Archive for December, 2007
December 31, 2007
throwslikeagirl74
Hooray SWS Sweater!
So I finally finished the Paton SWS sweater. The pattern is a Trendsetter Pattern that originally called for Scoubi Du. I’m pleased with how it looks, but the lace pattern on the front was difficult to maneuver with the decreases. There was very little instruction for this in the pattern and some of the instructions were in fact missing. Luckily this is one of 4 patterns that come together and the missing instructions were identical to those for another sweater. SWS Baby Sweater
I love my Zune!
All in all it was a wonderful Christmas! Kids were sweet and appreciative; so were the adults. 🙂 I’m almost done with the Patons SWS baby sweater. I’m not sure why it is, but I have trouble getting set in sleeves to match up. There’s always seems to be some fudging to do. DH got me the Zune 8, which I am in love with. In fact, I’ve been known to walk around singing “I love my Zune” to the tune of My Dog has Fleas.  It’s like when CDs came out and my friend who was the first to get one said, “Dude! It’s like Plant is playing RIGHT here in my basement!” Ok. That’s probably not what he said. But something like that. And now it’s like they’re playing IN MY HEAD! It’s so cool.
 My MIL asked me to make her some socks. I’m very flattered but somewhat freaked about making them. My sock record is less than stellar. I actually finished one pair of ankle socks for me and one pair of baby socks. My disasters still outnumber my successes. Eek!
 And lastly for your viewing pleasure, Christmas morning at our house. Snicker.
Yes that’s really what it says!
Originally uploaded by nicstag
Negative 0.6! I really have to go to the grocery store and feed my friend’s cat but the ol’ thermometer is not helping my motivation.
On the knitting front, my sister bought a bunch of Patons SWS that she quickly found out was NOT a beginner yarn. I told her I’d make a sweater for A out of it, so I just finished the back last night. I’m also working on some mittens for myself that were originally for L. Turns out when you swatch (and I DID swatch), you should swatch in the round for things knitted in the round. I thought I was knitting at 7 stitches per inch and it turned out to be more like 6. This apparently makes the difference between mittens for a 5 year old and mittens for Mom.
Happy Holidays!
Since the cards may end up being New Year’s cards this year, here’s a little cheer preschool style… ps L is second from the right in the first row.
The google video thing isn’t working so I’m trying a youtube instead. Let me know how it works. 🙂
Happy Holidays!
Don’t Feed the Plant!
Last show was Saturday! It was a lot of fun to play. 🙂 Sadly, the only picture I have is a slightly blurry one with a tall dude standing in front, but you can kind of see what it looked like. The kids did such a great job! I brought L to the final performance. She liked the show, but I think she liked the attention from the high school kids the most. The kid who played the plant showed her how to dance like Michael Jackson. Thanks Tim. Heh.
BTW, this is my first time posting a video. Let me know if you can see it.
Holiday Meme
Picked this up from Ruth and thought it’d be fun!
Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your friends. Okay, here’s what you’re supposed to do, Just copy this entire blog and paste into a new blog. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. If you play along leave me a comment and a link to your blog I’d love to see what you have to say!
1. Wrapping Paper or Gift Bags? Oh I am all about the gift bags. 🙂
2. Real tree or artificial? Artificial. We had this great artificial tree growing up that had little plastic needles clusters. Some families bond over going to the woods and chopping down their tree, while in my family we bonded over using the hot glue gun to stick the plastic needles back on.
3. When do you put up the tree? Friday after Thanksgiving. DH puts the tree together for me and that’s the perfect time since he has the day off.
4. When do you take down the tree? Sometime before Martin Luther King Day. Heh.
5. Do you like Egg Nog? I do actually, except growing up we always had it half and half with milk, so drinking it straight tastes too weird for me.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? Gosh. Probably my teddy bear necklace that I got when I was three. I remember I accidentally left my favorite bear in the family room and Christmas morning I came out and it was wearing a new dress (that I later learned was one of my Mom’s old doll dresses) and necklace with a fuzzy teddy bear on it. I wore that thing all the time. And the bear wore the dress until it practically disintegrated.
7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yep! I have a great VeggieTales nativity scene that my Mom got for the kids a couple years ago. Baby Jesus is a Baby Carrot! Heh. L used to call it the Baby Cheezit. J likes to play with the cow. It flies, you know.
8. Hardest person to buy for? My husband. He works so hard, he hardly has time for a hobby.
9. Easiest person to buy for? L, hands down. She’s so appreciative of everything she gets. At her birthday party this year, she would exclaim after opening a gift, “______! I LOVE _____!” even when she didn’t know what it was. She opened a needlepoint set and had this excited look on her face. I leaned over and whispered “Needlepoint.” and she said, “Needlepoint! I LOVE needlepoint!”
10. Weirdest Christmas gift you ever received? A long string of brightly colored chickens sitting one on top of the other. I have no idea what it is, but it’s hanging on my wall.
11. Mail or email Christmas Cards? I do mail the Christmas cards. I like that at least once a year we get correspondence the old fashioned way. Now whether they get there before Christmas, that’s a another story…
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? The Muppet’s Christmas Carol. I can’t tell you how many times I watched it before I picked up on the Jacob and Robert Marley joke. Bob Marley! Hee Hee Hee.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? November, otherwise I forget what I purchased.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Um yes. But only things in pristine condition that the recipient would REALLY like.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? I loved Rum Balls. I haven’t made them in years, but I remember making them with my Mom.
16. Clear lights or colored? Colored!
17. Favorite Christmas Song? Secular: Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas, sung by John Denver and Ralph the dog. Sacred: Tie between O Holy Night and Silent Night. I love how at the Christmas Eve service, the church is lit by candles alone during Silent Night. It brings this amazing feeling of hope and togetherness. That is until your 3 year old daughter almost lights her hair on fire. But that only happened once. 🙂
18. Travel or stay home at Christmas? Stay home. It’s fun to travel occasionally, but I think I like staying home the most.
19. Can you name all of Santa’s Reindeer? Dude. I’m a former music teacher. Do you KNOW how many times I’ve sung Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer?
20. Angel or Star on the top of the tree? A lovely plain burlap angel that was on top of my childhood hot glue gunned tree as well.
21. Open Christmas Eve or Morning? Morning. Our kids take after both Mom and Dad and are seriously early risers.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Crabby people.
23. What’s the corniest family tradition you do or miss doing? We watch the Muppet Christmas Carol every Christmas/Eve.
24. What’s the worst thing you’ve seen related to Christmas? I don’t like this question. I prefer to look for the best things I’ve seen related to Christmas. For me, it makes me so appreciative of family and friends and reminds me to be grateful for the things that I have. It reminds me that gifts are not always things; that they can be actions or memories or friendships. 🙂
25. Which looks best, theme trees or homey trees? Homey trees!
26. Gingerbread or Sugar Cookies? I like both!
27. Do you like fruitcake? Not particularly, but I do love Panettone. My cousin sent us some a few years back when he lived in Italy and I’ve been hooked ever since.
That girl is too funny!
New L’ism today. Earlier, her father had asked her to do something and in true 5 year old fashion, she was trying to find ways to not do it. After a couple back and forths, she said in a huff, “Daddy. You are SO oppressing me.” and stormed off to her room. And of course being the dork that I am it makes me think of Monty Python. It also reminds me of when I was a little girl and wasn’t allowed to say the word hate. I remember getting really angry one day and yelling, “I dislike you immensely!” Heh.
A Stocking Tale
Last night as we were sitting around the dinner table, L was admiring the stockings on our fireplace. Now, she doesn’t yet know how to read, but she did recognize a pattern on all the stockings. All of them had one name on it except hers which has her full first and middle names. She asked me what hers said, so I told her and those big blue eyes started to tear up and her lower lip started to quiver. L was very upset that hers was different so I tried to come up with an explanation. My mother had made all of our stockings except DH’s and truthfully, I have no idea why her full name is on hers but I started in on a story about how L’s middle name is the same as my grandma’s and that her Nanny probably just loved that name so much she put it on her stocking etc etc… It wasn’t working as L then exclaimed,
“But that’s the name Mommy uses when I’m in trouble!”
D’oh!
Internet Withdrawal and the importance of Counting
I’ve been having problems with my laptop for some time now and this weekend it finally got so bad that DH rebuilt it. Love that man. Anyway, I’ve actually been a busy knitty girl. I finished the Peekaboo mittens and a pair of longies for J. He’d finally outgrown his old pairs and Michael’s had a sale a couple weeks ago on Patons Classic Wool, so it seemed to be destiny. I used the Tiny Bird’s Organic Free Longies pattern, which is my favorite pattern and knitted flat. It just seems to fit him better than the ones knit in the round. Anyway, after I finished the mittens the other night, I had that rush that I get when I finish something and it makes me want to finish everything else. Finishitis, if you will. Well, in my hurry to finish the longies (or the distraction of Russell Crowe on that movie about the dueling gunfighter town with Sharon Stone on TV), I failed to notice that one leg was significantly shorter than the other. The kicker is I didn’t notice this until AFTER I had seamed the pants. Twice. The pattern says to seam it from the crotch up, but when I did that, the ribbing didn’t match at the top. So I ripped it out, seamed down and lo and behold: uneven legs. Well, it was now 11 pm and I was not about to rip it out again. Besides, I don’t know to undo a bind off to add rows. So I took my dpns, picked up and knit stitches from the bind off and knit enough rows until they were even. Luckily it’s a dark color and not very noticeable. Half the time it’s covered up by his sock. Heh. So Hooray mittens and longies! 
Throws Like A Girl 
