Progress!

I've made good progress on my knitting and my preparations for the German Invasion! The socks are done. They were washed for the first time last night. Sadly, when I tried them on, I found that they were really too small for me. My feet stretched them out too much. So I will let my mom and my Aunt decide who gets them!

The jumper I'm making for Sariah is almost done. I should get it done this weekend. Then I need to start a pair of socks for Opa. Once I'm done with the Opa socks, I need to work on the gift for Jim's sister and the purse for Jim's mom. Both of those should be quick projects.

I'll do a blog post with pictures of each project very soon. I really want to do this as a knitting journal of sorts, I just haven't had time. Perhaps next week. We will have one day of downtime after the Germans get here, perhaps then. We'll see.

As for the Germans. WE are very nearly ready for the invasion. With a little luck, we'll get it all done. We really only have about another 3.5 days when we will be at home before they arrive. I will probaby be up late tonight packing for this weekend's trip and working on the finaly tidying I want to get done before they come.

Dog Hair Everywhere

Frank decided to shed in the middle of the summer. For the last week or so he has looked quite ratty, so I finally broke down and gave him a bath yesterday. Before his bath, however, I brushed him thoroughly and got tons of hair off of him. During his bath he continued to lose massive quantities of hair. Now he is still losing hair at an amazing rate and there are little black, brown and white tufts of hair all over my house. I brushed him this morning and collected another massive ball of hair. I swept the kitchen floor and collected another ball of hair. If I had the time, I would have vacuumed, too.

Sometime I feel like the more I clean the dirtier the place gets.

Sigh.

Still no pictures of my knitting. I've got them taken, but I need to get them off the camera. Perhaps tonight.

Dreaming of Knitting

I just remembered my dream from last night.

I was knitting a long scarf, and I had to keep knitting around objects in my house, I kept knitting, and knitting and knitting. I had knit around books, and chairs, and tables and lamps. The scarf was all over the house.

Jim is going to cut off my yarn supply when he reads this. Perhaps I am knitting too much, but I think that as long as I'm keeping up with the housework (which I am) he can't complain too much.

On the Hazards of Barfing A Lot

Yesterday I was getting ready for work and Bonnie was crawling around in the Kitchen. I had my back to her when I heard a loud thump. It was the unmistakable sound of her little (well, big) pumpkin head hitting the floor. Sure enough, after a momentary silence the "Weeeeeeehhhhhhhhh" was resonating throughout our cozy little home. When I picked her up, it became apparent that in her travels across the kitchen floor she had barfed, attempted to crawl through the puddle, and slipped. Too bad baby barf doesn't work as floor wax. If it did I would have the shiniest kitchen floor around, and I'd still have plenty left over to bottle and sell.

This incident has gotten me thinking about the challenges and hazards that come with barfing all the time. They include:

• Slipping and falling in your own barf
• Spots and stains on clothing and floors
• Waking up with barf in your hair
• Just when you get nice and comfy in mom's arms and have a nice barf, mom puts you down and starts mumbling things under her breath.
• Friends that don't want to get too close for fear of getting barfed on
• The assurance that as soon as you put on a clean pair of socks - you'll step in a puddle of barf that you didn't know was there.
• Dogs that lick you constantly because you taste like barf
• Always wearing damp clothing - possibly reducing one's resistance to disease

The sock goes on

Jim had to work last night, so I didn't get to spend a long time at my knitting class and I didn't get to work on my sock outside of the class at all.

I did one lovely heel flap during class and started to turn the heel, but only got a few rows into it before I had to go. Hopefully I'll be able to get some instruction this weekend.

Oh yeah, and I found out why the directions for starting the heel flap didn't work. I was knitting my sock backwards. Counterclockwise instead of clockwise. It didn't make a difference in the cuff since I was doing a K2 P2 ribbing all the way down, but now I have to re-learn how to knit with the DPNS. I suppose it will be easier this time around since I've got the basic concept and handling skills down, I just need to reverse the way I was looking at it.

I am tired. Bonnie woke up at 4:30 for a feeding and I wasn't able to get back to sleep after. I feel like a zombie.

Still haven't had time to get pictures uploaded....

I reached an impasse with my sock knitting last night. I couldn't quite follow how she wanted me to start the heel flap from her directions. I tried going to the knitting shop to get help from whoever was working. However, she said that she had only knit a couple pairs of socks and while her suggestion sounded OK, I was a little concerned that it didn't take the two stitches that I had slipped (per the directions) into account. So, I have the cuff of the sock done, but I haven't started my heel flaps. I hope that I'll be able to get it done in time to get instruction on how to turn the heel. It shouldn't be a problem - it is only 25 or so very short rows.

I hope to post pictures tonight!

Knit 1 Barf 2

THE GERMANS ARE COMING!

Jim's family from Germany will be here August 1st. We are picking them up from the airport in Minneapolis.

In preparation for their arrival we are attempting to get caught up on five year's worth of spring cleaning. Not an easy thing to do when you've got a 9 month-old-baby that is in the habit of scattering her stomach contents about the house. She's been battling one bug after another lately, and this has only exacerbated the problem. Crawling hasn't helped, either. Crawl, crawl, barf, crawl through the barf, crawl, crawl, barf, stop and play with the barf, crawl through the barf, crawl crawl........ you get the idea.

Matters came to a bit of a crescendo today when I spoke with the owner/manager of our childcare center. She became the 4th or 5th employee at the childcare center to comment on Bonnie's recent increase in GI activity. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. I basically told her that this problem has been discussed with her pediatrician on numerous occasions (including wihtin the last 24 hours) and that barfing was simply a way of life and that we would just have to deal with it until she grows out of it. "Bonnie, stand closer to your prom date while I take this picture *barf*" I went on to say that if they couldn't handle it, we would find another childcare provider that could. I'm so sick of being questioned about Bonnie's barfing every time I walk in the door to that place. Hopefully, this will be the end of it.

Then there's my knitting. I'm under the gun for several of my projects. First, I decided that it would be a wonderful idea to sign up for a sock knitting class in July. In reality, I'm way too busy for it, but I've paid my $30 and I'm gonna get my sock knitting knowledge! However, doing this means that there is a certian amount of knitting I must do each week to keep up with the class. To compound the problem, I decided that it would benefit my learning if I knit both socks at the same time. I'm pretty sure I'm right about that, but it doubles the amount of knitting that I must do between classes.

Next, I thought it would be a lovely idea to knit a little jumper for a fiend that had a baby in May. We are going to stop at this friend's house and see the baby and drop off gifts on August 1st, on our way up to get the Germans at the airport in Minneapolis. So I'm under the gun for that one. Fortunately, I'm almost done, but since I'm knitting in the round from the bottom up, the trickiest part of the jumper has yet to come - especially since I'm desinging the dress as I go and knitting without a pattern!!!

Finally, I want to knit a gift for Jim's sister before her baby shower on August 11, just one week after her wedding. I've decided to knit these cute stuffed blocks that I can customize with his name (one letter on each of four blocks). Good thing his name is going to be Owen and not Thaddeous or Archibald. If that was the case, he would get plain blocks. The blocks shoud be fairly quick and easy to do, but I haven't even bought the yarn, yet. I hope to do that this weekeend. By then, I hope to have the jumper done, and my sock knitting should be less onerous since I've now got the hang of knitting in the round with DPNS. Of course, if all else fails I can give her the blocks sometime after the baby shower, but, if I do that, I'll miss out on the opportunity to have tons of people ooh and ahh over my handiwork.

I'll try to post some shots of my knitting tomorrow. However, needless to say, I dont' have tons of time for blogging!