Before the storm

We’ve heard about this one for a few days now, even if the details aren’t very… detailed. “Measurable snow” is all I’m hearing, except for the “several inches of snow and freezing rain” part that kicks it all off.

But when someone from Minnesota warns someone in Wisconsin that there’s a lot of snow coming, you really have to pay attention. (Thanks, mlegan!)

I just got a gallon of gas to mix up for the snowthrower (found the additive packets in the garage right where they should be, thank you Mr. Beth). Picked up some microwave popcorn for the kids, too. And a dozen long neck Point Amber Classics. Because you can never be too prepared for this kind of thing.

I’ve got plenty of yarn and I’m not afraid to use it. In fact, I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve only gotten a few rows done on the Moebius the last couple of days, and while I’m itching to start a new project (sweater, anyone?) there are too many things on the needles to justify it. But maybe I could swing by the library this afternoon and see if I can check out all the EZ books again. Maybe I could start my Stash Swap mittens?

So, just for the record, here is the driveway Before:

Happy kids in the snow

Yesterday I let the kids play in the snow. Now, this may not seem like anything extraordinary. But the kids haven’t caught on to me yet that I almost never let them play outside.

We are on a busy intersection with some crazy drivers. I can’t see the back yard from the house (don’t get me started). A bully used to live next door (thank goodness, he’s gone). The climber in the back yard was rickety and dangerous (thank goodness, we had someone remove it while we were away).

But mostly, it’s because I doubt myself and my ability to keep watch over all of them at once. Everybody wants Mommy to play with them, and you know what happens when Mommy does that. Someone’s out the gate. Someone’s under the car. Someone’s climbing the fence. You know that horrible Mommy-film that plays in your head to show you every danger, disaster, and dismemberment that could possibly occur? All. The. Time.

So I’d rather be Evil Mommy Who Sounds Like She Has A Good Reason.

It’s raining, it’s snowing, it’s too cold, it’s too hot, it’s too windy, it’s too wet, it’s not the right kind of snow, it’s too muddy, you don’t have your mittens, it’s almost time to go to _____, you’re sick, I’m sick……

Yesterday, with mounds of the right kind of snow, snow pants and boots for everyone, there were no more excuses.

Crap. They had a great time. I guess we’ll have to do it again.

Hey, I found the fire hydrant!

I shoveled the new four inches of snow out of the driveway this morning before school. The kids took a look at the piles of snow I’ve been tossing to the side and said, “Hey, thanks for building us such a great snow fort.”

After the school run I left the little ones in the warm car while I shoveled the sidewalks by hand. I also shoveled out the fire hydrant, taking seriously my responsibility to the neighborhood that we have an accessible hydrant. (When I was driving home from errands later, I didn’t see another hydrant on our block. Maybe mine will serve as an inspiration to others. I even dusted it off, poor little guy.)

Then my neighbor told me we’re getting another foot of snow on Thursday, and tried to help me get my broken snowthrower started. That involved a run to the car parts store for a new spark plug, and, eventually, hauling the snowthrower to the local small-engine repair fellow. Who fixed it like lightning, meaning I had to drag the kids out for another stinking errand got to pick it up in the afternoon.

Here is a lady ignoring all the hard work we’ve done and walking to University in the street. Okay, there aren’t any sidewalks right there, but this is what people do. Makes you wonder why we bother shoveling at all.

In between, I shipped off the chemo caps to Boston, paid the bills, submitted my freelance article to my editor, chatted online with her about potty training for a while, bought myself some new needles (bamboo circs, size 9, and Boye aluminum single-points, size 8 and RED), let the three bigger kids actually play in the snow, took pictures of said children, knit two rows and three stitches on the Moebius, and had a general collapse. Not in that order. Oh yes, I forgot, got some beer. New Glarus Spotted Cow, for whoever is playing along at home. Maybe it will ease the back pain from the shoveling.

And wondered if Mea has had her baby yet….

Hey, I found my driveway!

Okay, okay, so we have weather now. I’m satisfied.

Here is my driveway before I spent 50 minutes shoveling it:

Trust me, there’s a driveway under there somewhere. Oh wait, here it is!

I’m not planning to go anywhere, of course. This was done mostly for the principle of the thing. What if one of my precious children fell ill, or was injured, and had to be rushed to the emergency room lo those six blocks away, and I had to say, stop the bleeding yourself, I need to shovel us out and I don’t know how long it will take. So now we’re ready for disaster, an emergency trip for supplies, a forced nap in the van, or just to be able to head out for school tomorrow.

I can’t see any reason why school would be closed. I mean that sincerely. They have snowplowing equipment here I never dreamed of even after 32 years in Ohio (where there used to be snow, when I was a kid. Uphill both ways and all that). I wish I could get a picture of one of these babies. Think of everything in Bob the Builder’s garage all hooked together. Six-foor tractor tires, an enormous bucket on the front, and a frame that could straddle a Humvee. But they made their runs this morning, got the roads scraped off perfectly, and went back to the garage. I’ll see if I can get a picture of one during the next blizzard.

Mr. Beth’s plane took off a few minutes early today. He should be landing in Honolulu about the time I am tucking the kids in bed.

And maybe I’ll get some more knitting done, too. I won’t take any more pictures of the Moebius because, well, it’s kind of dull. But it does measure 19-1/2 inches long now. I’m getting 16-1/2 inches per 40g ball of Kashmir, which puts the length of the finished item at about 62 inches, right where I want it to be. But it won’t be interesting to look at until it’s full length and I give it the half twist and start weaving it up. A good subject of a step by step photo essay.

Chemo Four is coming along, though it looks like it would make a better arm warmer than a hat. I am tempted to turn it into a pair of arm warmers but I have not idea who they would appeal to. Maybe when I get to the six-inch mark, where I am supposed to start hat decreases, I will take a picture and put it up for a vote. But if it won’t fit on my nine-month-old at that point, the direction should be clear. Arm warmers, free to the first caller. They will be far too funky for anyone who lives in this house, I can tell you that for sure.

I earned my chocolate today! Here is the empty bag and the last two pieces, which I ate right after taking the picture. No, I did not eat the whole bag today.

Stay warm!

If he makes it to Hawaii

So…..just after the unseasonably warm temperatures (in the 40s in February for the north central of Wisconsin, people!) had melted almost all our snow, and a month after the last fresh snow, it started again. Deceptively fine flakes that started about 11pm, thickened up later, and just kept coming. During all of which Mr. Beth was driving from Fort Atkinson to Milwaukee (to pick up his aunt) to Rhinelander (to drop off his aunt) to Point.

I will have before-and-after pictures later, since Mr. Beth and Scout are at the Pinewood Derby with the camera. But we ended up with several inches of snow to shovel before Mr. Beth needs to, guess what, pack and drive down to Milwaukee, then to Chicago to stay overnight and make sure he doesn’t miss his 10:00 flight to Hawaii on Sunday morning. Yes, Hawaii in the last week of February to attend a trade show. Or conference. Or something work-related. I don’t remember. I do recall sending him a list of all the yarn shops in Hawaii about 3.5 seconds after he told me where he’d be going. And yes, I understand he’s not going there to surf or lie around on the beach, and he’ll probably spend most of his time inside a windowless convention center.

But.

Since I’m not going to Hawaii anytime soon, he’d better bring back something.

If he indeed makes it to Hawaii. Because Milwaukee is under a winter storm watch that they are thinking of upgrading to a blizzard watch tonight. Today they’re expecting snow and sleet, with heavy snow and 40 mph winds starting in the evening. It’s in this weather he expects to travel to O’Hare, known for its scrupulous adherence to planned flight schedules.

So. After the Derby and a quick trip for necessary groceries, we will have lunch together and he will be gone for another week, regardless of whether or not he makes it to Honolulu. But he’ll be a lot nicer to talk to if he makes it to Hawaii, that’s all.

And I’ll be a lot nicer to talk to if he brings back some yarn, that’s all.

Chemo Three and Four

I got Chemo Three done last night, yelling at the kids every time I had to do a k2tog. I had forgotten that in the evening, without natural light, I could barely distinguish the stitches on the needles. (Fun Fur may be best left to the Young of Sight.)

But it is done now, and I think you can see why I’ve named it Sully.

Then I bathed and bedded the kidlets, called my husband, finished the draft of my freelance article, and….cast on for the next hat. I know that whatever hats I don’t get done for this deadline can be done for some other deadline, but they go so fast I really should get back to cranking them out.

Chemo Four uses the Lion Brand Fun Fur pattern. And lo and behold, I actually had a skein of Microspun to use! So instead of mixing the two Fun Furs I decided to mix black fur and electric blue Microspun. (In case you were wondering, James picked the Microspun over a year ago when he wanted to learn to knit.) It ought to be…stunning. My only question is, how big can this possibly be if I only cast on 32 stitches? Is it going to be a preemie sized chemo cap? I have socks going with more stitches around than this.

Anyway. Here it is. Chemo Four. Sorry for the tiny pic, I have tried to resize it twice and can apparently only choose between miniscule and gargantuan. But the colors are true. Those are bamboo size 10 dps, by the way.

Now, check out the blogroll. I’ve added Fuzzy Britches, so everyone has to go and say hi to Tracey. Hi, Tracey!

Hugs (and yarn) all around

Wow, what a day. At my “house,” the in-laws and great-in-laws are flying across the country for a funeral. My father is recovering from knee replacement surgery. My son opted out of his second-grade musical tonight because he has strep throat.

At the Harlot’s house, frustration and sadness from an unknown source. And in the comments to her post today, I read lots of pain, worry, loss, sadness, and fear. It’s days like this when I feel like Deanna Troi: “I sense conflict, Captain.”

All I can offer are a few words and cyber-hugs. It’s hard to see any other way to help right now. But I will just keep knitting and praying and trust in the plan.

In the meantime, here’s some yarn.

A few days ago, as Mr. Beth was doing the errands for the weekend, I commandeered the list and wrote “350 yards worsted weight” at the bottom. I tried to explain that it wasn’t that I couldn’t buy the yarn for him, it was that I wanted him to have his scarf in exactly the color he wanted. And God bless him, here’s what he brought home:

I can’t wait to get this one started. First real cables, folks. Stay tuned.

And while I haven’t finished Chemo Three yet (I think I am balking because of all the weaving-in I will have to do, but I have to get cranking in order to finish my hats by the deadline), I have been delaying its progress by working on this:

And I just have to show off this big box of Stash Swap Yarn. Remember how I was bitching complaining about knitting with Lion Brand Homespun (despite its good looks)? Turns out someone was able to use my leftovers to finish a project, so we arranged a trade.

My goodness, did Cathy of La Crosse get the short end of the stick or what? I won’t knit it up for a while, but I’m thinking of making a pair of mittens and a Harlot one-row Moebius scarf. For myself. Red is a powerful color. And I think we could all use some power.

Ashen

For those of you who need to update my scorecard of promises, last night I did start the article, I did do some dishes (though, to look at the kitchen now, it doesn’t seem possible), and I absolutely did preorder the Harlot’s new book. However, I didn’t touch the chemo cap, due to a variety of circumstances. Sick kids, crying kids, etc.

Moving on!

Today I hauled all the kids to school Mass for Ash Wednesday services. Considering their ages and usual proclivities, they did pretty well. (Colleen parked herself in front of both priests until she felt she had enough ashes on her forehead.) I even got a compliment on their behavior from a young man sitting in front of us. However, we had to get right back home after Mass to meet the realtor, who was dropping off his market assessment. When I got in the car, it was already fifteen minutes after our agreed time.

Jack picked this time to refuse to be buckled into the car. He screamed, he caterwauled, he held himself stiff as a board and refused to sit in his seat. After all his pretty-good behaviour at Mass…well, he let loose right there in the parking lot and I’m sure a lot of parishoners were wondering what the heck I was doing to him.

Luckily, I can still outlast/overpower him, we got back before the realtor left, and the meeting proceeded as planned. Market value was right where we wanted it to be, he’ll check back in a month to see if we’re ready for showings, yadda yadda yadda. It’s all good.

But here I am at the beginning of Lent, and after a few days of wondering what I was going to give up this time, I made a big move. I’m going to try to give up self-medication. No more eating a cookie because I feel I “deserve” it, or a brownie because I feel sad or lonely or self-pitying or “can’t help myself.” No more drinking a beer because I think I’ve been good and ought to have one, or because I’m not tired at bedtime. No more Coke because, “gosh darn it I haven’t had one in a while.” I can still have any of these things for the right reasons, since I’m not strictly giving up meat or alcohol or chocolate or sweets. But I have to be really and truly honest about my reasons. And that’s the hardest part.

I’m sitting here in the kitchen right now as I type. I’m surrounded by cookies that Auntie Barbara dropped off on Monday, by all the great leftovers (including fudge brownies from last night’s makeshift King Cake) in the fridge, trying to think about how to substitute healthy behaviours for unhealthy ones, how to start making better decisions. It sucks to pick up a water bottle when what you really want is the rest of the pan of brownies, but by golly, it’s Ash Wednesday and I’m going to try my best.

Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean I can’t do it.

P.S. Mr. Beth picked out some lovely yarn for his Irish Hiking Scarf. I’ll write about that (and include pictures) tomorrow. Don’t let me forget!

—————

2pm P.S. The doctor’s office called at 12:30 to tell me that the 24-hour strep test had come back positive. They called in a prescription for penicillin while I loaded the van and rushed to school to pick up James, then zoomed to the store to get the medicine. Why the hurry? The second graders’ musical is tomorrow night. Their practice is tomorrow at 1pm. If he didn’t get the medicine started 24 hours before the practice, he would not be allowed to attend.  I think we got it started in time, but guess what? It tastes terrible, so we’ll be fighting over a teaspoon of fluid twice a day for ten days unless he learns to “cowboy up” and just take the stuff. And oh yes, he’ll be staying home tomorrow because he’s considered to be contagious. So I’ll take him right to the practice in the afternoon, then over to the musical in the evening, but not to school. It’s enough to make me wish he felt miserable, then we could just cancel the whole thing. I can’t quite make myself feel that way. Every school event is the last one he’ll ever have here. I would be a BAD MOM to mess that up. Even if it sounds pretty messed up already! (My God, I need to sit and knit.)

And it’s starting again

I don’t know where to start…but I do know I have to start, get back on this blogging bandwagon (bandwidth?) and get back in the rhythm.

Kids: One with a sore throat (who got a day off school for it yesterday but was packed off with a baggie of cough drops today), one with a possible ear infection (who nearly concussed himself falling off a chair just now), and, basically, two more at risk of being infected by the other two. I called the pediatrician’s office at the stroke of nine. When can they all come in? Not until 3:45 this afternoon. That should be entertaining for everyone.

Knitting: Still pondering the Harlot’s call. On the needles are the Moebius scarf, second version. I knit up one ball of the no-longer-produced Kashmir and realized I didn’t have enough yarn to finish the project. I only know one store that still has any of this yarn. And they don’t have this color. I know this because I bought it all already, bwahahaha! So, I took pictures of my progress, frogged it with the gleeful help of the kids, rewound the ball, and started over. I’m doing the version with the integral, same-color I-cord edging. EZ is a genius. Every time I turn the work I think, How did she know it would do that?

Progress:

Also on needles are the SKP (no progress), World’s Scratchiest Socks (no progress), a chemo cap (no progress — just three more rounds to go!), and a messin’ around swatch (k1, kb1 across, p back) in which I actually crossed cables without a cable needle. And learned YO’s, which makes the swatch look like I made a mistake.

Family: We were preparing for a 90th birthday party for Mr. Beth’s grandfather this Saturday. But due to a death in the family, everyone who would have been at the party is flying to Reno for the funeral. Which occurs as Mr. Beth is getting ready to fly to Hawaii for a business trip. On the Ohio side of things, my dad’s still getting used to his new knee, and the rehab is coming along smoothly. Just got the staples out, yay!

Writing: This is the week to finish and submit my freelance article. I also need to get cracking on the craft store guide. An hour a night should put me on track. But I’d better find the tracks pretty soon!

Promises, promises: I will finish Chemo Three tonight and take pictures tomorrow. I will start drafting my article. I will wash the dishes. I will preorder the Harlot’s new book from my local bookstore.

Needling along

Happy Valentine’s Day! I am celebrating with e-cards from my sweetie and by watching Valentine’s Day-themed preschool shows with the kidlets. (”Love Day,” anyone?) And I’m really looking forward to the V-Day swag that JC will bring home. Every kid holiday is a candy holiday, and he always brings home much more than he remembers in a couple of days, if you get my drift. And when he forgets about it, I start eating it. (That explains a lot.)

Next on the Needles: Mr. Beth cast his vote for the Irish Hiking Scarf but wanted a different color than I had in the stash. And we all know the stash rules, don’t we? I asked him to pick out his own yarn for the project and told him the yardage, and I cast on for a cream-colored, garter-stitched Moebius scarf for Gigi. (EZ says to make a garter-stitched one first. So I did. But I want to try a Harlot one-row version eventually.)

Also on the needles, as of last night, is a swatch I’m knitting to see what this looks like: Row 1, [k1, kb1], Row 2, [kb1, k1]. I’m not far enough to see much since the Nyquil started kicking in about Row 6. Right now it looks like plain ol’ garter stitch. But it’s far too much trouble for it to look like garter stitch. I was hoping for some sort of mock rib effect: plain stitch, twisted stitch. Should it be a one-row pattern instead of a two-row? Or maybe I need to purl across the even rows. I will try those after I’m done with this little coaster.

Still on the needles, but almost off, is Chemo Three. I put it on the dpns last night and need to finish it very very soon. I have little faith that the fun fur is going to stay on those metal needles. On the other hand, I have enough of these two colors left to do a whole extra hat with them. I think I will find a pattern where I can knit with both strands at once.

A couple of days ago I picked up and absolutely devoured this book. I needed to read some funny knitting stuff and it hit the spot. Plus, there are all those patterns to try. (Note: Paid full price at a local book store, not discounted at Amazon. Maybe that gives Wendy an extra nickel, maybe not.)

Still knitting a little on the SKP. Not much at all on the World’s Scratchiest Socks, even though I have just a little bit to go before I start to spiral the rib. I have a feeling that Second Sock Syndrome is going to be terrible on that one since I will be so relieved to see the end of my first sock.

As if I’m not busy enough, I find myself thinking of ideas for knitting books. I think a combination knitting/recipe book would be a hit. I would need stunt knitters as well as tasters — any volunteers?