Two Wheeling!

Last Friday evening my beautiful, smart, challenging, way-too-grown-up-already Punkin rode her bike without training wheels and with pedals for the first time ever.

She was wonderful.





I'm as proud of her as I can be. Many things come easily to this child, but activities that rely on gross motor skills are not among them. Riding her bike has been somewhat of a challenge and she has worked hard at it. Her delight in her achievement was wonderful to behold.

Not a Stitch

Not even one.

Yesterday I didn't knit a single stitch, not even one. This is unusual for me, I try to sneak in even just a few minutes each day. It helps me feel like I accomplished something tangible with my efforts.

But yesterday was all about everything else. Mostly trying to regain some sort of order out of the chaos. I got the girl to school and volunteered at her library first thing in the morning (how fun to volunteer in a library where I'm not in charge!) then came home to help the guys assemble yet another Lego project.

Kitchen cleanup consumed a bunch of the morning just in time to take the boy to day care. Yesterday was one of my special Tuesdays (once every three weeks I have Tuesday off because I work Saturday instead) so after dropping the boy off I did a couple of errands, came home and scarfed lunch before heading out to acupuncture for an hour of wonderful.

A couple more errands after that and I was home at 2:30, with approximately two and a half hours to myself. Once every three weeks. The challenge is trying to pick one or two from among hundreds of things that need to get done.

Yesterday I focused on cleaning up my work area, also known as the laundry room/studio/garage/place to dump anything that doesn't belong somewhere else. It was so bad that there wasn't any way to get anything done because of the piles everywhere that had no place to be moved. I did laundry, put stuff away, shoved some stuff in the other part of the garage, and generally tried to tame the mess. It's a little better now, but still a long way from being done. There's stuff I have to get rid of - breast pump, old vacuum, old weaving magazines, maternity clothes - and that will require time to deal with Craig's List/eBay. But I made some headway.

Then time to make dinner while the Italian retrieved the children, eat dinner, and then get the kids to bed (after putting clean sheets on both kids' beds). Then cleanup the kitchen, and finally spend the last two hours of the day watching TV and folding laundry. Honestly, it felt like I hadn't folded laundry since some time in 2007, there was so much to fold. I filled a whole basket with Punkin's clothes, another whole basket with Buddy's clothes, and that's not accounting for the Italian's and my clothes or the towels and sheets. I didn't even try to put stuff away, by the time I was done folding it was after 11:00 and time to go to bed.

It was a good day, I got a lot done. Not particularly exciting, but productive.
Today is back to my other job, the one they pay me for. Maybe I'll knit during my 15 minute break.

Anybody sign up for a Stitches class? There's one I'm on the fence about, but they are so expensive...

Bah

So I made the mistake of sitting and watching some of the Republican convention the other night for a few minutes.

Apparently, according to Sarah Palin, because I didn't grow up in a small Midwest town and because I dare to think and question what my government does I'm not as patriotic of an American as other people who meet those qualifications.

Well, this East Coast liberal, over-educated, government-questioning librarian mother (and not the hockey type) is just as patriotic as the next person, thank you very much.

I shouldn't watch politics.