Still Alive...................

With tons to be thankful for this holiday season. But Well....now that is debateable!

So it has been a very long time since I posted and this is going to be a pictureless Thursday for the simple reason I can not find my camera cable. I have tons of pics to share of my adorable kids but I have to be able to dump my camera on to this picture eating machine I currently type on.

Thanksgiving was good we had it at my parents house and the meal was delish. Mom did th mass majority of the work, the rest of us made the mess. Christmas preparations were daunting at the least in the beginning. Wth no money an no way to "help" Santa out John and I were just not sure how this year was going to go. It was looing more and more like a sock and underware kinda year to say the least. Someone ( a nameless family member THANK YOU!!) heard our silent prayers and we recieved a very nice note in the mail with a gift card for walmart. We were able to help Santa make the kids wishes come true. and then some. It was a christmas just for kids. I was sad not to be able to do for John, as was he for me, but we know in our heart of hearts that it is more important to celebrate the magic of our family, and keeping things alive for the kids was much more important to us this year. So after we got the goodies we could feel good abot putting the tree and decorations up. Usually it is a few days after Turkey day for us.....this year it was a week before Christmas. I feel bad for my kids but it was a good christmas.....we made salt ornaments and they came out REALLY good. So good in fact I am going to start making a few small batches here and there and decorate them all year long for gifts and to sell at the bazaar. These things were adorable and EASY! and we had fun I invited a friend and her 2 daughters over and shy and I all sat down and painted our hearts out.

The family is we sick but all in all well. Bud's vocab is growing by leaps and bounds. He literally recovered from the surgery in a day and was talking so much better in just a matter of 2 or 3 days, all we had to o was sort of remind him that now his tongue moves and he CAN say things the right way. There are only 2 bad sides effects of the surgery........actually 3, *Bud is sooooooo much louder now, * he talks non STOP and * he has now bitten his tongue 100 times which is all new to him and he still has a bit of a hard time understanding how to keep it from happening...:) All things that we certainly can deal with. I am so incredibly glad we did it, and that the Dr. agreed to do it!

Shy is doing amazing in school. We are having a bit of a hard time with her at home. She is 7 with the brain of a much older child, but the social skills of a 7 year old, and the attitude of a 16 year old. It is very frustrating to love this little part of me, but at the same time dislike her so much. ARGH. And everyone says it will pass..........this has literally been going on since this little girl was11 months old and learned the saying "whatever" in just the right tone pushed all of mom and dads buttons all at once!!

Bret is still our ham head. This kid is the comsdian of the family and knows JUST when to act his part. With the three of them hamming it up it is hard not to know why we are here.

Thank you to all that have hit me on Ravelry, I just wanted to evaporate for a while. Things are going to look up soon. I know they will!

On the knitting front.......I have knit 2 pair of kid stuffed mittens, and a baby pair and am getting ready to cast on a second baby pair for a friend wh just had a baby, she will be recieving the 2 Baby Surprise Jackets and a air of baby stuffed mits for her wee one. I have also knit 8 of the little angels and 1 tree topper. 3 were gifts, 1 for our angel who saved christmas, 1 for our surrogate mom/grandma, and one for another helper who sent us some money to help with bills and such. I have one more to make to send out to another angel who heped us out as well and then I will knit some for next years christmas bazare. The only thing I dislaike about them is the cotton dries my hands out horribly.

Well thanks to all who inquired. I will try to stay in reality for awhile.

Peace

Buddy Boy, My Brave Little Man

So today at 4 am I was up fretting about my middle child. John Venner-Mark, aka Bud has a lot to live up to. John is his daddy's name, as well as his daddy's daddy's name. I never had the pleasure of meeting John's dad, but I have heard that he was one hell of a man. As for my husband John, well he is as perfect as they come. Venner was my grandfather, whom EVERYONE, who was anyone called Bud. He also was one hell of a man, who would fight to the end for his family. He is no longer with us, and was taken suddenly, and tragically, and Bud probably has very little memory of his great grandfather
but he really is a mini him! Mark is my dad's name and he mixed with a good portion of thier daddy is exactly what I would like for my sons to be. I think Bud is becoming quite an awesome combo of these men in my life.

Today was Bud's surgery day. For me yesterday never really had an end. I didn't sleep all night. I laid and listened to my husband snore, and my son breath (and talk) in his sleep. I tossed and turned, and then I got up and turned the TV on and knit.

Finally after a few repeats of that procedure, I got up and quietly (we were at John's sister's house on the mainland) got myself ready and then waited some more. At 6:30 we were checking Bud in. I felt like the owrst mom ever. He was soo happy and charming the nurses. They had toys for him to play with. Then at about 7:15 they gave him 1/4 tsp of some magic potion that literally made him drunk......he was sooo cute, giggly, droopy eyed and silly. I felt like I was leading him into the lions den blindly!
At 7:30 they wheeled him away from us....I sat
and knit for 30 minutes when at 8:01 the Dr.
came in and told us all went well, but that when he got in and started poking around, he realized just how little mvement Bd had in his tongue. He almost couldn't lift it or stretch it enough to make the first snip but did manage to get things just so....he had the more invasive procedure which involves stitches.











All in all, it went well and we were released with our groggy, drunk little boy at 9:10 am. He stayed in sort of a drunk or hung over stupor til around 5 ish. It is amazing to see him with his new released tongue. So far he seems to be much LOUDER!!! hmmmmm......but he seems to feel a bit odd with his new mouth buddy, almost like it feels too big. I watched him run his tongue over his lips this evening to get a stray drip of ice cream....he has NEVER been able to do that before. I am sure over the next few days as he gets used to the feel of the
and the movement, and range of motion, he will readjust the way he talks.


The nurses at the hospital were great and he really charmed a few of them.








Someone should tell dad that stretching isn't going to make him invisible. This is the very drunk Bud, in the recovery room, getting ready to be wheeled to his room...he wanted Daddy to ride with him.

All is wel and I thingk I will go get some sleep now!

Pictureless Thursday

Ok so here I am again.....I did sooo well for a few days running. Posted consecutively, formulated entries and pics in my head for the next entry....and then WHAM life gets in the way all over again!

Knitting goodies.....Ok so I am well on my way for November and achieving my goals. I cast on my socks I was supposed to plan for next month as one of my goals.....I am using my hand spun, I am doing 2 at once on circulars. Size 1 addis, it is the jaywalker pattern. I love this space dyed stuff it was so much fun to spin, and just as much fun to knit. There is some variance in thickness and twist but so far the ribbing looks very nice.

I am 1/3 done the back of the aran from heck.

I am thinking about casting on the felted mittens......thinking about it..........hmmmmmm..........

Yesterday I even cleaned......my dining room is now a kid free zone......cleared all the corners, moved things around a bit......got all the TOYS (teeny tiny trains that when stepped on pierce the skin and end up almost in your hip bones) de scuzzed the wood floor, vaccumed and dusted, then started on the living room. I think I have decided to just stay in the dining room....the kids can have the living room....EXCEPT on Grey's night, Private Practice Night and Desperate Housewives niight. Then I just need enough room for me, and my knitting in a prime spot aimed directly at the TV, and god help the kid/animal/ manchild that gets between me and my TV on those time slots!! I will be armed with needles and wool, and I think I can figure out how to knit a straight jacket in record time with some sort of device for suspending you from the ceiling fan to get you out of my way and torture you at the same time!!!!!

Things are temporarily looking up on the job front.....not the same kind f money.....John is helping clear trees (on the property that he applied for the full time caretaking job, that would have meant living closer to mom and dad, and in a NICE BIG house with a 2 car garage and full apartment over head....ladies READ YARN HIDEAWAY...........) he did not get the job, BUT he will be filling on the weekend because the guy that DID get hired is not from here and has 2 daughters in MA that he will go home to every weekend....hmmmm go figure.....WTF. But anyway we are keeping our foot in the door anyhow. He is helping with the new school project part time and then he has the maintanence man job, and is currently working on his Bus Drivers License. Our bus driver decided to go to a 10th grade sponsered dance for all aged kids the Sat. before Halloween and she had been drinking....hmmmmm.......again WTF????? Go figure.

Well It is kind of a dark blah day....I think I am having company for the afternoon and it feels like a coffee and cribbage kinda day. She doesn't knit, and I am not sure she wants to learn.........keep poking her about it though...........lol!!

Happy Belated Halloween!!

Halloween is my favorite Holiday! An excuse to be someone else, and escape realiy for a day!! WOohoo. But I have to say having 3 kidlings and getting them all geared up for the big day is interesting. Shyanne had an afterschool party of Friday afternoon, a dance on Saturday evening and then on Wednesday had a party at school, and then of course trick or treating......4 times to perfect the routine......ONLY she wanted to be different each time.....phew. Bud had a school thing Weds. Am and then trick or treating.


I love the expression on Bud's face in this one! LMBO too cute!











So this is Shyanne's class.....minus 1 little girl. Well actually this is grade 1 &2 the 3 boys are 1st grade and the 2 girls are 2nd. There is one other girl in the 2nd grade.












This is my dear hubby. Bless him it was actually a very warm day and he was soaked by the time he took his gear off. The kids LOVED it though. Who doesn't love a fire fighter. I know I do!













This is a whole school picture........well everyone who is dressed......and the background is our new 6.7 million dollar school......hmmmm, did I mention this was pretty much the whole school in this picture......and that the new school is costing 6.7 MILLION dollars? YIKES!!!!







Spider man is spying on someone!!











Buddy was looking pretty bored!!














This is the kindergarden class for this year, next year and the year after...Bud's actual class is the kitty from the back step, the tree, the cheer leaders (twins) the good witch (between twin one and the bride), and Batman. 2 others are missing.





John figured he would scare Bret with this mask....it has a little pump and it oooozes blood between the layers......















Bret Laughed at him..........John was so disappointed!!! :) Our kids are pretty nutty that way!

Oct. Goals revisited and Nov. goals

Recap of Oct. Knitting list.

1. Finish Baby Surprise Jacket Done in fact I completed 2. One pink and brown and if you lookback a black and red one!

2. Finish front of Aran. Check!!! Woohoo

3. Knit the first 3 clues of the Secret Stole (starts on the 5th woohoo) YAHOOO I am starting hint #5

4. Make a pair of mittens..... ummmmm OK, well do I get credit for picking the yarn and roving ???? See pic

5. Try Color work again (possible in the form of said #4's mittens??) Check, only I did 2 Hats!! A pik ad black pirate, and a navy and light blue pirate hat YEEHAW!

6. Finish the bobbin of lace weight and start on a second. Umm OK so I really have to work on this.....I sat down for maybe 30 minutes at my wheel.......we actually may have to sell it.. :(

November Challenge to myself!

1. A pair of Mittens.

2. Half of the back of Aran

3. Clues 5-7 of SotS

4. Socks planned.

I am keeping Nov. light as I have a pretty stressful month ahead.

Bud has his surgery on the 12th. Dad has a possible surgery at the end of the month, Mom has started a new regime, and we are waiting to see if this knocks her into a holding pattern, or HOPEFULLY knocks her numbers down! She maxxed out on the other regime and it has sort of fizzled, with her numbers going up fairly reliabley towards the end.

All this probably means I will knit more than I have said here, BUT who knows..........

Take a peek at all the goodies.


I have yarn porn too. My LYS had thier end of season sale as I said in the last post.....I will post pics.







This stole is turning out beautifully.


















This is not true to color. YUCK!!! the next one is truer to color.

BSJ #2

Ok so I am addicted......these things are soooooo darn cute. and easy, and odd, and ....and and. Elizabeth Zimmermann was a genius. I need her book Knitting without Tears and then the individaul paterns from Spun out Designs
and I will have (I think) all of Ez's printed goodies..... man to have money.....but when you think about it $40.00 for 40 patterns.....not a bad deal.....ad I don't need the BSJ so....... I REALLLLLLY want to knit the Adult Surprise Jacket. I ahve seen it knit up on a few blogs and it impresses me. It looks like a nice cozy sweater to wear around the house.

This sweater is madeout of Lamb's Pride worsted weiht brown and bulky pink.......I didn't notice I had picked up bulky till I ad started knitting and that was the only pink she had.....

At the year end sale at my LYS, I got some goodies.......I had her save my last paycheck, and then she gave me a huge discount on the yarn and then topped it all with 40% off.......I love her! But she knows we are in a rough spot and that this is literally my therapy/sanity saver. I can now d Ez's Bohus which will be my first color attempt on a sweater.

Hope all is well. I will update my Oct. Goals and then post my November goals tomorrow!

SotS Clue #3 Done and kinda bummed

So I completed SotS Clue #3 and I am still thinking the answers are 1) Royalty 2) Princess (but could be Queen) 3) England. This Friday will be the 4th clue and we will be half way through :(. This has been my first KAL of anykind, and it has been fun. I jumped in head first and have been writing the charts out to a written pattern with 3 other ladies and it has slowed me down, but I feel good about helping non-chart readers out, as that was me just a bit ago! I think it is beautiful. You can't see the twinkle of the beads in the full shot.

I actually finished it 2 days ago, but now it has become a bit monotonous pinning it out each time so I couldn't bring myself to do it to get a picture, and without pinning it just looks like a purple blob. This morning when I got up and rolled across my flannel sheets and ended up with my pj bottoms wrapped 3 times around myself, I thought hmmmm I bet I could lay it on them and it would stick! Sure enough!!!!! WOOHOO, the dang cable needles are a beeeeotch to fight with though, I am not a fan of CP needles anymore after using KnitPicks! LOVE LOVE LOVE EM!
If you click to enlarge this photo you can JUST make out the bead in the center of the design. I love it in person. They are subtle but just lend that little extra somthin somthin!

It is finally hitting home that the bills are a struggle to pay, and Christmas is right around the corner. The kids have so many I wants, and there just is no way. John went from a full time job, were on island we were JUST keping our heads above water, to a 12-16 hour a week job......it just isn't doing it. I don't know what is going to happen, but here I am again in the dumps. Spent most of yesterday crying, and wracking my brain. This is not the way it is supposed to be. We are good people, all we have ever done is help those around us when they need help, and now when we need help in return it is no where. And it isn't like we want something for nothing either. John just needs a regular job....even just 2 or 3 days a week. We have a gap to bridge. I just don't know. We have started talking about selling stuff that we scrimped to save up to buy, when he was working, things like my spinning wheel, our digital camera, an ipod. We got them all at huge discounts, or second hand....I don't know. Life right now stinks, but at the same time I am lucky enough to have 3 beautiful kids, a hubby who loves me and my parents still with me as well as my Mother in law. It ain't all bad, just feels like it right now.

Awards!!!!!

I got a blog review on my awesome knitting friend Mrs. H's brand spanking shiny new pod cast. You should check out her blog at I like Yarn
and then go take a listen to her podcast, I likeyarnpodcast
She rocks, as does her blog and her podcast. Thank you Cuz!

I am about done my 3rd clue on the SotS, and when I get it done I will block her up and post pics. I finished my second BSJ for a shower and it is blocking and I am knitting on the ARAN from he77, attempting some booties.....I shoulda taken pics of my failures, but then you'd a known I ain't perfect......I will tell you the story though!!! I knit up these booties with the thought I would felt them.....they would have been too big for my 3 year old, and I was hoping thhey would felt down to somewhere around the 6-12 month range.....ummmmmm it was not a felting pattern so needless to say it shrink width wize but not length wize!! Talk about Gun boats!!! Yikes.
What are you still doing here? Go check out the blog and podcast!!! Shooooo off with you go, go. NOW

Knitting and Dirt Cheap Kid Entertainment!

So yet another F.O. I finished my triple twist moeibeus knitters bowl.. I LOVE IT!!! It took 2 skeins of the main color, and one for the pockets and then a little bit of peace fleece for the applied i-cord trim. Unfelted this mammoth could swallow 3 adult heads whole! Felted it will comfortably hold 3 or 4 project skeins, and then all the extras you can imagine. This was a fun knit. I highly recommend The second treasury of Magical Knitting by Cat Bordhi to one and all!



Look at this thing! WOWSERS it was humongous!











Welcome to the Zoo! The boys found the case lot diaper box and had a blast playing with it while sissy had a bath. Bud pushed Bret around,










Bud pushed Bret over, in this photo he seems to be saying "if we box him up can we send him back?" :)










WHO US, terrors? Mom you have to be joking right? We are too darn cute to be terrors!

















Miss Shy had to get in on the action......DADDDDDD, HEY DADDDDD COme HERE NOW!!!!! To which Dad turned deaf ears.....finally the scream became deafening, and I gave him the "GO SEE WHAT HER PROBLEM IS" elbow to the gut! And this is what she was up to!!





















Bret getting even by pushing BUd over! LMBO!

SotS clue #2 and FO"s

Ok so I am now addicted to Moebius Knitting. I have Cat Bordhi's Second Treasury of Magical knitting and I have had it for quite some time actually and could never figure out the set up! I had always assumed the twist in the knitting occured by twisting before starting in the round.....oh no.....so needless to say I needed some mindless kniting and had hauled all of my knitting books to my local SnB for everyone to peruse through and was reminded of how many cool projects there are in this book. So I set my mind to figure it out and I did. This was moebius #1, see the twist in the handle. I blocked this
over a downy dispensing ball to show you how small it is.

F.O. #2 my Emily hat. I love the way it came out. And here is one of my goals for Oct. Color work WOOHOO!!! Yeah! Now for mittens and the dreaded sweater!

I think Emily will really like it, and now Shyanne wants one too! If it means she will wear a winter hat I will knit her one without complaint!


This odd looking thing is Moebius project #2. It is a trifold, meaning there are 3 twists in the moebius. This thing is HUGE. It is a knitters basket. It will be felted, see the black lines? Not the trim around the top but there are 20 stitch dashes on scrap yarn that I have now ripped out and put pockets in. Once felted this is supposed to be just big enough for a cake or 2 of yarn in the middle held snug so it doesn't escape to roam around the floor of cat, dog, and human hair, along with kiddie crumbs. I am having a hard time imagining it felting that small. We shall see. I am currently knitting the flower-esque petals for the top enclosure. This thing reminds me of the gremlin baby pods from the movie Gremlins. You know how the babies hatched out of the pod like things that were all slimey. and when they popped out the top kind of opened............you will see better after it is felted.
This is clue #2 finished from SotS ! I love this pattern. It is beautiful. The beads don't really show up but they are there, they match but are lined with silver to lend a bit of glitter in person.

There was some discussion about speed of knitting in the forums. I am a fairly quick knitter, but the person implied that by knitting fast we are not enjoying. I enjoy the knitting very much! I am always looking at how it is unfolding. I can't wait for the next segment, meanwhile I will work on the godforesaken sweater, and the gremlin egg :)

Knit On!!!!!