how did I do?  Here are the results!

1.  Knit 1 hank of yarn on my February Lady Sweater  -- I did this and have now divided for the sleeves and have knit just past my boobs.  So, it is coming along.  I will take some pictures next month.

2.  Knit 15 squares on my sock yarn blanket -- I did this too.  I actually did more than 15, I did 18.   I have so much farther to go on this project, it is a bit overwhelming.  I have done about 260 squares, out of 732.  It is a long march!

For March, I want to accomplish the following:

1.  Finish my Cookie A socks  -- DONE

2.  Finish my December sock club socks -- DONE

3.  Make a sheep for Hannah's teacher -- DONE

4.  Start my pin-wheel scarf -- DONE

Passover

Events of Passover:

1)  It is a darn good thing my kids are Jews, because they couldn't cut it at an Easter Egg Hunt.  After spending 30 minutes looking for the afikomen, then getting hotter and colder hints, it was decided that they were clearly not cut from the same cloth as their mother.  My Dad hid the eggs so well, that he had to have a map to find that one last egg no one could find.  Well, until it rotted and we located it by smell. 

This reminds me of the time that a dozen eggs slipped out of the grocery bag and were hidden in the trunk of Bob's car.  A few weeks later the car started to smell, not so good.  We cleaned out the inside, aired it out, nothing worked.  One day after taking it to the store again, I noticed a carton of eggs tucked in a corner.  I carefully pulled it out and solved the smell problem.

2) Songs on the computer are a nice thing, but it is an issue when there is only one book of songs, and not everyone knows the words. 

3)  I almost lost a game of bowling to a 4 year old.  Real bowling is nothing like bowling on the wii.  I am much better at bowling on the wii.

4) A person can only eat so much matzoh.  I feel ill already.

Goals for April

The goals for last month worked out so well, I am going to try it again for this month!  So here they are:

On-going:

• Knit 1 skein on my sweater

• Knit 15 squares on my blanket

• Knit one row of pin-wheels for pin-wheel scarf

Monthly Goals:

•  Christmas Stocking for Martha

•  Shur'rugal socks out of Happiest Girl, I never promised you a rose garden.  (I love the names of the colorways in this line of yarn!)

I think this will be all I can get done this month.  If I finish up early, I will keep working on my blanket or start another project!

Street Car #9

For today, a list..

• Viva Las Vegas

• I am alone, but doin' alright

• What, I was supposed to know who was in that picture?

• The best thing was his spacers?  He is happy about braces.

• Paragraph #9, how I love thee paragraph #9

• At the end of the day odes will be written about paragraph #9

• I am so happy, I am Paragraph #9 happy

• I am sorry, but I thought you said....

• I can't stop the smile on my face, because I am happy in this place, smile on my friends

• We think he might have giggled just a bit 

• Can you change teams?

• Card sharks

• I don't believe you

• Freak, what is it winter?  I am FREEZING

• I would like to point out that a 9 is just an upside down 6, just sayin'....

• Knitting makes everything better

Moving Day

Moving Day.  It is a day that is the end of a chapter, the beginning of a new chapter.  In my life I have moved a lot.  There was a time when I joked that if I ran out of checks, who uses those much any more, I moved.  Since I have been married, I have moved less.  Bob seems to be a stabilizing force in my life!

Today, walking to school we saw a mover truck in front of a neighbors house.  This truck was moving people out.  I am sure another will move people in.  The kids and I all had a reaction to the truck.

Sam, was interested in the truck.  He wanted very badly to go over and look at it more closely.  He noticed all the differences between this truck and our truck.  The name, the rig pulling the trailer didn't have a sleeping cab on it, etc.

Hannah, thought the they guys didn't look as nice as Mr. Steve, from Paul Arpin.  We love him.  We also love Paul Arpin.

Mac, remembered when our truck pulled up.  He said that it was raining that day.  Which is was, sort of like today.  He said that he was very happy to see his stuff, after having it in storage for a month.  But, he said, he was also sort of sad because it meant we were really never going back to Connecticut.  I asked him if he would like to go back now.  He said no, that he likes it here.

As for me, one of the images in the slide show of my life is the Paul Arpin truck pulling away from my house, heading around the bend, with all my stuff in it.  The truck was going to Rhode Island.  Mr. Steve was an oddly large part of my life at that moment, he packed me, he shepherded my stuff from Rhode Island for storage and then back to Illinois for me.  He liked us, and he treated our stuff like gold.  He even called me when he found the casters for Sam's bed when the swept out the truck.  He was willing to come by my house to drop them off before he left town.  That is the kind of mover you want. 

Mr. Steve also talked to me about the perils of living in temporary housing for a month.  In his understated way, he told me it was going to suck and that I was going to hug him when I saw him again.  He was right.  I didn't' hug him, but I told him I did hug the truck. 

When he finally left, with a honk of the horn, he signaled the end of one chapter in my life and the beginning of another.  If I ever move again, I want Mr. Steve to do it.  Really Paul Arpin Movers and Mr. Steve are the best.

Don't worry about the house keeping

I read an article in Sunset magazine this week.  It was written by a woman who teaches a writing class.  She talks about how she tells her class that they need to spend 1 hour a day writing if the really want to become good writers.  Then she talks about the litany of excuses people have for NOT spending an hour a day doing this.  It boils down to, "I just don't have time I am super busy."

As the article progresses she says that we fill our lives with super busyness and do not actually enjoy our lives.  That if we spent 1 hour a day not cleaning out houses or not working or doing what ever it is that sucks our time and makes us feel that we are so busy.

So, there I am thinking, oh, a reason to not clean the house and then I thought, this article is not telling you to clean less.  That does not apply to you.  I actually think that the article is telling me to clean more.  I spend a great deal of time lamenting about the mess that is in my house.  I was a lot of energy worrying about how messy my house is, but don't actually fix the problem.  So, I decided, that rather then complain about the work, I will just do it.  I will stop spending time being upset about the state of the house, and use that time to actually address the problem.

My house will never be perfect, I am not really striving for that, but I love to have that feeling of peace when everything is picked up and not all over.  The chaos of the mess creates negative energy for me, and it becomes a spiral.  I am not happy because the house is messy, and I am depressed that my house is yucky.  The more depressed I get, the messier the house gets, and so on. 

What I have found, is that if I do a little bit of work everyday, that the house isn't out of control.  If the house isn't out of control I feel better and have more time to do other things that I like.  It seems counter intuitive that an article that is telling you to let go of your busyness has actually made me do more work.  The pay off is that I spend much less time worrying about the mess, and can actually enjoy the time I have!

Wonder what he thought

While at knitting a couple of Sunday's ago, there was a late 20's early 30's guy sitting in one of the chairs near us.  The chairs are all lined up on in a row.  A couple of folks in our group were clustering around the chair at the end of the row.  As the group grew, and more people left the chairs on the window, a few of us jumped into them, thus expanding our group in such a way that this guy was sitting in the middle of us.

Now, knit group conversation can be as mundane as chatter about the weather, yarn, needles, questions about patterns and what not.  OR we can talk about men, sex, crazy families, boob jobs, periods, etc.  Pretty much, nothing is scared at knit group.  We have scared off many potential members by our lack of boundaries... but that is what makes us a really fun group.  At least in my humble opinion.

Anyway, this week was no different and the conversation turned to discussing various men and comb overs.  I of course blurt out, I think bald men are hot.  This is met with a chorus of agreement.  The guy sitting in the middle pretending to read, was suddenly even more interested it us.  We then started to talk about all the unexpected things we like about various men.  Needless to say, he probably fit the bill on a number of them, but most likely feared that he was a bit nerdy.  Yeah, we watched him too...

I would love to have talked to him afterward, to hear his opinion of the experience.  I wonder what he said about us.  I imagine that he said that knitting groups sure aren't a bunch of old ladies sitting around talking about their bursitis. 

This hip knitter, signing off till next time.