A Day Off in Mommy Speak

Today I took a mommy version of a day off.  I went light on the laundry.  I did one load but did not fold it.  Brought the dry clothes off  the line and put them away. Re did the linen drawer in the kitchen and moved the towels that had seen their better day to the rag pile. Of course the drawer is all nice and neat now.  Got Scooba ready to run on the kitchen floor and started her. This was all before I dropped Eric off at his day program.

The it was waiting for the Century Link guy to fix the telephone yet again. This time it was 2 bare wires touching each other and doing random shorts in the system. So I caught up on e-mail and such. Then it was off to do a return, get some lunch and go to Trader Joe's. Since I went after lunch none of the food looked appealing at all, so we landed up with goat cheese sandwiches and salad for dinner. I put most of the grocery's away and did some light picking up before it was time to go get Eric.

Then it was Barney, followed by Dinosaur Train. When Eric's aide arrived I did some finishing work on 3 projects so I could take their pictures and post them to the 1 Million Row Challenge. If the mittens look like they are different sizes please remember that I knit each one on a different flight. I am 327 rows into the challenge, I only count rows on finished projects. I will get more knitting done tomorrow.

Eric was a bit fussy tonight and wanted more mommy time. It is all quiet at the back of the house so I think is is time to go to sleep.

A Busy Day

It has been a very busy non-stop day for me. It took me most of the day, all 5 hours of it with out Eric to get through the top 5 items on my to do list. So to save time tomorrow I wrote my to do list tonight. That should save a good 5 minutes, which might be useful tomorrow.

I did not have much time for knitting or spinning. I still did find the time to get 1/3 of the way through the first fingerless mitten. I really think the person who picked the yarn will be happy with them. All I can say is the merino/silk combo is just yummy. John says my new found fondness for small projects is that the row count for the 1 million row challenge will go fast.

Well it seems that my boss has settled in for the night and I have another very busy day tomorrow. it's time to say good night.

Back Home

I am back home after a week of helping Teri. Yes I did leave her with a freezer full of home cooking. We do have to wait until November for the bar results. Which is going to be hard because I want to know right now.

While I was gone John got the washer fixed, the leak in the roof fixed. Also had Eric home sick for the entire week, and still managed to get into work. Isn't he just awesome? No I am not going to share him.

  I spent the day recouping, doing laundry, unpacking,and redoing the linen cabinet. Tomorrow will be scouba, bills, pictures. I will see how much I can get crammed into 5 hours.

Teri Time

As I write this blog post, Teri is on day 3 of her bar exams. There are a couple of things that I found out about myself this week. The first being that I can not knit for more than 6 hours a day. I packed way too much fluff, Teri has been very calm and has not needed to zone out to the spindle just turning around endlessly. The new clothes I bought for Teri's graduation are all getting longer and the waists are getting looser.  I though I would be more nervous so I brought a lot of snack food. The good news for me is that most of it is staying with Teri and her roommate when I leave. Most of the packages have not even been opened, including the chocolate covered almonds.

Teri is doing well. I am so pleased how she has turned out as an adult. I have enjoyed spending time with her this week. I hate the fact that we have to wait until November to to get the results of this weeks test.

John has been doing very well considering that Eric is giving so a run for it. Well It is time for me to go pack up Teri's stuff as we have a 1pm check out.

1 Million Row Challenge

Well the washing machine is officially down for 2 more weeks and I will be making twice weekly trips to the Laundromat. I don't think I could stand doing it once a week and doing 20+ loads at once. As it was I used the jumbo machines that hold between 2 and 4 loads each today.  I still had 6 full wash loads today. I brought along a wool cowl to work on today and now understand why people in hot humid climates prefer cotton for summer knitting. Did I mention that the Laundromat has a swamp cooler.  It was at least 85 degrees and 50+%  humidity outside today, this is not what the cooler was designed for.  I still did manage to get 3 rows knit while doing the laundry.

We are up to 57 members in the 1 Million Row Challenge .Just use this link if you would like to join us. Remember we are there to have fun and use up our old and newly acquired stash yarn. Yes any yarn that crosses our thresholds is considered stash yarn. I wounder if any local yarn shops would like to get involved, by hosting knit ins or party's? After all having a bunch of fiberholics around is sure a good way to add to our stashes. Did you really think 1 Million Rows would reduce my stash by much?

We are crossing our fingers that the leaky roof is now fixed so that we can tear out the damaged wall board and replace it. Then repaint. I hope the carpet decides to dry out with out any mildew otherwise we will be replacing that too, but not with white. Beige or brown would be my first choice, after all it does not show the dirt. Which of course would leave me more time for knitting and spinning.

Next week will be my official spin/knit-a-thon week. I have heaps of projects lined up from wrist warmers to shawls. I also have my drop spindles and braids lined up.  My goal is to have as many projects done as possible by next Saturday. I will give my row/skein count and show pictures next Sunday.

I wonder if I have time for a quick nap?

One Million Row Challenge

Last night I decided to share the One million Row Challenge with my fellow knitters and crocheter's on Raverly.  We are using the hash tag 1 mil rows to identify the projects, I would like to thank Melissa for coming up with the hash tag. We have also found a counter thanks to Annette & Alexander and here is the link to The Ticker Factory .

If you would like to join us in this journey just follow this link to Raverly 1 Million Rows Challenge . As of this blog Post we have 32 people going at their own pace, trying to bust their stashes. We all plan on having a good time doing it.

Have a great evening of knitting and family time.

The Million Row Challenge

The guys are very creative in thinking up ways to get me to use up my stash yarn.  So tonight they came up with the million row challenge. Its suppose to be knit entirely from stash yarn. I am not sure if that includes new stash yarn that just happens to land in my stash. You know how those stash fairies can be. They did not say if I should count the newly spun yarn, after all once it is spun it is technically stash yarn. They said I could choose any patterns I wanted to do, with any stash yarn I had. The goal is to knit a 1,000,000,000 rows.

They also threw in a bonus that I could count the shawl I am working on now for the challenge. This is a good thing because I am already 100 rows in. Which leaves 999,999,900 rows left to knit.

What I am looking for is a good row counter for the blog. So any ideas would be wonderful. Also does anyone want to join me in this endeavor? I would love some company along the way. In that train of thought do you think I should start a Raverly group? Who would like to join the group, if I started it?

Well it is getting late and I have dragons to slay tomorrow. So Good night all.

Getting Organized

I spent the weekend zenning the house. I decided to put all the kits together (this should read that I lost some yarn and a pattern that I wanted to start knitting). I found projects that I would no longer be working on and recovered the knitting needles and project bags. The yarn has already been passed on. I found at least 18 pairs of needles and circulars. Which is very good, it means that I don't have to go buy knitting needles for the projects I have lined up for my week of knitting.  I have a week coming up where I will have 9 hours a day to knit and spin, so I want to see how many me projects I can get out of the way.

I did find that my spinning projects had less UFOs that were stored. Well one to be exact. Looking at the fleece I can see why I had stopped spinning it. So today it went through the carder twice and is now a fluffy mass without a lot of VM in it to spin. It may not match the first 2 skeins but I am OK with that.

I did manage to put all the raw fleece in separate bags by color, breed and animal. It is all piled under the carder for some play time. I think I should probably put the roving by breed and color too. The sewing machine is now recovered too so I see some sewing happening soon too.

The more I clean and organize the better that I feel. I am also finding more time to take part in my favorite creative endeavors. I am having an easier time letting go of things too. Well it is getting late and it has been a long day.

Content

Although Eric is still home sick, I feel very content. This might have to do with the fact that I got out of the house today and now have some good snacks in the house. Summer fruits and crunchy stuff. Nom, nom nom.  I did get some spinning and weaving done today too. Laundry was at a minimum of the obligatory 2 loads.

We put Eric to bed 3 hours ago, now if he would just fall asleep so I can get some shut eye too.

It is Tuesday All Day

I am having a very surprising good day today. Eric work up with a fever of 99.5 and a stuffy nose. So needless to say, we got off to a very slow start. I got my mojo realigned about 10:30am. After that things went quite well.

Three rooms got a visit from Roomba. The master bath mats got washed and dried in the sun, it only took 2 hours for that crispy dry. The master bathroom was mopped. One load of laundry was washed and hung to dry. Two loads of laundry were folded, no they were not put away yet. I did not have that much ambition today. All the odd socks were matched up and at least 6 pairs were reclaimed from the odd sock basket, yeah me!!!  I caught up on part of the back filing and found that I did not need everything so the shredder got a real work out, half a basket shredded!!!

I am way behind on my spinning for Tour de Fleece. My plan was to get mounds of spinning done. the reality is that some days only a 12 to 24 inches are getting spun. My goal was to have all my WIP off all the spindles, not so much now. So I will be happy with what I have and not stock up on fleece and roving before next years tour. To have a less lofty goal and go for pretty and artsy instead of volume.

I really have to say that today lacked a  lot of pre planning such as not having Scooba charged so that I could get Eric,s floor mopped after vacuuming with Rumba. I also need to fire the lady in charge of snacks, she really feel short of having the right crunchy food in the house today.

My goal for tomorrow is to get Mondays errands done. I will really get that package out to Teri. I have help for 4 hours tomorrow. Well it is time to go make dinner. I might not barbecue the steaks the rain just started.

Lazy Summer Days

It is well in to July and I am still searching for the lazy,hazy days of summer. I am still very busy and seeking some down time. If you happen to stumble across them please lets know where to find them. I seem to be stuck in the crazy part of summer.

5 Hours

I am trying to find the right balance in my life riht now. I have exactly 5 hours a day to call my own. The first thing I do most days is to walk for 30 to 60 minutes. That leaves exactly 4 hours to sechdule appointments, run errands, clean, do laundry. Those are the have to do things. I still need to find time for the want to dos like knitting,spinning, weaving,sewing and maybe even do the most unusual thing of turning on the tv and watching a show. If anyone has a secret workable plan please let me know how to do it all. In the mean Ike I will try not to get hit by drivers using cell phones while driving. I swear people should not be allowed to drive a chat on the phone at the same time. It just makes them careless and I attentive. Well it sounds like someone is asleep. So you guys know the drill by now. Night all.

A Long Day

My day started at 4 am with Eric. I spent the rest of the day knitting, cleaning, doing errands, baking and last but not least 2+ hours of phone time. Since I have now hit the 18+ hour work day I am hoping that Eric goes to sleep soon. Tomorrow will be filled with baking, cleaning,sewing and a party. With any luck I will find a few minutes to knit and spin. I would like to wish everyone a happy 4th. Please enjoy your family time.

Project Bags

The thought occurred to me today that I do not have to many projects. Ok I see you all laughing. Now get up off the floor and finish reading this post. I have to many project bags. Yes that's right to many project bags. I don't want my project bags to get lonely,so I pick a pattern and some yarn. Then I cast on. I work steadily on the project until Tje next project bag says it lonely. So being the social butterfly that I am I just have to find some suitable yarn, a pattern and some needles. This is just to make the bag feel better I cast on yet another project. The cycle repeats it self dozens of times a year. This is why I have so many ufo's. Today I did get some work on various projects done, but nothing was completed. I am going on another UFO hunt tommrow to find more unfinished projects. Now if I can just find a way to make all those empty bags less lonely.

Day 37 of 100+

Today Eric and I caught the movie Madagascar 3. The movie was very good. Eric enjoyed the music so much that we got him the cd of the music. The story line was very good. I would rate this as a good one to take the kids to. Please note that we did not see the 3D version, but you could clearly determine what was suppose to be in 3D. I have declared this week get the ufo's finished week Even if i am tired of the yarn or pattern I will finish as many as possible On the knitting front I finished 2 more ufo's today before I lost my knitting mojo. For Tour de Fleece I started and got a little over half way done with a colorway called Maple Leaf by Natlie of http://www.cloudlover.bigcartel.com. It is a very lovely blend of one of my favorites BFL combined with silk. The color is flowing very well. I am finding it a very delightful spin Eric is asleep and I am just waiting fi the dryer to stop so that I can get one more load in the washer and dryer befor I call it a night.