good, bad, and ugly

Good - mostly loving my professional life. Students learn (or not) and we get along just fine. Other "professionals" who I haven't gotten along with in the past have learned to leave me the hell alone. I have yet another job offer on the table (and a fourth possibly in the works which could make me leave the first three behind), which I'll probably refuse because of what's in the Bad and Ugly section below. The kids are happy, Halloween is nigh, the pumpkins are carved, costumes are made, and there are small pieces of candy everywhere. I'm not a broke-assed college student. Occasionally, I still knit. I've done a few good deeds lately that really have made me feel pretty good, and certainly helped out some really hungry and needy people. Love that stuff...comes back tenfold.

Bad and Ugly(this is where most of you should stop reading...it'll be a buzz kill) - I often work 13 hour days, something my middle aged body doesn't enjoy much. I'd work more, but raising children, tending to the home and hearth, hubby, and eating seem to interfere.

Hubs is mad because I was short on the phone because I had 30 big teenagers hounding me to let them go to lunch a couple minutes early while I was trying to leave him a message for a third time asking if I needed to pick up Genius after school today, and I didn't know that he had left a second voicemail (only heard the first..."I'm calling you back, call me back when you get this"..a non message at best). The phone has really sensitive volume, which is set high so I can talk without everyone in the room hearing what I say, but he construed my tone as yelling. I wasn't. I was stressed by the herd of teens, and in a huge rush, but the intent was not to yell. He retaliated by calling me back and screaming at me on the phone...great stuff in front of 30 students. Yes, the sensitive volume works both ways, especially with loud tones. I'd like to see him try to fend off the 30 teens. The worst part? I'm too tired to care enough to try and talk about this with him, so I'm letting him think I'm a horrible, inconsiderate, bitchy person without any phone manners. Too much grading, not enough time.

More...Everyone I know seems to be getting divorced. Some marriages are just not working out, but others are imploding with nuclear force. People I thought I knew are adulterous assholes...though I'm pretty sure that this does not include my own husband. Disappointing at best. My older friends assure me that this is a symptom of midlife, but wow. just wow.

Beggin' for mercy

On the way home from Boston, hubby got pulled over in Ohio for speeding. Nicest cops there in podunk Ohio. The kids were silent in the back seat. We could feel their slight disapproval and apprehension oozing through the sea of crap (mostly food wrappers, books, and headphone cords from what I could see) in which they were buried back there.

The police officer went through the routine. License and registration, please. He went back to his car to run the information.

A long silence ensued.

Charlie piped up. "Why did that policeman stop us?"

"Because Daddy was going too fast," I replied.

"Why did the policeman go back to his car? Can we go now?"

"No, buddy, we have to wait while the policeman checks on his computer to make sure Daddy isn't in any other trouble."

"Oh." Silence.

The police officer came back and was actually very nice. Hubby got a ticket, but not as bad as it could have been. We exchanged pleasantries and started to pull off.

"Daddy? So you're not going to jail?"

Hubby answers shortly. No.

"Oh good. I thought I was going to have to do some begging. I wouldn't let you go to jail, Dad."

(Note: Charlie is convinced he can charm anyone into doing anything for him. He's not far from the truth.)

I bet Daddy doesn't get a speeding ticket with the kids in the car ever again.

Down here all the fish is happy...

As off through the waves they roll

The fish on the land ain't happy

They sad 'cause they in their bowl

But fish in the bowl is lucky

They in for a worser fate

One day when the boss get hungry

Guess who's gon' be on the plate?

(Not this guy...bet he tastes terrible)

Under the sea (envision Sebastian the lobster just singing his little heart out)

Under the sea

Since life is sweet here

We got the beat here

Naturally

Hansi Singh is a genius. She and her book, Amigurumi Knits, have provided my son with endless entertainment. He snatched the octopus out of my hands as I was clipping off the last dangly and hugged the angler fish so hard I had to restuff it. Now he's begging me to make the Loch Ness Monster and the Kraken for the neighbor's boy.

The jackalope is pretty darn cool too. Wait until you see what Tiny did to dress it....

In other news, I will be teaching at LCC (the college, not the high school) in addition to my day job starting this week. Have I mentioned how much I love having an advanced degree (and great connections)?? I do.

...the darndest thing

A quickie for you...

We spent a particularly hot day at the nicely air-conditioned Museum of Natural History in NYC during our trip these past two weeks (more later about that). Charlie was geeked. Nothing like a huge museum full of used-to-be-alive things to spark a little boy's imagination. He was almost frantic in his exploration of every exhibit.

In the gallery with the gigantic mammoth skeletons, there is a mammoth tooth (or a very good re-creation of one) down where little kids can touch it. Charlie found it immediately and as I strolled up behind him, I heard him making small talk with the little girl standing next to him (he's weak for pretty little girls)...

"No, I think that's a testes."

zoink.

Just to be sure, I asked Charlie what he said. "Momma didn't hear you...what did you say that thing was?"

He rolled his eyes knowingly at the little girl, who by now is a little confused (thank goodness the girl's mother hasn't caught up yet), and says with much emphasis, "Momma, I said it it's a test-I-cle."

Having been put properly in my place, I suggested gently, that I must have been mistaken because that thing looked awfully much like a tooth to me. He was exceedingly polite and allowed me to live with my misconception. Because of my burning desire not to have him pronounce that any louder or more often, I was exceedingly polite and allowed him to live with his.

Race for a cure

HA! You thought I had changed my couch potato ways, didn't you?

No, but I have this friend....

My friend, Kathy, is running in the Chicago marathon in October for the American Cancer Society. Kathy is a heck of a woman, a mother of twins, an outstanding teacher and high school guidance counselor, a good friend, and a runner. She writes very eloquently about her reasons why she’s doing this race, which I’ve posted below.

Please just take a look. The link goes to the American Cancer Society website, so you know the donation will go to the right place. I’d like to show her that her $1000 goal is too low, that we can help her beat that goal by leaps and bounds.

Thank you very much!!!

“Dear family and friends - As many of you know, I lost my best friend in May to cancer. Ruth was an incredible woman with amazing strength and fortitude. Over the decade of our friendship, Ruth taught me so many things about life. One of those lessons was the idea that we always need to be our own best advocates when it comes to our health. She never went to a doctor visit or chemo round without reading up and studying what was going on with her body. She also felt very strongly about educating others and doing what she could for the less fortunate, especially other women with breast cancer. She was very active online sharing her story with women just starting the battle and those who were many years out. I too want to do what I can to help others. I am not internet savvy like she was and I don’t have the same type of story but I do know what it is like to lose my best friend too early and I know how to run marathons.

With that said, yes, I am going to run another marathon this October. However, this time it isn’t about me but about raising needed money to help the American Cancer Society continue the fight to find a cure. As many of you also know, Ruth traveled with me to 8 of my 10 marathons; missing the first and the tenth. She died only hours after I finished number 10. She being the giving friend that she was would ride her bike along side me during my longer training distances filled with great conversation to keep me preoccupied and every now and then would say, “you run like the wind you know?” A slow moving breeze is more like it but she always made me believe that it was something.

So, I need your help. On October 11, 2009 I will be running the Chicago marathon. This is the first marathon that Ruth ever went to with me so I figured it was a perfect fit. I need to raise at least $1000.00 for the American Cancer Society. As a Charity Runner, I will be able to raise money in support of the ACS’s mission, and to honor people who are winning their battle with cancer, and pay tribute to those we have lost. My race is in honor of my sisters-in-law, Deb and Melanie, and in high tribute of my friend Ruth. With your support, we will continue to fight this dreaded disease. If you would like to sponsor me, please click on the link below”

American Cancer Society runner's page

Ardently mine...dammit

I've posted about this project before. I knew that I had to have this cardigan the moment I saw it on Twist. Ardent by Kat Coyle is a fine jacket that could be dressy or casual, and it's perfect for my days in the classroom where it may start out rather stiflingly warm, but freeze up by noon.

The arms (those bastards) left me nearly in tears. The first time I knit them, I was living in denial until I had all but assembled the entire jacket except for one seam. The sleeves dangled past my fingertips and I knew that I would have to do some serious deconstruction and reknitting for this to work. In the end, with some slight modifications (see mods on my ravelry project page) I managed to eke out a fine jacket.

My only beef with the jacket now is that I was a bit lackadaisical with sewing in the sleeves the second time around and they're a bit puffy in the wrong places. Thankfully, I managed to snag a copy of Nancie Wiseman's The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques at Rae's Yarn Boutique last week, so the THIRD time I sew in these sleeves will be perfection. I already practiced some of the finishing tips on my recent commissioned piece (a post for another day...I have to start remembering to take pictures before I deliver the finished goods to their new owners).

Upcoming...a deep sea adventure to delight all small, seven year old males.

Twists and turns

At Christmas, I got two weeks of no work and no school, so I HAD to knit me something luscious. Wisteria by Kate Gilbert from the Twist Collective and Dream in Color's Classy in Black Parade (Thank you Fulay Little of Little Knits for such fabulous, economical, and personal service) was the perfect project. The pattern was beautiful, the yarn was beautiful (I was inspired by a couple of fabulous Wisterias in just this color on ravelry), and I had time to wallow around in my pajamas all day long.

The cabling was enough to be interesting, and just when I was getting tired of reading a chart, there was a nice soothing swath of plain ole knitting in the round. Then, just as I was getting tired of knitting around and around and around, there were more cables to brighten my day.

The yarn stretched like crazy when I blocked it, but a careful cool tumble dry whipped it back into shape. The pilling is minimal and the sizing was perfect. I added a couple of inches to the length, but in retrospect, I should have done what the directions said. It's a favorite now, sitting on the top of the pile, and I get lots of compliments on it.

The next major project started out as the Hexagon Coat in Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature, but the project was taking too long, so I frogged it and reswatched for a new project.

Left: unblocked; Right: blocked

Classic Elite Skye Tweed. It feels like twine when knitting, but really does bloom and soften beautifully. I had my doubts when other knitters told me about this but took a leap of faith on their word and bought up a bunch of this yarn when it was discontinued. I lucked out and found a fellow raveler with just enough more to enable me to knit the next big project, which I will blog about just as soon as I remember to take pictures of it.

Mother's Day 2009 (I know...a little late, but this was good)

I have some catching up to do. Mother's Day in our house is usually quite a production, though usually I ask my kids just to let me putz around in the garden all day long.

This year, my kids banished me to my office, which was fine because my final project for my MA Ed. was due that same week. They armed me with a few ice cold Diet Cokes and a can of sour cream and onion Pringles and forbid me to come out except to pee for the entire afternoon. The girls got hubby drop them off at the grocery store so they could shop for "stuff". He wasn't allowed to look in the bags. "Just drive, Dad" they said.

Charlie's job was to guard the stairs. Every time he heard my office door open, he'd yell, "DON'T COME DOWN HERE!" at me. At one point, I came out and he was in his room in his underwear. He started shrieking like a banshee at me...something about seeing him in his "grunders" and not going downstairs. Turns out that he was getting dressed. See below.

Okay okay...not coming down there. Studying. Writing. Editing.

At about 6:00, he yelled up the stairs, "MOM!!!! COME DOWN FOR DINNER!!!!" I fetched hubby out of his office (yes, we each have an office. I love it.) and we headed downstairs to the dining room. We turned the corner, and were confronted by this:

The well-dressed waiter pulled out my chair for me and asked us what we'd like to drink. He served us our drinks, and then brought out our dinners. He didn't put down that arm with the napkin draped over it until I suggested after a couple of forkfuls that maybe dinner would go better with two hands. I had to convince him that his sisters wouldn't kill him. There was a drink menu (which I didn't show here) and a couple of other things on the table - a fine bouquet of flowers, a dinner menu, and a couple of envelopes.

I know the print is tiny. It says vegetable lasagna, and nectarine blackberry crisp. The envelope below that says Mom on the flap contained two fine photograph portaits of my girls playing their instruments taken by my neighbor, who is a retired photography professor. The cooks were terribly proud:

but they couldn't manage nectarines (not in season yet) so we had some fine strawberry shortcake with heaps of whipped cream. There were banners hung all over, which we left up until Father's Day (Tiny made new ones for her daddy) and I'm thrilled that I have gorgeous, smart, and appreciative kids who no longer serve me cold, dry toast and weird yogurt smoothies that taste like ass (no, I've never tasted ass before, but I bet it tastes like those smoothies) before I'm ready to be alive on a Sunday morning.

The Snowball Effect

Every year, when school ends, we clean.

We do the deep cleaning where we pull out all the furniture, sweep and polish the wood floors, wash the walls and windows, sort out all the kid stuff and pack things away that we're done with to ship off to Goodwill. This year, we planned the same, and then I was going to spend the rest of the summer knitting and hanging out with my kids in my clean house.

This year's cleaning was going swimmingly. We were doing a room every couple of days, I expected to be done with everything by the end of the second week, and then hubby had a great idea. He suggested a road trip to Ikea so we could finally have a grown up bedroom and stop living like broke-assed college students.

"We should get a real bed and a dresser to match," he said. Holy shit. He never says stuff like that. I'd be a fool to ignore that alien call. The two of us trooped off to the Detroit Metro Ikea, leaving our kids to fend for themselves for an afternoon, and had a blast wandering around and picking stuff out. He pushed the cart patiently, and never once complained about being lightheaded from the bad store air. Shocking, I know.

On the drive back, we decided that we should paint the freshly cleaned room (I swear, you could eat off the floor it was so clean) and since we have done lots of cool colors, and the bedroom is where all the action happens, we thought a nice warm color would be nice. After looking a a bazillion color swatches, we chose Firecracker, a nice deep orangish red (I like to call it whorehouse red) to contrast the birch veneer furniture we bought.

That was the fatal error. Recall all the DIY shows where they did red walls. We pushed all the furniture to the center of the room and made a bed cave so we could sleep at night and started cutting in the edges. That was on Saturday, five days ago. Hubby does the rolling, I do the cutting in. We've gone around this room three times now, and today, I'm going to go around for the FOURTH TIME. We took all the advice that the nice man at the paint store had. We primed the walls with grey, we have been patient, and we have painted....and painted, and painted, and painted. Today, we will paint again.

I hate this color now. I want my room back. The house is trashed, our bedroom furniture is out in the hall, in Charlie's room, in my office, in his office. Everything is as dirty as it was the day school got out.

Finishing this room will have consequences. One dresser goes to Charlie, another has to leave the house, we've decided that maybe we want to downsize the two giant wardrobes and get another matching piece. The wardrobes would go into my office for yarn storage (yes, there really is that much yarn).

And now...we're talking about creating library walls in the living room and a crafting area, recovering the couch and moving the entertainment center. I need a desk (I'm using a card table right now), and since the giant oak desk I rescued from school won't dismantle and fit upstairs into my office, I need to find something else. The kids are eating their weight in food every day...

Maybe we've taken on a wee bit too much.

Bet you thought I wasn't knitting...

In no particular order, this is some of the stuff I knit when I was avoiding my homework and the sight of my house filling up with dirt and crap dragged in by my children.

First, the blankie that I originally knit for SIL...

Details: Curlicue Coverlet by Oat Couture
Yarn: Berroco Comfort in Oatmeal (boring color...boring SIL)
No mods, love the blanket. Perfect for cozying up on the couch

Managed some socks....

Pattern: Vinnland by Becca Compton
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock
Note: these are modeled on my THIN teenager's feet. The socks are far too narrow for me.

Hats...quick and dirty. Just the thing to do right before a paper is due.

Pattern: Star Crossed Slouchy Beret by Natalie Larson
Yarn: Patons Classic Wool


Pattern: Sweet Baby Cap by Gro
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill leftovers

My kids are fighting over this one

Pattern: Fake Isle by Amy King
Yarn: Noro Kureyon and Patons Classic Wool


Pattern: Capitan by Rosi Garmendia and Ann Budd's basic mitten pattern
Yarn: Malabrigo Chunky

FINALLY. A cardigan that Genius will love and wear. This is the THIRD try at getting the right pattern for this yarn.

Pattern: Amelia by Laura Chau (on knitty.com Winter 2008)
Yarn: Cascade 220
Note: I did finally put buttons on it. We are all ecstatic that she loves it.

More knits, Mother's Day story (hilarious and touching), graduation pics and stuff coming after I finish scraping and shoveling out the house (three van loads to Goodwill and two trashbins full and we're still not done!), painting my bedroom, assembling all the stuff I bought at our weekend trip to IKEA, refinishing my oak desk, and tutoring my long shot of a student.