Not worthy

In my tech hubby’s dreams I would adore and use a smart phone.  I would load apps, text, and do all manner of “smarty” things with it.  He passed on his old iPhone after my last phone died and did something really genius to make it work for me on T-mobile.  I have been using it for the past week or so, and will admit right now, am hooked.  It is fun to be stuck somewhere when I’ve forgotten my knitting and catch up on some Angry Birds.  I love passing it to the kids when they’re getting impatient with waiting and letting them zone out for a few minutes.

 

The hubs frequently brings his phone to bed and does some last-minute calendar checking, tweets, facebook, etc.  The other night he was out of town, and I thought, what the heck, I’ll give it a try.  I dutifully carried it upstairs and played online for a few minutes.  When I started to get zonked I laid it on the bedside table and rolled over.  That was when I realized the light – it was bright.  Not sleep inducing.  What the heck?  I rolled it over so I couldn’t see it.  It was still shining.  Stupid phone!  Stop it!

And then I remembered the magic button on the top that turns the screen off.

 

My kids are much better with smart phones than I.  Proof?

In which my children learn a lesson in physics.

This:

Plus this:

Added to this:

Equals this:

It also equals above item flying across the room, narrowly missing a few people, and slamming into the wall.  Sunday excitement.

Off the wagon

I told ya’ll I’d fall off the wagon.  Although, really, if I had to pick, falling off the blog wagon is not the worst wagon to fall off of.  This on again off again thing mirrors my personality perfectly.  I dive in headfirst, have fun for a bit, and then forget it all ever happened.   One of the first steps in recovery is admitting the problem, right?

I have been spinning up a storm, so much that I gave myself an ankle injury.  I have no clue what exactly is going on in there, but it’s feeling sort of loose.  Not a word I’m a fan of using to describe my ankle.  This goes along with my personality trait I mentioned above.  See, I’m sort of obsessive.  I started spinning again at Madrona in February after a month or so break, and haven’t stopped.  I’ve churned out yards, YARDS, of yarn.

There’s my update – I can stop feeling guilty about this here blog.  I’ll be back sooner than later.

A way with words

I always seem to be a day late and a dollar short, and here I find myself yet again.  Two lists: one day.  It’s all about consolidation, baby.

Yesterday’s list was “Your least favorite words.”  Here’s the thing – I don’t really have any.  I love, nay, adore words.  I read every second I can and devour books like nobody’s business.  I think my pet peeve is people using words they don’t know/understand the meaning of or mispronunciation.  I pondered this all day yesterday, trying out some of the favs seen online to see how much they bothered me.  Not at all.  Boring list.  I agree, sorry.

Today’s list is “Blog Goals.”

Since I tend to be a hit or miss blogger I am really hoping to keep up with it and post more often.  Perhaps remembering my blog password would be a good start.

I also hope to connect with more people and keep in touch with those I know.

Share all my many projects I tend to have going on at once.  Ravelry is awesome.  But there isn’t a great way to show off handspun yarns/or current spinning projects.  This will be my spot.

I am proud to report we managed to do about 1/2 the weekend goals list.  There was hiking, baking (pizza, not muffins), naps were taken, book was read (not finished, wah), and silk was spun.  It is beautiful.  I want to wrap myself in it, but the tangled mess that would leave behind is incomprehensible.  I was wrong, it was 4 oz, not 6, and I ended up with 775 yards.

 

About a year ago, now, I found out that both my middle peanut, Declan, and I are gluten intolerant.  Our bodies just plain don’t like it.  This means that packaged and processed foods are mostly out.  Almost everything we eat I make, which is delicious, but terribly time consuming.  Some of it I do because it tastes so, SO much better (corn tortillas) and some of it I do because buying premade gluten free foods are expensive.  There are several pizza joints in town that offer GF pizza, but at $15 for a small x 2 and it adds up.  I love to bake, and baking GF is a special challenge.  The bread dough looks more like cake batter than dough and it is a runny, sticky mess.

 

The first time I made GF bread I kept looking into the KitchenAid thinking “Needs more flour.  Needs more flour.  Fuck, MORE flour.”  I added and added, and I ended up with a brick I could crack open a few skulls with.  I have learned and make a killer pizza crust now.  The kids like to sit on the counter and cook with me, adding their special measuring skills and a few sneezes.

Can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds – and what I get to list about.

 

And I’ll leave you with this gem.  Today, while trying to explain what one of his friends grandma looked like Declan said “She has very crinkly skin.  Like a really wrinkled up piece of paper.”

Weekend Wishes

As part of the 30 days of lists I have to think ahead of time what I’m hoping to do this weekend.   Weekends are a loud, busy, crazy part of our week.  All the kids are home, the hubby is usually not working, and everyone has a bit too much energy.

Our newest hobby is packing everyone up and going for a hike on one of the many great trails we are surrounded by.  When we woke up this morning and saw that it wasn’t raining we immediately planned a hike.  I bought a fancy new Nikon camera a month or so ago, and love taking it on our hikes.  I’ve got some great shots of the kids doing what they love best.

Those little faces melt my heart.  I still can’t get enough of them.

Other than hiking this weekend I’m hoping to finish spinning 6 oz of BMFA Bombyx silk in “Manly, yes, but I like it too.”  It is lovely, lovely stuff.  I have about an hour left of spinning the singles and then I just have to ply and finish it.  I can’t wait to see how much yardage I get – pictures as soon as I’m done!

Other than that I’m hoping for:

a nap

bake GF muffins

knit a bit on the cowl I’m working on

finish reading At Home

Songs….wha?

I admit it, I do not own an iPod.  Or iPhone.  Or iPad.  I am technologically challenged, despite being with a computer geek (in the best sense).   I joke that I’m going to buy one of those phones they advertise on commercials during The Price is Right.  You know, the Jitterbug.  It has great big buttons, makes calls, and that’s it.  Instead my hubby bought me a Blackberry that I loathe.  It’s one redeeming feature is that I can load podcasts onto it and listen while I’m driving/spinning/working it/you name it.  I mastered reading while knitting a few years ago, so don’t typically use it for that, but it is heavenly to have the option.

 

Today’s list is a bit more challenging for me than the others because I’m not a huge music person.  I love music, but I don’t listen to a lot of it.  I’ve played the piano since I was 4 and enjoy nothing more than sitting down and rocking some Chopin or Bach.  I just don’t walk around all the time with headphones on, in my own world.  I guess I should confess here that my four year old does own an iPod, and does indeed walk around quite often with headphones on.  He loves him some tunes.

Here is what cd’s I have in my car right now, and this, along with NPR and BBC 1 radio is what my listening has consisted of the past few days.

 

James Blunt

Blue Scholars

Pepper

Rebelution

Norah Jones

Jack Johnson

 

Today, this has been heartily suplimented with songs from a child’s electronic toy guitar.

 

 

 

Day #3

I can never seem to follow any rules, so in typical Sam fashion I am posting twice on the same day with different lists.  Today is

3/3 Things I am looking forward to:

Littlest peanut starting preschool, medium peanut starting Kindgergarten

Being an auntie again

Start doing some designing.  Have lots of project done/written up/in my head.  Need to get on it.

After 13 years of being together, getting married this summer.  Party.

Honeymoon

Getting my Masters

Naptime

And I’m off to take that nap.

I leave you with some pictures of my latest spinning.  A few months ago Scarlett, from Huckleberry Knits got in touch with me about doing some spinning for her.  I spun up 8 oz of her beautiful BFL/Silk blend and in exchange she gave me 8 oz. of her beautiful Alpaca/Merino/Silk top.  It was a fun project for me – she had a specific knit in mind for it so I had to spin it to her specifications.  I’m normally a – how shall I say this – go with the flow kind of spinner.  The fiber tells me how it would like to be spun, and I listen.  In this case I had to make the fiber be spun a certain way and it was a fun challenge.  Her yarn ended up beautiful and I adore the yarn I spun from the gifted fiber.

And because who doesn’t love a kid with big brown eyes and a rubber band around it’s face, I’ll leave you that as well.

Days of lists

I admit it – I am a total sucker for lists.  There is something so telling about what other people choose to add.   Stephen has a great list started on his blog and it inspired me.

Here goes!  Doubtful I can keep this up all month, but it’s worth a shot.

3/1 Things About Me:

In love

Mama

University educated in Business/Finance/Economics

Peace loving, respect driven

knitter/spinner/dyer/fiber adorer

Migraine prone

Curious

Caring

Creative

A positive, glass half full kind of girl

 

3/2  I am good at:

Being a mama

Sleeping

Knitting/Spinning/Fibery goodness

Cheering people up

Laughing

Driving

Cooking/Baking

Cuddling

Remembering things

Accounting/Finance

Working quickly

So I ended up with 11, and now I can’t decide which one to delete, so I’m just going to leave them all.  It’s such a weird thing to try to find words that describe who/what you really are.   Today is already the 3rd, so now I have to do one more list before the end of the day.  Wish me luck!

Time. It goes.

When I was a kid, people would always say that time flies by, and I would roll my eyes and think, whatever.  They don’t understand.  They can drive a car, eat/wear/sleep what and when they want.  I had no idea then just how right they were.

Yesterday I had a baby, and now he’s 10.  And 5.  And my baby baby is 2.   I think the funny thing is that I feel the same.  I am not old enough, yet, that my life has had to change dramatically from what it was 10 or even 20 years ago.  I can still run, hop, skip, bike, eat what I want, and feel good at the end of the day.  Yet, the twinge of arthritis in my thumbs reminds me I can’t spin and knit quite as long as I once could at a time.

My time is becoming more precious.  If there are 24 hours in a day, and 8 of them are for sleeping, that leaves me 16.  Take an hour or so for eating, 3 hours for work, a good 5 hours for kids and that leaves me 7.  Add in getting dressed, chaffering, grocery shopping, and all the other things it takes to be a mom of three and keep a house running, and you see I have very little time for me.  There are so many things I enjoy doing  – reading, knitting, spinning, dyeing, carding, photography,  that there is just never enough time to do it all.  Sometimes I will sit to knit and as I’m knitting I’ll think, “No, I really ought to be spinning – better use of my time.”  So I sit down at my wheel, and then think, no I really DO want to be knitting.   I need more hours in the day to get everything done.

My New Years goal was to live a more conscious life.  Enjoy the moment I’m living in, do the things I love, take the time to laugh with the kids.  I have such a tendency to be doing something, but be on a different planet at the same time.  One of the kidlets will tell me a story and I’ll listen with half an ear, adding appropriately excited sounds when necessary, but really?  I’m not listening.

It’s not fair to them.  And honestly, I’m missing out on so much.  I should be listening to them and enjoy it.  They tell some awesome stories.

An auspicious start, no?

Good grief, I haven’t even started and I’m already a failure at this whole blogging business.  I work online, but I also have a set amount of time to get that work completed, so blogging while working just doesn’t, well, work.  I think I need to get a job outside of the house to get any sort of blogging done in a timely fashion.  I think the only time I ever was consistent was when I was working full time in a big office building.  It was easy to sneak into my office and blog without a munchkin coming up and pulling on my arm to read them a book.  Or make them breakfast.  Or get them dressed.  Or…….the list is endless.

But I did sneak away from said munchkins this weekend to head to Madrona.  It was the first time I have ever stayed in a hotel room all by myself.  It was…..bizzare.  Awesomely bizarre.  I had room service, may or may not have jumped on the bed, ate chocolate, and spun away to my hearts content.  I only wished there were more hours in that night.  But the bed was cozy as well, and by midnight it was calling my name.  My only regret is that I wouldn’t have been quite so shy and headed out to talk with people.   It’s so hard to sit down with other people and join in the group, but I hear it was super easy to do there and everyone was very friendly.  Ah well, next year.

I only took two classes, one with Jacey Boggs and one with Amelia Garripoli, but I learned so much from each of them.  I took a class with Jacey last year, and just adore her.  She’s such a hip, sweet, funny person, spinner and mama.  I only hope when I grow up to be as cool as her.  Amelia’s class was much more technical, and I learned a ton.  I headed for the marketplace quite a few times, but each time would come out empty handed with drool hanging from my lip.  I had gotten cash out ahead of time so I would be forced to stick to my budget and just couldn’t decide what the heck to spend it on.  The options, people, were insane.  I ended up back at my favorite booth, BMFA, and spent my entire budget there.  I tried so hard to expand my horizons, but when you know what you love, well……

I am paying for my weekend away now, however, as the kids won’t leave my side for fear I’ll abandon them again.  I loved it when, last night, Dane woke up and screamed for “DAD” instead of “MOM.”  I felt it to be a small victory in slowly letting him take some more parenting duties in regard to the babe of the family.  When you’re an AP mama who breastfeeds till 2+ it makes it hard for the dad to have a whole lot of involvement in the caring for said kid.  Especially when they work 15+ hours a day.  The kids are slowly realizing that I DO indeed come home from my knitting retreats, so it MAY be ok to let me go without a fuss.  We’re getting there.

And I leave you with a few pictures of what I learned this weekend.