Party - Check!

3rd birthday done!!

We had bags of loot.

Ariel and hula hoops for the girls. Lightning McQueen McQueen and frisbees for the boys. CD's and whistles for everyone. There were 2 toddlers at the party and they got little trucks with sand toys. Also 7 (yeah, 7!) infants.

A water park.

This was Clarabel's gift from Ken's parents. The hose attaches to the orange arches and sprays out over the slide. It was a wee bit chilly for splashing in hose water but the kids didn't mind.
In the background is the totally completed veggie garden. There are a few tomatoes and a cucumber.

And we had cake.

Ta da!!! We named it Horton the Teapot. Ken did all the decorating and felt the spout was a bit elephant like. Ken is very intrigued by the cherry and solar system ideas. I say very good guesses. My birthday is next and I think I might bake myself up a fancy cake too, there is a pineapple cake pan that I might like. (FYI- My local bulk food store rents cake pans.)

We are packing up tonight and heading to my parents for the long weekend. It feels like we have been racing non-stop the last 2 weeks and I'm really anxious for some unrushed time. Also looking forward to a little sleep. I decided this morning that I am officially sleep deprived, midnight is not a good bedtime for me, especially 3 days in a row. Silly, silly girl!!

Happy Canada Day!

Mostly Incoherent Ramblings

Hot.

Really Hot.

Africa Hot.

This has been my mantra all day, 2 days really. Here's what I have done about the heat- consumed energy. The air conditioning is on, all the room and the ceiling fans are on and I ran the dishwasher twice. Not proud of my behaviour but otherwise I am way to cranky to survive and 2 children are dependent on me for their survival. You see, I hardly have a choice.

It has actually cooled down a bit and we are expecting a thunderstorm. Bring on the rain! I hate having the air on and all the windows closed. It feels like we are isolated in our house. Likely because we are.

Onto other topics...

If you look to your right you will notice that I have joined a knit-along. Big step for me, it is my first knit-along. I have never joined one because I feared the pressure of knitting the same thing as a big group. What if I can't keep up? What if mine is really bad and everyone else's is gorgeous? Clearly these are not serious concerns, I can't imagine that I would be blacklisted from the all knit-alongs for being a slow knitter or even abandoning the project in mid-stitch. (right?)

The Kauni KAL made a lot of sense. I am in way over my head with this pattern and can use all the help I can get. Also I am going to finish this sweater come whatever may and someone has to bring up the rear of the KAL.

I am patiently waiting for the yarn to arrive. I would really love for it to come before the weekend. We are going to my parents and I will have a little free time to get started.

I thought I would catch you all up with my current projects before I embark on this olympic knit.

I have cast on Ken's 2nd sock. Seen here on Laila's exersaucer. She is still a bit wee for it but Clarabel enjoys playing with all the toys.



The other project I am working on at a very slow pace, slow meaning not really at all, is a baby cardigan. I am testing knitting it for Elinor at Exercise Before Knitting. (link on my sidebar)


It is turning out really big despite my tension being ok. It is a gift and must be delivered in August so I will have to get moving.

I am dutifully staying up way past bedtime to burn CD's for Clarabel's loot bags. (Her birthday is Saturday and we are having a party with her buddies on Friday morning, she'll be 3.) I made a CD with her favorite tunes for her 1st birthday and just continued the tradition. Big list of preparations and chores to get done tomorrow and much house cleaning!!

This is the Wilton sports ball cake pan


Any ideas what I might be doing with this? Stay tuned.
(I am not making a sports ball cake!)

p.s. pitted and froze another 32 cups of cherries. please no more, please no.

A Thatsa Bowl Full Of...

CHERRIES!


A Thatsa Bowl is 32 cups.

My new pitter ready to go


I have a few helpful hints when pitting 32 cups of cherries.

HH#1- If possible remove stems and leaves while picking cherries. Do not pick half eaten fruit, leave them on the tree for the assorted wildlife to finish.

HH#2- Do not wear your fancy new tanktop for cherry pitting, it is messy messy work.

HH#3 - Do invest in a cherry pitter that has a fancy splatter guard. Without it you are going to have to hose down the entire kitchen. With it you only have to hose down yourself.

HH#4 - 32 cups of cherries is about 16 cups too many to handle at one sitting.


More cherries.
Those are double layers!

You might be wondering what I am planning to do with 18 bazillion pitted cherries? I am freezing them and will use them in smoothies through out the winter. I might get Martha and make a pie or something. Clarabel and I froze 14 gazillion strawberries also. Peaches next.

The pitter exhausted.

32 cups of cherries produces 6 cups of pits. Which is 1/2 of a Thatsa Bowl Jr.

Lots more cherries!

Not Much, But Something

Phew! This week has flown by in a whirlwind. I'm certain I slept through Wednesday. I prefer noticing the days pass as I enjoy them.

Here is a quick update-

Thursday was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year and my mother's bday! Happy Birthday Mom, she turned, well... I'll let her tell you. To celebrate her birthday she played in the grandmother's tournament at her golf club. She did quite well, she got a birdie on a par 5. Yeah mom!!!

The cherry pitter is purchased. It works great. The cherries are very nearly ready and I imagine I will be pitting up a storm this weekend. I'll get pictures.

Still haven't cast on my second sock.

Laila slept through the night last night. However the night did not start until midnight and ended at 6 am. I believe I would prefer a 10pm bedtime with one wake-up. I am well aware that I have very little choice in the matter.

Clarabel and Laila both had shots today. Clarabel has not once in her life cried or even flinched getting a shot. She decided that it wasn't going to hurt because she was a big sister. Though when I asked who should go first, she was quick to say "Laila". I can't quite say the same for Laila, she had to have 2 and made it very clear that she did not enjoy them. When she woke up from her nap she was miserable and had a fever. I gave her a shot of Tylenol. I hate that the cycle has started.

I Believe I Am Shutdown

I think I must retire my visa card. I have gone a bit off the deep end. It is very possible that in addition to purchasing imported yarn that I took myself shopping yesterday and purchased several new shirts. (Really, I can't be walking around in shirts that are too small for heaven's sakes. Who wants to see my rather round middle?) Then today I might have taken that same smoking visa to Sherway Mall where it might have been used at Pottery Barn Kids.

But cute!!! We have been trying to find a chair for Clarabel for a long time. The pink tote, well, she needs somewhere to put all her books. Yeah, I'm encouraging her to read. Do not be fooled there were several more items in the bag but some of them were on sale. I think I am on a shopping freeze. (At least until I am back to my regular size and I can invest in a serious collection of awesome clothes. Key word: invest)


Clarabel was downstairs playing with Laila's exersaucer. Laila thought she would creep in to give the chair a try. She liked it, at least until she lost her balance and Ken had to catch her.


As promised a finished item!! Behold a gray sock. Kitchener stitched up and all. I have yet to cast on for the next one, maybe tonight. I do not fear SSS as I am a desperately symmetric person and could not survive with just 1 sock. Ken is quite pleased with it. Notice the clutter, it is actually starting to not even bother me. Perhaps because I am so busy spending money.


And because it is so pretty, here is our tree.

I tasted one after I took the picture, they are not ready yet. Soon. I really must find a cherry pitter.

It's Done

The yarn is purchased. Hopefully Uta is packing it up and sending it on it's way to us as I type. I recruited a few friends. Thanks Renee and Rhonda for facilitating my yarn shopping! Well really thanks to everyone, no one thought it was a bad idea. Except my sister but she hardly counts, she doesn't knit.

It turns out that Uta is not in Denmark but Germany. Apologies to her for getting that wrong. She is lovely and very helpful.

That's all for now. I am off to Knitting at Knoon to get help with a little finishing. Tomorrow a FO!!!!! Can you believe it?

I Can Hardly Stand Myself!

Our superb Yarn Harlot is knitting a cardigan. It is haunting me and I must have it. The yarn must come from Denmark and the pattern requires steeks. I have never steeked but feel I must learn, especially that 2007 is the year to improve my knitting skills and it can't be impossible, right? I have sent a kind email off to a nice Danish yarn store owner, I could not figure out her name as the site is in Danish. I am now waiting her reply.

In the meantime I am trying to figure out how many dollars I am willing to spend on this dream.
Here are some of my thoughts-
My paternal grandfather was Danish, they immigrated when he was 14, so I should, at some point in my life, support my Danish heritage.
I haven't really spend much (any) money on yarn for quite some time and certainly none to knit something for myself.
It is so very gorgeous and where will I ever find colors like that again. (This is the winning argument)
Am I totally crazy thinking that I should import yarn from very far away to knit a project that then requires me to cut it up? Perhaps there should be a less complicated learning steek event. (This is the losing argument, why knit something yicky to learn and isn't it the project that is compelling me to learn a new skill?)

I will wait patiently for her reply and then decide. Perhaps I shall put forth a proposal to my father that he support his Danish heritage on my behalf, you know for my birthday or Christmas or belated Mother's Day or something. Can't hurt to ask, though likely this proposal will meet the same roadblocks as the one that requested that he pay for my glasses because I inherited nearsightness from him.

Keep you posted!!

YO HO!

We've done it! Last night Ken and I managed to take ourselves out to a movie and see the final installment of Pirates of the Caribbean. It was GREAT! A little more violence and gore than I like but otherwise fantastic. Several people told us that it was a confusing plot, to them I say "Obviously you are not a serious fan, you should have studied up before you went."

I am not ashamed to tell you that I did not think of my children once until we got in the car to go home, then it occurred to me that Laila might have been screaming for a little while. Luckily no, she was quite content with her Nana. However Clarabel had woken up and was not interested in going back to bed so it turned out to be a really late night, it was almost 1am before Ken and I were asleep.

I have some knitting to show, it's not new but it hasn't seen the blog yet.
This is the very first sweater I made. Truthfully, it is the only adult sweater that I have ever made. Well... I made one for Ken but it had to be entirely ripped back. Does that count? I'm thinking no. Anyhoos, here it is



It is called Shadow Cable Option made from Patons Classic Merino. The book is called Weekend Retreat, Patons # 923. I just pulled it out and there are some really good patterns in it. Several that I could do for Ken...one day...

So here's the story of my sweater. Once upon a time I was dating someone other than my husband and decided to knit him a sweater. I should say upfront that at this point in my knitting career I was ignorant of the sweater curse. I headed out to the LYS, I was living in St. Catharines then. The LYS was run by a lovely lady, I want to call her Eileen. She was very helpful in choosing the pattern and yarn and such, being that I was a beginner I had no idea what I was doing. Home I went and cast on, I can not be certain but likely I did not do a tension swatch. I was about 2 inches into the back of the sweater and had used 2 of the 5 colors, though not all the ball and the relationship came to an end. After some tears and some rum (I really do like rum) I ripped it out and marched back to the yarn store to exchange the yarn. (Please note- rum drinking and driving to LYS did not take place on the same day.) Eileen was very sympathetic, she said that maybe we would get back together, I said no that I was better off without him. Right away Eileen understood and was 100% committed to getting me knitting a healing sweater for myself. In hindsight I think Eileen was the nicest yarn shop owner I have ever come across. I imagine she has gone on to the great yarn store in the sky by now, hope she is knitting on and helping others choose yarn and patterns.

That is the beginning (it appears that this is going to be a long story) This sweater took me about 3 years to knit. I started in January 1999 and finished Fall 2001. It pays homage to my journey to become a better knitter. I learned to knit by following instructions in a book and I did not read them properly because I was knitting into the back of the stitch. Which as you likely all know, twists the stitch. The front and the back are both knit with twisted stitches. At that point in the sweater's progress I moved to Toronto (to be closer to Ken and stay with my sister). I signed up for a knitting group at Village Yarns. Suddenly my eyes were opened to the world of knitting. The teacher for the group was Gloria, she taught me how to knit properly. I was halfway through the second sleeve when she met me and said straight out that I should rip the entire sweater out and start over. I settled with just the sleeve. So both sleeves are knit with nice even stitches.

I also took a finishing course with Gloria so the sewing up on the sweater is actually pretty good. I just assessed it with my seasoned eyes.

It is a little pilly and a bit big but very comfy and warm. I wear it with pride!!

We've Been To The Zoo, Zoo, Zoo...

How about you, you, you...

Immensely pleased that the family zoo day if over and we can stop singing that song. Ken's parents treat us all to an annual trip to the Toronto Zoo. I was a bit apprehensive about bringing Laila out in the sun and hot all day but it worked great. She slept most of the day and our Chariot Carrier kept the sun off of her. It was really a good day and the weather was sunny but not sweating. (I can not tolerate sweating hot weather, I faint.) I missed worldwide knit in public day which is a bit of a bummer but I'll knit in public tomorrow to catch up.

The day ended after dinner when Ken, his dad and brother got into a debate about global warming. They love debating, often they take a side that they don't necessarily believe just to argue. Topics are always highly controversial and mostly involve politics and religion. Really fun times for the rest of us.

Anyhoos, being that Ken and I are both environmental scientists we like to think that we are good stewards of the earth and are doing our part to save the world. (I'm don't mean only global warming.) But the reality is we aren't really doing much above what the average folks do.

I thought it would be a good idea if everyone posted what they are doing to reduce, reuse, recycle and save resources. I am starting a meme. (Can I do that?) Or perhaps it is more of a brainstorming and sharing of ideas. Either way, I hope you play along. To get you started, you knit with wool and it is a renewable resource.

Here is my list:

-We recycle paper, cans, glass... all the household stuff. (Though I am sure I could do more)
-We use compact fluorescent light bulbs.
-In our search for a new car we are hoping to find a hybrid car or a highly fuel efficient one.
-We buy local goods and produce as often as possible, I shop at the farmer's market and buy from the farmer's, we avoid Wal-Mart and other huge retailers when possible.
-The majority of our garden is extremely low maintenance and requires no watering, we don't use any chemicals except transplant fertilizer.
-Use ceiling and area fans to keep air cool and restrict air conditioning as much as possible. Which is quite hard b/c I really hate the sweating.
-I use reuseable bins at the grocery store instead of plastic bags, I bring home as few bags as possible, we are getting started using reusable bags now.
-As we renovate our house we are insulating better and closing up draughts to keep the heat in.
-Ken bikes to work when he can and we live close to his office so it is a short distance to drive.


Here is what I would like to add to my list:

-Install a hot water heater insulator.
-Get back into composting.
-Dry laundry outdoors.
-Sew up some rags and little towels to use instead of the umpteen thousand paper towels we go through.
-Source more local farmer's so we can find produce and meat when the market is closed.
-Totally eliminate chemical cleaners from my house. (This of course requires that I clean more regularily so the less harsh cleaners can handle the job.)
-Buy a new and more efficient fridge. (This is really for the environment!!!)


So I am tagging some folks. Gee, I hope this catches on and I am not out here all by myself. I'm looking forward to what everyone has to say on this topic.

Sarah
Samantha
Mandi
Renee
Sabrina

Never Ending Makeovers...

Well, here's what I've done... Last night was our last guild meeting before the summer. I was very excited about leaving my children at home and knitting in the company of other adults. We had a planning meeting for next year and some how I got a little carried away and now I am the president of the club. I believe my official title is Head Knitter. It's just as well really because I love the guild and I am totally happy to get involved and keep it going. With all the planning and decisions we made I did not do any knitting, didn't even take it out of my bag.

Okay on to garden pictures. I am a bit behind on the chronicle of blooms in my garden. I missed a few things but then I'll have pictures for next year.

This is Baptisia. It is one of my favorites because it is beautiful and I grew it from seed.

Columbine

And a poppy. I said a little while back that our garden was mostly native plants with the exception of a peony. Well, I lied because apparently I have a poppy too and it is beautiful and is growing like stink. The peony, not so great. It looked nice for a bit then flopped over and then the rain totally ruined the flowers. I have no time for fussy flowers, it will be moved on to someone else's garden.

Perhaps you recall the before picture of our vegetable garden. We thought it would just take a few days for the makeover. It became the never ending garden nightmare. As you can see from the after picture it is still not finished because we ran out of soil There is another truckload coming on Friday, though it will be dumped on the driveway because Ken just seeded the grass where the previous pile of soil killed it. Our veggies are in there though I think we will move some more once we get the rest of the soil in there. It will be many years of tomatoes and radishes to recover the cost and kenhours of this beast. I kinda think it looks a bit like a tomb for a whale or elephant.

The walls of this garden are made using patio stones. We happened to have patio stones so we used them. However, now we are lacking a patio.

Here is the before picture of our next garden makeover project, a new deck. Where there was once patio there is now just weeds and dirt, not exactly a functional space. I am very excited about a deck but certain it will be a looong project. We are currently in design mode.

This is the front yard which needs a whole lot of work but there are some pretty flowers. The little white flowers are Canada Anemone, they really love it there and are threatening to take over the place. The shrub against the wall is a Viburnum of some kind and it bloomed this year for the first time but I missed it. Still I am very excited about it.

In the distance you can see my neighbors peonies flopped over. Mine is the same color, another reason why they have to go, I can not have the same plants as the neighbors.

And lastly my window boxes. I didn't get a great picture of the million bells but they are really pretty. They open orange and fade to yellow with an orange stripe. Usually the window boxes are the first to die when we go on vacation so I enjoy them as much as I can. They are on the kitchen windows so I look at them a lot.

Good news, I have been knitting!!! All the waiting around for action on the potty affords me a little idle time. I am able to knit and still chat with Clarabel. I might even have a FO soon.

Top marks and sympathy to Libbysmom for knowing the words to the cursed Toilet Paper tune.

What Motherhood Means to Me

A trip to Toys R Us to purchase a new potty of Clarabel's choice. Apparently the old one was not comfortable and incited riots.

Assembly of new Fisher-Price Fun to Learn Potty. Including 3 C batteries.

14 million rounds of the "Toilet Paper" song.

Many sippy cups of liquid.

A 9 hour wait.

2 Advil for maternal headache, likely caused by said "Toilet Paper" song. (Would you like the lyrics? It's catchy)

1 pee in the potty and 1 proud as punch little girl.

A mother hoping that tomorrow brings quicker pees.

What Oprah Says

In my effort to tidy myself up a bit and not be the frumpiest frump that ever frumped, I ordered myself a quality nursing bra. I've seen Oprah, a good fitting bra makes all the difference, right?

I went to pick it up last night. It is a Bravado Supreme. (Bravado is a great company, for nursing and pregnancy wear.) I will not disclose the size but understand that I refer to it as "Size Ox". My previous nursing bra was seriously lacking in support, I think I was dangerously close to tucking myself into my pants. My new Supreme bra is all about support. I am now dangerously close to looking like Madonna with torpedo breasts. Next option is duck tape.
Any recommendations for nursing wear that is designed for women with ampleness would be appreciated.

Moving on....

Tomorrow is Mandi's big day!! It is her wedding. I have had a little angst about getting all prettied up for the party. My angst went through the roof this morning when I realized the shirt I was planning to wear didn't fit. Grr, to the mall.

I had a really bad day as a mother, I totally lost my cool. I was feeling very lousy, racked with guilt and certain I had scared my children forever. Renee recommends retail therapy when in such dire mothering straights. (Really good idea, Renee!!) So off I went all by myself, grumpy as all get out to find something pretty.

It took a little while but eventually I came around and cheered right up. It might be possible that I could have gotten a little carried away with this therapy. I found a shirt for the wedding but it didn't really look too great (it is a great shirt it was the body trying it on that I had trouble with) so I looked around a bit more. There was some great lounge wear and doesn't Oprah always say you should treat yourself to nice lounge wear. I think I left with the shirt, 2 tank tops, a pair of lounge pants and some underwear. Also the girl talked me into spending another dollar to buy their 'ecobag'. I returned home in great spirits and now I have a reusable bag!!

We started potty training in earnest today. Likely that is why Clarabel and I are not getting along. But we had some success and that is big news, in the 18 months that we have owned the potty, this is the first time she has actually used it. Also not an accident all day, though she did have a diaper on for nap time.

I'm off to shave my legs for the wedding!