The Negligent Mommy

It's growing ...

And it's still not a scarf....

Ceci n'est pas une echarpe.

Qu'est-ce que c'est?

Ugly hat-o-rama

Some friends and I went on a yarn crawl a while back--maybe in May or June?  Of 2006?  I don't know. Ages ago.  And while we were on said yarn crawl, I bought more than a bit of yarn, which included three balls of what looked like (cue the foreboding music) a nice yarn for the boys' winter hats.  On the skein, it appeared to be about 2/3 charcoal gray with 1/3 random bright, boyish colors.  It looked nice.

This is how it knitted up:

Seriously, it looks like a crayola factory threw up on their heads when they wear these things.  They are God-awful.

Naturally, the boys love them.

Let me soothe your eyeballs with something much nicer:

That's a lovely warm scarf knit in a very soft bulky alpaca.  It was intended for the Red Scarf Project, but, well, this is me we're talking about.  I truly love knitting deadlines, especially the "whoosh" sound they make as they fly by.  So this baby is hanging out around the house, warming random objets d'art de dime store (that there is a penguin piggy bank) until Red Scarf 2009, or some other worthy charitable cause, claims it.

Fuzzy wuzzy wuz a blankie

So, I've been working on this knitted log cabin blanket, a la Mason-Dixon Knitting.  I fiddled around with it for a number of months and finally came up with my scheme, which is very cool and artsy and just way fabulous.

So, I thought I'd take a picture and show off my progress so far.  I laid the thing out on my desk, fired up the digital camera, and ....

Uh-oh.  Why is the picture all fuzzy?  Hmm.  Looks like the kids have been playing with my camera.  Let's wipe off the lens and try again.

Well.  That's certainly very interesting.  I'll get some fresh batteries and get back to y'all in a day or two.

Mommy did a bad, bad thing

Several of them, actually.

Bad Thing #1:  Mommy ate the rest of Andy's chocolate easter bunny.  In my defense, the remains of the bunny had been sitting in Andy's easter basket for days, practically; spring finally showed up here in the South and Andy has abandoned chocolate for grape popsicles.  I was just putting the poor thing out of its misery.  And plus, I was a little bit squiffy because like I said, spring is here, which means it's time for gin and tonic.  (In case you're wondering, chocolate does not really go very well with lime-infused Tanqueray.)

Bad Thing #2:  Mommy bought rather a lot of yarn on Saturday.  I went on a yarn crawl (rather like a pub crawl, except the participants get high on yarn fumes instead of actual booze.  After the first store, I resolved only to purchase yarn that I absolutely could not live without.  One would think this would be a safe way to go about things--after all, how much yarn can there be that one really, truly, cannot survive without?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.  Store #2 had some absolutely gorgeous bulky-weight Alpaca.  In store #3, I seduced Sara into buying a lovely bit of pink, white, and green yarn for her daughter; she talked me into a skein of hand-spun silk.

Things got a bit dicey at store #4.  I found some Berroco Cotton Twist in a lovely purple/mauve/green/gold variegated (I'd link to the shade card, but the color isn't there).  I grabbed a couple of skeins, thinking "scarf/teacher gift."  And I wandered around the store some more, drooling over the Koigu that was just a bit too rich for my blood, the Debbie Bliss silk (ditto), the Twisted Sisters (ditto--sensing a theme yet?), and then I found myself back at the Cotton Twist section, where I grabbed every damn skein of the stuff that I could put my grubby little hands on.  I ended up with seven, which I thought might be enough for a tank top.  After looking at the site, I think I'll make this without the awful sequin thingies.  It calls for eight skeins for my size, so I'll be going on a hunt to find more.

I was really, really determined to be good at store #5, but somehow I walked out with some really cool yarn for a sweater for Owen.  Oops.

Bad Thing #3:  I forgot my camera at home, so I don't have incriminating evidence photographic documentation of the day.  Sorry 'bout that.

Squeee!

So, my friend J is pregnant, and I am totally thrilled for her.  She's had a hard time with the whole "getting pregnant" thing (which may actually have been a blessing in disguise, because as it turns out her first husband was of the asshat-ish variety), but now she's doing great.

So of course, there must be knitting for the baby.

One Mason Dixon baby kimono comin' right up.  It will be green (duh), but I probably won't use that yellow as an edging, which is what I originally planned when I ordered it.  I don't like the way they look together.  But oh, I cannot wait to get my needles into that yarn.  It is soooooo soft.  Mmmmm.

The needles are some of the KnitPicks options that everyone has been loving on lately.  I actually got them for the latest version of my Mother-in-Law's afghan (which I am starting anew, again.  For the last time this time.  Maybe.)  The new plan for the afghan is to use a pattern from this book; the pattern is one I've been wanting to make, and I think it will make a lovely mono-color afghan.

Oh, yay!  Work day is almost over, time to go knit (the kids will bathe themselves, right?)

Yep, he's a boy.

Owen is rummaging through the linen-slash-tool closet in the upstairs hallway.

"Mommy, this flashlight is broken.  I need something to fix it."  rummage, rummage.  "Look, a hammer!  That will do it!"

*********

If you tell your mother in law that you are working on the afghan she asked for over two years ago (when you were a mere fledgling knitter), and she tells you not to worry about it, she has plenty of other things to cover up with, and you have since decided that you really hate the project and would much rather knit something else, are you released from your vow?  Should you knit her another pair of socks to make up any cosmic debt you might still owe her, or are you free to knit lace to your heart's content?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Who you callin' girly?

I may be pink, but I am *not* girly.

I am one bad-ass watermelon hat, is what I am.  Look at me here on this automatic stapler.  I am TOUGH.  I am so bad-ass that if you put me on a sweet unsuspecting boy-baby, no one will think he is a girl.  They will look at him and say, "oh, my, what a MANLY baby!  I'm surprised he doesn't have hair on his chest."  THAT is how incredibly NOT GIRLY I am.

Do not give me that "Oh, but you're pink" crap.  I am not some washed out, baby looking pastel pink.  I am dark pink, I am watermelon pink, I am bad-ass pink.  Pink is the new blue.  Which was the new gray.  Which was the new black.  Or something.  Anyway, I'm TOUGH.  Did I mention that?

Look! I made something!

Yes, it's true, there is actual knitting to speak of.  Not much, but you have to take what you get around here.

A Multidirectional scarf, in Noro Silk Garden.  Love the pattern, love the yarn (the colors are a bit more saturated in real life).  Will knit it again.

Re: The minivan.... I'll admit it, I love the thing.  It's HUGE (nothing mini about it), but it's ever so comfortable, and ever so safe, and ever so nice to drive (not that I get to do that much; hubby has pretty much claimed it).  It has everything you could possibly think of except a built-in DVD player, which we didn't want anyway (I know, heresy.  Everyone wants a built-in DVD player, right?).

Owen's favorite feature is the little button behind the driver's seat that opens the door on his side.  He loves it so much that his method of getting in the car is to climb in the driver's side and go around to the second row, push the button to open the side door, climb back out the driver's side, then go in through the side door.  He is such a gooberhead.

In other news, the boys and I are reading a really wonderful book right now:  Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.  It's the prequel to Peter Pan, and it is so incredibly fabulous.  Well written, witty, enjoyable for kids and adults.  Go get your copy.

Holy Crap.

I completely cannot believe what just happened.

I was in the process of writing a long post about all the generally crappy things that happened last week.  And I had gotten to the part about how this week is looking up, when I accidentally deleted the entire thing.

So here's the quick and dirty summary--my computer is FUBARed and I've lost pictures of the kids, the Saturn sucks (all the money out of our bank account), I am a bad driver (ask the side-view mirror of my car), and a worse coffee brewer (ask my friend who works at Starbucks and who threatened to revoke my license to brew coffee when she found out how I'd been doing it for 20 or so years.  My deepest apologies to anyone and everyone who has drunk my coffee during that time.)

But hey--I'm working on a really pretty scarf for a friend of mine (in Noro Silk Garden which I lovelovelove).  Owen came to our bed to snuggle last night and started laughing in his sleep--I'm not sure there is a better sound in all the world.  I am done with Christmas prep--gifts purchased/wrapped/sent, cards written & mailed, menus planned.  No baking yet, but that's because of the fast--I'll bake during the week between Christmas and New Years.  I'm going to my knitting group tonight for the first time in a long time.

So overall, life is good.