I Love My Husband...(and other stuff I keep telling myself)

I really do love my husband. He's a great guy. Today--my frustration level is high.

I woke up this morning to, "What's on your agenda for today?" I told him--work. Pick up the kids from school. Take Emily to dance class. Come home. Make dinner.

To this I got: "Well, the pack meeting for Cub Scouts is tonight".

Now, it's not just any pack meeting. It's the Blue and Gold dinner. A pot luck. Which requires--a dish.

That's not bad enough--worse yet is that last Saturday Brian finally bought his leader shirt. With all the unsewn patches that need to be sewn on by tonight.

So I am frustrated, and I tell him he shouldn't spring this on me the ONE DAY OF THE WEEK that I work. Thursday is my "busy" day. And I think to myself, "You can iron them on! Just like Emily's daisy uniform."

So I get up. Make sure the kids are getting ready for school. Locate the shirt. Look everywhere for the bag of patches and finally find them in another bag in our bedroom. Look at the back of the patches, that all appear to be iron-on-able except one. Alright, things are looking up.

I haul out the iron. Our ironing board broke, so I am using a towel on the kitchen table. And I follow all the directions to iron on the patches. The same way I did with the girl scout patches. Only these--don't stick.

Nope. Nada. Not sticking. And I can't have them fall off. The damn numbers cost $1.25 EACH and there are 4 of them, and I'm not rebuying them. So I go haul out...my sewing machine. "Alright", I tell myself, "This will take a little longer, but still not bad." Brian, in the meantime, has graciously agreed to run the kids to school (seeing as it is -12 outside).

I get the sewing machine in position, plugged in, turned on. I locate my thread caboodle and see that there is indeed red and blue, and already bobbins to match, so I am in good shape. I go to thread my machine....
*sigh*

The arm that holds the thread on the machine is broken and missing. It broke off about...8 years ago maybe? I super glued it. It wasn't great, but it worked. Now it is missing. So I look in the closet where the sewing machine was, and can't locate it. Great.

I go through my sewing box trying to locate a hand sewing needle, and can't. I just don't have any. Then I remember the sewing kit in my purse...where down the bottom of one of the pockets where the kit is, there is ONE needle.

So I have just taken 10 minutes to write this blog. Now I need to wash my hair, get dressed for work, locate a recipe for this pot luck and then work. On the way home hopefully stop at the grocery store to do the fastest run through yet to grab whatever it is I might need to make this recipe I haven't found yet. Come home (where I am sure my mother will be waiting), go pick the kids up (as it should have warmed up to -1 by then, but they will dawdle on the way home and Emily will be late for ballet). Go to ballet--where I will bring the shirt and hopefully have some time to hand sew on a patch or two. Then come home, make the dish to pass, make dinner for everyone else, finish sewing on the patches and go cry in the corner until bedtime.

Oh and I almost forgot! To make this scenario complete, my dad is fixing Brian's car. So at some point I will have to pick Brian up from work. And pick up his car tonight after the pack meeting.

It's going to be one of those days....

Red Heart Red

There is NO WAY I can not have a skein of Red Heart Red around here. I am making the coolest hat for my friend's son (and then one for Nicholas the way it looks), and I've found nearly all the colors I need but no red in my entire house? That can't be right!

So I'm ready to start my first duplicate stitching attempt. After this I can officially say I tried something new. I just hope it doesn't look like complete crap, because then I have to remake the hat using intarsia (which I might try for Nicholas' hat). I've seen lots of people's projects that are duplicate stitched, and they look great, so there is hope.

Next up is Miss Dashwood from Knitty for Miss Lanie, then some super warm mittens for Mister Alex. It feels good to be knitting and reading so much!


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...And Felted

I felted the girls' mittens this afternoon, and they turned out beautifully, and perfectly sized. Which is good, because I got distracted while they were in the washing machine and forgot about them. Fortunately they felted down to the perfect size in one cycle!


I have to say, the Cascade 220 felted much better than the Lamb's Pride. The Lamb's Pride took 3 times to felt down--the Cascade did it in one, and you can hardly see that there was ever any stitching.

I'm also happy to report the girls love them ;)

Now I am a Good Mom

I have finally done something I wanted to do for a long, long time--all 3 of my children now have felty mittens. OK, so the girls' mittens need to be felted yet. But now they will have warm toasty hands until they lose them:
The pinks are Anna's and the purples are Emily's.

I used Cascade 220, and they are very thick and soft. I do have to say I used Lamb's Pride Worsted for Nicholas', and I so so love the way the twist looks on that yarn, and I think it's my favorite. Not that you can see how the stitches look once you felt it, but when it's done, I think it's beautiful. But Cascade 220 is much softer than the Lamb's Pride.

I just signed up for the Sock Yarnista Club at Three Irish Girls . I decided I work hard (Hey, I made about $7500 last year--it took 3 jobs, but I still made that much money. hahaha) so I can spend $32 a month for some enjoyment. Now I just have to keep on it--my goal is to make a pair of socks every 2 months. I think that is doable, and I haven't made socks in ages. I plan on doing a lot of traveling, so socks are a good travel project.

The very cool thing about this sock club is that you actually get a choice of colorways before they send it. I've never heard of that before ("You get what you get, and you won't throw a fit." I mean, we're sure you'll love it, but if you don't, you are stuck with it) so I am really excited to get that email!

My next knitting conquests? I want to make my friend Jess' kids mittens or hats. They are little, so I am hoping (fingers crossed!) they go quick. I love making kid stuff, and my kids don't always appreciate it. At least I know Jess will appreciate it, even if her kids are going, "Oh great. Mittens." HAHAHAHA

I also am going to see if I can get back to my February Lady Sweater. I have to see how much of my yarn survived the Great Moth Invasion of 2010. Or I could be restarting...which would be fine, but then I have to go through the pain of choosing yarn again. It's bad enough the first time.

Oh well, I'd better get ready for work.

Felty Goodness

Yay! Another FO for this year, and this one I feel pretty good about. I finally finished some felted mittens for Nicholas--and they turned out great, if I do say so myself.
Before:

After:
Of course, black Lamb's Pride is pretty easy to felt, so we'll see if I do so well with the girls' mittens in Cascade 220.
Nicholas loves them, which makes me pretty happy. Now if I could only put gps trackers in them for when they get lost--although Nicholas IS my most responsible kid, so hopefully these will last. Anna I am anticipating mitten loss in about a week. But if I worried about her losing stuff, I'd never knit her anything.

Emily is having her first sleepover at a friend's house tonight. She couldn't be more excited...I am hoping that there are no 2am calls in the near future. She's slept at Grandmas' houses, but never a friend's house...but she's a brave kid, so I'm not too worried.

Brian and I are planning a trip to Vegas next month for our 15th wedding anniversary. It will be the first time in over 11 years we've gone anywhere extended by ourselves.

First FO of 2011

Yay! The only good thing about a funeral an hour away is the knitting I got done on the drive. I've officially finished the first of (hopefully) many objects this year. Picture to come as soon as the recipient gets it...I don't want to ruin the surprise!

Now to work on the mate to Nicholas' first mitten. :)


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At my Funeral

There is very little in this world that makes me more upset than making someone do things for "appearance sake". I could give a crap about "what people think", honestly. Guilt trips suck, especially when no one can give you a good reason why.

Anyway, Brian's step grandma died. They were not close. So we were off to the funeral. I had no desire to go, I wasn't asked to go, I was "required" to go...mind you, this is Brian's dad's stepmom...Brian's dad died 5 years ago, and he had a family before he met Brian's mom, so they have all always been "second best". So what did we get today? Snubbed by Brian's halfsister during the "passing of peace" at church. Now, if anyone could use some peace, it is probably her. Or a sharp smack to the head, which she almost got from me today.

So it got me thinking about my own funeral watching this elaborate charade for someone they never called "mom" or "grandma", but can now pretend they are all upset about her death.

1. Do NOT buy me a casket and put me on prime real estate. Cremate me the cheapest way possible, and scatter my ashes. If you have to, buy a marker at a mausoleum. But here is a hint: I'm not there. If it makes you feel better, I am claustrophobic and I hate cold and dark places. Don't bury me.
2. Speaking of me "not being there", these are guidelines I think make good common sense, but I'M not there, so don't worry about what I would think. Wherever I am going, I'm gone. Do what you gotta do.
3. Take whatever money you were going to spend on a funeral bemoaning the fact that I am gone and have a good old fashioned Irish wake/party. I want everyone to have a shot of whiskey on the house, and tell happy stories about me. There should be a couple (I hope).
4. Do NOT under any circumstances guilt trip someone into going to my party, or make them feel shitty if they don't go. There are people that simply cannot deal with people dying/funerals/etc (like me), and no one should feel bad if they don't show up. Once again: I AM NOT THERE AND DON'T CARE IF THEY ARE THERE OR NOT. However, you can let them know I said they are missing a hell of a party.
5. Please, for the love of everything holy or not-so, do not have some clergy member get up there and pretend that he knew me and talk nice about me from what a few people told him and what he read in the obit. What a waste of time and pretty much a joke. Get up and tell whatever stories you want about me, the funnier the better. That's who I am, and that's how I want to be remembered. Not that, "She loved knitting" because he read it in the paper.
6. Speaking of obits, mine had better be fun. I know that people think it's so wrong to have anything but the regular run of the mill obit. Please don't let the funeral home guy/newspaper guy/etc talk you into anything but what you think I'd want said about me (unless it needs to be edited for a "family paper"...I get this). I know that if it's really wordy it costs more...this is why I have life insurance--for the party, booze and the write up in the paper.
7. Most importantly, I'm not really gone. Not that I am anticipating haunting anyone or anything, but as long as you remember who I am, and remember the good times, a part of me keeps going, whether it does on another plane or not.

So that's it. And if anyone gets out of line or is being a bitch at my funeral, please feel free to smack them in the head. You can use the life insurance money to throw your bail in the event of an assault charge. ;)