Of socks and books and tracks

Oh, the things that I have to share with you, whoever you are...

Firstly, I finished my sock, hence-forth known as the HP4 sock, because it was knit whilst I read the fourth book of Harry Potter. I am preparing in earnest for the release of movie five AND the seventh and final book this summer by rereading the last three books. There may be a movie-a-thon in the works too. I get cramps every time I think about such momentous occasions. I am dieing to find out what happens in the book, (I have my ideas, and in the past, my ideas have been pretty off,) so I am thrilled to see how the series ends, but a little sad too, because it will be the last time that I read a Harry Potter book for the first time. I reread them about once a year, but this is the end. The. LAST. One. I can't believe that it is over. There is a Harry Potter knitting book out, (Charmed Knits)and if I get a spare ten, I am going to buy it up and knit Harry Potter things for my Potter loving friends and family.** you know who you are, don't be surprised if you get a Sorting Hat in your stocking this Christmas... **

So,with out further ado, I give you Harry Potter sock # four: Four because I was reading book four, not because it is one of four. The next sock will be number five...and I'll give you all the other information when I finish it. Look at that heel, it couldn't have been more right if it had been transfigured from a loaf of bread...

Now, for those of you who don't knit, I am no knitting genius, nor do I know any magical Potter-ish incantations, the yarn does that striping and pattering itself. It just makes me look really smart and magical, and I can use all the help I can get.

The thing that drives me crazy about hand knit socks is the way the toe looks so pointy. I actually adjusted the number of stitches before I grafted the toe, and it still looks like it would fit a house-elf...(I can't help but throw in all these HP references, it is my schema, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, you really need to read the books. )But look at it on. It really works, and it feels like a hug on my foot. I already cast on the second one this morning, and technically, it would be known as "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book four sock," but when have I ever been technical? And besides, I just finished it this morning, the book that is. It came from the library on Saturday night, and I finished it this morning, quick read, and I really liked it, though it left me wanting more. I love those books, and I've been waiting for about two months to get it, so when I read it so fast, it was a little anti-climactic. Has anyone else read them? I really love the story and it is such a fun concept, how could I not? I give the series a B+. Good in all the right places, but not too deep. Not entirely junk-food for the brain, but not quite as complex as, say, a Power bar either. Just right. A healthy snack. I'm satisfied, but I didn't spoil dinner.

Now, does anyone want to guess what these are? Remember making your plaster or tempera-paint on construction paper hand print as a kid? There was always a little poem which was some variation of "Don't forget that I am growing up and all my little hand prints will annoy you now, but you'll wipe them away and my hand will grow and you'll miss it and wish that you had it still all cute and tiny." This is JackJack's version. "These are my train wheel tracks that I made in the carpet and isn't it the cutest thing you've ever seen to come downstairs and find them all over like a little trail behind me where I crawled all over playing? Don't you wish you didn't have to vacuum them away and could keep them forever?" I do, I do. If I could bronze them, I would, they are so sweet.

Here is a kid who REALLY loves his trains. He crashed out playing with them the other day, waiting for me to get off the phone.

My ankle is healed, oh happy day, so I went "running" this morning. Actually, I just sort of wussed out and didn't really give it my best, so I don't know that it technically counts as running. Maybe more like moping? Send me your happiest jogging thoughts for Wednesday. I don't want to hurt myself again, so I need them...

Sock-o-magic

There is some debate in the knit-blog world about which is better, a short row heel or a heel flap. Now, I have no idea what the difference is, but I'll tell you what, turning a heel is nothing short of magic. It has been a while since I made a pair of socks, so I have had a slow go at this one, but now that I am done with the heel, I am on my way (barring some disaster...) to actually finishing a piece of knitting, I feel that I can blog about it. And I when I successfully turned the heel this morning, I couldn't have been more pleased with myself if I had just spun straw into gold. Pure bliss I tell you, The heel is what makes sock knitting so much fun, besides the self stripping yarn which keeps me endlessly intrigued.

I have also made *some* progress on Katja, though not much, no bother with the rain this week. This weekend would have been lovely weather for it, but alas, it just wasn't done. And I am ok with that. Next week maybe? You'd think that I could turn out 12 inches of stockinette stitch with out much incident, but I just don't feel a pressing need to finish it. So there is the long short of it...literally.

I rode up to Denver this weekend with a friend and the two smallish-type kids whilst J and B went fishing. It was loads of fun to hang around looking at all the things that J is not interested in. We also had an adventure on the Light Rail because Jack is such a train enthusiast. He was thrilled, he has been asking for months to "go dember, tee trains." All trains end up in Denver as far as he is concerned, it was the cheapest train ride in the world and he thought it was as exciting as riding Thomas himself! Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but here is one to distract you.

That is B out there fly-fishing, doesn't he look grown up??

** AS a side note, some one asked me why I use "J" and "B" for thing one and thing two and then go and say Jack and Mimi, and the answer is that I don't have one, I thought that I was being clever. Good enough? Probably not, but there you go.

Mimi is walking so much now that I fear my days of her being content to crawl around the living room are numbered. She is already into everything, and since she climbs too, she has easily been my hardest non-walker, so it should be a whole new ball of wax (yarn??) when she starts walking full time. There will be no containing her, she can crawl under, climb over or run through any attempt at fencing her in!

Here are a few more pictures to keep the grandparents happy, and for visual interest...

Any tips on how to keep a almost-toddler from pulling her hair clips (and consequently her hair) out and looking like a sheep dog??

The world's most helpful children...

Look at what Mimi was up to this morning:

Cleaning out her daddy's fly-tying cabinet. She looks positively guilty, no? And like any good mom, I ran and grabbed the camera before I reprimanded her. She doesn't really care if I reprimand her anyway. She continued to crawl back to his cabinet no less than ten times before I finally moved her upstairs.

That is when I noticed that JackJack had been using her head as his own personal canvas. I honestly don't know which I find more disconcerting, how close he came to her eye with a sharp object or the fact that she held still and let him draw all over her face. Either way, they are both naughty...

A little math lesson: 30+30+30 does NOT equal 60. If you reduce by 2, it is 88, not 58. It looks like I can't knit a sock to save my life! I got a good way down the leg of a new basic sock and I kept saying to myself "this seems really big, I can't understand why it looks so big." **Note to me: When I say it looks big every row for fifty rows, it IS too big, in the future, stop knitting BEFORE you have to pull out a days progress. How many times have I done that? Don't answer that.** Katja has been reduced to Monday night 24 knitting, seeing how it is so stinking cold that I have no desire to knit anything sleeveless. I've been working and reworking socks while I read Harry Potter #4 and camp out on the chair with my leg elevated.

I have been layed up with a bum ankle for the past few days, and mind you, when I put my foot up on Tuesday night, the house was pretty darn clean. I have alternated hobbling around wafting a trail of IcyHot behind me and icing my ankle with a bag of frozen peas while knitting and reading. My kids have been running wild like feral monkeys.

See??

He looks positively tuckered out doesn't he?

It takes a lot of energy to do this to a perfectly spotless toy room...

Oh well, back to the peas...I'll take care of that later.

"Let the Wild Rumpus Start..."

My mom had a great idea last year, which was to dress Jack as Max from Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak for Halloween. I had a left over clown outfit that I had actually sewn with my own two hands that I dressed him in instead. In retrospect, he does seem more wolf-y than clown-y, as evidenced by these pictures.

The poor kid looks utterly humiliated, and he was not happy about the hat. So, next year he can be Max and have a wolf suit and threaten to bite me and run away to where the wild things are...

But today, it is his sister who is behaving like a wild thing. She has so far, in less than an hour, fallen off of two chairs. She has slapped my coffee out of my hands, thrown all her food off her high chair tray, destroyed Jack and Ben's Lego creation and has screamed bloody murder every time I put her down... On days like today, it is best to just let the house fall apart and take care of the babies till nap time. No knitting, no reading, no sitting with coffee and a devotional. Just let the kids crawl all over me while I attempt to blend into the endless pile of playthings and pray for patience and joy and understanding. I am glad I went to Pilates this morning, because it may be till bedtime before I have a moment to breathe....

Why not me?

I am sitting here at the computer in complete silence. Mimi is fast asleep, and Jack is playing at the neighbors. The vacuuming and dishes are done, clothes are spinning in the dryer, I still have a room to clean (my own) but I am just sitting here listening to nothing. Glorious silence. It doesn't happen very often in this house. And it can't last. So I will quickly update you on my life before I go on and do some more laundry:

Katja is coming along. I have made and connected both cups (though, for a small baby, I hesitated to call them "cups", maybe there is a better term out there, I'll be thinking of one) and have about eight rows into the body. Not speedy knitting by any means, but it is being knit in the loll between projects that I am excited about. I also loathe knitting acrylic on bamboo, it catches and it feels like I am knitting on fly paper or something. But it should be done pretty soon.

I also stabbed myself in the foot with a size zero sock needle yesterday. Or should I say pierced? I am fairly certain that it made exit from another hole before I jerked my foot out and cursed like a sailor. Ow. Not pretty.

Saturday, I tried something new and something that I swore I wouldn't ever do. I ran with my neighbor. And I didn't hate it. Weird. For the last fifteen or so years, I've told myself and anyone who would listen that I couldn't run. That I was not a runner and that I would only run when something was chasing me (never). But then my friend took up marathon running and she said something to me that made me think. She said she had always said she couldn't run either, and then she got this letter asking her to train for a marathon, and she said "not me..." after some thought, she said "Why not me?" and it changed the way she felt about her self. Well, I am not exactly going for marathon training, but it makes me realize how self-defeating my thought process can be. Why not me? Because I never gave myself a chance, that's why. J, don't look for me at the runners nest or what ever it is, but the fact is, I'm thirty now. I have to make up for some of the fun that I had in my twenties...none of it healthy... And I really do want to do something that I never thought I could do. 1/2 mile today, tomorrow, the world! Or 3/4 of a mile, anyway.

One other positively exciting thing, I am going to visit Chicago with a friend this summer for a few days! Yippeee. I've never been there and I can't wait!

Well, the dryer just stopped, and that means that I have to get going. Enjoy your Monday...

Steppin'Out

Here we see miss Mimi doing her signature one step wonder. She has made as many as three steps in a row, but she is still working on it. She is taking her dogs (or are they sheep??) for a walk. Notice the pink high heel at her feet? She is determined to wear those little shoes and it is a source of frustration and joy for her each time she gets them on. She will work for half an hour to get them both on and then she will try to stand in them, only to have them fall off the second that she moves her foot. She is ambitious though, I'll give her that. I've been walking with some success for over thirty years and I still can't walk in heels!

And here she is helping make dinner. She did that all her self, clever girl.

Here is Jack Jack showing his excellent sense of style, he dressed himself, see? What is it with the footwear in this family?? This photo is the stuff that high school blackmail is made of...And just to show that all my kids are as cute as I think they are, here is B making his "crazy-tasty" face. He poses for the camera, so I have to act like I'm not taking his picture to get a natural shot:

He is such a great looking kid, check out those eyelashes! Of course, he had his mouth full in this picture, but it doesn't take away from his cuteness.

In knitting news, I started Katja from last springs Knitty for Mimi. I have some Red Heart laying around, and I figured that if I couldn't make my socks work, it would be less painful to just work on something small and less complicated. I know that I was crying about not wanting to use cheap yarn, but since it is all I have, and there is a certain amount of pain involved in watching a crawling baby drag her cotton/merino sweater all over every floor and having to hand wash scarves and hats that have been made for the boys, I just sucked it up and cast on. I made Katja last summer when Mimi was a wee little bit who had no control over her neck muscles and I just didn't like the way it was on an infant. I decided to make some alterations, namely making it longer and attaching the straps to the back so not to make it a halter top, and I am definitely layering it over a tee-shirt. It is so cute on the pattern, I think that it may work better this time around...

It is snowing again, and I refuse to get freaked out about this. What can I do? Knit and read, that is what. One thing about this weather is that it makes me want to hold wool and get all snugly with books. Yup, looking on the bright side...definitely not freaking out....

My Fears Realized

The past forty eight or so hours have been nothing short of tragic. It has not reached temperatures over 25 degrees. It has been misty and freezing rain has made everything droop with ice and it is simply depressing. There was a red robin, the harbinger of spring, sitting on the sidewalk huddled into himself this morning because it was too cold to fly. Does this mean that all the baby birds are going to freeze like all the delicate buds of trees and the daffodils and tulips that were opening up to meet spring? I could almost hear the cries of all the new grass as it froze to death.

The other fear that has been realized is that I have to really evaluate my knitting habit, can I really even call this a knitting blog these days? Probably not technically. But The Thing is that I can't really afford yarn right now. I am not talking about the kind of yarn diet that some knitters go on where they can still buy things like the occasional skein of sock yarn. No, this is a full-on yarn famine. I can't afford the yarn that I would like to buy, and I don't want to be a yarn snob, but I don't want to shop red heart either. Not for what I want to make. I need quality yarn to make the things that I want to make. I need wool for felting, I need denim for the hat that I want to make. I need things that I can not afford. What is a knitter to do? Should I get a job? I can't really justify putting the kids in day care so I can knit, and when would I find time to knit if I work? It is ugly, and yes, kind of tragic. It is what I love to do. I can't do it. That is sad.

I have very little knitting news, as usual. I cast on the green socks again, and again I screwed them up. Why do I keep trying? As I write, the felting of B's slippers is at hand. I just have to clear out the washer of a load of towels, and in they go. Yeah, I know that I was supposed to felt them when I was in Durango, but I underestimated the amount of energy that it takes to supervise small children in a house that is not child proof. I also visited a great friend that I haven't seen since Jack was a smallish-type baby, and we had a family get together on Saturday where the teal and purple slippers were presented to my grandmother. (she loved them, and they fit her.) And we had a trip to the emergency room (if anyone is counting, that is the second in as many months) that ate up about a day of my life. So, there was no felting then.

Jack turned three yesterday, which was bittersweet for me. It seems so fast that he is already past toddler-hood and onto the next stage. We had a little Thomas The Tank Engine party...well, we had Thomas napkins and cups at any rate. He was pleased. It was fun, he got toys and ate ice-cream cake. Good times were had by all.

My Useful little Engine having his birthday dinner.

Miss Mimi took her first step this morning, and then she went and did it again. Won't be but a few more weeks and we will have a new toddler running around the house. We really are surprised at how long it took her to start this walking stuff, considering she crawled at six months. Well, it is probably just as well, since a walking baby opens up a whole other kind of trouble!

Frozen egg hunt!
Jack was more interesed in eating snow off his sword than hunting for eggs!

Happy Easter! Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!