Thank Goodness For Catch All Bibs

That's all.

39 Things About Me On My 39th Birthday

1. My favourite pizza has bacon, pineapple, mushrooms, onions, and extra cheese.

2. I have been knitting for 10 years now.

3. The older I get, the more ambivalent I get about cooking.

4. I would rather bake.

5. I fear we will never get a dog because Andrew and I will never agree on the size of the dog.

6. For a Canadian who has only lived in the US for 13 years, I've been to 30 states.

7. I make a mean mojito - I've even had a Cuban tell me so.

8. My eyes are changing colour as I get older - lighter and a greener/hazel.



People used to say my eyes matched the red-brown of my hair.

9. I have better than perfect vision - 20/10, but if I'm tired, I can't focus my eyes and then have to wear glasses.

10. There are only 3 authors I buy in hardcover right now: Patricia Briggs, Kim Harrison, and S.M. Stirling.

11. My feet have grown a half size with each child.

12. I would rather watch documentaries than network television.

13. I believe in ghosts.

14. The only thing I can successfully grow in the garden are little tomatoes - cherry and grape.

15. I'm a pen whore.

16. I don't wear make up unless my picture will be taken.

17. I have subscriptions to many magazines (National Geographic, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, Creative Knitting, Canadian Living, Taste of Home...) and most of them were gifts to me.

18. I read magazines while I exercise because I can't just walk/run/cycle with only my MP3 player.

19. A few years ago I read more than 100 books in that year... and yet I have more unread books than read ones in my house.

20. I love riding my bicycle, but seldom have the opportunity to do so.

21. I never thought I would love knitting socks as much as I do.

22. I love listening to covers - sometimes an interpretation is much better than the original.

23. I like wearing aprons when I am preparing food.

24. I put peanut butter and brown sugar in my steel cut oatmeal.

25. My kids crack me up.

26. I'm not a pleasant person in the morning before my first cup of coffee.

27. I drink Starbucks' Yukon Blend every morning.

28. I have more stitches on my head than anywhere else on my body.

29. I'm allergic to real Christmas trees, so we have a pre-lit artificial one.

30. I wish I played a musical instrument - I took piano and violin lessons as a child, but none of them took.

31. I love mint-scented bath products.

32. I love road trips.

33. I'm horrible at Monopoly - I lose interest very quickly.

34. I want to go rock-hunting for semi-precious stones.

35. I love being snowed in (as long as I'm prepared for it!).

36. I want to live near the shore - but only in the off-season.

37. I could eat grilled cheese sandwiches every day.

38. My hair looks like the Bride of Frankenstein's in the morning.

39. I like odd-numbered years better than even, so I'm happy to turn 39.

Willow Cleopatra

Willow has a thing for Cleopatra - I'm not even really sure where this began, but she has been fascinated with Egyptian history and mythology since she was 3 or 4 years old. When she was that little, I just couldn't stand watching children's programming ad nauseum, so I made her a deal. We could watch one of her shows, then we would switch to one of mine, then back to her - so she definitely had her fair share of documentaries in her formative years. Earlier this year she wrote her Grade 3 biography book report on Cleopatra, she watched the Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra movie, and she had even intended to be Cleopatra for Halloween until the whole Renn Faire thing came along. I was in Target the day after Halloween, and I found one last Cleopatra costume (half-price!) in the next size up (or so I thought). I had intended for her to be able to use it next year, but at the rate she is growing, it might just end up being playclothes. Sigh... a scant 6 inches separates us now and she is closing in fast.

Fiber Friday

Short and sweet - Andrew bought me this sock yarn at the Pennsylvania Renn Faire - they have a daily sheep to shawl and do demonstrations on how to dye yarn, spin, etc. I'm curious what they would do if I showed up in costume with knitting in hand...

A Random Moment With Willow

Willow eating steak on a stake at the Renn Faire.

Willow: What's a psychic medium, Mom?

Me: It's somebody who thinks that they can talk to ghosts and do supernatural things.

Willow: They're flodds, right?

Me: (Huh?!!?) Not sure what you mean.

Willow: Flodds.

Me: (Flaweds?) Um..

Willow: You know, they scam people.

Me: Oh! Frauds! I guess some of them are, but I do think some people are sensitive to stuff like that.

Serenade for Carrie

Back when Willow was little - maybe two years old, my friend Carrie gave us a little toy electric organ that her son had outgrown. Willow was enamoured of it and would play it all the time. Last weekend I found it in the basement along with some of Willow's old toys, so I cleaned it up, put new batteries in it, and brought it back upstairs. I swear that Willow thought I had brought it up for her! Piper loves it - she's a regular little Elton John with her hammering and singing. She has even figured out how to make the organ play by itself and she bounces along with it.

Carrie - thank you for entertaining both of my girls!

Sleep, Or Lack Of It

Sadly, this is the normal state of affairs in our house. Piper doesn't sleep well - and as you can see from the book I am reading on the right, we have resorted to reading a book to learn how to get Piper to sleep through the night. In many ways we were spoiled with Willow - she slept through the night from 4 months on. Piper. Well. For example, Saturday night we had a Guy Fawkes party, and I ended up putting Piper to bed around 8pm. She was up at 10pm, 11:15pm, 12:00am, 2:30am, and then 4:30am. So much for grabbing that extra hour of sleep. Then she will switch it up and give us a good night - like last night when she went to bed at 8:30pm and slept until nearly 4am. Our bodies feel a bit haywire right now because you just never know what you are going to get from night to night.

Wasn't Prepared For This

I clearly didn't think this out terribly well when Andrew and I decided to have another child. Of course, we never intended for there to be a nearly 9 year age gap between the two - but at times that has served us very well - Willow is a great short-term babysitter if I need a shower, am cooking dinner, or am down in the basement doing laundry. Other times, like tonight, not so much. I guess what I never took into consideration was how these two children's needs could be going in complete opposite directions at one time. Willow's biography book report is due tomorrow, and she did a fabulous job and learned quite a bit about Amelia Earhart. Last night as I was putting stuff away, I read through the rubric, and noticed that the instructions say that the project must be handwritten in cursive or typed. What had Willow done? Printed the entire project out by hand. Gah! So, she had to painstakingly erase (it was a poster where you had to populate in bits about the person's life) then re-write bits in cursive, and then type the rest. Which meant I had to help her by proofreading the typing and help with the spelling. Piper had a problem with all of this. Piper is teething hardcore, sleeping scant amounts of time, doesn't want to eat - is a big crankypants in general right now. I'm trying to help Willow, but Piper is being a little clingy monkey who capped it off by vomiting. Great...

So, I left Willow to her devices, took Piper upstairs and bathed her. I came downstairs and Piper and I played for a bit while Willow finished up. Andrew got home and was able to take over Piper while I helped Willow with her formatting. Her project is done - and all's well that ends well. And I am exhausted.

Wordless Weekend

Fantasy House at French Creek Beach

It doesn't look real, does it? Andrew snapped this picture during the summer when we were up on Vancouver Island. We took a day trip to the west coast of the Island to French Creek beach. It's a little blurry because Andrew had the camera on extreme zoom. I would love to live in this house and be able to see the ocean like this every day. I bet it is a spectacular place to be in a storm. I would love a house with a turret one day.

The ocean itself was misty, and Andrew really liked the idea that you couldn't see anything in the distance - that if you kept going, you would eventually hit Japan.



The mist eventually cleared up, and the sky was crystal clear until some fighter jets started doing manueuvers above us. They were pretty high up and I couldn't figure out just what was making the circle in the sky at first.



I've often thought that I would like to live in an isolated place like this. The idea of living in a lighthouse appeals to me - I watched a program a while back about lighthouses in the U.K. - how so many of them are automated and no longer need human caretakers - of if they do, just a person who comes in once a week to check on the computers and clean things up. That depresses me a bit, but it was also heartening to see that many of these lighthouses had been converted into small hotels and B&Bs. I think in this time of being able to order virtually anything off the internet that living in an isolated place would not be nearly as stressful or desolate as it once may have been.

Unfinished Business

Do you ever have that dream - that anxiety-ridden dream - where you have a test to take and you know you haven't studied, or gone to any of the classes.  Or another variation where it is the first day of school but you don't have your schedule and you don't know where any of your classes are?

I don't have those dreams so much anymore.  Perhaps I have come to the 'I really don't care' part, or perhaps my subconscious trusts that I wouldn't do anything like that (anymore).  But I do frequently dream about things left undone in Japan.



Me, circa Autumn 1997 in a cosmos field in Chiba Prefecture, Japan.

Andrew and I lived in Japan for three years.  It was a heady time for us - newly adult, I suppose. We met in Japan, both having just graduated from university on the (ahem) five-year plan.  We were teaching English at an eikawa (English Conversation School), and we had a blast.  This was pre-law school, pre-children, pre-mortgage... We traveled, we learned the customs and language, and made wonderful life-long friends. We drank a lot of Japanese beer from vending machines. So, I am not sure why I have this recurring dream that something is unfinished.  In my dreams I have to go back to Japan for some reason, but it never is clear what that reason is.  I'm fretting because we have to bring the kids there as well and I am not sure how we are going to have them go to school.  I go back to my school in Katsutadai, but no one knows who I am.  It's all very curious.  I would love to travel back there one day to visit friends and see more of the country - there may have to be a lottery win at some point for that to happen

Why Yes, That Is A Piece Of Salmon

... behind my baby's ear.



Piper had an interesting response to the salmon. She shoved it in her mouth, made a face, then spat it out. I thought to myself that she will be like Andrew, who absolutely abhors salmon (in contrast to Willow and me, who would eat it three nights a week if we could). But she kept going for it and eating more - so I wonder if the spitting was more about the new and different texture rather than any dislike for the taste. In any case, the cat was more than happy to clean up after her once she was done, and ohmylord she needed a bath. How did she get salmon in her eyebrows, down her shirt, and behind her ear?

I was wondering if anyone had any foods that it took them a while to like. I never really bought into the idea of a 'learned taste,' but I do think that there can be foods that you don't like prepared a certain way, and if that was the only way you ever had them you would think you didn't like it. Then one day the food is prepared a different way and all of a sudden you think this is delicious and why didn't I like this before? Andrew, for example, though fish sticks were disgusting - and so like salmon - was a dish that Willow and I would have when we knew he wouldn't be home for dinner. Then one night I made fish tacos for dinner using fish sticks, and he gobbled it down and then had another. Yay fish tacos! They are easy to make and everyone in the house likes them. As for me, it was bell peppers. I only ever remember having cooked peppers as a child, and have horrid memories of being made to eat them when they were the only thing left in my bowl. It wasn't until I was an adult that I had them raw in a salad, and I couldn't believe how sweet and crunchy they were.

For this reason, I have a rule with Willow - and will enforce with Piper when she is older - you have to try something prepared three different ways before you can say you don't like it and don't have to eat it anymore. Willow is up to two with beets (cold and sliced, and roasted). I'm struggling to find a third option that may sway her - but I'm willing to wait it out.

WiP It Wednesday

Welcome to the Land of Unfinished Objects... Er, I mean Works-in-Progress.

Jo's Simple Yet Effective Cowl:



Christmas Clapo-ktus (Rav Link) Yeah, try saying that 10x fast!



Another Little Sister Dress for Piper:



Piper's Confection Shrug (Rav link):



Jo's socks (my own design - don't get excited - it's nothing fancy)



Willow's Langston (Rav link) sweater:



Maybe at this point someone needs to tell me to stop starting things and damn well finish something...

An Extra Blogpost!

Come on, you know you are excited.  When I wrote my blogpost this morning, the 11/1 prompt had not been posted on the NABloPoMo website, and just now when I was checking on the blogroll, I noticed it was up.

What is your favourite part about writing?

The words!  Okay, I don't mean to be facetious here, but I have a degree in Linguistics for good reason.  I was one of those little kids who read dictionaries and encyclopedias for the fun of it.  I love stringing words together, creating turn of phrases - just the sheer rhythm and musicality of it all.  This runs into my love of reading as well - one of the best things about having children is being able to read aloud to them.  I defy anyone not to have have fun reading something like Skippyjon Jones aloud - Willow and I still love finding these books and reading them.

It's That Time Again - NaBloPoMo

I know my blogging has been scant and piss-poor of late. I am not sure what to say - two kids is more work than I ever thought it would be, especially when their needs are at the complete opposite ends of the spectrum. However, it is that time again - NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month, where you try to complete a blogpost every day. I can tell right now that this will be more of a struggle for me this year than in previous years, but I am game. The added incentive for me is that if I can accomplish this, I will hit 1000 blogposts by the end of the month. There may even be a prize in there somewhere if I hit 1000... In the meantime, here is a picture of Piper destroying her Kraft dinner:



The kid is pretty much refusing to eat baby purees now - she wants what you are eating, period. We had salsa chicken last week - it's a crockpot dish made with chicken breasts, salsa, cream of chicken soup, taco seasoning - with a dollop of sour cream added in at the end. Not terribly spicy for an adult, but it would have a bit of a bite for a child. She was relentless - she wanted some NOW. So, I scraped off as much sauce as I could, shredded the chicken - and she had it down her gullet and was screaming for more before I had another bite in my own mouth. Do you have any idea how long it took for me to not have Willow whining every time we had something remotely spicy - she even objected to simple salt and pepper!! I'm taking no chances with this Piper - we're going to try a mild curry next week and see what happens...

Renn Faire Ramblings (or how we accidentally went to Harrisburg)

We had to go back to the PA Renn Faire one last time before it closed for the season. We had enjoyed ourselves so much on our first trip that we bought cheap return tickets to use at a later point in the season. And this time, Willow dressed up!



Costume courtesy of her Grandmother. Willow is seriously one lucky girl - out of the nine Halloween costumes she has had in her life, seven of them were handmade by Grandmother. This time she was a Renaissance girl, complete with a purple velvet cloak - no doubt influenced by our last trip here, because prior to that, Willow had intended to be Cleopatra for Halloween.

This time we decided to take in more of the shows and activities at the Renn Faire (as opposed to all the window shopping we did last time), and this resulted in an active day for Willow. Not only did she ride an elephant for the first time in her life:



I don't think Andrew believed me when I said I have done this before. We used to go to the Vancouver Game Farm (apparently now called the Greater Vancouver Zoo) almost every year as a field trip as kids, and I rode an elephant there as a child.

Willow also got to be a circus performer with Tribal Circus:



They had her hold the spinning plate on a pole, which was very cool... and then they started juggling bowling pins around her:



You should have seen Willow's face - she went from being so chuffed to being on stage to absolutely terrified that these pins are spinning around her! This circus performance was my favourite part of the day - these two were great performers, and they even pulled Andrew up on stage, to his mortification. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that because he had the camera in his pocket when he went up there.



He had to help Shelly up to her ring in the air by boosting her up. he went to lift her from the waist and she took his hands and put them on her bottom to lift her better. Poor Andrew - he was so red!

Willow even got to meet the queen after the children's costume contest:



My poor, competitive, child - she was upset that no one actually 'won' the contest - all the children who participated received a medallion from the queen. We can't wait until next year to go back.  Maybe next year I will be able to whip up a costume of my own. I could so rock the corset...

(Oh - and the Harrisburg part?  We are driving on the PA Turnpike.  The Renn Faire is on exit 266.  I give Andrew the 2 mile notice.  Then the 1 mile notice.  I start digging in my purse for the toll, and look up and Andrew is passing exit 266...  Words were said.  Maybe angry words.  We had to drive to the next turnpike exit - 20 miles away - at Harrisburg to get off and turn around to come back.  It's a good thing there is good beer at the Renn Faire.)

Almost there!

How Close Is Piper to Walking?



And on the way back:



We have had so much use out of this firetruck toy - it belonged to Willow when she was little, and I don't believe we paid more than $10 for it to begin with. I pulled it out of the basement yesterday and washed it off, and you should have seen Willow's face - you would have thought I had brought it out for her. I don't know who has had more fun with it the last two days - Piper walking around with it, or Willow helping Piper walk around with it!

Halloween Preview

Piper was able to try on her Halloween costume for her daycare's Fall Festival (just imagine my requisit rant on why this has to be called 'Fall Festival' and not 'Halloween Party'...).

Happy Cowgirl

All Sorts of Finished Objects

And I bet you were all thinking that I never knit anymore!



Ta-da!

Actually, the knitting of this dress has been finished for a while, but I finished it in the middle of a July heatwave and I knew that it was still way too big for Piper at that time... so it sat on my loveseat for a few months. This weekend I finally got around to crocheting the button holes onto the neckline and sewing the buttons on.



Andrew thinks it will work better as a tunic with leggings, and I am inclined to agree - and that is what the designer had in mind anyway. The designer, Tora Froseth, envisioned it as a baby dress that could segue into a tunic top as the little girl grew (and thus getting more usage out of knitted item!)

The Particulars:

Pattern: Little Sister's Dress by Tora Froseth (Rav link)
Yarn: Bernat Satin Sport in Beachcomber colourway
Needles: Size 4 Knitpicks circulars, 16 and 24 inch.
Size: Here's the kicker - I knit it, unchanged, from the 3 month size. Yes, I know Piper is small, but not that small :) Don't worry - the anomoly was intentional. The pattern designer recommends 'worsted wool' but many people read that incorrectly as 'worsted weight wool,' so there has been a lot of unintentional experimentation with sizes and different yarns
Would I knit this pattern again? I already am - and this time I am using the sock weight yarn the pattern actually is intended for, and I am making the 12 month size. This is an easy pattern, and it makes a very useful garment.

I have also (finally) finished Tara's Birthday socks:



I love this colour - it doesn't photograph particularly well, and it is hard to explain just how happy and orange it is. Tara won these socks by guessing the correct date for Piper's birth pool - and as it happens, Tara chose her own birthday. I will get them in the mail this week, Tara - so you can enjoy them this fall.


I love looking at stitches close up!



The Particulars:

Pattern: Summer Lovin Socks by Dawn Matkovic (Rav Link)
Yarn: Lola-Doodle's Classic Sock in Sweet Sassy Molassy (bought off Etsy)
Needles: 2 - 16 inch Knitpicks circulars
Size: One size
Would I knit this pattern again? Yes - this was my first foray into lacy socks, and even though I though row 12 was going to kill me (seriously - why did the row have to end with a yarn over? It made it so finicky for making sure I had the correct number of stitches on each needle), the pattern was easy enough and I was very happy with the results.

And I am not the only one around here with a finished object!



Remember this sweater, Mom? It finally fits Piper! My Mom knit all sorts of things when she came to help with Piper's birth and my maternity leave, but Piper was so small that even though she had made the 0-3 month size for the cardigan, Piper just swam in it. Now the weather is cooler, and Piper has been wearing the sweater and matching beanie all the time.