Cabin Fever

These kids of mine are going stir crazy. I try to take them out every day, at least a little. A stroll around the neighborhood at least. Or to the grocery store. Or on the bus. But it isn't enough for my free range kids. I can tell we are having more power struggles as KaBean starts to get older and needs more freedom but is receiving less. Since I know we will not be here in Las Vegas for very long, I am reluctant to put her into any type of activity or class environment lest she becomes attached to it because leaving is hard for her. This is not a place I will put roots down, so... so why put down roots? Hopefully in a few days we will go Home for a week to get our car and see our friends. And when we come back, we will have a car and can do more stuff. Like the Children's Museum and the climbing gym. And more Farmer's Markets. And I'll be able to go to spinning night at Wooly Wonders, and knitting night with the Sin City Knits folks off Ravelry. For now, though, we're stuck at home, trying to find creative ways to pass the time and beat the heat. 


We play Candyland endlessly, and matching cards, and we color and paint, I even let the kids play with their very own wool. But I'm running out of ideas that don't involve water and wont leave a horrible mess for their dad for me to clean up. We wrestle, we read stories, we play with the geometric magnets on the fridge. They chase Isis, they share, the beat the crap out of each other... I wish I had a picture of The ManChild's mystery black eye. He's just at that height where everything will hit him in face. It's a Fun stage.  


Do any of you sneaky readers have ideas I could try? I know you folks look here occasionally, so maybe you have some ideas. and while I'm at it, How do I get The ManChild to stop eating crayons?




ps- for those interested- I LOVE the Martinmas Shawl again. see that?  can refer to it without resorting to name calling, that's how happy I am with the pattern right now. I love it. Once I got the gist of the pattern... well, tomorrow is Wooly Wednesday over at spinspiration so you'll just have to wait till then.

This Moment: At the Bus Stop

This week (days late) I'm joining Amanda at SouleMama for 

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Make sure you go check out Amanda's moment, and her sponsers for this week, as well as the always inspirational Taryn at WoolyMossRoots for pictures of her adorable boy.

Still Carless, But I Needed Needles.

Oh my goddess, I've done it. I took public transportation for the first time since I lived in LA. many many moons ago. I went on 2 separate bus trips (but blogger deleted almost this whole post, so this time, it'll just be about the first trip), all for the love of wool. It's true. I wouldn't take a bus to the post office, I'll wait for my car, even though I promised some hand spun to Taryn. I wouldn't take the bus to the book store or Trader Joe's or the Children's meuseaum, but tell me I don't have the right size needles for the Ugly Misunderstood Hat, and I'll take 3 busses across town just to see if the first yarn store I could google, Gail Knits, had them. without calling ahead. 3 busses. for needles, not even yarn. 3 busses for needles that were too expensive after my $5 bus fare. I was a little miffed, but I knew I'd need 6 1/2 inch US 3 DPNs for Kiely's thigh high socks. They had those in my price range, so it wasn't a totally wasted trip.
On the way there, I missed my first transfer stop and had to walk 87 2 blocks back to the street I needed to be on. On the way back, I compensated for missing that transfer stop, so I got off 1 stop too early and had to walk even further to get to a stop that had the right line coming to it. It was 91 degrees that day, but I was alright, I brought water... that eventually turned into iced coffee...

I knit on the bus(ses).

I can't decide if this is the Ugliest Hat Ever, or just misunderstood. If it turns out to be horrible, I can only blame the yarn for being so amazing and demanding to be knit wether I had found the right pattern or not. It's the yarn's fault.

I took pictures of distant mountains and empty fields lots.

Apparently it is considered sideways-glance worthy to knit, take pictures, take pictures of knitting, while on a bus. Who knew?

I came home to this:

That would be my amazing 4 (almost 5, not really, but she insists) year old learning to write. Her 3 favorite letters are 't' 'O' and 'H'... they used to be 'K' 'A' and 'y'... 

Look! I am 100% certain that she wrote 'HOt' intentionally, with no help at all. because she is totally brilliant.