Yarn Along

Yarn Along with Ginny @ small things

I'm working on a blanket for the new baby.  It's organic cotton and I quite like how it's turning out so far.  I really hope I'll be able to finish it before the new baby arrives.  I'm (re-)reading A Mother's Rule of Life and Sidetracked Home Executives in a sort of desperate attempt to bring complete order and peace to our home before we have to adjust to life with an infant again.  I've read A Mother's Rule of Life many times.  My copy is all marked up and highlighted.  I like the author's philosophy and her emphasis on having the proper priorities and motivations in life.  I just don't know if her "system" for getting there works for me.  I've tried it several times and failed.  So, on the recommendation of a friend, I'm trying out the Sidetracked Home Executive way.  This book is very goofy and not spiritual at all.  But it does offer another system for organization and staying on track that might work for me.  I'm hoping I can take the best from both books and  figure this homemaking thing out once and for all.

Summer is here

I'm not participating in Ginny's Yarn Along this week.  Mainly because I have nothing new to report.  My Baby Surprise Jacket is on hold until someone can explain to me how to pick up stitches.  And I haven't even made much progress on any of my other little projects.  I have started reading a new book.  I borrowed Sidetracked Home Executives from a friend.  It describes me to a "tee."  But I'm leery of trying their solution which involves writing everything (and I mean everything!) that you have to do to keep your home running smoothly on individual 3x5 index cards.  Then you somehow organize these cards in a way that you pull a stack for each day and do what the cards say.  And then your house will be neat, clean, and organized.   I'm tempted to try it.  I just have this feeling that after the initial excitement of trying a new system I will be right back to where I am now.  Only with the added disappointment that yet another system failed to help me figure out how to get my house neat, clean, and organized (and keep it that way.)  I did swing by the office supply store yesterday while we were out and I picked up a card file and a bunch of index cards...just in case I decide to try it.

This weekend summer really arrived here in Southern Maryland.  We are still in the middle of a heat advisory.  We didn't let that stop us from spending Memorial Day at our favorite park.  The kids really wanted to take the canoes out on the lake and have a cook out.

Ray is not the type of guy that enjoys cooking out.  As he says, "We have a whole room in our house dedicated to preparing and consuming food.  Why would we want to pack everything up, haul it to the park, cook and eat in inconvenience, and then haul it all home again?"  Once a year, though, he does just this because the kids love it.

When we got home from our Memorial Day activities we discovered that our A/C wasn't working.  It was 93 degrees upstairs in our bedrooms!  The main floor was 89 degrees.  Thank goodness the basement was still cool.  We had to sleep down there for two days.  I am happy to report that we were able to get the A/C repaired fairly quickly and inexpensively.  And now I am planning on spending a day indoors enjoying the cool and possibly trying to get caught up on some knitting and reading so that next Wednesday I will have something to share with the Yarn Along.  (Although, you may notice that my girls are all wearing the summer knitted tops that I finally finished.  Yay!)

Yarn Along

Yarn Along with Ginny @ small things

I finished J's summer top that I spoke of last week!  Well, almost.  I finished the knitting.  Now I just need to sew up the sides and weave in the ends.  I'll get that done today or tomorrow.  Pictures to follow.  I'm still working on the Baby Surprise Jacket along with a bunch of other ladies in this knit along.  It was going along fairly quickly but then I got to a part in the pattern that I just couldn't figure out and had to wait a few days for further instructions.  I kind of lost my momentum, but hopefully now that I think I know what I'm doing I will get back into it.

I tend to get bored with knitting projects pretty quickly.  So I've found that if I have a bunch of different things to work on at the same time I actually do much better.  I can just switch to a different project  when I start getting tired of one.  So I am also working on a Five Hour Baby Sweater with Patons Classic Wool in winter white.  I know this will take me way, way longer than five hours.  But that's okay.  I still have at least two months before baby comes.  And I doubt baby will be needing it for a least two months after that.  I have time.

We are still really enjoying The Little White Horse.  I'm also still reading Simplicity Parenting.  Great book!  And we are reading some character development stories out of Everyday Graces ed. by Karen Santorum and The Children's Book of Virtues ed. by William Bennet.  My kids have been rather restless lately and common courtesy is a bit lacking around here.  I find that reading stories about other kids behaving or misbehaving helps get my own kids back on track much better than me harping on them and nagging at them. And it's much more fun for me.

Yarn Along

Yarn Along with Ginny @ small things

I'm still working on the Baby Surprise Jacket and I think it's coming along pretty well.  I am worried that I've made some fatal error somewhere along the way and I won't discover it until I'm trying to fold up the finished product.  But for now I'm taking Elizabeth's Zimmermann's words to heart:  "Knit, and keep calm."

I'm also trying to finish up a little summer top for J that has been kind of a thorn in my side.  The very first garment that I ever knitted was this exact pattern for T a couple of years ago.  When I started it, I promised all the girls that I would make them one.  Big mistake!  The pattern is not that interesting and I've gotten so bored with it.  The first one wasn't too bad...it was very small and fairly quick.  C's took a lot longer and J's is taking forever!  Not because it's so hard or even that big.  It's mainly that I am so tired of working on it that I rarely do.  If I don't finish up soon, though, J will be too big for it and C will have two.  So, I've promised myself to work on this little summer top every day until it's finished.

I'm reading The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge as a read-aloud to the kids.  Sometime last year I saw a preview for a movie that is supposed to be based on this book.  I thought the kids would want to see it and I wanted them to read the book first.  J received it for Christmas, but the print is a little small and it's just a bit above her reading level.  She wasn't interested.  M could probably read it to himself easily.  He still likes to listen to me read, though.  We are only a few chapters in and already I have to stop myself from reading ahead on my own.

Yarn Along

Yarn Along with Ginny @ small things

A couple of days ago I cast on for the Baby Surprise Jacket that is found in The Opinionated Knitter by Elizabeth Zimmermann.  I've been wanting to try this little sweater for a while now.  It's supposed to be very easy.  The directions, however are very confusing for me.  When Elizabeth Foss started her knit along with help promised, I decided to give it a go.  I've had to consult a few YouTube videos already, but so far so good!  The other book I'm reading now is Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne.  I'm only a little way into it and I've already marked up my copy underlining passages.  I knew I would like this book before I started it.  It came highly recommended by friends.  And I already knew that I wanted to make some significant changes in our family life.  Hopefully this book will give me the tools and the motivation to do just that.

Yarn Along

 

 

I'm joining Ginny for the first time in her Yarn Along.  I'm currently knitting yet another hat.  It must be the sudden cold weather here. And the quick projects satisfy my need for instant gratification.  A nice break from the looong project I've been working on for the girls that definitely won't be ready to show until well after Christmas.  On my night stand with the knitting are the other "yarns."  The Trumpet of the Swan is a read-aloud for the kids.  The Wives of Henry the VIII is a book that I borrowed from my sister-in-law months and months ago.  It's not exactly light reading so it's slow going.  But it is fascinating!  Antonia Fraser really makes these women come alive for me.  Highly recommended!