Facts I know and still choose to ignore

I know I live in the desert.

I know things succumb to dry rot out here.

I know any fabric left to the elements has a substantially shorter life expectancy here than it would have had in my old home.

I know that I am an average size girl leaning towards slender.

I know that I weight thirty pounds heavier when I've got a big ball of chubby kid on my lap.

I know all this.

And still.....

When you're sitting in a chair and it breaks, it wounds your soul.

My elbow hurts.

And my pride.

Shhhhh......

Are you as sick of the pool as I think you are? It is time for something new. It is about time for some knitting around these here parts. I have, after all, heard rumor that this is a knitting blog.

As you may or may not know I've got a small mountain of finished knits to show off. A mountain I finished almost six weeks ago. The stack of handmade loveliness sat in my family room for two weeks. I didn't want to put them away because I just knew I was going to photograph them...tomorrow. When I finally faced reality and admitted that they weren't going to get photographed anytime soon I moved them to my closet where they were safer, not completely safe, but safer, from sticky little fingers. On the shelf in a tidy pile they have sat and sat and sat. They've been taking up space in there for almost a month? What were they waiting for? What could possibly be keeping me from shamelessly showing off my fabulously brilliant knits with the world? What the heck was I waiting for?

I, my dear friends, was waiting for a good hair day.

That's right.

A good hair day.

And apparently I haven't amassed enough good karma for one yet. What do I gotta do? Sacrifice a child? Cause I'm almost there people. Almost.There.

So it wasn't a good hair day, but it was a clean hair day. Some days that's really the best I can hope for. The pictures are silly because The Greatest took them. Forgive me, they don't really show off the sweater at all. But you get the general idea.

Pattern: Whisper Cardigan, size M

Yarn: Misti Alpaca Lace weight

Needles: The pattern calls for sizes 7, 4, and 2. I might have used those sizes. Or I might have used a 6, 3, and 2. Although, come to think of it, I don't remember using a needle as small as a 3, or a 2 on this project at all. I have no idea what I used. I just don't remember the details. I know, bad blogger, no diet coke for me.

Modifications: None that I can remember. But I also can't remember what needle size I used, so I don't think my memory counts for much at this point. It is entirely possible that I might have modified the heck out of this sweater. I just don't know.

Review: First of all, let me just state for the record: The sleeves are actually the same length. I know they look like they're not, but they really really are. You're just going to have to believe me on this. Same Length.

I'm feeling mixed about this sweater. I love the light weight fabric of the sweater. I enjoyed the interesting construction. I love the slight roll of the unfinished edges. I didn't even mind the endless stockinette stitch too much. It made for great TV knitting. And *sigh* how I love lazy-bad TV watching-knitting. And let's talk for a second about the yarn. Oh how I loves me some Misti Alpaca Lace weight. Oh the sheen. Oh the soft. Oh the love. On paper this project is made of win!

I'm just not so sure about it on my body.

I might have been better off knitting the smaller size. It looks alright in the pictures, but after a few movements it starts to slid off my shoulders causing me to have to constantly re-adjust the sweater. I wanted to wear it over sleeveless items in the summer. I know it is hot, oh so hot, outside, but it can get downright frigid in the over-achieving air conditioning. This whisper light cardigan seemed like the perfect solution. It is such a shame I find wearing it too fiddly. I wonder if it will be better in the winter, over a t-shirt, if it would stick to fabric on my shoulder and not slide around so much. I guess I'll find out when it starts to get cold.

In late November.

So as we breathlessly await winter to discover the true wearablilty of this sweater, admit it, size problems aside, that is one fine looking piece of knitting.

Documentation

Sometimes you reach a milestone and you just need to document the event. I don't journal anymore, so my documentation occurs here. I hope you'll indulge me.

We had a milestone event yesterday.

Meaty is swimming!

Yes, I have added another fish to my aquarium.

My son is a special boy. I love him to bits and pieces. But he is also a bit of a frustratingly fearful boy. He doesn't want to try anything new unless he is confident beforehand that he will be good at it. Confidence is not his strong suit. Minor setbacks easily deter him. We've worked hard emphasising the importance of practice to him. But it doesn't seem to do any good. He rarely wants to try anything new. I keep hoping he'll outgrow this little personality quirk.

Now we just KNEW Meaty could swim. We knew he could do it. He's big enough, smart enough, strong enough and co-ordinated enough that he could do it. He just didn't. The only thing holding him back was Meaty. His Daddy has patiently been giving him short little lessons every night. Let me stress the PATIENT aspect, holding Meaty in three foot water, water Meaty could easily stand in, as Meaty shrieks and flails and cries that he's going to drown. At some point, frustrated from watching the lessons, I looked at The Greatest and jokingly suggested we just throw Meaty in the deep end. Well, I was mostly joking.

But yesterday was different. Something in Meaty clicked. Something in his head slid into place and he conquered the pool! Not just above ground swimming, but swimming with his head under water as well. Before yesterday Meaty refused to even put his face in the water and blow bubbles. But not now.

Getting ready with Daddy.

All Set.

Just keep swimming.

Just keep swimming.

Just keep swimming.

So proud!

And he swam all over our pool all afternoon. He was in the deep end. He was in the shallow end. He was above the water. He was sitting at the bottom of the pool. We swam races. He cannon balled. We all laughed with delight and pride.

He asked if we could go to the store so he could get a new pool toy, and I couldn't think of a single reason to deny him a reward. He worked hard, and he earned it! He wanted to go to the store all by himself with Daddy (that only hurt my feeling a little bit). They came back with this.

Predicatably he slept with it last night. As I tucked him into bed last night I told him how proud I was of him.

"Mom, I'm proud of me too!" he declared. And you could see the pride and self-confidence in his eye.

And that is worth a million new pool toys.

Laugh

I once worked with a woman who emphatically warned me not to marry a man who I thought was funny. She was the sweetest little woman with the sweetest little husband. They had the sweetest little family, two sweet tow head girls. And they owned an ice cream shop. Could their lives have been any sweeter?

I worked in that ice cream shop for the longest time. It really was the best gig in town. I had gone the fast food route. I don't recommend it. My skin suffered from all the grease. My hair constantly had a smell of overcooked meat-like substance that wouldn't wash out no matter how many times I scrubbed it. It was as if the odor had infused with the grease in the air and bonded to create some kind of super-coating on my person, an outer shell of ick that never washed off. Mmmmmm, outer shell of ick.

But the ice cream shop was different. There was no grease to be seen. Instead I came home smelling of vanilla waffle cones. Mmmmmmmmm, waffle cones. I ate my weight in ice cream each week, but being young and lucky I actually lost weight on my all ice cream diet. How I loved that job.

One day I was in the back when the husband came through and made what was, by all standards, a lame joke. He laughed and laughed at his perceived cleverness. The wife smiled at him fondly, rolled her eyes at me, and imparted her wisdom.

"Mamma, never marry a man because he makes you laugh. After a few years you'll realize he only knows so many jokes, and they're not that funny."

I thought of her words often. I shook my head at how wrong she was. I loved to laugh. It is joy transformed into sound. It is all the good emotions a body can feel pouring forth in a happy noise. True laughter is infectious and grows. It is what makes life so beautiful and bearable. And I'll admit it, I laugh at everything. I'm prone to laughter at the most inappropriate times. Why wouldn't I want to marry someone who made me laugh?

As the years slipped past I became painfully aware of how much I no longer laughed. My life held little joy. And one day I finally pinned down the cause. I was with a man who didn't laugh. I can't explain why but he just didn't laugh. And he didn't make me laugh. Our life together held no joy. That is no way to live.

The day I left him is the day I met my husband.

And how he made me laugh.

I stayed up all night with him laughing that very first night. I couldn't sleep. I just needed more, more of his voice, more of his smile, more of his jokes, more of this long forgotten feeling. And we laughed our way through the next day. And the next. We were married four months later.

And I've come to realize something: that sweet ice-cream shop owner? She was a little bit right. He does only know so many jokes. And I know them all by heart.

But he still makes me laugh.


Edited to add: I stand corrected. I typed this up Sunday night. On Monday The Greatest told me a shocking off-color joke that I won't repeat. As he smirked over my horrified giggles (yes, I laughed at the distasteful joke, I told you I laugh at inappropriate things) he declared "You've never heard that joke have you?" And no, I had not. He's still got a few surprises left in him. How I love that man.

Apologies

When we threw out Pork Chop's Birthday Flowers it occurred to me that it really was time to update the old blog. How it has sat, forlorn and un-updated, for a full fortnight. The last time my blog was this boring I was pregnant and entirely too sick to sit upright at the keyboard. Let me assure that is not the problem this time around.

It isn't that I don't have finished knitting projects to show off.

I do. Believe me I do. I'm disgusted by how pathetically small my list of finished objects is. FOUR?!! Only four so far this year? Really? I've finished so many more. I've got a stack of sweaters in my closet that are just one good hair day away from debuting in the blog. Note to self: go wash hair.

It isn't that I don't have stories to tell.

I do. The children are an endless supply of blog fodder and random mischief.

And it isn't that I don't love all my readers.

That isn't it AT.ALL. Believe me, I LIVE for your comments. I really do. (So keep 'em coming, they make me so happy /shameless begging)

No my problem has something to do with this tiny princess.

She is absolutely convinced she is a fish and must spend every possible waking moment in the pool. In just six weeks she has graduated from the floatie with the straps in the bottom

to the ring floatie

to water wings.

I'm telling you. It takes more effort to make sure this one survives the day than all the other three combined.

More blog posts to come as soon as I can stop dripping all over the keyboard.

A Special Day

Yesterday was a very special day.

It was the nine year anniversary of the day I officially became "Mommy."

It was an extra special day nine years ago, and an extra special day yesterday.

Nine.

Such a big girl.

No longer does she ask for dolls and ponies.

Her birthday list was full of books and clothing requests.

She is more amazing every day.

Nine.

Half-way to adulthood.

If who she is now is any indication, I love who she is going to be.

Smart, hilarious, generous, polite, caring, beautiful. She is better than I dreamed she would be when I was carrying her in my swollen body.

We bought our little bookworm the Harry Potter collection for her birthday. She loved it, but we were out shined when Grandpa's present arrived. My Father sent her flowers for her birthday. 100 Blossoms. Can't top that. I did find her reading Harry Potter out loud in her bedroom. She told me "I hear it's good to talk to flowers, so I'm reading to mine." Could she be any more love-able?

Seduced and Betrayed

I wrote this post a week ago, but I've been so bereft by the entire affair I haven't had the heart to edit and publish it. I also haven't had the heart to knit since.

So the Evil knitting continued to grow

I'm almost ready to start decreasing for the arms.

The decoy knitting was buzzing right along as well

I'm almost ready to knit the heel (turn the heel? create a heel? what is the proper knitterly way to say that?)

Then I was seduced by something new.

I'll admit it. Some young pretty knit turned my head with all its fancy white lace. It was new and different. It promised me romance and I was instantly smitten.

Admit it. You're intrigued by this sweater too.

I couldn't help myself.

The obsession took hold and I HAD to knit this sweater.

Never mind the fact that I'm supposed to be showing my undying love for my husband by secretly knitting him a sweater with the World's Worst Yarn(tm). Never mind the fact that I am stash knitting and I don't have a sweater quantity of yarn left. I had some left-over white acrylic baby yarn. Almost a full skein as a matter of fact. I know from experience that I could "kill" this particular yarn and achieve the lovely drapey qualities of the alpaca the original design was knit with. This yarn could work for this sweater. Never mind that fact that I have four children and I would be INSANE to wear a white sweater, or anything white for that matter. Never mind the fact that I live in the desert and it is a billion degrees outside.

Like I said, I couldn't help myself.

I just knit a little gauge swatch. Just a bitty square of knitting to see if the yarn would even be a good match to the pattern. Only a tiny square.

It isn't really cheating on my husband's sweater if its just a gauge swatch right?

But I got gauge. I got perfect gauge, row and stitch count exactly. This never happens. Something is always off a little bit. But not with this gauge swatch. It was perfect.

I couldn't stop myself.

Before I realized what I was doing I had cast on for the sweater. I knit, and I knit, and I put the sleeve stitches on waste yarn and I knit and I ran to Wal-Mart of another skein of yarn, and I knit and I knit and I picked up stitches for the collar, and I knit and I knit and I frogged ten rows, and I knit and I knit and I knit. And then I bound off.

Of course that three day marathon of Burn Notice on USA Network didn't help matter. I loves me some Micheal Weston. It was the perfect excuse to sit on the couch and knit.

Before I knew it I had knit the entire body and collar of the sweater. All that was left were two tiny short sleeves. I was inches away from perfection. All that promised romance would be mine in mere hours.

I tried on my unblocked sweater to revel in the white glory of lace I had created.

Ummm, yeah.

No.

I should have chosen a size larger, possibly two.

Into the frog pond I go.

Cheaters never do prosper do they?