A project finished!

October 30, 2007 at 12:54 pm (knitting)
Tags:

ALL I had to do was kitchener stitch the toe of the second sock closed, it’s been unfinished since before Sophie’s birth back in February!!  I had wanted some soft, warm socks for those postpartum cold feet, and I didn’t get them done in time for that, but they are done in time for this winter.  :)   It’s an alpaca/acrylic blend I got from Michael’s, I can’t find the paper for it so it’s unnamed as of now.  Sorry!  It’s slightly bulky though and done on size 8 double points.  Just a plain sock pattern.

Alpaca socks 1

Aloaca sock 2

I have not yet mastered kitchener stitch so it takes a lot of concentration while reading the directions, and no interference from kids (hard to do here).  Don’t laugh!  Hope to get better at it someday and not use the directions!

3 Comments

Just some stuff

October 29, 2007 at 12:45 pm (family)
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Yet another post about a little bit of everything!

The kids both have runny/stuffy noses and although I am feeling better than last week (the coffee is helping again!  Yay!), I am still not quite right either.  It doesn’t help that Sophie has been up for several hours in the night, each night, for the past 4 nights or so.  I think last night wouldn’t have been bad if her nose hadn’t been stuffy.  Ugh.  It’s always something!  I was just talking with a friend whose children are grown, they apparently did not sleep but they both turned out to be brilliant people!  So maybe mine are working out a cure for cancer, or perhaps, cold fusion!!

I decided I needed to finish some knitting projects I started a while ago so now I’m working on a pair of socks again.  I decided that when I’m done with these, I’m going to splurge on some really nice sock yarn!  I just haven’t decided which kind or what color yet.  But I want to work with some nice quality yarn and make some toasty, soft socks for myself for winter.  Knitting seems to be coming a lot easier to me now (I think it’s probably because I’ve just done more of it!) and I want to keep working on stuff.  It’s really relaxing!  Thanks, Cinnamonamon, for getting me hooked!  (Oh wait, that’s crochet!  Ha, I am so funny!)

We are probably going to carve pumpkins tonight.  That means I have to clean off the kitchen table.  *sigh*

No matter how bad things get here, with the kids not sleeping and me feeling (and looking) like crap (I also happen to be in the 20% of women who cannot lose weight while nursing, no matter what), it could always be much, much worse.  I frequent the message board at mothering.com, and there is a girl there who I’ve talked with several times before, she is a cancer survivor and just found out that she’s got mets to other parts of her body, including her brain.  She had to wean her baby who is just a few months old, and the clincher is, her sister died of cancer this past summer!  So, I don’t really have it that bad.  It’s not fair, that this is happening to her and her family… her poor mother, I can’t imagine how awful it feels to have lost one child and be threatened with losing another.

Well, Sophie has just informed me that she is, once again, on a nap strike.  She just will not stay asleep.  She is freak-out tired, but will NOT give in.  Not a good way to start off a week.  Thankfully I can get mini breaks in here and there with my knitting.  Let’s hope she gives in and crashes for at least an hour sometime today.  (And I don’t mean from 12-1 am!!)

I was going to take a picture of the socks in progress but I’m finding I am barely able to finish this post.  It will have to wait til another day.

Before I end this, does anyone know if kids just about to turn 3, go through an INTENSELY negative, and I mean INTENSELY, phase?  Because Will is making me want to rip my hair out.  Everything is TOO hot, TOO cold, TOO loud, NO I want to sit there, no do it here, no do it there… OH and it’s NEVER enough… we could go play with friends for hours and it’s not enough, he is like an endless pit of neediness/negativity that can NEVER be resolved!!!  It’s making me CRAZY!

2 Comments

For today

October 25, 2007 at 1:13 pm (Friends, family)
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

 I wanted to update my blog but I didn’t have really any ONE thing to mention, so I am putting together a mishmash of things that don’t really go, but they are part of my life, so I guess they do go.
I think I have mono again, or it is flaring up.  I feel like crap!  Tired, achy, slight sore throat, and for the past week or so, my ribs hurt so much when I wake up in the morning that I can hardly stand to lay in bed any longer even though I’m pooped!  Last night I was in bed at 10 pm.  I would have gone earlier if I could have… maybe tonight.  I just need to sleep and sleep and sleep… fortunately Sophie, even though she wakes up a lot (3-5 times per night) to nurse, she went straight back to sleep after and that’s always good.

I was looking at the ads from the Sunday paper just now (today is Thursday and I’m just NOW getting to the Sunday paper!) and I saw Crisco extra virgin olive oil… THAT is just WRONG!!!  I mean, come on!  Crisco?  LOL

The kids are all clingy today.  Sophie just ate a whole bunch of butternut squash that I baked last night and she loved it!  (So did the bird, and the cat… the cat?)  Will, of course, would not touch it.  That’s because it’s poison.

I need another cup of coffee.  Even though the first one didn’t really perk me up, I am now crashing from it.

What I really need is SLEEP but that won’t happen til tonight.

I was reading on Mombastic today, something a friend wrote, basically about honesty and helping others, but what to do if the person you are helping is lying and you know it but they would never admit to it… I’ll let you read it yourself!  But that got me thinking, when is it OK to lie (is it ever?) and how do you teach your kids when it is or not?  I think for starters, kids should be encouraged to be honest, because they might not encounter a situation where telling a “white” lie is appropriate.  I am really nonconfrontational so I would rather keep things at an even keel vs. starting an argument or causing hurt feelings, so I will tell white lies to keep that balance.  If I’m really backed up against a wall, I will try to be diplomatic about it (let’s use a friend’s new haircut as an example)… Friend: “No, really, don’t you just love my new hair?”  Me (in my head)”Oh my GOD it’s hideous” Me (out loud): “Uhh… yeah!”  Friend: “No, really, what do you REALLY think?”  Me (in my head): “God Woman just drop it!”  Me (out loud): “Well, uhhhh, it’s a little bit short for my taste, but, uh, yeah, you look, uhh… trendy, cute, yeah it’s good for you!  As long as you like, that’s all that matters!  Friend (in her head) “shut up you hate it” Friend (out loud): “Thanks!” Me (in my head) “OH thank GOD this conversation is over” Me (out loud): “Yeah! You’re welcome!”

So is it really OK to tell lies sometimes?  How about if you know you are being lied to and if you didn’t lie back, you’d be making things worse?  I think it is.  Even though we are all taught not to.  Now, how to teach this to my kids.

By the way, to all my friends who might read this, I love all y’all’s hair, I do!  I was just using it as an example.  No really!  It’s the truth!  :)

It was cold this morning and there was frost.

My kids are driving me nuts today and my son wanted to go play with friends.  We spent most of the day at Carolynn’s yesterday  and now today he feels the need to be entertained.  We made some plans for tomorrow but it looks like today he will need to entertain himself.  I’m having the same conversations I had with my mom, and OH MY now I sound like her “Just go play.  I’m not going to entertain you all day!”

Sounds like a good place to end today’s entry.

2 Comments

We had a productive weekend

October 22, 2007 at 9:44 am (family)
Tags: , , , , ,

We are making way for Will’s big boy room!  Yesterday we hauled all the computer stuff out of the office and I steam cleaned the carpets so that Will’s new loft bed and a few of his toys would be able to go in there.  I have to say, without the computer desks and everything else crammed in there, the room looks a lot bigger!  (Oh, and Oxy Clean gets stains off carpets in case you need something to try… just wear gloves though, the skin on my hands is fried!)  Clane had to replace a couple of boards on the loft and once they are stained and the whole thing is cleaned up, we can bring it inside.  The mattress spent the day outside on the deck yesterday (in our lovely – NOT!!! – 80 degree weather… it’s OCTOBER, people!!) sunning and airing out and I picked up some twin sheets too, so we’ll be all ready to go.  Hopefully he will sleep in there!  I think eventually he’ll think it’s pretty cool.  I will have to take some pictures of the room when we get the bed in it.  We are going to leave the filing cabinet in though because that sucker is so heavy, it’s not getting moved til we move out of this house!

The rest of the house is a total disaster now, since we were busy with other things, everything else got neglected.  I need to clean the kitchen something awful, the floor is filthy and I can’t stand it when my kitchen is dirty!

The computer is in the living room now which, I think, is good… problem is that now I don’t have anywhere to hide… *sigh*

Sophie has been sleeping pretty screwed up again (like when was it ever NOT screwed up…), she has been taking 3 naps, the last one being really late in the day, then not wanting to go to sleep for the night til 10, then getting up at 7 am, so she is tired and pissed a lot of the time… happened again yesterday and she decided she had to have a nap at 9 this morning (instead of her usual 11), which lasted approximately 30 minutes, so now she is up again and crabby… UGH I hate it when days start out like this!  At least Will isn’t moody, he got a good night’s sleep last night thankfully.  When he goes down at 10 and is up at 7 or 8, I KNOW the day is going to be bad…  she woke me up right after 12 just as I was starting to fall asleep and bounced around in the bed so I didn’t get to sleep til 1 and she woke me up probably 3 times between then and 7… someone needs to shoot me.

I need another cup of coffee… maybe that and some knitting will settle my nerves that are already jangled and it’s not even 10 am…

1 Comment

We saw Jewel last night in concert!

October 19, 2007 at 9:26 am (music/theatre)
Tags: , , ,

I haven’t been to a concert in 17 years (had to count them!) so when my husband asked me about going a couple of months ago, I thought, sure, that sounds nice!  Jewel isn’t my favorite artist but I did really enjoy her first album.  I wasn’t crazy about the songs on her next one so after that I didn’t pursue it at all.  My husband picked up her latest one a couple of weeks ago so we could listen to it before going to see her live.

She played at the Temple Theatre in Saginaw, which is an old, very ornate place.  It really reminded me of the Calumet Theatre, but a lot bigger and probably a little bit better kept up (or maybe it’s a little newer, not totally sure of that).  I got a glass of wine and my husband got a beer and we went to find our seats, we were in the second balcony, 3 rows back and in the middle and it was a perfect view!  (Pretty far away still but we weren’t going to fork out $100 a seat for better seats!)  I was happy to see just two guitars, a microphone and a table with flowers on it and a cup of tea, that was it.  She didn’t have any other band members there, no dancers, nothing fancy at all.  It was very nice, she seems really down to earth and humbled that people still want to come out and see her play since music careers tend not to last long!  She gave a really nice show, talked to the audience, told some stories, took requests, came back for a curtain call.  I will probably check her website from time to time to see what’s happening.  It’s neat how a girl who grew up in Alaska with no indoor plumbing, had to pee in an outhouse at night in the middle of winter, wound up at Interlochen and then made it big!  She’s not popular like she used to be but who cares!  She is talented and down to earth, it felt like she could be sitting in your living room.  It was nice.  (And, I got to go on a date with my husband!!!)

I’d always thought that when we left the UP, we would take advantage of such a variety of different cultural/music/theatre stuff to do down here, but we really haven’t!  I used to be a theatre person myself, did a little theatre and some music in high school (accompanied the chorus on the piano a few times), I made costumes at the Michigan Tech Theatre for 3 years in college, and I was in a couple of different community groups right before we left.  I was even in an opera, La Traviata, as part of the Pine Mountain Music festival in 1998.  The whole thing was sung in Italian and we had to have it memorized and I had no idea what we were saying!  But it was fun and the costumes were cool, it was a really nice group of people.  We did that at the Calumet Theatre which now that I look at the websites, is probably older than the Temple, and probably not as well-maintained.  My dad still does plays all year round!  Maybe, someday, after kids, I’ll get back into that again.  I’m glad I had the opportunity to do things like that!

Our son spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa’s house last night and it was weird waking up this morning without him here!  I called earlier to see what they were going to do and she said it all went well.  Sounds like they are bringing him home this morning.  I hope he had a fun overnight!

Leave a Comment

WHY WON’T SHE NAP?!?!?!?!?

October 18, 2007 at 10:31 am (baby stuff)
Tags: ,

WHYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!  She slept for exactly 20 minutes this morning, EXACTLY enough time for me to take a shower, and not a second longer.   Oh.My.God. I think I am going to rip my hair out if today keeps going this way…

2 Comments

Pictures Pictures!

October 15, 2007 at 10:38 pm (knitting)
Tags: ,

I just realized that there has been an echo in the titles of my last two posts so I thought I’d keep with that theme!

Here is a picture of the yarn I got for my next projects.  The three skeins on the left are going to be for a sweater for Sophie, the one in the middle, maybe a scarf for me, and on the right, those three skeins will probably show up in some little girl clothes although I don’t know yet just what.  It’s very soft, pretty yarn and I want to find something to do with it!

Here is a picture of the two preemie caps I crocheted.  They are pretty fast projects and a good way to use up ends of soft yarn.

2 Comments

Monday Monday

October 15, 2007 at 11:57 am (family)
Tags: , , , , , , ,

This weekend I gorged myself with yarn!  I promise to get some pictures sometime in the next couple of days.  I got a few balls for a couple of things I want to make for Sophie, and I got a few more balls for my stash, don’t know what to do with them yet!  A few of them will probably become little girl clothes, and one of them, maybe a scarf for myself.  They are cool!  I went to Michael’s, alone!  (Thanks to my sweet husband!)

My mom is here for a visit and unfortunately wound up in urgent care yesterday with bronchitis.  So, she’ll be here a few more days recuperating before getting on the bus to go home.  The rest of the house gets colds, and mom gets bronchitis.  (Not good!)

We found a bed for Will yesterday, it’s a loft bed that’s solid wood (pine, but at least it’s not chipboard!).  It’s been a little beat up around the edges but I think it will work out great until he is probably a teenager and too tall to use it.  It’s got a desk at one end and shelves and drawers on the other.  I don’t know how we will transition him into sleeping in it up high, since we lay down with him to get him to sleep, we might need to put it on the floor for a while until he’s used to it and his new room.  I also need to buy bedding because I don’t have any for a twin bed.  The mattress is used, but I figure he will pee in it sometime and every kid barfs in bed at least once!  I’ll try to get some pictures of the bed too.

Sophie had two awful nights and two days of near nap strikes… then last night she actually gave me almost 4 hours of sleep in a row!!  I actually woke up on my own at 6:45 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, I’d had enough (GASP!!!) and just waited for her to wake up.   I can’t imagine how wonderful and energetic I will feel someday when I am actually getting enough sleep every night.

Today we are going to Meijer for some groceries and I’ll look at bedding there.  I think Thomas bedding would be neat but I’ll see how expensive it is compared to the other stuff.

I am coming along well with Will’s sweater, I finished both sleeves and the back and just started the front.  It goes fast and if I can get some good knitting time in this week, I might be able to finish it!  Of course I’ll probably start Sophie’s sweater, Lion Brand has some cotton blend yarn that feels nice and that’s what I’m going to start next.  It doesn’t help that I was making some preemie hats out of ends of skeins to give to the church ladies, they donate them to somewhere, maybe Covenant’s NICU?  Not sure.  Preemies have very tiny heads.  I can’t imagine having a baby that tiny!  (I’ll post pics here soon!  I’m lucky to get the time to blog, let alone getting decent pictures of all my stuff!)

I belong to a Listserv called Lactnet, and some of us who knit made our own group for the knitters on Lactnet… so now I’m officially on a knitting list… I hear it’s all downhill from here!  LOL

2 Comments

Excuses, excuses

October 11, 2007 at 11:21 pm (baby stuff)
Tags: ,

I was having a conversation with my mom the other day about why babies don’t sleep.  I remembered a bit from my friends at Sleep Is For The Weak about excuses and thought I’d make my own list.

This is my list of excuses babies have for not sleeping:

Too tired, not tired, too much excitement, not enough stimulation, too much stimulation, immature nervous system, too interested in the world around them, not enough naps, too much naps, sick, teething, teething for like a month for only one tooth, learning to sit, learning to crawl, learning to stand, learning to walk, learning to talk, something they ate, something I ate, not enough solids, too many solids, wants to play, just doesn’t feel like sleeping, too hot, too cold, not close enough to you in the bed, too close to you, room too loud, room too quiet, ran around too much, didn’t run around enough, didn’t get outside, went outside for too long, late nap, missed late nap, thinking about something they saw earlier, hungry, too full, needs to burp, needs to puke, can’t find pacifier, doesn’t want pacifier, no feet in pj’s, fleece pj’s, missed bath, water in ear, travelling, strange bed, room too bright, room too dark, to bed too late, to bed too early…..

This is making me tired.  I’m going to bed.

2 Comments

My life since I posted last

October 9, 2007 at 10:03 am (family)
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I couldn’t come up with a creative title today so this is what you’re stuck with!  Hmm… lemme see.  My mom got here Saturday and it’s really nice to have another adult in the house with me during the day.  REALLY nice!  Even though there are small moments of “mom getting on daughter’s nerves”, it’s still really nice.  (I can run to the shower, actually enjoy it, cook dinner without worrying about them hurting each other, etc.)

It was really f***ing hot yesterday, 91 degrees (dunno what that is in C for my European friends but I am thinking it’s somewhere around 35).  WRONG WRONG WRONG for October.  Just wrong!  Thankfully today won’t be as hot and tomorrow it will only be about 53 (that’s about 12).  Much more appropriate for this time of year.  How are we supposed to enjoy all the yummy fall foods and soft, warm clothes when it’s 91 outside?  I dislike the heat intensely anyway (half my genes come from as far north as Alaska) but in October it’s just wrong.

The sweater is coming along really well.  I finished the back, and I’m about 1/3 of the way done with the first sleeve.  I will be sure I post a pic of it when it’s completely finished, before my son stains it with spaghetti sauce.  Maybe I’ll lanolize it now that I think of it!  Wouldn’t that help with stains?

I have a sore throat today but I’m in denial about being sick.  I have been sick more than I’ve been well this year.  That sucks bad.  I just hope it’s a cold and not strep.  Guess I’ll find out in a few days.  Sophie’s got a mild cold right now too and has been sneezing in my face.

Speaking of Sophie, she thought she was done sleeping for the day at 6 am!!! (where’s the dizzy smilie?)  OH I was not happy.  After a long struggle, I got her back to sleep just before 8 and managed to sleep long enough to have some really screwed up dreams, then woke up feeling more tired than if I’d just gotten up at 6.  Will has been waking up early since we put him in his own bed but thankfully (and I’m REALLY thankful) he will just come out and watch TV, he doesn’t color the walls red or anything like that.  Otherwise I’d be screwed.

Plans for the week?  If I’m not feeling bad I’ll take Will to play at Carolynn’s tomorrow, and I have a turkey in the freezer I want to cook, I’ll make it with a bunch of sweet potatoes and give Sophie her first taste of meat.  Mom likes to go to Joanne’s so we’ll do that and I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my birthday money (from almost 6 months ago!!) at Michaels on some yummy soft yarn to play with.  I am also going to take advantage of live-in child care to get some cleaning done… I want to be able to use my sewing machine that is now buried in junk, which resides in my laundry room.  The bathrooms could use a good scrub too.  Let’s see if I can get 25% of that done.

Leave a Comment

« Older entries