Round and Round

A belated knitting updated. Because I know how much y'all care about my anxiety-busting hobby. Thanks to several nights of insomnia, I have finished up a couple projects over the past few weeks.

It's been knitting in the round month over here. First up, M's birthday gift, hand-knit golf club covers. Not a stellar job, and not in the appropriate alma mater colors of blue and orange. But the yarn was priced right and seemed like a manly color. The covers are a little snug when trying to get the covers on the actually club. Lesson learned: always try to model your handiwork, even if it requires shlepping out to the car at 2am in the morning.

Up next, a pair of mittens for an outreach project that Lovely Friend is coordinating at her church. While I don't attend the same church, Lovely Friend is well aware of my inability to say no and my knitting habit, and asked me if I wanted to contribute a pair (or two or three).


"Why Chichimama!" you exclaim. "It looks like one mitten is much fatter than the other!" And indeed, you are correct. I have no idea why. Same yarn, same needles, same pattern, same number of stitches. But yet, there you are. One fat, one skinny. Of course, this means that I feel somewhat obligated to try try again. But first, I'm going to start in again on my Einstein jacket.

Full Circle

I am blogging from my new MacBook. M said he was coming home with a surprise, silly me thought it was a cupcake. And even though we agreed to no anniversary presents, note that I am not racing this one back to the store. I am only feeling a small twinge of guilt that his anniversary present consisted of a pulled pork sandwich with a side of baked beans. From a can.

I've spent the last 45 minutes trying to figure out how to right-click, and am still a little unclear why the computer came with two power cords. Somehow, picking up a new operating system is not nearly as easy as it was a decade ago when I switched from Mac to PC. Thankfully, when I announced out loud that I was old, C patted me on the head and told me that I might be old for a kid, but not for a mommy.

But seriously? I feel really old right now. I'm off to watch some tutorials, because I think that's what the old folk do.

The Ten Comandments of Vacation Bible Camp

1. Thou shalt not touch (or hit, or pinch, or kick) thy neighbor, even if he started it.
2. Thou shall write thy name on all thy art projects or risk receiving someone else's Jesus Bear.
3. Thou shall wait quietly, in line, for thy turn, even if thou feel like practicing thy handstands.
4. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors' dinners, even if they are slow eaters.
5. Thou shall listen to thy teacher, not thy neighbor.
6. Thou shalt not bring thy own toys to camp and then use them as flying projectiles.
7. Thou shall remember to collect thy confiscated toys at the end of camp.
8. Thou shalt not tell thy parents that thy toys were ripped from thy hands by thy evil teacher for no reason, as thy teacher, who might have let the whole thing slide, will elaborate upon the circumstances for the confiscation.
   
9. Thou shalt not bolt for the nearest exit, even if thy siblings are headed out to the playground.
10. Thou shalt not try to climb on the pulpit.

All Hail M

Who stayed up late and fixed my computer!

Unfortunately, I belatedly remembered that I had neglected to backup my bookmark files. Which contained all of the links to the online knitting patterns I like, including the ones I am in the middle of at the moment. It also contained all the things I was planning to purchase people for major gift-giving holidays over the next year. Gah.

As if my posting could get any less frequent...

My laptop seems to have croaked this evening. It is not an unexpected event as it has been limping along for days, to the point that I even backed up all my files over the weekend. Which, it turns out, was a good thing. M is going to try to salvage it tonight but I have my doubts. Not in him, but in the machine itself. And if my laptop is really kaput, my ability to blog will be even more hampered than it already is. You see, the kids have no idea that "mommy's computer" can actually play PBS kids and Playhouse Disney. So when I sneak a few minutes to read emails or blogs, there is no clamoring for their turn. But if I try to sneak away to the office (where I am now), they immediately start begging.

Sigh. I was really hoping it would die closer to the holidays so I could ask Santa for one of these...

It's hard to be the little one

Friday I took the kids to the library to sign up for the summer reading program. Of course the library is closing in a week for extensive renovations, meaning that our summer reading will now consist of the same books we already have read over and over and over again, but I'm not at all bitter. The end result, so they tell me, will be a more user friendly and comfortable library with WiFi everywhere. And if I will actually be able to take my laptop to the library and sit in a comfortable chair instead of the 70's originals that are in there now, I am all for it.

Anywhoo, there we were at the summer reading program sign up desk and the library page asks my kids "Do you want to sign up for the readers club or the listeners club?" I step in and reply "The listeners club," which causes C to give me a look of pure hatred. "I can READ, Mom, I want to be in the READERS club." OK, I think. If he wants to spend the summer plowing through our early readers over and over again, I'm not going to complain. "Fine C, go ahead. But you know this means you have to read all by yourself and can't count the books I read to you at night." Eye roll and all, "I KNOW Mom. I AM going into kindergarten."

A then pipes in "I'm a reader too!" To which the clearly not so familiar with children page responds "Oh! OK then! We'll sign you up for the readers club!" "But A, you don't even know all your letters!" I quickly respond. "I DO! I can read! I CAN!" And A bursts into tears. The page looks confused and can't quite seem to decide what went wrong where and what to do about it.

Finally, she comes out with "A, if you want to switch to the readers club later in the summer if you learn to read, you can just come back and switch, OK?" A is still bawling. "I AM a reader. I AM." I grab the summer reading materials, promising to fill them out at home and bring them back before the big closing, and carry a bawling A out to the car, dragging an unwilling C behind me.

I bet you can guess how we have spent the last few days. A is bound and determined to learn how to read. She had M drilling her on the alphabet yesterday, and me pointing out every word in every book she loves. "What's that word? And that one? Move your finger Mommy!" This morning when I went into her room, every early reader was piled high on her bed from the night before when she had clearly paged through them all after we had tucked her in.

The girl has determination, you have to give her that. And I won't be at all surprised if I am trying to explain how we can't actually return to the library mid-summer to sign her up for the reading club because the library is closed, despite the cheerful words of the library page.

For the blogliners

As part of my great summer organizational binge, I'm going to be fixing my labels over the next few days as, in case you hadn't noticed, there is very little consistency (case and point, I currently have three different "meme" tags). I have no idea what that will do to bloglines, but if random posts from years ago start showing up, please excuse the mess.

Is it wrong....

...to be debating what I want more, a sewing machine or a stand mixer, if I ever have some extra funds to spend on something? I think perhaps I need to get out more.

But seriously, what do you think? Sewing machine (New curtains! Hemmed pants! Holiday gifts!) or stand mixer (Yummy cookies! Quick bread mixing! Ice cream maker attachment! Did you hear me? ICE CREAM!).

Overheard From the Back Seat

A: "Mommy, I like this song. It that your voice?"

Chichimama: "Uh, no, it is Celine Dion's voice."

A: "Oh, it's pretty. It sounds like your voice..."

I so love that child.

Perspective

Tonight, all I wanted was for the kids to go. to. bed. already. A was freaking out because that is what she does best at bedtime, and C kept popping out of bed to see what A was freaking out about. I finally got them both into bed and silent, and went out to the deck to sip my wine and ponder the weed infested backyard.

As I sat there, sweating slightly, I remembered summer evenings as a kid, lying wide awake in bed wondering how on earth I was expected to fall asleep when the sun was still up. I lived in New England so there was no air conditioning and on the really hot nights I would lie there sweating, alternating between crawling under the rough cotton sheets because I was afraid the spiders would get me if I wasn't covered up, and tossing them off because come on, it was way to hot to be under a sheet, spiders be damned.

A few minutes into my trip down memory lane C appeared in the door and announced "I can't sleep. The sun is up, I am hot under the covers, but then I take them off and I can't sleep because I need the covers to sleep. What am I supposed to do?" And I was instantly transported back to those sleepless summer nights of my childhood. I empathized, internally. I knew what he was feeling. And then I sent him back to bed.

Sometimes it's good to be the parent.

Nothing much of importance

• I've been rather uninspired lately. No interest in writing, cleaning, knitting, reading, laundrying...you get the picture. In fact, I'm not quite sure how I have been filling my days, but clearly I haven't been doing much.

• I suppose I have spent a fair amount of time eying all the projects around the house and garden and getting overwhelmed and annoyed, because we had JUST gotten the old house in great shape, and now we have to start all over again. And since we had to carry the lovely old house for almost a year, we haven't really got the funds to do any of the things I have in mind.
• And you thought you were done hearing about my moving woes...
  
• Although I am almost at the point that I am going to paint the ugly stained wood doors myself, just so I can stop staring at them every night in utter decorating angst.
• In fact, that might be how I spend the weekend, as M is off sailing with his parents.
• Do ya think he would totally flip to come home and find the family room and back hallway totally redone?
• I really think I might.
• What else would I do? It is too cold to go to the pool, and it is Father's Day weekend, so every other family in the world (except for Rebecca's) is spending time with their families.
  
• Perhaps I will somehow sneak the children without passports onto the next BA flight instead.
• Or maybe I'll paint the doors.
• Which will lead to having to paint these doors.
• And this window...

Clean Power

We just switched to clean power through our electric company. If you live in MA, NY, CT, MD, NJ, or RI, you can choose to do the same through this company, Sterling Planet. There are other options out there, this just happens to be the one we chose. The cost is slightly higher, they claim about $10 a month, but in my opinion well worth it. Your electricity delivery will remain exactaly the same, but you will be doing your part to reduce our dependence on oil and reduce CO2 emissions. Check with your electric company and see what your clean power options are.

Deep Thoughts, By C

"Sometimes even tow trucks need a tow."

"Nanas are mommies who let you break the rules, sometimes."

"Kindergarten seems like it will be just like preschool, without the fun."

"Little sisters are fun, until they aren't."

"Chutes and Ladders is a very long game, unless you go up the slides just like on the real playground."

"It is hard to do the voices when you are reading in your head."

"The reason I am always hungry is because you don't give me food like ice cream and donuts. I bet if I ate a lot of ice cream and donuts I would get a tummy ache and then I wouldn't be hungry any more."

"It is hard to treat others the way I want to be treated."

Goals

It is good to have goals. Goals are good. And since I am faced with a summer of nothingless, and a hubby whose season of travel seems to have turned into a year of travel, I figure I need to set myself some goals or nothing will ever get done around here.

• Organize the entry, for the gazillionth time. I feel like I spend my life organizing the entry, so clearly it is not organized well. I am, once again, going to clear out the two storage areas, and then try to figure out what I keep shoving on the shelves in a frantic stash and dash before someone rings the doorbell. Once I know what doesn't have a home, I will try my darndest to find suitable homes.
• Organize the pantry. This one will actually require M's assistance, unless I feel like taking on a building project. Which I just might. But in all seriousness, we have some super deep cabinets that seem to gobble up canned goods so I never have any idea what I actually have in house. And since we have established many times that I am an inherently lazy person, I never bother to dig through and instead just rebuy. Resulting in 12 cans of chickpeas. To resolve this, I want some pull out shelves.
  
• Organize the toy collection. I actually started this last week, inspired by a link I followed from Jody's. Then I ran into some child-induced difficulties, "NOOOOO! DON'T put THAT there," and was forced to halt until such time that another adult could escort the kids outside, or to the playground, or someplace other than the family room.
• Weed the garden. Y'all saw the pictures. I don't weed. I was spoiled at the last house, we had mulch and fabulous ground covering plants. Since mulch isn't in the budget this year, I actually need to get down and take out those pesky weeds.
• Finish my Einstein Coat. This one is a bit ambitious since I just agreed to make some mittens for an outreach project Lovely Friend is doing, and they need to be done sooner rather than later, but I need something to knit while I am not watching the trashy mini-series.

That's all for now, I figure with two kids in tow, this should probably take me all summer. Wish me luck-

8 Random Facts

Ginger tagged me for this one....and if I still owe someone out there a meme (and I am fairly certain I do), let me know. Because it is shaping up to be a memey sort of week.

1. My children are at the moment raging at me because I took away their ability to pick TV shows after dinner because of their behavior (or lack thereof) at the grocery store this afternoon. Note that I did not take away the TV, just the show picking ability. Because it has been that kind of a day. Hmmm, I wonder what I want to watch. Perhaps some Charlie and Lola...
2. I am very tired. I am always very tired. It is a fact of my life. Maybe not a random fact, as anyone who knows me and my kids knows that I am always tired, but it is a fact.
3. I love trashy novels. I just finished a particularly horrific one which has apparently been turned into a USA mini-series. That should tell you just how horrific it was. Even still, I read it cover to cover. I am NOT going to watch the show, however. Really, I swear.
   
4. I kill plants. Not intentionally, but I kill them nonetheless. Despite this fact, I continue to plan elaborate gardens that will eventually die. My own personal brand of self-torture.
5. I hate to be touched. Hate it. Which makes it rather hard to parent two children who love to snuggle.
6. I used to be well-informed about the goings on in the world. There were actually several years that I read two or three newspapers cover to cover every day. I kick ass in trivial pursuit for those years. Now? I'm lucky if I know if there is a major holiday approaching.
7. When M is out of town I live on frozen pizza and nachos. There is something so wonderful about frozen pizza and nachos. And then I wonder why I can't lose the last ten pounds of baby weight...
8. Ten minutes later my children are still raging at me. In between the bouts of "This is all YOUR fault." "No! It is all YOUR fault." This is going to be the longest. summer. ever.