Just in time

Eli's BTSS is done! It looks great! Well, it almost looks great as I am not completely happy with the zipper. I think the main problem was that I didn't do a selvage stitch for the front edges and I probably should have crocheted a chain stitch to make it lay flatter.... Oh well, I am NOT taking it out now and I don't think I have enough yarn left for a crochet edge on both sides..... that's how close I cut it. Hopefully he doesn't find it itchy and actually wears it.........

A BIG day...

Yesterday was busy. Firstly, Eli had a pediatrician appointment to talk about treatment for his ADHD (I'll get to that in a moment) and we had Chey's third birthday party (her birthday is next week). I had decorated for the party the day before, but still had to do some final cleaning, organizing, present wrapping, cake picking up, food picking up and additional odds and sods. 

Here's a picture of the party table.

The Birthday girl:

We had Petland bring some animals to the party. Chey's favorite, by far, was the snake:

She liked the bunnies too, though we also had kitties, Guinea pigs, two lizards (which were her second favs) and a ferret:

And the Grand Finale, the opening of the gifts... to which she is clearly saying "I want THAT one!"

All in all it was a great party! I can't believe my baby girl is three.... sigh...

Based on the aforementioned pediatrician appointment, Eli started his therapy treatment for ADHD today. Even though I've done a ton of research and looked into several options (I've had eight months to research and experiment with food etc) and had predetermined that some form of medical intervention would work the best for our situation, I was still slightly hesitant. And even with the positive reviews of other parents of children with ADHD, I still had a touch of my preconceived notions of medical intervention for ADHD. He started the lowest dose today and what a difference. I can't even start to tell you what a wonderful child I have. The best part of the entire day was when he told me that he felt smarter because his brain wasn't running around so much and he felt like he didn't NEED (he put the emphasis on *need* when he told me) to talk so much. He's still a chatterbox and enthusiastic about his questions. He's still hilarious and creative. But he's much, much more focused, polite, gentle, sweet, kind, caring, sharing and quiet...... 

A note on Eli's BTSS.... I think I'm gonna run out of yarn.... I only have about two inches of the body left and I am not sure I have enough... cross your fingers for me.

Busy weekend.

It's the start of the Birthday season. At least at our house it is. We have two parties to go to this weekend, Chey's party will be next week and Eli's a couple of weeks after that. Plus my husband, my best friend, my cousin (my other best friend), my Mom, one of my nephews, a niece, my MIL and FIL all have birthdays between now and early November. I guess it's the celebratory Christmas season and ensuing winter blues that makes for all of these babies born around this time... maybe we should all find something else to do.... How about knitting??? ;)

With that little segue, I am proud to say that I'm farther in Eli's BTSS than I was before the unfortunate sleeve miscalculation and subsequent trip to the frog pond. I'm nearly finished the body, but slightly concerned that I've underestimated the amount of red needed to finish, oh well, I suppose that's part of the charm of knitting..... "Do I have enough, is it the right size, how's it going to hold up in the wash and over time, how will the recipient like it, is it itchy, too warm, not warm enough??" The adrenaline rush of all the uncertainty keeps the excitement alive. I'm not sure how far I'll get today as I plan to meet my friend and her sons at the local roller skating rink a little later on for some butt bruising fun (hopefully, that's all I'll bruise; a graceful skater, I am not).

If at first you don't succeed....

Bummer... I really hate it when I make stupid knitting mistakes. Then to not catch them until I am over half way through the body of the sweater REALLY sucks. Short story, long. The sleeves of Eli's BTSS (Back to School Sweater) are too narrow (by half) because *I* measured them incorrectly. Instead of taking the measurement of half the sleeve at the bottom of the raglan seam (which is the measurement I took of the sweatshirt I'm copying), I measured the entire width of the sleeve, ergo; it's too small. I thought the proportion looked off, but I kept knitting. I even had the sense to start knitting the sleeve to double check. I had Eli try it on (it fit, sort of), I knit a little further and had him try it on again (it still sorta fit), but finally my brain kicked in and I made the difficult decision to frog it and start over. I was halfway done the body, but still had the sleeves and the hood to finish, so I was less than half done the whole sweater, at least that's what I'm telling myself....  Here it is before I frog it.

It was looking good, no??? The positive part of starting over is that I did not do a short row back collar, which I should have done... so now I can.... :)

One of those days....

I'm definitely having one of *those* days as a parent today. I'm tired of the kids fighting and not listening and just being downright disrespectful and very thankful that my husband decided to take them both out shopping for a bit so I can breathe quiet air for a few moments. I don't even think I'm going to knit. I'm just going to have a snack and live in silence. I miss silence. I love my kids and wouldn't trade a single day at home for anything, but about once a month (hmmmm.... I wonder why it's once a month) it all gets to be too much. My son has recently been diagnosed with ADHD (combined type) and giftedness. His *H* comes out verbally and unfortunately that's when the gifted portion kicks in as well.  This means that for most of the day he is talking or asking questions about things that most six, almost seven year olds are not even close to being interested in. It sounds cute and he really is a neat kid, but some days it is literally like Chinese water torture. I've tried the "why don't you go and read about it in your room" tact, but that fails miserably. Inevitably, he flips the page in the book and then comes back downstairs with at least one or two NEW topics to discuss and ask questions about. So far this summer we've discussed plant classification and use (mostly flowers), different *ologists* (paleontologists, archaeologists etc.), weather, rock formations, minerals and gemstone classification and fossils to name a few. I'm tired and my brain hurts... :)

On the knitting front, I finished my porta-project yesterday. I have only been knitting socks for a short while, but I really enjoy them. I prefer simple, easy to memorize patterns, but I think for my next socks I'm going to do the Knotty or Knice socks, from the latest Interweave Knits. My next porta-project, however, is a top down skull cap for my husband. The first one I made him was slightly too big and not quite long enough. He still wears it, but did request changes for the next one. 

I'm still working on Eli's sweater. I should get the raglan part done tonight at bedtime, hopefully, I'll be done the whole thing next week sometime. 

Well, I hear the garage door so my moment of quiet is nearly over. I guess I'll go pack up to take the kids to the beach.... the beach is good. 

A little here and a little there...

Today I invited a friend and her children to join us at the Zoo. I love our Zoo. It's a great place to let the kids run, which is pretty much all they do. Animals?? What are those?? We're here to be FREE! Ok, Chey is *slightly* more interested in animals than Eli, but really they enjoy roaming around more than anything.

Once at home the kids had their quiet time (which really means *I* had quiet time, they watched TV and played in the basement) and I worked on Eli's sweater. I'm about 1/2 way down the yoke. I ended up tossing the pattern I printed out because the increases in the pattern didn't match on the raglans and I didn't like that.  So apparently, I did have to do math. I actually like math, but I'm always afraid I'll screw it up and end up with something totally distorted and unwearable. I know knitting is supposed to be a process, but I really dislike ripping out. I'm not sure anyone *enjoys* ripping out, but I think I might be on the more extreme end of the spectrum. I'm not quite over the top because I don't actually throw things away when they don't work out, but I REALLY want to.... This intense dislike is the main reason I could never be a true designer. The idea of swatching and ripping the number of times it would be required to design a piece from scratch makes me want to run screaming naked down the road (I'm too old for that activity to be fun, I think). And so, I continue to work from patterns, *tweaking* basic patterns to fit my ideas. 

I'm also trying to finish my travel project (or porta-project, as I like to call it). A pair of socks in a chevron pattern. I love having a WIP that fits in my handbag, but once I get to the last 25% I feel an intense need to complete the project and it suddenly finds it's way to my house WIP pile (I normally have no more than 2 items in progress at a time, my porta-project and my home project, so I'm not sure I can call it a *pile,* but what the heck...). I'm hoping to have the second sock done by the end of this weekend. I'm taking the kids to the beach tomorrow and on Saturday, that should be some good knitting time..... 

An odd tidbit from my son today (he's nearly 7). We were biking back from a trip to the Gelato store when he suddenly asked "Mom?? What's the definition of embargo." Completely off the cuff, no talk about anything remotely centered around trade. Kids are weird.......

The beginning....

Firstly, I wonder how many blogs have started with the same title as mine? And then, how many blogs start wondering about how many other blogs start with the same title as theirs? Yikes, my head hurts and I haven't even started yet.......

I've been meaning to start a blog for a while (I won't define *while*, that would show how long I've actually procrastinated here). Every once in a while I think of something witty (to me) and coherent enough to not be uber embarrassed by my lack of writerly ability. I'm not sure that today is one of those days, but I had to start somewhere and so, my one reader (me) will have to suffer. 

I stopped at one of Calgary's knitting stores today on my way home from Calaway Park with the kids to pick up some yarn for a back to school sweater for Eli. I've been cooking it up in my head for a while (although, it was inspired by a pattern in Nicky Epstein's book "Barbie Doll and Me"). After having Eli hold a million balls of yarn to his neck to check out the itch factor, we finally selected some Lana Grossa "Cool Wool" in red and gray. The sweater will be a raglan cardigan with grey sleeves and hood and red body with some opposite colour striping at the bottom edge and sleeve edges for kicks. I've done my regular gauge swatch (4"x1"), printed off a basic pattern (so I don't have to do math, I R Lazy), cast on and knit about 1/2"(I really should use metric for length (and weight for that matter), I use it for everything else, I just never fully converted it seems). I then got up and came over here...... you know the rest. 

Now that I've started myself here, I'm going to go back to watching the Olympics (I only watch sports every two years, at Olympic time) and knitting until my hubby gets home and then I'll go for a jog with the doggies..... 

We'll see how often I post.. hopefully, once or twice a week. I do tend to head into things full bore and then drop off dramatically. Maybe this time will be different.