Things I like about Canada (in no particular order)












1. Good beer (Moose Head, Labatts, Molson)

2. They drink the beer in pubs, not bars. It sounds so much more civilised.

3. Using 's' instead of 'zed' in some words, and throwing in the random 'u'.

4. Great Big Sea


5. Great yarns - Patons, Koigu, Shelridge Farms, Fleece Artist for example


6. Hockey

7. Colder weather, therefore more opportunities to wear wool.

8. Feel the need for a little French fix? Montreal and Quebec


9. They have kilt wearing bagpipers too!


10. Mounties look darn good in the red jacket, campaign hat and boots.

11. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland

12. Back bacon, maple syrup, and poutine (not all together!)


13. Want cowboys and huge mountains? Go west, young man, to Calgary and Banff.


14. Puffins, moose, and elk


15. Rush


16. William Shatner, Dan Aykroyd, and Kiefer Sutherland


17. They sit on a chesterfield drinking Timmies.


Happy Victoria Day to our neighbours in the Great White North! Please, don't get so pissed on the 24 that you yak.

Who doesn't like a little Christopher Walken?

Mommmmm, I'm boooored

Those of us that have kids all know that sound. Those of us that were kids know that sound.

When I signed up for this gig, I don't recall "social director" being on the form. Cook, laundress, scullery maid, and orifice wiper were definitely on the list of duties. Social director, not so much.

So when I heard that keening cry coming from the Girl two weeks ago during spring break, I promptly suggested she knit something. The idea stuck like a lip locked pair of teenage prom dates.

With every ball of yarn she pulled out of my stash, I quickly dashed her hopes. 420m ball of Kauni? Nope, need that for a sweater. Purple ball of Galway? Future sweater.

Her response? Eye rolling and sass.

So we went to the LYS, after an hour and one half, she finally picked out a ball of Malabrigo in a pretty blue. She has 1 1/2 row of her swatch done. Did I mention this was two weeks ago?

Meanwhile, here's a picture of a huge pretzel with the ball of yarn and minuscule swatch thrown in for scale.

Thank a Cop

It's not often I feel the need to let my feelings be known concerning current affairs, and when I do, I try to do it with humor. But there is nothing funny about police officers being gunned down while doing their job.

In recent weeks, 7 police officers have lost their lives in the line of duty. The first four were Oakland police officers that lost their lives in an attempt to apprehend a man that was out on parole who was hell bent on not going back to jail. This all started with a "simple" traffic stop.

Just two days ago, three police officers lost their lives in Pittsburgh during a "simple" domestic dispute call. The first two officers were shot in the head at the front door of the house. The third lost his life trying to help his brothers in blue. He had just finished his shift and was on his way home when he heard the call for help.

Being the spouse of a police officer for the past 15 years has given me a different perspective on these shootings than the general public. My first thoughts are for the spouses and children these fallen heroes may have had. When I was pregnant 9 years ago (unexpectedly, and with twins), I had a bit of a panic attack.

As I was driving home from a doctor's appointment, I suddenly became worried that the Husband might die in the line of duty with me, a stay at home mother of two young children, with twins on the way, left alone. I quickly realized that this kind of thinking would take me no where except down the road to a nervous wreck. So I have learned not to dwell on what could happen, and just try not to pick a fight with him right before he leaves for work.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of gratitude towards America's service men and women. You've seen the yellow ribbons on cars, and I'm sure a few of you have knitted socks and balaclavas to be sent to the troops protecting us from overseas threats. Please, let's not forget about the men and women keeping us safe here at home.

If you want to show your appreciation there are little things you can do. The next time you get pulled over for speeding, don't curse the police officer under your breath. He's not stopping you because he has a quota. He's stopping you because your speed could pose a potential danger for other drivers.

The next time you see the local constable, wave and say hello. Don't be surprised if he gives you a suspicious look, because no one ever does that. Better yet, you could introduce yourself, shake his hand and say "thank you for your service". Or better still, if you're feeling generous, stop by the department with gift certificates to the local eatery, they'd even be happy with McDonald's.

If you do this, you might get to know your local police officers better, and you'll learn that they are just hardworking people trying to make a living like the rest of us.

MMM, Purdy

I'm not one for joining as I've mentioned here before, but I really wanted to join this knitting club. It's the Embrace the Lace club. Y'all know how these things work. They suck you in. Even though you pay good money for your monthly (bi-montly, or whatever the case may be) shipment, you con yourself into thinking you got something for free because it is a surprise when it shows up.

It's a surprise because you're not sure when it will get to you, and you don't know what's in the box. The good people at Woolgirl are just sending you this stuff out of the goodness of their hearts. At least that's what I tell myself since I paid for it oh so many months ago, it's like getting it for free!

It's my logic and it works for me. Now, if I can just get it to work on the Husband.

Is it just me?

Or does anyone else this time of year shout out and point while driving, "Look, kids, leaves! There are leaves on those bushes!"

No? All righty, then.

Maybe we'd be better off...

if all of our politicians had a sense of humor.

My Eyes!

What is that thing making my eyes want to squinch closed? The sun? You don't say...

Finally, we have a wee little bit of sun around here, and I'm not wearing a coat. Pfffftht, on you, Mr. Winter. I probably shouldn't have raspberried him. I don't want to tick him off so he comes back full force.

Due to the lack of sun, I've not taken any pictures of my current projects. But, now, here they are.

This is sock 1 and 1/4 of the Elongated Corded Rib pattern in Charlene Schurch's most excellent book Sensational Knitted Socks. I highly recommend this book if you're interested in knitting socks and want to learn.

I'm using Austermann Step for these socks, and I love this yarn. It has aloe and jojoba oil in the fiber making it really soft. I can't wait to wear them. I think they could become my favorites.

I started on the Girl's Sheldon. Except, she's Shelly. I just have to finish the I-cord around the shell and sew on the legs. Hopefully this will not sit for a year like the first Sheldon. I have 5 more Sheldon's to go!

Gams

Sheldon finally has gams (legs) nearly a year later. I sewed his legs on Sunday evening, and gave him to the Middle Nephew when the whole family was here. Middle Nephew is the turtle afficianado of the group.

I've since finished the body on the blue one I promised for the Girl. I have to make sure I get this one done sooner, because I also promised one to Thing 1, Thing 2, the Boy, Littlest Nephew, and, whether he wants one or not, the Biggest (14 year old) Nephew. That's 6 Sheldon's.

If I work at my usual pace (!), I can give Biggest Nephew one for his college dorm room. I'm sure that will go over big.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Setting: the car
Characters: Me
Thing 1 (8 years old)

Thing1: I don't want kids meals anymore.

Me: Why not?

Thing1: I'm not a kid anymore. I'm a man.

Distracted, but Productive

We are on day 2 of the "biggest winter storm of the season". At least that is what the local weather people are calling it. Well, duh. I guess they are having a hard time coming up with superlatives.

It's really rather pretty. We had a bunch of snow yesterday, over night everything received a protective coating of ice, and now, I can barely see my neighbor's house for the Buick-sized snow flakes that are coming down like a hard rain. I'm glad I have no where to go.

I took some pictures before the kidlets were awake, and before they had the yearning to do what kids do. That is go outside and turn the pretty into not so pretty. You know what they are going to do to those icicles. Please ignore the Christmas tree stand in the bottom right corner that is still attached to the tree. I'll get to it, soonish.

div>

Now, the productive part. I started this Monday evening, and finished yesterday. It's Calorimetry using Manos del Uruguay in the Wildflower colorway. I only cast on 98 stitches (the pattern calls for 110) and repeated row 5 twelve times instead of 15. I have a smallish head.

This is a fun and easy pattern. It's a good introduction of short rows if you've never worked them before. I have enough of my yarn left over that I could probably eke out another one. The Girl has expressed interest in it. I can't have nuthin'.

There you have it

It's been 3 days since the inauguration and I think we've had enough time that we can put it into perspective. I didn't see one unicorn dancing on my lawn the day after. Nor was there a rainbow over my house with a pot of gold. Gasoline is not free, and my mortgage did not magically get paid off.

Don't get me wrong. I hope for nothing but the best from our new president. If he succeeds at his job, we all succeed. But to hear some people rhapsodize about President Obama, you would have thought that this would be the end to all of our problems.

I just hope (there's that word) that some people won't be horribly disappointed when it's the same old song and dance out of Washington.

Slash



You meet knitters in the most unexpected places, like the ER doc at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.



Last evening while waiting for 4 hours in the ER (the staff kept telling everyone that they had never been this busy before, ever) I got some knitting done. Quite a bit actually. Thing 1 inexplicably decided to put a marble in his mouth. I guess you know where I'm going with this.



But since he wasn't choking or having trouble breathing, I made the executive decision to consult the Husband later and sent all the kidlets to bed. When the Husband arrived home from the night out with his buddy, he decided that maybe we should have Thing 1 x-rayed just to make sure. I got the short straw.



So while Thing 1 dozed in the exam room, I worked on the newest sock. It's the Beaded Rib pattern from Charlene Schurch in her most excellent book Sensational Knitted Socks worked in Austermann Step. The exam room was the best place to work on the short row heel.



This pattern is worked from the toe-up and the short row heel requires much concentration. For me, at least. This was only my second pair of toe-ups. Luckily I had the forsight to bring all of the paraphanalia with me. I pulled the little table over to my chair, you know, those little tables on wheels that are designed to slide over hospital beds.



So the doc came in (finally) while I had my pattern book and stitch markers all spread about, and immediately said "Hey, you're making a sock! How long does it take you to make a sock? I'm the world's slowest knitter. I made my daughter a blanket, and I knit on that thing forever. When I was done it was no bigger than a doily!"



I immediately liked and trusted her.



Thing 1 is fine. This, too, will pass. I've added a slash to my job description - Mom/laundress/cook/driver/scullery maid/poop checker.

I don't want to brag or anything...

but have any of you signed up for Twitter? It's pretty clever. It's blog-lite. If you don't have the time or inclination for a full fat blog post, you can tweet. It's a good way to jot down random thoughts and observations or keep in touch with distant (distant in a spatial way, not emotional) friends.

Anywhoodle, you can also follow other twitters and they can follow your tweets just like bloglines and such. There are some well known people tweeting. John Cleese and Amy R. Singer, for example. (Wouldn't you just love to be lumped into the "well known" category with the likes of John Cleese?)

In addition to the above luminaries, I am following Stephen Fry of Jeeves and Wooster, Peter's Friends, and Wilde fame. I've always thought that Mr. Fry (we aren't on a first name basis, yet) was terribly clever. In addition to being an actor/director, he writes (novels and plays), and it turns out that he is now following me! I won't mention what puckered when I received the email letting me know that I had a new follower.

I've not twitted in a few days, because I now have the added pressure to be witty. Talk about twitter's block!

What is your Return Policy?

Is it possible to return the flu? Sure, I know I can re-gift it (I passed it on to the Husband), but I didn't want it, and I want to return it.

It started about 2am on Christmas Eve. On top of feeling like I'd been run over by a jolly elf's sleigh, I was also worried about all of the things that still needed to be done. I was literally sick and worried, and let's throw in tired for good measure. It managed to get done, but now I have the Herculean task of tidying up. You have no idea how much 4 kidlets without parental supervision (well, a parent that gives a jingle bell about how the house looks) can trash a house in 24 short hours. In the Husband's defense, he did manage to feed the kidlets. Meanwhile, making me more nauseous with the smell of cooking chili.

But I think the best gift I've received is this one: the Gaggs (my mother in law) picked up the kidlets about an hour ago to take them to PD's (the sister in law) house so they can celebrate Christmas with their cousins. I can spend the rest of the afternoon in my p.j.s, with the remote (something I never get, ever), and my knitting, recovering. The house can wait til tomorrow.

Happy Christmakwanzaakuh (or whatever you celebrate), and may you find peace and joy in the small things.

It's begining to look a lot like...bleah

The annual holiday hurl is upon us. I awoke last night to sound of one of the kidlets yaking. It was the Girl. I gave her my sympathy and sent her back to bed. Periodically, I'd hear her bowing to the porcelain, send her my telepathic sympathy, and go back to sleep. I know, I'm a rotten mom. But, honestly, the Girl is the precision puker in the family. I knew that there would be no mess to clean up.

This morning when I came down the stairs to the family room, all four kidlets looked like death. They had all been up during the night! I had a few spots to scrub on the carpet. My children really are considerate. They didn't want to wake me to let me know that I might want to clean the carpet before it soaked in. The little red buckets have been handed out for the times they can't make it to the vomitorium, and the rule is that the bucket must be with you at all times.

Every year (with the exception of two), the kidlets have had the flu at Christmastime. This is another reason Christmas makes me cranky.

Lost in Translation

Groovy

Scene: the living room

Characters: the Husband
Big Steve (former hippie)

the Husband: Hey, do you have a GPS yet?

Big Steve: Nah.

the Husband: You really ought to get one.

Big Steve: Nah, man. I don't care where I'm at.

I Can Hear My Mother Now







"If (insert friend's name here) were jumping off a bridge..." Now, in my defense, I had every intention of starting the scarf long before she made a few. She just got to it first.

Yep, that's the Noro striped scarf that all of the cool kids are making. I think I did o.k. picking out the colors online when all I had to judge the colors by was a wee little picture. So far the striping is pretty awesome. The greens, browns, and blacks from the two different skeins seem to be coming up at the same time giving a rather muted striping effect. Those two skeins are colors 221 and 245. We'll see what happens when I start using color 279.

I could see making multiples of this scarf, because it's fun and good watchin' t.v. knittin'.

I've also decided that I don't have enough wool sweaters. It's shameful really. I'm a knitter fer cryin' out loud. I really only have two wool sweaters that are good for indoors. One is a Goodwill buy. It's a Woolrich sweater. It's a henley tunic length made out of a sport weight heathered blue wool. It's nice and warm, but not too heavy. The other is my 'go to' sweater.

My other wool sweaters are those really heavy thick cabled aran type sweaters that are perfect for wearing outside when you don't want to wear a coat. I like pretending I'm in an LLBean catalogue! You know the one I'm talking about. It's the photo of the healthy looking model outside in the snow draging a Christmas tree along behind her wearing the rubber snow boots that they are known for with her flannel lined jeans, earwarmers, mittens, and cabled sweater.

So to remedy my problem of not having enough warm wooly 'inside' sweaters, I'm knitting furiously on the Malabrigo cardigan I started in September. I'm doing a modified drop shoulder, and I'm almost done with the back. My goal is to have 7 indoor wool sweaters. One for each day of the week. Maybe I'll reach my goal in a couple of years!

Christmas Makes Me Cranky

Are you one of those people that really don't like Christmas, but you keep your mouth shut so as not to ruin the fun of those magnificently silly people that are covered in colored sugar like a cookie and wear blinking Christmas themed pins/necklaces/ties? I'll come out of the closet and admit it. Christmas is not my favorite holiday.

Maybe it's because I feel the need to please those that 'get the Christmas spirit'. Yeah, the kidlets want the house decorated and pretty for Christmas, but who does all the work? Mom. Would it kill them to put the empty boxes away once they have decorated the house?

And don't get me started on the presents and the subterfuge that is involved with kidlets that still believe in Santa! Oi, vey.

I'm a home body. I love nothing more that to be at home on a cold winter's evening watching t.v. (even if it is Spongebob, because I never get control of the remote, ever) in my jammies. But, yet, there is another party we have to go to. Bah humbug.div>

I just get done making a lavish meal - all from scratch - for Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday, because it's just about the food and being with family and friends without the added bonus of gift buying/wrapping and decorating), when I have to do it again for Christmas! I just got the kitchen cleaned up, now I have to dirty it again? By cooking? Can't we just order a pizza?

The part I do like about Christmas is the week between Christmas and New Years. All of the hoopla is over, and the kidlets and I declare it jammie week. That's right, a week of jammies with nothing to do but eat leftovers and cookies, play games and take many naps. O.k., that last part is mostly me.