I’ve just been cranking out the knitting projects. And I’m trying not to be distressed that my right wrist has really been bothering me. I’m typing right now with a brace on. Yikes! But I managed to get this baby bolero done. The pattern is from One Skein, and while I love the design, I’m not thrilled with the assembly. There’s just so many seams for such a teeny little thing. So this is what I did:

•For the shoulder seams, I did the 3 needle bind off.
•For the sleeves, rather than setting in the sleeves, I picked up stitches around the arm hole and worked the sleeve backwards down the arm.
•I also worked 3 rows of ribbing around the body to match the sleeves rather than 2 like the pattern says.
•I also used GGH Samoa – 2 balls.

That’s it! It’s still cute, if I do say so myself!

back detail

So here it is, a very big sock that sometimes people put gifts in around the end of December.

This was really my first experience with extensive chart reading and I’m quite proud of my efforts. (As if you couldn’t tell by the 50 million photos I’ve taken.)

The yarn is Cascade 109, I used 2 skeins of the main color and then just a little of one for the contrasting color. I love this yarn! It is so soft for 100% wool, and it’s not even merino.

the back

The pattern is from Hand Knit Holidays. I have to say, even though we don’t celebrate Christmas, I LOVE this book. There are so many patterns in the book that aren’t holiday oriented and there’s even a hanukkah pillow (that I would never use, but STILL.)

Now lets show some love for this heel. I have to say, this is a nice heel.

Knitting this was really fun for me. This is why I love knitting for the store, I want to knit everything, but I don’t necessarily like or would use everything. I’ve noticed that I’m starting to be more about the process than the product. When I was taking art classes in HS, my teacher would always give me a hard time that everything I made HAD to be functional. I couldn’t just sculpt a piece for the artistic value of it, it had to have a purpose. I still maybe knit for a purpose, but I am beginning to enjoy the artistic value of it more.

(And in very good, unrelated news, the scarf swap scarves are done and will be heading out tomorrow. Pics will come.)

Yesterday was a crazy day. I was all over the place, taking my mom to lunch and shopping for her birthday with my sister and visiting a friends new dog. Honor broke out in hives because of the dog’s saliva, so I had to rush to Rite Aid to get some Benadryl. (Can you believe that the liquid Benadryl didn’t come with a medicine cup? So I ran back into the store and asked the pharmacist for one of their medicine spoons – generally they are free. I ran out to the car, tore into the spoon and realized that it had a bar code on the back. I think I may have stole from Rite Aid. I was just worried about Honor having a severe reaction and wanted to get that medicine into him as quickly as possible.) I also faux worked at the office, mostly just catching up on some correspondence. Dropped Jim off at the church where he plays the guitar sometimes, went back to the office to work on the labels for my lip balm. Picked Jim up and drove to pick up our kids from a friends house, wonderful friends who fed us spaghetti.

In my crazy life of driving all over town, teaching knitting classes and preventing Honor from cutting his own avacado, I’ve managed to finish a few things:

Last week a woman I knew lost her 1 year old son. It still chokes me up to think about it. I am amazed at how strong she is. I can’t imagine the incredible pain of losing a child, something that, I’m sure, is inconsolable. But I wanted to do something for her, and the only thing I know how to do is knit. Several customers have come into the store to purchase materials to make a prayer shawl and it seemed like a beautiful idea for me to use.

This is the shawl I made.

It’s made from two different Hanah Silk hand-dyed ribbons, two different eyelash yarns and Trendsetter Dune. It’s really an amazing shawl. Probably the hardest part of making it was keeping all the different ribbons and yarns from getting tangled up as I carried them along the edge.

I’m also still working on some models for the store, one of which is blocking at the moment, but here’s a sneak peek.

And I’m sending this lip balm out today. One of my grandma’s friends orders 24 tubes from me at a time. I need to work on my labeling, but it will come along.

I keep thinking that maybe life will slow down, but, in reality, I think I like it this way. It’s good to be busy. It’s good for life to be full and active and sort of crazy. I just may need to hire a housekeeper.

Yesterday Eden walked out of the bathroom and said to me, “Mom, my butt just exploded.”

Later on that day the light bulb burned out in the bathroom and she came and told me, “Mom, the batteries died in the bathroom.”

Last Sunday it was 70 degrees here. Friday it started snowing and snowed off and on all the way through Sunday. It was quite a strange change in weather, and pretty unusual for here – Daffodils have already started to bloom. You just never know what you’re going to get in Colorado.

I had to go work at the yarn store, but Jim bundled up the kids and took them out to the backyard to make a snowman. Unfortunately he didn’t get any pictures of their creation, but I did get a few photos of the kids when they started piling on the layers to go outside.

Never a serious face.

And always a serious face.

Recently some friends of ours went to a marriage conference. They were really excited about what they came away with from the conference and they told us all about it over takeout. (Takeout that I had to drive all the way across town to take back because they gave me Wonton Soup when I ordered Hot and Sour soup and I must have my Hot and Sour Soup.)

The premise of the conference was that men need respect and women need love. Men need sex, women need communication. And I thought that was a very interesting perspective, but not necessarily a box that I fit into. I thought, “I need respect. I need sex. And I need love.” (Did I just say that for the whole internet to read? Oh, my.) It wasn’t until a lengthy conversation with Jim the other night that I realized that I may just fit into that box.

We had a conversation about his responsibilities – being the primary breadwinner – and my responsibilities – being the primary caregiver to the kids and housekeeper which I really, really don’t like, (the housekeeping part, not the kid part.) Basically after two hours of discussing, it boils down the fact that Jim feels love from me by my cleaning the house and caring for the kids. But I wouldn’t think that Jim wasn’t showing me love if he wasn’t bringing in enough money. I would think that he wasn’t showing me love if he wasn’t being sweet to me, showing affection, being kind and considerate and thoughtful, and showing me respect.

My first reaction to Jim’s point of view was to feel totally manipulated. “If you loved me, you’d clean the house.” Not that he said that, but it’s what it made me think at first. It also didn’t really appeal to the (semi) feminist in me. Why should I be the one who has to do the laundry and clean the house? Why should HE require this of me? When I’m going off on these little tangents in my brain, I hate when reasoning enters in. It’s just a division of labor. Someone has to do these things, and that person is me. I suppose if I wanted to go work full time, Jim could start shrinking washing the clothes.

And it dawned on me that he feels that the best way to show me love is for him to go do his job and do it well and provide for our family. In turn, he’d interpret my show of love in the same way – by me fulfilling my obligations. This was a really startling revelation for me! How could cleaning the house (etc.) say that I love him? Being sweet and thoughtful and loving means that I loved him…. doesn’t it?

And I realized that all this meant that we really do view love differently. While he should be aware of the way that I interpret love, I should realize that he’s doing the very best to show me love in HIS way. And while I should be aware of the way he interprets love, he should realize that I’m doing the very best to show him love in MY way. Alternately, I think it’s best for both of us to try and show each other love in the way it will be best understood.

And it made me wonder, how many marriages fail because each person can’t realize that the other person’s lack of action isn’t saying, “I don’t love you.” It’s just a lack of action. I don’t know, maybe it’s about love and respect. But I really think it’s more about communication. We’ve been married six years, and it’s taken me this long to realize that we view things differently. It’s taken six years of talking and fighting and making up and doing it all over again to finally come to this revelation. What will I think in six more years? I can’t wait to find out.

It’s beyond time to start potty training this boy. I’m done holding my breath for extended periods while I try and wipe up a poop explosion. So I’ve decided that this week will be a crash course in sitting on the potty for Honor. The problem is that his brace is so hard to get off. And if I put it on under his diaper/pull up, it just gets disgusting. So this week will be brace free. My hope is that I can get him to get good enough at sitting on the potty that he can start to wear his brace under a pull up or, dare I say, underware (I wish I could find little tiny boxers) and we can keep his brace clean.

And just now as I paused from writing to make him sit on the potty, I realize that I’m crazy. I should just succumb to the fact that he’s going to be wearing diapers in High School. Even though I’ve done this before, it seems like all my old tricks don’t work. If he sits on the potty and goes, he gets a piece of candy. He could care less. This boy could care less about bribery motivation. I guess that I should not be surprised that my children have very strong opinions about things, although I don’t know where they get it from?

Yesterday I got a phone call from the manager of the Bresnan office here. He profusely apologized for all the trouble we’ve been through and offered some compensation for our troubles. So it seems that sometimes when you yell loud enough, people listen.

The other night Jim was doing dishes and chucked a wet, slimy paper towel at me. I peeled it off my arm and chucked it back at him and of course, missed. I went to go clean up my arm as he continued to do dishes and I assumed that he’d peel the towel off the wall. He didn’t. I just found it today. yuck.