Ninja Kitten

One good aspect of P never checking my blog is I can pretty much post anything here including how I’m always right and he’s always wrong.  You know.  Stuff like that.  How I said I love you first to him and just because he was sleeping at the time, that doesn’t discount my I love you.  How he’s super wonderful but sometimes at night time, when he sleeps, he thrashes in the bed so hard that I wonder if we’re in the middle of an earthquake.  How I might be a better driver, but he’s a very superior cook, a more patient teacher, and a nicer person.  Due to my horrible rash of exhaustion last week, his gifts for Father’s Day will be late, but they’ll get there.  Happy Father’s Day, P, in case you do ever check my blog.  (I totally said I love you first.)

Shockingly to those of you who might read my blog (all two of you now that I moved locations, amirite?) and to those who know me in real life, I’m a fairly positive and happy person.  Sure, I whine and moan a lot, and I mock a ton, but I’m a basically happy person who knows life is going my way.

I’m reminded of a person I knew in college, who as I last walked away from his sight, called me a selfish, evil bitch who doesn’t care about the feelings of others.  As I walked away, I called out, “Sure, but I’m a happy selfish bitch.”  And, sure enough, true that.

So, what’s that got to do with my life and this week?  Well, I’m not sure if you know this…  (You totally know this.)  Young children pretty much require that you not be selfish.  You need to get up when they get up.  You need to make sure they get fed on time.  You need to make sure you’re there to help with dressing, and using the potty, and setting up toys, and retrieving lost items.  You can’t just leave them on the side of the road when you’re driving somewhere and they start screaming aimlessly at each other.  You can’t kick them out of the house when they both climb onto you and start slapping each other.

What can you do?  You can lay there as they climb on you and slap each other.  You can start to cry when you realize your husband is going to be late coming home again because he needs to do more work or get to another meeting and you realize he needs to go to New Hampshire again in the next few months.  You can basically shut down completely when the kids are asleep.

I mean that.  I normally spend quite a bit of time crafting after the children are asleep.  It’s my me time.  My time to be creative and active and happy.  Instead, I have been taking a short but exhilarating bicycle ride and reading fan fiction for hours this week.  (Ugh, that I just admitted that.)

I just want to give you guys a heads up on why I’ve not been posting at all this week.  It’s not you, it’s me.  Don’t worry.  I will be back to normal soon.

Also, to make myself feel really positive about these kids again, I’m posting some pics.  Why don’t you like sleep, sweet Belly?  Why do you like screaming randomly, N?  Why must you smack N every time he touches me, Belly?  Why do you hate food, N?

As many of you know, eventually you’re going to deal with your child trying to tell a lie.  The great part about this is that when they first do it and you’re shocked, they’re essentially crappy at it.  So, as their lying gets better, so does your bullshit detector gets better.  N has started making attempts at lies recently, which we’ve come down on pretty hard.  I’ve discussed lying and white lies and petty lies with his and why some people lie and others don’t lie as much, but it’s all still pretty abstract in his brain.  This means that when he wants to not get into trouble, he’ll occasionally lie.

We recently had a lie attempt that resulted in the most amazing outburst of truth ever.  It was so hilarious that I almost laughed.

The back story here is that my mom will give N toast and butter for breakfast when she is taking care of him, which I never do.  I give him yogurt or oatmeal or fruit or Cheerios.  She and he know that I don’t approve of toast as a breakfast item since it’s basically a sugary carb gift to him and his eating habits are lousy already.  By comparison, Belly eats her weight in yogurt or fruit or eggs for breakfast.

Me:  N, do you want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, baby?  You must be hungry since you didn’t eat breakfast today.  I don’t know why grandma didn’t give you any food.
N:  Yes, I’d love a sandwich.  I’m so excited!
Me: Well, okay. Here it is. Eat at the table.

Ten minutes later.

Me: Why aren’t you eating?
N: I’m not hungry.
Me: Are you really not hungry? You didn’t have breakfast! Eat some. I don’t want you to starve!
N: I’m not hungry. Can I go play?
Me: No! I’m worried. Are you sick? Do you feel okay?
N: I’m okay. I just want to play.
Me: Come here. Let me feel your head? Can you try and take a few bites? I’m just really worried, hon.

A pause.

N: Mommy, I had toast and butter for breakfast!
Me: What?
N: Grandma made me some and I ate toast and butter and I couldn’t help myself. It was just so delicious and I kept eating and eating it and I couldn’t stop and it was sooooo gooooood. I love toast and butter. I’m sorry. I tried not to eat it but it was so good.

Me: Oh, okay. I need to go use the potty, baby. I will talk about this with you when I get back.

Then, I went into the bathroom and laughed to myself for two or three minutes. I’m going to use this excuse whenever I cheat my diet, I swear. “I kept eating and eating it and I couldn’t stop and it was so good!”

The conclusion that was there was no punishment since that was silly. Grandma had approved his meal and we would discuss lying instead.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done this.  But, when I got back into this, I made the rash decision not to post one of these unless I had actual stuff I wanted to link to.

So, here’s my primary reason for posting –Aneela Hoey is releasing her newest Moda line of fabric this year.  It’s called Hello Petal.  It appears to be all kittens and girls playing hopscotch or jumping rope.  I will sadly go broke attempting to buy as many yards of the various prints as possible.  Also, you might want to pick up some of her old Moda lines.  I plan on charm packing like crazy to make some quilts.

Have you seen the Must Stash Podcast?  Before watching this, I was a video podcast heathen.  I watched Sew Knitpicky’s, but she’s my friend.  Every other one I’ve tried I’ve written off.  So, when I started to see a lot of blogs and Instagrammers posting about this podcast, I was like, “Eh, I’ll give it a whirl.”  I’m now a convert.  They are nine episodes in and you should watch them.  I almost cast on a sweater during the summer just because I wanted to join in with their group’s action.  Well, I’ve got samplers to cross stitch, socks to knit, and houses to buy, ladies.  You’ll just have to wait until autumn or winter for some of my participatory nature to head your way.

Leigh Bardugo’s Siege and Stormwas released on Tuesday.  Did you buy it?  Do you even like YA fiction?  I love it.  Not going to lie.  Since this post is scheduled, I’ve probably already read this by the time you read my post.

N asked me to make him some orange and blue and green socks.  I laughed because that is one ugly color combination even though he adores it.  It’s all his favs.  I asked him if this orange and blue sock yarn from Toil and Trouble would be acceptable.  He implied the green was missing so I pointed out I could give him green toes and heels using another yarn.

About two months ago, I posted some very spare details on a blanket I was knitting.  I’ve pulled it out a time or two since then and I’m going to flat out admit this, I’m hating on knitting this thing.  It’s a giant tangled mess.  The week I got the Summer Sampler from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery was also the week I was working on this behemoth of a project.  I was so happy to put it out of sight and mind.  I’m carrying two bobbins and four bags of yarn and that is going to quickly increase as I move to the scarf and face part of the snowman.  Here are a few of my Instagrammed progress shots that really show it getting knit.

So you can see some pretty darned good progress on the snowman.  I’m hoping to whip out some more next week, but we’ll see.  I’m trying not to force myself to work too much on my crafts.  It’s a fun hobby, right?

I don’t even know what to really call this.  I was all prepared to give weekly updates about all my crafting I was doing, but I was a woman obsessed this week.  I think I took like five minutes out of one day to attempt to slipcover something and then I was all, “Slipcover, you need to go to your corner and think about how horrible you are for taking up my day.  I don’t even care if I need to sell a house.”  Don’t worry, those slipcovers are getting major love tomorrow and, frankly, are mostly done.  I just need to cut out two ends, sew on three ends, and, voila, there they are.

So, what was I doing?  Do you remember this?

Well, it became this.

And the worst part is that isn’t even where it stands now.  I did all the frames of the Summer Sampler from the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. No nice picture yet, but that’ll happen soon in Instagram and on the blog, I promise.

Tonight I screamed at my wee little fingers, “Stitch like the wind.”  And then, I was done and I nearly collapsed with relief.  No more thinking about that for several weeks.  Why am I so obsessive?  So, I started stitching on the Friday it was released, and I’m done about ten days after?  Check out my delightful series of pictures for between steps.

So tasteful.  Anyway, what else did I do?  Remember Sew Knitpicky’s Sock It To Summer?  I worked on that for about five minutes too.

I knit maybe an inch on them.  But, after my slipcovers, they are this week’s focus item, so I expect to hit a heel, at least.  I completely ignored my Rose of Sharon cross stitch and you all even haven’t seen my progress on my blanket of doom.  I’ll try to get a nice picture of the Snowmen Are My Enemies blanket project for you all.  Okay?  I might even try to post about it this week.  Stranger things have happened.

Oh, I made a cake too, but that’ll go in its own post as well. If I ever take the time to post to this blog, I’ll have a bit to say, it appears!

Every once in a while, if I manage to drop all video games and my children get a tiny bit of sleep at night, I get ambitious with my craft plans.  I know that I work best with a schedule, but I also enjoyed the participatory nature of Kids Clothes Week.  My many posts just within one week attest to how working within someone else’s schedule can pressure me to move along, especially when Twitter and Instagram support that.

So, I’ve decided to look ahead to this easy going summer when I plan to sell a house, settle on a house, and, basically, furnish and decorate a house while gearing up for child’s first full year of schooling.  I want to craft like mad.  (“Mad” being the word most descriptive of my plan…)

I’ve been working pretty steadily on Rose of Sharon as you might have noticed recently.  I’ve also been making some pretty steady progress on my Snowman Blanket of Doom, though I have not been posting about it because it is unexciting and unglamorous progress until quite recently.  Now, normally, my weirdness is that I can only work on a single project within a craft at one time.  Otherwise, I get overwhelmed and anxious.  My only exception is my sock knitting which is my “travel” knitting if my larger project is too big to travel easily.  (Since currently all ten of the skeins of yarn I bought for that blanket are in play or are knitted up, my Snowman Blanket of Doom is officially too big to travel.)

However, this summer, I’m going to try changing it up.  First, I bought The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery‘s Summer Sampler.  I love the stuff coming out from the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery and since I’ve never done a mystery knit or cross stitch or sewalong or even a yarn club in my life, I decided to try this to see if I liked it.  I’d be participating and posting with others.  I think this just sounds like fun.  I’m going to make completing this with the time frame a top crafting priority, which is hilarious since it overlaps with the week I settle on my new house.  No probs, remember?  If you want to join because you cross stitch, please do so.

They’ve promised a free pattern to all participants if they get more than 400 participants before the end of the weekly sampler release.  I know at least one of my readers loves their stuff also and if she has not already bought it, I’m hoping this peer pressures her.  The first release will be June 21, but I’ve gotten information for the threads needed, the fabric needed, and a chart for the stitched frames which I have started.

What else am I doing this summer?  I joined Sew Knitpicky’s Sock It To Summer.  I have no idea if you watch her videocast, but maybe you should?  She’s got a lot of overlap in hobbies with me (though she recently picked up spinning which I’m attempting to avoid like the plague), so I quite like it and her cute multicolored hair.  It just calls for you to knit a pair of socks (or more than one pair) this summer.  They can be socks for children or adults and you can work on a WIP so long as it is not more than seventy five percent done at the start of the summer.  It runs from June 1 to the end of August.  There is a prize.  I plan to work on my husband’s socks.  I only have four inches done of the first cuff.  He wants seven inch cuffs for his extra wide, size eleven feet.  *WHIMPER*

Sadly, due to the moving and the lack of a setup for sewing, Kids Clothes Week will not be on for the summer session.  I do plan to participate in the fall session.

So, on weeks in which the Summer Sampler is running, that’ll be my priority and I’ll work on the other stuff in between that.  Otherwise, it’s going to be one week knitting the Blanket of Doom, one week on Rose of Sharon, and one week on socks.  The socks will also still be my portable knitting.  I’ll get back to you in August to give you a loose update on how all of this is going, okay?

Good job, team.  Join me on some of this if you want.  I think the Sampler is great for cross-stitchers, and the sock knitting is great for all knitters.  I’d like to see more comments and participation, like I said, so let’s do this!

Hey, hey, hey, how are you?

I don’t suppose you peeps remembered that I joined the Wipocalypse thing last month?  My number one goal for it is to learn how to spell it by December.  My number two goal for it this year is to start actually stitching on the lady in my cross-stitch.

I know, it’s not really that ambitious a set of goals, but I’ve been working on this piece for nine years now.  Nine years.  Let’s hope I do a more efficient job of raising my children, okay?  There were a bunch of designer and topic and color themes this month that I ignored.  That’s kind of my MO.  Oh, wait, one of the colors to work on was brown. DONE AND DONE.  I stitched a lot of brown this month.  Enough to make me a wee bit crazy. (“Wee bit” is kind of underselling it, actually.)

So, when last people visited this series, I was here:

Can you see it?  I had what I thought was a ton done.  I had started the arch on the right side.  Now, if you’re a regular visitor to my blog, you’ll see in my last post, I had finished more!

Be still, my heart!  I had gotten some of the scrollwork on the column done.  Well, where am I after one more week of intermittent stitching?

Okay, excuse me the horrible shot, but I made it to the start of the scrollwork at the bottom of the arch on the right side.  To prevent myself from going a bit crazy, I gave myself leeway to put a few new greens for the ground flowers onto bobbins and I stitched up just two different lengths of green between all the ecru and tans and brownish greys.

I really think the next time I work on this, I’ll be finishing up the right side of the column and moving to the left side.  I also think if I keep working at this, I’ll be working on the lady be the end of the year.  I’m so please I joined both the Mirabilia Facebook group and the Wipocalpyse.  They are spurring me to work on my piece instead of play more Candy Crush.  Oh, if you like to see daily (almost) progress photos of knitting, sewing, or cross stitch, follow me on Instagram.  I post my craft work there a ton.

N:  “Mommy, I’m Fix-It Felix.  You are the blond girl I’m going to marry.  Belly is that other girl and Daddy is Wreck It Ralph. He can climb really well.”

N:  “Daddy, where does lightening come from?  Does it hit ground often?”
P:  Complicated answer.
N:  “I know, Daddy!  Lightening is cloud poop.  Rain is cloud pee.  Thunder is cloud toots.”

Me: “I’m excited to see where Vampire Diaries goes with its next season.”
N: “What’s a vampire diary?”
P: “A mommy and daddy TV show.”
Me: “A journal a vampire likes to write in.”
N: “What?”
Me: “Dear Diary, I wish I could get tan.”
N: “What?”
Me: “Emo vampires love to write diary entries.”
N: “Do vampires bite their own tongues a lot?”
Me: “That’s a great question, actually.”

In the last week, due to N’s great penchant for imaginary play, I’ve been Catwoman, Mario, Princess Leia, a mommy cow named Butterscotch, a mommy otter, a mommy giraffe, a mommy skunk, a mommy snake, a mommy lion, a mommy cheetah, and a Philadelphia Union offensive player.