Do you ever just want to run away and hide? Today is one of those days for me. Vincent was up early, took a 25 minute nap mid morning and has been freaking out ever since. The girls have been fighting (but are reading their latest issues of Click and Ladybug quietly now, knock on wood). My friends' baby is fairly mellow, but hasn't napped much at all. I count on the 20 minutes in the middle of the day when her mom comes over to snuggle and visit her baby during her lunch break. It's my mental break. Today J was running late and stopped only long enough to give me more EBM for the baby. I could so desperately use 30 minutes of absolute quiet right now, with no one touching me.

Vincent is screaming again....

My poor babies

A friend stopped over this evening. Abigail and Isabella were playing in the house with one of Paula's daughters while we were outside talking and watching the toddlers and older kids play. Paula had to run inside for tissue, and when she came out she commented that the girls were playing really quietly. About 15-20 minutes later, Abigail peeks outside of the back door, sweaty and disheveled, crying and looking excited. We ran in to see what was up.

The toy room closet has shelves in it, starting around 2' off the ground. The girls had taken all of the toys out of the bottom, all three got inside (it's maybe a yard long and a little over a foot wide) and then, for some unknown reason, they shut the door. It's a regular room door, not a bifold door. They were trapped inside because they couldn't reach up far enough to get to the doorknob. They were shouting for us, but since we were outside, we couldn't hear them. Apparently they were in there "a long, long, long, long time" according to Abigail and Isabella. We know it was at least 15-20 minutes. They found a stick and tried reaching under the door to open it (? kid logic). Then they tried reaching the knob, but couldn't. Finally they hit upon the plan of Isabella and Paula's daughter pushing the bottom shelf up while Abigail reached for the doorknob. It worked, and they were freed. Abigail came running out to let us know what happened.

At first, they were so happy to be out that they weren't even upset. Once they started talking to us, though, they started crying. That must have been so scary! I'm thankful that there were three of them in there, not just say Isabella, or it would have been a lot scarier.

I can't believe they would get in there and close the door! What were they thinking?????

Framed

Luis didn't find any more plywood yesterday, but we built the frame of the chicken coop and run yesterday evening. We have two sheet of plywood, and hopefully will do the roof and the short sides today. Luis then wants to wait until next weekend to finish in the hopes that he'll find the plywood on the other side of town. We put the frame out in the garden where I wanted to put it, and it fits perfectly.

We have another showing today. I hope it goes well! It's not until 4, so I have to finish the cleaning and somehow keep the kids occupied so that everything stays clean. Wish me luck. I really prefer weekend showings, or showings very early in the morning.

Reuse when you can

It's Clean Up Days here in Monroe, affectionately known as Trash to Treasure days around our house. Clean Up Days are two weeks, one for each half of town, where people can throw out almost anything, almost any quantity. Curbs can be piled high with things people are throwing out, items that often have lots of life left in them. In previous years, Luis has scavenged almost all of our outside toys, countless lawnmowers and weedwhackers that needed only a little work before we could sell them, and the other odd stuff we could use. On the weekends before the Clean Up Days, when people are putting their stuff out, you'll see trucks and vans rolling slowly through the streets, eyeing up everyone's trash. So far, people have picked up an ancient twin mattress set and a couple of plastic toys from our small trash pile. Our neighbors put out a roll of carpet padding; it was gone in less than 2 hours.

Luis is out trolling around right now. His goal is to make our chicken coop entirely from reused materials. I rather doubt he'll find two more sheets of 4x8' plywood, but he has found all the two by fours that we'll need, a roll of chicken wire, and the window screening. Go, honey, go!

On the theme of reusing, if you haven't heard of Freecycle, please check it out! http://www.freecycle.org It's email groups around the nation for passing along items that you no longer need but someone else could use. Everything must be given away free.

I'm debating reusing some more knitting too. :) I have a sweater I knit Isabella last year that is just too feminine to fee like I can keep it for Vincent. I have more of the yarn, so I think I'll frog it and reknit it into something else for her. Except this time I think I'll make it a size big so she can wear it for more than one winter!

Welcome back!

Welcome back to the rain, rain, rain
We're glad the water's coming down again
The seeds are born in the storm
Welcome back to the rain.

(from Circle Round)

It's a glorious rainy day here. We haven't one in far too long. There was essentially a drought here late summer and fall and very little snow this winter. It's so nice to have a rainy day.

The rain means no planting my peas today, though. No walk to the PO either. I hope Luis gets home in time to go for me because I have a package that really needs to go out today.

I just bound off a ponch for Abigail. It's a light blue that I paired with aqua stripes. When they are next to each other, the blue takes on a periwinkle look that is really nice. It's really simple. I took a neck down raglan pullover pattern and just didn't seperate for the sleeves. Joan S on knitlist shared that wonderful idea. I still need to picku up the stitches and finish the neck, but she can't wait to wear it. It's a little big, but I wanted her to be able to wear it next fall, and maybe next spring as well. I'm debating fringe still. We'll see how it looks once I get the neck finished.

I've been working hard on my Cape sweater. The back and one sleeve are done. I've got about 2-3" done of the front as well. It's longer than I was trying for. I tried to shorten it by an inch, but I suspect I messed up somewhere with the conversion of centimeters to inches. The color is gorgeous, completely me.

I'm stalled on my socks, but will proably get going on them again soon now that the poncho is finished. The poncho was a quicky project I did on the spur of the moment. It would have been done a week ago, but I didn't like the bind off I tried, so I put it down for a few days before ripping that out and doing a different bind off.

Rosemary's Sweater is just beautiful, but I'm stalled on that too. I need to either buy a 16" size 9 circ or get the Denise set. My size 9 dpns are shorties (5"??), too short to work an adult sleeve with.

To finish this entry - a job for you.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

"The Vanir are more mysterious than the Aesir, with no surviving mythology to account for their origins."

My nearest books was The Book of Runes, and the beginning is discussing Norse Mythology.

What are you reading?

Cluck cluck

We've been wanting to get a couple of chickens, but waiting until the new house to do so. I'm sick of waiting. Who knows how long this house will take to sell. I've figured out where in our current yard the chickens will go, found a coop for Luis to build that will fit the space beautifully and have found where to buy some pullets. It'll only be 3 chickens at the most, but that will do.

I started planting my garden this weekend. The broccoli, spinach, radishes, beets and lettuce are in. I still need to get the peas planted. Hopefully I can get that done tomorrow night. Then I'll be good for a few weeks until I can plant more. We turned over Abigail's little garden yesterday, and bought her some annuals to put into it. That way, if her veggies don't grow well (they didn't last year), it will still look pretty and she'll have something to tend.

This daycare thing has me worn out. It doesn't seem possible that one little 3 month old could exhaust me this much when I already have 3 kids of my own here, but it is very draining. I expect I'll get used to it as we fall into a routine, and it won't be so bad, but it is different when it's not your own baby. People keep asking me if the daycare baby makes me long for another of my own. Nope. Not in the least. If anything, I'm enjoying the time when it's just me and my three alone even more.

Can I also just say that anyone who says bottles and pacifiers are easier than breastfeeding seriously needs their head examined? These things are such a huge PITA.

I've been feeling introspective lately, thus not saying much of anything anywhere. I think I'm ready to snap out of it now. Here's a nice long stream-of-conciousness ramble for your reading pleasure. ;-)

When we were first married, I made bread for us. Two loaves every week, using my gramma's recipe. Then I got pregnant with Abigail and fell out of the habit, we bought a bread maker, and I've been using that for the last 6 years. About two months ago, I lost the paddle to the breadmaker (okay, it's not lost, we accidentally threw it out). I started making bread by hand again. Why did I ever stop? I love the taste, Luis loves the taste (that's saying something), it's so unbelievably easy to do. Really, the breadmaker saves like 30 minutes of work, and kneading the dough is fun. Anyone want a breadmaker that only needs a $5 part to make it workable again?

Our digital camera took a dump last week. It was four years old, and starting to go, so it wasn't a surprise. We were just hoping to get a few more months out of it. We had a Sony Mavica, pretty cutting edge at the time as it had a disk drive in there, and you could just pop in disk after disk instead of having to dump the pics into the computer. Memory cards appeared on the scene about 6 months after we bought it. The disk drive was on it's last legs, and crashed last week. Luis is drooling over the new Sony T1, this tiny little thing that will set us back $650 when all is said and done. Ouch. We went to Madison today so I could see and touch the cameras, to see what's out there. He's right, this T1 is the camera for us. It has the features I want, it's sturdy, easy to use. The only other cameras I liked (another Sony and an Olympus) were not much less money, and they weren't quite "the one". I hate it when he's right.

On Monday, I start doing childcare. I'm not thrilled about it, TBH, but it'll help out a really great couple, our chiro and his wife. They have a 3 month old, and last month their childcare plans fell through. The money can be socked away as insurance against another long layoff for Luis next winter.

There was a fiber arts fair locally last weekend, and I convinced Luis to go with me. Turns out there was a park right behind the building, so Luis took the kids to the park as it was a gorgeous day, and I got to oogle yarn all by myself. Amazing. I watched a woman spin for a while. That looks like so much fun. Someday, when the kids are older, I want to learn. I went looking for a set of size 7 add naturas, and did find them, at the Meilke Farms booth. I've been looking at Meilke Farms website for, gosh, nearly 2 years now, so it was surreal to meet them. There was also a vendor of rovings who was also selling some yarns to thin her personal stash. I bought two large bags of cotton aran weight yarn for $2 per bag. There should be enough in there for a stripey sweater for Isabella and Vincent each.

I was just reading the new Knitty articles while swatching this yarn finally. It's been having to wait because my size 8's are tied up with the Meadow Flower Shawl and my size 9's have Rosemary's Sweater on them. Today on our way back from Madison, we stopped at the Sow's Ear in Verona so the girls could have cookie and I could fondle yarn. Luis hadn't been in there before with me. He was quite impressed by the yarn swift in action. I picked up a ball of sock yarn at 40% off, should be perfect for a pair of socks for Isabella, and a set of size 8 bamboo circs. I've learned that my tension is much tighter while purling, especially while working on addi turbos with cotton yarn, so I've been expanding my collection of bamboo needles. The tension difference isn't as great when I work on bamboo needles. Hey, it's not a bad thing to have a couple pair of circs in the same size, is it?

I'm loving spring. It's so nice to be outside, to let the kids run. Vincent is once again eating dirt this year. I had hoped it was just a one year thing, but nope. I have to keep an eye on him by the garden or he'll start chomping away on it. I'd like to get the peas and broccoli planted soon, along with the lettuce and spinach. Time to start working with the earth.

Abigail spent the night at my mom's house last night for the first time. My sister was going up for the night, and I asked Abigail if she wanted to go with. She did. She has spent the night at my sister's apartment here in Monroe (before Amy moved in with us), but the rest of our families live an hour away and Abigail had never wanted to spend the night there. I think since Aunt Amy was going to be there too, Abigail felt more confident and happily went along. She called me this morning, and she is having such fun. Mom didn't know Abigail was coming until they arrived there. She was so surprised, and of course had to take her granddaughter out to dinner and breakfast to show off to all of her friends that her granddaughter surprised her and spent the night. :D Amy and I predicted that would happend.

Torture

Can I just say that a healing tattoo is absolute torture for a dedicated scab picker?

Vincent is sleeping normally again, only waking up 4 or 5 times a night. Ahh, sleep. I adore our chiropractor. :D

It's a gorgeous sunny day here, so we are off to enjoy it.