Why Is It That...

...for someone who doesn't care to knit with cotton because it hurts my hands I have managed to accumulate 25 balls of kitchen cotton. Yes, I can count - there are less than 25 here - but I found more after I took this picture. Know any good washcloth patterns? Please pass them on - I like ones that are reversible and no intarsia involved...



Why was I going through my yarn? Well, the dreaded packing has begun. I have three 18-gallon tubs of wool, a smaller tote-able tub of wool, and an ottoman with storage within... with, um, more yarn. Andrew, to his credit, did not say a single word when I started hauling this out of the closet of mystery. My husband is a saint. Mom, there is another box of yarn coming your way.

In the midst of all of this I did manager to finish two small things for Willow. One is a chullo-hat pattern with a hole in the back for her ponytail. I didn't use a pattern for this - just sort of made it up as I went along. The yarn is Malabrigo Chunky stuff I bought at Handpainted Yarn last year some time. I think the colourway is Paris Night, but don't quote me on it.



My original thought was to just make a normal toque-type hat for her, but when that part of that hat was done and she tried it on, I realized it was much too short on her head, so I added the ear flaps. I simply marked on either side of her head with stitch markers how wide the ear flaps needed to be to cover her ears and then some, then did single crochet rows until I ran out of yarn. It has a very rustic look to it - I am thinking of adding a crocheted edging in a different colour just to make the front and back a bit deeper on her head.



This lucky girl also scored herself a Calorimetry this week:



She admired mine greatly and wanted to claim it like she did the Nippertail hat but I put my foot down. After she and I had a screaming match at each other last night (me hormonally charged, she nap-less), I put her to bed and started knitting her the Calorimetry. It's a little snug on her - I think I am going to re-position the button to give it a bit more ease. Willow's Calorimetry is knit from TLC Essentials in the Surf N Turf colourway. I love how the aqua and browns move together here, and there is still plenty left on the skein, so I will undoubtedly get a Dulaan hat or two out of the remaining yarn. To size this down I only cast on 80 stitches on size 6 needles, and did 10 repeats of row 5 and 12 repeats of row 7. I may fudge this a bit and add an inch or two on each end as an afterthought to extend the band if Willow complains about it being too tight.

Yeah... the model was more interested in watching Charlie and Lola...

Levity, Third Floor

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Monday, Monday, can't trust that day

Monday, Monday, can't trust that day
Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way
Oh Monday mornin' you gave me no warnin' of what was to be
~ Mamas and the Papas

Yesterday started out well enough. Yes, Andrew and I argued about whose turn it was to take Willow to school and it was so frakin' freezing outside that my tires went thunk-thunk-thunk for the first few hundred yards on the road. It didn't seem like a bad day.

I arrived at work and Andrew called to say Willow's school bag had been in my car, not his, so I would need to drop it off at her school sometime that morning. My morning meetings finished around 10am and I left to bring Willow her bag. I returned to the office about 10 minutes later, and while I was taking off my coat, my co-worker Ruth told me that our entire group had been pulled into a meeting to let them know our previous manager had died of cancer the night before.

We knew Esther had been sick - in fact, she had been out of the office since last spring recuperating - but it was still a shock. Esther had hired me into my present group back in 2003 - I started out as a temp employee. She was a champion for those she saw promise in, and before long she convinced me to apply for a permanent (and higher level) position within the group. Esther was a character - she was a lady. In the nearly 4 years I knew her, I do not believe I ever saw her without make-up on - especially red lipstick. She never wanted anyone to see her looking casual; I remember a photo had been taken of her at a team-building event wearing sneakers and she stole the picture and ripped it up so no one could see her wear sneakers. She unabashedly told people that she had a big fancy kitchen and yet had never turned the oven on. I asked her once what her husband thought about that - her response was that he knew what he was getting into when he married her. People referred to her as "The Queen" and she liked that.

Esther did not have children of her own, but she loved and indulged other people's children, especially little girls - especially my daughter. Courtesy of Esther, my daughter had clothes from Bloomingdales and Neiman Marcus before I had ever even stepped into one of these stores! Willow has since grown out of these fancy togs, but still one of her favourite stuffed animals is a soft yellow duck that she lovingly calls "Esther Duck."

Willow still asks about Esther, even though Esther hasn't been in my group since 2005, so I felt I had to tell her that Esther had passed away. I hadn't reacted until that moment. It seemed a little unreal at work, perhaps because I had been informed by one person rather than hearing it as a part of a group. With Willow's first question, "What is cancer?" I broke down. Esther is the first person Willow has known who has died and I don't know how real it is to her.

I was a wreck for the rest of the night. Andrew came home early and I spent the rest of the night weepy and pensive in turns. I thought about how I didn't mail her Christmas card to her house - I left it in her office mail, assuming that someone would come pick up her stuff. No one did and the card is still in that pile of mail.

I stayed up after Andrew and Willow had gone to bed, trying to numb myself with television. My Mom called to inform me that Death wasn't finished today. One of my second cousins and his girlfriend had been killed in a car accident that morning. They were crossing at a crosswalk, walked in front of a stopped bus and a car in the next lane ran them down. They were killed instantly.

Monday, Monday, can't trust that day

Jo is a lemming (another Calorimetry)

I couldn't help myself. After seeing so many beautiful Calorimetries (I'm assuming that must be the plural) on other blogs such as Cristi's, Bezzie's, and CooknKnit's, I knew I had to become a lemming and make one of my own.

Wait a second! That article says lemmings do not all throw themselves off cliffs... way to ruin my entire metaphor, Wikipedia.

Anyway - here is my Calorimetry:



I knit it from a skein of Berroco's Foliage in Japanese Maple I bought up in Duncan, BC over Christmas. As you can see, the colour is redder than the shade card leads you to believe. The pattern was a very quick knit - I started about 8:30pm last night and was finished after lunch today. The button is courtesy of my mother-in-law's tin of buttons. I had to go down to size 6 needles to get gauge, but other than that, everything was knit as per the pattern.

I had intended to wait until tomorrow when I was a bit more gussied up for the picture - but I was so happy with how it turned out that I had Andrew take a picture of me wearing it... unbrushed, napped-in hair and all:



Maybe I will have him take a better picture tomorrow for posterity...

Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading

Today is the Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading, so I bring you a poem by the man who inspired the title of this blog, Irving Layton:

How Poems Get Written

Like
a memory
torn
at the shoulders,
my darling
wears
the chemise
I gave her -
a wedding gift.

At night
I tap out
my poems
on her hip bone.

When
she can't
sleep
either
we write
the poem
together.

Something about me being a horse's ass

You Are a Centaur

In general, you are a very cautious and reserved person. However, you are also warm hearted, and you enjoy helping others in practical ways. You are a great teacher, and you are really good at helping people get their lives in order. You are very intuitive, and you go with your gut. You make good decisions easily.

What Mythological Creature Are You?

Pre-Superbowl Purchases and Pissy Things

I don't watch football. And frankly, after getting disgusting things thrown at me from cars when we lived in Boulder because I was inadverantly and unknowingly wearing Nebraska's colours during game weekend, I don't *care* about football. However, I am willing to make allowances. I went up to my LYS this afternoon to get a 16 inch size 7 circular, and apparently they were having a Pre-Superbowl Sale... and I came home with these two bundles.

8 Skeins Plymouth Oh My - a very soft bouclé in a forest/army green colour:



7 Skeins NY Yarns Gypsy - I did make sure that all of these had the same dye lot number, but there seems to be a lot of variation in the colours - mostly red with a little pink, a little mauve, and a little orange:



I have about 650 yards of each yarn, and right now I am planning sleeveless hoodies out of both for Willow. As for prices, let's just say that both were about 60% off their regular prices :)

Bezzie had a meme with a twist on her blog today and I really think I can sink my teeth into this one~

Sixth Things That Piss Me Off

1) School Offices that won't let me enroll my daughter in full-day kindergarten because our settlement day for our new house is the same day as the kindergarten lottery.

Piggy-backed onto that...

2) The fact that most of the schools in our area have only one full-day kindergarten classroom and that parents have to jockey into position to get their child into it!

3) This disgusting salt that is all over the roads and cars here. We've had a scant one inch of snow in the last 4 weeks and there is so much salt on the ground that you would have thought we were coming out of the grips of a blizzard.

4) That I don't have enough hours in the day to read all the books I want, knit all the patterns I want, play with Willow, keep a clean house, cook nutritious meals, exercise, be a good wife (and trust me, that is the role that suffers), and be a breadwinner... and get maybe 6 hours of sleep in a night. I am always tired.

5) That the older I get the bushier my hair seems to be. Styling products be damned, it seems I always have frizzy hair now.

6) Finding a really cool book in a bookstore, only to discover that the book is the second in a series and the first book is out-of-print.

Project Spectrum Jumpstart!

Okay, I know Project Spectrum technically doesn't start until later this week, but I couldn't help myself - I went ahead and finished my blue ankle socks:



Particulars:
* 2 skeins Juvel Superwash in the Blues colourway (DK weight)
* Size 3 dpns
* Women's size medium
* Pattern from Ann Budd's multiguage pattern book. To make the ankle socks I just did 10 rows of 1X1 ribbing and then 12 of stockinette before starting the heel flap

I've decided I need to purchase one of those socks forms... I looked in my LYS yesterday and they didn't have one. The trip wasn't a loss - I did make some purchases for my downstream SP; however, I can't post the pics because she has been known to read my blog occasionally... One thing I did buy for myself is two skeins of the new Plymouth Encore fairisle-like yarn in a red/pink/yellow mix to make a baby sweater for my friend Teri, who will be having a little girl in June. The effect is pretty nice so far - I'm knitting Daisy from Knitty but I think I am going to alter the pattern a bit so the raglan is knit together rather than sewn together at the end.

Oh - and I've managed to keep one New Year's resolution - a significant project finished each month!

Friday Night Pizza

When I was in high school I had a couple of the seemingly requisite fast food jobs most kids have - Dairy Queen first (which turned me off soft serve for the longest time!), and then Panagopolous Pizza. This pizza chain has now shortened its name to Panago, I believe, and it only exists in British Columbia. My secret joy? Telling people they couldn't have half toppings of this and half toppings of that. Yes, sometimes I truly do deserve the evil rating from a couple weeks back... It wasn't as if this was my rule - it was a rule of the pizza place - I just took a special joy in *enforcing* it.

So, karma has come back to bite me - I guess I deserve this:



Yes, green peppers on only three-quarters of the pizza. I took a sick day yesterday as I was simply exhausted from me and everyone else in the apartment coughing all night. Willow is the worst - that Mom gene kicks in and I simply cannot sleep because she is sick. So what did I do during my sick day? Set up the bread machine to make a batch of pizza dough. I really love making pizza - this one has chopped up ham, mushrooms, green peppers (on three-quarters of it, anyway), lots of my Dad's garlic, and don't tell Andrew- very finely chopped up pineapple through out. If I'm going to make concessions, it is only going to be to one person at a time!

I didn't have time to go and buy pineapple after work today, so I picked some up in our work cafeteria salad bar. I mentioned to one of my co-workers that I had bought it to put on my pizza, and a bunch of people started saying, "Ugh - pineapple on pizza? Only a Canadian would think of that!" I was not in a good mood to begin with so I snapped back, "It's called a Hawaiian pizza - and the last time I checked, Hawaii was part of the States and therefore American!" I didn't realize my boss was on the other side of the cubicle wall: "Um, Jo - is everything okay?" Grr. Fine.

The pizza was very yummy :) I increase the recipe by 50% because I like having lots of dough for my pizza (don't understand thin crust pizza at all!) I would also normally slice up onions on my mandolin and put those on as well but I was feeling kind of lazy with the chopping and all. And if people want to know about interesting things on pizza when we lived in Japan it was quite popular for people to put asparagus, mayonnaise, and corn on their pizzas (notice I did not say strange or odd because I think there a wonderful variety of pizza around the world).

So, what do you like on your pizza?

Belated Christmas Finished Objects

But not belated on my end! These are Christmas presents I knit for my Mom and Dad and had finished before I went up to see them - but since my parents read my blog nearly every day I wasn't able to post pictures of the presents in progress.

First, a hat for my Mom:



Mom loved purple and hates wool (sacrilege!), so this hat is knit out of a acrylic/polymide boucle blend - it is really soft and scrunchy. Mom, however, is supposed to pull the cap down a bit further :)

And the big present... that I slaved over... that Daddy better appreciate...

Daddy's Hemp-Wool socks knit from stuff I bought from Dzined at the TKCA conference at King of Prussia last July:



The pattern is from the Ann Budd multiple gauge pattern book and was very easy - and one skein gave me enough for a pair of socks with a 2" ball left over in the end (yes, I was getting worried toward the end!) One toe is slightly pointier than the other:



I'm not sure what happened there because I am fairly certain I followed each sock exactly as called for in the pattern - I'm sure the point will mellow out over time.

Now... if only my sister Jaime would send me her pictures so I could show you the rest of the presents I knit for Christmas...

Blogstalking: Current Works in Progress

I apologize in advance for the uninspired picture - I couldn't think of an interesting way to line all of these up... and Willow wanted to help, which caused all sorts of anxiety on my part. So, without further ado - my works in progress:



On the back (L - R):

1. Baby Blanket (crocheted from Bernat Breeze)
2. Man's cabled & ribbed sweater for Andrew (knit from Plymouth Encore)

In the middle (L - R):

3. Ladies helmet hat (similar to the blue one Willow modeled here ) for my mother-in-law. Knit out of TLC something boucle-y.
4. Ankle socks for me (one finished!) knit from Juvel superwash
5. New hat for my Dad (his third) knit from Malabrigo in "Rojo Vivo"
6. Cabled hat knit from Cashmerino

And lastly, in the front:

7. Baby blanket crocheted from Plymouth Encore.

To be absolutely honest, I'm rather surprised there are only 7 projects in my basket... In any case, here are some close-ups of some of the above:



My blue sock! These will be nice and warm - and I love the colour. It's hard to tell from the side, but there is a subtle dark blue swirl that goes around the foot a couple of times.

This one is a little hard to make out, but these are the cables on Andrew's sweater. I've stalled on this one because as I have mentioned before, I'm pretty sure I don't have enough of this dye lot to do the whole sweater... so most likely I will have to get a few balls in the same colour in a different dye lot for the sleeves. I did check the place where I bought the yarn... but seeing as that was 18 months ago, I didn't have high hopes and justifiably so.



And just because it looks so pretty... and only stayed this way for about 10 minutes before she messed it up by doing a headstand on the sofa... Willow's french-braided hair:

Finished Object Update

Remember this sweater?



I knit it last summer for my friend Satomi's baby-to-be. The pattern is Daisy from Knitty and I knit it out of Plymouth Oh My (which is very lovely soft!). Before Christmas Satomi sent me a picture of her daughter Emi wearing this sweater... and I am just sorry it has taken me this long to post the picture! Emi is the cutest little girl!



I had knit the 6 months size and I amglad I did... because Emi was only about 3 months old in this pic! It was a very quick knit and easy to put together.

24 Hours and Three Fights Later

Oh my. Who knew we could have such vociferous fights about paint colour! Andrew apparently hates one of my favourite colours - aqua. He wants our bedroom to be blue - and dark blue at that. I have a problem with this because to me a blue bedroom is so one-dimensional... it's a boy's room. So, I tried to pick some colours that were more on the blue end of aqua rather than on the green end. Somehow I see some more knock-down drag-outs about this before it is all done.



Andrew's Dad told me to avoid the darkest colours on the strip because it will always be darker on your wall than it is on the strip. We have a chair rail in the kitchen (basically the wall has a railing about hip-high all the way around) and I would like to leave the upper part cream as it is now and paint the lower part a dark teal. Or maybe paint the top a pale aqua and have the bottom dark teal. I informed Andrew (much to his pissed-off-ness) that he has less choice in the kitchen because I will be spending the most time in there... (and I may have muttered something about that if he kept on arguing with me the whole house may end up aqua...)



But really - these colours aren't all that far away from each other on the colour spectrum - it is really silly that we are getting so worked up about it all. I tried compromising last night - I think cobalt blue or royal blue and aqua work really nicely together. We wouldn't stripe the walls - but what if we painted the room the lighter colour and use the darker colour for room accents?



The pink in this last one? Ideas for Willow's room. The floors in this house are a gorgeous dark honey oak so I would like to stay in the warmer end of pink so better flow with the warmth of the floor.

And no, we haven't even started talking about the living room yet... I'm thinking lettuce green and aqua.

They Accepted Our Offer!

Keep your fingers crossed, everyone... It's going to be a very busy next few weeks!

Wish Us Luck!

I struggled to find a picture to put in here today, and I ended up choosing one that always makes me smile. This is Willow at two at my parents' house. Kaycha, the cat, won't get anywhere near Willow when Willow is awake, but would snuggle up to her almost every night. I needed a calm picture that makes me happy... Why?



We are putting an offer on a house tomorrow. Our first house. I am so nervous and jumpy and my stomach is tying itself up in knots. I don't see a whole lot of sleep for me tonight. I'm worrying like I do with taxes and government paperwork - that I don't have all my ducks in a row.

Wish us luck - it's a beautiful house - 3 bedroom brick colonial with a large yard less than a half mile from my office and it puts Willow in the feeder pattern for the school we want her to attend in September.

Oh lordy - who said my baby could start kindergarten?

First Finished Objects of the Year

Dear Mom,

These are yours. On one condition...



You throw away two of the threadbare dishcloths in your drawer! The dishcloth on the left was inspired by seeing washcloths on Elizabeth's blog, and it has a great nubby texture on one side. The one on the right I don't have a link to because it was just a two line repeat pattern I found in my Reader's Digest stitch dictionary book (six plain then six moss stitch).

Your dutiful daughter,
Jo

Andrew, pancake chef extraordinaire that he is, received this maple leaf mold for Christmas and he wanted to show off to my family that he did figure out how to use it. This pancake was mine - and you know what was great about it? All the points of the leaf make crisp bits on the pancake and they were so yummy!



Don't you wish you were having pancakes right now?

Oh, I'm at it again

Okay, who has been paying attention? Look at the bar on the right... what's new?

It's time again!

Okay, not quite yet - but soon :) You can find out more details on Lolly's blog. I had so much fun with this last year, even if I didn't manage to come up with one project per month in the allotted colour scheme. Just being involved in the project made me more aware of these colours around me. It was a little thing, really - but it made me happy. The colours for February/March are blue/white/grey... hmmm... I have blue sock yarn, silver-grey yarn for a kid's hat... not much in the way of white, however. I do have a 4 year old, you know!

Have you made any New Year's resolutions? I have tried coming up with some constructive ones - I mean, we all would like to lose weight and be healthier, but I prefer not to sabotage myself by putting those ones into concrete demands. So, here are my three New Year's resolutions:

1. Knit one significant project each month. And no, hats don't count.

2. Keep a more even temper where Willow is concerned. This will be the toughest of the lot. Who knew that at four she would already be arguing with everything I say?

3. Keep my kitchen table clean. I am the worst person for this - I come home, and everything comes out of my hands an onto the kitchen table. I come by this naturally. Ironically, now that I am keeping the kitchen table clean, Willow's play table is all cluttered...

Maybe I need to re-think this...

Christmas Vacation Wrap-Up

Sorry for the sporadic posts these last few weeks... I was here:



Looks pretty idyllic, doesn't it? We spent our Christmas vacation with my parents and family in Honeymoon Bay, British Columbia and returned just a few days ago. Willow and I had an inauspicious start to our holiday - the night before we were supposed to leave I get a phone call from my Mom saying she had just received an automated message from United Airlines saying my flight had been canceled. WTF?!!? I quickly get off the phone with her and call United and found that indeed, all early morning flights leaving from Philadelphia on December 15th had been canceled due to a power outage on the runways (so planes could not land). We were rescheduled to a later morning flight and ended up getting to Vancouver about 7:30pm instead of the 3pm we had planned for.

Willow made friendly with the pilot in the first leg of our trip and he let her wear his captain's hat and sit in the cockpit for this picture:



My Auntie Daryth was waiting for us in the airport and she whisked us to the Tswassen ferry. Remember the inauspicious bit above? Well, by the time we got on the Island Highway and on our way to my parents' house, it had started to snow. My parents called just as we rolled into lake Cowichan to let us know that there was no power... and hadn't been all day. We saw one car already in a ditch, so Auntie slowed down to about 20 clicks and we chugged down the road. We arrived at my parents' house just before midnight, had a quick cup of hot cocoa with water cooked on the Franklin stove, and bundled under blankets to go to sleep. Willow was over the moon the next day to see snow on the ground as we hadn't had any snow yet in the Philly area. The power did eventually come back on, but there was a continued threat over the next two weeks (which luckily never materialized) of more snow and power outages. I spent much of my time watching the news coverage of the devastation in Stanley Park after the windstorms.

Willow and I attended Honeymoon Bay's "Pot Lick Dimmer" (yes, spelling intentional) a few days after we arrived, and Willow finally got to sit on Santa's lap and tell him all about how good she had been this year (**cough**splutter**) and what she would like for Christmas.



My friend Lisa, her husband Rob, and her darling daughter Aleksia came over from Vancouver to visit with us and it was so nice to see them all again. Willow and Aleksia had never met before and got along like a house on fire. Lisa and I have been friends for ...um... 19 years now. How is that earthly possible?!!?



We also got to meet new family members while up in BC. My sister, Jaime, had a little boy at the end of May and Willow was thrilled to no longer be the baby in the family. This is a picture of Willow helping William unwrap his Christmas presents:



William is a lovely little boy - so happy and affectionate. It really started to make my biological clock clamour! I think he was a little confused when he first met me - not that Jaime and I look particularly alike, but we both have dark, curly hair and similar curvy builds. Here is a pic of William and his great-grandmother Pauline:

The nearest big city to Honeymoon Bay is Duncan, which is probably the third largest city on Vancouver Island after Victoria and Nanaimo (okay, everyone pronounce: NA-NYE-MO. It isn't that hard). Unfortunately, for all of Duncan being the third largest city, it's still pretty small. My sister Teri and I had some high hopes for Boxing Day shopping, but practically everything but WallyWorld and the StupidStore was closed. However, Duncan is known as the City of Totems - so we were not at a loss of things to take pictures of. Here are some photos of the totems in the downtown area:

And let me tell you, knitting-wise I made out like a bandit at Christmas :) From Andrew I received two knitting books - Knitting Nature and One Skein Wonders. On Christmas Day my sister Teri hands me this little package and tells me this is my big Christmas present. I open it up and inside is a delicately soft black skein of Quiviut and pattern for a lace scarf. She laughed and said she left the price tag on deliberately ($55 CDN!) to prove that it was my big present.

Coming back to the East Coast was another lesson in stress and temper. Andrew went back a day before we did without incident. Willow and I arrived at the Vancouver Airport at 4:45am for our 7am flight... and found over 300 people already (!!!) in line for their flights. Apparently it was a bundle of things mixed together - the impending blizzard in Denver (their second), United's decision to implement the January 8th passport rule a little early, among other things. We checked in 10 minutes before our flight was supposed to leave and still had to go through Customs. Someone (an older East Indian gentleman, to be exact), guided me into an express line for people with passports (which we did not have with us - see my previous passport hell post). After seeing who was coming up behind me in line, I found out he was culling out single adults with little children and putting them in the express line rather than in the line we were supposed to be in. We blaze through customs and a guard tells me our flight hasn't left yet and if we run we might make it. We run... get to the gate, scramble on the plane, and they shut the door behind us. They make an announcement that 25 people were still in line and didn't make the flight but the plane had to leave (it was already 40 minutes late) because of the Denver storm.

Now, I feel that at this point I should mention that Willow and I have been up for nearly 4 hours, have not had anything to drink, and only some dried fruit in my pocket to eat. We had woken up, packed and on the hotel shuttle bus within 30 minutes and I had promised her breakfast in the airport after we checked in. Obviously, this didn't happen. On the plane, I consoled Willow by saying we would buy one of the snack packs and have that for breakfast. It sounded like a good idea until the flight attendant told us they didn't have snack packs - only biscotti. (Again, WTF?!!?!) He did give us 6 packs of biscotti, so that was our breakfast. We arrived in Denver an hour late and had to again run across the concourse from one end to the other, and once again, we got on the plane and they shut the doors. The runways were clear and it was just starting to snow - I later learned that over 28 inches of snow had fallen later that night... so I was definitely glad we got out when we did. Our luggage was not as speedy as we were, incidentally - it had to get delivered the next day.

I miss my family, but it is nice to be back in my own bed :) Honeymoon Bay is a gorgeous place to visit - and if you ever want to see it in person... go in the summer! Swimming, camping, hiking, inner-tubing down the river and so many other things... in the winter, not so much :)

Lastly, Andrew took a picture for you:

His caption: "This is what happens when your child's independence out-distances her fashion sense." And trust me, this outfit was after some intervention where we convinced her it was too cold to wear hot pink Winnie the Pooh capri pants. From neck down we have: black and rainbow-striped turtleneck, crystal bead necklace, flowered halter top, blue jeans (worn backwards), and Halloween socks.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas Dulaan! (Or, How I Spent my Christmas Break)

Remember a while back I said I was going to enlist my family members into knitting hats over our Christmas Break? Yeah, well, that didn't go as planned and I ended up being the only one to knit any Dulaan hats. So, for Christmas 2006 I present six hats in 10 days for Dulaan:



From the top going clockwise:

1. Blue-green to fit 6 month-ish baby out of leftover Malabrigo. This hat was intended for my nephew William, but his head was bigger than I imagined... (he's a big boy for a seven month old!), so he received the rust and orange (picture to come later) Dulaan hat and we traded this one to the Dulaan pile.
2. Blue Wool-Ease and Orange Caron Simply Soft to fit a 9 month old. This hat was also my first attempt at colourwork. It was easy enough, but not my cup of tea. The blue was leftover from my Veste Everest earlier in the year and the orange leftover from William's baby blanket.
3. Rainbow Malabrigo. This was leftover from my friend Asami's son's hat and will probably fit an older child or adult.
4. Pink Acrylic and Dark Green Wool-Ease to fit a 10 - 14 year old. I am honestly not sure where the pink came from, but there were small balls of it in my stash pile... and the dark green is leftover from my sadly missed Sitcom Chic cardigan that I had to give to my sister since I am too generous in the frontal area.
5. Brown Encore and Orange Caron Simply Soft (same size as above). The brown is leftover from a poncho I knit for my friend Tara and the orange was more leftovers from William's baby blanket.
6. This is the only new yarn hat I made over the break. I was in a shop and I was entranced by the colours in this Patons Decor yarn - a dark teal/cream/chocolate brown mix. It's a chunky weight so was a quick knit and the variegation did some neat things.. This hat will also fit an older child or adult.

The sizes here are all over the place since I don't use a pattern for my hats - I just sort of go on how thick the yarn is and what I want to do with it.

We also went to a community Christmas Party a few days ago and Willow and I commandeered the microphone (um, before the majority of the other guests arrived) and belted out a few rounds of "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer." Seriously, folks - those are the only two carols she knows so we sang each of them a few times... until I convinced her it was okay to sing non-Christmas songs and we sang Laurie Berkner's version of "I've Been Working on the Railroad." Also in the picture is my friend Lisa's daughter, Aleksia. I tried to get Aleksia to sing as well but she just wanted to watch.

And what did the munchkin get for Christmas? Well, does this tell picture tell you what the biggest hit of the morning was?



Her own dancing costume, complete with a blue tutu. She would have worn it all day if I had let her! The wand came separately, but she has decided it is a package and has also decided that now she has a costume she needs to take dancing lessons...

Merry Christmas All!

Sweet Relief

I seem to remember there was an album called "Sweet Relief" by various artists that came out when I was in university in the early 90s. I remember listening to the album incessantly - so isn't it funny that now all I can remember is that the album had something to do with Lucinda Williams and there was a song sung by Pearl Jam on it?

The passport. It's safe, everyone. Passport Canada messed up and sent it to our apartment address without our apartment number, so it was delivered to the apartment office. Now, why we were not told there was a package waiting for us... that's another matter I'm just not going to let myself get angry about right now. The passport was supposed to get sent to my in-laws' house (as our mailing address) since we are house-hunting. I really didn't need all this aggravation, so I am extremely glad the passport is accounted for and now locked up :) Interestingly enough, after I sent them a very angry email on Saturday, Passport Canada did call me first thing Monday morning and admitted they had sent it to the wrong address.

I've seen this meme on a few people's blogs, so I thought I should chime in:

Six Weird Things About Me

1. I have small wide feet - 6.5 wide, which is a size that just does not exist for a lot of shoe manufacturers. I usually end up having to go up to 7W, which is where a lot of companies start with their wide shoes.

2. As I get older (yeah, I know - I am ancient at 34!), I am finding that I just don't care for cakes, cookies, pies, candies and other sweet stuff. Put something salty and crunchy in front of me and I'm a goner, though.

3. On both feet, my second and third toes are joined almost to the first knuckle. This is more prominent in my Mom and youngest sister. I read somewhere once this is a common trait with families with Irish lineage. My Mom's maiden name is Pogue.

4. I once cooked avocado into my hair. Quite unintentionally - I was trying this holistic means of moisteurizing my super-cooked over-dyed hair (yeah, I see the irony in all of this). Everything worked fine until I tried rinsing out the mashed up avocado with warm water. It cooked right in, and I had to comb it all out with a lice comb.

5. I like making up symptoms for drugs during the commercials on TV: "May cause purple spots and unprovoked narcolepsy." This is even funnier considering where I work.

6. I have a horrible fear of deep water - to the point of back spasms and nausea. I used to live in Japan and would fly home (over the *&^%$*^$ Pacific Ocean for 9+ hours) once a year and would be a wreck every time.

Feel free to steal at will :)

Stress and Passports

You know, this really isn't the time of year when extra stress is warranted. Come to think of it, it is probably the absolutely worst time for extra stress to sneak its insidious way in.

Back at the beginning of November I mailed off my completed passport application. Passport Canada claims to have a 20 day turn-around, so when I hadn't received my passport by December 10th, I sent them an email (they have a link to ask the status of your application on their website) to ask where it might be. On Saturday, December 16th I receive my response - that the passport had been couriered to me by DHL on 12/9 and gave me a tracking number. Pleased as punch but still wondering where the passport was (thinking, oh it's Christmas and there are a billion packages out there, etc.), I typed in the tracking number on DHL's website and found that the passport had been delivered.

To the wrong address... (Um, right city and state, wrong zip code, and to an office, not a residence)

Five days prior.

I think my head and stomach exploded at the same time. And, being Saturday afternoon, I could not contact Passport Canada and DHL was a fat lot of no help whatsoever. Andrew called their Customer Service number and the response they gave was, "We think the package is in Chicago somewhere." WTF?!!!?! Your website said it was delivered! Unfortunately, the results on DHL's website don't get more specific than city, state, and zip - so we don't know the exact address it was sent to and DHL is supposed to find that out for us so we can track it down.

So, I must wait until tomorrow to start harassing government agencies. I really want to blame someone for this - who is more culpable? Passport Canada for sending it to the wrong address? DHL for letting someone sign for a package of government paperwork who was clearly not the person the package it was addressed to? Help!

Oh, just for fun.

How evil are you?
This quiz, stolen from Juno, seems to suit my mood right now. Things are so busy right now between work, impending Christmas plans, and everything else that I feel like my head is going to explode. In the last 4 days I have knit exactly 1 round one a cabled hat that I had intended tobe someone's Christmas present (yeah, and trust me - that ain't happening now).

Wednesdays are cheap-o Happy Meal night at McD's ($1.99!), so I stopped there to get Willow her meal of choice, and some idjit honked at me because I apparently didn't turn into the McD's parking lot fast enough. ARGH! Everyone needs to take a chill pill! I don't get it - why do people have to behave so badly?

There are some bright spots to all of this - Willow told me what she learned in school today - that when someone gives you a gift, you say, "Thank you! That was so thoughtful of you!" It made me happy that in this road-rage-prone/dog-eat-dog world that someone still thinks to teach manners to four year olds.

Willow's Big Sweater

Finished! I love knitting kids' clothes - the quick satisfaction of it all :)



Yes, it's a bit big for her and the sleeves are rolled up two times, but I'm so happy that she insisted on wearing it this morning :) The pattern is from Ann Budd's multiple gauge pattern book, and the only deviation this time was not as many decreases as called for due to the bulkiness of the yarn. This is the second smallest child's size - I think 26" chest, and it took a little less than 3 skeins of Lion Brand Thick and Chunky yarn.

Getting to Know You... Christmas Edition (Blogstalking)

Christmas Edition of Getting to Know Your Friends

Welcome to the 2006 Christmas Edition of Getting to Know Your Friends! You know the drill. Highlight, copy, and paste (not forward) and change my answers to your answers. Enjoy!! Everyone has time for a few moments of fun! Don't be a scrooge!!!Come on!

NAME: Jo

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg Nog, for certain! I just wish it wasn't a gazillion calories and a billion grams a fat for two tablespoons. For that reason I really have to limit myself to a little on Christmas Day.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrapped, of course - although my family has got more in the habit of using cloth re-usable Christmas bags. My MIL has been turned onto this as well.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?We are still in an apartment, so we don't have any lights up. Or a tree for that matter - no, we aren't scrooges - but there just isn't space for one. I say coloured lights on both if we had the opportunity.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Not since junior high school.
5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually about two weeks before Christmas.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Pudahha - since I don't make it myself the only time I really get it is when I visit my Mom and Dad.
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: My family goes all out with Christmas stockings - not that we are getting huge amounts of things, but there is a 'neato!' factor to it all. I still love opening up my Christmas stocking.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I'm afraid Lisa McAdie spoiled it for me when I was about 7 or 8 years old.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Not usually.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? I've never really decorated my own tree. My parents sent me a small artificial tree when Andrew and I lived in Japan and we had some small ornaments for it (I left it in Japan for my school when we moved back here). I'm not a fan of cheesy ornaments (like most of the ones you see in card stores) and I have a few nices ones I have packed away over the years - I really hope that someday my Christmas ornaments will have stories around them.
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it - especially if I don't have to go anywhere when it is happening!
12. Can you ice skate? Hmm. I can go about 5 feet before I fall on my behind. Does that count? I'm going to take Willow for the first time this winter - I foresee her skating circles around me in 10 seconds flat.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Not really. I remember receiving these 18" Barbie dolls - but I was past Kindergarten at that point.
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Spending time with family.
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Pumpkin Pie
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Playing Christmas music and wrapping presents
17. What tops your tree? Angel
18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Giving, of course. I love putting presents together for people.
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? "Momma Mary" by Roger Whittaker
20. Candy Canes... Yuck or Yum? You know, normally I love minty stuff, but I have to say Yuck.

Quick Sleeves, Tiny Blogstalking, and an Update

Two sleeves in one night - a personal best :) Okay, they are sleeves for a four-year-old and are knit from Lion Thick and Quick Woolease on size 11 needles... but two sleeves in one night!



And a close up of one sleeve:



It's a very simple project - a raglan sweater - probably for Willow. We will have to see how she likes it when it is all put together. Woo-hoo! Two sleeves in one night!

No, I didn't get much sleep last night. Despite the codeine cough syrup.

I'm behind on my Blogstalking activities - partly due to being very busy at work and partly due to feeling horrible. Two tasks back the topic was "Trinket" in which you were to explain some little thing you have around your house. Well, here's a two-for-one for you:



















I realize now that the little guy on the left is hard to make out, but he is a little wooden pig with a stick through his middle. No - I'm not trying to be gruesome - he is a musical instrument. My sister-in-law brought it back from China for Willow. You take out the stick and brush/roll/tap it on his back and it sounds somewhat like a wooden xylophone. Notice it is on top of the TV? The progeny gets a little over-exuberant with it and so it gets put beyond her reach on a regular basis. I can only take so much of the percussion... My Dad made the little dog on the right - I believe he is intended as a Christmas decoration, but he's out all year since Willow likes to play with him, too.

Health update... still sick. Three days into the antibiotics has me a bit nauseous but still hacking my brains out with a wet cough. On the plus side, no fever since Sunday morning. I don't feel like I am getting enough air when I breath and it is making me tired all the time. The urgent care doc said give the antibiotics 4 days to kick in... tomorrow is day 4.

Lesser of Two Evils?

I ended up going to an urgent care clinic this morning and it turns out I have acute bronchitis, not the flu. The doctor is worried that I may develop pneumonia, so I came home with some (**very expensive!!!**) antibiotics and some codeine cough syrup. I was given a list of things I cannot eat/drink while sick - the prohibition on dairy I can understand - but who knew that spicy foods were off the list?!?! Apparently they can do weird things with the antibiotic and make you sick to your stomach.

Thank you for the well wishes!

Done!

The big Christmas present is finished - actually, I finished it Friday night while watching Battlestar Gallactica. Now to wash it, hopefully shrink it a tiny bit...

After two days of feeling relatively okay (relatively being the key word here), my temperature spiked to 102.6'F yesterday afternoon and I got a whole new round of hot-cold-hot-cold-hot-cold-hot-cold-hot-cold. My head hurts from constantly coughing... and my in-laws convinced me to call my dr's office to see if I have the flu.

Yes, I had the flu shot. Back in October. Bah Humbug.

I want to... I really do

Gah. I haven't knitted in three days now because instead of indulging in my project o'the moment, I have been going through literally reams of paper at night. Yup, work stuff. The end of the year coincides with a lot of things at work... add in a phlegmy cough and you've got me in a nutshell. I nearly passed out in the shower this morning - and I'm not entirely sure why. I was coughing a little bit, but I don't think it was enough to cut off my air supply long enough for me to faint. So at 6:15 this morning I was sitting soaking wet in my shower stall drinking apple juice while Andrew hovered over me.

And no, Mom - I'm not pregnant.

Anyway, Battlestar Gallactica is back on tonight (Apollo!) so I will definitely be knitting. I'm determined to get that last Christmas present finished this weekend. Maybe I will even pick up Andrew's cable knit sweater before Christmas. Here's a question for you all - there is a smidgen of a chance I won't have enough wool for his sweater. He is very long bodied (for someone 6'1" he only has a 32" inseam) so I added some extra length in the front and back. I bought this wool a year ago and I am fairly certain I won't be able to match dye lots. What would you do? I'm thinking of getting the same colour and doing the sleeves in the same colour - but perhaps a different dye lot. Do you think that would be weird?