Mockingbird 3

Thank you again for all your prayers. Keep ‘em coming! Tom had another good day drinking and eating and flirting with nurses and producing more specimens for the test bucket. Thank goodness he enjoyed his milk of magnesia, since he got two doses.

I’m not sure how we’re covering for the weekend, but it may be essentially the same as the last few days, with me in the hospital during the day and home after dinnertime. I will check blog/e-mails in the evening and respond to what I can, but I’m pretty well wiped out. Today Mr. Beth took our older dog to the vet to be euthanized. We all knew it was time, but it’s still tough to deal with in the midst of everything else.

Area bloggers, don’t be afraid to contact me if you want to stop by either hospital or home for a visit. (Lauren, dear, please know you really don’t have to fly in from Scottsdale. Your help shall take another form. Check your e-mail.) Your support in any way is much appreciated.

Racing Knitting is almost done. I might be able to finish up at home so I can cast on for something I can do in the hospital… dare I say… Tyrone? Or perhaps a Stormy Shawl?

Spam Quote of the Day

Your site has very much liked me. I shall necessarily tell about him to the friends.

All of a sudden I’m wary of my blog’s secret capabilities. What else might it be doing that I don’t know about. And when did it become a he? 

Mockingbird 2

Thanks to everyone for your prayers, positive thoughts, healing vibes. I know you’re giving whatever you have to Tom and it’s helping me be calm.

“Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises.” (EZ) Amen!

Right now we’re just waiting for… let’s call it “stool.” They want everything produced in the next 72 hours, then they’ll test it. Until then, no guesses. (Remember the Scrubs musical? It’s All About Poo.) Tom’s a happy boy hanging out in his hospital jammies with Mom and/or Dad, all he could want to eat and drink, and DVDs in the player. He’s getting so much attention he will be surprised to rediscover he’s not an only child. He has gained a little weight overweight, but of course he has to show an upward trend over several days.

I’ll have the day shift again tomorrow; we haven’t figured out the logistics for weekend coverage yet. But we will. The HSS progresses (thank you Lauren, I see the pattern now), as does the Racing Knitting.

Funny story… after two days of people asking me if I needed anything, I finally spoke my mind and said, “I’d really like to have a knitter.” The nurse looked at me and said, “Can you teach me? I’ve been meaning to learn.” Even if she never develops any free time, it was encouraging.

Again, thanks, and I’ll update you when I can. Knitbloggers are awesome!

Mockingbird

I love that this is the song Tommy likes to hear before he falls asleep.

Hush little baby, don’t say a word
Mama’s going to buy you a mockingbird
If that mockingbird won’t sing
Mama’s going to buy you a diamond ring
If that diamond ring turns brass
Mama’s going to buy you a looking glass
If that looking glass gets broke
Mama’s going to buy you a billy goat
If that billy goat won’t pull
Mama’s going to buy you a cart and bull
If that cart and bull turn over
Mama’s going to buy you a dog named Rover
If that dog named Rover won’t bark
Mama’s going to buy you a horse and cart
If that horse and cart fall down
You’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town.

Bad doctor appointment today. Tommy actually lost weight since last week and has been admitted to the hospital. No IVs, but lots of high-calorie formula to drink, diapers to weigh. That sort of thing. Daddy’s coming home and I will be staying with him in the hospital until whenever. So I won’t post until Tom comes home or I have real news. Please keep him, me, us, whoever in your prayers.

And yes, I’m taking my knitting with me. I’ve got to have something to keep me sane while he sleeps.

Last of the thirtysomethings

Tomorrow is my birthday. My kids are 8, 4.5, 3, and just-past-one, and I will be turning forty. Normally I don’t regard my age at all. I came late to the parenting gig after spending a decade in troubled relationships, about which that is already ’nuff said. I try to ignore the chickie-poo tattooed and pierced moms I will necessarily be hanging out with as I take my kids to school and pick them up — it is what it is. Besides, now that I have acquired Instant Knitter Friends, age differences seem to make no difference to them.

But the 4-0, which seems to mean “I have to buy a Miata now” to men (these days, maybe it’s a Mustang), means a different set of things to women. Basically, I now have doctor appointments to dread, and I have one eye constantly monitoring risk factors and mortality. With the two normal eyes plus the one in the back of my head constantly targeted on the children, I don’t know where this other eye is, but I assume it’s there. Maybe it’s the sector of my brain newly dedicated to clicking on links about breast cancer and ovarian cancer and menopause. (What fun!)

Tomorrow I am going to try to shut this eye. I know, it’s the first day of being forty, I should let it do what it needs to do. But it’s my eye, darnit, so here’s the plan.

* The first thing I eat or drink tomorrow morning will have chocolate in it. Instant mocha coffee, chocolate chips out of the bag, chocolate chip mint ice cream — I don’t care. We’re going to start this day right.

*  I am buying myself the cake I want. For about a decade I have wanted an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. Nobody asked, I didn’t tell, I never had one. Tomorrow is the day. I will even share it with the kids. I just want a little bit.

* I am going to knit. Right, how is that different from any other day? Tomorrow I am not going to feel guilty about it or wait until I conquer the world to have five minutes to myself. I’ll just knit, right in front of real live people. If they complain I’ll just remind them that it’s my birthday and I get to do one thing that I want to do. This is it.

* As usual, I will call my mother just about lunchtime, and ask if she’s feeling better now. I just think it’s the considerate thing to do.

That’s tomorrow. Here’s yesterday. The weekend showing went okay, but the house only finished in the middle of the pack with the show-ees. (They want something with more character. Boy, will they live to regret that! Kids these days.) The good news is it showed better than most of the other houses in the same price range, so we’re on the right track.

While they were looking at the house, we caravanned (motorcycle followed by van full of kids) to Milwaukee, dropped off the motorcycle, and returned home. I cast on slowly for the HSS but was worried about dropping stitches off the size 1? 0? needles, so put it away. Then I cast on for the racing knitting, but only knit a few rows before I found myself patternless. (More about that tomorrow.) I put that away too.

Mr. Beth: “We have a two and a half hour drive and you have no knitting?” So eventually I picked up the socks again and carefully worked on my 1×1 rib cuff.

I just dread the first five rows or so of sock cuff. It takes about that long for my stitches to hang together, and until then I am a nervous wreck. It may sound strange to tackle that part in a moving car using double-pointed needles, but it’s the only time I’m not going to be constantly interrupted to provide a drink, stop a fight, clean a room, or change a diaper. So I do my best. As of now I’m still in that tentative zone, but my goal is to finish the first cuff tonight.

I also put up brackets for a curtain rod for the bathroom window, which Mr. Beth framed on Sunday morning (replacing the handyman’s framing from Saturday morning). Pictures coming of that, too!

So I’ll see you tomorrow, with my ice cream cake and my knitting. When I will perhaps be a little bit wiser.

P.S. Happy birthday Sheila, my birthday buddy from March 99 Moms! The card is in the mail. No really, it is. 

Spam Quote of the Day

Hello ))) I know that you don’t like this spam, but theese sites are amazing.

Just to give you an idea of exactly how amazing these sites are, each URL contained the phrase “wet-party.” Not exactly a Continental cast-on video tutorial, is it? Now that would be amazing.

Six needles liberated

Skein winder? I don’t need no stinkin’ skein winder!

Okay, maybe I do need a skein winder. But last night I divided my glorious sock yarn using a lazy susan and an upside-down child sized wooden table. (This yarn is unbelievably forgiving, by the way. Yesterday I skeined it around my forearm because the original skein was too big for the lampshade trick and I got it all tangled and detangled and it still looks great. My hair should look so good after so much tangling and detangling. But I digress.)

And I have this much-loved finished object to show you: the Harlot one-row scarf knitted from the Patons Tapestry, all 49 inches of it. It may be longer now, since my oldest was using it for an exercise band this morning (GRR). And that means two needles liberated (the big honking German pointy ones), plus four from the Salt and Pepper sock the other day.

This might be the place to tell you that, since I’m too broke/cheap to buy server space from WordPress, I made some more free room the other day by deleting pictures from some old posts, and in some cases, editing the words to eliminate references to the pictures. (I’m at 95 percent of my image space, or something like that.) They were pictures of houses we are no longer interested in, so I didn’t think it was a big deal. But if you’re a re-reader (who has the time?) you might have noticed this, so I wanted to come clean.

However, it’s apparent that I will have to solve the problem another way. I want to try reducing the sizes of the older pictures to thumbnails, and see if that “buys” me more space. I have only been running the blog at this site for six months; what do others do?

Today, I know what I’m doing… buying a ball winder.

P.S. Yesterday someone searched for this blog using the phrase “happy home in the country.” Thank you, that makes me feel as if the goal is attainable. (We have a showing tomorrow!)

One happy Hufflepuff

The stressful day turned into an absolutely wonderful day. The kids destroyed the upstairs bedrooms twice and I screamed my bloody lungs out at them while I put everything right again. For reference, my voice sounded identical to the time I discovered they had found, and were taking out of the boxes to play with, their baptismal candles.

But. We got to the doctor and (though he was late because he had to attend a C section) everyone is essentially fine. Got home, stopped the F1 tape, loaded the dogs in the van, sprayed a little Febreze around, and got out of Dodge in plenty of time.

We headed…. west. Originally I meant to just go to Marshfield, pick up some Taco John’s, and head back home. But when we got to decision time, I decided to stay on 10 West and see where it led.

It led to Amish country. Central Wisconsin has pockets of Amish, some just east of us around Amherst, some south of Tigerton, but I found another pocket near Granton. I saw a handmade sign for a quilt shop I had never heard of, followed it down an unpaved road, and found myself in the gravel driveway of a working Amish farm where two men were running a propane generator that ran another machine that was carrying their hay bales to the barn loft via a conveyor belt. The horses were still hitched to the wagon that held the hay. They directed me to the entrance for the quilt shop — a screened in porch of the main house, where I soon met Sarah and Eli (22 months old and cute as an angel in a little brown dress and bare feet). We chatted for a while, I bought a bonnet for Colleen, and Sarah was charmed that my sons all had Bible names. I picked up a business card for the shop. Of course there is no phone number or fax number or web site. The hours are listed as “dusk to dawn year round” and Sarah said she would love to be included in my craft store directory. I also bought a quart of strawberries from them for $1.75. Fresh picked that morning. I had visions of making strawberry pie, strawberry jam, or some other recipe from one of my Amish cookbooks, but in all honesty they’re not going to make it to tomorrow. (Thursday’s note: I left twelve uneaten. Breakfast!)

And what was I wearing? Jeans, Nike sneakers, and my husband’s Guinness T-shirt. (shakes head)

We went on down the road a ways, gassed up a bit, and turned for home, which took another hour or more. Plenty of time for the house showing, I thought.

When we got home, JC brought me the mail, including a big white box from an Ohio address I didn’t know. “Here, you got this.” I was checking the voicemail. An agent had called at about 2:30 to tell me the 3:15 showing was cancelled, to save me the trouble of picking up the dogs I had picked up at 2pm.

In the rest of the mail I got the full program for the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. (I am so going to this. They have a full-day seminar for wannabe shepherds.)

Then I opened the box.

I’ve been Ravenclawed! Thank you Madam Pomfrey, AKA Julie Morgan. I love my socks and all my stuff! Sorry all the pictures are so small, I’m running out of server space. If you click on them they might get bigger.

Dobby is free!

One sock down, one to go, another skein from cuff to toe! (apologies to Yes)

I truly meant to cast on for the Hogwarts swap sock (henceforth HSS) last night, but decided to carefully read the Harlot’s post and the comments. 353 comments later, I decided to add my own… and was so tired I didn’t want to start a sock. How tired is that?

Today we have the race rebroadcast to tape, doctor appointments for two children with mysterious marks, a house showing (praise be to God!), and Top Chef tonight, so I don’t know how much knitting I will get done. But I must must must get that sock started. My goal for tonight is to cast on and do one repeat of the pattern. Of course I really should divide the skein in half first, for which I have no tools…. so if somebody could explain the lampshade deal again, please leave it in the comments. Thank you!

By the way, do you want progress reports on the HSS, or would you like to be surprised at the finished sock?

A thousand words are worth a picture

I strongly suspect that if I post even a reasonable selection of the pictures I took over the weekend, I’ll hit capacity on my server space here. (Read: free server space.) So let me get the knitting picture posted first, then it will be back to the words.

Yes, that’s my own foot. No stunt feet here! And who says you can’t try on cuff-down socks? Knit loose enough with big enough needles, and you could try on anything in progress.

OK, where was I?

Friday: Frantically clean, pack, prepare. Mr. Beth takes items to the dump, returns, takes dogs to the kennel. We leave about five minutes before Merry Maids is scheduled to arrive. Caravan to Milwaukee, drop off children, transfer to rental car, lunch at La Perla, proceed to Indianapolis. Knit knit knit on salt and pepper sock. Due to traffic and traffic and road construction, we arrive at the bed and breakfast at 11:30 pm (after a run through the local McDonald’s drive-thru).

Saturday: Meet up with our hosts, who have an apartment about a half mile from the track. I am meeting all kinds of people and I have no idea who anyone is. (One of them ends up being a ten-time Indy 500 entrant. I am not worthy.) I am offered oatmeal “full of fruits and nuts and all kinds of things.” I take it. It is delicious and I am even more grateful for it later. They drive us to the track and drop us off. If you thought my knitting bag was big and colorful, forget about it. As soon as I get there I see a young man wearing a three-foot-long Ferrari as a hat. We watch practice, tour the Museum, where they had this:

You may think you have seen this before, but the drivers just receive a smaller replica. Since this was inside on a rotating turntable, I’m amazed I even got a passable picture. Left the Museum, got some food, watched qualifying, walked back to the apartment. Hung out a while, knit on the sock, watched more racing on TV, begged off of a trip to watch midget/sprint car racing at another track, went back to the B&B, went out to dinner at a local restaurant, went back to the B&B.

Sunday: Race Day! To the apartment to collect more people, got dropped off at the track, got our seats, went down for some Foster’s, back to the seats. I had my knitting bag with me (also good for holding sunscreen and bottles of water), but realized that multicolor knitting wasn’t really going to happen. We were really all smashed together. I just enjoyed the race and figured that I’d get what I needed to make my Secret Racing Project later. The race was incredible and was over before we knew it. Unfortunately, since there were traffic jams for miles hours after we left the area, I had plenty of time to work on my sock. We finally made it to Milwaukee at about 11pm.

Monday: Hug the kids, Mr. Beth to work, kids and I to home, only to discover that between the cleaning service and the open house, we were locked out. Back to the realtor’s to arrange to get into the house. Unload part of the van, fetch the dogs. Sigh. The day’s mail brought the sock yarn for the Hogwarts swap, and I finally decided on a pattern. Knitted sock and most of the toe in the evening.

Summary: One child weaned, one dog shaved, four people touring the house (none interested), the house very clean….. and one sock almost complete.

Oh yeah…. maybe you’d like to see the new yarn.

Off to the races!

Sorry for the absence, but all this preparation for an open house at the same time that we’re taking a mini vacation has really stolen my knitting and blogging time.

First off, let me show you the bracelet that Barbara made for me as a thank-you for the tickets to the Bead&Button Show. I was just flabbergasted (even though she told me she would be making something).

The colors were so rich and Mardi Gras like that I photographed it on the quilt I’m making for my grandmother. (Making is a strong word. The top is done and the layers are pinned, and I quilted the center section two years ago and stalled. We shall not speak of this.) I cannot imagine what it takes to sit and string all these tiny little beads. It makes plain knitting look downright simple. (Imagine! Only one piece of string!) Thanks again, Barbara. I love it.

But now… the reveal of the vintage racer fabric.

We’re going to the U.S. Grand Prix this weekend, as guests of an advertiser in the magazine Mr. Beth is the editor of. Hmm, what will I take my knitting in? Why don’t I make a bag out of this decorator fabric I got for 99 cents?

The bag is about 18 inches square on the big sides, so it’s a biggie. Those are 2 inch wide D rings on each short side. I used the strap from my suitcase to clip on to them and voila! Themed knitting bag!

I even had enough left over to make a little sleeve to stick my needles in:

I know the shots are small and blurry, but at the top of each side I sewed a little shank button — one says “stop” and one says “go.”

If anyone is interested in the details of how I made the bag, leave a comment and I’ll post them after I get back. I am not a seamstress by any means. This was a brute-force project and anyone could do it without a pattern. Oh, and here is how much thread was left when I finished:

We’re going to a charming bed and breakfast for the weekend and not taking the computer. First time away from the kids, don’t you know. (Sorry, Tommy.) So have a great weekend, look for us on TV (can’t miss this bag) on Sunday afternoon, and get lots of knitting done. I’ll show the results of my USGP knitting early next week, maybe Monday. Remember all those balls of brightly colored yarn? They’re already in the bag.

Your best knitting friends

Whew. I keep typing that to tell people how the day is going. But all that’s going through my head is, whew!

I was up until about 1 o’clock last night this morning getting the house as ready as I could. Rolled out of bed just before 7 o’clock to finish the job. We bugged out at about 8:45 to take a load of boxes to storage, but through some creative block-circling we noticed the agents didn’t arrive until about 9:30. So we kept going and going, trying to think ahead for the next time we’ll have to vacate so people can see the house.

But though I’m worn out I’m probably headed for more, since it’s absolutely gorgeous and the kind of day you should take your kids to the park to climb on apparatus and wear themselves out. Maybe I will wait until after the peak heat. Then bedtimes will be easier and I can start to do something with the racecar fabric I flashed the other day.

Thanks to Barbara for filling in yesterday. She got some comments, there was a spike in the views compared to what I’ve been getting, and people were clicking on her links. So hooray, looks like a success all around.

Today I have a surprise… the talented Brandy and Lauren are joining with me to run a new blog, which is kind of an informal knitalong to one of our favorite television shows.

No, it’s not Grey’s Anatomy… there’s already a KAL for that.

No, it’s not Buffy the Vampire Slayer… there’s already a KAL for that.

No, it’s not NASCAR… believe it or not, there’s already a KAL for that.

(There should be a KAL for every sweater Stephanie Zimbalist wore on Remington Steele, but maybe that’s more of a personal project.)

No, it’s not Gilmore Girls… there’s a KAL for that, too.

It’s…. the Backyardigans. We’re calling it Backyardiknits. All are welcome, especially those with Backyardigan-aged youngsters around. There are links to BY sites, blogs, and goodies, and two free patterns for a Tyrone-style raglan sweater are already posted (thank you Lauren). It’s in my blogroll the knitalong list under my blogroll, so go check it out. You’ll know it when you see it, because of the adorable header done in BY style (thank you Brandy).

It’s our first joint blog, so let us know what you’d like to see and how you’d like to participate. I envision it as becoming similar to Zimmermania or the IHS KAL, but I’m willing to let it evolve and I think my partners are, too. So come check us out!

Whew!