upcoming projects and sheer wants

Just to show you how I'm procrastinating on that drama camp I'm supposed to be planning...


It's been a while since I have found a new craft that inspired me as much as knitting has. But I have found something that I really want to try. And it's knitting related. yeah! Today I went and ordered some superwash (cause I'm afraid of felting) wool sock yarn that I am going to dye. I can't wait. And then, I get to knit it up. woohoo! This is the best of all worlds to me. I get to play with colors, have fun with some chemistry (sort of) and then use the final product. I ordered the yarn from KnitPicks. KnitPicks has some awesome prices on yarn and their shipping is reasonable too. I'm planning on documenting the whole process just as soon as that shipment gets in, so stay tuned!

Now that I've ordered the yarn, I get to figure out what I will use as my dye. Will it be food coloring? easter egg dye? Not sure. I'm doing research on this over at knitty and craftster and various and sundry places on the web to decide.

I've also found some more knitting projects that I'm dying (not dyeing you'll note) to try. I know I'm late getting onto the Mason-Dixon Knitting book boat, but I went and reserved a copy from the libary. OMG! This book is fantastic! How will I ever afford all of the yarn for the projects I've ear-marked? I was lurking over at Cara's blog at January One and saw the miters she made for the mitered blanket. I must have it! I must knit it! That's what led me to this book. Then I saw the baby kimono, the spiral rugs, etc. I had originally planned on photo-copying the pattern for the mitered blanket, but now I want the whole entire book. Fabulous!




And no, this is not a paid endorsement at all, I'm just amazed at what these two ladies have done with this book. HMMM... Think someone could come up with a mitered sock?

Brag time!

Eldest accepts his reward from the principal

HE DID IT! HE DID IT! My boy did it! He was the top reader over the entire school. A kindergartner took the prize. Do I sound like a proud mama or what? I AM!

To put things in perspective:

1. The boy read over 80 books (mostly chapter books) from 2/28/07 til 5/25/07.
2. He came home from school, did his homework, would read one book, eat, bathe and then read one or two more books and then go to bed. He had no free time. He gave it all up to try and win this contest.

This is the first time he's ever devoted any effort towards anything that he really wanted.

The prize? A Nintendo DS Lite. (they give good prizes don't they?)

I remember being in a readathon when I was growing up and the prizes they had? a certificate and possibly a book. that's it.

It was kind of pitiful though. What happened to the upper classes? I would never have let a kindergartner beat me to the prize when I was in fifth grade. They got really lazy. The two runners up in the pic above both received $50 gift certs. to Toys R Us.

Eldest with the other top readers

Thanks to this contest, my little reader is already reading 4th and 5th grade books. Good for him!


Here's the latest photo of my WIP:

See? I'm still knitting.

gratuitous hawk photo

ok. First deadline (consignment sale) is gone and was a fairly good success. Except, of course, for the items I was trying to sell. I put in all that work throwing the sale and made a measly $3 bucks. Oh well, maybe next time will be better.

I've done no knitting. zip, zilch, nada, zero. I'm assigning the knitting project as deadline number three. Number two (drama camp) comes on June 4th.

In lieu of having anything important to show you today, I leave you with a gratuitous hawk pic. that I took while he was hunting chipmunks in my front yard.

Gratuitous hawk

tractors, graduation and gardens

Yuck! There's clouds of smoke around here (Atlanta) that have travelled all the way from the wild fires on the Ga/Fl state line. That's quite a ways folks! Smells awful.

AAAHHH! I'm overwhelmed! The first deadline approacheth! I have managed to get some more knitting done though, just no pics of it. The stole had become approximately 3.5 feet in length. I'm getting there!


Anyway, we had an awesome weekend. We skipped town and went to the lake. The eldest got to drive a farm tractor and loved it. The owner of the tractor is a cousin in-law.

Check out the serious expression on the eldest's face.

He also graduated kindergarten on Friday. The results of his reading contest will be announced on this coming Friday, so he only has three more days to read his little heart out for it.

The proud grad

Remember I promised some shots of my In-Law's gorgeous garden/front yard? These are just a few that I got. The first two were taken from their front porch. We thought they were absolutely nuts for tearing up the yard to put in a garden. Boy, were we wrong!

Kitty Bulimia

Have I told you about my kitty, Widget, that suffers from Bulimia? I think she's worried about her weight. Seriously. She rushes to the kitty bowl, eats like there's no tomorrow (daintiness be damned) and will then purge for all she's worth. Not immediately of course. She waits 'til we're not looking then finds interesting places for her, ahem, purging.

My hubby's favorite place for her to purge is the dog's water bowl. He sounds like a sailor everytime it happens. This is not a bowl per say, it's one of those bowls that has a giant bottle that looks like it belongs on the water cooler at work. So, it ain't easy to clean.

One of the others is our taupe colored carpet. She purges, then let's it lie in wait til it's allover cold and squishy. She then finds a good vantage point and waits til the stupid humans step in it in their bare feet. Yecch!

Well, a girl's gotta look after her figure somehow. Did I tell you she also likes practical jokes?

Don't look now, but your toe's an inch away from my latest joke.

Deadlines!

Ok. Time crunch is beginning. I've got two major deadlines coming and haven't really done much to get everything going. That's okay though, I work better under major stress. really.

Deadline 1: A uniform consignment sale at my eldest's school. I am heading this thing up and so far have no helpers and very few participants. Not really thrilled about this one. This happens May 24th.

Deadline 2: I am directing another Drama Camp this summer. This one is very intensive. The kids get a full on crash course in musical theater. They learn about building sets, making props, costumes, choreography, scripts, solos, etc. In approximately 15 hours they do all this and then show their parents and invited guests what they've learned by putting on the play. It's a dinner theater is well, so they get to learn about starving while their patrons eat and watch. This will be my third time direction one of these camps. It's very rewarding. I've had several of my students go on to community theater and school plays. I can tell you now I will be absolutely wiped out at the end of the week. This will be June 4-8.

Have I done much for the camp? um. not really. I've partiallly designed the set that we will make out of insulation that goes on houses. I've bought tshirts for them to tie dye for costumes. That's about it. My stomach is in knots.

I've decided to accept the tiny "villager" part in the summer broadway show. Still supremely miffed about it, but am attempting to get over it.

For your amusement, here's a pic of me in a past broadway show: Suessical. If you ever get a chance to see this done by a reputable theater troupe - Go see it! It's more skewed for adults and is absolutely hysterical! See that pink door there? My beehive wig hit it every single time I went through it. Foot high hair and small doors are not a good combination.

ooooh! Beehive hair! orange legs!

Still working on the stole. Will have an update soon when there is significant change to photograph.

Mother's day and cat beds

Happy Mother's Day!

Mine's been great. I got to sleep late (always a huge plus), at least til 8:30. The main reason? The baby slept til 8:30, which never, ever happens. Then we went to the in-laws and had a fantabulous dinner; filet mignon, basil grape tomatoes, creamed spinach, twice baked potatoes and to top it off was the most wonderful cheesecake I've ever had in my life. I was bad and had two huge pieces of the cheesecake and I'll be paying for that for the next month.

I finished the silly socks! Yeah! I also got in some time with the stole. I have until June 22nd (my mom's bday) to get that done.

Silly socks on the Silly boy's feet.

I know that most people have fancy cat tents or home-made cat beds, but really, why have those when you can have something that is obnoxious, doesn't match any other furniture, and takes up a quarter of the living room floor?

Super heroes and Silly Socks

I know why God put me on this planet. It was so that I could torture and annoy my children. Now, I'm not talking real "torture" here folks, don't go thinkin' anything crazy like that. I love my kids, I really do and I really enjoy picking on them. I can't help myself. I blame my Dad.

Take tonight for instance. It was my prayer night (we alternate who listens to my eldest's prayers every night). I seem to have this genius that tells me to get my kids all wired out and all right before bedtime. pure genius. After the prayers and tickle fest, I started in on his super heroes. Now this kid is obsessed with super heroes. Wants to be one of course, The super race car driver hero with super powers, the kind that avoids possum roadkill at the speed of light or some such. Anyway, at this age, it takes nothing to get them arguing, so I started in calling him Blunder Woman. There were many "I'm NOT Blunder Woman!"s. I progressed to talking about FatMan and StuporMan and of course there was more tickling til he couldn't breathe. I then got my kiss goodnight and walked out and left him to try and calm back down for sleep. Ahhhh. I'm feeling better now.

We had a pretty busy weekend. On Sunday eldest had his final soccer game and trophy night. Could someone PLEASE explain to me why boys feel the need to grab themselves during an entire game of soccer? Especially when they're goalie, standing by themselves where everyone can see them really well? Is it testosterone poisoning? I had to send his father over there to tell him to quit grabbing himself. Got a couple of blackmail pictures out of it though for his later dating years. :)

As far as knitting goes, yes, I have been doing it. I am still working on the second sock, but should be finished with it soon. Then I can go back to the stole that I need to get finished by late June. Curses on the distractions of silly socks! They were a good break from staring at patterns though.

Silly boy with Silly Sock

Pancakes and Snapdragons

When we were growing up, we used to be so excited when my mother would cook us up a big 'ol batch of pancakes. Not in the mornings however, but for supper! Now, as a mom, that's what I do. It has completely become my "cop out" meal. That's my go-to meal when I either don't have much time to cook or when I'm feeling lazy. It's also super cheap. If you're trying to stretch out your grocery budget, this is a great recipe to do it with. Not necessarily nutritious, but tasty!

Here's my Mom's recipe with my modification:

1 egg
1 cup flour (I use self-rising for a fluffier pancake and since I like my batter a bit thicker I add a 1/2 cup more)
1 cup milk

Mix all together in a med. bowl with a whisk til blended. Spray a frying pan or griddle with cooking spray and Heat on Med-High. Once the pan is hot, spoon or ladle onto the pan. The amount is up to you, depends on the size you like your cakes. Let it sit for a minute or so. You should see holes popping up all over the pancake. When you do, flip it over with a spatula. When both sides are a nice golden brown, you're done. Pop that puppy on a plate and smear with butter and syrup!


Here's a pic of some pretty snapdragons from my MIL's gorgeous garden. I swear she and my FIL have green thumbs that rival the jolly green giant's. One day I'll get a shot of their garden that they ripped out their whole front yard to plant. (We thought they were nuts at the time, we were wrong.)

Mr. Testosterone Reader

Well, I've discovered that it is possible to repeat mistakes without trying. : sigh : But, at least the silly socks will match up at the cuff.

******

In other news, at my eldest's school, they have a Principal's Reading Club. Obviously, this promotes reading. There is a reading contest that is sponsored by Scholastic. At the beginning of the year a rumor began floating around that the grand prize winner would get a Nintendo DS. So my kindergartner, being the nintendo fanatic that he is, decided to become competitive. The testosterone kicked in and he decided he wanted to WIN that thing. The kids have to read a book off the approved list, then take a quick 10 question multiple choice test to receive their points. I'm not sure, but I think only the top reader in each grade gets a prize and that is a gift certificate to Toys R' Us. Well, let me tell ya, Mr. Testosterone reader is in FIRST PLACE. Not just in Kindergarten, but over the whole freakin' school!

Now, I've tried very hard not to be one of the Scary Moms. I have encouraged him, but not pushed or demanded that he get his reading done each night. (I don't want him committing suicide later on because his parents expected perfection 24/7) He has done this all on his own. The cool thing is what this has done for his literacy. If the principal only knew. This kid is reading on a high 2nd grade/ low third grade level. He's in KINDERGARTEN for pete's sake! Chapter books. wow.

Mr. Testosterone Reader in Action! (He was very annoyed with me for interrupting his reading to snap a pic.)

The first sock is finished!

Woohoo! I finished the first sock! It's far from perfect, but I'm proud of myself anyway. It actually looks like a sock. Yeah me! Now, on to the second sock! Did ya like all the exclamation points? Today, their my specialty.

Now ya wanna hear about the huge mistake I made at the toe of the sock? I finished up the toe with the kitchener stitch and was patting myself on the back, when I noticed something a little wonky. I wish I had taken a picture of it, you would have laughed and laughed. It seems the finished seam was perpendicular to the toes! (Catch the homophones in the last sentence?) Not sure how I did it, but it took forever to fix. So, I spent my afternoon frogging and correcting.

the corrected sock

Cat day!

Today is cat day. It seems our household has acquired a porch kitty. She showed up a couple of weeks ago and never went away. I made the stupid mistake of giving her some food cause I felt sorry for her and she took up roost. Pros: No more mole infestation in the yard. They make awesome cat toys that fly up high in the sky and bounce when they land. cruel, I know, but true. My hubby had to go out and lay one to rest this morning at around 6:45ish. He was not happy. She's also camouflaged. She lays in the leaves and mulch and blends right in. Cons: one more mouth to feed. May end up with many mouths to feed. Think we need to find her a new home. Here's a couple of pics of her. Check out the first lucky shot. I caught her with her tongue hanging out.

mleh! so there!

Can't see me, I'm blending in with the concrete.

This is Tiger, our blockhead. He hates for you to mess with him. Loves to be petted, not messed with. I'm not sure what he was on last night, but he let me pile blocks all down his back and then on top of his head!

I feel so humiliated - look what she did to me!

On the knitting front, I'm almost done with the first sock! Updates to come.

Vent day

Today is Vent day. Yesterday I was so furious that I cried. Yes, I am one of those. If I am so ticked that I'm crying, watch out. The crying only makes me more mad.

It seems that I've gotten caught up in some politics within the theater troupe that I'm in. I'm not going to go into everything that has lead up to this point, but I finally became a victim of it. I was the last man standing, so to speak, in a small group of friends that have been driven out, one after the other, from the theater group. I've been a fixture in the troupe now for about four years. I have always had either a lead part or at least a small part in every production. Never have I been relegated to the background scenery. I have always done more than my fair share of the work involved in putting on a production. As a matter of fact, I've worked my behind off for these people. But yesterday was not a good day.

Today I am merely angry and resentful. I feel like i've been slapped. You see, not only is this a community theater group, but it's also church based. These are, or were, my so-called friends, people that I go to church with, was in choir with, in sunday school with, etc. These are supposed to be people who are christians and act with christian ethics and morals.

I've had jobs where I ran head-on into politics and at least there I saw it coming, could read the writing on the wall. But this blind sided me. It really did. I've become a victim of the clique.

yard sales and asplosions

Remember the stinky azalea? Well, it asploded! Check it out now:

still stinky, but gorgeous!

Here's something I'm right proud of. My major yardsale find from last weekend. A little tykes cube climber/slide. You'll never believe what I paid for this. Just $2.00 dollars. WOW. My little guy won't play with this for very long. Then, I'm going to either sell this at the children's consignment sale that I'm involved in or ebay this sucker. I can get at least $30.00 for this thing. Have I told ya'll how much I love yard sales and estate sales yet? I lurv'em.

Things I am learning while knitting my first official sock:

disclaimer: Those who are not knitters may want to disregard the majority of this post, unless socks and knitting seem like a fun read, of course.

Things I am learning while knitting my first official sock:

1. That repetitive motion stuff hurts. From my elbow to my wrist is killing me. I've completed two sweaters now and this never came up before. ouch.
2. I am still not a perfectionist. Found several mistakes. I refuse to go back and rip these, cause frankly, I don't care that much. The mistakes are not overt and besides, these are gonna end up on a 6 year old boy who will mostly wear these to bed at night. Trust me, he likes to wear silly socks to bed. he's weird. So, I'm gonna semi-record the mistakes here, take them as a lesson learned and go on.
3. It really does matter which way the loops go on the sticks. Yes, figured that one out. I'm a combined knitter, which I'm told is sort of a hybrid style. So, I was knitting through the back of the loop as usual and many rows down noticed that my sts were twisted. damn. When I got to the stockinettes I corrected this.
4. However. It got messed up again when I began the heel and started purling the correct way. which, of course, led to more twisted sts. damn.
5. On a good note, I taught myself to use two circular needles to make the sock. This is fun. I didn't want to do dpn's cause a) they scare me and b) I already had the needles that I needed.
6. I am using yarn harlot's guide to making a sock, a plain vanilla sock. I like this. It's done like my style of cooking. A little of this, a dab of that, a few inches here, there and so on. I knew she was cool.
7. Self striping yarn is pretty groovy. Changing colors of yarns is not something I've learned to do yet. lazy is an artform you know. Look what the twisted stitches versus the correct ones do to the gray and white patterning in the stripes. that's okay. I forgive myself. he likes silly socks. :)
   

So anyways, I began this a few nights ago and here's the sock in progress (with a lemon for some flavah): mmmm. lemons.

This is a big huge shout out to my buddy Darrell! Happy Birthday! The big five - 0!

I bow down before the ever-aging one!

Note to self...

****Note to self: Next time you wash a sink with commercial cleaners - do it with gloves! ****
I have a really bad infected hangnail and it soooooo smarts now. Nobody said I are smart.



On a much lighter note, the toothfairy came to visit my eldest for the first time! I told him that if he kept his tongue out of the new hole that he would grow a new gold tooth. Of course, like any other child that has ever heard that old wives' tale, that little tongue darted right in there lickety-split! The next morning, eldest woke me up (before my clock went off, which really doesn't make nightowl mommy happy in the mornings) to tell me that the toothfairy brought him a wicked new one dollar gold coin!

Man, I wish I was that young again. Well, maybe just sometimes, make that rarely, well, nevermind. I'm glad I'm not that young anymore. I would never want to go through the many, many years of ugly duckling stage that I went through. First grade through the beginning of college is a long, miserable, self-esteem undermining time to go through.

Look Mom! No tooth! Now I look like I belong here in the south! :)

OOOH! Look! It's getting bigger! Why am I so slow at knitting?

Check out the view from my kitchen's bay window. This is one gargantuan azalea. It's also very stinky, still haven't figured out why it produces such lovely flowers and such an appalling stench. It sits in our backyard right next to a pretty peach tree which smells so much better.

No paparazzi please! I'm too busy feeling superior from the rarefied heights of refrigerator mountain.

Scrubs, Wallpaper and Yarn

I made a yummy sea salt scrub for the bath/shower a few days ago. This is super easy and fun to make at home. Now please understand that I do tutorials the way that I cook. I do things by approximation and no two batches/recipes are ever the same. I do things by feel, taste or smell. I have never been accused of being a perfectionist and don't intend to ever be accused of it. As long as what I'm doing is close, that's fine by me. As mentioned in a previous post, this is why I am a crafter, not a chemist.

The ingredients are super flexible as well. There are endless combinations of items that you can use. You need sea salt, oils, glycerin and essential oil for scent. That's it. How much of each? That's where the fun comes in. You get to decide!

For the scrub part, I used sea salt. The one I bought from the health food store is fairly fine. If you want more of a scrub you could use a coarse salt. You really don't even have to use a specific kind of salt here. Sea Salt, Kosher - all will work fine.

Put your salt in a bowl. How much you use is up to you - (see, I told you I approximate and I'm about to do it again too!) Now that we've got the scrub part, let's add the stuff that makes your skin feel so soft.

I used some of each of the following: Avocado oil, olive oil, glycerin and essential oil. You can change out the oils if you would like. Jojoba would be great in this. How many drops of essential oil you use is pretty much up to your nose (as is the scent that you pick.) I added a few drops of spearmint. As anyone in my family knows, I adore mint, especially mint teas.

Basically, you want the salt to be really wet. Like I mentioned above this is approximation at its finest. You should not have a dry mix. You also don't want it to be a soup either. Meet somewhere in the middle where the salt is overly shiny.

Put your mix in a small container and shower away! Your scrub will separate. Don't worry, just swirl it around with your hand as you scoop it out to use it.

I guarantee your skin will feel fantastic when you exit your shower.



Oh, and that little bit of wall paper you see behind the ingredients? It's absolutely hideous and was in the house when we moved in. We've been afraid to tackle changing it. You see, the idiots before us had 3 layers of the stuff on top of each other and that was on top of a wall that was never primed. We know this because the rest of the rooms in the house that we have changed have been this way and we really don't want to change it ourselves for fear of destroying the sheet rock. Plus add in no money and two children that like to "help" and you have a recipe for disaster.

Two funny things about it though?
1. Anyone over 70 that has entered our home has loved it.
2. Any artwork (or anything else for that matter) that you hang disappears into the wall paper. I kid you not. I hung a Christmas wreath up on one of the walls and noone ever noticed it. noone. Here's a pic of it in all its hideous glory:

Lovely Ain't it?

For any knitters interested, I've got yarn up for auction at Ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330109158159
It's a cotton/nylon blend. See the pic below.

Because Everyone Should Have a Star Wars Name

One day I had had enough. There's only so many times a Mom can hear her name being called by a small, loud, sharp voice. Personally, hearing Mom to the 32nd power is just a little too much in my book. My eldest son is a Star Wars freak. He's also the one that was driving me insane with the constant, "Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom" ad nauseum. I finally looked at him and informed him that my name that day was not Mom and I wasn't going to answer to it and proceeded with what I had been doing before being interrupted for the 500th time.

Ah, finally, blessed silence for the 30 seconds or so that it took his brain to process the information. Then the conversation proceeded thusly:

"Your name's not Mom?"
"No, not today. I have a new name."

Silence again.

"Well, what is your new name?"

I replied (in a James Earl Jones type of voice), "Darth Mommy, because I am your Mutha."

I wanted to hear tiny sharp voice saying "Noooooooooooooo" but it didn't happen.

And so, for the rest of the day I absolutely refused to answer to mom any more. My eldest, of course, thought this was awesome.

Well, this led to a series of discussions about what Star Wars names the other family members should have. Dad was crowned DaddywanKenobi. The eldest became Jor-Jor Stinky Binks ( a play on the name Jar-Jar Binks which is a character that he loves and I hate, but we'll leave that discussion for another day.)

When the new little fella came along, there was much thought put into the Star Wars name he would receive. We needed a name that would be descriptive, something that would really show the true colors of a baby boy, a being that eats, sleeps, poops and spits up and does little else. At long last, inspiration hit and the child was formally dubbed:

wait for it:



Puke Skywalker.

I now present 15 month old Puke Skywalker in action with his brother's light saber:

Four Easter Bunnies and a WIP

I forgot to mention my Stole that I'm knitting when I blogged last week. Doesn't look much different does it? Oh, but it is! I frogged the last one. With the thicker yarn that I'm using, it was knitting up a little too dense. So, I went up three needle sizes and I'm much happier with it now. It's much lighter and lacier looking. The other fabric was beautiful, but not what I was aiming for. This is currently about three and a half repeats of the pattern. Only a bazillion more to go!















Not one, not two, not three, but Four Easter Bunnies! I claim the top two, but I have to blame my brother for the bottom ones.

Ain't they cute?