Two (and a half) down, four to go

Since the entire Potterverse knows that there is only a month (or so) left until the release of Book 7, I thought I'd better get started rereading the first six. So I started book 1 last Friday, June 8. Finished that one and started book 2 on Sunday. Finished that one and started book 3 on Tuesday, June 12. I swear I am reading slower than normal so that I can absorb as many details as possible. This is my fourth time through the books and there are still little nuances that I'm finding anew. It's a good thing the next three books are longer, or else I'd be finished way too soon!

Big score

This is what I found at the Value Village last Saturday. I hear about people finding great stuff thrifting, and sometimes I find a nice piece or two. This, however, is the knittery score of a lifetime.

There are three legitimate addi needles, and three Inox express - one in an addi package, one in a Balene package, and one in an Inox package. The Inox needles are stamped with their sizes. Sure wish my addis were like that!

Brain drain

From ChiknGirl and Freelance Mama:

The Brain Profiler
Your Brain Usage Profile:
Auditory : 62%Visual : 37%Left : 55%Right : 44%


Jessica, you are mildly left-hemisphere dominant while showing a slight preference for auditory processing. This overall combination seems to indicate a well-working blend of logic and judgment and organization, with sufficient intuition, perception and creativity to balance that dominance.
You will at times experience conflict between how you feel and what you think which will generally be resolved in favor of what you think. You will find yourself interested in the practical applications of whatever material you have learned or whatever situation you face and will retain the ability to refine whatever knowledge you possess or aspects of whatever position you are in.
By and large, you will orient yourself toward intellectual activities and structure. Though not rigid, you will schedule yourself, plan, and focus on routine and continuity of operations, rather than on changes and disruptions
When changes or disruptions occur, you are likely to consider first how to ensure that such disruptions do The same balance is reflected in your sensory preference. You will tend to be reflective and measured in your interaction style. For the most part, you will be considered objective without being cold and goal-oriented while retaining the capacity to listen to others.
Preferentially you learn by listening and maintaining significant internal dialogues with yourself. Nevertheless, you have sufficient visualization capabilities to benefit from using graphs, charts, doodles, or even body movement to enhance your comprehension and memory.
To the extent that you are even implicitly aware of your hemispheric dominance and sensory style, you will feel most comfortable in those arenas which emphasize verbal skills and logic. Teaching, law, and science are those that stand out among the professions, along with technical sales and management.

Another swap

Wow, sign up for one swap and then it all goes downhill. Green and pink just happen to be one of my favorite color combos so I just couldn't resist signing up for this one. I already have a little something for my pal, even though I don't know who she is yet. I assume she wears socks, so I felt ok about jumping the gun a little bit. I'm excited to get my pal's info so I can start hunting for green & pink goodies! Might just have to do a little shopping for myself, too ; )

Sockapalooza 4

After drooling over other knitters' sock swap goodies, I finally signed up to participate! I've got my sockpal info and am very excited to be knitting for someone overseas. My idea is to get yarn and goodies that are local to me that she may not have access to. So, I've put my order in at Sundara Yarn for some lovely sock yarn. I will be anxious for that to arrive, but as she is pretty busy, it may be a while before it gets here. I have until August to make and ship socks, so I'm not too worried.

Going to the dogs

Not being a dog owner, there are many things I will never understand about the human-dog relationship. Two of them occurred yesterday while I was waiting in line at the Starbuck's. I was sitting in the drive thru line and noticed that the car in front of me contained a very large dog. He was sitting in the middle of the front seat and seemed to be well-behaved - not jumping around or anything. I looked away for a minute gathering my wallet and looked back up to see the driver throwing a large handful of dog hair out her window as she was putting her order in to the barista. I realize it's spring and dogs are shedding, but did she really need to chuck that out at the drive-thru? I suppose some bird will fly by and consider it a huge windfall with which to build a nest. We all moved forward one space and I gratefully put my order in. As I'm waiting for the driver ahead of me to get her beverage of choice, I see the barista hand her a lid full of whipped cream which she then fed her dog. Seriously, can that be good for an animal? It's not really even that good for people! I was truly thankful that she didn't hand the empty, slobbery lid back to the barista before she drove off.

Learn something everyday

So today I learned how to make a Flickr badge. I swear I have learned more dinking around the computer than I did in 4 years at Purdue. Sad, eh? That's probably exaggerating, but honestly, I can't remember much of the details from many of my engineering classes. Loved my wine class, though, and remember much of it. Most likely because I put that knowledge into practice far more often than my thermodynamics info. Anyway, I finally got around to taking pictures of all the cool stuff I've knit. I have good intentions of making a physical journal w/ said photos and details of the project - yarn, gauge, etc. We all know where good intentions go, right? I have the scrapbook, I have the photos, now I just need to put it all together.

Borrowed time

By some miraculous twist of fate, all of my children are napping at the same time! I feel like a free woman, except for the whole danger of leaving them alone and stuff. Oh well. It's amazing what a quiet house sounds like. Mom heaven.



Anyone have any idea what this is? We found it in the lawn Saturday. It doesn't have a notch in the end by the "feathers" otherwise I'd think it was a crossbow arrow. Thank goodness no one stepped on it!

Sad knitting news:



These were the second socks I ever knit. I am sad to see holes in them so soon since they've only been worn a handful of times. Oh well, I suppose it wasn't meant to be sock yarn - very soft, not so tightly spun. At least I get to try darning now, right?

Monkey-ing around

Finally, some knitting content! I finished the Monkey socks from Knitty last week. The pattern was enjoyable to knit once the chart was memorized - fairly easy to do. I would have preferred them knit on US 0's or 1's, but I didn't have enough yarn to accommodate the change in gauge. I also substituted a star toe for the standard grafted toe. They are quite comfy and fit very well. The only down side is that they pilled terribly after only one wearing. Good thing I have a sweater shaver!




Up close and personal:



From here you can see the pattern clearly and where the star toe decreases are. I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed that the lace pattern doesn't read very well in this yarn. I normally wouldn't use a variegated yarn for lace, but the model sock in the pattern is done with variegated yarn a reads pretty well. Oh well, another opportunity to learn.

Half Mast

Today as we drove past a local middle school, my five-year-old asked "why is the United States of America flag low?" This is not the first time she's asked. It was first noticed several months ago when President Ford died. That event was at least easier to explain than the tragedy that led to today's half-mast flag. How are we supposed to explain to our kids things that we can't even explain to ourselves? I did my best to tell her enough to satisfy her curiosity, but not so much that she is scared. Delicate balance there, as she is naturally very curious. I wonder if in some future history class she will remember noticing the flag half-mast on this day.

Rained out

Our regular Monday playgroup was relocated to a local park today due to a sick husband. The weather was supposed to be a nice partly cloudy 56 degrees. The reality was a damp, rain-threatening 50 degrees. We decided to go anyway and brave the weather. It was great for the girls to get out and play since they'd be doing the same running and climbing in the house - not so good for the momma or the furniture. On the way the Peanut decided to break into her normal car-hating crying. Once she reached the shreiking level, I decided to stop and nurse/change/bounce/rock her until she was calm enough to go on. This was only two miles from our house. We had at least 15 more to go. So as we're sitting in the empty mall parking lot, I decided that we need to just stay home more. When it first became apparent that the Peanut hates riding in the car, I figured that there were two paths we could try to remedy the situation. 1) Keep up with our normal routine in the hope that she'll eventually get used to the car and stop crying every time she's buckled in. 2) Stay home and let hubby and the big girls go out to do the errands and such until Peanut passes the car-hating phase. Clearly option 1 is not working as it's what we've been trying for 8 weeks with no improvement. Time for option 2 - although I'm not sure how I will fare with the cabin fever. That's why I knit, I suppose. Too bad Starbuck's doesn't deliver.

Photo shoot

So I finally finished making the birth announcements for the Peanut. We wanted to send along a photo so we *attempted* a little photo shoot with all three girls. It went...not so well.

Evolution of a breakdown:

I finally got a good one of Peanut the next day in her pjs. This is why photographers refuse to work with children.

Tiptoe through the tulips....really!

We went to Tulip Town this past weekend, just like we have the last five years. We don't have that many of our own traditions - most we've inherited from our families of origin. This one, though, is all ours. Now we've got a slew of pictures that track the girls' growth against the tulips. It was a perfect day for pictures - overcast and bright - so there are no squinting eyes or harsh shadows.

Signs of spring

Yesterday was 65 degrees here. The kiddos and I spent a nice afternoon outdoors - finally! I was able to sweep the sidewalks and the area at the side of the house with the Peanut in the sling. The big girls played bubbles, sandbox, and sidewalk chalk. It was so refreshing to breathe the spring air and see the tulips starting to bloom. We've even got a rhody starting to pop out!

Today looks to be the same, weather-wise. I'm hoping to get the front flowerbeds raked and weeded.

Bedtime woes

Why can't bedtime just go smoothly? You know: pj's, brush teeth, story, then lay down quietly and go to sleep. Seriously, I think they save all the questions of the day - including those existential and basically unanswerable questions - until bedtime simply to drive me batty. Realistically, I know they'll attempt anything just to stay up longer.

Moving in

Time to put all the mental chatter into another vehicle. Watch this space for pfamily news, craft show-n-tell, and general chit chat.