Little bits

I haven't really found the time or the burning desire to blog lately, but I wanted to update in some way. There's been plenty going on around here. It's just been hard to find the time to put it all together in some sort of orderly fashion.

Consider this an extremely disorganized rundown, since I have about an hour to myself (bliss!) and don't want to spend the whole thing in front of the computer.

Where did we leave off? Oh, Christmas, right.

Since then, we've had a birthday around here. The nephew turned 10. Hard to believe it, but it's true. He's no longer a baby, or even really a kid. He's in the double digits, and seems more like a young man every day.

Of course, he wasn't too grown up for a Pokemon birthday cake, which I had the pleasure of making. Anyone here ever had to try and make frosting red?


My original plan for the cake was to make it an actual ball, but I had to bake the hell out of it to get it done in the center, and it was dry and gross. After tasting a little piece of it J gagged a little and asked "Is it still going to taste like this when it gets to the party?"

You have to appreciate the honesty there. So we baked a second cake at the last minute, and just a plain round cake had to do. I didn't even out the layers very well. Did you not read that comment about last minute? Seriously. It may have still been warm when he blew out the candles. Also the reason you can see chocolate crumbs peeking through the white frosting. Oh well. No one deemed it ugly, and everyone agreed that it was moist and delicious. There was only one tiny piece leftover, too. Not bad, considering it was 4 layers thick.


What else? Well, for Christmas Granny and Daddy Dave bestowed upon my son a bug vacuum and this little kit of tubes and bubbles and connectors and magnifying glasses. I waited the appropriate amount of time for him to forget about the thing, then tucked it into a box in his closet, hoping he'd forget it's there. Anyone in my family can attest to my dislike, and maybe even my fear of six-legged crawly things. But J has a mind like a steel trap, and he adores this particular gift. So I pulled on my big girl panties the other day, and we took the bug vac to the yard to try and catch us some.

Here's my budding entemologist inspecting his find.




Thanks Daddy Dave and Granny!

On the knitting front, I finally completed what I've officially dubbed "that damn sweater" that I started for J back in October or November. It's not that it was all that difficult. As a matter of fact, it was just that boring. I couldn't bring myself to work on it most days, simply because one more inch of plain grey stockinette was going to kill me. It turned out well enough. The sleeves are a bit too long, but but it fits him well otherwise. I could have made it an inch wider, perhaps, just to make it easier for him to get into and out of on his own. But it doesn't really matter anyway because he refuses to wear it, opting for his store-bought fleece hoodie. He says that "the yarn one is too itchy". He's right. It's not the softest yarn in the world, and he does have sensitive skin. But I intended for it to be worn over a long sleeved shirt, so didn't think the itch factor would bother him so much. Oh well. Did I mention I finished the damn sweater?





Moving along... we've had a cold spell here the past week. The temperatures have even dropped below freezing a couple of times, and J needed a new hat to wear. I'm the world's worst hat knitter. I don't have any idea what it is about the simple hat that baffles and eludes me, but my hats always turn out terrible. Either enormous, or too tight, or too short, or big enough to pull down over your shoulders. I can't knit a hat to save my life. But I do have a lot of this yarn, so I figured it wouldn't be wasteful to give a go to some stranded knitting. I mean, it's only about 30 total rows from cast on to weaving ends, so it's not like it was a major commitment or anything. I started this hat, the Polar Knits Skull Beanie, just before dinner time, and finished it before tucking J in for bed. I'm quite pleased. The pattern was simple enough that it wasn't overwhelming, and I learned that I'm not too horrible at the whole stranding thing. There's certainly room for improvement, but this one, amazingly, fit J perfectly. Made me want to cast on about 100 more of them! Yippie! I did have to alter the pattern a little, though. With 6 pattern repeats this wouldn't have fit anyone, so I scaled it back to 5. Easy enough.



Finally, here's a sad little picture of Kelli. Her Mama dresses her funny.