A knitting blog, you say?

This has been a knitting blog with no knitting as of late. While I was sick I didn't knit. I know! The shock and horror! But I am back at it now. I am mostly working on this:

Keeping the puppy out of my knitting. It is a full time job. She tangles herself, completely wrapped in yarn. I understand her desires, so it is hard to be too upset. 

So I got this to help. OK, I have no idea how to even rationalize that. I got this to make my life happier. For those that don't know, it is a chiaogoo red lace, interchangeable knitting needle set. I didn't know they existed, even though I have looked at them in my favorite local knitting shop for the last year. For some reason, in my mind they were another brand. A brand I don't love. I needed a size five for the belt cardi, and a size nine for a blanket. This was the perfect solution. Yes, it only goes to size eight, but perfection is different to different people. Plus I just wanted this set. 

And this is the only thing I have been working on. I picked up my Jen sweater, and the hubby looked at me with tears in his eyes and said "what about my blanket..." So here I am. 

I let slip that I am using cheap, but soft yarn for it. I was extremely happy with the reaction from all family members. Most refused to touch it. The hubby felt shame, and unloved. Until I asked for the $600 I will need for a "real" blanket. Then he said he can live with this. It is actually a mix of good and bad. When I get tired of the crap yarn, I throw in some alpaca. All is fair in love and war, no?

The Blentec blahs

This here? This is an angry lady.

A year ago I paid $400 for a blender. This was to be the last blender I ever purchased. It was supposed to work many marvelous miracles. The price was worth it, because of the ten year warranty. Ten years, people!

And then, it broke. My miracle working blender broke. I had gone online and registered my blender, so all is fine, right? Nope. Seems my registration was lost. Even though I still frequently get their emails, it seems that they have never heard of me. So what did the good people at Blentec do to help me?
They told me they would be happy to replace my broken product, and all I had to do was turn the machine over and give them the numbers.
These numbers:

You see the problem? Yes, seeing is the problem. 

Which I explained to the nice customer service lady, who then explained to me that she couldn't help me if I couldn't read the numbers. 

So not only is the product broken, they can't even put a number on the bottom that will stay. 

That's a win, Blentec. Nice job, folks. 

From the brink of death

Or what felt like it. This week the oldest child and I were struck down with a stomach bug straight from the depths of hell. I have word that it was created by Satan himself. It was a full week of utmost unpleasantness. But we lived. And I learned to find joy in simple things again.

Like my yarn loving golden doodle, Khya. (6 months, 22 pounds)

The sun hitting this fiber on my bed.

And my very precious kitten, Blue, who is my constant companion, and who I am extremely attached to. He also doubles as a heating pad.

In times like these, when I have been so sick, I remember that in order to know the good we must taste the bad. (OK, I remember it AFTER the illness, not during) I don't get sick often, and extremely rarely do I get that sick, and for that I am eternally grateful. So is my dear husband, who was once again my super hero, saving each day while I was ill. He is the best. 

Another thing happened during the week. It made me very aware of the lot I have been given here on Earth. Of what really matters. 

Can you see it? Do you know what it is?

I found this on my clothes dryer, drying I suppose.  

So what is it? 

The symbol of my mother hood. I am the mother of three boys, and that is proof. 

Rabbit feet. They are the feet of a dead rabbit, which my oldest son cut off and cured because my youngest wanted a lucky rabbits foot like the middle child has. 

Yet one more thing that I thank the fake sister wife for. Thanks sister, for buying your middle child a rabbits foot. 

The progression of a chick hatching

In really blurry pictures.

True Love is

My amazing spouse, who is perfect in every possible way,

Spent this valentines day on his knees, as many young men did. 

But since we have been married for twenty years, he was not offering a ring, but building my dreams. 

My dream of the perfect milk stand. Which is perfect. Absolutely perfect, just like my wonderful husband. 

Bessie showed her appreciation in true cow fashion. 

By christening the stand. 

Valentines day also brought a few other amazing gifts of love. 

My dear friend brought me some delicious goodies. My dear Todd knows me so well!

I was so thankful, and so were the short people. 

And then, yes, there is more...

This happened:

Our chicks hatched early. 

I am planning to do a whole post with pictures of the hatch. Pretty cool. 

It is Valentines day

And love is in the air. Unfortunately, it is a forbidden love.

This attractive young man has been whispering sweet nothings (read mounting her over and over) to Ally the goat all morning. The poor dear is bound to get his heart broken. The chromosomes just don't align for them. A love that can never be. 

In other valentines day news, I made my precious offspring fresh, pink-ish yogurt for breakfast. 

Nothing says love like aiding in digestive health. That is true caring. 

After breakfast I took a minute to clean up the kitchen. As I started to clean off the extremely neglected dining room table I saw this:

Yeah, run in fear. Creepy. 

The happiness cream can bring

Yesterday was a very busy day. We did our yearly herd testing on the girls. That is a lot of work. I am thankful for a good vet and an amazing daughter.
I also was able to retrieve my knitting bag. Such a relief to have her safely in my possession.

Then last night I decided to turn this

Into this.

Have I mentioned how much I love having a cow? It is ten shades of happiness.

Sometimes bad things happen in a knitters life

And yesterday was one of those times.
And no one understood.

My knitting goes everywhere with me, even if I have no intentions of knitting it. (Like that ever happens) It goes everywhere. There is no where I go that my knitting does not.

So when I went to trade my van in for a new van yesterday, naturally my knitting went with me. I knew I probably wouldn't have time to knit, but it is like the clean underwear thing. You never know when you will be in an accident, or end up stuck in a waiting room waiting to sign papers etc.  So my knitting came along. I nestled it between the front and back seat where it always safely rides.

We got to the dealership, and went in to sign. I don't know how it happened, and I blame it on the new car smell and nerves... But I forgot my knitting. I forgot my knitting, nestled in the old van between the front and back seats where it always safely rides. I drove away in the new van without a second thought. My knitting is an extension of me, and like my arm I just assumed it came along. On the way home we stopped to get gas, then came home. It was then, when I went to grab my knitting and go inside, that I realized the extension of me was gone.
I drove like a mad woman back to the dealership. I had an extra key to the van that I had forgotten to drop off, so even though I knew the dealership would be closed it would still be alright. I could just nip in, grab the knitting, and sneak away like it never happened.
As we pulled up I was so glad to see the old van. Relief swept over me. I lovingly unlocked and opened her door (otherwise known as breaking and entering, I think) and reached in to grab my knitting.

Which wasn't there.

Here is when true panic set in. (OK, let's be honest. True panic set in long before now) I walked up and looked in the very locked dealership. I could see my knitting bag sitting across the room in the office. So close, yet so far away.

I called every number I could find, but to no avail. The dealership was closed. My knitting was lost from my world.

I sat in the new van crying and feeling nauseous for about half an hour. The panic was unreal. My knitting is what keeps me on this side of sane. Me without knitting is not a pretty picture.  Had I not packed all of my needles into my knitting bag, I may have survived. But I knew they were all in there. I texted the sister wife, best friend (who is not actually a sister wife, but we are very close and that feels like the only way to describe her) and she suggested that maybe cheap needles from Walmart were better than insanity. I drove home in tense silence, but with a small spark of cheap needle hope. It was then that my daughter, my beautiful first born, remembered that she had borrowed a pair of crap needles from me and not returned them.

So I sat, and I knit cheap yarn with cheap needless. And you know what?? I survived.

As a disclaimer, I do not suggest, nor do I endorse doing this at home. 

PSS The cheap yarn is due to a recent moth attack that I am not yet ready to talk about. 

Aften much anticipation

Our little fella has finally arrived.

 He likes the excitement a fashionably late arrival brings.

He is the athletic type. He walks, and jumps and stuff.

He sun tans to get that perfect golden red.

He would be a party animal, if his mom would just back off a bit. 

Knitting burns calories

Working away on the belt cardi. I am loving the way the fabric on this is knitting up.

Knitting, knitting, knitting... On a cardi I will never wear. I am not sure how I feel about this. It is a beautiful, extremely well written pattern with more shaping than any I have ever done. And that is exactly why I won't be able to wear it. I myself have an awful lot of shaping. Not the kind that looks good in a lovely shaped cardi with a belt. I am round in all the wrong places, and will look about 6 months along in this in my belly, and 7 in each hip. But I am knitting on. Maybe I will knit super fast and it will burn many calories, making me thin by the time I finish. That is my plan.

Because once is never enough

Do you see this? Cashmere. This is cashmere. 

It is cashmere that the dog stole out of my purse and took out to the back yard through the dog door. In a snow storm. And dropped it in a pile of very fresh dog poop. 

For real. 

Starting the belt cardi. Again. 

She is DONE!

Jen is finally finished. I wore her as good luck for the Superbowl. We don't want to talk about how that went.

I still love her. She is wonderful, and soft, and beautiful.  Tonight I took her off and decided to block her.

And this us what happened. This is what blocking looks like when you throw your sons mattress out. The one that he doesn't sleep on, and that is looking exclusively for blocking. 

And here it is before blocking. Ignore the dog photo bomb. 

Now on to the next project:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/belt-cardi