yarn tootin'

Hodgepodge

     First of all, I feel the need to mention that Bloglines is back!  I read that little piece of news on Guinifer's blog today and I promptly reinstated Bloglines on all toolbars and home screens.  I wasn't getting along very well with Google Reader because it's too complicated and I can't like the way it looks on the iPad.  It might be sooooo 2005, but a big old list of blogs is all I want and Bloglines provides just that.
     Incidentally, one of my newest pet peeves is websites that look all funky on the iPad.  What's with that?  Just keep it the same, people.  I'm sure it's an apple thing.  Despite my virtual love affair with my iPad, I remain a PC.  I've said it before, but I'll say it again.  I'm that dorking looking fat guy and I'm happy about it.  That apple kid is annoying.

     Blogging every day is hard.  I can't always think of anything to say.  The fact that it's supposed to be about knitting and I haven't finished a project in six months doesn't make it any easier.  I have to say that oddly enough, all of this blogging has been great for my knitting.  If all goes well, I will finish two projects this month in addition to all of the blogging, and that, my friends, is a good thing. 
     As long as we're talking about knitting, I recieved Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders in the mail today.  I haven't bought a knitting book in ages, but I flipped through this at Kid'n'Ewe over the weekend and then regretted not buying it, so I hopped on Amazon and it arrived in the blink of an eye.  As many of you know, I have a sizeable sock yarn stash, so I really need this book.  There are a few sock patterns along with several shawls, lacey scarves, as well as patterns for baby and doll clothes.  There is a pattern for a little dress knit with Noro Kureyon Sock that caused me to say "Oooooh!" outloud when I turned the page.  The biggest improvement in this new volume of the One-Skein series is that the pictures are right there next to the patterns.  I really like that and the fact that the whole book is in color.  At less than $13, this book is a steal.

No Time To Post...

    I'm too busy knitting!  This will definitely be finished in time for him to wear it, but the more I knit, the more I think it looks kind of girly.

 

    

     I'm too lazy to go outside to try to get a good picture, so here you have the sweater with and without flash.  Like I said, it's looking a tad feminine.  Oh well, the big blue helmet should solve that problem.  Either that, or I'll just hang onto it and wait for someone to have a girl.

Oops.

     I forgot to post yesterday.  I thought about it early in the day, but I never got to it and then I just forgot.  I woke up around 3:00 am, was shocked that I hadn't heard a peep from Little Mister and that's when I realized that I'd neglected the blog.  Oh well. 
     Sunday was a very sleepy day around here.  Saturday night was a horrible sleeping night for everyone.  Little Mister decided to scream for an hour around 1:40 am and then when he finally went back to sleep, he was restless until I gave in and got him up around 7:00.  I'm just glad that yesterday was a Sunday and Bob didn't have to work because if I'd been alone with LM after that kind of night, I'm sure I would have cried about it.  I'm generally not a big crier, but I don't handle sleep deprivation well at all and I'm really ready for him to sleep all night.  It's been too long since I've slept more than 4 or 5 hours in a row.
     I've read every baby sleep book there is, and our problem seems to be unique.  They all say that you have to put the baby down awake so that he knows how to fall asleep by himself.  He can do that.  He's been able to do that for a long time.  This doesn't prevent him from waking up in the middle of the night and either screaming for an hour or just happily babbling and squealing for awhile.  Either way, when he does that, we don't sleep and it sucks.  He's not bad every night.  Last night was much better and I can't believe how much more sane I feel today.  Tonight will be the first night he sleeps in the helmet and I hope that goes well.  He's napping in it without too much trouble, so it should be okay.

     And now for some yarn.....

 
     On Saturday we went to Kid 'n Ewe in Boerne and I got these lovely skeins of Brooks Farm Trio.  This blue is generally not my color, but I love it.  In person, there are subtle shades of green in there too and it's so pretty.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but I might make a Seamingly Simple Vest or maybe a bigger kid sweater for Little Mister.   Either way, I've got to finish the Brooks Farm sweater I'm working on with last year's bounty.  I just have to finish the sleeves, so it won't be long.  Naptime seems to be going well this morning, so maybe I'll go knit a few rows now.

More On Roasted Chickenss

     After the Little Mister went to bed last night, I spent some time looking at the Yarn Tootin' archives and feeling nostalgic about the days when I had no one to worry about but myself and nothing to do but sit and knit and sleep.  My life is most definitely better now that I live in the same place as Bob and we have the Little Mister, but I wouldn't mind going back to my 600 square foot apartment in Richmond and knitting and sleeping for a week or so.  One of my favorite posts from the first year of Yarn Tootin' is the one called Start With a Roasted Chicken.  The last couple of nights I've eaten my new favorite salad which happens to start with a roasted chicken.

     Our friends Stephanie and Dave brought this salad to us for dinner the day we came home from the hospital with the Little Mister.  We've had it many times since then because it's easy and filling and most importantly, delicious.  It's also easy and since I don't really like to cook, I love a good recipe that doesn't involve any actual cooking.  This salad sounds a little weird with the pasta and the greens, but trust me, you will love it.  

Stephanie's Coming Home From the Hospital Salad

1 Rotisserie chicken
 A pint of Cherry tomatoes
3 or 4 Scallions
A cup or two of bite sized pasta (penne works well)
Feta cheese crumbles
Assorted lettuces
Cardini's Ceasar Salad Dressing

     Cut up the chicken and the tomatoes and thinly slice the scallions.  Boil water and make the pasta.  Put the lettuces in a bowl (I like to use a combination of Romaine and baby lettuces), add everything else, and toss.  I usually just dress the individual portions because Bob likes his salad more heavily dressed than I do and because this salad makes excellent leftovers if you just put dressing on the portion that you are going to eat right away.  We have also used Newman's Own Caesar dressing in a pinch and it was okay, but Cardini's is better and I think it makes the salad.  Bob sometimes adds black olives to his, but I don't really like olives, so I don't go there.  A little cucumber is also nice and I add that if we have it.  I'm sure that we will continue to improve and enjoy this one for years to come.  Thank you, Stephanie!

Free Yarn Friday!

     I almost forgot to post today.  It's been a busy day for me and I was just about to sit down with a glass of wine to watch a program and then I remembered that I must blog.  First things first, I used a Random Number Generator and the winner of last week's free yarn is Emily of MLE Knits and Quilts.  Check out her blog, y'all.  She makes very pretty things!  Emily, please send me your mailing address at yarntootin at yahoo dot com and I will get that yarn out to you.  Hooray for free yarn!  Now for this week's free yarn...

 

     One skein of Dream in Color Starry in Shiny Moss.  I bought this yarn last year at Three Kittens Needle Arts which is a yarn store that is literally a stone's throw away from my brother's house.  If I lived at my brother's house, I would give all of my money to this store.  I was in there last December with my mom and my niece who were picking out buttons for my niece's February Girl Sweater.  My niece, whose favorite color is "gween," spotted a shawl made out of this yarn and she convinced me that I needed to have this yarn.  It's very nice yarn (this picture, which was taken as the sun was setting, doesn't do it justice) and it would make a nice, lacey, Christmas shawl or scarf, but I'm just not going to get to it in this decade so it's up for grabs.  Leave a comment and keep your fingers crossed! 

Trapezoid Head

     So the big news around here is that the Little Mister has a new helmet.  When he was about three months old, we noticed that his head was a little crooked.  He had a flat spot on the back and a bulge on the front and his ears were more than a little bit misaligned.  When viewed from above, his head looked a little like a trapezoid. He was still cute, but we just didn't think he looked quite right.  It turns out we weren't wrong.  He has plagiocephaly (mishapen head) which is likely caused by torticollis (a tight neck muscle) which he's probably had since he was born.  If you want more info on either of those things, feel free to do a google.  There's a wealth of information available and it would seem that this is actually fairly common. 
       Two months of medical rigamaroll later we have a helmet!  Is it me, or is anything that involves any sort of doctor or appointment or referral a gigantic pain in the ass?  Don't even get me started on the INsurance headache.  That's another thing; why is it that people in Texas say INsurance?  Isn't it inSURance?  Anyhow, he'll most likely have to wear this for at least three months and right now we're in the process of building up the number of hours per day that he wears it.  So far he hasn't had to sleep in it, but eventually he will have to wear it 23 hours a day.  He doesn't love it, but for the most part, he's stopped crying about it which is good.  Here he is trying to hold his head up with the silly thing on and it seems like that might be a little bit difficult for him.  His general demeanor seems a little grim for the moment, but I'm hoping that's temporary.

     What we need to do now is decorate.  I was surprised to find that there are entire websites devoted to the ins and outs of making cranial orthoses look more stylish.  I kind of like it the way it is and I'm a little afraid to put a bunch of stickers on it, but it would probably be a little bit cuter with a little something jazzing it up.  I think I might order a couple of custom stickers from one of my favorite Etsy sellers.  I think a couple of little monkeys might be just what it needs.

     I'm going to do the Free Yarn Friday yarn thing tomorrow.  That way it can be one big free yarn extravaganza.  Check back tomorrow to find out about last week's yarn and to see more free yarn.

A Bit of an Amelda

     One of the many things no one tells you is that after you have a baby, your feet get bigger.  My already large feet are now even larger and I've been forced to get rid of several pairs of shoes.  I'm a bit of an Amelda and I love my shoes, so I tried really hard to make my old shoes work, but many of them were just too short.  Fortunately, sandal season lasts a long time in these parts and I can still wear all of those, but my first few days in normal shoes left me with very sore and smooshed toes.   Oh well, I guess I have to do some shoe shopping!  
     I have another pair of shoes in a different style from this maker (the brand is called Alegria, which incidentally, means happiness), and I love them, but sadly, they are now a tad short on me so I ordered this pair last week.  I wasn't sure I was going to keep them at first because they didn't look like I expected them to.  Onlineshoes called the color "black tooled" and while the leather certainly is tooled, they are by no means black.  I'd call the color pewter and it's nice, just not what I thought I'd ordered. After staring at them for a few days, I decided to wear them around the house yesterday.  After about an hour, there was no way I was going to send them back because they are super comfortable.  Yes, they're a tad clunky, but they make me happy so I'm keeping them.

I Don't Know Why I Thought This Was a Good Idea

     I'm not sure what I was thinking when I decided to attempt to post every day.  I'm just not that interesting anymore.  I could carry on about baby sleep for days, but I'm going to try not to do that.  In an effort to do more than a glorified status update, I give you, What's On My Needles, Part 2...

 

    When I was going through all of my unfinished projects, I came across this sweater that I started knitting sometime last winter.  When I bought the yarn (it's Koigu Kersti), I intended to use it for this particular pattern (Child's Placket-Neck Pullover) and in my mind, the yarn was gender neutral.  Now that I'm knitting with it, magenta seems to be the dominant color and it's looking a little bit girly.  This doesn't really bother me, but I'm not sure I'd give it as a gift to someone who was having a baby boy and it seems like everyone is having boys these days.  I've decided that when paired with the green, the magenta is festive and therefore, this will be a perfect holiday sweater for the Little Mister.  I just have to hurry up and finish it in time! 

Status Update

     My son is a crappy sleeper and as such, I am very tired. I've been up since 4:45 this morning and I don't have a whole lot to say. I have noticed that the more tired I am, the more I want to eat junk food. I'm not sure why that is, but I do know that Golden Oreos are delicious and they go quite nicely with an episode of Grey's Anatomy and a glass of red wine.

Can't Like Fall Back

     Why do they have to go messing with the time?  I finally had the Little Mister on some sort of a schedule (well, kind of) and then they have to go and change the time.  He woke up at 6:45 today (6:45 in the new time AND 6:45 in the old time) which would have been great if 6:45 were still 7:45, but now it's 7:45 p.m. and I feel like I've been hit by a bus.  If today were a typical Sunday and Bob had been home all day, I think I'd feel better, but he left for work a little after 11:00 this morning and he's still not home.  I don't know how or why anyone ever has a second child.  One is hard enough. 

     I like the idea of siblings, but I'm not sure I care to repeat the last five months, only with a little kid in addition to a baby.  I have to believe that eventually, he will sleep for a long time in the night and I will sleep too and when he does, the last thing I'm going to want to do is have another baby.  At least he's cute.  He's cute even when he's cranky.  We went for a walk with a friend today and he started screaming towards the end and she said "Oh, that's so cute!" and I think she really thought the screaming was cute (her baby, of course, was sleeping soundly in his stroller which was way cuter).  In any case, they really do make them cute for a reason.  If they weren't cute, they'd never survive.

   

     This is a BSJ that I knit a long time ago and I've just had it around.  I sort of had another baby in mind when I knit it, but I never gave it to said baby and now that baby is 2 and well, these things happen.  As you can see, he loves the sweater.  He actually doesn't mind it, but it's getting too small, so after I took this picture, I got it wet and stretched it and re-blocked it and if the weather holds, he should be able to wear it a few more times.