No picture Thursday!! Is there such a club?? I think there should be. You see I have pictures, they are just still in the camera. I have wonderful pictures, but I am lacking the gumption to get off my arse, march through the dinning room and into the kitchen, grab the camera and then go on the hunt for the dang cord. So this is Pictureless Wednesday and I think I will make a point to keep that up. I have things to say but no pics to go with them, so I will save all that stuff for Thursday!

I am thinking (can you smell me?) about a few different projects, and I would love love love your input. I wish I could do a contest but I still have not mailed out the last prize......(I have NOT forgotten you, really I have not, it is just the situation at the moment!) but perhaps things will change and I will be able to do something. I do not forget these things so pass this post on I want lots of input and it isn't just knitting stuff!

Projects I need help with!

1) Dyeing!!!! You know that kauni rainbow yarn.......man it is purdy. It is also expensive and I happen to have a few bare skeins of knit picks that I was going to try Wilton Cake Dyeing. I have done the whole Kool-Aid dyeing which is fun and I loved the results but was told the cake icing paste results in more intense colors. I want to immulate the kauni yarn in that I will do a rainbow dealie. Questions I have are. How long (as in inches, yards whatever) are the kauni repeats? And some successful techniques from those who have done it...... any tips, tricks or things to watch for.

2) I would like to do some canning with my kids but know NOTHING and I mean NOTHING at all about canning. I would like to take some of the apples and pears I am seeing ripen on the trees and makes some jellys or jams. Applesauce perhaps and do them up for christmas. Do I need a pressure cooker, and really good basic websites that I should turn to and any personal advice would be good too.

3) I am thinking about asking for a raise at one of my jobs.......now this is a position that I work from home, use my internet, but I really don't put in all that many hours........so I feel kind of odd asking about a raise...........I think I am going to talk with the vice president who WAS the president until Aug about it. She knows what is going on and Perhaps she will take this under her wings. I don't need help but I just sort of guess I need some prodding. I also have my name in on another on island at home job. We shall see!

Oh dear goodness

So I have not been blogging much lately. I try to pop in and out....and as excited as I am about Ravelry, I just can't seem to find the time to get in there. All in all I am not all that excited by anything. I am a good fake, I paste a smile on and pretend all is well, when in reality things pretty much suck.

Don't get me wrong things COULD be worse. John got a job at the school as the maintenance man. It is part time 10-20 hours a week. It is a start. There is rumor that the people who have been doing UPS on island are getting done, so he called about that, he may have gotten some wee little jobs for an older lady who lives on the mainland but has a house here. Things aren't AS grim as they were. But here we sit with a thousand a month mortgage amoung the other normal bills, and I am scared $h!tl&$$! The next month will tell.

Meanwhile life goes on. The people who have the job now and thier family talk to us as though they did nothing wrong, when as it turns out they knew 2 weeks before we did they were going to can John.

OH FREAKING WELL. See this is why I haven't been blogging lately. BAH!!

On craft news. I have been kniting, but I hav also been sewing!! These are jammies I am making for the boys. I am getting a pair for both Bud and Bret out of each fabric! They are too cute!




I had forgotten how much I liked sewing! I really enjoy the whole process. I just have no place to leave it set up......sewing machines and curious little fingers are bad news!









Bret is slowly discovering that temper tantrums get him NO WHERE! In fact I find them quite funny!! John captured this one. He shut the gate between the kitchen and the dining room and Bret got his nose QUITE out of joint!








And he just kept on a crying!












Look at those eyes......this is the "hey wait a second I have an audience.....better put the pleadingly cute face on" still didn't magically open the gate for him!

Beam me up Scotty

I am (not so) patiently awaiting the SOS KAL to start. I absolutely love knitting lace and this will be the first knit along I have ever done, it will also be the first knitting that I have ever done with beads. I am excited for something new.

I have no pictures today.....did get some cute ones of thelittle guy and a little girl I have been watching. They are too cute, she is 9 months old and the same size comparitively to the wee one. She is a big baby! Wicked cute though. I do not publish pics of other peoples children on my blog.

I have been puttering away at the cabled aran fron firsherman's aran by Alice Starmore. I like the pattern but have to rely heavily on the book for the center cable as it is quite complicated.

On the non-knitting front, I have been sewing up a storm. I used to enjoy sewing, I custom made some very pretty clothes for myself that actually fit WELL! This go round I have been maiking adjustable WARM jammies for the kids. Shyanne got pink camo John Deere jammies, Bud got John deere field scene jammies, and Bret got teddy bears and puppies on a blue background. The best thing about the boys, was unbeknownst to me I bought enough to get a pair of each for each of the boys. SO now I have a pair of John Deere jams cut out for Bret and teddy and puppy's cut out for Bud.

On the work front.....I dunno.......no news is supposed to be good news right? Bah, it certainly is scary! And "those" people hired a couple who just had a baby 8 weeks early, he has been caught growing illegals on public property and the whole island knows he doesn't last all that long in jobs............but he will work out great cause his mommy and auntie are in "those" people's back pocket's. Now we know for sure that this was one of those cases where they were in the back door before we were out the front door completely. BITTER?????? Nah, not much.

Coveted tools

Oh how I love Knit picks, I love their yarn, I love their options needles, and man oh man dare I say I love the looks of these needles!! They are wood too and so unique. I am secretly coveting them. I so want to be rich right now, and I am rich, in love and friendship, but I mean MOOLAH. ot that these needles are expensive, because that is the best part about them......they are sooooooo reasonable. and I do already have the cables.....so all I need is the tips! BUT......you see, there is the spend $45 and get free shipping thing that gets me every time..........and with DH not working that would certainly be a frivolous expenditure. So for right now I will just post the picture to my blog and drool!!!

Things are the same here....still no sign of work. Ads posted in our newspaper and in the neighboring islands newspaper. I will have ulcers before this is all over. I am a financial worrier (as I think most women are ) and to know that there is only 1 more paycheck, and the bills will continue to come in is scaring the crap out of me to say the least!

My child is a genius! :)

Ok so a few posts (probably 12 or so) ago I ranted about, among other things how Big B flunked his pre-school screening. You can read the details if you like, but long story short, the tests are for 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 year olds and (Ok so who cares if I use his real name!) Bud just turned 3 in August. He got a 10 and if a 3 and a half year old got a 12 they would retest. So one tester lady said eh, no biggie he is still a little guy, and the other woman said no he needs to be retested.....she threw words like learning disabilities, special services, and even autism around, very casually. I am sorry but I don't take these things casually. I have been around a variety of children in my 31 years, and in fact one of my first kids ( you know I took care of these twins since they were teeny tiny and now they are 16) were twin preemies who had a very rough start, the girl has no real lasting affects but the boy has autism, mild cp, as well as a mirad of other disabilities. I love love love love love these kids. I tool care of them like they were mine. This all leads to the fact, that I truly hope that if my child had a disability such as one of those, I would be able to recognize it. I studied autism in college for a few papers because "my kid" intirigued me sooo much and in fact I was part of the pushing factor for tracing his autism to aspergers syndrome. You have never met a more loving, SUPER SUPER intelligent in your life, but socially inept with kids his age. Adults? No problem. ANYHOW these screeners as well as some other people around me throw these words around like they are nothing............while I know they are not life ending, I certainly think they are something. And I never considered for once that he may have any of these things. BUT when you are sent for more testing, it does (or so I realized when I burst into tears after the finish of the testing) eat at you, and cause some doubt. So Thursday we went to the testing center and we spent an hour playing...........Buddy did awesome!! The ladies said they stopped when he reached the 4 to the 4 1/2 age level, even though he was still going strong. He did fine across the board. The one thing the speech lady did see was that he has a slight problem with s's, z's and sch sounds. She had him stick his tongue out..........he couldn't.......she said you know what? Has anyone ever told you he is tongue tied? to which I replied, HUH? His tongue is attached to his bottom jaw all the way to the very tip.........she says she is sending us some fun excercises and silly sounds to se if we can improve through that. She says he physically may not be able to make those sounds. and we may have to have that thing clipped a bit which she assures me is no big thing. But she couldn't believe what people were putting us through, and said I want to see you in 6 months JUST to review his speech.........just for those sounds, at which point I suspect I may recommend he get clipped, but I never want to see you in this office for a rescreening ever again. Your son is an extrememly bright exceptional child. Meanwhile he had charmed the other lady into helping him make his choo choo......he had her attach two pop up tunnels and then had taken disks that had one hole in them and threaded them onto a "noodle" and put them under the tunnels..........they had never had a child do that before, much less con them into "helping" He looked at the woman and said pwease pick up the choo choo, so I can stick these under? You can never fully realize how relieved I was, it wasn't until it was all over that I realized how worried I was.

Huh.......imagine that Bud is exceptional. Tell me something I didn't know people!!! I love my kids!

Ok here they are in no particular order

The baby blanket of doom!! Do you see that wee little bit of blue sticking out? Well belive it or not.....there is a full sized towel under that baby, and that is all you can see, you wanna know why that is all you can see? Cause the stitching has come undone and that is part of the fold. This blankie is as wide as a full size bath towel is long, and it is a little bit longer than a bath towel is wide. Now is anyone else on the same page? Is this not the wrongest dimensions for a baby blankie???


I like the pattern, but if there is a next time there will be fewer repeats and it wil be longer. Yhe hearts came out purdy though. Now this a sage green, I think it is actually Dusty Sage. It is cotton Fleece, which is put out by Brown Sheep. There are 7 skeins in that puppy!














This is my SOS Kal swatch. The swatch has beads in it but was not required to have them in it. I have never knit with beads so I wanted to play a bit. Now I thought I would use the matte beads on the top cause they are matte and varying shades that compliment the yarn color. BUT the bottom beads are the same shade as the yarn but the inside is silver so it picks up the shine nicely. I am baffled, I have no idea which to go with! HELP!!!



We had our first round of Monarchs. I think we had 8 of them and when we set them free they lingered a while. Last year right around this time we had a beloved member of our island family lose her life way to early and the monarchs were astonishing, she was always taken with monarchs and said if she couldn't come back as a mermaid than she would be a butterfly. So Monarchs have new meaning for me.




My wee one looking manly in hus "spenders"

He has become quite the ham. His lip is slightly fat still from his face plant on his pacifier last week that split the inside. This is the second time he has done it......pacifiers are gone except in his bed!!!






Here are the before shots....... My curly boy.....oh so uncontrollable. He came to me today and said. Momma.....I wan haia (no r's on the end we are from Maine people) like my daddy's pwease.

To which I replied very tentively, are you sure honey?

Yes mamma I dooooooooo pwease mamma.

Ok, are you going to be scared of the buzz clippers?

Nope mamma I won. I pwomise mamma.





Meanwhile I am thinking that I have nvere cut curly little boy hair, and am not quite sure where to start. I am more than a little bit afraid of the buzz clippers in my middle babes hair myself. I like his blonde curls, even when they are at thier "fro-iest"

What will he look like with no unruly waves hovering, halo-esque on top of his beautiful face? I am not sure I want to see that.

"Hey Big B, are you sure you want mommy to cut your hair?"

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS Mamma, CUT IT NOW PWEASE!!!




Ok so he is still very handsome, and the curl certainly has not left, there is plenty of wave left in those locks! Sorry for the blur he movedin closer as I was snapping the picture. Man he looks adorable!








He now looks like a boy in control of his locks, instead of a boy controlled by his locks!!! I have 3 beautiful offspring! They certainly do give me something to get up for in the morning!

This Blog Post says it all+

Honestly....This is one of the blogs I read regularly, and I think the blogess and I share the same............psychosis, if you will! I plan to post later today with pictures of my finished objects...they are blocking right now. I am not happy with them..........

The baby blanket..........now pardon me, I am of the mind that a blankie should be longer than it is wide...or posibly even square....but wider than long UMMMMMM NO. But indeed it is.......it is in the pattern measurements too......grrrrrr why didn't I loo at that? Possibly because I was in love with the (neatly folded so you could not see that that size is ALLLLLLLL freaking wrong!!) picture and didn't figure anyone would be screwing with the laws of baby blankets!! Now why didn't I notice that the blanket was off?? Good question but one I can certainly explain........2 reasons actually, I knit this on a too small circular.......20 inches to be exactly SIZE 2's BAHHHHHH, so it was all scrunched up at the top and squished in general............and 2 I was too dang dumb to look at the freaking deminsions!!!! GRRR freaking grr.....but it is a gift and generally speaking it does not look like cat puke sooooooo she is getting it and she will cover her bay with and and she wil like it!

The other item is my secret stole swatch. I have never knitted with beads, thereore I have never bought beads to knit with. Generally speaking this whole project is going out on a limb for me! I swatched ad I threw in 2 different kinds of beads, thinking it would help me clarify my decision on which beads to go with.....ummmmmm NO in fact the beads I was pretty sure I would use I am not un-in love with and the other beads I am sort of EH aboout! So be ready to help me make up my mind...........please.

Hump Day

What a title huh? I am not feeling imaginative, or creative, or anything else for that matter. I am in a funk. My kids have been sick, and they brought it home to me so as I started a 5 day stint working for the state I also began a miserable sinus infection that was accompanied by its friend the chest cold. This is the kind of thing that takes you out at the knees......you can't breathe, because there is an elephant on your chest and your eyes feel like they are goingt oexplode.....oh yeah what a joyful time I had! WOOHOO and the humidty for the past week has been horrendous.

Dear hubby has not found work, we have not heard about the caretaking job and are losing hope. He has applied for a very part time job at the school as a maintenance man type thing, but we haven't heard anything there either! It is extremely disheartening. Dear Hubby did get our 2nd car running and now we just have to get a title for it so we can make it legal beagle.

I will soon have pics of a finished baby blanket thank god! It is beautiful but I will never knit another one!

Things that make you go hmmmm

Ok so I work at my local yarn shop, and as most of you know my hubby has been "let go" from his job, and we are somewhat mystified and a whole lot peeved......anyway.......I am greeting people as they come in and a large group comes in and I am in themiddle of my welcome blah blah blah and there is an art gallery upstairs blah blah when the last person comes in and is looking in the opposite direction...hears my voice and sort of turns her head, makes semi- eye contact and then her whole body follows her head clear around and right back out the same door she had JUST stepped in through and down over the stairs she went........any ideas who she was??????





Yeppers, the head poopster! I laughed inside, cause I just kept smiling and talking very nicely with the other customers.......she can't face me, and I think it is rather telling...........if my hubby truley deserved to be fired, she shoudl be holding her head up high.....but she can't face me!


On a better note....hubster got hired for a small....very very very small caretaking job, actually it is a key holding job......the money isn't much but the man is a sweet heart and as things come up hubb ubb can bill hourly for work. He has his name in on another and I sent the "Big" job a note just thanking them for sitting down with the hub and apologizing for not being able to get there with him, and it reitterated that we living in the house is a NON issue. I am pondering what to send next week if we still have not heard anything.........I have read and people have told me to make sure you express your interest once a week, so they can't forget your name! Keeping crossing your fingers for us PLEASE!!!!