Love & a Steady Hand

I finished the hat

Here it is in progress:

You can see the double-pointed needles around the top. The little colored rings are stitch markers, so you know where you are when you go to decrease (to make the hat start narrowing down to close at the top).

And here is the finished hat, complete with folded up brim, which is supposed to keep the wearer's ears extra snuggly warm:

Neat huh?

Note: I think that you should be able to see the pictures in a larger version if you click on them. But I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. Try it and see?

Translating for Non-Knitters

Sorry, I just realized that I do speak knitting quite often without remembering that not all my loyalest readers knit -- though we can correct that little problem fairly easily, right Amy?

So here is a translation of toe-up sock and hat in 2x2 knitting:

The sock is simplest to explain. Most sock patterns (if you are interested in knitting a sock) go from the cuff down. In other words, you start knitting at the ankle and make your cuff, then your heel, then your foot part, then finish at the toe. This approach is great if you have standard sized everything, because you just follow the pattern and voila, sock that fits.

However, if you have oddly sized anything -- in my case short wide feet and ankles that do not taper gradually and gracefully but just go down straight from my calf until my heel pokes out suddenly -- the cuff down approach is more problematic and I suspect has been the root cause of my not managing to make a single sock that fits right (and I've started about six so far...). I do a fine job of making the ankle fit. I've made the nicest, slouchiest, most comfy cuffs you can imagine in a hand knitted sock. But the cuff is the only part that ever fits, because when one is working from the ankle down and compensating for big ankles, one inevitably ends up also making the foot part too slouchy to wear without falling down -- this is what happens to me anyway.

What I need in a sock pattern was a way to make the foot nice and snug and THEN compensate for the extra ankle slouch I wanted. And knitting toe up makes that possible -- or at least seems to so far, because you start at the toe and are better able to regulate the fit of the foot as you go along by shifting the size of the needles or adding more stitches to fit the width of the foot without it being gi-normous (My sister's word. Thanks Meg!) My hope is that I will be able
to make the heel and then add enough stitches (or change to really big needles) and thus make the ankle all floppy and comfy.

Here, hopefully, is a picture of the sock in progress, modelled by me, on my foot.

The 2x2 ribbing is a little more difficult to explain. Basically, if you look at your favorite sweater, you'll probably notice that the cuffs and hem (around your middle) have the knitting kindof in vertical rows. You form those vertical rows (or ribbing) by alternating the knit stitch and the purl stitch in any given combination of the two. Most sweaters and such have either 1x1 ribbing (meaning 1 knit stitch and 1 purl stitch repeated over and over) or 2x2 (2 knits, 2 purls, repeated over and over). Sometimes you get different combinations, but all knitting is really just knit stitches and purl stitches (and the purl stitch is really just the back side of the knit stitch anyway so it's more complicated than it looks most of the time).

So, Tim's hat is made up of a repeat of 2 knit stitches and 2 purl stitches all the way around -- 144 stitches (which ought to be the front of a size 2X sweater for heaven's sake!) Here, hopefully, is the hat in progress. Right now it just looks like a big turtleneck sweater starting from the neck down. I'll update you as the thing nears completion.

Translation ended. Now I am going to cook Thai chicken with jasmine rice noodles for dinner.

I just ordered a new copy

of A Double Affair. Which means I will probably find the old copy tomorrow afternoon. Sigh. I just couldn't freak about it anymore and Tim said to just go ahead and get a new one, because I was kinda driving him nuts too. (Note: while he didn't actually say the last part about driving him nuts, it was certainly written all over his face).

So there you go. Now I am going to go knit. Current projects include a toe-up sock (in actual sock yarn, can you imagine???) and a hat for Tim in 2x2 ribbing with 16 extra stitches to hopefully compensate for his big giant head. That is "ink blue" worsted Lamb's Pride wool. Suitable for bus duty and other freezing cold situations.

Still No Book

And last night I had to dump out all the bedding in the linen closet to see if it had somehow gotten stuffed in there by mistake. So there I am, dragging all the sheets out of the shelves and Tim is just watching from the bed and I am being just a little crazy and he says, "Uh, why don't you take a Klonopin and come to bed..."

Now I'll admit that it was a little drastic to dump it all on the floor in a fury like that, but it does really all need to be re-folded anyway and at least I'm not so obsessive that I had to re-fold it all right away. I left it on the floor and it is there still.

I did take the pill and went to bed. Still had a really hard time sleeping. Still couldn't let go of the weirdness of having lost this book... And had really weird dreams too...

This morning I looked in the attic, including digging through (though I did not dump them out) the totes with the too-small kid clothes I have been putting away for the last six months, and the put away luggage and the box of Christmas ornaments.

I am just baffled. Last night I went through both craft closets -- Mara's and mine. I've looked in every bag and box and container I can think of, even sorted through some stocking stuff I still had in a little gift bag from last year...

GRRRRRRR! And now I'm freaking because maybe the Celexa really IS making me more obsessive...

And really, would it be better or worse to be more obsessive if it meant my house was staying cleaner? I can't quite decide, even as I find myself feeling frustrated that my usual parking space at Target is not available...

I am going crazy

I know, I know, you're thinking to yourselves, "Going crazy huh? Well that should be a short trip!" but this time I think I'm serious.

Last Christmas -- I don't mean this recently past Christmas, but Christmas of 2003, a whole year ago -- my parents got me two Angela Thirkell novels. The titles were Enter Sir Robert and A Double Affair, and I was delighted because I've never been able to find either of them anywhere. I saved them for a treat and tried to read the books I had found that came first in the series -- it's a VERY long series, try about 25 novels and these are two of the last... so by the time I got ready to read my new books, I was not really feeling Thirkell-ish anymore and set them aside.

Now I AM feeling Thirkell-ish and very ready to just snuggle up and read a big pile of her novels all in a row and I can't find A Double Affair ANYWHERE!!! I know I had it. I remember what the cover looks like, I remember having them both in the bed together sometime this summer because I was feeling frustrated by Enter Sir Robert, which comes first but is a little slow and I didn't want to read A Double Affair first because I would inevitably miss something small but vital by skipping the previous book. And I remember setting them both aside for a bit and reading the Tess Gerritson books that Diana had recommended because they were more exciting and summer-ish...

But now I'm ready to read it and my copy of A Double Affair has simply DISAPPEARED!!!!

I figured it was probably under our bed, or behind the dresser or down behind the bookshelf or under a pile of something. So today I cleaned our room. It took absolutely HOURS and no book! Granted, it will be nice to have a clean room, and I got the kids' stuff up off the floor and into drawers or put away to share with littler kids or Community Action or whatever, but I am so frustrated (also my nose is now stuffed up from all the dust)!

Then I figured it must be in the study -- so I went through all the shelves and the piles there and nothing. (The study is just on the cusp of being organized but I did the bedroom today so cut me some slack already!)

Then I decided I must have put it on one of the shelves in the living room that have CDs and DVDs (the shelves that are turned around backwards so Matthew won't spend all day dumping their contents onto the floor.). Nope. Not there.

Then I looked in the little dresser. Nope.

Then I sucked up my courage and tackled the basement. I found the scanner software disc, a plate stand I needed for a decorative plate I found today in our bedroom, our address book, a journal I bought myself last year, and the last piece of the racing car set Matthew was trying to play with this morning. But no book. (Well, not that book anyway.)

Now I don't know where else to look. I have literally torn our bedroom apart and put it back together again. I can't remember having taken it anywhere and I never lend my Thirkells because nobody else would really care about them or enjoy them much probably and I am really kinda overprotective about them anyway... So where the hell is it???

If Tim were a different kind of person I would suspect him of having hidden the book just to make me feel crazy. I did actually ask him if he was trying to Gaslight me, just because saying it out loud made it less of a real possibility, but I am really starting to feel nutso.

I'll keep you posted, but in the meantime, isn't it a good thing I'm taking this neat-o medicine? Otherwise I might be obsessing about it....

A Day of Mourning

I am so proud of my mama! She called tonight to let me know that she wore black today -- all black, with her shark-tooth earrings -- to protest the inauguration.

My protest was much more lame. I just worked really hard to forget about it even happening. I have been busy with other griefs today and I think I've been grieving for the country since November 3rd, so another day is not much in the grand scheme of things I suppose.

Today's big sadness is the realization, finally, that two of my best friends in the world are splitting up for good. Not that a divorce or separation is ever really good, but they are gradually killing each other with words and it needs to stop, but oh it hurts so bad right now!

I've spent the past several months hoping against all reasonable hope that something would happen to make it all better. That there was a way, a miracle, a something... anything! But it just isn't going to be.

And it scares me. This is not about me, not about my relationship security or level of romance or even our often lamentable communication skills, but anytime your friends split up it makes the world feel fragile. And this is really a first for me. I mean I've seen relationship earthquakes up close and personal --I've watched incredibly scary volcanoes and thunderstorms and seen the terrain scarred but still able to heal. This is somehow different. This time it feels like a nuclear holocaust and it makes me want to duck and cover!

There are people whose lives become entwined with our own so tightly that their winds shake all our branches and while the storm that has been raging around here is not really my own, doesn't materially affect me, I am feeling torn up by the roots and fragile and alone.

And while I truly believe this is the best decision they could have reached, at the same time, I feel so ripped apart! I can't imagine what it must be like at the center of that storm. If I feel this alone and scared and raw, what must they be going through inside?

So while I am beginning to accept it as inevitable and maybe even for the best, I am aching every day, not least of all because I cannot do a thing to make it better or take away the pain. And I hate that feeling most of all!

New Developments

New things around here include the fact that I am now taking blood pressure meds as well as anti-depressants.

I started to write this entry while the kids were up, thinking to myself (as my son banged the cutting board against the table and made up a little happy song to go along with the banging and my daughter wailed, "Mohhhhhhhmmmmmm, Matthew is doing something he is not supposed to be doing!!!!"), "Now why on EARTH would I have high blood pressure????" but that didn't seem very productive and wasn't getting dinner on the table any faster either, so I set the blog aside and made chicken sandwiches.

I got the livingroom cleaned up on Thursday afternoon, thanks mostly to the fact that Tim's mom actually listened when I said, "If I could just have a couple of hours to get something DONE, I think I would feel a lot less crazy!" and offered to take the kids for the afternoon. I did the whole thing -- mantle cleared of receipts and tiny junky things, tall shelf with stereo equipment cleared and dusted, TV dusted, plant watered, misc. containers of junk taken downstairs or upstairs or whereever they belonged... It felt AMAZING!

It looked nice too. And really it still does. I think it will be easier to maintain now that the edges are clean. It's so hard to clean the middle when the edges are all junky and full of piled up crap.

This weekend was up and down. Tim did loads of housework, including the enormous pile of dishes and about thirty baskets of laundry. I am finishing the laundry tonight and tomorrow. By swimming, I plan not to have anything left to wash, except what's actually on our bodies. And I did the dishes today after lunch and will probably go whip through the dinner dishes before I go to bed.

Matthew and I started cleaning the playroom (this is a challenge since his idea of cleaning the playroom involves discovering stuff he'd forgotten under the big pile of toys and staging an elaborate reunion, complete with running through the house to make sure everyone has a chance to welcome the prodigal home again -- so he's not actually much help, but he is only two...) and I think I am on my way to the new playroom vision. Got all the little plastic things from the kids room brought downstairs so I can put sets of things back together and decide where they should live. Some things (like the Barbies) are moving upstairs. Other things (like most of the dress-up clothes)are moving downstairs. Many things are just plain moving out of our house.

And best of all, I started working on the table for the playroom. The notches are cut, the top and bottom pieces are sanded, the first coat of stain has been applied. And since it is time for coat number two, I shall say adieu!

Maybe by next week my head won't be throbbing so much. I'll keep you posted, hopefully with pictures of the finished table happily living in the nice clean playroom!

Funny Things

I have enjoyed lately include:

Shaun of the Dead -- gross, but hilarious. Now available on DVD.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou -- perplexing, but hilarious. In theaters.

Anthony Lane's review of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera in this week's issue of The New Yorker magazine. Look for it. But pee before you read it, because otherwise you will wet your pants. I know I did.

Oh, and did you notice, my husband is brilliant, charming, and adorable?

In the words of our daughter, "Daddy really is a champion!" (10 second pause) "Mom, what's a champion anyway?" Gales of laughter from the kitchen, where said champion was washing the dishes...

Yay Monkey Daddy!

Sand Table

Today Matthew decided to make his own sand table. "How very creative," you are thinking to yourself. "What a resourceful young fellow!" And it's true.

Except.

He decided to make his sand table on the sofa. With garlic salt. An entire container of garlic salt. Which he poured over the 'See-and-Say'. Which he had 'rescued' from the box of "these toys are too little for us and need to go to someone smaller than we are".

He was really really really mad when I took it away and shook the salt into the garbage. His sister said, "why is there sand all over the sofa? I'm tired!" I agreed with both statements and said, "Hmm, looks like naptime." Matthew (still mad that I took his project away and not really wanting to take a nap) said vehemently, "Me hate it!" I said, "Me too baby, me too!"

And we all went up and took a nap until Daddy got home.

And when I came back downstairs, the salt/sand was miraculously gone from the sofa, as if the whole thing had never happened at all. And that was my day.

Sigh.

I need a new page...

I think I need to create a new entry that's just things I'm reading and then I can update it and keep more of a regular log. Or maybe not.

What I really need to do it go to bed. Tomorrow is swimming and Tim won't be there (he has an ITK match at OSU), so I am solo and Sarah and kids are coming for dinner so we can go together which is probably an extremely insane idea. But at least we'll be nuts together, right?

Today was NOT a good mommy day. I just wanted to clean the house and the kids just wanted to dump things out onto the floor or climb my leg or watch TV or all three at once. So I put them in the playroom with the gate up and forced them to be cooperative. Mara wrote a play and they dressed up and practiced. I mopped the kitchen floor and picked up the LR and swiffered.

Could have been worse I guess.

I think I caved on the color change. It may actually be the original color back again, but I couldn't find another one I liked better, so there it is for now anyway. Cheers!

Night all!

It is possible

that I have finally acquired the last two pieces of furniture that will enable me to turn our study into a reasonably organized, usable working space instead of the slag heap it has been for the past two years.

The first is most critical, and the thing that has been missing for the duration -- namely a small chest (16"W X 14"D x 30"H, three drawers) that we inheirited from Tim's grandfather. It's just the right size to sit beside the desk and hold all the office supply crap that has been overflowing onto the desk -- and all the stuff that has no home, like the extra keyboard batteries and the stapler and the envelopes -- oh heavens can it be that the envelopes are gonna have a home at last!?!

The second item was an inspiration and I am so glad Target was out of the shelves I had intended to buy in the first place, because what I got instead was a 3 shelf system made of black wire...

(In order to understand why black wire is not tacky but instead really awesome for the space, you'd have to know here that our desk is a folding thing I got at Pier I really cheap because it was scratched -- it has a cherry top and a black iron leg support system and it looks really cool with the ponderosa pine panelling in the study-- also the little chest is finished in the same cherry color).

There are three shelves, all wire, no back, and it's the same height and width as the end of the desk, with a 13" shelf depth, which makes it seem not like there's furniture at all there, but also provides space for three critical things,

#1 -- the library books and videos and DVDs, which have been living on the speaker in the livingroom, when they are not getting lost around the house. Now they have a home and are not accessible to Matthew, but very accessible to the rest of us.

#2 -- Tim's insane school bag is going to live on the bottom shelf when it is not at school. This will (hopefully) eliminate the big clunky bag in the middle of the floor phenomenon (hopefully).

#3 -- stuff in transition that needs to be out of Matthew's reach temporarily, but there's not time to put away in its proper place just this minute and which doesn't really belong on the desk, will go on the top shelf -- hopefully helping to keep the desk from attracting vast amounts of clutter.

Tomorrow I have some time sans kids, having begged babysitting from Grammy, and if I get it done, I'll digicam it and post.

If I can figure out how to do that. But now I gotta go to bed so I can get up and do that... Night all!

Taking a Poll

So, who else hates the black banner? Show of hands -- do you think I should:

A: change it back to the original color?


B: leave it black -- which is depressing, but perhaps an accurate represenation...

C: change it to a thrilling new color, suggesting a new outlook on life in a new year?

I await your suggestions.

Statute of Limitations

So when does the statute of limitations run out on the whole "Happy New Year's" as a conversation starter and ender? Because today is just the 2nd -- I haven't messed up any checks yet, I haven't even gotten into the swing of it's being 2005 yet, but I was getting some funny looks today while cheerfully saluting everyone with "Happy New Year!" as I came and went on my various errands.

Any ideas about this?

I would write more, but I am getting sleepy and need to start heeding those sleepy feelings more reliably, and besides, tomorrow is my first morning solo with the kids in about 18 days, so it would probably be better if I have slept and can be cheery-getting-up-and-making-eggs-and-toast-for-cute-kidlets mommy instead of grouchy stayed-up-too-late-blogging-will-you-please-just-play-quietly-with-each-other-for-a-little-while-longer mommy.

And to all of you who are still bothering to check the blog, thanks. I know it was a long absence, but I hope I'm feeling better now. I'll keep you posted.