Tired, pooped, beat, whipped...

I'm sure you know some others.

My parents just wrapped up an 11 day visit and I am tired. It was wonderful to see them and I'm fortunate to get the chance to spend the time with them, but it's also exhausting.

And it will only get worse.

Give your loved ones a hug and a kiss and enjoy their company as much as you can.

I'm going to try to pick up the mess that my house has become and go to bed.

A little of this, a little of that

Things are busy lately. I've been busy at work (we get busier in summertime), busy at home (2 small children - need I say more) and we've got visiting family to make everything busier. But I've got photos...

Buddy with the pillow in his pants that I blogged about the other day:


The stove with six pots of simmering pasta sauce:


What happens when you let a 7 year old loose with your camera:


I'm almost done with the body of Serrano but it just looks like a blob. I need to start a new project (upcoming family trip) and I think it needs to be lace. I'll have to think about that one.

That's all for now.

Beds, bedtime and sleep

Like many people I don't get enough sleep. This week has been no better.

For the past seven or so years we have had one child or another in our bedroom. Punkin only moved into her own room (and out of the crib in our room) two days before Buddy was born, and he's been in our room ever since.

Until last Thursday night, when he and his sister and their father decided that he could sleep in the bottom bunk in Punkin's room (we only have two bedrooms). It's Tuesday now and it's been a tough slog. One night he didn't actually sleep until after 11;00, but last night was better (9:45) and tonight was even better (9:15). Except...

Punkin couldn't fall asleep tonight. She was weeping and being pitiful about how she doesn't like the top bunk, she misses the bottom bunk, she doesn't like to share her room, etc. etc. etc. Poor thing didn't get to sleep until probably 10:00, after snuggling with me on the sofa for a while (we had "Cosmos" with Carl Sagan on the Tivo, that will put anybody to sleep!)

Maybe tomorrow I can get them both to sleep before 9:30, just in time to have my parents in town for 10 days, which will throw our entire routine into chaos. Wahoo!

Friends and Food

We've been much more social than usual as of late, and as such we've cooked a few lavish meals that one and all enjoyed (or at least claimed too!)

A couple of weeks ago I cooked a vegan brunch (a first for me) which I have to admit was a bit of a challenge. Brunch for me is all about eggs and cheese and bacon, none of which is on the vegan menu. So I looked in a few cookbooks (yay libraries!) and ended up with blueberry coffee cake, cornmeal & blueberry pancakes, roasted potatoes and fruit salad. I was pleased with everything except the pancakes - they were weird. In any case we had a great time with new friends (an artist and a librarian - what's not to love!), they appear to have found enough to eat, and I am no longer a complete novice when it comes to vegan cooking.

Then last weekend we had a friend of mine from knitting at the library (hi Karen!) over for dinner, so I cooked 40 cloves of garlic chicken, roasted potatoes (the same ones) and caesar salad and broccoli. I had never cooked the chicken recipe before and I really liked it - the chicken came out tender without being rubbery, and the garlic flavor was really mild. I brined the chicken first (a favorite technique of the folks at America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated) and I think that helped. Once again everyone seemed to get enough to eat, and it was fun having a fellow knitting friend over to enjoy a meal.

Then today we had friends of the Italian over for brunch. These friends don't eat mammals, so no bacon, but other than that it was open season. We had a chile cheese puff, roasted potatoes (we're liking these lately!), blueberry bread, scones, fruit salad and turkey bacon. The friends were charged with drinks, so we had Kir Royals, Mimosa and Bloody Mary's. Way too much food, but these are some of my brunch favorites, especially the chile cheese puff. We sat out in the backyard which was nice, especially as the kids got to run wild afterward and the adults could just sit and enjoy the meal.

Add in the pasta sauce that we made last weekend and it's been a busy time for cooking. I like to cook but find weekday meal preparation stressful. There's not a lot of time between when I get home from work and when the kids should be in bed, so it's a race against the clock to get something edible on the table. And I like to make good food; I was starting to feel lately that I shouldn't spend so much time cooking, that eating more pre-fab meals would be okay if it freed me up to spend some time with the kids. But then I thought about it some more and decided that I'm teaching the kids to appreciate good food that is good for them, and that is something that will serve them well in our society. If I can make the time as I cook to teach them about food and cooking, which I've started to do lately with Punkin, that will also serve them well.

Now if I could just find the time to exercise I could continue to eat like this!

Parenting Advice?

I understand that with age and experience come a different sense of perspective.

And I understand that when you're in the trenches of life it can be hard to see the larger picture.

But...

Over the course of the past seven years I have had a number of people say something along the lines of "in the greater scheme of things it doesn't matter if your floors are dirty or the laundry isn't folded, your children will only be young once".

In theory this sounds good. Savor the time with the children, don't worry about keeping an immaculate house.

Well, as anybody who has been here in the past five years can attest, my house is far from immaculate. And I try to enjoy the children as much as I can. But yesterday morning, when I spent 30-40 minutes changing the sheets on my bed which hadn't been changed in a week and a half so that I could dump out the four baskets of clean laundry onto the bed in order to find clean underwear for the Italian and myself, all the while trying to stop Buddy from jumping on any of the beds in the house and throwing piles of folded laundry onto the floor, never mind dealing with the dishes or figuring out what to make for dinner, I really didn't appreciate that phrase running through my head. The reality is there's a certain amount of stuff you can ignore, and a certain amount that has to get done. And while I would love to sit and play and gaze adoringly at my children in all my spare time sometimes there isn't very much that is spare once I get done with all the stuff that has to get done.

On a slightly lighter note, it was pretty damn funny when, after I spanked him several times for jumping in his bed, Buddy had the bright idea to stuff his small pillow down the back of his pants so it wouldn't hurt as much when I spanked him. I tried to explain that not jumping on the bed was an even better idea, since that would mean that I wouldn't spank him at all, but I leave you to guess how much that thought sank into his thought processes.

And one more thing



this is the scene I turned around to find a couple of weeks ago when I was home with both kids. They had taken the glider rocker's footstool, upended it and then dumped all of the bins of clothes from Buddy's changing table on and around the ottoman. Then they piled on top, which is when I took a picture. After I took the picture they then proceeded to dump several large bins of building blocks on top of all of that. And I wonder why the house is never tidy!

Spinning!

I've been spinning!

Anybody want to guess how long it's been since I did more than 5 minutes of spinning at a time? I don't know exactly but it's probably been at least seven years (and by sheer coincidence that's exactly how old my oldest child is!)

I've been feeling the urge lately and finally found some gorgeous roving in my stash last week to work with. (This was harder than I thought it would be. Back when I was spinning more I tended to acquire more raw fleece than prepared fiber - there wasn't nearly the variety and quality of dyed roving available even a few years ago. But I didn't want to tackle a whole fleece's worth, I just wanted a smaller quantity of roving to work with. I'm easing back into this).

In the bag with the roving I also found a partly filled bobbin so I guess I have done some spinning recently, but I don't remember it.





I'm not sure but I think I purchased this at Stitches 2007. even though I knew I wouldn't have time to spin it for a while. I just couldn't resist the deep, rich color. This is not the best photo - I had the fiber in direct sunlight and it looks a lot more washed out than it really is. It's spinning up beautifully and easily, and I'm really enjoying it.

In related news, the reason I've had more time to spin lately is I'm stuck on Serrano. I'm at the point where I should divide for the armhole (the fronts and back are worked in one piece) and I'm not certain of the length. I need to slip it off onto ravel cord and try it on, which will require lots of pins and futzing, neither one of which is particularly compatible with Buddy. Wish me luck, maybe I'll get to it tomorrow.