Interior Decorating, High-Wire Style

This belongs to Patience now.

Congratulations, Patience Crabstick! You've won a copy of Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka The Yarn Harlot.  It will be winging its way to you via Amazon as soon as you message me your address (via The More, The Messier Facebook page).  Thanks!

That was sort of fun.  I've got to think what to give away next.

Still recovering from my death-defying skiing experience here.  Also? Admiring our new thermostat. This is what my life has come to, people - I'm excited to see our bright-white, modern thermostat sitting on the wall, blinking its easy-to-read numbers at me.

You see, our previous decades-old thermostat was this ugly, very-off-white color and the numbers were well nigh (there it is again!) impossible to see, unless I stood directly in front of it and angled my head just right. I can only surmise that people in the 1980's had both bad taste and wonderful eyesight.  My new Honeywell, however, is a delight to behold; and we even moved its location so that we don't have to hunt for it behind the Christmas tree all December.

It's the little things, you know?

Out with the old...

...and in with the new!

The living room/dining room (remember? Larry's latest demolition project?) is half-painted (one coat) and the electrician arrives tomorrow to install recessed lights in the ceiling.  Because of our family's unfortunate tendency to damage lamps, we have never really had adequate lighting in our main living area.  Tired of sitting in the dark, Larry and I have decided to live dangerously and pay for lighting that we are not even sure we will both agree is what we want.  Lighting that will then be stuck in our ceiling forever, no matter how we feel about it.

In fact, it sounds a lot like choosing a paint color, only more permanent and expensive. Pray for us.

Up In The Air

I am not and have never been anything even approximating an athlete. I happen to be blessed, however, with athletic friends who are determined to keep me healthy, even if it kills me.  As already mentioned here, my Fit Friend made me get back on my bicycle and ride a ridiculous number of miles over the past 2 years.  There's also Winter Sports Friend - I met her during the girls' homeschool skating sessions. Turns out she is really into skiing.  Her children learn to ski when they are just 4 years old.

My kids? Don't learn much of anything at that age, actually.

So! Because her two youngest girls and my two youngest have hit it off during ice skating, Winter Sports Friend decided it would be a great idea for us to take all 4 of them skiing at a nearby resort, on one of the half-price days.  In a fit of insanity, I not only agreed to this plan but also announced that I, too, would take a beginner ski lesson.

Because skiing is a good sport for people who are scared of heights, right?

Today was the big day - we all piled in Winter Sports Friend's car and headed for the mountains.  Her skiing-adept kids jabbered excitedly, while I wondered for over an hour if there were a graceful way to avoid humiliating myself in front of my children.  I couldn't think of one, however, and soon found myself being outfitted (with Winter Sports Friend's guidance) for skis, helmets, boots, poles.

At no point during the day did I look like either of these people.

By the way, walking in ski boots?  Is really, really hard.  I was exhausted by the time I staggered over to where the lesson would be held.  I got through the first part of the lesson without embarrassing Rachel and Susie by falling over, and then the instructor said, "Okay, now, let's go over here to the chair lift!"

By the way, have I ever mentioned that I cannot get Susie on an escalator?  Do you know how many stinky-smelling service elevators and creepy out-of-the-way stairwells I have had to endure due to Susie's aversion to moving stairs that go up in the air?

So! Chair lift.  At these words, Susie stopped dead in her tracks.  "He's just going to show us how it works," I reassured her (and myself). "There's a Magic Carpet conveyor belt thing-y over there that we are going to use.  I looked it up.  Don't worry."  She shrugged and we stepped/glided to where our teacher was already giving directions on how to use a ski lift.

"Okay, you stand between those gates, and right after a chair passes you, you move forward, so the next chair comes up behind you."

Fat chance of that working out, I thought, picturing my uncoordinated self face down in the snow after being hit in the back by a motorized bench.

"To get off, you flip up the bar and wait until you reach the flat part - then you simply step off the chair and glide.  Get out of the way quickly!" he said to the bunch of us, newbie skiers who still couldn't glide properly, let alone with any amount of speed.

"Okay," the instructor pointed to me and Susie and another young victim. "You three get in the gates and take the next chair.  We three will follow in the next one."

Um...

"Come on!" he said, motioning toward our doom. "Let's go!"  To my surprise, I saw Susie start to move forward, leaving me no choice but to follow.  I glanced up at the extremely open-air chairs dangling high above the ground. Insane.

"Okay, get ready!  Move forward! Forward!" our crazed dictator of a teacher commanded, as I prepared to be heinously injured by a contraption that was looking more and more rickety by the second.  "Sit! Sit!" he yelled. "Pull the bar down!"

And the three of us were up. Just like that.

"Well!" I said to Susie, as brightly as I could muster, considering that we were obviously creaking toward our deaths, miles above the ground. "Aren't you a brave girl! Wait until Daddy hears!"

Chalk one up to facing your fears and conquering them, right?

"I am NEVER doing this again," Susie said quietly, staring straight ahead. "NEVER."

Can't say I blame her...

Mini-Living

[Reminder: Today (Wednesday) is the last day to comment on this post to win a free copy of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Knitting Rules!]

Okay, I've figured out what I will live in if I ever run away from home.  How cute is this thing, anyway?  The idea is that you plop it down into the middle of whatever tiny space you rent/buy and maybe add a kitchen table and a comfy chair or two, and you're all set.  LOVE.

A pull-out bed! It looks like a set-up for a gag on I Love Lucy.

I suspect that Larry will not share my enthusiasm for this invention.  I'm a pare-down-your-possessions type gal (well, except for the yarn, but only because yarn isn't so much a possession as it is an environment - like breathable air, you know?  You don't minimize your air, for heaven's sake).  Larry, however, is more of a I-know-I-can-use-this-sometime packrat.  I have already warned the kids that, if I die first, they need to visit their father at least once a week and throw out all the junk mail.

So, yeah, Larry will not admire the cunning closet storage space and the bathroom probably designed for midgets.  Nor will he think the tiny kitchen is cute.  Let's face it - the guy is over 6 feet tall and naturally has no appreciation for small environments.

Hidden fridge! Tiny dishwasher! Cute oven! Squeeee!

You know, I'm thinking it might be profitable to start a year-round retreat camp for moms and bloggers - just a bunch of tiny cabins equipped with this Cubitat where women can get away from everything for a week at a time. I can imagine a lot of women out there who would gladly take advantage of some time ALL TO THEMSELVES to knit, read, write, quilt - all without being interrupted approximately 35 times an hour, as one reader put it on The More, The Messier Facebook page.

I imagine we'd be full up in December.

And, yes, there is now a page on Facebook for The More, The Messier.  Hey, I'm nothing if not media-savvy, people (pay no attention to my teen son standing behind me, showing me how to get the URL for that last link).  If you go to the main page and click Like, then you are alerted in your Facebook feed whenever I post.

I know! That was all that was missing from your lives.

People tend to comment more on Facebook now than on the actual blog, so sometimes we have some fun conversations happening there, too.  And, uh...candy! Yes, candy and rainbows and maybe some puppies...

But mostly kids and vomit and mice, of course.  It's important to stick to one's roots.

[Cubitat images: Slate]

Reminder: Book Giveaway

I am a tad under the weather right now and not up to posting, but I just wanted to remind people that yesterday's post has a book giveaway in it. Please comment there if you are interested!

My schedule for the week is busy: along with sulking over not experiencing a blizzard of historic proportions and looking enviously at all the photos from New York and Boston, I will also be throwing caution to the winds by taking a learn-to-ski lesson with the girls at a nearby resort. A friend talked me into it, maybe because she needs some comic relief.  I have only been on skis once in my life, when I visited Maine with a college friend and she convinced me to try cross-country skiing.  My only memory from that excursion is of me face down in the snow with no idea how to get up, whilst my skiing comrades stood in a circle around me and laughed themselves silly.

So, yeah, I am not too optimistic about this outing. THERE WILL BE NO PICTURES.

A Tribute And A Giveaway

The Yarn Harlot just wrote a post announcing that it is her 11th blogiversary, and I swear I got all choked up by it.  You see - by coincidence - last night, when I could find nothing new to read, I picked up my old (autographed!) copy of Knitting Rules. And I recognized - as I started to go through this lighthearted book about knitting and the, uh, knitting lifestyle, as Stephanie Pearl-McPhee so succinctly puts it - how that book has changed my life since I first read it a little over 7 years ago.

You know, I can't think of many other books that have done that.  Oh, sure, many have enhanced my life, made it better or more enjoyable.  But this unassuming little book - all about yarn stashes and other knitterly foibles -has effected actual changes in how I live.

A knitting book.  I know.  Not exactly highbrow, but still...it made me realize I could be creative even if I did leave projects unfinished or else produced knitted objects of questionable quality. It gave me the courage to knit my first pair of socks, following Stephanie's famous Sock Recipe, despite the fact that I didn’t even know what the heck DPN’s were (double-pointed needles, for you knitting ignoramuses), let alone how to use them. A little over 7 years later, here I sit, with a drawer full of homemade socks.  Me!

You need these to make socks. Honest.

I knit all the time now, but particularly while I help my kids with their schoolwork - you see, the knitting keeps me from totally losing it while teaching Algebra for the FOURTH TIME.  I learned that lesson from Knitting Rules, also: knitting isn't for patient people, knitting is for keeping impatient people from killing anyone.

The original kid whose schoolwork I knitted through? He is all grown up now, Theo is, and an Army officer to boot. His sister Anna is all grown up now, too, living on her own, working and going to college.  My yarn hasn't left me, though.  My yarn loves me.

And I still have 2 young-ish girls at home who, thanks to what I have learned from Stephanie, have grown up with permission to over-buy yarn (well, using coupons at Michaels), roll around in it if they like, and knit a multitude of projects without finishing most of them. Probably the one person who does not understand the Yarn Harlot's impact on our family is Larry, but that is only because he still hasn’t figured out that that second dresser of mine - the one I commandeered when Anna moved out - is filled with yarn, not clothes.

To top it all off, when I met Stephanie in person, way back in April 2008, she said, "You're SuburbanCorrespondent? You are so funny!"  No matter if she meant it or was just being kind, I lived off that compliment for a year. As most writers know, what we really want (aside from maybe being paid occasionally) is to connect. Connecting is what Stephanie has done over the past 11 years with her blog and her books, creating an awesome community of knitters (and maybe some crocheters, stranger things have happened), and many of us are the richer for it.

So thank you, Stephanie, for your time and your wit and your wisdom - you've made a difference in people's lives. Really. Let's just hope Larry doesn't open that dresser, okay?

So! Is anyone interested in a free book?  In honor of the Yarn Harlot's 11th Blogiversary, I will send a copy of Knitting Rules (Lifechanging! Really!) to one lucky winner.  Just let me know in the comments below if you are interested (make sure I have your email address!) and I will pick a name on, oh, Tuesday, I guess.  Or Wednesday.  Or whenever I remember...

Anne Frank's Electrician

Today? Oh, I'm just still sitting around feeling relieved that I'm not in charge of feeding 100 homeless people tonight.  And you?

Also, I'm waiting for the electrician.  I have no idea what this guy thinks of us, by this point.  Due to Larry's insulation-installation hobby, once or twice a year, we invite our electrician to visit a gutted room in our home and install more electrical outlets.  It looks almost...I don't know...sinister, really.  Maybe he thinks we're building false walls to hide kidnapped people behind.  And the outlets would be for, um, I don't know...their Wi-fi?

No, that doesn't make sense.

Maybe he thinks we're planning to hide Jews from a newly resurgent Gestapo.  I'm Jewish, after all, and every Jewish person in my generation was raised to make plans to do an Anne Frank, if need be. Seriously.  We had games in Hebrew School during which we would discuss who would live where if every Jew we knew were to be confined to a few square blocks near our homes, a la the Warsaw Ghetto.  Because, like, that happens a lot...

Something tells me that you happy unpersecuted Christians never did that in Sunday School.  You were too busy singing about how Jesus loves you to worry about having to hide behind a bookcase, am I right?

When Apple introduced its IBooks app?  I immediately thought of this.

I mean, c'mon - the way it swings around to reveal the IBooks store?

How the heck did I get on this topic anyway?  Oh, yes, the electrician.  I don't know what he is thinking, but he does keep coming back.  And he hasn't reported us to the police.  Yet.  So that's good, right?

But I'll bet Anne Frank's electrician never suspected anything either...

Dial-A-Jew

So, that thing where Larry is using my dining room table as a workbench?  It's still happening.

Not quite what I envisioned when I bought this table from a friend...

But, hey, he's got the insulation up.  We just have to wait until Friday for the electrician to install some extra electrical outlets, and then we can finish the drywall.

"We" - as if I am going anywhere NEAR this crazy project.  No, I am just sitting in our little den (into which we have had to squeeze an extra couch and armchair) and knitting away.  You know, pretending none of it is happening. Denial is my default mode, so far as chaos is concerned.

You know, I just realized that the table that's usually in the den - a lovely maple dropleaf given to me by a neighbor - is missing.  I have no idea where Larry put it when he rearranged (to put it mildly) our house. Where does one hide something that large?

Never mind - it's probably under another pile of tools and drop cloths somewhere...

Someone I don't know called me from our church today, explaining that the woman who runs the youth ministry has been very sick; and she just informed him (from her hospital bed) that the youth group is supposed to be bringing food and volunteering at a hypothermia shelter this Friday.  As in 2 DAYS from now.  Only she was never able to get around to arranging anything - no food, no volunteers, nothing.  He said she gave him my name to call for help.

I can only surmise that when push comes to shove and you need someone to handle the food, you look for the Jewish person.

Anyway, being a sucker for organizing large amounts of food for large groups of people (see above, re Jewish person), I volunteered to make this thing happen. "We can do it," I told the overwhelmed person at the other end of the phone line. "All we need is Signup Genius and a really good email contact list."  I could sort of feel the adrenaline surging as I said this, much like I imagine an Olympic athlete feels right before a big event.

Apparently, my sport is catering.

I felt like this, only with less muscle definition.

Luckily, saner heads (HIS head, actually) prevailed: he called the church hosting the shelter and explained our predicament and they said not to worry about it, they could handle it themselves. Which, in my case, is a total win: he thinks I am wonderful (if insane) for offering to make this thing work with only 48 hours notice, but I end up having to do NOT ONE THING.

I think I could have pulled it off, though.  SignUp Genius is pretty awesome.



[Start line image: BlackDoctor]

Photographic Evidence

I promised.  Pictures, people, pictures - I have photographic proof that Larry is a madman, taking a perfectly good house and ripping it to shreds.  I give you Exhibit A:

The living room pictured above used to be habitable.  Note the new look of distressed cinder block and hanging wires.  Looks like a good place to brew meth, right?

And Exhibit B:

Dining room - formerly known as a pleasant place to gather for meals or a game of cards, or occasionally as a good spot to take out my sewing machine and swear while attempting to sew on Scout patches. No more, my friends! Larry's design scheme of stacked insulation and attractively draped plastic tarps cleverly precludes any social or creative events from taking place in this area.  Have I mentioned he does not enjoy playing card games?

Here's Exhibit C, for good measure:

An erstwhile cozy nook in our living room, wherein resided an overstuffed Ektorp armchair with matching ottoman.  It is now a staging ground for all Larry's tools and other implements of destruction, apparently in a passive-aggressive effort to campaign for an honest-to-God workshop. Oh, wow, is that my beloved IKEA dining room table being used as a workbench?  Lovely.

This, fair readers, is what I signed up for, lo, many years ago, when I said "I do."  For better, for worse, for home reconstruction mania?  I must have missed that last phrase.  Or maybe I felt that love could conquer all.  Who knows?  I was but a wee lass of 28 when I uttered those words.  What did I know of drywall or insulation or even baseboards at that age?  Nothing, I tell you, nothing.  There should be premarital counseling for this sort of thing, don't you think?

Wherein Larry Invents A New Lung Disease

I would LOVE to blog at you tonight, but Larry has resumed practicing his hobby of tearing out our walls, and this time the living room was his victim.  Meaning, the entire main floor of the house smells carcinogenic due to whatever nasty stuff he was using to seal all the cracks in the cinder blocks that were under the dry wall he ripped off today.  We even opened all the windows for a couple of hours to try to air the place out, but the air still smells poisonous in here.  So I am going to escape to our (hopefully) smell-free upper level and try to pretend that our house doesn't look vandalized and somewhat haunted.

Also?  It's my bedtime.  I'm trying to stick to my January resolution here.  I'll be back tomorrow with pics of the devastation, I promise.

Why This Isn't A Homeschooling Blog

So those of you who visit here may not have picked up on the fact that I homeschool the kids.  The homeschooling isn't mentioned a lot in this blog, mostly because I haven't a clue what I am doing and also because a lot of what you might have read about homeschooling on the Internet - you know, the fun projects and the children reciting Latin at breakfast? That isn't really happening around here.

For example, last year some other homeschooling moms and I expended a lot of time and effort putting together a high school co-op to teach the kids Biology and Physics and Spanish.  Lab sciences and foreign languages tend to be the toughest items to cover when you have high schoolers, so we were pretty ding-danged (thanks for the word, June) pleased with ourselves for overcoming numerous hurdles and getting everything ready to go by September of 2014.  Pleased as punch, I would say. Oh, the self-congratulatory emails flew!

Of course, in late July, our location fell through. We spent August scrambling to find a place to hold classes and dealing with all the fallout engendered by the change of location.  Fun.

So, it's planning time again.  The location is solid, but there are different classes to be set up - Chemistry, Maths, etc.  That means, new teachers to be found, schedules to be decided.  At our first planning meeting this week, we ironed out details, set our priorities, and congratulated ourselves on the fact that we had already lined up a Chemistry teacher - we interviewed her last year, as a matter of fact, and told her we'd be interested for September 2015.

Today? We learned that that teacher will NOT be available.

This, in case you were wondering, is how homeschooling parents actually spend their days.  Forget all that propaganda you might read in homeschooling blogs about creating lovely unit studies for eager-to-learn kiddies, doing lapbooks, or even introducing the children to the wonders of our natural world by taking them on outdoor hikes. In truth, we ignore our kids in order to spend hours on email setting up learning co-ops for them, even as we know that unforeseen circumstances will eventually lay waste to all our efforts.

I've managed to do this ONCE, in 17 years of homeschooling...

Essentially, we homeschooling folk are a lot like all of you, only with more of a penchant for self-punishment and less of a grasp on reality (because, yeah, I still think I am going to get around to that lapbook thing). Just think of us as the Don Quixotes of the parenting world, okay?


[Lapbook image: Cathy Duffy Reviews]

Wherein Everything Easy is Difficult Again

Ice storm predicted for this morning, and of course nothing happened.  So now we're facing a cold, rainy day, with none of the glittering prettiness of bare tree branches encased in ice.

Says the woman who does NOT have to drive to work in the morning...I'm sure the rest of my neighbors are actually very happy with these weather conditions.

All my library books are overdue.  It's a January tradition in our family, made more galling this year by the fact that most of those books have been riding around in my car for a week, waiting for me to remember to stop by the library and turn them in.

Have I mentioned the library is only about a mile from my house?  Sometimes I impress even myself with my capacity to make an easy task well nigh impossible.

Anyone else like using the phrase "well nigh"?  Just me?  Oh, well...

Duct Tape - Not Always The Answer

School was canceled today.  I bet you're thinking it must have snowed again, right?  Wrong.  It was so cold (how cold was it?)...it was so cold that the schoolbuses couldn't start.

3 degrees, in case you are wondering.  Apparently, we can't HANDLE the cold.

So how do those kids in Canada and Maine and Wisconsin get to school in the winter, anyway? Horse and buggy? Someone enlighten me, please.  Green Girl?

It wasn't nearly this bad, people...

*******

Let's hear it for Facebook - if it weren't for the wisdom dispensed there, I would still have 2 muffin tins crusted with cooked-on egg (result of a Pinterest fail) soaking in my sink.  Because they were non-stick tins, I had no idea how to get the stuff off without damaging the finish.  The answer? Baking soda, that unassuming hero of the kitchen. 

I should have known, right?  After all, baking soda fixes everything that duct tape can't.

*******

Doesn't it look warm to you?

Larry and David are still in Alabama, where it was 5 degrees this morning.  I didn't even know that was possible down there.

*******

A neighbor just offered to feed my girls dinner and show them a movie.  I love my neighbor.

*******

And that's all, folks! It's a slow news day around here.  I'm thinking I sort of like it that way.

[Schoolbus image: Scott Fox and Kat Callaghan]

[Alabama image: Jewish Virtual Library]

3 Inches

Larry and David left town early (EARLY) this morning to visit a college farther south, where - I would assume - they are safe from the cataclysmic 3 inches of snow that hit us this morning.

3 inches - enough to create utter havoc across the entire metro area, commuting-wise.  Multiple accidents occurred, involving commuters and dozens of schoolbuses.   One news article stated that snowplows were having trouble plowing because of snow and icy conditions.  Because, uh, usually they don't deal with that sort of thing?

3 inches.  That's all it took to bring this region to its knees - well, that and the unfortunate decision by our local school districts that it would be okay to have school today.  Which it would have been, if ANYONE in charge had thought, upon hearing the snow forecast, to maybe have the plows deployed and the roads sanded before this all started at 5 AM. You know, the way they usually do.  It's as if someone just didn't bother checking the Internet last night.

I must say, I've lived here a long time, but this has got to be our dumbest response to a snowstorm ever (and really, that's a pretty high bar). I'm betting that, for the rest of winter, school will be canceled at the slightest hint of snow, because the superintendent of schools is certainly sick of apologizing, as he has had to do several times today already.  His statements essentially boil down to "We are really, really, really sorry this happened.  Really sorry.  REALLY SORRY."

3 inches of snow, people.  How the heck did we ever survive Snowmageddon?

And, yes, we DID have fun, thanks for asking.  The kids are out sledding for the second time today, hot cocoa is on the stove, and I've eaten ample amounts of ginger snaps while knitting on 2 different projects.  For once I am glad we don't live in Canada, where 3 inches of snow would have meant business as usual and definitely would not have warranted bringing the sleds down from the attic.  At least down south here we know how to appreciate even a little bit of the white stuff coming down from the sky. Deprivation will do that to you, you know...



[Schoolbus image: Discovery Education]
[Hot cocoa image: All Things Clipart]

Be It Hereby Resolved...

Last January, I decided I needed to return to the yoga classes I had abandoned, oh, back in January of 2010.  I didn't mean to abandon them.  Things were crazy here and I couldn't seem to make the time for them anymore.  I figured, when I left, that I would get back to yoga soon.

Well, I'm telling you, it was as if I had encountered the Weeping Angel of Yoga and blinked. Because, suddenly, it was 4 WHOLE YEARS later when I hobbled back into my favorite studio (January of 2014, for those of you who hate math), plunked myself into a class a level or so down from where I had left off, and prayed that I could keep up.

By the way, don't you love how the British say "maths"?  I do.  All through The Imitation Game, I got to hear Benedict Cumberbatch say "maths," and each time he did, I swooned.

Where was I?  Oh, yes, yoga.  So, anyway, I just realized that I went to yoga class all year.  ALL YEAR.  Sometimes even twice a week.  Which means that, for the first time ever, I actually kept a New Year's resolution.

I know! Unthinkable, isn't it?

Naturally, this has inspired me to make resolutions this year.  Who knows what I could accomplish? Maybe I should resolve to win a million dollars.  Or to not go gray.  The possibilities are endless.

So far, all I have on my list is a resolution to go to bed by 11 each night. Not to sleep, necessarily, but I have to be in my room, reading or doing puzzles or whatever (I'm a cryptograms fan).  NO ELECTRONIC DEVICES ALLOWED.

I know, it's crazy talk.  But I am coming to realize that staying up past midnight every night (as is my wont, just because the house is so darned peaceful and quiet at that point) is probably not helping me stay on top of my job of  homeschooling 3 kids (David is on his own at this point), keeping the house somewhat picked up, and making sure we all eat semi-healthy.

[Yes, I DO have a boring job.  But I can wear what I like and there's a lot of social time built in.  I'll take that.  Besides, no one will hire me to do a real job at this point, anyway.]

So! Do any of you have any reasonable resolutions to which you want to be held accountable?  We could do a monthly check-in or something (at least, we could do that if I were halfway organized about this blogging thing - don't hold your breath).  If so, just list your resolution in the comments down there. (If your comment doesn't show up, enter it again - Blogger gets weird that way.)

Actually, let's just give this a trial run.  Let's call them January Resolutions - that way, we can stop in February if we really hate it, without feeling as though we've failed.  Is that cheating?  No?  Good. Bedtime at 11 for me for a month.

Gosh, I think I hate it already.

[Cartoon: The happy Quitter]

Old Marrieds

We've talked about Larry's penchant for ripping out walls to install insulation, right?  He's done 3 rooms in this house so far, and - apparently - he has no plans for stopping.  Ads for insulation products have just started popping up in my sidebars, no matter what website I am on, which can only mean he has another set of walls in his sights.

Every guy needs a hobby, I tell myself.  And this is a whole lot less expensive than collecting motorcycles, say, or vintage cars.

This isn't us - we'll probably get pizza.

In other news, today is our 24th anniversary.  We'd be out to dinner right now, but I am having trouble figuring out what to feed the kids first.  I suggested we just bring them with us, seeing as how they wouldn't even BE here if we hadn't gotten married in the first place; but Larry didn't seem too excited about that idea.

So, essentially, he's offering to take me to dinner, but first I have to plan supper for the children.  The romance is almost overwhelming, isn't it?  We're almost like newlyweds, I tell you.  Newlyweds with 6 kids and 23 years of parenting under their belts...





[Couple image: The Graphics Fairy]

O Canada!

Well! It looks like it will be a fun summer, what with a tropical mosquito-borne disease taking root here in the US.  You know, I'm having a hard time seeing the downside of moving to someplace like Canada, where the only public health threat would appear to be frostbite, a danger that can easily be offset by the production of a lot of handknit woolen items.  Hunkering down to knit most of the year in subfreezing temperatures while the snow falls outside and the insects hibernate would be infinitely preferable to being locked in my house from June to October for fear of contracting chikungunya or Lyme.  I just don't feel like knitting in hot weather, you know?

And wool doesn't ward off insect bites, anyway.

They're headed my way...

Are mosquitoes one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?  I can't remember.