Since Blogger decided to update their templates, I decided to update my blog. I'm still not in love with the design, but it's both closer and farther from what I wanted. I feel like I'm losing a lot of the simplicity of my blog, while adding features I want to see (such as the Tweet This bit). We'll see how much I change it over the next couple of weeks/months.
Now, I've only got one link today, so I'll make it count. I've taught numerous people how to knit, and I've converted a hefty portion of my female family and friends to knitterdom. However, I'm a lousy, lousy teacher. I've got no patience for people, no ability to explain clearly (or even speak clearly), and a lack of understanding about how people even make mistakes which I don't normally make. To be fair, I'm usually lousy at learning things from people too. It's why I learn most of my crafts from really clear books.
However, over the course of the last year, two of my 'pupils' have made mistakes in knitting that, if I were a better teacher, probably would never have occurred. The latest instance led my cousin to admit that she had been purling incorrectly for ages. I want her, and all other people who make mistakes at knitting, to feel better about this. One of the knitting blogs I follow, a blog with nearly a thousand followers, recently admitted that she's been doing yarnovers incorrectly forever. I admire this type of post because it's the type the knitting world needs. The one where you read it and go, "Shoot, I've been doing it incorrectly as well. At least I didn't have to discover that in front of a whole class of people."
Maybe if you're making mistakes in your knitting and you fixed those mistakes, you should blog about it. I will definitely try to think of some to add myself, but my first piece of advice is: "Don't hand your lacy baby blanket to your mother to let her count the stitches because she'll drop it all off the needles and then you won't know how to fix it, so you'll just pick it up as best possible and it'll have a giant knotty hole in the middle of all the lacework."
20100609
Remember Last Summer
You remember last summer when I posted about how during summers all knitting blogs shut down? At the time, I was doing sewing. This year, I feel like I'm totally overweight and I need to diet, so I don't want to sew garments. However, I am gardening! Sort of. My husband and son are the real gardeners.
The things in our garden that interest me the most are our raspberry plants, our watermelons, our pumpkins, and our peas. Of all of those, only the peas have come about. A few weeks ago, while out in the garden, I noticed that our peas were putting out shoots all over the place.
At that point, I bugged Paul to do what we should have done much much earlier -- put in stuff for them to climb and water them more often. This did some good, but we can clearly do much better next year. We only had two really great plants this year, and at least three plants just didn't make it beyond the early stages.
Today, for the first time, Paul and I (and my cousin and her children) reaped the benefits of Paul's hard work!
We picked pods off the plants and opened and snacked. Delicious and sweet and wonderful. I am thinking I might pick a few to open and saute in some butter and salt, but they barely need it! My cousin's youngest loved them and happily gobbled up all the contents of the pods I opened. When I asked her to smile for the picture, she could barely acknowledge me as she scrabbled for the peas in her mom's hands.
I'm going to mark the peas as a success this year. Check back later to see if I've got an update on our carrots which are looking promising! I've been itching to make Smitten Kitchen's Roasted Carrot and Avocado salad.
What are you guys up to this summer?
The things in our garden that interest me the most are our raspberry plants, our watermelons, our pumpkins, and our peas. Of all of those, only the peas have come about. A few weeks ago, while out in the garden, I noticed that our peas were putting out shoots all over the place.
At that point, I bugged Paul to do what we should have done much much earlier -- put in stuff for them to climb and water them more often. This did some good, but we can clearly do much better next year. We only had two really great plants this year, and at least three plants just didn't make it beyond the early stages.
Today, for the first time, Paul and I (and my cousin and her children) reaped the benefits of Paul's hard work!
We picked pods off the plants and opened and snacked. Delicious and sweet and wonderful. I am thinking I might pick a few to open and saute in some butter and salt, but they barely need it! My cousin's youngest loved them and happily gobbled up all the contents of the pods I opened. When I asked her to smile for the picture, she could barely acknowledge me as she scrabbled for the peas in her mom's hands.
I'm going to mark the peas as a success this year. Check back later to see if I've got an update on our carrots which are looking promising! I've been itching to make Smitten Kitchen's Roasted Carrot and Avocado salad.
What are you guys up to this summer?
20100524
I Am A Witch and I'm Awesome
Sunday was a witching night. That's right -- I took my Slytherin self out on a witchy witchy evening and I went around being ambitious, sneaky, evil, and awesome. I'm not saying I communed with He Who Must Not Be Named or anything, but when you're in the Slytherin house, you can be just a little evil, you know!
I might have insulted a few muggles and some Hufflepuffs (boring jerks). I might have cursed a few people. I might have eaten all the berries I could find without sharing them with my family. Oh, let's not pretend any more, my cohorts. The first thing I did when I went out was that I found some lousy do-gooder Gryffindor to fight. They're also so 'courageous' and 'honorable'. Well, check out this jerk trying to cast some spell on me when I wasn't looking.
I was checking to make sure innocent ducklings weren't going to be caught in the crossfire, and he straight out attacked. I know that it isn't usually in the Slytherin image to be protective of baby ducklings, but I hate people, not ducklings! And he took ruthless advantage of the fact.
I'm happy to report I won the fight and I celebrated most joyously by being super witchy.
Easter, A Month Later
I know it's late, and I have many other things to discuss such as watching ducklings, tumbling classes, and picking berries, but this blog has become a way to store memories of N, so I had better write down some of the better memories, no? I mean, otherwise one day when I'm old and senile and reading these memories, I'll never remember things like the way in January when N saw a ton of snow for the first time, he pulled himself up onto the radiator covers and peered out of our house in awe.
Easter was intriguing this year. A month prior, I bought a super cute basket, several plastic eggs, and some grass. A week prior, I bought some M&Ms to put in the eggs. Paul and I invited our next door neighbors (also known as N's honorary grandparents) to watch the spectacle of N hunting for eggs. I really didn't believe he'd be able to do it at all.
Easter morn, I ran out of the house and planted the M&M filled eggs all over our yard and our neighbors' yard. I put them in very easy to spot locations. With a quick warning to our neighbors, we let N out of the house with his basket. I needn't have worried. After I showed him the first egg and told him to pick it up and put it in the basket I was holding for him, he went on a tear, flying around the yard looking for eggs.
Sometimes, he'd be so jazzed about the whole event, he would run between locations, attempting to hold multiple eggs.
After we got done the first go around of picking up eggs, I quickly hid the eggs again around our yards and he went for his second round of egg hunting!
All in all, we went for three rounds of egg hunting. Also, the next two days, he'd peer around our yard like eggs might magically appear. What does it say about me that I considered hiding eggs in our yard the week after Easter just to see his egg hunting smile?
Easter was intriguing this year. A month prior, I bought a super cute basket, several plastic eggs, and some grass. A week prior, I bought some M&Ms to put in the eggs. Paul and I invited our next door neighbors (also known as N's honorary grandparents) to watch the spectacle of N hunting for eggs. I really didn't believe he'd be able to do it at all.
Easter morn, I ran out of the house and planted the M&M filled eggs all over our yard and our neighbors' yard. I put them in very easy to spot locations. With a quick warning to our neighbors, we let N out of the house with his basket. I needn't have worried. After I showed him the first egg and told him to pick it up and put it in the basket I was holding for him, he went on a tear, flying around the yard looking for eggs.
Sometimes, he'd be so jazzed about the whole event, he would run between locations, attempting to hold multiple eggs.
After we got done the first go around of picking up eggs, I quickly hid the eggs again around our yards and he went for his second round of egg hunting!
All in all, we went for three rounds of egg hunting. Also, the next two days, he'd peer around our yard like eggs might magically appear. What does it say about me that I considered hiding eggs in our yard the week after Easter just to see his egg hunting smile?
20100518
ABC, Baby!
Along with all the words lately, N has finally decided to start trying to sing. We often play Fisher-Price's alphabet game together. Today, while playing, at the end, when the song finished, N immediately signed for more. I played him the song again, and sang to him. He started to whisper some random mumblings, but mostly didn't get anything correct except for the letter P which he said much louder than the other letters. He signed more when it ended and we sang together again. We sang the alphabet song together about ten times in total. He never got more than a letter or two correct, but it was fantastic to hear.
Later, while playing Rock Band 2 with his daddy, N tried to sing some of Last Train to Clarksville. When I put him down to sleep at night, he attempted to sing along with You Are My Sunshine. Then, he pointed imperiously to his crib to indicate that it was sleep time. I put him down and turned out the light. As Paul and I discussed stuff out in the living room, we could hear him chattering away to himself (another new habit).
Oh, additional words I forgot from last time: corn, bird, egg, owl, yes, no, and uh-oh!
20100515
Silly Me, Busy Spring
I realized I haven't posted about N here in a long time, and that is silly. I was posting monthly (or trying to) when all he did was stare at me and say "goo", but now that he's doing everything under the sun, I have nothing to say?
As you might not be aware, this winter was hellish. Suffice to say that my son has asthma attacks when he gets a cold or infection. I was awaiting spring, and the return of my husband from his job up north, and for the endless rounds of colds to end. We came out of it with a bang, N, Paul, and I all got a horrible cold at the end of April.
Some things to chat about? Nathan is nearly two years old and he has barely forty words, if that, under his belt. I'd be worried, but about ten words of those forty came within the last four days, I think, so I'm rapidly calming down now. His words are: Go, Mom, Dad, car, moon, blue, stop, sun, cow, moo, cat, meow, neigh (horse's sound), roar, duck (pronounced guck), clock, shoe, bus, please, catfood (one word to him), tea, coffee, vacuum, paccy (short for pacifier), play, sit, poop, girl, balloon, walt, dot (the last two are our neighbors), book, and ball. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but I'll add more to this site, as they come or as I remember them. The most surprising additions have come recently when he called a lion a "Roar" and answered that same word to "What does a tiger say?" When he answered the word "neigh" to what does a horse say, I nearly fell over.
We are also taking tumbling classes and have been for several weeks. He's made some amazing advances due to the class, including learning how to jump and attempting to sing along with the alphabet song. He loves the balance beam, of all things, and willingly walks along it many times. He likes the inclined rock wall, and the bouncy horses as well. He tolerates the bars after watching the girls of the class swing like little monkeys. He likes the way he gets a stamp on his hand after the class too, which is funny since the first few times he wouldn't take the stamp until I did. He attempts to somersault quite often!
Last week, the teachers played a 'game' in which they held up a wedge shaped mat and ask the children to run at it to knock it over. (Of course, in reality, the teachers gently moved the mat to the floor and held the child to make sure that they didn't hurt themselves.) Nathan screamed shrilly each time another child made contact with the mat and would promptly try to launch himself from my lap directly at the mat. When it came to his turn, he ran screaming at it. He took several turns very enthusiastically.
All in all, my little baby is becoming a small boy. Of course, he still knows he's my baby.
20100426
Babbling Around The Internet
So, OMG, I miss you! No, I totally do. I love to talk, talk, talk. If you ever meet me in person (and haven't already), you'll be like, "Liar." Because when I first meet a person, I normally just stare at them suspiciously and maybe give a few nervous laughs or sentences here or there. But, then, after a while, when we become friends, you'll be all, "Okay, shut up. I've heard that story fifty times before, Kitten."
Part of having a blog if fulfilling this need to chatter on about nothingness. When I don't blog, it all builds up until when I talk to friends, I start to just babble about anything and nothing. When Paul calls me at night, I jabber on about dreams I've had, thoughts I have about television shows I've seen, books I've read, pictures I've edited for Flickr, et cetera. By posting to the blog, I get a small part of that nervous chatter out of me and it leaves me calmer. Sometimes, when I don't post to this blog, and then suddenly I post elsewhere, I spill all my stories out there. Like, Helen went on her honeymoon, and she said I could post a recipe to her food blog. I did, and then I chattered on and on about my obsession with eating ice! (So obsessed with eating ice, guys!) Mind you, that post was edited down from my original twenty billion paragraphs about eating ice and my pregnancy. It really was that long. Okay, not literally, but...
Anyway, I thought I should post to get back into the hang of things. Since I'm crafting about zero hours a week due to another cold invading our house, I thought I'd blog some of the links I've been saving up!
Let's start with three links for babies!
I always dream of the day I have a little girl I can dress up with homemade knits and sewn items. I know it'll never happen. First, I want a little girl to dress up too much, which means that should I have more children, they will definitely all be male. Second, if I have a girl, I'll just spend my life savings on items from all the cutest stores because I can't even walk by Janie and Jack now without looking at their adorable dresses for little baby girls. However, I admire and envy mothers who do this very thing. For instance, Little Purl of the Orient makes her daughters the cutest sweaters ever. She probably makes beautiful sugar cookies too and throws awesome birthday parties!
One of the things I don't want to do for a baby, but wish I knew someone who would do, is make modern gorgeous baby quilts. Look at Sew Inspired's mermaid quilt. I love the colors, I love the theme, and I love Heather Ross fabrics. If I saw this baby in real life, I would totally steal its quilt. Sorry, baby.
Now, in case you don't have a girl, like me, you're probably wondering, don't moms on the internet ever make stuff for their boys? The answer is clearly no, but I'm going to lie to you and say yes. For instance, they can make them these awesome 90 minute shirts from made. Are you tired of dressing your boy in grey, navy blue, or brown? Feel free to liven up their wardrobe with colors of your own choosing! Of course, you could also make them a navy blue, grey, or brown shirt too, but those are a dime a dozen in boy clothing land.
Okay, I'll try to be back soon with more links, if nothing else. I really am missing the chattering!
Part of having a blog if fulfilling this need to chatter on about nothingness. When I don't blog, it all builds up until when I talk to friends, I start to just babble about anything and nothing. When Paul calls me at night, I jabber on about dreams I've had, thoughts I have about television shows I've seen, books I've read, pictures I've edited for Flickr, et cetera. By posting to the blog, I get a small part of that nervous chatter out of me and it leaves me calmer. Sometimes, when I don't post to this blog, and then suddenly I post elsewhere, I spill all my stories out there. Like, Helen went on her honeymoon, and she said I could post a recipe to her food blog. I did, and then I chattered on and on about my obsession with eating ice! (So obsessed with eating ice, guys!) Mind you, that post was edited down from my original twenty billion paragraphs about eating ice and my pregnancy. It really was that long. Okay, not literally, but...
Anyway, I thought I should post to get back into the hang of things. Since I'm crafting about zero hours a week due to another cold invading our house, I thought I'd blog some of the links I've been saving up!
Let's start with three links for babies!
I always dream of the day I have a little girl I can dress up with homemade knits and sewn items. I know it'll never happen. First, I want a little girl to dress up too much, which means that should I have more children, they will definitely all be male. Second, if I have a girl, I'll just spend my life savings on items from all the cutest stores because I can't even walk by Janie and Jack now without looking at their adorable dresses for little baby girls. However, I admire and envy mothers who do this very thing. For instance, Little Purl of the Orient makes her daughters the cutest sweaters ever. She probably makes beautiful sugar cookies too and throws awesome birthday parties!
One of the things I don't want to do for a baby, but wish I knew someone who would do, is make modern gorgeous baby quilts. Look at Sew Inspired's mermaid quilt. I love the colors, I love the theme, and I love Heather Ross fabrics. If I saw this baby in real life, I would totally steal its quilt. Sorry, baby.
Now, in case you don't have a girl, like me, you're probably wondering, don't moms on the internet ever make stuff for their boys? The answer is clearly no, but I'm going to lie to you and say yes. For instance, they can make them these awesome 90 minute shirts from made. Are you tired of dressing your boy in grey, navy blue, or brown? Feel free to liven up their wardrobe with colors of your own choosing! Of course, you could also make them a navy blue, grey, or brown shirt too, but those are a dime a dozen in boy clothing land.
Okay, I'll try to be back soon with more links, if nothing else. I really am missing the chattering!
20100406
I Heart Winning
Not so recently, Chappy's Mom hosted a contest in which she was trying to encourage people to watch Chuck. I already watch it, but, due to that, I was prepared to take her quiz and answer her questions! I did so and she politely wrote to me, right after Nathan's latest asthma flare, that I had won the contest.
That seemed the ideal time to check out what the prize was. No, really. I entered the contest solely for my love of Chuck and to spite people who disagreed with her Ravelry forum post. That's the way I roll -- entering contests to spite people who will never realize they've been spited.
It turns out I won twelve(!!!!11!) skeins of Sublime yarn, a knitting DVD, and season one of Chuck on Blu-Ray. I was pretty psyched, especially since I had expected the prize to be something like a skein of dishcloth cotton. Not that I don't love dishcloth cotton! But, beautiful cashmere, silk, merino yarn?
Mmmmm.
I shall say it again.
Mmmmm.
That was me gloating, by the way.
Thank you, Deb. I highly encourage you all to check out her blog(s). She's got nice photographs and she can write nicely. You all know that I don't have much higher praise than that for a blog.
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