Counting down...

Well, I'm trying to get packed and get my life in order before heading off to Sea Socks for the next week. I love the reaction I get from people when I say I'm going on a sock knitting cruise. "A what?" Sock knitting cruise. "Huh. So... [change of subject goes here]"

Here's the arsenal, which is almost packed up and ready to go (still have to wind some yarn - they'll have ball winders on the boat but who wants to wind yarn on a cruise when they can do it in their boring old house ahead of time?):



I'm going to throw in a hank of Alchemy bamboo as an emergency skein, just in case my Lacy Cabled Scoop sleeves & neck shaping and the knee-highs I'm designing for The Sweet Sheep (out of that lovely pink yarn you see there) don't keep me busy all week. Not to mention the Blue Moon Sock Club socks, which are going to be my airplane knitting. I'm so optimistic, aren't I, thinking I'll get to knit while sitting on a plane next to a two-year-old? Maybe I should throw in a ball of Tofutsies, too, just for good measure... Never mind that I'd have to knit 24 hours each day I'm gone in order to go through all that yarn - it's better to be safe than sorry.

I keep forgetting that we are going to be getting yarn on the boat as well as stopping at yarn shops in both San Francisco and Victoria.

I really am a freak, aren't I?

Here's where we stand with the packing right now:



I tried to fit it all into two bags, and was just about at capacity when I remembered I didn't have any diapers packed anywhere. Since we'll be on a boat, I'm going to need a week's worth of diapers. I had to switch out a medium-sized bag for two smaller bags, and now it looks like everything will be fine. I'm probably (okay, definitely) going to be adding some yarn, but the diapers will take up less and less space as the week wears on, so I'm hoping it will balance itself out. I wonder if anyone else has ever measured how much yarn they can buy by how many diapers their kid goes through in a week?

I'm in those frantic final stages of trying to get all the final little things packed up, like toiletries and snacks and entertainment for the kids on the plane. Fortunately it's a pretty painless flight down to LAX - not like flying to Tokyo! I still have this antsy feeling like I always get before going somewhere for a week. It helped me finish my Rutabaga last night:



It's still a little lumpy and in need of some blocking lurve, but I think it looks pretty cute! Is it annoying when I call my own designs cute? I know it must be, but it would be pretty stupid for me to design something I thought was ugly, wouldn't it, now?

And now I am off to wind some yarn. I have been promised Wi-Fi on the boat by Royal Caribbean, but if a week passes without a word posted to the blog, I'm either having way too much fun to blog or Wi-Fi was an evil lie on their part. I'll leave you with these pics, for those of you who are curious what the original incarnation of Knee High to a Grasshopper looks like. These are the photos I submitted to Knitty way back when, which apparently just weren't cool enough for the hep cats over there, although I'm the first to admit that I'm in serious need of a good photography class (Bill actually took these, since it would be impossible for me to view my own legs at those angles):



See how nice and lacy it looks up at the top of the leg? And here's a view of the back (these had short-row heels - Grasshopper has gusset & heel flap):

And another thing...

In a small brush with fame, I noticed that the bag I gifted to the Yarn Harlot when she was in town last year made her blog. As the time-out bag where bad knitting goes to think about what it's done.

I left a comment on the post and was stupidly giddy when she actually e-mailed me back confirming that yes, that was the bag I gave her. I am officially beyond dorky. Now, if only Lantern Moon would make a time-out bag for two-year-olds who insist on chucking hard wooden toys at your head at close range, and no amount of asking, begging, pleading, yelling, threatening, bleeding by mommy, etc. makes a darn bit of difference...

What? There's knitting?

Lest we all forget that this is a knitting blog, today I am going to post about a current WIP. I'm so accustomed to all of my work being top-secret that when I'm working on something that's not, I can hardly believe it and forget to post about it!

This is a sample of my Rutabaga bag from the Spring '07 Knitscene, which I'm making for a class that I'm going to be teaching (on the bag) at Close Knit in June.



I'm using Hemp for Knitting, which is what I'd originally swatched in for this design. It got changed by the Interweave folks to Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, which was great to work with but not necessarily my preference for this particular bag since it's so stretchy (the bag looked great when it was empty but stretched down to the ankles if you put anything in it). I won't profess to know what kind of crazy voodoo goes on at the magazines when choosing their yarn for each issue - I just smile and nod and work with whatever they give me (usually it's just fine, and it wa fine in this case, too - just not my favorite).

Close Knit doesn't carry Brown Sheep, so I got to go back to my original choice, and I'm loving it. I'm not a huge fan of the hemp yarn for garments due to its coarseness (I know, I know, it softens up with washing, but I'm a wuss that way), but it's perfect for things like this. Here's a close-up of the stitch pattern:



It's sort of a smocking, and I'd forgotten how fiddly it is, but the result is spectacular. I love it! And it's fairly fast. It will be nice to have a sample that I get back!

I also got a little surprise in the mail yesterday. If you are a member of the Blue Moon Sock Club and haven't gotten your April package yet, don't read any further! Or if you do, don't blame me for ruining the surprise!

There. You've been warned.

You may remember in mid-March when I briefly mentioned the design project from hell, and then said I couldn't tell you more, or I'd have to kill you. Well...this is the fruit of my labors - the April sock club pattern for Blue Moon Fiber Arts, "Knee High to a Grasshopper". This pattern has a long and sordid history, and I'm so happy to finally see it take flight!

For those of you who aren't members of the sock club, the pattern is a lacy mesh, worked toe-up, with a seam stitch down the back. I first came up with it last summer, knit it as knee-highs out of Cascade Fixation, and submitted it to Knitty. In fact, I should dig those suckers out, since the pattern has FINALLY been published. They've been languishing at the bottom of a shelf somewhere... At the same time, I started talking to the lovely ladies at Blue Moon about designing for them. At our first meeting, they asked me to bring some samples of my designs, and I brought these socks along. Tina and Kaci immediately fell in love with them, and I had to break the news that they were already submitted to Knitty. Tina offered a couple times to talk to Amy Singer and get them "unsubmitted" so Blue Moon could have them, but I was reluctant to do that since I didn't want to tick Amy off.

Needless to say, Knitty rejected them (if you know my history with Knitty, you'll know that I am a frequent rejectee and a never acceptee there), and I started working up a sample in Blue Moon Seduction, as knee-highs. This is the sample that those of you who have the pattern will see in the back (it's in Puck's Mischief, in case you were wondering). First, these were going to be a regular Blue Moon pattern. Then, they were going to be in a book as a threesome (with knee-highs, thigh-highs and regular-height socks). At the same time, I was trying desperately to come up with a Sock Club design for Tina & Kaci without much luck.

In early March, they contacted me and asked if they could use the lace socks for the April sock club. I was understandably concerned about turn-around time, but I didn't have any other pressing stuff going on, so I agreed. The April club also debuted an incredible new version of STR, so it was a VERY exciting opportunity for me! I was waiting anxiously for the yarn, hoping I could get the socks knitted in time.

Assuming they'd send me the yarn as soon as it was ready, I didn't pester them for it. When I got an e-mail from Kaci asking how the socks were coming, I was like, "um, what yarn?" Minor freak-outs on both ends ensued. Fortunately, it's not an unreasonable drive up to their production facility (and it's quite pretty), so I hopped in the car with Owen and high-tailed it up there. Then I spent the next 48 hours knitting furiously. Stupidly, I didn't swatch and assumed that the needles I'd need were the same as the needles I'd used for the Seduction version since it's the same size and expected gauge. In fact, the gauge was the same as the Seduction, but the yarn behaves quite differently due to the silk content (as in, it's much less stretchy). I finished the sock from hell, drove it up to Scappoose, and came home to put my wrists on ice.

A couple hours later, I got a call from Tina. "Um, Chrissy? This sock that you left here? It barely fits on my 11-year-old daughter." #$*@&#*$^@#*$&!!!!! (That was from me, not her - picture the dad in A Christmas Story down in the basement swearing at the furnace...) Fortunately, the sample I made fit on the mannequin leg well enough for photographs, so I had a week to knit the 2nd, more loosely-gauged final sample sock which I assume will be going on tour with the yarn. This one was much more pleasant, and fit on my foot quite nicely. However, by this time, I was disgusted with the whole process and ready to give up designing all together (I should mention that I was up past midnight a couple nights in a row, sizing the pattern to fit S, M & L). Fortunately, the further I got from that sucky week, the more excited I was getting to see the pattern come out.

Well, it's here! And much to my surprise, the ladies sent me my very own Sock Club kit!



Now, I knew that the yarn was great, but now I know what all the fuss is about with these sock club kits. There are several pages of dyer's notes and foot notes (as in, factoids about feet), the pattern & yarn, and a little mini-skein of "emergency" yarn that you can attach to your keychain. I seriously may have to sign up for the next go-round of the sock club, even though I try not to do stuff like that due to lack of time.

The new yarn is a STR that is approx 80% merino and 20% tussah silk (the ball band adds up to 108%, so I'm not sure of the exact percentages of those two components). The silk dyes up differently than the merino, which gives in the barber-pole effect. Here's a close-up:



Isn't it lovely? I've been stalking the Sock Club blog to see what people are saying about the pattern, and it's been pretty positive so far apart from a couple of people who are unhappy about the "seam" on the back of the leg (which is there because the purse-stitch pattern wouldn't work in the round without it, but I happen to LOVE it - it was modeled after old-fashioned silk stockings, which probably shows up better in the knee-high version than the short version). But, you can't please all the people all the time, which is what I keep telling myself. I hope most people will find it a fun knit like I did. And now that I have my own skein of the yarn, I can knit it up into my own Grasshoppers along with everyone else! I have to say, the thought of the Yarn Harlot knitting one of my patterns makes me a little giddy. I hope she likes it!

It's a beautiful morning!

And it's not just because I see blue sky out my window... I got to make coffee in my kitchen for the first time in two weeks!



Check out that sink! That faucet! Those countertops! I am in love.

What once was a bare wall is now this:



And just so the stove doesn't feel left out, here's our third wall (yes, our kitchen basically has three walls - don't ask!):



Quite a difference from the original, eh?



Now, to get my act together and pack for Sea Socks! I've got to get my new circular needle case organized, and figure out how much knitting I can possibly do in five days on the cruise. Always better to bring too much, right? Although I will be getting new yarn on the boat. And we'll be visiting a yarn shop in San Francisco. I should be okay (pause for a few deep breaths).

In other news, how is everyone doing on National TV Turn-off Week? We are not doing all that well, but it has made us more aware for sure. It's rough trying to go cold turkey when everyone's sick and stressed out and doesn't want to do anything but sit in front of the idiot box. I have made a couple small steps - first, I put a couple of books in strategic places around the house so I can pick one up and start reading every time I feel like I need to turn on a show (this has been particularly effective on my bedside table - I read for half an hour before bed instead of watching something stupid and I've found it much easier to get to sleep). I've also set a radio up in the living room and have NPR on all day so I have something to stimulate the brain while knitting.

And finally, in a baby step towards getting rid of our 200-channel line-up, I canceled our premium movie channels. We've got Netflix - why do we need to pay an extra $30 a month for HBO & Starz? We couldn't quite take the ultimate step and pare down to the basic DirecTV package (mainly because we can't stand the thought of losing our TiVO service and don't want to buy a new box - DirecTV forces you to have their Plus package if you want TiVO, although if you ask Bill it's because he doesn't want to give up TBS, USA and ESPN). Baby steps! Baby steps to the remote, baby steps push the off button, baby steps pick up a book and read instead...

Holy heck!

I've started answering my phone "Crazy House, proprietor speaking". In a twisted case of be careful what you wish for, I was rewarded today for my fond rememberance of our chickens in their little peep days by a box of 40 baby chicks.



That's right - 40 baby chicks arrived in the mail today, unordered, unexpected and completely unprepared for. Somebody upstairs is rolling on the floor, laughing hysterically at me right now. They sure are cute, but what a great way to throw someone into a complete panic! Fortunately, my wonderful in-laws came to my rescue and crisis has been averted.

The poor little peepers had obviously been in the box for awhile, so I immediately set up a makeshift brooder in a gigantic cardboard box. We didn't have any brooder supplies that weren't already in use, so I stuck dishes of food and water in for them that they immediately swarmed (there were at least three chicks standing in the water dish whenever I peeked in at them). I didn't have another heat lamp, so I filled up Ziploc bags with hot water and threw them in as makeshift hot water bottles. Then, I set about making some phone calls to figure out what the HECK was going on.

Fact is, nobody knows why I got 40 chicks in the mail. I first called My Pet Chicken, since they're the only place I've given my name and address to in relation to chickens. They didn't know what was going on, but they recognized the name in the package's return address as another mail-order chicken place that uses the same hatchery. She did give me some very good advice, namely to call a feed store and see if they'd accept extra babies. Apparently she had the same thing happen to her not so long ago. Obviously, the hatcheries need to get their act together somewhat.

Next, I called the non-My Pet Chicken related place that apparently sent me the box. They had no record of my name or order number in their system. They said they'd call the hatchery, but there wasn't much they could do other than tell me not to try to send the chicks back because they wouldn't survive the trip. We had one casualty in this box, which isn't bad when considering the sheer volume of chicks in the box. And I thought three chicks peeping were loud! These guys were deafening.

After another check on the chickies, I consulted with my in-laws who had come to my rescue. They've been talking about getting chickens for years, so they picked their favorite ten out of the batch. There was no information in the box as to what breeds the chickies were or if they were sexed (all girls) or straight-run (50-50). Then, my father-in-law and I drove out to Linnton Feed & Seed, where the wonderful folks who run the place came to my rescue and took the remaining chicks. I am hoping that they'll be able to nurse the weaklings back to health and find happy homes for all of them.

Fortune smiled on me and the baby chicks today. I happened to be looking out the front window when the mailman arrived, so I was able to take the box in right away. I can't imagine if we'd have been gone all day - it's not exactly warm out. The only thing worse than 40 unexpected chicks on your front porch is 40 unexpected dead chicks on your front porch.

I'm not sure what's going on with the universe these days, but boy do I hope it straightens itself out very soon! I will admit, though, that when I got past the stress of figuring out what to do with 40 chickens, it was nice to have little peepers in my office again!

Yuck.

I know this blog is in serious jeopardy (okay, I just had to open Word to see how to spell jeopardy. My first attempt was "jeapordy". Some Mensa member I am...) of becoming one of those blogs where all the blogger does is piss and moan about how terrible life is. I'm going to try to mitigate that somewhat with pictures of our new lawn.

We've got sproutlets!



This is our newly seeded Fleur de Lawn ecolawn (doesn't need water once it's established and only needs to be mowed twice a year). We've also got the most gorgeous lilacs:



This lilac bush was my 5th anniversary gift from Bill. Isn't it fabulous? And check out our gigantic chickens:



Can you believe they're only three weeks old? They're huge! When I pick them up (which is harder and harder to do these days), they eye me like I'm prey! They totally look like tiny dinosaurs, which I guess is appropriate since they are the closest living relative of the T-Rex (oh, the things you can learn from children's television). I miss the fuzzy little peepers they were when they first arrived, but I console myself with the fact that the bigger they get, the closer we are to a backyard supply of those fabulous organic eggs.

And our kitchen. Oh, our kitchen! The sink is finally hooked up, which means the dishwasher is running after nearly two weeks of eating takeout and scrubbing glasses in the bathroom sink. It still needs a fresh coat of paint on the cabinets and the horrifying purple ceiling has yet to be hidden from view, but the counters are in, the sink is hooked up (complete with our fabulous $500 faucet which I consider to be my third child), and the guys figure they'll be out of our hair tomorrow. I love it!

Okay, there really is something to be said for accentuating the positive! Here I was all set to bitch about my problems, but life really isn't so bad when I think about it. Sydney now has the stomach bug, Owen blew through his diaper today all over the playroom carpet, and I'm coming down with yet another cold, right before Sea Socks, but hey, I've got a new kitchen! And lilacs! And ecological lawn mix sprouting in my backyard! Rock on!

Retail Therapy

Thanks to everyone for your comments and support regarding my last post. I knew I could count on you guys to cheer me up! It's nice to know I'm not alone in feeling the way I do, and I also like to lay it all bare every once in awhile so that maybe someone reading who feels like I do will know that she's not alone in the world, either. Apart from some superficialities, most of us humans are more alike than we are different.

Bill and I took a big first step this morning and went through our Tivo season pass list. We whittled it down from like 33 shows to 10 (a few of which will drop off as soon as the current season is over, like The Apprentice and American Idol). We still aren't ready to give up our absolute favorites (like The Office and Grey's Anatomy), but I am sacrificing The Bachelor and The Amazing Race. Our next step is going to be eating at the dinner table instead of in front of the television. We'll see how that goes...I need to remember to take baby steps instead of doing everything all at once and then getting depressed when we get overwhelmed and fall back into our old ways. ANY-way...

When you're in a knitting funk, what could be better than spending an entire day on a bus filled with knitters, shopping at six different LYS and buying stuff you wouldn't normally shell out for because you're getting a 15-20% discount? Um, nothing?

Yesterday, the TKG Westside Spring Shop Hop '07 officially went off without a hitch. I was one of the committee members, so it wasn't quite as relaxing as it had been the previous year when I was just a participant, but it was still a total blast. I brought my new camera along and took many, many pictures. I also scored some totally sweet stuff. This year, my focus was mainly on yarn for the kids as well as single skeins of stuff I wouldn't normally look at because it was too expensive.

I've got a gazillion photos of folks in the shops, so I put together a Flickr set (this will also go on the Shop Hop blog). I met up with a few bloggers you might know:



Here are Tiffany, Amanda and Katrina at All About Yarn, our first stop. I kept forcing Amanda to turn sideways so I could get belly shots. Isn't she just adorably pregnant right now? She looks like I do when I'm about six months along (when I'm two weeks from giving birth, like she is, I look like two Amandas).

All About Yarn is a little shop in a suburban strip mall that doesn't look like much from the outside, but inside it is AWESOME. Renee and Mary (who are also TKG members and on the board with us) have fantastic taste in yarn, and have plenty of stuff I could've spent my money on. I was still waiting for the caffeine to kick in and stressing out about my role as timekeeper (I had to ring a bell at 20 minutes and then as a 5-minute warning), so I only got around to picking out this:



Three balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in Cranberry (hmm, I wonder what these might become?) and a ball of Knit One Crochet Two PJ's, which is basically a strip of fleece posing as yarn. This will become a hat (or some such thing) for Sydney. The lovely ladies of All About Yarn also snuck in a nail file from Oat Couture. Sweet!

Next up was The Knitting Bee, where we were greeted with mimosas and a whole new store full of lovely yarn to explore. Talk about sensory overload! I succumbed to temptation in a big way here:



I picked up four balls of pink Touch Me to make a little top for Sydney along with a magnetic board for holding charts (and keeping track of where you are). But my biggest coup was the gorgeous Della Q circular needle case. It is sensational. Here's a close-up view:



Isn't it purty? Now I can get my circs out of that shoebox in my office... The only hitch in the whole day happened at (but had nothing to do with) Knitting Bee. We were supposed to have our box lunches delivered there so we could eat them on the bus ride back into town, but the delivery person totally screwed up and we had to leave before she got there. Fortunately we were able to send her on to Knit-Purl, our next stop, and it worked out just fine. Better, in fact, since Knit-Purl let us use their classroom space as a lunchroom, which was a lot easier than trying to balance what turned out to be gigantic lunches on our laps on the bus...

Here's what I picked up at Knit-Purl:



Yes, that's Koigu on the left. It's also Koigu on the right. Looks funny, you say? It's worsted-weight Koigu! I've never seen this before, so I was a little bit over-excited. In the middle are Nature's Palette (this will soon be available at Gardiner Yarn Works - yay!) and a hank of the Handmaiden Sea Silk. I decided to live dangerously and pick up a hank. I think there may be some lace knitting in my future...

Our fourth stop was Dublin Bay, which is a relatively new shop on the edge of downtown. People were going nuts at this shop, which carries a very unique selection of yarn (particularly from Ireland, the UK and surrounds). They have a whole wall of Jamieson's Shetland Wool along with killer selections of Fleece Artist, Handmaiden and Cherry Tree Hill. Here's what I found:



I got a bunch of different colors of Jamieson's DK for some colorwork swatching along with two very decadent skeins - on the far right is a lovely hank of worsted Frog Tree Alpaca. Nestled in next to it is a delightful little hank of Artyarns beaded silk. Yummy! Now I need to figure out what I'm going to make out of that little gem. It needs to be something spectacular.

Here are Tiffany (blog linked above), Jenni and Karen, relaxing in the midst of the frenzy. Right after I took this picture, I sat down and joined them!



At this point, I was suffering some SERIOUS yarn overload, but we still had two shops to go. Lint was next, and about that time, I was feeling about the shop hop like I'm starting to feel about this post. However, I was cheered by the appearance of this in my shopping bag:



I designed a tank top for Y2Knit last summer out of the Blue Sky Cotton, but of course had to send it away once I finished it. This year, I have big plans to make one for myself. Of course, I'll have to grow a 2nd set of arms to do it, but I have big plans. I also got the only books of the day - "Knitting For Peace" and "Not Tonight, Darling, I'm Knitting", which are both great books with wonderful little tidbits about the wild world of knitting.

Finally, we headed to Molehill Farm, our last stop of the day. Molehill is a great little shop in a refurbished house. The highlight is the bathtub, which they fill with sale yarn. Of course, with 55 knitters crammed in, there was barely room to move. I didn't get too many pictures of this shop because it was SO ridiculously crowded. They made it up to us by serving wine, cheese & crackers. I left with these two lovelies:



The hank on the left is silk/merino from Great Adirondack Yarn Co, and the one on the right is Mountain Colors 3/4 Wool (out of the sale tub, no less). We managed to get everyone checked out, across the street, onto the bus, and back to the starting point with about 15 minutes to spare before we went into very expensive overtime on the bus. It took about 10 minutes to get everyone unloaded, leaving us with about 5 minutes to spare. Talk about perfect timing!

When we were on the bus, thanks to Donna's tireless efforts, we had fabulous raffle prizes for everyone (a few friends of mine were very generous donors, including Mama-E, The Sweet Sheep, Lavender Sheep's Fiber Garden and Knot Another Hat). This is what I drew - a little felted bag kit from Blue Sky Alpacas including a pattern and four hanks of Melange. I might actually make this - it looks like a fun, quick knit and I could use a little bag like that.



And finally, the best part of the shop hop was the goodie bags! Donna dazzled Lantern Moon with her negotiation skillz, and they gave us these awesome Origami bags below cost, along with the cute little sheep tape measures.



I now carry this bag just about everywhere with me. My only complaint is that when you're wearing short sleeves, it's a little scratchy when you carry it over your shoulder. The easy fix is to carry it on your lower arm instead (or don't wear short sleeves), so I can't compain too much. The bags retail for around $40 and the tape measures for like $8, so this more than covered the $35 we had to pay to go on the shop hop. Not to mention we each got a beaded scarf kit from Interlacements (these retail for about $40 as well, I think - I don't have a picture because I seem to have misplaced mine somewhere - go figure). There were also a ton of coupons, yarn samples, wool wash samples, hand cream, a ball of Peaches & Cream, a Dale of Norway pattern book and a little bag of notions. So much stuff! Again, big kudos to Donna for securing all this great stuff for us. Wow!

Now, I've got another big ol' thank you to send out to my SP10, who sent me all this lovely stuff last week:



A sock project tube (which is now holding my long-suffering Dublin Bay sock from my Summer Sock Party '06 swap partner), some peppermint aromatherapy oil, some yummy lip balm, a cucumber-melon candle (which is currently burning to try to get the smell of chickens out of our living room) and a ball of Regia, transported all the way from Germany, that I love SO much. Could those colors be any more me? My pal totally rocks. I feel bad burying this pic at the end of this long post, but I figured I'd better post about it while I was on a roll. With my frequency lately, it could be days (or weeks) before I got around to it!

Now I've got to get myself motivated to run 6 miles. It's about the last thing I want to do (right up there with eating liver & onions or campaigning for the NRA), but I'm going to do it. Oh, I forgot to mention, the highlight of the evening yesterday was when I got home and Owen greeted me by throwing up on me. It hasn't hit Sydney yet, but I'm waiting fearfully for the other shoe to drop. Just so they get it out of their system by next Sunday, when we leave for Sea Socks! Yahoo!!! Life really is good, isn't it?

Ugh.

I haven't felt much like blogging lately - can you tell? I'm going through a funk with my knitting. I don't feel like designing. I wonder if it's worth the trouble - it hardly pays anything, and it seems like designers get zero respect from anyone unless you happen to be a knitting celebrity. I just don't know if I have the stomach for fighting my way to the top and then figuring out how to stay there (assuming I could even make it to the top). It's taking me away from my kids and my family - do I really want that?

I've been thinking a lot about balance lately, spurred on in part by this post. My friend Chris sent it to me on Monday, and it was sort of an "ah-ha" moment. Not that I want to move to a one-room cabin in the woods and sew all my own clothes, but it does make me question (again) living in the rat race. Having suffered from depression after the births of both of my children (and during my 2nd pregnancy quite severely), I wonder how much of that has to do with the isolation and meaningless of modern life. My darkest days were when I was alone in a new city with a 20-month-old, with Bill commuting back to LA to work the last few weeks of his old job. I got myself back into healthy head space and then decided that just staying home with my kids wasn't enough. I still had that drive to "make a contribution to society". So I started designing.

The nice thing about working for yourself is that you can control the amount of work you do. However, in order to keep yourself from sinking into a deep, deep hole financially, you need to do a lot of work. I have one more year to run at a loss before I lose my professional status in the eyes of the IRS. I need to figure out if I want to focus on designing for others or for myself - it doesn't seem to work that well to do both (everything suffers, but my own line is what's easily put off when a deadline is looming).

I miss having time to read, or to just play with the kids, or snuggle with Owen on the couch right when he wants me to instead of putting it off just one more minute because I have an e-mail to quickly send before I forget, or a contract to pop in the mail. I put him in front of the TV so he'll give me a half-hour of peace and I can get a few things done. This does NOT make me feel good about my parenting skills. It would be one thing if I only did it a couple times a day, but I'm often yelling from my office "GO WATCH YOUR SHOW!" when somebody wants a little attention.

In some ways, I'm more worried about Bill & I than I am the kids. They're good kids, and I think that they won't have problems until they're older if at all. But what about the grown-ups? What does it say about us that we're always a little bit cranky because the house is a mess, the kids are clamoring for our attention and all we want to do is zone out in front of the TV every night? We don't have family dinners - we eat in front of the television. On weekends we often stay in the house, catching up on our shows. And then we wonder why we never get anything done. I love TV, seriously, but I'm seriously considering giving it up. Why do I need to watch The Bachelor? So I can see yet another guy claim that his top priority is a great personality when in reality he picks his girls based on breast size and hair length? Do I really need to know who the next Apprentice is? I don't think we'll be eliminating our TV all together, but we can certainly reduce our watching to a few shows that can be seen in an evening.

I'm also taking a discussion course from the Portland-based Northwest Earth Institute called "Healthy Children-Healthy Planet" which kind of goes down the same path as the Casaubon's Book post. It's all about how kids aren't happier when they have a TV in their bedroom, designer clothes, elaborate birthday parties and everything that commercial culture is telling them they want. It gives lots of practical tips on how to protect your kids from the extremely aggressive advertising that comes at them from all sides today, one of which is to (obviously) limit their commercial television watching. It also talks about the importance of doing things together as a family, building family traditions and rituals, and fighting to keep them going as the kids get older and are pulled away from their family by their peers.

All of this is made even more poignant by the happenings at Virginia Tech earlier this week. Even as my whole heart goes out to the families of the victims, I can't help but feel sadness for the shooter as well. Why is it that mental illness is so marginalized and ignored in our society? Why is it that in Virginia, someone can buy a gun by attesting that they've never been diagnosed as a danger to themselves or others but no further checking is done? I mean, who is going to look at that form and say, "oh, wow, I don't want to lie so I guess I can't buy a gun after all"? What drives people to such a desperate level of unhappiness that they feel the need to pull out a 9mm and start shooting? It makes me think of a scene in Bowling for Columbine when Michael Moore is asking some kids in a cafeteria what causes school violence, and they point across the room to a big, bullyish-looking guy and say "that guy". Not that this was the case at Virginia Tech (and I don't advocate blaming the victims, no matter how crappy their former behavior towards the perpetrator), but it does make me sad that ours is the culture of The Sopranos and The Real Housewives of Orange County and Friends, and we wonder why it drives people to drink, shoot and kill themselves with meth. How are you supposed to deal day-to-day when you're just not smart, funny, skinny, or rich enough and, according to the television, everyone else is?

I sure don't have the answers, but I'm going to continue trying to find my way, for my kids' sake. But now, it's a beautiful day, so I'm taking my kids to the zoo. I will be bringing my knitting, just in case...

I am the lowest common denominator.

Bill and I had our anniversary date last night. After stuffing ourselves on the best, most gigantic sushi we've ever seen, we rushed around the corner to see the new Will Farrell vehicle Blades of Glory. What does it say about me that I laughed until I cried several times during this movie? Besides the crass boy-on-boy humor (mainly surrounding the compromising positions pairs skaters can potenially find themselves in), which I thought was done in a funny-but-not-overly-homophobic way, the combination of Will Ferrell and Jon Heder (aka Napoleon Dynamite) was just spot-on. I also adored Jenna Fischer (Pam from my favorite TV show The Office) as Napoleon's girlfriend and sister of the evil pairs team that is Will & Jon's main competition. Finally, I totally appreciated the fact that the Iron Lotus, the pair's final trick in the big Wintersport Games finale, was a brilliant rip-off of the Pamchenko from another favorite cheesy skating movie, The Cutting Edge.

Unlike The Cutting Edge, this movie doesn't even try to make the skating routines look realistic. Apart from a few triple axels sprinkled here and there, all of the routines are something pretty much anyone who can skate relatively well could do OR they're obviously done in front of a blue screen with wires & harnesses. I thought that this totally added to the humor of the movie. The last movie I laughed this hard at in the theater was The 40-Year Old Virgin, and this one, although not what I would consider totally family-friendly, was much less uncomfortable to watch. I will definitely be buying the DVD when it comes out.

Now that you've lost all respect for my intellect and taste, I'll move on to another project happening in the Knittin' Mom household - the remodeling of our kitchen! We've been talking about doing this ever since we moved into this house, but didn't actually make any progress on it until last week when the contractors finally wedged us into their schedule. They came in and started tearing things apart so quickly, I barely had time to take any pictures of the old kitchen. Here's a picture of our old backsplash and tile counter - yuck! I've got nothing against tile, but it was hard as the dickens to keep clean and I hated the purple accents.



You can't see it very well, but the entire kitchen used to be painted purple to match those tile insets. We painted most of the walls (apart from the strip above the windows), but the ceiling is still purple. Every time I look at it, it ticks me off because I just HATE that color! Ironic from someone who loves purple, isn't it? I just don't like purple for my kitchen.

The contractors swept through last Thursday and ripped out all the counters and the sink (which I also despised - the faucet was broken, and just about everyone needed a lesson in how to use it since the handle would pop off if you didn't move it just right), leaving us with this all weekend:



We're replacing the tile with Paperstone, which is a bonded composite made out of 100% PCW (post-consumer waste) recycled paper! How cool is that? The contractors have never installed it before, so we're going to be an experiment for them (which I'm hoping doesn't turn into a bad choice on our part). Right now, the slabs are sitting in our dining room:



Here's a close-up of the surface (which I see has been attacked with a pen - hope that comes off!):



Our new sink is sitting on our kitchen floor, waiting to be set into the cabinets. It's a hand-fired clay apron sink (meaning it's the old style where the front of the sink is visible rather than being hidden behind the cabinet). Isn't it gorgeous? I am SO excited to get my new sink and faucet.



Okay, I've totally used up my store of goodwill from Owen typing up this ridiculously long blog post. I've also got a new chicken post over on Enviromom with pics of our little darlings. As you can see, there's not much knitting going on around here! One of these days, that will change (I hope)!

The boob-o-phobes are at it again.

This week, a mom was harrassed for nursing her 17-month-old son (who is undergoing surgery for a brain tumor) at, of all places, the Houston Ronald McDonald house. You can read the whole story here, and please send them an e-mail if this upsets you as much as it did me. I mean, really.

Here's my response:

I was shocked and horrified to hear of the treatment of nursing mom and guest of Ronald McDonald House Houston, Jessica Swimeley. Jessica is trying to do the absolute best thing for her sick child and should not be required to hide in order to do it. Human milk has healing properties critical for sick children, and Jessica should be commended for nursing her son - not shamed for it! If staff is uncomfortable with seeing a mom breastfeed, that is their problem - it should not be made into the mother's problem! Do you make moms who feed their babies formula from a bottle go up to their rooms? Nursing moms should be allowed to breastfeed anywhere formula-feeding moms are able to bottle-feed. Not to mention, Texas state law protects the rights of mothers to breastfeed in public places.

There are any number of recent events that should indicate that nursing moms are organized and willing to stick up for their rights. Please take this opportunity to garner the goodwill and support of the breastfeeding mom community and their supporters - it would be very easy to clarify your company policy and welcome nursing moms in all of your houses. This incident is making its way around blogs and message boards, and moms across the country will undoubtedly be sending you their horrified letters and e-mails. I would hate for Ronald McDonald House, which has done so very much for sick children and their families, to have a black mark put on their image by refusal to do the right thing by this mom. Nursing is the most natural, healthy thing a mother can do for her baby and she should be commended, not shamed or threatened, for doing it.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Not very eloquent, I know, but I had to type it before both of my children's heads exploded from impatience! Let's fill their inboxes by the time they hit the office tomorrow morning.

I did it!

I finally managed to get the TKG newsletter out the door, and that allowed me to feel justified in messing around with my camera softward. What does this mean? I've got pictures!

First up are the chickies, which you need to go over to my Enviromom post to read all about (sorry, I love y'all and everything, but I'm not posting twice!).

Next, we have some garden pics, as promised. We've got seedlings in one bed that was planted a couple weeks ago. Here's our mesclun (fancy name for mixed salad greens):



And our little pea sproutlets (can you find them? They're pretty tiny!). I can't wait to have fresh peas!



Our strawberries are also going great guns - we've got a ton of flowers.



We're pretty much digging up our entire yard and slowly replanting it with what we want, which is a lot of work but very exciting. We're going to have a very edible yard, with fruit trees, blueberry bushes, raspberries, strawberries, asparagus, and random vegetables in the veggie beds. It will leave less time for knitting, though! For the first time in over a year, I'm feeling like I want to do less knitting and more stuff with the yard and the kids. Not sure what that's all about!

The family had a great time on Easter, although we had some serious sugar crashing/crabbiness in the evening. Any idea why?



Could it have anything to do with the gigantic chocolate bunnies? Or the ridiculous amount of candy they ate at my in-laws'? But how gorgeous does my little egg-hunting girl look in her Easter dress?



Here's her partner in crime, who was more interested in throwing the eggs than finding them...



Finally, I can't leave without wishing my baby boy a happy birthday! Owen is 2 today, can you believe it? He's such a big boy.

I'm still here!

Yes, I'm still alive. No, I haven't yet had time to figure out how to hook my new camera up to the computer. Yes, I'm a pathetic loser to the ultimate degree. When I do have pictures, though, watch out! I've got pics of the chicks (who seem to have doubled in size in the past week and are spending a lot more time sleeping - probably to deal with all that growing), pics of the garden with my new asparagus patch (a really exciting picture of bare dirt) and some pea and lettuce sproutlets, pics of our Easter fiesta, pics of my completed Sockret Pal socks (which I will post AFTER she's received them to avoid torturing her with any more spoiler posts), and who knows what else.

I have been busy over here!

I'm also very excited to report that marathon training is back on. I went to see Dr. Forcum over at Back In Motion, and he did some crazy witch-doctor voodoo on me which seems to have fixed me (and I say "crazy witch-doctor voodoo" with total awe and respect - I am WAY into alternative medicine these days since it seems to work so incredibly well)! Although I should give proper credit to Dr. Barker (the naturopath over there) who is really the one who set me on the path to recovery. Dr. Forcum figured out exactly what was causing my shin pain and gave me a plan to fix it and keep it from coming back. So far so good - I did my first training run (4 miles) on Saturday with my marathon training group, and didn't feel any pain at all!

I've lost a lot of fitness during those two weeks I spent on my butt, but I think my training group will get me back in gear really quickly. If you're in the Portland area and ever need any kind of sports injury recovery plan, I can't recommend the folks at Back In Motion highly enough. I'm also getting twice-weekly massages (which isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds - these are not relaxing massages, they are crank-into-your-muscles-until-you-scream-with-pain kind of massages) which is really helping get my stuff back in gear.

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that I'm not going to be able to hang on much longer with all the stuff I've committed myself to doing. I'm not sure what's going to fall to the wayside, but something's gotta give. I keep hoping I'll be able to pull off some kind of miracle and catch up, which has always worked well for me in the past, but I'm not sure it's possible this time. I've come to the absolute limit of how much I can neglect the house and family and still get away with it, so there's no wiggle room left there. Perhaps there's some kind of drug that I can take so that I don't have to sleep as much? Any ideas? No? Well, it was worth a shot! I'm off to stuff Shop Hop goodie bags, leaving behind a huge pile of work that needs to be done and Sock-A-Month knitalong posts that need to be tallied. I'm such a slacker!

PEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEP!

This is what I'm listening to while sitting in my office, trying to get some work done. Yes, the chickies are here, safe and sound and full of p&v. They are delightful, but boy are they noisy! And they poop A LOT.

I have a ton of pictures, but I haven't yet loaded the software for my new camera (I bit the bullet and bought a nice 10 megapixel professional-quality camera since I haven't been totally happy with my pattern pictures). One of these days I'll figure it out, but right now I'm way behind on the plus-sizing for the Lacy Cabled Scoop, so that is my task for the rest of the afternoon.

If the peeping doesn't drive me crazy first!

What's that, dear?

I should be upstairs helping Bill get the kids ready for bed. But I'm not. I'm waiting anxiously for the chicks, who I thought would arrive today but didn't. I'm trying to figure out my new camera so I can share some awesome new pictures with you. In the meantime, I got this little movie quiz from Amanda and thought it would be a great way to waste some time. Here it is (sorry, honey, I'll be a few more minutes)...

1. Name a movie you have seen more than 10 times.
The Wedding Singer

2. Name a movie you’ve seen multiple times in the theater.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show

3. Name an actor who would make you more inclined to see a movie.
Hank Azaria

4. Name an actor who would make you less likely to see a movie.
Tom Cruise

5. Name a movie you can and do quote from.
Office Space, Best in Show, Waiting For Guffman

6. Name a movie musical in which you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs.
The Little Mermaid (does that count?)

7. Name a movie you have been known to sing along with.
The Wedding Singer

8. Name a movie you would recommend everyone see.
North Country

9. Name a movie you own.
Vegas Vacation (actually, we own all the Vacation movies)

10. Name an actor who launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.
Britney Spears (um, kidding...I couldn't think of anyone)

11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? If so, what?
I have, but I don't remember what it was (and not for the reason you're thinking)!

12. Ever made out in a movie?
Of course!

13. Name a movie you keep meaning to see but you just haven’t gotten around to yet.
The Queen

14. Ever walked out of a movie?
Nope.

15. Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.
Dead Poet's Society

16. Popcorn?
Medium, with butter.

17. How often do you go to the movies (as opposed to renting them or watching them at home)?
Not as often as I'd like, although more often now that we've discovered the Academy Theater and their babysitting service...

18. What’s the last movie you saw in the theater?
For Your Consideration

19. What’s your favorite/preferred genre of movie?
Comedy

20. What’s the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?
Annie

21. What movie do you wish you had never seen?
Waterworld

22. What is the weirdest movie you enjoyed?
Women On The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

23. What is the scariest movie you’ve seen?
The Grudge

24. What is the funniest movie you’ve seen?
Napoleon Dynamite