One Crazy Fiber Lady

In what is continuing to be an excellent week for lunch, I had a great one yesterday.  I had lunch with two wonderful knitting/spinning/blogging buddies, Laurie and Cassie.  We met first at Purl, moving next door to the fabulous tart place.  I can never remember the name of the place, though Laurie had purchased their recipe book earlier at The Strand.  Good deal there.  She generously treated for lunch.  After much talking combined with hearty laughter, we moved back to Purl for what knitting bloggers do best, yarn shopping.  Laurie came out with far more than I did, including two beautiful skeins of a cashmere/silk blend in a wonderful color.  I can’t wait to see the wrap she makes with it.  I couldn’t leave empty handed and returned to the office with this:

Four skeins of Rowan Cashsoft, each in a different color and a US10 Addi Turbo.  I’m planning on knitting a Shetland Scarf for each of my kids’ daycare teachers as their holiday present.  Last year it was the booga bags, this year scarves.  I did cast on for the first one this morning during my ride in.  The lace pattern that I’m using is the New Shell pattern.  This is part of the Shetland Lace Workshop over at EZasPi.  I might, well probably will, use a different lace motif for each of the scarves.  I’m guessing it would be pretty boring after the 4th.  The yarn is just dreamy and I dare those ladies not to like them.  I think I picked some pretty user friendly colors too.  I had a fabulous time with Laurie and Cassie.  I hated leaving them to go back to the office, but I had to.  I look forward to seeing them at Rhinebeck!  Thank you ladies for a great break in the day.

Just in case you think I threw Twist aside for the new temptresses, I have not.  I finished the back this morning on the train, before casting on for the scarf (on the PATH).  I just measured it again and am a touch concerned.  I am coming up a .5" shorter then what it measured while on the train.  I might just undo the shoulder shaping and add the couple of rows.  Or, I could hold the darn thing to my body, see if the sleeve opening is going to be deep enough and if it is, remember to modify the sleeve cap to account for the half inch difference in the opening depth.  Hmm which to do.  Yup, undo, add the 3 rows and redo.  I’ll never remember the sleeve adjustment (or will screw up the basic math) when sleeve time comes and will be faced with sleeves that don’t fit the opening. I’ll wad up the sweater parts, shove it in a bag and burry it deep in the sad closet of UFO’s.  I know what I’m doing during lunch today. 

For another chapter in the adventures of childrearing, my youngin’s managed to throw me another curveball this morning.  On top of being up 45 minutes before they normally are, they got out of their respective beds and played in their room.  I was half dressed when the noises changed and they started calling out for mama.  I decided shoot caution to the wind, let em out of their room and see what happened.  Therein lay the problem.  While they can’t open the door yet, they were able to futz with the lock and locked me out.  I don’t have those nice push button locks, I have the twisty kind and hadn’t really had to face those yet from the wrong side.  Blind luck had me opening the thing on the first test of the bathroom door before approaching there.  Beginner’s luck indeed.  I wasn’t so lucky when newly confident I tried their door, all the while listening to Alex tell me "opie" from the other side of the door.  6:45 this morning, I wound up unscrewing the doorknob and removing it entirely!  While I had the thing apart, I studied the mechanism and could unlock it with a screwdriver.  All the same, I remounted it with the lock on the outside so we don’t have to deal with this again. 

That’s how my day is running.  I think I’m going to be bold and give (S) a call tonight.  I’ll use the old "wanted to thank you again for lunch" entry point.  Can’t hurt right?

I need some input here.  I think the categories section is looking out of control.  Would anyone mind if I pared it down a tad?  There are projects there that are long completed, long ignored and link to what will be permanent UFO’s, etc.  I’m considering combining to a handful or a tad more.  Family / Beading / Spinning / Knitting – Adult / Knitting – Kids / Knitting – Gifts / Knitting – Lace / SEX .  Good idea?  Bad idea?  Should Knitting – Socks be a category too? Yes, I know its my blog and I could do whatever I want to it but I do value your opinion.

Knit on.

Knitting progresses apace on the new sweater in my life, Twist.  I’m well into the shaping for the back and the second skein of yarn.  Which btw, is the second skein that Baron has taken as his own, at least for a short time.  He strips the ballband off and then makes one heck of a mess out of the skein.  Blech.  I wound it into a usable center pull ball last night after futzing around with my work laptop trying to get it to play nice with the wireless ethernet adapter and still connect to the office VPN.  I could connect everywhere else except the office on wireless, but plugged in it worked so it had to be in the config on the laptop.  Lo and behold it was, but I shan’t bore you with geek-speak.  I can now do my work stuff from anywhere in the house with the laptop.  Go me.  Back to Twist, I shall not bore you with daily updated photos of the thing as it progresses another inch or two, maybe three.  Nope, didn’t felt Kat’s hat last night either.  Again, see the geek part previously mentioned.

Now for what most of you have tuned in today for, (S) and I met for lunch.  Yay!  Had to change restaurants due to no reservations available.  We went to the Mesa Grill instead.  That’s Bobby Flay’s restaurant on 5th Ave not too far from Union Square, and a relatively easy 3 avenue walk from my office.  I’ve eaten there once before, probably January 1999 if memory serves.  It’s a nice restaurant, good food, though a bit  crowded.  Didn’t stop (S) and I from having some very nice and comfortable conversation.  I could really like this guy.  He’s cute.  He’s nice.  He’s a good conversationalist.  He really knows the importance of children (has two daughters himself) and I loved the way he talked about his girls.  He seemed "cooled out" by the knitting and definitely the spinning.  I really enjoyed lunch.  I sent him a note when I got back to the office thanking him and letting him know I had a really good time.  I had hoped he did as well.  I gave him the phone number then too.  I got an email back from him that he enjoyed it as well and is looking forward to seeing/speaking with me again.  Ditto.  I was nervous as heck again before this date.  Ask Elaine.  She heard it in an email right before I was leaving and called me {shudder} normal!  Mom explained (I called her as I walked back to the office) that it was normal for me to be nervous.  She’s be worried if I weren’t nervous.  I guess normal isn’t a bad thing, right?   Well, I’m not nervous now and just happy…

Now to get that email off to (B) letting him down gently.

Knit on!

Update, we got your updates here. 

First, that Super-Secret Surprise Baby Gift project for coworker Marina is finally no longer secret and I can divulge it to the rest of you.  I had another coworker deliver the gift to Marina this weekend as she had her little girl on 9/11.  Yes, a less than positive day but with a new reason to be happy.  The circle of life and all that.  Anyway, I can finally post the picture and project details.

Pattern:  From Last Minute Knitted Gifts. 

Yarn:  TLC Cotton Plus (though the gold is Cotton-Ease)

Full project details:  here.

I got an email from Marina this morning thanking me for the blanket.  I hope baby Emma is half as happy with it.  For those that remember my stitch quota, what it translated to was two and a half blocks a day.  While riding the bus, it was easy to accomplish and was pretty mindless knitting of rows and rows of garter stitch.  Great project and would be faster as Joelle set it up, for a group of friends to knit together.  I have plenty more yarn as I only used a skein and a half of each color and ordered 5 of each.  Yup, stasher extraordinaire! 

Moving right along.  I finished knitting the hat for Kathryn yesterday.  It was pretty late when I finally worked in the last end so I haven’t had a chance to start the felting part of it yet.  I need to dig out a bowl the size of the monkey’s head to get it right.  Maybe tonight or tomorrow, depends on how much energy I have left tonight.  I’m pretty tired now, but that’s because I had a carb-rich lunch at Benny’s Buritos.  Nope, not with (S), more on that later though.

As a further indicator to me that I shouldn’t lead a KAL, (my last lead was that Recycled Sari Silk scarf-along that I HATED) I haven’t touched Eris in at least a month, have even discarded its replacement of attention Samus and am now working on the newest of the cabled cardigans to wiggle at me.  Meet Twist.  I got an email from ChicKnits yesterday announcing the newest sweater pattern’s release.  It had two of my favorite new features.  It was both a cardigan and had cables.  It had two other features in its favor.  The yarn from Samus met the gauge requirements and since I’d just recently swatched and started that, re-purposed the Wool of the Andes yarn.  Samus is now out of the WIP and into a "Someday" queue.  Oops, I seem to remember joining a KAL for it.  KAL’s aren’t my strong suit obviously.  Anyway, the other plus in its favor is that Bonne Marie designed it.  I’ve used several of her patterns, including the much beloved Ribby Cardi and very much like her work.  I started the back while the twins took their afternoon nap yesterday.  I had to force myself to stop and go back and finish the hat.  I like the shaping that’s built into this sweater so for the moment, we have a winner in the cardigan contest.  Well that’s until something else comes out from the woodwork to tempt me. 

Now, for the dating thing.  In talking with (S) to see if lunch was still on for today, he mentioned that because of meetings, it would have to be quick.  While trying to find a good central point for us to meet that would not be McDonalds and yet quick, I suggested maybe rescheduling for another day.  He initially declined stating that two reschedules "would make him a jerk".  Bonus points to him for this.  After explaining that I understood work pressures and wouldn’t think him a jerk, he agreed that a reschedule that allowed for a more leisurely lunch would be best.  We’re meeting here tomorrow.  He picked it.  Should be an excellent lunch judging from the email exchanges and two quick scheduling phone calls with a nice guy.  (S) has played by the new rules very very well.  I’m really looking forward to meeting him.

I have some stored procs to write and a batch job to test, so I’ll part here..

Craft on!

I have a lovely finished object to show y’all.  The Girlfriend Swing Sweater is now done.  Sweet little sweater for Ms. Kat.  I’m pretty sure its large enough for the little monkey that she should be able to wear it through the fall and more than likely next spring.  I had a little trouble convincing her to put it on so I could take a picture.  Mom got her to do it with a little sweet talking.  She’s a true cat and came straight for me as I held the camera.  I did get to snap off some very cute pictures, if I do say so myself.  I’m pleased with the modifications that I made to it.  Full details of that are in the album pages here.  (click for larger images)

And true to toddler-hood, after struggling to get her into the thing, she didn’t want to take it off.  I started a hat from the Knit Hats! book, the "Child’s Felted Hat" in the same yarn to match this cute little coat.  That should be done in no time.  Good thing I started knitting again at lunch, I have so many projects I want to work on.  Either Samus or Eris need to be addressed soon.  Not to mention the yarn that’s on order that I mentioned in my last post.  Someday I’ll take some pictures of the current stash. 

Hmm, I could be knitting… NOW.  But…

I’m sure that inquiring minds want to know, my lunch date with (S) was postponed until Monday.  I got an email from him early Friday telling me that he was looking forward to meeting me, but could I call him before our get together.  Sure, no problem.  Well he was getting slammed at work and wondered if we could change our plans and maybe get together at 2:30 for coffee.  Tough time, but then he suggested lunch on Monday.  Works for me!  Got to break up the two big Asian meals in one day thing I had scheduled.  Something to look forward to Monday for…

Now we get to dinner.  I was nervous as hell.  Surprised me too how nervous I was about the whole thing.  I forced myself to go, really, what was there to be nervous about.  I had free babysitting and I was getting out of the house for something other than work.  All good.  Anyway, I got to the restaurant and (B) had arrived before me.  Good thing he recognized me because I wouldn’t have recognized him.  Where I had used recent pictures for my online profile (borrowed them from my Finished Items albums – Ribby and Ribby Shell for the curious) he hadn’t and had changed quite a bit.  There were no awkward silences, conversation was good, food was better.  In the end, he’d make  good friend, but I feel no physical attraction for him at all.  It would have to be faked and that wouldn’t be fair to each of us.  See, I was right for wanting to put the brakes on all the telephone conversations I was having with him.  So much energy expended on what looked good on paper and went conversationally well, to end because of a lack of chemistry.  I’m going to call him and thank him for a lovely dinner and decline any further contact.  In the end, the first date in a long long time is finally under my belt.

On that note, I’m going back to the felted hat for the monkey.

Craft on!

Knitting proceeds apace on the Girlfriend Swing Sweater for Little Miss Kat-Kat. I finished the second sleeve yesterday. I’ve made some modifications to the pattern. I’m not particularly keen on the rolled edge look. To me it always looks like you skipped something in the finishing of a garment. While the pattern does suggest using a 2 or 3 stitch I-cord around various edges, I’m not a huge fan of the old idiot cord. I decided to use a seed stitch border instead. I had to un-bind-off one sleeve and the garment hem to add this new border and am very glad I did so. So now both sleeves are done and I’ve started the collar. I’m halfway through with that now and should have it done during lunch today. I’m going to add the seed stitch border to the end of the collar as well. It should help it lay right. The only part of the sweater that I still have decided what to do with is the edge of the collar. I’ve been slipping the first stitch of every row, giving it a decent selvage, but…. I do have to add button bands and I was considering continuing these button bands in one long line to include the edge of the collar. I’ll have to see how it looks when I cast it off. If it rolls or looks cheesy, it gets the band. I’ll dig out mom’s button tin later and see if there are any goodies that would be perfect for this sweater. She handed me her good-size tin full of buttons when I was hunting around for closures for some beadwork I’d done. Nice stuff and I now have a great button collection. Yay. Next picture should be a mostly complete little sweater for my monkey girl.

I did a little more stash acquisition. I’m laying in for the winter. Yeah, that’s the ticket. I saw my favorite yarn dealer had some very lovely discontinued Rowan Wool Cotton in one of my new favorite colors for a fabulous price. I’m thinking one of ChicKnit’s sweaters for this yarn. Either the Eyelet Cardi (which yes has been in my queue for ages and I’ve already bought a cotton blend for from Knitpicks) or her new one, Cutaway. I turned to my expert on all things Rowan for her opinion. First she heartily approved the yarn. Naturally Her advice as to which sweater? Cutaway, being a bit trendy, was good I could finish it this fall, otherwise go for the more classic Eyelet Cardi. Great advice I think. While it should be a quick knit, we all know how my attention wanders from project to project. I’m easily distracted by any new yarn that shakes its ballband at me, not to mention the various patterns and projects that a quick cruise around knitting blogland reveals. This is made worse that I’m a ring checker and have to look at a bunch of sites every week! Do you know what that does to my attention span? I try not to look at the stash, the pitifully ignored queue and the ever expanding WIPS.

The J&S one ply Cobweb arrived yesterday. Oh my goodness is that stuff fine. It really is amazing how small a 200+ yard skein of something that fine can be. I bought 8 skeins so I should have a decent amount to play with. I’ll be ready for when the workshop starts this weekend. Yay. Oh sure, I really do need more to do.

I’ve been giving my little mp3 player a decent workout the last couple of days, especially since I ripped a couple of LP’s. I do totally love my Creative Zen Micro and would definitely recommend it over the iPod. (which by the way, I’m still waiting to hear from the class action settlement board what they intend to do with my iPod that suffered the catastrophic battery failure). I usually leave the thing in random play mode and am always amused at the eclectic mix that you can wind up with. I left it playing when I got to the office as I needed to charge the battery up (last charge was Sunday.. good Zen) and could listen while it charged. Here’s the playlist since I got in:

• I write the songs – Barry Manilow
• Janie’s Got a Gun – Aerosmith
• Ready to Take a Chance Again – Barry Manilow
• Bad Moon Rising – CCR
• Waterloo – Abba
• Toreador Song – Pavarotti
• I am What I am – Gloria Gaynor
• Two Tear Drops = Steve Warner
• Fool in the Rain – Zep
• Whole Lotta Love – Zep
• Running with the Devil – Van Halen

It managed to find two of the three total Barry Manilow tunes on the drive out of the 260+ tracks. In my much younger days I was a huge fan and in a nostalgic mood, I got a hold of a favorite or two. The train ride had an even wider divergence of genres going from Guns N Roses to The Three Tenors to Aerosmith and then Yes. Variety is indeed the spice of life.

One final note, my mom informed me yesterday that my dad (who only works 3.5 days now) is taking off Monday instead of Friday (as normal) so that they can take the kids Friday night, freeing me up to date. Nice huh! I don’t have to pay a babysitter. Sweet. Now I just had to make sure that the penciled in date with (B) would be in something other than pencil. Honestly, I wasn’t sure as I hadn’t really conversed with him either in email or on the phone since last week. I really did need to step back and see if he could as well. So he went from two to three phone calls + 2 emails a day to two calls since Saturday (though one was to my cell phone yesterday – bad bad bad) and an email, though he doesn’t wait for me to reply before contacting again. Not great, but better. I just sent him a restaurant option (Japanese Steak House – yummy!) and we’ll see how the self-proclaimed boring eater responds to that. I’m still feeling rather ambivalent on the whole thing with him, but I am excited to have lunch with (S) tomorrow! We’re meeting at a Thai place near my office. Guess I’m in an Asian mood. Still, two dates in one day. Weeeeeee.

Craft on!

Deb tagged me with this:

Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five some other people to do the same.

"After lunch we did make it out of the house for a trip to Majestic Yarns where I bought 7 more skeins of Lamb’s Pride worsted for booga bags for the nice teachers."

Full post is here.  Fun to go back and read the old stuff.  Thanks Deb!

I’ve seen this in a lot of places today so I’ll pass on actually naming names.  If you’d like to consider yourself tagged by me, go forth and dig through your archives too.

This new concerted knitting effort is producing results.  I did indeed finish the hem of the Girlfriend Swing Sweater on the way home yesterday and was even able to start the first sleeve.  Notice I didn’t bother cleaning the couch off of toddler toys before I plopped down to knit last night.  See Cate, my house is starting to be festooned with Fisher Price Little People (FPLP) as well.  Not to mention the short people have a serious addiction to the Mega Blocks.  I got an excellent deal on them too, the nice wagon chock full for $6 at a garage sale this summer.  Nice.  Kat has been taking a "pock-a" (pocketbook) to bed with her stuffed with FPLP.   Both of my kids have inherited my addiction to pock-a’s and want to carry them everywhere.  Kristen, you’ll be happy to know that they’ve revoked their loans of the bags you made for them and took them for their own use.  I’ve had to find other homes for Birchington and my spindles.  I did find a great little bag at ugh K-Mart yesterday on clearance that already houses my smaller Hatchtown spindle.  The good news, both kids stayed in bed last night, no falling out or if they did, they did it quietly and got back in.  I did get into their room this morning to find them both jumping on Kat’s bed.  Could be worse

Oh my, I’m digressing badly today.  Okay.  Progress was made on the GFSS.  I came within two inches of finishing the first sleeve while watching my new favorite show last night, House.  Love it.  I bound-off the sleeve on the PATH train this morning and started up the second.  I’m taking lunch today for the first time in a while and will get some knitting in then again.  Woo.  Maybe my production level will go back up with the return of lunch knitting.  Why you ask did I stop lunch knitting?  Well two words:  summer hours.  In order to get out of here at 1pm on Fridays, we work a longer day during the rest of the week.  Because of the short people and things like train schedules, I really can’t stay late.  Once in a while, sure.  Everyday?  Not a chance.  So in order to participate in the early out Friday, I bargained away my lunch hour and ate at my desk while I worked. 

I did leave the office again for the first time yesterday.  My lunch buddy Kevin and I headed down to Seaport Yarn.  I needed to pick up a skein of the Merino Oro for Elaine.  I bought a skein in black during our crawl and while she didn’t get one initially, she did live to regret it   She’s sending me a cobweb suri alpaca yarn that should be divine in trade.  Works for me.  I can’t wait to see that stuff!  I couldn’t leave the store empty handed for myself and picked up some Clover US8 DPN’s which proved useful for the first sleeve and the default purchase of surprise… SOCK YARN. Two skeins of Louet Gems Pearl in Burgundy.  I seem to be on a bit of a burgundy kick.  At least the socks will match all the sweaters made in the same color!  After a little yarn shopping, the two of us hit a Sushi place right on Fulton.  Yes Elaine, it is the same place we had lunch.  I had the very yummy Chicken Teriyaki box lunch.  MMMMMMMM.  Nancy, maybe we can come up with a similar lunch plan for that Friday you arrive before Rhinebeck.

If you thought my kids did a good job, check out Sue’s daughter!  Toddlers.  Got to love them.  While you’re over there, get a good look at the thread crochet that Sue has been doing recently.  Amazing.

Anyway, got to get back to my batch jobs and debugging.

Craft on!

I appreciate everyone’s comment on my post yesterday.  I have to admit, I had a similar reaction when I walked in there.  After the initial shock of seeing cornstarch and powdery white kids, I fought the laughter myself.  Okay, like a good blogger, I did back out and close the door so I could get the camera.  You bet I’m going to print those pictures out and frame them.  They’ll definitely be good blackmail pictures down the road.  I knew it could have been far worse than the never-ending vacuuming and you all provided the "worse".  There are still spots of "mesh" that I need to get back to as the twins keep wandering into those spots.   I bit the bullet and pulled the sides of the cribs off last night.  I installed Kathryn’s toddler rail and used a regular bed-rail that collapses to half the length of the crib for Alex’s bed.  While I knitted and listened to the baby monitor for them to go to sleep, a picture flashed by on my computer’s screen saver mode.  It was this:

That was the day they came home from the hospital after a week in the NICU.  They shared that crib, side-by-side as above, for the first six months.  Now look at them:

I still can’t get over the fact that they are going to be two years old soon.  TWO?!  They did very well in the bed last night.  Kat fell out once at around 10.  I walked in to find her standing next to the bed, crying.  She was more surprised than anything else and went back to bed pretty nicely.  Gasp, the next stage will be twin beds.  I’m in no rush, but will keep and eye on bed sales in the area.  This will do for a little while at least.

Now.. onto the knitting.  I have been doing some.  I need to clear some projects off the plate before the Shetland Lace Workshop starts over on the EZasPi list.  I ordered several skeins of the Jamieson & Smith 1ply Cobweb in Natural for the projects from a fellow lister Beth.  I can’t wait to check out this cobweb and compare it to some of the very fine yarn I have hanging about the house thanks to the knitting machine days. 

I had a setback with Birchington this weekend.  Friday on the train home I started playing with the math for the next motif that I wanted to add to the border.  I was very close so I finished with the last repeat, did a few rows of solid stockinette and set about with the next.  Three rows into it I didn’t like how it looked.  At all.  But when I changed patterns, I had 111 st each side, 444 per round and I needed to undo 3 rounds.  I don’t have to know the final number there to know that I couldn’t tink that much.  It was at this point that I regretted the decision to not use lifelines.  I’ve read how they’ve saved others but never got around to implementing them in my own knitting.  Now I wish I had.  I pulled the needle out, frogged the yarn and somehow managed to get all my stitches back on the needle.  An hour later.  Oy. 

Having the bad taste of Birchington and the frogpond, I decided to switch tracks.  I moved to the Girlfriend Swing Sweater for Kat in that lovely pink color of Jaeger Shetland Aran.  Having done a lot with fine gauge yarn recently, I’m tickled pink at how fast this is going.  I was an inch shy of the bind off at the bottom during my train ride this morning.  Going out on a limb, this should be definitely done in time for Rhinebeck.  But then again, I do have to add buttons and we all know how long that takes me to do.  At least there is no piecing to do.  That takes me almost as long as the buttons to accomplish.

Now for the geeky bits.  Get a gander at this:

That’s my computer desk in the living room.  Nice flat panel monitor, very sleek and colorful Sony computer.  Ignore the clutter please, I might be a good knitter but I’m a lousy housekeeper.  Hmm that reminds me that my mom’s friend wanted to know if she should check to see if her housekeeper had any available time.  Must make a note to call her.  Anyway… in between the computer and the pile of bags (yes knitting and roving if you must ask) you see a nice printer/copier/scanner combo that I’m very pleased with.  But the geeky bit (geekier than the second computer hiding in the lower right hand corner of the photo under all the bags) is the item sitting on top of the printer combo.  Want a closer look?  Now you might be asking what’s so darn geeky about some seriously old technology as a turntable.  (If you’ve never had a turntable, please don’t tell me, I don’t need to feel older than I already am.)  The geeky bit is that this new, yes brand new, turntable is plugged into the line-in on my computer’s sound card.  As these pictures were being snapped, my computer was busy converting the LP into a MP3 file. Yo how cool is that?  I still have old vinyl that I never converted to CD and as such, really can’t listen to these days.   Yo yo.  Oh and yes, I’m still drinking TaB with no ill effects on the keppellah.  Yay me.

Nothing to report on the dating front.  I have a lunch date scheduled with (S) for Friday and probably dinner with (B) Friday night.  Rains but it pours right?  I haven’t had a date since late June 1999 and now I have two on the same day to break the drought.  Figures.  (B) still shows signs of being a phone pest and as such is falling quickly from favor.   I take heart in all the comments you’ve left of how successful pairings have been made off the ‘net.  Thank you!

Now to answer a bunch of emails…and get some work done

Craft on!

You ever mentally compose a post over the course of a couple of days, taking pictures to go with it, only to have something happen that just blows all that away?  Did I knit this weekend?  Yup.  Did I do something to further prove that I’m a geek?  You betcha.  I have pictures of both.  Yay me.  Except you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to learn more about those things. 

What happened you ask?  The twins.  Kathryn and Alexander.   They happened.  Last week you’ll remember that my mother reported that Alex had escaped from his crib during nap at her house.  This was after the pair of them escaped from the Pack ‘n Plays last weekend at my sister’s house.  Well they lulled me into a false sense of security.  After staying in the cribs Friday morning, I decided to leave the sides as is and not convert them quite yet to toddlers beds.  They only served to enforce this decision on Saturday when they stayed in and played for at least a half hour before I plucked them out for breakfast.  Later they took a 3+ hour nap and didn’t escape at all.  Nor did they escape Sunday morning or after the brief after lunch nap they took.  Lulled I say. 

Sunday afternoon they were a bit cranky, beating, biting and scratching each other so I decided a nap was in order.  I escorted the pair off to their room where I deposited them in the cribs.  I kept an ear on them with the baby monitor as I proceeded to do some straightening and get a start on dinner by chopping the veggies that I was going to use for the stir fry.  Through it all I didn’t hear sleeping, but I didn’t hear any telltale noise that indicated that anything was amiss.  Finally, after 45 minutes (and finished with the veggies and chicken), I heard something that sent my mommy senses tingling.  The boom box which I put on with a classical cd as I put them down started up.  Neither kid can reach this thing from their cribs so I knew at least one was out.  With great trepidation as to what I’d find when I got there and how many had escaped, I went to their room.  I was aghast.  Look for yourself…(click for larger photos)

Oy vey.  They both escaped.  They found a long forgotten box of corn starch (used for a particularly bad diaper rash Kat had) and went to town.nbsp; Kat was dancing in it declaring the place a "mesh". She looks particularly pleased with herself doesn’t she? The floor and just about everything else in the room, kids included, had a good coating of corn starch that seemingly took forever to get up.  Heck, I had to vacuum my vacuum.  If Kat wasn’t dancing, she laid down and told me "night-night" After vacuuming forever, the three of us were pretty well covered in the stuff and went off to the shower. At least I didn’t have to give them an after dinner bath for a change. Their floor still has a nice silky feel to it. I’ll have to swiffer it later and I suspect I’ll be dealing with the aftereffects for a long time to come. That’s the kind of afternoon I could pass on.  There is a bright side, at least it wasn’t the large and expensive tub of Triple Paste that they made a mess with.

Now comes the hard decision of what to do with the beasts.  Obviously the cribs are no containment structures anymore.  I do have one little problem though.  While Kat’s crib is a true convertible to toddler bed complete with a little half rail to keep her from falling out, the same is not true of Alex’s.  I can take the side off, but I don’t have a rail for him.  I don’t think he’s ready to sleep without the rails yet as he presses against the sides still.  I’m tempted to leave the side on and leave them in the open position.  They won’t roll out, but yet if they do want to escape and fall, they’ll fall from a much lower position. Or do I just bite the bullet and go get two twins beds and the guardrails to keep them from falling out.  Help!!!

Craft on

My mother just gleefully called to inform me that my son had escaped from the crib. I knew the day was coming when he would. I was just hoping it wouldn’t come so soon after the twins glorious escape from the Pack ‘n Plays. Ugh. I’ll have to remove the side from his crib. While I’m at it, I’ll have to do Kat’s crib as well as she’ll just follow her brother’s lead. He’s the vanguard and she’s right behind him.

Seems appropriate somehow that I’ve been working on a pair of socks for little mister escape artist. I started the toe shaping this morning during my commute in. Couple more rows and I’ll be done with it. Yes, my knitting productivity is WAY down recently. Between the kids, the cold (which has grown from little cold to full-blown bronchitis thank you) and the dating thing, I just don’t have the time/energy to knit beyond the hour or so on the train. Last night was back to school night at the daycare/nursery school. Miss Carla brought her daughter (a teen twin) in to watch my twins so that I could participate. It was a lot of fun and quite informative. I was seriously surprised to learn that they are already doing projects one on one with Miss Carla. I saw these cute little apples with tissue paper glued on with both of my kids’ names written on the back. Holy! Heck I can’t get them to quit eating crayons. Speaking of which, there was a crayon drawing with Kat’s name on it that came home from school on Monday! My babies aren’t such babies anymore.

I somehow doubt that Birchington will be done prior to the kick off of the Shetland Lace workshop that starts on the 24th on the EzasPI list. This looks like it will be a fabulous KAL/Contest with some really great prizes being donated to the cause. While that aspect hasn’t been decided, I think I might just work on a pair of Shetland Lace socks and incorporate some of those pretty little pearl seed beads. Mental note to self: need to find super small crochet hook for this!

I’m also trying to decide what to do for the twins second birthday party. How can it possibly be two years?! It seems so much like yesterday that I was bringing them home from the hospital. In a blink of the eye, they’ve gone from 36 week “preemies” to walking/talking/escaping short people who can feed themselves and express quite well their likes and dislikes. Heck, Kat even put on her own pants this morning. When did this happen? I don’t have much planning time as their birthday is Oct 9th. I think a small party at my folks house is what we’re going to do. Ya’ll are invited if you so wish, just drop me a note and let me know you’re coming so I can order the appropriate sized cake. Oh and Alex needs 2T fall/winter clothes

Moving on for more in the dating saga.. those who read for the knitting and twin stuff can depart now with my blessings and thanks… Craft on!

(J) is history. (B) having gotten an email explaining my feelings and new rules opted to play within the new parameters. He’s now emailing the new address and no longer flooding my phone numbers with message after message. Actually, I haven’t received a phone call from him since. Good man. Thanks to the bronchitis and accompanying laryngitis, there wouldn’t be much in the way of sparkling conversation from me so I’ve asked to postpone our dinner date until next week. I haven’t heard back from him yet, but I only sent that email this morning.

Here’s the lowdown on (J). He’s the one who called my office number a couple of times to get nothing but voicemail and opted out to the receptionist. Sneaky. Only to be calling to see if he could call me that night. A bit crazy in my book. Anyway, he called Tuesday at 9:30 and since I hadn’t given him the new rules, it was the perfect opportunity to do so. After declining his offer of showing up on my doorstep with chicken soup, I gently reminded him that I told him I’d call him to reschedule. This was met with a “really???” like it was the first time he’d heard that. Guess he wasn’t really listening to me when we talked Monday morning. Anyway, I proceeded to explain my feelings and how I a bit put off by his receptionist trick when he hung up on me. Yeah. Nice going. I then got an email from him through JDate which I do have to give you word for word:

You just passed up one of the best guy you’ll ever meet. I tried to contact you – what a horrible thing.

Nice huh? Naturally I couldn’t leave it like that. Here’s my reply:

That’s a bit presumptuous of you. If I recall, you hung up on me. Please lose my number and find someone else. Good luck.

He naturally responded:

You were angry and yelling. I only called you at the office to ask if I could reach you at night. Don’t women expect a man to be a bit aggressive? Let’s start again – I love talking to you.

There is so much here. Angry and yelling? Not hardly. There’s also a line between aggressive and stalkerati that he seems to not see. My reply:

If you thought that was yelling, boy are you in for a big surprise. I don’t appreciate your reaction, I don’t like being hung up on, I don’t like being called to see if someone can call. I really don’t appreciate your last email. Good luck to you. Goodbye.

I got one last email from him before I put him on Ignore:

There’s seems to be a lot of things you don’t like. It sounds like you’re the one who needs luck.

Is it me or does this guy appear to need his meds? The chain alternates between “you bitch” and “i love you”. Hell if he ran away because I was mad and yelled at him on the phone (which I wasn’t and didn’t), I can’t even imagine what he’d be like if he saw the actual temper. Umm, does anyone like being hung up on. I may be a bit deluded but I don’t think I listed a serious list of unusual or unexpected dislikes. Crazy whackjob # 2. Hopefully he decided to move on to the next batch of fresh fish that arrived on the service. He did have one little strike against him from the start. He wasn’t Jewish. Is that a requirement for me? Not really no. Would it be nice? Absolutely. I am Jewish and I did make a conscious decision to sign up on a Jewish dating service. I would prefer someone of the same faith as that does make some things easier. It surely isn’t required. I see my sister happily married for 15 years to someone who isn’t Jewish. Heck, my ex is Jewish and see how far that got me. It would be nice and that’s why I picked the service I did. Bye bye (J). Hope you can refill that script soon.

With the new rules in place, I’ve been able to catch up with the poor fellows who were waylaid by the monopolizers and have exchanged emails with a few of them. They’re following the rules nicely and I’ve had some very nice email exchanges. I’m having lunch next Friday with (M) who’s profile is very appealing and darn cute if his picture is accurate. Wait, that means a lunch date followed by a dinner date on Friday. Oooh bad me. There’s another two that I’m in regular email contact with. Its starting to look up. At least I can laugh it the mistakes to this point.. and best yet, have learned from them.

Thanks for the ear!

Craft on.