Week in Review (a little bit late)

I seem to have lost track of time. I meant to post this yesterday. Oh well, I guess today is as good a day as any.

1.

I. Got. A. New. Phone!

For those of you who are familiar with the ongoing phone saga, this is a big deal. I have had my old phone for 2+ years, and to say that it didn't work properly would be the understatement of the century. The company replaced it 5 or 6 times, but after that, they thought I was crazy. I won't go into all of the horrible, controlling, tyrannical, things that the phone did. I was very happy when the lovely sales woman asked if I wanted to trade it in. She was a little surprised at my enthusiasm given that it was only worth $5. However, I think at that point I would have paid her to take it. I even bought a pink case.

2.

I have a favorite yarn shop. Are you surprised? I may have mentioned it once or twice. In case you are wondering it's The Artful Yarn in Chagrin Falls, OH. I've been teaching knitting classes at this wonderful shop for a few years now, but this week I officially joined the shop staff! I had my first training day on Wednesday. I think this might just be the best job ever!

3.

I'm making slow progress on my Arrow Yoke Cardigan. I think that I might be slightly crazy to think I can finish this by the end of November.

4.

One of the things that might make #3 extremely difficult is my obsession with Felfs. I finished these lovelies just in time for Thursday's snow.

 

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Week in Review

1.

Have I mentioned that I love knitting? Well I cases you missed it, I rarely go a day without knitting something. I've also discovered that I enjoy teaching knitting just as much. I have been teaching classes at my favorite yarn shop, The Artful Yarn in Chagrin Falls, OH.

On Sunday I started a new three series class on the Carradal Shawl. I have a great group of ladies! However, I was very nearly late to my own class. I must have looked at the schedule 10 times, and It never occurred to me that it was a physical impossibility to make it to the shop and set up for a 1pm class. I think I need better time management skills.

2.

I can't believe that Halloween is just around the corner. I went to Village Discount to find bits and pieces for Little Miss M's costume. Now to start sewing. Photos to come, I hope.

3.

On Wednesday, I helped my knitsib Michelle get ready for Vogue Knitting Live. She makes the most beautiful shawl pins (as seen in the above shawl).

4.

I finished a project! This is: Easy Brioche Scarf, knit in Malabrigo Mecha, colorway Piedras.

That's about it, I lead a very boring life.

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Week in Review (vol 3)

Not too much has been going on around here this week. I've mostly been playing catch-up; however, I did manage to dredge up a few things to bore you with. Enjoy!

1.
This week I attempted to make homemade vegan yogurt. It wasn't all that good. I'm not sure what went wrong, but it didn't have that yummy yogurt tang. And the consistency was a little odd. I think that I will give it one more try though. I really like the idea of making my own.

2.
For those of you who are knitters, crafters, sewers, scrapbookers, etc., you know that Jo-Ann Fabrics is having a sale. I know, Jo-Ann's runs sales all the time, but this is a SALE! This time they have McCall's patterns for $0.99. And I've had my eye on this pattern for a while:

Ever since my Knit Sib Michelle showed me her little fold-up bag, I knew I just had to steal hers make one of my own.

For those of you who are familiar with McCall's patterns, they are expensive. And they don't go on sale very often. So while I was there I had to take a look. I may have picked up one or two additional patterns. Please don't tell the Engineer.

The fabric was on sale too.

3.
I noticed somewhere around Tuesday that we were out of food. So I'm not sure how I made it through the rest of the week without going to the grocery store. I went this morning. I only bring this up because I really hate putting the groceries away!

Has it really been two weeks?

Ok, I know that I haven't been around for a while. Two weeks to be exact. I'm not really sure how that happened. I had good intentions, don't we all?

You probably want to know what's been going on around here. (Even if you don't, you're here so I'll tell you.) I think I'll put this in list form:

1.
To start right after my last blog post, I caught a cold, which is still stubbornly hanging around.  That made things a little bit difficult.

2.
The Princess has a birthday coming up on Friday! We will talk more about that later in the week. Anyway, we had an early party for her so Bubbie and Zayde could make it in. Here are some (not fabulous) pictures:

Hoppy Birthday!

There was some opening of gifts.

And there was some silliness

3.
My friend Sheila had an amazing brunch. There was food everywhere, and a ton that I could eat!!! And there were good friends to go with the good food. I was having way too much fun to take pictures.

4.
I finished some knitting projects, and started a few more, but we'll talk about those later in the week also.

5.
I'm sure that a lot more has happened over the last two weeks. Or maybe not, I do live a very boring life. But that is all I can think of for now.

Week in Review (vol 2)

I know that this is becoming a theme this week, I meant to post this yesterday. Better late that never, right?!
1.
I have a favorite pair of gloves. They look like this:

I knit these back in 2010. A couple of weeks ago I was wearing them when I noticed they had a small hole between the first and middle finger. That's funny it wasn't there when I put them on. So I took them off to have a closer look.

Sure enough one of the tails had worked itself out. I set them aside to fix them, and they quickly became buried under all the junk stuff that had accumulated in the sitting room. As I was cleaning up, I came across them. Yet another bonus to the mad cleaning.

I'm happy to report they they all fixed and I'm happily wearing them. I will have to remember to do a better job of weaving in my end in the future.

2.
We had a birthday here this week. The Engineer turned...... (OK, you know I not going to say.) What's a birthday without a cake? I made banana cake with caramel frosting. Everyone enjoyed it, and it didn't last very long.

3.
Valentines Day is fast approaching. This means that I have to come up with valentines cards for the kids to take in for their classmates. We've had some issues recently with food allergies (and parents disregard for them). Therefore, I was determined that this year I'm going to send in completely food-free valentines.

I'm also not a big fan of the cookie-cutter cards that you can get at Wally mart (thanks Deb), and each of the kids come home with 2 or 3 of each one. So, thanks to my addiction to Pinterest and my wonderful Knit Sib Larissa I made heart crayons.

I used up all the old broken crayons we had lying around the house. They're not done yet, I still have to turn them into valentines. Stay tuned and I'll show them to you when I'm done.

4.
One of my favorite Disney movies is Beauty & the Beast. The kids and I met some wonderful Friends at the theater for some 3D fun. We all had great time. I think I enjoyed the movie more than the kids.

5.
This week the appliances felt that they were feeling slightly neglected and need some attention. I had to have a repair guy out not only for the washer, but the oven as well. My bank account is significantly lighter, but the everything is in working order, for now.

And because I know that you've been on pins and needles waiting for the update. The house survived the 4 day weekend! I even managed to make some progress.

6.
I'm beginning to recover from my recent bout of startitis. I'm making progress on my Traveling Woman and The Last Holiday Gift. My gloves however are still mocking me from the bottom of my knitting bag.

Week in Review (vol 1)

I have decided that Friday's will be a week in review. My chance to ramble on about the comings and goings that didn't make it into the blog. That being said, I'm having some trouble remembering what I did this week. I will have to take notes in the future.

Morning Routine:

If you've happened to pop over to Fly Lady, and looked around a bit, you would notice she's a big fan of routines. My big push this week has been my Morning Routine. So here it is:

Get up
Make the bed
Get the kiddos ready for school (with help from the Engineer)

Make breakfast
Make lunches
Empty the dishwasher
Run a load of laundry
Clean the main floor bathroom
Get the kiddos on the bus.

It's been working for us so far. We'll see if it still works next week.

Yet anther knitting group?!

On Monday I met a friend at the local Starbucks. We hadn't gotten a chance to sit down and schmooze since the holidays. While we were there I stumbled upon a knitting group. How did I not know that there was a group that met right here in my fair city?

I don't know how I could have missed this! They seem like a great group of ladies. I would love to try and go for a bit. Not next week though, the kids are off for MLK day.

The washing machine fiasco:

If you noticed from my morning routine, I've been running a load of laundry every morning. Yesterday however, I decided I needed to run an extra load. So before dinner I loaded up the washer, hit start, and went merrily on my way.

About a half hour later I hear a beeping coming ominously from the laundry room. Hmmmm, why is the washer not spinning? May it's just feeling a bit tired. So I hit cancel and let it rest for a few minutes. Then I ran a rinse/spin cycle.

Then I hear it! Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! And the washer starts hollering beeping at me again.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Needless to say, I still have a soaking wet load of laundry that needs attention, and the repair guy is scheduled for Monday. Wish me luck!

Startitis!

It happens every January. I get a bad case of startitis.

startitis: refers to a rarely fatal affliction that often affects knitters and crocheters where they begin several projects all at one time but don't really make much progress on anything before starting another new project.

In the past week I've knit 3 hats:

Started the Traveling Woman Shawl (I know it doesn't look like much now):

Started the Princess's birthday cardigan:

and, started the last of my holiday knitting. Yes, I'm a little behind. I won't show a picture yet, because the recipient might actually read this.

On a more encouraging note, I did manage to restrain myself from casting on this amazing shawl:

I plan on casting on in February after I've finished the 4 projects I'm currently working on. I'll let you know how that goes.

Updates:

I'm making slow, but steady progress on my gloves. I have the index fingers and the thumbs left.



My kitchen and dining rooms are still clean. So is my foyer and foyer closet. I'm also still working on the sitting room. Next week will be our first big challenge as the kids are off of school both Monday and Tuesday.