slightly mad..

I have 5 children in my house right now.. from 9 to 15.. watching Disney channel. I spent all afternoon grocery shopping (Costco, then groceries) then putting away the groceries.. cleaning the fridge (kinda) and then doing the resulting dishes. Then making dinner (it was late). There are now dishes to do again.. I need to get up to go to work at 4:00 am (yeah, I work every other Sat.) and right now, while I write a very short post this day.. this day in which I have not touched either yarn or violin.. the kitchen sink is drip, drip,drip,drip,dripping because the last child that but his dish in the sink from dinner did not turn it all the way off..... I'm off to save the earth by finishing the dishes and stopping a drip. My sanity will be a bit harder to save I think...

Can I get a witness??

Silent Crafting.

You may know that I work in a call center.. I like my job, even given all the jokes out there about customer service.. I've had horrible service too... But I've been doing this work for 20 years, and frankly I'm very good at it. It's an acting job really. Improv. One call there is a woman on the phone whose son just died, the next call a young woman is calling to change her name because she just got married.. you need to keep up with the emotions of the caller. Not everyone is made for this job, and many, many reps are there for 6 months to a year before they just walk out. True story.

Today however, I am not at work because I have a bad chest cold that caused me to have laryngitis. The only way to treat this is to shut up. Do not speak, do not yell at the children (nasty looks and a coach's whistle are what I resort to for scolding...) Lots of hot beverages to soothe your voice box, and with any luck.. peace and quiet. Once your voice box has been damaged, it will react quickly and swell up to protect itself from more damage.. one of the most reactive muscles of your body. This is why, when I get a chest cold.. I always end up silent.. It almost kills me, every time.

Today however I am going to be working on crafting. I have this huge list of things that need my attention. Some big projects, some small.. The list is on my dry wipe wall.. see?

I may try to get some of the little things done.. like "fix Monica's slipper", that wouldn't take long. I am, however in a race to finish a baby blanket for the neighbor lady, who is expecting a baby girl after 3 boys... here it is so far.. And yes, there is a cat underneath it, who can find a surface in my house not used by a cat?

Here is a bit of a close up on the pattern.. If you want it Joan let me know.. I'll mail you a copy. Wait until you see it done.. It has a fancy lacy edge too.. I have 3 little girls to make gifts for, so I may do another of these too.. frankly I started this yesterday morning. It goes quickly.


And then, last but not least, and as comedic relief.. I finished a dog coat for a friend of mine. I'd never done such a thing before, and wanted to make sure that it would work.. So I grabbed someone close to size and tried it on him..

I know that it was not kind.. and he was not amused.. in the royal sense of the word. But the family got a really big laugh out of this. And hey.. it fit, so another success.

A few pictures of the family

I recently had pictures taken of the family.. The last time pictures were taken of the whole family was 10 years ago.. or so. Picture taking can be a chore with my guys, but I found an amazing photographer.. Look at these amazing shots...

The whole family.

Dad and the boys.. great shot!

Mom and the boys.. You know.. what we really look like all the time.

Sam, at nearly 14, and looking so much more like a man than a boy. (sniff, sniff)

And Ben, so sweet and glorious. His face already manly.

And finally a picture of the boys at their best...

Back from Never, Never Blog Land

It's not that I don't love you all... it's not that I haven't thought of you since September, and the felling of the tree, and I probably could have jumped on the computer in the last (gulp) 3 months, but I had serious training for a new position at work (I LOVE IT!) and of course the everyday, everything that comes with motherhood, a crazy attempt to learn the violin, keeping my sanity with knitting, and a full time job. The housework is still on the back burner.. screw it. You know I keep wanting to start a new years resolution of getting an organized life.. work, coming home to be the homework Nazi, spending 30 minutes (several hours would be better) cleaning house, getting dinner started, practicing the violin for 40 minutes to an hour daily, finishing the dishes, getting the kids ready for bed, getting to bed at a decent hour and getting up refreshed and feeling in control of my life. Go ahead.. laugh at my pipe dream. I do.. I cannot tell you how much I admire the women I know that do this.. I know them, I marvel at them. The more years I go through, the more I am willing to concede that this is just not possible for me.. I am a true Aquarian, I am an artist who gets lost for hours in one project.. I start to feel my fingers hurt when playing the violin and realize I've been at it for 2 hours. Ahh Well.. I'll likely try again this year. I'm stubborn.

In the mean time, I thought I'd show you the newest projects that I've finished...

This is this year's cardigan.. Aran, Peruvian Wool.. very warm, and it took forever..

I really love it. It gets a lot of attention and I'm

okay with that.. After this I need some instant gratification projects. This is really a trend for me. I think I buy most of my sock yarn stash during the few weeks after a big project is done.

Now the little grey sweater is a new baby sweater.. no pattern, I just know how to do a sweater, in the round and cut down the middle now.. I have gained a great deal of satisfaction from that. And those of you out there with new little grandchildren.. I know you will love this little cardigan.. I think it's about a 6 month size.

The inside is lined it with a little black velvet ribbon.. Classic.

Last.. not least, I made some hats for my nieces Kaelie and Callie (identical twins.. different likes.. love those girls) and for Ben who did not want to be left out of the fun.. the knitting was not a big deal, but they all picked out the colors, and we dyed the wool. I was pleased with their choices.. Ben is the blue and red striped. Kaelie wanted the blues, and Callie the greens,browns, and golds.

I will say that I tried to get every comment next to the individual pictures, but the blog gods are angry with my absence so..

Now, let's see if I can be better this time. I have just had some pictures done of the whole family and I hope to do a post that has some of the photos.. they are magnificent.. really, really good. I won't say tomorrow.. but let us say soon..

The end of the tree

This is mostly a picture moment.. so I'm going to show the moment to you in pictures.. however I must say that the men who did this job today were amazing. They were very skilled and smiled and worked together well. They arrived at 8:30ish in the am and were done right after 11:00 am. I miss my tree, and yes Pam, I cried. On the other hand the amount of light that is in my house is exponentially greater, there is sky behind my house. I will be sending these pictures off to Northwest Tree service.. I have even more really good pictures and I think that they would like them. They certainly deserve them. Quite a morning...

Stitch Markers.. and the Joy they bring.

Joan just sent me her stitch markers that she made.. beautiful!


Now apparently the all purple/pink were made by her sister in law and are really pretty.. they are light, they are set with earring hoop thingies (technical knitting term for you muggles out there) which I really like because you can open them up and put them on your knitting at anytime, without knitting around until you are at the perfect point in the round.








Joan's are made with glass beads (I'm drooling all over the things!) they are heavier, but not too heavy at all.. I really like the weight of them. Joan used the lobster claw doohickeys, (another technical term, you're learning all kinds of things today!)
Joan's are the ones on the left hand side. Her sister in law's markers are on the right.(I never actually got her name with this so, I'm sorry Joan's sister in law, I would give credit if I could!)

Both of these markers are wonderful and serviceable.. I kinda want to combine them though.. I want the earring hoop thingies combined with the glass beads that Joan has done here, because I find that I cannot use Joan's markers over a 6 needle.. and I'm going to want to use these all of the time! The hoop thingy can be used up to a 10.5 needle. I tell ya.. Joan's markers are now my permanent Sock markers.. and I will be using the not yet named sister in laws markers for those sleeves for my sweater (they are on a size 10 needle.. )

Can you see the little pink and green beads on the left... this is so delicate in real life.. I'm really sorry that photography is not my medium today...


Thank you, thank you, thank you ladies.. there is nothing so cool to me than getting new tools for your obsession. Especially handmade tools that I did not have to
a. make
b. buy
I love them both!

Sweet Gum Rollercoaster..

Well the end of the tree thingy is that she has to come down. BLAH!

Two other experts said that the joinings are weak on this sort of tree and that the limbs are just going to keep coming down. You see the tree is really, really big.

This is a picture from the front of my little house.. the tree in the back, in the middle.. that's the one in the back yard.

This next one shows how much of the back yard is covered in tree. And our neighbor's roof is right on the other side of the play structure. So two houses and 7 (soon to be eight) children and 3 dogs and 3 cats at risk here.. Not counting the adults.

But she is so beautiful, and her colors in the fall are second to none in all of the neighborhood. We won't get pictures of this, as we will be taking her down as soon as the tree crew can fit us in. Right now the kids have been told the back yard is off limits, and that is just sad. I may have to spend some time in my swing, just to say goodbye (Lord help me, that just brought tears to my eyes. It really did.) I told the boys that we will build something to hold the swing (I need it man!) until the new tree that we plant gets big enough for it. We won't be able to plant until next spring at least, as the crew won't grind the stump until then.

I don't even know how to end this post. I am not really torn about this. It has to come down, we are so lucky that no one has been hurt.

However, it feels a lot like "Your arm has to come off.. that or you die" and that is just not news anyone wants to deal with. I'm wondering if I will have phantom pains for my tree.