Month: May 2006

Happy Mother’s Day!

Sarah General

cameo_pendant.gifI hope everyone had as nice a mother’s day as I did. Denis did most of the toddler chasing for the day, which meant I could sit and chat with my family for a while! He also gave me this lovely pendant – actually, though, he gave it to me two weeks ago so I’d have it for our family portraits.

This year I’m definitely not as reflective about the whole “being a mom thing” as I was last year. Don’t get me wrong, I still love being a mother and wouldn’t trade it for anything…most of the time. But I have to confess, it was all I could do not to crawl under the pew and disavow any relationship with my adorable little toddler when she spoke up in church. There were two baptisms this morning, and the priest had us all renew our baptismal vows. He asked the congregation, “Do you reject Satan, and all his works?” To which Carrie quite loudly and emphatically replied, “NO!”

And that about sums up my mother’s day.

It’s Been A Busy Week

Sarah General

It’s Saturday, right? It’s been such a long week.

Let’s see. I went to spin class on Wednesday. It was my third time in the class, and I’m finally starting to be able to do the parts where you stand up and pedal. Except, I really paid for it – I was in agony going up and down the stairs until today.

Thursday was Jenny’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Jenny!) and I should have also mailed out some Mother’s Day cards, but we decided to wait until we picked up our family pictures and send them out at the same time. Um, I just finally bought the photo mailers today. I guess I should have just sent the cards!

Friday I had to take Carrie to the pediatrician for a terrible rash. Nobody knows what’s causing it and it’s not anything easily identifiable like roseola or fifth disease, but at this point it’s covering her tummy, waist, one thigh, under both her arms, and one little hand. I’m thankful that it doesn’t seem to bother her, but I wish I knew what it was and what caused it.

And today was just a running-around kind of day. We bought a couple of pairs of Gerber training pants for Carrie. I don’t know when we’re actually going to start, but since she’s starting to show a little bit of interest in the potty and the training pants are hard to find I bought them just to have on hand. We were contemplating using them temporarily to see if the diapers were what was causing the rash, but the rash is remarkably everywhere else but under her diaper, so that’s probably not it.

So, it’s been busy. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. I owe people cards. I haven’t wrapped up my mom’s gift. I don’t know whether we all have clean dressy-enough-for-church clothes for the morning. I have to make a fruit salad. I’m supposed to go to my grandmother’s house for brunch, except I’m not sure when we’re supposed to be there. But it’s mother’s day, so I’m not going to worry about any of this. So there.

Stripes, Cables and Intarsia

Sarah Crafts

Makes for a colorful knitting entry, no?

striped vestbaby ponchosailing away sweater

From left to right: Carrie’s striped vest, Carrie’s cabled poncho and Andrew’s sailboat sweater.

The striped vest turned out to be a really cute way to use up stash yarn. I think I could make about a dozen more of these and still have leftover yarn. Stash diving is fun – I was pretty proud to start a new project that was free!

The cabled poncho is something I actually finished last May, but I never blogged about it or took pictures of it. I was looking for something to throw over a little sleeveless dress Carrie was wearing the other morning, as it was going to be hot later but it was a bit chilly when we started out. This was peeking out of a pile of mostly finished stuff in my craft room, so I grabbed it and off we went!

The sailboat sweater was a gift for Carrie’s newest cousin. I finally got to meet him on Sunday, and what a cutie! I hope he likes the little fish on the sleeve. Every kids’ sweater should have a surprise on the sleeve.

Finally, I’m stuck with what to do next. Actually, I’m working on a really quick project that I sort of “owe” somebody, but when that’s done I don’t know what to do. I have a couple of socks-in-progress that I could pick up and do something with:

what_sock_next.jpg

The purple one is really too small, so I’d have to rip it out to before the gusset increases (it’s toe-up) and add another inch. I even tried it on my mom’s foot, figuring I could finish them for her if they fit her, but no such luck. The orange one is probably fine, but I abandoned it for some reason I can’t remember. There are two others I know I’m going to rip out completely so I didn’t even bother taking pictures. Or I could start a new pair of socks entirely. Or I could pick another square for my Aran afghan. (Oops, I just realized I never posted the pictures of finished block #7 for that. Oh well, it’s too dark now.)

See, this is the problem with working on one project at a time. The pressure to pick the next “perfect” project is just too great. Sigh.

SockapalOOOza socks!

Sarah SockapalOOOza

Look what I got in the mail today!

sockpal_socks.jpg

They fit perfectly, are extremely soft, and I just love the colors. Plus they have a pretty little cable alternating with the ribbing. This is the very first pair of handknit socks I own that I didn’t knit, and I think they fit better than any I’ve made! Thanks, Auntie Pita!

Also, Silke got the socks I sent all the way to Germany a couple of days ago. (Here is Google’s translation of her site. Um, I think the translator needs a little work. But since I never learned German, it’s all I’ve got!)

I definitely want to do this again. It’s a lot more fun (and motivating) to knit socks for someone else, and especially so when you know yet another person is making special socks for you at the same time!

Birthday Cakes and Gardening

Sarah Cakes

I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth, it’s just been a busy week. Denis was on a business trip until early Friday morning, so I was playing single mom to a toddler and two dogs. I honestly don’t know how people do it. I was desperate to have another adult watch Carrie for five minutes so I could have just five little minutes to do something by myself! The other thing I did this week was make a cake for my great-great-aunt’s 90th birthday party:

aunt_amy_cake.jpg

It’s not a great picture, but it turned out far better than I’d anticipated. If you don’t count the writing. I suck at writing on cakes. I can practice on wax paper and have it turn out perfectly, but the pressure of writing on the actual cake…I just can’t handle it. I actually ended up scraping off the writing and re-icing the top of the cake three times before I gave up and let it be whatever it was going to be.

As a gift, since my aunt is an avid gardener, I gave Carrie a watering can and let her have fun in the flowers I put in our front boxes. Most of the water ended up on her dress, soaked into her socks, and covering the random ants crawling around, but I got some really cute shots. I made the background on this one black and white so the focus was on Carrie and the flowers.

20060504_flowers.jpg

Bad Day

Sarah General

This is how my morning has gone so far:

12:03 AM – Go to bed, realizing that reading a suspenseful book before bed when home alone is a bad idea.
1:22 AM – Must. Fall. Asleep. Soon.
5:42 AM – Wake to baby crying and making her “parched” noise that means she’s thirsty. Too tired to walk downstairs to get water. Offer to nurse instead.
5:57 AM – Encourage baby to go back to sleep despite obvious light outside and loud birds chirping. Damn birds. Baby insists, “Per! Per!”. Change diaper.
5:59 AM – Drop back into bed.
6:30 AM – Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
6:37 AM – Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
6:44 AM – Alarm goes off. Realize that dogs need to be taken out and fed soon. Hit snooze.
6:51 AM – Alarm goes off. Fine. Fine, whatever, I don’t need sleep, I’ll just make coffee.
7:10 AM – Showered, dressed, etc. Go downstairs.
7:25 AM – Dogs are fed, outed, etc. Start unloading dishwasher.
7:26 AM – Break two glasses all over counter, floor, and inside of dishwasher. Shit.
7:35 AM – All visible pieces of glass picked up off floor and out of dishwasher, counters wiped down. Don’t know what else to do about dishwasher. Thinking I should use the wet Swiffer to make sure there are no tiny pieces left on floor.
7:36 AM – Aaaargh! Dog pee all over tile in front of closet Swiffer is in. Shouldn’t have hit the snooze button that last time.
7:37 AM – Out of paper towels to clean dog pee. More in basement. God, I need coffee.
7:38 AM – As long as I’m down here, better move the laundry from last night before I forget and it gets all mildewy in the washer.
7:44 AM – Tile cleaned. Kitchen floor Swiffered. What on earth do I do about the dishwasher?
7:45 AM – Contemplate options: vacuum out dishwasher? Re-run dishwasher? Take out all dishes and rewash by hand?
7:46 AM – Decide to ignore remainder of dishes in dishwasher until it’s a decent hour to call mom and ask what to do. Start coffee.
7:48 AM – Blog.

It can only get better, right? Is the coffee ready yet?

Holy Legos!

Sarah General

I asked Carrie’s Uncle Mike to show her how to build something cooler out of legos than I can come up with – because no matter how much I try I can only build the things that are pictured on the box, or a simple little wall. In response, he sent me this link. All I can say is…wow. There are people out there who have a lot more time on their hands than I do. And a lot more talent when it comes to building with legos. Not to mention, really, a lot more legos in the first place. Did you know there were clear legos? Why didn’t I have clear legos when I was a kid? Maybe if I had I’d be able to build cooler things!