Batteries are Dead!

I was going to take a picture of the coolest thing I've ever knit? Remember? And the camera batteries are dead! As a doornail! And the coolest thing I ever knit is going to Kristin for her wedding, which is Saturday and we are leaving today! I had to pack the coolest thing I've ever knit, with no DOCUMENTATION! Well, hopefully Kristin will enjoy it and maybe take a picture of it herself! This is the other part of the present I made (I'm sure she has better things to do today than look at my blog, so I don't think I'm ruining any surprises here)
A set of six knitted ball-band dishcloths! I looked at their registry to try and figure out their colors, and it looked pretty neutral, so I went neutral (and foresty, because I had to have a little kick in there)
I love Matt and Kristin, and I hope they totally enjoy themselves at their wedding and on their awesome honeymoon. And did I mention, Matt is Holly's cousin? I get to meet the famous Holly de Snot at the wedding! I'm totally brining a camera and my autograph book. I hope that's not too tacky.

And in case you don't know, Kristin is Kristinknits in the blogosphere. I'm not linking her in case she has one of those things where some kind of alarm goes off when she gets linked - I don't want her to look over here until after the festivities! But check her out, she documented her countdown to her nuptuals (oh my gosh, how do you spell that?), very cute.

I'll be back Monday with the whole story!

Woolite Carpet and Rug Cleaner sucks. It doesn't work. I even bought the fancy little stick with the brush on the end and what do I get? Nothing. Same old nasty white carpet that was like new 3 months ago, now covered with the stains and detritus caused by 2 tweens, a teen, an old dog and 2 puppies. Tell me, who puts white freaking carpet in a family room? A rookie, that's who.

The guy who built this house had one teeny tiny kid, an infant you might call it. You know, the kind who can't get around of their own free will, puke only on their parents shoulders and look all cute. The kind that suck you in and make you think 3 of them would be a good idea.

Well, I'm over that. Mine make mess. Huge, bring-the-mud-in-from-the-creek-in-the-backyard kind of mess. Puppies out in the rain kind of mess. Spilling some water (because my friends, even water will stain a white carpet) kind of mess. And now the white carpet looks like a dalmation.

If it were up to me, I would rip the whole bloody mess out and put in some hard wood. But my husband says we must wait until we officially own the house (he still harbors dreams of a vast estate in the country, which isn't going to happen, I'm a city girl. Country is for vacations) So I've got to live with my nasty carpet. It makes me sad. Anyone have any ideas? Now that I've poisoned my children and dogs with the vile Woolite Carpet Crap? Help! Look, you can even see how bad it is in the pictures!
Calgon take me away!

Sexism in the Younger Set

Yesterday, my husband worked a little late and Sophie had a band concert, so I ventured outside to grill some chicken breasts for dinner. The little boy next door (he's about five and his name is Tyler, but we call him Tyrone and he giggles like mad! I just love it!) walks up to me and says

"Are you grillin' that all by yourself?"

"Why yes, I am! I'm making dinner, chicken, yum"

He looked perplexed. He thought about it for a minute and says

"I didn't know girls could grill"

I thought I would pee my pants! I said,

"Yep, girls can grill. Maybe we all can't grill as good as dad's but we can do it in a pinch"

I didn't want to break the little guys heart, obviously at his house only the dad touches the grill, so I decided to let him be innocent to the ways of women for a while longer, even though it looked like I was furthering the cause of sexism.

Then he says - totally deadpan -

"I guess you'll burn it" :)

I'm telling you, it made my day! I know it's wrong in so many ways, and had it been a child over the age of five saying it, I might have gone off on him. But this one was so cute! I'll just have to teach him that girls can do anything with my actions.

I'm currently knitting my second sock from the toe up, using a short row heel. I'm kind of rocking it. The first one is a little messy, this one is looking much better.And I'm starting Muir. Or restarting. Whatever. I kept coming up a stitch short and I made the mistake of trying to knit last night while watching "House". You really can't knit lace and watch tv. At least me. It never works. But I have plenty of laundry to do and the Muir should keep me busy whilst I sit by the blasted washing machine. Have I mentioned how I hate laundry?
I believe laundry is the bane of a stay-at-home-mom's existence. It never ends. You think you've done it all, everyone has clean underwear, there are towels for showers (even though your teenager thinks that after he wipes his clean body off with a towel that the towel has somehow become dirty and must be washed again instead of hung up and used a couple more times!)shoot, everyone even has socks that match, and lo and behold, in the laundry room the next morning, another pile of laundry.

Seriously, Could That Face Belong to a Stalker?

Yesterday I had my first experience with cyber-bullying. It wasn't horrible, no one was saying my daughter was a whore, or threatening to kick her @$$, but it still pissed me off.

I've never been the kind of mom who kept her kids away from the internet. I figure to their generation, the internet is a part of life, and they better learn how to manage it so they don't get hurt. Just like sex and drugs - honesty is the best policy. I do keep the computer in a central place in the house, and I'm not above reading someone's myspace page if they leave it up on the computer! But in general, I'm pretty liberal about the whole thing.

So my daughter was IM'in with some of her downstate homies, when she tells me to come look. And there, on this girl who was supposed to be one of her best friend's YouTube page - the girl is calling my Sophie a stalker! Apparently, because Sophie still wants to be friends with the people from the town that she grew up in, this girl thinks she is a stalker! (Methinks the girl is seriously jealous that her friends still wanna hang with my daughter!) Let's just say, my "mama bear" came roaring out! (This happened once before when I saw a kid try to punch my then fourteen year old son - I screamed at the kid in front of an entire baseball field full of people - my son almost died of humiliation, but I couldn't help it!)

I pushed Sophie out of the computer chair and immediately typed the following IM to her "friend" :

"Do you know what you just did? It's called cyber bullying. When someone posts something to a public forum that says mean, untrue things about someone else, it's called cyberbullying. And in many states it is illegal. I can not control what you say in your IMs but if I ever see something negative about my daughter in a public forum written by you again, I will let your parents know"

Now, I'm not sure cyber bullying is illegal, but hell, the girl is only 12, just trying to put a little fear in the message you know? However, a part of me immediately starts to panic "Oh my gosh, did I just cyber-bully her" But my husband and nephew assured me that what I said was ok, if not well researched. :)

Then, the girl types back that her dad read what she had written, that it was not mean and that she did nothing wrong. Ok, I lose. If a parent doesn't think calling a 12 year old girl trying to keep in contact with her friends, a stalker is mean, then what am I going to do? My poor daughter is trying to learn that lesson that every 12 year old girl has to learn - let those bitchy people go. They are not worth your time. If your friends are really your true friends they will still be with you regardless of what the little snot says. I feel so bad for her!

But on a positive note - I WON! I won knitandfallbackinit's 100th post contest! I never win anything, really. I'm so excited! Two skeins of Rowan Tapestry are coming my way! I've already researched it on Ravelry - I'm thinking the mini-clapotis might be flying off my needles sometime soon. I love the knitting community on the web. I wish there were more places like it, I hope my daughter will find an e-community like it someday. We are proof that the internet can be a friendly, fun place. We rock!

I Made It Fit!

I made the tab fit! Just in time to document the finish of the Swallowtail Shawl! She is being blocked as we speak. Here is her history . . . . Her humble beginning . . .
Above, with all her knitting finished!
Taking a little bath (while mommy bit her nails and hoped all the color didn't leach out!)

All wrapped up and drying off . . .
Blocking!
A detail shot. I love the pointy things at the ends! I had so much fun knitting this. I totally don't wear shawls but I love knitting them so I'm going to have to find someone who enjoys wearing them to gift them to! This one is small, though and you could wear it like a dressy scarf (except I don't have anywhere dressy to go) so I think I'll keep it, given that it's my first one and all! Gotta finish my grasshopper twist socks (except mine are raspberry twist!) before I start another shawl . . . maybe. :)

Camera issues

The stupid tab that holds the battery in on my camera fell off! And apparently you need that tab because the stupid machine won't turn on! I'm so mad. I only have ten rows left on the Swallowtail Shawl and I wanted to take progress pictures!

Interestingly, I ended up having a set of five nupps on one side and four on the other, but having a perfect stitch count. Hmmmm. . . Never look a gift horse in the mouth, although we'll see what happens when I block it. Hopefully, I won't notice. If I do, I shall just gift it to someone who doesn't knit, and they will never know. I still think I'm doing pretty good for my first triangular shawl attempt.

I also need to take pictures of my secret project all spread out! And it's so pretty outside I think I could do an outside knitting photo shoot today. I will continue to try and jam the tab back in. Wish me luck. I'll let you know what happens.

Learning New Stuff

This is Judy's Magic Cast On! If you have ever wanted to learn how to knit a sock toe up, you simply must click on that link. Even if you don't want to knit toe-up socks, click on it anyway. It's very entertaining. It has everything, clocks, hungry jungle birds, cast-on techniques, you name it. And I did it! My friend Terry showed us how to do it one day and I was like, that's just nuts, yarn going everywhich way, right handedness, (I'm a leftie)and I thought I'll never get it. But I googled it when I got home, watched the little video a couple of times and voila! Now to knit a sock, with my awesome Smooshy yarn from Kristin!

Also here's a look at my current progress on the Swallowtail shawl.
The yarn is so bright, it doesn't photograph well. Either that, or my photography skills just suck. They do. I'm a total newbie. I've got to take a class or something.

Anyway, it's not too hard. The pattern turned out to be not so bad. The symbols on the wrong side only call for one stitch different than a regular purl, and that is the fabulous "purl 5 together"!?! What??? It is almost impossible. If someone out there knows a trick for this, please let me know. It takes me forever to finish a wrong side row! There is swearing involved, stabbing oneself with tiny (but not tiny enough) needle point, and dropping of stitches (gasp!) And I have to admit sometimes I've fudged the darn nubs. That's what they are called. So maybe all my nubs don't have all five stitches in them. It's kind of like me growing up with very little clevage. I survived, I think my nubs will too. It's character building.

Well, I'm going to go knit on a sock for a while and watch the view. I just love it when they all gang up on Elisabeth Hasselback.