Oh Downton, You Disrupt My Life.

The new series of Downton Abbey is streaming now and all i want to do is watch non stop British people and knit things. Like really. It's like finishing a really good book and wondering what the characters are doing now that you aren't reading them into life anymore. Only it's TV, so I'm quite sure it's rotting my brain. YAY!

Tons of knitting, but I'm having a disagreement with my new camera, as in, I think the pictures should not ALL be blurry and the camera does. If you are on instagram and curious to see what I'm working on, my katwade. I promise I won't leave you knit-and kidless for long.

Works in Progress, Still Life

http://instagr.am/p/P5TeVOQU47/

14 hours 30 minutes.

That's how far into the week long Facebook Fast that Huz and I are doing. 14 and a half hours. We've both deleted our bookmarks, signed out and totally uninstalled the facebook apps from our phones. I keep picking up my phone, not even with the goal of looking at facebook, it just sort of happens. I'm looking at it, at the blank holes in my homescreen where the FB related things were, games and such. Sometimes I flick thru intsagram or ravelry, or take a pic of the kids, but mostly I just check the time and put it down. 

I've started a few new knits, there is a steady stream of pictures of them on my new instagram account. I'm trying to see if there is a way to feed the instaknit pics straight to the side bar of the blog... new goal. I'm wondering if my knit and blog lives will have more time or if I will end up, as it should be, playing with the kids more. I wonder if they will notice that we aren't buried in the computers as much...

I hope this fast leads us to living our lives with less online time. I'd like to quit facebook altogether but that seems unlikely. 

Here's to 153 hours and 15 more minutes of facecrack free time.

Testing

New blogger app for my droid phone.

gratitude*sunday*again

{Sunday's heartfelt tradition. A time to slow down, to reflect, to be grateful. A list of gratitudes.}

I just felt like doing it again... simpler.

:: for growing plants and green things.

:: for dirt and moss and worms

:: for rain and sky

:: for sage and mint and herbs

:: for my dreams of our little farm in maine, waiting for us to find it.

:: for my family asleep upstairs. my beautiful children, who know nothing of the fear and worry that parents feel when planning a huge life change on a shoe string budget. my silly husband, who always plugs along with hope and optimism no matter what.

:: for water. fresh water...

:: for sage..........


go see taryn, if you didn't after my first post... she's wonderful.

Gratitude Sunday.

I'm joining Taryn over at WoolyMossRoots for her wonderful Gratitude Sunday

{Sunday's heartfelt tradition. A time to slow down, to reflect, to be grateful. A list of gratitudes.}

:: Fresh, growing herbs in pots. Trader Joe's has mini herb gardens right now, so the kids and I got one with mint, marjoram, and stevia. I've even been using the herbs!

:: Making Magik Potion every 2 days. 1 cucumber, 1 lemon, a few hands full of fresh mint leaves, maybe some stevia, and a ton of fresh grated ginger. It soaks over night in the fridge, then in the morning it crisp and refreshing. 

:: My kids have been showing me that they are eager to learn and explore and I have been rising to the task. Marbles, cards, growing herbs, cars, and books are some of our most favorite playthings right now.

:: The FlyLady. There I said it. Lately the desire to change my life and cease my slobbish behavior has become so overwhelming that I am actually using the FlyLady as a guide. I still don't get "dressed to my shoes"... well, ever. But I do get dressed and wash my face every morning, I shine my sink, I have started creating a routine and writing it down. The change hasn't seemed to spread any further than the kitchen yet, but this is a slow process of building new habits to replace the sloppy one. I'm not the World's Worst Homemaker for nuthin yaknow.

::  In house laundry. 'nuff said.

:: Sin City Knits Knit Night. I might go on and on about knit night, people who know me are sure to agree, but I can't stop. I love it so

:: Coconut Oil. And the amazing process called Oil Pulling. Since I started doing it, my teeth are cleaner, smoother, whiter... everything-er.

~currently pissed at (and yes, really truly grateful for) fucking technology. so many aspects of it make life more streamlined and photogenic and fun and i love and then it fucking stops working. presumably because the elf that lives inside and makes it go is on his smoke break. gggaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

My Family Bed

This morning I half woke up to the little, sleepy request for boobies. The ManChild was gently tugging on me, getting me ready for our day. He nursed, I fell back asleep. When I woke up... um, later?... my big family bed felt empty and I was lonely. I know I had just been squished between my beloved Huz and the rascally ManChild. But now they were gone. I looked over my shoulder and could see KaBean's feet pointed at me from the other end of our bed, but no Huz, no ManChild. "oh sheep shit, he's in the wool room touching things." thought my sleepy brain, so I leapt out of bed and rushed to my wool room to find it empty. Then I went to Huz's office, where I found him getting in some early morning work. "He's gone." I told my man. We both started the search upstairs and upon determining that he wasn't in the top half of the house we went downstairs. There we found him, curled up and asleep in the brown chair. Out like a little light. Looking so peaceful there in his little pile of self... Huz carried him back upstairs and placed him by his sleeping sister and they both sort of reached for each other and kept sleeping.

I love sleeping with my family. I love being able to rub KaBean's back when she has a nightmare or a cough. I love being able to nurse the ManChild without leaving my bed or even fully waking up. The kids love that Poppa is right there to snuggle with and that I am right here to hold hands with while we sing bedtime songs. Someday Huz and I will have our bed back and we can stretch out and... um... you know, take naps and shit, but that wont be for a while yet, and I'm reveling in the closeness of our family while we have it so available.

quick shout out to the person who found me by searching "play boy girls boobies." welcome... not what you were expecting huh?

Knitting. (you know you love it.)

The Queen Moebia... I think I took these pictures the first time it was frogged.  The pattern is a basic feather and fan repeat around the whole moebius shape, it's like knitting in a figure 8 with live stitches on both ends and the cast on row in the middle. It really is an amazing cast on, the Moebius, but for some reason, I cannot settle with this pattern. I love the yarn, Wanda gifted it to me after seeing it in her stash and knowing the colors are perfect for me (actually as I write this, I know just who will get it) and I LOVE the yarn! I really enjoy the cast on, I should since I am currently on the 6th attempt at defeating this pattern. At first I thought I might like it better if the "bottom" portion were a plain stockinette stitch, but then that was lame, so, I started over. Then I thought I'd try a purl version of the same feather and fan, but that was also lame, then there were a few more attempts at changing the pattern, and last but not least there were several craptastic attempts at simply casting on at knit night last week before I succeeded in starting the fucking thing a sixth time and am now well on my way to finishing it. Finally. But I still don't know if I like it. 

Pro Tip- Learn the technique used before trying to change the pattern. I've never seen a Moebius in real life, so I have no idea how it is Supposed to look. 

Hetty's Sunday Cuffs are not the problem, I am. Why do I try to get fancy with the patterns? Do I think I know so much that I can just go against the very logical and well thought out instructions of the professionals? What am I thinking. I love the yarn (what can I say? I love yarn), more of the same hand spun I used for the collar, with some hand spun silk to stretch the wool and add some color. I thought I would change the lace pattern around the  wrist, so I pulled back and reknit with my idea of what it should be, but I think I hate it and love the pattern as is and so I need to pull this back too. But that's ok, I have new pearl stitch markers from Wanda so it'll at least look amazing.

silk picot edge with wool cuff inside

 

close up of lace pattern... that is the pattern with a different M1, it is far better to the total improvisation I came up with.

months and months.

That's how long it feels like since I last wrote here. Although I think really I'm just now pushing 2 weeks? Which is still a long absence in the the blog world. Things have been crazy and dull here in Casa de Worst Homemaker. There has been a lot of mild illness that we are chalking up to the food and water here in Vegas. and the central air. Huz and I are trying to plan a cross country move to the furthest reaches of the continental US and that has been insane. We still have some really special things, like my baby book and family movies from when I has little, in a storage unit in Atlanta so we'd have to start here in one u-haul, drive to the A, switch to a bigger one, then drive to what should probably be Canada. We need to buy a new (to us) car, something that can handle snow without making me feel like every trip to the store is a Donner Party adventure. Huz and I, both being about 30, have lived our lives with no credit cards, student loans, car loans, or any of that rat race money trap debt/credit bull shit. But now that we really want to make a large purchase we are finding it very difficult. On the one hand it feels amazing to have no real, massive debt, no credit cards to pay down, no loans to pay back, just us and what we actually have... or don't have, which is more often the case with money these days. (great, the manchild just tangled the drive band on my wheel. good thing it's time to replace it.) If we didn't need a reliable car so badly right now, I would put off car shopping till we were able to save at least half the cost of the car. But the way it looks now, we might have to go to one of those shady "all credit, no credit, accepted. sunda sunday sunday!!!" type things and get locked into asshole car payments where we will end up paying more in interest than the car is actually worth... yay, capitalism!

in other news...
My kids are friggin awesome. More parents need to say so. I love these little ones. The ManChild (just got syrup on my notebook) is expressing himself so well right now, while still maintaing the adorable baby sounds. KaBean is constantly talking to me about the garden and farm we will have when we find a good place in which to settle. She wants to grow strawberries and carrots, sheep and bees, she even said I could grow onions, potatoes, and goats. love it. She is still peeing at night, so Huz and I take turns taking her to the bathroom, about once a night, and we try not to put a diaper on her, but, well, sometimes that plan backfires... thank goddess for in house laundry. I was taking her to the bathroom the other night and in her asleep-ing-est voice she said "mommy, i love you, thank you for taking care of me." then she fell asleep on the toilet and almost fell in. But I caught her and cleaned her up and took her back to bed and my heart melted.

in other other news...
I love knitnight. Even though I'm mad at, or bored with, all my knitting right now, knit night keeps me chugging along. Last night there was a very persistent feeling of "all i have to do is get thru today, then it's knit night." One of our girls was in a fender bender, then on the news for causing a huge delay, even though it sounds like it was a legitimate accident where no one was really responsible but shit still happened. Another had the worst day at school, her plastic water bottle exploded and get water everywhere. Plus, it was shark week for a bunch of us too. And every one was relieved to be there. Also, I won the raffle! Some beautiful hand painted fingering weight yarn in rainbow! I'm not usually a rainbow type person, but this yarn is so fun ad is the perfect yarn for the Longitudinal Socks that just came out in Knitty. I don't have the proper needles for the way they are knit though, so it might be a while till cast on...

I have a ton of pics and have made progress on the Moebius, but we're not going to talk about that right now. I hope to be at the Booneville Fair a week from tomorrow, and By Hand Yarns, and the Mendocino Yarn Shop, so in about a week or 2 I'll have great new stash pics to share. Can't wait!