Sugar Bunny Boulevard

What Am I Doing??

Hi everybody!  Wondering where we are?  What we're doing?  Whether we had a sky on Saturday or not? 

I've been .... oh, I was going to say working.  But seriously ... well, I've been working on some knitting projects.  And spinning.  Keeping babies in clean clothes.  Reading pattern books.  Watching a little more TV than I used to.

Relieving my mind of stress and worry opens it up for a lot more relaxing things to do - like get all excited about the new season of Lost.  And keep track of what day it is so I don't miss Project Runway - OH I just can't wait for Wednesday night.  Lost and PR all in one night - plus Dancing With The Stars!  Big night!  I hope the babies don't want to stay up late this week!  heh  I've gone for many years of not having a routine of watching any certain TV programs.  I've spent a lot of my mental energy trying not to go crazy for various reasons.  So far I've done a fine job of meeting that objective but a few things had to be sacrificed - like watching TV.  I didn't think about it much during those times but now I can look back and see that I didn't have room in my mind even to enjoy mindless activities like watching TV.  I'm thankful that I made time for knitting because it is a very relaxing activity.  And blog reading.  That was my TV I suppose - but it has worked well for me, not being on any particular schedule or anything.  It was always there - I didn't have to worry about catching it at 8pm on Wednesday night.

SOOOO.... I will have a small confession about something in a few weeks.  Akin to Cara's "failure to follow through on being a sock knitting angel".  It's really wearing on me and I will soon get myself and my stuff together enough to tell about it.

As I said, I've been doing stuff.  Oh, I guess I'll tell about our weekend since I didn't do a Saturday Sky or Sunday Surprise post.  With the big kids scheduled to arrive in five days, I've been feeling a little of the twangs and twinges of "life won't be the same here" with just Jeff and I and the babies.  It's a good thing, but yet - it won't be the same.  The big kids will be here almost all the time.  Yes, it IS a good thing, but it still won't be the same.  More noise, more distraction, more food to cook and buy, more laundry, more shoes on the floor, more messes, more people to say "clean up this mess you made please", etc etc etc.  Besides the obvious things, one of the nice things about having the big kids here is that they love helping out with the babies.  Whew.

Saturday morning I woke up and told my husband we need to have a special day of togetherness with the girls.  And we did.  We took them to breakfast at McDonald's - Emeline's new favorite restaurant (there was no old favorite).  She's such a joy in our lives - happy and energetic.  After breakfast we went over to Mr. W's house with a very looooooooong piece of 1" PVC pipe to thrash the stubborn hanger-on-ers out of the pear tree.  We filled two 5 gallon buckets with pears.  Here's a little Saturday Sky for ya.  :)

Lila Pearl and Emeline enjoyed the crisp air.

After gathering pears we went down the street to gather black walnuts.  I don't know what makes me think I want these nuts badly enough to deal with the difficulty of cracking them.  I would rather crack pecans for the rest of my life - these have VERY HARD shells.  So hard that the squirrels don't mess with them!!  When the nuts fall in the street they will sometimes crack open if a car drives over them - then the squirrels run out to eat the nut meats.  When a car isn't available to run over them, we have to use a hammer to crack the nut shells.  Emeline could hardly stand up where we were gathing the nuts because it was like walking around on golf balls - they were everywhere!  Thank goodness I don't have a black walnut tree in my yard!

We watched our Sooners play football on TV, enjoyed taking naps, then grilled steaks for dinner. It was a very nice family day for us.

Sunday we visited with Jeff's parents for lunch then I took Jeff to the office.  He left for a business trip to Nebraska and won't be back until probably Tuesday night.

So the knitting - and spinning - and I'm even planning to crochet.  I've joined a few things. 

Margene's Twisted Knitters Dye-Spin-Knit'along:  Dye your wool, spin it on a spindle or wheel, knit it into something!  I will be putting together tutorials for each step in my dye-spin-knit journey.  It begins with selecting a source for my wool, dyeing of course, spinning on the spindle, Navajo plying, then knitting - either a shawl or socks - I still haven't decided.  I might wait for the wool to tell me what it wants to be.  In the mean time I'm practicing practicing practicing on the beautiful Maple Sugar Candy roving that I dyed a few weeks ago.  I hope to have 100g spun by the end of the week.

Susan and Carole's Lonesome Skein knitalong: (last day to sign up is today!)  I have begun my first project using a beautiful skein of Mountain Colors Mohair in the Wild Iris colorway.  The project began as an effort to knit the Triada moebius cowl/shawl thing from Interweave Knits but I didn't like the results I was getting with the pattern/yarn combination.  I still like the moebius cowl/shoulder shawl concept and have restarted the project with size 15 needles knitting the feather and fan scarf pattern from Scarf Style.  Sorry for lack of links and official names for things - I'm kind of in a hurry.

Vera's Feel the Love knit and crochetalong:  I have admired Vera's passion for crochet and ability to select beautiful crochet patterns for her projects ever since I started reading her blog.  Her defense of crochet as a .... mmm.... I'm lacking the right word - but she just has a great way of showing that crochet isn't dowdy or tacky or outdated.  It's fresh and fashionable in the patterns she selects.  The focus of "Feel the Love" is to use a pattern that integrates both knitting and crochet.  I'm very excited to spend some time browsing for a pattern that says "make me!"  I saw a link to knit & crochet patterns (both in the same pattern) on the web site www.knittingpatterncentral.com.  I'll be going back to visit that link soon to see what inspires me!

And last but not least.... anybody remember that I started the KnitPicks Palette Fair Isle Cardigan Knitalong back on October 1st!!??  Can anybody guess who hasn't even started her cardigan yet or finished practice sock #1 yet?  I'm getting there.  I'm getting there.

Have a wonderful week!!  Only five days until the big kids arrive.  We're all really excited.  :)

Eye Candy Friday

Nearly every time we take the babies for a walk we go across the street and down the sidewalk to visit a cute little pair of dogs that Emeline likes to converse with.  Every time we go that way we pass the lovely home of Mr. and Mrs. W.  Mr. W stays very busy in his retirement keeping a garden, lots of beautiful flowers, and generally enjoys being outdoors working in his yard. 

This morning after the babies went down for a nap I popped in for a visit with Mr. W to get permission to photograph his pear tree.  A truly pleasurable part of our walks to visit the dogs includes passing the pear tree.  I really should have taken a photo of Mr. W with his pear tree but I'll save that for when I get lessons on propagating his antique roses.  He had about ten new rose bushes at the side of his driveway that he has been growing from others that he has had in yard which he states "you just can't buy 'em any more."  I would love to learn the skill and patience (it takes about two years to get them started!) of propagating roses from Mr. W and have antique roses growing next to my own driveway.  He says "they're just so fragrant" with a big smile.  :)

So back to the pears.  Mr. W chuckled when I asked if I could photograph his pear tree and said "well, they're not very good pears.  You can have 'em if you want 'em."  I insisted that I didn't come to ask for his pears but just to photograph his tree.  But then I couldn't resist shaking a branch and collecting a few of the pears to take home and see what becomes of them after sitting on the counter for a day or so.

No babies for ECF today - they're napping!  Maybe a bonus during the weekend.  :)

In other news, the KnitPicks Palette Fair Isle Cardigan Knitalong blog is up and running!  Yay!  WHEW it's a lot of work starting a blog for a knitalong!  All the things to think about - details you want to include in the sidebars, etc.  I just ordered the last few skeins of Palette yarn I need for the sweater and it should be here about the time we're out of town in Texas next week.  Working on the blog made me get the pattern out and read through it again.  The needles I need for the majority of the knitting are in my Memory Blanket right now so I have to figure out something else for the Memory Blanket (need a longer one anyway for that).

So - on the heels of starting a knitalong featuring patterns and yarn exclusive to KnitPicks...

I've heard great reviews of the new KnitPicks knitting needles but ya know... they don't have bamboo circulars.  And they don't have wooden or bamboo DPNs.  Nor do they have a wide range of sizes in the DPNs they do offer.  And do you realize they don't have a 40" circular in sizes appropriate for sock knitting?  I've heard their cables are flexible but there will be no Magic Loop socks on KnitPicks "classic circular" or "options" needles for me because their cables aren't long enough and the "options" line doesn't offer tips small enough to knit socks.  And to top it off..... they stopped selling Addi Turbos, Addi Naturas, and Clover brand needles as well.  This is incredibly disappointing to me because I was buying all of my knitting needles from KnitPicks.  Unless they widen their range of sizes and selection I probably won't be buying any of my knitting needles from KnitPicks.  Sad. Sad. Sad.  No place else could possibly be as convenient.  KnitPicks - I'm very disappointed in this change!!!!  I think I need to write them a letter.  Surely someone else already has.  I think it's great that they have their own line of knitting needles now but their selection is now so narrow that I can't seem to actually find what I want/need there any more.  If I have to go somewhere else for knitting needles.... and that other place offers free shipping on orders over $XX.00, I'll be buying yarn there too.  Less need for me to buy KnitPicks yarn too.

Moving on to court news.  The hearing date is rapidly approaching.  So far X hasn't acknowledged to the children that he is aware of anything going on, and his attorney hasn't contacted my attorney.  Somewhat odd - I have no clue (and neither does my attorney) as to what their reason would be for not contacting him but whatever.  Because there has been no contact, more papers are being served because the children will need to be taken to the courthouse to speak with the judge.  They will not be with me so I can't be the one taking them - so each of the children are being subpoenaed and X is being subpoenaed to bring them.  A lot of extra trouble just because for some reason "they" aren't acknowledging that any of this is even going on.

My travel knitting next week will be the moss green alpaca Branching Out Scarf.  I'm looking forward to it.  In the mean time I must get Katie's sweater finished and resist stringing the Memory Blanket onto a piece of yarn so I can cast on for the Palette Fair Isle Cardigan.  When I get back I want that scarf and Katie's sweater to be finished because I have a feeling it will be Fair Isle Cardigan knitting all the time - I won't want to put it down!  Well... of course I'll put it down sometimes... like when I'm getting the kids up in the morning for school, taking them to school, picking them up from school, taking them to ball practice and gymnastics and piano lessons and picking them up from.... I might never get a chance to knit again!  heh

Have a great weekend everybody!!  :)