I Had to Face the Truth Today

The T-man is taller than me. I had suspected it for a while, but refused to find out for sure. Bebe decided to do a comparison today. He is taller, but I am still the Mom!

Off the Hook

Mittens for Akkol is my favorite group to knit for. They can use a variety of things that I like to knit. There has been a real need for socks, but I just have not been able to knit socks lately. No matter what I try, nothing seems to work. Just as I decided that I had to get past that and knit some socks, another organization came through and donated enough socks to meet the current need. So I cheerfully cast on a pair of thrummed mittens towards the end of last week. I can't believe how fast I finished them. I also photographed the first pair of thrummed mittensthat I ever made. Both pairs will soon be on their way to Mittens for Akkol along with a really big pair of socks that I completed before the will to knit socks left me.

	I used this pattern, which is the first pattern I ever used for thrummed mittens. My next mittens will have a gusset thumb.
	This is me modeling one of the first pair of thrummed mittens that I started while visiting Kim.
>	Just so that Kim will believe that both are done.
	Just in case you want to know what the inside looks like.

Real Sick

I have been so sick that even doing math has not made me feel better. I have missed two days of work this week and plan to stay home tomorrow. I even went to the doctor. At least the mono test was negative.

That Darn Cat

Sporty is the T-man's cat. I tolerate Sporty because the T-man loves him. Lately Sporty has decided to make me miserable by hanging out under my computer desk and tickling my feet. I do not put up with tickling. Even my ex-husband could be trained to not tickle me. So, I filled a spray bottle with water and waited for the next tickle attack.

The cat actually likes being sprayed with water.

Look Quick!

I'm still ahead of the Knitting Wonder Woman, but I've heard that she has cast on. I expect her to be ahead of me before long.

I Think That I Am In The Lead

Hey Kim and Julsey, are you satisfied with the improved frequency of blog posts?

Ready, Set, Go!

Kim and I are off on an adventure. We have decided to try some new knitting techniques. We are starting small with this pattern. I've got my yarn and and a new gadget ready to go.

The pattern calls for a thinner yarn, but I'm using what I have on hand -- Cascade 220. Hopefully it will end up fitting one of my nieces' dolls.

I need to hurry and cast on before the Knitting Wonder Woman finishes hers.

A Real Post

Since yesterday I shamelessly poked fun at my dear friend Kim, I thought that I owed her a real post today.

I am test knitting a pattern for her. The yarn is Cascade 220.

What does it take?

I know that some of you are wondering what it takes to get me to actually do a post for my blog. Well, something monumental happened today and I must share it with you.

Kim did math.

All on her own.

For real.

6 - 7 - 8

The math geek in me can't help but notice that today is 6 - 7 - 8. It also is my birthday. The T-man is with his dad so we are going to celebrate later. I am going to knit all day.

Half Full or Half Empty?

Problem solved, but frogging is in my near future. I decided to knit the puppy sweater (middle of top row). Of course, I can't ever do it just like the pattern. I'm changing the colors to a red background and the puppy and stripes to black and white. I also am knitting it in the round. At least I hope to be able to knit it like a seamless yoke sweater.

So, I started out with the sleeves by the magic loop method (one long circular). I'm using the seamless yoke directions in The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns by Ann Budd. The directions say to use dpns and place a marker for the beginning of the round. Then to increase 1 stitch each side of the marker every 6 rounds. Well, with magic loop, I'm at the beginning of my round when I get back to "home position". So my increases are in the first and last stitch.

The sleeve on the left frustrated me. I tried several different types of increases, but I was left with a protruding bump every time I increased. I resolved to go forward and hope that washing and blocking would help. Then it dawned on me that it would not harm anything to move my increases in a stitch. The picture does not show great detail, but the sleeve on the right has a much smoother line for the increases. I ended up doing a make 1 after the first stitch and before the last stitch.

So, my glass is half empty because I have to frog the left sleeve. It just bugs me too much. But on the other hand, it is half full because I learned something that will make me a better knitter.

Grandma's Flowers

These are my Grandma's flowers. I did not get her green thumb. She sent me off to college with an air fern and an aloe plant. Grandma said that I could not kill them. She was wrong. One year I wanted to grow green beans and can them like she did. I suspect that when I was away at work, that Grandma came over and took care of my bean plants. These plants have been blooming in her yard every year all of my life.














Edited to add: I was out talking to my mother this afternoon. She said that she has identified 5 different varieties of these flowers in the yard. She also told me that my Daddy remembers hunting Easter eggs in these flowers -- so they have been here a really long time.

Our Trip

The T-man and I got in the car at 3:30 am on recent Saturday morning to go visit Kimberly and kids. I always seem to have some crazy things happen when I travel and this trip was no exception.

I had found a really sweet deal on the internet for parking at half what I would have to pay at the airport with a free shuttle to the airport that would drop me off right where I needed to be.

The T-man was navigating for me and reading off the directions, but we still missed the parking place and the next thing I knew we were driving into the airport parking. It was still very early and very dark and I was starting to worry about the time. For some reason, my brain thought I the trip to the airport took less time than it actually did. So, I sort of panicked and grabbed the first parking spot I could find. Since I had planned to park away from the airport, I had not even looked up which terminal I needed to go to. God was with us. We were exactly where we needed to be. Of course, it would have helped if I had paid better attention to the signs and gotten in the right line once we got inside, but we still managed to get our bags checked and get to our gate in plenty of time.

This was the first time the T-man had flown. He was sooooooo excited ...until we stepped on the plane. We had to grab a barf bag. It seemed like it took forever for them to take off. T-man was getting upset. I thought that we were going to have to get off the plane. I have to hand it to him, he was doing great in spite of being so nervous. He told me later that he had figured out that that he could get off the plane and let me go on alone. He would just wait at the airport for his grandparents to come get him. Like I would leave him in the Atlanta airport.

Once the plane finally took off, he loved it! Many hugs and "I love you Mom!" followed. We saw a lot of really neat clouds. The T-man took several photos. These are our favorites.

We landed in Dallas without any problems. The T-man was a little nervous about landing, but did really good. We made our way through the airport and to the gate for our flight on a very small plane (I think the term is puddle jumper) to make our way to Kimberly's (current) home town. The T-man is a seasoned traveler by now and thinks the whole thing is cool.

About mid-flight the captain announces that we can expect some turbulence. T-man looks a little concerned, but I explain to him that it is no big deal, just that the ride may get a little bumpy. The turbulence did not bother him at all, but I thought that I would need the barf bag. I was trying so hard to hold it all together and not let him know that I was having a hard time. After a while, he noticed something was wrong and was so sweet to reassure me that all was OK.

We did not get any cloud pictures for this flight because we flew through the clouds.

Kimberly and I have been e-pals (T-man's term) for a little over two years now, but we had never met in person or even talked on the phone, but the visit was great! T-man wants me to send him back, flying by himself, to spend the summer. Not going to happen. But, I hope we get to go back for another visit.

Caleb took a little longer to decide that I was OK.

I took a suitcase full of acrylic yarn that I would have never used now that I have touched the good stuff to Kimberly's kids. I have never seen kids so excited about yarn.

Two of the kids used some of the yarn to knit bookmarks for me from some of that yarn. Jessi's is on the left. I did not get a good picture, but it has taken me so long to get this post done, that I am going with what I have. She embellished it with some stitching around the edge. Jac's are shown on the right. He made two. Both enjoyed going through my knitting bag and asking about the various gadgets.









I have called Kimberly the Knitting Wonder Woman for some time and now that I have seen her in action I can assure you all that the title is deserved. She knitted more than me while taking care of 5 kids and 2 guests. She was the ultimate hostess -- when she would get ahead of me, she would stop and do something else to let me catch up.

The Christian Artisans group is having a KAL. The idea is to actually make something for ourselves. We are knitting the Bar Harbor Shell Bag. Mine is the purple one. I'm up to round 4 now. Kimberly hasn't mentioned hers in a while. She has probably finished and is just being nice.

Kimberly helped me with my first ever yarn dyeing project. I'm really looking forward to knitting this up and to dyeing some more. Kimberly just couldn't resist. I mean she was nice and didn't do any weaving while I was there because she knows I just can't take on a new hobby now. But, we rationalized that dyeing yarn is not really a new hobby since it is part of my knitting hobby life.

And here is my airplane knitting. Two sleeves for a toddler sweater. CIC is currently collecting small sweaters. I'm using this opportunity as an excuse to try out several sweater patterns and styles of sweaters. More details in future posts (yes, Kimberly, I promise to post).

Wow, this is probably my longest post ever, but it was a really great trip. Just what I needed -- a nice calm long weekend with kids to entertain the T-man and a great friend to knit with.

God Has a Sense of Humor

I am acting chair of the PE department at the college where I work.

DB#2 said: "The screen writers can stay on strike with quality real life comedy like that."